Category: Video Games

Slow Day

Posted on by Chewbode

Was a busy week at work, so I didn’t get much done. The only thing creative that was accomplished was in Minecraft. I created a redstone circuit that allows me to turn on and off the iron farm I built a while back. The massive output of that farm was making so I had to tend to it every few days, whether I wanted to play or not. Now, it’s off until needed.

I’ve been relaxing all day today, and will likely be doing a bunch of reading to catch up on some magazines. I have five flight magazines, three Raspberry Pi magazines, and another miscellaneous one on the docket (won’t read them all today, of course).

Added to movie library today: Big Trouble in Little China, Enter the Dragon.

Barn Built

Posted on by Chewbode

Played a little Minecraft today. I realized that my horse, Tinkles, has been holed up in my base, tied to a hitching post for a long time. He needed a nicer place to live. That, and I wanted to collect and breed some useful animals. So, I built a barn.

My barn as seen from the NE corner at ground level.
The barn as seen from the NE corner from the sky.
The barn as seen from the SE corner.
The rear of the barn as seen from the SW corner.
The inside of the barn from the upper loft.
The ground level of the barn showing the sheep pen (l.) and the pig pen (r.).

Discs

Posted on by Chewbode

Stopped at Best Buy this morning and picked up a copy of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves: Game of the Year Edition and started to play it a bit. Gotta say: I didn’t think this franchise could get any better. I’ve only made it three chapters into the game, but it looks and plays amazing. I hope Naughty Dog continues this series beyond Uncharted 3 (due in November). Added it to the Museum too.

Got a copy of National Lampoon’s Vacation on Blu-ray too.

Think I’m going to watch Kick Ass on NetFlix in a minute.

Lost Another One

Posted on by Chewbode

Was able to get a bunch of sleep last night for the first time in quite a while. Feel a lot sharper mentally today, although the coffee I have will no doubt help that along.

Last night I tested the fish tank and found the pH to be around 7.6, which is high. This may explain the recent die-offs I’ve been having, including another victim this morning – an orange tetra. This guy had been sick for a bit, I believe, as he had some weird molting going on. This weekend, I’m getting rid of the plecos and getting some new algae eaters along with a kit to bring the pH down to a more acidic level (6.8 or so).

I played through some Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune last night since I didn’t have any work to do. With the PlayStation Network being hacked recently, I also spent some time changing some passwords on some accounts around the inter-webs. Me thinks Sony’s gonna get sued big time over this one.

Evolution

Posted on by Chewbode

I made a lot of progress on a website that Jeff and I are developing. Most of the work I’ve been doing is Adobe Flash-based, which I’ve never really done a lot of. The next step is to figure out how to make a Flash file data-aware. I’ve set up an entire development environment to test this.

Devin sent me this just a few minutes ago:

Some people…have the idea that evolution is a fucking system of…
“oh i need flippers, i’d better grow some” type bullshit. 😛
It’s more like “Oh shit look at that freak over there with the flippers hahaha OH SHIT I AM DROWNING OH GOD SAVE ME FLIPPER BOY”.

– Quote #95326 by Anonymous (Bash.org)

I played World of WarCraft a bunch last night for quite some time. I’ve been trying to devote a few hours a week to it. The monotony of it all is finally wearing off. I’ve also been playing a bunch of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed too (as a matter of fact, I’m going to play that right after I post this entry).

I e-mailed my recruiter today to see if the job down in Bradenton will happen or not. No news yet.

Sick Thought of the Day: Snot in the mouth.

High Definition Reappearance

Posted on by Chewbode

I recently made the jump to an HDTV. My old TV, which was a Philips-Magnavox 60” rear projection, was really starting to show its age, and with devices like my AppleTV and the HDTV cable box, I was starting to feel that I was getting behind the times. So, I picked up a Mitsubishi WD-65734 65” DLP monster. I’ve had it for about a week now, and I’m thoroughly impressed. Very vivid colors, tons of inputs, and great 1080p performance.

Of course, I had to go into the settings of my first generation X-Box and set it for 1080 and continued the trend with the AppleTV, cable box, and Wii (well, the Wii I was able to just set to widescreen because it only supports 720). I then decided to get a PlayStation 3 from my local Rent-A-Center to see what it was like and Oh. My. God. I’ll have it for two weeks on a trial and if I like it, I may just go ahead and purchase one. I’ve downloaded several demos of games, which look amazing, and played Sonic The Hedgehog, which looks great too, but honestly, I’ve never liked that series of games.

I picked up I Am Legend on DVD yesterday and Shauna and I watched it last night. Over all, I thought it was pretty good. I’ve never read the book by Richard Matheson, nor have I seen The Last Man on Earth orThe Omega Man, which are also based off of this book. Because I’ve not enjoyed these other renditions, or the original itself, may be the reason why I don’t loathe the new movie like so many out there do. It was fun, and a nice way to spend a Saturday night.

I also picked up a couple of new Wii games, Game Party (because it was only $20) and Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga (because… well, duh… it’s Star Wars). I played some Lego Star Wars yesterday and was thoroughly satisfied for a bit. I got Game Party because I thought it would be a good thing Shauna and I could play, especially the ski-ball game (she loves ski-ball). We’ll most likely play it later today.

Things at my day job are finally slowed down to where I can focus on Suncoast Studios work. I plan on putting together a schedule tomorrow night to give equal and appropriate time to each of the projects I’m working on. I will then be able to touch base with my collaborators and get their expectations in line with what I can provide them. I need to get several of these things done, because I have a very exciting new project that I want to start which will really stretch my abilities. This is a very top-secret project I won’t be talking about until there’s something to show, but involves HD and possibly film work. I’ve only mentioned a one-sentence description to Shauna, but haven’t gone into any details on what I’m doing.

Well, I’ve been cleaning the apartment all day so I need to go take a shower now and head out to get some hotdogs for the grill tonight.

Sick Thought of the Day: Red hole, jagged fingernail.

Games and Music

Posted on by Chewbode

I went out today and picked up a copy of Resident Evil 4:Wii Edition for the Wii (duh) and Animal Crossings: Wild World for the DS. Both games were quite cheap, so I figured what the heck.

Resident Evil 4 is basically the same game that Capcom released for the GameCube (which I’ve never owned nor played) except it’s adapted to utilize the Wii Remote and Nunchuck and it has some new content.  I got Animal Crossing just because I heard it was a good, mindless game and I wanted to have a persistant game on the DS that used the Wi-Fi.

I also wrote a Nugget for Super Paper Mario for the Wii today.

On the music front, I picked up a copy of Fergie’s The Dutchess. I also grabbed the soundtrack to Tarantino’s Death Proof (makes me smile just thinking of it). Both albums have been ripped to MP3 already and have been added into the new iTunes library I’m building (I’m half-way through the ripping process now, and hope to have a really nice, clean library before Thanksgiving).

After talking with Millard recently, I also decided to start using Last.fm again. I added a widget to the “What I’m Up To” section of the site on the left side of the homepage. Now you can see what I’m listening to in iTunes anytime.

Time to go clean the apartment and get ready for the hockey game and Shauna coming home from work.

Sick Thought of the Day: Internal paper cut on the nad.

Keepin’ Busy

Posted on by Chewbode

I just finished playing Tomb Raider: Anniversary. I recently decided to re-activate my GameTap account and I was surprised to see this game in there. GameTap has begun to add several great games to the service. I started playing Tomb Raider a couple of weeks ago, and decided to just go until it was done.

I’ve been doing a lot of work at the office lately, as we’re in the process of getting ready to move. A lot of my time will be devoted to that. Right now I’m working on the electrical needs of the server room. I hope to have that finished today.

In Suncoast Studios news, I’ve been keeping busy with Jeff’s book and have also been trying to help out Millard from time to time. I’m almost done the cover design for the book, then I have to move on to the interior illustrations. For Millard, I’ve done a little audio work and some rendering for the Dr. Zoltan podcast.

I’m going to spend the rest of the day organizing the studio.

Sick Thought of the Day: Blowing his white cruddle all over the back of her head.

May Begins

Posted on by Chewbode

I picked up the weekly comics this past weekend and was pleasantly surprised to find that World War III was in the stack. For the uninformed, WW3 is a DC book that chronicles the crazy shit Black Adam is doing to the planet while he’s on his insane killing spree thanks to the events in 52. It was a four-issue mini-series and I enjoyed it immensely. I think this is also the very last week of 52, and I’m going to be very happy to jump into Countdown after.

I also got the latest issue of Fantastic Four. All I can say is I’m so happy to see the Surfer back in action. I know Marvel is really bringing him to the forefront because of the FF movie this summer, and I’m as happy as a pig in shit. The fact that Michael Turner did the cover this month helps tremendously.

So, I’ve been playing the Wii on and off lately and this weekend I picked up a used copy of FarCry: Vengance. I’m playing it and am enjoying the unique control scheme. I’ll probably finish the game within a week or two and will write a review for it when I put it in the Digital Archive. Speaking of the DA, I haven’t started a Wii section yet, but that will be forthcoming. So, since FarCry was so cheap ($17 at EB Games), I also bought The Legend of Zelda, Twilight Princess and got the strategy guide for it as well. I haven’t opened the game yet, as I’ve promised myself I will not start playing a new Wii game until I’ve finished the prior one. Zelda will have to wait.

I’ve been doing a lot of digital testing on the new SCS project. I’m very happy with the results so far and I should have something to show for the work this week by Saturday.

I called my car insurance company today to ask where my insurance check was. On Friday the dealership said the car would be ready by Wednesday, so I was hoping I wouldn’t have to foot the entire $10,000 repair bill and then get reimbursed. I’ve never had to deal with this kind of stuff before, so what do I know? Anyway, the guy handling my claim said he was never informed of the fact that the car was NOT being totaled and that the dealership was fixing it. I said to him “consider this your notice”. He called the dealership and told them that I would pay my $1,000 deductible when I picked up the car and the insurance company would then send the remainder of the money directly to them. He did all this while I was on hold for about five minutes, so that was nice to get it taken care of so quickly, considering all the shit I’ve had to put up with on this car. So, I got off the phone with him and called the dealership to find out exactly when the car’s gonna be done and they’ve pushed it back to Friday, which actually works out better because I won’t have the money in the bank to pay them until Thursday anyway.

I will be working some crazy hours at the office over the next couple of days, so please forgive me if I don’t communicate much. I will be hitting the hay tonight to get up at 4:00am so I can be at work by 6:00am (one hour drive, remember?). I need to upgrade some phone equipment. Then, Thursday night I may be at the office all night, well into the wee hours of the morning assisting in a software upgrade on the same phone equipment.

I think I’m going to log off now and watch A Clockwork Orange, as I’ve never seen it all the way through and I’ve had it sitting here in my living room since January (damn, I love NetFlix).

Sick Thought of the Day: Festering ass-boils make the urine smell bitter and acidic, like rotten apple pie.

As April Winds Down…

Posted on by Chewbode

I heard from the dealership yesterday and my car is currently getting painted. They tell me I should have it back anytime from Monday to Wednesday at the latest. That’s gonna rock.

Last Saturday night I went to Target with Shauna as we needed to pick up a few things from the store. She went to look at girl-things and I headed to the electronics department to window shop. Lo and behold, sitting quietly, all nestled among its brethren, were several Nintendo Wiis. Holy shit. Wiis. A bunch of them. About 30 thoughts raced through my mind instantly: Can I afford one? Will they be here for a few days? Is this something I really want?… I summed it up, sucked in my gut and confidently marched over to the cashier who was this big-boned, six-foot five-inch high school kid that looked like he loved playing games. I told him I wanted a Wii and he immediately grabbed his keys for the case and began saying how much he wanted one too. We talked, he got the console and a copy of Wii Play, which also comes with a Wiimote. I bought them and strode happily back to Shauna to show her my catch like some crazy caveman that just clubbed a saber-toothed tiger for his family. She was marginally impressed.

It dawned on me that I needed a memory card to save the games, etc. I knew the Wii used SD cards, so I figured I’d go get one. Returning to the electronics department, I see the official Wii memory card (SD) for $49.99 for a 1GB card! Yikes! I promptly call Nintendo and ask if I have to use a licensed SD card or if I can get away with using any SD card, and they tell me any card will work. I find a Kodak 1GB card for $27.00 and snatch it.

I got home, hooked up the console and started probing around. I love it. I played Wii Sports and Wii Play until about 3:00am that night. And I was exhausted, but it felt great.

The next morning, my arms were really sore. I got into the shower, squirted a blob of shampoo into my hand, and as I went to flip the lid shut, a huge glob of ‘poo shot straight into my eye. It was, by far, the single most painful thing I’ve ever experienced in my life. I tried my best to rinse it out, but the soap was already lodged between my delicate eyeball and the lid. It took me about 20 minutes before I could even open my eye, and when I did, I saw it was completely red. Like, so red there was no white. Really red. It was so bad that I had to stay home from work Monday because there was nasty gunk in my eye, like mucous, so it was tough to see. I figured I’ve had enough trouble lately keeping cars in one piece with two eyes, so I’d better stay home.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that last Saturday Shauna and I went to the Sarasota film Festival and saw a screening of Ransom Rigg’s Spaceboy. I own the DVD, but let me tell you – the DVD pales in comparison to seeing it on the big screen. It’s not just the epic-ness of it, but the richness of color and the fidelity of the audio. Wow. Jared was there too, unbeknownst to me, and he, Ransom and I talked a bit after the showing.

So, this week I committed to my company’s CEO that I would move up to Tampa by July 1st. That gives us about two months to get things packed and get up there. We’ve already got an apartment and just need to hire the movers. We’re both very excited about the move, as it’ll afford us an opportunity to live in a big city, which we’ve really never done before.

The other night Shauna and I finally watched The Usual Suspects, courtesy of NetFlix. Great movie. Spacey was awesome. Long live Kaiser Soze!

I’m going to be updating the Comics in the Digital Archive tonight too.

Sick Thought of the Day: High up on her inner-thigh, the smell of a recently spent lumberjack wafted freely. The mixture of fat-man sweat and pine needles rose like an afterthought.