My thoughts on KOTOR 2

Ok this post is entirely about a video game so if your not intrested in the game skip it.

Finished KOTOR 2 last wed. It was good and it was different but it was the same all together. The Story continues on from the first and you go to some of the worlds that you were on the first time. Its kinda cool to come back and be like hey I remember this room this is where I did X or whatever. SO that was kinda cool. The Plot twist this time around was done more dramatically so I liked it and didnt see it coming. The whole, you are revan, thing was an ok twist but not what I was expecting in terms of mind blowing twists and I was dissapointed last time around. I felt the story was more interesting in this one than the first which should say quite a bit and the games pacing starts off faster than the first which is good b/c I thought the first one dragged in the beggining. Also the whole dynamic of character influence was really cool and really alters who you bring with you and how you interact with them. gone are the moments when the game stopped and you got a shot at carths blank stare with a caption of "carth looks like he has something on his mind" In knights II you want to talk to all your npc's b/c you want influence so you can turn them light or dark depending on how you are playing. SO I think that aspect of the game was leaps and bounds above the first. Now to my complaints. I really have only 1 major complaint. Combat. Oh My. I hate the combat engine in this game. I hate that characters set to stationary will lock on to enimes in other rooms behind closed doors and not only stop fighting whatever is trying to kill me but will run away and open those closed doors then stand in front of an enemy -- not fight it no just stand their and die. The only NPC I ever felt did anything was kreia set to jedi support. Thats all. SO if you play it when you have kreia thats all shes worth. I also hate how the camera will lock onto the active enemy and not give you control back of the camera. there were a few times that I was overwhelmed and needed to put some space in between me and an enemy only to have the camera fight my attempts at seeing where I was running. I also hate the inventory management tab / dock / whatever. I always find myself scrolling through tons of stimulants just trying to find a med pack for someone only to have that npc killed b/c I could not find it fast enough. It just makes already difficult combat even more cumbersome. But despite all of that their is not that much combat that involves more than 3 enemies at a time so this time around I rarely found myself dying. I rarely used any kind of shield and if I did die in a fight I simply reloaded and put on a shield and some stimulants and I was fine next time. Finnaly I felt the final battle was EASY. I dont feel like I spent excesive time boosting my main character but in the end it was over in less than 2 min. SO the contrast to the first knights final battle is interesting. For me the first battle was totally skewed in favor of the boss. You had to destroy these tube things by throwing your light saber all while being attacked. then when done you had to basically get a cheap shot off and then run, heal and repeat. This final battle was the total opposite of impossibly hard in that it was totally easy. SO those are my thoughts on knights. I still hate the combat but the story and dynamic of the game are so cool that the combat just doesnt matter. IF you liked the first KOTOR then you will like this one. Their will be times when you start to get bored from all the sub quests that get set up but just remember you dont have to do a lot of them so quite whinning. If you have never played any KOTOR I say this and gently as possible. THEIR ARE OTHER GAMES ON THE XBOX THAN HALO SO STOP PLAYING HALO AND GET ANOTHER GAME. Sorry anyway yeah its worth the price of admission and now that its been out for awhile you can scoop it up cheaper. SO thats all their is for that.

Games im still working on

ps2 FFX - really awesome im still very much engrossed in this game

xbox -- metal arms. Ok if you like halo then you will love metal arms. I promise. did I mention the robots scream when you blow them up. THEY SCREAM!!!! oh its fun.

Weekend wrap up

Warning this will more than likely be a really long post. You have been warned!

Well its tuesday and I am back in Ohio (sigh) My weekend consistantly went from bad to worse so I will start with Friday. Plug wires did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for my car. Well it felt a little better but still totally sucky and shaky seriously its like I was driving in my own personal earthquake. SO I decided to try to get new plugs and put them in myself. Well I could get one in and although I really enjoyed burning the crap out of my hands to get that one in the other 3 were impossible for me with the tools I had. SO back to midas to have them install my plugs. I drop off the car and tell them I will be back in the morning to pick it up and that I plan to drive it to MI that day. They are all like cool we will drive it and tell you what we think. SO I get back from dinner and I have a message on my phone, and yeah its not what you want to hear from your mechanic but it went a little something like this

"Dude we drove your car and we cant believe we didnt notice this before its so obvious -- your front axels about to blow"

SO yeah I just went by on sat mornign and was expecting a quote in the 1k-1500 range but was surprised to be told it would only be $180. Are you guys noticing how skewed my reality is with this car. Oh wow only $180! Thats great! Thats what I was thinking. SO at this point I still dont believe it will be fixed but I pick it up today so we shall see. SO this left us with a problem since we were supposed to be picking up my new part for my motorcycle and their is not enough room in the miata for lisa, me, weekend gear and a big box. SO Sue was really nice and offered the kia for the weekend which we took and which ran smashingly well. Thanks so much Sue! SO I will run down real quick why my weekend sucked.

# of parts brought home for motorcycle = 0 (my bro ordered the wrong color. yellow instead of silver)

# of minutes spent riding 4 wheelers = 5 (yes about 5 and thats rounding up!)

# of minutes spent riding dirtbikes = 0

# of hours spent just hanging with my bro = maybe 2 total

# of hours spend hydroseeding my bros yard = maybe 5 total

# of different ways we didnt keep the sabbath b/c we were with my brother = 3

Yeah so it just really sucked plus I got really sick from something I ate on sunday so I didnt sleep well at all on sunday night. SO it really was not the restfull relaxing weekend we were hoping for and I really didnt get to hang out with my brother at all which is all I really wanted to do. SO yeah it was not a very good weekend.

Now i know the question on everyones mind is what is hydroseeding. Its this incredibly nasty mixture of paper, water, grass seed, and fertilizer that looks and feels like the green slime they used to drop on people on nickelodeons "you cant do that on television" and you basically spray it out of a firehose all over your yard. It sticks to EVERYTHING and is very very nasty. That is how I spent my sunday afternoon. SO that was my weekend, I totally wished we had stayed local and gone to luke, steve, and katelyns graduations. It would have been better. Well thats all for now. Cheers!

My day and other stuff

first off I probably wouldnt have even taken the time to post but jason sent me a link that is worth taking a look at.

This is why you dont mess with a japanese woman

Thats just crazy but I do wonder how prevolent crime is in a society so influenced by the martial arts? Man I just cant stop watching this. If you just let it keep looping pay special attention to the girl her form is perfect for what she does. Anyway so after you take a peek then go over to the great folks at Altavista and use babelfish to translate it from russian to english.

SO anyway whats up with me. Ive been pretty bummed lately and have just not been very happy but today I had a good run and its been a long time since that happened so that has picked up my spirits some. This is my first run of the season and for the first time I feel strong from the winter break. WOW weight training and cardio at the gym pay off!!! SO that was good. I felt really strong through the first 3 miles and then my quick burning sugars (which seems to be all I eat anymore) ran out and well I started to crash but since running is, to me, like 20% physical and 80% mental I kept going for another mile or so. Its funny b/c I really wanted to run through the downtown area of dayton and I had not gotten their yet. I could have taken a short cut and skipped mile 4 but that would have eliminated downtown so I had to keep going. To my surprise their was a ball game going on at 5/3 field and I actually got to see something interesting happen in a baseball game SHOCK! The Batter hit the ball and well I guess it was like a pop fly maybe but it didnt go that far into the outfield and was caught. Ok the story will get better I promise. the guy on first, I think his name was who, decided to be all ballsy and went to steal second, this being totally out of character for ball players, caught the other team off gaurd, and although he was not running terribly fast, he did manage to beat the ball to the base and was safe! Good Show OLD Chap! SO thats why I like running through downtown you never no what you are going to see. I also like running past all the suits on their lunch breaks stuffing their faces full of greasy fatty foods and thinking im glad im not them. SO thats my story for the day. Going to be unplugging for the weekend as we head to my brothers house in michigan. He has lured me with the promise of 4 wheelers and dirtbikes! Hopefully it will be safe and fun and hopefully spark plugs will finnaly get the shakes out of my car.

Have a great weekend everone! Cheers!

What I want.

Ok I just got done watching this little video documentary on an island called Ibiza (E-Bith-A) I think its off the coast of spain. Anyway its like the place to be for real Trance/techno/house clubbing. Anyway so I was watching that and now I am playing a new set I just picked up from Paul Van Dyke and well its just capturing a mood im in completely. Right now I just want to be sitting on a beach somewhere with my ipod listening to some great tunes (like the set ive got on now) feeling the warm sun beat down on me while I watch the ocean waves crash against the shore.

I just want to see a sunset over the ocean and feel the calm that is the ocean when its at peace. I cant believe how much I miss the ocean and the beach and what kills me is that I never really took advantage of them when I had them. 3 years in florida and I only went a handfull of times.

Car update

Well my car hates me I think. No I will rephrase -- the universe hates me. SO I buy my VW Cabrio back in late january for the bargain price of $3500. I was pretty geeked about this and really happy with the car. Till it started to develop a rather pronounced shaking in the front end. I took it to one place and had a transmission flush and some other things. Well 200 bucks later and it now runs worse than before. SO then I take it to a transmission place and they say the trans is near death and must be replaced. SO $3700 later and the cars gears are no longer slipping but it still shakes. The trans place rotates the tires and most of it seems to go away. SO about two months later (yes im a slacker) I go to get my tires balanced. WOW guess what the front tires (which were new in jan) are toast b/c the front is massivly out of alignment. SO they do an alignment and rotate the bad tires in the front to the rear. this was about another 70 bucks. A week later it still is shaking like mad, now remember this is the same shake since before the trans, I take it back to have them check the rims to see if they are gone. First bit of good news is that the rims are fine but the mechanic assures me that the tires are the cause of the shaking and that if replaced that will fix the problem. He offers me 4 tires installed for $500. I say "uh no" I will get my own rubber. SOOOOOOOOOO I go to Tirerack.com and purchase 4 very nice yokohamas' for the bargain price of $250 shipped. Im feeling pretty happy about this b/c after installation I should still be saving around $200 dollars. Well saving is probably not the best word to use b/c at this point I dont feel like I have saved any money by purchasing this car. SO my tires come in and I take it to the shop and they throw them on and take it for a drive. Then the worst thing that can happen happened. The mechanic pulled back into the work bay -- NOOOOOO then he popped the hood. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! I remember thinking "no no no its tires their is no reason to pop the hood for tires" Then Jason (the mechanic) motions to me to come out. Im like CRAP! SO I go out and I say its running great right tell me its running great. he gives a little laugh. Says sorry and asks me to watch something. He proceeds to start the engine and tells me to watch my plug wires. OH MY GOODNESS One of my plug wires is like swiss cheese and I can see the sparks coming out of the wire instead of going into my spark plug. I am in disbelief. They tell me that the shaking is coming from my engine firing maybe on three cylinders but possibly only 2 of the four and thus miss firing (if firing at all) on the other 1 - 2 and this is causing the engine to be massively out of balance and is in turn causinng the entire front end to shake. I just cant belive it. Then he tells me he called VW and plug wires are like 200 bucks. I flat out say "NO" , "There has to be someone who makes plug wires that are cheaper." SO he says he will check it out. SO far on my own I have found them for 70 online or 90 at autozone. SO I might just go to autozone and get em. All I have to say is this better fix the problem. B/c SO far I have replaced a transmission and tires and have had no luck. SO please pray that these dumb wires will do the trick. Thanks

Cheers

Coolest thing EVUH

Ok maybe its not the coolest thing evuh but after a rather dissapointing E3 (uh where were the games?) This came as a wonderfull treat to the synapses. Thanks Scott for E-mailing me this gem of a site. Check this out!!

REAL LIFE MECHA!

Dont worry if you dont have Japanese language fonts b/c you dont really need them. What you need is something like win media to watch the video clips. Repeat you must watch the clips! This is awesome! I watched these this morning and am still in awe. For anyone out there who still thinks the ol US of A has the coolest stuff (hello crawl out from under that rock) this will certainly change your mind.

SO enjoy!

WOW

Ok I just watched the latest trailer for the Final Fantasy DVD and its yeah WOW. Looks awesome! Ok I wont bore people with anything more about games since thats all I have talked about lately. SO heres what I have been up to:

I think I mentioned before the survey is up and running and has like 112 entries in it so far! I love the web and its cool how it makes things easier and more cost effective. We still print and mail out surveys but hopefully this year we will get less mailed in and we can abandon that and therefore save paper and money. I think last year we got over 300 from the web and like 125 mailed in so they still wanted to mail out the survery but I hope we get like a big fat Zero from the mail in so that we go exclusively web next year. SO thats the good side of it. however the bad side is I have been checking it and reading comments. And well I found the first comment directed at me, and here it is --

You really have a top-notch staff! I have been working with your group of people since the early '90's and it has always been a pleasure. I have been concerned about the communication skills of Chris Knodel. I feel he thinks we are "below" him.

Now the funny side is that as the admin of this whole thing I could very easily go into the Dbase and edit out the little bit about me. But that wouldnt be right so i aint going to do it. However I always think its funny when people put things in quotes. I think the concept of quote marks has really been lost. To me this statement implies that I told this individual "sorry you are below me so I cannot speak with you." Notice the correct use of quotation marks, and how it is easy to discern who I was quoting. sigh people only complain. SO thats been the low point of my day today which means my day has been pretty good actually. Lisa (if she reads this) will give me a hard time and tell me I need to be nicer to people. Which I think is funny b/c I got one comment about that like 3 years ago and everyone at my office laughs at me when they hear me on the phone b/c they are like gosh could you be anymore nicer or helpfull. SO whatever I probaly didnt offer to come to someones house and wipe their butt and so they are upset with my level of cust service. SO I guess I have to wipe butts now! Ok im through ranting. Anyway other things - oh yeah my class is over!!!!!!!!!! (one more) ! seriously I did enjoy teaching but im glad its over. It took so much time and it made for a really long day. Basically 7:30-8:30. Yeah thats a long day. SO the final was last night however only 5 of my 9 students showed so i was not too happy about that but whatever its home school co-op and a lot of people dont take that very seriously and I dont really care so nee! About the only other cool thing going on is that we are going to CiCi's for dinner tonight! If you have never been to CiCi's you really must go and if you do go you must tell me what you think b/c well I love this place and it is the reason I was able to fight off starvation as a poor college student. SO GO TO CICI'S!

Well thats about it for now. I really hope to get the pics from hocking hills up on this site soon so that you guys can see all the pretty waterfalls but I have to get them from lisa and she has been super duper busy lately. I cant wait till we have our own super cool digi cam that I will be able to extract pics from on my own.

Well thats all for now

Cheers!

My thoughts on the next Gen.

Ok E3 is here and all the hype this year so far is about the next generation of video game consoles. SO in case you care and even if you dont here are my thoughts on the up and comers

Xbox 360 -- Ok first off yes I agree the name is gay. I think X2 or X squared or something like that would have been much cooler than 360 but I know why they did this. If you dont know here are the reasons I have read.

1. MS didnt want to call it x2 and have it launch around a ps3 b/c 3 is bigger than 2 so it must be better. (I hate the average consumer)

2. Nintendo is calling their next gen "revolution" and 360 degrees is 1 revolution.

SO like I said I think the name thing is dumb. Now on to the console design. I have to say of all three designs I have seen, so far it is my favorite looking. They have made it a lot smaller and I think the design is very appealing. Now Jason criticized the shape b/c MS has said that the design is inspired by inhaling. He went on to say that when he inhales his lungs expand so the concaves dont make sense. Ok everyone lets go to a mirror and stand sideways. now take a deep breath. WOW you chest goes out while you stomach goes in. And your stomach is in the middle of your body so you could make a concave design from it. It might be a weak reason for the design but it is feasible. Ok so whats cool about the 360?

1. all games at least in 720p format!!!
2. wireless controllers!!!
3. Basic Xbox live out of the box free!!!
3. Square Enix game(s)!!!!

Other info. Launches this fall, costs probably $299.99 has limited backwards compatibility.

Ok now onto Sony. The PS3 is going to be big. Actually it almost looks bigger to me than the 360. Hows that for irony since all the sony fanboys made fun of the xbox for being so big last time around. Ok the design. sigh I really dont like how it looks. It kept reminding me of something and I couldnt remember until now. Bose makes a home theater system that looks quite a bit like the ps3. I just think thats interesting and not very original. Anyway so thats the design. I also want to take a moment to critique the presentation from sony. WOW! It was really cool and the one thing they did that I really liked was that they showed the video demos that they used for the ps2 event and compared them to what they had made with the ps3. It was just a really great way to see what was and what is now. Good job SONY!

SO whats interesting about the ps3

1. fully backwards compatible with the entire Playstation library!!! wow
2. 2 terra flops of processing power!!!
3. Wireless controllers!
4. BluRay drive (dang!)

Other info -- Launches spring 06 could cost at least $450.00 my guess will be $499.99 -- Ouch that is harsh. I was talking with somone the other day about how I didnt think the ps3 would have the blu ray drive b/c it would not be cost effective and hit the price point for a home console. I think I was right about it knocking the price point out of the park. That could be the killer for the ps3 in the us market. I mean say it goes for 500 then you add on a game and another controller and you are looking at close to 600 bucks. Your average consumer is not going to do that. Also that would put it at a couple of years before it even matched the launch price of the xbox 360 and by that time the 360 will probably be only $199.99

Finnally Nintendo revolution. Ok I will be straight up and admit that I have not watched the nintendo conf. yet but I have seen pics and yeah this is what I am thinking. I dont like it. ITs tiny. yes very very tiny. Like three dvd cases stacked together. That tells me the revolution is not going to be anywhere near the ps3 or 360 in terms of console power. But nintendo doesnt care about that. Nintendo only cares about making its games. And they dont care if anyone likes them or not b/c they are nintendo. I dont know they are just kinda like clueless when it comes to this stuff. Like the revolution will also be a dvd player now. WHOOO HOO the other two consoles have been doing that since 2000. Now 5 years later they give support to it. Please. I think nintendo would be better to drop their home console stick with the gameboy and DS and develop games for the ps3 and 360. I just wonder how many times someone at nintendo has thought. "wow can you imagine the zelda we could have made with xbox?" or "can you imagine how amazing mario would look on the ps2?" I just feel like they want their console to be a portable console. Heck the game cube has a handle for easier carrying. Anyway those are my thoughts.

Cheers

Will this crap ever end?

Yes I know the answer and no I do not expect you to give me one. It is a rhetorical question so there. And the answer is no. No it will never end. SO this is the latest and worstest with me. I mentioned a few days ago that I was working on a survey for my company to be pushed out through the web for our customers to take. Well I did all the main work (or so I thought) last year and thought that it would be maybe a 5 min job to get it back up and running again this year. How wrong I was. SO last week I started trying to get it going and no luck. Well I found out yesterday that this thing had to be live by wed morning (tommorow 5/18) and I was like OH FREAKING CRAP WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS NO GOOD LOUSY PIECE OF CRAP THAT DOESNT WANT TO DO WHAT IT IS SUPPOSED TO DO!!!!! SO as you can tell I was slightly agitated. Well I left work at 5:30pm (thats 1.5 hours late for me) and went home. Worked on sues computer for like another 1.5 hours ate dinner and went for a run.

side note. I love running it just clears away everything bad!

Well I just couldnt stop thinking about this stupid problem all night and eventually when I was lying in bed I just was wide awake. SO I got up and started working on it. At about 3am this morning I fixed the problem. OI! I was so relieved and mad all at the same time. It was such a stupid little thing and the fix makes no sense to me but thats MS for you. SO now its 3:30pm and I am exhausted. Im sooo wiped seeing as I got like 3.5 hours of sleep last night. Lisa is really getting on me to take a nap today (she takes good care of me ^_^ ) but I think I might lay out instead and try to take a wee nap that way maybe. Who knows? Plus I only have a couple of days till luke and steve get back and I have to try to be darker then them when they get back from Hawaii. LOL. Well as much as it sucked that I was up late last night it worked out for the best b/c I had two buildings down today so I was out of the office quite a bit. I think i would still be stressing over everything and looking for the answer.

Posts to follow soon. (time permitting)
"weekend wrap up"
"my thoughts on the next gen of video game consoles"


Cheers!

Oh and if you have not checked out momo's site lately go check it out its brand shpanking new!

Funny stuff

Got this off another board. Thought it was funny enough to post here. Enjoy!

Do You Swear to Tell the Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth?

These are from a book called Disorder in the American Courts, and are
things people actually said in court, word for word, taken down and now
published by court reporters who had the torment of staying calm while
these exchanges were actually taking place.

ATTORNEY: Are you sexually active?
WITNESS: No, I just lie there.
______________________________
ATTORNEY: What is your date of birth?
WITNESS: July 18th.
ATTORNEY: What year?
WITNESS: Every year.
_____________________________________
ATTORNEY: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact?
WITNESS: Gucci sweats and Reeboks.
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
WITNESS: I forget.
ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you
forgot?
_____________________________________
ATTORNEY: How old is your son, the one living with you?
WITNESS: Thirty-eight or thirty-five, I can't remember which.
ATTORNEY: How long has he lived with you?
WITNESS: Forty-five years.
_____________________________________
ATTORNEY: What was the first thing your husband said to you that morning?
WITNESS: He said, "Where am I, Cathy?"
ATTORNEY: And why did that upset you?
WITNESS: My name is Susan.
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Do you know if your daughter has ever been involved in voodoo?
WITNESS: We both do.
ATTORNEY: Voodoo?
WITNESS: We do.
ATTORNEY: You do?
WITNESS: Yes, voodoo.
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?
___________________________________
ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the twenty-year-old, how old is he?
WITNESS: Uh, he's twenty-one.
________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken?
WITNESS: Would you repeat the question?
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And what were you doing at that time?
WITNESS: Uh....
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: She had three children, right?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: How many were boys?
WITNESS: None.
ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated?
WITNESS: By death.
ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated?
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual?
WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beard.
ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female?
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?
WITNESS: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Doctor, how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?
WITNESS: All my autopsies are performed on dead people.
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to?
WITNESS: Oral.
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.
ATTORNEY: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time?
WITNESS: No, he was sitting on the table wondering why I was doing an autopsy on him!
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?
WITNESS: Huh?
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: But could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.

IT's F-R-I-D-A-Y yes its FRIDAY!

Well terribly hectic week but now it is friday. Its about 7:30am and I feel like Im on mile 25 of a marathon. Just a little bit more and Im at the finish line. SO I got it worked out to bounce out of my job at noon so that is sweet. I have a wee bit o grocery shopping to do and then its back to the house, pick up lisa and jet off to the cabin. Im totally looking forward to this and like I said before I really need this weekend.

Well I had my class last night and well its funny matt hickey came up to me and asked me what went wrong this week (since I say something major goes wrong every thursday) Well I think he thought I would say nothing. But something did happen that I could not discuss. SO that totally made yesterday SUCK. But anyway I had my last "lecture" type class and yeah Im sorry class b/c it was not very good. I was in a totally sucky mood and was very very tired and totally did not care. But I made it through and next week is their final. I have no clue what I am doing for that but I hope its something easy to grade. ^_^

Game update:

PS2 -- I have not touched FFX in like a week and a half -- too busy

Xbox -- Been playing a lot of KOTOR II with lisa. We have like 30 hours logged and are just finishing the second planet. Man this game is long. But thats good! Oh have I mentioned that I absolutly despise the combat system in knights? Yes Bioware if you have stumbled upon this your combat system sucks. ITs total WIC. SO please scrap it entirely and come up with something better. Like I cant imagine how amazing KOTOR would have been had it used the combat engine from jade empire. Imagine fighting in real time with a lightsaber and having force powers mapped to the D-pad. And then they could have mapped health to the white button and stimulants to the black. That would have rocked and been so much more fun. I think what kills me the most is if I get attacked by a bunch of stuff at once and my party as a whole loses a lot of health. Trying to heal during combat is very very cumbersome and someone dies on me almost everytime I get in that situation. SO that is really annoying. Oh and the combat profiles that you set for them are gay and do not work. Example. I had both my characters set to stationary which means once in a fight they should just stay where I put them. Well im fighting with a droid and I look over to see what my other character is doing. Guess what? She aint there. Somehow she targeted something that was TWO freaking rooms away. Opened the doors on her own and went and stood right in front of a very very large gun. With which she proceeded to do nothing about and let it shoot her to death. That is what I call frustration.

Metal Arms continues to just be great fun. I love this game and just love sitting down with it for like 15-30 min and hearing robots scream as they burst into a thousand pieces. I just got the tether gun so im jacking robots as often as I can. Its like halo meets grand theft auto. I love this game and think its one of those "best overlooked game" for xbox. SO if you still dont believe me I have a demo of it that I will lend you that is one of the best demos out there in terms of lenght and getting a feel for the game.

Well I have work to do but soon I will be gone!!!! Have a great weekend everybody

Cheers!

Keeping my head above water

Ok so I said earlier that things have been slammed at work right. Well yeah they keep staying that way. Also it seems I keep getting more responsibility. I often joke with lisa that I work hard to act irresponsible so that I wont get more responsibilities but it never seems to work. I always get more. Oh well at least im a valuable asset that is not easily replaced. ^_^

SO for anyone who has always wanted a car let me tell you something. CARS SUCK! they are all evil, except my wifes miata and all mini coopers. Thats right everything else from hummers to cadi's all pure evil. I hate cars and well I have not had the best of luck with cars in my life. lets take a look shall we

94 mitsubishi eclipse -- I loved this car but it hated me. Once a year it would go into the shop for a minimum of $1000 in repair work. Also it had a major oil leak that everytime I had fixed (2xs) created a new worse leak. I ended up selling it after the good folks at Brownies IT proved they could not fix my transmission only install parts backwards or the wrong ones altogether.

88 buick century -- I nick named this car "the buck" and it was totally ugly and trashed. It had a white paint job that was all flaky and stuff. But the car was free so that was cool. Well I put about 500 into it for tires and well like a month later BOOOM!!! the trans went. I was not going to spend 2 grand on a trans for an old car. SO we gave it to the local career center.

2001(2 cant remember) Hyundai Accent -- Ok this car had nothing wrong mechanically but I hated it. IT was the first time I had a car payment and well I thought the car was a piece of crap but I needed a car and it was new and cheap so there ya go. I think what I hated most about it was two things. 1. total lack of power, im so glad I got the 5 speed not the manual. 2. the tires were seriously like plastic. any water on the road at all and I was sliding. Also I could drift around corners at any speed! Ok that part was fun. Anyway sold the accent so lisa could get the miata.

95 Honda Civic -- this car was the bomb. I loved this car a lot. Well I had just put about 2 grand into it for new brakes, shocks, shock mounts, and a slew of other things when. sigh it got totalled. I miss you civic.

SO that brings us to the present.

95 VW cabrio -- Ok the convertible is sweet and the fact that I can seat 4 very comfortably is also cool but well i bought the car for 3500 and then a month later by by trans. $3700 later and im not so happy with this car. Now it seems like the alloy wheels are warped b/c I cant get them balanced so the car shakes like booty on a dance floor.

SO yeah im really not that big on cars. Fortunately lisa has had it good. Since we have been married she has had the civic and only had some minor battery problems for a while and now has the miata. Two wonderfull cars that have done a very nice job of escorting her and her assests (^_^) wherever she needs to go and in pretty good style as well.

Well I did not inted to rant about cars but hey thats what you got. Hopefully I can get something worked out with the vw and smooth out the ride some. Then it will be NEON time!!!! j/k

Cheers!

Our cabin in the woods!!!

Ok so I said I was going to post more info about the cabin so here it is.

White Ridge Cabins

SO in a few short days lisa and I will be here for the weekend. WOW it just cant come soon enough. Other than that work has been crazy busy and its only tuesday. We have like over half our department out for various reasons so most of the work is falling on me. SO its a wonder I even have time to blog. But I find this helps me kind of clear my thoughts and step away from work for a second which I think is a good thing. I really hope I get a chance to workout today. I did not yesterday b/c I was on the road all day and its not looking good for today. But I am going to try to continue to make my health and well being a higher priority than work. B/c I cant work if im dead.

SO things I should be working on:

1.) Creating a computer lab in a space that is not supposed to be one (no im not bitter really)

2.) Re-Formatting and setting up MDECA's annual customer service web survey.

3.) a host of other things as well but these are most pressing. Unless of course another building goes down then I have to drop everything and go there.

4.) oh last but not least im working on hannah's ibook. SO far I have formatted her drive and erased everything on it. Its working much faster now. I also took off OS X and put the newer OS 9 on it since that runs faster and is better. J/k hannah (as if you even read my blog) SO far I repaired like a ton of permissions and ran disk warrior which kicked the shizzle out of her drive and got it nice and clean. SO I think its working smashingly well right now.

SO I have to get to doing stuff but laters.

Cheers!

I'm getting a vacation! + Why I desperatly need one!

Ok so a really great friend of mine was talking to me a couple of weeks ago about the possibility of doing the log cabin thing for a weekend to just get away and have fun. I was like that would be really cool for a # of reasons. first off the only time lisa and I get together with Matt is work type stuff so the thought of having a vacation to just chill and relax and hang with him and his wife heidi was a pretty sweet thought. Second up I love the outdoors and think going to an area with nature and cool things would be really really sweet. Thirdly I really really really need a break from everything to the point where the last time I went to see my doctor she said "Chris you really need to think about taking a vacation." I was like CRAP im 27 and my doc is like you need to take a vacation. DOH. SO anyway Matt made the suggestion but I really didnt think anything would come of it. Well it did. WHOO HOO! SO last night we settled on a venue and made the reservation and next weekend we will be hanging at a pretty nice cabin in the Hocking Hills area. Now the only thing that is killing me is this. Hocking hills has like the best outdoor climbing in ohio. Like the best. And I have never gone climbing there. SO I am going to be in the heart of Ohio's climbing country (dont laugh too hard) but heres the catch. Im the only climber of our group. Which means no climbing for me. I will probably bring my slippers and a chalk bag just in case there are some boulders around our cabin that I could maybe get a grip on but thats about all im thinking. But I am not complaining it is still going to be a kickin weekend. SO a week from now thats where I will be . YEA!!!!!! Now i know its not something like two weeks in hawaii but we cant all have are dreams come true now can we. (Luke and Stephen SUCK)

Ok so thats why getting a wee break and heres why a need one

Ok the last week / month / year / decade have been well .... hard. SO i really need to get away sometimes, doesnt everybody so its cool that we are actually doing this. Plus that as usual things are ramping up with a vengeance at my job and it looks like summer is going to kill. which means that things will be insane for me at work from now until perhaps next november. That coupled with little stressfully random things like finding out my motorcycle was "nudged" by a minvan and laying on its side in the grass are just stressing me out beyond belief (sorry sue I had too! ^_^ ) SO i am super excited and so is lisa about getting away for a few days. Im sure we will bring a digi cam and take some pics I will also link latter in the week to the site for the cabin. SO in short im excited. Well thats all for now.

Cheers

Same crap different day

SO I dont really feel like I have all that much to post about but I dont want to really do anything at the moment so this is my tribute to slacking! SO why the lack of motivation??? Well its business as usual at work and I have a ton of things to do but I have not had a good night sleep in about a month or so...sooo I am just feeling really wiped out. However my meds ROCK! Its amazing how much a small little mass of compressed powder can help even you out. SO thanks Anessa wherever you are for helping me and getting me back on track. Its good to feel like me again. Anyway so im tired but who isnt right? Oh I do have something kewl that I am working on at work. Kind of a side project that is super kewl and TOP TOP secret. Its sitting next to me and Im surprised at how well its going. More to come I hope. Outside of that this week sucks. I hate lisa's job it makes her do all kinds of crappy things. She has to cover election news tonight (BOOOO HISSSS) and will probably not be home till like 11pm or midnight. SO that stinks. Well hopefully I will have a better week than I am having.

Later

Pics from Climbing Day!!

Ok Well I know it was like two weeks ago but I have been really busy and out of town so ya know those are my excuses and you will just have to deal with them. SO despite the fact that it got cold again and snowed the day we picked turned out to be absolutely perfect. The temp was great little to no humidity and most importantly the rock was pretty dry! SO without further ado check the pics out!



"Sara getting just a little bit higher"
This pic is pretty basic rock stuff. Not a real hard move but was good shot that shows some good features of the rock.



Sara showing off the fact that she is uber flexible -- Ok this is a two part pic with this one and the one below. One of the crazy things about climbing at John Bryan is that because of wind and water the bottom three feet or so of the climbs is all eroded and recessed about 2-3 feet in. This makes most of the starts the hardest part of the climb. SO this is how Sara chose to start her first move of the climb.



check out sara's left foot. AWESOME foot placement!!! -- Ok this is part two. You can really see how she moved up and has her weight centered more on here right foot now and she is ready to use her new position to go for a higher hand hold and get this climb going. Its really fun to watch sara climb b/c the moves she tries (and often actually pull off) are totally different from my style of climbing mostly b/c she has better flexibility than I do. SO she can start off with her foot by her head and still make the move whereas if I try that I get stuck. ^_^



Luke giving it his all despite crappy shoes -- Ok this was Luke's initiation climb. First time evuh on rock of any kind real or a gym. He was really hard on himself but he did really well and yeah he had to make do in a pair of old running shoes instead of nice climbing shoes. Which if you have never climbed let me tell you it makes a world of difference. SO this is luke getting a start and b/c of a lack of shoes and therefore good strong foot placement he was forced to rely on his hands more. But he did really well also and busted out some pretty good moves. I swear he almost did a split at one point in time!

SO that is the climbing wrap up. It was a lot of fun and I love being outside and climbing on real rock. Luke and Sara we have to do that at least once more before summers out. K? Well I gots to get back to work but wanted to get this post out since I had been slacking.