Long time no blog! Honestly, I haven't had the desire to write one. ADHD! Ha! I've actually been kinda busy on the geek front though, so I do have a lot to write about. To start off with, shortly after my last blog I rearranged my living room at my wife's request. I really wasn't looking forward to it, I didn't think it would look as good, but it turned out pretty good. The only major issue I had was re-wiring the surround sound system. Damn that job sucks! But I got it done. We replaced our 37" console TV with a new 52" HD LCD flat screen and got an entertainment center for it. This excited me for two reasons. The first, I have a small living room so it's like watching a movie from the front row at the theater. The second, from a gamers stand point, is that the next gen systems were basically built with a large flat screen in mind. When playing a game like Dead Rising, I could not read my mission objectives on the 37". They just appeared as red, blue, or yellow lines. That makes for a difficult and boring game. But now... yea, you get the point. It's fabulous! When I got the new TV we ran into a small problem, the TV has no RCA outputs for the surround sound. So I had to go to Wal-Mart and pick up a fiber optic cable. It took a while to figure out how to reprogram the surround sound to run through the new cable, but when I did it was well worth it. The sound quality and volume were drastically increased. Best 16 bucks I've ever spent.
I've been working on my Ghostbusters Ghost Trap prop as well. I haven't done a lot really, but at least I'm to the point that I know how it's all going to go together. My biggest problem was trying to decide if I was going to build a "hero" trap or a "stunt" trap. For those that don't know what this means I'll break it down for you. A "hero" prop is what you see actually functioning in a movie. In the case of the trap, it would have opening and closing doors, as well as lights. A "stunt" prop is what you see being carried around but doesn't do anything. That way if it is dropped you only have to repair or replace the static prop as apposed to the wiring and electronics as well. I did this for two reasons. First and foremost, I want to get it done quickly so I can spend my time, energy, and money on the packs. I don't want to spend the extra couple hundred bucks on the electronics on it when I could spend it on the packs which are more important to me right now. Secondly, when would I use it? Having "hero" packs would be great because you can walk around with the lights on, or power them up in public and get a rise out of people. Same with a "hero" PKE meter. But the trap will pretty well always be hanging on my belt. After I get the packs done I plan on building a second trap that has the exterior lights working and have a smoking device inside of a cool effect like the trap is full. I don't see myself ever rolling out a trap and opening it in public, but I do see me running out of a building with a smoking trap.
I'm also still slowly working on my Tobin's Spirit Guide. The only problem I have with that is I'm not one to sit down and type for hours on end. I've also gone back and changed my layout and font styles several times as I get tired of seeing the same old thing or I see a book in a movie or in person that has a cooler layout or font that I can try to implement in my Tobin's.
I picked up Alien Vs. Predator for the Xbox 360 a week or so ago. It was fun playing as a Colonial Marine in a new game... but only for a few minutes. For those of you that are Aliens fans, you will know what I'm talking about. In Aliens they send a squad of marines to LV426 and they are all killed off pretty rapidly. Even with the M41A2 Pulse Rifle, flame units, grenades, smart guns, century guns, gun ships, an APC, and of course armor.... they still didn't stand a chance. In the game you start off wounded and alone with a hand gun... yeah... um, why not just start the player off dead and roll the end credits immediately following the opening cut scene? I mean, really? A hand gun? Damn.
Playing as the Predator isn't much better. Sure you have the arm blades, the plasma canon, the cloaking device, the infrared... all of it is shit. The cloaking device shuts off as soon as you use ANY weapon and you become a great big target. The Xenomorphs dodge the bolt from your plasma canon and the marines have a 6th sense that can tell when the 3 red dots from your targeting device appear on the backs of their heads and somehow know where its coming from and shot you in the face with a burst of 10mm explosive tipped caseless rounds. Ouch. Only the marines appear on infrared as the xenomorphs are cold blooded. The most effective weapon is your arm blades and the downfall with those is you have to be up someone's ass to use them. I haven't even played as the alien yet. I remember playing as the Alien in the original Alien Vs. Predator and it was SO disorienting. Made me want to vomit. No thanks. I will try it later, I just haven't felt as if my feet have been on the ground enough to try it yet.
Well, I guess that's all for now. More will come later when I have something good to write other than "I did this or that". I'm wanting to turn this into a review type blog. It's kind of hard to review a prop that you build, so I'll just give updates on that. My next blog will probably be a review of the Terminator novels. Until next time, keep your geek on.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
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