moroniccow's Blog - Apr to Jun 12 (223 followers)

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Today seemed to be a promising day. After seeing my parents off, and going to church, I had plenty of time before work to knock out some points.

Right now I only have Sniper V2 sitting here from Gamefly, so I figured I would start my Hard playthrough and look to finish this game off. Well, it didn't go very well. For some reason I just can't get the bullet drop down, and it is really frustrating, to the point were I am ready to mail it back as is. I know I still have a few achievements I can easily obtain, and that has prevented me from sealing it and let it rocket out of here.

After essentially rage quitting, I decided to boot up one of my GoD titles I bought which was Perfect Dark Zero. I started on the hardest difficulty which was Perfect Agent, and I found out I have never played the single player on this game. The whole reason why I bought an Xbox 360, and I only played a few matches of multiplayer before giving up. That is how bad the game is. With 20 points, I have no where to go but up, however, I coudn't even beat the first mission it was just so boring and bad overall. I looked at the achievements and almost all of the achievements are dedicated to multiplayer anyways. So, if you guys have the game, and want to boost some of the easy multiplayer stuff (I don't think I will go hardcore boosting on this one) let me know. Cro11, you and I got some co-op campaign to do on this game.

About 2 hours of gameplay and no achievements. I gave up on both games and just laid on the couch for an hour before the futbol match was on. Didn't get to see the best part (the end), but Italy deserved the win I believe.

After work I was hoping to have more time to play games, get Sniper V2 to a more acceptable score and part ways, but my homework took a lot longer to do than I expected.

Hopefully before we record (episode 98 AHP),I will have Sniper V2 up about 100 points and then ill be cool it.

Good night!

When Pixar announced their new move, Brave, I immediately thought of this tribal boy trying to figure out what happened to his father (I think). While for some reason collecting totems on ice bergs that were out in the middle of the ocean. Anyways I digress.

Brave is a movie about changing your destiny, having a "say" in your life, and living it to the fullest. As always, Pixar does a fantastic job in the animation and story telling. The movie has a more serious feel to it, and is at one point the same emotionally tearing as UP.

In the comedic department, its not the funniest Pixar movie, but it does have its moments. Its really more about the telling a story about a young girl who wants do break tradition and make her own choices. I went in with high expectations and my expectations were met, but not exceeded.

Before the movie they showed a trailer (albeit super short) of their next movie, Monsters University, which I am assuming to be a prequel to Monsters Inc. From the brief clip it looks like it should be pretty funny, so I am very interested in learning more about it when it gets closer to coming out.

And that is pretty much my day. Filled with work and a movie. My parents came in town after the movie, so I didn't get a chance to play a second of any game this whole day. Tomorrow, however, will be a completely different story!

Today started out as a pretty busy day. I got payed today, so first thing was I signed in and took a look at the GoD to see what I wanted to pull the trigger on. The only one I was caught off guard by (was it on the list?) was Alone in the Dark. I got five titles total, including Alone in the Dark, GRAW, Perfect Dark Zero, Dark Void, and Viva Pinata Party Animals. The prices were just too hard to pass up.

After I went to school I hit up the store to get my grocery shopping out of the way. I got a few extra things to make a pie with and once I got home I started work on it.

The pie is a really easy recipe, and its really good. All it calls for is chocolate pudding (cook yourself) coconut, and some chocolate chips. The recipe I was making is the Marie Calendars German Chocolate pie.

This pie was just destined to fail. I wanted to put a homeade whipped cream topping on, but without an electric mixer, that was scratched. I didn't read the directions on the pudding, so I burnt the bottom of it. My small 1.5 qt saucepan is pretty much garbage anyway, but it had a lot of uses in my kitchen. I think it is going to have to be retired (aka thrown in the dumpster) because after soaking for 12 hours, there is still no hope to get that burn off. So I ordered another sauce pan (this one about 3 times as big) and hopefully it will be here late next week.

After work I made myself dinner and started cleaning up my place a little bit because my parents are coming in tomorrow afternoon/night to visit on their way to Galveston.

I gave myself about an hour to play video games, and I wanted to put as big of a dent as possible in Madagascar 3 and hopefully even "finish" it. An hour past my goal, I have 880 in it which is everything but the 4 collectible achievements. The game does a good job telling you what you still need, and for everything you get scored on, YOUR CHARACTER only has to get five stars. If the team score is 1 star, but you got 5, you don't have to play that one again which is great. Glad its over, and its moving it right into the mailbox tomorrow morning.

I got work early, so until tomorrow.

Yeah, as I admitted in the latest episode of the achievement hounds podcast, I did go see Madagascar 3 last weekend, and it was a reasonable movie. Funny in parts and stupid in others, but it met expectations.

So that is where the title comes from, which is probably the best part of the film where Marty (Chris Rock) makes up a ridiculous song about being in the circus.

I played more Madagascar 3 and made some good strides before having to go to work. I actually completed the game 100% (just kidding), I have ~600 ish right now, and I will go for what Eric has which is everything but the collectible achievements. I am having a problem on the trapeze circus event, but the others don't see to be too bad except the computer sucks. Hopefully I can find some time tomorrow to get what I need in it so it can go out on Saturday.

I watched the Fighting Ronaldos play the 2nd worst team in the Round of 8 and unfortunately the Fighting Ronaldos advanced... Too bad their run won't last much longer as they will most likely have Spain in the next round. Thank you for participating.

Thanks to the TA scanners being down till Monday, I had my first real temptation to pick FIFA 12 back up. It doesn't matter what points I pop, so I minds well slack off till the scanners come back online right? Wrong, I need to stay strong and continue to avoid FIFA for a whole week to complete my challenge.

In wrapping up, there are two videos I would like to share from last night's episode of Conan. The first has to do with video games:

http://teamcoco.com/video/new-video-games-mario

The next video is the musical guest from that same night. Shinedown, who I ran across a few years ago, was on the show preforming one of their new songs "Unity" off their new album "Amaryllis". The cool thing was that this was an acoustic version, and it sounded amazing.

http://teamcoco.com/video/shinedown-unity

Shinedown kinda reminds me of a hardcore version of Creed. I am not into the screemo stuff, but a few songs I like from Shinedown are Devour, Second Chance, and Unity. I hear they have a few songs on the Avengers soundtrack, so I will have to check that out.

Enjoy!

In some odd way, you think you have played this game already right? I mean, Cabela's African Safari pretty much included all the animals from the popular Dreamworks movie with the exception of the giraffe. But hey, I think I got them mixed up somehow...

I only had a few hours to play games today, so I decided to maximize my time by playing Cabela's Shadows of Katmai and cleaning that up first. I got another 180 points in that with relative ease and called it good with 880. Is the 1000 doable? Yes of course, but it will take probably just as long to get the 880 as it will the rest of the 120 you need. Reading posts about how terrible the shooting gallery was in the beginning, I doubt ill be coming back to this one ever. Back to Gamefly you go!

I wasn't stopping there, 180 points would be good back in my FIFA 12 days, but no sir, we must push onward! I went back to Madagascar 3 and unlocked another 200 points or so in that before having to go to work. The game is super boring and I can't wait to get "enough" points in it to make it "OK" to mail it back with what I have. Just need to be done with this game.

Outside of gaming, I want to take a moment of your time and talk about the Windows 8 mobile announcement today. There were some pretty cool features announced, and full multitasking probably stole the show, but the biggest headline to me is that Windows 8 will not be available to current phones.

Back in the day, before the iPhone, I rocked a Samsung Omnia Windows Mobile 6.1. The phone had its problems from the beginning, specwise it was great, but Verizon locked the GPS to its personal navigation program, and Microsoft didn't make 6.5 available to it. Of course 8 > 7 > 6.5 >6.1 but Microsoft is doing this all wrong.

Let's take a look at the iPhone for a second. Does Apple still support the 3GS? Yes, even though the phone is almost 3 years old, you can still upgrade the iOS if you wanted to. Now, albeit that the features are reduced and your phone will probably be slower, but you still can. Same thing with the iPhone 4 which is about two years old now, they are still supporting it with iOS updates. Is Microsoft doing this? No. Why? Well, I think it has to do with Microsoft wanting to try and make everyone happy.

The chain of command when it came to answering the question, upgrade or no upgrade was Microsoft >Manufacturer > Carrier. If any of these three did not feel like your phone should upgrade, it wasn't. It has to be disappointing that someone that just bought their phone 2 months ago will not be able to upgrade to the latest operating system in a few months, then you look at the 4S which has been out almost a year, and Apple is giving it full support with iOS 6. Apple controls everything, from hardware to software to who can have their phone, and they get away with it because they are Apple. Apple is far from the best company to work with, but if you want to work with them, you will do it their way.

I think Microsoft's next problem is not having their "own" phone. Similar to the tablet market, I think they need to release their own phone that transcends all other Windows Phones and becomes the #1 Windows Phone out there. I think that is the only way they can truly compete with Apple and Google. However, this comes with its consequences. The last thing you want to do is piss off the people that are making hardware and putting your OS on it. Even if it is the manufacturer's fault, it will still reflect badly on the OS as well. Some columns that I have read highlight the Microsoft Surface (the tablet not the table) as a punch in the gut to the other Windows 8 tablet partners.

It is almost like Microsoft is in a lose lose situation here. If they don't make their own device and "do it right" then they get killed by the competition and lose out on a lot of potential profit and brand recognition. However, if they do decide to brand something and have it kick-a, then everyone is pissed off at them for showing their products up.

Going back to the phone, it is BS that current phones will only have a legacy upgrade and not get the full Windows 8, but this has to do with fundamental problems with Microsoft's business model with the phone. One of the main reasons why I went with the iPhone is that I knew my phone would be supported throughout the two years that I would have the phone. My Omnia was great for around a year until it was outdated, not supported, and started to malfunction. I ended up going back to my old Voyager for the remainder of my contract till I could get out of it. My 3GS would still be working, if I didn't part it out, and my 4S is still running like a champ almost a year in.

I might get slammed for this, but I think Microsoft needs to take a page out of Apple's book here. Times are changing, and if they want to compete in the world of mobile computing it is time to drop the software only act, and get behind your product with some amazing hardware as well. The reason why iOS and OSX work so well is they are fine tuned for only a few different hardware variations. Windows on the otherhand.... It is al over the place. (probably like my blog post)

It will be interesting to see how this Surface launch does, and how it is accepted by reviews and the general public.If Microsoft can hit this one out of the park, I think its time to do the same thing with the phone if they want to say in the game.

Day 2 FIFA 12 detox complete.

Thank you for reading my whole blog today. I know it was long, I would love to hear everyone's thoughts on this mobile OS issue.

FLAME ON!