Kevin's Musings

Another fine Christmas has come and gone.  We spent the evening of Christmas Eve walking around the Christmas attractions of Manhattan including visiting the window displays at Macy’s, Lord and Taylor, and Saks Fifth Avenue. We also visited the Bryant Park holiday shops and Times Square. For Christmas day, we had a quiet day at home playing games, watching movies (including High Anxiety), and re-watching old episodes of The Office. The rest of our weekend promises more movies, games, and Office.

For Christmas, I got Gears of War 2 and Saints Row 2. I finished up Prince of Persia, but I still have a bit of work left to get a few more achievements. Between these and the Wii games I have to play, it should be a fun winter.

About two ago we ventured from the cold northeast to the warm state of Florida to embark on a cruise of the Western Caribbean.  I believe this is the fourth cruise the missus and I have been on. Previously we did a short Bahamas cruise on Royal Caribbean’s Majesty of the Seas, an Alaska cruise on Princess’ Star Princess, and an Eastern Caribbean cruise on the Princess’ Crown Princess. We love taking cruises feeling it is an almost ideal way to vacation. We’ve avoided Carnival cruises hearing bad stories, but a friend recently took a Carnival cruise and said he enjoyed it. After finding a good deal on a Carnival’s Valor, we decided to give them a try. We went with another couple who we meet in NY a couple years ago but who have since moved to Atlanta. Executive Summary: A really good time was had by all!

We arrived in sunny Miami on Saturday afternoon. We rented a car and drive to the hotel. The missus’ sister lived in the Miami area for a number of years and had a “favorite seafood place” that the missus wanted to try to locate. As a happy coincidence, that seafood place was actually connected to the hotel we were staying at. The missus and I had a late lunch there while we waited for our friends to arrive (flying in from Atlanta). Once our friends arrived, we all went to do a bit of “last minute shopping” at Walgreens and then it was back to the hotel. We shared a few drinks and some food but called it a night relatively early.

On Sunday morning, we all met up with our niece to have breakfast at a little Cuban diner. Our niece, who also currently lives in Atlanta, happened to be in Miami visiting a friend – what a great coincidence! While the food was just “OK”, we all really enjoyed the Cuban coffee. After breakfast, I took everybody to the ship and returned the rental car. I caught a taxi from the rental car agency back to the ship. Once back to the ship, boarding was quick and easy. The rest of Sunday was mostly just relaxing an unpacking.

Monday was an “at sea” day, so it was mostly just R&R. We spent time visiting with our friends, meeting people, sitting by the pool.

Tuesday we were at Grand Cayman.  We booked a day of snorkeling on the Barrier Reef with our friends. Before the snorkeling we did a bit of “tourist shopping” then took a boat ride out to the reef. The snorkeling was really nice, saw lots of coral and colorful fish.

Wednesday we were at Isla Roatan, Honduras. As we were planning to do scuba diving on the next two days, we decided to just walk around Roatan, do the “tourist” thing. While Isla Roatan has a fair bit of poverty, it wasn’t nearly as depressing as the day we walked around Ocho Rios, Jamaica a few years ago. We walked through many of the little shops and made a few small purchases, but our goal was mostly just to experience the local culture and take lots of pictures.

Thursday we were at Belize. I’ve wanted to dive in Belize since I started diving. The missus got certified, at least to a degree, because she wanted to dive in Belize. The diving operation picked us up with the dive boat right at the ship. We rode from the ship to the dive shop to get everybody geared up. From the dive shop we rode out to the first of the two dive sites. The ride out to the first dive site took about 45 minutes and it was pretty rough – the missus was turning a cute shade of green. We found out later that our dive excursion was the only water excursion that wasn’t cancelled. Once we got to the first dive site, everybody geared up and we went down in small groups of about 6. Our divemaster, William, was the best divemaster I’ve ever had. He was slow and patient. He had a magna-doodle-style slate that he used to name many of the fish. Although this was the missus’ first ocean dive, she performed like a veteran. The first dive lasted about 45 minutes then we had about a 45 minute surface interval during which we snacked, had our tanks changed, and moved to the second site. The dive at the second site went as smoothly as the first dive and also lasted about 45 minutes. In both dives we saw lots of beautiful coral and colorful fish. The colors probably weren’t quite as vivid as normal as the day was somewhat overcast, but we both greatly enjoyed the dives. It was so much fun for me to finally share scuba diving with the missus and I think she really enjoyed it, too. The ride back to the dive shop was also quite choppy, but everybody was having a lot of fun bouncing around and talking that nobody really felt the effects.

Friday we were in Cozumel. The missus and I had intended on doing two more dives, but the water didn’t agree and most of the water excursions were canceled. We opted to do the Fly High Zip Line excursion with our friends. The missus and I have always wanted to try zip lines and they are just as much fun to do as they appear to be when you see them on shows like The Amazing Race. After the zip line adventure, we spent some time doing the “tourist shopping” thing in Cozumel, buying a few t-shirts and such.

Saturday was the second “at sea” day and the last full day of the cruise. We mostly spent the day being lazy, enjoying the time with our friends.

We arrived back in Miami early on Sunday morning. We had breakfast, said goodbye to our friends, and waited for our time to debark (they were able to debark earlier because they had less luggage). The trip through customs took a bit of time, but not too bad. We caught a taxi to the airport and had to wait a few hours for our airplane, but the flight home was eventless.

All in all, it was a great week. We saw and did lots of things and got to spend time meeting new people and catching up with old friends. I think we’ve converted our friends (who had never cruised before) into “cruise lovers”. Now we all just need to save up some vacation and decide where to cruise to next.

One last thought to share. We have now cruised Royal Caribbean, Princess, and Carnival. Of the three, I would say, without hesitation, that Princess is my favorite. Most of the experience is about the same on all three, I think the Princess ships are easier to navigate and more tastefully decorated. We felt Carnival self-promoted a bit too much for our taste — the dancing “Freddy Fun-ship” character was kind of silly. We felt the Carnival Valor was laid out a bit more awkwardly and had fewer show theaters and lounges. While the fewer number of theaters and lounges is likely because of the side of the ship, the difficulty of navigation and the decorations are really a design choice. For our next cruise we will likely try Holland America or return to Princess.

We also watched the movie Fred Claus. It was a cute film, Vince Vaugn did a nice job, but I didn’t find it nearly as entertaining as Elf, which holds strong with my favorite Christmas films such as Bad Santa and A Christmas Story. For the first half of Fred Claus, they dubbed in Flintstones-esque sound effects over a lot of things, which seemed silly and pointless. I guess maybe it is just that I am not the target demographic, but the missus and I both felt the sound effects actually distracted from the movie.

We had a joyously long, relaxing weekend. I will share some of what we did, although the order is probably all wrong.

• Made great strides toward catching up on our TiVo recordings which included a lot of CSI, Heros, Cook’s Country, etc.
• Watched the movie Get Smart, which we really enjoyed. Steve Carell was a lot of fun as Maxwell Smart. I loved the show when I was growing up and I felt they did a credible job.
• Watched the movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall. We thought it was funny with moments that were really laugh out loud hilarious. It is pretty darn formula, but we had a good time.
• Watched the movie An Unreasonable Man, which was a documentary about Ralph Nader. It was an interesting movie, but they seemed to be all over the board – people seem to love him and others hate him and interviews on the opposing opinions were often back to back, so it often felt like it had conflicting messages.
• Played a fair bit of Fallout 3. I am all but finished with the main quest (one segment left). I am currently finishing up the side quests, achievements, etc. because once I finish the main quest the game “ends”. Fun game. Huge world. After 55 hours there are still lots of places I haven’t been.
• Played some Super Mario Galaxy. I have something like 12 of the 120 stars. Galaxy is a beautifully made platformer, an absolute joy to play.
• Played some Wii Sports with my nephew, Steve. We had a great time especially with tennis and boxing.
• Enjoyed marinated duck breast with all the trimmings with the missus and nephew for Thanksgiving. It was incredibly good, much better than turkey. Mmmmm! The missus wants to do it again for Christmas.

All in all it was a really nice long weekend.

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We had an action packed weekend. We started things off by attending a sneak preview for Transporter 3. I’ve seen all the Transporter movies and they are always an action filled good time. I general, I tend to like Jason Statham movies. Taking the missus to see it may have been a mistake, though – she now has a huge crush on Jason, but to be fair he has obviously spent a ton of time in the gym 🙂 The action and driving parts of the movie were really amazing. I wasn’t quite as enamored with supporting actress, Natalya Rudakova. Reportedly, she is originally from Russia but now lives in New York and Luc Besson, the film’s writer, saw here on the street as she was walking to her job and thought she might be perfect for the movie. Given that she wasn’t previously an actress, I’ll cut her a little slack – she wasn’t terrible in the movie, she just wasn’t as polished as I am used to seeing. My comment to the missus after the movie was that I didn’t think she did a good job with the accent, which is really funny because that probably really is her accent. I am sure the American movie-goer ear is just used to specific Russian accents and she has something slightly different. Anyway – it will be interesting to see what she does next or if she just returns to normal New York life.

On Saturday we went to see Quantum of Solace. This latest Bond film is getting really mixed reviews, but we enjoyed it a lot. I think Daniel Craig makes a great James Bond and I loved the action, although like Transporter 3, I wish filmmakers would cut back a tad on the quick-edit action scenes. I never quite figured out why they called it Quantum of Solace, but I guess that isn’t important.

I played a bit more Super Mario Galaxy, which is a really great game. I’ve always been a huge fan of the “platformer” genre of video games and it’s sad to me that almost no good platformers are being made these days. I’ve decided to try to take my time with Mario Galaxy as I there isn’t likely to be anything else like it for a long time.

I played a few more hours of Fallout 3. I’ve decided I think it is a markedly better game than Oblivion was. I really enjoyed Oblivion but I think Fallout 3 solves most of Oblivion’s problems. In my opinion, the major corrections found in Fallout 3 include -a- the VATS targeting system, which really makes the game a joy to play -b- an improved “save” system -c- I prefer the guns over spells and swords, -d- much better voice acting, and -e- I prefer the stats and perks system in Fallout 3. I stand by my previous thought that Fallout 3 is a much bigger and deeper game then Fable II, but because of its size and depth it probably isn’t for the casual gamer; the casual gamer would be better off playing Fable II. Personally, I am glad I have played both games, as they are both a lot of fun.

One of the best parts of Fable II was the dog. I affectionately named my Fable II dog “Killer” after the cockapoo my family had when I was growing up, I loved that little dog. Killer was the only dog I ever had as I am more of a cat person. The Fable II dog really did enhance the game. Killer moved and reacted in realistic manner; Lionhead did an amazing job with the dog in Fable II. One of the important features was while the dog would always be by your side, fighting, treasuring hunting, etc., he might get injured but never died. At one point in the game you must choose between keeping your dog, a boatload of money, or bringing a ton of people back to life. I chose the dog. This should suggest to you that I felt the dog was an integral part of the Fable II experience. I loved Killer in real life, and I loved Killer in the game.

Many of the Fallout 3 videos touted the experience with its dog, Dogmeat. I made the (possibly unreasonable) assumption Fallout 3’s dog would be a similar experience to Fable II’s dog. I was starting to doubt this when seven hours into Fallout 3 I had yet to even find Dogmeat. I did a quick Google to find Dogmeat. I quickly went to found him, and then adopted him. It didn’t take long to realize that the Fallout 3 dog was not the Fable 2 dog. While the Fallout 3 dog is a tough fighter, he often puts itself into danger, running into the middle of several enemies, often getting himself killed. Several times I reloaded the game to resurrect Dogmeat. Sure, Dogmeat has some advantages (finding weapons, ammo, chems, etc.), but ultimately I decided having to constantly micromanage him to keep him alive wasn’t equal to the benefits of him being alive. After the 5th or 6th time I got the message “Dogmeat is dead,” I finally just said “you know, I don’t care”. Maybe I will miss him down the road, but I just can’t believe how different the experience is.

It has been almost exactly two years since the Wii was released. I am continually amazed how many “non-gamers” have bought Wii consoles to play Wii Sports and maybe Wii Fit (and often nothing else). Many members of my family who previously would never have even considered playing video games now own and love their Wii consoles. My mother-in-law owns a Wii and plays plays Wii Sports with her mother, who is in her 90s. While I see more and more Wii consoles in stores (and have even seen them used at Gamestop once), Wii’s are still in high enough demand that they will probably still be the coveted gift this holiday season. I decided well over a year ago that I would wait until I could find a (really) good deal on a used Wii (or until they were readily available and the price dropped). Happily, I finally did find a really good deal on a used Wii with a metric ton of great games. So, with some luck, by next weekend the missus and I will be playing Wii Tennis (and I’ll finally get to play Mario Galaxy!!). I will try to hold myself back on Mario until I finish Fallout 3, but the temptation will be immense (I am a huge Mario fan).

I’ve been wanting to go see Coen Brothers new movie Burn After Reading since it first came out two months ago (ouch!) and was afraid because of my slowness I wouldn’t be able to catch it in the theater. Happily, when I looked at the movie times yesterday I saw it was still playing in Manhattan. After a trip to an opening event for the Lion Brand Yarn Studio yesterday, I took the missus to go see it. We both really, really enjoyed it. The story is hilarious, Brad Pitt did an amazing job – all the actors were spot on. It really is a Coen Brothers “dark comedy of errors”. I highly recommend it especially if you like the other Coen Brothers movies movies, such as Fargo.

I am all but finished with Fable 2. I have gotten 905 / 1000 achievement points. I have finished all of the main quest, essentially all of the side quests. I own all of the property. I am still collecting the final few silver keys and gargoyles (I think 6 of each left) and because I am a compulsive collector, I will probably finish those two things up before retiring the game. My view is that Fable 2 is a really, really good game. I can strongly recommend it to anybody who wants a fun, beautiful, easy to pick up, directed action RPG. With Fable 2 there is quite a bit to do but you can easily finish the main quest in about 10-15 hours. If you want to complete “everything” it will take about 30-45 hours. I really like the fact that while there are almost always multiple things you can do “next” but you never feel “lost”. The dog and the golden path really make the game shine. I also like that you don’t have to micromanage your armor, weapons, spells, health, etc. Finally, the interactivity with other “people” in the world (computer controlled citizens of the game-world) is really well done. Fable 2 is very polished and definitely worth playing. I would give the game a 9.5 / 10.

As I mentioned before, my next game after Fable 2 is Fallout 3, which is also an RPG. While Fable 2 is more of an Action RPG (it has RPG elements, but the action gameplay is emphasized over the RPG elements – but not nearly as Action-oriented as something like a Diablo), Fallout 3 is much more “standard RPG”. There are lot of stats that you can choose from to define your character and build your character up as you play. Ammo is limited, weapons and armor all degrade. The world is vast and the whole experience is far less directed. While I hear there is also a dog in Fallout 3, within the first few hours of the game I haven’t encountered it, yet. The graphics of the game and the control of the game are solid, but the especially graphics aren’t up to the Fable 2 level – it really does look like Oblivion with slightly better graphics. If you played Oblivion, you will immediately notice Fallout 3 “feels” like Oblivion. The voice acting and UI are noticeably over Oblivion, but honestly it feels like Oblivion with guns, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I am having fun with Fallout 3 so far, but it is a vastly different experience than Fable 2 and I will have to get much further into the game before to get a better feel for it. Stay posted!

I was talking with the missus tonight before the election coverage started on TV. While it is no secret that we have supported Obama for a long time, we both agreed that we would support whoever won, but we just didn’t want a close election that dragged on for days or weeks, we wanted a decisive landslide. What did we get? A decisive landslide! I firmly believe this will be an election for the history books. The majority spoke, McCain listened, and he gave a timely, respectful, and classly concession speech. This election couldn’t have gone more smoothly, especially when compared to the last two elections. We are incredibly optimistic that Obama can turn things around.

On a fun side note, we were watching Daily Show Indecision ’08 when they announced at 11:11 that Obama was president. While our TiVo was a bit delayed, I think it was cool that it happened at 11:11.

I had a hunch that the  line would be long at our polling place (which is right across the street from where we live), so I set the alarm for 5:45 AM (New York polls open at 6:00 AM). We got to the polling place at 6:05 and there was already a sizable line. After waiting for about 20 minutes, the missus remarked that she was a bit worried that almost nobody came out of the voting room. I agreed that this was worry some; either they were chopping up the bodies and storing them in a bin inside the room or the process was incredibly slow. There are four precincts that vote at our location and sadly our precinct has the bulk of the voters. Once we finally got into “the room”, the issues became more apparent. While we didn’t see any chopped up voters, we did see three precinct tables with volunteers just sitting idle (and three idle voting machines) and a long line of people waiting for our precinct. There were two voting machines dedicated to our precinct, but one was “not yet operational”. When I asked the man running the lone operational machine for our precinct, he said “oh, we’ll probably turn it on if it stays busy like this”. Sadly, the second machine hardly seemed necessary because it was vacant about 80% of the time. With the line now running out the building with people wanting to vote, how can the voting machine be vacant so much of the time, you might ask? Simple, because the sign-in table takes about 60 seconds per voter. The process was this: you tell the volunteer with the signature book your name. That volunteer looks up your name, you sign next to the signature from when you registered to vote. During normal elections, at this point you could go and vote, but during this election, there is another volunteer who now needs to copy your name and address by hand to another sheet of paper. Not only was she required to manually copy your name and address but she seemed obligated to get constantly distracted by what everybody around her was doing. When we finally left the polling place at 7:10 AM, the line was at least triple what it was when we arrived and they had only processed about 60 voters in that hour and ten minutes. The system is beyond broken, it should not take over a minute per voter. I am really afraid people will see how long it is taking and just leave only to either not be able to return later, or return later to find an even longer wait time and not be able to vote at all. In an election that is so important, they really should be stream-lining the process, not making it worse.