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If there was ever a fantasy world I would have liked to step right into, lightsaber in hand, Star Wars is it. I want to pilot that X-Wing. I want to face the Hut full of jelly and save that princess with buns in her hair. I want to be the swashbuckling hero. Unfortunately, it doesn’t sound like I can do any of those things in Star Wars Galaxies, a game that launched just last week.

Galaxies sounded like a gamer’s dream. User controlled cities, controllable vehicles like land speeders, and space combat headed the feature list. As the years rolled by, features became future promises and even future expansion packs. What’s left sounds more like Everquest with Ewoks than the incredible game I hoped to rush home and play.

I say “hope” because I’ve yet to purchase the game. Another reason has kept me from the retail shelves. The rapidly shrinking feature list should give you a clue. From the initial reports – and the reports of some folks in the beta – the game is buggy. Some things are incomplete. Some things are completely broken. Day one found many gamers waiting for the registration screen. Subsequent days have been filled with server downtime.

For many massively multiplayer role-playing games – Dark Age of Camelot excluded, server instability in their infant days is par for the course. That doesn’t make it right, particularly when Joe consumer is sitting at home $50 lighter. For this game, it almost seemed to be the plan. The game isn’t ready to play. They are, however, more than ready to begin collecting money.

And somehow, I’m still interested. I won’t spend my hard earned money to beta test their software. However, I hope one of my friends does. I need someone on the inside. Someone to approach me in a year and assure me that my dream of what this game could be is close to becoming reality. Much like the suits at Sony, I need a guinea pig.

The Star Wars license with a $15 a month fee is the closest thing that the massively multiplayer gaming community will see to a sure thing for a long while. Look ma, I can be a Wookie. They can’t screw it up. They just can’t. That doesn’t mean they won’t give it a college try.

I would have gladly paid their sum to play the game that I really wanted to play. As it turns out, though, they haven’t finished it. I won’t pay them a cent until they do.

Someone unexpected said “hi” to me this morning. Normally a simple greeting isn’t something to get excited about. In this case, I make an exception. That person was my son. Hi was his first word.

I’m not dissapointed that his first word wasn’t “mama” or “dada”. God knows he has heard those two words a lot; both mom and dad are anxious to see which one he calls out first. I’m just happy to communicate. I’ve been greeting him with a “hi” for a week or so. I’m glad he returned the favor. One word down. About 600,000 to go.

Cam is in one of his activity spurts. For weeks, he doesn’t seem to change much at all. Then – all of a sudden – he starts doing a myriad of new things. He grabs at everything in sight. Clear the table. Here comes his roving hands. His legs pump up and down, just searching for something to topple. He’s so close to turning over that the countdown is now measured in days, not weeks. Daddy tries to move him that extra inch by force of will alone.

It’s an exciting time. He’s moving up and moving on. It’s an incredible thing to witness, even as those cuddly baby days slowly slip on by. Soon mom and dad will no longer spend their days perched above a bright-eyed child. We will be too busy chasing him through the house.

I look forward to it, in a “how much more tired can I get” sort of way. Watching him grow up will undoubtably be one of the grandest experiences of my life. His hello of this morning is but a glimpse of the world to come.

Cam, hello. It’s going to be great getting to know you.

When my wife informed me that a plague of locusts were making their way across Idaho, I didn’t believe her. I needed to see it for myself.

It turns out that they are everywhere. The news showed them crowding the street, making the roadways slick and slippery for passing cars. A nearby lake had swimmers practically bathing in the little suckers. Mormon crickets are making the folks of Idaho think of biblical times. I imagine that’s one of the reasons that why my brother and his family will be happy to touch down in the good state of Maryland this Saturday. Hopefully, it isn’t the only reason.

It’s not like we have much more to offer here. They may think of Moses when crossing the street. We have Noah on our minds. Maryland can claim two full days of sun since the beginning of May. I could swear that I saw a fellow building a large boat on my way to work. It was hard to see through all the trees — and the giraffes.

In any case, I’m looking forward to a visit from my brother. I like to think I’m reasonably close to all my siblings, even as they have moved their separate ways. I miss them and their respective families. It’s nice to catch up. We’ll do some swimming, spend a day catching a rollercoaster or two, and muse a bit about nothing at all. It will be a fun time.

I just hope he leaves those bugs at home. That’s one part of Idaho I can do without.

A funny thing happened to the wife and I on the way to see Finding Nemo. We went to see the Hulk instead.

I couldn’t argue with the kind stranger who surprised us in the movie theatre parking lot. “You want to see a movie? Here.”

What are these? Free tickets to see the sneak preview. Wow. Let’s go see some green.

It’s not every day I go see a sneak preview; Tuesday night isn’t exactly when you expect to the latest new release. A large section of seats were reserved for the press. The theater was packed. The wife and I found the last pair of open seats that were actually placed next to each other. I wonder if all those people were as disappointed as I.

The Hulk is a movie with an identity crisis. It can’t decide if it is an action flick or a dramatized play. Is this the story of a child’s green monster or the dark tale of a disturbed man. The first hour of the film goes by without one sighting the big green guy. Hulk. Smash. Get on with it.

You can see Ang Lee‘s touch on the film. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was a love story with some over the top action sequences. The Hulk comes off in a similar fashion. It’s a dark, foreboding story with a not so jolly green giant.

The problem is that the story didn’t really need to be there. We didn’t need to hear the ravings of Bruce’s father. We didn’t need to know about his father at all. It should start with the smashing. It should end with the smashing. Everything in between should just be a reason to get to the smashing.

Speaking of smashing, a lot of people had issues with the special effects. I was not one of them. Aside from the believability of a tall green monster parading around San Francisco, I thought they looked great. The movement of the Hulk, especially when tossing a tank, crushing walls, and, well, smashing was right on. The sight of him leaping from place to place brought back memories of the comic.

Unfortunately, the rest of the movie did not. I wouldn’t take my kid to see it; the story is just too dark and disjointed. I’d take him to see Finding Nemo. Next time that’s where I’ll take myself as well.

Not too long ago, I submitted a column to a web site I visit every week. GameSpotting, the site in question, is a freeform feature run by the GameSpot crew. They basically run around to each member of their staff and ask them to write something, anything about games. Recently, they began to take reader submissions. Mine didn’t get in.

Why didn’t it get in? I’m sure there were all sorts of reasons. It mentions too many retail chains. Its more of a narrative than an article. The timing of my submission wasn’t the best. E3 loomed right around the corner and, in addition to the folks of GameSpot turning their attention to the big gaming event, they didn’t run a GameSpotting column for a couple of weeks. Lastly – and I have to allow for this – it just wasn’t very good.

In any case, their four weeks are up. The rights of my writing have returned to me. For better or worse, I’ve placed the object of my rejection below. Feel free to peruse and even compare it to what they have up this week. Enjoy. I promise I’ll do better next time.

You make my GBA whole. You make it easy to carry along. The glow emanating from my new Game Boy Advance SP fills me with delight. The difficult quest I undertook to acquire it helps it shine that much brighter.

Just days after the release of the GBA SP, I was found wanting. I thought I was patient. I thought I could wait until late April, when my birthday would surely usher in a finely wrapped package. I was wrong. It took only the faint flicker of a friend’s display to prove it. They say timing is everything. My bad timing had left me empty handed.

Darkness falls, on both the game and my GBA screen.

But I would not let hopelessness set in. I could get one of those tiny little silver systems. I had only to try. I was determined, even if resolve hasn’t always been my closest friend in the past.

Determination once led me across town to pick up that last copy of WaveRace from the not-so-local Electronics Boutique. Determination taught me how many Best Buy trips it takes to acquire a copy of Dark Age of Camelot on the first day of its release (hint, it’s no less than four). Determination sometimes does me wrong. In this one case, it did me right.

My quest began in the morning. Phone call after phone call resulted in failure. The local malls were sold out. The boutique on the corner wouldn’t be getting any more shipments for weeks. You could almost hear the eyes roll around in the clerk’s head as he let down another anxious customer. Sorry buddy, not today.

Finding this on the first day of its release was no walk in the park.

Best Buy was cleaned out, so much so that it was difficult to find the sign. Compounding my problems, I had promised to visit relatives in the hills of Pennsylvania this day. A road trip awaited. The lack of a lighted screen would be torture. Surely, I could find one on the way.

Strike two occurred at a small town mall. It seems that eyes roll there much like they do back home. Saddened by the news, I had no choice but to continue my journey. My plans were in ruin. I should have thought ahead. My old GBA taunted me from the dark depths of its screen.

Thankfully, a Walmart, cleverly hidden on a lonely stretch of road, ended my pangs of regret. The sharp eye of my wife picked out a location that needy gamers often skip entirely. The pot of gold at the end of my rainbow was a striking silver. My treasure was finally in hand and I couldn’t have been happier.

The backlit screen makes all the difference. Where I once peered deeply into my own reflection, I now bask in the bright glow of screen below. The goodies it reveals warm my heart.

There’s no game where this makes more of a difference than in Castlevania: Circle of the Moon. The background is dark. The foreground is dark. Even the cartridge and package are dark. Maybe they were trying to warn me up front. The addition of a little light reveals a whole new experience. Little did I know that the walls were made of some type of heavy stone. It turns out that little thing flailing from Nathan Graves was a whip after all.

Samus is also searching for a brighter light.

And my sunny joys are not limited to that game alone. Much that was once old is new again. Happy soldiers stare back at me in Advance Wars. Ghosts shift warily behind the tracks in Mario Kart. Samus can finally spend a little less time looking for an extra flashlight in Metroid Fusion.

The included battery back and slick design round out the package. It’s truly the backlit star of the portable world. I have but one question: why didn’t we get it sooner?

A problem for Nintendo and a blessing for gamers, the SP has raised the bar for what constitutes a portable game system. Just as the Xbox will make any future console that doesn’t include a hard drive a second class citizen, any future portable system simply must include a rechargeable battery. A backlit screen may have been an option before; it is no longer.

Were my travels worth it? It depends on who you ask. If you ask my boss, the flash of silver looks much like a PDA and well, that’s all I need to know. My next status meeting just became a whole lot more entertaining.

A funny thing happens when you try for over two and a half years to
have a child: the concept of never creeps in from the side. After
a while it does more than slink around in the background. It rears
its ugly head and faces you head on.

What if I never get the chance? What if all these attempts, all
this effort, end in nothing but failure?

You prepare for the worst. Adoption is not something we just
considered. It is something we researched. I have no doubt
that I could love an adopted son as my own but what if we can
never do it ourselves. What if?

This only begins to explain how incredibly lucky I feel this
day. The child sleeping silently in the room behind me is a blessing
indeed, a treasure whose first cry answered the prayers of
his mother and father.

As I unwrap the first of, what I hope, is many father’s day presents
today, I know that none will ever come close to the gift God gave me
just a short time ago. His gift allows me to celebrate this
day and I thank Him.

I was always surprised that Metallica took mp3s so personal. It was their battle. Lars Ulrich was the mascot. Napster was their target.

As a casual fan I found their stance a bit insulting. Their tactics, which included fear and lawyers was more akin to those who watch lovingly over their gardeners, not a band whose mere appearance could make parents run for cover. What happened to them? Success had robbed them of their hair and their credibility.

I don’t think they anticipated the backlash they received.

Years later, I surprised myself when I picked up their new album, St.Anger. I thought I was done with them. They didn’t want us to touch mp3s. If I did listen to them, I thought for sure it would be exclusively through my computer speakers.

Then they put together a package that did exactly what a retail release should; it encouraged fans to purchase their music. Let’s forget the negative for a while and give the fans what they really want.

Here’s a quick list of what their new CD includes:

• the CD, of course
• a DVD of them playing every song on the CD
• a code to unlock downloadable music on the internet

The CD itself is good. I wouldn’t say great. It is much closer to their roots than previous albums, sporting a sound closer to your parent’s garage than the classical stylings of S & M.

The DVD is a great extra and, I should mention, is one of the biggest reasons I purchased the CD. I’m heading to their Summer Sanitarium tour in about a month. I thought it would be great to get in an advanced viewing. The actual content doesn’t include a lot of bells and whistles but that doesn’t matter. You get to sit in on a jam session. For fans, this is a treat.

The downloadable content surprised me the most. Three live concerts are available for download, split into 40 or so mp3s. Scrumptious. Especially given the fact that Metallica has never released a live album in the stores. I have a lot of music to listen to over the next couple of weeks.

Other bands should take note (some, like Eminem, already have). These guys did it right. A shiny CD isn’t enough anymore. Throw in a couple of extras. We want to buy your CD. Give us more reasons to do so.

Leaving work early to mow the yard is not normally something I look
forward to. Today was no exception.

But I did it anyway. Cambell’s dedication is this weekend and,
as expected, a little shindig will occur at our home afterwards.
The yard, along with the rest of the house, needed to be in
tip top shape. Mission accomplished, at least as far as the
outside of the house is concerned.

I didn’t leave it at just the yard, though. I applied the
weed whacker to the sidewalks and the fence. I used my
chainsaw on a stick to get at those low lying branches.
I also trimmed both the bushes in front of the house and
the small pine trees that adorn the space between the
sidewalk and our home.

I don’t trim the bushes all that often. When I do, my bushes
quake with fear. It’s not that I normally do a bad job. It’s
just that – how can I say it – I’m a little aggressive. I
don’t mess around. There’s a buzzing noise, a smell of
burning wood, and it is quickly over.

I trim the pine trees even less. I believe the wife was the
last one to touch these specimens. They involve a little
more effort – after all, they are much bigger than the bushes –
and a bit more artistic talent. They sit in the front of the yard.
Folks that drive by can actually see them.

My trimming didn’t start very smoothly. I hacked and hacked and
discovered one tree had quite a large hole in the front.
There isn’t much you can do. Unlike a Christmas tree, there’s
no way to turn the bare spot towards the corner. Fixing the hole was much
like trying to fix a bad haircut. Cut a little bit here and there and you only make things worse.

My other trees frowned at me and said, “you aren’t going to do
me like that. Are you?”

Thankfully, the other trees were much luckier.
No embarrassing scars will haunt their youth. As for the
ugly duckling, we can only hope that we can keep the
heckling to a minimum. It’ll grow back. We swear.

Early in the study of economics, students are often confronted with an interesting presupposition: if you don’t have it, you don’t want it. The premise being that if you really wanted something, it would already be in your figurative pocket, even if it meant structuring your entire life around attaining the prize. What we normally perceive as want is just a bit of whining about the conscious choices we’ve already made. By soliciting a new study on software piracy, the Business Software Alliance added a new twist: if you want it and don’t have it, you’ve pirated it.

Here’s a snippet of the Yahoo news article that talks about the rigorous methods of the study:

Basically, any gap between what they say you need and what you have is filled with thievery and deception. Wouldn’t the used car salesmen of the universe just love to capture that logic in a bottle? I can hear the RIAA dialing the phone right now.

Just imagine if this theory could be applied to other industries. You pirated that fancy sports car. Didn’t you? Best Buy is just full of folks pirating those big screen high definition televisions. I’m pirating that mansion on the beach right now.

I’d say this study was really an analysis of the simple laws of supply and demand but that would be irresponsible. Any analysis should include hard facts and rely more on long term trends than the results of a tarot card reading.

From a business perspective, what the study should tell the BSA is why these companies pirate their software if, in fact, any of them are doing so. Supply and demand are way out of whack. Prices are much too high for what is being offered. Why should we pay $399 for Office XP? Word 6.0 suits us just fine.

The results of this study lie in the land of fiction, alongside astrology and the novels of Harry Potter on the believability scale. And I believe J.K. Rowling makes a whole lot more sense.