This evening, while I was playing with Liesl, she did a whole new range of facial expressions! Tonight was the first time that I have noticed her using her eyebrows intentionally. It so cute when she sits in your lap and looks you in the face and makes faces at you.
It’s Saturday and, as usual, I was up at seven thirty so that I could head on down into the dungeon and get to work. The sun is out today and it is shining brightly. It is nice to have some serious sunlight. Now that we have the palm tree and the spiky tree thing in the nursery where there is more light than anywhere else in the house I get to go in there every morning and open up the blinds. Just doing that easily more than doubles the total amount of natural light coming into the upstairs of the house and makes the house feel so much more open.
I worked for just a few hours this morning down in the basement. Then I came up and while Dominica and Liesl were still asleep I fired up the XBOX 360 and popped in Fable: The Lost Chapters and played as much as I could while I was alone with Oreo. I managed to go back and complete the “Rescue the Traders” mission that I had been in the midst of several days ago when the 360 got left on all day and went to sleep effectively causing me to die mid-mission. I went back to the beginning of the game and completed the Beardy Baldy quest that I had skipped there as well, although after having done it I kind of wish that I had just skipped it altogether. It was boring and silly. I even managed to move forward and complete the “Kill the White Balverine” quest which is not a side-quest like the others but is one of the main plot points of the game. It has been a while since I was able to actually advance the main storyline. It was not a lot of time that I got to play today but I really appreciated it.
My big project for today is getting Windows Server 2003 installed onto a fully virtualized Xen host. Doing this is harder than it sounds because my host environment is a completely graphics-free Red Hat Linux host so I am not able to simply fire up the virtual machine and connect locally using a VNC client. I have to access the VNC data remotely which is a bit of a pain for several reasons. The first big pain is that our Internet access went down for a little while yesterday (most likely due to weather conditions) and our IPSec VPN went down that connects me to the server on which I have been working and the connections has been unable to reestablish itself in the mean time so I am stuck creating all kinds of troublesome workarounds to attempt to connect to this server so that I may continue to work.
We did some quick cleaning around the house today including dishes, kitchen cleaning and vacuuming. Linnea drove up from White Plains this afternoon and arrived around two in the afternoon. This is Linnea’s first trip to Peekskill to visit us and see the new house and to meet little Liesl.
We all hung out at the house for a few hours and then decided to go out to Pastel’s in the Beach Shopping Center for dinner. They are starting to know Liesl down there. It is hard not to be famous when you are so cute.
Linnea left Peekskill around eight or so. I was not watching the clock very closely. After she left I did some searching around the house to attempt to find the gear necessary for Dominica to be able to play GameCube games on the Nintendo Wii, but all that I was able to find was the controller itself and not the wireless dongle or the memory card. They are probably packed away somewhere with the missing XBOX 360 controller that we have not yet been able to find either.
So Dominica was not able to play GameCube games like she had wanted to be able to do tonight (she was thinking about starting The Legend of Zelda: The Four Swords Adventures) and instead spent the evening playing Paper Mario on the Wii’s Virtual Console. She is a long way through Paper Mario and it would be really nice if she was able to complete it sometime soon. If she got another night like tonight in which she was able to play with several hours I would not be surprised if she was able to beat the game.
Paper Mario is actually the second game in a series. The first game is Super Mario RPG: The Legend of the Seven Stars from the SNES. That game is by far the most famous and most classic. It was an isometric 3D game from the late SNES era that was extremely popular as an adventure/JRPG crossover. Then Paper Mario, which Dominica is playing, came out for the Nintendo 64 introducing true 3D environments and changing the game from a classic isometric view with traditionally designed, sprite-based characters and going with the now-standard 2D “paper” characters in the 3D world. Following the first Paper Mario was Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door for the GameCube (which we also own for Dominica to play once she completes this one.) And finally, Super Paper Mario is currently available for the Nintendo Wii. Like most Nintendo-published games claiming to be an RPG, the Paper Mario series is actually a series of adventure games and do not qualify as either true RPGs or JRPGs.
I spent my evening attempting to figure out the remote VNC viewer issues that I am facing with installing Windows Server 2003 onto a Red Hat Linux (RHEL) Xen installation without any local graphical environment. I finally decided to give up at half past midnight and to focus on getting Sheep Guarding Llama caught up instead. I have been behind so much recently that I really wanted to get completely caught up so that tomorrow morning I can begin working on tomorrow’s post instead of doing today’s.
Tomorrow, Sunday, Dominica and I get to just stay home for the day. We have nothing planned other than a short software demo that I need to watch around noon and some light grocery shopping that Dominica is considering doing at some point when Liesl goes to sleep. Not that it matters much if Liesl falls asleep because she will be wide awake and screaming the instant that Dominica steps out of the door leaving me to deal with a very unhappy baby whom I am completely unable to console until minutes before Dominica arrives back home making it look like she has been asleep the entire time.
I did get a very short chance to play a little bit of Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen today. I am just over one hour into the game at this point. So far I am very impressed with it as a title from the 16-bit Super Nintendo era. The graphics on this new Nintendo DS port are really nice. Square Enix has done a very good job with making the game feel both modern and up-to-date without sacrificing the feel and style of the original games. What they have done is a really innovative blend of rendered three-dimensional backgrounds with traditional two-dimensional sprites for the characters in the game. The result works far better than it sounds to explain. Since this is an “update” of a classic title, this effect really works well. I don’t know if I would recommend the approach for a new game being made from the ground up, but it works so well in DQ4 that I might consider it if I was designing a new game like this for a portable platform like the DS.
Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride releases in mid-February this year so I don’t have very much time to complete DQ4 if I am to have it finished before DQ5 releases. Also releasing this month, on the 20th, is The Sims 3 which looks to be pretty interesting. It makes me wish that we had a nice gaming PC on which to play it since it is a style of game that the console systems cannot handle at all.
Releasing soon on the Nintendo DS is Dragon Quest IX which is being made by Level 5 who made Dragon Quest VIII for the Sony PS2 which currently ranks as my favourite game ever. Just a few weeks ago it was officially announced that Square Enix had decided to make Dragon Quest X for the Nintendo Wii. It will likely be quite some time before we even have a release schedule on that title. I am very hopeful that Level 5 will be involved and that the gorgeous cell-shading used in DQ8 and Dragon Quest Swords will be carried through onto this latest title. If we are really lucky the game will not be simplified like DQS was and the full gameplay of the traditional series will be maintained for this latest title. Having it targetted for the Wii worries me that Square Enix will decide to eschew their traditional, high-quality game play in exchange for the gimmicks so popular for games being made for the Wii.
]]>Nintendo’s Wii Fit is a combination of exercise software and the Wii Balance Board accessory. Wii Fit itself is pretty basic and is not a game as many people probably believe that it is. The Balance Board is actually a very advanced scale that connects wirelessly to the Nintendo Wii and tracks not only total weight but also the placement of weight upon the scale.
First, the scale. The Balance Board works great, even on carpeting. We compared weights measured on it in our living room on thick carpeting versus weights measured on a regular bathroom scale on linoleum and the weights were exactly the same. The balance aspect of the board works well too with it being quite responsive. I am sure that it would work even more accurately on a harder surface but on the carpet it does just fine. The scale is attractive and works well in our living room. It easily slides under furniture so that it is out of the way while not in use.
Secondly, Wii Fit itself. Wii Fit turned out to be a more interesting fitness program than I had anticipated. It has two modes, one for tracking your weight and BMI progress and one for being your personal trainer doing balance, cardio and strength training. The “game” even teaches you some basic yoga.
I enjoy doing the exercises with the Wii Fit. It is easy to use and does interesting workouts that you would normally not do at home. Having the handy in-game trainer stepping you through things makes it feel more interactive and the exercises have cute visualizations to make them more enjoyable. For example, when jogging in place your jogging actually propels a rendered jogger forward through a three dimensional terrain which helps you to pass the time while keeping you motivated.
One of the most useful tools of the Wii Fit is its record keeping. You can weight in every day or every few days and have the balance board automatically weight you and chart your weight and BMI progress along with tracking goals. By making the process of weighing in and keeping track so easy it really encourages you to do it every day. Seeing progress on a graph makes it easy to quickly tell how you are doing.
Something that was really smart with Wii Fit was the ability to install the Wii Fit channel directly to your Wii menu. You cannot use this channel for your training, that requires the Wii Fit disc to be in the drive, but you can use this channel to do your daily weigh in. So all you have to do is to turn on the Wii, stand on the scale and turn it back off. No looking for the disc, switching discs from what the kids are playing, etc. Nice and easy to encourage you to do it every day.
What currently we are waiting for is additional games to be released that will take advantage of the Wii Balance Board. It is an expensive accessory and it would be nice if it had some extra uses. At this time there are a total of nine titles (plus Wii Fit itself) that can make use of the balance board but, unfortunately, they are almost exclusively the “third party dump” titles (the stuff that is dumped to the Wii that was deemed unfit for the more serious consoles in the hopes of duping the gullible casual gamer market) and Wii Music (widely reviewed as the worst game of 2008 even though it is a Nintendo published title.) So the lineup is weak to say the least and several of those titles only support the board as an afterthought and not as a core game feature. The one really notable exception is Shaun White Snowboarding: Road Trip which is supposed to be a lot of fun. We are planning to get that and try it out.
Coming out soon and quite anticipated is EA Sports Active which is a competitor for the Wii Fit program but is designed to take advantage more of the controllers than of the balance board but it will support the balance board as well. We should see that exercise title in about two months.
What I am interested to see is some games release that really doing something innovative with the balance board – using it in real gameplay for something other than skiing or snowboarding titles which are simply too obvious and, at this point, very well covered.
So far the Wii Fit is fun and with its recent $50 price drop it is not a bad buy for most people. If you are looking for a way to get some exercise in a fun, original way then check it out.
]]>I worked for several hours and then, at ten thirty, I hopped into the Protege 5 and drove out to Warren, New Jersey to work from that office for the day. This is my first time driving to Warren from Peekskill. The trip took ninety minutes. A pretty long commute to do by car.
I discovered when I arrived in Warren that it has been so long since I have last been out that way that my badge had been deactivated. So I had to be signed in for a change.
I was at the office for about half an hour before the team went out for lunch. I have not seen my team is almost three months which is crazy. This is the longest that I have gone without seeing the people with whom I work.
For lunch we drove down to Houlihan’s which has awesome stuffed and fried mushrooms and fish tacos that I really like. It is a common food destination for us.
Overall today was not too busy. As I always do when in Warren, I spent a bit of the day just going around and catching up with everyone.
We had a pretty major re-organization at work today. Re-orgs only affect me minimally since I am not an employee but a consultant. It’s times like this that being a consultant is so much less stressful. In reality, this particular re-org is probably good for my long term career in the financial industry because it gives me an opportunity to work with the equities business in addition to fixed income in which I have been working for the last three years.
I left Warren at five thirty and got to Peekskill around a quarter after seven or maybe a little later. The trip back in rush hour was not nearly as the drive in. On the way home I stopped at Stop and Shop to pick up ingredients for Oreo’s food for the week.
After I returned home we cooked Oreo’s food, ate dinner and watched some of the Mary Tyler Moore show’s third season.
Liesl was excited to see me when I got home but it was not too long before she was asleep. Oreo was so excited that I had to play with him for several hours. He really misses me when I am gone.
This evening we finally set up the Wii Fit balance board and tried using the Wii Fit. We probably put an hour and a half into it between Dominica and I. In addition to learning how to use it we each set up our profiles and did thirty minutes of exercising. They do a good job of making the Wii Fit actually give you a work out. We were both sweating by the time that we were done. I am going to be soar tomorrow.
I am working the early shift again tomorrow and then working starting at seven in the morning on Saturday. Later, on Saturday, Jenn and Angelo are coming up from Philadelphia to visit us. They have not seen the new house or Liesl yet. Angelo and I have not even had a chance to meet yet.
It was realy late by the time that Dominica and I finally got to bed. It was probably one in the morning or possibly later. Another night of practically no sleep for me.
]]>3 Work Days Left for Dominica.
Today was one of the busiest, craziest days in a long time. So much to tell, I am going to put the headlines for the day here for those without time to keep up. Today: Dominica’s grandfather passed away, Dominica and I moved from Newark to Peekskill, Dominica got a Playstation 3 and Wii Fit for her belated birthday and my dad and my aunt Sharon came to Peekskill to visit.
Last night, Dominica and I stayed up packing until well after two thirty in the morning. It was probably around three when we finally got to bed. Way too late. Neither of us really slept at all either as we knew that we were not going to really get any sleep and there was just so much to do today.
We were awoken by the building’s fire alarm. We should have guessed that this would happen. The universe was not about to let us make it out of Newark without another fire alarm. So instead of sleeping in until the last minute we were very much awake at six fifty five in the morning with almost no sleep. This is going to make for a very long day indeed.
Since the fire alarm got woken us up we decided that it just made sense to get up and to get moving since there was just so much to do today. A crazy amount of stuff.
The movers arrived just before ten which worked out perfectly for us as it gave us almost three hours to work on the apartment and to get all of the last minute stuff packed and ready. Had they arrived right at eight it might have been pretty rough.
Before the movers arrived I walked over to Airlie Cafe and picked up breakfast. The owner of Airlie bought breakfast for us as today is the last day that they know for sure that we are going to be in town. Airlie is one of the few things in Newark that we are going to miss.
I also took the chance while the Mazda was out (Dominica forgot to cancel it for this morning) to load it up with as much stuff as we were sure was going to travel in it. My office desktops and the bin of our last minute office equipment like my office router and final monitor went into the car so that they would be out of the way of the movers and ready for us to drive them up to Peekskill.
The movers arrived at ten in the morning and got straight to work. They moved our boxes and furniture all out to their truck in just two hours. Very impressive considering that they needed to go down sixteen stories by way of the elevator to get between the apartment and the truck.
The biggest problem of the morning arose when the smoke detectors (separate from the fire alarms) started going off on our floor. They weren’t going off as if there was smoke but the way that they always do in Eleven80 – just beeping every 20 – 30 seconds for no reason. Two alarms in our apartment and at least three out in the hall were going off. Each individual beep sent Oreo into a panic. The poor thing. We were forced to spend over an hour with him locked in the bathroom with the shower running to cover the sound. He was completely terrified and shaking horribly. It was very sad.
At noon we hopped into the Mazda and headed north for Peekskill. It is a cold and rainy day today. Not ideal for moving but better than if it was too warm.
We got to the new house and unloaded the Mazda. We had about an hour to relax before the movers arrived to unload the truck. The unloading started off pretty smoothly with the basement office getting moved in early.
It was around three thirty, while the unloading had just begun, that dad and aunt Sharon arrived at the house. They had left Leicester, New York at nine thirty this morning. So the trip took them almost exactly six hours, but they had spent much of the time driving at no more than thirty miles per hour as they came through southern western New York in heavy snows, especially near Binghamton. So dad estimates that in good weather the trip will take between five and five and a half hours. Google Maps puts the trip at just under five and a half.
Just minutes after dad and aunt Sharon arrived at the house, Dominica’s phone rang with her mother calling to tell her that her maternal grandfather, Papa, had passed away last night. He was at home, apparently watching the World Series, when he just went peacefully. Dominica was, of course, a mess and unable to continue helping with the unloading of the truck so most of everything was just brought into the living room as I wasn’t sure where a lot of it should go.
Originally Dominica had an appointment with her midwife and clinic at four fifteen this afternoon – less than an hour from when she found out about her grandfather. So she had to call and cancel the appointment. That is a bit of a problem because we already had to push off the appointment from last week and she is so far along that not seeing her midwife for any amount of time can be problematic. It is especially necessary for her to get an appointment as this is the appointment where they make decisions about her job and when she is or is not able to keep working. Planning and scheduling needs to be done and Dominica is getting stressed not knowing what is going to happen and when. She was unable to schedule another appointment as the schedule this week is really unknown and she is really upset today and really just can’t make that decision yet. So that is up in the air right now.
The move wrapped up by five. We were really happy with the movers from Suddath in Wayne, New Jersey and United Van Lines. The whole move went very easily and smoothly. That was so painless!
For dinner we all went over to the New City Diner on Crompond Road. It was the quickest, easiest place to go – one of the very few restaurants that Dominica and I know how to get to. After dinner we went down to the Beach Shopping Center so that Dominica could run into the dollar store there to pick up some shower supplies. While we were at the plaza I ran into GameStop to check out what they had since I am on the hunt for Dominica’s very late birthday present.
We were in luck that GameStop had what we needed so I bought Dominica a Sony PlayStation 3, the PS3 BluRay Remote Control (so that the unit works more like a BluRay Player than a video game console) as well as Wii Fit for the Nintendo Wii which she really wants and almost no one has in stock. I’ve been concerned about being able to get the Wii Fit for Christmas and now we already have it!
Dominica was very surprised to suddenly have a PS3. She seems to have been secretly wanting one for reasons beyond its ability to play BluRay movies. In fact, she seems to not even be that concerned about being able to watch BluRays and is more focused on being able to get some games for it even though neither of us really knows any games that we really would want for it. I was going to get Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion – Game of the Year Edition but they did not have any a the store so I will need to get that online tomorrow.
She was very excited to be able to get a Wii Fit as she has been wanting one but they have been sold out everywhere and seem to be pretty much impossible to find. Even Amazon doesn’t have any. I had thought about getting it for her for Christmas but I am assuming that she will want to use it some after the baby comes in a few weeks and it will be pretty much impossible to hide from her between now and Christmas. So I just gave it to her tonight.
We went back to the house and dad and aunt Sharon set about working on the nursery. There is a lot of painting and wall work that needs to be done this week – especially in the nursery. There was a wallpaper border in the nursery that was the first thing to come down. Aunt Sharon actually managed to get the border all down this evening!
Dominica worked on unpacking. There is a ton of unpacking to do and it will take us a few weeks before we even begin to get through any amount of it, but at least today we have a nice start. A lot of stuff just needs to be nicely boxed, protected and moved into the attic.
Dominica had called into the office this morning to talk to them about her back. Her back was really hurting last night while we were packing and she was sure that after a whole day of packing today that she would need tomorrow to recover or else she might be in far worse shape. So she called her manager first thing this morning and asked what the office situation was like tomorrow. He said that they were fine so it would be no problem if she took a sick day. So she is off and we are able to stay in Peekskill tonight! Now we get to be the first (or among the first at least) people to stay in our new home (since we bought it.)
I spoke to Maids on Call today and scheduled them to come out on Thursday afternoon to Newark to clean the apartment. That is a real relief. They will be doing the final cleaning so that we can get out of the apartment on Friday morning. That is one less thing that we need to worry about before we are done with this very long week.
Tomorrow morning I will be experimenting with taking Metro North from Peekskill to Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan and then the 4 & 5 Subway line from Grand Central to Wall Street. This will be my first time ever riding the Metro North train or using Grand Central Terminal. So who knows how that will go. I’m nervous that this is going to be really complex and time consuming which will be awful as the quality of life in our new home is really dependent upon the quality of the commute into the city.
Andy called tonight to let me know that email and instant messaging is down. I had no idea since I am in the new house without any Internet access (we get hooked up with Optimum Online tomorrow morning if all goes well.) Talk about awful timing. Apparently it has been down all afternoon and I was just now finding out. Craptastic. (Or, as Katie would say, craptacular.)
I spent an hour or two, while everyone else was working on the house, working with Andy by phone or attemting to use SSH from my BlackBerry to fix the server. We had no luck doing any repairs tonight but were able to determine that it was not our fault but that the data center had, either intentionally or through gross incompetence, power cycled my entire rack of servers! Almost all of the servers had been about to flip a full year of uptime this weekend too. So it was pretty obvious that they had all just restarted a few hours earlier. Email and IM simply didn’t turn back on.
Andy called the data center several times but couldn’t get anyone on the phone or to get anyone to respond to voicemail. This indicates that they probably allowed the entire data center to lose power and everyone under the sun is calling them to yell at them and to get things fixed. What a long day.
The really exciting thing today is that we got to sleep in our new home. The movers set up our bedroom so we have our bed and everything so we can sleep pretty comfortably. We tried to get to bed early but didn’t succeed so well. We went to bed around ten thirty or so.
]]>10 Work Days Left for Dominica; House closing scheduled in 4 days.
“I consider my ability to arouse enthusiasm among men the greatest asset I possess. The way to develop the best that is in a man is by appreciation and encouragement.” – Charles Schwab
Only two weeks to go until we are into the “baby could come any day” zone. Sure the baby could arrive any day already but the “official baby window” starts in about two to three weeks. Once we are in that window the baby has a pretty good likelihood of arriving at any moment. We should just be done moving when we enter “the window.”
The weather is much nicer today. An actual autumn day. I got up as Dominica was leaving to go to work so that I could get ready and head into the office. I spent a little bit of time before leaving just checking my emails and getting Handbrake set up to run throughout the day.
On the ride in this morning I began reading the classic 1936 “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie. It is quite the classic.
I had a busy morning and was very excited when one o’clock rolled around and it was time to head to the gym. I am feeling really good today. I am really loving this whole gym thing. I needed a locker lock and Dan needed to buy some goggles so we took a “quick” one and a half mile detour on foot up to Modell’s to pick up our supplies before heading south to the gym at Battery Park.
I got a really good workout today. The gym was a little busier than I have seen it other days so I was “stuck” in the fast lane with multiple people swimming so that we had to do traditional circular swimming which makes it far less easy to take a break between laps. That pushed me to do more than I might have done had I been there on my own. It was a good workout and I am looking forward to Monday. On Monday I am intending to officially join the gym. This week was a free trial.
I spoke to Katie today. She has open enrollment at the gym starting November 1st so she is planning to get a membership as well and will be swimming with me from time to time. I am not sure if Dan is going to be able to join the club or not but he really likes it there and wants to use that has his health club. Overall we were really impressed with the club all week. The people there are great.
Lunch was a gigantic salad from a shop down near the gym. Yummy.
No sooner was I back to the office and only halfway through my giant salad than I was grabbed to head down to the chocolate shop for hot chocolates to celebrate the chaning of the seasons. I got quite the extensive walking done today. This has to be a record day for me of late.
I worked at the office until seven thirty. I had originally thought that I was going to be done rather early but one deployment took a really long time and I needed to stay to take care of it. So it was pretty late when I started walking to the PATH station.
There are not too many more times that I need to make this walk to the PATH station. There are only two more weeks of me living in New Jersey and in those two weeks I will only be taking the PATH about five more time. That is weird to think about.
I got home around nine. Dominica is doing a ton of cooking tonight. She made peanut butter and chocolate brownies, BBQ Tofu over chinese noodles and harvest apple salads with apple cider dressing. Quite a delicious dinner. (Don’t worry, the Chinese noodles were not actually made in China.)
We finished watching the second season of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air while we ate. Then we turned on the Wii. I wanted to race Dominica in Mario Kart Wii, but she did not have the energy. So we played around with the Wii shopping system and bought the first episode of the new Strong Bad game (of Homestar Runner fame.) We also found that one of my all time favourite Super Nintendo games, Secret of Mana, is now available for the Wii Virtual Console. I am very excited about this.
The Mana game series is a gaiden, or side story, of Final Fantasy that originally appeared for the Game Boy under the name Final Fantasy Adventure (a.k.a. Seiken Densetsu) in 1991. I bought this original Final Fantasy Adventure on the Game Boy when it first released and was one of my favourite Game Boy titles and one of the rare games that I actually played all of the way through.
I bought Secret of Mana in 1994 shortly after its release in North America. It was one of the games that I took to college with me. I did not have a television or computer at college that first year and all that I had was my Super Nintendo and a 13″ monitor on which to play it. Secret of Mana was my favourite game at the time. It was a really great game and I am very excited to be able to play it on the Virtual Console.
I am encouraged that Secret of Mana is now out for the VC. This is the first, serious RPG to be released for the Virtual Console and I am hopeful that with enough interest from the gaming community that more will follow. So far the only games available on the VC have been silly action games and puzzle games in which I am not interested. There have been a few Nintendo 64 games that were interesting but very, very few. The Super Nintendo, being one of the great classic RPG platforms along with the original Playstation, has an amazing catalogue of awesome titles that have the potential to be released but thus far have all but been ignored. I am excited to potentially see games that were previously Japan-only releases such as Seiken Densetsu 3 or Mother 3 (a.k.a. EarthBound 2.)
I have to work early tomorrow morning. Eight o’clock as usual. Then, at noon, I have a dentist appointment and Dominica has one at one thirty. Other than that, it is a packing day for us.
]]>We slept in a bit this morning. As you can imagine, I was pretty tired after having stayed up so late working last night. I am glad that I did, though, as I got some really great work done and was able to do a bit of my homework for the week. This week is purely discussion based work for school and almost no one is discussing anything which makes it extra difficult. So I posted some discussion material and am hoping that that will kick off some people to respond today so that I will have people to have an actual back and forth conversation with.
We called Ramona at eleven as we were planning on doing brunch. She was ready and we tried to leave right away but it ended up taking a full hour to get our car from valet services. They always go down to just two valets on busy Sunday mornings and it is always one poor girl working as hard as she can and one guy who isn’t quite sure what is going on and not really being helpful at all. They are supposed to have three people on at all times but effectively only have one on Sunday mornings. It has become quite a problem.
It was twelve thirty when we finally got over to Ramona’s crib in the Ironbound. We picked her up and drove down to Elizabeth. Dominica was in the mood for Perkins (apricot syrup craving, I am guessing) but when we got there the parking lot was packed and there was a twenty-five minute wait for seating so we decided to just go on to the Seaside Diner where we usually go (which I prefer anyway.)
We came back to Eleven80. I walked Oreo and then took a walk down to GameStop on Broad in Newark, just two blocks away from us which is awesome, and picked up Mario Kart Wii and two extra steering wheel “controllers” for a total of three.
Dominica and Ramona watched Stir Crazy which Ramona had from Netflix. I worked with Andy for a while, caught up on SGL, did some homework, did some eBay shopping (it has been a very good eBay week for the HP d530 units), managed the Handbrake process and more. No breaktime for me. They ended up being pretty unimpressed by the movie. Actually, “awful” is how they described it, I am pretty sure.
Dominica did laundry today. I did the dishes.
Ramona left around six. She had a show in the city to go to. The city is, of course, Manhattan. It is funny living in a major US city, the largest in the state, in fact, and calling the city two cities away “the city”. Dominica did some work on her homework and we ordered in dinner from Nino’s. Min was going to cook dinner but she had to cook Oreo’s dinner tonight and that keeps the kitchen busy and uses up a bunch of her time. So instead of cooking we just ordered in.
My night consisted of homework, of which there was not all that much, and web site work. It was light work tonight but more was done and I am happy about that. I did play Mario Kart Wii for about forty-five minutes before Dominica went to bed. It is pretty cool. The game itself isn’t amazingly groundbreaking compared to the Game Cube or Nintendo DS versions (we have it for the DS as well.) What makes the make really awesome is just how easy it is to play it online against other people. The DS is supposed to work online but I tried it once and it failed and I sort of gave up on the process. Nintendo didn’t have the online setup system working at that point. Now it works beautifully. You just say that you want to play against some people online and the game takes care of all of the details setting up a twelve person race for you to compete in for points. Quite fun. It is so much nicer playing online that just against the Wii itself. This really changes this type of game significantly. I can see myself playing this pretty regularly.
]]>We met up with Ramona and Winni around noon. We would have been over there sooner but our valets today completely fell apart and it took us fifty-five minutes to get out car out of the garage and we had to go over there and get it ourselves. Then we had to fight with the managers in the garage who just couldn’t understand that we wanted to be able to drive our car and that holding it hostage was not acceptable. The turn around time on a car is supposed to be just fifteen minutes and waiting almost and hour and having to walk to Military Park to get the car ourselves on a slow Sunday afternoon when there should have been more than ample time is really a problem.
The four of us drove down to Elizabeth, New Jersey to try to find some board games at Toys R Us. But really shopping in Elizabeth is not the best place to find intellectual games and the store there was completely devoid of them. We did pick up Mad Gab which Dominica and I learned to play while we were last visiting my family in Ohio. So then we were off to breakfast.
We discovered a diner in Elizabeth that we ended up really liking. The food was good and inexpensive and the people there were really nice. We will definitely be going back there again. They also had fried New Jersey crab cakes on mac and cheese which I have not had since going to the Omega Diner down in North Brunswick more than a year ago.
We hit Best Buy because our wireless access point hasn’t been working recently and it was always a bit problematic. So we decided to just pick up an Apple AirPort Extreme to use as our wireless. It wasn’t cheap but it is attractive and supposedly works extremely well so we decided to just give it a try. It has an included Gigabit Ethernet switch which might be nice depending on how we end up using the system. The AirPort also supports 802.11n which is makes it the first device that we have that will do that.
We recently decided that we are moving our home “entertainment system” over to Apple Mac and AppleTV based so the AirPort Extreme plays into that very well. Our short term plan is to get a Mac Mini for the living room which we will use as our “iTunes Server” and to keep using our AppleTV in our bedroom as our remote television station. Eventually, if and when we manage to get a house again we expect that we will have a guest bedroom and, in that case, we will add another AppleTV to add television to that room as well. We have a plan and it seems to work pretty well.
What I wish that Apple would now do, considering the pieces of the system that they have in place already, is design and build a dedicated “iTunes Media Server”. The ITMS unit idea would be that it would be a standalone unit with four hard drives (up to four terabytes of raw storage or three terabytes with RAID 5) that runs iTunes internally and is used to feed program content out to AppleTV, FrontRow or iTunes on Windows. It should also have one or two USB connections that could be used for syncing an iPod. The interface would be controlled by iTunes on Windows or Mac (or Linux, hint, hint) but all data would be handled local on the ITMS. The iTunes on the ITMS would run continuously so that no computer would need to be left on in order for subscription content to be downloaded at any time day or night. I believe that this is a key component missing from Apple’s iTunes and AppleTV strategy. And I also think that if they decide to build such a device that they should send me one for free for coming up with the idea (hint, hint.) Other possible features of the ITMS could be the inclusion of Time Capsule compatibility, a built in AirPort wireless access point and possibly even routing capabilities to make this truly an all-in-one unit. Although I would prefer it without all of the extra capability with the exception of the Time Capsule feature which I think is perfect for this device and ends up filling another important gap in the Apple lineup – that of RAID protected Time Capsule storage.
We came back to Eleven80 and set up the AirPort so that we could put Ramona and Winni’s laptops online and we taught Dominica how to play Settlers of Catan online. We ended up having someone from Slovakia jump into our game. He was rather annoying but it gave Dominica a chance to learn to play with Ramona sitting with her and showing her how to play. It worked really well and Dominica ended up completely demolishing everyone.
We had a small shipment from Amazon arrive today too. I am guessing that it actually arrived yesterday and we just failed to check the mail. We received the first season of A Different World and the second half of the fourth season of Family Guy. I also got “Lake Wobegon U.S.A.” which is the third in a collection of “News from Lake Wobegon” Audio CD collections. The other two in the series are “News from Lake Wobegon” and “More News from Lake Wobegon”. They are generally considered to be roughly the best fifteen hours of the classic “News from Lake Wobegon” stories. I also got the book “Agile Retrospectives” which I have been looking forward to reading for a while.
We ordered in dinner from Dominos. And then it was back to Settlers. The game took a while to play (we are playing to thirteen points) and that was all the more time that we had tonight. Ramona and Winni headed back home at eleven thirty on the Eleven80 shuttle.
]]>While I was at GameStop, though, I did pick up some needed supplies like the Classic Controller for the Wii which allows us to play games that are downloaded via the Wii’s Virtual Console (you can store them onto an SD memory card.) The games are normally re-releases of NES, SNES, Nintendo 64, Sega Genesis / MegaDrive, Neo Geo or TurboGrafx 16 games. I think that they need to figure out how to emulate the Sega Saturn. That would probably have a few games (Panzer Dragoon, anyone?) that people would really be willing to shell out for. Perhaps the games are too large or the Wii doesn’t have the power to emulate the Saturn. I also think that they should get it to emulate the Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance systems. Those games are small and I bet that there are many people who would be happy to be able to play some of their favourite games on the big screen for a change. My plan is to get Paper Mario for the Nintendo 64 via the Virtual Console to try out the system. This is a handy list of all games available for the virtual console.
I also picked up a third party wireless GameCube controller to use with the Wii. The biggest draw, for me, in getting the Wii is that it is able to play Nintendo GameCube games. Since I never owned a GameCube I am now able to go and get all of the old GC games used very inexpensively and have a nice collection of just the best games after all of the wheat has been separated from the chaff after years of people playing these games. So in addition to the wireless controller I picked up three games for the system that Dominica will be very happy with: Super Mario Sunshine, The Legend of Zelda: The Four Swords Adventure and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. She pretty much has the definitive Zelda collection sans the old Game Boy titles in the series. We own the GBA remakes of the original three titles (Z1 and Z2 from the NES and Z3 from the SNES), all of the N64 titles (the collector’s editions even), all of the GBA original titles, all of the GC titles (as of today) and the one Wii title. There is one new game for the DS that is just now out that she does not have yet.
Dominica and I made some Christmas plans today. The plan is that we are going to leave New Jersey on December 21st, that is Friday, after work and drive up to Frankfort and spend the night at Dominica’s parents’ house. In the morning they will take Oreo by car and drive with him to Houston, Texas. Hopefully that long of a trip with Dexter panicking will not teach Oreo to worry about car travel. Then Min and I will go to my dad’s house that Saturday morning and stay there until Christmas morning.
At six in the morning on Christmas day Dominica and I are flying out of Rochester to go to Houston to meet everyone there for Christmas. I will be working both from “home” and from the Houston office while we are down there. It will give me a chance to scope out the Houston facility. We will be in Houston all week and will come back the weekend after Christmas. Dominica will ride back with her parents and Oreo and I will most likely fly back to Newark but might ride back with them as well. While in Houston I will be working from Williams Tower – the fourth tallest building in the state of Texas and the fourth tallest in Houston and the tallest outside of downtown (Williams Tower is in the heart of uptown.)
I ordered my textbook for my class from Amazon today. It turns out that one of my two remaining textbooks for my class is available online through the university so I only need to buy one of the four since I already own the other two (and have read them both in the bast nine months.) I overnighted the textbook so that I can work on my homework this weekend easily. I can’t be falling behind or I will never catch up again.
My day was pretty busy today. Lot’s of work rolling in all day long. I can never decide if I should be coming into the office to “be in the office” or staying home to actually get work done.
Tomorrow, after work, we are planning on having a Dungeons & Dragons game at our apartment but, at the moment, we have no managed to secure a dungeon master yet nor do Dominica and I even have so much as dice to play with so we are in pretty rough shape. We are waiting to see how this plays out. Tomorrow night is rather up in the air at the moment.
The chair that Dominica ordered from Target had a matching love seat that is currently on sale so we needed to make a decision about it before we got the chair. We decided to just bite the bullet and get the loveseat too. So now we are going to be going from a rather spartan living room to a rather cozy one with a lot of seating locations. But no television to watch yet so just a lot of seating. Hopefully we can address that after Christmas spending is over or when the year end budget is a little more clear. Getting the chair and loveseat didn’t help things any.
After work Dominica took Oreo to the vet for his regular checkup. So far he is looking to be pretty healthy. They love him at the vet. He is everyone’s favourite little boy.
I got back to Newark around seven and walked over to GameStop on my way home (it isn’t really on the way home) and found out that Wiis had come in this morning just ten or fifteen minutes after I had left there! No Wii love for us I guess. I did pick up a memory card for the GameCube that I had forgotten about this morning and also got Skies of Arcadia Legends and Tales of Symphonia for the GameCube used.
I also walked over to the comic book shop on Broad in the hopes that they would carry game dice but neither do they appear to carry them nor were they open. It was a lot of walking for me this evening.
I got home and ordered in pizza from Nino’s for dinner. Dominica was home just minutes after me. She had done some shopping and had not found any dice either but had, finally, managed to find a ten foot long white grounded extension cord.
Dinner arrived and we hooked up the GameCube stuff and started playing Skies of Arcadia Legends. We have the original Skies of Arcadia for Dreamcast but this very has the wireless controller, no disk swapping and supposedly better graphics. We only got about thirty minutes into the game tonight though but so far it looks pretty good.
Ryan came over to test out some of his stereo equipment that he was having problems with. His “new” stereo from eBay is having issues and he wanted to see how ours was working to verify which piece of equipment is not functioning correctly.
After Ryan left we tried using the Wii Virtual Console and downloaded the Nintendo 64 version of Paper Mario. Neither of us ever player this game back when the N64 was our main systems (we each independently had the Nintendo 64 back in the day.) Dominica had never even heard of it. We fired it up and it played well. The graphics are very impressive for the N64. This must have been quite the game in its day. It was released in the United States in early 2001.
We were tired and were off to sleep a little earlier than usual.
]]>Games that we have on the Nintendo Wii:
And for the Wii’s WiiWare platform:
And for the Wii emulation platforms:
Download the SGL Podcast Episode 54 – MP3
Download the SGL Podcast Episode 54 – Ogg Vorbis
The theme of today’s show is Buttkicking Celtic Rock from Winnipeg, Manitoba (that’s in Canada.) It is a Celtic drinking song theme. All of today’s music is from the Dust Rhinos.
In today’s show we talk a little more about the Nintendo Wii, the Sony PS3 and our new PS2! We discuss the weather in the Northeast United States. And we talk about the Creative Zen Vision M and the Creative Zen Vision W as well as the Audacity audio editing software. Oreo got hurt during the making of the show (but not as a result of it) and so the show got spread out over two days. At the current time he is not able to walk on his rear right leg. He is putting on a brave face though.
Today’s Music:
Dust Rhinos: Sailing with the Captain, Jedi Drinking Test and New York Girls Live
Lascivious Biddies: MS Walk Announcement
At the time that the podcast was made the podOmatic site was unavailable and we were not able to post it there as well. I will post that version (the MP3 96kb/s version) as soon as the site is working again.
Misc:
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