Ramblings from the barstool.

I’m back again this week from my favorite wing joint, Taco Mac Metropolis. I’m still getting the hang of my fairly new Windows 7 Starter Edition Netbook. There’s a few quirks to still work out, but it’s getting there. This week’s game reviews are BioShock 2 and Borderlands.

BioShock. I’m not really sure why the original FPS bagged my attention. Maybe it was the graphics. Maybe it was the environmentally haunting musical score. Maybe it was the idea that a modern-day Atlantis could have been constructed in the 1940/1950s. BioShock 2 picks up 10 years after the original with a whole new story where you play as one of the complexly unknown Big Daddy characters designated as “Delta”. The way 2K Games constructed this edition of the series was very intuitive. By slyly mentioning events and characters from the original, you don’t miss anything if you didn’t play the first, but you can’t help but snicker with laughter every time you run across a reminder if you did. Continuing with the use of the Unreal engine (Gears of War, Unreal Tournament, etc.), the graphical detail and response speed are as awesome as with the first. The new multiplayer feature seems to have real potential, but I haven’t really tried it out (I’m the story player, remember?). I completed the game on the middle difficulty in about 4 days with a good collection of the achievements. I’ll need another go ‘round to get more of the achievements, but it’s definitely worth the play. I’m happy with spending the full $60 on this one.

Borderlands is the most addictive game I have played in quite a while. The graphics and game mechanics play out like a comic book, which I’ve always found to be a really cool way of presenting a game. The world is massive. Unfortunately, like Red Faction, the quests get a bit monotonous; however, they are much more challenging and varied. From first inserting the disc into the tray to finally looking at the time before bed, I had spent the better part of 8 hours behind the controller. Woah. I haven’t had a game trap me in that hard in a while. But, I’ve gotten my fill as I don’t have that sort of time to devote to games these days, with having a GF and a house and all. ;) If you do, go for it!

Well, I’m out till next round. Besides, I’m completely fascinated with Olympic Curling at the moment, and I don’t know why…

 

l8rz!

Returning to the depths of Rapture…

Yay! Bioshock 2 is in the mail on its way! I’ve been in full anticipation for its release ever since the first announcement 2 E3s ago (that’s Electronic Entertainment Expo for the uninformed). I hope to have some extended time with it this weekend, but V-Day has already been claimed by my GF. I seriously doubt I’ll finish it in 2 days, but I should at least have a write-up next week for ya.

Guitar Hero World Tour. Yes, I’m finally at the 4th release in this really long series. Having played II, III, and Aerosmith, it was time I finally delved into the band aspect of Guitar Hero. My response? I SO WANT THE DRUMKIT!! I’ve only had time to work my way through the “life as a guitarist” story, but this will be another game I’ll be adding to my library soon… as soon as I spend next month’s game budget on Final Fantasy XIII. ;) I will have to say, nothing is quite as entertainingly screwed up as watching a digital recreation of Ozzy Osborn singing “La Bamba” (with Sting as your bass player and Travis Barker from Blink-182 on the skins). My GF told me a hilarious conversation she had with a coworker about guitar gaming:

Coworker: We were playing Rock Band the other night. I was all hyped up and thinking I was cool. As soon as I started playing, I couldn’t hit a single note. I failed us out in no time. Guitarist are gods. A couple chords on a guitar and the panties drop. No one ever got laid by playing a guitar game.

GF: Keith did.

LOL! That’s awesome! And the best I can do is 5-staring the “Medium” setting. She loves her dork. ;p~

 

l8rz!

But, I’m with the band… (parte duex)

Where did I leave off? A yes, the Artist pass. We did not realize the true power of this simple laminated card until the second day. My GF has a bad habit of overstepping defined lines of security; mostly out of absentmindedness. OK, well, I’ve seen her do it twice. Anyway, she noticed a friend of hers working for the sound crew that we did not anticipate to be on the cruise. She hopped into the “secure” area behind the stage to say hello, not thinking about the fact that cruise goers were not supposed to be back there. Apparently, the security detail lurched for her, but quickly stopped once he saw the pass around her neck. Heather neglected to tell us that as long as we wore that pass, we could go behind stages and sit in the artist listening area for the Skynyrd show. To be honest, we didn’t take advantage of the pass’ power except for the Skynyrd show. I sat next to Kevin Kenny of Drivin’ and Cryin’. I didn’t want to bother him as he was there to listen to Skynyrd with the woman on his other side (his wife/gf/lady friend I would assume), so I never actually talked to him. But I sat next to Kevin Kenny…. Heh. Surprisingly, most of the artists, other than Skynyrd, walked out and about in the crowd while they weren’t playing. Over the course of the cruise, we talked with Dan, lead singer of Hill Country Revue, at one of the bars (he told me he had a huge crush on Heather once I said we were her friends), Phil from Molly Hatchet, Paul from Hightide Blues, Tom Hambridge and his agent, Richard Turner (he was pretty quiet) from Blackberry Smoke and his wife Mary-Anne (sp?) (who sat with us late night), along with others I can’t really remember. My brain suffered a social overload at some point. Heather introduced us to the rest of Oakhurst (AP, Kruller (the happiest man alive), Max, John, and Loomis), of which I think it’s safe to say they befriended us. Zach came to Atlanta to play for Heather’s live CD, so we partied with him, his wife, and Heather after the show. There was always a late night show where Francisco Vidal or Scott Munn (or both) would perform covers joined by various people from the different smaller bands. Zach seemed to play with everyone. By the second evening, we kept asking, “Where’s Zach? Oh, he’s on stage.” Heather aptly titled him the “banj-ho”. Since my GF wore her “I <heart> my dork” T (it received a lot of good comments), we decided that Zach’s wife is getting a “I <heart> my banj-ho” T for her birthday later this year.

On our third day (second full day), we docked in Cozumel for 8 hours. Heather, Ralph, Zach, Loomis, Kruller, John, my GF, and I rented scooters to tour the coastline outside the city for the afternoon. AP originally joined us, but ended up staying in town due to a pretty rough night before (it was his birthday). Our first stop was a Mexican cantina for real fish tacos (corn tortillas and fresh fish), tequila shots, and Mexican beer (I was happy to see they had Sol). You can tell this place was used to catering to Americans. English was spoken better than some places in Atlanta, and they had running water. I will tell you, however, taking a dump in Mexico is odd. They won’t let you put the TP in the toilet. There’s a trashcan next to you lined in a plastic garbage bag. They must change it regularly since there was no stench in there. Anyway, as we walked in looking for a place to sit, Scott, Nick, Kenny, and Ron from BonePony invited us all to join them and pulled up tables. They had rented a Jeep instead of scooters. After food, we toured the coastline more working our way around the west outside the city. I’ve seen the clear water of the Keys and grew up in the muddy waters of the southeastern seaboard, but I’ve never seen water as blue as I saw in Cozumel. It was like living in a postcard. Our next stop put us at a tiki-mexi-Rastafarian-type bar. As we parked the bikes, sitting there was none other than BonePony, again, and Hightide Blues. Jokes and stories ensued. I found a hammock next to Kruller and Loomis. With my $2 Sol, I felt like every George Strait, Kenny Chesney, and Zac Brown song I’ve ever heard about Mexico. No wonder they never want to leave. The temperature was beautifully near 90 with a cool breeze. And this is in January! I didn’t move for almost an hour. Unfortunately, our time was limited, so we continued our bar-hopping for one more stop, then returned to town and the boat.

We made a lot of new acquaintances that week; many we hope to see again next year. Oh, yes. We will be going, again. Heather said she is even going to try to get us officially registered as her crew this time. Might as well since she kept introducing us as her entourage. ;) Our first vacation together, and a first real vacation for both of us in many years. It’s something this gaming techogeek definitely needed.

So how did we get home? Ha! Here’s the funny part. The rattletrap said it’s final farewell about an hour and a half from home (almost 30 minutes from where we blew the tire on the way down). A blown head gasket. I wasn’t all that worried as my GF has family not from from that location. Ralph had family not far as well, so we had a place to stay if needed. But, it was getting dark, we were not used to the cold since we had been in warmer climates all week, and we were sitting on the side of the road with hangovers and lack of sleep. Luckily, 3 of the bands Heather had befriended were not far behind us on their way back home. In twos we loaded up with each of our rescuers. John and Charlie with Hightide Blues, Heather and Ralph with Blackberry Smoke, and us with BonePony. I cannot begin to express my gratitude to these guys for taking time out of their trips to accommodate us. Scott, Nick, Kenny, and Ron are a great bunch of guys. They took on almost complete strangers (other than our quick meeting at lunch on Cozumel) to help us home. Thank you so much for your help and goodwill. You are more than welcome in our home if you ever need a place to stay while in Atlanta.

Whew. What a story. What a week. Memories that will last forever; or, at least, until next year! :p~ Thank you Sixthman! Thank you Heather!

 

w00+!

But, I’m with the band… (part 1)

It has been a little over a week since my return from Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Simple Man Cruise 2010. It’s taken me that long to recover. 4 days of music on open water (minus the 8 hours we spent on Cozumel). One of the most defining comments I heard on the boat describes the whole cruise. “Nowhere else will you see this many drunk rednecks and no fights.” I felt sorry for the Carnival crew as they are probably more used to serving calmer and non-riotous customers. By the last evening, I noticed the staff behind the bar was singing and dancing with the music of the late night “super-band” of Scott Munn, Francisco Vidal, Zach Daniels from “Oakhurst”, Heather Luttrell, Walter Ray, and Paul McDonald from “Hightide Blues”. I’m pretty sure they were just celebrating the fact that all of us crazies were getting off the boat the next morning, but it was at least good to see them loosening up. :)

So where to begin. Well, I had been trying to find the funding to go on a Sixthman cruise since the first Rock Boat back in 2000. Last year, along with Heather’s convincing, I was able to talk my GF into booking. Little did we know what was in store for us over those 4 days. As I’ve mentioned before, we’ve become pretty good friends with Heather Luttrell and her band which consists of Ralph Luttrell (her father), Charlie Wooten, and Hoffa. John McKnight sat in as drummer for Hoffa since he couldn’t make it. Our trip began bright and early Wed morning before sendoff as Heather and boys picked us up in a rattletrap 1991 Ford passenger van borrowed from a friend. Now when I say rattletrap, did this thing ever rattle. You had to slam the doors with the force of a small elephant just to get them to securely close. At it’s top speed of 65mph, when you open or close all the windows, the roof would make a popping sound as the aerodynamics and pressure changed around it. I still think there was an automatic airfoil (like on the Porsche or Audi cars) up there just readjusting. ;) Anyway, about an hour into our trip, the poor thing blew a tire. An hour and a half, a call to AAA (since we couldn’t find the jack), and a stop at the nearest Wal-Mart for 2 new tires (the spare was bald), we were back on the road. Aside from John’s hysterical sense of humor and constant jokes, the rest of the 6 hours went by pretty uneventful as most of us caught up on our sleep. Sixthman sponsored a “send-off” party at a bar in Tampa, which we attended. We had never been on a cruise before, so we didn’t really meet a whole lot of people there. The beer was cheaper than what I’m used to paying, so I was happy.

The next morning, we all piled down into the lobby of the hotel with the other bands for our VIP shuttle to the port. Now Heather had worked it out with Sixthman about a month before the trip that my GF and I would be boarding as her “staff”. We just thought that just meant we got to avoid all the lines getting on and off the boat and that was it. I will say, avoiding that waiting line was one of the biggest treats I could ever be thankful for. I later heard there was up to a 2 hour wait in that thing. After boarding, Heather and Ralph dragged us to the nearest bar on the deck for their traditional “frozen fruity rum drink”. Afterwards we split off to our cabins to claim our luggage. At this point, we pretty much assumed we probably wouldn’t see Heather again except at her shows, which we were fine with. So after 2 hours of orientating ourselves with the layout of the boat and music stages, we headed to the nearest bar for drinks and listened to Molly Hatchet performing on the deck stage. Amazingly enough, even with 2200 people on the Carnival Inspiration, there was so much room. In some sections, you would hardly see anyone. I will say, the deck did stay pretty packed, but there was still plenty of room to move around without having to bump into people. On our way to the next show Heather flagged us down. As she handed us our “Artist” passes, she added, “Let’s go eat. I’m starving.” If you’ve ever been on a cruise, you know how it works. The food is 24/7 (or 24/4, in our case). I did discover that the bars close at midnight with one remaining open until 4am, however. This pretty much was the case for the rest of the trip. Our day would begin once we finally got up (usually from me waking up around 10a or 11a). I’d beeline for the nearest coffee pot, we’d grab a small breakfast (or whatever they were serving), then head off for our hair-of-the-dog. I finally learned that a bloody mary breakfast really works. After a couple of hours, Heather would find us or we’d find her. We’d travel around between shows together for the rest of the afternoon and evening except when she had to perform (which we’d watch from the crowd). Now by travel, I mean at a snail’s pace. It would take her 45 minutes just to go 100 yards. I found it quite entertaining to watch her get stopped by people asking for pictures, autographs, and some regular conversation. Heather obliged them all, of which I am very proud of her. She really appreciates her fans. I’ve also never seen her revered in this sense before. She and Ralph are “gods on the water,” and it showed in both of them. They both performed with enthusiasm I have never seen from either of them in their regular hometown performances.

I feel like I’m writing a novel here. Since this is getting retartedly long for a blog, I’m breaking it up into multiple posts. Come back tomorrow for the power of the Artist Pass, the banj-ho, partying like a rock start, and scootering Cozumel, along with the grand finale.

 

l8rz

I <3 Deadpool.

He’s such a crackup! Click the pic for a larger image.

Coming back around.

Staying on top of this social networking thing is becoming more and more difficult. My resolution for the year wasn’t to spend less time on Facecrack, although it should have been. Work has been keeping me pretty busy with the new year, and by the time I get home, the last thing I want to do is sit in front of a computer. I finally caught up on all my webcomics yesterday. My RSS reader is still full of feeds left to read, though. However, despite my lack of free time, for all you interwebers out there I’m back with 4 quick reviews. I have been gaming a little too much, lately. Of course, being furloughed for a week and having a week holiday (tallying to two weeks off) during the cold winter season didn’t help. :) I’ve Gamefly’d my way through 3 titles, plus, I bought ODST the next day after my last post.

I had to try out G.I. Joe. I was a fan of the cartoon as a kid and loved the new movie. Unfortunately, the game was designed more for kids. It was fun, but not my usual bag. I do have one thing to say about it: there should be requirements for games if they’re going to start them out at $60. I mean, G.I. Joe should have sold for a LOT less as its opening price. There were no efforts put in to make the characters look humanly realistic. The landscape was expansive, but there were limits to where you could roam. The play control was sluggish as well. All of this I would expect from a game targeted at kids, but not worth $60. Gears of War is well worth the $60 price tag.

I’ve been slowly getting back into our Wii. My GF got it from her parent’s last Christmas mainly for the Wii Fit. Turns out, she’s more hard core about her workout, so the Fit wasn’t enough for her. That just means more Xbox time for me. :D At least, until she found out about Super Mario Wii… So Gamefly shipped me London Rush Hour Taxi. Not a bad game. Getting used to driving with the Wii controller was a bit difficult to start with, but once you get the hang of it, it’s pretty fun. However, my desire for a challenge and difficult puzzles goes beyond a driving game these days. I can’t even get into the Project Gotham and Forza series any longer than one evening. Taxi went back the next day.

Red Faction Guerilla. Here’s another “meh” I ran across. The graphics are well done and the landscape is massive! However, after a couple hours of gameplay and knocking out the first section, I was bored to tears. The monotony of the demolitions and guerilla-type “missions” you undertake gets old, fast. It’s worth a rent if you have some time. However, I wouldn’t recommend buying it until Gamestop drops the price to $20 on the “Previously Owned” list.

OK. Here’s one that’s been going around and around on the net. What is your take on Halo: ODST? To be honest, I love the Halo story. So to me, getting ODST was like buying the next in a series of books. Now, as far as the difficulty, I was quite disappointed. You start out the game as the “Rookie” (isn’t that typical). You’ve been passed out in your drop ship for the last 8 hours and wake up to Mombasa in shambles in the late evening. If you haven’t played yet, I’m not sploitzing here; this is all shown in the promo videos. You’re wandering around the city trying to catch up with your other ODST buddies (i.e., the rest of your 5 man and one bitchy ranking officer woman squad). As the Rook finds the remains from where his other teammates were, you run through their story as them. I found this to be a quite intuitive method for telling the story. But, like I said, the difficulty of the game is not like playing Legendary in Halo 2 or 3. I finished ODST on Hard the first go ‘round fairly easily. Normally, it takes me quite a while to tackle Hard without help. I even managed to rack up a good bit of the achievements along the way. Of course, the ODST's are human. They can’t take the beating that cyborg Master Chief can. You get shot in the head once, you’re dead. The ending is not something I have come to expect from the crew at Bungie. It was quite weak and more like one of those sappy “Hollywood endings.” This is probably why the game has gotten so much flack. My guess is Microsoft (or whichever execs are signing Bungie’s checks) forced them into a quick release for the series. That always equals some sort of bad result. Sadly, I haven’t had the calling to pick ODST back up and try out Firefight mode. I don’t play online that often, and most of my “Friends” are not Halo aficionados. I’ve been mesmerized by Soul Calibur IV lately, for some reason. And I’m not that big into fighting games (although I do own a few).

Oh, I almost forgot. I got Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 for Christmas. I got stuck in one spot, so I quit playing. I’ll probably end up starting over. Quickly, I have likes and dislikes over the first (Marvel Ultimate Alliance), but I’ll tell you more about them later. If you’re a Marvel comic fan like I am, you’ll like it either way.

I had a good rant thought up about how gaming has changed (even with me) since Microsoft introduced the Gamer Achievement system, but I’ll save that for another time since this is already too long. BTW, according to Sakusen, “…2010 is not the start of a new decade…”. “It’s the end of the decade.” Just saying. :)

 

l8rz

Soggy review.

So I mentioned that I rented “Wet”. Yeah, the demo may have reeled me in, but the over all game was not quite as reeling as I expected. The “bullet time” (ala Max Payne) or “tequila time” (John Woo’s Stranglehold), or whatever you want to call it, is pretty frikin’ (hah hah… my spell check suggests firkin’) awesome; but… It gets really old, really fast. I like the game. I just wouldn’t put it at the top of my “loved it” list. The graphics were very well done, and I’m extremely impressed with the soundtrack. To be honest, if there were actually a CD Soundtrack for the game, I’d buy it. The thing I was most impressed with is that the game plays out like an actual movie. This is a concept I haven’t seen much of in quite a while. My best example is “7th Guest” era and that one that came out for the Playstation (that’s PSOne, for you younglings) in its early days (“D” or something like that). I’m not talking a movie adaption game here, either. This is a story exclusive to the game… I could even see this becoming a movie someday (hell, Max Payne did it). Well, so long as Ewe Boll doesn’t direct it. To be honest, he’s not a bad B-Movie director, but that’s for a-whole-nother rant (and I do mean rant). The characters are well developed. Even Eliza Dushku voices the main character, Rubi. Eliza made her breakout in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Angel” as well as rolls in miscellaneous movies along with more recent TV series like “Tru Calling” and, the currently running, ”Dollhouse”. She seems to work with Joss Whedon a lot. ;) Whoa… according to IMDB, her starlet debut was a voiceover part in 2 episodes of the the “Jem” cartoon series in 1986. Now that takes me back. :p~

So overall? Not a bad renter for solo players, like myself. The gameplay gets monotonous pretty fast, but if you can keep interested with the storyline, you’re good till the end. Unfortunately, I lost interest after two levels. Probably because I had just finished Batman before this (it is now on my “to buy” list). I rated “Wet” 6 out of 10 at Gamefly. It has an average rating of 6.5.

“Borderlands” is next on the list, but the availability is low so we’ll see what comes next. I still haven’t picked up “Halo: ODST”, yet. What is wrong with me?!? I’m not that broke.

 

l8rz.

A thankful day, and a reminder…

Yes. Like most everyone else, I’m going to post my Thankful Day givings and what I’m reminded of this one day out of the year. I find it completely tacky that it takes a simple holiday celebrating the founding of my Country to remind me of all the things I’m grateful for. This is something we should all do on a daily basis; however, we get so wrapped up in our societal misgivings and day to day transgressions. This wholeheartedly sucks, but it’s better than not remembering at all…

I can never make myself fully appreciate the love of my immediate family. They have supported, assisted and encouraged my trip through life in more ways than I can ever repay. Along with the creation of a family of my own, I have recently been adopted by a new “family” that has also accepted me (thanks to the love of my life) as a new member over the last year. You have all shown the unconditional respect and caring that I can only hope to return at some point in my life (if I haven’t already tried).

Even as I grow more irritated with the political stupidity of the masses that I must coexist around, I can still never fully express the respect I have for our militia and public service (law enforcement, fire department, emergency medical technicians, etc): the young and old of our men and women that give or have given their lives to unconditionally serving country and community (whether I fully agree with the reasoning or not). Your service has provided me with the ability to sit here and rant, celebrate, and/or complain about whatever I want without restriction. THANK YOU for doing what I’m not sure I could nor would do!

Last, I am thankful for video games. Without you I would be a completely unmanageable ball of stress that my love would never be able to handle. You provide me with a virtual release to mutilate enemies, rescue those in distress (mostly, damsels), and explore worlds I can only barely imagine. I am also thankful for computers. Without you, I would not have a career, a form of income for which to afford my video game addictions, nor this blog. ;)

 

Happy Thanksgiving, all!

l8rz.

Time for a little catch up.

After a loooong day of fixing computer issues, I’ve plopped me arse in a stool at Taco Mac. Nothing beats TM for their beer selections and TMI wings. The ultimate “come down” after a hard day at the office. I don’t know how long my battery will last, so let’s go with it.

Yeah, considering this is the “Ramblings of an IT” yadda, yadda, I’ve never actually posted anything relating to computers. Mostly gaming stuff. I spent an exuberant amount of time today trying to find a way to parse through a txt file, remove all the “newline” (EOL, CRLF, \n, etc) entries, and replace them with a space to put all the text on one line. I thought this would have been an easy task with sed or awk (I’ve been scripting in UNIX waaay too much lately), but it didn’t turn out as simple as I thought. If anyone has any insight on this, please fill me in. Also, I’m psyching myself up for learning PowerShell, WinRM, and WMI scripting for remote management of Server 2008 Core systems. Unfortunately, the other rigormaroo of day to day tasks just keeps getting in the way. As I find simpler ways to script things, I’m might be so inclined to start posting them here… if the answer isn’t already all over the interweb via Google. I will fill you in on a little secret. My newest Windows command line tool friend is ‘dsquery’. You can pull all kinds of info out of AD (that’s Microsoft Active Directory, for the computer illiterate) with this thing. And fast, too. Must faster than using the Active Directory Users and Computers MMC (dsa.msc) plug-in.

Ok, ‘nuff ‘puter talk. On to games (as usual). I’ve been moving through my Gamefly queue a little more now that life has settled down (sic stat: the new house is in a livable state). Don’t kill me on this one, but I actually rented Onechanbara. Yes. It was completely horrible; hence, the reason I added it to my rent queue instead of buying it. Graphics, soundtrack, cut scenes: it all sucked. The only plus? Gore. Tons and tons of bloody zombie splatter. I like to call it “stress relief”. Next! “Batman Arkham Asylum”. Now this one does not sux0rz. I’ll admit the Riddler challenges are annoying, but once you get used to how they are presented, they get pretty predictable and easy. If there weren’t so many, it’d be a Joke. Ha! Get it? Joke? … Nevermind. Just play the game. The voice actors do an astounding job (including Steven Blum, aka, Spike Spiegel from Cowboy Beebop). The graphics are schweet. Play control is… eh… But over all? R0x0rz! Oh, and Harley… H O T!! I have “Wet” as well, but it’s been sitting on the TV until I finish the Batman story mode. The demo was awesome. It was a little to reminiscent of Max Payne, but I’ll give more detail after I’ve played the full game.

Oh, and Gordon Biersch Marzen for the win! w00+!!

 

l8rz.

Site layout addition.

So I decided to add something new to the blogsite >>>>>>>>>>

(*** EDIT: I'm an idiot who doesn't even know my own page. ;) Link fixed below ***)
(oh, for those reading this through feeds, links, etc, go to http://foundprophet.blogspot.com/ to see what I'm talking about)

Well, it's not a dancing hamster, but at least you have something to do while you're rambling through the old posts. Heather Luttrell. My bartender, my GF's good friend, and one hell of a "Soul Honkey" (as she so entertainingly put it). Next time you're trolling the Atlanta area for some blues and jam, you can catch her at Blind Willies on N Highland about one Tuesday a month, regularly at Vinocity on Fri or Sat, or in her home bar at the East Point Corner Tavern.

Wow. That was a completely shameless plug, but... she's awesome, dude!



l8rz!

Coming around...

Two months of finally settling down, and who knows how many since the last time I was here...

Yeah, so the wiles of buying a house will send you down a new path of confusion and excitement all at the same time. And exhaustion... tons of exhaustion. So I find myself sitting in my bar in the corner for the first time in a while. It's interesting watching everyone I know carry on in their usual wild (translated: loud) manner and listening in on conversations I really don't need to be hearing. But this is who I am. The fly in the corner. ;) It's actually relaxing compared to the usual hustle and bustle; not to mention, the crazyiness I've been involved in for the last two months. So in my moment of "zen" and separation, I think it's time for a game review. Too, this is to get myself back into the gaming world. I've only been able to play once since the middle of July between moving and loosing the bulb to my projector.

Fear 2: Project Origin
Yeah, this one's been out for a while, but It's my latest on the Gamefly list. And, I was in the middle of playing it before the move. I really like the Fear series. I purchased the first one (later, used, on discount, of course) with the anticipation of the shock factor the commercials advertised. Project Origin continues the story as a prequel to the first game. The storyline keeps you wrapped in, but like the first game, there's a good deal of "run and gun" you have to go through to actually make it to cut scene. This is my one disappointment with the series. It's literally just a "shoot 'em up" designed primarily for the multi-player action. They spend too much time in between AMV sequences, where I get bored and just turn the game off. I'm one of those weirdos that love TPS (third person shooters, for the uneducated) purely for the one player action. I don't get involved in Xbox Live! that often, so my primary concern with a game is not the multiplayer capabilities. The upside is I can't make myself send the game back, yet. There's just enough of the infrequent, make you crap your pants because of something jumping out of nowhere moments that I just have to keep playing. It's a sick obsession, I know. ;) But, if you get a chance, give the game a go. The graphics and audio tracks are astounding. Not to mention, the gameplay is extremely fluid. I'm completely enthralled with the exploding enemies at close range with the shotgun. :p Would you expect any less from a Halo and Gears enthusiast?

So that's it from the bartop for tonight. Hopefully, in the next month, I'll be ranting from the "Batcave".


l8rz!

Support law enforcement families this Sat!

Afternoon all! Just a quick note then back to my weekend… errr, I mean… work. ;)

MJ’s supporting a blogathon this weekend for Police Wives Online:

Note to Self: Note to Readers: HELP!

Her fiancé, and my GF's brother is a patrolman. From the blog site: "Donations will benefit the many programs at Police Wives Online including the H.U.G.S. (Helping Uplift Grieving Survivors) program and a newly created scholarship fund for law enforcement families." Stop on by and show 'em how much you appreciate your officers, and their wives (no, not in that manner, you sicko!). The goal for this year is $1k.

Meanwhile, my 360 came back Wed, so I'm a little preoccupied at the moment. Get back to you. ;)

l8rz!

Nerdiness

I don’t really care much for Ubuntu, but they have made huge strides in introducing Linux to the not-so-technical home users. Countdown to the new version:

 

l8rz.

So much for weekly…

But, I’m still getting back into this, at least. ;)

Newayz. The weather as of late in the ATL (and most of the South, for that matter) has been cool and damp. I know, you’re thinking, “Yeah. So?” This is fairly unnatural for the Southern region of the States this time of year. Or, so it seems unnatural from the weather patterns that we’re used to experiencing when it’s not an el Niño or la Niña season. (From the little bit of “Es-pan-yol” that I remember, I really don’t get using son and daughter to define a season, but that’s for another rant. Regressing….) This cool dampness is non-so helping towards my aged ailments of sinuses and joints. Also, with the teasing weekends of warm sunshiney (did I just type, “sunshiney”?) days, I’m ready to get out of the house and enjoy the comforts of nature’s warmth (i.e., I’m ready to lay out in the sun).

On another note, last Fri, I finally set my poor 360 on its trip to Seattle for repair. I’m hoping it won’t take any more than 2 weeks. I’m jonesing to play my GameFly rentals, X Blades and Golden Axe: Beast Rider. I’ve already had them 3 weeks and not been able to play.

Oh. I need to clarify this, as I’ve made some changes. For those of your Facebook’ers and Multiply’ers, the origination of Beware the Tourists is at Blogger. For the lazy (like me), there are RSS  (definition here if you have no idea what RSS is) links off to the top right. I finally upgraded to the newer templates not long ago; hence, the layout has changed ever so slightly.

 

l8rz.

Continuation from this AM

Caffeine assimilated. Insanity adverted.

So the main problem is the fact that once again, I am shipping my 360 back to Microsoft for repair. For those of you that don’t remember, the DVD drive died a while back. Luckily, I’m still under that 3 year window for the flashing red lights problem. I’m going to give props to Xbox Support today. As mentioned above, I came home to the “3 Light Red Ring of Death” last night on my 360. Once the grouch beast was tamed this morning, I attempted to submit my repair online. This became difficult as I’ve changed email addresses on my Live! account since I last registered the system. Long story short (and a 20 minute phone call to Xbox Support, mostly spent because of me trying to track down my old mailing address), the girl very easily transitioned my registered email address. That was pretty frikin’ cool. I figured I would be on the phone for hours trying to track down the right person who would know how to do that. As if you can’t tell, I prefer talking to computers instead of people for support. So, now I wait for the shipping box to show up and Microsoft to ship me out a new system, just like last time. Whoopee. The rest of my “numbered list” was just annoyances of little things you hate having to wake up to. My Comcast internet connection has always been flakey, at best. Sometimes I wonder, with all the environmental factors that set it off, would I have been better off with satellite? ;)

So, yup. I’m back in the fold. My goal at this point is to post something weekly. Now, I could sit her like other bloggers and rant about the economy, or the government, or what some other blogger has posted. But, I tend to avoid all that here. I’ll give my opinion, and occasionally a link, but don’t expect anything too personal. Also, being that I have the potential for a whole new class of readers, I’ll try to keep it much tamer this go round.

BTW, I now respond to "Bubbles”, and I’m pretty good at juggling chainsaws… naked. ThX, MJ! ;)

 

l8rz!

Wonderful morning…

This has turned out to be a pretty crappy morning so far… Because I’ve barely had enough coffee to even start going, I’m borrowing a friend’s “bulleted list” idea and will give more on these topics later:

1. I come home last night to find my 360 has the dreaded “red ring of death”.
2. It’s been raining consistently here for 2 days.
3. The toilet decides to stop up because of all the rain.
4. The cable internet fritzes out because of all the rain (that or the recent work siding being done on the house).

As I said, not enough coffee, and I’m still grouchy at the world; more later.

Oh, yeah. Welcome back to “Beware the Tourists”. :)

 

l8rz.

Test Post

Lookie! I’m updating. ;) This is just a test to see how the API integrates with other apps/sites. I’m getting back around to this, so stay tuned (same bat channel, same… oh you get the idea).

l8rz.

Gathering of thoughts...

This blog has been long neglected and in much need of return. However, due to a rather random chain of events this afternoon, my mind is still a muddled mess of thought and contemplation. This means that I am delaying the inevitable yet one more evening. Luckily, tomorrow is a Friday; and, for once in quite a while, I'm actually free of any social obligations leaving me open to utilize the blog client on my newly re-installed laptop (I'll have more on that, tomorrow, too). For now, I should get some sleep.

 

l8rz.

wah hoo...

Wah hoo biotches... I'm going to keep this short as even tho I'm in the mood to rant, but I've nigh the coordination skills at the moment. All I'm going to say is, "I loves me some sake." Besides, I'm in jabber mode and last thing I need to do is start drunk txt'ing my friends. :D

OK, so I'm not dead, nor have I given up on ranting. There has been much in the personal (mostly work) life that has kept me from here. Promotions abound and friendships rekindled have pre-occupied me since pre-Thanksgiving. I know everyone has done their whole New Year's resolutions, and I was going to do mine; but, screw it. I have the tasks I intend to complete before the end of the year written down on a piece of paper and magneted to the fridge.

Game-wise, not many changes. Honestly, up until last night, I haven't been on the gaming front much. Too many nights of getting plastered, or staying out late. One thing I must note is that I'm getting too damn old to "go out" on a "school night". With the work promotions, I'm hell bound and determined to start showing up during "normal hours", so I've been crashing well before my usual all-nighters and even midnight. Scary, I know. Maybe I'm finally growing up... Ha! Yeah, right. That be the case, I wouldn't have downed all that sake tonight. ;) Also, since I've canceled cable (haven't hardly watched TV since I moved back in August), I'm out of the Anime loop. Blockbuster Online is starting to irritate me, so I'll probably be changing or getting rid of that soon, too. I will admit, barring the cold, I've been very impressed with myself as far as getting out of the house. Normally, this time of year, it takes near an act of divinity to get me out into this 30 or less degree weather. The Atl saw it's first snow flurries in several years this past week, so maybe that has some motivation to it.

...Damn, the thought train just ran off the tracks. Ok, guess that means it's time to call it a night (all 9p and all). Oh, one last gripe. Dammit, Farve! ...Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that little Manning can rub it in big bro's face, but I wanted Green Bay in the Super Bowl!



l8rz, g8rz!!



Post addition:

I just found out that Heath Ledger passed yesterday. Dude, he was an awesome actor! I've been nothing but impressed with any role he's fulfilled. I can only say, with great sadness, that Hollywood has lost a magnificent talent. "Batman: The Dark Night" will definately be viewed opening night in his honor once it's released.

Yes. I am still alive...

... just been lazy. It's not that I haven't had a desire to post. Ok, well, maybe I haven't really been in the mood to post anything, but there has been plenty of little quips that have come to mind worth sharing. Firing up the laptop when I get home just hasn't been worth it. That, and I've been playing video games a bit much. :D Between the release of Halo 3, Guitar Hero III, and Bioshock, I've been preoccupied, so to speak. Sad thing is, I can say I'm getting pretty good at Guitar Hero. I've 5 starred the Easy and Medium settings in both II and III (well, all except one song in II), and I'm on to Hard. I was joking with my dad on the phone the other day. I can start telling people, "Yeah. I rock at Guitar Hero. What? No I'm not a musician. I just have no life." ;) I've started holing myself up in the house, again (the cold weather isn't helping), playing games all the time. I'm determined not to return to that form of hermit-ism. Oh, I'm not giving up gaming. I just need to put the guitar down for a while. Rock Band is on my list of to get games, but I'm going to hold off for a while on that one. These things are just a bit too addictive. ;)

I keep looking at my GamerCard and laughing:
 
It's hard to believe, that in a little over a year, I've managed to acquire almost 5000 points. That's just insane (well, for me, anyway). So, time to put the controller down (for a couple of days, at least). Besides, I now have a PS3 on my desk at work (for research, of course) that needs some "hacking" done to it. That, and I'm determined not to stay indoors all winter. Did I mention I hate cold weather?

How much longer till Spring? ;)



l8rz!