Loving my iPod Touch once again!

OK since my last comments on the iPod Touch as my least favorite iPod, Apple releases a new upgrade (2.02), and as a result I haven't touched my iPod Nano in a week.

Has something happened to change my opinions of the MP3 player shortcomings of this otherwise wonderful device? No. It is still a major hassle to deal with.

But it hasn't crashed since the new upgrade, and the battery life is much better. I have been managing the screen power much more closely, but even before that I noticed a difference. But the biggest thing is the crashes - when I would switch the screen back on I would dread the possibility of yet another music crash. Since the update, when I turn the screen on the iPod is always in vertical orientation and never locks - whereas before it would switch from horizontal to vertical and cover-flow to the current song. It is a small change, but I guess it signals what matters to me with my music - I just want the darn thing to work!

Adventures in Babysitting.

Well, this is somewhat redundant ... I posted nearly two months ago about catching up at Goozex and going through all of the posts, and how much of a strain it was looking at all of the posts from teens there who were complaining about every manner of injustice.

Well, Goozex just got unblocked at work, so I have been trying to drop by to join back in the conversation. But it is not easy ... I had to catch up with 1500 unread posts (I hate seeing anything 'unread'). And there I was again, smack in the middle of the 'whine tour' ... and with each post I answered, nearly answered, or even read other helpful people answering, it sapped my energy.

I know that my kids will want to do this stuff in a few years, but I know I will work hard to make sure that they read the rules, use sentences, re-read the rules, check the rules before asking questions, search the forums for same or similar questions, scan the forums before asking, re-read the rules again ... and then ask me.

At least the movie Adventures in Babysitting had Elizabeth Shue ...

iPod Touch - my least favorite iPod

OK, so I'm spoiled rotten ... I admit it. I have had digital music since I could play AIFF files on my Newton back in the 90's, and I bought the original iPod and have had one from every generation since. I have pretty much skipped the video-focused ones because, well, I have other gadgets to do that! I still have that first iPod, a 40GB one that had the short-lived touch-wheel and separate touch buttons, a 4GB 2nd-gen Nano, and my newest addition - a 32GB iPod Touch. And of all of those, the iPod Touch is my least favorite music player. Let me explain ...

The first thing I did when I got the Touch was to set up some email accounts and web browsing stuff. And of course fill it up with music and video and pictures and subscribe to podcasts. The Touch is always with me, and I have a load of games and useful apps from the app store. I use it for maps, weather, quick web browsing, and other stuff. When we were on vacation I hooked it up to the TV to watch some videos, and have a number of photos on it as well.

Yet when I got in my car this morning and wanted to listen to music for the commute, I reached for my 4GB Nano. And it is pretty obvious to me why that is - convenience. With the Nano, if I want to play or stop I just hit a single tactile button without even looking. With the Touch, when music is playing the screen switches off and locks after a minute, then I need to click the home button to activate the screen, slide the unlock section of the screen, then press pause. The last two are 'virtual' buttons and therefore require looking at the screen.

Another thing that bothers me about the Touch is instability - I have had issues with songs stopping or skipping over the years, but I have had more freezes and crashes playing music with the Touch in the few months I've had it than with all other iPods combined! What will typically happen is that I will start planing music, then set my Touch sideways next to the shifter. Then if I want to change songs or see what is playing I pick it up and activate the screen. When I do that 'Cover Flow' flips to the correct album cover and then orients it in vertical mode ... and sometimes just shows the generic 'notes' graphic - and freezes. I have no idea why this happens, as it is random - and almost all of the music is stuff I have played successfully for years on other systems (iPods, PDA's, PSP, etc).

I think that the Touch is just so focused on the massive screen that it has lost something in terms of simplicity. I can stop music to answer my cell phone with one touch in a fraction of a second on my Nano, but on my Touch it takes several swipes and looking at the device. It is just too much of a hassle, and while I still use the Touch for the massive capacity, I don't feel bad using the Nano anymore.

When the music dies ...

One thing I have always liked about the 'less-than-commercial' music I enjoy is that the artists remain PEOPLE. I mean, I saw The Police three times during the late 70's - early 80's period, yet have nothing that really keys me into the trio as individual people. Contrast this with my elevator ride with jazz legend John Scofield in the Charles Hotel in Cambridge back in the early 80's. The quick chat in a group setting was casual, fun and REAL. I admit having to take a deep breath because he was the reason I was in the elevator, but considering he had been flying coach and dealing with traffic hassles (same as me) and having a good laugh ... it was all fun.

That sort of connection adds a dimension that is all too often missing these days. Most of the people my kids and wife like have their lives plastered on tabloids and TV shows, dealing with hundreds of paparazzi and bloggers speculating if buying those Twinkees makes them a bad parent. Again, I contrast that with helping Ronald Shannon Jackson and the Decoding Society finish setting up for a show at my undergrad college way back when ... it was no different than setting up my own stuff from my high school band. Fun conversation and no pretense - and it allowed me to chat with Vernon Reid, who would go on to some fame as the guitarist of Living Color with 'Cult of Personality'.

There are numerous instances where I was able to have some interaction with the musicians and composers I admire, and this has added to my view of them not as disembodied producers of great music, but as people. This connection manifests itself when bad things happen to them - when troubled Emily Remler had drug issues stemming from illness and eventually died of a heart attack at 32 just as she was really beginning to shine, I was saddened for her family as well as the music world. It is interesting that in that smaller community her death was treated so much more respectfully than it would had she been a pop star of any acclaim.

So this week I have already read four obituaries of jazz artist whose work I admire - George Russell, Johnny Griffin, Joe Beck and Hiram Bullock. I was blessed to have seen three of them perform at one time or another.

But the one that really struck me was Hiram Bullock. I saw him play a few times, including with David Sanborn and also with an amazing band led by Jaco Pastorius. He was a serious musician who was never afraid to have fun with his music. He was a performer in a genre where artists let their notes do the talking, and he was a kind person to anyone who approached him. I was thrilled to see him later with the David Letterman house band - he was the guitarist who played barefoot.

I brought this up with my family, but it is really a foreign concept for them - as I said, they like music where the artists end up treated almost as some non-human persona, where any intrusion into their life is justified as 'the price for fame'. There is no disrespect we won't commit in the name of 'needing to know', which amounts to a money-grabbing feeding frenzy often sustained by those who are also screaming the loudest that it is wrong.

But what I tell my kids is this: I am sad that Hiram Bullock died. I am sad for his wife, his adopted kids, and his friends and colleagues; I am sad for fans who have tracked him for decades and for those who have yet to discover his music. But I am happy that I know that he was a person with good and bad traits who produced some wonderful music and also some mediocre music and wasn't always a good employee due to some bad choices. He was human, as are we all. I tell my kids that they need to remember that everyone is just a person, with flaws and strengths and numerous things that shape who they are and the art they produce.

They are people, just as we are people. Music is one of the rare things that permeates every corner of the world - styles and genres and tastes vary widely, but we all love music. It is important to remember that music comes from people, and is a reflection of their own experiences. It is important for several reasons - it is important because it empowers our kids to pursue their dreams to become whatever they want to become; it is important because it reminds us that everyone on the planet deserves the respectful treatment we would like to receive; and it is important because that human connection makes the musical experience more meaningful.

Encourage your kids to love the music that they love, and rather than bemoan how much of the stuff aimed at kids is 'corporate product pop', instead encourage them to remember that there are people behind that music who are really no different than them.

Rebooting at Goozex:

After getting settled in a bit, I started offering up some games at Goozex again. I had been on a 'receive-only' binge for a while and burned through most of the 11,000+ points I had accumulated. So it was time to get back to dumping my junk for points.

I have sent out a few things, and also ran into a confusing problem: I can't find some of my DS games. Not stuff I care about, which is either in the game cases or my cool DS bag; no, I can't find the stuff I want to get rid of, like Time Ace and the DS Browser. So far as I can tell it is only DS games, making me think they are all in a bag somewhere ... but I haven't found them yet. I certainly hope they aren't lost ...

I also have continued getting emails from the Goozex forums for threads I'm subscribed to, and added the Goozcast to my iTunes subscriptions. So I figured it was time to rejoin the forums. My typical viewing habit for forums is to 'view unread', look at what I want, mark all read, and go from there. Unfortunately the Goozex forums lack a 'mark all read' button - and there were ~4000 unread posts since my last participation (last December). So I have spent a couple of hours per day for the past several days wading through the posts - 25 per page, clicking to open each individual thread and then closing them, reading some but not all as I went along.

Boy was that a depressing process! I had thought about posting this to the private area of the forums, but even that seemed out of line. So instead, I figured I could post my thoughts here and re-enter the forums much more politely.

What a bunch of whiny, lazy, self-important, impatient, ungrateful, over-indulged, childish brats there are on those forums! I have no idea how the rest of the mods have managed to stay active continuously!

Whew! I mean, out of 4000 posts, I can't estimate how many times people asked about 'what are turns' or 'how does this work', despite there being multiple stickies with names like 'read this before asking a question' or 'how goozex works' and so on. I mean, it is OK to still have questions, but make some attempt to search things out - if I had $1 for every 'I'm new and have some questions' post that is nearly identical to every other 'I'm new and have some questions' post ... well, I'd have enough cash to buy a PS3 and X360 and use Goozex even more! Then there are those who write excited posts because they want instant gratification - they complain that they matched a few hours ago and no response yet ... or they sent a game three days ago and no feedback, or whatever ...

There are many who seek vengeance for those who fail to leave instant feedback, or let a trade request lapse. It is sickening - we know you want the game, but lighten up. People are busy, others are lazy and irresponsible ... but the level of vitriol is amazing!

On the other hand, the immaturity is not one-sided. These sentiments come from a continuous rash of folks trying to 'game the system', with rampant reports of non-shipments, sending broken games, scammers, dual-accounts, and other ways that people are trying to be dishonest traders. And that is just a shame.

Also, I found at least a half-dozen threads that amounted to 'should I buy a PSP'. Also 'what about listing DVD's' or 'Please list UMD movies' or others. These are all valid questions / requests, but c'mon people, there aren't THAT many PSP threads that you can't look in a page or two. It is pure laziness that I find completely annoying - if you have a question, hit 'Search' before you hit 'Post', it is just good netiquette.

And that is my final complaint - poor netiquette and lack of consideration for others. Take time, give your post a real title that helps people help you, and then use actual sentences with meaning to communicate your idea / question. You are not on a cell phone or IM, so leave the 'lol's behind.

I know why I want to return - the guys there like Mark & Jon, like Lurk & Shawn & the rest of the mod crew are really great people I enjoy communicating with, and from listening to the Goozcasts there are some newer folks who are really great as well. So I know I will persevere ... I just needed to blow off some steam first.

(from GamingWithChildren) Imagine this: a new third-person action-RPG is announced, created by one of the grandmasters of the genre, the mastermind behind some of the best games in the beloved Wizardry franchise. It promises tense action, engaging combat, deep skill system, and a complex and engrossing story.

Another new start ...

Well, it has been a couple of years ... but my last post detailed how my previous work laptop had this blog blocked so it wasn't worth trying. But over the past 6 months or so I have been laid off, worked a 3 month spot at a small start up, and more recently been hired and started working at Corning Inc in Corning NY.

This has meant moving the whole family to the 'Southern Tier' of New York. My wife and I mulled this over - we had possibilities in North Carolina, Seattle, and also to stay in Massachusetts. But we knew we wanted out of the local school system but didn't want to move closer to Boston, so we quickly ruled out Massachusetts. The jobs and companies in Seattle and Charlotte were nice but not really clear in terms of long term potential. I had heard some bad things about the company in Charlotte, and while I liked the people I met, all dealings with the corporate entity were awful - and since they had been bought out and the corporate presence was increasing I was anticipating a repeat of the downward spiral I saw at Rohm & Haas. In Seattle, the company was in the midst of a major crisis that had resulted in big layoffs the previous year. It was a big gamble moving cross country into a potentially unstable situation was a bit risky for us.

We loved the Corning area no a visit, and the offer from the company was great and included a guaranteed home buyout option ... very nice in this market. We were lucky and sold our house within two weeks for nearly the asking price, and found a wonderful home in a little place called Horseheads, which has the best schools in the region. It has been two and a half months now and we are happily settled in.

The Silence of the Desktop

It was just over 9 months ago that my company decreed that people could no longer play music out loud at the desks. Within a couple of weeks there was an implicit ban on headphone music at the desk, They had long since blocked any Net Radio stations, but a couple of incidents of customer visits marked by expletives heard streaming from one persons desk, and another of an important call missed because the person couldn't hear the rining above their headphones ... and the writing was on the wall.

That has changed much about my day ... I typically had music on, very softly and directed at my head so that even the person next to me could barely hear it early in the morning. It does have a negative morale impact, but I am dealing.

I have sporadically blogged for a bit now, but since I jst got a new laptop that will likely tail off as well. It is well known that corporations see blogging as a potential security threat, so many clamp down on sites like this. Previously I would encounter a 'warning', but with the new laptop and 'desktop image', it is now blocked. I used to enjoy working a few minutes here or there on a draft during the day, but that is gone.

So I don't know how much more I'll do ... we'll see.

iPod Shuffle = Freedom!

I have had digital music on the go in MP3 form since I got the HP 430se PDA in 1998. It was the first PDA to have integrated MP3 capability, and since I had access to 'large' (32MB was large at that time!) compact flash cards, I was all set. Simply rip CD's to MP3 format using the very rudimentary MusicMatch Jukebox, transfer over the horribly slow 56k serial cable, and I was all set. It was far from ideal, but it all worked, and gave me wondeful flexibility in the music I carried with me. Gone were CD's and tapes littering my car, replaced with a single device I'd have with me anyway.

For some time after that I continued the 'MP3 on PDA' trend - in early 2000 I was using the new Pocket PC with a 256MB memory card (which cost almost as much as the PDA!) and later that year I had a 1GB IBM MicroDrive in a Jornada 720 HPC Pro. It was an amazing progression that kept putting more and more music at my disposal as I drove. By the summer of 2001 I had traded a Psion 5mx for an Archos Jukebox 6GB player, which had amazing storage but one of the worst interfaces I'd ever confronted. Still, the sheer amount of music it made possible was staggering. I had been slowly building my digital library - I have hundreds of CD's, but since I tend to use laptop computers disk space is always at a premium. I knew I wouldn't have the Archos for long, though, as I already had Apple Powerbooks as my secondary computers, and Apple had just announced it was entering the market with a MP3 player, and I decided I just had to have it! And so I did.

There were loads of compromises in the first iPod - the iTunes software was still immature, the interface of the iPod rudimentary, and the disk size was 5GB, which meant I had to decide between limiting my library to 5GB or manually managing what playlists were synchronized. On the good side, the auto-connect worked perfectly and the FireWire interface was stunningly fast - just a few minutes and the iPod was full.

I have largely kept up with the progressions of iPods, with the exception of the latest Nano and Video versions, and my wife has been along for the ride - she got my original, and more recently I bought her a 6GB Mini of her own. She is an addict and 'Pinky' is never far from her side. I currently have a 40GB 'Generation 4' iPod, and have kept my library limited to under 40GB so I never have to deal with manually adjusting my sync settings.

Along the way I have developed a listening style that is extraordinarily linear and structured - I have playlists by artist, and within those all music is chronologic and and ordered within CD. 'Mixed' playlists are for artists I only have a few songs from, or from general popular music collections we have at home. But even those are ordered - I have a playlist for 'Pop/Rock - 80's' which is chronologically listed by year and alphabetically listed within year.

A couple of weeks ago I was at the SPIE Conference on Microlithography in San Jose, and attending a Private Seminar on Metrology hosted by Hitachi. Besides being a wonderful technical meeting and a chance to catch up with friends and colleagues from all over the world, they also were raffling away 5 iPods. Every non-Hitachi person got a raffle ticket when they came in, and we were only told about the raffle half-way through, but not about what type or anything like that. So the raffle comes later in the evening, and *bam* I win one! Cool. It ends up being a 1GB iPod Shuffle. I had never had an interest in the shuffle, due to its' lack of a screen and puny capacity. How in the world was I supposed to manage my music that way?

But a funny thing happened a week or so ago - I decided to dump a couple of gigabytes of my favorite stuff on my Dell XPS and let iTunes auto-fill the Shuffle. I made further rules for myself - I would accept whatever song the Shuffle picked and listen to it all the way through. No forwarding or skipping songs, no rewinding to listen again unless there was a legitimate reason that caused me to miss the song. So the only buttons I'd push were the Play and Volume buttons. It was exciting and nerveracking for such a control-freak as myself to let it all go.

But it has been utterly exhilarating. I'm sure some are having a chuckle about this, but the freedom to *not* control things, while knowing that some piece of music I love will certainly be playing, is actually quite liberating. I never thought I'd care about this thing - I'm old and jaded from years of having the latest and greatest electronics. But this is changing my listening habits all over again - I can slip the Shuffle in my coat pocket, so it comes everywhere with me and I will play it even on a five minute trip to the store. Where I was listening to more random radio in my car since my company pretty well banned music at the desk and I lost track of my iPod's battery status, now I never listen to the radio ... which is a good thing. And the ability to listen to music without choosing it is wonderful ...

It is funny the little things that refresh an old habit - the iPod shuffle, something I would never have bought myself, has totally changed my listening and helped me fall in love again with some stuff I hadn't listened to in quite a while.

And just to prove that not a penny of marketing money is wasted on my younger son, last night as we were driving to his church choir practice, he asked mid-conversation "Dad, are you in a good mood tonight?" Why, I asked? Because the iPod Shuffle can guess your mood, and this isn't a happy song. (It was Albert Ayler's 'Spiritual Unity', which isn't unhappy but is definitely abstract expressionism) I said I was in a great mood, the song is actually a happy song about joining together with god. His reply was "Well, I guess your in a crazy mood then, because this is one crazy song ..."

Perhaps the Shuffle *can* tell my mood ...

Getting back to actually blogging!

I have been posting too many 'epics' lately and as a result have loads of 'drafts' that I can't finish for one reason or other. Time to get back to just posting stuff.

Y'know, I got a message replying to the post I made about getting to play Santa for my kids' elementary school that I thought was very insightful, so I figured I'd share.

It said "Hi txa1265 (Mike), I found your blog while doing some research on computer chair for kids. I like your blog, thank you for sharing the information and keep up the good work!.
I'll be back to see if you have any posts about computer chair for kids "

See what I mean? It's true - I don't have anything about 'computer chair for kids'. I have kids, I have a computer chair. My kids even use the computer chair ... with that amazing confluence of events, how is it possible I've gone this long without a single mention of 'computer chair for kids'?

I don't know ... but I glad I've remedied that now.

My Love and Hate List for 2005

Perhaps it is the scientist in me, but I believe that there is a natural order to things, that some things are better than others, and that this includes art, music and even video games. So while working on GamerDad's Game of the Year pages, I decided I had no interest in putting up a list of what I thought were the 10 best games of the year.

But why? Shouldn't the act of going through a process whereby some of your favorite games wouldn't get enough recognition to even be nominated make you want to get a list 'out there'? Ah, that word - favorites. That is the crux of things - because I believe that there are things that are objectively better than other things, but those things might not coincide with the things I like. I was actually much more interested in going through the things I really liked last year - and the things I didn't like. Instead of listing everything, I'll just highlight some of the best and worst. And in keeping with my recent rediscovery of 'In Living Color' late nights, I'll label things as 'Loved It' or 'Hated It' ... with the occasional 'meh' reserved for disappointments I had hoped to love. And of course, if I did the GamerDad review, I'll post the link.


GAMING: GameBoy Advance

• Loved It! Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones - they aren't 'units' they're your friends ... this one had me totally hooked, and got me liking turn-based strategy games! My GamerDad Review
  
  
• Loved It! The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap - so much fun, even if it is shorter than the last GBA Zelda game. Just captures so much of what is fun about gaming, is perfect for on-the-go sessions, and reminds us how the GBA is *still* a vital gaming platform.
  
  
• Loved It! Final Fantasy IV - This game took me a bit to connect with, after coming from some mediocre handheld RPG's. But this is a gem, a very well done game.
  
  
• 'meh' LEGO Star Wars - This is *not* the LEGO Star Wars you're looking for ... My GamerDad Review

GAMING: Nintendo DS

• Loved It! Castlevania DS - truly excellent game in every way.My GamerDad Review
  
  
• Loved It! Animal Cross: Wild World - not being a console gamer, I never did much with Animal Crossing on the GameCube, but thought it was cool. On the DS it is amazing, and I've completely connected - where the tasks in Lost in Blue can be a drag, here they are a blast! My GamerDad Review
  
  
• Loved It! Advance Wars DS - ... just one more turn ... this was my first Advance Wars game (we got my older son Advance Wars 2 based in part on the GamerDad Review, but I never played). It is smart, charming, funny, engaging, challenging and just plain addictive.
  
  
• 'meh' Lunar: Dragon Song - not bad, not great, not very interesting, but a few 'anti-player' decisions really drag it down My GamerDad Review
  
  
• 'meh' Lost in Blue - jeez, let me explore the island for 5 minutes without dying of hunger! At the heart is a survival adventure with a lot of potential - but the routine and mechanics are really in the way. My GamerDad Review
  
  
• 'meh' Goldeneye: Rogue Agent - this gets a 'meh' as an average of Love & Hate. I Love the gameplay mechanics, how I could pull off snap-turns reminiscent of NOLF and how well the game shows that great FPS are just waiting to happen ... and Hate how it came packaged in this mediocre game ... My GamerDad Review

GAMING: Sony PSP

• Loved It! GTA: Liberty City Stories - plays like yet another mini-console port, but who cares! It is a blast! My GamerDad Review
  
  
• 'meh' Untold Legends - like Sacred for the PSP, it is fairly entertaining, but mindless hack-n-slash only takes you so far, and the game never attempts to transcend it. That said, I already have the sequel on my wish list - I believe taht using the controls and battle mechanics they have, if they can insert an interesting ply and do *something* about the load times they can have a really good game. My GamerDad Review
  
  
• 'meh' Lord of the Rings Tactics - dark and bland, but decent combat, this shows the underpinnings of a really cool game, but is weak in so many areas that it feels like a rushed out mess. My GamerDad Review
  
  
• Hated It! Coded Arms - crap controls, crap camera, bland environs, crap 'story' ... crap game. Unfortunately it is exemplary of action-heavy first-person shooters on the PSP, which is really too bad. My GamerDad Review

GAMING: PC

• Loved It! Gothic II Gold - who cares if it is the collection of 2002 and the 2003 games ... this is the expansion's first US appearance, and it rocks! (review pending at GamerDad)
  
  
• Loved It! Fate - family friendly, budget friendly, casual gaming friendly, but still cool for hardcore RPG-ers like me. My GamerDad Review
  
  
• Loved It! F.E.A.R. - marred by bland environs, this still absolutely rocked. My GamerDad Review
  
  
• Loved It! LEGO Star Wars - definitely falls in with some of my all-time fave Star Wars games! My GamerDad Review
  
  
• Loved It! Disney's ToonTown Online - this is the family-fave ... my younger son it totally into it, and my wife even plays when we're not home (and she's a NON-gamer). My GamerDad Review
  
  
• 'meh' Quake IV - great looking, but mediocre gameplay and weapons and a who-cares plot ... My GamerDad Review
  
  
• 'meh' Serious Sam II - somewhat prettier retread ... not much else to say, except that I discovered 'Sam' when 'The Second Encounter' came out and simply adored it. My inability to get psyched about the first one or replay the second one much should have been a warning, but I still hoped this one would take it to a new level. It didn't. My GamerDad Review
  
  
• Hated It! Dungeon Lords - definite candidate for least finished major game ever ... and while I don't support it as 'worst game of the year', it definitely carries 'biggest disappointment' My GamerDad Review
  
  
• Hated It! Restricted Area - short, stupid and bug-ridden - this is the kind of game that starving cRPG fans pick up for all the wrong reasons. My GamerDad Review
  
  
• Hated It! MetalHeart: Replicants Rampage - there is a clear difference between 'paying homage' and 'peeing on the memory', and this Fallout clone takes the latter path, showing you can copy a great game without having a clue what made it great My GamerDad Review
  
  
• Hated It! Postal 2: Apocalypse Weekend - I admit to enjoying Postal 2 ... and I even replayed after finishign this to confirm I still liked it. I did - but this absolutely horrid expansion sucks all the fun, open-ness and any other positive qualities from the original. My GamerDad Review

GAMING: Mac gaming

• Loved It! GeneForge 3 - There is something charming about the 'one guy in the garage' asapect of SpiderWeb software that is cool. But that isn't the draw - the games he makes are deep, involving and *long*. GeneForge 3 advances the series admirably, and I hope to finish it soon ...
  
  
• Loved It! Avernum 4 - This game is a recent Mac release that I'm beta-testing on the PC (shhh!) ... graphics get a nice bump, and the mechnics are just terrific. As GeneForge is to single player games, so Avernum is to party based games.
  
  
• Loved It! Ultima V: Lazarus - The 'mod' community can be amazing ... as a 'game' like this shows. This ~525MB file uses the Dungeon Siege engine to recreate and reimagine the classic Ultima V, and the results are quite amazing. The scope alone for this project made most assume it would never get done - let alone turn out so fantastic.

GAMING: Gaming Media

• Loved It!Focus on the Family! - This year I saw more stuff - outside of GamerDad, no less - about involving parents with kids in video games, involved parenting in general, and about how important striking a balance in all things is to overall health and weel-being. Great Stuff!
  
  
• Loved It!Forget Weird Science - this is *Bad* Science! - As a scientist and statistician I'm offended by 'fluff' science put out there to prove someone's point using a one-dimensional experiment. So I was glad that there was also a great move to debunk 'bad science' - like the 'Classical Music makes you smart' thing. Sure, *learning* classical pieces on piano has been linked to better analytical skills, but that is a simple matter of correlated cross-training. Sticking headphones with Mozart blaring on your wife's belly is not going to make the baby smarter.
  
  
• Hated It!Video Games are Killing Our Kids!!1one - OK, it was the year of 'Hot Coffee'. The year of hysteria, where politicians and lawyers and so-called advocates we coming out of the woodwork to decry the evil gaming industry and the ESRB. While there are lessons to be learned by gamers, developers and the industry as a whole, I have yet to figure out why people are so much more outraged by poorly done pixilated simul-sex in a game for 17+ adults than they are about a game like Soldier of Fortune 2 where you can blow off someone's head, watch the blood pump out as they gurgle and crumple up and die. Also, the copy of Indigo Prophecy I got from eBay was from someone with the European import, so I got see the poorly done pixilated simul-sex ... and it makes the 'skinimax' stuff I saw late nights in college in the mid-80's look outrageously explicit by comparison.

GAMING: Special Awards

• My Favorite Game! Castlevania DS - because it came out of nowhere and completely blew me away. I played the original Castlevania Adventure on the GameBoy in 1989 to the point that the theme is going through my head now. I have Circle of the Moon but just got it last year and never got too far. I read about this, but the perfect confluence of excellent gameplay and effective minimalist use of the DS features made this one a wonderul experience for me, better than I assumed.
  Runner Up: Gothic II Gold - that is my favorite game of the year, but since I've been in love with the core Gothic II since getting is in late 2003 it doesn't really count ... but even still I was amazed at how well they wove the expansion into the game.
  
  
• My Biggest Disappointment! Dungeon Lords - there are some good things about this game - like the dungeons. The combat can be fun as well. That's about it. You hit the Elf 'city' of Arindale and you realize that the game is devoid of significant depth. Sure there are loads of *words*, but that doesn't define good dialogue ...
  Runner Up: Quake IV - for assembling a team whose work I love and pushing out something totally mediocre.
  
  
• My Most Hated Game! Postal 2: Apocalypse Weekend - In a way this reminds me of Contract J.A.C.K. - just as that used the same engine and many elements from NOLF 2 yet sucked the fun out of it, so does this expansion. Four hours of unfunniness, of linear stupidity - and not the fun stupidity that populated Postal 2
  Runner Up: MetalHeart - for looking like they wanted to reward Fallout fans, but not having a clue what that should look like ...

MUSIC

• Loved It!Pat Metheny Group - The Way Up - This is a truly transcendent composition. Everything else is just a bunch of songs in comparison - even some great stuff like the latest from Zorn, Dejohnette, Joshua Redman, Chick Corea or the release of the Miles Davis 'Cellar Door Sessions'. This is 68 minutes that takes everything Metheny has learned in 30 years as a major jazz player and composer, and brought it to bear in constructing a work of epic and sweeping scope the likes of which jazz music hasn't seen since Mingus in his heyday, that rivals the great works of Ellington and Gershwin among the American masters. The band has come together to the point where the only obvious 'solos' are from trumpeter Cong Vu. There were many really cool recordings put out this year, stuff I love and my family loves, but even bothering to mention them detracts from the full focus this work deserves. Yeah, it is that good. And just to appease the 'relativists' out there - I am saying nothing about whether or not you should 'like it' ... that is a matter of taste. My kids would never pick it out, but do at least tolerate it if I put it on. Just as you don't have to 'like' Beethovan's 9th, but any serious person would acknowledge as a truly great artistic achievement in the field of music. This is like that.
  

MOVIES & DVD

• Loved It! Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith - we love this ... which is the great thing about taste - I don't have to justify to *anyone* that I like, so long as we stay away from discussion objective criteria! My GamerDad Review
  
  
• Loved It! Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit - we had never been the big fans that many already were, this just looked great - and it was. An excellent story with great characters that makes for a very captivating film. My GamerDad Review
  
  
• 'meh' Charlie & the Chocolate Factory - I am not objective here, Willie Wonka is one of my all-time favorite movies. This wasn't as bad as I expected, and while I have had objective arguments showing why this one is actually better - check back with me in 10 years and let me know who is watching this one regularly compared to the original.

MY FAMILY - sure, this is an easy and obvious one, but it is so fundamental that it bears mentioning. This was a year that saw Lisa's dad continue his slow decline towards death, a death that is long overdue but still unwelcome. A year that saw her mother get test results that made it seem almost certain she had cancer in her lymph glands ... and that were thankfully wrong. This year I had a shouting match with my parents because of how they have dealt with us - and particularly our kids. This year my brother within weeks abdicated his role as my older son's godfather and then tried to invite himself to the First Communion. And a year that had Lisa's sister sit on the Christmas gifts we had sent for a month before returning them to us with a mean-spirited and psychotic note. But through it all I had a wonderful wife and two wonderful boys, and we love spending time together. We spend way too much money and took way too many vacations and special trips, none of which I regret. So, despite all of the crap that has happened in our larger families, I am happy as I start 2006 because I'm terribly in love with my wife, and adore my boys.

More from the Blizzard of '78

I knew I had some pictures I had scanned from slides my parents had in a box ... I dug them up yesterday just to look.

This one shows our house from the street. It is already more than 24 hours later, the snow has compacted, and everything is completely closed and snowed in. In order there is my Dad, my older brother (would have been ~14.5) and me (almost 12). The covered car was a '74 Chevy Impala ...



In this one you can see a bit up the street, showing that even by the 8th, two days after the storm, roads weren't plowed. The 'highway' down the street opened that day, and the convenience store (Bob's) opened up as well. We would take a sled down the street to get stuff, and run errands for people who couldn't get out of their houses yet.

OK, this isn't the Blizzard, but me after Christmas just before ... note the M16-look alike (had forgotten that) and my fave gift from that year - VertiBird! It was a helicopter that flew in circles ... I remember that the first one I got didn't work, and my dad called all around (hot gift that year) and that Child World in Framingham said they had one and would hold it for him. We got there, and of course they didn't have any ... my Dad was *furious*! Upon yelling at the manager, they 'found' one held for someone else and I got it! Unfortunately, while I kept it, my attempts to rewire and get it working for my kids were to no avail ... it was just dead.

Dungeon Lords - The Original Review, In commemoration of the release of the 'Collector's Edition' for Dungeon Lords.

OK, this review is a mess ... yet there is something about it and how it represented my feelings that I just could never delete it - so here you go, read my schizo first draft.
===============================================


What does it say when it is more dangerous to say “I like this game” in the official game forums than to crawl the dungeons full of Cacodemons and Minotaurs? What happens when a reviewer has such internal difficulty with a game that the two voices manifest themselves into a two-way debate instead of a direct review … I just hope I can control them …

Dungeon Lords (PC)

Mike: Dungeon Lords is billed as a Fantasy RPG from Legendary RPG designer D. W. Bradley, famed designer of Wizardry 5 – 7 and the not –so-famed Wizards & Warriors. As he stated in an interview regarding the game “We've built Dungeon Lords from the ground up to include all the classic elements of a great RPG, while striving to make it accessible to all sorts of different players. We’ve created a huge world with thousands of interactions, and spent a lot of time balancing puzzle intricacy and innovation so that there’s something for everyone.” How does having D. W. Bradley attached to the title impact your anticipation?

Mini-Mike 1: D. W. Bradley is not part of the mainstream, and hasn’t been since before there was a GameBoy … and since most players are still under 25, that makes attaching his name irrelevant except to game media geeks and people who miss the good old days of manually tweaking IRQ’s and memory settings …

Mini-Mike 2: That just isn’t nice. D. W. Bradley has an established history of deep stories and excellent dungeons full of challenging puzzles, and *that* is what he brings to Dungeon Lords.

Mike: OK, this isn’t starting well. Let’s talk about the story – the premise is pretty standard fantasy stuff. How well does it play out?

Mini-Mike 1: Cookie cutter – you are some sort of ‘chosen one’, and you have no choice but to linearly trudge through and save the world. What if *I* wanted the power – why should I have to save all of those people? No wonder they wanted to focus so much on the combat – the story is garbage.

Mini-Mike 2: I think it depends on whether you see the traditional fantasy story as hackneyed or venerable. I choose the latter. You know going in that you are the hero – no choice about that. You learn about the basics early on, the power struggles, the inaction and indecision, the subterfuge and deceit … and you have to work your way through it all to save the land from destruction. I think it is an excellent story augmented by excellent combat.

Mini-Mike 1: Fine, you like the story, but one of the inherent means of adding replayability to a game has been to allow players to choose good or evil paths, to choose sides. And while that may not make sense to have true good and evil paths, there is no active role for the player – you merely take on quests without option to refuse and your dialog is ‘listen only’. So you are really playing a story rather than participating in an evolving plot with twists and turns and intrigue. Again, the story is garbage, but I am willing to put up with a garbage story if I get some power to shape the outcome or at least the course.

Mike: Dungeon Lords is a Combat RPG, which basically means it is an action-RPG, but with an advanced combat system.

Mini-Mike 1: What you mean, Mike, is that Dungeon Lords attempts to grab a large audience by stealing ideas from commercially and/or critically successful games like Diablo II, Gothic II, and Jedi Knight II. And, like most combinations, it ends up as a jack of all trades and a master of none – or, rather, mediocre at everything.

Mini-Mike 2: No, what he means is that Dungeon Lords takes the old school RPG out of the impersonal Wizardry and Baldur’s Gate view, and puts it into a robust 3rd person view, while implementing a combat system much more satisfying than Gothic or Morrowind.

Mini-Mike 1: (barf) Do you really believe that last line?

Mini-Mike 2: No, not really.

Mike: Dungeon Lords offers players a vast array of character customization options, from race, gender and starting class, to secondary and tertiary classes and a wide range of skill specializations.

Mini-Mike 1: Hey, you forgot the appearance customization and choice of left- or right-handedness! Oh wait, those are in the electronic manual, partially in the paper manual, and partially in the game but not available. Add to that the fact that you can obtain new guild classes (for example, Sorcerer as a second-tier Mage class) without meeting any of requirements – oh wait, it gets better, the guild master will say ‘The Requirements are X, you meet those, would you like to advance?’ That one cracks me up every time!

Mini-Mike 2: Sure, there are limitations, but they are the window-dressing. Hair? Skin? Who cares! The character customization system is deep and complex, and while it allows you to create a character that is generic and has medium levels of all skills, the very well done class advancement system gradually increases skill specializations to aid you pursuing a path to power in a single area. And while there is no enforcement of class advancement requirements, since they are stated, you can choose to enforce them yourself. My only complaint with the skill system is that the ability to disarm traps and open chests is a necessity for all characters, as there are plot-critical items in trapped chests.

Mini-Mike 1: But ultimately everyone needs a sword and some serious hacking skills … and has to take on loads of intelligence to cheapen other skills and either dexterity or strength to make your melee skills worthwhile. So you have characters with lots of points guaranteed in three categories, lots of skills in melee and thieving – even if your intention is to be a pure spellcaster. This is the inherent problem in all games that abandon strict class typing and allow cross-class skills – the difference from character to character become nuanced rather than distinct. That narrows the reasons for replaying.

Mini-Mike 2: I actually played as a mage, admittedly a ‘BattleMage’ archetype. I found the spells excellent, and some of the spell effects visually stunning. But I agree that playing a mage is a difficult course – you get scant ‘ammo’, and it recharges slowly, and the camping options are also sparse. It is hard to imagine that the game was intended to be played as a pure mage.

Mike: Dungeon Lords features a large game world full of varied creatures and regions to explore. It also features towns where players get quests from NPC’s and several complex dungeons. How does this contribute to gameplay?

Mini-Mike 1: Ever get lost in the woods? Basically the ‘large game world’ is a bunch of aimless wandering between dungeons. Once in the dungeons, you will get lost so often, stuck so many times, and die while solving cryptic riddles so many times you will be longing to get lost in the jungles again.

Mini-Mike 2: While it doesn’t have any ice areas, the world is bigger than Gothic II, and there are lakes and swamps and jungles and dungeons, dungeons, dungeons. And Mini-Mike 1, you have revealed yourself for the shallow individual you are – you should be reveling in these dungeons, not lamenting that they aren’t yet another hyper-linear trip through a mindless FPS-like world.

Mini-Mike 2: It seems obvious, but bears repeating, that this game is called Dungeon Lords for a reason – because the focus is on the dungeon crawling. And that is where the best parts of the game occur – brilliant design, challenging puzzles, and a real need to think you just don’t see in games anymore.

Mini-Mike 1: Are you serious, or are you just some apologist fanboy? Am I supposed to be happy that I had to meander through an empty world with no journal and almost no NPC’s just for the dungeons? Why not just teleport me? I admit the dungeons are cool – they are the only thing that kept me from seeing if I could use the game disks like saw blades in Half-Life 2.

Mike: Dungeon Lords is touted as featuring a wide variety of quests you obtain from NPC’s throughout the game world.

Mini-Mike 2: The quests in Dungeon Lords are very satisfying, and not just the typical ‘go there, kill this, get that, return’ type. You typically are doing something with a good story behind it, which makes it more involving.

Mini-Mike 2: Interesting fact - there are no side-quests. WHAT?!?! I got loads of side-quests! No you didn’t – you got main quests, and guild quests. Nothing else.

Mini-Mike 1: One thing I really liked about this game was the towns – there was a game called Revolution, which had a high level of environmental interaction, too much in fact, so that the player felt like a bull in a china shop, constantly knocking things around. Thankfully Dungeon Lords makes sure there are no nasty tables or chairs to bump into in any of the rooms … they even put out all of the fires in one of the major towns as a safety precaution. Very thoughtful.

Mini-Mike 2: While I loved the beautiful towns, the fact that they were essentially empty was very disappointing. Especially since the game features claim “Loads of personal quests and missions, featuring a world full of NPC characters to interact and bargain with, some who may become your ally, others who may be your enemy.” In reality, there are some guards and civilians in Fargrove to see that cannot give you quests, but aside from that, everyone you can talk to gives you a quest.

Mini-Mike 1: Another unique thing about the game I love is that they give you a ‘lite journal’ option – instead of wading through pages of completed quests and information, you get a few quests with a single line for each.

Mini-Mike 2: At this point I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or clueless. There is no ‘lite’ journal – the journal you describe is the only journal! And the journal has the distinction of being perhaps the worst I have ever seen in a RPG. Besides providing almost no information about a quest, it also provides no feedback as to whether a quest is a ‘just do it’ or a ‘do it and return’ or other type. In addition, when I was at the end of the game, I still had four quests listed in my journal – all of which I had finished many hours previously.

Mike: What other opinions do you have about the gameplay – such as the graphics, combat and enemies?

Mini-Mike 1: Imagine a world in which you are solving puzzles harder than anything in any RPG in recent years, and a continuous stream of respawning snakes comes to attack you every minute or two. The combat is thrilling and non-stop, but sometimes there should be a break. Fortunately, the enemies are all idiots, so they run at you just waiting to be taken out. Unfortunately they swarm you and can easily take you out … or at least really annoy you. The graphics for the game look decent – similar to Soldier of Fortune II, I would say. At least until you get up close. There are some things that look good from a distance but look more like 2D sprites up close.

Mini-Mike 2: I found the graphics quite pleasing – you won’t mistake the game for Half-Life 2 or Far Cry, but it is better than games like Gothic II or Morrowind or Neverwinter Nights. And I found the combat very well done. While it didn’t quite up to the lightsaber combat of Jedi Knight II, it came close. You can easily switch between ranged, melee and magic attacks, which allow you multiple strategies for taking out the swarms of enemies that inevitably arrive. As for the enemies, they were well done in terms of design, in particular I think of the enemies I regularly encountered during a ‘maze’ late in the game – they were really fun to battle. The AI did scale somewhat according to your level and the type of enemy, but largely they just swarmed you.

Mike: We have heard loads about how bug-ridden the game is – care to comment?

Mini-Mike 1: Let’s just say that the hundreds of spiders, bees and other pests are the least of your worries.

Mini-Mike 2: It is fashionable to bash on this game for being extremely buggy, but in the many, many hours I’ve played, across two computers, I have yet to have a single crash. Not one – that is better than any game I’ve played in a long time. There are bugs and vulnerabilities to crashing, things like allowing you to save in the midst of combat, but on whole I would say the game has more ‘incomplete’ stuff than bugs.

Mini-Mike 1: C’mon, how about the half-dozen reloads you did to get the messenger to land – see the pretty screenshot of where she liked to stop? Or how once you press the save game button there is no cancel? Or how the heraldries don’t show up or seem to work? What do you mean by incomplete?

Mini-Mike 2: Well, beside the things we’ve mentioned, the magic system seems incomplete, especially with regard to Rune and Celestial magic. There is the issue that the entire world seems empty and waiting to be filled with interesting characters to give the game some ‘color’. There is a death-and-revive system that seems to forget that most players, when given the chance, will hoard points for a while until the skills are cheaper as you gain a new class. There are just a number of things that point to a game not ready for release.

Mike: One of Dungeon Lords’ most touted features was the cooperative multiplayer. How has your experience been with that?

Mini-Mike 1: At first I thought it was going to be the same as single player mode except that you battle with friends or over the internet. After a while I realized that it was a quest of its’ own. You get advancement points for connecting, for getting a game to start, and for every minute you manage to play without lagging yourself into the side of a mountain.

Mini-Mike 2: I have been unable to try the LAN co-op, which I hear is loads of fun. I have made multiple attempts to play the internet mode using GameSpy, with very little success and no enjoyment. I’ve tried it on computers that I’ve played many multiplayer games with ease, but one behind a firewall I never got to connect, and the other at home I could connect but was very laggy.

Mike: OK, time to sum up and give a final score.

Mini-Mike 1: Dungeon Lords is an unfinished mess of bugs and an affront to gamers everywhere. It was delayed more than once, and a mess of a demo come out of nowhere … followed by another delay. What finally arrived was a mess that was obviously pushed out the door by the publishers – and seemingly against the will of the developers, who have made a good show of trying to get patches out and help gamers. Nonetheless, the game as shipped is missing significant features, others are a mess, and the gamer is left more afraid of hitting a game-killing bug than a character killing enemy. I finished the game, and liked a couple of things, and I can’t call it the worst game ever, but it is hard to find something objectively positive to say beyond – cool dungeons, awful game. My advice, stay away; my score: 2/10, 1 star.

Mini-Mike 2: While the lack of a map and character appearance customization is bothersome, and problems with the journal and save system are annoying, the basic game as delivered is actually quite deep and enjoyable. I put more than 60 hours into completing my first time through the game, not counting the approximately 15 hours I’ve already put into my second game and the couple of hours I’ve spent trying to get multiplayer to work. Once you sit down and start playing, it is grand fun and very challenging, and will keep you going for hours. I’m still playing, and it is hard to stop. I truly love the game, not for what it could have - or should have been, but for what it is. While my score doesn’t make mathematical sense, the excellence of the dungeons and combat and the great pacing of the story and advancement, makes me forget many of the issues and give the game a score of : 8/10, 4 stars.

Mike: Dungeon Lords could have been one of my favorite games ever. It derives much inspiration from two of my favorite games ever, and has a wonderful concept, setting and basic story. It has some of the best dungeons I’ve ever been through, and the combat is truly thrilling. But there are many, many problems, and several areas I find very disappointing. It isn’t a 2/10 game, in my opinion, but it is not an 8/10 game either. One score seems to be in step with those taken in by the hype of a game that would meld FPS and RPG in a whole new way, who are now rabid and vociferous in their hatred of the game; the other score reflects those so desperate for another Gothic-like game that they will fully embrace and love this game despite its’ flaws.

I am torn between taking an average and giving it 2.5 stars, or rewarding the excellent and challenging dungeons and combat with more of a ‘positive tilt’. On the one hand, I couldn’t stop playing, I really got into the difficult combat and puzzles and trying to make it through as a mage. On the other hand, I would only recommend this game to hard-core RPG lovers, and feel a number of caveats are in order when talking to anyone about playing the game.

My overall opinion is that as a fully finished game with working multiplayer it would be a worthwhile game to spend money buying. Not a classic, nor one of the greats, but a fun game and worthwhile addition to the genre. It has a good story, very good character development system, fun and exciting combat and excellent dungeon designs. But it is hampered by an empty world, missing or poorly implemented features, and numerous bugs and poor design choices. Some of these things balance out, and the excellent dungeons stand as truly remarkable challenges. But there is no excuse for shipping a game in this state – in a year with many unpolished releases this one manages to stand out. Therefore I am giving it a score of 6/10, or 3 stars.

28 Years Ago Today

The Blizzard of '78.

More than 4 feet of snow.

100 MPH winds.

High tides cresting 40 foor waves.

Dozens of homes and businesses wiped out instantly, hundreds badly damaged.

100 people dead due to every imaginable weather related cause.

I was 12. Old enough to shovel snow for several people in the neighborhood to help out. Old enough to be terrified watching the news showing the parking lot route 128 had become and waiting for my dad to make it home.

But young enough to enjoy the fact that we had a week off from school and that the roads were shut down. Young enough not to worry about being without power or phones for a while. Young enough that the '64 Impala that someone had run a red light and smashed into my Dad and brother two months earlier, which no longer had a driver window, which was totally covered to the roof with snow - I was young enough that it became our snow fort for the winter.

I very well remember the Blizzard of '78, but as a child ... I wonder what my memories would be had I gone through it as an adult?

Catching up with the movies ...

Over the past couple of weeks we've had the chance to do some movie renting ... much more than usual. And we used it to catch up with some stuff we've been meaning to watch.

Polar Express - as reviewed here, but I liked it more than Cary. But perhaps that is because it is one of our family's favorite Christmas books, and we love sharing it each year. Some of the scenes just made the book pop out of the screen in a very moving way. But like so many films that build a 10 minute read into a 90 minute movie, there is much filler that is questionable. There were things that reminded me of how often these things look to 'improve' the original but end up making fundamental changes that mess with the original charm. Pretty good and enjoyable, but we don't have any desire to ever see it again ... stick with the book.

Because of Winn Dixie - the kids wanted Madagascar, but it was all rented out. So I saw this as I perused, and had heard it was a charming tale. It is - if you haven't seen it I highly recommend it. Sappy - you bet. But really good - our boys loved it, and so did we.

Ella Enchanted - this one happened after the kids went to sleep, and we were just relaxing ... but there was nothing much on. I like having the 'Guide' for Comcast, as I can page through channels. This was just starting, so we watched it. Very charming and engaging, nice little fantasy movie with interesting characters. Too bad it started at 9PM because the kids would have liked it as well.

Madagascar - the GamerDad himself nailed this one - "Dreamworks Pictures makes pretty CGI animated features that are like cotton candy. They melt in your mouth in a sweet and sticky way, but when compared to rival Pixar, they're ultimately soulless and leave little after-taste. Or maybe a better way of thinking of it is: Dreamworks likes jokes. Pixar likes stories with jokes in them." We all liked it ... now *what* was it about? Oh yeah, penguins!

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants - consider this: my 9.5 year old son who is 5 ft tall and starting to show some early 'bodily changes', and has always had ideas about what is for girls and for boys. (my almost 8 year old could give a flip, and we certainly don't care about it). Nonetheless, he liked this better than Madagascar, and snuggled up to us and had a good cry while it was on. Really just so much better than I could have imagined. If you think this is a chick flick, you aren't a real man ;)

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - OK, so it has been 25 years since I read the book, but I remember it being better and funnier. The better part I could accept - when my favorite character was Alan Rickman (aka Snape) as a manic depressive robot, and I occasionally thought about finishing up the dinner dishes, I knew this wasn't destined for my greatness list. But many of the jokes were pretty flat - Monty Python (shows, movies, whatever) hits me as solid as it did over 30 years ago when my Dad took me to see 'And now for something completely different ...' in a 'art movie' house in Boston ... but this feels dated and ... I don't know ... My wife took a nap. The kids liked it, but it was third of the recent set after 'Pants' and Madagascar.

... It's for the Kids ...


I am very involved with my kids and their activities. I'm a Cub Scout leader, a Team Manager for Destination Imagination, and teach CCD for our Church. I attend every weekend or night function, and do my best to get to every function during the day. I'm involved, and I do pretty well as a leader and motivator of kids - and I love doing it. But when I got a call a week ago to help as a volunteer at the lower elementary school's (preschool - grade 2) 'Breakfast With Santa' I stepped into uncharted territory.

My kids are very smart, but they differ in how they see the world. My younger son has an imagination that runs rampant in both directions - he came up with more than half the ideas for our town's Haunted House, including a fully realized 'Monster Lab' in which he got up in the middle of the room and told the entire room (of mostly adults) what would be where, and what would happen ... and it was great. But that same imagination kept him from ever stepping foot in the finished Haunted House. My older son is much more of a pragmatist - he is very creative, but is much more analytical and is always trying to work things out.

When it comes to Santa, while both know that the 'Santa' at our December CubScout pack meeting is the Scoutmaster in a suit, they approach the other 'Santa's Helpers' in different ways. My older son understands that Santa can't be everywhere so there are helpers, and that sometimes people just dress up like Santa for fun at parties. My wife and I believe our younger son will go to college thinking any guy he sees in December with a white beard and red suit is *the* Santa.

It should be pretty obvious what I was asked - to play Santa for the kids. There was some talk last Monday, but I didn't get the call until Thursday night - but since I already knew it was likely to come, I was prepared and said yes immediately. But then we had to decide what to tell the kids - do we tell them, hint at it, or just not say anything. We decided not to say anything - not lie or avoid, just that I was working, and had to be there earlier than them (my wife was also working, but didn't have to be there before it opened.)

I was very nervous about doing this, which is somewhat strange. My wife thought it hilarious, since I don't even blink an eye about presenting controversial technical subjects at conferences to audiences that have exceeded 1000 people, where I know I'll be challeneged by some of the brightest people in the semiconductor industry. But here I was, all out of sorts at the thought of having a couple of hundred kids come sit on my lap for a picture and tell me what they wanted for Christmas. But I don't get nervous for work stuff because I know what I know, and am not afraid of what I don't know. With kids, all bets are off - and even if I'm not the *real* Santa, I wanted to be the best Santa's Helper I could, making the experience as magical as possible.

All of my visits to various Santa photo opportunities have been from the other side - either as the kid or adult. The most I've ever had to worry about was when my older son was 1 and didn't want to be left with Santa and it turned into a family photo. So seeing it from the other side was eye-opening. The kids were all respectful - people asked me later if I got my beard pulled or anything. Far from it, the most common reaction was *AWE*. Sure, there were many kids who were afraid, and wanted nothing to do with me, and other who wanted to stand next to the chair (if I saw a kid looking tentative I offered that as a choice), just as there were kids who came right out of line to hug me, most kids were very respectful, keeping their distance and giving me a smile and a wave.

Just in case you thought it only happened to you - kids tell Santa everything, and most parents are left straining to make sure they hear everything their child is saying or asking for. I heard it all, from shoes to laptops and everything in between - as most kids were in first or second grade, GBA was a very popular request, as was all things Barbie and Bratz - and I tried to make each kid feel special be saying how wonderful their idea was, with some details if I knew them.

Only one kid knew who I was, and it was one of my older son's friends. I gave him a wink and his mother glared at him as if to say "if you say anything to your little brother I'll kill you!" There was a teenager whose mother worked at the school and wanted a picture of her daughter with Santa. Her daughter was very nervous and embarrassed, so I told her 'remember, you can't actually die of embarrassment', which made her chuck and put her at ease.

The saddest thing was two kids whose only wish for Christmas was that their family be happy - these were kids under 8, and there were some obvious issues, probably a recent death or divorce, but sadness permeated their faces. I said I'd do what I could and would pray for them as well ... and I have.

My own kids ... I bet you wondered what they thought? Well, neither one really said anything, but I bet my older son knew. He was poking around it as we were getting ready to leave, but there were still a bunch of little kids there so I deflected the questions with non-answers, but as soon as we were home I talked about things and left it wide open ... he talked a couple of times as if he might ask, but I was going to make him do it himself rather than pushing it. When he mentioned talking to his friend I figured that was it, but he sidestepped it. My younger son never went there - where I saw skepticism and exploring in my older son's eyes as he approached me/Santa, with my younger son there was only pure wonder. He told me his secret wish for Christmas - that Rudolph would visit him sometime. And when we got home he told us that he had told Santa his secret wish - but *still* wouldn't tell any of us ... and this is the kid who can't stop from telling anyone anything! It was truly a great experience ... next year both of my boys will be in the 'upper elementary' school (3rd - 5th grades), and there are no Santa parties, so this might have been a one time magical experience.

As it says in the end of 'Polar Express', so long as you hear that bell, the magic of Christmas is yours ... I still hear it, as does my wife, and we hope you all do too and have a wonderful Christmas!

Bringing Closure to Two Years of Hate

Two years already? ... two years. On December 2nd, 2003 Deus Ex: Invisible War was released - and I was there on the day of release to get it. Sure, there was a demo a couple of weeks prior, but I had already decided I didn't want to spoil the beginning ... see, I was such a big Deus Ex fan that I *knew* it would be great.

Only it wasn't. In fact, not only was it a mediocre game, and a *huge* disappointment to fans of the original, it was also a complete pig in terms of performance. Not only that, it showed too many hallmarks of being designed 'console first' including some settings that explicitly said 'for XBox, if used on PC change this to X' but hadn't been changed.

I hated this game, oh how I hated it ... from playing this sad excuse for a Deus Ex game - which crawled and stuttered on my brand new laptop with a 3.2GHz processor and a 128MB nVidia 5220 card, as well as my slightly older desktop - came my first gaming resolution: if there is a demo, play it! I had gotten complacent based on successfully skipping available demos for Jedi Academy and others.

But that was two years ago, and I have a new computer. I decided that it was time to confront this old ghost once again. First I took a look at GameRankings and for some reason the average score for this game is >80%. That I don't get ... but anyway ...

I was also surprised that it was on 2 CD's ... have I become so used to 4 CD installs that 2 CD's seems svelte? It installed quickly, and I patched it up to 1.2 ... which too a surprisingly long time.

But what surprised me most were the graphics and performance - the graphics didn't look that great, and the game breezed as if I was playing an old game. Sure, I have an nVidia 7800GT with 256MB, but still ... So I cranked the setting little by little, until everything was maxed out - and it still didn't look all that great. I'm not expecting Half-Life 2 or F.E.A.R. here, this game didn't stand up to my maxed out No One Lives Forever 2!

Finally, the gameplay. It isn't as bad as I remembered - I still don't think it is 80% material, but I not longer hate it for wasting my $50 and representing an insult to the legacy of Deus Ex. So I can let go of the hate, but remember the lessons - a great game doesn't mean a great sequel, and always, ALWAYS play demos when they are available.

For the Love of Game Demos

One of the games on my IGN 'Wish List'was Hammer & Sickle, a strategy-RPG by a Russian developer based on the acclaimed Silent Storm engine. Everything that I read about it looked quite interesting - you play as a Russian agent in early Cold War located in the Allied zone of Germany, you get to choose a character type and progress through the game, and there broad flexibility in the turn-based combat system.

A demo was just released for the game. Obeying one of my Gaming Resolutions, I downloaded and installed the game immediately. The game opens with a long series of cutscenes, which are interactive to the extent that I needed to constantly click 'next' to advance the dialogue. By the time the action moves to player-control, I already had a bad feeling - poor translation of bad dialogue, lousy voice acting, mediocre graphics and not great performance.

Playing for a while I became painfully aware that the game is just awful. I have no need to spend $40 to get the full version to confirm this - and I have no desire to play this game in some attempt to uncover the 'golden nugget' that might be hiding. This isn't really my game type, but looked interesting enough to check out.

Amusingly, had my Gothic II Gold pre-order arrived at EBGames when scheduled, I was going to pre-order this game ... so while I'm lamenting the shipping delays with Gothic, it appears to have saved me $40.

This is also a validation of the value of demos. Prior to the release of Deus Ex Invisible War I would often buy a game without trying a demo even if it was available ... but after getting burned by that game I resolved to test out anything I possible could.

Thanksgiving With a Difference

Someone said that 'Traditions are made to be made'. In other words, don't just stick with the way it has always been done for the sake of it, adapt and change with what is going on around you. That is something we have tried to do, and this year we really needed to embrace it head on! My wife's parents are not well - her father has end-stage leukemia (has for >2 years now!) and her mother might have lung cancer, anyway they are no longer traveling - and since she and her sister don't talk, and her sister claims every possible holiday as her familily's to visit, we don't see them at holidays.

With my family it has been a different thing - we have been growing apart, and for a while I thought that both they and I were changing, but upon reflection this year, I can see that much of what is going on is just the way things have always been. The difference is that I will no longer 'put up and shut up' and do things to appease them - especially when I see them treating my kids like items on a checklist. My motto for years now has been - mess with me, fine, mess with my kids and watch out! So we have completed the fall checklist and my parents once again got in as many checklist items in one day as possible - which meant celebrating his birthday a month late (I was proud - he firmly said "do *not* sing, it is *not* my birthday). There was no mention of what they were doing for Thanksgiving.

Last year we had invited some friends over with their twin girls who are a few months younger than our older son. It was a great time, and we had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend.

So this year we knew we would be just the four of us, and decided amongst ourselves how to make it fun. So what did we decide?

Everyone would help make out a menu so we would all have our favorites.

We would have a fancy dinner that we would all work on cooking.

The weekend would have lots of relaxation and family time.

We would be out of the house by 5AM Friday on a 'Shopping Adventure'.

While shopping we would all get some choices of where to go.

We would make it to church for the first Sunday of Advent.

Pretty ambitious list, I know ... but very do-able. And we did it all - and more. We had a great week leading up to Thanksgiving - it really started when I took a half-day on Tuesday and we had the kids' 'Parent-Teacher Conferences', and ended when reality struck again Monday morning.

Everyone wanted traditional dinner - so we had a great 10lb turkey with stuffing, mashed & sweet potatoes, veggies, gravy, salad, cranberry sauce ... and pumpkin pie, chocolate cream pie and chocoltate ganache cake. My wife loves to bake ... and she is truly awesome.

I went out to get the Boston Globe to get the Black Friday newspaper ads, and got to plow through a few inches of snow. I was thankful we weren't traveling anywhere.

Later in the day I got the chance to work off some of my turkey by shoveling 6 inches or so of snow! Lucky me!

We're all shoppers - so the prospect of braving the Friday crowds was exciting rather than daunting. We decided on a shopping plan, starting with Toys R Us and heading through a few other stores before hitting Target and the Mall. We also decided that drinks and snacks would come in the car and we'd have brunch later. Another side benefit was that the earliest stores we wanted to hit opened at 6AM.

Arriving at Toys R Us at 5:45 AM was something ... it was interesting that Office Max had a larger line (due to the low-price computers, I later discovered). The atmosphere early on was pretty festive, but certainly frantic. Our primary goal was charity gifts, but we managed to snag a few gifts for our kids while they weren't looking.

Shopping was largely successful, and pretty fun, but by the time we got to Target, we were all well aware of one thing - this was *not* a day for browsing.

We found a new place for breakfast, a small classic diner that had recently opened. We got a nice breakfast there, for pretty decent money.

There were other stores we talked about getting to - Barnes & Noble in particular - but we were close to the theater, so we checked the time for Harry Potter. It was starting in 10 minutes! So we jumped right in - which worked well, as the popcorn and sode would have cost more than the huge breakfast we had just devoured!

The rest of the weekend was busy but casual - we had gotten an artificial tree this year due to my wife & younger son's allergies, so we spent Saturday decorating.

Sunday we finished the shopping - a few things at the Christmas Tree Shop (mostly gifts for the Scout caroling at the elderly housing we do next week) and a bunch of time at Barnes & Noble.

Monday came too early, as it always does ... I wasn't all that rested, and had certainly gained a few pounds, but felt wonderfully loved and rewarded.

After going through the weekend, I look back on a great deal more that I'm thankful for:

I'm more thankful than ever for my wife and kids - it may sound corny or hackneyed, but they are the center of my universe, and we had an absolute blast together in a way you wish could just last forever.

I am thankful that near the top of both my boys' lists were gifts for less fortunate kids.

I am happy that my younger son broke down and cried as he watched this scene at 8AM in Target: a woman in standing in front of a end-cap in Toys, looking at stuff, when another woman grabs a toy off the shelf. Apparently it was the last one, because the first woman, without attempting to talk, streams explitives and then throws coffee at the other woman (thankfully the top was on so it was a trickle), whereupon the other woman returns a verbal volley and leaves her while calling out psycho. I am so glad that my son sees this as completely crazy behaviour, enough to make him very emotionally upset.

I am grateful that when an item for one of the charity kids - something my older son picked from the 'wish tree' at church - ended up *not* on sale, that he volunteered his own money to make up the difference.

I am proud that we can go places as a family without temper tantrums when nothing is bought; without having problems at the table of a restaurant; without having to ever bribe for behaviour. Days like Black Friday are so full of these problems that you really appreciate what you have.

I am thankful that my wife shares my values so closely, and that by parenting by example as well as by lesson we have the joy of two boys who have manners and are polite - who will say 'thank you' and 'please' even when clerks in stores are rude.

I am proud of my boys school work. We were at a birthday party the week before, and report cards came out the day before. While others discussed their results, my wife and I were silent - because saying anything would sound like bragging. Which it would - both kids have already mastered all skills for their grades, and the teachers are challenging themselves to keep them challenged. See - sounds like bragging! But beyond brains and grades, there is attitude and behavior - and my boys are both called a joy to have in class. Too often kids who breeze through work end up with behavior issues, so I am proud and thankful that the bahavior they display everywhere is exemplary.

I am proud that my older son loves playing soccer and made the fall 'travel' team, and tries hard. No one will call him the best player out there, and he certainly inherited my speed (read: none), but he enjoys playing and does his best. For a kid who has so many things come easy, and so many things he is best at for his age, it is nice to see him be happy not shining.

The parent teacher conferences were unsurprising yet surprising at the same time. We have been told repeatedly - since kindergarten that we are the type of parent who always comes but doesn't need to, since there are no issues to discuss. Yet this year in particular, the praise heaped on the kids was something that stuck my wife and I, and we went to Dunkin Donuts for a coffee before going home and relieving the babysitter ... just to soak it all in.

This was a very thankful year for my wife and I - and we got to focus on the greatest things we have, each other and our kids.