This season's for the birds

I got to watch just about all of the football games this weekend (to Pam's delight). Until the Steelers won in the late game, the underdog won all the football games. So right now we have the Cardinals, Eagles, Ravens, and Steelers in the conference championship game so it ought to be pretty interesting. Just off the top of my head, I'm predicting a Steelers - Eagles Super Bowl with the Steelers winning it.

During commercial breaks I installed Vista on my computer. I'm actually really liking it. It seems to run slightly faster than XP did (although it really needed a cleaning) and the Aero interface is nice and purty :). Obviously there are a few issues like UAC and my printer not working but I disabled UAC and I'm probably going to buy another printer anyways that DOESN'T clog up after 3 days. I'm getting used to it and honestly I don't see what the fuss is about now. Yeah, it DID suck when it first came out but so did XP, I remember having to throw away a bunch of games because they wouldn't play right in XP when I got it way back in 2002. Right now, every single program works but one and that works in XP compatibility mode.

The only other hardware problem I am having is that the eSata port on my Seagate external drive is recognized by Windows but Windows can't communicate with it. I think it's a problem with the drive or cable personally but it worked fine in XP and now it's shit in Vista. I don't know what the deal is. I kinda want to sell it and get a terabyte internal drive. I only got the external drive for storage because I didn't have sata ports on my computer at the time. Now I have a ton of them so there's no need for an external drive. I don't really take it anywhere, it's too bulky for that. I can get about $100.00 for the drive and either turn that into a 1TB drive or another 500 GB and a portable 100-200MB drive if I really needed a portable. However, if the interface is broke, I should probably send it to Seagate. Unfortunately that costs money. Wonder if I can talk them into just RMA'ing the interface (it's removable). Hmmmmmm.

I never did get Windows 7 installed, but I do have the official iso and product key. Maybe sometime this week or weekend I'll check it out and let you (the non-existant reader) know how it is.

I did however check out Playstation Home finally. I'm not incredibly impressed. The interface is pretty nice and some of games are nice. You can play pool, bowling, or one of 3 arcade games in the Bowling alley. However the downside is that there is a finite amount of game cabinets, pool tables, and lanes so you are always waiting to get on a game. They may have multiple servers to split the load, but it's hidden to you and there's no way to switch. The character creator is pretty robust, however you're very limited in clothes and furniture. Currently you have to purchase just about everything which ranges from .49 to 2.49 (for clothes from Diesel). You can get a bigger home for 4.99 and furniture which mostly costs 1.99 to 2.99. I don't really see myself using it too much to justify spending money on it. You do get freebies from certain games by hitting a certain score. I wish to hell that they would take another cue from Microsoft and convert trophies to points that you can spend in the Playstation store. I have 43 trophies from Fallout 3. I would glady spend those points on something if I had them, but I'm not so freaking rich that I can buy designer clothes for my digital avatar :)

I'm really digging the new season of 24. You had to figure the government would eventually crack down on the actions of CTU, I think it's stupid that they would try to make Jack the fall guy but even in the first 4 hours there's been so many twists that I'm crosseyed.


Jack's on trial, now he's working for the FBI, Tony Almeida's alive and a terrorist, there a mole in the FBI, an African warlord is blackmailing the US with a device that can crash any plane mess with the power grid, etc., Tony's captured, turns out he's undercover and a good guy. Jack breaks him out, finds out that Bill Buchanan and Chloe are the only two who know about this. Jack and Tony go undercover and try to kidnap an African Prime Minister.


I like it because right now we have a break from Arab terrorists and nukes. That had gotten a little stale. Although, once again they are resorting to having a mole in the agency. Don't they keep up on their people? Seriously this has happened in every season :(. Can't the terrorists almost succeed because of incompetence and not inside help?

I gots to get back to work because, I'M RUNNING OUT OF TIME!!!!!

Other than that, it was pretty uneventful. I barely touched Fallout, I need to get the last 8 trophies so I can work on something else.

Do I eat this or put it on my face? My back hurts?

So it was an interesting weekend. We got a load of freezing rain on Saturdy so everything was covered in a nice coat of slippery ice Sunday. I perfomed a triple back sommersault with a twist down the stairs but I completely messed up the landing. The Chinese judge wasn't impressed and scored a 7.5. It's OK, though. My back broke my fall and is feeling awesome right now. Which is to say it hurts. A lot.

Unfortunately it's not helping with exercising. I'm trying to get down to 250 by the end of the year and I seem to be gaining weight despite eating better and exercising. I know it fluctuates and I could check right now and be 3 pounds under where I was this morning but it's still depressing.

Speaking of dieting, The Daily Plate and Traineo are helping me track my calorie intake. It's working out pretty well except I have to create every meal for the first time because we made it from raw ingredients. Hopefully the weight starts going down soon. I'm also using Joe's Goals for some of the more basic tasks I want to improve upon, like brushing teeth, reading to the girls before bed, etc.

I managed to catch parts of all 4 NFL playoff games but not any whole one. I'm pissed that I fell asleep during the Indy - S.D. game, sounds like it was exciting. I did manage to watch most of the Fiesta Bowl last night. Surprisingly Texas did not wipe Ohio State off the map. This was actually one of the more compelling bowl games this year. It was back and forth all the way with Texas shredding the Buckeyes defense in the last 2 minutes to win the game.

If I do have one gripe about college football, it's the bands. I understand it's tradition and all that, but first of all, the Texas band's uniforms are just silly looking. I get that Texas was primarily known for ranching and stuff, but they look like cheap ass Howdy Doody knockoffs. Secondly, is it really necessary for the bands to play their drums everytime a first down is made, or it's late in the game, or it's 3rd down, 4th down, the coach is yelling, end of the quarter, etc. It's irritating. The sound board guy needs to turn that crap down because it's distracting me from the game. And you, Ohio State, look like a bunch of re-re's dressed like white Black Panthers. Black isn't even on of the football team's uniform colors. Also, why is Texas, dressed like idiot cowboys, playing Led Zeppelin? THAT. DOES NOT. MAKE. SENSE!

We also went out and got Singstar for PS3. It's not too bad. Essentially instead of rendering your character rocking out like Guitar Hero or Rockband, they play the music video with the notes overlaid on top. I prefer Rock Band because the words match up more closely with the notes like so (it's hard to see but it's at the top):

vs. Singstar

Also in each games there are sections where it judges you on speaking the words (mostly rap songs). Rock Band isn't as strict on this. "Epic" by Faith No More is in both games and in Rock Band I can get 100% on Easy, in Singstar the rapping part of the verses grades me as awful on Easy. Rock Band 2 is supposed to have even better recognition. I can't wait to get my hands on that. They have "Master Exploder" by Tenacious D on there. I would rule that song ! :)

The good things about Singstar are that:

-You can load songs from any of the other Singstar games, many of which are sitting at Gamestop used for $15-20. (You can do this with Rock Band as well, but the discs cost more)

-People can upload videos of themselves performing. This is mostly for your amusement, not for your use, because people will laugh at you if you do it :)

-The downloadable content is slightly cheaper, however it's limited to a lot of Sony's artists and personally there's nothing I'm too crazy about, but there's about 450 songs for download right now vs. 100 something for Rock Band

Anyways, that's been keeping Pam and I busy, so yes I still haven't tried out Home yet. It's on my to-do list for the weekend. I'm hoping by then I may have all the trophies in Fallout 3 and then can concentrate on something else.

Well, duty calls, so I'm off to say the day!