Halo: A Tribute

The Halo series is, in my opinion, the best video game series ever.

It’s an epic journey through a brutal war fought to literally save humanity.  Throughout the main storyline, you play as “Master Chief” – an ironically quiet, humble, subdued character that shoulders the heaviest of burdens.  He is one of few remaining super-soldiers called “Spartans” and is genetically enhanced for combat.  I guess I really don’t want to go too far into the storyline or details of the Halo series – but feel free to read a brief summary on wikipedia if interested.

So what makes the Halo series so great?  Well, There are different aspects in different games – and they culminate together to form something that I find to be profound.  I’ll break down some of my opinions before breaking down what I like most in each of the three main games.

The Master Chief
The hero you play is the single most powerful part in the series.  He hardly ever speaks, but his actions speak volumes.  Fighting until any bitter end, this faceless and nearly voiceless character is a perfect personification of a video game hero…  I think the Bungie designers deserve a fair amount of credit here because the player subconsciously projects themselves fully into this character.  It’s impossible to play through the Halo games and not picture yourself behind the helmet.  I think the fact that you never see the face of Master Chief makes it easier for the player to put themselves in his place.  Even his mirrored visor plays a role, it reflects what he sees allowing the player to unknowingly be put just that little bit more into the character.

A fearless guardian that does whatever it takes, Master Chief’s quiet confidence sets the tone for the entire story…

The Music
Maybe a slighter role in the quality of the series to most people is actually quite strong for me.  The majority of the music the Halo games is original composition via Martin O’donnell and Michael Salvatori.  Their unique style fits perfectly alongside the in-game action, and adds an impossibly perfect touch to the cut-scenes and pre-realease teasers and trailers.  Some of my favorite examples are the Halo 3 E3 Trailer, and the Return to Sender cut-scene.  But, even aside from the impressive original works; there are artists contributions that have had perfect fits within the series.  Specifically here I’m referring to this part in Halo 2 where an instrumental version of “Blow me Away” by Breaking Benjamin plays…

The music is just awesome, plain and simple.  It adds a whole dimension on the game, making it feel as though you’re playing through an amazing action movie.  It couldn’t have possibly been done any better.

The Plot/Story
As I said, I don’t want to simply re-tell the entire story of the Halo series…  But it’s important to address what it adds to the mix.  For me, I relate hugely to this type of storyline.  It’s similar in a way to the Matrix trilogy, or the Harry Potter series.  In the Matrix movies, Neo comes to know that his destiny is literally fight for the survival of the human race.  It is only he that can do it, and it is something he faces without fear no matter the outcome.  The subsequent final battle depicts Neo sprinting full speed toward his fate

Many people may laugh at the mention of Harry Potter here, but it’s honestly a genuine comparison.  Harry has to face the same sort of fight, and once again it’s only him that can do it.  “Neither can live while the other survives” – I still remember that quote from the book, and it is just profound.  My point being – a single person fighting against almost unbeatable odds.

The Halo series has a similar element, where the Master Chief willingly faces fate no matter what the outcome.  Not only to face it, but to run full speed directly at it. I’m not exactly sure why, but that sort of notion really appeals to me.  The fight or flight, the will to act, the choice to keep fighting.  These few examples I believe accurately illustrate what I’m trying to get across.

Finally, the Gameplay
The first Halo game was ground-breaking.  The main launch title that defined the Xbox as a console.  There really isn’t anything much more to say about this first game in the series, other than that it set the bar.  And, also, this warthog jumping that the Vanbergs, Vanlandw and I tried to re-create back when I lived in Ramblewood will always be a part of me.

Halo 2 increased the intensity, pushed the bar further, and all the while brought on a ton of criticism for its introduction of the Arbiter.

Halo 2′s battle against the scarab is possibly my favorite part in any video game.  The music fits it perfectly (once again, a perfect example of the music making the experience).  The first time you leap onto the massive scarab  from a bridge above is really without rival as a standalone moment of gaming excellence.

Halo 2 also honed in the multiplayer capabilities to new levels, and really this was the first case I could recall where the multiplayer was almost more sought-after than the single player campaign.  I personally didn’t get into the multiplayer until later, and I wasn’t all that great at it anyway so my loyalties continued to be with the single player storyline mode.

Most people’s primary complaint as mentioned earlier was the fact that Halo 2 had you play as the Arbiter for several levels.  You get to try out cloaking, the plasma sword, etc.  But, many people didn’t approve of surrendering control of Master Chief.  I didn’t mind playing as Arbiter, but definitely I did not love how Halo 2 ended…

Halo 3 brought the same level of multiplayer gameplay, but made use of the better graphics hardware of the Xbox 360 console.  The campaign was maybe a tad short by some accounts – but the plot and storyline out was enough to get me over Halo 2.  Again, some people did not enjoy the plot of the game – but really the expectations had been set so high that it is almost impossible to meet them.  I liked the storyline, and I thought the ending was fitting for the conclusion of this particular trilogy.

ODST and Reach, while still being Halo games, don’t really count in my opinion.  They are parallel storylines that center around characters other than the Master Chief.  I think that’s fine, and I have and will play these games – but for me the meat of the series are the three primary games where you play as Master Chief.

In summary…
Obviously I’ve got Halo on the mind because of the Halo Reach beta.  I’ve been able to balance a solid 3-4 hours of this beta into my life so far, and the multiplayer is amazingly fun.  FINALLY I can run in a Halo game using the scout class.  I could use a little more practice though, as my .70 ish kill/death ratio will attest.

I hope the fun continues as Halo Reach is released, and I’ll be sad to see Bungie’s final Halo game come to fruition.  It’s pretty amazing to look back on these games that I played in different phases of my life – hopefully another video game series comes along that can come close to meeting this level for me.  But if you ask me – I don’t think it’s going to happen.

Grand Theft Auto 4 – Mission Complete Ringtones

Back when I was playing through Grand Theft Auto IV, Vanlandw and I were trying very hard to find the sound samples used when the player successfully completed a mission…

For those that may not know what I’m talking about:  Depending which mission you were playing in GTA 4, one of three various sound samples would play upon successful completion – and they were all very catchy, cool sounding clips.  Mainly, our thought was that they would make great ring tones on a mobile phone.

After I had long since given up, Vanlandw did actually manage to find and make one of the sounds into an mp3 ringtone – for which I give him immense credit.  I’ve used that very ring tone off and on as my ringer for some time.   Today, I came across a youtube vid that sampled all of the various mission complete sounds (even 2 additional “sad” mission ending sounds that I didn’t think about).  The sampling on the two “sad” clips is kinda shaky – you can hear traffic and footsteps from the game, so I elected not to use those.  But, I decided to use some rip/dub/export awesomeness to get the audio into a usable mp3 format and create a ringer for each different sound clip.   Check them out below, or just click on the “Files” tab up above and find them under Ringtones.

• GTA4 – Mission Complete tone 1
• GTA4 – Mission Complete tone 1 (double ring)
• GTA4 – Mission Complete tone 2
• GTA4 – Mission Complete tone 3

#1 is my fav, I think…

****Update****
Noticed these ring-tones were very quiet when played on a cell phone – So I’ve uploaded amplified versions – as well as a double ring version of the 1st tone.

YEAH

LoRD Brb

Well, it was fun while it lasted everyone…

Setting up everyone’s favorite BBS game to give us all a blast from the past and a taste of the good ol’ days was certainly a worthy experience. But, with lowered attendance, lack of interests, and everyone just generally being too busy, I have made the decision to decommission LoRD.

Thanks to everyone who joined in and signed up – it really was a great time while we were all playing. Highlights for me include the utter espionage engagement with Vanlandw, various fights against rival Jjafuller, and being one of only 3 people to slay the beast and complete the game.

In summary, I offer a bullet point listing of things taken away from this experience:

• Vanlandw is a noob.
• Nobody cares about your singing, Seth Able
• Violet is promiscuous
• Death Knights pwn noobs
• People should just “not gone into the forest” in the first place

A Van’s Search

I used Google’s new search story video creator today to create a semi-comical little test video. It was kinda fun to use and to see the results; which it then allows you to publish on youtube if you want. Clearly I did, and my results are below.

Get Bent Apple

I would say most “techies” these days are privy to subscribing to RSS feeds using their favorite aggregator of choice (read: Google Reader).

Therefore it is impossible to miss the outright flood of Apple/iPad/iPhone OS/etc/etc/etc news that continuously pours in from every single feed I subscribe to. It’s to the point that it is just effing ridiculous and it’s totally out of hand. I simply do not understand why everyone cares so much about Apple products and why they get the media attention that they do.  I’m definitely not alone in this, as some media outlets actually offer an “Apple Free” feed option.

Let’s just run down this all star tech item called the iPad:  With the starting price of $500, you get an AMAZING 16 GB of storage, you get no USB ports, no media card slots, no camera, overpriced apps, no flash support, and proven Wi-Fi issues.  I see nothing to tell me that it’s not just a gigantic iPod.

Any other netbook or tablet device will give you more functionality for your money.  Call me crazy, but I think a built in camera is simply an absolute must for any netbook or tablet device…  But, people won’t line up for hours on end to buy a netbook or tablet with a camera.   The “Apple hardware is better” argument doesn’t fly with me here, especially given the early Wi-Fi issues the iPad is experiencing.  I know a lot of people that have owned various netbooks for various lengths of time and have never heard of any of them having any hardware issues.  At some point, all hardware devices could and will have issues on some scale, and they will do so at random times…  Apple is not in a special boat; and in fact they lag behind more then half of their competition.

Yet, with all this in mind the iPad still owns the news across the board, and it just makes no sense to me whatsoever.  Somehow, Apple has managed to be one of the most closed/communist companies on the planet and still manage to get the majority of people to eat candy right out of their hands.  “Oh, the iPad doesn’t support flash… That’s ok… Every major company will just re-design an iPad specific homepages to function on this awesome device!!“  Seriously???  How and why is that even a possible scenario?  Apple should be conforming to existing standards (even if flash sucks).  In no possible universe should the internet be forced re-tool and comply with a device.  It’s asinine, plain and simple.

Just imagine the backlash if Microsoft’s Internet explorer or Mozilla’s Firefox did not support flash.  I would wager that the browser would be in ruins instantly.  Keep the thought going – just imagine if Microsoft had to pre-approve ANY application that you installed on a Windows 7 netbook, tablet, or Windows mobile phone…  Nobody on the Earth would stand for that level of censorship from the evil empire of Microsoft, yet when Apple does it, everyone just seems to accept it willingly.  There have been numerous documented cases of fair and usable apps that Apple rejects or pulls with varying degrees of vague reasoning, and it really pisses me off that they can get away with that.  I give props to the hackers and modders that give the world the option to jailbreak their Apple products, freeing them to install the apps they want.

In the end, all I can really do is hope that some day soon Apple’s antics will catch up with them and they’ll ride their wave of undeserved success right back down to ground level…

Unfortunately though I don’t think it will be anytime soon – The media flocks to Apple once again today while they announce and show off the iPhone/iPod OS 4.0.  Wow, an effing software update…  One that you’ll probably have to pay for no less.  Microsoft, please hold a massive media event when Windows 7 SP1 comes out!!  Or, better yet… at your next patch Tuesday even.  Oh, wait – nobody would go to THAT.

In summary: Get bent, Apple.  You continue to charge too much for your products while your earnings seem to reach record highs.  I consider it literally no different from $4/gallon gas prices while ExxonMobil reported record breaking earnings (except for the fact that the public got angry when that happened.. Oddly).  You gouge your faithful fan-base of their hard earned money on the premise that you’re simply better than everyone else.  The majority of media and public seems to think you are as well…  But, I promise you, you’re not.

Better Twitter Integration

I both love and hate the Twitter-Tools plugin for WordPress.

On one hand; I really like how it can integrate Twitter into my blog via both sidebar widget and weekly Twitter digest posts… But, on the other hand, I was really starting to feel like these digest posts were cluttering up both my blog and my archives. Several times recently I have found myself scrolling back through way too many Twitter digest posts in order to get at my ACTUAL blog posts and content that I had written. Basically, I came to the conclusion that “I didn’t like this” and I had to modify how Twitter integrated with my Blog.

Today I’ve taken the steps necessary to achieve what I believe is the best of both worlds. I now have weekly Twitter digest post created as usual; but they do not display in my main blog page or in my archives page — AND you have to specifically navigate to a “Twitter” page in order to see them at all.

This was actually a little more challenging for me than I’d like to admit – but I’ll go through the steps below:

First: Exclude the Category
To block out my Twitter category from displaying on my blog and archives, I added the following function to the functions.php file within my theme directory. The “-28″ below refers to the corresponding category ID for the Twitter category. This code made it so all posts within the “Twitter” category are ignored in both my blog page and my archives.

function exclude_category($query){
if ($query->is_home) {
$query->set('cat', '-28');
}
return $query;
}
add_filter('pre_get_posts', 'exclude_category');

Second: Make the Category “Navigateable” from the Main Page
The more challenging part for me was figuring out an “easy” way to navigate to these Twitter digest posts. It sounded like a fairly easy thing to do; but I had a surprisingly difficult time with it.

I experimented with some .htacces redirection, and also some plugins that claimed to do exactly what I wanted (but, sucked). In the end; I chose to just modify my theme’s main loop logic and save it as a new page template. I copied the the text from my theme’s index.php file, and and pasted it into my a file called “twitter.php” which I saved as a new page template. I then replaced the following code:

if (have_posts()) :
while (have_posts()) : the_post();

With this code:
$recent = new WP_Query();
$recent->query('cat=28');
if ($recent->have_posts()) :
while($recent->have_posts()) : $recent->the_post();

This actually worked fairly well, and in retrospect is very easy – it just took me quite awhile to arrive at this solution! The final step here was then to add a page called “Twitter” via the administration panel; and simply change the page to use this Twitter.php template instead of the default page template.

Voila, a Twitter page that you can navigate to which displays all the weekly digest Twitter posts created automatically by the Twitter Tools plugin.

**** UPDATE ****
Vanlandw had a great recommendation about excluding these Twitter digest posts from my RSS feeds as well. That was very simple to do… My exclude function in the functions.php file in my theme directory now reads as such:
function exclude_category($query){
if ($query->is_home || $query->is_feed) {
$query->set('cat', '-28');
}
return $query;
}

And, now the Twitter digest posts are excluded from my RSS feed as well! WordPress and PHP are both awesome.

The Death of 24

As I previously posted; I have been very unhappy with this season of 24.  More so than in any other previous season, and with greater and greater intensity.

I had decided about 5 episodes in that I was giving myself half of the season; and if 24 did not improve or show signs of turn-around, then I was going to cease watching it forever. (as Vanlandw has stated; I have said this before – sometimes it’s been an idle threat.  But, I did not and will not ever finish watching Season 6).  Well, episode 12 came and went; and all I got was more and more angry at how ridiculous the show has become.   So, while episode 13 was airing last week, I played my new Nintendo Wii.   While episode 14 was airing yesterday, I was watching “Religulous”.  Let me tell you, it feels SO good to disconnect from this show.  I have jumped ship and I will never ever make any effort to swim back.

I can’t help but feel a little bit of sadness here, but the more I think about it -  the more my sadness becomes anger.  24 was a truly ground-breaking series and was undeniably top notch television in it’s prime.  There are few other television programs that can rival 24 in it’s golden years – but the simple fact is that Fox just utterly destroyed this program.  It changed from a gritty drama to a laughable ratings-whore composed of LITERALLY trash.  Well, Fox, the public noticed…  You managed to alienate and infuriate the most loyal fan-base of all time;  Even they can only keep their hopes and dreams up for so long, and Season 8 has proven to be the last straw.  The ratings have dropped, the quality has continued it’s downward tailspin, meanwhile the only thing that has gone up has been the show’s production budget.   Finally; arguably 3 years too late, Fox has decided to put 24 out of it’s misery and cancel it.

So, what went wrong?  What happend?  Why did 24 limp into mediocrity?  Let’s run a comparative; Looking at a semi-similar series: “The Shield” on FX.

The Shield is also a gritty drama.  The Shield has a similar “bad ass” main character – Vic Mackey.  And, it has similar struggles of that main character as their job and life effect their friendships and families.  Yes, the settings and plots are sometimes very different – but 24 could have learned alot from how The Shield bowed out.  The most important thing:  The writers of The Shield never changed the heart of their show.  They never changed plots to try and cater to the masses.  In fact, they gave us scenes that we didn’t even want to see (Lem).  They gave us a final two seasons that were literally gut-wrenching, made me feel sick to watch at times, and genuinely brought me to tears.  It was utter downfall…

But, it was a most epic and decisive series finale as can possibly be had.

24, your death is brought not by skilled and emotional content like The Shield; but rather by your own greed and lust for your success.  The higher your ratings went, the further and more over the top you felt you needed to push the show.  It didn’t take long for you to push too far, to the point where it became a cheesy satire of it’s former self.  You searched for meaning in more/larger explosions, exploitations of your main character, and trying to find the charm you once had.  You killed off the characters that everyone liked while keeping around all the characters that everyone hates.  You bring in new characters to fill in the same old roles.   You put a mask on recycled plot lines hoping nobody will notice, while you combine them and cram more of them in each season.  Well, you did it – and you failed.

You straight up blew it.

You’re on your death bed and I’m not coming to visit you.  I don’t want to see you this way, and I have no desire to see how you meet your end.  I don’t owe you ANYTHING.  You un-deniably suck.  You managed to turn away your best friends at the most critical part of your life, and as far as I’m concerned you can fall into oblivion alone; reaping exactly what you have sown.

Good riddance; gtfo

Diving in to P90X

The Backstory…
As an attempt at motivation, my wife wagered that if I could lose half of the amount of weight that she gains during pregnancy; then I can pick out and purchase a television of my choosing. So, that started me down the path of getting unbelievably motivated to lose some weight, and eat healthier…

I started a basic calorie cut in February. I ate grain cereals, more fruits/veggies, and overall just cut down on portions. I stopped drinking soda comletely, I started drinking water, and I went from 254.2 pounds down to 242.2 in roughly 1 month. But, my completely sedentary lifestyle seemed to only want to let go of 12 pounds of it’s “backup” – so it was time to find some exercise to keep this going.

The problem with that is: I hate exercise. Plain and simple. I hate running, walking, biking, jogging, etc etc etc etc. Really it boils down to the fact that I enjoy physically moving as little as possible.

With my stubborn and compulsive nature, the P90X program did seem like a perfect fit. I have a coworker who shed 40 pounds with the program, and one of my cousins has seen results very early on as well. I read some reviews and researched online a pretty fair amount; and it all seemed to only confirm that P90X really does work… There’s no BS to it, it’s just freaking hard core working out to get results. And the thing is, I could actually see myself pushing through a hard 90 days to get those fast results. In fact, I’d much rather do that than to go running 3 times a week. I literally hate running so much that I’d rather do 6 hours plus of working out than to go running one time.

The Beginning…
A good friend loaned me their copy of P90X so I could try it out. It gives you a full diet plan, a lot of information, and a set of DVDs containing the workouts. I used the information to do a little prep-work, create a spreadsheet to track my progress, plan my eating habits, and get some groceries.

With the pre-flight check taken care of, I started P90X on 3/14/2010.

I am so out of shape it is really pretty sad. During my first workout, my body responded with creaking, popping, and snapping sounds as I used muscles that rarely even think about flexing. I had to make sure to start slow, pace myself, and ease into P90X because it really is an intense workout. It’s designed to take already fit people that last mile and really change their bodies. So, I have to modify the techniques on many exercises (girl pushups, lower weights, fewer reps) in order to even do them. But, I am doing them…

I honestly haven’t done any exercise like this in probably 10 years. I went through phases of biking, treadmilling, and even trying jump rope – but those were all short lived phases that did little more than elevate my heart rate temporarily and make me angry.

Now 3 days into P90X, my entire body is stiff and sore – so I’m positive that it’s working. I’ve made it into a routine to start my day waking up at 5 am, pound out the P90X workout (1-1.5 hours), and then eat an egg-white omelet with fruit and whole grain toast for breakfast. Oddly enough it has been a very simple routine for me to adopt.

The Story Thus Far
As I’m sure my good friend will want their own set back, I’m definitely going to order my own set of P90X and make sure to stick to this program. With the amount of work it is, I just can’t imagine it not making significant change to my person very quickly.

Even being only 3 days in, I can feel the changes. I can tell my metabolism is jump started working out in the morning, so I use that and capitalize on it by eating better. I also haven’t drank any coffee since starting because I feel more energetic throughout the day. My weight hasn’t gone down at all yet; but it has stayed exactly the same vs a daily up/down fluctuation that I was dealing with. I think that is a good sign that I’m eating steadily vs the feast or famine mentality.

I fully expect that this first week is all about my body adjusting to this new and heavy workload…
I’m definitely keeping it up, tracking my progress, and looking forward to seeing some results.

BRING IT