Day Two Hundred Thirty-nine: Evening of March 31st 2010

I’ve been participating in an online competition to help get funds to rebuild an elementary school in southern Illinois. Basically, Pepsi has set up a online listing of participant generated worthy projects seeking monetary support from Pepsi. The winners depend on the number of votes received by visitors to the website who vote for those projects. There are a wide variety of categories and monitory awards ($5,000 to $250,000). I don’t live in the area, but used to spend some of my summers down there when I was but a boy. So when I received an invite in Facebook from a relative to help out, I decided to visit the site and saw that the competition was stiff and their proposal was ranked d 26th. I didn’t bother checking beyond that point and started to vote. I placed a marker on my Facebook page and later in the competition I even made a direct appeal on my page. I don’t know if it had an impact, but it was worth the try. Anyway, the competition ends in a few hours and the proposal has moved from 26th to 10th. It was nice to see the public response to all of the projects, but only the top two projects will receive the funding and that means the little school won’t be getting the award.

What bothers me about the situation isn’t the obvious issues with a competition like this (big market little market and its relationship to the nature of the project and there were a lot of quality projects). No what bothers me is the State of Illinois involvement in the rebuilding of the school. I didn’t see any mention of the State support for rebuilding the school. I mean the school served seven to eight hundred students and the community has to resort to this online popularity competition. Somehow that doesn’t sound like the way it is supposed to be, but Illinois politics is a very interesting animal.

If you‘re interested, here is a Facebook page with information (http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=107567595931442&index=1) and the Ben-Gil Boosters webpage (http://www.bengilboosters.com/ )

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

Day Two Hundred Thirty-eight: Evening of March 30th 2010

I don’t understand the battery situation on my iPhone. I shut off the 3G setting (supposedly a big battery drain) and the device is still acting erratically.

The primary manifestation occurs with the battery charge indicator which doesn’t always show the correct level of charge. I’ll play The Creeps! for an hour or so and the charge indicator goes down a little. I’ll shut it down, turn it on later, and the charge is significantly diminished. Why? Is it a polling issue? The charge isn’t necessarily measured at the conclusion of use. Is it a app issue? The app has a design flaw and bypasses the battery check upon closing. I’d have to check a bunch of apps to see if this occurs with other apps.

Previously, I went through the Apple Support system and followed various suggested solutions without success. So now I’ll go online to see if there are any other observation and suggestions addressing this issue.

We shall see.

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

Day Two Hundred Thirty-seven: Evening of March 29th 2010

Today was ‘help the wife out’ day. She had some student posters that needed to be mounted for a city hall competition. So it was about five hours (travel included) of work with foam board and spray adhesive.

It was funny, there was debate, while we were working, centering around matting or mounting the posters. This occurred because of a change in the competition guidelines came through requesting the student work be matted/mounted. What was confusing was the 20-inch by 30-inch dimensions. Was that with or without the matte? Anyway, she had everything printed out before the change. She had the foam board, and no matte board. So she decided to mount the posters. I agreed, because that presentation plays to the nature of a poster. How is a poster normally seen? It is on a wall, interacting with its environment. So it was so it was spray, place and trim.

Of course the travel time was filled with The Creeps! That is if we weren’t talking about the directions and changes for the competition.

A while ago, I might have commented on how this kind of work should be automated. After a recent Print Expo that I attended with my wife, I know that the equipment is out there. Of course it is expensive, so mere mortals will have to ‘spray, place and trim’ for a while longer.

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

Day Two Hundred Thirty-six: Evening of March 28th 2010

I played The Creeps! on and off for a few hours today, but housework, the last two games to determine the Final Four, and the recliner took big chunks of time way from my game play today.

Once I felt sure that Duke would maintain control over Baylor, I decided to go into the living room and play some Dragon Age: Origins. So I fired up the console sat back in the recliner, and began loading up the game. I pick up where I left off the last time I played, skirmished with some evil doers, and fell asleep. Duke won, and I lost about ninety minutes or so - damn recliner.

It is spring break and the public schools our out, so I’m not sure what I will be doing with my family. One thing for sure, I’m looking forward to the delivery of the Apple iPad, hopefully, at the end of the week.

We shall see.

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

Day Two Hundred Thirty-five: Evening of March 27th 2010

Again, The Creeps! won out, although I managed to replay the tutorial for PixelJunk’s Monsters on the PlayStation 3. Currently, the early scenarios of Monsters are all survival, but that might change as I get deeper.

Right now the iPhone is being charged, I drained the batteries because I played the game for over three hours. One thing that I did before I started this charge was to turn off the 3G acceleration. It speeds up the transmission and reception of information, but at a cost -battery drain. So when I play the game, from now on, I’ll turn off that function. Hopefully, it will prolong the game playing experience

We shall see.

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

Day Two Hundred Thirty-four: Evening of March 26th 2010

I had some long overdue chores today. I took care of that, returned to The Creeps! and tried to open up any more levels.

Later in the afternoon, I checked to see if there was a tower defense game that I could download from the PlayStation Network for the PSP. There were at least three that actually used the term “tower defense” in the description and ranged in price from $7.99 to $19.99. I had purchased the PS3 version of Pixel Monsters, so that eliminated that, and the least expensive one was a hybrid game, mixing tower defense with a variation of the trading card war game. I picked out a game based upon the Final Fantasy franchise entitled Crystal Defenders.

The game looks like a straight port of a PS One game using 8 bit graphics and simple angular paths (so far). The reviews that I saw stated that the game was okay (Average, 3 out of 5, 6 out of 10, etc.) Right now the battery is charging on the PSP and I’ll get back to it later.

We shall see.

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

Day Two Hundred Thirty-three: Evening of March 25th 2010

Today was pretty much another 'tower defense' day with The Creeps! iPhone app. I’m fascinated by overlapping fields of fire. Some of the paths that the creatures advance through are spiral like, and it’s interesting to watch the way the various weapons follow the villainous spawn around the unfolding path. I wonder about a sound track that might match the rhythm of the firing of the game’s guns.

I took some time to set up Mass Effect 2 on my other Xbox 360. I think that I’m going to try the ’Insanity’ setting for the personal challenge. But, truth be told, I’m going to go back to Bioshock 2 on that machine before I return to ME 2.

We shall see.

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

Day Two Hundred Thirty-two: Evening of March 24th 2010

Today was Tower Defense Day.

Basically, the player, you or me, tries to stop waves of ever more stronger enemies from reaching or destroying a goal. In your defense, as you kill off the villains you are rewarded with funds to improve upon and/or build more weapons to be used against your foes. There are various scenarios to play through, like survival, or endurance or portal destruction.

Survival requires you beating back a prescribed number of attack. At certain points, a big boss moves through your defenses. Usually it places a heavy demand on every aspect of the weapons in your defense. If it reaches the target that you are trying to keep it from, it usually does more damage than a regular foe.

Endurance is similar to survival, except there is no limit to the number of waves and the strength of the enemy. You play until you can’t stop the hordes of villains the sweep through you defenses.

Finally, portal destruction requires that you attack the source of your foes until it is destroyed while preventing your home base from being destroyed. In essence you have to balance your offense and defense in order to build a strong attack upon the enemy’s home. This scenario is more of a challenge for me, but I’ll get there.

By the way and more specifically, it was The Creeps! Day.

It is an app for the iPhone, and an entrancing one at that. I drained the battery in the iPhone. It has some of the ‘good game qualities’ of easy to learn, but difficult to master. Luckily, my daughter has a copy of Ninjatown for the Nintendo DS, which is a tower defense game, but the battery life on the DS is much longer that the iPhones, so I may be shifting over to that in the near future. Hopefully it is as hypnotic as The Creeps!

We shall see.

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

Day Two Hundred Thirty-one: Evening of March 23rd 2010

I was watching X-play yesterday, and listened to an announcement regarding some new downloadable content for Mass Effect 2. I like the fact that Bioware continues to expand the game. The new DLC will add a new character, which is great because I just started my third run through. The only thing that was missing was the release date, so I loaded up the game and found out that it hadn’t been release yet, but there were some other DLCs available. One was a vehicle, which makes me wonder what it will be used for. I played through the mission, found it’s armed with a cannon of some sorts, but the initial mission was a search and discover to recover some resources. According to the description it adds some new side missions. The other DLC contained some new character outfits. I didn’t pay attention and confirmed the download before I realize there was a small charge for it. It wasn’t much, I guess I was excited by the fact the meatier download was free, and I didn’t pay attention as I accepted the charge.

I’ve got chores tomorrow, so I’m not sure what kind of adventure I’ll select.

We shall see.

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

Day Two Hundred Thirty: Evening of March 22nd 2010

I last night I printed out the manual for the Mac/PC version of Dragon Age: Origins, and wondered why I didn’t check out the console manual as much as I did this version. I know that one reason was that the is greater access to controls on the PC version. I think that the description of the characters and related information is about the same. In the PC/Mac version there are two pages devoted to the keyboard and mouse control. I fooled around a bit with the Mac version before I quit - 20 minutes at most.

I don’t why I was so exhausted today. The only thing that I added to yesterday’s activities was washing the dog. Granted, it required a bit more energy, but not so much to require almost a full day’s worth of recuperation (naps). But that is what happened, about five hours of on again off again resting. It wasn’t until about four o’clock (16:00) that I finally leveled out and started playing Dragon Age: Origins on the Xbox 360 Pro in the living room. I had forgotten that I was playing as an elf magi - interesting as I actually talked my way through a number of situation (a Coercion Skill). After about an hour and before I quit, I selected my set of battle skills. It was interesting to see how many spell can generate friendly fire damage. Luckily for me this is activated in the normal and higher levels of difficulty, so I didn’t have to worry about it, because I was playing on easy.

Later in the evening, as I was checking for updates, I discovered that the Razer Orochi Bluetooth mouse finally had the driver for the Mac, so I downloaded it and tried to install it. I had a bit of a problem activating the Bluetooth link, but discovered that I needed to set up the mouse with it hooked up through the USB port (that information was on the Orochi control in the OS System prefs). It took me about ten minutes. Not bad, considering it would have been faster if I had opened the control for the device first. Next, replacing that Bluetooth mouse with it with another Bluetooth mouse. I wish I had remembered the procedure for doing this, but I remembered to remove the old drivers and firmware updates. Overall it took about twenty minutes to do this. Luckily, Toshiba had a set of applications help set this kind of operation up. My problem materialized when I tried working through the standard search procedure. After fooling around for awhile I remembered the application and five minutes later things seem to be working - a small success.

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

Day Two Hundred twenty-nine: Evening of March 21st 2010

Wow, the yesterday’s entry, “As usual The weekend is long on chores and short on game play,” was as valid today as it was yesterday. As a matter of fact, I had even less free time today than yesterday, but I managed to experiment with the Mac Book Pro.

I wanted to see how the movies and Dragon Age: Origins looked the 40 inch flat screen.

I knew it wouldn’t take long. I’ve been experimenting with hooking up Mac laptops to a variety of output devices, and never had any kind of problems. I didn’t have to hit a function key (I think F5) like I had to on some of the PCs I’ve had to use. I set up the cable on the display, both my Mac Book Pro and the flat screen were on, plugged it into the laptop, opened the display’s menu, and selected the PC option for receiving the computer’s signal. The computer screen popped up on the display, without any distortion. I activated Dragon Age and it appeared on the screen and looked great. If I had had time I would have loaded up Dragon Age on the Xbox 360 and switched back and forth to see how close or different the versions were. I played for about fifteen minutes and quit. Then I activated tunes to check out a movie. I had to stop watching The Fearless Vampire Killers, so that I could put the dishes in the washer and work on this entry. The images on the screen looked great. I’ll have to try comparing some of the films that I have both DVD and iTune copy in the future. It’s nice to know how easy it is to pump out the screen contents on laptop and see it look so good on the display.

I’ll have to see what happens tomorrow, and what I work on.

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

Day Two Hundred twenty-eight: Evening of March 20th 2010

As usual The weekend is long on chores and short on game play.

I did manage to play about three hours of Dragon Age: Origins this afternoon, while I waited for the dryer to finish its cycle.

Even on the casual I’ve run into some serious boss battles, One was so tough, I actually deviated from my ‘good guy’ philosophical guidelines and went pragmatic. It paid off, but now I wonder what repercussions will appear later on. I think I could have figured out how to get through the troublesome scenario, but I’ve spent so much time on this game, I wanted to see if I could get on with the game (When I quit the program shows that I have played a few minutes more than forty hours and I considerably less than half way) It was funny as I finished the scenario, I actually received a trophy for being a pragmatist.

Well, I’ll see what I feel like playing tomorrow in between laundry loads.

Right now Dragon Age seems to have the inside track, but we shall see.

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

Day Two Hundred twenty-seven: Evening of March 19th 2010

I didn’t sleep much last night, minor sinus headache again - March is the month for that for me. Some times it’s weather related - weather fronts moving through. Other times is house cleaning related - heavy duty dusting. I did some dusting during the day. Enough said!

So Dragons Age: Origins (Xbox 360) became the focus of my attention for about three hours in the early morning and then again in the afternoon I it played on the Mac Book Pro for a few hours. I decided to play on the easy setting. I just felt like I needed a ‘hack and slash’ adventure and I want to see how the game finishes. Call me curious (and frustrated). Both platforms work for me, although I noticed a slow down in the Mac, which bothered me - to many horses under the hood for that to happen. (I wonder if I change some settings, or Time Machine’s auto backup kicked in while the game was active).

Another change, I got tired of retyping my sign-in info whenever I shifted from the Xbox 360 Pro to the Elite. I remembered a tip fro the Xbox live crew about moving the info to a memory unit and shifting the piece between the machines. I worked and I’ll try it for a few days to see if it is better. Right now it a solid procedural change.

We shall see

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

Day Two Hundred twenty-six: Evening of March 18th 2010

From 1 o’clock until 5 pm, Final Fantasy XIII was the game of the day. For a while I thought about firing up Dragon Age: Origins, because my interest in the latest DLC, Awakening. I ended up staying with FF XIII, because of a review that stated it took the reviewer 55 plus hours to complete (I'll take longer), and the forty dollar price at tag on the Dragon Age DLC (I just ordered some DVDs). The Final Fantasy experience will have my attention for now.

Speaking of now, another ‘Big Boss’ battle occurred, and it was tougher than the previous, which is to be expected. You really have to study the opponent actions and reactions. At first I couldn’t understand what was going on, but ultimately I discerned the pattern that was occurring with the boss character. It took me four or five attempts before I found the combinations that were most effective (greatest impact) and then put it together. I almost had it once, but I pulled up short and it took three more retries before the boss was controlled. This opponent, once defeated actually becomes a powerful ally, and it’s strengths are put to use in the next battle. Of course, your character can’t on that ally all the time, you have to build up a reservoir of performance based points before you can effectively use your powerful ally. So tomorrow, I’ll decide which games I’ll play in the afternoon. Right now Final Fantasy seems to be the favorite, but I do change my mind, and I haven’t really played my Xbox 360 much in recent days.

We shall see.

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

Day Two Hundred Twenty-Five: Evening of March 17th 2010

Almost a minimal gaming day, for just about an hour in the morning but the afternoon was spent playing Final Fantasy XIII for three hours.

It didn’t take long to finish IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey, but that ending is just the beginning. Upon completing the game, I discovered that a series of separate scenarios had been unlocked. I didn’t recognize them because the headings for that set of scenarios was the same as the campaign headings that I had just finished. So I assumed that it contained the scenarios I had just completed, but I was wrong. Well it looks like I’ll be able to refine my air-to-ground skills whenever I get the urge.

As far as FF XIII is concerned I’ve grown comfortable with the method of instruction that the game has adopted. What generated a sense of satisfaction was related to the intuitive nature of the character development. When the tutorial information popped up related to the expansion of the characters’ capabilities, I had already been doing it.

The tutorials can lead to experimentation, to see what kind of impact on opponents certain combination of character skills can create. This becomes a learning experience that can result in immediate failure (resulting in a retry), but ultimately, and hopefully, long term success.

We shall see.

For as long as it‘s 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 Two Hundred twenty-four: Evening of March 16th 2010

Very much a minimal gaming day, a little over an hour in the morning and just about an hour after dinner.

The morning was spent checking out the store associated with Battlefield: Bad Company 2. For the past week or so the store was off line - some recognized issue that the company was working on. I had read that a patch was in the works, and thought that it might be worth checking it out. As I loaded the game a patch notification popped up and I accepted the patch. Once it was done, I started the game, and was able to access the store - w00t. For some reason I checked the game and discovered that I had missed one of the collectables (M-Com unit). I guess I found the glitch that I read about, but thought it hadn’t happened with my play through. I received a trophy collecting all the M-Com units, but apparently I didn’t, which is the glitch. So I opened up the game and fought, at the normal setting, through the scenario to get it. I checked the other scenarios, saw that all was in order, and quit.

I didn’t get to Final Fantasy XIII, because I wasn’t feeling well and thought it would be better to sleep as much as possible. It helped, but when I was finally up it was dinner time.

After dinner, I wanted to try to finish IL-2 Sturmovik, but part of the second scenario required air-to-ground combat which for me is time consuming. At least my plane was equipped with bombs, which I seemed to have a bit more control of. The combination of heavy flack and improved Me 109 performance (tighter turns than my aircraft) became a problem for me in the second to the last scenario.

Maybe I’ll finish IL-2 tomorrow and get some FFXIII time too, but we shall see.

For as long as it‘s 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 Two Hundred twenty-three: Evening of March 15th 2010

After trying to pull off the air-to-ground attack on the anti-aircraft batteries in IL-2 Sturmovik, I gained a deeper respect for any of our pilots who have this as a mission. I still wonder if I understood the mission correctly, because later, with the flak units out of the way and then destroying a few selected enemy ground units, the mission was completed. I don’t know, but I was glad to get out of that scenario and into a ground support mission using rockets. That mission was handled significantly better. I’ve finished the Battle of the Bulge, and now I’m in the final set of scenarios dealing with the closing days of the Reich in and around Berlin.

Around 3:30 pm I shifted into Final Fantasy XIII and played that for about three hours. If you haven’t played any Final Fantasy games, the tutorial for this version really eases you into the action. Basically you are given a set of actions that you can perform, you use them through a number of actions and as you shift to a more demanding environment, a new tutorial expanding the capabilities of you characters. The game at this point is fairly linear. The map shows the way that you need to go. The environment is gorgeous, the characters move across the terrain smoothly, naturally, and it is easy to get lost in the adventure. I was having fun experimenting with the new capabilities and function as they were introduced into the game play. I think that I’m getting a better feel for the game than I’ve had with the other versions.

There is more to come and we shall see what unfolds in the hours to come.

For as long as it‘s 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 Two Hundred twenty-two: Evening of March 14th 2010

Whenever there was a break in the action, I squeezed in some gaming. I managed to discover how difficult air to ground action is playing IL-2 this afternoon. I think I misunderstood the mission in the first Battle of the Bulge scenario - Nutz. I divided my forces to handle the fighters attacking the re-supply C-47 and the double-A units on the ground. I couldn’t clear the flak units in time and I lost my squadron. The next time, I’ll clear the sky and then take on the ground units.

As far as Final Fantasy XIII is concerned, I’m still moving on. The tutorial is spread out over the opening chapters. Now that I’m fairly competent with the basics of standard combat, I think that the next tutorials will open up the magic end of the game. There are times when I wonder about what my role will be in this RPG opera. For now, I will play along and see what develops.

For as long as it‘s 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 Two Hundred twenty-one: Evening of March 13th 2010

Weekends are predominately dedicated to getting the house ready for the upcoming week. But I did manage to play some IL-2 in early afternoon. My wife wanted to take a nap, so I turned on the tuner/amplifier, shut off the external speakers, and hooked up the headset. This actually works for me. I can hear the chatter including discerning flight commands that are normally lost in the background noise. Now I get to fly missions during the Battle of the Bulge.

I feel a little more comfortable with the flight controls, with the exception of the right stick which is a combination of throttle (speed up and down) and yaw (left rudder and right). Sometime in the heat of battle, I’ll slew left or right and accidentally decrease the speed of the aircraft, which could result in a stall, or if I’m at a lower altitude crash landing. I’ve gotten better at catching myself, but I usually don’t catch it during a critical part of the mission.

Later in the afternoon the mail arrived and my copy of Final Fantasy XIII was a part of the delivery. Well, this will be my final attempt at completing any of the Final Fantasy games That I have (I have three - Final Fantasy X, X.5 and XII for the PS2 and FFIII for the DS). I fired it up and am working my way through the tutorial. The graphics are magnificent, and the combat commands seem to be fluid, although I’m still trying to understand what I’m doing with the rest of the elements under my control. I’ll see what the tutorial has in store for me tomorrow.

We shall see.

For as long as it‘s 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 Two Hundred-twenty: Evening of March 12th 2010

Feeling significantly better today, but the congestion lingers. That resulted in a deep long sleep between 8 am to 11 am in the morning. After shifting the laundry to the driers, I returned playing IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey for most of the afternoon on the PlayStation 3. It may be on the Arcade setting, but it was a challenge to complete a number of the scenarios.

Bombing missions, rockets and strafing mission, all require deft handling of the controls. A number of restarts were required until I gain control of my aircraft. Battle damage can create a significant stability issues with you aircraft.

I spent part of the afternoon finishing up the thinning of the lancer mission in Borderlands , and then tried to defeat the Crawmerax. This adventure became one of trial and error. I think that I noticed that the turret gun set to electric slugs was having an effect on the big one (even if it used as distraction). Everything moves quickly, the Big Boss' minions are tough, but the shotgun handled up close results is helpful in getting a second wind., but to no avail, death quickly follows. Wouldn’t you know it, I have sold most of my electronic gear. I’m going to have to visit the armory once again to see what I can salvage, before I return to do battle against the Crawmerax.

We shall see.

For as long as it‘s 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 Two Hundred-nineteen: Evening of March 11th 2010

The headache is muted, and lurking on the fringes of my awareness. The key thing is the total exhaustion the pervades my actions. After the family left for work, I finished my coffee and went to sit in the recliner in the living room. I turned on the news and, poof, fell asleep. That was at 7:20 am and the next thing I knew it was 10:20 am. I take care of our pets, and feel the malaise building. I needed to back up my iTune collection on my iPhone, which requires very little energy, and that matched my energy level. Finishing that, I sat in the recliner and poof it was 3:30 pm. I felt a bit better, so I tried to figure out which game I would like to get involved and, knowing that I was going to drift off again, I decided to update my Mass Effect 2 games. The Cerberus Network had some new equipment available for download and I decided to take advantage of the offer, incase it disappeared before I had a chance to download it. I wonder how it would work so I loaded up my last character and take it out for a spin, but I forgot that I had completed all the side missions and I wouldn’t be able to use it. So, time to start up a new adventure, this time as a Soldier.

The only thing that I changed was the level of difficulty. Don’t ask me why, but I choose the Insanity Level. Let me tell you, your the approach to battle has to change. Knowing where your real cover is, is important. I can see that a deeper level of planning is going to be required.

We shall see.

For as long as it‘s 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.

Day Two Hundred-eighteen: Evening of March 10th 2010

Heavy duty sinus headache is making itself felt anytime I move around. It seems the area around my sinuses are painfully puffing up whenever I make any kind of movement. So, I’m going to be brief.

I tried to match achievements on my two PS3s with IL-2: Sturmovik: Bird of Prey, so that I will be able to play IL-2 on the PS3 in the living room (recliner available). I spent most of the morning, after house work, playing it. Presently, I’m two scenarios behind the older PS3 saves, and, sinus headache permitting, I’ll catch up tomorrow. I even tried the simulator scenario with mixed results (learning how to prevent a stall, because I very rarely was able to get out of a spinout started by a stall), which I skipped on the older PS3.

The afternoon was spent playing Borderlands and the Underdome scenario. I was able to complete the five hell-URBIA rounds. I had three restart in different rounds, so that was significantly better than the last time, when I had to quit before the end of the final round because I ran out of time. I would have to say that the weaponry accumulated in The Armory scenario played a significant part in my success. The most nefarious mod in the scenario was the when I was constantly drained of health if I wasn’t killing someone . It is the Vampire effect. Talk about chasing down my opponents, the shotgun was a big help during the ensuing rundowns.

I’m not sure what will happen tomorrow. I hope the sinus problem is resolved.

We shall see.

For as long as it‘s 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 Two Hundred-seventeen: Evening of March 9th 2010

What a day, I completed some needed chores in the morning, and then spent the afternoon with Heavy Rain, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and Borderlands.

It’s not the interface used in Heavy Rain that is causing me problems, but it’s handling the movement of the character to line up with the action spots. I’m beginning to feel more comfortable with the environment, but sequence keyed actions take a bit of time getting used to (I have issues with this in all games). The story is building like an tense detective movie. The characters’ decisions have had some immediate repercussions, both positive and negative. How these choices will effect the characters down the road, remains to be seen. I noted that one of the trophies is awarded for keeping all the cast members alive - interesting.

Next was collecting the final weapon in Bad Company 2. Last night’s failure caused me to try switching my weapon in the previous scenario, work my way through to the point in the following scenario where I pick up that final piece, and see what happens. Well, something happened, but not what I expected. Simple put, the weapon that I thought was the correct one, wasn’t. I was looking in the wrong place. The soldier with the needed weapon was at the bottom of the slope leading up to the humvees. All I had to do was turn around and walk down the slope to complete the set. (On an another level, I’m bothered by the hunting for equipment on bodies of my fellow soldiers. It probably happens, but that thought doesn’t remove the feeling).

Finally, I decided to return to the Armory in Borderlands to see if I can fix the problem and complete the mission, whatever that might be now. I fought my way back to the armory, and low and behold, I have to face General Knoxx and defeat him again. I learned my lesson from my first experience, and knew what was coming. I managed to defeat the general, then managed to get lost in the Armory and was blown up with it. End of game - not! The credits role by and I materialize back in T-Bone Junction and cash in - mission accomplished.

I was happy, and the phone rang. “Who do you want to order from?” It was time for dinner.

For as long as it‘s 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 Two Hundred-sixteen: Evening of March 8th 2010

I completed the collection of the M-Com units in Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (and the unit that I listed in yesterday’s entry would have been the only one I wouldn’t have found). Now the only thing left to do is completing the weapon collection, which is down to a single weapon - the XM8.

Time to initiate a Google search. The following “digg xm8 location bad company 2” was typed in, and a number of hits resulted (I used the Digg link because it produced a successful link to the find the M-com collectibles). Some of the hits were demo videos of the XM8, others were descriptions of the weapon, there were occasional comparisons of the XM8 to other weapons, even a few hit saying the weapon was over rated, but no digg hits on the first two pages. I did manage to find a link at www.vgevo.com (Video Game Evolution) that contained descriptions that seem to be done by the same author of the M-Com locations I found through Digg. This set didn’t have the maps that the M-Com locations had. The description for this particular weapons was clear enough:

Weapon Collectable #21 — XM8:

“You will find the XM8 in the mission titled High Value Target. This is the only mission I was able to find the XM8. Once you get out of the humvees, there will be dead soldiers right near you. The XM8’s will be laying on the ground by them. If you already have the different XM8 S model out, then it will just pick up the ammo and still count as collected. Now on my second playthrough I was still unable for it to show the weapon icon as collected just like every other one has shown so far. This still happened even after not having the XM8 S with me. It did however make the sound and show up in my collectables as collected.”

I was on a second run through after the M-Com locations, when I tried this. The weapon was spotted, I moved over to it, and it didn’t show that it could be picked up. I was holding the XM8-S, which I liked using, but there was no indication that I had collected the weapon's ammo. So now I’m puzzled, I’m not quit sure what to do. I ran up the hill, found a weapon cache, swapped out my XM8-S with another weapon, and returned to the location of the XM8 only to find everything - bodies, debris, weapons - was gone. Now I’m even more confused. I’ll move through the scenario and see if I can pick up an XM8 that someone drops.

We shall see.

For as long as it‘s 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 Two Hundred-fifteen: Evening of March 7th 2010

The search went on in Battlefield: Bad Company 2 for the M-Com units, but only for an hour. After checking the location guide, I would never have been able to complete this quest playing without an aid. One unit was so out of the way, I never would have been able to find it. I’m also sure that there are probably more that fall into this ‘off the beaten track’ category.

I’m trying to figure out what I will attempt after I finish this quest. Will I go back to Borderlands, or Heavy Rain, or Mass Effect 2, and then there is Bioshock 2 (which is set up and ready to go on the Xbox 360).

We shall see.

For as long as it‘s 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 Two Hundred-fourteen: Evening of March 6th 2010

I decided to play through Battlefield: Bad Company 2 a second time. This time I’d go hunting for collectables. Boy, the searching mode is tough. If I had to come up with a nickname that describes my level of expertise it would be ’The Defective Detective.’ I only played for an hour and a half , claiming just a single find. Now I need six more weapons to complete that category. And that was my day in video gaming. Tomorrow, hopefully, I’ll try to squeeze in a little more time on the console.

We will see.

For as long as it‘s 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 Two Hundred-thirteen: Evening of March 5th 2010

Yesterday’s closing statement went like this, “I hope to finish the scenario off before I go to bed - a 5am wake up awaits. We shall see.”

5am came and went and I was still up. I put my cloths and went to get the morning caffeine fixes for the family. If it were just coffee, I’d make it myself, but it isn’t so I didn’t. My family went to work happy, and I went to the recliner, put on Miyasaki’s Ponyo, and drifted off to sleep. I woke up, put on the closing minutes of the Price is Right, and got the cats’ brunch ready.

So why did I pass on the sleep thing, aside from the upset stomach, I was battling General Knoxx. Again, I don’t want to spoil the end of that boss battle, but I’ll say that I found a glitch, and took advantage of it. I’m not really sure if that it was a glitch, but the General didn’t fight back when I fired from the position I was in. His support warriors showed up, but the General did not more. It was like he gave up - that’s why I think it was a glitch.

That happened was about 2:30am, so why didn’t I go to bed? The scenario called for the destruction of the armory which could only occur if all the weapons were exposed (storage containers open. So I had to run throughout the whole storage area opening all the containers. No matter what I did, I couldn’t open all of them. So as 5am rolled around, I decided to call it quits, shut everything down, and get ready to get breakfast.

I went online later, but couldn’t find anything similar to my situation, so I did some housework - a pleasant afternoon.

I’ll try to get some playing time in later this evening, but I will call it quits at a reasonable hour.

We shall see.

For as long as it‘s 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 Two Hundred-twelve: Evening of March 4th 2010

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 took me about eight hours to finish. Of course the closing scene sets up the potential for Battlefield: Bad Company 3 - North to Alaska. Of course, I won’t go into the details of the ending, in case you haven’t finished. Before I left the game to play Borderlands, I tried the multiplayer option. It was straight forward, select the type of multiplayer mode, select your specialty, pick squad member or solo, and play. I managed to break even, two kills and two deaths. I needed to get used to the sighting procedure, because I could have contribute more to my team victory. It was fun, and I probably suffered from ‘buck fever’ after I saw one of the opposition move into my field of view. I thought about staying in multiplayer, but the call of Borderlands and The Armory scenario ‘required’ my attention.

I’m going to skip to my current situation. Right now my PlayStation is on, Borderlands is in pause, I think I’m about to complete the final quest. My soldier is actually in the armory. It was a real battle to get there, which is why I don’t want to have to repeat that journey. It was just to time consuming and my emotional investment in getting here was great. I’m beating myself over my head for not playing this on the PlayStation in the living room, but the big screen monitor is on the back porch and the game looks so good there.

So what happened? There was an emergency, so some other work had to be done on the back porch, and my game playing had to cease. I had to make some quick choices about what equipment to sell, what to keep, and stock up on supplies before I went into stasis. I check periodically to see if the machine isn’t over heating. I hope to finish the scenario off before I go to bed - a 5am wake up awaits.

We shall see.

For as long as it‘s 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 Two Hundred-eleven: Evening of March 3rd 2010

I had a number of errands to perform during the day, but I managed to squeeze some Battlefield: Bad Company 2 in the late afternoon. According to the reviews, the single player game is okay , but the multiplayer will be what makes it worth having. I’m playing the single player and am enjoying it, overall.

The environment seems to be more susceptible to gunfire. The banter seems to be curtailed. Part of one scenario, incorporates the ambient temperature to impact your health, in other words you could freeze to death if you don’t find a warm fire to take the chill off. Of course you know that when you approach a series of warm looking buildings you’re going to run into enemy patrols, slowing you down and you start to freeze. This reminds me of how the environment played a part of Lost Planet. All this from a three hour session.

I still have the same problem driving vehicles, especially boats and tanks that I had in the first game. This contributed to my selection of the least challenging game play setting. There’s more, but I’d like to play a bit more. I hope I’m able to play more of this, But I might go back to Borderlands.

We shall see.

For as long as it‘s 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 Two Hundred-ten: Evening of March 2nd 2010

Not a big game playing day, I’m going to be tied up for a while tomorrow, so I decided to do a number of house cleaning tasks through to the afternoon. I went out to get my copy of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 at GameStop in the afternoon, but my addition to Borderlands took over when I returned, so I spent the balance of the afternoon trying to crack into the Armory. Ninjas, Mechs, Jet-packed warriors, armed Medics with health regenerating shields, charging at me armed with some pretty potent weapons. At one point, I wondered if someone would start flinging kitchen sinks at me - not yet anyway.

Dinner happened, and one of my few gripes with the DLC came into play. Saving sends me back to T-Bone Junction, the starting location of the adventure. When you return to the game, you have to repeat your travels to get where you saved the game.

It does help you level up, that’s for sure. I’m at Level 57, on my way to 58. I picked up some heavy duty weapons requiring Level 58 status. I can’t wait to try them out.

For as long as it‘s 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 Two Hundred-nine: Evening of March 1st 2010

I was planning to play Borderlands in the morning after breakfast. I fired up the PS3 and I received a message that stated that an error had occurred and I wasn’t connected to the PlayStation Network. I’ve had that happen before and I wasn’t planning to play on it anyway. I put the Borderlands disk in and when its icon showed, I launched the game. All my characters and saves disappeared. I was offered the only option of starting a new game. Holy Cow! What happened? I tried to get onto the internet through the Browser option on the PS3 menus. It launched, I type in “PlayStation network down” and a number of hits showed up. I selected one with yesterday’s date and it stated the PlayStation Network was down with special circumstances. The ‘special circumstances’ were this breakdown only affected the first generation of ‘fat” PS3s. I was going to check out a few more websites, when the browser froze. I switched to my iPhone and found that an indicator on the older PS3 of the problem would manifest itself as a date change to December 1999. I checked the PS3 and there it was 12/31/1999 (shades of Y2K). I removed the Borderlands disk, shut the PS3 down and moved over to my ‘slim’ PS3. Everything appeared to fine. The date was correct, Borderlands loaded, but because I hadn’t played it on the ‘slim’ PS3 there were no previous games to load. I played for a while, and I hoped that the game Heavy Rain would show up.

Heavy Rain is a PS3 specific game. It had received good reviews and has a different interaction interface. That’s why I ordered it. I was curious about that interface. I had ordered it last week and it was due to arrive sometime today. I played Borderlands for most the afternoon without the package arriving. Around 4:30 pm, we ordered food and I discovered that the game had arrived. I’ll fire it up after we have dinner.

Dinner finished, and I went up to play Heavy Rain. I made another mistake, I sat in recliner after starting the game and fell asleep. 7:30, 7:34, 7:47, times that were recognized on the clock as I began to wake up. Holy Smoke! I slept for over an hour. I started playing Heavy Rain. The interface is different and the learning curve, for me, is a bit steep. The designers have allowed for a getting familiar with this before events get serious. Even when the actual lead in to the game begins, there is a certain amount of leeway so your not interrupting the flow of the game in an abrupt way. There is an interaction with one of your children, a pseudo sword fight, where icons flash up onto the screen, with time to hold a key as a filling square or a spinning indicator inside a circle, or a button sequence to be held for a certain amount of time. The resulting duel has blocks, parries, and strikes. If you err, you get struck or you miss. If sequenced correctly, a strike or a block. Ultimately, I lose, touched on the heart by my 10 year old son. I won’t be dropping any spoilers beyond this, because I think that the game is relatively new. I’m sure that there are individuals who have completed the game, but most have not, including the individual in one of the forum, who bemoaned the fact that today’s network problems prevented him or her from completing Heavy Rain.

Which brings us back to the problem of the network failure. Just before I started this entry, the news online was good. The network was coming back, although a warning was given to hold back until an official statement appears. I’ll check when I finish, hopefully all will be well.

We shall see.

For as long as it‘s 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.