Let Down

The Burden of Over-Engineering

2010-10-25T12:25:00.001-07:00

As I've gotten more professional experience in Software Development, I've witnessed - and been a part of - a reoccurring problem known as over-engineering. According to wikipedia, over-engineering is:

when a product is more robust or complicated than necessary for its application, either (charitably) to ensure sufficient factor of safety, sufficient functionality, or due to design errors. While software development and design is difficult enough as is, it becomes increasingly more difficult when you try to design a system that will work for the requirements of version 1, as well as not need to be overhauled for version 2. So we have concrete requirements for a product that we use, but we also have future needs that we try to account for. More often then not though, it seems that those future needs for version 2 never come about, or when its time to work on version 2 its a completely different set of requirements than we had anticipated. Either way, you're stuck with a system that supports requirements that were never actualized.

Its not that as software developers we should never be thinking about future requirements, far from it, but we need to be more cautious about how much of an impact those requirements that may or may not come will impact our current design. No one wants to have to rewrite critical path code months from now because he/she didn't properly anticipate how the use of the system would change. But the fact is that software is all virtual, thus malleable. Design for what you are being asked to deliver today, and if tomorrow comes then we'll hop on the refactoring train. I'm not saying to completely ignore any notion of the project having future requirements, but I would argue developers need to err on the side of caution when implementing those future requirements at the risk of added complexity in the system.

The more projects I've worked on the more I've noticed the probability that the development team will correctly anticipate and implement future requirements is rather small. The cost of maintaining an overly complex system is - in my opinion at least - higher than developing for today's requirements and having to refactor the system once the next phase of the project begins. I say this for two reasons. First, the cost of maintaining an overly complex system is usually grossly underestimated. Second, more than likely, when the next phase begins, there will be refactoring any way, and no one can be sure when that next phase will be prioritized, scoped, and scheduled for development.

At the end of the day, we have to maintain a large amount of legacy code. Software projects are never truly finished as there is always long term maintenance. Knowing how long you will be responsible for keeping your systems up and running, you'll be happier in the long run if do yourself a favor and design for today, reducing complexity and delivering actual benefit as opposed to future, potential benefit. Tomorrow comes less often than you think, but you always have today.

The Power of Focus

2010-03-14T12:23:00.000-07:00

I've posted before on the virtues of setting goals and the affect those goals can have on reaching accomplishments in your life. As I'm making good progress on my goals for this year - including getting in better shape and advancing my software development skills outside of the office - I wanted to share some more details about how I set my goals, what has worked for me and what hasn't.

I'd like to start by saying if you don't really believe in the power of setting goals and think all the self-help and self-motivation stuff is really a load of crap then you're definitely in the majority. Most people don't buy into the effect these simple tools can have for getting what you want in life. It all just sounds so corny and hokey. Goals, positive thinking, vision boards, blah blah blah its all stupid and a waste of time...right? Unfortunately for the majority, this thinking is flawed to the core. And the more inundated our society becomes with distractions - and thus more plagued with ADD - the importance of setting goals and focusing on them becomes more paramount to achieving what you want out of life, in my opinion at least.

I did not always believe in the power of goals and focus but I am a firm believer now because of the changes I've experienced first hand. I've accomplished a lot in the past couple months because I've set clear, well defined goals that I continually read and focus on. I've been reading more, writing more, participated in new open source projects, lost a total of over 30 pounds since moving to Seattle, and generally feel more productive and fulfilled in my time management than ever before. Compare this to any period of time when I didn't set any kind of goals and you'll see that I mainly watched a lot of television programs and movies as well as played a lot of video games. I also wasted an exorbitant amount of time on the internet, not learning anything of particular value. With more content, faster connection speeds, and mobile devices, our world has vast capabilities for knowledge and information. At least for me, I tended to use these tools for useless information that neither spawned thought, change, or left me with any semblance of greater intelligence. In short, its all a distraction - a time waster.

Time wasters are fine in small doses, but I would look back on the past few months and realize I had absolutely nothing to show for it. I hadn't improved myself or the world around me in any way. I'd done great work at Orbitz, but that's work. Its what I'm being paid to do everyday. What about the things I love?

Now I'm improving myself day after day and the key - for me at least - has been two fold.

First, set goals for multiple timelines, and set well defined goals. Want to know why new years resolutions fail most of the time? Its probably for several reasons but I think the biggest is that the resolutions by themselves are too drastic and long term to succeed at. Quit smoking, lose weight, write that novel. Sure these are great long term goals. But if you're smoking a pack a day, or are very overweight, or haven't even thought of an outline for that novel, chances are you're going to make some progress towards that goal but then get discouraged when you realize how long its going to take and you quit. Better luck next year. You need short term and long term goals. I personally set current month goals, 3 month goals, and year goals. I made the year goals at the beginning of January and have made monthly goals at the beginning of each new month. In February, I made a 90 day goal plan for where I wanted to be in May. The year goals tell me where I want to end up. They are going to be broad goals, but well defined. If I just had these, it would be hard to note progress towards the destination. Imagine driving from coast to coast in the US. If you start in Seattle, your end goal is Miami. But after you've driven a few hours you've made progress - you just can't tell by only looking at your destination (and you can't even see your destination from where you are). By setting monthly goals, very specific goals, I have discrete items that I can measure my progress by and know that I am advancing towards my long term goals. These goals must be specific - in our driving example, it might be to reach the town of Spokane, Washington in 5 hours. The more specific, the more detailed the better. The 90 day plan I'm still test driving to see how effective it is. It should be obvious this goal plan is your medium range - trying to reach the state of Wyoming in our driving example. I like to think of the 90 day plan as a way to ensure you don't get too far off from your end destination. Your monthly goals are your small navigation corrections but you need some way to ensure you are headed to where you need to be. The 90 day plan bridges your short term and long term goals.

Second, I continually read my goals, I focused on them. When I've set goals in the past and failed, its mainly been because I sat down, wrote the goals, then never looked at them again. Out of sight, definitely out of mind. It sounds cheesy but to really succeed you must ingrain the goals into your mind, ideally daily. I've read that you should have a goal card that you carry around with you. I haven't gone to this extreme. My goals are on my private wiki so I can access them from everywhere. I look at them about every couple days on average. You can set perfect goals - the right timelines, measures of progress, everything - but if you don't remind yourself of those goals most likely your goal writing exercise has been in vain. The key here is to focus on your goals. That's where the motivation comes from, that's where the power of goals is unleashed.

What hasn't worked for me is not having accountability. If there is no penalty for missing a goal, there can quickly become no reason to continue striving towards our long term goals. Missing a goal is not the end of the world, but there must be a compelling reason to correct our behavior. Otherwise, over time this effort will dwindle and we're left back where we started, content for the present to waste time and be distracted. A dorky buddy system works wonders for staying on track, making sure you don't miss your goals. Think about the success of support groups, surround yourself with people who will encourage you but also keep you on track.

Goals have been talked about in great length but unfortunately few people actually change after being exposed to the power of goals. Ask yourself, are you truly content or do you want to be a better you. You'd be surprised just how great you can be, if you want it enough.

The Teaching Company

2010-02-28T18:13:00.000-08:00

My father gave me a series of lectures on Game Theory published by The Teaching Company. I'm halfway through the 24 lecture series and wanted to recommend using The Teaching Company for anyone interested in continued learning. There are a wide variety of subjects offered, check out their site.

It sounds kind of lame to purchase lectures to watch in your free time, wasn't college bad enough? What I love about these lectures is three-fold.

First, it is on a subject I am genuinely interested in learning. This isn't a subject I am being forced to dive into. I find the applications of game theory fascinating and only briefly learned about it during one semester at school years ago. Its been great to really get into the meat of this subject and dive deeper.

Second, I watch them on my time. Its a DVD, watch it whenever you like. Each lecture in my series is approximately 30 minutes, easy to watch just one or a few in a row. I've been slowly watching them over the past couple months because I'm in no hurry. I'm learning on my own schedule. Don't feel like watching a lecture for a couple weeks, no problem. Need to hear that part again because you zoned out? Just rewind it. Its so much easier to absorb the information at your own pace rather than a scheduled live lecture. And its more fun.

Last, its just for fun. The goal isn't to get a good grade. There's no homework or exams to worry about. No final paper looming over the horizon. Its just information for your benefit if you want it. I feel not having to worry about tests or performance lets me just focus on gaining knowledge.

There are many ways to spend your time; I've found that these Teaching Company lectures are actually quite fun and engrossing, quenching my thirst for new information. They are arguably a little on the pricey side but the company does run sales promotions, and 30 minutes of a lecture leaves my brain better off than 30 minutes of a Seinfeld re-run or entertainment show. They've been a fun way to exercise my brain and I look forward to other series as well. Its dorky, but I like to learn :)

How I lost 27 pounds in 4 months

2010-02-20T10:25:00.000-08:00

I'd like to share a little bit about how I've lost some weight since moving to Seattle. I think the approach I've taken is the correct way to lose weight and others would benefit from hearing it. Let me start by saying I am by no means athletic in any way. I'm a software developer for crying out loud. If I can lose weight, so can you.

I'm not going to bore you with the details or chart my progress for you week over week (unless you want to see that). I focused on a couple factors, made sure I did those right, and watched the pounds come off. I made sure I was eating the right amount, not eating things that were terrible for me, and regularly exercised. Yep, if you just do that you'd be surprised how easy it is to lose weight.

First, I stopped over eating. This one was hard. I tried to do this in Chicago but just couldn't help myself. Food is too good! What I mean by over eating is that if after a meal, you feel full then you've eaten too much. You want to shoot for about 80% full. If you joke about going into a food coma after eating then you've definitely eaten too much. I used to do this all the time for lunch. I would eat a Jimmy John's italian sub, chips, and a Coke. All in all about 1500 calories. My body just didn't need that much food. Its so difficult initially to judge when to stop eating because its a delayed response from your stomach - much like the affects of alcohol are delayed. The solution is to eat slower. I've noticed when I eat in front of the TV I tend to eat faster. Whenever Ang and I sit down together to eat, however, I take my time - partly because we are talking back and forth which slows eating by itself. Its something that I don't always get right but I get right the vast majority of the time. And I always feel better after eating the right portion instead of over eating. I'm not saying that you need to starve yourself at each meal, that would be bad for your metabolism and health in general. Give your body the food it needs, just don't over do it.

Second, I stopped eating really really bad foods. In Chicago, we used to eat out and order out all the time. Lots of fried and fatty foods. They were delicious but were just bad for us. Now we're staying in almost all the time and eating much better food - thanks to my wife's cooking. I'm not saying that you need to only eat salads and organic fruit. I still eat plenty of tasty foods at each meal because I want to enjoy what I'm eating, not covet what I'm not eating. But honestly fried food just doesn't look good to me any more. I enjoy substituting fries for something better - I was surprised to discover an order of fries can be as much as 500 calories, and lots and lots of fat and salt. There's a spectrum of how good food is for you. If you're at one end, eating fatty fried foods a lot, don't try to move to the other end in one night because you'll hate it, fail, and give up. I'm saying just move a little in the right direction. It will make a difference, and the more you move towards the better end of the food spectrum the better. But pace yourself, and make sure you enjoy what you're eating. I'm talking about permanent life changes, not a fad diet that you go on for a month and then quit and gain all the weight back.

Third, I have a little something for breakfast. Fruit, yogurt, Nature Valley bar, whatever. Get your metabolism going in the morning - you will burn more calories this way. If you aren't eating breakfast every day but are trying to lose weight, you need to do your research into why it is essential for you to eat breakfast. Otherwise you're just making it harder on yourself. Its a mental barrier to get over. I didn't believe it at first. "If I'm trying to lose weight, why would I eat more?" Eating breakfast is like turning on the calorie burning furnace in your body, you'll burn more during the hours leading up to lunch than you would if you had skipped breakfast. But again, eat something decent - you're not helping yourself by eating pancakes, waffles and bacon every morning.

Last, I exercised. I personally think its not possible to lose fat without exercise. People have lose weight by extreme dieting and no exercise, but I don't think it was fat - it was probably lean muscle and water weight. There's isn't a doctor on the planet who wouldn't champion the health benefits of regular exercise. My routine is to bike to work every day (just over a mile) and work out one to two times a week. My workout is running 2 miles on the treadmill and lifting weights for maybe 15 to 20 minutes. That's it. I don't get up at 6am to run 5 miles every day. Heck, I only go to the gym once or twice a week. But this is what I want to do to. If you're interested in losing the fat then you need to find something aerobic that you enjoy. I'd say the two keys to healthy exercise is that it needs to be hard and you need to enjoy it. It doesn't need to be some insane workout routine that you hate, if you love biking then get out there and bike or swim or whatever it is that you enjoy doing. But you need to work up a sweat, you're trying to shed stored energy that your body is desperately holding on to. It shouldn't be easy, otherwise a third of the nation wouldn't be obese. But if you can find something that you enjoy then it won't be a chore. Again, I'm talking about making a change to your lifestyle, not taking on some 6 week program to show off your abs. Find something you would want to do - on your own motivation - every week. If it feels like work, like a chore, you're most likely going to falter, lose your motivation, and quit going. Take the time to find exercise that you like doing. It'll be worth it.

I leave you with this, be patient! Too often we expect immediate results. And when those results don't come we get discouraged and quit. If you are content with where you are then great for you! If you aren't then make changes to your lifestyle with the proper expectation. You're trying to change who you are for the rest of your life, not just for the beach season. If you eat better and exercise the pounds will come off, just be willing to give yourself time. If you're truly interested in making a change for the long haul, don't be in such a hurry to see results after a week or two. Remember these are permanent changes, not season fads.

Latency of shell commands

2010-01-29T11:36:00.000-08:00

Whenever I have a script that might take a while to run, I always found it useful to add a print statement to the beginning of the script that had a timestamp, e.g. in python it would be:


from datetime import datetime
if __name__=="__main__":
    print "Starting at %s" % datetime.now()
    foo()
    print "Ended at %s" % datetime.now()

Or maybe I would just take the two values and subtract them to report how long the script took. This is tedious for every single little script you might write in your environment.

There is a better way!

Add the current time to your command prompt and you'll see when you started the command (any command, not just your scripts) as well as when it finished. You can do the math to figure out how long your script took.

Just add this anywhere in your prompt:

\T

For instance my prompt looks like this:


export PS1="\[\e]2;\u@\h \w\a\e[32;1m\][\h \A \w ]$\[\e[0m\]"

I'm actually using \A for just a HH:MM format.

I found this article that lists all the PS1 codes:
Bash Shell PS1

Enjoy!

Open Sourced termcolors

2010-01-14T21:55:00.004-08:00

I created a very tiny open source project called termcolors hosted on github. Its a simple utility written in python to add color to console output. This is by no means anything new (in fact I'm sure there are tons of bash scripts to do the same thing) or challenging, this was just something that I find helpful and have no need to keep hidden.

I'd like to really be more involved in open source in general, and I'd also like to continually sharpen my skills. I thought about doing some of the coding questions and problems on the internet at first, but then realized that solving any number of these problems - while challenging - really doesn't benefit my day to day programming life.

So I decided to create this little project. Its helpful for viewing logs in color (something we had at Orbitz) as well as adding color to diff without having to save the diff and load up vimdiff. I'd rather spend time on something that I will find useful than solve problems of an academic nature.

Next, I plan on enhancing the mercurial extension notify. Mercurial is a distributed source control system similar to git, and there is already an extension that will email diffs from a commit to a list of subscribers. This is a great extension but viewing diffs in the browser with no markup can be tedious. Since email supports html, I'd like to improve the extension by allowing configurable coloring of the diff email to make it easier to read.

I've also had a couple ideas for Trac plugins based on missing functionality that I've seen compared to other wikis. Hopefully, I'll stay true to my intentions and knock out these projects. Happy coding!

A New Year A New Purpose

2010-01-06T13:07:00.003-08:00

As we enter into 2010, I (like many people) have been thinking about how the past year went, what I accomplished, what I failed at, and what goals I want to set for this year.

An obvious failure is consistently posting to this blog; I don't post as often as I want to nor have I really carved out a frame of what kind of information posts on this blog are likely to contain. I've posted about holidays and trips, goals, reviews, and complained about a problem or two. What I don't like about this behavior is that most of this information is unhelpful to anyone who might read it. I've decided to keep my recollections about vacations, birthdays, etc on my private wiki. There's already enough complaining and ranting on the internet and I'd like to avoid adding fuel to that fire. Reviews are best placed where they will be read by interested parties. Instead of reviewing video games here, I should review them on amazon, gamespot, etc.

As a result, my goal for this year for blogging is two-fold:
1. Post useful or helpful information
2. Post when appropriate

Whether its a tutorial, a comparison of popular applications, or simply an explanation of why coding standards are valuable I want to post about topics that people would get real benefit from reading. I have a feeling my blog will become more software development and technology related but time will tell.

Rather than setting a goal of I need of posting once a week - or any arbitrary frequency - I simply want to form posts when I have something on my mind worth sharing. The last thing I want to do is post something incomplete or useless just for the sake of posting within some time period. If its worth writing, I'd like to tackle it, but not rush it prematurely.

There it is, my intentions for this blog for this year. Did you set goals or new years resolutions?

The Problem With Internet Reviews

2009-12-08T21:04:00.002-08:00

I'm talking about amazon, yelp, etc. but specifically amazon.

I really like the idea of reviews for products I'm considering buying. I find that professional reviews for things like games or movies tend to reek of favoritism. For example, I think gamespot seems to give higher marks to Xbox games while Wii games that are exceptional still get lower ratings. Also, professional reviewers don't experience games in the same light as consumers. They are playing games constantly, rushing through them to complete reviews on time. Consumers don't play every game that comes out - far from it - and they don't have a deadline for finishing their $50-60 purchase.

The answer then becomes consumer reviews; hear the opinions of consumers like me to understand if I would enjoy a particular product. Seems like a great idea. Unfortunately the internet is full of morons. To mitigate this, amazon let's readers vote for whether or not a review is helpful. However, this information does not appear to be used for shunning reviews or their reviewers. What you are left with is a lot of unhelpful reviews that affect the overall average of a product's review score.

What these morons have figured out is if there's a popular product that has a high number of 4 or 5 stars reviews that adding another review on that pile will probably never be seen. But, if they write a 1 or 2 star review its a guarantee that many customers will read it. These people just want attention and probably get a big smile from the number of comments by people berating their non-descriptive reviews. You see, these reviews tend to say "This game sucked, how lame" and that's about it. They don't describe why they didn't like the game or what was lacking or needed to be improved on - because they aren't writers. This just gives us a community of unhelpful reviews and skewed review ratings.

There should be a threshold for how helpful reviews are before they are allowed to continue to be seen by other readers. Until then we'll have to continually weigh the value of each review.

Getting back into Magic The Gathering

2009-11-12T10:41:00.004-08:00

Magic The Gathering is a collectible card game that I used to play when I was in the 7th grade. After about a year or so it died out in my circle of friends and I stored the cards away for another day. I briefly played a couple times in college but somehow the anticipated satisfaction level was not met and my college buddies and I didn't play more than a few games.

And then came M10.

Magic has been releasing new editions and expansions for the game every year since its inception. Apparently while I ignored the game for a decade, it has been thriving with new players, new rules, and new cards. And when I started reading about the latest edition (M10 for Magic 2010), a renewed interest quickly grew; I wanted to give Magic another go.

What turned me off about Magic in the past was two things - getting a good deck and understanding all the rules.

When playing with friends at school it quickly became apparent that I stood little chance against the kids with big allowances. They could afford to buy shoe boxes full of cards that would yield better decks. Magic had a habit of releasing rare but completely overpowered cards; go up against a deck with a few broken cards and there's nothing you can do. But now that I'm playing with just my wife, we are using the same pool of cards. Its a much more even playing field. And if I decide to branch out, there are sealed deck tournaments where you and your opponent take turns building your decks from a common pool of cards. No more losing to rich kids that drop hundreds of dollars at the local card shop. Its more about skill than bank accounts.

Understanding all the rules for Magic is difficult. There were a complex set of rules to begin with, then each card had the potential to change the rules thus making the game fun and interesting but often enough difficult to comprehend what's legal play. I remember arguing back and forth with opponents about how we interpreted clashes of different cards with conflicting rules. With no authoritative source of ruling, these arguments resulted in stalemates of who would concede their point. Two things have helped rule abiding: the internet and Magic's revamped rules. The internet is an obvious one, there are forums, youtube videos, blogs, and more all devoted to magic. There is an extensive online rule manual available as well. But more importantly, Magic has made the game more accessible to new players. Spell resolution is a lot clearer than it once was, terms and definitions have been simplified and made more descriptive (no more having to look up in the tiny rule book what first strike or anything else means). The different types of cards have been cleared up (what was an interrupt vs a mana source vs an instant anyway?). There are still some cards that I have to read and re-read to understand but overall the game is easier to explain, learn, and master.

Better, clearer rules are great but what about deck building? Building your own deck is a ton of fun but difficult to do, particularly as a novice. What's great about M10 is there are 5 pre-made decks available on the cheap. Ang and I have really enjoyed using these decks early on just as they were; then as she played more we began to adjust the decks to our liking. They are slim on the spells in my opinion but are a terrific jumping off point to developing your own deck. What I really like about them is that they are all dual-color but its probably about 85% main color and 15% secondary color. Whenever I made dual-colored decks I always did 50/50. It never occurred to me to do any other ratio. I didn't stick with the 85/15 ratio but it definitely got me thinking about different possibilities for deck construction.

For the amount of entertainment that Angela and I have gotten from M10 has been well worth the money (a pre-made deck being only about $13). If you've played Magic in the past but got turned off for any of my reasons, I would reconsider the game now; it really has come a long way and continues to be lots of fun.

Obsessions of a Game-a-holic

2009-09-25T12:49:00.005-07:00

Recently, my wife and I have been buying/playing more board games and card games. I had always enjoyed playing classic games growing up such as Monopoly, Life, Scrabble, etc. Last year, Angela and I had purchased a lot of classic board games as well as Scene It! but we found that after playing each of our purchases one or two times, we just had no motivation to play again (Scrabble got more mileage than anything else though). What I am calling classic board games don't seem to have the right balance between skill and chance. Since we own multiple editions of Trivial Pursuit and Monopoly, let's break those games down.

Trivial Pursuit: I won't belabor my point, this is short and sweet. Trivial Pursuit's fun is directly proportional to the amount of trivia you can answer correctly. My wife loves trivia, current events, celebrity information, etc which serves her well in Trivial Pursuit. I on the other hand don't give a crap about most of the questions in this game so I find myself answering nothing correctly and getting increasingly annoyed with this game. The game has nothing to do with intelligence, it really is about trivial (or at times pointless, imho) information. I've found that in most games of Trivial Pursuit that I've played with different groups usually only one maybe two people are really knowledgeable of the questions, everyone else just smiles and gets through the game.

Monopoly: I hate this game and here's why. Ang and I have played several times, the past couple games have been less than 30 minutes. The game's outcome simply hangs in the balance of the dice roll. If you aren't given enough opportunities to buy property, you don't have a chance surviving in this game. You can trade for property but if you only land in jail and on other's properties you simply don't have enough to offer. I've played Monopoly enough times to notice that more than likely someone is going to get screwed by the dice roll. Most of the strategy of the game relies on getting lucky the first few times around the board - buying the properties that you need and not getting hit hard with taxes and jail time early. But there is clearly a plateau of property that must be reached for you to have any chance. It sucks seeing consecutive games where that plateau is not reached, it simply is not fun to play.

On to more fun games of strategy with a spice of chance! Settlers of Catan is great. Race for the Galaxy is fun. Zombie Fluxx is quite a ride. And I've had the itch to get back into Magic the Gathering.

Settlers: This game is awesome. I've only played a few times but I love it. There is the right balance between strategy of settlement placement, road building, developments cards with the chance of the dice roll. You have several different strategies for winning: rush to ports, go all cities, relying heavily on development cards. And with the resource trading you always have a chance of working with whatever you're given - so if the dice rolls or starting position aren't so lucky you still are able to trade resources to get what you need, albeit harder the fewer resources you have.

Having read about all the rule changes in MTG, my interest has peaked for getting new M10 cards and teaching my wife how to play. I don't want to sink a ton of money into getting tons of cards, its just not worth. I'd really only want to get a few cards that would let me play with Ang and maybe a couple other people in Seattle, possibly play with my brother back home.

If you find yourself wanting to play board games but are turned off by the lack of strategy in classic games, go to your local game shop. There are a ton of games with a lot of strategy that aren't as arduous as Risk, or as time consuming.

Review: Infamous

2009-07-23T11:16:00.006-07:00

Infamous for the PS3 is a fabulous open world game that succeeds in visuals, story, gameplay, and replay value making this title one that you won't want to miss.

Infamous is a sandbox game that allows your super powered character, Cole, to run around the fictional Empire City with ease. Cole has acquired electric super powers and is able to discover and purchase new powers and upgrades as the game progresses. Empire City is in peril, closed off from the rest of the world by the government because of a massive explosion that happened. That explosion granted Cole powers but at the cost of a lot of lives. As the story unfolds, Cole must decide if he will use his powers to help rebuild the city or rule it. And away we go on another morality based game.

Two things that Infamous really excels at is the environment and the story. Most of the games that I play, I really don't care about the story. Its just there as a pre-tense for why you are playing the game. And more often then not the story is some poorly written, even more poor voice acted amalgamation of dribble that neither engrosses me or invokes any emotional connection. Infamous, on the other hand, gives you a real story. It actually feels like how real characters would react to a hard situation. Everything from Cole's girlfriend treating him like crap to his friend getting increasingly jealous of Cole's gift makes the story seem alive and real. Many times in previous games I've found myself saying, "Why didn't the character say this instead, or no one would ever do that, etc." But with Infamous I found myself fully engaged in the story. Complement that with a gritty, dark city that still feels unique with parks, statues, ruins, piers, warfs, and believable NPCs and you've got a world that sucks you in and keeps you there.

The gameplay of Infamous is stellar. You've got a main quest that you follow, with side quests unlocked at various points in the story. Plus you have blast shards and dead drops to find as well as stunts to perform. I won't spoil the main quests, I'll just say they are both incredibly fun and rewarding. Completing a side mission grants you control of a portion of the city. When you control an area enemies won't respawn there, its your turf. Plus, sometimes doing a side mission will unlock a medical clinic where you will spawn after you die or save your game and quit. Oh and you will die a lot. The side missions are a little repetitive but I didn't mind this. I was expecting something like Assassin's Creed where there are only like 3 different missions but I was pleasantly surprised by the variety and non-crappiness of the side missions. I especially liked the search light missions which are similar to the flag race from AC. Sometimes playing, I would just get hooked on side missions and play through several of those. There are a few missions that come in pairs - good and evil with you choosing one mission to do depending on which moral position you have chosen to play through. Unlike Fallout 3, you really need to decide if you are going to play good or play evil and always make choices that support that style.

Collectibles
What makes this game really great is that you have many reasons to play and have a good time. Normally, collectibles are a drag and tedious - netting you little to no reward. In Infamous, there are two collectibles to hunt down - blast shards and dead drops. Blast shards are little blue glowing pieces that grant you more energy to use for your super powers (powers take energy to perform which drains from your battery - more shards collected = bigger battery). By hunting down blast shards your character essentially becomes stronger. Dead drops are found in select satellite dishes scattered on roof tops throughout the city. Once found, you upload the dead drop to your phone and the message plays as you continue to roam around in the game. The audio message is between 30-60 seconds usually, and it gives you additional story information about the research that happened before the blast that gave your character powers. By collecting the dead drops, you understand more about the characters in the game. It adds quite a bit to the story and I recommend finding them all. This would be painful if you had to stumble on them, but press L3 and both blast shards and dead drops will appear on your mini-map - making it easy and fun to hunt for them.

Upgrades
I really like the style of starting out with a couple of powers, and as you complete quests new powers are unlocked. Also, as you gain experience points you get to decide how to spend those points to purchase upgrades for your abilities. Most abilities are neutral but one set of upgrades is only available for Heroes while another set is reserved for Infamous players. Its a great way to increase the replay value. I've gone through the game being good and look forward to playing through again as evil.

My one pet peeve is the difficulty level. I played the game through on Hard and there were only a couple areas that I needed to repeat from failing. But those areas happened to be really hard, especially the end boss. I like a game to be challenging but not frustrating. I can't help but feel InFamous is yet again another title that doesn't raise the difficulty bar high enough. But that's my one draw back, everything else is spot on with this title. It really was a joy to play through and I would recommend this game to any PS3 owner.

Why I Bike to Work

2009-07-22T08:30:00.003-07:00

I've been at my current job for a little over 3 years and have biked to work nearly everyday. I bike when its raining, when its hot, when its cold, and when its freezing. People often wonder why I bike to work instead of taking public transportation, and I have one answer, I'm lazy!

Whether its the metra, the CTA train or bus, passengers have to keep to a schedule or risk waiting for the next transportation unit to arrive. With my flexible hours at work, I have no incentive for keeping a schedule. With my bike, I get up and go to work (or the gym) when I want to and I head home when I want. I don't have to worry about seating or being around other people (I enjoy my time of solitude). The key here is that I am dependent on no one but myself. My bike is never late or crowded. Its a liberating feeling.

Besides setting my own schedule, biking provides me with cheaper transportation, exercise, and helps the environment. Monthly CTA passes are $75 and even though some employers give pre-tax break for employees who use the CTA or Metra, biking is still incredibly cheaper. I purchased my bicycle for just under $500 in August of 2006. I've bought a helmet, a light, and had several tune-ups, flat tires, broken spokes and other repairs done to it. But the total cost of all this is considerably less than $2475 which is how much 33 months of riding the CTA costs.

Exercise is a good thing, obviously. I go to the gym regularly (or try to) but having daily exercise, even if it is only 6 miles total on the bike is still good for my body. It wakes me up in the morning for one thing, and I'd welcome the chance to do more daily exercise that I enjoy. Biking is fun, it doesn't feel like monotonous exercise.

Go Green! That's what everyone says. It usually amounts to people throwing their trash in the blue bin instead of the regular bin and patting themselves on the back for 'recycling.' Reduce, reuse, recycle. There's an order corresponding to how effective each method is. Recycling helps the least; however, reducing carbon dioxide emissions by riding my bike is better for the environment.

I don't know if I will always be able to bike to work but right now I am able to and love the benefits of doing so each day. I would like to see more bikers out there on the streets, just make sure to wear a helmet!

My new phone

2009-07-14T08:16:00.004-07:00

After resisting the smart phone bandwagon for long enough, I decided to upgrade my phone for a new 2-year contract with AT&T in exchange for a Nokia E71x. I'm very happy with my new phone. Most of the features are spot on, with only a few drawbacks that need to be improved on.

Why I switched to a smart phone
When smart-ish phones first started to come on the market years ago, I thought they were stupid. All they did was take a normal crappy flip phone and allow you to get sports scores, weather, etc. And all on that tiny screen! No thanks. I honestly thought mobile just wasn't going to happen. Now, several years later, mobile is quite the rage. The features, screens, and speed have come a long way so I figured I could try a smart phone out without being annoyed all the time with the lack of functionality.

I chose the E71x because it has a qwerty keyboard, exchange and gmail support, its the thinnest smart phone out to date, and most importantly because its not an iPhone. I hate iPhone users. Everyone who has that phone thinks they are amazing for owning it. Why? They didn't do anything spectacular besides shell out money for it. And they inevitable feel compelled to pull it out in every social situation, just so everyone around them knows what phone they have. Besides, by now almost everyone and their grandmother has an iPhone now.

The Good
First, the look and feel of this phone is spectacular. A bright, well sized screen, full keyboard, the form factor is incredibly thin. I love having a qwerty keyboard on the phone. Its taken a little getting used to having such small keys but I fancy myself pretty quick on the keyboard now.

Messaging, browsing the web, running applications all work well. Notifications are done well and always accurate - the one exception being when I first got the phone it kept saying there was a new message but I had nothing unread; I finally realized you have to check the messages on the sim card once and then it marks them as unread (I had saved texts on my sim card from my previous phone). I like how I can run multiple applications at once; start to write an email, switch to tweet something, check a webpage, then back to finish the email. I've found some good, free applications for the phone since its a symbian based phone - there are libraries of applications out for symbian phones. I've also paid for one, Gravity. It was $10 but is a superior application for Twitter on mobile.

Shortcuts make this phone for me. There are a lot of hot keys and shortcuts that I am still learning. I can pick virtually anything for the six shortcuts on the home screen, then I can customize the layout and contents of the menus. I can move any application,setting, file, etc to any directory or sub-directory. Its a wonderful thing when the user is empowered with true customization.

Using google maps with gps location is amazing. Very easy to use and very sexy, especially for turn by turn directions (no voice obviously).

The Bad
Well there's no app store. All the applications I have I've acquired through scrounging the internet. There really needs to be a central repository for applications. The default application for email is crappy. I use the gmail mobile app suite to access gmail and that looks great. I think there is another application nokia has in beta mode but I didn't bother with it.

Several of the applications require the user to specify the connection point to use to gather data, and/or they require confirmation to use the connection point to gather data. This is by far and away incredibly annoying. Gmail mobile pops up all the freaking time asking me if its ok to use the internet connection to pull data. Of course it is! And every time I go on Gravity it wants me to specify the connection: operator, proxy, or internet connection. Yet for both of these cases there's no way to tell the applications to save whatever decision I made. It just keeps asking the next time. Why!? I should be asked once and only once. Is this a phone problem or an application problem? I don't know but either way its annoying

The Ugly
Exchange support is great for contacts, calendar, reminders, and email. Almost. I should say inbox instead of email, because it only supports pulling emails from the inbox, not from any other folder. WTF? Who uses Outlook and does not use folders? How hard could it be to pull the emails from the other folders? This is one of the worst let downs for an application I've ever experienced. And there's no excuse for this. The exchange for mobile application is relatively new so I'm hopeful this will be resolved soon but seriously, how dumb is it that I can only see my inbox!?

Conclusion
Overall, I give this phone two thumbs up. Its sleek, its functional, its customizable; pretty much everything works as expected. It needs an app store and some minor fixes to app configurations but overall I'm thrilled with my new phone. Now I just have to wait another 8 weeks for my mail in rebate to come through.

Review: Valkyria Chronicles

2009-06-26T11:27:00.003-07:00

You'd be dumb not to play this game.

Well not really, but its still an amazing game. Valkyria Chronicles is a PS3 exclusive RPG set in a fictional European country during World War II. RPG is loosely accurate actually; its more of a half RPG, half turn based military strategy game. Its quite unique, and with over 30 hours of single player content plus a few DLC packs, you'll get more than your money's worth for this title.

Its an RPG
You control a character named Welkin Gunther (son of a famous deceased military general) who fights in the militia of a fictional neutral country. You command a small squad of militia up to about 10 persons on the battlefield. The story follows your militia squad and the troubles and triumphs of fighting in a war to defend your country. There are several thematic elements (love, racism, power, greed, death) but they aren't over done to be too obvious. And surprisingly there isn't too much dialogue. The voice acting is top notch, I was really impressed and immersed throughout the experience.

Leveling your troop is done through traditional rpg style with a small twist. You fight battles which depending on how quickly you win them, nets you experience and cash. XP is used for leveling, cash is used mainly for purchasing upgraded weapons. Instead of leveling up individual characters, you level up a class. Each of your militia fighters are one of five classes:

Scout
Shocktrooper
Lancer
Engineer
Sniper

You don't have to worry about playing both your snipers in battles evenly so they keep the same level (if they were to become lop-sided the lower level char would be worthless in battle); instead, you level up the entire sniper class. What this allows you to do is focus on which people have the right potentials to get the job done, instead of trying to balance levels and experience. What are potentials? Each character has passive abilities that are gradually unlocked through playing missions. Abilities may range from being a City Kid to a Desert Allergy or Sniper Killer to Likes Men or Undodgeable Shot. The City Kid ability will grant the character a boost in defense when on paved roads whereas Desert Allergy will drop the character's defense in that environment. Each character has a number of positive and negative potentials. Picking the right people for each mission plays a role in your ability to win, and win quickly

Its a Turn Based Strategy, sort of...
When in a battle: you select a character, move that character to a position, and perform one action. Actions are healing, firing a weapon or grenade, or repair (for Engineers). But instead of doing all this from a top down view, once you select a character to control you drop into 3rd person mode to move that character around in real time. Then once you are in the position you want (or your movement points are all used up) you can select your target to fire (you can actually do this in the reverse order: fire first then retreat). Once you select to fire you can't move in that mode. Enemies can't fire at you either. You can take all the time you want to in order to line up your headshot or mortar blast. Once you have taken your action you can move around some more or end your turn. When you are moving your character, enemies can fire at you but they cannot move. Also, only enemies with unlimited ammo can attack you - tanks' machine guns, scouts' and engineers' rifles, and shocktroopers' machine guns. Lancers and Snipers are zero threat during the movement phase.

This unique movement style makes Valkyria Chronicles somewhat of a hybrid between real time strategy and turn based. On the one hand, you move your characters in real time. On the other, you can only move one character at a time and you move all your characters on your turn, then let the computer opponent have a turn. To make things more interesting (and different), you don't just move each character once. Each turn you get a set number of Command Points (CP). These points are used to select a character to act with. But you can chose to select the same character multiple times in one turn. This drastically changes the tactics available for a given mission. You can have a scout run to the other side of the map, you can have a sniper fire multiple shots, you can have a tank fire several mortar rounds to take out large packs of enemy soldiers. With a traditional turn based strategy, you only move each unit one time; with VK whatever strategy you want to try is yours. Plus unused points carry into the next round. You can chose not to use too many points one turn. Then use the overstock of points the next turn to enable your victory.

Not enough for you? There are also command orders that you can issue to improve one or all units. These orders cost command points (usually 1 point for 1 unit or 2 points for all units) and they can be stacked. Orders are anything from Defense Up or Anti-tank Attack Up to Medic Evac and Sniper Support. Imagine beefing up a simple scout with increased defense and anti-tank attack. Then have it charge at tank and mess that sucka up!

37 hours to beat the game
And I haven't started the downloadable content yet. The game is spectacular in almost every way. But no game is perfect and I have a few gripes. The game follows the formula of watch some dialogue, play a mission, watch some more dialogue. Both dialogue and missions are presented in one book that you are 'reading through' page by page. Each dialogue or mission is represented by an episode in this book. You cannot skip most episodes. They must be watched/played. There may be as many as 7 or 8 episodes between missions. Not so bad right? The story and voice acting is good so what's the problem? Everytime you select the next episode it asks you if you are sure that you want to play it. So follow me as we go from one mission to the next. We just beat a mission, yipee. New episode added, ok let's watch it. Yes, select the confirmation that we are sure. Great video, next episode pops up. We now select that new episode and another confirmation pops up that we have to select. And we do this 5 more times... You cannot queue up the episodes, you can't say yes play all the episodes until the next mission. You can't turn off the confirmation. Oh and you can't do hardly anything else in the game except play the next episode. Stop asking me if this is what I want to do! Of course I want to see the next episode. Its the only way to get to the next mission! Ugh, this annoys me.

Next up, auto-save. Its no where to be found. Why would you make a game without auto-save? Is this 1989? Every other game does this so it can't be that hard to implement. This was definitely a highly missed feature that has no reason to be absent.

Lastly, trophy support. I'm a trophy whore so I missed them badly in this game. Instead the game went with this weird medal system where they don't tell you what you did to earn the medals. I love trophies, I like being able to see the game accomplishments outside of the game. You don't go with trophy support at launch that's fine; add it later please. You don't go with trophy support at all that's fine; don't have a similar system that's far inferior - stupid medals.

Overall, this game rocks. I clocked a lot of hours of gameplay on it and I'm going to keep going with the DLC. I really hope there is a sequel in a couple years with some of these issues cleaned up. Still, the gameplay is solid and unique; Valkyria Chronicles is a terrific title that I would recommend to any strategy fans.

Cancun Trip

2009-06-23T10:09:00.004-07:00

7 days in an all inclusive resort, priceless.

The week before Memorial Day, Angela and I embarked on our first real vacation since becoming married. Sure we've gone to Tennessee a couple times to visit family but that's not really a vacation. We wanted to go somewhere relaxing, somewhere peaceful, and that somewhere was Cancun, Mexico.

We made the decision to pay a little more to take a nicer vacation. We figured while we're young and both employed now would be an opportune time to go all out. We booked a 7 day, 6 night stay in the Excellence Playa Muheres resort outside Cancun about 6 weeks in advance. Waiting was the hard part.

Once the day came, we got burned by AA having awful service. After we were delayed boarding the plane, the pilot came on to say a routine maintenance check which should have been preformed earlier that morning was being done now, and it would only be a few more minutes. Later he came back and said the plane passed the inspection but he wasn't satisfied with the safety rating score it received; the result, we had to de-plane, wait around for another 3 hours, take a flight to Dallas and wait for another hour, then fly to Cancun getting us to the resort around 11p. So much for our plan of paying more for a direct flight and getting to the resort by 2p. The first day was a wash, but every day after was amazing.

Everything about the resort was wonderful. All the staff were friendly; there are tons of pools, cabanas, bars, and activities. We mostly relaxed in and by the pool and ocean. The weather was pleasant, not too hot at all especially with the sea breeze. The resort lifestyle is something to behold. You get up whenever you want, have your choice of restaurants that are all paid for, grab a drink from any bar (paid for), and take your pick of where to rest and relax. We did hardly anything besides lay around, eat, and drink.

We did manage to take in a couple shows (including some comedy magic) as well as some ocean activities. First, we did couple's parasailing. This was beautiful. We were in a bench at least 150 feet in the air for 30 minutes. We could see down to the tip of Mexico, and the water just looked amazing from up there. It was the best 30 minute view I have ever seen. The next day we did snorkling. We went to 2 different locations and saw a sting ray and lots of colorful fish. While the sensation of being that close to the sea life was great, the overall experience was pretty tiring. I began to have problems with my mask, swallowing a little sea water at a time. This totally whiped me out. I was glad we did it, but I was more glad when it was over.

The thing I loved most about the experience (besides being there with my wife of course) was not having to settle a bill for each meal. We were always immediately seated at every restaraunt, we could order drinks, appetizers, any entrees, and deserts without having the back burning pressure of what the total bill would be. And when were had had enough we would simply leave, no sitting around for the waiter to bring the bill and having to figure out what to tip. It truly gives you a relaxing feeling while dining that you can't grasp when having to pay the bill.

Overall, this was a magnificent vacation that was a taste of paradise. We enjoyed every day at the resort and were highly impressed with all things Excellence. I definitely recommend this style of vacation to everyone for at least once in their lives. It will be the trip that you always remember.

Review: The Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass

2009-05-07T13:06:00.007-07:00

I just finished playing The Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass, and I have to say that I highly recommend this game to any DS owner. Even if you haven't been a fan of the series in the past (how is that possible!?) I think Phantom Hourglass brings some new elements to the DS table that are hard to pass up.

Story
Phantom Hourglass picks up right at the end of WindWaker. You and Tetra head out to chase a mysterious Ghostship. Aaaaaand she gets captured so now you're wandering around trying to find her.
***Spoilers***
You meet an old wise man who ends up being more than he claimed (big surprise). I was disappointed in the end of the story. As always there is an evil being that you must do battle with. Sometimes its Gannon or Gannondorf. Other times its a new evil presence that they work into the story. This time...well it was an octopus... looking... thing... that flies and stuff. I didn't really get the sense that the world was in peril and my unique hero skills were needed to right things. Especially after the great story of WindWaker I was disappointed in the story telling of Phantom Hourglass.
***End Spoilers***

Controls
Touch screen for the win! Wow, everything about using the touch screen in this game feels great and natural. I had my doubts that it would be gimmicky but those doubts evaporated as soon as I started playing. You control "Link" by holding the stylus at the edge of the screen, Link will run towards the stylus at all times. You make a quick line on the screen to slash in that direction, draw a circle for the spin attack, and draw a small circle on the edge of the screen while he is running to make him do a roll attack. And that's just movement.
Using items with the touch screen is a delight. There is a quick key to pull up your item menu and you tap on the item you want. Hit another quick key to equip said item and then tap to use. All the items are easier to use with the touch screen. Shooting arrows? Just tap where you want it to go. Using a bomb-chu? Draw a path on the screen where you want it to run. Using the boomerang? Draw a path on the screen where you want it to fly. Its not gimmicky at all, its really creative and I was highly impressed with the usage I got out of those features.

Did I mention you get to draw on your map? That's right, at any time you can make notes on your maps. It is freaking awesome. I've been wanting this forever. No more having to take notes beside you or get frustrated when you can't remember where that treasure chest was or where you saw a hookshot target before you had the item.

Just like in WindWaker you are navigating a water world :) Only this time to go anywhere on the open sea you just pull up your sea chart, plot a course by drawing it on the sea chart, and away you go. It runs on auto-pilot for the course you've set; all you need to do is man the cannon to take down enemies. I enjoyed this method of travel, though I was a huge fan of sailing in WindWaker. The world map is considerably smaller than in WindWaker, but there are still warp points to find in the form of golden frogs. Each of the six has a symbol that you can draw when you are sailing to instantly warp to their locations. The touch screen really integrates nicely with all these features of Zelda.

Gameplay
Besides drawing on the map and controlling Link with the touch screen, there are some other cool additions to Phantom Hourglass. Recovering treasure now requires use of the salvage arm. Once you have the location of sunken treasure you use the salvage arm to navigate the depths of the sea, passing enemies and bombs to snag the treasure chest at the sea floor. It interesting having to work to recover your treasure; though by the end of the game I was kind of wishing it was like WindWaker where you just sat through an annoying animation to get the treasure chest.

In previous Zelda games, about the only power-up you could get is if you had full life your sword would shoot fire/lightening/something out until you got hit. In Phantom Hourglass you get true power-ups. Scattered throughout the world are hidden gems of three different types (strength, wisdom, and courage). If you collect 10 of one type you can get a power-up; collect 20 total and you can enhance that power-up. There are only 20 of each gem so you'll have to find them all to get the better power-up for each gem type. Even at the first power-up though, its just freaking sweet. You can have reduced damage (wisdom), a flaming sword (strength), or a shooting sword (courage). Unfortunately, I cashed in my gems at the end of the game so I only had the power-ups for a short while. If you play through, as soon as you get 10 of any gem go talk to the spirit who grants you the power-ups. I'm looking forward to getting all 60 gems the next time I play through.

The ship that you ride around in is customizable. You can retrieve ship parts through sunken treasure or buy them in shops. Ship parts come in sets (like classic, evil, beach, etc) so if you get more parts of a particular set your ship gets more stamina (hearts). Its a fun addition to traveling by boat.

Difficulty
Zelda games aren't difficult, I only died when i was a ship and once in the beginning when i had only 3 hearts - which I typically die in every Zelda game in the beginning when I only have 3 hearts. I usually die in a few boss battles and then again at the end boss. Not in Phantom Hourglass. Most of the bosses were very easy and the end boss even with multiple forms wasn't challenging. I've gotten used to the difficulty in games getting watered down over time so this wasn't a disappointment because I was expecting it. The game definitely does not get frustrating from difficulty, but sometimes I long for the challenge of games like the Adventure of Link.

Temple of the Ocean King
Many of the reviews of this game criticize the use of having to go through the same dungeon multiple times. Each time you go farther down the dungeon. You get one half way checkpoint but other than that you are going through the same floors multiple times. Big deal. I enjoyed this. You know how to get past each floor, so you can focus on doing it in a better time (in this dungeon you only get a fixed amount of time to complete it, otherwise you will die). Plus, each time you go back through a level there is usually a shortcut based on the new item(s) you have acquired since the last time. That also means there are hidden treasure chests you can reach with your new item. Maybe I'm the only one, but I enjoyed revisiting the Temple of the Ocean King; it was definitely a different spin on dungeon questing.

Conclusion
Overall, this game provides a ton of features that distinguish it from previous entries in the series. The dual screens fit perfectly and the touch screen couldn't have worked better for Zelda. There is plenty of replay value with finding gems and ship parts. I was definitely impressed with this title and would absolutely recommend it to all DS owners.

Review: New Super Mario Bros

2009-04-21T07:24:00.005-07:00

I've played through New Super Mario Bros and would recommend it, especially to anyone who is a fan of the series.

New Super Mario Bros for the DS is a throw back to the way Mario games used to be, sweet 2D side scrolling action. I personally love this style of game and NSMB executes on it almost perfectly. There are 8 worlds, approximately 12 levels per world, 3 star coins per level, and plenty of Goombas to pounce on. The game levels tend to be a little short, and you don't have to play through every level or world to beat the game - so you may be surprised when you beat it in a few hours. However, I've been going back through trying to get the 3 star coins for each level and that has taken some time but been really fun.

NSMB isn't really difficult if you are just trying to get through it. The levels tend to not have any hard jumps or series of enemies too difficult to dodge or jump over. Even though the style of the game is a tribute to SMB3 (Super Mario Bros 3 for the NES) and SMW (Super Mario World for the SNES) this game just doesn't have the tough levels that those games did. I'll always remember how brutal the gun ships and bosses were in SMB3, plus the evil pipe levels of world 7 and crazy jumps you had to do in world 5. Don't get me wrong, NSMB is a fabulous game and a lot of fun but don't expect the difficulty to be what it once was in the series (Megaman 9 did a great job of resurrecting the spirit of a 'hard game').

There are a couple of new items in NSMB, the blue turtle shell, the mini mushroom and the super mushroom. These tend to be pretty rare in the game and are used primarily to find hidden star coins or alternate routes in levels. I really liked these items, I just wish I had an easier time getting my hands on one when I needed it. It felt like there were a thousand fire flowers but only a handful of special mushrooms. This brings me to the one thing I really wish they had changed about NSMB, the item/inventory system.

The way the inventory works in NSMB is very similar to SMW, you have the item you are currently using and you have a reserve item available on the touch screen. Simply touching the item on the touch screen will have it appear above Mario. I see a problem with this approach.

Only being able to keep one reserve item is lame. This worked in SMW because the cape was the best all purpose item in the game so its what you naturally kept a reserve of. In SMB3, you got to keep a ton of items at your disposal but could only use them in the map view, not any time in the level. This worked because you had items such as the hammer and cloud that only worked in the map view, plus the difficulty curve was steady: you could play through the earlier worlds racking up items that you inevitably had to use to get through the later worlds. In NSMB, you only have 5 possible items: mushroom, fire flower, blue turtle shell, mini mushroom and super mushroom and the last three being rare makes it that much more annoying not being able to hold onto multiple items. Plus the super mushroom only works for about 15 seconds. And if I can't hold on to multiple items it would be really great if I could swap my current item for the one in reserve. As is, its a replacement and you will have nothing in reserve after using it. The reason why the NSMB approach doesn't work is that you will play through the game primarily with the fire flower item because they are everywhere. Every now and then you'll spot an area where you need to be mini Mario but you can't remember at all the last time you passed a level that had one. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad if you could go back to that level, play through long enough to get the mini mushroom, and then return to map retaining the mini mushroom - but you can't. You have to beat the level to keep the mini Mario form. This isn't difficult, its just time consuming. And since there are so many levels and the special mushrooms are rare, I really would have liked to make a note on my map, marking which levels contain the special items. Or if I could just hold on to say 2 or 3 items in reserve and choose which one to switch to during the level that would just be awesome and would eliminate having to play through the same levels over and over to grab the mini mushroom when you need it.

Mini Games
There are a lot of mini games, about 25 I think. I played through each one of them, and there's bound to be something for everyone. Some of them are pretty lame but all of them involve using the touch screen to play the game which I like since the main game only uses the touch screen for world warping and reserve item use. The mini games are simple and fun if you're in the mood. I think this was a good addition, it doesn't feel hastily added on.

Overall, this game rocks. Its fun, its Mario, its worth playing through multiple times especially to get all the hidden star coins. I wish some of the levels were longer and more challenging; I wish I could hold on to more items or there were more special items available instead of just mushrooms/fire flowers most of the time. The ghost houses are lots of fun trying to find the alternative route. The bosses are a breeze but that just means you have no excuse for not rescuing Princess Peach!

Review: Nintendo DSi

2009-04-20T15:28:00.005-07:00

The Nintendo DSi launched earlier this month in North America, and Angela got me one for my birthday. I've had a few days to play around with the device, and I have to say I love it!

Price: if you don't want to pay $180 for a gaming system that has two cameras, can play music, has a mic, has built-in wifi, an opera browser, two screens, and looks oh so sexy, then don't. I know we're in a recession but the DSi is loaded with lots of features that make it well worth every penny. Besides, money is overrated.

Cosmetics: the screens look spectacular; they are slightly larger than the DS Lite screens which is nice. The device is thinner because the GBA slot has been removed (everyone is complaining about this, boo hoo). The Matte finish feels good. Black is the best color for electronics.

Cameras: there are two 0.3 megapixel cameras on the DSi and I've enjoyed using them. They are obviously not mean to replace a digital camera though some people seem to think that and are complaining that they aren't as good. I really like how when I first turn on the DSi it will randomly grab a picture that I've taken and display on the top screen. Its simple but it does make the device feel more like mine (i in DSi stands for individual). There are about 10 different effects that you can use when taking a picture or editing one. Everything from distorting or mirroring pictures to writing on them to changing the colors. Keep in mind this is not photoshop nor is it meant to be. Its a small, lightweight photo capturing/editing tool that makes it fun to play with photos.

I've been really impressed with the facial recognition software the camera tool uses. For instance, I can aim the camera at my face and it will recognize where my eyes are and put glasses over them; as I move the camera it will move the glasses to always be on top of my eyes. It adds to the fun factor. I won't be playing with the cameras every day but its something you can do every now and then for some light hearted laughs; its a welcomed feature.

Sound Recording/Editing:
You can use the built-in mic to record some sounds then edit their pitch and/or speed. You can also add a couple effects like trumpet or desk fan. Its funny and will entertain you for a few minutes at a time. Don't expect to play around with this too often; its good to come back to every once in a while, like the camera feature.

Battery: I heard some complaints about battery life from other reviews, I have not experienced this. I played for more than 8 or 9 hours before the red battery light came on. That could mean I had plenty of minutes left before the device would die. For me, its a non-issue. And do you really need more than 9 hours before charging? I plug mine in every couple days over night to charge, and then I don't have to worry about how much battery is left.

Browser: I tried loading gmail but it said the page was too large. Not really sure when I would try to do anything useful with the browser, this feature feels like an afterthought, but its free so who cares if you never use it.

DSiWare: There are only about 5 games out for DSiWare right now and they all look kind of lame, except for Dr Mario. I did get $10 to use on DSiWare complimentary of Nintendo. I'll wait for something to catch my eye; the potential is there just not the goods right now.

Overall I love the DSi and would absolutely recommend it to non-ds owners interested in a portable system that is both for the casual gamer the elite alike. If you own a DS or DS Lite you may consider trading it in towards a DSi but only if yours isn't that new. I've been playing with mine practically non-stop since I got it; its just an amazingly fun device! The touch screen works perfectly and everything about my DSi just seems so awesome, I can't get enough!

Best Birthday Ever

2009-04-20T11:52:00.005-07:00

Well I'm 25 and I had an amazing time celebrating it. Thursday morning I woke up and after showering saw that Angela had made me toaster strudels with a candle in one of them. She sang me Happy Birthday in an octave higher than I thought a person could sing. She also gave me one present to open in the morning. It was a platinum wavebird, new in packaging. I have wanted a new one for so long and have been debating whether or not to pay for a new one or risk getting a used one. Somehow she snagged this one for an amazing price off ebay. I can't wait to get some smash in on it!

The work day was highly unproductive as I spent time day dreaming about how the rest of the day would go and the weekend. Once 5ish rolled around Angela and I caught the bus south to the Chicago Firehouse Restaurant. We enjoyed a delicious salad wedge, wine, and steak. We've only been there once before but each time it is so delicious. Angela pulled out one present for me to open. I tore open the wrapping paper and was flabbergasted when I saw it was The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. I wanted to jump up and down but we were in a nice restaurant. After dinner we caught a cab home. Of course we got the weird driver who thought we were siblings, then he told us he wanted to marry a black woman so he would be tanner. It was weird.

Once at home I was going nuts over wanting to open my presents but Angela made me wait just a couple more minutes. She surprised me with a cake that had numbered candles lit on it (2 and 5 for those not keeping up). I made my wish and blew them out. Then got my next present, New Super Mario Bros. This could only mean one thing for my last present. Sure enough, I peeled the paper back and went absolutely crazy when I saw it was a Nintendo DSi. I screamed and jumped up and down and danced and did all sorts of things one does when incredibly excited and happy beyond measure. I've been obsessed with the DSi and could not stop talking about it. I thought for sure Angela had gotten me something completely unrelated. I couldn't believe that she got me all my video gaming desires!

Saturday night we had several of my friends over, I think just over 15 total. It was a fun time hanging out and drinking. The groups didn't mingle as much as I would have thought but that's just how parties go sometimes, and there's nothing wrong with that. Everyone had a great time, we have only 3 beers left over so I think we guessed right on that account. All in all it was a great time.

Needless to say I've been playing my DSi all the time since Thursday!

Illinois Driver's License

2009-04-16T11:32:00.002-07:00

Hey guess what, I just got my IL license two days ago after living here since 2002 (or 2006 if you don't count college). I had to get the new license because my TN one expired today. For anyone preparing to take the written exam, it is extremely easy. I mean it. I studied for a little bit before the test thinking that it would be difficult, like the TN one was. The IL exam is all based on common sense. There is an obvious wrong answer and an obvious right answer. Let me show you what I mean:

#N. If you are approaching an unmarked railroad crossing, you should :
a) speed up to pass over the tracks as quickly as possible
b) slow down, look both ways, and pass only if the tracks are clear
c) something else

I can't remember the third choice but its pretty obvious to me the last thing you want to do is speed up in this situation, clearly being cautious is the correct answer. I'm not really sure what this test is proving. It ensures I have common sense? Or that I'm not a moron? Shouldn't I be given an actual driving test if anything to see what kind of driver I am? But then what is that test proving? I can make four right turns in no traffic with someone watching me, but how do I drive when there's traffic and pedestrians and bikers and rain and snow and construction and my cell phone is ringing and the radio is on and so on and so forth? I would think everyone is capable of handling the vehicle in optimum conditions, but what about all the other circumstances when you're actually more likely to get into an accident? Shouldn't those be your test? How you do that I don't know.

Maybe some of this should be regulated by the vehicles themselves. Take turn signals for instance. Everyone probably used them during the driving test when they were 16, but I see so many cars turning and changing lanes without using them. What if the car could record when the wheel was turned, the accelator was pressed down, but the turn signal was not used? I think we have so many incosiderate drivers because there's no penalty for being that way. Most of the time you won't get caught, you'll only really get in trouble if you get into an accident.

Its mind numbing the number of traffic accidents that occur each year. Should all those people be driving? Is there a better way to train drivers? As a biker in Chicago I would love to have more considerate drivers but I just don't see the trend going that way. If only everyone biked or rode the bus...

Review: Resident Evil 5

2009-03-31T11:00:00.002-07:00

Recommendation: Buy it

I've just completed Resident Evil 5 for the first time, a little over 12 hours I think. The game was a lot of fun to play and very intense. Unfortunately, the game has gotten a lot of negative press and reviews. I personally liked most of what the game had to offer and think at time reviewers could be a little less critical of good titles.

There are some facts that come in to play with RE 5.

Fact #1: This is not a survival horror game, like RE 0, 1, 2 etc. Its more Action, but very intense action. I'm a huge fan of the RE series and I still enjoyed the Action slant.

Fact #2: Not pausing the game for inventory makes playing intense. I hear a lot of people complaining about this feature. I don't know why. When you have hordes of enemies coming at you and you're low on health and need to reload all your guns and you don't know if you have a grenade or if your partner's got it - I guarantee your heart will be pounding. Not getting to pause the game and instantly heal yourself, arrange your inventory, reload all your weapons - it goes a long way to create an intense playing experience.

I for one loved getting chased my chainsaw wielding zombies while trying to limp far enough away to find a grenade to chuck at them.

Fact #3: Capcom isn't racist. The scene is Africa, there are both modern and what I'll call tribal Africans in the game that you have to kill, maim, run away from. So why exactly is that racist? You have the ability to stomp on fallen zombies...just like you have in just about every other RE game. I really think people need to take a step back and consider that we're talking about a zombie game. A game about killing infected zombies. The fact that RE 5 was plagued with negative press for racism just seems ignorant and trite.

Overall, the game is great. There's nothing like killing zombies, even ones that can wield rocket launchers. I got really annoyed with my AI partner, but I have to have something to yell at so it might as well have been Sheva. The replay value is there, with lots of goodies to unlock, weapons to upgrade, scores to reach, etc. And of course there's trophies! This is a great looking game that has a nice feel and some good quality game play. The puzzles are pretty light so I'm going back through the first RE on gamecube to get my fix. After that I'll probably go through RE 5 again :)

My Earth Hour 2009 Experience

2009-03-31T10:44:00.003-07:00

Last Saturday was of course Earth Hour. Angela and I enjoyed participating. We turned off all lights, unplugged everything in the house (including cable boxes, router, clocks) except for the refrigerators. We turned off our phones, lit a bunch of candles, and busted out my poker set. It was a little hard to see at first but your eyes adjust to the low light after a few minutes.

We started playing just before 8:30 and ended a little after 10:30. The time went by surprisingly quickly. We might do it again soon. We have lots of board games but never play them or card games because there's a tv, and on-demand, and twitter and everything else that gets in the way. It was fulfilling to something a lot more human for a change, without the anonymity of the net.

It was hard to see if anyone else in our neighbourhood really participated in the Earth Hour, but I'm hopefully it sent the right message to the world governments about the concern its citizens have for the environment.

Smash Night is Back

2009-03-24T13:33:00.003-07:00

Last night I had a few friends over to play a game on the Wii called Super Smash Bros Brawl. It was a good time playing some video games, drinking beers and eating pizza. I hadn't played Smash in a long time nor have I played any multiplayer game offline in a while, so it was great to gather with friends in a room and grab controllers (I sure could go for another wavebird) to do 4 way battle for a few hours.

I really enjoyed having people over to all play a video game together, on the same screen. Because its easier to play online now I rarely get the chance to play with other people offline. Its just the way everything is going these days. You sit in the comfort of your own home and post a tweet to Twitter or you work your Netflix movie queue or you play your favorite game with strangers on Xbox Live or PlayStation Network. Sure its convenient; you don't have any lines, you don't have any scheduling issues, you don't have to put up with anyone you don't like - you get to do everything from inside your home, but its just you - no friends or people behind the counter. You can certainly have relationships or 'friendships' with other people online but it isn't the same as the real thing. The human element is missing. How harmful is that, does it even matter?

I think we're trading our social skills for the convenience of a web society. Everything is better online, its cheaper faster easier than the real thing. Netflix is easier than driving to the video store, having to remember when to return the movies so you don't get a huge late fee, the selection isn't as good. The store is only open for so many hours each day. Netflix is always there, accessible from any computer. But what about learning and developing skills to interact with your fellow humans? Are we going to become worse at job interviews, parties, and real social functions if we're not 'exercising' those 'muscles'? Learning to behave and function in a society is crucial to our human race. I wonder if we're are slowing becoming a little worse at it, a little lazier having the web at our fingertips all the time.

The web is great, but let's still interact with real people not just online id's :)

Back on the Wii Fit

2009-02-28T13:41:00.003-08:00

As the Wii Fit continues to top the sales charts month after month, I've tried to begin using it more. After we got married, Ang and I basically quit using the Wii Fit altogether. Some of my original impressions of the Wii Fit have changed since the hiatus from the game.

Let's talk about the good.

Overall, I'm still pleased with the Wii Fit. I still want to use it regularly, I'm averaging about twice a week currently. Wii Fit tracks my progress and my weight goals; it lets me know if i'm losing weight at the right pace to meet those goals. There's enough variety in the exercises and the games that I can get through 30 minutes each time without getting bored. Its motivating that it tracks how many total times I've done each exercise or game, and what overall score and rating I received. Having those stats makes it easy to decide which exercise to do next and what score I'm trying to achieve.

The Wii Fit is still a good source of exercise. I still get a good toned work out whenever I use it. And all the stats serve help serve as a guide for what to do each time. I'll stick with it, even if I think there's some obvious flaws.

Let's talk about those flaws.

A good workout is really about getting your heartrate up through strenuous exercise and keeping it up while flexing different muscle groups for a period of time, usually 30 minutes. What the Wii Fit sucks at is all the downtime in between exercises and games. It suffers from so much loading time and calibration of the balance board (why does it have to do this for every exercise!?) that I feel like my heartrate doesn't stay up. I do an exercise, it feels great, then I sit there and wait. I wait to go back to the selection screeen. I wait for the next one to load. I wait to skip through whatever crap the virtual trainer says. I wait for the exercise to begin. It can be upwards of a minute between one exercise and the next. It may not sound like much, but when its a minute in between every single exercise that you do, it takes a while.

Besides the loading times, I wish I could chain exercises or games together. Why can't I pre-select the things I want to do for the 30 minutes and then it will load them in that order? This is what I do at the gym.

There are over 40 different exercises and games. But then there are 2 hoola-hoop games. There are 2 running games and 2 step aerobics games. There's skiing, ski jumping, and snowboarding. There are a lot of similar games. And exercises for that matter: push-ups, and push-ups challenge (and several other challenges). 40 sounds like a lot but it comes up short after a time. Why can't they put an update out to add more games, change the step routine or ski slalom course?

The Wii Fit is $90. Honestly it probably isn't worth it as is. If Nintendo would just update the game with a few tweaks, a few additions I would sing the Wii Fit's praises to everyone. But why would Nintendo lift a finger to alter the Wii Fit? It continues to sell record numbers almost a year after it was released. Nintendo has no reason to change.

3 Things You Should Spend Money On

2009-02-09T20:13:00.003-08:00

Some people are frugal like myself. Others have holes in their pockets. Either way I think there are a few things that everyone should really spend their money on regardless of their income. I like to think of these items not as essentials, but as investments.

Bed
Think about how much time you spend in bed. At least 6-8 hours every day. That's a fourth to a third of every day you'll spend in the bed. Its worth it to make sure the bed is comfortable for you. Sure beds (really good ones) cost a lot of money. But for the amount of time you spend in it and the length of time you'll own it, it is completely worth it.

You'll buy a new bed once every five to ten years probably. In the long run, an extra couple hundred dollars is nothing. Save up the cash or get zero interest financing and get that perfect bed that works for you. It makes all the difference.

Shoes
I'm a guy. I own like 3 pairs of shoes. I'm not talking about buying shoes like most women do. I mean get yourself a really good pair of shoes that you wear each day. For me, I like tennis shoes. You're on your feet all the time. You put a ton of miles on your shoes even if you aren't that active during the day. Bad shoes can hurt your toes, your arches, your ankles, your calves, your back. Get the picture? Good shoes should be comfortable all the time, and you should never feel tired or sore anywhere after wearing them.

I go to Fleet Feet for my tennis shoes. They know their stuff and can find shoes that are designed to work with your stride. Its more expensive, but its worth it.

Food
Not takeout, not fast food. Put good things into your body every day and you'll get good things out. Put crap into your body and you'll feel like it; you won't have the energy and mentality that you're capable of. Your body is like a machine, food is its fuel - plain and simple.

I hear people complain that it costs too much to eat healthy. Boo for thinking that. It does cost more but its worth the extra few bucks so cut back on the movies or a new shirt or whatever else you're spending that cash on. And please just don't eat fast food, its just so awful in every way.

That's my short list. I try to always be conscience of what I spend on what items, but when it comes to the bed, my shoes, and food I don't hold back. I get plenty of good rest, my feet always feel great, and my body loves the fuel I give it. Spend money on the right things and it will be worth every penny.

Firefox add-on must haves

2009-02-02T08:49:00.006-08:00

Firefox is a wonderful browser. It is extremely powerful, especially when fully utilized with the right add-ons. Here's my list of favorite firefox add-ons and why I like them:

foxmarks
This is at the top of my list. It synchronizes your bookmarks across multiple computers by saving them to a central server. I use firefox at home, on my work linux box and my work laptop. Foxmarks makes it easy for me to keep the same set of bookmarks (while adding, updating, and deleting) across all my machines. If you ever have to re-install your OS or get a new computer - all your bookmarks are waiting for you :)

download statusbar
The default download status popup in firefox is awful. Download statusbar uses the bottom bar in the firefox window to show the completion of your downloaded files. You can double click the file to run/open it. There is a clear button. Multiple files are listed in the order they started downloading across the status bar. It gives me all the information I want without being in a separate window. You'll always be downloading something through the browser, you should always have this addon installed.

colorful tabs
Information overload, everyone has tons of tabs. There is a tabs category for firefox addons, its that hard to manage all these tabs that everyone has open all the time. Colorful tabs simply makes each tab a different color, its plain and simple but it helps me make sense out of the number of tabs I have open. You can have random color assigned or have it key off the domain, either way it distinguishes each tab. There are plenty of other tab addons out there but I don't need anything crazy, just a little color goes a long way.

twiiterfox
If you aren't on Twitter then ignore these last two. Twitter is great but I hate pulling up the twitter page just read 140 characters from a friend. Plus I never know how often to check it. Twitterfox puts a little icon in the bottom right of the status bar telling me how many unread posts I have. Whenever a new post comes in, it pops up in a little balloon in the corner for a few seconds. I can hit control-shift-p to pull up the little twitter window, letting me read the most recent posts and type up a post of my own. Twitter is great but it needs help and twitterfox is essential to using twitter.

tinyurl creatorTinyurl is a service that shrinks long urls into short ones, very useful for posting on twitter. This addon lets me create a tiny url from the url in the current page and automatically puts it on the copy buffer. Then I can use twitterfox to tweet about the url :)

Just these 5 is all I need to really get firefox going. There are of course thousands of others that you can add but I really don't like cluttering firefox with a bunch of novel add-ons. Also, I always install a theme - the default one is just so boring! What extensions do you use?

Death to Rhythm Video Games

2008-12-31T08:34:00.001-08:00

Guitar Hero, Rockband, now Wiimusic. I can't take it. All these games annoy me. I've never been into any of them and I have no interest in these games. I really hope this fad is over soon. Its so freaking annoying hearing someone bang on plastic drums or press plastic keys over and over.

Why is everyone so obsessed with these games? I just don't get it. The price is outrageous! Now there are additional guitars that you can buy that are around $200! Are you kidding me!?

I'm just really glad that my wife feels the same way. We live in an anti-rhythm game apartment :)

Blu-ray is happening

2008-12-30T15:19:00.001-08:00

I own a PS3 and signed up for Blockbuster's Total Access plan and I love watching blu-rays on my tv.

There are a ton of negative things in the news, and there always will be. I here so much whining about blu-ray and ps3 and that sales are down and people aren't really converting yet and blah blah blah. Fine. Everyone keep watching your crappy dvds; every time I see a blu-ray it just makes me tingle.

There are cheaper players out there but have fun with them when they lock up playing discs or freeze intermittently. And also have fun waiting for them to take forever to load each movie. Not me. I opted to spend a little more for the ps3 and it was so incredibly worth it. Everyone knows the quality of picture and sound is ridiculous. But guess what, the prices are dropping on discs. I saw on amazon.com that a lot of popular blu-rays were under $20. How crazy is that! I don't know how many discs I'm going to buy because blockbuster is giving us plenty to watch.

Netflix couldn't compete with blockbuster's blu-ray content, the choice for us was obvious.

Ang has been catching up on battlestar galatica on DVD and let me tell you, seeing a DVD even on the PS3 makes me scream for a blu-ray copy. Don't get me wrong, the upscaling is pretty sweet. A side by side comparison will blow your mind on how good it makes a dvd look. But it has got nothing on blu-ray.

The tv is worth it, the player is worth it, the discs are worth it. If you're hearing a lot of negative press around the costs of switching to blu-ray then hear this, its worth it.

Wii Games Wishlist as of Q4 2008

2008-11-25T08:44:00.004-08:00

My wii has had an interesting journey since I've owned it. Angela and I bought one together and kept it at her place before we got married (I didn't have a TV). We purchased:

Mario kart
Carnival games
Wii fit
Super smash bros brawl
Super mario galaxy

My friend Matthew got me The Force Unleashed as a wedding gift. We played through all these a lot - the exception being carnival games which I will always give Ang crap for.

Then I ran out of games. I turned to the Virtual Console, purchased some turbo grafix 16 nostalgia as well as a couple classic nes titles. Then I ran out of games. I turned to WiiWare and got World of Goo and Megaman 9, both amazing titles. Then I ran out of games.

As the holiday season is ramping up there are lots of titles for the PC, PS3, and XBox 360 coming out but not for the Wii. There are a few that I have on my list though:

Wario Land: Shake It
Metroid Prime: Corruption
Rayman Rabbits: TV Party (not released)
Conduit (not released)

Let's take a look at why I want each of these titles.

Wario Land: Shake It
2D platformer with all hand drawn textures throwing back to a more classic style gaming era, yeah I want that. It looks entertaining. Its not anything revolutionary but I'm a sucker for platformers; Wario Land has lots of challenges and collectables as well, giving me motivation to play back through levels multiple times - this is similar to what I did with Super Mario Galaxy finding the power stars.

Its not Fallout, its not Dead Space, its not Red Alert, its a simplier game but there's nothing wrong with that. Visually, it looks great for the Wii - unlike some other titles I own which will remain anonymous. Core platformer game play, nice visuals, and replay value combine to get this title on my Wii short list. Plus I think Angela might play through this one.

Metroid Prime: Corruption
Oh Samus, how did I miss this one when I bought my Wii!? I'm a fan of the Metroid series, not a huge uber fan that's played every title on every system 18 times but I've put in my fare share of Metroid killing action. Plus I played Samus a lot in the original Smash :P

Seriously though, this game looks great. No gimmikee (sp?) wii motion controls, smooth textures, tried and true Prime gameplay. Most critics agree this is a must have for the Wii library. I like FPS, I like Adventure titles, I like Samus. I think we'll get along just nicely.

I'm especially looking forward to the boss fights, which are said to be better than Zelda bosses, and we all know how those are :D

Rayman Rabbits: TV Party
Why buy the Wii? For the party games. You can't get around the fact the system and titles cater to group entertainment, and TV Party is just the latest in this line of games. Over 50 minigames to keep people engaged; I played the original Rayman Rabbits at a friend's house back in Memphis and was obsessed. Tons of very simple, easy to learn games that entertain everyone in the room. Its a proven formula, I don't expect anything ground breaking from this title, just more fun for the group. We have a great apartment for having people over - this game should be a part of the fun.

Conduit
Oh Conduit, when will thou'est grace me with thy presence? The FPS to end all FPS on the wii. Sci-fi, multiplayer, Wii exclusive - yeah you got my attention. The screen shots of this game look hot, like someone actually figured out how to make games look good on the Wii. Oh and they are going to incorporate WiiMotionPlus and WiiSpeak. Wow, its almost as if Nintendo would get serious about using the Wiimote, peripherals, and multiplayer that it could make some serious games for those of us not entertained by WiiMusic, Animal Crossing, and all the other lame crap they put out every few weeks. I want a serious game! And Conduit is just that, too bad I'll have to wait till 2009 Q2 to get it.

That's my list; there's still good titles coming out for the Wii, but they are too far in between. My wii goes through cycles of collecting dust, lots of dust, and buring hot from the constant gameplay. I want that sucker to be blazing hot this winter!

Review: Fallout 3

2008-11-24T12:09:00.004-08:00

Recommendation: Buy it, seriously buy it now. I think Fallout 3 should be game of the year.

Fallout 3, where to begin?

First, let me address the issue of this being the third iteration in a die hard fan series. Yes it switched to the first person mode but no it is not a first person shooter. I played fallout 2 and fallout tactics in college. I don't miss the top down 2D style; it was good back then but the new perspective for this game works, just leave it at that.

Imagine a huge world that you could explore, where you can be any type of character that you wish, that each of your actions affect the rest of the people around you, that you could have countless unique experiences every time you played the game. That's Fallout 3.

The world in Fallout 3 is massive, my first run through i explored maybe 25% of it. And that took me about 30 hours. I could easily put 200 hours into this game, no question. The world is as it should be, completely desolate with pockets of people, supplies, and ammo scattered throughout. This is no cookie cutter formula for an overworld, its entirely believable. And that greatly helps in the immersion factor. I've played six, seven, even eight hours continuously and not even thought about it. Its just that good. There's always new areas to explore.

In Fallout 3, you don't just chose melee or ranged. You chose each of your special attribute points from categories such as perception, strength, intelligence, and luck. Then you chose your skill points in categories such as speech, science, small guns, explosives, and barter. Then you chose your perks - there are too many to list but I enjoyed the faster xp perk, the strong back perk, and especially the finesse perk (more damage, greater chance for crits). Depending on what attributes, skills, and perks you chose your character has different speech options, different methods of completing quest, etc. You can play so many different styles its soooo worth it to replay as a different char. When I beat the game the first time all I could think about was what kind of character I wanted to make for the second run through, immediately.

What you do affects your game. There is a Karma system that has varying degrees of evil, neutral, and good. Depending on what your karma is you can do different quests, get different people to join your party, get different reactions from people (some people won't even talk to you if they don't like the kind of person you are), and even get different prices from vendors. There are supposedly over 500 different endings to the game depending on what choices you've made. Sounds like an exaggeration but we'll see. The first time I played I was as good as you could be. I helped people no matter the cost, hardly stole anything. This time through I'm as evil as they come. Its fun :)

This is just a brief description of the awesome goodness that is Fallout. Seriously, its so much better than the rest of the games out there. It should be game of the year. What are you waiting for, go play it! I know I will.

The Honeymoon

2008-10-17T16:23:00.002-07:00

7 days in beautiful Ireland, priceless.

We started out flying from Memphis to Chicago, piece of cake. We then checked in at AerLingus and got passes to the VIP lounge. The lounge is niiiice. We had a free open bar, snacks, nice seats, and we got to sit and relax until we were paged to board the plane - after everyone else had already boarded. Once on the plane we were given a row of seats to ourselves, free snacks, rum and cokes, memosas, and a bottle of champagne! You only get one honeymoon so I suggest when you're on it you tell everyone. You never know what you might get for free :)

Its an overnight flight so when we landed we had to pick up the rental car and drive through Dublin in rush hour to the hotel. This was a little stressful for me driving a European car for the first time having been up for over the past 24 hours. But I got the hang of it with no problems. The roundabouts were definitely different, no lights just yields all over the place. The street signs were the worst part. Instead of having big signs on corner poles like we're used to, Ireland has very small signs posted at the edge of buildings. The signs are impossible to see until you are right at the street intersection and then its too late to change lanes to turn. Anyway we made it to the hotel, checked in way early, and passed out on our king size bed for a few hours. We stayed at Dublin for the first two nights. We mainly relaxed and recovered from the recent festivities and traveling. We checked out some stores and pubs. We toured the Guiness factory which was fun and enjoyed our free Guiness afterwards. I have to say the best tasting things in Ireland are the Guiness and the cheese. After Dublin, we drove along the countryside staying in small towns and bed and breakfasts. It was really relaxing just being in the car together and enjoying the scenerary.

From Dublin we drove through KilKenny and spent the night outside Waterford. The next day we drove through there and on to Wexford. We passed through a small town called New Ross that had an immigration ship we went on. It was really neat. We kept driving along the South Eastern part of the island making our way back north the Dublin. We Wicklow, a pottery mill, a weaving mill, plenty of gorgeous countryside and even some glimpses of the sea.

We found the remains of an old church:

Overall, it was very relaxing just to not have to do anything. I had the most fun with Angela in the car driving. It was so peaceful, so happy.

Now the honeymoon is over, but happiness is everyday.

The Wedding

2008-10-09T12:43:00.004-07:00

Oh how to even begin blogging about this day. I won't go over the details. All I want to say is that this really was the best day of my life. Angela looked absolutely breathtaking in her dress.

Let's just skip to the church. Took some pictures before hand. I wasn't nervous at all. This is absolutely what I wanted with Angela. The ceremony was really special. My dad said some amazing things that made it very personal and intimate. I wasn't emotional but I was sweating bullets the whole time from the heat. No one messed up or fainted, though there were several tears throughout the audience :)

Before you knew it, we were announced and walked down the isle. Lots more pictures and off to the reception - the best party I have ever been to. So many people came from all around the country, it meant the world to ang and I. The food was amazing, though we only got a couple bites. There was so much energy and everyone had such a great time. Once the band started it was just non stop dancing and fun. Someone had a beach ball and let me tell you, that's a good time getting to knock a beach ball around on the dance floor. Lots of people (youngins) stayed late so we got plenty of partying in. And then it was midnight, off to the Madison Hotel courtesy of a limo ride. It was an incredible day that I wouldn't have changed one detail.

I'm married!!!

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Here is the list of songs we had at the reception:

Bright Eyes - First Day of My Life
Coldplay - Kingdom Come
Heather Nova - Paper Cup
R.E.M. - Be Mine
White Stripes - We're Going to be Friends
Beatles - While My Guitar Gently Weeps
David Gray - This Year's Love
R.E.M. - Half a World Away
Iron and Wine - Such Great Heights
R.E.M. - You are Everything
R.E.M. - So. Central Rain
R.E.M. - Drive
Journey - Open Arms
Arcade Fire - In the Back Seat
Bob Dylan - The Times They Are A Changing
Bright Eyes - I Believe in Symmetry
David Gray - You're the One I Love
Fuel - Daniel
Jimmy Eat World - Hear You Me
Low - Like A Forest
Radiohead - High and Dry
Radiohead - Fake Plastic Trees
Radiohead - Bulletproof...I Wish I Was
Radiohead - House of Cards
Radiohead - Let Down
Radiohead - Karma Police
Pancho's Lament - Promise Me This
Indigo Girls - Love's Recovery
Sundays - Wild Horses
Michael Stripe - In the Sun
Weepies - World Spins Madly On
Rufus Wainwright - Across the Universe
Billy Bragg and Wilco - California Stars
Frou Frou - Let Go

My Bachelor Party

2008-09-11T06:23:00.003-07:00

In one sentence, the best bachelor party ever.

With everything involved in wedding planning, moving, and a stressed out bride I was really looking forward to my bachelor party. Several work and school friends were coming but I was most excited about my brothers coming up from Memphis. I wish Daniel could have made it but his transportation got hosed.

Here's what happened:

Everyone (about 10 total) met at my apartment to carpool to Buffalo Grove. We went to Chicago Indoor Racing, high speed go-karts. These things get up to over 30 miles an hour. Its freaking awesome. We get there, its a huge nice facility: full bar and kitchen, arcade, pool tables, and huge windows showing both the race tracks so you can watch the go-karts zooming by while you're waiting for your turn. We got to put on the racing suit, the helmet, the neck guard. It was hot but it definitely made us all feel like racers.

We got to race 4 times. 3 times at 15 laps and 1 time at 30 laps. My brother, Michael, got first overall by far. I was usually around 7th or 8th, but it didn't even matter because i was having so much fun. I think I used the brakes a little too much and that's why I couldn't take the lead. Maybe next time :)

We got food there and then headed back to the city to drops off the cars and head out to Improv Olympics. We had a few drinks at Bar Louie next door before we saw the show. Xiang met up with us at the bar and I was really happy to see him. Nothing too eventful from Bar Louie, just us getting our drink on. We headed next door for the improv show which was the funniest thing I have ever seen. Michael and I were rolfing the entire time. They asked for a volunteer and of course all my guys yelled out nominating me. I got up on stage and one of the actors asked me a series of questions about my day and what I do. He told me that I didn't have to be funny and I could just answer the questions but I was buzzed so I was making some funny of my own :) I don't remember half of what the jokes were but it seriously was so funny.

There were two improv groups that went. The second one was not nearly as good as the first but it didn't matter. From there we headed up the street to Mullen's Pub. How awesome is that?

Mullen's was good. We hung out in the outside area around back until closing, just drinking more. I don't know where the time went but before we knew it they had closed up for the night. After that we stood around for a few minutes and then decided to call it a night and we caught a cab home. By now I was exhausted since I had been up since 6:30 that morning to move Angela's furniture into our new apartment.

The next day my brothers slept in, resting up before they had to make the drive back to Memphis. Go-karts, comedy, and drinking with my brothers and good friends - I couldn't have asked for a better time. A big thanks to my brother, my best man, Michael for putting everything together. He made it the best bachelor party I could have ever asked for :)

Wedding update: Memphis Trip in August

2008-09-09T08:11:00.002-07:00

The last planning trip before we come down for the big day.

This trip was by far the most relaxing. We got to meet with several of our vendors again, just to make sure we were on the same page about everything. We met with Pink Palace, and the organist and wedding coordinator for the ceremony. All good experiences overall. Nothing much to report on Friday.

Saturday was our big ole day of fun. While I met up with my groomsmen to get fitted for tuxes, Angela went to investigate the linens and rentals for the reception. I had a lot of fun hanging out with my guys at the tux shop and after that we enjoyed Memphis' best burgers at Huey's. After lunch, Ang and I headed out to meet the caterer. I have to say I was a little disappointed that we had to repeat ourselves so many times over the details of our reception with this catering company. Oh well, I just want it to all work out well and taste good :)

We chilled at the house for a little while and then got ready for the big event, the couple's wedding shower. We headed over to the Phillip's new house and it was immaculate. I'm really glad we could have it at such a nice and large location. Unfortunately Bob couldn't be there but I understand why so its ok. We had most of the church and some of my mom's side of the family there. We got a lot of great gifts, including plenty of kitchen items and some camping gear for me :) After all the gifts several people had some amazingly kind things to say about me - at which point I grinned ear to ear and turned bright red. I really felt completely surrounded by the people who have known me my whole life and always shown me unconditional love. I hope to start a family with Angela and show the same kindness and love to our kids that so many have shown to me.

The next morning, around 6 we loaded up the car and headed back to Chicago. Exhausted, we moved the rest of Angela's stuff into the new apartment. I'm glad its over with, thinking about it just makes me tired all over again.

No more planning trips, just have to get down there and enjoy the day next time. I've enjoyed planning the wedding with Angela by ourselves but I will also enjoy it when all this is over, and we can simply relax and enjoy being married. Soon :)

Working from home

2008-08-29T10:29:00.006-07:00

As long as I don't mention my company's name, their blogging policy doesn't apply :P

I've been very fortunate to be able to work from home with my current company. I log in through the VPN and use Nomachine to use my linux workstation. I'd like to express the pros and cons of the ability to work from home.

Pros:
* No distractions. When I'm at work, I get people emailing me, coming up to my desk, scheduling meetings, instant messaging me, etc. I even get the occasional phone call. When I'm at home, all that is turned off. I don't check email, I don't go to meetings (have to sometimes call in though), no one can come up to me in person, I have jabber up but rarely respond unless its my team. I'm like a ninja programmer, stealthing behind the scenes writing code. Uninterrupted time is invaluable to anyone working with their brains rather than their hands. I'm about 500% more productive at home than at the office, sigh.
* Uber flexible hours. I take breaks when I want, I start when I want, I end when I want. I can sort of do this already, but I don't want to come to work at 10, take an hour break in the afternoon (what would I do?) then work till 8 and bike home. Once travel time is taken out of the mix, I don't have a problem starting at 7a, taking a break in the afternoon to watch some Family Guy for an hour, then continue working till 5 or 6. I find this better than trying to plow through 8 hours of work and being very tired mentally around hour 6.

Cons:
* VPN is slow. I like fast. There is a noticable lag when going over the VPN from home, it sucks but there's nothing I can do about it. Maybe a cable connection will work better than dsl.
* Calling into meetings sucks. You can barely hear anyone and you cannot see anything. Plus my cell doesn't get great reception in my place.
* You're not in the office. Sounds contradictory but sometimes I need to whiteboard with my team, or I want to attend a technical presentation at work. Its great being away from the office, but sometimes you miss out on things you really would like to be present for.

I don't work that often from home, maybe once every 2 or 3 weeks. If I had a better home office setup and a faster connection I might be more inclined to work from home more; until then, I'll still be in the office the vast majority of the time.

Wiki

2008-08-26T07:09:00.003-07:00

Wikis are amazing for collaborating and sharing information between a body of people over the internet. Forget email chains and lost information; put everything on a wiki and share it whether its static or more dynamic content.

We have a Confluence Wiki at work and I've set up a wikidot wiki for myself and Ang. Also, for ERMA we use wikidot for our wiki. I think they are great, the syntax is a lot easier than html so its really quick and easy to markup pages. Wikipedia is the most famous one obviously but I'm hoping wikis will catch on more with the less uber-technical internet users.

Knowledge is power :)

Still not convinced? YouTube has a good video by CommonCraft explaining wikis.

Politics

2008-08-26T06:46:00.002-07:00

Given that its an election year, I want to let everyone know that I do not enjoy talking about politics. If you do then that's awesome, go share it with someone else. I enjoy a lot of things: books, movies, video games, soccer, etc but I do not like to talk about democrats vs republicans or liberals vs conservatives. I don't get any satisfaction out of it.

Its been my experience that when talking about politics that people generally get unhappy. They argue their side and tend to get upset or at least loud when trying to convince their audience why their views are better.

No matter how much I talk about politics, I'm not going to change anything so why bother? So I can either try to convince others of why their political views are wrong, or I can just stick to the things that I truly get enjoyment out of. There are plenty of people with political aspirations of varying degrees, they can speak for me while I'm playing my Wii.

Lollapalooza 2008

2008-08-09T08:46:00.004-07:00

I went to Lollapalooza this year courtesy of Angela getting us 3 day passes for my birthday. For details on the Radiohead concert check out my previous post. Overall, we had an amazing time all 3 days. I'm not a live music buff; I've only been to a few shows in my life, and only one outdoor music festival.

Instead of going day by day, show by show, I'd like to just describe the weekend experience as a whole.

The sun. I'm pale, extremely pale. I don't tan, so the sun and I don't always get along. I had to be really careful not to get burned over the weekend (whenever I go to beach I always get burned). Thankfully my better half was watching out for me the whole time. I could usually stand about an hour in the sun before I had to seek shade. I was actually surprised by how much shade there was along the edges of Grant Park. There were plenty of ppl camped out under trees all the time but Ang and I found a great spot in the shade that was close to two stages and a beer stand. We'd listen to someone closer up to the stage for a while and when we got too hot, retreat back to our cooler, darker sanctuary. I would have been miserable trying to stay in the sun all day.

The beer. 5$ for Budweiser draft, that's just fine in my book. We saw a lot of people drinking wine which I wouldn't think would go well with the heat but oh well.

The music. Great music, as always I'm sure. We saw an Irish band that was really entertaining. Iron & Wine was so quiet, not really outdoor festival music. There was a stage that played only DJs the whole weekend. I don't really think club music is fun at 2pm outside when its 90 degrees. I really enjoyed all the new music I got to hear, and Lollapalooza gave all of us free downloads of a selection of songs by all the artists performing that weekend. Not too shabby.

The crowd. Plenty of guys with no desire to wear shirts, plenty of women with beachware. Some people just shouldn't be showing that much of their bodies in public, you know the ones I'm talking about. I was confused by seeing several parents bring their small children to the festival. If you're a kid of 2 or 3, would you really enjoy loud music and heat all day long while your parents are drifting through pot smoke? And there was plenty of smoke.

I think that about covers it. Amazing weekend, fantastic shows. I probably wouldn't do a 3 day pass again any time soon but I'm really glad I had the experience this year. Plus it didn't hurt that as we were leaving the festival Sunday night we sold our wristbands to a couple ppl wanting to get in, $60 for both of ours. Not bad at all :)

Radiohead Live

2008-08-05T19:08:00.003-07:00

For my birthday, Angela got me 2 tickets to Lollapalooza 2008. The headlining band just happened to be Radiohead :)

Seeing Radiohead live has been on my list for a decade. This was seriously the best gift I've ever gotten. And I got to share the experience with my best friend, it doesn't get any better than that. Honestly, this is the best live performance that I have ever been to, and I was completely blown away by how amazing the show was. I estimate there were up to 100,000 people at the show. The songs were amazing, Thom Yorke was amazing, the crowd was amazing. The light show, my goodness the light show was incredible! On each side of the stage they had a giant screen that was actually 6 screens together in a 2x3 arrangement. Each screen was a different camera, with a couple being on Thom and the rest on the other members of the band. We were back about 100 yards from the stage so watching Radiohead on the screens added a lot to the show. The screens didn't just have a plain old camera feed. There were tons of visual effects on the screens that corresponded to the song being played. The visuals on the screens were in sync with the visuals on stage. There were about 30 pipes hanging across the stage from the top down to about 10 feet above the band. The pipes were actually digital screens so they showed all kinds of colors and effects during the performance. They could move up and down and were a dazzling visual stimulus for the audience. Words just can't describe what we saw.

The set list was awesome. I was originally thinking because this is a festival that they wouldn't play any In Rainbows, that they would only play known crowd pleasers. True Radiohead style, they do what they want to do:

Setlist:
01. 15 Step
02. Airbag
03. There There
04. All I Need
05. Nude
06. Arpeggi
07. The Gloaming
08. The National Anthem
09. Faust Arp
10. No Surprises
11. Jigsaw Falling Into Place
12. Reckoner
13. Lucky
14. The Bends
15. Everything In Its Right Place
16. Fake Plastic Trees
17. Bodysnatchers

Encore 1:
18. Videotape
19. Paranoid Android
20. Dollar and Cents
21. House of Cards
22. Optimistic

Encore 2:
23. 2+2=5
24. Idioteque

So as you can see, plenty of In Rainbows and Hail to the Thief. There's no Karma Police or Creep and I'm ok with that. I was more excited that they played Idioteque and House of Cards (my favorite In Rainbows song). I think my favorite part was during Paranoid Android, towards the end when Thom Yorke starts humming. Literally, every person in the crowd was humming/singing along during that bridge. It was like a chorus of 100k Thom Yorkes, absolutely amazing. Nothing will ever compare in my mind to this show. And I've got the love of my life to thank for it.

Thank you Ang for a once in a life time experience, I wouldn't have wanted to share it with anyone but you.

Wedding update: Memphis trip in July

2008-07-20T18:15:00.003-07:00

Over 4th of July weekend, Angela and I drove down to Memphis for another intense wedding planning trip that is all too short each time. We made it into the Memphis a little after noon and saw my grandmother in Kirby Pines. It was a good visit; I hadn't seen her since Christmas because our trips have been so short and busy. After that we headed to Jackson, TN for Angela to meet my dad's side of the family for the first time. We met at a Mexican restaurant - the only thing open on the 4th - and had a good long meal. Angela and I were absolutely exhausted by the time we got home.

After a night's rest, we met with our florist to go over, you guessed it, flowers. Not much to say there, guys will never understand flowers. From there we headed downtown to a possible rehearsal dinner location, Circa. Let me tell you, this place is nice. I'm really excited about the this place - the food sounds delicious, they have an extensive wine collection, and the look of the place is just fascinating. Most of all, there is a private room that is perfect for our rehearsal dinner. Once we decided this was the place, we left the restaurant for some R&R at home. We played Catch Phrase with the family for a while which was a really fun time. That game rocks. From there, it was off to our engagement session.

The engagement session is a time for us to spend with our photographers with a two-fold purpose. First, we get comfortable with them taking pictures of us. Some people are not used to being in front of camera, so its a good way to break that ice. Also, it gives the photographers a chance to see how we are as a couple. The intention is for us to do something fun and they'll hang back and shoot us. These photographers have a story telling style as opposed to strictly traditional posed photography. I like this a lot, and for our session I suggested Putt-Putt miniature golf. Miniature golf has always been on our list to do so I figured two birds with one stone. As always, it rained while we were in Memphis so we had to wait for the rain to stop to start playing. We got through about half of the holes before it started raining again so we were sporting an umbrella for the rest of the time. It was a lot of fun, and we're excited to see all the shots they got. And of course, as soon as we were done the skies cleared!

Once back at the house we had salmon for dinner - so delicious - and fireworks for an after dinner show (a la The Office's The Client episode). It was a lot of fun to make our own fireworks show. After it was all over, another night's rest and we hit the road early in the morning to make it back to Chicago - to go to work the next morning. So a productive trip overall with wedding vendors and family.

I speak for both of us when I say Angela and I are worn out. These trips are absolutely exhausting. These trips are not vacations. They are not weekends. They are work. I'm really proud of how effective we are when in Memphis, but I will be quite happy when coming to Memphis means staying for more than 2 nights, spending the time relaxing and just having fun, and not having an agenda to stick to. I think we are both just worn out from these trips. Only one more to go in August and then its the wedding a month from then. We can't wait!!!

Diablo 3

2008-07-09T17:01:00.003-07:00

If you haven't watched the videos go do so right now!

I couldn't be more excited about Diablo 3. I played D2 many times. I never seemed to have a fast enough connection to play comfortably on battle.net but I enjoyed playing through the single player many times. One year at IIT several of us played through on the LAN together and that was a lot of fun. I played some with Mikee but there was so much lag I don't think we got very far together. Needless to say, I clocked a lot of game time on D2 and am planning on D3 being no different.

The gameplay video showed many things I'm excited about. D3 has male and female classes, and each piece of armor is now customizable per class. They are using the Havock (sp?) physics engine; so you can actually interact with the environment, destroying pillars and surroundings which can hurt enemies! It looks like we will really have optional side quests, making the gameplay much less linear.

I couldn't be happier that the demo showed the Barbarian; any quest game I always play as the Barbarian/Warrior first. And he looks so powerful! You just have to watch the video, its pretty ridiculous.

Lastly, Blizzard has learned a lot from WoW and is giving Diablo an interface rework - making it so much easier to switch between skills and abilities. This is going to make the gameplay a lot faster, combined with the life orbs enemies drop that you can use to regain HP instead of picking up potions then using them. The only downside about being this excited for Diablo 3 is knowing it will be at least a year until it comes out. I'm hoping Sacred and Starcraft will hold be over until then.

Fancy Dinner

2008-07-09T16:21:00.002-07:00

As a celebration dinner at work for open sourcing ERMA, our team was taken out for a nice dinner at Blackbird. This place is really nice, like seriously nice.

Not my style.

The menu had a few options listed for appetizers and entrees, each of which takes years of culinary experience to decipher. We had wine for dinner and every time a new bottle was opened, a first taste was poured for Matt to test to see if this bottle was acceptable. Everytime anyone got up from the table, one of the waiting staff would come by to fold the napkin neatly next to the place setting. All the proportions were incredibly small. You have to order an appetizer and an entree to even get by. As a free appetizer they brought us all a bite, literally a bite, of salmon.

I thought the steak I got was really good don't get me wrong, but man its at least $100 to eat there for dinner. And you won't be satisfied hunger wise. I went home and had a grilled sandwich on my foreman and a Dr. Pepper, and it was delicious!

I just don't see the point to paying this much money for not much food and a pompous atmosphere. The meat was really good, but everything just didn't taste good to me. Its just not my style.

Why the Wii Fit is Awesome

2008-06-24T06:13:00.003-07:00

Or, why Gamespot's review of the Wii Fit is completely wrong.

I am completely satisfied with our Wii Fit. Its an excellent fitness tool for the areas of fitness it pertains to. What I mean is the Wii Fit is not for doing bicep curls or bench pressing a plate. If you want to look like a body builder then go to the gym with a personal trainer. However, if you are interested in losing fat and toning muscle then I recommend the Wii Fit - good luck finding one :)

I'd like to start by arguing the main points of Gamespot's review of the Wii Fit:
1. The Wii Fit does not allow a person to create a workout of exercises strung together.
2. The Wii Fit requires at least 6 hours of gameplay to unlock all the exercises.
3. The Wii Fit does not monitor upper body movement and cannot tell if you are exercising.
4. The Wii Fit has subpar graphics, especially the trainers.
5. Overall the Wii Fit is not the fitness revolution tool the hype has projected it as.

1. The Wii Fit does not allow a person to create a workout of exercises strung together.

Gamespot mentioned this more than once as a serious lack in capability on the Wii Fit, saying that its such a simple function its mind-boggling that the ability isn't in the game. In my opinion, it was the right move to not have 'custom workouts' of exercises strung together. The whole point of the Wii Fit is supposed to make exercising fun, and not feel like a video tape instructional workout. I don't want to be told what to do next. I want to decide, do I want to retry that exercise for a higher score. I want to decide, am I too tired right now to do another aerobics exercise - maybe I should do a balance game or two to catch my breath.

There are a lot of exercises in the Wii Fit to exercise a lot of different parts of the body. The point is for you to have a well rounded fitness program, and not do the same handful of exercises at the gym. I'm speaking from experience. For over a year I did the same exercises at the gym on a regular basis. And I gained muscle in those areas of my body, but only those. The other areas of my body were still extremely weak. I found it difficult to work my core, back and chest because my arms always compensated for the weight, since my arms were my primary focus. In order to be truly fit, you need well balanced muscles throughout your entire body. That means working different muscles all the time, not picking out a few exercises that you like and doing those over and over. You should do all the exercises in the Wii Fit, perhaps that's why it keeps track of how many times you've done each exercise. In my opinion, not creating custom workouts is to the benefit of Wii Fit players - not an oversight by the designers.

2. The Wii Fit requires at least 6 hours of gameplay to unlock all the exercises.

When I heard this in the video review, I did sort of a "huuuuuuh?" The Wii Fit makes exercising more like a game, keeping track of scores and points. If you do workout for so many minutes (fitness credits) you unlock new games and exercises. Sound familiar? A la, unlocking characters in Smash Bros or Mario Kart. Plus, I don't care if it took 20 hours of working out; the whole point is the Wii Fit is something you do everyday as part of a healthy lifestyle. Its NOT a game that you play through one time and put down. You should want to do at least 30 minutes of Wii Fit a day. If you do, then it takes you less than 2 weeks to unlock all the exercises. Why is that bad? Gamespot was completely off base with this one, imho.

3. The Wii Fit does not monitor upper body movement and cannot tell if you are exercising.

In the video review, the Wii Fit was on the jogging exercise. It pans back to show the reviewer sitting down eating a cookie while moving the wiimote back in forth with his arm. Yes, the Wii Fit is only a balance board so for a couple of the exercises it relies on the wiimote to sense motion. The idea with the jogging exercise is you either put the wiimote in your pocket or hold it in your hand while you run in place. Here's my question. If you want to sit down and eat while the Wii Fit thinks you're jogging, then why did you buy the Wii Fit? Its clearly not to get into shape. You can always game the system, but what does that get you? If you cheat the Wii Fit, sure you get a high score but you won't be improving your health at all (the entire point of the Wii Fit). You can turn on a treadmill and sit next to it and watch tv, but it won't help you burn any calories. So why are you bothering with the Wii Fit if you're going to knock it for not knowing when you're cheating? The Wii Fit is designed to help you. The exercises, points, scores, everything is with the intention of helping you get in shape. If that's not what you want then don't bother (the reviewer looked like he should lay off the cookies and actually go for a jog).

4. The Wii Fit has subpar graphics, especially the trainers.

Once again, Gamespot continued to come up with crappy reasons why they were not impressed with the Wii Fit. Yes, the Wii Fit graphics aren't spectacular but who cares? That's not the point of the game. Its not trying to impresss you with graphics, its trying to get you to focus on improving your health. You know what has really good graphics? RL, but I don't see too many of you at the gym every day. Gamespot views the Wii Fit as solely a game, instead of a fitness aid. For this reason, it continues to hold the Wii Fit to the wrong criteria for recommendation to a wider audience. The Wii Fit only needs adequate graphics to give you the visual guidance for how to do each exercise or game properly. And it does that just fine! If you phenomenal graphics, go play Metal Gear Solid 4. And continue to sit on your butt for hours at a time. If you're looking for help getting into shape because you recognize the looming health issues you're susceptible to later in life due to your sedentary lifestyle, then get a Wii Fit and enjoy the change in your lifestyle it will help you achieve.

5. Overall the Wii Fit is not the fitness revolution tool the hype has projected it as.

Gamespot couldn't be more wrong about this one. The Wii Fit is doing something different from all the other personal trainers and instructional videos and huge home fitness contraptions. Its making exercising fun! Actually fun. Ang and I like to do the Wii Fit together, trading off every 15 minutes. We can compete on the same exercises for higher scores. Its all the motivation we need to exercise way more often then we used to. We don't think of the Wii Fit as a chore; its a fun game that we play. And the more I play it, the better I want to do.

For Angela, the Wii Fit is great because it trains her on what exercises to do and provides an easy way to get daily exercise. For a lot of people, a public gym is not an appealing option. It costs a chunk of change each month; it can get really crowded; its something that you have to go do and takes a lot of time when you factor in going to and from, changing clothes, showering, etc; it can be intimidating being surrounded by people in peak physical shape when you're trying to just get your feet wet at the gym. Plus, you always have to schedule time to go to the gym and figure out transportation to and from. With the Wii Fit, Angela can use it any time in her apartment, when its convenient for her.

For myself, the Wii Fit is great because it trains me on what exercises I need to do to get all around muscle tone for the areas that I don't work out at the gym. I try to go to the gym 3 days a week. While I'm there I run on the treadmill or do the endless stairs machine. I then do 3 or 4 exercises of weight lifting and I'm done. I only have maybe 8 exercises that I do total. That means muscle imbalance. The Wii Fit helps me work all those core muscles, those side muscles, those back muscles, those leg muscles that I don't work at when I'm at the gym. Plus it helps burn calories/fat which is always a good thing. I use the Wii Fit on top of going to the gym regularly, and it works great for me.

Well there you have it; I think Gamespot is completely wrong with its assessment of the Wii Fit. I would highly recommend it to anyone seeking the fitness help that it provides. Besides combatting Gamespot's review, I want to say the following about the Wii Fit:

Good: it gives fitness tips on startup; all the ones I've read have been quite useful.

Bad: the balance board is hard plastic; performing push-ups on the board is uncomfortable. Someone should make thin gell pads to place over the board, though I don't know how that affects the weight and distrubution the board senses.

Good: it keeps track of everything, and I mean everything. When you start out, it takes your height, weight, and age to report your BMI. It keeps track of how much you've exercised each day, when the last time was that you exercised, how many times you've done each exercise/game and what the past 20 scores were. You can set goals for how much weight you want to lose and in what time. If you weigh yourself each time you exercise (I recommend this), it charts your weight across time and let's you know if you are on track to achieve your goal. This is awesome.

I think this post is long enough to convey my total satisfaction with the Wii Fit. If you are unhappy with your body but lack the motivation/confidence to change it on your own, invest $90 in a Wii Fit. It's more than worth it.

My Nano and Me

2008-06-17T10:34:00.003-07:00

I decided to join the apple owning crowd and invest in a quality mp3 player. I used part of my tax rebate to purchase a Black Ipod Nano 3rd Generation, a cover, and an arm band.

I've heard the Ipod headphones have come a long way, but I had no intention of sticking with them. I'm by no means an audiophile but I like a rich sound, and I need my headphones to stay on when I'm jogging (very important). So after much research I decided on a pair of Atomic Base Earbuds. I was tempted to spend a lot of money of headphones but didn't think it was really worth it.

Needless to say I'm quite happy with my purchase. Having a nano rocks. I'm now listening to my music on the bike ride to and from work, and at the gym. Having my tunes at the gym has been really nice. I workout alone and run on the treadmill a lot so I get quite bored. I mostly just let my mind wander and try to get through my workout without dying of boredom. Not anymore. I find myself able to withstand the treadmill longer because my brain is now occupied while my muscles are working away.

The down side has been my music collection. Most of my music doesn't have the proper tags so when I loaded everything (only about 4k songs) into iTunes it kinda went berserk. Needless to say I'm spending my nights going through trying to correct all the meta tag information for my songs. I found a free app that was able to do most of them. The problem is I have acquired a lot of compilation discs that are a pain to go through as a lot of the music is not well known or recognized. Its a slow effort but I want my music library to be neat and organized - its been neglected for so long. I need to be able to find my music quickly on my ipod.

Overall, I'm thrilled to own an ipod nano. The 8 gig size is just right for me. A few shows, and several gigs worth of Radiohead, Bright Eyes, and trance music does me right. I don't have the need to keep my entire music library on a single devise, so the nano fits my needs - and it fits into my pocket :)

All About Attitude

2008-06-10T11:03:00.002-07:00

Alliteration what? I've been thinking a lot lately about all the different people in my life, specifically what kind of attitudes towards life/me/others they have. Is it the same attitude or does it change day to day? Do I have people in my life that always seem to be happy? Do I have people in my life that always seem to be unhappy? If people are one way or the other, why?

Obvious observation: some people (very few) always seem to have a smile and be in a good mood. These few people are a pleasure to be around and really brighten everyone's day. Other people are the exact opposite - they drag their feet through life and seem to always complain about everything, always seeming unhappy.

It is my personal opinion that life is not so much about the cards you are dealt but how you play your hand. Everyone - yes everyone - could probably find some reason to complain and be unhappy each day. Does that mean you should? I try to approach each day, each situation, as a chance to be happy - either because of or despite what's going on around me. I may not always be successful (no one is perfect), but I think I do a pretty good job of remaining positive in my life.

Are you happy because you choose to be? Or are happy because everything went your way this time?

Your attitude influences your outlook. You can have fun in just about any situation, or you can choose to complain about any situation.

Spend your tax rebate

2008-05-27T10:48:00.003-07:00

If you made less than 70k last year you received a tax rebate from the government for $600 (or $1200 for your household if you're married). This money was given to help 'stimulate the economy.' You should spend this money on something, anything. Saving it would be selfish, IMHO.

I'm trying to decide how I want to spend my money. My dilemna is as follows:
After September, I'm moving in with Angela (we'll be married). So I don't want to buy any furniture or large items only to have to move them again in less than 4 months. This eliminates the following:
* bed frame
* L-desk (I'm jealous mikee has one!)
* HDTV
* 7.1 surround sound system - booyah

I'm leaning towards a new gadget of some sorts. I like electronics a lot and I haven't gotten a new toy in a while. Ang just got a MacBook, and it makes me crave a new piece of electronic equipment like mad. Here is my short list of possibilities:
* mp3 player (ipod nano perhaps)
* GPS device
* Nintendo DS

mp3 player (probably an ipod nano):
I'm considering an mp3 player to entertain me while I commute to-and-from work and workout at the gym. I bike to work every single day. That means I don't read on the way to work. Its fun biking to work, and I really enjoy it. That being said I would enjoy it a lot more if I could listen to something on the way to work. Day in, day out, the same route gets kind of old. Normally, my mind just wanders while I'm biking; with an mp3 player I think I would enjoy the ride more.

Why an ipod nano?

I'm back on a regular workout schedule at the gym - three times a week. I workout by myself. I run on the treadmill or climb the endless stairs. There are TVs but no audio or close captioning. In short, it gets boring. If I had an ipod nano I could listen to music during my workout and even watch movies/tv shows while doing my cardio. Plus, since I'm using it while I'm working out and riding, I don't want anything big or bulky in my pocket or on my arm. Ipod Nano just makes sense for my needs.

GPS device:
My friend Alex has a Forerunner 305 and he loves it. It tracks his rate of speed, heart rate, travel time, route, etc. You can keep track of all this information and get to see how wind conditions affect your speed. It can serve as a huge workout buddy for motivating you to go just a little bit faster, make it to work a little bit quicker. And they are just so cool!

Nintendo DS:
I've always been a Nintendo fan. I have Gameboy SP with a Flashcart right now. The DS is the next generation (yes I realize I'm way late but w/e) and I would have a lot of fun playing with it. I live for games!

Do you have any good suggestions to add to my list? If you were planning on not spending that money then shame on you!

Wedding update: Invitations Ordered

2008-05-25T08:23:00.004-07:00

I posted a while ago about hunting for wedding invitations. The point of the post was that viewing/designing wedding invitations should be done online for several reasons:
* convenience
* confidence
* speed

I'm pleased to say that Angela and I ordered the invitations from weddingpaperdivas instead of through an invitation store. Let's examine why this approach was so much better than the traditional 'flip through invitation notebooks to pick out what you want' approach.

Convenience:
Shopping online - for just about anything - is more convenient than shopping in a physical store. Angela and I both work downtown during normal business hours. That means if we want to visit a store we need to leave work early or go on our lunch break. Obviously, this restriction is extremely limiting. Picking out invitations takes a lot of time. If we go on our lunch break, we're racing against the clock to get back to work. If we do it after work, time works against us as the store will not stay open forever (I haven't heard of any 24 hour stationary stores, have you?). Shopping online is done by our own schedule. We can look at invitations together or separately, sharing the images as we find designs we want. Its plain simple, e-shopping is easier.

Confidence:
When buying anything before you see it, you want to have the confidence (or assurance) that you are buying what you really want, and that it will turn out as desired. One of the trickiest things about invitations is customization, it shakes that buyer's confidence.

Every invitation is to be customized to your event - obviously - with your names, your destinations, your wording, etc. Beyond that you can customize what color you want the ink, what type font you want, what color ribbon, what color envelope lining, what border, what monogram; the list goes on and on. As you can see, there is a lot that goes into making an invitation your own. The difficult part is visualizing all of this. How would it looks with our colors? with our diction? There are so many pieces you can change, its near impossible to imagine how your invitation will look. That is unless you do it online.

Initially, we spent hours flipping through giant invitation books: looking at designs, asking what color options we had for different invitations, trying to imagine how the invitation would look with our requirements. Online, in a matter of minutes (or seconds) you can pick an invitation, select your color, type your specific wording, and see how your invitation looks. Granted, its on a digital screen and not right in your hands but I'd take that any day over how we started out looking for invitations. By being able to see immediately how your invitation will look, you have the confidence to buy based on what you see, not what it looks like in your head.

Speed:
Through a traditional, physical store we were told expect a week to two weeks for a proof and four to six weeks for the invitations themselves to be printed. Through our online site, we got a proof the same day and we're expecting the invitations in two weeks at the latest. Its just plain simple, online shopping is faster. You do everything on your own time, cutting out who knows how many middle men. And guess what that does, lower the cost :)

One more item on our todo list that has been checked off. Next up is the honeymoon planning ;)

Movie Review: Prince Caspian

2008-05-22T18:47:00.002-07:00

In a word, ehhh...

I grew up with The Chronicles of Narnia. My siblings and I enjoyed watching our 80's cartoon version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. When that film was remade a couple years ago, I saw it with my sister Beth and really enjoyed it. It wasn't Lord of the Rings good, but still I thought they did a great joy with it, and I was entertained. Overall, it was just a good movie all around. I wish I could say the same about the sequel.

The Prince Caspian film is true to the book; its an accurate adaptation of C.S. Lewis's work. And the movie does have some cool special effects - particularly the White Witch being suspended in an ice prison. Unfortunately, the film doesn't offer much else. The movie just didn't have any heart. The whole time, I was very aware I was watching a movie - I was never particularly engrossed in the film. I watched the movie; it ended; I left the theater - that's about it.

I can't really describe why the film wasn't that good, it just wasn't. I would not recommend this movie, especially since movie tickets are almost $11 in Chicago!

Movie Review: Ironman

2008-05-14T15:52:00.003-07:00

In a word, awesome.

I'm a Marvel/DC fan. I watched all the cartoons of X-Men and Batman growing up. I had trading cards, action figures, and I've managed to hold on to several comics (including a Superman comic that I'm hoping will miraculously become valuable). I've been obsessed with super heroes all my life. I truly believe if I manage to come into contact with some radioactive material, I will gain super powers - one day...

Lately, comic book movies have sucked. X-Men 3 was extremely disappointing as was Hulk, Hellboy, Daredevil, etc. Most of these movies don't have good plot or character development. They rely too heavily on fighting and action sequences to save the movie from poor acting and even more poorly written scripts. Think I'm being overly critical - do you remember Elektra? or Fantastic Four? Yes I thought Fantastic Four was bad! Not to mention Ghost Rider and Spiderman 3...oh that jazz club scene with goth spidey!

They haven't all been bad though, Batman Begins was phenomenal imho. Ironman was genuinely entertaining. Everything about the movie was just, well good. The plot is well thought out and does not remind you of Batman. All the actors (Robert Downie Jr, Gwenith Paltrow, that black guy from Crash) do a good job. The special effects though. Man were they fun to watch. I loved all the advanced robotics that helped him assemble his suit. And that suit!!! I want to be Ironman!

Ironman had the right balance of movie elements. It was funny but it didn't try too hard to the point where its silly or feels like a comedy. Its got a lot of great action but its not 2 hours of non-stop explosions (gets old really quickly). There is some flirting between Tony Stark and his assistant Penny Pots but not to the point where its romantic or they fall in love and kiss at the end of the film (how many times have we seen that same story).

Hands down, Ironman is worth seeing. If you're a comic book fan, it feels like a breath of fresh air compared to all the crappy Marvel films that have been made recently. If you're not a fan, its just a really good movie. Its fun, its entertaining, its a joy to watch. My favorite part: when he uses his flight stabilizers (the jets located in his palms) to knock back enemies at least 20 feet into a wall. So cool!

Why Everyone Should Blog

2008-05-14T07:14:00.002-07:00

I've been blogging for a few months now, and I've really enjoyed it.

Why?

We all have ideas. We all have plenty of thoughts rolling around in our noggins. But unless given an outlet for communicating them, they are lost. If only there was a global network that anyone could use! The internet was designed to share information. What better way to exercise freedom of speech, with the world as an audience.

You're never wrong for having thoughts/ideas. They may not be good ideas, but you're not wrong for thinking them - or sharing them. I encourage comments on my personal blog and work blog because I welcome feedback on anything I share. I'm not interested in starting a flaming war with anyone, so as long as its constructive I'm all for keeping those comments. Of course, at the time of writing this no one has commented on any posts of this blog...

I feel better after sharing my thoughts and ideas through blogging. I enjoy communicating, and blogs are always available to capture whatever spills out of my head. I will say, in the beginning I was actually nervous about posting even though Angela was the only one who knew about this blog.

Having a blog is something that I've really enjoyed for the short duration I've been doing it. I get my ideas out there, I can go back to reread them whenever I want, and hopefully as more people start reading this I can spur discussions from my posts. I would encourage everyone to start a blog; it doesn't have to be for thousands of people to read, it can just be for you. Either way, I believe its something you'll look back on and be thankful you have.

Wedding update: Memphis trip in May

2008-05-08T17:28:00.004-07:00

Checklist:

honeymoon suite
wedding cake
photographer
caterer

This trip was by extremely successful. We left in the early early hours of Friday morning and drove through lots of intense rain to make it to Memphis. It was around lunch time when we made it downtown so we went to Huey's for a bite to eat (best burgers in Memphis!). After lunch we headed over to the Madison hotel to check out the VIP suite. The Madison has been recently remodeled, sporting a new modern look opposite an old-fashioned hotel like The Peabody - both wonderful hotels but different decorative styles. The VIP suite looks amazing: king size bed, separate living room, huge bathroom with jacuzzi tub. Plus we're getting the romance package which includes turn down service, champagne, breakfast in bed, and probably other stuff that i'm forgetting.

From the hotel we traveled out to my Aunt Peggy's house to look at wedding cake designs. I had no idea she would have so many books and magazines for us to look at. I also had no idea that cakes could be so elaborate as the ones we saw in some of the pictures. There were cakes with fountains, staircases, archways, you name it. After less than an hour of looking at pictures Ang spotted one that she quickly realized she couldn't look away from - an all white, 5 layered cake (no pillars). We had briefly talked about doing a chessboard for my groom's cake but didn't decide for certain about that - we still over four months :)

After Aunt Peggy's, we drove to the Acker's residence to "interview" with Beverly Acker, the assistant photographer. I say interview because they are somewhat exclusive about who they decide to work with and will not simply take whatever clients ask for their services. We ended up talking to them for two hours and she gave us hugs as we said good-bye. I have a great feeling about working with them.

The next day we went to Michael's graduation at the Fedex Forum. The ceremony was the exact opposite from my own, and that's all I'll say about that.

Next on the list was meeting with the caterer for a taste testing. All the food we tried was delicious - the bbq chicken was fantastic and their bbq sauce was tangy spicy good :)

The potential florist came down with the flu and neglected to tell us, so we're going to look at other vendors.

All in all, this weekend trip was extremely productive. Ang and I got a lot done while still managing to have a dinner/movie night with my family. Its difficult for me to balance wedding stuff and spend quality time with my family during these short trips home. Planning a wedding is a lot harder than it looks!

Why I Want a Wii

2008-04-29T15:38:00.006-07:00

The Wii rocks, period. I'm not going to compare and contrast that much between the other systems. Everyone has a console of choice and I'm not here to say why I don't want the 360 or PS3. I'm here to simply state why I want a Wii.

The Wii provides something unique with its platform. Anyone who has played Wii Bowling and witnessed how advanced the gyroscopic capabilities are knows what I'm talking about. I'm talking full tilt recognition on all three axes, acceleration detection, an infrared camera, the works. The controllers are wireless, thank goodness.

The games are not the typical titles seen lately. I'm not interested in Call of Duty 4. Its too real. I'm interested in Mario Galaxy. I'm not interested in Grand Turismo (or whatever the latest real action racer is these days). I'm interested in MarioKart Wii. I'm not interested in a complex fighting game with intricate combos and steep learning curve. I'm interested in Smash Melee.

I'm a serious gamer, or at least up until I entered 'the real world' I considered myself one. The fact is I don't have the time that it takes to stay good at World of Warcraft. What I do have is an hour here, an hour there, maybe a few hours on the weekend. So I need games that I can just play for that amount of time, games that won't require a steep learning curve or constant playing (think Warcraft 3, Ninja Gaiden Black, etc). With the Wii, there are two types of games that I want to play that suit my needs.

The first type is what I call party games. Party games are meant to be for pure fun of playing, and generally with others. Party games aren't focused on developing a player's skill level or 'competing' per say, its just about passing the time and having fun playing the game. Some of these games that I want are:
* Rayman
* Carnival Games (Ang really wants this one)
* Wii Sports (obviously)
* Mario Party (again, obviously)

The advantages of these games is that they aren't too 'involved.' I can sit down and play for an hour and then walk away. There's no required story progression or character development. I don't have to keep playing until I can get to that next save point.

The other type of game, what I call gamer games (yeah I'm not that creative), is for the more serious gamer. Gamer games are games that do have a learning curve, that do require 'gaming skillz', that do require a semi-significant amount of time to complete/progress. I get a sense of accomplishment from playing these games, and getting really good at them :) Some of these games that I want are:
* Resident Evil 4
* Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
* Super Mario Galaxy
* MarioKart Wii
* Super Smash Bros Brawl

Now wait a minute Stephen! How can you say a game like MarioKart is a gamer's game? Its way more of a party game!

Yes and no, MarioKart Wii certainly does have the "just have fun and battle" feel but it also has a ton of courses, you can race people on other Wii's, and there are different difficulty levels to play at. So the potential is there to develop your MarioKart skillz.

Let's face it, not everyone wants to be a gamer. Some people are completely satisfied with playing party games. The Wii appeals to both audiences which is one of many reasons I think they continue to crush the other consoles in sales. The Wii is trying a different direction than focusing solely on the most superior hardware and developing games to drive that hardware through realistic graphics. I get plenty of realism everyday, its called life. I want video games to be an escape from reality, to be fantasy.

Best Birthday Ever

2008-04-17T12:44:00.004-07:00

Yesterday was my 24th birthday. And yes, it was the best birthday I've had in a long time -- maybe even ever!

I worked from home yesterday so I got to sleep in a little. Angela called me in the morning to wish me a happy birthday :) I spent the day working and getting texts and Facebook messages of happy birthday wishes and congrats on the engagement. Technology is a beautiful thing, but then again so is actually getting a phone call on your birthday.

So let's fast forward to when I went over to Angela's apartment. My favorite dinner to make is taco salad. Ang had told me she was making that for me. I get over there and she has some latin tunes going. She has margaritas with salt on the rims for us to drink. Chips and salsa were out for us to snack on till dinner was ready. In addition, she bought Pancho's Cheese Dip and Green Sauce when we were in Memphis. That's my girl :) Pancho's is my favorite, hands down. It makes the meal.

So she went above and beyond for dinner, but that's not all. Now its time for presents. I like poker. I liked poker before everyone hopped on the WSOP bandwagon. I liked playing with my friends in college. Usually not for money, or for 5 bucks max. I just like the game, I'm not interested in trying to make a living out of it. I've always wanted my own set of chips to play with. But someone else has always owned a set of chips, so there wasn't the immediate need. I've poured over page after page online looking at reviews of chips, debating what weight and design to get, and how many. I've never been able to make a decision. There are a ton of cheaper sets out (like at Target) for under $40-$50. But these aren't quality chips. Sure they're fine for most uses, but I'm really picky about that kind of thing and wanted nicer chips to play with. Well, Angela surprised me with a nice set of 500 14g chips with a case. The chips look more like casino chips and they weigh more than the cheaper sets. I love the colors of each chip. Most cheaper chips are either a solid color, on a solid color and white. Mine are two distinct colors - and it makes them look so much better, IMHO (its my blog so I'll express my opinion thank you very much). The set came with usual decks of cards and dealer/blind buttons. 500 chips is plenty for the size games I would want to play with my friends. I can't wait to play with this set!

Really good present right? Well it didn't stop there. Radiohead is my favorite band of all time. I'm not that into live music but I've always wanted to see them live. It just so happens that they are playing at Lollapalooza in Chicago in August. And it just so happens that my baby got me 2 3-day passes to Lollapalooza!!! So I'm going with her to see Radiohead, Wilco, STP, and whoever else we decide to see. I can't wait! This is something I've wanted to do ever since I first heard them a long long time ago. Finally, Radiohead!!

Finally, she got me strawberry cheesecake :)

Wedding update: Memphis trip in April

2008-04-15T19:00:00.008-07:00

Angela and I flew to Memphis over the weekend to embark on our wedding planning adventure. Much was accomplished while still having time to enjoy being with family. Overall, it was a successful trip.

To start the trip we headed out on the Western bus a little after 4am. We would have missed our stop but thankfully a man (spotting our luggage and figuring we were traveling to O'Hare) pointed it out to us - I was brain dead at that early in the morning. After a short wait at the Blue Line stop, we were on the train and made it to the air port. The train was suspiciously full at 4:30am. After walking the wrong direction towards the terminal (still brain dead) we eventually made it to the ticket counter and subsequently our gate.

I realized through this that Angela and I have opposite travel styles. Angela prefers to take her time, not feel rushed, and get to her gate whenever she makes it through. For instance, to locate our itinerary she typed in the Locator Code because that's what she's comfortable doing. I want to get from my home to my gate as quickly as possible. That means I use my credit card to get my itinerary, which I get out ahead of time. I only check bags when strictly necessary. I try to only have my boarding pass and ID out when going through security, so I can get past security as quickly as possible.

In the air, Angela and I continue to be opposites. Flying is not easy for her. She's the nervous flier. I've done it so many times that I got over my nervousness long ago. I didn't mind at all; I was glad that I could help her get through the flight.

Angela was concerned that it would be near impossible to decide on a reception location and a ceremony location in one weekend. These are two huge decisions that shape the rest of the wedding, so we decided to tackle these first. As it worked out, we decided on the Pink Palace Mansion for the reception - not having seen any other reception site. We then decided on First Baptist for the ceremony after seeing three churches. Sometimes things are meant to work out for you :)

For all the picks check out my photobucket album

Reception Site:

Ceremony Site:

We weren't able to track down our florist contact, maybe next time.

The rest of the weekend was focused on spending quality time with our families. It worked out that Angela's dad was driving through Memphis at the time so he stayed in his trailer at the AgriCenter. Friday night we had the meeting of the in-laws at Pete & Sam's. It was a good night and I think everyone had fun. Needless to say Angela and I were pretty tired by the end of the night.

Saturday night was spent having dinner at the Rendezvous followed by a Redbirds game. There's nothing like Memphis dry ribs. It was a little chilly for a baseball game but we all had a good time. Afterwards, we (Angela, Michael, and I) hung out on Beale Street in search of a good Blues band. I liked hanging out with my broseph (as always); hopefully we'll find a good Blues band to play at our reception.

Sunday was spent going to church followed by lunch. I was really happy Angela was able to go to church with me and meet all my church family. I call them my church family because I've known most of them practically my whole life and I consider them my family. They are all invited to the wedding, so I'm really glad Angela was able to meet them ahead of time. I would love it if both of us knew everyone that was coming to our wedding.

We ate at Huey's (best burgers in Memphis) for lunch where I was presented with cards and gifts for my birthday - a welcomed surprise. Ever since I went to college I haven't spent my birthday with my family so it was quite nice to be with them the weekend before my birthday. Everyone likes getting presents!

Getting home took waaaaay longer than we wanted. We were exhausted. There was construction on the Blue Line so we had to get on a shuttle that took it us south past the construction where we boarded another train. Sunday nights, the Western bus runs every 30 minutes so we waited for a while then cabbed it to my house where Angela parked her car.

The weekend couldn't have gone smoother (realistically). We had the in-laws meet, successfully; we signed the contract for the reception site; we found the perfect ceremony site and a backup. We enjoyed spending time with our families, and Angela got to meet my church family - which meant a lot to me.

TV Review: Alias

2008-04-15T17:37:00.003-07:00

Worth checking out? Yes.

Alias aired for 5 seasons. I watched the first season with Angela; I'd like to give my opinion of what I've seen.

In a nutshell, Alias is a spy show. The main character, Sydney Bristo, is a double agent for the CIA that must balance her life in a multitude of lies and deception - fooling not only her friends but the secret, evil espionage corporation SD-6 since she turned on them and became a double agent. The show takes you through her life as a spy: going on missions, developing counter missions with the CIA, the typical daddy issues that every show has, etc.

If you can let practical things go when watching Alias you'll really enjoy it. By practical things I mean physics, computer science fundamentals, etc. If you can do that - and I assume most people can - then have at it, watch and enjoy. I, on the other hand, am extremely critical of things like that. I'm the guy that says "there's no sound in space!" I'm the guy that laughs at the latest movie that shows someone "hacking the mainframe." I'm the guy that says "its been longer than 60 seconds, that bomb should have exploded by now."

I think Alias is a decent show, but not a great one. The show constantly has gadgets that won't work at all in the real world. Example:
Sydney was wearing a sports jacket that is able to scan the fingerprints of a hand laid on her shoulder. It could then transfer that data to a remote computer that instantly made a latex copy used to get past a fingerprint scanner.

Another thing I don't like about this show: episode after episode she disarms guard after guard with utter ease. I'm tired of the one chop take down that so many shows and movies use. The fact is most professional security will take a lot more than one punch or kick to be rendered unconscious. The fact is Sydney is like 140 lbs tops and she's mowing down guys that are twice her weight. Her injuries don't phase her enough, and they heal too quickly. To stay under water longer, she breathed oxygen from her car tires when she was at the bottom of river.

There are too many convenient outs in the plot development. Sydney was trapped in a room where there just happen to be compressed gas tanks, cement blocks, and a wrench so she was able to knock off the valve of the gas tank and aim it at the door to obliterate it - so much for being trapped with no escape. In another episode, a character was shown drowning but we find out he happens to be an expert swimmer and was able to escape through another room into the ventilation ducts.

As you can see, there are a lot of practical elements of the show that bother me. Some episodes have few of these and I enjoy watching the show a lot. Other episodes are riddled with them and I find myself annoyed at the "shortcuts" the writers/producers are taking. Give the show a chance, it might be for you. I'll keep watching it with my girl :)

TV Review: Battlestar Galactica

2008-04-10T14:20:00.006-07:00

Best Sci-Fi show ever? I say yes!

BSG just premiered its fourth season on the Sci-Fi channel, so I'd like to give you my thoughts on the show.

Let's face it, if you are a sci-fi geek you have to put with a lot of crappy movies and tv shows to find the diamonds in the entertainment rough. Most of the shows on the Sci-Fi channel are quite pathetic. The special effects are anything but special; the acting is painful to watch; the plot development is on par with Sesame Street. I don't know if its the small budget or the lack of talent or the sheer desire to create crap but a lot of Sci-Fi isn't worth the seconds it takes to flip past the channel (think Pumpkin Head, Raptor Island, etc).

Then comes BSG.

No cheezey special effects. The cylons look like artificial intelligence automatons, cold and ready to annihilate humanity. Every explosion looks like an explosion; cities, planets, massive spacecraft, all look and feel like they should. BSG is a pleasure to watch aesthetically. It just looks so good!

There's this thing that famous people do sometimes, its called acting. Some people are good and get paid large sums of money. Other people suck at it but are still paid lots of money. The cast of BSG is comprised of quality performers. It never feels like I'm watching a bunch of actors; that's how you know its good - when they can get you lost in their world. I haven't memorized their names or have favorites, I just know they are very good at what they do, very believable.

Few shows keep me watching for the long term. Most shows have a good idea and then they turn it to crap. The show drags for episode after episode with nothing really happening. Not every episode of BSG has me screaming at the TV (actually my computer monitor) is disbelief or shock, but each season is rich and full and worth watching. There are a couple episodes that I think nothing really happened but every show is like that - and I'm overly critical.

What I love about BSG is that it keeps me guessing. I'm so invested in the characters, in the plot, in the looming future that I'm so excited to watch each new episode. Plot twists are a great way to keep viewers on their toes (just don't over do it...Lost) and BSG has an even balance of foreshadowed direction versus twists. I may not always know what's around the corner but I want to find out!

Overall, I highly recommend this show to anyone - you don't have to be a sci-fi nerd to get hooked. And you will get hooked :)

Post with Purpose

2008-04-08T10:25:00.003-07:00

I started a work blog at the company I'm employed with (as long as I don't mention the name I'm under no contractual obligations) last week. I just have one post so far. Surprisingly, the same day I made the post someone had commented on it (giving me kudos).

I know what I'm trying to do with my work blog. Its all technology related, both internal related and globally. I can blog about ideas for how to better our technology platform, or I can rant about areas we really screwed up, or I start discussions about any software/hardware technology in general. Having this pre-defined scope makes it easier for me to sketch out future posts and eventually publish them.

I don't have a scope for this blog.

There are what feels like millions of blogs on the internet. They range from technology to politics to every day events to whatever people want to post. Freedom of speech. With so much choice, with so much liberty, I don't have any clear direction for this blog. Do I write once a week or any dependable time period? No. Does my audience know what kind - humor, special interest, etc - of posts to expect? No. Some of my posts have been about music, some about video games, some about canine defecation, some about my engagement and wedding planning.

Do I want this blog to be about my daily events, such as "today on the way to work..."? Many people maintain this kind of blog, but I do not want to be one of them. The only exception would be a satirical rant or wtf of some sorts.

Do I want this blog to overlap with my work blog, posting about technology in general? Most likely not; the work blog will be for professional related posts, this blog - should I chose to blog about technology - would not be professional minded.

Angela and I talked about what scope my blog could have. She suggested that I focus my critiquing mindset on reviewing any number of things and blog those reviews. TV shows, movies, games, books, whatever I wanted. This way my readers (population 1) will know what to expect from my posts. Given this direction, I can better project where my blog is going and what content I want it to contain.

Let's give this a try :)

I purchased a notebook mouse

2008-04-01T18:31:00.003-07:00

I bought a mouse from newegg.com for my laptop. I've had my old mouse for over five years so it was really dirty and the scroll wheel was all but totally broken. So I decided to shell out fifteen bucks for the new mouse.

It has a really cool feature. The button on the side brings up a zoom window. You can set the width and height of the window my moving the mouse while holding the button down. You can also set the zoom level by using the scroll wheel. At first glance, this feature seems to be for the elderly with failing eyesight. However, its actually a really handy thing to have - especially when my eyes get tired from having to focus on a screen all day.

I'm really excited about this mouse. I showed it to my team members and my fiancee. Why would a simple, inexpensive piece of hardware get me so excited? I'm not much of a materialist. If you look at my apartment there's not a whole lot there. I don't own a TV. My kitchen is practically bare bones. I drive a car with 155k miles. The dressers in my bedroom I've used my entire life. The point is I don't have that much stuff, let alone new stuff. So when I do get something new I'm really excited about it. In general, people don't need nearly the amount of things that they own, or should I say that own them?

My Gamecube awakens

2008-03-25T19:14:00.002-07:00

This weekend I brought my gamecube over to Angela's for some good ole fashioned video gaming.

I don't own a TV so I haven't played my gamecube since before I moved into my current apartment. I was really excited to get to play my gamecube again after such a long hiatus. I grew playing video games all the time. I went to college and continued to play video games a lot in the dorms. Its only since I've moved out and not had a TV that I really quit playing.

We started out by playing some MarioKart Double Dash. Its a good game and I fell right into rhythm driving as if I never quit playing (not that its really a difficult game at all). After that Angela started to play Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker as I watched and helped. It became quickly obvious to me that for those people who did not grow up playing video games it may take a while to become familiar with the dynamics of modern games. Angela was not used to the joystick used for movement in Wind Waker. For me its second nature, but that's due to the extremely large number of hours I've spent in front of a TV playing video games.

Once Angela had her fill of Wind Waker she wanted me to take over. I just so happen to be a hardcore fan of the Zelda series and was quite eager to start playing. Time passed quickly as I collected the three pearls needed to resurrect the King's Tower. What amazed me was how much Angela enjoyed watching me play. She certainly helped some in dungeons and out on the sea but I had the controller the entire time, yet she really liked just watching. I'm not complaining at all; I think its down right awesome that I can play Zelda and my fiancee wants to sit with me and watch. One of a thousand reasons why we're perfect for each other.

Playing the cube got me really got me excited about owning a Wii. Angela and I are waiting till we move in together to buy a new TV and a Wii. Unfortunately, Wii's are more rare right now than a leprechaun or a unicorn so we might want to think about buying one ahead of time whenever we can and just save it for after we're married. I'm really looking forward to Brawl, MarioKart Wii, and Angela wants Carnival Games :) Plus you get the virtual console!

If you spot a Wii for sale, holler at me!

Wedding update: dress shopping

2008-03-13T08:46:00.002-07:00

So yesterday, Angela went dress shopping and found the dress she really wanted and bought it.

She hadn't intended to buy a dress on the first shopping run but found something she fell in love with so she purchased it. I find this interesting because when we went ring shopping I hadn't intended to buy a ring that day. I just wanted to go and get an idea of what she would want, what prices would be, etc. But we found a ring that absolutely belonged on her finger so I bought it right there. Funny how these things work out sometimes.

The only down side to bridal dress shopping is that I can't be a part of it. We're old fashioned in a lot of ways so I won't see her in the dress until we're performing the ceremony. That's six months away! I can be excited for her, but I won't know first hand what the dress is like until I see her walking down the isle towards me.

Well we get to check this off our TODO list so that's pretty exciting. Next task, registering for gifts.

Wedding update: invitation hunting

2008-03-11T13:17:00.002-07:00

We've been to two places now looking at invitations. We've flipped through several huge invitation books for several hours. I had no idea invitations could be so expensive, or so varied.

Thankfully we have plenty of time before we need to have our invitations created, so there's no rush. It seems to me that the current way of getting invitations - searching through hundreds of invitations organized by designer - is not the greatest way to find your invitations.

Why not provide an online service that has some templates or design patters for you to start with. From there you would pick out your font, your wording, your ink colors and paper colors. You would customize everything through a browser and you could see what your invitation would look like. You wouldn't have to say, do I think this ink color on this paper color with a different font would look good for this invitation that I'm visualizing in my head? You would see it on screen and could decide for yourself if it was what you wanted. And if not, with the click of a mouse you could completely change the invitation to what you wanted.

Maybe I'll start a new online invitation business.

Celebrating good times

2008-02-26T13:18:00.006-08:00

Angela got promoted to Manager. I got promoted to Engineer II. We got engaged. Celebrating seemed in order.

The day after I proposed I met some of my friends from school and work at a bar called Butch McGuire's around Clark and Division. It was a great time visiting with everyone and they all thought we were just celebrating my promotion. Well when Angela showed up (she was the last to arrive because of a previous obligation) we announced that we're getting married. Everyone cheered just like in the movies!

It was so wonderful to share that celebration with my friends and I'm really thankful to all who came out and had a good time.

I hadn't seen a lot of my friends from college in a while so it was really a treat to spend some time with them, and to celebrate with them.

Its funny how my tolerance has gone way way down. In college (like everyone else) I used to go out a lot and stay out until all hours of the night and be fine the next day. Lately, it seems like I'm so tired after going out I just don't have the energy to party like I used to. I'm getting old!!!

Its interesting that the same night, Memphis was playing UT Knoxville for College Gameday. Memphis was the number one, undefeated team in the country playing their in-state rivals who were ranked number two. The entire town was going insane anticipating the game. Everyone was so focused on a basketball game. Normally I like college ball, but it pales in comparison to the joy I have by being with Angela. She was all that was on my mind, and that's just fine with me.

She said yes

2008-02-26T12:02:00.004-08:00

This is my engagement story:

I've been dating Angela since May 4th. I knew from the beginning that she was my one and only. When we went to one of my friend's wedding over the summer (so we had been dating less than like 3 months), there were a bunch of us sitting around the table talking at the reception. Someone asked who would be the next couple to get married and I said that Angela and I probably would. Well in January we went ring shopping and I found the perfect one for my perfect girl. Then all I had to do was find a way to give it to her.

Friday night I took Angela out to Shaw's for dinner - its her favorite restaraunt. I had made reservations a week prior, requesting a quiet table away from the other tables. I picked her up right on time and we got to the restaurant at the correct time but had to wait for about 20 minutes for our table (they were completely full).

Our table just so happened to be right between two other tables along the wall. Angela could immediately tell that I was not happy with this location at all and encouraged me to ask the maitre d' to give us another table. I'm so glad that I did talk with him (and told him I was proposing) because we were given a booth in a quieter area that had plenty of room around it.

Then it finally came to it, I pulled out a letter I had written her that tells her everything she needs to know for why I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I wanted to write her a letter because this way she can always remember every word that I said to her that night. Its a letter that I would want her to keep for the rest of her life. I proceeded to read her the letter and at the end, I got down on one knee, opened the box with the ring in it and asked her to marry me. Of course she said yes!

Our waitress then brought us over champagne on the house to celebrate. The table closest to us figured out that I had proposed and they all went nuts. They were so happy for us and congratulated us both many times. They even bought us a round of champagne!

It was an amazing evening and I couldn't be happier with how things turned out. I'm so glad that I decided to write her a letter for everything I wanted to say, now she has my exact words for the rest of her life.

Brush your teeth

2008-02-19T13:24:00.002-08:00

I went to the dentist today. It was...interesting.

First of all, the office is only open on Tuesdays. That should have been my first sign. There was no confirming of my appointment. I get there, and the office in its entirety is about the same size as my apartment. The lady is sitting there watching TV when I come in. She has me fill out the usual paper work, then she takes me into the other room for my cleaning. This is a small setup they are running: one dental chair, no x-ray machine visible, no public restroom to brush your teeth before hand or anything like that. The dentist (I'll call her a dentist), cleans my teeth in approximately 4 minutes, tells me I don't have any cavities, and tells me thanks for coming in.

That's right: no new toothbrush, no advice about better cleaning my teeth, no "You should be flossing" warning that I wouldn't heed. Most importantly, no time to verify my information whatsoever. I came in, filled out a form, got my teeth cleaned and left. I could have not had any insurance and put down all false information on my form and I would have gotten away with it.

She didn't even ask for my driver's license!

Next time, I'll go to a more established dental office (with real dentists).

I got promoted!

2008-02-15T11:02:00.004-08:00

W00t! My manager informed me today that I am being promoted from Engineer I to Engineer II.

This promotion is something that I have wanted for a very long time. I am extremely pleased to be receiving it. To give you an idea, when I had my end-of-year review for '06, my mentor told me he thought I deserved to be promoted. So here I am a year later and I got it! Obviously, with this promotion comes a salary increase, but for me I've wanted that title recognition so much more.

I just read through our company's blogging policy and as long as I don't identify myself as an employee of the company I'm free to say whatever I want.

Why is this promotion so important to me? Well the short and sweet of it is I do the same work as my peers, and they are multiple levels higher than I am. Plus, everyone under the sun has been telling me I deserve to be promoted for the contributions that I am bringing to the company so it feels so good to get what I deserve.

Hopefully this means I'll be given more responsibility at work and continue to strive towards the next level. Today is a very good day.

jetAudio vs winamp

2008-02-14T11:44:00.003-08:00

I've used winamp practically since its conception many years ago. If you don't know what winamp is then quit reading this post.

At first winamp was awesome. It played all my music files, I could rip cds, and it had hundreds of plug-ins to download. I spent a lot of time perusing through different visualization options in winamp. And it even played videos, could this application get any better!?

After a while winamp started to annoy me.

Each new version became more and more bloated. The thing is a resource hog, and more than once its crashed on me. What's worse is that it does not save what's in the play list very often. So if I was working on a playlist and something happened and it crashed, winamp would load up again with whatever was in the playlist the last time it successfully closed. This sucks if you are taking your time making an awesome techno playlist and you don't save often because you believe your computer should do that for you.

Playing videos always annoyed me. One reason is that after a video was done playing, it would leave a blank window open where the video was playing. Why? I don't need a blank window taking up real estate on my undersized screen. I'm through watching the video, what's with the blank window? Another reason - this one kills me - is when you want to watch more than one video, after the first video is done the video window will resize to the default size/location before starting the second video. If you're following this, that means when I maximize my video window so I can watch something from my bed across the room, when the first video ends the video window will drop back out of full screen mode and into that small window for the next video. Now I have to get up and resize it to full screen. Wtf? Why not continue to play videos in whatever screen size is currently being used?

Well after hating winamp for long enough I looked for something else and found jetAudio. It addresses all my gripes from windows. It has a much slicker interface and is generally all around better at everything than winamp (including life). I hate winamp so much, that stupid slow app. JetAudio rocks my face off - videos, music, playlists, album art, it does it all. More importantly, it does it all well! I just hope it doesn't become bloated like winamp.

I'm still playing around with this app called fixTunes. Its designed to intelligently update tag information about your mp3s - album, year, genre, album art, etc. I say intelligently because it accounts for misspellings, duplicate songs, things like that and helps you to better organize your music. This is great for someone like me who gets the majority of their music from torrents (which are often mislabeled and contain no tag info). If you use iTunes exclusively you probably don't need this at all because everything is already done for you perfectly because Apple is perfect but I digress. FixTunes seems cool, if you need to update your music library's tag info then give it a try.

Setting Goals

2008-02-04T08:25:00.001-08:00

I went to the gym this morning for the first time in over two months. I've unsuccessfully tried to go before today but every time I backed out (either I slept in or I went straight home after work instead of working out). What was different about this morning that enabled me to get up and go to the gym?

I set a goal last night to go to the gym this Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Setting goals makes a difference. If you have something to aspire to, it can help motivate you when you need it most. Having a goal allows you to keep your focus on the purpose of your aspirations, and allows you to track your progress around that goal or milestones along the way. For me, its getting back into a routine at the gym - essentially becoming healthier and more active.

I used to think writing goals was a stupid idea, that it was a waste of time. I don't know if I drank the Kool-aid but I'm thoroughly convinced setting meaningful goals is the key to making progress is whatever area you are focusing on.

Setting goals works for me, maybe you should give it a try too if you find yourself not able to follow through on aspirations. So often, people lose focus on what they are trying to accomplish. We live in a fast paced world and there are plenty of distractions right in front of us. By setting reasonable goals, you are able to see past the distractions and make better use of your time instead of wasting it. Don't knock it until you try it!

You're Right

2008-02-03T09:58:00.000-08:00

Two simple words that can change the tide of a conversation.

People love hearing this phrase. Its so simple. I've noticed lately that the more I say this phrase in conversation (only when I mean it of course) the better the conversation tends to go. Mood, tone, everything gets better when a person gets some recognition from hearing "You're right." People eat it up.

I think we are all a little too quick to complain and criticize; maybe we should all try to be a little more positive towards those around us, it goes a long way.

People are used to hearing lots of negativity through complaining, whining, what-have-you. Look on the bright side instead, its a much better view.

Car Trouble

2008-01-29T18:50:00.000-08:00

I have a 97 Chevy Blazer with +155k miles. My latest maintenance trouble with my car came in the form of a bad battery. No big deal right? I simply go back to Firestone and get them to replace the battery for free (warranties are a good thing).

I drove my Blazer a couple times with the new battery and all was well. Less than a week after the new battery my car wouldn't start. I tried to jump it with Angela's car but it wouldn't work. wtf?

I called a tow truck to take it to Firestone and the driver popped the hood, took one look at the battery, and chuckled. "You have a lose battery wire going into the negative terminal." A simple pair of pliers tightened it and my car started up just fine. The driver told me he sees this all time; many automotive shops are sloppy and don't tighten both terminals, so the wire isn't grounded and no charge can get through.

The Good: I didn't have to buy a new alternator (mucho $$$)
The Bad: I had to pay the tow truck guy a service fee of $55 for about 15 secs of work
The Ugly: I have lost all faith in Firestone as a capable automotive repair shop

Field Museum: Map Exhibit

2008-01-20T21:14:00.000-08:00

Ang and I went to the Field Museum in the morning today to see the Map Exhibit. We both really enjoyed the wide range of maps that the exhibit had to offer. Unfortunately, the exhibit was over-crowded, but we tried not to let that bother us too much. Everything from early nautical maps to the streets of London was on display. Lewis and Clark's journey made an appearance as well.

The two showcases I found most fascinating weren't even maps. One part of the exhibit was dedicated to literature. In this section, the Hundred Acre Wood from Winnie the Pooh and Lilliput from Gulliver's Travels were shown.

The Land of Make Believe. This painting is a depiction of many children's stories including Jack the Bean Stalk and the Cow that jumped over the Moon, as well as some lesser known characters - the Wandering Jew. The distribution rights are held by Rosen Ducat Imaging. So if you want to get a copy, you'll have to buy it from them for roughly $100. Some day I'll get myself one :)

My favorite piece was a page written by J.R.R. Tolkien from The Hobbit. It depicted the Lonely Mountain and the Moon Letters on the side of the page. There was also a topography map of Minis Tirith. What was most fascinating about this piece is it highlighted Tolkien's attention to detail in his writings. Having giving an exact elevation to the city of Minis Tirith, he calculated at what time the sun would be setting on the city, allowing him to tell of the approaching army reaching the city at right at sunset. Truly he created a world of fantasy in Middle Earth, down to the last detail.

Overall, I really enjoyed the exhibit. Seeing maps from more than a 1000 years of age is quite enlightening. I recommend this exhibit to anyone in the area; but be warned, the museum lets too many people into it at a time which does detract from the experience (if you're like me and people annoy you).

Go to museums; they are good for your brain!

Review: Resident Evil Extinction

2008-01-16T09:25:00.000-08:00

I'd rather be extinct then watch this movie again.

I'm a Resident Evil fan. I've played through most of the games, and I thought the first movie was really good. And I enjoyed watching the second movie as well. Unfortunately, I was disappointed with the third film. There just wasn't anything there. Its basically a cheap rip off of Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior. And out of nowhere Alice now has psycho-kinetic powers? They didn't explain that part of the movie nor did they dive any deeper into the Umbrella corporation.

I can sum up this movie in one sentence: The virus spread to the entire world and there is more than one hive and all of humanity is doomed expect for super-star Alice who kills everyone. The end.

This is yet again another example of sequels really sucking. Why are so many sequels made? Are there no new ideas out there?

BBC Planet Earth

2008-01-09T07:03:00.000-08:00

I've started watching this series, its amazing! Its about 10 hours of footage from all around the globe. You see some of the most bizarre and wild creatures ever. It really is an eye-opener.

Seeing some of the most exotic wildlife and landscapes in high definition is simply amazing. The narration is well done too, providing interesting facts about the various ecosystems from around the world. For instance, did you know that snow geese mate for life, or that the flying lemur neither flies nor is a lemur?

This series goes above and beyond the myriad of existing nature series to provide viewers with captivating photography of everything from the mountain peaks to the ocean depths. If you get a chance to watch any part of this series I highly recommend it.

I got my keys back

2008-01-07T18:40:00.000-08:00

This is part two of the keys story.

So after working from home all day Sunday, I was able to get in touch with the elevator company Monday morning and a mechanic came out to Angela's building around lunch time and retrieved my keys. I biked from my apartment to Angela's apartment to pick up the keys, then biked back to my apartment and called my land lady to arrange returning the apartment key I had borrowed. I then biked to her office to drop off the key and biked back to my apartment.

I noticed when I looked at the keys that my bike lock key was missing. I then looked at my car key and determined it was too small to be my car key. At this point paranoia swam through my head convincing me the elevator mechanic had stolen my bike lock key and replaced my car key with another. Of course after thinking about it (and talking to Angela) I determined that the bike lock key probably broke during the fall since the base of the key is entirely thin plastic. I also arrived at the conclusion that I did have my car key. I was just being a paranoid android.

After a couple hours of working from home in the afternoon, Bob was nice enough to pick me up and drive me to Angela's apartment to jump start my car. Of course it had to be during a thunderstorm, but Bob and I caught a break in the rain and were able to jump my car. I'm happy to report I drove home and entered my apartment with my keys.

This concludes the keys saga; thankfully it ended on a happy note. I'm going to Home Depot tomorrow to make copies of all my keys and give them to Angela.

Radiohead gives the finger to the music industry

2008-01-06T17:47:00.000-08:00

For those that don't know, Radiohead released an album, In Rainbows, in October 2007. Radiohead produced this album without a record label.

Everyone downloads music nowadays, either through bit-torrents or iTunes. So Radiohead decided to take advantage of this technology instead of fighting it (like Metallica). In Rainbows was released through a download site Radiohead hosted. Anyone could download the album and donate to the band any amount desired. There was even an option to not donate and take the album for free. This totally goes against the music industry trying to fight online downloading.

I donated ten dollars for the album.

The download site was only available till the end of the calendar year. In less than three months, Radiohead received more money for In Rainbows than their six previous albums combined! And it was all name your own price. Think about it: they are cutting out the label, the manufacturing and distributing costs. In an instant the album can spread across the entire globe. Now think about how many middle men are involved in making a physical cd, distrubiting it, and selling it.

I think what Radiohead did is amazing. If everyone isn't using physical cd's anymore, why sell them? Everyone is listening to music through mp3 players and/or computers; give the customers what they want!

The music industry needs to take advantage of the technology that is at their fingertips, its not going away.

Curb Your Dog

2008-01-06T17:08:00.000-08:00

It is with great sadness that I type this post.

My sidewalk is covered with dog poop. There is more than one sign posted in the area saying Curb Your Dog. Unfortunately, the sign isn't heeded. Everyday, there is evidence of a dog on the sidewalk. Sometimes its in the grass, other times its right in the middle of the sidewalk. And of course not everyone watches where they are walking so it gets stepped on and distributed up and down the sidewalk.

Its a nightmare trying to navigate the sidewalk at night, knowing at any time I could step onto canine fecal matter!

Please, if you have a dog do the right thing and clean up after it. Its no fun for the rest of us when you don't.

I dropped my keys down an elevator shaft

2008-01-06T11:50:00.000-08:00

The name says it all, but here's the full story:

I was leaving Angela's apartment yesterday at 3p. As I was walking into the elevator I took my keys out of my pocket (for some unknown reason) and I fumbled them, dropping them in the crack and hearing them fall all the way down. I have never taken my keys out anywhere near an elevator and the one time I do this happens...

So we spent the next 30 minutes or so trying to spot the keys in the bottom of the elevator shaft to no avail. Then we proceeded to call the elevator company which told us they could come Monday for free, or they could come in the next few hours for a modest fee of several hundred dollars. Tempting...

The rest of the afternoon was spent calling Chevy dealerships trying to get the key-code for my car so I could have a locksmith make me a car key. If a locksmith were to make a car key without me giving him the key-code it would cost me around three hundred dollars. I wanted a car key because I had parked in the loading zone with my hazard lights on. After calling what seemed like 800 dealerships (all of them saying they couldn't help until Monday), we shifted focus to getting AAA to unlock the car for me and move it out of the loading zone. This would have been a fine idea had AAA not screwed me over...

I placed the service call a little before 5p explaining I needed someone to unlock the car so I could turn off the hazards and someone to tow the car out of the loading zone. The person I talked to said someone would be there in an hour. Great. In about an hour a woman called saying they were not allowed to tow the car from one street location to another, that it has to be a repair shop or a residence. So I said ok, I'd like it towed a block away since that's still at Angela's residence. She said that was fine. I said I didn't understand why they weren't here already and why she had waited an hour to call me saying she wasn't sending a tow truck. We argued for a minute and ended the call - someone was going to come within an hour (so now that's two hours). She called me again an hour or so later saying that the tow truck that she said was 'on its way' wasn't coming and that she was sending another tow truck and he would be there in 60-90 minutes. I was frustrated but what could I do?

Over an hour and a half later the tow truck finally came, about 10 minutes after my battery died since I couldn't turn off the hazards. So we moved my dead car and then I got a hold of my land lady to get a copy of my apartment key. We had to drive up to her apartment on the north side to get a key since by now its after 8p. So after that Angela takes me to my apartment. Finally, after over 6 hours of trying to figure out what to do I get back to my apartment.

Funny side note: While waiting for the tow truck Angela said I should make copies of all my keys and give them to her and she would do the same. I said I had planned on doing that for Valentine's Day. She smiled and said the same thing :)

So the moral of this story is the following:
* Do not handle your keys near an elevator
* Always have a key buddy that has copies of all of your keys

My Blog Explained

2008-01-06T07:56:00.000-08:00

Introduction:
The purpose of this blog is to capture whatever random thoughts are going through my head. Sometimes I will have serious intellectual discussions posted; other times I will simply rant about my pet peeves or whatever is bothering me at the time. Maybe I'll post a funny story or something stupid that someone did today. This is not intended to be completely serious or silly, just somewhere in between - like me.

Title:
For those that didn't catch the reference, Let Down is the title of my favorite Radiohead song. It is off their OK Computer album released way back in 1997. I'm a huge Radiohead fan and I didn't have any other good ideas for my blog title.

On to my Blog:
I think this is enough for the first post. I have no idea how often I will be posting or if anyone is even going to read this. I tried using myspace.com for my blog posting needs but was not happy with it so we'll see if this blog survives my attention span. Time for breakfast.