Reviews by lostwithoutabeat

lostwithoutabeat says "a high-quality indoor ball with superior grip and feel" about Wilson Evolution Basketball

lostwithoutabeat — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 16:57:39 GMT

At $40 this isn't the most inexpensive ball on the market but it is well worth the cost. I have owned a Wilson Evolution for over a year and have never had a reason to be displeased with it. It still plays with the same grip and quality as when I first purchased it. Be forewarned though, THIS IS NOT AN OUTDOOR BALL! As stated in my post and on the box this is for indoor courts, not your driveway or playground. Keep it inside and this ball will stay in great shape for you for a long time....

lostwithoutabeat says "Sharpen your brain while a little japanese man makes fun of you!" about Nintendo - Brain Age 2: More training in minutes a day!

lostwithoutabeat — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 23:45:00 GMT

The biggest descriptor of this game is right there in its subtitle, "more training in just minutes a day". For all means and purposes this is the same game as the original Brain Age. The big difference is the addition of new mini games to train and stimulate you prefrontoral cortex, the part of the brain that controls how you apply what you know. Will it give you a higher SAT score? Probably not but I can't think of any reason why mind puzzles and math problems could be bad for you so go ahead and flex that cerebellum and try to have a little fun while you're at it.

The training games in Brain Age 2 are more difficult than the previous version which, for the most part, had you doing basic math problems. Well the math is back but this time the creators have thrown in a few twists such as one game where you continually add numbers, but one number is removed from the screen after a second or so, which forces you to use your memory to remember numbers and solve the problem. Another......

lostwithoutabeat says "Forget the controversy, just poorly written" about The Da Vinci Code

lostwithoutabeat — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 19:30:24 GMT

By this point everyone should be familiar with the storyline of Dan Brown's controversial thriller so I won't bother re-stating it here. What follows is my quick and humble opinion =)

First off. I enjoyed the book. Immensely? No. Enough to read again? No. Recommend it? No. But it kept me interested and instilled a hope that at some point it might redeem itself. It didn't. Its a well placed semi-thriller with the treasure hunt ideal, romantic interest, old-man guide, and ominous villain archetypes that make up a good fiction. Unfortunately it wasted most of its opportunities to really deepen these things and seemed to spend most of the book trying to remind me about the superiority of women, the ambiguity of symbols, and oh yeah, did we mention Jesus and Mary Magdalene did the dirty? I felt assaulted. Like I didn't have a chance to really get into the story because I had to keep dredging through the feminine propaganda and made-up historical muck. I think Dan......

lostwithoutabeat says "The new and improved handheld system from Nintendo" about Nintendo - DS Lite Console

lostwithoutabeat — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 18:13:51 GMT

The DS Lite is Nintendo's update to the original DS (DS Phat). Considering its been a few years since the Phat was released I'll run down the basic features of the DS for any newbies.

The DS is a continuation of Nintendo's successful foray into the handheld market that started almost 20 years ago with the original Gameboy and is the company's first handheld system without the Gameboy branding.

The system is roughly 3-by-5 inches in size and flips open in a similar style to many QWERTY cell phones we see today (ie. the LG ENV)
It displays graphics of a slightly higher quality than the Nintendo-64/Playstation 1 (don't expect this device to put an Xbox in your pocket) but high-end graphic power has never really been Nintendo's goal and the DS is no exception. The system rocks a never-before-seen dual-screen setup that adds a new dimension to your gaming pleasure. In addition to two screens (as if those weren't enough) the bottommost screen is a touch screen like what you would find on a Pocket...

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lostwithoutabeat says "Solid mid-level music phone with great feature set" about Nokia - 5300 Cell Phone

lostwithoutabeat — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 16:40:54 GMT

The Nokia 5300 is one of Nokia's better looking phones in recent years. This is part of their Xpress Music line and is suprisingly capable as an MP3 player. I've actually found myself moving away from my old iPod Mini to my 5300 as my main source of music, the only musical drawback is that you have to use a plugin converter to use standard head phones, pretty much a pain to carry the little plug around.

As far as the phone itself is concernced it is a rather large, solidly built slider. 5-way nav, 2 soft keys, and the standard Answer and Reject keys adorn the front with a standalone power button on the top of the phone. the 5300 has 3 music buttons on the right side that are perfect for the audio player and on the opposite side are the two volume keys as well as a dedicated camera button.

The camera is a 1.3 megapixel but takes rather nice quality shots for such a low mp; better than the 2megapixel offerings of the comparable Moto RIZR. The phone also offers low-resolution video in the......