I’ve been in the on again phase of Netflix online watching movies through our Xbox 360 Elite and somewhat ironically came across the documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. Those with a Netflix account around the time this is being published should be able to go check it out in the instant viewing. If you don’t have an account, it’s like $9 but to get one and this movie alone is worth the price of a month’s membership. And then you can go and watch a bunch more movies for no more $$. Quite the late Xmas 2009 present for yourself.

Maybe I should couch that a bit by saying you will love this movie if one of the following does not apply:

1. you aren’t portrayed negatively in the film
2. you are a videogame geek who takes gaming way too seriously

Bonus points for loving this film if you, like me, dug hanging out in the arcades in the early 80s and played games like Pac-man and Donkey Kong. The title is no joke, those games could gobble quarters like none other.

King of Kong is a documentary that primarily follows one gamer’s quest, Steve Wiebe, in trying to set the world record for Donkey Kong.  His chief competitor is a guy named Billy Mitchell who is portrayed in the first half of the film as the master of gaming because when he was like 16 he set some extremely impressive high scores at Centipede and Donkey Kong. The much older and presumably wiser Mitchell opines about life and video games and it’s difficult at times to determine where one stops and the other begins. If Mitchell is being serious – which I kind of doubt – he’s every dweeb’s worst nightmare reflection.

Later in the film, Mitchell buys an 80-year old lady a Q-bert machine and sends her to the annual Funcom event where she can compete for the world’s high score live but she also has another mission: take this VHS tape of a new high score Billy has set. Switch back to Steve Wiebe who tries to get Mitchell to meet him for some “friendly competition” at Funcom – but Billy doesn’t show up to play. Wiebe goes on and sets the world record for a live referee event of 985,000 or so. Enter Billy Mitchell’s tape which puts a new wrinkle on the situation. That’s about all I can say about Mitchell and Wiebe in the documentary without ruining it, so I’ll leave them be but the hilarious parts include such classic moments as a gamer stating that he doesn’t drink or smoke or do drugs, but has a far worse addiction in playing video games. And perhaps my favorite part of the movie is where one of the veteran gamers walks around and eagerly tells the other Funcom attendees: “just to let you know we may have a Donkey Kong kill screen coming up.”

Priceless! And if you think I spoiled the documentary, forget about it. Just go and read the intense off screen drama that followed the documentary with posts like this one from Robert Mruczek. But instead of pointing out the obvious that the documentary is also about entertainment, not to be confused with the exact truth of how good or bad these people really are, let me point out this quote from Mruczek about how he has painstakingly analyzed the Donkey Kong footage and sees how a nearly unbeatable Donkey Kong high score could be reached (editor note: I left the spelling errors as written):

I sent BOTH Steve and Bill my completed yet unreleased comparative articles citing their 1.006M and 1.014M performance. I sent them the EXCEL spreadsheets as well. In fact, I spoke with Steve on at least two occassions, and publicly stated as much on the forums, that after watching his performance, it was clear that he had the potential for higher. I also discussed some specifics and analysis from my spreasheet data, and pointed out where the two gamers differed startegically in the various stages. For example, I discussed how in the hammer stage Steve made more points on top than Bill, and this was again the 1.006M vs 1.014M performances. I discussed my logic as to why. I also discussed the pie factory differences and how both players shared the same propensity overall to point press on all stages thru perhaps level 10, then stave off, and then press again once they reached level 17-18. I suggested that eventually, one of them will want to try pressing every step of the way, and whoever can first pull it off…press in every stage successfully and reach stage 115 on the 1st life, then milk three times and go to the kill…that would be a nearly unbeatable record. Bil lwas told same, yet neither player had tried that to date.

I never reached this level of videogaming prowess with Donkey Kong. I think my best score ever is in the 50k range. I’ve done a little better at Pac-Man, but again  … kill screens? Only the Obi-won Kenobi’s can achieve such greatness.  And yes Billy Mitchell is actually compared to Obi-Won in one segment by Twin Galaxies Videogame Referee and budding musician Walter Day. No, I can’t make this up, but I’m chuckling as I write this post. This movie made me laugh out loud. Rotten Tomatoes critics loved it too, giving it 97%. It’s easily in my top three favorite documentaries ever. Grade: A+

The last time we checked in on spammer Alan Ralsky was in October 2005 where I said to let him have his day in court. Well, he did and it didn’t go so well for him – even after he cooperated fully with the prosecution:

Ralsky and Bradley were charged for conspiring to commit wire and mail fraud and violating the CAN-SPAM Act, which criminalizes large, commercial e-mail messages sent using an unauthorized computer or with the intent to hide the e-mail’s original source, according to the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. They were also charged with committing wire fraud and engaging in money laundering

Ralsky’s sentence was 51 months + five years probation while his son-in-law Scott Bradley received 40 months and five years probation too.

During a volunteer gig I was talking with a friend when he suddenly remarked, “You have to see this on TV. A young boy is in this helium balloon at like 6,000 feet and they are trying to figure out how to get him down.” So I turned on the TV and sure enough the news coverage was second by second as the saucer-shaped balloon glided through the air and down gently into a dusty field. Then the helpers frantically pitchforked the edges and piled dirt on the balloon so it didn’t take off, all the time calling out the boy’s name, “Falcon, Falcon, Falcon!”

But Falcon wasn’t inside the balloon. And the rumors start that there might have been a missing piece to the balloon and the boy could have fallen. OMG. Fallen from as high as 8,500 feet in the air. Where was Falcon?

And then it ends in the second worst way possible. Not that Falcon is found dead from the fall inside some homemade balloon container that fell from the sky – that would be the worst — but hiding in his own attic by design.

Add the Serlingesq twist that the mother and father coaxed their own children to lie to authorities and the rest of the world:

In the affidavit sworn out by sheriff’s investigator Robert Heffernan, Mayumi Heene said she and her husband knew all along that their son Falcon, 6, was not on board the balloon but rather hiding in their home, and that the motive for the hoax was to make their family "more marketable for future media interest."

Now comes the blame game phase. For most. Not for me. I got duped by what seemed like a horrific, harrowing tale. April Fool’s in October. Bitter? Nope. A little more jaded about what I see on TV? Absolutely.

Stories like this have contributed to my pulling back from blogging and covering the world at large as much as I have for the last 6+ years. At the end of the day it seems like too many of the supposed big stories in the world are phony. The attention that gets paid to non-events and celebrities who live way past excess is depressing not hmm-inspiring. Or maybe it is and I’m just tired and have needed an extended break to be reminded what really matters in the world.

In case anybody reading is wondering and/or cares, I’m still spending dozens of hours a week volunteering at a local non-profit, charitable organization. It’s not going to gain me something as unimportant in the scheme of life as fame like these foolish parents seemed to have been seeking, but it is warming my heart that I’m doing something good on a local level. That matters in a way that Balloon Boy never could.

Next time a friend calls with something that seems too fantastic to be true, I think I’ll leave the TV screen black.

There aren’t many retail stores I look forward to shopping at these days. Best Buy, despite their faults – and yes, they have several – is a pretty fun store. So I check my email today, of which they don’t bother me at too much thankfully, and they wanted me to sign up for RewardZoneDining.com. I peek around at the offer and see for every $1 spent dining *at participating restaurants I can earn some bonus points in addition to the Reward Zone points already being earned.

Readers will note I bolded and put an asterisk next to the ‘at participating restaurants’ part. Of course it’s not every restaurant because not every restaurant is going to give Best Buy some perks. Also, it’s only on credit cards you enter into the system, which if you already have a Best Buy Reward Zone Mastercard like me, then it’s a no brainer for bonus Reward Zone points.

The program doesn’t stop here, there are various tiers based on just how much you can eat out a year. If you have 11 or more qualified transactions totaling at least $275 in the calendar year, you’ll be considered a VIP Member and earn 3 points per dollar. If you simply give them permission to send you spam, er offers, and have fewer than 11 qualified transactions totaling $275, then you are simply an ‘Online Member’ but earn 2 points per $1 spent.

If any of this is of interest to you or you want to learn more, you can visit the how it works Best Buy Reward Zone Dining page. Hey, maybe it’s not as cool as getting an invite to check out Google Wave, but we can’t all be in the 100,000 invited club.

There comes a time in every software program where upgrades to add new features are a takeaway. I mean it’s like when you are too fat and you need to say no to yet … another … Twinkie.

Now there are marketing urges and developer urges. I’m talking strictly developer urges in this post. I’m not saying that from a marketing standpoint releasing some dolled up new version of your software doesn’t continue to promote your brand because obviously it does. The point is: are you adding features the software really needs or would it be better to make another, different program that incorporates and assists the original program? Or how about adding a plugin structure and regularly offering new plugins? This way those users who really want to tinker with your software every five minutes can do so. Those users who want to run the program so slow that the clock ceases to function correctly can go crazy.

And no, no, no I don’t mean upgrading for the sake of patching security holes or staying current with a new OS. That isn’t an upgrade, that’s essential, responsible patching. If you talk to users who get comfortable using a program with a certain interface, they don’t like it when developers change what they are comfortable using and yet some can’t resist. The guilty parties are scrambling, they know who they are.

There are plenty of examples out there of software which has gone too far with adding new features. AOL comes first to mind. I don’t remember any new version of AOL being that much better than AOL 3.0. In fact one of my first posts at this blog was about AOL’s upgradeitis although I didn’t call it that back then. I’ve written about upgradeitis over the years but it’s like that bad penny that keeps returning.

I think Wordpress, another example, succumbed to upgradeitis roughly two years ago. Sure, the new x.xxx design looks better but enough already on tweaking and tweaking and retweaking the interface. You have a mature plugin structure, why bother? Give it up folks, it’s a freaking blog client, not an old car worth restoring. And all these new tweaks seek to introduce old security problems. A friend’s comparison this morning: “WP is becoming like MS security patches.” So true.

And then there is Word. Good old Word. I think this word processor ceased needing new features somewhere around 1995 and challenge readers to point to an absolute must have feature that Word 95 didn’t have that Word 2007 has. Another friend of mine who has been a professional printer for 20 years was so disgusted with the new ribbon interface in Word that when he got a new computer he downgraded back to Word 2003.

That’s probably a good sign that your software has reached upgradeitis status, BTW: when the downgrading begins. Now let’s make a list since everybody loves lists.

10 signs you should stop upgrading your software  … WHEN …

1. … you think it’s time to change an established interface design
2. … users start downgrading
3. … you think users are bored of your software
4. … you are bored of your software
5. … sales are down
6. … the competition upgrades
7. … you want to add a feature that has little to do with the core function of the program (hint: optional plugin)
8. … the year changes
9. … it’s been too long since the last upgrade (hint: optional plugin)
10. … there is a full moon out

Exceptions abound

There are always exceptions like Turbotax which is a good example of software that needs to continue to be updated. Why? The tax laws are constantly changing. This changes the core function of their program and they must upgrade. But if the tax laws don’t change and they simply want to add new features to an already feature-laden program? Stop already.

Have to give credit to a few good developers out there like Dave Winer who seem to understand there is a lifecycle to software. That it’s neither prudent nor wise to kick a good thing in the eye or keep poking the dead hunting for one more smile.

Over the last couple months I came to the realization that I couldn’t continue intermittently sharing my son’s cell phone. He is going into the Army next month and will need his own phone and with our increased community volunteer work I need a phone of my own. After realizing I could no longer be cell phone free, the next logical decision was: what phone to buy?

I did what most techies do these days and twittered the question: what cell phone would you buy?

The most common response, of course, was the one phone I least wanted to buy: the iPhone. It wasn’t that I disliked Apple or the iPhone – I’ve owned a Mac for several years now and consider myself platform agnostic – plus the iPhone has looked like a sweet gadget from the get go. I also haven’t been swayed by the ditch the iPhone crowd although will admit these are some compelling reasons to stay away. Then again, when others zig, I tend to zag. Just my style. And I like most of Wayne Sutton’s reasons for sticking with the iPhone (question: what are you using for iPhone screenshots?).

My biggest hurdle has been getting over the company Apple partnered with to deliver the service: AT&T. I really, really, really dislike AT&T but realized that was based on too many things to get into that matter any more. Sometimes it’s best to leave the past in, well, the past.

Real world iPhone usefulness

So I kept coming back to the iPhone in my search for a phone which did everything I wanted to do and more:

• be an easy to use phone
• allow me store ample number of contacts
• decent digital camera so that I could stop carrying around two devices
• would store and play a reasonable amount of music in MP3 format (didn’t have to be our entire music libary, but needed to have at least 10GB of our favorite MP3)
• could take place of my aging Pocket PC and store all my online passwords
• GPS that might replace Garmin which needs map updates
• could be that magical *one* gadget to carry (almost) everywhere

It began with us heading off to the Apple store at the Southcenter Mall just south of Seattle. I didn’t even make it into the the Apple store as there was an AT&T kiosk out front that had the white 32GB iPhone 3GS. I bought that and two more touch phones (non iPhones) for our kids. After tax the three phones came to around $525 which doesn’t take into account the two year (gasp) contract we’re now locked into.

Despite salesman pressure to do so, we didn’t cancel our Sprint EVDO card and go with AT&T’s version of that, but canceled all other Sprint business. Interesting sidenote: Sprint wasn’t throwing any significant deals at us to stay. We told them one of our only problems with them was that they refused to replace a broken phone ($150 phone) for us when we had paid for the warranty for two years because they said it wasn’t “accidental damage.” Another reason we don’t have love for any of these cell phone carriers.

So we gave into the AT&T demons and bought an iPhone 3GS. I must say after using the iPhone 3GS the last week or so it’s the most useful phone I’ve ever used. I didn’t buy it to be cool or be the first one on the block with one or anything silly like that.

With that said, there are things about the iPhone 3GS I don’t yet understand how to do or like. The app screen organization is clumsy, for example. I’ll skip making a list as I haven’t owned it long enough to learn if the things I don’t like are my newbieness or actual design flaws.

Oh that glorious app store

Speaking of the app store. Wow, that thing is jammed. There are a bunch of free apps and paid apps. Here are the first two apps I paid for:

• eWallet ($9.99) – this allows me to sync via WiFi with my Windows desktop version of eWallet to manage all the logins and user accounts I keep online. Since I don’t duplicate passwords and use strong passwords where allowed, this application is indispensible
• Trek Keno ($0.99) – hey, Star Trek + Keno, gotta have it

Here’s a few free apps I’ve tried so far:

• Pandora (music) – wow, talk about getting a free radio station of music you like streamed. Just plug in an artist you enjoy like say, Ozzy Osbourne, and Pandora will create a station around that artist.
• Tap Tap Revenge (game) – think Rock Band drums and Guitar Hero and you’ll get the idea of what this is about. A bunch of free songs you can download and play.
• Waterslide (game) – tilt the iPhone to move you down a 3D waterslide. A quick distraction type game.
• SportsTap (sports / news) – keep track of sport scores. Also has a neat prediction section which will guess as to who is going to win based on a bunch of different stats. Might be of use to sports bettors.
• AroundMe (location based) – a portable version of our Garmin GPS that tells you what banks/ATMs, bars, coffee, gas stations, hospitals, hotels and more are nearby. Then you can get directions. Handy.
• Nike+iPod (fitness) – along with a pair of Nike+ shoes you can track how many calories you are burning walking around or running. Optionally you can have iTunes transfer the stats to nikeplus.com and do even more.

Being there are tons of apps, other iPhone users are welcome to suggest other apps I should check out in the comments below. Also, if you think I made a mistake or the right decision in this phone person, you’re welcome to weigh in.

We hadn’t been to Las Vegas in a couple years until last week and it’s always interesting to see what’s new. The first and most disappointing part was that the Star Trek Experience amusement ride at The Hilton closed in September 2008. It is supposed to reopen in 2010 downtown near the Fremont Experience.

Here is the cool Star Trek slot from WMS Gaming using their patented "Adaptive Gaming that can save your progress earning medals so that you can continue playing at any other Star Trek machine in the world:

It takes earning 40 medals to unlock the Trouble with Tribbles adventure shown above. Considering that medals can only be won during bonus rounds and bonus rounds can be far and few between it can take many, many gaming hours to earn these 40 medals.

Tip: play the bonus game in the first experience where you pick different bonus amounts. If you pick all the crewmen before finding the monster you’ll earn as many as 5 medals for a single bonus game. These means that you could get your 40 medals in playing through as little as 6 bonus games. It might be possible to earn more than 5 medals in a single bonus game, but the best I could do was five and I only did that once.

Craps Fire Bet

My favorite table game, craps, has a new proposition available called the Fire Bet. With this bet which can only be made at the start of a new shooter throwing dice, you are betting that the player will make at least 4 individual points. This means that if the player makes four sixes, that only counts as one. S/he would need to make 4 different numbers like 5,6,8,9. It’s the worst bet on the table, considering the casino edge is like 21%-25% depending on the payout, but players can win up to $10,000 for a $5 bet if 6 individual points are made.

We saw the Fire Bet craps at one of the Station casinos in Vegas and The Cannery. It’s also at Harrah’s, the Sahara and the Rio on the strip.

I misunderstood the game’s rules the first time I played thinking that a player only needed to make at least four points but nope, that’s not how it works. It’s too bad that they don’t offer a lower payout for non-individual points being made like say 5 for 1, as this would add to the excitement of betting along with a shooter who has a hot hand. According to NextShooter.com Fire Bet was created by Perry Staci a Las Vegas casino supervisor. No idea if it will make it out of Vegas and to the various indian casinos around here. I haven’t seen Star Trek in any of the local casinos either but am encouraged by the fact that they do have many WMS machines. The Wild Horse Casino in Pendleton, Oregon has two Star Trek slots as of this writing.

Have you ever listened to Journey’s first album?

Until a comment was left on the Journey Revelation review post I made last year, I hadn’t. The comment I’ll get to in a bit and it had nothing to do with Journey’s first album, but sometimes it’s something totally unrelated that makes me go hmm.

I didn’t realize that Steve Perry was absent from the first three albums Journey released and founding member and keyboardist Gregg Rolie (official website: greggrollie.com) was lead vocals. I mean maybe I did, but some cobwebs in the brain cleared when I read who the band lineup was after hearing a very different original singer. Rollie was a very good singer for the type of Journey music of this era.

The original lineup of Journey in the mid 70s was not about syrupy ballads and pop anthems, barely the same band. When I first listened to the very first song ever by Journey on their self-titled album called “Of A Lifetime” I dug it instantly. Wow, who are these guys, I thought. The guitar riff is barely the Journey you and I both know. In fact if you don’t like the heavy guitar based rock of the 70s, you won’t like this incarnation of Journey. But for me? A guy who’s ears feast on long, catchy guitar solos in songs like Freebird and Highway Song, bring it on.

As I listened more and more to the first album what struck me was that Journey shouldn’t have tried to copy their era with Steve Perry. They did that with Steve Augeri and seem to be trying that with Arnel Pineda. What about going back to their first three albums and trying that version of Journey?

Before you laugh at how poor this would probably do commercially think past the dollars and cents aspect for a minute. The music industry isn’t exactly what it once was and radical thinking might be necessary recipe for more bands. Props to Neal Schon for using YouTube to find their new singer, but I wish he would have gone back in time and looked at where Journey started for their next journey.

Reader Rob O. asks what my thoughts are on Revelation a year later. Rob, I still wouldn’t change the review grade and none of the songs grab me the way I would have liked other than the one mentioned in the review. Instead, I’m listening to Journey’s first album and will likely be buying the other two with Rollie on lead vocals. Maybe this says something about my taste as commercially these albums weren’t remotely comparable to the Journey of 80s, but hey I haven’t based my music tastes on commercial results.

Interesting historical note that Gregg Rolie stuck around for the first two albums (Infinity and Evolution) where Steve Perry sang lead vocals. These two albums have some of my favorite popular Journey songs on them like Wheel In The Sky, Anytime and Lights and perhaps my favorite Journey ballad: Too Late.

Rollie didn’t mind Perry coming in to sing lead vocals according to a vintagerock interview:

I liked having a lead singer. It didn’t bother me at all. I had been that and playing keyboards and harmonica. It was pretty spread out. I thought it was a new challenge, a new way to go. Why not? Steve Perry had a great voice. It was that simple.

Rollie is still touring but not playing much, if any, Journey music so I probably stand alone in my musical sentiments. Whether you agree or disagree, give the first Journey album a listen and compare. I prefer the 70s to the 2000s, but hey I haven’t liked the majority of new music put out by bands that were hot twenty or more years ago.

In years past the logo was changed on our blog birthday to the following:

This year, just keeping the logo in this post. I’ll be out all day volunteering – call this my first big volunteering year, I guess - at the local 4th of July event. Thank you one and all for reading, both new and long time readers alike.

Stats and some links to past posts over the six year period

Most words to date for a single published post: 4,791
How I fought a following too close ticket in Oregon published December 9, 2008

2009
1,673,808 total published words from 4,956 posts – 5,000 is just around the corner!
86,345 unpublished words from 332 posts
= 1,760,153 total words from 5,288 posts
= 332 average words per post

February 8, 2009: Maybe Wheaties should become the breakfast of pot smoking champions – Pot smoker or not, Michael Phelps will always be the man inside the pool of this decade.

2008

July 16, 2008: AmazonMP3 shows how to monetize Twitter – Of all the Twitter talk out there only a small few are monetizing this third party phenomenon. Will be interesting to see where things are at with this site in six more years. My guess? Something else will be more buzzworthy.

2007
 
July 5, 2007: Study finds that men are just as chatty as women – Plenty of other more deserving posts to be spotlighted here but this is a small example of the kind of subject matter that makes me go hmm.

2006

July 15, 2006: Auto date and timestamped entries in Notepad with handy .LOG trick – this still works! Once in awhile there is something real world useful at this site.

2005

July 1, 2005: $10,000 forehead caught on film – I wonder how much it cost to get this tat removed?

2004

July 21, 2004: Review: Flickr – photo sharing, photoblogging, groups and more – before Y! bought Flickr and it became an internet household name.

2003

July 30, 2003: Segways to be tested by Police in NY – remember how big the Segway was going to be? Despite having the chance to ride one, I still haven’t. You?

Thank you again for reading and, health willing, here’s to many more years of Things That … Make You Go Hmm.

Never thought a movie could have too much action but if you ever needed an example go see Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. That’s not an endorsement because it’s like running a marathon without taking a breath or gulping any water along the way. We paid $40 to go see this movie last night and I wanted to ask for my money back.

There were a few redeeming moments in the film like where Megan Fox runs around and her breasts bounce through her shirt or the bit part machines making some humorous asides. I read a few reviewers saying that there was no plot, but there is one and it goes something like this: there is a magical shard that Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) carries with him that sets off in his brain an ancient map to a massive power source in Egypt. Because the Decepticons took over a satellite they can listen in on the world’s conversations and they just happen to catch that Sam is the man they need to target to find this power source. The Decepticons want this power source so they can kill the sun and the only one that can stop them is a Prime like, well, Optimus Prime.

If you are saying yeah, right, then you probably understand why some reviewers felt the movie was thin on plausibility and long on grinding, loud action scenes. The movie is ouch loud too. We made the mistake of coming in early before they show the 15 minutes worth of previews at the movie start time (when are they going to end this stupid trend?) and before the volume goes from 15 out of 100 to 110. No, really, my ears were hurting at times.

I was going to show a picture of the Transformers tickets price but a Google image search of Megan Fox is much better. This movie is not even rental worthy, don’t bother. Grade: F