Avoid All Pro Football 2k8
As much as it pains me to say this All Pro Football 2k8 need to go back to 2k Sports for finishing touches. I am a diehard 2k5 football fan and I cannot even fathom the sick individuals who think Madden 07 was a worthwhile game on any system but APF 2k8 falls short in all the wrong places. The kicking setup on the game has an incredibly high learning curve and is not very easy to use since it is often difficult to tell when the kicker’s foot is approaching the ball. This is key because due to the quarterback not throwing when you want him to on way too many occasions you will find yourself facing too many 4th and 3 situations. The running game works well and other than a few time when linebackers seemed to move with the speed of a wild hyena on crack, running is an enjoyable experience. Occasionally you can get a breakaway pass or run you are faced with what feels like “catchup mode” and the D is on you like ants on molasses. I really hope I can pick up 2k9 next year and be blown away. Unless Madden felt the heat from early 2k8 rumblings and kicked it into high gear this will be another rent for 2 weeks iteration of next gen football, which is really sad. I cna only hope with a year back under their belt 2k Sports will put out an amazing 2k9 and Peter Moore will get in to EA Sports, kick some asses into gear and put out a decent football came.
Can Anyone put out a “next gen” football game? It has been almost two years and I have yet to see one.
Transformers: The Movie…The Game
I haven’t yet had time to see the movie yet but I was able to play the game over the July 4th Holiday. I was extremely surprised to find that the game was fun and somewhat challenging. You can play as either the Autobots or the Decepticons and you get to play a whole range of transformers each with their own special abilities etc. The game is part driver, part boxing/fighting, part transformer shooting stuff. Overall it is well worth a rental and likely 6-8 hours of playtime if you want to play both the Autobot and Decepticon storylines.
Review Copies of Ragmuffin Available
Tobias Buckell author of Crystal Rain and Ragamuffin is giving away several review copies of his latest book Ragamuffin and his first book Crystal rain to individuals who are reviewers, bloggers or prominent members of large forums. If you want one just leave a comment on his announcement post.
I had a chance to read an advance copy of Ragamuffin and thoroughly enjoyed it. The use of technology by characters, a la the “lamina” and the struggles the main character faced as well as how she overcame obstacles really made this book enjoyable. Finally my favorite character in the series made a return. I am waiting for my copy to get in from Amazon and I will do a more in depth review once I have read it again. The links above to the book pages include access to the first third of the novel for free, and Crystal Rain is out in paperback.
Ragamuffin
Crystal Rain
World War Z, Rocks Your Face Off
I just finished World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
If anyone knows of another book that follows a similar multi view format to tell a story like this please let me know as I think I have just become addicted.
Advantage Rent a Car Customer Service, Fixes My Problem!
Providing good customer service is so very simple yet many companies can’t seem to get it right for all the customers on the net. Recently I had a bad experience renting a car from Advantage in San Antonio, in reality it was a combination of bad things which led to a bad experience, if only one of them had occurred it would have been an OK experience. Late Last Tuesday I posted my letter to the CEO of Advantage here on my blog and followed up with a postal mail letter to the CEO and CFO which I put int he mail Thursday afternoon. I was very surprised when I received a email Friday at 12:57PM apologizing for my experience, promising to correct the issue for future customers and refunding my full rental fee. This was less than 24 hours after I dropped my complaints into the mail leading me to believe that Advantage was reading the complaint on my site and responding to it. Congrats, that is a proactive method of fixing problems customers have already had. You can check out the full text inside as well as my “patent pending” method of how to fix a problem a customer has had.
What Google Should Do Next
Much of my web experience and blogging information comes to my through Google in one way or another. I currently use Google reader to pour through loads of RSS feeds, Gmail to handle my email, Google Adsense to monetize my writing, and Google Analytics to track my website statistics. While overall the experience is good, there are several steps which could really ramp up the whole experience.
One of the best improvements which Google could make is to better integrate Adsense and Analytics. Currently the two applications are linked in manner that lets site owners track how Adsense words they have purchased drive traffic to their site. This works well if you are trying to birng in visitors through Adwords but Google analytics is severely lacking in ways to track the value of your site through advertising.
Google should mash up the reporting from Analytics with the earning reports from Adsense. In doing so they could allow site owners to determine and track which ad keywords are getting the most clicks from thier current audience. This would also allow site owners to view the posts which bring in the most clicks and ad revenue in order to make decisions about future content.
I would be ecstatic if I could view my most popular posts, search engine keywords, and most monetized posts in one application in an easily understandable format. Google, under appreciated programmers, anyone…can you make this a reality?
Another feature Google can implement which is sorely lacking is a Search function in Google Reader. Sure you can go all DIY and add your own search to Google Reader but you need to update it each time you add a feed, which is horrid. Luckily Download Squad reports that Google may be adding a search function to the Google Reader soon.
Halo 3 Beta!
I had a few minutes today to hop on the Halo 3 Beta. Wow, the Laser is freakin Awesome. I cannot describe how fun it is to hit someone who just popped up on a grav lift with the laser. The game still has a lot of learning for me and I need to look into the maps on Bungie.net again. Unfortunately I have to write a paper sometime this weekend about the Politics of Jesus, so my playtime may be cut down. If you have a copy of Crackdown I highly suggest you pop it in and get the Beta rolling, it is only a few weeks long.
In case you wondered we did finally get our suitcase at 11:45 PM on Wednesday.
If anyone wants to play hit up my gamertag, Ca1vin.
Star Wars: Attack of the Clone Images
A classmate of mine sent me a Link to his Brother-in-law’s science fiction drawings from the 1970′s side by side with scenes from George Lucas’s Star Wars. The resemblance is striking. I believe at some point in the past a settlement was offered but not taken. I have just a few examples shown below.
1971
Star Wars 1980
1972
1977 Star Wars
Check out some more examples of George Lucas’s look alikes
Josh Smith is a blogger, database manager and adjunct professor of business and technology. 
