What's your game?

The blog is dead…

…long live the blog!

Welcome readers!

I’ve been getting lots of emails from readers asking some pretty specific questions about building a PC, so I setup a forum where they can go to look for more information. That site is here.

I also setup a Wiki to keep track of any errors or typos that show up in the book. I know it’s unlikely, but I’m sure there are one or two transposed images or typos. That site is here.

Both sites are very raw in the image department right now. I’m definitely not good at that stuff, but I’ll gin something up when I have some time.

Anyone who wants is welcome to check it out and post!

PS. I promise a gaming related post sometime early this week. I really mean it this time.

Server downtime

Sorry for the downtime. Naturally, my uninterruptable power supply decided to become interruptable the first weekend I left town since Christmas.

Oh well.

On a side note, Tahoe was awesome. We got between 4 and 5 feet of snow over Wednesday and Thursday. The skiing was incredible.

Stupidest Story on the Net Winner

I decided on a winner ages ago, but just haven’t posted it. Bryantb wins the Stupidest Story on the Net contest for this story. The prize is an authentic Max Payne 2: Fall of Max Payne hat.

Stupidest News Story on the Net

Ok, I just had a great idea.

I’m going to have a contest. I want to find the stupidest story on the web.

The rules are simple:

It has to go against all common sense.
Your story’s existance must demonstrate a fundamental problem with the news organization in question.
It must be posted by a reputable source.
Entries must be in English.
It cannot just be on your weblog.
No Onion stories.
I can change the rules at any time.
It has to be stupider than this story.
I will be the ultimate judge of the overall stupidity of each story.

Submit your stories in the comments. Make sure you leave a way I can get back in touch with you. In the unlikely event that someone actually enters with a stupider story than I posted, I’ll dig something cool and PC related out of the pile of goodies on my desk, and send it to you.

This contest has nothing to do with my place of employ. Anyone who wins must live in North America to claim their prize, mainly because I don’t want to pay for shipping to another continent.

Maximum PC How-To Guide

So you know, Katherine, Natalie, and I are finishing up the 2nd Annual Maximum PC How-To Guide this week, so after Thursday or Friday, I’ll have a lot more time to play games, which is a very good thing, since there are so damn many good games coming.

That is all.

Once again…

Yes, I am a slackass.

I’ve been really busy lately. I did two features in the October issue, one massive one in the November issue, and I’m cranking up for the special that we’ll ship next month.

To make up for my lack of updates for the last two weeks, I’ll tell you a quick funny story. Tuesday afternoon I was getting ready to leave the office, so I zipped into the rest room to take a leak. Someone was already in there, in one of the stalls, and he’d left a sandwich from the deli on the basin by the sink. It didn’t matter to me, I just needed a urinal.

As I was emptying my bladder, the stall person opened the door and walked out. She said, “Oh, did I go into the wrong door?” picked up her sandwich, and walked out.

I don’t work in an office progressive enough to share a restroom. It’s just not that kind of company. Anyway, that is all.

Hyperdictionary is COOL

I just found a new site, the Hyperdictionary is everything an online dictionary should be. First, every definition page has all the definitions, a list of synonyms, and definitions from the 1913 edition of Webster’s. Ok, the definitions from the 1913 edition of Webster’s are just a novelty, but the rest of it is phenomenally useful.

But that’s not all Biff! We’ve got two more things that make the Hyperdictionary super-cool!

• Every single word on the site is a hyperlink to the definition for that word. This is truly what an online dictionary should be.


• The definitions are easily accessible, without even hitting the front page. Just type http://hyperdictionary.com/dictionary/yourwordhere

Hello there

I just found out that Wendy over at The Weblog Review was kind enough to review my site and had some nice things to say. I’ll also try to lay off the acronyms too :)

Anyway, if you’re coming here from that review, make yourself at home.

Now back to regularly scheduled gaming coverage.

I was just over at the Xbox area, and got to take a look at an early build of XIII running on the *gasp* Xbox. For the unintiated, XIII is a cel-shaded first person shooter based on the Unreal engine. It’s based on a French graphic novel. The short version of the story is you wake up in an unexpected place and can’t remember who you are. Someone tries to kill you and carnage ensues. There are a bunch of screenshots at shacknews, but they really can’t do the game justice. When you see the other characters moving, it looks like a comic book brought to life.

That’s it for now, I’d better get back to work.

Mold, music, and a couple of movies

We’ve certainly had an interesting few days. This may have been the worst Memorial Day weekend I’ve ever had. Warning: This is a really long post.

8:00 PM Wednesday: Gina is at her course, so she’s out of the house until Saturday afternoon. I stay with her at the hotel tonight, and we have a tasty dinner at Sam’s near Union Square someplace. |I plan to take advantage of the alone-time to play some games (mostly Wolfenstein and Battlefield), watch some scary movies (Panic Room, The Ring), and just lounge around the house.

7:00 AM Thursday: When I come to the house to change clothes, I smell some mold in my bathroom, and add “Clean the bathroom out!!” to my to-do list. Note the extra exclamation point, which really drives home the level of cleanliness I needed.

8:00 PM Thursday: Battlefield: 1942, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and the first 20 minutes of Panic Room occupy my evening. I conked out on the sofa before we even saw the bad guys. The mold smell is bad enough that I close the bathroom door when I go to sleep.

7:00 AM Friday: I shower in Gina’s bathroom. Mine makes me sneeze. I take some Sudafed and get ready for work. Welcome to my stuffy head, coughing nightmare. The sore throat makes its first appearance.

10:30 AM Friday: I’m already feeling better. Wow, I must have work-itis.

4:00 PM Friday: We leave early because it’s a holiday weekend. In the car on the way to Safeway, I have an epiphany, I realize that the mold and my sudden cold are probably related. I add a pair of rubber gloves, a breath mask, and some Claritin, and set to work cleaning. Rubber glove manufacturers need to make men’s sizes.

7:00 PM Friday: Scrubbing every surface in a bathroom is just how I figured I’d be spending a Friday night in my late 20s when I was in high school.

8:00 AM Saturday: This morning is worse than Friday. My bleach and water cleaning have done nothing. My paranoia increases, and I’m starting to think of last winter’s leaky roof. Did enough water get into the walls to start the mold growing? The mold-induced stuffy head and sneezing fits combine with my neighbor’s pounding stereo, to give me a top-class headache.

1:00 PM Saturday: Luckily, Gina’s sister Sheri called and needed help fixing her computer. During my chat with her, I realized that while I’d removed the shelves and mirror from the wall, there was one place in the bathroom I’d not looked; inside the toilet tank. Sure enough, there was our green, stinky culprit.

2:30 PM Saturday: Ten percent bleach, ninety percent water. That’s what you use to kill mold, and I went at the crud in the toilet tank with a vengence. All visible evidence of the mold was gone, but I could still smell it in my bathroom.

5:00 PM Saturday: I went to pick Gina up from her course. We picked up some food and came home, had fun for about five minutes playing “Name that bass line” and then watched a movie (Star Wars). Gina went to bed early, then I went to sleep in the upstairs room, which is the only mold-free area in the apartment. We figured the neighbors were having a party, which is ok. It would have been nice if they’d invited us.

1:00 AM Sunday: Pounding on the door does nothing. Beating the shit out of the wall garners no response. Calls, screams, and threats are ineffective. The music is relentless.

7:15 AM Sunday: The music’s still going. My nose has been blown so much that it’s raw and bleeding. My eyes are swollen, and I have to take my contacts out. They’re so read I look like pure evil.

9:00 AM Sunday: The beat pounds on. We leave for an 11:30 showing of X-Men 2 at the Metreon, about 10 blocks away. Staying in the apartment with the mold and the pounding bass is making us crazy. We eat a leisurely breakfast, then browse some shops and make fun of the tourists. We call Larry the landlord and let him know that there’s a problem.

2:00PM Sunday: The X-Men movie was actually pretty good. We decide not to do a ‘double feature’ at the multiplex beause we’re both too tired. We head back to the apartment to take naps, because neither of us slept well last night thanks to the endless bass line.

4:00 PM Sunday: Dear Lord, will it never stop? What kind of maniacs leave the radio on for 30 hours? Are they doing some sort of unholy psychedelic drug in there and are just starting to come down? Did they die with the radio on? What’s wrong with them?

5:00 PM Sunday: We have to do something. I trip the breaker at the meter downstairs, hoping that it won’t come back on when I turn it back on. The radio stays on. We’ve now heard 5 U2 songs.

7:00 PM Sunday: Did you know that there are really only about five different base lines in all pop songs? After a while they all sound the same. Gina and I start shouting just to shout. We can’t turn our music up loud enough to kill the bass. Larry is going to get his nephew to come over and go into their apartment to turn it off.

9:00 PM Sunday: Thank God. The music’s finally off. The silence is enough to bring tears to my eyes. It could just be the mold.

10:13 AM Monday: Larry comes by to check on the mold. My eyes are so bloodshot that it looks like I’ve been on a four-day cocaine binge. We break the seal on the bathroom door for the first time in two days. The bleach must be working, I can’t smell mold anywhere. Of course, I can’t smell anything else either.

2:00 PM Monday: We cruise over to the Metreon again, this time to see Bruce Almighty.

4:30 PM Monday: Liar, Liar was much funnier.

11:12 PM Monday: The mold isn’t gone totally, but it’s much better. I feel better, Gina’s sore throat is going away. The fucking pounding bass is gone. I can’t wait to go to work tomorrow.