Thursday, March 3, 2005

"New" PS2 Games -- 4:19 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

I recently got some new (to me) games for my PS2. On J.t.Qbe and Zombie's recommendations I rented Ratchet and Clank 2: Going Commando. My one son liked it so much, we bought it using some extra Christmas money he still had leftover from my parents. It's pretty clever. I'm sure we'll have to check out Up Your Arsenal when we're done with this one.

I also picked up the Activision Anthology which has all the classic Activision games for the Atari 2600. My wife asked why I still play these games when I have others that are far more complex, both from a gameplay and technological standpoint. Part of it is nostalgia--they remind me of the good old days before I had to worry about W2 forms or van payments. They also are nice for picking up for a bit, playing, and then putting down. The controls are simple. The gameplay is simple and addictive. They just work for me. The ability to unlock some of the classic commercials is a cool addition too.

J.t.Qbe comments: The Ratchet & Clank games are very well done and entertaining. The little cutscenes alone are worth every penny you spend on the games. I think that they're some of the best available for the PS2. I'd also like to take this opportunity to promote my own pick for 2004 Game of the Year: Katamari Damacy. It's a throwback to the olden days when games were simpler and focused more on having fun playing than on admiring the fancy graphics and sophisticated whatever. The game consists of rolling up a ball-like object (a katamari) to collect all kinds of items, making a bigger katamari which can pick up bigger objects, and so on. How big can you make your katamari? It's all up to you. For $20 you can't go wrong.

Wanna Buy a Sport? -- 10:02 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

According to ESPN.com, a Boston-based company wants to buy the entire NHL for $3.5 billion. I don't know what to make out of this. First, I can't believe someone would put up that kind of coin. Second, I'm sure the big market teams won't go for this. Third, I'd be thrilled to see it happen if about 10 team suddenly disappeared from the NHL. It should be very interesting to follow.

Wednesday, March 2, 2005

ut2004@icculus.org FAQ Updated -- 2:31 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Today I updated my unofficial FAQ for the ut2004@icculus.org mailing list with information on the 3355 patch. That list exists to discuss issues with the Linux version of Unreal Tournament 2004.

Annual Credit Report Reminder -- 10:56 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Loyal reader Zombie emailed to remind us that the free annual credit report mandated by the U.S. government is now available for the midwestern states. Zombie mentioned that his contained an address he never lived at. All three of mine (from Equifax, Experian, and Trans Union) looked fine, except that Trans Union has my current address as a former one and a very old address as my current one. A minor problem. It's amazing how much information is kept. It just reinforces the need to maintain good credit. Bad stuff will stick with you forever.

OpenOffice.org 2.0 Beta Follow-Up -- 10:48 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Well, I downloaded the Linux version of the OpenOffice.org 2.0 beta yesterday, only to find out that it's a bunch of RPMs gzipped together. Hoo-ray. I hope the final version won't come that way. Anyway, Slackware does provide the rpm command, so I installed all the packages except the Red Hat and SuSE menus ones. I had to use the --nodeps switch. I haven't had much of a chance to fiddle with it. So far it does look better, but it is noticably slower. I hope that's just because of spare debugging code in there. I tested the WordPerfect filter on a number of files. It basically works, as long as your file does not contain any outlines (which, sadly, the vast majority of mine do). Otherwise, you just get the first level of the outline displayed. I also can't figure out how to install a new printer. The spadmin command won't let me, even as root. It did detect that I'm using CUPS so I assume things would still print decently. Obviously more testing is in order.

Past Two Days' News

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