Maybe Wii?

It's been on my mind for a while. Should I get another Wii?

I had a Wii before, but it was stolen when my house was burglarized last June, along with my TV and Xbox360, not to mention I didn't have renter's insurance at the time and didn't get reimbursed for any of it. Since then I have replaced my TV, and I do have a 360, but it's one that I'm borrowing.

I of course needed a new TV since I watch all the time, but I've been hesitant to replace the gaming systems because I really don't play them that often, so I'm not sure if it would just be a waste of money. I think it's also partially because I'm hoping against all odds that I'll get my stuff back, or at least they'll find who stole them and I'll get reimbursed.

Right now though I'm sort of at a transition. I'm living in a fairly small place, and it isn't that close to my friends, so I rarely have people over. I plan on moving though, once my lease is up, and while it may or may not be to a bigger place, it will definitely be closer to my friends and I will probably have people over a lot more.

See, I sort of consider the Wii to be a system that excels at fun games for multiplayer, but not so much in the single players games. Sure I have Rock Band on the 360, but even that game can start to get old if you play too much. That's when the Wii would really come in handy.

So, I'm thinking that when I actually move and start to have people over again, I'm going to want to have a Wii, if for nothing else than to provide a variety of entertainment. Even the Wii Sports game that comes with the system can provide hours of fun, especially for people who have never played it before.

So with tax season coming around I'm hoping to get a pretty good tax return, and I'm really thinking of using that on a Wii and maybe a few extra games and accesories to go along with it. Actually I might buy one before I even get the tax return, because when I turn in my taxes I'll know how much I will be getting back.

I guess at this point it's a matter of priorities, but I'm hoping that when I do move and start to have more people coming over I'll have a bunch of options in which to keep them entertained. Plus this time I have renter's insurance, so I'm not quite so worried about things getting stolen.

Reconsidering the PC

With Windows 7 on the way, I've been reconsidering my earlier decision to get a Mac as my next computer. From all the testing that's been done, it's looking like the new Windows has fixed a lot of the problems that was making me hate Vista so much.

My big reason for going with a Mac was how much more reliable they are. I hate troubleshooting computer problems, and this isn't to say that previous version of Windows didn't crash every so often, but with Vista it got to be ridiculous. If Windows 7 is as reliable as XP, then I really won't mind the occasional error.

I'm also thinking it might be time to go back to a desktop. I love my laptop and how I can take it anywhere in the house if I so choose. The problem is they are hard to upgrade and the parts are way more expensive if you want them to compete with a desktop. Not only that, but they overheat very easily, and I think that's partially to blame for my computer crashes.

What I really want is a computer that I'm familiar with, and those are PC's. I can build a PC from the ground up, which means I'm only paying for the parts, and not all the labor and testing that I would be paying for with a pre-built system. Some of my older games aren't even made for Macs, and that's a big factor as well.

Doing some research online, I found that if I look at the specs on a brand new pre-built PC and then compare that to the price of the parts that would actually go in it, I could save about $600 by building it myself. And this isn't a low quality system either; I splurged on the main parts, like processor, motherboard and graphics card.

With money being tight as it is, I'm thinking a Mac may not be the way to go. Their products certainly are more reliable, but the price tag and compatibility with software, not to mention the inability to upgrade individual parts, may not be what I'm looking for.

In the meantime my laptop suits me just fine, so I'll wait for Windows 7 to be officially released before I actually buy a new computer.

Sci fi planets

I read a lot of sci fi books, watch a lot of sci fi movies, and consider myself pretty well versed in the genre. There's one thing that I find very interesting, and that is how the other planets we encounter almost always tend to have just one uniform climate and the land features are the same across the planet.

Let's take Star Wars for example, since most people can relate to it. In Episode IV the first planet we see is Tatooine, which is entirely desert. The only other planet we get to see in that movie is Yavin 4, which is actually a moon, but still it's entirely jungle. Moving on through the series we see Hoth, which is all frozen and snowy, Dagobah is all swamp, Bespin we don't really get to see except the clouds, and Endor is another moon which is all forest.

Sure it can get more creative depending on the athors. Worlds that are entirely ocean, some with no continents but lots of mountains sticking up surrounded by water, some are just entirely like Hawaii (which would be awesome). Gravity can be different, there can be strange weather features, and obviously the animal life will vary, but this still tends to be uniform across the entire planet.

So why is it that Earth can have such a huge variety of climates and land features, but all the other planets we imagine don't? Do we just not have the imagination for it?

Maybe it's just our idea of travel and going to new places. Right now we live on one planet, where you can travel around and see various climates and land features that are much different from what we're used to.

Then in the future we imagine ourselves traveling not to different places on one planet for vacation, but to different worlds altogether. Well what would be the point of that when every planet had such a variety like Earth; where you could spend a lifetime just seeing everything on the world you're already on? They are basically expanding our own planet into a galaxy, where lightyears in a spaceship is analogous to hours in a plane, and where other planets are analogous to other timezones.

I'm not sure if these sci fi writers know it or not, but I think it's just human nature that makes us think that Earth is perfect, and no other planet can possibly be like it. I mean, it's our planet after all, and while nobody actually knows how it would be to live on a different world, I don't think we'd entirely feel at home anywhere other than Earth.

Not to say this takes away from the experience of a good sci fi. Sure it may be a little unrealistic, but sci fi is obviously fiction anyway, and I don't think I'd even want to think about how long a book would be if it had to describe every planet when those planets are each as diverse as Earth.

Does anybody else notice this or is it just me? What do you think?

Replay value

It's no secret that my favorite games I played while growing up were the Final Fantasy series, and I have recently gotten the urge to play them again.

The problem is, I don't have the systems that play those games anymore, and I won't be spending any money to get them. That means I need to find another way.

The solution? Emulation. A program that enables your computer to emulate that game system, and this allows you to run roms of the games, or copies of the original game made into files that are playable on the emulator.

I was originally going to get an the various emulators for the different systems that the Final Fantasy games have been released on over the years, but I remembered that all the early games were later re-released on Playstation, and figured that only having to deal with one emulator would simplify things.

So I went online and found that the preferred emulator, called the epsxe. There is a little setup involved with configuring plugins, but I this guide walks you through it enough to get you started, and then you can mess with settings from there. I would suggest downloading the file pack near the top of his guide, which includes all the necessary plugins so you don't have to go searching for them.

Next I needed some game files, and after a quick Google search I found this site. It had everything I needed, and not only do the downloads go pretty fast, but there aren't a bunch of ads you have to follow in order to get them like I've seen on other rom sites.

I figured I'd start with FF4, one of the games in the series that I remember the least, and then work my way up. I got the game working and all, and have now made it about 3/4 of the way through the game. It's been great, and there is so many memories it brings back, but also so much that I had forgotten about.

There is one drawback to having chosen to use the PSX emulator over the original system the games were released on, and that is the sound. For some reason the emulator doesn't play back the sounds correctly. It seems that the sound plug-in doesn't know how to deal with looped music or multiple sound files at once.

What ends up happening is any music playing will play through fine on the first loop, then it cuts out and just repeats the first note until you enter an area with different music. I also have no music during battles, just the sound effects. It's frustrating, and I've been tweaking the sound plug-ins to find one that works but I haven't had any luck so far.

Now that I'm so far into the game I really don't want to start over again, but part of the nostalgia is gone because that battle music was a big part of it for me. If there is anyone out there that has a solution for this I would love to know.

Other than that it's been great, and I'm looking forward to beating this game and moving on to the next. I expect this to keep me busy for a good while.

New car

It's been a while since I've posted. I've been focusing mainly on my WoW blog, and there hasn't been much to update about recently anyway as far as geeky stuff goes.

That being said, I finally went out and got myself a new car. Well, not brand new, but it's new to me at least.

I had a post a while back about hybrid SUVs. I didn't end up getting one. Instead I went for a Subaru Outback Sport. It's smaller, still keeps my gas mileage low, and with all-wheel drive it also does well in snowy weather, which is why I wanted a 4wd SUV in the first place.

The trouble wasn't actually finding a car as I expected. I ran into a huge road block when I went to get a loan to pay for it. Being young I sort of expected to be turned down just applying on my own, but I also had a lot of trouble having my dad there to co-sign for me.

He has great credit, is a home owner, and has been using the same bank for over 30 years. Despite all that, because of the fact that he doesn't have many credit cards, they still didn't want to approve the loan.

We ended up having to threaten to change banks before they finally gave in and approved us, provided we gave them copies of our most recent paystubs to show we actually make what we say we do (which I would have expected to have to do anyway).

I understand the state of the economy, and it is probably a big reason why banks are hesitant to give out loans, even to people with good credit, but just the fact that they don't factor in all the details is what made it so frustrating.

The only information they use to check your eligibility is your credit score, income, and monthly expenses. There is nothing about your history with that bank or anything else that might help turn things in your favor. I was a little disappointed about that.

Either way, I eventually got the loan and made it just in time to buy the car I wanted before the guy sold it someone else who had offered to buy it the very next day.

I'm very happy with it. I paid a lot less than the car was worth with all the extra features it had, but the guy just wanted the base blue book value without those options since he got it at an auction and paid even less than I did.

I'm still getting used to it, but it's a huge step up from what I was driving before, and will last me a long time.

Rock Band 2

It's finally here! Rock Band 2 came out this past Sunday, and I grabbed it later that night. I also had my ION Drum Rocker set show up on Friday, and was able to set it up and a play a song or two on Sunday night before going to bed.

Alright, it's pretty much the same as Rock Band so far. There are some new game modes to play around with, but as far different colored bars scrolling down the screen telling you which buttong to hit, it's not much different.

I haven't had time to try everything out, but it looks like I'll have to unlock all the songs to make them available in free play mode. I love that I was able to transfer over the songs from the original (minus three), and I pretty much bought all the DLC that I wanted, which isn't nearly all of it.

The Drum Rocker set is great. It's taking some getting used to as I set it up a little differently than the old Rock Band set. The best thing is how much room you have to customize where each pad is. I basically set it up as close to a real drum set as I could.

I moved the red pad (snare) to where a snare drum would be in front the two toms and not so far off to the side. I moved the yellow cymbal (hi-hat) to the right of the snare and above. I really want to actually learn to play drums from this, and I figure setting it up this way will make it that much more realistic.

Another cool thing is while the cymbals and drums are the same colors, playing them in free mode they put out the correct sound. The green cymbal is a crash, but the green pad is a floor tom. I'm not sure how they did it, but it's a subtle addition that makes the game that much better.

Right now I think Rock Band really has the edge in the market for these games. The definitely have the superior software and song selection. Guitar Hero had the better hardware, but now that Harmonix is letting third-party manufacturers make official hardware as well, I think they will take that edge away.

I will be getting Guitar Hero: World Tour when it comes out regardless, but it's really just for the songs, I don't expect it to be superior in any way. Sure you can make your own songs, but I don't see that being a major draw for too many people with how much time it probably takes to do that.

Right now I'm having a lot of fun, and looking forward to unlocking all the songs so I can play them whenever I want.

DRM this

Spore was released earlier this week, and I was really anticipating going out and picking it up. The idea behind it is really cool: you evolve a species through various stages and end up traveling around the galaxy visiting (or attacking) other civilizations. There's more to it than that, but I don't want to get into that.

What I was unaware of, until seeing the angry reviews on Amazon, is that the game uses a very strict and invasive DRM (Digital Rights Management) system. The reason the system is put in place is obvious: they don't want people pirating the game. The problem is that it not only doesn't do it's job, as the game has already been pirated, but it also causes many more problems for people who actually buy it legitimately.

First off, it needs to login to the servers and verify every 10 days, which means anyone out there who bought the game to play single player and doesn't have an internet connection won't be able to play.

Second, it is limited to 3 installs, and if you want to make any installs after that you have to call and plead with them to let you do it. I don't know about you, but between hard drive failures, upgraded computers, and failing hard drives, I'd have to call in for a new install after a year, and according to them you are guilty until proven innocent, and that's how you will be treated.

This also creates the problem of how you're going to play this game years down the road. What if EA goes out of business, or they stop providing support for this game? How are any of us supposed to play it anymore? I just started playing Warcraft II again, and that game is over 10 years old. Many people like to go back and play old games, and this DRM system basically makes that impossible in the future.

Lastly, on top of the DRM it also installs SecuROM, which is basically malware, and is pretty much impossible to uninstall without reformatting. The problem is this software doesn't seem to be made for all hardware configurations and will can go so far as to disable your software if it finds something it doesn't like. That's a little scary for those of us with custom built PCs.

The biggest problem is all these rules had to be discovered by consumers. EA never explained how the DRM works, they just included it in the game and let everyone who bought it find out what they can and can't do. That's pretty ridiculous, and even if it is one of the most innovative games to date, I can't support something like that.

I by no means think protecting the games your company produces against pirating is a bad thing, but they way they have done it with this, as well as Mass Effect, is the wrong way to go about it. Make security measures that let legitimate customers play without being restricted and make it hard on the hackers. What they have done is pretty much the exact opposite, and until they fix it I won't buy this game.

Apple disappointment

All I wanted to see was a higher capacity iPod Touch. That's it. I have a lot of music, my iPod was stolen from my car a few weeks ago, and I decided to wait to buy a new one in hopes the iPod Touch would have it's capacity upgrade to bring it up to par with what I need.

No dice.

They made them thinner, and lowered the price. Well that's cool and all, but it's not what I was looking for. If they could put the same capacity in a smaller package, why not leave it the same and increase the capacity? I suppose most people don't have enough music to fill 32 gigs, so why bother adding more?

I might end up getting one anyway. I could get a classic, but then I don't get the touch screen, wi-fi, applications, and games. The touch has so many more features that it's almost worth losing the capacity, I'm just going to have to pick and choose what to put on it.

Decisions, decisions. I'm not sure what I want to do at this point.

RTS phase

One of my favorite videogame genres is the RTS (real-time strategy) games. Namely Warcraft, Starcraft, and Command & Conquer, and all the ones that continue those franchises.

It all started when my uncle brought over a free demo of Warcraft II he had gotten. Not sure if it was from work, came with some other game, or he just happened to see it in a store, but it included the first few levels of each campaign, and it was awesome. I knew I needed the full game at that point.

Eventually I got it, probably as a birthday gift or something, proceeded to play it non-stop. At that point I didn't have many cool computer games, so this one got my undivided attention. I was pretty young though, and the computer I was using wasn't all that great, so between my limited concept of strategy and the lag my computer caused, I found the game pretty difficult.

That didn't stop me from playing though, and I managed to get pretty far in the campaign before I hit a difficult level I just couldn't get past.

Then came Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Still running on a very outdated computer, I managed to become pretty good at this game. It had a lot more options for defending your base, and not having to worry so much about defense I could concentrate on building up an army and taking it to the enemy. I tried the campaigns, but this game really had me hooked on skirmishes and just seeing if I could beat the computer.

Starcraft came next, and I got this pretty late, after the expansion had already been released. I finally had a computer that could handle it, and the fact that it had three factions just made it so much better. Plus they were very different from each other, and that meant you couldn't just win by having more units. I don't even want to think about how many hours I spent on that game, lets just say it was more than enough.

It was a while before I thought about playing another RTS game. Sure more came out, but I had a lot of other games to concentrate on and just sort of forgot about the genre.

That is, until Warcraft III came out. I managed to download it and beat the entire campaign within a couple weeks of its release. The only problem was I didn't have a valid CD-key to play online, so after beating it I sort of lost interest.

In the past couple years I decided I wanted to go back to those older games and go through the campaigns. The problem is, with all the new Windows versions, my old DOS games no longer run on my computer. Luckily Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition was released, solving my problem there, and also allowing online play. Along with finding a downloadable copy of Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, and a DOS emulator, I can play through the original wars, all the stuff I see mentioned in WoW but I never got to see.

Even more recently Command & Conquer: The First Decade was release, which included every game from the franchise that had been released up until that point. I managed to scoop that up and now I have a whole lot of games to get through before I'll be satisfied, although I'll probably burn out on it before I finish.

Right now I am looking at checking out the latest Command & Conquer 3, which has been out for a couple years, but still looks cool. I've heard some bad reviews about it, but I might get it anyway.

At the moment I am working my way through the campaign of the Warcraft II expansion and it's great. I love the simplicity, and I think as I progress through the games and the increasing level of complexity it won't come as such a shock as it would if I had just started with one of the new ones.

If you've never played any of these games you really should. They pretty much set the standard for RTS games, and are so much fun to play you'll get hooked even if you aren't that good.

The new Microsoft Ad

I think most geeks out there can agree that Seinfeld is one of the greatest sitcoms ever. Now he's doing commercials for Microsoft, and strange commercials at that. What does buying discount shoes have to do with a software company? Well lets look a little deeper.

The commercial basically revolves around Jerry Seinfeld seeing Bill Gates buying shoes at a discount shoe store. After some dialogue about churros, Gates decides on a pair of shoes, and how they become very comfortable as you break them in, even if they do fit tight at first.

Meanwhile a Mexican family sees the transaction and notes that they are the same shoes they wear. It ends with Jerry and Bill walking to their cars and Gates hinting at a computer made of cake.

What does it all mean? Well from what I can see, Microsoft is trying to market to everyone. Using the shoes as a metaphor for Vista, saying that it takes some getting used to before you become comfortable with it, just like a new pair of shoes.

Having the Mexican family comment on the shoes makes Microsoft (Gates) seem like just a normal person, who buys discount shoes just like the rest of us. They're trying to play off of Apple's ads that make Macs look like something cool people buy, and instead making Microsoft look like the way to go because they are good and affordable for everyone.

The computers made of cake thing is just hinting that Microsoft is still working on some cool stuff. I'm pretty sure making computers out of cake wouldn't be a good idea.

The only problem with this commercial is that Vista is still terrible. It doesn't take years to break in shoes, it takes a few weeks at most. I've had Vista for over a year now on my laptop and not only is it the probable cause for my hard drive dying, but it crashes pretty much daily.

My girlfriend wanted to use the laptop the other day, but she was sitting too far away for the power cord to reach. She asked me to unplug it, and I said it would probably be better if she just moved closer since it freezes half the time when I unplug it. Well she didn't wanna move, so I let her unplug it and sure enough, it froze up.

Did Service Pack 1 correct this problem? Nope. Has it corrected any of the other problems I've been having? Not really. I'm still trying to figure out how the company that made Windows XP, which runs so smoothly, managed to come out with such a troublesome operating system on their next attempt.

Will I get a Mac for my next computer? At this point it's looking like a yes. I don't base my choice of computers on commercials and what they tell me, I base it on performance, and right now Mac is in the lead. Of course an operating system made specifically to run on certain hardware is going to have less problems, but XP proved a conglomeration of parts can still run a good OS just fine.

Unless Microsoft manages to fix Vista, I'm gonna have to go with a Mac for my next computer. Now if only I had an extra $2000 to blow on a new computer...

New Apple device rumors

As has happened in the past couple years, it is expected that Apple will be introducing new iPods and MacBooks in September. What I'm counting on is a higher capacity iPod touch. Last year I got one of the brand new iPod classics, mostly because I have a lot of music and the touch has a relatively low capacity in comparison.

I've heard mention of a redesigned nano, and probably a revamped touch which will be cheaper than the current one, but in only a few places have I seen mention of a higher capacity touch.

What everyone is speculating about is a new MacBook. So far it is mostly a more affordable version, but there are those who are talking about a touch screen laptop. It does sound like a cool idea at first, but if you think about it, I don't think it would be all that convenient.

First, we sit close enough to computer screens already, why force users to sit close enough to touch it? I know my eyes get tired enough having to stare and a screen all day, I don't want to be forced to be right up against it in order to use the computer.

Also, having to lift your hand to touch the screen would not be very comfortable. Using a mouse can make your wrist sore as it is, but making your whole arm sore after a day of work seems like a bad idea.

The only way to make this work would be for Apple to make touch screen computers pretty much the same as the ones that are already out there. They would need to make the screen flip around and be more like a notepad so touching the screen would be more like writing on a piece of paper, but then the keyboard can't be used anymore if it folds down on itself, so they would need some way to make that accessible as well or it wouldn't be practical for work applications, which causes the problem of having the screen not upright when you are typing and thus hard to see.

Apple seems to want to cater to everyone, not just a little niche like those other notepad computers are made for. A touch screen on a computer seems like a really cool idea, and if you've ever played with an iPhone it would seem an obvious next step, but there are a lot of hurdles to jump to get it to the point that it would be practical for everyone. A lower price MacBook seems likely, but a touch screen doesn't seem the way to go on anything bigger than an iPod or iPhone just yet.

Bad Drivers

When I first started driving, my mom gave me the best advice. She said , "Assume everyone else on the road is an idiot, that way if they do something stupid it won't surprise you."

I still assume this every time I drive. Every time I pass by a driveway I am prepared for the car sitting there to pull out right in front of me, I never drive directly next to anyone when there are two or more lanes, mainly so I have somewhere to go if something happens in front of me, but also so they don't forget to look and try to change lanes and hit me.

Despite being cautious about all this it still astounds me how bad people can be at driving. Even some driving rules that I always thought were common knowledge are unknown to many drivers. Do you know how many people don't know how to determine right-of-way at a stop sign? Even worse, I can't tell you how many times cross traffic making a turn, with no stop sign, has stopped to let me go instead even though I do have a stop sign. I know you're trying to be nice and all, but it's taking more time trying to decide who will go first than it would have taken if you had just gone ahead and made that turn and I had waited.

I was driving the other day on my way home from work. To turn in to my apartment complex I have to make a left turn at a stop light. Simple enough, and when I come up to the intersection the left turn light is red so I stop, and all is going as it should be. Traffic going straight through the intersection has the green light, and since when I pulled up to the line my car activated the sensor the light for oncoming traffic turns red a little later and now it's my turn to go. I noticed a few cars coming the other direction that are turning into the complex as well, only they are making a right turn obviously because they are coming from the other direction. Well now they have a red light, so I am making my turn, but when I get halfway across the intersection I see another car making the right turn, only they didn't stop, didn't even bother to look until they were halfway through it and then saw that I was turning and stopped abruptly. I managed to catch the look on the driver's face as I drove past, as I had the right-of-way, and she looked very surprised and confused. I assume the look on my face was a look of 'what the hell are you doing?'

A few days later I was driving with my girlfriend, making the same turn, and mentioned the incident to her and how I saw people make those right turns on red lights all the time without stopping, although that was the first time they almost hit me while doing it. She said a lot of people don't know you have to stop... Wait, what?! I thought they just didn't feel like stopping, just like we all speed even though we know we're not supposed to, but are you telling me that a rule of the road that should be common knowledge to everybody is unknown to so many people? Did you know that rule? Basically a right turn at a stop light is treated like pulling up to a stop sign. You have to come to a complete stop before you can continue on to make the turn. She even mentioned a few people she knew that had never heard of that rule, and while I was contemplating just how cautious I needed to be while driving, I realized that maybe I don't assume people are stupid enough.

Don't even get me started on freeway on-ramps. If you aren't up to speed with people on the freeway by the time you merge on, you're doing something wrong. So that lady that was doing 40 the other day when I was behind her on the on-ramp, don't think I was being an asshole when I passed you once we got on and gave you a look, I just really don't want to be hit from behind by other cars on the freeway because you don't know how to accelerate correctly.

Rock Band Blues

I'm sure by now you've all heard about the game Rock Band, the one where you can play videogame instruments along with the songs in the game including guitar, bass, drums, and vocals. I used to have it, then my house was broken into and they stole it, along with other things. It's easily replaced, and normally I would just got pick up another copy, but a few weeks ago they announced that Rock Band 2 would be released in September, and that they would have much better instrument peripherals along with it, as well as being able to transfer your songs to it from the old one. This puts me in a bit of a dilemma. I could buy the game again now and when the new one comes out just buy the disk and not bother with the instruments, or I could wait for the new one and buy the bundle that comes with the newer, upgraded versions of the instruments, which not only look better, but work better too.

At this point, since the release is less than 2 months away I have pretty much decided to wait it out and buy the new one while buying the disk for the first one to transfer the songs over. But wait, there's more. Another company (ION) is also releasing a much higher quality drumset around the same time the new one comes out and it looks awesome. Not only that, it will be compatible with a real electronic drum brain so you can switch out the Xbox360 portion and use it as a real drumset, which is even more awesome.

I guess it's not so much a dilemma anymore because I have already decided. I will buy the new game disk, the old disk, the ION drumset, and hope the other new instrument peripherals are available at release. It won't be a total disappointment if I have to wait for the other instruments though as I pretty much play the game for the drums, but part of the fun of the game is being able to play with other people so I want that option available to me.

I guess I never realized how much I missed the game until I started listening to the radio again and was hearing all those songs I had played along with getting played. Now I have to change the station when that happens because it starts making me depressed that I can't go home and start jamming away to the song anymore, and won't be able to for a couple months still. I can't wait for Rock Band 2 to get here.

The hybrid SUVs

Up until recently I thought the idea of a hybrid SUV was sort of silly, even stupid. Sure you get better gas mileage, but compared to the close to 40 mpg that the hybrid sedans are getting, you only get about 25-27 mpg in the SUV. I have a truck right now that gets about the same gas mileage as that, although it's a 4 cylinder, but I've loaded it up pretty good and can still get up to speed on the freeway. It was my thinking that we need to get off the big SUVs altogether and focus on smaller, more efficient cars.

I've been contemplating getting a new car for a while, and was pretty set on a truck, but while I have been trying to save up to get one, my house got robbed and I ended up having to spend the money I saved replacing what I had lost in the robbery. This gave me some more time to think about what I was looking for and not just finding a replacement for my old truck, which I love, but I'm finding I don't use it as a truck enough to justify getting another one. I have been wanting to get something with 4-wheel drive because I take trips up to the snow during the winter and don't want to have to rely on other people getting me there anymore. This severely limites my options to trucks, SUVs, and a very small selection of AWD wagons (like Subaru has). Most of these cars also come with at least V6 engines standard, and that pretty much automatically means it will be getting worse gas mileage.

I was recently talking about this with some friends and it was at that point when someone suggested I take a look at hybrid SUVs. I hadn't even thought of it until that point, and I was still a little skeptical, but I figured I'd give it a shot and look into it. After looking at some of the options that are out there, and there aren't many, I'm starting to think this would be a great fit for me. I don't drive a lot, but with the gas prices the way they are, and not likely to go back down, I think I could pay a little more now and save a lot more in the long run. The problem is there are a very limited number of hybrid SUVs available, and I would really like to have more options to choose from.

As it stands, I am really looking at the Toyota Highlander Hybrid. I have a Toyota right now and have had very little trouble with it as compared to the stories I have heard about other people and their car troubles. I really trust that buying another Toyota would provide me with a long lasting car that I can rely on for a long time. I had hoped to find Honda coming out with a hybrid SUV as well, but while there are rumors, there is nothing concrete saying that they will have them available anytime soon. What I would have really liked to see one of the smaller SUV models in hybrid form. While the Highlander isn't huge, it's still bigger than what I think I actually need, but there's also no guarantee that waiting will be of any help as they may not bother making hybrid versions of the smaller SUVs. I still have some saving to do before I will be ready to make the commitment, but unless something else comes up in the near future, it's looking like the Highlander will be the way to go.

Problematic PC's

I was always all about PC's. Ever since I was little, playing shareware games on my dad's IBM 386 computer where he first had to teach me to use DOS so I could use it by myself. The school computers were Macs, and I couldn't stand them. None of the games we played were cool, just learning games, and the games I wanted to play couldn't be loaded onto them because they weren't compatible. Fast forward almost 20 years and I buy a new laptop from a custom PC building company after finally deciding I could use an upgrade. See, I built my old computer myself, about 6 years ago, for less about 600 bucks, and while I did upgrade the video card and RAM about halfway through its life, I could still run most of the high end games on it up until then, just not with the high-res graphics settings. I never had many problems with it, no crashes, hard drives never went bad, except sometimes the motherboard would reset and underclock the processor, but that was easily fixed.

Along comes my brand new laptop and I'm excited. I got Windows Vista on it because it's the new thing and I don't see any reason to get XP when it will be outdated soon. I load up my games on it and start one up, and I'm amazed at how great they look now. Vista is cool, has lots of functions that are new and fun to use, but for some reason even though my processor is faster and I have more than twice the RAM of my old computer, it takes forever for the thing to boot up. Not only that, but every time you want to install something you have to confirm that yes, in fact, you do want to install it like 3 times. It just seems like overkill to have all this stuff added on to the operating system when it's just gonna slow it down. The main reason you buy a new computer is because it's supposed to be faster than your previous one, but that wasn't really the case. Luckily it ran all my games way more smoothly and I just had to remember to boot it up, do something else for a few minutes, then come back when it's ready.

Then the problems started up. The computer would freeze up and I'd have to do a hard shut down, or it would shut itself down for no apparent reason. Sometimes I would start it up and the screen wouldn't come on, but I also couldn't hold the power button down to do a hard shut down so I'd have to unplug it and take the battery out to get it to turn off. I don't really know what to blame these things on, but last week my hard drive died. Just completely died. I started it up and it couldn't read the hard drive, so I thought maybe Vista had crashed and I just needed to do a system restore. Got out my system restore disk that came with the computer and went through the process, only to find my hard drive had nothing on it anymore. Pretty annoying since that meant I lost all my music, but nothing on there I can't replace, so I just told it to reinstall Windows and I'd start again from a clean slate. Halfway through installation though it stops and tells me it can't find the installation sources. That's not a good sign, but it tells me to restart the installation so I do, with the same results, and I continue a few more times before I give up and call tech support.

See, I ordered from a smaller computer builder company because most of the big PC manufacturers are way more expensive because they throw a bunch of useless software in with each computer to make it cost more, plus they don't close to as many customization options. The problem with that is the small companies don't have much in the way of tech support. On their website it says they provide 24/7 service, but I can't imagine them having more than a couple guys sitting there answering phones in between fixing other computers. This led to me calling 3 or 4 times a day for 4 days, getting put on hold for 15-30 minutes at a time and basically getting frustrated at the fact that all I needed was a few minutes to explain the situation and for them to send me a new hard drive to replace my bad one. Finally on Sunday I made it through and he told me I should have a new hard drive by the end of the week, which would be great if that happens, but with the holiday I'm not sure it will. At least for now I can at least rest easy knowing I'm not stuck with this problem and unable to do anything about it. I still don't know if Vista caused the crash or if the hard drive was slowly dying already and finally decided to kick the bucket, it did seem that the unannounce shutdowns were coming more frequently the past month or so though. Needless to say I will be backing up all my files to an external hard drive from now on though.

The moral of this story? I don't really know, but for me I guess it was that the computer you build on your own will cause less problems than one built by someone else.

Boring TV

I feel so out of my rhythm after moving. Before my previous house was burglarized it was pretty normal for me to come home, work out, then watch TV the rest of the night while simultaneously on my laptop either gaming or just surfing the web. The biggest problem is that my big TV was stolen along with all my latest generation of gaming stuff, but luckily they left the retro gaming stuff alone, probably figuring it isn't worth anything (when in fact it's worth much more to real gamers based on rarity alone). Anyway, now that I've been downgraded to a little 23" TV that's been around for about 12 years, I'm finding regular TV much less enjoyable. I don't really know why the size of the TV would make any difference, so I can't really say that's the cause, but I'm just finding the multitude of reality TV that's around now to just be too much. I watch a few of the shows, but some of them are just horrible.

Hell's Kitchen is at the top of the list right now for network reality shows. I find cooking to be very interesting, I think mainly because I know so little about it and I will probably never be any good at anything besides grilling meat. I was never a huge fan of the Real World, but I do find myself watching it sometimes, although I don't exactly keep up with it, so half the time I'm clueless as to why one or two of the characters aren't around. I also liked Rock of Love, but I can't say why. I'm not a Bret Michaels fan, nor a fan of Poison at all, and I hate most of the other reality mass dating shows, but I think I can at least stand to watch this one because the girls aren't nearly as irrational or annoying, and most of the fights are over things that should be fought about.

Aside from those I love watching some of the Discovery Channel shows, namely Dirty Jobs and Deadliest Catch. Those are just some great shows, and Mike Rowe just knows exactly what to say in the situations he gets put in, with comments that are both comical and insightful. I think I like Deadliest catch just because I'm glad I don't have to do that for a living, but I like to watch people who do.

Besides those I don't watch much. Most other shows that I do watch every week had their season finales already and won't be back again until this fall or later. I do still watch reruns of Seinfeld, King of Queens, and Scrubs, but those tend to play the same 10 episodes over and over and it gets old really quick. Lucky for me I'm getting my new TV delivered this weekend, and now I'm finding I'm not really sure what I'm gonna be watching on it. Maybe the fact that I will be able to see the details on the screen again will renew my interest, because if not I will have to replace the game systems I lost and start playing again. I really just want Rock Band back.

Check this out

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/

Awesome site. Being a white person, this might be more funny than if I wasn't, and while many of these may not apply to me directly, the fact that I'm white means I know lots of white people that it does apply to. I suggest starting from the beginning, but you can pretty much read them in any order you want, and if you're also white I can guarantee that you will find this funny, even if it pisses you off that it's so sarcastic toward you.

The millenial generation

Apparently there is a name for the generation that was born between around 1981 to 1995, meaning we were still in pre-college schools at the time of the new millenium, and we have been called, of course, the millenial generation (or generation Y). I happen to be a part of this generation, and have read a few articles on the characteristics that I am being lumped in as having. For the most part I agree with the assessment of this generation, either from my own characteristics or those of the majority of people that I know that are around my age.

The first attribute is that we are exceptionally tech-savvy, and I have no doubt that this is the case, mainly because we grew up with fairly sophisticated electronics and had to learn to use them. This wasn't only because we needed them, but I found that when my parents would buy a new electronic device, it was usually my job to figure out how it works because they didn't have the time or patience to deal with it. Then I would either teach them the basics or they would tell me what they wanted and I would do it for them. For the most part we have this attribute out of a need to help others more than for ourselves, although at this stage in my life I am using the skills more for myself.

Another characteristic that I found interesting was that there is a general lack of loyalty to an employer which mainly stems from the fact that we believe we are valuable enough to them that if we don't like the job we can find another employer to be valuable to. This one I blame mainly on the way we were brought up, not only by our parents, but by the public school system and the pressures they put on our teachers of how to treat us. We were the kids that got trophies at the end of the soccer season, even if we were in last place. We got awards like "most improved" and "most enthusiasm" even if we contributed the least to the team's success. It wasn't our fault, we didn't decide to reward mediocrity, it was because of the pressures of society saying every child should be treated equally. That and the fact that parents of this generation could never accept the fact that someone else's child was better than their's at anything. It's amusing to me that parents thought this was doing their child a favor by never pointing out their flaws, when in fact I expect it will be the downfall of many in this generation when their flaws are pointed out by others later on in life. I also hated losing a ball game because everyone had to get equal play time when it could have easily been won if they had sat out more, of course when I made the varsity soccer team in high school I rarely played and hated it, but we did win. Hmmm.

One attribute I want to add to the list is that we are also exceptionally good at getting wires untangled. I can't even tell you how many times in my life I've had to figure out how to get a wad of wires from a tangled mess to a nicely placed and separated set of wires. The most common occurence was with game system controllers, but this also occurs in wiring for computers, stereos, televisions, and almost anything else that has multiple wires. Now all the game systems have wireless controllers, and I expect most electronics will be using wires less and less in the future, meaning the next generations will never be faced with learning this skill. It's always fun to watch someone try to untangle wires when you can tell they have no clue as to how to go about it and all the mistakes they make that you made years ago and learned from to become the expert that you are.

Just plug it in

Well I moved into a new apartment a couple weeks ago and last night I set up my stereo. I also ordered a new TV because right now I'm stuck with a little 19" LCD that's all the way across the room and I really need something bigger. While shopping online I saw all these bundle deals for TVs that come with a DVD player and installation service and they give you a discount for it. Now it's nice that they have sales like that, but I already have a DVD player and I can set up a TV myself, but I was sort of interested in seeing how much they would charge for the installation if someone were to get it. To my surprise, the cost of installation of a TV was $200!! How could it cost that much? You plug in the power, plug some cords in the back and you're ready to go. Takes 10 minutes, and even though you are getting a discount, the installation cost kinda cancels out a good chunk of that. I do realize that some people are behind in the times and might not know some things, but seriously, it really isn't that hard. They have everything color coded so you know which wire to plug in where, and the input name is right by the plugs so you know what to set your TV to.

Now there are installation fees I understand. I just had my cable service installed and the guy had to set up some stuff in the main phone room in the building, then test out my connections with some voltage meters and such, all of which I don't know how to do. Then again, the installation was free. Hmmm. Also, if you're rich and want some kind of home stereo system set up. You know, they kind where you have speakers in each room and outside, all connected to a central stereo? Yeah, I don't have all the equipment to do all that, and even if I did it's just something you want done by professionals because any mistakes that are made could be costly. I can even understand bringing in your computer to a retailer to get it fixed, although it really bothers me how much they charge for things as simple as wiping your hard drive and reloading the operating system. Computers aren't all that straightforward sometimes, and while I always fix mine myself, there are people who don't know how to save a file without help, trust me, I've met more than one.

But back to TV setup. It's not really even installation, it's putting the TV where you want it, plugging in a few cords, maybe turning it on and showing you what each input goes to, and thats it. Not worth $200, I wouldn't pay more than $20 for that, unless it's a big TV and there are lots of stairs to climb, then maybe I'd go so high as $40. Needless to say, I didn't get installation for my new TV, and delivery is free. Little do they know I live on the third floor and the stairs have some pretty narrow turns, it's not gonna be fun carrying a 56" TV up that, glad I don't have to do it.

Storytime

Not really, but I thought I'd touch on some of the type of books I like to read and maybe I can get some suggestions for other books I'd like based on what I write here.

For the most part I really enjoy sci fi books (go figure), and fantasy to a certain extent. Through middle school and most of high school I stuck exclusively to the Star Wars novels that were created as sort of a continuation of stories to go in the Star Wars universe. Some of the novels took place before the movies, some during or in between movies, but most are set to take place after the last movie and while they are written by different authors, the authors read each others' books and make sure the stories don't contradict each other. It's pretty interesting what kind of stuff they come up with, and you get to know various characters much more intimately, but I pretty much finished all I wanted from those. Once it strayed from the main characters and started focusing on Han and Leia's kids I lost interest, but I read almost every single one up to that point.

A must for sci fi fans is Ender's Game, and while it is a great book on it's own, there are sequels that are great as well that continue the story of not only Ender, but of some of the other children he competes with in his training.

Another great series is the Otherland books, a four book series that should not be read by anyone with a bad short term memory because it follows so many different storylines that it's easy to lose track. It incorporates not only sci fi elements such as advanced computers and virtual reality, but the author also uses his great knowledge of various other literature to create worlds that the main characters have to travel through on their way to find out the answers they seek.

I have of course read the Lord of the Rings books, no surprise there, but it is worth it to state that these are a must.

I have been recommended to read the A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin and the Hyperion series by Dan Simmons. I also plan to read another series by Tad Williams (author of the Otherland series) called Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn. Right now I have a pretty good idea of what I will be reading for a while, but I would like to get some other recommendations for the future, so suggest anything you think I might like based on what I have listed and I will look into anything that sounds interesting. And for those of you who enjoy sci fi books and have not read something that I listed above, I would highly recommend anything up there.