The Conan Lorebook

I recently tried the demo of Portal on XBLA, and was really impressed by this offbeat game. I went ahead and purchased it (1200 points -- the only downside!), and have had a blast playing it. This is unlike any other FPS I've played, because the focus is all on the puzzle-solving aspect. A few maps have timing/agility aspects as well, but generally it's all about playing smart and staying alive.

The game did feel a bit short, but it was still very satisfying. The challenge maps, which are stand-alone maps not part of the main game, are a nice bonus for replayability because you are trying to achieve certain scores on each challenge map, like fewest footsteps, lowest time, fewest portals, and so on. There are also some cool easter eggs / achievements sprinkled throughout the game.

I think Pat would really appreciate the deadpan humor of this game, but I suspect all the bubbas would enjoy it. Try the demo out for yourself!

We just returned from our annual Orlando vacation! 10 days in 85 degree weather. What a great time we had. We went to Universal Studios for 1.5 days (supposed to be 1 day, but they gave us some afternoon passes to come back within 48 hours due to some schedule misprints they had). We visited Clearwater beach near Tampa -- LONG drive and cool weather but the kids enjoyed the ~1 hour we spent in the ocean.  We played mini-golf and of course lots of swimming and tennis. Food was great as well -- we did everything from Texas Roadhouse to Maggianno's Little Italy to Cici's Pizza.

I'll try to post some pics if I get time & remember to do it.

If you have an LCD or plasma monitor, then you may have found stuck pixels or been concerned about screen burnin.  Screen savers can help the latter from happening, but isn't always effective since some programs may be run for hours.  And little can be done for stuck pixels.

JScreenFixDeluxe offers the solution.  It's a Java program which offers a potential fix for stuck pixels (not all can be fixed this way, but many can). It also acts as a screensaver which keeps track of all the non-moving screen activity and puts up a negative on the screen.  It'll cost you 10GBP, which is probably around $20US (est.).    I've used it for over a year, and am very happy so far.

On the down side, it does occasionally have issues with licensing pop up. However, the  programmer is very quick to respond and helpful.   Still, there is no program that Iknow of that is better. If you have  a single stuck pixel, it's well worth $20 to get rid of the annoyance.

Try the evaluation demo for free. I believe it's the full version for thirty days.

In 8 days, my daughter will change from being a 4-year-old punk into a 5-year-old punk.  That kid can be exhausting.  But she does it with style!

A nice home in a good suburb of St. Louis, priced at $169,900:

A roughly comparable home in a good suburb of Baltimore (our area), priced at ...  $364,900:

While for time-saving I didn't go toe-to-toe with the match, the houses are probably pretty indicative of the differences between the two areas (I understand it's about a 40% price difference).  Not only are homes here more expensive, but it seems a better quality can be gotten for the more reasonable price, in many circumstances. Wages are supposed to be about 5-10% less in MO.

What can be bought for near $170k?   Not very much.  Here's one in our area ( less-nice neighborhood than the previous house)  in much need of a rehab for $170,000:

Since we have an Atari (Jaguar/Lynx) producer in our fold, this is a great "what if" Carl were to develop for it and port modern games over to the 2600:

Atari Modern Classics.

Check out the Halo3 box.

Just like cars, computers must be tuned-up periodically.  Just like cars, there's a one-shop-stop which covers many basics.  It's a free service from Microsoft, known as "Live OneCare".  Here's how to drive over to their site and get that 'puter purring:

Use Internet Explorer for this (not Firefox or anything else) and

• Navigate to Microsoft Live OneCare.
• Click "Full Service Scan".  A popup window should show up.
• If it asks you to download and install anything, accept.
• Click on "Complete scan (recommended)"
• Hit the "Next" button.  It should either ask to install or start automatically downloading tools and begin scanning.
• When the scan is finished, click the GREEN arrow-- "Not yet, I'm not
  ready to be protected with OneCare".  Otherwise, they'll try to sell
  you something.

From there, just follow the instructions. Most of it will be automatic. 

Now listen to that CPU roar!

Yep, theconans.com has been up for over a year! Happy birthday!

 Even though it's been dead here lately, I've re-upped the theconans.com site registration.

It's been a great year--here's to many more!

Dusting off the website for YAWP (Yet Another Wedding Post).

Our wedding photographer and friend, Kelly Belly found a fun new way to display photographs set to music.   The goofball then exported it directly to YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18ct8oCCDm8

I expect we'll become famous any day now.

Well, not that kind of buffalo. I own a Buffalo LinkStation Pro. It's a NAS with two 500GB drives in a RAID-1 configuration. I have redirected my "My Documents" to point to the network drive instead of my C drive, so now all our photos, videos, MP3's, downloads, etc. are backed up instantly.

I bought it for $250 shipped at Buy.com (looks like the price has gone up since last week):

http://www.buy.com/prod/buffalo-1tb-linkstation-pro-duo-network-hard-drive-7200-rpm-raid-sata/q/loc/101/206531661.html

Highly recommended!