Well once again I’m doing t

he type of mindlessly boring work that allows me to update my personal web site (I’m scanning pictures into the computer, if you must know).  So I decided to post an update.  The Bad, the Good, and The Link Dump.

1.)  Today I ran out of money. 

Due to several factors I think: price of gas, bi-yearly truck insurance being due, eating out a lot more (some is my fault for being lazy, some because we had a week long conference at the church that didn’t allow time for cooking at home), the fact that I did a few side jobs and added them to the budget but haven’t gotten paid for them yet (stupid, yes I know).

Maybe that was all that it took to put me almost $200 behind my budget (which had about $50 wiggle room every).  Part of it was that I started out the month behind a bit (I was behind last month too).

So this month I’m going to have to be extra careful what I buy.  I’ve already budgeted Fable II into the equation (assuming that I get paid for the side jobs that is, if not then I’ll be reading about it until Christmas time).  But it’s always stressful to know that you’re in the crunch but have little that you can cut. 

Course, I DO have high speed internet that I could cut I suppose . . . I just don’t want to.  So that’s my choice.

2.) My upper back is killing me.

It feels like some has stapled the muscles between my shoulder blades together.  Like seriously . . . they are that tight and hurt something awful.  No matter how I stretch or band they hurt just the same . . . no worse but no better.  Yah, I know . . . I’m whining . . . but I’m allowed to do that once in a while.

In other more happy news . . .

3.) October is here ! 

Which means that in T-minus 19 days I’ll be heading to Arkansas to see Matt and Mel for a few days (and allowing me three days to just relax when I get back).  Fable II comes out while I’m on the road . . . so not sure what I’m going to do about that.  I wonder if I can transfer the reservation from the Dickson store to the Little rock store . . .

4.)  My office is getting cleaner (slowly)

My office, which is also the network room for the Worship Center and the repair / parts room as well, is slowly getting cleaner.  Last Saturday there was a ‘Haz Mat’ day at the fair grounds (where you could take stuff that was potentially hazardous or harmful to the environment) and people in full hazmat suits came and got it out of the back of your truck and disposed of it for you in a (supposedly) safe way.  I got rid of several old computers (we’re talking mid 90’s here) and monitors, as well as two old projectors and miscellaneous other random stuff from the office.  Sometime before my vacation, I need to do a fall cleaning where I go through and get rid of all the spare parts that I end up collecting in the hopes that one day they will be useful, but that I wont end up using because they are too old (PC100 memory . . . not going to use that ever again). 

5.) Bob has been replaced.

The last laptop I was using before my nice new one here, had a shattered screen (one that I broke while trying to fix it).  It works pretty well otherwise, and I just plugged in an external LCD to it and went along.  But the thing was purchased used at one of those trade shows that comes to town every now and again . . . and it wasn’t very good to begin with.  Word processing and surfing the internet was fine, editing videos was not.  Anywho, it is now the new Jukebox / Network monitor in place of Bob.   And doing a nice job of it I might add. 

And now, for the link dump . . .

- The Hubble Space Telescope wont be getting its repair mission this year.   Just a few days before the shuttle was to head up to do a few repairs to it, it’s main processing computer dies . . . read more HERE.

- You thought it was bad when AOL gave away free CD’s to try and get people to join, now Microsoft is giving away ‘cash’ and ‘prizes’ for people who use their search engin (rather then Google or Yahoo).  Read HERE.

- Want to back up your DVD collection ?  Better do it quick, before you cant anymore.  I dont do it myself, and I can see why some people dont want you to . . . anywho read more HERE.

- In it’s first step toward becoming the Anti-Christ, Game Stop buys a French chain of game stores.  Now they just have to merge with Wal-Mart and Microsoft and their total controll over everything will be complete.  Read HERE. THE GAMES MUST FLOW ! KTHX !

- New test for Citizenship in the US ?  I wonder how many High School grads could ?  I cant even answer some of these questions . . . and that’s sad.  Nice that they provide the questions and answers online though !  Read it HERE (it’s a .pds file).  Hey Pete (or anyone from the UK), do you have a citizenship test online that we could look at ?  It would be interesting to try and take it !

- that is all

I’m very much looking forward to Fallout 3. 

I played both Fallout 1 and 2, but never finished them.  The turn based combat just annoyed the crap out of me.  I mean, I couldn’t STAND IT.  So while I have tried several times to finish both games, I always get frustriated and dont make it.  I love the idea of the Fallout universe, and I love the strange humor in both games . . . but having never finished them . . . I didnt quite know the timeline of the universe.

That is . . . until now !  Take a look HERE for a brief lesson in the futures history !

No, not talking about the new achievements for Halo 3 that have just come out. 

  Read more

You absolutely must read this article HERE . . . .

In case you dont get this refrence, in Half Life 1 you play as Gordon Freeman (a scientist at the top secret Black Mesa Research Facility) who travels to work one day and inadvertently causes a ‘resonance cascade’ . . . thus tearing a hole in space time that allows aliens from another world (another dimension ?) to come through and start attacking us (as aliens often do). 

Look at the wiki page to get a more detailed picture if you’re interested . . . HERE

At least that’s how EGM feels about the latest Force thumping game from Lucas Arts. 

That sound you hear is my expectation for the game fizzling out. 

Three different reviewers put in their input, two gave it a C and one gave it a B-.  They all seamed a bit miffed about the fact that soon after begining the game you encounter enemies that can block your force powers.  Which seams like a valid game play idea (dont want to make the game TOO easy) . . . but aparently they didnt like the way the designers did it (as it seamed to make the game frustriating). 

For a game about having awesome force powers, the fact that they are pretty much negated after the first few levels is kind of lame.  I’m sure the designers decided to give the enemies ‘energy shields’ that block your force powers so that you’de have to use the environment more and think things through a bit . . . but none of the other three reviews I’ve read so far feels that this is what happenned. 

 One reviewer said that the levels were so big, that you just end up wishing they would end allready. 

Andrew P. (of EGM)  said that when you encounter waves of enemies that negate your different powers, they gang up on you and hit you when you’re down . . . “forcing you to run for the nearest hiding place until your force meter recharges. ” “Some frearsome Sith I turned out to be” he stated.

I’ll porbably end up getting this game anyways, as I am in need of something to fill the hour and a half time in the evening when I dont have anything to do and dont want to watch TV . . . but it makes me sad that several reviews allready find this game average at best.  Usually if a particular media outlet decides to give a game a good review, the developer might allow them to break the ‘media blackout’ early and publish their score . . . since all the scores are average . . . the chance of a better score poping up is slim.

Yes, the other game that I’ve been looking forward to for quite some time now (other then Fable II) is The Force Unleashed.  The game is suppose to drop mid September (09-16-08 according to the internets) and I cant wait. At least there’s a demo comming Thursday !  The demo will be one of the early levels in the game at a Tie-Fighter factory.

However I wont allow myself to get overly excited about it.  Sometimes I get all this hype in my head for a game and then I feel disappointed when I play it because it wasn’t what I was expecting (weather the advertisements were misleading or I just got overly excited about it). 

I felt a little let down with Bioshock (though I loved the game) because I though it was going to be more . . . well I suppose more story driven like Oblivion or something.  Not that it wasn’t . . . I just was expecting more RPG in the RPG / Shooter.  They had a good balance . . . I just had it in my head that it was going to be something that it wasn’t.  I wanted more back story (not just a few tape recordings strewn about).

But I digress.

The Force Unleashed (for those who don’t already know) takes place between Episode III and IV of the Star Wars story line.  You play as the secret apprentice to Darth Vader . . . yes the secret apprentice . . . since there is only suppose to be one master and one apprentice.  Vader has you doing all sorts of things across the galaxy. 

Without going into too much detail (just because I don’t have the time) . . . you will basically be ‘bad’ (you are Vader’s apprentice after all) but will access to massively powerful Force Powers.  The developers wanted you to feel like you could do just about anything with the Force (from throwing people to grabbing things off the ceeling and throwing them to electrocuting people).  The game is suppose to constantly give you the ‘wow that was awesome’ feeling, while not giving you everything upfront, you do start with some pretty cool powers.

Reviewers who have played the game have noted how polished the game is, how the force powers are powerful and give you a wide range of options to progress through the levels with out giving you the feeling like you are just breezing through the levels, and how you have those ‘wow did you see THAT !’  pretty often.

Well a lot of time has gone by since I last updated the blog.  That’s because I’ve had like ZERO free time . . . well not counting the couple of hours I spend playing Civilization Revolution in the evenings . .  . but by that time of day I don’t feel like writing an update to the Blog.

So, big things that have happened in the past week or so . . .

1.)  Monday before last (August 4th), I got a new fish tank.  And not just any fish tank, a 65 gallon (fresh water) fish tank !  I bought it for a good price from a family in the church who is getting a new salt water tank.  This thing is HUGE ! 
     They even gave me all their ‘old’ fish . . . being freshwater fish they wouldn’t live very long in a salt water tank.  So I’ve got like 20 of them !  Moving the tank was . . . fun.  Fun in that I’m-glad-it’s-over-now kind of way. 
     But everything is set up, the water is all PH balanced and dechlorinated and conditioned and all that good stuff with the fish now swimming around happily in the tank.  I only have a low quality picture of it I took with my phone before there were any fish in it, but I’ll take some new ones soon. 
     They only problems I’m having are that the water is still a bit cloudy (even after cycling for 5 days and 3 days now with fish), and I’m getting foam at the top of the tank from the air bubbles from the under gravel filter.  I’ve tested the water for Nitrates, Nitrites, PH, and just about every other thing you can think of . . . even had the fish store people test it too . . . everything looks fine.  I’ve turned the bubbles down to a bare minimum and STILL I get foam at the top of the tank.
     Oh well, it’ll probably clear up on it’s own.

This past Thursday and Friday was the Willow Creek Conference, but I’ll make a separate post about that.

Also, INATSM 7.5 is this weekend.  INATSM is our semi annual youth retreat, it stands for It’s Not About The Sound Man (which is a lyric from a song that Pastor Barry used in the first one . . . talking about all the things that Christianity is NOT about and focusing on what it IS about . . . growing closer to God). 
     For a retreat that’s ‘not about the sound man’ . . . there sure is a lot of stuff for the sound man to do lol.  We take a small portable sound system out there (two subs, two full range speakers, a 12 channel sound board, amps, a few monitor wedges, CD player, laptop) and that’s about it. This time, however, the camp where we have the retreat has installed a video projector . . . so we’re bringing another computer to do the words for Praise and Worship with. 
     It’s a lot to set up and take down, and a long way to drive (well, only about 30 minutes truly . . . I just drive it several times before the weekend is over) . . . but the youth, and me too, always come feeling like we got closer to God.  And I suppose that’s what it’s all about. 
    I may take my 360 along and play some Civilization Revolution too.

Which brings me to the last part of the update . . . Civilization Revolution.  What a cool game.  It’s SOOO nice to NOT play a first person shooter once in a while. The1Shagg and DrJones both have it, but we have yet to play a game together (all three of us in one game).  While it took a bit to get the finer points of city management down (even now I still find out things that I didn’t know), and sometimes you have to be careful look as the stats of a unit before you sent it out to battle . . . it’s a very fun and simple game to pick up and learn.  A general co-op type multiplayer (where the humans are playing against the computer) takes about 2-3 hours to finish.  The maps appear to be generated new each time (I haven’t seen a repeated one yet anyways and sometimes the resource allocation can be a little uneven or spread out so much that you cant take advantage of anything).  In short, a very good game.  Simplified from the PC versions of Civilization, but still requires a bit of a learning curve.  I have beat the game on level one and two on the difficulty setting, there are 5 total.  Number 3 difficulty (king I think) is giving me some difficulty lol.

So, I started to put together a list of things I was excited about in Fable II when I came across a post on Game Trailers by PiexelDamon.  He’s listed most everything I wanted to (and more).  Some of the stuff I’ve seen in game demo videos (and therefore, am pretty confident about being in the final game), but some may be from the early design phase of the game (and thus, may not have made it into the final game). 

Read more

Oh yes !  It is time yet again for me to waist time capturing video and editing it along with some music.

You know that song Carmina Burana . . . you know . . . the song that they use in everything from Lord of the Rings trailers to GatorAid commercials.  Well you’ll remember it when you hear it in the little video I edited tonight. 

I’m also working on a video review (to perfect the Voice Over recording part of my  Vegas skills) hopefully to be completed by the end of the week.

I believe all the footage is from two multiplayer games I played with Mage Celts . . . it may have been three matches but I’m pretty sure it was just two.  It was less then 25 minutes of play time and I got SOOO much good footage. 

Take a look . . .

www.arackas.com/video/BFBCMusic.wmv

Staff bonding time . . . ah the ritual bonding time we as staff take to . . . well to bond.  I wasnt looking forward to this Staff Night Out too much mainly because I had almost forgotten about it and was in the middle of several things at the house.  Read more