Wii web browser works with Youtube!

Did you ever wish you could sit on your couch and browse YouTube?. Now you can with the Nintendo Wii and the Opera web browser (released today). Check it out:

Wii Weather Channel Hits Australia The World

I updated my system tonight and the weather channel appeared. It includes a Google Earth style globe! I had no idea it was going to be so cool. It looks like this: Actually I started uploading my own video for this post then I noticed someone already put one on YouTube and I cancelled. Damn if I was quicker I could have made the front page of digg... :P.

Wii have a wii

If you asked me a few weeks ago I probably would have guess an xbox 360 would have been first to arrive at my house but my friend John got one on launch day and long story short we picked one up plus Zelda on the Saturday. I think they are just about impossible to get now so I'm glad I didn't wait. Some notes:

• When you first start to "get" the controller it's kind of mind-blowing. Believe the hype, this is an entire new level of gaming.
• A group of people (four is best) playing wii-sports for the first time is quite possibly the most fun you can have with your clothes on.
• Zelda - it's good (well, it is Zelda), definitely better than Windwaker so far, but the graphics will make your Gears of War owning mates laugh at you. This is partly because the game started as a gamecube game that was delayed for release on the wii.
• Tennis - totally cool, you have to try this.
• Baseball - at first I didn't care for it much, mostly because I sucked at it, but it's grown on me, the feeling when you crack one out of the ground is brilliant
• Bowling - it's a crowd favourite. make sure you have a lot of room in your lounge.
• Golf - totally cool, instantly better than any other golf game ever made. You take a few practice swings then step up and, whack. There is a chance this could improve your real golf game.
• Boxing - so far it seems the least cool but it's insanely hilarious a party.
• Miis - you create little cartoon versions of yourself and your friends and these characters are in the sports games. It sounds lame but actually it is super cool.
• Training - you can do little mini-games to improve your skills, three for each sport. Pretty neat.
• Fitness - you do a set course of tests and get a score to show you how good you are. Also pretty neat.
• Wii play - this is a bunch of mini-games you get almost for free when you buy a extra controller. There are a few gems on there that make it definitely worth owning. Try the cow race.
• Overall impressions - the hardware is so small and lovely you just want to pinch it on the cheeks. All the little touches are pure joy, eg the fact that you can put your Miis on your controller and take them to your friends house, the little speaker in the controller that makes tennis racket sounds, the rumble pack feedback when you mouse over buttons. Operating the menus with the pointer is literally fun. Imagine your computer with no mouse. That is every other console except the wii. Only with the wii you can twist your mouse pointer. Why? Because it's fun. The disk slot is the best I have ever seen. The top opens up and you can use your Gamecube controllers and memory cards. Of course it plays all your gamecube games.
• Internet - The wifi worked for me as soon as I entered my wep codes. It spent about 10 minutes upgrading it's operating system as soon as I got online. I was able to browse some retro games, eg Sonic 1 and Mario 64. I downloaded Gunstar Heroes to try it out. I found the wii-mote sideways doesn't work too well but the good news is you can use a gamecube controller or buy one of the retro controllers for only $29. The news and weather channels don't seem to be going yet for Australia. Also I think you can send messages from your wii to someone elses wii. Not sure why you'd want to but it can be done.
• Upcoming prospects - Well I suppose Mario Kart, Mario Galaxy and Metroid are going to be out eventually. Hopefully some surprise hits that utilise the controller but time will tell.
• Injuries? - Well it's easy to see how it could happen. I have observed a few accidental shoulder whacks and near misses of knuckles agains the edge of our glass coffee table. So be careful OK! Here are some freaks who weren't.

Kevin Rose leaks ipod phone details

I like this because I'm a fan of Kevin Rose, he's the guy who bailed out of attack of the show before it completely turned to shit and then founded digg.com. and b. iPod phone! yeah baby!! Via TechCrunch via CrunchGear.

Flow

This is fun little game. It's relaxing and beautiful. I only played for about a minute but I can't want to get deeper. Via Slashdot. Oh they mention giant squid and manta rays so maybe it gets more intense.

King Arthur

This movie happened to be starting on Movie One last night just as we arrived home. Yadda yadda, here's my review:

• Premise: This is the true story of the dudes who's tales were told and exaggerated to become the Tales of King Arthur. Arthur and his knights are under Roman command. They generally don't get on with the natives who refuse Rome's command. The Saxons are coming and the Roman Empire is not as mighty and good as it once was.
• Keira's accent: Why did Keira not have some kind of Woad accent? I don't care what it sounded like just please not her posh tea and scones english voice from Bend It Like Beckham.
• The Saxons: At least you know where you stand. You and your family will be put to death and your village will be burned. But you probably won't be raped. They have standards.
• The cracking ice scene. Seems a bit unlikely. Plus the cracking seemed to go on way too long.
• Keira shooting arrows in blue paint and a leather boob-tube: Thumbs up.
• Clive Owen's range of vocal and facial expression: Thumbs down. Seriously, he is the English David Duchovney.
• Romans: Boo
• Woads: Yay
• Merlin: Yay
• Saxons: Yargh
• Unrealistic lighting of outdoor scenes: Huh? The Saxons had a green spotlight in their camp apparently.
• Lame dialog in romantic scenes: Boo
• That aussie guy from that show with a beard: Yay
• The knights: Cool as shit
• The story: It kept me well interested even though it was on late and I was pretty tired. Thumbs up.
• Enya rating: not enough Enya! The one time you actually want a bit of Enya...
• Magic rating: Actually there is no magic or fairies or anything like that, which is a bit different for a King Arthur movie.

damn now I have to by an xbox 360

It's called Gears of War. Here's some gameplay.

blimey

I thought you might want to see this. It's a dude with an oxygen tank doing a version of a coldplay song. i know that sounds like crap but seriously take a look. via stereogum.

Dear Nora and Kate 'Katy' Davidson

Okay Kate has a blog about her tour/etc. It's here and it's pretty good. On it I found some photos from the gig I was at (not the first one obviously). The blue shirt guy is the bass player. Did I mention I didn't like him much? It may be because he reminded me of me. Except less skilled on bass and with better hair... ;) He played with Dear Nora also. And the drummer was the drummer from The Go-Betweens. For real! Also I found some pics of Bree Van Ryk (scroll down) playing charades I think. Can you guess...?

darren hanlon plays the ukulele

By sheer good luck I was in Sydney the weekend Darren Hanlon was playing at the Metro. Of course I got tickets. Here is a treat for you. A ukulele song. You don't see that every day. It's called Hold On, from Darren's new cd, Fingertips and Mountaintops. The concert was great. I especially like the drummer, her name is Bree Van Ryk. She's a very talented drummer and plays in a sexy way with her head back and mouth open a little. The bass player was pretty crap I thought. Keyboard guy, okay. Darren, brilliant. Also remind me to tell you about Kate from Dear Nora sometime, she was good. And remind me to never speak of Caxton ever again as I try to eliminate all traces of them from my memory.

coolclock now has a google gadget

A guy named Bonstio has created a Google Gadget for my CoolClock. That means you can put CoolClock in your Google Pages page or in your Personalised Google Home Page. That's cool. He also made some Google-ish skins to go with it. The gadget is available here.

polar bears... polar bears with frickin' layzers

Actually no lasers. And the second video isn't actually mine but it was taken just under where I was standing in the first video. I was lucky to see this. The rest of the day the polar bears were mostly hiding in their airconditioned lairs watching Ice Age 2 or something like that. Upon request I may post videos of dolphins jumping.

I got tickets

..for Joanna Newsom. Oh sweet rapture! She's playing in a tent!

A poo poo with one leg and a belly button

Click the link for some art by my talented nephew.

Joanna hates the lamers

It's been way to long since my last post about Joanna Newsom. Via Stereogum:

I think some people perceive me to part of a movement or something that I don't really associate myself with. I think there's a lot of fakery, a lot of monkeying and posturing, a handful of kids who just latched right onto what they saw as a scene, and set themselves industriously to the synthesis of a particular vibe, and I'm pretty insulted when I occasionally get credited in the press for having anything to do with the dissemination of that vibe... I'm not part of some epic, bracelet-clanking, eyes-rolled-back, blasé, nihilistic scenester cult or anything. I've seen some awful displays, let me tell you. I've gone to some shows that have left me feeling heartbroken about the state of music. A soulless, mindless, watered-down, image-obsessed, artless stab at John Fahey or Marc Bolan or Karen Dalton or Donovan or Vashti Bunyan is no less lame than, like, Nickelback or whatnot. There are so many kids who have this energy, you know -- you can tell they were into, like, electroclash five minutes ago, or whatever was big in Williamsburg or Berlin at the time, and now they've grown their beards out and they're doing this thing that they think they understand, but they don't understand at all, and I just find it exhausting to have to consider what they do "music."

Ooo SNAP. I hope she doesn't turn bitter.. :)

Google Docs

The thing that's new is the url and the fact that the documents and the spreadsheets are nestled in together. Also take a look at Zoho (the company bravely competing with google in this area).

steve kilbey's blog

Via a commenter on my post over here I learned that Steve Kilbey has a blog. He writes quite a lot, poems mixed with in a stream-of-conciousness style journal entries. And he sometimes calls himself nevets yeblik. O-kay. Here's a little snippet:

oh i dont know
im backstage at the tivoli
they got wi-fi here
im blogging
gee i cant remember too much about eumundi
i kept my head down n i did my gig
it was good someone said...
we stayed ay a lovely bed n breakfast joint
with a huge sloping garden filled with plants n flowers n birds
spring sunshine n blue skies
i did yog n chi on ye olde verandah

He also does paintings that you can buy on his web site.

Top 5 reasons you know you're a nerd...

Okay I ran out of ideas after 4.

4. You spent the weekend updating your TiddlyWiki plugins to use the new features in version 2.1...

3. You are fluent in both Javascript and Klingon...

2. You spent the weekend updating wikipedia with the technical errors in the World of Warcraft South Park episode...

And the number one reason you know you're a nerd:

[drum roll]
...
...
...
...
...

1. You spent the weekend removing the updates from the nerds who updated wikipedia with the technical errors in the World of Warcraft South Park episode.

See this article for details.

I think I'll be fetching the torrent for that one. Speaking of cool shows, here is David Bowie on Extras.

(not) doing bike license training

So I was filling out the paper work you have to do I was entering the expiry date on my license. Oops. Expired two weeks ago. Sooooo long story short, I have a new license but it's nothing to do with bikes.

I have trouble making a face for ids. They should give you a mirror to practice. I try to smile and it comes out a weird closed mouth smile that makes my lips look puffy. And my eyes are open too wide for fear of looking droopy-lidded. Plus I have a five day growth. Maybe next time I'll shave and try a non-smile photo... IN THE YEAR 2011.

movie reviews

Nacho Libre
Probably would have been better if Jack Black didn't forget his accent now and again. The er, corn scene should have been cut. Despite all that the ending had me in tears of joy. See it if you like Napolean Dynamite. Don't see it if you'd prefer to remain unfamilar with Jack Black's nipples.

Shop Girl
Sounds okay, right? Clare Danes, Jason Schwarzman... Maybe Steve Martin is the next Bill Murray? No. Oh boy that was painful. Then you realise it's probably semi-autobiographical about Steve Martin. That makes it WORSE. Don't see it.