Archive for the ‘Gripes’ Category

RJ on the iPhone 3G S Uh Oh Palm’s in Trouble!

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

The battle for cell phone supremacy is on and poppin’!!!  Apple is bringing the PAIN! Today Apple released information on the long rumored beefed up version of the iPhone, The IPhone 3G S. I don’t think it is a coincidence that it was announced so close to the release of the Palm Pre and that it will be released on June 19th, one day short of 2 weeks after the Palm Pre release.

I would say that the iPhone 3G S is the competition for the Pre and I would be sort of right if I did. BUT! What is really gonna screw over Palm with this iPhone release is the slash in price for the iPhone 3G (sans S). Sheezus! The iPhone 3G 8gb is now $99.99 (I am so glad I ebay-ed mine before I came out here to Taiwan). That means if you get screwed over on your $100 mail in rebate the Palm Pre will be $200 dollars more for the same amount of storage. Gah!!! I hate mail in rebates!!!!!

The iPhone 3G S boasts new and fancy features like an Autofocus Camera, Voice control, built-in Compass for orienting maps in the direction that you are standing, video recording, and improved battery life. These are great features but I think that the Palm Pre is still going to eek out a victory even with these wonderful new features. Let’s go down the line. Oh I almost forgot the iPhone 3G S starts at 16GB and you can still get it for the low low price of $199.99!

The iPhone 3G S will have a 3 megapixel Camera with no flash that does autofocusing. BUT! What is cool about it is that you can tap the screen to tell it where to focus or let it choose where to focus. The Palm Pre Camera is also 3 megapixels but it has a flash. The iPhone 3G S wins in this category because it’s camera can take 30 fps videos as well as all the other automagic things it can do.

The iPhone 3G S also has improved battery life compared to the iPhone 3G . The numbers that they have quoted are actually higher than the Palm Pre. But the palm pre wins in the battery battle because it’s battery is removable and therefore replaceable. If your iPhone runs out of Juice you better have another one in your pocket because you sure can’t change the battery! With the Palm Pre you can just have another batter in your pocket and you’re good to go.

The iPhone 3G S has a built in Compass. I say who cares to that! If you can’t figure out which way you are facing you shouldn’t be using a map. Both the Palm Pre and the iPhone 3G S will have GPS enabled maps. I call this a tie.

The iPhone 3G S voice controls are cool but the problem with the voice control is that you have to pick up your phone and press the stupid button for them to work.  But you can do things like tell it to play a certain type of music and it will. The Palm Pre loses here but once again I say who cares. If you are too lazy to press a few buttons (you don’t even have to press the damn buttons it’s a touch screen) you probably wouldn’t be able to afford either phone. And since you have to press the button it is not hands free and therefore can’t be used in the car!

The one major thing where the iPhone loses is multi-tasking. They say if you multitask it crazy drains the battery yada yada yada, but guess what! It’s my #$%&ing BATTERY! I’ll drain my battery if I want to! If it was replaceable maybe this wouldn’t be an issue! Think about that Mr. Jobs? Maybe you should think about that for your next release. The Pre will let me drain the crap out of my battery (whenever I can get one) and that is exactly what I plan to do!

In my opinion the best thing about the Palm Pre that  will be getting in August is the fact that I will never EVER be tied down to the most evil application on the planet, iTunes, again.

One of the more important things is the carrier. Palm was very smart with this. They are only exclusive with sprint through 2009. That means that one day very soon Verizon and AT&T will have the Palm Pre, or something similar to it. Once the Palm Pre hits Verizon I think it is going to be hugely popular and really gain some market share.

The final category is price. The Palm Pre is a $300 dollar phone. It takes so long to get rebates that by the time you get it, it really does not apply to the cost of the phone. If it is June 19th and you only have $200 in your pocket and you are at the sprint store you cannot get a Palm Pre, but you can go next door and walk off with an iPhone 3G S or TWO!! iPhone 3G’s. I really think Palm and Sprint screwed up BIG TIME with this price thing. If I was hemming and hawing about the Palm Pre  I definitely would say” hey! What’s this? I can get an iPhone 3G for $99.99 and it has 80% of the features? Hmmm.” So Palm will get hurt here. Because even though I don’t like the iPhone too much it is still an EXTREMELY good and popular phone. And on top of that, if the iPhone 36 8GB is 99.99 what is the price for the 16GB? I don’t know but I bet it will be like 149.99 (the 3G S is 16GB and is only $199.99).

My final conclusion is that for my personal situation the Palm Pre will be the best phone ever. But of course there are those people that would by Steve Jobs’ turds if he sold them, and those people will buy an iPhone 3GS and if they are cheap Steve Jobs worshippers they will buy the iPhone 3G for $99.99. But let’s be honest, the customers that would buy the iPhone over the Pre were probably not even Palm’s target to buy the phone. So if you are like me then please go buy a Palm Pre as soon as possible, so that palm does not crash and burn before I can get my Pre in August.  And if you love Apple, products even though they are nowhere near as functional as they can and should be, then go buy your iPhone 3G or iPhone 3G S!

Don’t get me wrong, Apple makes good products, I am definitely not an Apple hater. I actually have a 20” iMac. But when it comes to phones I am NOT a fan and I had an iPhone 3G 9 Months!

RJ on Terminator Salvation

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

I went into Terminator Salvation without looking at any reviews or really looking into anything that would color my opinion of the movie. I went in with extremely high expectations due to the fact that I thought that this movie was supposed to bring the Terminator franchise back from its untimely death caused by the wonderfully action packed Terminator 3 movie. And my expectations were exceeded by far.

The movie was absolutely mesmerizing. I sat down and I was so enthralled with the plot and the special effects that I didn’t even have the ability to eat the Twizzlers that I had painstakingly retrieved for this movie. I don’t even really know what to say about this movie because I feel like saying anything would be a spoiler. The story is pretty amazing, it is original while at the same time fitting in 100% with the first three movies (except for the fact that they still believe that events are set in stone and cannot be changed by time travel, which they did not believe in the first 2 movies).

There were a few minor things that were weird but they are 100% necessary for the movie to work and really who cares. If you can’t accept some scientific impossibilities you should not watch a movie where computers take over the world and spend all of their energy killing humans and the main character’s father is younger than him (I was very happy to see the Kyle Reese was played by Anton Yelchin who also played Chekov in Star Trek!).

When you watch this movie, and you will, you will notice something interesting about the movie. Even though the movie is billed as being a Christian Bale movie, it seems as though he was just there for star power. The real strength of the movie is Sam Worthington’s and Moon Bloodgood’s (because she’s hot) performances. John Connor and Kate Connor were pretty much secondary to the movie. Other than a few slips back into his Australian accent Sam Worthington’s performance was amazing. Although there is one REALLY REALLY annoying thing about his character he is still plays a convincing and important role in the story.

Finally, the ending of the movie leaves things open for a fifth Terminator movie. I hope that they can make this movie, I am not sure if it will be possible. Jeez on its opening weekend Ben Stiller’s Night at the Museum crap beat it. Come on people please go see this movie like today, really Night at the Museum?? What were you thinking. I saw Terminator Salvation and enjoyed it without even having the luxury of my red vines!

I think that people look at this movie and they try to judge it based on the previous 3 movies. The problem is that Terminator Salvation is IN the future and is a film of a completely different style that cannot even be judged next to the other three. The writers did an amazing job of creating an original story and to the director for creating a completely different feel. Great movie.

Now if only Christian Bale would stop talking in that god damn raspy voice of his the movie would have been perfect. Come on Christian Bale, I heard you cussing out that lighting guy on the set of Terminator Salvation for like 5 long minutes and there was no raspy voice! That has got to hurt your throat and it is annoying! it kind of sounds like Christian Bale is barfing out words sometimes jeez. oh well you have to forgive some things haha.

In closing I will make this bold and surprising statement. When I got up to leave the theater I turned around, looked in my girlfriend’s eyes, and said “I enjoyed that more than Star Trek.”

Peace out ya’ll. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do! And see this movie!

RJ and the Twizzlers

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

Before I start rambling on about today’s escapades I must explain the title of this post. Since Ranting Jamaican is a pretty long addition to every title I have decided to abbreviate. From now on wherever I was going to type Ranting Jamaican in the title I will instead type RJ. Hope you all like it that way because that’s how it’s gonna be!

Anyways today I was doing some more digging on the possibility of getting Red Vines in Taipei because my Ebay Red Vines have not arrived yet. Still no luck on the Red Vines but I found a somewhat OK substitute. As I was searching I found a post on www.forumosa.com (a good place to get info on Taiwan). Haha get it? Forumosa, Formosa? Anyways I found out that I could get Twizzlers in Taipei!

So after a search for the location on a Chinese language map and an English one (because google has everything in Chinese characters and I had to match crap up blah blah blah) I found the location of Wellman’s import store. Basically you take the Red line towards Beitou and Danshui and get off at the Zhishan exit. From here we had to walk east on Fuhua Rd. and make a left on Zhongshan N. Road. The place was like a mile and half walk down Zhongshan N. Road. Boy was it a long walk. When we finally arrived at Wellman’s a choir of Angels sang Hallelujah then I went in and bought my twizzlers.

Wellman’s, of course, sells a lot more than twizzlers but it definitely does not sell Red Vines. Red Vines are way way way better than twizzlers in my opinion but then I figured that twizzlers are an OK substitute since I was desperate. Eh it was a mistake. But back to Wellman’s, in addition to Red Vines they sell a large amount of American products and a few Japanese. They have things like American branded Vinegar, Ziploc bags, blow pops, An assortment of American Soda’s, Snapple etc etc etc. When visiting Taipei for an extended period of time it is a good place to know about even though it is somewhat difficult to access via the subway system.

So after going on this mission to buy twizzlers I get 3 bags of twizzlers. As soon as I ate some of them I remembered why I love Red Vines so much and regretted the purchase. Eh I after all that work I did not even enjoy them in the movie theater. I was too mesmerized by Moon Bloodgood….. oops! I meant Terminator Salvation.

I Will be posting my thoughts on Terminator Salvation at some point in the near future after I absorb its amazingness. it seems that the people who rated it on www.rottentomatoes.com had an awsomeness overload and gave it bad reviews. Jeezus! I hate it when people don’t know how to appreciate a movie.