Holiday Break Is Over...Back To The Real World and Some More Random Musings

Well, it's back to work today after 2 weeks of being away.  Going back to work is truly one of those cases where absence doesn't make the heart grow fonder.  Anyway, things are slow because of the lack of carryover from the end of the year.  All I've really got to do right now is sit around and play on the internets while I wait for a project to roll in.  Ho hum...  Being a registered engineer, I do have to get a certain number of PDHs  (Professional Development Hours, basically continuing education credits) each year to keep my license - maybe I'll take a few online courses to ease the boredom.

Christmas was really nice for my (nearly) 3 year old daughter - I think she had more fun opening the boxes than playing with their contents.  She got a really nice art project center (the kid loves paints, markers, and crayons), a bunch of Backyardigans stuff, and Dora's Magic Castle (don't ask).  I didn't get a chance to play much on Xbox Live with a lot of you over the break as I had some personal issues that I've been trying to resolve back home.  Back when I was a kid, Christmas always seemed like a magical time that took forever to come - now it seems like it comes and goes without warning, and something bad always happens (somebody dies, grandma has to go to a nursing home, etc.).  I still love Christmas, primarily for the sense of nostalgia it provides, and I try to keep the magic alive for my daughter.  Shame it's been such a downer now that I've gotten older.

I went hiking for the first time in years a couple days after Christmas.  I had forgotten how much I enjoyed the great outdoors.  That being said, one of my New Years Resolutions is to try to spend more time outdoors with my friends.

I took my daughter to go see the movie "Happy Feet" yesterday.  Overall, I thought the movie was pretty good, although it tried to do too much.  I couldn't tell if the overall theme of the movie was an "Ugly Ducking/Beautiful Swan" parable or a warning against environmental disaster.  I'm a pretty green, pro-environment guy, but even I thought the movie got a little heavy handed.  My daughter throughly enjoyed the singing and dancing, and I thought the movie was about the most aesthetically beautiful CGI film that I've seen.  The environments and weather effects in the movie are amazing.  The movie is original, thought, and tries things different from your typical Disney/Dreamworks kids fare, and it's worth seeing if just for that.

Although I probably jumped on my Xbox once during my entire break, I did manage to play some games.  I had a college buddy of mine come by, and we played some Gears, Rainbow Six, and Assault Heroes.  I think all my talk about how much I enjoy the 360 wore him down and he got a 360 for Christmas.  I told him that he needs to stop by this site and find some buds to multi-play with.  I had planned on picking up Final Fantasy XII and playing it over the break, but I never found the chance.  So, I primarily played portable games over my break.  I got about half way through the new Castlevania game for the DS.  But the big surprise for me was reading this on Joystiq:

http://www.joystiq.com/2006/12/25/hack-play-ripped-ps1-games-on-psp/

I had all but given up on the PSP that I bought on launch day a year ago, and sold it for a DS.  "Not enough good games", I told myself then.  But news of being able to put your Playstation 1 back catalog opened my eyes again.  I immediately went out and picked up a used PSP that had firmware version 2.60 on it.  After following some tuturials, I had a PSP with custom firmware that was capable of playing some of my old PS1 favorites.  I had held on to a bunch of my favorite PS1 games - Castlevania: SOTN, FFVII, FFVIII, Vagrant Story, Chrono Cross, Einhander, etc. because I thought that I might one day get the chance to revisit them.  It took a little work, but I was able to get these games up and running on my PSP with near perfect emulation.  It gave me a good reason to revisit some of my old favorites.  Even though the screen is a little small, it's amazing how good a lot of these titles look.  Plus, since they run off your memory stick, load times are vastly improved from what I remember.  I don't feel like this is condoning piracy, since this just allows you to play PS1 games that you already own.  If you have a PSP sitting around gathering dust that who's firmware hasn't been updated in a while and some old PS1 games sitting around begging to be played, you should definitely look into doing this. 

I also picked up a copy of Dungeon Siege: Throne of Agony for the PSP (sounds like a bad night on the can, I know) which is surprisingly good.  The load times are pretty rough (Sony give up the UMD and go to signed memory cards, please) but the game is really well done.  It is hundreds of times better than Untold Legends.  It's probably the most Diablo-like Diablo clone that I've played in a long while.  If you have a PSP and are hard up for decent games, this one is worth checking out.

Well, I've rambled on enough, I suppose.  I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas/Holiday Season.  Happy New Years Guys/Gals!

David