[caption id=“attachment_3606” align=“aligncenter” width=“480” caption=“Civilization 5 choosing the game to play”] [/caption]

The opening movie is AWESOME.  Most of the visuals were from the trailers, but the frame story was great.  Best intro thus far.  I decided not to play the tutorial first since it appeared to be for those new to the Civ franchise.  I chose Wu Zetian of China since I’ve been playing the Chinese almost my entire time with Civ IV.  She has the “Art of War” which makes Great Generals spawn more often.  Also the Cho-Ku-Nu unit (like Civ 4) and Paper Maker.  I did a small continents map.  And I made myself Settler, marked “for learning the game” so I figure it’ll be tutorial enough.  And a standard game pace.  I REALLY like the new menu system.  It’s very well done.  Sounds like Leonard Nimoy is still the narrator.  I love how it describes my ruler and China in history.  Pretty awesome.  I let the wonderful narration read out before I “begin my journey”.  I take a while to look for the screenshots and it comes up with hints.  Pretty awesome.  The Chinese music is great.  Here are some screenshots.  Another post later.  Right now I want to play and the game gets annoying (freezes cpu) if I alt-tab out of it to get the screenshots.

By order of the Governor of Maryland, have a happy Sid Meier’s Civilization V Day!

This is the first time in nearly 10 years that I’m moving to a new version of WIndows.  I pop the CD in and boot up.  I see a text screen as Windows “loads files”.

Nothing here different from a Linux distro.  Then the Windows logo pops up.

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“Everything but the RAM”] [/caption]

14 Sept Sometime in my junior or senior year of college I came across a book about building my own computer and resolved to do it.  My tribulations with my Dell computer were enough to convince me that building computers with generic parts was the way to go.  Later experience with my Emachine and the inability to tack on a DVD-writer (because they had blocked the slot with a metal mesh) confirmed this was the case.  Just under five years ago I was finally able to do this and built my [first computer](/2006/01/03/new-computer-built/ /2006/01/07/building-the-computer/).   I can’t believe it took me four hours to put that first one together.  Nowadays, if things go well, it takes about an hour.  In the time since then I’ve built 8 other computers.  Of course, those weren’t all for me.  I also built Dan and Dave’s newest computers, my father-in-law’s computer, his sister’s computer, and a bunch of others.

I’ve been slacking a bit with these, so here are two photojojo entries.  The first one is from 25 Aug to 8 Sept.  Apparently only my 365 was interesting at the time:

[caption id=“attachment_3556” align=“aligncenter” width=“450” caption=“Barnes and Noble Nook and the a case for the Nook”] [/caption]

As you may remember, a few months ago I decided to rethink the issue of ebooks. I was going back and forth about buying the Barnes and Noble Nook just before my recent flight to Florida. I had been looking forward to the flight as a chance to read through some of Cory Doctorow’s fiction. In the end, I decided I didn’t want to spend the money on the device and read it on my laptop. This was less than ideal. The laptop only had about 20 minutes of charge on the battery and so I had to split up reading the book between the outbound and inbound trips. Sometime in the near future Danielle and I are going to be taking a much longer flight, so I caved and decided to buy the nook.

Today I just finished Cory Doctorow’s Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. It’s the first epub book I’ve ever read and the first ebook I’ve read that I hadn’t previously read as a physical book. I’d been wanting to read the book for a long time, but the idea of sitting at my desk to read or plugging my laptop in and reading wasn’t appealing. In fact, I almost bought the Barnes and Noble Nook to read Cory’s book, but I’m convinced there’s a pricedrop coming given the Kindle’s recent price drop. Finally, I took at trip Let me just say that I recommend it to anyone who’s a fan of science fiction. I will now get into my thoughts about the book - there will be SPOILERS!

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“Love the folksy Trail Name”] [/caption]

I’m not traditionally a nature-as-scenery photographer.  I prefer animals and humans.  But on a recent hike through a trail in Papatsco State Park, I took my camera along and captured some of the lightly forested trail.

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“333” caption=“People love to mess up trees just to leave their mark”] [/caption]

Last year was Dina’s graduation Tiki Party.  This year it was Daniel’s turn.  We arrived the night before (no hospital visits this time) and so we had plenty of time to help cook and set up.

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“Dina’s interpretation of how the party would go”] [/caption]

[caption id=“attachment_3532” align=“aligncenter” width=“400” caption=“Starcraft - Nothing Special, right?”] [/caption]

Starcraft 2 recently came out so, naturally, I just installed Starcraft for the first time.  A few years ago, I decided to atone for that summer my brothers and I had played Warcraft III from an illicit copy by buying the Warcraft III Batlle Chest.  It was a pretty awesome deal - for $20 I got the main game, the expansion, and strategy guides for both games.  The following year I bought the equivalent bundle for Starcraft.  I would have played it about six months ago when Dina’s boyfriend, a Starcraft (and Blizzard, in general) fan was over the house.  But, a bug in Windows XP kept the game from installing.  When I tried it again this weekend, it worked.