I absolutely hate the word “blog”

This time, I’m trying to figure out how to make my new iPhone Bluetooth Headset function with Ventrilo, the chat program our guild uses during WoW raids.  (Yeah — tech geek meets gamer nerd, I know.  But does anyone know the answer to this?)

I was told by a Best Buy employee with gamer cred that headsets with Bluetooth 2.0* capability would be able to pair with the PC and function as a microphone in Ventrilo.  While I can get the pairing part to work just fine, I’m not able to get the mic in Vent working.  At all.  Ever.

But Grant procured me a free USB microphone/headset, so I may just give up on this whole Bluetooth-to-Vent thing.  And besides, my Apple Bluetooth hotness is fabulous, whether I can raid with it or not.

Despite all the many reviews pooh-poohing its admittedly shitty audio quality and short battery life, I love having a headset that a) has a charge and pairing indicator on my phone, b) doesn’t painfully grip my ear like every other headset I’ve tried, and c) makes me look like much less of a tool than other Bluetooth headset wearers.

* And as an aside, Bluetooth 2.0 sounded totally made up, until I Googled it. What WILL these kids come up with next.

So in a nutshell, working at Nintendo has been lovely.  According to company policy, however, I shall not be discussing anything remotely contentful relating to my work there.

Thus, Imaginary Readers, I leave you with this linguistic/gamer tidbit.  On the fridge in the break room, there is a sign that asks employees to take home their food “nightly”.  And of course, someone added an extra K.

Viva la nerd. I like this place. :)

For a recent World of Warcraft raid, I actually dug a cooler out of our storage closet and filled it with ice, beer, Mexican Coke for me, and Diet Pepsi for Grant.

You know, so we could enjoy our favorite beverages without having to get up in the middle of a boss fight.

We are such nerds.

So I must say, I’m pretty pleased with my latest innovation that allows Grant to enjoy his DDR like the King of Cosmos intended.

Ever since we moved into our new apartment he hasn’t been able to play, because something about the ’70s shag carpeting in here just doesn’t agree with the grippy bottom of the DDR pad. All grippiness seems to have disappeared, so the pad would slip and slide around while he was jumping, and it just wasn’t workable.

The thing is, the next level of quality in dance pads are the Cobalt Flux ones, that retail for $300 or so. So I started brainstorming ways we might apply some sort of fixit solution to our existing pads, at least until we win the lottery (or until we’re both gainfully employed again).

I couldn’t think of what might work well, but it came to me when I was cleaning out my closet and I came across an extra yoga mat. Perfect! Sticky, grippy, durable, but not so sticky that it has to actually get adhesive on our carpet. So I bought a hot glue gun, trimmed my extra yoga mat to fit the pad, and slapped it on there.

We tried it out the other day, and they seem to work just great!

ETA: Except that we’ve since discovered that the down arrow is broken. On both of our pads. So we were left with zero more dance pads and one fewer yoga mats. Ah well, we managed to borrow a Cobalt Flux pad from a pal to test it out, so maybe we’ll upgrade someday.

Dammit.

So this iPhone thing is pretty damn cool. But I have to say, I feel pretty damn slow on the whole “über-intuitive Apple interface” thing. Given that I’ve never owned an iPod, or even a decent MP3 player or a complicated phone, I feel pretty behind. I only even touched iTunes a few months ago, and I managed to royally screw up all libraries of all music in a few short hours.

That said, I’m damn proud of how well I’ve done so far! Apple’s pedantic but clear videos helped some, and fellow iPhone owners also weighed in with some good tips. I managed to get some great apps, like a Wikipedia button and of course Bejeweled. I’m bummed to learn that the iPod version of Peggle doesn’t work on my phone, but perhaps it will someday soon.

And OH MY GOD, I can listen to MUSIC and write EMAILS and TEXTS and NOTES and APPOINTMENTS and look up DIRECTIONS and take PICTURES, ALL WITH THE SAME DEVICE. I know this is old news for many, but it’s brand-spankin-new for me, and I friggin’ love it. I can’t get over how functional and efficient I am! Read the rest…