Congrats, ya lucky bastards.

2010 — Jimmy and Dale
2009 — Jeff and Kyle
2008 — Jeff and Kyle
2007 — Jimmy and Warren
2006 — Rick and Dick
2005 — Rick and Dick
2004 — Jimmy and Malcolm

1998 — Jeff and Kyle

1992 — Jeff and Bonnie

Today, I fired up EA’s Fight Night 4 on the XBox and saw something that hadn’t been there previously. During one of the transition screens (while a ring/fighter was being loaded) there was a blatant ad. Right there above the spot where they give you gameplay tips, there was an box ad for a movie.

Come on. I paid $60 for this game. Do I really need to see ads too? I paid for the privilege of seeing you be more money hungry? WTF? Ads are for supporting free stuff. That’s why they’re aired on local television stations (which is free), but not HBO (which I pay for).

I put ads on some of my websites (where the content is free) and potentially in the free programs I write for the iPhone, but wouldn’t dream of putting them in the paid programs. If you paid me for a program, you shouldn’t have to see ads. Period.

If this is a trend they plan to continue, this will be my last EA game. There are plenty of other game developers out there happy just to get the $60 for the game, and I’m happy to give it to them.

Incidentally, I’ll be interested to see how the NetNewsWire (NNW) team deals with this problem. They recently released 3.2 beta, for free, and it displays ads. The thing is, they used to have a paid “premium” version that had no ads. Somehow, they’ll need to make sure those paid users aren’t put off by the ads they’re now going to be seeing…

UPDATE: Jesus. I finally got around to fighting that fight (I was so put off by the original ad, I decided to write the blog post first), and now I see they also have ads in between rounds. Fuckers.

For the record, I don’t mind when they put stuff on the mat or the corner padding, etc. Unobtrusive. Fight Night 3 had sponsorhips (“This fight brought to you by Burger King”) and I didn’t mind that. But when you pop up 2 square ads in my face when I’m trying to read something important on the screen (such as how I did in the last round), you’re crossing a line. I did a quick Google search and I’m not the only one. EA are you listening?

There were a hell of a lot of kids on the ship … most of them well behaved, several of them not so much.  I found myself wondering if it was legal to punch a 13 year old while in international waters. Some kids just need that. Sadly, it seems more and more kids need that… maybe it’s me getting older, but I think it’s also that parenting skills just disappeared somewhere along the way.  I try not to be a “you kids get off my lawn!” kind of guy, but damn.

PROBLEM #1 – If you’re installing VS 2008 Professional on Windows Vista, and it tells you to install Windows XP Service Pack 2 before you can proceed: Copy the contents of your VS 2008 DVD into a folder on your C: drive called “Disk 1″ and install from there. Who knows why this works, but it does. (Incidentally, I didn’t have this problem installing Standard, only Professional.)

PROBLEM #2 – Microsoft says you need to “repair” your Windows Mobile 6 SDK installation after installing VS 2008. You’ll have much better luck if you uninstall the SDK before you install VS 2008, then re-install it using the “Windows Mobile 6 SDK Refresh” packages.

PROBLEM #3 – visual Studio setup fails installing various components. Until you’re done installing everything you need to install, disable the UAC, disable your antivirus, and stop the Windows Update service. And, as in Problem #1 above, things seem to be more stable if you install from a C: drive folder than from a DVD or ISO.

I hope this saves someone some time. I wish it was all consolidated into one place last week while I was going nuts …

We had always assumed it was going to be a quick weekend in Vegas, and we assumed it wouldn’t happen any time soon. But, with the house coming, we decided it would be best for the kids if we got married before we moved in together. Beckie had a business trip planned for Virginia the week before March 8th, and I had already planned a stay at a B&B for us, so she decided to piggy-back a wedding on the weekend. The only think I knew in advance was we were to get married while out there; the rest was to be a surprise.

The weather didn’t cooperate, so on the way out to the B&B, Beckie let me in on the surprise. If it hadn’t been raining, we would have had a very early (6am!) wedding on a hot air balloon that would then take us up over the Blue Ridge Mountains before landing us for a picnic brunch. Very romantic! And, something done in jeans and a sweater … my kind of wedding!
Since it was raining, we had to do plan B, which was get married in front of the fireplace in the “great room” of our B&B. Also romantic. And, we don’t feel like we missed out one bit.

After the brief ceremony, we did a brief trip on the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was cut short, again due to rain, but Beckie didn’t mind, because it gave us the opportunity to visit some local wineries. We did some tastings and bought a bunch of wine to be sent to the house. She was in heaven.

The B&B, by the way, was excellent. We stayed at the Oakmoor Country Inn, in Afton VA, nestled in the BR Mountains. Paul and Sharon Buterbaugh, our hosts, opened the B&B as a way to retire from corporate life. They’ve been full pretty much every weekend since opening — no surprise to us now that we’ve stayed there — so it’s really not so much retirement, as a different kind of job. Their house is beautiful, Paul and Sharon are excellent hosts, and the breakfast is fantastic. We couldn’t have picked a better place to stay, and we will definitely return.

If you haven’t seen the pictures yet, go check them out at www.kyleandbeckie.com.