Andrew Busey: My Musings

I don’t watch much TV, maybe 4-5 different series.  Two of them, The Unit and Criminal Minds are on CBS.  In the last two weeks my CRAPPY POS Scientific Atlanta DVR has failed to record the last 10-20 minutes of the most recent The Unit and the last two Criminal Minds.  I suspect this is because it didn’t have enough space and it was two stupid to make space by deleting old crap.  So I went to the web in hopes of finding these episodes (legally).

Neither are available on iTunes, which if you’ve been reading I have recently been testing with AppleTV.  That would have been cool.  Becuase then I could have watched them.

So while Criminal Minds is strangely unavailable, CBS does offer the most recent episode of The Unit online through their video service, called Innertube.

I’ve now watched the “full episode” of last nights The Unit twice.  Except that the ENDING IS NOT FREAKING THERE.  WTF!  I mean making me watch it twice - well the commercial at least, you can fast foward through segments of the show, but not the commercials - is really annoying.  But how can they not have the ending?  If it is intentional it is the must consumer unfriendly, crappy thing ever.  I mean its not like I have some other way to see what happened.  If it is unintentional, which I hope is the case, someone is really idiotic.  FIX IT!  These guys wonder why YouTube is killing them.

This is not making me a fan of innertube or CBS.  Not that they care, but gah. 

I wrote a while back about wondering what defines success in blogging (post).   So I started getting a few spam posts.   Then I got more.   I assume this meant I was getting indexed somewhere, perhaps pretty favorably.  And then the spam just started getting out of hand.  I installed Akismet. 

Today I see:

Akismet has protected you from 918 spam comments.

918!  In a month or so.  (Can’t remember when exactly I installed it, so much for scientific tracking.)   Wow!  That’s crazy.  I guess that’s a partial indicator of success.

I recommend getting Akismet if you are you using Wordpress.

Well I got my AppleTV.  Hooked it up, synched up, and turned it on.  I would say its interesting, but probably not ready for primetime.   If you just want to listen to iTunes stuff on your home theater… and maybe put pictures on your flatscreen, it’s probably good for that.

It would be much cooler if you could buy TV shows right from the couch, but you can’t.  You have to buy them on iTunes, wait for them to download (not much Apple can do about that I suppose), and then watch them. 

So I bought the pilot of a new show called Supernatural.  It had good reviews on iTunes and seemed interesting.  It took a while to download, it was 464mb, but I watched it eventually.  It seemed to be the right aspect ratio, but not HD.  So it was a little dark, but not too bad.  All-in-all a reasonable experience.

But not really a wow experience.  It wasn’t so cool that I’ve downloaded 10 more shows.  I did try to buy 1 or 2 other shows because my crappy Scientific Atlanta DVR (PIECE OF SHIT) decided to only recorded 53 minutes of several shows rather than the whole show.  I still can’t get over how bad that thing is.

Anyway, my recommendation on the AppleTV is to wait until version 2.

Unless you have an addiction to shiny new technology gadgets… but in that case you probably already bought one.

So I have Verizon Wireless (probably not for long since I’m a phone junky and I’ll get the Apple iPhone), which I switched to so that I could get a Motorola Q.   So today, I get a text message from Verizon.  It tells me that because daylight savings time is on March 11th this year that I may need a software message.  The text message (remember this is a text message sent to my phone) had a URL in it.  So I followed the URL.  I scroll around the page, lots of cell phones for sale.  Lots of navigation.  Nothing I can find about daylight savings time.  I scroll back up, AH HA!  There is a link that says “skip to main content”.   Then:

1. This takes me to something about daylight savings time, let’s me select Microsoft, Palm, RIM, and go.  
2. I pick Microsoft.
3. I browse around some Microsoft page, finally find some link that says ”steps for updating your device.”
4. Then I have to choose if I synch with my PC or wirelessly.
5. This takes me to another page - I guess it’s the Windows Mobile mobile main page.  There is something to click there for an update.
6. Now I’m at another page telling me to get the update or click here if I can’t.  It warns me I have to accept a license agreement.  I click “start the process”.
7. Sweet, another page with a accept / decline licensing agreement.  (Who declines this?  Especially since I have to have it or my phone won’t know what time it is.)
8. Now I have to choose whether I want to download the upgrade for Windows Mobile 5.0 or Windows Mobile 2003 second edition devices.  WHAT THE HELL!  Can’t these clowns auto-detect this crap?  I mean give me a break.  I’m not about to go away from this stupid web page I’m on to look it up because it’s taken me forever to click this far.  Just give me the update for crying out loud.
9. Well, well.  When I click Widnows Mobile 2003 second edition devices (I hope that’s me, otherwise my phone will probably die some horrible death) it asks if I am sure I want to download (insert stupid filename here).  I, of course, say yes.
10. SWEET!  Installation of (insert stupid filename here) was UNSUCCESSFUL.   Wow, thanks for the useful info.
11. So I went back and got the Windows Mobile 5.0.  I mean, I have no other useful guidance so it seems like the logical step.
12. YES I WANT TO DOWNLOAD IT YOU PIECE OF CRAP.  
13. Hmm, well it downloaded it and rebooted my phone.
14. I guess it worked since it didn’t tell me it failed.

Now.  Let’s look it took OVER FIFTEEN STEPS for me to update my phone.  (Well, to hope that my phone was magically updated.)  Did anyone test this process before sending out this text message?  I’m sure this message had to have gone to millions of people, so I mean it’s not like they shouldn’t have tested the process.

So let’s review:

• I have a signed contract with Verizon.  They probably own my future children and I’m sure they have the right to monkey with my phone at their leisure and that I have no recourse.
• I am sure I “signed” (ie: clicked) some agreement when I activated Windows Mobile on my Q.  So I have some contract of some type with Microsoft on this issue (and many others I’m sure).
• Verizon sent me the text message - they know what kind of phone I’m using.
• I clicked a link.  I’m sure the mobile phone browser (like all others) transmits its browser ID and OS ID to the web server.  WHY THE HELL COULDN’T THEY JUST USE THAT AND SEND ME RIGHT TO THE FILE I NEED!

Wow this was such a bad experience. 

/rant

I bet the iPhone isn’t this stupid.

 

Here are the things I like about Vista:

1. I like the new UI.  It’s nice looking and comfortable.  Not too far from XP to be annoying (which is sometimes the case in the switch to Office 2007), but cleaned up enough to be a reasonable step forward.  I’m pretty sure my system isn’t running all the cool stuff (because my PC for some reason has a 5.0 Windows Experience Index), but it is still pretty nice. 
2. I like the way sharing works now.  I think it’s better - Sync / Make Available Offline is definitely way better.  Microsoft, if you are watching, a suggestion:  there appears to be some issues with out connecting - I am mounting shared folders from another system (XP) and they show up with the X (as in not connected) pretty frequently.  Clicking them sometimes requires a password (another suggestion - let me have it remember my password or put it in that Card Folder thing) and then things work again.  This stuff should auto-connect.
3. The Sidebar is a cool idea… I like have time and date up there.  I haven’t gotten Outlook 2007 to work with RPC yet so I’m not sure if the calendar thing or Outlook in general integrates with the Sidebar, but if it does that would be really cool.  (Free new feature idea!)

Uhm.  Well.  Cough.   Anyway, I do like using it.  Once all the drivers are stable I’m hopeful all the issues that have been haunting me will fade away.

Here are my biggest problems with Vista right now:

1. Sound periodically stops working.  This is kind of annoying.  At first I thought maybe it was an iTunes / Vista compatibility problem, but now I’m pretty sure it’s not.  I’ve had sound cut out in World of Warcraft, Ventrilo, and iTunes.  Rebooting fixes it, but strangely there are sounds from the OS as it shuts down.  I’m sure this is probably some driver problem, but I’m a little paranoid about updating drivers.
2. Hold ‘Em, a Vista Ultimate add-on, looks pretty cool.  Except that all the text flickers like crazy.  So I looking around on the Microsoft site - nothing in the knowledge base.  I did find a discussions (that I would link, but I closed the browser already) in their community area.  It seems it is a problem with the nVidia drivers.  Seems strange that a bug would show up in text rendering in a simple game and no where else, but alas that appears to be the case.  And I’m running the “non-beta”, “certified” driver too.
3. I think there must be a major memory like somewhere - either in Office 2007, the Sidebar, or IE 7 (possibly related to Flash).  My computer has 2 GB of RAM, 2×3.6ghz HT Xeons, and an nVidia 8800 GTX and things get really slow sometimes.  I’ve even had them come to a screeching halt - this never happened on XP.  I also only get a 5 on the Windows Experience Index, which seems kind of low give that much horsepower.
4. Alt-Tabbing between a full screen game and Windows is pretty chunky.
5. Lack of drivers - I want to use the cool features of gaming keyboards (I have a Logitech G15 and am also testing out the new Razer Tarantula).   I’m afraid to install the XP ones.
6. (Yeah I know I said 5.)  The freaking security alerts get really annoying.  Those Mac ads are right on (and especially hilarious if you have used Vista).  Another annoying thing is that I have to run World of Warcraft in Administrator mode to get updates to install - what a hassle.

To be fair, there are a lot of things I actually like about Vista (one of the two reasons I haven’t rolled back to XP - the other is I like testing out the cutting edge stuff).  So I will write a Top 5 things I like about Vista.

We are two weeks away from TBC, the first expansion to World of Warcraft.  It’s a big deal, largely because, well quite literally, it will change the game.

The biggest thing:  the maximum level moves from 60 to 70.  Why is this so important:

1. People have been sitting at level 60 for about two years.  This means that level hasn’t been that important as a differentiator for a long, long time.  So since everyone has been stuck at 60 they’ve differentiated across different axes:
• Equipment:  There are currently 3 tiers of equipment that are dramatically different.  Even the people with tier 1 are dramatically more “powerful” than those in “tier .5″ or “tier 0″…   And there are very few with full sets of tier 3.  But basically all this stuff will be obsolete withing a few months of the expansion release (since people will be 70 and the level 70 stuff is better than even tier 3).
• PVP:  This has been fun.  The rewards, however, are all equipment.  So all the PVP people have been doing was a fun game, but all the “output” again gets washed away.  Start over when you get to 70. 
2. People haven’t “levelled up” in a long time.  Getting a PVP rank used to be comparable, but they took that out in Decemeber and it was crazy hard (like 80 hours a week) past a certain level.  So the feeling of advancing a level will be back, at least for a month or two, which will be fun and energize people.
3. New areas — there have been a lot of patches with new areas in the two and half years of WoW, but they were almost exclusively dungeons and battlegrounds.  There will be new dungeons and battlegrounds in the expansion too.  But, more importantly, there will be a giant new land mass.  This will bring back the joy of discovery and exploration.  I think it will be a lot of fun.
4. New races — this will appeal to the hardcore folks who want to try something new.  It might also be good for new people who now have some vague advantage to entering the game now (they get to be one of the new races).

So I think there might be a resurgence of playing, but I’m not sure.  I have not been to Outland (the big new area) in TBC, although I have played the beta.  I messed around as a dranei and a blood elf (the new races) and it was pretty fun.  But I couldn’t bring myself to level up to 70 only to have it wiped when the expansion is released, so I haven’t seen the high end stuff.  I’m looking forward to checking it out.

[ Buy it on Amazon ] [ Official Site ] [ Gamespot: 5.5 Users: 7.2 ]

I almost didn’t buy this game after the mediocre (read bad) rating that Gamespot gave it (it’s a really well done review, definitely worth checking it out).  After playing it, I kind of agree with a lot of their issues.  But it grew on me a little.  I haven’t played it through yet, or even racked up a ton of hours.  That isn’t going to stop me from posting my thoughts though.

My biggest issue with this game is probably more of a general Wii issue.  The motion sensing controller is core to the whole Wii model so most of the games I’ve checked out try to make good use of it.  However, I can’t help but feel that the controls seem to oscillate between not very sensitive and hyper sensitive.  For example, in a sword fight in Red Steel the sword strokes don’t seem particularly natural or responsive.  In my opinion the response should be instantaneous and should follow the motion you make.  This doesn’t seem to be the case - maybe its a limitation of either the game or the controller, I can’t say.  I hope that future games do a better job of this.  The other end of the spectrum, hyper sensitive (or sometimes eratic) response is also illustrated by Red Steel.  You have to keep the Wii remote pretty stationary or you’ll find yourself constantly looking at the floor.  This causes you (well at least me) to overreact and shit up.  It takes a while to get this under control and constantly holding the controller in the right position is kind of a hassle.

So moving on, I think you’ll find my biggest gripe is tied to control.  I found it difficult to get used to waving the remote around in one hand to control where I looked and using the nunchaku in the other hand to move (or dodge in a sword fight).  It is possible that I’m just not twitchy enough for this, but it took me a long time to get used to it.  In fact, I’m still not used to it.  I did, however, find that over time I got a little more used to it and started to have fun.

My other complaint is something that Gamespot also pointed out.  The cut-scenes and dialog pretty much sucks.  I wish there was a mode where I could just go sword fight and not have to deal with the story, I’d use that all the time and give the game a much better review if it had that feature.  This would at least let me escape the annoying aspects of the game and have fun.  Like a Wii sword fight workout… that would be cool.

I also wasn’t blown away by the graphics.  I’m not sure if this is a Red Steel issue or a Wii issue.  In an FPS the expectations for graphics are just a lot higher and this didn’t get there - it pales in comparison to games like Gears of War on Xbox 360.  This may be due to the fact that the Wii is not HD, which seems like a weird choice.

So in summary:  This game is fun to mess around with and does do some interesting stuff with the Wii controller, but relative to other games in this genre it’s not very good.  I would only recommend it if you want to try out some interesting new games on your Wii.  I give the game a few kudos for the cool sword fight model and for doing some pretty cool motion sensing stuff in the interface.  I just wish they had done a little better on the quality.

My hope:  That someone comes out with a sword fight game that is really cool for the Wii.  I think the basic idea of the sword fights in Red Steel are really compelling and I would love to see a game that does a spectacular job of delivering on that concept. 

[ Buy from Amazon] [ Official Site ] [ Gamespot: 8.1 Users: 8.0 ]

This is a cool PC game, probably the best since World of Warcraft.  I’m sure it will also make a great console game at some point as well. It is also a better sequel, at least IMO.  Of course, that wouldn’t have been hard in Battlefield series, since the other one wouldn’t run on my computer, which I now realize is a shame since this is a good game and I think its predecessor was probably good too.  (BTW, the reason it didn’t run wasn’t because my computer wasn’t powerful enough, it had some weird issues with the resolutions I use.)

Battlefield 2142 is a first person shooter that simulates military combat.  It allows games of up to 64 players (32 per team) in opposing factions.  (The EU vs. PAC). 

You can choose one of four options:

• Recon:  This is basically a sniper.  They get sniper rifles, explosives, and camouflage.
• Assault:  Basic infrantry.  They get assault rifles and med packs.
• Engineer:  Good at killing armor and air.  They get something akin to a stinger missle launcher.  They can also repair armor, cars, air, etc.  They also get mines, which are quite nice.
• Support:  These are heavy machine gunners.  They can also resupply (provide more ammo).

The other interesting thing about this game is that you can get in vehicles such as tanks, mechs (large, heavily armed and armored robot looking things), cars (little dune buggie type vehicles with a machine gun turret), and various helicopters.  Tanks and mechs are really fun.  You can see the list of vehicles here.

The commander can also issue orders to people and squads (up to six players per squad).   A commander can also launch a UAV to monitor enemy troop positions and movement and can bombard them with an orbital strike. 

GOOD:  It’s fun to play.  32v32 is a blast.  It seems to be relatively easy to find game servers that are popular.  You can play a game pretty quickly, often around 30 minutes, and they are a blast.  You usually get some good adrenaline rushes.  I also admit to have a significant bias towards games where you play against or with other people as opposed to alone.  This is one of only three games I’ve found myself playing for any reasonable amount of time in the last few years (the other two are World of Warcraft and Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne - I’ll discuss them later).

BAD:  The game doesn’t handle Alt-Tabbing very well which I find really annoying.  It also could have better game finding and matching features, sometimes joining with a friend is a royal pain because you have to keep hitting refresh until a slot on a server opens up and then sometimes it puts you on a different team.  Finally, the documentation pretty much sucks, but hey it’s a game and you’ll figure it out.

COOL BONUS:  It does have a pretty cool webpage showing your ranks and stuff.  Ranks that you get from playing and badges/awards (which are cool) lead to unlocks (better gear).   This is probably makes the game ten times more interesting.

SEE:  LokiTX (that’s me!)