Holy shit, this tournament is off to a great start! So many close games, a couple of big upsets, and it’s only the first day! Thank you NCAA for reminding me why I love basketball. I thought I’d have trouble enjoying this tournament since Arizona didn’t make it for the first time in many years. Fortunately, that has not been the case so far. I wish I had known that the games in SJ were going to be so good. I would’ve called in sick. LOL! I wonder if I can still get tickets for the games in SJ on Saturday.

A few days ago I saw Alice in Chains in concert, and I have to say I was impressed.  If you’re a fan of the band, or if you were a fan many years ago when Layne Staley was still around, check them out if you ever get the chance.  You won’t be disappointed.  Jerry Cantrell, Mike Inez, and Sean Kinney have not lost their touch, and it’s scary how much William DuVall sounds like Layne.  I already knew he sounded a lot like Layne from the new material that has been playing on the radio, but to see and hear it live was still really weird.  First I’m thinking, “Who’s the tall, skinny, black dude with the afro?”  Then he starts singing, and I’m thinking, “Holy shit!  Layne Staley has been reincarnated as a tall, skinny, black dude with an afro!”  Weirdest thing ever, but it was awesome.

The show took place in the Fox Theater in Oakland.  I’d never been there before.  I generally try to avoid Oakland for obvious reasons.  But the Fox Theater is a very cool venue.  Even Cantrell felt the need to say so during the show.  That’s one of the things I’ve enjoyed about living in the Bay Area for the last year and a half.  There are some awesome concert venues out here.

They played a good mix of old stuff and new stuff, and their style hasn’t really changed since they made “Black Gives Way to Blue.”  There were times when I was wondering, “Is this a new song, or is it just an old song I don’t remember?”  It was hard to tell at times, and I don’t consider that a bad thing.  It’s a style that works for them, and as the saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.  I was also impressed by the sound quality during the show.  I don’t know if that’s just because the Fox theater has really good acoustics or if AIC actually has sound techs that know what the fuck they’re doing, which is far rarer than it should be nowadays.  Way too many people seem to have this turn-it-up-all-the-way mentality, and it often results in a big, steaming pile of distorted bass covering up everything else.  At this show I could hear everything clearly, and while it was loud (and I do like my music loud), it wasn’t too loud.  For once, I actually remembered to bring earplugs to this show, and I didn’t even need them.  Figures.  They also had some screens set up on stage that displayed some pretty cool, trippy visual effects.  I imagine people would really enjoy this show while stoned.  At least the stoners that were at the show seemed to be enjoying it.  One of the funnier moments occurred when one of them tried singing along.  I’m sure they thought they were singing quite well, but typically singing requires “notes” and “words.”

Really the only problem I had with the show was the small cameras they had set up on the band members’ microphones.  Every once in a while they would fade in some live shots of the band members onto the screens, which isn’t necessarily a bad idea.  But these cameras had some serious lag.  It was especially obvious during one song when they showed (drummer) Kinney’s camera, and everything on the screen was a half-beat behind.  They only used this during a couple of songs, so it didn’t really impact the show at all.  But it did look a bit second-rate.  If they can’t get the cameras to work right, they really shouldn’t bother doing it at all.  The show would’ve been fine without them.

That’s about all I have to say.  There’s a tour schedule on aliceinchains.com.  If you have a chance, check them out.  And while you’re at it, give “Black Gives Way to Blue” a listen.  It ain’t half bad.

– Apparently, someone is making a new Conan movie.  Umm…why?  Were people really begging for a reboot of that series?  This just sounds pointless.

– Speaking of pointless, the iPad was officially revealed this week…and it’s a bigger iPod Touch.  Whoop-dee-fucking-doo!  Granted, me not being interested in the iPad doesn’t mean much in the end.  I’m not in Apple’s target audience.  Like most of their products, the iPad wasn’t meant for me, and that’s fine.  But I’m really wondering just who would be interested in it.  What purpose does it serve that isn’t already served by either an iPod Touch (or iPhone) or a laptop?  About the only thing I can think of is acting as an e-reader.  But the problem there is the backlit screen.  Most e-readers don’t have those, and for good reason.  Stare at them too long and your eyes will be hating you.  Am I missing something here?  Because right now, I don’t get it.

Then again, I didn’t get the iPhone either.  And we all know how that turned out.

– Speaking further of pointless, I played a bit of Star Trek Online during the open beta, and I have to say I wasn’t very impressed.  I’m not going to harp on the bugs, because it’s a beta.  Betas always have bugs.  As long as they can fix them before release, that’s not a problem.   The problem I have is the actual gameplay.  Pretty much every quest in that game is exactly the same.  Either you go to this planet and fight these guys in space, or you go to this planet and fight these guys on the surface.  Or if you’re very lucky, you get to do both!  Oooooooooooooo, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh…not.  Granted, the combat isn’t totally mindless at first.  There is some actual strategy involved.  But once I figured out a strategy that worked, I found myself doing the same damned thing over and over.  Sure, combat is a big part of Star Trek, but so is exploration.  And even the exploration quest I ended up doing resulted in combat!  It’s all the same!

The sad thing is every other aspect of the game looked really good.  The graphics and sound are all well done.  Having the ability to customize the appearance of your ship was nice, and you can even create your own alien race if you’re so inclined.  But if the gameplay is boring and repetitive, none of that really matters.

One other complaint I had was that I spent a lot of time moving around to different planets.  Because of that, I also spend a lot of time looking at loading screens, and that got annoying real fast.  And it looks like some of those loading screens could have been avoided.  You start out in the space dock orbiting Earth.  Once you get your quest, you beam up to your ship.  Of course, that brings up a loading screen.  Once you’re on your ship, you have to move out into something called “sector space” which allows you to travel between star systems.  Again, this brings up a loading screen.  When you return to the spacedock, you leave sector space and enter the Sol system–LOADING–then you dock your ship–LOADING–and then you’re walking around in the spacedock again.  Am I missing something, or is there a completely unnecessary step in there?  If the only thing you can do when you’re flying around in the Sol system is either dock or leave, why does that part exist?  Why not just make it so when you beam up from spacedock you go directly into sector space, and when you enter Sol from sector space you just beam straight down to Earth’s spacedock?  It saves a step, and saves loading time since you don’t have to load the Sol system ever again.

So yeah, I won’t be buying this one.  It’s not a bad game, but it’s not worth $15/month.