TrackMania Forever!!!

TrackMania United Forever - Quiet Ride Down a Country Road at Night

Many people dread April 15th (at least if they live in the United States and they owe the Government taxes...) but not me.

No way, April 15th 2008 (April 16th in France) was one of the best days in video-gaming history for me.

That's right... TrackMania United Forever (TMUF) and TrackMania Nations Forever (TNF) were released today; the latter being the free version.

Nadeo, the game's creator, took the United engine for the Stadium environment and put it into TMNF. Basically, Nations Forever is like taking Stadium straight out of United and put in a standalone game. What makes this great is that owners of TMUF (which contains an additional 6 environments spanning the entire TrackMania series) can connect to TMNF servers without having Nations Forever installed (prior to this release, one had to install both TrackMania United (TMU) and TrackMania Nations (TMN) to play both.)

That's the first really exciting piece of goodness I discovered when I updated my game to TrackMania United Forever... but wait, there's more!!!

Some of my favorite additions:

• Easier Player/Server search functionality


• The TrackMania Original (TMO) environments have all had major graphics engine revamps done to them and they're incredibly beautiful. I'll post pics when I get some time.


• We can now change video settings in-game; which we've been dying for!


• Rumor is there are two new block types: a blue block in Stadium that makes it easier to carve a turn; and a "rainbow turbo" that is timed to be 100% power for 1 second, then amp up to 150% for 1 second, then 200% for 1 second, then cycle back to 100%, etc. I haven't seen these yet, but am looking forward to them. An "Engine Killer" block was added to TMU and it added a whole new dynamic to the gameplay; so I look forward to these two new blocks.


• Tracks seem to load faster (though that might be due to the new hardware some too...)


• All environments seem to play smoother and look prettier (even the ones that didn't get the face-lift seem to have better lighting, etc.)

I'm sure this is just the tip of the iceberg; as I only got to play for a couple of hours tonight.

I will say this: Nadeo has put a TON of time and effort into enhancing this game and it shines like the sun. I can't believe they made it a free upgrade. I'd pay for it... in fact, I'm considering making a donation to the cause anyway; the enhancements are more than worth it.

I can't wait to see what else lies ahead as we play TrackMania Forever... you know where you'll find me late Friday Night! (Dang I need to get some time to update that site... holy old...)

Rumor was that the people in the USA that bought TrackMania United from Steam wouldn't be able to get the Forever update yet... but I pointed the update installer at my "Program Files\TrackMania United" folder and it worked fine... then when trying to launch TrackMania United from Steam after I played TMUF from the manual update, Steam decided to update the game automatically in its install folder... I just hope it didn't overwrite my car skins and gamepad configuration :)

See you at the races...

(By the way, if you're interested in getting into the world of TrackMania; contact me first... TMUF has a feature where I can invite friends to get the game... and if you get it from the invite using the same email for your account, I can be your sponsor. I'm not sure what that means, but I'd like to find out... so let me know.)

The Night I Nearly Burned My House to the Ground

It's now been over a month-and-a-half since I've blogged... there is good reason; most of which I've been busting my butt at work trying to help fix problems after a major data-center changeover and trying to meet a deadline for some software we're working on.

Nevertheless, the wait will be worth it I promise... look at the title after all!

So I'm having a LAN party this weekend. I have one every year around this time; it's been a tradition for several years.

As fate would have it, last Friday during Friday Night Gaming, I was playing a game of Starcraft with Jarin. Right around midnight my computer took a dump and I saw the first Blue Screen of Death I've had on my computer in 3 years. Unfortunately, Death is the keyword in this sitch.

After rebooting several times, I found my computer auto-rebooting itself every time after reaching the agp440.sys file (a video driver) during Windows initial loading process.

Not knowing what caused it (it could've been anything: bad hard drive, bad hard drive controller on the motherboard, bad CPU, etc. etc.) and not really having any time or resources to troubleshoot it right now; and needing to have my computer running wonderfully for my LAN party this weekend... I pursued looking at what it would cost to snag a new motherboard, CPU and memory (I already have a new video card and hard drive to throw in there.)

This would eliminate the major potential failure points, allow me to REALLY enjoy the LAN party and provide a machine that will meet all of my requirements until we finish our basement, yard and fence.

Gwen agreed and I purchased the product. It arrived yesterday and I spent the late hours of the night gutting my old parts out and replacing with the shiny new ones.

All was going well (all things considered) thought it was taking quite a bit of time since I'm out of practice with this sort of thing (for those that don't know I was a professional technician for a Utah distributor for around 5 years and got to the point I could build 10-15 new computers in a work day.) That's not to mention I really enjoy the rare times I get to play with new hardware now to really try to make the inside of my computer a work of art.

I made it a work of something this morning.

I completed the rebuild of the hardware a little after midnight this morning. I brought it upstairs, hooked it up and turned it on.

BEEP!

Huzzah! Successful post on the first try - we always like that. So I happily go into the BIOS and look through the settings to make sure I have them to my liking. Through the process I'm getting stoked to see what my computer that now has 4 brains built onto one CPU core can do with my shiny new 8800GT video card.

While starting the Windows XP Pro installation process, I stuck a floppy disk in to provide drivers for my hard drives. I noticed that the floppy light was on constantly which usually meant it wasn't going to read disks for you because it wasn't hooked up correctly.

"Minor setback," I thought to myself as I shut down the computer, flipped the power switch on the back and walked around the side of my desk to start making the changes.

This is where I earn my spot on the Darwin awards nominations for 2008. Instead of being the smart technician I used to be and getting a flashlight for my office which doesn't have adequate lighting in that part of the room at that time of night... I decide to just go ahead and "feel it out" to get it plugged in correctly.

After my switcharoo, I walked back to my seat, flipped the power switch on the back of the power supply, and hit the power button on the computer to fire it up, literally.

BEEP!

Huzzah! Happy post again! I rock...

The POST information starts appearing on my monitor, but for some reason it looks a little hazy on the monitor. Looking over to my left, I see smoke coming out every crevice of my case; especially around the DVD-Rom drive that sits above my floppy.

Immediately I start taking every possible step to disconnect power to the machine before it sends me to oblivion and takes my family along with it.

Thankfully, the Lord blessed me, even in my moment of stupidity, and I was able to avoid flames... barely.

Praise the lord that whoever makes these cables does so in a way that the melting that takes place when you plug the wrong pins together stops at the next power connector point (at least, if they don't work that way, I must've powered down fast enough to not let it spread further.) Here's the results of my not taking 2 minutes to go hunt down a flashlight because I was so in a hurry to see what this new kick-butt hardware was going to do... (click the image to see it close-up)


Look at the cable and the connection point on the back of the floppy drive. Yes, they're toast. Part of the power cable is completely gone... char spread partly on my desk, partly in my computer case, and partly outside where I promptly took the computer to blow the crap out.

Needless to say, it's now 2:14am here and I sit basking in the sweet sweet smell of burnt electrical wiring and melted plastic, blogging about my mayhem instead of the ten-thousand cooler things I've wanted to blog about for the last month-and-a-half. Hopefully I'll get to those soon because I have some REALLY cute pictures of my family that we had done on President's Day.

Anyway, I digress... so now, instead of getting XP loaded tonight and being able to set all my games up Wednesday night so I could be more than prepped for this weekend... I get to now spend Wednesday night re-gutting the computer to make sure it's cleared of all burnt debris; and I can confirm that no other damage was done (remember, my computer was still booting up, desptie the fact that the floppy drive didn't like where I'd plugged the power in and was deciding to get smoking mad about it...)

So yes, I'm quite confident the new hardware will kick butt (barring that I haven't singed anything else and caused permanent damage to my XION power supply.)

I certainly hope I didn't do other damage... I don't have money to replace what I just replaced. heh.

This happened once before when I was with Supercom. When the first motherboards that provided SMB (System Management Bus) arrived and we were building our first computers with them... they had a pin set on the motherboard identical to the pin sets for external USB port brackets that had been coming with motherboards for several months prior.

Recognizing the familiar pin set, and not paying attention to what this particular pin set was labelled, I ended up plugging the USB bracket into the SMB pin set. Their power pin configurations were different, so when I fired that sucker up, it smoked like my computer tonight.

Again, we thankfully caught it before the damage spread to more than just the cable. We were able to simply grab a new USB bracket and plug it into the correct place and the system worked flawlessly.

Pray for me that the same happens with my new hardware. I'm really not in the mood to have more mayhem than I already have.

And I hope you've been able to laugh as hard at this entry as I hope to be laughing at it on Friday when I re-tell it to my LAN party guests that haven't already heard the story. Right now it's not very funny...

Moral of the story... go find the flashlight! Shortcuts never were happiness (except in TrackMania)

Faith Can Move Mountains...

... Apparently, so can a snow shovel ...



Our mountain is almost as tall as Brennan! Let me show you how we got to this point today...



We woke up at 7:15am this morning and saw that the snow was coming down. We proceeded to get the three older kids ready for church while the snow continued to fall. A little after 9:00am when it was past time to leave for Church, I decided to devise my plan of attack for getting myself, Brennan, Mandi and Kimmie without getting ourselves killed or ultra-wet from the snow. (The funny thing about that is, the Church building we attend is right behind the house across the street from us.)

Anyway, I went into the garage and opened the door to see about taking the kids in our minivan. The photos above and below show that the snow had drifted up against the garage door nearly as high as our minivan bumper...



So, time for "plan B"; we'll *gulp* try to WALK to church. So I open the front door and see that we have a lovely foot-and-a-half of snow drifted up against it.



This is around 9:15am; mind you it snowed continuously the entire 2 hours we'd been awake... and who knows how long prior?! All I know is that it looked like the photo below when it was time to leave for Church.

I knew I couldn't take the van because, not only would it not make it out of my driveway, but even if it could, it WOULDN'T make it out of the cul-de-sac.



So we waited it out more, and it finally subsided around 11:45am. By then we saw most of our neighbors out trying to shovel/snowblow/plow their sidewalks and driveways. We learned that Church had been cancelled after Sacrament Meeting so that everyone could dig themselves out; then help unbury any neighbors that were unable to do so.

We made our way out to start the moving of the mountain. We let the kids come out with us. It was up to their knees/waist and it was amusing to watch them try to traverse the fluffy white obstacle course that was our sloped driveway.



3.5 hours after starting the shoveling process, we reached the result you see at the top of this entry.

Fortunately while we were accomplishing this goal, the good city we live in sent their plows out to clear our cul-de-sac. The fine gentleman driving the plow not only pushed the snow out of the cul-de-sac; but helped us clear the end of our driveway, so our cars could actually get out into the circle.

When he finished, he stopped to talk with us for a couple minutes; letting us know that Riverton will always send a plow to handle our cul-de-sac on the days we get 6 inches or more of snow. Kudos! I might actually be able to get to work now...

In Honor of Our Beloved Prophet, President Gordon B. Hinckley

For those who don't already know, God's most recent Prophet, Gordon B. Hinckley, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, passed away Sunday evening around 7:00pm Mountain Time.

I know there are thousands of tributes to this great man in many forms out there; and I would be entirely ungrateful to not post one of my own.

This great man has been an inspiration in my life for as long as I can remember; even before he became the Prophet. I could always relate to President Hinckley when he would address the Church in whatever capacity he served in.

I think part of it had to do with his quick wit and fun sense of humor. He was always good for a one-liner at the most opportune of times. He always made us feel good about ourselves, even when he needed to call us to repentance. :)

There was one experience I'll never forget; one that affirmed to me of his divine calling as the Lord's chosen mouthpiece. I had prayed about President Hinckley when he was called to be Prophet and knew from the promptings of the Holy Spirit that he is a Prophet of God. I'd also had subsequent re-affirmations that this was true when I'd hear him speak and felt the same feelings.

Our Church schedules conferences at different geographical levels at different intervals. As many of you know, there are Worldwide General Conferences held bi-annually. We also hold Stake Conferences (more localized) and Ward Conferences (even more localized) bi-annually.

Every three years there is a Region Conference where several Wards/Stakes are invited to attend and this particular one was held in Downtown Salt Lake City; in the beautiful LDS Conference Center.

We obtained tickets to the Conference and had seating near the back row of the Conference Center. We arrived around an hour early to make sure we were ready to go when the conference began. While we waited for it to start, we chatted about various things.

My wife and I wondered if maybe President Hinckley would appear at our Regional Conference; but that seemed silly to me as there are tons of these for many different regions held every year; I was sure the Prophet didn't make it to all of them in-person. He wasn't scheduled to be at this one; but, of course, we thought that would be really cool.

About 15 minutes later, I felt the Spirit extremely strong and wondered if he really was there. The next thing I knew, a reverent hush fell over the entire Conference Center and slowly, the crowd started to rise to their feet. Several seconds later, President Hinckley stepped in a side door near the front of the Conference Center auditorium.

I don't mean to be irreverent here, but I can't think of any other way to describe it. It was as if someone had hooked the feelings the Holy Spirit brings up to a Gigawatt amplifier and blared it throughout the entire Conference Center. I knew I was truly in the presence of a man of God.

He took the liberty of addressing us in that conference, and to be honest, I don't recall what was said that day; but the feeling will always be remembered every time I remember that experience.

I hope to be half-the-man President Hinckley was. In his late 90's, he exhibited more energy than I have; travelling the world and spreading the love and message of the resurrected Savior of the World to all that had the blessed opportunity of interacting with him.

He feared no man, stood steadfast and true to the principles he taught and lived; yet was gentle, down-to-earth and made all who interacted with him feel welcome and at-ease.

So I pay my tribute to you President Hinckley, legendary servant of God and the legacy you leave behind. Thanks for being such an inspiration to me; I will miss you greatly, and am happy you get to be reunited with your sweet wife, other family members, past Prophets and most importantly, our Heavenly Father and His only begotten son, Jesus Christ.

God bless...

My Children Are Picture Purrfect...

... at least, Mandi is. We had our friends Mike and Jessica over for dinner and before they left (around the kids' bedtime...) Jessica discovered Mandi nearly zonked out at the top of the stairs to the office, wrapped up in kite string. She's our little Mandi-kitten.

I almost caught Ryan and Andrew smiling together, but coupling our camera's shutter-stutter and their quick grins, it's nearly impossible to catch them both at the same time. One day... :)
(Can you tell which is which?)

Here is Kimmie playing with Ryan. I can't believe how big and grown-up my baby girl looks compared to my baby boy.

Big Brother Brennan and his two little bros. Now THAT'S a size difference. 10 years does a body good.

The World of TrackMania Just Keeps Getting Better and Better!

Nadeo announced, in an interview with TMX that they will be releasing upgrades for their popular TrackMania Nations and TrackMania United franchises; called TrackMania Nations: Forever and TrackMania United: Forever.

Nations lovers will be happy to know that the Forever upgrade will still be free; though the ladder will be reset (which has been needed for a long time anyway.) Nations players will also look forward to getting the updated Stadium engine enjoyed in TrackMania United.

United lovers will enjoy some enhancements as well; one of the majors being a truly No-CD system without the 3-install crap we had to deal with through the online distribution apparatus so many of us have come to know and not love. Steam resolved this for players in the USA thankfully, as well as provided an inexpensive license to the game.

United lovers will also be happy to note that the TrackMania United: Forever (TMU-F) upgrade will also be free.

Nadeo also mentioned they had originally planned two new environments called "Toy" and "Moon"; and holy crap how fun would those be?! My mind starts racing when I think of what kind of tracks those would bring.

Sadly, they need to use the talent that would've been putting those together in other arenas for now and there is no scheduled plans of making these come to fruition. We'll just have to keep begging for them to still be born in a future release; I'd so love to see them!

United lovers that enjoy Stunts mode will enjoy knowing that there will be a Single-Player Stunt campaign (and hopefully an easier way to launch Stunt tracks in multiplayer when starting a server from in-game; as opposed to a dedicated server.)

There is a buttload of information on the upcoming changes in the interview, so I'll leave you to go research on your own. I'm stoked for the new releases and will continue to enjoy TrackMania in all forms until then.

Read the Interview

CrackMania Forever... ;)

Portal - Energy Ball Fireworks

It's 4th of July time at the Aperture Science Enrichment Center! (Note: No Weighted Companion Cubes were harmed during the making of this film...)

BTW, this film brought to you by the ultra-cool custom level for Portal called "Weighted Companion Cube Map" by MrCow (hosted by myApertureLabs.com)

The map contains some anti-gravity beams that are part of the puzzles of the level - it's really quite cool. Download it and enjoy - I highly recommend it!