It had been a while since I had gotten to do a Ratchet and Clank double entendre wordplay title, and the Facebook comments I got on last night’s post confirmed that I did it quite well. For whatever reason, I decided to skip a Quest for Booty reference when it came out last year, and I didn’t even mention it according to my post history. I’ll have to make sure that this is rectified in the future because half the fun of the Ratchet titles is the misunderstanding of them out of context.
So, I actually did beat Quest for Booty, but it wasn’t because I stayed up until 4:00 in the morning. As it turns out, either I was much farther into the 5-6 hour timeframe than I realized, or (more likely) that length was for less experienced R&C players. I can’t say that I’ve started A Crack in Time yet since I’m writing this post early on the chance that I might not be back home by midnight, so you’ll just have to wait until tomorrow to see how that goes.
Personal - Seattle
I was right about being close to the end of Tools of Destruction, and now I’ve started on Quest for Booty. This is only a 5-6 hour game or so, so the possibility exists that I could even beat it before I go to sleep tonight (although unlikely). Last time I got stuck at one part and couldn’t continue (either because it was so new that no FAQs had been written yet, or I refused to reference one – I can’t remember exactly which), but ideally that won’t happen this time. If I had to set a goal, I’d like to start A Crack in Time by Sunday night, and hopefully have it beaten by the end of next week.
Tomorrow I might be going up to some friends of our’s house and taking them a copy of Windows 7 for them to upgrade their computer. Our company store is actually out of that version, so I’ve having to use my awesome resourcefulness to (legally, mind you) get them upgraded but hold off on actually giving them the retail package. For the purposes of speed, I might just order them a copy from our online company store and have it shipped to their house so that I don’t have to worry about taking it up to them myself in the somewhat limited timeframe I’ll have to work with as a result of this workaround.
Personal - Seattle
Today and tomorrow, since I no longer have to worry about moving for another week, my days at work are spent mainly writing specs for the next round of development on the project I’m on. For whatever reason, rather than being given existing specs to look over and see how they were done, I was just handed a template and had to start from scratch. From the feedback I’ve been getting, I’m doing what I would consider to be an above decent job, but I’ll still have a bunch of revising to do even after I’m finished. This is one area where Andrew got the benefit from his internship.
I watched Secret Window from Netflix last night, but since I was able to meet my two paragraph quota otherwise, I saw no real need to post my review for it yesterday. I wasn’t aware (or at least didn’t remember) that it was based on a story by Stephen King, so while it wasn’t really “scary”, it was a little bit on the strange side. Unlike the last two, this one probably wouldn’t have been a DVD purchase even if I did see it back in 2004. My score: 6.5/10.
Personal - Seattle
So yeah, apparently I’m not in my current office for just two more days. As it turns out, the morning after I revel my move plans, I get an email saying “Oh wait, we want to wait until the 9th to move you now”. While this fact doesn’t really bother me one way or the other, I’m apparently going to be working next week in an office where everyone else around me is moving, so I might work from home anyway just to maintain my sanity. Then, I really am officeless for a week, and I’ll be moving again around the 20th (same building, just to another new office within it). Yeah, I have no idea what’s going on anymore, but hopefully Microsoft does. At this point, I fear they might not either though.
If I remember my game correctly, I should be getting near the end of Tools of Destruction. I’m at what I think is the second to last boss fight right now, so since I only have one TV show to watch tomorrow, I should be able to finish it up then. I’m determined not to let a backlog build up, so Aion will just have to wait for the time being until I can get my console games under control.
Personal - Seattle
I picked up A Crack in Time today but kept playing Tools of Destruction when I got home. If I follow through with beating it, then Quest for Booty, and then moving onto my new game, that means Mass Effect gets pushed out even farther. But wait, next week Dragon Age: Origins comes out (from the same developer as Mass Effect), and if you can’t see where this is going, this is how I got into my bottomless backlog situation in the first place. So, what’s the solution? Apparently, play PS3 or 360 every waking moment that I’m not busy with something else. Hmmm, but then my Wii and DS will sure start to feel lonely…
I only have two days left in my current office, and then for six business days, I’m effectively homeless. On days when I have no meetings, I’m going to play the “work from home” card since all I really need to do is be available on email and write up stuff that I can do anywhere. This is also be a good trial run for Christmas when my extended trip to Dallas requires me to make use of this in order to not take even more vacation days. Maybe it’s just me, but I think sitting at my desk all day will be much more comfortable (and entertaining) than finding some random place around my new building to sit for 8 hours a day for over a week.
Personal - Seattle
I started my Zune pass trial yesterday, and overall, the experience is infinitely nicer than torrenting albums (you know, so I’ve heard…). Search Marketplace, stream entire songs (not just 30 second clips to preview them), and with one click of Download, the whole album is in my library and on my Zune. Sure, after the trial it becomes $15 a month, but with 10 free song downloads each month included, that basically equates to $5/month for unlimited musical goodness.
Because of my interest in TV tonight I didn’t finish Tools of Destruction, so I have an interesting dilemma when I go pick up A Crack in Time tomorrow. Do I bypass beating the game again, ignore the fact I haven’t completed Quest for Booty, and just start A Crack in Time? I think signs point to yes, but with enough other games to play, I might be able to hold off for a little while.
Personal - Seattle
So, Microsoft doesn’t want me to be bored during the day? They want to make sure that I stay occupied? Tomorrow is definitely the cure for that; in fact, I think it might be just a little bit too much of a cure. You see, my day starts at 9 and ends at 5. Ah, you say, that’s a typical work day though. True, is my response, but when I mean “my day”, I mean a meeting that goes from 9-10 and another from 10-5. No breaks, no anything. Tomorrow is going to be just one massive meeting blob.
After my meeting blob is complete, I could go pick up A Crack in Time tomorrow at midnight if I wanted. Instead, I think I’ll just stick with my normal routine and wait until Tuesday afternoon to go get it since it isn’t like those 16 hours are really going to make a bit of difference in when I start playing it. One thing I need to remember to do is change my preorder for the Jak and Daxter PSP game to something different since the previews of the game are saying that it isn’t that good. I might have series loyalty, but I’m willing to at least make sure that loyalty will get me something worth playing for my $(insert dollar amount here).
Personal - Seattle
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer was another decent movie, but still not quite good enough to push it past the purchasing barrier. Again, if I’d seen it when it came out, I probably would have bought it, but both movies will just have to live in my Netflix collection for the time being. It did completely seem like without having seen the first one, viewers would be at a total loss for the story behind it, so it was convenient to have watched both within a span of three days. My score: 7.5/10.
Mass Effect really needs to learn the art of autosave so that people don’t lose an hour’s worth of progress when they die. Yes, that happened to me earlier as I was waiting for my PS3 controller to recharge so I could continue playing Tools of Destruction. Fortunately it was all a new part of the game to me so when I get back to it I’ll only have to play it for the second time, but still, one would expect an autosave every now and again.
Personal - Seattle
White Collar premiered on USA tonight, and until Chuck comes back next year, it might just be fighting with Glee for my most anticipated show of the week. Of course, this is because it partially channels Chuck through the main character being the actor who played Bryce, but it’s still quite good on its own merits. Now, whether or not I remember to watch it each week since it airs on a channel I otherwise never turn to might be an issue, but that’s what Hulu is for.
I don’t even have any movie plans for this weekend (well, aside from Netflix), so most of my time will be spent on video games. For me, this isn’t a huge problem; I have plenty of games to be playing. For the rest of the world who is being deprived of my awesomely awesome contributions, well, they’ll just have to suck it up.
Personal - Seattle
I seem to have discovered a general pattern for making my evening quite effective at accomplishing everything I need to do. When I got home from work, I turn on the TV and catch up with anything I need to do on my computer. Shortly afterwards, I either make (or eat my previously purchased and brought home) dinner. Later, I watch whatever interesting is on primetime TV that night. After that, I get in an hour or two of video game playing, currently Mass Effect on the 360. Finally, I make this post and go to sleep. Effective, efficient, and quite compatible with my schedule. Of course, my weekend schedule is modified to more heavily favor the video game side of things, and if I want to re-beat Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction and actually finish Quest for Booty by the time A Crack in Time comes out on Tuesday, I have my work laid out for me.
Tomorrow afternoon I have a meeting with my lead and another PM working on a different area of the overall project I’m working on in order to combine and prepare what is going to be presented at an all day long meeting on Monday. Not sure if I’m going to be the one doing any of the presenting, but I doubt it. The one sad thing about this is that once our planning is all done, I go back to having very little to do during the day. So sad, so very, very sad…
Personal - Seattle