Grmbl (1): Die neue XBoX Slim

Neue Kategorie für Ärgernisse, hmpfztn.

Gestern die neue, schlanke, schwarze, tolle XBoX Slim gekauft. Hübsches Teil, schnurrt wie ein Kätzchen (kein Hubschrauberlandeplatz mehr wie die alte Konsole), WLAN läuft auch, endlich genügend Platz auf der Festplatte, schon fit für Kinect - eigentlich alles wunderbar. ABER:

Wieso zum Henker liegt dieser "Elite"-Version nur ein popeliges Komponenten-Kabel bei? Ich hab das Ding angeschlossen und gedacht, die wollen mich verarschen. Nix HD. Ist jetzt nicht so schlimm, hab ich halt das HD-Kabel (keine Ahnung wie das heisst) der alten Konsole genommen - aber da ich die alte Konsole weitergeben will, muss ich wohl noch ein HDMI-Kabel nachkaufen (wohl gemerkt nicht irgendeins, das wär ja langweilig, das muss schon das von Microsoft für zig Ocken sein..). Super. Wieso hat die alte Looser-XBox ein HD-Kabel und die neue SuperDuper-Variante keins? Hmpfzt.

Aber okay. Geht ja erstmal. Das Übertragen der Festplatten-Daten auf die neue Konsole von der alten (natürlich auch NUR mit einem Extra-Kabel möglich, aber das wusst ich ja vorher und hatte das Ding schon da) an sich, lief auch reibungslos. Nun muss man aber danach noch die Lizenzen der runtergeladenen Inhalte auf die neue Konsole übertragen. Hatte ich mir alles angeschaut vorige Woche, kann man alles toll auf der X-Box-Seite machen, sollte ja kein Akt sein. Dummerweise haben die offenbar in der Zwischenzeit die Homepage komplett umgekrempelt und sämtliche Links auf Lizenz-Übertragungsfunktionalität führten auf ne Fehlerseite. Ganz toll.

Da ich es nicht so prickelnd finde, meine Download-Inhalte nur spielen zu können, wenn Netzverbindung besteht und ich vor allem auch gerne möchte, dass die Mitbewohnerin das Zeug (für das sie zum Teil ja auch bezahlt hat) mit ihrem Account auch spielen kann, habe ich dann dochmal die Hotline bemüht. Das lief dann wieder recht gut, muss man sagen, wurde alles aufgenommen und das wird dann halt jetzt da angestossen. Trotzdem doof. Wie kann man denn eine neue Homepage online gehen lassen, ohne wichtige Funktionen zu migrieren? Einmal mit Profis arbeiten...

Aber hey, mein Leben ist grade extrem toll, das ist alles kein Stück schlimm :). Aufgeschrieben werden musstes trotzdem mal.

Zitat des Tages (7)

Ein guter Schweinebraten hat durchaus etwas transzendentales, wenn er gut gemacht ist. Denn es ist ja die Bestimmung des Schweins, gut zu schmecken. Die Sau als entfremdetes Individuum, geworfen in eine gott-gleichgültige Welt, kann ja als Bestimmung nur das anerkennen, was ihre Existenz verursacht und dadurch sinnhaft prägt: Nämlich das Schwein-Sein, dem das Bratenhafte ja schon innewohnt. Die Sau muss sich selbst verwirklichen, in dem sie sich in ihre dem Sein-Zweck untergeordnete Rolle als Bratenscheibe fügt.

- "Nuhr die Wahrheit", Dieter Nuhr

"Der Uhu ist der Luchs unter den Adlern", ist übrigens auch aus dem Programm - den Spruch hatte ich mal auf einem T-shirt gesehen und tagelang gerätselt, wo der wohl herkommt.

Quote of the Day (6): Belief vs. Faith

Read in Bryan Edward Hill's (co-author of the title) afterword in "Broken Trinity: Pandora's Box #2". Very true in my book:

Belief is all around us. It seems now, more than I've seen, people are wearing their beliefs on their sleeves. Political. Religious. Philosophical. We're a world made of little tribes, too many times picking fights with the other tribes that don't agree with us. That's the difference between belief and faith. Belief is active. Belief is certainty without discipline.

One man believes the sun is a god.
The other believes in the power of the moon.
Give them voices and they argue.
Give them weapons and they fight.
Give them armies and they wage war.

Faith is different. Faith is the resignation to something more powerful than yourself. The action of faith is discipline, the discipline to not continuously prove your cause to the world, but to accept the differences in others and find common ground. Faith isn't regulated to religion. It can be faith in a political system. Faith in the essential goodness of others. Faith that despite our natural weaknesses, humanity does want to build a better world.

And they say comic books are shallow...

Ladies of Interest (12): Marina & the Diamonds

"I am Marina. You are the Diamonds."

I just have to use the momentum of her gig in Berlin a few hours ago to add another Lady to the illustrious group of the LOI. Because she rocked the house ;).

You can read all the biographical info about Marina Diamandis over at wikipedia, I'll just keep to my personal thoughts and stories and stuff. I saw the music-video to her recent single "Hollywood" a few months ago, and since I'm a sucker for pop-music it kept stuck in my head. Unfortunately not long enough to remember title nor artist. Lucky me went by a turned on radio at the doctor's and the non-geekess' flat and got the much needed info. Instant legal download of single followed. Infinite looping of the title did as well, very much to the displeasure of the flatmate. I discovered the ingenious "I am not a robot" and other songs of the 24-year-old Welsh girl - and the fact that her album was not out yet in Germany. Hrmph. Three weeks ago it was, I bought it and the Marina fever hasn't left me ever since.

The critics are very fond of Marina, Spiegel Online wrote a piece about her today. Her voice is just amazing, her album is a great mixture of fast tracks and ballads (I just LOVE "Numb") and since it's both mainstream-compatible and very special at the same time, I have no doubt in the predictions of her beeing the next big popstar. So I'm especially happy that I had the chance to see her perform in a small club today. Next time, she'll probably fill much bigger halls and I won't get the chance getting that close to her.

Speaking of close: Second row, right before the mike. Behind three guys one head smaller than me. So basically like one meter away from Marina, unblocked line of sight. [D&D-mode] That's threat range with a standard weapon (in fact, if I had stood a little more to the right, I would have succeeded in a touch attack when Marina decided to touch a few hands in the audience). [/D&D-mode] I definitely pays being an early bird. I swear she was looking right in my eyes (and mine only!) for a couple of seconds several times ;). Marina's outfit was surprisingly "normal" (compared to some very, very... strange ones I've seen) and she got rid of her sunglasses at the end of the first song (I hope I can show some pictures soonish, I let a norwegian guy in front for the first three songs to took photos; he gave me the internet-adress of the site where the pictures will be published). She performed all songs of her new album ("The Family Jewels", go buy it on amazon, it's just 7 Euros) with the exception of "Hermit the Frog", plus two older ones I didn't know (one a cover of "Starstruck"). It was phenomenal, the whole audience sang along most of the titles. After a few of the more exhausting titles, she replaced her keyboarder and played "Numb" and "Obsessions". Unfortunately she was done after one hour, including one encore. *sigh*

"I will definitely be back, I've got a soft spot for Germany." I'll be there (and selfish as I am I kinda hope, she'll not get THAT famous, so she will continue playing in small clubs like the frannz).

UPDATE: Thomas Olson was so kind to upload some of his pictures to flickr, one is shown and linked above. If someone speaks Norwegian, here's the article to the pictures.

Babsi 2.0

Guilty-Pleasures-Alarm! Auch wenn die Non-Geekess bisher als Mitschauerin schändlich versagt (weil nicht nicht in Berlin), komme ich meiner Pflicht nach, den Möchtegern-Models beim Kreischen zuzuschauen.... und ja, ich schau das wirklich gerne ;). Nur Final-Fantasy- und BSG-Board-Game-Sessions haben mich ein paar Sendungen verpassen lassen.

Zumindest hab ich mittlerweile auch eine klare Favoritin, die laut BILD-Insider-Informationen (die wissen ja bekanntlich ALLES! ;)) wohl auch unter den Top 5 sein, also mir noch ne Weile erhalten bleiben wird (wenn ich richtig gezählt hab, sind noch 14 übrig im Moment).

Hanna Bohnekamp (18) hatte ich schon seit der ersten Sendung auf dem Radar, doch heute hat sie sich souverän direkt auf Babsi-Niveau katapultiert. Folgende Szene: Die Mädels müssen schauspielern und nacheinander aufgebrezelt aus einem New Yorker Club kommend sich einer Verhaftung durch zwei Polizisten erwehren. Der eher niedlichen, zurückhaltenden Hanna (nach dem Umstyling heute auch rothaarig, echt Babsi 2.0) ist das Ganze etwas zu realitätsfern, entsprechend ist ihr Einsatz im Vergleich zu den restlichen schreienden und um sich schlagenden Mädels eher verhalten. Einspieler-Kommentar:

"Ich mein, wenn da Polizisten sind, die mich verhaften wollen, da schrei ich doch nicht rum... da.. da frag ich... ' Wo... soll ich einsteigen?'"

Haha. Geil. Wenn zur niedlichen Optik solche hochsympathisch-down-to-earthigen Sprüche kommen... DAS ist der Babsi-Faktor, den ich will! Go Hanna Go! Netterweise kriegt sie verhältnismässig viel Screen-Time, was mich hoffen lässt, daß was an den BILD-Gerüchten dran ist. [Ha, eben die originale Babsi in der Müller Werbung gesehen! Schön, daß sie immer noch gut im Geschäft zu sein scheint.]

Rein optisch find ich Pauline Afaja noch sehr ansprechend, die ist aber nicht auf der BILD-Liste. Schaut ein bisschen aus wie eine jüngere Freema Agyeman (Doctor Who: Martha Jones). Da es mit Sara Nuru erst letztes Jahr eine dunkelhäutige Gewinnerin gab, rechne ich ihr aber kaum Chancen aus. Mal schauen, wie lange sie bleibt. Sehr sympathisch finde ich Miriam Hüller, auch wenn sie optisch gar nicht mein Fall ist. Ich hab keine Ahnung, was die verhaltenstechnisch komplett unweibliche Stuntfrau geritten hat, plötzlich Model werden zu wollen, aber ihre deutlich kritische Haltung zu dem ganzen "Weiberkram" (O-Ton) passt super als Kontrast zum generischen Kreisch-Rest. Sehr sympathisch (zumal sie auch regelmässig die recht nah am Wasser gebaute Hanna wieder aufbaut), aber steht nicht auf der BILD-Liste. Schade, aber nachvollziehbar - so "richtiges" Model-Material ist sie nicht. Überhaupt nicht leiden kann ich die eigentlich gar nicht unhübsche Ego-Zicke Luisa, die gottseidank auch nicht auf der Liste ist. Drauf ist dafür leider die durchs Makeover noch mehr verunstaltete Neele (dürre, kantiges Gesicht, und nu noch ein Pony - grausam, wie Maria letztes Jahr). Bah nee, die kann ich nicht sehen.

Na mal schauen, was da noch so passiert. Bald guckt ja vielleicht auch die Non-Geekess wieder mit.

Ladies of Interest (11): Alyx Vance & Chell

Hmm. Cyber-Ladies again. Next one will be a "real" Lady again for a change, promise! (A certain neighbour of two certain Geeks in a certain show is certainly overdue).

Alyx Vance is the daughter of Dr. Eli Vance, one of the researchers of Black Mesa responsible for opening a portal to another dimension. Though Dr. Gordon Freeman could close the portal and defeat the alien invaders who poured through it single-handedly, earth came into the focus of yet another alien force: The Combine. So when some twenty years later Dr. Freeman returns, he has to rescue an enslaved earth. This time not single-handedly but with the firm hands of Alyx by his side.

Although Half-Life 2 is "only" a First-Person-Shooter, it was a revolution for the genre just as Half-Life was several years ago. Not only does it take the player beyond "normal" gameplay with some clever uses of the engine, but offers also a set of very believable characters and a thrilling story with an unique method of including the player.

Gordon Freeman (the player) doesn't speak (but is spoken to a lot). There are no scenes in which the player doesn't look out of his eyes and in most of them the player keeps moving control over him all the time. I really like that kind of "thrown-in-the-middle"-storytelling, where you have to puzzle everything together from several chunks of information throughout the game. And Valve did an excellent job of conveying the complex story and universe that way. I won't spoil anything, but Half-Life 2, HL2:Episode 1 and HL2:Episode 2 were an intense experience. So intense that I didn't mind to play Ep1 and 2 again after finishing with the build-in "audio-commentary" of the developers.

Valve does know how to develop and evolve a game. Take Alyx: She's a part-time supporting character in HL2, a very much needed ally in combat in Ep1 and a central story element in Ep 2. Valve did immense amounts of playtesting through all phases of the game(s), including behaviour routines for Alyx. According to the audio-commentaries at one point in development she went ahead of the player and asked him to hurry - resulting in a nagging character. Playtesters hated her. So now she's following the player and lets him move at his own pace.

Beyond that Gordon and Alyx develop a charming relationship (he's just a good listener I guess... ;) ). Hope that Episode 3 will be announced soonish.

---------

Chell (surname unknown) is maybe the daughter ("... It says so right here in your personnel file; 'Unlikable. Liked by no one. A bitter unlikable loner whose passing shall not be mourned.' SHALL NOT BE MOURNED. That's exactly what it says. Very formal. Very official. It also says you were adopted. So that's funny too.") of an employee of Black Mesa rival Aperture Science who visited her father on the annual "bring your daughter to work day". She awakes in a sterile testchamber and is greeted by a annoying female computer-voice commanding her to partake in a series of tests ("Please note that we have added a consequence for failure. Any contact with the chamber floor will result in an "unsatisfactory" mark on your official testing record, followed by death. Good luck!") involving Aperture Science's portable portal technology. Soon she gets the device and faces mind-bending challenges involving the loveliest Weighted Companion Cube ("The Enrichment Center reminds you that the Weighted Companion Cube cannot speak. In the event that the Weighted Companion Cube does speak, the Enrichment Center urges you to disregard its advice.") ever, neurotically sweet machine gun turrets and the ever-helpful ("The Enrichment Center promises to always provide safe testing environments. In dangerous testing environments, the Enrichment Center promises to always provide useful advice. For instance, the floor here will kill you. Try to avoid it.") voice of GLaDOS who got a morality core installed after she flooded the enrichment centre with a deadly neurotoxin to make her stop flooding the enrichment centre with a deadly neurotoxin. Also, there's cake. But the cake is a lie!

Portal is... undescribable. I played it again yesterday in one long run (3 hours with audio commentary) and I'm still shaking my head. GLaDOS is the most disturbed AI you can imagine (she's singing the now nerd-hymn "Still Alive" during the credits roll), the environment is a mixture between creepy, weird and hilarious and the gameplay is waaay cool. And challenging. ("Momentum; a function of mass and velocity; is conserved between portals. In layman's terms: speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out.") Everything for the cake! ("There was even going to be a party for you. A big party that all your friends were invited to. I even invited your best friend the companion cube. Of course he couldn't come because you murdered him. All your other friends couldn't come either because you don't have any other friends because of how unlikable you are.")

Half-Life 2: The Orange Box containing HL2, Ep 1, Ep2, Portal and Team Fortress 2 is a very good deal. Own it and be rewarded with hours of great gameplay. And cake.

Rise of the Adamas

[This is a loose summary of the key-events of our first Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game session. I'll try to not use any game mechanics terms since it's much more fun this way ;). The setup: President Roslin (the flatmate - who would've guessed that?), Admiral Adama (the non-geekess), Tyrol (the doctor) and Apollo (me).]

The fleet is in turmoil. Humanity's last bits survived the fall of the Twelve Colonies just to find itself on the brink of extinction by the hands - or claws and missiles - of an all-open cylon attack group! A basestar and three raiders are attacking Galactica - panic rises. The Admiral declines to call Martial Law though that would've been a much more funny exposition. ("The cylons attack! FRAK! I don't know this female president yet, but I'm pretty sure she's not helping much. Better get full command of the whole fleet..."). Tyrol mounts a cannon and damages the basestar. The first cheers are silenced when Galactica gets hit and the Command Center is blown to smithereens - no way to tell those Vipers where to go! Thank the gods that no civilian ship is in range and Apollo is out there in a viper ("Hm. The Raiders are attacking Galactica instead of me... Look how they miss again and again... I think I'll stay right here, not endangering myself and my precious viper. I'm much too pretty.")

[stuff happens, that I don't remember]

6 undefined distance units (UDU) from Kobol - the fleet has jumped two times yet with travelling only one unit per jump... is the Admiral sabotaging the journey and choosing the wrong jump destinations? - the situation is much graver. Two basestars have popped up and are sending wave after wave of raiders and heavy raiders to galactica - this time threatening civilian ships! Though brave Apollo is able to shoot lots of them down due to his superior piloting skills, flight is the only chance of surviving. Since Roslin's chickens out of risking a fourth of the population with a preemptive jump, Apollo has to shoot down even more raiders, buying more time for jumping preparations. Of course he then has to crash land his viper into the launching bay and rush into the FTL-room to start the (still kinda preemptive-ish) jump into safety. Phew. Had to leave some of the fleet behind, but that's just the tip of the frak-berg...

4 UDU before Kobol, Admiral Adama comes to an epiphany: He kinda likes the Cylons. Hell, he probably even is one. He tells the whole fleet at once, is executed immediately and wakes up in a resurrection chamber. Smooth! Thank gods he's still cozy with the humans and sorta phones it in, not using the full arsenal of cylon-bad-assery. To brighten the day, he leaves a message for the humans: There's a real bad ass sleeper cylon agent in the fleet who just got activated. And it's either Roslin, Tyrol or Apollo. Dun-dun-dun-dunnnnnnnnnn.

Everyone sleeps with one eye open since that optimistic new premise. Newly promoted Admiral Lee Adama and President Roslin are pretty sure that Tyrol is the Cylon because the last ditched rescue mission [I can't remember what crisis-card it was, so I'm going for a rescue mission] reeks of engineering sabotage. But since it could have been the agents of the Old Man as well or even destiny itself, no one dares to put him into prison. No Cylon-attack at the fleet between two jumps lure humanity into a false sense of security.

About 2 UDU before Kobol the frak hits the fan. Due to one Zarek's intervenion Roslin has to give away presidency and after a short struggle chooses Admiral Apollo, who now holds all the military and political power in the fleet. Guess who's a cylon? Since Apollo's former framing and sabotaging attempts didn't seem to come to fruition, he decides that this would be the perfect time to reveal himself as the Cylon agent and blows himself up. Thus damaging Galactica's defensive capabilities and leaving the fleet defenseless without their finest pilot in the middle of a massive Cylon attack and the knowledge that they trusted the titles of both Admiral and President to their sworn enemy. VERY smooth.

The reunited Adamas try to beat Galactica and the fleet to a pulp by sending more and more ships into the fray but underestimate the power of the gods: 12 (TWELVE!!!) Cylon raiders are just able to damage (!!! NOT EVEN DESTROY!!!) ONE lousy viper. In an act of desperation Tyrol is able to somehow activate the FTL-Engines and brings the fleet into safety - leaving half of it behind to the mercy of the pissed Cylons.

With two Cylon agents working against them, food, fuel, morale and population low and key defense-systems of the Galactica still on the fritz, the fleet finds itself just one jump before the praised old homeworld of Kobol, holding the map to Earth. Alas, the last glimpse of hope shatters to tiny bits when Roslin has a very reliable vision of an inescapable attack of another massive Cylon armada.

And so humanity comes to a cold and silent end when the last civilians are shot down by a single Cylon raider.....

[Very great work of game balancing, by the way. Until the very end no side seemed to have a clear advantage. Although the Cylons had lots of firepower, the humans found ways to stall for jump preparations and escaping time and again.]

New Year's Resolutions 'n' stuff

Yeah, I'm still alive, dear reader(s). (Hope you guys DO notice the nice "Twitter Updates" sidebar - at those times it sucks to just follow the RSS feed of that blog ;) ).

Anyone thinking the title of this post implies that I'll plan to blog more often like in the olden days of tweetlessness - don't hold your breath, you may suffocate. I'll try to do more updates here than in the last year - which shouldn't be that hard when looking at the shameful number of 2009 posts - but the peak of my blogging frequency lies far far faaaaaar behind. Damn you, employment!

But alas, it's a new year, even a new decade (yeah I know, the decade does start NEXT year, but no one cares about that ;) ), so I'm willing to use my blog again for drooling about Ladies of Interest ... bragging with my awesome amateur art... geeking around collecting my thoughts and plans for future reference. So when I lay down my astonishingly precise and realistic resolutions in the next paragraphs, you all may come back to me in a year pointing fingers at the guy who didn't even try to accomplish them ;). (To speak the truth, some of my goals are quite important to me and I hope that I'll be able to stick to them - probably won't happen without some serious time management though). So in the order they come to mind - so not at all ordered by priority: Batch's resolutions for 2010 (excerpt):

Keep drawing. I'm not under the illusion that I'll ever be able to compete with professional or semi-professional artists. I'm not that talented at all and I don't *want* it hard enough to put myself in the process of endless practicing. I continue to improve very slowly, but I'm still completly lost in the woods when working without reference. I'm good at copying, I suck at imagining. But: I found some nice tutorial for drawing heads/faces from different angles after some kind of formula which really helps understanding what I'm drawing and bringing me a small step closer to really creative drawing without depending so much on a reference. More details in a future post maybe. There will be opportunities galore with FedCon coming up and lots of drawings to be made.

Get back to miniature painting. Before I went to Berlin, I used to paint miniatures (mostly those Games Workshop Lord of the Rings guys) and I think I wasn't that bad. I really felt I should do that again, so I bought lots of colors and brushes and tools, I de-colored some of my early works (a terrible, terrible Legolas for example) and even primed them - but now that almost everything's ready I feel kinda afraid or intimidated of actually starting to paint again. I may suck hell after almost four years of not-painting and feel deeply disappointed when things don't go smoothly. I'll need to buy the remaining stuff and force myself to spend a complete day for that. Poor Legolas may suffer a fate worse than death but let's face it: He never was the prettiest ;).

Get this homepage thingy working! It's a shame for a studied computer scientist to not have a real self-coded homepage. I have the webspace (thanks to klti), I have the domain, I even have some content (my drawings) - but I can't find the time to think of a concept for some small but nice web appearance. The avoider of final episodes and I will have to brainstorm at some point in the near future.

Software development skill enhancing. Same thing. I start to hate my old Comic-Database-Application. Every time I catalogue the latest additions to my collection with the old and ill-coded system I notice the shortcomings and long for a complete overhaul. But it's pretty hard to find yourself in the mood to continue programming and/or software developing after doing that the whole day at work. But due to the limitations of technologies I have to work with at my job, I think I really have to do an independent software project for myself to preserve and enhance my skills in software development and object oriented programming. So it's not only a question of finally improve the administration of my comic collection but to keep up with my area of expertise. Needs lots of time, though. At least I started to put my requirements and first brainstormings on (digital) paper, so a first specification is on the horizon.

Do more sports! I have to face it: I'm turning 30 and the years of eat-what-you-want-and-do-no-sports-but-still-stay-relatively-slim are over. I gained a few pounds this year and that are a few pounds to much. They have to go. I refuse going to the gym though. I'm absolutely no gym guy and I won't spent my precious time pulling some weights in a sweaty training room. I will try to do some more biking at least after the winter. I'm even desperate enough to think of jogging. And giving up Fast Food ;). I'm open for suggestions.

There are more points left ("girlfriend","less gaming" and the like ;) ) but I think that suffices for now.