For my birthday, my wife completely surprised me and got me an Xbox 360! I was not able to do anything with it for a few days because we were in North Carolina, but the day we got back I had it hooked up and ready for action.
The Xbox 360 is amazing device that really has set the bar high for Sony and Nintendo when they release their next-generation console. First off, it supports HDTV right out of the box, also the console can be turned on and off from the wireless controller, and the controller itself is smaller then the orginal Xbox controller with better button designs.
The day after setting up the console, it traded in a bunch of old games for a couple 360 games (Ghost Recon-Advanced Warfighter, and Project Gotham Racing) to test drive on the new system; I put Ghost Recon for a spin and sat back to enjoy. At first I thought ‘is this it? The graphics aren’t that much better.’ I paused the game to check both the in-game settings and the 360’s settings, both were set to the highest HD quality (1080i). So I went back to the game and within a few minutes of playing I started to see the added improvements.
It’s subtle, but it’s there. With the Xbox 360, the gamemakers are able to add the little things that help the game seem more realistic. In Ghost Recon, if the character is taking cover from gun fire behind a car, the enemies will shoot out the windows and you can see small shards of glass bounce off the character. It’s little details like glass bouncing off the character’s head that were missing from previous games consoles.
I have yet to sign up for an Xbox Live account, but will probably do so in the next few weeks to give it try. I’m also looking forward to trying out the Windows Media Center extension portion of the 360 (videos, music, and photos can be streamed to the 360 from a Windows Media Center PC). If there’s a downside to this device it’s probably one of these two things: It’s loud (cooling fans spin constantly) and the external power supply is rather large (about one-third the size of the game console). But I would trade it for anything.
This week I swung a golf club for the first time in seven years, maybe eight years. That time I was hanging out in someone’s backyard in Napa hitting golf balls into the neighbors vineyard. The one thing I remember from that experience is the: don’t model one’s golf swing after one’s baseball swing. Golf is a game about controlled power; swing too hard and the ball will either sail wide left or wide right, or one will just completely miss the ball and look stupid.
I remembered this lesson when I golfed with my friends from Ohio at a local public golf course on Wednesday. As I’m standing at the first tee the only thought that’s running through my head is ‘don’t miss the ball, don’t miss the ball, don’t miss the ball’ followed by ‘just hit the ball past the we women’s tees. That’s only 10 yards.’
So I take my first golf swing in seven years and hit the ball high and deep. I’m feeling pretty good about myself for about two seconds, then the ball starts drifting left, drifting left, drifting left, and I start thinking ‘just don’t land in the water hazard.’ The ball clears the pond but keeps drifting left, then I’m thinking ‘just don’t hit the houses.’ Finally the ball bounces into the tall grass and stops.
What I take from this first swing is this: my shots have a tendency to drift left. I hacked my way onto the green and putt in for a 10 on a par 4 hole.
The next hole I decide to play this “left slice” and aim to the far right. This time the ball lands on the fringe of the fairway and I’m thinking ‘okay, got the hang of this. Just keep aiming far right and the ball will go where it’s supposed to.’ However, this strategy was flawed. Every once in a great while I would actually hit the ball straight! No slice, nothing. The ball would land squarely on the fairway…on a different hole!
After three hours of golf, my score was 73… on the front nine! For those who aren’t into golf, par for nine holes is 36, I doubled that and then some! And I’m not even going to mention my iron shots (horrible), or how I tried to whack the ball out of dirt and ripped up my right hand.
But I’ll tell you this: I can’t wait to do it again.
Remember Monopoly? The game that never ends! I would sometimes play the board game at my grandma’s house for hours, not because I enjoyed it, but because no one had won.
One of the other downsides to monopoly was the funny money. It’s hard to keep all those fake bills organized; set up and clean up were always a mess.
But now that will change. Parker Brothers and Visa have reached a deal to replace the funny money with fake debit cards and card readers! Currently it’s only available through the Hasbro’s UK store but will probably make it’s way to the US pretty quickly.
I’m not sure how I feel about this update. On one hand, it’s reflects the times we’re living in (I rarely use cash any more). On the other hand, Mr. Moneybags turning his pockets inside out to show he’s out of money is much more interesting/dramatic than seeing him stand in front of an ATM machine with a screen that reads “Insufficient Funds.”
I know I’ve been posting alot about Snakes on a Plane, but this time it’s actually about snakes-in my yard!
It was time to mow the yard so I started with the backyard. Started up the mower, cut a small section of grass, then paused to grab a tennis ball on lawn. As I moved toward the tennis ball, something started moving in the grass; once the it made it to the recent cut part of the grass I saw a small garden snake (probably 16-inches long) winding it’s way under our deck.
After finishing the backyard, I pulled the mower to the front yard. I always try to clean up the large branches and twigs that have fallen from the oak trees before mowing. As I was picking up stick, I almost picked up a snake by mistake, but it slithered in the ivy.
Now I didn’t think I’d be afraid of snakes (especially small garden snakes), but I seeing these snakes in my yard had my heart beating a little faster.
On the good side, I now know why there are less bugs in around house.
I’m really conflicted about the new Samuel L. Jackson movie Snakes on a Plane. On one hand, Sam Jackson is always entertaining, on the other hand it’s a movie called Snakes on a Plane!
Then I came across this music video for the theme song to Snakes on a Plane. It’s possibly the worst video I’ve seen in a while, yet has an indie rock all star cast with members from groups like The Academy Is… and The Sounds.
This movie seems bound for the “So-Bad-It’s-Good” category, but it seems that everyone invovled in the movie is trying so hard to make it a Cult Classic that I’m hoping they don’t miss.
[tags] Snakes on a Plane, The Sounds, The Academy Is…[/tags]
Someone has decided to a Snakes on a Plane-like board game called Cobras in the Cockpit. However you are not the “Bad Mother#@%” or the Air Marshall; you play as the Snakes! I’m not sure if this is really smart, or really bad.
The middle movie in a trilogy is probably the trickiest one to create because it tries to do two things:
Expand the story line/world of the characters;
Leave the audience wanting more at the end;
These movie does not have a true beginning or end which leaves the audience:
a) wanting the final installment to come out Now;
b) frustrated and confused about where the story’s going
c) the writers and directors are taking the story in a direction you care about.
The plot of this story follows Jack Sparrow’s search for the dead man’s chest in order to avoid repaying a debt to Davey Jones. Meanwhile Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann are arrested for helping Jack escape a trip to the hangman’s gallows. The only way for them escape the same fate is to retrieve Jack’s compass that “doesn’t point North.” And so we’re off on a two and half hour adventure with Jack, Will and Elizabeth.
Except that this time, I didn’t really care about any of these characters. Johnny Depp’s performance as Jack Sparrow in the first movie was funny, but there were subtle hints that Jack Sparrow was not the goof that he appears; Jack was a complicated character and Depp deserved an Oscar nomination. This time around the Jack Sparrow is a selfish goof ball who’s more about comic relief than anything else.
Also there’s barely enough of a plot fill two hours worth of a movie, so how did the director drag this out for another thirty minutes? By throwing in unnecessary action sequences. There’s a five minute bar fight sequence at the island of Tortuga that could have been cut out and not missed. Another fight sequence near the end where Will, Jack, and Norrington are fighting on a paddle wheel gets old after few minutes, but is dragged on for about 10 minutes.
However this movie does have it’s good points. The special effects are pretty amazing and the costume designs for Davey Jones’ crew members are menacing. Also Stellen Skarsgard gives an excellent performance as the solemn Bootstrap Bill Turner.
Also this movie reminded me of two things I had run across on the web:
Two nights ago a heavy downpour moved through Lexington and I was afraid that our broken gutter would finally fall off the house. Well that didn’t happen, but something else did.
If one were to call our house, one would not reach us. You wouldn’t even get our answering machine because of a short in a telephone wire somewhere in our house. Our cordless phone reads “Extension is Use” which usually means if the answering machine is on or if someone is on the line upstairs.
I unplugged the answering machine-”Extension in Use”
I unplugged the upstairs phone-”Extension in Use”
This happened once before and we made a service call to Alltel to fix the problem. They fixed the problem and said that it may have been caused by metal staples holding one telephone cord to the baseboards. But this is the second time this has happened -both after heavy rain storms.
I took a look at our upstairs telephone line, traced it to the wall, then into the other room and finally to it’s endpoint in the interior of the house. The telephone line ends at a window where the previous owners drilled a hole through the window frame, then ran the rest of the line along the roof then down the side to the telephone box on the first floor.
It’s only a guess, but I’m thinking that problem is somewhere on the exterior of the house. Something like a squirrel or a racoon probably chewed or scratched the line and now it shorts whenever it rains.
But that’s only a guess and we’ll hopefully have the Alltel experts come out and take a look at the problem for us, again.
Yesterday my wife took one of our other foster dogs to a new home in Louisville. We thought Charlie would be with us for a while, but after an incident in which he bit one of our friend’s hand the Pug Rescue group wanted Charlie to stay with a board member to observe his aggression issues.
Charlie’s probably still a puppy (I’m guessing he’s a little over 1) who’s full of energy and could almost jump into your arms from a standing position. He loved nothing more than to curl up next to my wife and just hang out or sometimes chew a bone.
But he’s with another loving family and we’re down to one foster dog, Otis. But he may soon be leaving us for a permanent home at Fort Knox; the Pug Rescue folks want to make sure he’s fully recovered from any health problems before he goes to his new family, so we’ll be watching him until then.
It looks like we may soon return to the way things were: just two dogs.
After a cookout at our house on Sunday, my friend asked “I brought my cornhole set, wanna play?”
Now if you’ve never heard of this sport, let me pass on a word of advice from someone at OSU: Turn on “Safe Search” before doing a Google search for “Cornhole” or “Cornholing.”
ANYWAYS, this sport is really big in southern Ohio and Kentucky. It’s similar to horseshoes but instead of throwing horseshoes at a stake you throw small bags of corn kernels onto an angled wooden plank with a hole in it.
It may not sound like much (and it may have a horrible name) but it’s really addictive. We played until it was too dark to play anymore (probably two hours?) and would have played one more game even though I was down 3 games to 0.
The first time I played this game was in Ohio and remember that it was fun but something that I could take or leave. This time was different; the next morning while walking into the office I was practicing my throwing motion and I’m looking forward to playing again.
