Mentat's Blog

I grew up in an era where console games where still a new and novelty item that most parents shunned. I had a old classic Nintendo, that I worked and saved for all summer long. It came packaged with Super Mario Bros, and Duck Hunt. I remember playing the SMB console stand up in arcades thinking it was way to hard. I got my Nintendo and again, I still found it way too hard. It took me weeks before I hit the point of mastery. It became this Vulcan mind meld where the controller seemed to disappear from your hand, and you stopped thinking about the fact that you were controlling Mario and you became one with Mario and the reaction was instinctive more than needing to plan it out.

That’s a beautiful thing.

Also in the same Era Games were hard. Really, Really Hard. Anyone who played gauntlet through TopGun, Bart Vrs, The Space Mutant, or Battletoads can contest to what I say. A lot of people complained about the original TMNT, which I Admit was intensive and difficult, but I managed to actually finish that one. I will admit that I spent 3 months on Bart vs, the space mutants and never got through the second level. I think I got TO The second level twice.. maybe? it was brutal. I recently downloaded it again for an emulator thinking that I just sucked. No it’s not me.. it’s really not. The Rom Site that I found game on had a comments section, There were 50+ pages of people complaining that it was way to hard. So knowing what my previous track record was I found the action replay codes and determined that unless I wasn’t making sufficient progress in an hour of play I would not use them. After about 25 minutes I turned it off. Hour be damned, I am not going to bother.

I play through current Console games now and I unbelievable disappointed. Games are so easy compared to what they used to be. Not only that, they are short. Very short. To go through a game in under 10 hours isn’t unexpected in fact it’s welcomed by most of the current gaming community. I am finding more and more that I am a platform gamer, that is what I like. I like MMO’s for the epicness of storyline and consoles for fun. Consoles are much less frustrating then dealing with the Chuck Norris mentality of most games trade/general chat. But I don’t play Console games because they are easier. I play them because of their wide range of originality and just fun. Admittedly after years of denial and rejection I am a Mario fan. I’ve played through most of the Sunshine, and I’m currently (slowly) working my way through Galaxy with every intention of finishing it. More so than that, I am a Nintendo/Sony fan. I do not care for the X-box or its games. I’m not a First person shooter type of guy, I’m a RTS RPG side-scroller action type of guy. Would I prefer it if some games were harder? Eh, They’ve taken care of that by Putting multiple difficulty modes on most games now. I play Metroid 3 on Medium difficulty because it’s just the right amount of Fun, frustration and satisfaction rolled into a near perfect action game. I play Galaxy because it’s simply fun, it challenges my coordination and it has the right amount of difficulty to keep me on my toes. The storyline is a rehashed repeat that has been the same outline for most Mario games; but this is one of those rare cases where less is more. I don’t need top notch graphics, nor do I need to spend $500 every 6 months to upgrade my PC to keep on top of current rising standards to maintain playability for my games either it works on the platform or it doesn’t. The goal in the end is if it’s fun then it’s worth doing.

So as someone pointed out. We have a ton of books that are several hundred years old that give in details world of another nature, Languages and ideas that simply do not exist in our lives at the present moment. But Seriously what if it was just a Guidebook to a game of tabletop?

Meaning, If in 700 years someone came across a D&D 3rd edition rulebook, they’d probably think it was some kind of biblical guide to how we lived our lives– Or we had some kind of alien visitation that advanced our technology, then mysteriously left.

“Hark! Thine holy city is destroyed! You take 2d6 Damage!”

How much do we REALLY know about our history, and what’s to assume that we aren’t reading too much into some of the “historical artifacts” that we’ve found. For example the dead sea scrolls. What if table top was outlawed so they played it out in a cave in the middle of no where so as to avoid being caught and executed for heresy!? The scrolls themselves are nothing more than a guidebook to the most epic game of tabletop ever!? This really isn’t out of the list of possibilities, seeing that I grew up in an era where D&D was outlawed entirely by my parents – as a lot of people cited it as being demonic, or satanic. Simply because they did not understand it. People didn’t understand it 20 years ago, and they were quick to reject and classify something has bad because it gave people ideas. There was nothing wrong with it, and if nothing else it’s encouragement to enable people (and kids) to use their imagination, and *GASP* Think for themselves! For me it would have been an escape of what I would easily classify growing up in the center of hell! There is no reason to suggestion that the same reaction would not have occurred 500 or 700, or even 1,000 years ago.

I’ve gone off on this rant before about how Comics are not bad for kids, it instills and brings about critical thinking. It’s exposure to science and history, a lot of things were based off of historical fact and ideology that would only exist because someone else though it up. I don’t see how Tabletop is any different. People freak out and panic over, and quickly reject or label something as bad before they understand what it is. It’s sad too, life for me growing up would have been very different if I had access to a tabletop Group, or someone to play Magic with.

On that train of thought these are the very reasons why I’ve been teaching my boys how to play Magic the Gather and the WoW TCG. I Started with WoW TCG because it’s a name, pictures, cards and spells they are familiar with. But it will instill Critical thinking in them, give them reason to think ahead of what they are doing. Give them a place to escape to that isn’t in a prefabricated world of someone else creations. Let them create their own and push the limits of their own imagination.
~M

I’ve added a few new plug ins’ one is to post my blog entries as link to facebook. The second is an update to make it iphone friendly. I’ve not tried it on an android but that is the next step.

Also, I’ve had the opportunity to play with the iPad. while it’s cool and it looks like a massive version of the iphone/iPod it is slightly different.
The interface allows for new customizations that your iphone didn’t like putting up a wall paper behind your home screen. Pictures and movies look absolutely gorgeous, but the speakers that are used are pathetic. you really need your own headphones if you’re going to enjoy much of anything with it.

Drawback, no flash support. I love the fact that in a month or two there will be a version that will work on 3G if you purchase a data plan, and that’s awesome. but what’s the point of having it web capable and able to go anywhere if it does not support flash? IF you want a large movie player for your kids to watch in the back seat of the car it would be a great device if it was blue tooth capable to do that, but it’s not.

Honestly, it’s a nice.. gimmick. But I have to say that Apple failed on this one. When my contract is up with my iPhone I’m going to ditch it. I for one am horribly disappointed. I won’t even use this thing as an iPod afterwords, I’ll buy a Zune.

Apple’s lack of ability for customization over Windows machine is a complete slap in the face to the public. I hope apple gets their act together, because in this economy, they shouldn’t be taking risks.

AT&T is now attacking Google, citing that Google should be subject to the same federal guidelines they are – they are making this claim based on the fact that Google now offers Google voice, they claim that Google blocks out numbers on random. Google claims that the only numbers that are not available  for free are the ones that would incur a charge, Thus why they Implemented the Google cash. You can charge your Google account with real money, and depending on where you call you the amount that you pay per minute changes.

Now to me this makes sense. This isn’t much different from a standard calling card, short of the fact that certain areas are free.  I don’t think that this makes them subject to the same FCC regulars that a standard Telco is subject to. Google isn’t offering Wired and Wireless service. They  do it over the data lines that they own, and Google owns  a lot of them.

Do a Quick Search for “Google Buys Fiber” and you’ll come up with a good number of  hits on how much fiber they’ve purchased. They do not lease the space from the government or from other Private owners they bought the cable. Now, Don’t get me wrong. Fiber is used for more than Data, it’s used also for Telecom. But Google, again.. isn’t a telecom.  I don’t see why they should be subject to the same rules.

I do not think that This will go much of anywhere, As we have all seen. AT&T cannot build a stable iPhone network. What right do they have to criticize someone else’s network?

Yes I’m one of the Forbidden 8% that Jailbroke my iPhone. This purpose for this was to give me functionality that I cannot get otherwise.

for example. please Look at the following screenshot of my lock screen

My Lockscreen

The reason behind this is obviously clear. I use my iPhone as a PDA, and Thus I’d like to be able to see what my upcoming Calender appointments as well as Emails are at a glance. I know otherwise I would not go check it.

I do think it would do Apple some good to take some of these ideas, buy them off of the original creators and put them in their firmware with some customize options. If apple did this, I personally would remove the jailbreak and use the standard OS.

The Tools I used to do this Are Winterboard, Gruppled info and Gruppled art (which I customized for my purposes.) And I downloaded the 20 second lock screen mod, and the lockscreen clock hide from Cydia. This enables me to have my lock screen displayed for a full 20 seconds instead of the standard time which I believe is 5 seconds.

You can get the gruppled theme here:

http://macthemes2.net/forum/viewtopic.php?id=16794932

The Lockinfo screen however was the original idea of someone else. I found this info on

http://www.macrumors.com/

I did a few other tweaks, like changing the Carrier ID and the Signal bars, but those are pretty minor things and easy to implement and to take out.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/upgrade/4263421.html

All I would need after this is a Laser Sight.

then they need to create an Automated Sentry Nerf gun