Announcement

So... I don't really use this blog anymore, but it does images better than Live Spaces... or Office Live...

Review: Microsoft Wireless Laser Mouse 6000

Every morning, as I left for work, I only had a few things to do before I left: turn off the monitors, lock the door... and dock my MX700, so it wouldn't die on my in the middle of a round of CS:S. So, I wandered off to my local company store in search of a mouse that wouldn't require such daily maintenance. The Microsoft Wireless Laser Mouse 6000 seemed like a good replacement--a high dpi wireless mouse.


The mouse is obviously a derivative of the Microsoft Wireless Intellimouse Explorer 2.0, but there are many small (and some not-so-small) physical adjustments that make it more stylish and more comfortable. There's a nice lip under the space for your thumb, so it doesn't drag on your mousepad, and the nub on the right side of the mouse by where your ring finger rests is slightly bigger--making the mouse easier to pick up. Microsoft has also taken a cue from its competitors and merged the mouse buttons with the body of the mouse to give it a more sleek look.

The buttons are all responsive and have good tactile feedback. The only complaint I have about them is that the forward button does not respond instantly, as it has about a mm of give before the button actually triggers. The weight of the mouse is also significantly less than the MX700. It took a little bit to get used to not having to push the weight of the MX700 around, but I've found that the lighter weight makes it easier to make the slight adjustments the dpi of the mouse allows.

The tracking feels very accurate and smooth. After using the MX700 for over a year as my main gaming mouse, the change to the 6000 was not too big, but still noticeable. I've also had a Wireless Explorer as the mouse on my secondary computer for about the same time. The 6000 has the smoothness of the Explorer (which the Explorer only got by deducing the dpi to 150) and greater accuracy than the MX700.

After trial runs of CS:S and WoW, I was very impressed by the accuracy of the mouse. I was able to turn up the sensitivity in CS:S and get much better precision than what I was used to. Instead of having the keep the sensitivity low on the MX700 in order to AK-snipe, I could turn it up and rely on slight wrist movements to target my opponents head.

Obviously, I haven't had the mouse long enough to say anything about the battery life, but, seeing as it doesn't have a charger and doesn't come with rechargable batteries, I'm betting it'll be as long-living as the Explorer--that is, several months per set.


I honestly haven't used too many of Logitech's recent offerings, but the 6000 has definitely provided a much nicer experience than the MX700. If you're in the market for a new mouse, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the Wireless Laser Mouse 6000, and at $44 at Amazon (as of this writing), it's also a great deal.

Since some have said this wasn't clear enough: this review is probably biased due to my employer being the creator of the product being reviewed, but I have tried to be as objective as possible.

IRC Randomness

Since Vraxxie posts random IRC musings on his blog...

Vraxx|AFK: !d 20
ChanServ: Vraxx|AFK: A 16 shows on the 20-sided die.
Hal|AtLab: !d 20
ChanServ: Hal|AtLab: A 4 shows on the 20-sided die.
Hal|AtLab: by your powers combined...
Squibby: !d 20
ChanServ: Squibby: A 20 shows on the 20-sided die.
Squibby: I am Captain Planet?

I'm still here...

Yeah... I haven't posted for a while. I blame having dial-up for a month--much more painful than having your wisdom teeth removed, btw. Work has also kept me busy... Anyway, aside from moving, not much has happened in my life. Aside from work and my TV hunting, Robinho is probably the only other thing close to the center of my attention these days.

Santos is really milking him for all he's worth. Not only are they trying to get all of his $50 million buy-out clause for his contract, but now they've fined him for missing practice. Yeah, that will endear him to them... Even Pele, who played for Santos for 18 years, said Robinho should probably go to Europe. And it's not even just Europe it's Real Madrid... Los Merengues... Los Galacticos... How could he possibly say no? Santos should just let him go. He's 20. It's time for him to leave home... and time for him to move his family some place where his mother won't get kidnapped again.

Of course, Madrid might have to same some of their money this summer with Gerrard in contract negotiations with Liverpool. Madrid have been rumored to have a standing offer of £8 a year for Gerrard... twice what he currently makes in Merseyside. Liverpool have put at least a £25 price tag on Gerrard, so Madrid should be ready to open the bidding if there is any indication that his contract negotiations are wavering.

Of course, Real Madrid have problems fielding all their best players at it is, and getting more will make it even worse. If they get Robinho, it's time to sell Raul. Then they can use a front line of Owen and Ronaldo way up front with Robinho in the middle slightly behind them and backed by a midfield of Zidane, Gerrard, and Becks. Of course, this leaves them light in the defense, and if they don't find a replacement for the disappointing Samuel, they will need to replace an attacker with Graveson or newcomer Pablo Garcia to take pressure off the back line. Of course, if Woodgate ever plays again, he could take Samuel's spot to solve the problem. If they don't get Gerrard (boooo...) they can play a little more defensively with one of the two defensive midfielders mentioned above in his place. Garcia was Osasuna's main playmaker, so he'd combine the two roles perfectly.

I'm sorry if I lost some of you... Google should know about everything above, so you can look it all up if you want...

Something Other Than Star Wars

Seattle is beautiful. I took a lap around the Seattle area Friday night, and I was amazed. While driving west on I-520, I came across one of the most incredible things I’ve seen in a while. Leaving the east side, there are thick lines of trees on either side of the freeway. Then, all of a sudden, the trees disappear and the freeway dips down, and you’re on a bridge floating on Lake Washington—with an amazing view of the lake on either side. Then, reaching downtown the lights just make the city come alive—from the brightly lit Space Needle to the blue glow of Seahawks Stadium. Finally, I-90 has to be one of the most fun freeways to drive on the west coast. To start, the ramp off I-5, climbs as it curves to the left with a posted 30 mph sign that everyone ignores. Then, it dips down and climbs up as it swings from side to side as it crosses Lake Washington and Mercer Island. It feels like it’s straight out of Burnout or Need for Speed with its arcade-style exaggerated swings. To complete the feel, it’s almost deserted at night, and there haven’t been any cops patrolling it. It was even better a few nights ago, as I was fooling around with another gray tC as we sped west on I-90 then north on I-5. People here actually drive at a reasonable speed too—unlike in Portland. There are a few people who’d fit in perfectly in Portland driving the speed limit, but people mostly drive at a sensible speed—usually 10 above what’s posted. That way, I’m not pissed off all the time.

Revenge of 60's Sci-Fi

*Spoiler warning* (if you care...)

Either George Lucas is brilliant, or he just can't write. From the beginning, Revenge of the Sith feels like a campy 60's sci-fi movie. So he's either trying to put the audience in a 60's era mindset as he takes them into his sci-fi universe... or he just couldn't create something better. From the laughably bad opening blurb to the hilarious "NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!" at the close, the movie reeks of the 60's. The opening feels like it was written by 10-year-old educated only by Flash Gordan and overusing a thesaurus.

War! The Republic is crumbling under attacks by the ruthless Sith Lord, Count Dooku. There are heroes on both sides. Evil is everywhere.
In a stunning move, the fiendish droid leader, General Grievous, has swept into the Republic capital and kidnaped Chancellor Palpatine, leader of the Galactic Senate.
As the Separatist Droid Army attempts to flee the besieged capital with their valuable hostage, two Jedi Knights lead a desperate mission to rescue the captive Chancellor.

“Ruthless”? “Fiendish”? “Besieged”?! Besieged? Who uses words like that? And how many adjectives did they just sprinkle in there. It’s almost as bad as “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.”
The “acting” was also reminiscent of old 60’s sci-fi…it was almost non-existent. The delivery of lines has about as much feeling in them as The Daily Show’s “Great Moments in Punditry, as Read by Children.” Anakin discovers his friend, the Chancellor is the greatest evil in the galaxy and deadpans, “You are the Sith Lord.” Not even “You are the Sith Lord!” The scenes between Anakin and Padme are even worse. Their delivery is flat, the timing is horribly slow…even when the line is a reaction to the previous, there’s at least a second gap between them, and the romantic writing is that of a filthy rich 60-year-old who can’t get anyone to marry him.
The fight scenes were just about as captivating as 60’s era movies as well. Sure, they were more complex than the ones of the past, but they were never exciting. The first fight was as close to good as they came in RotS, but Christopher Lee’s propensity for dying at the beginning of the third movie of a trilogy made the ending seem so clear. Obi-Wan vs Grievous (what kind of name is Grievous?) was absolutely horrible except for the irony of Obi-Wan using a clumsy and random blaster to finish him off. Grievous had four lightsabers. There must have been plenty of awesome things they could have done with four lightsabers…but, alas, they didn’t do any of them. Of course, the final two fight scenes suffered the most. Not only did everyone know that neither of the four participants would die, but everyone also knew that Anakin would be hurt really badly (and end up as the Darth Vader we all know) and Palpatine would beat Yoda...but not bad enough to kill or injure him.
Now, the 60’s science fiction flicks did have some good qualities that RotS carried with it. The imagery during the first fight scene with Palpatine sitting in the throne and laughing (“Good! Good!”) as a Skywalker fights his apprentice was an obvious reference to Palpatine in the same position as the younger Skywalker fights his father, Palpatine’s new apprentice. The general story arc was also reminiscent of the grandiose style of the 60’s shows. It was a story about taking over then entire galaxy where every action in the movie could effect the future of millions of people. It was just the execution that was lacking. Of course, the 60’s shows had an excuse—they had no funding. RotS obviously lacks that excuse. It only has George Lucas’ refusal to share his vision with a true filmmaker to blame.

E3 Ramblings

Now that E3 has come and gone, should we be excited about the next year of gaming? I think so. With the Xbox 360 coming out in November, the new generation of games will begin. This is not just a leap from the current technology leader, Xbox. It's a leap from the PS2, the current lowest-common-detonator that all games are targeted at. Since most mainstream games are made for all three consoles, the worst of them controls how advanced most games will be. Sure, Xbox games still look better than PS2 games, but only slightly. Usually the only differences are that the developers use FSAA or higher resolution textures or some other easy fix to make the Xbox games look better than their PS2 counterparts, but all the models and the game engine are the exact same.
In the next generation, Xbox 360 will be this weakest link that holds back some games (although Sony has more pull power to encourage third-party developers to make PS3 exclusive games, but that's a whole new topic). Of course, IGN, in the worst written article of all time, argues that Xbox 360 is, in fact, going to be technologically superior.
The games that were previewed at E3 were visually very impressive, especially considering none of them were anywhere close to even 25% complete and none of them were even running on their intended hardware. Even on an Apple G5 with either a ATi X800 XT or nVidia GF6800 Ultra, the Xbox 360 games looked amazing. The DoA4 trailer had amazing detail in the clothing and hair of the characters. The clothes flowed as they should and the hair interacted with the rest of the character--flipping over and arm or shoulder as they moved by. There were some problems with clipping, but those will probably be dealt with in the next several months before the game's release.
More important than the individual games is the environment that Microsoft is creating for their games. First, all games will support high definition resolutions (up to 1080i). Resolution was always the advantage of the PC over the console. Even though 1080i is still less than what computers can provide, the difference is no longer a chasm, but a small ditch instead. The best part of the new environment has nothing to do with the new graphics or high-end processors in the new Xbox. It's the community features. Having a community that's always connected to everyone will change how friends play games together. Instead of having to plan ahead of time to play together, people can now invite people to play any game no matter what their friend is doing (unless they put up a "Do not disturb" tag, at least). This will make gathering a group of friends together much easier. Image if WoW or GuildWars was on Xbox 360. Naturally, all of your friends will be playing one of those games all the time. So, if you wanted to play CS:S or Halo or some other game, you could still invite all of those friends.
My only worry about the beginning of the new generation is that developers might be too concerned with making the most of the new systems that they forget that the graphics and physics engines are not the most important parts of the games. It won't matter if we get tons of launch titles that are all as pretty as GT4 or Ninja Gaiden if they play like Stolen.

First Post!

Since Google is taking over the world, I figured I'd help them out by adding my thoughts to their domain as well.

I'm not exactly sure what this is going to be all about, but I'll write stuff here whenever I feel like it. Basically, I'm just really bored right now, and Vraxxie did it... so I should too.