I was behind on my dasBlog version. I had been running v1.8, now I'm up to v2.1. Not sure what they've changed, but it's been quite a while and there were known issues with the old code base. In addition I've removed my tweaks to the code and I'm running an "out of the box" version. What's this mean?

The following is gone:

• Integration with my IE right-click extension to make blogging a tiny bit easier (I use FireFox 3 now anyway)
• BBCode for comments (new code allows some HTML)
• My "Power Toys" page (no developers use IE anymore)
• My "What I'm playing" page (no one ever looked at it anyway)
• My "redirect my comment in response to other comment code", you want an answer to your comment? Subscribe to have all comments emailed to you.
• My theme. Now you can select a theme if you want, and I'm only using themes I remotely like
  

What is gone, but may come back:

• Amazon.com "link up a bunch of crap" code
• Google stats code
• MyBlogLog code

So far I like what they've done. Some new bells and whistles here and there. Bunch of stuff fixed. If there is something I've forgotten and you desperately want it, let me know.

Tomatoes tainted with salmonella have sickened dozens of people in nine states, the CDC and FDA warn.

[ Web MD ]

Update: The menace grows:

Now, the CDC reports that at least 167 people in 17 states have been infected with Salmonella Saintpaul, the salmonella strain involved in the current outbreak. Those 17 states are Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin.

[ Web MD ]

You remember that fire we had? Most all traces are gone now. For over a month we had no stove, it just takes a while to communicate and order and install, etc. Today, we are able to cook a full range of items once again. No longer are we stuck with just deep fryer, rice cooker, crock pot, microwave, indoor grill, outdoor gril, toaster, and bread machine. Oddly only the crock pot was purchased during the "stove outage" and even during the stove outage the bread machine didn't surface.

What does this mean? we're back where we were a month ago, and moving forward from this point to get the house ready for "company". Now that we have the space we hope to eventually get some entertaining done, but we're still lacking a bit of furniture in order to finish off the unpacking.

What does this mean more immediately? Fried foods are back! Fried rice, fried eggs, sauteed anything, etc. And we sure did miss it.

Also the new hood is much nicer than the old one. Quieter, safer, better all around. If I had known that this particular "economy" model was so cheap I probably would have just bought it anyway, it's that much better.

If you click through to Flickr I'll make some more specific comments like the placement of the replacement salt cellar that was purchased, and perhaps some other bits that I'm sure people are curious about.

This is apparently the month for games announcements made just for me. Not only is Ubi delivering the goods, but look what Konami has in store:

I do love portable Castlevania games

So you just read that Ubi is coming out with Beyond Good and Evil two and said to yourself, what is that? I'm guessing you are one of the many who never played the first game. If you like Zelda or Okami type games, you'll love this one.

PS2	PC	XBox

Apparently the GameCube version is super rare, there isn't even a listing on Amazon for it. If you haven't played this one, do yourself a treat and pick up a copy of what could possibly be my favorite game of all time (or at least until the sequel arrives).

Ubisoft's Ubidays 2008 just rapped up and they have some eye candy for us:

Prince of Persia

Beyond Good & Evil 2

Props to Kooshmoose

If you follow me on-line in various places, you may have noticed the Café Chimp has faded to be replaced by Oriental Bento Colonel Sanders (Kombo 5 on the menu), I love this for so many reasons:

1. This is an actual product sold at KFC in Indonesia
2. Apparently the word "Oriental" isn't offensive to Indonesians. Not sure what it means to them, perhaps just East Asia (China, Korea, and Japan)
3. The Colonel is clearly wearing a Chinese outfit, but "Bento" is a Japanese word
4. It says "Bento" but it is clearly a bowl

What this isn't is Dragon Ball Z's Master Roshi drinking tea (good guess Koosh), but such a wonderful mix of confusion, and I'm glad to see that it isn't just Americans who get mixed up with east Asians and can't tell them apart.

I'm sure I'll get bored of this at some point, but the more people I let in on the fun, the longer I think Oriental Colonel will be around, so enjoy!

I wasn't expecting much, and perhaps that helped. Iman dragged me to this, and I agreed since I didn't figure anyone else would take her, who would have thought that I would like it even more than she did. If you ever enjoyed the old Anime series, you will like this. The Wachowski Bros must either be the biggest Speed Racer fans ever, or they watched the entire series 1/2 dozen times in preparation for this movie. This is not a case of someone taking IP and stripping away what the fans are looking for only to replace it with something that barely has the name of the original and nothing left with any redeeming qualities. This is THE Speed Racer movie, and if you are a fan you will not be disappointed. However if you are over 13 and have never seen the original Anime series? Skip this one, you certainly won't appreciate anything except the pretty colors, fast action, and surprisingly good acting.

I'm not much for the music games. Usually they involve color, which I'm not good at, and a particular hand-eye coordination that doesn't seem to come naturally to me, but there is one music game that I'm excited about:

And if the chimp comes with it? Count me in!

WiiWare: Lost Winds Nintendo Wii Nintendo Everyone B

Nintendo has launched "WiiWare", which is essentially XBox Live Arcade for the Wii. Sure the Wii had it's Virtual Console but WiiWare is all new content designed for the Wii to be purchased and downloaded. WiiWare currently runs from $5-$15 and requires "Points" to be purchased either from the store or using cards. The first WiiWare title I have purchased, and likely the only one in the initial line-up, is LostWinds.

First of all, keep in mind that this is a $10 title, therefore the fact it only took 3 1/2 hours to play isn't so bad. The game is super cute, though missing a map of any sort even though I thought we all realized how important a map can be. You befriend a "wind spirit" and then go on a quest to discover what happened to "the evil guy", along the way you learn new tricks which are required to go more and more places. Everything is very standard to a platformer, though the controls are new, in order to jump you need the help of the wind which is controlled by the Wiimote.

I won't give away the end, but as I expect will be common in WiiWare titles the fact that a sequel is coming is pretty evident by the "To be continued...", and since WiiWare lends itself to episodic content, if I pay $40 for 4 mini games at 3 1/2 hours each, that is about on-par with what is expected out of quality games these days.