Catastrophic FAIL

Personal Bits

Last night I sat down to my computer and noticed an odd message, saying that one of the “files on the disk” failed to initialize, resulting in my Taskbar changing itself to look like Windows NT.

Uh. Oh.

Restart.

After a very long time past the BIOS screen, nothing. No log in, nothing.

Restart. Oh god please restart.

Nothing. Dead black screen.

Thankfully I have all my files on a completely separate storage drive. But it looks like a night of disk-humping reloading, rebooting and calling Windows Support to obtain my serial number again. Who’s up for a call to India? Then after that, drivers, applications and preferences. Finally, all my email is gone (take note friends/family!) and I’m hobbling along on web-based interfaces.

If any of you people wish to donate to my “Get an iMac Fund” my Paypal account will be available at the bottom of your screens. Call now!

I don’t know if I got a virus or something from all those old iPhone hack programs were to blame. I do know that if I can’t get it started/fixed, then this will be the most expensive summer I’ve had in a long time.

But, still no ads on Dead Robot Heavy Industries, my readers!

Update:
In some sort of bizzaro world, I wonder if the Large Hadron Collider had anything to do with this? I’m actually one of the “push the goddamned button and let’s see what this baby can do!” kind of people. The web is ablaze with speculation today and all they did was turn the thing on. The actual collisions will be happening later in the year. Doesn’t this whole uproar/hype/geek celebrity suddenly feel like the last 20 minutes of Contact?.

Spore: Origins

Distractions, Hobbies, iPhone

The problem with believing hype is that you’ll fall hard if the hype doesn’t live up to itself. I think that’s what I did when I heard that Spore was coming to the iPhone. Back when Spore was originally shown off at some distant, forgotten tech convention (voiced over by Robin Williams) I was enamored. Play god from the Primordial ooze to spacefaring creature? Oh hells yes! To have it on my phone (albeit a truncated version) was going to be the extra fluff added to the already fluffly clouds in heaven.


Hello little guy! Hey wait… are you baked?

Don’t get me wrong, I really like Spore: Origins. The graphics are more than I expected for a phone game, and with the accelometer, it’s a lot different phone gaming experience than say, Tetris or Bejewelled. But with that in mind, I still feel a little dissapointed that all you do in this game other than evolve your little dude, is eat other little dudes (which consists of just “running over” other organisms). There are the “bigger fish” that will eat, bite, chase you (“There’s always a bigger fish…”) and generally get in the way but with accelometer controls, it’s a bit difficult to get the hang of. Thankfully the screen is calibrated to a slight angle, not dead flat, to make your dude stop dead. The cost of the game is a bit dear for this mini-version of Spore. The price could have been reduced and the evolving of your character could have been made easier so that you get hooked enough to send your character into the desktop version, thus buying into the costlier game. But that’s just my evil marketing side talking. It is a fun timewaster.


Dude! Run! Pointy Thing!

As you play along, you are unable to re-play any levels. That’s evolution, I guess. But you are able to re-evolve elements on or off your little dude. As you can see from my pictures, I added a ton of eyes that seems to give him a little more agility in avoiding enemies. Later, I added spikes and he can “defend” himself a little from the bigger guys.


Eat me! No don’t!

Get big enough and the big dudes that bit into you become your dinner. There’s a metaphor here too. The more you play, the less your battery stays alive. It’s a bit of a resource hog, more so than video. Be warned.


Screw this, I’m going to eat Ariel’s Grotto

I give Spore: Origins a 8 out of 10. Slightly worth the $10 from the Apps Store, only if 1) It’s game play is longer than a couple hours total – I’ve only played to level 7 so far; and 2) I get to export my guy into the PC game (which I’m sure it does, but I won’t be able to because my desktop is so frigging old – it can’t run Spore Creator).

Blog of Revelations As Told By The Globe

General

Some thoughts on today’s issue of The Globe and Mail:

Is anyone surprised that The Fly, turned into an opera, tanked?

Realize that when someone starts to point out insecurities in others, it can be perceived as cries of insecurity and fear in the name-caller? But, we’re pretty much stuck with these attack ads.

Sometimes people don’t finish what they started.

Anticipation can sometimes backfire on your product if you hype it too much or leave it too long. However, I do have Spore: Origins for the iPhone and I am enjoying it. $10? A bit steep, but we’ll see how long it lasts.