Best Day Ever

Today began with myself and friend Brandon going to the Inner Harbor in order to see the Orioles game. The tickets were $50 face value and it was costing me nothing. Most definitely a good start to a Saturday.

On our way to the field, we stopped over at the Baltimore Comic Convention. Normally I wouldn't give a crap about such an event. But this time there were some very special guests; Tycho and Gabe of Penny Arcade. We didn't have the money to get in, but I couldn't walk away from the building without seeing my two heroes.

As luck would have it, an old Loyola Alumni I knew was leaving the event with his friends. Apparently secuirty was lax, and the only proof of payment was a paper armband. With some careful finagling Brandon and I managed to walk in, for free, with two of their armbands. I got to meet Tycho and Gabe, and got a signed poster to boot. I think I can die happy now.

After that, we watched the O's win a game, got dollar drinks at the stadium, and before the night was over I landed a couple of rare PS2 games that were on sale.


Best Day Ever? If not, it was damn close.

P.S. - despite what some people may say about them, Tycho and Gabe are both class acts and very personable guys. Despite all their success they're still very humble guys who really appreciate their fans.

The Revolution

There it is. The controller for the Nintendo Revolution. The device that will change gaming forever, or fall into supreme obscurity.

I'm sure you have all seen the comments and opinions no it made by all sorts of gamers. The responses are almost completely split between immense awe and its polar opposite of intense hatred. I personally have a lot of questions, as well as some doubts as to how much the mass market will adopt it.

Yet no console annoucnement has got me thinking quite so much as this one. The wannabe developer in me has never been so excited. My imagination is going 100mph.

I believe Nintendo. Now show me more.

The week is flying by. I guess that is a good thing.

Anyway, so much to talk about, so little of it I remember.

-Xbox 360 is out Nov 22nd. Not a big deal, but at least we have a concrete date.

-Finally got my car patched up, and then yesterday night heard the brakes squeeking just a littile bit. I'm hoping this isn't the beginning of a car bad-luck streak.

-Screens of Metal Gear 4 have been swimming through the web. Let the hype begin.

And honestly, that is all that I can remember to say. If I remember anything else I'll update this space.

grumbles

I guess its just my luck that soon after getting a new car, the battery dies and my tire may have a leak. I need to resolve these issues today, so I am not grounded for the rest of the week. Too bad everyone I've asked for help has seemed reluctant to do so. Are they lazy? Busy? I can't really say.

I started learning the programming language Python for one of my classes, and so far I like it. It is very simple and elegant, though part of that comes from the fact that it uses indentation rather than brackets or braces for determining the ends of loops etc. Its built in lists structure is also incredibly handy for finding pretty much anything and everything that is stored in them. No messy "for" loops like in C++ that take forever to go through.

Actually, I am finding that while C and C++ are very useful and very powerful, they're also very old, especially when it comes to text processing. That's not quite a knock on them as much as it is a reminder to learn some other languages that may be more handy for certain projects.

Is it just me or is there a huge wave of hop-hop/gangsta games coming out. Let's see: 187 Ride or Die, 50 Cent Bulletproof, TrueCrime New York, Beat Down Fists of Vengeance, and at least one more I can't put my finger on. I know the pop culture scene is all about ghetto, but this is just a little excessive. Right?

On a final note, I still find the fascination college kids seem to have with beer pong and Miller Lite to be incredible. One is a pointless game that seems to sober more than inebriate, and the other is something that is beer in name only.

The Grind

Good artical here about the rising prices of Next Gen systems and software. I like that the initial responses are made by big name publishers and are classic PR fluff about how the enhanced quality of the games will justify the increases in price, . Then there are responses from actual developers that worry about the reaction consumers will have to $60 games.

I too am curious about the next generation. We all know the gaems will look better, and some may be bigger. But will they play better? Need for Speed Most Wanted is going to be an Xbox 360 launch game, but how much better will it play next to the say, Underground 2 or Hot Pursuit? The current generation offered a significant graphical upgrade, but a lot of Playstation 2 games play an awful lot like Playstation 1 games. I don't really if I'm willing to shell out ten dollars more for a game that plays the same and only lasts me ten hours, simply because it looks a little shinier.

All that bragging I did about my excellent text book shopping is now null and void; the one book I had to buy at the bookstore ended up costing me almost half as much as the total for my other four classes. I hang my head in shame.

Classes themselves are doing fine. I'm actually doing my readings on time, and find myself (so far) with enough energy to comprehend them.

Students on campus are still the same; big granny glasses, torn jeans and dirty looks whenever I walk around with my Mets cap on. At this point I don't know if I would have it any other way.

I upgrade my computer's RAM to a gig today, and it still seems to run choppy. I must contniue to investigate this phenom, though its probably the decrepit VPN software/antivirus we use to access the web.

Back on campus

I never thought that driving back to college on Labor Day would be so simple. There was absolutely no traffic to deal with even in the city. Heck, there were hardly any cars to deal with! I can only imagine what the roads were like about two hours later.

But I really don't care about that. I'm back, 1st class is about to start in ten minutes, and I have only one major issue to tackle: My cell phone is on its very last legs. The screen has been flickering in and out for the last week, and last night it went dead for good. now it is having troubles powering down and the reception is horrid. I'm thinking of making an early trip to the mall tomorrow before my four block of classes at noon.

1up has an interesting article about the Playstation, which turns 10 very soon. It has some interesting facts about the history of the machine, but for the most part it seems to be another oppurtunity for the gaming media to give Sony a free ride (which they've been doing for the last ten years) and kiss their butts. While it is true that the CD based systems of the time were an absolute wreck, and the only other option was the eventual cartrdige based Nintendo 64, if the Playstation didn't exist I don't believe gaming would have crashed and burned. Instead, I think Sega would have had an even bigger market for the Dreamcast, and Nintendo would have eventually adopt the CD format in order to keep up with Sega.

There's no doubt that the Playstation did a lot of good for the industry. But I also believe it did some harm by changing the focus of a lot of genres towards glitz and graphics rather than solid gameplay, and by popularizing blood, gore, sex and other "mature" themes in the eyes of the new money maker, the mainstream consumer.

I saw that MTV has a new show devoted entirely to showing rich girls celebrate their sweet 16's. Are TV viewers really that desperate/stupid?

Road Lag

Note: I've been asked to double post this blog I have on livejournal as well as Blogger. If you're a big lj user, you can read the Hyper Blog Edition Turbo here as well. Keep in mind that Blogger will still be the primary home for this (I'm a google fan dontchaknow), so if you aren't seeing any update on the lj version for a while, you might want to check over here just in case I forgot to update both.

I have (of all all things) a wedding to attend on Sunday, the same day as student check in at Loyola. So I spent the last two days driving to Maryland in order to check in and drop my things off early. Unfortunately the process was a bit frustrating; my key didn't work at first, and either my parents or Sallie Mae made an error with my Plus Loans, meaning that I couldn't check in at first (and until its all resolved, I'm on financial hold. I guess I'm a rebel). Thankfully the Student Life were extra helpful, even checking me in during their lunch. It was much appreciated, so I'd like to say a big thank you to all of them (if they ever read this).

At least I got to see my significant other. That made it all worthwhile.

So, until Sunday, I have a lot of time to waste on my trusty computer, the only thing I couldn't trust leaving on campus alone (though my Dreamcast is over there, and I'm stewing like a concerned parent over that). I think I'll finish up a review or two if I can, and maybe ponder the meaning of life if I go to the beach.

P.S. - Loyola people: If something cool happens this weekend, don't tell me. Ignorance is bliss.

P.P.S - a nugget of joy at the end of the rainbow. That Resident Evil review I was talking about a few days ago is done and posted. I'd like to say it is my best yet, but I'm probably not the best judge of that.