Who wants to be a Super Hero?  

Posted by Roland

If you havent heard of Who wants to be a Super Hero? then umm, I got nuthin'. Anyway, its a new reality tv series on SciFi. Stan Lee is the host and producer and tests real people on their super hero worth. The winner gets their super hero persona in their own comic book. Its kinda cheesy (Hey, its real people dressed in costumes running around the city doing good deeds) but *I* like it a lot. My main beef is the editing... you an tell they cut a lot of scenes out so its difficult to judge what's really going on. I heard about the show but then forgot about it... otherwise I maybe woulda tried out myself.

http://www.scifi.com/superhero/

Oh, and as a P.S., I like Eureka too. So there.

Movie, Mowing, and More  

Posted by Roland

Captain's Log...
No wait, I'm not a captain. Never mind. But I'm looking forward to Star Trek : Legacy coming out. I have good hopes for it.

We saw Pirates of the Carribean II : Dead Man's Chest a few nights ago. It was good, but I liked the first one better. #2 seemed a little forced, likely due to the 3rd one following it. It had all the ingredients of the first, but I just think it was overcooked at a high altitude.

I mowed the lawn this morning for the first time since we've been at this house. I used the landlord's gas mower. Man I miss gas mowers. Using my electric one for the last few years was good.. it saved me gas, oil, and a lot of rope pulling. But mowing the yard with a 100' cord attached gets really tiresome. Apparently my electric mower is better vs wet grass than the gas one.

I moved the AC unit from the frontroom to Violet's office. She's in there so often and it gets more hot and humid in there than pretty much anywhere else. Besides, when we do go in the frontroom its usually later in the evening, and she's in her office during the afternoon. It just makes sense the window AC unit should go into her office. Duh.

I dont think I posted this, but I bought a dog runner some weeks back. Bascially a dog runner is a cable line suspended 8' in the air and tied at either end to something. I attached mine to the corner of the house and a tree 80' away. There's a pully type wheel on the cable, and you attach a cable line from yor dog's collar to this wheel. Then the dog can run back and forth and has a LOT more room to roam vs the typical stake in the ground. Well, the dog's don't care for the Dog Runner I bought and installed for them. Little bastages. It wasnt too expensive, and I may trying moving it to see if they just dont like the backyard or something. Im also considering renting a fence, but I have no idea what that kinda thing would cost. So we'll see.

And just in case you think I forgot to bitch about the movers, I discovered today that they apparently forgot my cordless weed trimmer. Bastages.

Dog park  

Posted by Roland

Went for a walk with the doggies at Lowel National Heritage Park.
The park is a narrow (some grass and a sidwalk) but long strip of land following the Merrimack River. Its not too far of a drive and the dogs liked it so Im sure we'll be going back. We needed a place to walk the dogs (and ourselves). They also have a boat launch for jet skis and canoes and such.. But since I have no watercraft this doesnt really matter to me much. I like Jet Skiing OK, but the hobby seems fairly expensive and around here i wouldnt be able to do it very often.

Anyway, that's my ramble of the day.

Daily woes  

Posted by Roland

My moving company sucks. I've been fighting with them all week to try and get a claims form for all the stuff they lost or broke. Even so, their compensation is like, 80 cents a lb.. so my priceless Roland glass stein from Germany (Thanks, Gregor!) broke (Sorry, Gregor) so I'll probably get like 50 cents for it.

Check out this link for how scary the moving company industry is...

http://www.movingscam.com/

Portal  

Posted by Roland

Seen that Portal preview yet? Its pretty cool.
http://www.fileshack.com/file.x/9096/Portal+Game+Trailer/

I'm beginning to like NetFlix. I see why so many people use it.

I'm happy to see City of Heroes / Villains is having a double XP weekend. Too bad I just let mine expire :( But on the bright note, only Violet has a mmo subscription now, and only one (WoW, of course). Now our Mag subsriptions once again outnumber our MMO subscriptions. Hurray!

Titan Quest  

Posted by Roland

I kinda like Titan Quest. Its pretty. It plays similar to Diablo.. go kill things and take their stuff in order to go kill bigger things.

Emmaleth and I were playing Co-Op together last night and that was fun.. I like the skill trees, which helps develop a customized character, but the choices in the skill list are entirely discipline baed. If you want fireballs go with fire and forget about lightning or bows or defense or healing. I guess you can pick a 2ndary discipline later though. Also, I'd like to see more character models (there's only 2. male and female). Specifying the color of your tunic isn't next-gen :) Sometimes targeting a baddie is a click fest.

Anyway, I highly reccommend this game to those that enjoy the monty-hall style of adventuring seen in Diablo. I'm going to make up a new term for this style. Lets call it....

ARROW : Abstract Roleplaying and Real Object Withholding.

OK that was lame.
Something that describes killing hudreds of creatures and looting their stuff in order to kill even more creatures in real time along with some light skill/character/role-playing elements thrown in.

RTL (Real Time Looting)
LRP (Loot Role-playing)
MBA (Monster Bash Action)

The Big Move  

Posted by Roland

OMG I'm posting again. I must be bored. That or I threw my back out when then movers finally arrived. I guess I'm old now.

Back in the BBS days, I'd write pages and pages of stuff. But this whole blog thing.. well, I dunno.. I don't think I care for the style much. Id much rather talk to people via AIM, or Scype. I guess I'm impatient and I don't want to wait for replies. Or maybe I don't think Ill get any replies and so I dont post. Or maybe I dont need that kind of validation because Im pretty happy with how my life is turning out, overall. Good job, great wife, and a fast enough computer to play Internet Checkers. It could be worse.

I've set my homepage to this blog now though so maybe I'll start posting more, we'll see.

The Big Move Part Duex  

Posted by Roland

So I had to ramble before I posted about the move. I guess I'll move on now.

I don't care for New England (I'm north of Boston, MA now).
Its too damp and full of bugs. I'm going to hate the winter.

The new job is working out pretty well, I like it a lot and there's 7 varieties of free diet soda in the kicthen: Diet Dr Pepper, Diet Baqrs Root beer, Biet Canada Dry, Diet Coke, Diet Sprite, Diet Mountain Dew, and Diet Pepsi. Cool beans.

PC Gamer (August 2006) has a nice large E3 report about Star Trek : Legacy on page 42. They gave it an INFERNO, their highest E3 anticipation rating.

Mad Doc planned a trip to Six Flags New England, but due to 5 reasons (Backache, fatigue, 93 deg unshaded heat and high humidity weather, 2 hour drive, huge crowds) we opted out last minute and didn't go.

The movers suck. Never user National Van Lines. I used The Moving Experts, but unknown to me they employed Nat'l movers. Some of our stuff didn't fit in their truck, they tried to rip me off and lied to me (well, they didn't fulfill their promises) on numerous occasions. Also, they broke more things than I care to mention and were 2 days late. And whats up with this "Professional" and "Expert" company using a Enterprise rent a truck with a duct taped cardboard sign that says Nat'l Movers on it? Oh, and several items are missing. And I dont mean "unfound in a box somewhere" I mean not delivered.. like my 2-wheel dolly. Bastages!

I've unpacked some of the kitchen boxes. There's not enough room in this house. I'm glad this is just a rental, but it sure is expensive. We really need to sell our Wisconsin home or we're gonna be in a world of financial hurt soon.

I guess that's enough for now... Maybe Roland's Ramblings will happen more frequently from now on... we'll see.