December 2006 Catch All

Things have been so hectic lately, and yet I feel like I’m hardly moving in any direction at all. I’ve definitely been feeling like I’m living to work, as apposed to the opposite which I much prefer. It truly is a hard cycle to break – one that I’ve not even begun to figure out. It’s one of those “you know what needs to be done but can’t seem to bring yourself to do it” situations. And all the while I’ve been telling myself that I’m almost there. Just about in the clear when I can have my evenings and weekends back. I’m pretty sure that’ll never happen. And as such, my personal life continues to suffer. But wait just a minute – this is not what I set out to write about this morning. This is merely the reason things around these parts have been pretty stagnant as of late. So I wanted to write a “catch all” post of sorts and cover some of the subjects I had planned to write about but couldn’t find the time.

Work

As you may have gathered, I’ve been working myself around the clock for weeks on end. And while it may not feel like I’ve made much progress, or any at all. I know I definitely have. This month alone I managed to complete a project for my Uncle on the side, along with my top secret Xbox 360 site which is nearing completion and set to launch before New Years. And on top of that I have my day job, where I just built my most elaborate WordPress powered site to date that I’m extremely stoked about.

For a while there, I stopped booking new projects when I found myself scheduling 3-4 months in advance. I’ve recently opened back up with a new weekly routine (including half-day Fridays, w00t!) and have decided to give each project an extra 2-3 days on top of what I would normally schedule. We’ll see how it works out. I thinking working like mad has finally taken it’s toll on me and I’d rather take an extra couple days and be able to breath than crank something out and be working right to the final second on the last day.

My Site

It’s been over a year since I launched the first iteration of this site. While I’m still happy with it, a year is a long time on the interweb. I’ve learned a lot in this time as well and would do a thousand things differently if I had the opportunity. I was planning to spend some time over the holidays to put ino my site, but I doubt that will happen. Mostly due to the fact that I want to spend as much time away from my PC as possible, but also that the Xbox 360 site will be launching and I know I’ll have to put in some decent hours finishing it up.

While we’re on this subject, a number have people have emailed me asking about that small orange in my footer and the sudden absence of the (mt) partnership badge in my header. Long story short (and many of you are already aware of this), back in October (mt) Media Temple launched a their new hosting platform, (gs) Grid-Server. It sounded like it was going to be the next big thing in hosting, but turned out to cause nothing but irritation and frustration amongst those using it. I was personally experiencing down time up to 4-5 times a day over a 6 week period. I simply couldn’t stick it out and longer and jumped ship to A Small Orange. Apparently, things are better now, but ASO has been treating me very well and I don’t see myself moving back to (mt) any time soon.

Gaming

So, the PS3 and Wii are out now. Yay. Apparently prices for the Wii have been topping that of the PS3 on eBay lately. That’s madness! Console launches are such BS it’s astounding. Especially these two. I mean, there’s hardly any games worth playing on the two platforms combined. The Wii has Zelda (I hate reading dialog and never played any games in the series) and a bunch of mediocre exclusives that have been said to be more like tech demos than full games. The PS3 has Resistance and a bunch of other good games, but they’ve all received higher ratings on the Xbox 360, where I would prefer to play them anyway simply because of the better controller. Needless to say, I’m more than happy with my Xbox 360 and even if I had the choice of any of the “next-gen” consoles, I’d still stick with the 360.

I’ve now played Gears of War three times all the way through and am on my fourth round, this time assisting my wife. She wasn’t overly stoked at first, but now that she’s got a handle on the controls and played through the first chapter (Berzerker!), she seems pretty into it.

Need for Speed Carbon has definitely grown on me. Now that I have everything opened up, I find that I’m tossing it in just to do a few races here and there on a pretty regular basis. Call of Duty 3, not so much. I’ve popped it in a few times to replay some missions but always get frustrated and end up shutting it off before the end. I’m still having mass problems connecting to games and have pretty much given up in that department. But last night I had a wicked craving to play a WWII FPS and remembered that I had Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood on my Xbox. I hadn’t actually played that one yet, but absolutely loved the first in the series. I think the sequel came out at a time when I didn’t have an Xbox and my PC couldn’t handle it, so I simply never played it. It took a while for my eyes to focus on the low res textures ;), but once I got past that, I was really enjoying myself. The Brothers in Arms series is completely different from the other WWII shooters out there and I highly recommend you check them out if you haven’t already. I’m stoked to have a new WWI shooter to play now that won’t make me want to pull my hair out.

I’m pretty excited for Lost Planet which is set to be released in early January. The demos are both incredible and it looks like it’s going to be yet another solid exclusive for the Xbox 360. Aside from that, I’m going to pick up COD2 after Christmas and want to have a run through F.E.A.R. again, this time on the Xbox 360. A buddy of mine is coming into town for the holidays and is going to bring his racing wheel, so I’m looking forward to checking that out as well. Considering getting one, but I want to try it out with a few games first.

Annnd, that’s pretty much it. Got my Christmas shopping all done with the exception of some stocking stuffers for Deanna. Looks like things will be pretty relaxed around the holidays, which is exactly what I need right now. How y’all doing with your holiday preparations?