Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Wicked Smooth

As part of Christmas, I got two copies of the new Zelda game for the Wii. So I took a copy back to Wal-Mart and had them put it on a gift card for me. I've been waiting ever since for something to come out that interested me enough to use the card on. It came out last week and it's called WarioWare: Smooth Moves.

It's hard to explain exactly what it's like. If you've ever played a WarioWare game before, you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't just take my word for it when I say that it's a little on the crazy side, but in a good crazy kind of way. You play a series of "micro" games that last at most 5 seconds. When a game starts, you're given an objective and it's up to you to figure out how to accomplish the objective is the short amount of time you have. It's a lot more fun than it sounds. It also really shows off what all the Wiimote can do. There's a slew of different ways you're asked to hold the remote and each position allows for countless different movements. Nintendo really seems to have a good grasp on what all their new console is capable of. If other game developers get at as good at putting the Wiimote to use as Nintendo is already, there should be some really good games coming out in the future.

For me, WarioWare was well worth getting. It's really the first game that I've thought was worth buying since Zelda. So don't let the pink box art fool you. Give it a try.

--Paul

More Linkage

You guys know I love Butch Walker. So what kind of fan would I be if I didn't tell you about his new band "1969". They don't have much up yet, but there's 4 songs on their myspace page which can be found at:

http://www.myspace.com/1969theband


--Paul

Monday, January 22, 2007

Linkage

I just wanted to post a link real quick. This is a blog I found about the Wii's Virtual Console. The guy that writes it posts reviews of the VC games along with his weekly predictions about what's going to come out each week and then a list of the games that were actually released. It's not much, but I like it and the information is nice.

http://theitrant.com/vc/

I've also put a the link in the list to the right.

--Paul

Sunday, January 21, 2007

DeAnne Couldn't Stand It

Last post for today.

I think everyone knows that DeAnne has cancer when she was 18 and had the tumor surgically removed. Well, she couldn't stand for me to have a more complicated surgery than her, so back in November, she fell out of a chair and messed her back up. She finally went to see the doctor about it back in December. He of course had an MRI done and come to find out that she's herniated a disc and has one or two that are bulging. We're going to Dothan this Wednesday to talk to a surgeon about getting it fixed.

She started going to the chiropractor last week and it seems to be helping. She hasn't had as much pain and he seems to think that he might be able to straighten everything back out without her having to have surgery. He believes that when she hit the floor, her tail bone pushed up against her spine and that's what caused the herniation.

So be praying for DeAnne that the chiropractor can fix the problem and that she won't have to have surgery, or that if she does have to have surgery, that she can hold out until this summer and have it done while school's out on vacation.

--Paul

Getting Moldy

DeAnne's birthday was the 8th. She had been talking about wanting to get crown molding for the dinning room and the living room/hallway, so I bought her crown with the promise that she wouldn't have to do any of the work associated with putting it up. So naturally, I haven't managed to finish it yet. We did get the dinning room done. It was pretty straight forward. Just 4 walls, pretty much a square. Plus it helps that in recruiting Bryan to help, he recruited his dad who happens to have done contracting work before he went into business for himself. I've still got to touch up the paint in the dinning room but it's done. The living room is going to be a little more complicated. There's one out-facing corner to deal with and there's going to be more than one place where we have to join two pieces down a long stretch. So maybe I'll have this little project finished up by DeAnne's next birthday. Who knows.

In related housing news, they finally paved our road. It's only taken them 7 months to do it, but it's finally done. They've got a few more details to take care of, but the asphalt is down and it couldn't be nicer to pull up to the house and not feel like you're going to shake to death. Maybe now we can wash our cars and not feel like it's a complete waste of time and energy.

--Paul

Wii Love It!

The new Nintendo has become a fixture of our daily lives.

Wii Sports, the game that comes with the system is awesome. It could have easily been sold separate from the console as a $50 game. DeAnne likes the bowling best. I'm really into the tennis, but they're all really cool. We finally found some controllers for sale in Wal-Mart about 2 weeks ago so now we're able to play against each other (or on the same team in tennis) and it's a blast. We had some company over for dinner a few weekends ago and Wii Sports was one of the highlights of the evening.

I've got about 10 hours of play time in on the new Zelda and I have no idea how far into it I am, but I get the feeling I've got a long way to go. It's an incredible game. There have been numerous times where while playing, I've caught myself saying "Wow, that was awesome". There are just so many cool things about the game. Something will happen and you'll think that that's the coolest thing in the game and then 15 minutes later something cooler than that happens. Sorry, fan-boy gushing is now over.

I've also downloaded a couple of games. The original Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario Bros. 1. They're both still great games and they both are a ton of fun to play still. I was worried that the download-able game thing wouldn't really work that well or that the games wouldn't look very good, but the downloads are small, taking only about 5 minutes on our impossibly slow connection and they don't take up much of the internal memory. Nintendo puts out new games every Monday, and while the last few weeks haven't seen anything worth while hit the store, there should be plenty of cool old games coming down the pipeline.

So that's how things have been with the Wii. DeAnne and I have both really enjoyed it and I know that I'm excited about games that will be coming out in the future for it. I think Nintendo has really come up with something that is amazingly innovative and has really brought something fresh and exciting to video games. Oh, and if you've got a Wii and you know my email address, send me a message and we'll exchange Wii numbers so that we can write each other.

--Paul

Me, My Health and I

So I'll start this series with the topic that got me started on my blogging way in the first place. I'm doing well. We go back to the cardiologist this coming Friday (heads up Courtney and Edwin) so I'll have a more complete report on exactly how I'm doing next weekend.

As to my blood-thinner, we were doing good up until about 4 weeks ago and all of a sudden my level dipped a little too low, so instead of moving to getting checked once a month, we're still on every two weeks. It's disappointing and a little frustrating. It's been nearly 7 months since my surgery and we still don't have this thing completely worked out yet. I know it's going to be an up and down thing and that it's hard to get Coumadin regulated, but come on. I've done a little bit of research on the web and other than a drug that was approved in Europe and then later discontinued for safety reasons, there doesn't seem to be a lot of development or research into better blood thinner agents. As many people there are that are on Coumadin, I'm shocked that this is the case. I guess that's just the way it is though.

Anyway, as I said, I'll have a more detailed report next weekend. I feel great though, and DeAnne says that she can tell a change in me as far as my energy levels and such, so all should be well.

--Paul

It's Been A Long Time Comin'

Hey, how is everyone doing out there? I know it's been a while since I posted. There's been a lot going on and honestly, I just haven't had the urge to write anything. But here we are, 21 days into 2007 and it's been a wild year already. To make things easier on myself, I'm going to split everything out into separate posts. So consider this just the intro.

--Paul