Tag Archives: Rick

TV Problem

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I just got this new Samsung television and already I’m having a very odd problem. It seems that whenever there is white text on a black background, which you see quite often in the “bumps” on [adult swim] and during the credits for King of the Hill, the screen actually darkens and lightens depending on how much text there is. If there is a lot of text then it appears white, if there is not a great deal of text then it appears gray, because the screen darkens. I have already turned off anything in the settings that was dynamic and the power saving feature, and it still is doing it quite actively.

I asked Rick, since we have the same television, and he said that it doesn’t do that for him, and when we compared settings they came out the same. He suggested I call Samsung and to be honest I probably will. I don’t have any DVD’s or games that really create the same environment, but admittedly I haven’t looked very hard, so I don’t know if it just does this with the cable or with other devices.

Columbus Trip

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Tim and I went down to Columbus this weekend, and I believe the word “finally” fits in here nicely. See the trip has kind of been being planned since November, but at that time I wanted to wait till after finals. Finals came and went, and then I believe I got sick. Then Tim’s Grandfather got sick. Then some other things happened. I guess a month and four canceled opportunities isn’t all that bad, but it seems like it was a long time coming.

I found out that in case of a snow storm I don’t want to be in Akron. Nothing makes this more apparent than driving away from Akron, and then having to come back. It seems that when driving anywhere Akron is always piled beneath a foot of snow, but every where else has snow plows that come out and clear the roads. They even put down salt. It’s amazing what you get when you don’t live in Akron.

It was nice to see Rick and Melissa. They have a roommate currently, from Alabama, who wanted to move up here for a while. She got a job working where Melissa does, and she is experiencing all the freezing rain and snow that Ohio has to offer. At least the driving doesn’t look too bad.

While we were down there they got me cymbals for the Rock Band 2 drums for Christmas. I really do think they are cool, even though I’m not entirely sure how to use them. They are easy to assemble. They seem to work flawlessly. It’s just that you sort of have to retrain yourself to use them. Awesome gift. Tim got a gift card and I have a gift for Jo in my car, but I’m not driving out there till the roads get nicer.

It was a nice trip, and I’m sure in about a month they’ll go ahead and come up here. Then it’ll be our turn again.

Thursday WoW Update

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Not a lot happening on the World of Warcraft front lately. Lot of people just not even checking in to see what’s going on. I don’t know if anyone is still playing. Well let me take that back I know some people are still playing.

Steakems hasn’t logged in quite a while, and matter of fact at the time of typing this the armory wasn’t able to bring up his character. I’m not completely sure this character still exists. I know he’s been playing though, because he was bragging on some bitcast that he got to 80 on some other server. I don’t know what’s going on with this character though.

Remana is still playing, but not so much recently. I know that this is still an active character because I get reminded that there is a deficit in funds that needs to be corrected in order for this character to get a mount. This I’m sure will be corrected sooner or later.

Grotesk was supposedly leveled a bit, and I know this because Umori told me so. On the other hand there was an apparent migraine that forced the delay of getting some time in to level Rhenzaburou and Tsugutoshi might be playing, but I don’t know. If it’s anything like how I play then I’d hardly notice, because I gain some experience and then log off and go do something else.

I’ll have to get all the names of Umori’s other characters and list them all here sometime. There are a bunch. I think there are at least 5 level 70+ characters in all.

Xandrov and Romany continue to play those characters and some other characters together, and they would have to be stupid not to since their 3x refer a friend experience credit is going to run out eventually. That means that Rombus has been put on the back burner for awhile, which is fine, since technically I have two alts that need to catch up to him.

Rombus, Romany, and Xandrov actually have their own more in depth weekly updates that you can find if you follow the Rombus link on the left hand side of the page. No credit needed for the idea, because none was given, well it was sort of given. 😉

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts

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Rick picked up his copy of Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts on Saturday so on Sunday we actually got a chance to play the multiplayer. To be honest I was expecting a pretty mediocre experience. I know I’ve seen reviews that basically summarize the multiplayer portion of this game as something that feels tacked on and not fully developed. After spending a few hours winning and losing at it I feel I can safely say that the multiplayer is a full experience that everyone should try out.

First you all join a room. In this room you can run around and load up vehicles that you have created. Then if you don’t have it locked, which is a simple press of the A button on the main multiplayer screen to turn it on or off, other players can actually take pictures of your creation and those will be saved to their system as a blueprint. That way they can create the vehicles they see.

What is there to do? There are many different kinds of races. Races in the water, air, and land. There are also sports, and that’s where it would seem that vehicle creation is going to get awesome as you have to develop a vehicle that is good at catching a ball and holding it or pushing another vehicle off a ledge.

You get an appropriate vehicle for every race. The host decides whether everyone starts with a default vehicle or if everyone can bring in their own. Rick and I played with the default vehicles, because we have barely played enough to unlock the parts in the single player game to build our own awesome vehicles. I’m sure we’ll both remedy that soon.

One of the coolest things about the multiplayer is if you are having fun just playing around showing someone your vehicle and the host starts a match, well then you don’t have to join. You can just keep hanging out doing what you want until the match is over. Gives you some control over what game types you want to play as well.

This game is $40 new, so I imagine that a whole lot of people can afford this. With how cool the multiplayer is and how really social it is I am hoping that it’s the next Midtown Madness for this generation. It certainly seems like it, and I’ve already given the game to two other people, so I’m helping that cause along.

Enjoying Saturday

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Rick and Melissa came up from Columbus to spend the day with me. They brought a birthday card. The card was a Far Side comic that I think I might have seen before, but more interestingly was Rick’s choice of the word “DING” for my birthday. While I do not know whether or not they exist I am positive that they have to, because this seems to perfect. Simple yet sort of funny thinking about getting older in the same light as leveling.

They picked up their copy of Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts that I bought them for Christmas. I know it’s early for that kind of thing, but I just thought it would be pretty cool. We plan on getting online some time and checking out the multiplayer. There is supposed to be racing and some other stuff to try.

Renee came over and we all went to have lunch at Dave’s Cosmic Subs in Hudson. It’s a pretty neat place, but a bit of a drive. Renee remarked that she thought the sub would have been better toasted, and honestly it probably would have been. I don’t even know if they do that there. I just sort of assume they would have asked if I wanted it prepared that way if they did.

Rick and Melissa started their characters on Balnazzar, and so I will have them in my Thursday WoW Update with their new characters names and all about what’s going on with that. They played for a few hours while I cleaned up. We ordered pizza for dinner, and that worked out.

Anthony and Andrew stopped over for a little bit, but they had to go. Derek came over and he had plans for later tonight as well, so he just got some time in with Mirror’s Edge. It’s a very frustrating and enjoyable game. I can’t wait to play it more.

WoW Thursday Update

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There isn’t a whole lot to say about the World of Warcraft today, except for you either have the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, or you don’t. That’s the big thing for this week, and probably the upcoming weeks, as now you can start a whole new class with the Death Knight. I’m not really sure what a Death Knight is, and that answer would probably be revealed to me if I spend more time playing the class.

The problem is Death Knights report to Arthas, who is basically the supreme evil guy in the World of Warcraft. The Death Knights are all swearing allegiance to him, and they start at level 55, and they apparently are in this to kill everyone. I don’t think it’s an Alliance vs. Horde thing so much as Blizzard not wanting to take the time to make a legitimate third team. From everything I’m seeing it should be Arthas vs. Alliance vs. Horde. It is sort of a shame they didn’t go that way.

Who has the expansion already? I know Tim and my brother waited in line for the midnight release. Dan had it shipped to him, and I only know this because he was making regular updates on Twitter concerning where the shipment was.

The reason I’ve never mentioned Dan before is simply that he doesn’t play on the same server as any of my characters. He plays Alliance, which I don’t play at all, and if I’m not mistaken he plays on a PvE server. While I’ve often considered moving to such a server to get away from the whole hours of getting ganked fun, I have yet to actually commit to that. I have more of a chance running in to him at a Jonathan Coulton concert in Cleveland.

Jo said he would be picking it up today. He had it preordered and paid off, but weighed standing in line at midnight to be far more trouble than waiting till the next day. I had to run to Wal-Mart at 5 AM in order for a certain member of the US Armed Forces to have the game last night.

Renee, Rick, and Melissa might not have picked it up, but then again they don’t have any real immediate use for it. I could include Jo into this demographic as well, but he can at least see the finish line now. None of them are necessarily close to being 70 to take advantage of the new content in that respect. They could start Death Knights, but they still have the aforementioned characters to take from whatever level they are to 70.

Expansions cause so much activity!

Thursday WoW Update

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First thing is that it doesn’t look like I’ll be adding that many names this week, but I will be soon. I guess Rick and Melissa did not start their characters on Balnazzar and while they have plans to do so in the future I don’t see it happening any time soon.

The names that I expect to have in the future are those of all the people coming back to World of Warcraft. Blizzard is reporting that 46% of the people who listed that they were quitting to play Warhammer Online are reactivating their WoW subscription. I think I mentioned that the guild we were previously in, before we started The Holiday Loggers, was PK who went from quite a few members to none. I honestly expect most, if not all, of those people to return, and then I’ll be adding them to my update.

Umori and Tsugutoshi have been playing together and they’ve been gaining a few levels. They are getting closer and closer to 70, just in time for the expansion to have to go to 80. I might get the expansion.

Remana is level 29 already, so that means that I have at least one person to pal around with my alts. I really should play them a little more often.

Basically in the upcoming weeks we will be adding more names and have more to talk about in these updates.

Thursday WoW Update

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This is kind of a fun update! My brother is out of the hospital now and the first thing he decides we should do is to go get ourselves Devilsaurs. My Devilsaur is the orangish one and my brother has the brownish one. Yes, these elite mobs from the depths of Ungaro Crater used to be untamable by the hunter, and now look at them. Large T-Rex looking monstrosities that are ours to control. They have completely changed the way pets work in the latest patch as well, but that’s a story for another update when I’ve explored it and know a little more about the abilities in the skill tree for pets. I need to get my brother’s characters names so that I can add them to this update.

We have a new member on the server and probably two. Melissa apparently started playing WoW and so Rick will be starting a new character just to play with her. I don’t have either of their new character names, so that’s one for the next update. I got an IM from a friend letting me know that they were entitled to a free character transfer, which is the process by which you take a character from one server and put it on another, but I am not sure how they managed to get a free one. The cost of this move is usually about $20.

Warhammer Online is taking it’s toll on WarCraft and I have a feeling things are going to change, for the better I hope. Seems that the guild that I was in is down to 3 members. I hope this is the pressure Blizzard needed to get off their collective asses and do something about this constant end game grind. It’s not fun, and they have about a month and a half to fix it before my subscription runs out.

My next update should be littered with players names.

Trip to Columbus

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I took a trip to Columbus to see Rick and Melissa. Tim and Renee came with. I drove and was getting about 36 mpg according to my car, so it’s really a good car to take on trips. Traffic wasn’t too bad, but then again it’s no where close to being a holiday and I don’t believe shopping season is really in swing yet.

We went to BD’s Mongolian Barbeque. That place is always good. Found out that Tim likes things a bit hotter than everyone else. How hot? Hot enough that you can feel it in your sinuses. Rick and Melissa paid for Tim’s dinner and Renee and I pitched in for a card to GameStop, so Tim got a bit of a surprise, since his birthday was a week ago. We didn’t forget, we just had to postpone it.

We went to Damon Busters next, which is kind of fun. I mean, it’s usually a lot of fun, but the basketball game was busted for most of the night, so we didn’t all get to play. When we did get to play I did well, but Tim beat me twice by one basket. We all played the trivia game, this game where you have to roll tokens down a ramp and get points, and skeet ball, it was fun. We won a bunch of tickets, but there wasn’t anything really that interesting to get, so we just had them put the tickets on a card and we left.

We went back and played Rock Band for a bit, but I was feeling a bit under the weather so we decided to head home a bit earlier than we had originally intended.

Thursday WoW Update

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I said I’d bring them back, so here they are. There has been some moving around and some other things going on. Some day this section might be larger, because more people might move here. I know that Andrew and Anthony have been being prodded to at least start new characters on this server. Some day this section might be for an entirely different game, since there seems to be a lot of interest in the Warhammer game. For now this is where we are.

I’ll start with Remana who hasn’t changed a great deal since I stopped doing these updates about a month ago. I’m sure there will be a renewed interest now that I’m coming back.

Grotesk should be seeing some sort of play, but he never liked the character so it’s going to be pretty stagnant. I don’t know if I can convince him to play it anymore, but it would be nice to have a priest in the group. As part of a compromise, and since you can move characters from PvE servers to PvP now, he moved Tsugutoshi and he’ll actually play this character.

Steakems shot up to level 36, and I really thought after he passed my two alts that he was going to climb all the way to 60. Now he’s having car trouble and some other not so fun stuff is going on and I don’t know what’s going to happen with this character. I’ve even heard him say that he might be putting WoW on hold for awhile until he gets it all straightened out. Who knows. Have to wait and see I suppose.

Rombus has actually been playing ever since they convinced me not to go. I know this, because when I had that get together he was playing this character and had Tsugutoshi run him through Scarlet Monastery. I think when I stopped the updates he was only in the 20’s, so this is of course an improvement. I can actually run through the stuff he’s doing with my alts. Just as soon as I find time to be on when he is.

Well that was a heck of an update. Maybe some day I’ll figure out how to get a page going for just these updates or something. I don’t know. Lot of ideas.