I've always been a bit fascinated with airplane food. I think most who know me would say I'm a bit preoccupied with food in general, but airplane food is particularly interesting, and I have no idea why. At least now I know that I am not alone:

Last update Fri.17 Dec. 15:35 CET
Next update: Saturday
10,681 images / 436 airlines

[ Airline Meals ]

And I'm sure that Yaty would want me to point out this from their FAQ:

Who serves the best meals?

Any airline with a BusinessClass / FirstClass has good stuff! Though (judging from the images and their comments I've seen on the website) I would say Asian airlines get the best results... Singapore Airlines, JAL Japan Airlnes[sic], Cathay Pacific, Thai Airways International, Emirates... they're all top notch.

It's a brave new world for advertisers. As movies and games and in the future all sorts of products start to rethink how they generate press, and create exciting new ways of getting their name out, I can see that we're all in for a treat. Why pay for crappy TV spots with weak jingles, when you can create entire on-line games, or spoof sites, or both?

Most in the gaming community are quite familiar with Halo2's I Love Bees website. An interactive fiction/game based on the Halo/Halo2 story that helps to link the two. It unfolded over the summer of 2004 up until the launch date. Pretty cool I think, though I didn't have the time to get into it fully, especially since I haven't played Halo and wouldn't catch most of the references.

Here's my issue. What's the point of making this sort of experience and then not getting the word out to those who might enjoy it? Nintendo (apparently) tried the same thing with Metroid Prime 2: Echos, but I didn't hear about it until the entire thing was completed. Apparently something's going on at Channel 51 (with follow up changes to site), even channel 51's sponsors Orbis Labs and Athena Astronautics seem to be in on the joke. Though I think AA is up to something as detailed on the Blogger journal “Athena Astronautics Journal”. Since I've only discovered it now, it loses a bit of it's play-acting finesse, but it still seems to be quality. Next time Nintendo, be sneakier, OK?

And the quick-and-dirty I Love Knees website is quite funny too.

Version Four of their Web Service, and still none work with VisualStudio smoothly.

After a bit of research I came across this helpful post on the official Amazon.com Web Services discussion board which explains how to fix the issues I was having

[ Amazon Web Services and .NET ]

Can't Microsoft just send them a copy for them to test with?

Anyone have a subscription to Rhapsody? I thought I should check it out, but the first step already has stumped me. If you do, or did, and have an opinion, I'd love to hear it.

RHAPSODY
All Access

$9.95/month
7-Day FREE Trial

Get access to everything we've got. Over 20,000 albums from more than 9,000 artists in every imaginable genre. Rock, hip-hop, R&B, country, jazz, classical...major label and indie...it's all in here. Want to listen to complete albums and create your own playlists? Want to build a library of your favorite music? Subscribing to All Access is like having a music megastore at your fingertips for less than the price of a CD.

• Play what you want, when you want, without limits
• Includes a subscription to Radio PLUS (see below)
• Burn your own CDs - just $.79 per track

RHAPSODY
Radio PLUS

$4.95/month
7-Day FREE Trial

The ultimate Internet radio. Get access to over 50 professionally programmed radio stations in a wide variety of genres. Create custom stations based on your favorite artists. Listen in CD-quality sound. Skip the tracks you don't like. Want to listen to your favorites while we introduce you to great new music? Want to take control of your radio? Radio PLUS is for you.

[ RHAPSODY's Catalogs - The Best Music On The Web ]

And when you go to order, they tell you the pricing of the quarterly plans: $24.95 for All Access and $9.90 for Radio Plus, making the choice even more difficult.

I've now GameFlyed Prince of Persia: Warrior Within on 2 platforms (PS2 and GameCube) and I don't understand how this happened:

“Prince of Persia: Warrior Within is already one of the most critically acclaimed games this year,” said Ubisoft vice president of marketing Tony Kee, referring to the game’s outstanding review scores from PSM Magazine (10 out of 10) and Official Xbox Magazine (9.6 out of 10).

[ Ubisoft - Prince of Persia: Warrior Within™ Available In Stores Today ]

PoP: Sands of Time was very unique, we hadn't seen much like it since Ico which hadn't sold nearly as well as it should have. PoP: Warrior Within might have been fine if it had offered more of the same, but somehow Ubi seems to have made it worse. Worse you say? But this is the “most critically acclaimed blah blah blah”. That's where I'm lost.

PoP: WW has issues, but first lets go over what's better. The new fighting system is much more flexible than in the first game. This is where Warrior Within really shines. It makes the combat a lot more enjoyable. However who is playing this game for the combat anyway? The puzzles seem to have been kicked up a notch, but in many cases I was halfway through solving a puzzle when I realized that I was in a puzzle that needed solving. There are new characters, which is fun, and the cinematic sequences are nice, perhaps not as nice as PoP:SoT.

Yes, those were the better points, not so impressive eh? Now what's gotten worse? The story so far (I say so far because I'm only a couple hours into the game) has been beaten into our heads. I hazard a guess that the story isn't going to be all that complex, so it's best to repeat things over and over and over. The video on the PS2 version had some issues where glitches would show up, especially when the CPU seemed a bit taxed. I've already run into 2 rendering issues on the GameCube version, one where a bird somehow became invisible (they aren't supposed to do that) and another where I was impaled on my enemy's sword, yet she had performed a completely different move. And, worst of all, on the GameCube one sequence where I was learning all about some nonsense the voice audio dropped out completely (and I swear right before that it was rather poorly synced).

Plus, I should mention the save system sucks. It requires far too many “OK” confirmations, and takes too long. Many other games these days have nice auto-save features, or at least quick enough save times. Not only are the saves slow, and require too many confirmations, but the music and video are stopped abruptly during this process yanking you clean out of the game experience, not something I expected from the group that gave us the first PoP on modern consoles. And yes, I have one more complaint, you don't get the ability to rewind time at first, this meant I had to replay some learning screens over and over as, in my haste, I accidentally launched myself off of cliff after cliff after cliff. Each time forcing me to repeat a section, each time making my play sloppier since I was tired of replaying that section. And, when you do regain the power, there is no plot element (that I can sense) that explains why you've regained this power.

I do have one more complaint, but I can't be sure that it is one, and it is a bit of a game spoiler, so I won't mention it here, but suffice to say the Prince claims to have saved someone twice, and I can only count once...

10 out of 10? Doubtful. My copy is turning right around to GameFly. If I make it through the games I have now, I might rent it again. In the meantime I'll wait for the game I really wanted out of Ubi, Beyond Good and Evil II

More unexplainable ratings:

X-Play 5 out of 5
IGN 8.6
GameSpot 8.8

And one that I can get behind:

GameSpy 3 out of 5

Why spend a lot? You already own a GBA, GBA SP, and/or a NDS.

The GBA Movie Player enables you to use your Gameboy Advance™ or Gameboy Advance SP™ to play video and audio files and read e-books from standard Compact Flash™ cards. You can use your PC and a normal Compact Flash card reader to transfer and convert your media files to the Compact Flash cards.

[ lik-sang ]

You'll need some CF cards to port the video to, SanDisk, Lexar, and Kingston all seem to make relatively cheap ones.

There are some issues discussed on Lik-Sang's forums which make this seem like a bit of a pain, but I'm guessing that these represent power users, newbies, idiots, and people helping the aforementioned.

Ab-so-frig-gen-awe-some!

Coming July 2005: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (and trailer)

Dari's come through again...

I'm glad to see my Nintendo selling some product:

Shoppers eager to find the new Nintendo DS can rejoice at least for the time being. Nintendo today announced it will increase total shipments of Nintendo DS to North America by 40 percent, to 1.4 million systems before the end of the year. Due to the systems popularity, many retail stores across the country are reporting shortages, and the initial batch of 500,000 units all but sold out a week after Nintendo DS launched on Nov. 21.

[ Nintendo ]

Of course even this volume doesn't guarantee a success. Better keep the good games coming, big N.

ieHTTPHeaders is an explorer bar for Internet Explorer that will show you the HTTP Headers IE are sending and receiving.

[ blunck.info ]

The easiest way to debug the protocol traffic that surrounds your webpages...

Until we knock down the notion that we are the enemy of Muslims everywhere, our war on terrorism will never end.

[ DallasNews.com | Local Columnists ]

Mr. Blow has a very good point. Those Americans who do feel that they are at war with Islam clearly don't understand the war. Mr. Blow also states:

Then get to know your Muslim neighbors. You have 7 million of them here. Build bridges of understanding. Seek justice. Fight prejudice.

Excellent advice. Some of us are American born and love the US. Some of us came here as an invitation by America or Americans, and you should treat your guests well, no? Others came here fleeing bad conditions or dreaming the American dream. So few Muslims came here with hate, and all of us would prefer if they hadn't.

However he also states:

And that brings me back to a column of a few weeks ago. I expressed my longing to see Muslim Americans rise up in a highly visible repudiation of terrorism – and as a sign to the world that the U.S. isn't hostile to Islam.

I guess that means all of our efforts so far haven't reached his ears. The Council on American-Islamic Relations has put together an online petition with over 600,000 signatures denouncing terrorism with rather strong language:

We, the undersigned Muslims, wish to state clearly that those who commit acts of terror, murder and cruelty in the name of Islam are not only destroying innocent lives, but are also betraying the values of the faith they claim to represent. No injustice done to Muslims can ever justify the massacre of innocent people, and no act of terror will ever serve the cause of Islam. We repudiate and dissociate ourselves from any Muslim group or individual who commits such brutal and un-Islamic acts.

[ Not in the Name of Islam Petition ]

And they've sent out press releases about it, I'm sure to Mr. Blow's paper. Unfortunately I don't have a syndicated newspaper column to use as soap box, I just have a crappy blog. I would love to know if there is a better way to communicate these feelings. If websites don't do it, and petitions don't do it, and press releases don't do it, and rallies don't do it, what will help the American Muslim community to communicate these feelings of disgust for the minority of “Muslims” who feel that the proper thing to do is resort to barbarism?

On October 4th, 2004, we released version 4.0 of the Amazon E-Commerce Service (ECS), previously referred to in beta as AWS 4.0. ECS 4.0 provides unprecedented access to Amazon’s product data and E-Commerce functionality allowing developers, Web site owners and merchants to leverage the data and functionality that Amazon uses to power its own E-Commerce business. It provides access to detailed product and pricing information for all items across all Amazon product categories – this information includes detailed product attributes, product images and customer-supplied content such as reviews, Wish Lists and Listmania lists. In addition, ECS 4.0 provides advanced search, remote shopping cart and enhanced Wish List search capabilities for enhancing and personalizing your Web site or application.

[ Amazon.com ]

I'm a bit put off that I didn't get the memo. I've been irritated with the 3.0 AWS for a while now, my updates frequently get a 530 error, wish lists stopped working so long ago, their entire catalog is old or unavailable through 3.0. Good to see they have the replacement. Bad to see that they didn't send out an email.

Less frequently, men will call women dudes and vice versa. But that comes with some rules, according to self-reporting from students in a 2002 language and gender class included in the paper. "Men report that they use dude with women with whom they are close friends, but not with women with whom they are intimate," according to the study. His students also reported that they were least likely to use the word with parents, bosses and professors.

[ Dude -- professor studies 'dude' ]

I've used it for men, women, children, my Dad, boss. And I'm glad to hear it's staying, because I don't think I could stop myself.

“I'll pound you, you sign.”

[ Henri to # sign ]

Sounds so yummy and innocuous.

Rich chocolate, chocolate chips and milk blended with ice, topped with whipped cream and chocolate drizzle.

[ starbucks beverages ]

Wait, let's check the nutritional information. Seems like some of those numbers are high, so let's check the “unhealthy food standard” that achieves a 1 on the unhealthy food scale, the Big Mac. Ouch.

It is the unprofessional opinion of the davidkearns.com staff that no one should make the Starbucks® Double Chocolate Chip Frappuccino® Blended Creme a daily part of their diet.

I have agents in the field who point out juicy tidbits like this:

Whether black from a bottomless cup or as a Frappuccino mocha skim latte, it's our culture's elixir, coffee . . . In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, Java, Joe or a cup of mud . . . Most of us drink it everyday but few of us know the effects it has on the world's economy or even our own bodies. Also, how do you brew the perfect cup? And, travel with us to the goat hills of Ethiopia to where it all began.

[ To the Best of Our Knowledge ]

Oh, and then I listen to tidbits like this and remember what they say...