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[NEW HOST MARKER]I spent the first part of the day yesterday at my friendly neighbourhood INS office in Calexico. I had to hand in my current permanent resident card and apply for the new (unconditional) one. In the past you would have to get there early and queue up to get seen, now an appointment is mandatory; mine was for 8am and I was second in line at 7.40. The appointment letter said you will be denied entry if you show up later than 15 minutes before the appointment time: the doors opened at 8.05.

I believe no trip to the INS is without trouble, no matter how good your paperwork is. In my case, after watching the officer speak on the phone for 20 minutes without dealing with anybody she finally announced that the computer system was broken and so she couldn’t help anybody. We were welcome to stay but she didn’t know if it would be 5 minutes or 5 hours. There’s a plush INS office in San Diego so I asked the lady if I could go there instead, and not have to skip work to visit Calexico. She said I could but then, to my amazement, she said she would try to work my case without the computer. She took my passport and card away, came back 10 minutes later to take my fingerprints, and then about 20 minutes later she was done (and by then the computer was working again).

So now I have a stamp in my passport saying I am a permanent resident waiting for my card, and the card when it comes should be valid for 7 years or so, maybe even the full 10. Unless I decide to go for citizenship, it means I am finally free of the INS for a while. And that’s a good thing.

I’ve had my little Mac Mini for a couple of months now and whilst I love its slender form, its quiet sound and glorious OS X, I am struggling not to throw it in the trash. Why would I do such a thing? Its too damn slow.
Having used high-spec PCs all the time I was prepared to trade some difference in performance for the joy of returning to OS X, and all the other Mac goodness. But its hard to enjoy when it taks so long to get to it. I have Thunderbird and Firefox running all the time, switching from one to the other takes 20 to 90 seconds, just to bring the window to focus. Lord help me if I have anything else running at the same time

I had some photos to resize yesterday. It was such an ordeal waiting for the photo editing software to launch that it was quickler to email me the pictures, start my business PC, get the mail, edit them in Photoshop Elements, upload them to the walmart photo centre for printing and shut the PC down. When the photo software finally loaded, it didn’t even have a resize option(!). I thought the Mac was supposed to be good for media manipulation.

I shall try upgrading the memory to a Gb and see how much that helps. If I don’t see much improvement I may be going back to Windoze for my daily chores.

Two cracking new albums in my iPod this month, very different from each other so something for everyone!

• The Hardest Way to Make An Easy Living by The Streets. Mike Skinner returns with a new album full of innovative lyrics and another great story. If you haven’t already got A Grand Don’t Come For Free, start here and then go get it.
• Royksop’s Night Out (Live EP) by Royksopp. A live CD from the Norwegian duo showcasing their own brand “of slow tempo” electronica. I love the girl’s voice and the melodies that support it. If you love this, be sure to check out Melody AM next.

Next month is the new album from Keane. After hearing their new single I am not sure it will be as good as Hopes and Fears but I have my fingers crossed.

The World Cup is almost here so what better way to get in the mood than 2006 FIFA World Cup from EA Sports.

Sadly, I have to report that my general mood was of frustration with the game. Biggest problem is probably one of their big selling points – realistic stadium shading. Playing an afternoon game cast a huge dark shadow over a large part of the pitch and every time the action moved into it I could barely make out the players on my TV. I quickly grew to prefer evening kick-offs. There is also some choppiness in the game, it doesn’t play smoothly like the other FIFA games I have (’05 and ’06).

I expected it to play like FIFA ’06 but it doesn’t. I found making an attack much more difficult that before, the players didn’t seem to run into position like before. Now this could be because of the new control system but it seems that someone familiar with previous versions shouldn’t have to struggle.

The commentary is pretty good though I do miss the good old days of John Motson and Ally McCoist which I think is the pinnacle of in-game commentary, somehow they managed to capture the genuine humour between the two that existed in real life. You don’t get the same feel from Andy Gray (who I believe is the commentator for this series).

Over all, I am a little disappointed, but the fact that I get to play the current World Cup draw helps make up for that. So, I give it 3.5 out of 5.

Emptied the bag of swag at the weekend, I did better than many here but not as well as I had anticipated. Largely this was because it was quite difficult or time consuming to get any good stuff But I did come home with:

• two free t-shirts
• 10 gaming/PC magazines
• 6 game posters
• playstation3 and nintendo Wii lanyards
• a “powered by the UK” pin badge
• a couple of kanagaroo badges
• a squeezy minature basketball

I missed out on the big ticket item – Paris Hilton was at the show Thursday and her entourage were giving out pairs of panties in celebration. A few people here got them, and I think I’ll resist and comment about them.

I can’t believe people are selling their swag on ebay. That advertising packet from Square Enix is apparantly “RARE and EXCLUSIVE”, same with the Playstation 3 lanyard. Some of this stuff is selling for anywhere from 99c to $2.50!! Who knew I could get rich from going to a game show.

I’m pleased to say that just as 11 million illegals stand to become citizens as a reward for their crime, this week I received notice that my permanent residency has become unconditional. Its only taken 3.5 years since applying and several hundred dollars in fees and I’m not even close to being able to apply for citizenship. You can make up your own sarcastic next line.

Phew, finally back from LA after a long day of travelling and walking around gawking at stuff. I can see now why people say it needs more than one day. First day should be looking around, taking pictures, picking up free crap. Second day you go back and make direct hits on the things that interest you. For those of you eager to see the pictures, take a look at my flickr photo set. In the unlikely event you want to read about my day, I’ll see you after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

At the risk of offending my Sony-overlords, I have to say that today’s unveiling of Nintendo’s Wii was pretty impressive. The motion sensing controller is so innovative I really enjoyed the demonstrations they presented. I can’t afford one game system let alone two so no need to fear that I won’t be getting a PS3 when I can, but dang, that was cool!

If you want to see for yourself, see the earlier posts for links to E3 show news. Tomorrow I shall see if the hype feels as good when held in the hand.

E3 is here and today was the much anticipated Sony press conference and, the long awaited PS3 pricing details. So now we know that the PS3 will be availble in the US on November 17th and will come in $499 and $599 flavours (20Gb vs 60Gb disk).

I watched the event live on gamespot.com, kudos to them for broadcasting it. It was strangely un-exciting, nothing much seemed to get the audience fired up. Highlight for me was the Grand Canyon track from Gran Turismo 4 in true HDTV. The new controller was a big deal, hard to see on the small internet broadcast, bluetooth, wireless, the demonstrated moved it in space and it moved on the PS3 display. Sweet.

You can get your E3 news fix, including pictures of the PS3, the controller, and various screenshots:

• Gamespot E3 Coverage
• IGN E3 Coverage

I’ll be there Wednesday to give you the hot poop on everything going on. That is, if I can get anywhere near the damn exhibits.

[Update:] I have my floor pass… and just read this description of the show which makes it sound like sooooooo much fun!

Where the Japanese [games expo attendees] neatly lined up to collect t-shirt bundles dispensed by girls dressed up in Dead or Alive bikinis, E3 is populated by people who will actually punch you in the head for walking across their camera shot when you’re in a hurry. They get very indignant, because they are trying to find non-existent open space in a hall of 50,000 people, most of whom haven’t heard of deodorant and even more of whom are dehydrated enough not to care that much about whether their huge bag of useless pamphlets is smacking you in the crotch.

Its only a few days now until E3 2006 in Los Angeles. As of current writing, looks like guapacha.com will be there for the first day of the expo on Weds. We hope to play lots of games and take lots of pictures of the melee. According to many sources, the booth babes will be much more covered up this year but your roving reporter will hope to pick up a few scoops, er, so to speak. For all the pre-show hype, check out the E3 Essentials Round-Up at Next Generation.