Vanderbilt Fantasy

So it's been an interesting and semi busy week(s). Work has been busier, but it comes in spurts, often at inopportune times, like early morning, lunch, late night, or weekends. Which just takes some getting used to. So with work and adapting to a new summer schedule without the distractions of TV, I found it harder to blog a little. Oh well, life has been pretty boring without much to talk about anyway. Great weather provides some great hiking opportunities which did some up at Ferncliff Forest and plan do hopefully do some more in the future. I also went to visit the Vanderbilt Mansion while I still have some time on my National Parks pass. It was cool to see and being free is also cool. It's a shame that a large portion of the parks and historic sites around me are mainly just houses, don't receive a discount, or are already free. It's a shame I didn't get anywhere further north while I had it since it's pretty much dead now.

I saw a few movies recently. The first was Frost Nixon which I found to be a pretty good political movie, but ultimately moved along at a pretty slow pace and the whole first half was pretty uninteresting. I also saw The Reader. This was a good character driven story drama about a boy who falls for an older woman and then deals with her the rest of his life pretty much. Unfortunately, Netflix spoiled the movie for me having a major plot point in their synopsis. I just wanted to refresh my memory as to why I put it on my queue in the first place, but they ruined it. I thought the movie was good and the rich characters kept it interesting, but it moved along pretty slow as well. Luckily it didn't drone on and on like other life stories and kept it pretty succinct at 2 hours.

I have been finding time to play some video games but wasn't able to give full reviews. I already mentioned how I thought Uncharted was really good and am waiting for the sequel. I played and finished the new Prince of Persia. It pretty much held up to my first impressions. The platforming was fun, but the battles almost seemed tedious. The open world has horrible pacing since it's do the same basic task 24 times. It was still a fun romp. I tried out the Infamous demo. Seemed like a fun super hero game and the reviews I've seen seem to improve on the GTA open world with a more plot driven narrative. So I decided to purchase it since I had a Gamestop gift card, but who knows when I'll get to it. I also decided to pick back up an epic RPG for the start of my summer gaming. Not having TV allows me put in time almost every day into gaming which is great. And choosing an epic 100+ hour RPG now ensures that I won't take almost a year to complete (hopefully). I decided to reach back into my PS2 pile and pulled out Final Fantasy 12. It's one of the few I haven't beaten and feel like I can get into it now. I started to play it when it first came out and got maybe half way in it, but since it's been ~2.5 years, I decided to start from the beginning. So far so good, but I can see why i probably didn't like it to begin with. For one, the game feels very open ended with different areas opening up all the time which was probably a bit too much. Also and probably more important is the pure random of everything. Everything is so random which makes things a chore, like treasure hunting. It's random when the chest will appear, random if it's money or not, and then random which item you'll get. Because most times you won't get the good items out of them, you are forced to buy them from shops which means that you are almost always short on gil. So far though, since I have the time to devote, I'm still enjoying it.

Time in NYC

This past weekend was a good weekend. Kristen came up with Jared and visited along with touring NYC. On Friday they went shopping down at the Woodbury Outlets and had fun, so I guess I should go down there sometime. Maybe some weekend where I'm not doing much or hiking down in that area. On Saturday we took a trip to NYC. It was essentially the same basic trip that I took with MOM and Dad a few weeks ago, but with them it seemed more relaxed and I had a better idea of more efficient areas to go. We did the Statue of Liberty and briefly Ellis Island. It was a shame it was kinda an ugly day, especially in the morning. We then went towards Times Square and had lunch. Afterwards we wandered over to 30 Rock. On the way, we saw a huge street vendor sale on 6th Avenue. It was pretty cool and really big. I was surprised by it and enjoyed it immensely. It was probably my favorite part. We then wandered around Central Park for a while before getting tired and headed home. We also made a quick stop by Central Market and picked up some delicious desserts. When we got back in Poughkeepsie, we ate at O'Shea's and got some good food and drinks. Sunday they left early and I played catch up with all of my podcasts and Hulu stuff. By the way, what a great season finale for Grey's anatomy. Up to this point, I was so dead tired of the show and was going to give it up. I was no longer the prime demographic and was looking for something to dump. I didn't care about the characters anymore since they all seemed too crazy now a days. Then this finale just roped me back in. It was extremely good and the whole season up to now seemed to be for that episode. Great.

I also was able to catch a small budget foreign flick called Time Crimes. It is basically about time travel and a pretty normal man's experience with it. It started out pretty slow but by about half way through, it was really good and I liked unwrapping some of the twists and turns even though some of it was pretty predictable and confusing. The ending gave a pretty good twist and I liked it a lot (I wonder what happened after the cops showed up). A great indy flick.

Way to go Mikey

So last night was an excellent night. I attended the local Penn State Alumni Association's Spring Banquet. Normally I'm not a very big social butterfly, but the main reason I attended was that they invited Mike McQuerey to be a guest speaker. During the opening social hour I met a few people (whose names I all forget, go me) and got to mingle with Mike himself for a very short while. We then had a pretty good dinner. Lots of small portions, but they tasted good. Mike then gave his speech. He was a great speaker, being very open about himself, the program, JoePa, media, conference, everything. It was really great to see. It was wonderful that he was so open since I did hear a few things not quite heard before. He was a super nice guy and is always busy. I hope he keeps up the good work since we've been landing some good recruits. It was a good night, even for a hermit like me.

Wow, Fringe-y

Wow, I just wanted to say what an amazing season finale of Fringe. At first I thought it was a little gimmicky but by the end with alternate dimension [and grave yards] and then the [NYC Skyline]. Absolutely brilliant! Then Leonard Nimoy was an added bonus. Truly a great series. The whole season has been great and I hope it continues with lots of good stuff in the fall. I don't want some lulls like Lost had. But concise to say, yes, I am still very much in love with this show.

Set to Stun

So I had a pretty good week and weekend. Nothing too exciting, but good none the less. So on Saturday, I went and saw the new Star Trek movie. It was pretty amazing and a great space adventure. I'm glad I went and saw it opening weekend. Although in the past I wasn't too big of a Star Trek fan, I think I may be after the movie. It made me want to see more, although if I act on it is yet to be determined. I think the plot did get pretty crazy at times, which may be off putting to some watchers, but I liked it. I also wonder if this whole thing is supposed to be in canon or not since it seems like it might through some things off.

Also this weekend I went on a very short hike. I read in the NYT an article about Hudson Valley vistas and Burger hill was listed, so I decided I would check it out. It turned out to be a very short hike up a medium sized hill. The view was ok, but it was nothing special and didn't even have a view of much. I was more surprised that something like this would be listed in the NYT. If I was closer to NYC and decided to come check this out, I would be mad. Since I am much closer, I was ok with it, but was expecting more.

I also finished two rentals this week. I got Benjamin Button which was a pretty good life story, but was epically long which detracted from it overall. I also thought there were some major plot holes since he's born and died with the body of a baby which doesn't make sense. He's also stupid with each. This strides from the original story since he was supposed to be born with the knowledge of an old man. I also just wish that his body didn't somehow shrink.
I also saw Tropic Thunder. Nothing special really, just an ok comedy. I found my self laughing a few times, but not too much.

In my weekend gaming, I finished up Uncharted and started the newest Prince of Persia. Uncharted was great and I look forward to the sequel. I even did a little bit of trophy hunting (although I'm not too sure why since they mean nothing and I don't really have any PSN friends that would care). Prince of Persia seems ok as of now. It is beautiful and the platforming is fun, but the pacing is absolutely horrible and the game can get repetitive. I would guess I'm halfway through or so. The game opens up to 24 different levels and after you complete one, it's just rinse and repeat 23 more times. For now I'm sticking with it since the platforming is a lot of fun.

A bunch of Cupcakes

Why does Penn State's schedule suck so bad? Is it too hard to ask for maybe two BCS schools a year? If not, how about no Div-2 opponents? I just feel that we can achieve all of the programs goals of having at least 7 home games and pack the stadium while also increasing the strength of schedule. Think about it. How about 2 Big East schools since we like easy opponents in our recruiting area with alternating away years. We could then have two guaranteed wins in a Div-2 team and a MAC team (Temple?). This would be hands down far better than what we've been having the past few years. Or if that is too much to ask, how about we schedule our one BCS team, preferably of higher quality (Alabama comes to mind) but even that I could dodge, as long as we then schedule a bunch of MAC, C-USA, MWC, and Sun Belt schools. This way we would at least be scheduling all Div-1 schools which is an improvement over our current system of a measly BCS school and then a Div-2 with some other non BCS schools. I don't know I'm just tired of all of the cupcakes and want to make the most out of not playing anybody and guaranteeing our wins.

So it seems that our Penn State football program really has a problem with weed and parties. Rumors are circulating that some more players were caught. I hope it's nothing serious and no potential starters, but this is getting out of hand. Someone on that teams need to take some leadership and show those kids.

I have to say that overall I'm feeling good for the team. It seems many aspects are coming together although I question the strength of the secondary after the Blue-White game. I hope they can get better and the offensive line can get better at blitzes. Quarterback play seems to be reasonable, but I feel that we lost too many and have too many hole to not lose a few. I'm thinking ten wins or so. Maybe lose to Ohio State and either Iowa, Northwestern, or MSU. Hopefully it's a good season. I know I've got a long way to go until Fall, but I'm starting to miss it. Hopefully Summer goes fast.

Valkyria Chronicles

So as promised, a brief little synopsis of my feelings about Valkyria Chronicles. So in case you are unfamiliar, it is a turn based strategy game with some real time elements that takes place during a fictitious WWII. The actual game play is great. I love being able to take my time by taking turns and how I want to spend my command points when it comes down to my turn. This is one thing I found I dislike with more recent RTS games in that I can't take my time doing stuff since there is so much to do, I always have to be doing something. I also love the real time elements in getting to control a character with cross fire actually happening. It is truly a great mix of action and strategy. The game is fairly difficult in places, but some of this is that you don't know what is coming at you. If I were to play again, I know I wouldn't have as hard a time. The game is sort of nerve racking though. I always felt the pressure of war since if I made a big mistake I felt I could lose a lot of my troops. I wish the AI would have been a little better in some places. Once you got the hang of it, it became easy to trap soldiers or make their moves worthless. Some of the Boss fights seemed like they had better AI and it would have been cool if that was always present. Most of the mission difficulty always stemmed from being outnumbered instead of being out thought. It also would have been nice if the grade you received on missions was based on more than the speed at which you performed the task. It would have been nice to get a bonus for going beyond the mission like eliminating troops.

I thought the story of the game was mediocre at best. It was a typical love story inside of a war story. There wasn't anything really exciting or new about it, but it wasn't bad either. Just totally average. The story was presented in a book format, which I had mixed feelings toward. I liked it at first because it was a cool concept and I liked the go at your own pace mentality, but some of the scenes became tedious since I had to initiate each new scene even if the last one was very short. It would have been nice to some how string scenes together better. The presentation in an anime format was superfluous. I appreciated it, but I imagine it might have sold better without it. The graphic themselves were really good. They were simplistic at times, but they got the job done and looked good. The pencil filter they had was cool for going with their book motif. Since the game was optimized for 720p and I had it in 1080p, I got plenty of jaggies but that didn't really bother me at all. The voice acting for the game was extremely good. I can't imagine Sega made their money back since there were some good talent in there. They also used a bunch of people for all of the different recruits you get in your squad. On top of being very authentic, it made the game seem real. This also made me not want to bring much harm to any of my characters since they each had a personality. The music wasn't anything great, but it wasn't grating so I guess that's good.

The game does have a New Game+ option to go back with more difficulty, but I'll pass for now. The game also had 3 DLC packs. One was just an advanced difficulty for new game+, which I won't take immediate use of. The one was another mission focusing on some of the recruits. This was a fun little mission and took some getting used to the troop layout. The last was a couple missions where you are the enemy. This was the most fun, but ultimately since each character didn't have a personality, I felt like I didn't care about them too much which kinda detracted from the game. Overall, these missions were fun and a good challenge, but I feel like since my party was weakened and taken back to an earlier level, it left me feeling weak and powerless. I didn't master the missions, but still got the feel for them. Still good fun though. There was talk of a sequel, especially for Japan. If it would come stateside despite the initial poor sales, I would grab it up in a heart beat. A great strategy RPG experience.

Weekend Ren Faire

So it's been a nice week. Kinda lazy, but busy at work and keeping busy with nice weather. This weekend I went to the Hudson Valley May Faire. It was a small Ren Faire that was close by so I checked it out. It was rather small, but it was fun. Many of the performances were good and humorous. The only main problem with the fair was the weather today. I originally planned on today since it seemed like they had more activities and I yesterday I was running errands, like going to Free Comic Book Day (Woo!). Also as of Friday, the weather seemed like it would be better on Sat. Turns out it was quite wrong. It was nice on Sat and rainy on Sun. Overall though, I'm glad I went.

I also recently saw 2 more movies. The first was Changling. It was a pretty good movie, but nothing too special. I felt like the plot was pretty predictable but everything was done well. It was a good historical drama.
The second movie was Vicky Christina Barcelona. I heard some good things but I was highly disappointed. The whole movie was rather boring. It moved along so slowly and the whole thing felt like it didn't even have a point. I also was hoping for a good performance from Penelope Cruz, and she delivered, but she was hardly even in the movie. The movie was a pretty big disappointment.

Lastly, I finished Valkyria Chronicles this weekend. Clear to say, I am very pleased with it. I hope to have a write up sometime when I get around to it. Meanwhile, I started Uncharted. So far, this is a great game and I look forward to playing it more. It is unfortunate that it is kinda short.