Bullshido Blade

I haven't written anything here in a while, but it's not really due to laziness. I've been quite busy this semester and I've had to give up most of my gaming and movie watching time. I've played a bit of Team Fortress 2 through the past couple of months, but that's been about it. I plan to play some God of War 3 and Heavy Rain soon.

What I have found time to do is to watch Yankees baseball, MMA, and watch/listen to some podcasts. Irrational Behavior is probably my favorite gaming related podcast at the moment and although there have only been 5 episodes so far, they've all been of very high quality. This American Life is consistently entertaining and interesting as well.

Unfortunately, I haven't been keeping up with most of my Revision3 shows, but Bytejacker has been good. I think it's really improved since I started watching. On the other hand, Film Riot has really fallen off. It's barely the same show anymore and has become quite boring. Food Mob is a new cooking show on Rev3 that I'm really digging, so check that out. I'll probably start watching Tekzilla and HD Nation soon enough.

Before I depart, I should suggest that everyone check out WEC 48: Aldo vs Faber. It was one of the best MMA events I've ever had the pleasure to see, particularly the Leonard Garcia - Chan Sung Jung fight.

And one more thing. For more frequent nose nuggets and goodness on what I'm up to and the stuff I find around the internet, check out my Google Buzz over there on the top right.

Issues with Mass Effect 2

I've been playing Mass Effect 2 and I'm about 20 hours in at this point, so I feel comfortable saying that I have a good handle on what the game is and has attempted to do, despite my lack of completion. How does it compare to the first one? It seems strange for Bioware to get away from the RPG elements that I loved about the first Mass Effect. Creating each character allowed for lots of detail in many categories, but here, it just seems too basic. Basically, you're investing in your "I want to kill things with my gun" stat or "I want to kill things with my biotics" stats. The inventory system wasn't so great in ME1, but I loved the greater variety in weapons, all of which had their own statistics. Instead of trying to improve on it, they just got rid of it all together.

I'm hoping Mass Effect 3 reaches a better balance between the RPG elements of ME1 and the stripped down shooter feel of ME2. Honestly, the combat isn't quite good enough for such a lack of RPG elements. Either way, the story, dialogue, characters, and gorgeous worlds left for exploration compensate. I'm somewhat surprised and disappointed by the way it turned out because Bioware has put out some of my favorite RPGs ever and I feel like this iteration of Mass Effect is too much of an attempt to go mainstream.

Rest assured, however, that Mass Effect 2 is a wonderful experience. It just finds new ways to captivate you.

Fuckin' Digsby

I don't really like Digsby anymore and it's not just because their product is the iTunes of instant messaging clients, but I've come to realize that I don't like their business tactics. Not only do they try and trick you with all their checked boxes, one of the saying "I agree to the terms of service and I want to install this virus," but they just sent me an e-mail, basically asking me to become a spammer.

"Our friends at cocksuckers.org have launched a platform that pays you for tweeting about the brands you already love. Tens of thousands of Twitterers (like Kim Kardashian, Nicole Richie, and George Lopez) are already using cocksuckers.org to make money on Twitter. Click the link below to check out their website and sign up."

I should say that I changed the name of the website and it is not actually cocksuckers.org, but I don't even want to contribute any, no matter how little it may be, traffic to them. What a way to abuse your e-mail list. By the way, that is the weakest list of "celebrities" I've ever seen. On a related note, I went back to Pidgin a few months ago, but I never got around to uninstalling Digsby. Thanks for the reminder.

Instant messaging services

I've been recently on a journey to find a new instant messaging client because, sadly, I've been using regular 'ol basic AIM, which has these really cool ads that expand when your mouse accidentally rolls over them. I always have backup clients, and I've had a bit of a history with Pidgin, which was my main client for years. Pidgin has a lot of good things about it; mainly the ability to message just about anyone because of the amount of supported IM services, while being extremely lightweight. At the same time, however, the plugins are occasionally a bit of a hassle to use and there doesn't seem to be much room for customization because skins are nearly impossible to come by.

I just downloaded and installed Digsby. The guys over there have, what can only be described as, the complete opposite design philosophy of Pidgin. This program is big and bulky, but it can integrate your e-mail accounts and your social networks. I don't know if supporting people's crack-like addiction to checking their social networks is a good thing, but it does it well. As an actual instant messaging service, it'll do the trick just fine, while being fairly aesthetically pleasing and customizable. For example, I get to look at my buddy list with white text on a black background. I then removed the buddy icons that are displayed next to my buddy's names and lowered the spacing so I can fit everyone on screen at once. Although Digsby has seemed to work well so far, be advised that if you choose to download it, go over everything before you just click next, next, next on the installer. If you don't uncheck those boxes, Digsby will install several toolbars and use your spare CPU cycles when you're idle. Stuff like this really, really pisses me off, but the software works well nevertheless.

I'd avoid stuff like basic AIM or Trillian.

Gamefly: get games shipped to your house sometimes

Gamefly is something I have been interested in for some time. It sponsors some of my favorite podcasts on Revision3 and it seems to be run very similarly to Netflix, which I absolutely love and highly recommend. I decided to get an account just about 4 months ago now, during which time I've been nothing but disappointed..NAY.. fucking pissed off by how horrendous this service is. I'm going to compare it to its movie equivalent, Netflix, just for you to get an idea of how different they are.

Let me start by saying that they have a wide selection of games. You can add just about anything you can imagine to your queue, just like Netflix. The difference lies with availability. I have never had an issue with Netflix availability, but thus far with Gamefly, I have never been shipped a game that was higher than 6th on my queue because they were never available. It would be as though your local Blockbuster put a case of every game ever created out on display, but they didn't actually have any copies of any of them. Pretty useless, right? I e-mailed their support team once before about availability issues. This was their response.

"Thank you for your inquiry. As you have noted, the demand for the titles in your GameQ has been high. We use information from our members’ Game Q’s to identify the most popular titles and anticipate customer demand. Circumstances such as a rush of signups or a sudden demand shift can make titles suddenly unavailable. In most cases, the unavailability is temporary, as the games being returned by other members and additional game purchases make these titles available in a few days. We pay close attention to our inventory levels and will continue to work to minimize the number and duration of unavailable games."

Just about as automated as you can get. Basically a waste of time, but what did I expect? In response, I lowered my queue down to just three games, hearing that this is the way to get around their shitty availability system.

So, after dropping my Gamefly queue down, was I able to finally get what I wanted? Well, no. The next time I e-mailed Gamefly was today and it was about the lack of availability of a single game on my queue. That's right; they have nothing to ship me. I asked them if I am expected to continue paying when I am sitting without any games available to me that I want to play. This was the response.

"Our apologies. We have reviewed your account and noted we are unable to ship you another game immediately since you have only three released items in your GameQ that are currently high in demand. We ship games to our members based on the length of time that you have been waiting for a game (once a return is received in our facility) and the time the desired available game was placed in your GameQ.

GameFly strives to send you your highest ranked game, however, if it is not available at the time of shipment, we will ship you the next available game on your GameQ to minimize the time you are without one. Therefore, we recommend you place more released games in your GameQ so you do not miss out on receiving titles.

We pay close attention to our inventory levels and re-order key titles regularly to minimize the number and duration of unavailable games.

We appreciate your feedback and apologize for any inconvenience. If we can be of further assistance, please let us know."

No mention of any refund and nothing done to resolve the issue. They're just basically ignoring what I'm asking of them and continuing to send these automated, bullshit messages.

Next issue is turn around time. Netflix has over 40 shipping centers, which means if I send back a movie today, I'll have another one sitting in my mailbox the day after tomorrow. Gamefly has 4, which means I'll have to wait 5 days after shipping a game back, assuming they have one to send to me.

Surely, I wasn't expecting Netflix-like customer service. This is an e-mail I recieved from Netflix, just 2 days ago.

"Last night, you may have had trouble instantly watching movies or TV episodes via your Xbox due to technical issues.

We are sorry for the inconvenience this may have caused. If you were unable to instantly watch a movie or TV episode last night via your Xbox, click on this account specific link in the next 7 days to apply your 3% credit on your next billing statement for the price of your 1 DVD out at-a-time (Unlimited) plan. Credit can only be applied once.

Again, we apologize for any inconvenience, and thank you for your understanding. If you need further assistance, please call us at 1-866-923-0898."

I never even fucking noticed. I was not aware of an issue at all, but they were so on top of that shit, that they offered 3% of my money back anyway. I didn't e-mail them or do anything at all.

All in all, avoid Gamefly. I regret to say that getting a game that is at all popular or fairly new is highly unlikely. The only thing I can recommend is to sign up for a 2 week free trial, play a couple of games, and cancel that shit.

If you couldn't tell though, Netflix is the shit. Recently getting a PS3, their selection of Blu-ray titles if amazing. And get this! They are actually available! It would cost me about 2 and a half months of Netflix to buy a single Blu-ray disc. And if you're not in the mood, just put your account on hold. Something you can't do on Gamefly. Totally sick bro!

People are idiots

I was looking for a TV stand yesterday as I have just purchased a pretty 58 inch Samsung plasma. Because there was no weight capacity on the description of the stand, I asked one of the sales assosciates. Instead of telling me he didn't know, he said "It can hold any TV." Really? Maybe he isn't aware that 60+ inch televisions exist or maybe he's just retarded. I'll just go into the store and throw my 300 pound rear projection tv on it and leave.

I hate Nintendo

Nintendo's press conference sucked and I think this is the first time I can admit to myself that they are a company I no longer like and will no longer be rooting for. Sure, I'll buy Super Mario Galaxy 2, but I really think that's the only thing I'm going to buy. How can they fool people into buying their $250 console when it requires a wii-mote, nunchuck, and now Wii motion plus for a total of $80 per controller. Why do we have to pay $20 for an accessory that makes the controller do what it was supposed to do all along? A Wii with 4 controllers and 1 game will run you $580. Did I mention the console isn't HD and can't play DVDs either?

Sony and Microsoft, on the other hand, have both excited me.