Thirty-One Days of Blogging

As January comes to a close, Northwest Ohio is on the verge of being hit by a major snowstorm - more likely than not the worst we have seen since 1998. I am looking forward to it, although I am not looking forward to potentially being cooped up in my tiny apartment for the next two days.

I am however, very proud to point out the fact that I have blogged everyday in January thus far in 2011: one month, thirty-one posts. One of my 2011 goals is to "blog more often," and I would like to think that this is a great way to start the year.

I will not be blogging daily from this point out, but I will keep up with it on a consistent basis as best I can.

Now if you excuse me, I have some programming to do and some boots to prepare for the walk / drive / sleigh-ride to work tomorrow.

B3 out.

Week In Preview: A New Year Starts Off Right

January is nearly over, and I can say this: I started 2011 off strong.

I have a very precise set of goals to accomplish this year, and I have already begun three of them. I kept my promise to blog more often (everyday!), and while it is not always easy, I have found that taking time to write everyday keeps me in a healthy creative rhythm.

This coming week will be great. I am wrapping up one of my newest programming projects, a web-app without a name, but for now called "Recipe Manager." I will have more about it next weekend when it goes live.

The local area is expecting a major snowstorm this week, which will be kind of cool since it has been a while since we have had any major weather. I am looking forward to sledding this coming weekend.

I am spending two days this week working on a couple of creative recipes too, so I get to spend lots of time in the kitchen, something I have not done nearly enough since I moved out.

Today was quite busy, with all sorts of outdoor activities, heavy eating, shopping, and traveling, so I am beat - which means it is bedtime for me.

B3 out.

Writing For the Future, Writing In the Past

Over the las ten years, I wrote fiction that was a bit shallow, definitely experimental, but always forward-thinking: I wanted to write for my future. I loved writing what could be, what I envisioned could happen to me, my friends, or the world in general. Meltdown, Almost Home, Translucency - these are the bread-and-butter of what I consider to be my past as an author.

All of my drafts and starts for upcoming fiction has been considerably different: I am looking back on my past for inspiration. I hope to translate my most important life experiences into worthwhile narratives.

What intrigues me the most is how this transition came about. When and why did I begin writing for my past instead of my future? By many measures, my finished-but-never-published Event Horizon was my last major hurrah of imagination and unique inspiration - a story literally set between dreams and reality.

My first major work of fiction for 2011 is entitled "Everyone Else," a story with an original narrative but with scenes and an overall theme inspired by my senior prom night in high school. Is this as imaginative or as creative as the post-apocolyptic Meltdown or Minor Thirsts? Absolutely not, but I hope the heart and soul I pour into the story still shines just as brightly as my past creativity.

B3 out.

Rockstar Rocks My World

This past week I took advantage of a sale on XBox Live and bought two great games: the Undead Nightmare DLC pack for Red Dead Redemption and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Both cost me under $20.

It really struck me this week how much I really enjoy Rockstar games - the open-world style of games. I have been getting great pleasure from playing both Undead Nightmare and San Andreas, but particularly San Andreas, because that was the first non-Nintendo title to really put me in another world, another place that was real enough to be enjoyable.

So here's to San Andreas, a huge hit from seven years ago, and Undead Nightmare, the latest from Rockstar, two very different games that do the same thing very, very well.

B3 out.

Home, Car, Work

I'm making a pit-stop at my parents house tonight to get some sleep before I head to the Honda dealer in the morning to get some work done on my car.

Elli was extremely happy to see me, and that alone made the treacherous drive up here worth it.

I have a long Friday and hopefully long weekend ahead of me: games, dog-sitting (maybe?), and some more web development.

B3 out.

Applebee's: Hello, Salt

At today's lunch meeting at work, I had Applebee's for my first time, and I have one word to say about it: salty.

I was extremely surprised by the breadth of the menu, but not I was not impressed the depth. I ordered a Trio platter: shrimp, hamburger sliders, and boneless chicken. My meal was all-around American food: decent portions, classic flavor, but amazingly salty.

In fact, besides the 2,000+ calories that I consumed from one plate, I must have taken in a week's worth of salt. I could taste it especially bad in the sliders. Again, I enjoyed my meal overall, but it was just salty.

I do believe I will be adding Applebee's to my regular rotation of occasional sit-down restaurants.

Good showing.

B3 out.

Recipe Manager

I have a new, small project in the pipeline simply called "Recipe Manager."

I spent all of last weekend getting it started, and I am spending this upcoming weekend to wrap it up, test it, and prepare it for publishing in the first week of February.

Recipe Manger is essentially a small spin-off of my Tint concept: a private network that lets users store, sort, and share recipes among one another. I plan to use it for family and friends, but it will eventually be open for the general public to use by invitation-only someday. I will have a tour of it coming up this weekend.

B3 out.

Finally, Super Meat Boy

I originally played the demo of Super Meat Boy on my XBox 360 and loved it. I could not bring myself to buy it, however, because I knew there was a PC version coming out eventually, so I waited. And waited.

Thanks to the Steam Holiday sale this past season, I now own Super Meat Boy on the PC. Thanks to my XBox 360 Controller for Windows, I can get all the benefits of both worlds: the customization options of the PC version and the pixel-perfect controls that the XBox controller affords.

I am spending a good portion of this week diving into Super Meat Boy, and I will emerge this weekend with a full review.

B3 out.

Big Mistake: Xbox 360 Wireless Controller for Windows

I love the XBox 360 controller - next to the stock PlayStation 2/3 controller design, it is one of the most comfortable designs available on the market today. (Okay, the D-Pad and Left and Right shoulder buttons are atrocious, but everything else is just peachy.)

Having bought Super Meat Boy for Steam a while back, I knew I wanted to play it with an XBox 360 controller, so I spent nearly $50 on the Wireless Controller for Windows. Oops.

It is the same controller I know and love, but Microsoft really put a half-assed effort into the PC implementation of this wireless controller. There are ZERO configuration options available via the drivers - no game profiles, for example. This means that games designed for the controller work extremely well (i.e., Super Meat Boy), but games without joypad configuration options are left in the dust, and are completely hit-or-miss with the controller.

Even worse, there is no native way to turn the controller off. This wireless controller, powered by two AA batteries, can only be turned off by removing the battery pack. If there is another solution, please tell me. Please.

I am told that a wired Xbox 360 controller does not suffer the same configuration problems - it is mapped to XInput - so it can be configured with many free game profilers, and of course, it does not need to be turned on and off.

It has been a while since I have regretted a technology purchase, and the Xbox 360 has been on a roll with me ever since I purchased it, but this one buy for my Windows XP and Windows 7 PC's is most definitely regrettable.

If anyone has any advice to address me concerns, please send them my way on Facebook!

B3 out.

I Love These Days

Oh buddy, these productive days sure feel good. I woke up around 7:30 this morning and was off to a rough start (Elli is a bit difficult to sleep with ever since her surgery), but I was out the door by 9:00am anyhow.

In the span of three hours, I accomplished the following:

• I stopped by BG Vision Center and ordered a new pair of eyeglasses finally, which has been a project of mine since November. I love the pair that I picked out, although I have my mom to thank for about fifty percent of that decision. I will be going back to get prescription sunglasses in a few weeks.

• I took care of my car at the "new" Thayer Honda. What was once University Honda in Bowling Green is now part of the Thayer family of dealerships, and I was a little apprehensive to see what changes they made. I ended up having a pleasant experience, taking care of an oil change as well as my 6-month-old SRS problem in the same visit. The new guy working in the Service department is awesome. I should have remembered his name.

• In a hilarious turn of events, I was scheduled for multiple dentist appointments this week, and I had to confirm with Corner Dental why I was receiving multiple appointment reminders for this coming week. Turns out I only have to go to one of them :-)

• I did a little shopping at Meijer today too, and bought an awesome water bottle to help me stay on task with hiking and walking this spring. Seriously. I got excited about a water bottle. Probability of me getting old: 98%.

I am spending the remainder of my day working on a web project that I hope to finish this weekend. Tonight may be spent in BG writing or at home writing, but either way I plan to get some fiction done tonight as well before I hit the sack.

B3 out.

One Down, One Up

Today our last remaining senior developer left the company where I work.

This creates an interesting situation: in the last two months, we have lost our two most-knowledgeable developers, leaving only eight people with varying levels of knowledge about our company's IT infrastructure.

While it is a little scary to be out of so much knowledge, I am also presented with the opportunity to step up and take charge of more projects. Already I am seeing the beginnings of this, as I have been extremely busy this past week with new projects and new tasks that go well-beyond my usual bounds.

While I am incredibly busy at work, I do not plan to let up any of my other goals for the year, including my JavaScript education or weight loss. This coming weekend is a great example of my "new life," since every hour of the weekend is planned with something to keep me busy. I will just barely stay on task to get through to Monday, when the process starts all over again.

So far, I like it, but I do plan on getting burned out sometime. When that time comes, I do not know.

B3 out.

Working Like I Mean It

Today was a mega-workday. I had a ton to get done at work, and I pushed right on through from 8:00am to about 8:00pm to get everything done, save for lunch and dinner.

I do not mind the extra time spent at work, however, since I have a weekend coming up that will keep me busy as well, and all to my benefit.

Saturday alone I have to buy two new pairs of glasses, get an oil change for my car, and do some light shopping - and that is before noon. After noon I plan to settle into a cozy corner of Bowling Green to get some much-needed studying and programming done.

Sunday will be spent outdoors in the morning, followed by some writing in the afternoon. I get a bonus day at home this weekend, since I will be spending Monday morning at the dentist.

When did these kind of weekends become so exciting? Twenty-six is definitely not sixteen, that is for sure.

B3 out.

Necessary Viewing for JavaScript Students

If anyone like myself is studying JavaScript, this video is necessary material to watch!

10 Things I Learned From the jQuery Source

B3 out.

Men: We Are All Evil

This discussion needs to happen, because quite frankly, society is disgusting in its fear of men.

Reddit: We think we are protecting our kids by treating all men as potential predators.

B3 out.

The Writer's Dilemma: Event Horizon

I am faced with the following dilemma as a writer:

Do I write fiction that is crowd-pleasing or deep? Should my readers or my critics love my fiction? Why not the best of both worlds?

I do not read a lot of fiction - not nearly as much as I probably should - but I do encounter this basic dilemma in other mediums just as much as I am sure it arises in literature. How many works of fiction are disregarded by critics as "shallow" or "opportunistic" compared to those that are "literary classics?" What does it take to make a story a "crowd-pleaser" and a "classic" at the same time?

More often than not, I find myself wanting to write fairly shallow stories - more or less a collection of neat scenes that show off some action or immediate passion. Characters do something, stuff happens, and everything comes to a resolution. This was essentially what my first draft of "Event Horizon" was - a story with a ton of neat elements, some great imagery, but characters that were without purpose.

As I tackle my second draft of "Event Horizon" this year, I am faced with rewriting my story to be "better" - but I keep running into the issue of "what is better?" I am half tempted to give my characters a little more personality, tweak my grammar here and there, and call it done. The few people who have read my first draft of "Event Horizon" seemed to genuinely enjoy it for what it is - a collection of neat scenes that show off some action and immediate passion, but really, nothing more.

I will be stuck on this problem for months to come, I am sure.

*sigh*

B3 out.

The Five-Year Goal

Last week's CodeMash finally gave me enough time to think about my career as a software developer in depth enough to answer this question: Where do I see myself in five years?

I have never actually been asked that question for any job interview, nor have I given it much thought. My answer has generally been "Wherever I end up." I would supposed that I am missing the point of the question, however: what goals have I set for myself in the next five years?

Here is my definitive answer for this question:

In five years, I want to be an expert JavaScript developer, if not a well versed web developer who is proficient in both front-end and back-end web development. I absolutely love developing for the web and want to be a valuable developer for any team. I have found that JavaScript is a very misunderstood language. Most developers I have worked with merely "deal with" JavaScript as much as they have to for a particular site or project. I would like to be a valuable resource for JavaScript development, assisting other developers whenever possible to better understand the language and most importantly, to help them write better code.

JavaScript, the Web, and me. Simple as that.

B3 out.

CodeMash 2.0.1.1: A Review

This past week I attended my first CodeMash.

CodeMash is comprised of many simultaneous events, ranging from speaker sessions, workshops, keynotes, open spaces, Pre-Compiler sessions, Kidzmash, vendor sessions, parties, and plenty more that I am sure I missed.

That is my only problem with CodeMash thus far: there was more to do at CodeMash than I could handle in my first year. I certainly cannot complain about this, however, since I now have a huge to-do list for next year's conference.

My CodeMash: Day One notes are available here.

I came into my first CodeMash pumped about the the most-advertised aspect of the conference: the speaker sessions. These hour-long sessions covered a wide range of new and existing technologies as detailed by many industry developers and MVPs. I tended to lean towards web and mobile technologies (my personal and professional interest is JavaScript development), and I found a few sessions that hit close to home (jQuery 101, jQuery 102, Developing High Performance Web Applications). Each of these sessions were informative to some degree and generally held my interests through-and-through.

Mobile Smackdown was my final session for the conference, and it was quite a way to go out: a basic Twitter application was quickly developed in 15 minutes for each of the three major mobile operating systems (iOS, Android, WP7). I loved seeing how each platform provided different utilities and methods for getting the job done.

What I did not take advantage of at all (and sorely wish I had) were the Open Spaces. These were areas set up around the main convention hall where anyone could strike up a conversation about any technology topic. I really wanted to dive into JavaScript with my peers to see if any other young developers feel the same about JavaScript as I do, but my generally shy attitude kept me away. I intend to change this for next year's conference.

The venue, Kalahari Resort and Convention Center in Sandusky, Ohio, was mostly fantastic. The setting was comfortable, the indoor water park unique, and the food provided for meals was adequate. Not impressive: spotty Internet connections (probably because 700+ geeks were toting phones and laptops), and restrictive check-in and check-out rules. I will definitely be staying an extra day next year to be sure I can get the relaxation I need on the final day of the conference rather than working out of my car for most of the day.

Also troublesome were the CodeMash attendees themselves. An individual person may be smart, but people can be rude in collective numbers, and this was on full display during all of CodeMash's keynotes. A room of 700+ geeks could not keep quiet, presenting every keynote speaker (and Microsoft's WebMatrix launch) with a noisy challenge to overcome. Ideally, CodeMash should separate lunch and keynote speakers so those people truly interested in the speakers will be in attendance and behave accordingly.

Between awesome sessions, a great venue, and a huge variety of events to keep me busy - and despite my own challenges and some occasional Internet hiccups - I loved my first CodeMash. I plan to be first in line to buy tickets next year. Well done, CodeMash.

B3 out.

CodeMash 2011 Is Over

I had a fantastic two and a half days at CodeMash 2.0.1.1, and I will be spending my entire weekend on my computer and in code to review all that I have taken in.  I will also blog about my experiences at the conference, detailing my favorite parts, least-favorite parts, and provide plenty of commentary as feedback for the CodeMash organizers.

In the past three days I have slept just about twelve hours total, so I need to get some serious rest now. No alarm for me tomorrow morning.

B3 out.

CodeMash: Day One

Day one of CodeMash is entering its final hours, and so far it has been a blast.

I started my trip on a bad note: I arrived at Kalahari Resort Wednesday evening around six, settled into my room (after wandering around lost for a half hour), and quickly realized that I forgot a whole bag of supplies at my apartment. My medication was among the items I left behind, so I rushed to find an alternative to driving home. Long story short, I am having a couple of extra pills delivered to me tonight.

Day One of CodeMash - today - has been fantastic. I atteneded four out of today's five sessions. My thoughts and comments on each are below.

jQuery 101

As the title suggests, this was an introduction to the basics of jQuery. Unlike past jQuery presentations I have attended, however, this was more trial-by-fire - we dove into code examples right away and kept on through to the end. There was very little new material for me in this session, but it was nice to review what I already knew.

Topics that were covered include jQuery's strengths, selector syntax, and DOM manipulation.

jQuery 102

This session continued where jQuery 101 left off. Introduced were intermediate jQuery concepts including advanced ID, class, and element selectors, the basics of jQuery UI, and the basic framework required to write a jQuery plug-in. I found this session extremely informative and interesting from front to back. A couple of technical snags provided some pleasant comic relief.

Meet Drupal: Make Powerful Websites Quickly

I had only heard of Drupal once or twice in the last ten years, so I was eager to learn about the platform. I was not as impressed with it as I thought I would be. Drupal is certainly a mature platform for rolling websites together, but it seems to be geared more for content managers than programmers, and unfortunately this presentation did not keep me interested until the end.

Three's Company: Writing For the Browser, the Desktop, and The Phone

This session should have came with a caveat: "Windows platforms only!" In all seriousness, I found this session neat in concept, but I was not terribly interested in the focus on Microsoft technologies. The focus was on using Silverlight-based technologies to develop code that is portable in some common form to all three platforms: the browser, desktop, and phone. At least the session was cut short due to tech errors.

Tonight is a mix of parties, music, swimming and - hopefully - meeting a lot of great people. Awesome.

B3 out.

Simplifying Closures

Today I present a simply introduction to closure.  I try to explain closure at its core, without any advanced examples or confusing terminology.  Any beginner or intermediate developer should be able to make it through my write-up.

More than anything, I hope to help developers around my level of knowledge understand closure.  I will be back later this year with another article about advanced usage of closure, especially in a JavaScript environment.

Enjoy!

Simplifying Closure

CodeMash 2.0.1.1

Today is going to be awesome.


The next three days will be awesome.


Later this afternoon I am heading to Sandusky, Ohio's Kalahari Resort and Conference center to attend my first CodeMash! For those not in the know, CodeMash is a technology conference that brings over 700 developers together for three days of talks, in-depth all-day learning sessions, plenty of food, and of course, a water park.


Being my first year attending CodeMash, I am a bit nervous about going, but I cannot really argue with the opportunity that I am presented.  I have a chance to learn a lot about technologies I love, be introduced to some new technologies, and most importantly, network with a ton of great people.  Yes, I am sure the conference is cool for its talks and meetings, but I am really going this week to network like mad.


Tonight should be the easiest of the three nights.  I am driving to Sandusky, checking into my room, and scoping out the whole park and conference center.  I plan to relax to the max tonight.


Tomorrow should be the busiest day of the conference.  If events go down like they are scheduled, I will be up and out of my hotel room by 7:00am for breakfast, conferences from 8:00am to 7:30pm, then dinner and an after-party in the water park for CodeMash peeps only until 1:00am! Longest day of my life in a while? Why yes, yes it will be.


Friday is a bit more relaxed: breakfast by 9:30am, then conferences all the way through 5:30pm, with a few closing ceremonies.  After that?  Well, I should have booked my hotel through the weekend to relax and enjoy the water park, but I am being conservative this year.  I will either follow peeps to any popular dinners or meander my way over to The Original Margaritaville on Rt. 6 for a quick dinner before making the long drive home.  I expect to be dead tired by Friday evening.


I cannot wait.


B3 out.

Fiction For Fun: A Summary of Event Horizon

Because I would like to write and publish at least two short stories this year, I am revisiting some old, unfinished work from my past and seeing what is worth revisiting. I am particularly interested in my longest short story, "Event Horizon." I wrote this 40-page story throughout college, but never proofed it or officially published it. I may revisit "Event Horizon" in 2011 and get a second draft written up.


As a quick exercise, I wrote a back-of-the-book blurb about "Event Horizon." If you picked this story up in a book store and read the back cover, this is what you might take in:


Kalman Kennard - or as he prefers, just "Kale" - couldn't be happier about moving from his hometown's boring community college to Pine Creek University, a beautiful and remote campus lost among the wilderness of the Rocky Mountains. Hoping to escape an academic and romantic past leading nowhere, Kale befriends Shaylee, a striking young woman who becomes his first love.


Kale quickly discovers, however, that Shaylee holds a secret that blends the supernatural with the reality Kale so wishes to escape. Caught in between dreams and reality, Kale must learn everything he can about Shaylee in order to save himself from a romance and a world that may not be real.


B3 out.

B3 2011 Goals: Finish 40 Pounds Down

I guess the name of this is a bit misleading - the goal is no longer to lose forty pounds. Having already lost about fifteen pounds from my frame, I am aiming to drop another ten or fifteen, which will put me just under the "Overweight" rating on the standard BMI scale. Losing just fifteen pounds has, according to my doctor, help tremendously with my cholesterol and blood pressure. Come late-winter and spring, I intend to finish this goal.


Bonus tip: I started growing a beard last June "just for fun." I later promised myself that when I reach my weight goal, the beard comes off. So when you see me beardless, you will know.


B3 out.

B3 2011 Goals: Blog More Often

I'm making a big effort to get something out everyday of the year, and if not that, at least twice a week.


I think I that is enough said for now :-)


B3 out.

B3 2011 Goals: Write Two Short Stories

I like being creative and I like writing - creative writer, anyone? So why is it that since 2008 I have struggled to write consistently? Not only has my blog suffered, but my short fiction has suffered too. I just cannot write as well as I used to write.


I want to change that in 2011. I have eleven short stories that I have either begun to write, drafted, or otherwise conceived in some form or another. Of these eleven stories, I will finish two this year.  Possible candidates include:


Event Horizon
This is not a short story - technically a novella in length - it is also my most complete work, having one full draft already finished. My interest in revamping the story is high right now, so I hope to spend some time on this later this year. A nutshell: 21-year old Kale ventures away from his home life for a bold new college and falls in love for his first time, but the beautiful Shaylee holds secrets of the supernatural that threaten to destroy Kale's life.


Everyone Else
I drafted an outline of this story last year and it is sitting on top of my queue. A nutshell: Justin is a teenager who is tired of feeling like "everyone else has had more sex than him." Attending his high school senior prom, Justin hopes to change his fortunes, but ends up realizing that there is much more to becoming an adult than getting laid.


Minor Thirsts: Untitled A
This is another short story set in my "Minor Thirsts" universe - the world is running out of potable water and war among the superpowers emerges. A nutshell: The Great Lakes of the northern United States are ground-zero for conflict as multiple factions descend on the area for its supply of freshwater. A young soldier in this war zone is shocked to find that his 16-year-old sister was raped by his commanding officer, but the government wants nothing to do with his case.


Minor Thirsts: Untitled B
Another short set in the "Minor Thirsts" universe. A nutshell: A young girl and her family must leave western Pennsylvania to escape encroaching war. The girl is dismayed, however, to learn that the family dog, an aged beagle, cannot come along. The young girl must learn to overcome a devastating turn of events while finding her place in a changing world.


Translucency IV
A new "Translucency" - the first one in seven years - would be a major time-sink for me, but I just might tackle the project this year yet. This one is a big "maybe."


B3 out.

B3 2011 Goals: Build My Portfolio

Perhaps my most exciting goal for the upcoming year is one of the most time-intensive: expand my developer portfolio. Software development is not always a creative art, but I feel it important to have a quality demonstration of what I am capable of as a developer.


In 2011 I plan to create a couple of demo websites - one pure front-end eye candy to demo my experience with the latest HTML5 tech and CSS3 tricks - and another as a demo of my PHP skills.


I also have a couple of situations where I could wrap some of my common code snippets into a library or two, and I plan on developing and releasing those later in the year too.


Of course, my BrandonBruno.com site will evolve as a part of my portfolio as well.


B3 out.

B3 2011 Goals: Learn More ASP.NET / C#

Despite calling myself a web developer, and despite working for a company that is thick in Microsoft technologies, I really am not as brushed-up on my ASP.NET and accompanying technologies as I feel I should be.  Do not get me wrong, I am more-than-capable of handling the work I do and am asked to do, but I am not a terrible confident developer with ASP.NET.


There are plenty of little details that I would like to study this year. I have dozens upon dozens of individual libraries that I want to become familiar with, specialized controls to master, and several systems at work I hope to improve by the end of the year through these studies.


My ultimate goal is to not only become a more competent .NET developer, but a confident one as well.  This is ultimately me second goal for 2011.

B3 2011 Goals: Become a Better Developer

This year I would like to expand myself as a software developer.  While I learned quite a bit about specific languages and certain web technologies in 2010, I would like to learn more of "the basics" that I tend to overlook, but could certainly benefit from.


This includes subjects such as Regular Expressions (I suck at these big-time), common algorithms, and general language theory, especially grammar and syntax.  These are all mostly "generic" topics that I have covered once or twice before, but never in great, useful detail.


I will be starting with RegEx this month, hoping to get a solid grasp on it by spring, when I plan to dive into old textbooks to study algorithms and language theory.


When did these kinds of things become exciting again?


B3 out.

2011 Goals - My Biggest Year Yet

In college five years ago, I could not stand the thought of purposely being busy every day of the year. College was already a pain in my ass, Meijer kept me plenty busy, and what little free time I did have went towards video games or friends.


Here I am, beginning 2011 with a list of goals for the year that make one semester of college look like a vacation.  I plan to accomplish the following this year.

• Expand my knowledge as a developer (general topics)
• Expand ASP.NET / C# knowledge
• Expand SQL knowledge
• Build my developer portfolio
• Write two short stories
• Blog more often - seriously
• Finish 40 Pounds Down

Busy year for me? Absolutely.  I will be detailing these goals over the next week, so stay tuned!


B3 out.

More Micro-Reviews!

Here are a couple more micro-reviews to follow up from the other day.

Flight Control HD (PC)

Essentially a port of the iPhone game, Flight Control HD sits at the same addiction level as the casually-hardcore Plants Vs. Zombies. The game is simple to learn and simple to play, although the novelty does wear off much faster than similar games. For about five bucks on Steam, this line-drawing, plane-management game is worth a purchase for casual gamers and the hardcore alike.

Castle Crashers (Xbox 360 Arcade)

This beat'em up game is extremely satisfying, extremely challenging at times, but always fun to play. I love the character progression - leveling up really makes a difference in the later levels, but I am not a fan of item progression - items are found, not purchased, for the most part. I have yet to play the full four-player game, but it certainly seems like it will be a blast. This is a long-tail game if there ever was one.

B3 out.

Blogger Frustrations

I am really making a concentrated effort to start 2011 off on the right foot, especially with regards to blogging. So far, today has been a complete failure.

I was going to publish a technical article all about the programming concept of closure today, but today has been a constant struggle against Blogger to get my text formatted properly, the article publish on-time, and my revisions to save correctly.

I am a bit frustrated by it, and I am considering moving Critically Correct to another blogging platform sometime this year. Blasphemy? Perhaps, but necessary nonetheless.

B3 out.

Micro Reviews For 2011

Since about September of 2010 I have experienced a ton of new media - games, music, and movies - that I have not been able to review on Critically Correct as I usually do. I think I will get 2011 off on a good foot by catching up with 2010!

Here are a few micro-reviews of a couple highlights.

Red Dead Redemption (Xbox 360)

A fantastic piece from Rockstar San Diego (Grand Theft Auto III series, GTA IV). RDR fires off on all the right cylinders from the get-go, recreating a perfectly-believable 1911 American West that is incredibly immersive. Highlights include fantastic graphics, strong voice-acting, a powerful story, and satisfying combat. Lowlights include a few technical issues and some extremely rote missions that feel more like filler than fun. Overall, one of my favorite video games, period.

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm (PC)

The big daddy of MMOs is reborn with vastly-altered 1 - 60 content. Even for those without the expansion, the 1 - 60 game is worth experiencing from scratch. 2004's standards are gone, replaced with a strong focus on quick, successive single-player quests hubs and nearly zero downtime. I do not think WoW can get any more refined, and despite less emphasis on multiplayer cooperation, WoW has never been better. The Burning Crusade content, however, still gets in the way of getting to the new 80+ content. Blizzard, fix it.

Hydro Thunder Hurricane (Xbox 360 Arcade)

Screwing with my sacred Hydro Thunder is a huge no-no, and Vector Unit delivers a partially-deformed baby with a semi-competent update to the franchise. This is Hydro Thunder by name, not family, so gone are the refined physics, blasting arcade cabinet, and memorable tracks of the original. Instead we get sometimes-chaotic physics and controls, a repetitive set of songs to hear, and a few standout races among many throwaway cutout tracks. Despite these letdowns, Hurricane is still some decent fun for the $15 asking price.

White Water, White Bloom by Sea Wolf (album / vinyl)

Sea Wolf's 2010 follow-up to their chill 2008 debut album, Leaves in the River, ups the energy but stays distinctly Sea Wolf. "Wicked Blood," "O Maria!," and "Winter's Heir" are the album's standout tracks, but the rest of the album puts on a solid show that is through-and-through mellow, catchy, and very accessible for the listener. There was a time when "indie" referred to a band's fame; if "indie" ever had a sound, White Water, White Bloom is it, and I mean that in all the best ways possible.

True Grit (film)

The Coen brothers make magic every time they turn on a camera, and True Grit is another great example of their master style. Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon are fantastic in this gritty, well-paced American western that follows two ruthless men and 14-year-old Mattie on a manhunt, all out for different forms of revenge. The two-hour film beings slower than I would have liked, but stays just as brutal as it is funny throughout, and wraps up with an incredibly satisfying ending that anyone can love. Do not take the kids to this one, but enjoy it for yourself: Hollywood has been putting out pure garbage for the past ten years, so it is great to see the Coen's still keeping quality cinema alive.

Happy New Year, everyone!

B3 out.