1. Pink Coral Nintendo DS Lite
2. NCAA sized Wilson Football
3. Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin for Nintendo DS
4. Lagavulin
5. The Forge

WTF AWESOME!?

This morning I was, again, greeted by the cool pulsating glow of my best friend in the world Wii. “Oh shit!” I said, remembering that the Opera-made web browser was supposed to drop today. I’m not sure why I switched into a narrative right there, weird.

Anyway as is custom with downloading crap from the Wii Store I went through the following process:

• Step 1: try to connect to the Wii Store and fail.
• Step 2: reconnect to the Wii Store and succeed (after five minutes of waiting).
• Step 3: spend thirty minutes downloading whatever you need to download.

But huzzah of huzzahs I have the web browser and it might be … super awesome?

It seems to render things pretty fast, and since it uses the Opera engine it renders things as well as you could ask. Javascript seems to work well too: the slidy effect that happens when you click “touch” on Haduken (circa. 2006) worked great. I was able to log into gmail, myspace, and the admin panel for Haduken without issue. I did get an error of “unsupported protocol” while on myspace, but honestly that could be a zillion things. That place is a trash hole.

Television screens are pretty lowres and crappy for displaying awesome things like websites and facebook profiles, but Opera gives us two great tools to overcome this. First you get a cool zoom function. Point the Wiimote somewhere on the screen and hit the “+” button and BAM ZOOM. Most text, on my screen (30″ Sony CRT), is nearly legible. Zoomed in every thing reads like a piece of cake.

The second tool you get is “single column mode” which is activated by pressing “1.” Opera has had this in their browser for a while now and it is a neat feature. Basically it shrinks everything down into one column based on “source order.” For sites who have thought about how important source order can be for non-standard browsers, sites like Haduken.com, things look great and easy to read. Other sites may look like crap. YMMV.

My only two complaints thus far are a lack of tabs and the keyboard. Firefox tabs have really spoiled me and I almost don’t know how to browse the web without tabs. The keyboard (I think) is ABC order not QWERTY which is laaaaame. I mean come on.

I think I may actually use the browser on a regular basis. It is so convenient and easy to use. Plus, LBH, I am either watching netflix or playing the Wii and the browser is right there in front of me. I also might just leave my Wii on all the time, does anyone think that this could be a problem?

I’ll check back in a couple of weeks to see if I am actually using the Wii browser, or if it is more of a novelty.

Technorati Tags: nintendo, video games

I woke up this morning greeted by the pulsating blue glow of my Wii telling me that I had a message. Turns out it wasn’t midas sending me another Civil War general Mii, but it was Nintendo letting me know that the Forecast Channel was available for download!

I’ve only had about five minutes to play with it — since it took twenty to download. Aside: is everyone else’s Wii exceedingly slow to connect to the i-net? Mainly the Wii Store? Seriously that thing takes for. ev. er.

Anyway, the Forecast Channel lets you pick your State/City and then gives you a pretty generic view of today’s weather. Other options include: tomorrow’s forecast, 5-day forecast, and UV index (wtf?).

The coolest part about the Forecast Channel is The Globe. The Globe gives you a weather map ON A GLOBE. You can zoom out, zoom in, and spin it around. I’m not really sure why you would need to check the weather in Moscow on a moments notice, but it is neat and fun.

Also, I thought downloads were supposed to happen automatically in the middle of the night with this crazy WiiConnect24 business?

Technorati Tags: video games

True story.
Friday, I went to Staples to buy staples. Seemed like a pretty good plan. Now, one might think that Staples would dedicate some elaborate glowing homage to its namesake product, but one would be wrong. Instead, they love staples so much that they put “Staples®” on everything they sell, so finding staples among all the Staples is nearly impossible. Eventually, I found them, right under the Staples® tape and Staples® paper clips. I felt like I was part of a Seinfeld episode or something.

TAGGED!

1. This Sunday was the first time I have ever been picked first for anything sports related. I have a long history of being picked last at sports.
2. I will regularly wake up in the middle of the night and think a giant spider is crawling on my pillow. I freak out and scream like a little girl.
3. I took two showers last week.
4. I don’t get stressed out by much, but two things that do stress me out are: parking in the city and going to see movies in the theatre. I am always afraid we will never find a parking spot or good theatre seats.
5. I love Richmond more than anything, but I wasn’t born here. I was born in West Virginia. I know.

Thou shalt be taggethed:

iheartdorks, RMSzero, havoc, Andi, Sarah

Recently, maybe two days ago?, Netflix started sending an email to you every time one of your friends left a note about a movie. Seeing as how I do that for every movie I watch, I am worried people will start breaking up with me on Netflix because of incessant emails. So here is how you turn off those annoying emails:

1. Go to the Email Subscriptions page on Netflix (or just click that handy link).
2. Uncheck the box that says “Netflix Friends - Movie Notes”
3. … ?
4. Make millions.

So there you have it. Do that before breaking up with me, please? I live for Netflix friends.

Technorati Tags: netflix

RVABlogs.com, in its infancy, was a dirty corner of the web filled with local political hacks pointing their grubby little fingers at each other. Today a cadre of lady bloggers regularly pound out some serious quality blogs.

Over the past year the site has doubled in popularity — which means more ladies AWWWW YEAH!!! Last we checked 35% of our readers think Prince is sexy are female. Not only are a lot of ladies reading RVABlogs, but a lot of ladies are blogging. Not only are they blogging, but they are some of the best bloggers in Richmond.

So here are some of the best lady bloggers in Richmond:

• Valeree Lynn @ Made in Richmond. I mean I kind of have to open with this one because I am married to her. But LBH, she isn’t ranked the #5 overall blog for nothing.
• Brandon @ Brandon Eats. Brandon. Confusing I know. But her blog might be the most consistently best written (unlike this sentence) blog on RVABlogs. Plus some of the stuff she makes in the kitchen blows my mind. One day I will make that potato tortilla.
• Kristin @ Double Vision. She really has double vision due to some nasty eye problems (which lead to hilarity?). The stories about her dog are priceless.
• Amy @ Modern Atelier. If you are into makeup and shit, this blog is for you. That isn’t really my scene but the blog is well written and informative (Wrinkle creams ineffective?!?). My wife talks about it all the time, and she loves stuff.
• Sarah @ Sarah Says. Hilarious. I actually regularly LOL — like in real life — when I read her blog. EL-OH-EL FOLKS.
• Chris @ Tales of a Post-Grad Nothing. If funny stories about plane-crashingly awkward human interactions are your thing this is your place. Her family might be insane. Like should be committed insane.
• Susan @ Misanthropic Review. She writes excellent and pointed (or poignant?) movie reviews, totally worth reading. I do wish she would post more though. YOU ARE ON NOTICE SUSAN.

Technorati Tags: blogging, Richmond

This Friday I had the bestest birthday party ever thrown by my awesome wife. Here is a (incomplete) list of things that happened:

• I drank a ton of beer. Not just any beer, but some really nice beers. Thanks to everyone who kept putting tasty open beers in my hands.
• I definitely got a beer from iheartdorks called Stonewall Stout. It is, as the website says, “So Good … You’ll Say … I’d Give My Right Arm For A Stonewall Stout.” Ha!
• Accompany the Stonewall Stout was a Robert E. Lee label pin. SCORE!
• The Wii once again demonstrated its unstoppable video game force. The thing got turned on around 9.30pm and didn’t get shut off until the party was over at 2am. People *love* that thing. Even girls!
• A ton of people that I love showed up and had a great time. This is the best birthday present ever. Who needs things when you have friends and love?!
• I realized that, as a group, my friends love to hug. I’m talking about dudes here. We love hugging, I think that is awesome?
• Nothing in the world is better than a bunch of drunk white guys in a room when Bohemian Rhapsody come on the stereo. A fiery orgy of air guitar shreddination took place never to been matched for all of time. Seriously it blew my mind.
• I made the best party mix (iPod not Chex) of my life. There were many sing alongs.
• I learned that ketchup flavored chips are awesome (and 1$/bag at Kroger in Carytown).

I had a great time. Thanks.

Technorati Tags: beer, holiday, Richmond