Jim Lynch

Well here we go again with yet another “Grand Theft Auto” game. I suppose we’re all supposed to be dancing in the streets or bouncing off the walls with joy at getting yet another violence-laden, street-trash admiring piece of junk of a game. Well sorry, I’m not going to take the bait and join the chorus of writers who gush about this game. In fact, I’m going to tell you why you shouldn’t buy it.Now I know some of the GTA fanboys will howl with rage that the object of their lame gaming addiction is being panned by me. But, hey, the truth hurts…right? It’s about time that at least some of them left their parent’s basement and went out and did something productive with their lives.

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Apple has finally updated its iMac line, but I find the new offering sorely disappointing. At the moment I own a 20-inch aluminum iMac and, while I love it, I’ve been waiting for news about the new iMacs to see if it’s worth upgrading or not.Well it seems the answer is clearly no, this revision is decidedly underwhelming.

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I’ve been playing World of Warcraft for about three years. In that time period, I’ve leveled the following characters:

Alliance:

* 70 Gnome warlock
* 70 Night Elf druid
* 61 Human mage
* 53 Gnome rogue
* 28 Human mage (twink)
* 34 Dwarf hunter
* 32 Dwarf priest

Horde:

* 62 Undead priest
* 13 Tauren druid
* 11 Undead mage
* 27 Troll hunter

I’ve seen quite a lot of what the game has to offer, but I think that Blizzard’s masterful MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) is in big trouble and needs to be fixed. Here are ten reasons why World of Warcraft sucks and what Blizzard needs to do immediately to fix the game and save it from losing customers.

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Microsoft’s recent announcement of a price cut for Windows Vista illustrates the desperate position the company is in. By all reasonable accounts Vista has failed and Microsoft is desperately trying to prop it up and put some lipstick on a very nasty and very flawed pig. Unfortunately, it won’t work.

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A while back I wrote a column critical of the PlayStation 3 and its legions of annoying fanboys. The fanboys struck back, resulting in an amusing and enlightening forum discussion. One of the things I raked the PS3 over for was the inclusion of a Blu-ray drive that ended up hiking the price of the PS3 significantly. It seemed to me to be something that was not necessary for most gamers and should not have been in the PS3 in the first place.

Here’s some of what I said about the PS3 and Blu-ray:

Take careful note of the overpricing problem. Sony goofed royally by trying to use the PS3 to promote its Blue-ray format. Gamers are already lashing out in anger at being forced to pay an extra $150–$200 per PS3 because Blue-ray is incorporated into each system. Sony’s arrogance and thick-headedness has already ensured that the cheaper Nintendo Wii is flying off shelves and has become the must-have consumer item of the Christmas season. Many parents have breathed a sigh of relief that their kids have ignored the PS3 hype and are asking for the Wii instead.

As I pointed out, this was nothing more than Sony’s attempt to use the PS3 as a trojan horse to foist Blu-ray onto the world.

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Apple TV was one of those products that I always wanted to like but just couldn’t when it was released. Oh sure, it was neat to see my photos on my TV and play music or watch a TV show or two. The interface wasn’t anything to rave about, and I couldn’t get any kind of HD programming.The latest Apple TV 2.0 release fixes a lot by adding HD movie rentals, a slick new interface, and the ability to buy/rent without having to use your computer. The Apple TV is now officially a stand-alone (though you can still synch to it and from it if you want) entertainment center.

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My boss Lance recently wrote a column about how Macs need security software too. In his column he pointed out that Mac users are no smarter than Windows users. I respect where Lance is coming from, we’re all human and quite capable of making mistakes. However, I think he got it wrong. It’s not necessarily just about the users, it’s also about the companies and people who create the operating systems that we use each day.

Frankly, there’s no other way to say this: Microsoft is stupid and Apple is not.

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Steve Jobs, mercurial CEO of Apple Inc., recently gave an interview to the NY Times. In the interview Jobs shared his thoughts on a number of things including Google’s Android and Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader. When talking about the Kindle, Jobs came out and announced that Apple was busy working on a competitor to the Kindle.

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A few months ago I was reviewing some of my monthly bills and I came to the conclusion that it was time to dump cable TV. Why? Well it turns out that I was paying a significant amount of money for programming that I rarely watched.

Altogether I was paying about $140 per month for digital cable TV and broadband via Comcast. I also had HBO and the tier (or whatever it’s called) that gave me access to HD programming on HBO and on some other channels.

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I’ve used iTunes for quite a while as my main source for music, TV shows, podcasts, and audiobooks. But I never bothered with it too much for movies because I had no interest in buying most movies. I already have a DVD collection of around 200 movies, and I learned through that experience that it’s not really worth it to own a lot of movies since I rarely watch most of them. I bought Apocalypto and Hatari, at one point, from iTunes, but after that I just didn’t bother to buy any more.So how good is Apple’s movie rental service? Is it time to dump your Netflix subscription? Should you blow off Blockbuster now? We’ll find out.

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