tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21656199188389928352024-03-05T15:34:46.651-05:00The Torn SignpostThoughts from the mind of an MSPainted WerewolfOssianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04730023509055381022noreply@blogger.comBlogger182125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2165619918838992835.post-27179894532473061702024-01-08T05:37:00.001-05:002024-01-08T05:37:07.780-05:002024? More like "I'm not even going to pretend I'm going to be updating this blog any more"<p> Yeah, every now and then I remember this blog exists, but it's mostly just historical record at this point.</p><p>Maybe I'll come up with something to say, but likely I won't.</p><p><br /></p>Ossianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04730023509055381022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2165619918838992835.post-88617726483032261842022-03-20T17:42:00.003-04:002022-03-20T17:42:34.793-04:00This isn't a real post<p>No promises of reviving the blog any time soon.</p><p>Just a note that I've been getting a lot of comment-spam recently. I have been trying to run in and delete the spam messages as soon as they arrive, but it's a tireless job...</p>Ossianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04730023509055381022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2165619918838992835.post-73923289868587626222020-01-02T09:21:00.002-05:002020-01-02T09:21:04.826-05:00Happy 2020<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
More than a year since my last post.<br /><br />
Maybe this will be the year of my podcast.<br />
<br />
Or maybe this will be my only post until 2021.<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Ossianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04730023509055381022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2165619918838992835.post-66313534270322593602018-12-10T12:40:00.000-05:002018-12-10T12:40:04.228-05:002019 ...?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It's my annual "joke" post where I promise there will be good content this year and make one valiant effort and forget again.<br />
Nobody reads this anyway. I thrive on a few good posts I made in 2012 about Red Dwarf X :)<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Ossianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04730023509055381022noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2165619918838992835.post-14737013332323740372018-04-30T22:27:00.001-04:002018-04-30T22:27:47.453-04:00I'm surprised the Asgard Catering Company hasn't fired me<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I've pulled A Feast for Odin back off the shelf and trying solo again.<br />
I've played 4 solo games in the last several days, and my scores are improving.<br />
<br />
I should write something colorful up to track these things on the blog, and I will start to.<br />
<br />
My current high score is 112. 100 is "very good" according to the rulebook, but there are those who claim that 140+ is not only attainable but consistently attainable.<br />
I'll get there.<br />
<br /></div>
Ossianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04730023509055381022noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2165619918838992835.post-3707118478922771332018-02-14T08:58:00.002-05:002018-02-14T08:59:37.390-05:00Moseying or Galloping to Kansas City (Great Western Trail)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Great Western Trail was one of the "cult of the semi-new" games I picked up recently, and I really love it. It's a mid-heavy-weight game about traveling along the eponymous trail with your cattle and selling them, over and over. It's a euro where the theme could be anything, and some links are extremely tenuous, but fun and gives you a bunch of interesting decisions.<br />
<br />
Last night was only the third time I've played (other than a brief experimentation with a solo variant).<br />
I don't remember the scores of the first game, but I do know I won game 2 by a wide margin.<br />
Game 3 was also the first time we used some more of the random setup elements (neutral building placement and A/B sides of private buildings)<br />
<br />
Last night I was not so lucky.<br />
Early in the first run from the geographically-unclear ranch to Kansas, I was presented with this:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzU0RqHsksbbi0X29pDt4wCT2IYnzMpz-EQpJu2wBf18X6VzdoK839gv6bL2xBpb9h7Oxlx-fhF89tMd0K-3OLUkR_Xu05QgPt7eZHMH8RnkRHYQBEjbyG-lFROrSFkveDpKbAh4vx9pX1/s1600/Four+Jersey+Cows+GWT.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzU0RqHsksbbi0X29pDt4wCT2IYnzMpz-EQpJu2wBf18X6VzdoK839gv6bL2xBpb9h7Oxlx-fhF89tMd0K-3OLUkR_Xu05QgPt7eZHMH8RnkRHYQBEjbyG-lFROrSFkveDpKbAh4vx9pX1/s320/Four+Jersey+Cows+GWT.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
If you know the game, you will know that this is the worst possible hand of cows you can draw.<br />
When you reach Kansas City, your reward is based on having a variety of cows. Not only are these all the same, but they are the lowest value.<br />
Effectively, upon arrival in Kansas, this hand full of Jersey Cows would be worth $1, with the only possible place to "sell" them being Kansas City itself, which gives you -6VP.<br />
<br />
... But it also gives you +$6. Remember that for a moment.<br />
<br />
Since my hand of cows was lousy, and I was a few steps in toward Kansas City, I decided to move slowly, through spaces that could (relatively inefficiently) cycle bad cows out of my hand.<br />
<br />
This turned out to be a huge mistake.<br />
<br />
I lost so much momentum from moving slowly, and couldn't get an economy going so it became a self-fulfilling defeat. All in the name of trying to sell my cows to a further-up city for potential long-term gain.<br />
<br />
The end score was 81-80-56-49. Guess which one was me?<br />
<br />
Looking at a spread like this, -6 VP doesn't look so bad when it also gives you +$6 and a full hand-cycle that guarantees itself to be worth at least 1 more. If I had "galloped" to Kansas City quickly with my crap hand, I may have built up to some strong followup turns.<br />
<br />
I will remember this for next game. Which will hopefully be soon (whether in meatspace or on Tabletop Simulator). Will see what happens with a strategy of an early Kansas City rush.<br />
<br />
My goal this year is to focus on quantity of plays of games I've already got, more than looking at shiny new squirrels. I won't completely be blind to the Cult of the New, but I always feel sad when I play a new game with substance only once or twice before being able to formulate strategies and see a game for what it truly is (or be able to appreciate its expansions). I want to spend a lot of time on GWT and Terra Mystica, primarily, and we'll see what else pops up.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Ossianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04730023509055381022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2165619918838992835.post-58522722371572840602018-01-05T05:51:00.001-05:002018-01-05T05:51:14.943-05:002018 maybe<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Yet another meta-post.<br />
<br />
I remember this blog exists. I truly do.<br />
A year ago, I said 2017 was going to be the year I actually started updating the blog, and also started thinking about my podcasting aspirations. Neither of these things happened.<br />
Let's see whether this blog gets any traction in 2018.<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Ossianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04730023509055381022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2165619918838992835.post-20520001564966757772017-04-10T08:59:00.001-04:002017-04-10T08:59:21.581-04:00Evolution: Podcast?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I've been throwing around the idea of a podcast for awhile, and what better use for the flailing blog.tornsignpost.com than to try to resurrect its name with audio?<br />I've just returned from Granite Game Summit, and I've (separately) been thinking a lot about Legacy games, so I definitely have a lot to talk about for at least a zeroeth episode.<br />
<br />
I'm having a little trouble setting up accounts on some sites; amongst them is instagram. A few weeks ago, I tried creating a "tornsignpost" userid, got an error, and now it's in some sort of state of flux.<br />
Different parts of instagram either think the userid has been disabled, doesn't exist, isn't associated with an email address, or already exists.<br />
Their support tool through the app doesn't even work -- it claims that I'm not entering a proper country name -- so I'm trying to email their support.<br />
<br />
So if I do start up the podcast, and give it an instagram account, there's a chance it won't match the naming convention.<br />
<br />
But either way, please continue watching this space, and if I produce at least 2 episodes of the podcast in the next few months, consider subscribing to that ;)<br />
<br />
Hope to talk to you soon. GRR on!<br />
<br /></div>
Ossianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04730023509055381022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2165619918838992835.post-87715806040470259002017-01-31T16:50:00.000-05:002017-01-31T16:50:25.285-05:00Still nope<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Nope, not yet. There's lots of geekery I want to talk about, but no time to write, and it's getting less relevant as time passes. :/<br />
<br />
Keep watching this space though.</div>
Ossianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04730023509055381022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2165619918838992835.post-31798497525118943282017-01-04T08:41:00.000-05:002017-01-04T08:41:03.716-05:00Of Rogue One, the Rouge One, The OA and Odin<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Happy new year to my <strike>hundreds</strike> <strike>tens</strike> ones of readers!<br />
<br />
2017 is going to be the year I consistently update my blog. I can feel it!<br />
<br />
The subject line here should give you an idea of what's in my queue to talk about soon. I'll separate them into different posts, especially since there are some spoilers you might want to avoid.<br />
<br />
<br />
Real Soon Now...<br />
<br /></div>
Ossianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04730023509055381022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2165619918838992835.post-84441879216233276252016-09-23T21:07:00.002-04:002016-09-23T21:07:23.294-04:00RDXI: Samsara quick thoughts<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Still more scattered disorganized thoughts, nothing as "insightful" as my comments on RDX yet.<br />
And also trying to avoid deep spoilers since I'm even seeing the episode a week before many people actually in the UK, and certainly quite awhile before most Americans.<br />
<br />
As a followup to Twentica, we now have kind of a baseline to judge the setting of RDXI.<br />
Once again, things are slightly different than in previous seasons and unlikely to be directly explained.<br />
<br />
This episode spent a lot more time on ship, even with a classic Rimmer/Lister bunkbed scene with familiar decorations from the past throughout.<br />
The opening scene called back to Meltdown, with Rimmer's Risk story, but this time with Lister and Rimmer playing a game "Mine-opoly". Stuff happened in the game where there was a missed reference to the Luck Virus, which was certainly my first impression.<br />
<br />
The overall plot was jarring at first, but it made a reference to another episode with similar sci-fi-explanation and after thinking about it, fine. That's OK.<br />
<br />
The jokes were at par, although it still seems like the things that make Cat a Cat and the things that make Rimmer a Hologram have taken a back seat for the sake of the jokes.<br />
For one thing, Cat makes references to things in Earth's past as if he grew up with them, and seems to just be "the human with the mind of a 3-year-old and sharp teeth" for the most part.<br />
(Yes, one of the jokes is that he gets things completely wrong, but he still gets them wrong within the frame of reference of being human, if that makes any sense at all).<br />
I really hope they do something with the "Cat episode" (I think it's episode 6) to call back to Cat being a Cat and even moreso to the Cat Religion and Cloister.<br />
<br />
Rimmer is definitely still "dead", "electronic", and "a hologram", but he's been in Hard Light Mode through the whole last few series, which takes a bit away from him being non-human except when they specifically call attention to it. Even in the beginning of Twentica, they make reference to someone possibly "stealing his DNA" where they could have made reference to a digital copy (a la Me<sup>2</sup>), for example.<br />
<br />
In context of this series, and the specific reference they *did* make to a past episode (with Kryten miraculously knowing all the facts about something he could have mentioned 30 years ago.. ;) ), this one was OK. It's still hard to judge until I see more. RDX was really trying to do more character-development stuff, while XI so far is "these characters we already know, in new situations", mostly. Not bad on its own, just hard to review in the way I think about the series.<br />
<br />
As a side note, today I also watched 2 older episodes with my son: Backwards and White Hole.<br />
Like I mentioned last week, Backwards and Twentica had a similar structure, but Backwards still did its thing way better, in my opinion.<br />
In White Hole, Lister makes a little speech to how reliant humans are on technology, and he coincidentally made a similar speech at the end of Twentica... His White Hole speech was a little bit more "sincere", but the Twentica angle was all for the punchline.<br />
Also, White Hole opens with the resurrecting of Talkie Toaster, who had been severely disassembled by Lister... which is definitely a reference missed in Twentica as well.<br />
<br />
These thoughts were supposed to be quick, but I'll be back next week to try and tie things together a little more tightly.<br />
So far, I think the series is still about on the same level with RDX all-things-told, and still outranking Series 8 in almost every way imaginable...<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Ossianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04730023509055381022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2165619918838992835.post-67495943243026046912016-09-15T20:46:00.004-04:002016-09-15T20:46:48.804-04:00RDXI: Twentica, a spoiler-lite quick review<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I really will need to let Red Dwarf XI sink in a bit, and I think this first episode "Twentica" is hard to review.<br />
<br />
I did manage to watch it this evening, on my TV screen, via a far-less-convoluted-than-expected use of a VPN service, an Android app, and an MHL cable.<br />
<br />
Comedy-wise, I think the episode was about on par with Series X. They're kind of easing back into it.<br />
<br />
Plotwise, it was really similar to Backwards, in a way, although not nearly as clever of a premise. But in the same way as Backwards wasn't quite consistent with what "the universe is backwards" actually meant, the premise of this world they traveled to was just a bunch of setups for mismatched jokes.<br />
That is not really a criticism though, because it goes back to the roots of it being a sitcom first, sci-fi second.<br />
<br />
Still, a fairly contrived way to have a larger cast of "humans" than the 4 of them.<br />
And they (likely deliberately) avoided any attempt at trying to deal with continuity. We may still never know what "actually happened" after Series 8.<br />
Also, the crew seemed much more comfortable with technobabble, and less surprised by "whirly things in space", but then again, they've been together for hundreds of in-universe years, or at least 30, and they've seen it all.<br />
<br />
In 2012 when I was going through Series X I picked up on a lot of subtleties (some of which weren't actually there, but I willed them into existence), and did some overanalysis. This is just a harder episode for that. Series X started out with Trojan and Fathers and Suns, which were "character pieces" while this one was a "situation piece", more like the Lemons episode.<br />
So I'm reserving my overanalysis for a little later.<br />
<br />
But all other things being equal? This episode wasn't terrible. Hard to give it a number of Rs on the good old GRR scale, but let's start out with a solid 3.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>GRRR</b> for Twentica.<br />
(subject to change in retrospect)<br />
<br />
<b><br /></b></div>
Ossianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04730023509055381022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2165619918838992835.post-20655067834326088592016-09-12T09:50:00.001-04:002016-09-12T09:51:56.478-04:00Eleven, but not in the Upside Down<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I've been meaning to write a post about my feelings/thoughts on Stranger Things, and I'll get to that eventually. (TL;DW: I loved it, I care about Barb, and I wish the next season were a completely different story instead of a continuation of this one because the loose threads were perfectly spooky)<br />
<br />
And yes, TempleCon was the Eleventh, which I did write about as well.<br />
<br />
But there's another Eleven coming up in the next weeks, and I expect to be blogging about this one, too.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ1exJ091I7eZwDlkiBt6Ya6oPaLoj-5CK0EsRsF24GNCAgO2A6sF67m53Z458_mYJ5zxZVD_2bSUFKTsxkPPoy-oBsoig2SnuVseQPUexiwJ1ldq4IPwYWyS_EsQ-10DWP6bE9AQ248gM/s1600/rdxi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ1exJ091I7eZwDlkiBt6Ya6oPaLoj-5CK0EsRsF24GNCAgO2A6sF67m53Z458_mYJ5zxZVD_2bSUFKTsxkPPoy-oBsoig2SnuVseQPUexiwJ1ldq4IPwYWyS_EsQ-10DWP6bE9AQ248gM/s320/rdxi.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Back in 2012 I had a <a href="http://blog.tornsignpost.com/2012/11/red-dwarf-x-beginning-and-series-as-one.html" target="_blank">pretty good time</a> blogging about RDX as it aired, and overanalyzing it to the extreme.. Hopefully XI will also have enough potentially-overthinkable content to be entertaining here.<br />
I've read the official episode summaries, and my expectations aren't all that high...<br />
But I have no choice except to watch :)<br />
<br />
In 2012 I relied on torrents to get the episodes as they aired. This time around, I'm going to try using one of those location-masking VPN services and stream them directly. We'll see how that goes.<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Ossianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04730023509055381022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2165619918838992835.post-27722382177813970242016-08-28T21:41:00.000-04:002016-08-28T21:41:49.247-04:00TempleCon 2016 brief wrapup: A GRReat time!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Another TempleCon has come and gone, and I had a GRReat time.<div>
<br /><div>
Moving to August, in my opinion, was worth the extra 6 month gap. <br />I know it wasn't perfect for some groups (there was a distinct lack of Diplomacy Tournament and a shortage of War Machine), and the vendors overall didn't seem happy with the outdoor tent, but for me it was awesome.</div>
</div>
<div>
No giant snow banks in the parking lot, no concern about driving to/from the con in a Noreaster, no need to run back to your room to get your coat every time you stepped outside, an easy walk to Dunkin in the morning, and also easier to schedule the time off which is no small thing.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This TempleCon was also different from all other TempleCons because it was the very first time I didn't play a single game of VTES! Quite possibly the very first con I ever attended at all since I discovered the game where I didn't play. Even at my first-and-only trip to DragonCon, when I hadn't been integrated into the "Boston Group" yet, I still have photographic evidence of meeting the crew and being the newbie.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But getting to see the old VTES crew and just hang out and eat and drink with them, and play Other Games, is something I always look forward to.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I got a chance to play so many games. I tried to write everything down; I think this is a complete list:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
Imperial Settlers</div>
<div>
Dead of Winter</div>
<div>
Suburbia</div>
<div>
Velociraptor Cannibalism</div>
<div>
Rick and Morty: Total Rickall <i>(I still have to watch that show)</i></div>
<div>
Graverobbers from Outer Space</div>
<div>
Mansions of Madness 2nd Edition <i>(exceeded expectations, but probably out of my price-to-realistic-plays ratio budget)</i></div>
<div>
Lords of Waterdeep </div>
<div>
Above and Below</div>
<div>
Legendary Encounters: Alien</div>
<div>
Bottom of the 9th</div>
<div>
The Grizzled </div>
<div>
Tiny Epic Galaxies</div>
<div>
Terra Mystica </div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
...and honorable mention to Sushi Go, which I just played with my son before bed.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Also spent my fair share of time in the awesome "arcade", playing a whole lot of games like Dig Dug, Tapper, a bit of Galaxian...</div>
<div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVh3JKzm12EO30LOjfWF1V2GJPaOdX_dsc-41PzyOTIOVulM6A__jpkqRtqQloAQKOeu80agtyb-x2SFQieHMWR1bgCp8X-kGBFu2pzWXQAVWmlB7_OwNKBbFOEVSO-PqTwLFO4Fj2ukMA/s1600/GRRlaxian.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVh3JKzm12EO30LOjfWF1V2GJPaOdX_dsc-41PzyOTIOVulM6A__jpkqRtqQloAQKOeu80agtyb-x2SFQieHMWR1bgCp8X-kGBFu2pzWXQAVWmlB7_OwNKBbFOEVSO-PqTwLFO4Fj2ukMA/s320/GRRlaxian.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And for my first time, a Scotch Seminar. Booze-illiterate as I am, I did learn a little bit there. </div>
<div>
(Most important lesson: Apparently the term "peaty" translates to "OH MY GOD THE BURNING!" Not a fan.)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The vendors.. </div>
<div>
I was happy to see artist Heather Kreiter, who shares a bond with me over Ossian (from a conversation that did happen at an early TempleCon), and I bought a "Corpsey Puff" My Little Demon from her for my son (which he loved). <br />I didn't buy much else; just really the new Smash Up expansion so I could get it into my copy for the game library. I considered giving my ~$100 to the guy with the 3d-scanner to make a mini of myself, but resisted.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
As is my way in life, I opened up the game room each day as early as made sense, did my library work, and caught up with that crowd that I really only see at the Con. I enjoyed watching people play games as much as playing (and ironically I can't understand why kids enjoy youtube videos of other people playing Minecraft).</div>
<div>
The real fun-winner of the weekend (which I didn't get to play myself) seemed to be "Chopstick Dexterity MegaChallenge 3000", which speaks for itself. BoardGameGeek says this is a 10-year-old game, I had no idea. But everyone was using chopsticks to compete over food-shaped meeples in a bowl and it got pretty intense. Especially after the booze kicked in. :)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And then there was the wedding in the game room... Surreal, but not the strangest thing that could happen :)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Can't wait for next year!</div>
<div>
And hope to keep up the gaming momentum until then...</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>
Ossianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04730023509055381022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2165619918838992835.post-64695002129221942016-07-12T20:40:00.000-04:002016-07-12T20:40:08.355-04:00Squirtle has died of Dysentery<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I've been thinking all too much about <a href="http://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-video-games/pokemon-go/" target="_blank">Pokémon Go</a>, and why I don't understand (at least the Pokémon part of) its appeal.<br />
<i>(I respect it, I think it's fine if you like it. I'm not here to criticize you. See? I'm even using the accent mark and everything!)</i><br />
<br />
And I think I figured it out, in a way.<br />
There's an article that refers to people around my age, born in the mid-to-late 70s, as <a href="https://socialmediaweek.org/blog/2015/04/oregon-trail-generation/" target="_blank">the Oregon Trail Generation</a>, and that's very fitting to the story.<br />
<br />
I received a Gameboy in 1989, when I was 13, as a Bar Mitzvah gift from my Hebrew School class. It was the most amazing thing for a kid.. A Nintendo, merely the size of a brick, that you could carry around and play games on (in adequate lighting). Like an even-more-scaled-down Super Mario. And everyone's favorite, Tetris. Amazing!<br />
<br />
"<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_Red_and_Blue" target="_blank">Pokémon Red and Blue</a>", the first pair of games in the series to be released in the US, came out in September of 1998, a "mere" 9 years later.<br />
But you know where I was in September 1998? I was a fresh college graduate. I was working.<br />
And I had long stopped playing with my Gameboy. It was a kids' toy. There wasn't a concept of "playing mobile games" for adults. We had our Palm Pilots running Solitaire games but that wasn't quite the same. We didn't have time for any Nintendo Link Cable to really attempt to grok what Pokémon was all about, and it looked kinda stale and boring and repetitive as a single-player game, some sort of Final Fantasy clone with even less story.<br />
And our computer-game time was spent on more "computery" games. The Dooms. The Quakes. The Warcrafts. And our good friend, Civilization.<br />
<br />
But those little kids just a <i>couple</i> of years behind me in school? The early "millennials"?<br />
They got handed this "social mobile game" at the most social time of their lives: high school and college.<br />
They bonded over it. They related to it. They knew their Pikachu from their Magikarp, traded their Mews for Mewtwos, and discussed how to find the elusive Missingno. They were really the first kids to "play mobile games" like it was a thing in itself.<br />
<br />
Nevermind those kids a few years behind <i>them</i>. Those kids just took for granted that Pokémon was part of the world.<br />
<br />
And those "little kids"? They're now in their early-to-mid 30s. They're full-grown adults who don't think it's strange to play Pokémon, and even feel "nostalgia" for something that was completely after my time.<br />
<br />
Of course there are exceptions. There are 40 year olds who go to the Pokestops and the Pokegyms and play with their Pokeballs <i>(ok, sorry, got a little disrespectful for a minute.. ahem)</i>. But tell me that you don't relate to this even a little bit.<br />
<br />
What about the older folks?<br />
People older than those of us from the Oregon Trail, well.. they just weren't in their late teens/early 20s at the right time to completely dismiss Pokémon out-of-hand. So they can irrationally dislike something else from pop culture; take your pick.<br />
<br />
It's just us, whose formative mobile-gaming years weren't really allowed to blossom until we had missed the Pokémon train, who are destined to never feel like we "gotta catch 'em all".<br />
And we like it that way! Get off our collective lawns!<br />
<br />
Am I completely off-base here?<br />
<br /></div>
Ossianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04730023509055381022noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2165619918838992835.post-61002506174762296532016-01-13T09:02:00.002-05:002016-01-13T09:02:34.207-05:00Adventures with Mice and Mystics<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Whew!<br />
<br />
So, several months ago, I bought the game <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/124708/mice-and-mystics" target="_blank">Mice and Mystics</a> to play with my family and maybe as a subversive introduction to RPGs for my 7-year-old son.<br />
<br />
We made a few attempts at "Chapter 1" of the campaign, most of which failed, but most of those failures also included misunderstandings of the rules.<br />
After setting aside the game in a "saved state" from September and picking it back up with my son over Christmas break, we finally finished Chapter 1!<br />
We attempted Chapter 2 once and failed, but haven't tried again.<br />
<br />
Last night, because I'm really curious about finishing the story, I decided to take the game off the shelf, write down a 'Save file' sheet of where we'd left off, and start my own parallel solo campaign going.<br />
<br />
I played for nearly 2 hours.<br />
Early in the game, I rolled incredibly well, on both Search and Attack/Defense rolls, and things were looking great.<br />
<br />
I made a few tactical errors -- one of which was due to me being used to looking at the board upside-down so I went the wrong way -- but still, the game continued going pretty well.<br />
I was doing well enough that I decided to try the "side mission" which rewards you with an extra token that will come up later in the story (the "Miz Maggie Ally Token"; I still don't know what it does). But completing this side mission<strike> actually causes the hourglass marker to move closer to the endgame, giving you less time to complete the chapter.</strike> <span style="color: red;">(or so I thought!)</span><br />
<br />
I finally made it to the final tile. I killed off the nasty centipede and 2 spiders (one who appeared as the result of a Surge). The field was clear. All I needed to do was get all my mice to the tree.<br />
<br />
3 of my mice were at the tree.<br />
Nez, the slowest mouse of the group, was the last in initiative order.<br />
The Hourglass marker was on "Page 5", where "Page 6" was <strike>endgame</strike> <span style="color: red;">(or so I thought!)</span><br />
The Cheese Wheel was at 5 Cheese; one more cheese and <span style="color: red;">(or so I thought...)</span> it would have caused a surge and game over.<br />
And due to the rules, if an initiative round ends with no bad guys on the board, a cheese automatically gets added.<br />
And Nez rolled poorly for movement. Very poorly. He didn't make it!<br />
I thought this caused a technical loss of the game, and by decree of fudge-factor, I declared it a win.<br />
And I bared my soul on boardgamegeek, asking for sympathy and reassurance that I should have gotten the moral victory.<br />
<br />
But then the BGG community came in and saved the day, in 2 very big ways.<br />
<br />
First: I forgot that you could take a second move action if you did nothing else. So Nez made it to the tree either way and they lived happily ever after (until Chapter 2).<br />
<br />
But they also pointed out another rule that my whole family had been getting backwards all along, and caused a bit of frustration on its own.<br />
Completing the side-mission (and fulfilling certain other minor "reward" tasks which I had been actively avoiding) doesn't give you *less* time. It gives you *MORE* time!! The hourglass doesn't move forward. The chapter-end marker moves forward!<br />
<br />
So not only did I technically win. I won with time to spare.<br />
And this was one of the mechanics, I think, that irked my wife and son and certainly at least indirectly contributed to many of our losses or decisions.<br />
Maybe now that I know another rule we'd been getting wrong, they'll give it another chance!<br />
<br />
Either way, I succeeded, and my solo campaign is off to Chapter 2!<br />
Onward to victory!<br />
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</div>
Ossianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04730023509055381022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2165619918838992835.post-73117810999421798562015-11-30T09:20:00.000-05:002015-11-30T09:20:28.988-05:00Mayday wants to sleeve my whole game collection?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I already have most of my games nicely sleeved -- some with Mayday sleeves, some with FFG, some with UltraPro, etc -- but it intrigued me that Mayday is having a contest to give you enough sleeves to cover every game in your collection. That could save me some cash for sure.<div>
I'll bite.</div>
<div>
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<div>
<a href="http://maydaygames.com/blog/get-your-game-collection-sleeved-free/" target="_blank">The contest is here</a> in case you also want to enter as well.</div>
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(And yes, disclaimer: blogging about the contest gives you entries into the contest)</div>
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</div>
Ossianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04730023509055381022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2165619918838992835.post-8574553165571250332015-11-27T17:20:00.003-05:002015-11-27T17:20:06.681-05:00Arrowverse theory, still<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
So we're all caught up to the present now. And I still wonder if my theory holds water...</div>
Ossianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04730023509055381022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2165619918838992835.post-51861000754095503662015-11-05T09:17:00.002-05:002015-11-05T09:23:18.468-05:00Arrowverse theory<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>CAVEAT: I am neither up-to-date with Arrow/Flash (up to Episode ~15 in season 3/1), nor have I ever watched Gotham, Supergirl, or any other recent-ish DC Live Action TV show.</b><br />
<b>Please don't spoil me, but there are some minor spoilers here...</b><br />
<br />
I have a theory (and it's not bunnies or midgets).<br />
This might not even be an original theory, since we aren't all caught up, but this is my blog :P<br />
<br />
Ever since we started watching Arrow, the comparisons to Batman could not be missed, with even just the basic premise: a rich socialite experiences traumatic events in his life and becomes a masked vigilante.<br />
But specific elements of the greater Batman story do appear throughout the show as well:<br />
The Suicide Squad.<br />
Harley Quinn locked up in an Argus facility.<br />
Constant references to Blüdhaven, home of Nightwing.<br />
Ra's al Ghul and the League of Assassins.<br />
In Flash, there's even a headline in the "future newspaper" related to Wayne Tech.<br />
<br />
Even these few details point strongly to Batman's existence in the same universe.<br />
<br />
But where is he?<br />
Why aren't Oliver Queen and Bruce Wayne old party buddies or business partners?<br />
Why not even the faintest mention of Gotham City?<br />
<br />
Now, you could say "because DC/WB lawyers, movies, contracts, yada yada".<br />
<br />
But I don't <i>(want to)</i> think so.<br />
<br />
At the same time, there is this show Gotham. <i>(again, I haven't watched it)</i><br />
A young Bruce Wayne loses his parents and sits idly watching the criminal goings-on in Gotham City. He isn't Batman yet, and might never become the Dark Knight in the continuity of this show.<br />
<br />
But what if...<br />
<br />
What if...<br />
<br />
What if Oliver Queen *does* show up in Gotham City some time in the future?<br />
What if Oliver Queen meets young Bruce Wayne, much like he found Roy, and decides to train him?<br />
What if The Arrow and STAR Labs help to create the Batman?<br />
<i>(What if Cisco names him?)</i><br />
<br />
What if this is all an elaborate secret buildup to a new Batman show "done right"?<br />
<br />
Alright, I've gotten that off my chest.<br />
Go ahead and tell me that something I'll see in the future leads to a contradiction of my idea.<br />
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Ossianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04730023509055381022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2165619918838992835.post-71482924138285386322015-07-31T10:23:00.001-04:002015-07-31T10:29:26.310-04:00The Dark Tower<b>tl;dr skip to the end if you want to see my crazy spoilery theory about "the ending" of the series...</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Back in high school, I have a hazy memory that I actually ... read... books.<br />
One of the authors I couldn't get enough of was Stephen King. Christine, Cujo, The Dead Zone, Tommyknockers.. I read a whole ton of his work.<br />
<br />
And then I came across the Dark Tower trilogy. It was a different sort of story than his usual stuff. A fantasy adventure in a strange world. A twisted Wizard of Oz with "cowboys" and magic doors.<br />
I loved it!<br />
<br />
Indirectly, my love of the Dark Tower "trilogy" was forever preserved in my high school yearbook caption, as I (the foolish young nerd) wrote an obscure reference to an RPG character (NERD!) that I had named after Roland (NERRRRRRRDDDDDDDD!)<br />
<br />
If you're not familiar with the series, I'm not going to explain it to you very well. I couldn't do it justice. But it's basically the story of the journey of Roland, the Gunslinger, toward.. uh.. The Dark Tower.. which is as mysterious as it sounds. Along the way he is joined by a group (a <i>ka-tet</i>) of traveling companions, mostly from "our world". The story is very metaphysical and self-referential, sometimes weird with strange monsters, magic, and science.. and so hard to explain without giving away some spoilers about the nature of the Tower and <i>ka</i>.<br />
<br />
But the ending of the third book.. is so... infuriatingly dangling. Acknowledged by King himself, it was just the place he decided to stop.<br />
Those of you who have not yet read the books (and you should!) do not have to wait the excruciating 5-7 years to resolve the cliffhanger at the end of The Waste Lands. Like binge-watching an old series on Netflix, consider yourself lucky in this regard.<br />
<br />
That being said, when the fourth book -- Wizard and Glass -- came out in my college years, I tried to read it. I really did. But... I just couldn't. I dunno why. It starts with a semi-satisfying resolution to the cliffhanger, but is mostly told as a flashback with character background that I didn't appreciate at the time. I wanted to know what happened next, after all this time waiting; not hear about what makes Roland tick!<br />
<br />
So I went more than 15 years without picking it back up again. During that time, the 7-book series was concluded (mostly) and I have even spent my fair share of time logged in to a server named after a mystical word that's a central part of the last book. ;)<br />
<br />
Just recently, in my wise old years, I decided to start listening to audiobooks to encourage more exercise.<br />
And "just to see how things go", I decided to start this ordeal by listening to the whole Dark Tower series, from the beginning. The first 3-and-change books would be familiar enough that I could sort out the technical details while not having to pay 100% attention to the narrative.<br />
<br />
The first book was actually significantly revised when the 5th/6th/7th came out on the scene, to put it more in line with some of the later ideas <i>(but I have a theory about that too. See the spoilery part below)</i>. So there were parts where I said "huh. I specifically don't remember this part that I would have remembered." as I listened.<br />
But I made it through the first 3 books again.. and the 4th book which was much easier to tolerate and appreciate this time around. (Still slightly dissatisfying that most of the book was such a tangent to the "current action", but at least I hadn't waited 5 years between books this time, and didn't have to wait another 7 for the conclusion).<br />
<br />
And then I heard all-new-to-me parts of the story .. from book 5 onward it definitely gets... weird .... in lots of ways, some which would require a spoiler just to use a single word on how weird it gets. But it's amazing.<br />
And the way the story ends.. I am satisfied with it.<br />
<br />
There's apparently a new book that takes place between books 4 and 5, a couple of short stories, and a series of comics, and I might even check these all out.<br />
Also, due to the.. multiversal .. nature of the story, there are lots of other works by King that tie into The Dark Tower, subtlely or not. I don't know if I'd count those in a completionist sense, but it's cool to know those references are there.<br />
<br />
I definitely recommend this series, and I kind of regret not keeping up with it as it was being released.<br />
On a general arbitrary review scale, I rate this series a <b>GRRRRR!</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Blogger's "spoiler tag CSS" didn't work properly -- sorry if you saw it already.
But I've just moved my spoilery comments to a Google Doc.
If you're interested in some minor spoiler-ridden commentary, go take a look here: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wegCBsPPDJqjnDL8skFZrUe5NChYjOk6Bzje7R_sVLM/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Spoily thoughts!</a>Ossianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04730023509055381022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2165619918838992835.post-81124625026674761452015-07-17T10:05:00.001-04:002015-07-17T10:05:17.696-04:00Xbox Watch TV!So I wasn't sure I was even going to <i>try</i> this, but I was impressed by the Kinect so far and I had some extra time last night to fiddle around:<br />
I plugged my cable box into the HDMI port on the Xbox One, and went through the full setup process.<br />
<br />
I am ... undecided on whether to keep it this way, and I'll be looking for feedback from my wife (and to a lesser extent, my son) on how it makes things easier or harder.<br />
<br />
<b>The Pros:</b><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Even more video stuff that can be done without changing the TV or Receiver input. (Not quite 100% there yet, but mostly because the Chromecast is so convenient for pushing youtube to the big screen).</li>
<li>The Kinect indeed does its magic to pass <i>(a limited number of*) </i>IR codes to the cable box without an IR blaster.</li>
<li>Voice commands <i>(when they work*) </i>are pretty living-in-the-future neat. It recognizes pretty much any channel by name.*</li>
<li>While watching On Demand video* (or, probably, if you have DVR functionality and are watching live tv, but we don't), the "playback control" commands (pause/play/etc) work too.</li>
<li>The OneGuide integration puts everything available to watch in one place. And there's even a "mini-guide" that can pop up during TV-watching.</li>
<li>There is no degradation to video or sound that I can see, even though it adds an extra "hop" in the chain for TV. I had read about some concerns about support for surround-sound, but the option was there (maybe it was a more-recent system update?) and I am satisfied there.</li>
<li>You can, of course, switch between watching TV and doing other Xbox stuff without necessarily even picking up a controller or remote.</li>
<li>If you need something that isn't covered by the Xbox interface, you are still able to control the cable box normally.</li>
<li>In theory, I could ditch the cable box entirely, use this functionality with a cheap Digital Converter Box just to get the basic channels, and use the FiOS App for the paid channels, and it's still somewhat integrated and saves us $10/month.</li>
<ul>
<li>But then we lose On Demand functionality which we still kind of need for some channels' content because we don't have a DVR and would rather not do anything illegal.</li>
<ul>
<li>But we could use the web and Chromecast, or Amazon Prime, for the "on-demand-esque" content that isn't accessible from some other app.</li>
<ul>
<li>Don't you wish the IE browser on the Xbox supported Flash, or these streaming sites supported non-Flash? That would have been another solution</li>
<ul>
<li>With all of this nesting back-and-forth, maybe I should move on to the Cons.</li>
</ul>
</ul>
</ul>
</ul>
</ul>
<b>The Cons</b><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Did I say "when they work" with the Voice Commands? Yeah. Xbox, I said "Watch BBC America", not "BET"!</li>
<li>The <u>only</u> cable-TV-related commands that are passed through the Xbox are channels by name; you can not specify a channel number, nor is there channel up/down functionality.</li>
<ul>
<li>Lack of channel up/down kind of makes sense, since the Xbox is using IR and not CEC. It is completely blind to the current state of the cable box. But it would still be nice.</li>
<li>With a proper Universal Remote (like we do happen to have), you can still fake it with a physical remote and pass certain buttons through to the cable box. But you shouldn't have to do that! And in my specific case, I don't quite have enough Universal buttons left to do everything. Because....</li>
</ul>
<li>...You also don't have control over things like On Demand. You can use the actual cable remote (or the aforementioned Universal Remote) but this can get terribly confusing and almost defeats the purpose. Especially if you want to send the up/down arrow keys, or "Back", or "Menu", etc to the cable box to navigate menus, while sending the same keys to the Xbox is for entirely different functionality that you don't want to override.</li>
<ul>
<li>And if you get things out of sync in an unexpected way (for example, accidentally leaving the cable box in a menu and then saying "Xbox Watch NBC"), the Xbox voice commands can end up putting your cable box in a funky state.</li>
</ul>
<li>In order to do anything with the cable box, the Xbox needs to be fully 100% powered-on. This is not exactly happy for the electricity bill.</li>
<ul>
<li>It would have been nice if the HDMI passthrough was actually a passthrough when the Xbox was off. But no.</li>
</ul>
<li>Relatedly, if you really want the fully-integrated immersive experience without having to hit any special buttons, you really need to have your cable box turned 100% on while the Xbox is turned on all the time. Due to Kinect magic, you <i>can</i> pair their power-states (and this kind of thing works well so far in my experience) but you shouldn't have to.</li>
<li>This would all be much nicer and simpler if the Xbox could just use a damn CableCard! Or at least if the US could support DVB. Please?</li>
</ul>
<div>
I'm sure there's more, but that's a long enough rant to get us started.</div>
<div>
Leave further questions in the comments, or come find me elsewhere!</div>
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<br />Ossianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04730023509055381022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2165619918838992835.post-28878310341195262862015-07-16T09:01:00.004-04:002015-07-16T09:01:50.034-04:00Xbox On!As promised in my previous post, after receiving my $50 store credit, I immediately placed an order for Kinect.<br />
<br />
I took it out of the box, and set it up in the location that I thought would be perfect: Just on top of our Center speaker.<br />
But from there, even at the lowest angle I could adjust it to, Setup complained that it couldn't see my floor.<br />
<br />
So, physically, it has ended up in one of the most dangerous places in the room: Right in front of the TV, on the stand, right in the path of oncoming flung dog toys, visiting toddlers, or other disasters.<br />
But for now, it's fine.<br />
<br />
At first, it was a little difficult to get used to the gestures, and to get it to hear us just right (still getting used to that).<br />
<br />
The free dance game ("Dance Central Spotlight") that comes with the Kinect unfortunately has a major bug: Apparently if you play with 2 players, and both players receive an Achievement notification, the whole thing locks up. So it can only be played with Notifications disabled. That's a bit disappointing.<br />
But we did end up downloading Just Dance 2015... which works a bit better, but is also disappointing in a way (or at least we haven't discovered all the settings yet): In previous Just Dance games, at least on the Wii, you were able to have separate "Dancer Cards" for each person, which kept track of time played, calories burned, personal bests, etc. This seems to only allow you to play one at a time, and assign random names to you while dancing (so, instead of "OssianGrr" and "Eli" and "Talita" dancing, we are forced to be named "Crazy", "Happy", and "Sunny" or whatever). Meh.<br />
Other than that, I do see the benefit of getting exercise out of this, and the dance games are obviously less-forgiving than the Wii ones, since the Kinect is actually watching how you move and not just guessing from a few Wiimote gestures.<br />
<br />
Incidentally, when we were setting all of this up, there also happened to be a known Xbox Live Outage, which made some things a little difficult.<br />
<br />
Now, gestures:<br />
Gestures in the main UI are kind of silly, but I'm getting used to it. I <i>guess</i> there's a point to being able to switch tasks and scroll with "grabs", but I think mostly I will default to the controller.<br />
<br />
User recognition:<br />It's almost perfect. The Kinect camera sometimes needs some coercing to recognize me, Eli, or Talita. But it's only been a few days, and I think it's training itself whenever we click the complaint button. And it hasn't had any false positives. Only nondetection.<br />
That being said, it's a (theoretically) super-convenient feature.<br />
<br />
Voice controls:<br />Just like some other rants I've given, this suffers from a few problems.<br />
When it works, it works awesomely! Nice that I can say the name of a game and it goes there, and stuff like that.<br />
And "Xbox On" is a nice touch when it's in half-powered-down state.<br />
<br />
But: Anyone in the room can shout commands which can lead to some master trolling (taken to an extreme, see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWZLa4AnN5k ) and I presume that if someone said "Xbox Sign Out" in a netflix show or something, it would pop up the interface just like when "A Serious Problem" in my audiobook was interpreted as "Hey Siri!".<br />
Recognition of the voice of the primarily-logged-in user would be an amazing feature (Android does this! It's possible!), or at least customization of the trigger word.. but at least since this isn't a mobile device, there is slightly less chance of it overlapping with someone else's device.<br />
<br />
Controlling other stuff with the Kinect:<br />
This is a bit of scary voodoo.<br />
I was under the impression, all along, that if I wanted the Kinect to control my TV or other components, I'd have to have some sort of hydra of IR blasters sticking out of the xbox. It doesn't support CEC control, and it's just basically Infrared passthrough.<br />
But no...<br />
The Kinect is facing outward. Away from everything.<br />
And magically, it "just works" to turn my TV on and off, control volume on the receiver, etc etc.<br />
This means it must be blasting out quite a bit of infrared light, enough to maintain a signal after bouncing off of non-reflective surfaces. I wonder if that's healthy.<br />
That being said, I don't care if it's healthy. It's impressive!<br />
<br />
Right now, I have it set up so that when I turn the Xbox on, it turns my TV on (apparently my TV has unique "on" and "off" IR codes! Another great discovery!), and I can use my voice to control volume/muting on the receiver. Pretty amazing.<br />
When the xbox turns off, I don't turn anything else<i> off</i> yet. That kind of changes the setup a bit more than expected, but I might still play around with it.<br />
And, as well as this is going, I might even try out the HDMI-passthrough from cable box after all. I've heard some negative things about this interface -- and I'm not 100% keen on needing both the xbox and cable box on at full power every time I want to watch certain content -- but there's only one way to find out if it works for us.<br />
<br />
The poor PS3 will probably not be powered on any time soon for much; ironically it has now been *downgraded* to a games-only machine.<br />
The Wii will likewise probably get *less* usage, but not *none*.<br />
The Chromecast is still the best way to fling youtube (and some other occasional content) at the TV.<br />
<br />
All of these have to be taken into account, though. when I decide how much power and control to hand over to Xbone.<br />
And of course I'm not the only one who has to use all of this ;)<br />
<br />
More commentary coming.. There's definitely a lot more to say about Xbox than there is about the iphone or other "new gadgets" I've mentioned...<br />
<br />Ossianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04730023509055381022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2165619918838992835.post-2590107687059908452015-07-09T19:32:00.002-04:002015-07-09T19:32:23.867-04:00Xbox Adventures.. Phase 1So... yes! I am a proud new owner of an Xbox One, and we've spent the last week or so with it.<br />
It came with Halo: Master Chief Collection, Batman: Arkham Knight, and Assassin's Creed Unity (which didn't arrive for a few more days).<br />
And somehow I was convinced to get a game Eli would play, so we got another Batman game: Lego Batman 3.<br />
Plenty of games, and it wasn't even intended as a "gaming machine".<br />
I have played a bit of Halo (I never actually played any of them before) and some of the others... only reinforcing my bad reflexes and sense of direction and how bad I am at consoles :)<br />
I haven't even bothered to sign up for my free trial of Xbox Live Gold yet, but if you want to be my Xbox Buddy, I am <b>OssianGrr</b><br />
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As for the media stuff.. overall, great.<br />
The FiOS app works well, and integrates with the "OneGuide" which is an interesting side effect. (This is the thing that's meant to work with HDMI-passthrough IR-blastthrough cable boxes, which I'll get back to in a moment).<br />
Netflix, Amazon, all the usual media apps..<br />
Unfortunately I didn't make the connection until <i>after</i> logging in to all of these accounts that the SmartGlass app can use your phone's keyboard, and therefore LastPass, instead of needing to use a controller to navigate an on-screen keyboard to type my random jumble. Oh well, useful for the future anyway.<br />
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We created 3 separate accounts on the system: One for me (really the "primary" account), one for Talita, and a "Kids" account for Eli with limited privileges.<br />
Oddly annoyingly, even the "PBSKids" media app locks out 75% of its features when a 7-year-old tries to use it, but that's not really that bad.<br />
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There are some media apps that seem to be missing on the Xbox One, but are allegedly on the 360, so maybe they'll catch up soon.<br />
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And unfortunately, our receiver's "universal remote" didn't work over IR with the Xbox, so I ordered a new cheap universal remote (<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00M4I1BAY" target="_blank">this one</a>), which works absolutely great with all of our components. Despite being a little clunky to program, I recommend it as a cheap alternative to Harmony remotes.<br />
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We've experienced a couple of strange glitches, like starting up to a dark screen -- or in the middle of a Netflix movie, the screen turning into vertical lines -- but they haven't happened often enough for me to be worried.<br />
<br />It's definitely <i>quieter</i> than the PS3, and that on its own is a benefit.<br />
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One other media-related thing, which is silly and inconsequential: long ago, I bought a Region 2 DVD set of a UK-only Red Dwarf release (<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/dvd/dp/B000VA3J34" target="_blank">The Bodysnatcher Collection</a>, note the amazon UK address). And I could play it fine on my PC with VLC, or I could watch the ripped videos, but I like the preservation of menu structures and subtitles, bonus features and such.<br />
I tried ripping and re-burning the DVDs to make them regionless, but the PS3 still didn't like the fact that they were PAL format. Well, good old Xbox can play the burned copies. Yeah.. really silly for something I'm probably never going to actually watch again.<br />
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So, now that we're getting used to the interface, I've got a $50 Microsoft Store credit which I'm going to apply to buying a Kinect at some point. That will change everything.. again.<br />
So, expect a new blog post about that when it arrives.<br />
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And then I find out that in a few months, they're revamping the entire UI of the home screen.. so it will be <i>another</i> learning curve.<br />
Hopefully stable after that.<br />
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Oh.. and speaking of HDMI-passthrough cable boxes?<br />After we get the Kinect, which is needed for the whole IR-blaster setup, I might look into <a href="http://www.techhive.com/article/2882848/how-to-watch-over-the-air-broadcasts-on-an-xbox-one-even-though-microsofts-tv-tuner-isnt-available.html" target="_blank">this</a>. The article is about using a digital tuner box to get OTA channels on the Xbox interface, but allegedly it also works with cable-from-the-wall if you're paying for service. If that does work, then we could theoretically ditch the cable box, save on monthly cost, and truly have <i>all</i>* of our mediastuff going through the Xbox itself.<br />
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Overall I am not disappointed.<br />
I'm very happy with my purchase!<br />
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* Except for the Chromecast, which is still useful and convenient for pushing certain types of content. And with missing "apps", and no Flash in the Xbox IE browser, Chromecast is still a convenient way to legally, freely, stream certain content to the TV without a cable box.<br />
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<br />Ossianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04730023509055381022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2165619918838992835.post-73119867667036006602015-06-30T15:28:00.000-04:002015-06-30T15:28:31.645-04:00Mobile Adventures, and on to Xbox AdventuresI have been an iphone user for about 2 and a half months now.<br />
I must say, I think I've adjusted well.<br />
I've gotten myself to the point I was always at with Android: Dozens of apps installed, but using only 5 or 6 of them regularly, of course.<br />
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I'm adjusting to all of the quirks of iOS.. missing some features of Android.. but still overall happy.<br />I'm using my old Note3 "as a wifi device" a lot less than I expected to, and that's a good thing.<br />
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Since I'm on T-Mobile's "JUMP" plan, I fully expect to be moving on to the next iphone6+-sized iOS device when it's released (or early next year when I'm "paid up").<br />
As for T-Mobile.. I do sometimes lament the lack of service especially inside buildings, but I am sticking with them because their crazy CEO is working on some amazing things.<br />
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Now on to another "new chapter": The Xbox One.<br />
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Yes, although I coined the term <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=X-odus" target="_blank">X-odus</a> way back during the first E3 of the new console generation, the XBone has come a long way. I've finally ordered one (small thanks to a few simultaneous special promotions aligning after the release of the new 1TB model), to partially replace my aging "60GB back-compatible" PS3 which has a fan you can hear from Texas.<br />
With the number of media apps and features available on Xbox One, the primary purpose here isn't actually for gaming. There will obviously be some of that <i>(especially after I add the kinect; part of the promotional stuff is a store-credit I can apply to that later)</i> but mainly I am enamored with the idea of a truly singular integrated, searchable, UI for all streaming and local-media sources.<br />
Depending on how things go, down the road I may even be able to eliminate our FiOS set-top-box entirely (while still paying for the necessary evil of TV) and still have access to all of the channels we care about.<br />
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Due to the promotion, the console comes with 3 games:<br />
Halo Master Chief Collection comes in the box. I have never played a Halo game. I had a PS1, PS2, and PS3 (in addition to the Dreamcast and other older consoles) but never an Xbox. So I'm willing to give that a shot.<br />
Assassin's Creed Unity comes for free whether I like it or not. I've only played the first AC game and I enjoyed it until it got repetitive, but this one only has a "resale value" of 6 bucks so I will definitely hold onto it.<br />
Batman Arkham Knight was the game I chose for free from their limited additional list, and I'm also looking forward to it.<br />
I do think I might take extra advantage of trade-in programs at Gamestop going forward, before the games lose their value, though.<br />
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I will provide further updates on this, the setup process, the gameplay, and the stupid stuff I test with it (Can I finally watch my set of PAL Red Dwarf DVDs on my TV? With or without region-stripping? Stay tuned...), soon. If I remember the blog is still here.<br />
It might even arrive before July 4th weekend, but doubtful...<br />
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Bonus news:<br />At the end of July, the original store of Ossian merchandise -- http://www.printfection.com/ossian/ will be gone. Printfection changed their business model a year ago or so, and they only grandfathered their old personal stores in a buy-only state (no adding new products). So, for now, http://www.redbubble.com/people/ossiangrr is the "main" place for Ossian merch, although I'll need to find another source for GRRillin' BBQ aprons and maybe a few other things...<br />
Ossian's 10th anniversary is also quickly approaching, coincidentally, so stay tuned for that.<br />
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<br />Ossianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04730023509055381022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2165619918838992835.post-61085117549118693242015-04-20T07:40:00.003-04:002015-04-20T07:40:44.464-04:00Mobile Adventures: the first weekSo it's been about a week and a half since I've officially been an iphone user.<br />
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I'm still a little confused about itunes, and particularly whether I can have it installed on multiple PCs to sync with the same phone, and I'm too afraid to try.<br />
And it took me a little while to realize the dextrocentric interface where "swipe left" is favorable over the lefty-instinctive "swipe right", and stuff like that.<br />
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I wish there were an app drawer rather than putting everything on homescreens.<br />
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Not all my videos/pictures are uploading to G+, which I thought I'd set up.<br />
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Drawing with finger is not nearly as easy as drawing with my S-Pen stylus, and the "capacitive styluses" (styli?) that <i>do</i> work with iphone are weird and not as precise.<br />
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And there are certainly other quirks I haven't quite figured out yet.<br />
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But overall, I am happy.<br />
There's a lot less lag in running apps, and with the camera, etc.<br />
Everything I need to do works, and none of my complaints are things I can't get over.<br />
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I still haven't completely given up on the Note 3 as a "tablet", and still definitely have some android-specific apps I intend to keep running there, but I am slowly decomissioning some of the stuff on it so I can use them less and less primarily.<br />
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I should have been keeping more detailed notes, so that this would be a more interesting blog post, but.. so it is.<br />
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Please leave any questions in the comments so maybe you can shake things out of my memory that are more noteworthy.<br />
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<br />Ossianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04730023509055381022noreply@blogger.com0