Geekery, Inc.“Insert nerdy quote here”

 

The last few nights, I’ve had a dream where I’m standing in front of this gigantic ball of text.  It’s probably about the size of the globe at Epcott Center in Disney World.

Anyway, I know in the dream that this ball of text is all the world’s knowledge… everything I could ever need to know about anything.  In the dream, some disembodied voice is asking me really simple questions, and I know all I have to do is find the answer in the gigantic ball… but I can’t.

It is the most stressful dream I think I’ve ever had.  And the damned thing is recurring.

As a die-hard SG-1 fan, I can honestly say that I have watched every single episode of Stargate SG-1, plus all of the bonus features… at least twice if not more. Seeing as there are ten seasons and over two hundred episodes, that is no mean feat. It’s taken a lot of time and effort… you know, lifting the remote.. switching discs, etc*… to finish the entire series more than once. But it’s a sacrifice someone had to make.

Also, Richard Dean Anderson is my hero. (See picture)

Anyway… I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how many great episodes there are in Stargate SG-1, but up until last night I didn’t have a clear concept of how much the word “many” entails. When I counted them out, I found 60.  And so, after being prodded by Dan to write in our fabulously geeky blog, I decided to figure out which really ARE the best. So starting with this post, I’m going to watch them all and narrow it down (as best I can).

Here are the best episodes of Stargate SG-1, by season/episode: (be aware that there are 60 episodes in this list… so by reading on, you are asking for it…) Read the rest of this entry »

I found out about the Windows 7 beta rather late, apparently.  Everyone was aghast that I hadn’t already installed it on Saturday when they told me it was live.

Initially, I thought I’d just throw it on my laptop as a safety measure to see how it ran.  No sense in fouling up my main PC.  But once I had a chance to mess with it a bit, it went on my main PC anyway (to the suprise of no one, I’m sure).

Vendor and OEM hardware issues aside (I hate you, ATI… I hate you so much), there are a few things that bother me about this newest version, but there are many (fairly obvious) improvements.

The first nitpick is that the Windows key + E doesn’t immediately go to My Computer like it has in every previous version of Windows.  This same area is available by clicking “Computer” on the left pane when you open this window, but I literally use this key combination to get to My Computer dozens of times a day.  This extra step is a small annoyance that adds up during the day.

The second is one that I know the Microsoft team is touting as an improvement.  The Mac OS X Dock “Superbar.” Maybe it’s just personal preference, but I like having my quicklaunch and taskbar seperate things.

As for the improvements, the most noticeable is the speed. Windows 7 runs MUCH faster than Vista did. On my laptop, Aero doesn’t bog down the OS at all. I’d try gaming, but (as mentioned above) ATi and Dell do nothing but cause me heartaches when trying to get their drivers to do anything useful at all. On my desktop, Warcraft gained about 15fps. In Vista, I have all games turn off Aero when they start because I have two monitors. This increase was without turning the visual theme off.

Other than speed, there’s been a significant decrease in the number of UAC messages (especially when doing day-to-day things). They’ve even added controls so you can change how much you want the UAC to notify you about things.

Then there are little things that don’t matter much to me. Themes with sets of backgrounds you can have change every few minutes, for example. The taskbar itself is also prettier (with some nice mouseover, glowing effects).

The next step (other than using the crap out of the OS to see what else there is in there) is to wait and see if MS makes us any kind of deal on upgrades. They’re touting this as a “major upgrade,” but there’s little in here that warrants it, I think.

I’ve quit World of Warcraft at least four times.  Each time I quit, I think I won’t be coming back.  I think about how raiding takes so much time.  I do the mental calculations in my head about how long it would take to get another character to max level and, if I did, what would be new about it?

I go off and play other MMOs, be it Final Fantasy XI, Lord of the Rings Online, Warhammer Online, City of Heroes…

And yet, every time I’m with another MMO, I can’t do anything without comparing it to WoW.  And every time I come back, eventually.  Why, though?  What’s Blizzard done with Warcraft that makes it compelling?  I mean, when you break the game down into its component parts, it’s pretty much the same thing as every other MMO out there. You have your FedEx quests; you have your ‘kill 30 kobolds’ and ‘bring me 25 crocodile scales’ quests; you’ve even got ‘go into this dungeon and kill Stabby McKillerstein, Scourge of the Whatsit.’

But somehow, every time I’m doing these same things in another MMO, I’d rather be doing them in Azeroth.

I’ve thought a lot lately about why that is.  It really boils down to the fact that Warcraft has been around for a long time; basically, it has momentum.  And really, ‘momentum’ here has a few meanings.

The game is stable.  There are very few technical issues with the engine.  Amazingly, the graphics don’t look dated despite being four years old.  To top all that off, the system requirements are very low.  They may not be the prettiest (Lord of the Rings Online is almost inarguably prettier), but they’re consistent.

Having a game that’s had this much time in production also means that Blizzard has had a lot of time to hone their skills.  Wrath of the Lich King is a showcase of this improvement.  In a lot of cases, not only are the quests better, but features from the other MMOs I’ve played that are ‘cool’ have been integrated.  Achievements (City of Heroes, Lord of the Rings Online) are a great example of this.  Some of the changes have been more subtle.  This expansion added a lot of areas where you’re able to do two or three quests at once - something I liked about Lord of the Rings Online.

Momentum also carries with it a large player base.  And I think this is really what keeps bringing me back.  You can’t have MMO without Multiplayer and I have quite a few good friends I’ve met through WoW (the co-author of this site included).  Every time I play another game, there’s just not enough social stimulation to keep me interested.  Somehow, killing those 30 kobolds or finding those alligator teeth is a hell of a lot more fun when you have four or five friends hanging out with you.

In their review for Lord of the Rings Online, Eurogamer said it was the game everyone would be playing if their friends played it. I’ve used that phrase a lot since I read it. It makes me think of when I played FFXI and WoW came out. “Good,” I thought, “now all the 14 year-olds will leave FFXI.”

But as time dragged on, more and more people were making the switch. And I kept hearing about how fun the game really was. I made the switch a year into the game being out and… well, I’ve only looked back once, very briefly. It was not a pleasant experience (FFXI’s graphics have NOT aged well at all).

So Illuminaire, my pally on Draenor sits at home, waiting for me to login and meet up with all the other people’s characters who are doing the same. And so it will (probably) continue ad infinitum (ad nauseum, maybe?).

-Dan

If someone were to ask me right now what Farscape is about, I would say love. Or maybe more specifically: making out with aliens. It occured to me about halfway through the first season, after Crichton’s little fling with Gilina, a Peacekeeper from Aeryn’s past. If I remember correctly, and I DO for the record, because I’m awesome, Crichton soon after realizes that he has feelings for Aeryn. Regardless of this, he makes out with EVERYONE. In one episode, in fact, I’m pretty sure he even kisses D’argo. And makes a pass at Rygel. But mostly, Crichton kisses lots of aliens, sometimes directly in front of Aeryn (which, if you as me, probably does not help one bit), and he likes it.

He is also partially crazy. He screams a lot. But I guess that I would do that too, if I were lost in a distant part of space with strange aliens who sometimes screw me completely.

It applies to more than just Crichton, though, because there is a lot of love on Farscape. Crichton loves Aeryn, but he also loves D’argo, and Zhaan. Chianna, too, but in a different way. Chianna pretty much only loves Crichton and D’argo. Zhaan loves everyone, except maybe Rygel. Aeryn has a deep connection with Pilot because she has his DNA embedded in her own, and she has strong feelings of love for everyone else except for Rygel. Zhaan loves Stark. Pilot, Moya, and Zhaan have their own weird little love triangle, incited mostly by Zhaan’s singing.

And that’s that.

I’m just writing this post to test out this theme and to get the ball rolling. Mostly I’m just going to put in filler text because I’m lazy like that, and currently have nothing geeky to say.

This performance of Adew Dundee: Early and Traditional Music from Scotland will cover musical selections from the 16th to the 20th century and from Scotland to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia and Tennessee. Join us for a delightful afternoon with joyous, accomplished musicians.  Founded in 1980 to perform the instrumental music of Shakespeare’s time, the Baltimore Consort has explored early English, Scottish, and French popular music, focusing on the relationship between folk and art song and dance.