PSP Portal (It's Back!)

Portal is back up and my IP remained the same..

That means it should be working and there are no settings for anyone to change. Browse on!

PSP Portal Going Down *NOW*

Ok, I'm about to grab the modem and head to my new apartment where Comcast should be meeting me between 12 and 4 (don't you love that?). So, if all goes well, hopefully the portal will be back up in less than 5 hours.

Second, hopefully my IP stays the same, but I have a feeling it will not. If it does change, I will post information here and in the bar to the right. You will need to change the primary DNS to my new IP if a change occurs. So before you email me about not being able to connect, please wait until I post again with further information and instructions.

Thanks...see you shortly. :)

Important PSP Portal Information (Please Read)

I'll be moving over the next week, so there is going to be some downtime with the PSP web portal. Most likely, the IP address will also change. I'll post information on the status and address of the server over to the right when changes occur. Hopefully I will be able to keep the address, as I am keeping the same modem, but I don't know exactly how Comcast's network assigns addresses, so it may change. Please keep your eyes on this page and over to the right for updated info. Hopefully downtime will be kept to a small part of Monday afternoon (EST).

Pass this info on to anyone you know who doesn't check this page. Thanks!

Note: If you have changed the DNS address on your router to my IP, and have not put in a secondary DNS IP that is not mine, when my computer is turned off, you will be unable to resolve hostnames. Please make sure you have set a secondary DNS on your router that is not my IP, but is something give to you by your ISP.

E3 Pictures

Put together a gallery of my pictures I took before/during/after E3. Check them out here.

E3 DS Impressions

Someone over at Gaming-Age Forums asked for some DS impressions from E3, so I wrote some up real quick-like. I figured I'd post them here as they ended up being pretty verbose. Enjoy..

"I think Nintendo hit the nail on the head with their statement about "All-Access Gaming" at their press-conferene. That's exactly what Nintendo DS delivers at this year's E3. Whether it's Nintendogs, Mario Kart, Metroid Prime: Hunters -- there's something for every type of gamer. That being said, some quick impressions:

Mario Kart DS -- Awesome. I had a chance to race a few tracks and not only does it look great, but it plays great too. It feels like a mix of the SNES MK and the N64 MK. Control was tight and hopping is back (no more blue-sparks). Multi was awesome. I played against 7 others and it was great. Online suposedly will only support 4 players at a time, but that's fine with me.

Nintendogs -- Cute. Everything about this game is cute and fun. You only got to play for 5 minutes, but the 5 minutes I did play was real fun. I could really test the voice commands too well, because it was so loud, but throwing the frisbee, watching the dogs play with each other, etc...was really cool. Definitely picking this up.

Animal Crossing DS -- Had some fun with this one. Pretty much what I expected. I'm interested to see how online play works. How can you live in a town with 2 people online, then play the game offline and have things sync up? Do the other 2 always have to play with you for it to work correctly? Kind of interested here, but couldn't get an answer out of anyone..

Meteos -- Again, another DS game that totally met and exceeded expectations. Very addicting and very deep gameplay. The more and more I played (kept my DS in sleep mode and played back at my hotel), the more and more I liked the game. It's like Lumines in that you start off and think it's pretty simple and you just suck...but as you go on, you pickup the tiny details that help you go to the next level. Very satisfying and fast-paced.

Sonic Rush -- Wow. This totally came out of left-field. A sonic game...that's good!? Unheard of since the early 90's! The mix of 2D and 3D in this game as well as the new "Dash" ability really made this game fun. The use of the two screens was also done really well and feels totally right for a Sonic game. This is now one of my most anticipated DS games. I mean, I *died* twice during the boss fight -- it was challenging and fun, something Sonic hasn't seen in a long-time.

New Super Mario Bros -- Finally, a new 2D mario. While the stages you could play were pretty bare and obviously put together for E3 or testing purposes, the sheer idea of a new 2D mario adventure is orgasm-inducing. Of note is the co-op play which is like four swords in that you need to work together, yet at the same time it appears you might compete to complete the level first or to collect the most coins, etc. A lot could be done here, and I really hope it gets pulled off well and ends up being online playable."

E3 Report!

Sorry I haven't been back sooner...the FF concert was great and so is E3! I'll have pics when I get home or get bored (not likely). Here's some quick impressions from me:

My Favorites --

Playable Game: Zelda
Non-Playable Game: Gears of War
Tech Demo: Sonic Next-Gen

Favorite by System --

Gamecube: Zelda
PS2: Okami (no ps2 exclusive stuff that's impressed me)
Xbox: Burnout Revenge
DS: Mario Kart (Holy shit it's awesome)
GBA: Fire Emblem
PSP: Namco Museum (PSP showing is sad...save this and Burnout)

Wanda and the Colossus seems "meh" to me. After playing Zelda it didn't really excite me. I know it's still in development, but the frame-rate seemed a bit low as well (I'm not one of those 60fps people, I mean below 30). Maybe the story will save this one.

Nintendo's booth is very strong. The DS has so much software on display. This year is going to be *great* for DS owners in America. The gamecube offering is also pretty damn good. There's, of course, Zelda...but also Odama (which now uses voice control), Super Mario Strikers (Awesome and fun soccer game), and Batallion Wars (great RTS/Action game mix).

Okami is a great game as well. I played for a good half-hour and wanted more. This game is going to rock. The visual style and gameplay is just plain awesome. However, The game does have a lot of interruption from the little fairy or whatever is with you (ala Navi in Ocarina of Time), but hopefully that is just for these beginning levels and not a long-term thing.

I'll post more impressions as I have time. Winner so far? Nintendo or Microsoft...Sony booth is just plain uninteresting.

It begins.

In four hours I will depart for the airport en-route to Los Angeles and the 2005 Electronic Entertainment Expo. I'll be covering the event for a local outlet as well as the upstart tech site Omniquiti. Tonight (Monday), I'll also be attending the Final Fantasy: More Friends concert at the Gibson Amphitheater. I'm in the eighth row or so, so I anticipate a close-up engagement with Uematsu and his little band called The Black Mages.

I'll be back throughout the week mostly with impressions -- telling you the things that both impressed and depressed me. I'll also probably put up a mini-review of the More Friends concert tomorrow evening; maybe some pics if I get lucky. It depends on whether or not I hit up the Nintendo sponsored Gaming-Age Forum meet-up taking place after the concert.

Oh, I also graduated today. I am now the proud owner of two degrees from Carnegie Mellon University. I'll post a pic of myself dual-wielding them as soon as I get around to importing the pictures from today.

iTunes 4.8

iTunes 4.8 is out for those who care..

It now does video playback and has strings in the executable such as "HasVideo" and "Purchased Video"...iVideos, anyone?

The Ninth Circle of Hell

I just had a root canal.

As you can see, Dante recognized the extreme pain involved with having nerves, veins, lymph vessels, and connective tissue filed away from the inside out. Second to Lucifer only due to the fact that a root canal feels like a spawn of Satan coming alive within your tooth, and not the Horned One, Himself.

For those not "in the know," I'm going to explain what actually happens during a root canal.

Diagnosis
Whether or not you need a root canal is determined by testing teeth in your mouth for sensitivity to extreme heat. The dentist will take a gel of some type, which you see smoking as it heads for your mouth, and place it in one tooth at a time. Regardless of whether you have a tooth problem, this will hurt. The dentist is interested in whether or not it continues hurting for many seconds after application. When the gel was placed on the tooth I was having an issue with, it felt like a small ember from a roaring fire was place in my mouth -- a root canal was in order.

Treatment

Step 1
Numb the area with Novocain. This is a must. No one can bear this pain alone.

Step 2
Drill holes in the top of the tooth to get access to the coveted pulp chamber.

Step 3
Directly inject Novocain into each canal in the tooth. Imagine someone stick a needle in your eye, then double this. Oh, by the way, in my case, there were three canals that needed "treatment."

Step 4
For each canal inside the tooth, "clean" it out. "Clean" is in quotes here because by "clean" I mean "drill each canal for 10 minutes with drill bits of increasing diameter."

Step 5
Pins are then stuck all the way into each canal and x-rays are taken. Do not accidentally close your mouth too far here because the nurse never told you the pins extended a centimeter above the tooth line, as you will send the pins even deeper -- awesome.

Step 6
Once "clean" your canals are then forcefully stuffed full of rubber cement.

Step 7
Finally, a filling is inserted to fill the original holes on the top of the tooth. A crown or cap may be necessary at this point (in my case, I will be getting a crown 2 weeks from now.

Step 8
Rinse out, be told how great of a job you did, then pay the secretary $1375 for the excellent service of a root canal.

Ya, that was pretty sarcastic. If this fixes my tooth, though, the pain will have been worth it. I haven't been able to chew food or put liquid on the bottom right of my mouth for months.

The most frustrating thing about all this is that all the tissue inside a tooth is not necessary at all once a tooth has erupted from the gum. So why, then, does our body insist on not killing it off? Disconnecting the nerve seems like a highly intelligent thing to do. The only purpose served by the tissue in a tooth is to sense hot and cold...which no one ever likes to feel in their teeth. Dentists agree that whether or not one has tissue in a tooth is purely academic.

In other news, I'm officially done with classes and finals for my undergraduate career. This Sunday, I will be graduating with a B.S. in Logic and Computation and a B.A. in Philosophy. Go me!

Google.com

In case you didn't notice, something weird is going on with google.com. Looks like their DNS servers got hacked or something, as it's redirecting to some random search site called SOGO. I think this is the first time google has ever really been "down."

Note: You can still reach it if you access it directly via IP.

New Car

As I mentioned earlier, my car broke down a few weeks ago and so I had to buy another one. I ended up with a 2005 Honda Civic LX. I lucked out in that my parents covered the down payment as a graduation present, so all I am responsible for is the month-to-month costs. That being said, it's still $165/mo. I need to come up with that I didn't have to before.

Anyways, it's a great car. It has great pickup and is pretty comfortable. The sound system is also pretty nice. Speaking of which, I installed a $40 converter box that plugs into the CD-Changer port on the back of the in-dash stereo that allows me to plug my iPod in. As you can see, the only visible part is the cord sneaking out from behind the center console and, of course, the iPod itself. I'm looking at different power-adaptors now that also would allow me to use the dock connector to get a true line-out signal from the ipod. That being said, the sound now is amazing...I can't imagine it getting any better.

Pics:

Civic!

The 'pod

Sneaky cord.

+1GB

With my recent upgrade to Tiger (10.4) I decided to grab myself some more RAM for my Power Mac. It looks like Tiger tends to use a bit more RAM as a whole due to dashboard, which I'd like to use. Using Panther (10.3), I usually had about 30-40MB free at any given time, but with dashboard using up something like 150MB with 8-9 widgets open, I've been pushed over the 1GB limit of physical RAM I had before. Thus I was experiencing quite a bit of page-outs and HD access. So to remedy this I got myself 2x512MB for a total of 2GB now in my machine. Things are quite a bit snappier so far, so I'm happy.

The next upgrade will probably be a 36 or 74GB 10,000 RPM Raptor HD from Western Digital. I can't really afford it right now though, so it shall have to wait. I managed to pick up the memory because of donations from the PSP portal -- thanks to those who have donated, I appreciate it.