I Finally Caved...
Man I just kill myself sometimes. Okay let me explain. First of all I did some spelunking today. Second of all I finally gave in to a fad that everyone else has been doing. NOW do you get the pun? Yes, roll with me.
Heh. Anyway, first of all you know those stupid quizzes that are quite repetitive that everyone forwards around via e-mail to everyone they know and there's always a question at the bottom saying "who is the most likely to not respond." Well that's always me, because I've always felt if people wanted to know you they'd get to know you personally rather than read about you. Strangely enough I've gone against my personality and actually posted one of them up for the world to see. Now let me warn you, I find most of these things inherently boring, and thus I'm sure mine is too. I personally probably have never actually read one all the way through, unless I was tremendously interesting in finding out everything I could about the person. Which is rare. However some people just need things to read while they eat their breakfast that don't involve cereal boxes, so there it is to the right, under "All About Me."
We headed over to the Natural Bridge Caverns today, which was even cooler than I expected. I'd never been in a major cave before, and these were pretty spiffy. Some amazing formations, and just pretty much some scenery you won't find anywhere other than a couple hundred feet underground. Highly recommended, it'll go on my list of things to take people to do if they ever come visit me. Hint hint wink wink. Hopefully the list will become mighty long as I continue to get out and explore San Antonio.
Friday, November 28, 2003
The Easy Life...
Boy, life is really rough. Except it isn't. Wednesday morning we had a squadron "fun run" which for most people caused a lot of groaning but I of course enjoyed. Myself and another guy were even running satellites back to the back of the group and then back up to the front along the 2.5 mile course to make it more of a workout, fun stuff. On Thursday everyone who was stuck in the dorms due to wanting to stack up leave for the christmas/new year holiday got together and had a pretty darn good thanksgiving in the day room... We had homemade pretty much everything, which was topped off with Marie Callendar's pumkin pies, which I had to go stand in line for at 7:30 when they didn't even open until 8. It was a good thing I did though because I was 10th in line and by opening there were 150 people there... The good news is we had one left over so I'm busy hoarding it and siphoning it to myself over the next few days. :) Mad props to the person who did the organizing and dictating of who should bring what, they spent a lot of time on it and did a great job.
So we have a couple expansion pack reviews for Medal of Honor, called Breakthrough and Spearhead. Basically if you liked the game you'll like the expansions, but if you're paying full price you might be disappointed. Breakthrough is challenging even on the medium skill level and is about 4-6 hours in length, but Spearhead is less so, and seemed shorter as well, closer to the 4 hour end of that range. Unfortunately expansions tend to still be like 30 bucks, so if the single player campaign is all you're interested in, it's not a very good bang for your buck. There's another one coming out soon about the Pacific aspect of WWII, with both these focusing on the Europe aspect, with North Africa and Germany respectively. Speaking of coming out, the Deus Ex sequel is due to hit the shelves in about a week, and the original is one of my favorites and based on the reviews the sequel should be too. The best thing this game had going for it was length, it was no one day affair. I think that's the one that actually tracked your gametime too, so when you finally beat it after a few weeks of dedication and saw you'd put in 40 hours or something you had something to be proud of, or afraid of and repulsed by, as the case may be.
Currently entertaining myself with Jedi Knight - Jedi Academy, a spinoff of Jedi Knight 2 which was also excellent. On deck is Call of Duty, with Homeworld 2 probably appearing sometime down the line, although the Deus Ex sequel will probably make its appearance first. Then sadly I'll have to look for ulterior entertainment, as I'll have caught back up with the times. For those who think I've been in my room for days on end that's not entirely true. I still get my exercise, so if you go run several miles in the morning and do your pushups and situps to the point you lose at least 3 pounds from the beginning to the end of a workout, you can sit on your ass for the rest of the day too. :) Actually last night we ended up down at the Riverwalk checking out some of the nightlife and receiving free entertainment courtesy of a couple of the guys in the group. Not usually my cup of tea, but I was dd'ing it and I enjoy that perspective every once in a while. It's always good to go downtown, really nice atmosphere.
Speaking of atmosphere, I think I've decided living on a military base is pretty much the coolest thing ever. Yeah having to bust out your ID depending on the fpcon status at the gate can delay you a min or two, but being saluted as you go through is still pretty nifty. You see children playing in the street in the residential areas all the time, and wandering around to places like the bowling alley without having to worry about someone snatching them. A lot of people just leave their houses unlocked, a throwback to the days when people didn't have today's worries to think about. You never really have to worry about something happening like your car being stolen, because of the eternal damnation hanging over anyone's head who commits such a crime. Ending your career on something retarded is something pretty much all military members aren't willing to do. Yeah I might be the eternal optimist, but I really think the base is a really awesome city in itself, and don't think I'll mind living on them in the future. I'm not saying I don't love going off base too for fun because I do, and I'm sure I'll always enjoy having a metropolis in the area, and would prefer Washington DC to North Dakota. But I'm now confident I could survive in places like Alaska if I do end up sent there or Timbuktu. Granted the lack of attachments plays a large part in that. We'll see how that goes in the future.
Boy, life is really rough. Except it isn't. Wednesday morning we had a squadron "fun run" which for most people caused a lot of groaning but I of course enjoyed. Myself and another guy were even running satellites back to the back of the group and then back up to the front along the 2.5 mile course to make it more of a workout, fun stuff. On Thursday everyone who was stuck in the dorms due to wanting to stack up leave for the christmas/new year holiday got together and had a pretty darn good thanksgiving in the day room... We had homemade pretty much everything, which was topped off with Marie Callendar's pumkin pies, which I had to go stand in line for at 7:30 when they didn't even open until 8. It was a good thing I did though because I was 10th in line and by opening there were 150 people there... The good news is we had one left over so I'm busy hoarding it and siphoning it to myself over the next few days. :) Mad props to the person who did the organizing and dictating of who should bring what, they spent a lot of time on it and did a great job.
So we have a couple expansion pack reviews for Medal of Honor, called Breakthrough and Spearhead. Basically if you liked the game you'll like the expansions, but if you're paying full price you might be disappointed. Breakthrough is challenging even on the medium skill level and is about 4-6 hours in length, but Spearhead is less so, and seemed shorter as well, closer to the 4 hour end of that range. Unfortunately expansions tend to still be like 30 bucks, so if the single player campaign is all you're interested in, it's not a very good bang for your buck. There's another one coming out soon about the Pacific aspect of WWII, with both these focusing on the Europe aspect, with North Africa and Germany respectively. Speaking of coming out, the Deus Ex sequel is due to hit the shelves in about a week, and the original is one of my favorites and based on the reviews the sequel should be too. The best thing this game had going for it was length, it was no one day affair. I think that's the one that actually tracked your gametime too, so when you finally beat it after a few weeks of dedication and saw you'd put in 40 hours or something you had something to be proud of, or afraid of and repulsed by, as the case may be.
Currently entertaining myself with Jedi Knight - Jedi Academy, a spinoff of Jedi Knight 2 which was also excellent. On deck is Call of Duty, with Homeworld 2 probably appearing sometime down the line, although the Deus Ex sequel will probably make its appearance first. Then sadly I'll have to look for ulterior entertainment, as I'll have caught back up with the times. For those who think I've been in my room for days on end that's not entirely true. I still get my exercise, so if you go run several miles in the morning and do your pushups and situps to the point you lose at least 3 pounds from the beginning to the end of a workout, you can sit on your ass for the rest of the day too. :) Actually last night we ended up down at the Riverwalk checking out some of the nightlife and receiving free entertainment courtesy of a couple of the guys in the group. Not usually my cup of tea, but I was dd'ing it and I enjoy that perspective every once in a while. It's always good to go downtown, really nice atmosphere.
Speaking of atmosphere, I think I've decided living on a military base is pretty much the coolest thing ever. Yeah having to bust out your ID depending on the fpcon status at the gate can delay you a min or two, but being saluted as you go through is still pretty nifty. You see children playing in the street in the residential areas all the time, and wandering around to places like the bowling alley without having to worry about someone snatching them. A lot of people just leave their houses unlocked, a throwback to the days when people didn't have today's worries to think about. You never really have to worry about something happening like your car being stolen, because of the eternal damnation hanging over anyone's head who commits such a crime. Ending your career on something retarded is something pretty much all military members aren't willing to do. Yeah I might be the eternal optimist, but I really think the base is a really awesome city in itself, and don't think I'll mind living on them in the future. I'm not saying I don't love going off base too for fun because I do, and I'm sure I'll always enjoy having a metropolis in the area, and would prefer Washington DC to North Dakota. But I'm now confident I could survive in places like Alaska if I do end up sent there or Timbuktu. Granted the lack of attachments plays a large part in that. We'll see how that goes in the future.
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
Now That's A Ring...
Pretty much no one who read that title probably figured I was referring to the fictional object dominating the game known as Halo. I actually didn't have a clue what the plot was when I downlaoded it, just knowing it was a FPS. This game turned out to be a really mixed bag. It did some stuff really well, and other stuff not so well. There was more to the plot than most game, with some decent length mini movies in between levels making it seem like there was a point to what you were doing. One is even reminiscient of Aliens in that you look through the video mounted to someone else's helmet as they meet their fate. It's actually kind of interesting how entertaining it is to see things from someone else's perspective. Whether spectating a multiplayer game through someone's eyes, or watching a movie when the camera walks around as the person and you're seeing their view, it's just a neat thing to see the world from another's perspective and see the way they do things, and the way it's like on their end. Unfortunately the levels themselves were a random assortment of entertainment. Some were terribly repetitive and exceptionally boring. You'd literally fight through the exact same floorplan of a room like 5 times in succession with just a different mixture of bad guys inhabiting them. Other levels were very well designed, using atmosphere and sheer amount of outdoor space to set the tone. While some parts of the game were so boring I was just playing for the satisfaction of finishing and nothing else, some were quite fun, especially those involving controlling moving vehicles such as jeeps or tanks. The ending sequence in particular is quite exciting as ending sequences go. The ending itself is better than average, although you still kind of had that "are they really going to roll the credits just like that" feeling. The weakest part of this game I felt was the length. It's about 8 hours on normal difficulty, which is quite short for a single player campaign. Someone who plays an hour a day would only get a week or so out of buying the game, which is still full priced. There's a multiplayer aspect that as usual I haven't tried, but I wasn't impressed enough with the engine to recommend it for purchase just for that aspect. At times the enemy's movements were so jerky you could empty a full clip and a half into their general area and still come up empty. So overall quite entertaining storyline and well done set pieces, with some mediocre action in between.
I did actually get out this weekend as well, as I headed over to Sea World. There are only three nationwide and I'd been to the one in San Diego and thoroughly enjoyed it, so I figured I'd see if this one was up to par. The shows were more of the same, although as a whole I have to give the edge to San Diego. Interestingly enough though this one actually had two decent sized roller caosters in the park which were pretty fun. Since Sea World doesn't attract the major crowds of a Six Flags, being able to just stay on for multiple rides is pretty nifty. One of them was a suspended style beneath the track looper much like Batman at Magic Mountain or Top Gun at Great America, basically an identical layout to Batman. It's actually a very different feeling on that type of ride to be in the very front or the very back. Accelerating into or out of loops are two very different sensations, I recommend both to decide which you like better. Nothing beats the way back on big dips though, that over the top feeling is top notch. I continued my tradition of beating down the competition at the Whack a Mole game, and have a cute little blue dolphin curved stuffed animal thing that fits quite nice as a round the neck pillow to show for it. I also continued the tradition of getting myself onto the big Jumbotron at the Shamu show. Before this one they would put questions up on the board with choices and zoom in on someone random and they'd have to hold up fingers that represented the number of the correct answer... I of course had the dolphin sitting on my shoulder and was having it hold up fingers which apparently caught the attention of the camerawoman across the way, and boom there I am sixty feet tall. Usually I managed to get on the San Diego ones for getting thoroughly soaked when they came by on the splash run, so it was fun to be on TV without even making a total idiot of myself. Or then again maybe I was anyway. I did manage to get insanely wet, having never seen the show there I had no idea when they were going to get everyone, and I pretty much accidentally picked the perfect spot for the very first tail whacking that just hammered my whole section. It's a wonder things like my wallet and cell phone ever dry out after those kinds of things. Good times. If you ever go to Sea World, wear old clothes, and don't worry about getting wet, because it really does make it ten times more fun. Then you can go on those rides with the waterfall you go under in the big intertube and not worried about getting soaked, because you already are. In San Diego we went on that like four times in a row. Fun stuff. Alas, it's always good to let the kid in you get out every once in a while.
Tickets are purchased, I'll be arriving on Christmas morning and leaving New Years afternoon, anyone wanting to hook up between those days other than New Years Eve let me know, I'll have some down time. Speaking of which, this will probably be the only time I'm in LA for all of next year other than a quick day or two turnaround for my sister's wedding, so it'd be cool to see people before I'm back over here for the year.
Pretty much no one who read that title probably figured I was referring to the fictional object dominating the game known as Halo. I actually didn't have a clue what the plot was when I downlaoded it, just knowing it was a FPS. This game turned out to be a really mixed bag. It did some stuff really well, and other stuff not so well. There was more to the plot than most game, with some decent length mini movies in between levels making it seem like there was a point to what you were doing. One is even reminiscient of Aliens in that you look through the video mounted to someone else's helmet as they meet their fate. It's actually kind of interesting how entertaining it is to see things from someone else's perspective. Whether spectating a multiplayer game through someone's eyes, or watching a movie when the camera walks around as the person and you're seeing their view, it's just a neat thing to see the world from another's perspective and see the way they do things, and the way it's like on their end. Unfortunately the levels themselves were a random assortment of entertainment. Some were terribly repetitive and exceptionally boring. You'd literally fight through the exact same floorplan of a room like 5 times in succession with just a different mixture of bad guys inhabiting them. Other levels were very well designed, using atmosphere and sheer amount of outdoor space to set the tone. While some parts of the game were so boring I was just playing for the satisfaction of finishing and nothing else, some were quite fun, especially those involving controlling moving vehicles such as jeeps or tanks. The ending sequence in particular is quite exciting as ending sequences go. The ending itself is better than average, although you still kind of had that "are they really going to roll the credits just like that" feeling. The weakest part of this game I felt was the length. It's about 8 hours on normal difficulty, which is quite short for a single player campaign. Someone who plays an hour a day would only get a week or so out of buying the game, which is still full priced. There's a multiplayer aspect that as usual I haven't tried, but I wasn't impressed enough with the engine to recommend it for purchase just for that aspect. At times the enemy's movements were so jerky you could empty a full clip and a half into their general area and still come up empty. So overall quite entertaining storyline and well done set pieces, with some mediocre action in between.
I did actually get out this weekend as well, as I headed over to Sea World. There are only three nationwide and I'd been to the one in San Diego and thoroughly enjoyed it, so I figured I'd see if this one was up to par. The shows were more of the same, although as a whole I have to give the edge to San Diego. Interestingly enough though this one actually had two decent sized roller caosters in the park which were pretty fun. Since Sea World doesn't attract the major crowds of a Six Flags, being able to just stay on for multiple rides is pretty nifty. One of them was a suspended style beneath the track looper much like Batman at Magic Mountain or Top Gun at Great America, basically an identical layout to Batman. It's actually a very different feeling on that type of ride to be in the very front or the very back. Accelerating into or out of loops are two very different sensations, I recommend both to decide which you like better. Nothing beats the way back on big dips though, that over the top feeling is top notch. I continued my tradition of beating down the competition at the Whack a Mole game, and have a cute little blue dolphin curved stuffed animal thing that fits quite nice as a round the neck pillow to show for it. I also continued the tradition of getting myself onto the big Jumbotron at the Shamu show. Before this one they would put questions up on the board with choices and zoom in on someone random and they'd have to hold up fingers that represented the number of the correct answer... I of course had the dolphin sitting on my shoulder and was having it hold up fingers which apparently caught the attention of the camerawoman across the way, and boom there I am sixty feet tall. Usually I managed to get on the San Diego ones for getting thoroughly soaked when they came by on the splash run, so it was fun to be on TV without even making a total idiot of myself. Or then again maybe I was anyway. I did manage to get insanely wet, having never seen the show there I had no idea when they were going to get everyone, and I pretty much accidentally picked the perfect spot for the very first tail whacking that just hammered my whole section. It's a wonder things like my wallet and cell phone ever dry out after those kinds of things. Good times. If you ever go to Sea World, wear old clothes, and don't worry about getting wet, because it really does make it ten times more fun. Then you can go on those rides with the waterfall you go under in the big intertube and not worried about getting soaked, because you already are. In San Diego we went on that like four times in a row. Fun stuff. Alas, it's always good to let the kid in you get out every once in a while.
Tickets are purchased, I'll be arriving on Christmas morning and leaving New Years afternoon, anyone wanting to hook up between those days other than New Years Eve let me know, I'll have some down time. Speaking of which, this will probably be the only time I'm in LA for all of next year other than a quick day or two turnaround for my sister's wedding, so it'd be cool to see people before I'm back over here for the year.
Sunday, November 23, 2003
Buck Seventy Five...
As of yesterday it had been approximately 4 years or so since I'd tipped the scales at that amount. As of today, that's no longer true. Finally hit the goal weight I'd been striving towards since, well a long time ago. Since I back up my blog into a word doc it makes it real easy to do a find word and find entries about this kind of thing from forever ago, and this is what I managed to dig up. At my flight physical last December, approximately one year ago, I weighed in at 191. The previous December, in 2001, I was 201. From what I remember, my highest was somewhere around 205, I never got to 210. So here we are today, and slowly but surely the weight has come off. I've never really noticed, I can't even picture the way my body must have looked with thirty more pounds on it. People who haven't seen me in a long time tend to comment, but I always just thought they were trying to be nice. But thinking about it, thirty pounds is a lot. Interstingly enough, I don't think I'm done yet. One of the new aspects of the PFT for the AF is a waist measurement, and although I'm not sure how they do that, I do know there's an inch or two that can be lost there. I suppose everyone says that though. Now that I think about it though, I'm going to have to start adding some muscle to my arms, which isn't something I've been focusing on since OTS, but am getting ready to start. So maybe any more weight lost will be cancelled out by adding muscle. Not that that's a bad thing.
I was gonna post some more stuff, but this is kind of a neat thing I've been looking towards for a while and I figure it deserves a post all to itself.
As of yesterday it had been approximately 4 years or so since I'd tipped the scales at that amount. As of today, that's no longer true. Finally hit the goal weight I'd been striving towards since, well a long time ago. Since I back up my blog into a word doc it makes it real easy to do a find word and find entries about this kind of thing from forever ago, and this is what I managed to dig up. At my flight physical last December, approximately one year ago, I weighed in at 191. The previous December, in 2001, I was 201. From what I remember, my highest was somewhere around 205, I never got to 210. So here we are today, and slowly but surely the weight has come off. I've never really noticed, I can't even picture the way my body must have looked with thirty more pounds on it. People who haven't seen me in a long time tend to comment, but I always just thought they were trying to be nice. But thinking about it, thirty pounds is a lot. Interstingly enough, I don't think I'm done yet. One of the new aspects of the PFT for the AF is a waist measurement, and although I'm not sure how they do that, I do know there's an inch or two that can be lost there. I suppose everyone says that though. Now that I think about it though, I'm going to have to start adding some muscle to my arms, which isn't something I've been focusing on since OTS, but am getting ready to start. So maybe any more weight lost will be cancelled out by adding muscle. Not that that's a bad thing.
I was gonna post some more stuff, but this is kind of a neat thing I've been looking towards for a while and I figure it deserves a post all to itself.
