matt hackmann - web developer - artist - nerd

I do not consider myself an Apple zealot, but I'll have to admit that they make very nice hardware. I'm completely loving my Mac Book Pro. It's doubley more awesome that my Mac mini in almost every respect. Clock speed, RAM, hard drive space, video, you name it this thing is better. And it's portable. And it gets blazing hot when it's doing heavy processing, hotter than the surface of the sun I'd say.

Yesterday I picked up my books and softwares, those being Final Cut Studio 2 and Adobe Creative Suite 3 (adds up to a grand total of $3000+). I loaded up CS3 immediately and had fun doing stupid Photoshop jobs all day.

I tried screwing around with FCS2 last night but didn't really get anywhere. Final Cut Pro itself seems fairly straight forward so far but I couldn't figure out Color (color grading app) which is a bummer because one thing that my videos need are to be color graded.

School doesn't start until Tuesday and I'm beginning to get a little bored. E and I have been playing Halo 2 and we watched all the Back to te Future movies, but I'm ready for school. I do have my copy of Eternal Sonata now so maybe that'll ease the pai of waiting even if just by a little bit. I could always draw, I suppose. But I don't know if I'll be able to top this:

Must post. Must get awful picture off the front page!

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before that I'm eagerly awaiting Eternal Sonata, the RPG making its way towards Xbox 360 sometime in September. Actually, it was a (if not the) primary reason I bought the console in the first place. Halo is good and all, but my heart lies with RPGs and other story type games (i.e. Pheonix Wright).

So, anyways, I'd heard from a fairly reliable source that the latest Xbox magazine had a demo disc with ES on it. Almost immediately I went out and purchased a copy (I wasn't the only one). But, with these thing rarely is the pot of gold so easily obtained. Nay, the bastard disc wouldn't load. Well, it would but it would only give me small nuggets of which I hungered for only to choke mere mintes (or less) into said meal. I was pissed.

Lucky for me I went back an reread the news post for the comic I referenced up above and it held a small morsel of hope. An obscure reference to something about boiling discs to resurrect them from DVD hell. I didn't really expect much but I needed to play this demo (and I didn't really want to be gypped out of $8.99). So I nuked some water in the microwave and slipped the disc in. Much to my surprise all problems were erased and I was one with the game... until the demo ended.

As for the game itself it is pure joy encapsulated inside a stream of binary ones and zeros. The artwork is fantastic, the gameplay is solid. I'm hoping that the same will be said for the story as there isn't much sampling of that but from what I've seem I think all will be well. It'll definitely be worth my sixty clams and will get me through the couple of weeks between when I move in and school starts.

Well, I think that was sufficient enough to get the evil off the front page. At least the initial load, that is. I would be careful about how far and how fast you scroll down the page.

I had the top 5 post all written up and something went screwy when trying to post it. Now it's gone. Lost forever in the digital mines of hell. I'll give you the basic rundown without the commentary because I don't feel like typing it again.

Top 5 Games I Can't Wait For

5. Final Fantasy VI DS (not confirmed, but you know it's coming)

4. Pheonix Wright: Trials and Tribulations

3. Eternal Sonata

2. The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass

1. Super Smash Bros Brawl

I'm going to have to reserve some money because these all come out within the first couple months of school.