Today I discovered that RandomFool.Net turned 4 on May 2nd 2008.

I also discovered that all my years of hard work on this site have been worth it according to this site, the estimated value of http://www.randomfool.net is: $437

The last thing I discovered is that Randomfool.net hasn’t actually been working for about 2 weeks or so…I hope that doesn’t affect my value… OK! cake time!

2007 was a big year. I graduated college, got a crappy job, got an awesome job and had a few ups and downs. It was also the year I returned to gaming. In 2006, aside from the occasional round of CS:Source, or Mario 3 Battlemode, I didn’t do hardly any gaming. I’m not even sure if I bought any games that year. This year; however, I got 3 video game systems (Wii, DS and 360) and more games than the past five years combined (30+). All that and there’s still a rather beefy list of games I didn’t get around to checking out. Here’s my top 5 games played in 2007:

1. The Orange Box (PC)
   Portal and Team Fortress 2. Enough Said. I’ve already talked about TF2 and gave a brief mention to Portal. Combined together in one box this package is almost unbeatable. Portal was short but the most inventive game I’ve played in a long time. TF2 has already replaced CS: Source as my go to game on the PC. A great value and a great time!
2. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)
   This is easily the best game released for the Wii to date. The controls are great and use just the right amount of motion without feeling tacked on. The gameplay is fun and I constantly find myself saying “just one more star”. There’s also tons of variety in levels, I haven’t found a level yet where I thought the game was overly difficult or broken. Although Two player co-op is somewhat disappointing.
3. Rock Band (360)
   Despite only owning the game for six days last year it’s easily one of the best. Guitar/Bass is a bit easier that GH3. The drums are wicked fun to play (despite my lack of coordination). Singing is fun when you have someone who can sing. The track list is better than GH3 despite having less songs. There’s just something undeniably awesome about getting a bunch of people together and rocking. The downside, It is a huge pain in the ass to carry around all that crap; My original guitar was defective and I’m waiting on a replacement; and I can’t use the same characters for different instruments.
4. Guitar Hero 3 (Wii)
   Before Rock Band there was Guitar Hero 3. I bought this game twice, just to get a second guitar for multiplayer. Even after Rock Band it’s still a blast. (It’s also much more portable) Despite the Wii version getting screwed over with mono sound, no DLC (until later this year), and crappy online multiplayer, I’m still happy I got the Wii version. It’s waay more portable and GH3 (and Rock Band) are meant to be played with people in the same room.
5. Paper Mario (Wii- VC)
   Initially I was going to put Super Paper Mario here. The dialogue was great, I had fun playing it and have no regrets buying it but realistically it’s not top five material. It was waaay to easy. Less like a game and more like a story with a lot of walking and jumping. It did get me interested in it’s great granddaddy, Paper Mario. So Paper Mario came out six years ago, I never bought an n64 so it’s new to me. Anyway back to the game, It was a lot of fun but I’m still disappointed I got a fish instead of getting to ride Yoshi around.

Close but not quite:

• Metroid Prime 3 (Wii)
  I like the game so far especially the controls but haven’t had a chance to play much of it yet.
• Halo 3 (360)
  It’s pretty looking and I hear the multiplayer is good but this is another game I haven’t had much time to play with. I plan on using this game to learn how to play console FPSs.
• Bioshock (360)
  Supposedly one of the best games this year, I want it and I want it bad but I don’t have to time for another game right now.

So, it’s been awhile since I updated this thing*. To make up for this I’m putting up two new posts. The first (this one) is of the general “what’s new with Ryan” variety, the second (tomorrow soonish) is all about my new addiction, Team Fortress 2. OK so here are the highlights from the past few weeks:

Hollywood

About three of weeks ago I decided to take a trip to Hollywood and see what all the fuss was about. My directions led me to the wrong end of Hollywood Blvd and I found myself driving around in some shady areas and eventually paying to park in some shady lot. I made my way over to the walk of fame and … walked. Most of the names I didn’t recognize but I did see a couple Frank Sinatra (twice), Kermit the Frog, Rin Tin Tin and that’s about all I can remember. All the shops in this area seemed to consist of tattoo parlous and exotic clothing stores. The place in general seemed to be pretty dingy. Eventually I found a Borders and grabbed some coffee. After debating whether I should call it a bust and just head home, I decided to follow the crowd and see where it led me. Turns out sometimes following the crowd can be a good thing. In this case it led to a mall. This was basically a bunch of stores, a movie theatre and a couple of places to eat. Ok so it was fancy looking (Chinese Theatre), and I did get some pictures of the Hollywood sign and a pretzel because Auntie Anne’s rocks but not very exciting none the less. There were a lot of people dressed up as various characters on the streets which were kind of creepy and tons of people handing out free pamphlets & gum. This lead to a slight misunderstanding with someone selling CDs on the street; I thought they were free; he wanted to get paid…

Certification:

More importantly I retook my PRPC System Architect Exam. This is basically the exam that says I’m qualified to my job. I spent about two weeks avoiding doing anything fun, TV, DVDs, Wii, TF2, random trips etc, etc. It eventually paid off as I am now officially certified. Which give me a tiny bit more job security and makes me feel a lot better.

LA County Fair:

Yesterday, I decided to hit the LA County Fair. It took me roughly two hours to drive there (hurray traffic) and I forgot my camera but remembered the directions. When finally made it there I parked about a mile away and turned down an offer to have some guy pull me to the gate in a rickshaw-bike thing. The fair itself was huuuge way bigger than the ones back home. It was also really commercialized. There were about 8 buildings dedicated to selling you crap, the late night “call now for our special offer” kind of crap. Many of the companies were also set up in multiple buildings because you never know the fourth time you see that detoxification station you might just bite. One of the buildings was called “AT&T Winter Wonderland” which featured Santa (in September!) dressed as a lumberjack, an ice skating rink and fake snow complete with a hill for sledding. Having lived in a place that gets its fair share each yeah it seemed really pitiful but the kids seemed to enjoy it. All the animals seemed to come from a single farm as well and there were many of them, lots of variety but only a couple of each. McDonald’s also generously supplied a garden area with all sort of veggie and plants as well as eight or nine hi-def TVs playing McDonald’s ads on a constant loop. I didn’t see very many of the typical fair events, tractor pulling, animal judging, dung throwing… but at least some of those were in the program they gave me so I have to assume they were there. I did however find a place where I could bet on horse races. One of the cooler things I saw was the Shangri-la Acrobats. Some of the stuff they did made me cringe and think “oh crap that’s going to hurt.” The fair also had some really wicked looking rides such as the tango but I didn’t get to go on any of them. Overall it was fun and I got to eat my corndog which I missed out on at the Washington County Fair. I will say I always heard there are a lot of strange characters in LA and many of them seemed to be enjoying the fair.

Getty Museum:

Today I checked out the Getty Museum, which wasn’t my first choice but after realizing it’d take me almost 5 hours to get to the Joshua Tree National Park I decided to go somewhere a bit closer. I began by losing the detailed directions I wrote down (I think there’s a trend here somewhere) but managed to find the place without too much trouble. When you first get there all you see is a parking garage which seem kind of off but there is an actual museum. To get to there you take a tram up a mountain which is kind of cool. The museum also has free admission which made it extra nice. (Of course it costs eight bucks to park) Needless to say there are some pretty awesome views when you get to the top and some art too. The buildings are setup so you can wander from between them without actually realizing you it which I thought was neat. The bonus here is not only did I get to see some art, feel cultured, and justify buying a new camera but I also learn some stuff too. First, I learned that in the past people were pretty much always at minimum halfway naked. Unless they were going to be in a portrait then they tried to put as many clothes on as possible, perhaps to offset all the nakedness. Second, a museum on a mountain with free admission can make a lot of money by selling food and drink, say fifteen bucks for an iced tea and sandwich. Third, To be an artist all you really need to do is make/take pictures of strange objects (toilets, bananas, broken things, etc) and/or naked women. Although the wrong combinations (toilets & naked women) could get you labeled as a pornographer, which would arguably be more profitable.

That about sums up the last few weeks, in between I worked, surfed the web, went home for a weekend, watched some TV and played video games. I do indeed live an exciting life. Pics are coming just as soon as I figure out how this picture gallery plugin works.

*The conversion to wordpress doesn’t count, I had that ready to go minus a few tweaks weeks ago I just didn’t get around to switching it over until recently.