When your sick it never ends.

      When your sick having a family is both good and bad. The support from my loving wife is great, and  I wish I could be more supportive toward her. The downside is everyone gets it. I am sick and I got it from my son, who may have got it from my wife. I guess he gave it to me when he licked my eyeball while we were napping. Everyone is tired and drained and you just don't have the energy to deal with sick people anymore.  I am atwork toughing through it. I am indoors wearing a winter jacket and hat trying to keep warm.

Call the doctor!!

saving over 90$ a year and the laptop dilemma

     Let's start of with "I hate laptops!" My wife has had a laptop for few years. She is not easy on her things. I have had to replace the power cord three times, the battery twice, the keyboard twice (okay that one was our toddler), the motherboard, the screen, and put new memory in it. My dekstop has not been touched in five years and works fine. Today, I have to order stuff from amazon. I have to order a replacement power cord since she damaged this one. It makes her happy, so I do everything I can to keep it working.
  

  I have Comcast for my Internet service. Every month I pay $5 for the modem rental fee, and that fee is going up to $7 soon. Everyone who has to pay an equipment fee should order a modem from Amazon. Modems are $50 and the rental fee is $91 a year. Why bother paying for the equipment?

I really wish I could buy my own cable box too. Technically you are allowed, but the manufacturers do not sell to customers or retailers just the cable company, so I'm stuck on that one.  :(

So save yourself some money and order your own modem. The one to the left is one that Comcast uses, but I will tell you that you will need to call in to have your modem authorized on your account. It should only take ten minutes.

Retro Monday!! The Adventures of Lolo

The Adventures of Lolo!

     The Adventure of Lolo is another NES classic. Released in 1989 by HAL America. The evil King Egger kidnaps Lala and lolo has to rescue her is the story behind the game. His castle has many floors with many rooms. Each room has a chest with a pearl inside that unlocks the next room. The Chest is opened only once all the hearts in the room are collected. Lolo has to solve all the puzzles to rescue Lala.
     I played this game a lot when I was younger. I had no idea what to do and nothing but time to kill. Games today have spoiled us. Only NES games throw you into the game with no explanation. Even the first room could take a long time to figure out if you have never played and have no manual.
      The game is fun and challenging. You have to solve puzzles by pushing blocks and other creatures in eggs. The game gets hard toward the end and I have not finished every level myself. If you are looking for fun game to play try Lolo. It is available on the virtual console for you Wii.

pictures soon.

Minecraft

    Minecraft is a indi-game that is the definition of sandbox game. You start off in a block based environment with nothing and no guide. There are sheep and woods and grassy fields. The game is 15$ and is still in beta. This means it has its bugs. The multi player is still being developed, but single player plays ok. I have spent hours digging massive tunnels and labyrinths. You make tools from stone and wood until you can craft iron weapons. It can basically be compared to electronic legos. There is one catch.
     When night falls zombies and monsters come out. They will kill you or explode destroying everything around them. I have spent many nights hiding in a while waiting for dawn. You can craft weapons and armor to defend yourself. The game has a sharp learning curve and I recommend you check online for the guide.
    The game is fun, and its fun to make massive buildings and dig big holes. If you have friends and can setup a server its fun to build things you can show off to each other.

I give minecraft a 5 out of 10

Retro Monday!

      Festers Quest!  This is another NES game I played when I was a kid. I liked the creepy Adams Family and this game looked cool. I have never finished it, and I don't think I even got past the first level.

      The story is brief. Fester watches aliens invade the city and I guess no survived accept his family. The city is empty accept hot-dog vendors. There are many aliens to shoot with what looks like a vacuum cleaner. Every enemy drops things, but you have to be careful. A blue "GUN" will upgrade your weapon but "RED" will downgrade. Some of the weapons make it harder to kill things since they hit walls and have odd patterns like swirling cannon balls. The aliens can also drop money you can use to buy stuff like hot-dogs.
    
     You can get a whip I think, and there are a bunch of items, but I never figured out how to use any of them. I did not have the chance because the game is hard. When you move monsters spawn, and if you run they reappear. this is annoying when the frogs leap around your bullets and have to run away to kill them, but when you go back they are back.
    
    If you have never played this game, I think you should try it. It is still hard much like all NES games were. I mean there is probably only hours of game-play, and to extend it they make you die and start over.

I give Festers Quest a 7 out of 10

The video game problem.

          I have a "man cave". In this "man cave", I keep all my games and gaming systems. My son has figured out that neat things are in this room. So he often runs in and grabs stuff, if I forget to close the door. He yells "Mario!" as he grabs Mario Galaxy off my shelf and sprints over to the family room. If left alone, he will open the box, take the CD out, turn on my xbox, hit the eject, place the game in the tray,grab a controller, and turn on the stereo. I was very impressed with the display, but worried about my stuff. I don't stand a chance once he is older. He is two, I'm doomed!

     Here are some tips to keeping you games out of the reach of your kids. 

1. Keep your games in a closet or a room that you kids cannot get into. I have a child proof knob on my door, and I have to remember to close it. My systems are in his reach though, and he has seen me turn the xbox on enough times to know that he can watch Thomas on it. 

2. Use a cabinet with a door that your kids cannot open. Trust me, nothing is more angering then playing a game and beating a boss then the screen goes blank because your kid hit the power button. 

 3. My son also loves my hand held games. This is my fault since I put Thomas on my psp for when he is in the car and wont stop crying. He sees it and says "More Thomas tank engine and friends!" He also plays with my DS. He can turn it on move the menu around and take pictures of himself. I just worry he will break it.  The only advice I have for a handheld is keep it out of sight. He will not ask for it if it is not in his view.

     Try to keep your things out of reach just like you keep chemicals locked up. It's cute to watch him laugh playing "Luigi's Mansion", but when he does it on his own it's scary!

Keeping your things safe

    I am not rich, but I have stuff I would like to keep nice. I have some tips and examples for any fathers or fathers to be. I have a surround sound stereo system, game systems, a computer, cable box, and a TV. I am going to give you some tips and tell you what has happened since my son was born. Today we will talk about the stereo.
    I have a surround system, it's nothing super fancy but I'd like to keep it in good condition. My son has discovered that if he pulls the mesh netting off the speaker he can push in the white circles (these are the speakers!) I had to tie them on with black yarn. I advise wall mounting them so they can not be reached. Next, my son has also pulled the speaker wire connecting those speakers. I recommend getting long enough wire to go under the floor, or around your baseboards and staple them down. My son also can reach the stereo itself and turn it on and off, and he can push all kinds of buttons that mess up the settings. Place the unit as high as you can or get a cabinet with a door you can latch. The latest event has been with my sub woofer. My son has discovered that his Thomas trains fit inside the air vent! I had to take apart the speaker to get the trains out! I fashioned a make shift block using pantyhose and a twist tie! The only thing I can think of is to to put the vent against the wall.

      If you do as much preventive work as you can then you can keep your things nicer longer.  Never do anything without making sure you did everything to keep kids away from them.  Tomorrow I will talk about keeping them out of your games.

When your player 2 dies!

     As you get older things start to change. My friends and I were very close in high school. I saw them every day and talked to them online every night. We hung out at least once a week, and in college we still talked a lot. Things like work and women soon overshadow that friendship.

     I have friends whom I have not seen in years. I have friends I have not spoken to in months. We all have jobs and most of us are married. The time to hang out is very slim. The questions is does it have to be game over?

     I do not have that answer. I have tried to keep in touch. We still chat on a forum, but replies take days or weeks. I sometimes I see them online, but they are like those people you friend on xbox live because you made a good team once. You never really talk to them again.

Sad post today.  Hope to review the new game I'm playing.  Infamous soon.   Retro monday onhold till next week

Demons Souls

This is one of the best games I have played in a very long time! The story is you are a hero drawn to a kingdom being consumed by an evil fog bringing demons to plague the lands. You choose from different classes that basically mean nothing since everyone can use any weapon and max all your stats. Your choices are heavy melee like a knight, rouge like quick melee, melee caster hybrid, dark magic, or holy magic. You die shortly into the game and are introduced to the death cycle in the game. This is something you will get very used to because you are going to die, and die, and die, and die, and die again, over and over again. The game has a sharp difficulty curve and even if you have played it and expect what is coming you can still die from a simple mistake.

The biggest feature to this game is multiplayer. You do not directly interact with other players most of the time. In fact, there is no communication at all. The main way to interact is to leave messages on the ground to guide or warn other players. There are a large number of preset messages you can scribe on the ground. If someone recommends your message you will instantly be healed to full health. It is much easier to read "trap ahead" rather than walking up ahead and seeing fireballs roll down a ramp toward you. The other multiplayer aspect is summoning help or being invaded.

     You can summon the help of up to 2 other players to fight with you against all evil. Once you defeat a boss your helper gets resurrected and goes back to their home world. There is also red phantoms, these are not friendly. They will hunt you down to try to kill you. These human players are worth a lot of souls, the currency of the game. The last multiplayer aspect is world tendency. When online the tendency will be grey which is in the middle. When you die, it shifts to dark. When you kill a boss or big demon it will shift to white. White worlds are easier, but you don't get great prizes. Black worlds are more difficult. Stronger red demons appear, that would not normally, but it is easier to find treasure.

     The game is unforgiving, yet very rewarding. You will die a lot, but it is never unfair. When you die, it is because you made a mistake. You must learn from your mistakes. For example, charging up the stairs only to be impaled by a demon knight that is lurking around the corner . When you come back he will be in the exact same spot, so be prepared. Monsters do not hunt you down, so you can take your time. This is my favorite PS3 game.


This game is well worth the money and frustration. I give it a 10 out of 10!!

Its fun to stay at the YMCA

My wife and I went to the YMCA this morning. I am not in good shape and overweight. I have been trying to get back into football shape again. So a trip the YMCA gym was good. I felt a lot better after 30 min of elliptical. My goal is to go 3 times a week. Since I am basically done with FF13 I have no obsession to play games every second of the day. They have child watch so its a welcome break sometimes to go there just for that. Short post today, tomorrow I will have a review for you. It will be the best game I have played in a very long time.