Interesting stats from a recently-released report on who’s using Macs to access the Internet…

The states with the highest percentage of Mac users, in order, were Hawaii (15.9 percent), Vermont, (15.1 percent), California (12.8 percent), Oregon (12.7 percent), New York (12.3 percent), Alaska (11.9 percent), and Massachusetts and Maine (both 11.2 percent).

I’m not sure what this says about these states, other than they tend to have more than their fair share of mavericks and independents in the public.

About a year and week ago I picked up our Nintendo Wii. I had actually stood on line at a retailer in friggin’ freezing Alaskan weather for about an hour the night of release, but missed out by one sales ticket. One! Anyway, I kept checking a local retailer at every opportunity and finally stumbled across one about a week later and snapped it up on sight. Little did I know that a full year later people are still trying to get Wii consoles. You can’t even order them on Amazon for cryin’ out loud! Meanwhile the Nintendo DS Lite continues to break records, too and Nintendo stock continues to rise…

Anyway, since the purchase we’ve pretty much stuck to Wii Sports, plus the first Zelda title. The Zelda game is pretty cool, but I’m not much for endless quest games, so that’s pretty much sitting on the shelf. But late on Black Friday this year I ventured out and picked up Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii, based on podcast recommendations.

Best. Game. Yet.

Serious gamers scoff at the Wii’s graphics (I also have a 360, so I know the difference). But the Wii control scheme is second to none and makes for a fun — and even exhausting — gaming platform. Super Mario Galaxy kicks up the graphics a notch with a fast-moving colorful Marioesque 3D world. Even the musical score is well done. It’s much more immersive than Wii Sports.

So IF you can get your hands on a Wii, be sure to pick up Super Mario Galaxy. Next up: Super Paper Mario and perhaps that new Battallion Wars 2. Oh, and two more controllers. We’ve got friends coming over…

So Stephanie was kind enough to pick up Halo 3 for me this week. I played it. It was gorgeous to look at initially. But ultimately it kinda sucks.

In Halo 2, the story was convoluted and both over- and under-written. It was confusing and cliched to an embarrassing degree. I figured the nerds just couldn’t pull a story together and whatever plan they might have had got away from them. I forgave them.

But they made millions upon millions of dollars on Halo and Halo 2. Couldn’t they have spent a few hundred thousand bucks on a story developer / writer / screenplay expert for Halo 3? Please? No. No they could not.

To follow the story line in Halo 3 AT ALL, you must know Halo 2 already. To know Halo 2’s story, you must have played it through several times, listening carefully to figure things out and make several big assumptions. But even if you know Halo 2 (and I do), Halo 3 makes little sense and the ending is absolute unmitigated ambiguity.  No closure, and bad writing to boot.

I don’t play the multiplayer much — the weenies on Xbox Live aren’t worth the trouble, especially at $50/year. So that aspect of the game — a huge aspect, I’ll grant you — is lost on me.  From here I’ll play through the “solo” game a couple more times just because some of the graphics are good and the new weapons and vehicles are great. But after that, Halo 3 goes on the shelf. Or out to eBay or something.

Shame on Bungie and Microsoft for continuing to screw this thing up. Lots of potential. Little delivery.