This Sums It Up Nicely

Today post over at Penny Arcade (starting at the 3rd paragraph) summed up why Microsoft shouldn't have cancelled 1 vs 100 pretty well.

I'm having trouble convincing myself why I should renew my XBox Live Gold account when it expires in October.

The End of 1 vs 100

Today, it was announced that there will be no more 1 vs 100 on Xbox Live. This makes me sad. It was one of those video games that I could get almost anyone to enjoy playing, even if they weren't a gamer. Trivia is liked by nearly all and playing against tens of thousands (sometimes over 100,000) other people at once was a great feature.

I understand how they had to find sponsorship to run it, since they offered it free to anyone with an Xbox Live Gold account. If they couldn't find a sponsor to cover it, then I guess there's not much that they could do.

I hope that they can do more Live Primetime games like this, because it really was a great concept. Until then... very sad.

Welcome, Human Child

Congrats to Joel, Pam and Anna on the arrival of Molly. (As announced on the recently restarted blog of Joel's)

World Cup Final

It's a pretty momentous day today... The Netherlands is in the World Cup Final match for the first time since before I was born. I got my KNVB shirt on, ready to watch the game starting at 2:30. I find it a bit surprising that most commentators are making Spain the overwhelming favourite, even though before the tournament (like most tournaments), the Dutch are picked as one of the favourites. However, it was the same situation as when Holland played Brazil in the quarterfinals... the amount of shock people expressed in the Dutch victory was a little much and a bit disgusting at the same time. The Dutch are always talented and are always a threat to win. They're on a 25 game unbeaten streak. I can't see how anyone would write them off.

My pick is Netherland 2:1 Spain in extra time.

One thing to remember is that Spain has proven one thing that The Netherlands has not this World Cup... they've shown that they can be beaten.

New TV Ordered

Thanks for all your suggestions in response to my last post. It seems the overwhelming opinion was in line with my original thought... go with LCD over plasma. I ended up ordering the Philips LCD set.

I'm glad I didn't rush into a sale in the store on Wednesday, because both of the sets I was looking at went on sale a few hours later in the Shop of the Future's online-only Canada Day Sale. I'm guessing the salesman knew about this, and while I can't blame him for trying to make his commission as opposed to telling me to buy it online, it really reinforces the fact that you have to really know exactly what you want when buying there, because you can't ever fully trust them.

Anyway, after the problem I had with my plasma and the other tiny day-to-day issues I had with it, it seemed silly to go with a plasma again. I would have really been kicking myself for that decision. I don't know why I even let that guy throw me off track.

Delivery is Wednesday afternoon. Exactly one day too late to watch Holland's semi-final victory over Uruguay. So, now my dilemma is do I watch it online, or just deal with the crappy picture on my current TV?