Dear Boulder Republicans: Maybe everyone here is a Democrat because of how much you suck.

So I went to the Republican caucus tonight, which was a nice mixture of being both depressing and disappointing. First, I walked in slightly late, then stood at this table by the very front door of a local elemiddlery school, waiting to check in. Inside the room behind the table was an impressively-sizeable group of active voters. Finally it was my turn to be helped. I went up, and they couldn’t find my name in the list. Unless, the lady asked…are you here for the Republican caucus? Um, yes, yes, I am. That one’s way down there, she said, then pointed at something too far away for me to see.

I walked down the hall, then into a mostly-empty gymnasium, where my precinct (six of us in total) had already gotten started. The precinct next to me, the one we shared the table with? Well, none of them could be bothered to show up, so the saddest packet of all time laid there, waiting to be opened. I hope I never hear you complain about Obamacare, you lazy bastards. That was the depressing part.

The disappointment? Well, that was the whole rest of it. First we picked precinct officers and election judges and all that. I’m an alternate for some kind of delegation that they’d better not call me for. This was all very boring, but at least our ringleader kept things moving at a nice clip. Really, he did great in a pretty thankless job. But the resolutions…oh, the resolutions. I don’t know what manipulative hack penned them, but I’m very disappointed that I can’t find them online so you can see them in their full glory. So I’ll just give some examples. One was to make it part of our platform—my party’s platform in my county—to eliminate automatic salary increases for Congressmen, so that they’d have to vote themselves a new pay bump every time they want one. Sounds good to me. And it even had this awesome part in the intro, about how Congressmen currently get automatic pay bumps even when their actions harm the economy, a nice little crack I loved. Except then in the last line, they threw something in about how every Congressman should also be capped at 200% of the median income in the district they represent. What? Where did that come from? (And because, well, we’re Republicans, one guy immediately decided he was going to move to Manhattan and run for Congress.) We didn’t really like the idea of creating class distinctions in Congress.

Another fun one was about laws in Congress, and how so many of them are written by lobbyists, and how we should require them to read every bill aloud before voting on it. Yeah. That’s practical.

The one that really got me was about letting the Patriot Act expire, because, you know, it’s 2010 and all. OK by me. Except it went completely off the rails at the end, where the resolution said that IF some other law had to passed in its place, it HAD to be Senator Feingold’s JUSTICE Act, which gives the government powers to spy on suspected terrorists. Seriously, it used the word spy (and the word Feingold). Like any of us were going to vote for it at that point. But for some reason, we started to discuss it. After a minute, I asked, what is up with these resolutions? I got a laugh, but then I said, “Seriously, it’s like they wrote it this way just so they wouldn’t have to support getting rid of the Patriot Act,” which got me a bunch of blank stares. But the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that's the only thing that makes sense. Elefants, I’m on to you. Cut out the grandstanding crap and focus on some issues that actually matter, like fiscal responsibility (not that I support the balanced budget amendment we were also polled on). I mean this was a friggin’ caucus in a non-presidential election year, a gathering of only the most concerned citizens (& me), and we’re still playing word games with members of our own party and making the whole process feel as undemocratic as possible from the start. Give me some individual rights, some states’ rights, some money-saving ideas and some candidates who can actually prevail in a modern-media showdown. I want winners, not excuses. And then the party can get back on track and get back to making a difference in this country. That’s all I ask. Thank you, and good night.

The iPad is a fairly ridiculous object, isn’t it?

This next line is where I’m supposed to say something like, “but I want one anyway.” But I don’t. I mean, I’d take it if someone gave it to me (and my birthday is coming soon); I’m just not sure when I’d use it.

Surely an Apple device would be ideal for home use, right? Before it was announced I pictured using an Apple tablet kicked back in my recliner, websurfing aimlessly. However, a notebook or laptop would blow it out of the water for that purpose. For one, the tablet doesn’t appear to support Flash (in the demos today it put up the same missing plugin icon the iPhone does for Flash elements), so Hulu is out right away. How am I supposed to catch up on 24? YouTube is also out, kind of: the YouTube app on Apple’s other devices does not include every video on YouTube, though it usually has most videos I want to watch. A proper computer will have much broader support for formats and web content, in any event.

Also, you better stock up on bookmarks, because you won’t want to enter a bunch of addresses onscreen: the comfortable angles for web reading and typing don’t look like they’d be close to the same. I really don’t know how anyone would write anything of length on this without the keyboard dock, which just turns your iPad into what looks like a laptop, but with added inconvenience.

What else? Ah, the iPhone OS’s famed lack of multitasking. Usually when I sit down on a computer, I fire up Pidgin, the totally awesome multi-service instant messaging app that lets me talk to my Gmail and AOL friends. I probably won’t be doing that on the iPad, which seems to run just one app at a time. (There is the workaround of background notifications on the iPhone; you can stay signed in to an IM app, for example, and you’ll get pop-ups when someone writes you. Then you can jump home, go to the IM app, write them back, and get back to your Web browsing. That works in some cases, I suppose, but my friends don’t usually have just one thing to say every fifteen minutes. I also don’t know if the iPad even supports these notifications.) Of course, on a normal Mac or Windows laptop you could just put an IM window next to your browser of choice and go from there.

Let’s see, what else…how about media consumption, a huge strength of Apple’s? Well, you can listen to music on the iPad, but in a world of mp3 players I think you’d be mad to do so for more than a few minutes if that’s all you’re doing. As on a computer, though, I would play music in the background while I perused the Internet. The picture viewing looks awesome on this thing, and it’s an area where multitouch really shines. And for video? Yeah. This thing looks like the greatest device ever invented for watching a movie on a plane, even with its 4:3 aspect ratio. But then, iPods and computers handle these tasks pretty well, too, though with a little less razzle-dazzle.

Oh, and what about books? Well…yeah. Consumers: electronic books do almost nothing for you. You can’t loan ’em, you can’t borrow ’em, and is their relatively small digital file size, i.e. the ability to carry a ton at once, really all that helpful? Do you often find yourself wanting to carry even three books at once? It would be a pretty sweet deal for students if they could put all their textbooks on it, but that probably won’t happen for a while. Instead you can buy restricted-rights versions of some books and read them off a bright LCD screen on one specific device. But hey, at least Apple won’t delete stuff you bought the way Amazon did. (I really wish Apple had demoed their iBooks store today with a copy of 1984.) I’ll stick with paperbacks, thanks.

Speaking of students, this would be great for them, right? Well…not really. I’ve taken notes several times on an iPhone, and it’s not a bad experience for text. I feel like typing on an iPhone is a bit easier than typing on an iPad will be, though perhaps I should reserve judgment. Sometimes you do want to copy a picture or diagram; Apple’s Notes program makes no allowance for on-screen drawing, though other apps do. So if you don’t mind quitting out and drawing the picture, I guess you’re good. Of course, on an iPhone you can just take a photo of the diagram or whatever, but the iPad has no camera, so good luck finger-scrawling quickly. A convertible tablet with pen input seems like a much more useful device for digital note-taking, and paper notebooks still handle the job with ease.

But Apple surely brings a sense of class and taste to the table, don’t they, which normal PC manufacturers just can’t match? Indeed they do. The calendar and e-mail apps just look outstanding. Maps is pretty sweet, too. If I was a hotshot trying to look important I would only check my e-mail around the office on an iPad.

Many of the other minor annoyances with this device stem from Apple’s decision to build the software on the iPhone OS, rather than Mac OS X. The iPhone OS devices have been hugely successful, and the software offers an ease-of-use that even the Mac can’t match. Plus, it’ll run all those apps from the commercials. On the downside, the application icons look like they’re spread comically far apart on the home screens, the unlock slider just looks weird, and the lock screen is still just your wallpaper and a clock. Wouldn’t it be cooler if it was like a touch iGoogle, and you could see your e-mail and the weather and some headlines or whatever just by tapping the button to wake it up? Personally, I’m more excited for the possibilities of slates based on the multitouch-capable Windows 7, because they’ll be full-blown computers. HP already announced one that is kind of lame (no webcam), but I hope it’s only a matter of time. Since the iPad runs iPhone OS anyway, I think for the most part you’d be happier with an iPhone or cheaper iPod touch that does the same stuff in a pocketable size.

The final problem with this device, to me, is the price. Apple bragged that they got it down to $499 today, which indeed surprised me. But that’s for a 16-gig model with no 3G (hallelujah, I say: 3G is awesome but shouldn’t be required on a product like this). That’s 16 gigs of flash memory, meaning it’ll survive a fall a lot better than a netbook hard drive would…but I wonder if that screen would last if you dropped it very far anyway. And a netbook with an HDD is going to hold at least, what, ten times that much stuff? I can’t decide if sixteen gigs is enough or not, but with the device’s stellar photo and video capabilities, you have to be tempted to bump up to the 32-gig model at least, right?

Of course, at the $499-$829 range, you’re not just looking at netbooks, but a huge variety of laptops from many manufacturers. Many of those are also wicked stupid: 15-inch screens with crappy resolutions, etc., but there are some real gems out there. I haven’t seen anything that would convince me I’d want an iPad more than, say, an 11.6-inch Acer Timeline. The iPad looks futuristic and fun, but I plan to pass easily. Am I missing something?

Best of 2009

Now that 2009 has mercifully drawn to a close, it’s time for the first annual HPE Awards. I can’t say I’ll miss 2009 at all, but some pretty sweet stuff happened nonetheless.

Song of the Year: Unthought Known (Pearl Jam, Backspacer): As a Pearl Jam addict I happen to think all of their songs are about me or apply to my life in some way. This one took me a while to decipher, but once I listened to it enough it made the perfect anthem for my 2009. Plus it’s just awesome, and I love the way the music steps down right before my favorite lines:

See the path cut by the moon, for you to walk on

See the waves on distant shores, awaiting your arrival

Team of the Year: Denver Nuggets. Yeah, I know, they lost to the Lakers in the conference finals, but their playoff run was my favorite event in sports in years. Even the Broncos’ equivalent run after the 2005 season wasn’t nearly this much fun. They crushed the Hornets, smacked around the Mavs, and then gave the Lakers a brief-but-fun fight. Waving balloons at the free-throw shooters in the Western Conference Finals was about as cool as it gets, though the clutch touch of Chauncey Billups and the superstar emergence of Carmelo Anthony were just a little bit sweeter. This season the Nuggets are a killer 13-2 at home, tied for the best mark in the NBA.

Video Game of the Year: Batman: Arkham Asylum. It’s true, Call of Duty 6: Modern Warfare 2 and Halo 3: Oh, Dreadfully Short in Total were awesome shooters with great online multiplayer in addition to fun main campaigns. But Batman! It’s just the baddest, most fun time I’ve had playing a superhero since 2004’s Spider-Man 2, and a terrific balance of feeling between superior skill and outnumbered vulnerability. My only wish is to play it more.

Movie of the Year: Sherlock Holmes. In middle school I took a class about mystery stories where we talked about Sherlock quite a bit, and for Christmas soon thereafter I got The Complete Sherlock Holmes, though I never read it. Plus it turns out Sherlock was the inspiration behind my favorite TV character, Dr. House. So I might have been destined to love this movie, but it’s a blast, with a great setting and cool action. I saw it in a packed house on Christmas night, sitting in the front row, which sucks at that particular theater, but I liked it a lot and will see it again soon for sure. And, oh yeah, I’m finally reading Sherlock now.

Although I think it’s like the nerdiest IP in history, before the last month or so this award would have gone hands-down to Star Trek, by the way, which was fun and the only good movie I saw for months. But recently I’ve seen The Blind Side and Invictus, which were also fantastic in their own ways.

Worst Movie of the Year: Transformers 2. Yeah, there were some cool fights, but even Megan Fox and that smoking Decepti-chick couldn’t save this script, plot, or poorly manufactured sense of tension.

Software of the Year: Windows 7. It’s stable, fast, works with everything, looks great, and puts XP and Vista to shame.

Non-Pearl Jam Album of the Year: The Resistance, Muse. This is just sick, and the start of my current favorite track, Guiding Light, simply can not be played loudly enough.

Suspiciously Good Customer Service of the Year: Apple. I took my iPod nano into the Apple Store down the street after a bunch of white specks (dust?) got behind the screen. The Genius told me he’d never seen that, and a few days later the store swapped me for a new one, which I wasn’t expecting. Sweet. Similarly, my iPhone 3GS became completely unresponsive (at a Windows 7 launch party, natch) and was replaced by someone who told me she almost never sees that happen. Only weird thing? My replacement Nano has the same white stuff under the screen now, and the guy who sat next to me while I was getting my phone swapped also had a completely dead iPhone. It’s always annoying when your gear has problems, but dealing with Apple is a million times better than trying to get an Xbox 360 fixed.

2009 was definitely a rebuilding year, but looking back it was pretty strong. If you think I missed anything, toss it in the comments.

Dear Microsoft, Thanks for the customer. Love, Comcast

I am perpetually ready to get rid of cable but have, as of yet, been unable to convince myself to wave goodbye to it. It’s fifty bucks a month for something I barely use. My best bet would be the summer months, when I convince myself I will watch Rockies games starting any day now, but never do. In the winter I want it to watch the NBA. I don’t really watch that many Nuggets games, to be honest, but I really like to be able to and find it worth paying for the all the other channels I’ll never turn to. But I’ve felt like I should ditch it, because I barely watch TV, and almost all the shows I do watch (House, The Office, etc.) are on networks anyway.

The problem with cable (or satellite or whatever) is that everything that people try to use to convince me to like it more just costs me more. Like, oh, HD: you have to get HD, it’s so much better. I’m sure that’s true, and I already have an HDTV (albeit one of the cheapest ever made), but I don’t quite see how spending more is a solution. Or I could buy some extra sports package, and then I could watch all of CU’s football games, even the ones that take place a few miles from my apartment. No thanks.

The biggest gotta-have-it TV supplement, of course, is the DVR. Everyone who has a TiVo or one of its competitors will die before they stop trying to convince you to get one. Why, I don’t know. Yes, it’s cool technology. Yes, it frees you up to watch a show you love at a more convenient time. And yes, it turns you into a whiny fool who’s terrified of spoilers and always wants to talk about shows you love, just not the last three episodes, which you haven’t seen yet. (This was particularly annoying when I started watching 24 again last year, which a bunch of my friends watch, but never keep up on. Why did they want me to watch it in the first place?) Anyway, DVRs are pretty awesome, but are they worth the hype?

I had to find out for myself, which was easier and possibly cheaper than you’d expect. One of the coolest but least-known new features of Windows 7 (named for John Elway) is that almost every version comes with software for recording TV. The software, called Windows Media Center, has been around for a while, but it comes with every version of Windows 7 from Home Premium on up, including business editions (which means it's on almost every PC but netbooks now). It’s a totally killer feature.

You also need hardware to record TV, in the form of a TV tuner. I bought an ASUS card that I had to install in my computer, but you can also buy a USB tuner. Putting the card in was the hardest part, and even that was pretty easy. After that I opened Windows Media Center. It found the tuner, asked for my zip code and cable company, and spent a few minutes configuring itself. That was it. Crazy easy.

So now I record, pause, and all that other stuff you’d do with a DVR on my computer. I love it, and I highly recommend it.

There’s just one problem. If you’re recording TV on your computer, you have to watch TV on your computer, right? Not exactly. You’ve got a few options.

1. Yes, watching it on your PC is one of them. My TV’s only two inches bigger than my monitor so this ain’t bad at all. What’s also nice is that I can watch it in a window on my PC while I do other stuff, which is great for blogging about sports.

2. You can plug your computer into your TV.

3. You can stream Media Center stuff from your computer over a network to what’s called a Media Center Extender, which plugs into your TV. I probably never would’ve considered buying one of these, except that one of them plays Halo: the Xbox 360. What’s cool about Extenders is that they replicate the PC experience on your TV, which means they have the exact same menus, so it’s easy to switch between the two. Once you know one, you know them both, and the Media Center menus are simple and designed to be used with a remote anyway. Also, if I start something on my computer and pause it, and resume it later on my Xbox, it’ll pick up right where I left off, and vice versa.

4. You can also stream Media Center TV recordings to a PlayStation 3. This is less optimal because the PS3 can read and play the file, but isn’t going to stay in sync with your computer. On the other hand, with built-in WiFi, which the 360 lacks, you can put a PS3 wherever you have a TV and still get stuff to it if you have a wireless network.

5. The Zune software will transcode TV recordings and let you put them on a Zune. If I was taking the bullet train every day I think I’d be watching my TV almost exclusively on a Zune. (It’s probably possible to convert the videos for an iPod, but I haven’t really looked into this.)

I’ve tried 1, 3, and 4, and they all work great. Actually, number three is surprisingly awesome. Cable has always looked kinda bad on my Insignia-brand TV, which apparently has a really low-quality tuner. Now if I record TV on my PC and stream it through network cables and a router to my Xbox 360, which then sends it to my TV, it looks way better than a cable line straight into my TV ever did. Seriously. The colors, etc., have always looked okay, but things like the score display during a game have always been fuzzy. Now it’s a lot more sharp. Weird, I know.

Recording TV on my computer works great. It’s made my PC, my Xbox, my TV, and my cable subscription all better. The funny thing is, Microsoft doesn’t get a dime from me (other than what I paid for Windows). Whoever’s providing the program guide for Windows Media Center is doing it for free, so while I had to pay a bit upfront for the tuner, I’ll never have to pay for it again. Pretty sweet deal if you ask me.

I could throw my Xbox through a friggin' window right now

AS SEEN ON HPS: Friday I picked up the exceptional Call of Duty 6, a.k.a. Modern Warfare 2, for the Xbox 360 on the way home from work. I brought it home, put it in the Xbox...and it didn’t work. Tried it again, it didn’t work. Tried it again, it didn’t work. You get the picture.

Since I picked up Tiger 10 my Xbox has had a progressively harder time reading discs, to the point that I considered buying MW2 for the PlayStation 3, which is a well-made not-piece-of-crap. Also, it's quieter. Also, playing online is free. But most of my friends have Xboxes, and Xbox Live is just so good that I had to get it for Xbox. (And though I used to devote hours to the pursuit, I have a hard time just playing games by myself these days.)

Anyway, after several reboots, wiping down the brand-new disc (which didn't make any sense but hey, the machine told me to) and quickly slamming the drive door shut, the thing finally loaded, and I played some coop missions for a few hours. They're so awesome. The snowmobile races are sweet, but overall, the game just has this great intense pacing. It's so much fun. The first Modern Warfare was outstanding but I love this one quite a bit more.

My Internet has also been out for most of the weekend, so when I tried to play again Saturday night, I was already resigned to single player. It took even longer this time to get the stupid game to load, and several times it got to the initial Infinity Ward logo, which is progress, before quitting back to the dashboard anyway. It's obnoxious. I stuck with it because the game is that awesome, but come on. I mean, my Xbox has already been in for repairs once; why does something so awesome have to suck so badly?

A friend asked me over the weekend which is better, the Xbox or the PS3, and let me say: the PlayStation 3 hardware is so much better, it's not even funny. Not that it's all that superior graphically or anything; it just doesn't break constantly. Unfortunately, you can't play Halo on it. So you're kind of screwed either way. I just checked online and Microsoft is willing to fix my DVD drive for a mere $99.99, which is awful. The alternative is to drop $200 on a replacement. I'll probably try to fix it and then drop two bills on a new one.

I gotta say it now, better loud than too late

Pearl Jam’s ninth album, Backspacer, has been out for a month now but seems to get better every day. It’s a little under thirty-seven minutes of the band at its best.

Turns out the abbreviated running time, my biggest concern before hearing it, is a huge plus. The constraint seems to focus their efforts into a tight and wonderful whole. As on their last album, the entire disc feels coherent, but in this case it feels especially complete, too.

I love the energy of the album, which really takes on two tones: the sharp defiant rock of the first four songs, and the thoughtful persistence that starts with “Just Breathe”. Somehow the two styles complement one another: if you start cranking the first few songs, you won’t feel the need to turn it down when you hit the slower stuff, but if you jump straight into the second half, the same songs somehow feel much calmer. Personally I think I love the second half a little bit more. “Unthought Known” and “Speed of Sound” are the two songs with the highest play counts in my iTunes, if you don’t count “The Fixer”, which I got before the album came out. I really like “Amongst the Waves”, too.

The other awesome part of any Pearl Jam album is hearing it live. I missed their concerts (they finish their U.S. tour in Philly this week) but picked up the CDs of their first night in Seattle. It’s predictably incredible. You can catch a lot of it on YouTube. Really (music starts just before two minutes in). This album is great and I want to listen to it more the more I listen to it. People mock me some times for loving such an old band, but Backspacer proves Pearl Jam is as good as ever.

Why Transformers 2 was so horrible (Spoiler Alert!)

I’ve had two conversations lately about Transformers 2, easily the worst Transformers movie since the animated original. The DVD just came out and one of my friends saw it, and the other discussion took place when a girl complimented my Autobots T-shirt the other day. That’s right, baby! Instead of proposing, I launched into this diatribe.

Transformers: The Movie, not to be confused with Transformers, was the animated film that, in 1986, destroyed my childhood. Why? Because they killed all the freaking Autobots to make way for a new line of toys. (They killed a bunch of Decepticons, too, but honestly, who cares? The Decepticon logo is cool. The concept of Decepticons is cool. But they’re either whiny (Starscream), weak leaders (Megatron) or really unoriginal (Thundercracker, Skywarp, etc.). Soundwave is awesome and I still try to do his voice, but overall it’s a weak crop.)

Anyway, the worst death was Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots and a red-white-and-blue symbol of all that was good in the Cold War ’80s. Optimus Prime was like the John Elway of my childhood. Actually John Elway was the John Elway of my childhood, so call him more of a Robot John Elway, which sounds awesome and like he could probably play forever. Like I was saying, anyway, they just up and killed Prime and broke my heart but good. Well, actually it didn’t break my heart at all, I just thought it made the movie suck. When you’re a kid, no one cares if you spoil the movie, and by the time we got around to renting it I already knew a) Optimus was gonna die and b) Ultra Magnus was gonna cuss. But why kill O-Prime? He’s the hero. Does Peter Parker die during the opening scene of Spider-Man 3? Lots of people in my generation look back on this movie fondly and all of them are, without exception, complete idiots. The movie’s garbage, I hate the kids’ movie storyline about some brash young pup (Hot Rod) becoming the next leader, and anyone who disagrees with me is a communist.

Well, I’m already tired of building up to this pile of suck, so for those of you I warned never to see 2, here’s the problem with it: they killed Optimus again. Seriously. Halfway through the movie he finds himself in a huge forest battle with a bunch of Decepticons, and he’s rocking, and beating the crap out of evil space robots left and right. And then one of them stabs him through the back and he’s dead. That’s it.

Well, that’s not it, because they keep dropping hints that only a Prime can defeat this enemy, and for some reason they keep alluding to the location of Optimus’ body, and eventually you’re like, hmmm, I wonder if he comes back to life. Well, I’d really love to spoil it for you, and he does come back. Stupid! Stupid! Don’t make me sit there shaking in rage for several minutes, wondering how I could have been so foolish as to waste my money on a ticket.

Also, like how Mike Shanahan would script the first fifteen plays of any Broncos game, it feels like Michael Bay scripts the first fifteen minutes of the movie and then lets his cast of wunderkinds take over. There are tons of lame scenes and characters, but really the death of Optimus is all you need to know about to avoid this forever.