Though One Day My Fears May Overrun

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Watched the Lost season finale last night. Compared with the ending of Alias we’re talking about the difference between six weeks’ all-expense paid vacation in a tropical paradise with a supermodel of your choice versus getting kicked in the crotch and shot in the kneecap. Or, put another way, there is no comparison.

Caution: Spoilers may follow.

The return of Desmond was no great surprise, but the faith/doubt rollercoaster that Locke had been on all season was neatly tied by bringing back the catalyst (so to speak) and having them work it out. I agree with some of the rumblings on the webs that Desmond might have mentioned to Locke that he had almost let the Bad Thing happen by not pressing the button a couple of months earlier and could pretty much verify that it was not a hoax and you didn’t want that to happen. I could see him being upset after having perhaps seen the Pearl orientation video, but just hearing about it doesn’t seem like it would have made him just kind of go along with whatever Locke wanted.

The open-ended fate of Locke and Eko was mildly alarming, although I’m willing to bet that the writers/producers felt they had met their Shocking Character DeathTM quota for the season and Locke and Eko seem too integral/symbolic to the direction of the show to be cast aside without much fanfare. As much as I liked the Desmond character and was glad to see him back, I’m hoping they don’t try to say he survived the explosion/magnetic discharge/key turning and bring him back. I sort of liked the concept of the hatch and the button, but I’m certainly not sorry they didn’t drag it on forever… a glimmer of hope there that they know better than to draw from the same well too often.

My biggest eyebrow-raising moment was when the rest of the Others seemed to kind of defer to Henry Gale as a leader of sorts, this has made for rampant speculation that Gale actually is the “Him” he whimpered about during his incarceration in the hatch. I’m not a fan of this theory as it seems to suggest that he would have orchestrated his own capture (that or he is especially careless, which does not bode well for someone we have been thus far lead to believe is rather feaed). If he is “Him,” that seems like a very risky move to make, considering how hostile and frightened of his group the Losties were at that point. Heck, even Rousseau—who ostensibly did the original capturing—would have had a pretty compelling reason to just flat out kill him (They did, after all, kidnap her daughter). That he managed to make it out alive can only be attributed to fortune (no one could have successfully orchestrated that series of near-deaths) which means that either Gale isn’t “Him,” or that he is in which case I would say that’s pretty disappointing since “He” is sort of a lucky dweeb and not some legendary Kaiser Soze-style uber-villain.

Some people grumbled that Claire’s kissing Charlie was out of character for her, but I think they set the stage for that already with the hand grab during the funeral in a previous episode. Still, I’d agree that her wishy-washy attitude toward him wasn’t handled quite as well as it maybe should have been (for all she knew he really did try to drown Aaron less than two weeks ago), unless they plan to set the stage for a plotline where Claire is a very poor judge of character/doesn’t learn from past mistakes very well. I hope with most of the key characters otherwise occupied in various high drama situations that we actually get some real storylines with Claire and/or Charlie next season.

I’m essentially opinionless about the cliffhanger ending since it involved plot elements that are nearly 100% new at this point in the show. Nice touch, though.

A Brief Meta Comment

If you stopped by the site sometime after about 11:00 pm PDT until around 9:00 am PDT you may have seen the site lookin’ all busted. I think I’ve fixed the Netflix feeds so they won’t break the site when they don’t work now but if you see the site acting goofy like that I wouldn’t mind a quick email letting me know. I suppose that goes for general site weirdness evident since the server switch.

Giggiddy Game Weekend

Tomorrow we head out for Kublacon. I had grand intentions of getting a bunch of my painting projects done but instead I fell into a spiral of video game resurgence, Netflix queue burning, lazy TV watching and irregular work hours. As such, my wonderful armies will not see the honor of battle this con. It’s really not a huge deal since there will be a slew of other stuff to do and more than enough games to play. I am still going to run a short Shadowrun 4th Edition adventure tomorrow night so at least I don’t feel like I did nothing to prepare for this anticipated event, but I had grand schemes of Warmaster battles that will have to wait for some arbitrary weekend in the future.

The only bad thing about the con is that in order to get a decent room and have a chance to get settled in and play a few pick up games before the festivities kick into full gear I need to get off work earlier than usual which naturally means getting to work earlier than usual. I’m still not exactly sure how that’s even going to work but considering that Friday nights at a con are historically rather sleep deprived, that strongly suggests that tomorrow may be in the running for Longest Day Ever.

Enjoy your lengthy weekend, Internet.

It is to Chuckle

Two quick things that made me laugh recently. One was during the abyssmal Alias finale when one of the characters said in typical overly dramatic fashion regarding the whereabouts of the wily villains:

It gets worse. We tracked their location to… Mongolia.

Nik turned to me and said, “‘It gets worse’? Why, do they not have enough frequent flier miles to cover the trip?”

I LOL’d.

Also, the most brilliant one-word website ever.

Known By Another Name

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We caught up with the Series Finale of Alias last night.

In case you don’t recall, I had stopped watching the show after this season’s opener because… well, because it had gotten criminally stupid. When I heard that they were coming back for a last push to the series finale I decided that I was going to watch and see how it turned out, just to find out if J.J. Abrams was going to be able to salvage the series that got away. The idea was that if he could, I might have less apprehension toward Lost. So I watched.

At first the new episodes were as bad as I remembered. But then a couple of weeks ago they had an episode that I felt was very much in tune with the golden era of Alias and I started to build a little hope. Maybe—just maybe—they could actually pull this off. There were a lot of semi-spoilers about guest stars and body counts floating around the Internets leading up to the two-hour finale and I started thinking that this just might make up, if only a little, for the torture (how apropos) of the last few seasons.

In typical Alias fashion, my hopes were built up only to be utterly decimated. They hooked me just enough to add one more scar to my already blackly ravaged faith in pop culture.

The finale was, hyperbole aside, an utter failure on every single level. The pacing, despite the two hour time allotment, was atrocious as they tried to cram what could have been a whole season’s worth of plot resolution into two episodes’ worth. The acting was inexplicably off kilter and drab, possibly because of exhaustion but probably because of the dismal dialogue. The details behind the show’s bizarre mystical Da Vinci-like prophet Rambaldi were never revealed, the fate of the villians from this season (Prophet-5) was laughably anticlimactic and the conclusion of the principal villians’ arcs were almost universally incomprehensible. There were pointless guest appearances, huge blocks of time devoted to disposable secondary characters, cheap and hackish writing tricks which ignored the entire history of the series and even plot points from only a couple of episodes ago! They devoted a lot of time to a series of flashbacks which served absolutely no purpose in developing story, characters or parallels to current events. The epilogue was jarring and unsentimental even in its inanity.

So no, I wasn’t a fan. What kills me about this show is the unrealized potential. The Rambaldi thing could have been phenomenal. Instead it was so painfully clear that the writers had no idea what they wanted to do with it and so they let it drift into this retarded grey area of repetition and casual dismissal because they clearly couldn’t come up with any decent explanations for what it all meant. For all the talk of “Rambaldi’s End Game,” what exactly that meant or what it was would never be explained. As a serial spy drama it could have been extremely cool as well, witness the first two seasons. But the stupid TV myth that one actor makes or breaks a show ruined the chances the writers had to stay fresh and interesting, choosing instead to stretch viewer’s credibility until it broke and snapped back into their eye.

The only thing that I can take away from the wretched train wreck the show ultimately became is that near the end (and specifically in the finale) I didn’t see J.J. Abrams’ name anywhere on the credits except in the “Created By” line. So all I can hope that means is that he had nothing to do with the assault on my brain I experienced last night and that when it comes to Lost he’ll do the right thing and see it through to the end and make sure not to allow anyone who was even remotely associated with Alias’ denouement to come within 50 miles of it.

Side Note

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I use the phrase “in terms of…” way too much. I think when you get right down to it I have a handful of phrases that I just destroy with overuse.

See? Right there I originally typed that as “…that I just destroy in terms of usage.”

What’s wrong with me?

Minor, in Terms of Disappointment

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First up I figured what with yesterday’s babbling about video games and then a mention of the Da Vinci Code at the end, this comic was appropriately timely. Also, clever! I do so love the clever.

Secondly, it seems like Scott is up to no good over on his site, swapping servers and taking the plunge into WordPress 2.0. This is not his fault, mind, since he is tied to me in terms of site hosts (unless he were to, like, pay for his own hosting instead of mooching off of me all the time… that kid. He is a moocher. Because he mooches). Still, shennanigans are afoot and I have no control over their outcome. At least not so you’d notice.

Third, I was informed yesterday that Dr. Mac has expressed interest in aquiring his own DS. So much so that I believe he even parted with a holding deposit in the manner commonly referred to as “Pre-ordering” but which is actually more like “Shady Accounting Practices.” I have no proof that this is the case, but I’m betting that EB Games and GameStop get to claim the accumulated monies gathered by suckers gamers who are just so hyped to get their hands on the newest game/gizmo/system that they will pay for a product they cannot take home for weeks or even months. Sure, they don’t have to pay for the whole thing, but they pay for nothing and that has to look good on a quarterly report. I imagine a spreadsheet somewhere with a column for “Cash Tendered” and an adjacent column titled “Merchandise Expenses.” A casual accountant unfamiliar with the rabid slavering generated by our hobby’s marketing machines might look at those columns and go, “Huh?” EB Games’ CEO Jeff Griffiths just grins, flashing his platinum and diamond-crusted Grillz from a cozy position in his swirling hot tub filled with the tears of 500 virgins.

I mean, if you want to figure out why Duke Nukem Forever has never been released, take a cue from Veronica Mars and follow the money. Ask yourself how many people may have, over the last decade, plunked down their pre-order deposit in hopes of playing this game. Who has most to gain? If you think 3D Realms’ CEO Scott Miller does not occasionally join Griffiths in aforementioned hot tub, you haven’t watched nearly enough X-Files episodes.

I’m just saying.

Wait, what was I saying? Ah yes, pre-ordered DSes. So Dr. Mac and I will be acquiring our devices in the next twenty days or so. What annoys is that our only options are white. Oh sure, if we hang back for a bit we can probably get a navy blue one or even a black one, but really. If I was planning on being all lacksidaisical on this I wouldn’t have lined GameStop’s coffers for something that isn’t even available in my country yet. Patience, in this regard, is not an option. So white will have to suffice. I already have machinations of hooking Nikki so on games such as Animal Crossing and Puyo Pop Fever that she requests—nay demands—her own DS. If I time it right I may be able to “begrudgingly” part with the pre-ordered Lite just in time to pick up a newly released unit of a less iPod-like hue.

Not that it truly matters. I’m sure with a bit of ingenuity and a few Google searches I could put together something to improve the aesthetic qualities. Such things already exist en masse for the DS Phat, so I have a certain degree of faith in my Internet cohorts that their lack of lives can even exceed my own.

What does matter is the manner with which I will be able to obtain the requisite games to make the purchase of such a device worthwhile. Observe the list of games I feel necessitate actual purchase:

  1. Mario Kart DS
  2. Advance Wars DS
  3. Age of Empires II

Of course then there are the games that have me on the fence in terms of purchase but which I certainly want to play at some point:

  1. Meteos
  2. New Super Mario Bros.
  3. Metroid Prime: Hunters
  4. Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
  5. Resident Evil: Deadly Silence
  6. Trauma Center: Under the Knife

None of which even touches on the forthcoming games like Final Fantasy III, The Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass, Children of Mana or even the games that seem like they may be worth a purchase for various reasons (multiplayer, primarily) like Animal Crossing, Tetris DS, Puyo Pop Fever and such and so forth.

What is even more unfortunate than the original letdown of not being able to get a launch day navy blue DS Lite is that, if I’m understanding correctly, there are far fewer DS games that can be used with Internet-based multiplayer than I originally thought. As near as I can tell only Animal Crossing, Tetris DS, Metroid Prime: Hunters and Mario Kart DS from the above list are WiFi enabled while the rest require… proximity? I’m not sure how it all works, although there is a lot of information over on Wikipedia. For what that’s worth. That seems to suggest that I’m right and Meteos or Advance Wars would not be compatible with the country-wide separation Dr. Mac and I suffer from (in terms of offline gaming and general fellowship; in terms of my odor, the separation is, I imagine, much more readily defined as “welcome”).

Regardless, what can you do? Take what you can get, that’s what. Until the time when physical divides are rendered meaningless by pervasive and reliable global wireless Internet and appropriately enabled devices, we must revel in the few small taste-tests of the future that we currently have access to.

An Unstoppable Flood

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As the song says, pardon me while I burst… into discussion. Or whatever.

I spent some time this weekend holed up in shower-less squallor as the rank stench of geek wafted ’round the apartment. My wife was spared only by her hasty retreat into lands untold with aspirations of “fixing” her “hair” into some complex structure of waves and flow which my mind could neither comprehend nor even process into appropriate visual imagery. The corrent response to such stimuli, I have learned, is: “It looks very nice, honey.” Venturing far beyond the script leads only to heartache and, should your other of significance be the type, possibly physical aching as well.

The aspiration of the stench-wallowing was a day of co-operative XBox Live play with one Doctor of Macintoshology in the latest chapter of our previously conquered Full Spectrum Warrior, in this case mysteriously titled Ten Hammers. I certainly didn’t see any hammer power-ups or collectible items, much less ten of them, but then again our progress in the game was—I’m being careful with my words here—limited.

Ten Hammers’ is very much like the first Full Spectrum Warrior: You have a fire squad of four soldiers called Alpha Squadron, whom to pass orders to and with appropriate realism they carry them out. Move here, set up a fire zone over there, suppress the enemy behind that car, toss a grenade into this vicinity, and so on. In the single-player mode you get a second team (wait for it: “Bravo”) which you control to try and outflank opponents or bail the other team(s) out of trouble. The minor enhancements of Ten Hammers are welcome, especially the ability to use Riflemen and Team Leaders to target enemies behind light cover with a sort of “aim and fire” order which sometimes prevents having to execute flanking maneuvers.

Still, the best part of FSW was the co-op, by far. The game was only so-so except that in this age of woefully lacking co-op gaming it was very welcome to be able to complete the entire game with one player acting as Alpha Squad and the other issuing orders (I hesitate to use the word “control”) to Bravo. And while there were quibbles to be made, for the most part it was an enjoyable experience. Far more enjoyable than, say, wading through the flood of ignoramuses packing the Halo 2 servers.

So we (Dr. Mac and I) greeted the arrival of Ten Hammers with a sort of contented sadness: Would that other games allowed such co-operative fun, but at least we could take advantage where it was offered.

It is for that false sense of happy expectation and misguided faith put in a franchise we had successfully gambled on in the past which raised our hopes only to squash them like one might a particularly repulsive insect that I curse the names of Pandemic and THQ.

In truth there is very little difference between what was available in FSW and Ten Hammers’ offerings. Many people have pointed to the versus mode in Ten Hammers as a welcome addition. Fine. Compete as you might with your cursing ten-year old opponents and your team killers and what not. My threshold for such tomfoolery has been met for this gaming generation/cycle and I will not be swayed. There is no multiplayer joy for me to have when facing Dr. Mac in versus battles where our amused banter falls on the apathetic ears of our collective pets, lounging in nap-time at our respective feet since the voice chat feature of Live works only on a teammate basis for most games. No, I come to share the experience and work through loss and victory together rather than revel in it at a friend’s expense.

What does differ is that levels available in co-operative mode are “unlocked” via completion in single-player mode. Which means that at least one of us (Dr. Mac or myself) needed to play the level solo and then we could host the co-op game with that particular mission. And the interface to access this is less than friendly to boot. Still, quibbling again. The concern for poor UI design is storied in video games and computerized entertainment. If it is simply unable to be cracked as by an ill-prepared theif versus a state-of-the-art safe, you move on. We managed to muddle through and execute the game start. What we found there was the real showstopper.

As you play through the levels in single-player mode, you reach various locations where the medical truck moves up to your current position or you clear out enough real estate behind you that the game notes significant progress has been made and auto-saves from that spot so that new and unexpected enounters just up ahead don’t grind you into needless frustration by sending you back to before you had achieved a modicum of victory; rather you start from that very spot and try until you reach the next checkpoint. This, as far as my gaming experience (it is considerable—belie’ dat) has shown is standard operating procedure. To be perfectly lucid: This was the way it was with the original Full Spectrum Warrior. Even in co-op, as you moved from one insurgent-infested location to a point of relative calm you were saved from having to repeat, ad infinitum, past victories/defeats.

Now let me continue my lucidity and get right to the point: This feature is either broken or missing from Ten Hammers. That means that no matter how close you get to the end of a level on a single try, if you fail you must go back to the beginning. All. The. Way. Back. Frustration is too kind of a word to describe what we felt after several hours of this. When you add to the equation the fact that Ten Hammers is somewhat more challenging than FSW was (even on the easiest setting) since there seem to be fewer absolutes (as covered foes are not invincible as they once may have been, so too are your teams at risk even when otherwise acceptably covered), you end up with portions where Doc and I would die at very early stages of the mission ten, twelve times in a row only to finally succeed and get to the next segment where we were unprepared and failed soon after having just recently tapped our tongues against the sweet morsel of success.

The disappointment was harsh and embittering. What should have been a fun (if somewhat smelly) afternoon of time-killing bliss was marred by a poor showing/showstopper bug.

Additional Linkage

Some things to pass your time:

  • Sigh. Some doofus from Minnesota (State Query: “What’s up with our Canadian border? Who put that little hump there? Is that the ten thousandth lake or something?”) is trying to introduce legislation that will fine the consumer for purchasing M or AO rated games if they are not of age. My question is, how is this even going to work? Like some kid is going to get away with buying Grand Theft Auto and then turn himself in? If the retailer was savvy enough to realize the kid was breaking the rules (laws?), why wouldn’t they just not sell it to them in the first place? Unenforceable and misguided equals utterly retarded. Yay lawmakers!
  • Apparently Nintendo hasn’t decided what product they’re trying to sell with their new European DS campaign, but they know one thing: It’s gotta be teh sexy. Because you know, all the people I know who want a DS look like Gap models and not pencil necks. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.</pot att=”black”>
  • Whoa. Check out this crazy Russian dude acting like Jackie Chan/Sam Fisher. I don’t know what’s up with the bizarre Russian rap on the soundtrack, but it’s just as good with the mute button engaged. Courtesy of the sharp-eyed Dr. Mac.
  • Also, the latest rant on Penny Arcade is less profanity-riddled than usual but well written as always discussing why the PS3 fails (yet again); this time with regards to online play. It’s true that they might come up with some midnight hour Live-like service but let’s face it, Microsoft has had several years to get this right and if you think Sony is going to learn from MS’ mistakes, you apparently forgot about how badly they mocked the 360’s two-tiered pricing plan only to introduce one of their own which made the 360’s look downright reasonable. All I’m saying is that you have to work pretty hard to make Microsoft look like they really have the customers in mind, you know?

Da Vinci Had a Code

We checked out The Da Vinci Code last night. I read the book and while I understand why some people were a bit perturbed by it (particularly the little blurb in the front of the book that suggested, perhaps surreptitiously, that the contents within were factual) but it was no more offensive to me than Indiana Jones’ quest for the Holy Grail. I mean, in all honesty I don’t even find mention of the Holy Grail in the bible in terms of it being some mystical artifact so if someone wants to write a story about it… you know. Whatever.

The movie actually tells the story better than the book does (and without as much pretension at that) but it skims over some of the more interesting art history aspects. In general it was pretty good although maybe not worth the opening weekend crowd hassles. I’d say if you had an interest in it you’d be better served catching a matinee or waiting for the DVD.

Shorn

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I don’t want to dwell on the fact that the Sharks picked the worst possible time to go ice cold. It’s not my intention to bemoan the fact that they had every single opportunity imaginable to put the series away and couldn’t put it together. I’m just not compelled to pour salt in the wound of unrealized potential.

Instead I merely want to say that the Sharks had an amazing season. From the acquisition of Joe Thornton to the emrgence of Jonathan Cheechoo to the inspired and finally consistent play of Captain Patrick Marleau all the way up to the fabulous end of the season win streak that put the team higher in the playoff seeds than anyone expected and gave hope to fans who as recently as December had all but written them completely off (guilty as charged). To that, I tip my hat. Here’s to next year.

Also, I wish they were still in the playoffs but I was kinda glad to shave the playoff beard. Itchy!

Bit Tids

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  • I’m happy to see the new MacBooks popup. I’m glad they’re offering a black model. I’m not happy to see that they’re charging a $200 premium for the black case. Lame.
  • When I first saw the story about the teacher that had his students write about how they would carry out a murder I was underwhelmed: Just one more idiot who shouldn’t be in charge of children. Then I saw this quote from the article: “But [St. Joseph School District spokesman Steve Huff] said the incident probably isn’t serious enough to cost Maxwell his job.” Excuse me? What sort of incident would be serious enough to cause a lunatic like that to lose their job? Out of character or not, this is a firing offense in my book. Don’t get me wrong, I think teachers are valuable assets, but that sentiment only applies to good teachers. The problem with teachers’ unions is that they operate under the mistaken assumption that anyone who is enough of a “martyr” to decide to persue teaching is automatically a good teacher. There are so many flaws in that ideology I can’t even begin to pick them apart but the end result is crap like this where teachers who display a severe lack of judgement don’t get what they deserve.
  • The more I see Sony react to their almost unanimously poor showing at E3, the more I’m inclined to agree with opinions like the latest micro-rant over on Joystiq. It’s been obvious for a long time that Sony would always, always rather push a proprietary format that they can control and scrape stupid profits from than go with something universal where they have to rely on difficult things like content to sell merchandise. And the history (especially recent history) backs that up: I explained already that I have been flat-out disappointed by PS2 exclusives by and large where XBox and GameCube-only titles that I’ve played have been stellar. The PSP (other than the recently announced Silent Hill Origins) has nearly no games available I’m interested in and my desire to purchase movies in more than one format is less than nil. Technically, it’s a superior device to the DS, but I’m a couple weeks away from purchasing a DS because I like it’s content. Sony has yet to learn that technological superiority holds exactly zero water outside of marketing conventions and it seems that they are poised to have this lesson (which, to be fair, they’ve had ample opportunity to learn) drummed into their heads yet again.

Curiosity Crunched the Numbers

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Over on Curmudgeon Gamer they have a graph showing the relative prices of consoles for the last thirty years, adjusted for inflation.

A couple of things are interesting here. For one, there are a lot of consoles represented here that were commerical failures or trivial in terms of market/mind share. Vectrex? CD-i? Please. But if you go with what I would consider to be the prime examples of the console wars (starting with the Sega Master System and including primarily Sega, Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft entries) you can see that up to the current/next generation the average price point has been about $305.80. Compare that to the current or forthcoming systems (which woefully doesn’t include the Wii since it hasn’t announced a pricepoint) which has launched up to $454.03 (and that’s if you generously include the nerfed systems like the XBox 360 Core). If you factor in the expected price for the Wii (expectations coming from wild speculation and wishful thinking, respectively) which is said to be around $250, you still get $413.23 average price.

The other interesting thing is that if you exclude only the Neo Geo and 3DO from the equation going back to 1986, the average price for any system is $369.84. That means that the non-nerfed PlayStation 3 is, on average, the most expensive system in relative terms by almost 40% in the last twenty years. Even if you factor in the stupidly overpriced 3DO and Neo Geo systems, the PS3 is still overpriced by roughly 30%. You can even average that with the nerfed PS3 (overpriced by 12%) and figure that generally speaking Sony is asking its customers to spend 20% more for the privilege of owning their console this time ’round.

Anyone else think Sony will see the light sometime between now and November?

Cameo

Funniest thing on the Internet today:

During a lighthearted discussion of some Transformers CGI test footage, an individual gripes about the coloration on the truck, prompting this reply:

I’m beginning to think Jesus isn’t going to have His Second Coming because even He won’t be able to live up to the fanboy hype.

PlayPlay

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The Shopping Maze

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It’s a little intimidating: Walking into the gargantuan building that makes the little mom and pop equivalents we’ve been visiting look like cramped strip mall cell phone booths. The place has its own attached parking garage, although curiously the concrete structure seems to waste a lot of space with no parking zones and unexpected loading bays that look rather unused. Still, any place where you can enter from a front door on the second story and requires gigantic signage to instruct you how to shop is going to create an atmosphere that is a bit overwhelming for your Standard Earth Guy.

The place is Ikea, the pseudo-discount home decorating/furniture store that has a somewhat unusual series of reputations. On one hand I think most people are familiar with the self-assemby meme that runs through the store’s merchandise. This seems to be okay with most folks because the prices do seem to be a bit more reasonable than places that offer a lot of free delivery, no down payment, no interest for a year financing and pre-built furniture so in general you’re doing a trade off between convenient sucker buying or hassled commonality.

And make no mistake, Ikea’s popularity is one of its detriments. Perhaps it’s just me, but the thought of that many people with that much interest in the same kinds of products I was looking at (don’t let the size of the physical Ikea stores fool you; there are only a few dozen varieties of any given item type) wasn’t too thrilling. Not that I am so obsessed with appearances that if I went to someone else’s house and found they had the same chair as I did I would die of some sort of social embarassment, but I do like to think that the stuff I might pick out would be unique enough to not have to look at the same stuff on every TV show set and magazine pictoral for the next seven years. You’re not going to get that with Ikea.

But for every bad part of Ikea there is a corresponding good and in this case they mostly get away with their popularity/ubiquity by having several basic styles of their key products and then going above and beyond to make them modular and customizable. For example their primary line of shelving units (“Billy,” they have weird names for stuff) is pretty standard and were in just about every showcase on the upper floor of the store. But it didn’t really get tiring or overwhelming seeing all those roughly identical shelves because they have dozens of variants from height expanders to corner units to glass doors and when you assemble them in various different ways you end up with something that has enough uniqueness to it so you aren’t thinking, “Everyone else in the world has this exact same thing in their den.” Plus we’re talking about wooden boxes that hold books, so individuality is probably going to come from what you put in and on it.

In any case my overall impression was favorable; in this case we’re primarily looking for a couch and though we’ve been to about eight different stores, Ikea was the first place where we actually sat on a few couches and went, “Man, this is comfortable.” I don’t know when comfortable couches went out of vogue, but I’d like to humbly request that we bring them back. Most of the other small furniture stores we’ve visited have offered a wide array of what I call “Gradma Couches” which are ornate and perhaps well crafted but were never designed to accept human buttocks and their associated weight. They seem designed for their appearance alone and honestly that appearance is some gross hybrid between classic elegance and modern ugliness which results in things like dark stained heavy oak frames with far eastern print fabrics and floral pastel throw pillows. Looking upon such monstrosities can kill a man dead, such is the affront to good taste, and while my taste is somewhat questionable to begin with I manage to escape with only a mild headache.

In the end we found a few options we’re considering for our purchase at Ikea. I still want to investigate further since we’ve only been shopping for a week or so (the time spent doing price comparisons I believe to be proportional to the amount of money one intends to spend; Nikki likes to tease me that when we start looking for a house we ought to be “looking” for roughly six and a half years which means what we should have been doing from the moment we got married was price shopping homes so that at this juncture I might just now be ready to buy). Still, it was a trip I didn’t mind making, although I’m glad we brought the Honda: Nikki’s earnest insistence that an unassembled bookshelf which in all reality could crush our Civic like a stepped-on soda can just might fit in the trunk suggested that the Swedish consumer magicks running through that place had captured her very soul.

Bah

HB was in rare form last night as we watched the Sharks play their latest home game versus a surging Edmonton team. He griped and predicted the end to the Sharks playoff run, which honestly irritated me more than it really had a right to. Our collective frustration with our favorite team culminated in a brief and not necessarily unfriendly exchange of grouchy banter. I think what annoyed me the most was that I knew he was right.

The Sharks can’t score on the power play. They can barely score five-on-five. They miss little details. Toskala is slipping. They don’t shoot nearly enough. Now I hear that the San Jose fans booed the Canadian national anthem. I’m ashamed at the moment to be a Sharks fan.

They could be a Cup-contending team. They aren’t at the moment. They’ve showed it before and maybe being on the verge of playoff extinction will spark them back into gear. I sure hope they make Wednesday’s game in Edmonton more than just a win but a statement that they aren’t going to go out like chumps and that they can actually step above the abysmal officiating this series and the cheap shots by a dirty team to, if not win, at least go out with dignity.

But when their fans can’t even separate the Oh, Canada! sung by probably half their team and coaches from their frustration with the opponent, I fear the worst.

Stabilizing Primary Thrusters

I think I’ve gotten most of the bugs ironed out here. An unexpected bonus: I saved the archives! Anyway, it’s not the prettiest site on the net (like it ever was), but it’ll get the job done. Hopefully I’ll get some improvements made over the weekend and we’ll be all shiny and new come Monday.

If you see anything truly wonky happening, drop me a line, but use my alternate email address because I think paul@ironsoap.org is still non-functional.

Big(ish) Change

Just a quick note to say that we’re about to have some changes ’round here. After years of being hosted by the kind folks at eggsites, we’re moving on. This means I need to switch webhosts and I’ve selected (with a quality recommendation from Ryan) Dreamhost.

Here’s what this means:

  • I’ll probably be upgrading WordPress to 2.x, which means (if you recall last year’s switch from self-hosting to managed hosting via 888.net) probably some growing pains and/or archive loss. To me, losing the archives isn’t that big of a deal but some people have griped about the loss of previous entries so I’ll do what I can. And I do retain all the old data, even if it isn’t really accessible and I have Big Plans for that data down the road which I’m sure I’ll talk about later on.
  • There may be, as part of the growing pains, some outages. I like to pretend I know what I’m doing when it comes to managing websites, but the truth is I’m pretty clueless so if you come to ironSoap one day and it is gone, rest assured it will be back at some juncture as soon as I figure out how to cover up my stupid blundering.
  • When I come back online we’ll probably be using a new site design, probably something similar to this.
  • I have the following domains registered: ironsoap.org, ironsoap.com, ironsoap.net, irnsoap.info and ironsoap.info. They will all work even after the move, but they should all redirect to ironsoap.org (which is the one I prefer) so you’ll no longer see the others in your address bar, no matter what you type in or have bookmarked.
  • There are two other sites that are inexorably linked to ironSoap: eFaithFarm.com (my brother’s site) and Anthrocide.com (my dad’s site). Those will be moving with me, so if you’re a fan of those sites (and why wouldn’t you be?) they may be experiencing some weirdness as well. Most of what applies above for ironSoap probably applies in turn for those sites except I don’t think eFF will be upgrading its WordPress so it should look and work identically and lose no archived content.
  • Speaking of Anthrocide.com, once the moves have been made you should be seeing new content on that site (I’ve been sitting on it for way too long being a general slacker) including a couple of new books.
  • I use the word “probably” too much.

Too Much Excitement

Before I start babbling about video games again, I feel compelled to mention that I went to the Giants game last night and despite their sad, sad loss to the previously slumping Chicago Cubs, it was a nice night to watch a ballgame. We had killer seats about 30 rows back right off of first base (which in Pac Bell SBC AT&T Park is three rows under the second deck so we weren’t in great position for foul ball retrieval) and it was a pleasant evening, weather-wise.

Of course seeing the Giants game meant missing the Sharks play, so Nik watched the game for me (although they played some highlights on the JumboTron during the seventh-inning stretch and the old guy sitting in front of us kept giving score updates). The triple overtime loss was disappointing, but they had won six games in a row and were bound to come back to earth eventually. I’m glad that Toskala was as sharp as can be expected but I’m starting to get a little concerned with the Sharks relative lack of offense. They’ve played over four and half games against these chumps now and they’ve only managed to get six pucks in the net? Come on, where’s the love? If the Sharks manage to get past Edmonton and end up playing the Ducks, they’re going to need a lot more than two goals per game to beat those guys.

You Didn’t Think I’d Stop Talking About E3, Did You?

So more as a follow-up to yesterday’s discussion of my plans for the “Next Generation” of console gaming than anything else, I present Exhibit A and Exhibit B for why I was on the right track about thinking Sony’s PS3 was the weakest of all offerings. Peter Moore even points out that by the time all three systems are launched you’ll probably be able to get both the 360 and Wii for the price of the PS3.

Of course I wouldn’t be surprised if Sony either rethinks their pricing strategy based on that fact or does more incremental price drops (for example instead of waiting a year or so until there is enough production cost saving to warrant a $50 or $100 price dip, they do a $20 price slash every four or five months).

I also find it interesting that everyone was so wound up after Nintendo announced the Wii name but like three days later they were showing off the system’s capabilities and letting people give it a shot and now you can’t find anyone still whining about the name, it’s all “Ooh, check out Mario! Whoa, did you hear that Solid Snake is in Super Smash Brothers?”

Also, add one more notch in the Rope of Resistance that I figuratively dangle from trying to resist the urge to buy a 360. That notch is cut by the emerging details of Bioware’s new game Mass Effect. Good gravy that looks (and sounds) sweet.

A Harsh Invective

If you are to believe the proselytizing around the Nets, Sony hasn’t really come out as a strong contender in theis generation’s console wars. Someone pointed out that Sony has had shoddy showings in the past at events such as E3 but when they needed to bring it, it was sufficiently broughten. Still, based on sheer textual giddiness you can say that Nintendo has captured the Webosphere’s imagination although it’s hard to fault Microsoft for not generating a slew of buzz since, aside from Halo 3, it’s not like they have a gangload of first party titles people were really hoping to hear about.

I’m just saying I don’t know that you could compete with details and playable demos of new Zelda, Metroid and Mario games.

Of specific note is Ubisoft director Clint Hocking’s Sony-directed diss where he accuses Sony of playing the “me too” game and irritating developers with their focus on the technology drive.

To an extent I see what he’s saying and a lot of people, especially Nintendo, are bagging on the press for ever-better graphics but the problem with that grousing is that graphics do need to get better at some point. You can talk all you want about gameplay and while it is the most important part to a game’s overall enjoyment, no one who plays games at a level at all above casual can resist marvelling at a really great-looking game. Resident Evil 4 got loads of acclaim because of it’s much-needed improvements to the control scheme but without the slick visuals no one would have even considered offering up the coveted Game of the Year awards if it had looked like, say, Indigo Prophecy (oh, how I love to rag on that game).

Which is not to say I dislike Nintendo’s strategy of doing more reasonable tech upgrades and trying to balance the horsepower advances with the price point (something Sony obviously doesn’t care about), but to blast Sony for pushing their whiz-bang specs and harping on HD is a little silly when they’ve been getting gripes for the last year and a half for falling behind the XBox in terms of system potential. It’s almost like they can’t win with some people. Which is probably the case.

I mentioned yesterday that I wasn’t sold on the directional sensitivity thing for games and I’m still not. In fact I was less enthused about The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess when I heard it was Wii-only (which turned out to be false and supposedly it will be a GameCube/Wii crossover title) and as much as I like Metroid Prime, I’m a bit disappointed to see that you have to do the Wiimote thing to make it work. I guess I was still kinda hoping for a few of these games to stick with the old school. Obviously I haven’t tried any of these so I’m basing my reaction on pure conjecture but I was more excited to hear that Resident Evil 5 was going to be available for the XBox 360 than I was to hear that there was about to be a Wii-itized RE.

At this point I’m thinking that as soon as a couple of killer games hit the 360 library (and they’re already pretty close since PGR3, Call of Duty 2, Perfect Dark Zero, Halo 3 and StarCraft Ghost all seem or look like the sort of thing I’d be into) I’ll wait for the first price dip to pick one up. After that I’ll have to try a few of these Wii titles and see how they stand up to the test drive to decide if I want to risk another console purchase that may be for first-party titles alone. The PS3 is going to be one of those things that I buy only if the number of must-play games for it reaches a critical mass and it’s price point has gotten much more reasonable.

Actually writing that paragraph above kind of surprised me since up until this very moment I was thinking that this generation I might stick with more of a one or two console decision rather than trying to juggle all three of the major players but I sort of assumed I would run with the PS3 as my primary choice.

It sort of comes down to my experience in the last/most recent gen where I ended up with all three systems. On one hand I probably got the most overall enjoyment out of the GameCube, that was due to the quality of games I played for that system. But it is probably worthwhile to note that while I either liked or pretty much loved about 95% of the games I played on the GC, I only actually played about a dozen titles on the system. 11 out of 12 doesn’t sound quite as impressive as the percentile equivalent. I enjoyed the XBox probably the second most, but I played a lot more clunkers on that system. Then again, I played a lot more games. I probably dropped 35-40 games into the black behemoth and liked maybe as many as 20. Of course a lot of the fun came from XBox Live which I still believe is a huge selling point for the XBox and allowed even some mediocre games (Mechassault, Full Spectrum Warrior) to have sufficient enjoyment due mostly to the online play. The PS2 got probably as much attention as the ‘Box if not more (35-50 games played) which may have been because I had it longer, but I enjoyed a lot fewer of the games. I don’t know if that was just a matter of quantity or what, but I did note that some of the games I had really high hopes for didn’t pan out (Final Fantasy X, Metal Gear Solid 2/3, Silent Hill 2) from my perspective so maybe there is something to be said for the Sony hype machine?

Still, if I had to live without one of the previous gen systems it would probably have been the XBox despite the fact that it pretty much took over my gaming attention in the last couple of years there. If I had only gotten one system I think I would have been the happiest with the PS2 (which is why I bought that one first). It only follows then that my inclination was to figure the PS3 as my best bet. But somehow it dropped to last on my list and I think that has something to do with the fact that it’s hard to compare what Nintendo is doing this time ’round with the others, leaving MS and Sony to pretty much duke it out for the median gamers’ attention. Overall I may not be a huge fan of either company, but while I aspire to have as much choice as possible I feel somewhat compelled to reward the XBox franchise for their overall better execution last time and what I feel is the better strategy going forward.