Day Two Hundred-eight: Evening of February 28th 2010

Not much of an entry today. I played Borderlands and love the target seeking missile launched from the ‘Monster’ vehicle. What is fascinating is how you can find a masked position, fire, watch as the missiles home in on the target, and they can’t see you. This makes for easy experience points. The missiles can be launched from a distance and, provided you have targeted the enemy, hit them without drawing return fire. I guess it’s the fire control technician in me that appreciates that feature. Consider it a game playing tip, if you haven’t experienced it already.

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Day Two Hundred-seven: Evening of February 27th 2010

While I was on Xbox Live this morning, I ran across a video describing how to finish up Mass Effect 2 without losing anybody in the final battle.

Originally, I thought I would have to tailor the selection of the team members to fill in for specialists through out the game. So when it was time for the final battle, I knew that it would be important to know what each of the team members could do. It paid off, almost. I failed three time, before I fitted the right person for the task, and I thought that I was home free but Mordin Solus, the salarian scientist was shown dead. I couldn’t understand, everything else fell into place a far as the other selections.

Which brings us to the video on Xbox Live. As they describe their solution, they mentioned that Mordin consistent died no matter how well everything else went. The recommendation was: Put Mordin in charge of bringing the kidnapped crew back to the Normandy. It worked. I don’t want to give anything else away, but if all else works, and Mordin doesn’t survive, give him that singular task.

I squeezed in some more of the DLC, and it consistently challenges/defeats me. I have to constantly adjust my tactics to complete the various quests.

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Day Two Hundred-six: Evening of February 26th 2010

After I posted yesterday’s entry, the DLC for Borderlands appeared in the PlayStation Store. The download, entitled, Secret Armory of General Knoxx, is a 1.6 gigabyte file. On the PlayStation farthest from the wireless router the download took about two and a half hours. On the unit closest to the router it took twenty-four minutes. Remarkable that the signal strength fall off can result in such a difference in downloading time. Of course there could be other factors, one being heavy traffic on the servers supporting the PlayStation Network. There wasn’t any rush, I wasn’t really going to do any serious playing after the download. I did check out the look and feel of the game and was impressed. I couldn’t wait until the next day to get into the mix. Boy was I in for a surprise.

The addition is challenging, forget that, it’s hard - period. Just finding the parts for your transportation results in a boss battle with high speed female ninjas. I’m glad I know how to back peddle and have a powerful shotgun. After four tries, I made a mistake and jam myself into a corner. I couldn't get out, the ninjas are blocking me, so I drop my shielded machine gun and blast away at whoever is in front of me. When the firing stops, I’m the last player standing. An example of a fortuitous mistake. I notice that I have switched weapon to my submachine gun. That action was a prelude to what was to come.

Later, I was explaining to my daughter how tough it was using the regeneration process to demonstrate what was happening to me. The game uses a ‘death tax’ to act as an incentive to keep you honest in tough situations. Your death results in a portion of your bankroll being removed. It is a consistent percentage. So as your funds go down your penalty keeps pace. How tough is it(or how careless am I)? I started with a bankroll of about four million in cash and when I quit play it was down to six hundred thousand.

Luckily, I was holding on the all the extra armament and enhancements, which I cashed in to make room for some super health packs. I’ve got to be ready for tomorrow.

Oh yes, it was worth the ten dollars that was spent to download Borderlands: Secret Armory of General Knoxx.

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Day Two Hundred-five: Evening of February 25th 2010

I didn’t get a chance to look for a step-by-step directions for setting and using Bonjour for Windows XP. The challenge to complete this task is diminished because we have four computer that can access the printer. We’ll see how I feel tomorrow.

I had to wait for some deliveries so I settled in to the recliner and managed to finish up Batman: Arkham Asylum. The final battle against a physically enhanced Joker and a crew of henchmen was a lot of fun. I actually managed to hit a couple of multiple button combos in the battle, I needed them and they helped when there was a six to nine henchmen in the arena.

A minor disappointment with Borderlands occurred when the downloadable content (DLC) scheduled for today didn’t materialized during the day. As soon as I finish this entry, I’m going to see if it has appeared in the PlayStation Store. I’ll be looking forward to play the new scenarios tomorrow.

We shall see.

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Day Two Hundred-four: Evening of February 24th 2010

Well, I found the software that Apple presents as the solution to have the printer recognized by Windows XP. It is called Bonjour for Windows. I read the directions, installed the software, and missed something, because it did not work. I tried a variety of configurations, and nothing worked. I was getting ready to go back online when I received a phone call and was unable to finish up this project.

What I need to find is a more step-by-step oriented description of the process. I’ll try that tomorrow.

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Day Two Hundred-three: Evening of February 23rd 2010

I had to set up our new laser printer and make sure it was recognized by all the computers using the Airport wireless network. I had scouted it out at the Apple support section of the Apple website. The Airport unit has single USB port, which had been setup to be a network backup hard drive. The support site recommend using a powered USB 2.0 hub to allow the computers to recognize both the hard drive and the printer.

My wife stopped off at Office Depot and picked up the hub, a 16 foot USB cord, and some color laser printer paper. After dinner, I went up stairs to set up the printer. The Xerox setup instructions were relatively clear. Some changes were noted by the placement of updated procedures on the printer in the locations that were affected. Once the printer was prepped, I setup the hub, and ran the cables to the hard drive, airport and the printer. I made sure to plug in the power supply for the hub (some units can work passively, without power, but not for this setup). I plugged in the power cord for the printer, then the USB cord and turned on the power. The printer started to warm up, meanwhile I fired up the Mac G5 tower, to see if it recognized the two units. It took a while, but the hard drive popped up, no printer yet, but I hadn’t loaded the drivers for it. The drivers were downloaded, installed and now I was ready to locate the printer. Rather than use the system preferences (Printer and Fax) I decided to use the Print command in the File Menu and set up the link to the printer through that channel. I worked with the add command I found the Phaser 6125 print drivers, loaded it, and went back to the Print command.

Bam, it worked. I called my wife, told her to load the drivers and try printing from her laptop downstairs. Bam, it worked, although it took about ten minutes for her to setup her machine and send an image to the printer. My daughter was next, but she didn’t have anything to print, because she was working on school related homework. Okay, but the drivers loaded and she should be able to print when she needs to.

I decided to try my little netbook, but I knew it wouldn’t work because it doesn’t recognize the hard drive, but I tried anyways. I was right, no ‘Bam’ here. Maybe I’ll check online and see if Apple has any suggestions for this situation.

We shall see what happens tomorrow.

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Day Two Hundred-two: Evening of February 22nd 2010

Not much to say today. Recuperating from the weekend, so there was a lot of sleeping in the morning, especially after shoveling some heavy wet snow. By the time I was finished taking care of the pets, making the bed, and restocking the bathrooms, it was about one o’clock in the afternoon. I had crackers and cheese for lunch, watched TV, and debated what game to play in the afternoon.

The television became a distraction and I got hooked on lightweight family adventure with “The Rock” in the lead. When it was over, I called my wife to see if she had a powered USB hub so I could try to set up the new laser printer with the hard drive on the wireless network. So a little after 3:30 in the afternoon I began playing Batman: Arkham Academy.

I must have been engaged because it was 5:15 pm when I took a break to check on the pets, hit the head, and get some water to drink. My wife called and said she was having a problem with her digital engraver. At first we thought it was a mechanical problem, but as I got ready to take the dog out, I remembered it’s a Windows application. I called my wife back and got a hold of her as she was leaving, I told her that the problem may not be the machine, but the software. She confirmed that the plate she was engraving had slipped and she stopped the program, before the run was complete.

As far as the game is concerned, I’m playing offense almost completely. Very rarely do I counter an attack by one of Joker’s minions. I’ve got a few combos that I could use but I have yet to work them in either. I know that I’m going to have trouble down the line, so I’m going to make a conscious effort to incorporate the moves into my fights.

When my wife got home, just a few minutes after dinner arrived, and said she was going to re-install the software tomorrow. She remembered that she had removed/uninstalled the drivers for a different model of etcher.

We shall see what happens tomorrow.

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Day Two Hundred-one: Evening of February 21st 2010

I did manage to sneak in a little gaming today. The session was short, but it gave me a chance to finish up one of the recent releases - Army of Two: the 40th day. It wasn’t smooth closing scenario because the game locked up when I finished up the last challenge of the enemy stronghold. It was frustrating and it reminded me why I put the game aside in the first place.

I went online to see if others had faced the freeze and discovered that the game did freeze, but not necessarily in the same spot. No solutions were offered other than the shut down and restart that I had done in the past. This is a situation that causes me concern because what do you do if the lockup keeps happening. I noticed that when I started the game an update was loaded. So now, if I can’t get past the freeze, it might be awhile before a patch that addresses the issue might be long in coming. A very depressing situation when you think about it. The only thing that I thought might work is to change my approach to complete the final stage. If that didn’t work, I’d have to put the game aside and wait to see if another patch will be issued in the near future or restart the whole level and hope something changes.

Well, I tried changing the course of events by being a bit more aggressive and just before the final push, I picked up a grenade launcher. Nothing like being prepared for what is beyond the large doors. I planted the C4, held my breath, and waited. The doors exploded and no freeze. basically the game was over.

(Spoiler Alert) There was a moral choice place before me by the master mind behind the carnage in the city. Kill him and the 7 million people in the city will die, or kill your partner and save the 7 million. I thought about five seconds and shot him, just to see what happens. He could be bluffing, so I decided to call his bluff. No atomic blast, other than some cryptic closing scene of the city. The game was over and I thought, “What just happened?” I wasn’t satisfied with this closing.

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Day Two Hundred: Evening of February 20th 2010

Well the competition is over and ended pretty much on time. The scores were tabulated and the results were ready for the awards ceremony - mission accomplished. There were a few glitches, but were handled in a timely manner. It was interesting when I was manually determining the ranking of the solo performance, and one of the judges recommended using the sort function in Excel. She was right, and why didn’t I think of that. Most of the rankings are short stacks, one to four entrants, so eyeballing works fine and isn’t time consuming, but in this case there were twenty participants, and I was about two-thirds done when the recommendation was made. Nothing like fast and accurate, although we were tripped up the first and second try because of the fields that were selected, but the third try worked and viola the rankings were complete. I’m glad someone reminded me of the alternative approach and a more correct use of an application.

I hope I’ll be able sneak in some gaming tomorrow.

We shall see.

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Day One Hundred ninety-nine: Evening of February 19th 2010

No gaming today, but a major struggle that was resolved temporarily. Then finishing the day with preparation for my tabulating duties for an Illinois Drill Team Association competition at Navy Pier, Chicago.

The struggle began when I tried to sync my iPhone. Usually an iPhoto sync occurs before anything else on my Mac Book Pro. Then I open iTunes and perform a sync. But today iPhoto crashed and, coupled with a previous overnight non-charge iPhone charge, I decided to do a restore. The result of that operation was over two hours of frustration as the restore operation could not be completed.

Apple has programmed iTunes sync operation to automatically open the support page describing the steps to be taken to troubleshoot the problem, if iTunes and the phone cannot complete the restore. I’m not going to describe all the steps. It would take too long and it was a straight forward list of activities to try before calling Apple Support.

Ultimately, as I held my breath, the sync bar on the iPhone reached the end, the firmware upgrade was completed, and the phone started up again. What did I do that was different? I don’t know. As a matter of fact, I haven’t any idea what occurred, other than holding my breath. I’m happy that my phone is online, but I will now be waiting for another failure.

I’ll call Tech Support on Sunday and see if this problem is something that is in the troubleshooting book of tricks.

We shall see.

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Day One Hundred ninety-eight: Evening of February 18th 2010

Snuck in some Batman: Arkham Asylum on the 360, but a scheduled haircut resulted in a short session.

Prior to that I was setting up some files for a Illinois Drill Team Association competition on Saturday. Very mundane work in Excel and Word, but the more I do now the easier the tabulation will be on the day of the competition. I’ll actually merge the order of appearance with the score sheet for the competition tomorrow morning.

The other thing going on is an experiment with Time Machine on my Mac Book Pro. I just want to see how the backups are made and stored on the external hard drive. So far the presentation of the backups are ‘saves’ in space. The most recent backup is on the top of the stack with the older saves receding into the background. I’ve left the computer on for most of the day, so I should have a decent amount of backups. When I left the external hard drive had about 80 Gigs left. I’ll check what’s left when I shut the machine down later this evening.

We shall see.

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Day One Hundred ninety-seven: Evening of February 17th 2010

I didn’t play Bioshock 2 today. I thought it would be fun to fire up my PlayStation 3 and play Fallout 3. Just as I was about to put the disk into the machine, I changed my mind and switched to Assassin’s Creed 2. I hadn’t played it in months. I didn’t even recognize the lab scenario that starts the game. Finally, I entered the Renaissance era and I began recognizing what was going on. The first thing that hit me was how much trouble I had climbing, so it was like I was starting all over again. But it was a short lived session, I received a text message, dinner had been ordered, and I had to take care of waking the dog, as soon as possible. End of the session. Maybe I’ll play tomorrow.

We shall see.

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Day One Hundred ninety-six: Evening of February 16th 2010

Well I failed again in Mass Effect 2, although to a lesser degree. I saved the crew, but still lost Legion, the geth and most recent addition, and Mordin Solus, our Salarian science officer. I can sort of see Mordin, we had one of those “I’ve got something to live for” moments with reference to a favorite nephew. But Legion, I don’t understand. When selecting one of his upgrades, I picked an armor booster that was supposed to resist the most powerful of heavy weapons hit. So, how was he shot with standard

I think that I’ll return to Bioshock 2 tomorrow, and see how fat I can move ahead on it.

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Day One Hundred ninety-five: Evening of February 15th 2010

I’m trying to make my team and ship as strong as possible before I take on the Collectors in Mass Effect 2. In my first attempt I lost my crew, Legend, and Garrus. I might have lost my crew because I had loose ends that needed to be tied off, before I could attempt a rescue. Now, I’m building up my ship and team’s defensive and offensive capabilities before I put my crew in harms way. This time, I’ll take off to rescue my team immediately. I’m not sure what I can do about Legend, who was the most recent addition in my first attempt in the Collectors’ ship, and a geth. I’m not entirely sure about its defensive capabilities. At the time I was interested in its hacking and overload capabilities. I was so happy at completing the game that I didn’t really think about what caused its and Garrus’ deaths. I’m guessing Garrus’ death was related to his shielding, so I’m bolstering, as much as possible, individual and team shielding. I hope that it is sufficient.

We shall see.

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Day One Hundred ninety-four: Evening of February 14th 2010

I’m just spending time with my family on Valentine’s Day. I’ve finished most of my weekend chores, snuck in a few adventures in Mass Effect 2, while my wife was taking a nap, and now I’m going to finish up this brief entry and go down to be with my family.

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Day One Hundred ninety-three: Evening of February 13th 2010

Bioshock 2 arrived late this afternoon. It was perfect timing. I had finished the morning chores, gotten the Valentine’s Day Bouquet for my wife and daughter, set up the laundry, and was going so settle in to watch some Winter Olympic action, otherwise I was returning to space and Mass Effect 2.

The location is the same, Rapture, Andrew Ryan Utopian construction. But Ryan had a competitor, Dr. Sophia Lamb, who is now in charge. The voice recorders, to be found throughout the location, will provide the overview. I am, and you’ll be, playing the prototype for the Big Daddies. One difference is your character is set up to be responsible for only one Lille Sister, who has been ‘kidnapped’ from you by Dr. Lamb. Another difference is the appearance of Big Sisters, very powerful antagonist for the Big Daddy that you and I play. She will be quite a challenge, as I depleted almost everything I had when I met up with one in the game.

I think that I’ve moved through two levels, but I’ll have to check the map to be sure.

Tomorrow, I’ll have to decide if I want to finish my Mass effect 2 adventure before I return to Bioshock 2.

For as long as it is needed, I’ll keep closing this way, please check out a good organization that’s providing aid in Haiti and make whatever kind of contribution that you can afford.

Day One Hundred ninety-two: Evening of February 12th 2010

A major relapse with the cold, I woke up feeling almost as bad as I did on Monday. Very frustrating, but I was able to sleep on and off again most of the morning and into the early afternoon. I didn’t dream about gaming or working on my laptop or setting up the new printer or reading the Snow Leopard server manual. Then again, I rarely remember any of my dreams, so maybe I did. That’s the kind of thought process that demonstrates the fuzziness in my brain when I’ve got a bad cold.

I thought I felt sharp enough to play some Mass Effect 2 after I woke up, but was I wrong. There was a mini task in one of the scenarios where I had to save a character by warning her of the plot against her. All I had to do was find her, start a conversation with the leader of a gang and include two words, spoken in a certain order, which will cause her to leave. i walked around the bar, finally finding the gang leader, and could not remember the order of the words. I excused myself, found doomed character’s associate, had him repeat the order, and tried to save the endangered woman. I blew it. Talk about soft in the head, I am glad I saved the game just before I started the scenario. At least I had enough sense to do that. Once that quest was finished, I decided to do some mining. It is sort of mindless, but the acquired minerals help support the development of the offensive and defensive capabilities of the ship, the crew and myself. Not a lot of thinking is required, and that worked out just fine.

Maybe I’ll feel better tomorrow, I certainly hope so.

For as long as it is needed, I’ll keep closing this way, please check out a good organization that’s providing aid in Haiti and make whatever kind of contribution that you can afford.

Day One Hundred ninety-one: Evening of February 11th 2010

I’m glad I called the cable company up before the repair man came out. Letting them put on a note on the work order, probably saved the repairman some time. I was playing Batman: Arkham Asylum and notice the time. I had entered the three hour span of time that the cable company designated for the repairs to take place. I hit paused , walked to a window overlooking the street and noticed everything looked the same as an earlier check. No RCN van was parked on the freshly plowed street. I was glad it would be a van, because it would be able manage the raised ridge of snow left as evidence of the wake of the city snow plow. As I looked out of the window, an unmarked white van slowed down in front of the house, paused and moved on. Maybe, just maybe, it was the repairman. I returned to the game, played for about twenty minutes, finished a level, and quit. I didn’t want be in the midst of a battle between Batman and minions of The Joker when the doorbell range. I didn’t need to do that, though, because he was in the alley, on his ladder, working on the downed line. I’ve worked on electronics in in 25 degree weather, at night, in a wind driven sleet storm, and it isn‘t fun. So, I’m glad it was sunny with little to no wind where he was working. It wasn’t fun, but it was straight forward. Cable service was back in about an hour, if not less. Hurray.

To bad my cold hasn’t relented, so that I could really enjoy the moments that followed. The games, Batman: Arkham Asylum and Mass Effect 2, sole purpose was to provide a distraction from the cold that was apparently packing my head with cotton. It wasn’t long after beginning to play ME2, that I began to drift off into sleep.

I’ve begun to believe that this to have feeling will not be leaving soon. So I’m glad that everything is up and running, and I can decide on whether or not to continue playing or do something else. It’s nice to have choices.

For as long as it is needed, I’ll keep closing this way, please check out a good organization that’s providing aid in Haiti and make whatever kind of contribution that you can afford.

Day One Hundred ninety: Evening of February 10th 2010

Illness still holding on but its strength is diminishing. Lost both cable and modem signal at around noon. I checked the local wireless routers and one is unlocked. There are dangers involved, but no other way of posting to the blog or checking email for important messages. Will leave as soon as possible

When I walked the dog this evening, I saw a cable on the ground across the alley from us. Tomorrow things should improve , because the repair person is coming from 11 am until two pm and I’ll have to pull out the videos and some books.

For as long as it is needed, I’ll keep closing this way, please check out a good organization that’s providing aid in Haiti and make whatever kind of contribution that you can afford.

Day One Hundred eighty-nine: Evening of February 9th 2010

There is a minor improvement in the malaise induced by the cold. The congestion ebbs and flows, but the nose has ceased its continual drip – hoorah. Generally the original statement and the follow up comment of the next day didn’t change. But today there were some additions. The morning was filled in with some email replies, and because of the wonders of nature, shoveling snows was completed around 1:30 pm. Once I cooled off, I settled into the routine described below

“A huge cold front has moved into my sinuses, and I’m pretty much down for the count. Aside from a few hours of Mass Effect 2 (on casual), I barely made it through my chores. I was trying to accomplish biotic attack combinations, or a ‘force is with you’ one, two punch. Some times I was on target, and sometimes I missed. I wonder how much my cotton filled head had something to do with the negative performances. I know playing the game took my mind off of the congestion, but only briefly. There was no stopping the dripping nose.”

‘So today, just imagine a 63-year-old guy sitting in a recliner, the TV on and a handkerchief and channel changer resting on his chest. It didn’t matter what he was watching, because no sooner than he began to recognize what was on he drifted back to sleep. That was me until about three o’clock in the afternoon, and then Mass Effect 2 was engaged.’”

I’ve improved with my biotic combos, but I leave cover to soon.

I, still, hope I’ll feel even better tomorrow. We shall see.

For as long as it is needed, I’ll keep closing this way, please check out a good organization that’s providing aid in Haiti and make whatever kind of contribution that you can afford.

Day One Hundred eighty-eight: Evening of February 8th 2010

The status has not changed since yesterday’s entry, so the following is still true.

“A huge cold front has moved into my sinuses, and I’m pretty much down for the count. Aside from a few hours of Mass Effect 2 (on casual), I barely made it through my chores. I was trying to accomplish biotic attack combinations, or a ‘force is with you’ one, two punch. Some times I was on target, and sometimes I missed. I wonder how much my cotton filled head had something to do with the negative performances. I know playing the game took my mind off of the congestion, but only briefly. There was no stopping the dripping nose.”

So today, just imagine a 63-year-old guy sitting in a recliner, the TV on and a handkerchief and channel changer resting on his chest. It didn’t matter what he was watching, because no sooner than he began to recognize what was on he drifted back to sleep. That was me until about three o’clock in the afternoon, and then Mass Effect 2 was engaged.

I hope I’ll feel better tomorrow. We shall see.

For as long as it is needed, I’ll keep closing this way, please check out a good organization that’s providing aid in Haiti and make whatever kind of contribution that you can afford.

Day One Hundred eighty-seven: Evening of February 7th 2010

A huge cold front has moved into my sinuses, and I’m pretty much down for the count. Aside from a few hours of Mass Effect 2 (on casual), I barely made it through my chores. I was trying to accomplish biotic attack combinations, or a ‘force is with you’ one, two punch. Some times I was on target, and sometimes I missed. I wonder how much my cotton filled head had something to do with the negative performances. I know, playing the game took my mind off of the congestion, but only briefly. There was no stopping the dripping nose.

I hope I’ll feel better tomorrow. We shall see.

For as long as it is needed, I’ll keep closing this way, please check out a good organization that’s providing aid in Haiti and make whatever kind of contribution that you can afford.

Day One Hundred eighty-six: Evening of February 6th 2010

I broke the first rule of upgrading your computer and paid for it, literally.

I can’t remember anytime when I do optimizations, upgrades, or hard drive repairs that the warning to back up your files doesn't appear on the screen. Depending upon the nature of the problem that I am acting upon, determines if I do back up my hard drive. But today it was my iPhone and its most recent upgrade to version 3.1.3. There is no hard drive, but there is a 32GB memory chip that is the storage device.

During the week I downloaded some of the songs from the most recent Grammy Awards, and I decided to back them up today. When I got past the iPhoto backup, and the iTunes window popped up I noticed that there was an update to the operating system, and without thinking I clicked on update. The only thought that flashed through my head was, “maybe this will fix the issue with the battery indicator not showing an overnight charge.” Boy, I should have been thinking about how that problem might indicate some serious trouble waiting down the line. When I clicked on ‘Update’ it was the end of that line - Ratz!

First the update cause iTunes to quit, then , when I tried again, the message appeared stating that I had to restore my iPhone to the original factory state. Shock, best describes my feeling. Then, I think, I’ve got to check what this means, and what happens to my iTunes library of songs and apps. Thinking about the potential loss of my collection of apps and music causes a bit of panic to sneak into my thoughts.

The Support section of the Apple website, wasn’t entirely clear about this problem, but I read through three or four of the different approaches to handle similar issues. The happiest pronouncement was the fact that I can restore and then rebuild from my backup. Hooray, I click on Restore, and after a while, I am informed that that the restore has failed. Further checking into the Support section, offered a few suggestions, but my thoughts shifted to how am I going to deal with worst case scenario - no phone. So, I restart the computer and restore again - No luck. I decide to combine two suggestions, different charging cord and remove any other USB devices hooked up to the computer. I disconnect everything, except the power supply and plug in an extra iPhone charge cable. I power up, hit restore and wait. It worked - Phew! After the restore, iTune sets up to reload all my backed up files and bring my iPhone back to its pre-update state. I am happy, except I hadn’t backed up my most recent purchases, almost twenty-one dollars worth of music, lost (a fitting fine?). I guess I’ll backup my iPhone the next time the Update button appears.

For as long as it is needed, I’ll keep closing this way, please check out a good organization that’s providing aid in Haiti and make whatever kind of contribution that you can afford.

Day One Hundred eighty-five: Evening of February 5th 2010

I just finished watching Ghost in the Shell, not for the first time, but the DVD version. I was considering the Blu-ray version, but the Amazon.com reviews warned that that copy was flawed. In trying to take advantage of the media, they actually change the appearance of some sections of the film, not always for the better. So I went for the standard DVD version with an additional disk containing the ‘making of’ support documentaries.

The most obvious difference between the VHS version and the DVD is the sharpness of the text. It is so sharp. The movie, itself, looks good, and better than I remember.

I had tried to create a DVD from my VHS version, but that prove to be less than satisfactory. The grain of the VHS seemed to be enhance. I tried using the optimal setting, but again the results were disappointing. I gave up after the second try. Later, I used the same process with my copy Buster Keaton’s The General with significantly better results. I wonder if it was the lack of color in the old silent film, and the software could handle the gray values of the film. I was happy with that final product, especially compared to The Ghost in the Shell transfer. And rather than waste any more time of playing around with the transfer process, I decided to buy the DVD set. I'm glad I did.

For as long as it is needed, I’ll keep closing this way, please check out a good organization that’s providing aid in Haiti and make whatever kind of contribution that you can afford.

Day One Hundred eighty-four: Evening of February 4th 2010

Today’s schedule called for very early departure time for the crew and remaining in house for some expected deliveries. Normally, this is a perfect gaming day - but not today.

I started setting up Mass Effect 2 for a second run with Commander Shepard becoming a Sentinel. Once I started playing, the initial rhythm became; play 15 minutes, sleep 20 minutes. Later in the day it became worse with the sleep periods extending to 30 to 45 minutes. It wasn’t the game, it was me. I did not get as much done as I wanted, but I managed to increase my team by two, Mordin Solus and Zaeed Massani. Not bad, but I wonder how far I would have gotten if I had stayed awake a bit more. At least I didn’t fall asleep during any of the fire fights that developed on Omega Station. I hope I’ll be able to pull away from ME2 enough to play something on the PlayStation 3, or my laptop.

We shall see.

For as long as it is needed, I’ll keep closing this way, please check out a good organization that’s providing aid in Haiti and make whatever kind of contribution that you can afford.

Day One Hundred eighty-three: Evening of February 3rd 2010

A lot of housework today, so very little game play took place on any platform. I say very little, because I fired up Mass Effect 2 to see what happens after the victory over the Collectors and Harbinger, the Collectors’ regenerating boss (more like taking over any collector a la Matrix heavies). The first thing I found out was how disappointed everyone was with my decision to allow Cerberus to take over the Collectors’ base, including my love interest (Tali) and the Cerberus loyalist (Miranda). And the other thing was that I had pretty much cleaned up all the extra missions, so there was little else I could do except start a new game. This time I'll be using my Level 59 Sentinel from Mass Effect Prime.

That pretty much covers it for today. Maybe, I’ll sneak in a bit of play before I go to bed tonight, but I doubt it.

For as long as it is needed, I’ll keep closing this way, please check out a good organization that’s providing aid in Haiti and make whatever kind of contribution that you can afford.

Day One Hundred eighty-two: Evening of February 2nd 2010

I didn’t bother to fix the font color issue with the previous day’s post because Mass Effect 2 kept calling me back (and the issue seemed to correct itself with yesterday’s post).

It is over for the time being. The geth and Collectors, the Reapers’ avante garde, have been defeated. Keep in mind, the closing scenes include the approaching Reaper fleet. Finishing off the adventure cost my character dearly. He/I his lost the crew of the Normandy, with the exception of his helmsman Joker. My in-game decisions cost my character his personal yoeman, the ship’s doctor, Dr, Chakwas; my old Turian friend, Garrack, from the original Mass Effect; my new associates and fellow heroes, the Asari Justicar, Samala; and the geth convert/warrior, Legion. The rational for these losses, protecting the inhabitants of all the worlds in Mass Effect 2 and the preparation for the oncoming invasion of the Reapers (Mass Effect 3).

The little synopsis above demonstrates what is fun about a good role playing game, emersion into the situation through the adopted character. If I find out that a game offers me that kind of environment, you can put your money down on me that I’ll be getting it as soon as I can.

Well, I’ll increase the difficulty of the game to hardcore, and will be starting another, and experiment with some different choices.

For as long as it is needed, I’ll keep closing this way, please check out a good organization that’s providing aid in Haiti and make whatever kind of contribution that you can afford.

Day One Hundred eighty-one: Evening of January 31st 2010

For some strange reason the text font has changed color. I don't know why. I checked the settings for the page. They are the same. This is strange, and I wonder what could be causing it. I'll check my Mac later to see if looks the same. I'll try reformatting the page layout to see if that helps. I'll check the troubleshooting support and see if there are any FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)related to this issue. It's interesting that this has occurred after six months of use. The only thing that changed was I used my PC to do the last couple of entries.
Playing Mass Effect 2 has continued to be engaging. The improved mining module that I purchased, permits quicker discovery and has a link to the vibrating capabilities of the controller. Resulting in the controller vibration is linked to the size of the mineral deposits. If you hit the mother lode, your controller makes your hands all tingly and relaxed - love it.
Well, I hope this entry appears correctly.
We shall see.
For as long as it is needed, I’ll keep closing this way, please check out a good organization that’s providing aid in Haiti and make whatever kind of contribution that you can afford.