Hello, I'm a Mac, and I'm a PC

Alright - nerd alert - tonight was a highly historical moment in the computing world. And really, maybe it's not just for nerds anymore - 'cause really what happened tonight was a historic moment involving two people who have probably ta one point or another touch everyone's life. Today at the All Things Digital conference, for the first time in around 20 years, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs appeared on stage together. Now I haven't read the entire transcript yet - but the general conversation between the two was in my opinion very respectable.

I mean, basically, it showed that neither one could deny the success of the other - which I'm a huge advocate of. When it comes down to it - if I had to choose one computer, it'd be a Mac. But like they said in they're interview, it's not a zero sum game. There are things that make a Mac better than a PC and vice versa.

Jobs and Gates conducted themselves very well. Of course if either had behaved badly it would've have reflected bad on their own company - but still, from what I've read so far - the respect seemed genuine. Of course, they disagree on topics - that's what makes their companies so different from each other - but again, neither could deny their counterpart's success, and neither could deny their roots.

Their was some video I watched a while back featuring the VP or something er rather of Microsoft dissing the iPhone. I found it pretty stupid, and I guess that's why that guy isn't the CEO of Microsoft.

Although Steve Jobs can be a pretty viscious person, there's a certain modesty that seems to come across when you're at the top and it seemed to come across during this interview. Kind of like when you meet a truly talented musician versus someone who's just getting good. Basically what I'm trying to say is that there's a lot of people even within the companies themselves that are so one track minded that they basically think it's one company or no company. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, two people I highly respect and the two people responsible for these companies as they are, seemed to have a different light, which only drives my respect for them higher. Check out the transcript here:

http://d5.allthingsd.com/20070530/d5-gates-jobs-interview/

Thanks for reading.

Well Done Microsoft

Ok, so up until this very moment - the only real computer company that has been able to blow my mind wide open has been Apple. From their iPod, to their 8-core Mac Pro, to their 30-inch display, and iPhone - really there's so much they've released that has completely blown me away.

That all changed today. After so many years in the industry, and after flooding the market for so long - Microsoft has finally been able to truly impress me with something their introducing at the conceptual stage today: Surface Computing. Yeah, yeah, multi-touch has been done before on an iPhone, but check out the wireless syncing, and check out the sheer size at which multi-touch is operating! Seriously, check out this video:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4217348.html

Well done, Microsoft. If you can just focus on coming out with more stuff like this, you might be able to compete with Apple when it comes to industrial design. Thanks to popular mechanics for the behind the scenes look. And thanks for reading.

Top 10 Video Games of All Time

Alright, so I'll admit it, I sat down to type a blog entry today and completely drew a blank. And anytime I draw blank, I decide to come up with some random Top 10 list. Not that these are throw away blog entries, but they're definitely not as long or as story-telling as the others. But nonetheless, Top 10 lists always seem to spark the most interest, and the most comments, and such. Now, Top 10 Video Games of all time - this one is tough, really tough. I'll admit, in the last 5 years, my video game playing has declined significantly, so this list might be a bit dated - but then again, this is a list of "all time", so it might still be applicable. There are so many factors that go into my decisions on this one - replay value, overall impression, memorable moments, experience etc., etc., etc. So without further a due, here is my Top 10 Video Games of All Time

10. Mansion of Hidden Souls (Sega CD)
9. Tiger Woods Golf (PS2)
8. Guitar Hero II (XBOX360)
7. Resident Evl: Code Veronica (Dreamcast)
6. Virtua Tennis (Dreamcast)
5. Contra (NES)
4. Soul Caliber (Dreamcast)
3. Super Mario World (SNES)
2. Daytona USA (Arcade)
1. Metal Gear Solid: Tactical Espionage Action (PS)

The Ultimate Driving Machine

Alright, so a while back I had a posting about the annoucement of the new BMW M3 - although specs were amazing at the time - let's actually sit back and think about it. This is a car that's about $100,000 CDN and competes with the likes of a Ferrari F430! A V8 engine in a car the size of an accord coupe! Not to mention the most perfect stylings I've seen in a long time. How about the carbon fibre roof! Geez, seriously, if you haven't checked out this car, head over the www.bmw.com right now. This car is seriously gonna kick some ass. Along with the Audi S5, I'm pretty sure this will be my favourite car of the year. Ultimate Driving Machine? I think so. Thanks for reading.

My Life of Music is naNo More

Well, that's it - the little pocket sized machine that supplies the soundtrack to my life is no more. No more music as I walk the streets of my city, no more music to work to, no more music to take my mind off how much time is left in my workout. It's really amazing how much music I listen to in life.

My iPod Nano started acting up the other day. And like I said in one of my previous blogs, yes I tried all the usual fixes. Still no solution. I even got it restored and everything, and still my problem was persisting. I decided the only way to truly reset it would be to disconnect the battery. A while back, say a couple of months, I managed to fix the fuse in my lamp (refer to one of my early, early posts), and I even opened up my Powerbook and replaced its hard drive. So I was feeling pretty good with my handiness and ability to fix things.

Thus, I decided to open up my little nano and peak inside. After poking around, I managed to crack open the thing and take a look inside. However, despite all my efforts, in the end, I had to rip the wires that were connecting the battery - and boom, end of my nano. If I can solder the wires back, I might be able to get it to work - but it's a tiny area to solder. Plus, I don't have a soldering gun.

I've had the thing for a year and a half - so I really have no justice to buy a new one quite yet. Hopefully Apple will release a new one soon to justify me spending some moolah on it.

Either way, life's gonna be a lot more boring now that I have no soundtrack to it. It's kind of depressing when I think about it. Ah well, life goes on. Thanks for reading.

Too Much of a Good Thing

Yes, there is. There truly is such a thing as too much of a good thing. I'm sitting here just having finished my dinner. I hadn't eaten since breakfast so I was starving, and I didn't really feel like cooking anything. So I decided to stop at Subway on the way home. I ordered a Chicken Teriyaki, 12 inch, Double stacked sub. Now for those of you who haven't stepped into a subway recently, you can now double-stack the meat on any sub you order.

The funny thing is - this is not the first time I've done this. The first time, I ordered a Subway melt 12-inch, double stacked. And at that time, I thought it was way too much meat. But I also thought that it was because it was cold-cuts that made it not so great. I thought for sure the double-stacking would be good with the chicken teriyaki.

Nope. It's just way too much meat. By the time you get down to the last quarter, or even last half of the sub, you kinda feel gross and you're just shoving meat into your mouth and not really enjoying any of it. And this is coming from a guy who is essentially a carnivore. I love my meat, but double-stacking a sub at Subway just isn't good.

I'm open to maybe double-stacking a six inch sub - 'cause that's basically a 12-inch with less bread, but as it stands now, I'm highly against the double-stacked 12-inch subway sub. Thanks for reading.

Casey's Mix of the Moment 2007.05.26

Well, my iPod has finally joined the masses - it's officially on the fritz. It's kinda sucky because it's still functional, but just can't be synced, and it keeps draining battery. And before you all start replying, yes, I've tried the millions of solutions to try to fix it. But despite this, I think I've actually got some new music for a new mix of the moment. It'd be so long since I've found new music - and although a lot of this isn't the newest, it's still something. Anyway, enjoy and thanks for reading.

1. Outside by Aqualung
2. Falling Slowly by The Frames
3. Ache by James Carrington
4. Great Balls of Fire by Teitur
5. Wicked Little High by Bird York
6. Dear Me by Mike Schmid
7. Everything by Craig Cardiff
8. Lover's Side of Town by Joe Purdy
9. Maybe I by Mere
10. The Way we Get By by Spoon
11. Garden of Love by Aqualung

Finally

Alright, this is gonna be short, but it's a piece of news I've been waiting to hear ever since last Christmas, and it's a piece of news I'm sure all fellow PS3 owners have been waiting for. You see, when we embarked on the Sony train and shelled out all that money for their dream system, we got a lot. We got a sweet new system that acted as a media center for photos and music. We got a next gen gaming platform (albeit still awaiting killer apps), as well as my favourite part, a blu-ray player. Even though it carried a hefty price tag - for what you were getting, it truly was worth it.

But there was a pretty significant factor that was missing. You see, although I own a PS3 and am starting to collect blu-ray discs, the vast vast majority of my collection remains as standard def DVDs. And the best way to watch these of course is with an upscaling DVD player. Well, it seems that Sony forgot to package this little feature in with their behemoth of a machine.

Here we are, sitting 5-6 months after its release, and Sony has finally blessed us all with update 1.80, to be released today in North America which adds DVD upscaling (along with a whole other set of updates). These firmware updates are showing Sony's dedication to their customers and is giving more peace of mind to the owners.

So thank you Sony. Now just get on gettting some good games out. MGS4 is way too far off. Thanks for reading.

Three Hours

Alright Lost fans, this is it. Tomorrow night may not be THE night we've been waiting for (that'll be the series finale), but Wednesday night will for sure be one to clear your night for. This posting is just a reminder that not only do we get a 2 hour season finale tomorrow, but we also get an ABC special on lost preceeding the episode. This gives us three hours of Lost! What more could you ask for.

It all goes down tomorrow at 8:00pm on ABC. Be sure to catch it. Thanks for reading.

Goodnight Seattle, We Love Ya'

So ever since the blog has started, I've dropped lines about postings that I would do in the future. For example, in my posts about Richard Hammond's return to Top Gear,or the score for Top Gear - I would mention that eventually Top Gear would get its own post. It finally happened when I hailed it the greatest television show ever.

Another posting that I forementioned that would happen was about my favourite sitcom of all time - and here it is. My posting about Frasier.

Now, again, i do absolutely respect Seinfeld and its amazing accomplishment to never stoop to seriousness. There is never a serious moment in Seinfeld. Almost every other sitcom succombs to some amount of seriousness at one point or another. So I do respect Seinfeld for being truly orignal for that. But truth be told, I like the seriousness at times - that is, when it's done well. I've mentioned this before, but I absolutely hated Friends anytime it got serious. Mind you, I wasn't a huge fan in the first place - it was an alright show - but when it got serious, it got really annoying.

Frasier on the other hand does seriousness perfectly. It attacks the complexity of Frasier's character and does it so well. It helps that he's a psychiatrist because it presents very interesting insights into things the audience can relate to. The sweet, nice, serious moments in Fraiser are done with just the right amount of sap for a sitcom.

Let's talk about the humour. What I love about Frasier, is that it pokes fun at 2 sides of a spectrum. On one hand, it makes fun of all the pretentious snooty actions that Frasier and his brother Niles partake in. Yet, at the same time, it completely makes fun of the "regular joe" actions that they're dad is involved in. It's nice to have a show that's not so one-sided.

Experimentation. Frasier does a lot of experimentation that seems to work out really well. There's one episode where they split the storyline into two decision paths each exploring what would happen if Frasier made a different decision. The only thing they've done that's close to a clip show actually puts Frasier and Niles in past episodes through special effects. There's one entire episode that's played out as a hypothetical in Frasier's mind. And it all works so well.

The thing about Frasier is that it maintains this level of integrity and maturity, while still lacing the show with low-brow humour which is reflective of the range of characters featured on the show. It's bascially done what most sitcoms haven't - it setout to be multi-dimensinal and it actually succeeds at it. It attacks your senses on so many levels.

I recently purchased Season Nine and started watching it again - it's been a long while since Season Eight came out. From the get go - the first episode was amazing. There only remains one season to be released on DVD (since they've already released the last season), and what excites me is that the last two seasons are seasons that I've actually never seen. I haven't exactly expressed my thoughts so clearly here, but if the last two seasons are even half as good as the first nine seasons, Frasier will remain as my favourite sitcom of all time. Thanks for reading.

How often do you find the right movie?

Alright, so first off, let's apologize for my hiatus from the blogging world. I know I have at least 2 readers, and I've been neglecting my lyricsOFtheMIND - but with a legitimate excuse. I've been on a production shoot for a short film as a Director of Photography with crazy long hours - leaving me aboslutely no time to do anything else.

What does that mean? Well besides the blog - my fitness program has been on hiatus as well. That's why Fit To Live's been on hold. Has all been lost? Luckily no. Because of my long hours on set being on my feet all day - I actually lost some weight! I'm actually sitting around 179 lbs right now! So that's good. I'm thinking probably monday I'll be able to get back to it.

But what's today's post all about? Well, it's about a little movie that my buddy Andrew told me about called Once. Why am I so damn excited about it? Well basically because it features the lead singer from one of my favourite bands - The Frames' Glen Hansard. Not only that - it features an arsenal of the Frames music! Package this with what looks like a really sweet love story between music writers, and festval shattering reviews - and you got yourself one highly anticipated film.

You guys should definitely check out the trailer at http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox_searchlight/once/

This'll be a movie for the books. Thanks for reading.

Lost

This'll be quick - but for all Lost fans - looks like we've got some great news, or at least great news in my opinion. The reason Lost has been so good has been because of its crazy anticipation for an explanation for all the craziness that happens. Well, announced today, ABC is intelligently setting an end date for Lost, giving them 48 episodes (3 seasons of 16 episodes uninterrupted) to wrap up the series. Why is this good? Well, it's good because they won't keep the show running needlessly just for ratings - they'll actually have a plan. I read an interview with Damon Lindelof where he said the plan from the beginning has always been to have around 100 episodes. So it looks like that's about what they'll get. Just like ABC said - Lost is one of those shows that to maintain integrity, it has to bow down at the right time. Looks like 48 episodes later will be that right time. Can't wait. Here's the rest of the story:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3ie9108c1dc34a16eadbfcfe7003f96ad8

Thanks for reading.

...to those who wait

When I was young, say 10 or more years ago, I was a huge video game fanatic. I was one of those chinese kids who had every system on the market - we're talking NES, SNES, Genesis, Sega Master System, Gameboy, Game Gear, and even the dreaded 32X and Sega CD. Back in those days, I was always on the ball with release dates and with the help of my friend Rob, I got into the game of reserving games. When MKII came out for SNES for example, I made sure to reserve my copy on launch date. This trend lasted a while for all major releases - mind you MKII is the only one that really comes to mind.

Fast forward a couple of years and a new obsession was born - DVDs. After a couple of months of collecting DVDs whenever I could, I discovered the industry's New Tuesday policy - that is new music and new DVDs are always released on Tuesdays. So then I started marking in my calendar when my favourite movies were being released in all their Special Super Extended Collector's Platinum Edition glory.

My point is - I've pretty much always been an impatient person who had to get things the first day they came out.

But here's the thing. Somewhere in my university career, my obsession for games started to dilute. And hence, I stopped getting games on their release date (with the exception of Metal Gear of course), and I even stopped buying video games entirely. Well, sometime during exams, I got this craving for video games and decided to venture in the world of Splinter Cell. But by the time I decided to buy it - it was about a year or so since it had been released - making it just $20 CDN!!!!! How great is that!

Let's take another example. I've always semi been a fan of King of the Hill - it was never my favourite show - but it was good, and the more I watched it the better it got. By this year, I was a pretty big fan of the show, and one weekend I just had this craving for the show. So I finally decided to buy the season sets - and by this time, they had been out for a long time and they were just $25 CDN a piece!!!

You see - if you just wait for awhile, these things go down in price like crazy and it's great! Why do I bring this up today? Well tomorrow, I'll get to experience it again. I've only recently gotten into two great shows that have been on the air for a while now - Battlestar Galactica and House M.D. For BSG, season 2 has been split up into two box sets up til now, Season 2.0 and Season 2.5, each about $50 CDN or so. Tomorrow, the studio is packaging these two box sets together and selling it for a lower $69!!! Same with House - they're packaging seasons 1 & 2 together for a lower price! Granted, I caved on House, but still BSG will be nice.

So you see, good things do come to those who wait. Thanks for reading.

Fit to Live 2007.05.07

It's good to be back. Thanks for reading.

Fit to Suck 2007.05.05

Yes, i guess it had to happen one day or another. But on thursday and friday - sadly, I must report, that I missed my workouts. I was quite mad about it, but I've been seriously busy with school. On thursday, I was at school from 9am til 1:30am - yeah, almost 15 hours, so when I got home, I was dead tired. And the thing is, this kind of schedule will continue over the next couple of weeks. However, I should be able to slide in my workout.

But sadly, my streak has been broken. I am by no means giving up - no, it's just with a film we're shooting - my schedule's been swamped. We'll see how things go, but I'm still gonna make as much effort as possible to maintain my 5 days a week. I am sorry for this, and sorry that there was no episode of fit to live.

In other news, box art has finally been released for Cosby Show seasons 3 and 4 - making it more official (for those who don't know, the Cosby Show box sets have been on a really long hiatus) - so that's quite exciting for me. Plus, season 9 of Frasier comes out this month, another bonus indeed - not to mention a fully packaged season 2.0 of Battlestar Galactica, and I may as well pick up season 2 of House. With Smallville and Lost running out their seasons, I'll need something to watch over the summer, and it looks like that won't be a problem.

Alright, that's it for now. Updates might be a bit scarce this month, but I'll try my best to keep my readers informed on what's interesting (or at least what I find interesting). Thanks for reading.

Fit To Live 2007.05.02

Sorry for the lack of updates guys, it's been a busy week. Thanks for reading.

Fit To Live 2007.04.30

I'm back. Thanks for reading.