Practicality put aside by the magical mystical “unlimited money” clause, I’d buy a fleet of 12 of those suckers, and create some sort of sport based on them.

I haven’t worked out the details yet, but it would definitely be hockey-style, with rough play encouraged.  A few key points:

• 5 on 5 play, with 1 spare Segway per team in case of a disabled vehicle.
• Only stock Segways used; no performing-enhancing modifications.
• Players must stay on their Segway; if they get knocked off, they remain out of the play for a set period of time.  Stepping off intentionally is strictly not allowed.
• There will probably be a ball or puck of some sort, with sticks and a goal.  Maybe lacrosse baskets.

I see it like Whirlyball for the 2010 decade.  Someone needs to make it happen.

PS. I got an iPhone 3G. It rocks but isn’t flawless. More to come.

I left my cell phone in my car.

And it’s driving me crazy.

I would just go down to get it, but it’s a bit of a walk to where I parked.  That, and I’m curious to see how long I’m willing to go before giving in.  My goal is to make it to lunch, when I’d be walking around anyway, but we’ll see.  I’m going to have trouble making lunch plans without the phone, so it could go either way.

Every minute or so, I notice something feels off.  I feel around in my pants (no, not like that) and think to myself, “Something’s missing!” (no, not like that!)  I then realize it’s my phone, remember that I left it in my car, and get back to adjusting my hair, messing with a whisker I missed while shaving, or whatever other fidgety thing I’m doing.  A minute will pass, and we’ll repeat the process.

I’m about a block away from my phone — which is as far from my phone as I’ve been in a while.  I wonder if it misses me as much as I miss it.

I keep wondering, am I missing text messages?  Phone calls?  No one calls me this early, but maybe today is the day someone does.  It’s lonely without my phone.

You can probably tell that this isn’t the most well-formed or coherent of posts.  This is because:

1) It’s early. 2) I’m distracted by not having my cell phone.

It’s amazing how attached you can become to technology.  If someone had told me 10 years ago I’d have a phone that was my personal secretary — taking messages, keeping my schedule, keeping my to-do lists — that I would be lost without, I’d have called them crazy.

I’m quite secure in my masculinity, but I don’t want to be the only dude out there carrying a purse.

But really, it makes sense — just ask any woman.  In my pockets, I carry my cell phone, my wallet, my keys, and my iPod nano.  In my hand, I often carry a water bottle.  That’s a lot of stuff to be carrying around — but I’ve limited myself.  I’ve emptied my wallet of everything but the essentials, and I don’t carry around gadgets I would like to have with me all the time — my Nintendo DS and my digital camera.  I have chapped lipped often, but I travel without chapstick except on the chappiest of days, instead having some both at home and at the office.  (I used to leave a stick in the car, but that quit working when the temperatures passed 100°F; I left work one day and found a chapstick-puddle in my car.)

What’s the solution?  Carry a purse!  Now, it doesn’t have to be styled as a woman’s purse — someone needs to come up with an uber-manly design, a design far manlier than the messenger bag. 

The messenger bag comes close to being the man purse (murse), but falls a little short.  It’s acceptable to carry one around a college campus, or to carry one in and out of work; but you can’t really carry one around at the mall, or to dinner, or to a party, or whatever else.  But women can take their purses to those places.

I was hoping that Friends would help bridge the gender gap.  There was an episode where Joey explained how much sense it made for him to carry a manbag, and I was right alongside him.  But by the end of the episode, they convinced him that it was womanly and he got rid of it (but not until after he had tried wearing panties instead of men’s underwear).

So, I’d like to issue a challenge to you guys out there — start taking your messenger bags to places you normally wouldn’t.  If you’re a bag designer (I’m sure my blog has a huge readership among the bag designer crowd), try to make the perfect manly design that men can carry with confidence everywhere and not be shunned by their friends and strangers.

I’ll make it a point to try to stretch the boundaries of where I can carry my manbag.  I will try to ignore the laughter and hope I don’t become to ostricized.  You guys do the same — together, we can change the world and make it a place that welcomes men carrying bags.

Praise for the machine is everywhere, so I won’t waste too much of your time saying how awesome it is.  The screen is bright, it feels good in your hands, game cartridges are small, the touch screen is awesome.  At $130, it all feels like a bargain.

One thing is bugging me, though — the lack of PDA/organizer software.  Nintendo is bringing Opera’s web browser to the system soon, but there is a perfect opportunity for the DS to be not just a gaming machine but also a organizational tool.  When you turn on your DS, up pops a calendar on the top screen.  But no organizer, to-do list, etc.  Just a plain old calendar sitting there taunting you, as if saying “Hey!  I’m a calendar on a machine with a stylus and great connectivity!  But you can’t use me to organize your life!”

Now, I realize that these kind of functions take memory — you have to put the program and the data somewhere.  I understand that.  But, my little cell phone has an organizer built into it, and it remained small — why not the DS?  I don’t know the engineering details behind squeezing the DS Lite into such a pretty and small package, but I’m not convinced they couldn’t have put an organizer in there and not affect the form much, if at all.

I’m not asking for a full out Pocket PC here — just some basic tools that could come in handy if you carry your DS around with you everywhere.  I don’t, but maybe I would if it had more than just games.

With one exception.

The TiVo interface commits one of my pet peeves for menus — they don’t wrap.  Hit down when you’re at the bottom of the menu and you should go to the top of the menu.  Hit up when you’re at the top?  You guessed it.  You should be taken to the bottom of the menu.

The TiVo interface is so well done that it’s shocking this detail was overlooked.  And I see it as an important detail.  One of the menu items I use most is going into Standy Mode when I’m not watching TV.  You go into the TiVo menu, and Standy (which the TiVo instruction manual instructs you to use rather than just turning off the TV and letting the TiVo go) is inside the Messages and Settings submenu.  Messages and Settings is the last item on the first menu, and every time I go into the menu screen I instinctively hit up to get to the last item on the menu.  And TiVo responds with the annoying CLONG sound that it makes when you do something illegal.  Dangit TiVo, let me go to the bottom of the menu!

In TiVo’s defense, it does remember where within the submenu you previously were.  So even though Standby is the last item on that second menu, it does take you immediately there if that was the last thing you did (which, in my case, it usually is).  But if it wasn’t?  You have to hit down several times to get there.

This is made even more aggravating because we’re dealing with a remote — so there’s an inherent little delay.

Please, TiVo, in future software revisions, let users hit up to go to the bottom of menus.

I’m sitting here in my cube listening to people type.  No one in this neck of the woods is even getting phone calls today for me to listen in on.  The silence really is deafening, as they say.  Trent just blew his nose.  More typing.  Martha just coughed.  Frank just walked by.  I hear the copy machine.  Oooh… Shanon is talking to someone.  I think it’s Frank, but I only hear Shannon.

Enough with the play by play… the point is, cubicle life is boring without the soothing sounds of my iPod.  And I was also bored while lifting weights after playing some basketball at the gym this morning.  There, I was treated to the dulced tones of men grunting.

I have trouble remembering the days before I had an iPod.  When I was a kid, I had a tape Walkman, but it chewed through batteries so much I didn’t use it often.  Portable digital music players make it practical to have your own personal soundtrack going all the time.  And I miss mine.

One of my favorite features on my Volkswagen is the heated seats. There’s nothing like getting into the car on a cold winter morning and a few blocks into my commute having a toasty warm behind and back. It’s proof that there are some options on cars that are worth every penny.

I tend to get cold hands while I’m at the computer for a long time — probably the position of the mouse leading to less than stellar circulation in my hands combined with a cold house. Now, what if you could have a mouse that gently warmed your cold hand?

I’m wondering if we could do this via USB and not need an external power source. I know that USB can’t transfer a ton of power, but it’s enough to charge my iPod, and my iPod tends to be nice and warm after a good charge. And mice have a pretty small surface area to have to warm. Make the top of the mouse a material that transfers heat well, stick some coils underneath, warm the coils and voila, heated mouse.

If you can’t get enough power out of USB, then fine, we can use batteries or even an external cord. We can even stick corporate logos on the mouse and sell them to companies as giveaways.

Now, who can make this happen?

Remember when people had phones that had a handset and a base? You picked up the handset, dialed numbers that were on the base of all places, and then talked into the handset. When you were done, you signaled the phone company to end the call by returning the handset to the base.

This system had its flaws, mainly that you were tied down to an area with a radius of a few feet, but it had one wonderful advantage: when you were in the midst of a fit of rage, you could end the call unexpectedly with a satisfying crash of the handset hitting the base — a crash heard both by you and the other member of the phone conversation.

Now, if you want to hang up angrily, you have to settle for hitting the hangup button with a little extra force, or close your flip phone with a little extra force, but being careful not to break it. This comes across silently to other end of the conversation — so your fit of rage might be responded to by the other person calling back and informing you that the call was disconnected. Then, you have to explain that you did not get disconnected, but that you rather forcefully hung up.

I propose that cell phones have a “angry hang up” button that sends a crashing sound both out of the ringer so that you can hear it and to the other party so they can hear it.

Some people want bluetooth and wi-fi on their cell phones; I want an angry hang up button. Is that too much to ask?

Using a phone card with your cell phone can save you money on your international phone calls. An even cheaper alternative is to use a VoIP phone for your international calls with free VoIP software.

A lot of people were expecting Apple, via iTunes, to eventually sell music videos and movies. I didn’t see people predicting that an intermediary step before movies would be the purchase of television shows, however. And it’s a logical step — before asking people to commit to purchasing longer, probably more expensive content, why not see if they’ll commit to purchasing shorter television shows for $1.99 each?

Portable movies have been done before, anyway (portable DVD players, PSP-formatted movies) — just not downloadable portable movies. A question that remains to be answered, however, is how people will feel about downloading very large movie files? A 4megabyte song is one thing. A 50+megabyte movie is another.

Another question — will the shows be commercial free? I would hope so, as you’re paying $1.99 for them. But perhaps the $1.99 is just a delivery fee — and the commercials are still included?

Having personal access to television shows so soon after their broadcast is the next step in an impending paradigm shift regarding television. It started with TiVo allowing you to watch your favorite shows when its convenient (and without the hassles of VCRs). This is the next step. I doubt television will ever fully move to an on-demand format (people learn about new shows through surfing, of course), but choice for the viewer is always a good thing.

I’ll be interested in seeing how popular this becomes. Will people eat up the chance to watch their favorite shows whenever they want, without TiVo? Or will people scoff at the idea of paying for something they can get for free?

I was sort of right — Apple did update the iMac line. But they also did release that video iPod.

If I’d have waited a little longer on getting the iPod nano, I would have been faced with the tough decision of 30gig iPod with video (wider and thinner), or the sleek nano. Of course, since I got the nano, I don’t have to make that decision.

But, pretending that I still had to make the choice, I think I would choose the nano again. Portable video, to me, isn’t that important. Watching video while away from home is an opportunity thing. If your commute to work involves the subway or the bus, watching your favorite TV show on the way sounds like a wonderful way to pass the time. But as my commute to work involves driving through annoying traffic, watching the latest episode of Lost while doing it is out of the question. On the other hand, I have plenty of opportunities to listen to music while on the go — at the gym, at work, etc. For that reason, a smaller, sleeker music-only player makes more sense for me.

I still feel the iPod with video is a great product (even if it is wider than older iPods), and, much like the PSP, an important step toward the convergence of technologies. Now, can someone get me a real Apple phone and not this Motorola ROKR stuff?

Coverage of the announcement:
- Apple
- CNN (via Associated Press)
- Engadget

One of my coworkers makes fun of me, though, because she says I can’t handle such a small and cute gadget — claims my fingers are too big and clumsy and boylike. I’ve been practicing, and I’m getting better at it. I’m still used to the 3g 4-button style of iPod vs. the more modern click wheel.

I’m not regretting the disk-space downgrade as of yet, but I am definitely appreciating the smaller size.

My old buddy Andrew Vestal calls the controller major innovation. I agree that it’s extremely innovative. I agree that the gaming industry is always in need of innovation (and any industry, for that matter).

My point of contention comes in that I don’t agree that the controller needed this level of radical change at this point. It’s a huge paradigm shift, which can scare off developers. More than that, it reeks of gimmicky. I worry that games will be made to take advantage of the controller, rather than making a game on its own merits and using the controller as an asset, but not a centerpiece, of the gameplay.

Nintendo has released the radical peripheral before. It’s a list of clever ideas that went nowhere — even if people did buy them. Remember ROB the robot? The light gun? The Power Pad? The Power Glove? All great ideas, if you ask me. But in the end, the great games had nothing to do with any of the wacky peripherals. It all came down to companies making great games. Zelda didn’t need a robot to play. Mario didn’t use a Power Glove. They had addictive gameplay, and that was enough.

I feel that addictive gameplay will still win you battles today — not new controllers. There are some interesting applications of the new controller system, but also some drawbacks. Nintendo talks about an add-on for this, an add-on for that. I don’t want a new controller add-on with every game, unless it comes with the game for no extra cost. And what are the odds of that?

Distance from the system makes a difference in gameplay? I’m hyper-fidgety in all walks of life — including gaming. If I’m fidgeting around as I play, will that affect the game?

And I realize that the games made are just demos to demonstrate gameplay. But they got me thinking… fishing mini-games that simulate the motion of fishing. Air hockey that simulates the hand motions of air hockey. There comes a point where you have to ask… why not just go fishing? Virtual reality is great, but why emulate it too closely?

Part of me wonders if this is a desperation move by Nintendo. They realize Sony and Microsoft are starting to pull ahead, and are putting in a last-ditch effort. I’ve read the articles on hardcore gamer vs. casual gamer, etc. etc. I’m extremely skeptical, and would like to see an article that cites numbers rather than theories. I don’t think it really is, but I do wonder.

I’d love to see the Revolution succeed, along with its crazy new controller. I just have my doubts that if it does, that the controller will be the driving force.

So I could get that new 20gig, color screen, 4th generation iPod. Or, I could get a brand new, super-spiffy, fresh to the world iPod nano plus $50 of store credit to use on a new case, maybe an AppleCare warranty (not as good as the old CompUSA replacement warranty, though), maybe a game or something.

Keep in mind that I’m a complete and total gadget nerd. I love new gadgets. I love being one of the first people on the block with a new gadget. And the iPod nano is one of the keen new gadgets that turns heads.

That having been said, I’d be losing 16 gigs in storage — from the 20gig iPod to the 4gig nano. On the other hand, my iPod currently only has about 2.5 gigs in use, as I tend to keep my music lists trimmed of any fat (storage is for CDs).

So what do you guys think I should do? I’m in a win-win situation, I really can’t lose here.

I find this particularly well timed, as Apple’s previous promotion, get a free iTunes song with the purchase of a Slurpee caused me to drink more highly-sugared Slurpees than I should have, which in turn caused me to gain some weight, which in turn means I need some new jeans.

My current jeans are Gap jeans, and I’m quite fond of them. I feel they highlight the contours of my butt well, and really enhance its already striking appearance.

My main question is, can we get an iTunes song per Gap store? There are three Gap stores within about three miles in Dallas (if you’re familiar with the area, one in West Village just north of downtown, one in Mockingbird Station on Mockingbird, and then one in Northpark Mall at Northwest Highway). One song per store? And what about different styles of Gap jeans? Can you get a song for trying on the painters jeans, then one for the relaxed fit, then one for the boot cut? Maybe even sizes? Get a song if I try to squeeze into 30s, a song at the snug 32, a song at the nice fit of 33? (I blame the Slurpees.)

Too bad I’ll have to battle the Back to School shoppers to get in on it… but that’s probably why Apple chose now to unleash the campaign. What better way to raise awareness in the teenager/young adult crowd than to give program incentives at a store that caters to that demographic, complete with disposable incomes (or their parents’ disposable incomes)? There’s a reason this promotion isn’t happening at a more cost-conscious store such as Target or Old Navy.

It’s a win-win — Apple gets the trendy mall-shopper clientele to become more aware of their product, and the Gap enjoys the young tech-savvy crowd wandering their isles. Both sides come out ahead: the definition of a good promotion.

“What does the page about Viacom’s © say? Something like:

‘We realize that the name Mighty Mouse was indeed copyrighted, but we figured hey, these are Macintosh fans here. We’ll just charge them 5 times what it costs us to make the product, kick Viacom down a few bills, and still laugh all the way to the bank. We’d drive our Saab to said bank, of course.

We drive Saabs because they are different.’”

That’s a comment that a year ago, I might have written myself! But in February, I switched to Mac (I got an iMac G5).

I’m not saying Josh’s comment is innacurate; hell, I agree. (Even though I drive a Volkswagen.) Apple charges a premium for their stuff. Some would call it folly, others a good business model. I’m not sure if Apple or Dell has more coins in the coffer, but I think it’s Dell, so I’ll give them the nod on the better business model.

But I’ve decided definitively that, for my personal uses, I love my Mac and OSX. I don’t mind paying a premium for it.

I switched because I had heard good things about Macs (and was enamored with the concept of a graphical OS based on Unix that wasn’t Xwindows), and was frustrated with my latest PC-building misadventure. I returned all the PC parts that refused to work together and bought a Mac; it was my way of giving the PC industry the middle finger.

I’ll admit to having been worried when I made the switch. I had read the stories of PC speeds vs. Mac speeds, G5 vs. the latest Pentiums, Windows vs. OSX, etc. But some Mac friends that were former PC users reassured me that it would be OK, and they held my hand through the switch.

And I’m glad I took their advice. To me, the speeds between my Mac and PC at work are comperable. I can’t definitively say one or the other is faster; both are fast enough for the programs I use. I had no problems finding programs for everything I do; Mac versions of Dreamweaver, Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, Microsoft Office are readily available, and inexpensive shareware/freeware for chatting, listening to music, RSS feedreading, etc. are also easy to find.

In the end, what made me decide to stay Mac? I think it comes down to one thing: design.

Mac OSX pays attention to the details that Microsoft ignores. And most importantly, my computer simply feels more uncluttered and, to my eyes, looks better. On Windows machines, no matter how many times I cleaned my hard drive and did a fresh OS install, everything always felt cluttered and disjointed. It’s hard to put a finger on, but I could never get it to feel like it was truly a computer working in concert with itself and with me. It always felt like… a Windows computer that I happened to be using at that moment rather than my electronic home.

So, Josh, you’re probably right. Apple and Steve Jobs are probably laughing to the bank. And you know what? I’m OK with that. I don’t mind paying a little extra for services I really feel I get the most out of.

Switching to Mac has improved my computing life, and if it cost a little more, it’s something I’m willing to deal with. (Especially considering how much time I spend on it!)

I wouldn’t recommend it for everyone, but I do recommend finding an Apple store and giving one a shot. You might like it. But don’t buy into the hype — buy into a good product. And if you feel Windows is the better product, stick to it. At this point in the lifespans of the two systems, though, the Mac is a better product for me.

The mouse actually looks nice and has some new features, such as the scroll wheel that lets you scroll in any direction — not just up and down. (I’ll bet that graphic designers working on large artboards will find this particularly handy.) Apple’s marketing writers went all out with the fluff in explaining how they managed to keep the sleek, unsplit top look while still having two buttons: “Touch-sensitive technology under Mighty Mouse’s seamless top shell detect where you’re clicking, transforming your sleek, one-button mouse into a two-button wonder.”

It’s about time. Mac OSX has right-click contextual menus all over the place, but with the standard Mac single-button mouse you had to hit control while clicking. And that’s just a pain. But the alternative, purchasing another mouse and getting rid of my pretty Apple mousethat goes so well with my pretty iMac, seemed unthinkable. An ugly blue Logitech instead of my clear white Apple beauty? No!

You know you’ve caught the Apple bug when they announce a mouse for $50 (when you already have a perfectly functional mouse) and you’re eager to throw the money at them. Luckily for me, though, the Apple Store here in Dallas had sold out of them by lunch. Maybe I can talk myself out of it by tomorrow, when they plan on getting more in.

But that seems unlikely.

Links to some coverage of the switch:

Engadget:
Live from WWDC: Steve Jobs keynote
Apple goes Intel: It’s true!

TUAW:
WWDC Stevenote MEGAPOST CHATCAST
Editorial: Apple on Intel

Mac Observer:
San Francisco – Live Coverage of Steve Jobs Keynote

CNet:
Apple shakes hands with Intel (various stories)

So far, two rumors have surfaced:

1. Apple is going to leave the IBM PowerPC as their chip of choice and move to Intel, reports CNET.
2. Apple is going to announce a G5 Powerbook, reports Gizmodo.

It seems to me that the two items are mutually exclusive, and I think 1) is more likely than 2). If Apple and IBM have finally solved the heat dissipation issues in the G5 that kept it out of laptops for much longer than Apple wanted, one of their major beefs with IBM is settled. But my understanding is even the most recent iMac G5s (like mine) run pretty hot — and same have overheating issues. Not a good sign for the laptop.

Which leaves item 1 — an interesting proposition. It’s long been rumored that Apple will leave IBM for Intel, but this time the rumors seem to have some meat behind them. I like lists, so let’s make some lists.

Pros for moving to Intel and the x86 architecture:

• No chip shortages, powerful chips in the laptop, your basic “Intel chips are better!” arguments.
• Competition — IBM is the only company that makes the PowerPC. Both Intel and AMD make x86 chips. In other words, if Intel pisses off Apple, they can just hop skip and jump to AMD, no problem. Not the case with leaving the PowerPC. A changeover such as this will be gradual over a few years.
• Cost. See Competition.
• The ability to hit Microsoft hard. People everywhere are saying how Mac OS X beats up on Windows. If Mac OS X runs on x86s computers… then you’re looking at the possibility of Mac OS X being put on non-Apple computers. Suddenly, your available market is a lot bigger.

Cons for moving to x86:

• Everything Mac-related is compiled for the PowerPC chip. Moving that software to x86 is non-trivial.
• Apple has spent a lot of time and energy saying how the PowerPC chip is better than Intel chips, that gigahertz don’t mater, etc. No big name company likes backtracking and saying they were wrong, both for pride and money reasons.
• A possible sloppy transition period that could mean lost customers. For a while, software would have to be able to work on both versions, and that will take more resources.
• PR hit. The Mac Faithful might see this as a money move instead of a quality move.

My prediction? Apple will move. Steve Jobs is flighty and Intel is probably making some sweet pillowtalk to get them to move. The rumors are loud. I’m going to put my money on this actually going down.

If it does happen, I bet Microsoft will crap their pants. Windows XP is outdated, and Longhorn is late. Longhorn promises to do things that Mac OS X Tiger already does. Microsoft might have actual competition on the OS front. Not only that, Internet Explorer’s dominance is slipping.

Jobs might see Microsoft as being a little vulnerable right now and is going for the attack. Between Google, Apple, and Mozilla, Microsoft is getting attacked from all sides (except on the Office application front). Jobs might figure with Apple’s relative strength (good PR from OS X and the iPod line) combined with Microsoft’s vulnerability, this might be the best window available for a long time.

The stodgy, boring software maker Microsoft has been trying for years to be hip, going back to the Windows 95 launch (or was it Windows 98? My memory isn’t so great…) featuring the Rolling Stones and “Start Me Up.” With the unveiling of the Xbox 360, Microsoft put its hippest minds to work in creating a brilliant, lavish event — who decided they were far too boring for the task and turned to MTV for help.

I was going to write a brief blog entry about this, the 30 minute “event” (by “event” I mean “infomercial”) was so jam-packed with… something, that I decided it warranted a minute-by-minute journal-style entry. Unfortunately, I decided this AFTER I took my notes about the show, so all the timestamps are approximate. If you look at your notes and see that West Coast Customs showed up at 8:39 and not at 8:40, please don’t send me angry letters. I’m sure you’re right.

8:32: Who better to emcee the unveiling of a Microsoft product than longtime Microsoft icon… Elijah Wood? Does he really represent hip young culture today? Like, seriously? The hobbit? I kept waiting for his eyes to start glowing and demand everyone get away from his ring.

8:34: “And now… the Xbox 360!” Or… at least a model carrying a messenger bag and swinging her hips unnaturally. At first I thought it was Denise Richards, but then I remembered she was busy being pregnant and divorcing Charlie Sheen.

8:35: Oh, ok, there’s the Xbox. They put it on a glass table with green lasers shooting everywhere. The green and black make the theme of the evening clearly “Riddler.” This is straight out of Batman Forever, when E. Nygma unveils his brain-sucking device. Seriously. Watch the movie again (no, seriously, go watch it. It’s not THAT bad a movie. And you can’t tell me Michael Keaton had you fully convinced he could actually beat up his small animals, let alone criminal masterminds).

8:36: MTV’s production values are all over this thing. There’s flashing lights, screaming fans, hip young cameos everywhere, and a general mosh-pit feel. All that’s missing is Carson Daly.

8:37: And now, it’s time for a random musical guest! Introducing… the Killers! How about that Xbox! At least we know what it looks like now. Wait, we’ve known that for a while now.

8:38: OK, I know I just made fun of MTV bringing on the Killers, but I take it back. This is the best part of the presentation so far. Great song — Mr. Brightside. MTV can’t produce a product unveiling, but they know how to produce a rock show. The flashing lights fit, the camera angles are good, and the sound quality is good. And they’re not overfocusing on the lead singer — the whole band is getting some time. Nothing annoys me more than when the poor band gets ignored and the lead singer gets all the facetime.

8:41: Speaking of random cameos, it’s the West Coast Customs guys! For those of you older than 23, they’re the guys that “pimp your ride.” For those of you over 30, that means they accessorize your car with tons of crazy gadgets and fun toys that no normal person can afford. They turn an old scrap heap into a roving entertainment center. It’s like Trading Spaces or Extreme Makeover, but for your car. What they’re doing at a computer hardware device unveiling is beyond me.

8:42: Oh, I get it! This is a “segue” so that “young people” can understand why they “need a new Xbox RIGHT NOW.” West Coast Customs pimps your old ride — and Microsoft is going to pimp your Xbox! Ha ha ha!”

8:43: The first bit of information comes out — the Xbox 360 will have a removable face plate so you can customize your Xbox! Hooray! I’m going to get just the face plate, and tell all my friends I have an Xbox 360, but when they try to play it, I’ll explain I don’t believe in electricity.

8:44: An MTV guy interviews some Microsoft engineers, and brilliantly deduces for the audience that the Xb0x 260 is a “full entertainment experience.” And he deduced that only given the information that the Xbox 360 will let you shop and do auctions online and stuff and has wireless controllers. Impressive!

8:46: Interesting — a commercial for Pantex featuring a large red dot symbolizing a woman’s period. The gaming demographic has truly shifted — it’s not just for teenaged boys anymore. Girls are into it too — all the more of an audience for Microsoft to reach!

8:50: Ryan Cabrera makes an appearance. I’m not sure why. But this gives me an opportunity to point out that I’ve seen his former band, Rubix Groove, like, a lot. Rubix Groove was Dallas based, and somehow managed to show up wherever I was. Any time I went to see a local band, Rubix Groove was opening for them / the other band was opening for Rubix Groove. They weren’t bad. But I certainly didn’t predict a nationwide craze. Pretty average stuff, I thought. Oh yeah, nothing has changed, if you ask me. But props to the local SMU guy for “making it.” You know you’ve “made it” when MTV has you appear in their Microsoft Xbox promotion even though you have nothing to do with video games.

8:52: Some professional gamers go to Rare and get “training” on Perfect Dark 0, including by talking to a motion capture actress. Now there’s two careers I’d like to have — professional gamer and motion capture actor. Do any movies or video games need a short guy motion captured?

8:53: One of the gamers grills an engineer about Perfect Circle 0 and the Xbox. It shows his questions, but not really many of the engineer’s answers. He did say there could be 50 playable characters per match — that is impressive. Not much information outside of that though. MTV did show his answer to the final question, though: “Well, is it FUN?” “YES!” Microsoft apparently believes not in giving information but just telling you that hey, it’s fun! Take our word for it!

8:55: After extensive trash talking and very little actual Xbox related content, the two teams of professional gamers duke it out with a Perfect Dark shootout. The cameras jump from gamer to gamer, showing expressions of joy and disgust and featuring plenty more trash talking. Every now and then, they even get a brief moment of the game in. But they sure are having fun! In case you were confused whether or not they were having fun, though, a gamer points out that “this is the most fun I’ve ever had!” The Xbox 360 — bringing unmatched levels of fun! With technology! And wireless controllers!

What little actual game footage they showed was impressive but nothing made me say, “Holy cow, I have to have an Xbox 360 RIGHT NOW!” The whole production was a giant informercial that was so thinly veiled it was almost embarassing. I almost felt embarassed for Elijah Wood — except for that he looked like he was genuinely tickled about being a corporate spokesman.

I wonder if Microsoft actually believes this 30 minute thing will make people want to buy an Xbox 360. Or maybe I’m being naive in thinking that I don’t think people will be fooled — that they have more sense than to go buy an Xbox 360 just because Microsoft told them to. The Xbox 360 might end up being a great system, but this bit of marketing didn’t do anything to prove it. At best, it might produce some buzz — but buzz that I think should be negative for trying to mask a commercial as an event.

If you want some real information, try http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/xbox-2/the-xbox-360-103338.php.

They did outro the show with the Killers — who were definitely the highlight of the “event.”