A very long sword

After more months than I care to think about, I'm finally finished with the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. Since I listened to the majority of the 11 books unabridged while driving, it's taken a while. I believe I've been working on this series for over well over 2 years, which speaks to the length of the books, since I spend a LOT of time on the road.

Overall it was enjoyable (obviously since I spent so much time on it), but not perfect. An epic story like this is never without its flaws and padding. While this series has nowhere near the padding as Jordan's, it does stretch things more than necessary. For example, overly convoluted magic discussions between characters that takes 20 pages is ridiculous. Any idea what, "The junction locked the azimuth to attach the proper parcels" means or what a "verification web from an interior perspective" is? Me neither and I actually read the damned series. I get the need to have certain magical effects explained to the reader, but listening to two characters debate the effect in extreme made up jargon is tedious.

Reading/listening to a series like this back to back does tend to highlight certain flaws in a writer though. Goodkind has a annoying habit of reminding the reader of certain prior events. Normally this is fine when the reader is being reminded of things that happened in other books. However, Goodkind apparently thinks his readers have the memory of a goldfish, since every book has multiple reviews of events that happened in the same book.

Despite these flaws, though, the series was pretty good. I became extremely invested in the characters, and there is some interesting social commentary there too. I have absolutely no questions about what Goodkind's opinions are on certain issues. There's a lot of preaching, which also becomes tedious at times. However, it's been especially interesting this year of all years. A lot of the themes are echoed in the current election.

Anyway, it's a little weird to be working my way through another book (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) after so long in the world of Richard Rahl. I'm very curious about the TV series that starts in November.

Customer "Service"

My wife and I recently purchased some baby furniture, and had to wait for Babies R Us to order the dresser. I was called on Monday and informed that the dresser was in. The woman who left the message stressed very clearly that the dresser was preassembled and I'd need a big vehicle to pick it up.

Yesterday I borrowed the shop's van and went to pick it up. I informed the woman at customer service that I was there to pick the dresser up. I waited while she paged the furniture department to get the dresser brought up. After a minute or so, the phone behind the counter rings. The customer service woman answers it, nods and asks me, "What kind of car do you have?"

"A van." I answer.

"What kind of van?", she asks, "We want to make sure it will fit before we bring it up."

"It'll fit."

"OK, but what kind of van? We just want to make sure it will fit before we bring it up."

"I swear it will fit. Can you just bring it up?"

"Is it a big van? The dresser is one piece and we don't want to have to take it back to the back."

"The van is fine, IT WILL FIT." I was getting a bit irritated by now. I mean the frakking thing is a dresser, not a fully assembled, king sized waterbed.

"Sorry sir, but we just want to make sure it will fit in your vehicle. We don't want to have to take it back to the back if it doesn't."

"I understand that, but I'm the one that bought it. I know what size it is. It. Will. Fit."

"Is it a cargo van?"

"Yes. I guarantee it will fit."

"OK." She replies, uncertainly.

They finally brought it up and sure enough, it fit with enough space for about 6 others. By this time I was so furious I almost left the damned thing. I get that some people may try to fit a dresser in the trunk of a sedan, but CHRIST. I think that what got me the most frustrated that it was a relatively small dresser. There's not a single van in the world this wouldn't have fit in. I wanted to go back and comment on the differences of male and female spacial relations.

Another thing that got my goat was that they brought it up on a dolly. So the inconvenience of "taking it back to the back" involves rolling the dresser about 100 yards. The horror! What happened to the service part of customer service? I know that the days of the customer always being right are long gone, but this was a bit ridiculous. Or did I over-react?

A great shower.

Saturday, my wife and I went to a coworker's baby shower, something I was less than thrilled about. Turns out it was actually my kind of shower. There weren't any corny games, or silly activities. It started with food and beverages (unfortunately the non-leaded variety) and socializing. There was a quick break for gifts and then the host pulled out Rock Band 2!

The rest of the shower was all about the Rock Band. It was a pretty cool change, one that made me glad we went. I of course stunk the place up, but at least there were a few that had played less than me.

I would have been more excited to go if I would have seen the invites:

Fantastic

This is just for DrH, it's another really cool flash game, with physics!. It's called Fantastic Contraption, and only check it out if you want to waste a few hours/days.

Gods I love the simple, yet entertaining games. Why is it these are free and yet the pieces of crap that are available are $60 dollars? Sure they look great, but a lobotomized capuchin can play it...

Finally

Finally, it's finally hockey season. Tonight the Avs start their season against the Bruins. While I'm excited that the season has started, I'm more excited for next Tuesday's game. We play the Flames, my new most-hated team.

Don't get me wrong, the Red Wings are playing too, and I'm rooting hard against them too. It's just that Bertuzzi blows goats.

RED WINGS SUCK!!
and of course the obligatory;

The Force is Weak

I'll state it for the record here and now; "I will never purchase a game on release date ever again (except maybe for Starcraft 2)." Now that I've gotten that out of the way, I've been working on my thoughts on Force Unleashed on the Wii. Unfortunately that charismatic, stallion-esque bastard Yahtzee beat me to it, but so be it.

On first impression I was pleasantly surprised to find the graphics weren't horrible, as I was led to believe the Wii version would be. Granted I'm sure it wasn't as eye popping as the PS3 or 360 version, but the game play seemed to make up for it. I (like Yahtzee) felt that a lighsaber game is what the Wii was made for right?

However, it turns out the SW:TFU (an unfortunate abbreviation, thanks Heimlich) is a lightsaber game that doesn't use the lightsaber. It's actually easier to use your Force powers and leave the lighsaber part alone. The lightsaber combat is actually quite irritating. Combining bad controls with the character's annoying habit of pausing in a cool pose after every frakking swing makes this Walrus a very angry pinniped. My vision of lightsaber duels comes from Return of the Jedi and even the Phantom Menace, blurringly fast attacks and parries. Not so here, Galen seems to assume that one swing is enough and the impressive pose will strike armor wetting fear into the remaining enemies. Maybe it's just part of the Sith training. Apparently the cool-lightsaber-brandishing-pose is the first thing taught to young dark side apprentices, and must be mastered before the whole lightning and choking thing.

In any case, this led me to stop using the lightsaber at all, and turn instead to the force powers. While there are a ton of different powers, the most used are the force-push and lightning. All the others rely on certain motions with the Wiimote and don't always work. So you're left walking through level after level picking enemies up and throwing them against the wall, with the occasional lightning attack thrown in. It get's kinda boring.

As far as the "new levels available only on the Wii" (like the Jedi Temple), they're great - the first time. Unfortunately I have been back to the Temple about 5 times now, and each time it's exactly the same fight. I know storm troopers aren't known for their intelligence, but after being thrown into the ceiling the for the second time I would call in sick.

Finally, the in game camera. Words can't describe how much usually I hate third person games because of the frelling camera. This game is a perfect example of how bad game cameras can be. If you're not being attacked by something just offscreen, you're running into something that explodes. To make matters worse, occasionally enemies respawn in a corridor you just cleared. It got to the point where I could only play for about 15 minutes before I was forced to turn off the game and walk away, ensuring my TV screen remained Wiimote free.

Bottom line is I would skip this, or borrow it from some poor sap that did get it. While the storyline seems decent, it's simply not worth the alternating aggravation and boredom of this version. Just another reason I wish Lucas would die in molten, liquid-hot magma.

Gods I miss Firefly...

Lego braaaaiins

This be the coolest thing I've seen done with Legos ever. These are shots from BrickCon 2008, the Zombie Apocafest:

It's an entire town overrun with wee Lego zombies, complete with a mall.

It also shows accurately shows the carnage in the mall. Again showing that the mall may seem like a good place to hold out, but it really isn't when the zombies attack.

I love the street with the Lego blood splatter. This is even more impressive when I think about how hard I have making a basic car with Legos...

All you votes are belong to us

I'm not sure what to think of this, other than someone has WAY too much time on their hands:

See more gamer videos at PWN or DIE

Seriously...

Therapy that works

I'm sure this has been seen before. I just think it's hilarious, and true!

Who wrote this?

Fidgit.com recently posted a list of the "Top 10 moments that changed video gaming forever". While there are a few on the list I totally agree with, some are arguable and others are pure crap. The list should be "Top 10 moments from modern games that changed videogaming forever."

I agree with numbers 1, 2, 4 & 5 (I even have to grudgingly agree with #10). However, number seven has no place on the list. While I enjoyed Bioshock, the "twists" were anything but shocking. Number 6 states the same thing as #4. Both are moments in a game that had nothing to do with gameplay. They were just showing off the technology of the time.

While I enjoyed Portal (one of my all time faves), the credits (number 8) didn't "change gaming forever." It was amusing and well done, but epic? Cake jokes aside, nope.

What about that first time you powered on your Atari 2600? Why isn't Pong on this list? How about the playing a Gameboy for the first time?

And worst of all, how can the following not be on the gorram list?
"You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.
There is a small mailbox here." Tragic, simply tragic.

I suppose that you could argue that the list isn't too bad, assuming it was written by someone that was born in the early 90s. Damn kids today, don't know how good they have it...

Customer Quote of the Month - October

Customer on the phone, "I'm a little lost. Where is your shop?"

Me, "We are about a mile south of Highway X on Y street."

CotP, "Well, I'm on Y street at a Sinclair station. Am I close?"

Me, "Um, you're about 200 yards from us. Look down the street and you'll see our big marquee sign."

CotP, "I'm looking down the street but I don't see anything."

Me, "Do you see the ambulance in the parking lot?" (Some of the folks from West Metro were next door)

CotP, "Yeah. Yeah! I see the ambulance."

Me, sighing"It's parked right next to our marquee."

CotP, "Oh, which one?" (There's only one marquee)

Me, "It doesn't matter. Just come to the ambulance, you'll see us then." I begin to pray that the ambulance doesn't leave.

CotP, "OK, I'll be right there."

I stopped looking for her after 2 hours and for the record the ambulance was there for about 30 minutes...