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3 Musketeers: Now With Mint!
No, this is not related to web stuff, but it is mint. A couple days ago I found, while perusing the local convenience store, the new 3 Musketeers Mint bar. Since 3 Musketeers is one of my favorite candy bars, I knew I had to try it. I'd say it was pretty good.
To get the idea, take the ingredients and taste of a York Peppermint Patty and put it in the size and texture of a 3 Musketeers bar. It's a bit smaller, but it has a mint filling in that airy 3 Musketeers style. Then, of course, there's dark chocolate on the outside to hold it all together. It was tasty, although nothing really new.
Speaking of new, the best new candy bar as far as I can remember is the Reese's Fast Break. And also speaking of tasty, fattening foods, tomorrow is the opening of everybody's favorite waste of money, the Minnesota State Fair. Believe me, there's not many ways to drop money faster without buying a brand new computer. But dang, that deep fried 3 Musketeers on a stick was really good!
Round Three: Treo vs. iPhone
When I posted Round Two, I had only a day or two to play around with the Palm Treo 755p. But, after spending a few weeks using it, there is plenty of reasons to keep the Treo, the biggest of which, of course, is that it's much cheaper.
After a short amount of use (and installing my favorite Palm e-mail client, SnapperMail), I found that the 3G internet connection on my Palm is nice and snappy. Sure, it's not as immediate as on Comcast at home, but it's about 4-5 times faster than my old phone (which was already 2-3 times faster than dial-up). On the Treo, they even want you to pay extra to stream TV shows to your phone, but I'm not going to do that. Apparently, you can even receive calls while you're browsing the net, so there's no reason not to be online as well.
Speaking of the Internet, the larger screen and faster download times make viewing tons of stuff on the Internet not totally a painful experience. If you stick to certain parts of the Internet, mostly those designed for reading on a phone, it works really well. Otherwise, most standards-based sites are pretty good. The best part is the mobile interface for Google Reader, which means I can read the latest blog entries and news from absolutely anywhere. I love it.
The lack of Graffiti isn't the worst thing ever, although I think I'm a bit slower at typing. Otherwise, the phone has some really nice features, from the switch on the top that toggles between vibrate and ringer and a camera that I might even use a bit for some pictures on the blog. And, of course, there's always my trusty old Palm applications that I love that are all still here too.
Well, the iPhone is out for now, but that doesn't mean it will be out forever. Once Apple builds a sleek, stable OS for the system and opens it up for developers, it will probably be my next phone after the two-year agreement is over. But we'll see.
MetroTransit and Ambiguity
I was leaving the light rail platform and noticed for the third time today a new MetroTransit ad affixed to the entrance of the platform. Check it out:
Apparently it's not marketed at me, because it makes no sense. As much as I can figure, it seems they're saying that they don't have bridges that collapse. Or something. If it makes sense to you, maybe you can enlighten me.
UPDATE: Here's some new information I found.
Breaking News: Freeway Bridge Collapses Near Downtown Minneapolis
I have not yet been home, but just two hours ago the 35W bridge over the Mississippi River just two blocks from my house. At least three people are killed, according to the latest reports. Please pray for everyone in Minneapolis and anyone whose families are affected.
Round Two: Treo vs. iPhone
Well, here we are at the second time around. On Saturday, because I could barely stand not having a phone, I went to the Sprint store and bought myself a Palm Treo 755p. I figured, well, it's $400 cheaper up front, and I can keep my plan a bit lower than what I would get from AT&T. Plus, it's still Palm OS, so I can use all my favorite Palm apps. And, yes, Palm OS 5 is a bit more slick. It's got Bejeweled and a nice Google Maps app. But that's where the fun ends.
My last Palm phone (the Samsung i500) was small and functional. It was a flip-phone, so the screen was well-protected. It worked as a phone because it was just a bit bigger than most cell phones but had all the Palm functionality. It may have been running Palm OS 3, I think, but it still did everything I wanted it to. I could check e-mail, I could write notes, I could read the Bible.
Yeah, I can put all my old apps on this new phone, including Pocket Quicken. But the form factor sucks. It looks and feels like I'm carrying around a PDA, not a phone. There's 49 buttons on the phone, compared to the Samsung's 28. 
With no protection for the large screen, I feel like I need to get a case, but I can't find a case that I like at all. And, most of all, there's no way to use Graffiti. On my old Palm, I entered all the text by writing on the writing pad area instead of pressing a bunch of keys. It was a much better use of space than putting 35 tiny keys that, if any smaller, would be impossible to press. I'm pretty sure I could type faster with writing letters out than hunting and pecking on a mini-keyboard. So far, it's been totally frustrating.
Unless the condition improves over the next couple weeks, I may forgo the Palm and go with the first-generation iPhone. It's not going to be too much better, but at least I won't be frustrated with the basics of the phone. 
I just won't have Pocket Quicken, MyBible, or Bejeweled to keep me on top of things and entertained. What I will have, though, is the ability to only carry my iPhone around, and not a phone and an iPod. One a weekday basis, I really only listen to podcasts, so I would save my iPod for trips or doing the dishes. Also, if I wanted to, I could be watching that podcasts I currently listen to the audio version of while on the way home from work. It won't be perfect, but right now, it seems like it'll be better than the Treo, that's for sure.
Treo or iPhone Time?
Well, the night I had been expecting for a while came. I was kinda hoping it wouldn't come for about 6 months, but it did.
My Samsung i500 smartphone fumbled out of my hands and went in an arc about 7 feet to the ground. The battery, of course, fell off of it, but that's happened before. However, this time, it didn't recover, because it doesn't get past the very first loading screen no matter how long I wait. I tried resetting it but it won't do anything.
So now comes the questions. Do I go with a Treo 755p and stay with Sprint or go elsewhere? Do I get a first-generation iPhone with lots of missing features and hope Apple will be nice to us over that long two-year contract with AT&T? Right now, I'm thinking the Treo because there's some important Palm apps I use almost every day that the iPhone does not have. But, after visiting the Sprint website, it looks like I might have to be paying $10-$15 more per month for services with them. That, by the way, puts it on the same monthly price as the iPhone, although the iPhone costs more up front. I can't believe I'm paying more to these greedy, annoying cell companies.
Trailer: The Darjeeling Limited
A couple days ago a new movie trailer surfaced online from director Wes Anderson, director of fine films such as The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Royal Tenenbaums, and Rushmore. (Also, if you're a fan but not a longtime reader of my blog, don't miss the commercial he did.) The trailer of note is for his fall release, The Darjeeling Limited. It looks like a signature Wes Anderson flick starring Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, and Jason Schwartzman. In this film, the three leads seem to be brothers who are reunited and go on an emotional journey to India together. It should be fun.
In more industry-specific news, it seems that this new release will be distributed by Fox Searchlight and not Touchstone Pictures like all of his earlier films. Also, Anderson has had an upcoming project of animated film of Roald Dahl's The Fantastic Mr. Fox, which will apparently be his next release in 2009. That should be interesting.
In more homely news, a couple friends noticed the release date for The Darjeeling Limited is September 29th or somewhere around there. Many of my friends who currently live around the country will be in Indiana for the weekend, so maybe we should have an excursion to the local theater together?
Harry Potter Breaks Records
On Saturday, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final book of the series, was released worldwide. It seems that, like the last couple books J.K. Rowling wrote, it will go down in history as the world's fastest-selling book.
The book's US publisher, Scholastic, said that an approximate 8.3 million copies were sold on the first day in sales. Scholastic prepared well, though, running an initial printing of about 12 million copies. The last book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, sold approximately 6.9 million copies on release day. Amazon.com reported that they had pre-orders of 2.2 million copies, for most likely the biggest order by one retailer. (That's a bunch of trucks coming to their warehouses!) UK sales are estimated to be around 3 million copies, according to a BBC News report.
Are these numbers big? That's a good question. In the first day of sales, The Incredibles on DVD sold 5 million copies and ended up selling a total of 17.5 million in the first nine months. There may be a couple higher-selling DVDs out there, but that's still near the top. An estimated 93.2 million viewers tuned in for this year's Super Bowl, which I think is interesting. It tells me that free stuff paid for by advertisers gives you a much bigger audience, but would anyone pick up a book if there were ads for cars and food every 10 pages?
Even though it seems like tons of people have copies, it only comes out to 2.7% of the United States population bought the book on the first day. I guess it must be a bunch higher around my group of friends, though, because it seems about 10% have a copy at our house.
Just for fun, I've put both of the UK book covers here at the bottom:
The UK Version
The UK Adult Version
Pownce: Facebook 2.0?
Right now, Pownce (prounounced the same as "pounce") is the new kid on the block that's way cooler than your old MySpace or Facebook was. And they're doing that oh-so-hip invite thing to get you drooling. But will it take off? I don't know, but I'm kinda interested in trying it.
Many are considering this to be more like Twitter or Jaiku than a Facebook. Well, at least for now. But this does a couple other cool things. First of all, you can set up groups of friends and only send messages to these friends. Otherwise, you can send a message to only one friend or any couple friends you want. Or, of course, they can be public. Second, you can send files to friends. No, they're not as attachments, they're stored on Pownce's servers for your friends to get. Third, not only is there the website, but there's a really nice application made of the new Adobe Air (formerly Apollo) technology, so you can run Pownce on your Mac or Win desktop.
From the look at the specs, this stuff is also using the coolest in Open Source technologies. Of course, it's running Debian, Apache and MySQL, but it's also running on the new Django framework for Python. Plus, it's got everything a Web 2.0 start-up team needs, from Kevin Rose, the inventor of digg to a designer who almost defines the "Web 2.0" look and a blogger chick who does most of the development.
What's going to stop them? Not much, except that you know everyone is sending each other music and movies and the suits aren't going to let that last too long.
Memorable Marketing & The Simpsons
It seems that, these days, you have to have some really unique, really attention-grabbing marketing to get people's attention. And, I have to say, the folks at Fox have been pulling out all the stops in this regard for The Simpsons Movie. Here's a couple good examples:
One of the coolest thing in a while is the official Simpsons Avatar Creator over at the official movie site. (Above are some that Andrew Osenga made to depict him and his family.) It's fun, because you can make almost an infinite number of possibilities of characters, including all the characters in the movie and, hopefully, yourself. I haven't played around with it enough, but I didn't find it too easy to make whatever, or at least not make something that you say, "That's totally my friend Isaac as a Simpsons character." It's definitely fun, and you can share them with your friends if you like what you came up with. As the site says, "Ready to work some yellow magic?"
Also, one of the most ingenious things is their recent partnering with 7 Eleven to transform a dozen stores into a full-fledged Kwik-E-Mart for a month or two. There's not one in my market, but everyone who does have one seems to be talking about it. Not only does the outside look like a Kwik-E-Mart, but they've hired people that look like Apu to man the counter and make the usual silly comments. They also have all the signature Kwik-E-Mart foods, such as Squishies, Buzz Cola, and Krusty-Os cereal, and even a Radioactive Man special-edition Comic Book. In my opinion, this is a very creative and fun way to promote the movie, and I applaud 7-Eleven for doing something a bit risky but ultimately fun.