My first impressions are mostly positive. The PS3 obviously has a bit more horsepower under the hood than the Xbox 360 and sports a cleaner and more modern UI to boot. Unfortunately Sony seems to have made a few odd user experience choices, but overall I’m highly impressed. I have yet to toy with the PSP Remote Play functionality but I plan to dive deep into that in the coming weeks to see just what my new toy is capable of.

As far as games go I’ll likely still do the majority of my gaming on the Xbox 360 platform, but the Sony Store has a few interesting downloadable games – most notably is PixelJunk Monsters. Monsters is based on Element Tower Defense (which I’ve been addicted to before) but sports high def graphics, open gameplay levels, and even more addictive-like-crack gameplay. I lost a good 3 hours to it this afternoon and will likely spend much of the next few weeks trying to master each of its 20 levels – not too shabby for an under $10 purchase (console not included obviously).

To keep me company on the couch I had a few new video games. Mass Effect, Assassins Creed, and Super Mario Galaxy have all come out in the last couple of weeks and are quite excellent games. It’s nice to see that video games are really coming into their own and becoming a viable mainstream form of alternative entertainment to plain old television.

Of those three games Mass Effect is by far my favorite so far. It’s Biowares latest saga and feels very much like KOTOR – one of my all time favorite games. It’s highly immersing and addictive and far too easy to spend 4 straight days playing. I’ve written up a proper review of the game which should post to Gear Live shortly.

Time to get back to the salt mines. Take care o’ readers of mine.

Update: The Mass Effect review on Gear Live just posted – check it out!

Things have been pretty crazy of late and I’m stressed out as a result. Work has been and explosion of activity and my personal life has been busier than I would like. It’s all added up to me being stressed out. After last week I decided I needed a plan to get things back under control at work, as well as a plan for getting better control of my other commitments.

My boss has been somewhat unhappy with the performance of the team. I’ve decided the only way to make things better is to reapply myself to my job and focus on keeping my eye not only on the project’s current status, but also looking ahead a release or two making sure we don’t paint ourselves into a corner or repeat old mistakes.

I’m making a few modifications to my typical productivity style and adopting some of the more extreme GTD behaviors to try and better segment my time and plan better. I’m also going to get more into my backpack for tracking little tasks.

Luckily I have a few things to keep me distracted. Earlier in the week I purchased all 5 seasons of Mythbusters on iTunes and am slowly perusing it on my AppleTV. It’s funny that these days a single click can cost $100 and take 2 days of bandwidth on my fast connection to deliver 58Gb of content. 48 hours might seem like an excessive download time, but for perspective bear in mind that my Mythbusters collection spans over 80 hours of content so leveled out to be nearly a twice-realtime media acquisition.

Super Mario Galaxies came out this week for the Wii. It’s a load of brainless fun and in typical Nintendo fashion it’s quite rewarding for the player. The spherical level concept is fresh and new – a blast to run around the puzzling little worlds finding the start that rockets you to the next one.

The launch event itself was an interesting experience. Apple really does know how to work a crowd, and the energy and passion it’s employees (retail and engineering alike) bring to work with them makes for a really positive experience for Apple’s customers.

Leopard itself is a neat little upgrade. The upgrade itself actually works really well – I didn’t lose any of my documents, settings, or preferences. Aside from Quicksilver being stuck in my dock (not the menubar where it really belongs) everything works flawlessly on Lanshark – Photoshop even stayed fully activated. Leopard is nothing revolutionary, but it really does add a lot of polish to OS X and makes for a worthwhile upgrade.

For the first time ever I actually kind of like the Finder. Quicklook (the ability to preview just about any document without the overhead of opening it’s parent application) is handy and makes confirmation that you have the document you are looking for brain dead simple. Spotlight is vastly improved featuring much faster searches, operators, and network search abilities.

Aside from the Leopard launch I was also thrilled to find out my Gmail account finally got IMAP enabled. The IMAP implementation is well done, and it makes Gmail’s iPhone experience as slick as their browser experience. Being able to have Mail.app cache my gmail account is handy as well for having my webmail searchable via the OS just like the rest of my personal knowledge store.

The final great thing to enter my life yesterday was Puzzle Quest for the DS. Puzzle Quest is a fun little RPG/Puzzler game that a couple of friends had suggested and it’s quite fun. It offers quick-in, quick-out gameplay – a fun addition to my go bag.

I am pleased to announce that I am typing this post up from my shiny new workstation. I’ve decided to pretty much go all mobile again so it was time to trade my Marbles the Macbook in for it’s daddy, a nicely equiped 15″ Macbook Pro. I’ve dubbed my new aluminum friend Lanshark – a name inspired by my beloved pit bull Skype (the one and only real land shark.

When Apple announced their Up-to-Date Program that offers recent purchasers of Apple hardware the Leopard update for $10 – normally priced at $129, or included with any new Mac. I worked a little financial magic, confirmed the sale of Marbles for a reasonable price and dropped down to the Apple Store to pick it up.

A few first thoughts on Lanshark:

• Even though Lanshark has virtually the same processor as Marbles did the extra Video RAM and faster FSB make the computer feel noticeably faster.
• I can’t even begin to put into words how much I love the backlit keyboard. I really missed it when I traded in my G4 Powerbook for the Macbook and I’m 100% glad to have it back.
• The Macbook Pro is one sleek design masterpiece. My Thinkpad T61 at work is roughly the same speed and specs as Lanshark, but both the industrial design and the hardware integration are years behind it’s shiny competitor.
• The design of the packaging has improved a lot – my Powerbook came in a box roughly twice the size of the Macbook Pro, while both notebooks have nearly identical dimensions.

And now back to your regularly scheduled Portal playing action.

In the interest of expanding my life experiences and getting “my game on” I decided to try the much hyped Gamer fuel, Mountain Dew’s new Halo 3 themed “Dew with an invigorating blast of citrus cherry flavor” featuring 170 calories of sugar and 73mg of caffeine.

Initial impressions:
Upon opening the can I was struck by a fizzing fruity bouquet, with hints of pine. The smell reminds me of a mix between kool-aid and pine-sol. I poured a slight bit into a glass to inspect the rich red-orange colors. While in the white cup it looks suspiciously like very thin orange-ish fake blood from a great number of movies I watched as a child.

The first sip:
Pine-sol and kool-aid suspicions confirmed. The flavor is very artificial and tastes just like it smelled: lime and cherry kool-aid packets mixed with a pine-needle whisk. My mouth instantly got dry and gummy – the sheer amount of sugar in a sip is likely more than I usually consume in a day. Never being one to shy away from the challenge I take a big gulp.

The big sip was a mistake – my teeth started hurting, and shortly after swallowing my stomach followed suit. Now 10 minutes and 1/4th of a can later I feel like laying down and taking a nap. My mouth feels and tastes like a gummy bear crawled in, died, and is now decomposing slowly in the back of my throat. What have you done to me Gamer Fuel?

The verdict:
What freakish executive at Pepsi approved this hyper-sweet monstrosity? Why is it selling? Should I buy stock in companies producing medical equipment for diabetics?

My Xbox 630 Chatpad arrived today in the mail – nifty little device. Barely feels like it will fit on the controller, but with a little force it pops on and feels very much a part of the controller. The key travel is nice, but they are spaced more widely than i usually like. Its lighter than I thought it would be, but does change the balance and feel of the controller quite a bit.

It makes both using the 360 implementation of Windows Live Messenger and the Xbox Live messaging service much easier to use. I wonder how long it will take before shooters and RPG’s start taking advantage of the extra buttons to make weapon switching and action selection easier – I suspect the day of the 360 MMO is drawing near now that both text and voice communication are so easy with the Xbox 360.

“Xbox 360 Chatpad” by sparktography

I’ve actually had quite a nice Labor Day weekend so far. This photo is unfocused, just like me – Today I thought I would use my day off for some photography but felt uninspired and unfocused. I didn’t really get any shots I loved, but somehow this one called out to me for some posting love. The processing I gave it was highly inspired by my latest fling: Bioshock.

On Saturday morning Brien and I went to Northgate to buy copies of Bioshock and I ended up spending most of the weekend playing it. Bioshock a very amazing game – I normally hate/suck at first person shooter games, but Bioshock does a great job of minimizing the twitch factor, and making combat much more strategy oriented. The game features a terrifying dystopian 60′s feel and genuinely manages to feel scary at times – best enjoyed in the dark with the 5.1 sound cranked.

Much like my favorite game Oblivion, Bioshock lets you play your way – creeping in the shadows or all out combat, it’s your choice. I love the Plasmids (magic in most games, bio-engineered superpowers in Bioshock), and find that they add a rich element to the game. Surprisingly for being a shooter I use almost no guns – my plasmids and the wrench you get in the opening scene carried me through much of the game.

“Sparky in a dream” by sparktography

iPhone – I still love my iPhone! I’m really surprised at how long the honeymoon is lasting – I’ve had my iPhone for about two months now and I still find myself quietly gibbering about how cool it is. Most gadgets have a 2-3 week honeymoon phase with me before I take a flight of fancy to some new toy, and the best of gadgets sometimes make a month – my iPhone has not only blown past that limit, but doubled it. What makes it so worthy of praise I ask myself: a fun to use, well implemented device that does pretty much everything I need it to.

PAX – The Penny Arcade Expo happened this year in the Washington State Convention Center, a big improvement over the overcrowding of last years shoulder to shoulder overly-olfactory cluster of un-bathing gamers. The extra breathing room this year helped make for a more open experience – much easier to get around. When compared to other technology conventions I’ve been to PAX has a certain charm in that it’s much more focused on the consumers (gamers in this case) than the technology. This leads to a more causal vibe than so many other events.

Today I decided to go for a walk downtown with my camera. I walked down Olive, around Westlake center, and then back up Denny. I found the below shot of a worn down sticker on a power transformer:

I took a couple of other shot’s including a nicely framed Space Needle iPhone wallpaper, an antique power connector, and a neat stack of chairs.

“Mirror” by sparktography

The Wireless racing wheel only helps in this endeavor: the force feedback and ‘intuitive’ interface make for a drastic improvement in game play. I’ve never really gotten into racing simulations before – a few ‘racing’ games like Burnout Revenge caught my attention for moments here and there, but the true sims were rather boring without a steering wheel, paddle shifters, and gas/brake pedals. Being able to feel understeer and oversteer make all the difference in understanding the laws of physics and their effect on my car, and gives the driver a much stronger connection with their virtual car.

The icing on the cake? They have over 300 cars to choose from including the 2003 RS6, which is close enough to my real-life car to give me the chills. Obviously a single night into my Forza career I haven’t earned nearly enough in-game currency (credits) to buy the RS6 but the mere thought of buying, tweaking, tuning, and painting the car of my dreams keeps me coming back for more! Until I manage to come up with the 100,000 odd Forza dollars I’ll have to be happy with my starter car: a 1995 Volkswagon Corrado VR6 – a decent track car, and one that brings back fond memories of when my friend Eric used to have (and tinker with) a Corrado.

On Sunday I had planned to hang out watching the BBC/Discovery channel miniseries “The Planet Earth” on HD-DVD (my copy arrived earlier this week) with Troy, but he ended up sleeping most of the day and I was still feeling slightly under the weather and ended up not doing much. In watching a few episodes I highly reccomend it to anyone even remotely interested in nature – It’s some of the most stunnging footage I’ve ever seen, it’s beautifully mastered for 1080p on HD-DVD, and so far it’s done a great job of exposing me to facets of the worlds I didn’t even know exsisted previously. I’m looking forward to watching the rest of it over the next couple of days (and yes Troy – I will gladly watch it again with you).

I watched a couple of episodes of Planet Earth on Sunday, but for the most part just played Marble Mania and relaxed. In doing so I finally feel like I’ve shaken the last of my Pneumonia and feel ready to tackle my big week at work. Here’s to health and hoping the sickness is behind me!

Having always been a fan of the marble maze genre I’m happy to see it continue to gain traction in the gaming market. Kororinpa: Marble Madness is tied for best implementation with Mercury in my book, although by using the tilt sensor on the Wiimote I would have to say it edges out Mercury in the controls book, but lacks the depth of Mercury – Marble Mania only manages to have about 50 levels, (with a mirrored option after you beat them all) and I was able to ‘beat’ it in an afternoon. I still will get some playability out of it as I need to improve my time in most of the levels to get the gold medal (and thus unlock a few more secret levels, and some new marbles to play with), but for most gamers it will be a fairly short lived title.

Here’s to hoping that Archer Maclean’s Mercury gets a Wii port at some point in the future, and that Marble rolling games in general continue to find homes on consoles, both in this generation and the next!

Aside from recovering my health I’ve been relaxing with video games quite a bit, and doing some reading. I finally beat Super Paper Mario for my Wii, and have been getting back into Oblivion for my 360. I had managed to put down the Oblivion addiction a while back, but with the Shivering Isles expansion out I’ve found myself spending more and more time in Cyrodill. I’ve built (yet another) new character and am focusing on trying to work through not only the new expansion pack, but also all of those miscellaneous little quests that I’ve never bothered to go through – shadow over Hackdirt, Aleswell, and other little one-off quests that really add some depth to the game.

Aside from gaming my reading has been quite interesting. I picked up a copy of Inside the Machine, and illustrated introduction to microprocessors and computer architecture by Jon Stokes. It’s an interesting read and offers a nuts and bolts view of how a computer works from the ground up. I’m about half way through and am simply fascinated by the view it’s giving me into the “world of the machine” that so often slips under the average computer user. Modern computers, operating systems, and programming languages have done a beautiful job of abstracting hardware from software, but the hardware still exists, and knowing how it operates has given me some insight as to why some weird things in the more abstracted levels “work the way they work”.

Luckily the weekend before I had picked up my copy of Super Paper Mario for the Wii at Costco and found it to be the perfect accompaniment for fading in and out of consciousness on my couch. Over two days I managed to log almost 10 hours of play time and made it through 5 of the 8 worlds. It’s a fun little mix between the classic Mario platformer game and a kid-oriented RPG. Sometimes the storyline got to be a bit childish for me, but overall I like the concept of leveling up your hit points and damage in a Mario style game. Super Paper Mario also features a delightful number of puzzles which can be solved by various pixl’s (our hero’s new helpers – equivalent to special abilities in other RPG style games), sometimes involving a large number of steps to be orchestrated over several screens.

Skype was very patient with me this weekend. Even being a dog he can tell when people are sick and I could tell he was worried about me. He spent 95% of the weekend squeezed up next to me on the couch licking my arm from time to time as if to say “I’m here dad – get better soon”. I feel bad for not having given him more exercise (it was all I could do to walk him three times a day) and once I’m better I’ll have to make it up to him with some extra time at the dog park later this week.

For better or worse I’m back at work today – I’m hoping to make a quick day of things here and get home to rest further. I’m still stick, but no longer floored (or couched as the case may be) and am able to make it up and about. This morning I have one really important meeting I can’t reschedule, but after that I should be free to go work from home if I feel the need.

God this really is a good game. A peak of technical entertainment with all the right things to make me click through turn after turn after turn. That is all.

After struggling to get my network up and running yesterday it just seemed to continue on into a full 24 hour saga of network, application, and other issues at work. Thankfully it all seems behind me and I can get back to focusing on writing specs again tomorrow at work – one of the few things I really do enjoy about being a PM. Analyzing requirements and writing them into the living spec is fun!

Now I’m curled up in bed with Skype about to settle into one of life’s true joys: Chrono Trigger. I have my trusty (and newly updated) version of Snes9x for the mac, and my rom image. And yes – before anyone comes and knocks in my door I do actually own the cartridge (thank you eBay). And yes – as I was just reminded on IRC this is the 5th time I’ve played this game in my adult life – it’s just that good!

I would play on an SNES if I had one. I wish they would release Chrono Trigger for the virtual console on the Wii, but from what I’ve heard thats unlikely due to the IP owners splitting paths years ago. Oh IP law and your silliness.

After getting this little corner bookshelf to act as my ‘network hutch’ and contain the many pieces of networking equipment began the multi-hour saga to get it all set back up, all my ports forwarded correctly, and everything else working like butter. Sadly I couldn’t get the old AP working so I’m 802.11n only for right now – no more free wireless for my neighbors until I go pick up another cheap AP.

The mail was also kind to me today: it delivered my Wii component cables. Unfortunately there is something weird going on with my receiver and I couldn’t get it to pass through the component signal so I have a somewhat janked setup right now with the Wii going directly to the TV (still). At least I was able to route the audio through my main AV setup and the big speakers.

All in all I’m somewhat frustrated having spent nearly 3 hours fighting with network equipment, but it all seems to be working now (sans 802.11b/g for the Wii to connect through), and I should be set for fast happy networking bliss.

“Network domination” by sparktography

My friend Alissa (pictured above – another shot is here) has a crepes brunch at her house today. It was simply delightful! I got to meet a lot of her friends, as well as hang out with my old recruiting buddy Ron for a while. Everyone brought a crepes topping and we all talked, took photos, and played Settlers of Catan for about four hours.

After the brunch I had Mike and company over for some video games, bad movies, and pizza – all in all a very satisfying end to my weekend. We played some Crackdown and watched the worst movie in history: Mazes and Monsters.

Speaking of Crackdown it’s a fantastic – if not short – game. I beat the final boss today and discovered it’s twist of an evening. I kind of wish they had delayed the launch slightly and added more content – but that can’t be helped. It was well worth the money I spent on it to get a week of fun running around on the rooftops causing chaos.

“Sultry Alissa 02” by sparktography

Normally I detest shooter games because I lack the ‘twitch factor’, but Crackdown features a unique targeting system that lets you focus more on movement than on aiming. This combined with the matrix style running (think jumping from rooftop to rooftop during a firefight) makes for a fun and addictive gaming experience.

The downside: I’m so addicted to the game that I haven’t posted a POTD since I got the game. Hopefully in a few more nights I’ll be able to tear myself away from Crackdown long enough to go shooting and take some more shots.

Pirates of the Burning Sea actually looks like it could be quite a fun game. I most likely won’t get sucked in (I’m not the MMO kind of guy) but I mean who can argue with Pirates? The game still needs a little UI polish (they are not even in beta yet), but it’s got a solid base for a good combat system and what looks to be a giant world to run (sail?) around in.

Thursday continued my Pirates theme with a showing of Pirates of the Caribbean – Dead Man’s Chest with Ken at Le Cinema Sparks. I really do have to admit that the special effects are simply amazing – regardless of the sheer ridiculousness of the rest of the movie. ILM used a new technology called iMoCap (Image Based Motion Capture) which allowed actors playing the pirates to be replaced in near realtime with CG characters using motion capture technology. This is way cool and an indicator that within a few years actors as we know them will likely be replaced with the infinite tweak-ability of computer generated actors.

Thursday also brought the first day that my jaw really felt better. The antibiotics are working a number on the infection and my bowels at the same time. I’m certainly glad they are working and I won’t have to have surgery, but the constant search for more bathrooms is starting to get old. Oh well – it could be worse: my jaw could have swelled up more and left me horribly disfigured for the foreseeable future. In other news my pills are more than half gone:

Friday brought laundry, cleaning, and way too much laziness. I spent the entire evening getting ready for the weekend. Below is a shot of my pants drying in the bathroom. I had hung them up to dry and was just getting ready to go to bed when I noticed the shot and had to go get my gear together really quick so I could shoot it. I then got sucked into Photoshop playing with various treatments until I finall came up with the below. GO PANTS!

Now that it’s saturday I’m wearing slightly damp pants, and finishing my preparations. I’m actually rather proud of myself for waking up early enough today that I could take Skype to the dog park and still have time to finish cleaning. He had a blast running around this morning (too fast to shoot sometimes) and now is being cooperatively lazy – hopefully that will continue through the evening with my company.

In a few hours a ton of my friends are showing up for movies. I finished cleaning this morning and went to the liquor store to pick up enough booze to sedate an entire frathouse. I forgot mixers but after making a few calls I think that problem should be taken care of by my friends when they show up.

“Shot of pills” by sparktography
“Skype with ball” by sparktography
“Jeans” by sparktography

Flash Element TD: the most addictive flash game I’ve found yet. It’s a simple concept, featuring a seemingly endless stream of enemies which you must keep from your castle via building towers of various kinds.

Turn after turn of nurturing my civilization from the most meager of beginnings to a culturally sophisticated and dominant force to be reckoned with. It shares some of the best qualities of Sim City, Sim Earth, and Age of Empires – a great AI and automated queueing system, detailed control structures and play mechanisms, and a great interface.

At least I a managing to get out of the house a bit – I just got done having brunch at Charlies with Brien and now we are headed up to Northgate to brave the wilds of consumerism and find him a HD-DVD player. Want, buy, have! Merry Christmas!

Earlier in the week I got Civilization IV for the mac and found myself hopelessly addicted to it. It’s a well thought out turn based strategy game. As proven by my recent Gears of War experience I’m not much for twitch based games, but on a game that’s 100% turn based and entirely self paced is awesome. It’s very strategic and makes you think about how you want to grow your civilization from being a hunter-gather based society to the stars.

As excited as I am about CIV4 I won’t actually be playing it much over my 4 day weekend I suspect: I finally got my Wii! I haven’t had that much time with it, but I got it set up and spent a little time this afternoon playing with Wii Sports and Twighlight Princess.

I have to say for the record that I’m impressed. The Wii’s graphics are decent (not good), but their gameplay is fantastic. Having a controller that is so motion based is highly intuitive and makes even simple games fun.

More on the Wii soon I promise – gotta go play it now!

“Wii!!” by sparktography