July 7th, 2008
Odometer : 778
Emotional State : anger
Solid month of riding accounted for half my mileage this year. 505 miles this season so far and I’m gunning for 100 miles a week for the rest of July. Should be nearly attainable as long as house hunting doesn’t get in the way. High gas prices appears to be packing up caltrain so I’m going to start riding both ways - that should get the miles up.
Quite the thanks I get for muling a Wii fit from Mountain View to home. If this goes badly enough I might have burned all the possible calories already.
Its pretty cool though so I’ll get some use out of it. Right off the bat I got quite the chuckle from the Wii Fit software plumping up my Mii for the ‘game’ after measuring my BMI. I laughed all the way to the balcony and thought a quick heavy would end that little joke.
I spent about an hour with it and enjoyed the experience. Turns out my balance is shit and I favor my right leg. I found the yoga the most enjoyable and the games worth a chuckle or two. Strength training is hard for me, at least the stuff focusing on upper body, and aerobics was a mixed bag. I’m still figuring out how to use the board the way it wants me too but I don’t think its going to be too tough. The software is very brain age like so if you enjoy that kind of motivation this will be right up you alley.
So favorable first impressions, should be interesting to see if it holds my interest.
Recently I’ve picked up 2 very different racing games. From the Playstation network I downloaded Gran Turismo 5 Prologue and from best buy I picked up Mario Kart Wii.
Both games are fantastic. The realism on the playstation is great because success in the game yields palpable satisfaction. The graphics are fantastic, it sounds great, and controlling the vehicle takes real touch. I love everything about it and I even found online game play to be quite enjoyable. I greatly enjoyed buying an Infiniti G35 in the game and have it feel very similar to my real car. That brought the game to a new level for me because it blended the illusion nicely for me. I highly recommend this game even though I haven’t turned it on for over a week because…
Mario Kart is everything I expected it to be - a totally recycled game. The physics are bullshit, the graphics are shallow compared to the ps3, half the tracks I’ve played before in previous incarnations, and I LOATHE the way the game balances the playing field via weapon rewards to those in last. And yet despite this I find myself squeezing in runs around the track at nearly every free moment. The boosting mechanisms are entertaining and there is skill in mastering the courses. The online components are fantastic. I love sending friends ‘ghost’ time trial challenges for them to beat and I love I can check to see how my track times stack up to my friends. It’s a great game for fostering competition and I haven’t even explored battle mode. Oh and I must mention I was down on the wheel until I figured it out. Now I love it, even though I suspect those that use the classic controllers may have an advantage. In the end I think that is what is feeding my desire. The wheel changed the dynamics enough that reapplying my skills really is a new game and the tastes of success there is just plain fun to me.
It’s unfortunate they both came out at the same time because one invariably will suffer undeserved neglect. In this case Gran Turismo takes the fall because it lacks the nostalgia factor and it really is more simulation than game, but I expect to return to it soon enough. The question is can I resist updating my controls when I return.
Odometer : 273
Emotional State : trepidation
Current conditions as of 9:47 am PST
Weather : Partly Cloudy
Feels Like: 57°
Barometer: 30.21 in and steady
Humidity: 63%
Visibility: Unlimited
Wind: N 7 mph
One of the main reasons why I chose to get a PS3 is because of its ability to act as an upsampling DVD player and to play movies in a high definition format. Last night I watched Spiderman 3 for the first time and it looked beautiful. I now believe the PS3 is going to be a viable player for the foreseeable future.
Some thoughts:
The PS3 is the quietest device in my media cabinet. The replayTV box and the Comcast HD dvr are both considerably louder with Comcast taking the “OMG what the hell is making so much noise” crown.
The PS3 is passing the “it just works” test for dvd/blu-ray playback. I have auto-play enabled on the console so when I put a disk in the machine it loads the movie immediately. The win here is I don’t have to teach my wife how to jump around through the PS3 menus and start playing a movie. I also purchased a remote for the ps3 for movie playback and I’ve found that to be an ok solution. The only problem I can think of is the controller is bluetooth - which isn’t a bad thing - but I can’t control the TV volume with it. If the remote had an IR component I could then use it to control the TV and have it do movie playback.
Visually I wonder if I have a TV large enough where 1080p content truly matters. Blu-Ray content like SpiderMan 3 and Planet Earth look fantastic but I don’t have an easy way to compare it to other sources. I also was surprised when Spiderman 3 was rendered in a letter box format but that was more me not being aware that 19:6 isn’t the movie aspect ratio. Go figure.
SpiderMan 3 is a terrible, terrible movie with terrible acting and a terrible plot (thus the 2 terrible rating). Its only redeeming quality is that there are many fantastic visual effects scattered throughout the movie. Even Gina commented on the visual effects in some of the sand scenes. Did I mention the movie was terrible, because it is.
The other interested tidbit is that Sony regularly has updated the PS3 software to improve the movie playback experience. A friend of mine mentioned that he really likes the feature on his DVD player where he can start a movie, watch a bit, turn off the player and when he turns it back it on the movie will start up where he left off. Allegedly this feature exists but my attempts to get it to work as described ended in failure. Maybe in a future release.