Longklaw.com

Earlier tonight I played City of Heroes for the last time. I decided that I would quit once I got to a certain level and my goal was to get to that level this weekend. I was in the beta for this game and I bought it shortly after it’s release in late April. When I was in Ohio I hardly ever played and when I got back I would sometimes go many days without playing. However, over the past couple of weeks it’s been a lot more fun and I’ve been putting more hours into it. This is definitely one of the best MMOG’s that I have ever played.

Tonight I gained the ability of flight (better than the hover ability I had before) and took a little trip around the area before I left (see above pictures). During my last session, I played with the best group I had ever played with, so I started to have second thoughts about canceling my account. Now that I’ve thought about it, I think I’ll just go ahead and quit and devote my time to other things. Also, if I cancel my account by the 6th I can avoid getting charged another month.

Over the years I have avoided getting hooked on Everquest. I’ve been tempted a few times to buy it, but always decided against it. I played the beta of the PS2 version for about an hour but never got into it. Yesterday, I reserved my copy of Everquest II. When I reserved it, I got the Starter Kit, which has a character creation tool and an account key that gives you boots for extra speed when you start the game. It also has discounts on PC upgrades and some videos and mp3’s. The guy at the store gave me a box like the ones that most PC games come in and a separate CD sleeve. It looks like they both contain the same thing except that the box has an extra card that gives you access to some information on their website. I don’t know if the guy did that on purpose because I’m in there all the time or if he didn’t realize that they contain almost the same thing. Or maybe he’s supposed to give everybody 2 kits. Anyway, I’ll probably work on creating my character sometime soon. I told myself that if I ever played another MMOG I would be a healer. There never seems to be enough of them around.

I was annoyed by how many people were on cloud nine this past week after the football team beat Tulane last weekend. It didn’t take long for everybody to realize just how much improvement we still need. Auburn beat us 43-14 today.

Last night I tried to use my dryer and it wouldn’t come on. It was working fine last weekend when I last used it. The thing is only 2 years old. That’s what I get for going with the cheap brand. Too bad I didn’t get the extended warranty because the one that came with it has expired. The repairman will be here Monday to look at it.

Next week is the beginning of the Fall Video Game Barrage. I’m looking forward to it, but I’m not sure I’ll have enough time to fully enjoy it.

I had a pretty good holiday weekend. At least it was different from the norm.

Friday night I went to a cookout at the Moorheads. Pretty much everyone that works for Dr. Moorhead was there, as well as his family, and some of their friends. I like to eat.

Saturday before the game I went tailgating with Alex, Sacha, Derek, Jean, Joel, and some of their friends whose names I can’t remember. They were friends of D, J, J and at least one of them used to work for Dr. Moorhead. We even went back there after the game for some more eating/drinking.

The game was a really good start to the Croom era. They gave away free t-shirts at the game that say “Maroon is all that matters,” which is based on a quote from his first press conference as head coach. MSU beat Tulane 28-7. We were sitting close to the visitor’s section, so I had to listen to them the whole time. It took a while for the offense to really get going, but at least it eventually did. I was happy about the low number of stupid mistakes on offense and the low number of penalties. I’m not optimistic enough to think that we can win 6-7 games, but at least we may be able to compete.

Sunday and Monday were spent playing video games and doing chores around the apartment.

Oh well, back to the grind tomorrow.

As much as I enjoyed watching the Olympics, I am glad that they are over. My favorites were the swimming events and the women’s beach volleyball (the celebration after the gold medal match was better than the match). I’m hoping that I can find some other stuff on tv this week. I think NBC has a lot of new shows debuting in the next few weeks.

Dave Chappelle has a new comedy special called “For What It’s Worth” premiering on Sept. 4, but it’s on Showtime. Unfortunately, I don’t have Showtime, so I might have to wait a while to see it.

I found out last night that the Ying Yang Twins will be at Mississippi State this Friday. They’re the ones who sing “Salt Shaker”. It might be worth checking out. Not much to do around here anyway.

A couple of days ago I reinstalled Linux on my PS2. I messed something up the first time and I never got a chance to do any real stuff on it before. I was able to get some simple OpenGL programs to run. I’ll be making the next Final Fantasy in no time.

I installed Windows XP Service Pack 2 on my laptop. It only took about 2 hours. I hope I don’t have any major problems with it.

I’ve been playing a lot of GTA 3 lately since I never beat the game and the sequel comes out soon. I’m a little behind on the video games.

Check out these links when you have time:
Halo 2 gameplay footage – I can’t wait to play this game.
How to Write Unmaintainable Code – Jason sent me this one. It’s a little long, but I thought it was pretty funny.
HomestarRunner – Really cool Flash stuff. Check out the Strongbad emails if nothing else. Thanks again to Jason for telling me about this a long time ago.

Today was the first day of classes at MSU, and campus was crazy. There were so many people, but it’s usually like that on the first day. I’m sure it’ll settle down in a few weeks. I actually rode the shuttle to the union because I didn’t think I could find a parking place nearby. It’s pretty easy to spot the freshmen. They’re the ones that look so young and don’t really know what they’re doing.

I finally started working out again today. I know that I’ll be feeling it in the morning. My goal is to lose 60 pounds in 5 days (just kidding).

MSN has a list of Top Ten Business Movies. I’m not surprised to see Office Space on the list.

I watched Cold Mountain. It’s a really good movie with a bunch of recognizable actors, but I thought it was a little too long.

I finally got my desktop machine up and running again. Since I had been getting a lot of random crashes over the previous few weeks, I decided to do a repair on Windows a few days ago. During the installation process, I kept errors that always repeated when I restarted Windows. After thinking things over and trying some suggestions, I finally decided to wipe the drive clean and reinstall Windows. Luckily, I was able to get the important data off of the drive. Now that I had taken care of that, I could finally play my new game that’s been sitting around unopened for a week: Doom 3.

Doom 3 seems like an awesome game so far. I’ve only played through the first few missions. It looks great. My only complaint is how dark the first area was, but I’m sure they meant for it to be hard to see. I was worried that my system wouldn’t handle the game so well, but I haven’t had any problems. The people that say this game is scary aren’t kidding. I’m eager to try it out online even though I’ll probably get beaten.