Ch-Ch-Changes

All of that cryptic stuff I was alluding to last week was about me deciding on a new place to live. With my brother moving out and giving me the guarantee that he would not need to move back in with me, I no longer have a reason to hold on to the 2 bed, 2 bath unit we’re currently at. The lease was coming to an end soon and the rate was going to go up about another 70 bucks if I renewed, so I decided to ditch it and instead downgrade to a 1 bed pad, saving me a crud ton a money per month in rent.

So the next few weeks are going to be hectic in not only moving myself out, but helping out my brother move to his new place as well. Couple in the fact that El Nino is planning to show its face here soon, we might have to slog through rain and chillier than average weather when we actually begin moving our junk. But all is well, though, as we should be finished moving before the holiday season begins, unlike last time when we moved while in the thick of it during December. That was a bonkers time to move.

Decision: accomplished

*Big sigh of relief*

Zeitgeist

What’s up with everyone all of a sudden talking about Ginuwine? To be honest, I didn’t know who he was until a few weeks ago, but I did know of his hit song “Pony” from 1996, which popped into my head. But I didn’t know what the name of the track was, too. Thank goodness for Google and its autocomplete, because all I had to search by was the part of the song that sounds like a burping noise. And it looks like I’m not the only one who uses that as a searching method because it’s the first phrase that appears in the autocomplete.

A few days ago “Pony” was playing on the news just before they went to a commercial, then I heard it on the radio, and then Giant Bomb mentioned the song as well on the Bombcast. So now in the spirit of helping this flashback get to the masses, let me assist by having you listen to this track and having it get stuck in your head all day. You’re welcome.

Life preserver for the weary

I have some big decisions I need to make in the coming days, so I’ve been in a restless state of affairs over the past week. It gets to the point where it’s the only thing I think about, and unfortunately usually happens when I’m trying to sleep.

Take last night for example where I only got around four hours of sleep. I woke up just before 3am and couldn’t stop thinking about the decisions I have to make, making it difficult to go back to sleep. 3am quickly turned to 3:20am, then 3:53am, then 4:25am, then 5:10am, and then 5:30am when my alarm was set to go off. It was so hard to focus during the first few hours at work today, but thankfully I have a backup for these situations. Behold the all mighty Zipfizz.

Seriously though, this is a life saver. It’s an energy supplement that’s sold in powder form which you add to water and stir it up to create a delicious energy cocktail. I’m not going to say it’s a healthy means of receiving energy, but it sure is a lot better than slamming down a soda, sipping coffee, or * bleh * choking down an energy drink like Monster. Which is odd to say since Monster HQ is just a few miles away from where I work.

The thing I like most about Zipfizz is that it doesn’t give you a sudden spike in energy followed by a sugar crash. Instead you just feel more alert and focused approx. 20 minutes after you drink it, with the effects lasting about six hours if you use the whole tube. When the effects wear off, there’s no sudden change in how you feel; you just go about the day as you normally would.

I guess this comes from the fact that a tube will give you a B12 shot containing 41,667% of your recommended daily intake. That’s right. Forty-thousand! The second highest vitamin intake is vitamin C with 833%, followed by a number of other dietary nutrients.

I rarely use Zipfizz now so to not have my system build an immunity to its energy boosting advantages, which is why I still have the limited run of the fruit punch flavored version that has an expiration date set for two months ago.

Btw: I know all of that above sounded like an ad for Zipfizz, but believe me: if I were being paid for endorsing products (which I don’t because this site doesn’t even have any advertisements plastered all over its pages), I wouldn’t have to be making these big decisions.

Reposting

Love looking at this cutaway of the Simpsons’ house, showing the layouts of the first and second floors. I love it so much that I’m reposting it here.

Source

A romp through the concrete jungle

Doggone it, I’ve done it again. Another cool Kickstarter project has won me over to where I now have to become a backer for it. In Home Free you’re a dog lost in a big city, navigating the streets just to survive. But it’s not all bad as you also interact with other dogs trying to make friends along the way. Looks like a super fun game to run around and explore. Neat thing is that the game uses a procedurally-generated city, populating it with humans, traffic, and other dogs, so everyone’s game will be different.

Graphics are low poly and appears to be cel shaded. To me, the city’s stylized appearance looks similar to Tokyo-to from Jet Set Radio, so I was expecting to see Gum or Beat blading past the dog when I was watching the trailer.

Channel surfing through the tubes

I noticed about a week ago that PlayStation Vue currently has a 7 day free trial for checking out the service. I was always curious to see how stacks up as an alternative to traditional cable television services from the likes of Time Warner and Comcast. This free trial offer benefits me now more than ever as my roommate, my brother, may move out soon, and in its wake have my financial responsibilities take on an extra weight of bills. Since I like watching TV, I need to compare the services out there to see if I can still keep this in my life, otherwise I’ll be joining the increasing group of cord cutters and ditching my cable TV subscription.

So without any further ado, here’s my review for the PlayStation Vue.

And to get this out of the way: I live in the Los Angeles region, so your options may differ from what I received.

I didn’t know what to expect with PlayStation Vue. When comparing it to other streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Instant Video, they all varied in quality in terms of UI and stability during their early existences. And after a period of time, each improved on performance and menus to make them the great services they are today. If anything, I figured PS Vue would be no different from those other streaming services.

I was wrong. In terms of tech, PS Vue is very impressive right out of the gate. The service launches quickly, the guides are snappy, buffering is an absolute minimum, and going from channel to channel is just as quick, if not quicker, than when I change channels with our current cable TV provider. Performance is a very important factor for me as that can seriously hamper the experience. If it were clunky to navigate through menus, or if it buffered a lot, or if the quality of the video increased and decreased all the time, then I’d cancel the service immediately. Luckily that wasn’t the case with Vue.

The video output streams to a high quality and looks just as good if I were watching a show on traditional cable. I didn’t notice any artifacts or degrade pops as I might sometime see with Hulu or Netflix (which gets rarer as those services mature). When I need to bring up the info guide, it’s as simple as pressing down on the d-pad. With it, you get a clean interface with options laid out across it. Although I will point out that it’s hard to get to the episode description. It’s no problem to bring up the show’s description, but that’s kind of useless -- no one really cares for that. It’s the episode details what most people are looking for.

When it comes to live TV, it holds about 5 minutes worth so you can jump back anywhere within that span of time, which I believe it saves to the hard drive of the PS4. I haven’t seen if there is an option to increase that to 10 minutes or greater, but I definitely would increase it if that were available -- 5 minutes feels a little too constraint for my taste.

Pressing the Options button on the controller will bring up the menu guide for displaying the upcoming shows and times. For what it is, it’s a very clean look, but for a minor change, I hope a future update will have a small window in the corner where you can view the show currently playing behind the menu. Right now, you can hear it but not see it until you close the guide.

When you want to “record” a show (in quotations because you’re not really recording anything to a hard drive) you highlight the show from the menu guide or by simply pressing the R1 button when watching the show. This will add the show to your favorites list which you can then view by pressing L1. When you select a show from your favorites, it will not only note the upcoming date and time when it will record the next episode, but it will also have previous episodes listed that the service has already recorded. I really like this method of blending both DVR functionality and the on demand service and rolling it into one feature. A small shame that you can’t keep something you’ve recorded indefinitely like would you with a traditional DVR, but whatever. Compromises need to be adjusted for an all-in-one service such as Vue.

The fat negative, however, comes from this weird thing where shows can’t be aired on Vue. In my case, I wanted to watch Seinfeld on channel MyNetworkTV, but instead I got a message that read: “This program is unavailable. Don’t worry -- your device and PlayStation Vue are working properly, but we have not been granted permission to stream certain programs over the internet.” I don’t know if this is coming from Sony or channel MyNetworkTV, but this was a big bummer for me. At first I thought Hulu might have bought exclusive rights to show Seinfeld over the web when they introduced the show to their service a few months ago, but that theory was bunked when I was watching Seinfeld on TBS over Vue. This gets me nervous because what other shows do I watch where I can’t over Vue because of rights issues like this one I ran into.

Vue is currently limited to only certain regions because what they are doing is adding local affiliates of the big networks like CBS, NBC, Fox, and MyNetworkTV to the channel lineup. I really like this because that means I can watch the local news for where I live at. Since I’m near Los Angeles, I get the LA feed (which is what we get with our cable TV), but Vue is currently available in 7 areas including: Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. They’re slowly rolling out Vue to other large metropolitan areas in the US so hopefully in time they will blanket a good portion of America the coming years. In addition, they need to get ABC on board, too.

The glaring omission for PlayStation Vue is that it doesn’t have a native app for the PlayStation TV. THAT’S DUMB, RIGHT?! How can a device with the word “TV” in it not have the service that streams cable television? As of now, Vue is only available on the PS3 and PS4. And yes, I tried Remote Play from PSTV to PS4, but it blocks the service when I launch it. Boo. This is a negative for me because I have the PS4 in my bedroom, and the PSTV in the living room.

When it comes to a contract, there is none! You pay by the month and cancel anytime. For what channels you get, you can pick from 3 tiers: access, core, and elite. The channels you get on what tiers might depend on the region you’re in. For Los Angles, the access tier includes 52 channels and includes a good selection to start with. Core seems to mostly add sports channels while elite rounds things off with secondary networks like MTV Hits, Velocity, and FXM. Access starts at $49.99, while core is $59.99, and elite with $69.99. The price is fair for what you get, but it would be a lot sweeter if they were all 10 dollars cheaper. Just sayin’.

It’s small now, but there are some a la carte channels to pick from such as Showtime and Fox Soccer Plus. I’m sure HBO will be there soon enough along with a few other movie networks, but in the meantime, its slim pickings here.

For what it offers, PlayStation Vue is an excellent alternative to traditional cable. You get a number of services like on demand and DVR, local broadcasts from major networks, and a healthy listing of channels to pick from. And running under the hood is good tech to keep performance running high so hiccups aren’t seen (or rarely). Although, there is room for improvement, mostly software related and minor cosmetic changes to the guides, but overall not a bad service. Oh yeah, and that black boarder that surrounds the picture should go too (couldn’t find a setting to adjust that). Hopefully Sony will continue with improving on Vue because this is an awesome service for anyone still interested in watching live TV, but don’t want to commit to contracts with cable or satellite providers.

Short stack

Part 5 of the Art of Pogs feature: the short lava tube.

All good things must come to an end

Last week I heard Microsoft was finally beginning the process of sunsetting the Xbox Live Indie Games program for good. I know the writing’s been on the wall for a while now starting as far back as 2013 when MS announced they would no longer be adding updates for XNA, the development platform to build games with, but it’s still a bummer to hear as XBLIG together with XNA was something brilliant and innovative, allowing basically anyone the tools for building games for the Xbox 360.

Take me for an example. XNA was the primary reason I finally purchased a 360 back in 2012. For a while I was reading their book on XNA development and it was so cool seeing something you built on your computer be transferred to your 360 via your home network and watching it run on your big screen TV and controlling it with a 360 controller. In fact, when XNA was introduced back during the mid-2000s, this was a time when Microsoft was pushing hard for everyone to build software and applications on their platforms. Microsoft Press -- their own print publishing arm -- was churning out all sort of books aimed at their programming languages. Some of their books even looked like they were focused on kids getting into development.

XNA was a fun quirky little experiment, so it was odd seeing it come from such a large corporation. I’d put it in the same category as Sony’s Net Yaroze -- a development kit which allowed anyone to develop games for the original PlayStation. The games that people built for that were neat too, but unlike Net Yaroze, XNA had hooks built in where you can actually sell your games on XBLA’s indie section, which was mind blowing for the time, and actually still is today. So while Net Yaroze was something for hobbyists, you could potentially make a career with XNA.

So rather than feeling bummed out about them slowly ending support for their low entry program for games development, let’s celebrate Microsoft’s indie platform by showing off some of the games that came from it; which you can still buy today (so check them out if you’re interested). Here’s a short list of games I played that came from Xbox Live Indie Games. Don’t worry as there are no zombie games in this list ;-)

Gentlemen Start Your Engiiines

A bare bones racing game yet includes enough options to keep things interesting. You can select from four different circuit tracks, pick from a number of racers that resemble cars from America’s classic era, and can even do a bit of detailing to your ride like changing its color, racing number, and which US state flag to slap on top of the roof (I have no clue why this option exists). Inspired a bit by Daytona USA based on what I’ve seen such as the name of the game, the rolling start which begins each race (unfortunately "The King Of Speed" or a variant of it isn’t heard when this occurs), and the cover art for the game, it also includes slipstreams to help in reaching the front for the pack. If a quick race is all you need, then Gentlemen Start Your Engiiines is a great way to scratch that itch.

Cylinder

An absolute fantastic puzzle game and my favorite XBLIG title. You need to lineup matching puzzle pieces to have them removed from the play field. Time is of the essence though as new blocks will drop from the top every few seconds. If they stack up above a certain point, it’s game over. The unique aspect of this puzzle game is that the pieces are wrapped around, you guessed it, a cylinder, so you’re constantly moving the camera around to see what pieces you have on the other side. The soundtrack is pretty awesome, too.

Battle High 2

Fighting games seem like a tough one to program for. What with all of the precise controls and collision boxes you need to program and tweak again and again to get it to feel just right sounds like a nightmare. So to see one on XBLA indie and is one that plays well should be allowed an opportunity to shine in the limelight. Battle High 2 includes all the flair you’d see from a triple-A fighting game, has a good roster count, and great graphics. The controls feel a little squishy, but hey, they are responsive enough to where I don’t give a hoot.

Curse of the Crescent Isle

Probably the most polished game on this list. You get the sweet look and play of Super Mario Bros. 2 with Curse of the Crescent Isle. So if you’re jonesin for a new SMB2 game, then this is the one to get. It includes some of the mechanics like picking up enemies and throwing them at other enemies to knock them temporarily out of commission and the levels have those blocky, Fisher-Price looking backgrounds to boot. But it’s the visual look of the game being displayed on a wide screen HDTV that originally caught my attention. It’s a beautiful game, to say the least.

Parallels

Super Mario Maker has been out for about a week now and it seems pretty unanimous that everyone loves it. I don’t own Wii U, so I’m missing out on all the fun, but if I were ever to get one, you’d better believe I would purchase Super Mario Maker with it. That and also Splatoon as that game looks totally fun as well.

But regarding Mario Maker, it seems to scratch that itch a lot of people have about video games: creating their own levels. I remember friends and myself designing levels for Super Mario Bros. where we would place items or enemies in specific locations, so we could create our own unique situations Mario would have to go through. And now those ideas can be achieved with Mario Maker. I guess if there were ever to be a level creation video game that is based off of an actual IP, then Mario would be the best one as it has so much memorable assets to select from like warp pipes, blocks, and mushrooms; just to name a few.

The other day while I was reading up on all of the Mario Maker reviews, I remembered that Sonic had something similar to Mario Maker where you can place objects and enemies anywhere you wanted in a level. Yep, in 1991 you were able to design your own levels with a home console, but in a limited kind of way.

The original Sonic the Hedgehog included a few secrets that were hidden behind codes you needed to punch in at the title screen. One of these codes allowed you to enter into what is known as "debug mode." With this mode you can change Sonic into an object like a ring or a spring and place that object anywhere you want to. In addition, you can scroll through different types of enemies and place them anywhere too. When you were finished designing, you can change back to Sonic and have him run through what you just created. Debug mode made things a little easier as it prevents Sonic from dying by an enemy or falling onto spikes. The only way to lose a life would be to fall down a cliff, get squished, or drown.

Obviously super limited in scope compared to Mario Maker, but it did allow for whoever knew about that code to go into a level like Green Hill Zone or Marble Zone and go to town on dumping assets all over the place. I’d love to have Sega do an us too approach and get to working on a full-fledge Sonic maker game. Just imagine the crazy zones people would create if this were to happen. Think of the possibilities of a level design if you were to include other characters like Tails, Knuckles, or Super Sonic. Man, talking about this makes me want this game now more than ever. You reading this, Sega! Make it happen!!