Pile of Shame

I first came across the term “pile of shame” when I discovered the 1Up Yours podcast. Basically it means stuff you plan of doing but never get around to. Usually it could be the pile of books gathering dust waiting for you to get to them some day, or it could be movie you have yet to see, games that need to be played, whatever, as long as it is entertainment related. So one of my piles of shame were several Gundam kits sitting around collecting dust. well no more.

Over the last couple of weekends, I have been slowly working on three kits and getting them in good enough shape to be showcased. From Left to Right, I finished Red Astray, Blitz Gundam, and Gundam Sandrock.

The Sandrock was simple assembly, paint and lining, followed by a flat topcoat. The Blitz required some slight part mods and I put on some custom decals. Its been a while since I built a guldam kit so it was only after the fact that I remembered that you need a smooth surface to better place water slide decals and that the flat black on the blitz did not help. Last was the Red Astray. I really like the Astray Gundam for its compact design. Really am satisfied with its finished look and my choice of darker red.

Overall, they all still need some tweaks here are there but at least I can tick something off one my several lists as being done.

With these all cleared. Maybe I can attempt to dent in my reading pile of shame and finally finish reading the Camus’ Plague. I have tried several times but end up getting distracted before I get to the final quarter. Surprisingly enough I have read the fist half five times now. Hopefully this is the month I cross that bridge as well.

Windows 7 Beta

Started using the new Beta for Windows 7 yesterday. Though it is too early to form an opinion about this latest release by Microsoft, I have to admit that I am certainly impressed by the wow factor of the OS. Particularly of note is absence of the sidebar, with the move of gadgets to the main desktop. I find that more to my liking as in Vista my gadgets littered the desktop and the sidebar felt kind of useless.

Another interesting change is the revised taskbar. I find it very organic or quiet. Its very compressed and utilitarian in approach. Haven’t had time to try out the Media Center features and see how it works with the Media Extender in my Xbox but I am enjoying the changes to Windows Media Player. The Media Player, though not as cool as the Zune player is still fresh in its approach. Much appreciated is the inclusion of codecs for Xvid, x264 etc. Still had to install CCCP for some of my more obscure videos to work but it was nice to see that kind of support finally make it into Windows my default.

I hope to try out the simplified media sharing and networking soon but other than that, so far so good.

Overall, this is feels like major step in a very right direction by Microsoft.

Paradigm Shift

Ran across an interesting article about tech that did nto or has not causght on by the guys over at Extremetech. It got me thinking about the idea of a paradigm shift. It is often said that we "live in interesting times". In fact I belive that if one looks closely then any time and every time is interesting in that change is occuring. But when does the change reach a critical mass of sorts. when does a paradigm shift for one or two people reach enough to cause a change.

The reason I write this is because, as I have posted before, I own a Zune and I have started to notice that people, at least those in the tech circle are at least talking about it and more so than I used to previously pick up in web chatter (always wanted to use that word). Is that a move towards some sort of social acceptance. How do societies accept ideas of trends. Is it more akin to the propogation of a virus spreading from people to people or it is an entirely different process. Not really sure. I guess time will tell if the Zune has got legs or not. I still find it to be a superior experience to my old iPod but that is besides the point. What I am more interested in is how ideas are created and transmitted.

Fixing Heroes

I think I am not the only one who thinks that Heroes is going through a rough patch; a very rough patch. The story seems to have stagnated. It feels like witnessing a dog trying his best to catch its tail. There has been so many talk about what one should do, and it got me thinking. The only words that came to mind were JMS. J. Michael Straczynski. Those who don't know can wiki the guy here. Of course JMS is now considered an A-lister in Hollywood but I think he is one of the few guys who knows how to keep the core ideas of heroes alive while building on the mythos and the characters that we so very badly need for to evolve. But I guess we can't a;ways get what we want. either way those were my two cents on the matter.

Bullet Witch

I recently got a hold of Bullet Witch by AQ games. I had read all the reviews before plunging in and was expecting a horrible experience. As it turns out I was pleasantly surprised by what I found. The game is definitely bad. The story goes nowhere fast. In fact, it doesn't even launch. And the AI is extremely glitchy. They happen to be from the school of "rushing your character head on" school. With that out of the way I can finally say proudly that I actually had fun with the game. The character design is intriguingly interesting. The game mechanics present an interesting solution to selecting the various magic attacks available to your character. And the intent of the designers shines through at occasions that you just find yourself moving from fight to fight without being bothered by the flaws of the game.

Last but not least the final boss fight is well worth the price of admission in this game. It is insane and tests your wits and skill thoroughly. I haven't had a chance to test the DLC that shipped after release and frankly I don't think it offers anything that would warrant spending Microsoft points over but I think it does extend the life of the game enough to keeps the few fans the game has been able to find.

In the end I enjoyed it enough to recommend it to anyone as a rental. I could even go so far as to suggest that you grab it from a bargain bin like I did, but then again your mileage might vary. The game is definitely worth a look.