Taking place before the events of the first two games, Chains of Olympus follows the adventures of merciless anti-hero Kratos, freshly employed by the Gods but no less irate from their endless demands. Tasked with overthrowing a plot to cast the human world into perpetual darkness and banishing the Gods to an eternal slumber, Kratos will travel across war-ravaged seas, demon-infested ruins, and even the smoldering pits of Hades itself, grudgingly working as the assassin of the Gods, until they one day fulfill their promise of having the haunting memories of his past atrocities expelled from his mind forever.

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This needs no introductions. Enjoy.

With Devil May Cry 4, Capcom decides to both play it safe and live dangerously. The former can be seen with the familiar demon-slaying gameplay, but the latter revolves around the newest main character, Nero. As Metal Gear Solid 2’s Raiden has proven, passing the protagonist torch can be a very risky move that can alienate fans, but there is little doubt that newcomer Nero will be met with a much warmer response.

Click here to read more.

A man reportedly held a knife to the throat of his 15-month-old nephew and decapitated him in front of his mother in a Saudi Arabian supermarket.

The 25-year-old Syrian man beheaded the toddler apparently after having a dispute with the toddler’s parents, his sister and brother-in-law, Arab News reported.

Another newspaper, the Saudi Gazette, reported that the toddler was 18 months old.

The killing happened in front of shoppers and staff in the fruit and vegetable section of the Al-Marhaba supermarket yesterday morning.

A police officer told Arab News: “The murderer was in a dispute with the boy’s mother and her husband. He chopped off the boy’s head in front of the mother to get back at her.”

Another witness, Abu Muhammad, who is in his mid-60s, told the paper: “It happened so quickly. Before people could intervene, the man had cut more than half way through the child’s neck.”

Another local expressed his disbelief that anyone could carry out such an act.

“No one could bear the gruesome sight of the boy’s decapitated body lying on the floor,” Muneer, a car mechanic, told Arab News.

“How could someone do such a thing?

“I just can’t understand it … I still can’t believe it.”

One shopper, Ahmed Abdul-Rahman, told the Saudi Gazette: “I was shopping when I heard a scream and saw people running toward the shop’s pastry corner.

“When I arrived there, I couldn’t believe what I saw.

“A headless body of a child lay on the floor and the head was lying nearby soaked in blood.”

The man was arrested at the supermarket, reports AFP. Murder is punishable by death in the Islamic country, and the sentence is usually carried out by beheading.

Now to get everything in order.

http://fanfictionredux.ytmnd.com/

http://quarterliferedux.ytmnd.com/

Yesterday, while watching Lost, I couldn’t help but stare at my fiancee. Instead of paying any attention to the marathon session I’m putting in to catch up with the rest of the world, I was too busy staring at the woman that I’ve vowed to spend the rest of my life with.

It will be four years this year. Four years of some of the most amazing and trying times I’ve had in my entire life. I’m overwhelmed by that fact. When I think about what we’ve been through, I can’t help but feel that this was meant to be. I can’t say one way or another if anything we do is pre-destined but I do know that her and I were meant to be together. Perhaps it was just circumstance or perhaps it was an act of things I can not hope to understand. Either way, we are here, together and happy.

Love is something I will never understand. I don’t think I want to. I just want to feel it.

NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams, a sequel to the 11 year old Sega Saturn game NiGHTS: Into Dreams that was Sega’s answer to Mario 64 on the Nintendo 64, tells the tale of Will and Helen, two children who find themselves trapped inside the dream world Nightopia. With many of the key development staff returning to again flesh out the NiGHTS’ muilti-verse, all of the trademark themes are here: cute nightopians, devious nightmarens, enchanting music, and imaginative visuals.

Click here to read more.

This revelation came to me at work. It’s not that I think I’m better because I use a Macbook and OSX, it’s just that I now understand **WHY** people make “the switch”.

Ever since I bought my Macbook, I haven’t been on my Windows machine. It’s a bit out of date, which would lead me to snubbing it, and it’s also in the office, and the benefit of the Macbook is the ability to bring it anywhere. It goes beyond that, though.

One of the best features that OSX offers is Expose. It’s a feature in OSX that allows you to separate all of your windows. (See below)

The benefit of Expose lies in the way it quickly displays all relevant information so you can quickly get to and from any program you like without resorting to Command+Tab (or Control+Tab in Windows). Windows XP, the more stable, albeit long in the tooth version of Windows, does not offer anything remotely resembling this. I’m not as studied on Vista, so I can’t comment, but the way OSX does this has been a godsend.

At any given time, I have between 4 to 6 programs open, those being my web browser, email, NeoOffice, Adium, and sometimes Flickr Uploadr or some other. Command+Tab is a mess, though OSX displays exceptionally clear, beautiful icons when you use this method. Expose eliminates that, quickly bringing all of your windows up so you can look through them. Hover your mouse over them to see exactly what a window is.

This goes one step further when you use Spaces. (See below)

Spaces allows you to quickly create separate desktops so you can place items there. I’m currently writing this in desktop 2 while my email, chat program, Finder windows, and other assorted goodies are in desktop 1.

In conjunction, Expose can be used to move program windows from one desktop to another in Spaces. This requires only 2 button presses.

A final thing about Expose that has changed the way I organized and interact with my desktop is the “Clear the Desktop” mode. (See Below)

Under the Expose Preferences in your System Preferences, you can set up Expose to regulate specific duties to the four corners or keys that are pressed. I have “Desktop” selected for my lower left corner. When I roll my mouse into this corner, all of the programs move out of the way and I can immediately see and interact with my desktop, which includes allowing me to grab icons. At this point, I roll my mouse back over the corner. If the program I want to drop the Icon into isn’t in focus, I press my Expose key, highlight the program, press it again, and drop it. It’s that simple.

We use Windows XP at work and, while I have been a Windows user all of my life, the little things about XP that were a tinge of annoyance before have begun to feel like someone stabbing me in the eye, particularly in the way it handles program availability. Because I’m so accustomed to Expose and Spaces in the few short days I have been an OSX user, I find myself struggling with the XP interface and it’s lack of finesse. This becomes particularly annoying given the fact that I have far more windows open at work than I ever do at home.

Today, while working, it dawned on me that I hate Windows XP. I hate it with a passion. It feels like a complete step backwards. Working with the OS makes me think of the days I was working in DOS, trying to get things to run while maintaining some sense of sanity as the command-line interface spat out error messages that were nigh incomprehensible except by the most studied of MS-DOS users. OSX is just a cleaner, more usable interface.

I will be a snob. I can’t help it. I’m rebuilding our Windows machine, which is mainly used so my fiancee can do graphic work on a bigger monitor. I don’t see that happening too often, however. Unfortunately, I see us hooking our 19” flat screen to the Macbook and just using the Macbook for all our graphic needs while the Windows PC sits lonely in the office until it is eventually replaced with a beautiful 24” iMac. That is the way of the world… Apple has ruined me… and I think it has ruined me for the better. Lord help me, I’m turning into the people I used to hate… and I think I like it.

Ever since I started freelancing, I’ve felt more creative and productive than I ever have in my entire life. I don’t know if it’s the fact that I’m taking control of my own destiny or the fact that I’m writing on a consistent basis, something that even novel writing doesn’t always afford, but I seem to open typing programs more. I used to freeze up when I saw the blinking cursor. I thought that only handwriting my work first would give me the creativity I needed but now I’m finding that I enjoy typing again.

Freelancing is fun. Doing research on something as simple as a news item has become something of a game for me. I set a deadline for myself and I stick to it. Reviews have definitely been the most eye opening. I’m playing games and reading magazines, not just because I enjoy doing both, but because I want to hone my abilities to adequately give feedback on what I’m doing, while also maintaining a high quality of work associated with that medium. I think it will pay off in the long run.

Thus far I’ve built something of a solid portfolio for myself, though I’d like to write a number of articles to add to the growing news feeds and reviews that I’m currently doing. I’ve been kicking around a number of ideas but I haven’t put any of them to paper yet. I don’t want to give anything away but one can be credited to my buddy Shane from work. We had a back and forth about the topic awhile ago and it got me thinking about the limitations of technology, both over-arcing and item specific. If possible, I want to work on that one first, because I think it has a good basis and solid footing.

I thought that freelancing would cut into my other projects but I’m finding that those projects are even more productive than they were before. Perhaps it’s because I can’t afford to waste time on frivolous things or maybe it’s because deadlines have helped me rein in my penchant to work on too many projects at once. Either way, I’ve finished things that I didn’t think I could finish and am well on my way to building a solid short story portfolio as well.

I wonder what the future will hold. No one knows, of course, but I feel as if I’ll get everything I desire. Maybe not everything, but definitely a good number of things. One can only hope.

I waited and saved. I planned on getting one when my tax refund came, so I bided my time by looking at Apple.com and other sites to see what sorts of deals they would have. It only fed the hunger.

Earlier this week, our tax refund came. I’d been checking Apple.com religiously the week prior, looking at the price of the refurbished units and plotting which one I would get. I’d decided to get the standard Macbook instead of the Pro. Though I will eventually buy a Pro because I will want to dip back into PC/Mac gaming, it’s not a necessity at the moment. I just need something that is portable so I can do my freelancing and novel writing in a place other than my office. The standard Macbook is a perfect fit.

Ordering the Macbook was easy but we ran into a few problems because of rules our bank had. Unfortunately, Apple.com and the customer service providers weren’t helpful in remedying our problems, which I won’t get into here. Suffice it to say, instead of waiting to get the Macbook next week, we were forced to go to our local Apple Store to make the purchase. Though I had to spend $100 extra that I didn’t want to spend, I still got 6% off because of my corporate discount. We walked out of our local Apple Store on Friday with a brand new Macbook and the standard 1 year warranty.

Starting it up was amazing. It loaded extremely fast. We were able to create two accounts with ease and it connected to our network without a hitch. I started immediately fooling with the preferences and ironing out any little kinks. Since I come from a strictly Windows background, there are things that will be hard to unlearn. Fortunately, OSX is a very flexible OS and has been a joy to use. Spaces and Expose have opened my eyes in terms of screen real estate.

After finishing some basic things, I started transferring my more important files. I wasn’t sure how hard that would turn out to be but thus far it’s been simple. Simple enough, in fact, that the standard organization I used under Windows now feels archaic and messy… and I was a very organized guy.

Once I transferred my writing and graphics, such as wallpapers and photographs, I started fleshing out my applications. I have iWork and MS Office for free for a month but I don’t want to become dependent on them, so I downloaded Neo Office instead. Neo Office is extraordinary in terms of features. It’s everything I could ask for. I was hesitant about using it for my Excel files, since my spreadsheets hold our financials, but it’s been a blessing. I also grabbed a few other applications that people on Neogaf suggested and each one has been an eye opener.

The switch is essentially finished now. I have everything I need. The rest of my things are on our two 120 GB hard drives in my old computer, an 80 GB hard drive in Allie’s, and a 30 GB hard drive in our spare computer. At the moment, I’m moving roughly 40 GB worth of information to Allie’s computer and restructuring the other two hard drives. I plan to get enclosures for the 2 120s and the 30, leave the 80 in our Windows machine, and hook the other three up to a USB hub. Once we get a new router, I’ll let them stream off the router. Since we’re not dependent on streaming video, the lower throughput shouldn’t be a problem.

I’m the owner of a brand new Macbook and I couldn’t be happier. I’m finally sitting in my living room on the floor, where I’m most comfortable, and typing to my heart’s desire. Life is good. What more could I ask for?

You begin the game as part of the G.H.O.S.T, or Global Humanitarian Operation and Special Tactics, Squad, a group of specialized soldiers based in the United States and operating under the authority of the U.N. Their objective is to take out terrorist targets without leaving any traces of their passing. After receiving instructions from your Commander, you play as Alpha Team and find support in the way of teams Bravo, Charlie, and Delta. During the game, you fight the Indigo Wolves, a terrorist group seeking to throw the world into complete turmoil by capturing presidents and holding military personnel hostage. It’s your job to take them down at all costs.

Click here to read more.

Home Furnishings

Curtain Rods – 3 for $1

Three-Leg Table – $8

Picnic Basket w Plates – $10

Black TV Table – $5

Picture Frame – $8

Desklamp – $3

Music Equipment

Guitar Bag – $5

Tri-pod Mic Stand – $10

Fender Pro 185 AMP – $150

Fender Pro 185 Footswitch – $40

Ibanez G10 Bass – $180

Electronics

MAG 13in CRT – $10

Playstation 1 (Might Not Work/Was Replaced with another unit) – $5

Intel Pro 100 Adapter Network Card – $2

Elsa Gladiac MX AGP 32MB – $15

Diamond Stealth III S540 PCI 32MB – $10

Sound Blaster ISA Model CT 41701 – $10

2x256MB PC100 RAM – $30

Matrox G550 – $10

3x 64 MB RAM Micron Infineon – $15

Sound Blaster Live Drive – $5

3X 128MB RAM Centon2 NoName – $40

Books

Modern Classics of Fantasy by Gardner Dozois – $3

Storm Breaking by Mercedes Lackey – $3

Nancy Drew The Strange Message in the Parchment by Carolyn Keene -$3

The Hardy Boys Night of the Werewolf by Franklin W Dixon – $3

Nine Inch Nails by Martin Huxley – $3

Tell No One by Harlan Coben – $1

Brain Powered (VHS) – $1

Interactive English Writing – $25

Garage Band Cookbook by Dan Titus – $5

The Encyclopedia of Picture Chords by Leonard Vogler – $3

The Musicians Guide to Home Recording by Peter Mclan and Larry Wichman – $6

Jamsa CC++ Programmers Bible by Kris Jamsa – $10

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Digital Photography – $5

The Touring Musician by Hal Galper – $10

How to Make It in the Music Business by Robert Wolff – $7

El Sid by David Dalton – $3

3D Programming with C++ by John DeGoes – $40

Windows 98 Programming from the Ground up by Herbert Schildt – $1

The Book of Wizardry by Cornelius Rumstuckle – $1

Elven Blood by Andre Norton and Mercedes Lackey – $1

Mordred’s Curse by Ian McDowell – $1

Eldest by Christopher Paolini – $5

If you like something, leave a comment with your email in it. I moderate my comments, so I’ll grab your email and delete the comment so your email address isn’t published. Thanks.

Disclaimer: All items are provided AS-IS. I am not liable for any damage they may cause to your person or your equipment. No refunds, no returns. When coming to purchase, bring any equipment you need to test out the item. To the best of my knowledge, all items work, unless specifically noted otherwise, and I will disclose any problems with items when contacted.

First learned about here and later found here and here. Enjoy! I know I did.

Primotechnology just recently reviewed Endless Ocean for the Wii. This is what they had to say:

Dive. Discover. Dream.

These three words describe the premise behind Endless Ocean, Nintendo’s entry into the much ignored diving/exploration genre. You’ll spend most of your time swimming through beautiful coral reefs and seeking out lost treasures while interacting with a host of marine life and learning about ancient civilizations. Thankfully, Arika, the developer behind Everblue and Everblue 2 for the Playstation 2, has experience with this type of game and has had the time to work out all of the kinks, delivering a fun, robust experience that is well worth the price of entry.

Click here to read more!

I’m not ashamed to admit that until last year, I wasn’t a fan of HD. It was absurdly expensive to get into and there wasn’t much reason to make the HD jump. I’m glad I eventually did but I’m saddened by the fact that HD content is so scarce, unless you want to fork over a couple grand to really “get the experience”. No thanks.

Barring all of that, I’m happy with my HD experience. It’s hard to look at SD the same. I don’t have cable, I have an upconverting DVD player (if Blu-ray ever drops to $150 players, I’ll hop on board), and OTA signals are much cleaner than everything but perfectly encoded HD DVD/Blu-ray movies. I champion HDTV as a great thing. But can too much of a good thing really be all that bad? Yes.

I was at Circuit City the other day picking up a print cartridge when I decided to look at some of the newer TVs. I’m interested in getting a 46″+ LCD/Plasma later this year to replace my 32″ LCD and I wanted to see what the current selection was. They had Pirates of the Caribbean 3 on Blu-ray playing on one of Samsung’s 120hz LCDs. I decided to sit down and check it out.

This is where too much of a good thing comes into play. I can’t tell if it was that TV, the player itself, or the movie, but, though it looked like we were there (the clarity reminded me of Rudy Maxxa’s show on PBS in terms of “realness”)… you could also tell it was a movie… that the people weren’t really dirty, that their props were all fake, and that the backdrops looked put together. The immersive experience from the theatre could no longer be brought home. It was ruined for me. HD completely ruined the movie.

There’s no way I can accurately describe what I saw. I wish there were other movies I could’ve seen with this same technology (120hz+1080P), but there was nothing else playing on the floor, besides a Transformers DVD. I was disappointed, not because of the HD experience, but because of the faults, technical limitations, and falsities revealed by it. The special effects looked fake, the costumes looked fake, the swords and other props looked fake, and none of the actors looked like they actually belonged in the roles… even though none of this stood out when I watched the DVD at home on my upconverting DVD player. If this is the future, then HD Will ruin movies for me… at least some of them.

I’m being too hard, I know. There are movies where none of these limitations will matter… dramas, murder movies, perhaps more. But what other movies will the clarity of HD and the crisp smoothness of 120hz ruin? I can only imagine. I’m not against either of these but I have to wonder how Hollywood and other film makers will react to making films in the face of these things. One can only wonder… I know I am.

On Monday, I purchased the first game I’m reviewing and spent the last week playing through it, taking notes, and everything else needed to review it. I’m pretty satisfied with my review process but, like everything else, I’ll revise my method as I continue.

I spent a lot of my time this time around just taking notes on anything that popped up. I’ll revise that into a different approach for next time and note things in steps: Controls/Interface first, Story next, Graphics/Sound/Overall Polish last. Doing it this way will give me time to focus on the first thing you’ll notice when you play (besides graphics, which is how it plays), so on and so forth. We’ll see how that method works and revise it accordingly.

I feared that I wouldn’t have any time when I started doing freelance work but I find that there are more hours in my day than before. I think it’s mainly because I cut out all of the fat and stay focused on my projects, instead of drifting off and doing random things. I may be able to take on a few more freelance projects as I get further into freelancing as a career.

Comic Books

I’ve also been hard at work on my comic book series. I don’t know whether to say they’re comics or graphic novels or what have you but… visual storybook is too cumbersome. Whatever you want to call them, I’ve been devoting at least a far chunk of my time to writing.

Awhile back I decided to abandon writing out the panels and focus strictly on the dialogue. Once the dialogue is done, I’ll go back and do the panels. Thus far, Chapter 1 is complete and I’m taking a short break to let it mature. I’ll come back to it and revise what I’ve written and start fleshing out the panels the rest of the way.

This is definitely a story I’ll have to do in chunks, though, because of how large it is. I’d like to do 2 chapters per book (if it’s a graphic novel), as the first chapter in the arc will be the “gear up” and the second will be the climax. Either way, nothing will be set in stone or decided until I snag an artist interested in drawing for me… and that won’t happen until at least the second chapter is finished and ready to be paneled.

Other Projects

At the moment, I’m waiting on responses on “Ascendant Dream”, my first Crystalline Beauty novel. Until then, I’m not doing anything major with the series. Jen Lightfoot is working on Randel Gaylin’s portrait and I’m excited to see how that turns out. I might make some Emeraldwind wallpapers or icons.

I have a few short stories that I’m interested in writing and now that I’m done with the first chapter of the E.N.T.I.T.Y.O.X1 series, I’ll finish two of those before working on anything else. I’m pretty excited about them and I’m considering submitting them to magazines and podcasts, in the hopes of making a small bit of cash and getting some exposure. Of course, sharing the story is the ultimate ambition, but who wants to talk about that when FAME and FORTUNE are in the picture?

Other Real Life Matters

Taxes, taxes, taxes. I’m probably not getting as much back as I’d like to this year, unfortunately. I wasn’t really letting Uncle Sam have anymore than I’d let him take from me. I needed that money, and it helped us out a lot. I am excited about the rebate though. If it comes early enough, I might be able to start working on my office with some of the money.

I need to get around to actually selling this stuff that’s sitting in my storage area. I already photographed it and researched some of it… I just haven’t had any time to actually set up a craigslist listing for any of it. Not enough hours in the day and too many people/things that want my full attention for hours at a time. Maybe sometime this week I can whittle this list down without adding anything else to it.

Other than that, there’s not much else going on. Just trying to stay as productive as possible and not lose my mind. Well, I’m off to work on my review.