Beautiful Handcrafted Animals

So, I had two cups of coffee today and now it’s almost four a.m. and I’m still awake.

I tried to go to sleep about two and that was a complete waste of time. So I got up, came inside, parked myself at the keyboard and just wrote 2,205 words. Which, hey, is pretty nice.

That’s Chapter One done, and pretty nicely done, too. To say this is a different kind of writing than I’ve done previously would be a massive understatement. I couldn’t say if it’s good yet or not, but it’s definitely different.

And fun. Fun to write, which is also nice.

Jessy and I finished watching Season 1 of Heroes tonight. We marathoned our way through the last three episodes and, heh, if you’ve watched the last three episodes, you can probably guess that she was disappointed.

I’ve watched them before — so I was pre-disappointed.

I won’t go into the story, or how things end, or why it was disappointing, other than to say it’s a shame when a show spends the whole season going out of it’s way to do cool, interesting stuff, and then drops the ball for the big finale. Still, I guess we need to see Season 2 (starting in about two weeks) to fully appreciate what they did with Season 1.

Overall, I enjoyed it, though. Don’t get the wrong idea. And yes, I’ve read that-certain-comic-book-limited-series-who’s-name-I-won’t-mention, but I’ve been able to look past Tim Kring’s “I’ve never read a comic book” crap and enjoy the show on its own merits. “There are no new stories since the Greeks,” one college professor once told me and even if he didn’t directly contradict himself 10 seconds later by listing off Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest as two “original” ideas created by the Bard, I’d still consider that a truism.

Long story short: Heroes is worth your time, if you haven’t checked it out.

Maybe I should see if I can grab some sleep, eh? I tell you, I never drink coffee. Ever. But today I was bookended by meetings, one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and wound up with a cup of the stuff each time.

For the morning meeting, I actually asked for an Iced Tea, but got an Iced Coffee instead. No worries and I drank it while we talked. In my afternoon meeting, I think I ordered without thinking, intending to just have a sip, chat, and then hot foot it home. We wound up going nearly ninety minutes and it was a very, very productive meeting.

And now here I am, not sleeping, 2,200 words richer. So I guess I can’t complain, and that was never my intention. Really, two cups of coffee in a single day is, um, probably two more cups of coffee than I’ve had in the last year.

I’m not sure if I’ve said the word, “coffee” enough in this post.

Ah well. Oh, if you have an X-Box 360, go and buy Bioshock. Also, get the external HD-DVD drive. It came with King Kong and it will blow the eyes out the back of your head (and your eyes, splattered on the wall, will thank you for it, I promise).

Sony’s lowering the price of their 60 GB PS3, discontinuing the worthless 20 GB PS3 and introducing a new, 80 GB PS3.

In case you have no context for this (I had to look it up), the 60 GB model is presently $599.00 and will drop down to $499.00.

The 80 GB model will debut at $599.00.  So it’s not really a price drop in the way they need it.  Folks who can spend five-hundred bucks on a video game system won’t balk, in my opinion, at spending six-hundred bucks to have the “better” version.

Here’s an interesting bit, though.  Allegedly, the 80 GB version is going to do reverse-compatibility for old games (read: PS2 games) through software only, as opposed to the present 20 GB and 60 GB systems that do it through hardware and software.  This is, I believe, now the non-North American version do it (software only).  To be perfectly honest, I don’t have a bead on whether this is a good thing or a bad thing — but it seems an interesting change to make.

Personally, I have no use for a PS3.  Yes, a cheap Blu-Ray player would be nice, but my purchase of such a device would only seek to ensure the failure of that media.  I’d considered a HD DVD player about a month ago (Best Buy had a good Toshiba model for <$300.00) but really, what it comes down to is just fighting the urge to re-purchase all my favorites in a new format.

No thanks.

I also look at how the X-Box 360 and even the Wii just sit there, unused (the Wii more because of how the living room is set up, but that’s not really the point).  Another system is just another system to buy stuff for.  Bluntly, I’ve got enough options as is.

I do find it interesting, though, tracking this stuff (click on the link to Dubious Quality over there on the right, for much, much better information.  Bill’s Console Post of the Week is required reading if you’re armchair-quarterbacking this latest entry in the Console Wars), and I keep waiting for that move Sony can make, that killer move, to suddenly turn things around.

I can’t imagine what that move could be, of course.  Right now, if the PS3 was $199.00, I don’t know if I’d buy one.  That’s a very bad sign for your uber-console, as I’m exactly the person they’re hawking these things for.

Final note: our esteemed Webmaster, who I believe would like me to call him, “Spidey” when I refer to him, told me he was waiting on a PS3 for the latest Final Fantasy game.  When I told him that the next FF game was coming out for the 360, his response was, “oh, good, that’s six-hundred bucks in my pocket.”

That’s a bad sign for Sony, if you ask me.