by Matt | Jan 21, 2004 | Games
Jason’s comment on the last post spurred me to actually think for a moment about the game I’m playing. ESPN NHL Hockey is probably the closest thing to the hockey game I (we) drempt of when I was a kid. “Wouldn’t it be cool if…” was always the statement, usually followed by a desired game element that was obviously too complex for the time. Playing NHL’94 on the SNES and wishing and hoping that you could check someone through the boards, or get into real looking (read: well designed) fights, or push people over the boards and into the benches. Those are things that simple 8-bit sprite based games simply couldn’t give us. I’m very proud to say that this new game make old school hockey fans very happy. Seriously, when I put someone through the glass for the first time I was jumping around the living room like a little girl. Unlike NHL 2004 (EA-Sports francise) the pace is much slower, you can still score on a wrap around, the characters react accurately, the fights make sense and it’s not a scoring free-for-all. Don’t get me wrong, NHL 2004 is also a very good game, I happen to own it. But it’s a completely different kind of hockey game. ESPN hockey is more a a purists game. It’s a simulation, complete with John Buccigross and Bill Clament giving the play by play. I don’t think I’ve had more than 5 goals in a game the entire time I’ve been playing it. That’s accurate. Rarely (read: never) would you see the Boston Bruins winning 75 to 2 in real life. Also, that’s an actual score I’ve gotten in NHL 2002. I’ve yet to top it since. Anyway, I just wanted to spread the good word about that game and say that finally, real solid hockey games are back. Oh, and by the way, the Bruins beat the crap out of the Rangers the other night. Go B’s!
by Matt | Jan 20, 2004 | Imported Entry
Well, theres been things happening all over the place and I haven’t had the energy to mention any of them… but I will now, because I’m procrastinating. First off, a big huge thanks to Chip and Dave for sending me a years subscription to Netflix. That was absolutely kick ass and we’ve already rented our first movies. At some point, once my ever-ongoing redesign is complete I’ll work in the Netflix MT plugin and, for no reason other than general intrest, you can see my rentals.
Last weekend was also Lauren’s mom’s birthday. We went to the Alamo Drafthouse and saw the Last Samurai. The Drafthouse is one of those dinner and a movie places where you order before the show starts and get to chow down while you watch movies. We had one in NH that I only got to go to once or twice, Chunky’s in Pelham I believe. The Last Samurai actually surprised me a little. I honestly thought it was going to be either another Brave Heart or another pointless Tom Cruise drama where its in his contract to get naked at least once and shoot half a million bad guys. It was not either of those, thank God. It was actually pretty good. If you try and forget what a complete moron Tom Cruise actually is it’s very enjoyable. Cool sword fights, nicely filmed, good story and NINJAS! Aw yeah. Can’t be a cool movie without ninjas. Loft kind or otherwise. (Sorry, lame CS joke).
Also, I finished Crimson Skies. Solid, kick ass game. Very pleased with it. If everyone else on the planet hadn’t already given it high marks (100% tomato meter!) I would be compelled to say more, but seeing as how most everyone agrees with me, I’ll leave it at that. I’ve now moved on to ESPN NHL hockey. Legwond is my bitch. (That one is for Jason). I’ve also hooked up the Xbox to the router and I plan to give Xbox Live a whirl (or at least the two month free trial) in the next little bit.
Lastly, for Nagle, I’m going to mention the Patriots. They beat the crap out of the Colts on Sunday and now they’re coming to Houston for the big dance. The preparation the city is going through is a bit crazy. There are 8 (!) different city wide celebrations. Parties galore. Think Savannah on St. Patricks day and you will have a vague understanding of whats about to happen around here. It’s nuts already and the teams haven’t even come into town. It’s the only story they have on the local news, it’s on the radio, it’s everywhere. I plan to sit at home and ignore most of it. I’ll probably have the game on, but lets face it, New England is going to completely destroy Carolina. There isn’t really any other way. Obviously I’m proud of the home town boys for making it, but seriously, who’s going to stop them? Not Carolina I can assure you. So, game excitement wise, I’m not that interested. I’m a hockey man remember. Commercials might be my draw this year, but that’s a little sad as well. And I’m sure as hell not watching Survior after the game like the network would like you to. They can go strait to hell with that reality show crap. Whats that new shit Fox is peddling? My big obnoxious fiance? Who the hell thought that up and why haven’t they been fired yet? *end rant*
Lets see, what else. Oh, I’ve gotten my hands on a complete Red Dwarf episode collection. Yippee! I’m thinking about transfering them to DVD (we have a burner at the office) and making my own box set. Other than that I’ve been working a lot. We’ve had a wedding every weekend so far this month. There’s always enough at the office to keep me busy, almost too much. But it’s going well. Lauren’s been working hard too and everything is pretty good. I’ve started putting our wedding album (or at least it’s layout) together. That will be our next project. It should be cool.
That’s about it, I should probably be getting back to work.
Matt out.
by Matt | Jan 14, 2004 | Imported Entry
Quote of the day… or perhaps my life:
“Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to hide the bodies of those people I had to kill because they pissed me off.”
I’ll tell you more later.
by Matt | Jan 7, 2004 | Culture
I’m at work, playing with Dreamweaver at the moment and I’m trying to convert our companies web site from Microsoft “I can’t make web page programs for shit” FrontPage to Macromedia Dreamweaver. This is mostly because of my hatred for FrontPage and my constant insistance that we stop using it. Mostly I just complain about it. That usually gets the job done. Anyway, so I’m using Dreamweaver MX and I’m looking through documentation to find a quick and easy way of converting the whole site, frontpage extensions and all, into a DW site. Low and behold I find this: the Macromedia Extension Manager. You’re probably saying “so, it’s just a plugin control system”. That much is true, but when you pair it with a FP conversion plug in, like this one… here, you’re life becomes oh so simple. Hell, Macromedia realizes people are switching so they even offer a Macromedia FP Migration Kit and easy to follow instructions. Cool huh? This of course has caused me to lose half my morning to the downloading of cool new Dreamweaver plugins. Most of which are completely useless but some I might just have to try out on my own.
Lastly, to follow up yesterday’s post, MT-BlackList is now installed and is working quite nicely. I already received notification of three blocked comments. It doesn’t block based on IP addresses, only on content, which is a far more usefull system anyway. I’ll explain more later. Gotta get back to work.
by Matt | Jan 6, 2004 | Imported Entry
I’ve found the preverbial last straw. It’s in the shape of journal comment SPAM. It’s going to stop. I’ve already put two calls in to the ISP it’s originating from but they said the account is a dial up and it would take some time to trace back the offender since the IP address keeps changing. I call that stalling. Hell, they’re probably in on it. Regardless, as of tonight I’m installing MT-BlackList and banning not only the content, their IP ranges but even yahoo and hotmail email accounts in total. I’m not fucking around anymore. My appologies to anyone with a yahoo or hotmail email account. The ban will be temporary unless there is reason to extend it. I’m also looking for some way to validate email addresses within the system. Locking out things like “fakemail@yahoo.com” since, obviously, it isn’t real. I doubt something like that exists. Maybe I might talk to Chip and see if he’s interested in a little programming. Arg.
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