Trollolol – Why playing online multiplayer isn’t fun anymore.
I know it's pretty much the norm that players rage on each other during games. I still consider myself fairly new to online gaming, but I don't think I'll ever get use to the unsportsmanlike behavior that happens online games. The first online game I ever played with other people was Starcraft 1 and I only played it with other friends. I pretty much stayed offline until I got an Xbox360 in November of 2009.
I played Halo 3, Halo Reach, and the Left 4 Dead series pretty extensively. Every once in a while I'd hear someone insult me on the score screen at the end of a match. Xbox live allow for easy blocking of voice chat. I got my feelings hurt every once in a while, but it was fairly easy to shrug off.
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Amanda and I are expecting in April. We're having a little girl. We're going to be entering an exciting new part of our lives and I can't wait!
Geek Office In The Closet
Space is running out in our house. We're looking to clean out one of our bed rooms. Amanda had her craft room and I had my office. I read an article recently from Elijah Manor, a developer I follow on twitter, about how he moved his office into his closet. I got a little inspired. I probably have A.D.D. and being in a smaller space would probably do me some good.
I moved into the closet and used a spare plank and some shelves I had for a desk. This worked, but the desk was shaky and wasn't a comfortable height. I decided that I really needed to build a desk into my wall to really utilize the space. I did little bit of research and found out I could do all of this at a fairly low price.
A trip to Ireland
My wife and I just recently got back from a vacation in Ireland. It was a pretty amazing experience. Our last big vacation was to Jamaica for our honeymoon. We flew into Shannon, drove the southern coast, and flew out of Dublin. We spent nights in Tralee, Waterville, Kinsale, Kilkenny, and Dublin. We had a day long layover in New York where we did some fun stuff too. A trip this long and traveling that distance is too much for a single post so I'll give the a major overview.
Self Checkout. A new experience.
Happy St. Patrick's day!
The wife and I decided to go to our local "super club" to look for a giant plastic tool shed for our backyard. So after taking care of all the fun stuff of the shed not having a price on it, then hunting down an employee to help, and finally after a fifteen minute wait at the customer service counter, we found out that the shed was much more than we expected.
Anyway! I remembered I was in need of AA batteries. I go through AAs like candy. I use them for the spare xbox controller, wii controllers, piranha gun, and the million remote controls I have. I decided to grab a pack. I also noticed that they also had a new Self Checkout line. YAY!!!!
Ok, so we are at the super club so there are some new rules to self checkout. Scan your card, scan your items, then pay. Easy right? No scale, bagging or anything! Too good to be true right? Wrong!
There is an onsite self checkout "helper". I was 3/4 of the way through my transaction and the helper came over and explained everything in detail.... absolute detail. They told me "Now when you're ready to pay, just press this 'Pay Now' button and then swipe your card."
My wife immediately caught on to how annoyed I was by this. She laughed all the way home. It was a 30 minute drive home.... she just giggled again!
I've been playing a good number of games. I have some good budget gaming posts on the way. Maybe some more tshirt posts. Trying to get the ball rolling again.
WorthyD’s Guide to the Self-Checkout Line
I'm generally a "keep to myself person" when I'm in public. When I'm in a super market, I try to get out as soon as possible, avoid eye contact with other people and avoid small talk with cashiers. The self-checkout line has been the greatest thing for me EVER!
The self-checkout line can also be the most annoying and frustrating thing ever.... How? Why? User error, impatience, and general lack of paying attention. So I'll stop rambling and present you with (in a giant h1 tag!):
WorthyD's Guide to the Self-Checkout Line!
AKA: How not to piss-off the people behind you in line
Going to be a Warrior Again at the Warrior Dash!!!!
I came to grips with it a while ago. I'm a pansy. The only time I was remotely awesome was during my paintball stint. I played at D-Day and it was kinda cool acting crazy and screaming random insane war cries (IE: Leeroy Jenkins!! and random phrases from the movie DodgeBall). That was a long time ago, and I'm a bit overweight now.
My Dad and brother ran the Tulsa Marathon a few weekends ago. It was my Dad's 32nd marathon and the first since his triple bypass in December 2009. This was my brother's first one. There is no way I could pull off a marathon with a year of training.
However, my brother showed me this "thing" of awesomeness. It is called... THE WARRIOR DASH! Check it out at http://warriordash.com/.
Here is just a taste of the awesomeness from their FAQ.
Warrior Dash is the ultimate event for thrill-seeking athletes. This running series is held on some of the nation's most demanding and unique terrain. Participants will conquer extreme obstacles and celebrate their feat with music, beer, warrior helmets and muddy shorts.
I'm thoroughly excited about this event. It's going to be AWESOME!!!!
Budget Gaming and Nostalgia: The Elder Scrolls
I was never big on open ended games growing up. I preferred to play games that had a strict goal at hand. Save the moon, beat the bad guy, save the world. Typical Rpgs. When i started working at Game Stop I learned about Fable. The game was just released and the main tagline was "choose your own adventure". Thought it sounded kinda cool. I bought the Xbox and 13 hours of game play later, the game was complete and I already had a good idea what the adventure would have been if I chose to be evil.
I won't deny that I was disappointed i spent 250 bucks to play the game. I wasn't big into Halo yet, so I felt like I had made a pretty big mistake. My brother showed me a game he had that he enjoyed. It was Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. The map size is approximately 10 square miles and there are tons of quests to do. I put about 40 hours into just the thieves guild.
Great Books With Terrible Movies
Lets face it. Very few books get acceptable movies. I came to grips with this a long time ago. I believe there are two main reasons why the movies end up being terrible. The first and the more common occurrence is the exclusion of characters or events. The second is the compression of time.
My philosophy on this topic is pretty simple, but difficult to execute unless you have pretty good self control. Don't watch the movie within six months of each time you have read the book. So, if you have read the book twice, don't watch the movie for at least a year. I didn't read the Lord of the Rings within a two years of all the movies being released and I had forgotten a lot of the stuff they left out. I wasn't super disappointed with the movies.
Budget Gaming: The Left 4 Dead series
In college, I was stuck in a video game purchasing mode that was uncontrollable. I may have owned over 40 Playstation 2 games at one time. Over the past five years, I've learned to do a lot research into games I purchase. Re-playability and bang for your buck are the two biggest factors for me. I'm a big fan of XBox live achievements also.
The Left 4 Dead series can be one of my favorite games that offers a completely unique experience every time you play. Both games have five campaigns. Each campaign has four to five chapters. Both games have a DLC campaign that have two or three chapters. A third DLC campaign is scheduled for release October 5th that will feature the characters from the first game. It looks like it is available to download for each game with different features for both games.
Starting with the second game and jumping down the first one can be kinda rough. The second game features an additional weapon tier and melee weapons that really help out with big crowds of zombies. The first game only has single and dual pistols as your "backup" weapons.
The first tier weapons include a pump shotgun and uzi style full machine gun. The second tier has an auto shotgun, assault rifle, and semi-auto sniper rifle. The second game adds an additional version of each weapon to each tier that has a different ROF, magazine capacity, accuracy, or damage rating. The second tier shotguns are the tactical and combat shotgun. The tactical shot gun has a wider spread making it better for closer ranges than the combat shotgun.
The "Director" is the true villain of the game. The directer determines item, weapon and enemy placement. You'll encounter boss infected, called Tanks, in different locations every time you play a campaign. The same applies for all the weapons and item pickups. This means that playing on "normal" could end up being as difficult as "hard" depending on how the director is acting.
The series is great. It's even better when you play with a party online. Regardless of which one you purchase, expect a lot of play out of the game without getting bored. I'm really hoping a third game comes soon.