What the fuck is the point of tumblr blogs?!?

Maybe because I am much more familiar with WordPress or have a background in web design. But its like I’m missing the point when I see a Tumblr site. All the ones I’ve seen are of students posting pictures of their most favorite animes and animated gif’s from all over the Internet, including reposting stuff from other tumblr blogs. I don’t think I’ve seen one that has what I would call a proper paragraph. And you can’t ever comment on them unless you have a tumblr account as well. But considering my spam problem, that leaves me a little jealous.

I will say the it seems to be a great platform for creative types to post their artwork and photography. And its ‘Ask Me Box’ link in the sidebar has spawn some funny alter ego ask X pages (I would gives examples if they weren’t embarrassing).

Maybe I’m just being old fashion.

Because its a popular computer parts store, I waited 9-10 business days before they got around to look at it. And, after they fully tested every aspect of my PC, including running a program that maxes the RAM, CPU, GPU, etc and pushed it the hardware too its absolute thermal limit FOR TWENTY FOUR HOURS, Guess what they found….

Nothing…they couldn’t find a thing that was causing my issues. All they could suggest was unhook my card reader since it seemed too spew out a lot of error reports and problems with the IO controller. So I spent $50 and two weeks living off my phone to be told nothing was wrong with my PC. Imagine my surprise/rage to suffer three hard freezes in the span of twenty minutes whilst playing TF2. I was cheated, fucking cheated by Memory Express.

So now I’m gonna try several ideas I have to resolve some of my issues, reinstall TF2, update my motherboard’s Bios, swap power outlets, clean install, rotate the RAM sticks, sacrifice a chicken, whatever. At this point any idea is not absurd.

Fast forward to February; Where I got to find we had got a new, British magazine in our department. I thought to myself ‘The company must’ve switch publications, This one looks really pretty cool’. I snatched up a copy of my own, excited to try out its Photoshop tutorials. A few days later I notice that there was one copy left, and reminded my coworker (Who’s a bigger photographer than me) to get his copy before its too late.

He goes on too tell me that magazine isn’t complimentary, and that he got it from the magazine rack. Meaning I unwittingly shoplifted at my own job!!

after that I never bought a magazine so fast….

But thats not what I wanted to talk about. I thought while I wait for shit to install, I’ll do as I did last post and list off some of my new years resolutions.

Lose About 25 Kilograms

To the uninitiated, that’s a little over 55 lbs, which I don’t think will be too difficult for me. I managed to shred about 30 lbs since mid October by quiting energy drinks entirely as well as going on a zero carb diet (essentially a diet of protein and salad). I kind of fell off the dieting wagon in December due to work and the holidays, but I will get back to the diet and the gym in the new year.

Play Off My Whole Visa Bill

My Visa bill has been hanging over my head for two years now, I almost had it paid all off, but then I sorta had to live off it for eight months of 2011. But I’ve made little head way in getting rid of it even with a stable job and pouring hundreds of dollars into it a month. Now I really want it gone for good, and never get that bad again; So I can finally think about saving up my money like I used too. Like a champ!

Get Back Into Web Design

I took web design in college but made the critical error of not entering the field immediately after I graduated, I took a retail to get me on my feet in a new city before I go after my preferred career. But retail doesn’t give you much time to do anything else, so I’m still in retail after five years. This year I am going to get back into web design, I won’t necessarily go back to school, since I for the most part still know the basics. I think I can teach myself new stuff like HTML 5, CSS3 and at least one programing language using mainly online resources. With proper discipline and luck I’ll try be able to find some small freelance work this year to build up my portfolio.

I only hope I’m not forced to buy a Mac.

Get Back Into Drawing/Cartooning

When I was a kid, I wanted to become a cartoonist, I loved reading comic strips and loved drawing comic strips. For the past few years I’ve become more and more distant from this passion because I’m too distracted, lazy, or disheartened of my talent when measured against others. But drawing has always been the one thing I could do better than everyone I knew, and its something I’m scared of losing completely, I can’t lose that part of me forever.

I still dream of being a cartoonist, so maybe if I can have my skills again, I’d love to make a webcomic.

Start My Gaming Website

gamerdiscourse.com, I know I mentioned this before.

Reconnect With Old Friends

I have this personality problem, I don’t know why or where it developed, where if I lose touch with someone for a while, regardless of how close we are, they basically wink out of existence too me. Its not even intentionally, I just….forget about them. This hurts me a lot, because I feel like I’ve turned my back on too many of my closet friends simply because of distance and schedules.

Open A Chequing Account

Seems like a smart thing to do, I think. I’m actually not sure what a chequing account is for.

Buy A Dresser

I’ve just entered my mid twenties and I still keep my socks and boxers in the drawers of an old desk in my bedroom. Even though I have no room for it I still want a friggin’ dresser.

I….probably shouldn’t of mentioned that one.

Get A New Car

I’m tired and bored to death of my hand me down Chevy Aveo I got from my dad, I really want a new, exciting car to drive. What’s been slowing me down is when I almost had enough money for a down payment on a car back in 2009, my parents stopped me and said I still need another couple thousand for insurance. Than I flew cross country to be a groom at my best friend’s wedding, than was unemployed a couple times. So as you can imagine, I was set back substantially. I know I got to be frugal this year to afford a new or used car, In the meantime I’ll tape pictures of the cars I dream about on the glass door of my shower, the outside of course.

Vanquish My Gaming Backlog

I listed this in great detail already. I just gotta focus on my time management.

Read More Shakespeare

I love Shakespeare, its language of the Human soul and will always be timeless. But I sadly don’t read it enough, even though I sometimes boost (to girls typically) that I like reading Shakespeare. I’m not fooling anyone by not finishing Othello or King Lear, or by not touching Macbeth or Hamlet. And I don’t really have an excuse, its not like they’re War and Peace. If I stop repeatedly visiting gaming news sites every night I could catch up on them rather quickly.

Fall In Love

Should be self explanatory.

Rework This Website

This website looks like it was cobbled together by a person who learned web design years ago and was building on top of someone else’s template. I got a lot of ideas for this blog; revamp the layout, make better use of WordPress’ features and plugins (Tags and Capchas for starters), incorporate Twitter and Facebook updates, give it a new coat of paint, and get rid of my old portfolio and that crap banner on the top of the page. Maybe once it looks like a proper website, I’ll post here more, hell I might even get real comments.

And Finally….

Friggin’ Get Out More

Put bluntly, I can’t really be a loner alone.

So there you go, some of my new years resolutions. A lot, A LOT of them has more to do with me controlling my time and money far, far effectively. Not easy for a guy with ADHD, but now that I have 2011; aka the lowest point in my life, behind me, I feel like I have even more to prove in 2012. And I want too change and grow out from my present circumstance, so I can’t along myself to let 2012 slip through my fingers.

We’ll see how I’ll do, wish me luck.

I wouldn’t call it an addiction, more…..stupid.

Lately I’ve been thinking I should seriously tackle my gaming backlog in the new year. A daunting task considering the fact that I try not to think about my backlog because….it scares me a lot. But its something that has to cut down to size, so too help me stay on task (i.e. guilt me); I’m going to list my backlog here too serve as a permanent, public record to hopefully galvanize me into action.

So its easier to understand, the games will be filed under three categories; Game I need to play, games I need to finish or restart, and finally games I want to revisit. And I’ll list what platform they’re for. And with that said, here we go!

Games I Need To Play

- Halo 3 (Xbox 360)
- Star Wars The Force Unleashed (Xbox 360)
- BioShock (PC)
- BioShock 2 (PC)
- Brink (PC)
- F1 2010 (PC)
- Advent Rising (PC)
- Bulletstorm (PC)
- Golden Sun 2 (GBA)
- 007 Everything or Nothing (GCN)
- Killer 7 (GCN)
- Eternal Darkness (GCN)
- The Longest Journey (PC)
- Dreamfall: The Longest Journey (PC)
- Limbo (PC)
- Ghostbusters: The Video Game (PC)
- Half-Life: Opposing Force (PC)
- Half-Life 2: Episode 2 (PC)
- Just Cause 2 (PC)
- AlternativA (PC)
- Ifluid (PC)
- The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition (PC)
- Monkey Island 2: Special Edition (PC)
- Lightfish (PC)
- Rome: Total War (PC)
- Medieval II: Total War (PC)
- Psychonauts (PC)
- The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena
- Sin (PC)
- Sin Episodes: Emergence (PC)
- Singularity (PC)
- SkyDrift (PC)
- The Wonderful End of the World (PC)
- Aquaria (PC)
- Universe Sandbox (PC)
- Puzzle Agent 2 (PC)
- Rock of Ages (PC)
- Sanctum (PC)
- Ben There, Dan That! (PC)
- Time Gentlemen, Please! (PC)
- Exit DS (DS)

Games I Need To Finish

- Goldeneye 007 (Wii)
- No More Heroes 2 Desperate Struggle (Wii)
- Punch Out (Wii)
- The Legend of Zelda Spirit Tracks (DS)
- Professor Layton and the Last Specter (DS)
- Duke Nukem Forever (PC)
- Half-Life 2: Episode 1 (PC)
- The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword (Wii)
- Donkey Kong Country Returns (Wii)
- Half-life: Blue Shift (PC)
- The Legend of Zelda A Link To The Past (Wii’s Virtual Console)
- The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay (PC)
- Enslaved (Xbox 360(I feel really bad about not finishing this one))

Games I Would Like to Revisit

- Time Splitters 3 (GCN)
- Beyond Good & Evil (HD version just started on the Xbox 360)
- Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Wii)
- Second Sight (PC)
- Plants vs. Zombies (PC)
- Darwinia (PC)
- Wave Race: Blue Storm (GCN)

I might be missing a few, I do have a few games in my collection not listed which I never want to play again (I’m looking at you Conduit and Deus Ex). If you could gift games from your steam library to other people I could simply give away a lot of these games. But until Valve implement that I’ll be chipping away at this backlog.

After that, who knows? Maybe I’ll get around to listening to ALL my music collection.

But in reality, often its a broken, stuttering box that couldn’t give anything Dell makes a run for its money.

There’s times where it run like a FAT JOGGER, constantly throwing up that ‘(Not Responding)’ message should you try to do even a modest level of multi-tasking. Things as simple as opening a couple tabs in my browser while a youtube video loads; starting up certain applications when itunes is downloading podcasts, and the almost regular driver errors on my video card that freak out the entire system for several moments (most common while in game). But the absolute worst issue my PC suffers from is if I crash or need to restart, a driver bug causes the video card too not display any video unless I WAIT A FULL HALF HOUR before restarting.

I find it extremely hard to fathom why my PC freezes and pauses every time it has to think hard. Especially considering what it has:

-Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 clocked at 3 Ghz each
-8 GB’s of (I think) DDR3 RAM
-EVGA GTX 295
-OCZ 64 GB SSD for the OS (with another HD for applications)
-Windows 7 Professional 64 bit edition
-All of it in a case with half a dozen fans.

And yet it will still throw a hissy fit when CPU usage is topping 3%!!!

It not like I’m always torrenting the complete collection of the Internet or clicking on links about male enhancement, and there’s nothing hogging resources from behind the scenes. So I can’t think of any specific reason why it locks up so much over the smallest things, except for maybe it has a voodoo curse on it.

I’m convinced I need too reinstall Windows and start anew, but that’ll make me lose literally weeks of productivity while I get this system fully operational again. I’d sooner take it to my favorite PC retailer and pay too much to have it diagnosed by someone that knows more than me.

All I know is I am not in the mood to buy a new card.

How much does American News have too SUCK before one of it’s best journalists has too take up a second job??

I don’t know how many zeros was in the number on Anderson’s multi-year contract; but if you ask me I would be utterly humiliated if I went from the primary anchor and respected face of one the biggest News Networks in the world, covering significant global events often ON LOCATION!! to hosting an American day time talk show, competing for ratings with Ellen DeGeneres.

He’s interviewed some of the most powerful and influential people in our era, now he’s quizzing an troubled couple about their past infidelities.

*SLOW SARCASTIC CLAP*

Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson contends that all 911′s are uninspired, squashed Volkswagen Beetles, and looking at modern 911s I would totally agree. But in my opinion the Porsche 91ls from the late 1980′s are the prettiest cars ever designed. I absolutely love how its body is so beautifully organic; a perfect shape achieved through countless generations of tiny evolutionary changes. Which considering the 911′s origins, is totally the case.

This is my dream car, and perhaps the easiest car on this list I can get here. They’re not uncommon and not terribly expensive compared to other classic cars. When I eventually sit down and write my bucket list, Owning one of these would definitely be on it.

2. Jaguar E-Type Convertible

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Hearkening back to an era when Great Britain still ruled bits of the world, They also reigned supreme in the motoring world. And nothing personified what the British could do better than the E-Type Jaguar. Svelte, classy and timelessly stylish, even today this is sex on wheels. If I could ever get one, I’d specifically want a soft top version with the wheel on the wrong side in traditional British racing Green. The problem is now its a rare, prized, old British car; I’d have to be more than rich to buy one in good condition, richer than that too import it to Canada, and since it would be a fifty year old car, I’d spend more time coaxing it to work than driving it. But still, sex on wheels.

3. Lancia Stratos

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No one really can’t do one of these lists and leave out an absurdly mental Italian sports car, and I am no different. Why do I want a Stratos? Its mysterious and a little unassuming, but put your foot down it explodes with fury. It looks like something James Bond would drive. You could even see where Q would hide the rocket launchers.

Finally, its a Lancia. So why the hell not.

4. My Own Damn Formula One Car

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Let me take this one a step further. I wouldn’t just want my own F1 car too zip around in on a race track; I’d want own a friggin’ F1 team. I want to create, sponsor, and enter my own racing team in the world F1 championship. Have them compete, than on days off I would blast it around my team’s test track and pretend that I’m Michael Schumacher.

5. Nissan GT-R

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Although they don’t have the suave and swagger of European sports cars, I love just how clever Japanese cars can it. They have a certain particularness and discipline in how high performance Japanese cars are made. And honestly nothing is no more anal than the Nissan GT-R. I could seriously see myself having fun blasting this purpose built marvel of engineering down one of Calgary’s multiple ring roads late at night. My only fear would honestly be if my face gets torn off.

Back in 2008 when Prince of Persia came out I was quite interested, I had always wanted to play the Prince of Persia games from the last generation, but never got around to playing them. My excitement grew more and more when it was revealed that this Prince of Persia would be a reboot of the series, distinct from the other three games, which freed me from the obligation of catching up. The game was also recommended to me by a friend as well, saying I would drink in game’s pseudo cell shaded aesthetic, so it’s always been on my radar. Sadly it took me two years to sit down and play it, even though I had owned the game for a year already. But now that I’ve finally played through the Prince of Persia, the first thing I can say about this game is this…..

I can’t decide whether I love it or hate it.

Essentially the story boils down to a thief (the prince, though it’s never mentioned in the game) who saunters in from the desert looking for his donkey and gets sucked into a celestial war to prevent an ancient evil god from escaping by purifying the land through fertile grounds and the protagonist’s female partner, Elica. Once the area is cleansed these collectible ‘light seeds’ appear that serve as the toll fees for reaching new areas. It’s an alright story, though you’ve heard it before. The two main characters are fun to listen to, the well written and voiced dialogue made it almost a reward to win a fight or complete a platforming sequence so you can hear them banter. I say its ALMOST a reward because what they say can vary drastically. While clearing out one land they were openly flirtatious; whereas a little later on in the next land they were completely pissed at each other. Perhaps Ubisoft wanted the conversations to reflect the state of the character’s mind or the condition of the land but it ends up being too spastic to truly appreciate.

My biggest problem with Prince of Persia is its game play. It involves effortlessly navigating the enchanting environment with a small but tight repertoire of acrobatic, parkour like platforming. The combat lets you fluently thread together varied attacks into long cinematic combos to defeat your enemies in the most breath-taking fashion.

I didn’t see any of this.

The issue for me was that nothing was clearly explained early on, this resulted in a very unforgiving gaming experience later in the game. For example, I instinctively assumed you need to hold the button down to complete an aerobatic manoeuvre, but when a new obstacle appears that involves you grabbing onto a sliding ring as your running on the wall that instead requires a quick button press, I couldn’t pull it off, mainly because the game didn’t do a very good job teaching me. There was one section in the platforming where I literally lucked out, accidentally finding a work around to pass it completely. This is compounded by the fact that, if you make a single mistake you spawn back at the last platform you were standing on. So, if you screw up on part of a particularly long parkour section you’ll have to start all over. Multiply the half minute each attempt takes a few times and it results in a truly agonizing and frustrating experience.

Perhaps the one good thing about the platforming is eventually you get good at it, only because there’s so bloody much of it. The combat, however, is a different story. Whereas the rest of the game is you running, jumping and climbing, the battles are few and far between. Each land has four bosses, who you encounter several times throughout their level. Lesser baddies (which you can avoid with a quick time event) are sprinkled throughout and since the much lauded fighting system is never properly explained you spend most of the game getting the shit kicked out of you. What’s worse is battles are riddled with quick time events that if you fail, restores most of the enemy’s health. And after spending what seems like an eternity fighting this dark creature only to see it recover half its life and be back in the fight, its just maddening. Before I figured out how to fight well I was already half-way through the game, and even then I was getting my ass handed to me.

Though when Prince of Persia’s game play does get it right, are you a total bad-ass!

If I could equate the game play of Prince of Persia too that of another game it would be to a Temple in the Legend of Zelda series. Normally being compared to the Zelda series would be a feather in a game’s cap. The problem is where a Temple in any Zelda game showcases a single element of game play the bulk of POP is the single game play element drawn throughout the entire game. This makes for a stale, tiresome chore that lacks any variety; which is doubled considering you have to collect those ‘light seeds’ to progress.

I feel bad for not loving Prince of Persia. The reviews I’ve read and the game I’ve played are two completely different entities. I see what makes this game great, but its so mired in repetition and routine. Its a game I would not pay full price for, nor buy a future sequel unless everything is redone from the ground up. This was my first Prince of Persia, and it didn’t impress me. Yet for all the frustration it caused its just good enough to make me conflicted about the whole affair. Perhaps my attitude on Prince of Persia could be summarized by touching on its ‘Epilogue’ DLC. I didn’t care enough to play it, but cared enough to watch it on youtube.

Prince of Persia is a game that confounds me. It’s a game that makes me wonder whether I am doing something wrong or it’s the game itself. A friend recommended this game to me a while ago, saying I would really like it. And, you know what, I do like it. However, on the opposite side of the coin, I can’t help but hate it, too the point where I’m struggling to reconcile how I feel about it. Am I at fault because I haven’t played the previous Prince of Persia’s, or is there a fundamental issue with this game?