I broke down and bought a Dell DJ

Over the past several years, my digital music collection has grown substantially. My collection is also legitimate, having been ripped from my own CD collection. Altogether, I have close to 20GB of music sitting on my hard drive(s). [I realize that 20GB of music is miniscule to some. I work with people who have several hundred gigs of MP3's. But for a legitimate collection, 20GB is getting up there]

Now, 20GB isn't a big deal at home. I have all of the files stored on the house server, and stream them over the network to any other point. But on my laptop, 20GB represents half of the hard drive space. It finally became too much, and I decided I needed a dedicated function device to handle my music.

I know that the iPod is all the rage. All the cool kids have one. But I despise the fact that to use an iPod I have to either use iTunes or hack the system. I use Musicmatch software, and have since '98 or '99, and frankly, I don't want to change. So I started looking for compatible MP3 players and came across the Dell DJ.

I like Dell. I have had good luck with Dell products. And the price of a 30GB MP3 player is lower than a comparable iPod. On top of that, impulse technology purchases are a forte of mine. Ten minutes and five clicks later, I began waiting for the DJ to arrive.

When I got my DJ, I moved all of the music files onto it and deleted them off the hard drive of my laptop. I then promptly signed up for the new Napster service which lets you download music to your portable player for a monthly fee (just in case I get a hankering to listen to the Bon Jovi boxed set or something).

I love it. I just love it. What a good idea this was. I am currently sitting here listening to the Coldplay live CD (which I downloaded) as I type this.

How did I struggle through life without this before???

Next generation consoles

Some random thoughts:

So all of the big three console manufacturers have announced their next-generation products. Of them all, the only one that strikes me as an accurate representation is the Xbox 360, because it is shipping this year. The Playstation 3 information seems to be solely oriented at being better than the Xbox information, i.e. "they have Feature X, we have Feature X+1!". Plus, there is no way that the demos that I saw for the PS3 were real-time.

I also really like the fact that all of the consoles are shipping with wireless controllers only. Boy that will make my wife happy. I already have a cable management issue.

I am excited about Nintendo's announcement that the Revolution will allow you to download and play games from their archive though.

Thank god they aren't all coming out within a few months of each other, since I must own them all...

Normally I can't stand these...

But damn, this one is funny.

http://vaderfortune.ytmnd.com/

Malazan Book(s) of the Fallen

I heard somewhere about this author, Steven Erikson, and his supposedly excellent series, The Malazan Book of the Fallen. Amazon only had the first two books available, so I surfed over to Amazon.co.uk to see how many books there were in publication. Book five is in print, and book six Sidenote: I love finding out about a great author that I have missed, because there are several books available (as opposed to reading one and then having to wait for a year or more for the next).

I ordered books 1 & 2 from Amazon.co.uk, figuring I would try them out. After exchange rates and shipping, each of the paperback books ended up costing about $18 apiece. For that price, they had better be damn good books.

Book One (the UK cover)

I dove into Gardens of the Moon, waiting to be blown away. Let me begin by saying that Erikson dives right in. Most fantasy novels have a protagonist who is basically clueless (like the reader) about the world around them. The author introduces the protagonist into the scenario, and thus educates the reader about the intricacies of things like magic and politics. Erikson does none of that. Page one of book one of his series is like picking up an average fantasy novel and starting on page 200. To be honest, it is confusing as hell.

But good. Oh, so good. After about a hundred pages I was comfortable in Erikson's world. I was able to understand his vocabulary and envision his creation in my mind. And what a grand creation it is.

I won't spoil any of it, but let me say that I was blown away after all. I ordered books 3-5 from Amazon.co.uk since the USA is behind England and only has books 1 & 2 for sale. I just finished book two, The Deadhouse Gates, and can't wait to continue. The Malazan Book of the Fallen is as good a fantasy series as I have read. I put them up there with Martin's Song of Ice and Fire and Hobb's Assassin/Tawny Man series.

I highly recommend them. Five out of five stars.

I've seen Serenity

Set your mind at ease. There are no spoilers here.

I went in tonight not really knowing what to expect. I liked the Firefly TV show quite a bit. I loved the characters, the stories, the dialogue and the writing of the show. But what is good writing on television doesn't always equal good writing for a movie. The pilot of Firefly was two hours long and, while enjoyable, wouldn't have made a great movie.

I went in to the screening wondering if I was going to get a great made for TV movie or a great movie.

We got the the theater about 75 minutes before the show was scheduled to start. When we got there, the line was 175 people long if it was an inch. I completely forgot about the fact that the people in line were the same people that saw nothing wrong with waiting in line for Episode I tickets for a week. When they let us into the theater, we were on the back row, because it was that or the front row. The level of excitement in the theater was palpable.

There were no previews, but instead there was a charming five minute message from Joss Whedon. Just him sitting in front of the camera saying how this movie should have never been made ("They don't make movies from cancelled TV shows").

And then it began.

It was a great movie. Not good. Not above average. Fan-fucking-tastic. I honestly didn't know that the writers had *that* in them.

Universal optioned Firefly for three movies. Even if the sequels get made, Whedon and company planned for this movie as if it were the series swan song. They never expected to have been given a chance to tell this story, so they took full advantage. It was amazing. Mind you, they can easily make sequels for Serenity. However, if they don't get the chance, they sent her off in style.

I really did expect to be entertained. I never expected to be wowed. After all, Joss Whedon gave us Alien Resurrection and the original Buffy movie. I figured it would be good. I got the best movie I have seen since Collateral, maybe the best movie I have seen in the last year. It was *that* good.

I took a friend that had never seen the show and had no exposure to the universe. I also took my brother, who only watched the shows in the last week in preparation for the movie. Both of them loved it as much as I did.

You owe it to yourself to see this movie.

Episode III is going to suck so bad in comparison.