DISQUS

Meanwhile, Ballmer & Co. continue to press forward: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g9cE_gI-aemy...

I can't help but laugh at the Star Wars analogy this evokes for me. Yahoo caught in the middle, not knowing which side to choose. "Join us and together we will rule the galaxy/interwebs!". "Don't listen to them Yahoo!, they're a sith lord!" Choices, choices...

...but then again, if things turn truly hostile, maybe there will be no choice.

They also just made the decision for a lot of their audience for how the content will be "procured". And no, it's not the "Unbox" platform that I'd expect those iPodders to be using...

Gotta love old media. It's kind of fun to watch, in a painful way.

Oh very cool blog series. I'm am totally looking forward to the final list of best and worst songs and best album (based on cumulative score). I'm also very curious to see where the new album ranks among the other albums.

Can't wait for the Woodface and new album reviews.

Interesting that this is the first album review I've seen from you where a footnote review of the video is included too.

(btw Jase, I'm in Portland Oregon right now feeling some serious house-envy over my sister's very "affordable" new digs in the Northwest district -- but this comment probably belongs in one of your other blog articles on this subject! Also - the Pearl District has gone nuts since I was last here. Amazing)

One more thing...in the future can you accompany your food blog posts with some suitable food porn? :-)

Hey Jase, if you like In-N-Out, you should give The Counter a try. It's another L.A. chain that's expanded up into the Bay Area (they currently have 3 locations in the state, but are poised for big expansion).

The best explanation is In-N-Out gone gourmet. Maybe that sounds off-putting, but the sheer number of add-ons you can put on the burger are what make it damned fun. Price point is a little higher too. It's not a replacement for In-N-Out, but a nice alternative/complement for when you want a burger with a bit more panache suited to your mood for the day.

Here's the site and there's a Counter near your 'hood down in Palo Alto:
http://www.thecounterburger.com/menu/

And just to get your In-N-Out juices going, I've always been amazed/horrified by this tale of a 100x100 burger:
http://www.supersizedmeals.com/food/article.php...
(Morgan Spurlock close your eyes!)

I got a copy of the album, I'm definitely enjoying it a lot.

It's always fun to listen to an album where as you are introduced to the tracks for the first time you find yourself immediately hooked by several of the songs and doing "repeat play" after the very first listening. There aren't a lot of bands that do that for me these days. But listening to this album reminds me of being introduced to Woodface for the first time (which I still regard as their best album), I'm now doing repeat play for several songs including Pour Le Monde, Don't Stop Now, English Trees and Silent House.

Awesome. Thanks for the review or I would've completely missed this recording.

Nice...I will definitely check it out.

Oh, and check out the grey on Neil Finn in the second picture (I assume that's him on the left), that's making me feel old!

And to think that I'm getting worried about "unplugging" for a few days when I go on vacation later in the month (and I'm not kidding -- I actually get this weird "suffocating" feeling when I realize I can't connect to the interwebs -- it's kinda ridiculous).

Sometimes it's really hard to remember that we used to do most of our computing offline. I can barely stand to look at my computer when it isn't connected to the 'net these days.

I need to take a page out of your playbook...

Well, like I said the key is to always have creeps on the screen - and ideally have no fewer than 2 waves going through at any given time. If you can do that, you can get a 50-100% boost from the score bonus for the waves going early. You also cannot afford to let any of the creeps get through the maze (esp. early on) since you need to money early in the game and the points later in the game. But if you have sufficient swarm towers and other upgraded towers, those superbuff flying dudes at the end cannot get through (nor can the 2 ground bosses that keep splitting up).

1.5 looks interesting. That ink tower is new. Not sure how the game has been changed, I'll have to try it (sparingly!)

I think I got around 7000 on the regular difficulty 50 level. I've gotten over 10,000 on the 100+ level challenge (up to the level 70 or so). I don't know if it's possible to do the 100 level challenge without juggling. But my skills are weak compared to the mega dudes.

I see they've launched version 1.5...damn...I might have to try it out later tonight :-(

I'll have to play a game and send you my standard maze-formation. But if you just browse the recent scores list on the td site, you'll see which mazes garner the high scores and which ones suck.

But if there's one tip to give you...it's build one squirt and up it to max level before you upgrade another one (augment with pellets, of course).

If you are leet you can also do the "juggling" thing whereby you let the creeps pass through the maze and then open an earlier segment of the maze whilst closing off the end of where they are currently headed. The creeps will turn around and go the other way and you just kinda rinse and repeat.

Of course this technique requires proper timing and can be disastrous if you have a another wave of creeps coming in from behind.

Oh, and the only way to score big in the 50-level game is to have a constant flow of creeps going through your maze (i.e. you have to send them in early). I would always send in the 2 normal waves and whatever came in after them in rapid succession. It's mayhem, but if you have the upgraded guns, a good maze and some freeze towers you'll get them all.

I'm sorry to hear you got into it. I had to quit a couple months back. Too addicting.

I basically would upgrade the Squirt and Swarm towers to max. You must do this. It's way better to get a couple of them at max power than to have tons of squirts and swarms.

I also would do some fancy spiral type mazes with lotsa nooks and crannies to get the creeps winding around. And 1 or 2 strategically placed freeze towers. Dart towers can be good too.

Cory, the flying triangles are tough, but if you're at level 40 or so, you really need about 3-4 fully upgraded swarm towers along with whatever squirt towers you have to take them down.

I was laughing at the screen cap on the embedded video since it has Dave Lu with his eyes closed. He also got grilled by James Hong on all the legal fees we spent. But getting fleeced by the law firm is definitely one of those mistakes that, in hindsight, we'd probably not repeat if we were to do things over (I'd just go with a cut-rate lawyer for the simple stuff).

But yeah, Markus Frind is pretty much the man. James Hong is in the same league too.

A few of my personal favorites (admittedly some of these go beyond being purely 'weblogisms' and are more 'internetsisms')

n00b : I dunno, I just think it's awesome. It packs so much meaning and has a fantastic combination of letters and numbers

"interwebs" : Again, like "the internets" I love the casual, backwater feel of the term. Truly awesome

meh : This one bugs me. Though I admittedly use it. I find it rude cuz it so effectively conveys malaise, boredom and a lack of interest so concisely into 3 letters. Meh.

teh : I love this one. Simple transposition of two letters and "the" is reinvented as something mispelled and somehow hilarious.

web 2.0 : I'm tired of this term. It tells you everything and nothing at the same time. The media/blogosphere harps on its overuse, but perpetuates that very overuse. Can we just put it to rest?

Re: your list, I agree that netiquette is an annoying word. I'm not against polite web interaction, but the word is grating.

One final term that's already getting old for me is Facebook's executives' who've been bandying about the term "social graph". I dunno why it bugs me, I'm not even sure what it completely means (wikipedia gives it a go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_graph) but I guess I don't want to see all my relationships and interactions reduced to some "graph".

Get a book. The format is fairly standardized and they always say the book is better than the movie anyway ;-)

I love the new homepage...it's slick. One desired item: I'd love to see a short one or two sentence editorial blurb/comment in the rss feed from you. I realize it would be more work for you which you probably don't want to do or deal with, but damn it would be nice when I'm filtering through that list. Just a thought...

Oh and the site map is pretty wild. You've built up quite a body of articles. I'd love to see your thoughts on what articles/blogs you'd select as the cream of the crop if you were to ever compile a select few into a book or something (I know, I know...books = anachronistic, but I'm more interested to know which your favorite posts and which ones you'd want to highlight in a 'best of webomatica' type compilation).

Hey Jase, you could always return the DVD player and use the PS2...just a thought...

Hmm...you must be ignorant. Surely?!? If you cannot see that EVARY song they did is PARFEKT. Wild Honey PIE is as gud as Hey Jood and Revolootion Niner.


The thing that gets my goat is when the non-critical fanboy/fangirls out there accuse other fans who might not grant "exalted" status to every bit of work from an artist's ouevre as "ignorant". As if any criticism towards your object of affection would make you a "non-fan" or an unappreciative listener. Gimme a break.

As before, everyone is entitled to an opinion. But the ignorant listeners are those too deaf to consider the fact that the Beatles, like any other artists, had their share of hits and misses. What makes the Beatles "exalted", imho, is the fact that their hit-to-miss ratio far exceeded that of their peers (both past and present).

Oh, and lest there be any mistake. I am a huge Beatles fan.

There was just one Battlefield Earth book. It was just really long. I remember reading it in my teen-years. I seem to remember the Psychlo planet getting nuked maybe 2/3 of the way into the book. And the last few hundred pages dealt with the humans trying to figure out the weird Psychlo math. Apparently the Psychlo mathematical system was totally whacked and the humans were stumped, until someone realized that the Psychlos had 11 fingers (one of the hands had an extra thumb or something). Once they realized that, they concluded that the Psychlos were using a base-11 mathematical system and they were able to tap into world of Psychlo technology (like platform shoes, spy cameras and teleportation devices that don't screen for explosive materials).

Poor Psychlos, so much history and civilization only to get punked by a bunch of humans living in caves using harrier jets. p0wnd!

Damn this is a good list.

You have a typo in the pirates of silicon valley blurb ("remption" should be "redemption")

Also, I believe Battlefield Earth (the movie) didn't actually cover the entire book and that Travolta had planned to do a sequel. Of course, the critical reception and disastrous box office take pretty much destroyed any hope of more Battlefield Earth.

When you think about it, it's amazing that there haven't been more celebs, like Will Ferrel boosting their brand and visibility via the web. But then again, I guess it makes sense. If the actors are a mirror on Hollywood, it's no wonder much of the "traditional" media has to be dragged kicking and screaming to the internet trough.

Natalie Portman livecasting would be brilliant. Are there any B-listers that have attempted to "leapfrog" back into the spotlight via the web? Seems like the web was made for the lower-tier folks looking to get their Hollywood mojo/buzz back.

Did I win?!?!?! :-)

Wow, Crowded House looks so...old. Now I'm depressed. And a wtf on the reunion, didn't one of the dudes die? (I saw that he's been replaced).

As for dieting/weightloss social networks, my initial reaction was that this is ridiculous, but then I realized of all the various niches for social interaction/support this is probably one of the most legitimate spaces for a social network, so maybe it will work. I can see how it could be a really useful thing.

This is a fantastic book (Material World is also very cool). I agree with most of your observations. I'd add that in addition to all the boxed processed foods that you see on the American table is a depressing lack of fresh fruits and vegetables. I recall some countries (I think France was one) where, at the very least, there was a decent amount of fresh produce and meats. The American photos were pathetic though, freaking huge pizzas and all kinds of boxes of transfats. The little country stats were also pathetic. I think there was a number for overweight/obese % of the population and the U.S. figures were off the charts.

Oh, and for a scary look at the growth of obesity rates in the U.S., watch this flash movie over at MSN:
http://health.msn.com/reports/obesity/default.a...

Jase, I just thought of another comicbook/movie adaptation.

Again, I don't know if this falls into the "superhero" category or the just plain weird: Hellboy

Wikipedia describes the comicbook premise as:
"As a demon named Anung Un Rama, Hellboy was brought to Earth as an infant by Nazi occultists. He was rescued by Allied forces and raised by the United States’ Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD). He grew up to be a large red-skinned demon with a tail, horns (which he files down to stumps), and a big stone right hand. Although a bit gruff, he shows none of the malevolence thought to be intrinsic to demons and works with other strange creatures in the B.P.R.D. He has been dubbed as the "World's Greatest Paranormal Investigator."

And the Wikipedia entry on the film describes it as a "fantasy thriller".

Anyway...take all that for what it's worth. The film sports a 79% fresh rating from rottentomatoes, but I haven't seen the movie or read the comic.