Just Because Cat Complained

1st post! ...in 5 months.

GTA IV Game of the year?

There are plenty of review sites and publications awarding GTA IV the title of game of the year. Mainly for it being more grown up and gritty than the previous titles in the series. I have yet to find any real gamers out there who have said it was the best thing they have played all year.... I personally found it to be at best boring and at worst aggravating to a controller throwing level (what that says about my emotional control while gaming is for another post)

The game looked great, but when I entered the world what I wanted to do was go out and mess around with the environment. Getting used to the game controls and what you can and cannot do while also experiencing some laugh out loud moments as amazing and crazy stuff happened. After that I would have picked up the story and gotten into the game as a whole.

Instead I was forced into hours and hours of story, with no real chance to, for a better description go on a killing rampage interspersed with huge car chases in fast cars. I couldn't even make it onto the second island until I had played over 20 hours of story, and I lost interest before making it to the final island.

Not a game of the year experience... I would vote for Fallout 3

Mc Donalds skimping on the cheese

Yum! Mc Donalds! I visited my local McDonalds yesterday for a nice fish fillet sandwich with no mayo/relish sauce. It came in the std. hamburger bun with a greasy fish fillet and cheese. What I found odd was upon further investigation I noticed I got a 1/2 slice of cheese instead of the full slice. My roommate eating the same thing only with sauce noticed the same thing only his cheese was clocked beneath a tidy helping of mayo. My question is this....is McDonalds skimping on the cheese in these economic hard times or do they always come with a 1/2 slice. Maybe the crazy clown with red hair thought he could hide it in all that mayo...not this time my clown friend....not this time.

Don't Drink the Koolaid

Everyday, I hear someone say "OMG, Apple Product X is coming out tomorrow! I NEEDS IT!". I'm here to tell you: no, you don't need it.

Apple does a great job of marketing products to a cult like following that seems to get larger with every release. I agree that Apple products look 'cool' and that if you want to be a trendy hipster who drinks coffee in the quaint coffee shop with emo glasses with no frames, you definitely need to adorn your electronic wardrobe with Apple products. But in general, Apple products are overpriced and over-hyped.

The product du jour this time around is the new iPhone. I have to admit, it's looking a lot better in terms of value. Between the 3G network, lower price, and new app store, it's admitedly a much better offer. However, I started doing some thinking about how much the iPhone plan is. I think it's something crazy like $70/mo. Now I don't really care about these types of plans, so I don't know how that compares to other offerings, but regardless, that's a lot to pay for internet on my phone that I might use for like an hour per month.

Not surprisingly, Apple has also once again underestimated the size of their cult, and it's clear that the 'authentication' or whatever you have to do with the iPhones was woefully inadequate. Nothing sucks more than dropping a few hundred bucks on a new device, only to leave it in the box because you forgot the batteries... or the publisher's servers couldn't handle the load. Granted, AT&T is probably at fault as well, but it doesn't take a genious to realized the Apple lap dogs would be lapping up the iPhone Koolaid.

Seriously, just look at the other offerings. Phones, mp3 players, laptops, everything. You won't be as cool of a hip trendsetter, but you'll get the same product for cheaper, and can take solace in the fact that you aren't funding a diabolical cult of Steve Jobs worshippers.

Telescopes! Meade DS-80 vs Celestron 127EQ...noob scope review

I just recently acquired two very simple and very cheap telescopes with the idea of taking them into the hills since silicon valley is oh so polluted these days. Anyone in Nor-Cal knows what I mean. I picked up a Meade DS-80 $85 (craigslist) and a Celestron 127EQ $118 (OpticsPlanet.com) and they are very different scopes. The Meade is an 80mm achromatic refractor on an Alt. Az mount and came with a bunch of noob eyepieces + barlows that are adequate. Celestron pumped out a 127mm newtonian reflector on an GEM mount again with some adequate eyepieces and a 3x barlow. Skies around here have been anything but clear but I've had some shots to use them farther up north recently and both seem to be capable scopes.

The Meade does a pretty good job with 12mm and 25mm eyepieces...even a 3x barlow on the 12mm is tollerable, even though the mount doesn't lock well. The mount is far too unstable for the 4mm and frankly the arpeture of the scope isnt physically enough to provide enough light for the eye piece.

Celestron gave me a set of 20mm and 4mm eyepieces which work pretty well. The extra arpeture helps out alot with the 4mm eyepiece over the 80mm scope. As with all reflectors they occasionally require collmination and thankfully it looks like this was pre-collminated pretty well as I can see jupiter with good clarity. My only gripe is the barlow seems to be a waste and has been annoying to use...could be me though. The GEM is good enough for the money but I find its slow motion RA to be annoying to use.

Overall these seem to be very capable scopes for the money and I certainly intend to watch some intresting things with them. My favorite is far has been the DS-80 as I find it more managable, but I suspect my opnion will shift to the Celestron once the smoke clears out of the valley. I have found out two very important things...what you mount your scope on is just as important as the scope itself and eyepieces are highly important, just make sure you have enough arpeture to realistically support them.

Google Docs vs Microsoft Office Live: Round1 (Word like editor)... FIGHT!!!

Today I had a gander at Microsoft Office Live's 'note' functionality which seems about the closest online free offering Microsoft has to the beloved Word. It seems very similar in its approach to Google's Document found in Google Docs. Below are screen shots of the two with a little non-exhaustive comparison of each.














As you can tell from above the are both quite glamorous text editors with similar functionality. Both will allow you to version and share your documents. Google allows for multiple people to work on the same document at the same time, I haven't tested Office Live but it looks to offer the same. Google offers more fonts and more odd ball functions like word count etc. Microsoft has a better UI IMO and convenient ways to organize everything. Office Live shows ads while Google leaves us in peace.
My initial opinion based on the first 5 min run through is that Google still has a better offering, but if Balmer's boys step up their game they could quickly have Google docs as a close second place.

Deadspace

I just saw this trailer for the new game Dead Space, coming out later this year. Its been described as a mixture of Silent Hill and Event Horizon. Definitely looks amazing and immersive.  The gameplay movie is NSFW, but you should still check it out!

World of Team Fortress

I had pretty much stopped playing Team Fortress until the Medic achievements came out. A lot of them were kind of stupid and I ended up farming 5-10 on one of the achievement servers to get the Kritzkrieg, but they definitely got me playing again. A lot.

This weekend was the Pyro's turn, adding tons of cool weapons / achievements to get. Valve learned a lot from their first attempt at achievements, and the achievements this time are much more reasonable. On top of that, you need far less to actually get the new weapons. I definitely plan to stay away from the achievement servers and earn the achievements, since it's a lot of fun.

But one of the biggest complaints about the new achievements is that players want to have the achievements unlocked by default. While I can understand the argument, I actually enjoy earning the achievements (except the ridiculous Medic ones). I think the achievement system is very popular among those that enjoy MMORPG games -- games like World of Warcraft -- where grinding is just something you do. And compared to the WoW grind, the 'grind' (if you can call it that) in TF2 is so minor that it's hardly noticeable.

It still amazes me that Valve puts so much time and effort into a game that I believe costs like $20 (but I'm not complaining!)

Battlefield Bad Company: Initial Thoughts

I finally got around to #1 updating my PS3..thnx sony...and downloading and playing the Battlefield BC demo. Graphics were pretty good and the physics were pretty good as well. Like many of us I'm sure the destructible environment was a double edged sword. I'm not sure there is anything more satisfying than plowing down trees with a tank...what good fun. Multiplayer was enjoyable as well so in short the game looks like a good fps. I would have liked to switch back and forth between 3rd and 1st person view though. Comming from the PC fps world, I found the controls a bit more difficult than say a keyboard and mouse..drool. What annoyed me the most was the sprint button on L3...I'm not sure sony really intended the stick to be used in this manner and it feels awkward at best. Hopefully controls will be configurable...I'll check that out now... oh yeah...This image is property of the cool pplz that made Battlefield Bad Company.

Top Gear Returns!

The new top gear is awesome as expected. Fast cars, stupid tasks, and utter comedy for a finale. I won't give any spoilers. But they do go for a world record, show the gas milage of supercars and attempt to help the British Police build a better car.

Everyone should watch! 

Suds N Such

Here's a blast from the past...

tehJT says: ok so you need to create a soap envelope
tehJT says: and send ur RPC call using the wsdl linked
tehKY says: but wouldn't that dissolve in the rain?
tehJT says: haha lets hope it doesnt rain
tehOC says: not to be used in the shower either
tehEF says: Okay cool -- that's about what I thought but I guess I need to read a bit about Perl specifics
tehEF says: I got back a response but it's quite strange :P
tehKY says: don't drop the envelope?
tehEF says: hahahhaa
tehOC says: lol
tehJT says: uhh well it looks like its all soap...so
tehOC says: does the envelope contain perls?
tehJT says: no enevelope no love
tehEF says: I think it does :D
tehJT says: its like chineese new year
tehKY says: i really don't wanna know what you're doing to your soap
tehOC says: definately don't drop them, otherwise you'll be slipping on the soapy perls in the shower
tehJT says: no evelope w/ perls...n itll hate on you

Golf Sucks

People complain about cricket being longwinded, but damn! Why do I want to get dressed up and then wonder around a field with some holes in it, hitting a ball then following it?

only exception is mini-golf and only when drunk.

Los Lagos Golf FTW

Golf is one of the few sports where less is more and its pretty darn fun to play. If you suxz0r get some cheap clubs and hit up the twilight hours. ~$20 for 18 holes. The course is not great I'm guessing because its run by the city of SJ. But the price is darn cheap, no dress code and It's close.
Location after the jump

Skype 4.0 : The rise of UberChat!

Skype 4.0 Beta is available. New UI is being called Uberchat and its awesome!

Get it Here!

For those who may not know, this is what uberchat looks like.

BF Heros vs BF Bad Company

Its time to sound off about BFH vs BFBC...one is free*, the other is not. One is pretty darn realistic looking, one looks like Bugs Bunny should arrive to pwn me. So based on what you've all seen...what's better?

*Free as in we can play for free and likely get charged for extras :p

Battlefield Bad Company = Awesome

Call of Duty 4 mixed with GTA/Mercenaries style sandbox play, in single and multiplayer format, its a big pile of awesomeness.

And I'm also very partial to totally destructible scenery.

-End of Message -

Apple sucks

Yeah, you heard me.

tehSV day 1

Welcome to the first ever post of tehSV...before we get under way, I'll just do a posting to see if all this stuff works ;)

-jt