I just want to say that there's been a lot of talk about the poor release of iTunes 7.0.1, and as a mac zealot, and co-president and co-founder of the Mac club at school, I should respond.
Ok, 7.0 was a bad release, a cool one with features I like a lot, namely CoverFlow, the iPod status reports, and the new skin (yeah I do like it), but all of it was executed so poorly. It was an ambitious update, and I'm sorry for it not going well for everyone. Personally, all I noted were some apparent memory leaks, and once when I quit iTunes 7, my finder relaunched. That's it. Now with the recent fix, version 7.0.1, it seems to work just fine. I'm on a mac and don't know or particularly care if the windows fix has been released, or if it has, whether or not it has gone well. Thats all, I've gotta go.

-Cameron D.

So, haven't done anything in a while... Ok, how 'bout this? I recently found myself working on more stylish versions of the Tasty Buffalo logo and found myself creating what you see below. It makes a fine icon. So I'm starting my latest project: The Icon Pack. I'll be incrementally adding new icons to the package, and may one day submit the whole thing to Apple, but for now you'll find the pack with it's sole icon and a rather lengthy "Read Me" file. Well, at least I thought it was lengthy. Lengthier than I had intended.
Oh, and the icons are for Mac OSX 10.0 and up. No Windoze version. Probably not going to be one.

Well, apparently I did. Back when I said, "school won't effect my posting" I really should have known better. In fact, I probably did. I commonly find myself lying to myself, and though I make a point of being painfully honest with others (no, really.) this blog is pretty much a conversation between me and me, I'm the only one I can be sure reads this, and thats because I read it as I write it.

Look, I'm not saying I'm like shutting down the blog or anything... It's not like it's hurting anyone. But posts may be few and far between. Really, I'll post when I feel like it, and as I have more and more to do, I feel like it less and less.

Ok, I swear, I commit myself to some sort of regular schedule. But I'll figure that out later, for the moment I'm writing because I now suddenly have the urge. I can't say why, but now it has struck, and in writing this lengthy... whatever this is that I just wrote, I'm loosing my inspiration. So, in an effort to get something out there, I'll give you the highlights of what I would have written more extensively about. (and maybe I will later.)

Xbox 360 Games

-Prey-
Great, you've got to try it, runs in the doom3 engine, so as you might imagine, happens to look and feel a lot like Quake 4 and Doom 3. Doesn't take itself to seriously, and follows a fairly cliché plot, but gives it some of its own unique twists.

Cliché Plot: Lone native american who hasn't really gotten anywhere in life, dreams of leaving the reservation with a woman he has yet to convince. Loves his grandfather dearly, but has grown weary of his stories of his people's glorious past, he has long since stopped paying any attention to his grandfather's musings.

The Red Monkey Wrench: In Doom 3, there is a weapons locker with an assortment of tools the hero takes with him, as the player enters the box he or she can see its contents. The contents include with only one exception, items that the player can take with himself and use in the game. The developers clearly thought that the red monkey wrench also found in the box helped to hold the reality of the scene. It makes sense that not everything would be a weapon. But many players expressed their sadness over the fact they could not take the red monkey wrench with them and use it as a bludgeon to fight off the game's many monsters. In Prey, the player is given this as his very first weapon. Hehe. Okay, well it would be funny.... if you were cool.

-Test Drive Unlimited-
I've never really been into racing games, but this has some cool elements. A plethora of views, (from the driver's perspective, 3rd person, from the bumper, etc.) an RPG-esque system in which the player buys cars of his choosing and real estate to keep them at, a plethora of cars, including more than 150 different models, and this fun "free-ride" feature where you can drive as you wish (ala GTA) and another weird thing, while in "free-ride" the game apparently uses Xbox Live to populate the streets with other drivers, making it easy to meet new people and coordinate for some of the multiplayer challenges. The game's really cool, I have to admit.


Apple-wise
Look, if you don't already know, check out their website, they've released a new iPod Shuffle, crazy new, though kinda retro for them iPod nano, and they have some sweet new offerings in the iPod line, including an 80GB iPod. They've released a new upgrade to their iPod software, including faster scrolling and a nifty new search feature I believe? They've launched Movie sales on the iTunes Music store and released a FABULOUS new version of iTunes, they've dubbed 7.0 (free download for mac and windows) I'm told they've done a major redesign of their iPod Earbuds, though they look much the same. And they're now offering game downloads for the iPod, which can run on their new iPod OS. What else, what else? oh! and they've announced that by early 2007 they'll be releasing a set-top media center type thing, streaming video, a next-gen front row, the apple remote, and all about half the size of the current Mac mini.

So yeah, maybe not so brief, but now my hands hurt, so I'm stopping. 'til next time folks!

I know evil things lurk out there on the internet. Strange and terrible things! And though I have been witness to some of the internet's depravity, I've yet to have it emailed to me...

Which, come to think of it, is a little strange. In fact, that's where most people encounter the strange things the internet may bring them. Perhaps my account at mac.com really is nifty, cuz I've yet to get any spam... 'cept the spam I know I signed up for at one time or another, and most of that's been blacklisted by Apple's Mail.app. Anyway... I returned to my computer to find a bizarre growl notification. It seemed to suggest that I had an unread email... from myself.... with a subject line that appeared to be in HTML. Of course, I didn't remember emailing myself anything, so I was intrigued.

Upon further inspection, the email was not from me at all... in fact it claimed to be from a "Wojcieh_Krzwa=F1ski"

Now I'm not good with names, but I don't remember knowing anyone like that... I looked around some more...

The email seemed to be devoid of actual content, the only dicernable attempt at communication came from the subject line, which did little but confuse me further.

"Traper Gniezno - Greetings from Poland..." Now this I thought was odd, considering the strange nature of everthing else, I had thought this to be a message in some forign language, but indeed some was in english.

Looking into the html that was the subject line, I found what appeared to be the domain from which the email originated, "traperpl.eu" In fact, it came from a Mr. "traperpl@traperpl.eu". Maybe you hadn't thought of this, but it stands to reason anyone with a user name the same as the domain, it stands to reason he's the one in charge over there. It also contained a jpeg, which I naturally thought to be the intent of the message.... this is what I saw...


Well, there's a connection, whatever this fellow means to say, it seems to involve my Imaginary Design Firm, Tasty Buffalo. For, as you can see, he has emailed me... or rather, attempted to email me an image of a buffalo. Cute. And very, very scary....

So some Polish guy sends me an email, saying hello... from poland... and it's something to do with a buffalo... Clearly, this is a riddle I must solve. My next thought was that, if he be the lord of traperpl.eu land, stands to reason he's got a homepage there.... so I hoped in safari and checked it out.

Perhaps you should go there, trust me, it isn't dangerous... But to sum it up, it appears to be some kind of Polish Gaming Reserve or something.

Now all this seems wholesome enough.... but what is this person trying to say? just what are his intentions? I could assume they're innocent, and if nothing else the guy lives in poland, so its pretty easy to ignore him, but still... very strange... I'll keep you all informed as to the status of my ongoing investigation as to what this means...