Did you think I was dead?

Hey, look at that. I *didn't* forget how to put up a post in my blog. It's been so long I figured I'd have lost the knowledge. I'm quite surprised myself that I would be on a 2 month hiatus from posting. I guess I don't really have much of an excuse, either, though most of my November was spent on schoolwork. Most of my December has been spent on sloth. Ever since I handed in my takehome exam for algebra, I've just been doing as little as possible.

Hm, now which events from the last two months should I discuss? I went on my trip to Waterloo a few weeks ago, and that was fun. I stayed with Andrew the first few days, and Hugh for the last leg of the trip. We had a four hour game of Cities and Knights of Catan that was rife with inaccurate rules since Andrew had never read the rules in any great detail.

I had that party that I mentioned in the last post, and it went off without a hitch. Lots of people showed up, everyone had a great time, and it didn't take much effort to clean up the next day. I'll be sure to do it again sometime next term.

Hey, here's some big news: I've started drinking! Not as a hobby, or anything, but I don't refuse to drink anymore. I realized a while ago that I didn't really have a good reason to *not* drink, but I felt like I needed an occasion to start. I didn't want my first drink to be anticlimactic. I decided that Phil being in town was a good enough reason to celebrate. Since then, though, I've decided I don't really like the taste of alcohol, and the last few times I've had drinks it's made me pretty queasy, so at least now I have an excuse if someone offers me a libation. Plus on top of that, I'm still a cheapskate, so I'm not willing to buy my own booze often. At the moment, Adam keeps making new and disgusting drinks with what I have sitting in my bar. The only thing that I've enjoyed so far is the Amaretto Sour.

Phil is back in town again (yes, he's visited *twice* since the last time I made a post), and he and Adam are more or less living out of my house. We've been playing lots of Power Grid and Nexus Ops, some Guitar Hero, and we started playing X-Men Legends (very fun multiplayer game). I've been staying up til 5 or 6 the last few nights; I haven't seen much sunlight lately. At least I'll be well seasoned for New Year's Eve.

I didn't get anything extremely noteworthy for Christmas besides a Bohnanza expansion (from Sheena and Dan), and Super Paper Mario and Metroid Prime 3 for Wii. I was sort of hoping to get Super Mario Galaxy, but it'll still be waiting for me once I play the two games I got.

I attended a games afternoon the other day at the game store with Doug, a guy I met via BGG. I invited all of my friends to come, but none came. I'm willing to bet that Sheena and Dan would have, if they were in town. Regardless, I had fun. We played Incan Gold, Citadels, Bang (twice), and Munchkin. I'm not really a huge fan of any of those games, but I wasn't about to bitch and whine about it since it wasn't really my event. I sent an email inviting all of them to come to my games nights. I'm anticipating a pretty nice turnout to my games nights, but of course I've said that in the past only to have the usual 5 or 6 show up. If all goes well, Doug and his friends will come, and up to 6 people from my classes will start coming out as well. Hopefully Dan's two brothers will start coming as well. If I could get enough for two tables on a regular basis, that would probably be ideal.

Well, that's as much as I'm willing to write about at the moment, so I'll end it around here. I make no promises about when another post will show up, but hopefully I can get back into the habit of making a public journal of events in my life that next to no one cares about.

Listening to... Foo Fighters - Come Back
Link of the moment... Please do yourself a favour and watch all of these game reviews. HILARIOUS!

Monopoly? More like monotony.

It's been a while! I'll break up my adventures into multiple posts. I'll start off jabbering about board games for a while, I think.

While I was in Waterloo, one stop I was intent on making was to J&J to pick up some board games (since I brought a Wii to Waterloo for Andrew, I had some space in my luggage I had to fill up). I bought Dodge City, an expansion for Bang, a two player abstract game called Hive, and a starter deck for the Harry Potter TCG.

Hive has turned out to be a pleasant little suprise. I've played it a few times and have managed to lose most of those games, but it's a really nice little game. It takes no setup time whatsoever, and can be taught in about three minutes. Once you've played for five minutes and "get" the game, you can throw some interesting strategy into it right away.

I haven't played a game of the Harry Potter TCG yet, but I'm already looking to acquire some more cards. I can get 24 or 36 booster packs (11 cards each) from ebay or other online sources, but the shipping to Canada costs more than the cards themselves. I don't really know what to do about that.

I've already got a nice little list of games on the proverbial chopping block (or shopping block if you will). I suppose I've gotten most of my geek talk out of my system. I'm looking at Alhambra (for a good light 3 player game), one of Shadows Over Camelot or Arkham Horror (for a pseudo-RPG co-op game; the latter has decidedly heavier gameply and takes longer but has a nice theme), and I've been interested in HeroScape for a while (but I feel like I already have so many 2 player games that never get played).

I got a lot of game time in while I was in Waterloo. I played three games of Catan (one with 3 players, one with 5, one with 6), two games of Bohnanza, a game of Monopoly, two games of Mario Party 8, lots of Smash Bros, some really good 4 player Wii tennis, a few games of Hive. That's quite a lot of gaming in one weekend. Even after all those games of Catan, I'm still ready for more! It gets a lot of table time on Tuesdays, so I'm sure I'll get into another game soon.

I'm not really sure how many games I'll have in my collection before I think that I have enough games. I have a ton of games that I rarely play (I don't want to introduce too many to my friends at once), but there is always a set of games that I want to purchase. I really hope that once the Game Shelf gets a website up, I can hook up with some more hardcore gamers. I might even be able to come across a few gamers in the math department at Lakehead. Until then, I'm going to have to try to mold my Tuesday night crowd into hardcore gamers.

Listening to... Opeth - Deliverance
Link of the moment... HeroScape even has a nice little community and is loaded with customized scenarios.

Happenings of late (or, "The one about video games")

Well, there's not much to do at the moment. My table is done (it looks great!), and I'm not really in the mood for any of my games at the moment. Time for a post.

I've been working through all the Megaman X games. I finished X4 the other day (probably the hardest final boss yet!). X4 was a big change from X3 since it was a move from SNES to playstation, but it still kept the same feeling. X5, however, seems like quite a departure from the series. The bosses seem poorly designed and named (Axel the Red? wtf?), the multiple armor thing is a bit much, and the levels are painfully difficult and not really all that fun to play. I'm wondering if I even want to try to play through the whole thing.

I was browsing around Cash Converters as I like to do the other day, and stumbled upon Super Smash Brother Melee for only twenty bucks. Twenty bucks! EBGames sells their used copies for $47.99! Well, even though I was doing a good job of purging the game from my system, I couldn't pass up the deal and bought it. When I got home and started playing it, I noticed that my skillz were sorely lacking (I'm not going to try to push all the blame on using a wireless controller).

I also noticed while playing that the screen wasn't looking all that hot. It was especially noticable on the character select screen. If you know me at all, you know already that I quickly went to eBay to try to find component cables for the Wii. I found something that is (hopefully) even better: a set of component cables that connects to PS2, PS3, Wii, and XBox360. This solves not only my issue of getting the Wii hooked up on component cables, but also my problem of not having any more component hookups on my receiver, which would otherwise have meant that I would have to switch the PS2 and Wii cables depending on which I wanted to play.

Sometimes I have questionable spending habits. I was at Blockbuster earlier today, and bought Suikoden 3 for PS2, even though I don't really have any intention to play it. It was only $15, and I think it's become a rather rare title. I rented it once, and it was a pretty good game, so I figured it was a decent investment. Of course, it's just getting thrown onto an already huge pile of PS2 RPGs that I want to play through (I think I might give one of the Growlansers a playthrough once I get that cable in. Or maybe Final Fantasy 6. Or maybe...).

SPeaking of RPGs, I fired up Guild Wars the other day when I was bored. I did a quick mission to get the feel of the game again, and chatted with some guys who were sitting around. I pumped up the graphics with my new video card, and it looks really nice. However, it didn't get its hooks in me yet. I'm sure one day I'll get an urge to play it and get back into it, but my Wii, my slew of PS2 RPGs, and my board games are on my hot list these days.

I went to Sandy's camp last night with Sheena and Dan. Besides the abundance of mosquitos there, I had a good time. Nothing much to report here, just some sitting around talking. Sheena and Dan insisted I bring Bohnanza (really! not my idea!), and we played a game of that. I came in dead last, but I seem to have gotten another two people interested in that game. Chris also said he really wants to play Catan again this coming Tuesday. I hope other people are willing to play with him, because I think I'd rather try some lighter, faster games with other people. Plus, I should be teaching some new games as well.

Anyways, I think I'm done jabbering on.

Listening to... Pitchshifter - Keep it Clean
Link of the moment... Police Squad - In Color! Great show.

My computer's veins once again course with electricity

Yeah, I'm back home. Of course, I have oodles of info to burn through, but not much of it is fresh on my mind.

The trip home was pretty excruciating. I couldn't sleep very well the night before, since I was sleeping on the couch. We got up at 7 and were on the road at about 7:30. Things were going fine until just after the border. We took the wrong highway and started heading towards Detroit. It's a simple mistake to make, trust me. That detour set us back what must have been a little over an hour. Driving was pretty quick through Michigan though, aside from some rain that slowed us down.

A late dinner got us leaving Sault Ste. Marie at about 6PM, much later than we should have been. The real problems arose when it started getting dark out. After passing through Wawa, we saw a lot of moose, and if you hit a moose on the highway, it has a better chance of surviving than you do. So, the rest of the night, we had to drive pretty slowly and at full attention to avoid impending death. We had some issues with gas, too, as we had a really hard time finding a gas station open at night. We rolled into my driveway at about 1:45, making it an 18 hour trip.

I hope that we made Hugh's trip a memorable one. It certainly was fun having him around. We hit up Kakabeka, and he even went up Mt. McKay. We went to Scuttlebutt's and the Brown Street Station (where I met up with Sheena and Veebs, among others). And, of course, some general hang outage.

I've had this real nasty cough for about a week. It's hard to describe, but it's the kind of cough where when you cough, you don't feel any better and so you have to keep coughing. It's been keeping me up at nights and waking me up at all hours. I really can't wait to get rid of it so I can do some real relaxing. I bought a big jug of orange juice, so maybe that will expedite the process.

I bought a Wii! It's given me some good times. Wii Sports is still amazing, but I'm still waiting for some decent games to come my way. I think once some copies of Super Paper Mario hit eBay, I'll scoop one up. Of all the Miis that are populating my system at the moment, Hugh's is most true to reality, while my own is probably in second. Beyond those, I can't seem to make anyone else look that good.

Well, I'm getting tired. Time for point form updates!
-I bought a Wavebird from Cash Converters today
-Apples to Apples went over well with my friends, once again
-I'm going to buy Megaman X Collection tomorrow
-I got a blister from rocking out on my drums; I sounded pretty good
-I'm going to host a games night next Tuesday; I'm hoping to get enough people for a good game of Werewolf
-Heroes on Monday was awesome
-I'm going to see Spiderman 3 this Friday
-I've still got lots of cleaning and sorting to do

Listening to... Orgy - Social Enemies
Link of the moment... Oh, Sam Raimi, is there anything you can't do?

Que sera, sera

I feel like I'm not entirely content with my life as of late. I feel like I need a clean slate, a fresh start. I recently got my offer of admission from LU, and I'm torn between sending it off with my deposit and ripping it up in an act of defiance. I'm getting entirely sick of math, and school in general. Well, hopefully life gets better after an undergrad.

I don't think I've really done a stitch of work lately. I haven't had an assignment due in a while; I have one due on Monday, but I think I might just not submit it again (it's only 2%). I wrote my (makeup) midterm for CO453. I think I passed it, but then again, that's what I said about the first one. Hopefully, I'll at least get more than 35% on this one. As for that crypto midterm? 98%.

Well, at least I seem to be involved with more stuff lately. Tomorrow, Andrew and I will play in a euchre tournament at St. Jerome's. On Tuesday, we're skipping euchre to play in a Smash Bros. team tournament (hopefully this will also knock me out of my #1 ranking so I don't have to wind up buying a prize for myself). On last Wednesday, I went out for Nathalie's birthday. We went to some Vietnamese/Thai place. The food was ok, but nothing to scream about. For a few days there, I was eating very poorly. I had a meal at midnight the night before, then the dinner that I got that night lasted me two small meals for the rest of the day. The next day, I had a pizza pop around 4 PM and a small frozen dinner later that night. Now that we've gone to Sobey's, I've got more food in the house.

After the dinner at Nathalie's, we went back to her apartment. I won a match of Wii Tennis, and had a terrible try at Wii bowling because I randomly picked a left-handed player (as a result, every shot had massive amounts of spin in it). We also played a game she got as a gift called Loaded Questions. One player asks a question from a card, everyone else answers, the person to the right of the player reads them all, and the player has to guess which player picked which answer. Since there were six of us playing, things dragged on a little late (six players gives the player a 1/120 chance of guessing correctly, five players gives a 1/24 chance). Overall, a good time was had.

I had high hopes of getting some good sleep tonight, but again my nightly sleep cycle turned into an hour and a half nap.

I really hope I'm drawing near the end of Shadow Hearts. My characters are Lvl40, and I think the cap is Lvl50. It's a decent game and all, but things are getting a bit repetitive. Battles all seem to follow the same pattern. I hope you'll also notice the completion of Megamans three through 5; John and I are just before the Wily stages in 6.

My dog, Skipper, died the other day. My sister is really broken up about it (as well I would expect her to be), and my mom was getting choked up on the phone too. Me? Eh, I guess I'm pretty unaffected. He was a good dog, and he'll be missed around the household, but I'm not going to shed any tears for him.

Listening to... Hatebreed - Tear it Down
Link of the moment... Mike Joooooooones.....HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW

Shag-adelic, baby

You may notice a slight addition to the sidebar. Hopefully by putting that up, it'll cut down on the "games I want to play" posts. I finally beat Resident Evil 4. I'm right near the end of Megaman ZX as well, but there's no way I can get through the "beat all the eight bosses again" part without some FAQ help.

At Blockbuster the other day, I picked up Okami as planned, and since they had a buy-one-get-one-half-off deal, I picked up Meteos for DS for another ten bucks. The next day at Rogers, I saw Kirby: Canvas Curse in the used games section. It looks like a good game, and I can never find it on eBay, so I picked it up as well. I'd better not buy any more games for a while, it looks like I have enough to last me through until the summer.

I went to Chris' house the other day and played some Wii. I've gotta say it doesn't really live up to my expectations. With Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, I felt like all I needed to do was shake the controller in front of me until the guys were dead. When I tried doing one move, it would wind up doing a different one. With Wii Sports golf, the same sort of thing happened; it wouldn't do what I wanted it to do. Boxing had the same problem. When I'd try to punch low to the body, it would do a hook to the face. Tennis was definitely fun though. Props to tennis.

I played another two games of Carcassonne with Grant and Sheena last night. I think I might actually be getting to the point where I'm getting sick of that game. I've played it entirely too many times since I got home.

Maybe later today I should go return stuff. X-mas gifts, that is. I'm still not sure if I'm going to keep the camera I have or exchange it for one with a smaller frame. I guess I use it so rarely that it won't make too much of an impact. Canon's a good name, and I don't really feel like putting in the time to finding out what the best model is otherwise. I guess I'll just take it all in cash, because I can't think of what I should get from Future Shop. I certainly have enough games. I'm not sure if I really want to invest in any more boxsets at the time being.

Well I need to get some food in me. I'm sure I'll have to look for it outside the house, as the cupboards don't seem to be well-stocked lately.

Link of the moment... Slightly interesting article over at Joystiq

$220 later...

Given that I'll be getting $500 from marking, and I have renewed my $1000 scholarship for yet another year, I felt as though I deserved to treat myself to something, as money was burning a hole in my pocket. I forget where I got the idea from, but recently found myself with an urge to get a Nintendo DS. So I did.

The service at FutureShop was terrible as usual, but they had a deal where I could get a game for $10 with the system. I wound up going with Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2, which is a pretty decent game, but I'll need to invest in some more titles sometime soon. I started playing and noticed a dead (blue) pixel on the right side of the top screen. I threw out some of the packaging, but I'm hoping if I bring the DS along with the box with the same serial #, I can exchange it at FShop. It's not a terrible error, but if I'm going to pay $160 for something, I might as well get something without any flaws.

Along with my new system purchase, I got Super Mario Strikers for GC, because it underwent a recent price drop. It's a pretty decent multiplayer game, but single player doesn't have that same feeling. As far as a mario game goes, I feel it's sort of lacking. More play modes and minigames would have been nice as well as unique fields to play on and unlockable content (new captains and sidekicks perhaps?). Now I bide my time until Mario Power Tennis gets its price chopped...

Well I guess I'm sort of caught up now. I've got a few assignment deadlines coming up, but I have enough time to relax for a while. I got my ENGL midterm back: I scored an 84.5%. I guess that's ok, but it's below my peronal goal of 87%. Next is CO342...I think I have a good feeling about that midterm. I understand Graph Theory pretty well, and now we're getting into Vector Spaces, which I've already (more or less) covered in Rings and Group Theory. I only got 33/40 on the last assigment, so I've got to make sure I don't make any errors on this next one.

The other day, John Julie and I wanted to play kickball. We went to the school nearest my house, and sure enough, the very first kick of the game resulted in Julie kicking the ball onto the roof of the school. We spent most of the rest of the afternoon getting a ladder from Julie's house and getting the ball. It was an adventure to say the least. After that, the three of us went to Red Lobster to celebrate getting the ball. Well, in reality, we all just wanted to go to Red Lobster.

I updated the euchre website! Now we have the house rules listed, the current scores for the members, and some of my personal tips on the strategy page. Quinn and I had a dispute over the colour scheme of the site. We decided Molly's vote should be the deciding vote, and unfortunately she went with him on it. I still completey stand by my argument, but I'm willing to concede the point since we agreed Molly would have the final say. I should start my own Euchre Club, one that's not color-blind...

It's been almost two weeks since I played euchre. I'm dying to take some tricks! Now that midterms are starting, I wonder if our member turnout is going to be lower than usual. Well, so long as we have enough for at least one table, I guess it doesn't really matter.

I think my DS purchase is going to push back my Wii purchase...I'm not sure if I can justify buying so many systems in such a short period of time. The way I figure, I'll be getting a Wii for Christmas; it's just a matter of who is paying for it.

Well, I think I've run out of things to say. I'll head over to RCH and play my DS until Nathalie shows up.

Listening to... AFI - File 13
Link of the moment... Any thoughts on what I should buy next?

Another update from MC20XX

Tuesdays are looking like a good day to update the blog from this MC lab. Normally, I'd be sitting in the SLC Great Hall doing homework, or sleeping, or playing GBA during this hour and a half, but it's way too packed to find a chair. I miss the Summer term in that respect; the extra crowd on campus doesn't do much for me (although it does mean more events during the term which is a good thing).

This morning I scanned my physics assignment, and when I get home I'll put it all into one PDF and submit it electronically, but I'm not too sure how convenient that method is. I don't have much of a choice though, it's probably the most convenient option I have, unless I start getting assignments done ahead of time.

I'm getting towards the end of Paper Mario:tTYD, and I've started playing X-Men Legends with Andrew. Unfortunately, he doesn't play games nearly as often as I do, so any progress we're making in that game is minimal. I could play it single player, but the real joy of that game is playing it with friends.

I acted as a good roommate would this morning: I took out the recycling (which had been put off for far too long lately), and I did most of the dishes that were in the sink. It's like the work never ends.

It looks like Nathalie might be switching classes and taking Crypto with me. It looks like I have a reason to show up to class! Classes aren't nearly as good when you don't have anyone to ask for help when you get stuck with something.

Nicole came to visit last Friday. Good to see her. We went out to a pub and a bar, both of which I didn't find particularly fun. I just don't see what we did there that we couldn't do at home, aside from order an expensive plate of nachos and listen to some bad country music.

Time again for some useless banter about video games about which no one but me really cares. The Nintendo Wii has been given a release date (November 19th) and a price ($249US). On top of that, extra controllers will cost $40 plus $20 for a nunchuk attachment. Games will be $50 each, and only a handful will be ready at launch (I plan to buy Rayman and ExciteTruck, though we'll see what happens when the day comes). That's all, I'll stop boring you.

Unfortunately, I don't have much else to excite you with. I've got one hour left in 24, bought some gingerbread cookies, and am getting my bike fixed tomorrow. That's about it.

Listening to... (High) Visibility - Helmet
Link of the moment... I think I might want to watch the six Star Wars movies again. Is that nerdy of me?

Ubuntu FTW

I've got nearly another hour of free time to kill on campus. My ENGL class got let out early, and my next class isn't until 2:30. I've already read the Imprint, and ate lunch. I can't really think of any websites to visit, or anything productive to do at the moment, so here I am at Blogger.

Well, my bike is fucked up. I can't really change gears anymore on the right gear clicker thingy. I'm hoping I can fix it with a little elbow grease. Speaking of grease, the bathroom downstairs is effing filthy. I got one of those things that turns the water blue and supposedly has bleach to clean the toilet, but it's already diluted and hasn't done a thing. I think I'm going to buy some heavy duty bleach and rubber gloves and beat the shit out of that bathroom with a sponge. Shower, counter, toilet, floor, everything.

Paper Mario is good times. It can get a bit repetitive, but it's cutesy enough to keep playing. I've still got DQVIII in the back of my mind once I'm done PM, but I think it's in my best interests to get a change of genre in there. I don't really know what to play (besides perhaps Unreal 2004 or counter strike). Maybe I've got to find a nice platformer for GC.

I went to EB the other day to inquire about reserving a Wii, but they said that they're not taking any pre-orders. I shudder to think of the massive crowd they'll get on launch date, because I've a feeling that it will be the big winner of the "next-gen" consoles (though I have reservations about saying that the Wii is in the same generation as XBox360 or PS3). Andrew maintains his prediction that I won't have any trouble finding a system whenever I want one, but I have a feeling they'll be mostly difficult to find until just after Christmas.

I anticipate this this term will be pretty hectic. Between my DE course which looks much more intensive than I thought it would be, my marking (oh yeah, they gave me a marking job rather than tutoring...bastards), my three regular courses, and my obligation to the euchre club, it looks like my four-course term won't feel as light as I'd hoped. So long as I stay on top of things, I shouldn't get tripped up over anything.

Well, I'm sort of getting sick of sitting in this lab, so I'm going to wander around campus for a while, making my way to my next class.

Listening to... The roar of students on campus
Link of the moment... Ah, I see.

Don't trust the blind

So it turns out that the blind guy that I was renting a parking space off of is an effing dickhead. He phoned yesterday (the third of September) complaining about how we agreed that I'd pay him by the first of each month. I told him it slipped my mind and I could pay him when I get back in town, or even get one of my roommates to run it over to him, and he told me he didn't want me parking my car there anymore, even phoning my roommates to move it ASAP. I know it's not about the money...I think he's just using me in some fucked up experiment to show that kids these days are unreliable.

For the moment, my car is parked on the street (thanks to Hugh) and thus susceptible to getting some pretty nasty tickets. Once I get back, I'm going to get a parking pass for the Fall term. I just hope I can get one...this late in the year, spots can be sparse. Since it will then be a twenty minute walk to my car, I'll probably not use it unless it's worth my while. I'll just convince John to take us to Sobeys once a week, and I don't really need my car for anything else. Until the weather gets nasty, I can bike to campus. It'll just be more of a pain when I want to visit someone else, say Sonja.

So guess who has a boyfriend? EVERYONE. Not just that, I feel like I'm the only single person left. Except for Andrew and Nicole, so I predict they're going to hook up, leaving me alone. I swear, too many of my friends are in serious relationships now.

I had a BBQ the other day. The amounts worked out pretty well, though chicken was in pretty high demand, so I had to cook a few from frozen. I had a pretty good turnout...just about everyone I invited at some point or another. It's good to see them all. I feel like if I don't have events like that, I won't see most of my friends. It's rare that they hold things like that, so it's usually me doing the planning and inviting.

I rented Hitman: Blood Money. It's a pretty good game, though I find it difficult to control with a PS2 controller, and it's really hard to figure out where to go next (at least, on the level I'm on). I went to go buy Guitar Hero as well, but both EBGames were sold out and not getting any copies for a few weeks due to changing distributors, and FutureShop was sold out with none cmoing in soon. Guitar Hero 2 comes out in November, but then again so does the Wii. My current collection plus the Paper Mario I plan to buy will easily tide me over until I'm able to buy a Wii. I'm not sure when that will be; something tells me that the K-W region isn't one of the best places to try to get a Wii at launch without a reservation (though I cuold just reseve one now...).

Well I guess I'm sort of looking forward to getting back to Waterloo...I really want to get this parking thing settled ASAP. On top of that, there's not much for me to do around here, and I'm more comfortable in my own kitchen.

Other than all this, I don't think there's much to report on.

Listening to... Carpe Diem Baby - Metallica
Link of the moment... All hail Robot Chicken, my new master

Up late thinking about Wii

Time for an exam update! I decided to study for my CS338 (Databases) exam. It paid off, as a lot of the questions on the final dealt with definitions and things I would have otherwise forgotten if I skimmed over them. I spent no time working on iSQL or relational algebra questions, but as I suspected, I was able to do it on-the-fly on the exam. I think I did rather well, but I never like to get my hopes up after exams. I fully expect to get at least an 80 average, but I won't hope for anything more.

I tried to get to sleep early last night so I could get some good sleep for my morning exam. I went to bed at midnight and fell asleep at 5:30. I actively tried to fall asleep until about 2, when I gave up and played Zelda on my GBA until about 3:30, and spent another 2 hours trying to sleep. I'm feeling really drained right now. I think I'm going to try to stay awake all day and just catch up tonight, rather than sleeping in the afternoon or evening.

I've gotta say, I'm putting a fair bit of thought into buying a Wii. I have this odd hankering to play Paper Mario and started thinking about buying a GC when I go home (since I already have stakes in Mario Party 4 and 6 and an extra controller for my roommate's GC), but if I'm going to lay down $120, I might as well get a backwards-compatible Wii for another $200.

I don't really like buying systems at launch. I like to wait until there's a nice padding of games and support. Of course, the Wii will have been out for a while when I get back home in May. I'll have to agree with Paul when he says that the Wii costs a mere pittance in the grand scheme of things (less than half the cost of a PS3!), and I have a lot of money I've been saving up for such a purchase.

I also have a terrible desire to buy a DS, but I doubt I'd buy one, given that I have the SP. There are just as many GBA games I haven't played yet than DS games (though Yoshi's Island 2 alone might be worth it the cost). Argh, the fact that the Wii isn't going to be out for months still is bothering me!

Well, there you go for another boring video-game related post. Oh yeah, my Guild Wars Monk/Necromancer (Crow Aziel) is level 20 (max). Huzzah!

Listening to... Division of Laura Lee - Pretty Electric
Link of the moment... I'm convinced this is THE BEST SNES game.

Television sets as a medium

Consider the television. I don't really know for what need it was created, but early uses of the TV include news broadcasts and programs that were often performed and taped in front of a live audience. TV programs were originally aimed at sending infromation to an audience.

Consider now video games (specifically, 'modern' video games). The purpose of most games these days (especially first person shooters and most action/adventure games that are played with an 'over-the-shoulder' view) is to immerse the player in a virtual setting. I hope that immediately you can discern the difference between these two audiences. One brings the esperience to you, while the other tries to bring you to the experience.

TVs haven't changed much over the years. They still display things on a rectangular screen and not much else. Television programs have changed drastically in style (American Idol still treats viewers as an audience, but consider CSI or 24 which have fabricated environments, if you understand), but still only output information to viewers.

Video games however, are fundamentally different: they require interaction with the player. It is this interaction that makes gaming a distinct experience from television. Let's break video games into three distinct parts: input, output, and processing. If we consider now the 'next generation' consoles (PS3, XBox360, Wii), we see that PS3 and X360 are focusing on increasing the processing capabilities of the experience, while Nintendo is expanding the definition of what the input is.

In terms of the output, all systems are limited by their medium: televisions. They are increasing the number of polygons on screen at one time through processing, creating more 'realistic' images, but I argue that in this context, 'realistic' is a comparison to the realism that televisions are capable of, which is a program intended for an audience. They're still just dots on a screen. Until the big three rethink the output phase of the gaming experience, they will be limited in how immersive their games are. I certainly don't have any revolutionary ideas about what the new output medium could be, but that's not my job.

All in all, I'd like to congratulate Nintendo for being the first to truly revolutionize the input part of the equation. PS3 and X360 have embraced things like tilt control, analog buttons, and even camera input, but 95% of the games out there still use controllers just as they would have ten years ago (though I suppose analog control has become standard). Nintendo is trying to do away with the generic design while still keeping it an option.

Sorry if this is a terrible entry, but I'm just sort of typing whatever comes to mind as it comes to me.

Listening to... Ozma - Flight of the Bootymaster
Link of the moment... I don't know if I'll wind up buying a next gen or not.