I finally broke down and bought a Wii. I've been going back and forth on it for a few months now and I had the chance to get one so I decided to go ahead and do it. I am not 100% sure why I bought it as there are not many good games out right now and I have been mainly focusing on my DS right now (when I have time to game). Anyway, probably due mainly for how incredible the DS is and also for how rare the Wii still is, I could not pass up the chance. Some quick thoughts:

• The setup is super easy- Setting the system up and getting it to connect to my protected wireless networks took just a few minutes. Adjusting to the controls was also effortless, though I have noticed that I am getting much more accustomed to them as I keep playing.
• The controller is cool, but not amazing- Yeah, it's wireless and you can point it to move the cursor. It's definitely cool, but it's not as big a deal as everyone originally made it out to be. It's fun and it really lends itself to certain games, but in the scheme of things, it is not a reason to buy the system or to not buy it.
• Right now the game selection is not great- I started out with Super Paper Mario and Resident Evil 4 (and Wii Sports). Wii Sports is great with groups and to play for a few minutes here and there, but it got old quickly. Super Paper Mario is interesting, but seems to lack something, whatever it was that made Super Mario World so amazing... Aside from Zelda there are not many other games that interest me right now, and I will probably wait on Zelda and buy it for super cheap later on.
• Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition is quite good- I didn't have a Gamecube so I missed RE4 the first time around. I picked it up for $29.99 and have been really enjoying it. Okay, it's a little scary for me, but I like the control scheme and it's the type of "core" game that I like to see on the Wii.
• Some good games are on the way- Metroid, Super Smash Bros, Soul Caliber... They can't come soon enough.
• Virtual console is a nice edition- The selection so really poor, given how many games have been released for NES, SNES, Genesis, Gamecube, and NeoGeo, but vc is still cool. I wish I could browse quicker and that more games were available, but I really like the idea of vc. My question- who is choosing these games?! Some really suck and a almost all the best ones are missing. Where is Cabal for NES?
• Playing against friends- I am going to try it this week. Should be cool.
• Connect to the DS- Also this week.
• You only get one controller- I hate when the beat you out of a controller. Every system should come with at least two.
• Where are the good RPGs? I can't wait for some good ones to arrive...

So far, I really like the Wii, but am not in love. I'm glad I got it, especially since they are still rare, which means resale values will be high (not that I am going to sell it) and that I can have bragging rights for a few weeks, but it's not the must-have that everyone is making it out to be. That said, I still prefer it to the PS3 and Xbox 360 and appreciate the savings when compared to those systems.

Before we start, a brief caveat- I have always been a Sim City fan. I am not a fanatic, but I have owned just about every release, even the one for SNES and I was really excited for it to come out on the DS. I though the Nintendo DS version of Sim City was going to be excellent. As in, the ideal game for the way I use my DS- when commuting and traveling and trying to kill some time while doing something that is interesting, fun, and (that makes me feel) productive. Previous versions of Sim City had always satisfied me in these always and I have always been relatively happy with the newer versions of the game. Well, this was not at all the case with Sim City DS. What sucks-  While the game adapts well to the use of the DS' stylus, the fundamental problem is that it is asks too much of the system. This can be seen in a number of ways, each of which contributes to this game overall being pretty bad. First of all, you can only save one city. Just one city! So you can't start a city, save it, try a crazy idea, and save it as YourNameVille II or work on two cities at once, or even save a really cool old city. Other evidence of a lack of robustness from the DS (something that no other game I have played has a problem with) can be seen in how the game takes about 30 second to save. Next, the controls. The reliance on the stylus is fine, commendable even, but given the small size of the display it can be very difficult to make the accurate commands that are needed (this is near impossible when traveling on a bus). Luckily there is an undo button which you will become very familiar with, but you can't undo demolitions and it is annoying to have to do so many things twice. Thirdly, the game has constant interruptions. Every few minutes you are always to shoot fireworks or to attending a meeting (which is generally the same as the previous month's). Fourth- you can't control the start date so you are stuck are the most basic level or building options (this used to be called year 1900). You don't even have buses, highways, or solar power or any of the things that were fun to build a city around. Fifth- when you are building the time is automatically paused. This was actually the detail that made me stop playing the game. It means you have to build, watch the city grow, then build while the city is paused, and so on. It makes getting from year 1900 onwards extremely tedious. Sixth- the city does not look that good. The DS' normally excellent graphics look terrible because the cities are packed with all those buildings Seventh- the graphing and analytics tools are very limited. You can no longer really examine the city the way you once did. Eight- there are no hills. That's right, the boards are totally flat except for some trees and water. This was just ridiculous, plus you lose the challenge of building on a hilly landscape, there are no tunnels, and the maps boring plains, and you can't use any of the cool bulldozer tools to raise or lower lands. Actually, there is one thing you can do bulldoze water. Yes, it cost's $7 a square (an acre?) to bulldoze that stupid river in the middle of your map. What doesn't suck- Come on, it's Sim City. On the DS. That's got to count for something. And it does. If you just want to casually burn some time here and there without any regard for the old games, it's not that bad. Next, it's great that there is no plumbing to deal with. This was always something that people argued over with the newer Sim City games- the plumbing, was expensive, annoying, and unrewarding. Personally I did not mind in and thought it added another element to designing a city, but it was tedious at times. Ultimately Sim City DS is not worth the time or money. It could have been a perfect title for the DS but I found out that hard way that this implementation of Sim City was not well done and that the game is simply not suited for playing on small screens and portable systems. For this reason the developers are not totally to blame here, but they made a lot of poor decisions when it came to the game play, the look of the city, the zoom controls, the inability to save multiple cities, and the features that are unique to the DS version. From what I have read, most reviews are sympathetic to the attempt to bring Sim City to the DS and they take it slightly easy on the game, but when it comes down to it, this is a failed attempt. If you want to play Sim City on the go get a notebook and a version of Sim City 4. If you have a DS and you simply need to buy Sim City, I would say, limit your expectations, get a comfortable stylus, and try to be as patient as possible.

I've been a devoted fan of the Square Enix's Mana series for a long time and I have no trouble admitting that Secret of Mana is one of my favorites video games of all time. For this reason I was quite exciting to find out (this was months ago) that Square was releasing one of the last games to hit the PS2, Dawn of Mana. Being a late game it was exciting not only because I have a PS2 but because the developers would be able to really take advantage of the hardware. Throw in Havoc physics and some killer graphics, and you have yourself a great game, right? Once again we learn that the answer is "Not so much...". What Square has been trying to do with other not-so-great titles like Heroes of Mana and Children of Mana is to make the World of Mana games into another big series for them, one that can counterbalance Final Fantasy. To do this they have been pumping out Mana games like crazy for every system available, in hopes that the series will catch on and people like myself, who have liked some of the games in the past will become rabid fans. Well, it's not happening. The new Mana games, namely Children of Mana for the DS and Dawn of Mana for the PS2 are definitely worth skipping, even if you loved Secret of Mana. And I don't even mean don't buy them (like I did), I mean go ahead and play something else. I'm not going to get into a long review for either one, as I originally intended, but I would feel remiss if I did not take a few minutes to voice my displeasure. Dawn of Mana is an action RPG, as you would expect from Mana, but moves to a 3D style with a lot of interaction with the environment. The game is beautiful, but the gameplay is terrible. After a few hours of playing the game I was still not used to the controls and found it practically impossible to master the commands. I was very impressed with how the game looks, but the action is all about knocking enemies into one another so as to scare them, so there is so much reliance on the physics of knocking enemies together and rolling rocks and logs (etc.) into them that almost all of the good action is lost. The game ended up being a mess of hectic action where you spend entirely too much time swinging around a vine from your arm and searching around for powerups to replenish your magic supply. Children of Mana is a DS game that looks just like you would expect a Mana game to. It is, in almost all aspects, not bad, but it is not great either. The game is tedious and extremely repetitive and after getting through less than half of the game I felt no reason to keep on playing. I did keep plugging away at it, just because I had spent about $30 on the game, but it was not enough to keep me interested. In the end the game was a simple dungeon crawler with a few cool weapons (the hammer is awesome), but really unimpressive magic capabilities and a plot that is not worth following. There was very little feeling of building up to anything and all you can do is keep playing until it's over. I like the gem system of powerups, but this is not nearly enough to salvage this unexceptional game. I would recommend that Mana fans check out this http://zdmedia.vo.llnwd.net/o1/Podcasts/Retronauts/051007.mp3%20" target="_blank">Retronauts podcast, it goes over a lot of my thoughts and has some very interesting retro-gaming discussion (though it's really long). Metacritic sums things up well (Dawn of Mana / Children of Mana) and I think the respective scores of 56 and 66 are right on the money.  That's really all there is to say- Dawn of Mana was not looking great, but I let myself get excited about it, despite what everyone said,  and I was totally let down. In Children of Mana I was hoping for something entertaining to pass the time while commuting, but it ended up being unexciting and I would have been better off if I had kept on playing Advance Wars.

After the release of the Playstation 3 you would have thought that the PS2's day had passed and no more good games would be released for it. After all, the PS2 at this point was quite long in the tooth and clearly been surpassed by the Xbox 360. While this reasoning may seem sound, it turns out to be incorrect- the PS2 still had some life left in it, as demonstrated by the release of a few notable games during this time. The biggest of these titles was God of War 2, but there were others, including Dawn of Mana and Odin Sphere. While it has remained under the radar of many gamers, I was pretty excited about Odin Sphere before it's release. From what I heard the game would be a somewhat odd one- a beautiful side-scrolling action RPG. Aside from being a big fan of side-scrollers and RPGs I found this game to be especially exciting because by having been release so late I knew it would be pushing the limits of the PS2 and really showing off what the system could do. Yes, it would probably be the last game to do this, but better late than never (especially for those of us who don't plan on picking up a PS3 any time soon). Even though I knew what to expect, when I first starting playing Odin Sphere I was surprised. It is a classic side-scroller, but the implementation is very cool. The characters are in the foreground and seem to pop out at you while the background, which tends to be quite well done, appears to be on a separate plane. The characters look great- very well designed and visually interesting- though they are pretty strange. Half the characters, the heroine included, are person-sized while others like the Demon King  (Odin) and many bosses are giants. Characters like the King and his evil advisor, General Brigan, are not only huge, but have a strange look to them that very much reminds me of the cartoon Ren and Stimpy. It should suffice to say that though it is unorthodox, this is one of the best looking games ever to come out on the PS2, though you will have to enjoy the cartoon-like style in order to really enjoy it. The music is also excellently done so, unlike many other games, the the game is as aurally enjoyable as it is visually. I don't want to get too much into the story, but since it's an RPG, it's imporant. You start gaming as a young girl who picks up book and sits down to read it in an easy chair. When the game starts you play as Gwendolyn, a young princess who wields a powerful spear, but as you progress through the chapters there are other characters that you play as. Gwendolyn is a valkyrie with magical powers and the ability it fly (or at least to glide very well) who wants nothing more than to be loved by her father. Overall the story is interesting enough to keep you playing, though it's not amazing, and it's often confusing, but the voice-overs are very good and the translation/transcription seems to be free of errors. Typical game play goes something like this- a movie scene to set things up, side-scrolling fighting, then move around to different boards (spheres) within the level, some of which contain bosses or shops, then a cut scene before the main boss, and finally back to the telling of the story. The fighting is fast and furious and if you think you can just hack away while moving right you will not get very far in Odin Sphere. Each stage (a chapter has generally has around ten) is actually a circle so enemies come at you from both sides, and you can circle back and attack them from either side. The attacking is fast and combo-based so you tend to hit enemies a number of times in each series which the last one being the most powerful. Once an enemy is killed it releases a floating purple sparkle (a Phozon) which you can collect for experience or you can allow to go to a seed which will grow into a powerup. By collecting Phozons and eating food you will gain two types of experience and your character will advance into higher levels. This does not affect the weapons/armor you use but you will become more powerful physically and your magic super powers (like a cyclone) will improve. By eating foods your experience will grow, but this is the only way to gain back the hit points that will quickly drain away as you fight. Phozons will add up to improve magic powers, but will also fill up yout magic attack (Psypher) gauge, and replenish your endurance level (which, if empty, will cause you to stop and rest for a few seconds). It all sounds confusing when explained in this way, at when playing it is not very intuitive at first, but after some time it all makes sense and it actually one of the best methods I have ever seen in an RPG. One result of all this is that buying and selling items, while possible and important to the game, does not play as important a role as in most RPGs. You need to buy certain items in order to grow food or power up the character, but you don't have to spend hours leveling up so you can get the mega-dragon sword and the flaming armor of truth or that sort of thing. It is much mor effective (and satisfying) to find ingredients and mix them into useful concoctions then to buy them from a shop. Overall, I found Odin Sphere to be extremely fun and wholy unique when compared to today's games. It is not your typical game, not even close, but it is very well done and once you get used to some of the idiosyncracies it is impossible not to have fun. I did find that at times the game can be frustating because without clear experience goals you can get ahead of yourself and get into boards that you just can't beat (usually due to your own skill or impatience) and this can be aggravating. Luckily their is no punishiment for dying (you just restart the stage) and you can turn the clock back one stage if you want to give up and regroup. One serious problem with the game is it seems to be a bit too much for the PS2- at times, especially during boss stages, there are serious slowdowns which hurt the otherwise excellent gameplay. Along with this, frequent loading (the stages are very short) is required. After each level you are rated on your performance and the gifts you get will improve as your performance improves. If you get hit even one you probably one get the highest rank (S) and will miss out on great prizes. The biggest single problem with the game is this- the attack button is the same as the block button. No joke. You press the X button repeatedly to attack, and you hold it to block. This is a serious flaw in the game design, especially in one where blocking plays an incredibly important role because when enemies hit you, it hurts. The game is so interesting possibly because it seems simple, but is actually pretty complex. At first it seems like you will be restricted to one character, but some around the 8 hour mark (if you are taking your time) you will finish the first six chapters (and the epilogue) with Gwendolyn and get the next character. This guy, a prince-turned-rabbit, is a complete newbie with none of the upgrades you worked for, but has a sword and a different attack style. There are other characters like this one so when you start getting bored, you at least know a change is coming soon. It is also kept interesting by using different skills levels which must be unlocked and there special "true" ending that you really have to work for. I think some people will find the game repetitive since most of the time you are just mashing the attack button while running back and forth, while occasionally jumping and using items, but I enjoyed the simplicity and elegance of Odin Sphere. Too much time has to be spend managing your item inventory, and some more attacks would really add to the game, but I was happy with the game. Factor in a cheap price and relatively long game play (>35 hours) Odin Sphere is one of my favorite games ever to come out on the PS2. I don't really have the patience to put in all the work for the "true" ending or completely every stage with a S rank, but it's something to shoot for and it could be rewarding if you really want to get all you can out of the game.

So recently I checked out New York's hottest new Asian restaurant, Momofuku Ssam Bar. This hip East Village establishment is the sister restaurant to the permanently-packed Momofuku Noodle Bar. Over the past three weeks I stopped by three times (twice for dinner and once for lunch) and have gotten a pretty good feel for the restaurant. I am pretty picky about where I eat out on the weekends so going back to the restaurant twice after my original visit is pretty much the highest compliment I can give it. Ssam Bar combines great food, a cool atmosphere, and relatively reasonable prices for a very nice dining experience. The restaurant is a small, long space, just like the original but slightly roomier. Most people sit along a bar though if you are lucky you will get one of the few tables along the side. While I have sat at both and the tables are a nice treat, the bar should be fine for anyone. It would be nice if the seat had backs and there is always the question of how a winter coat and bag can fit on that tiny hook between your knees, but it's all part of the experience. Once your find the host chances are you will have to wait a bit because the restaurant does not take reservations. My waiting times (party of two):

1. Saturday night; expected wait: 45 min; actual: 30 min
2. Friday night; expected wait: 45 min; actual 20 min
3. Sunday late lunch; walked right in and ordered (no servers)

So what it seems to come down to is there there is only room for about 15 or so people to comfortably wait inside the restaurant so a lot of people were putting their names down and showing up when called. Hence the quoted waits were long than the actual ones, at least in my experience. After sitting down (both dinners were at the bar) I found that I had enough elbow room to be comfortable and did not mind talking to my girlfriend who sat next to me. A party of three or more might have been awkward, but this was not an issue. After sitting down for just a few seconds I had water and shortly after that a server looking to bring me a drink. Being right at the bar and feet from the kitchen certainly lends itself to fast service. The drink menu is not long, but has four beers and a few types of wine and sake. Two of the beers were cheaper ($5 and $6) while everyone around me seemed to be drinking of the more expensive ones ($9). The high end beers were Hitachino Nest Beer (from Kiuchi brewery) and came in either a white ale or red rice beer. I tried both and preferred the white, though I almost always like white ales The $5 beer was pretty okay, but was not as good and did not seem to match the meal as well. As for the food... it's pretty impressive. Personally I am a fan of David Chang so I was very happy with the menu and how almost all the pieces turned out. At dinner there are the choices of small dishes, hams, seasonal/local, fish, offal, and ssam (wrapped items) and while not everything was amazing, everything was good. Each time we started off with the pickled vegetables, which I always order when available and another light dish, first a hamachi (with tea leaves?) and the second time an apple salad with lychee and bacon. While both were interesting, the hamachi was the clear winner- very light and clean- while the apple salad ending up just being a lot of apple with a few interesting things thrown in. As for larger dishes I was the happiest with the grilled rice cakes. These ended up being very much like a twist on a gnocchi in a meat sauce, oddly enough. Definitely a great choice... as was the hangar steak ssam which was a nicely cooked piece of steak with bibb lettuce and both a green and kimchi sauce. I did find the pieces of steak to be too big to be bite-sized so it got a bit messy, but things are casual enough that this is okay. Also, as with the Noodle Bar, the steam buns are a real crowd pleaser and they are filled with Momofuku's signature pork belly. What makes this restaurant really special though are the ssams. These are essentially burritos (assuming you have it wrapped in the flour pancake, as most people do) filled with the type of ingredients you commonly see in the restaurant. They are delivered wrapped in tin foil and are stuffed with a protein (pork, beef brisket, braised tofu, or chicken), a healthy amount of rice, and extras (generally beans and sauces). These items are cheap and very filling. During dinner there is the choice of two or three while at lunch you can choose between customizing your own or ordering a pre-designed one. The lunch menu also offers a rice bowl and and a bowl of glasses noodles if you are not in the mood for ssam. As for the price, dinner for two generally ended up being about $80-90 with a good tip. This was with about two nice beers and four dishes, so not terrible, but not cheap. If you order the burrito dinner (or lunch) can be considerable cheaper because these are essentially a meal. Lunch should run you about $12 between the ssam and a drink. All told, I have to admit I am a fan. Yes it's packed, it's not cheap, you can't make reservations, and you have to sit on a stool, but if you want hip food at a hot (and small) restaurant in New York those qualities are not uncommon. My biggest complaint with the restaurant is that the service is too rushed and they just deliver the food as it is made, but little regards for how much of your appetizer is left or how many dishes are jumbled up in front of you. The same goes for when you are leaving- it is clear someone wants your seat and if you are done (and not getting more drinks) you best be on your way. The servers were nice and knowledgeable, but interesting in moving things along. The place is having some growing pains (when I ordered lunch they were out of pork for the ssam) but they generally have their act together. 207 2nd Ave at 13th, 212-254-3500 http://www.momofuku.com/

For months now I have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of 300. This is the movie adaptation of a graphic novel from Frank Miller and Lynn Varley. I finally got to go see it on Saturday (disappointingly, not at the Imax). Let me preface this informal review by saying I have read the graphic novel a few times (albeit a few months ago) and have watched the trailer many times since it was first posted on Apple's site. All told, I would give the movie a rating of "very good" or, to put it numerically, 4 out of 5 stars. The movie was not short, but it was entertaining, a lot of very cool things happened, the characters were great, and it was mega-violent. Visually the movie was amazing, a bit cartoonish in its representation of the characters, but only because many of the people and situations were so extreme- for instance an armored rhinoceros charging at the Spartan line. As with the book the plot was simplistic: a small group of Greeks fighting off the enormous Persian army at a place known as the Hot Gates. While the movie largely remained true to the book and did not leave out any material, it did add a few scenes and plot twists, as well as expand on others. These were, not surprisingly, where things went wrong. The movie added a great deal of politics to the dealings in Sparta while the 300 were fighting as well as one crazy scene where Xerxes makes a deal with Ephialtes (a Spartan outcast). The backstabbing that goes on in Sparta at the time that Leonidas and his men were defending Greece was extremely (almost ridiculously) un-Spartan and seemed very out of place in the movie- the blame originally fell to the corrupt Ephors not a Spartan. Also the movie took an exremely odd detour when Ephialtes met Xerxes. Here there was a tent full of oddities including- if I remember correctly- an executioner with some sort of crab claws for arms, a all sorts of woman of questionable repute, and a donkey playing a lute. Anyway, it was really strange and completely unnecessary. The movie did have some awesome moments though. Interestingly these were not the ones I had loved so much in the trailer (those lacked the power and passion I expected, though still sounded cool and would have been the highlight of any other movie). One of the scenes I was very impressed with was when Xerxes met Leonidas. Xerxes, the Persian king, was about 8 feet tall and seemed very much like the god-king he claims to be. Both David Wenham and Vincent Regan also did excellent jobs (as did Gerard Butler, but that was no surprise after seeing the trailer). If you are looking for some ultra-violence mixed with a brief history lesson, then I think you can't go wrong with 300. The movie took some unfortunate liberties and it lacked the heart-pounding excitement of the trailer, but it was worth the price of admission. Of the two people I saw the movie with one liked it a lot and the other was a bit taken aback, but enjoyed most of it. The movie could have been about 20 minutes shorter and some aspects of it could have been thought out better, but still there are a lot "wow" moment. Fans of the graphic novel will not be disappointed and cinema fans will definitely enjoy the visual and technical aspects of the movie. The trailer is, in my opinion, as close as anyone can get to perfect so definitely check that out before seeing the movie. It has all the best moments of the movie and edits out the discussions, voice overs, and deceit that gave the movie its 2 hour (or so) run time. To generalize about the reviews I have read- particularly A.O. Scott's in the New York Times-most were overly harsh and seemed to have, at times, missed the point. I would not rely too heavily on them and would be sure to check out the trailer and read book before passing judgement.

For years I have been looking for a great program for dealing with all my photos. I shoot mainly for work, vacations, and family events, but I have been using a digital camera for a long time (think Sony Mavica shooting onto floppy disks) and all those photos add up. I have developed good storage habits along with a intricate set of folders and naming conventions (for easy searching) but I always knew there was a better way. When Itunes came out I saw that it was, in fact, possible to efficiently store lots of data while keeping it readily available. I don't think anyone was surprised they someone finally got this right, but it was greatly appreciated and Itunes remains a fine program. The issue with photos are that not only to they pile up, just like with music, but also they once you have them stored you are going to want to edit them. Programs like Photoshop are great for editing, but they fall short when it comes to quick viewing and searching. Photoshop CS2 came along with Bridge which had some of the basic elements I was looking for like quick previews, batch renaming, keyword tagging, rating, and labeling. It was a step in the right direction, but still not nearly slick enough to win me over and ended up just being a way to interface with Photoshop. So as it turns out, I like Lightroom a lot. This post was original going to be a lot longer, but I will keep it short and sweet- Lightroom is a great way to organize your photos and it has a number of very useful built-in tools. If you are a photo nerd and have to customize a lot, it can do a number of adjustments on the fly and it is especially great if you are using RAW images. If you don't like to play with your photos, or you would rather do this in Photoshop, Lightroom is great at organizing them. Aside from customization and organization Lightroom has a few very useful tools, especially the automatic photogallery. If you set up an album the program can make it into a great HTML or Flash photo gallery in just minutes. The number of customizations you can do to the gallery are limited, but you have full control of the colors and can also decide what camera settings are display in case you want to have some information for reference. This is a great feature with only one problem, the maximum size of each image shown is dependent on the width of the gallery. If you decide to have a narrow (say three thumbnails across) the maximum image size might be just 500px with no image to click on the image and have the original appear. This is a pretty serious problem... The verdict? I like Lightroom a lot and will be sticking with it until the beta is over. I am not sure if it's worth the $200 price, but I'd love to see it included with Photoshop, in that case I would definitely use it. For the time being I, sadly, won't be able to put down the money for it so I guess I will stop using it when the beta period is over but if the price was more affordable, I would say it is a must have...

When I first heard of Moo.com, I was immediately interested. It took me a second to realize exactly what they were doing- the name does not really help- but once I figured it out I was sold on the idea. Moo combines two things I really like, namely business cards and Flickr, into an extremely slick mashup. Basically, what Moo does is give its users a way to print what they call "MiniCards" straight from your online photos at Flickr.com or Bebo.com (no Zooomr yet). This is not your standard photo printer, like Snapfish, because the photos go on one side, while six lines of customizable text and a logo go on the other. The service integrates extremely smoothly with Flickr (my online photo gallery of choice) so that all you have to do is log on to Moo, enter your Flickr information, and pick the photos you want to be printed. Moo works extremely well with the Flickr API so that your Flickr images open up right in Moo and are still properly labeled and organized.

Before when I mentioned business cards, that was not entirely accurate. Business cards are a standard size (3.5" x 2") but Moo's MiniCards are actually smaller. At 2.75" x 1.125" MiniCards are much smaller than business cards (about 56% smaller), something which may or may not be a good thing. While their size makes them unique and stops them from being confused with real business cards, they will not fit well into standardized organizers (rolodexs, etc.) and probably cannot be used as a replacement for a business card (unless your job involves doing something creative). The size is probably not an issue with most users, because when used in cooperation with digital services, like Flickr and Skype, the card is used simple to transfer otherwise digital information. In the Skype case a screen name could be passed along with a card and the recipient would be able to get in touch with you then. It's a great way to promote people reaching you in new manners as opposed to a phone call to the land line you recently had disconnected. So basically you go to Moo, log in, and choose the images you want to appear on the cards. If you want five images, you will get 20 of each, and if you want 50 images, it's two of each (and so on). You can manually choose up to 100 different images from your photo account or have them chosen at random and then you can pick the ones you prefer. Once you settle on the images using a cool drag/drop application, you have to customize what each picture will look like. The crop tool is very simplistic and the only functions it has are moving the cropped area, rotating the cropped area 90 degrees, or to zoom in. Once this is done it is time to do the backs. The back of the cards are essentially the same each time. You get six lines to work with as well as the choice of an icon (you can use one of the 10 stock images, your Flickr buddy icon, or blank), and if you want the Flickr logo in place for not. The text can be in one of three fonts and in one of nine colors. In each line you can add text or you can add in a variable that will change from card to card. This can be the image's title, date taken, the shutter speed, focal length, or a few other things like that, but nothing too interesting. When it's all done, it's 100 cards for $24.99 shipped. The shipping takes about 5 days to get to the USA (east coast) and arrived via USPS.

The cards arrived in a plastic box (nice touch) with a piece paper around it that held it shut. Also there was the receipt and a MiniCard from Moo that has identifier information on one side (probably so they ship you the right cards). The other side can be seen at the top of this article.

The print quality is quite good. It is not quite photo quality and some texture/patterning can be seen if you really examine it, but overall I was happy with the print. The card stock is on the thick side, something that you would find from a nice print shop (with what I believe to be a aqueous semi-gloss coating) that has a satin finish.

Overall I am quite happy with how the cards turned out. The turn around time is not especially fast and the cards are not that cheap, but if you are looking for something cool and casual to give to a new friend so they know your email and phone number, this is a great way. This is especially true for people who don't want to give out their business cards all the time but still want to have something to be remembered by.

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