Canned entertainment and a shift in medium

Gamer videos

I've been wanting to post links to certain videos for some time now, but now I don't have to, since this list Eurogamer presented includes every cool one. Do check out Daigo's Street Fighter performance, the Ikaruga video and the Morrowind speedrun, at least.

Old school, welcome to the new school

Microsoft has really upped the stakes in the quest to firmly embed me in Live. Tycho's post in Penny Arcade pointed me to Microsoft's ploy to bring so-called "eurogames" (for European board games) to Live Arcade. I applaud this wholeheartedly. Sure, they might still blow the execution, but XBLA has been so strong that I allow myself to feel optimistic.

If this catches on, chances are we might see other games in the same venue... miniature battle games (Warhammer) and Pokémon come to mind. Let alone Magic: The Gathering.

There are lots of quality board games I'd love to play in Live (with friends, of course), if they can capture that livingroom feel. Most good games require quite a few like-minded players, and finding the time and matching the schedules in the real world is a pain.

On longevity

I told about switching to a Creative Zen Nano Plus recently for my portable music playing needs. Now, either my previous Philips player had some sort of manufacturing fault or this thing's battery life is impressive indeed. I've been using it for 24 days, usually on both commutes of the day, and my first battery died yesterday. Compared to the 1-2 batteries per five-day week I worked through with the Philips, this is very good.

I haven't encountered any bugs or lacking features yet. No wonder these things are becoming very common. (The same goes for the Sennheiser PX-100s, by the by.)