Here's a gaming insight on real life I thought was pretty good. Worth reading and another great example of the kind of thing you can learn playing games that really wouldn't sink in any other way.
http://www.wired.com/gaming/gamingreviews/commentary/games/2007/11/gamesfrontiers_1105
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Referendum What?
I wrote two different posts about referendum one. Then I deleted them both. I wasted about an hour and a half on that. I would have rather played Xbox. So, thank you referendum one and web 2.0.
You're like the Wonder Twins. Alone you are nothing, but combined you have the power to destroy a perfectly good evening of gaming.
I'm going to bed now. I'll sure be glad when this 'voting' stuff is over...
You're like the Wonder Twins. Alone you are nothing, but combined you have the power to destroy a perfectly good evening of gaming.
I'm going to bed now. I'll sure be glad when this 'voting' stuff is over...
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Jonah at it again...
Jonah has been saying he's hungry every night lately. Which would be fine, but he doesn't exactly eat dinner well. So tonight when he said he was hungry I said he could have some rice if he was hungry.
He said no and that he'd rather have cereal. I told him that cereal wasn't going to happen and he'd have to select something else. So, then he said that he wanted whipped cream. After hearing him say that he wanted to eat whipped cream for dinner cereal didn't sound so bad. So he had cereal for dinner. Now I'm wondering if it was all part of his plan; he's kinda sneaky like that...
He said no and that he'd rather have cereal. I told him that cereal wasn't going to happen and he'd have to select something else. So, then he said that he wanted whipped cream. After hearing him say that he wanted to eat whipped cream for dinner cereal didn't sound so bad. So he had cereal for dinner. Now I'm wondering if it was all part of his plan; he's kinda sneaky like that...
Sunday, October 28, 2007
The Crazy Blue Donkey
Well, so much for seven days in a row. What can I say, I'm a professional procrastinator. I'm sure I'll make the 7 posts; they just won't be much of a row.
About Sunday of last week Jonah started doing something really strange. He still comes and gets into bed with Tomoko and I pretty much every night. Usually Tomoko will just give up and go sleep in Jonah's bed, so it usually ends up being Jonah and me in our bed. Anyway, he started getting up and closing the bedroom door. He's been doing this very consistently anytime Tomoko or I go in or out and leave the door open, he gets out of bed and closes the door. He'll do this at all hours of the night.
Well, yesterday we found out why. He said he's worried about the scary crazy donkey. Evidently, he's worried that the donkey will come into our bedroom and scare Mommy and Daddy he said. He says if we shut the door then the Donkey will knock instead of coming in. He also said the donkey is blue and drives a car. It's a pretty nasty sounding donkey.
I told Jonah that I would punch the donkey in the nose if he tried to come into our bedroom. Jonah informed me that I would be too scared of the donkey. It can get kind of warm in our bedroom with the door closed, but I guess that's the way it's going to be for a while. At least until the donkey leaves town.
About Sunday of last week Jonah started doing something really strange. He still comes and gets into bed with Tomoko and I pretty much every night. Usually Tomoko will just give up and go sleep in Jonah's bed, so it usually ends up being Jonah and me in our bed. Anyway, he started getting up and closing the bedroom door. He's been doing this very consistently anytime Tomoko or I go in or out and leave the door open, he gets out of bed and closes the door. He'll do this at all hours of the night.
Well, yesterday we found out why. He said he's worried about the scary crazy donkey. Evidently, he's worried that the donkey will come into our bedroom and scare Mommy and Daddy he said. He says if we shut the door then the Donkey will knock instead of coming in. He also said the donkey is blue and drives a car. It's a pretty nasty sounding donkey.
I told Jonah that I would punch the donkey in the nose if he tried to come into our bedroom. Jonah informed me that I would be too scared of the donkey. It can get kind of warm in our bedroom with the door closed, but I guess that's the way it's going to be for a while. At least until the donkey leaves town.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Answering the Call
Laurellee put out a call for more blogging. I have no idea why; it seems between her and Liz there are plenty of pithy anecdotes to go around the family. It's possible I'm just blind, but nothing of particular interest happens to me most days. In any case, in an attempt to answer the call, I'll now blog for 7 straight days. At that point I figure there will be a new call to cut it out.
On my mind today is the wildfire situation in San Diego. We just drove back from a vacation / work trip there and now it seems the very roads we drove on are burning. My client in San Diego shut down all their operations today because so many employees are in evacuation situations. I can't imagine the mental suffering you'd endure in that situation. I talked with a friend there and the fire stopped a quarter of a mile from his house. He can't actually go asses the damage, but he's pretty sure it's totally smoked out. I'm definitely praying for him and everyone else out there. Such a beautiful place to have a problem like that.
On happier notes, things seem to be going swimingly with my little work experiment. We've got two people hired (Aaron and Jeremiah) and the leads just keep coming in. Huston is up in Canada kicking off another project today. The pipe of incoming work has been consistently strong thanks to our full time sales manager, so I don't see any sign of things slowing down. I'm a little nervous about the general trend of the economy right now, so I'm not looking to hire another until we see how things settle over the next few months. It's amazing how nothing really changes but the analysts statements and all of the sudden companies don't want to spend money any more. I guess we all get spooked an hold onto our wallets.
We've got an office now in American Fork. It's about 10 mins from my house and 13 from Huston's. It's great to have a place. It got a little old trying to work with Jeremiah at the kitchen table while SpongeBob was on the television. Nothing more distracting than Sponge Bob. I want to hate the ugly little yellow bugger, but he's just funny and I end up laughing anyway.
Check out the Hello Kitty AK-47 over in my shared links. It's too cool for words.
On my mind today is the wildfire situation in San Diego. We just drove back from a vacation / work trip there and now it seems the very roads we drove on are burning. My client in San Diego shut down all their operations today because so many employees are in evacuation situations. I can't imagine the mental suffering you'd endure in that situation. I talked with a friend there and the fire stopped a quarter of a mile from his house. He can't actually go asses the damage, but he's pretty sure it's totally smoked out. I'm definitely praying for him and everyone else out there. Such a beautiful place to have a problem like that.
On happier notes, things seem to be going swimingly with my little work experiment. We've got two people hired (Aaron and Jeremiah) and the leads just keep coming in. Huston is up in Canada kicking off another project today. The pipe of incoming work has been consistently strong thanks to our full time sales manager, so I don't see any sign of things slowing down. I'm a little nervous about the general trend of the economy right now, so I'm not looking to hire another until we see how things settle over the next few months. It's amazing how nothing really changes but the analysts statements and all of the sudden companies don't want to spend money any more. I guess we all get spooked an hold onto our wallets.
We've got an office now in American Fork. It's about 10 mins from my house and 13 from Huston's. It's great to have a place. It got a little old trying to work with Jeremiah at the kitchen table while SpongeBob was on the television. Nothing more distracting than Sponge Bob. I want to hate the ugly little yellow bugger, but he's just funny and I end up laughing anyway.
Check out the Hello Kitty AK-47 over in my shared links. It's too cool for words.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Shared Junk
I added my shared items from Google Reader over on the right side below my XBL info. I've just started using this with Huston so most of the stuff is things I thought he'd be interested in. Anyway, check it out and if you use Google Reader let me know and I'll send you my link so you can add my shared items to your feed list.
Zombie Love
It's no secret that I love Resident Evil. I played the first RE game for about 5 minutes on my mission and it was the moment that I realized that the future was Playstation and 3D games. I had never seen a game with so much atmosphere. I wasn't really scary, but I could see the vision there, and I knew some day horror games would be genuinely scary.
Since then I've played through the end of nearly every Resident Evil game released. Zombies are without questions my favorite bullet sponge. Obviously someone else loves Resident Evil as well because the lovingly crafted a hilarious music video about RE. If you've played any of the games you'll get some of the jokes. If you've played them all, you'll smile all the way through.
Since then I've played through the end of nearly every Resident Evil game released. Zombies are without questions my favorite bullet sponge. Obviously someone else loves Resident Evil as well because the lovingly crafted a hilarious music video about RE. If you've played any of the games you'll get some of the jokes. If you've played them all, you'll smile all the way through.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Bioshock
As I predicted in my last post Bioshock totally kicked RE4 right out of my life. It's a fantastic game I'm really enjoying.
There is a debate raging on the Internet questioning whether games can be art or not. Roger Ebert basically started whole thing by saying that games would never be art comparable to cinema. Of course this ruffled the feathers of more than one gamer and it's lead to some interesting reading if nothing else.
The gist of Roger's argument is that because players have a choice in the outcome of the game, it destroys the artist's ability to craft a specific emotional experience. I kind of understood where he was coming from, but I had a really cool experience that lead me to think otherwise.
Bioshock is a game with a pretty significant backstory that would not only bore you to tears but would wear my fingers out if I were to type it all up. For this particular experience of mine to make sense you just need to know of 2 characters that show up in the game known as Big Daddy and Little Sister.
The Little Sisters are essentially resource harvesters. They wander around the city world of Bioshock taking raw genetic material from dead bodies and storing it. They look like 9 year old girls and if you leave them alone to do their thing, they'll act like 9 year old girls too. The sing little songs and skip from place to place. Of course, being a horror game, they're suitably creepy as well with glowing eyes and pasty skin. They're skipping and singing their way from body to body with a gigantic syringe which they poke into the various bodies to extract the genetic material.
The Little Sisters are always accompanied by a Big Daddy. The Big Daddy is essentially the guardian for the Little Sisters. They're hulking giants in old school diving suits that simply follow the sisters around and protect them.
Bioshock is a unique game in that you can choose to not interact with these and other characters and simply watch them do their thing if you want to. In the case of these two, the Little Sisters will hold the Big Daddies' hands, chatter at them and constantly refer to them as "Mr. Bubbles". They also cry over their guardian's bodies after you kill them.
There comes a point in the game where you have to make a choice about whether you're going to harvest the Little Sisters and kill them in the process, or release them from their situation unharmed. If you choose to harvest them you get the material they've been collecting. If you choose to release them you get some token compensation but mostly you just get to feel good about yourself. For me this was an easy decision, I harvest. They're creepy little girls anyway. Jeremiah is a releaser. Kind of cuts to the core of our differences I reckon.
You get to make this decision many times throughout the course of the game, but really once you've decided to go one way or the other, there isn't any reason to change your mind.
So, I'm over half way through the game and I've harvested many of these Little Sisters. At one point I was a little bit lost as to what to do next so I was just wandering around kind of enjoying the scenery and I come across a Big Daddy just lumbering around. He looks kind of lost, so I decide to just watch him for minute while I ponder my next action. He wanders around the room looking under things, banging on the walls and making frustrated crying like sounds. And then I realize what he's doing: he's trying to find the Little Sister I harvested! He's walking around actively checking places she could hide and whining and moaning about her absence.
And I felt guilty! You could probably lay the bodies of everything I've killed in video games over the last 20 years end to end and it would stretch to the Sun and back. And I've never felt guilty about any of it. And here I felt guilty about taking this lumbering diving dork's friend away. Pretty impressive emotional manipulation if you ask me.
Of course this only lasted a few minutes and then I went back to harvesting the little witches. But for a few short moments, I had reflected on my own selfish nature and felt bad about how it might hurt others. That's an experience not even a movie could have created.
There is a debate raging on the Internet questioning whether games can be art or not. Roger Ebert basically started whole thing by saying that games would never be art comparable to cinema. Of course this ruffled the feathers of more than one gamer and it's lead to some interesting reading if nothing else.
The gist of Roger's argument is that because players have a choice in the outcome of the game, it destroys the artist's ability to craft a specific emotional experience. I kind of understood where he was coming from, but I had a really cool experience that lead me to think otherwise.
Bioshock is a game with a pretty significant backstory that would not only bore you to tears but would wear my fingers out if I were to type it all up. For this particular experience of mine to make sense you just need to know of 2 characters that show up in the game known as Big Daddy and Little Sister.
The Little Sisters are essentially resource harvesters. They wander around the city world of Bioshock taking raw genetic material from dead bodies and storing it. They look like 9 year old girls and if you leave them alone to do their thing, they'll act like 9 year old girls too. The sing little songs and skip from place to place. Of course, being a horror game, they're suitably creepy as well with glowing eyes and pasty skin. They're skipping and singing their way from body to body with a gigantic syringe which they poke into the various bodies to extract the genetic material.
The Little Sisters are always accompanied by a Big Daddy. The Big Daddy is essentially the guardian for the Little Sisters. They're hulking giants in old school diving suits that simply follow the sisters around and protect them.
Bioshock is a unique game in that you can choose to not interact with these and other characters and simply watch them do their thing if you want to. In the case of these two, the Little Sisters will hold the Big Daddies' hands, chatter at them and constantly refer to them as "Mr. Bubbles". They also cry over their guardian's bodies after you kill them.
There comes a point in the game where you have to make a choice about whether you're going to harvest the Little Sisters and kill them in the process, or release them from their situation unharmed. If you choose to harvest them you get the material they've been collecting. If you choose to release them you get some token compensation but mostly you just get to feel good about yourself. For me this was an easy decision, I harvest. They're creepy little girls anyway. Jeremiah is a releaser. Kind of cuts to the core of our differences I reckon.
You get to make this decision many times throughout the course of the game, but really once you've decided to go one way or the other, there isn't any reason to change your mind.
So, I'm over half way through the game and I've harvested many of these Little Sisters. At one point I was a little bit lost as to what to do next so I was just wandering around kind of enjoying the scenery and I come across a Big Daddy just lumbering around. He looks kind of lost, so I decide to just watch him for minute while I ponder my next action. He wanders around the room looking under things, banging on the walls and making frustrated crying like sounds. And then I realize what he's doing: he's trying to find the Little Sister I harvested! He's walking around actively checking places she could hide and whining and moaning about her absence.
And I felt guilty! You could probably lay the bodies of everything I've killed in video games over the last 20 years end to end and it would stretch to the Sun and back. And I've never felt guilty about any of it. And here I felt guilty about taking this lumbering diving dork's friend away. Pretty impressive emotional manipulation if you ask me.
Of course this only lasted a few minutes and then I went back to harvesting the little witches. But for a few short moments, I had reflected on my own selfish nature and felt bad about how it might hurt others. That's an experience not even a movie could have created.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Resident Evil 4 for Wii
I got RE4 for the Wii from Gamefly. I just wanted to try a shooting game on the Wii and see how it would handle. I forgot what a great game it is. I keep telling myself that I'm going to just play one more night and then send it back but I'm having so much fun with it I keep going. I'm about half way through the game now.
It works great on the Wii once you get the hang of having all the buttons moved. It was a great looking game 4 years ago on the GameCube; it's not so hot on the Wii. After playing most my games in HD, it seems very pixelated and fuzzy. But it still has the RE magic. At first it's a little irritating that you can't move and shoot at the same time, but it's really what makes the game so tense. You have to constantly be evaluating your position relative to all the zombies and make very tactical decisions about where to make your stand. It's easy to see why it's one of the all time greats.
For all the weaklings out there that couldn't finish it on the 'cube, it's actually much easier on the Wii because you are so much more accurate and can aim so quickly. I still die regularly, but often I get through things that took several tries on the 'cube in one try. And I find I'm struggling with ammo a lot less.
Now that I have BioShock in hand, I don't know how much time I'll spend on it. But it's been darn fun and it gives me high hopes for future shooters on the Wii. Like Metroid Prime 3 that comes out next week...
It works great on the Wii once you get the hang of having all the buttons moved. It was a great looking game 4 years ago on the GameCube; it's not so hot on the Wii. After playing most my games in HD, it seems very pixelated and fuzzy. But it still has the RE magic. At first it's a little irritating that you can't move and shoot at the same time, but it's really what makes the game so tense. You have to constantly be evaluating your position relative to all the zombies and make very tactical decisions about where to make your stand. It's easy to see why it's one of the all time greats.
For all the weaklings out there that couldn't finish it on the 'cube, it's actually much easier on the Wii because you are so much more accurate and can aim so quickly. I still die regularly, but often I get through things that took several tries on the 'cube in one try. And I find I'm struggling with ammo a lot less.
Now that I have BioShock in hand, I don't know how much time I'll spend on it. But it's been darn fun and it gives me high hopes for future shooters on the Wii. Like Metroid Prime 3 that comes out next week...
Moving to Mac
I ordered a Macbook Pro today to serve as my work machine. My experience with Apple products to date hasn't been so hot. I'm really hoping that this time is different. I'm doing this because I'm constantly frustrated with Tomoko's machine and I'm not familiar enough to do anything with it. I'd like to learn how to use one as well as I know how to use Windows. Seems they're getting more and more popular and everyone else I talk to swears by them. I'm actually hoping I'm a convert.
Another Injection
Last Friday I had another injection into my right SI joint. Actually it was more than just the joint, I had one injection into the joint itself and then 4 more injections into the fascia and tendons of the surrounding areas.
This is an entirely new stream of treatment with a new doctor. This doctor is a ND which means he is an actual doctor but he does natural treatments. Now you all know how desperate I am to get this fixed because I really don't trust natural medicine stuff. At this point I've pretty much exhausted all the traditional options short of surgery. I'll try anything out now.
If I were to go forward with surgery it would involve fusing the SI joints on both sides of my lower back. basically they open you up, shave off the outer layer of both the bones and then keep the joint immobile for several months. It would take me out for quite a while and I just don't think I can afford to do it.
So, I'm trying this other thing which is Prolotherapy. The idea in Prolotherapy is to introduce a proliferant into the tissue that encourages the body to restart the healing process. They've been doing this for years with chemical proliferants but in the last few years they've found that Platelet Rich Plasma is actually the most effective proliferant. Evidently blood platelets contain most of the growth factor hormones related to healing. By injecting the PRP they get the same effects as a chemical proliferant on the cell structure but the healing is much more dramatic because the platelets are already in place to produce the right hormones as they are metabolized.
So, the procedure involves drawing blood with a very large needle as to not disturb the cell structure, spinning it down to red blood cells, plasma and platelets and then drawing off most of the plasma and all of the red blood cells and then injecting it into the joint and surrounding tissues.
I don't really know if this is going to work or not, but I thought I should at least try. It's $700 per shot and insurance isn't covering most of it, so it's going to be expensive. But it's the last option I have.
The shot itself is quite painful and it put me in bed for the entire weekend. You wouldn't think it would hurt to put your own blood back into your body but it really hurts. I'm supposed to repeat 2-3 more times at one month intervals. I'm praying this is the one.
This is an entirely new stream of treatment with a new doctor. This doctor is a ND which means he is an actual doctor but he does natural treatments. Now you all know how desperate I am to get this fixed because I really don't trust natural medicine stuff. At this point I've pretty much exhausted all the traditional options short of surgery. I'll try anything out now.
If I were to go forward with surgery it would involve fusing the SI joints on both sides of my lower back. basically they open you up, shave off the outer layer of both the bones and then keep the joint immobile for several months. It would take me out for quite a while and I just don't think I can afford to do it.
So, I'm trying this other thing which is Prolotherapy. The idea in Prolotherapy is to introduce a proliferant into the tissue that encourages the body to restart the healing process. They've been doing this for years with chemical proliferants but in the last few years they've found that Platelet Rich Plasma is actually the most effective proliferant. Evidently blood platelets contain most of the growth factor hormones related to healing. By injecting the PRP they get the same effects as a chemical proliferant on the cell structure but the healing is much more dramatic because the platelets are already in place to produce the right hormones as they are metabolized.
So, the procedure involves drawing blood with a very large needle as to not disturb the cell structure, spinning it down to red blood cells, plasma and platelets and then drawing off most of the plasma and all of the red blood cells and then injecting it into the joint and surrounding tissues.
I don't really know if this is going to work or not, but I thought I should at least try. It's $700 per shot and insurance isn't covering most of it, so it's going to be expensive. But it's the last option I have.
The shot itself is quite painful and it put me in bed for the entire weekend. You wouldn't think it would hurt to put your own blood back into your body but it really hurts. I'm supposed to repeat 2-3 more times at one month intervals. I'm praying this is the one.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
I've moved my blog
I've moved my blog. There are a few different reasons why but the big one was that spaces didn't really support Firefox very well. Everytime I wanted to post about something I had to open a totally new browser window etc. It was a pain in the neck, and really it's a small thing, but it kept me from posting at time that otherwise I might have.
The only reason I used live spaces was it had nice integration with XBox Live. But I found this site called My Gamer Card.net which hosts custom gamercards you can use just about anywhere. So, since I can put my gc anywhere and the family is all here, this is where I moved. So, while you're here, admire my new card up there in the top right corner. Nice eh? Your eyes do not betray you; that is Ken from Puzzle Fighter which is coming to xbl arcade soon.
The only reason I used live spaces was it had nice integration with XBox Live. But I found this site called My Gamer Card.net which hosts custom gamercards you can use just about anywhere. So, since I can put my gc anywhere and the family is all here, this is where I moved. So, while you're here, admire my new card up there in the top right corner. Nice eh? Your eyes do not betray you; that is Ken from Puzzle Fighter which is coming to xbl arcade soon.
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