Justin Thorn

Apple’s newest consumer electronic device was finally announced to the world. The much rumored tablet device, now officially named the iPad, was showcased by Steve Jobs earlier today. Unless you live somewhere without electricity you probably already know all about. Of course if that’s the case then it is safe to assume you are not able to read this blog. I don’t want to spend a lot of time detailing the specs again so for the full list see Apples iPad Specs page. The basics are a 9.5″ LCD screen in a 0.5″ thick case that weighs 1.5 pounds. The form factor essentially is a supersized iPod Touch. The screen is multi-touch sensitive and twice the resolution of its smaller cousins. The iPad runs all the existing App Store apps (140,000+ but whos counting). It includes all the standard features of WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, Digital compass, and optional 3G support. To really understand what this all means you have to see this thing in action.

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Conan O’ Brien had his last show as host of The Tonight Show on NBC last night. It was a sad moment for me as far as entertainment is concerned. I don’t watch as much TV as I used to but I still have a couple shows I watch daily. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart being one and Conan the second. A series of strange and unfortunate events by NBC executives over the past few weeks led to the premature demise of Conan’s reign as the host of The Tonight Show. I will give my opinion on that a little later. First I would like to say a few things about Conan as an entertainer and simply as a man.

I grew up as a child of the 80’s which is to say I was too young to stay up and enjoy Johnny Carson’s classic late night antics. Truth be told I never once saw an episode of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson live. It wasn’t until my teenage years in the early 90s that I began staying up to enjoy late night comedy on TV. I learned of David Letterman only after his move to CBS and for a long time much preferred his show and style of comedy over that of Jay Leno’s. One night after tuning into Letterman, rather than flipping the 13″ tube TV off in my bedroom and calling it a night I started channel surfing. After only a few clicks of the remote I stopped at the sight of this pale skinned, wild red haired comedian’s new late night show. I had never heard of Conan O’ Brien before but I quickly became a fan. Long before the age of DVRs I tried my best to catch his show regularly for years. Especially during the summers.

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Over the weekend Lauren and I finally checked out Food, Inc. It has been setting in our Netflix queue for a while. It is a documentary about the dangers of our nation’s growing food industry and the health risks associated with it. The film focuses on the contrasts between two types of farms our food comes from today. Factory farms that mass produce most of our meats and dairy products using “food science technology” like growth hormones. Traditional “organic” farms raising animals in their natural environments without additional stimulants and additives. Food, Inc. goes beyond the obvious nutritional differences of these two methods while also highlighting the political, financial and ethical issues involved.

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Last night Lauren and I attended the opening night of Avatar in 3D with our friends Johnny and Heather. I must admit, both our wives were hesitant to agree to watch this movie with us since it is an action/sc-fi movie. At least on the surface, going by just the previews on TV that is how they felt. After spending 30 minutes Thursday night showing Lauren the behind the scenes creation of the movie as well as several fantastic reviews she was convinced to come with me. I was so confident she would enjoy the movie I made a deal. If she did not enjoy Avatar she had a free pass to drag me along to see two movies of her choice. A bold proclamation in ordinary circumstances but I knew Avatar was going to be anything but ordinary.

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Lately you can’t watch anything on TV or visit many websites without being blasted with some type of ad or trailer for the movie Avatar. In fact I have mostly ignored all the hype and noise surrounding this movie since I first saw the trailer last summer. I remember thinking to myself in the theater “here we go again. another CGI action fest”. The only thing that made it stand out a little was its release date of Christmas instead of summer when most of these type films are released. I was also confused because I first thought this movie Avatar was somehow related to the Japanese anime series by the same name. After seeing more trailers that theory never matched up. Finally, last week I broke down and decided to do more research. The results of which I will share with you now.

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The weather is cooling, the leaves have changed colors, there is less daylight and the holidays are right around the corner. You know what that means. Gaming season is here. Everyone is familiar with the blockbuster movie season that typically starts in May around Memorial Day weekend. From that point through July 4th most of the major blockbuster films of the year are released. Why is that? I don’t know but that is just the way things are and the way they have been for as long as I can remember. As long as the movie studios continue to rake in the dough with these business practices I’m sure that release cycle will continue for years to come. For those of us who are gamers we know the video game industry works very similar. From mid-October through December many of the years biggest games crowd the store shelves at once. The problem with this is games take much more time to play than a watching a movie and they cost much more money. For this reason many games get overlooked temporarily or sometimes forever. There should be a better system for releasing games.

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