garretspage

So apparently there is somewhat of a phenomenon happening where intrepid young video editors take Blast Beats and put them over old Bert and Ernie clips. For some reason I enjoy these clips, so I will share at least one with you, dear readers. The first one that I came across happened to be this one, found by a one Mr. Jacen Paige:

From this video I was led to a second, which I like a little more than the first simple because it has a little more musical integrity:

And if you’re curious of what this actually looks like when a real person plays something like this - rather than a stitched together facsimile of a human - then look no further. This is actually the video the sound clip was taken from for the video above:

And this last video really doesn’t have anything to do with the rest, necessarily - other than also being a drumming video, but I found it to be very impressive and fun to watch:

Just to let everyone know, the photo album that was shown on the other post is being updated every day with some new photos. Not a ton, but there should be some new photos going up regularly. The link - again - is:

Colorado Trip

I just got these uploaded tonight. These are from the first day of the trip. Expect more.

Two days ago I came across the very intriguing and well put together series entitled Carrier, about the life of the crew of the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier on a six month tour across the Pacific. This production was created by PBS, so you know it’s great and doesn’t mess around. There’s not Hollywood sensationalist B.S. in this show. The people interviewed are real and they’ll tell you the war sucks if they think so. I’ve only seen two episodes so far (though the magic of Hulu), but within those two episodes is a lot of emotion as well as quite a bit of information on how one of these floating cities works. From what I understand, PBS has all of the episodes online (Hulu so far only has two), so turn off the Denise Richards reality show and watch something interesting.

This post may be a little outdated since this game is a few weeks old, but I just wanted to throw down some general opinions of the game.

Of course, this is Mario Kart. You’ve played this before on every Nintendo console since the SNES. This edition in the series has come back to its proverbial roots. Gone are the two passenger karts that were so debatable in the Gamecube version (people either loved or hated those. I was indifferent, honestly. I had fun either way). Returning are the solo karts that most people are familiar with. New to the game are motorcycles. To be perfectly honest, they sound really really cool but do not add an incredible amount of variance to the gameplay. They can, however, do wheelies that can give the player additional speed with loss of some control in addition to being able to drive through dirt and grass a little better. Karts get absolutely destroyed in terms of speed if you happen to go astray.

There are two big addtiions to the game that are new to Nintendo console (not handheld) Mario Karts. The first that everyone notices is, of course, the Wii Wheel. This completely original and never before seen device is included with every copy of the game for no additional cost. Really it’s just a plastic shoe for the Wii Remote to fit in. And while it doesn’t look like anything special, it adds a lot. I’ve come to absolutely love the Wii Wheel. I didn’t think I would, because up until now I’ve been a tried and true controller only karter ( what other choice did I have?). I thought that I would use the wheel a couple of times and then throw it aside. The opposite has happened. I pretty much use the wheel only now. It adds this visceral level to the game that makes it incredibly fun. There were worries that it would not be as responsive as the regular controller, but I think it controls better with the wheel. I feel like it fits perfectly with the game, and I’m sure they tweaked it for the wheel, but I’m just saying. Just like peace, you need to give it a chance.

The second “new” thing to come along is the added online modes. The game plays smooth as butter online, and that is really quite surprising. I didn’t think it would be so easy and work so well. Adding friends is made simpler as well. There are still friend codes, but you can send invites to friends on your main Wii friends list. It’s a baby step, but it’s one step closer by Nintendo for making a contemporary online experience. Not perfect, but better.

The online service also tracks yours and your friends’ records through a Mario Kart channel that exists on your Wii’s main page. This channel can be launched - without the game inside the machine - to check these records in addition to downloading “ghosts” to race and entering tourneys. Of course, once you do try to race ghosts or enter a tournament, you have to insert the game, but it’s nice to be able to check.

There is one thing that I do not like about the game, and this is a complaint many peopl ehave had about the last few Mario Karts: Blue shells and “Rubberbanding.” No matter how good a racer you are, if you stay in first place for too long you will inevitably be hit by a blue shell. It is pretty much unavoidable, especially at the 100cc and 150cc levels. This will make the other computer racers “rubber band” back up to you. It doesn’t matter how good you are, the computer will always be in contention. Always. While this makes for more “excitement,” it also adds to the frustration. The player’s ability to race by virtue of skill is reduced, and the level of having to rely on luck is greatly increased. Fortunately, when you’re playing with real people online or otherwise, it’s less of an annoyance. It doesn’t seem to be as aggravating because you don’t feel like humans can “cheat” to get those items like the computer can.

So all in all it’s a very solid game. The Mario Kart games always are. If you have any interest in the game or past games then you should probably pick it up. It is one of the best in the series.

I don’t usually post video links here, but I couldn’t resist. Any World of Warcraft news is good news. Video courtesy of The Onion.

‘Warcraft’ Sequel Lets Gamers Play A Character Playing ‘Warcraft’

Now that I have a new layout, I want to do more with the site. Since I started this in 2001, pretty much everything written here revolves solely around things that I’ve found intereesting or things that I have issus with. Now I feel like adding more substance to the content. I need to find something of interest that I can write about rather than simply having this be a “whire about stuff” blog.

First things first, I’m thinking of bringing back the reviews of books and games to the site; games expecially. The books thing is pretty much covered with P&B, so if I wanted to write about anything of that nature, I’d post it there. Here I think games would not be bad to write about. I don’t really know why I dropped those reviews. It just…happened.

Next I’m going to put some more emphasis on this social craziness. I don’t know why I’m intrigued by all of these sites that allow these quick, worthless, status updates, but I am. If you haven’t notcied already, on the right side of the page you’ll see quick links to the latest comments on the stie in addition to my latest Twitter and Plurk posts. You may not care about any of these comments, but if you’re curious, add me as a friend. Plurk is a new thing, and I’ll add more information about that once I’ve used it for more than about a day.

The last thing that I need to do with the site is change the rotating banners and to potentially change some other minor things. The weekend I am hoping to capture some photos of good landscapes or other things for the rotation. I’m not sure exactly what types of photos I am going to put in there, but I’ll figure it out.

The last last thing that I want to do is possibly update the look of Pressed & Bound’s site. Change some things around. I’m in this mood to do some “Spring Cleaning” so to speak on these sites. I just don’t have the time for it all most of the time. I need more hours in the day.

Well, it looks like I’ve got everything at least running. Nothing exploded and no babies were harmed (much). Although I did just notice that I’m using the same theme as Blake Huggins. He (and 80,000 other people) did find it first, so I cannot take credit for this theme. It’s a good theme though, so I hope everyone is ok with me using it.

Now all I need to do is get new pictures for the rotating banner and fix the issue with the dark text when using the lightbox feature. I’m sure it’s somewhere stuck in the CSS.

I apologize if my page looks retarded in the next couple of days. I’m messing with a new layout to see how it might work. 3 Columns ftw.

…well now you can nerd out to graphs! Yes, that’s right. Cat’s that nom are so two years ago. Now it’s all about charts with funny things on them. If you want to get on with the craze, head on over to Graphjam.com. I’ve even made a sample graph for you to digest while you decide whether or not you should click the the link: