Author: Foz

Writers Block

I’ve been wanting to write a lot recently, the only problem is I’m not sure what I want to write about. Do I do lists of things I’ve been reading, or playing or listening to. I’ve done that a lot recently. I’ve been meaning to write a bit about a few thoughts I’ve had about globalization, but ultimatly I lost the fire to write it.

So where does that leave me? I’ve got the idea of taking a little notebook along with me wherever I go to write down ideas and thoughts. Sounds good in practice, but in reality, I never would remember to write it down. I’ve been contimplating for months to do my top 5 games that have influenced me the most. I’d like to write a bit about coffee. I just seem to be stuck at the moment. Maybe it’s that I have a lot going on, taking up time and energy. I’m not sure.

Stay tuned.

New Stuff

– I was pointed to this little gem of an independant game by Quarter to Three, a board I’ve taken to visiting recently. Mount & Blade is a fairly addiciting medieval combat game at the moment.

You create your character, the usuall stats type system, but the game also has a really robust face creator for creating a unique character for yourself. Then you go out and build yourself an army of locals and train them and yourself to take on river pirates and bandits, before moving on to other larger and harder bands of roving bad guys. The game has an impressive combat engine, where you can ride your horse to battle or move on foot to take on your enimies. And all this done buy a husband and wife team from Hungary. Check out Mount & Blade.

– Star Control 2 – one of the best games I’ve ever played has had it’s source code released a few years back by the authors and there is a crew of people updating the game to run on modern computers. The Ur-Quan Masters has just released version 0.4 of their project. Go get it, try out the amazing music re-mix packs as well.

– I’ve heard a few rumblings that George R. R. Martin has finished up the fourth book in the Song of Ice and Fire series that he’s been writing entitled “A Feast for Crows.” After five years of waiting, it’s about time.

– BBS: The Documentary is now shipping. This guy devoted years of his time and hours and hours of footage to interviewing people who were involved in the old days of BBS’s (Bulletin Board Systems) in the days before the Internet as we know it exsisted. BBS’s were usually more community based and you tended to actually know a good deal of the people visiting them. I’ll review it more when I recieve my copy.

Music Files – V1.0

Been listening to a bit of new music recently:

Demon Days Demon Days – Gorillaz I was a big fan of the Gorillaz first release, enjoying both the concept of the fake band of performers, as well as the great mix of styles of music that made up the entire album. Demon Days does not dissapoint as a follow up album at all. With the first single “Feel Good Inc.” stuck in my head literaly for days I knew I had to hear the rest of the album. Even more layers, even more funk, rock, and a bit of hip hop to keep you going. Been playing a ton on the iPod for sure. The new video for Feel Good Inc. made me miss the old videos agian, guess I’ll have to go and hunt them down.

Human After AllHuman After All – Daft Punk Good old Daft Punk. Been a fan since the days of “Around the World” and their last album, Discovery, was one of those albums where listening the whole way through is worth and frequently done. With their third release I’m a little bit dissapointed though. The first single is catchy and growing on me, titled “Robot Rock”. The rest of the album basically takes the same tack and repeats the title of the song in a computer voice, over and over and over. Not that they havn’t done this before (Around the World), but there are less strictly instrumental songs, and no songs that have “lyrics” as much as the few that populated Discovery. Maybe I set my hopes too high, and I have a feeling some of the songs may grow on me, but it remains to be seen.

Hot FussHot Fuss – The Killers Now this has become one of my favorite albums I’ve heard this year in a very, very short time. It sound seems to take the voice of the guy from The London Suede, with a bit of 80’s electronic, and a bit of modern British rock and mix them together. The album has amazed me with it’s songs, it’s sticking power, and the depth of some of the tunes. Where you notice new layers the more you listen. I get the feeling that we’ll be hearing more singles come from the album than the “Mr. Brightside” and “Smile Like You Mean It”. There is just a lot there. Get it. Seriously.

Upgrade to Cinder Inc

Since it’s a lazy Sunday afternoon, I decided to upgrade my Word Press installation to the newer version 1.5. So far I like it.

A few new features may help me prevent comment spamming, and easier to deal with themes (yes, I have a new theme now, and we’ll see how it goes), easier content creation, and plugin management seems to be better as well. We’ll see. So far so good. If you notice a problem toss in a comment and I’ll see if I can’t get it fixed.

Edit – Comments are broken, along with RSS and a few other things. I’ll figure them out eventually.

Edit 2 – Looks like things are fixed. Let me know if anything else seems broken to you.

Good news

Baby Anderson 12weeks

The above picture tells you what’s been going on in my life for the past few weeks/months besides getting used to the new job. I’m going to be a dad. It’s kinda a little surreal still. I know it’s coming and I’m excited and thrilled, but it still almost seems really unreal, like it’s just another weird story.

Life is kind of feeling like that lately. Like I’m still a kid pretending to be a grown up, having a grown up job, becoming a father (whoa… still sounds amazing), looking for our first house. Since when did I pass from kidhood into adulthood? Not that it’s a bad thing, but sometimes I’m not sure how I got here, but I’m glad that I got there.

So yea, the idea of being a father and getting that into my head has been fun. Starting to see the doctor and getting the ultrasound just drives it more home. To see that image above live and moving around, inside my wife’s belly was one of the most amazing things I’ve seen in my life. Life is amazing.

Books, always so many to read

Been away. I know. I’m a lazy guy sometimes. Been focusing a lot of my energy into getting ready for training for my new job. Lot’s to learn and absorb. Hopefully two weeks from now with the training done with I’ll be back and writing again. Been keeping myself busy with reading (covered later) and playing Super Mario World with the wife, along with the game below, Doukutsu Monagatari. Addicting little pleasures. Been to pretty much every coffee shop in Tacoma studying, and still really havn’t found a consistent or even really good Americano here in Tacoma. I’m sure it exsists, at least I hope it does.

But, to keep my mind away from the cardiovascular system, and the joys of treating hypertrigliceridemia and hypertension, I’ve been trying to read more. Been reading comics a bit, but also trying to cut down my backlog of books that I have to read. Both my wife and I havn’t been to a book store in a month or two, because we know we’d just buy more books that would have to go on the shelf and just add to all the other books we want, or just have been meaning to read.

As a treat tonight we went to Borders after a nice meal out (date night!) and while checking up on authors I like I found Nick Hornby’s new book – The Polysyllabic Spree. It’s his account of his own struggle to keep up with the books he buys and the books he’s been meaning to read. It kind of made me think about my back log and since I havn’t been writing much recently I wanted to write about it!

Books I’m Reading Now (Yes, I tend to read more than one book at a time)

  • The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene – I always enjoy a good non-fiction science book and Brian Greene is an entertaining writer, keeping me updated on the latest developments in physics dealing with space, time and the basics of how the universe really works.
  • The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby – Just got it, and it’s for my flight back to New Jersey, but I like it already.
  • Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace – This thick and heavy book is slow going. Not because it isn’t good. It’s huge, thick, unwieldy and with a ton of Wallace signiture footnotes. Great writing, but work to read on account of how big and thick the book is to read. I’ll get there.

A few of the books on the shelf:

Reading, my hobby alongside my gaming habit.

Doukutsu Monogatari

Doukutsu MonogatariThis amazing little game was brought to my attention by Insert Credit. Doukutsu Monogatari is three weeks of work by a Japanese programmer called Pixel. It’s a little adventure platforming game similar to say Metroid. It’s hard to describe how the game fits together to make a game that is not only challenging, but engrossing, fresh, and pulls together everthing in a tight package that so many companies try so hard to reach. It’s by no means revolutionary, or filled with new ideas, but it is one of those games that you just can’t wait to keep playing.

It’s fun weapon leveling system, and creative music, and story all take you in. It’s got secrets to spare, and three endings to search out. Play it. It’s worth it. Go here to get the game (it’s the first link), and then go here to get the English patch (easy to install).

Men of Tomorrow

Men Of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters, and the Birth of the Comic BookMen of Tomorrow by Gerard Jones My wife got this for me for Christmas, knowing that I liked comic books after finding my old childhood stash at my parents. It follows the life and history at the very beginnings of the rise of comic books, from its humble geek and gangster origins. Mainly focused on the company that became DC comics, and it’s rise, as well as the rise of it’s most famous character, Superman, and his creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster.

The “golden age” of comics is a hole in my knowledge of the comics world. In a way, like the history of say Russia, in that I know bits and pieces of what happened and who some of the major players were, but I really don’t have any of the details and a clue how it all fits together. The book helped fill in a lot of holes, but now has got me wondering more, which is always a good thing. I want to read some of the stories, and see the art. I want to read some of Will Eisner’s much lauded Spirit serial. For the most part, I just want to read comics again. Superhero or not.

After reading the book, I finaly made the trip down to my local comic shop, Comic Book Ink. So much to see, so very very much to catch up on. I pick up an issue of Amazing Spiderman, being written now by J. Michael Straczynski, who created Babylon 5. Talking with the owner, I’m realizing there is a lot to catch up on and I’m looking forward to reading a few different series for fun. I’m not fully expressing how I’m interested in comics again, but I’m thinking it out, and I’ll write it down eventually.

It’s been a bit again

Sorry about that. I just got a new job, with a new schedule and tons of new stuff to learn. Good? Yes, very good for me and for my family. Or at least it now means that my wife and I can feasably start a family. I’m excited. I’ve got a ton of binders and manuals worth of stuff to learn for the new job, doing pharmeceutical sales.

So honest. I’m not dead. I’ll be back. Soon.

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