Just downloaded iTunes 7.0 this morning. Quite a lot of new stuff in this one, as a whole number upgrade (6.0 to 7.0, as opposed to 6.0.4 to 6.0.5) should be. The new version passed my first test, ensuring that my COM SDK scripts still function, without a hitch. I haven't played with the new gapless option yet, although when i fired up the new version for the first time it spent a good two hours "determining gapless playback" for all the songs in my library. Being a cover art aficionado, i'm thrilled by the new view options where you can peruse your library by artwork. The "Cover Flow" interface is amusing, although i'm not sure i'll end up using it all that much. I also noticed that there is a new "album artist" field in the song information window, which from errant online forums i gather can be used to add sorting information for artists outside of the usual artist field. For example, i can use it to sort Miles Davis by Davis. I wish iTunes could do this behind the scenes (ie, displaying Miles Davis from the artist field while transparently sorting by Davis, Miles from the album artist field), but the current implementation is a step up regardless so i'll live with it.

Veronica had dinner with Jenz on Wednesday, so i spent my evening home alone in front of God of War. What a freakin' awesome game. It reminds me a lot of the Xbox classic Ninja Gaiden and its fluid gameplay mechanic and silky smooth visuals. The game is incredibly brutal, with lots of bloody animations of severed limbs and cracked skulls. I love the Greek mythology context of the story, and the tale is told with enough suspense and drama to keep the whole from devolving into a run-of-the-mill hack-and-slash title. I'm a bit sad i wasn't on the ball when this came out originally, but my inattentiveness did result in me picking up the game for a mere $19.99 as part of the "PS2 Greatest Hits" collection. Given that our friend Kevin works at Sony Santa Monica, the developers responsible for GoW and its forthcoming sequel, i'm looking forward to getting my mitts on God of War 2 in the new year.

Speaking of Kevin, i've been driving a silver Volkswagen GTI much like his all week. I brought my Jetta over to Fremont for a tuneup on Tuesday, and asked them to look at my rear windshield as Bob had noticed that one of the corners was coming loose. Turns out the window needed to be resealed, and the dealer wasn't able to do that until yesterday. So my one day loaner became an all week loaner. Luckily they got the job done, and were able to avoid breaking the windshield while removing it ... i was warned this was a real possibility and would result in me being charged for a brand new windshield. So now i get my beloved Jetta back tomorrow while taking Tara to the vet for her checkup. I've been pretty peeved all week as i had to listen to the god awful "Morning Music Co-op" on Live 105 instead of my morning staple Howard Stern. This morning they were ranting on about how they were going to get on Mythbusters determining whether a radio antenna could cook a turkey. Someone called in to tell them that the energy emitted by such an antenna is relatively harmless, to which the three radio hosts/budding Einsteins responded that microwaves are also radiation and can cook things very well. I don't want to get into an extended discussion of wavelengths, frequencies, photon energies, absorption spectra, and the like, so let's just say that Woody, Tony, and Ravy need to bone up on their physics.

The Xbox 360 release schedule is ramping up, with the latest Splinter Cell episode due next month, and the hotly anticipated shooter Gears of War set to appear in November. Rumors continue to swirl that the launch of the Playstation 3 will be delayed until next year ... the latest tidbit notes that Sony hasn't begun playtesting any of the launch titles yet, a scant two months prior to release. As much as i disapprove of Nintendo's business plan, V is enamored of the Wii so we may own one of those before the holiday season. My take is that the much-discussed control system (revolving around a position-, orientation-, and motion-sensitive remote control apparatus) will be amusing for a while, but unless Nintendo completely reinvents the gaming experience, its novelty will die off. Cross-platform games will take advantage of the powerhouse PS3 and Xbox 360 engines, and will feel like poorly-conceived ports on the underpowered Nintendo box. That will leave the gaming giants once again without substantial third party support and reliant on the same old slew of Mario, Zelda, and Metroid games.