Mildly Disappointed

So just saw Iron Man 3 (yeah, it's been out for awhile, so what? I've been distracted) and was not impressed, at all. For sometime now I have been actively trying to review the media I am exposed to, such as movies, games, and books. This is to improve my experience and talents as a writer and as a reviewer. It's also just something easy to get in the habit of doing, so naturally I have already constructed a basic review of the movie in my head, based on the one viewing. While thinking about it, a moment from another movie entered my mind, and I started trying to place it…. Took me awhile, but then I figured it out and the review actually became a lot simpler.

Iron Man 3 is the same story as The Dark Knight but with more action and less story. A lot less story. One of the criticisms I remember about TDK was that its story seemed to be big enough for two entire movies, but instead it was fit into one. Of course when trying to contain so much in so little, some quality will be lost, but TDK is still a very good movie and the story is still quite well done. IM3 on the other hand is not nearly as good. Drawing on my creativity, I could see how the story laid out in IM3 could be expanded to seemingly be enough to fill two full movies, like TDK. But, that is only after expanding it. What was actually put on the screen is, to me, so chopped up, compared to what is possible, that it left the one movie very muddled with so many places worth exploring left in the dark. I'd hesitate to call it a popcorn movie even, as the pauses from the action can be long enough and contain enough of the chopped up, muddled story that you have to think about it, causing the issues with the story to stand out.

There is one good thing to say about it though; it makes we want to refocus on my own writing, as though my desire and attention to story could make up with this. It probably can't, but someone has got to try.

Sometimes Things just Work Out

Almost two weeks ago now Humble Bundle launched the Humble Double Fine Bundle, which contains 3+1+1 games from Double Fine. (Three games come at any price, one only unlocks when you pay more than the average, and then one more you get a pre-order for only if you pay at least $35.) Because all of the games are from Double Fine, which is a known and relatively well-respected developer, I decided not to review the bundle. These games already have good exposure, so why spend the time to give them more? There is a good chance the people who are interested in them will get the bundle without my review.

Anyway, now we get to how this worked out well for me. I haven't a clue why, but the engines for at least two of the games simply fail, miserably, on my computer. For one game, half the time it would not load then for almost the entire other half the game starts up behind a loading screen, making playing impossible. The other game was reliably starting, had the loading screen issue a few times, but I may have found a solution to that, but had another, major issue. A number of the meshes in the environment were not loading. I actually had a fight on an invisible platform and was running into invisible walls! I have never seen issues like this before and have been unable to find any solutions for these problems. Now I am hesitant to open the other two games I got in the bundle.

So as it turns out, even if I wanted to review these games I would not be able to because of these critical bugs. Hopefully I will have better luck with the next bundle.

Happy Mother's Day!

I hope every woman out there fortunate enough to have children had a very good day today, when we honor them for becoming something they quite possibly had been looking forward to for years. You have all worked hard and deserve a special day to celebrate your plans for a family becoming reality. Congratulations!

Seriously though, I hope all the mothers out there had a great day and saw how much their family loves them. I only mean my cynical words to remind you that as much as you deserve Mother's Day, the day is only as special as you and your own family makes it.

Years in the Making…

Really, the effort leading up to this was years long…. Yeah, most of the time was not spent working on it, but so what? Everybody takes breaks.

However long ago I asked the question of if it was possible to automatically update the files on my USB drives. After some research, I found the building blocks needed to create such a system and that first system I made was crude, but effective. Since then I have completely redesigned it to operate with different USB devices and different computers, and trust me, those differences can make things complicated.

Well, knowing that the real fun of creating such a system is from sharing it, I wrote a guide explaining how it works and thus how to recreate it. Thanks to the supporting folks at OverclockersClub.com, that guide is now published, for the world to benefit from… or at least those in the world willing to work with batch files, the task scheduler, and possibly environment variables.

Enjoy! USB Auto Update Guide