It's Great to be Canadian

So, what I wanted to do here was give you a review of this great new show I just found, Gorgeousness Tiny Chicken Machine Show, the only problem is, it's only new to me because I live in Canada and thus have never allowed exposure; try and watch the shows on Youtube and you get a nice little Geo-locked message, just like this one.

Now this isn't really a problem with not being able to see the shows, they can be found in a number of places once other kind souls have re-upped them, as a matter of fact, here's one of my favorites (You have to check this out yourself, words cannot describe it):

The problem is just not being exposed to this stuff in the first place due to living in Canada. What is it about being north of the 49th parallel that won't let me see a ridiculous parody of a Japanese talk show?

The lady who created this also gave us such gems as The Retarded Policeman, 2 Hot Girls in the Shower, and the ever popular The Guild. Check out her site here, seriously, I think she has some real talent, and although not all of it is blocked to Canada, any of it is too much.

All I can say is it's time for a change, there's no need to block entertainment in Canada

Book Review: Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton

I recently had the opportunity to peruse this book and was very impressed. Published late last year, November 24, 2009 to be exact, I didn't get a chance to check it out until now, and have to say I was impressed, it was at least as good as anything else I've read from Michael Crichton, an author who I have always held in high regard.

If you're not familiar, Crichton is the author of, among others, Jurassic Park, Sphere, Congo, The Andromeda Strain, and, one of my favorites, Eaters of the Dead, all good books and worth a read, although Eaters of the Dead was the only one with a truly worthy film adaptation, titled The 13th Warrior; Jurassic Park was a great movie, but very different from the book. Congo is an OK movie if you take it at face value, but the book is amazing and needs to be treated as an unrelated entity from the movie. Sphere? I dunno, the book was interesting, but a bit shaky, and does anyone actually like Sharon Stone?

In a nutshell this was a great book. Set in the mid 1600's, it's a fairly factual telling of a fictional pirate raid, dwelling heavily on the customs and technology of the day. An English privateer puts a small crew together to raid a Spanish outpost, then has to escape with his undermanned Galleon and fight off reprisals; true to Crichton's formula he manages to mix the fantastic with the mundane, even pitting them against a sea monster for a short period. Story finishes up with betrayal and revenge, true to pirate folklore. It ends like his other books too, another reason I liked his writing style, he wraps everything up, but you understand that life still flows on, it's just this little microcosm that has come to a conclusion.

This is going to be the last Michael Crichton novel published, it was found on his computer after his death and published posthumously; a second book was also found, but being that it was half finished there will be a co-author involved to get it published. I haven't spoken a great deal about the story itself, I think I often give too much away on these things and books should be experienced, not just read. Go, get a copy, paper, electronic, or even audio, and check it out, it's well worth the time spent.

Who Needs Cable: Recent Web Discoveries

Living in Saskatchewan Canada it's easy to fall behind on tech news because as I mentioned in a previous rant we tend to be 2 to 4 years behind the cutting age. Therefore, I have been making a point of watching This Week in Google (TWIG)and This Week in Tech (TWIT) every week in an attempt to stay more current. This last week I've followed a chain of links starting from twit.tv to discover some pretty cool web sites/shows that obviously aren't new but are new to me. Thus, I thought I'd share them in case others have been out of the loop.

The host of TWIG and TWIT, Leo Laporte, does an audio show with, net@night, where I discovered a link to Amber MacArthur's site and clicked on her show girlsgogeek.tv, yes I have a thing for ladies with nerdy interests and that's no secret because I am happily married to one. However, this shows turned out to be a pretty informative and exposed a couple more really good web shows to me.

A Comic Book Orange
If your a comic fan at all you'll like this show. It's fun, goofy, a little dorky, but also pretty informative.

Geek Brief

If you want to keep up on the new tech gadgets this show is perfect. Its short, fun, sweet, and you'll learn about something new in each show (at least I did).

Comic Books on PsP

I've had my PsP for 7-8 months now and I have to say I have thoroughly underutilized it. The platform doesn't play shooters all that well, my main choice of game, and I haven't had the spare income to devote to testing a lot of titles on it so it's largely been delegated as an oversized MP3 player; my daily commute is roughly an hour each way, totaling two hours a day in the car so I listen to a lot of audio books. The PsP works well in this regard if for no other reason than it acts as a reasonably robust audio player.

On the weekend I heard that a PS1 title that I enjoyed back in the 90's, Kain: Legacy of Blood, had been released for the PsP so I figured I'd get a copy of it. While surfing PSN I found a firmware update was available so I grabbed it. Imagine my surprise when I started my PsP up again and found that the firmware included a comic reader, a true thing of beauty.

I've been reading comics digitally for some time now and have come to appreciate it, all those issues contained electronically meant I could carry ever book ever made on my laptop if I so chose; the only downside is you NEED to have a laptop to read them, something that isn't always convenient to carry, therefore this worked perfectly, I've always got my PsP on me, so now I can also always have some comics.

I imidiatley started checking this out and soon found that the selection is limited, strictly Marvel and Marvel associated publishers and not a lot of titles; the standard Spiderman, Iron Man, and X-... titles one comes to expect from anything with the Marvel name on it, but hey it's new so it can only grow and the do offer a lot of back issues too. At prices from 1.99-2.99, how can you go wrong?

Of course all good things must come to an end, as did this when I tried to purchase my first issue and found out the comics aren't for sale in Canada! Of course they don't tell you this outright either, the instead make it impossible to find anything on the PsP PSN interface, forcing you to go to a PC for this stuff, then requiring you to install their new "Go" software for the purchase/download portion, then, and only then, when you attempt the download do you get presented with an ambiguous error message stating nothing more than a numeric code.

So there you have it, a very good thing that is once again blocked by a geo-political decision. Furthermore, I'm not impressed with Sony either, they could be stating this out in the open instead of keeping it a big secret that you have to dig for, how do they think that improves their service in anyway?

BioShock 2 Review

This was a little longer in coming than I had originally anticipated, but economic and time factors prevented me from getting my hands on a copy until this weekend. However, one 4 day weekend later I not only got my hands on it, but I got a complete, non-OCD playthrough of the game, and I have to say I'm very happy. In case you're wondering I saved all the little sisters and got he good ending, although the final levels really got me wondering what the ending would have been like if I'd been harvesting.

First and foremost, this is a sequel and as such can only bring limited innovation to the table, otherwise it violates the laws of sequels. As previously mentioned, you're a Big Daddy roaming the halls of Rapture 10 years after the downfall of the city and dealing with both old and familiar threats, and some new ones as well. This time around though the Little Sisters will work for you, collecting Adam from corpses while you stand guard.

The game starts with a cool cinematic which finishes with you giving yourself a bullet lobotomy at some time after the fall of Rapture, however you wake up 10 years later and begin your journey aided by a couple different guides; you even find out how you survived a bullet in the brain. Along the way you shoot Splicers, deal with Big Daddies, collect Adam, and survive Big Sisters, with the familiar voice recorders filling in many blank spots.

Speaking of recorders, I really liked the storyline with the father coming down to Rapture to find his missing daughter. Didn't just fill in the story for you, also gave it something new, although I've always wondered why most people take time to record these musings. Sure, some of them are research notes, but others are clearly left over from after the fall of Rapture; seriously, I had enough trouble staying alive, let alone taking time to record my inner feelings!

I think the highlight is indeed the new hacking system, no longer does the game stop for the hack, you instead do a real time quick time event to trigger the hack; I especially liked the way which a good hack will give you extra items, health kits from first aid machines, ammo from the Bandido machines, and so forth. Hitting a red spot will trigger the alarm and bring security on you, but starting a new hack and finishing it will send them away again.

The failing would have to be that the Big Daddy thing never really gets exploited. The Splicers and other Big Daddies have been amped up enough that you really feel like the same guy as the first game; you take the baddies down faster, but they take you down faster too. It's all fun and games until you're defending a little sister gathering Adam and you're facing 4-6 splicers, a Brute Splicer and an insane Alpha Series Big Daddy shows up! This is when you don't want, but instead NEED the Hypnotize plasmid.

Speaking of Plasmids, not much new there, freeze 'em, burn 'em, or shock 'em are still you're mainstays. You do get some new functionality with them, like the Hypnotize level 3 plasmid allows you to actually befriend a bad guy, very useful when you have a spare Elite Brute or Alpha Big Daddy doing nothing constructive. Same goes for the Tonics, not a lot new, although what is new really kicks ass, like the tonic that allows you to repair turrets and security bots, very handy of you're adopting little sisters instead of harvesting them.

Weapons are cool, I loved the Gatling Gun, the Shotgun is back, although I think it's a better used weapon this time around, the Rivet Gun is awesome, and I loved the "Spear Gun" which shoots full sized harpoons. Shoot two or three Rocket Spears into a Big Sister and she's gonna feel it, it just a matter of getting her to stand still long enough to hit her that many times. One thing to note, as I recently found out this isn't common knowledge, the Power to The People machines are FREE one use items; you seriously want to use these when you find them, especially on the Gatling Gun!

All in all this is a great game, I highly recommend it if you enjoyed Bioshock 1. It maintains the same themes and atmosphere with adding a little bit of innovation to it and it keeps it safe for people afraid of change but offers a bit of new material for those left wanting more at the end of Bioshock1.

My rating, 4 out of 5, good solid gameplay in a world I was sorry to leave, but some features could have been explored a bit more (Spoiler: the underwater exploration didn't live up to what it should have).

Android Phone Frustrations

Previously, I've complained about the draw backs of living in Saskatchewan, Canada in a Amazon Kindle rant. However, to reiterate (in a more rational voice) compared to the US, Canada is a small market and Saskatchewan is one of the smaller Canadian markets. Combine that with some stupid import/copy write laws and a French Language requirement us northern dwellers aren't the primary target for companies releasing new products.

We got the iPhone at least a year after it was released and the Kindle was over a year (maybe more than 2) and now my newest frustration is the Nexus One Android Phone. Guess what Google doesn't sell it to Canada. However, this time I'm not blaming Google or Amazon or Apple. I'm blaming our Canadian Governments. Things like the iPhone and the Android just aren't products and gizmos. They provide access to a new marketplace.

Companies in the states have been developing applications and making money via these devices for a few years and there are very few comparable Canadian companies. We're in a recession up here in Canada not to the extreme that our southern neighbors are but we are not running business as usual either. Government talks about wanting to promote private business and build our economy but in this case Canadian market restrictions are resulting in us being at least 2 years behind other entrepreneurs. Yes this market edge this hasn't kept the US economy in the black but we are dealing with an extreme situation there not the norm. I firmly believe that because our market isn't big enough to force companies think of Canada first we should be trying to make it easier for them to do business here not harder.

Now you might say "Darc you can get the HTC Dream or Magic at Rogers what's the problem"?One they aren't current and two as far as devices go they suck when compared to the Nexus One. However, my problem isn't so much being denied a new toy my problem is that I've been denied early access to a new and fast growing market. If I wanted to start a company that specialized in Android Applications I'm entering a market that is 2 or more years ahead of me thus making success harder than it should have been.

I would like to end this on a high point. I noticed Rogers is bringing in the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10; not a Nexus One but close and by some accounts better. I've come to appreciate Rogers of late: without them we wouldn't have the iPhone and Kindle in Saskatchewan and wouldn't have Android Phones. That 2 years behind would be more like 4.

Hellboy and Abe Sapien as Sassy Ladies

OK, Twitter may not be as stupid as I thought, although to be fair I didn't know Felicia Day was was Tweeting. Perusing the Tweets she follows brought me to the Dark Horse Tweet, which in turn led me to this gem:

Never been a big fan of the Hellboy stories, but I gotta say I'd probably read Hellgirl. They also have Astrogirl, but to be honest she kind of creeps me out.

PS3 Error 8001050F

If you haven't heard yet, and if you haven't it doesn't make much difference anymore, there was a problem with the older PS3's, the "chunky" models, in which they thought 2010 was supposed to be a leap year. When they were started up they tried to sync with their home servers, something that always happens, and were told they had the wrong date. Theyproceeded to handle the situation as best they could, by throwing an 8001050F and crashing.

As of today, March 2, 2010, the problem has been solved, there is no longer any issues associated with getting your PS3 started and playing games, however that is not because they did anything to fix the problem, but simply because the problem doesn't exist anymore. All the PS3's clocks reset themselves and came to an agreement with their servers that it is in fact March 2 today and carried on as if nothing happened. The question I have is, was this handled right?

Having worked in software development,specifically QA, I understand that bugs happen and no amount of testing will ever weed them all out. Furthermore, having participated in writing requirements for software features, I also understand that design concepts of all needed concepts can be a bit tenuous, it's almost impossible to consider every single quirk and need. Having said that though, date problems are a bit ridiculous; I think most of us are still able to remember the paranoia of Y2K, and leap years occur much more often then millenniums. Finally lets consider Sony's response to this situation: Lets just wait it out.

Can you really fault Sony for an oversight or not wanting to expend money and resources on such a specific glitch? I think we can! We pay for their product with the understanding that they will provide a stable product that does what it needs to when we need it to and if it doesn't, they'll fix it; but thats not what happened. I've always been a bit more pro 360 than PS3 and while this may not stack up against the Red Ring of Death that so many people had, at least Microsoft stood up and said, yes, we will take care of your problem.

So much of our world is based on trust and interpretation, especially now in this electronic world. I can remember as little as 20 years ago you usually saw the face of someone you were dealing with and could decide if you were going to trust them; you still took your chances, but at least you got a shot at a gut feeling.

I'm not saying Sony screwed up royally, but I'll remember this the next time I make a purchase or a recommendation. Sony lost a few points on my scale, not because of a problem, but because of their reaction to the problem.

Breaking News

My co-blogger, Rob, and I have been toying with the idea of doing a book discussion podcast/blog. We are both avid readers but the books we love seem to be neglected, usually because they were written years ago or never got a lot of exposure period.

Our goal would be to attract some new readers to some old classics and give some more exposure to some new gems and well probably amuse people with our warped views.

Stay tuned first book planned is a beauty: Noble House by James Clavell.