Restless

Ok, so I'm all done with finals and am now waiting for the start of the new semester. To help fill this void, I have been using Netflix to catch up on the shows that I always wanted to see, but never had the time to watch. Jericho, Dead Like Me, and a lot of Law and Order: SVU. This has really driven home the fundamental change that has occurred in the way that we consume media. No longer are we driven to watch the meager offering of shows spewed across the airways at the regulated time slots of the masses. Thanks to the creation of Tivo, we now expect to be able to watch what we want, when we want. The fact that you can stream media across just about anything only helps this. I currently own five different way to get media on my TV or computer screen, and even that seems to be on the low end compared to some people out there. I wonder sometimes what the world will look like in five years and I am completely baffled. I live in a world now where I can carry the Internet in my pocket and keep in touch with people across the globe whenever I want. A world where I can live a complete and full life without ever leaving my home, while still having fresh groceries sent to my door weekly. A world where anyone with an idea and an Internet connection can truly change the way that we live our lives. There is true awe in this world that we inhabit and I think that we seldom take the time to understand and marvel at how far we have come in such a short time. What will the world my son lives in be? And how will he help shape it? I have no idea, but I can not wait to see!

Two Different Styles Of Play

So Fable 2 came out this week and found its way into my grubby little mitts by means so twisted, dark and unholy that I dare not speak of it. The game has proven to be a most brutal mistress, demanding attention at all hours of the day and coercing me to skip classes in order to reveal in her forbidden acts of pleasure. It's been fun.

Last night my wife wrest the controller from my grip to give the game a try, and she promptly became just as addicted as I, but not in the same way. For me Fable has always been a way to not only kill massive amounts of baddies (a need that is met by almost every game I play) but is more about giving my darker and eviler impulses a healthy outlet, must like a GTA title. We've all had days where we would just like to chop the head off of the person who just insulted us, and it Fable you can, and the repercussions are minor, until the guards whoop up on you and throw you out of town(or you can just pay them to look the other way). My wife seems not to have these darker impulses. Where I would look for the way to earn the most money or XP in a given situation, her instinct is to help all those in need and plays the game in a very heroic way that reflects this. Case in point, early on in the game you are tasked with destroying a bandit camp that has been harassing the local trade road. After killing the leader of the bandits you find a group of people in a cage that had been caught for "forced labor". A man soon approaches to inform you that he has already paid for them and will be taking them with him. Not a fan of slavery in any form, I promptly chopped the man's head off. My wife on the other hand merely open the cage and let the slaves escape. While she did have to kill the man when he responded by attacking her, her first impulse was to let him go. I find this way of tempering her might with mercy to be interesting and yet another of the many things that I love about her so much. Weird, huh.

Also got to play my first game of 4th edition D&D this week. The rules are all still a bit vague to us but we muddled through. Our heroes fought their way to the small town of Fellspar, a town that has been beset by kobold raiding parties. Hired by the Storm Warden to end this, they found themselves infiltrating a cult of dragon worshipers and now are trying to find and kill the leader of the said cult. I plan on doing a more detailed synopsis on this blog or the HARPA web page when I get that up. I started the actually coding tonight and should have it up and running(albeit in a limited capacity) before the end of the year.

Well, I now find myself hearing the siren's song coming from my X-Box. Albion is beset by brutal monsters and evil men. Someone has to bring the harsh axe blade of justice down and sever the cruel mind from their rot filled hearts. Looks like that someone is me. Don't wait up.

Happy Birthday to Me!!

Ok, I've never been to big on the whole birthday thing. I've always felt that trying to make a day be some happy occasion was just setting yourself up for failure. Plus, I really hate to be a bother, you know. I feel like "No, that's ok. I really don't need a party." I think that is because a childhood full of let downs. The most tragic moments in my life seem to come at time when I should have been the happiest. So, I really have to give thanks to my wife and friends who made this birthday maybe the best ever.

First, we decide to get a little get together going and just hang out at my friend house out in the middle of nowhere. Then when I get there, not only have they made a huge pot of chili and and a lagsana(both personal faves), they alsom made me a cake, and decorated it with a D&D Mini battle against a young green dragon. And it was marked with "Happy Birthday (Cake +2)". Then they also presented me with a brand new set of 4th Edition rulebooks (which I guess is thier way of telling me that they want to change editions lol). We spent the rest of the night skimming the rules, creating some new charecters and the watching Demon Knight.

Truly Lonnie, Chad, and Dixie thanks for a great night. I had alot of fun and it was something that I really needed after the last week of classes. Thank you.

Star Wars: The Force Unleshed....Done!

OK, so I took the time to finish off TFU yesterday and I have to say I found the end a bit underwhelming. I'm not going to go into details right now to avoid giving anything away but suffice it to say the ending was trying just a little too hard to be cool that it kinda felt flat. But the biggest disappointment of the game has come after I have cranked the difficulty up for a second play through. Apparently, the Empire has found a way to make the stormtroopers armor stands up to twenty blows of a light saber. I mean I was expecting to be able to fight overwhelming legions of these white garbed baddies and was looking forward to some seriously insane battle, not just beating on the same five troops for half an hour. At best, I start to feel bad about the troops poor fate, at worst I find myself frustrated by a stormtrooper that. Will. Not. Die.

Basically all I'm trying to say with this is that I am really ready for Fable 2 to come out later this month. I have thousands of coins saved on Pub Games ready to outfit my new character and really I don't think that I can play through Mass Effect anymore. It's pretty bad when saving the entire galaxy begins to feel old hat. I seriously need a thick RPG to sink my teeth into before I go insane.

On the plus side, still doing good in my class. Web programming is really starting to get interesting now that we have gotten past HTML and CSS which I already know. We started JavaScript this week and I find it interesting and pretty easy so far. Here's to hoping that it stays easy.

Oh, just downloaded Winamp again. Like just right now. I just need something to listen to my music with that isn't going to gobble up my systems resources like crazy. Hopefully Winamp will do. If it does, I'm am going to start broadcasting music over nullsoft again, so that will be cool. Anyways it is about time to follow my beautiful wife off to bed. Take care.

Four Day Weekend

Well, this was an interesting weekend. Because of repeated electrical problems, I ended up with a virtual four day weekend. Which sounds nice and all, but by like day two I was getting a little bored. It's weird because, unlike most of my classmates, I like my classes. I spent so long wishing that I would be able to go get a college education some day that I am really enjoying the fact that I'm there now. So without any new projects to complete, I kinda just stalled out.

Luckily by Sunday, I was pretty good again and finished up work on the dungeon that I have been working on. No! Not the sex dungeon, that still needs some work. I mean the dungeons for my D&D group. Yeah, I play Dungeons and Dragons. I know, that like classic geek stuff, but I like it. Still haven't gotten around to trying out the new 4th edition yet. To me, it just seems a bit to much like WoW now.

I finally got a chance to listen to the Death Magnetic album by Metallica. I have to say that this is a LOT better then St. Anger. Still need to listen to it a few more times to decide where it ranks with their other albums, but I am totally loving the return of the guitar solos!!! Either way, I recommend giving it a listen if you are into heavy metal with metaphorically driven lyrics.

House is on tonight and I am really looking forward to sitting down and watching it with my wife, Dixie. I really like the premiere and am really looking forward to seeing what happens tonight. I meant that last scene where Wilson just unloaded on House was almost painful to watch. I felt that you could actually see his heart rip in two. Further proof of my theory that House feels WAY more then he will ever let anyone see.

Still haven't got any kind of theme or unifying idea for this page yet, so please bear with me as I ramble on, I promise that I will provide some kind of content pretty soon. Thanks and see you latter!

Back to the Blogosphere

Well, I'm trying this out again. I used to have a deadjournal back when I was a whining, emo high-school drop-out, the the thing became a place to rant about how much the world sucked and I rocked. It got old fast and I never could update on time. Now, I a slightly less whiny, computer nerd college student. I am hoping that this blog turns out better. Mainly I just plan to share my vastly varied interests with all of you and maybe make a few new Internet friends.

First up, I want to talk about the glorious thing that is NetFlix. Honestly this is the greatest way to rent movies that I have found, and if you have been on the fence about trying the service, now is the time to leap. It's kinda like have the best video rental place in the world in you mailbox. The selection is hella huge and varied, plus the system is pretty easy. Choose your movies online, get in the mail, watch, send back, and get more movies! I am actually watching more movies for less money then when I was renting from the local Blockbuster, plus I now can get show my wife all the great films that she somehow missed (like who the fuck has not seen Boondock Saints) that Blockbuster never had. And later this year, NetFlix is teaming up with Xbox to make movies available on the Xbox Live service, so with a few simple button presses I will be able to watch my movies, streamed right into my HDTV. Now that is awesome.

Oh, and the new Beefy album (Rolling Doubles) is out now. If you are into Nerdcore Hip Hop I really can not recommend this album enough. If you have heard about Nerdcore and been wonder what all the nerdy kids are talking about, then this is the album to start with. Plus, anyone you has sub come to the glories that is tabletop gaming (be it Dungeons and Dragons or simple Monopoly) needs to hear the song Table Top. I guarantee that it will get stuck in you head for a very long time. And to anyone who thinks that $8 is too much to for a Nerdcore album, think about how much you paid for you last CD or downloads off iTunes. Plus after all the music that Beefy has given away, I really don't think that selling his latest album is so bad. You can also find out more about Beefy at Beefness.com.

That's all for today. I've got a exam on Monday to study for and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed to pwn. Speak with you friendly peeps later.