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Sunday, June 21st, 2009
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9:51 am - Sims 3
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The other day one of my colleagues asked me if Sims 3 is any good. I hadn't said anything about buying Sims 3, he just assumed I had. Well, of course he was right :-)
Well, what can I say about Sims 3 that isn't obvious or hasn't been said by hundreds of reviewers already? The Sims games are and have always been what you make them. Some don't get it at all, some get bored after a couple of hours, while others don't stop playing until the next version is released.
Sims 3 adds two major features: an open, seamless neighborhood and "story progression"/"global aging". The former is a natural step forward, and the latter is widely discussed.
When Sims 3 was first announced, "global aging" was one of the top features. This caused commotion and even some panic in the forums. Many people were worried that they'd lose control over their neighborhood. After a while the Sims 3 website changed so that the aging wasn't mentioned, but the feature is still there. It works much better than I anticipated, and probably much better than many people feared. Some players hate that the characters you don't control will age up, get married, have children etc without your involvement. Others love it. I find it useful, but I also understand the control freaks who don't like it.
The other changes are really quite minor, but they add nice touches to the game. There is less focus on skill building and more on interactions. The personality traits add some flavor, while the "wish" system is just a modification of the old "wants/fears" system. Building and decorating homes has been improved, but I can think of some improvements they could make to the interface. Creating styles is fun for a while, but applying a consistent style to the entire home isn't as easy as I had hoped.
I like that the sims can grow vegetables right from the start. Now I'd just like some cows, chickens and a horse, then I can forget that "Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life" ever existed :-)
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| Thursday, June 11th, 2009
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2:57 pm - Rune safari
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A couple of weeks ago we went on a rune safari south of lake Mälaren. Ola had never seen Sigurdsristningen*, a rune inscription decorated with illustrations for the tale of how Sigurd killed the dragon Fafne. Yes, it's the same story that Wagner used in his opera Siegfried. Of course that lack had to be remedied.
(* When I was little Sigurdsristningen was called Sigurdsristningen. Nowadays people seem to prefer to call it Ramsundsristningen, but I prefer the old name since that's what I learned in school and I'm too old to learn new names for things...)
I've seen Sigurdsristningen a bunch of times (it's just outside Eskilstuna, where I grew up) so I wanted to see something new too and suggested a rune safari. I did some research and found that there's another rune inscription with very similar illustrations not far from Sigurdsristningen, called Gökstenen.
Why is that never mentioned? It's not quite as artistic as the other one, Sigurd himself looks something like a tadpole and a piece of the rock has broken off, but I think it's interesting anyway. Nobody ever mentioned it at school, it's hard to find information about it and there weren't even any signs pointing to it.
It wasn't very easy to find, and after that experience we really could call the trip a safari. We tried following the GPS in my iPhone and ended up at a (farm?)house. The inhabitant of the house told us that it would be easier to go back, around a field and "follow the fence" than to go through the woods (what woods, I thought, I saw a bunch of trees but nothing I would call a forest). Well, we tracked back and started following a fence, but apparently the wrong one. The ground was very rocky and we couldn't find any larger rocks with runes on them (it didn't really help that I couldn't even find a photo of the rock beforehand, so I didn't have any idea of what we were lookinf for except that it was a rock). We met the farmer(?) again, and he said that we should have gone further down and followed the other fence. He pointed us in the right direction and after a while we found a tiny path, that eventually led to the rock. I understand why they don't take school children there, the whole area is rocky except for the farmland just below.
Just when we were leaving I remembered to take a photo of it. We didn't bring my camera on the trip, so the photo is taken with my iPhone (and it's the only thing I took photos of on that trip).
In addition to these two "Sigurd-stones", we looked at the rune stones at the church in Strängnäs and at a tall one in Kjula. I can almost read the runes (I had to cheat and look up some of them) but understanding the language is harder. It's still fascinating how much you can make out of it.
We also visited an impressive hill fort with "walls" several meters high. I've seen dozens of hill forts, there seems to be one at every hilltop around here, but none that I've seen with that much stone.
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| Tuesday, June 9th, 2009
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11:04 am - Två åsikter
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Piratpartiet har dåligt namn. Dom som inte ids ta reda på fakta (kring 90% av befolkningen?) tror att deras program bara handlar om fildelning och gratis film och musik.
Vi som utvecklar datorprogram och -system har ett stort ansvar för framtiden. Det är vi som måste komma med dom tekniska lösningarna som gör det möjligt för skapare att få betalt för sitt arbete. Spotify har fattat.
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| Wednesday, May 13th, 2009
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1:29 pm - WoT part 5 and 6
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I forgot to mention that I finished The Fires of Heaven, part 5 of The Wheel of Time, didn't I? Well, I finished it, and I'm almost finished with Lord of Chaos too.
( contains spoilers )
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| Tuesday, May 5th, 2009
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7:12 pm
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I seldom (never?) post links to random (cool) things, but this is just the coolest I've seen in a long while:
Miniature food
Just look at those colours, textures and luster... so perfect!
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| Friday, May 1st, 2009
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10:07 pm - Today
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Filed my tax returns.
Went for a walk in the forest.
Did some gardening.
Played Sims 2 (for the first time in months).
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| Tuesday, March 24th, 2009
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5:39 pm
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This weekend I'll go to a beading convention again, www.facettsthlm.se. I had my shop with me the last time at Facett.STHLM, but this time I'm "only" a participant. That will be nice for a change. Actually, it has already been nice. You sell a lot during one such weekend, but it requires weeks of preparations for a shop like mine that isn't designed to be portable. Now I've had time to improve the webshop instead. Anyway, I'll be there on Friday afternoon/evening and the whole day on Saturday at least. I haven't decided about Sunday yet, that depends on how tired I get of driving back and forth (I don't have a hotel room this time). There will be contests and workshops and a lot of bead-crazy people to talk to, so I expect it to be fun and inspiring.
I will attend a workshop on polymer clay bead making. I simply can't seem to limit the number of techniques I want to learn :-) Last year I saw a lampwork demo at Facett, and look where that has got me. Fortunately polymer clay equipment isn't nearly as expensive as lampwork equipment.
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10:31 am - The Shadow Rising / Robert Jordan
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The story in book four of Wheel of Time, The Shadow Rising, is straggling to say the least. Everyone heads off in different directions, and the bunch heading off to the Waste talk so little among themselves that they can be considered heading off in different directions too.
For something to be a weave, the threads must overlap. TSR doesn't describe a weave. It describes a bunch of threads that are in a bit of a tangle at best, but mostly just try to move away from each other.
I like most of the threads, but I don't like how they're interleaved. The gals heading off to Tanchico are annoying. That entire thread feels unnatural. Why would it take so long for the Blacks to find the thing they're looking for? Perrin's thread is much better, and I like how his and Faile's relationship develops. Rand, Mat and Egwene should talk more to each other, but the rest of their braid of threads is okay.
The constant enforcement of stereotypes is annoying. A Green Aes Sedai smiles at a man, "just as all Greens do". Another is White, and cool "like all Whites are". So there are exactly seven kinds of women in the White Tower? Not to mention how all Aiel are very Aiel, never dreaming of another kind of life or seeking adventure in the Wetlands, or how Two Rivers people are stubborn and only care about their sheep, and so forth.
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| Monday, March 2nd, 2009
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6:06 pm - The Dragon Reborn
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The Dragon Reborn, part 3 of The Wheel of Time, is probably the last one in the series that I really enjoyed. After that I continued reading out of habit and because I wanted to know how RJ will knit it all together. The characters are almost through their initial metamorphosis, but not yet so much that the habits they adapt for the rest of the series have started to annoy me. Their stupidity never ceases to amaze me though.
In this book the weave is made obvious. The threads try desperately to run in separate directions, but they all end up in a single knot in the end. I have overlooked it before, maybe because they talk so much about it, but now it occurs to me that the storytelling reflects the weave. That's why we get to see so many seemingly unimportant threads appear and disappear later on. If they weren't there, the story would just be a braid or perhaps some sort of macramé.
Starting to listen to the fourth book was painful. Are the constant recaps of even the tiniest details perhaps meant to give me a feeling of the madness Rand has looming over him? I am certain they will drive me crazy in the end. And Nynaeve has started tugging her braid. I feel like braiding my hair and tugging it right back at her.
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| Tuesday, February 24th, 2009
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3:12 pm
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The Royal court of Sweden announced today that Crown princess Victoria and Daniel Westling will be married next year. The engagement rings will be shown officially later today. My best wishes to the happy couple :-)
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| Wednesday, February 18th, 2009
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1:21 pm - Fable II
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I finished Fable II (XBox360) yesterday.
Short version of the story: The Bad Guy kills your sister, and now you're looking to stop the bad guy from doing more bad things (or at least punish him for killing your sister, depending on how you pick your alignment). You turn out to be a Hero (a person with special Will, Skill and Strength abilities), and in order to stop the Bad Guy you must find the three other Heroes and get them to help you. And then you win.
Basically it's a fantasy hack-n-slash RPG. Your character has and builds three types of abilities, Skill (ranged weapon/speed), Strength (melee weapon/toughness) and Will (spells). You kick ass right from the start, and when you start meeting meaner monsters you've already gained enough XP to build up at least some of your abilities to kick even more ass. You run around the world with your dog as your companion and solve quests, find treasure, interact with people (yes, you can even marry them and have kids), buy houses, customise your clothing and hair and shoot gargoyles. You never run out of ammo or mana, you don't grow tired or hungry, and you can't die. If your health drops down to zero you just lose all XP spheres that you haven't yet picked up and may gain a scar. If your dog is hurt he stops sniffing for treasure and starts limping until you give him a dose of dog medicine. And most of the time a glowing trail tells you where to go.
This could even seem too easy, but it seldom gets dull. Some fights are tough even when you can't die yourself, at least until you figure out exactly how and when to attack the monster. There's a lot to do if you decide you want to do everything. On the other hand, if you decide that you only want to do the main quest, you'll probably be finished in a few sessions. I felt like I was intentionally stalling the main quest in order to make the most out of the game. You can continue playing even after the main quest is finished, but I prefer to save the final parts of the main quest as long as possible.
Fable II is a game for lazy afternoons when you want entertainment rather than a hardcore RPG with complex rules and a complex world. But it is good entertainment.
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| Tuesday, February 17th, 2009
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2:24 pm - The Great Hunt
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I finished The Great Hunt (part 2 in The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan) yesterday. It is possibly my favourite book in the series (at least among the first ten books). Maybe it's because it's one of the few books where a lot of things happen. There are developments in every direction, and the whispers of "more to come" in The Eye of the World are now loud shouts.
There are a couple of huge plot twists that feel cheap. The parallel plot lines must get their timelines synchronized, so we need some time to pass magically in one of them since it wouldn't add up otherwise. Oh, some time just passed in a very magical way. Yay! And the stupid girls being whisked off to Falme. That part is just ridiculous.
Also the constant recaps and repetitions are already nagging me. And the stubbornness. If we could at least not have to hear Perrin's thoughts every time he tries not to think about wolves, or just have the short version... but no, we must get the whole "oh woe I'm so different and scary and I refuse to do this and why me I'm just a blacksmith" litany each time. Same goes for everyone. I know they're all scared and try to resist the changes, I don't want to be reminded every time.
It's nice that we get to know the characters, but it would be even nicer if it would take less than five books or so for any one of them to evolve even a little bit.
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| Monday, February 9th, 2009
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11:04 am - Robert Jordan, The Eye of the World (audio book)
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This is the third time I "read" The Eye of the World. The first time I read it was in 1995 or 1996 and the second time perhaps 4-5 years later when I was waiting for a new book in the series and had found that I had forgotten a lot of what had happened. Now I'm waiting for the last book, and I decided to reread them all before that. I don't have time to read actual books on actual paper, so I'm listening to the audio books instead.
I have a lot of pet peeves around The Wheel of Time. People tugging their braids, straightening their skirts, touching their daggers, sniffing, glaring, etc in exactly the same way book after book. People who only have one way of swearing, ever. People who still make references to fishing even after they've been Aes Sedai for well past 20 years. Stubborn people who refuse to talk to and listen to each other, and that this stubbornness is a major plot element in many places.
Still I can't deny that The Eye of the World is an entertaining book. It is rich in detail and even though the plot tricks are sometimes very simple and predictable, it grabs hold of you. It is also full of promise of more to come - much more. It has several minor problems and a very strange flashback within flashback passage, but so far I can forgive most of that.
The reading is good. Not perfect, but good. Two readers, a male and a female, alternate depending the point of view (female reader for female a female character's point of view and male for the males). That should be entirely unnecessary, but it's okay, especially considering that both readers make "voices". The female reader doesn't make male voices very well, and the male reader's female voices are pathetic. Thus it is better that they alternate so that at least the main voice is okay all the time. I'm impressed by the male reader's reading of battle scenes, though. There is a lot of potential for failing in reading battle scenes, but he manages it very well.
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| Wednesday, February 4th, 2009
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10:28 am - Sims 3 launch delayed
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The Sims 3 release date has been pushed forward to June (preliminary date was February 19). This is a good thing, assuming they use the extra time for fixing bugs. It also means I can wait a few months before I buy a new computer.
I am however a bit surprised that they announce the new date only about two weeks before the preliminary release date. It wouldn't be too far fetched to believe that it means that they have so many bug fixes that weren't included in the release candidate that they decided to push the release date instead of releasing something now and publishing a patch a couple of months later. It is however a bit of a failure to admit so late in the release cycle that the product isn't good enough yet.
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| Monday, February 2nd, 2009
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10:48 am - Argh, popups!
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Last week I finally got a new workstation at work. Unfortunately the poor thing came infested with Windows Vista.
Windows Vista is really as frustrating as I thought it would be. It's like the sticky feeling you get when you make chocolates and get chocolate all over your hands and all the sugar has started to give you a headache, but without the chocolates. I feel like I need to wash my hands. No, I feel like I need a shower.
I hope Microsoft will release Windows 7 really soon and that I can get an upgrade as soon as it's released.
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| Sunday, February 1st, 2009
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5:28 pm - Richard Wagner, Der Ring des Nibelungen
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Now we've seen all four operas in Richard Wagner's great work Der Ring des Nibelungen. The good thing about operas is that "spoilers" don't spoil them, but still I am afraid to say too much, because that might change your expectations and your experience if you ever see it.
I haven't seen much opera before, so sitting through about two and a half hours of Das Rheingold was a completely new experience for me. It's intense. Even though the back-ache from uncomfortable chairs, the occasional coughing or whispering in the audience and the glances up to the text machine struggle to break the spell, you are spellbound. There is only the music and the scene. Themes - leitmotivs - dancing and weaving an intricate story, speaking the truth that the singers don't dare to speak. Of course you grow weary from time to time, but it is never dull. The first evening of Der Ring is full of beginnings and full of promise of dark and strange times to come.
Die Walküre is the most quoted of the four. The Ride of the Valkyries makes some people think of helicopters. I now think of women in black 19'th century riding dresses. Staffan Valdemar Holm and Bente Lykke Möller have moved the entire Ring to a surreal 19'th century world, where the gods wear frockcoats and dresses with puffed sleeves. The scenography is grand yet simple, very simple. While the theme of the valkyries is the one most people would recognise, this is however not the song that moved me the most. It is when Siegmund asks the Valkyrie about Valhalla where she wants to take him, slowly approaching the question we know he will ask, and that we all know the answer to, that I start understanding the people who cry at operas. No, Siegmund, your beloved Sieglinde will not come with you to Valhalla.
Apart from Valhalla being reserved for male warriors, Sieglinde must first give birth to Siegfried, the hero and title of the third opera. Many don't like this opera, but I enjoyed the comic relief. I did however not enjoy the hero himself. A stupid annoying brat, way too full of himself. That may not be how Wagner intended him, but it is obviously easy to portray him as such. Here be dragons, and this also the story told by the illustrations on the largest rune inscription in Sweden.
Nothing lasts forever, and especially not the eternal gods. The last opera is Götterdämmerung, the end of the gods and the end of the world as they know it. You thought you would get a happy ending full of love? You will, but not the kind you might expect. All that is old will burn, and only the ashes will remain so that mankind can rise as a phoenix. The fat lady sings, and it is all over. My back cheers loudly.
The singers were all fantastic, as well as the orchestra. In fact, everything was fantastic except the hard seats with little room for your legs. If you plan on seeing Der Ring, bring anything you might need to make yourself comfortable. The first opera is well over two hours, the others much longer but with intermissions. Buy cake and tea. At the Royal Opera House in Stockholm you can make reservations in advance. I wouldn't be surprised if that is customary at other opera houses too. Also, listen to the music in advance, I think you'll enjoy Das Rheingold much more if you are familiar with at least the most important leitmotifs.
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| Wednesday, January 28th, 2009
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11:04 am
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The news of the week is Neil Gaiman's "The Graveyard Book" winning the Newbery award. My first reaction to Gaiman's blog about it was "huh, the New-what award?", but since he seemed so happy I had too look it up.
Lloyd Alexander is there, as well as Susan Cooper. Among the older honor books you find titles like "Story of the Negro" and "Theodore Roosevelt, Fighting Patriot". To my surprise I also found "The Sign of the Beaver" by Elizabeth George Speare among the 1984 honor books. That probably explains why the librarian recommended it to us at a reading. I borrowed it a while later and read it in one afternoon. Then I proceeded to read "The Wolves of Willoghby Chase" the same day, reading two books in one day for the first in my life. The Sign of the Beaver made very little impact on me, though.
This mix still doesn't tell me much about the quality of the award, but I assume Gaiman wouldn't swear for nothing, so congrats and "way to go" :-)
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| Saturday, January 24th, 2009
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11:58 am - Fable II
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I've been playing Fable II a lot the past week or so. I was skeptical when I read reviews, but after trying it I find that it's a perfect RPG/adventure game for a non-hardcore player like me.
The main character is a Hero, which in this particular world means that she has special abilities of Will, Strenght and Skill. Will is magic, Strenght is close combat and Skill is ranged combat. Your main quest is to find three other Heroes and together go and punish the Bad Guy for killing your sister and ploting to take over the world. Side quests range from rats bugs in the basement to stealing a ghost pirate's ship and digging up all his treasure. Also you can buy real estate (shops and homes, and even some odd things like the Temple of Light), work as a bartender, blacksmith or similar, flirt with villagers, get married and have sex and have kids (or buy condoms if you don't want kids). Also, you have a little doggie that points out treasure chests and "dig points" (more treasure) for you. Pretty trivial so far, isn't it?
Well, that's just the point. The whole game is designed to be enjoyable and easy going. You can't die (you get knocked out if your health goes to zero, but your Heroic abilities revive you and all you get is a few scars), you won't get lost (a glittering trail shows the way), you don't get tired or run out of "mana", your inventory is unlimited, and you more or less kick ass from the beginning. No trudging around with a pitchfork and only being able to cast some useless "light" spell for many hours until the real action begins. You're a Hero and so there. A couple of dozen Hollow Men attacking you at once? Throw some fireballs at them, or when you've improved your Will abilities, Cast a Time Control to slow them down while you build up a level 5 Inferno spell to blast them all to smithereens at once. Don't worry, your dog and any innocent citizens that may be around won't get hurt by the spells. All of those annoyances are gone. Some creatures take some effort to kill, but none of them have been impossible yet.
I've played a "good" character so far. To become "good" you're nice to people, charge fair rent from your tenants, free slaves, help the Temple of Light and eat vegetables and tofu. You could also play "evil" by being rude, charging outrageous rent, selling villagers to slavers, getting a job as an assassin, joining the Temple of Shadows, drinking beer and eating crunchy chicks for lunch. Your choices affect you and the world. In the very first chapter you get to make the first choice, that decides how the "Old Town" will look in later chapters, for example. I might want to play through it as an evil character too, just to see what it looks like.
ETA: The platform is XBox 360
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| Thursday, December 25th, 2008
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12:51 pm - Testing shozu
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| Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008
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10:24 am - Happy Whatever!
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Happy This Time Of Year to you all!
I've also donated 500 SEK ($60) to the Red Cross as a This Time Of Year gift to everyone who don't get personal gifts from me.
I had to dig all the way back to March to find a photo with snow on for the e-card. While I was digging I found a bunch of other nice photos from this year. That resulted in a bunch of new userpics for my LJ and the photo summary of 2008 behind the cut:
( Read more... )
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peura's journal
