Just me talking about life, work, my new haircut and the upcoming trip to Germany.

Notice! In the beginning of this, I said it’s March 25th instead of May 16th!! I don’t know what I was thinking, but I guess I need more coffee before I do these vids!

I just bought this game Thursday as I was leaving work. I had heard great things about it and I wanted to see if it was better than Super Mario Sunshine, which had left a sour taste in my gaming mouth.

Well, so far I’ve gone through about maybe 15% of the game and I have to say that SMG is really living up to the hype. First, the control scheme for the Wii is pleasantly intuitive (Warning: it requires the Wii nunchuck controller attachment!). Mario is very easy to control, even in an environment that makes your perspective go upside-down and sideways on a regular basis. It seems that Nintendo learned their lesson from the game camera perspective problems in Mario Sunshine. That was one of the reasons why I stopped playing Sunshine. Another thing that they seem to have omitted (so far!) is the crazy obstacle course levels that Sunshine had. Some of those weren’t bad, but others seemed so hard as to make you rely on pure luck (the Pachinko level, anyone? I went through tons of Mario lives trying to get through that one!). Galaxy is easy at first, but I can tell that isn’t going to last very long, seeing as I lost a few lives due to figuring out what to do on some of the later levels. The cinematics are a joy to behold! Visually, as well as in gameplay, this game is a real treat to dive into. Even the physics of the game, namely the gravity effects, are way cool.

I can’t wait to go through the rest of this game so that I can give a more in-depth review. Be on the lookout for this, and more, on The Esoterik Blog! Cheers!

Side Note: I’ll be posting some video of my gameplay on the Wii during various games. These will be separate posts from reviews or anything else, unless I deem it necessary.

Mufan96, a Twitter friend of mine, wrote an intriguing tweet some time ago. He was blogging about who rules his iTunes library, and asked others on Twitter just who rules their libraries. I gave him a couple of answers that day. Recently, I was listening to the iPod and I thought back to that very question. I started going through my iTunes library, jotting down which bands had the most musical real estate in my library. The results are not too unusual, but a little surprising at the end and I thought it would make a cool blog entry. Well, let me take you, dear reader, by the hand and dive into the musical maelstrom…

1) Def Leppard (84 tracks)
— Most played track: “Dont Believe A Word” from Yeah!
— Most played album: Retroactive
— First album in my life: Pyromania

2) Megadeth (75 tracks)
— Most played track: “Blackmail The Universe” from The System Has Failed
— Most played album: Youthanasia
— First album in my life: So Far, So Good… So What!

3) Rush (73 tracks)
— Most played track: “Dreamline” from Roll The Bones
— Most played album: Signals
— First album in my life: Moving Pictures

4) Dream Theater (72 tracks)
— Most played track: “Constant Motion” from Systematic Chaos
— Most played album: Systematic Chaos
— First album in my life: Images And Words

5) Queensrÿche (46 tracks)
— Most played track: “Suite Sister Mary” (Operation: LIVEcrime version)
— Most played album: Operation: LIVEcrime
— First album in my life: Operation: Mindcrime

As you can see, I just touched on the top five in my collection. The real surprise was the sixth band on the list: Rammstein! The reason this German band has 45 tracks in my library is mainly due to my wife’s influence on some of my tastes. Rammstein, while putting out some brutal music, is also just as talented as the above bands and has some very intriguing songs. The first album I got from them was Sehnsucht, but my favorite album from them is their Reise, Reise album, where I got to hear them grow musically in so many ways between the two CD’s.

I’d like to hear from my commenters! Who rules YOUR music libraries? Go ahead and tell me, no matter how different your taste is from my own. I value our differences and I may even be introduced to some new stuff (well, new for me) that I might take a liking to.

Cheers!

Remember when I said I was hungering for a new challenge? Well, I got it. I normally don’t like to do virtual puzzles like this; I like to have it physically in my hands. However, this was just too good to pass up. I’m used to solving a physical Megaminx in around ten or so minutes. This one, as you can see when you click the picture, is taking me quite longer to try and solve. It’s all one dodecahedal-type object; the left image is the “front” and the right is the “back”. The time in the pic reads 48 minutes, and I have all of the centers solved except for two. What’s left to do is match up the edge pieces and then solve it like a regular Megaminx.

The problem with this is time. Last night, between trying to get through this, talking to others in chat and making and eating dinner, I couldn’t solve it before I just got too tired. Today, I’m doing it, but I have to abandon the poor Gigaminx because I have a birthday celebration to go to (Happy birthday to Bill K., my dad-in-law!). I will solve this thing soon; it will just take some time. Unfortunately, you can’t save your progress… if it’s abandoned, you’ll have to start all over again!

If any of you out there want to try this challenge, head on over to this address: http://users.skynet.be/gelatinbrain/Applets/Magic%20Polyhedra/dodeca_f8.htm. Word of warning… please be prepared to set aside a few hours if you really think you can do it. Just hit the “Scramble” button and go crazygonutz with it. Make sure you also set aside some time for brain-rest breaks!

Rotsa ruck!

Thursday, I came home from work, happy that it was the end of my workweek, to find this gem sitting in my mailbox. As you can see from the pics in this post, there are fourteen triangular and vertex-shaped pieces that can be twisted around each other any number of ways. Each piece is tiled, not stickered like some other puzzles. It’s very well-made and feels very solid in weight, movement and construction. I ordered it at Mefferts.com for eighteen bucks; I think over half of that went towards the shipping cost!

Due to the nature of the shape and cuts of the pyramid, the tips don’t move (only rotate) and everything else revolves around the center vertexes. This means that , despite the cool design, it’s not at all hard to solve. The minimal difficulty notwithstanding, I’m still happy with it. I’ll have fun trying to unearth its small secrets, making patterns and endeavouring to bring my solve time down. Just to let you know how easy it is to solve, I took it out of the box, showed it to the wife, mixed it up, set it down for a few minutes… and then solved it a few minutes later! In terms of difficulty, it’s really like a glorified 2×2 cube, much as a Megaminx is little more than a glorified Rubik’s Cube.

Well, I’ll be looking around for more possibilities to add to the collection. I think I’m ready for two difficult puzzles. One is the Pyraminx Crystal, which is in the final drafting stages before production at Meffert’s puzzle shop. I can’t wait for this one to be available soon! The other is either going to be a 20 color Dogic VI puzzle or a 12 color Dogic I. Before I go further, I’ll answer Travis’ comment (on my last entry) with this: yes, I’m definitely interested in a Sudokucube! That one, you have to work out where all the numbers are going to go in advance before using a 3×3x3 solution. In fact, I’m thinking of buying replacement number stickersets to put on one of my spare cubes! But I digress… Anyways, I’m in sore need of a new challenge.

Cheers! (And I still hope someone mass-produces the Gigaminx puzzle!)