Mactradamus

Banners were up, and they simply said "There's something in the air."

What could that mean? Built-in broadband wireless in upcoming Apple laptops? Perhaps the use of Wi-Max?! I guess we'll all have to wait and see. But come Tuesday, you better be ready to hit the refresh button on your favorite tech site to get all the action ASAP.

Here's what I think Steve Jobs will announce:

MacBook Touch - A slimmer MacBook with a widened touchpad (with multi-touch a la iPhone) that everyone is clamoring about. If this badboy comes out, I may have to think about getting it. The fact that there's no optical disc drive doesn't really bother me. As long as it's insanely thin, insanely fast, and insanely cute. Cuteness always plays a factor.

MacBook Pro - I recently read somewhere that Apple did not want to drastically change the form factor of its products when they made the switch to Intel. But now that they have full migrated, we can expect to see big changes in the designs. We've already seen an update to the iMac. So perhaps the MacBook Pro will receive similar treatment. It's crazy to think but its current form has been around for 7 or so years. Outstanding.

iPhone - Steve will certainly be hollaring about the SDK that should have been released during the launch in the first place. But it's interesting to see what kind of apps, if any, he'll demo onstage. Considering all the cool apps that jailbreakers are already using, I'm curious as to how the "official" apps compare. There has also been a lot of buzz about the possibility of a 3G iPhone. While this is something we all assume would happen, I say think carefully about that breath you might be wanting to hold (meaning, don't hold your breath, ass). I've read articles that Steve may not announce that quite yet. But if he does announce a brand new iPhone, I SO HOPE that it will have 3G, in addition to: MMS (finally), video recording (duh), haptic feedback, larger memory (32GB please?), flash for the camera, and maybe brush metal instead of chrome.

I wonder what the "one more thing" will be. I'm so excited that I can barely contain myself.

MACWORLD 2008 FTW! ZOMG\

Who Do YOU Look Like?

(As always, click pics for a larger view)


The guys over at Gamerhelp put together a list of people who look like video game characters. The above shows Carrot Top being compared to Street Fighter's Blanka. I hate Carrot Top. He wasn't funny when he was skinny and using those dumb props. And now that he's huge and wears makeup ... yeah, that doesn't help either.


And above we have another Street Fighter character being compared to Ghandi. Bad ass Indians right here, dude. But the striking similarity is eerie.


Someone once told me "Hey you look like that director guy who directed that Britney Spears video about uh...toxicity." I replied, "Do you mean Joseph Kahn who directed the awe-inspiring Britney Spears classic 'Toxic'?" That's the closest I've ever been compared to anyone famous. And yes, video game characters can be famous. And yes, I know, this director guy looks pretty strange. I wonder if he'll ever show anyone the footage of Britney that never made the final cut of "Toxic." It was a video that showcased something that we haven't seen in years: a hot Britney. Oh, and she was nude in the video with random sparkly things on her body.

But besides that, I've never really wondered about who else I look like. They say there are like 10 people in the world that look like you. I guess if I were slimmer and cut my hair, I could look like my friend Killa. Also, pictures of when we were about 9 years old show that my friend Alfonso and I looked similar when we were younger. These days I'm about 6 inches taller than him and outweigh him substantially.

In terms of videogames though - and in keeping with the Street Fighter theme I apparently have going on here - I think I look like E. Honda from Capcom's Street Fighter series. Below is the comparison.


On the left is me, and on the right is E. Honda. Pretty damn close right? E. Honda is basically my doppleganger! This comparison picture shows that we're nearly identical. Right down to the clothing style and makeup. However, I have nipples. Massive nipples. And in this world, nipples always win. Click the picture in order to see my nipples. Do it.

Thus, Jones Johnson >> E. Honda

Note: The ">>" is a mathematical symbol that means "much greater than"

Click the link to see more comparisons on Gamerhelp's site.

Learning Manual From The Great One

Yesterday, I was given an opportunity drive a beast. I cannot really give details on the make and model of the vehicle because if the person who owned the vehicle ever finds out that I drove it, I will die. Not figuratively.

My friend, Hank, was driving his girlfriend's car around town. After fussing with Dino about letting us drive his parents' Civic Si, we gave up. On the Si, that is. I asked Hank if I could drive his girlfriend's car. It's not really as beastly as a Lambo or a Ferrari, or even an SL65 (or whatever Mercedes has these days), but it was pretty powerful.

Unfortunately, I did not get a chance to harness the beast's full potential. Obviously, I was too afraid to really push it. But Hank gave me pretty good pointers on driving stick. The usual stuff.

Total stalls: 8 (according to Killa)

I mean c'mon, I was nervous. The car is more than $50,000 so I was being overly cautious. To the point that I stalled several times. Towards the end, I got more comfortable with the shifting. However, we all had massive headaches to deal with.

But I think what's more interesting than driving a brand new car with a manual transmission on (that you're not really supposed to be driving) is what was said during the "lesson":

Hank: Make a left.
Me: Wait, how do you make a left?

Me: Dude, I only stalled like twice. It was awesome.
Killa: More like 8. I counted.
Me: Okay, stalling back-to-back times shouldn't count twice. I stalled like 4 times.
Killa: 8.

Hank: That was the slowlest k-turn ever.
Me: It was practice. I bet you that I can k-turn just as fast as if I were driving automatic.
Hank: Go ahead. I'll time you.
...
Me: See?! How fast was that like 10 seconds?
Hank: 32. Useless.

Me (several times): What gear am I on?

$1.77 Trillion = ??? Schrute Bucks

As some of you may know, in the past few months Comcast has been caught with tampering. And when I say tampering, I mean they have been monitoring internet activity and bottlenecking certain users that have been downloading from torrent sites.

Most of you may be screaming to yourself "What?!", some of you are nodding in agreement and patting yourselves on the back for already knowing this, and the rest of you have no idea what I'm talking about.

Well, a recently posted article on digg (when I say recent, I mean I dugg it when it had only 95 diggs) claims that Comcast could be fined by as much as $1.77 trillion.

TREEEEELLION.

That's a lotta cash. But let's face it - after the lawyers get into the fray, that number may dwindle. Who knows, maybe we Comcast customers will get some kind of compensation, whether we knew about these activities or not. That'd be nice, huh? I doubt that would happen, though.

But $1.77 trillion is definitely a strange number. And I'll explain how. Just give me a few moments to elaborate.

Every now and then, when my pockets are empty or if I don't feel like going to the theater or renting/buying a Blu-ray movie, I download the torrent. Yes, I'm the same person who, in a previous post, may have sounded like he was the biggest HD elitist of all time and deemed anyone who buys DVD's and downloads torrents as idiots.

So I guess I have conformed a little bit recently. I've downloaded several torrent movies (Charlie Wilson's War, Atonement, Waitress, Michael Clayton, and The Lives of Others), but I would only watch them on my Viewsonic LCD monitor connected to my PowerBook. Up close, they look horrible. When I watch from several feet away, the video quality is okay, but obviously nowhere near HD content or the Blu-ray disc format.

Anyway, movies have different original aspect ratios (OAR). There's a small group of people in the world that prefer to have a constant 2.35:1 ratio for their projectors. Obviously movies with OAR's of 2.35 or 2.40 look fine on this, and even 1.85 movies look decent too, but 4:3 movies (SD channels and such) look way too small. But they are fine with this, and personally, if I were able to afford such a setup, I would in a heartbeat.

Then there are people that still use 4:3 TV's (like pretty much almost everyone). The TV in my bedroom is a 5-year old 4:3 (1.33:1 ratio) Panasonic flat CRT, and it's fine. 1.85:1 movies look fine on it (though I rarely play DVD's on it), but 2.35 and 2.40 movies are just way to small-looking. The black bars on the top and bottom are huge.

Lastly, there are 16:9 television sets. I have one in the livingroom, and while it's only a 40" LCD, it does display in 1080p, and it does its job just fine. HDTV's at your local Best Buy or Circuit City are 16:9.

Which finally brings me to my point.

All HDTV channels display in 16:9 format. Sometimes there are black bars on the top and the bottom for movies that have 1.85, 2.35 or 2.40. Generally, HD-filmed shows are 16:9.

16:9 also happens to be a 1.77:1 ratio. From experience, I already knew that but just in case, I double checked with this massive calculator at work.

1.77 ratio, $1.77 trillion.

It all makes sense now. Right? Right!

And just in case you were wondering, if Comcast were to be fined 1.7 trillion Schrute Bucks, that would equate to $17.7 quadrillion.

How did I figure that out? Simple. I analyzed a scan of an actual Schrute Buck (pictured below) to find out the ratio of Schrute Bucks to US dollars. Then I did this thing called math. I could be wrong. You're free to check it out for yourself. In fact, I dare you to double check. Also, I'll give you 10,000 Schrute Bucks if you can figure out how much $1.77 trillion is in Schrute Bucks.



I'll post the answer on Friday because I have a feeling nobody will have read up to this point and what I type now doesn't even really matter. I guess I can just type whatever I want at this point. Muhahaha! I like Jake Gyllenhaal's hair and McDreamy's too! Hahahahaha! YESSS!!!

Addictions

Hi, my name is Jones Johnson ... and I'm an addict.

I'm addicted to information. Not your everyday run-of-the-mill information. Not world news. Not politics. Not sports (sometimes). Not entertainment.

Technology, for the most part.

I'm addicted to information dealing with technology. This is how my usual weekday flies by (times vary):

630am - Wake up.
730am - Arrive at work.
735am - Check www.engadget.com for gadget news!
745am - Check www.kotaku.com for videogame news!
800am - Check www.gizmodo.com for gadget news!
810am - Check www.joystiq.com for videogame news!
820am - Check www.digg.com for interesting/funny news/pics/videos!
835am - Check www.gmail.com for email!
840am - Check www.facebook.com for mini-feeds and notifications!
855am - Log on to www.meebo.com for AIM and chat with my usuals!
915am - Check www.highdefdigest.com for high definition news!
930am - Refresh everything and read more!
1000am - Brainstorm ideas for a new blog entry!
1030am - Bathroom! Generally a #1, but lately #2!
1100am - Read adnrewblog.blogspot.com for some real laughs!
1130am - Think about what to eat for lunch!
1200pm - Lunch!
100pm - Refresh everything and read more!
200pm - Check www.myspace.com out of pure boredom (only if bored)!
230pm - Check www.wikipedia.org and look up something random!
300pm - Bathroom! Most definitely a #1!
330pm - Refresh everything and read more!
400pm - Leave work!

Somehow, I'm still able to get work done (although my websurfing is done very ninja-ly). Granted, I'm not as productive as I can be (plus the timeline above is somewhat exaggerated), but c'mon ... who is? I really don't know how I can quit this addiction. If I go two days without reading any of my tech sites, it's kind of bittersweet; I'm irritated that I don't know what's going on in the tech world, but at the same time, I love having so much to read all at once!

Call me crazy, call me a freak, and please definitely call me a nerd, but don't call me a loser. We all have our habits and addictions right? Mine are just weirder than most people. Some people are addicted to social networking sites such as facebook or myspace, and some are addicted to celebrity news sites like TMZ. We are all into different kinds of things.

I'll admit that my addiction can be a little bit too crazy though. Last year's Macworld keynote, all I did was stare my screen and hit refresh every minute just to find out if Apple would announce a widescreen 120GB wi-fi iPod. I was disappointed at first. Then they announced the iPhone, which I had dismissed as hogwash in the weeks/months leading up to the keynote. I had a phone already, and I didn't think I needed it. I thought wrong. Six months later, I was camping out for 5 hours in the summer sun waiting for my iPhone.

The same thing will probably happen one week from today when Steve Jobs hopefully announces sweet new laptops at Macworld. My PowerBook needs to retire soon, and the announcements might just convince me that it's time. We'll see. But do you get it yet? Can you understand the painful world I live in?

I need information about technology. As much as possible. When I'm not driving or if nothing's on TV or if I'm in the shitter, I bring out my iPhone and head straight to engadget. I'm insane!

But as I've said, we're all addicted to something. One of the weirdest addictions I notice among my friend are: World of Warcraft. I just don't get it. People don't get my addiction, but at least I'm gaining knowledge daily (although not entirely useful knowledge). With World of Warcraft, what do you do? Walk around and kill things? I guess that's cool. I'm glad I never tried it. I've lost friends for months at a time because of WoW.

What else? TV shows? Yeah, we've all got our favorites. The few people out there that don't enjoy television and think it's a waste of time ... are idiots. There's nothing like watching Must See TV on a Thursday night. In 2007 that is. But some of my friends are addicted to shows that I've never seen before like "Prison Break" or "South Park" or "Man vs. Wild" (I think that's the name). I have a billion channels, and seriously ... sometimes, there's nothing on. I'll admit something though: I like "Project Runway."

Anyways, one of my friends Lloyd, is addicted to buying exclusive sneakers and $1100 sunglasses. Can he really afford all that? No, but he loves it and he can't let go of his collection. I personally don't see the mystique with waiting outside for hours to pay hundreds of dollars for a pair of sneakers that you probably will not wear. At least when I camped out for videogame systems, I was in it to make a profit (and keep one too. I know there are people out there who camp out and flip items on eBay, but to camp out for a pair of sneakers and not wear them because they're that exclusive ... is ridiculous.

But I can see how someone may read this and think that what I do is ridiculous too.

We all do something ridiculous.

So maybe I am normal.

Fine, I'm probably not. I certainly am a bit strange. But we all are. I read an article on digg about the weirdest forums on the internet. One of them was a forum dedicated solely to flashlights. You read that right. Flashlights! I read a few of the posts and people were saying things like "Hey did you see CSI last night? They were using the Inova X5! OMG OMG OMG it was awesome! I just bought it last week too!"

I guess I'm just part of a subculture of fanatics that live, breath, and eat technology information.

I guess I'm what you call a nerd. But don't ever call me a fanboy. Unless you say Apple right before it.

Update: I just wanted to add that I have a really weird habit of smelling my iPhone's headset jack. It smells awesome. It's got that brand-new-gadget smell, yaknow? Okay, you probably don't. But if you own an iPhone, or know someone that does, try it out. Plant your nose on that sucker, and sniff like there's no tomorrow. It's probably an acquired smell. But give it a shot!

The Birth of a Word

My friend sweats a lot. Let's call him Gino. He doesn't usually sweat a lot. He's about 5'10" and 140 lbs. But whenever you give him anything spicy to eat, or if he's dancing with a girl, he sweats. And this past weekend, not only did he sweat massively while dancing with this girl at a club, he may have coined a new word.

Me: So you know she had a boyfriend, right?
Gino: Yeah, I tried to kiss her, and she said she had a boyfriend.
Me: Nice work. I mean really, you did good out there.
Gino: What do you mean?
Me: You're a marathon dancer. You danced with the same girl for three hours, dude.
Gino: Haha, I actually tried to quiss her again and --
Me: Did you just say "quiss"? What the hell is a "quiss"?
Gino: I meant kiss. I'm drunk, man.

We came up with a definition for quiss (as of this writing, I have not googled or wiki'd it, so it may already exist).

Quiss - An attempted kiss with the purpose of finding out whether one is available or not. A combination of the words quiz and kiss.

Personally, I have never quissed anyone. I generally go in for a kiss knowing full well that the person will kiss back. I also don't attempt to kiss someone until I've run a background check, and it comes back clean (includes urine sample and bloodwork, in addition to criminal records). I guess you can say I've never taken a chance.

Which brings me to my new year's resolution: Try new things.

Actually, the whole resolution is "It's a new year, so try new things." And it's said with a New Jersey organized crime accent. Like this: It's a nooh yeeah, so try nooh tings.

So maybe this is the year that I finally try paintball. Maybe I'll give Linux a shot just to say I did. I might even try vegetables. Who knows? But perhaps this is the year that I finally quiss someone.

And maybe, in doing so, I might try giving up my obsession with electronics (HD gear, videogames, the usual CE sweetness).

Maybe. But probably not.

Update: A lot of you have been asking me what CE means. It's short for consumer electronics.