A Moo Moo Here and a Bahh Bah there…

That title has nothing to do with this post, it’s just that I can’t get the words out of my head. You might be as surprised as me to find those annoying kids songs actually work on a newborn. Frankly any kind of noise works though. I guess they’re used to hearing background noise when they’re in the womb, so Benjamin is not a fan of quiet. A fact which was made abundantly clear to us, yet again last night. Which might be contributing to my apparently newly developed dyslexia.
I apologize if my spelling is atrocious. I don’t know if it’s a symptom of early-onset, pre-senile dementia, or just a side-effect of being a new parent, but it seems that I can no longer type. I type words and numbers out of order with disturbing regularity, and this weekend things I typed suddenly disappeared, while things I swear I didn’t type showed up. Annoying in personal correspondance, but when it’s entered into EasyWorship and put up in front of the whole church, it’s just downright embarrassing.
(Side note: even worse than typos is when you right click on a misspelled word to correct it, and accidentally add your misspelling to the dictionary… which I just did. I swear this whole parenthood thing is actually making me dumber…)
Anyway, I wanted to intelligently capture my first impressions of two of the hottest tech toys of the year so far: The Nintendo Wii, and the MacBook Pro.
The Wii is, in a word, fun. It’s unlike any other video game system ever made, and in my mind, can’t be compared with any of them — save maybe for DDR and Samba Di Amigo on the Dreamcast. But it’s better than DDR, because anyone can pick up a controller cold, and be having a great time within 5 minutes. Despite the occasional effort, I’ve never been able to do anything but suck horribly at DDR.
The graphics are not much to look at, when compared to the XBox 360, although I’m reserving my final judgment until I can pick up some component cables and see what it looks like in 480p with a proper widescreen ratio. But it doesn’t really matter because once you’re playing the game, you don’t care. It’s more about you and what you’re doing than what’s happening on the screen. It just feels like a more healthy and social experience than mashing buttons on a regular controller.
It was lent to me by a friend who’s off in France right now, so I get it for four months, and so far I’ve really enjoyed having this system. I doubt, with our new priorities, that I’d go out and buy one, but if I were young and full of money, this is where I’d be spending my entertainment budget.
And then there’s the MacBook Pro, easily the most lusted after laptop on the market. I know some of you are wondering how I got one, and I’m not going to go into the whole story. But some of you may remember that second job I took — the one I can’t legally get paid for. The use of this amazing machine is part of my remuneration, and the best tool I could have been equipped with to cover the wide array of technological responsibilities I deal with during a given week.
videocall.jpgThe MacBook Pro is worth every cent I didn’t pay for it. No laptop compares. I saw a high end Sony Vaio the other day, and when I saw the plastic latch that holds the thing shut, I had to hold in an arrogant laugh. Everything about the MacBook is elegant: from the brushed metal enclosure, unmarred by any sort of protruding latch, door or port, to the recessed webcam built-in to the monitor, to the multi-finger control of the trackpad that manages to provide all the functionality of a many-buttoned pointing device, without interrupting the smooth lines of the case, to the ambient light sensor that adjusts screen brightness and backlights the keyboard as needed.
Mom and Dad, you need to get a MacBook (the cheap one will do) so that you can see your grandson without having to get up off the couch. The screen shot is me talking to our friend Jon Bates, who is also rockin the MacBook Pro action. Later we added in Brian on his MacBook for a 3-person video chat.
This machine has replaced 3 computers in my life: a G4 Cube, a Dell Latitude D610 Craptop, and a PowerMac G4 Dual, and I dare say it’s more functional than all 3 combined. There is literally no program I desire, whether for Windows or Mac, that I cannot run on my laptop, and I don’t think I’ve been so technologically satiated.
Now if only I could get some sleep…

5 thoughts on “A Moo Moo Here and a Bahh Bah there…

  1. woo! It’s mii! hahaha… Are you trying to say I’m young and full or money because I bought a wii this morning? Ah well… I will have my own new priorities soon enough. And who knows? Maybe after she comes home and takes it back you’ll actually have an excuse to come to my house. I’ll have to start making sure it’s clean more often. 🙂

  2. Ah, but can I get it serviced in Kuala Lumpur, and will it interface with my colleagues’ software? Pertinent and largely unknowable questions? I’m leaning toward the Toshiba for these reasons.

  3. Ok, so I’m dying to meet my nephew when you guys finally drag your butts back this way. But could you bring the Wii along as well? I’ve never had the chance to play one before.

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