Living With a Nerd

Things have been going quite well around here.  We are, for the most part, completely moved into the new apartment.  Our game room (seen above) is where we spend most of our free time.  We’re still waiting on our Cozy Sac to arrive in the mail, but other than that this room is put together.  I haven’t had much of a chance to put some time into producing any music, but I have a number of ideas that are formulating in my head. 

I’ve also started writing a short story/novella, just for the hell of it.  It isn’t an entirely original idea, but one that I thought was compelling enough to spend the time to get it down “on paper”.  The main problem is that I’m not that great of a writer, so keeping it interesting AND making it sound decently written has been a challenge.  Still, there is a lot of story to tell…since this is something I’m just doing for fun, I will probably do it slowly over the course of months or even a couple of years…500 words here, 1000 words there, it will get finished whenever it gets finished, no rush.

I’ve also recently started to go back through Fallout 3.  I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve played it before, or I’ve gotten better at gaming in general, or what it is…but for some reason, I’m finding it extremely easy.  I wouldn’t describe my first time through as difficult, but it was certainly harder than this.  With only five hours on my savegame, I already have a hunting rifle at 80% repair, a combat shotgun at 75%, a sniper rifle at 80%, a missile launcher at 65%, and a Chinese assault rifle at 75%.  It took me WAY longer to acquire those weapons (and get them in that condition) my first time through.  The first time I played it was when it launched back in October 2008, so it can’t just be because I remember everything…. ::shrug:: whatever, it doesn’t matter.  The important thing is that I’m still highly enjoying it, especially since I’m doing quests that I overlooked before and have already seen a bunch of stuff I didn’t the first time through.  Oh, and in this particular playthrough, Megaton remains intact:-)

I’m also currently plodding through Summon Night: Twin Age.  It’s…interesting.  Not really digging the all-touch interface, but other than that it’s been mildly entertaining.  Still wishing for a killer game to get into on the DS, but for now Twin Age will suffice.  Look for a review of it sometime in the relatively near future.

We are currently balls deep in the move.  Our apartment is really starting to come to life, with most of the furniture having been put in its proper place.  For the first time in both of our lives, we will have a bedroom that literally has just a bed and two night stands in it…no desks, no TVs, nothing.  Just a bed.  I’m quite excited about this, it will be nice to finally have an actual bedroom.

Why yes, those are folded up cloth Rush and Pink Floyd wall scrolls in the bottom middle part of the picture. Thanks for noticing!

Brittnie has taken over the main room as seen in the picture above, and is slowly transforming it into a work place/library.  Most of our bookshelves have been moved in, and both of her desks are in the main room (there are a few more bookshelves in this room, you just can’t see them in this particular shot.)  While her dream of having a room set aside exclusively for book storage and a comfortable reading spot hasn’t quite been fulfilled, this is as close as she will get until we move into an actual house.  It’s turning out quite nicely…a large, open space in the middle, the walls lined with books, the subtle natural lighting coming in through the windows…it’s an awesome setup, and will be a welcoming first sight when arriving after a long day of work.

This picture was taken the day after we signed the lease agreement, hence the lack of desks or...well, anything else. That whole window has been filled with books now, and there is actual furniture in here. There is still an additional 7 feet of room to the left of those windows, which is currently occupied by bookshelves that will soon be joined by a white dresser.

The fireplace is a nice touch, and will likely get plenty of use in the cold winter months (or when we have documents that need to be destroyed, heh.)  The best part are the windows: check out the picture above.  That’s right, our windows have bookshelves built in!  We plan on filling them up to the brim.  It should look real nice, plus it will add a little bit of insulation to the aging windows.

Panasonic TC-L42U12 on a teak pedestal thingie. My computer desk is going to go against the wall on the left, while the hutch currently on my desk will instead be against the wall next to the TV. Older game systems (SNES, Genesis, Dreamcast, PS2, etc) will go in the teak thingie. Still need to hang pictures/posters. Gonna be sweeeeet when it's done.

Even though it is technically a space we will both be using for movies, I have the equivalent of a man-cave.  The larger of the two bedrooms has been designated as my space.  The huge not-quite walk-in closet provides ample storage space, and the room juts out onto the edge of the building…meaning one wall is against our bedroom, one wall is against our living room, and the remaining two walls face nature.  Talk about perfect for an entertainment room!  The Panasonic TC-L42U12 flatscreen does decently with gaming…there is some slight ghosting, but nothing I won’t get used to.  The real reason I bought it is because it provides some of the best skin tone reproduction and movie picture quality I have ever seen on a TV even remotely near its price.  Like I said, it does pretty well with gaming, but this is a TV begging to have movies watched on it.  Considering our Netflix habit, this was a logical buying decision.  The sound it puts out is surprisingly good for a TV as well…it’s a little empty on the midrange, and the highs are slightly tinny, but you will be hard pressed to find better sounding built-in speakers on a TV under $2000.

So, overall things are coming together quite nicely.  Tomorrow is the day we move the rest of the furniture in…and then we begin the arduous task of getting the rest of our books and not-small DVD collection organized.  It’s going to be one hell of a sweet pad when it’s finished.

Things have been crazy around here lately.  Work has been consuming a large portion of my mental capacity, which is why there haven’t been any new articles in quite a while.  I’m going to put some serious time into writing this weekend, to get things back on track.  It’s been a relief not worrying about the website, but it’s time to bring things back to normal.  Starting Monday, our normal posting schedule will resume. 

With her tax return, Brittnie decided to pick up Guitar Hero 5 and an extra guitar for me.  I had only played Guitar Hero a couple of times before, and have never owned a rhythm game, just like Brittnie.  For once, we had a game where our skills were about equal.  In the 5 days since we got it, it’s pretty much all we’ve done at home.  We have both progressed fairly quickly, with myself already getting 95% on “Sweating Bullets” from Megadeth on medium, while Brittnie is getting quite comfortable playing bass for any song on medium (she always plays bass, I play guitar.)  It feels almost like I’m late to the party since I never really got into the whole rhythm game thing when it was big, but whatever…we are enjoying ourselves quite a lot.  The last time we gamed this much together every night in a row was right after we got our Wii.  She picked up World Tour two days ago because of all the classic rock on there, so that has been super fun.  I noticed that World Tour is easier than Guitar Hero 5, although the leap in graphics between World Tour and 5 is immense.  Haven’t unlocked the Tool songs yet, but we are actively working towards doing so.

Hopefully, I’ll get out to the movies this weekend and see either Wolfman or Shutter Island.  Look for a review in the coming days!

So I recently found out that a proper sequel to Divine Divinity was released just a couple of days ago here in North America (and a few months ago over in Europe.)  I didn’t put much time into Divine, but I did play the hell out of its spin-off, Beyond Divinity.  Not the greatest games in the world, but entertaining enough to check out the sequel.  According to Wikipedia, it uses the Gamebryo engine, the same engine used in Oblivion/Fallout 3.  Considering the progression between those two games, I am very interested and even a bit excited to see how they have further tweaked the engine.  I’m glad to see that Emergent Game Technologies, the current company that owns the middleware, licensed its usage to such a small Belgian developer like Larian Studios.  I’m even happier to see that Larian have kept development in-house, considering they made the first two entries as well.

In other news, 2010 seems like it is going to be the year of the tablet.  A convertible tablet (one where a screen docks onto a keyboard with a more powerful set of hardware) seems like the perfect thing for Brittnie, considering her job.  Right now it looks like Lenovo is the only one with such a device almost ready to go, but I’m sure there will be others.  Being able to record grades or prepare lessons on it in laptop mode, then just grabbing the screen and walking around the classroom seems perfect.  She could just use one of the tablet notebooks out now that have a screen that swivels, but then she is carrying an entire laptop around…quite a different animal when you have a classroom full of special needs kids all vying for your attention at the same time.

Mix equal parts four-player New Super Mario Wii, a small Big Bang Theory marathon, a Revolutionary War audio lecture marathon (just for fun, not for school), a cat killing chipmunks with eye lasers, and a full-blown top to bottom house cleaning.  What do you end up with?  A crazy fun weekend.

Fizzgigg preparing to fire off an eye laser salvo at a chipmunk

New Super Mario Bros. Wii continues to surprise me.  While it is a crazy game on its own, adding three other players to the equation turns it into a Smash Bros “the craziest thing that could happen is going to happen” style of game.  Whether on purpose or not, people will be bonked into bottomless pits, knocked off ledges, be denied access to powerups, or shoved into that fish just up ahead.  My buddy Mike observed that not only is the unpredictability of New Mario Wii similar to Smash Bros, but the lack of being upset at death is similar as well; sometimes, the circumstances surrounding your character’s death are so insanely over the top, you can’t do anything but laugh about it.

I also started Muramasa over the weekend.  I haven’t put much time into it, but what I have seen so far is amazing.  The art direction is great, the fighting system reminds me of Third Strike (air juggles ahoy), the music is great, and the weapon forging system is rewarding.  It’s the first opportunity I’ve had to use my Wavebird since I happened across it at a Gamestop for only $15 a couple months ago…the control scheme is obviously geared towards using a Wii Remote/Nunchuck, but the Wavebird still works great.  I really, REALLY wish that the jump command wasn’t mapped to “up” on the analog stick, but excluding this one issue, the control scheme is simplistic and works well.  The fighting system itself is extremely intuitive, functioning like a more simple version of Ninja Gaiden Black.  The direction you hold the control stick in combined with how long you hold the attack button and how many times you hit it determine which combo you put out there.  While you don’t gain any new moves as the game goes on, the number of moves available to you is more than adequate.

We recently got the second season of Big Bang Theory on DVD, and I feel that it is funnier and better than the first season.  The character development feels very organic and realistic, while the scripts seem to be getting tighter and the story lines are becoming more creative.  I highly recommend you check it out if you have never watched it…it is without a doubt one of the best sitcoms in the past decade.

Oh, and a little hint for all of you: if you buy a Swiffer Duster (which works great, so I recommend that you do), don’t try to put the attachment point on the handle THROUGH the duster…there is a little pocket on the backside that it slides right into.  Yes, I was ridiculed.

Our trip down to Hendersonville, North Carolina last weekend to visit my parents was a ton of fun.  We saw the sights (a couple of waterfalls, a couple of mountain peaks as evidenced by the picture above of Brittnie at Jump Off Rock, elevation 3100 feet), took in the local cuisine (the best hot dog stand I have ever been to and a steakhouse that served steak RARE), and caught up on our manga (We both finished the Basilisk series, I finished the Azumangah Daioh omnibus, and Brittnie got halfway through the Samurai Champloo manga series.)  Traffic going down was nonexistent, although we hit some insanity halfway up I-81 on the way back home.

My new mouse and monitor came in.  The review for the mouse can be found here, and the review for the monitor is forthcoming.  I like it a lot…it is barely satisfactory for tooling around on the desktop or browsing the internet, but it is damn near perfect for gaming.  A nearly non-existent response time and excellent contrast really keep things looking awesome, and 23″is a perfect compromise between size and desktop footprint.  It is taking some time to adjust, coming from a Dell 2005FPW, but I think I will manage

My new Asus VH236

Modern Warfare 2 was definitely a lot of fun (review here.)  It was definitely intense, but wasn’t as good as the first one IMO.  I don’t know what it was, it just didn’t hit me like CoD4 did.

This weekend is going to be a big gaming weekend.  I just recently got GTA Chinatown Wars for the PSP…I thought the DS version was fun and it was awesome going back to the overhead view of the first two GTA games, but the stylus use felt tacked on and unnecessary.  I’m looking forward to the bigger screen, better visuals, and control-only input.  I’ve also got Darkest of Days for the PC.  I know it got terrible reviews and that the graphics look really dated, but I enjoyed the demo.  It seems like it could have some really intense sequences, and bad graphics don’t really bother me all that much.  Besides, what with the new Zelda game being released in a few days, Mass Effect 2 coming out soon, and some other non-shooter stuff on the way, I figured after going through Borderlands and Modern Warfare 2 I should get in one more FPS before getting into Torchlight and the RPGs that will be released shortly thereafter.

I do think I’m going to pick up Serious Sam HD if some crazy Steam sale happens during the holidays, though…I LOVED that game when it was first released, and while graphics aren’t that important to me, being able to play a nostalgic game like that with updated visuals would be awesome.

Traffic on the main site has positively exploded in the past week.  For the past four days, we have gotten over 120 visitors per day…for the last two days, we have been nearing the 200 mark per day.  Considering up to last week we were getting only 75-100 per week, this is obviously a vast improvement.

Unfortunately, having the main site do so well and requiring more attention has left me fishing for what to write about in this space…after all, what I would normally write about here in a couple hundred words, I now write about on the main page with a few hundred words and more pictures.

Here is a fairly recent graph showing the effect that the new Living With a Nerd layout has had (click for full size):

I use statcounter.com to keep track of visitors.  It works extremely well, and is entirely invisible to people viewing the website/blogs.  I might end up doing a weekly “visitation numbers” post…I know I’m always interested in how many visitors the websites that I visit are getting, so I think this would be a good way to connect to new readers.

I’ve been on something of a comic binge lately…For the past couple of paychecks, I have been buying and reading a couple trades of The Walking Dead (I just finished Volume 9 last night), I’ve been reading Crossed by Garth Ennis, I’m about to start Clover (a manga from CLAMP), and I’m toying with the idea of reading Cerebus.

For the holidays, I’m considering buying (or asking for) the Punisher Compendium…a massive, 1100+ page hardcover collection of Punisher issues that has a sewn binding.  It is an absolutely beautiful piece of work, and is the size of a coffee table book.  Due to the sewn binding, pages lay completely flat, so no artwork is lost in the “dip” created by adhesive binding.  Sewn binding is also aesthetically pleasing and very durable.  From what I’ve been told by people that already own the Compendium, it is quite possibly the sturdiest book they have ever held.  Awesome.

I have been following Ben Templesmith’s forays into FIQ, a big art convention down in Brazil.  His stories and artwork have always been stunning, and he is definitely one of my favourites.  While very different in style, Templesmith’s artwork reminds me of Glenn Fabry:  When you look at a piece of work done by Fabry, you KNOW that it was drawn by him without even being told.  Ben Templesmith is the same way…his art style is very distinctive, and lends itself to creepy, violent, and mature stories.  While Fabry’s art style is extremely detailed, with individual muscles showing through clothing and individual wrinkles visible on faces, Templesmith’s style is more “artificial”; everything he creates looks very comic bookish, although it looks like nothing else out there.  Welcome to Hoxford and Singularity 7 are excellent examples of Templesmith’s skills, both with art and with words.  Below is my favourite piece of work I have seen by Templesmith:

Hoxford

Amazing, isn’t it?

I’ve never been a big fan of social networking.  To be quite honest with you, I just recently signed up for a Facebook page only after the ridicule of my friends and family for not being “hip” or “with it”.  Forgive my acrimony, but I just couldn’t see myself following the leads of the Kanye Wests and Courtney Loves of the world, and I just couldn’t subscribe to the “everyone has one and you’re not hip if you don’t have one” way of thinking.  So imagine my surprise when I recently read that older Americans (40 years of age and up) showed growths of 30% on myspace and facebook since mid 2008.  Add to that the fact that the Republican party, yes, your father’s party, has more than double the amount of politicians on Twitter than the Democrats.  When the medium for being “in” becomes overrun by the “age advanced” and Sarah Palin, I don’t know whether to feel sorry for the future of social networking or laugh out loud.  Either way, before you know it there will be something else for the Internet to hop on, but until then I’m going to see if I can add  Newt Gingrich to my friends list.