Category: geek stuff

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Scribblenauts

So, once Brooke got her netbook, I promptly installed Plants vs Zombies for her to play on it, a game developed by Popcap that involves defending your house against an onslaught of zombies. You use plants (like “peashooters”…that shoot peas at the oncoming zombies…or “wallnuts”…that are just giant wallnuts that serve as walls to help…just watch the video to get an idea, eh?) as defensive measures to prevent the zombie horde from eating your brains. Brooke has been addicted to it since I installed it on her netbook, so after she completes it, I’ve been trying to think of the next thing to keep her occupied.

Well, this week was E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) in Los Angeles, where all of the upcoming gaming announcements come out for the coming year…or, at least, damn near all of them… One game that came out of it is for the Nintendo DS, called Scribblenauts. Joystiq had a blurb about their hands-on with the game and the thing sounds absolutely awesome. Basically, you play the game as Maxwell and you have to get him from point A to point B, depending on how each of 220 levels is set up. As their article describes, you could have Maxwell in a desert and you need to get his thirst quenched, or you could get him across a shark-infested pool to the other side. The catch is that you have to write things down on the DS touch screen to help him out. So, as Joystiq describes, in the case of the desert, you could write water and some water will appear. Or, to be more creative, you could give him an oasis.

scribblenauts

This is one snippet from Joystiq’s description of their time with the game:

“Ludwig was tasked with navigating [Maxwell] through a zombie apocalypse to reach a helicopter with his brains in tact. He attempted to hold the undead off with a wall, but he couldn’t get build it fast enough to hold off the horde. He whipped out a shotgun, but their numbers were too large to dispatch with a firearm. Naturally, his next instinct was to craft a time machine, which took him into the prehistoric ages. Of course, he was surrounded by unfriendly dinos, so he made a robot dinosaur, which he then mounted and used to destroy his scaly adversaries.”

Apparently, nearly everyone at the show was trying to “break the game” by coming up with as crazy a noun as they could, only to find that the game had a seemingly limitless dictionary.

So yeah, maybe this will fit the bill? Sounds pretty creative to me, certainly…

Edit: Joystiq posted another article with ten words they put in and what the responses from the game were. The only one that wasn’t recognized was “plumbob,” while others like “stanchion” and “lutefisk” came up fine. Craziness!!

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Transforminators

If you haven’t seen any Terminator movies, or Transformers, this probably won’t amuse you. But if you have, it’s pretty hilarious… 🙂

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More new toys…

So, you may remember awhile back when we picked up an Acer Aspire One netbook to replace Brooke’s current laptop. Well, that thing didn’t work very well…it couldn’t play an MP3 without skipping, couldn’t stream audio or video from websites, and just seemed overly slow overall. We returned it to Wal-Mart a few days after giving it a try, vowing to look into other options. Well, we later tried a few other netbooks that other people had, or at other stores, and decided that the one we had purchased earlier was just a lemon and it was worth getting something else.

Well, this time, we got a Dell Inspiron Mini 10. This one has nearly all the same features as the Aspire, but it has a 10″ screen (and a better keyboard, I think). This one is way better and does nearly everything it should. I’m not sure it streams video at full-screen mode perfectly yet, but it certainly does it better than the Aspire we tried earlier. Brooke took a picture of it with our new camera for your enjoyment.

netbook_small

Speaking of “new camera,” we picked up one of those, too. 🙂

We bought a new point-and-shoot last year to replace Brooke’s old one, but we still haven’t been happy with it for certain applications. My Dad is something of a photography aficionado, and Brooke took a photography class back in high school, so we’ve both been exposed to the wonders of SLR photography. It’s something we’ve both wanted for awhile, but they haven’t been that reasonably priced until recently.

camera_small

This little bad boy is a Nikon D60 dSLR (we already had the cat…not anything new there…). We bought it as a bundle from Sam’s Club, so it came with a pretty decent lens that had VR (or “vibration reduction”) built-in (as Nikon, like Canon, builds that into the lens, not into the camera body). It’s a 10 MP camera and has all kinds of bells and whistles that I can’t begin to understand…but it seems to take decent pictures…

Brooke’s planning on re-doing her blog more along the lines of what The Pioneer Woman does (her most recent idol…), doing something involving photos taken on a daily basis, and sometimes taking pictures of her various food-based creations. We’ll see if it happens or not. 🙂

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A Technical Note

I recently upgraded to Ubuntu 9.04 and, while the site appears to generally work, it has started loading _really_ slowly. So yeah, it isn’t just you…

At this point, I think it’s the computer itself, not the ‘net connection, as it takes awhile for it to load when I’m pulling it in from within my own network.

I’ll figure it out. Eventually. 🙂

(on another note, I just bought tickets for ‘Star Trek‘ at the Ronnie’s 20 IMAX for next Thursday, May 7th, at 10:00 PM. w00t!!)

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My Top 10

So, in preparation for the greatest day of my life, I’ve been watching all 10 previous films in order. I just finished “Insurrection” last night, so “Nemesis” is the only one left (and will probably have to wait until this weekend before I can get to it).

I’m not sure I’ve ever actually ranked them in my order of preference, so here goes:

1). Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
2). Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)
3). Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
4). Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
5). Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)
6). Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)
7). Star Trek Generations (1994)
8). Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)
9). Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
10). Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)

As you can see, they definitely follow with the “even numbered films are better than odd numbered films” rule of Star Trek movies. Really, “First Contact” and “IV” should probably be tied, as they’re pretty close together, but “First Contact” really is a great movie in its own right. “VI” is one I’ve always liked, especially after watching the “making of” featurette and realizing it was almost entirely based on the Cold War (I was 9 when it came out…didn’t quite catch the symbolism…), but mainly because it was SO MUCH BETTER than the movie that preceded it.

Anyway, that’s my list. Just figured I should put it out there… 😛

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Larry Spock

Mom sent this along after seeing it on Letterman… Great to see Nathan Lane will be in the greatest movie of 2009… 😛

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Failing

klingonfail

It’s ironic, because I failed in the process of making the image…

So, Brooke and I both frequent failblog.org, which is an excellent time-waster that uses videos or pictures of a variety of different “fails.” It would be best if you’d just go, rather than having me explain it.

Anyway, I thought I’d found an excellent fail on U-Verse’s listing for the Star Trek: TNG episode, “The Icarus Factor.” Apparently, however, John Tesh was actually in it, but was uncredited (so it wasn’t in my Star Trek Encyclopedia). A cursory look at IMDB shows that yes, indeed, Tesh did appear in the episode…grrrrrr…

I didn’t want to waste the picture I generated, though. Still kinda silly to see it in a listing on my TV Guide…

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Best Day of the Year

Happy April Fool’s Day! I’ll probably post more stuff here as I find it, but Thinkgeek.com is always a good place to start. The USB Pet Rock is excellent (video above), as well as the Ultimate Assassin’s Weapon Ice Mold and, last but not least, Squeez Bacon (check that one out…preferably, not immediately after eating…).

Also, apparently, there’s already a Star Trek sequel in the works, set for a 2011 release… 😛

And, the Google Gmail Autopilot will automatically write e-mails for you… “The easiest e-mail could possibly be,” indeed… 🙂

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Thanks, KMIZ…

So, KMIZ, the ABC affiliate out of Columbia, MO., made the national gaming news blogs with their coverage of the Mid-Missouri Internet Crimes Task Force, specifically with their interview of Andy Anderson, who said: “There is no reason an adult should have [Animal Crossing: City Folk]” for the Wii. The whole thing makes Missouri look pretty dumb, as nearly all of the posts say either “Missouri Police” or “a Missouri Task Force”…

In the original report from KMIZ, they write “If your kids play interactive video games, like the Nintendo Wii, be on the lookout. The Mid-Missouri Internet Crimes Task Force is warning of predators using games like, ‘Animal Crossing- City Folk,’ to target kids.” This statement is only a little bit sensationalist, but more importantly is quite mis-leading…

The game is kinda like Sim City or The Sims, but a bit more complicated (you can run a shop, go fishing, do some gardening, etc.) with interactions that you have with other people over the internet (using an included peripheral microphone that sits above your TV). The thing that the Wii does, however, is use “Friend Codes,” which is a 12-digit randomized number that an individual must input into their system in order to contact someone else (i.e. I have to have your Friend Code plugged in, and you have to have my Friend Code plugged in), soooooooo…I’m very curious how any pedophiles could even contact someone through the game, as it’s impossible without a Friend Code exchange. The only way it could work is if a child exchanged their Friend Code with a stranger through the interwebs, or in person…which is the parent’s fault, not the Wii’s.

The idea that this game shouldn’t be played by adults is also rather absurd, as it’s a pretty popular series and has been bought by millions of adults, not just kids. It certainly isn’t a game I’m interested in, but to say that only pedophiles play it, or that only kids should be allowed to play it, is absurd.

The key here, as always, comes down to one thing: the parents are responsible for keeping an eye on their kids. Parents should know what games their kids are playing, the books they’re reading, the television they watch, the movies they watch, the kids they interact with at school, etc…especially when they’re at a young age (obviously, the ability to monitor them by middle school/high school gets reduced…). If parents are going to allow their kids to play games on the internet with a PC, or use a console system like a Wii, the parents should know about the capabilities of the system (such as Parental Controls) and the kinds of games that are available.

For more information on all that, though, check out What They Play, which is the “parent’s guide to video games”…great site for all kinds of information, not just for parents…

People should stop blaming things on the medium and learn to take some responsibility…