Death of a pet

Well, yesterday my rat, 3B (or Big-Balled Bastard for long) died. He hadn't been doing too good the last month or more. He lost all use of his back legs and hips and all of his muscles were atrophied and he was losing a lot of body mass everywhere. He was losing hair in places and he had a bad cataract in his left eye (and a lesser one, I think, in his right one).

He was my first rat and several friends were perplexed why I would actually want one as a pet. Well, it really wasn't my idea. Someone at my mother's job had some babies and was asking around the office for anybody who would want one. My mother was interested and I had never had a rat, but have had hamsters and a few guinea pigs when I was younger. I'd heard they were intelligent and you could teach them tricks. I never taught him anything, but sometimes I'd let him sit on my shoulder or run back and forth on the back of the couch. When people were sitting on the couch, he'd check them out and sometimes try to eat their hair. :)

He was cute and I was glad to have had the experience of caring for him. He lived from about September 2003 to January 2006. I will miss him, but I'm glad he doesn't have to suffer anymore.

R.I.P. 3B

Amped 3 is fun...and weird / SLC2002

After receiving Amped 3 in the mail Friday, I finished it tonight (minus the Supreme Snow God achievement , which requires me to a get a gold medal on all challenges and is not something I'm planning on doing ;). I got a gold on the majority of challenges, but just like getting all platinum medals on Project Gotham Racing 3 is something which I might be able to accomplish given the time/practice and patience, but it's not worth it to me. I'm not as good as J. Allard, but I also don't get all the games for free. ;p Yeah, that just my way to say I'm jealous and I 'suck'. :)

I only rented this game and will probably only keep it a couple of days more (long enough to check out the co-op sled crashing games with my brother), but I'm ready to send it back now. I've played all of the Amped series so far and the first game was one of the games I was anticipating before the launch of the original Xbox. Back then, Indie Built/Access Software was a part of Microsoft Games Studios and it was quite a surprise when they were sold (along with several other sports properties) by Microsoft to Take 2. I was a little anxious about what would happen to my favorite "action sports" game series.

While it has changed, mainly in the controls and the fact that there is a 'story' now (which is actually quite funny in a kind of Adult Swim way and is full of old school game references). It's still Amped and is still fun and I enjoy it for everything that I did with the first 2 games, though I wish they could have improved the graphics a little more and kept (and even improved) the online mode.

The mountian resorts are huge (bigger seemingly than the others in the game, though there is a smaller selection). Snowbird is HUGE and really nice but, having been there in real-life, it feels great to actually "ride" it since I didn't get to ride while I was there. I was there enjoying the Red Bull Huck Fest one day in early 2002 during my month-long stay with my brother during the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. I never realized how big Snowbird was, but it seemed pretty cool what little I saw of it. I bought some stickers for my friends and I and had to leave shortly after the competition.

Brighton, a resort that was featured in the first Amped video game, has sadly not made a return to the sequels, and is definitely my favorite winter resort that I've been to. I don't know why I like it so much. I guess because I like the layout of the trails and how private some of the areas are and all the trees. Maybe, also because I became so familiar with it, as I got to spend every Saturday there while I was in Utah. I'm not an excellent snowboarder, by any means, and, living in Ohio, sadly there are not many chances to ride 'real' mountains (there is Mad River Mountain, but that's barely a hill ;).

When I was out in Utah, it was the first time I had ever really been on a real mountain, and before then, I'd never even learned how to carve (I could go down facing one side but, couldn't turn and go the other way, similar to Zoolander's fear of walking down the runway). Before having some friends, who worked at The Canyons, teach some basics, I went from not being able to go down a run without falling every single time to riding down double-blues (and even some single black) trails with confidence. Having been a proficient skateboarder, it definitely helped with my balance. It took me a couple of hours in a single day and from then on, I've been hooked and have taken every opportunity to get some slope time. I love it more than skateboarding now, since it doesn't hurt as much when you fall. :)

I guess I can't really tell you about me being in Utah for the Olympics and not give you a little bit of context as to my purpose for being there (and it wasn't just to snowboard :) as well as share a little tale relating to my time at Brighton and Amped. My little brother (his blog is in my links) had just gotten back from doing his DTS (see my earlier post for a link explaning what these are) in New Zealand (wish I could have gone :( ). Some of his instructors were also doing a related outreach through SFC, a related Christian organization, during the 2002 Winter Olympics and had invited him to come and help out. I went along, as well as one of Dan's (my little brother) friends from church.

I just had gotten my Xbox a few months before and was started to go into withdrawals after a couple of days and my kind mother, sent my Xbox, some games, and some Official Xbox Magazines in the mail. We rented Amped (I had played it before) and I shared it with the rest of the snowboarders there and they just loved it. It really was cool riding Brighton virtually while we were there.

On Saturdays, we went to Brighton to ride and hand out hot chocolate to people waiting in lift lines. On one of these visits, there was a competition at the terrain park and I met one of the developers of Amped (proudly proclaimed on the back of his jacket). I talked to him for a while and even got his autograph (he signed my lift ticket! :). He was there to watch the competition with his wife and kids and seemed amused that I was acting so star-struck. My brother got to talk to another of the Amped developers, who had previously worked at the famed AM2 development team at Sega, while sitting on a lift ride with him.

We had the pleasure of staying most of our time in Park City & Salt Lake City with ~30 people from all around the world. I helped out in the office making security passports/lanyards for people and making flyers/advertisements for competitions we were running in the Park City area. It was such a great experience and I met some great people there. I also took part in an event in Salt Lake City's history (other than the Olympics): the first time the local (Mormon) government had allowed Christian musicians performing on the streets downtown. There was a stipulation which we followed even if the crowd wanted to hear it: we couldn't "witness". That night, the last day of the Olympics, the crowd was overly rowdy and after the Budweiser Garden, which was right next to where we were set up, got shut down, the rowdiness turned into a full-blown riot. I honestly didn't even know there was one until hearing about it the next day.

I leave you with a joke name from Amped 3 for one of Indie Built's competitors, which is the evil mega-corporation in the game: "Colonitronics Arts, Inc." Let's see if you can figure that out. ;) I personally think it should have been "Colonictronic Arts, Inc." (would have been funnier).

Strange "Live"-fellows

In a relational entry to my last post, playing Gauntlet and Dead or Alive 4 last night, I made 4 new friends (2 being far apart geographically from each other and me, though maybe not so much, culturally, 2 very close to me geographically) on Xbox Live.

One from Mexico (this just being one small piece of info gleaned from his Gamercard). He didn't talk much (or at all) when playing and I wasn't sure if he had his mic on and could hear me, but after playing, I got a friend request and through a few voice messages between himself and I, I got to know him (just slightly) better. After, Gauntlet, we played some Smash TV, but he got disconnected. I'm looking forward to finishing the whole game online soon.

Another of my new friends I made last night, while playing Gauntlet, made an impression on me with his sense of humour and him stating that he had played Gauntlet when he was younger. I'd never played Gauntlet until downloading it in the Xbox 360 Live Arcade and was about to write off the game, but after playing online with some fun people, I've started to see a little of the appeal of it.

During the game, there was some unexplainable lag and the three of us made it through without much complaining and just enjoyed our game. Afterwards, I reviewed my recent players list and sent him a friend invite and noticed he resides in Canada (specifically British Columbia) and added a voice message in the invite stating that I had the pleasure of visting there about 2 years ago. He initiated a private chat soon after granting my request (on the Xbox 360, you can chat in up to 4 seperate "private chat" channels, though only 1 at a time, but you can being doing completely unrelated tasks while chatting).

For the next couple of hours (and probably longer than we should have), we chatted about miscellaneous topics and exchanged IM addresses (upon his request). I don't know if it was just me being tired, or my tendency to sometimes be unguarded online (though anyone who knows me personally knows that I am completely opposite in person), but our chat extended beyond just small talk and I directed him to my blog here. I felt a little vulnerable being that I was being this open to a complete stranger whom I had never known before that night and had never seen in person, but I think we got along pretty well and look forward to more gaming sessions with him.

Earlier in the night, also in Gauntlet, one of the persons I was gaming with and I started conversing about ourselves and it came up that he lived in Cincinnati which is very close to where I am. After a bit, he had to leave but not before sending me a friend request.

Even before the Gauntlet and SmashTV, I was hosting some Dead or Alive matches and one of the players I was fighting with (and having a good time losing to) asked where I happened to live and I mentioned Ohio. He then revealed that he lived in Middletown and I asked him if he'd heard of Huber Heights. It was pretty funny on that we lived so close, but what made it fun to play with him was his sense of humor and fighting skill despite the major lag preventing a "real" display of our abilites.

I had a lot of fun just in one night on Xbox Live and it makes me wonder why I sometimes shy away from playing online. I already have quite a large friends list, so I usually just play by myself unless I get an game invite, though with the improvements made to Xbox Live (in particular the "Zones"), it makes finding compatible people even easier.

Xbox Live Voyeurs (and Exhibitionists)

I think the Xbox Live functionality of the original Xbox is great, and has been much improved with the Xbox 360, with its "rich presence" (basically it says what you are up to, similar to any IM program, ie: away, on the phone, etc...).

Now instead of just being able to see what friends on your list are online, and what game they are playing, now it goes deeper. In certain games, the amount of info broadcasted about precisely what you are doing is somewhat surprising (and just a little scary). Not to be alarmed or anything, but it is funny to see exactly where in a level of Condemned someone on my friends list is, or what their score currently is on a particular type of game mode in Hexic.

Last night, I was able to see that J. Allard having only one achievement left to unlock in Madden (see my earlier post for more clarification on what these are), was playing Madden and, using my excellent brain, figured out that he was trying to get that last one (bringing his daunting Gamerscore up close to 8000). I sent him a text message wishing him luck in unlocking it and suggested him to finish Gun for more Gamerpoints to add to his total , and in closing, jokingly calling him a "(G) - whore" [(G)= Gamerscore]. A couple of hours later, after having gotten the achievement, he changed his motto to "30 Long Years-GSW" [GSW=GamerScore Whore]. It was almost like an inside joke reffering to my earlier message.

Now, along with all of the information being sent out in real-time, I can also see what game my friends are playing, how far they are in certain games (and how good they are as well), by checking out their Gamercard. Mine is on this very blog (try clicking on it!).

This brings me to another related topic about Xbox Live and human nature: with this much information being given out, it's easy to become fascinated with what everyone else in your clique is doing, what games they are buying, and how far they've gone in certain ones and in games that we both have, it can un-intentionaly become a competition just by comparing your scores and/or achievements. I think it brings out the human voyeuristic tendencies to 'obsessively observe sordid or sensational subjects'. Some people could take that further though, to the stalking stage. :)

Sometimes I wonder if my intense interest in what others are doing in their games is a little unhealthy (in the same unhealthy way that the media has an infatuation with celebrities' personal lives). I think it brings me closer to my friends (though I sadly am not all that "close" to any of my online friends), even though no direct contact has been made. This information serves a useful purpose, though, in determining which games my friends have and what games I might like to play and being to play online with them, so it is nice that it's there and that I can contact them whenever they are online (or offline through leaving a voice and/or text message) if I so desire. :)