Jets’n’Guns on sale

Jets’n’Guns is on sale at the MacUpdate Promo for 50% off today July 26, 2008, and if you’ve never played it but enjoy sidescrolling space games, I highly recommend picking up a copy. I’ve said why I love Jets’n’Guns elsewhere, so suffice it to say it’s still one of the best arcade games out there.

MacUpdate often continues their sales past the “expiration date” of the MacUpdate Promo, so here’s a direct link to Jets’n’Guns at MUPRomo if you want to check if there’s still a deal available for it.

The only downside is that this appears to be the original Jets’n’Guns, and not the extended Gold copy. If you want the Gold version, you still save $10 by buying it at MacUpdate Promo and then upgrading at Rake in Grass’s website. A bit disappointing they didn’t just put the Gold version itself on sale, though.

Why you should eat yogurt

After having finally seen the end of The Dark Knight yesterday (which we previously had missed thanks to a wide-spread and suspiciously well-timed power outage), my girlfriend and I were wandering homewards. What had seemed like the culminating moments in our first go turned out to be only about three quarters of the way through, and as a result it was quite a bit later than we had expected to get out. With no quick and easy entrees beckoning us home, we decided to try the local Mongolian Grill and see if it was any good.

The food was alright (although unlike any other Mongolian grill I’ve ever been to you didn’t get to make your own sauce, which was disappointing), but the best part of the trip was the poster displaying nine good reasons to eat frozen yogurt that was on the wall. Or, more accurately, “9 Reasons to Eat Y/O/G/U/R/T”. Your guess is as good as mine why they slashed it up.

1. Yogurt is easier to digest than milk

This seems to me like a decent argument for eating yogurt.

2. Yogurt contrubutes [sic] to colon health

Again, a healthy colon is certainly a plus in anyone’s book, although I’m a little perplexed why this is the second reason. It seems more like the kind of thing you’d slip tactfully in around reason number seven or eight.

3. Yogurt can boost immunity

We seem to be on a health kick here.

4. Yogurt aids healing after intestinal infections

Whozawha? “Aids healing in intestinal infections?” Purely aside from the fact that this seems more like something you’d find in a doctor’s office than a restaurant, how many of the customers here have intestinal infections? It must be a pretty significant number if the fourth reason you should eat yogurt is to help those pesky infections on their way. Suddenly the partially frozen meat that went into my dish is looking less and less like a good idea.

5. Yogurt can decrease yeast infections

Well, damn. As if the intestinal troubles weren’t enough, they wanted to be absolutely certain we knew the healing and preventative power of yogurt. Except that yeast infections are not something I want to think about when I’m eating. Yeast infections, in fact, manifestly put me off food.

Fortunately, though, after the first five reasons the author of the poster decided that they had extolled the virtues of yogurt for the digestive tract long enough.

6. Yogurt is a rich source of calcium
7. Yogurt is an excellent source of protein
8. Yogurt can lower cholesterol

Ah, now there are three reasons that a sheltered American like myself can appreciate. From Cheerios boxes to news anchors, calcium, protein, and cholesterol are all subjects safe for public consumption. Sure, they don’t have the shock value of yeast infections, but they’re also familiar enough that I don’t have to think about them. Which is nice. Because I still can’t get the thought of those yeast infections out of my head, and am cursing the impulse to add cauliflower to my meal.

9. Taste good

“Okay, there’s our list.” “But we said nine reasons, and we only have eight.” “Oh, fine, say it has a good taste. We already covered all the important bits like yeast infections.” “Alright. ‘Taste good’. Let’s go print this son of a bitch.”

Needless to say, despite nine very good reasons to eat y/o/g/u/r/t, neither my girlfriend nor I was tempted to try it.

It was probably because neither of us had a yeast infection.

9 Reasons to Eat YOGURT

(As an aside, this poster was almost certainly created overseas somewhere, and the cultural disconnect between Americans like myself, who value pleasurable flavors, and the authors, who evidently prefer restorative powers after intestinal infections, is quite telling.)

The Dark Knight…mostly

My girlfriend and I decided to go see The Dark Knight today. We both loved Batman Begins, and the previews for The Dark Knight were exciting. So we show up at the theater, and after being advertised and previewed at for a solid 40 minutes, we finally get to the movie.

And it’s good. Really good. The Joker is a psychotic killer, but he’s an exquisitely well-done psychotic killer. Granted, it’s hard for me to reconcile this gritty Joker with the Joker of the 1966 Batman movie (Batman: “An exploding shark was pulling my leg!” Gordon: “The Joker!”).

But still. Good movie, lots of action, and definitely in keeping with Batman Begins.

Then, almost at the ending, Batman is lying on the ground, possibly unconscious and certainly hurt, while the Joker stalks toward him. One of the Joker’s henchmen (where does he get these guys?) leans over our prone hero, and reaches for his mask. There’s a spark from the mask, the henchman starts jumping back, and at that very instant, everything goes dark.

The audience sits silent for a few seconds while it sinks in. Something went wrong. The timing really was that perfect. Spark, malfunction. Then we realize that we’re likely ten minutes or so away from the end of the movie and the laughter and catcalls start.

Turns out the power went out (the whole block the movie theater was on looked to be out, although it was hard to tell since it was a gorgeous sunny day without a speck of wind; very surreal), so unfortunately my girlfriend and I have still not seen how The Dark Knight ends. Hopefully soon we’ll be able to use the free movie voucher the theater gave us. But still. You couldn’t have planned that kind of timing.

This kind of thing is why I think god probably does exist: if we can believe the Bible, he was into angry, jealous smiting to start (“Worship someone else? DIE!”), then when that didn’t work fell back to cajoling and offering bribes (“Come on, if you believe in me I’ll treat you real nice in the afterlife!”), and finally got old and tired and said the hell with it, I’m just going to fuck with them. Which describes just about every parent-turned-curmudgeon who I know.

Batman: Gotham Knight

We rented Batman: Gotham Knight from iTunes last night, and it was decent. Not amazing or worth owning, but a fun sequence of six interrelated animated Batman shorts nonetheless. If you’re in the mood for some Japanese animated Batman action, it’s definitely worth seeing.

I have to say, though, the short sequence where Batman waxes poetic on the appeal of guns is like hearing commentary for some gun enthusiast’s wet dream. No, Batman. Having a gun, no matter how sleek and well-oiled, does not make you God. It makes you someone who can very easily kill or maim someone else. That is all. Go get laid.

Reese’s on ice

Take a Reese’s Peanut Butter cup (preferably the bite-sized version). Freeze it. Eat it frozen.

Tastes the same (aside from being very slightly colder and harder), but without the disgusting greasiness on the wrapper and outside that otherwise mars a perfectly decent candy. Brilliant.

Thanks to my girlfriend for introducing me to frozen Reese’s. Definitely the way to go. The only downside is that the inner wrapper is slightly more difficult to remove, but I’m willing to live with that.

Cornerstone

Notice note about newly released Cornerstone Subversion application at Daring Fireball. Download Cornerstone. Launch it and connect to my free Beanstalk account (a.k.a. Mr. Sandbox). Create folder. Notice typo in folder name. Select folder and hit enter in order to rename. Fail. Right-click folder and look for rename option. Fail. View Info pane. Fail. View Properties pane. Fail. Go through every menu and sub-menu for a rename option. Fail.

Open up Versions beta. Connect to Beanstalk. Right-click folder and choose Rename option. Rename folder quickly and easily. Hooray!

Have a thought. Switch to Cornerstone. Click folder once, then hover cursor over it for a second or two. Folder name becomes selected with a typing cursor. Oh. Right.

Exit out of the renaming, since the folder is no longer typo-a-rific in the repository. Check toolbar for a way to refresh the repository. Fail. Right-click the main area. Fail. Double click the repository nickname in the sidebar. Fail. Right-click the repository nickname in the sidebar. Doesn’t even have a context menu. Open the gear menu in the sidebar (bizarrely positioned at the top). Fail. Go through every menu and sub-menu a second time. Fail. Attempt to rename the folder in the hopes that it will encourage the repository to refresh itself. Fail. Bizarre error message.

Quit Cornerstone. Trash Cornerstone. Hope for Versions to be a real product soon.

Mariner Software releases MacGourmet Deluxe

Mariner Software today released MacGourmet Deluxe. MacGourmet has long been my favorite recipe software (it’s interface is pretty badly cluttered and could definitely be improved on, but it’s far and away better than the competition and the fullscreen cook’s view is excellent), and now MacGourmet Deluxe offers all three of the plug-ins (cookbook, mealplan, and nutrition info) as integrated parts of the program. This is a particularly good deal if you already own MacGourmet 2 but neglected to buy any of the plugins, since the upgrade fee to MacGourmet Deluxe is a meager $10. It also has a snazzy new icon that I like a lot better than MacGroumet’s plastic spoon:

MacGourmet Deluxe

I highly recommend anyone who is looking for a better way to manage their favorite recipes to take a look at MacGourmet Deluxe. It’s a program that I don’t use all that often, but when I need to find that favorite recipe I can count on it being in MacGourmet and super easy to find and access.

MacGourmet Deluxe will also be available as boxed software, so good luck to Advenio and Mariner Software in spreading the word about the best recipe software on the Mac to an even larger crowd.