When I was growing up I didn’t give a whole lot of thought to my future career. I either wanted to be a private detective in the style of Frank and Joe Hardy, or a farmer like my biggest hero, my dad. Sometime in the last couple years of high school I suddenly grew an affinity to writing, and almost literally overnight I started writing pages and pages of the most random crap you could imagine.
Being 16-17, a lot of it was just me trying to make sense of life by emptying out my thoughts onto paper. I created my own fantasy setting, complete with six different races and a complete world map. I tried to describe exactly what true love was (all I figured out were dozens of things that it wasn’t), and theorized on the meaning of life, and more importantly, where I should go with my life. Pretty run of the mill teenage stuff. Read More…
(Ed: This is meant to be an open letter to the fine folks at 1UP.com and EGM who lost their jobs a couple days ago. It covers a general concept of what I’d do if I were in their shoes. Enjoy.)
Hey guys,
After listening to the first episode of Rebel FM, I started thinking about what I would do in your situation.
Try this on for size (all names subject to change of course).
1UP Show 2.0
Rebel FM
1UP Yours 2.0
LAN Party 2.0
Sports Anomaly 2.0
All for the low price of [insert price here] per month/week.
As I write this Anthony, Nick, and Phillip all have between 2,500 and 3,000 followers on their Twitters. Its safe to say a good amount of them would pay to hear Anthony, Nick, and Phillip every week. Right now Garnett Lee has 6,592 followers, and ShaneWatch has 3,541 followers. I bet a LOT of those people would pay to hear Garnett and Shane podcast together every week. It wouldn’t have to be a completely coordinated deal, but even just a central portal to access these podcasts would be marketable.
I have no idea what John, Garnett, and Shane have planned for the rebirth of 1UP Yours, or if Todd Zuniga will still desire to continue to lead the Sports Anomaly, or if Ryan Scott has time to host a PC podcast every week; but if there was a way to launch an informal rebirth of the 1UP Radio Network with the majority of the core personalities intact, THAT’S something you could charge for and THAT’S what the community wants right now. Read More…
A subscription to World of Warcraft costs 14.99 a month (a buck or two less if you buy your subscription in 3 or 6 month chunks). That comes out to $180 bucks a year. Not bad. Quite a bit cheaper then just about any other hobby you could name. Or is it?
If you were waiting for the next big name publisher to make a game for the iPhone, wait no longer. Kojima Productions, developers of the much acclaimed Metal Gear series are bringing their stealth action shooter to the iPhone and iPod Touch. 1UP is reporting that the game will be based on characters from MGS4, that it will ship with 8 initial levels, and that there is precious little information available besides that.
And if doesn’t do it for you, Konami is also bringing Dance Dance Revolution, Silent Hill, and Frogger to the iPhone.
DDR? Really?At least the Tap Tap Revolution people were honest with their name.
If you’ve been playing the latest World of Warcraft expansion the past couple weeks, you’ve probably sampled the inanity that is [1: General]. The starting zones are filled with people asking stupid questions, and getting equally stupid answers most of the time. I dinged 80 a few days ago, so I thought I’d shed some light on a few more common questions I saw on the grind to 80. Read More…
For the past two years I’ve spent my time in World of Warcraft behind the proverbial steering wheel of an orc warlock. I did the raiding thing pre-Burning Crusade, but got burned out a few months before Burning Crusade came out. Around six months after BC launched I did what every other Horde player did on a PvP server, and rolled a blood elf paladin. I got him to level 25 or so and left him sitting there for the next year while school and work kept me away from spending any significant time in WoW. About three weeks ago I got tired of never being able to find a healer and decided to level up the old pally. I leveled with a standard protection spec after level 40, and kept that spec until 3.0.2 came out, upon which I respecced to retribution to try out this wonderfully ‘OP’ spec I’d been hearing everyone complain about.
Two days ago I dinged 70. The next day 3.0.3 rolled out the promised nerfs to our wonderfully over-powered retribution tree. Not to be discouraged, I equipped my Blessed Battlegear of Undead Slaying and a nice axe I picked up from Kara a few hours after I dinged and set out to learn all I could from my helpful guild mates about my class and spec. Here’s a few helpful tips I learned that can boost you up the damage meters. Read More…
This afternoon I walked down the alley and across the street to my local voting center. I gave them my name, took my ballot, and enjoyed the privilege that so many men and women have died to protect. I voted. Freely, without fear of repercussion, I cast my opinion into the sea of Americans who all come together to celebrate this thing we call democracy.
Now to endure the hype, controversy, and childish infighting that embodies American politics.
There’s two colleges in the town where I live. The state university, and the community college. The university has the football team, the prestige, and most importantly the student discounted software available for those who enroll. Naturally, I go to the community college ($47 per credit hour? Yes please).
I spent some time being bummed about my lack of cheap operating systems and copies of Office. Than I started in the Microcomputer program, and enrolled in the Microsoft Academic Alliance. I knew it included access to programming suites, but that was about it. Here’s a sampling of the more useful programs available for my educational pleasure:
Microsoft Access
Windows XP Pro
Windows Vista Business
Windows Server 2008
MS-DOS 6.0 (!)
Visio Professional 2007
XNA Creator’s Club Subscription
The one that really surprised me was the XNA Creator’s Club subscription. It’s basically an SDK for making games for the xbox, and the ability to rate and critique other member’s creations. You can learn more about it here. Normally they charge you 100 bucks for a subscription, which although a mere drop in the bucket compared to the price of say..Windows Vista Business..is still nothing to sneeze at.