King  Gary 

Just a little over a month ago from today, I made a post entitled “Nintendo Wii + Mac Mini = entertainment paradise“, which laid out the way in which I synergized my Mac Mini and Nintendo Wii together to make a pretty damn good entertainment system. Now, the Apple TV just started shipping yesterday, and I don’t think that the Apple TV really has anything extra that justifies purchasing it. This is especially since I’ve already got a Mac Mini (which a lot of people claim is already a great replacement for the Apple TV. And with the added capabilities of the Nintendo Wii’s remote, I don’t see any real justification to get it - but, I will definitely still keep an eye out for one if the price ever falls into range of my budget and I begin to feel inconvenienced by some of the shortfalls of a Mac Mini and Nintendo Wii combination .

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As some people know, I purchased a Nintendo Wii about a week ago (from Pittsburgh, PA because they are extremely hard to find here in Toronto!) I’m having a great time with it so far, and have a few events planned and had a few that have passed where we’ve used it to play some games, such as WarioWare, Zelda, and of course, some Wii Sports. I’ve had it for a week now, and so I began to ponder: what else could I do with it?

There’s that Mac Mini that I have…

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I’ve been playing a lot of Civilization IV: Warlords these past few days, and I’ve settled on a general strategy on how to take over the world, which takes advantage of the new features introduced in this new version of the computer game expansion pack. Please note that this strategy is best used for games with many civilizations; if you have 3 or less, then it’s not as effective because you could win much more quickly using other methods. (Make sure Permanent Alliances is enabled in your game’s settings!)

1. Improve your relations with at least one of the civilizations, enough so that your relation with that civilization turns to ‘Friendly’. (Trade resources and technology, and give some free gold to speed this up.) In my game, I was China and my ally was the United States. (I had set my civilizations to Random. Honestly!)
2. Once you’ve reached the relation level of Friendly, form a Defensive Pact with that civilization. This was pretty easy, because the Americans had no State Religion, and so they didn’t have any opinion about what State Religion my civilization was.
3. Provoke a war with another civilization (preferably the one that already wants to go to war with you.) You can do this by demanding technology, resources, gold, or anything else from that civilization. People don’t like getting pushed around, and neither do world leaders! At this point, I had provoked the Romans. (The Roman Empire isn’t supposed to exist in the year 1800 AD, anyways!)
4. Once a civilization has declared war on you, your Defensive Pact with the other civilization will come into effect, and both you and your ally will be at war with your opposing civilization.
5. After a few turns at war, you should be able to form a Permanent Alliance with your ally.
6. Your civilization might get a huge boost from the technology that your Permanent Alliance has given you from your ally; it did so to me, which was absolutely fantastic.
7. At this point, if you can, continue with your war that’s going on. Every time you take one of the opponent’s cities, check the trade window with the opponent to see if they are willing to Capitulate to you. If so, great, and if not, then continue taking cities until it IS available. Once it is, click on it to trade it (it’ll also automatically cause you to have Peace with your enemy AI.) What this does is it makes that civilization a vassalage of yours, meaning that it follows your rule (if you go to war with another civilization, then it’ll follow suit, or if you vote one way in the United Nations, then it’ll vote the same way, etc. - but it does NOT share any of your technologies, resources, etc.) The civilization is basically a protected nation under your command, somewhat like Puerto Rico and the United States, I suppose. They can be a self-governing nation once again if they grow large enough (such as reaching 50% the size of your total nation, including theirs.)
8. Continue the above steps of going to war and forming vassalage nations until you’ve created the United Nations.
9. Now you have a lot of votes and you should be able to win a Diplomatic Victory! (Or even a Conquest or Domination victory, because forming vassalage nations is just like conquering them - and it’s more quicker, too!)

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Update: There are some photos available now, provided by Edge.ca.

I’ve returned from EdgeFest 2. There was a mish-mash of marijuana, brassieres, and loud music.

The following bands played at the event, and bands that I specifically watched and listened to are marked in green (they are in order of showing, and also probably in order of least popular to most popular, generally speaking):

Main stage (in order of showing) Anberlin Ill Scarlett Matchbook Romance Story Of The Year Hawthorne Heights All American Rejects Yellowcard ‘Next Big Thing’ stage (in order of showing) Damone Tokyo Police Club Lovedrug (did not show) In Flight Safety Panic And The Rebel Emergency Magneta Lane The Miniatures ‘Bedlam Society Stage’ Inamere Attack In Black Johnny Truant Cancer Bats The Junction Sydney

Yellowcard Ticket

What happened

Three friends and I went down to the Molson Amphitheatre, in Ontario Place, to attend EdgeFest 2. We met at Scarborough Town Centre, took the RT and the subway down to Bathurst, and then took the tram to Ontario Place. Once we reached Ontario Place, it was 11 am but there was still quite a line there already for the event, and so we decided to line up. Let me remind you, it was EXTREMELY hot today, this afternoon (42 C last I heard). We waited outside for about 2 1/2 hours before the line began moving, and we then proceeded to find ourselves some seats. It’s a good thing that we were near the lake, so that the air was a bit cooler and there was more of a breeze, so it felt somewhat more refreshing than it would have been if I were still in Scarborough.

It was surprising to me that there were actually not many people attending the event; there were a lot of seats available throughout the entire event; probably only 3/4 of the seats, at most, were filled (The seating plan has 4 sections: Level 200, Level 300, Level 400, and then the Lawn Seating (which is where you sit on grass.)) Also, upon entering the stage, all our bags were checked, unsurprisingly. But I found it strange that they told us to remove all bottle caps from our water bottles before entering the premise; I suppose it’s so that, either the audience can’t use the bottle caps to throw on stage, at people, etc. or also so that if you have a water bottle full of water, and you throw it while it’s NOT sealed, then the water comes out, and then the water bottle is not used as a weapon that is basically a heavy piece of plastic with all that water in it.

Now, on to the performances. The music was mostly rock and hard rock as the House of Blues described themselves, and as this isn’t my forte, I don’t know the bands quite as well. The two that I know the most are the All American Rejects and more recently, Yellowcard, which I both like more so than the rest. But, some of the ’side’ bands were, surprisingly, the type of music that more closely resembled what I like. One of them was Magneta Lane, which really reminds me of a band that I like, Stars; more specifically, the lead singer for Magneta Lane really looks similar to Amy Millan, at least to me.

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Update: The list of DVDs that I own and the movies that I’ve seen in theaters or somewhere else are now listed here.

Update: For those of you who just want a list of the movies, well, here they are:

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I indeed did buy the same book twice, by mistake, while shopping on Amazon. There was a 3 day interval in between each purchase. I suppose I really wanted the book! Doh!
Anyways, if anyone wants the extra book, give me a shout.

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I’m 2 weeks into my summer, and I’ve been gaming quite a bit. During school, I don’t have the time, but now, I’ve spent a good percentage of my time playing games - specifically, Call of Duty 2 and Civilization 4. I just finished another round of Call of Duty, on the same server that I always play. My score was 49-19 that round - not too shabby. I guess my trigger finger still works! If you play Call of Duty, then come join me sometime.

For Civilization 4, I almost always play a multiplayer game with David. The games are sometimes stretched out and long because he lags a lot due to his (cheap) connection, but reading a magazine between turns can solve that. (Yes, it’s a turn-based strategy game. Deal with it!) I use Xfire to log how many hours I play, and to chat with David while play Civilization. I’ve played more hours in the past week than I’d like to admit!

Also, on a side note, I’ve been watching TV show DVDs. Specifically, My Name is Earl. I really like the show; it’s good when you don’t want to think and you can still enjoy it! (I would watch more, but I’ve already burned through ALL the season DVDs of both 24 and Scrubs. Those were GREAT DVDs to watch.)

Update: I just played another game today, and looks like I’m being more and more consistent. My score was 42-18, so somewhat similar to yesterday’s game.

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I hate CDs. I hate copy protection software. I hate being forced to purchase an entire album of songs from an artist when I only like one of their songs. That’s the great thing about how things are now. I can finally buy just one song, such as from iTunes. I don’t even want to imagine how much money I’ve spent in total at the iTunes Music Store, as it becomes much more addicting when: 1) You can just click one button to buy a single song, and 2) Each purchase is only $0.99 CAD (but it really adds up quickly). This is indeed a great, “new” (since April 2003) way to sell music. Some say that artists don’t make as much money because only one song is purchased instead of the usual album, but in my case, I’ve spent a lot of money purchasing new albums of new artists that I would never have purchased if I never listened to at least one of their songs in its entirety, first.

Some examples of artists whom I’ve purchased albums from:

• Keane
• The Raconteurs
• The Futureheads
• Of Montreal
• The Strokes
• The Mars Volta

Bands that I love, but would never have discovered without first listening to one of their songs completely, first:

• Death Cab for Cutie
• The Postal Service
• Stars
• Joshua Radin

I’ve probably spent hundreds of dollars on music over the last few years now, but on music that I more thoroughly enjoy because they really appeal to me, rather than mainstream music that plays on the local radio every day. My music library is also much more diverse, and so I get a much wider breadth of genre and styles of music. I have, on average, 1.5 songs for every artist, so I definitely have a lot artists with only one song in my library. I love it like that, and wouldn’t have it any other way.

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Please note, there are NO SPOILERS in this review.

I watched “Superman Returns” today.

Just some of my thoughts on the movie:

• The special effects are blended in very well. There were effects that made the film seem more hazy, and dream-like, a la “Batman Begins“.
• The movie did indeed seem that it was stretched out a bit too long, as many reviews have pointed out. It’s about 2 1/2 hours long, and it shows when you’re watching it.
• I’m sure many people expected it to be an action flick, but it turned out to be more of a character analysis of Superman, and Clark Kent.
• I felt that the final scenes took away from the impact of the film, up to that point. I’m not going to ruin it for you and tell you what happens, though.
• Kevin Spacey, who played Lex Luthor, acted as too much of a goof to be the right villain of the movie.
• Spacey either should have acted more sinister, or someone else who fit the role better should have played Luthor.
• Adding in bits and pieces of previous Superman movies, specifically audio, and I believe, some video, of Marlon Brando, gave the movie a nicer touch of “authenticity” as it was able to somehow connect and tie in this movie with previous ones, in a way that improved the movie’s experience, in my opinion.
• I have not yet seen any other Superman movie yet (I know, I should!), so I can’t compare with any of them.
• Brandon Routh does look like a good fit for the Superman role.

Final verdict: Recommended, but keep in mind that it’s NOT entirely an action movie.

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I went bowling again today with my family (this was planned before the other bowling event that I went to a few days ago), and also with another family. I went to a different place this time so I could try out something different. This was the second time this past week that I’ve gone bowling; I think before that, the last time I bowled was about a year ago.

The game I played on Thursday was 3 full games and 9 frames in the 4th game, played in 2 1/2 hours. Today, I played 4 games and 2 frames in the 5th game in two hours. Goes to show how slow we were in the first game and how efficient we were in the second.

I also got 3 strikes in a row (called a turkey), and so I’m pretty happy about that.

After observing some of my friends, family, and other people playing, I think I can conclude that it’s pretty useless to run up to the line, then throw the ball, without using the momentum that you gained from running to the line in the first place. Also, for me, I bowl MUCH better without distractions than I do with. I was listening to my iPod while bowling the second time at certain times, and those were the times when I was ‘in the zone’ and got my strikes - so there MUST be a relation!

The inconsistency in my bowling scores is because my arm gets tired after bowling too often, because I usually use a 14-pound ball, and this resulted in me using a 10-pounder afterwards because my arm needed a vacation.

After reviewing my scores, I can conclude that, if you’re going to bowl with me, we’ll have to play up to game 3 before we count the scores, because I always seem to do the best in game 3 every time I bowl.

Anyways, I’m off to the ACI BBQ/party. I’ll make another post when I return, and if I’m not feeling too tired.

The scores are:

Totals (not including game 5):
Gene: 447
Kenneth: 264
Gary: 456
Susan: 355

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