The Hopp Stop

Wii shortages are expected to persist for some time. Sorry, Gay-Lynn.

Interesting Hardball Times post that does a regression analysis to quantify the improvement in player quality in MLB over the years.

Speaking of correlation, here’s a great Onion story on Led Zep bumper sticker = weed smokers in the car. Kind bud, man!

Will Ferrell movie generator. Amusing but so close to reality that it’s sad. It makes me think of the 2004 South park episode where Cartman dresses up as AWESOM-O robot so that he can move in with Butters to spy on Butters. Butters takes him to LA to visit relatives and Cartman/AWESOM-O winds up working for a movie studio, churning out 1,000 script ideas in a week, of which 700 or so involve Adam Sandler.

Very cool news: Sling will be supporting the Apple TV for its SlingBox/SlingPlayer hardware/software team. This means not only all your Apple TV content on your mobile phone, but more importantly for my daily routine, I would be able to access my entire iTunes music library at work, since you can sync and/or stream your entire iTunes music library to the Apple TV. As the link points out, the SlingPlayer software supports an audio-only feed. Music streaming over my Comcast upload bandwidth of 350KBps will sound just great.

Turns out there is a 14-day return window on the Apple TV. And I missed it. I’m going to check what Craig’s List offers, but I may be sticking with it for the long term after all.

I haven’t updated my review since initially posting to reflect the hacker community’s efforts, which have added some nice features to the Apple TV, with more on the way. Big feature upgrades so far include the ability to boot from an attached external USB drive (increased storage capacity) and playback support for additional video file formats. I have a 200GB USB drive, so I plan to explore that route and will report back in. 200GB would mean that I could sync my 5GB iPhoto library plus 80 movies–not the entire library, but a nice increase over the internal 30GB drive.

Also, in May the Xbox 360 will support streaming of H.264 video files from a PC or Mac, so there will be another option to get video to your living room.

As some Hopp Stop readers know, the new Mouse album, “We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank,” is my favorite album of the year so far. It seems like I have a new favorite every time I listen to it, with “Dashboard,” “We’ve Got Everything,” “People as Places” and “Invisible” as my current favorite tracks.

Anyway,  there was an interesting All Songs Considered podcast on the new album a couple weeks back that discussed Johnny Marr’s role, and how you couldn’t really hear him on many tracks. This month’s Spin magazine has an article on the Mouse that, inter alia, expands on the analysis of Marr’s role. Setting aside the asinine cover blurb (”When Isaac Met Johnny…Booze, Big Bucks and the Remaking of Modest Mouse”), it’s an interesting read.

Per Pitchfork, there is now a tracklist out for the new Queens of the Stone Age CD. I didn’t even know there was an album on the way, but it is slated to ROCK OUT on June 12.

Here’s a Ted Leo interview from Pitchfork for your reading pleasure.

If you are a car aficionado, perhaps you are as jazzed as I am (hmm, that expression looks pretty lame when typed out) about the new M3 due out in 2008. Time to start checking what I can get for my Mini… Here’s a photo of the hotness.

Not related to music or cars, but check out this ridiculous photo of Don Imus. He makes Al Sharpton look normal:

I purchased a PS3 last week, so now I have both next-gen systems. (OK, maybe the Wii is next-gen in its control scheme, but the CPU and graphics chip are more GameCube x 2 than next-gen. And it is still sold out everywhere. According to the guy at Best Buy, they’ve already sold what they planned to sell the entire year. Not sure if he’s talking fiscal or calendar year or if he’s talking out of his ass.) I’ve remarked via e-mail to a couple friends on how impressive Motorstorm looks and what a nice DVD player it has (very quiet, very responsive to transport controls). I’ve put down a few other thoughts below.

How good the DVD player is, etc. is pretty irrelevant unless you have the games, and the better games are still on the 360. I bought Motorstorm (dirt racer with amazing graphics, fun game, although no local co-op and the campaign mode is supposed to get old quick, but overall impressive) and Resistance: Fall of Man (first-person shooter that has me pretty bored after a couple hours of play–Gears of War is much more fun, especially with its use of cover in fire fights). Other than the latest NBA Street, which is also out on the 360, I don’t think there is anything that I want to buy on the PS3. Further, the biggest games down the pike this fall are either a non-exclusive (Grand Theft Auto IV) or an Xbox exclusive (Halo 3). Presumably Sony has retained the exclusivity for the next Final Fantasy (which I don’t play) and I know they have for Metal Gear Solid (supposed to be great, never got into the series). I believe Resident Evil (which I love) will be out on both.

Beyond loss of exclusives for various reasons, including low installed base, the reputed graphical advantage of the PS3 will be wasted if games are released on both platforms, since programmers have to write down to the lowest common denominator. The PS3 controller does have motion sensitivity a la the Wii controller, although in a standard package, but it was unveiled so late in the game to developers that the first round of games don’t really support it. This could be a differentiator from the 360, but the 360 has force feedback, unlike the PS3 (due to Sony’s refusal to license the technology after losing a patent lawsuit; word is they may be changing their mind on this point).

On the topic of the controllers, the Xbox controller is more comfortable. It is larger and fits your hand better so that you can more easily hit the two shoulder buttons. The 360 controller doesn’t come w/rechargeable batteries, but the batteries are user replaceable, unlike the PS3 (goodbye, $50 controller after the batteries run down in a year and a half? Unclear what Sony plans here) and rechargeable ones are available as an accessory.

While the PS3 DVD player is very nice, the controllers operate via Bluetooth, so one can’t program DVD functionality to one’s Harmony universal remote–you have to keep the controller handy. Whereas the 360 has an IR port on the front and thus can be controlled via a universal remote (which I do when watching HD-DVD movies on my 360).

I prefer the PS3 user interface for your home screen, from which you can access the respective stores or play a game or movie (what Xbox calls the Dashboard), in terms of layout and visuals. But the Xbox has a lot more content in their online stuff.

One additional major differentiator for the 360: nearly all 360 games let you choose your own music for playback during the game, in place of whatever tunes the game includes. You can either rip the music onto your 360’s hard drive, connect an iPod to a USB port or browse music on a networked PC or Mac (I use the latter method). This is just a tremendous feature. So how does the PS3 stack up? You can rip music to the hard drive (and it looks the CD up in a database to get track name, artist info, etc., nice). But the iPod isn’t recognized when you connect it, and there is absolutely no support for access to networked media (360 also lets you view photos and, if properly encoded, videos from a networked computer).

So there you have it: I’m very happy with my PS3 purchase, but if I was only buying one, it would be the Xbox 360.

Here’s a link for Gaelen: a Slate writer argues in favor of Andy Richter’s new show, which Conan O’Brien had a hand in.

Check out the Wikipedia entry on miniature Australian shepherds. They’re not a separate breed spec, just repeated selective breeding of smallish Aussies. While the mini Aussies in the photos on Wikipedia aren’t great, just check out this gal here and here to see how cute they can be. Average size is 25 to 40 pounds. What I find appealing about them is that the smaller size makes them more appropriate for apartment living and makes it easier for them to hit their needed exercise allotment each day (since they tire more rapidly). You can see a short video of that gal here. Hmm…

The ten-year anniversary of the McCarty-Lemiuex fight passed last week. What great memories that brings back…Thanks to the Wayne Fontes Experience for that.

Ghris shared an interesting article with Mino and I over e-mail that attempted to place the Gonzales/prosecutor firings in historical perspective, comparing it to Clinton’s summary dismissal of all prosecutors upon his entering the White House in 1993. Here’s another article that makes comparison to the Clinton years, from the Washington Post.