Labor Day Weekend @ Disney – Day 3

This morning we ate breakfast over at the Contemporary and then headed out to enjoy some of the pools at the resorts. My daughter and I swam in the pool at the Contemporary for a bit while we waited for the water slide to open at 10am. Once the lifeguards arrived and the slide was on, my daughter went down that a few times. “That was awesome!” was her reaction. 🙂

With check-out approaching fast at 11am, we walked back over to Bay Lake Tower so my daughter could try the water slide at that pool (I went on it a few times myself).

Then it was back up to the room to quickly, shower, change, pack, and check out.

We drove over to the Downtown Disney area to do a little shopping and grab lunch. On the West Side they have this huge hot air balloon you can ride (for about $15) 400 feet straight up and probably get a good view of everything. I realized I actually saw this thing from the parks the other day … that’s how big it was:

My daughter wanted to buy a Lego set with some money she had saved up so we stopped by the LEGO Store. It was fun to watch her try and decide between Indiana Jones or Star Wars. I guess playing the Wii games and watching the movies has had an effect on her. 🙂 She finally decided on the Indiana Jones set since it had Indy, Marion, two bad guys, a boat, and a car (as opposed to Anakin’s Jedi starfighter with R2-D2).

We had lunch at Fulton’s Crab House (another first for us, and it was very good) and then hit the road back home. There was very little traffic again, which was nice, so we had time to unpack and unwind once we got home.

It was a great vacation, but it’s back to work tomorrow. All good things, right?

Labor Day Weekend @ Disney – Day 2

The plan was to get to Animal Kingdom close to opening time (9am) this morning, so we had breakfast in our room and then walked over to the bus stop at the Contemporary. The last time were we at Animal Kingdom was back in 2007, so we were looking forward to checking out the Asia area.

I love roller coasters, so I had to ride Expedition Everest first.

Surprisingly, my wife and daughter came with me, since the standby wait time was only 5 minutes (a benefit of being there early). It’s a great coaster! It goes through dark caverns, it’s fast, and even goes backwards … I loved it! My daughter thought it was “ok” even though she kept her eyes closed the entire time (there are some scary parts that involve the Yeti). After that thrill, we went down the path to the Kali River Rapids and got totally drenched … twice. My daughter really loved that ride, so we had to go on it again at her insistence (no lines so we walked on both times). I swear my clothes were still wet at lunchtime hours later, but at least it kept me cool in the heat of the day. 😉

As we started to dry off, we walked through the Maharajah Jungle Trek to see dragons, bats, and tigers. Most of the animals were apparently still sleeping though, because we only saw one tiger (sleeping in some tall grass, I almost missed him). I did catch this huge bat doing his best Dark Knight impression, though:

We had 2:00 lunch reservations over at Epcot, so we walked back through DinoLand USA (where my daughter did the scavenger hunt at the Boneyard) and then went back to the bus station.

At Epcot, we stopped into Innovations again, this time to register for the Kim Possible World Showcase Adventure. My wife and I love the countries at Epcot (especially the food!), but my daughter finds them boring. The Kim Possible adventure is the perfect family solution! The kids get a “communicator” which is basically an old LG flip phone. The screen plays video messages from the Kim Possible characters and sends you on a hunt in the various countries around the World Showcase to track down and stop the criminal masterminds. The communicator can be used to “activate” clues in the countries. It’s really slick. For example, our first “mission” took us to France, where we had to find a bookstore. Once in front of the bookstore, my daughter used the communicator to activate a fingerprint scanner. In the window of this bookstore there in France, a laser scanned the books and showed a fingerprint. This led us to another clue, and another activation. I was really impressed with how it was put together, all of these “clues” hidden in plain sight waiting to be activated by the presence of one of these mobile phones. One small drawback was that there were a lot of kids (and adults) running around with these communicators, so you kept hearing the sound effects and voices everywhere. It was hard not to spoil some of the locations that way. Once you complete the mission, you have the option of accepting another one which sends you to another country. When you’re done, the communicator directs you to a drop box to return the phone. This was a great way to keep my daughter interested as we walked around the World Showcase … kudos to Disney for that!

At 2pm we were at the Nine Dragons restaurant in China for lunch, which was good, but wasn’t great enough to earn a spot on our “favorite Epcot restaurants” list. We enjoyed a little more of the World Showcase after lunch and then took one of the Friendship ferry boats from the International Gateway (near France) over to Hollywood Studios.

Down Hollywood Boulevard we snagged FastPasses for the Rockin’ Roller Coaster, but they weren’t until 7:20 so we had a while to do some other things. My daughter and I went on Star Tours (a personal favorite, even though it’s old and somewhat dated) and eventually we made it over to the American Idol Experience and had front row seats. By the time we got out of there it was apparent we were going to get another mid-afternoon rainstorm, so we ducked into the Prince Caspian: Chronicles of Narnia walk-thru and avoided most of the rain. After dinner, we rode my favorite Walt Disney ride: Aerosmith’s Rockin’ Roller Coaster.

I love the loud music, the speed, and especially the launch (0 to 60 in 2.8 seconds!). This was my daughter’s first upside-down roller coaster experience … and she hated it. Oh well. I don’t think she minded the loops, or the dark (she did open her eyes a few times because she was able to describe some of the scenery) but she didn’t like how it banged her head around against the harness.

Immediately after getting out of the ride, we grabbed some ice cream and then headed into the Hollywood Hills Amphitheater for “Fantasmic.” This was another Disney show we hadn’t seen yet … we tried last year but were turned away because the park had closed, which was disappointing. Well, it was worth the wait because it’s an incredible show.

It took us a long time to get out of the theater due to the massive number of people, but eventually we threaded our way through the crowds and back to the bus station. We made it back to the hotel to catch the Magic Kingdom fireworks from our room for the third night in a row. Sweet.

Too bad we have to go home tomorrow …

Labor Day Weekend @ Disney – Day 1

This morning we got up early and headed over to the Magic Kingdom to meet some friends for breakfast. We caught the monorail over in the Contemporary and had our particular car all to ourselves.

That didn’t last, of course, as the monorail swung through the Polynesian and Grand Floridian resorts on the way over. We had 8:30 reservations at The Crystal Palace which allowed us to get into the park before it officially opened. That was really cool because Main Street USA was completely deserted, something you rarely get to see. My wife got this great picture of my daughter all by herself in front of Cinderella’s castle (she’s standing under the archway):

no one but my daughter at Cinderella's castle

The Crystal Palace is a Winnie the Pooh-themed buffet, so as we ate with our friends, the various characters (Pooh, Piglet, and Eeyore) stopped by for personal photo ops. The girls also got to march in the little parade around the restaurant.

By the time we finished breakfast, the park had been officially open for about 30 minutes and the crowd level was noticeably higher. We headed back to Frontierland to hit the rides there. As we were debating if we should get a FastPass for Splash Mountain, a cast member came up to us and asked if we were going to ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. I said we were debating which one to do first and she said ” if you follow me I’ll take you in the back way.” So we all followed her and she took us back through the exit to the front of the line for the ride! How cool! After riding the roller coaster, we went next door to Splash Mountain and walked right on. We walked off slightly wetter than before, but not soaked.  🙂

The rest of the morning was spent around the Magic Kingdom, letting the girls dictate pretty much what they wanted to do: meet the Princesses in Toon Town, visit the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor, “shoot some aliens!” on Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin, etc. By early afternoon we had done pretty much everything we wanted to do at the Magic Kingdom, so we hopped the monorail to Epcot.

Arriving in the park, we bee-lined it for Soarin’ in The Land to get FastPasses. That gave us some wait time to grab lunch and then let the girls play around in Innovations. It had been a while since I’d been in those buildings (I tend to stick to the World Showcase) but there were some neat new exhibits in there like The Great Piggy Bank Adventure (which teaches kids about saving money, and topics like inflation and diversification), and IBM’s ThinkPlace which digitizes you in various motions and then green-screens you into your own video game that you then get to play and e-mail to yourself. Neat stuff.

After using our FastPasses at Soarin’ we headed over to check out Test Track. The standby time was listed as 20 minutes so we decided to wait. It ended up being closer to to 40 minutes once we actually got onto the ride, but that’s always a fun one. Of course, it’s a big GM showroom at the end so we got to check out the new Camaro and Volt up close (except they weren’t letting anyone sit in those).

When we got out of Test Track, the weather had seriously clouded over and it was apparent it was going to rain in short order. It was about time for our friends to head home anyway, so we said our goodbyes and parted ways outside the gates. We then hopped on the monorail for the trip back to the hotel and that’s when it started pouring. Of course, we figured we were set since the monorail runs through the Contemporary, but we had forgotten that at the Ticket and Transportation Center you need to switch from the Epcot monorail to the resort monorail, and to do that you need to leave cover and run from the exit ramp on one side of the station to the entrance ramp on the other. So, unlike our Splash Mountain experience earlier in the day, we got totally soaked.

We picked up dinner at the Contemporary and took it back to our room to relax and dry off. The rain eventually tapered off, so we walked (gotta love staying in a hotel that close!) over to the Magic Kingdom and got some dessert from the Plaza Ice Cream Parlor on Main Street. By then, of course, the park was jammed with people getting ready to watch the parade and fireworks so we did a little shopping on the way back to the main gate and then walked back to the hotel and watched the fireworks again from our balcony … in our PJs. 😉

Labor Day Weekend @ Disney – Day 0

This weekend is Labor Day Weekend, so it’s time for our annual mini (or should that be “Minnie?”) family vacation at Walt Disney World. We drove over this afternoon after picking my daughter up from school and hit no traffic going through downtown Tampa or across to Orlando on I-4, which got us to our hotel by 5pm. We’re staying at the new Bay Lake Tower at the Contemporary Resort, which just opened a month ago. This is the first time we’ve stayed in one of the deluxe resorts and it is incredible! Check out the view of the Magic Kingdom from our private balcony:

Cinderellas castle on the left, Space Mountain on the right

Still no free internet access, though … what’s up with that? Anyway, since we had arrived relatively early, we had time to wander around the grounds and also check out the Contemporary next door. Here’s a view of the tower from the Contemporary, near the walkway that connects the two buildings.

After dinner and a quick dip in the pool, we enjoyed the Magic Kingdom fireworks show back in our room:

What an amazing view. So far, this vacation is off to a great start. Tomorrow, we hit the parks …

Julia Child, Mr. Wizard, Monty Python … Good Eats Turns 10

Good Eats Turns 10This afternoon I was at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center in Atlanta, GA watching the live matinee performance of “Good Eats Turns 10” with Alton Brown. What a blast! I had a fantastic time.

TV camerasI don’t think I’ve been to a live TV show recording before (except for sporting events), so it was cool to see all the HD cameras, including the boom camera and the guys with the steadicams roaming around on the stage and in the audience. I was in the seventh row from the stage so I had a great view of the action plus it should be easy to find myself in some of the panning crowd shots (I was wearing my gold “Science, it’s what’s for dinner” t-shirt).

Patrick Belden (who composes all of the music for the show) and his Small Orchestra warmed up the crowd before the performance while they displayed a slide show of behind-the-scenes photos on the huge chalkboard that was the projector screen. The on-stage set consisted of the orchestra on the left, the giant chalkboard in the center (“not the actual chalkboard from the show” quipped Alton), and tons of Good Eats props on either side (“As you can see,” Alton said, “we kinda just dumped the truck.”). I spotted such classics as the beef cow, the lemon meringue pie slice, the giant popcorn kernel, etc.

Good Eats turns 10 stageThe stage manager briefed us on how to applaud out on the “commercial breaks” (i.e., “we’ll be right back!”) and then also gave us our cues to applaud when coming back from those breaks (i.e., “welcome back to Good Eats Turns 10!”). We also practiced yelling “Good Eats” as part of the opening theme music for the beginning of the show.

Without spoiling any of the surprises for those of you who will be watching the birthday show when it airs on Food Network, he’s a basic breakdown of the episode:

  • Alton sits down with Ted Allen for some interview questions about Good Eats, how he came up with the idea for the show, what his philosophy is (“laughing brains are more absorbent”), etc. The interview is supplemented with video clips, along with Alton’s countdown of his top 10 favorite Good Eats recipes and his favorite inventions/hacks.
  • Ted challenges Alton to create an invention out of the only uni-tasker in his kitchen. This was a great segment, just like on the show: Alton pieces together the hack while talking/thinking quietly to himself as the band vamps the theme music in the background.
  • … 15 minute intermission …
  • Alton brings out three of the winners of the “Good Eats Turns 10” contest to challenge him head-to-head in Good Eats Trivia Takedown.
  • Ted interviews the Good Eats Players (Bart Hansard, Daniel Pettrow, Widdi Turner, Lucky Yates, and another “special guest” who wanders in a little later) about what it’s like to work on the show.
  • And finally, what’s a birthday show without a birthday cake? Alton, Ted, “sister” Marsha, and W put together a cake, “Good Eats” style!
  • Curtain call: the entire cast and crew present, including Alton’s wife and daughter, come out on stage and receive a standing ovation from the audience.

All told, the show was about two and a half hours! It was really cool seeing all of these celebrities (or “cable-lebrities” as Ted Allen put it) in person just a few feet away, on stage. Portions were obviously scripted, but since it was being done in front of a live audience there was a lot of ad-libbing going on, in addition to interaction with and responding to the crowd. There were a few technical difficulties (I saw one of the steadicam guys on stage slip and almost fall over!) and even something for the blooper reel.

Only one thing really annoyed me: I won’t say too much, but let’s just say that one of the contest winners was really annoying once she got up on stage. She apparently didn’t realize (or care?) that the show was about Alton and Good Eats, not about her. She kept trying to throw out funny lines, or interact with Alton more than she needed to, which caused what I thought was some awkwardness between Alton, Ted, and herself that really detracted from the segment. I really hope the editors are able to piece something usable out of that (or maybe cut her out entirely). Maybe I’ll comment on this more once the show airs.

“Good Eats Turns 10” will air on Food Network on October 10. Watch for me! 😉

P.S. The title of this post is a reference to one of Ted’s first questions to Alton (“what do these words mean to you?”) Can you guess what the answer is? Tune in to find out!

Garmin nüvi 265WT

Garmin nuvi 265WTA couple of weeks ago, I discovered that my trusty Garmin StreetPilot c340 wouldn’t run on battery power anymore. As soon as it was disconnected from the power cable in the car (or from the USB cable when connected to my PC) it would just turn off. When plugged in, the screen would show it was “charging,” but after trying multiple hard resets and even opening a ticket with Garmin it became apparent the internal Li-on battery was dead. The Garmin rep told me it would cost a flat $89 to fix it! I did a little research and determined that it would be cheaper to attempt to replace the battery myself, as long as I didn’t mind purchasing a replacement battery, cracking open the case, and doing a little soldering. Other than the lack of battery power and some minor map problems the unit was working perfectly fine so I wavered back and forth (repair or replace?) for a bit. Eventually I decided to just sell the StreetPilot on eBay and put the proceeds towards a newer unit.

My new GPS is the Garmin nüvi 265WT which has a 4.3″ widescreen touch display, voice directions (with text-to-speech), Bluetooth, a built-in FM Traffic receiver, and a few other cool features.

Navigation and General Usage

The thing I liked the best about my StreetPilot was the user interface. It was simple, clean, and good looking. The nüvi sports that same simplicity and shiny UI that makes it easy and fun to use:

The large buttons make it easy to navigate using your finger and the touchscreen, and the widescreen format allows the nüvi to show more information on the screen without it getting in the way of actually seeing the map as your driving. One new feature I like is the indicator of the current road’s speed limit (although as you can see above I was going slightly over that on my way home from work this evening ;-)). Another benefit of the widescreen model is a QWERTY keyboard layout instead of the alphabetical one used on the StreetPilot, which makes text entry a lot faster.

The standard text-to-speech voices are present so the unit will read out street names when giving directions. You can also download other voices (and car icons) from the Garmin Garage. There’s not as wide a variety of voices available as there are for my sister’s TomTom unit though (even NavTones only has a total of 3 voices compatible with Garmin units).

In addition to the normal method of entering destinations (by address, by name, by coordinates, etc.) you can upload geotagged photos to the nüvi and have it calculate the directions to that location. I don’t see myself using this feature very often unless I’m just looking for some random place to go. I may, however, introduce my daughter to geocaching, as using the Garmin Communicator plugin for my browser in conjunction with the Geocaching.com website makes it really easy to send cache locations to the GPS (and there are apparently quite a few caches near my house).

Bluetooth

The built-in Bluetooth radio lets you use  your mobile phone with the nüvi for hands-free calling. I had no issues pairing my Treo with the GPS and then using the touchscreen to place a call.

You can answer incoming calls too, of course, and even “transfer” the call to your phone if you don’t want to use the speakerphone. Voice quality was pretty good on both ends. The nüvi even downloads your call log and address book from your phone allowing you to browse and dial from the device instead of looking at your phone (although the address book part didn’t work for me since I don’t use the Treo’s native contacts application). If your phone supports voice dialing, you can do that through the nüvi as well. Another neat feature of pairing your phone is that every phone number on the display turns into a hyperlink you can use to place a call. So if you’re stuck in traffic on your way to your dinner reservation, you can simply tap your destination’s phone number on the screen to call and inform them you’re going to be slightly late.

Traffic

Of course, you should have been able to avoid that traffic in the first place! 🙂 My StreetPilot supported traffic information, but you had to purchase a separate receiver and pay for a subscription. The nüvi comes with an integrated FM Traffic Message Channel receiver and a free lifetime subscription to the service (but there’s a catch, see the next section below!). My minor nitpick here is that the receiver is not “integrated” into the GPS unit itself but is part of the power cord. Thus, you can’t get traffic information unless your unit is plugged in with the car lighter adapter. I guess this makes some sense (you don’t need traffic information if you’re hiking or riding a bike), but I was disappointed that I have to have that bulky cable plugged in as I usually just have the GPS mounted to the windshield without the cord.

That aside, the service is a neat add-on. The traffic indicator on the map screen (see the upper left-hand corner of my first screenshot) will change color (green, yellow, red) to indicate the level of traffic ahead. If the nüvi detects heavy traffic along your way, it may automatically adjust your route around it. You can also get an overview of all of the traffic in your area:

And then see where it is in relation to your current location:

Advertising!

The nüvi 265WT comes with a free lifetime subscription to the FM traffic service, but “free” in this case means “ad-supported.” That’s right, spam on your GPS! 🙁

Tapping on the “offer” will show you a list of nearby locations associated with the coupon. Tap on the location and you’ll be routed there. It wouldn’t be so bad if these only appeared on the traffic screen shown above, but these little pop-ups will also appear on the main map screen while your navigating! Ugh! The only way to disable them is to disable the traffic receiver, so if you want traffic information you’re going to have to deal with the ads. So far I’ve only seen these two Best Western ones, so it’s possible I might change how I feel about this depending on what kind of ads I see. It’s not like these are targeted to my preferences, though, so I’m guessing they’re going to be more annoying than useful.

Other Misc. Features

ecoRoute is Garmin’s new addition to their software  aimed at increasing awareness of how driving habits affect things like your gas mileage. You can set up your vehicle profile (city/highway estimated mileage, gas type, and local cost-per-gallon) and then get detailed usage reports, like this:

This trip information is also stored in a CSV file you can download from the device and then load into your favorite spreadsheet to do some more analysis if you want. ecoRoute also adds a “Less Fuel” option to the traditional “Fastest Time” or “Shortest Distance” routing options. There’s even an ecoChallenge game that tracks your driving during a trip (how fast you accelerate, brake, keep a constant speed, etc.) and then rates and scores you at the end with the hope that you’ll try to beat your top score by changing the way you drive. That part reminds me of my wife’s Toyota Camry hybrid which has similar driver feedback mechanism to encourage eco-friendly driving habits.

I also like the nüvi’s built in screenshot feature (which I used to capture all of the images in this post), and the ability to easily change the boot screen. No more using xImage!

Finally, when connected to your PC via USB, the nüvi shows up as a 1.8gb flash drive making it extremely easy to transfer files to and from the device. 1.2gb of that is taken up by the system software and maps, but that leaves roughly 518mb on-board for custom vehicle icons, voices, POI files, photos, etc. The nüvi has an SD slot as well, but with all of that free space I probably won’t need to use it as much as I did with my StreetPilot.

We’re going on a quick weekend trip up to Atlanta this weekend (to see Good Eats Live!) so I’m sure I’ll have some more comments after I put the nüvi through its paces on a real road trip. So far, though, I’m really impressed with it.

Jolicloud on my EeePC

Jolicloud transforms your netbook into a sophisticated web device that taps into the cloud to expand your computing possibilities. The web already hosts a significant part of our lives: mails, photos, videos, and friends are already somewhere online. Jolicloud was built to make the computer and web part of the same experience.

I’ve been playing around with Jolicloud, which touts itself as an “internet operating system,” on my EeePC 4G Surf for the past few days. Here’s a brief review.

Installing Jolicloud on your netbook is pretty straightforward: you download the ISO image and then use their USB Creator tool to “burn” that image onto the install media of your choice (ex., a USB thumb drive or SD card). I did have some issues with the USB Creator not recognizing my 1gb thumb drive (running under Windows 7) so I ended up using unetbootin instead (it looks like a newer version of the USB Creator has since been released which might address that problem, plus there are the older manual instructions). Next, you boot your netbook from that thumb drive, click through a few setup screens, and before you know it you’re logging into your fresh new Linux distro. There’s a good overview of the installation process (including screenshots) here.

Jolicloud is based on Ubuntu 9.04 and uses the default Netbook Remix interface:

the netbook remix desktop

Fire up the Jolicloud application, however, and the “internet operating system” portion kicks in:

Jolicloud desktop

From here you can easily install other applications, most of which are “web apps” like Gmail, Google Reader, Twitter, Facebook, etc. What’s a little strange to me is that when you “install” one of these apps (like Gmail), you get an icon back on the netbook remix desktop to launch it (notice the xkcd icon on my first screenshot above). All it’s really doing is opening a web browser directly to that particular site, but Jolicloud (via Mozilla’s Prism) makes it look like an actual app instead of a web page. Thus, you won’t see the normal Firefox menu or toolbars, no browser favorites, etc. I’d rather just use Firefox directly with multiple tabs open, but I can see how this approach might make a netbook more user-friendly for the non-techie type (not to mention freeing up some valuable screen real estate on smaller netbooks).

I even managed to get Hulu running, which was impressive considering the problems I’ve had with Flash-based video on my Eee in the past. To be honest, though, I had never tried the Hulu site on my Eee before. At any rate, I watched the pilot episode of “Alf” on my tiny 7″ screen without any problems. Not exactly a 10-foot interface. 😉

Jolicloud has a big focus on social networking, so you can “follow” other Jolicloud users and see updates on what they’ve installed or are doing with OS:

following other Jolicloud users

Personally, I’m not into the whole social networking culture (i.e., I don’t have a Facebook page and don’t use Twitter) so this part of Jolicloud’s interface doesn’t really appeal to me. I don’t want people “following” me or seeing what apps I’ve installed, but I can’t find any privacy settings that allow me to turn that stuff off, either.

Which brings me to documentation: Jolicloud is still in private alpha testing but there seems to be a lack of any documentation, and there’s no depth to the wiki (which seems to only be one page). For support you’re just directed to Twitter, Facebook, IRC, or their GetSatisfaction page. That being said, when I sent an e-mail to feedback@jolicloud.com about my trouble with the USB Creator, I did get an actual response relatively quickly.

So it still has a little ways to go, but Jolicloud is shaping up to be a great alternative cloud operating system for your netbook.

Cookin’ up some Wii homebrew

I saw this post on Lifehacker yesterday about installing homebrew on the Wii without needing to use the Twilight Princess hack and decided, what the heck, let’s give it a try!

Wow, talk about amazingly simple. Only minutes after downloading the necessary files, I had the Homebrew Channel running on my Wii.

Homebrew Channel

After doing a little more browsing and downloading, I had a few homebrew apps to play with.

homebrew apps

Pretty slick. Using MPlayer I was able to play both a commercial and self-created DVD using the Wii remote for the basic controls. I’ll be honest, DVD playback on the Wii isn’t going to replace a standalone DVD player yet, but for a homebrew app, it’s pretty cool. Nintendo really should just build that functionality in! With MPlayer-Wii I was able to stream an .AVI video off of my NAS (via samba) for playback through the Wii. I hard to hardcode the filename in the configuration file, so this isn’t a complete video library solution (like what I do with my TiVos) but the possibility is there.

I played around with a few homebrew games like Duck Hunt, and plan to check out Quake and Doom. For now, as you can see from the screenshot above I’ve kept the Homebrew Browser (which allows you to install apps right from the Homebrew Channel instead of having to use your PC to download and then copy them to the SD card) and Balance Board Pro which shows off some of the features of the Wii Balance Board.

Cool stuff!

Indiana Jones Wii is fun, but annoying

Since we finished Lego Star Wars last month, my daughter and I have moved onto Lego Indiana Jones on the Wii. It’s a fun two-player cooperative game just like the Star Wars version, but just going through the first two sections (“Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Temple of Doom”) we’ve run into quite a few annoying problems.

Twice we hit a spot where we were unable to continue and had to start the entire level over: The first was during the chase of the ark on the military trucks near the end of “Raiders.” You have to jump from truck to truck, fighting the soldiers until the driver of the truck hops out. Once you beat him, you jump in the truck (using the C button) and drive forward to the next set of trucks. Well, on the first set of trucks we defeated the driver but the prompt to press the C button would not appear, so we couldn’t get into the truck. It just kept driving on, without a driver. Since we couldn’t get in to accelerate up to the next set of trucks, we had to start all over (and that second time, the C button worked). The next time we got stuck was near the beginning of “Doom” when you’re working your way up to the palace from the devastated village. You need all three characters (Indy, Short Round, and Willie) to step on switches at the end to open the palace doors. The problem was, we accidentally moved Willie (who was riding an elephant) into a pit she could not get out of. She kept re-spawning and then immediately dying over and over again. So we had the start that level over as well. Apparently we’re not the only ones who have run into these glitches, and others.

Another annoying thing is that you can’t skip the long cutscenes. After you seen it once, you just want to get past it and start playing. Well, you can’t. The same goes for the Video Room in the college: once you start watching one of the cutscene videos, you’re stuck watching the whole thing. When you have to play a few levels over, this gets annoying very quickly. In a similar vein, the animations on the map as you switch from level to level take a long time, something else you can’t skip. Each movie has 6 levels. If you’re at the college and want to play level 5, you have to sit and wait for the little red travel line on the map to draw its path through levels 1 to 5 first.

Oh well, it’s still a fun game to play …

First named storm of 2009

TS AnaIt’s been a slow start to the 2009 hurricane season … we’re halfway through August and just now have the first named storm, Ana.

Of course back in 2004, we had Charley in mid-August and then were hunkering down for Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne in quick succession in September, so it can ramp up quickly! Last year, my daughter had a “snow day” instead of the first day of school.

But anyway, here’s hoping the season stays slow, calm, and uneventful.