Welcome to August…School…Yes…

So, this morning I promised to myself I would make a post. Yes, I’m still alive, living fairly well, and doing things on a daily basis, but haven’t gotten much chance (Or have been too lazy) to post on here. It’s usually easier for me to work from the most recent things to the furthest back events that are in my head, so it’s time to start.

First off, I have rejoined Fiesta for a third time. Sheesh, when am I gonna stop? But that’s beside the point, explained further below, Warinthestar has convinced me to start playing and doing things that I was doing 2 years ago. Man has it really been that long? Ah yeah, it has. So just yesterday, my cleric on Teva has reached Level 67, and I’m telling you, it doesn’t get easier. Joined guild SoulReaver, Warinthestar’s current guild, looks pretty fun, I’ll tell you that. So I guess I’m back to Fiesta.

Next up, as you may know, Warinthestar originally was an admin on the Twilight Server for the game BZFlag. Well guess what? I’m back to playing that too! (Now a third time also) So let’s see, Twilight has changed its global groups to TWILIGHT.SRADMIN, TWILIGHT.ADMIN, and TWILIGHT.COP, as in we’re in TWILIGHT.SRADMIN, and TWILIGHT.ADMIN is now for the original Jr. Admins. We’re trying to recruit old members from our past times playing Twilight, found Saber and boresnake who still get on every once in awhile. Twilight now runs 5 servers, 4 of them public including: Twilight Main Server, Party Time Server, Jumping Skillz Server, and BZSports Server. The private one is the Twilight Test Server. Also, we have started a new site on my http://sigonasr2.servegame.org server with my newfound web-designing skills I gained over the summer, we created a nice looking site and forum fairly easily. Check it out at http://twilight.servegame.org, and please join if you’re interested.

(Read onward for stuff that happened further back.)

The Dragon Delasangre

Yes, this is what I’m talking about today. This is a book called The Dragon Delasangre by Alan F. Troop.

Now, I just want to say, this book is the most amazing fiction fantasy book I could possibly find. I could argue Pendragon, but once I read this, now I am seeing even more greater fantasy.

Rating – 10/10
I don’t think I’ve given a 10 to anything yet. Well here it is. The Dragon DelaSangre is about an adult dragon (If I recall correctly 57 years old which isn’t too old in dragon years) who is able to change between a human and dragon form. I think this is what made the book the best fantasy book I’ve ever read. This concept right here. I’ve read Eragon before and I thought that was a pretty cool book, but now we have a dragon that can also be a human. The main character in the book, Peter DelaSangre lives with his father and learns about the dragon and human life. Although he is a dragon, his mother encouraged his father to send their son to human school, so he acquires much of his life through a human. (Note, ignore the first chapter of the book if it is boring to you. This describes the scene and his life with his father.) After the first chapter, you start heading into some action. As you will later learn, the dragons go on nightly hunts usually (because they cannot be seen because they are so sparse and will be slayed) to eat people. Yes, human meat. So Peter would bring home some people for his father and himself. It’s not until he meets a waitress at a restaurant who gives him a number, a murder that arouses suspicion, and a closely related death that turns Peter’s life haywire. This is when the story gets juicy and interesting. Peter must meet a female of his kind and now he’s on the ultimate search of his life.

Probably from that passage right there, you could already get some of the feel for the action to the book. I absolutely loved the book. In fact, I finished the book in three days, a record for me! I’ve never read any chapter book > 200 pages in 3 days, that’s just insane. (It’s actually 295 pages now that I think about it.) So as you can tell I LOVED this book! It’s just amazing! You should read it if you love fantasy and need something that will include action, romance, and dragons. No Spoilers, but I swear, during the last 75 pages of the climax, my heart rate started rising because of all the action. I’ve never felt so into a book before, like watching an action scene on TV except even more amazing.

Also the concepts included in that book including dragons becoming humans, eating humans, mindspeak (The private talking with dragon’s minds as you will later found out. The book has those written in italics.), all the romance that happens, and even the dragons interacting with real life. All these concepts kept me reading from page 1 to 295 just like that and guess what? I’m not done! I picked up the sequel, Dragon Moon and I’m going to start reading it soon. Can’t wait. If you really need a new book to read, check out this amazing book.

So in most of my posts, you know that I include more than one topic, and usually the main topic is longer than the rest. So if you clicked the More… button, you will now see the rest of the topics. It’s to keep my main page clear from clutter, and if you’re interested in reading more, the hidden-ness adds to the suspense, heh. Click it and read what else there is!!!

(Read my Dragon Moon review at http://sigonasr2.wordpress.com/2009/04/02/dragon-moon/ [The Second Book in the series])

Missing Out On a Whole Month

So, this is my first blog post I am putting on here for January 2009, and it will probably be my only one. Well, first off, Happy Late New Year to everyone I’ve made my New Year’s Resolution, and I hope you did too and have started this year off great.

 

To get things moving quickly, I’ll start off by talking about the biggest things that have happened during this month from January 1^st.

 

My year started off pretty exciting with me getting Spore and Sparkcash for Christmas. The game Spore is a computer game where you create your own creature and go on a vast adventure through time as your creature evolves through the 5 essential stages to become a futuristic intelligent society. I found the game to be very fun and have reached the Space Stage (Like most people). I’m sure if you had read other Spore reviews then you already do know this and do not need a whole new review, so I will not go into any details but I just wanted to mention that it is very fun.

 

Sparkcash is the currency used in the game Fiesta when you pay real life money to get Sparkcash. Now, you may find that it is very dumb to spend real money on an online game (I know the feeling, and I’ve been waiting forever for this) and you know, you’re right, it is a dumb game to be wasting real life money on but I guess if I’m happy then I do not mind (Of course everyone says that). I’m pretty sure if you played Fiesta for almost half a year now, you may be interested in getting Sparkcash. Sparkcash is now found at Target stores conveniently in Sparkcash cards of $10 and $25 values. You get a little more than 17,000 Sparkcash with a $25 card.

 

So, those cover the things that happened since Christmas. Now then, recently I have been reading more science fiction books. I did finish the Rama series and must say I really liked the series. Here I quickly rate each book from the series with a short summary of why I rated it that.

 

Rendezvous with Rama: 6/10 – So, this book was all about exploring a ship, with some life that doesn’t interact with the crew very much. Basically sets the stage for the rest of the books.

 

Rama II: 8/10 – This is where the real action starts. The crew that is talked about through the rest of the Rama series is revealed. About a quarter of the book is spent on Earth, then the rest of the book is mainly most of the crew escaping Rama, and then leaving Nicole, Richard, and O’Toole stranded in Rama.

 

Garden of Rama: 9/10 – This book is when all of the kids that Nicole has with Richard and O’Toole are born. I love how the book starts off with Nicole writing about the events that happened in the spaceship. This is where they meet The Eagle and finally start understanding what is happening. They set up what the City of Rama will look like, and now I see where the places from the final book come into play.

 

Rama Revealed: 10/10 – The final book in the series is full of action, romance, and stories all wrapped up in this book to make it probably the biggest and best book in the whole series. Everything gets wrapped up very logically and it’s very hard to get a story to close that’s this complicated so well. All the events that have happened in the previous books now have a large role in the whole story.

 

So there are my personal ratings for that series.

 

Upon Liberalphie’s (Name of friend from Fiesta) / Warinthestar’s (Name of friend from BZFlag) recommendation, he suggested I read The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton. So I picked up the book and read the first chapter, then I stored it away for maybe half the week. I didn’t like the first chapter but then I thought, heck might as well see if I can figure out what’s so great about this book and I continued to read it. I soon figured out the whole story and was reading it through. Within the week I have finished the book and I love it.

 

The Andromeda Strain: 8/10 – The book was a cool experience. The concept of a virus from space was interesting and how it created the mysteries of the two survivors kept the plot going through most of the book. I loved how the laboratory was set up with 5 floors, each floor a more secured area. The only bad thing about this book was the ending which I did not like. It made logical sense, but it sure seemed boring. If you didn’t understand science and how strains worked, you may have thought that there would be a sequel or something like that. I just felt kind of disappointed by the ending.

 

As you know, I’ve read most of the books of Arthur C. Clarke after I got recommended to read those, so I did. Well, since I got recommended to read one of Michael Crichton’s books, I decided to start getting involved in more of his books. I just finished The Sphere, another great book by him. Fantastic, I loved it completely.

 

The Sphere: 9.5/10 – Fantastic book. I loved the characters in the book, they talked about how exciting or unexciting the adventure underwater will be, and I never thought the underwater environment would be so harsh. The Sphere that was introduced was so interesting too, the secret messages from what eventually became known as Jerry. This book was interesting from page 1 to page whatever the end was, but it was a great book. All the characters were so realistic with different developed attitudes. And because of this, the whole book was kept very interesting. Why didn’t it get a 10? Because, again, I thought the ending of this book kind of was bad. They just completely forgot about their power, never to use it again. I think I’m starting to see a pattern with Michael Crichton’s books. The endings resolve everything.

 

So what am I reading now? I am reading The Terminal Man by Michael Crichton. I’m almost halfway into it, very interesting so far. In my next post I’ll review the book too.

 

Enough about the book stuff. My birthday party is in 2 days and I cannot wait. (And my birthday’s on a Saturday this year )

 

Fighter’s Field 3D – Yes yes, the long awaited wait is almost over. When I release this, fighter’s field will be so much different. (Ok, maybe not completely but it’ll be funner [Yes, that is not a work{At least I don't think so}])

 

Here’s some of the features of this new version.

 

Class Split at Class Upgrade Lv40. You will be able to choose from two class splits once you reach level 40 and have completed Class Upgrade II. By doing this, you get split through class and your skills and stats will differ when you reach higher levels. This allows you to slightly customize your build some more once you reach this point in the game.

 

New Areas! Yes, lots of new areas. New places to explore, new challenges to face. The abyss, snowy areas, and more await you in this new release!

 

New Bosses! Each area will now contain a boss room, where you can challenge your strength and try to conquer the strongest there is in Fighter’s Field land. These bosses require endurance and lots of time to defeat and they will cast skills too.

 

Status Effects! Enemies now can poison, stun, and fear you, making your adventures more harder than before.

 

CPU PVP! Ever wanted to challenge another player playing Fighter’s Field, but I haven’t decided to make it online yet? Well, this will simulate this in that you can vs. a player of your choice to try and defeat! The higher level the player is, the more gold you could win if you defeat it. Even though it is a CPU, it’ll be able to use all the class’s skills that it has, and any HP and MP potions it contains. If you defeat the player, you get 50x(diflevel+5) gold, where diflevel is the difference between their level and yours. (You can do “fun matches”) if the player you vs. is 6 or more levels lower than you.

 

New Armor, Weapons, and Inventory! There will now be an official inventory for Fighter’s Field 3D. You will be able to view all your items from a simple interface, and use, equip, get rid of, or just see your items in general.

 

Everything’s 3D!!! Just the big change from 2D to 3D required lots of changes to the game engine, and now that it is almost complete, there will be drastic changes in the game play and game style you were used to in the 2D version!

 

And finally, New GUI! The login screen, class selection screen, stats view areas, and other things have been modified so that everything can be seen more clearly and better!

 

With all these great features to look forward to, make sure you look out for this version coming soon to computers near you!!!

 

Ok, I’m almost done here, now as you know, I use messengers so I talk to my friends a lot. Well, here’s two conversations that I thought were really fun and I had to show online. You decide whether they’re cool of not, but otherwise, here they are.

 

Joshua and Robert Talking:

 

…
(10:56:38 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: I do not know
(10:56:55 PM) Robert Irwin: why not just say i don’t know
(10:57:03 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: I don’t know
(10:57:14 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: Can’t focus much at night
(10:57:25 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: I am brain dead
(10:57:32 PM) Robert Irwin: so i noticed
(10:58:04 PM) Robert Irwin: wait if your brain dead…
(10:58:13 PM) Robert Irwin: and your still typing…
(10:58:28 PM) Robert Irwin: then that would mean you would have to be…
(10:58:29 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: I must have some brain working, yes
(10:58:49 PM) Robert Irwin: A ZOMBIEEEEE!!!!!!!!
(10:58:57 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: I am not dead
(10:59:03 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: I am only brain dead
(10:59:17 PM) Robert Irwin: but part of you is still dead
(10:59:27 PM) Robert Irwin: you are the living dead
(10:59:35 PM) Robert Irwin: therefore you are a zombie
(10:59:39 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: okay.
(11:00:02 PM) Robert Irwin: you stay away from my brains!!!!
(11:00:10 PM) Robert Irwin: you zombie you!
(11:00:25 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: Maybe so, according to dictionary.com, zombie could be
a person whose behavior or responses are wooden, listless, or seemingly rote; automaton.
(11:01:42 PM) Robert Irwin: according to mythology a zombie is a person who terrorizes the local village by preying on their young and sucking the brain matter right out of their skulls through the eye socket
(11:02:01 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: Okay Robert.
(11:02:01 PM) Robert Irwin: and they’re dead too
(11:02:10 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: I can sound like a computer Robert.
(11:02:21 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: An auto-response mechanism that responds to text commands
(11:02:44 PM) Robert Irwin: so now you are a computer zombie who terrorizes the local village by preying on their young and sucking the brain matter right out of their skulls through the eye socket
(11:03:04 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: Sure Robert. I am a computer zombie who terrorizes the local village by preying on their young and sucking the brain matter right out of their skulls through the eye socket.
(11:03:15 PM) Robert Irwin: k
(11:04:02 PM) Robert Irwin: this is starting to sound like something you would read on bash huh
(11:04:15 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: no Robert, it is not
(11:04:25 PM) Robert Irwin: k
(11:04:35 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: bash is a computer programming code created for the unix command line
(11:04:47 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: you may however Robert, be referring to a humor website called http://bash.org
(11:04:54 PM) Robert Irwin: yes
(11:05:13 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: If this http://bash.org is what you speak of Robert, then yes Robert, this may be something you read on http://bash.org
(11:05:30 PM) Robert Irwin: @$$#*!&
(11:05:43 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: Invalid Syntax : Please try again
(11:06:20 PM) Robert Irwin: 692251 x 8 =
(11:06:35 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: 5538008
…

(11:09:19 PM) Robert Irwin: wait so you have to go in ten minutes
…
(11:10:41 PM) Robert Irwin: ZOMBIE auto-response unit
…
(11:11:32 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: According to previous definition, a zombie, a person who terrorizes the local village by preying on their young and sucking the brain matter right out of their skulls through the eye socket, would not be me, as I do not fit these characteristics Robert, therefore I am not a
ZOMBIE auto-response unit
(11:12:41 PM) Robert Irwin: hello
(11:12:45 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: Hello Robert.
(11:13:18 PM) Robert Irwin: why is this zombie auto-response unit not zombie auto-responding
(11:14:30 PM) Robert Irwin: hey what is your news article on for world history
(11:14:34 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: It may be due to the factoid that I am not a ZOMBIE auto-response unit which was stated using the definition zombie earlier, which was, a person who terrorizes the local village by preying on their young and sucking the brain matter right out of their skulls through the eye socket according to you, which meant that I was not a zombie auto-response unit. Therefore with this inference, I cannot be a zombie auto-responding unit auto-responding
(11:15:34 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: World History is a topic in itself, usually due to educational purposes. However you may be referring to the recipient Joshua Sigona which you can address if you need to ask something specific to this client.
(11:16:33 PM) Robert Irwin: you could be a rusty cyborg with a human brain for cannibalism of the brain and then you would be a zombie and a person and an auto-response unit at the same time
(11:17:13 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: You speak of these things without commen logical sense Robert. Please elaborate or evaluate your response.
(11:19:24 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: Joshua Sigona, a client is trying to contact you directly, the recipient, Robert. Would you like to accept contact with this client?

(11:19:50 PM) Robert Irwin: if you were a cyborg you would be a robot and a person at the same time which would mean that you could be an auto-response unit and a human and still terrorize the local village at the same time but you would have to be decomposing slightly at least to be considered the living dead so the rust would be the decomposition on this part and yes i would accept
(11:20:24 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: Error : Cannot process two commands at once. Please re-evaluate your previous command.
(11:21:02 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: Joshua Sigona, a client is trying to contact you directly, the recipient, Robert. Would you like to accept contact with this client?
(11:21:21 PM) Robert Irwin: yes
(11:21:36 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: Output Accepted. Transmitting Input.
(11:21:40 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: Hey Robert…lol

 

Joshua and Michael Talking:

 

(8:29:29 PM) lemons.mike@gmail.com: so how many days are you behind?
(8:29:35 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: 12
(8:30:03 PM) lemons.mike@gmail.com: …
(8:30:10 PM) lemons.mike@gmail.com: procrastination to the max
(8:30:34 PM) lemons.mike@gmail.com: if procrastination was a class, you would pass with flying colors
(8:30:52 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: Great, where do I sign up
(8:31:27 PM) lemons.mike@gmail.com: Well…. I would have the forms for you to sign up but I have been putting off on making them
(8:31:43 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: XDXD
(8:32:37 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: ahah, that’s something for my blogDid you know that I am posting this using Microsoft Word 2007? I recently got Microsoft Office 2007 recently and I love it. It has all the great features from previous versions of Office, but now you get them in neat little ribbons with all the functions and even extra features. Some may argue that compared to previous versions of office that using a ribbon is hard and that they were used to normal submenus. Well, once you get used to the interface you will love it too. I give the program a rating of 10/10, good job Microsoft!

 

Ok, that is pretty much it for now. I will start posting more regularly in February. So, hope to see you all then!

Video Game Mayhem 0.1

About a year ago, I started to work on a game called Video Game Mayhem, so this is kind of like a revival of this game too. Video Game Mayhem is based on Super Smash Brothers, and will have a large amount of similar features to the game. I am declaring this file Version 0.1 as there’s a lot of work to be done. I will explain the game a bit in its current state. When you start the game, you are shown a Select a Character screen, which lets you select from three characters. There’s Red Square, Blue Square, and Purple T. Red Square and Blue Square are obvious, and Purple T is a purple Triangle. Currently all characters have two attacks, and when you choose a stage and use them, you can see how they work. The spacebar is your normal attack and down arrow key is your special attack. Red has a sword that swings around him when you press space, and when you press Space, it creates a small red square that spins downward to the ground and bounces off anything it hits for about 1 second, and then disappears. It’s powerful but quick and you can shoot up to 3 of them at a time. The Blue square has a slightly longer sword than red’s, but is not as strong. The special attack is a lightning bolt that can really hammer opponents under platforms. The Purple Triangle is more known for its great recovery moves and longest survival rates if you know how to use him. Whenever you turn right or left while ever falling, your falling rate slows down by 2/3rds the normal rate, so you can get back on platforms easily when you fly off. It’s normal move is a black line that moves upward from it. It’s very hard to hit someone with it, but can do about 30% at a time when it hits someone as it goes up and brings the person with them. His special move is not an actual attack, but more of a recovery. When you press it, for about 2 seconds, it turns into a black block and moves quickly downward and if it hits a platform, it’ll start bouncing. No one can attack it while it is in the black box, but you have to be careful about using it. Whenever you fly really high up and about to die, you can use that to stop falling. If you do not choose two characters, one for player and one for CPU, it will cause an error currently, but I am going to fix that in future versions. Once you’re actually playing, you’ll see two numbers on each character. The black top number is the percentage of your character. The larger it gets, the farther you fly off with each attack and the longer it takes to regain control of your character when you go flying. The green number is how many lives you have until you lose. The goal is to not fly off and die. Going too high or too low kills you and you lose a life each time. On the character selection screen, you can select how many lives there are by clicking the Stocks:3 button and then it’ll ask for a new number. Making it 0 will cause a game to end instantly. It will also keep track of your wins, losses, and total games played for the time you play that game. The camera system works quite well in the game as I have fixed it from a rather buggy camera system before, but now it always keeps both players on the screen at least. You can download this game here: http://www.box.net/shared/u5nqdrascs. I will update the Z-Gamers site soon.

Enough of that for now. I also completed the next version of Ball Amnesia with a few extra fixes, and the official level 3 added in, so now levels 1-5 and level 10 are now all in the Easy path to play, so I am halfway there to completing the official Easy path levels. You probably are wondering what the medium path will be like, hehehehe. Link to new version here: http://www.box.net/shared/o2m5m2es8s

The reason why I didn’t post for a whole day was because I was at my friend Michael’s house again yesterday, this time with my other friend Charles. It was fun. We played some Super Smash Brothers Brawl and that was fun. At the smash league, I was told that I really should start learning grabbing. They say I can become a much better player if I start implementing grabbing into my move arsenal, so should I? We also played Mario Kart DS and all three of us did go on wifi. At one point Michael and Charles found each other in a match against two others. One was a noobish player and the other was a decent power slider, but it ended up only being against them two. All three of us are snakers and love to play Mario Kart occasionally. We played some Magic: The Gathering. Now, I never was into the game and still never will be, but I guess it was ok. It took me about 30 minutes to learn the basic rules and terms of the game, but I did ok for the dark deck I was given. I was playing against a so-called Control deck and some other deck. My problem was using all my life for cards that were really good but sucked life out of me each term, which I eventually learned was bad. So that was all exciting and such.

We now have our general music for next year’s marching season for band, and I decided to take my E flat Alto Saxophone this weekend. I’ll put up some audio clips of me playing the tunes. Obviously just my part won’t sound that great, but I guess it’s ok to hear me play. I am not too good at playing my instrument but the effort is there. I will put some audio clips up tomorrow.

I also did another part of Earthbound today and am uploading the new video now.

So that’s a summary of what I did today and yesterday.

Exciting Day!

Today was a great day! In the morning I got on the bus and we had a really fun game of Mario Kart DS! Also during Band, we got to listen to different songs that we might play next year based on our opinion. I really only liked 2 of them, but a lot of people liked others. Also my best friend Michael finally came to school today. He was sick from Saturday to Wednesday and missed some school. But I am glad he is back.

Enough with that, when I got home, I looked at the Nutty Bars box on our counter and got one out. Then I flipped over the box and saw a strange little ad. It said “Buy the USA at retail price, get the world free!” and had a picture of the USA map and world map. *phew*, at least our nation isn’t allowing us to sell the real USA and world.

A recent BZFlag friend I met with username “Ride” asked me on one of our Twilight servers how I host my maps. And I tell him by a server obviously. He was asking how I could control whatever I want my server to do, I said by SSH access and actually changing the files on the server. We then went a little more in-depth and then we talked about Constitution which is the host for Twilight. Ride wanted me to contact Constitution and get a server for Ride. Constitution wasn’t too pleased as he knew Ride wasn’t a very mature player, which is important in this BZFlag community. So then I just decided not to bother Constitution any longer and went on to OoO a.k.a. Other Michael. He hosts unstable, and I asked if Ride could host on this server. OoO gladly accepted and we got a SSH account for him and we taught him a bit on to use it, but he went offline and we’ll have to continue our lesson today.

I also played some more Earthbound and spent about 10 minutes looking for a Pizza! Then I finally realized there is a pizza store in Threed to get the Mach Pizza phone number, so I was like duh! and quickly got a pizza. I’m uploading that video today. It goes from Fourside, back to Winters II. (Winters II is no different from Winters, it’s just the name I use for it. Only difference is the goal you have to do there now.) I also get PSI Teleport alpha.

I worked on the Twilight Ad Board a bit and it looks pretty nice. It looks like there are little electrical sparks zapping between two little energy balls and is floating. I’ll post a screenshot later.

Expecting a fun Smash League day today.

And how does a programmer propose to his girlfriend. Very funny, find out here. http://www.newzity.com/2008/04/15/how-does-a-programmer-propose-to-his-girlfriend/

The reason I am writing this post a day late is because I had to sleep yesterday after all this excitement!

Vista Falls

Vista was started as something that would improve Windows Security and make it glamorous at the same time. You’ve now heard this many times that Windows Vista is slow, incompatible, and ridiculously structured. Sure some of the things Microsoft promised us was in Vista, but in the expense of speed, costing useless minutes every day. Also a whole new system with Vista forces many graphics drivers to become useless or very incompatible with the system and causes much uproar. I think Windows should have called this Windows Beta Vista, because this system definitely isn’t ready for the masses still. Even when Microsoft released SP1, we still have a slow system. The speed increase was very little and nobody really noticed a big difference. Even Microsoft knows Vista is failing, they’re even talking about the next Windows and how it’s planned for a late 2009 early 2010 release! Overall, Vista was just poorly planned, I hope Microsoft tries harder and get more serious about their business over time, I know they try hard but seriously Microsoft, you overdid yourself in trying to provide an easy to use operating system.

My friend Michael came over today. We had some fun. He brought his Wii over with Super Smash Brothers Brawl to play. I really like playing the game and it was fun. We tried to play wifi but for some reason we kept getting error code 86420. I haven’t looked up why that would do that, but I don’t think it’s too major.

I played Earthbound on ZSNES today, the SNES emulator. Now, I originally have beat the game on the SNES and have the strategy guide for it, so I know exactly what you have to do at every point in the game. Right now I’m at the point where I just saved Paula and we defeated the second boss at the second “Your Sanctuary” location. This was done in about 2-3 hours. Earthbound is a really large game altogether and would take a minimum of 24-32 hours if you rushed through the game.

I also played some Kaizo Mario World again. This time though, I finished the first level, the bonus level, and the second level! Pretty awesome but it did take awhile and I used tons of save states to get through it. The third auto scrolling cave level is probably the one that will take a very long time on for me since I keep getting save states where I have to start all over, and keeping yoshi is also very tough too.

I also have found another nice flash game I found is called Dice Wars. Dice Wars is basically a territory take-over type of game and is based off the classic strategy board game Risk. This game is slightly more automated and is a simpler version of the game. You click territories and attack them with dice rolls. If your roll is higher than theirs, you get the respective territory. If you start off with 8 players, it narrows down to usually two or three. I made a video of me playing a round if you want to take a look at it and watch me play. I ended up losing. You have to make good decisions and not waste so many dice. That’s one of my big flaws in this game. You can find the game at www.gamedesign.jp/flash/dice/dice.html.