Halo old friend

A few weeks ago I received my copy of Halo Combat Evolved : Anniversary, which is basically the original Halo with updated graphics/sound/etc. As many who know me, I’m a Halo fanatic (I have the tattoo* to prove it). I had a habit of kicking everyone’s ass it Halo (and Halo 2) back in the day. Then there was Halo 3 (first Halo on the Xbox 360), then Halo ODST, Halo Wars, and Halo Reach. Which is pretty much mediocrity bookended with two pretty good Halo tales (Halo 3 and Reach being the pretty good tales). Bungie, the company who started and built almost everything Halo (with the exception of Halo Wars) for the last 10 years bowed out, leaving the Halo franchise in Microsoft’s hands.

So Microsoft created a new development group/company called 343 Studios (which is a Halo reference). 343’s first product is the 10th anniversary version of the original Halo. All things considered, this is a great idea. Take a well-established and loved franchise’s first outing and make it current.

Like they used to…

I just bought a Fuji FinePix F30 off eBay for $250. In a weird twist, this camera debuted almost 3 years ago (and hasn’t been available in stores for more than 18 months). The original retail price was $399, and could have been bought for $249 in July 2006.

Doesn’t seem like anything special. It’s a point and shoot camera, 6.1MP, 3x optical zoom. No image stabilization, no HD video, and yet it’s a hard camera to get (although the F31fd is even harder). Even today, it is one of the best low light point and shoot cameras ever produced.

They don’t make them like they used to… three years ago.

Tray Ceiling DIY Overview

When I was planning our living room project, and we decided to build a tray ceiling, I spent a lot of time online looking for a DIY guide for building a tray. I couldn’t seem to find any kind of help for my situation (which I really wouldn’t have thought was all that unique): take a room with ~9 foot ceilings and add a tray to the ceiling.

Quitting is never easy

It’s nice to be loved. When you break up with your girlfriend you finally figure out what kind of relationship you had. All the truth comes out, you find the real truth of character. I think a job is similar.

It's Been a While

It’s been a while since I’ve put my thoughts forth in regard to the games I’ve been playing. It’s been a good six months for gaming. We’ve seen three of maybe the best Xbox 360 games ever released, so as 2007 nears its end I thought I’d review some of my favorites.

You've been Jooj'd

Over the weekend I hosted a Halo 3 LAN party. We had 6 Xbox 360’s hooked up to get our game on. We also had a variety of skill levels, some who had never played a FPS on a console, others who had played (too much) Halo.

What I'm playing

Need for Speed: Carbon (Xbox 360)	3.5 stars
Battlestations: Midway (Xbox 360)	2.0 stars
Star Trek: Legacy (Xbox 360)	2.0 stars
Lost Planet (Xbox 360)	4.0 stars
SketchFighter 4000 (Mac)	3.0 stars
Perfect Dark Zero (Xbox 360)	2.5 stars
Test Drive: Unlimited (Xbox 360)	4 stars
Gears of War (Xbox 360)	4 stars
Project Gothem Racing 3 (Xbox 360)	3 stars
Driver: Parallel Lines (PS2)	2 stars

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Let's wax intellectual about the state of being (ordered)

I got home today exhausted from going to the gym for the first time in a week (and overdoing it), to find a nice heavy package sitting on my front porch. I’ve ordered a lot of crap over the last week for the holidays, so I was pretty happy to see that it was the Xbox 360 I ordered on Thursday. Chalk it up to Dell for being nimble on the shipping.