The Romantics Sue Activision

Guitar Hero might be in trouble. The Romantics, the 80's band that made the hit "That's What I Like About You," is angry that the cover song of the same name on Guitar Hero Rocks the 80's doesn't suck as much as their original version. So would it come as a surprise that they're suing? They think that it is a violation of copyright law to make a song that sounds too much like the original. Well, here's what the Copyright Act says:

"...the arrangement shall not change the basic melody or fundamental character of the work..."

If the group gets their way, there is a possibility that the game could be taken off of the shelves. Good luck with that. If they lose, my punishment would be for the whole band to be forced to watch a TGI Fridays commercial with their song on it playing on a constant loop. Forever.

T! At Black Friday 2007

My video camera was on the fritz, so I only have pictures from my cheesetastic cameraphone to report to you.

I crawled out of bed at 4a.m., and left the house by 4:15. I traveled 25 miles to Circuit City in Denton, Texas, to take advantage of the $8 2GB USB drive.

I wasn't expecting to see any die-hard shopper lines in Denton, but when I passed Best Buy on the way to Circuit City, I saw a line full of tents, chairs, and crazy people. The same sight greeted me when I arrived to the City.

I waited in line for about ten minutes before the doors opened at 5. Once opened, everyone started to pour in.



After wriggling my way past the crowd, I finally found the huge cardboard box full of USB drives. I grabbed three of them, and charged to the register.


Once the cashier scanned my items, the total popped up on the screen. $48. What? These are $8 bucks apiece! What I didn't know, and the folks at black-friday.net didn't tell me, was that there was a mail-in rebate, and there was a limit of one per person. I immediately snapped back a demand to have my money back, then I calmly said that I would like to just have one. It wasn't what I expected, but I got what I wanted.

After Circuit City, I traveled to many stores looking for prospective gifts and watching the crowds take this day way too seriously. My first stop was across the boulevard to the Golden Triangle Mall, our local mall since 1979. Even though it's drawing it's dying breaths, and will soon be snuffed out by a mega shopping center on the other side of town, the anchor stores were open extra early to greet shoppers.

I walked through the empty halls, and through the busy aisles of JCPenney and Sears.




This lady is so tired that she apparently can't even carry her pillows without dragging them pathetically on the ground.

After the mall, I stopped by Target, which was by far the most crowded store out of any other that morning. I didn't stay very long, especially after I witnessed this sea of people:



Once I escaped Target, I just want to random stores, picking up a few gifts along the way. I had a good time, but one thing is for sure. I probably won't be doing this again for a loooooong time.

Techoo! Goes To Black Friday

I'm setting my alarm for 4a.m. in the mornin', cause I'm taking part in the festivities of Black Friday.

First, a trip to Circuit City, to nab a couple of those 2GB Sandisk Cruzers for 8 bucks. After that, anything goes. I'm thinking about videotaping my travels for publishing on this interweb tubepage, so stay tuned.

The Weekender: Forecast for Rain

I know that this is an oldie, but it's a goodie for sure. Anyone remember this, or the countless parodies of it on YouTube? I will explain no more, since the video should explain more than enough.

Amazon to Release E-Book Reader Monday

Hey, do you remember the Sony Reader I talked about earlier? You don't? You guys are going to have to start remembering these things.

Anyway, Amazon is about to get in on the lucrative e-book business with their new Kindle e-book reader.

CNet reports that it's equipped with wi-fi in order to connect to the Amazon e-book store to quench your thirst for books. The price tag is expected to be about $399, so it's still to friggin' expensive, considering you could buy a Palm Z22 that can do the exact same thing, or a beefier model for more reading. I sure hope this does better than the Sony Reader, but I heavily doubt it.

Zach's Linux Switch: Video Editing

I'm gonna add a little more to my Linux switch saga; this time I'm talking about video editors, and how much all of them in Linux suck.

Seriously. Linux can do pretty much all of the things Windows can do with little to no effort, while editing a simple video is a major pain in the ass. No video editor is included in Ubuntu, and all of the editors I have tried either crash, have absolutely no features or fail to play the video properly at all.

The first one I tried, PiTiVi, looked like a pretty good candidate. Just import your vids, drag and drop to the timeline, and add all of the wonderful effects and transitions you like, right? Wrong. It didn't include any transitions, titles, effects, or anything else that a video editor would normally have. Pretty pathetic.

Pretty much all of those I have tried since PiTiVi have been even worse. Most of them will play the video, but with no audio. Some will crash upon booting, and some won't open at all.

The video editing scene in the Linux world is in a sad state of affairs, and it will keep many people from switching if the problems aren't solved.

Check Mii Out: Bordem In Ten Minutes Or Less GUARANTEED!

I just downloaded the brand spankin' new Check Mii Out channel for the good 'ol Wii. If you don't know about this new little channel, just have a seat on the rug and grandpa T will tell you a story.

Check Mii Out is a new WiiWare channel by Nintendo that allows you to vote on and trade your and other people's miis. You can also enter mii look-alike contests. Yup, that's about it.

After downloading, I started it up and was immediately sickened by the annoying music. I thought
the Wii Shop Channel was bad. Anyway, I posted Dick Cheney mii, voted on a couple of Miis that 
looked kinda cool, then turned it off and played bowling. It was a pretty pathetic experience, to say
the least. It's free, so you don't have an excuse not to download it, but you'll have a million reasons not to use it.