Kevin's Musings

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiHaqCFQLxA[/youtube]

Well, we’ve “started” the packing and it will probably be full force this weekend and maddening next week 🙂 We are going to try to be completely moved before the end of March. It will, I hope, be our easiest move ever. We have gotten rid of so much and lots of stuff is still in boxes from the last move, so, we are hoping it will go quickly and smoothly.
I saw a friend from elementary / middle school who I hadn’t seen SINCE then (although we were good friends back then). We had a good time “catching up” (which is probably the wrong word, I hadn’t seen her in over 20 years). Anyway, it was fun talking and showing here and her kids around NYC.

Not much else new… I’ve been considering getting GRAW2 for the 360, but I would like to finish Rainbow Six Vegas first.

We’re slowly trying to catch up on movies… we saw Breach last weekend (which was excellent) and Zodiac this weekend (also excellent). I am hoping to catch 300 (preferably on IMAX) sometime this week (perhaps tonight).

We signed a lease on a new apartment (yes, it has been a year since we did this last) in New Rochelle, NY. The new place will give us quite a bit more space for no more money and the commute will be “about the same”. We have sort of started packing (but will get really serious about in very soon).

I killed all the bosses in Crackdown for the 360 (what a great game!) this last week and have most of the Agility Orbs – will probably continue to try to get the rest. I have 4 stars or better in all skills except driving (only 3 stars right now). This weekend I played (all of) King Kong for the 360. King Kong was fun (and gave me 1000 achievement points) – it is a very “on rails” shooter – there is ONE path through the game, no chance for deviation. The graphics were pretty nice, the game was fun. It really was like playing a movie (well, a 7 hour movie with lots of shooting and spearing dinosaurs). There is a bit of playing as Kong – which is a lot of fun. For me it has almost no replay-ability, so, I am really glad I rented it.
Not much else going on here, but, with the move our world will get very hectic for a couple weeks.

I’m trying to get back into the habit of blogging a bit more often. We had a nice weekend. On Saturday we (the wife and a group of co-Octagon-dwellers and me) went out to look at an apartment complex in Queens (in Kew Gardens, which is pretty far out in Queens but still on the F line). They were very nice apartments but no less expensive than what our current place will be after the increase in rent (starting in May). The primary advantages would be (a) covered parking and (b) a somewhat larger space. It is somewhat unlikely we will move to these apartments but will look at a few others places (primarily in Queens) before we sign the new lease where we are.

I played a bit more Crackdown and am still having a lot of fun with that.

We saw a few more of the Oscar contenders over the weekend, notably Blood Diamond (very good!) Babel (also very good) and The Last King of Scotland (and a very interesting movie). We had our minuscule Oscar gathering (after game-night where we played a game if “mondo” Killer Bunnies). I wasn’t particularly surprised by any of the winners – all in all it was a good award show.

No major plans for the week. We’ll probably try to catch up on some TV, see a couple more movies, and play more Crackdown. I think the missus is planning on doing some ice skating in Central Park.

I picked up Crackdown (or read a review) for the Xbox360 based on all the podcast buzz, played it last night and WOW what a fun game. I cannot wait for some people on my friends list to get it so I can play it co-op. I played a little bit of some other “sandbox” games (like GTA, Saints Row, etc.) but this game is (to me) SO much more than those – maybe they have more depth in the types of of missions, but, this game is an absolute blast. As your stats increase (notably agility) you can bound across buildings, climb to to the top of skyscrapers, etc. The targeting system is really nice, the explosions are amazing. The driving is tight. The cell shaded style makes the game look stunning. I am just incredibly impressed with this game. Pick it up, add me to your friend’s list, let’s play.

For a shortish period of time, Microsoft was offering, via PowerTogether.com, free copies of Vista (Business Edition) and Office 2007 to folks who would sit through a few video presentations on various topics. I was smart enough to sign up for the Vista giveaway but for some reason didn’t sign up for the Office 2007 one until too late (doh!). Anyway, my copy of Vista arrived on Friday and yup, it is all as advertised. I am now running Vista on my primary machine and it didn’t cost a cent (well, maybe of a couple hours of watching videos about various developer-oriented topics). It seems to be purring along without any major issues – I have one piece of hardware, a Soundblaster Audigy 2 NX soundcard, that isn’t yet Vista compatible, but, everything else works fine (and I can use the sound on the motherboard, so, I’m not missing TOO much). I haven’t tried absolutely everything, but, it seems to work just fine. It looks nice, installed quickly (about 30 minutes), seems to be easy to use, and has a few niceties over WinXP. Is it worth paying $150+ to upgrade to? Umm, probably not unless there is some piece of software that won’t run on your XP setup, but, for free (or at a reasonable price) it is a nice upgrade. Will I purchase it to put on my laptop? I haven’t decided yet (it probably won’t run “Aero” that makes Vista look so flashy). The sad thing is that I bought my laptop about 3 weeks too soon or I could have gotten the Vista upgrade for something like $10, but, at the time I really needed a new laptop and putting off the purchase for 3 weeks didn’t seem like a good option.

I first heard about Rare’s new Xbox 360 game Viva Piñata (read the IGN review) several months ago. The quick description of Viva Piñata is you are the master of a garden which you must tend. Having a good garden will attract wild Piñatas (both good and bad). It is your job to attract the good ones, repel the bad ones, and make the ones who come to live in your garden happy. You must also “romance” your Piñatas (to make baby Piñatas). You can also experiment with them to make them different colors (or entirely new types). You can finally send them off to parties and even sell to earn “chocolate coins” to make a better garden and to buy them homes.

At the time I when I first heard about the game I was very skeptical. Rare has a hit (or slightly miss) track record with games, but, I have not been a huge fan of god-sim games. Sure, I nearly tanked a semester of final exams because Sim City can out at entirely the wrong time of year, but, since the original Sim City I haven’t been a big fan of the game type. I couldn’t get into Sim City 2 through 79. I didn’t really like The Sims. I don’t have Nintendogs (or Nintencats). I never bought a Tamaguchi. I did send some time with Rollercoaster Tycoon, but, this really isn’t my gaming genre. Even after Viva Piñata came out and started getting good reviews, I was skeptical. Even after all the gaming podcasts changed their tune from (pre-release) “it will be a stupid kids game” to (released) “wow, I am totally hooked, what a great game”. Finally, a friend got it and told me how fun it was, I decided to give it a try. Well, it has now been about 10 days and the missus and I are totally hooked – what a fun game. I have (something like) a level 23 garden, tons of Xbox Achievements, etc. This is a really fun game. Sure, it has a few problems – sometimes it isn’t obvious what a “hint” sound effect means, the “sales clerks” are annoyingly repetitive, and while I hardly ever plant grass but am constantly going to the store, I have a quick shortcut for grass and not one for the store. Oh well. On the whole I would agree it is a 9 points out of 10 game. Lots of fun with a ton of replay-ability.

Playing more with the PSP – mostly Lumines. I have found the extra time playing Lumines on the PSP has really improved my game on the 360 – I broke 100,000 points this evening. Sadly, playing on the PSP has further displayed how poor the 360’s Dpad is, especially compared to the PSP – control of Lumines on the PSP is considerably tighter.

I may have mentioned before that I bought the PSP used. It was advertised as having a screen with no scratches, but sadly that wasn’t the case. There was only one really noticeable scratch but a TON of small scratches. I ordered some Displex from ebay. It finally arrived this evening and with a little work, the Displex removed almost all of the small scratches and improved the bigger scratch. After I got the screen as good as it seemed it would get, I applied the ShieldZone Invisible Shield for Sony PSP (which I ordered about the same time I bought the PSP). I am not sure if I have written about them before, but, the ShieldZone Invisible Shields are amazing products – I now have them on my Treo, my DS, my PSP, my iPod, and my wife’s Palm. They are relatively easy to install, are completely scratch proof, and never need replacing. Watch their videos, order their product, you will not be sorry. I am a HUGE believer. Anyway (off the soap box), after installing the Invisible Shield you cannot see any of the scratches whatsoever – the screen looks amazing and the beauty is it will NEVER get scratched again. Now I am just waiting for a larger Memory Stick.

I set the wallpaper on the PSP to a picture of my cat Wednesday from a recent set of picture we took of the cats. I must admit that the screen on the PSP looks astonishing and I am surprised that the battery life is much better than I expected it would be.

I have also been goofing around with some knitting looms (of the Knifty Knitter variety). So far I have made five or six hats and learned how to do several different kinds of stitches. It’s been fun to learn something new (Deb is a crocheter and a knitter, so, it is interesting to get a small taste of what she does). It is definitely not “real knitting” but it is interesting to spend a few hour of work and pop! out comes a hat.

Now, I just need to motivate Steve into updating his blog and Flickr 😛

We had a really nice New Years – spent it with some friends from our apartments. Shared some food (including our ever-famous Cheesy Rice), played some games, watched the ball drop, and shared some good conversation. I think we finally made it to bed at like 3am or something along those lines. Everyone had a great time, I think.

For Deb’s and my anniversary (10 years, do you believe it!!) we had a wonderful dinner at the Fairway Cafe – our new favorite steakhouse in NYC (the ribeye is probably on par with Ruth’s Chris) and then we saw Avenue Q. Avenue Q was hilarious, a ton of fun, I couldn’t recommend it enough… but, that said, it isn’t for everybody. Not for kids (some relatively racey material and language) and not for the easily offended. We both loved the food and the show – we had a wonderful evening.

Over the holiday I picked up a used Sony PSP. Getting it from the seller was somewhat of a fiasco. He said he shipped on Dec 14th but it turns out it didn’t actually start making it’s trip across the country until Dec 26th — oh well, what can you do. The screen wasn’t in as good condition as the seller mentioned, but, it isn’t bad at all and hopefully I can use some scratch remover to bring it back into near perfect condition. I have played a few games on it (Lumines and others) and must say it works really well. The screen on the PSP is astonishingly good, but, it is kind of a brick (size and weight-wise) compared to the Nintendo DS. The battery life seems to be decent – enough for my needs. I guess on a long flight if you wanted to watch more than one movie or play a game for the entire flight you would drain it – so a second battery MIGHT be warranted, but, it seems fine for day-to-day stuff.

Other than Lumines, I have tinkered around with Lumines II (very nice), Megaman Powered Up (very nice, takes the retro Megaman and puts some VERY nice sound and graphics on it), Killzone: Liberation (I am undecided on this one, great graphics – just need to play it some more), and Every Extend Extra (from the makers of Lumines – I just need to play more I haven’t really gotten the hang of it yet). I am mostly just playing Lumines at this point, but, it is (as always) pretty amazing.