Kevin's Musings

I have a number of HD video sources and switching between them (the audio and the video) can get kind of tricky. I recently discovered the JoyTech ControlCenter 240c and I really like it. You can use this to switch audio and video between six HD (component video) sources (and one non-HD for a total of 7 inputs). You can also program the display to show whatever tag you like when you change to that device. My only complaint with the device is that while it contains ethernet ports for three input devices (and one on the “output”), it seems that the device switches ethernet the same way it switches A/V… only one device is connected to the network at a time — I would much rather it work like a normal network hub / switch and connect them all, all of the time. Oh well. This device is definately a welcome addition to my setup. I even still have one extra input… probably not for a PS3 but maybe for a Wii? 🙂

We went to see the movie Crank, the new movie starting Jason Statham – one of my favorite British action stars. This is a super fast, non-stop, high energy action film. Excellently cast and acted with a clever story. It was a ton of fun and I highly recommend it — unless you are offended by fowl language, over the top violence, or a touch nudity (including Jason’s backside, shown repeatedly). If you like action films, go see this one.

We re-watched The Godfather and Godfather Part II over the weekend. Just as good as the previous viewings. Great, timeless movies.

Playing Sly 2: Band of Thieves. Lots of fun. If you like platformers and have a PS2, I would definitely recommend it.

I tried downloaded and installed the RC1 of Vista. Before, when I tried one of the betas, I tried it on a secondary box and just gave it a passing glance, this time I tried it on my main machine (on an extra hard drive).

The base installation took 35 minutes and went smoothly. It detected my wireless network card and various other hardware. The problems were that it installed a very generic (working but slow) driver for my nVidia 6600GT video card, generic (non-working) driver for my Audigy 2 NX external USB soundcard, and no driver for my Logitech STX webcam. The available video driver from nVidia doesn’t work with this version of Vista and there are no working remedies (that I have found) for the sound card or webcam. I was able to switch to the motherboard sound, but, the webcam is completely non-functional.

Vista looks nice, but, without better video drivers I don’t get any of the nifty Aero effects, so, it doesn’t really look much “better” than XP. Mostly, things are just different. I do find it annoying that it is constantly asking you for permission to do everything. Want to open Control Panel? You have to tell it you wanted to. Run an EXE you just downloaded to install a program? You have to give permission. You have to give permission to do EVERYTHING. It gets reeeaaalllyy annoying after a while.
So, given that it didn’t seem all that much better and that it didn’t work well with some key hardware I have gone back to XP. Oh well. Maybe I’ll try it again in a week or two when I have some spare time.

Well, I finished R&C 2 and started reading a bit about R&C 3 (and started paying it, too) and was saddened that they changed it from the platformer that I love to an action game, essentially into a third person shooter. I like shooters as much as the next guy (well maybe not quite as much) but I definitely prefer platformers. I am so sad that both R&C and Jak, two of my absolute favorite platformers, were both turned into “other genre” games. At least the direction R&C took is truer to the original than the direction Jak took, but why do they have to take these great games, keep the franchise name, but completely change the formula? Oh well. Just ranting.

We just had to send a short fax, but, we don’t have a fax machine or even a fax modem. Faced with hunting down a fax modem, I did some searching and found FaxZero.com. This is a nifty service that lets you, for free, send two faxes of up to three pages per day (per email address, presumably). They add a cover letter that, along with sender and receiver contact information, has an ad on it, but, the ad isn’t too obnoxious and seems reasonable for the convenience. You can send a .DOC or .PDF files. One file per transmission. Neat stuff.

I’ve been able to get in some gaming lately. I started playing Dungeon Siege II again. I previously played it through near the end of Act I (there are Acts I – III). I am now near the end of Act II. It is a very solid, longish game. Lots of fun. It took a while to get back into the hang of playing, but, it is a good game (if you are into the real-time D&D type games).

This weekend I also started playing Ratchet and Clank 2: Going Commando again — when I was playing before I got through about 60% of it, am now something like 80% through. Lots of fun, an excellent platformer / shooter. The R&C series is really cream of the crop stuff. I have R&C 3: Up Your Arsenal, which should be lots of fun too. I may just get some more life out of my PS2 yet – I rarely use my PS2, but, there really are some great PS2 exclusive games.

I picked up Sonic Rush for the DS. It is good, the graphics and sound are really nice and control is solid. It is fun, but, it can be very frustrating. I frequently end up getting killed over and over and over in the same places. Oh well. I wouldn’t call it my favorite DS game, but, it is fun. My favorite DS game is still (without a doubt) Tetris DS. I made it to level 15 in the single player Marathon mode which I think is quite an achievement, IMO. Can YOU do better? 😉 It is amazing that after something like 20 years since I first played Tetris Nintendo can release Tetris again and it can become my favorite portable game.
We were listening to the Jet Set Radio Future soundtrack last night on the train – brought back lots of great memories. This was one of the most underrated Xbox games (that and Psychonauts). I played it all the way through at least three times.

Want a huge water bill? Teach your cat to flush the toilet.

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There is a new TPS (third person shooter) game for the 360 coming out this fall. I have been hearing some buzz about it but hadn’t really looked into it. After listening to some gaming podcast (1Up Yours, I think) I decided to go check out the E3 demo video for the game… and I was just blown away. Check out the video. Really looks amazing.

It shouldn’t be surprising.  It is being made by Epic Games, formerly Epic Megagames which has a pretty great lineage including all of the Unreal games and don’t forget the Jazz Jackrabbit series. Good stuff

Alex’s Tubing pictures are here. I’m actually in a couple of these.

We had a wonderful day tubing down the Delaware with some new friends we met at our apartment complex. My pictures are here. Some more pictures from other folks will follow soon. We had a blast and would highly recommend it to anyone in the area in the summer months. A few years ago I did the same sort of thing down the Salt river in Arizona – had a blast then, too.