Achievement Unlocked: Minish Cap Beaten!

I'm getting Twilight Princess soon, so I figured I should beat Minish Cap before I got to Twilight Princess. So, for the first time ever, I beat a Zelda game without cheating. I used an FAQ, but I don't consider that cheating.

I think I'm finally into Zelda. I thought it was impossible to get into, but I'm finally, once and for all, into Zelda games. I've fought for a long time to get into Zelda, and I think I'm finally there. We'll see if this sticks.

Metroid Prime Trilogy? THREE CHEERS

Well, this was unexpected.  I knew they were planning on re-releasing the Metroid series as a New Play Control series, but I had no idea they were packing them all onto one disc.  This is glorious, glorious news.

Puzzle Kingdoms Impressions

Puzzle Kingdoms for the DS is another in a long line of games that include puzzles with some sort of other genre.  This time around it's supposed to be turn-based strategy, but it's much more reminiscent of the original Puzzle Quest.  However, this game almost seems like it's mailing it in.  At least Galactrix tried (and failed) to do something different.  I dunno.  Maybe I'll warm up to this one over time.

PS3 Slim Shots Hit With Cease and Desist

About a week ago, shots hit the intarwebs of a new PS3 Slim. Sony, of course, has denied it, but now they've also slapped Engadget Japan with a cease-and-desist, asking them to take down the shots.

If this is Sony's big reveal for E3, I'll bet Sony is furious. However, this opens more speculation: Is Sony going to drop prices on the current PS3 SKUs? With the new rebranding that puts the PS3 logo closer to the PS2 logo, does that mean that PS2 downwards compatibility is back on the table? I hope the answers to both questions are "Yes."

In other news, I got to play MLB The Show 09 this past weekend for a bit. Now I want a PS3 all over again. I hate you, Sony.

Can the internet be saved?

"Can the internet be saved?" you may ask. "The internet is in a stronger position than ever! There's no place to go but up!" You might be right to a degree. There's internet everywhere, in our personal lives, in our work, in our play, almost everything we do. There are technologies that are becoming rapidly obsolete (hello, phone books), and tons of new uses that weren't even considered back when two scientists decided it would be pretty cool to link up two computers and see what they did.

However, the internet is in peril.

In this article, we'll enumerate some of the problems that the internet faces and why they're so big. Maybe in another article we'll have some solutions, but these problems are all bigger than me and require some much more intelligent minds.

1) Something for nothing.

Are you reading this blog? Shame on you. You're reading content without paying for it and enjoying my hard work without sending me one red cent.

Don't take me seriously, of course. However, one day I would like to be a professional writer. I would like to get paid for my thoughts and reporting on things I find interesting. However, newspapers are dying, so that's not a stable place to be. Most websites, like CNN, are free and ad-supported, but no one clicks on ads. Add-ons like Adblock for Firefox remove all but the most stealthy ads. On top of that, hosting is expensive. Who's going to end up paying for all of it?

Every time a site tries to do something to raise money, they get pilloried. Think of ESPN Insider, the service that blocks people out from reading columns from major columnists unless they're a member of the service. Many have said that Insider was the worst thing to happen to ESPN ever. Why? Because something that was once free is now pay-only.

It's a symptom of a larger problem: How do you charge for something that was once free without getting obliterated in a free market?

2) Bandwidth hogs.

I download torrents. I'm not ashamed to admit it. I love watching How I Met Your Mother and Lost without commercials. I love watching older shows without having to plunk down cash for DVDs. I'm also part of a big, big problem.

Every time you download a torrent, you're pushing your connection into overdrive. You're pushing it harder than 90% of connections, as a matter of fact. What about services like Netflix? Same thing. They're using the full force of your internet connection to deliver a product down to your system.

ISPs have tried enforcing bandwidth caps, but the result is always the same: Large, very public outcry, and the ISP caves. If every ISP put up the same caps at the exact same time, then customers would be forced to adopt them, but all it takes is one ISP to reject the plan and we're back to square one.

3) Smut.

How easy is it to get porn on your computer? As anyone who has spent any amount of time on the internet can tell you, frighteningly easy. Some people don't mind this. I'm not one of those people.

I don't have kids yet, but someday I will. The internet is one of the greatest inventions of mankind, and I want my children to use it as much as they can. It's a big world, and the internet makes it a little smaller for all of us. However, I'm in the same boat that a lot of current and prospective parents are: How do I keep the bad stuff away from my kids while still allowing them to learn about the world around them?

There are filters that can be applied, and operating systems like Windows Vista make it easier than ever. Trouble is, there are more sites now than ever, and the porn industry is growing exponentially. How can a filter keep up? Sooner or later, something is going to slip through the cracks (no pun intended). What can be done?

4) Reluctance to switch to IPv6.

Most people don't think about this, but everything online has an address. Every computer, every phone, every router and every network backbone has its own address. Even toilets that get hooked up to Twitter have an address. So how many addresses are available for the internet? A little over four billion, actually.

"Well, that sounds great! We'll never fill that many addresses up!" There are certainly a huge amount of addresses available, but then you must consider that there are seven billion people on Earth and counting. So far, there are only a few countries that are heavily wired to the internet, and countries like China and India are catching up fast. That's two billion people between just those two countries.

The next step is IPv6, a method of addressing that allows for trillions of addresses. You would think that network administrators would be excited to make the switch for the future health of the internet, but that's not really the case.

There are a couple of reasons that it's prohibitive. One, it's expensive and time-consuming. EVERYTHING is addressed with the old style of addressing, IPv4. The amount of man-hours that it would take to get it all v6 compliant is staggering. Two, it's not necessary yet. Humanity has a habit of not addresssing problems until there's no more choice. Network administrators may look different than the rest of us, but they share many of the same characteristics of normal humans. They're not going to invest all of their time getting something done that doesn't need it yet.

--

There are a lot of horror stories about what will happen to the internet with the advent of streaming video and other network drains. "Oh no, in FIVE YEARS the internet will be slower than dialup AND we'll all have to wear loincloths AND we'll all die of Ebola or H1N1! Maybe both!" While these things may never come to pass, the internet faces some real issues that will take a lot of thought to sort out.

That's not to say there aren't solutions, and there are people hard at work on them right now. Let's hope they find them soon.

How I Spent My Two Week Vacation (From This Blog)

With my time off from this blog, I got a lot done. I finished writing up two reviews for the Crystal Chronicles games that just came out for DS and Wii. I started a new draft of my screenplay, re-started my novel "Gunman" and started a new novel called "2519." How many of these projects will get finished? Probably zero, but it's always important to have projects gestating, even if none of them come to full term.

I also got some good quality gaming in. I have been very much enjoying MLB Dugout Heroes so far. I'll have a breakdown of what works and what doesn't later on in the week.

Now that I've learned to not overthink the series, I've also been going back into the vault for more Zelda action. I returned to Zelda: Minish Cap for the GBA. Last time I played, I got through the first dungeon and had a capital time. It was great! I loved it! Then I tried finding the second dungeon and became hopelessly, hopelessly lost.

I almost had the same thing happen again this time around. I followed the cues to get over to the Mountains, but along the way I was supposed to get my first jar in order to continue. One of those little Deku Scrubs told me to go see his friend who lives in a cave at the bottom of the hill.

At the bottom of the hill, there's a very obvious ladder that leads down into a cave. Easy enough, I thought. I walk into the cave, look to my left and see a very large boulder that I can't move, along with some glowing marks on the floor. I instantly became obsessed over the boulder. I tried using my Gust Jar on it, bombing it, pulling it, walking up to it and hitting it with a sword, rubbing every single object in my inventory against it.

At this point I became despondent. My mind started racing. "Okay, so I need to find a tool that will move the boulder so that I can get into the cave. Where could it be? No one told me about this." I ran all around the map to try and find some clue, but none were forthcoming.

Then, I realized something. I walked back into the cave and looked to the right. There was a very obvious passageway that needed to be blown up with a bomb in order to allow me to pass. I walked in, and there was a Deku Scrub that was willing to sell me a jar. Easy enough.

So far, I haven't consulted any FAQs, and I'm going to try not to. I shouldn't have to. Minish Cap should not be that hard. Other people have been able to beat it, so why can't I?

Star Trek Mini-Review

Just came back from it.

First, I hate "alternate timeline" stuff with a passion. If you hate it as much as I do, you might have some difficulty suspending belief.

That being said, this is about the best Star Trek movie I've seen. Not as good as Khan, but very, very impressive. There were a ton of little callbacks for fans, there were new relationships brought up, and a green space lady. It was quintessential Star Trek without...quite being Star Trek.

My only problem is now this: Since we're in an alternate timeline now, does that now invalidate The Next Generation? Deep Space Nine? Voyager? (Maybe we should invalidate Voyager.) I'm not sure I'm crazy about the implications of this new series, but as long as they don't harp on that, I'll be fine.

Cupla Things

First, great Scrubs finale last night.  Scrubs has always straddled the line between funny and sentimental, and the finale was pitch-perfect.  I'll admit to choking up during the final scene where J.D. envisions his life from here on out.  Very well done.  I also love how we still don't really know the janitor's real name.  It might be Glenn Matthews...or Tony...or Jan Itor.  We'll never really know.  Great stuff all around.

Second, Manny Ramirez might have tested positive for PEDs!  I guess that's just Manny juicing Manny.

X-Men Origins Wolverine Review

I love Wolverine.  Anyone who loves comic book characters does or they're a godless communist.

That being said, I enjoyed the Wolverine for a couple of reasons.  One, I wanted a movie with lots of explosions and Wolverine walking away from them menacingly.  That's what I got.  I wanted a movie with Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber being awesome.  That's what I got.  Did I want the next Dark Knight?  That would have been nice, but not every movie can be great.  Sometimes we have to settle for "doesn't do any more than it needs to," and that's what Wolverine was.

Now, can the next movie be Deadpool's?  Thanks!

Weekend Update

Over the weekend we saw X-Men Origins: Wolverine and watched our first episode of Breaking Bad.  I'll have my thoughts on Wolverine tomorrow, but Breaking Bad was really good.

My wife really didn't want to like it.  She was saying that it made her uncomfortable, but then I pointed out that you weren't necessarily supposed to like these people and she got over it.  Plus, Bryan Cranston is absolutely amazing.  I always liked him going back to Malcolm in the Middle.  I thought he was the best thing about Malcolm, and that's saying a lot because I loved that show.  I'm going to go back and catch up on all the old episodes soon just so I can follow the plot a little better now.

MLB Dugout Heroes Impressions Part 2

After fixing my computer, I've now had the chance to play a few more rounds of MLB Dugout Heroes.  I have to say, I really like it so far.

The batting interface is relatively easy to understand.  It cribs liberally from MLB Power Pros, but that's a good thing.  You can choose whether you want a contact swing or a power swing by moving the scroll wheel on your mouse.  If you want to hit a power swing, you'll have to hit the ball right on the nose, which is really, really hard.  Fortunately, if you have a powerful player up to bat, you can still get home runs with a contact swing.

The pitching interface is good, but a lot of people have trouble with it especially on the lower levels.  You select your pitch, aim it, and then click and hold to start your windup.  You let go to determine the strength of your pitch, and then click again to determine your accuracy.  If you whiff on the accuracy, you'll serve up a bad pitch, signified with an exclamation point.  You see it and the batter sees it.  The pitch can go one of two ways: an obvious ball, or a big fat pitch right down the middle that can be hit for power.

A couple of other things: Bullpens don't need to warm up.  You just select your pitcher and go.  It's not realistic, but it would have been too hard to integrate warming up your pitchers in a fast-paced online game.

Please, please, please put in the proper batting stances for active players.  When Craig Counsell bats, I want to see his mutant batting stance.

You're able to draft new players onto your team.  I haven't tried it yet.  I'm interested to see how it works.

Finally, here's a quick story about my game last night.  My team finally made it to level 3, and we went to the next level of competition, the Amateur ranks.  My first match was against a Level 11 Yankees team with a murderers' row of batters for a 5 inning game.  I surprisingly held my own.

The score was 2-0 in the 5th inning on a Jorge Posada homer that BARELY cleared the foul pole.  My opponent puts in Mariano Rivera.  However, I'm watching the way his pitches are tailing out of the strike zone and realizing I can hit these.  I got Mike Cameron on base, and then Ryan Braun came up.  Braun punched a homer to the corner of the stadium.  2-2.  We go in to extra innings.

We battle back and forth for four more innings, and I've now run through all of my relievers.  Both of us had chances to put the game away, but neither one of us could capitalize.  Finally, he wins with a couple of timely hits, but not after we've both drained our bullpens.  4-2 Yankees.

I hope I have more good memories like this one.  I'm interested to see where this game goes.