Gomer Huckabee

My wife just pointed out that Mike Huckabee is a clone of Gomer Pyle.

Mask of the Betrayer and I'm jonesing for Planescape

So I picked up the NWN2 expansion. So far, so good, but while it has nice eye candy and a decent story, it really makes me want more.

Lum seems to recommend The Witcher, so I'll give that a go. It seems to be deeper, but with more of an adult theme.

2007 Fall TV Shows

I've been watching the fall lineup of TV Shows and there seems to be more good than bad out there. This season is one of the better new show lineups of recent history. A few seem to have potential to be long term good entertainment. Some of the older shows are really showing their age, and I hope they either have makover's or are retired before they jump the shark. Yes, that's you CSI, Survivor, and all dozen Law and Order shows that I'm talking about.

Chuck from NBC is good that it's an original show, and seems to have potential. However, they need to work to keep Chuck more in character, and also to add a bit more depth to the show. The success of this show depends moreso on the adventures, and it needs a bit more Jason Bourne flavor from the supporting spy cast. Overall, I'd give this a 6 out of 10 so far, but with potential.

Big Shots from ABC is my personal favorite TV show so far. The writing has been top notch, and is actually ahead of the actors, who are quite good. The premise of the show, like Chuck, is very, very original. The setup with Dylan Mcdermott's lead, his ex wife, daughter, and supporting CEO friends works quite nicely. I think this show probably has the best chance to be a hit, since it appeals cross genre. I give it an 8 out of 10 and hope they keep it edgy and fun.

Reaper is an interesting new show from WB, featuring the creative input of Kevin Smith, of Jay & Silent Bob/Dogma fame. The premise is also fairly original for a TV series. It's a comedy based on a family that sold their firstborn child's soul to the devil in exchange for allowing the father not to die. The cast is a bit mediocre, save Ray Wise as the devil who is absolutely brilliant and makes the show good. The writing is also pretty good, with the usual Kevin Smith type of Character Development. My only complaint is which idiot at WB placed this show across from the mega hit House. Not a fair time slot fight, and I hope it gets moved or I don't see it surviving. 7 out of 10 so far ranking wise.

Ok, next post I'll examine Cane, Life, and I'll give my opinion of Survivor: China, CSI, House. and Weeds.

Time Flies

I can't believe how fast time moves once one gets into their 30s. It seems I was in my 20's yesterday, and I'm staring the big four zero right in the face all of a sudden.

I seem to do a better job keeping up with news than writing, even though it's moreso my passion.

The good news is the Cleveland Indian's have knocked off the Evil Empire, and the world seems to be still in one piece. I'm not sure which is more important, however.

I guess the world is more important. especially with my eye out for
an angel.

History of the World, Part I

Has withstood the test of time nicely. I'm curious what movies today will be watchable in 25 years. Although most movies put out today are barely watchable....

War! Treaties! Politics! Lies!

I've found a neat little web based game, which seemingly is based on the old Risk board game.

I think the model that's imposed on this game will be the future of massive online games in the future. A free gameplay, with additions, or more content available via pay. Plus, this game allows one to play with a bunch of people, advance, and allows for true casual gameplay without a hierarchical system.

Good stuff

Baby Christopher

Life is short

Not just for Tony Soprano....

Lord of the very generic Rings Online

So, after tiring of the pain of Vanguard, growing weary of the same old, same old of WOW, and having run Oblivion, Dark Messiah, and Gothic 3 into the ground, one would think Lord of the Rings Online would be just the medicine a grizzled old, bored MMO vet would need.

As Lee Corso would say on College Gameday, not so fast! I briefly tried LOTRO out during beta, and while the game looked pretty, and seemed to be true to the Tolkien mythos, to me it was like a very well made sandwich.. without the Miracle Whip. Tasty looking, but missing that special ingredient.

Let me explain:

First, let me say this game should and apparently is selling well. I'm sure it will flesh out to be a nice alternative to WOW and EQ2. Also, I am an avid Tolkien fan, and would love a shot of leading an Oblivion or WOW style Mines of Moria raid someday.

However, after playing umpteen MMOs and loads more single player MMOs, I can honestly say there is not one single original idea implemented in LOTRO. The classes are rather bland copies of other games, obviously derived from AD&D but without the depth or appeal that other games currently have. The combat is boring and generic. The levelling is likewise stale and on par with the last dozen fantasy MMOs out there. The questing is a combination of other games, with a bit of Tolkien love put in, but it does not stand out at all.

In closing, this game is a great change of pace for those who started MMOing during the WOW days, or are somewhat new to Online RPGs. For those of us who have been around the block, this is simply Lord of the very generic Rings Online with no actual hook or reason to play.

I'll stick to rereading Tolkien when I want to visit Middle Earth. I prefer my adventures there without tinges of Norrath or Kalimdor.

The family that potters together, stays together

Ubuntu - a leap ahead

I've been playing with Linux since 1995. I'm not a heavy programmer, and my livelihood is based on databases with mostly high level programs and administrative functions.

In that timeframe, I've installed and run Redhat, Suse, FreeBSD, Gentoo, and Solaris at home. They've all been so-so as desktop replacements and I've had technical glitches in The Matrix while trying to do my day to day things on all of them. None seemed ready for primetime.

Over the last year I've been running Fedora with more or less success. It was stable, but had some things I didn't care for. Installing it was like most Linux installs, a pain.

One of the constants of Linux installs I've performed have been the need to 'tweak' to get things to work, and to ensure I have the drivers for my display, printer, sound, keyboard, network, and other peripherals working properly. In other words, it works in a half ass manner usually with one or more things requiring external intervention.

Ok, so yesterday I decided to give Ubuntu a try. I downloaded the .iso via bittorrent, and fired up my PC awaiting the upcoming Linux fix mousehunt. I finished installing, and... everything worked.

So, I went into my /home folder and double clicked on an .mp3 song waiting for the usual pain of finding codecs. A window popped up, and automatically installed it. Likewise for video. It imported all my old settings seamlessly.

Color me impressed.

Last month I struggled with Vista. My drivers didn't work. The interface felt like something was missing or haphazardly patched together. The media player ran like a tank with a cylinder engine. The desktop sidebar ate my cpu. The applications launched and gave me strage messages. It felt like a Linux install!

Ubuntu installed and just worked. I run a normal set of peripherals and I rely on my desktop to perform a variety of functions, including media center, printing, messaging, mail, and programming. So far, everything has worked out of the box with ubuntu.

Better, I've added the packaged I wanted and removed the ones I didn't need via the package manager, with no ill side effects.

Kudos to the Ubuntu team. I'll be on your distro for a while.

Godspeed Kurt

Vonnegut was one of my favorite authors when I was young, as his books were very fluid, smart,  and fun to read. As I grew up, it was easy to see through Kurt, and to wonder why so few people who were huge Vonnegut fans missed the simple point that the man was miserable due to a gaping whole by having little faith, as was his writing.

Despite that, in an age of vapid writing and the mass churning of Patterson novels and their clones, rereading Cat's Cradle is a breath of fresh air. I wish we had more Vonneguts out there.

Godspeed Kurt. You certainly were one of a kind.

A hypocritical paradox

versus

Godspeed Johnny

Thanks for many laughs.

Vista has vanquished me

So, after running XP for years with no issues and being generally happy, I was not frightened off by all the bad PR Vista had been getting. I figured most of it was hyperbole. So I upgraded to check it out and be wooed.

Boy, was that a wrong decision. Vista runs like a product still in development. My shiny new PC, with it's killer hardware felt like it was actually a 286.

First, media center which runs like a champ on my older PC, was sluggish and froze up often while just taping in the background. The security interface just plain sucks. I read and figured out how to disable the annoying popups, but really an average end user would be lost, and probably annoyed. File copying is slow. Network devices are misidentified. DRM decided my music should not be copied, nor could my taped non protected TV shows.

I won't even get into gaming, but suffice to say by XP box runs twice as fast on Half Life 2 and Oblivion, with lesser hardware.

I imagine Vista eventually will turn into a decent OS, but for now stay with XP, or buy a Mac. Microsofts newest operating system is definitely not ready for primetime.

Originality and Laziness

So, I have a plethora of ideas in my head and stories I wish to pen. The problem is that so much of fantasy is a rehash of Dungeons & Dragons and Tolkien that it leaves very little wiggle room. I find those stories boring, as I crave, to quote Will Smith from MIB, New and Hotness.

Some creative people recently have borrowed minimally few ideas and through sheer prose power and fantastic writing ability have given us some of the most memorable fantasy works ever.

I hope to be published one day, but have no intentions of quitting my day job. More importantly, I'd like to actually finish one of the writing projects I begin, which is almost an equally monumental challenge for a working person with too many easy excuses for procrastination

Vanguard, Saga of Lone Wolf Mcquaid

Set the wayback machine to 1997, Mr Peabody. John Romero of ID Software fame had joined ION Storm and was hyping his new FPS game he was rolling out named Daikatana. Romero had garnered fame as being part of the ID Software team, with it's early 90s hits, including Doom.

The Romero name was good enough to gather enough capital to spend an exhorbitant amount of coin to fund his team at EON to create his 'next gen' game, in which he would 'make you his bitch'.

The game was a flop, and is regarded as one of the worst ever, What went wrong? In the words of Romero's ID compatriot and programmer, John Carmack, Design is easy. Implementation is hard.

Vanguard: Saga of Hereos is Daikatana for the MMO market. It had lots of hype. It had a ton of cash infused based solely on Mcquaid's name and ties to EQ. It is currently a complete wreck of a game that could go down alongside Romero's heap of junk as one of the worst ever.

Everquest was successful because it was cutting edge and pretty much the only game in town. In 2007, the MMO market has done a 180 degree turn and is saturated with a lot of competition. MMOs thrive based on content, community, and communications. By communications, I mean the word of mouth and grass roots appeal that makes a large amount of gamers at a minimum want to try ones game. There is a lot of communications about Vanguard, but unfortunately for Sigil, none of it good.

Vanguard is an incomplete game due to a combination of feature creep, designer ignorance, and developer incompetence. The game is loaded with bugs and is neither easy to be immersed in, or fun to play unless one wants a larde dose of Sado-masochism. Sadly, there is no valid reason for any gamer to buy or play this wretch with the large dose of quality and polished games currently out.

The key to a good game is not following any of Jessica Mulligans ludicrous and wrong point papers, it is targeting your core audience, keeping it simple, and making it fun. It doesn't matter if your budget is 80 million, 8 million, or 8 dollars.

Fortunately for Mcquaid, there is always room in the cell phone games market for another 'game designer'.

Lord of the Rings Online

I've been playing Turbine's latest MMO in their long line of massive games.

This one benefits from cross spectrum name recognition and should be a fairly easy one to market, given the widespread love of Tolkien from so many people of different ages.

My first impressions of the game is they've done a great job with the graphics, and an even better one copying the successful elements of World of Warcraft and Asherons Call.

The biggest negative I can think of is there is not a single original detail in this game that isn't currently in other MMOs out there. I suppose there is safety in consistency, but I really wish they had done at least one original thing.

Although, perhaps their burnt fingers have limited their desire to experiment.