“Wallowing in the past may be good literature. As wisdom, it’s hopeless. Time Regained is Paradise Lost, and Time Lost is Paradise Regained. Let the dead bury their dead. If you want to live at every moment as it presents itself, you’ve got to die to every other moment.” — Aldous Huxley
Figured I haven’t posted anything recently, and this quote really struck me emotionally, so I decided to share it.
I know there have been a lack of posts on my blog, and I apologize for that. I’ve had many things on my mind and I’ve been preoccupied with school coming back into session.
In my previous handfull of posts about the new iPhone, I promised I’d post my opinions and views of the new iPhone. So please read on if you wish to hear about my experiences.
I really, really have been enjoying my iPhone for the past month. Always having access to the ACTUAL internet [not that crap cellphone version], mail, and other awesome stuff is so cool. The internet IS very fast.
The app store is also very, very cool. Whenever you’re bored, you can download a new app (there’s a ton of free ones out there for people like me who don’t like to spend money) and be entertained anywhere from 5 minutes (lol lightsaber app) to hours upon hours (Moonlite Mah’jong Lite, BJ Run Lite, Aurora Feint are my personal favorite game apps). Another app that is beyond awesome is called “Shazam”. If you hear a song you really like from the radio or a T.V. show or movie, but you don’t know what song it is, you can run the app and hold your iPhone up to a speaker, and the app will tell you what the song is called, the artist, the album it was on, etc. It is EXTREMELY accurate [I spent at least 30 minutes trying to confuse it with a lot of random songs, but it got every single one].
The only down sides are some things I wasn’t expecting. The iPhone came with a bunch of icons, some of which I don’t really need [stocks app, etc.]. There’s no way to get rid of icons that came with the iPhone without Jailbreaking or something to that effect — WHICH I IN NO WAY CONDONE. Another little problem I wasn’t exactly expecting was that if you want to download a big app [10MB+], you have to connect to a wifi network or download it on your computer and sync it. Somewhat annoying, but the majority of apps aren’t that big.
There are two slightly bigger issues I’ve had, however. Not major, but still pretty aggravating. You cannot access iTunes AT ALL unless you are connected to Wifi. I’d figure that apple would bend over backwards to have iTunes available to anyone, anywhere… but I guess that would kill the 3G network in a matter of minutes. The other issue I’ve had involves Safari. Aside from the fact that the new iPhone STILL doesn’t support flash [BOO 
], every once in a while when I go to a web page, the browser will randomly close (I assume that’s a crash), and go back to the home screen. I don’t know if that’s random, or if it’s preventing stuff from being installed (adware, spyware, whatever), or if there’s a script it doesn’t like. However, reopening the browser and refreshing the page seems to load the page without problems. I feel I need to do research on this subject before I say much more, but it seems a bit off.
Aside from those small issues, the iPhone exceeds my expectations. The service costs 30$ extra if you have current plan with AT&T (30$ includes visual voicemail, unlimited internet, email, etc.).
So yea, that’s my opinion of the iPhone. I hope to keep this blog alive, so I’ll try to post more stuff, whether it be game reviews, album reviews, or whatever.
The line
What an iPhone line looks like from the front!
Well I got the iPhone today. I woke up at 5 AM and got there around 5:30. There was only 3 other people there for about 3 hours, then a bunch of people came flooding in the line. At around 8:45, they told us that there were only 20 iPhones for sale, and they only had the 8Gig model in stock. I was disappointed that I wouldn’t be able to get the 16Gig, but I figured I would make due with the 8Gig.
I’m LOVING the iPhone. It’s so sleek, very nice touch screen, and there are no problems from what I see. I had an issue that I wasn’t able to get onto the 3G network, but that was fixed with a new SIM card. I transferred all my contacts over, and pretty much made the iPhone my own. The app store is up and has a few really cool apps that I’ve been trying out. The New York Times app is very good for news updates, and the UrbanSpoon app is awesome for when you can’t figure out where to eat, or if you don’t know of any nearby restaurants if you’re traveling. The only other apps I’ve downloaded that I haven’t tried are the AIM and Facebook apps, but I can assume that they will do their purpose. I set my phone to push messages from my Gmail account every 15 minutes, and that’s working perfectly.
The only thing I am uneasy about is the fact that I got a 8Gig. I thought I could make due, however my music takes up essentially all 7 gigs of the available space [about 1Gig is Apple firmware, etc.]. This leaves essentially no room for videos, movies, let alone apps. I’m so tight on space that I wasn’t able to update an application until I got home to do it via my PC (That app was only 1MB). I’m about to call AT&T about their return policy and when they plan on getting another shipment of 16Gigs in. If possible, I’d love to pay the extra $100 for the extra 8Gigs. I don’t think that will be a problem, because their return policy is for 30 days after you buy the phone, and you can switch out phones completely.
But yea. Everything else is working perfectly and awesomely. So far, so good!
I decided not to rush to get the new iPhone, and instead of being a rediculous fanboy, I chose to swing by there at 10 or so and see how long the line was.
A guy in the middle of the line said that he has been waiting for 4 hours (he got there a bit before 7), and the lady at the end of the line was getting the last iPhone they had for the day. Half the people in the line had folding chairs or beanbag seats of some sort.
AT&T is getting shipments of iPhones daily for about the first week… so I’ll go by there tomorrow a bit earlier and see if the line isn’t as bad. I’m assuming the line will be about the same, however. It’ll be the weekend and people won’t have to worry about going to work in the morning, so they’ll spend the night or get there extra early. But then again, the main flood of people will be gone… everyone who ran to every AT&T store in town to get one or went to the nearest Apple store to make sure they got one on the official iDay will be gone and out of the way.
I don’t know, no one can really predict what a bunch of people will do. I’m assuming tomorrow will probably be only a little better than today, and Sunday may be better, but AT&T opens at about noon on Sundays, so people may wait it out again since they’ll have a chance to wake up at a normal hour and eat a breakfast and such.
I’m not in much of a rush to get the iPhone… I don’t care if I’m one of the first. I just want one! Worst case scenario, I go next week when there’s no line.
Anyways, I’ll post an update tomorrow.
Image source: http://www.apple.com/
Tomorrow at 8 A.M., all Apple stores and a vast majority of AT&T stores will be opened to sell the new iPhone 3G. I will be one of the expected many going early tomorrow to a store to buy the new iPhone.
I will be posting my personal opinions and reviews of the phone over the course of the next few days, so if anyone wants to get another person’s opinions or reactions before shelling out the money to buy their own iPhone 3G, this blog will be the place to go.
I will more than likely not be using any enterprise programs or anything like that. The majority of my use will more than likely be internet, email, phone, iPod, SMS [text messaging], GPS navigation, and probably a few more things that will be fun to play around with.
A few links of possible interest:
Apple Homepage: http://www.apple.com/
iPhone 3G Guided Tour [This is about 30 minutes long]: http://www.apple.com/iphone/guidedtour/
Apple App Store: http://www.apple.com/iphone/appstore/
Apple/AT&T store locators: http://www.apple.com/iphone/buy/
Well that’s it for now. Check back later for more updates!
I got this event from my facebook, but it is important none-the-less. Monday, July 7th, is Ringo Starr’s birthday.
Link to the Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=21577616142&ref=nf
Ringo was recently asked by Access Hollywood what he hoped to receive for his upcoming birthday (July 7th). Ringo’s answer was unconventional, he said, “just more Peace & Love.” Then he expanded his wish further, “it would be really cool if everyone, everywhere, wherever they are, at noon on July 7 make the peace sign and say “Peace & Love.”
A video made by Ringo about this can be found here.
So, at noon on July 7th, just stop what you’re doing for at least 5 seconds, make a peace sign, and say “Peace & Love”.
“All we are saying is give peace a chance”
I’m going to break this blog open by writing my review of one of my favorite video games: Chrono Cross.
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DO NOT READ ON IF YOU DON’T WANT THE GAME TO BE SPOILED. I AM NOT CHECKING TO SEE IF ANY SPOILERS ARE INCLUDED. CONTINUE ONLY IF YOU DON’T MIND SPOILERS.
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Overall: Chrono Cross is a fantastic game. The story line is one of the very few that are so in-depth and well written, that playing the game is almost like watching a great book play out on the screen. It was hard for me to put down the controller and turn off the game because I was so enveloped. The amount of playable characters in this game is jaw dropping. This, of course has its up sides and down sides. However, each are unique and never generic. They even talk in different accents, etc. The art for this game is also outstanding.
The Breakdown:
Music: This games soundtrack is AWESOME. The official soundtrack is completely perfect, and the music throughout the game perfectly fits with the time periods and the emotions currently being played out. 10/10
Art: This game was made in 2000, so the graphics aren’t exactly “top of the line”, however the cut scenes are extremely well done. The “world graphics” [when you're moving the character around the world] are alright. Essentially the typical of what you would see in any game that was made around this time period. 9.5/10
Battle System: I’m not much of a fan of the RPGs that make you fight enemies every 20 steps. Thankfully, Chrono Cross doesn’t make you fight random enemies that often. Most of the time you can see the enemies and avoid them if you don’t want to fight. The actual battle sequence is pretty mediocre. It’s a bit sluggish in every definition of that word, and it’s nothing special. 8/10
Storyline: The story for this game is both amazing and confusing. It’s extremely difficult and long and confusing to give you a full on plot synopsis. There are currently too many holes in the story to give contrete answers, so majority of the holes are theory crafted, and then people move on to the next subject at hand. There were points of the game where I asked myself “Wait, why do we have to do this?” If you want the timeline that I used during this game to understand, go to http://www.chronocompendium.com/Term/Chronology.html. This website is AMAZING for the Chrono series. 9/10
Gameplay: The main issue people had with this game is that the game play was not like Chrono Trigger. I agree that it was very different, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad game. Chrono Trigger [the prequel... I may write a review on that] was almost a polar opposite to Chrono Cross game play wise. Instead of following 8 or so characters and learning about their trials and tribulations, their stories, and essentially forming a relationship with their character… you follow 40+ unique characters through their trials and tribulations. Of course, because of the amount of characters, you can’t go as deep with each character as you would with the 8. However, that doesn’t make the stories behind each of the 40 any less important. Every character had a back story, and a majority of the characters had pre-existing relationships prior to joining your party. 9.5/10
Replay value: I’m not one to replay RPGs, however I’ve played this game 3 times, gotten all the characters, beaten all the optional bosses (there’s not many, but yea), and gotten all the OMG SO GUD weapons/armors. 10/10
The overall score turned out to be 9.3/10. I don’t really agree with this score, since the battle system (what really hurt the average) isn’t game breaking. I’d give it more along the lines of a 9.6 or so. I STRONGLY recommend you play this game. It’s for PlayStation (the original PSX) and is a Greatest Hit. It’ll cost you $20, max.
Alright, well that concludes my first real blog post. If anyone has any suggestions about what else I can write about or how I can promote my blog, please drop me a comment.
Thanks.
Hello everyone.
This is my first post on my first blog. I’m not really sure what the blogs focus will be… more than likely things I think are important, recommended video games, and vents. But that can all change.
Either way, enjoy!
