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Safari for Windows…ouch! At least they are patching it.

I got bored with Titan Quest. Too much of the same old thing and not getting much out of it. It all just kind of blurred together. No use in sticking with a game I’m not enjoying just to say I completed it.

I started back reading Summer of the Monkeys. I got bored with it too. Maybe it’ll pick up. If not, I’m going back to Stephen King.

My 10-year high school reunion is the first weekend in August. I think I’m going.

I just got a sudden, strange craving for spaghetti. Time for lunch.

I remember coming across an article last year called The Mythical 40-Hour Gamer. I can understand the points that the author makes. It’s hard for me to spend 40+ hours on a single-player game. Sometimes I don’t have a lot of time to work on it, but usually I just start to lose interest. While I’m playing a game, I’m constantly being distracted by other temptations.

Whenever I play a long game, it normally takes me months or even years to beat. I’ll play it here and there for a few weeks, move on to other games, and then start playing the original game I started again many months later. It’s not that I don’t enjoy whatever game I would have started, I just get the urge to try other games. As much as I say I’m going to work on only one game at a time that never happens. If I do spent a lot of time on a long game, I try to play a shorter game before I play another long one.

One thing that has helped me focus on a game until completing is playing co-op games with my friend John. If someone else is excited about the game, it helps motivate me to keep coming back to the game. It’s easier to block out all the other distractions if I’m hanging out with a friend. Also, it makes playing more fun. Where spending 50 hours on a solo game may seem like a lot, it only seems natural to spend 100-200 hours on a co-op game. If only they made more co-op games.

About a month ago a visitor was here and she tripped over a PS2 controller chord, pulling it to the ground. I wasn’t home, but I heard about it happening. It wasn’t until a few days later that I discovered that she knocked the PS2 down to the ground when she tripped over the chord.

The fall jammed the disc drive. After a little working, my roommate got the PS2 to play the game that was stuck in the drive (Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria), but we couldn’t get the drive open. That meant that once we finished, we wouldn’t be able to play another game on this system. This worked fine for a while. Eventually, it got to the point where we getting disc read error about once every couple of minutes. So I had to figure out what to do about my PS2 problem before we beat VP2.

I ended up sending the unit to Sony so they could fix it. They charged me $65 for this. For about twice as much, I could have bought a new one. For ~$40, Sony would have swapped it out for a refurbished PS2. Cost wasn’t the issue. I got my PS2 in December of 2000. I believe they first went on sale in October of that year. There was a shortage of PS2s at launch. When I finally got one, it was because the video game store next to where I worked decided to finally sell the units that they had set aside for those that reserved them before the launch. If I’m correct, my PS2 was part of the very first shipments that went out to stores. A lot of people that got their PS2s back then have had to replace theirs, so I was happy that I still had mine. It has sentimental value. Also, it cost a lot of money to buy back then.

I finally got my PS2 back on Thursday, a lot earlier than the estimates they were giving. Yes, they did return the game that was stuck in the drive. Everything seems fine so far.

It seems like things are actually started getting back to normal after being shaken up for a while. I like it.

I saw Pan’s Labyrinth on 2 consecutive nights last week. A fairy tale for adults, huh? It’s definitely worth checking out.

We’ve been playing Rayman Raving Rabbids for the Wii. It’s a cool game. I’m not sure it’s as good as Wario Ware: Smooth Moves, but it’s a lot of fun nonetheless. Like Wario Ware, it’s more fun when you’re playing with other people. I think a sequel to this game was just announced.

Titan Quest was the game I ended up starting on the PC Friday night. I’m having fun with it. I’m not sure it’ll have the same replay value as Diablo II. I need to buy the expansion soon.

The season finale of Heroes was really good. A lot of people are complaining about it, but I don’t think they have much to complain about. There was much more closure in this episode than I’m used to seeing in season finales. Tonight is the LOST finale and maybe tomorrow I can watch the 24 finale that I missed on Monday. I hate that these good shows are ending for now, but I will have The 4400 and Kyle XY to watch over the summer.

I’ve been watching season 1 of Dead Like Me. It’s another one of those weird, good-but-cancelled shows that I find myself liking. I’ll probably be checking out season 2 soon and they recently announced that they are making a straight-to-DVD movie.

Work is going fine. I like being busy and I haven’t had anything to complain about in a while. It looks like there could be some cool new stuff coming up soon.

I think I’m launching a major household cleaning project within the next few days. We’ll see how that goes.

I’m making this entry from my brand new desktop computer. I had planned on having this new machine built weeks ago, but I was delayed by slow shipment times and some complications. I tried doing something like this several years ago but I didn’t really know what I was doing and I ran into so many issues that I just ended up ordering another Dell.

I bought a new video card and processor. I used the DVD-RW, CD-RW (not sure why I still have both), RAM, and hard drive from my previous desktop. I’ll probably be upgrading the RAM very soon.

I learned a valuable lesson during my computer project: you get what you pay for. I don’t know what I was thinking. I bought a barebones kit. I was trying to be cheap and not spend a lot of money on something that may not work out right. Of course, it didn’t work out. After all the diagnostic tests, reading the manuals 50000 times, and seeking advice from others I realized that the problem was most likely crappy equipment. The good thing is that it didn’t cost much to learn that lesson. The second time I ordered more reliable parts. So far so great. The only complaint that I have so far is that the machine is a little loud.

Hopefully, I’ll be playing Oblivion, Titan Quest, or the full version of Prey for the first time tonight. I still haven’t decided. Check out my Xfire profile to see if I’m up to something.

What a long name! I’m continuing my tradition of going completing single-player games that everyone else played years ago. Yesterday I finished KOTOR II. I think I started on in last fall, but stopped playing it for a while. Once I got back into it a few weeks ago, it became addictive.

I remember reading complaints that this game wasn’t innovative enough and was too much like the first game. If people liked the first game so much, then why complain if it is just like the first one? KOTOR II takes place a few years after the first game. The plot is related to the events in the first game. You visit some of the same worlds from KOTOR, but the scenery is new. A few characters make returns and you even get to travel in the Ebon Hawk again. I didn’t care much for the new characters. There was only one that was interesting to me. The missions were typical KOTOR/RPG stuff. I didn’t even bother trying to complete all of the sidequests. I can see why my friend Jason said that playing through the game was way too easy, but that didn’t bother me because it was still fun.

I took the dark side path and became a Sith lord. It was fun not having to be nice all the time. The ending seemed a bit anticlimactic considering all that I had been through, but I may have missed a longer ending because I didn’t pick the correct dialogue options at the end. In all it took about 51 hours to complete and it was well worth the time.

Last night I downloaded Punch-Out from the Virtual Console. I like playing these Virtual Console games because they give me a chance to re-experience parts of my childhood. I almost feel like a kid again.

I probably last played Punch-Out when about 16 or 17 years ago when I still had a copy of Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out. I kick ass at this game now. There were a couple of fights where I took some damage early on, but once I figured out their pattern or how to handle their special attack I did much better. I stopped at the point where you fight Bald Bull for the first time. I remembered all of the characters that I’ve come across so far, but part of me wonders if I beat them all myself or if I just watched my cousin beat them. Anyway, I’ll be getting back to this one soon. I wonder how much tougher it’ll be.

This has been kind of a rough week between lack of sleep and sinus stuff. I’ve had lots of fun though. I’ve spent many hours playing Valkyrie Profile 2 and may be starting Super Paper Mario tonight.

My new case and motherboard that I ordered from TigerDirect came in the mail the other day. I already received my new processor and video card. I’m moving the DVD burner, sound card, and hard drive from my old computer to this new one. Today I went to the new computer store and bought a cooling fan. I’m so eager to start putting everything today, but since I feel terrible I think I’ll hold off until the weekend.

The thing I miss the most about being a student is learning new stuff. Maybe I’ll take a class over the summer or in the fall since it would be free. I have learned a lot of new stuff at work but it has slowed down some lately. Thankfully, I’ll be getting something fresh and new to jump into within the next few days.

My roommate and I finished out second playthrough of Tales of the Abyss on Saturday. After all the time we spent on it I was definitely ready for something new. We went straight into Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria by Square Enix. We’ve played for a while and we’re already hooked. I think this will be a shorter game than TOA, but that’s okay with me.

I have officially given up on Trauma Center: Second Opinion. The last time I played I was stuck on a “mission”, but I have since then read a way to beat it. The main reason I gave up on it was because I wasn’t really enjoying it anymore. I was mostly playing just so I can say that I finished it, which at this point is probably just a waste of time. Weeks go by without me even touching the game. When I do play, it’s not very long before I want to stop. The story is uninteresting and the missions are annoying. There was one where I had to diffuse a bomb using my surgical equipment. Weird!

Another factor is that the Wii seems to be more fun when you’re playing with others. As much as I like Twilight Princess, one of the most fun sessions I’ve had on the Wii was a few nights ago when there was about 6 or 7 drunk people around playing Wario Ware. Hilarious!

I rented Trauma Center from Gamefly. When I joined Gamefly, I said that I didn’t want to keep games for longer than a month. I’ve had Trauma Center for almost 3 months. At the rate that I’m paying, I could have bought the game for the amount I’ve spent on renting it. Ridiculous!

So, I guess my point is to not buy Trauma Center. Rent it because it is fun and interesting in the beginning. Move on if you ever start to feel annoyed with it. Maybe I stopped too soon, but I don’t think it does enough to make you want to keep playing. Disappointing!