Apparently it is very uncouth to drink a 16-year old single malt scotch over the rocks. Who would have known? I drink bourbon over the rocks; let it melt … delicious. Very much a no-no with a quality whisky; or so I was lectured last night.
Live and learn.
Several people told me that traveling on the Sunday after Thanksgiving would suck; no parking, long lines to check in, even longer lines for security, and of course delays. With much trepidation I decided that I would allow myself four hours for an international flight, which of course meant that I breezed in and out of check in and security in a matter of minutes; quickest ever for a flight.
Of course hanging around an airport, especially the ATL airport, is not much fun. With a ton of time on my hands, I found a beer (or two) with a TV playing the Falcons game, and proceeded to waste the afternoon away. The beer was OK (colds and beer do not go hand-in-hand), but the Falcons game sucked. Man, the Falcons look bad.
Onto the flight. Once we boarded, we sat and sat and sat. I guess that was to make up for the less than two minute security lines. Apparently the crew had to ‘shift’ around some luggage to ‘balance’ the plane; not something you want to hear before a flight. After we made it in the air, I actually slept. That was a first for me, I never sleep on planes. I doubt it was the beer, must have been the cold.
As for PSP time, I really didn’t have any, considering I slept off and on the majority of the flight. Prior to landing, I did fire up Madden and while the game did not freeze on me, it did some super squirrelly thing where the players went into warp drive and I resumed from a brief pause/freeze period. This happened twice, resulting in me starting over the game twice. Hmmm … not good.
Speaking of not good, it is not even 4:30PM in London, and it is already night. Started getting dark around 3:45PM or so. Not sure if I could ever get use to night so early.
About to take off for London for a week of business fun. Joy. Been a flurry of posting activity the past few days, which has been good, clean fun. I hope to get some quality time with my PSP on this trip, but trouble may be looming. Yesterday WipeOut froze twice. To make matters worse, I attempted to play Madden, and it also froze. This makes me wonder if there is something wrong with my PSP, which would really suck since I have not gotten much use out of it; not $250 + 15 or so games worth. I pulled out some compressed air and attempted to clean the UMD try good; hope that helps.
See you from the UK tomorrow.
Another year, another victory for the Bulldogs over the Yellow Jackets. I am not going to go into any detail, but suffice it to say that I am a happy Dawg!
Not sure what this will mean for UGA’s bowl prospects, but one would have to assume that they are going to be significantly improved after beating a Top 5 Auburn, followed by a Top 20 Georgia Tech team. The extra practice that comes with a bowl bid will do the Dawgs some good. I just hope that no matter where they land, they get a good match-up that will (A) be attractive (B) give them a better than average change to win, thus gaining some valuable momentum going into the 2007 season (C) something fairly close to here, in case I can actually make the game.
Two videos in one day? Believe it or not, this one may be more interesting than the boobie thing posted below. I ran across this video on TechEBlog, which shows how games have matured from the days of pong. Certainly worth a look; nostalgia for older gamers, and educational for young whippersnappers.
PSExtreme just posted a report card of sorts for the PS3 launch, system as a whole, and future potential. While the article was somewhat biased (as to be expected from a PlayStation site) and generally supportive of the system, I found a few interesting nuggets for comment.
Overall, it’s difficult to say if Blu-Ray will give the PS3 the edge in games; it’s just too early. But as for the Blu-Ray/DVD player in the PS3, it’s certainly fantastic, and clearly a better option than those uber-expensive Blu-Ray players. Finally, if there’s one thing the PS3 will excel at down the road, it’s producing sweet-looking games in high-def. That much, we know for sure.
The PS2 was my first DVD player, and I am sure it is the first Blu-Ray player for many PS3 gamers. I am just not enough of a movie buff to understand or appreciate the need for a Blu-Ray system (of HD-DVD for that matter). Is there value in replacing my DVD collection with Blu-Ray versions? There clearly was with the jump from VHS to DVD.
In comparison, the PS2 had a much better assortment of launch titles. SSX and Madden NFL 2001 landed some of the highest scores in gaming history, and Tekken Tag Tournament, TimeSplitters, Summoner, Ridge Racer V, Shadow of Destiny, and Summoner were all solid and diverse games. All we really have from the PS3, beyond the glory that is Resistance: Fall of Man is a good Ridge Racer 7 game, several very mediocre exclusive titles, and a bunch of multiplats, which are all essentially identical to their Xbox 360 counterparts.
No RPGs (unless you count Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom, and I don’t wanna), no fighting games, no cool little adventure-like or unique games like Kameo or Shadow of Destiny, and no top-notch action title. If it weren’t for Resistance, it would’ve been a borderline failure. But thankfully, if you don’t have a 360, there are plenty of good games worth buying, and RR7 is quite fun. So it’s not a total loss.
This is rather damning because the PS2 launch was not that great. Sure there were a few solid titles from the get-go, but it was not that great. More than anything else, I did not go after a PS3 because I did not see anything that I just had to play.
What with all the hype surrounding the powerful Cell processor, the PS3 certainly had a lot to prove. But we believe this is a five or six-year process, so we’re reluctant to actually grade this category at launch. When we examine the history of the PlayStation consoles, we see a very large visual difference in first-year and fifth-year games; the likes of Smugglers Run, X-Squad, and Evergrace hardly compare to Gran Turismo 4, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, and Final Fantasy XII.
The point here is probably valid and fair, but it almost sounds like the author is apologizing that the PS3 launch library’s graphics do not overmatch current Xbox 360 games.
If you are sitting on the PS3 ‘to buy or not to buy’ fence, I do not think this article is going to persuade you one way or the other.
What more can you ask for than some boobies to go with that shinny new PS3? Funny story (and video) posted at //engtech.
Not that it helps me any, but according to Joystiq, PSX games (I hate the term PSOne) are ready for action.
We logged in to the Japanese PlayStation Store this morning and found nine PSone games available for download to our dusty PSP — and at only ¥525 (US$4.50) per title. The selection includes two volumes of Konami’s MSX Collection, the Director’s Cut of Biohazard, as well as “lost classics” Jumping Flash and Bishi Bashi Special (so that’s where we left them!).
Not sure what the heck ‘Bishi Bashi Special’ is, but I still play ‘Jumping Flash! every once in a while. It will be interesting to see how well some games sell because some PSX titles (even brand new ones from my ‘collection’) will not go for that much on eBay.
As someone who works on financial websites that are expected to be up 24-7, I can appreciate the problems that walmart.com experienced yesterday.
For much of Friday morning, attempts to open Walmart.com resulted blank pages, delays or other problems. By early afternoon, visitors were simply told to come back later.
Walmart.com spokeswoman Amy Colella blamed a “higher than anticipated traffic surge.”
Not so good. I for one do the majority of my shopping online, and not just during the so-called holiday season.
From the same article, it looks like the Xbox 360 is holding strong; MS should pimp the heck out of Amazon selling out of 360s.
The site [Amazon.com] was disrupted for about 15 minutes, starting at about 2 p.m. EST Thursday, as the retailer was offering the Xbox 360 to the first 1,000 customers for $100, $200 below the regular retail price.
“We saw dramatically more traffic than what we anticipated,” Amazon.com spokesman Craig Berman said Friday.
The Xbox sold out in 29 seconds, Berman said.
That is pretty impressive.
Finally we have this gem (once again from the above article)
Millions of people are also expected to shop online starting this weekend. The Monday after Thanksgiving, also known as “Cyber Monday,” is expected to be one of the year’s biggest online holiday shopping days, as people return to work and shop online using their office computers.
Cyber Monday? Seems like we have to have a catch phrase that pays for everything these days.
I guess this is fairly dated; well, at least a few days old, but I find it hard to believe that Sony would finally pull off a major firmware upgrade that support PSX emulation, only to learn that you have to have a PS3 to download and transfer the games. Talking about a major run-on sentence, and a major downer. Several sites, including IGN, claim that Sony is working to ‘fix’ this problem ASAP.
It would open up a world of possibilities if I could play PSX games on my PSP, but it would royally suck if I have to purchase them again. Still, for certain ditties – FF VII comes to mind, and maybe a solid NCAA 2000 title or a decent F1 game – I would shell out a few bucks. Sony is just not thinking with a clear head if they think PSP owners are going to buy a $500-600 PS3, just to play PSP games on their PSP. What are they thinking?
While I wait, and debate if I should get a Wii, I thought this article from Infendo was interesting
“I witnessed something miraculous today. My sister, who rarely plays games, whooped butt in tennis. My mom smiled as she threw a spare in bowling. My dad, a man who I’ve never seen play a game in his life, beat my mom at bowling by getting four strikes in a row. I underestimated Nintendo. I wondered if their whole anyone-can-play strategy was simply marketing hooey. I was wrong, and Nintendo was right. If my family was playing games today after Thanksgiving lunch, Nintendo’s future is brighter than the Wii’s blue light on its brightest setting.”
The more I read, the more interested I am in getting a Wii, but I keep telling myself “wait until next year” … I really want to see what else Nintendo is going to do with this thing before springing for their latest system.
After taking an accidental week off, I am back to show off my lack of prognostication skills. Something like that. Interesting slate of rivalry games this week, headlined by the LSU/Arkansas game this afternoon.
(9) LSU – (5) Arkansas
I keep reading that LSU is the best two loss team in the country, and I keep thinking that Arkansas is not the real deal. This game should prove that Arkansas is a solid contender as they win the Golden Boot thingy.
(4) Florida – Florida State
Florida State will not ‘save’ their season. Gators will win big in this mismatch of FL schools.
Kentucky – (19) Tennessee
If this game was in the Bluegrass State, I would call for a surprising upset, but that is not going to happen in Rocky Top.
South Carolina – (24) Clemson
Always a good one; hope we get it locally this year. I have to go SEC in this one; Gamecocks in a minor upset over Clemson.
Mississippi State – Mississippi
I think they play for an egg or some such. Not sure if either team is good enough to win an egg, but I have to pick someone, so how about the Bulldogs of Mississippi.
(16) Georgia Tech – Georgia
Which Georgia team is going to show up? If the team that whipped Auburn takes the field, Georgia will win. If not, oh boy, look for a major embarrassment. I cannot stand the bumblebees, but I guess they have to beat us sooner or later. I am going to go homer, and say that Georgia in a hard fought upset.
Texas just kicked off vs. A&M. Hopefully the Horns bounce back and wrap up a spot in the Big 12 Championship game. Hook ’em!
Go Dawgs!
Just ran across this article at USAToday.com; the U.S. National soccer team is now ranked #31 in the latest FIFA rankings.
The U.S. team, ranked as high as fifth in May before a poor showing at the World Cup, fell two points to No. 31 in November’s FIFA rankings Wednesday. The last time the U.S. was not in the top 30 was June of 1999, when it was also No. 31.
Of course the rankings cannot mean all that much since the U.S. was fifth at the start of the World Cup. It will be interesting to track where the U.S. goes from here; hopefully only upwards and forward progress.
Most of you know that I am a pretty big advocate of Pinball Hall of Fame: The Gottlieb Collection (for the PSP). Looks like it is $4.99 November 24-25, which is a heck of a deal. If you own a PSP, and have even a passing interest in pinball, this is a great way to kill some time. Extremely entertaining, with solid pinball gameplay.
The ad also Gun (for the PS2) listed for $4.99; never played this one, but someone at work says it is entertaining. It is also on the PSP, but not at this loss leader price. I saw a replay of X-Play on G4TV the other night, and they played a great quote from the game, over and over and over “… wasted a perfectly good whore on you …” What more can you ask for in a game?