I had a lot of reasons for getting the new iPhone. The largest could have been that my iPod Nano had recently suffered an accident which left its screen destroyed or that I was still walking around with a 1st generation RAZR (which had cost me $500 at the time) whose battery barely held a charge. But the fact is, I wanted it. It just looked so great.

So, I restrained myself until the Monday after launch when I figured the lines would have died down. Then I went to the Soho Apple Store on my way in to work since I figured that the 5th avenue store was too close to all those morning shows. I walked right in, had 4 people in line before me, bought it, and walked out… Happy.

The best part is, though, that I’m still happy. I love this damn thing! Despite fears to the contrary, I can type quite quickly on the keyboard. The wifi is key, because AT&T’s Edge makes me feel like I’m on a 56k modem. The screen is gorgeous. And just top to bottom the device really delivers on all the hype.

OK, now to the single most annoying aspect of the new iPhone.

One of my many reasons for purchasing the thing was my dream of riding the train with big, cushy, over-ear, wireless, bluetooth headphones. My dreams of not snagging on other passengers was dashed when I learned that the iPhone didn’t support stereo bluetooth headphones. This really pissed me off. Oh well, at least I could still use my big old cans, right? Wrong. Apple did one of those things that just make you hate electronics companies (that’s you Sony!). They took a perfectly good standard connector and made it non-standard. They recessed the headphone jack effectively making the iPhone incompatible with every pair of headphones in the world. This is really unacceptable and I know they can’t fix it now, but they better help some third party vendors get some great headphones out there because I hate Apple headphones with a passion.

Of course, there are other things Apple should fix like custom ringtones, being able to edit what shows up on your home screen (I don’t need notes and stocks, damnit), having access to the landscape keyboard more often, IM, Flash support, games, and more… but I gotta remember that this is a 1st generation product that’s guaranteed to only get better! Get those software updates rolling, Apple!

From the time I spent in my youth with my nose buried in copies of Popular Mechanics ’til now, I’ve always wanted to ride a “super train.” You know, one of those trains that flies along on some mystical magnetic levitation at hundreds of miles per hour.

Well, I’m writing this as I hurtle along at around 250 mph and I gotta say, I’m not super impressed. Maybe if it hadn’t been for the dude who didn’t let me sit by the window, I might be mesmerized by the landscape as it flashes by, but I’m not. And no one else in the train is either. Most people have their window shades down and are dozing or reading their papers. Boooring.

I wanted super! I wanted excitement! What I got was a mundane commute with a bunch of salary workers.

I have to remember not to reserve seats next time (since the machine didn’t let me choose a window seat) and just wait in line on the platform to snag a window.

I don’t know what the makers of this game were thinking when they were coming up with this shooter/fighter/dodger thing, but for some reason, they decided the one thing that could act like icing on the cake of their masterpiece would be an announcer with a bizarre Mexican accent shouting “You win!” and a bunch of other sound bytes.

To play the game, you stand in front of the arcade box holding a gun like Time Crisis or House of the Dead, but instead of going through a story, you fight other cyborgs (though no real explanation is given) in more of a Tekken or Virtual Fighter (which everyone was playing in Japan) style… but with guns!!

Your opponent in the game stands across from you and you’re both supposed to use use cover to hide from bullets and then shoot back. This control is accomplished by left and right foot pedals. The whole thing was very awkward at the beginning, but quickly became bizarrely fun. I would imagine they could pretty easily port something like this to the Wii, especially since the graphics weren’t mind-blowing or anything.

I gotta remember to hit more arcades whenever I get the chance… and figure out why this game is named “Too Spicy!”

This guy had the brilliant idea to tweak his photo’s color settings using Photoshop CS and above’s Match Color tool. Fantastic!

I gotta remember to use this sometime.

Little Big Planet has got to be the most innovative thing I’ve seen in gaming in a long time. (Sorry Will, Spore looks cool, but not quite my thing.) The GDC presentation is a must watch!

I have to remember to check it out when it’s released and if necessary buy a PS3.

This is something I’ve been meaning to write about ever since I read the article (and more importantly the comments on the article) “Top 12 Guns for Geeks and Gadget Goons” over at Gizmodo that revealed just how much crossover there is with geek/gadget culture and gun culture.

The funny thing about living in New York is that no matter how many friends you have, you continually have to remind yourself that your circle of acquantances and people you run into on a day to day basis in no way represent the average population of the rest of the country. That means that none of your friends probably have guns. No one I know owns a gun, although at one time I did live with someone who was into guns, but then it was rifles for shooting on a range and not what the article was about: the best handgun for concealed carrying purposes.

I’m not going to get into the debate of gun control (although I hate guns), because the bigger question to me is whether people who run around the internet flaming each other, pwning each other’s grammar, calling the WAHHHHAMBULANCE for each other and generally being loud-mouthed and childish should be packin’ concealed heat. I hate to say it, but it somehow smacks of overcompensating for physical shortcomings.

I dunno… call me crazy, but I’ll now remember to think again next time I’m considering attending any tech conferences in this country. (Especially MacWorld since it seems like some geeks are out to kill them some Finder… I just wonder if they eat what they kill!)

(Image from Geeks with Guns activities surrounding SXSW)

Yes, I signed up for a GameFly account a few months ago. I thought, hey, my enjoyment of my relatively new Xbox 360 (and my gamerscore) could benefit from the membership, so why not. I set up my account with dreams of playing the latest and greatest games in existence floating in my head. What was delivered, again to be clear, was far from that pipe-dream.

I started by putting Just Cause in my number 1 slot (hey, I played the demo and was somewhat interested). I them placed a number of secondary games in my queue. I got Just Cause and played it for a month of so. I liked the idea of taking over regions as I had done with Saint’s Row, so I was in to it. But, fairly quickly the game began to drag on (hell, those cut scenes sucked, sucked, sucked). So, back it went to GameFly.

And what did I receive back from GameFly? None other than the third game on my list! A game I had placed on there basically just to have something in my queue. (I mean I owned the great games for the 360 and was using GameFly to spread my wings a little.) I wasn’t miffed or anything. I just tried to play the game, was barely interested and sent it back.

Then, I once again received the third game on my list. (I can’t even remember what it was, it sucked so bad.) So, after a couple attempts at playing it, I sent it back…

Then, I once again received the third game on my list! WTF is the problem with sending me some Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas!?! I want it. I’ve been wanting it. And yes, I still want it! But no, they sent me Enchanted Arms! Have you played this game!? It’s horrible and the voice acting could single handedly make anyone hate video games. After about 20 minutes of attempting to play this game, I packed it up and sent it back.

Than, I once again received the third game on my list!! No Kidding! Yes, Phantasy Star Universe was on it’s way to me. When you think about it, this game wasn’t really number 3 on my list, but actually something like number 6! It only became number 3 after I received a bunch of other game I had little interest in.

As you can imagine, I was miffed. I filled out the form on GameFly complaining. On February 2nd, I wrote:

I’ve consistently received the 3rd game in my queue rather than the first ones. This is very disappointing and I expect I’ll cancel my service if I can’t get the games I want.

On February 5th, I received the following:

Dear Patrick,

If you would rather wait for the game to become available and NOT have the next available game ship, keep an open rental slot by removing all other available games from your GameQ and return a game. When a copy does become available, it will get sent to the member who’s had it in their GameQ the longest and has an open rental slot at that time.

Please note that we do not recommend removing all other games from your GameQ as you would be missing out on receiving games and we will not credit for unused service time.

Wait a second. Did they just say that they’ll ship the first game when they’re good and ready and instead of receiving my 3rd in line, I should just wait for my number one and keep paying monthly dues!?!

Am I wrong in thinking that I pay monthly dues to receive games I want when I want them, and not wait for months (it has been that long) to receive the game in my first slot? I didn’t think so, so I went to their site to cancel my account.

This was additionally fun.

First when I started to cancel my account, I received the following:

Patrick, you still have 12 days left until your next billing period. If you choose to cancel your account now, your cancellation will be effective as of today, and you will not receive a refund or credit for unused time. Are you sure you want to cancel your membership now

Hmm, I’m canceling my account, yet they still want to hose me on the membership. Thanks. I bite the bullet and hit “continue canceling” only to receive:

While GameFly’s in-stock rate is far higher than any other online rental service can offer, we realize it can be frustrating if the game you want is not available. As compensation for your availability issue, GameFly is happy to give you a special, one-time offer on your next month of service for only $9.95 - that’s a 30% savings!

Bastards! So, they don’t want to service me correctly, but want to give me a 30% savings instead!? I would be happier getting that extra 30% of service rather than the 30% savings! Why don’t companies understand this!? This only made me more upset, so I continue canceling only to get this:

Yes, they remind me again, that I’m losing money by canceling their crap-ass service, but the most important thing to notice is this:

All rented games must be received by GameFly within 7 days of cancellation or you will be charged the full retail price.

Whoa! Not another month’s price? Not something fair? No, the entire retail price of the game! I know there have been many exclamation points in this post, but seriously, WTF is up with this? That’s literally 5 to 6 months of membership at my plan’s cost.

Of course, with the approximately 5 day postage on GameFly games, no matter what, you’re cutting it close… But I hadn’t even received the game yet!

The bottom line is, that until GameFly can offer service on par with NetFlix (which I never have trouble getting the number 1 movie in my queue) then they’re offering a service that will frustrate and confuse people. Add to that their “screw you if you don’t like it” attitude and they become a company I will never do business with again. It literally becomes cheaper to buy the games yourself and return them, then play their game.

I’m sure I’ll have no problem remembering: GameFly sucks.

I think this day will go down in history as the day the cellphone industry changed forever. Today, Apple Computer, Inc decided to decimate the competition in the cellphone industry by unveiling the most advanced and gorgeous cellphone, iPod, internet hybrid device ever. EVER.

I can’t wait until June!!!!