Whiskers on kittens…and other favorite things

I have a pretty cushy job.  I basically surf the Web all day long.  And it’s not work related stuff, either.  Well, some of it is, but most of it is just for shits and giggles.

In my days, I’ve come across some really good sites that are pretty much daily visits for me.  I think that, from time to time, I’ll list out some of the cool ones I come across.  Who knows?  I may just do some good in this world.  Or I’ll just take up space with more useless blog posts.  Either way…

1.  Engadget.com – Engadget is, as you can probably guess from the address, a gadget related web site.  They cover a wide range of gadgets and a wide range of tech events throughout the year.  If you want live-blogging of any one of Steve Jobs’ addresses, they do it.  If you want some preview of a prototype SLR digital camera, they’ve got you covered.  Engadget is one of the biggest gadget sites on the Internet, and honestly, if you’re only finding out about it by reading my blog, you’re a sad individual and I will pray for you.

Steve Jobs is disgusted by everyone (WALL-E review)

I saw the new Pixar movie, WALL-E, this weekend.  While I’m not going to piss my pants like all the fanboy idiots are doing right now on various forum sites, I did think it was a decent, if not slightly hypocritical, movie.

****************WARNING:  SPOILERS BELOW****************

Open letter to all software developers

Dear software developers of the world,

First of all, thank you.  Thank you for taking the time to learn a skill that can be difficult, confusing, and time-consuming.  Thank you for producing some truly great and productive software so that the rest of us can function.  Thank you for taking user requests under advisement and incorporating some of those requested features into upgrades.  Thank you for bug fixes, security patches, and testing.  Thank you.

Now, I also have a complaint, as you have probably already guessed.  It’s not a big one, but it annoys the ever-loving piss out of me.  Please, for the love of all that is good and righteous in this world, stop making your own damn GUI interfaces!  Please stick to the windowing GUI conventions of the operating system that you’re coding for.  Stop making tricked-out borders and close/maximize buttons.  Don’t do what Apple did with iTunes for Windows.  Don’t try to force what looks like a cool window to you onto the general population.  All you do is piss me off and make it so that I look for someone else’s software that isn’t a fucking eye-sore.  I’m looking right at you, X-Fire.  And you, too, Rhapsody.  And you, Apple.  Cut it out!  If I wanted my programs in Windows XP to look like Mac OS X programs, I’d just buy a damn Mac and run Mac programs!  Throwing reflective eye-candy onto your window borders is distracting.  You know why?  Because the window is just a container for the actual application.  It shouldn’t distract the user interfacing with your software.  But when you have glowing buttons, hover effects, reflective and/or translucent borders, it’s fucking distracting.

Possible iPhone in my future

Now that Apple has released the iPhone 3G, I’m seriously considering getting it.  I wasn’t even tempted to get the first gen iPhone because of all the features it was missing and because of multiple problems with the platform.

First of all, I was ticked off at the lack of GPS and 3G support.  How could Apple honestly call a phone “revolutionary” when it was using technology that was outdated before the iPhone even came on the market? I mean, the UI may have been a major leap forward considering the only other smartphones out there were Windows Mobile, Palm, Blackberry, or some Symbian offshoot, all of which have UI’s that didn’t really take good advantage of small screens.  But the actual hardware was old before the phone hit store shelves.

LEGO games I’d like to see

So I just finished playing LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures on my Xbox 360.  Pretty good game.  I love the whole LEGO style that Traveller’s Tales has incorporated into it’s games.  I really enjoyed both of the Star Wars LEGO games.  And with the upcoming release of LEGO Batman, it looks like my appetite for awesome LEGO games will be satiated.

However, when I finished Indiana Jones, it got me thinking about what other great movie franchises or TV shows or comic books could be made into LEGO games.  Seeing as how everyone on the damn Internet is making top ten lists in their blogs to get on Digg, I came up with a list of some of my favorite choices for future games.