A quick look at my history

Currently, three of the most recent posts I've made are about changing my browser.

I need to find more interesting things to talk about.

Another new browser

Posting this using Firefox 3. Actually 3.something, but I don't really care about the exact version number.

That's right, I've changed my browser again. Those of you keeping score at home can correct me if I've got this wrong, but I think this is the 4th time I've fundamentally shifted my browsing preference.

First was IE to Opera.
Then Opera to Firefox 2.
Then Firefox 2 to Chrome.
And now Chrome to Firefox 3.

I'm not sure if I like it better than Chrome, or if I just missed having AdBlock running all the time.

Plus it's nice to get my home page in my new tabs, instead of Chrome's default tab.

Games

A bunch of my friends are playing the Warhammer MMO now. They want me to join in, and I'm kind of interested, but I'm not sure. Let's recap our collective gaming experiences. I'll use Steve as my example, since he tends to be the one who gets me to play games.

First off, we have Guild Wars. Steve (and everyone else at the time) got me interested in this. They hyped it up, and when I got to play in those first few beta events, it lived up to their hype. I loved it. I still love it, even if I have trouble finding time to play it.

Anyway, we had a guild, with a guild hall, and we played just about every night. It was great. Then everybody except me quit playing. I kept on, found a new guild, and 3 years later a couple of the guys started playing again, then promptly quit again.

Next up was Wow. Everybody but me started playing. They burned out a few times, at different times, and now I think that only Cid and Derek are still playing it.

Fast forward a few years to TF2. Again, Steve gets me interested, and the game blows me away. I have a whole new circle of online friends because of this game. Possibly my favourite game of all time (except for Chrono Trigger, perhaps).

Steve seems to have quit playing it in favour of Call of Duty 4. Also an incredibly good game, but TF2 is just more fun for me. Plus I can actually see my enemies, which I'm not sure is a failing of the Call of Duty series to make people recognizable in grey/brown uniforms against grey/brown backgrounds, or if I just suck. I think it's both.

Anyway, I bought CoD4 and have played it a few times, but if I'm going to play a shooter, I reach of TF2.

Anyway, a while back Age of Conan was all the rage amongst my circle of friends. A month later nobody was playing.

Moral of the story: My friends are fickle gamers. I know this. I can work around this as I have in the past.

This, however, brings me to my history with MMOs. The MMORPG can be an incredibly good genre. I assume. I haven't fund one worth sticking with yet. Guild Wars comes close, but it's not technically an MMO, because it doesn't have a persistent world. Or a monthly fee. Or idiots killing you when you just want to beat up some monsters.

Anyway, I have tried WoW (3 different 10-day trial accounts, total time played: about 3 days). I have tried City of Heroes/City of Villains (14-day trial account, the character creator was my favourite part). I have tried Lord of the Rings Online (14-day trial account, I loved this gamne but couldn't see myself paying monthly for it).

I don't know if I'm just cheap, or if the MMO business model is inherently broken to me, but I just can't justify paying money each month for the privilege of playing a game I already payed for. Especially when you have to buy the expansion packs to stay competitive, and still have to shell out $15 a month.

LOTRO was the closest I've come to paying for an MMO, and even it didn't take more than a few hours of deliberation. I doubt Warhammer will be the one to break me down, seeing how I love the LOTR universe (except the elves) and don't know anything about the Warhammer universe (aside from there being dwarves who build sentry guns).

So it looks like Warhammer actually has nothing going for it. If my friends follow their patterns, they'll quit playing in a month or two, and I'll have saved $65 (50 for the game, plus a month of subscription).

So yeah, I'll be playing TF2. See you guys in a month.

Why hello there

Making a post with Google Chrome.

I've been using this browser pretty much since it came out. Think that was back in August. Maybe? I forget. It's been a few weeks anyway.

Anyway, it's pretty nice. Things load fast, every site I go to seems to work. Only wish I could customize the tabs so that it always opens my home page instead of the default page it insists on giving me.

So yeah, Chrome. Nifty.

This post was 10 months in the making. So worth it.

Meat

Summer sausage is delicious.

Inspired by a post on Kev's blog about phoning it in, I thought I'd phone in a blog post of my own.

His has a picture, but mine has a functioning link. I think I win.

Well played, Mozilla

Well, I finally got sick of that weirdo page rendering bug I was having with Opera. It happened randomly, and when going to a new page, the old page wouldn't get cleared first. The new page would render under the old page, and to see the new one I'd have to scroll down and then back up to refresh the screen. It just started happening, and I didn't have the patience to fix it.

So I went wandering onto google to see what the latest news with Firefox was. People who know me know I've tried and hated the browser in the past. I was expecting a similarly disappointing foray, but hey, I'm always open to new things.

Turns out there's a new version (I assume it's new). By default, links open in new tabs, tabs have Close buttons on them, passwords get remembered, and there's an integrated Google search right on the main toolbar.

Something Opera has had for several releases, but they're new defaults for Firefox users, I guess. And, more importantly, they fix just about everything I hated about the older Firefox versions.

I've had the new Firefox installed for a couple minutes now, and I've already managed to import my Opera bookmarks (which failed miserably last time I tried a Firefox). Haven't gone looking for add-ins yet, because I'm not sure if the page rendering thing was an Opera problem or a memory leak somewhere else. If I go a couple days render problem-free, well, I might do the unthinkable and move away from my beloved.

This is an outrage!

I just got an email that's made my blood boil. I don't like when my blood boils. It's hot and bubbly, and no good can come of it.

They're raising my domain registry rate.

Instead of $5.99, it'll be $6.99.

Is this blog really worth 7 bucks a year? I know it's worth it to keep my email address, though, so I guess I'll just pay the extra dollar.

Now to find out where the expression "makes my blood boil" came from, cause that's a fairly nasty idea.

HD is glorious

Well, finally got to see the Sens in HD. Definitely worth the wait.

I've also started watching Heroes. I got the first season on DVD, and watched the whole thing in the span of a couple days. On TV tonight was episode 9 of the second season, so I have some catching up to do. Sadly, I can't find them online and NBC's website only lets you watch the online episodes if you live the states, for some reason. So I'm missing 7 weeks (saw it last week, which would have been epsiode 8).

Anyway, I have a frustrating situation. Again. I can get the show in HD on either Global or NBC. On Global, the sound will crackle and then disappear completely. On NBC, the video sometimes gets corrupted. I can't win.

Conspiracy time

When I made the upgrade to HD TV, one of my main motivations was to watch the Senators in high definition. Seems simple enough. Almost a week since I got the HD box, I have yet been unable to do so.

First off, I was supposed to get the box last Saturday, sometime around noon. The game started at 3 o'clock, so I had lots of time to get it set up and running before the faceoff. Instead, the entire computer system was down, and I couldn't get the box until the next day. So I watched the game in standard definition.

Next game was on Thursday. I eagerly popped open the guide to see whther I needed to tune in HD TSN or HD Sportsnet, and was dismayed to find the game on neither. This was one of the nights when the only channel showing the game is A Channel, some local crap that's only in standard definition.

I figured this Saturday would be the time. I'd finally get to use the tv for one of the main purposes I bought it for. Instead, everybody who could agree on a time and place chose Saturday at 7:40 to go see Beowulf. So I'm missing yet another game.

Curious to see what'll happen for the game after this.

The cake is a lie

Well sir, here I am again. I've had internet for 3 days now and I haven't even thought about making an entry on the ol' blog. For shame.

One big reason for that is the fact that I've been playing Portal, and loving every minute of it. I'm too tired (just had a round of Team Fortress 2 that left me completely drained, on top of it being quarter to 1) to explain or link to it, but a Goggle search should tell you everything you need to know.

However, I'll summarize. First-person puzzle game where you have a device that can open portals between any two surfaces, allowing you to walk through them to travel any distance with a single step. Put one side of the portal on a wall and the other on a ceiling, and you walk through and fall to the floor. Momentum is conserved, so you can put one side on a wall and the other at the bottom of a pit, jump in, and you go rocketing out of the wall.

It can be a bit of a brainbuster at times, especially when you up the ante and play the advanced puzzles. They're essentially just the last 6 rooms, but with a twist. Like the entire floor being removed, or the turrets being locked in cages so you can't knock them over (I love the turrets). It took me a long time to figure out how to get through the advanced turret level, but I finally realized what that giant pile of boxes could be used for. Hooray!

I've since earned the Vanilla Crazy Cake achievement for beating all siz advanced maps, and now I just have the challenges, to make a 300 foot jump, and to knock down all the security cameras before I've gotten every achievement. Woohoo.

A miracle of planning

So, here it is, 11pm on a Thursday. Tomorrow night I'm going straight from work to Kingston for Homecoming. I have yet to start packing.

I did, however, have time to re-read every post I've ever written on this blog. Which, incidentally, has now been around for 3 years (actually 3 years and a week). I just realized that, so I don't have anything major planned for it.

Still, 3 years. Wow. Guess I'll celebreate by placing clothes in a bag.

Now that's annoying

I hate it when things I normally buy go on sale. As weird as that sounds, it's true. Not that I don't like saving money, mind you, but there's a very serious issue here.

When something's on sale, conventional wisdom says you will sell more of it. That's all well and good. However, the increased demand menas that those of us who can't get to the store before 5:30 get there too late to partake in the sale. Or to buy the item we wanted.

The vultures pick the shelf clean.

This week it was the bagels I usually buy. I like the cinnamon raisin ones, and judging by the gaping hole in the shelf, so do a lot of other people. Especially at 2 packages for $5. I had to buy sesame bagels instead. They're inferior in every possible way, except possibly at being covered with sesame seeds.

I can try imagining the sesame seeds are raisins, but it'll be a bit tough.

I also managed to buy light peanut butter by accident, so the trip to the grocery store was disappointing at every turn. If you're going to colour-code the jars so you know at a glance what kind of peanut butter you're getting, why wouldn't you have a different shade for the light stuff. Not every store stocks the jars with the labels at eye level (my store has them on the bottom shelf), so a lot of the time people are identifying the product solely by the lid.

Given that this store seemingly has a vendetta against anything made with peanut butter, I guess I should be glad I got any at all.

Heat season is officially over

I just pulled out my air conditioner. After two previous attempts saw the temperature skyrocket as I was defrosting the innards (you have to run the fan for 24 hours to clear out all the condensation on the inside), I finally got a run of cold, miserable days during which there was no possible way the temperature could climb.

So here I sit, in a quiet room for the first time in a while. It hasn't started to get hot yet (as I assumed it would, instantly), but I have the window open a crack just for that very purpose.

Homecoming is this weekend, and I'm going. I wasn't going to, but I decided rather randomly that I would, and then found out that Kevin, Wonnacott, Boehmer, and I will be sharing Kevin's apartment. Oh man. It's gonna be a Bands room all over again. Luckily we've got two walls between us and Kev's snoring. What we would have given to have that back in the day...

We would have possibly given Boehmer a punch in the spine, but we're kind of dicks that way.

Haven't decided if I'm going to get ridiculous at the Ports on Saturday. Might make a judgement call. Depends on what other people are doing, I suppose. It might wind up being a repeat of 3rd and 4th years, where I get plastered, Boehmer has 2 beers, and then we walk home together. Difference is, instead of me going home to pass out and him going to rez to be responsible, we'll only have Kev's place to go to. And possibly play Guitar Hero.

I will then proceed to rock Freebird on medium.

And another thing!

I just realized practically all the links in my sidebar are dead, or go to sites I haven't been to in forever. Think I'll just scrap them.

High prose

There's a stain on my shorts, and I have no idea what it's from. I wear these shorts all the time, so there are probably a million things it could be. However, I suspect it's grease of some sort, probably off the pizza I had tonight.

Posts like this are the main reason I tend to avoid blogging before bed. Brain's already shut down, and all I can do is blither like an idiot.