ImaginaryEngr76's Blog - 2old2play

Would You Trade Memory for Intelligence?

I often am surprised at how the human mind works. The lady that sits in the cubicle across from mine often listens to the classic rock radio station, so when I'm not listening to my iPod, I'll just sit there and listen to whatever happens to pop up on that channel. Anyway, today a song that I probably haven't heard in 15 or 20 years, "Can't Get It Out of My Head" by Electric Light Orchestra, comes on, and surprisingly (and probably embarrassingly) I remembered all of the words and various other idiosyncracies about the song (remembered how the string part here went, how the piano part there goes, etc.).

By now, you're probably asking yourself what this has to do with my being surprised at how the mind works. Well, it got me to thinking - this is a song that I haven't heard in years, and I remembered that much about it. Then I got to thinking about the bigger picture - you can easily multiply that by hundreds of thousands (or possibly millions) when you think about all the lyrics and music to all songs you've got sitting around in your brain. Wasted space some people might call it. I know that in general, different parts of your brain are used to store away & retrieve information (be song lyrics or the memory of your 5th birthday party) than perform complex thought/analysis, but if we could just tap into all that storage space stowing away the lyrics to "Unskinny Bop", maybe those cures for cancer wouldn't be so elusive.

I know that science has proven that there are many areas of your brain that either really aren't doing anything or control involuntary functions, but let's say for the sake of argument that increasing capacity for complex thought/intelligence would be at the expense of real estate that could be used to retain memories. What do you think - would you be willing to sacrifice "memory storage space" in your brain for the ability to perform more complex thought (essentially trading memory for intelligence)? What if you had no way to decide what memories were kept and which ones were "overwritten"? Would you risk potentially "overwriting" your happy memories in order to gain some IQ points? I know these questions are subjective - for many, it would depend on how much memory could be lost versus how much intelligence could be gained. Just curious...

[6 Comments]

Triple Shot of Nostalgia

Well, I'm exhausted. Last night I went to the Styx/REO Speedwagon/Def Leppard triple bill and I didn't get back to the homestead until about 12:30 AM. That wouldn't be so bad on the weekend, but when you've gotta get up the next morning at 5:30, you kinda drag a bit.

Anyway, overall I was impressed by the show - especially considering the vast majority of the performers are pushing 50 or more. First up was Styx, who've had so many lineup changes over the years that I had no idea who would be there calling themselves "Styx". This iteration didn't have the singer Dennis DeYoung, but luckily they at least did have Tommy Shaw. Surprisingly, Styx probably was the most energetic of the three bands that played last night - everyone on stage was running all over the place and the keyboardist was very theatrical (his keyboard was on a rotating platform). Sorry Jammer, there was no Mr. Roboto, but they played some good stuff like "Too Much Time on My Hands", "Come Sail Away", and my personal favorite, "Renegade". At the end of their set, I caught a drumstick, but I ended up giving it to this kid sitting next to me. I went ahead and gave it to him because I felt like I caught it only because I was taller than him. If that thing ends up on eBay, I'm gonna hunt his ass down.

After Styx's 45 minute set, REO Speedwagon hit the stage. Kevin Cronin (the lead singer) had a lot of energy, but damn if he didn't look ridiculous with this short, white, gelled up hair. They played a song off of their new album ("Find Your Own Way Home", which kinda sounded like generic hard rock) along with some of their big hits - "Keep on Lovin' You", "Can't Fight This Feeling", "Take It on the Run", "Rolling With the Changes", "Time for Me to Fly", and of course, "Ridin' The Storm Out". They even made a reference to "Keep on Lovin' You" being in the new "Horton Hears a Who" movie. The best part of their show was when the drummer hit the giant gong behind his drum set, and it fell off the frame. In typical Spinal Tap fashion, the roadies spent a whole song trying to put it back in place. Awesome.

The headliner, Def Leppard, hit the stage about 9:30 or so. I had never seen Leppard live before, so I had no idea what they'd sound like outside the studio. Let me just say, singer Joe Elliott's voice is truly mostly a studio creation. I'm not saying he can't sing, but as you would expect, he sounds completely different when not bathed in a chorus of a hundred Joe Elliotts via the overdubs that appear on the studio recordings. He's also getting older, so he can't hit a lot of those impossibly high notes (see "Bringin' On the Heartbreak"). I also thought the vocals in general were way to low in the mix - oftentimes you could barely hear him, and the backup vocals from the other band members were nearly impossible to hear. They did put on a high energy show, and played all the fan favorites - "Rocket", "Armageddon It", "Hysteria", (oldie but goodie) "Mirror Mirror", "Pour Some Sugar on Me", "Foolin'", and encored with "Rock of Ages". One of my favorites from the night was their cover of David Essex's "Rock On". I think they played about 16 or 17 songs in total. They did play a song off of their upcoming album called "Nine Lives" that evidentially has the band dueting with Tim McGraw, so by that fact alone it's a piece of shit. Joe even put on a cowboy hat to sing Tim's part - groan...

I was probably most fascinated by watching their drummer, Rick Allen, mainly because I wanted to see how a person with no left arm handles the drums. His kit was surprisingly small, and you could see his feet moving the whole time. I figured out that he generally plays bass with his right foot and snare with his left foot, while doing all the cymbals with his right arm. The drum parts weren't overly complex, but he held his own.

The event staff was hardcore about cracking down on cameras, but I managed to sneak a shot of Leppard while running up the steps from my seat during a beer run. Yeah, I know, my mobile phone's camera sucks.

If this bill makes it out to your city, I would recommend checking it out. It was a great show overall, and an awesome shot of nostalgia.

[1 Comments]

Pieces of Eight

A couple days ago, on a whim I picked up what I thought would be last minute tickets for the Def Leppard show here in Greenville, SC. The show is this coming Tuesday, April 4th, so I purchased the tickets less than a week before show time. That being said, according to the seating chart, I'll be on the front floor section in front of the stage, Row C. How the hell did I get tickets three rows from the stage on such little notice? Maybe only about 200 people will show up to see the show in this giant stadium. There's some folks on the TicketsExchange (a place that's like eBay for concert tickets) trying to sell seats in the vicinity of where I'm sitting for 5X what I paid. Oh well, I stumbled into some great seats and I'm not going to complain.

The "special guests" are Styx and Reo Speedwagon, so all in all it should be a pretty good show. I have a soft spot for all that cheesy arena rock from the 70s and 80s, so this should fit the bill nicely. Looking forward to hopefully hearing some Styx classics like "Blue Collar Man" and "Renegade" along with Speedwagon's "Ridin' The Storm Out". I think Def Leppard have a new album coming out in a couple months, so they may be touring to support that, but I hope to hear some good stuff from Pyromania and earlier like "Mirror Mirror" and "Foolin'". They also do a pretty good cover of Badfinger's "No Matter What".

Just for kicks, in preparation for the show, I was watching some old videos by these bands from the 80s. I think my favorite of the bunch has to be Reo Speedwagon's "Keep On Loving You", simply because it is somehow simultaneously predictable and complete nonsense. Even though you know how it's going to end from the opening notes, I don't really get why all the band members are hanging out on the couch with that chick sipping champagne? Why does the performance have to be on videotape, wouldn't it have been more effective to serenade her live? Are we to believe that the lead singer really is that big of an idiot? As a bonus, it has acting on par with your favorite spanish soap opera. Watch and see for yourself...

Embedded YouTube Video --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MBCzFKvg84

[3 Comments]

RB6V2 - Of Dice and Gin(seng)

I apologize in advance for the poorly constructed pun, but you'll soon figure out what it's all about soon enough. Any time there is a hot new game release, I usually head over to the local Circuit City since I've got one of those super fancy Gamers Club cards, which nets you 10% off off any new game or accessory. Anyway, I headed over there during my lunch break to pick up Rainbow Six Vegas 2, and see that they're handing out promotional items if you pick up the game.

The first item is a single red fuzzy die (not a pair, but one) that proudly says "Rainbow Six Vegas 2" on it. It's quite large, but I wonder why there is only one die and not a complete set. I guess it's twice as many or half the price, however you want to look at it. Anyway, the most interesting promo item that I got was the "Gamers Energy Kit" box - the "Energy Kit 4 Gamers, so they can Game All Nite!". The most fascinating part of this kit (other than the cashier said it's quite popular, and lots of people are evidentially paying $15 for this thing) is that it includes items that I never knew existed - in addition to the standard 12 ounce ginseng energy drink, it comes with Energy Gum, Energy Spray, and best of all, Energy Beef Jerky. The Energy Spray proudly exclaims that it can keep you going for as long as 80 hours(!), but warns of "rapid and possible fluctuating heartbeat". Cocaine is probably safer to take than this stuff. I also never knew there existed Energy Beef Jerky until today - God Bless America...

I don't if anyone else out there in TV Land has one of these Circuit City Gamers Club cards, but damn if CC didn't completely botch the program. Ever since I picked the card up last June, very few employees seem to be aware of its existence and not a single one seems to know how to scan the thing properly. Every time I use it, the employee always has to call a manager to override the system and manually take the 10% off. You'd think with a nationwide program like this they'd have some kind of training on how to use it.

I also picked up Sega Superstar Tennis while I was there. Being a Segaphile all my life (I had a Sega Master System and Genesis instead of a NES and SNES growing up), I'm a sucker for Sega fan service. I also like tennis games, so for me it was a win-win. Where else am I going to be able to lob a ball at House of the Dead zombies as Gilius Thunderhead, the dwarf from Golden Axe?

[4 Comments]

For The Love of Bad Games

I think all of us at one point in time grew a weird kind of fondness for a something everyone else on earth made you feel ashamed for liking, be it that copy of Winger's "In the Heart of the Young" album lying in the backseat of your car or that Special Edition DVD of "Krull" that you swore was good and hidden on your DVD shelf. Games are no different - everyone's got a list of games they'd be embarrassed to let anyone else know that they liked, much less played. Here's a few of my guilty pleasures from my "hall of shame" from over the years.

KC Munchkin (Odyssey 2) - One of the first games I played as a kid. It was a pretty bad Pac Man clone, but I secretly always loved it more than its source of inspiration.

Ys Book I (Sega Master System) - Great game on the Turbografx, but not so hot on the SMS. Unfortunately, for reasons I can't recall I chose a SMS over an NES, so I was playing this while all of you were slicing up Octorocks in The Legend of Zelda.

Super Hydlide (Sega Genesis) - Still desperate for the a good Zelda clone, I picked this up with the money I got for my 14th birthday. Although it looked like shit (somehow, Zelda, which had come out three years earlier on previous generation hardware looked better), I still loved it. Plus, it has about the best soundtrack of any 16-bit game out there.

Primal Rage (Arcade) - Who doesn't know about Primal Rage? I lost many so quarters playing this, which was probably the poorest controlling fighting game I've ever played. But you got to be a digitized prehistoric ape, and that was good enough for me.

Apocalypse (Playstation) - A third person shooter with lots of explosions and a poorly digitized Bruce Willis. 'Nuff said.

Sword of the Berzerk: Gut's Rage (Dreamcast) - This third person action-adventure game had a main character named Guts who had a giant sword whose sole purpose in life was to cut dudes. Probably the most violent game I'd ever seen up to that point, but it was lots of fun slicing and dicing fools. Extra points for containing Mandragoras and an arch enemy named Balzac.

But even this generation, I still have a soft spot for the occasional bad game:

Just Cause (Xbox 360) - Even though the cut scenes, story, and dialog are all horrible and the side missions are extremely repetitive, I still enjoyed exploring the huge chain of islands and the jungle, as well as using the grappling hook to perform stunts. The boats, helicopters, and airplanes only added to the fun. Although your character pranced about as though he was chronically constipated, he won back coolness points by looking like a combo of Antonia Banderas and that dude from Creed (OK, maybe we should actually deduct some more of the coolness points for the Creed thing).

Earth Defense Force 2017 (Xbox 360) - Everything about this game screams poor production values (meh graphics, objects have no sense of weight or momentum, your main character runs around like a constipated Space Harrier, etc) it has a certain el cheapo charm. Killing ridiculous numbers of giant ants, spiders, and robots is also oddly cathartic. Bonus points for having powerups show up as 2D sprites in a 3D world.

Conan (Xbox 360) - Even though this game is shameless in its God of War rippoffery, it's actually not that bad. It has a really deep combo system (even deeper than God of War and rivals the one in Devil May Cry), cool bosses, and it plays to the 12 year old fantasies in all of us (lots of blood, bad fantasy, and tits). Plus you'll get to hear Ron Perlman (as Conan) say things like "I'll cleave your skull to the teeth" about 5 million times over the course of the 8 hours it takes to beat the game.

Solider of Fortune: Payback (Xbox 360) - The latest game in my bad game craze, I'm completely baffled to why I've had so much fun with it. While it can be masochistically difficult on the Hard difficulty (the level in the parking garage made me want to throw my controller for the first time in years), it's easy enough on Normal to give you a linear shooter where you can just run through levels and blow away people with ridiculously overpowered guns. There's a kind of primal fun in being able to cause someone to explode in a geyser of blood by hitting them from 100 yards with only a pistol. Realistic (or even good) it's not, but there's still something oddly compelling about the badness of it. While multiplayer can be laggy, it's still fun to blow someone's leg off by shooting them in the knee and causing them to helplessly topple over while still alive.

Anyone else have a bad game they secretly enjoy?

[5 Comments]

Lost: Via Domus (Makes You Glad Game Rental Companies Exist)

I'm a pretty big Lost fan - over the last few years I've gotten sucked into the whole ridiculous mythos. The more absurd it becomes the more I love it. When I heard that they were releasing a videogame based on the show, I knew I was going to have to play it, even if it turned out to be a giant turd. Luckily it turned out to be pretty decent (but only if you're a Lost fan), but I'm glad that I rented it from Gamefly instead of buying it.

It was like this game was engineered to be a rental and nothing more - it has seven "episodes" that you can complete in 30 - 45 minutes each pretty easily. The game showed up in my mailbox on Saturday, and I finished it last night after about 3 sessions over the weekend totaling about 5 hours. The game creates a new character (Elliot) who has a side story of his own that runs parallel with the first two seasons of the show. His story is pretty good, not quite up to the top tier stories of the main cast, but certainly better than the backstory for Nikki and Paolo in Season 3.

This isn't an action based game (other than a couple chase sequences and a handful of areas where you can use a gun) - it's more like those old point and click PC adventure games (think King's Quest) - you explore the environment, interact with important objects/items, and talk to other characters. You move around in third person in a 3D environment - the game controls and looks very similar to the present day Desmond portions of Assassin's Creed. You'll also do some light puzzle solving - there are some puzzles involving reactivating power supplies by manipulating fuses to get the right voltage to the right areas, and some simple IQ test questions involving pattern recognition you'll need to answer to access computer terminals (examples - what comes next in the series "Z-X-C-V-?" and "2-4-8-10-20-22-?"). The puzzles were fun, but hardly challenging or mentally taxing.

In the game, you'll get to explore most of the iconic areas from the show - the wreckage strewn beach; Black Rock; the Hatch; the Swan, the Hydra, and Flame Stations; and if you really keep an eye out, you'll even get to see the Medical Station and Pearl Station. The coolest thing you'll get to see in the game (and the big draw for me) is what is behind the concrete wall in the Swan creating the magnetic anomaly. It's not any kind of huge revelation, but it's pretty cool nonetheless. There's a lot of fan service in the game.

Other than the really short length, I only have a handful of gripes about the game. First, you explore a couple of dark caves with a torch early in the game that have a number of bottomless pits in them. Because of the third person perspective, it can be hard to tell these pits from shadows, unless you tilt the camera so you're looking at the ground. You also have to extinguish your torch to pass through waterfalls, and sometimes there will be a pit nearby that you'll stumble into while it's still dark. Another annoyance is encountering the Black Smoke in the jungle. To get from area to area, you follow flag markers in the jungle to get from, say, the beach to Black Rock. Occasionally, the Black Smoke will come along, and to keep it from attacking you, you'll have to hide in a cylinder-like grouping of trees. Then when it leaves and you climb out of the trees, the game will often drop you out in a different orientation than you entered in, so you're often left unsure which way to go to continue in the direction you were heading. Since the jungle is pretty dense and everything looks the same, you really can't get your bearings in any other way than using the flag markers. It's not a huge deal, it just gets a little frustrating when the Black Smoke shows up every 30 seconds, hiding, the climbing back out and trying to find your bearings again. Another weird thing is the trading system. You'll find coconuts, bottled water, and other various objects lying around that you can trade other castaways for stuff like torches. It works well, it's just weird trading Charlie a papaya, an Apollo bar, and a copy of Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" for a gun and a clip (why does Charlie have a gun and not Sawyer?).

The graphics are generally pretty nice - the environments look good, the Stations and living quarters all have a lot of detail, but some of the characters are hit-or-miss. The character models for Michael and Tom especially will creep you the fuck out. Some of the voice actors from the show did their own voice work for the game (Ben, Mikhail, Desmond, Tom, and Claire), but each of those characters only have about three or four lines of dialog and you'll see them maybe once or twice. Unfortunately, the character that has the most dialog - Locke - probably has the worst stand in. Sawyer's stand in is also pretty bad - the guy doing his voice work has one the worst southern accents I've ever heard. Luckily, though, the voice stand ins for Jack, Kate, Sayid, and especially Hurley are usually pretty solid and not distracting.

This game pretty much exists solely as fan service - there should be a sticker on the box that says "For Fans Only!". If you're a fan of the show, give this game a rent and you'll blow through it in a weekend or a few nights. But if the phrase "Dude, you got a little Artz on you" has no meaning to you, nothing in this game is going to make any sense to you, and the gameplay really isn't compelling enough to keep you interested if you're really not into the story. It assumes a great deal of familiarity with the show's plot and character's, and the amount of enjoyment you'll get out of this game is directly correlated with that. It is good for a quick achievement score boost - you'll get an easy 700 or so just playing through the story. The rest comes from photographing certain objects that are important to the Lost universe that you may come across while exploring. Most are of these are easy to find (Kelvin's suit, Desmond's mural), but a few (Hurley's Van, the Pearl Station, and the Medical Station) can be tricky to find unless you know how to uncover them based on your knowledge of the show.

[5 Comments]

Sea-Monkeys (Or A Child's First Realization That Retail Packaging Often Lies)

My four year old daughter really, really, REALLY wants an aquarium full of beautiful colorful fish that she "can love and care for". Having an aquarium when I was I kid, I know pretty well all the upkeep and filthy water changes involved that I'll ultimately have to do myself, because hey, my kid is four years old. But I thought maybe I can see how she does with the aquarium gateway drug - Sea Monkeys. For those not in the know, Sea Monkeys are basically a kind of brine shrimp, and you can buy a kit containing food and freeze dried eggs that hatch upon placing them in water and adding some sort of "Instant Life" enzyme. You may remember seeing ads for these things in comic books back in the day:

Needless to say, these little buggers are tiny when they do hatch, as they're only the size of the head of a pin. My daughter couldn't see them for about a week (and thought that I was imagining them), but once they started growing, her first question was,"Why don't they look like the sea monkeys on the box, daddy?". See, I'll let you in on a little known fact. Contrary to popular belief Sea Monkeys don't actually look like something Dr. Seuss scribbled on the back of a napkin - they actually look more like this:

Stumped for an answer to offer her (other than "retail packaging often lies, dear"), I went to the official Sea-Monkeys.com FAQ to see if they had anything to say. Luckily they had a satisfactory answer to my daughter's question, probably because it gets asked all of the time.

"Why don't my Sea-Monkeys look like the ones depicted on the packaging?"

"The illustrations are meant to communicate the fun of the Sea-Monkey environment and are not the actual size or shape found in nature."

Well, no shit... Which of two pictures above look more "fun" to you? Now, I've just got to figure out how to "train" them, just like the ad suggests.

[4 Comments]

The Sand Drummer

Well, as mentioned in my previous blog, I made it to the Queensryche show at the House of Blues in Myrtle Beach Sunday night. I had never seen them live, so it was a treat. Even though they were playing in a relatively small venue, they put on a great show. Their lead singer, Geoff Tate, had one of the most charismatic stage presences that I've ever seen. Good to see that his 4 octave voice is still in fine form after all these years. They played a "Greatest Hits" show, so a lot of the material was from their Empire album ("Empire", "Jet City Woman", "Anybody Listening?", and "Another Rainy Night Without You") but they played a good mix of even older stuff like "The Lady Wore Black". The two big surprises were a couple of great covers from their latest covers album Take Cover - Pink Floyd's "Welcome to the Machine" and "Synchronicity II" by the Police. I may try to catch them again soon when they tour playing Operation Mindcrime in its entirety.

As great as that show was, the most memorable part of the weekend was going out on the Beach (it was 70 degrees this weekend on the coast of SC) and seeing a drum kit set up in the sand. It was a fairly nice kit, so at first we thought maybe it was there to film a commercial or something. But a few minutes later, I witnessed a toothless wino come down off of the boardwalk (with brown bag in hand) and sit at this kit and drunkedly bang out some beats. Not good beats, mind you, but beats that my 4 year old would find simplistic and erratic. He was also playing with one drumstick and one twig of some kind and wearing a Trixter 1990 US Tour T-Shirt. But to his credit, it was very windy, so the guy would have had a hard time playing even if he knew what he was doing. But still, it was a wino playing drums in the sand at the beach, so it's a given that it would be awesome. The only way it could have been more awesome is if there was another wino there playing the air guitar. But it was his show - I doubt he wanted to share the spotlight.

I've seen many street musicians play for booze in my time, but I've never seen someone with a full drum kit set up in the sand at the beach. It left me with many questions - How was he going to get all of his gear off of the beach before the tide came in? Where does he keep his kit when not on the beach playing for money? Were the drums even his? I did take his picture on my mobile phone, but unfortunately it didn't come out very well. He started yelling something at me while I was taking his picture and I didn't want to stick around trying to get a good shot. But at least I have my memories.

[2 Comments]

The Queen of the "Ryche"

A buddy of mine asked me to go see Queensryche live at the House of Blues this weekend in Myrtle Beach, SC. I've seen a lot of bands live in my time, everyone from Bruce Springsteen to Slayer, but I've never had the chance to see these guys. I was initially even more stoked about it when I asked my friend who was opening for them - I thought he said "Dio", but my excitement cooled down a few notches when I realized he said "Dokken". Oh well - they can't all be winners. I'm going to dig around on the internets and see if I can find a current setlist. Maybe I'll get lucky and they'll focus more on "Operation: Mindcrime" and not "Operation: Mindcrime II". On a related progressive rock note, I saw that Rush is coming to Charlotte, NC on July 20th - I gonna try to pick up tickets for that one as soon as they go on sale.

Completely unrelated, but I thought I'd share since it was such a good deal - Circuit City is offering a $10 gift card if you buy Devil May Cry 4 in their store this week. I went there yesterday on my lunch break to pick it up, and the befuddled cashier gave me the gift card AND $10 off. So after they applied my Gamers Club Card (10% off), I got the game for nearly half price - $34 + tax. Not bad. I had been trying to decide whether to get the PS3 or 360 version since I heard they were identical - went with the PS3 version because I figured the big black box could use a little love.

One last thing, have you or anybody you know broken the 100 song threshold on Rock Band yet? The game comes with 57 tunes built in - just wondering if anyone has picked up 43 or more pieces of DLC. I think I'm in the 85 song territory. I'm trying not to think about the points outlay that I needed to get there.

[7 Comments]

The Joys of Remote Play

I've got both a PS3 and PSP, but up until recently I was too lazy to utilize one of their most compelling cooperative features - Remote Play. So I pulled my PSP out of the drawer it's been sitting idle in for nearly a year to try to figure out this Remote Play thing. For those unfamiliar with this feature, basically the way it works is if you're out in the wild (well, out in the wild near a Wi-Fi hotspot) with your PSP, you can access features and content on your PS3 that's sitting at home. It's similar in theory to Remote Desktop for PCs. But where this becomes a great deal of fun is that I'll trot my PSP to work, and during my lunch break, I'll use my work's Wi-Fi hotspot to turn on, access, and watch videos that I have stored my PS3's hard drive. I took it to the next level yesterday by leaving my PC on as a Media Server, and having my PSP tell the PS3 to stream videos and music off of my PC's hard drive. So now I can catch up on any TV here at work during my lunch hour, and after the show's over, I just tell my PSP to shut down my console at home. It also works for games - supposedly you can play certain PS3 games on your PSP and have the PS3 handle all of the horsepower consuming tasks - but I haven't tried that yet.

This whole process works really well for streaming stuff off of the PS3 HD, but I've noticed some lag trying to pull content off of my PC's Media Server. I've been using it in an effort to re-watch all of the Season 3 of Lost before the big season premiere this Thursday. Too bad we're only getting eight episodes this coming season - they'd better be awesome.

[6 Comments]

The Mystery of Mayonnaise

Does anyone actually know how long mayonnaise is supposed to last in your refrigerator? I was making a turkey sandwich yesterday for lunch and pulled out my jar of Duke's mayonnaise and thought, "Jeez, this has been in my 'fridge a long time, I wonder if I should be eating it?". By a long time I mean probably a year. And the jar is still half full. For some reason Duke's mayonnaise doesn't have a date on it. But it hasn't ever made me sick - maybe I'm immune to food poisoning due to years of eating old mayonnaise. But seriously, how long should I be keeping this stuff?

[7 Comments]

Jobs, Music, Games, and other Longwinded Miscellany

Time to dust off the blog for my quarterly update, looks like…

How many of you went to college and got a job, only to discover that you really didn’t much care for your chosen profession? I’ve been working as a Process Engineer ever since I got out of school roughly 10 years ago. I’ve spent most of that time in manufacturing, but I moved over to wild world of consulting about 3-1/2 years ago. I’ve never really disliked my work – it’s usually challenging, the hours are good, the pay is pretty good – but my heart’s never really been in it. But to be honest, if I could have a “do over”, I don’t know what I’d go back to study or choose to do in the working world. I guess that’s all a fancy way of saying that I don’t know what I want to do when I grow up.

A few months ago, I decided to try something a little different within the same consulting firm – I moved over to our Project Controls group where I primarily handle Scheduling, Cost Analysis, and Project Management. So far, so good – I think I like it better than splitting my time between doing calculations all day and visiting plant sites full of borderline dangerous conditions. It’s still far from my “dream job” (whatever that is), but the work keeps me busy, I generally like the people in the new group, and I can’t complain too much about the pay or hours.

I went to the local indie music store and picked up three great albums this week. First up was “The Essential Eels” by The Eels. If you’re not familiar with the Eels, this is a great place to start. I loved their albums “Electro-Shock Blues” (“Last Stop: This Town” is probably one of my favorite songs of all time) and “Blinking Lights and Other Stories” – I picked up this “greatest hits” album to fill in the blanks. Great listen from beginning to end.

I also got the new Drive-By Truckers record, “Brighter Than Creation’s Dark” which is also excellent. It’s become cliché to call the Truckers “this generation’s Lynyrd Skynyrd”, but it’s also a pretty good assessment. One of their primary songwriters, Jason Isbell, left the group prior to making the album, but I feel like Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley stepped up their game. Great stuff if you’re into Skynyrd, Crazy Horse-era Neil Young, Steve Earle, or alternative country music.

The surprise of the week for me was the new record by former Skid Row frontman Sebastian Bach, “Angel Down”. I had no idea what to expect and picked it up on a whim. I remember buying the first Skid Row album in the late ‘80s and thinking it was alright, but when I picked up “Slave to the Grind” a few years later, it absolutely melted my face. “Angel Down” is kinda like that – it’s probably the heaviest thing Bach has ever been involved with, and “Slave to the Grind” and “Subhuman Race” were both scorchers. If you worried that ol’ Baz got soft after his guest appearances on the Gilmore Girls, well it’s safe to say he’s got his balls back. Check it out if only to hear the three duets with Axl Rose, who evidentially took a break from recording “Chinese Democracy”.

On the games front, I picked up Burnout Paradise and I’ve been enjoying it a whole lot more than I thought I would. This was the first game in months to pull me away from my addiction to Rock Band. Although I’ve always enjoyed the Burnout series going back to number 2, I’ve only been able to have a passing interest in them. As you’re probably aware, the open structure takes some getting used to, but it’s the multiplayer aspect that makes this thing a winner. The multiplayer setup where the city acts as the lobby makes dropping in and out of friend’s games a breeze. And between the racing and multiplayer challenges, this game is essentially an 8-player version of Crackdown with cars.

The most surprising thing, though, thus far is that I’ve played two nights with the fine folks in ClaNarchy and have yet to receive one mugshot of an ass or penis. And contrary to what I told them, I changed my gamertag to “WakeOfPoseidon” just to fuck with them.

For you folks in The Lone Rangers, don’t forget about our Rock Band Rockathon Clan night this Sunday.

I also can’t wait to get rid of this damn sinus infection.

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Chazz, Rez, and Pip Want You To Hear Their Demo Tape

Well, the clan idea Mike El Cuchillo and I had finally came into fruition (see my last Blog entry). "The Lone Rangers" (special thanks to Bleed for the name idea!) will be a music/rhythm game based clan primarily focused on Guitar Hero and Rock Band. We felt like it was a good time to start bringing some folks together since the upcoming iterations of Guitar Hero and Rock Band will have (hopefully not jacked up) multiplayer components. We now have 20+ members, so if you're tired of rocking out with your plastic guitar in solitude, check us out...

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Interest In a 2O2P Music Game Based Clan?

With all the upcoming rhythm/music based games coming out in the next month or two such as Guitar Hero II and Rock Band that are going to have online support, I'm trying to gauge the interest in creating a Clan based on these games. The purpose would be to have a dedicated place where people could get together and discuss strategies for high scores, talk about the DLC, have clan leaderboard contests, couple up with a co-op partner, find a drummer for your "Rock Band", or brag about how many pounds you've lost playing Dance Dance Revolution. Although it would most likely be focused on the 360 since it has the largest online community, the clan wouldn't be platform specific so if you had one of these games for the PS3 or PS2, you could still participate. So far, between PMs and the postings in the Guitar Hero II and Clan Recruitment forums, I've about got enough people to go forward with creating the Clan. Now, we will just need a name. So far, we've got:

2Old2Rock
2Old4Aquanet
2Old2Powerslide
2Old4Spandex
2Old2Jam
TheDoucheofRock (special thanks to YEM)
The Power Balladeers

If anyone else out there in 2O2P-ville might be interested in joining should one be created, let myself or MikeTheKnife know.

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Master Chief Finished the Fight on My 360

Unfortunately, the title doesn't mean that I've finished Halo 3. I bought my 360 around March of 2006, but noticed when I bought it that it had been manufactured in October 2005. That said, I've somehow always managed to avoid the dreaded Red Ring o' Death with my early production Box. It has never given me any problems - no signs of overheating, very few sporadic lockups, and I've never seen those red lights shine on my console. That is, until yesterday...

I've been playing Halo 3 (very slowly - it's been a busy week with work and the kid), so I jumped into the 3rd campaign mission yesterday afternoon and the damn thing kept locking up on me in nearly the same spot. It would play for a few minutes, then emit this digital sounding "blurt" noise through the speaker, and the screen would lock up. I tried a couple other games and it didn't seem have any issue with them. I have one of those Limited Edition sets (you know, the one with rampant reports of discs being loose in the packaging leading to scratches/scuffs), so I swapped it back out at the store. It still had problems in nearly the same spot. I then tried jumping into a MP session and it locked up before the session began. I turned her back on and there it was for the first time - the RRoD. It doesn't RR every time I turn the system on, but it's pretty much consistently locking up every time after a few minutes. I've always had the feeling that my box was living on borrowed time, but it seemed to go suddenly - no problems before yesterday.

I guess I'll have to order up a coffin. I'm impatient, so I guess I'll have to buy a "backup" Core unit. Either that or play PS3 games for the next month - Heavenly Sword is a good game, but I doubt I could stretch it out for several weeks, so another Core it is, I guess. All this happens on the first clan night that I've been able to make it to in weeks. Oh well, everyone's time has to come sometime...

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