Digital Thinkbox

I had a taste for Cornish Game Hen when I was at the market the other day so I grabbed one. I don’t eat them very often, mostly because you can’t cook one up in 5 minutes or less. I decided that this recipe would be a perfect first entry in the food category. I like game hens since they aren’t gamey, like a more flavorful chicken, and are small so you can cook up just a small portion. Like chicken, they lend themselves to all sorts of creative recipes. One thing though, if you want a big meal, half a bird won’t fill you up. Game hens don’t have a lot of meat, so if you want to be stuffed either make two or look elsewhere.
This recipe is courtsey of About.com.

Ingredients

2 to 3 Rock Cornish Game Hens
1/4 cup vegetable oil
3 tablespoons lemon juice
3/4 cup melted butter
3/4 cup firmly packed fresh parsley
1 small garlic clove, cut in half
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon basil
1/2 teaspoon thyme
Pepper to taste
8 ounces spaghetti

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Rinse hens with cold water. Split hens in half by cutting down backbone and then through breastbone. Place in baking pan. Combine oil and lemon juice and pour over Cornish, coating evenly. Wash Hands.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 1 hour. Insert an instant-read thermometer into the thickest part of the chicken. Internal temperature should read 180 degrees F. Meanwhile, in blender or food processor combine butter and remaining seasoning ingredients. Blend at high speed until parsley is minced; divide into two equal parts and set aside. During last 15 minutes of baking, brush both sides of Cornish halves with half of herb mixture. At the time Cornish are seasoned, cook spaghetti in boiling water, following directions on package. Drain pasta; toss with remaining herb mixture.

Place cooked pasta on hot serving platter. Arrange Cornish on top and serve immediately.

I had only one bird so I had to modify the recipe slightly. I cut all the quantities in half and that seemed to work pretty well. I chose to use 1/2 a cup of parsley, but I think a little less would have been better. I used dried oregano and basil, but fresh thyme. Next time I’ll get all fresh spices. I also tossed in some white wine with the oil and lemon juice, didn’t seem to do a darn thing, probably needed more.

All in all a very tasty recipe, I was quite happy with how it came out. I still have half a bird left so I’ll get to eat that tomorrow with some leftover rice. Should be very tasty after it has had a chance to sit and absorb the flavor of the spices.

I just recently purchased a Maxtor OneTouch II Firewire 800 drive to use for portable storage and backups of my various computers. Since I have a PowerBook with a FireWire 800 interface, I figured I’d take advantage of that and grab a FW800 drive. Fortunately for the rest of my machines this unit also includes a FireWire 400 port, and one USB 2.0 port. The theory was I would be able to use this drive across one Macintosh, two Windows, and one Linux machine. Great idea in theory, reality was somewhat more complicated.

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Introduction

I grabbed this game on a lark while ordering some books from Amazon.com. I mostly enjoyed the last Prince of Persia game, Sands of Time, and actually completed that one. While this type of game doesn’t usually interest me, the recent PoP games usually do some pretty interesting things and usually have a decent story. Additionally, I briefly played the original Prince of Persia ages ago on the IBM PC back when Brøderbund was still alive.

This installment in the PoP franchise appears to portray the Prince as a somewhat darker character. In the last installment, the Prince was this happy go lucky guy who just happened to be granted unlimited universal power, and ran amok with it. This one sees him dealing with the consequences of those actions.

Graphics

The graphics in PoP:WW are pretty decent, and appear to be a pretty decent upgrade over the previous game, which was no slouch in the graphics department. Some of the outdoor sequences were quite attractive. The game has two distinct “time lines.” One in the past and one in the present. You manage to cover a fare amount of the same territory in both the past, and the present so you get to see both locations shiny new, and rundown and dilapidated. A very nice effect.

Sound

Audio was very good, and the dialog was clean and understandable. I especially liked the music. While it wasn’t “period,” it was appropriate to the situation. Combat music was usually hard driving and tense. Music and sound effects play an important part of setting a game’s mood, and PoP:WW did an excellent job in this department.

Game play

If you are playing on Windows GET A GAME PAD NOW. Trying to control the Prince with the keyboard is horrible; you won’t like it. I went out and purchased a Sony PS2 Dual Shock controller and a USB adapter. I really like the Dual Shock, and this combo worked quite nicely.

The new combat system is quite entertaining. There are a lot of different moves that the Prince can execute depending on his situations. He can hop off of walls, grab enemies, wield two weapons, etc. Judging by the number of combos available, there are LOTS of moves you can perform. For the most part, I just use a few combinations that I found effective. There were instances, however, where I was surrounded by enemies and started flailing away and the controller and some how executed some amazing and devastating combo.

Some of the levels are quite well designed and present challenging puzzles. Unfortunately, it is the core game play that got me down on this title. Sands of Time has a nice “rewind” system that you could use if you made a mistake and wanted to turn back the clock. PoP:WW preserves this system, sort of. There are places where you will find yourself on long, desperate runs with no opportunity to refill the your sand tanks (utilized to power the various Sands of Time abilities) system. Additionally, you may find yourself in a situation with few sand tanks and no clue how to proceed. Then you fall and die and can’t rewind forcing you to restore to a save point that is probably a way back. Annoying.

Indeed, I found myself cursing the designers on several occasions. These instances really sapped the fun out of the game, and ultimately caused me to put down the game about half finished. I found myself only able to play this game for 30-45 minutes at a time before I felt like throwing my controller through the monitor. Not my kind of entertainment. In the end, I abandoned this game, which is too bad since this title has lots of good qualities. It’s the run-jump-fall-die sequences repeated that got me down.

Conclusion

It has an interesting story, great graphics, superb combat, and usually intriguing level design. It’s the few levels and situations that are designed to frustrate the player that really detract from this game. I feel that this game will be one of those titles that you either love or hate. Since the game can be found used for not at lot, you can give this game a whirl and see whether you like it.

In case you missed it, Apple Computer has announced the new Intel based Macintosh computers. Their new offerings are composed of the MacBook Pro, a “replacement” for the PowerBook, and a new iMac. It’s been known for some time that Apple has been transitioning to Intel CPU products, but this is the first glimpse at the new architecture.

I think the transition to Intel based CPU’s will be a positive one for Apple, especially in light of the inability of IBM to produce a G5 chip that Apple could use in a laptop. Or more correctly the inability of IBM to product a chip at the price point Apple was willing to pay. This new architecture gives Macintosh computer some legs to run on, especially in the laptop and small form factor space.

So after a week to let things settle a bit I figured I’d comment on what I think about the two new units. Keep in mind that I don’t actually have one of these units, but am considering upgrading my 17″ PowerBook at some point in the near future. It was a Revision A unit that I’ve had for almost three years, and was my first Macintosh. It’s been a trooper and become my primary machine for most tasks. Sadly it’s become a little long in tooth and an upgrade to a newer, shiner unit is inevitable.I’m primarly interested in the laptop line, and not so much in the desktop iMac line. Here are the specifications of the new MacBook Pro. In summary:

• Intel Core Duo (Dual Core CPU) at 1.67Gghz or 1.83Ghz
• 667MHz frontside bus.
• 2 DDR2 DIMM sockets for a max of 2GB of PC2-5300 RAM.
• DVI output
• Built-in 802.11g AirPort Extreme.
• Built-in Bluetooth 2.0+EDR.
• Built-in Gigabit (10/100/1000BT) Ethernet.
• One Firewire 400
• Two USB 2.0 Ports
• Express Card/34
• 80GB,100GB, or 120GB 5400RPM Serial ATA drive.
• 8x Read, 4x Write SuperDrive
• Built in iSight camera
• MagSafe power connector.

That’s the basics, and for the most part it is good. The Intel Core Duo CPU will be a large upgrade over the G4 in previous PowerBooks. Additionally, the increase bus speed and faster RAM will give the laptop a little extra kick.

Networking seems to be pretty standard and the only change is the lack of a built-in modem. Apple now sells a USB modem as an external accessory. I find this to be a small problem for something like a laptop. The whole purpose is to be mobile, and not having a modem reduces your connectivity options, or forces you to carry another piece of gear around. I don’t personally use the modem that often, maybe once a year, but when I need it, I need it.

Only one Firewire 400 port. This is actually quite a downgrade from the previous PowerBooks. Previously, models contained one Firewire 400 and one Firewire 800 port. Is Apple abandoning Firewire 800 just as it has started to take off? I sure hope not. FW800 is an excellent interface, and is especially useful for video professionals due to its increased bandwidth. I myself have a nice external FW800/400 hard drive that I use for back-ups and storage. Not having a FW800 port means the money I invested in this drive is wasted, at least if I were to purchase the current MacBook Pro.

ExpressCard/34 seems a worth addition, although keep in mind you are loosing a PCMCIA card slot. The ExpressCard slot has some rather nice features and hopefully will be the future of notebook external device interfaces. Oddly Apple chose the 34pin slot over the 54 (called ExpressCard/54). Were they really that constrained for space they couldn’t put the larger interface in there? Note: There are Firewire 800 cards for ExpressCard however, they appear to be ExpressCard/54, woops.

The SuperDrive was kind of a shock. It’s slower that its predecessor, the 8x SuperDrive that is present in all newer G4 based PowerBooks. Additionally, this model drops dual layer DVD writing support in addition to its slower speed. Some preliminary research seems to indicate that this model may be thinner that the previous SuperDrive which may account for its reduced feature set. Still somewhat of a disappointment.

Finally, we come to the build-in iSight camera. Normally, I wouldn’t mention this feature, but the little camera built into the top of the top of the MacBook’s screen comes at the cost of 60 lines pixels. Instead of 1440×960 of previous 15″ PowerBooks, we get 1440×900. Personally if I’d wanted an iSight I’d go buy the external one. It’s not such a critical feature that it needs to be integrated into a “Pro” notebook, not at the sacrifice of other functionality.

Apple has actually done some pretty nice thing with the new Intel based machines, especially the iMac. However, I think the MacBook Pro sufferers from a couple of things that prevent me from whipping out my credit card and pulling the trigger. It appears that this MacBook Pro is more of a “iBook Xtreame,” it doesn’t appear targeted at the professional market, and certainly not at the professional video market. The omission of the FW800 port tells us that.

I think this first revision of the MacBook was more for the marketing effect that anything else. It was Apple’s way of announcing their new Intel based machines in a big way with one of their top end classes of machines. I’m quite certain the announcement wouldn’t have had the same impact if they had announced a new Mac Mini instead of a new high-end laptop.

In short: The MacBook Pro suffers from Revision A syndrome, something I’m all to familiar with as I purchased a Rev. A PowerBook 17″ when they were just announced. So lesson learned, I’ll wait for the next revision of the MacBook and see what Apple does in the intervening months to improve the line.

Welcome to 2006.

No New Year resolutions for me. Nope. Unless it is something like “I resolve to eat fewer lentils”, which won’t be a problem. I’ve never really been a fan of New Year resolution practice, you are just going to fail to follow through with them anyhow, why delude yourself? And why does they have to only be at the New Year? Why not Vernal Equinox Resolutions. Yeah I like that. So on 20th Mar 12:33 this year we can all make some vague promises to ourselves that we have no intention of carrying through on.

I did have a rather stupendous New Years Eve dinner with the family. Convinced my Mom and Dad to forgo the traditional tough and stringy roast duck dinner at home. Instead we went to the local Chinese restaurant for Peking Duck. Quite a good dish actually, very tasty, very tasty indeed. Mom was thrilled since she didn’t have to clean up afterwards either.

Now I just need to find a surrogate to the Christmas Day goose abomination that is our family tradition. We had a Canadian Goose from Canada (In case you were wondering), and I swear it walked here. Tough, bitter, stringy. Bleh. I should have ordered a pizza. Pizza, of course, is good for any occasion. Birthdays, gaming events, wakes.

So what’s on deck for the near future? Definitely some more daft ramblings from your truly. I have some game “reviews” I’m thinking of putting together, and I’m working on a couple of technical articles which I coming along nicely. I may start publishing some of my cooking experiments with pictures, can’t let my friend Zap have all the fun.

Have a good 2006,

Cheers!
Jack