Long-time readers of this space are probably aware of my general cynicism toward broadcast media, mostly to do with the fact that the “news” isn’t really much about disseminating useful information than about selling advertising slots, and with vast swaths of the american public, the most effective ways of raising ratings (to get eyeballs on [...]

According to Sony at E3, it appears that we PS3 owners will finally be able to get our hands on Gran Turismo 5 on November 2, 2010. Of course, there have been release dates before, and they’ve come and gone. I’m hoping this one sticks. Prologue felt half finished, and while I had lots of [...]

As I’d mentioned previously, and did a bit of twittering about in theater, the family spent the weekend at ravencon, which politely decided to set itself up about 20 minutes from my front door this year. This was the first year doing the whole weekend (last year, we did a spur-of-the-moment Friday night drop-in), so [...]

The whole household is terribly excited about this weekend’s RavenCon coming to town; three days of hanging out with like-minded science fiction and fantasy fans, playing games, meeting authors and creators, and generally discovering new things to get excited about. This morning I got the email confirming our registration, and late last week the schedule [...]

…stop intruding on my breakfast!: “Hop, step, jump-jump, poo! Let us cooperate yeah-yeah-woo! Magical spell is Ei-Ei-Poo!” …and give me back my caps!

…because, well, according to my PS3 this afternoon, it’s 12/31/1999. It seems there’s a glitch out there that’s causing early-gen “fat” PS3s to go a little wacky today. Something to do with the clock/calendar chip, causing problems connecting to the playstation network and in some cases, corrupting downloaded content and trophy records. So far, it [...]

For the first and probably only time ever, Doctor Phil gives me a reason to think that he’s not a complete tool: He scolded a mom for her intrusive addiction to the tedious and obnoxious facebook game Farmville. Video game addiction is a very real problem when it gets in the way of real life. [...]

A company in Michigan who builds rifle sights for the US military is drawing attention for including references to Bible verses in their serial numbers. Unsurprisingly, some people have problems with this, citing issues of church vs. state separation and the poor image presented by US (and, apparently UK) troops using weapons inscribed with Christian [...]

Lots snow, at least for Virginia, this weekend. No worries, really, given some last minute scheduling changes, we didn’t have to be anywhere. This was fine since a couple of us were kind of sidelined with nagging colds. Much sledding and driveway shovelling was done, many fresh-baked cookies and bowls of homemade chicken corn soup [...]

I took a long weekend away from the biggest part of the grind; didn’t go much anywhere (except for a little shopping and into the city for a few hours with the eldest for dance class), and spent the time getting some chores done, reading some books, and playing some games. I almost feel rejuvinated, [...]