Something Catchy

Here I am reading different blogs that I tend to frequent and it got me thinking.  Okay so everyone knows that the economy is all kinds of screwed and albeit it scary I think it is also a time for great opportunity.  There have been a lot of people who have made millions during an economic down turn.  I think the real problem lays in first people don’t seem to have faith in themselves let alone the market.  The market will be fine, no worries, will it take some time?  I am sure that it will take time to bounce back, but it’s nothing to be afraid of.  Too many people are stuck in the old way of thinking, you land that good job and work your 40+ hours a week and get your benefits (or not) but you have that security.  So you sell yourself for security, that’s great until they find someone that can do the same job for less.  When it comes to the vast majority of businesses it comes down to the bottom line, money.  Are you costing them too much and not allowing them to grow their capital?  If you answered yes, then you should probably get your resume in order because you won’t have a job for long.

I am in sort of a unique situation,  I am young and for the most part pretty sharp (well I like to think so), oh also a fast learner.  My problem however doesn’t lie in being afraid of loosing my job.  Quite frankly I couldn’t care less.  I don’t want anyone to think that I have no responsibilities and that’s the reason for my total disregard, I have debt, in fact a fair amount, not a ton but some thousands.  It’s no bigs though I mean if I lost my job it would give me the motivation to finally work on the projects that I need to work on.  I am tired of having crappy schedules and being an economic slave.  I want to live the life I want to live.  Perhaps I am just a dreamer, I have been my whole life I suppose.  While in school I would always stare out the window and watch cars driving by and wonder where they are going and wishing I wasn’t stuck in that room (whatever room it may have been).  I also planned on being a rock star, well actually that’s a little misleading.  I didn’t want to be a star in the sense of Bon Jovi or something, but more known in the indie circuits, you have to realize I was listening to The Get up Kids and Saves the Day and the like religiously.  So I just wanted to play, to be honest I still do, but I like to think of myself as being a little more grounded now than I was then.  So back to what I was saying, I think I just want that jolt of reality that makes me move.  I can always get a part time job to pay the bills, and perhaps I have lived too well, maybe I should cut some things out of my life, I would rather not but maybe it’s what I need.

I don’t know if it is just me or what, but I think right now is rather exciting albeit scary.  It’s the journey that’s important not the destination.  So with that in mind I think this could be a blast, here is an experience that I wont get later, so time to take full advantage.  To those who lost their job though, it sucks and I am sorry, but perhaps it is for a reason.  I like to think there is meaning to everything even the small and mundane, but it’s all important.  So if you have your health be thankful for that, if you have your friends and family be thankful for that.  Look to what you do have to give you strength for what you know must be done, well at least in my case.  Don’t let this whole economy in the crapper get you down, tomorrow is a new day full of endless possibilities.

-mikey

Today I downloaded the Fear 2 demo.  As a huge fan of the first installment you might think me a little biased.  However I am not blind to the games imperfections. First off the game looks incredible, the environments are rich and the character models are fairly realistic albeit bulky.  The gore is extremely impressive, for example if you shoot someone in the stomach with a sniper rifle they split in half with a blood bath to follow. The Fear series is known for scares and this one doesn’t disappoint.  I found in the demo a barrage of scares, which usually diminishes the scare value however this time around it didn’t.  The demo is about 10 minutes long give or take and I jumped about 3 times, which is a rarity.  Also there appears to be some new weapons and some new effects. One pretty cool effect is being able to shoot out books on a book shelf, however under further investigation you could shoot out all the rows except the top row which was static.  It would have been nice to see all the rows able to break away.  Also I tried shooting out several lights which had a cool flicker effect, but after some time would come back on to full brightness.  That’s just two of the things I noticed that I wasn’t to keen on and I am sure there will be more.  I know its a little knit picky, but stuff like that you shouldn’t notice and I did which was a little disappointing.  Overall though the game looks like it will be pretty solid when it ships 2/10/09.

-mikey

So the Xbox 360 just got some more functionality with the new dashboard.  The big addition that I have been waiting for and probably everyone else who has a 360 is the announcement that if you have a netflix account you can now watch streaming content on your xbox.  So I have been using the new feature for most of the day roughly 4 hours or so to play with the new dashboard and the new features.  I am going to talk about some of the additions and then jump right into the main event, netflix.

The first thing you are likely to see after the epic intro video, is the addition of avatars.  Now the avatars are pretty cool and I preferred making my avatar than when I made my Mii (Nintendo Wii).  I think that making the avatar was more enjoyable than making a Mii, even though there are less options.  Also they have done away with the blades, sort of, they still exist but it’s more of a mini menu.  The new layout is more like iTunes with the pop up art work and each option is assigned its own box art.  The main problem with the new dashboard though is how heavy it is.  From booting to logging into Xbox Live it takes around 10 seconds or so, maybe longer.  I also had my Xbox freeze while using the new dashboard, it was only once but that’s once too many.  Now on to the main event.

Netflix!  So the addition of netflix is pretty cool.  You have to download the software for netflix which only takes a minute or so probably less depending on your connection.  Once installed you are given a code which you enter on the netflix website.  Once that’s all said and done you can now stream you netflix instant view movies on your xbox.  Complaint number one, i would have liked to have full netflix functionality in which I can add and delete movies like I can on my computer.  However the way it works is there are a certain amount of movies that can currently stream, so you add those to your streaming queue via a computer and it will show up on your xbox if its currently on the list of movies that will play on the xbox.  I have already had about ten movies on my queue that aren’t available on the 360, lame.  Second complaint the movies are added in the order in which you added them, so if you threw a bunch of titles up at once, guess what you have a really unorganized list.  I would really have liked to see some different sorting options, I mean if it was anything like any Microsoft Os I would have 50 different sort views that I would probably not even use, so a sort by title or genre would have been really nice and I don’t think I am asking too much.  Now another complaint is about the website, it used to be that if you added a title to your queue you would have a pop-up window with suggestions, but now it redirects you to a page of suggestions, so in order to get back to where you were you can either open each title in their own window before adding them, hitting the back button in your browser for each selection or clicking through the menus which is how you got there in the first place.  The overall quality of the streaming content is good, though when they said streaming HD i didn’t think it would be a sub category, which it is, not all the content is HD only a small selection is.  I would also like to see more Tv shows on there, right now the selection is slim.  Overall it’s a nice feature and I am sure it will get better and my complaints will be addressed.  Netflix is a great company with a great product, I have been using them for over a year now and absolutely love it, they are a company that listens to their customers and cares what they have to say.

So I was wondering if they will have a streaming only option.  Might be an interesting idea, though would anyone be interested in something like that?  Well just something I was thinking about, let me know what y’all think about it,  Do you like the new experience or hate it?

-mikey