random notes

First up - terrible news. The Flash - the finest comic produced by DC Comics - is being cancelled this month. It's supposed to re-launch this summer, but it's going to be a long winter and a longer spring while I wait.

I won an ebay auction for a backup wookie - in case the wear and tear on the traveling orginal proves to be too much for him. ChewieII, as he'll be known, will be put in cryo-sleep when he arrives.

I got a new playstation 2 for christmas and it's allowed me to play some games that I hadn't be able to with my aging PS2. One of those games is Lego Star Wars - hilarious. The little lego dudes can use The Force to move around other legos and solve puzzles. The lightsaber battles are cool too.

I also fired up an old game called Okage: Shadow King. I've played a couple of hours of it, but I think I'm going to stop and sell the game. It's...boring. The storyline has promise, the writing is good - but there are a number of elements that make it nearly unplayable.

1. There's a significant load time when going from room to room in any building or town. And 98% of those rooms are empty, or occupied by an idiot. The time spent just trying to find something useful is terrible.

2. The hero fights his first boss battle with a stick. Not a mystical sword, not a potent spell, no might armor. A stick. First time in - and I got killed. And this was before I'd figured out the save points - so, I had to start over from the beginning.

3. The first dungon has the second boss, who I defeated fairly easily. Then I saved, went back, and battled some ordinary monsters. Did one point of damage, then got poisoned, put to sleep, and killed in the next turn.

4. If I have to battle one more random demon chicken, I might lose it.

I should just eject the disk and go back to Xmen II where I belong.

I was in a couple of stores over the weekend and was amazed again at the lack of awareness. I didn't realize I would need the reflexes of Spider-man to navigate a grocery store without being run over. After some careful study, I think I have figured out why it's so dangerous.

A. Shoppers are distracted by the bright lights and shiny colors.
B. Each one is given a steel cage on wheels with primative steering - and they navigate the store by pushing this weapon in front of them.
C. There are no traffic signals or arrows on the floor - no defined right of way.

Randomly moving, distracted people with weapons. Why not give them all shotguns as they walk in? Might save some time.

Also over the weekend - I helped a friend of mine's aunt with a computer problem. It was, thankfully, not something I could fix - since the fix would have involved 1.5 hours of a download to install. It was AOL's problem and I got out of there with a sigh of relief. Now, I like helping people with stuff - but sitting around watching a computer download some software is not my idea of a rip roaring good time. I got some notes together for when she calls AOL and I think that put her on the right track.

I'm in the process of cleaning up my spare bedroom/library - since it's a cluttered mess. Of course, this has led to utter chaos through the entire upstairs as I decompress the room in order to organize it. The chaos is still there, and I fell down the stairs when I tripped over some clutter this morning in a desperate attempt to reach the bathroom. I'm okay, if you're concerned.

That's it for now... back to work..