Samuel Adams Winter Lager

I really enjoyed this beer. Especially after the dud that I drank earlier that night. This Lager was a dark color and had a very bold taste to it. It poured very heavily and the head was very pronounced.

The winter lager went down real smooth it kept me wanting more. Good job Sam! 7/10

Blue Moon Winter Ale

The Blue Moon Winter Ale is a darker ale. It’s apparently made by the Coors manufacturer. I didn’t enjoy this brew much as I thought it was very flat, bland, and dull tasting.

It left me wanting more and I was just thinking about the next ale I was going to be drinking instead of this dud. The head was a thin white film with no body to it. 4/10

Battlestar Galatica Ending Season Grand Finale

I started watching this Sci-Fi at work and I must say it\’s a very interesting and entertaining program. I haven\’t had the chance to watch the whole series just yet. But I\’m going too!

I will not ruin the ending of the series for anyone, but let me tell you it was something I never thought would happen. I\’ll just let you sit there and ponder upon excitement!!! It was GREAT!

Twilight

The movie Twilight, no good. I kept waiting for the action, the climax, anything…never happened. The kid playing the main vampire looked like a pretty boy with far to much make up. What was with him acting as if he would throw up just looking at the chic, thought that was rather funny.
All my friends and family that watched the movie with me liked, I must have really missed something then because it was dumb! I like vampire movies usually and I was very disappointed in this film. It was more like watching a 2 hour music video rather then sitting through a movie. Two thumbs WAY down!

ASUS P6T Deluxe – X58 Motherboard

I recently built a Core i7 computer, and my motherboard of choice was the Asus P6T Deluxe.  This is my first Asus motherboard, however they are a pillar in the computer hardware industry and have been making top notch motherboards and other hardware for years upon years.  Clocking in at a hot 299.99, this is definitely an expensive motherboard, and I didn’t even get the “ultimate” version. You can step up to the OC/Palm edition, which has some kind of funky external LCD display that will tell you volatages, temps, and other such things.  I didn’t feel this was necessary, so I stuck with the deluxe version.

Installation was a snap.  My Antec Twelve Hundred case gave me plenty of room to get this sucker installed in no time.  Oh, and for those reading, that case I mentioned is FANTASTIC.  I’ll get to that review later.  Anyway, the board is laid out very nicely and offers a ton of connectivity.  Although 3-way SLI is not going to happen on this board, that is pretty much a non-issue for everyone but .000000001 percent of the computer gaming population.   You also get 8 SATA ports, so you can really load up the hard drives if that’s your thing.  It’s also a nice looking board.  For those of you with see through cases, this board is certainly a looker. Also, the power and reset buttons on the board itself will be handy for extreme overclockers or system builders who prefer to have the guts of their computer just hanging out on a table somewhere. That’s not my thing, but overall I was impressed by the look and build quality of this board.

Normally when I build a computer, the first time I hit the power button nothing happens.  Not this time baby!  Everything worked perfect from the first push. After installing my OS, I proceeded to begin overclocking this beastly system I made.  This board makes overclocking a cakewalk.  In 10 minutes I went from 2.66Ghz to 3.62GHz and even as high as 3.9GHz (with Hyperthreading enabled). I ended up scaling it back to 3.63 in the end as this was the sweet spot of temps/performance.  Under full load (8 instances of Prime 95) my temps were in the 65-67 range.

I’ve now been running this setup for over a month without a single problem.  I love this motherboard, and the Intel Core i7 processor just destroys every other processor on the market.  I couldn’t be happier with this system.  It’s expensive, but well worth every penny.

ASUS has a real winner on their hands with the P6T Deluxe motherboard.  It’s rock stable and even a novice overclocker will have his/her (I’m betting his) system overclocked in no time at all.  The version I have is being phased out for a slightly cheaper (10 dollars) version that removes a 3rd party SATA controller (and I think 2 of the SATA ports) but everything else remains exactly the same.

This is a great board for anyone looking to build a Core i7 system.  However, there are now X58 boards on the market much cheaper than this version.  If you are planning to overclock, then by all means go with this board, however if you are planning on running at stock speeds, I’d recommend looking into Gigabyte’s entry level X58 motherboard.  It packs a ton of features for about 100 dollars less.

Quantum Leap – Season 3 Episode 16 – Southern Comfort

Ah, Quantum Leap…they just don’t make shows this good anymore.  Anyway, this has become my “workout show” for the time being, and I am now on the 16th episode of season 3 titled “Southern Comfort.” Sam (our body leaping/time traveling hero played by Scott Bakula) finds himself leaping into both the year 1961 and the body of a local New Orleans Bordello proprietor.  Sam must struggle to protect one of his girls from her abusive husband who has managed to track her down and is hell bent on bringing her home by any means necessary.  Naturally, our damsel in undress…errr distress does not want to go with him as she jumped into marriage BEFORE finding out he was an abusive jackass.

Al (played by the always wonderful Dean Stockwell) is fantastic in this episode.  His horndog nature is in full force as he cavorts around the whorehouse wishing he could get away from Sam and spend some time looking at the ladies. This is actually a very well done episode.  It’s well paced, has some colorful characters, and is a showcase character wise for Sam and Al. It has a very nice combo of comic relief, urgency, drama, and good acting that makes the 44 minutes just fly by.  This is especially good when you’re running on an elliptical machine.

In the end, Sam saves the day by blackmailing the abusive hubby.  He stops chasing tail and instead turns tail and heads out the door to never bother his wife again.  Sam has once again set things right and he leaps out before Al can scurry upstairs to watch one of the “ladies of the night” take a bath.

This was a good and entertaining episode of a fanastic series.  Season 3 has been mostly awesome so far, with only a few stinkers here and there.  I’ll get to those later, as I plan on going back and reviewing every episode of this series.  Until then, I am leaping out of here!

WebWorks ePublisher 2008.3

Oooooooooooooooh boy.

How to start this off? Have you ever used a product, and you thought it was pretty good, and so you decided that when an upgrade came out, you’d buy it? And so you do, and the day comes and you install your new program… And it’s lousy?

If you liked to use WebWorks ePublisher 9.3 to render HTML help files, then buy yourself the new version and this experience can be yours.

The first thing you’ll notice is that the two parts of the suite, Pro and Express pretty much must be used together. Why? Because only Express can apply stationary (formatting files used in ePublisher) and only Pro can create them. Pro also can’t do much of anything with earlier webworks projects that have stationary applied meaning that if you want to edit any of your 9.3 stationary, too bad, you can’t.

Pro takes longer than ever to create help (a real curse since you’ll be using it to rebuild your stationaries whenever you make changes) and just as with older versions, most changes to your help must be made in the files and hard code of your projects. Why not just use Dreamweaver? I had to use Dreamweaver, and Microsoft Word, AND Photoshop just to recreate a stationary in Pro.

Speaking of Word, if you want to make help from Word files in ePublisher 2008.3, you’ll pay for the pleasure. WebWorks now licenses the codecs for different filetypes independently, so if you buy the licensing to make help files from FrameMaker, then decide you need Word, you’ll have to pay. How much? More than a little.

Bottom line: unless you’re trying to build a help system from DITA (which this version of ePublisher actually seems pretty good at) this is a shabby excuse for an upgrade and may actually cost you some functionality. Oh, and don’t bother consulting WebWorks’ documentation- your main source of ePublisher info will be the official blog, created by WebWorks so users could come together and share solutions to their problems. Hey WebWorks: next time try hiring PAID BETA TESTERS. It gets the job done faster, so you might be able to release a good product.

1/10

No More Heroes – First Impressions

No More Heroes is a third person action game for the Nintendo Wii. I had high hopes for this game and was very disappointed. I know they were trying to capture a unique game but in my opinion they just captured crap.

The game is centered around a character who thinks he is very cool yet ends up just being real lame instead. It’s supposed to be open like GTA but ends up being very linear. I don’t mind linear games if they have a decent story behind them but the story in this game is basically: “kill other assassins to become number one.”. Combat is boring, and it doesn’t make good use of the wii controls. It counts down before battle, locks you in your environment, and spawns new enemies out of nowhere.

The graphics suck, the “open” city has almost NO cars or civilians, and you can\’t die or effect your environment. I probably won\’t even continue playing since it’s a waste of my time with no entertainment value what so ever. No More Heroes should be called No More Fun as this game is a dud. 2/10.

Mechwarrior (SNES)

It’s the 1990s. The Internet has yet to ruin tabletop gaming, and the game on everyone’s lips is… Magic the Gathering. But if you wanted to play something more sophisticated, there was the Battletech/Mechwarrior franchise. These games combined DnD sensibilities with giant robot action and the overall flavor of the Dune books to create an exciting role-playing universe for gamers.

The only problem was expressing the game world to those playing. It’s all well and good to say “you are looking out of the cockpit of a big robot and walking on people” over a cluttered table while swilling Mountain Dew, but it lacks oomph. The obvious thing to do was to make a video game that simulated the Mechwarrior experience.

Early DOS attempts produced interesting games that were less about combat and more about hiring and managing groups of mech mercenaries. Strategy was all well and good, but gamers wanted to jump into big robots and murder other big robots containing their friends. Of course the was the arcade game, but that was a virtual-reality simulator cabinet monstrosity that couldn’t come home very easily.

The SNES Mechwarrior initially seems very impressive. The engine renders pretty large Mode-7 landscapes, with features like water you sink down in, and jumpjets you can take off with. You can use your war money to kit out your giant robot with an assortment of neat weapons, and choose between different sorts of missions as you pursue your parents’ killers.

The problem is that the gameplay is totally lacking. The water lowers your camera, but you don’t slow down or encur any defense bonus. Jumpjets lift you up, but your enemies can aim up too and there are no environmental encumberments that jets let you skip- the map is totally flat. Every mission basically boils down to “kill everything before it kills you” except for base attack missions, which are more “kill the base and ignore everything else.”

Weapons could lead to good technical variety, but they don’t. The only weapon you need is short range homing missiles, and the more the better. Just waddle your robot up to the enemy and hold the trigger until you win. This strategy works for basically the whole game, and grows more effective as you buy robots with more armor and more room for ammo.

The variability of missions is also a weak point. Aside from the fact that there are only about 10 maps in the game (and again, none of them functionally different) you are penalized for taking too many missions on- neglect the “leads” you get from NPCs too long and you get a game over as your targets escape you. Not that money matters, once you strap on the highest number of missile tubes and buy the biggest mech, you’re done.

The SNES is the first console that could approach true 3D in a meaningful way, and a number of games for it had great real and simulated 3D- Mario Kart, Star Fox 1 and 2, and a pretty competant Doom port all demonstrated that the SNES could do 3D action. Mechwarrior tries valiently, but its neat universe and promising play are undercut by a lack of variety and dull, repetitive action.

If you liked Mechwarrior but want more variety, check out Crimson Skies. No, not the steampunk air pirate game (although that is fun), the WW1 SNES shooter where you have to take down the Red Baron. It plays a lot like Mechwarrior, but with a lot more depth and complexity.

5/10

Metroid Prime 3

I started playing Metroid Prime 3 for the wii last Sunday. I was expecting the game to be good, but I was surprised when I found out the game was incredible! Metroid Prime 3 still keeps a lot of the same mechanics as the previous 2D and 3D Metroid games while adding a new control set with the wii.

The wii is perfect for First Person Shooter games. The movement of the wii remote and nunchuck feels very close to that of the keyboard and mouse, while adding another perspective of immersion for the gamer.

Samus is as bad ass as ever and from where I’m currently at in the game, I can tell it\’s only going to get better. Timed sequences (the infamous self destruct scenes), close quarter combat, fast paced action scenes, and REALLY big bosses make this an awesome game to add to your wii library. I love REALLY big bosses. 🙂 Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go back to playing with my wii. 10/10