by Matt | Jun 21, 2005 | Personal
Oh yeah, the rest of it all…
Durring my drive I almost killed a variety of wildlife. An armadillo, two actually, a racoon and some sort of praire-dog thingy. The one I couldn’t understand was the racoon. It was wet, and running across the road in the middle of a very dry area. Whatever pool it was relaxing it, it almost got killed going back to it. Sad. You’re relaxing in a hot tub beside a desert oasis and this Kia thing comes barreling towards you at about 70. You spill your margaritta and poop your little racoon pants as you scramble back to your hole. What a life.
Speaking of wildlife, coming through San Antonio you’d think the Spurs were happy or something. Well, I suppose they are. I wasn’t there but I can only imagine what Boston looked like durring the series. San Antonio is comparable this week. Minus the 80 year desperation of course. Thought I doubt there aren’t too many hispanic people in Boston with 8ft window decals proudly displaying their team’s logo. I doubt there are too many hispanic people in Boston. Of course, I haven’t been to Jamaica Plains lately. That was probably mean. As Jason would say, that’s my “one for the day”.
I’ve also got to mention Batman. It was pretty bad ass. I enjoyed it completely. I was very inpressed by what Christopher Nolan was able to do with the series. I was also interested to find out that David Goyer, the screen writer, is also penning film versions of The Flash and Ghostrider. Ghostrider is apparently going to be played by Nicholas Cage, who I watched in Nation Treasure (on DVD) this afternoon. So that’s some 7 degrees bullshit right there.
Back to Batman. Some reviews I’ve read had knocked it for being less than action packed. I can’t imagine what movie they were watching. If you want more action than what that movie had you probably need to evaluate your state of mind. They were begining an entire franchise. I think it’s ok to have some semblence of a story. Or maybe that’s not what they were expecting from a Batman movie. They probably liked Batman and Robin too.
Regardless, I enjoyed it. Michael Caine and Liam Neeson were great, Christian Bale was tolerable even though I still hate him from what he did to Hamlet and Katie Holmes was a bit of a surprise, I didn’t even realize she was in the movie. She’s didn’t do a particularly good job, and she looked constipated for most of the movie, but I suppose thats thanks to Tom.
Fucking Tom Cruise. Just has to go around infecting more people with his Scientology crap. I still can’t believe that “free you mind” bull got declared a religion. And popping the question on top of the Effel Towel? Come on. Talk about corney. I thought they had like a waiting line in Paris for that stuff.
I tell you what Tom, you promise me War of the World won’t suck and I’ll stop making fun of you for being the corniest sonofabitch on the planet.
Also. Who’s excited about Land of the Dead. Me! Me! Zombie movies pwn.
Lastly, in what is quite possibly the best part of my days this week, I think I need to mention my Police escourt. The fine officers here in Laredo have basically a presidential motorcade setup for transporting the Miss Texas contestants and staff, including myself. Forming a column, protected on both sides by motorcycle offices and at either end by cruisers, we drive through the city, through red lights, stop signs, traffic, etc. I’ve never driven through a city behind a SWAT team before, and I have to say, it’s a rather interesting experience.
Anyway, today was pretty borring. No major events going on. I’ve watched about 5 movies. Gotta love HBO. They bring me such wonderful things like Black Hawk Down and that horrific Jason movie where he’s forzen in space. Talk about contrast. Besides that I’ve been stuck on a PC without a video card, sound card or speakers. So, what else can a guy do except play a little Civ 3 to pass the time. The most addicting game ever. And one that doesn’t require any of the aformentioned hardware. Ah the simple things.
I miss Lauren. I wish she could be here, or I could be home, either one. I’m not picky. Thankfully I don’t have to do this travel thing all the time. I don’t think I could take it.
Matt out.
by Matt | Jun 19, 2005 | Personal, Travel, Work
So, today was my travel day. Having done most of my preparations the day beforeb I was able to leave out about 9:30 and get to Laredo around 3:30. 5 hours driving plus a break or two for gas and bathrooms. The rental car we got was a Kia Optima and was allegedly the “top notch Kia” if such a thing exists. It did well, I’m not knocking it, but “featureless” doesn’t really beging to describe it.
As I drove I couldn’t help coming up with a mental list of everything I wanted to write about before but didn’t get the chance to. 6 hours in a car alone will do that to you. Having driven the east coast in a similar fashion its amazing how quickly you go through your entire music collection and what you do to amuse yourself along the way.
Pardon me while I sip on my tea, compliments of the lavish complimentary Mr. Coffee machine in each room. Actually, it an upgrade, last year they didn’t have one. They must have gotten my hate mail about the $5 instant coffee available in the lobby.
Moving on… Has anyone noticed that MacDonalds has changed their food in about a decade. Seriously, I got chicken nuggets outside of San Antonio and it was like stepping back into 1985. What I can remotely understand is the mass apeal of Mickey D’s. They’re the largest and most popular hamburger in the world? Huh? Obviously people across the globe don’t know better. Shit, peole in foreign countries would pee themselves if they got ahold of a Whataburger. I treasure that place like its the lost city of the Incas.
I’ve lost my train of thought. My appologies. I’m quite tired from the drive. Since the brilliant plan to provide me with internet while I’m here had a bit of a flaw in it, namely the complete lack of wireless capabilities with the machine I brought, tomorrow I’ll recant you the tale of how I rectified the situation… As soon as I figure out how to do that.
Oh, and if you notice spelling or grahmar mistakes in the posts this week, please forgive me, the Sidekick likes to punctuate the shit out of things for no reason at all.
Night.
by Matt | Jun 18, 2005 | Work
Ok, I just wrote a whole post worth of absolute dribble, so I deleted it. I’m tired, I’m hot, I’m hungry, and I don’t really give a shit at the moment. I’m leaving for Miss Texas USA tomorrow, I plan on constant updates from the road, mainly because I’ll be in Laredo by myself for the first few days and I’ll have nothing better to do and I’ll have my Sidekick with me. I had wanted to play BF2, but the computer I’m taking has no graphics card. Convient huh? Whatever. So, look for multiple updates daily for the next few days, starting Sunday night. At the moment I’m going to go pass out from all my packing. Oh, and Jones Soda Berry Lemonade completely kicks ass.
Out.
by Matt | Jun 14, 2005 | Culture
You guys haven’t heard from me in a few days. That’s 99% the BF2 Demo’s fault. It’s good…. really good. Up until yesterday however I was having some issues running it. I know my system is no slow-poke, but BF2 had to be set really low, 1024×768 at “low” details/textures/etc with no AA, AF and with lighting and shadows turned off, to be exact. That just didn’t seem reasonable. I thought maybe it’s just a really intensive game. Thats until my boss had issues running it too. He has nearly the same rig I do with a slightly older graphics card. We should really be able to play the game at reasonable settings he says. I agreed and started digging.
First thing I did was run some benchmarks. I hate 3DMark and think it’s a bias piece of shit, so I settled on AquaMark. I love AquaMark. Not only is it a “real game scenerio”, it actually gives scores that might make sense, and then breaks them down into easy to understand chunks. Anyway, I ran it and got THIS. That’s a score of 36978 (representing – CPU: 3622, GFX: 7553). Not bad I think. Until I compare it to other systems in my range. Someone with the EXACT same hardware is getting over 60,000. Thats just not right.
So I start asking around. With the help of the fine lads in the AquaMark forums, we determine it’s my VIA drivers. A quick reinstall from the original CD that came with my mobo and now I’m getting THIS. 53396 is MUCH more in range with where I should be. And that’s stock. I haven’t tweaked anything yet. I’m hopinh to break 60,000 by the end of the week.
A little video card driver tweak here, a little RAM timing change there, and I should be cranking out the power.
Oh, and as for the BF2 demo. I went from 1024 at Low, to playing it at 1280 at Med/High with AA and lighting/shadows turned back on. Just goes to show you, sometimes drivers make all the difference.
Out.
by Matt | Jun 9, 2005 | Games
This is not mine, I have cut and pasted from a forum post:
One of the big groovy features of BF2 will be the ‘ranking system’. This is a quasi MMORPG like feature where you have persistent ranking based on game scores over time. Your rank will have real ingame benefits like weapon unlocks and highest ranked players get access to the new ‘commander mode’ (one player gets to play the game in a RTS like view controlling artillery, sending commands, UAVs, etc)
….sounds great right?
Here is the catch…you can only earn rank on EA servers. This means anyone who wants to get access to unlocks has to play on the EA servers. Also it means that regular players on unranked servers will always lose access to commander mode from anyone who plays on EA servers (and ‘outranks’ them). Private server Admins will have no access to the ‘locked’ weapons and features.
EA’s only solution for admins is rent servers from EA (I assume at their current rate of $8/slot/month!). EA will hold a monopoly on renting ‘ranked servers’
Here is an EA comment about it from a RealityFriends interview
Q. Can you expand bit more about ranks/stats. The sound of it, reminds me a lot of the honor system in Americas Army. Here are some of my concerns: When the screen with the players on the server comes up, will you be able to see the rank of each player? Will the unlocked weapons be available only in official/rank servers? Will clans be able to lease official servers and will it only be one company’s monopoly? What effect will that have for the private servers, since all the people will be playing in official/rank servers to get their rank up?
A: That was a lot of questions:
– You will be able to see the rank of everyone on both ranked and unranked servers.
– Unlocks will only be available on the ranked servers.
– As mentioned earlier, you will be able to lease official/rank servers.
– We hope that will enjoy the game enough to play it both on ranked and non-ranked servers
EA claims that this is to protect the ‘integrity’ of the ranking system (but of course it is a little fishy that the only avenue for us admins is to rent from them)
I dislike this thought process. Having a game with “unlockables” is great, it increases replay and adds something to strive for, especially in this model where your rank is your badge of honor and you get weapons upgrades and whatnot. But, whats the point of having unlockables if you can’t use them?
“Yeah, I spent 40 hours a week playing on EA’s servers, I’m a 4 star general, but I can’t use the sniper rifle today because I’m playing on a private server.”
???
What the fuck is that about? If it’s not a server side variable I’m going to be super pissed. Angry enough to send my thoughts to EA directly. And don’t think I don’t have email addresses from the development team either.
I can see their side, they want to maintain a “safe” enviroment for their gamers. Saying, within these specific servers, there will be zero cheating, zero asshats and they’ll always be well maintained and admined. That’s a server I would infact enjoy playing on, and that’s their point. But to make HALF THE GAME the insentive to play there is a little fucking retarded. I probably haven’t explained, but for every class there’s ranks, higher ranks get cooler stuff, etc, just like a RPG. I’m sure as shit not going to be a private for the next 5 years and never play with any of the unlockables.
Let’s say I do decide to play on EAs servers. I get good. I’m a sergeant now. I’ve got a sweet ass shotgun that I like a lot. Now it’s match time. Matches are played on private clan servers. Private servers are unranked and have no access to unlockables. My cool shotgun that I’ve been playing with for the last month, non-existant. I have to step down to the lowest denominator and play with the basic weapons only. Everyone does, making the playing field level. Level, but incredibly boring and not fun.
Way to go Dice/EA, way to fuck your fans. Way to mess with your biggest support group, the clans, the rabid fans who would have done anything for you. And don’t get me started about the lack of CTF. One game mode. Bah. What nonsense.
I’m still looking forward to this game. The demo should be out tomorrow. I will enjoy it completely I’m sure. What I won’t enjoy is the next few months while the hate mail pours into EA headquaters about what fucking retards they are for making HALF A GAME unaccessable to even those who have infact worked hard enough to earn it.
Give it a month. They’ll be a server side patch NOT from EA to unlock everything. I also fully expect a CTF mod within a few months.
I’m done.
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