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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.

Whilst waiting for my drink at Panda Express I could see a young member of staff taking a quiz on a PC. Saw one question:

What is the correct thing to do when there is a jam[*] in a food processor?

1. Always unplug the processor
2. Use your fingers to unjam the processor
3. Use a metal object to free the jam
4. Never unplug the processor

The young girl reached for the training manual and started flipping through the pages. The supervisor serving me said to her “it’s number 1”, the girl stared at the screen. I got my drink and sat down to hear the supervisor say again “it’s number 1, really”.

Back to the old theme while I find a new one.
[*] I assume this refers to a blockage rather than a strawberry preserve used on toast.

It’s that time again, yesterday I received the form for my next free Sony CD. Once again I invite you to suggest something for me to order, it can be anything from the Sony catalogue. And, yes, I also invite the standard rootkit jokes and comments.

Today is Day Without An Immigrant day, where people in support of illegal aliens and other criminals will try to hurt the country by not going to work and not buying anything. Well, I’ve decided to show my support by, today, not buying anything from a store that is run by anyone with ties to an illegal alien. Not sure how I will determine that but I am sure they will appreciate my effort.

So, the Portuguese coach says he definitely isn’t going to be the next England coach; apparantly he doesn’t like being hounded by the press. Go figure. But it seems to me that the England football coach should be an Englishman, not some bloody foreigner. Can you imagine the French or German teams hiring someone from another country? Now, it may be that we don’t have any decent coaches (unlikely) but even if true, the England coach should be like the England players: English.

Here’s a few things that wind me up even though I know there’s no good reason for it.

• people using ‘toilet seat protectors’
• people who use chopsticks at chinese fast food places
• people who order ‘to go’ and then eat in

Hmm… thought I had a lot more but now I can’t think of them.