The Joys of Life at 35,000 Feet

I'm away for the next week or so, in Upstate New York visiting my parents and my brother's family for a few days before heading south to New York City to see some friends there and tend to some business.

Yes, there's a plane involved--two of them, in fact--and a train (Amtrak between Utica and New York Penn Station, and at least one automobile (my parents will pick me up at the airport tonight, in Syracuse, as usual later tonight). Pictured above: the actual plane that will take me from Chicago to Syracuse later on today.

I also understand that I'm flying into what appears to be a sinister, world-class heat wave. If you happen to see a man sweating--and I mean dripping-from-the-tip-of-his-nose sweating--in an airport or train station over the next few days, chances are good that it's me. The heat and I are old enemies.

Packing this morning, as usual, I realize that I'm carrying an absurd amount of game machines. Here's what will pass through customs with me this morning: x1 3DS, x1 second generation DS (I can't live without the GBA cartridge slot), x1 PSP go (Pixeljunk Monsters: you are coming with me), x1 iPhone, and x1 iPad. No one, and I mean no one travels with more gaming opportunities on his person at any given moment that I do. (Except for maybe Victor Lucas. He carries around this amount gaming hardware practically every day, not just on travel days.) (Vic: You're weird.) (And I heart you.) (And Vic's also at the airport this morning, only he's enroute to Comic Con in San Diego. Godspeed, my friend.)

I especially love the moment--or rather, The Moment--when the plane finally levels off after its initial ascent, and the rotund fellow in the seat next to me starts to doze, and all my worries, anxieties, qualms, etc. are left behind me, back there, on the ground, and I reach into my duffel for the first time, as excited as an 8 year old on Christmas morning, trying to decide what system and what game to play first.

Man, I'm getting giddy over here just thinking about it.

I have plans to chime in and write while traveling. But the truth is, I'll likely be M.I.A. for a bit. Try not to miss me too much.

Happy Thursday.

Me & My iPad: A No-Love Story (So Far)

So I've had my iPad for nearly a month now. Each day I carry it to the office in the morning, where it usually sits in my duffel bag for eight hours. Each night, I carry it home. I recharge it. I might get in a quick bout of Angry Birds before bed, or check on my crops--usually rotten crops with the sad face floating above them--in We Rule.

This has not turned out to be the love story I hoped it might be.

It's not the iPad's fault. It does everything it promised it would do. It lights up. It looks pretty. It responds to my touches/caresses.

Yet I don't feel compelled to use it on a regular basis, and I don't know why that is. After four weeks, it has not become my go-to place for connection and information. (My laptop and iPhone still get all the attention around here.)

In fact, I spend more time using my Xbox 360 than I do using the iPad. Here's a list of the things in my home that I spend more time using than the iPad:

1. Laptop.

2. iPhone.

3. Xbox 360.

4. PlayStation 3.

5. Philips Sonic Care toothbrush.

6. Wii.

7. PSPgo.

8. Sears Microwave.

9. Cat 1.

10. DSi.

(Sorry, Cat 2, you did not qualify.)

Make no mistake, I have seen some truly great things on the iPad. But will this machine ever becomes an organic part of my life? I'm growing increasingly skeptical. I downloaded the Amazon Kindle App a few weeks ago and bought Michael Lewis's Moneyball, to see if I could stomach reading a book on the iPad. I read a few chapters--chapters which I no longer recall the sum and substance of for some reason--then completely forgot about it.

That seems to be happening on an ever increasing basis for me: I continually forget that the iPad is there, that it's even an entertainment/communication option at all. Sure, it can do cool shit. But for the most part it does cool shit that my iPhone and laptop were already doing (and doing well).

There's also the expense of the thing, and the whole fragility factor. I've dropped my iPhone a hundred times, and not winced, because at the end of the day, it's my phone. (I've been dropping cellphone for 10 years.) Yet whenever I handle the iPad, I feel like I need to scrub my hands and arms like a surgeon first, and maybe put on a freshly pressed shirt. There's a formality inherent in using the iPad that I don't like. Last week, my girlfriend was using it WHILE EATING POPCORN. (This sight nearly made me stroke out.)

Man, I don't know.

Until it can really show me something--and I still hold out hope that it will--and until it feels like a more integral part of my daily existence, the iPad is in danger of becoming by far the most expensive item in my junk drawer/electronics graveyard.

iPhone Plants Vs. Zombies: Borderline Unplayable?

I never quite got around to polishing off the desktop version of Plants Vs. Zombies. So, when the game appeared in the iPhone App store for the wallet-friendly price of three dollars, I downloaded it and set to work righting that wrong.

Now I'm regretting doing so.

Plants Vs. Zombies is not a great tower defense game, especially when compared with far superior offerings like Fieldrunners or geoDefense Swarm. But what it has going for it is how all of these subtle elements like the catchy UFO-like sound that indicates that a zombie is approaching and the sauce pot that Dave the neighbor inexplicably wears on his head somehow, some way all cohere into an experience that worms its way into your, um, brains, and stays there.

It's bright. It's colorful. It's jaunty. In some way, PopCap has become the casual-game industry equivalent to Disney. They create these indelible, hooky experiences that feel safe and dangerous at once. It's the only place in the gaming universe that my mom and I share any common ground. Which is really saying something.

Unfortunately, despite the iPhone's prowess, and PopCap's prowess, Plants Vs. Zombies chugs to a halt whenever things get hectic. Get six or seven Peashooters shooting, get 10 or 11 zombies shambling about and things slow to an unplayable, unforgiveable crawl. I haven't seen this sort of slowdown since the Super Nintendo days.

Here's hoping that PopCap is working on an update at this very moment.

If you're considering a purchase, here's my advice: go with the PC or Mac version of the game until you hear otherwise.