Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

I hope you’re all having a great time with family and friends.  Kate and I are spending time in Iowa City seeing both of our families and friends.  Lots of fun!

-Bob

I Want a Wii! Or, How I Lost my Patience and Bought an XBox 360

Title pretty much explains it all!

I’ve been super-pumped for the Wii but it has been nigh impossible to find one in the greater Boston area without tracking shipments and waiting in line for four hours before a store opens. I’ve tried to get a Wii a bunch of times now, but without any luck. My latest attempt was a couple weeks ago when I went to Circuit City three hours before the store was to open on a cold Sunday morning. A website that is supposedly accurate with shipments said that there would be 60 consoles available. I was 54 or 55th in line. Turns out they only had 43 consoles and I missed by about 8 spots (some people were in line with friends who didn’t buy a Wii) and I was out of luck. I went so far as to contact some Craig’s List sellers selling bundles (hoping to return the games) but didn’t get a response from most of them or got treated like dirt. Nice salesmanship, jerkfaces (notice the toned down insult). I didn’t get a Wii.

It has been funny that I’ve had the option to buy both the 60GB and 20GB PS3s but have passed every time I have had the opportunity. That console is really not doing much for me right now. Even eBay prices have gone way down from the astronomical 4-figure prices realized just after launch to some consoles actually selling for less than retail. Hot system you have there Sony!

So amid all the Wii frustration, I came to the realization that I’m not all that excited to play Zelda: Twilight Princess, the one must have game for Nintendo’s baby. Some of the mini-game collections, like Rayman: Raving Rabbids, look like tons of fun to play but I don’t know if it’s worth $50 let alone all the bloody stress or extra cash needed to get the console. All the while, in the background, I keep hearing talk of Gears of War, the must have shooter for the 360. The more I hear about it, the more I want to play. And then comes the bombshell – Microcenter is offering a $100 rebate on new XBox 360 systems. And then I find a coupon for free XBox Live Arcade games and then I hear KMart is putting some XBox Live subscriptions on clearance for about half off.

So I broke and gave in to the Microsoft. I’m now a proud owner of an XBox 360. I’m still super pumped about the Wii but only have so many gaming dollars and gaming hours so I’ll be putting off my purchase until the system is readily available after a price drop. Maybe next Christmas time!

-Bob

Studio 60 – Yeah!Boo!Meh…

I finally caught last week’s Studio 60 episode over the weekend it was probably my favorite episode of the show so far.  I really don’t know what to think of this show.  Some episodes like this past one, the pilot, and “The West Coast Delay” work extremely well do to quick pacing, witty banter, and clever plot development.  Other episodes fail miserably because of horribly heavyhanded storytelling.  I never realized there was such a bad reaction to “Christians” and Sorkin shoving it down my throat doesn’t make me believe it.  “Nevada Day” Parts 1 and 2 were probably the worst episodes of the series because of incredibly stupid plotting and cookiecutter characters.  Does everyone in this world have to have a heart of gold or be pure evil?  How about some shades of grey?  How about some more witty banter and less father being mad at his son in comedy?

But still, when this show works, it really works and lately it’s been working really well.  There’s a break for the holidays and then the show’s back.  As long as we keep the sentimentality to a minimum, I’ll keep tuning in.

-Bob

Welcome!

Welcome to Bob’s Wacky Thoughts version 1.2 with the new leaner and meaner (longer and geakier) title of Bob’s Pseudo-Random Meanderings! Though my dastardly absence says otherwise, I really appreciate all the comments wondering about my whereabouts these last four odd months. I’m just weird and selfish I guess. I get in phases where I’m all into something and then the next day I’m totally immersed in another project and then feel so ashamed about ditching the first one that I run away as to hide my lack of work on it from myself. Probably nothing a good bit of psycho-analysis and old fashioned Ridalin couldn’t take care of but I’ll probably continue with the old-old fashioned technique of just sucking it all up.

So what else is new? I’m as busy at work as ever and am currently tackling three projects. I’m really enjoying pieces of each of them so I’m at a normal level of chicken-ladyness. The Kate’s keeping a dreadful schedule with her full time teaching job in addition to taking graduate classes at Cambridge College for her teaching masters degree. Classes are winding down now but during October and November, she’d be teaching from 8:30-3:30 and then be a student until 10pm. AND she had to find a place to park in Cambridge when going to class which is about the worst thing I can think of. She also has been busy doing homework so the poor lady’s been quite tired.

And I’m looking to go back to grad school now. Woowee. I just about have all my applications finished and then it’s the long, nervewracking wait until April until I find out where I can go. I’m hoping to stay in the Boston area because Kate has to do a practicum in the fall of 2007 here to finish up her degree. I don’t think I could live with myself after dragging her out to the big city where she needs a masters degree to teach and watching her take all the classes just to leave a semester before all her work will actually pay off. Maybe credits could transfer somewhere else but she’d still have to do some more work so it may be better to just finish things off here. So my top program is still at the MIT Media Lab and I’m really hoping I get in but I have received a delayed admittance from last year to University of Connecticut, which has a very strong 3D display research group. I’m also looking at Boston University which has some research in the display arena and has a very strong optics center. Steve may appreciate this: Saleh & Teich, the authors of the electro-optics textbook, teach there.

Kate and I moved from our old apartment in Somerville (just north of Boston) to Watertown (just west) in August. We have a lot more space here and also have a lot fewer miscreants about. The commute is a lot better as well, being a consistent 20 minutes for me (as opposed to 30-90) and 30 for Kate (as opposed to 45-60). The consistency is the really nice thing for me. I couldn’t stand finding a random traffic jam and being stuck for over an hour. I think the longest its taken me from the new place is about 25 minutes and there was an accident.

Well, my mother recently got proficient enough with the internets to do a search and found this blog.  Needless to say, she was less than impressed with my, ahem, command of certain four letter words.  For the sake of posterity I won’t go back and edit my posts, but I’ll also be spending much less time developing colorful phrases to describe my thoughts about DVD re-releasing.  Yeah, I’ll probably still think these things up, so if you’re reading this Mr. Rumsfeld, there’s no need to do another investigation when a big grin appears seemingly randomly on my face.  You know what I’m thinking.

So there ya go. Welcome to the new Bob’s PSRM and count on me posting regularly… for at least this next week…

-Bob