Not Long Ago I Had To Kill Zombies On a 32", Non-HD Television

A couple of years ago I began floating the idea to my lovely wife of ditching the dish and getting in with the hip crowd, who use these fancy new gadgets called computers for their entertainment needs. I wanted to get rid of the dish, get cable internet service (which is the best I've been able to find in the area), and rely on Netflix, Hulu and network websites that allow you to watch their shows online.

Donna was hesitant at first, not because she didn't believe computers existed, but because she worried that she wouldn't be able to see all her shows. Pish posh, I explained.

One thing we could agree on however, was that our internet sucked. Our provider, Eye Thirty Minus One* was slow and unreliable. So we made the decision to get rid of our dish and sign up with Cable One, the only cable provider Fargo will ever need, which is a good thing because they are a monopoly. Their televison sucks, with a DVR user interface that hasn't been upgraded since, I don't know, 1954?

It can't do basic things like group multiple episodes of the same show together in a folder, or remember which user's guide was last accessed (meaning you have to repeatedly push the Guide button to get back to your menu every time you access it). There's no preloaded guide that is smart enough to know which channels you subscribe to. It's all very 51/4" floppy. That said, I'd rather have great internet and so-so TV than the other way around.

Especially when, as Christmas 2011 approached, we made the decision to join the 21st century and get a flat screen TV for the living room. A nice 46" Samsung LED SmartTV looks really great. You haven't fought to survive
the zombie apocalypse until you've done it on a giant HDTV.

I then I did some research and found a compact little PC that was all wired and ready to be an entertainment hub. Waiting until after Christmas was a smart idea, as I got it for less than $400 and it included free 2-day shipping.

So we now have a state-of-the-art television with a PC attached for watching movies and TV shows we can't get on cable, an XBox 360 for killing zombies in HD, and a Wii for, well, we have a Wii. We may never have to leave the house again.


*Names have been transparently changed to protect the crappy.

Wii Wii Wii All The Way Home

While we were bravely hiding from the latest deluge of snow over Christmas, Donna and I (and her family) spent a lot of time playing with her Wii. Donna's mother bought it for her grandkids. Well, actually she bought it for herself in order to keep from strangling her grandkids when they come over. But anyway, we played the crap out of it.

Mostly we played Wii Sports, which included boxing, golf, bowling, baseball and tennis. While I am currently undefeated in boxing, it was tennis that consumed us. Ryan, Donna's brother, and I stayed up until 4:30 in the morning after Christmas playing against besprited hell harpies with tennis rackets. In the process we upped our ranking to the point that we only play against professionals when we take on the computer.

The upshot is that as of this writing I can't lift either arm above my head. Yes, it got so bad that I played the last couple of days southpaw.

Anyway, Donna and I voted, and by a tally of 2-0 we decided to buy one for ourselves. I hooked it up on Tuesday and my shoulders bitched at me the whole time. Babies. I assume I can work the controller with my foot.

The best part of the Wii is the creation of your avatars (called Miis). You can customize them in all sorts of ways including designing their faces. We spent a lot of time messing around with this feature, creating likenesses of ourselves, but also any crazy thing we can think of. I made likenesses of Shaft, Ahhhnold, Superfly, Darth Vader, a "gooback" from South Park and Abraham Lincoln. As you would expect, they are all awesome tennis players.

Hail To The King, Baby

The first first person shooter I ever played (not counting a two-minute go on the orignal Doom) was Duke Nukem 3D. It was awesome, because it used humor as an integral part of the gaming experience right alongside blowing things to hell. Duke admired himself in mirrors, threw out pithy one-liners whenever he killed something in an especially gruesome manner, and generally acted like a smug jackass. At one point in the game, you can wave some cash at a stripper and she'd flash you. It was that kind of game.

It was pretty obvious the writers had been big fans of the Evil Dead movies, as many of the lines were ripped off from the character of Ash.

Even though it was a huge success and made the developers rich, there was never a sequel to Duke Nukem 3D. The reasons were always nebulous, but it turns out that a case of engine envy was to blame.

The decision to lock things down and "go with what you've got" is always a challenge in the software business, and it's especially true in the world of game development. There's always some fancy new game engine (the software used to render the environments and control the physics of the game world) coming out. Sometimes games get caught in between leaps in technology and a brand new game gets dinged for looking out of date. It happens.

It looks like 3D Realms couldn't abide letting that happen. And so began an endless cycle of switching game engines midstream, which essentially meant all the development work had to be thrown away. Now, almost fourteen years after ruling the gaming world, the company is out of business and Duke Nukem is dead. Too bad.