Overcompensating for Suck Month

February has been a little kinder for us, even though I think a lot of it has to do with our over compensation of the last month. Yesterday was my first Friday off in a few months time, and I kinda weaseled my way into getting the day off even though everyone else in my line was working. So even though I was happy to have some time off to goof around, I still felt a little guilty being home yesterday. But damnit, I shouldn't really have to feel guilty about working 40 hours a week, do I?

The PS3 has been really good to me. The Orange Box is really cool, although I've been spending time split between the different games. One of the conditions of having a PS3 is that I can't really play games that are inappropriate for the kids to watch, and seeing how the consumer base of the PS3 is geared toward Teens and up, it can be a little tough finding anything to do on the PS3 with the kids. Burnout Paradise is great with the kids around, and Portal is a good one as well. I tend to play Portal only when my wife is around, mostly because it's interesting for her to watch and I like to show off my analytical skills. The Playstation Network is addictive as well, having classic titles that work on the PS3 and the PSP. That's pretty cool. Right now I'm playing through Uncharted: Drake's Treasure, a rental that I had considered buying. I'll say this, it has a really great visual presentation, at times just beautiful and engrossing. But at the same time, the game seems to be incredibly short - I played for 3-4 hours last night and I've already completed 40% of the game. But it sure is pretty.

Yeah, kinda needed the Friday off just to catch a breather - I've been so submerged into work that whenever I dream, it's usually about work. I wake up, work, and promptly go into slipshod parenting and then bedtime. It's been so exhausting and seemingly unrewarding that I've developing a dronelike gaze in my eyes. And I try to apply the maxim of "having be able to make enough" to justify not working on Friday. I need to be able to work less and make more, really.

The kids have since recovered a little from their illnesses, and right now it's found new hosts in my wife and now starting to affect me. I'm trying to keep it at bay, hydrating, taking vitamins and scarfing down Balance Bars as if it were really healthy.

Zoe has a way of calling certain things with a "Ba" prefix, like Baputer (Computer), Bapiano, and the other day, when Zoe was naming off family members when she said that her mommy's name was Balaine, which was pretty cute. Alex himself has been sweet at times, coming into bed and saying, "I like you Daddy. You're my favorite Daddy." Which is quite a compliment considering the other Daddy candidates. His recent thing has been coming into our room in the middle of the night. My wife had told him that when he needed something, he should come into our room instead of shouting at the top of his voice in the dead of the night for something that he needs. So the other night, at 2 in the morning, he comes into the room, and says out loud,

"Mommy? Mommy?"

My wife, confused and half asleep, mutters, "She's not here."

"Mommy?"

(Regains composure) "What Sweetie?"

"Night night."

The other night was a similar deal, when he wanted a kiss at six in the morning. Thereafter, I believe he sat in our bed waiting for us to wake up, so needless to say, he was tired the rest of the day, doling out his tiredness in bite size tantrums.

But overall, the kids have been pretty good, just getting the feeling that they don't see their Daddy as much as they should be. Anyway, day with the family today, can't spend all day blogging about games now, can we?

My Foray into Next Gen Gaming

(Or, how I was an Xbox360 owner for about six hours.)

So, part of my twisted bargaining process was to convince my wife, you know, I've been working like 106 hours for the past two weeks, a bit of next gen gaming might cheer me up (or something.) So I told her I was going to sell that video camera I never use to front the money for an Xbox 360. Well, when Friday rolled around, I had reached a fever pitch obsession so I asked my wife if I could get an advance on the system, and she said yes. So off I went to get the somewhat reasonably (but ultimately lackluster) Xbox360 Arcade, which was $279.

Unboxing the 360 was a little comical - Everything was just oversized. The console itself is bulky, which is fine and all, but the power AC brick was ridiculous. The plugs itself was also crazy big. But I made the space for it, elevated some shelves, and fit the 360 in the entertainment center.

To shorten the story, what I was impressed with was this: The arcade games are fun. Boom Boom Rocket is a fun game. I ordered three games online for pickup, excited to get some decent gaming in. However, my 360 had a different opinion.

I've heard of the 33% failure rates of the 360s, and the many many comments about people who are on their 2nd and 3rd console. But since some time had lapsed and the Arcade is a newer incarnation, maybe they had sorted it out. Boy, was I wrong. For the rest of the evening, I had the 360 freeze on me in the middle of gameplay off a brand new disc, during server connections, online, and once after I booted it up during the intro screen. It seriously froze like 5-6 times in one night. No error code, no official looking screen that gave any indication of a problem, just froze. Googled "xbox freeze" and the comments were overwhelming. This isn't just a fluke, it's a dangerous trend. By the end of the night, I had went from ecstatic gamer to disappointed consumer.

So the next day I returned the damn thing, and got a PS3. Now, the price tag is way heftier, about 400 bones for the 40 Gig, but now I see that it was certainly a much better way to go. Sure, no Bioshock, Halo 3 or Gears of War, but not frozen screen or dealing with tech support in another country either. Having owned both for short periods of time, I would highly recommend the PS3 over the Xbox anyday.

The Arcade version of Xbox is no frills, which was what I thought I needed, but consider this - there is no hard drive, and the included memory unit is only 256 mb, which isn't really all that much. The save files for these games are huge. To buy an addition memory unit, it would be 50 bucks. And by that time, you're already at $329, which is only 20 bucks away from actually getting the Xbox Premium, which comes with a 20GB Hard drive, headset, and HDMI cable. And without more memory, forget about music storage, trailer or demo downloads, or anything. You would have to be a really casual gamer who has it for visitors or really enjoy deleting save files right after you complete the game.

Now the next thing would be to endorse the Premium 360, right? Actually, no. At $349, the Premium sports a 20GB hard drive, but for 50 bucks more, a PS3 will see the 20 and raise it another 20, for a whopping 40GB drive. In addition, you get a Blu-Ray player. 50 bucks for 20 Gigs and a Blu Ray player, I think that's reason enough.

So, I'm enjoying my PS3, albeit full of guilt because it cost more than I started out with, but so far it's just awesome. Burnout Paradise is lots of fun in it, and I got Orange Box and Portal is one of the few puzzle games that I'll actually enjoy. Downloaded more demos and have yet to try it yet, but I'm sure this console will last me quite some time, like my PS2 has.

And no, it hasn't frozen once.