Tom Charman

Is there anything more shaming than standing in queue for a phone? Well, yes. But as I’ve never been caught in a Nazi-themed sex orgy, this might have been near the top of the scale for me.

Apparently, the Optus store in Southland was opening at 8.00 am. Australians are lazy, I thought, and so I turned up at 7.30. Disappointingly, there was a queue of about 20 people. Even more disappointingly, the staff soon came out to the queue to inform us that there were no black 16 gb iPhones available. Well, I thought, I’ll just order a black one. I can wait.

After an hour of this ‘waiting’ thing — which might not have taken so long if Optus’ ordering system hadn’t broken down twice — my resistance to white had considerably evaporated. Some bloke had shown off his white one, and of looked quote nice. I used to like white things… It doesn’t look too shabby… I’ll never see the back anyhow… It was just as I was starting to convince myself that I’d happily take the white one that one of the Optus staff came out to inform us that there were only four of them left. There were five people in front of me. Sadly I bemoaned that even with a deposit I wouldn’t manage to get a phone.

“I don’t have a deposit.”

As it turned out, almost NO ONE had a deposit, making my opening gambit of not immediately asking “Who’s got a deposit” when I lined up particularly galling. Luckily, I had a few other queue members with deposits on my side, and we formed an alliance of sorts to beat the people in front of us to the 16gb phones. It was at this point that I started to feel like I was on a particularly nerdy version of Survivor. “They’ve been asking about deposits all day,” lies one hapless competitor.¹ I make a mental note to kill her with whichever app on the iPhone decapitates people and makes it look like an accident.

Our new, smaller queue is formed, and I try not to make eye contact with those we’ve left behind. Mercifully we’re soon allowed in, and I’m given my phone. I open up my old phone to get the SIM card out, and blow dust all over the helpful customer service girl. It’s how we say “thank you” on my planet.

It’s a good little iPhone, too. People whinge about the keyboard, but as someone who never got the hang of T9, I’m light years faster than I used to be. The browsing is nifty, except when websites make their crappy “mobile” versions of sites which don’t offer all the capabilities of the real site.² The second I need to actually go somewhere interesting, the Maps will be awesome. And the Facebook app is nifty, as one expects from something made by Joe ‘Firebug’ Hewitt.³

I finally have the One True Video iPod. All is right with the world.

1. In fact, I think she was just confused about the difference between wanting a pre-paid phone and having a deposit. ↩
2. Presumably, the Google Calendar team have something far more interesting to do. ↩
3. He’s famous if you’ve done web work and like Firefox extensions. ↩

There’s a reason there’s not many updates around here at the moment, and it goes by the name of Grand Theft Auto IV. I’m finished, yet still not done.

I’m currently considering napalming the whole of Liberty City. The cost in human lives will surely be outweighed by the time I’ll save not running about killing all the pigeons.

Discovered on Good News Week tonight that Claire Hooper knows who Davros is and thus might well be the perfect woman. Also, she apparently has a lump on her neck, and I used to have one of those, so we’ve totally got that in common. It was meant to be. She’s certainly my favourite Australian comedy variety program team captain. Suck it up, Myf.

I have many words of a Burnout: Paradise review sitting about on my hard drive, and yet I still don’t feel like I’ve actually said enough to truly call it a “review”. And so, from now on, I will blog about games, because I’m lazy and most certainly not dedicated enough to finish a game before anyone else is bored of it.

Residing in my DS at the moment is The World Ends With You, a crazy new game from the reliable folks at Square Enix. My favourite games for the DS which haven’t involved Mario or Phoenix Wright seem recently to be made by Square; they’ve got a real dedication to making DS games which truly take advantage of the platform.

World is a fun old time, and much of this is from the crazy combat (there’s a picture above). The touch screen of the DS has been used for several neat things in the past, but this could be my favourite. On the bottom screen it’s essentially combat-by-gesture; slash across your character to shoot in that direction, slash upwards to create a giant icicle, tap various enemies to create chain lightning, drag along the ground to set it on fire…

But people with eyes may have noticed that there’s also a top screen, and one has to fight on both of them. Splitting your attention between two screens makes for a frenetic experience, and I enjoy the combat, but at this stage I almost wish I were playing a game with just the bottom screen. Often my right hand ends up scribbling like a mad thing, and I can’t quite concentrate on either part of the battle completely. World is what it is, and what it is is awesome, but I hope to play a game one day with the gesture combat brought completely to the fore in a more relaxed fashion.

Ideally, this game will also made by Square Enix.

Oh, bad Wii puns. It’s been too long. I arrived home today to find that Andy had purchased a WiiFit. You may know these from their mind-bogglingly dull billboards, which appear to be taking the reliable marketing tactic of “oh, you so want a rectangular piece of white plastic.” It turns out that they’re a lot more exciting than their unassuming exterior would have you believe. The platform is of course pressure sensitive and allows you to balance, perform yoga, do aerobics, and various other things even more exhausting than Wii Tennis. By the end of my first session I was buggered, but I’ll be coming back because of the COMPETITION. Much like Brain Training on the DS, WiiFit keeps track of your progress and measures you against your friends. And I’m kicking serious arse; after only one day, I’ve already managed to be less fat than Andy due to the sneaky height dependency of the Body Mass Index.¹ I don’t know if families were starting to get sick of Wii Sports, but surely this can only solidify the console’s place amongst perfectly normal people who want to have fun without leaving the comfort of their homes or shooting imaginary people.

1. Andy’s not the first to be screwed by the BMI. Little girls are getting their feelings hurt, too. Having previously downloaded the BMI dashboard widget, I was well prepared for hurtful labels. ↩