Meet Eleanor

Posted on February 28, 2010 by Nicole

Hello. You have not yet been formally introduced with our cockatiel, Ms. Eleanor Rigby-Lamb Bloodwing. She is approximately a year old and we’ve had her for about 20 days now. I like to refer to her as my baby, since Joshua doesn’t seem to like her.

Reasons why she’s better than any other bird:

She’s quiet.

She talks to herself, and her chirp is cute.

She’s beautiful and she knows it – she will stare at herself for hours in front of a mirror.

She snuggles with towels and blankets.

She gives me kisses.

She dances.

Just thought I’d inform you officially of the newest geek living in the Geekspodcast household!

Returning to Magic: The Gathering…

Posted on February 27, 2010 by Joshua

Was not by choice. Not at all. As a matter of fact, the entire idea of playing Magic again spurred from my friend, Jon, who’s having a TCG weekend at his house starting today. In preparation, he swung by to pick up Nicole and I last night to hit up The Guard Tower to pick up supplies (boosters, counters, etc.). I was staunchly opposed to this, but the promise of Cane’s chicken and Nicole’s rabid desire to buy more Pokemon cards made it difficult to ignore.

So what happened? Well, the picture pretty much says it all. I ended up buying a pre-made black and a few boosters to expand what is a fairly meager collection compared to Jon’s and decided to build a black deck for the first time (I’ve always been partial to the trickery and conservation afforded by blue). It was primarily steeped in vampirism, but it was great fun to play.To make matters worse I woke up this morning and began compulsively re-organizing all of my cards and optimally building my black and blue decks in anticipation for tonight and Nicole’s already hitting me up about going out to get more cards.

So thanks Jon. Thank you for unapologetically dragging me back down into that foulness which I narrowly escaped only a few short years ago and know this: My Butcher of Malakir is going to put his foot in your ass tonight.

iPhone Safari Alternative : VanillaSurf

Posted on February 25, 2010 by Joshua

I just wanted to share this as I ran across it yesterday. I never gave much thought to an alternative browser on the iPhone. Safari’s kind of right there and it just never occurred to me how unhappy I was with it. But then a few things came to mind. Things like:

There’s no tabbed browsing
When switching between open windows the entire page will annoyingly refresh, even if you don’t want it to
There’s no way to download files and store them on the iPhone

Incredibly, it turns out there’s been a an App Store approved browser, Vanilla Surf (iTunes link) that boasts all of these features and more such as:

Full-screen browsing
De-activate loading of pictures
Ad-blocker

I’ve only spent a little bit of time with it so far, but it seems like a winner. I will say I did have it crash on me once, but that may be due to my iPhone being jailbroken and eating up more memory than it ought to rather than a problem with the app. My understanding is that all 3rd party browsers in the App Store are required to be built upon the Safari framework, but with a boatload of features that probably should have been in Safari, it’s easy to recommend Vanilla Surf so far. I mean, we no longer have to be forced to use an operating system’s browser on a PC, so why should we tolerate it on a mobile platform? So enjoy your tab-switching, non-forced-refreshy goodness!

Tabbing Through Forms in OS X

Posted on February 21, 2010 by Joshua

For all of you switchers out there or if you’re just new to OS X environment entirely. You may have run into a pesky problem when using tab to navigate through forms as you’ll notice OS X, by default, will only tab to text fields and list boxes. This is fairly retarded as it forces you to reach for the mouse over and over again if you’re navigating a large number of UI elements. So, in an effort to keep you informed and hopefully keep you from smashing your skull into the keyboard frustratedly, below are the steps needed to enable tabbing between all controls and not just text fields and list boxes.

1. Go to System Preferences -> Keyboard

2. Make sure that the All Controls radiobox is checked (which, again you can’t tab to until this is turned on) under the ‘Full Keyboard Access: In windows and dialogs, press Tab to move keyboard focus between:‘ section.

Why, you’ll be a tabbing fool with this little tidbit! So go on, go file your taxes or something and make sure you think of me in gratitude every time you don’t have to reach for the mouse.

Bioshock 2 Burrito Challenge

Posted on February 20, 2010 by Joshua

I’m going to break down the following sequence of events in time line format. You see, my friend, Jacob, claimed I could finish Bioshock 2 on hard with vita-chambers turned off by noon the next day. What followed was one man’s epic battle against machine.

10:00 PM, Friday – Nicole and a group of our friends go out for dinner and subsequent bowling happiness. While dinner was most delicious, to our dismay, the wait time for bowling is over an hour. This is unacceptable. To satisfy our insatiable lust for parlor games and booze we hit a local pool hall.

11:30 PM, Friday – It turns out Karaoke is in full effect, prompting Nicole to sing ‘Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked’ and ‘Suddenly I See’.

11:45 PM, Friday – In a drunken stupor, I explain to Jake, that I can’t stop thinking about Bioshock 2. I then go on to boast that I’ll probably beat it later on in the night. Jake cordially calls bullsh*t, and claims that the manner in which I’m playing (hard difficulty, vita chambers off) combined with my being relatively early in the game makes that impossible. I then demand retribution and Jake (being the gentleman that he is) promises to buy me a burrito from Chipotle should I man up and complete the game by noon the next day. I drink something with a vaguely grape-ish flavor as my vision blurs further and tell him the game is on!

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Geekend Updates – February 19th, 2010

Posted on February 19, 2010 by Joshua

Games

Steve Wiebe is the new King of Kong (Jr.) – via RetroGamer.net

World of Warcraft Plushies: On the Wings of Cuteness – via Kotaku

Goldeneye 64 Multiplayer Maps Coming to Perfect Dark XBLA – via Destructoid

Plants vs. Zombies hits the iPhone – via TUAW

Fable III Press Release – via Lionhead Studios

Dear Videogame Industry, Please Stop Making Games – via GameSpy

Technology

30 Useful (And Unknown) Web Apps You Need to Bookmark – via Maximum PC

Google Goggles to Translate Text in Photos – via Mashable

Windows Phone 7 Interface: Microsoft has Out-Appled Apple – via Gizmodo

WordPress for Android Writes and Edits Posts on the Go – via Lifehacker

Productivity

Color Theory for Designers, Part 1: The Meaning of Color – via Smashing Magazine

Top 10 Tools for Finding Cool Stuff Nearby – via Lifehacker

Miscellaneous Geekery

Finalily!: New and Improved Ketchup Packets – via Geekologie

Pass the Butter: Giant Crab is Giant! – via Geekologie

I Think R.L. Stine is Phoning it in – via Collegehumor

5 Reasons you Should be Scared of Apple – via Cracked

Connected Life Sucks – via Newz on Fire

Heavy Rain Demo Impressions

Posted on February 18, 2010 by Joshua

Today I downloaded the Heavy Rain demo for PS3 and figured I’d finally take a peak at Quantic Dream’s next outing. the download took a bit and the install took around 20 minutes or so, but after the wait I was immediately plunged into a portion of what will be a very, very immersive environment. Heavy Rain is the story of a fictional serial murderer, the Origami Killer. 4 strangers come together in this dark mystery, their stories intermingling with one another as you decide their fate through a myriad of forks in the plot. Playing less like a conventional game and more like a choose your own adventure book, I was familiar with this type of game after much enjoying QD’s previous outing, Indigo Prophecy.

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The Rise and Fall of Duke Nukem

Posted on February 17, 2010 by Joshua

Wired had an excellent article a while back that I’d been meaning to post chronicling the now vaporware that is Duke Nukem Forever. Yes, I know that the game’s release has been a running joke, but some of you have been ferociously dedicated. Now that 3D Realms has closed its doors, all that’s left (besides an IP power struggle) is the rich history of a smash-hit development outfit and their rise to super-stardom before a sea of design changes and a few rousing years of engine hopscotch brought it to its knees. It’s a great read and you can check it out here.

BioShock vs. BioShock 2: What’s Missing?

Posted on February 15, 2010 by Nicole

Wha… what’s missing?! But it has multiplayer, plasmid/weapon dual-wielding, new enemies, a sweeter hacking system and you’re a Big Daddy! If you’re thinking these things, you’re completely right. To be fair, I haven’t even finished BioShock 2 yet (my excuse is I’m playing on hard without Vita-Chambers), and I hear the story towards the end will totally sweep me off my feet. But is it just me, or are there a certain hollowness to the game? Read on plz, but THERE MAY BE SPOILERS.