Well, as the post before this one dictates, I am now part of the iPhone collective.  Why an iPhone?  Why even a new phone at all when my little Samsung Fin was getting the job done for the most part?  Well, my old provider, Helio was bought out by Virgin Mobile.  Ever since then, the service quality has decreased and I started getting soliciting calls and text messages quite frequently.  Not to mention, data transfer’s not free for the most part on Virgin Mobile, it usually ends up costing $0.05 a kb.  Since I got my iPhone last week, I’ve downloaded 200 megs of data alone which, at Virgin’s rates, would have cost me $10,240 in downloads alone.  I’m not too keen on forking over $10 grand just for data rates.  Anyway, it was time for a change.  I have a bunch of friends and know quite a few people from work who all use AT&T and don’t really have any complaints so I decided to give it a shot.  Besides, I have a track record of train wrecks with Verizon.  So far, no qualms and I can’t see any down the road.

Now, why an iPhone.  I wanted a smartphone after being completely sick and tired of the ordinary lackluster cell phones.  After watching a few of my friends use their iPhones or Windows Mobile and being a bit of a power user myself, I was intrigued.  I wanted a touch screen, I don’t want a ton of buttons, I want a nice looking yet functional UI, and I wanted a good price.  I was slightly willing to dish out for a HTC Fuze, I like the interface and full qwerty keyboard (despite being bulkier) but, for general UI experience and web browsing, no one has anything on Apple yet.  The other “option”, I suppose, would be the BlackBerry Storm but it’s a Verizon exclusive.

Anyhow, I’ve got an iPhone now and I absolutely love tinkering around with it; it’s been an absolute joy to use so far.  I do have a few minor issues (copy and paste) but most of those are being fixed come iPhone OS 3.0 which should be out this summer.  Awesome.

This is a test to see if I got WordPress working correctly on my iPhone.

Well, I’m finally feeling like my normal self again on this rollercoaster ride of health I’ve been on lately.  Hearing out of my right ear is still splotchy at best but it’s better than it was.  The fever’s finally gone.  I woke up this morning wanting to throw up but it went away after I got to work and drank a few glasses of water.

In my absence, the great Paul Newman passed away.  News of his death slipped by almost completely unnoticed due to the current economic crisis and the completely rediculous and stupid things congress is doing about it.  If you are unfamilure with Mr Newman, he was an actor, co-founder of the wonderful Newman’s Own brand, served in the military, a generous donator to charity, an auto racer (Indy, competed in one LeMans 24 hour), and more.  Seriously, one of the most amazing people who ever lived.

I may have found an alternative to the ever increasingly aging version of WinAmp I use (v2.95).  It’s called AIMP and so far it’s winning me over.  The amount of memory usage it uses versus the old version of winamp is quite a bit more and the default skin is ginormous (still looking for something small and lightweight) but I enjoy the sound quality, support for audio formats without various plug-ins, and the complete lack of needless bloat.  Seriously, why does WinAmp have the option to play video?  That’s what Media Player Classic is for.

I’ve been sick for about a week now and am still struggling with a fever, sinus infection, seemingly louder tinnitus, and just feeling generally crappy.  I think this is due to a mold or dust allergy and something in my bedroom since the house I’m currently living in was built in the late 60s/early 70s.  I’ve moved my bed into the same room as my computer and TV and seem to be doing a lot better which leads me to believe it’s an allergic reaction.

Besides trying to put up with everything as best I can at work the past week or so has consisted of going to bed really early, taking scaling hot showers to break the fever, downing ibuprofen, and watching movies and various episodes of Futurama, Arrested Development, and the Japanese version of Iron Chef (the only version as far as I’m concerned, Iron Chef America is a joke).

I’ve started up (literally just bought the domain name, installed wordpress, and copied over the theme I use on lazy-fox.net) a website called ShamanisticRage.net.  I hope for it to be similar to BigRedKitty but from an enhancement and elemental shaman point of view.  I’ll probably do a podcast soon talking about the new enhancement talents and changes coming up in the new expansion, Wrath of the Lich King when I’m feeling better.

My brother and I went to the Seattle Oktoberfest held at the Pyramid Alehouse down in Seattle today.  Despite the bad loud music, it was a lot of fun and we’re both really glad we went.  It was the first beer festival I’ve been to and, honestly, I was surprised at how calm everything was, I didn’t see one roudy person.  It was people, mostly my age, enjoying good beer and having a good time in a relaxing atmosphere.  We couldn’t have asked for more perfect weather today as well, sunny and mid 60s with a slight breeze.  I think that we decided the best beer we sampled was that of Laughing Buddha Brewing, more specifically, their Pandan Brown Ale is exceptional.  Since it’s local and not very far away, we’re thinking about going down soon and getting a couple of growlers filled.

Another one of my favorites, Mac and Jacks was there and I finally got to sample more than just their standard African Amber that’s so common here.  They had a very nice wheat ale on sample that was very refreshing and easy to drink like New Belgium’s Mothership Wit.

Also, apparently XBLA one-upped me and changed the price of Samurai Showdown 2 to 800 points instead of the initial 400.  Curses!

As the title states, Samurai Showdown 2 is coming to Xbox Live Arcade presumably tomorrow, for 400 Microsoft Points.  Pretty good considering Braid and Castle Crashers were both 1200.  It’s hard to really put a label on a game that SNK pumped out as their “best” but the Samurai Showdown series is definitely good.  Some other things you may know SNK from (pretty much a majority of the popular arcade games of the late 80s/early 90s): Metal Slug, Fatal Fury, King of Fighters, World Heroes, Garou: Mark of the Wolves, and the Neo-Geo.

The second wireless bridge has been flashed with dd-wrt, setup to connect to my existing wireless network, placed in a location, and is working fine.  I gave it a quick test by turning on my 360, loading up the Arcade games list and cycling through the menus.  Performance is much better than the old 802.11g bridge I was using and it connects to the main router at 208mbps.

So, I’ve been doing this little experiment for a few months now where I’ve cut out as much high fructose corn syrup from my diet as possible.  This means switching to diet soda (or drinking a Jones Soda), sticking to natural juice such as Nantucket Nectars, Fuze, or SoBe, eliminating candy as much as I possibly can, checking bread, crackers, yogurt, and so on.  I’m not really sure if I’ve lost weight due to cutting HFCS, mostly because I’m not horribly active, but I do feel better and more energized.  A rather interesting read can be found over at http://www.stophfcs.com which contains some links as well as alternative foods that do not contain corn syrup.  Their forums are pretty inactive but I found the site informative.

You should take a glance at the ingredients of the stuff you buy at the store sometime, you might be surprised how much of it contains corn.

Made a new logo today, not sure if I like it or not yet but it’s better than the old one.  I might try to dig up some cool fonts I used to have and see if I can make a better one, maybe something with a saying in it!  Oooh, fancy!

You’ll notice a new “Pages” menu type thing on the right hand nav bar.  These are links to various internal pages, like Links, to the insanely uninformative About page, and so forth.  I’ll probably add some more pages later for kicks.  You will also notice that, under Pages, is a link titled “OpenDNS Block List”.  I use a lovely service called OpenDNS to handle my network’s domain name resolution requests (been using it for quite a few years now).  It has this handy feature to block domains of your chosing which comes in handy for blocking domains with insanely annoying banner/flash ads that crop up on websites.  While I do understand that people do need revinue to continue maintaining their websites, the amount of intrusion/distraction that most advertising companies has resorted to is downright obnoxious and hardly makes the website enjoyable (annoying ads will actually deter users).  One of these is videoegg.com which has, without a doubt, the most annoying ads I have ever seen aside from those flash ones with sound.  You know the ones I mean, you’re trying to listen to music, go to a site, and all of the sudden “congratulations, you’ve been selected for a free ipod!” comes blaring over your speakers.  Or the ones with the talking flash smiley faces that yell “helloooooo” at you.  Anyhow, that list is a list of the ad domains I currently block on my home network to make the internet a somewhat ad-free place.

Additionally, my second wireless bridge should be here tomorow for the 360/PS2 and whatever else I might add to the media area that needs a network connection.  It’s a Linksys WRT-150N, same as my first wireless bridge.  Slap DD-WRT onto it, configure it as a bridge, and it should work like a charm.  I’m excited to have my 360 in a proper place that’s not the middle of the floor whenever I want to conenct to Xbox Live.

So, Castle Crashers came out today.  Highly recommend, it’s absolutely fantastic.  The single player and co-op is pretty much seamless and the experience is the same unless there’s some bad lag, but it feels like the other players are in the same room playing on your 360 with you.  The campaign is plenty long as well with tons of unlockables.  If you like games like Golden Axe (side scrolling adventure/RPG type), co-op games in general, get it.  If you like gaming at all, at least try the demo, you won’t be disappointing.

PAX is this weekend.  I’ll be there Saturday and Sunday.  I’ve got some stuff going on Friday and won’t be able to make it.  I might show up late but Sat and Sun are definite.

I leave you with this: Meet the Sandvich

Blizzard has released the opening cinematic to the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion, Wrath of the Litch King (viewed here).  The video is stunning, in classic Blizzard cinematic fasion.  Watch it.  I emplore you.