Video Game Review - Fable

One of my unexpected surprises at Christmas was th game fable for the xbox. I didn't ask for it, but I was pleasantly surprised to get it. It is a role playing game where you play the part of a boy taken to live in a guild after bandits attack your village and kill your family. The game follows your life story, progressing from young boy to hardened hero. Throughout the game you are presented with quests to complete. There are core game quests that further the story, and several tertiary queststo help build experience along the way. The interesting thing is that most quests give the option to play as a good person or an evil person. For instance you can choose to save a hostage and receive an item as a gift, or you can just kill the gift giver. The game steers you towards being good, but you can be evil if you really want to.

This game is relatively short as far as RPGs go. I completed it, including the Lost Chapters expansion, in just over 20 hours. I don't necessarily see this as a drawback, as it keeps the pace of the game brisk where other RPGs get mired in the grind of leveling your character. The battle system is realtime (rather than turn-based), making the battle sections much like an adventure game. Ranged and melee attacks are intuitive, but I found that the controls in general were a bit overloaded. To perform a magic attack, you must hold the right trigger button. This changes the behavior of the buttons to issue magic. Pressing the Y button cycles through your list of spells. In addition, the D-pad is used for context actions or configured behavior (such as social behaviors or potion usage). When the right trigger is released, the actions associated with the d-pad are based on your current situation. If you pull the righttrigger, the d-pad will issue your configured commands. The left trigger locks on to a target. With all of this overloading of buttons, d-pad, and triggers, it is very easy to issue a command you don't intend to (such as flirting with a troll or hittingyour wife with a fireball).

The level of detail in the game is awesome. The graphics are incredible, but it goesbeyond that. The social aspect of the game is very well done. As you gain more reknown from completing quests, people are more apt to be friendly with you. Another aspect is flirting and marriage. The game receives a mature rating for this. Your character can flirt, give gifts, gamble, drink, have sex, and get married. Sex scenes are simply a black screen with humorous suggestive noises. You can even choose to be gay or bisexual if you like. There is a brothel where a hero can "relax". Your interactions in battle and in town all affect how the game reacts around you.

When Fable was first released, it was criticized for being overhyped, incomplete, and bug ridden. Microsoft had touted the game as the greatest RPG ever. That kind of talking is guaranteed to get you in trouble. With the lost chapters expansion included with this now budget priced game ($20), the bugs are fixed. With the right perspective going in, I think any RPG/action adventure gamer could really enjoy this title.

Slashdot is No Longer Relevant

Slashdot isn't relevant anymore. For those who have never visited the site, Slashdot is a news aggregation site that follows the tag line, "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters". For years it was a dependable source of news on a wide variety of interesting topics ranging from space exploration, to computing, to patent law and copyright freedoms. Most stories that appear on Slashdot focus on the computing and technology industry. Each story includes a comment listing where readers can respond to the story and to the comments of other readers. Ever since college I have faithfully read Slashdot for the latest technology news.

One of Slashdot's favorite whipping posts is Microsoft. Microsoft is the big bad ugly that represents everything evil in the world. When the Netscape vs. Microsoft battle was taking place, Slashdot was a great site to catch up on the latest proceedings and each punch in the boxing match between the companies. Slashdot was also a fantastic promoter of open source software and specifically the variet of flavors of the Linux operating system.

Lately, however, I've noticed that the stories on Slashdot are becoming less newsworthy. Other sites are doing a better job of covering the news that Slashdot was once reliable for. Now I visit Engadget to get updates on the latest cool toys coming out, or Space.com for information about space exploration. Joystiq is my favorite site for gaming news. When I occassionally check back on Slashdot, i see that most of the stories are simply links to the ones carried last week by these other sources. What's worse is that the submissions on Slashdot aren't even trying to be objective anymore. Every story takes a very one-sided slant. Even when there isn't a story to be made, submissions will take weak chip shots at their old favorite baddies. Just today one headline read "Buy Vista or Else" and was followed with a rueful scorning of Microsoft for advertising their new operating system (Vista) as more secure. It is really sad that a once great source of community discussion and relevant news has devolved into petty name calling and sniveling. Slashdot, oh how you have fallen. I'm afraid that the time has come to finally delete you from my news sources.

Video Game Review - Beyond Good & Evil

I admit it. I've been a major slacker on both of our blogs over the last six months. My latest excuse has been video games. I received so many great video games over Christmas that I spend all of my free time in the basement playing. I finished up Beyond Good & Evil, which was a fantastic game. If you have never played it, it is definitely worth a try. The game bombed with the public, and many retailers were left with lots of copies on hand that they had trouble unloading. They got marked down to discount bin prices (I got mine for $10.50 at Fry's), and when the inventory was sold out, retailers didn't order any more. The game is available for Xbox, PS2, Gamecube, and PC, but you will be lucky to find a copy for any system anywhere. It's really a shame too, because it was a fun game. You play as Jade, caretaker of children who have been orphaned by the residents of planet Hillys' fight against an alien enemy known as the Domz. The Domz attack at regular intervals, and kidnap residents. A special forces unit known as the Alpha Sections has been sanctioned to take care of the threat, but they seem to be more of a media stunt than an effective defense. You quickly become involved with a subversive group known as the IRIS Network. The IRIS Network believes that the Alpha Sections are actually assisting the Domz, and charge you with finding evidence to support their claims.

Beyond Good & Evil plays like a modified Zelda type adventure. In addition to the features of any game in the Zelda series, you ake your living as a photographer in BG&E. You get paid for each photo of a different species of animal on the planet, and you can use these funds to purchase items throughout the game. Your quest requires you to get clandestine information from the enemy, and the only way to get it is through stealthy infiltration of the Alpha Sections headquarters. The stealth element of the game is extraordinarily well done. I found myself actually holding my breath as I waited for a guard to pass by my hiding spot. The game also sports some interesting battles that sometimes act more like puzzles than action sequences. The game is very accessible to those who aren't avid gamers, so you don't need to be a button mashing pro to pick this one up and enjoy it.

Beyond Good & Evil is a great game, and if you can find a copy, get it. It runs a little short (I completed the game with under 20 hours of play time), but the story, characters, and clever twists on the standard action / adventure genre are well worth it.

Video Game Review - X-Men Legends

One game I've been playing a lot on my XBox is X-Men Legends. This game has been out for a while, and there is a sequel now as well. I received it as a Christmas gift, and I've been having a lot of fun with it.

The game is sort of a cross of multiple game types. It has character building elements like a role playing game, it has twitchy finger fighting like an action game, and it has a bit of a strategy twist as well. You start the game playing as Wolverine. Blob and Mystique attempted to kidnap a girl who recently discovered her mutant powers (Magma), and you are trying to figure out why. The game is played from a third person perspective as you guide Wolvie through an inner-city landscape looking for Blob. You have light punch, heavy punch, throw, and jump as your immediate action commands, and if you hold the R-trigger you can access his mutant super-powers. A bit of traditional fighting game play enters here in that, different combinations of light and strong attacks will have different effects on your opponents. One combination will trip, another toss, and another will stun. This game dips into so many different game types without ever really committing to one. To call it an action adventure game really doesn't give a full description of all of the nuances of the game.

As the game progresses, more mutants are at your disposal. You can play with up to four mutants on your team at a time, and can swap team members at X-traction points (as well as save the game, shop for power ups, and enter the Danger Room to practice maneuvers and level up). Choosing the right X-Men for a particular challenge can make the level either very easy, or very difficult, and the character building element has a lot of impact on how each character plays.

The graphics in this game are pretty good, but I they aren't the best I've seen on the XBox. From the top down perspective, the characters appear like any other 3D rendered X-Men game. Upon closer inspection, it appears that some form of cel-shading was used to render each character. This would be great if close up shots allowed to show the detail of each model, but at the distance the camera is at, the entire effect is lost. The camera can be a pain at times as well, as it does not follow the action intuitively. One minor quibble I have with the camera control is that, to swivel the camera to look left, you push left. I prefer an inverted control scheme, but there isn't an option to change this (that I've found). It is a minor annoyance, but I've come to terms with it.

So far, this game has been great fun. I like a dive in, hack and slash gameplay style, so I've been using Wolverine quite a bit and powering up his combat skills. Players who like more of a tactical battle could choose to focus on Cyclops and Jean Grey, whose ranged attacks allow for more of a "thinking-man's" approach.

I have to admit here that I'm a big comic books fan. I'm not a collector or expert by any means, but I really enjoy movie translations of comic book heroes, and video game translations to some extent as well. I've enjoyed the X-Men movies, and the games have been a fun extension of that universe for me. One nice extra is that Patrick Stewart provides the voice acting for Professor X, keeping with his portrayal of the same character in feature films.

This is definitely a very unique and fun game. It touches on a lot of different gaming genres, and it manages to do a good if not great job of emulating them all. If you are at all a fan of the X-Men universe and what to get your fix until the third movie arrives, this will certainly do the trick.

Video Game Review - Katamari Damacy

Corbin was up at his grandparents for a sleepover last night, so Jenn and I hit the town. We did some extravagant spending for my benefit (lucky me!) and among other things, I picked up Katamari Damacy for the PS2. My brother-in-law had a spare PS2 that he thought might be broken. I took the case apart and cleared out some dust, and after putting it all back together it seems to be working fine. One game that I had wanted to try for a while was Katamari Damacy, a really unique game where the goal is to roll up your Katamari, or ball of junk, to incredible size. I spied it in Best Buy for $20 and I was all over it.

This game is truly bizarre. You play as the Prince of All Cosmos, a litte fella in an oversized green shirt, purple tighties, and an oddly shaped (cylindrical?) head. Your father, The King of All Cosmos, has accidentally broken all the stars in the night sky. He has given you the job of cleaning up his mess. To do so, you must roll your Katamari, which is a ball to which anything will stick, around until you have collected enough junk to create a star.

The games starts with some fairly simple goals. You start with a 5cm Katamari. Anything smaller will stick, anything larger will bump you away, and possibly cause some of your junk to fall off. You roll the katamari around, increasing it's size until you reach your first goal of 10cm. The music in the game is really cheesy, but it is also very catchy, and I caught myself humming the tunes throughout the day. Some of the levels are really hard. In each session, you are given a set amount of time, and a goal size to build up your katamari to. The first levels start with smaller sizes, but by the end of the game you are building up your Katamari to 300 meters. The game is very short (I was awake to 4am, but I beat the game), but there is a tremendous amount of replay value. There are collection levels in addition to the size goal levels. Most of the collection levels I only achieved 60% of the goal. That's plenty enough to pass, but it allows for a lot of replay value as I try to reach a higher percentage.

This game is just plain fun. It has been out for a while, and it has received lots and lots of critical praise. I'm just jumping on the bandwagon here I guess. If I had one complaint, it would be that there are too few stages. It would be nice to have a bit more variety in the goals for each level, but otherwise this game is tremendous fun. The controls are dead easy too, and only take a second to learn (steer both analog joysticks in the direction you want to push, or push the joysticks in opposite directions to spin around the katamari). If you have a PS2, you owe it to yourself to try out this truly bizarre, one of a kind game.

Game Review - Mario & Luigi : Partners in Time for the Nintendo DS

Repetitive, Repetitive, Repetitive. This game doesn't deviate from a one-track experience.

I had very high hopes for Mario & Luigi : Partners in Time. My first taste of the franchise was with Mario & Luigi : Superstar Saga. I loved the campy humor, the mix of RPG and Adventure elements, and how the game progressively built on itself with new techniques and specials. Enamored, I grabbed Paper Mario and the Thousand Year Door, the next game in the franchise. I loved this game for all of the same reasons. So I had certain expectations when I picked up Partners in Time.

I was left very disappointed by this effort. First, the character building component of the game is essentially worthless in this version. Sure, in previous incarnations it didn't have much effect either, but I was hoping for some improvement here. The only true character building you can do is to pick which attribute to give your bonus to. Otherwise, your character is on a pre-rolled level up scheme. Just attack every monster in sight and you'll level up quickly, but it doesn't appear to make much of a difference in your characters play. To pour salt in this wound, the equipment that once allowed for some serious power-ups has been seriously cut down. The badge and trouser system from previous games allowed for some interesting combinations where each brother could play a specific role. Perhaps one could be a healer and the other the tank. In Partners in Time, you are coerced into equiping all characters with the same trousers, as certain ones provide better attributes than any others. And the badge system isn't even worth investigating. After trying out several different badges, none appeared to have any real effect on my ability to defeat enemy characters.

One highlight of the previous games was the campy writing. Each character had, well... character! In Partners in Time this writing feels very forced. It's like one of the interns was told to write the script after playing through the other games in the series.

Finally, and this is what really ruined the game for me, is the boring repetitiveness of the game. Without any character building, without any interesting team building, I was left hoping that the gameplay would save the day. Unfortunately, none of the interesting features of the DS were taken advantage of in this title. The baby brothers aspect is really forced. You must use the baby brothers in certain sections to open up areas of the map, but otherwise they are totally unnecessary. In battle, they provide little more than an extra hit and a backup in case the older brother dies. The moves you learn in the first sequences of the game will be the only ones you use throughout the game. Even the "brothers items" use the same mechanisms. The repetitiveness of using the same moves throughout the game makes this a tiresome experience that places a dark spot on the franchise. The only saving grace for this game is that it is extraordinarily short (my play time was right at 16 hours when I beat it). There is absolutely no replay value here.

If you are at all a fan of the Mario & Luigi / Paper Mario franchise, do yourself a favor and avoid this title. If you haven't played any of them yet, try one of the others, and spare yourself the agony of this game.

Visit My Town

I finished out spending my birthday gift certificate this week. I had enough for one more game, and I was waiting until Wednesday for the release of Animal Crossing : Wild World. It is really hard to describe this game. In the game, you are a boy or a girl (you get to choose) who moves into a town full of animals. One of the animals, Tom Nook, has built you a house, but you are in debt to him for the mortgage on the home. You can do odd jobs and sell items at his store and to others in town to pay back your mortgage. There really aren't any true goals in the game though, and there isn't any "winning" of the game. Instead, you just visit your town and do things, like fishing, collecting seashells, digging up fossils, catching bugs, and keeping up on local gossip. You can send letters to your neighbors, and you might get something in return.

I had read online that this game was very, very popular and that it was very, very addicting. Now I know why. The game happens in real time, so if it is two o'clock in the afternoon in the real world, it is two o'clock in the game. The sun rises and sets just like real life, and stores open and close. In addition, it seems like something new happens each day, so you start to look forward to switching on the game every day to see what new things might be happening. I can't put it down! Yesterday I set up an appointment to meet with one of the in game characters at 3pm at my house. I switched on the game at 2:55, and sure enough, five minutes later that character was knocking on my door.

One last feature of the game is online connectivity. The Nintendo DS has built-in 802.11b wireless networking, so if you are near a wireless hotspot, you can connect to the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection service and play with other people. In Animal Crossing, once you have added friends to your friend list, you can invite them to visit your town, and you can also visit their town. Every town is different, so you may find items in their town that you haven't found in your own. I was pretty excited about this feature, but then I was disappointed when I found out you can only visit with people you have exchanged friend codes with. A friend code is a special number that uniquely identifies the combination of your game cartridge and Nintendo DS. By using Friend Codes, Nintendo created a way to verify that only people you know and trust can play with you in your online games. It's a good idea, as it guards against people who might prey on kids, and it also prevents you from getting your town trashed by some griefer (online-game term for poor sport). Unfortunately, since I'm an adult playing this game, I don't know any people who have it as well, let alone a Nintedo DS. It will be tough for me to find other people to play with without looking like some dirty old man. There are services online for exchanging friend codes, and I suppose I could use those, but I still wish that, like with Mario Kart, there were a special mode where I could play online without exchanging friend codes.

In sum, so far I think this is a pretty cool game. I'm totally addicted to switching it on and checking out the new stuff in my town. (Jenn warned me not to get fired over playing this game at work) If you have this game as well, and you would like to visit my town, just put a comment in this post and we'll have a visit!

Wanna Race Me?

Do you have a Nintendo DS and Mario Kart? Wanna race me? Leave a comment in this post and I'll send you my friend code.

For some reason, when I read the title of this post, I hear Napoleon Dynamite saying "Wanna play me?" out by the tetherball pole.

(Not So) Patiently Waiting - Day 3

Wednesday started off like every other day this week.... with a quick stop in at Fry's. I called on my way in to work, and although they didn't have the Nintendo DS in stock, they did have Mario & Luigi : Partners in Time out on the shelf. I stopped in and picked it up. Later that day, I was out with my two coworkers for lunch, and I called. This time the clerk said "Yes, we have it in stock." Woohoo! So we barrel on over and I shoot over to the video games section. My eyes dart around, franticly searching for my new toy. I can't find it?!?!? I ask the nearest clerk, who tells me that, yes, it is in stock, but the units were being processed by receiving. This is the process where they apply pricing stickers, check them in to inventory, and get them ready for display. He asked his manager if he could just go grab one for me, but no, they weren't ready for sale. He suggested that I come back at 4pm, as they would definitely have them on the shelf by then. We went back to work, and at 2pm I couldn't contain myself anymore. I called back to the store, and asked if they were actually on the shelf yet. I get a positive "yes" to that question. I tell my coworkers who nod knowlingly as I dash out the door. Ten minutes later, I'm the proud owner of a new Red Nintendo DS / Mario Kart Bundle.

Red Nintendo DS / Mario Kart DS Bundle

Box contents

Checkout those stickers and special wrist strap

I was really good, and managed to continue working back at the office until around 5pm. I couldn't take it at that point though, and cracked open the box to show my buddies. They had lots of questions, equally parts for their kids as regards possible holiday gifts, and questions for themselves as a fun toy. I played a quick race of Mario Kart, then packed up and came home. Wednesday night is usually a crappy TV night, so I sat on the couch and played through my games. I never even popped the Mario & Luigi game in, as I was playing Mario Kart most of the night.

One of the features about the DS that I was really excited about was the built in WiFi. Using the Mario Kart DS game, you can connect to other players through the internet wherever wireless internet access is available. I tried it out last night and had fun racing against another REAL player. Tonight when I played I got totally smashed by a couple of other players, but it was neat to watch them play and see some of the shortcuts they found. I think the WiFi connectivity adds a lot to the game, and to the potential of the whole system.

Suffice it to say that I'm one happy boy. Now that Jenn has gone to sleep, I'm going to curl up on the couch and play games until the wee hours. Wheee!

(Not So) Patiently Waiting - Day 2

On the way into work this morning I decided to call Fry's to see if they had the Red Nintendo DS / Mario Kart bundle in stock. Still no joy. After lunch, a couple coworkers and I dropped in. The clerk said that he expected the shipment in any minute, but that he hadn't seen it yet. He recommended that I call around 4pm to get an update. On the way home from work, I gave them another call. The units were definitely shipped and on their way, but would not be in until tomorrow or Thursday. The one good thing about this waiting is that I have motivated myself to get as much gaming goodness out of the games that I have now before I start playing the new system. There are several games around the house that I either lost interest in, got stuck on a difficult mission, or for one reason or another just didn't finish. I'm going back to those games now in an effort to eke that last bit of fun out of those games before I dive headlong into Nintendo DS ownership :-D

(Not So) Patiently Waiting

So today was supposed to be the day. 11/28. The launch day for both the Red Nintendo DS / Mario Kart DS bundle
and the game Mario & Luigi : Partners in Time. I set my alarm a couple of minutes early, and like a kid on Christmas
I rushed through my morning routine. I rush through my morning routine every morning, though, so this wasn't much of
a change. In any case, a quick kiss for both my cutie pies, and I slipped out the door.

Traffic was no problem, as I easily cruised into the Frys parking lot. Lots of cars were there, but evidently only
employees as they were parked in far spaces. I settled into the very front-most parking space and strode into the
store with growing sense of anticipation. I had to hold myself back from dashing to the video game section.

As I entered the video game area (aka Adam's slice o' heaven), an employee asked if he could help. "Yes!", I said,
"Do you have the Red Nintendo DS?". I could hear A Christmas Story in the background and thought that my eagerness
must be much like a certain little boy's delight in dreaming about a Red Rider BB Gun. How ironic that we both
want something red.

Tragedy! The Red DS is nowhere to be seen. Only one titanium DS sits lonely on the shelf. The employee says he
will be back with someone from customer service. The customer serviceman tells me that, while today is in fact the
launch day, they usually don't receive their first shipment for one or two days. My heart sank. The same was true
for the Mario & Luigi game. He recommended that I call back around 4pm to see if they have an updated estimate of
when they will get some in stock.

Dejected, I glanced around at the games on the shelf. Sure, I could use my gift certificates for an XBox, GameCube,
or GBA game to play tonight, but my heart was set on that shiny new Red DS. I noticed that a copy of Advance Wars :
Dual Strike was on the shelf, and it was one of the games on my list to get for the DS.

New Hope! Maybe I can buy this game with my gift certificate and get cash back. Maybe some other store in Indy
will have the red DS today, and I can use that cash to pick it up. With renewed spirit, I approach the cash register.
As anyone who has ever been to Frys knows, the people at the register are usually on work release from some mental
hospital. After consultation with three "managers" and a well deserved beating of the printer beside her, the cashier
rang up my order. To my dismay, I didn't get cash back, but a new receipt which indicated my gift certificate balance.
Shoulders hunched, I trudged out of the store. Even the tires on my car looked deflated as I glumly returned to work.

So I here I sit, staring at my new game that I have no way to play. I've read the instruction manual... twice. The
game cartridge itself is pretty cool. It is about the size of a postage stame, and as thick as two stacked quarters.
The shape of it reminds me of the SD memory card we use in our digital camera, and in my PDA. Oh, how I wish I could
play that game. I suppose at 4pm I'll call and see if I can get an update on when the Red DS will be available.

My "Launch Day Camping"

I started the last post because I plan to do my own version of "Launch Day Camping" on November 28th. For my birthday, I received some really fantastic stuff. I got a great book, a really cool game, and gift certificates to Frys. I decided I'd use them to get a Nintendo DS and Mario Kart for the system. Mario Kart DS works over the internet to allow you to play against people all over the world. The Nintendo DS is a handheld gaming system like the gameboy, and it has built-in wireless networking, two screens, and a touch-pad. I was all set to go to Frys to pick up my toys when I read that on 11/28, Nintendo is releasing a special Mario Kart / Nintendo DS bundle. A special red colored Nintendo DS will be bundled with the Mario Kart game at a reduced price. Last time I was in at Frys, I asked one of the clerks if they would have it, and he assured me that they would on Nov. 28th. I won't be sleeping on the curb, but I will definitely pop into the Frys on my way to work next Monday to see if I can get myself some fresh gaming goodness. I'm so excited!!!

Launch Day Camping

The big news in the video game world today is the release of the XBox 360 video gaming system. It's not really news, the launch day has been known for a while now, but the press is giving it plenty of coverage. One reason is that there appears to be a shortage of units. Whether this is a real shortage or a clever marketing ploy to drum up excitement is unclear, but the end result is that video game fans are clamoring to get their mitts on a 360. I've read several blog posts from folks who spent all of 11/21 (day before launch) researching which stores were getting units, how many, and where to line up to get one when the stores opened on 11/22. Some stores had midnight openings, while others maintained regular hours. Much like the stories of people camping in line for first showings of Star Wars, XBox 360 customers were lining up in the evening to endure long hours of waiting. And not all of the campers got their new toy. Most stores were supplied with either 10 or 40 units. There are two packages, the core system (the game system and one controller), and the premium package (includes a wireless controller, hard drive, high definition package, headset, and other goodies). The core package runs $300, and the premium package a cool $400. It gets worse though. Some vendors won't sell just the console, but sell "bundles". The bundles add a couple of games to the package, and maybe an extra face-plate, and jack the price up several hundred dollars. Gamestop has one of the most egregious examples with their Omega Bundle: $2000!!!!
Limit one per customer of course.

It doesn't look like the situation is going to get much better either. Many retailers won't receive enough units to even satisfy their pre-order commitments before Christmas. Savvy buyers lucky enough to actually own a system are going to be mighty tempted to turn around and sell it on eBay. I just saw an auction for one of the core systems (retail $300 remember) going for $1,200!!! Let's say you did the hard footwork and stood in line for 8 hours to get that core system. If you can sell it for $1,200, that means you got paid $112.50 an hour to stand there. That's some good pay for standing around. Of course, someone else figured that out too and started a "rent-a-camper" service. You paid the camper $X an hour to stand in line to get your XBox. Good grief.

Personally, I'm not all that excited about the new system. By all accounts, it is visually impressive, but a lot of reviews say it isn't enough to warrant forking over the dollars to upgrade. The games available right now aren't receiving a lot of great press either. In fact, the folks over at Joystiq had more fun playing the old-timey arcade games on the XBox Live service than they did the new titles. I'm satisified to wait until the price comes down and more interesting games come out before I want one.

Books and Bookcases

Jenn likes to chide me about how I'm a packrat. I don't like to pitch things, no matter how little possible utility
they might have. I hang onto receipts way longer than I need to, I keep boxes for just about anything we buy,
and I have every bill and bank statement I've ever received in a cabinet in the basement. I have all of my college
notes, and who knows what else stowed away in boxes and closets throughout the house. Recently, I started to purge.
Jenn was right, I really didn't need all of that stuff, and it was just taking up space. I don't want to move it
if it will just sit in another corner, so out it goes. All of the old PC equipment, drives, and spare parts are
gone. I got rid of a lot of notes and documentation that had lost relevance.

One particular point of contention that I'm not budging on are my books. This spring we got two more bookcases
for the basement to help organize all of my books. I never throw away a book. I still have all of my books from
college. I have almost all of the fiction I've read since college (my books before college were sold in a garage
sale when my parents moved to Germany). Some of my books have walked away as I loaned them to friends to read, and
just never got around to getting them back. That doesn't bother me, I'm glad someone else is enjoying them. Books
have a special meaning to me though, and that is why I can't bring myself to just throw them away, even if I never
will use "Fundamentals of Corporate Accounting" again. Books to me are icons of my knowledge, trophies of my
education, and a signal to others of who I am. The books I've read define my background, both academically and
in my personality. Every bookcase filled is an accomplishment that I look at and fill with a sense of pride and
accomplishment. I secretly hope that when folks glance over, that some conversation springs up over what is sitting
on the shelf.

I may have several hundreds of pounds of books at home to move, but I'll move them without complaint. My books
are special to me, and I don't mind the extra burden of moving them with us each time we move. I've moved some of the
more technical books into my cube at work. They might actually get used here, and if not, I'm more likely to run into
someone that would be interested in glancing through one. The rest I'll move with us when we get into the new house.
Even if my books only collect dust, I'm glad their with me.

Mail-In Rebates Suck

I love going to Fry's to check out whatever deep discount sale they have going on. The only thing I don't like is that they usually achieve those prices through the use of mail-in rebates (MIRs). For example, they had a sale going where you could get a 160GB Hitachi hard drive for $30. The price at the register was $90, and I received a form for a $60 MIR. I have had success with Fry's rebates in the past, and I thought this was just too good of a deal to pass up. Six weeks later, I receive an e-mail from RebatesHQ that says my submission was invalid due to a missing sales receipt. I knew I had packed the receipt. My co-worker gave me the idea to call and double check. Well, finding the customer support number for this company was a serious chore. I did eventually find it (using this extraordinarily helpful list) and got through to their automated help center. I went through the menus, entered my confirmation number, and listened to the current status of my rebate. After the status was given, the automated attendant said "Press One to repeat this information, or hang-up to end this conversation...". Then there was a long pause. To my surprise, after waiting a moment I got a new option, "Press 2 to speak to a customer service representative." Woohoo! After speaking to the rep, I learned that the information on my rebate was simply incorrectly entered. He saw that they did have my receipt and it was properly dated. I should get my rebate check in the next couple of weeks. Success!

My buddy at work tipped me off to how these rebates work. Essentially, a rebate clearing house like RebatesHQ guarantees Hitachi that no more than X% of qualifying customers will actually turn in a valid rebate. This percentage is very low, less than 60%. Hitachi then issues a payment for that percentage to the clearing house. If the clearing house receives less than the estimated number of rebates, they make a profit. If they receive more, they take a loss. Given that scenario, the rebate clearing house makes it as difficult as possible to properly submit your rebate information. They have you send your rebate form to some little served post office in BFE. Then, they occassionally "lose" parts of your submission and send you a post card asking for you to resubmit, knowing full well that you've probably thrown away any copies you may have kept of your purchase receipt. They had their phone numbers, and make it really difficult to reach them. It took me a bit of research to find the number for RebatesHQ, and once I did, the service rep was helpful, but there were times that I felt like just giving up. He was breathing heavy into the phone, and asking the same questions multiple times. My perserverance paid off though, and I'm looking forward to getting that check in the mail.

If you ever buy something with a MIR, make sure to send it in. And if it looks like you may have forgotten something, track down the clearing house and give them a call. Chances are, you can clear it up over the phone and get your rebate in short order. I have to give RebatesHQ credit here. In the end, they were helpful, and their online and telephone status information is nice. I'll probably continue buying equipment with MIRs, but I'll only do so when no better option is available.

Birthday / Christmas Lists

My birthday is coming up fairly soon, and folks who love me (yes some people are crazy enough to do that) are asking what I might like as a gift. I got to thinking about it, and it made me realize just how blessed we are. There isn't anything that I absolutely need that I don't already have. Sure, there are lots of very selfish things that I might want, but all of the essentials in life are covered. I have a wonderful, loving family, a fun and affectionate (if mildly psychotic) dog, a good job that I like, and plenty of hobbies to keep me busy. We've been so busy with work, selling the house, playing with Corbin, and basicly living our lives that I haven't found myself just sitting idle.

That said, there are still some things that would be fun to have. You can click the link on the right side of the page under where it says "Feeling Generous" to see a quick wish list I put together on Froogle. If I were to pick just a couple, here is what I would pick:

1. Ninja Gaiden Black for the XBox
   
2. One Year Susbscription to Sirius Satellite Radio
   
3. Broken Angels by Richard K. Morgan
   
4. A Gameboy Micro or a Nintendo DS
   
5. "Walking around money" at Fry's
   

I always have reservations about giving out wish lists though. I'm into some fairly technical / obscure stuff, and finding the right item isn't always easy, even when you understand what I'm asking for. I'm also torn as to whether I really want to put more video game systems on my wishlist. I have plenty of systems already, and there are scads of great games for them at discount prices that I have never played. Still, it is a wishlist, so I'm going for it :-) The Nintendo DS vs. Gameboy Micro issue sort of vexes me. I mean, it would be sort of silly to have both, although I would certainly love to have one of each if anyone were so generous. The DS is a gameboy with two screens and a touch pad. The Micro is a tiny gameboy with a backlit screen. The Micro would be great for just keeping in my backpack or pocket, and would be a fun upgrade from my current, first generation Gameboy Advance that lacks a backlit screen (very painful, trust me). The Micro is only priced a shade less than the DS though, which offers TWO backlit screens, and plays not only GBA games, but also the new set of DS games that take advantage of the dual screen and touch pad.

The above list is pretty much in order of preference. It's a given that, if I get nothing else, I want a nice day with the family for my birthday. But if I were lucky enough to receive presents, Ninja Gaiden Black tops the list.

What would I "walk around" to at Fry's? I've been using my aging Gateway 2000 PC as a Linux computer for a while, but the old cow (FYI - all gateways come in boxes with cow spots, thus I refer to this lovable beast of burden as the big fat cow) just doesn't have the muscle to keep up anymore. I'd really like to have a bit swifter, second PC running Linux available. The reason is that our primary PC is getting bogged down by the services necessary to run all of the peripherals we've attached to it. I got a free motherboard from a buddy, and now all I need to get it running are the extras - hard drive, RAM, power supply / case, DVD. Once complete, I could attach all of our digital camera, video camera, scanner, printer, and other devices to it, and our primary PC could run smoothly again. Putting those items on a wishlist for someone else to buy is an exercise in getting people to hate me, so I chose to put "walking around money".

Hopefully this doesn't come off as incredibly selfish or greedy. Like I said at the start, I feel really good about how my life is going, and lucky to be in a position where I don't want for anything. Still, birthdays are a little bit about being selfish, so there is my list. Please coordinate with Jenn if you are getting anything, as she has a master list of who is getting what. Thanks family, I love you all!

Cool Optical Illusion

I love optical illusions, and this one was just too cool not to share.

http://www.patmedia.net/marklevinson/cool/cool_illusion.html

Combating Comment Spam

Several fellow bloggers have noticed comment spam creeping into their blogs. Comment spam is where you receive comments that advertise for Viagra or something and it is totally unrelated to your post. Fortunately, Blogger has introduced a new feature to help combat comment spam. It's called Word Verification. Word Verification shows an image on your comment entry screen and asks that the commenter enter the text from the image. The text is wavy, or slightly distorted in some way such that it can't be easily read by a program, but real people will have no problem recognizing it. It is a small extra step to make sure that your comments section don't get overrun with spam. I'll be turning it on here. If you have a blog, you might want to consider too.

Price of Freedom

We hear a lot in the news about the price of our freedoms. Usually it is in reference to the price we pay in lives defending our freedoms by sending troops to the middle east. I feel that the real price we pay for freedom, the one we pay everyday and will continue to pay so long as we wish to be a truly free society, was thrust into the limelight yesterday in Toledo, OH. If you haven't seen this in the news yet, a group called the National Socialist Movement had made arrangements for a police protected march through a portion of town. The National Socialist Movement is a self-called Nazi organization, promoting white supremacy ideals. What ensued was a major clash between local residents and youth gangs and the police ordered to supervise the march.

I want to make very clear that I couldn't disagree more with the politics that the National Socialist Movement promotes. I say that because I don't want there to be any confusion that I am defending their organization. However, I mentioned that Toledo was an example of the price we pay for our freedoms. The price we pay for our freedom of speech, our freedom of press, and our freedom to associate is that we have to endure others promoting ideas we don't agree with. Larry Flint is probably the greatest exploiter of this situation. Flint owns the publication house that produces pornographic magazines like Hustler, which have arguably little artistic content. Still, Flint has time and again found himself in front of the Supreme Court and other high courts, defending his right to produce such a publication based on those same freedoms we hold so dear.

Unfortunately, the result of the gathering in Toledo was chaos. Rather than ignore the march, which would deal the harshest blow possible to the group, people turned out in force and began rioting. This was precisely the type of behavior that the National Socialist Movement had hoped to incite, as it would reinforce the beliefs they promote. The people who turned out to riot were, in fact, helping the organization by providing much publicized images that they could then turn and use in their pamphlets.

The sad truth is that in order to enjoy our freedoms, we must also pay the price that we allow those with differing views from ours (and even ugly, disgusting beliefs like the National Socialist Movement promotes) be allowed to exercise their rights as much as we do. The best weapon that the people of Toledo could use against this group is not stones and rioting and violence, but to not provide any eyes and ears to receive the message. It is a difficult choice to make, to protest through inaction rather than action, but it is absolutely the best method in this case.

Microsoft is Scared

The conference I'm attending isn't put on by Microsoft, but it is covering Microsoft tools and most of the speakers are drinking the Microsoft Kool-Aid. It struck me tonight the Microsoft is definitely scared. Scared of Apple and especially scared of Google. Microsoft has gone through the last three decades following a farely predictable and very successful model. They wait for someone to innovate in a particularly interesting way. They then either buy the company that performed the innovation, or take all of their ideas and make an even better product out of it. It has happened time and again, and with the incredible wealth of the company, both financially and intellectually, they have been able to continuously squash competitors and march forward. This model is very dependent on one thing, though, and that is the assumption that the initial innovators suck at getting the product to market. Microsoft is an absolute champ at getting 2nd-generation software to market in an easy to use, well packaged form. In most cases, the initial innovator comes up with an outstanding idea that is very useful and people will love it. Unfortunately, the initial innovator spends all of their effort in developing the idea itself, and not in how to properly deliver it in a form that people will find easy to use. In other cases, the product may be easy to use and perfectly implements the innovative idea, but it is horribly ugly. Whatever the case may be, the initial innovator rushes to market with this astounding new product but leaves open a huge gap for improvement. In swoops Microsoft with their second generation product which is either a) the same product because MS bought the company, b) better because Microsoft took the idea and took advantage of the room for improvement, or c) bundled into the operating system, negating the need to install the competitors product. This pattern has been seen in the word processing space, the groupware space, the browser space, and in just about any area where Microsoft invests.

Microsoft is scared though. They are scared of Apple and of Google because they are innovating at a rapid pace, and they aren't making those first run mistakes that Microsoft can capitalize on. The iPod is a good example. There isn't anything particularly special about the iPod from a technical perspective. It is functionally just like any other digital music player: flash or hard drive storage, plays a variety of formats, easy to carry around. The iPod has one very important thing going for it that Microsoft know that it can't beat: it is sexy! The iPod broke new ground in that it oozed style when it first appeared. First generation MP3 players were ugly, unfriendly, geek toys. The iPod was sleek, and dead simple with the introduction of the click-wheel. Apple beat Microsoft to the punch in getting the second generation product out, and left little if any room for improvement. And Apple didn't stop there. They released iTunes, a music store for purchasing and downloading music for your iPod. I consider iTunes a first generation music store, and in this case, it was innovative while leaving very little room for improvement. There was little room for Microsoft to improve upon with a second generation implementation, and add to that the headache of working with the music industry to try to get the product integrated into the OS. Microsoft lost the battle before it even started. So now, at this conference, the Microsoft cheerleaders are begrudgingly giving away iPod minis that were provided as prizes by one of the vendors. It was almost sad that pathetic little rant that one speaker went into before giving one away. It went something like, "This is a piece of junk! How many of you have bought more than one iPod? It's because it's junk!". No one in the croud was sympathizing with him, and there were great cheers when each iPod was put up for raffle.

Google is the other fear inducer for Microsoft. Once again, Google developed a tremendous innovation in the world of search, but left little room for improvement. The interface was clean and simple. The results were quick and accurate. Microsoft tried, and largely failed to beat Google at the search game with the MSN portal, and later the start.com website. Now Google is expanding into other areas, and they are doing such a great job with their first iteration innovations that Microsoft is getting left in the dust. Google Maps, Frugal, Google Dictionary, Google Desktop Search, Picasa, Google Groups... a string of well done features. Certainly not all of these applications are new, but Google has done a great job of turning Microsoft's own game plan against them in the web world. MapQuest had good maps, now Google has fantastic mapping. Microsoft had a hard drive search feature, now Google has a fantastic desktop search tool. Google looks poised to continue this type of innovation and I'm sure the execs at Microsoft are wringing their hands over how to combat it. During this conference, Microsoft's own developers admitted under their breath that they were more likely to use Google Groups and other Google search tools to assist in solving their development issues than the equivalent MSN sites.

All that said, I don't think there is any chance of Microsoft seeing a drop in their stock price anytime soon. Microsoft has the operating system market securely in the bag, and it would take a monumental foul up on their part to lose it. Microsoft also has the productivity suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and GroupWare (Outlook, Great Plains, SharePoint) solidly handled. Now that I've been developing with Microsoft's programming tools, I have to admit that they are head and shoulders above the crowd of free tools on the market, and some commercial tools I've tried. Still, Microsoft has reason to be concerned because their once ever expanding future markets have hit a couple of walls. It will be very interesting to see how this all shakes out.