how much for new feet
So i’m back from Boston and PAX:E 2012. My feet feel like raw meat and I think I managed to get the paxpox this time. Will know tomorrow I think.
This year felt different. I can’t place my finger on it. But overall it was still a great show. The attendee’s and costumes were amazing, as were the Enforcers. Even with those that will remain nameless on this post, but you can find out here.
I was once again an Exhibitor Assistant for Microsoft’s Xbox, so thank you Jenny, Allison, and Beth for putting up with me for another 5 days. I absolutely love working with you folks each time!
And new this time were:
The Behemoth: Emil and crew. Thanks for everything! I think my wife is going to steal my pink knight since I didn’t get her a shirt. :p
Twisted Pixel: Maaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwww….. That’s what my wife said when I told her I was working with you folks. I don’t know how you did it, but you made that space you had work! Even with the raffle, it was a feat for sure! Great job!
Demiurge Studios: I don’t know what to say. I almost started to wonder if you would ever need anything from me, but I finally got my quest from you. Find your chairs. :p Glad you had a good showing!
And to all of you named, glad you had a great show and look forward to seeing you next time!
I didn’t get to do as much as I would of liked since I was so busy, but I did manage to meet a few new people that were great. And made a new friend as well. And I hope to get Meg to go next year so her and I can go around Boston. I really do want her to see New England. But maybe I will hold off until the fall. 
Most of the pics are on my Facebook page and a few video’s on YouTube, which I should be adding a few more, depending on how they turned out.
In any case, here’s a few i’m partial to:
soon
Life has been so busy since we bought the house late last year. Repairs, modifications, work, etc.
And for quite a bit of time, my back had really been bugging me. I am seeing a pain specialist now and they were able to reduce the pain a bit with a shot. Not sure what he did differently, but its been a relief. I do still have some pain and cramping in the legs, but it is alot better.
Other than that, I’ve done a bit of reading while watching my shows. I’m really looking forward to the return of Game of Thrones on April 1st.
I just finished watching the Game of Thrones: The Complete First Season [Blu-ray]
Two others I bought and recommend:
NOTE: If you have a Sony BD Player or PS3, this version will not play on it. You will need to get the one narrated by Oprah
Gaming… Yeah… Xbox is locking up so need a new one, so haven’t even been able to play Mass Effect 3
Til next time.
Oh, Frozen Planet starts tonight on Discovery!
Merry Christmas
And Happy New Year from Meg, Ein, & I.
kinecting a beta tester
I’m a week late, so shoot me. :p
For those that have seen my twitter posts before or that have been over to our place, have seen that we’ve got a Kinect
But since its been out now for a few weeks, i’m more than free to talk about my thoughts.
Up until I got it a week before PAX, I was a bit skeptical. Things said about lag, motion capture, and it being a novelty, all sort of actually pushed me away from it since something like this really hadn’t worked in the past with other platforms.
But after hooking it up and playing around with it, I was hooked. Meg sat and watched the first few times, not really all that interested in it since she had her Wii. But after getting her to play around with Kinect Adventure’s (which comes with the retail Kinect), Kinect Joy Ride
Rewinding a bit.
Setup was not all that hard, and maybe a bit exciting for me considering i’m a techno-geek, once I figured out a small issue since I didn’t read the instructions fully. Since I had the original Halo 360 console, I had to use the splitter that comes in the box to power the Kinect sensor, but if you have one of the new 360 Slims, it will be powered directly from the console.
After turning it on, doing some updates, and trying several times to get through the setup (remember that not reading the instructions part above?), I found that you must have the sensor’s USB connector plugged INTO the back of the 360, not the front ports. And it cannot go through a USB hub either. This is due to the amount of information transmitted back and forth and hub’s split the time between ports, this goes for the 2 front one’s as well. They’re not on a dedicated bus. But I got it up and running.
The tutorial does say 6-8 feet of distance, but I found that 8-10 feet was the sweet spot. Being at 6 feet caused the sensor to miss some things. This required us to move the couch back and the coffee table out of the way and moving one lamp for better lighting, but once that was done, things were good.
Joyride was the first game I played and it was alot of fun. Sports had some fun things in it, but it seemed a bit Wii-ish in characteristics. And when Adventure’s finally came around, I had so much fun playing it that I did not heed the warning about taking breaks. I suffered the next day with muscle’s I didn’t even remember having being rather sore. And during this time, I really saw no lag to speak of, the motion detecting at times was a little rough though. This required a quick recalibration since the sensor would be vibrated out of position a little from our ‘spongy’ floors. But overall the experience overall was enjoyable.
The voice recognition works surprisingly well and is a real convience to use when pausing a movie, sports viewing in the ESPN blade, or launching something. One thing, it doesn’t distinguish between players voices, so this might be a nuisance if too many people are calling out different commands while playing around. The one feature that is missing that they had talked about at E3 was the Xbox on/off. This was left out during development. And from an interview on Major Nelson’s podcast with Alex Kipman, he stated that would require the 360 and sensor to be using some power at all times, so it was opted to be left out.
The automatic sign-in works a majority of the time. Where I’ve done the Kinect ID 4 times or so, Meg’s only done it once or twice, and it shows. 90% of the time it recognizes me as long as the light is decent, and signs me in. But Meg has only about a 25% success rate. It does state though the more you do the connect ID in various lighting or time of day conditions, the more success it will have.
Overall, Meg and I really like it. I don’t see how it would work with FPS’s though, but with adventure and party games, its going to be great. This is actually a great product to get the whole family involved. It has something for everyone and gets you off the couch. And the friends and family that we have come over have enjoyed it themselves as well. A few even now owning it themselves. I can see our Wii now sitting unused except for the Netflix streaming on the TV in the bedroom.
On my brothers. At last contact, both are doing well despite the conditions and pick up in fighting over there. But the packages my family has been sending have been helping. I also ran across this back a month ago: 
That’s my one brother, 1stSgt Jonathan Wyble. He was injured not to long ago in an IED explosion, and thankfully only received minor wounds and a stage 3 concussion.
Now back to trying to get rid of this damn cold. So until next time, be well.
1 year later
Summer’s over and the fall weather is just as strange as the rest of the year has been.
Not sure why I said that. But who cares.
So, I had so much I wanted to do this summer, but only got some of it done. It was rather frustrating. Wanting to get some games played through, or watch shows, go camping, see movies, go to the zoo, etc. But something always came up. So only got a few of the things done. I think alot of it had to do with my back, meaning doctor appts, therapy, and resting it up.
Then there’s Ernie.
Ernie the Cat had taken ill, really badly, where she was urinating a lot of blood, running a high fever, couldn’t stand, and wouldn’t drink or eat. I ended up having to take her to the vet with the certainty that we were going to have to say goodbye. The vet asked us to give her 24 hours and gave her a pretty good dose of anti-biotics, fluids, appetite enhancer, and something else. Its now 3 days later and she’s doing better. I’m just not sure how much longer she’ll be with us.
And finally, been married now one year. And as much of an ass I am, she still puts up with me. :p
Lastly, as many of you know, I promote Child’s Play, which is ramping up shortly. I also ask you to take a look at this: Extra Life. Esmerelda from Sarcastic Gamer is trying to raise money for the Miami Children’s Hospital by playing games for 24 hours straight on Oct 16th. She’s not asking for much, just $1/hour. I’ve pitched in and ask you do the same.
brothers
I’ve talked about my brothers before. Both currently in the Marines. Both have served time in Iraq. And soon both to be in Afghanistan.
John, currently there sent me this pic of himself from the combat camera:
Dusk
My youngest brother will be heading over there sometime shortly.
And if you know anyone over there, send them a care package. Include some powdered milk, its something they can use while out on patrols.
in memory
One show I have watched since the beginning is Discovery’s Deadliest Catch. Seeing these guys battling the elements just to bring many of us something we love to eat, hooked me from the first episode. And early on, I latched onto Phil Harris as one of my favorite Captains.
And during the filming of Season 6, Phil had a massive stroke and died. This was known before the show even started its season run.
Phil had a huge heart. Absolutely loved his kids and crew and anybody else he befriended. And seeing how the fleet reacted to the news of his stroke eventually got to me and I had tears spill forth.
To me, this showed me just how much of an impact that one person who I’ve only met very briefly, but have watched 6 years, can have on you.
Go check the clips out they have on their site in the link at the beginning of this post.
yikes!
This update brought to you by Folgers. The Best Part of Wakin’ up.
Not really, but that’s what i’m drinking in any case.
So things seemed to have been picking up lately at work, which is a good thing. It means people are finally starting to spend money again. Which of course will die a bit again when all these new taxes kick in from the regime in Olympia. And lets not even think about the impact this will have on small business. Three friends that have their own small business are now worried because of the hiked B&O tax.
But I digress.
Speaking of work, I’m glad I only have to do on-call 2-3 times a year. Being on-call tires you quite a bit. Not only working your normal hours, but then running trouble calls at night and not getting home until midnight, only to get back up at 5:30 wears on you pretty fast. Meg says I become an ass when i’m overly tired. But then again, she say’s i’m an ass all the time. *shrugs*
Anywho, we’ve gone to Muckleshoot a few times now to play Bingo! and have had fun. Tried my hand at two cards and it was rather difficult considering the caller for some reason felt he needed to speed the games along. Even the people that live in the bingo hall were having trouble keeping up with their normal 4 cards.
Updates:
Movies – None (didn’t have time with on-call and some other things going on lately)
Music – Ever had a song stuck in your head for a day? Try for 5 days straight! Jet City Woman – Queensryche But I’ve been digging on http://www.kingcitysf.com/flash_radio/index.html lately. Loved their music after seeing them in concert with Cake. Its just really fun music and you can tell they have fun playing it! Makes it all the more enjoyable.
Games – Still doing Borderlands
Books – 
Just finished up with with Hyperion by Dan Simmons. Great book and leaves you wanting more. Available in Paperback
help thy fellow PAXonian
I don’t usually pass things like this along that often, but this one hits semi close to home.
A fellow compatriot of mine, Lori, who is an Enforcer (some know what this is, for others Please read this), was diagnosed with an auto-immune disorder known as APS and may possibly have lupus. Because of this, she will have to have one of her legs removed.
Lori, along with her husband, have opened there house multiple times to us Enforcers to just hang out, play games, talk, or be rowdy. And we are now helping give back in what ever way we can to help these two friends of ours out.
Another Enforcer and friend of mine, who goes by the name of Liger, is hand making her own version of the LiveStrong bracelet. Please visit her site and take a look, and please purchase one if you can afford it.
curing with a walk
Lately Meg and I had been getting a bit edgy. Some of it dealing with the planning of the wedding, some of it due to medical issue’s, and other times I now believe because we haven’t been doing things together.
Well, not like we used to. Going on walks. Drives to places. etc.
Things like this:
This was Memorial Day, a nice walk down a beach in Seattle. Was refreshing and enjoyable. Need to get out and do more of this type of stuff. Get the bikes fixed and take rides. Go for drives.
