Jack Thompson Guilty on 27 Charges

This is awesome.  Jack Thompson, the sworn enemy of gamers, free speech advocates and intelligent people everywhere, has been found guilty on 27 of the 31 charges against him.  Judge Dava Tunis released her report which details the charges.

Again, this is awesome, and a massive win for free speech as it pertains to games.  This jackass was constantly placing the blame on game publishers for violent games ending up in the hands of kids.  Never mind that the retailers broke the law in selling those games to minors, he never seemed to get the concept that parents need to be held accountable as well.

Its always nice to see sanity prevail.

Today marks the first day…

Today marks the first day of the year where it actually felt like spring as I left the house.  Even at 5:00AM, it was warm and inviting.

Today marks the first day that we won’t have to make any more trips back to the apartment.  That’s right – no more moving our crap and no more cleaning.

Today marks the first day that we can finally concentrate solely on unpacking.  And, with any luck, we may just have a house devoid of boxes by August.

Today marks the first day of what I imagine will be a pretty damn good month.  With Mario Kart Wii coming the day after my birthday and finally having some time to devote to SSB Brawl, I’m a happy guy.

Today marks the first day of the last month that Carrie and I won’t have season passes to Cedar Point.  The park opens on May 10th, and I think we’re going on the 13th or 14th.  We’ve never had passes before, and we’re pumped.  Get yours!

Today marks the first day of a month in which the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs begin.  The Detroit Red Wings are, once again, one win away from clinching the President’s Trophy as the NHL’s best regular season team.  Again.

Today is a good day.  :)

Mario Kart Wii

And the hits just keep on coming.

REDMOND, Wash., March 12, 2008 – This year, the typical signs of spring will be accompanied by the sweet sound of revving engines and the sight of lightning-fast shells whizzing around every corner. Mario Kart® Wii is zooming toward its launch in the United States on April 27. The game comes with the intuitive Wii Wheel™, which makes it easy for novices to compete against veterans, so no one is left in the dust. And with a broadband hookup to Nintendo® Wi-Fi Connection, players can compete with up to 11 other drivers from around the world for racing dominance.

From Nintendo.com

I just snagged Brawl, and in a mere 46 days I’ll be picking up Mario Kart Wii.  I’m actually hoping for a very rainy Spring and Summer.  And when I say “very rainy”, I mean that I hope it rains from April until November.

;)

Big Brawler

Brawl!

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A Relaxing (Root Canal-ish) Kind of Weekend

Given that Carrie and I have been feverishly hunting for a place to move over the last couple of weeks, I was actually relieved for this weekend, for a couple reasons.  First, I was getting my root canal on Friday, and second, because that meant I’d need time to rest and recover.  And rest we did.

The root canal was scheduled for after work on Friday, and something about getting that done right before the weekend was nice.  Sure, it meant that doing anything real exciting was out of the question, but that beats dealing with discomfort at work.  Plus, both Carrie and I are mostly broke, and need to pinch pennies until we’re moved and settled in.

As for the root canal itself, it was mostly easy.  I needed no fewer than 5 shots of lidocaine to make the process not excruciating, but once I got through the painful process of that 5th shot, it was smooth sailing.  A mere 90 minutes (and $140 copay) later, and it was time to go.  My mouth was totally numb and incredibly sore, but the tooth pain and temperature sensitivity are long-gone.  I even ate ice cream last night.  Mint chocolate chip FTW!

Saturday gave me the opportunity to play some RCT, and it was awesome.  That game, while still simple in terms of it’s presentation, still holds up after nearly a decade.  It was a lot of fun playing, and I could have easily lost 4 hours to it, instead of the semi-reasonably 2 that I ended up playing.

After Carrie got home, we mostly did nothing, and it was awesome.  In fact, we were kind of wondering why doing nothing felt so awesome, and came to the realization that our last 2 weekends (and even more before that, considering the holidays) and the week in-between were incredibly busy, with all the houses we’ve been looking at.   To say we’ll be relieved to finally be moved would be an immeasurable understatement.

Totally out of chronological order, but we did watch I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry on Saturday.  It was a 40%/25%/35% mix of funny/overdone joke/strange, though given that Adam Sandler is obviously running out of good ides by now, what else can you expect.  I suspect I’m not the only one who saw Grandma’s Boy as a clear sign its time for Sandler to stick to production, and leave the acting to others.  In other viewing news, we watched episodes 4 & 5 of Heroes (via the Netflix instant-watch feature), season 1 – I’m hooked!  Now we just need to catch up before the new season starts this fall.

All things considered, it was a pretty awesome weekend.  I’ve been such a crab lately, on account of my chronic tooth pain, and we’ve been so busy that Carrie and needed some time to just be.  Of course, now we just crave even more of that, though I think that’s what happens when you’re so crazy about being around someone.   Moving day can’t come soon enough!

Wistful Gaming

So, I just got a hold of a copy of Roller Coaster Tycoon (yes, the original), a game that kicks a lot of ass, especially for a coaster dork such as yours truly.  I have RCT3, but its too resource-heavy once your park gets real big.  Anyway, I took a look at the system specs, out of curiosity:

Pentium II 350 MHz CPU
Windows 95/98
64 MB RAM
8X CD ROM DRIVE
at least 180 MB free hard drive space
4 MB accelerated SVGA card
Windows 95 compatible Sound Card
DirectX 5.0 (included on CD)

This shouldn’t really be surprising, seeing as how RCT first came out  in 1999, but wow!  Its always interesting to look back at what was, especially in the realm of PC technology.  As a comparison, this is how my work PC stacks up:

Intel Core2 6700 (2660 MHz)
Windows XP SP2
2048 MB RAM
153600 MB hard drive
256 MB SATA graphics card

DirectX 9.0

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If Only $H = $US!

I’ve been a member of HubDub for 3 weeks as of today, and for someone who just sort of plays it very casually, I’m kicking some serious ass.  My overall rank, which is based on your quarterly gain, is 233.  And while I don’t know how many members there are overall, I’m certain its well over 5,000 by now.  That puts me in the top 5%.  They also break down your ranking by category, and when it comes to sports, I’m ranked in the top 3% at 138.  However, my sports ranking is really only that high on account of a few long shot wagers that really paid off for me.  And while its cool to be ranked high, I can’t see ever being ranked in the top 20 – their quarterly gains go from $30,000 on up to almost $300,000!  That’s incredible, but who has that kind of time?

Project Io – Coming September 2008

So, I’ve long been anticipating building a new PC, and have put off half-assing it, since I want to do it right.  I’ve only got a loose framework for what I want so far, and really, thinking beyond that is futile anyhow, given how quickly things change in the PC hardware world.  However, I do have a name for the new rig: Io.  And here are the very basic specs:

Intel Quad Core CPU
4GB DDR3 RAM
150GB WD Raptor HDD
GeForce 8800GTX 768MB

So that’s that.  And now I have a target date: September 7th, 2008.  Why?  Because that’s when Spore comes out.  :)

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