Sierra Kilo

The developers of 360Voice.com (my XBox’s weblog) ‘blogged about me ‘blogging about my XBox’s ‘blogging. Is it recursive if I ‘blog about that?

I know it’s just an algorithm that compiles statistics, but I still like reading my XBox’s weblog once in a while. I really don’t play as much as I’d like and when I do play, it’s usually Oblivion. I’ve decided not to go buying a ton of games like I did with the PS2 so that I can play through the ones I have. Oblivion is damn near my perfect game, so why would I want to forsake it for another, less-perfect game?

Sure, I have Gears of War. A buddy and I played for a few hours and enjoyed it. I think it’s over-hyped, though. I will disclaim that I haven’t played it multiplayer yet, but multiplayer games have a huge human element that can affect the quality. Oblivion is single-player. If a game can deliver a perfect game by itself without a human element, that’s one great game.

Tonight’s Tech game at the Insight Bowl was a shocker! Texas Tech came back from 38-7 at the half to win 44-41 in “the largest comeback in NCAA bowl history.” Hell, even Mike Leach was flabbergasted! He was near tears after the game which is probably the most emotion he’s shown in his life. Congratulations to the seniors. Way to go Trlica!

I am a big fan of Mike Leach’s passing offense. It’s a lot of fun to watch and keeps the adrenaline pumping. I’ve always felt that Tech slacks off in the second half, though. I’m glad they disappointed me today. There were some good hits, good catches, good runs, and few penalties (surprisingly).

Tech always has some superstar recievers. It’s been Filani and Johnson for a few years. Before that, Wes Welker, Donnie Hart, and others always came through. I’ve got high hopes next season for the two Walkers (Todd and Grant), Eric Morris, and L.A. Reed. Of course, Danny Amendola will return as a receiver and kick returner (shades of Welker). I’ve also been fairly impressed with Tech’s backup QBs. They often make an appearance in a game or two and do fairly well for themselves. Harrell did well last year and Kingsbury did well in his first appearance. It’ll be interesting to see what the backup looks like in 2 years.

Wreck ‘em Tech!

I was thinking the other day, as I often do (the shower and my car are the best places). This thought was of digital music. I thought about all of the digital music players out there and the one thing they have in common: MP3 format.

So my thought was, why hasn’t there been a new format that is widely accepted? I challenge you to find a digital music player that WILL NOT play MP3 files. Microsoft and Apple are fighting over WMA and AAC formats, yet both have a player (Zune and iPod) that plays MP3. Why not just use that format?

Take out digital rights management (DRM) and what are you stuck with? A compressed music file with a formatted tag (ID3 in the case of MP3s). Those have been around for years, so why reinvent the wheel? Just use MP3.

Anyway, I was also thinking, what features would I like to see in a music player? The iPod is great. What’s missing is what buying a physical CD gives you: a booklet full of artwork and lyrics. Sure, you can manually add more artwork, but I don’t wanna. I want to have artwork for the album, but I also want artwork for each song, like in the booklet. I also want synchronized lyrics so that I can figure out what they’re singing and sing along Karaoke-style if I want. Even better would be if the song file contained separate tracks for each element (drums, guitar, bass, vocals, etc). I could mute the lead vocal track or the annoying backup guy. Plus, I could easily remix songs.

So what are we talking about? Synchronized lyrics, song artwork, and separated sound tracks. Tack on Dolby 5.1/7.1 surround sound and you’ve got something big. The digital music revolution. If every music player manufacturer got behind the same format, the industry would follow. I love CDs, but it’s time for something new.

Christmas went well. L and I were both exhausted, though. Lots of prep, lots of family, lots of food.

I got a few gadgets, gift cards, and some clothes. First off, I got a new USB drive. It’s a SanDisk Cruzer Micro with U3. I’m not sure how I feel about the U3 part yet, but it’s a great idea. It basically allows you to install applications to the drive and be able to run them on any PC. The most recent suite from PortableApps.com does this fairly well already, but U3 includes Skype and Yahoo! Widgets. I’ll probably play with this a bit more at some point.

Next up, I got an alarm clock with an iPod dock. There are a few quirks, but it’s got a remote and does the job. I’ll need to read the manual to figure a couple things out. That’s rare for me.

I also got portable speakers for the iPod. L was tired of having computer speakers in the bathroom (I listen to my iPod in the shower), so she got this single-unit, battery-powered one. It puts out better sound than the computer speakers, but she won’t let me use the AC adapter for it

I got a couple of adventure games from my bro. I think I might install them on L’s Q1 UMPC so I can play them around the house. Somebody has to get some use out of that thing. I tried to use it to read a Christmas story during our gift exchange, but I couldn’t get the WiFi working right. Such a novel idea, just not very practical, it seems. It might be perfect for point-and-click adventure games, though.

L got a portable navigation unit (Magellan GPS). She was playing with it on our way to Christmas Part 5. We were having dueling navigation wars on the way between Lilith (my car) and the Magellan. They both suggested the same path and would ding and guide us within seconds of each other. When we were leaving, Dad asked, “Do you know how to get home?” I said, “We’ve got 2 navigation systems with us. If we get lost, we’re really in trouble.”

My parents got my college diploma framed. It looks great: scarlet and black. We also got a shadow box with the diploma book, the scroll, my cap, and tassel. I’m going to hang them side-by-side in the upstairs hallway, I think.

All-in-all, we were very fortunate. Most of us are in good health and we’re thankful for what we’ve got.

I’d have to say that Oblivion is probably my favorite game of all time. The freedom that you have in that game makes it so much fun. I played for a bit last night, finished a few quests, did a little B&E, and fenced some stolen goods. I was about to turn the game off for the night, but I thought I’d test the pure evil waters for a second.

In a previous quest, a man said that his kids (young men) were working his farm since his wife died and that they were having trouble with goblin raids. I met up with them and helped them fend off a few waves of goblins. Both of the kids were killed by goblins, but I eventually killed the rest of them. When I went to the dad with the status report, he said he felt bad that he didn’t help more, but kept on drinking. Well, I ran into him on the road outside the city. He was heading for his kids’ farm. He got almost all the way there and turned around. So, I snuck up behind him and put him out of his misery.

I went to the nearby fighter’s guild and took a nap on a bed. When I woke up, a guy in a black robe and hood was standing over me. He said he was impressed with my assassination skills and wanted me to join the Dark Brotherhood (assassins for hire). I liked the look of his robe and hood, so I attacked him. After a gallant battle (including some cool down-the-stairs fighting), I dispatched him. The robe and hood magically increase several skills that I focus on.

I didn’t save this game because I essentially closed off several quests by killing the assassin messenger guy, but now I’m wondering how I can steal his clothes without killing him. I’ve got several other quests to do, but I’ll keep that robe and hood in mind for later. Boy, I’m sneaky.

By the way, my XBox is a little punk. Somebody needs to reprogram him to be a little less “1337-teenager”. Next thing you know, he’ll be cruising MySpace.

Damion has a post that reminds me of my Nintendo days. A pitcher for the Tigers evidently injured his arm by playing too much Guitar Hero. Back in the day, we used to get what we called “Nintendo Thumb”. The muscle in your hand between the thumb and forefinger would get sore after playing hours and hours of Zelda, Metroid, or Super Mario Brothers. It’s funny to see that video game-related injuries are coming back.

Via the MUD-Dev mailing list and Raph’s page:

My new studio is launched. We’re working the intersection between Web 2.0 and MMOs. The site is http://www.areae.net, and we’re hiring.

-Raph

Exciting news. I’ll be watching how this develops. I’m not much into the Web MMOs (Neopets, Habbo Hotel, etc), but I always liked the idea of integrating web technologies into MMOs.

Raph Koster said (here and here) he will announce his new studio soon. I’m not exactly sure where he’s living nowadays (California or Texas?), but this should be interesting to watch. I half expected him to get snatched up by one of the new studios (BioWare Austin, Green Monster Games, etc), but there’s something to be said for being your own boss I do expect to see games where you have to apply a little brainpower. No straight hack-and-slash from Raph. Maybe an MMOBFS (Massively Multiplayer Online Bird Flight Simulator)?

So, here’s the deal: My custom Sager laptop is just shy of 4 years old. She has been a powerhouse for those 4 years and I have used her heavily. She has been my primary machine since she’s more powerful than my work PC and my home PC. Over the past year, she’s been showing signs of wear. She won’t hold a charge for more than a minute or so, some drivers have been acting up, and most recently, the hard drive has been making noise and failing to boot.

I transplanted another drive I had last weekend and had to reinstall the OS since, for some reason, the disk image I had made wouldn’t work on the new drive. I think the original drivers don’t like XP SP2. They worked perfectly with the original XP (pre-SP1) install, but SP2 just made things slightly more unstable.

It’s about time to retire the old girl, but she’s still a good machine. P4 3.2 GHz, 1GB RAM, 15-inch LCD, ATI Radeon Mobility 9600. I’d put her out to pasture as my home desktop PC and replace her with another notebook (MacBook Pro) and she’d work fine, but with a kiddo on the way, I’m trying to save all I can for unexpected expenses that are sure to pop up. I guess I could get a Dell, but I’d still be stuck with Windows as my primary OS. With the Mac OS, I could still run Windows, but I wouldn’t be down completely if I had to reinstall (as I normally do every 8 months or so).

In related news, Microsoft is considering a pay-as-you-go, modular OS. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t pay a monthly fee for an OS unless they would fix any software problems without losing my data. If a modular OS was designed correctly, it could be worth it, though. Make the base stable and secure enough to last 10 years. Add-on modules should be just as stable and secure, but should be able to be replaced easily. This is what’s good about Portable Apps. They are stable, secure, and (mostly) disconnected from the OS. I can replace or upgrade them easily. No uninstallers, no hacking the registry, no empty folders, no traces. Shift-Delete and they’re gone for good. DOS good, Registry bad.

My brother’s been hitting his projects hard lately. He’s finished what I refer to as the “Gnome Squisher” (aka Talia) and his Apache models. It looks like she’s got some new toys to hunt down her nemesis. Pretty cool. Here are the latest renders:

His next project is a UT2004 mod that he’s calling “Burgled”. It’s a cops-and-robbers-type game. I’m not sure what the gameplay will be like, but it sounds like it’s got potential. I’m not sure exactly what mod features are available, but here’s a few ideas I thought I’d toss out there:
- Net gun (modified shotgun that freezes the target for a short time)
- Reverse gun (modified sniper rifle that reverses the target’s controls [up is down, left is right, forward is backward] for a short time)
- Tazer gun (shoots a stream of lightning, freezes target while he’s being hit)
- Warp gun (modified cannon that teleports the user to the targeted area)