– So so cold. SO COLD. I’ve spent much too much time sitting around in sub 60 degree rooms for long periods of time this winter. Gotta remedy that.
The highlight of my week was finding out the snowblower would be fixed. In March. And it’ll be broke again by November, somehow.
How exactly are you supposed to measure 50 (gas): 1 (oil), anyway? Are there measuring cups? I know the gas can’s got a little measure on the side and the oil can has one, but even when I do the math, the best I’m doing is eyeballing things and hopefully getting it right. (Which is me saying ‘I wonder if I broke it and have been repetitively? NAH’) The whole system seems ridiculously easy to screw up.
– Speaking of ridiculous, I have a Series 3 TiVo with two HD turners. See, I was gifted a HD TV for New Years Day, and spent six weeks trying to figure out what to do with it. I wasn’t giving up TiVo, but using a Comcast box in between to switch channels failed horribly. The cable box would flip to Comedy Central, the channel would fail to load up immediately, and so it’d just move down a couple channels and record that instead.
Series 3 HD’s has spots to insert cable cards – I can get the digital channels without having the digital box, basically. My old TiVo box had lifetime service, and TiVo had a deal to move that over to new boxes (they don’t otherwise offer that deal) with the cost of a year of normal service, basically.
I’m not sure I’m repeating stuff I’ve talked about before, but it’s my site so I can do that.
I wasn’t sure if wanted to get Series 3, because it ends up being an absurd amount of cost – the $200 transfer fee on top of what it costs to get the box itself (and you might as well get one with extra storage if you’re going to do it) plus the immeasurable cost of dealing with cable companies to set it all up. In this case, it took an hour visit and three follow up phone calls when things didn’t work as they should (and no actual notification from them that it was indeed working fine; just kinda had to notice it myself.)
As odd as it sounds, for something that’s basically a $fourdigit VCR, it’s freaking awesome. It’s getting HD, it’s getting digital cable, it’s having an immense amount of storage room (there’s 120 different recorded shows in Suggestion area and there’s still plenty of space). It’s nice not to have to juggle room for shows or record them all in bad quality to fit like on my old TiVo and it’s great to be able to record in HD, which I guess is only possible on cable company provided boxes. I love being able to watch games on a delay and cut thru all the dead action, and now not only do I have room to do it, it looks a lot better when I do it. Plus, since I own the rare lifetime service, I think I could dump on ebay for good money if I ever forsaked TV or something equally insane.
My life would be exceedingly easier if I they had TivoToGo working on Series 3, but I’ve got a workaround for now and hope they’ll open it up before long.
I still have my old TiVo sitting around, free year of service and all till next Feb, and I’m trying to decide what to do with it. I could stick it on another outlet, but I don’t really need MORE things recording that I won’t watch. I think I’m likely giving it away to a friend, but deciding which friend gets a free TiVo is a tough choice.
– “Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones” OWNS ME. It’s in my head, and it’s blocked me from getting other stuff done.
I bought it off GameFly because the reviews said it was similar to Final Fantasy Tactics – which I liked, even if it took forever to get thru – and favorable reviewed and it was only about $12 once I used up all my expiring GameFly coupons and such.
It IS like Final Fantasy tactics, because it’s fantasy story driven game, but with an always growing clan of warriors, each with their own skill set and such. The thing is, I thought I was getting an RPG, but this is totally a war game.
In RPGs, no one ever actually dies in battle. They die in the story, for sure, but if your guy runs out of HP in a battle, he’s just KOed or in a coma or whatever, and you could either bring them back during the battle or after it. It’s a temporary condition. In a war game, you run out life, you’re dead and you’re not coming back ever.
And that’s what Fire Emblem is, and that’s what’s driving me nuts. Everyone but the main characters are eligible to be permanently removed from the game (with minimal storyline effect). I can’t play it that way, partly because I think I might need their particular skills later, but mostly because I’m can’t accept the idea of disposable characters. If my army wins the battle but people died along the way, it doesn’t really feel like a win to me, and I’ve got to fix it. I’ve got to do it PERFECT.
The game clearly isn’t meant to be played the way I’ve been trying to play. There’s no way to save in mid battle (the usual tactic to back up and try again), so if I want to ‘fix it’, that means I’ve got repeat 20-40 minute many times until things go right, and that it’s taking me literally ten times as long to play the game as a normal person.
Actually, I’m playing it five times as long, losing my mind after another thought out plan has suffered a single loss, and throwing down the DS while wondering how this is exactly supposed to be entertaining. That’s $12, right there!
This is all ludicrous on my part – you get new troops, you lose old troops, you’re supposed to deal with it – but I just can not do it. It’s like the most annoying puzzle solving game in the history of the world, and I can’t stop going back to it.
The best part is GameFly sent me Final Fantasy 12 (I think? Is that right?) and it’s been sitting on my desk for a week, because I just can’t take gaming any more right now. That’s just dumb. (And I think I’m going to compound the dumb by catching up AAA tonight instead. Someone needs to save me.)
– off to break the webpage some more.