The iPod

Last week I bought an iPod. I bought one of those 80-gig iPod classics that has the video screen and all that good regular iPod stuff. Back inthe day I was a skeptic of apple products because back they were too expensive. I was a PC guy, who regularly rebuilt his PC and took pride in incrementally keeping his machine on the cutting edge. Recently, my lack of fandom has been due to their concern for "coolness" and lack of concern for a quality product (or at least any major technical progress). Slap a phone transmitter in a touch iPod and sell it for $600, fine, but where is the crazy progress?!? And shame on all of you who are upset that the iPhone dropped $200 in price mere months after its release. This trend has always been present, I remember paying $2400 for a 486 100 MHz machine in 94, and then getting a PII 333 MHz machine in 1998 for $650. If you want to be an early adopter, that's great and your are a necessary market, but understand the cycle from early adopter to mainstream is no longer in years, it is in months and possibly days. But I digress...

I am a podcast addict and it has become a scarry thing. I will download and listen to anything, so long as it is a podcast. Could be two dudes in their garage talking about WoW, or BBC World News, or NPR Fresh Air, or the Penny Arcade guys, it doesn't matter. My favorites thus far are the G4 podcasts: daily feed, around the net, AOTS, and fresh ink. I have also become a huge fan of the DC Comics podcasts and a podcast called Comic Geek Speak. For any of you comic book fans out there, CGS is very, very good at giving overviews and insight to universe books like Countdown in DC and hipping you to new things (which will be a post after this one). I have also found some brewing podcasts that are amazing, with the exception that some contain more ads than actual podcast.

I have also had the pleasure of downloading some albums from the itunes store. The itunes store has proven to be a savior for me. I have spent the last 3 years looking for a vinyl called 'Farmer's Market' by Art Farmer. Not only did itunes have it for $6.17 in mp3 format, but they had two other Art Farmer albums that I believed to be vinyl only with no CD re-issues. That makes me an itunes store fan...or at least put me on the path until this happened. itunes store had Maynard Ferguson's 'Blues Roar'!!! Seriously, the Blues Roar in it's glory. Although I know this was re-issued on CD it is impossible to find. My mint condition 1st pressing vinyl is on my wall in my apartment, framed and the main attraction of my Maynard Ferguson vinyl collection, and of the future "Eric Newgard's Maynard Mania Museum". When I can go online and buy albums in mp3 format that I can't get anywhere but on vinyl, I will use your service and I will preach your greatness to my friends and enemies.

Damn you Steve Jobs for your cunning manipulation of my vinyl to mp3 obsession and my love of good tunes that I must have at my disposal all the time.

Full Throttles, the Whizbanger of a New Millenium

I have recently become a huge fan of the energy drinks known as full throttle. I would like to claim that I discovered this magnificence by myself, but I did not; I owe my beverage evolution to my friend "The Krippler". Through my 'training' in the TCG arena he has poured full throttle down his throat to the point that I had to see what this beverage is all about. Any of you that know me well know that I cannot resist trying something new. When the release Clamato Budweiser I try it (even though I despise tomato juice). This said I ventured forth towards full throttle.

I started with the regular flavor, which although bright green reminded me of ecto-cooler (yeah, you know what I'm talking about bitches) with a sour punch. Not only that it gives you an energy kick. I'm not sure if the boost is from taurine, ginseng extract, carnitine, and guarana extract or if it's the shit-ton of caffeine, but it's a hell of a buzz. I once tried two and I thought my circulatory system was going to jump out of my body and challenge Mikey in a marathon while my fat-ass played video games on my lazy boy. Next I tried "the krippler"'s favorite the blue agave full throttle. Now that is a beverage worth blogging about. I can't even describe the flavor combination...it's almost like cotton candy and pineapple juice. I tried the fury flavor and was not a fan. Recently they released a green flavor called Nature is a mother...this flavor, although very pineapple juice flavored, was not a fan favorite (but I like it).

Next I will have to try the other energy drinks, but for now I cannot speak highly enough of full throttle. It's got the kick of coffee without all the heartburn.

Why can't the Redbirds win a game?

We were soooo close, one game out of the NL Central lead and we lose 3-12 to the cubs?!!? The damn cubs that we haven't beaten all season!!!! FUCK!!!

BioShock

Last night I got fed up with Overlord and decided to play BioShock on my XBOX 360. This game is supposedly a contender for game of the year. So I turn off all my lights, turn up the speakers, and start the game. Immediately, the world is freaking me out and I'm scared that something will jump out at me and kill me. So explore very slowly and very cautiously, only to hear a man and woman fighting a floor below me....which is unnerving to begin with. As I go down stairs, this guy comes charging at me so I lightning bolt him and then shoot him with a revolver. But he's not dead and my hand is shaking so bad that I cannot bludgeon him to death with a monkey wrench before his "wife" realizes something is wrong and comes after me. I find her vigilance and violence so disturbing that I miss with the lightning bolt and then shoot 10 rounds from my revolver (every single shot missed) and she beats me to death with a monkey wrench....how ironic.

If this is the future of video games, I am a fan. Yes, I was scared shitless...but while I know I was playing a video game I was so emersed in the game that I was concerned for my own safety. Of course I will always have affection for games like blue dragon, rune factory, eternal sonata...that well animated, cutesy but deep, RPG where the villians, although evil, are drawn such that I don't get completely sucked in, but BioShock and games like it will be a treat from this day forward. The bar has been set, let's hope it doesn't take several years for another tasty treat.

PS--I haven't decided if I want to play anymore BioShock...I'm definately not playing at night anymore.

The Brunello

For those of you who know me well, you know I work at a liquor/wine store part time. You also know that I am working on a PhD in fuel ethanol and that I run a home brewery that rivals most commercial breweries. To say that I am a connoisseur would probably be an understatement as would aficionado...but I am a great appreciator. Yesterday I acquired my first "expensive" or "cellar" bottle of wine. A 2001 Siro Pacenti Brunello di Montecino and absolutely fantastic wine that will be absolutely more fantastic when I drink it sometime after 2013. So what, you say? Let me remind you of this... The 2001 Brunello's point no lower than 97 in wine spectator, they even have one that was a 100 pointer...that's not perfection, but it is a classic. In addition, these wines are worth $150 plus today and will only appreciate in value as they mature. I have now left the boys and joined the men....now I just need to find a good wine cooler.

XBOX 360 Elite

I got a fellowship for the year and I decided to reward myself with an XBOX 360 Elite. Let me say that I already own a Wii and a Nintendo DS and that I was a huge Play Station fan; hence, I was a slightlyl hesitant about spending $500 on an XBOX 360 when I didn't really care for the regular XBOX's bulky controller. However, with PS3 having almost no interesting games for another year and XBOX 360 having many, many games I decided to pull the trigger. I didn't know what to expect not being that familiar with the xbox gamer mentality and the style of games on the system. The Wii is all fun, family oriented games that I truly appreciate on a 12 year-old mentality. The same can be said for the DS. The XBOX 360 has more of an edgy attitude and I will admit that I am blown away by the XBOX 360 (time for tats, smokes and whisky...no more pink frosted cupcakes).

The most amazing feature to me was a feature that was not even touted on the packaging. If you install the Zune player on your PC it will detect all your music, pictures, and videos and then stream them via your network to the XBOX 360 and play them over your home theater system. For someone who has been trying to bridge the gap from PC to home theater system this is a simple and supprising feature.

My second favorite part is game demos from XBOX marketplace. I like to play many different games and I hate the burn from spending $50 on a game that I think looks cool and then sucks. Now I can play all the big name games before launch and make my purchasing decisions with confidence. For example, I would have never contemplated purchasing Eternal Sonata (a game based on a drug induced dream/trip of Fredrich Chopin) without playing the demo. The graphics and game play of ES are astounding and I have high hopes for the game.

The first game I bought was Overlord and it is fantastic. Set in a Tolkein-esque world and you are Sauron trying to reclaim your dark empire. I should put up a formal review in a week, upon beating the game. I will say right now that achievement points are blowing my mind too...talk about addicting.

Darkmoon Faire, The Preparation

This weekend I shall be attending my first gaming convention in Chicago (actually, Schaumberg) with some of my Nebraska buddies: Darkmoon Faire for the World of Warcraft TCG. I am hoping to score some cool swag and maybe win a game with my combat rogue deck, and maybe swing a bit with my retribution paladin. Also, some sealed action sounds fun. Most importantly, I'm going to show these Nebraskans the glory of Chicago deep dish pizza, since people in NE have no idea what pizza should look like, let alone taste like.

I'm a baaaad Panda

I don't post enough, and I don't have regular readers...I apologize to the world for the void space of my blog. I vow to change this.

-E