Party games

I ran across this neat little game while browsing the Wikipedia last night. I might have to try it out the next time I have a big party. Of course, at my house, it'll be turned into a drinking game.

Tribes: Vengeance

Last week, I finally got my hands on a game I've been waiting a long time for--Tribes: Vengeance. The original Starsiege Tribes was one of the first multiplayer games that I ever participated in, and in fact was the beginning of my association with the August Knights. I was a full-fledged member by the time Tribes 2 was released, and I got many, many hours of enjoyment out of that one. T2 was my first experience playing organized ladder competition--we had a ladder team that did fairly well, especially considering that we only practiced once or twice a week. The first two games were a very unique blend of action and strategy, with a myriad of potential kit loadouts, vehicles, deployable objects, and an atmosphere that, to me, was more like a sport (Capture the Flag was the most popular game variant) than an actual shoot-'em-up. The maps were huge, and some servers had 50 or more people playing on each side.

T:V is actually a prequel, and for the first time, there's an expansive single player mode. It does a good job of giving you a chance to practice various skills ang game types, and the story is pretty good so far, if a little cliched. But of course, T:V is first and foremost a multiplayer game, and that's where it really shines. The maps are a bit smaller this time around--it's designed to have fewer players and faster paced play, and it certainly delivers on that count. All the classic variants are there--Capture the Flag, Capture and Hold (similar to the Conquest game type in the Battlefield series of games), Rabbit (when I was a kid, we used to play a game similar to this with a football called Smear the Queer), and, for the first time, a football/soccer hybrid sort of game. There are lots of new weapons and vehicles, and a lot of old favorites are back. The graphics are great, and it doesn't require a big honking hog of a system to run nicely.

The only major negative for my money is the lack of deployable objects. In Tribes 1 and 2, setting up a sensor web and turrets was a key part of flag defense. There are deployable mines and turrets, but I've really missed the deployable objects that have been removed. Fortunately, it looks like the mod community will be able to operate full-force on this game; hopefully they'll be able to add a bit more of the complexity that made the first two games so great. I'm also not crazy about the way the backpacks work (each one has a passive mode and a VERY short-lived active mode that can be triggered on demand), but I think I'll get used to that in time.

This one's definitely worth a look.

Reviewed: Chili Beer

I finished off the six-pack of Chili Beer yesterday with the Giants game, and I have to say, it really wasn't bad. My friend Faxman posted a link to some awful reviews of it over at Beer Advocate in Friday's comment section, but I didn't find some of the problems others mentioned. Let me first make it clear that I'm not a beer connoisseur. I certainly enjoy a good microbrew or other expensive, tasty beer, but I usually end up drinking the common brands you see advertised during football games, if not even cheaper beers (PBR, Milwaukee's Best,Old Milwaukee, etc.)

But I did enjoy this beer. Some of the Beer Advocate reviews indicated that the peppers weren't fresh, and had sunk to the bottom of the bottle by the time the beer was purchased. My peppers were floating in the necks. The beer was OK quality, and it certainly wasn't the spiciest thing I've ever tasted. I wouldn't recommend drinking more than one or two in a single sitting, because it is spicy enough to give you heartburn if you're prone to that sort of thing. At $8 for a six pack, it's a neat novelty, but it won't be on regular purchase list. One last plus: I kept the beer-infused peppers in a baggie in my fridge. Those little peppers will come in very handy this week when I make chili!

Chili Beer?

I made it home from work, and I'm about to kick off my Friday evening ritual: a Scotch (currently it's Scoresby), a relaxing album (this week, it's Ray Charles's last album, Genius Loves Company), and a book (my current ambitious project is to re-read Stephen King's entire Dark Tower series to date, culminating with my first read of the final volume, The Dark Tower). But before I do, I wanted to post something interesting I found when I stopped off at my local liquor store for a six-pack: Chili Beer.

That's right, Chili Beer. From looking at the bottles and the website, it looks similar to Corona...only instead of a lime, you're supposed to drink it with the chili pepper that comes in each bottle. I'll probably drink it later tonight, and I'll let you know how it turns out.

Darkcyte

I've had this site linked pretty much since the beginning, but my friend Hylander has come up with a pretty neat use for his web site. Instead of being a typical little-of-everything style blog (like this one), he's created a really neat daily journal of online privacy and security issues. The reason it gets a plug today: Hylander has posted an antivirus and malware primer guide. It's a worthwhile read, whether to learn as a beginner or to brush up as an expert.

Friday Night Fights (aka Debates)

Who was the genius responsible for scheduling the next presidential debate for a Friday night during prime time? I mean, come on, if great shows like Firefly, Dark Angel, and Boomtown couldn't get anyone to tune in on Friday nights, what chance do a couple of politicians arguing with each other have? Add in the fact that the debate is going directly up against a playoff game featuring the New York Yankees (who have arguably the largest bandwagon fan contingent of any single sports team), and it'll be a miracle if anyone tunes in at all.

Thank God I have TiVo--I can watch it on Saturday morning while I recover from Friday night...and post my thoughts here, of course.

So much for the draft...

If you get as much spam e-mail and forwards from friends and family as I do, by now you've no doubt seen the one predicting dire tidings, especially for men around my age, due to the return of the draft to fight the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan. (Actually, I would probably be at very little risk for any draft--I'm 25 years old and out of shape. The military would probably want me about as much as the NFL would.) It's fairly obvious that the forwarded e-mails floating around the 'Net were dreamed up by some liberal to scare undecideds who are draft age themselves or parents of draft age children into voting against Bush come November.

Well, you can put those fears to rest. The bill (which was actually introduced into committee by Congressman Charles Rangel, a New York state Democrat, as a protest of the war in Iraq) was forced to the floor and voted down, including by one of the House Democrats who co-sponsored it.

Good riddance to a lousy piece of potential legislation that did little more than spark inflammatory rumors and rhetoric.

Ho hum...

There's a vice presidential debate tonight, but I won't be watching. Frankly, I don't care much for either Cheney or Edwards. Bush could have deflected a lot of criticism of his administration by changing VP candidates for this election. His loyalty to Cheney is admiriable, but I do think that a lot of the criticism of Cheney is justified. As for Edwards, well, slick trial lawyers aren't my idea of good politicians.

Besides, the first game of the Yankees-Twins AL division series is on tonight.

Liberator

I saw an ad for a cool little invention in the ad pages of Maximum PC magazine. It's called the Liberator, and it's a nifty little gizmo that turns those big bulky AC adapter blocks into regular sized power plugs, allowing maximum capacity on your outlets and surge protectors. CyberGuys has them for $9 for a five-pack (admittedly, with shipping, it probably ends up in the $10-15 range). I'm thinking about picking some up for my computer room; I've got several bulky plugs up there.

Sunday football

My Giants won again today. If you'd have told me at the beginning of this season that they'd start 3-1, I'd have called you an optimistic fool. They looked terrible over the entire preseason, and really didn't play all that well during week 1 against the Eagles. But they looked great today; in fact, if it wasn't for a few struggles near the end zone and two missed field goals by Steve Christie (more on that in a minute), they could have won by even more than seven points. Warner has played great football so far, and Tiki Barber went over 180 yards rushing today, winning Tom Jackson's Prime Time Player on NFL Prime Time tonight. You can help him win this week's Sunday Stud award...just go here and vote--the poll is about halfway down the page near the right side.

There was one dark cloud in today's win, though, and his name was Steve Christie. Late in the game, when it would have really taken a lot of pressure off the D, he missed two field goals from 30 and 33 yards. I've been sour on him from day one (and, in fact, I called my father after the game to give him a "told ya so"). He doesn't have a strong leg, he's over the hill, and in fact had planned to retire before the Giants picked him up. Hopefully Tom Coughlin's level of patience with him will be as low as mine. I wonder what Todd France is doing. I'll bet Coach Coughlin is wishing he hadn't cut him at the end of the preseason.

My fantasy teams did better this week than they did last week, but the final score is in for my team in my friend Pat's league. I lost by just under 20 points, thanks in large part to the awesome performance by his New England Patriots defense--they earned him 23 points, including 8 on the fumble recovery TD late in the 4th quarter. My team in the August Knights league is faring a little better. At the kickoff of tonight's Rams-Falcons game, I was up by about 33 points. But that's been cut down some since then--my opponent has Marc Bulger and Marshall Faulk playing tonight, and Tony Gonzalez and kicker Matt Stover playing in tomorrow's Monday night game.

I guess maybe it's just the fact that I'm a rookie to all this fantasy football stuff, but man alive, do my teams ever need a shot in the arm. I've made a bunch of personnel changes (most of them due to injury), but I'm particularly weak at the wide receiver position, and I only have one running back in Pat's league that I can count on for a consistent performance. Does anyone have any ideas about who I could pick up or trade for to salvage this season?

Parking Spots

Here's an odd little site of photos of Matchbox cars taken to look like they're parking in spots for real cars.

Home Improvement Saturday

Whew! Busy day for ol' Beastie today. I started out by repairing one of my dressers--one of the crosspieces that supports the second drawer from the bottom fell off, so the drawer was kind of hanging out there. A couple of wood screws and a couple of minutes with my cordless drill/screwdriver (my favorite tool), and the job was done.

Next, on to the fridge. As I mentioned on Thursday, the shelf rails for my fridge door arrived, but they were too long. So I attached the sawblade to my Ryobi reciprocating saw (my second favorite tool), measured twice (my high school shop teachers would be proud), and cut 'em down to size. It's amazing how much space I freed up just by adding two shelves on the fridge door and one on the freezer door. It went so well that I'll probably order more rails to finish out the fridge door...I've got the site bookmarked.

Last stop: my enclosed front patio. The latch on the storm door has never worked quite right ever since I bought my house, but over the last couple of months, it broke completely. It wasn't a big deal at first, but when the remnants of Hurricane Jeanne passed through here on Tuesday, the door blew open no less than five times. That was the last straw, so off I went to Home Depot to buy a new latch. A simple easy off, easy on job, right? Of course not. The spring in the catch was apparently shot for a while before I moved in, but rather than replace it (or even replace the entire latch system), the previous owners attached a block of wood to the doorjamb so that it would stick out far enough to catch. All well and good, but when I installed the new latch, it protruded far enough to prevent the door from closing. After a mighty struggle (my drill and its backup battery both ran out of juice during the process), I was able to remove it, but then it didn't protrude far enough to catch at all. A desperate search of my basement (as a last-ditch effort before a return trip to Home Depot) turned up a thinner piece of wood that I cut down to size with my Ryobi saw, and voila!...perfect fit.

I even managed to get the low-hanging TV and Ethernet cables running through my basement more or less out of the way!

So it's time for my little reward--a takeout sushi dinner (complete with a six-pack of Sapporo and Return of the Jedi on DVD. (I watched A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back last night, but was just too tired to watch RotJ.) Then tomorrow it's off to Dave & Busters in Philly with some friends to watch the Giants-Packers game. I may get cracked with a bottle, what with being in Philly and all, but I'm going to wear my Giants T-shirt. Go G-men!!