In my seemingly never ending search for the ultimate Instant Messenger client, I recently discovered Digsby. I used Pidgin for a while (but stopped, thanks to the thick-skulled developers). I tried Trillian but decided I didn’t think it was worth, to me, what they charge for it (the free version doesn’t meet my needs), and MSN Live Messenger has frequently has problems communicating with Yahoo IM folks.

Digsby takes most of the features of a Trillian or a Pidgin but goes several steps further. Sure, they support all the major IM services (MSN, Yahoo, AOL, Google, etc.) but they also allow you to integrate your email, Facebook, Twitter, etc. right into the client so you can see when you get new messages or updates of what your friends are doing on facebook. Plus, Digsby has a very nice and highly customizable user interface. If you use IM, you should check out Digsby.

I looked at a bunch of Wordpress Themes last night with an eye towards a new, fresh look. I am thinking of making Wordpress my primary website… migrating a bit of information from my old home page into Wordpress Pages. Opinions on the theme I picked? Let me know if you see any amazing Wordpress themes.

I’ve been playing Lego Indiana Jones on the 360 with the missus. This is her first “platformer” game - mostly she enjoys solitaire-type games Patience fro the Palm and games like Bejeweled 2 and Puzzle Quest. But, I think she is really enjoying it and the strong focus on co-op play is a lot of fun. If she continues to enjoy this, we’ll probably pick up the Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga and maybe Lego Batman later this year.

We went to see two movies this weekend. The first was Wanted starring Angelina Jolie and James McAvoy. I cannot speak highly enough about this movie. While I loved Iron Man, I think Wanted was the most trilling, exciting, mind bending action movie since The Matrix. If you loved The Matrix I would suspect you will love Wanted.

The second movie was WALL-E. With WALL-E, Pixar yet again demonstrates that they are the masters of animated film and WALL-E belongs in a place with the very best of the Pixas movies. WALL-E has both wonderful animation and a wonderful story. Suitable for (probably?) all ages, you will be doing yourself and your loved ones a disservice not going to see WALL-E.

While many movies work just as well on DVD as in the theater, I would strongly recommend seeing both Wanted and WALL-E on the big screen.

My wifes poppy passed away last month. I have posted a memorial picture set on Flickr, based on a PowerPoint presentation “uncle Bob” put together. Les will be missed.

At the urging of a co-worker we attended the Coney Island Mermaid Parade last weekend. We witnessed mermaids of all shapes and sizes. Lots of fancy costumes and various states of exposure. A good time was had by most, but if you were “accidentally” visiting Coney Island just expecting a quick walk down the boardwalk and a ride on the Cyclone Roller coaster, you were probably terrified at the huge crowds of barely controlled paraders and onlookers. Predictably you can find a bunch of pictures in my Flickr set.

The 3G iPhone comes out in a couple weeks. I have had a Treo 650 for probably four years now, I’m over 2 year out of contract but I’ve been waiting for something to grab my attention. I ignored the iPhone last year because of the lack of 3G, I may get a 3G iPhone. We’ll see, I am waiting to see how it handles my “non-Apple” email. It would mean switching carriers, but that isn’t really too big a deal - AT&T works pretty well here and seems to get good receiption on my apartment. Check backin a month.

My existing iPod Video 30gb has served me pretty well - I take it everywhere I go. I had a problem a few months ago that the headphone jack broke (only audio from one headphone). I had it fixed at TekServe (a local iPod shop). This last Saturday this it broke again. I took it back to TekServe and learned that it was 90 days to the day since I had it fixed last time, so I was on the very last day of their warranty. They fixed it for free, but if I had waited one more day to bring it in I would have had to pay for the repair again. Yay!

My previous headphones were the Etymotic ER6i - I loved them. They were comfortable, light, provided great isolation, really nice sound, relatively reasonably priced. The one really nice thing about the ER6i headphones is they have a “flat response”, so they don’t artifically boost the bass, etc. Sadly, their cord is somewhat lightweight and I accidentally stretched the cord and destroyed them. I am researching how to fix them (Etymotic will not repair them), but in the mean time I found a really good deal on a pair of  Shure SE210 headphones. In general, they sound great with good isolation. The dowside is that they are a touch bulkier, the cord is noticbly heavier and they don’t come with a “shirt clip” to offset the extra weight of the cord, but they have a nice feature that the majority of the cord cam be detached and replaced if I break it - which is incredibly attractive since I have now stretched out the cord on two pairs of headphones. I have rigged up a shirt clip, but I would like to find something a bit more professional looking.

Finally, I’ve been meaning to mention this for a long time — for my birthday I got iHome IH9 alarm clock for my iPod. In short, I reall love it. The only feature it lacks is an “auto time set”. The only thing it doesn’t seem to do well is play AM radio, even using the included external antenna. It works with the iPod beautifully and intuitively. The FM radio works well. The alarm can be set to 2-day (weekend), 5-day (week-day), or 7-day. The alarm itself can be set to buzzer, radio, iPod, or a specific iPod play list. It is pretty much just the right number of buttons and they are logically laid out. The display backlight can be set to (something like) 6 brightness levels ranging for blinding to off - I personally thing there should be a few more settings between their dimmest version and “off”, but it is nice that I can turn the blacklight completely off and it emits no light at all. At night I just leave it completely dark. Finally, unlike most clock radios, the IH9 has really good sound. I don’t think anybody would confuse it for a Bose Soundwave, but it sounds very nice.

The missus and I are watching Fox’s So You Think You Can Dance (we’ve watched it every year). This last week Katee and Joshua did a great Broadway dance to All For the Best from Godspell, which brought back a lot of memories for me; my mom used to listen to the Godspell album frequently. This led us to watching the Godspell movie via Netflix streaming over the weekend. The movie was filmed in New York City. There are lots of shots of the World Trade Center, Central Park, and Lincoln Center. Neither the missus nor I had previously seen the movie, but it was to fun to watch because we recognize many of the locations in the film and two of the actors have gone on to do quite a bit we’ve seen. The first, Victor Garber (who played Jesus) was most recently the boss in Eli Stone which the missus and I really enjoyed - interestingly, he does a bit of singing in Eli Stone, too. The second, Lynne Thigpen, is a very memorable character actor who appeared in lots of stuff including The District, L.A. Law, and Where in the World is Carmen San Diego. On Saturday we were at Lincoln Center and saw the “shell” where they shot one of the songs in the movie.

According to Playbill, Godspell is returning to Broadway this summer. The missus and I may have to go see it.

Over the weekend I went to see The Strangers, a suspense horror film. If you saw the trailers and thought it looked interesting, you will probably like it. It was very effective at building the tension. There is actually very little blood and gore in this film, it mostly just tries to demonstrate the fear the characters are experiencing. For that reason, I enjoyed the movie. It isn’t a 10/10, but if you like the genre I would call it a solid 8/10.

After 82+ hours of play, I finished Grand Theft Auto IV to 100%. There are still some achievements I can get and there is the multiplayer that I haven’t even touched, but I am finished with the absolutely majority of the game. I can safely say GTA IV is a contender for game of the year, nothing so far this year even comes close, although the year is still young - Fallout 3, Too Human, Metal Gear Solid 4, Gear of War 2, and several others are still to come, so we’ll see.

I did a double feature last weekend seeing Iron Man and Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay. First, Iron Man was phenomenal - it will assuredly take its place among the best comic book adaptation movies of all time. If you like action flicks, it is a must see. It is great to see Robert Downey Jr. back at the top of his game. I can’t say a bad thing about this movie.

Regarding Harold &  Kumar: it is exactly what you expect - it was funny, although not as funny as the classic Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle. It essentially follows the same formula. If you enjoyed the original movie, you will probably enjoy this one, just a little bit less - this assumes you enjoy silly, juvenile comedies containing drugs references and occasional nudity - just go into the film with slightly lowered expectations. Once again, Neil Patrick Harris has a part playing a deranged Neil Patrick Harris and once again he practically steals the show.

I still haven’t gotten a Wii… I’d enjoy having one, I think, the missus and I could play Wii Sports together, I’d love to play Super Mario Galaxy (I’ve been a huge Mario fine since Super Mario Bros. in the arcade), Boom Blox looks great, I know I’d enjoy Zelda: Twilight Princess and probably Super Paper Mario and Metroid Prime 3, but, hmm, is that it? Ultimately, the Wii is a glorified Gamecube with a few extra tricks. I will give you those tricks are pretty neat and it does stuff no other console can yet do, but I still ask: is that it? The almost complete lack of good games is disappointing, but not a surprise - the Gamecube lacked good 3rd part y games in the same way. The lack of graphics capability is also pretty sad, but, one can easily argue that most people will buy it for Wii Sports and a handful of other titles (almost exclusively produced by Nintendo) and call it good - any game that comes out for the Wii and 360 or PS3 is all but guaranteed to be better on the other console.

Is, are those fancy Wii tricks enough to justify a purchase? For the new “casual gamer” Nintendo audience, who either buys it on the hype or specifically for those tricks, absolutely… I know several people who only have Wii Sports and use it as a party game, but, I firmly believe the Wii, more than any other console, will be found in garage sales, ebay auctions, and craigslist ad’s after a year or two — once they are plentiful and the shine of Wii Sports wears off and people see that so few good games come out for it.

The Wii hardware begs for a revision. While I would love to see a Wii that can put out 720p (HD), the current games likely wouldn’t support it, so 480p is probably where things will sit, BUT, what is really lacking on the Wii is storage. The Wii has a paltry 512MB of internal storage and the external (SD) storage is of quite limited use. At first glance this might seem enough, but with Virutal Console, Wii apps like the browser and channels, and WiiWare this will rapidly turn out to be not enough storage except for the most casual of gamer. This single factor keeps games like Rock Band from offering downloadable content (songs). I am really hoping Nintendo will soon offer a solution for the Wii’s storage inadequacies. The TiVo can “marry” a second hard drive to the first, making them a seamless storage space. Nintendo should either offer this as an option or an option to use external SD storage in place of the internal storage, although it might not be fast enough? Alternatively, an option to use an external USB hard drive.

I realize it sounds I am pretty down on the Wii. Does that mean I won’t get one? Ultimately, I probably will get one. I will probably hold out until (a) they are plentiful (b) Nintendo solves the storage problem and (c) Nintendo realizes $250 is too expensive for what it is and lowers the price. At that point, I’ll either bite the bullet and pick up one at retail or get one of the many used ones that will be floating around. In the mean time, there are tons of games on the 360 that will keep me busy.