The Narrator Works For Toyota

february 4, 2010 : steve : 1 comment(s)

From Fight Club.

NARRATOR
A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph...The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.

BUSINESS WOMAN
Are there a lot of these kinds of accidents?

NARRATOR
Oh, you wouldn't believe.

BUSINESS WOMAN
... Which... car company do you work for?

NARRATOR
A major one.
Hmmm.  Does The Narrator work for Toyota?

2009, In Numbers

december 31, 2009 : steve : 0 comment(s)

So, I guess it's the end of a year. What better to do than to go over some numbers:


That's all I could come up with for now!

Happy New Year everyone! Make it safe, lets hope that 2010 is a great year!

It's War

november 15, 2009 : steve : 2 comment(s)


Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was one of my first games that I got for my PS3.  What I loved about the game was that it had a fantastic single-player story.  Yes, the multiplayer stuff really kicked some serious ass too, but the single-player story made the game.  It was intense and short -- not too short, but short enough that I felt I got my money's worth out of it.

So, it was no surprise that I was eager to get Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 ("MW2").  Having just finished the single-person portion of the game, I have to say:  Bravo Infinity War!  What a great intense story with lots of good twists and characters to both love and truly hate.  And when I say twists, I mean there were two good ones that caught me completely off-guard. 

The characters in this sequel are good, but I felt that they were somewhat less memorable than the ones from the first.  For instance, I bet everyone who played the first remembers Gaz.  Gaz was cool.  But, Ghost, who I guess is supposed to be like Gaz (he's voiced by the same actor, by the way) is quite a bit less memorable (the picture above is Ghost).  That being said, the bad guy(s) in MW2 are a lot more memorable!  I won't give away any spoilers though.

The single-player missions play much like a "best of" series of action sequences from different Hollywood movies.  For instance The Rock's submersibles, prison shower shoot-out and even green smoke scenes make a showing.  There's a level named "Cliffhanger" (huh, wonder which movie that is from).  The story is mainly told via the interlude/loading sections with voice-overs and that is fine with me.

Th game itself is very intense and I found that I couldn't go for more than an hour at a time because it made my hands shake.  Near the end of the game I was furious at the evil-doers, that is how well-written the bad guys are.

I was surprised to see some big Hollywood names in the credits.  Voice acting included Lance Henriksen (Shepard), Kevin McKidd (Soap), Keith David and Barry Pepper.  The voice acting in MW2 is top-notch and so are the sound effects which brought the fight to my livingroom (via a 6.1 setup).  The graphics are great, though not as good as some made-exclusively-for-the-PS3 games like Killzone 2.  The score for the game is a bit overbearing, and it is no surprise because it comes from Hans Zimmer -- the man who doesn't know the definition for the word "subtle" (or for that matter "original").

For those of you who complain the single-player campaign is too short, I will disagree with you.  It took me 6.5 hours to complete the campaign in normal mode.  At $60 for the game, that is less than $10 an hour and that is only for a short part of the whole MW2 package -- since I have yet to mention the hours to be sank into Spec Ops and Online Multiplayer.  In the end, MW2 will be cheaper per hour than going to the latest crappy Michael Bay film -- and you'll enjoy this action better than that Michael Bay sludge.

All-in-all this was a fantastic single-player experience.  Now, off to bring the fight to my pals online!  I can't wait for Modern Warfare 3.

Beeline

november 10, 2009 : steve : 3 comment(s)

Warning.  Mookie Mad.  Griping Ahead.

At work, there is a pretty sizeable parking lot.  The parking lot has one main lane that people use to get in and out of the lot -- it is a lane that has multiple speed bumps, which I reflects that there was or could be some people driving pretty fast down this main lane.

At lunch, people that work in the three buildings for which the large parking lot serves, tend to come out and walk around the lot for exercise.  I have nothing against that.  More power to those people that come out for exercise, it is good for them. A lot of the people come out in pairs and walk in the lot side-by-side for companionship.  Great, not a problem.  Even when they walk like that in the main lane there is a lot of space for cars to go past.

What I have been seeing lately is a group of individuals, about six or seven of them that come out to walk in the lot.  They walk in the middle of the damned lane SIDE BY SIDE in one big wall that blocks the whole busy main lane!  They walk and are oblivious to the traffic behind them.  To these people I have one thing to say to them:

GET THE F*CK OUT OF MY WAY!

Or learn to walk in a beeline.  Or pair up so that you are not taking up the whole lane!  Or go use the damned gym.  I might be nice now, but if I keep having to slow down to a crawl and wait for you to notice that there is a 3000lbs SUV behind you:  I will be sticking my head out and yelling at you.  And if you don't get the idea then, honking will ensue. And a reminder:  I may notice you idiots walking in the middle of the frigging road, but some other distracted driver may not and there maybe six or seven badly injured people lying in the middle of the road.

Get a f*cking clue people.  Don't walk and block the main lane for a large parking lot.

Netflix Streaming on PS3

november 5, 2009 : steve : 3 comment(s)

I just got an email from Netflix letting me know that my Instant Streaming Blu-ray disc will be arriving this Friday:


Your free instant streaming disc for PS3 should arrive by Friday, Nov 06, 2009.

While I'll be interested in playing with it to see how well it works on my PS3, I think I will stick with using my Roku player for watching streaming movies from Netflix -- unless there is something extraordinarily different about the PS3 version.

The simple truth is that the Roku sips less than 10W of power when playing a movie.  My PS3 gulps 170W when idling!  That's quite a difference.

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