Recently in Gaming Category

Peanuts seems to be experiencing somewhat of a resurgence, nearly a decade after the passing of Charles Schulz.

For example, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! was shown on ABC on Halloween, and was something of a hot topic on Twitter for days. It has become one of the great enduring classics, along with Rudolph and Frosty, A Christmas Story, and so forth. But wait, there's more!

A new webseries based on classic strips from 1964 is being made available on iTunes (link opens in iTunes, naturally), with the first episode available for free download as of this posting. So far, reviews are very positive. The aforementioned Great Pumpkin special is also on iTunes for $9.99 (it also includes two bonus episodes).

On the gaming front, one of the more odd developments is from Square-Enix for Japan: a mini-game collection for the Nintendo DS called Snoopy DS: Let's Go Meet Snoopy and His Friends! While I have no idea whether this is destined for the States, it does seem to be geared mostly towards the younger crowd. As for the rest of us, a more appealing entry into the Peanuts franchise is Snoopy: WWI Flying Ace for PC and various console systems. It's a mashup of third-person action and air combat, and it looks like a lot of fun to play. I'll be keeping my eye on this one, and I'll probably end up picking up a copy when it's released..

For those of you looking for a little nostalgia, the entire collection of Peanuts strips is available online. That's all for now!

...get your mind out of the gutter, you. I braved the not-quite-freezing-but-still-cold, foggy night outside the Natomas Best Buy for over 13 hours to be one of the first in Sacramento (well, one of the first who didn't go to Wal-Mart at 6am or one of those few places that opened even earlier) to get my hands on a shiny new Nintendo Wii.

<does the "Wii wave" -- you would've had to be there to have any idea what I'm talking about ;) >

I'll post more about how ridiculously fun this thing is to play at a later date, I'm just taking a quick break from playing Wii Sports which is pretty much too darned cool for words. Later, folks!

So, yeah, I guess this was what I forgot about. It's been, what...two and a half months since my last post? Not a good sign. Guess I'd best start making up for lost time!

First topic: my job thus far. In a nutshell, it's been crazy. Long hours, bouncing all over the place in the "G-jet", filling out enough paperwork to drive an IRS auditor insane...yeah, welcome to the world of Navy recruiting. I'm starting to wish I'd gone for that instructor billet after all... So, work leaves much to be desired. (What else is new?) Thankfully, "it gets better," so they say. We'll see about that.

That rant aside, time to move on. Next up: entertainment! Once I got the apartment setup more or less the way I wanted it, the next step was to start finding ways to keep from being bored for those rare periods I would be able to enjoy between work and sleep. Internet was already taken care of, but you can only surf and play simple games on a computer for so long before the need to do something else sets in. So, after careful deliberation (about 5 minutes' worth), I decided to head out and pick up a decent television. I already had a TV, thanks to my grandparents, but I decided that since I'm going to be here for the long haul I might as well pick up a set with a bit more lasting power. Enter the Westinghouse LTV-32w6, a 32" LCD HDTV on sale at Best Buy for $899. Oooooh, pretty. So, TV: check.

The next step was to obtain decent cable TV. This was a bit more challenging, as it required me to set an appointment that required my physical presence at the apartment during Comcast's working hours. So, that pretty much eliminated Monday to Friday, as my typical arrival at home tends to be between 7 and 9 in the evening. That left Saturday, which was itself hit-or-miss since I've been working quite a few of those, too. So, I set an appointment for the first Saturday they had an opening, which was a week and a half away. Bleh. Saturday rolls around, and the appointment is scheduled for between 1pm-5pm. 5pm rolls around...nothing. I call Comcast, and find out that the cable guy is behind schedule, but should still show up that day. So, the waiting continues. Around 7pm, Comcast calls me, telling me that they're still behind, and confirming that I still want them to install my cable tonight -- of course I do. I continue to wait. Finally, at around 8:45pm, I get a call from the cable guy himself, saying that he's on his way -- but he has no idea how to get to my apartment complex. I give him directions, and tell him to call again when he gets close so I can direct him right to the apartment. Thankfully, he finds the place just fine and shows up about 15 minutes later. Then, the real fun begins.

The first part of the process went by just fine, aside from the fact that the guy didn't show up until nearly 4 hours after the scheduled time. Then, we break out the cable converter (an HDTV box, the only one he had with him since it was a last-minute request), and lo and behold...it doesn't work. We double-check all the connections, power-cycle the box a couple times, but no good -- it refuses to display a single channel, even though we know the cable itself is fine because basic channels work just fine when plugged directly into the TV. So, we pull a regular cable converter box (also the only one he had) out of the guy's van and plug it in...and it doesn't work either. So, the guy shows up four hours late (not really his fault, mind you, but still kinda annoying) and neither of the boxes he brought with him even works. Joy. So, after a few calls to the Comcast help desk, I decide that I'll simply drive down to the customer service center in a couple days and pick up a new HDTV box and install it myself. Thankfully, the new box works just fine, so coupled with a Sony 5-disc HD-upscaling DVD player I now have a halfway decent entertainment center.

Fast-forward a couple weeks. I sense that there's still something missing (actually, a couple somethings, but I'm going to wait a bit before picking up a decent audio system). On a trip to Fry's after work that Friday, I made the mistake of passing through the video game console section...and I felt it calling to me, drawing me in. The temptation was too great to resist, and about twenty minutes (and some $400+) later I found myself lugging a brand-new Xbox 360 to my car. Let me tell you, if you have one of these systems and you don't have an HDTV to go along with it, you're missing out. The graphics on this thing are simply beautiful in HD.

Xbox Live Arcade is probably one of the biggest selling points of the hardware, and now I can see why: some of these games are ridiculously addictive. Geometry Wars: Evolved in particular has consumed the most of my gaming time, along with Joust and, of course, Uno. Overall, the Xbox 360 experience has been so far outstanding, and has given me (so far) a favorable impression of this next-generation console.

Moving along... A few quick notes before I close. First up, WWDC 2006 is coming up fast, and the Mac community is waiting with baited breath to see what surprises Steve and Co. have in store for us. Will the fabled iPhone make its debut? Or will the ridiculously powerful Mac Pro steal the show? The only thing we know for sure is that the next generation of Mac OS X, Leopard, will be featured prominently. I'm looking forward to watching the keynote video stream in a couple weeks -- it's not quite the same as actually being there, but seeing as passes to the conference are a cool $1,595, I think it will have to suffice.

Also, another cool event is coming soon that I'm pondering making the trip for: MacMania V, a Geek Cruise to the Western Caribbean from October 28th to November 4th. I'll be getting my annual re-enlistment bonus payment on October 1st, so if I decide to spring for this, it'll be awfully close to the deadline...but hey, it's a cruise (that I won't have to work on) AND a Mac convention rolled into one! The downside is that I'd have to rush to get a passport before the cruise if I decide to go...something that I've been meaning to do for a few years now but never really got around to. I suppose now is as good a time as any...

Whew. OK, that's all for tonight. Maybe I'll get around to adding a few links to this post in the next day or two...I'm feeling a bit too lazy to do it right now. :P

I finally managed to get Kingdom Hearts 2 running on my existing PS2 -- after nearly six hours of failed attempt after failed attempt. But I'll be darned if it wasn't worth the effort.

In fact, I'm actually surprised that I've been able to stop playing for long enough to type this entry. To be fair, I've also got to spend a few minutes clearing out room on one (or both) of my PS2 memory cards for savegames, so I suppose now is as good a time as any to take a break. I've made it to the Land of Dragons (Mulan's world), and this game has been a blast so far! Definitely, absolutely worth the wait (even if I can only understand about 5% of the dialogue; I'm familiar enough with the storyline by now that I've been able to keep up well enough). Only a very select few games have drawn me in this completely: the original Kingdom Hearts; La Pucelle Tactics; and now, Kingdom Hearts 2.

I'm going to see how far I can make it before the US release; I might even try to finish it first before I play the English version, just so the effort to that point won't be wasted (and who knows...there might be something special in one version that isn't present in the other -- remember the differences between the original Japanese and US releases of Kingdom Hearts, and its Japanese re-release in the form of Final Mix?

OK, enough gushing...time to get back to playing. I've got me some Heartless to kill!

My import copy of Kingdom Hearts II arrived whilst I was out to sea, and is now in my hands. The problem is simple: I lack a system capable of playing the game, as my non-imported PS2 (for the moment) lacks this important capability. My choices are simple:

1. Purchase a brand new import PS2 (with shiny satin-silver finish!) for the sole purpose of playing import games; or,
2. Purchase a modchip (or software-based alternative) to enable my current older-generation PS2 to do the same.

The problem with the former is that the import console will only be able to play imported games; the problem with the latter is that there's a chance that I will find a way to render the PS2 inoperable in the process of modding it (not an insignificant chance, either). I never thought that I would ever have to perform a risk assessment just to play a freaking videogame.

In other news...the iTunes Billionth Song Countdown. As of tonight (Wednesday the 22nd), the iTunes Music Store is selling at a rate of about 60 songs per second. That equates to over 200,000 songs per hour; as of this writing (20:15 PST) the counter is at approximately 999,727,000 songs, and if the trend continues (or accelerates, as it inevitably will) the 1 billionth song will be sold in about one and a half hours. I'm lining up an album or two I've been holding off on for a while to try to snag it; a 20" iMac, 10 60GB iPods, and a $10K iTMS card are definitely nothing to sneeze at!

More to come later.

So, I got my copy of the Kingdom Hearts II soundtrack today.  I like.  While a lot of the tracks are remixes from the first game, most of them sound much better -- though there are exceptions.  Now, all I need is the game...which I finally broke down and ordered from YesAsia today.  I'd better start brushing up on my Japanese...

In other news, I finally picked up and installed a copy of World of Warcraft.  Daaaaaang...I knew I should have resisted the urge.  So much for my free time for the next few months.  (But hey...at least I remembered to post something here, for once!)  So, if any of you playing on Agamaggan spot a hapless, bumbling undead mage wandering around aimlessly...hook a brother up!  :D

On yet another subject (I will find a way to put something from every category in this one post, just you wait!), I've rediscovered the usefulness of my second-generation iPAQ hx4700, after dabbling with another pair of Windows Mobile devices -- the i-mate PDA2K (HTC Blue Angel) and Qtek 9100 (HTC Wizard).  Of those two, the Wizard is my favorite:  a tiny, full-featured Pocket PC Phone Edition running Windows Mobile 5, with built-in Bluetooth, 801.11g, GSM/GPRS/EDGE capability, and a 1.3MP camera to boot.  On the flipside, I just upgraded the PDA2K to WM5 (using an unofficial ROM, since I'm not using the device for anything particularly important), and it seems to be behaving just fine for now, where it had serious stability issues under its native WM2003SE.  I'll see how it performs over the next few weeks or so, and post a follow-up then with my verdict.

Meantime, I'm debating what to do with this year's tax refund...  A large part of me is wanting to splurge on a new 17" iMac Core Duo, whilst the remaining part (commonly known to most as "common sense") strongly advises saving instead of spending, seeing as I've got (yet another) move followed immediately by a cross-country drive to Florida coming in a couple months.  Decisions, decisions...

And...well, that's about it.  I guess I had to run out of stuff to babble about eventually.

Just one more quick reminder for anyone who ended up here (instead of at the article you expected) from an outdated search engine link:  the old Spectator Mode archives can still be found at http://www.specmode.net/blogger.