No Open Blockers

I ordered the replacement video card for my MythTV box–

Actually, that’s not entirely accurate. I could have ordered a cheap replacement card for the Myth box. All it really needs to do is output to DVI, nothing fancy. The alternative is to take my video card from my gaming rig and move that to the Myth box, providing a reason to upgrade my gaming rig. That’s way more expensive, but I was careful to just tell the wife “I ordered a replacement video card.” I never said if I was using a cost optimal solution.

Where was I… oh ya, so I ordered a new video card yesterday at lunch. It arrived today at lunch. For no extra charge. When science perfects instant teleportation of objects, Newegg is going to raise the bar by just guessing at what hardware you need and sending it before you realize you need it.

I have a 1 and a half year old daughter. Apparently, I’m not a good father, since I’ve only tried to teach her Mario, Donkey Kong, and Goomba. Time to sit her down in front of Super Smash Bros Brawl and get started with her education.

According to this article, the most pirated game of 2008 is Spore.

Spore was subject to a lot of controversy and negative reviews around its release because of its overly aggressive DRM.

Not content to deal with such harsh restrictions, the hacking community lashed out and absolutely abused the game with pirated downloads. I don’t think it’s a stretch to assume that the high rate was less due to the game’s quality and more a protest against EA’s DRM attempts.

I don’t condone piracy, but I do think these sorts of DRM schemes do more to hurt the honest customers than the hackers. It didn’t take long to find a way around it; meanwhile, people who bought the game and have multiple machines are left having to deal with the difficulty of getting it installed.

This week is so full of win I don’t know where to start. What I do know is that I need more spare time.

Wrath of the Lich King Release
I’m one of the many lemmings that can’t draw myself away from World of Warcraft. This latest expansion thankfully goes back to its fantasy roots and away from the more sci-fi based Outland.

XBox 360 Dashboard Update
Not too long ago, Microsoft announced it was revamping the XBox 360 Dashboard, adding a new user interface, NetFlix support (which makes me actually entertain the service), and Avatars. A more detailed write up can be found here.

Blackberry Storm Release
I’m not a huge cell phone fan, but it’s been a while since I’ve been looking forward to a new gadget. I’ve been anti-touchscreen for a while (even going so far as to do a tactile feedback study during grad school) but the Storm looks like it may have the best of both worlds. More detail on Blackberry’s site.