Marble Madness
Hells yeah!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k154KxQ2Sw8]
That is all.
Ghosts of Ascalon – review
I finished my new book last night. It’s based on the Guild Wars universe and really sets the stage for Guild Wars 2 to come out in a several months. Some places are familiar if you’ve played the game, and the book offers a little deeper perspective on the magnitude of certain events that took place in Guild Wars the game. But you certainly wouldn’t have to have played the game, to understand the book.
In most ways I thought it was a great book. Not a masterpiece, but a nice read and well worth the $7.99 asking price. It’s of decent length, but also a fairly light read, so the pages go by pretty fast. The book does a great job of painting the new landscape, 250 years after the end of the first game. But it also illustrates the relationship between the races and the respect, or lack there of had for each other. The biggest complaint I have about the book is there’s a lot of times information feels a bit forced. “What? You haven’t heard about the Foefire? Well legend says…” There’s times were there’s some obvious lines or settings thrown in to appeal to the existing Guild Wars fanbase. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing, I guess I just prefer those moments to be a bit more subtle, than “You’re standing on X, where Y happened Z years ago.” Okay, so it’s not THAT blatant.
All in all, if you’re a Guild Wars fan, I’d call this a “must read”. It’s far and away better written than a common “Fan Fiction”, but it does feel written with a very deliberate purpose. To fill in a bit of the Lore gap between Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2. That’s a lot of information to cover in one novel, and at times, it shows. All things considered, I’d give it an 8/10.
08.18.10Playing Fantasy Football Again
Well after taking a few years off, we started a small Family and Friends League. Andrea is the Commish. She drew for the Draft Order tonight!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JHmylcuXlQ]
Camping at Kanopolis
Took the weekend to go camping for the first time this year. It was just Daisy and me. Andrea was down in Wichita doing some much needed wardrobe shopping. It was nice to get away for a while. It’s nice to be away from the world once in a while and alone in my thoughts. While I’m not a very social person, there’s times when you’re out camping by yourself and about three hours go by and you realized you haven’t said a single word out loud, you feel the need to just start talking, just to say something. I ended up recording a few videos into the camera for no reason. I read a lot of my book, and otherwise just did a lot of thinkin’.
Kanopolis seems like a nice enough lake. I didn’t really stay near the water, I didn’t have a fishing license anyway. But I sure could have. There weren’t that many people camping there at all. Pretty much had my run of the place. And best of all. It was quiet and peaceful! Here’s a few pics of the outing.
My campsite, got a compliment on the car on the way into the campground!
Storms looked to be rolling in most of the evening, but never saw a drop of rain!
Saturday was just too hot for Daisy. She was much more lively on Sunday.
The storms all around made for some cool weather pictures.
The last Blazer post
Well we sold the Blazer. Took about 24 hours after Andrea advertised it at CPI. Asked for $900, got $900. Guess I should have asked for more!
We got it running and took it for a spin. And when we got back in the driveway, I looked at Andrea and said. “I think we should sell it.” She thought about it for a second, and agreed. It was simply a trust issue. We wanted to be able to head to the lake, or hit the road in it to go somewhere, and there was always going to be that nagging feeling in the back of my mind that it could leave me stranded at any time. In reality, we could say that about anybody’s car, but I just didn’t trust the Blazer.
We were honest when we sold it. Said that it had a host of electrical issues when we got it, but we fixed what we think is all of it. A ton of new parts. I really hope it treats the guy well. Said he’s going to use it for a huntin’ wagon. Should be perfect!
It did feel a little weird for a while after it was gone. I get too attached to vehicles. But now that it’s been a day or so, I’m just thinking about the next big thing! Haha. El Camino again?
08.8.10The Blazer has a name!
“Lazarus.” It’s almost even spelled like Blazer. So after a hot day under the car port and with Andrea’s help, we got the Blazer going again. The fuel pump we sent back as bad, probably wasn’t bad after all. I ordered a new sending unit that comes with new wiring for the pump inside the tank. So after dropping the gas tank for the 4th time, and swapping out the units… vroom! Fired right up! Runs just like it did for the two weeks before it died last time. It’s a relieving feeling.
Andrea doing some of the grunt work.
So after all this… I think we’re selling it. No way will we ever get for it what we have put into it financially, I’m prepared for that. But after fighting us every step of the way, I’ll be honest, I really don’t even like it any more. It’s like somebody who you just get off on the wrong foot with, and after that first impression, it’s just too hard to give them a second chance. I mean, heck. The ENTIRE fuel system is brand new now on this thing, but I just don’t trust it. For somebody else, it could go another 100,000 miles, I dunno. And we originally settled on Lazarus because it was cheap and available. We really wanted a pickup truck in the first place anyway.
So I think I’m going to ask $900 and see what we get. We’ll lose some money on the deal, but we learned a lot. I’d never dropped a gas tank before. Fairly good at it now. Never tore this deep into an engine before, and will be a little less timid to do it in the future. So it’s not a total loss. Or maybe that’s just what I’m telling myself. Haha!
07.29.10Andrea is the coolest!
FFXIII Collector's Edition Strategy Guide
Lookie what she got me for my birthday! It’s pretty sweet. To be completely honest, I’m not much of a strategy guide guy. I like at least my first play through a game to be a complete act of challenge and discovery. And when I do need a guide, I usually just use IGN. But this is a little bit different. This is a very nice hardback bound book. It’s certainly exhaustive in its detail of the game, and features tons of great artwork to boot. It’s really a neat item to have and even if a person isn’t a Final Fantasy fan, I could lay this on the coffee table and people would pick it up just out of curiosity.
I really like it. I haven’t finished FFXIII yet so I haven’t really tore through it yet, but it is one of the coolest video game things I own now!
First post of July. Randomness to follow
Aye carrumba. What a crazy few weeks it’s been. I haven’t posted, and really I haven’t been online much at all. The biggest factor has been the promotion I got at work. Our Operations Manager took a new job so I had the opportunity to move up to that position. It’s going to be a new challenge, and one I think I’m definitely ready for. But right now, I’m still carrying a lot of my old duties while we get people trained and it’s a lot of extra hours for now. Eventually though it won’t be too bad.
A family friend, Dave Boyce died this past week and I was hoping we could make it up for the funeral in Woodlawn. I was hoping we could make it up, but our Camaro giveaway and the extra workload would have made it real crazy. I wasn’t that close to him personally, but he’s one of those guys that I just remember always being around when I was a kid and always there whenever I went back to Sabetha. It just goes to show ya that we could all take our last ride any day.
I’ve been walking to work alot lately. It’s only about 5 blocks from the house so 10 minutes is about my daily commute by foot. I don’t know if it’s really contributed, but I’ve lost about 5 pounds in the last month. The last few days have been so damn hot though, 100+ and if I walk home for lunch, I’m just a stinky sweaty mess by the time I get back to work. And nobody wants that.
I finally broke down and got a smart phone. The HTC Hero. Andrea has been dead-set on an Android phone since Nextech Wireless got them in. And I’ll admit, I’ve been sorta itching to jump on the smartphone bandwagon. Having my gmail and calendar with me all the time is REALLY attractive. So I’ve been messing with it for a while so far and really been liking it. The typing on the touchscreen is going to take some getting used to though.
So I think I’m just laying low this weekend. Kinda re-grouping. I have tons around here that needs done, but none of it right away. So for now, back to piddling with this damn phone!
06.30.10Possibly the greatest ad ever.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0vyx9sa99E]
This is part of an entire campaign for Dos Equis about “The Most Interesting Man in the World”. Presumably the idea was originally based on Chuck Norris, but Chuck held out for more cash (as well he should).
The thing that makes this ad so great is the power it delivers in just 15 seconds. He points out a truth that you may, or may not have considered. The “complimentary” salty nuts you find in many bars are actually there just to make you more thirsty… and also buy more beer. Somewhat scandalous if you think about it. But of course if that beer is Dos Equis… that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Notice he doesn’t even say Dos Equis. Hell, he doesn’t even say beer. But the message that Dos Equis is a good beer, is obvious.
It’s stuff like this I wish I could get away with at the radio station. But here… if you don’t say the advertisers name at least 3 times and recite a street address and a telephone number… then to the client it just doesn’t make sense.
06.27.10A Look Back: World Driver Championship
By now I have been hopelessly consumed by gaming, and specifically the N64 for almost three years. I was also full swing into the internet and considered myself “well informed” on all things gaming, and an aficionado on all things Nintendo. Yup, that’s right, I was a Nintendo fanboy in every sense of the term. I mention this because at the time (as a fan of racing games) the best racing game was Gran Turismo. Unfortunately for me Gran Turismo was exclusive to the PlayStation gaming console.
Could I have bought a PlayStation? … let me re-phrase that. Could I have afforded a PlayStation? Sure I had a part time job, I could have saved up the money in a month or two. But could I have bought a PlayStation? Resoundingly NO! As dedicated to Nintendo as I was at the time, the thought of giving Sony a single dollar was almost repulsive. My allegiance to “the Big N” was unwaivering. Even Nintendo’s slogan for the late 90’s was “Get ‘N’ or get out!” And if I couldn’t have Gran Turismo, fine, I’ll just spend my time playing stellar triple-A titles like Ocarina of Time, GoldenEye, Mario Kart… and I would be JUST fine.
However… as a fan I the racing genre I followed the devopment and release of this game probably closer than most would. It has it’s similarities to Gran Turismo: realistic physics, great graphics, detailed environments, etc. It didn’t have the licensed cars though, so what was obviously a Mustang in the game was named a “Stallion”. No sweat though. It was a driving game coming from Boss Studios. I had complete faith in the final product.
While at times my favorite developers don’t live up to expectations, Boss Studios truly came through for me with World Driver Championship. As you (probably don’t) remember, they released another favorite game of mine: Top Gear Rally. This game was every bit as fun, while still being a completely different kind of driving game.
I’ve looked forward to this re-review for a while as I loved the game so much back when it was new. I picked it up recently to discover that the game has actually aged fairly well compared to some of these titles that just are painful to look at. Fun to play and bearable to look at. Looks to be a fun game to re-experience indeed.
In all honestly the graphics are pretty darn good. Certainly pushing the limits of the N64. To up the ante even a bit further there is the normal full screen mode, but also a Hi-Res Letterbox mode that you could select. This offers a sharper picture at the expense of the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. There’s no other performance hit that I could tell so I prefer the hi-res mode.
The game has a very loose character progression, in that you win more races, move up in the ranking and get offered better jobs. For the most part you could end up driving whatever you want as you move on, but there’s a few moments in the game that if you choose to drive for a certain team, you’ll block off a path for ever driving for that team’s arch rival. It’s a nice subtle change from just moving from one car to the next faster car mindlessly.
But what makes all good driving games? Good driving! I use the term “driving game” because really it is more that than racing. The computer cars do offer a nice challenge, but for the most part they are just part of a glorified time trial. The don’t really race against you as much as they run around the track at a certain pace. Still on the tougher courses they can be breathing down your neck, or be the difference between gold or silver.
The cars felt like real cars. They felt heavy and carried some momentum, not only around corners but over hills as well. What looks like a small bend on the map can actually be a tricky corner if set over the crest of a hill. The upwards momentum of your car can kill your downforce for a moment, long enough to slide you off the track if you’re not careful. The more you play the tracks, the better you get at knowing how to react to the environment.
I’d forgotten most of these tracks in general, but as I played more and more I started to remember which corners you had to take it easy on, and which ones you could hammer on through and the cars would stick despite feeling like you’re going a bit too fast. I guess that’s one of the things that made the experience so enjoyable. You really felt like you had to push the cars to their limits to achieve the fastest times.
The game is plenty long too. I didn’t get as deep into it as I once had, but deep enough to be able to appreciate some of the “remixes” of the tracks. Every track had at least two variations. They were the same for the most part, but one alignment might take you through a forest chicane, while another version lead you through 90 degree turns through a small village. Track memorization is still key, but changes enough that you aren’t a mindless zombie after just a few hours with the game.
As realistic racers go, this was the cream of the crop on the N64. And in my opinion STILL one of the better ones today. I had no problem getting into this game again and enjoying it all over again. In fact this re-review has lead me to appreciate some of its qualities even more and hope I don’t hesitate another 5 years to pick it up and do it all again!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-5vowmuOoM]