Bleh. I activated a two-day trial code for Xbox Live Gold this afternoon so I could play some Gears of War against people like Cone41, BloodySinner, and Total-MK. The end result was that I got my ass kicked so badly that after one set of matches, I shut my Xbox 360 down and set the home theater receiver to play music off my iPod. It ceases being fun when you’re almost always the first one killed and even when you try to take down someone it never works.

Otherwise, it’s been a rather uneventful weekend here. Friday night was spent at the Cheesecake Factory, as I met my boss there for dinner to discuss work-related matters. It was good to get a meal there, as it had been a long week at work for reasons I’d rather not get into here. Yesterday was mostly a slow day, other than driving up to Louie’s place to meet him and Dave for dinner. After watching the Colts beat the Chiefs, we drove over to Benihana’s for dinner. It was a good thing we had gotten reservations, as when we got there we still had to wait a bit for a table, and people arriving without reservations were being told that it would be a two hour wait for a table. After a very good meal, we went back to Louie’s place and watched the Cowboys fall to the Seahawks, followed by some World Series of Poker. Dave also gave me two belated Christmas presents: the movie Bubba Ho-Tep on DVD, and a book by Carl Hiaasen called Sick Puppy. Thanks, Dave!

As for today, not much was really done that was productive. That suits me fine, really, as after this past week I REALLY needed some downtime. Right now, as stated previously, I’m listening to my iPod on my home theater, and drinking some bottled water. The rest of this week, well… I don’t know what all will be going on. I will be putting an end to my lunches out, and will be eating my sandwich at my desk. Hopefully that will help me shed a few pounds… heh. Tomorrow evening will also be spent taking my old 19″ ViewSonic CRT monitor over to George’s house; he needs a new monitor and this CRT was doing nothing except for gathering dust in my storage facility.

Ah, well. We’ll see how this week goes, and then take it from there, I guess. :-)

Okay, I have to admit, this is cute. Someone has done drawings of the various Battlestar Galactica characters, done in a The Simpsons style.

http://community.livejournal.com/pantsketch/99256.html

My personal favorite was the one of Helo. The look on his face is priceless… heh. :-)

All right, I have to say this upfront: I don’t care for Justin Timberlake’s music too much, and I’m one of those that thinks Saturday Night Live hasn’t been funny in years. That said, I cracked up when I saw this…

I have officially seen it all now.

I don’t think I’m going to be able to look at Star Trek the same way for a while… heh.

What a day. Today was moving day at the office; several people moved offices today, and I spent much of my day running between offices, getting phone lines swapped and computer equipment set up at their new locations. The sad thing is, it’s not done yet… I’ve yet to finish getting the Sales and IT offices up and running. I’ve spent the past few days working out of one of the conference rooms because I don’t have a desk or office yet. Good thing I was able to forward my office phone to my cell… heh.

Anyway, Aunt Norma arrived for a visit from Manchester today. She’ll be here for just under a week; unfortunately, Louie probably won’t be able to come by and say hi. Chris might, though… Chris met her back in 1990 when he and I visited England for a couple of weeks and stayed at her cottage. :-) Ah, well… anyway, she arrived with three more Christmas gifts, and I was a very happy camper. :-) She got me…

• Three five-packs of Cadbury Crunchie candy bars
• The soundtrack to the new Doctor Who TV series
• Doctor Who – The Official Annual 2007 in hardcover
• A CD of David Tennant reading Doctor Who – The Feast of the Drowned

The only one I had asked for was the Doctor Who soundtrack CD. It’s not available in the States yet, and Aunt Norma had insisted on bringing me a present, so I figured I should ask for something I KNEW I couldn’t get here. The annual book is actually from the magazine Doctor Who Adventures, which is aimed at children. It’s amusing to read and would make a good collector’s edition, though. :-) The audiobook CD came with a recent issue of the Radio Times; she didn’t know whether I would want the second CD (the one I got was the first part), but she’ll send it by post as soon as she gets home.

As far as the Cadbury Crunchies go, well… whenever I go to England (or family come from England), I only ask for two things: Doctor Who stuff and Cadbury Crunchies. Cadbury Crunchies are my favorite candybar: they’re milk chocolate over a crunchy honeycomb center. :-) Unfortunately, Crunchies are only available via import, so I usually have to wait until family come from England before I can have some. Ah, well… they’ll make a nice treat for me. :-)

In any event, I’ll probably end up using the gift cards soon, so I’ll post what I got from those. For now, though, I’m VERY happy with what I got, and am looking forward to giving the soundtrack CD a listen. :-)

Well, first off, Merry Christmas everyone. :-)

Right now, I’m just sitting at the computer and relaxing a bit while my laptop imports CDs into iTunes. I wasn’t expecting much in the way of gifts, but I got more than I was really expecting. Of course, those who know me know I’m thankful for anything. :-) I had gotten my parents both $60 in gift cards (Mom got one for Barnes & Noble, and Dad got one for Amazon) and liquor (Mom got Southern Comfort, and Dad got Johnnie Walker Black). My family is relatively easy to shop for; gift cards and liquor are always welcome in this household. :-) As for what I got, well…

• Rainbow Six: Vegas for Xbox 360
• Good Night, and Good Luck on DVD
• The soundtrack to Superman Returns on CD
• Phil Collins – … Hits on CD
• A $50 Visa gift card
• A $25 iTunes Music Store gift card
• $5 in scratchoff lotto tickets
• A $30 Borders gift card

I’m going to have to figure out what to get with the gift cards. The one given is going to be Final Fantasy VI Grand Finale from the iTunes Music Store, but the rest… eh, we’ll see. All but the Borders gift card were from the parents; Misty got me the Borders card. :-) (Thanks, hon.) I’ll have to do a followup post to say what I got with the gift cards.

As for the rest of the day, well… I know we’re having Christmas dinner at around 1 PM. After that, Chris, George, and I might see Eragon. I don’t hold high hopes for it, but we’ll see. Otherwise, it looks to be another quiet Christmas.

For now, though, I’m just going to run off, get some coffee, and try to wake up a bit more. Happy holidays and all that rot. :-)

I wanted to send everyone Christmas and yuletide greetings, but I found Jenn had found a video that says it much better than I ever could. So, without further ado…

Merry Christmas, everyone. ;-)

Well, Mortal Kombat: Armageddon has been out for two months, and just recently became playable on the Xbox 360. I figured it’s about time I put down my personal thoughts concerning the game. Keep in mind that these are my own opinions and do not reflect those of Mortal Kombat Online. That said…

So, where does MK: Armageddon stand for me? Well, overall, I actually consider it the best of the current-generation Mortal Kombat games, followed by Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance and then Mortal Kombat: Deception. I’ve been playing the Xbox version now, simply because the game looks much better in 720p than it did in 480p on my Playstation 2. Once I get my Xbox Live Gold service reinstated, I’ll probably be playing a bit online. Konquest mode is also fun, and very reminiscent of Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks. I haven’t messed with Kreate-a-Fighter, mainly because I have no creativity when it comes to those things.

That said, here’s my list of how I feel about some gripes that I’ve been hearing…

• There’s talk that the game is unbalanced. I’d believe it… but all things considered, they did pretty damn good. Even Capcom couldn’t completely balance Marvel vs Capcom 2, and that game had fewer characters.
• I’ll admit, I prefer the old style fatalities to Kreate-a-Fatality. So do a lot of people. But seriously, I don’t expect them to come up with 124+ fatalities for the regular kombatants plus “generic” fatalities for kreated fighters in the time they had alloted. A couple of people suggested reusing fatalities, but not only would that result in MORE screams of laziness, it wouldn’t help those characters making their first current-gen appearance… namely Kai, Fujin, Stryker, Sheeva, Rain, Reiko, Kintaro, Motaro, and Shinnok.
• Motaro has two legs instead of four. It’s a limitation of the engine. “Laziness” doesn’t enter into it. Deal.
• The endings are widely reviled as being crap. Meh. For the most part, I agree… I don’t like them. I’ll take Daegon’s as being canon, though.
• Motor Kombat was fun… really fun. I just would have liked more tracks. :-)
• Finally, a lot of people claim the storyline isn’t canon. It is canon. One just has to understand three things about it: 1) the game takes place at a minimum several months after MK: Deception, 2) the game intro takes place at the very end of Konquest mode, and 3) due to the nature of the game endings, only ONE ending can be canon. The fact that Midway has already started releasing bios is also helping in this regard.

Otherwise, all in all, I’m really enjoying MK: Armageddon. Hell, they even seriously improved my second-favorite MK character, Shinnok. Now instead of being a Shang Tsung clone, he actually looks like an ancient and evil power with his own special moves. Now I’m just waiting to see what they do with the Wii version… heh.

Finally, on an unrelated note, it’s that time of the year when the big media publications are doing their “Best of 2006” series, and MK: Armageddon got nominated by Spike TV and 1UP. What I don’t understand is how games like Street Fighter Alpha Anthology for PS2, Street Fighter Alpha 3 MAX for PSP, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 for Xbox 360 are getting nominated by these places and others like GameSpot. These aren’t anywhere close to being new games. These are ports of games that are at a minimum 5 years old. I mean, I might be an MK fan and I have UMK3 for my 360, but still… I don’t think it should have been eligible. Ah, well…

In any event, MK: Armageddon should keep me going for a while, especially as the next MK game is a ways off. We’ll see what Boon and co. come up with then, but for now, I’m having fun. :-)

All right, so, for those who don’t know, I have four pets in the house. We have two dogs named Star and Chase, and two cats named Gus and Ringo. They have their own territories, so to speak; the dogs rule the downstairs, while the cats lord over the upstairs. The stairs are more the cats’ territory, as there is a child’s gate at the foot of the steps preventing the dogs from coming upstairs. The reason this layout is the way it is is because while Chase has no problems with the cats, Star is not cat-friendly and as such we worry about her hurting or killing the cats. (We’ve seen her kill a squirrel in the backyard before, for example.) The cats make infrequent forays into the downstairs area when they’re sure the dogs aren’t around; it happens more often at Christmas, though, as Gus likes to sit under the tree. Then again, one could argue the cats have that right, as they were here first.

Well, this morning, the dogs decided to strike back. :-)

Mom came out of the bathroom this morning and made her way to the guest bedroom (which doubles as her office). The guest bedroom is also where the cats’ food dishes and one of their litterboxes are located. Well, she walked in there… to see Chase in there eating out of Ringo’s food dish. Mom took him by the collar and led him downstairs, where she saw he had managed to open the gate. So, she closed it, and went into the office to tell Dad what happened…

… and she heard a crash. When she came out, both Star and Chase were at the top of the stairs.

Mom and Dad managed to get both dogs and drag them downstairs, to find they had managed to knock the gate off its hinges. Once they were secure in the kitchen, Dad proceeded to repair and secure the gate, while both dogs looked on as if to say, “Hey, let us back up there!”

So, now the gate is more secure and less likely to be opened by the dogs. The cats have also come out of hiding and have resumed lounging around the upstairs. The dogs, meanwhile, are quietly laying on the beds in the kitchen. The excitement, as it were, is over for the day.

I don’t think we’ve heard the end of this, though.

This is a first for me.

I’m in Conway, AR right now, leaning against my rental car, waiting for a coworker to arrive. This is the first time I’ve had to do a “day trip” involving a flight; my flight out leaves at 3:15. I’m here to do a site survey of a new facility. Once my coworker arrives I’ll grab my camera out of the trunk and start taking photos. Fun fun…

One of the things that I actually enjoy most about my job is the travel. Granted, it’s always to business and/or small towns, but it gets me out of Houston for a while. It’s also always fun getting to see new places and people. The day trips are the only ones that truly annoy me, as I like being able to stay the night somewhere and not feel more than a tad rushed. :-)

Of course, granted, having a laptop and cell phone makes it a lot more bearable. :-) The one trip I took this year that had almost no data service, Casper, nearly drove me out of my damn mind from boredom at night… Heh.

Ah, well. This most likely won’t be my only Conway trip, as I’ll have to come back later to implement the voice/data services we’ll set up for them. For now, though, I’ll just continue to wait for Bob to return. The scenery might suck (think industrial building and area), but the weather’s nice and the area peaceful.