Tony

Me, an Apple user?

May 14, 2008 by Tony 10 Comments

I’m not quite sure when it happened, but after my Dell laptop died a few months ago, I secretly began lusting after an Apple computer. A MacBook, to be exact. It seemed unnatural, me being a PC guy since the days of my parents’ 286 (it had a Turbo button, people!) and 4-color monitor. For 18+ years, it was DOS and Windows. Sure, my uncle had a Macintosh, but that thing was weird. The screen was black and white! I couldn’t use one of those things. I had four colors, man. And so continued my blind devotion to the “PC” world unabated, even mostly unscathed by Windows ME. Nevertheless, gears were recently set in motion that I could not control.

Somehow, I ended up here, typing this post up on my brand new MacBook. Something happened. I’m pretty sure it’s not all that bad.

Where I’ve been

May 12, 2008 by Tony Leave a Comment

I have literally fallen off the grid the past couple of weeks, and the culprit is obvious: A little 360 game you might have heard of.

If you’ve been following my Twitter feed I’ve been playing a lot of it. I was also out of town this weekend and haven’t played for a few days, so now I’m jonesing again. As soon as the Cavs/Celtics game is over, I’ll be back in the comfortable confines of Liberty City.

I have a bunch to write up about the game, but I’d rather be playing it then blogging it. Sorry about that.

Apple copying Nintendo?

May 8, 2008 by Tony Leave a Comment

When the DS Lite and the Wii were unveiled, there was a lot of chatter of how Nintendo and Apple had a lot of similarities. There was even talk of how the two companies would benefit from working together. Now it looks like Apple could possibly be copying the Wii concept for Apple TV gaming.

It doesn’t seem like that’s going to happen any time soon.

GTA IV microblog

May 5, 2008 by Tony 4 Comments

I just picked up my girlfriend for a date. In a city bus I hijacked on my way to her house. She did not seem bothered by this.

I believe she is what they call “a keeper.”

She was, however, bothered when my Uzi went off accidentally inside the Cluckin’ Bell during our previous date. I’m getting mixed signals.

Mario Kart Wii First Impressions

May 5, 2008 by Tony Leave a Comment

This picture says it all:

When a game can produce “the smile” (parents of young kids will know what I mean by “the smile”), it is okay in my book.

A lot of Mario Kart was played this weekend. It was played by kids 5 years old and 65 years old. Everyone had a great time. They say Nintendo has “dumbed down” Mario Kart for the Wii. They’re wrong. They didn’t dumb anything down. They distilled an already great game to its essence and made it accessible to the masses.

This is not a bad thing.

Nat and I will have more Mario Kart thoughts later.

(Look how much concentration this game takes!)

Comic Watch – GU Comics

May 1, 2008 by Tony 5 Comments

If the integrity of mainstream video game reviews was in a coffin and all but one nail had been driven home, the reviews for GTA IV was a big mash hammer that drove the last nail in, but bent it totally out of shape before smashing it home, making it all but impossible to pull it out.

Stick a fork in ’em.

In my hands

April 29, 2008 by Tony 4 Comments

Impressions and Mario Kart friend code to be posted soon. Post yours so we can throw red shells at each other!

Update
Mario Kart Wii is that awesome. Here’s my friend code:

2750-1585-9944

…Nat cutting in. Here’s mine:

1762-3222-0503

back to Tony…

I’m throwing GTA IV in now that the kids are in bed, so I won’t be going back to Mario Kart for a bit.

That social thing

April 28, 2008 by Tony 6 Comments

Usually, I’m a pretty early adopter for new technologies and what-not. I started blogging before it was really “blogging,” for example. But sometimes I resist new things, usually for no good reason. Services like Twitter and Tumblr just didn’t seem to make sense to me. I already had a blog — why would I want a micro-blog (Twitter) or a mini-blog (Tumblr)? Then I found a few interesting Tumblogs and signed up for one myself. Then I tried out Twitter and was instantly hooked. How did I not latch on to these earlier?

So I’m now addicted to Twitter. I’ve already hooked a couple friends on it and am actively working on a couple more to catch the wave. I tried to explain it to my wife, but that didn’t go over as well as I’d hoped. Regardless, I’m now a Twitterer (Tweeter?) and completely hooked.

I’ve already started following some of my fellow bloggers and some of you have already found my Twitter feed, but those of you interested in seeing what the fuss is and want to follow the absolutely riveting minutia of my day-to-day life, can follow me on Twitter here.

Beyond Twitter, I’ve looked into Friendfeed, which basically becomes a life-stream of everything I do online. It borders on creepy-stalkerish, and it is complete information overload. I actually hesitate to post a link to my Friendfeed, because it’s a little weird. Does anyone really care what stories I digg? Or what video I recently favorited on YouTube? Maybe someone does. For the truly intrepid, my Friendfeed is here.

Finally, I’ve recently been following a handful of people’s shared items in Google Reader. It’s a great way to find information other people find useful. I haven’t been using it as often as I’d like, but if you’re interested in seeing things I’m sharing, my Google Reader Shared Items feed is here. Yet another form of micro-blogging.

Do you Twitter? Do you Tumbl? Do you share? As resistant as I was at first, now I can’t get enough. Let me know what services you use/like. And of course post links to Twitter feeds and the like in the comments.

Second Skin, an MMO documentary

April 24, 2008 by Tony Leave a Comment

I haven’t posted much in the way of MMO’s since I quit EQ2 a few months ago, but this just popped up in my Google alerts and looks interesting: Second Skin, “a quirky documentary about the world of Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games and the people who anchor themselves to computers for up to 18 hours a day.”

Link

Weekend Gaming, at last!

April 18, 2008 by Tony 1 Comment

I have been swamped (SWAMPED!) at work the past couple of weeks on a project that has sucked up a large portion of my free time. When I finally to get a free moment, I’m so spent from my other duties that I haven’t had a desire to do much gaming. I’m finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel at work and my mood is already lifting. I’m ready to pick up the familiar controller and get back in the game.

In order to gear up for a great week of gaming when GTA IV and Mario Kart Wii are released, I figure I should knock out another game in my queue before everything gets pushed back to make room for the newcomers. I got very close to finishing Bioshock last year, so I figure now would be a good time to get back to that and finish it up. I really want to see how it ends.

I’m also making my way through Super Mario Galaxy, which I am still thoroughly enjoying. The kids love to watch me play it, so that’s our bonding game. I can’t get over how much fun platforming is again.

I’m also eying a couple DS games, but I’ll probably hold off on those until the real gaming lull hits this summer. I’ve got enough on my plate.

What are you guys playing? Planning on picking up either Mario Kart Wii or GTA IV?

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