James Chamberlin

Instead of my typical walking on a treadmill at the local gym, I decided to walk along a bicycle path the city has in the park. Since the path goes over a small lake, it’s impossible to see how far it goes on for until you actually walk it. I would estimate the section I walked on to be anywhere from 2/3 of a mile to a full mile. That’s the problem though: there aren’t any mile markers of any kind. It would be nice to have this sort of information before you begin… not everybody is in good enough shape to walk a mile (or whatever it is).

Anyway, along the way, I was quite surprised by the amount of dog and bird poo along the pathway. Does anybody pick up after their dog? The bird poo wasn’t much better. Instead of large mounds, it was well scattered throughout the walkway. Between the ducks and Canada Geese, the bird population has made quite a mess in our little park.

A while back I mentioned trying to choose which forum software to install on one of my fan sites. Well, I decided to go with MyBB for the time being. The interface is simple but it appears to have everything I need in a forum.

Installation went nicely. I didn’t find one hiccup in that process which is nice. I have to admit it’s been a very long time since I had to deal with a forum. Five years now. That’s a long time since RCT Station was shut down and I haven’t done any other community websites like it since.

Setting up each board has been simple. I have a lot more to set up, but haven’t got very much time right now. I don’t anticipate doing very much customizing to the skin. I’ve never been a graphic designer and am not about to become one anytime soon. For now, I think I just need a header image/logo and the design of the forum will be done for the most part.

The progress on the fan site itself is going well. I’ve got Ogre working on a small graphic for the poll section. But the content is going a little slow.

Here’s another funny clip courtesy of The Onion:

I just blogged about this the other day:

Since the only TV I have is a small 19″ SDTV, I decided to get one of those VGA connectors so I can connect my 360 to my Dell 20″ LCD. The size difference won’t be noticeable, but the Widescreen change will. I’ve noticed that the text on a lot of games now is difficult to read on an SDTV. I can tell it was designed to be shown on a widescreen TV. Of course, I only made the decision to get the cable this weekend, so I had to order it and have it shipped via one-day shipping w/ UPS since I’ve already got the game and need to get working on it.

Well, I received the unit this morning and began playing with it this afternoon. I had problems getting the audio to work because the line in port on my Vista machine was muted more or less (volume was set to zero). It took me a while to figure out the problem, which was embarrassing.

The only thing I don’t like about the VGA adapter has to deal with the two screws which connect to my LCD. They’re on either side of the actual connector, you know what I’m talking about. Well, the one which either came with the monitor or the Dell PC (can’t remember which), has reasonably strong, plastic ends. This is nice when I use a small screwdriver. Well, the VGA adapter screws are covered in a soft plastic or rubber, which easily chips away or tears off when you use a screwdriver. I’ve been forced to use my fingers only, which isn’t very ideal since I don’t have very small fingers.

It seems things are going to be slowing down for me at IGN TV for the month of March. I had kept pretty busy because I had several shows to review (Monk, MythBusters, and House) over the past couple of months, but they’re all on a break right now.

For March, the only show I’m reviewing is a new Fox drama, New Amsterdam, which is about a detective who is immortal. Hopefully things will pick up in April. I had a good string of nice paychecks coming in for a while. 🙂

I did manage to get assigned two game guides to do for IGN Guides. Both are multi-platform titles, but I chose to do the Xbox 360 version. Since the only TV I have is a small 19″ SDTV, I decided to get one of those VGA connectors so I can connect my 360 to my Dell 20″ LCD. The size difference won’t be noticeable, but the Widescreen change will. I’ve noticed that the text on a lot of games now is difficult to read on an SDTV. I can tell it was designed to be shown on a widescreen TV. Of course, I only made the decision to get the cable this weekend, so I had to order it and have it shipped via one-day shipping w/ UPS since I’ve already got the game and need to get working on it.

I felt pretty good at the gym this morning. I hit a personal best on the bench press. I always enjoy breaking personal records. Little by little, I’m getting stronger. Now I just need to focus more on cardio and losing additional weight. I’ve really been slacking there.

The other day I posted a video from The Onion about the 2008 election, and it turns out that they’re doing a movie now. The trailer has been released and it is hilarious.

The Onion began as kind of a MidWest answer to National Lampoon at the University of Wisconsin, and coming from the MidWest, I’m all for it. I don’t spend nearly as much time on their website as I would like to, but when I do, I always laugh at something there.

Trailer is below the fold…

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One of the first guides I did for IGN was for The Sims Online. I thoroughly enjoyed playing the game, but I didn’t continue the subscription after the first month was up because I just couldn’t afford it at the time. Some time has passed and I was wondering how the game was doing and learned that the development team had more or less abandoned it.

That’s pretty disappointing considering it is one of those subscription games, pay $10 a month or whatever it was. If I were a subscriber, I think I would have abandoned it as well. Keep in mind that TSO came out in December of 2002, so it’s been around for a long time now.

Well, just recently EA announced they were relaunching the game, and calling it EA Land. That’s one of the lamest titles I think I’ve ever heard of. In addition to keeping the subscription business model going, they’re going to introduce free players to the game. It will allow people to play the game and perhaps end up paying for it if they enjoy it. Many of the features will be locked out, of course, so free players, for instance, won’t be able to make any money.

The money making angle is intriguing. I don’t remember ever being able to “cash out”, turn Simoleons into Dollars, but I heard it may be possible now. I’ll have to look into that more though.

Still, from the little bit of research I’ve done on the game’s advancement, I’m not very impressed yet. I have yet to hear of a feature that makes me want to play it again.

I think it was last week that I caught the trailer for the new Iron Man film on TV. It wasn’t long after that that the trailer was put on the ‘net.

The main actor is Robert Downey Jr., who’s playing Tony Stark, of course. When I initially heard this was the case, I checked IMDB to see the feedback. Nearly every comment seemed negative about that decision. I really didn’t have a problem with it. Downey’s got a certain way about him that I frankly find interesting somehow. I’m not sure how to explain it. Judging by the trailer, he seemed like a good choice for the role.

I’m looking forward to seeing the film, but I’m not going to get too excited over it. I mean, I was very, very disappointed with the Hulk movie that came out a few years back. I liked Eric Bana for the role, but the movie just wasn’t very good. The whole super hero/comic book character genre of movies has been taking off in the last few years. I’d rather see quality win out over quantity. The “how many movies can we crank out” mentality ruins some films. I’m very glad Spider-Man hasn’t been stretched too thin. They could have easily filmed a number of back-to-back movies, like the Lord of the Rings movies were, for instance.

Anyway, the trailer is below the fold.

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The other day Ogre and I briefly chatted about bringing back some of our old sites. He’d like to bring more gaming info to his blog, but there’s no substitute for his old Through The Ages (TTA) fan site for Age of Empires.

The same is true for my fan site for RollerCoaster Tycoon, RCT Station. Well, I decided to bite the bullet and bring back one version of the site, believe it or not. It wasn’t the last version of the site before I shut it down, but it’s much more complete than the last version (the one with brown/tan design).

Without further ado, here is RCT Station.

This is hilarious. It’s too bad it’s so true.