I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream For Boggle!

For all of you out there that love a great game of Boggle, but you can't get your friends to play all of the time, there is a solution.  Not a very unknown solution, but it at least is one.  I (through a friend) have found a site where you can play Boggle online, and then you can see your ranking of each round compared to all of the other people that are currently playing (I can usually be found near the bottom...).  The site can be found here, http://www.wordsplay.net/, and all you have to do is quick make an account, they will send you a verification email, and you can play all you want (well given that you don't use up all of your bandwidth and your internet company doesn't cut you off from the outside world, but I am thinking that that doesn't happen all too often).  Oh and there is a thing that while you choose your display name, you can also make/choose a team name.  I have not found a real use for being on a team other than that you are incorporated with the other people on said team.  Tell all of your friends to join your team and have fun playing Boggle.

-- CK

Alt Symbols

In my mind I would think that most people already know of this "trick", but seeing as this was new to most of my friends I will talk about it.  There is a very easy way to make symbols on your computer without having to go through menus in programs and inserting them.  Although unless you have a photographic memory you will probably have to look the symbol code up for awhile before you memorize it.  The first thing that is vital for this to work is to have your Number Lock on.  If that isn't on, nothing will happen.  Next all you have to do it enter any of these numbers, after pushing and holding Alt of course, and then when you let go of the Alt key, the symbol related to that code will show up where you are typing.  You can find the codes by Googling "alt symbols" (I bold that because of all of the hype about Bing, I stand by Google.  I personally don't think Bing is all that good, and I am a supporter of Microsoft, at least over Apple.  There really is not much new with Bing other than the look.  But even that hasn't changed much from its earlier version known as Windows Live Search)  or you can click on this link to my favorite "Alt Symbols Site".  http://www.tedmontgomery.com/tutorial/altchrc.html  Have fun souping up your text. ☺

♪♫♫♪♪♫♪♫♫♫♪♪♫♪♫♪♪

-- CK

Game Review #1

Ok, I'm going to try to start a regular post plan of putting up game reviews of some of the video games that I like to play.  Hopefully this will help me keep my blog updated and keep you readers happy.  And for a rating system I have decided to go with a 5 Diamond rating (I don't know how to make a star on my keyboard).

Diablo II

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

I actually have never played more than five minutes of the first Diablo game, so I can't really say much about what I think about it.  I guess by how much I like the second one, the first has to be fairly good.  Although I do have memories of when I was a lot younger playing Diablo at my house because my uncle brought it when he was visiting.  In those memories I also remember that I liked it, so my statement still stands that it has to be fairly good.  Ok, well onto the game that I am reviewing.

Diablo II is probably the best role-playing game that I have ever played . . . although thinking about it, my list of games is kind of low.   At first I never really got into playing Diablo, I never got through Act I (There are five acts in the game) and I would just keep replaying that part over and over again with the same character.  Because of that I just disowned the game because I bored of that first part.  And then both my brother and I pulled it out and started playing some co-op.  We didn't get much farther, only to the end of Act II, but then I realized that there was more to the game then I was seeing.  First off was the whole character personalization.  In Diablo II, not only are there 7 characters to choose from (5 without the expansion), but then there are a ton of different skills that each character can learn, with levels of each skill to increase the attributes of said skill (sorry if this is really confusing, I am really good at doing that).  Also all of the weapons and gear can be specialized in a couple ways.  The first way is that some come with special abilities when you find or buy them, which is the easiest way to get stuff, but more random and it is sometimes really hard to get what you want.  The second way is with items that are socketed, meaning that there are places in the items to put gems (which have specific abilities).  This can be more expensive, but if done right, more rewarding.

So other than the pretty awesome character personalization, there is a wide variety to monsters to kill as you go through the game (I don't actually even know of all of them).  You can also hire AI players to fight for you, which does help a lot, especially when you don't have a ton of spells to help you out.  So overall I give this game a 4 out of 5 Diamonds (it would actually be a 4.5, but I don't know how to make half of a diamond), and I plan on playing this game for quite a while.  Although Diablo III should be coming out sometime soon, and except for the fact that my computer is no where close to being good enough to play it, I'm looking forward to that.

-- CK

Carry Your Computer in Your Pocket

Oh wouldn't that be sweet if you could fold up your computer and put it in your pocket?  I think it would be, and technically this is possible, all you need is a flash drive.  With a program called PortableApps you can install certain programs that you use a lot and carry them with you to be used whenever you plug the flash drive in.  In my case I have Pidgin, Skype, GIMP, Open Office, and Firefox.  Also PortableApps has built in folders so that you can save your work organized on your flash drive if you are working on a public computer and then just open it up there when using it later (Not that different than just putting the files on the drive by itself, but oh well).  It is a great idea for those people that go to public places a lot, such as libraries, and use the computers there. PortableApps can be found here: http://portableapps.com/.

-- CK

Parkour (updated)

I do not believe that I have brought up the subject of Parkour yet, so I shall do that now.  Parkour, not to be confused with Free Running, is the physical discipline of training to overcome any obstacle within one's path by adapting one's movements to the environment.  In English, Parkour is the act of getting from point A to point B in the most efficient way possible.  Most often that means being able to vault, jump over, certain things such as: tables, fences, railings, benches, etc...   Once properly trained, Parkour is a very safe activity, but if you don't properly you can be majorly injured.  On the other hand, Free Running is a little different.  There are a lot of the same actions such as vaulting stuff, but you also go out of the way to heighten your commute.  Things such as flips, spins are used to kind of show of as you are making your way over the obstacles.  I don't have any plan to free run, but hopefully I can get down at least the basics of Parkour, because that would just be awesome.

Parkour can be found in a lot of movies such as: 007 Casino Royale (the new one), Live Free or Die Hard (the hamster), and also in a French film where David Belle (the founder of Parkour) is one of the lead roles, District 13.  Parkour is also majorly attributed with the popular video game, Assassin's Creed, where you control the main character as you can run across building tops and travel throughout the whole sandbox world.

-- CK

Easy Way to Game Online With Your Friends

I've had this problem that me and my friends (sorry if that is the wrong sentence structure) like to play computer games (specifically Age of Empires 2) together; but to make it easier, instead of having to all meet up at someones house, we would play online.  All was good until a couple years ago we pulled out the game again and tried to play it again only to find that since the game is fairly old, the server had been taken offline.  That was just a big bummer, so we pretty much put a hold on playing that for awhile and stuck with console games.  Then my brother pointed out a program, Hamachi, that links your computers together over the internet so that the games think that you are all connected by a LAN (local area network).  This was just awesome other than the fact that it didn't work for most games...  So we were back to the same spot where we couldn't play.  But then another program came into view, Tunngle.  It is definitely less appealing to the eye, and is German (no offense to the Germans, I'm just saying that all of the menus and words are in German so with an English speaking person that I am, that doesn't understand German; it makes it a little difficult to navigate through the program).  But once you get past those minor difficulties, the program works great, mind you that I have a pretty fast internet connection, so I don't know how well this would work with Dial-up.  So now because of this lovely program I can play the old games that I love with my friends when they are in different states. (Yes mom, only after I finish all of my homework and studying).  If you want to check it out its at http://www.tunngle.net/en/.  You just have to install it, create a username and you are all good.  To find specific game servers, go to the community tab and click search.  Have fun playing computer with your friends . .  and I'm pretty sure that Tunngle does not support Rouge, that might be just a little bit too old. =P

--CK

Only Fell Two Times

Today I went ice skating for the first time in at least five years.  Let's just say it was interesting...  First off the pair of skates I was using were fairly dull so I was sliding all over the place.  I actually told my friend that I would most likely fall down about 500 times, I was only off by 498...  I forgot how much fun it is to slide around on ice.  If baseball was played on an ice rink I think I might actually be able to slide into base, I could never do that on the real field.  I wanted to say that I prefer rollerblading over ice skating, but I think that I need to go skating with a pair that is sharp enough before I can make that decision.  I finally got the hang of actually getting up the speed, but when I hit the turns I would lose all of my speed because my skates didn't want to turn.  So skating on super dull blades has been accomplished, with only two falls, and the only injury is a sore knee, I can deal with that.

"I can handle pain until it hurts." - Unknown
--CK

A New Year And A New Tablet

Well it's 2010; a new year and a new tablet, hence the title of this post.  And by tablet I mean a graphics tablet.  I received a Genius G-Pen F610 for Christmas.  It's pretty sweet and so far I think that I am able to draw the same stuff that I do on paper.  Here is an example of one of my drawings, of a MUG Root Beer can.  The advantage of having a tablet is that you can erase much easier, and even undo the mistake altogether.  Hopefully this will help me with my comic a lot, if I ever get it up and running.  I'm trying to draw up a couple pages just so that I don't have to rush to catch up all of a sudden after I upload it.  Oh and I decided to set up my monitor, from my desktop I sold to my brother, with my laptop to have duel-screens so that I can be drawing with doing other stuff: talking to friends, watching movies, etc . . .  It is kind of hard to get used to having two screens, but I think I'll figure it out.

Oh and thank you so much grandpa for the awesome gift, I love it.

--CK