I recently reopened my Battlenet account ....

Orginal Date: 12/15/03 at 10:42AM

Neverwinter Nights is a midevil computer role playing game released 1.5 years ago by Bioware, the creators of Knights of the Old Republic for Xbox / PC. I play online for the first time in four months. I bought the two expansions, Shadows of Undrentide and Hordes of the Underdark. Right now I’m getting into HotUD. There are some who prefer HotUD over SoU, but I agree with both of them. See, Neverwinter Nights is about a 40 hour game and most people play 5 hours online at the most (like me) which means they won’t get to the ending unless it’s their server. Both expansions have their own 15+ hour campaign. The game is as fun as Diablo 2 was – though I still play it online. It’s wonderful not to have a game that crashes! I remember back in Version 1.21 (one year ago) that the game barely managed to work. And it’s really fast on a modem now. Get this game it’s really fun to talk to people – sometimes. Make sure that your computer doesn’t get window popups because they’ll bug me and you.

When I went to Wal-mart to get Shadows of the Undrentide expansion, it was too crowded. It reminds me on how bad this time of year is. And I live in a smaller part of the country with about 2200 people.

I told readers last month that I was an ex-diablo 2 player. Now I’m back online. It’s fun for the amount of time I spent on it. I still see Diablo 2 at Wal-mart so it must still be popular. I bought by copy in 2000 and the expansion when it came out for the first time. I find that Amazons are the most fun to play. Although I like Barbarians too. They just specialize in Weapons and are the easiest to level I think. Now with the 1.10 patch, Diablo 2 has really accelerated. Within the first 15 minutes you’re at level four. You noticed that all Dungeon and Dragons games are a like. It’s not apart of the “Forgotten Realms” like all of Bioware’s games are. It’s much darker then Neverwinter Nights. The graphics are bad, but it’s still playable.

I'm downloading DIVX codec for the first time!

Original Date: 12/3/03 at 12:30AM

I headed over to Divx.com and downloaded Dr. Divx for my PC. Not that I'm going to edit video soon, but I wanted to see DIVX decoded in it's codec in action.In fact Internet Concepts was talking about different Codec to encode movies. If it does work and encode in AVI then I can bring it up in class. Imagine if you had a uncompressed "Desktop Video" about 2 hours, it would be below 650 MB compressed. Now I found out that the most common desktop video codec was AVI. I ran AVI and it can store a minute of video, very small screen with sound for about 550KB. Imagine how DIVX could work with streaming video. It's about half as small as most MPEGs and you can record a whole DVD movie on a CDR. Imagion how much video you can fit on a 4.7 G DVDR!!! Playstation 3 is going to read DVDRs so maybe it'll be able to read MPEG 4 & DIVX. My PS2 makes screeching sounds when I play movies. It's like a version 1.1 PS2. The first ones didn't have a system fan, this one does.

Anyway I found some freeware software. The selection is a little slim I might add. There is CrazyRIP (http://www.crazyrip.free.fr) which supposedly detects a movie playing and rips it to AVI encoded in Divx. It looks highly customizable and you don't need extra software. Next is DVD2AVI. It looks simple and rips streaming mpegII or MPV. Next choice requires anyone to download several files that plugin a program called Claddvd. (http://www.clonead.co.uk/) I've been saving the best DIVx all-in-one package available off the Internet for last called K-lite codec pack. (http://home.hccnet.nl/h.edskes/mirror.htm)

School is going good so far, no problems really exist, or not the ones I wasn't to express on this page. Most of them are weak voices that I think I hear such as I know I can get every question right on my next quiz without studying in Internet Concepts. I like to think that I can but I really can't. It's the undeniable truth. Yep, I'm still downloading techno, country MP3s off the schools T1 server. What everyone else sees is my streaming audio, but I'm ripping that audio stream to the harddrive, and downloading it from the PC to my MP3 player I got on Nov. 01, 02. I must be a little odd in my game choices. I promised myself I wouldn't spend 50 dollars for a game that I would only play for about 20 hours then let it sit. This game from Urisoft (makers of Splitter Cell and Rayman) called Beyond Good and Evil could be my next investment. BGaE is a action adventure game that got good reader reviews for all platforms (that it's for.) It's has Zelda: Wind Waker like graphics and Zelda: Wind Waker type gameplay. I don't know for sure, but I'm thinking I just might own this title. I haven't really played Final Fantasy x-2 lately. I said I was going to be playing that game next. Remember I bought F-Zero GX for Gamecube 3 weeks ago? I haven't played it in about 3 weeks!!! That Action Replay set me back 20 more dollars then it should of. That sucks, and I can't return it because I opened it. Some of the newer games use a newer version of Action Replay. You all may laugh at me, but I cheated on Final Fantasy X-2. The saying "Cheaters never Prosper" applies here since my cheats make FFX-2 freeze. I wanted infinite items on my game. I doesn't make any sense because the codes were straight off Codejunkies.com!

Life is Okay

Original entry off Modblog on 11/29/2003

Here's for all you bloggers out there. I've got a load of PS2 games that I don't play. Some you may of heard this one already. I have both GTAs for the consoles. GTA 3 and VC are the best games for PS2 aren't they. I reviewed the game and I found it fun chasing criminals around in cop cars. Cool?

I am an ex-Diablo 2 player. Level headed online player who never duels. I learned that 50% of the time, you don't get your stuff back, unless you're stuff isn't worth *crap*, and that guy who you dueled just left the game. I still play the game once in a while offline, but I always felt that I was getting ripped off when I sell armor / weapons to the elite classes. Most of the high level characters don't want you sell you anything that doesn't come off the ground! So I have never had magic find abilities on my characters and have never found or bought one of those eye of jordan stones that Battlenet players always want in change of elite armor / weapons. A guy like me can go bankrupted, but Diablo 2 is just that, trading the best deal for something someone else needs. I have some characters up there in the level 80 range. It's not that difficult to achieve after a week of online play. I stopped playing Diablo 2 when I owned a PS2. Okay so I played more then Diablo 2. I have a 2.1 Ghz Athlon to play games on. Hardware requirements aren't an issue except for the modem aspect.

So I got a PS2, what did I buy for it. Well, honestly, I have nothing to do yet so I don't do anything except play console games. I want to go to the mall. I want to buy stuff I need. I want to go to movies, and play pool (billards.) I want to some day jack up the car's sound system so you can hear it a mile away. But all my friends are working or going to school. I'm into platform games so what drived me to the PS2 was that it got all the ports of anything you ever want to play. Jak and Dexter is a good game. I'm still completing the game. Jak is a mute character, while Dexter is talking away. Do you remember Gex Enter the Gecko for the N64? Gex, unfortunally was a aweful game, but it had one thing that if used properly, could of been something great. So I like the worlds in Jak. It had good graphics at the time. PS2 is getting dated know though. But it manages to have the best controller of any console. Want to talk about Final Fantasy, Diablo 2 or games in general, tag me, im me or email me. I'll get back to yeah.

My weekend was all and all pretty lazy. Not that I'm unemployed, not that at all. I'm on Thankgiving Break so being lazy is a must for anyone with 168 (24 hrs x 7days) hours on hand of nothing to do. What do you do? I stay up all night until 4am, sleep in until 10:30.

I recently owned PS2 the game of the month, Final Fantasy X-2. I am currently 1.5 hours in the game. I say Game of the Month because I know there are always better games out for the system. In fact I know the absolutely must haves. Square always trills me with their new releases except for "The Bouncer" and "Kingdom Hearts." Nothing against Square Enix, but Disney combined with Final Fantasy would be a little young for me. Monster's Inc is probably the only exception. Although I actually thought of buying Kingdom Hearts, because it was made by Squaresoft and now only cost 20 dollars. Last month I owned Final Fantasy XI for the PC never being able to play it. I was hoping that it would be yet another online adventure, but my parents won't allow me to own a credit card when I'm not earning cash to back it up. All I want to do is buy things off Amazon.com, Tigerdirect and pay for Final Fantasy XI. All of these need electronic money to function.

Red Dragon Productions Lite

Good day. I did some new additions to my website. I added a Playstation 3 since Playstation is cool. Xbox is cool too, but this so happens that I'll be talking about Playstation 3 today. I added the Game Archives that'll follow up on Playstation 3. I also made Red Dragon Productions Lite which will have better bandwidth for dial up users like me. But the original isn't too long to load is it? I read information off this Playstation 3 forum site, but it sucks. Everyone there doesn't talk about anything new on Playstation 3. This doesn't mean that their won't be any new news in the future though. I went to this website for some humorous jokes and I thought it would be good enough to put on my website Click Here I've been focusing all my free time on the Game Archives section to get it as much updated as usual. I will have a hard time finding out-dated information on Playstation 2 software or hardware on the Internet. I probably will avoid that since it's not worth the work.

My own Laptop

Finally I get a laptop of my own. It's a slow bitch. The computer has a Pentium 2 CPU with 128 MB of Ram, a 4 MB video card, and 6.5 GB hard drive. It had the Win98 operating system. What was good to know about Win98 was that it only took 300 MB of my hard drive. WinXP takes 3 GB. I had trouble installing a new driver for my video card to make the resolution true color. WinXP fixed that issue at the cost of space. Which sucks to know. I stuck a bunch of Gameboy Advance Roms on it. I recently got a new book on network electrical. Network Electrical demands a lot of know how of the basics of touching a circuit. First there you have to put one hand into your pocket. Next, you need to check your gear. Then you touch the open circuit with a watt meter You can use level 2 amp meters, but you can use level 3 amp meters. Level 3 meters are nice, they are made of rubber, which all of you should know that absorbs electricity. I have to read a large text book on it. If I had it my way I wouldn't want a text look, I'd take my course online. Online courses have the context on screen before you. Web page content has many pictures so I can look at the pictures. I lot of the time it makes more sense because less words are needed to explain something. For example - electrons are apart of what we use. Us electricians (I'm not a electrician, I'm going into Cisco Networking) must know the approx voltage and pressure of a gas line or electricity. A humid and enclosed workspace is extremely dangerous. I have to know what to do when I work in these kinds of conditions. That's my Network Electrical class I'm in. Ahh, the Computer and Internet concepts. The class is easy at first. I'd would hold my breath because it can get more difficult. I took this class before eight months ago. I had to learn how to ping people, move files, delete files, create files, make Batch files in command prompt before. I just might drop the class I'm in. I might not, since I can learn all those commands again. (the computer, I feel, runs my life)

Nothing is new except I am more then 3/4 way through with Final Fantasy X. Final Fantasy plays great. But the voice acting isn't quite aimed at adults, know what I mean? It's what you expect to come from a teenager's mouth. Really, it's a good game. It is over rated and I know that a lot of 10 - 16 year olds play this game. Well most of them, just don't know how to think buying the game. The story makes perfect since too me, in fact I don't get confused. Square should of not had the characters speak. Speaking can void the quality of the game. Games aren't suppose to be a movie. This game is a movie. You watch the cut scenes, then your back in control of Tidus, then you get another cut scene, then you back in control of Tidus and so on.

I don't plan on making any major updates anytime (last time I said that I came out with a new webpage template) soon. I am working on a lot of college quality reports in Written Communication (I have to technical write my progress on networks and display the results. ) I really don't know where I am in my writing. Everyone in that school can write. Everyone knows that it's not what you write that matters, it's how often and how much you write. That's my motto.

More as it develops .......