Tellico Turnings Sign

So while in Tennessee with my father, I told him I’d make him some signs for his shop.   This was the first time I had ever attempted to do something like this and it took me the better part of 4 days working a couple hours a night to get one done.

Sign Template

I created a template in photoshop that I thought would look nice based on discussions I had with dad while up there with intent of creating a sign wider than it was tall that would hang over the door of the shop.

The sign would be made up of three 1/4″ thick plywood panels.  Each outer panel would have the lettering cut out via the scroll saw and the inner panel would be stained dark and then sandwiched between the outers in order to give the final appearance.

I made one side “clean” and professional looking (or rather as professional as I could with my meager skills), and one side more of an “art” look to it where I intentionally over sanded some of it just to get a unique look.  The edges are routed and rounded over and the sign as a whole is sanded smooth.

I don’t know if I like the “art” side.. I mean it doesn’t look horrible and it does have that unique scrubbed and hard used look I was going for, but I used too much glue when putting the sign together and it shows..  lesson learned..

The sign is 20″ wide by 12″ tall by 3/4″ thick and all in all not too bad if I do say so myself.

Tellico Turnings Shop

This last week I got to spend some quality time with the folks in Tennessee and more specifically time alone with my father (which I haven’t gotten to do in years) at his new store.  It was pretty great!

Dad has finally opened his shop at the Turkey Creek Market in Tennessee (Booth R&S 20!) and will hopefully be a bazillionare in short order..

He had contacted me a while back about doing this and I was fairly excited about it with him but I had a different vision of what I thought the store should look like.   I had a some what more sterile and professional business notion in mind and I’m really glad that they didn’t go that route.

Instead the store is a warm and inviting one that presents the goods in an orderly but not overly professional manner that is probably far more appealing to people than anything I could have come up with.. (Leave the designing to the designers I guess.. Its good to know what I’m not good at..heh)

The pens and calls table

He has just the right amount of space with the right number of items out presented in an organized and uncluttered way that I think really does a good job of showing off the various pieces.

The market is open Friday, Saturday and Sunday each week from roughly 9am to 6pm each day except Sunday which I believe was 10 to 5.   Plus all the vendors around you are actually quite nice, friendly and even helpful. More over, the environment for the vendors is one that actually promotes helping one another as opposed to infighting or backstabbing which is really nice.

It’s unfortunate that his first weekend wasn’t a stellar one.  He made rent which is all that really matters but it would be nice if he had sold more his first weekend out if for no other reason than to inspire and excite..

Peppermills and Stuff

Probably completely unrealistic for him to do better than he did considering it was;

a) his first weekend there and no one knew where he was,
b) between pay days so no one had money,
c) between major holidays so no one had a “reason” to buy things,
d) there was a major dinosaur exhibit in town which kept the crowd down, and
e) a large format gun show which also that kept the crowd down.. etc..

All that working against him and he still made enough sales to pay for itself..  So I guess I shouldn’t complain too much.. I just really wanted him to sell out! hah

For me it was a disappointment but he’s an old hat at doing markets and having a booth selling stuff and so he knows that it can be feast or famine.. he didn’t seem put out by it at all..

The crowd Friday was admittedly dismal which apparently is very common there.. Saturday and Sunday however had a lot of folks coming through and just about all of them picked up stuff and took cards which is a great sign for his future there..

Wine table & Lamps

My only concern at this point is that his stuff is actually too nice for the venue and that people might think of the market more as a “flea market” than an actual hand crafted goods marketplace..   Only time will tell here and we probably don’t need to do any second guessing at this early stage based on a single weekend..

More over I think it will take a couple weeks to figure out what works and what doesn’t work and then adjust accordingly.  More than likely he’s going to have to start adding a lot of less expensive stock that will sit next to the really nice stuff just to draw folks in..

After all, selling 10x $5 items is just as good as selling a single $50 item..   Certainly a lot less fun to make but you gotta make stuff that sells..

Dad in the background

After only a few days I had to return home and get back to work.. Apparently my boss wants me to actually “earn” my living.. psh.. slave driver I tell ya..

I made the 1000 mile drive straight from East TN to Central Texas in under 16 hours and had a seriously sore backside to prove it..  I also had a SUV full of wood and project ideas, as well as plans to make some signage for the shop.

All in all it was a great trip and one I’ll likely make again in the future.

I really like Tennessee and one of these days will likely move there more permanently..  For now I’m stuck in Texas though… Y’all.

The trip was really great and it was fun to hang out with the folks but it really made me realize that my home is where ever my wife is.. sappy, but true.

Latest Image

I have always been a very artsy-craftsy¹ person as I thoroughly enjoy making things.  I like working with my hands and creating something from nothing.   I’ve made leather and steel armor for the SCA, bows and crossbows and a mandolin that actually doesn’t sound half bad.  I’ve done some wood turning and created all manner of pens, peppermills and even a rolling pin and I have even tried my hand at making furniture — I’m not bad at it!   For whatever reason I seem to have a knack for crafting.

So in my time, I have worked with wood, steel, leather, plastic and various resins and agates..  The thing I have noticed is that no matter what I craft, I always seem to come back to wood.    There’s something about wood that I am not sure I can put to words;  It’s just easy to work with in that it’s forgiving, versatile and beautiful.

The problem is no matter what I have made with wood (and there has been a lot) not any particular piece or style has ever really “grabbed me” as something I really enjoyed and wanted to do a lot of.

My father is an avid wood turner who cranks out pens, bowls and other awesome stuff that he sells at his own little shop and I have to admit, that’s really inspiring..  He’s making a living by turning a hunk of nothing, into something beautiful that other folks want!  That’s cool as hell.

I tried my hand at turning for a while and it is fun but I don’t know that it’s “the thing” for me.  I like putting  a randomly shaped block or log of wood on the mandrel and shaping it into something new, but you’re somewhat limited in what you can make..   I thought turning pens was fun, but those pen kits are expensive and the more I think about it the more I want to create something entirely out of wood without having to rely on some pre-made mass produced (over priced) internal kit..    I think it’s one of the main reasons my father has gone to making bowls instead of the pen kits or even pepper mills..  He’s creating something entirely unique that’s 100% his own without any outside help.. (except tooling which doesn’t count!)

So I have been pondering for a while what I could make that would excite me and be that thing that I enjoyed doing in my spare time..   I did enjoy the Mandolin experiment but the more I worked on it the more I realized that it wasn’t for me..  I think it’s a good augment skill, sort of like turning, but not as a mainstay.  Plus it’s really hard to be a maker of instruments, that you don’t play.  I have a nice mandolin and I plink around on it sometimes but I will never be a good mando player.   I don’t think I have the time or patience..

The thing that I took from the mandolin though is that I enjoy making something that is both meticulous in nature and functional.  With a mandolin (or any instrument) you have to pay very close attention to minor details or the instrument will sound bad.  I like that.  It speaks to my special form of brain damage, but what can you do.

So I was pondering what I wanted to do craft-hobby wise and I remember having a book on wooden clocks that has been on my shelf collecting dust for a couple years.  I started reading it (the first time I had actually cracked the book open) and realized that “hey I can totally do this.”   I started doing some research and came across two master craftsmen who are as inspirational as they come;  Clayton Boyer and David C. Roy.

Clayton makes clocks that are both functional and beautiful.  He puts a lot of attention to detail in his creations and thus generates some amazing works.  Of all of his clocks I very much like the workings of his marble strike clock ² it’s mechanical and meticulous nature appeals to me.    Being able to make something like this is one of my ultimate goals. (video)

David makes breath-taking kinetic sculptures that are mesmerizing to behold.. His style really seems unique on the internet and his wood working skills are second to none.   All of his sculptures are extremely high quality and it’s clear to me that this is a labor of love for him, not just a day job.   His sculptures vary in style, size, scope and ability so it’s hard to boil them down to one I like best.. but if I were pressed I’d probably say I like his shimmer sculpture ³ the best primarily because it was the first one I saw that turned me on to the rest of his art, so that first stunned viewing has really stuck with me.. (video)

So armed with a book of clock plans, some plans I ordered from Clayton, and with the inspirational works of Clayton, David and my father too look at — I decided I want to make clocks with an ultimate goal of combining both the functionality of clocks with the raw artful beauty of kinetic sculptures.  If they can do it, so can I.

My wood working tool collection isn’t vast, but I had all the major pieces of hardware I would need to proceed except for a scroll saw.  I researched a bunch of different saws and found that as with anything you can spend a little or a lot of one of these things..  I went ahead and ordered what I felt was a nice one, a Dewalt 20″ variable speed scroll saw.  Dewalt has always done right by me so I went for it.

I have never done any scroll saw work before so there was a bit of a learning curve but not too bad.. I printed out the MLT-13 Clock from the scrollsaw book I had, ordered and received some wood from woodcrafters and was off to the races..   The MLT-13 doesn’t seem overly complex as clocks go and I had the machine and plans before I got any of the plans from Clayton so I figured I’d start with it..

Faster on the scroll saw

The first gear I cut was the escape wheel and I did so on my bandsaw.  It was pretty rough and needed a lot of sanding and trimming in order to get it to look right.  Here you can see the second and EW finished being cut on the scroll saw once I received it.  It was much much easier to cut these things out on the scroll saw.

I tried using round blades for a while but I found they were really rough in their cut and it required a lot of time to sand and smooth the backs of gears to repair all the tear outs..  I have gone to using skiptooth blades for the bigger stuff and reverse tooth blades for the small fine work.

Gear Assembly and Light

It got to the point where I was basically going blind trying to see what it was I was doing..   My eyes aren’t what they used to be so I went ahead and purchased a magnifier / hobby light that I mounted to my work bench so that it would sit just above the saw..

The nice thing about this setup is that it both serves to magnify and light my work, as well as being eye protection.  I was concerned with vibration since that’s a heavy light and lens out on the end of a rather spindly arm, but the dewalt has virtually zero vibration so the light doesn’t move at all (except when I bump it which happens all the time..)

Gear Test Fit!

As of this picture you can see that I have all the major pieces cut out and am in the fitting process..  The only thing I have left to create at this point are the hands.

There is some minor binding between my gears that I need to work out, I foresee some serious time with sandpaper ahead of me, but even so they do turn nicely if not 100% smoothly.

Stain Color Choices

I have yet to get the pendulum, pallet and escape wheel assembly to actually ticking though.   I’m still in the process of getting the clutch working correctly..

The wife and I sat down and figured out the colors..  We are going to go for a walnut for the body pieces and a cherry for the gearing.  Not sure if I want to leave any of the gears “nude” or not.  Three colors might be a bit too much.

For my next trick, trying to capture the elusive tick!

Update: 17 Feb 2012

Recut Escape Wheel

I am almost getting a constant tick!

Here you can see my recut escape wheel on the left compared to the old one on the right.  I spent two days recutting this thing making sure it was as good as I could make it.

I cut out the pinion and glued on (not showed in the picture) and remounted the new wheel.. it works much better.. even though the differences are minute, it makes a huge difference.

I had to do some shaping on the pallets and I need to resand them as they are rough which is one problem, but some of my other gears are binding a tiny bit which means no constant tick.. but I get 8 to 10 “ticks” out of it before it catches or stops.

I also don’t have enough weight hanging off the bottom so I need to address that.. but I’m really excited.. it’s so close!

¹ It’s interesting to note that neither “artsy” nor “craftsy” are words according to Merriam Webster, but together they are a word.. Weird.

Marble Strike by Alain Saintagne

² A few words about Marble Strike by Clayton Boyer:   There are a number of different iterations of this clock on the net if you look around.  All of them are cool and I would love to eventually make one of these.  To me, this clock has that almost dystopian steam punk futuristic quality to it that is just too cool.  It is easily my favorite clock of all of Claytons creations and I hope to prove to him that I am worth of purchasing the plans.

Check out this version by Alaine Saintagne of France.  Tell me that’s not cool as hell!  Well done Alaine!  I could stare at this clock all day.. It’s just a masterpiece..

³ A few words about Shimmer by David C. Roy:  David has done a lot of different sculptures over the last 20+ years and the level of detail and precision he employs is nothing but impressive.  I like quite a few of his sculptures, some more than others but they are all very cool.   The thing that I like the most about shimmer though is how deceptively simple it is combined with how eye catching and even mesmerizing it is.   I wasn’t kidding when I said above that it was the first one I stumbled across and that initial viewing has really stuck with me..   Many of his other works are far more complex than this one, but to me the simplicity of this one is part of it’s beauty.   It’s really nothing more than a spring powered escape mechanism that powers a childs optical illusion rendered in wood.  Awesome!  Well done David.

On that note; Happy New Year everyone..

I’m still very keen on creating my own custom blogging software as I posted previously and it’s something that I definitely am going to get around to but its slow going.  I’ve been working on it about an hour each night if the time is available.

But, I have to admit I’ve been playing a lot of the new Star Wars game the Old Republic (the new massively multiplayer online awesomeness by Bioware) and it’s really quite a lot of fun. It has problems but it’s addicting and it’s new, if nothing else.  It’s not fantasy which is one of my biggest complaints about all the other games that are out there,  I was so fantasy-ed out that I’m glad I’m finally playing something that’s space related and futuristic.  To be honest, it’s actually quite good.   I have been filing bugs and and making suggestions and hopefully some of them will get listen to but honestly the game is pretty good straight out of the gate and should be a huge win for Bioware.  Blizzard should be concerned.

And also I wanted to talk briefly about Christmas, I got an iPad2 for Christmas I have to admit it’s the greatest piece of hardware I’ve ever had.. It’s actually a lot of fun. I kind of see it as just a toy right now but the more I play with it the more I can see myriads of useful business and social applications for it.  No matter what you say, it has a lot of potential and there’s a lot of really neat stuff you can do with it.   If I were to use  a single word to describe the iPad I would call it “clever”.

I’ve been digging around on the Internet and asking my friends about good apps for the iPad and two of them come immediately to the four as being awesome. One of them is called flipboard which basically turns all of your social media and websites and the Internet in general into a magazine that you can kind of peruse at your leasure and the other one is oddly enough, dragon dictation which does just what you’d expect;  you can just talk at your iPad and it translates everything you’re saying into text (which by the way is how I’m posting this now).  It’s not perfect the Dragon NaturallySpeaking solution though is better than any I’ve ever seen and so I can see a lot more postings coming in the future since now I can just talk to my blog.

It’s definitely not perfect I have to do a little bit of filtering and word replacements but I actually think it’s pretty damn good.   If anything my one complaint is that it’s pretty bad about punctuation.

Recently Adobe announced that they would be offering their software at rental subscription prices and I was excited!   What a great idea!!  But did they do it right?  I don’t think so.. but they are so close!

Lets take Adobe Flash Professional as an example of whats going on, and their likely reasons behind it;  If you purchase the full version it costs $799 and the simple fact of the matter is, most individuals wont want to pay that kind of money for a piece of software.  So really the only purchasers of their code were companies that could easily absorb that cost (or the rare individual like myself that is willing to pay).   At $799 even “honest joe” will pirate the software if he really wants it.

At that price point they have completely alienated the casual user.   More over that price point only serves to encourage the casual user to pirate the software because its not even remotely affordable.  I’m not saying its right to pirate by any stretch, but I am saying that even an honest person can rationalize doing so when the price point is so far out of their reach.   Many would say eight hundred or eight million, it makes no matter so screw it.

More over, most software companies look at each pirated copy of their software as lost revenue, thus as a general rule they resort to raising the price even higher so that the companies that do make the purchase help to recoup costs and offset the fact that the software is pirated so much.. causing a vicious cycle.  Ubisoft is very guilty of this..

So the question becomes, how do you get the casual user?   What is the price point most people are willing to throw at a piece of software?  And in the subscription model;  How much are people willing to spend monthly on something?

Lowering the cost of the software to something the casual user would be able to afford simply isn’t the answer because then suddenly they lose all the money they were getting when companies were purchasing the software.  So even though it sure would be nice to get Adobe Flash Professional for $50.. it wont happen..heh

So the subscription model really does seem like a good option as it allows those who have the money to purchase the full software to do so, and those who want to try the software out or to keep an active subscription to do so without breaking the bank.

But here is where they are missing a huge opportunity that most MMO game creators have already figured out..  Something I like to refer to as the 10% rule or the 90/10 rule (maybe related to the Pareto Principle?).

And that is simply, if you set the monthly subscription rate at the correct price point a vast majority of people wont bother to ever cancel it because it’s beneath their notice.    According to my sources inside, Blizzard has about 10% of their accounts that remain open and paid for, but they are never played simply because the monthly fee is low enough that it’s below the radar of the consumer.

I really do think that the subscription model is the future of software publishing and purchasing, but I really believe Adobe has missed the mark a tad by setting the price point too high.

In my humble opinion Adobe is a few dollars away from a goldmine..  If they were to set the price point for their new subscription model to $15 with a year contract or $25 (at most!) without, most people would never bother to cancel the subscription.   Then maybe they could also offer a $35 rent to own model or even a variable “choose your own rate” rent to own model as I’m sure there are folks who’d want that too..   But the current $49 month to month is just too high as the first month they don’t use it, they’ll notice and cancel it.

Even so I salute you Adobe for bringing your awesome software to the casual users again.. Thanks for that.   Now if you don’t mind I’m gonna go buy Flash Professional.

Ibanez Mandolin

I have always enjoyed wood working and have done a bit of wood turning in my time.   And as I have mentioned before (more than once), I have always wanted to play an instrument of some kind..   Recently it occurred to me that there was no reason I couldn’t combine these two activities..

To that end, I decided to try my hand at becoming a hobby luthier (a maker of stringed instruments) and make myself something to play..    I went back and forth considering all the options and decided that for my first instrument I’d like to make a Mandolin.  ( Dulcimer was a close second and I’ll likely make one of those in the future, as well as making a Viola if I can manage to do this with any proficiency.  )

So with that I purchased an inexpensive Ibanez Mandolin just to have an instrument to start learning on and use as a guide..  Since I have no experience what so ever, this instrument is what I will use to learn on and as a guide for what my instrument should sound like..  This wasn’t a very expensive instrument, and it sounds fine to me.   I’m sure the really expensive / nice mandolins that are out there sound better but at this point I simply don’t know the difference..   My end goal at this point is to make my home made mandolins sound as good as this one — better would be nice, but I just am not sure what that means yet.

This will be a hobby activity for me and I’ll very likely want to make more than one Mandolin, but first I need to attempt to make something that’s reasonably close just as a learning exercise.   Not the “finished” product by any stretch but rather the first “rough draft” instrument that I can screw up on without fear of anything lost other than my time..

Bluegrass Mandolin Construction Manual

I fished around on the internet for reading / instructional material as well as any kits and came across a very good book put out by Roger Siminoff (a man with “a little bit of experience” on the issue having been doing this forever) on the construction of an f-type bluegrass mandolin.  An excellent manual that basically walks you through the entire process one page at a time, complete with plans!   It’s a good purchase and I can highly recommend it..

Roger offers a really nice kit that seems to go with his book, but it costs over $500 and I just didn’t think that would be a good beginners project.  So I settled on getting an inexpensive Saga AM10 Mandolin Kit to experiment on which I got off ebay for less than $90..

Mandolin in Fixture

As kit’s go, I’d say this one is extremely rough, to the point of being bad, as very few of the parts matched up, even a little..  The instructions that came with it were meager at best, and very poor in most cases..  The strings it came with are worthless (the e string broke trying to bring it up to tension, I didn’t even get it close to tuned and it popped)..  The back didn’t fit the body at all, being undersized compared to the top and required a heck of a lot of work.. The neck didn’t fit the main body at all, again a lot of work..etc..

Bottomless Mandolin

I think a beginner woodworker would have had a very difficult time with this kit to be honest.. I have a lot of tools, experience and time with wood so it wasn’t too bad for me but even so I had to make a bunch of jigs and fixtures in order to get things to line up and work correctly.   But even with my best effort just due to how it was cut my neck isn’t correctly centered on the soundboard which will make stringing it interesting..   The tail piece is half an inch off center unfortunately which means the bridge is off center..etc..  I have no idea how that is going to affect the sound of the instrument but in all likelihood it won’t do it justice.

All things considered though, I’m actually happy with my results so far..  It’s taken me just shy of 3 weeks to get it all worked up and to the point of getting strings on it.  (Mostly working on the weekends and an hour or two in the evenings during the week when I could..

One string Mandolin

Today I added the very first string to the instrument and tuned it up just to see what it sounded like..  Shockingly it sounded like a D!  The instrument didn’t have any kind of odd barks or vibrations though it does sound slightly different than the Ibanez I purchased above.

I have added 4 other strings to it at this point and the difference in the sound is still there, but I simply am not articulate enough with sound and instrument theory to describe to you the difference.. it’s just slightly different.. Not better, not worse.. different.

Even so, I’m pretty happy so far with how things are going.

Frozen Synapse

I have always been a huge fan of the turn based tactical isometric games such as Jagged Alliance, JA2, Xcom..etc..  For whatever reason that style of meticulous gameplay always appealed to me, but I had always assumed I was alone in my passion because those games never seemed to last very long in favor of first person shooters or real time strategy games..etc..

In fact, the industry as a whole has completely moved away from turn based game play, which I find to be a shame. Well thank god there are awesome independent developers around to fill the void!

Frozen Synapse is just the turn based top down tactical game that I have been craving for years.  It has a wonderfully fun and even somewhat dark sense of humor and most importantly, awesome gameplay.

There is nothing better than a game with deceptively simple gameplay that provides hours and hours of fun because it’s extremely challenging to master..

Plus it’s multiplayer!!  How awesome is that?!

I can’t tell you the number of times I said that XCom needed to be multiplayer so that I could play against my friends.. And sure as heck they did it here..

The interface is a little confusing at first, as it takes some time to understand what all the different commands do..  Plus as a whole the interface is kinda weak, but other than that I think this is an excellent game.

I wish I could give each character more than the one weapon, but I understand why they did things the way they did and so I wont ding them on that.. All in all I think it’s a very good game guys.. well done.

4.5 out of 5 losing that half for some interface suckery..   Still, if you know me.. 4.5 is an awesome score.

Red Faction: Armageddon

I played Red Faction back in 2001 when it first came out and enjoyed the heck out of it.   It was the very first game to come out with the Geo-Mod game engine which allowed for massive destruction of the game models and levels.   The game itself was otherwise unremarkable, but the fact that you could destroy everything made it awesome.

I find it funny that one little thing like that can make or break a game entirely, and the massively destructable nature of the Red Faction games entirely “makes” these titles.

Red Faction II was one of those games that came out only a year or so later but it managed to skip my notice and the series sorta fell off my radar.

The other day I picked up the latest in the franchise; Red Faction: Armageddon.   And I’m glad to say that it’s up to the original games standards in all ways .. to include the shortcomings..

Let me start by saying that by all standards it’s a good game all things considered, and I did enjoy it.  But there are some cons:

This game is of course plagued by one of my common complaints with all games these days;  The game is too short.. by a long shot..  That’s typical of all games though so I think the industry as a whole is trying to bring our game length expectations down fraction by fraction until we get a 3 hour tour for the same $60.  Oh well.. This game is longer than some, and I realize that for every minute of gameplay it likely takes them months.. but still..  This game clocks in at about 10 hours.

And it also suffers from another common issue with games these days;  Its too easy..   My theory as to why this happens lately is because most of the modern games are first made for consoles, and then ported to PC.. as such the controls on a PC are much easier to use, so the situations you’re in are suddenly that much easier?  This is a wild guess, but it will likely seem logical to anyone who has tried (and failed horribly) to play a game on a console using those crap controllers..  I can see how any game would be difficult if you handicap someone with one of those damn things..

Most games have at least 4 difficulty settings; Easy, Normal, Hard and Expert.. Or some myriad of names that equate to the same thing..  And in just about every game out there, I know that I should start playing it on “Hard” because anything easier would be pointless.   I can’t imagine how simplistic and juvenile “Easy” must be on these games because “Hard” is anything but..  This game suffers badly in this area because even on “Hard” I didn’t find it remotely challenging.  ”Hard” should be difficult.  Make it a challenge so that I will want to play through again..

I think its likely that game makers are afraid of making their games actually difficult because then people might get frustrated and stop playing.. However, I’m of the opinion that making a game like this too easy even when set on “hard” in order to keep the game “fun” is akin to handing the little league losers a trophy for participation..   Reward me for doing well, not for just showing up.  If I set the game to “hard” I believe it’s reasonable to expect the game to actually be difficult.

And finally my major complaint about the game is the weapons they give you.    Within the first minute or two of gameplay they give you the ONLY WEAPON YOU WILL EVER NEED; the gravity gun.   Now, I don’t want to complain about the gravity gun.. there is nothing more fun that hurling a whole building of destructive debris at an enemy.. and you generally have a reasonable expectation of doing fairly well when you use the same gun to hurl an enemy at a far wall only to watch him gib.     But, why do I need the other guns?

They give you a whole slew of other wizbang cool guns and more ammo than you can shake a stick at just lying around but I can honestly say I didn’t even start using ANY of them until near the very end of the game.  Up to that point I just used the gravity gun to do everything..   Either tossing the mobs around or throwing entire structures at them..  The other guns seemed pointless mostly.. and the ludicrous amounts of ammo lying around, doubly so.

This game is also extremely linear, so much so if you get out of the “area” you’re supposed to be in a countdown to your doom will appear.. better boogy back to where you’re supposed to be pronto..  I don’t really want to hold this up as a complaint though, this isn’t a sandbox game and like the original was never meant to be..   Still I can see how some might be put off by the count down thing..

All in all though I enjoyed the game.   There is still something very appealing about being about appease your darker side by waging wanton destruction on the carefully designed levels..  And if you’re not giddily giggling like a school girl over being about to toss mobs around like rag dolls to their ultimate doom, then you don’t know how to have a good time..  it was fun.  Though it’s replayability is pretty much zero.

I give this game 3.5 out of 5. (That’s a good score from me.)

MP3Car DSH-039-2

I have a Mercedes CLK 350 and it’s a pretty good car.   I’m fairly happy with it, but frankly I feel that the Mercedes COMAND system sucks and has to go..  Okay maybe “has to go” is a bit harsh, but it’s sub par to be sure.   I have seen other systems in other vehicles and I think most of them are better, if not perfect either. I believe that this particular system is in prime need of replacement and I have to wonder how hard that would be..  Plus if I’m unhappy with it others likely are too, or they are unhappy with their vehicles system and want a replacement..

This seems like a vacuum that needs to be filled.  A perfect environment for some clever folks to create maybe an open source product based on some free OS that you can install tools on to do what you want.. etc..  Even a “marketplace” like system that allows for custom apps to be installed..  Maybe android or linux based that would customize itself to he specific vehicle.. etc..  God that’d be awesome..

You’d need an inexpensive mini car computer that you could use for those vehicles that don’t have a system in need of replacement, but think of the market!  Think of the number of vehicles on the road today in America and around the world that you could be selling to..

Either way, during my research I found a dashboard replacement for my cars computer at MP3Car.com.  That and the mini-computer from above and.. I think we have a real possibility here!

The main issue is that I’m not sure that just uninstalling the computer that’s currently in there is a good idea or even an option as the entire car depends on it.  This thing is not just your media player, but its also the navigation system, settings, phone, etc..  It IS the car in many ways.  Replacement may not be an option..  Hell even setting the cars clock as to be done through this system..  Plus the LCD in the center of the console near my speedometer is controlled by it too!

It’d be a hell of a lot of work to get this thing installed and make sure that all the functionality that is currently there, is put back.. I know we could do better eventually but the car would likely be undrivable for a while..   Still it’s a cool idea..

Dragon Age II

So in my Dragon Age review I began by asking “Can Bioware do no wrong?”   Apparently the answer is “Yes.”

I had originally mocked Bioware in my first review for taking 4 years to produce the first game.. Now suddenly that didn’t seem like such a bad idea, as Dragon Age II (DA2) the supposed successor, was rushed out the door in just over 8 months and it shows.  DA2 just doesn’t compare to Dragon Age – Origins (DA:O).

Now I realize that I’m giving the impression that I didn’t think DA2 was a good game, that’s not the case.. I think it was a good game by itself, but it just didn’t meet up with the expectations nor match the precedent that was set with DA:O.

So, I want to say that Yes, DA2 is a good game on its own merits.   But if you go in expecting DA:O version two, you’re going to be disappointed.

The thing I liked about DA:O was that it was an epic game, and epic in it’s story telling.  They did an excellent job in making the player feel like he was a part of a bigger world.   The game itself was fricken huge, with a lot of unique areas and places to go, things to see.. monsters to kill.. And there wasn’t a lot of repeating of those areas.

One of the biggest issues with DA2 is they constantly reused the same dungeon, cave, map over and over just blocking off areas to keep you from going there this time..  This gets old fast and the 10th time I went into a random cave only to be on the same map I have done previously, I got kinda fed up.  This was a really cheap way to reuse content and the game suffered a lot for it.   Take a couple extra months and give us more areas so we aren’t constantly walking in our own footsteps..

I did very much like how they told the story through the dwarf character, I thought that was quite clever indeed.. But it never “drew me in”.  I don’t really know why but I never really felt like I was part of the story, just an outside observer of it..

Plus they completely removed the customizability of the previous game with regards to gear and equipping your secondary characters, or even for your main character to have a secondary slot of weapons.. These things were staples of the first game, gone in the second.  Why?

Stability wise I think they missed the mark too as the game crashes on me quite a lot.  Of my friends though, apparently I am the only person that this happens to so I’m willing to accept that it’s me or my hardware.

Graphics and engine wise the game is as good as the first one, with the only notable difference is how you interact with your characters.   You can interact with your character more like a MMO than like the first game and that’s a good thing, though it may be playing a big role in how different the game feels.

Things that are better than the first game;

The Tactic System – The tactic system got better, thank you very much Bioware.  Huge points from me there.  However you still don’t have a “reset” tactic that can be used to turn stuff off when combat ends.   Still its better than the first game for sure and your characters seem to be smarter about following them.  I pretty much automated my characters completely and only played my main toon which was the whole point.  Every once in a while I had to actually pause the game and redirect, but for the most part that wasn’t necessary.   In the first game I pretty much paused every other second to redirect someone.

The Difficulty —  The game is actually fricken hard, when you play it on hard.   The first game I played on hard the first time through and impossible on the second time through without too much trouble.  This game, even hard is too dang hard.  That’s a good thing!  Hard should be hard.

Ranged Rogues — Ranged rogues don’t suck!  YAY!  Bows in the old game and ranged attacks in general were completely worthless..  The new game, not so much.. in fact not at all!  Thank you for this.

Magic — Magic in general seems much more impressive.  It not only does more damage but it does it with style.

etc..  Lots of little things that they did do better..  It’s just the feeling of the game is less epic.. Less grand..  Comparing it to another favorite franchise; Mass Effect 2 was a far better game than Mass Effect.   Dragon Age 2 wasn’t far better than Dragon Age – Origins.   It was just different…

I feel like if you loved Origins, you’ll hate DA2 or not really identify with it as much.  Where as if you really didn’t get into Origins, you’ll love DA2.

So it may be unfair to say that Bioware did wrong with DA2.  I just was expecting something different than I got..  I haven’t quite finished the game yet, I’ll knock it out and get back to you.