Disney Vacation

Finally back from a week long vacation at Disney. Had a blast and the girls loved it. We went to Magic Kingdom on Monday, Animal Kingdom on Tuesday, dined with Chef Mickey in the morning on Wednesday morning, then dined with Cinderella, Prince Charming, the evil step mother and her 2 daughters Wednesday night, went to Hollywood Studios on Thursday, Sea World on Friday, and finally stopped by Downtown Disney eating at the T-Rex restaurant before driving home.

So tired each day and very sore from all the walking around. Especially since we ended up carrying our 3 year old a bunch.

Most everything is cleaned and put away. I have 2 days of work this week and then I'm off for Thanksgiving.

The interesting part is when my friend who was watching our cats called me up Saturday night and told me to check out my games. Went and looked, Assassin's Creed II was setting in the pile. He said he couldn't resist and he has been wanting me to play this game. He won a Ebay auction for $4 for the game. I couldn't have let that pass either. So looks like I'll be playing Assassin's Creed II on my PS3 instead of the Xbox 360. No complaints here. I've been playing both systems equally here recently.

CompTIA Security + Certified

As of today I'm officially CompTIA Security+ Certified.

My company paid $1400 bucks for me to get into a boot camp class that lasted for 4 days. It was supposed to be from 8-5 but I didn't leave until 6 or after each night. Came home, didn't each supper, did some stuff around the house and studied until I was too tired to study anymore.

So today I went in, we finished covering everything that was left, took a short 30 minute break and took the test.

My nerves had been shot all week as all the pretest we took I was the lowest scoring and wasn't quite making it up to the average I should be in order to pass the test. The teacher knew I was going to take it anyway but her recommendation was to study for 1 more week then take it.

Even last night my daughter woke us up at 12, 1, and 2. Couldn't get any sleep, so was already tired today. My wife was awesome enough to go into the room and sleep on her bed with her the rest of the night. She's so AWESOME!!!!

So I take the test and get through all 100 questions in about 70 minutes and had about 20 minutes to review over some. I changed at least 4 of them. The last one I changed was under the 5 minute mark. I knew I had picked the wrong answer when I realized I misread the sentence and was thinking of the wrong port.

The test ended and everyone in the class came over as I was the last one still taking it. The teacher was up front. I got through the survey at the end and when the screened popped up, all I heard was OMG! I was like what, what. Then I realized my screen showed CONGRATULATIONS on it. Then I looked at my score. You get 100 points just for setting down take the test. To pass this test, you have to get 750 points. I seriously had a score of 750. I've got the paper to prove it. I shouted to the top of my lungs and everyone was giving me high fives. Even the lady who registered me up came and congratulated me. It was awesome to get that score and pass. Granted my scores had increased over the tests for the past 4 days but it wasn't enough to where I should have passed.

Praise the Lord on this one.

So now what am I going to do? I'm going to Disney. I'm leaving Sun for the entire week.

See Ya!

Witnessed an Accident today

Was out doing some quick shopping before we went to a fall festival and trick or treating.

Was waiting to to go to drive over to the mall when I looked left and said, that car is going way to fast. No sooner than I said that, the guy driving slammed into the side of a car crossing the road. His car came to a complete stop when he hit and the back end of the car went up in the air.

The car crossing drifted on down the street some. I jumped out of my car and ran to the guy driving that hit the car. Asked me if he was alright and he said no. The car was still coasting and heading towards my car. I turned the steering wheel to the curb and got the car to stop. All the while the car is smoking bad on the outside and inside. I was afraid it was going to catch fire. A lady came up, which I found out later she was a nurse, and told me not to move him and check under the hood to see what the smoke was. Couldn't really determine what it was but a fireman came up and we tried to get the hood up but it was jammed shut. Finally figure out the transmission oil was what was smoking. Along with the air bag stuff in the car that had deployed.

Interesting part is the first policeman to show up was from Warner Robins county but his jurisdiction was on the road I was on. The accident happened on the main road so I had to wait on the Centerville police to come and take a report.

We were the main ones to see the accident. So I verified somethings with the other drivers and none of them saw everything I did. So I told them I had it covered for the police report and let the go.

The girl that got hit wasn't hurt but was really shaken up. She was actually on her way to get her hair done for a wedding she was in today. The bride actually showed up at one point. I had to give them a recap as they had no idea what really happened.

The guy driving the other car got a neck brace, put on stretcher, placed into the ambulance and went to the hospital to be checked out. He was really out of it when I first got to him and I was the first one to get to the car. He still seemed out of it when he left.

If I get a sapenia (can't spell that) in the mail, I will have to go to court to testify on it. If not, I'll never see or hear anything about this ever again.

Resistance 2

Well, they announced Resistance 3 and I've gone back to playing Resistance 2 again. This game never gets old and it's just as fun now as it was the first time I opened up the box. This is the best co-op game you'll ever play. The only other one that compares is the old Delta Force games on the PC.

This game has a good story and I haven't even played the first game yet. I'm going to have to pick that up and run through it so I know the story from the beginning. Kinda like how I'm doing FEAR and FEAR 2 right now. Beat the first one and on the 2 one now. Only I'll have to go in reverse order since I picked up Resistance 2 first.

The co-op mode is done right though. You have 3 classes and you need all 3 in the game working together to make it work. If not, you'll die and never finish a mission. You have a Gunner, Assault, and Medic. You can play with up to 8 players. If you find a good team and coordinate decently, it will help you get through the missions easier. Each class can level up and get better stuff the higher level they get. Level 30 is when you stop getting things. However, their is a trophy for hitting level 50, so getting to 20 might mean playing on a higher difficulty for more experience to get their faster. So everyone needs to be at a high level to try superhuman mode.

The single player won't disappoint you either. It has a great story involved with it and it has some hard sections on it. I've beat it on easy and hard so far. When I beat it on hard, I unlocked Super Human mode. I started it up but haven't played very far into it. I will go back and finish it though as their is a trophy for beating it on super human mode. Plus the campaign will help me rack up experience.

Speaking of experience, this game tracks all kinds of stuff and your experience from each type of mode you can play is tracked separately: single player, cooperative, and competitive. Then all 3 are combined for an overall rank of what your current status is in the game. Which at a certain level you get a trophy. It tracks all your kills, deaths, ratio, kills per weapon, and on. All kinds of stuff to look at in this game.

You definitely need to check out this game out if you own a PS3. You won't be disappointed.

A Nightmare on Elm Street

Over the holiday weekend I watched the new Nightmare on Elm Street remake. It has been a long time since I've watched this movie so I don't remember everything about the movie that was in the original.

So with that in mind, I thought it was pretty good and enjoyed watching it again. Some parts stuck out but those are the unforgettable parts. Some things just always stick in your head when you see them.

I think they did a great job of making it look like a current movie while still keeping everything in tack from what I did remember of the movie. and that's that.

The Hunger Games

My wife had been wanting to read a book along side me and this is the book we started reading on.

I must say Suzanne Collins did good job in writing this book.  It's still popping back up in my head even after finishing it almost 2 weeks ago.  So it has to be descent if it does that to me.

I'm pretty much going to spoil some of the story but I'll try to sum it up instead of telling it all so you'll want to read it

The book is based off in the future a little ways and there are different cities that have still survived but nobody really goes out into the wilderness.  They all stay in the city but this one girl goes and hunts in the wilderness to survive.  However nobody seems to live extraordinary lives but maybe a few people in the city.


The girl is the main focus in the book and she takes the place of her sister for this hunger game where they drew her name.  The main city hosts these games every year to prove a point of not revolting and get to the point of destroying each other.  Which is pointed out in the past and one city is completely destroyed from a war.  The Hunger Games puts 2 young kids from each city in an arena and they fight until all but one is dead.  The arena is by no means small.  It's a huge area and is sectioned off.  They have cameras everywhere and flying hovercraft machines that just appear out of no where to collect the dead bodies.

Before the games start up though it builds up the contestants and they try to win the heart of the crowd to get sponsors to receive items in the arena.  It's a good build up and you can tell the main city is better off than any other city around.

You will learn during the fighting and the talks that all the other cities are like the main city you started out in where most people are starving all the time and are barely making it by.

Of course since the book is focused on the girl, you know she wins but it's not the normal winning that happens.  Which is when the real games begin and the book ends when they arrive back in their home city.

Which makes you really want to read the next couple of books to see where this will end up and play out.

Definitely worth the read if you like reading books.

PS3 Move Party

Behind like 2 weeks getting this post up but rolling through some today.

The party went great.  Rearranged my living room which worked out good giving more room behind me than having the couch there.

Most of the younger kids looked at and admired the Eyepet walking in and then ran off to our kids play room.  They didn't really play much.  We did have 2 boy a little older than most the group and they played the whole time.  Got them through most everything on Eyepet we had unlocked and then got them started on a Start the Party game.  They enjoyed and some of the other kids came out and played some as well on and off.

The adults really liked the Eyepet and how everything worked with it.  Like how it picking up moving my hand in the air and it jumping, to rubbing it, and all the different types of interaction you could have with it.

Finally kicked the kids off and played with a friend of mine on a bunch of download-able demos that were available to play.

I'm the guy on the right in case you're wondering.

Here's a review of all the games played.

EyePet

• The eye cam has to be low to the ground.  Doesn’t work up on top of your television.
• The pet looks good but the camera puts a blue tint on the screen where you see yourself.  I think it’s to let it recognize movements better somehow as I saw another game put a less darker blue tint on as well.
• Lots of challenges to unlock and do in the game in order to do unlock everything.
• Kids enjoying the drawing part with the motion controller.
• Holding paper up to the screen for it to read and draw doesn’t work all that well.  Using a thick marker helps some but the camera reading it is still an issue.
• Game unlocks things as you go but you have to do the challenge mode of it first to actually unlock it.  So you see it unlock but you can’t do it yet.  That part of the game moves to fast for you to keep up with what all it shows you that you can do.

Start the Party

• Bunch of silly party games. 
• Easy to do. 
• Fun for little kids.
• Have to take turns using one motion controller.
• Can tell it will get boring after a short time.

Echochrome ii Demo

• Neat game with the shadow complex.
• Way too much talking in the demo.  Hardly got to play any boards.
• Can tell it will get hard at some point and I even tricked it once and skipped over making the actual picture and got the guy in the door.

The Shoot Demo

• You’re shooting a film with a director saying good and bad things on what you’re doing.
• You only use the T button to shoot objects on the screen which are cardboard bad guys and objects.
• It’s a little fun but couldn’t play 2 players on the demo.
• Would be a good game to rent but not worth a retail price.

Sports Champions Demo

• The accuracy in this game is amazing.
• It only came with Frisbee golf and ping pong.
• Would be worth owning for a mix of a different type of normal sport games.
• Have to resync on each game with the controller when you start the game again even while still in it.  That got old quick.
• Probably the best demo I have played yet.

Kung Fu Rider Demo

• You ride around on a rolling office chair doing certain moves to get through the obstacle course.
• Controls don’t always seem to go like you want them too.
• Got semi bored with it but looks like it could get hard later on down the road.  Not sure why people seem to have extremely liked this game as it didn't pull me in that much.

Beat Sketcher Demo

• My kids loved this.
• Only can create in this demo.  I wanted all the other options.
• Music plus drawing on screen is a good combo.
• Actual music playing overrides the sound when you’re drawing.  Need to turn that down.
• Will probably end up buying this just for the kids.

TV Superstars Demo

• Was very boring.
• Crazy super big heads and over exaggerated facial expressions.
• This game shows no appeal and I don't know why anyone would want it.

RUSE Demo

• The only demo I had where I needed a navigation controller and I had to use my gamepad to play since I didn't get a navigation controller with the box.
• Slow strategy war game.
• Could be fun if you’re into that sort of thing.
• Got a little bit of a learning curve to figure out how to play the game.  Lots of things to do and remember to fully perform good in the game.

Racquet Sports Demo

• Played tennis on it but the accuracy compared to the Sports Champions demo sucks.  They should have taken some advice from them.  It doesn’t have any where near the accuracy like Sports Champions does.  
•  I didn’t think my tennis game was ever going to end so we just quit playing.
• Steer clear of this game.

Tumble Demo

• The strategy in this looks like it could get hard and fun all in one.
• It’s a slow paced game but you get wrapped up in trying to stack the blocks to do what it’s asking you to do.
• You get to do more than just stacking.  I got to use mines to blow up some blocks as well to have them fall over for points.
• The game has more to offer and would be worth getting to see what all you'll be able to do.

So I had a successful party to say the least.  Even had snacks for everyone to munch on throughout the afternoon.  I think we need to do another one.  I wonder if they'll do a Kinect one.  It would make my day if they did and we got in on it.