iReview

After multiple attempts and long wait in line next to an extremely chatty woman, who compared the experience to her wait in line for an exclusive beanie baby at Target, I was actually able to pay a large sum of money obtain a iPhone 3G. (The more money something cost, the easier it should be to get someone to actually sale it to you.) While I am disappointed with how the release has been handled, I am very happy with the phone.

Now, there are lots of people this phone is not for. Save your money if you just want a cool looking phone, the hottest gadget or don’t know the difference between push and fetch. (If that is the case and you still want a cool phone, go for the nonconformist vibe and grab a Samsung Instinct or a Nokia N series). This phone is for people who already organize their lives on some sort of device and want/need to always be connected to the cloud. I just happen to be that type of person.

Off the top, the iPhone is by far the best iPod offered (as an personal music player it functions identical to the iPod touch.) As a phone, it offers much better voice quality than my old Samsung Blackjack. I was actually shocked. The 3G makes web browsing practical when not on a the wi-fi network, though the whole actual web pages with Safari still leaves a little to be desired. The thing that really makes the phone are the applications and their integration with the GPS. For instance, while Kyllan was in town, I simply pulled up restaurant reviews using the Yelp! app and filtered them by distance from our location to decided where we should eat and then pulled up a map with turn by turn directions. At this point the device is serving as my phone, iPod, e-mail client, calendar, address book, to do list, weather station, gps, stereo remote (an airport express is hooked into m reciver) and on the fly event planner. It may be the most useful device I have ever owned… and I hate liking anything made by Apple.

All that being said, the battery life sucks. I am in one of those unique work environments where a 12 hour day permits me to have head phones on for 11 hrs without anyone taking a second glance and leave teh Wi-Fi on, so I probably should not complain with all of the use the device is getting on a daily basis, but I am sick of having to hook it up to the charger at the end of the day. The majority of my accessories for my previous iPod don’t work with the iPhone, which also sucks. Apparently new accessories, that look identical to the old ones, are going to be released soon. There is no ability to send MMS, but that doesn’t realy bother me. I love the interface for SMS. I have had a few freezes when opening an app, but the phone has quickly reset afterward. That may be my only real concern, but the consensus seems to be this is associated with useage immediately after installing multiple apps.

So, those are my thoughts. I really like the phone, but only recommend it for the tech geeks and gadget fiends.

Dark Knight

This past Friday I invited the lab and some of the graduate students in the department over to my apartment to watch Batman Begins. On Saturday we all met up and went to see Dark Knight (the IMAX: Experience.) Apparently a lot of other people did too. I thougt it was great! Probably the best super hero movie I’ve seen, other than Iron Man. Heath Ledger was just flat out creepy as the Joker. The film was long, it was dark, but it was also very entertaining. I highly recommend to anyone that hasn’t already seen it. (My parents also saw the movie this weekend, but did not enjoy it as much as I did. It may have been a little too dark for them.)

Movies and Television

Just in case some of you were looking for movie suggestions, I thought I would share my opinions of the movies Kyllan and I saw last weekend. Iron Man was great. It was the rare comic book movie done well. I had been concerned that it was going to be a little too sci-fi for Kyllan and was shocked to see how much she enjoyed it. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for an excuse to go to the theater, even if you don’t consider yourself a fan of the sci-fi/ comic book genre. Forgetting Sarah Marshall was laugh out loud funny. Probably the best comedy I’ve seen all year.  It is from the same guys who made 40 year old virgin, Knocked up and Superbad. If you liked those movies, I think you would like this one too. ( I don’t think I wouldn’t recommend it to my parents.) Baby Mama was very funny, but I would still suggest the other two over it.

Finally, I was also  able to convince Kyllan to watch the (re-imagined) Battlestar Galactica mini-series with me. She doesn’t want to admit it, but she enjoyed it. At some point I will get her to watch the regular television series. She just might be on the verge of becoming a sci-fi fan. I think I am going to try and get her to watch the Firefly pilot next. (She is not ready for Star Wars or Star Trek yet. She tunes out whenever aliens appear.)

Along with Kyllan and Kim, the Cody Report also had a birthday. Two years old. Kyllan didn’t even know what a blog was when I first bought up the idea.

Oh, and just for comparison with the previous post…

Another Fun Visit

I had a great time with Kyllan this weekend. We didn’t do very much, so there aren’t any exciting stories. We tried to go to a few popular restaurants, but apparently there is some special restaurant week going on and a lot of places are half off; Every place we tried was booked up. We tried to see Definitely, Maybe, but we got the show time wrong and arrived at the theater too early. Instead of waiting we decided to see Vantage Point. Warning! DO NOT SEE THIS MOVIE! It wasn’t necessarily bad, but it was definitely annoying. You’ve been warned. Don’t make me tell you “I told you so.” (I wanted to see Be Kind, Rewind, but Kyllan said, “no.”)