The New Can-Am Spyder

I decided to take a break for a little bit and wandered over to a client's motorcycle shop. They just happen to be a Can-Am dealer AND they just happened to have the new Spyder by Can-Am in.



Oh yes cowboys and cowgirls, it is one primo ride. 2 wheels in the front and one fatty in the back, the Spyder is all business. It has so much power that you can effortlessly roll that rear tire over in gears 1 through 3.

It's almost like a snowmobile/sports car. You sit on it like a snowmobile but it has all the handling of a fast and low performance machine. Anti-lock brakes, stability control, traction control and more acceleration than you can handle all add up to one impressive package. And did I mention that it had all kinds of power?

There are some things that take some getting used to. Since I have been riding motorcycles for years, I quickly had to learn that you don't have to put your feed down when you stop. I was instructed that there are no hand brakes, yet I still found myself reaching for the brakes with my fingers when it came time to stop. All the braking is done but ONE foot lever. And let me tell you, the brakes are unbelievably good.

I was concerned about the cornering too. Having spent some time on ATV "3 wheelers" as a young chap, I knew how tippy a 3 wheeler could be. Not the Spyder. The only reason you need to lean into the corner is so you don't fall off the other side. This thing corners! AND it sticks to the road.



The version I rode was the automatic version. There's no clutch and the "flappy paddle" shifter on the left grip works great. You can open the throttle up and run through the gears without having to let off. Oh, and if you do that, you will be going 100 before you can say, "holy crap this thing is..."

If you ever get a chance, I highly recommend you test drive one of these 3 wheeled roadsters. It was well worth it. Who knows, you may even put a deposit down on one.

 

Review Of Rock Band On The XBox 360

It's no secret that I like video games and have been "rockin' out" to Guitar Hero 3 for several months now. I have about 6 or 7 songs left to beat on hard and it's NOT going well. I can't seem to get my pinky finger working. My poor unused digit starts to ache and then it begins clicking and it's all down hill from there.

The other day i decided to go out and pick up Rock Band and see what it was all about. I started to unpack everything and began the assembly. The Guitar was the fist thing out of the box. After some assembly, I immediately noticed that the new black and white (corded) guitar was really flimsy. It was lighter than my normal "Explorer" guitar and the fret buttons appeared to be a lot cheaper. Also, the "strummer" didn't have that familiar click that the explorer had, it was more, well uh, "musy." It did have a couple of cool features, there was an effects selector to determine sounds during solos and a second set of fret keys down closer to the body of the guitar. The general feeling I got from the guitar is that IT WAS CHEAP.

The drums came out next and went together very nicely. The only thing I noticed was that the cord for the bass pedal seemed short. I tried out the drums on the training mode in an attempt to get the hang of it. After about 40 minutes of playing, the drums quit working. Yep, they just quit working. NO, not just one of them as indicated on so many discussion boards, but the entire set. No power, nothing! Well, that was disheartening to say the least.

Next out of the box was the mic. I plugged it into the supplied USB powered hub and guess what? IT didn't work. Great! I was afraid to plug in the guitar and see if that would work. What do you know, it did! I ended up playing the game with a friend for about an hour.

I have no complaints about the game play. The concept is fun, the graphics are OK, (the are better on GH3) and the music selection is outstanding. However, it seemed like you had to play a bunch of the songs over and over as you went from city to city. Now that I think about it, it's just like a real rock band I guess.

The next day I took it back to target and got my money back, even though the box said not to do that. Yeah right. Target took it back and simply asked the question, "was there anything wrong with the product?" To which I responded, "yep, 2 out of the 3 items don't work."

Today before writing this I went out in search of information about the Rock Band peripherals and it seems that the quality is suffering across the board. Initially, I was thinking that I got a lemon, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Evidently there is a 3rd party vendor getting ready to launch some peripherals. I may wait for those.

Bottom line - It's not worth it, YET! I will probably go out and get the game by itself and maybe an extra guitar, but that's it for now. Give it some time and you should be able to build your band set with some quality pieces from other manufacturers and have tons of fun with 3 other friends. It should be worth the wait.

 

Halo 3: The Review

After playing it for the first time the other night, I just have to say something about it. Halo 3 is simply awesome. If it weren't for the XBox 360 crashing all the time I could waste even more countless hours playing the stupid thing.

OK, here's the Skinny. The game play is fantastic. New weapons, new vehicles, and even better maps for the player vs. payer mode. The story line is well thought out and the cinematic interludes are a welcome break. Your character has some new abilities. You are now able to carry special extras like bubble shields, flare, deflectors, power-drains and all kinds of other things.

There are all kinds of new vehicles. A 4-wheeler "ATV" type thing, a new "chopper", a new flyer for the good guys and a new tank. This is what Broadsideonline had to say. "Halo 3 is unique in that almost anyone can easily pick up and play. The control scheme is straightforward and solid, making even the most First Person Shooter-inept players feel right at home, while instantly enjoying taking out the monstrous hordes of alien Covenant forces and the disgustingly zombie-like Flood. Players run through the campaign or story mode as Master Chief, the last surviving member of the elite Spartan military group. Able to run faster and jump higher with abnormal human strength, players can be all they can be while running the gauntlet of enemy forces as Master Chief. The campaign mode offers a wide variety of locations to go through, each extremely detailed and beautiful to look at."

If you have a 360, I would highly recommend checking picking up a copy. You won't be disappointed.

I know, I know - this doesn't have anything to do with marketing, but then a gain maybe it does. There was so much hype about Halo 3, game store literally had tens of millions of dollars in pre-launch deposits. There were excellent pre-release trailers on TV, and the gaming magazines were giving Halo 3 their full attention. The Canadian press reports, "...over $170 million in sales on day one and calling it the biggest entertainment launch in history... $170 million works out to, at most, 2.83 million copies of "Halo 3" - a fraction of the 8.3 million "Harry Potter" books that sold in the United States on their respective premiere days."

The Halo 3 buying frenzy had an unpredicted side effect. The week that the game launched, Microsoft enjoyed a doubling of the previous week's sales to the highest level yet for 2007.
And in addition, the return of Master Chief meant the system outsold the Nintendo Wii for the first time in 26 weeks.