‘m Back

Ah, the Holidays : A time to relax, to think of the past and future and to play some Guitar Hero. 

I did get to Medium in GH III. And by the way, the keyboard and mouse set up works well. While I’m talking about mice, I ditched my Mighty Mouse. It’s a nice mouse but even after I tried cleaning it, the scroll ball is not scrolling down : an obvious deal-breaker. I replaced it with a laptop (aka smaller) bluetooth mouse by, wouldn’t you know, Microsoft. If there is one kind of product I trust them entirely with, its mice and keyboards. It fits nicely in my hand and I have it set up that the side button activates the all window Exposé and clicking the scroll wheel (that is set up so that not so much guck should get stuck under it) will open links in new tabs in Safari.

Hurts So Good

Ohhhh… Man…. No one was nice enough to tell me that Guitar Hero III was also known as Carpal Tunnel Hell. I’m having difficulty typing this so much it did a number on my hands. But, as the title might lead you to suspect, yes it rocks. It’s hard to get at first (and I don’t think I’ll be playing in Medium any time soon) but is it ever addicting. My Elite-Beat-Agents-ism is coming back. It consists of being addicted to a music game that is insanely difficult but you just can’t stop playing. Now, sorry, but I have to go for my rehab treatment. Where is that Peggle demo I’ve been playing?

Duke, Who, Peg n’ Chuz

It’s a triple dose of “About time”s!First off – A teaser for Duke Nukem Forever will come out tomorrow. If you don’t know about this game, let’s just say it should be called Duke Nukem Takes Forever. According to Joystiq, it’s been in the works for over 10 years.Second – It’s official : After rumors and speculations, the truth is out. There is a Doctor Who game in the works for PC, PS2 and DS. As much as licence-based games usually suck, I’ll keep my eye on this one.Finally, third and fourth – both Peggle and Chuzzle, Popcap games I was addicted to and the latter I bought for PC, are now available on Mac. It has been a while since Chuzzle came out and Peggle for Mac has been announced for months. I’m glad that both are available and at 50% off as all Popcap games are now until January 3rd, I doubt I’ll resist getting at least one.

Snow Day

The white stuff won’t stop falling! It just keeps coming and coming! But there is some good news : my copy of Guitar Hero III shipped yesterday! (A Saturday? They work Saturdays?) I hope I can get it Monday.

Stop Playing With Mii

The English script is done for the review for the Check Mii Out channel. I’ll start capturing footage and editing this weekend but I can’t promise any date yet since I have other things to do during that time.

… And Guitar Hero III finally became “Prepared for shipment”, although I know by now not to get my hopes up.

Rock ‘n Play

The canadian TV page is slowly filling up (No Opportunity Wasted is the only show available) and I’m glad to see that Avatar will be available. I was about to pay 60$ for the first season. The selection isn’t stelar yet but There might be more shows than meets the eye. Most of the American content is from Comedy Central and is aired on TV here on The Comdey Network. They’re owned by CTV who has content in the store, including the great comedy Corner Gas. The CBC is also here (It’s French counterpart Radio-Canada absent as of yet.) with two reality shows, the Rick Mercer Report and its showcase comedy Little Mosque on the Prairie. A good start but only that : a start.

And I caved in and got Guitar Hero III for Mac from Apple.

…But The Media Gods are Smiling.

About. Dang. Time.CBC and CTV shows and some US shows. Starting tonight and launching officially tomorrow.TV has (finally) landed in iTunes Canada. 

The Rock Gods Hate Me

I’m convinced that my Mac can run Guitar Hero. That’s not the problem. It’s the fact that if I buy GH III from Apple Canada, the only way I can make sure I get a Mac-compatible version, Apple will overcharge me by 20$ compared to their own American price. That is ridiculous and unfair. And it plain sucks since I don’t know where else I can get the Mac/PC hybrid version online in Canada.

If Only…

As much as really want to support Mac gaming with Guitar Hero III, performance issues from the PC version, a wired guitar, missing community features and the fact my MacBook Pro may or may not just pass the minimum requirements (A Core 2 Duo minimum?!), I’m leaning heavily towards getting it for Wii. If only there was something to lean towards! No one has it. At all. Best Buy and Future Shop don’t have it online or in stores. It’s just ridiculous. They’re nearly as sparse as the Wii itself!

Time Error and Articles

I use a somewhat older drive for my Time Machine backups and for a while, it’s been not accessible or I’d get an error message stating that Leopard couldn’t perform a backup. I think I’m going to have to replace it.

I’ve been working on two articles lately : One about the iPod touch and another about TV online in Canada. I’ll have to re-read both and rewrite them in French and they’ll be good to go online.