Off the top of my head, the only other game I play that has the "just one more time" addictiveness of Angry Birds is Fruit Ninja. It's easy to play, but tough to master. You slice fruit that pops up on your touch screen all while trying to avoid bombs that are thrown in there for good measure. So imagine my joy when my cousin and I went to the arcade, and saw a Fruit Ninja game standing right near the entrance.

Fruit Ninja FX, as it has been named, takes the sixty second Arcade mode from the smartphone/tablet game, and actually puts it in the arcade as a redemption game (a game played for tickets), much to my initial pleasure.The game looks great on what appears to be a 30 or so inch monitor. It looks and plays like the original game, with one glaring problem: the touch screen is crap.





Now don't get me wrong- it could have been dirty or it may have needed to be recalibrated. But I can't imagine that either of those is the problem; the touch screen registered my swipes late and messed up my score. In a game like Fruit Ninja that requires players to be precise, that is a big flaw. I'm no pricing expert when it comes to touch screens, but a capacative touch screen with a durable shell shouldn't cost all that much to manufacture.

The game is meant for kids, and as such, most won't even care. But for some reason, I do, and because of the screen fault, I can only give Fruit Ninja FX a 6.5 out of 10.

Sent from my Windows Phone

Shutterfly Review- My First Video Blog!

Hey guys! I decided to do a little something different today and give my typing fingers a break. Check out the video below for my first video blog/video review! They'll get better as time rolls on- I swear. All I need is a better camera and some time to edit. Shutterfly.com is a capable way of handling your photo needs, but how good is it? Check out the review below for more!



And yes, those are new glasses. Boomshakalaka.

Moleskine Notebooks...Serious Business

For the past year or so, I've had a Moleskine notebook. The notebook of choice for visionaries like Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, and Oscar Wilde, the Moleskine is a memo-size leather bound notebook. Considering they cost quite a bit more than a normal notebook (one Moleskine can cost as much as $22), they're a hefty investment. But from what I've seen so far, it's worth it.

I've used mine to draw new concept logos for companies, marketing ideas, and any other random musings that come to mind. If I did these in a normal notebook, it would be dog eared, bent, and scratched over a year's time. But not the Moleskine- those things are built to last. Thanks to the leather bounding and the acid free pages, my notes look as good as the day I wrote them down. My laptop bag is no place to put fragile items, and my Moleskine comes out every day looking perfect.

Moleskine also has a limited edition Pac Man line right now for the inner geek in all of us.

Over the past few years, the company has branched out, offering a whole series of notebooks that serve different purposes. There's a graph notebook, a storyboard notebook perfect for ad execs on the go, a planner, and a travel notebook, complete with maps, a photo holder, and a notes section to jot down all of your favorite places to go.

Although it costs nearly $20, a mid-size Moleskine sketchbook (5 x 8 1/2) is perfect for those who want to feed their creative side. Even with a laptop, smartphone, and iPad, I still get a sense of satisfaction when physically writing something down. Having the added protection of knowing it won't get messed up without me knowingly trying is the real selling point; I could go out and buy regular notebooks, but their "economy" build means that if the cover gets damaged, it's only a matter of time before the pages inside get messed up. For that, I have to recommend that you ditch the notebook you've been doodling in since high school, and buy one of these pronto.

Pay Attention to the Windows Phone...or Don't.

So the day after Thanksgiving, I went to Best Buy and looked at phones. At the time, I had a Nokia 5530, which is from Nokia's Symbian 5.0 OS series. It's a reliable, yet primitive operating system. But right now Nokia's making so much cash selling cheap cell phones in second and third world countries (and even smaller European outfits like the Netherlands) that they can still peddle a 10 year old OS and get away with it. The phones they sell in other countries went obsolete here in 2004. Even their new Symbian^3 OS, Nokia's still got a lot of work to do, especially in their shoddy App Store.

Anyways, I went to Best Buy and looked at their new Windows 7 Phones, which were less than a month old at the time. Microsoft just did a major overhaul to the Windows Phone 7 brand, and it shows a vast improvement over the Windows Phone 6.0 series. I played with the HTC Surround, and let me tell you, I was amazed at how fluid it was. This is not Windows packed into a phone- Microsoft has finally developed a living, breathing OS that can stand alone and apart from its desktop brethren. This is definitely a phone that given the right marketing and third party app support, could keep up with the iOS and Android.

The HTC Surround (left) and Samsung Focus (right) are two of the
handsets in the first generation of Windows 7 Phones.

As it was on sale, I bought an HTC Surround with a brand new service plan. Since I had been a customer with AT&T for 5 years, I didn't have to pay a security deposit, which some internet posters claim can be as much as $500 or $600. Major crisis averted.

Like I said, the phone is great. It's incredibly smooth, the apps are nimble, and it pulled all the contact info from my Facebook profile to add to my current contacts. Great.

Unlike its two contemporaries, iOS and Android, the Windows Phone uses a tile-based home screen. It minimizes having an overwhelming amount of apps, and it really does help you focus on what's most important on your phone rather than cause you to browse aimlessly. My biggest knock on iOS is that there's no dedicated home screen to summarize all of my content; it's just pages upon pages of apps; Android tries to summarize, but is too much like iOS and ends up being more cluttered; with a techie like me who tends to wander in my pages of apps, the Windows Phone keeps me focused. My lock screen notifies me of all missed calls, texts, and emails at the bottom of the screen with distinguishable, yet simple icons.

An added plus for a gamer/techie like me is that the phone is Xbox Live compatible. Certain Windows Phone games come packed with Xbox Achievement points, which add to my overall score. It's a big relief that I don't have to create a new profile and start from zero again. I can also edit my avatar, send Xbox friends messages, or buy more points on the go. Having an extension of my Xbox in my pocket is pretty sweet. Now if only I could actually connect it to my Xbox and transfer data. Sony? Take notes.

I only have two faults with the phone; the more noticeable one being that the phone's battery life is shoddy. For the first time in my life, I have to charge my phone every day. That's the one good thing about Nokia phones; their standby battery life is so good that I can forget to charge it for two or three days and still not get a low battery signal. My Blackberry was the same way. This phone? Not so much. I've heard that a lot of Android phones are the same way, and I guess if the phone is running so many different syncs and Bluetooth tethers, your battery life is bound to suffer a bit. Considering that the battery is removable, if a more power-efficient one comes along, I can easily fix this issue.

The second is the App Store. Sure, the phone is less than 4 months old, and it's got a pretty good start. But Microsoft has to make sure that programming apps for the Windows Phone isn't a complicated process. They've also got to have as many third party developers on board as possible. Apps with partners like Capcom, EA, social networking companies and popular websites are what will make or break this phone. Better third party developers leads to more quality apps.

Overall though, this phone is a great start by Microsoft. A major update is coming this quarter which will add many new features to the phone; but even without the update, the Windows Phone 7 is definitely a solid start by a company who has a lot of ground to make up.

A Late Bloomer To The Automotive Game

So....I bought a new car this week. Hallelujah.

Merry Christmas to me indeed.

It's especially special for me, because this is my first car. It's a 2010 Corolla, and it is pretty awesome.

Let me share something with you: I went to Alcorn State University, which is in Lorman, Mississippi. It's famous for graduates like Steve McNair, Alex Haley, Medgar Evers, and Leslie Frazier, the interim head coach of the Minnesota Vikings.

Alcorn State, for all intents and purposes, is in the middle of nowhere.

Have you ever seen one of those films where there's a jail in the middle of nowhere? The type where there's one long narrow road in, one long, narrow road out? Replace the jail with a school, and that's Alcorn State. The nearest sign of civilization, Port Gibson, was 20 minutes away, and Vicksburg, the town with the nearest Wal Mart, was 45 minutes away. For four years, I was basically stranded. My biggest advice to new freshmen, was to always have a friend with a car; it was that important.

Now as a grad student at the University of Illinois at Springfield, I have a Wal Mart just 3 minutes away from campus. However, I've been taking the bus to work up until now.I'm pretty stoked about the new ride- one more thing I can cross off of the "Things I Need" list.

I'm a late bloomer socially. I went through my "teenage" phase in college, have never really had a serious girlfriend, and haven't even had a crap car like most 17 year olds do. I have to say though, this is definitely a step in the right direction.