So, it’s been a touch since I’ve updated the blog. What’s been up? Not much, really. Work is work – kind of a mix of fun, frustrating, interesting and stupid. I guess most jobs are, but whatever. FINALLY finished watching Season 3 of Battlestar Galactica (eh, it was alright), and starting to get through Heroes (which, as of maybe halfway through the season is awesome). Halo 3’s out, which is obviously pretty big news. It’s more Halo, which is more or less exactly what I wanted. Multiplayer’s super fun, single player’s more of the same, but much prettier.

People have been complaining about the graphics. It’s almost funny, except it’s also kind of tragic. Halo 3’s about as good as I can imagine Halo looking. The people’s faces and lipsync aren’t all that great, I’ll admit, but the environments, the scale, the textures and the Master Chief all look *spectacular*, and there’s a lot of really nice lighting effects that look *right*. They don’t look next-gen for next-gen’s sake. They don’t have random bloom. They aren’t brown. They’re very impressive, but remarkably natural, and subtle looking (even if they aren’t natural or subtle). The game looks great.

The sad thing is, what it really shows is that people aren’t thinking about graphics based on some absolute. The bar’s been raised by games like Gears of War, and it’s only getting higher. The problem is, there’s only a few companies that can deliver graphical quality like that. Most game developers simply don’t have the resources to even do half, or a third of what Bungie or Epic can do – and if gamer’s expectations are so high that something like Halo 3 can be classified as unattractive, it really speaks volumes about how difficult it is to keep up with the Joneses these days. Literally, I guess (and if you get the reference, you’re at least as big a nerd as me).

Have you ever heard a presidential speech with more straw men and logical fallacies than Bush’s speech today? “Some say (something ridiculous). I say (obviously desirable whatever)!” The entire speech was basically nothing but straw men, bullshit spin, and utter nonsense. I’m sure there are some outright lies in there, as well – 36 nations helping in Iraq? Come on.

But the most stunning thing was simply how far we’ve fallen. Political speeches are often distorted – that’s not something new – but I’ve never heard a speech that I found more desperate, or blatantly, utterly devoid of sincerity as today’s address. The Democrat response to the speech by comparison was so straightforward and free of the idiotic condescension that Bush seems unable to avoid that it was a breath of fresh air.

It’s amazing that this is our “leader.” I doubt he could lead a row of ducks.

So, over the last week, as a couple of you already know, I built a stone path in my backyard. Ei-Nyung, Sean, and a friend from work helped out – Sean and M. helped move more than two tons of rock from the driveway to the backyard, and Sean helped move another whole mess of gravel. Without the help, there’s no way it’d have been done in time, but with the help, the path was finished in a week (to within two hours).

It’s basically a path of bluish-greyish gravel and pinkish-orange stone that runs from the base of the backyard, in lazy S-curves all the way up to the loquat tree in the back. I used our electric tiller to create the pathway, then poured down two coats of gravel, placed the stones, poured on gravel to fill the cracks, soaked the thing with water, then added more gravel where it’d settled.

On the slope between the first and second tiers of the backyard, I found some rebar and a collapsed retaining wall that had to be removed. Over the course of about two days, I dug out the wall, used an electric jackhammer to break up the concrete, and a sawzall to cut out the rebar to the point where it was well below the surface. I used the tiller to create a smoothed out slope, soaked the dirt with water, and jumped around on it to compact it at least a bit.

All in all, it’s turned out pretty well – it divides the backyard up neatly into more manageable chunks, makes the whole thing much more accessible, and lends it some much-needed perspective. That is, it used to be that you could look at the backyard and have no idea how big it was – now, when you look at it, you can see from the path how far it goes back.

It was definitely a week well spent. The project was immensely satisfying, dramatically improves the back yard, and though tiring, was really … fun.

Not something I want to do again for at least a while, but there’s still some gravel to haul to the back. Maybe another hour or two of work, just to clear out the driveway. Good times.

So, I’m a little torn. On Saturday, I had a pretty good customer service experience. I walked in to the Apple store for a Genius Bar appointment I’d made the day before. I explained my problem, the guy helped me quickly, courteously, and the problem was resolved absolutely to my satisfaction. Everyone was very friendly, the atmosphere was great, and overall, it was a really pleasant experience. So far, every time I’ve had to bring an issue to Apple’s attention, it’s been handled very gracefully.

On the other hand, I’ve never had a laptop with this many physical problems. So far, the case has spontaneously cracked in three places – once on the wrist rest near where my right wrist sits, at the edge, and this time, in two places – on the bottom part of the case near the front left on the side, and again by the USB port on the same side.

I haven’t been treating this laptop any differently than I did the VAIO I used to have, but that thing’s case was magnesium, and I could probably have dropped a truck on it without it breaking. So, on one hand, Apple’s customer service is stellar, but on the other hand, Apple’s products force me to use the customer service, so it had *better* be stellar.

I don’t think this really evens out, unfortunately, it’s really a tick not in Apple’s favor, in the same way that the new extended warranty for the 360’s RROD problems isn’t really all that positive a thing for Microsoft.

That said, I’ve had the laptop for a couple months now, and I *really* like it. The physical design of the case is really leaps and bounds above any other laptop I’ve ever used. While the Macbook was in the shop, I used Ei-Nyung’s ThinkPad, and it really felt quite alien. The keys felt really odd, and it just had all these bits and bobs that made it look … inelegant.

I hope that this is the last of my problems with the MacBook, but I’m not gonna cross my fingers. I’ll definitely have to get AppleCare for this thing before the year’s up.

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On a totally different note, the project I’m working on is chugging along nicely. About halfway done with two steps in the process, with one step starting tomorrow. I think I’ll have it done by the end of the week, but we’ll see. I think the last step is going to be a bit more time consuming than I think, even though I think it’ll be pretty time consuming.

It’s freakin’ TIRING though, and damn, it’s hot these days.

Started a project. I don’t want to say specifically what it is, ’cause I want to surprise the ‘rents, who are coming to town next week. It involves a ridiculous amount of physical labor, though, and holy moly, it’s tiring. It’s coming along nicely, but honestly, I wouldn’t have expected I’d need a jackhammer. Thanks, S&H! Without that, the thing I was able to do today probably would have taken two solid days alone. Yeesh!

So… what’s up these days, anyway?

1.) Car: The paint job on the car’s basically stalled – I’ve probably legitimately got two full coats to go, with an additional two edging coats. It’s not a huge amount of work, but work’s been really tiring recently, and I just haven’t had it in me to actually spend the time to finish it up. I’ll knock it down next week for sure.

2.) Work: Nothing much going on, really. The good thing is…

3.) Time Off: I have next week off. I’ll knock down the car paint job, and I’d like to do something else with the time as well – something I wouldn’t be able to do otherwise. I was thinking maybe I would try to make a path in the back yard, and do some weeding in the front yard. Not terribly impressive, but whatever.

4.) Games: Finished Bioshock – the game was pretty extraordinary. Without giving anything away, it was 95% awesome – the problem is the 5% that failed to follow up on that initial 95% was so obviously absent that it really felt … missing. Great game, great structure, and it really has something to say about games. To me, it’s easily the best statement about interactivity in games that I’ve ever seen. Super Puzzle Fighter HD is coming out tomorrow, which I’m pretty psyched for.

Other than that… yeah, I dunno. Not a hell of a lot else going on.

So, I just read something interesting on Kotaku – they were talking about how basically at Leipzig, Nintendo gave them a booth tour that showed them that what was the “gamer” crowd is no longer Nintendo’s target market.

Now, I think that’s great – I think it’s utterly astonishing that Nintendo’s gotten grandmothers and such into gaming. Amazing. And a lot of companies are thinking, “Oh, man! We didn’t invest enough in the Wii! Spend spend spend!” But what’s interesting to me is that if Microsoft sells 6 million 360’s to people who will buy, on average, say, 15 games, Nintendo sold 7 million Wiis to people who over the last 10 or 20 years have bought a grand total of one game. Wii Sports.

Now, I don’t doubt that Nintendo will find the Nintendogs or the Brain Age of the Wii, and they’ll sell a ton of those to grandma & grandpa. But the EAs of the world who are thinking, “Crap! We’ve missed the boat!” – what happens to them? The people who’ve bought the Wii aren’t going to be interested in Medal of Valor 8. They’re just not. And if EA or whoever expects to sell to this crowd, I shudder to think what’ll happen when they realize that these are people who will buy maybe 1 more first party game in the course of the console’s 5 year lifespan and not a damn thing else.

So… thirty-one, and I’m periodically reminded that I’m still a completely immature asshole. Things that shouldn’t bother me still really, really do. A stupid oversight on people’s part in one instance, a stupid oversight on one person’s in another.

In both cases, I should just say, “who cares?” and be done with it. Nothing’s going to get better by me being pissed about it forever, nothing’s going to change the past, and in this case, it’s the past that *matters*. They’re not huge things, but they’re things I’m reminded about frequently these days, for some reason.

And the thing is, what do I get by being pissed, anyway? In one instance, I’m passing up an event that’ll only happen once. Will I look back on it and think, “That was dumb.” Of course. But that doesn’t change the fact that if I *go*, I’ll just be resentful and pissed off the whole time. In the other case, I’m being pissed about something that’s almost totally irrelevant. I dunno – it’s just one of those stupid things where you’ve got a group that takes a deliberate and thoughtful interaction in a bunch of previous instances, then when it comes around to your “turn,” nothing happens. Any sense of group dynamic disappears. Some individuals remain thoughtful and considerate, and others are nowhere to be found.

Yeah, it doesn’t matter. Yeah, I’m being an ass. Yeah, it’s all completely fucking ridiculous. And it reminds me that I’m still not the person I hope to be one day.

Ah, well. It’s good to know what I need to work on. :\

So, week after next, I have a week off, and no real plans for anything specific. I want to finish painting the roof of the car, and I have weeding in the front yard that has to be done. But what I was thinking I might do is sleep only when I want to. That is, rather than sleeping from ~1:30-8, which is about what I’m doing these days, I’ll sleep when I’m tired, and not when I’m not. So, rather than going to bed at 1:30, I’ll go to bed when I’m actually at a point where I could fall asleep almost instantaneously, then stay up until I feel that way again.

I’m curious whether a 24-hour cycle is “right” for me, because it really doesn’t feel like it – I feel like I’m on more like a 30-hour cycle, and every couple nights have to either force myself to go to sleep, or force myself to wake up.

Anyway – I might give it a try.

This is Space Giraffe. It’s basically Tempest, with a couple other mechanics added on top of it. I was looking forward to it, ’cause I wanted an old-school shooter, but playing the demo, I just can’t bring myself to get it.

Its defenders will undoubtedly say I don’t “get it,” and they’re totally right. I don’t. But it’s not *my fault* – it’s the designer’s fault. Everything looks the same. The visual noise is constantly cranked up to 11. All the mechanics are given *ridiculous* names like, “rinsing” a level (getting rid of all the enemies), or “bulling” them (knocking them off the side of the level when your ship is “powered up”). They use these terms during the tutorial, which is *incredibly* stupid, and leaves the player completely disoriented.

More, the mechanics aren’t *good*. I understand what I’m supposed to do, I just don’t care to do it. It’s not terribly interesting. Wait for powerup, wave back and forth, hitting enemies. Whoop-de-doo.

It’s like Tempest with a whole bunch of pointless crap laid out on top of it that serves to make it less accessible, less interesting, and because it’s so busy all the time, it just settles into a completely oversaturated boring mess.

Bleah.