Back in (My) Blogging History

A friend and I started a blog back in late 2006 that is still puttering along today, and one that I occasionally still post to. While looking back at my archive there, I found the post (included below in its entirety), from January 2007, listing the podcasts I listened to at that time. It's just a bit of my history that I thought I'd share here.

(As an FYI, I still listen to Buzz Out Load, Extralife Radio, Orange Lounge Radio, and Video Game Outsiders regularly, while the others have fallen by the wayside, either from lack of interest or time.)

My Favorite Podcasts (Maine Tech Geeks)

One of the reasons that Craig (yes, he really does exist, even if he doesn't ever post here) and I decided to start this project is the fact that we both really enjoyed listening to podcasts. I first started listening to them at work, through iTunes and a cheap set of earbuds out of my notebook. Because I spend large amounts of time at my desk, working at the computer on whatever Office application requires my attention, it was a great way for me to distract the ADD side of my brain. One of the interests that's spanned my entire life, surviving the ADD affliction as well as professional responsibilities, is the love of video games cultivated at an early age. Naturally, when I started listening to podcasts, I gravitated toward those casts that dealt with all aspects of video games, from news and rumors, game-specific programs, and podcasts loosely based on gaming. Now that I've spent a solid 8 months listening to podcasts for several hours nearly every day, I've diversified the library of podcasts I listen to, and I'd like to share some of my favorites. So, without further ado (and in no particular order), here are some of my favorites, podcasts that I look forward to every week...

CNET.com's Buzz Out Loud - This is a podcast that I truly enjoy. The three hosts have great chemistry, and all seem to come from different angles as they discuss the latest news on the technology and gadget front. It's a great snippet (usually less than 30 minutes) to start the day, because they have an energy which I find useful to kickstart my day. If you're at all interested in technology and the latest gadgets, I recommend this as an entry-level podcast. Probably my most-listened to (and most looked-forward-to) podcast.

Extralife Radio - The podcast for the My Extra Life web comic. It's an amalgamation of four very different personalities, talking about sci-fi, video games, comics, web comics, movies...a really fun time. I've been listening for a while now, and I love the interaction between the hosts. The show wouldn't work if the guys didn't trash on each other (Obsidian is merciless toward Scott), crack bad jokes (that's Andrew's specialty), doing unique voice impersonations (Brian's great for this), and general chaos. I can't truly describe this podcast, so if you like sci-fi and video games, I'm sure you'll find something you like about this one. Again, a podcast I look forward to every week...

Orange Lounge Radio - A weekly podcast about video games, filled with news, reviews, and interesting guests. I enjoy this podcast a lot because it keeps alive the spirit of independent radio, and they live by their own rules. All of the hosts are true to themselves, and it is their personalities and interaction, both with each other and with their frequent guests, which keep me coming back for more. When I listen to this podcast, it's easy to imagine that I'm in the room with them, and it's just a group of friends having a conversation about video games. It's well worth the time invested.

Infendo Radio - A podcast (including the stylings of Scott Johnson of Extralife Radio) about everything Nintendo. News, reviews and the stories from the hosts make this a fun experience. One of the main reasons I enjoy this podcast is Scott Johnson, who (in my opinion) just makes me laugh, and sounds like a person I would hang out with in person. If you like Nintendo, you should enjoy this podcast.

The Instance - Another podcast (and the last, by the way) that includes Scott Johnson, this one about all things World of Warcraft (WoW). This podcast also features Andrew from Extralife Radio, and I listen to it religiously, even though I don't play WoW. Once again, I think this is a testament to the unique personality and ability of the hosts to keep me listening and entertained. There's lots of latest news and tidbits about the game, and features regular contributions from outside sources. Very specialized in its content, but fun to listen to nonetheless.

Analog Hole Gaming - This is what I would classify as a 'guilty pleasure.' This is a podcast concerning all things gaming, with a focus on WoW, which all three of the hosts play. They are rude, crude and generally not-PC, and that's their charm. Once again, the podcast feels as if you're sitting in a room, listening to a group of friends shoot the breeze about games and WoW. Not for everyone, but an enjoyable experience.

Massively Online Gamer - Another 'guilty pleasure' podcast. Two guys (Ryan and Gary) burping, swearing, and sometimes singing their way through random gaming news. Ryan does a semi-regular feature that involves a continuous story whose plot twists and turns are decided on by the listener. It's clear that Ryan is a very talented individual, and Gary provides the perfect foil for him. They are somewhat Eve Online-centric, but they discuss other games as well. Not a lot of structure, and the episodes often degenerate into one off-topic rant after another, but it works. I listen to and enjoy each episode, and recommend it to anyone not faint-of-heart or easily offended.

Virgin Worlds - The polar opposite of Massively Online Gamer, and ironically the host of Virgin Worlds (Brent) and the hosts of MOG (Ryan and Gary) sometimes release cooperative podcasts. I would liken this relationship to 'The Odd Couple.' Brent is a soft-spoken, very organized person who releases an information-packed episode each week, covering the latest news and rumors about massively multiplayer online (MMO) games. He has very structured segments with a high production value. It's very clear that Brent puts a large amount of effort into his productions, and the news and reviews are well-thought out and pertinent. If you're at all interested in the MMO genre, this is your one-stop location to get the best info.

Video Game Outsiders - An XBox 360-centric podcast, covering the latest games, with opinions and commentary given by relatively casual fans of video games. They recently won an award for their podcast, and seem to have a very dedicated following. The hosts are entertaining, and each one has their own distinct style, but all lean toward the multiplayer aspect of games. A podcast a bit on the long side (often pushing 2 hours), but an enjoyable listen.

Next Generation Podcast - An interesting podcast about the business and industry of video games. The podcast often features interviews with important members of the video game community (developers, executives of game companies, etc.) and contains a wealth of information for anyone interested in what it takes to bring the games we play to market.

Boston Geek - Definitely an interesting podcast, from two guys in the Boston area. They cover a tech, science and gaming story every week, and then talk about an upcoming event of interest in the Boston area. The two guys really do come off as traditional 'geeks', but do a great job with the podcast, one I listen to every week.

I listen to other podcasts, with some dropping out and others being added on a regular basis, but these tend to form the core of my listening week. As you can tell, I have a lot of time at my desk and driving to get through all of these regularly, but they get me through the day, and I never get bored of them. If anyone who reads this has recommendations for any podcasts you feel I'd enjoy, feel free to post them in the comments, as I'm always looking for something new to try.

Next time, I'll try to come up with a list of sites and blogs I visit often...

It's been over 18 months since I wrote that post, and while a lot has changed since then, a lot has stayed the same. I still listen to podcasts to create a 'cone of isolation' for myself, and the content of the podcasts I do listen to keep me entertained and occupied while I go through my daily grind. Who knows where I'd be if I didn't discover the podcasting world back then...

Physical vs. Downloadable Media

The impetus for this discussion came about recently while trying to decide if I would buy Spore. Now, for many of you, this would be a no-brainer, but for me, working on a very limited disposable income supply, all extraneous expeditures need to be carefully considered before making. Anyway, during my deliberations on whether or not to pick up the game, the additional factor came into play, one that I wasn't prepared for: should I buy a physical copy of the game (either from a B&M location or have it delivered from an online retailer), or do I download the game from a download service?

The answer to this question, in this specific case, is not an easy one. Like many of you, I'm a big proponent of the new distribution method, and being able to almost instantly have access to a purchase without having to leave home to get it is attractive (of course, in this case I'd be waiting a couple of hours for the game to download, but that's neither here nor there). To go to a B&M location would cost gas (sadly a factor to be taken into account these day), time and some hassle (traffic where I live always has to be taken into account). To order the game online (say, from Amazon) would eliminate these hassles, but then I'd have to wait for several days for the order to arrive, which isn't a big deal, but since I often have the mentality of a 5-year old and want instant gratification, this is not ideal. After looking at the previous options, the logical choice would be to buy the game from a download service, thus avoiding the gas, time to get to and from a store, the traffic, or the wait for delivery from an online retailer.

However, while the direct download would seem to be the best option, a hitch exists even in this option. I will confess to being a fan of services like Steam, where you have an account, you buy games with this account, and thereafter you have access to those games with your account info. For example, when I switched from my older laptop to the desktop I currently use, all I had to do to get the games I'd bought through Steam onto the desktop was to install the Steam client, enter my user info and download the games again. I consider that a very useful service from the Steam client, and am willing to deal with the consequences of Steam (the 'calling home' the client does on occasion, being online to play games in most instances, etc.). Since I have nothing to hide, this doesn't bother me, unlike some people seen on the Internet, who complain about Steam as an invasion of privacy. That's an argument for another time, though. The hitch in the plan comes from the fact that Spore is not currently available on any service such as this, but from direct download services that allow you to download the game once, and then (if the file were lost, corrupted, or otherwise misplaced) would have to pay again to get another copy of the file. Of course, I could pay extra for an 'extended download window', but even that is for a finite period of time.

There would be no question or debate if Spore were available from Steam (or Impulse, or some other similar service), but as it exists now, I would pay my $50 for a single digital copy of the game, and would then lose it if my hard drive crashed (and let's face it, that happens a lot, especially when you can least afford it to happen). I'm not one to lose physical media, but I would then have the responsibility of keeping track of it. Call it paranoia, but I'm horrified to think about losing everything in a hard drive crash.

The question, and the entire reason for this post, is this: Is it better to have a physical copy of the game or a digital copy of the game, given the restraints laid forth? Again, this isn't an earth-shattering decision to make, but one that I've been thinking about for a bit now, and I still haven't come up with a good answer either way. To be honest, it's spiraled into a philosophical debate now more than anything, because it isn't that hard to go get a copy from my local Gamestop or Best Buy. I just think it's been an interesting thought exercise going through all of the different scenarios.

So, I'll throw it out to you, the reader (if there's anyone out there in fact reading this): Which method do you prefer to get your games and why?

The Perfect Christmas Gift (for Me, Anyway)

If I ever were to get this under the tree, I would be the happiest nerd out there. For the past year or so, my parents have been giving me Lego sets for Christmas and birthdays, as a way to keep me feeling like a kid. Even though I'm 32 with kids of my own, for some reason they get a kick out of watching me dig into the freshly opened box and put together a Lego set from scratch. Let me tell you, the Lego Death Star would take more than one sitting. The amount of detail and cool touches they've crammed into the set is amazing, and it would be something that I would make permanent as a display in my home. What a great way to display your nerd cred!

3,800 Piece Death Star Diorama Is Coolest Star Wars Lego Ever (Gizmodo)

PSP to get MMOs?

Being the proud owner of a PSP (that sounds strange, but it's true), I was excited to see this news about Sony Online Entertainment considering bringing MMO content to the handheld market. I've played a few MMOs over the years (with the vast majority of that time spent in SOE's original Everquest), and the thought of an MMO coming to the PSP intrigues me. If done right, it could open up the genre to even more interesting concepts. If tied in with a larger-scale game, the PSP could be used for crafting or auction house access on the go. Even more interesting would be a ground-up game meant for the PSP, possibly with an Internet access portal, for examining characters, inventory management, etc.

Sony Online Considering MMOs On PSP (MTV Multiplayer Blog)

Strange Phenomenon

Over the past few weeks, my go-to web portal for game information, 1UP.com, has lost two of their editors. Jeff Green, the Editorial Director for PC, and Shawn Elliott, also a PC editor (forgive me if I don't have their exact titles here) left within two weeks of each other. This was devastating to me, and many other faithful readers and podcast listeners, if I'm not mistaken. Jeff had been at Ziff Davis (the parent company for 1UP, EGM magazine and formerly CGW/Games for Windows magazine) for 17 years, serving most recently as the Editor-in-Chief of CGW, which in turn became Games for Windows magazine. It was in no small part to his writing style and presence on the microphone that I was drawn to the site, print magazines and the podcasts they produced. Shawn, working with Jeff on the magazine website and podcast, possesses a quick mind and amazing wit, could be both raunchy and crude, while thought-provoking and insightful, often in the same sentence. Those two gentlemen, along with other PC editors, put out one of the most entertaining podcasts I've listened to in GFW Radio. They will be missed greatly in the gaming journalism space, as they have moved on to careers with EA and 2K Boston respectively. (Jeff now has a personal blog, which coincidentally has a post on Shawn's departure that easily sums up why I loved listening to and reading his work).

Why am I telling you all of this? Well, good reader, the reason I'm telling you this is because I wanted to use it as a backdrop for a phenomenon I experienced when I found out they were leaving. I felt sad. Not the, "Aw shucks, they're leaving. Oh well, on to another game of Halo!" kind of sad. I'm talking about the, "Man, a great friend who I spend a lot of time with and who I look forward to talking to every day, is moving away and I'm never going to see him again!" kind of sad. It was clear to me that I enjoyed listening to them during their podcasts, and derived great pleasure from reading their work for the magazine and website, not to mention their editor's blogs they updated, but I didn't realize that I had formed a bond with them. And that's the strange part. These are people that I don't know, who don't know me, but I still feel a loss when they won't be a regular part of my life anymore.

It seems clear that EA and 2K Boston will be better for their presence, and it will be fascinating to see what impact they have on their respective projects (neither of which are public knowledge at this time). From reading Jeff's editoral blog about leaving (here) and listening to Shawn discuss his future on the final GFW Radio podcast (here), their reasons for leaving are very sound and show great judgement. With all of that said, I still feel a tinge of sadness and minor personal loss.

I'm not sure if there was a real point to this rambling post, other than that I wanted the opportunity to voice these observations and feelings, to see if anyone else felt the same way. For some reason, I'm having a hard time rationalizing why the fact two people (who live on the opposite coast and who I've never met in person) leaving their jobs for better ones would affect me in this way. I guess I'll stop here for now, and wish them the best in their future endeavors. As was displayed on the screen at the end of Jeff's going away video, "Best of luck. Make great games."

Quiet Saturday

Today was a relatively uneventful day, spent watching the twins while my wife went to a baby tag sale. She loves to go to those things, and does her best to sniff out the best deals to save us money when it comes to baby clothes, shoes, jackets, etc. It's incredible when you see a pair of baby shoes in a store (shoes they'll wear maybe for a month at this stage) that cost the same as a pair of adult shoes. It's ridiculous, so she is great at finding the bargains to keep our kids looking fashionable without having to pay through the nose.

The one development that I find to be rather big is that I finally invested in a new graphics card for the computer I'm writing this on. This rig is a $400 Dell Outlet purchase, picked out when my laptop croaked (that's another saga that I should recount someday), just to make sure we had some way to access the internet from home. It has 2GB of RAM and a dual core processor, but only has onboard graphics and sound. You can imagine that it limits my choice of gaming quite a bit, so I pulled the trigger on an 8800GT card. The collateral damage in this process is my computer's power supply, which has to be replaced as well to support the new card. So, there's a 600W supply on the way as well. I got all the stuff pretty cheaply from Newegg. I'll try to post some unboxing pictures when everything arrives.

Well, that's all for now. Off to bed for some sleep, before the little rugrats decide it's time to be up again.

From the Wayback Machine

One of my first experiences with the computer came with the TRS-80 Color Computer 2. Yes, the TRaSh-80, in all it's plug into the back of the TV and save data on audio cassette glory. Nowadays of course it is little more than a footnote in the history of computing, something we sneer at in derision, but back then I couldn't get enough of that beast. I would mess around with it for hours, writing simple Basic programs and playing the few games that were available on it at the time. I owe that system a lot, as it was my first foray into the world of Rogue, which really blew me away and ate up hours and hours of my time. Another game I really enjoyed on that system was a cartridge-based game, Dungeons of Daggorath. It was this exposure that fostered my love of RPGs that persists to this day.

The TRS-80 was also my introduction to text-based adventure games. I spent more time trying to get through games like Pyramid, Raaka Tu, Bedlam and Madness and the Minotaur than I'd like to remember. Back then I had a great imagination (I'd like to think I still have it, no matter how hard real life tries to beat it out of me), and games like this lent themselves to visualizing what was happening in your mind. Entering a command and waiting for the result created tension, and when a command would inevitably send me to my doom, I cheerfully loaded it up and tried again. Pencil and paper helped me try to beat the ingenious situations, but alas it was not to be, because my developing 8 or 9 year old mind never led me to the victory circle in any of these games (maybe it was because I had the attention span of a fruit fly, but whatever).

Anyway, a few weeks ago, I got to thinking about those games and how much fun I had with them back in the day. A little bit of snooping around on the interwebs netted me Figment Fly, a site dedicated to the exact games I grew up with, and a few others. What a blast of nostalgia, looking through the old box art, reading the manuals, and poking around the walkthroughs. It was fun, and a bit gratifying, to find that someone else felt as strongly (more so, obviously, since the went through the trouble of putting together a web site) as I did about these games from the past.

If anyone from this era who remembers these games, or even had an experience with the TRS-80, I recommend checking these out. For a real blast of nostalgia, check out this link, which brings you to an emulator designed to recreate the experience.

Well, there's my first real foray into content for the new blog. It's not extensive or wildy thought provoking, but considering how tired I am (damn reality getting in the way of fun as usual), I'm happy this little tidbit found its way out of my fingers into the blog. Leave a comment if you remember this stuff, or have any feedback on the post. I hope to brain-dump more of this stuff here, as a way to find out if others have similar memories or experiences. Hope you got a kick out of this and will check back as the blog takes shape.

Humble Beginnings

Well, here it is. My attempt to join the blogosphere, well behind the curve. This blog is meant to capture my thoughts, opinions, observations, whatever I want to write about. I enjoy a lot of different things, from sports to video games and (in no small measure) my growing family. I started this blog to document the things that rattle around in my head, and also to find my writing voice. What is my style? Who do I appeal to? What can I do to make my writing more appealing? The goal is to answer these questions, and many more, while along the way hopefully providing some small measure of entertainment to you, the reader of my blog. Here's to hoping that you'll stick around and maybe leave a comment once in a while.

Being an engineer with a demanding day job (let's step back for a moment here, who doesn't have a demanding day job?) and the extremely proud father of 8-month old twins (Nick and Isabelle, the most amazing creation of my life, bar none), I'm not sure how regularly I'll be able to post. The goal in my head right now is to fall into some semblance of a schedule, but honestly I don't know how it's going to shake out right now. I'm not going to sweat it and let things happen organically. Who knows, maybe some of the great ideas I have rattling around in my head will find their way to this space.

So with all of that said, sit back and enjoy the musings of someone who probably shouldn't have the license to write.