Xbox 360…Wii…Uhh?

I finally did it; I bought an Xbox 360, and a Wii. I couldn’t decided which one I wanted, so I ended up getting both. Both have pros and cons, naturally. The Wii is gimicky, but the motion control seems like it would be a lot of fun, and the built-in 802.11 b/g wireless makes it easy to connect to my wireless router. Eventually, I will run a cat-5 cable under the house and to the TV, but for now, me being lazy, I’m going to do it the easy way: wirelessly. On the other hand, there really is no online play for the Wii like there is with the Xbox 360; you can play against people in LAN mode, but not in a system like Xbox Live.

A friend of mine first got me interested in the 360 when he showed me the online movie service. Utilizing the Xbox Live Marketplace and Microsoft Points, he showed me how you can download movies and TV shows in HD. Of course, the selection is limited, but there were a lot of just-recently-released movies available. Also, you can download games and extra game content. I think the biggest con, actually, of the 360 is that there is no built-in wireless networking. And the price, while not steep, isn’t cheap either.

Yet, probably the strangest thing of all is that there is now an Xbox 360 shortage. Everybody knows about how hard the Wii is to find still, but Microsoft seems to have dropped the ball as well. Believe it or not there are no 360s available in my area. That is unless you want a refurb or used one–which I don’t.

I discovered that both Best Buy and Circuit City and GameStop all have Xbox 360s available on their online websites. With the Wii it’s typically the opposite or you simply can’t find them at all unless you get to the store when they’re unloading the truck. I ended up buying the Xbox 360 Premium Holiday Bundle from CircuitCity.com. It comes with two games: Forza2 and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. Albeit not the best games, but, hey, it’s something. The only thing this version of the Premium doesn’t come with is the headset. The price, though, is the same as the standard Premium. Anyway. Back to the Wii.

I have my Wii on preorder with GameStop.com. I know somebody who manages a GameStop, and he said he could get me a deal. But, everytime I asked him about it, he simply hedged. The problem was that he would get a shipment of Wii and he’d be pestered about them before he could put one aside for me. I guess I’d have to have been there to actually get one Anyway. That wouldn’t have been a problem if the damn store he ran wasn’t like fifty miles away from me like it is. So, that’s why I ended up putting in a preorder. It says the shipment date is 3/29 At least, GameStop has the courtesy not to charge my card until they receive the unit.

Dr. Pepper, Coke, Pepsi…Evil?

Softdrinks…I can’t seem to get away from them I’m trying. But, I just can’t…quit them, it seems. I like the sweet taste! And the caffeine. I’ve tried going to tea before, and I’m thinking about doing it again, but it’s so bland. When I do drink it, you see, I drink it without sugar, which is the healthier way of drinking it. And I like it strong. The funny thing is, come to think of it, I’ve never had coffee. Hell, I had a beer first!

I’m trying to get myself into a healthier way of living, but it’s difficult when all you’ve ever known is junk food and sweetened drinks. At least, I’ve cut icecream out completely. And I have done some excercise. I went out to the track on Saturday, again, and this time walked three miles. I was going to do this this morning, too, but couldn’t get myself out of the bed. Maybe tomorrow, I told myself. Dammit!

Meanwhile, my brother is continually eating it seems. He was good there for a bit, but now he’s back to his old self. I don’t want that to happen to me. I don’t want to be a heart attack waiting to happen. I’m 160 pounds, which, at 5′ 8″, isn’t too bad, I suppose. Funny thing is the first time I went to the doctor I weighed in at 160, then when I went back a month later I still weighed 160! Now, I’m on a mission to lose some weight and actually feel better.

Age of Empires Nostalgia

Last night, I wasn’t planning on staying up until almost three in the morning playing ye old Age of Empires, but I did. And I had company. At about 10 last night, I messaged Railwolf to see if he was up for a game. He said sure. Then, I saw somebody else online that I knew might be itching to play. He joined and the three of us were going to spar against three computer components but, alas, the game ran so slowly that we just couldn’t stand it. So, I suggested we play against each other.

It’s odd, when you think about it (as Railwolf said), that a newer machine still has trouble with crunching the AI code for a game done way back in 1997. But, apparently, it’s a problem with the old Direct Play code that is used for communication over the Internet. For some reason it has a complication sometimes with the AI. I remember this being a case back then, and still is today. Old technology, you have to love it

Anyway. We started a new game with just the three of us and, lo and behold, it was nearly double the speed of the previous one. I could notice the difference almost immediately; my villagers could actually move without pausing every other step.

The map was a mostly land though there was a river that seperated it half along with a wide bay toward the bottom. I was on the lower half; in fact, I had it all to myself. My town center was located fairly close to the bay; I was constantly afraid of an attack from the sea. But, thankfully, it never came. Instead, I focused on the shallows to the north of me. I thought, surely, the towers I built there would be enough. Besides, I had several archery ranges and stables there and I had already trained several archers and a few cavalry.

Meanwhile, I focused on building my resources up. I was playing the Minoan. So, I knew I’d better get my wood and gold up. I focused on food initially, of course. Somewhere around the Bronze Age, though, I went full bore on wood. And I had men mining all the gold on my land. That’s when I decided to investigate Railwolf’s town, which ended up being a foolish idea. I had stirred a hornets nest, so to speak. He came down with his priests and elephants. At first, I held my own. Then, those priests started converting my units rather quickly. I knew what Jim was going on about, then.

As all my towers and buildings were being destroyed and my villagers were in harms way, I decided to make a run for it. Good thing that bay was there, after all. I had a transport ship built, loaded a dozen villagers on it–all while Railwolf was mowing through my town. Luckily, my resources were built up by then and it wasn’t that devastating on me, other than losing all my buildings and military units, of course.

I sailed across the bay, round the back of the other land mass, and settled just under Jim. At about this time, I think, Jim allied himself with me, which was a good thing since I was right on top of him and even a few phalanxes could have done me in. I set immediately to building siege workshops, because I had an idea in mind. I had already upgraded the my helepolises to heavy ones. And I had the tower shield and alchemy upgrades. All I needed were houses. I got those up and started building heavy helepolises. I had about a dozen of them or so when Railwolf rolled into the area.

Now, I remember, from ages ago, that the Minoan had two really solid things: helepolis for ground, and good trireme for the sea. However, I remember their units not being very resistant to conversion. Yet, that doesn’t matter if you can take the priests down quickly enough. The helepolises I had were on steroids. Two shots could kill any priest, I found. I was concerned with the war elephants, though, since they were armored. But, to my surprise, I took them down pretty quick. That’s when I started to feel more confident. I forgot my fears about losing and, simply, rolled on. The main tactic I used was pinpointing conjoined fire on each individual target. I had to constantly monitor the helepolises. I had to concentrate their fire and watch out for incoming enemy units, particularly priests. I’d put all fire on priests before anything else. The elephants kept stomping in, but I kept laying suppression down on them

I came to Railwolf’s town. I saw it; I conquered it. I thought he would have more stuff waiting for me, but he had pretty much spent all his resources. I found that out later after reviewing the map. I ended up winning, obviously. I was surprised by this, too. Railwolf usually kicked my butt before. I guess he’s just rusty, like we all are.

Next game. It didn’t end there. The three of us hooked up again. This time we played an island map. My island wasn’t very suitable for resource gathering, though. That’s why, almost as soon as I could, I headed toward the top two islands on the map. I figured these were just freebies. But, I soon learned Jim had started on the one, and Railwolf had taken over the other. I went back home and began to focus on my navy and resources. Again, I chose to play the Minoans. They’re suited for this sort of map, and, after the success with the helepolis safari, how could I not?

However, all did not go according to plan. Next thing I knew, Jim was landing men on my island. Little did I know, Railwolf was up there destroying his town. Jim thought my island was free, of course, not being able to know any better. I thought I was done, too, when Jim started killing my villagers. I just wasn’t ready for him. He’d built his army up quick enough; I literally had no army whatsoever to speak of. I didn’t know what to do. Then, in a moment of inspiration, I set him to ally. He followed suit. And we joined up against Railwolf.

Of course, by now, Jim had lost his entire town. So, his resources weren’t looking too good. I tried to give him what I could spare. Thankfully, he had a small contingent of phalanxes, which was just enough to stop Railwolf when he did attack. I was concentrating on getting my helepolises onto Rail’s island at this time. I got them over there, but resistance was greater than it was last time. Rail managed to build several helepolises of his own to counter mine. And they did fairly good. But, my tactic of pinpointing each unit to attack ultimately prevailed. And, while I was attacking, I had a villager build me three siege workshops at the bottom of the island. I began producing reinforcements as soon as I could.

Somewhere along the line, I turned on Jim once I felt I had Railwolf contained for a bit. I built a few units back home and mowed his forces down. I did this because it saved me from having to fight him later when he was stronger. Because, that’s probably how it would have gone–no, that IS how it would have gone. Allied victory was not enabled…I believe.

Anyway. I had to take out Railwolf’s second base of operations still, which was…fun. His towers were long range and got my siege ships pretty easily. But, through sheer force and determination, I brought him down. Again, I was the victor. I’m not sure how long this streak is going to last, though.

Here are the final military statistics of both games:

Excercising and Eating Right…huh?

Well, if you’ve read my blog lately, you probably know about by “elevated” cholesterol. And, you would, also, probably know I’ve been taking steps toward lowering it. Which, in simple terms, means I’m concerned enough to actually change my diet a wee bit and possibly even do some sort of–ugh!–excercise routine. Alas…

I actually got out to the track on Saturday; I haven’t mentioned this before now because, well, frankly, the results were embarrassing–pathetic, really. The track around here that everyone typically goes to walk is at the “health campus”, which is basically the name used for the big fancy hospital they just built here. Around the property is a pathway that has two major hills and is approximately one mile long. So, if you go around it once…you’ve made a mile. The track looks pretty innocent from the front of the hospital, but it’s deceiving. The valley around back has a fairly steep, awkward incline to it.

Yet, for some reason, I was determined I was going to do it; I was going to walk that thing, dammit, at least, one time around. And I did. And then some. I met my parents up there, as they are health nuts and were already going to be there anyway. They usually go thrice ’round–heh, had to put in some old timey phrasing there. My dad hadn’t been out on the track, though, all week, since he had been working. Anyway. He told me he was going to go full speed–and he did–and that I probably wouldn’t be able to keep up.

Of course, I laughed at this. I thought he was joking with me. I mean, he is in his fifties. I was damned if I was going to let a fifty-year-old man beat me. But…

He did. I was half a mile ahead of me in no time. I’m that out of shape! My mom told me, “I don’t usually walk this slow.” What the…? I was struggling to get up those two hills on that track. True, there was a substantial wind coming right at me that day, which made it hard to breathe, but still…that’s no excuse. I had planned on actually going three times around, since that’s what my dad does. However, I just couldn’t do it. I just went around twice. So, at least, I did make two miles Some people only go there and do one lap. I did two. I’m proud. And embarrassed how far I need to go.

I knew I wasn’t in the best of shape, but come on! By the time I ended my second lap I was severely winded and my muscles were on fire. Yet, other than that, honestly, I felt pretty good…I felt awake…alive. However…I got home and I was walking around when, all of a sudden, my right foot started hurting, throbbing. A friend of mine who is a medical tech said I probably bruised my heel. For the last couple of days I’ve been walking around with a limp, as I’ve tried to keep the majority of my weight off of my ailed foot. Only now (within the last few hours) has it started to feel better.

Ultimately, the plan is that I walk every day or every other day–probably in the morning before I go to work. I live close enough to the “health campus” that I can walk there in the morning and then go home and take a shower and then go to work. I mean, I might as well. I deserve to…feel good. Anyway.

It’s still rather embarrassing when my dad could out do me. He wasn’t even breathing hard when we met up.

Age of Empires…still fun?

For some reason, not sure what it is, I’ve had a nagging hankering lately to play some Age of Empires. And I do mean Age of Empires, the original game on the PC. Maybe it’s just this time of year or something, but I do seem to get nostalgic during the winter months. And, with all the games I’ve played lately with beautiful graphics but poor gameplay or design, I think it must be the fact that, even today, Age of Empires is a very good, replayable game. At least, in my opinion, anyway.

The weird thing is, I’m not the only one, it seems, who has been reminiscing about the old days as it were. Talking to Railwolf, and then Jim, I learned they had also been thinking along the same lines. In fact, Jim even decided to order him a copy of the gold edition, the one which comes with Age of Empires II as well, because he couldn’t find his discs and was thinking about giving Age of Empires a try again.

It’s funny that the game came out in 1997 and, yet, I still have fond memories of it. Of course, often, as happens with these older titles for the PC, it can be nigh impossible to get them to work on newer machines, especially because of Windows XP, as most of these games were designed to work primarily with Windows 9x. But, believe it or not, Age of Empires doesn’t require too much finagling to get it to work even today.

Last night, I decided to see if Railwolf wanted to play, and, sure enough, he had been thinking of doing just that. So, we hooked up and, with a few minor issues, got a multiplayer game going. Of course, we just played against the computer since both of us were pretty rusty. The first round we started ended rather abruptly on my end as the Windows XP firewall decided to attack the Direct Play module Age of Empires uses for multiplayer games. I crashed out to the desktop where I saw the “allow exception” box. This pissed me off, naturally, as I had cleared both Age of Empires and Rise of Nations to go online. I didn’t think Direct Play would be blocked…

Speaking of things like that. It’s amazing the differences between, say, the original game and Age of Empires II and later versions. Some features have either been improved or are missing altogether. I remember it was a big deal when unit queuing was introduced in Rise of Rome. Oh and, I had to go to work today, when I told Railwolf he should save it, he was like, “I don’t think I can.” Yeah, no game save! At least, not in multiplayer.

I mean, let’s face it, Ensemble Studios did a lot of research off the original game to see what needed improving and what not. Many of the features found in RTS games today were pioneered by ES. It’s true. Anyway.

I was on Age of Empires Heaven today checking out the different civilizations’ pros and cons. I think, if I play online tonight, I’m going with the Yamato. Quick villagers from the start. Good stable and academy and naval units. And chariots to take out those fricking priests! Yes, chariots, I read, are good against priests. They’re more resistant to conversion and are fast and can roll in on a priest before he has a chance to convert anything else. The only problem with the Yamato is that they’re gold dependant and don’t have war elephants or good siege units. Ugh! Always something…

Tales From The Lair…

…I mean cookpot. In this installment, I’ll be telling you the story of the bad pizza.

Yesterday, I went over to a friend’s house. I was supposed to be there at about 4:30, but I arrived a little early. He was in front of the TV still, playing some Lord of the Rings themed RTS game that has just come out. I sat down and watched. The game is on the Xbox 360 and actually looked pretty good. Usually with a movie license companies just slap something together.

A half an hour or so later his wife came home and the three of us decided to watch a movie via Xbox Live!, which I had no idea you could do. But, anyway, first we were all kind of hungry. Nobody could decide what they wanted, so we thought pizza would be the best thing to go get. Of course, the only place close by was Pizza Hut, and they don’t deliver out that far. We had to go there to get it.

So, we went over to the pizza hut and had to wait twenty minutes. To make it a short story we get it back to the house and it hadn’t been cooked all the way through. One call to the manager gave us a freebee next time. Of course, I was the one with the wheels, and none of us felt like wasting the time to go back to the store.

My friend downloaded the movie Stardust in HD on Xbox Live! From the start, I was pretty impressed by both the movie and the quality of the copy from Xbox Live! In fact, I think Stardust is a darn interesting and entertaining fantasy film. Anyway. This is more about the ability to watch not only movies but also television shows on Microsoft’s service for the 360. I was extremely impressed by the amount available to actually download. In fact, I think I just might get an Xbox now…

Anyhow. I was kicked out after the movie was over because the wife had to get up early to teach Sunday school. So, there you go, the first installment of Tales From The Lair.