The Recycle Bin

I think I’d even drink a case of PBR before I’d try coffee beer.

Well, I must say that the entire CD WoW! purchase was pretty painless. At $39 and free shipping, other than the slight delay in it’s initial “dispatch”, I have no complaints. It arrived within the 10 day window as promised. I’m currently reading through the FM 2006 guide and the Civilization IV manual. I know that it’s probably quaint and old fashioned, but I actually do read the manuals before I play a game.

If you ever wondered who is online in World of Warcraft and what they look like, take a look at these photos. And be scared. Very scared.

Yet another icon from my gaming youth may go the way of the dodo. There are reports that EBGames.com will likely be merged into Gamestop.com under the Gamestop banner.

I purchased Q4 based on a work friend’s undying devotion to the series and promises that her husband would be hosting on their home game server. Nothing like wishing the person in the cube next to you a “good morning” along with a “I told you I hit what I aim at”, I thought. Turns out that they, like myself, were quite turned off by the finished product. I played the original Quake, but none of the followup releases until the current one. Also, I haven’t done many FPS’s these days, I’m more into tactical shooters. All I can say is that Q4 is certainly nothing new, has too many chippy levels in the single player game, and if I wanted to play a Raven-developed game, I’d be playing one of the Jedi Knight series. Multiplayer might be good fragging fun, but this one’s just not for me.

I’ll be exchanging today for Call of Duty 2. Give me a BAR over a nail gun any day, and I hear that COD2 has real smoke effects, including smoke grenades.

Georgia beat Florida in my game, that is strange enough, but not the actual bug I came across today. I have had little time to fire up the PS2 of late, so when the opportunity presented itself (kids at mom’s house, and wife taking a nap) I had to dig the game out. While running a hurry up offense late in the 2nd quarter, a CPU controlled CB lined up facing my team, but on my side of the ball, several yards behind the WR he should have been covering resulting in an offsides penalty. I guess the developers had to do something to ensure there would be some penalties called. Strange stuffs.

Hopefully Texas will make a comeback and take care of the Cowboys, and I can only assume that Vince will have another amazing game. As I sit here and write this entry (CG is still down due to bandwidth issues), Texas just pulled to within 9 (28-19) early in the 3rd quarter. Vince Young is incredible – how could anyone not put him at the front of the Heisman chase? It would be a travesty if Young does not receive the award (assuming he keeps on keeping on).

It looks like we busted our allotted bandwidth for October. I did not think we were getting that much traffic, but last month we almost exceeded our bandwidth, and now the site is down until tech-support decides to turn the governor off. I told Chris that a lot of folks must love him – something like that anyway.

I am going to be real disappointed if I find out that we are getting hit by spam bots instead of Chris’ fan club. Thanks for the support, I think.

Three things happened while I was in London that potentially spoiled me to the local Columbus, GA cuisine for many (many) weeks to come. First, I had the best Chinese food ever – today’s take out from one of Tonya’s favorite places paled in comparison. Second, pizza will never be the same thanks to the Dickens Inn (near the Tower). Finally the beer – oh, the wonderfully delicious beer; the sheer variety of beer on tap in London is amazing.

Every once in a while I like diving into a cheap beer or two just to see what is what. I mean, I have kids to feed and all, so I have to be a cheap ass from time to time. To drown away my sorrows from today’s UGA loss, I picked up a six-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. [No I did not really drown away my sorrows, but it sounds like a good line.]

Typical American light lager, best served cold. Honestly not too bad, but certainly not that wonderful. Did you expect more for about $0.60 a pop top? Not much flavor to be had, but I do like this better than my other two cheap beer mainstays – SouthPaw Light and Natty Light (beer flavored water to coin a phrase of a co-worker). OK, PBR is certainly not in the same league with Amstel (the full-body version, not the light stuff) or Stella Artois, but PBR is refreshingly cheap.

To each their own, I suppose.

Going into the season I had low expectations, but it is funny how quickly hope changes after Georgia put together a nice string of victories. Then DJ goes done, and today the dreaded Gators managed to take care of business 14-10 in Jacksonville, FL.

I guess I will look at the box score tomorrow morning and play the “what if” game. What if, DJ was not hurt? What if the defense was health? What if we made one of the two missed field goals – and what if the 52-yarder off the right goal post was six more inches to the left? What if Georgia’s receivers did not drop so many freaking passes (I counted at least 3 drops, including a ridiculously easy one on the opening drive).

Hats off to Florida; they did what they do best – beat Georgia. Damn this one sucks.

The annual Strat-O-Matic sale has begun. From their web site:

“Our annual $10, 3 for $25 sale is here and will run through 12/31/05. For more info on which card sets are on sale please go to the Products section.”

My Civilization IV installation was smooth as silk. No problems to report. I am running the game at 1600×1200 and my 6800GT isn’t missing a beat. People are reporting all sorts of problems installing and running Civ IV. I am not one of them.

However, the install and play CDs are mislabeled.

There’s chatter over at the Grey Dog Software forums that Joe Stallings, former head of .400 Software Studios, is somehow involved with EA Sports’ new football management sim. I had no business dealings with Mr. Stallings, but he seemed like a decent fellow during my interactions with him. He and the other co-founders of .400 Software Studios had a pretty ugly falling out.

Here’s a news bit from Sports Interactive:

“SEGA Europe Ltd and Sports Interactive are delighted to confirm that last Friday’s UK launch of Football Manager™ 2006 has netted retail sales of over 100,000 units during its first weekend of release according to Chart-Track retail estimates. Football Manager™ 2006 is now the 2nd fastest-selling PC game of all time in the UK, according to Chart-Track (sales within a 7 day period).”

Yup, the genre is dead.

Folks with ATI video cards – good luck installing Civilization IV. The game is crashing and it isn’t clear if (a) DirectX or (b) the screen resolution is the culprit. Throw in the incorrectly labeled CDs and the French tech tree snafu to a less then impressive release. The game itself is getting a thumbs up when finally up and running, so keep hope alive!