Notice: If the video hangs at :51, then simply drag the scrubber to around :59. I don’t know how to really fix the issue.

This is just me solving a Megaminx puzzle. Some of you may recall that I posted a vid somewhere of one guy solving this type of puzzle in less than two minutes. I’m not up to that skill yet, but I’m happy to do this in under ten minutes.

No, that’s not your sound cutting out! I edited the sound out because the birds in the room were going nuts with the click-clacking of the layers as I was turning them. Also, the video is fuzzy in some spots. I don’t know what to say about it except that it may be a YouTube issue. I encoded the video using H264 QuickTime compression, so the original is very high quality but, unfortunately, I can’t embed it here.

Enjoy!

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!