Cernunnos Morrigu

Summary

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5. ShadowSource
6. DotCom
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Tuesday, July 14th, 2009

07:41 am   Vaca Sum Magic

So, vacation summary....

Left late Thurs, they were late getting out of work. It worked out okay, I took the first shift, they drove the bulk, then I finished off. Got stuck in some construction near the end, which was really annoying. Arrived around 2am I think ad RedneckNinja's. Then we were up awhile just chatting before crashing.

Slept in Fri for quite some time, then got up for food. Cracker Barrel, I believe. Went back to base for showers, then sat around a bit playing BlazBlue before heading out to dinner at Famous Dave's, stopping by Best Buy, and buying fireworks. We each ended up spending $50 on the booms. I only got 1 item - Bad Ass Shells. This was a decent sized mortar pack with 2 mortars and 12 shells. We grabbed the usual cheap rockets, candles, etc as well.

I don't recall what else we did Fri, night, but we slept in Sat for sure. In fact, we were very slow to move. RNN and I started playing through MTG DotP 2HG and the SO went to China 1 for food. We ate and finished off that mode and showered before heading out to the store for food to grill. Got quite a few things, then arrived at RNN's rents place for the deal.

We sat outside and chatted and waited for the food for a few hours, then set up the bottles for swords. Did some cutting, then decided to switch to booms since it was late. I must say, my mortars were awesome. Most of the cheap stuff sucked. The 300 shot batteries were okay. Next time, we're going to go for the bigger/better stuff. After setting all that off, we cleaned up and waited a bit before heading back to crash.

Slept in Sun, once again. Then packed and headed to Goofy's. We were nearing them when we got into stop-and-go. For several miles and too many minutes, we crawled. Finally, we saw the cones blocking 1 lane. For about 50 feet. No workers, no equipment, just random cones blockinb the road for no apparent reason. Causing a traffic jam. Nice. Anyway, got there late and ran out to Lee's for takeout then back to eat. Hung out for a little bit, then headed to Hayama's for the tour and then crashtime.

Mon, we got up and out to Perkin's and had a huge b-day breakfast. Then went back to base and Hayama was off, so we hung around a bit then headed to Goofy's. Miki drove us out to Uncle Yip's for lunch, with caching both ways. We stuffed ourselves at Yip's. Came back and vegged a bit, then went out with Goofy, Hayama, and J to Acapulco for dinner. Wow. We ordered fajitas for 2 and got enough food for 6. We ate until stuffed, and there was still over half left. Best value fajitas ever. Then we walked over to Arcade Legends Ohio, which was interesting but not as neat as I expected. $10 for all you can play was nice. We started with Moonwalker, and then played various stuff until we were bored and tired. Headed back, hunge for a little, then went back to crash.

Tues Hayama was off again. We hung out, then headed over to head to lunch. Miki and I had the great Indian buffet (mmm, vindaloo) while Hayama and the SO had Penn Station. It worked out well. We did some caching and then went back to hang for a little before heading back to Hayama's for some quiet time. Ended up back over at Goofy's then went to Moon Garden for bulgogi, which was excellent but took forever. Headed back to hang for a bit, then the screaming kids thing started and we left to crash.

Wed Hayama was back to work, so we packed up and headed out. Had IHOP, stopped at Meijer. Saw a Callpod in the clearance section, and some MTG stuff on sale that was tempting. Ended up not getting anything. Made the drive back to RNN's, unpacked, and then did some shopping. Went to 2 different Meijer's and grabbed 2 fat packs, 3 intro decks, plus some Unhinged. Was looking for the Angels/Demons Duel Pack that we saw in Oh, but couldn't find it. Caught up with RNN for dinner at Smokey Bones, then played MTG until crashing.

Thurs, went out shopping while RNN was at work. Had China 1 for lunch, tried GS, Target, and WM right there. Then hit up Meijer across the state line, which had the Duel pack. Also got more Unhinged. Dinner at Maido. Went back to veg and play MTG and BlazBlue then crash.

Friday we got started a little late, but packed and headed out in the late morning. Stopped for breakfast at a Denny's. We got shown the table, I sat down, but they noticed ants on the table. I saw even more, so we got up and left. Went down the road, ended up at McD's instead. They drove into StL, and we stopped at the mall for lunch and had Wow Wings. Then we did some shopping there and BB and UE before continuing the trip home. Stopped for dinner at Outback, then got home, unpacked and crashed.

Sat we slept in. Got up and out to meet relatives for lunch at Mac Grill, then went to the MTG pre-release. I had forgotten how long it takes to play in the tournament, so we were there for 5-6 hours. Starving when it was over, we went to Lucky for dinner then back home to prepare the bikes and gear then relax for a bit. We were a little later than preferred getting to the start point of the midnight ride, but we were ready and on time. Ride was good, only 2 crashes on the steep downhill into the caves. I was running out of energy on the way back, and fell behind until we all caught up at a light. Went to Denny's after for food, then home to shower and crash.

Sun, we obviously slept in. Went out to OTB for lunch and then did some shopping before returning to play some MTG and them I dropped them off, returned home, and crashed.


MTG 2010 Core Pre-release
Deck
5 forest
5 island
5 swamp

1 Cancel
2 Divination
1 Phantom Warrior
2 Ponder
1 Sage Owl
1 Telepathy
1 Tome Scour
1 Wall of Frost
1 Zephyr Sprite

1 Acolyte of Xathrid
2 Disentomb
1 Doom Blade
1 Dread Warlock
2 Gravedigger
1 Looming Shade
1 Unholy Strength
1 Warpath Ghoul
1 Weakness

1 Bramble Creeper
1 Centaur Courser
1 Emerald Oryx
1 Fog
3 Giant Spider
1 Naturalize
1 Nature's Spiral
1 Oakenform
1 Regenerate

I went 3-1 with this deck.

R1G1: Quick death
R1G2: Quick death,ended at -6
Opponent's deck was very fast Green/?, and I didn't get going in time. Mana screwed on game 2 (a theme for the whole tourney) to seal it. Was done in probably 20 mins tops.

R2G1: 16
R2G2: -6
R2G3: 20
Opponent was a pretty young kid who knew how to play, but didn't get the draw needed to win. Again, mana screwed on game 2. I think it was Green/black, not sure.

R3G1: 9
R3G2: -2
R3G3: 12
Opponent played mono white and had way too many lands. It was fine when the life gains worked for them, but otherwise a bunch of dead draws. I had a perfect timing on milling their library to remove some really good cards that would have turned the game in round 3. Every time, 2nd turn dropped the 2/2 lions.

R4G1: 18
R4G2: ?
R4G3: ?
Opponent played white/blue. Kind of interesting deck, but the older player didn't really pay close enough attention to the cards. Round 3 was incredible, I had 1st turn Telepathy and they drew all islands throughout the match. If they had any plains, it probably would have gone much differently. We were both 3-1, so we battled for the prizes.

The SO played in Open, after much convincing. Let me just say that they only got started during the trip, and we had only played for 2 days before this tourney. They were nervous, but finally relented. They ended up 2-4 in Open, beating me and the random 6th player. Not bad at all.

Not sure how far back into MTG we are, but it's been fun so far. I don't regret selling off the bulk of my cards, really. I thought I would more, but there is so much fun new stuff that it really doesn't matter that the old is gone so much. With the exception of being able to whip up a few decks for them out of older stuff, but we've already got quite a few new cards to build from.

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

09:46 am   One Wrong Game of Magic

So, the other night, I was unlocking cards for the Elf deck in MTG DoTP on XBLA. I got about as good a draw as could be hoped for, and the deck just took off. So well, in fact, that the AI got completely confused and refused to play any cards - it would just draw and discard on its turn. For about 55 turns, until I was down to 1 card in the library and played Coat of Arms, 4 Giant Growths, and an Overrun to finish the game. The score difference was.... Monumental, to say the least. I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story.


( more pictures )

	Rhys with token buff Rhys with token buff
	Board with only Rhys token buffed Board with only Rhys token buffed - notice the stack of 19 token elves
	My Status Post Attack My Status Post Attack - 124 life, 1 card in hand, 1 card in library.
	Opponent Status Post Attack Opponent Status Post Attack - -8007 life, 7 cards in hand, 26 in library. That was a HUGE hit for the game.

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

09:02 am   Patrick Buckland - Duels of the Planeswalkers: All about AI

Here's an email I just sent in response to the article on Wizards about the MTG DotP XBLA AI:

Dear Patrick Buckland,
Regarding your article "Duels of the Planeswalkers: All about AI":

The problem with the zen-state play you describe is that the included black discard deck has The Rack. So when the AI keeps drawing lands and playing them, it is saying that "right now, this has no consequence based on the state of the game." Which is true. however, what it should be saying is "no consequence, no other moves, but wait, there's The Rack, if I discard this card then next round I will have 1 less life than if I keep this card in hand since I have nothing else to play." That seems like a reasonable logic branch to take, and minimal in terms of additional time.

Speaking of time, and you said it yourself- after the first couple of creatures, blocking becomes very complex. So when there are 6+ creatures on the board, players (especially beginners) need more time to look at each card and ability and figure out how to block effectively. We had something like 8 creatures going, and my opponent ran out of time trying to decide blockers. That is not fun, seems like there should be a way to automatically give more time when there are more creatures involved or ask for more time, or something - especially in player matches.

Moving on to design decisions, I know there are a number of us who want to know about certain aspects of the game, why they are the way they are, and if they will be patched in the future.

There's no concede button, why is that? It is a basic part of the game, to our thought. If I know you're going to win, then I can concede. Maybe you're concerned about boosting, but that will happen regardless of this button. I could see giving it a couple turns before enabling it, just to be sure, but for player matches in particular, there's no reason not to have one that we could see.

Lack of online co-op and 2HG. All of us purchased the game understanding that we could play co-op and 2HG online. This requirement of a 2nd local controller does not meet that understanding at all. From our perspective, this is a huge miss that would add some variety to the game modes.

Small number of challenges. With the number of cards included, those are the only challenges the team could come up with? It seems very light, and the pacing is off for new players. It would be better to have more scenarios involving different abilities and less options to start with, so new players can see how to use them effectively to win in a tight situation. On the other end, having many esoteric multi-card combinations would give experienced players more to think about in terms of playing each deck. Which brings me to another point- It seems like 10-20 challenges per deck would be more reasonable, as it would help players understand the nuances of playing that particular deck and moving the sideboard cards in/out.

Quitting games in Ranked. This would be considered very unsportsmanlike in physical play, so why is it allowed unpenalized online?

Nonselectable Mentor. I am trying to get a friend into the game, they want me to help them through a game. This is what Mentor mode is for, right? Oh, wait, I can't select who I mentor? Who is this random person who just popped in? That's another mode where the understanding is far different from the reality.
Glitches. We've seen many glitches where we are stuck viewing cards, or are unable to select cards for discards, or select blockers, etc. These are very annoying, especially considering the timer keeps running.

Synchronous. Why is everything synchronous? If the UI is separate from the engine, then why do I have to wait when the 3rd player who is dead is watching the combat animations from the 2 players who still live? Why am I not free to look at any card on the board or in graveyard at any time? Many times, I just want to look around while others are playing, but I either pause the game to do so, or I get reset back to my hand.

Bugs/rules. These are all linked, in our minds. Things such as the double-regen for deathtouch are so counter-intuitive that many people think it is a bug. I understand, now, why it happens, but I didn't get the explanation in-game. New players need that explanation of the rules AS APPLIED, not just the rules text to try to puzzle out.

Game Summary. One thing I would really like to see relates to the above and comes in 2 parts. The first is that you mention an efficient way of stating changes to game state. Assuming that it is human-readable or decode-able, why not have an option to email that file to us at the end of a game? That way we would have a record of the game to post/share with others. The second part of that would be in-game replays of matches - particularly our own, our friends', or of top players, staff, leaderboards, etc. Could fast-forward, show from any player, etc. This would be a great way to learn more.

Are the rules going to be updated with the release of M10?

I don't expect a personal reply, but a post covering these and any other FAQs would be very nice.

Thank you.

---

The Wizards site email form kept erroring out on me, so I looked up a couple emails to send it to.

07:33 am   On MTG XBLA and Wave

So, MTG DotP on XBLA. Let's just say that, while it has been nice to play with RedneckNinja, Yakumo, and D4nte like we used to, the experience is sorely lacking.

Yes, you get to play MTG online with other people. That part is good. 1v1, 3p FFA, 4p FFA, great. No messing with physical cards, don't have to find a place to set up, rules are taken care of automatically so you just play - all fine.

Then the annoyances start coming in. Glitches. Freezing. Timer that is too quick for some situations, such as complex blocking with 6+ creatures. Lack of a "concede game" button.

Finally, you get to the severe problems. No deck builder. Limited pre-constructed deck choices. Limited customization. Grinding unlock system. Lack of online co-op. Lack of online two-headed giant. Opponents quitting in Ranked. Very few challenges. Necessity of playing through the campaign twice, without online options.

The game felt pretty good at first, then quickly started being annoying, and now finally is revealing itself as not very well put together, thought out, and probably rushed to production. MTG in its physical form has endless variety to keep things interesting. The XBLA offering is so limited and glitchy that it gets boring/annoying very quickly, especially if you are trying to get all the cards unlocked. Yet again, boosting appears to be the way to go to minimize the annoyance factor.

I feel like the $10 is a good price point for an introduction to the game, but the experience is lacking once you're trough the tutorial. I'm fine with addon DLC that includes more cards/decks/challenges/avatars/playmats/music/modes/etc, as long as they include enough content at a reasonable price. However, there still needs to be a free update that includes, at minimum, bugfixes, deeper rules and timing explanations (double regen on combat/deathtouch), increased timer depending on the situation, online co-op and 2HG with no local requirement, concede, and a fix for quitters.

---

Google Wave looks like an amazing concept. I watched that whole video, and am very enthusiastic about the possibilities. Once there is Wave integration with the discussion boards and major sites I'm interested in, I'm set. Just imagine a post here which is part of a thread on LAG, LeMed, and AGE, an email to those who may not read it here, and IM session with whoever is online at post time, and is also available at twitter - and anyone from any of those sites/systems can post replies to it to be seen by everyone else at each of those sites. That is amazingly efficient. Mobile, too.

I already find myself copy/pasting from site to site, or re-writing the same post 3-4 times on the different sites. And then I have to check back at each of them every time I want to see the updates. Not with Wave.

... That's the theory, we'll see how it plays out once it launches. I figure it will be a couple months minimum before the major discussion boards figure out their integration, then it will either be half-assed or rock. And probably a learning curve, too. Hmm, maybe a few more months to a year before it really comes into its own. Can't wait.

Monday, June 15th, 2009

01:02 pm   Buy 1 Gift 1

Amazon has an interesting sale today.

Give the gift of an Xbox LIVE Arcade game to a friend and get a little something for yourself! Today only, Monday, June 15, 2009, when you buy Puzzle Fighter HD, UNO, or Street Fighter II' HF, you'll not only get one Xbox LIVE code, but you'll receive a Amazon.com promo code that you can gift to a friend. That means you get your code today and then on Tuesday, June 16, you'll receive an email that you can forward to a friend allowing them to get the same game you bought, free. That means crazy multiplayer battles that you'll both be talking about for days to come. Supplies are limited for this promotion, so order yours before we run out! Limit one code purchase per household.

I've got the other 2, just need Street Fighter. Funny thing about that, though... I just got a new toy. Street Fighter II CE arcade cabinet. Pics to come later.

That said, I'd still probably be willing to split on it, or trade my extra Frogger code for it.

Monday, June 8th, 2009

12:30 pm   8th and Ace and a Hat!

So I placed 8th in the Mega Challenge.... Over 15K increase in 30 days, and I was 12K from the lead. T4nd4r put up an impressive amount of points.

Since then, I've toned down my gaming for various reasons. I am burned out from crappy games and the pressure to 1K them. Also, there's been some other stuff to do. Anyway...

Mostly been playing Ace Combat 6, grinding the MP and I finally started through the SP on Easy. Decent game, MP is more fun than SP for sure. Impressive replays behind the score screen.

I've also been playing/idling TF2 on the PC. I finally got a hat! The Sniper's Trophy Hat. Not bad. The new stuff is great, I just want it all on the 360.

Speaking of 360. Next week, on the 17th - Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers on XBLA! All indications are that this was done right - up to 4 player free for all, or Two-headed Giant, plus the normal 1v1 and all that. The cards are all included, you just unlock by playing SP (if I recall correctly, the old DotP on PC was the same way). Of course, they'll add new sets/blocks via DLC. In any case, I expect to buy this day 1 and will want to play (RedneckNinja, D4nte, Yakumo, Hayama, anyone else?)

Which, if you didn't hear, Yakumo got a 360 and so can join us.

Saturday, May 23rd, 2009

11:15 am   Dell Doesn't Care

So Dell's 'care' doesn't. I shouldn't say that, as I did talk to 3 out of a dozen or more people who actually did appear to care. Christopher, Kris, and Whitney were the bright spots in the endless loop hell.

Basically, order didn't go through for some reason. No one could say why. A couple of them could see the quote there, but didn't have access to do anything about it. Phone calls just went in the same loop between 2 different offshore operators and who knows how many IVRs - each call went through that.

Finally, got someone who escalated to their manager and got me over to the right department. Who promptly said that there was some unspecific 'pricing issue' and then tried to sell me a system for $300 more. Which wouldn't have been so bad, but they insisted it was only $60 more until it was time to purchase it - oh, and Tax, etc makes it $300 more.

No thanks.

So, Dell is rapidly becoming a company that I avoid. They can't even get their core business - online computer purchases - correct. Their layout is labyrinthine, and walled off so that 'care' can't do anything to resolve anything, and all they do is transfer calls between themselves. Email is useless, as is chat.

So no new toy. I'm bummed.

Tuesday, May 19th, 2009

08:10 am   Insomnia

I haven't really had a bad case of insomnia for awhile. The other night (I forget which, Fri or Sat or something) was strange.

I was online playing LotR Conquest with a person in Japan. things were going decently, we were just about to get another achievement knocked out, and BAM. Disconnected. Annoyed, I tried to log back in. Denied. Ok, so I checked the router - good. The cable modem? Aha.

One blinkenlight is not good. Unplugged, replugged, same. Ok, unplugged, waited 5, same. Hm. Called in, "You're not in an outage, let our IVR guide you through..." Ugh. So I spent 30 mins unplugging and replugging the stupid thing until it finally let me talk to a human. His response was "Holy shit, there's a huge outage all over the place. From Block H to block T and Street B to street P." So I'm thinking "why don't you have your IVR stating there is a known outage then? If it's this big, shouldn't alarms be going off somewhere? And, come to think of it, it took you about 2.5 seconds to see it, so isn't anyone on staff looking for this sort of thing?"

Anyway, the weather had knocked the power out to some distribution station or something, so a decent chunk of the city was waiting for the equipment to reboot. I waited for a bit, then crashed early in an irritated mood.

And woke up around midnight. I wasn't very coherent, but I wasn't relaxed enough to get back to sleep, either. At least the cable modem was back to working, so I could browse. And browse I did - until about 5am. I'm not sure what all I looked at or did, but I do know one thing.

I ordered a new laptop. Heh.

Some backstory here, I have been frustrated with my current laptop's lack of graphics power. I'm trying to run some games, here, and it's just not working that well. It's a great machine for everything else, but I'm trying to get back into PC gaming a little bit (ok, it's mostly to boost gamerscore with PC games that stack, and also to allow my to keep my streak via PC instead of having to lug the 360 around) and it has to run games in an ugly low resolution to be playable. Also, I'm running XP and some of these game require (ugh) Vista.

The machine I'd been looking at was a nice Dell XPS with dual SLI graphics cards. Around $2K, which is less than what I paid for my current machine. I would price it now and then, but it has been hovering around $2K for the past few months.

I was browsing around, and saw that same machine for $1K starting. And a deal for a little bit off of that plus free shipping. So I did the config to what I wanted, and it came out to about $1300 after tax and everything. So I bought it. And then yesterday I checked on Dell's site, and the same config is now about $1600.

Here's the basics:
( Laptop )

I'd been pricing a desktop system (the Valve specs) for around $2K, as well. So this laptop pretty much beats the desktop, too. Not quite on specs, but on price for sure.

I also picked up a new router last week, which has N.... So getting N built into this laptop is a nice bonus. The router also has gigabit ports, which I'd been wanting for awhile. now I have to get a couple satellite switches that do gigabit as well.

Other than that, more of the usual. I'm down to #6 in the challenge, but I'll fix that today, I believe. I'm breaking down and going the rental route, because I don't want to spend extra money on buying crap games when I can rent them for 1 day for $2.50. Talked to Haha and Nozomimaru, uh.... Grilled out the other day. Got the bike tires inflated, so I can ride. Thinking about picking Friday as my first commute day depending on weather.

Monday, May 11th, 2009

09:21 am   Challenging

So I'm in this: Fshguy's MegaChallenge #2(30 days of madness)!!!!. Sitting at #3 currently. The challenge is more "How many crappy/easy/frustrating games can I play before I destroy something" more than going against the other players. It's going very well and is friendly - I've helped/been helped by several others on the list with getting achievements.

That's the most of what's been going on. Getting new games and playing as much as I can stand to.

I had some other things, but work is picking up so I've been a bit busy there.

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

02:45 pm   Hit and Sit

So, we were sitting at a stoplight in a line of cars last night, talking. *Wham* Rear-ended by another car. WTF. Some new-to-town person crunched their hood, but didn't seem to do much damage to the Jeep.

I've noticed that as the weather has gotten nicer, the idiot drivers seem to be out in greater numbers.

Not much else to report, work, gaming, etc. I do hope to post more at length another time.

Monday, April 13th, 2009

08:07 am   Gaming And Sloth

That pretty much covers it.

I've been progressing/grinding in various games the past couple weeks. Finished the PA game, just have to go back and get the last achievement in it. It was better than I thought, but not a $20 game. I'd say it was a $5 game, but I wasn't too upset to have paid $10 for it (half original price). I'm not going to get the next one until it's on sale for under $10, preferably $5.

I evidently missed a price mistake at Amazon's new XBL Store. The Xbox 360 Live Points Card digital versions were 20 CENTS instead of $20. What I would have done had I see that....

Anyway, the rest has been work and poor sleep. Not sure what's going on, but I've been dragging. Work has been... different. I'm doing more admin stuff while trying to get a handle on all these new pieces for the new job, and translating what I understand to the boss.

Yawn. Forgot my badge today, so have a temp. Not very exciting lately. I spoke with RedneckNinja and Haha for a bit. We grilled out yesterday, so had to get the tank refilled. Bought privacy film for the side door in the garage. Still haven't seen the bug guy.

Monday, March 30th, 2009

08:28 am   360 code

I spent quite a bit of time playing games this past week, particularly over the weekend. Sunday, I finished Cars and Wall-E. I also started on Space Chimps and made progress on Unreal Tournament III.

In the Challenge to 100k, I pulled ahead of joshnorm yesterday. Finally. By 553 points. It's going to be a long slog, if this weekend was any indication. I had way too many controller thrower moments going on. What is it about these crappy movie games where the controls, camera, and physics all suck horribly? Not to mention the awful gameplay, stupid plot, unskippable cutscenes, lack of progress indicators, and boring achievements. I mean, these movies are big-budget features from companies with reputations... And the games are all awful, which I would think reflects poorly on those big names. Wouldn't they do better with better quality tie-ins?

Anyway, new position at work is official as of today, I believe. I'm going to continue working on code to clean up this mess of a config file. I was trying to automate the whole process, but dealing with that many regexes must violate OSHA or something. Instead, I ran some manual replaces, edited by hand where necessary, and then am building a quick app to do the indenting. I couldn't find anything that would indent the ( like I wanted too - most of them are for { instead.

That winter weather blast this weekend was odd. Cold, rainy, then sleet, icing over, then lots of big wet snow - all in the span of Sat afternoon. I got out briefly before all that, then didn't leave the house until work this morning. And most of the snow is gone. And it's pretty warm already.

Spoke with Haha briefly, they've booked a trip out to visit. Was going to call RedneckNinja, but ended up grinding out games and forgot until I crashed. Yawn.

Friday, March 20th, 2009

08:51 am   Watchmen Seen

I finally went to see it last night. I re-read the GN a couple weeks back, so it was still fairly fresh.

I was both impressed and disappointed in it. Overall, it was good, but not great - maybe not even really good. There were lots of little things changed that I didn't see the need for, as well as some decisions that I don't get at all. I understand the changing of the major ending, which worked just fine.

Some of the issues I had:
( Spoilerish )

I think it would help if I saw it again, I was distracted the first time by trying to reconcile the GN to the movie, which made it hard to relax into the movie itself.

We're probably going to both re-read the GN before seeing the movie again.

---

On a side note, we used the free passes I got from BB the other week on that deal, so it was essentially free. And, because the ticket booth denied the use (even though I had looked it up beforehand) of the things, we went inside and talked to someone else and they accepted it. In fact, we ended up in the ritzier seats at an earlier showing. They have this new upscale part where they took out every other row of seats and put tables in with a button to call the waitstaff in. They serve food, drinks, etc. Not bad, really. A little bit lower scale than the one downtown we went to, but this one is closer, cheaper, and works pretty much the same way.

Wednesday, March 18th, 2009

09:56 pm   Freebie

Wizards.com is offering a FREE Deck of Magic: The Gathering Cards. Arrives in 6-8 weeks.

Monday, March 9th, 2009

09:38 am   Steam is Warm

Steam... Steam, Steam, Steam... Steam.

It seems to have grown out of various other ideas, piecemeal. It works, mostly, but isn't as polished as one normally expects from a Valve product.

So UT3 was free to play this weekend on Steam. I found out Fri, and started it downloading. By Sun afternoon, it was finally done. Then, I go to play and it wants a login. Refuses any of my attempts, and gives a blank URL to hit if there's issues. Not fun.

I did play a bunch of TF2, though. Got all the class unlocks. Fun stuff. Now that I'm more used to mouse/kb, it's easier to play.

Went to Microcenter and got a different brand to try in the Jeep, works fine. Also found a 16GB USB key for $32. Sandisk, even. I saw the new Valve mobo, and I want it. Was also going to pick up a 25' ethernet cable, but prices were ridiculous.

I am probably going to build the new Valve machine sometime in the near future.

---

It is once again time to say that DST sucks.

DST sucks.

Especially when your thermostat doesn't auto-change and you forget to change it. So, you end up awake an hour earlier in the morning, and know you have to get up, but it's cold and the heat doesn't come on for another 45 mins.

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009

08:08 am   Raam Different FT2

I got 2GB of RAM for my laptop from Newegg for $25. I'm still amazed at that. I'm sure Dell would have wanted $200 or something ridiculous at the time I bought it. Anyway, it's maxed out now.

The reason I did that is because I bought The Orange Box, and it arrived the other day. I figured I may as well break out the Nostromo and play in the living room on the laptop. More RAM never hurts when gaming.

Let me just say this: Holy fuck, it's like a whole different game! I got in, and I was confused by all the buttons I had to work out assignments for. I haven't played a mouse + keyboard shooter in a long, long time. I knew I'd be rusty at it, so I first played a bit of Portal to warm up. Then I went ahead and got into some TF2 action. I tried to get into 2Fort, figuring it would be best to start with a map I know, but that was all full. I played some random map, which was okay but not well populated. So I ended up in an Arena version of Well with full teams. And then Watchtower with full teams.

It's so much faster. More twitchy. And all the controls... Eesh. I didn't realize I had to map number keys to select buildings/disguises. I need to find a decent nostromo keymap file or TF2 settings file to grab that has everything laid out nicely. That said, once I settled down a bit and got into it, I started having a bit of fun. I got a couple achievements, which sadly don't post to Live. I guess I'll have to start earning more of the class-specific ones so I can get the new weapons. The level 3 dispenser and teleporters were kinda neat, but I only got to build them in the game that didn't have enough players to make it worthwhile.

I'm considering getting the adapter to use my 360 controllers on the PC, hoping that I can work with that a bit better since I'm much more used to it now. I'm worried that it is a bit too slow, though.

And, of course, my laptop doesn't handle the game at the speed and resolution I'd prefer. so I'm thinking new laptop. Or I could use a deesktop. Or build a new desktop.... Not sure which way to go yet. I'd probably wait on a laptop, although Dell had a sale on a dual-card SLI laptop the other week that was tempting. If I wait, I'll get W7 on the deal. That will let me play Shadowrun as well, since none of my current systems have Vista.

I also tried Audiosurf, which is kind of a mix between Klax, Frequency/Amplitude, and Vib Ribbon. Not enough to buy, but a neat amusement for a demo.

And then I started playing Puzzle Quest Galactrix. Interesting so far, I'm not seeing how to grind like you could in the first one.

Monday, March 2nd, 2009

08:40 am   Radaing Tomes

I spent most of the day playing the newly-acquired Tomb Raider Underworld. It's a pretty mediocre game. There are issues with physics, plot, graphics, and controls. And the game itself is just rather bland, in all. Excepting the tutorial, I played it from start to finish yesterday. 760 GS. I spent quite a bit of time on the last relic, then I decided to stop and finish the story so I didn't throw the controller through the TV. It's that bad. Not only is it timed, it's an agility race, across instant-death flooring, with horrible inconsistent controls and camera. Not fun in the slightest. In fact, it's pretty much a huge "FUCK YOU" in the middle of this mediocre game.

Sat, started the also-new Silent Hill: Homecoming. It was decent, as far as I played. I'll probably continue at some point.

The Beijing Olympic game is horrible, I got it from the library. It's got just about the most ridiculous controls I've ever seen. And the achievements are pretty much perfect every event at world record level. Riiiiight. Not fun at all.

I read Ender in Exile and All Tomorrow's Parties. Enjoyed them both, finished both on Sat. It was nice to unplug and devour some books again. I forget how much I enjoy that, sometimes.

I read more of Fables... I'm caught up with most of what the library had.

Not much else to report, offhand. Nothing is new really. I need to spend more time organizing and cleaning. Cats are fine. Time to work.

Monday, February 23rd, 2009

09:54 am   That Damn Cat

Enigma has figured out how to get past my blocks and into the upstairs. Here we go again...

It wouldn't be so bad, except he decided to do this at 3am and whine the whole time, not to mention make a bunch of noise rattling stuff around. I was not amused, and ended up awake for an hour, and then overslept by that same hour.

Went to the PHP meeting, which was uneventful, really. Some talk about a new place to meet in a limestone cave, which sounds interesting.

Read Fables through vol 6, and am impressed. Interesting take on various mythologies, fables, etc. I've put the rest that the library has in my reserve queue. We'll see how that goes.

Got NHL 2K9 and NFL Head Coach 09 from the library, too. They joined NHL 09, NFS Undercover, and Shaun White Snowboarding. Of the lot, I ended up buying NHL 09. The rest are okay, but I'll wait to buy them when they're cheap.

Watched the hockey game on Sun, and it ended up being a pretty good game. Now that I've been playing online, I've started keeping better track of how plays develop and such.

Helped some people get through Blood Harvest on Expert in Left 4 Dead. Found a better way to get on the beam above the hay, too.

Oh, found Conan and Smash Court Tennis 3 at Target for $10 clearance. They found a couple DS games for the same price. They have a couple more clearance games I'm waiting to drop before I pick up.

Not much else, really. Spoke with RedneckNinja and Haha a bit. Mostly just stayed home, read gamed, and the usual vegetative stuff. Did a bit of clean up and organization around the house, too.

Guess it's time to work a bit more before heading out to lunch.

Thursday, February 19th, 2009

08:07 am   Holy Hokey

I got NHL09 from the library, and played around a little with it by myself. Got the quick/easy achievements, and was about to return it. Then I realized it was AGE game night for it, so I got into that.

Holy cow, why didn't anyone tell me this game was so much fun online? We had 2 full (on-ice) teams going all out against each other, and it was a blast. I generally think sports games are merely ok and dabble here and there. But this game is just so much fun... I may end up buying it shortly, even though I noticed that NHL10 is available for pre-order already.

It was fun, it was funny, and the games go pretty fast.

Also, we got Prinny: Can I Really Be The Hero? for PSP last night, but they have it not me. And pre-ordered Sacred 2: Fallen Angel.

Cold out today, good day to WFH.

Monday, February 16th, 2009

12:48 pm   Rockin Revo

Confession time... I uh... Well, the thing is... You see, umm....

Ok, I bought Rock Revolution. Drums and all. With GHWT and RB2 dominating music/rhythm games lately, almost no one has looked at RR. I found it at a discount and had a gift card, so I went ahead and got it.

And... It's not bad, not nearly as horrible as I expected. I'd go so far as to say it's better than DDRU or DDRU2. It's like Konami finally woke up to modern day consoles and features. Granted, it's a bit ugly and horrible as far as menus go. And there's that awful loading time between, well, everything. But the game itself is fun. The song selection is decent to pretty good. And the challenges are pure Konami Bemani. Perfect play of a passage, blind play, and poison notes all make an appearance.

I had some fun this weekend getting through nearly half the achievements - many more than I have in RB, RB2, GHWT, and GHA. All on guitar, as I set the drums up but didn't play on them yet. Some of the achievements are decent, some of them are way too focused on the high end - Expert appears in many of the remaining ones that I, of course, didn't get. However, most of the rest don't care if you're Beginner or Easy or Medium or Hard, and that's a good thing.

This game is currently on clearance at Target for $10. That's hard to beat. Konami, despite missing the mark and rhythm surge, isn't quite out of it yet. They have lots of work to do to catch up, but they made a decent start to it. The easiest way to describe it is simply RB or GH with a DDR/IIDX/Bemani feel.

Monday, February 9th, 2009

10:56 am   Rou Tine

I'm having an issue that I think the router is the cause of, haven't isolated it yet.

I'll be online just fine, then I'll get disconnected for a couple minutes, then all will be fine once again.

It's happened to my laptop, work laptop, and 360 for sure - the PS3 is a maybe. In fact, I'll be disconnected from the party but remain in the game sometimes, which is really bizarre. I thought at first that it had to do with how many wifi devices were connecting, but now I'm not so sure. I went ahead and strung a wire to the living room for the 360, and it's still being somewhat wonky. I lost voice chat entirely the other night. I rebooted the router, and it was working fine last I checked.

It's just been happening WAY more often lately, and I'm wondering if the router is just dying. It's a NetGear I picked up... 4+ years ago? So probably due for replacement anyway. There's just not much new, and I don't really want to spend much on it. I see someone (Linksys?) finally has a gigabit router with wifi, but it's still only 4 port. Make that an 8 port and under $100, and I'm in. I'm thinking more of $50 limit this time, though.

Monday, January 26th, 2009

01:59 pm   Happy CNY

TSIA.

Monday, January 5th, 2009

06:31 am   Werk

Vacation over, first day back to work. Yawn. Not into it.

Wednesday, December 31st, 2008

11:18 am   Knight TP

Wow, neat. Terry Pratchett was Knighted.

Wednesday, December 24th, 2008

04:52 pm   Hanging

I've been hanging with RedneckNinja for a couple days, having good food an all that. I'm probably headed over GoofyRobo's way tomorrow afternoon/evening for a few before heading home.

Bought Takoyaki pan and some misc things.
Ate Maido and was stuffed, even with horrible service.
Ate Thai Smile and talked to the owner for a bit.
Also ate okay Chinese and Chilis.

Tonight is the night for a family gathering, then another tomorrow before I head out. Shold be interesting.

Monday, December 15th, 2008

08:05 am   Wind Chili

3oF with a -13oF windchill this morning. That's pretty chilly. I got up and out late, and it was still that cold. Ground is all crunchy.

Big week. Need to start/finish my year review doc. The other big event on Wed, with a few things left to wrap up before then. And, of course, the start of vacation on Fri.

I have yet to hear how the D4nte, YakumoFuji, RedneckNinja, DLC, Goat gathering went.

I need to start packing, I'm not sure of the schedule yet but I'm planning on visiting RedneckNinja for X-day and then hit up GoofyRobo/MikiChan after that for a bit before returning home.

I played some Mortal Kombat vs DC and Prince of Persia over the weekend. Got some decent points compared to the past couple weeks of challenges, but didn't win. Others did some last-minute point boosts to score.

I've been having lots of wrist pain, so I've been trying to stay away from the computer and 360 a bit more to rest it. Found my brace, so I've been wearing that as long as I can stand at night. Also took some ibuprofen, which seemed to help both the pain and my ability to fall/stay asleep last night. I overslept a bit.

Watched some football last night, some good games. KC managed to pull a loss despite everything. I've been getting more into football game watching lately, well sports in general. I guess as a replacement for the hockey I want to watch? Anyway, it's something besides the stupid sitcoms and infomercials that are on otherwise. Easy enough to relax to, and I don't care about who wins, really so I don't worry about missing anything.

Anyway, on to the work day.

Tuesday, December 9th, 2008

07:25 pm   What Matters

I have a decision to make.

Do I take the action that shows someone they are being unreasonable?

Do I take the actions that gets me the possession I have been trying for?

There's a cost, real monetary cost, either way. I don't know which it will be.

Sleep tonight, decision tomorrow.

12:53 pm   Leth Orgy

Yeah, I'm still not awake. Between this and that and the other, I'm fried. That's not to say I'm necessarily unhappy. Stressed and relieved back and forth.

There was a really good sale on a Garmin Colorado 300 that I almost went for, but didn't. I'm still trying to decide if I want to donate to CC to get the Joco stuff or not. There's a few other toys here and there that I'm pondering, but mostly just trying to save.

Not been gaming as much as I expected, given the breaks I've had. I've been more into reading and simply vegging. It just feels like my brain is set to low-power mode, so I have no energy to do much. Expended a bit of energy over the weekend, but also took it pretty easy.

There's weather today, which points towards me just heading home and vegging. TF2 tonight, but I don't see doing much more than that. Started playing Chrono Trigger and Ninjatown on the DS, and uh... not much more than that. Lended my Prince of Persia (360) out, or I'd probably play a bit more of that.

I'll know more about stress levels by the end of the week. I need to attend a couple more meetings the next two weeks to take notes (seriously, that's the only reason I'm attending is that my boss wanted good notes from the meetings) and do my end of year review doc, and I'm done. The 16th may be my last day at work for the year, otherwise 17 or 18th will be it.

I'm going to miss the gathering with RedneckNinja, yakumofuji, and d4nte this weekend. I'm very annoyed by that, I would love to be there. Just not happening this time.

Haha is having surgery next week, too. Nearly forgot to mention that.

I started up on Twitter solely to be able to follow majornelson and warrenellis during the day via text. I rarely check it otherwise. It's also nice being able to reply, even though I'm sure it gets lost in the masses. The Twitter as text thing is the first actual real use for it I've seen. It ends up being like RSS for the phone via SMS. Kinda handy.

Back to being brain fried.

Monday, November 24th, 2008

12:28 pm   Vaca

Vacationing from home. It's nice to not worry about work, but I'm falling into the Trap of Lethargy.

I've made some small progress on my LBP level for the AGE contest. We'll see how it plays out.

Otherwise, I've spent most of my time the past week playing L4D. Great game, that.

My intention is to clean up the place, organize, maybe even throw shit out.

I've been letting the cats out more, and they are enjoying that.

That's all I can think of for now as far as happenings.

I have the last 2 weeks of the year off, if anyone has any interest in a visit let me know.

Friday, November 21st, 2008

02:20 pm   Fix TopLap

That was fairly impressive. Got a call from the Tech saying he was 15m out. He showed up right on time, came in, saw the laptop on the counter, and got to work. Asked a couple questions, talked about possibilities, reset the LCD cable, then asked to hook it up to external monitor. I connected it to my projector, and it was working. Unhooked, spent a few minutes fiddling and ensuring it would boot, then left saying that I should get the video card and LCD cable replaced if it happened again. Took maybe 20m tops.

So I'm back to my own laptop. Rock'n.

Thursday, November 20th, 2008

06:14 am   RIP

My laptop died. I did a Dell tech chat, which took an hour in which I fiddled per direction. End result is a call in 2-3 biz days from a tech to set up an appointment to replace the motherboard, processor, and modem. All under warranty. Always get that warranty on a laptop.

Luckily, I have my work laptop with me since today is WFH day before my vacation begins.

Wednesday, November 19th, 2008

08:07 am   NXE and Avatars

So.. NXE... Sucks.

Monday, November 3rd, 2008

08:12 am   Double Show

So we successfully saw Alanis Morissette and Video Games Live. Both were decent shows, although I was slightly disappointed in both. Anyway, thus ends the run of event tickets I had purchased. All in all, it wasn't too bad navigating downtown and finding free parking. Shows seem to be timed to ensure we hit rush hour every time, which was somewhat annoying.

The warm-up for Alanis was Alexi Murdoch, who was.. different. A bit repetitive and simple. Most of the audience was bored during this part, we saw one guy reading CNN on his phone. There was lots of chatter, as well. The couple in front of us had interesting phone wallpaper - the guy's appeared to be both of them nude in bed, and the girl's was two skeletons going at it doggy style.

The warm-up for VGL was LeetStreetBoys - Yuri The Only One

It was a highly amusing way to start, and the first part of the actual show rather paled in comparison. The show did get better, and had some very fun and interesting moments, but felt like it missed the overall target to me. The 'host' bits were a bit stale and seemed disconnected from the rest. It was neat to see the audience participation stuff - playing Space Invaders and Guitar Hero on stage like that must be an experience.

In other news, I'm pretty much over Fable II. Collection and game-ending-choice achievements are all that are left. It was pretty good for a short, simple, casual RPG, but once you're done there's no real reason to go back. No, Fallout 3, on the other hand... Wow. I'm sure I'll be playing that for quite some time. It's like Oblivion in scale, but was done better. No wonky game-ruining leveling system here.

And then, there's LittleBigPlanet. This is an experience. As its core, it's just a simple platformer - run, jump, grab. But the creativity in those included levels is pretty good to start with. It really shines in the community levels, though. I've played quite a few levels, from artistic and musical to plain and boring to old-school tributes with hardcore difficulty. It's all there, and if you don't see it yet, you can make it yourself. 4-player co-op is great when the level is set up for it, sadly most aren't marked as to whether they are or not. That's a nag with the single player, too - some way to denote which ones require co-op for the 100% would be nice. I started playing around with the editor in order to at least have something to enter into the AGE contest, and it's almost too much to wrap your head around. I mean, someone built a calculator in the thing... Impressive. So while not all levels are fun to play, there are some amazing things being done.

Other than that, work. Last week was the 'final' week, even though we always take the extra week. So hopefully no more Saturdays, and a lower stress level until Jan/Feb.

Gears of War 2 this week... Resistance 2 this week... Wow. Another great week for gaming. I'm looking forward to playing both games in co-op. Gears2, the SO is working the release so I'll be able to play that night. I'd take Fri off, but that's the last day for our current project at work. R2 should be a blast if the beta was anything to go by. As long as I can get in a good room with LAG/LeMed/AGE or GP who know what's going on at least a little, it will be fun. I think there's another game or 2 this week and 1 next week, but those are what I'm focused on right now.

We tried a new Japanese place downtown. Takoyaki, finally. It and several others dishes were good. Others were not. In any case, Maido still rules but we can at least get acceptable stuff locally if the craving hits.

Monday, October 20th, 2008

12:15 pm   Done Note

we finally finished watching Death Note. I'm torn between the ending being about as good as it could be and a cop out... We're clear to watch the Live Action stuff now, at least.

Spent most of my gaming time on Saints Row to catch up on the plot/achievements and playing Saints Row 2 co-op with Flying Munky. SR2 is a blast in co-op, apart from some huge annoying issues like not being ablt to shop or buy property or get into the menu.

Still waiting on a coffin for the Elite. Having only 1 360 is rough - we both want to play at the same time. I'm getting my refurb back, so that will help offload some of it.

Still covering for my boss, but at least it's the last day. I don't want their job. I got a bit snippy earlier on a call, so I'll be glad to be done with the extra stress.

It looks like we can hit 5 hockey games while visiting Haha early next year. Haven't figured everything out yet, but that's the plan so far.

I suppose I should end my lunch and head back to work now.

Monday, October 6th, 2008

12:31 pm   Lingerness

Another day where I can't seem to wake up. Probably due at least partly from the weekend, where we slept in and took naps and vegged and generally lazed about trying to hopefully feel better.

I think I've now played all the new games I have, for 360 at least. Somehow, some of them snuck through and I hadn't even booted them yet. I'm waiting to see the count on my x360v summary for the week. I got some quick-hit achievements on various games, played/finished Lost Via Domus. Bad movie/TV game, but seemed shorter/easier than King Kong. Also played CSI Hard Evidence, another bad/boring TV show game. Couldn't quite stay awake long enough to finish it last night, so probably will do so on Wed. The only game I'd really like to get back to is Ninja Gaiden II, which played much more fun than I anticipated.

Won the challenge, of course. Sent encouraging messages to others in theirs. Got the top of the biggest gain from the month in LeMed, at last. Finally have 10 watchers, too.

Not much else, other than work. We did manage to sit and watch Young Frankenstien, whihc came in with the Mel Brooks box from Amazon. Also got Trinity Blood, Samurai 7, The Watchmen, and V For Vendetta. Was late with rent due to the lease renewal. Had mailbox issues trying to pick up my package.

Felt a little sickly, not sure if I've caught something different, if dinner didn't agree with me, or if I'm still not over whatever-it-was.

And.. I'm fried. Done, I mean.

Monday, September 29th, 2008

08:48 am   Forgetful Mobility

We survived the week, though managed to catch the plague. And some wonder why I dislike being among crowds.

The hockey game was fun, although somewhat lame. it started very slowly. The third period finally saw some decent play and fights. Up until that point, the kids little game between periods was the most exciting. I'd like there to be a home team so we could go more often. Or maybe that should be a check mark for the next move.

Then there was the movie on Wed. Turnout was pretty good overall, but the line was short and there was no intro. Movie itself, Eagle Eye, was meh. Someone didn't know the first thing about shooting a good action sequence, that's for sure. Horrible, especially for this kind of movie. The whole I Robot/Portal/2001 thing was very evident.

It was just after the movie that I noticed my throat was sore. I figured it was because I spent a few minutes trying to dislodge a popcorn kernel before the movie. Well, thurs morning I realized that I had contracted the plague. Joy.

Ii spent Thurs at home 'working'. Mostly, it was attending calls. I also played Lego Indy quite a lot, trying to complete it. I ended up playing Halo 3 that night with LAG co-op on Legendary. It was a good time. Did you know that if you headshot a couple of marines in the staging area, the rest get pissed off and attack the party? I couldn't breathe, I was laughing so hard... and trying to not cough up a lung. The others were wondering what had gotten into the NPC marines... Oh what fun.

Fri, I stayed home and ended up working more than I normally do in the office. Was very busy, but I did manage to finish off Lego Indy, except for 1 achievement. Stupid Bomb 5 one wouldn't unlock. Played more Halo, but had to leave earlier than expected due to exhaustion.

Sat, got up and out to the Japan festival. It was alittle better organized than last year, and they had much better food. We found Takoyaki! Not the best, but it was decent. And now we have a line on a local place to get it when we have the urge. Saw the shakuhachi, biwa, shamisen, koto performance. We skipped on the early taiko one, and ended up going to the later performance. Spent some time watching/waiting in line for the candy artist. And also caught a bit of rakugo.

Yesterday, we shopped. Hard core. 21 new games for 360 and PS3, plus other mundane stuff. GS had B2G1. I also got an antenna for the TV, so I don't need to worry about cable - I get enough HD channels for free.

Today has started out great. Overslept, still feeling blah, didn't sleep well, and forgot my laptop at home. I'm going to leave early for lunch, stop at the store for food, and head home to pick up the laptop and eat/relax/quite possibly drug myself to either sleep or coherency.

PS3
Uncharted Drake's Fortune
Unreal Tournament III (for the mods)

360
Chronicles of Narnia Prince Caspian
CSI Hard Evidence
Lost Via Domus
Blacksite Area 51
Need for Speed Prostreet
Tenchu Z
Dynasty Warriors 6
Grid
Warhammer Battle March
Conflict Denied Ops
Hellboy Science of Evil
Bladestorm Hundred Years War
Ace Combat 6 Fires of Liberation
Mercenaries 2 World in Flames
Project Gotham Racing 4
Medal of Honor Airborne
MX vs ATV Untamed
Fight Night Round 3
Spiderwick Chronicles

Monday, September 22nd, 2008

07:32 am   Whassat

Yeah, I've still been fried. got back into LAG/LeMed/AGE gaming nights. On the positive side, it's a blast to play with friendly people 100% of your time. On the negative side, it's so fun that it keeps going well later than normal bedtime.

I went ahead and grabbed a Fujitsu 320GB drive and installed it in my PS3. That should alleviate any space concerns, what with all the game installs and such. When people warn you about stripping screws, they're not kidding - 2 of mine got stripped in the process, and I was being careful. In any case, it was a relatively easy install. It took about 4 hours with the backup/restore taking ~1.5 hours each way. I think I'm going to have to retire that enclosure/drive, too slow.

We did finally manage to see Les Miserables. It was good, and I was riveted to some parts of it. Other parts seemed off, and we noticed several technical errors. I think I've got a separate post in me about that sort of thing. I still have some of the music stuck in my head.

Tonight is hockey, which I'm looking forward to. Wed is a free preview screening of Eagle Eye, which I have no real interest in - but it's free. Sat is the Japan festival, although we haven't seen the signs advertising it like we did last year. Then again, the major intersections weren't under construction last year, either.

I don't recall anything else spectacular from the past week. I've been on a budget kick, so have been eating quite a bit more at home. I've tended to hit the store more often to keep stock, especially since I started the WFH Thurs last week. It's nice, but dangerous. Nice that I can basically roll out of bed to the couch and be 'working.' Dangerous in that, if I don't have anything to do, I can lay on the couch until 2-3pm playing 360 games before finally taking a shower. And it's easy to justify doing nothing when you're removed for everything like that. Still, it would be the same matter of keeping myself occupied if I were at my desk at work.

Next month is a 3 paycheck month. I always enjoy that. I'm trying to keep myself reigned in, otherwise I'm likely to get a new system or something equally expensive.

Looks like I won the challenge this week. Just shy of the 1k I wanted to average. I figure 1k/week average is relatively simple to do, and that gets me moving up on the stats boards pretty well. Of course, this week is so busy I may not get that.

Played Warhawk with a couple AGE folks the other day, and we did trophy hunting. I finally have a decent start on trophies. There's still not enough trophy support on that system as a whole, though. I left it in dedicated ranked server mode for the 4 hours for one of the trophies, which was simple for a Silver level one. I hear that the auto-sizing based on bandwidth screws some people out of it. I didn't see a single player on it while it was running, but I suppose that's not the point.

I'm thinking I'll stay around home for T-day this year. But I'll probably take the usual trip to the IN-OH-KY area around X-mas. So, heads up if you're around there and have openings in your plans for me to stop by.

Other than that, I tried to sleep in and take it easy over the weekend so I could try to get rid of the lethargy for this busy week. Not sure it helped. May consider a doc visit soonish if it persists. Would rather not.

Monday, September 15th, 2008

08:05 am   On Keep In

New work policy: WFH Thurs. So I guess I'll be staying home those days - why not?

Tried to go see a play on Fri, outside. Even with the rain and tornadoes. We got there, waited an hour, then it was announced that the sound board was fried. Annoying. Might try to go back tonight. Oh, Fri dinner was Sushi House. It was okay, makes us want Maido.

Spent quite a few MS points on XBLA stuff and DLC on Sat. Ticket to Ride, Bomberman Live, Assault Heroes, Puzzle Fighter, COD4 Maps, ME DLC, Live Draft Tracker, Live Score Tracker. Some just for the points, some to play myself, and some to play with others.

Went to a party for people from their work on Sun. In the back seat of a Town Car riding through a small town with a Brazilian driver and two people with open containers in the front seat is an.... interesting... experience. Random shouting and honking, and ended up with a motorbike following us back. Watched football, talked to a mortician.

Since we were out so long, laundry wasn't done. I ended up sleeping on the couch, then moving to the bed with just a random sheet. Didn't sleep well, but didn't feel bad enough to call in.

Been trying to get achievements with another LAGger. EA sucks. Their achievements have non-descriptive text, are glitchy, and some are pretty much broken/impossible. And fixes? What, a fix for an older/non-sports game? No. EA sucks. Anyway, we made what little progress we could. Looks like I won the challenge this week.

Tuesday, September 9th, 2008

08:15 am   Slugsh

Work was rough, then I had a few days off. It helped, but I'm still not feeling back to normal. I have, at least, been keeping myself busy at work with coding. I missed coding, it really helps engage my brain and keep it active. I kinda feel like I lose that capacity if I'm not using it regularly. I'm still not all there, but I am making progress.

I've been gaming quite a bit. Put up around 1500 points last week. Finally got that stupid penalty shot in NHL 2K6. It took way too long, considering how it easy it was when I finally got it. I've pretty close to finishing Civilization Revolution, too. They managed to make a Civ game playable in a short amount of time on a console that keeps the Civ feel. Amazing.

I'm in the SOCOM beta. It's.. okay. I'll need more time and maybe a controller remap to get into it. I haven't played SOCOM for.. years. Let's see, probably right after SOCOM II came out.

I'm considering a new machine. Not sure, yet. I haven't really used the ones I have much, but they are pretty old now. I could use more storage, regardless. I'll probably at least get a bigger HD for the PS3. I have a couple power supplies and a case sitting ready to be used, though.

Did some cataloging of my stuff, and have a simplified stuff page going on. My old one was nice, but overly complex. I'll probably end up with something in between due to the current one being a little too simple and lacking features.

Also finally worked up the beginnings of a media gallery script that works exactly as I want it to. Most of the scripts I've come across just don't have the exact combination of features I'm looking for. This one is starting to. I have a few more things to figure out at a base level, then I can work on the combining. I'm very happy with the progress so far.

I have other projects to work on, too. As long as I keep putting at least a little time in each day, I'll be satisfied with the progress. I have so many ideas for the various projects, and I don't devote much time to them right now.

It's looking to be a busy weekend, too.

Tuesday, August 26th, 2008

07:49 am   Human Pub Braid

Well, I did manage to finish the achievements for Pub Games... and afterwards, I was reminded that that crappy MadCatz controller has turbo so I could have used that instead of wearing out my fingers manually pressing A. Doh.

I also made it through Braid, although I still have Speed Runs and the Stars to get. Kinda stupid on the stars, really - one I can't get now, and another takes 2+ hours? Come on, man. Lame. The game itself was short, but pretty neat. I still feel that it wasn't worth the price, but I didn't buy it, so.... Shrug.

Too Human is kinda okay single player. It's much more fun in co-op. It has some major annoyances, but it's a decent game. Not all that like it was supposed to be, but good enough to keep playing. I finished soloing act 3 last night, so I'm getting through it. I hope to finish the game this week, and will then be available for co-opping.

Of course, Disgaea 3 and Tales of Vesperia come out this week, so I'll have those late tomorrow or Thurs after work. Infinite Undiscovery comes out next week, so that'll be 3 RPGs to add to the pile, as if I needed more. I still have barely touched Blue Dragon and Eternal Sonata, let alone the others.

There's a 25% off PSP/PS2/PS3 games coupon for GameStop this week. I'll probably pick up Heavenly Sword at least, if not Uncharted Drake's Fortune as well. Hello, trophies. PSN needs to have a sale on the games that actually have trophies.

Had a busy/rough work week last week. High stress, long hours. And, of course, I was having trouble sleeping to add to it all. Hopefully, I'm back into regular sleep so I can relax somewhat this week. I have a training thing on Thurs morning downtown, so I'll be able to get out of the office then. I'm hoping I can do the work from home thing on Fri, and then have the long weekend. I have Tues off, so that's an extra day to unwind. I was thinking of heading to Chi-town for a LAG get together, but I think I'd rather relax than worry about driving that far.

Oh yeah, I won the challenge last week. I even put in a good number of points. But, no one else did. Yeah, no one else put ANY points in. At all. It was all me. Kinda strange. I'll take it, but.. meh.

Still a but fuzzy and fried. I'm trying to work through that and get moving on some of my personal projects. Of course, work is getting in the way this week as well. What's supposed to be downtime isn't.

Monday, August 18th, 2008

11:55 am   Racked

Took the time to re-catalog the 360 games, then realized once they were all out that it would be much handier to just get a shelf/rack for them and keep them in order that way. Ended up with this. Not horrible, but.. Yeah. Not great, either. Managed to pick up 4 more games, too.

Still need to catalog the DVDs and various other things, but this is progress of a sort.

Work has been busy, not much else to say.

Monday, August 11th, 2008

02:55 pm   Shtaff

Lazy, c/p from x360v.

Woo, managed to win the challenge thanks to Madden 07. GameStop had it in a 50% off bin with a couple others - I ended up getting 2 other 360 games and a faceplate for under $20 total. Not a bad deal. I think the other 2 games were NHL 2K6 and X-Men. The faceplate was Mass Effect.

I didn't think I would be playing much, due to out-of-town guest over the entire challenge. They left on Sun, so I was free to spend 3 boring hours with 30 years of franchise. Yawn. I'm so glad they stopped doing those, even though 07 seemed easier to do than 06. 08 was better overall achievement-wise. I have a bunch of SS achievements left in 07, and probably some misc other ones.

Last night, found a clearance deal at Target on CAG and headed over there. Picked up Kane & Lynch and NBA Ballers for $20 each, new. They had Madden 08 for $15, new, but I already have the points. They also had the 1600 MS Point cards for $15, but I've got plenty of points sitting around as-is.

This week, I'm not really sure what I'll be working on. I missed the secret weapon in CH last week, which was a bummer. I'll probably get back to SCIV and maybe AitD, as well as test out the new games. I find myself not playing the 360 much on non-challenge days - either vegging or PS3/PSP/DS and just doing 360 boots for streak save.

I did watch some of the Olympics. The events I was to watch aren't broadcast normally, and watching them on the streaming site sucks, but works. Archery, Judo, and Fencing were what I watched yesterday. Korea is amazing, having never lost the women's team archery event. USA did well in women's Sabre, I saw some of that. The other Fencing matches were kinda screwey, as was Judo. 5 hour blocks with no indication of where or what you're watching until the actual moment it's on is lame. No commentary, either. And horrible too-long replays. Each point takes 1-5 seconds, and the replays were going 7+ seconds, so you missed a point. Meh.

In any case, work is also busy this week, so I'm not sure how much energy I'll have for gaming.

Friday, August 1st, 2008

04:33 pm   Holly Shite

I did it. Finally. Whew.

Commuted to work via bike this morning, and home this afternoon. A bit over 6 miles each way, 30-40 mins. Going there is harder than coming back. I think I figured out a nice route that doesn't have me in heavy traffic most of the way. I stuck to the sidewalks where I was nervous about rushing drivers or going too slow.

That's one goal for the year off the list. If I keep doing it, though, I might end up in better shape. Or dead.

The only part I didn't really care for was the lack of a shower at work, instead I spent time with paper towels trying to dry off then used deodorant. Not the same thing. My desk fan was very helpful in cooling me off. I did forget a water bottle, so I was very thirsty on either side of the trip.

Monday, July 28th, 2008

01:40 pm   Up Dat E

Not much new to report. Been working on UT3 achievements, with some help and bots. It's a great version of UT, and a real blast to play. Managed to borrow Avatar for the 2 minutes needed to get the full 1k GS. And I finished Open Season, which was easy enough. There were a few sticking points, and it took a bit of time, but it wasn't bad overall. Jumper, however, sucks ass. It's a horrible, horrible, terrible game. Did I mention it was a bad game? Yes, it is. Sadly, the first half of the points aren't very hard at all to get. It's just that the game is so bad, it's not really worth suffering through. Played Turok (sucks) and Dark Sector (confusing), too.

We tried a new Japanese place the other day, Sushi House. It's about as close to Maido as we've seen here. It's just not up to standards and doesn't have the menu. However, the Unagi Donburi (unadon) was awesome. Service was pretty good, too. The tempura was mostly bland and there was no avocado or banana. Gyoza were overdone and meh. Prices seemed a bit too high, too. And, of course, no takoyaki. So it's.. okay. Maybe if you like sushi more than we do, it would be better.

I bought Pain and Pixel Junk Monsters on the $5 PSN sale. Pain is quite a lot of fun in small doses. (yeah, I said that) I'd be a bit happier if some of the UI was cleaner (the Updates screen is ugly and annoying, the insistence on using controller 1 is stupid, and there's no tracking of how close you are to the (internal) trophies), but it's fun. We tried multiplayer, with mixes results... Bowling is a bit of fun, but I'd been playing the game for the past 2 days, and they hadn't touched it yet, so... yeah. PJM is an interesting twist on a Tower Defense game. It's not the best one I've played, but it's a pretty good console translation of the genre. You have to keep moving to pick up the coins and upgrade/place towers, etc. So it's not quite as relaxing as most TD games. It's fun, and not bad for $5.

I got Samurai Champloo from the library, so I was re-watching it. I want to buy it, but I haven't seen the set reasonably priced yet... I'll wait. Also saw the beginning of Scry-ed and Carnivale. Yeah, I'm buying Carnivale from Amazon for $20 a season. With that, and my recent acquisition of Deadwood seasons 1-3, I've got a backlog of HBO series episodes to watch now.

Mixed results from plugging the 1TB into the PS3 and 360. PS3 took forever to decide that it couldn't read anything. 360 found most of the files, and played most of the ones it found. I was rather hoping the PS3 would perform better. In any case, it makes watching anime a bit easier. I tried Soul Eater, but hated it. Basically went through the list watching a bit here and there of various series, I don't recall if anything looked worth pursuing.

Haha is incoming next week, so I started cleaning. There's lots of cleaning to be done. I've been putting it off, then only doing the minimums. I actually mopped floors the other day. Yeah, I know. Me. Mopping. I'll leave the cat's room for this coming weekend, so it will be fresh. Besides, I need to pick up some litter - Target was out last night.

Work is picking up, but I did schedule my vacation days through the end of the year. I've got a bit next week, then in Sept, then T-day and X-mas/NY breaks. I figure on FL for T-day and the usual trip for X-mas/NY. We'll see. I'm open.

I feel like I've started to get my brain back. For a bit there, I couldn't seem to shake the daily lethargy and blur/fuzziness. Still need to kick up the exercise, and I let the diet slip a bit. Overall, though, not doing too bad. I'm seriously considering signing up for basic fencing at the local college just to try to ease back into it.

Oh, got some tea from the owner of the Chinese place. He had it brought back by a relative from their last trip home or something like that. It's supposed to be brewed extra hot. I don't know when we'll get around to trying it, though.

Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008

02:53 pm   Gears

I was greeted with a surprise Fri night...





That's right, Gears of War figures.

Tuesday, July 8th, 2008

02:29 pm   Games

Yeah, another game bargain grab.... between the 20% on already Clearance-marked items at TRU and the 25% off stackable coupon with the 10% off Edge card at GS, I have a couple more games now.

360
Kengo Legend of the 9
Pimp My Ride
Beowulf
DOA4
The Club
Guitar Hero Aerosmith (was a present)
College Hoops 2K7
Fuzion Frenzy 2
MLB 2K6
NHL 2K7
Winning 11 PES 07
Open Season
Ratatouille
NBA 2K7
NHL 07 (accidental dupe)
Earth Defense Force 2057
Karaoke Revolution: American Idol (half price at Target on Clearance)

PSP
Parappa The Rapper
Every Extend Extra
Gurumin
Harvest Moon Boy Girl
Innocent Life Fantasy Harvest Moon

Everything from TRU was under $10

Monday, June 23rd, 2008

02:46 pm   Ball Cache Sagan

Fri boss had tickets they couldn't use to the ballgame, so we went. Not a bad game, and the fireworks after were nice. Traffic getting out was horrible.

Sat, got up early and went to a geocaching breakfast. Horrible catering, wasn't much for me to eat. Played a bit of frisbee, then went caching. Ended up in a small group and got 3, then we realized we hadn't brought water so we headed home. Napped.

Sun, watched the Cosmos marathon. Fun. Carl Sagan had a very interesting speech pattern. I thought he seemed much happier in the early ones.

Also did some stuff around the place, cleaning/organizing/etc. Got rid of the old/huge TV and box finally. Started gathering stuff to bring with on the trip.

I ended up re-installing the entire laptop, I finally got fed up with it being buggy for no apparent reason. Found that some of the software I'd purchased but not activated was waiting patiently for me to active before the license period started, which was nice.

Trip should be good for caching, I hope. I went to the free knife sharpening today and got my old blue butterfly back in shape. Also went ahead and got the maps for the 60CSx, I figure they'll be worth it on the trip. Found a cheaper price online, but with the trip imminent, figured local was better overall.

Actually found a bunch of geocoins I never activated, so did that this morning. Also been working on PQs for the trip. Should be ready in time. Would be nice if the nav in the Jeep supported them, too.

We're going to try to scale back slightly on this trip as far as the mass of stuff we're bringing. I'm leaving the games backpack at home with GH and RB. We're still bringing a 360 in the vague hope I can find WiFi and a TV to keep my 360 streak going. With the PDAs, GPSrs, DSs, and PSPs, I think we'll be set. Some gifts if I can remember to pack (and find) them, too.

It will be a relief to be on vacation. As usual, all the prep is getting to me. Anticipation and all that. Making sure I've got all the stuff I want/need for what we're going to be doing, etc.

The Axim died, so I had the scrounge for a backup. Got it restored and in working order for caching this morning. I'm thinking I may go ahead and uninstall most of the other stuff since I pretty much don't use the thing for anything else.

Firefox 3 rocks. Just need a couple more plugins to catch up, and I'm set.

Tuesday, May 27th, 2008

09:20 am   Why XBLA Is Sucking

Hello, rant-flag. XBLA De-Listing.

Uh, what? Let me get this straight - you are saying that because the Marketplace navigation sucks, you're going to stop making money on XBLA games? That's what it sounds like to me.

If Marketplace is too confusing to navigate, then fix Marketplace. This de-listing stuff seems like both a bad move and a cop out. The games are there, if they are accessible then they will have purchases - making money. Who cares if it is only one purchase for 400 points every few months - last I checked, 10-250MB of storage was cheap. The whole point to XBLA was to have these games around and available for people to purchase whenever they felt like it.

Even discounting the games, having some sort of fire sale, would be a better idea than having them not available. In fact, I would purchase crappy games I didn't much enjoy if they were cheap enough. For some of these games, the price point is too high for the entertainment they provide - fixing that would spur more purchases. As an example, RocketMen is a crappy game (Even though I love the CSG and universe). For 800 points, I'll never get it. For 400 points, I'll think seriously about it. For 200 points, I'll get it if I have the points. For 80 points, I'll go out and buy 1600 points just to get it.

Another idea, as previously mentioned, would be to bundle games and DLC together. Say, RocketMen + DLC + Themes + GamerPics + Joust for 800 points, and I'll be tempted. 400 points, and I'm sold. Even mix it up a bit, Rez + Band of Bugs DLC + Themes + Gamerpics for 800 points and I start to see value. 400 points, and I'm there. This would allow all underperforming Games/Themes/GamerPics/DLC to be bundled and MAKE MONEY rather than sitting there unotuched. And, better than delisting, it's all still there ready to make money 24/7/365.

One of the big PR points is the sheer number of XBLA games available, and now you're saying you want to reduce that number? This makes no sense at all. Sure, there are crap games. There are always crap games. The thing is, they have already been made. They are out there. People will wander buy and buy them on occasion. I find it very hard to believe that removing them is cheaper than discounting them, bundling them, separating them, or otherwise having them available in some form. That whole "Long Tail" thing needs to be kept in mind. You still have new users coming onto the platform, ready to buy games.

Goodbye, rant-flag.

---

In other news, TMBG was pretty good. I was hoping for more, but that many years of expectation builds things up very high. We sat up above on the side and parked right across the street, so it was good to get there so early. Opening act was boring, everyone I saw was pretty restless during it. Everything was a bit late getting started. The way the setlist was constructed was confusing to me, it started ok with Dr Worm, then completely lost momentum for me. It kept doing that - up and down, up and down. The end was definitely an up, though. I can't believe they played Figertips - it was a trip to hear/see it live. The only song I really wanted to hear that I didn't was Anna Ng. Overall, good show.

Target has 1600 MS Points cards for $15 ($5 off). So we went and got some. I also picked up 3 new 360 games, $10, $10, and $12. I forget the titles offhand.

I watched the How It's Made marathon yesterday. I won the GamerScore challenge Sun. Blazing Angels is fun. Shrek is glitchy as hell. NBA 2K6 was a one-game Achievement Unlocked 5 for 1000g.

Bah, work.

Saturday, May 17th, 2008

09:37 am   It Was A Sale

Yeah... Found a sale at the Evil WM.

( 25 Games, $491 )

FIFA gets me the Launch King badge on x360v. The rest pad out my 360 collection, although one or two I've been wanting to get/play anyway.

WE went to a couple other stores before this, and didn't find much. Good thing.

Thursday, May 15th, 2008

08:49 am   Irony

We went and saw Iron Man last night. I thought it was pretty good. There were a couple moments that got to me, took me out of the SoD. The worst was the iron mask being found. Look, it's shown, demonstrated even, to be heavy. HEAVY. So why would one guy hand it to another like it was cardboard? And the second person, receiving it, holds it between 3 fingers along the bottom edge? Um, no?

Anyway, I've been feeling blah still. Vegged, didn't really play anything much. Crashed early, took pills, woke up int he middle of the night to take another, and slept in a little. [ < Previous 50 ]

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