Life, more console stuff, LA traffic, and whatever else I can think of

Last month was AnandTech's 8 year anniversary, and I'd be lying if I said that it didn't feel weird. I remember bits and pieces over the past 8 years, I've learned a lot and I'm happier than ever doing what I do, but taking a day to look back at the past 8 years did leave me with a weird feeling. AnandTech has grown tremendously since I started it back in April 97 and if anything, it is more of a fun experience today than it ever was before.

This is the first year (for me) of AT when I didn't have to juggle work and school; it's an incredible feeling, and as I've mentioned before I wasn't really happy with my undergrad education experience, so I'm glad to be done with that.

I think there may be room for further education in my life later on, but for now I'm enjoying life being married and working here and I'd rather not start on any endeavors that would seriously remove time from either of those commitments.

I've spent the past year outlining the future of AT, and it is an exciting one. This next year is going to be about putting the parts and building blocks in place to make sure that these ideas I've been working on can actually come to fruition. A lot of vagueness and not much concrete info, I know, but I've never been a fan of talking without having an action to speak first.

Vinney and I arrived in LA Sunday evening so we could make it to the Sony press conference on the 16th. Prior to this trip, I had only driven in LA once before - and it took a long time. I've pretty much determined that rush hour in LA lasts between the hours of 7AM and, well, I don't know when it ends but I'm guessing around 8 or 9PM at the earliest. Driving to the show was a pain every day, especially trying to find parking, but it was worth it. Thankfully E3 was tiny, so I got what I came here for in less than two days, thus leaving me in the hotel room to lounge around today.

LA isn't our only stop on this trip, in about a week we fly off to Taiwan for Computex, then we're back in Cali for some more meetings and Apple's WWDC. All in all, it's about 3 weeks of traveling for AT, the longest I've ever done consecutively .

I'm excited beyond belief about all of the new consoles, I honestly just can't wait. I've been dying for 720p gaming on TVs for years, and it's finally going to happen. I'm too much of a tech geek/gamer to even begin to pick favorites, so I will try to make a home for all consoles at our house :)

The more I think about it, the more I'm beginning to believe that there's not going to be any HD Halo 2 released with the system, and I'd hate to wait until Halo 3 for 720p Halo on the 360. In talking with Microsoft, the games that are emulated will not be changed in any way - so no AA and definitely no higher res gaming for any of the older Xbox titles running on the 360.

I got a couple emails about the wireless controllers on the 360 - although none of the wireless demos were done on actual 360 hardware, one of the demos did involve two separate systems, with two separate controllers. Switching between the two systems didn't appear to be a problem, and there didn't appear to be any interference between the two controllers. I'm guessing that after synching the controller with the Xbox, it should do a good job of not interfering with any other Xboxes in the area. Technically, it's not the hardest thing to figure out how to implement properly, so I wouldn't be too worried.

Given that internet access has been spotty for me over the past week, I didn't get the OS X 10.4.1 update until about an hour ago. I am happy to say that some of my bugs have been fixed. I will post more thoughts on it as I get more experience with the update.

Now it's off to lunch with my wonderful wife (shh it's not late) and then to enjoy the evening. I do have one more E3 article to put up, it will probably go live tomorrow.

Take care and enjoy the weekend.