I am glad I am not alone.

I am not a Halo fan boy, in fact I have never seen the the big draw of the game.
I have tried playing the game (first version) on the xbox and found it frustrating. First person shooters need to be played with a mouse.
Anyway, I found the new Halo commercial very good.

The music is Prelude in D-flat Major Op. 28 No. 15 - Raindrop by Frédéric Chopin, composed in the 1800s. I remember growing up with bugs bunny and how classical music was included into the cartoons, something kids theses days don’t get. So I am glad to see the commercial is so popular, it exposes kids to some very good classical music.

I hope I can get back to learning piano at some point, this is one piece I would really like to be able to play.

Here is a longer version of the music piece.

Lets celebrate with a pizza!

The most disturbing thing I have seen tonight.
Where did the pubic hair come from?
Love the condom boots.

A carpenter turned plumber I guess.
Mr. Rogers was always the man.

Duke Nukem 3d a classic first person shooter game from 1996. I remember playing it up on the computer labs on Friday afternoons back when I was a lab aide. Multiplayer was IPX only, everyone had to start at the same time and if one computer crashed every one in the game did, good times.
Some years ago I bought the Kill-A-Ton collection which included everything Duke up to that point. Duke Nukem 1,2, 3D, Duke It Out in DC, etc..

Recently I had been thinking about playing Duke Nukem 3d again. Problem is it doesn’t run too good under XP, especially if you want to do multiplayer. I played with setting up a DOS or Windows 95 virtual machine for Duke that we could use in the office, but the performance just wasn’t there. I was about to move on and forget about Duke when I ran across JFDuke3D. JFDuke3D has native Windows support for Duke. Install Duke 3d, install JFDuke and run. Duke never looked so good and runs great on a current OS. There is even network play support over IP, haven’t tried that yet though.

What makes Duke great is the attitude and the guns. Duke’s witty one liners are great and the weapons are classic. The shrink gun has to be my favorite. Hit someone with the shrink gun and once they shrink down to itty bitty step on them to squash them. Freeze gun is great too. Hit someone with the freeze gun to literally freeze them and then a good kick breaks them into shattered pieces. The pipe bombs also cool along with the Laser Trip Bombs. When playing multiplayer Laser Trip Bombs are great when placed right around a corner. While not a weapon the HoloDuke is also great with multiplayer. Setup the holoduke out in the open go hide near by and wait for someone to come by and be fooled by the holoduke.

It took me a couple weeks to get through all 4 episodes trying to get to all of the secret places. It really surprised me how in depth that game was. I was able to setup my keys and mouse similar to what I use in UT. W-A-S-D for movement and mouse look worked decent enough.

It is really sad that 3dRealms has dragged their feet as long as they have in releasing, if it will ever be released Duke Nukem Forever. DNF has been in development for almost 10 years now with little to show for it. I feel if they would have just taken Duke3d, updated the graphics to make it look pretty, updated the controls to be more responsive and updated the network play for true IP support, the game would have been a hit. But unfortunately that hasn’t happened.

If you have Duke Nukem 3d lying around, download JFDuke3D and give it another go. You will be impressed on how fun it still can be and at the same time sadden at how 3dRealms has literary killed Duke with their incompetence.

Imagine getting that excited over graphics and game play like that.

Broussard Updates Duke Nukem Forever Status

The May 2006 issue of Computer Games Magazine, which includes a cover feature previewing 3D Realms and Human Head Studios’ long-awaited FPS Prey, has also included fresh information on 3D Realms’s epochally long in development Duke Nukem Forever.

The game has been worked on in various forms for almost 10 years, having been originally announced in April 1997, and the update describes the current state of the title, which was viewed at 3D Realms’ Texas studios: “mainly just pieces of the game in progress and tech demos”, including “an early level, a vehicle sequence, a few test rooms”, among others.

Technology-wise, Duke Nukem Forever originally started development on the Quake II engine, before switching to Unreal, and, according to a Wikipedia entry, is now working with a heavily modified custom engine that includes some small elements from earlier iterations of Unreal Engine.

3DR’s George Broussard also demonstrated world interactivity that includes Duke standing in front of a computer and emailing the player, if he provides his email address for the game. But, according to the piece, Broussard was bashful, overall, about showing off the game, commenting: “The problem is that when we show it, people are going to be like, ‘Yeah, whatever’. Honestly, at this point we just want to finish it.”

A recently reported-on Take-Two financial filing shows that the game’s long-time publisher has significant interest in the game’s completion date, noting: “One other notable payment was the renegotiation of a $6 million charge due [to former publisher GT Interactive, now owned by Atari] upon delivery of the final PC version of Duke Nukem Forever back in March 2005. The epic delay of 3D Realms’ shooter has meant that $4.25 million of the final milestone payment has already been paid, alongside the promise of a final $500,000 upon the commercial release of Duke Nukem Forever prior to December 31, 2006.”

Further information on the game, alongside the longform Prey preview, is available in the May issue of Computer Games Magazine, more information on which can be seen at the official Computer Games Online website.

According to Slashdot this was suppose to be an update for DNF. I see no such info. One would think by the length of time this is taking that DNF would be the last/best/ultimate version of Duke Nukem. Guys just take what you got and finish it. In a couple years release another one with graphics a little bit better and a different story line. DNF has gone way beyond being a joke to the point that the whole project is sadly very pathetic.

Trailer Park Boys has got to be one the funniest shows I have ever seen. TPB is a Canadian show that was carried on BBCA. They have only showed the first several seasons here in the US, but thru the wonders of Netflix I was able to see season 3 and soon season 4.
Trailer Park Boys: Baked on a True Story is a full blown motion picture being released this summer. I can only hope it opens nationwide in the US.

Anyway, some one came up with a cute little Flash game based off of TPB.
Ricky’s Stash, help Ricky get his stash.
I tried hosting the game locally on the website, but for some reason it just wouldn’t work. So like everyone else I am hot linking to the author’s site.
I would be more than happy to host it, if I could get it to work from HoM.
So check out Ricky’s Stash.

Test your knowledge of world geography alone or against another online player.
Very cool a bit addicting and educational. Have any kids that need to learn there geography? Get them to play.
My first score was 2234, did a little bit better the second time at 2673.

Geosense