Retronauts last gasp?

The latest Retronauts podcast was an interesting one.

For those not in the know, Retronauts is 1up.com's retro-gaming poodcast. After 50 episodes, Jeremy Parish [sic] has said the format is changing because he doesn't know enough about retrogaming. But after saying he doesn't know enough about retrogaming, he then announces that Retronauts is going to a weekly podcast. Considering he also said that he was having a hard time thinking of topics, it make me stop and think about the viability of the podcast from here on out.

Now, Retronauts hasn't been the most reliable podcast to listen to. In fact there were times when it updated every week for 3 months, and then nothing for a month. They tried going every other week, but even that fell through. So how are they going to make a weekly podcast viable?
I have no idea. Hopefully they will keep it interesting, because I think the podcast is funny, insightful, and very informative.

And as for topics, they've done 50 (although 3 of those were repeated - Castlevania, DragonQuest, and MegaMan). And personally I thnk they haven't even scratched the surface of retro-gaming. For the most part they have stuck to console gaming, but PC gaming has been around longer, and there is treasure trove of info to be mined. I have a few topics that come to mind.

1.) History of the Ultima Series
2.) The evolution of the 1st person shooter
3.) Atari 8-bit games
4.) Colecovision/Intellivison
5.) The evoultion of the 4x game genre
6.) Multiplayer gaming
7.) Puzzle games
8.) Movie Based Games (a crapfest, with few exceptions - but would be a great bitch-fest)
9.) Tomb Raider
10.) Bard's Tale
11.) Star Wars games
12.) Rogue-likes/NetHack (evolving to Diablo)
13.) Construction Set Games
14.) PC RPG'S (non-Ultima)
15.) Tetris/Tetris Clones/Tetris Spinoffs

And that is just a start.

I'm just hoping that Retronauts doesn't change to much. I like my Retrogaming goodness.

Scrabble for the iPod - Review

I love playing Scrabble. It's one of the best board games that exists, and has withstood the test of time. 50+ years on forming words with tiles.

So imagine my joy when I found that Electronic Arts created a official Scrabble game for the iPod. So $4.99 later, I started playing the game on my 80GB iPod.

Plus Side: Graphics - Considering the small-ish iPod screen, I'm impressed that it looks as good as it does. It uses the current Scrabble motif - the reds and pinks, and the tiles can be read easily.

Word list - The dictionary used is the current Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, 4th edition. This one doesn't have all the naughty words (that is reserved for tournament players), but it has every word that I know, and a tons of obscure words as well.

Stats - Statistics tracking is neat. It shows how many games you've played, your win percentage, highest scoring play, highest scoring game, best bingo and number of bingoes played.

Neutral Side: Game mechanics - The click wheel is a semi-burden in the game. It's very sensitive to where you place you tiles on the board and sometimes if you are listening to music while playing, you may accidentally pause the track or skip to the next track. Annoying to say the least.

The Zoom - Maneuvering tiles around the board is easy, but when you zoom into the board, it only zooms into one part of the board at a time (whereever your cursor is), but then after the play, it zooms out to the full board. There is no way to zoom into the board and keep it zoomed in. It needs a Zoom toggle.

Down Side: Challenging - Challenging plays is non-existent. It basically follows the British "single challenge" rule, where if you play a word that is not valid, you get to take your tiles back and try again. Which basically makes it easy to just put as many words on to the board until you find a good one. It's not conducive to learning strategy and new words this way.

No game recap - Sadly there is no way to see a recap of the game (what the plays were, what the blanks are, etc.)

The other huge down side is the "Best Word" function. "But wait", I hear you say. "That helps you find words in your rack! How can the be a down side?" Easy. First, for those who want to use this version of game to help their real-life game, there is NO way to turn off this function. Personally, I find it hard to resist the temptation of just hitting the "Best Word" function. Second, it only finds the highest scoring word, and doesn't take into consideration your rack leave. Sometimes the highest scoring play isn't necessarily the best play. You have 4 uses of "Best Word", and it's far to easy to use them and outscore the computer AI.

Overall impressions: I like the game. It's a decent implementation of the game for the iPod. For living room players and casual gamers, it's great. But it falls short in areas that tournament players would like to see.

Grade: B+

On Cryptograms

I love puzzles.

Any type of puzzles, really. I love Word Searches, Fill-ins, Sudoku (technically Dell's Number Sums), and especially cryptograms.

It's one of the few things my Mom got me into while growing up. She got me into doing word searches, and I slowly graduated into doing Fill-ins and other word games. But it was when I was in High School I finally realized how to solve the elusive cryptoquiz/cryptogram.

Cryptoquizzes are easy (at least now they are - back then it was a triumph for me to solve them), It's usually a list of words (usually 10-12) that are encrypted. And all the words have a common theme. Like "Oscar Winning Movies" or "Frozen Foods". Since the words all have a common theme, it's easy to spot patterns in the words and solve the quiz.

The cryptogram, on the other hand, is a bit tougher. Normally it's a standard substitution cypher, where one letter is substituted for another (T is replaced with J, etc.). But the challenge is finding word and sentence patterns within what looks like nonsense. For example, if I see the cypher - DJKD DJU - I'm 99% positice that the real message is THAT THE. You can see the DJ combination at the beginning of both words and follow the logic from there. Or noticing that if the quote ends in a question mark, I can be sure that the first word is usually WHO, WHAT, or WHY.

And I really believe that growing up with all these puzzles that have challenged my brains over the years have helped me throughout my jobs, especially here at the bank. Seeing the patterns of numbers, looking for logic behind outages, and just letting the logical portion of my brain take over when something has gone wrong.

And to top it all off, I can get Daily Cryptograms and Cryptoquizzes in my RSS feed on a daily basis. Much easier than buying a book and forgetting to bring it in to do at work :)

Thank god I love salad...

Because if I didn't, my food choices would be sorely lacking.

Being newly diabetic, I've had to undergo a lot of changes, mostly in my diet.  I'm restricted to 240 grams of carbohydrates a day.  Considering a normal person needs 300 grams, it's akin to skipping a meal for me, even though I eat 3-4 times a day.

So I'm trying to eat healthy, but I also want to watch my sodium intake as well.  And sadly, I do eat a lot of pre-packaged foods.  I'm a single guy and I find it hard to actually cook a meal at home, because I usually end up throwing leftovers out.   And I for one HATE wasting food.  So I tend to lean towards quick, easy pre-packaged meals that I can toss in my microwave and then chow down on it.

I'm still trying to find that balance of eating healthy and eating what I like. It's a happy medium thing right now, at least until I figure out what is good for me and what isn't.   But I'm nailing those down too.  I like chocolate every now and then, but I try not to eat an entire candy bar in one sitting.  Weight Watchers puts out a low carb Peppermint Patty (by Whitman's Chocolate) that is really good.  So I'm also starting to find substitutes for all the crap stuff I've been eating over the last 30+ years and seeing what I like and don't like.  For instance, I got a Healthy Choice soup with Beef and Noodles. Ugh. The combination of the two sat on my stomach like a lead pellet.  But the Chicken Noodle Soup?  Delicious :)

Soda was the tough one though.  For the longest time, I went without soda or caffeine. I think I went at least 3 years without touching a caffeinated drink. But slowly I started to drink Pepsi again.  And that's pretty much what did me in, diabetes wise.  so I've switched to Crystal Light type drink mixes that have no carbs at all, and they taste pretty darn good.  No more Sweetened Iced Tea from 4C.  But I do occasionally will drink a Diet Pepsi.  I still don't like the taste of diet soft drinks, but I can live with it.

WoW update!

Well it took over a year, but I finally hit 70 two weeks ago.

And now I'm trying to figure out the best way to make money, because I'd love to get my flying epic mount.

The pseudo-easy way is to run the daily quests in Shattrath and Quel'Danas. The Shattrath quests are fairly simple - and not that time consuming.

Quel'Danas on the other hand, is a pain in the ass. It's basically a free-for-all PVP area that guarantees someone will gank you within 5 minutes of leaving the main areas. But the monetary rewards for completing quests out there almost outweigh the constant dying.

Not only that, I decided to go back to the starting areas of Ironforge, Stormwind and Exodar and grinded rep with each of the factions. The starting quests are so easy it took me literally an hour to get through them, and the reputation bonuses (150-500 points) made it super easy to finally get Exalted status with all but the Gnomes. Why not the gnomes? Because I'm a Night Elf, I'm "too big" to ride the mechanical chickens. Oh well. No big deal - I now have epic riding mounts from 4 of the 5 major Alliance Factions. You know, I'm not really in a huge rush for my Flying Epic. With Lich King just around the corner, I'll be on my way to level 80 soon enough - I figure that I should be able to get more money once the expansion hits.

So for now, I'm going to try to grind reputation with some of the other factions (Argent Dawn comes to mind), and run dailies when I can, and just have fun now. Also try to level my Rogue up to 20 :)

Moving aftermath.

It's pretty much finished.

On Saturday, I ended up moving my bed, headboard, dresser and clothes into my computer room for the winter. After 4 hours of moving, cleaning and re-arranging, it's done.

And I've moved everything around so I can access my books and my closet. As long as I keep the room clean, it should work for the winter. All that is left to do, is to get plastic and tape and tape up the windows for the winter and I'll be all set.

It's Private...

I really despise election/voting seasons.

Now before anyone clamors on me for not liking it, let me explain.

I've had no less than 15 calls in the last week from various political/lobbyist groups asking me how I'm going to vote this election year.

I have 5 words for all these people.

IT'S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.

Now, I understand that these people believe strongly in the people or propositions that they are representing, and they really want said people/proposition to get through.

But the whole point of the secret ballot (and how all political voting is done in the US), is to protect the voter's political privacy.

To quote Wikipedia:

"A vote is an individual's act of voting, by which he or she express support or preference for a certain motion (e.g. a proposed resolution), a certain candidate, or a certain selection of candidates. A secret ballot, the standard way to protect voters' political privacy, generally takes place at a polling station."

Whether or not I decide to vote (which is another matter altogether), my vote is just that.  MY vote.  I may tell my family or close friends, but no one has the right to know how I plan to vote this coming election.

Plans for Saturday

This is going to sound really boring.

But It's time to winterize my apartment!

I rent a 2 bedroom apartment, but I have electric heat. Which gets very expensive over the cold Maine winters.

So I move my bed into my computer room, and only heat one room during the winter. 

But (there is always a 'but'), the process is not easy.  First I have to clean.  Now I'm not a complete pig, but I am a single guy living on my own.  So I tend not to keep my apartment sparkling clean. So today's agenda looks like this.

1) Clean my computer room, and move my bookcases into the living room.

2) Move my headstand, bed,  and dresser into the computer room.

3) Arrange the computer room so it's not a complete disaster area.

4) Collapse in bed and watch some QI on the computer.

Tomorrow, I'll post my results! :)

Trip Details - sorta...

I'm really excited for the trip to Florida next year.

Moreso than any Florida trip I've taken over the past 10 years. I normally go by myself to Daytona for 2 weeks, hang out with my friends, and relax.

This year, it's different. It's the first "family" vacation I've taken since my family was all together. The last time I had a family vacation was back when I was in high school (1989-1990), and we went down to Florida and went to Disney.

This year, it's my new family. Well, new to the internet/blog world. Chuck, Heather, Charlie and Annie are my family. I might not be related to them, but they are the closest thing I have in the world that resembles a family.

So this trip is going to be cool. I'll be experiencing Disney World 3 ways. First, this will be the first time I've ever visited Florida and stayed on Disney Property. Normally, I would stay in Daytona, and then my friends and I would go to Disney (getting up at 5:00am and driving 1 1/2 hours to get there). This time, no driving, no waiting in long line, no paying for a rental car/parking. It's gonna be darn conveinient.

Second, I'll be experiencing the park for the first time in over 10 years. A lot has changed to WDW. Some rides have come and gone, some new attractions, heck - even a new park has opened up. And I'm going as an amateur photgrapher as well. Being able to take pictures is going to be awesome.

And thirdly (and kinda most importantly), I'll be experiencing Disney through the eyes of kids. Charlie and Annie have never been to an amusement park of this size. Charlie's been to Canobie Lake Park, but Disneys is on a scale that's exponentially larger and more grand. I'l never forget my first trip to Disney/EPCOT. It was an incredible, awe-inspiring feeling. To see the grandeur of the parks and the size of the buildings, I literally felt like I was walking into a new world, a new dimension. That the outside world didn't exist and there was something cool or surprising around every corner.

And now that Charlie and Annie will be able to experience it for the first time, I can get to experience it with them.

And maybe - just maybe - I'll feel like a kid again.

I don't get it.

Not about diabetes today.

I don't get mainstream social networking.

I have colleagues and friends that say "You need to have a mySpace/Facebook page".

Why? I have 2 "presences" on the net. My Flickr page, and this blog. The MySpace's and Facebooks don't appeal to me at all (although I wish I were on Facebook during the heyday of Scrabulous - I would have loved to play multiple games at the same time), and Everything that happens in my life (that I feel comfortable sharing with the entire world) can be found at these 2 sites.

And to be quite honest, I've never seen a good-looking MySpace page. Most of them have garish, ugly backgrounds, and weird text color/backgorund combinations that cause my eyeballs to dry out just looking at them.

Why the need for on-line social acceptance? I'm not knocking anyone who uses mySpace/Facebook. If it works for them, then more power to them. But the fact that some people have thousands of "Friends", but how many do they actually know? I mean I have 5-6 really close friends, and I know them pretty well. But to say "I have hundreds of friend on my mySpace page" is ridiculous. For instance - Leo Laporte (of This Week in Tech, and the TWiT Network) is in a friendly "friend race" on Twitter (another thing I don't get) with John C. Dvorak and Kevin Rose (the founder of Digg). Why? They have literally tens of thousands of people following them. Now I know that they have a certain geek celebrity status, so the rules aren't quite the same for them, but for a normal person to say there are thousands of people following there every word? Hehe.. to me it's almost like high school - it's a popularity thing, and I've always hated popularity contests :)

So to all the people that have been telling me to join a social network - please stop. I have my blog, and I have my Flickr. I might not be on the leading edge of Web 2.0, but I'm happy where I am.

Wow Addons Part Deux - a relief to the insanity

Back in January, I posted about my unbelievable frustration with maintaining the addons for World of Warcraft. Finding the right places to download mods, installing them correctly, making sure all the libraries are up-to-date... it was a mess.

Now my friends have shown me the light - WowMatrix.

Here is the best, easiest, and by far most conveinient way to download, install and maintain AddOns for World of Warcraft.

And it's easy - Go to the link. Download the program (no install needed, it's self-contained), extract the zip to your desktop, and run it.

It scans your AddOn Directory, matches up what you have with what it has in it's database, and tells you if you are running any outdated AddOns. Click on "Update All" and.. Viola! Instant upgrades for all your installed mods.

You can also download new mods from the program, but the only downside to that is you have to go online to get screenshots to see if it's something you want to install.

I found 5 new mods that I now can't live without, and I'm really glad my friends pointed me to that program.

The whole diabetes thing...

I'm still trying to figure it out.

My BGL (blood glucose level) has been up and down more often than an elevator in the Empire State Building.

In the morning after I wake up it's about 120 - a bit high (the high morn is 110), but manageable.

The weird thing is I eat a 45-60 carb breakfast, a 30 carb snack at 10:00, a 60ish carb meal for lunch. Then I test my levels at 5-6 pm and I'm somewhere between 70 (which is the bottom of the range for BGL, and 90).

So what is causing my high levels in the morning?

I'm thinking I must be bottoming out over night, and my pancreas is compensating by pumping out the sugar to level me off, and byt he time I get up it's gone over the normal high.

I was told by the nutritionist that I should eat a 30 carb snack before going to bed, but I noticed my levels would skyrocket to 135-145. so I'm not sure if I'm eating to many carbs (therefore naturally increasing by blood sugar from the food) or not enough carbs (therefore increasing my blood sugar through pancreatic secretions).

Needless to say, it's something I'll be talking to my doctor about when I see her in November.

Diabetes - Month 1

Well those of you who don't know about my Flickr account don't know that on 8/8/08 (lucky day my ass..) I fell down a 1/2 flight of stairs, taken to the hospital, and then subsequently diagnosed with Type II diabetes.

So, basically my world has kinda been turned on it's side.

I'm on a carb-restricted diet (which isn't all that hard to follow), and I'm on 4 types of medication to control my blood sugar (Woohoo! NO needles!). I test my blood sugar twice a day, and take meds twice a day as well. And I've basically cut all non-essential foods out of my diet.

The plus side to this (trust me there is one) is that I have more energy, I'm sleeping through the night, and I'm starting to lose weight. I'm down to 250 pounds (I was over 300) and I'm feeling healthy again.

Some days it's really hard to keep a stiff upper lip, but for the most part - I'm doing well. Heather, Chuck, Charlie, and Annie have been a tremendous center of support for me, and without them I don't know what I would have done. Heather especially is great, because she has type 2 as well, and know what I'm going through.

I'm also keeping my job at TD Banknorth. With the merger of Banknorth and Commerce, there was a period of time when our little department didn't know if it was staying or going. We found out last week, and it's relived a huge amount of stress off me.

And next July, I'm headed to Florida with Chuck and the gang for a week's stay at Disney - On property. I'm really excited for this trip, and the fact I get 3 week's vacation next year as well.