The Prey demo comes out tonight at midnight.

Damn I'm bored.

If only I didn't live near Philly which I wouldn't trade for anything. It comes out at 9pm in California...

This just in!! As I was typing up this blurb, the HR from my company came by and said they are hiring me full time. So now I have a job...

Back to Prey. Actually, that 9pm in California is lucky for me, because when Half-Life 2 came out, it came out at midnight Pacific Time... which of course means 3 AM here. I took off for that game though. Not like I'm really interested right now in Prey, but it should have some cool things:

a) Great graphics. It's built on the Doom 3 engine I think
b) ... umm... Did I mention the graphics should rock?!
c) It's built on the Doom 3 engine... supposedly.

I really can't say much, I'm not a fan of science fiction shooters anymore. I hate when they give you weapons, basically, that don't exist. That's just my opinion. Doom 3 was fun though. I absolutely LOVED F.E.A.R. due to the weapons and everything else in that game. Everything rocked. Best game ever.

Anyway, I look forward to running some high def graphics on my computer tonight. Before that I'll be playing some more Dawn of War. I'll comment on the work situation tomorrow... three posts in one day was my limit set forth by the FCC.

I ended up taking off yesterday because I haven't felt good all week. Not like last week anyway. After walking the course last week during golf, I felt great the whole week. This week, it's wearing off. I'm back to being tired after lunch. I guess I should try to maybe exercise without having to go golfing. Maybe.

Anyway, a new game happened to come out yesterday also. Half-Life 2 Episode 1. It was pretty good, though nothing like HL2 in terms of quality of gameplay. Although Gamespot says the gameplay is better than HL2. I like them long, and this one lasted less than 4 hours! I stopped playing a few times for a few minutes to go get coffee and stuff. Started after 1pm and finished by 5pm. I would say it definitely had its moments, but the time was just way too short. But, it is the better of the two "Episodic" games I've played this month. "Sin Episodes : Emergence" came out too, and that actually lasted longer because it was a little more difficult, but it only had one moment that I can recall. More on that later. Basically with HL2E1, you start the game by trying to get on a train to leave City 17, and at the end you're on a train leaving City 17. There are a few twists between then though :) And it's definitely not the same train. I have no complaints about it only that it was less than 4 hours... oh, and that you use the stupid powerful gravity gun for most of the beginning. To its credit, you use that gravity gun for more problem solving tha you do for fighting. You feel like a god with that thing. Nobody stands a chance against you.

Sin Episodes : Emergence had that one moment I can remember. Basically, you have no health left, and hardly any ammo, and you have to kill a bunch of guys with miniguns using your 7 bullets. That was fun.

HL2E1 had many more moments. The part before the end was my favorite. You're cranking this valve to open the door, and the one thing you learn early on (like, 3 hours before) is that you have to crank it so the door opens all the way, or else it'll come back down. So you're cranking this thing, and looking down this trainyard. Alyx, your partner in crime, sneaks under before it's opened all the way, and you're like "WTF Wait!" So you keep cranking. Then right where I was looking, this giant thing drops down with 2 guys next to it. It was one of those tall long legged things... stalker? I forget. Anyway, you're like "@#$@!!" and try to duck and still crank the valve. Right away it shoots at you and breaks the valve. "@#^@$@#!!" So now you're stuck fighting this thing. All you have are three rockets in your rocket launcher, and this thing takes around 7 to kill. But, there are always boxes with rockets around a spot where something will show up that takes rockets to kill. This is a hint too. Like, if you pass a box of rockets, you're like "Guess I'll be killing something that requires rockets in this spot in a few minutes." Which was the case when you had to escort people to another train that everyone else but you were taking out of the city.

I liked the game I was just pissed when I'm on the train leaving, and some crap happens and the screen is white, and the credits roll. I pre-ordered it so I only paid $18 for the 4 hours. It comes with no extra content, but it does look beautiful. High Dynamic Range Rendering (HDR) rocks.

I didn't. But here's how it went down. Aaron Rowand plays center field for the Phillies. Top of the first inning, bases loaded, 2 outs. A long drive deep to center field. Rowand's going back, back, back. HE CAUGHT THE BALL!! Meanwhile, my brother's downstairs watching it, and starts going ballistic. "HE CAUGHT IT, HOLY SH@# HE F@#$@!ING CAUGHT IT!!! JASE, YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS F@#%@ING CATCH!!!" So I go running downstairs and catch it in slow motion. All I can say to describe it is "Splat". They cut back to the live action. Rowand is on his knees, leaning over, and blood is POURING out of his nose. Literally. It didn't look as horrible in slow motion as it did when they showed the live replay. That's why I use the word "Splat". It was like he was an insect and Citizens Bank Park was a car going 70 on I-95. There are these metal bars that go across the fence area in center field, he caught one directly on the bridge of his nose. It was ugly. He had complained when he was traded here that the bars are dangerous. The field crew was scheduled to pad them over TODAY! Horrible luck. You can see them in the picture, the silver part of the fence. A guy on WIP talking to Angelo Cataldi put it best. He said that he had no regard for his own wellbeing in order to improve the wellbeing of his team. Isn't that just what we want in Philly?! He described how he was in FULL STRIDE when he hit that fence. This was a bases loaded jam with two outs, afterall. If he hadn't gone all out into the fence, it was guaranteed a bases clearing triple. Phillies end up winning 2-0 after it was cut short when the skies opened up after the top of the 5th. Today Rowand lies in a hospital bed. Another article I read said, and you can imagine the severity of the injury, that Rowand "destroyed" his nose. Destroyed. Ouch. He'll have reconstructive surgery today. And what was I doing while Rowand was risking life and limb? Watching video game movies of course! It's E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo), where all the video game makers and hardware makers (Sony, Nintendo, etc) show all their coolest sh@%. Let me say, there's some pretty f@%^@ing cool s@#% out there! I watched a few hours of game movies last night on GameSpot. Picture courtesy of The Philadelphia Inquirer. The 700 Level has video and some better pictures.

Yesterday, I had a half day because I had to be home for the cable guy to give us digital cable (which is pretty cool). I pulled into the local Wawa to get some lunch at like 1:50, just in time to get home and wait. Well, I start moving out of the parking lot, and sitting on the curb at the Wawa is Beaner. He said "My guitar's at your house." I drove him to our house, and his guitar was at our house. I thought he wanted to stop by and pick it up, and it was inside, but it turned out he went there first, waited for me to come home, couldn't get in the house, left his guitar out front, and went to Wawa. But, as I said before when my pillows got here, we live in a trustworthy neighborhood.

So, we sit there, eat our sandwiches and wait for the cable guy. After the cable was set up, we played "Monkey in the Middle" out front with our neighbor's six year old daughter. I won. ;-) After all that was over, Bean spoke words that he will regret forever. "Wanna play some hockey?"

This means, of course, NHL 2k6 on my PlayStation 2.

The first two games were pretty close. They were both tied going into the third period, where I would score one or two to secure the win. Then there was this thing on the NFL network, which we now get since we signed up for digital cable. It was hilarious. It was about the Vet (Veteran's Stadium in Philly, where the Eagles and Phillies used to play), about the 700 Level, fights, drinking, municipal court on location, etc. Hilarious. The next game, the infamous best game ever, was paused and waiting for the Eagles' show to be over, patiently awaiting the glory that was to come.

Los Angeles Kings (my team) vs. the Atlanta Thrashers. It starts out in my favor, 1-0 with a Jeremy Roenick goal. Bean ties it up shortly after. Then goes up 2-1. Then 3-1. Next, 4-1! Seeing a pattern? Bean's scoring tidal wave finally ends at 5-1. Each time he scored, past the 1-1 tie, I said "That's ok, I never lose." Every time. It was an opening for trash talk and bragging rights for the rest of the week :) If I lost, Bean wouldn't stop about it, and if I win, well, I would be posting it on my website :)

Third period, 5-1 Thrashers/Bean. 9 minutes to go. Something happens out front of Bean's net after I shoot the puck... the red light goes on. Bean put it in his net for me!! Thanks! 5-2. Another goal with 6 minutes to go. 5-3. Another one with 3 minutes, 5-4! Keep in mind, a 20 minute period is played over the real time of 5 minutes (for non mathematical wizards out there, 4 game minutes goes by in 1 real life minute). It's coming down to the wire. 3 minutes left, fighting off chances, pressure is building, two minutes left, getting some chances of my own, generally an all out brawl, Bean and I are as tense as can be, one minute left, Pavol Demitra gets the puck, moves in, shoots, the goalie goes down in the butterfly, it hits his pad, bounces once, twice, towards the net, and in as slow motion as you can possibly make something without stopping it, squirts across the goal line!!!! 46 seconds left, TIE GAME!!! The greatest comeback in HISTORY!!!

Overtime. Bean can't lose this game because, well, that would just blow. Five minutes into the 20 minute OT (we don't like shootouts), JR gets the puck again, fakes the shot, turns towards the boards, sees a cutting left winger and hits him in front of the net for the win. Bean loses. I rock.

Greatest game EVER! :P

I've logged nearly 60 hours so far, and have strictly done the main quest in the last two days, so I'm a bit further in that. I'm gonna do the next step then do more stuff in the mages' and fighters' guilds. I also murdered someone so I can join that secret thing but I forget its name. Flyers play tonight so I won't have much time to devote to it, but any spare second I get, you can bet your butt that I'll be playing :)

*** SPOILER WARNING ***
Don't read this if you want to play Elder Scrolls IV and not know anything about it going into it, or unless you've already been a vampire in real life or in the game :) And if that ruined part of the game for you, I'm sorry :( But says in your stats, before you learn about Vampirism, "Days as a Vampire : 0"... So, it's not my fault
*** END SPOILER WARNING ***

This wasn't made public yet, but I was a vampire for 15 days!! In Elder Scrolls IV, that is!

Hooked.

I didn't want to jump ahead in the actual plot of the game (actually, I'm stuck in that part, but that's fine, there's so much more to do and no rush to do anything!). I joined the Fighter's Guild first and was doing lots of missions with them. I've made quite a bit of gold (which I actually have a physical piece of since I bought the collector's edition of the game) doing that and leveled up a bit in physical combat related areas (Swords, Heavy Armor, Speed, Agility, Endurance). However, I'm of the race "Red Guard", so I start out adept in some magic and some combat. So, instead of continuing on the Fighter's Guild path, I joined the Mage's Guild! During one of the missions to acquire recommendations from heads of the Mage's Guild in each city, I had to go into this catacomb and find a certain type of stone. There were vampires in there, and I eventually caught the "poryphyric hemophilia" disease, because there was a sexy vampire in there and it's like medieval times, there are no contraceptives. I kid, you combat a vampire and you can catch the disease. However, stupid me thought nothing of it after two days and no symptoms. I forgot I had it! (A day in game is a few hours, but you can skip over most of it by sleeping or waiting, or fast-traveling far without a horse). Then, I wake up one day, and I get this message, saying something about a dream, then at the top I notice all these attributes and skills being added: "Vampirism Added", "Lure of the Vampire Added", etc. It wasn't long after I realized that the disease I contracted turns you into a vampire after three days! That SUCKED. It was fine at first, but when you're a vampire for two days, you get hurt in the sun. And in three days, you can hardly get from door to door, running as fast as you can, without dying. The longer you go without feeding on someone's blood, the more kickass you become. You get your stats up to like a bazillion. I was whooping monsters' asses. But, you can't do anything! I had to find a cure. Luckily, the guy at the Arcane Academy told me where I can find one. This old witch up in the hills along the river. She needed some stuff before she was willing to give me a cure though. So, I got them for her. Next, she didn't have ANY of the ingredients for the cure... WTF b@#%@!! You say you can make it, why don't you have the ingredients?!?! It only took me a day to get the ingredients, though, lucky for her.

This was weird though, presumably a bug in the game. After I got the last ingredient, which happened to be ashes from this "powerful" Vampire that I completely OWNED. He was trying to PUNCH me and I was already at level 12 since I had gone through a bunch of the Fighter's Guild missions, and I had this awesome sword and a Lightning enchanted Wizard staff. The dude didn't stand a chance. But anyway, I went back to her to give her the last ingredient, and she wanted to whoop my ass!! She is powerful, too, summoning ghosts and skeleton archers on me, shooting me with magic to drain some stuff. I'm like WTF I just want to give you the last ingredient! Fortunately, there's a way to "yield" to someone, like an ally if you accidentally swiped a sword half way through their skull, by holding up your block (right click) and pressing the action key. The thing at the top would say "Whatsherface accepts your yield." But, then she'd apply Chameleon (I can't see her unless I look close for her), shoot me up with spells again, and summon more ghosts!! I got around it by yielding and clicking to talk to her real quick. After she gave me the potion to cure Vampirism, she still wanted to kick my ass, so I just ran out, got on my horse and got the f@#%@# out of there!

That was fun. Sorry to bore everyone but the game ROCKS.

Not really but close. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion has me hooked, it's a wonder two years haven't gone by already. I can write up a huge description of it, but just go visit my Google Pages page instead!! There, you will find nothing related to Oblivion. The end.

I also got some movies, namely "Walk the Line". Who knows... deep inside I might be a Johnny Cash fan and not even know it!

And who the F@#%@# voted on my poll? There's 25 votes but only 7 or so people, two of which selected every option before submitting...

Woohoo.

In other news, I have the latest version of stringed.org up there. Actually, the official name of the software is "dumb web" since it's written on top of "dumb". At home I'm testing with the following data architecture: Authors have books, books have chapters. So when you add or edit an author, you'll be able to add books for that author and add chapters for each book, while on the author form. It is 100% dynamic. It's working except for some quirky validation issues, however, what's on the site works 100% (with just books and authors). As soon as I get subforms inside subforms inside subforms working, I'll post that version up :) Please note that I recreate the database each time, so your additions / changes will only remain intact until the next update.

I still have a lot of work to do, but I should be pretty close by the end of this weekend.

I played "The Movies" but only for a few hours, and didn't get a chance to take any screens. There's no easy way to do it. But here are screens at GameSpot. It's a fun game, but more like "The Sims" with it's "Keep your stars happy" theme. But, there are a lot of neat things going on... writing your own scripts to movies, directing movies, post production of movies, buying sets, researching technology, etc. I recommend it if you find that kind of stuff interesting.

Kodie was out in the snow the other day, and what happens when a furry little dog runs around in 16-22 inches of snow for an hour?! I'll post that picture tonight :) It's HILARIOUS. And Cute.


That's what happens to furry little dogs in the snow :)

Today I was tired, so I went to Dunkin Donuts and got a medium for the ride into work, and an extra large for at work!! To make it look like I was ordering for 2 people, I got a few donuts. I should just shamelessly admit that I can drink like a gallon of coffee without it having any effect on me, that way I don't have to get donuts to go along with them. I could do without them :)

I downloaded the demo of The Movies the other day and finally got around to playing it last night. It seems like a good way to waste an entire weekend :) So, I ordered it off of Amazon.com, but the default, free method of shipping, 2nd day delivery, wasn't acceptable since I wanted to waste away this weekend playing it. So, I paid an extra $3.99 for the overnight delivery. I should be getting it by tomorrow, or else I will sue Amazon for me not being able to waste a weekend.

This game was created by a good studio in the gaming world, Lionhead Studios, which has some really quality games out there. If you know video games, you know Lionhead. I will buy any game from the following developers: Relic, Valve, Bioware, Blizzard (except for World of Warcraft), 3D Realms, Lionhead, Firaxis (God bless CIV!!), and Sierra. I show the most reluctance to buying a game when there's an "EA" symbol on the cover. I definitely own games by other developers, but these are the ones I buy without researching or reading at least one review. I just know they're going to be good.

So, this weekend I'll be hiring actors, crew, directors, extras, as well as script writers, buying sets, and making movies. Then releasing them to the public and making bazillions of dollars. It should be fun. I'll post screens.

I just won in Civilization IV in 1958 with a space race victory! I had also taken over two other civilizations and was just generally whooping some major ass. Check out these pictures

I'm the greyish white Civ on the lower right hand map, check out the size!! It wraps the whole globe!!

[Update] Ugh, images temporarily deleted... will be back tonight.

Here are some pictures from my last Civ conquest. I've had two pretty notable conquests in the past week and the first one was pretty amazing, but these pictures are from the second one. You might notice three Civs each with a score of Zero. Two of them were my doing. I whooped up on Spain (Isabella) and Greece (Alexander). I like picking off the weakest of the Civilizations when I'm the strongest... free cities!

The first game I won this week was incredible. I was at war with someone, and I was clearly the weakest on the planet. Well, it comes down to the end, there's about 20 turns left and I calculated that I needed about 19 to finish the spaceship! Well, one person was already attacking me pretty heavily, I think it was France (ironic, as it where, since I play as Germany!), and then with about 15 turns left, TWO other nations declare war on me!! I think they felt I was going to win, and didn't like that. These are all computer players, so the fact that three of them wanted to not see me finish was pretty cool, however, they did not get their wish! I had some pretty huge cities. I had taken over a Barbarian city pretty early, and it had grown to be a huge city with tons of gold and fast production, and contributing lots of research, all the while sufficiently feeding itself and growing. Well, that was the second city taken by the onslaught of the two opponents as the hordes from the east moved in. It sucked. So, I just decided to protect Berlin for the last few turns. At this point, there was only around 6 turns left, and Berlin and the Barbarian city, that I had taken that had grown into a powerhouse, were pretty much right next to each other. So I stacked up a bunch of troops around Berlin, and held my breath for the last few turns! I won, but damn was it f#@#!$ing INTENSE!! I usually don't consider other experiences with Civ "intense". "Fun", "difficult", but never really intense. It was a fun time. I won't be playing again until tomorrow night probably, since the Flyers play both tonight and tomorrow night. Of course, Friday is like my stay up all night and play video games day, so when the Flyers are over, the night's really just beginning! Unless I go out, of course.

So far, my only way of winning has been to win a space victory, but Civ has many victory types. The space victory is the easiest, since it's just a technological victory. You can win a cultural victory (3 cities with "Legendary" culture status), standard conquest (defeat all other civilizations and control the world!!), land and population victory (control a set percentage of land and population), a diplomatic victory (voted on through the League of Nations which you can build), and possibly some others. So, it's a great game that can be played forever without getting bored.

In my best game, I won a space race victory in 1991! That's pretty sweet. However, I've heard of some pretty remarkable victories on a Civ forum. One guy apparently won a cultural victory some time in the 1600s! It's one of those that was heard from a guy that knows a guy that knows a guy, so I dismiss it as Urban Legend. My 1991 space race victory put me in the good graces with Henry VIII on that list of your leadership abilities. Usually I'm Dan Quayle! That sucks.

Oh, and whoever picked the Bucs to win the Super Bowl is WAY off. I'd bet that they go out in the first round :)

This update of the web server has been a giant f@^#@ing migraine... Tomcat will just delete stuff. And for some reason, there's no events showing up in the calendar, but that's probably my fault. (Actually, I paused to look at the code, yup, it's my fault... you might not even notice since I'm updating it right now). And I'm not sure when my host does backups, but I'll ask them for a copy. But, to make sure that I don't lose everything if this happens again, I'm running a daily cron task (WTF is this?) which will backup that directory into a new directory. Of course, if the whole hard drive goes bad, then it's a whole different problem. Well, hopefully they give me a copy from sometime before Saturday :)

[The next morning] I'm on an incredibly small amount of sleep today. That has to do with Civilization 4 and I can't remember what I did after that to stay up as late as I did. Civ, as it's called, is the best game ever. I have a few posts on it going back since it came out in late October. It's amazing that I've ever left the house since it came out. With an introduction like this, "Sid Meier�s Civilization is a turn-based strategy game that challenges players to build and expand an empire, throughout all of human history, and become the most powerful ruler in the world.", how can you not get f!#^@ing addicted?! I heard someone once say that cigarettes are more addicting than heroin, but Civ is more addicting than anything I've ever known. I seriously need help! Good thing there's a help group (shout out to NAOT) out there! If ever a game needed one...

There's a new song up (Christmas Blues), and a lot of the songs have been restored, but not much of anything else. Still waiting on the hosting company to let me know if they have a backup. For Pete's sake, it's been 7 hours and still no contact! I'm kidding, they rock.

Zatko and I played again, twice, last night. The first time, I got whooped by Barbarians, and Zatko made fun of me by saying stuff like "BARBARIANS?!?!!! You SUCK!!" and the like. Then, about 25 seconds into our second game, he asked "Are you still alive?" I thought it was funny. I answered back with "OMFG HELP!!!!111111111". Then irony. A call from the East (I was on the west coast of this huge continent). "Dude, I'm getting killed by barbarians." I was like "Pffff it was funny the first time, you don't have to make fun of me anymore, I have a higher score than you." However, he wasn't joking!!! HAHA. He lost all of his settlers, which you need to create new cities and expand your empire, and only had 2 cities, which came under attack. It was great. I sent guys over there, but the little icon under the arrow said that the guys would take 39 turns to get there, which is like a thousand years. Maybe closer to a hundred. Plus, they cost me money as they get further away, with attrition and all that stuff. But, they eventually get there, and Zatko was still alive.

I finally learned a bit about how to play. The city view screen is tough to understand, but it is the key to success. I finally got it. I don't know how to make things happen like I want (less sick people, more happy people, etc), but I do understand the game more now, so that's good. All this time I've played other Civs, and never had a clue what I was doing.

In the second game, I got attacked by the Nation of India, and was able to fend it off. Without losing a city!! Sure, their malicious hordes will come through and destroy everything else on your land (farms, mines, houses, etc), but if you can hold out, maybe fight them off or wait until you can talk to the leader again and get them to sign a peace treaty before you get your ass handed to you, then you'll be in good shape. I'm addicted.

Zatko and I played CIV 4 online last night. Thanks, Mike, for getting me addicted again. I'd have to say that most of that game's addictiveness comes in its absolute mystery. I have no idea what I'm doing. Like, no idea. But, Mike and I were playing, and I jump out to a lead and pretty much hold it for the next 5000 years. Yes, 5000 years. Then Mike jumps in front, then it's just me and him, battling it out over a few hundred years... actually, we were friends, basically giving each other technologies. Then, all the sudden, he starts crying from half way around the world: "Yo, I need help." He's at war with the blasted Mongols. Those blasted Mongols. I'm like "Dude, I can't get there, George Washington won't let me through his crappy land." Then, the only part of Russia that was left was a quaint little town known as "Zatkonia". Or, at least that was the only one I could see, due to my lack of exploring. Whereas Germany was thriving! Really. I still have no idea how to play that game, but as long as you don't piss anyone off too bad, and give them stuff when they're angry at you. This way, you won't get into a fight, and you won't have 2 cities left and have to ask your pacifist pal Germany to travel half way around the world to save you... I had no boats.

Tune in next week for more tales of addiction and cluelessness.