All Canadians Need to Beware!

I normally wouldn't post on something like this, but it is literally a cause that could destroy Canadian technology overnight if it not stopped. I hope you will all take the time to browse some of the many links I've provided here, and read up on this issue.

Bill C-61 "An Act to amend the Copyright Act", introduced by Industry Minister Jim Prentice (largely considered a prime candidate for the next leadership of the Conservative party), had its first reading today.

While this may seem boring to most of you, if passed, this would totally destroy many of the privileges you enjoy in today's technological society.

While parts of the bill are reasonable, the primary point of concern is section 41. This is the widely-expected "Digital Millenium Copyright Act" style anti-circumvention regulations. Basically, what they say is that making, selling or even talking about any device that could possibly circumvent any copy protection is illegal.

Basically, this means that any encrypted content (most technology made in the past decade, for example) cannot be accessed except expressly how the creator has specified. C-61 spells out explicitly what were formerly just implied rights. But section 41 overrides every right you have, including those they explicitly give you in section 29.

The following things would now be illegal under section 41.

• Any DVR used for cable or satellite TV. This includes things like Tivo, but more importantly, could even extend to your VCR, or anything that lets you watch a show later.
• Copying music to a CD or iPod to play in your car.
• Unlocking a cell phone for use on another carrier.
• Giving your friends instructions on how to repair his broken car stereo.

In fact, even TALKING about the above things could be illegal. Unless you're in a strictly academic setting, a simple twelve-year-old hobbyist trying to figure out how to make a DVD player would be fined up to $20,000 if he told anyone what he did. In fact, I would have to get a very good lawyer if this law passed just to justify some of my hobby projects (under the 'interoperability' exemption) or my publications (under the academic exemption). I would have to take a hammer to my perfectly legal Xbox, which despite not being usable for any sort of piracy, is not protected by any exemption.

You think it's not that bad? The American version of the DMCA was described by its creator as being a dismal failure, and has been rife with frequent abuse since it came out. The anti-circumvention provisions in C-61 are actually described as worse than the US equivalents!

If you currently live in Canada, you need to talk to your MPs. Right now. Don't wait. Email. Letters. ANYTHING to make sure this bill dies (or, like the Liberals, the government dies before the bill).

Here's some neutral coverage from the major outlets. They are only loosely accurate, but show the sort of front-page attention the issue is getting.
[ CBC National Post Globe and Mail ]

Want to Buy My House?

Well... half my house. I live in a semi-detached home, and my attached neighbour is selling her home!

Asking $369,900 for 3 bed 2.5 bath @1470 sq ft.

But, most importantly, you'd be my neighbour!

http://www.realtor.com/search/listingdetail.aspx?mlslid=28092651

Nexus Cards

• Lownewulf received [Nexus Card]!
  [Nexus Card]
  Requires Honored with Canada
  Requires Honored with United States
  Allows the bearer to travel in the nether regions between countries.
  Use: Reduces aggro radius of all border guards by 60% for five minutes.

So myself and Kyna finall got ourselves our Nexus passes. The basic gist of the program is as follows: by consenting to a background check and risk assessment, and ponying up a non-refundable $50 fee, you get to use the fast lanes between the US and Canada for five years. You know, when you drive through the border and there's that lane that's always empty beside you? You get to use that. Even better, with a stop to a participating airport you can get your irises scanned, which enables you to use the same Nexus pass to clear customs at US and Canadian airports, allowing you to sit waiting at the baggage claim in record time!

It was pretty easy; all you do is sign up online. If you pass their screening process, you get an acceptance letter, and are invited to an interview. This interview for us actually happened in a room with both a Candian CBSA officer and a US CBP officer*. One asks you why you want to enroll in Nexus, and if you are a dangerous criminal that probably shouldn't be given a carte blanche to wander the border. If you pass this grueling interview, you're handed off to the other officer, who asks you largely the same thing. The result: they snap your picture and print you a little plastic RFID card right there on the spot, and you're a member.

(* The US CBP officer was surprizingly friendly; probably because she got the slacker desk job, instead of dealing with jerks like me in cars at the border on a day-to-day basis. The Canadian CBSA officer seemed a little less happy with her situation, probably due to being trapped in a small room with a US CBP officer for eight hours a day. )

BUT, the officers warn, HEED OUR WARNINGS! For as the Border Patrol giveth, the Border Patrol can also taketh away.

Then starts the fifteen minute lecture of the many many things that the newly minted Trusted Travellers must refrain from doing, else they risk being forever barred from the cool persons club. And it really is quite the list. I couldn't possibly remember them all. Even worse, the rules are completely different for residents in each country and in each direction. For example, I can't bring beef dogfood into Canada... but that same dogfood is okay coming back into the US, as long as it's not lamb or goat. You have to declare every item you bring into Canada, in writing, but only if you're a Canadian resident. The US rules for personal exemptions doesn't require a written declaration, but it takes an entire booklet just to describe the basic cash exemption. Speaking of cash, if you have a lot of it, you have to use the regular lanes with the peasants.

The caveats go on and on. No using the lanes if you're travelling with the untrusted masses. No using the lanes past bedtime. And so on and so on. I can genuinely envision that even for the simplest of weekend trips that I could spend more time figuring out if I'm eligible to use Nexus than actually waiting at the border.

But, lets be honest. For what adds up to $10 a year and a few minutes of your time, you get to use the fast lane. Skip an hour border wait, even once, and there can never be any doubt that it was a worthwhile investment.

US Taxes 2007

I have, for the first time, e-filed full-year United States resident taxes. Honestly, it was unpleasant, but I'm glad to say it's done.

US taxes are pretty much the same basic idea as Canadian taxes - follow the instructions, copy line 666, etc. -, except the Canadian forms are more colourful. Shockingly, for a single man like myself, the federal tax rate is similar to what I'd pay in Canada - for example, for a straight-up 100k, a tax bracket of 26% in Canada vs a bracket of 28% in the US (Washington lacks state income tax, unlike B.C., but that's another story). So much for Canada's excessive taxation!

The American taxes are arguably a bit more complicated - they have the same type of rules, just more of them.

In any rate, this year, I downloaded Intuit TurboTax Premier, using a nice 25% discount provided by Fidelity. A few people asked why I would download a product as opposed to doing it online, potentially even for free. Well, in summary:

• I can do as many returns as I want this year. It's at very least two-for-one: Amber will get the freebie. Since it included a free state too, I can even add her California taxes (since Washington has no state income tax).
• Reliable stop-restart-save. No worrying about my session timing out, or using the back button on accident, etc. Any time I'm worried, I can save the file, copy it to 100 backup locations, etc.
• Control. I don't have to trust as many people with my data.
• Import data next year for whatever application I choose to use (any application worth buying can import from TurboTax).

While the software definitely has some quirks and even outright bugs (sometimes I had to delete entire sections to get it to 'forget' old numbers I had made mistakes on), it feels like a solid application. It's designed in a linear "interview" format, while seamlessly allowing you to move back and forth if you need to change something. Also, at any time, you can look at the raw tax forms that result from the answers you give, and edit them to your satisfaction. If you have a truly unbelievable tax scenario, you can look up tax forms by number and edit them manually (they won't interview you, but you have the interactive form with all the calculations done for you).

It was looking pretty grim at first - capital gains, some disallowed capital losses (the dreaded wash sale), and not even enough mortgage interest to break past the standard deduction. Thankfully TurboTax revealed that the hefty premium ("points") I paid to Golf Savings Bank to secure my loan was fully deductible. Thus, I now have a small but pleasant refund coming back.

While my taxes will be largely the same next year as they are this year, I still think I'll buy next year's version. Unless I get audited this year; in which case there will be lots of ranting... and yelling.

[[While tax software may seem irrelevant in a world where accountants are cheap, I am dubious of any accountant I can personally afford. Our expensive KPMG accountants last year did a passable job , but I had to fill half of everything in ahead of time on their website anyways (which was far less informative than TurboTax was to me this year). And after all that, I still got slaughtered on my taxes based on a technicality (arriving on Jan 2 instead of Jan 1 means you don't get the standard deduction). And let me tell you, I know how much KPMG costs, and I can't afford anything like that. The last accountant I had before that, a BB&A Inc in Vancouver, simply farmed my taxes out to an intern who actually told the Canadian government that I worked sixteen months in the past year, while simultaneously going to school. Such a feat would be impressive if it were possible - needless to say, the Canadian government was not amused with the assertion.

So unless twelve of my closest friends can vouch that their accountant rescued their Mothers from a raging fire, I remain dubious of the cost-to-benefit ratio of the professionals in this field. Hence, software wins.]]

Metroid Prime 3 is Done!

Finally, I have completed Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. Unfortunately, the progress estimate on my savegame was misleading; despite my earlier estimate of 40 hours, my first clear was 18:24, with a respectable 88% collection rate. Certainly not what I'd call a speedrun, but not as long as I expected. Still, that beats Halo by a fair margin I think; while a good game, I'm still disappointed at the short complete time.

I have to stand by my earlier assessment. This is a great Metroid game! It keeps all the core elements that make Metroid great (yes, even two Ridley fights!), built into a FPS designed for the Wiimote and nunchuck. Add to that a huge environment, lots of power-ups and arguably one of the longst Metroid games to date.

One technical flaw I observed though, is that room transitions can lag pretty badly. If you're backtracking through a sequence of cleared rooms, it can take upwards of 15 seconds for a door to open. It gets very annoying after awhile.

Two things bother me about this game, and both are nerfs.

1. Metroids.
The game is named after these creatures - round hovering jellyfish-like creatures that fly at you and can drain your energy. They were truly fearsome in the original. Twice your size, and ticking off nearly 10 energy per second (which, when you only have 5 energy tanks, is pretty extreme) until if you're very lucky, you shake it off. Your only hope is to freeze it and hit it with five missiles, terminating the fearsome creature. Every encounter is a brush with doom.

So, needless to say, walking into a research lab with small metroids in glass statis chambers along the wall, I was naturally nervous. Doubly so when I flip off the power, the lights go dim, and you hear the crash of the Metroids escaping. To the backdrop of spooky music, I go creeping back through the facility, dreading my first encounter with what would surely be an express train to my last save point.

Instead, I find something like this.

The Metroids are wussy. Beyond wussy. They spend more time thinking, building power, and hovering than sucking your lifeforce, and in case your ineptness got the best of you, and you find this Metroid on you.... ... ... .... .... .... .... .... ... ... ... ... oops it drained one point of energy [note: not exaggeration - literally, one point of your 600-1600 pts every five seconds or so]. Boo hoo, maybe in an hour or two, you might have to bother to shake it off.

This has been a trend in the Prime series that has really annoyed me. They've butchered Metroids, and it makes me sad.


2. Missiles
In the original NES game, missiles were the easy way out. When your firepower just wasn't enough, you unleashed these explosive goodies, and beat through anything that moved. In Super Metroid, they had "Super Missiles", thus making your original missiles less desirable, but still worthwhile in that they could be fired very quickly.

This latest game goes to great extent to put around 50 missile expansions for you to find. A shame that missiles don't do jack. Their damage doesn't even really compare to a regular beam shot, and unlike other Metroid games, fire slowly, and travel even slower. You don't even really use them except where the game says you have to.

But, I still like it.

Yea, it's a good game. I'll probably play again. My clear unlocked "Hypermode" (the difficulty above hard) - and given the rather yawnfest difficulty of normal, I think this might add a much-needed level of difficulty to the game.

New games... any good?

It has been a Christmas of oh-so-delicious gaming. Most noteworthy being Kyna's receipt of a Nintendo Wii for Christmas (that's right.... Lownewulf has the connections ;)). However I didn't get off too badly either, with Asian Jon getting me Metroid Prime 3 for the Wii, the sis getting me Assassin's Creed for the 360, and Big Jon getting me Crysis for the PC. And of course, add that to my own shopping - before Christmas, Mass Effect for the 360, and just recently, Twilight Princess on the Wii.

You know... I think I might be getting old and cynical. But I just have to pick apart every game I see now. Even games I have to grudgingly admit are good. Honestly, some of the games these days are simply amazing; despite what many people say, there is still a few people trying to innovate in the industry. But, in the end, most of them lack what I would consider relatively simple polish that mars an other great title. In the search for the next epic, I really am starting to feel that game studios are cutting corners, and it makes me sad.

But I can probably best explain by example, namely all of the above games.

Mass Effect
You know... this is meant to be a good game. A fun game. A combination of shooter and RPG, something done far too rarely and almost never well.
But you know what... if you want me to enjoy a game, it had better work!
This game froze on me. Hourly, if not more. While we suspect our media was bad, I hear that even a working copy tends to freeze every now and then. It's really not acceptable for a console game to do that with any level of frequency.

However, I had the option to replace my copy once the store I bought it from restocked. I said no. I returned the game, and may never buy it again.

I'm told that Mass Effect gets better once you get past the beginning (I wouldn't know, lock-ups suck). But in the beggining, what I saw was a bad combination of RPG and shooter. You try to set the pace of a shooter, but stop what you're doing to loot. And of course, in live action, trigger your many psychic skills for your entire party. Of course, there's plenty of friendlies, and they bring back one of the most painful parts of the RPG world: dialog trees. That's right. Now you, to understand what's going on, have to play the exhaustive dialog traversal game. Reminds me of AI class all over again. And what's better than talents? That's right, for all the characters in your party, if they get a level, you get to set their talent points - now you too can spend hours online speccing not your Warcraft toon, but your random nothing characters in a single player console game.

Yes, I know you can set the game to easy and choose to automate a lot of this, but I think it hurts a game more to design their gameplay around features that many players won't even want to have on.

Combine this with a nearly non-existant gameplay intro, and a manual missing most of the critical game elements, and you have a winner. Mass Effect could be fun for some people... but not for me.

Assassin's Creed
Actually, this game is pretty good. So good, that I spent a few full nights and burned through the game. It's got decent gameplay length... longer than Halo 3 by far (though sadly for Halo 3, that doesn't say much). It has a novel control system, and a fairly unique gameplay style. And totally atmospheric. You really feel like you're gliding anonymously through a crowd in a crowded medieval Middle Eastern capital, stalking your next target.

But it's got one major flaw: it's as repetitive as hell. Except for the 9 or so scripted assassinations, there's really only six things to do in the game (you have to do at least three investigations per assassination, so the rest is technically optional, but it'd certainly cut down your first clear time), and you do them over and over and over again. Lets go climb some viewpoints. Oh, and save some citizens. Pickpocket this guy. Eavesdrop this guy. Interrogate this guy. Stealth-kill these targets. Collect flags. Sorry, I lied, that's seven. But they are practically identical each time you do them, there's nothing even remotely different between your first pickpocket and your last interrogation.

Even the audio is repetitive. I probably saved a good 50 citizens (see what I mean about repetitive?), and they have like THREE different things they can say when you rescue them. Same with the Town Criers... I've heard exactly the same speech for the past four missions, yelled repeatedly over blocks of terrain. The guy at the other end of the city seems to be saying the same thing, in the same voice. Fer crying out loud, is 15 minutes of extra studio time really THAT expensive to record a few more audio clips?

And finally, the Animus. You aren't *really* an assassin, you're in some futuristic VR simulation replaying your genetic memory at the whim of high-tech kidnappers (no... really! I couldn't make something like that up!). At night, you can sneak out and read your captors' email and stuff, but that's about all. This is what is known as filler. It would make a good layout for a book, but adds nothing but dead time to the gameplay. Especially when the ending in the 'real world' is so lame and weak. Seriously, why not just cut out the whole future thing? You're an assassin, regaining the respect of your guild while fighting the Templars and discovering philosophical truths about the human condition. That's a great story all by itself! They could have used the extra disc space to add some variety in the gameplay

Of course, given the repetitiveness of the non-required content, this game has zero replay value. It was totally fun while it lasted. But just rent it, and stay up all weekend kicking its ass, because if you buy it, it'll just sit on your shelf after the first clear.

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
The one thing the Wii has shown me is this:
If you talk about how great the Wiimote is, you can ship the exact same stuff all over again, with no upgrades, and people will love it.
The main reason for this is, even without the Wiimote, is that Nintendo makes some awesome games. So really, why mess with them?

Metroid Prime 3 plays just like the rest of the Prime series. Fight Space Pirates through a 3D shooter, collecting powerups your suit miraculously lost after the last game, and completing various puzzles along the way. It's certainly a different sort of game from the side-scroller, but ye know, it's still fun in its own way.

Corruption adds something that I think is novel - allies. Not really; most of the time, you're still running solo, but occasionally you can talk to people that don't want to shoot you. I was worried this would bother me. Samus always worked alone. But when you actually play, it does feel right. It's just the right amount of immersion into the universe in which Samus plays a part, and I feel it was a worthwhile addition.

Looking at my progress, I tag it at a 40 hour game. Great for a both a shooter and a Metroid game.

Crysis
Honestly, I haven't played much yet. But it genuinely looks neat. A lot of attention to detail. A decent storyline built into a futuristic shooter with a far more realistic combat model than your average Unreal Tournament match. While I didn't particularly like the shooting model (it's very hard to hit with your guns), I honestly think it'd be something I'd grow into.

But Crysis isn't about the gameplay, it's about your tech epeen. It's about having the sort of hardcore system that will actually make a game like this look good. Sadly, no matter how much I love my awesome computer, it just can't hope to do this game justice. I feel somewhat less of a man. Maybe Amber's sweet new PC will handle it better (that blog post is probably next).

Since I haven't made it far yet, I can only discuss one complaint: SecurROM.
IF I BUY A GAME, YOU HAD BETTER NOT TELL ME I CAN'T PLAY IT JUST BECAUSE I ACTUALLY KNOW SOMETHING ABOUT COMPUTERS.
Basically, SecurROM is a complex third-party anti-piracy measure that looks for all manner of debugging tools and virtualization technology (that practically any programmer has in use for their day to day work) and disables the game if it finds them. And it casts a wide net as to what it doesn't like, but offers not the slightest hint as to what's wrong or why.

These game developers need to get hit with the same cluebat that the music studios did - those that want to pirate will crack your protection anyways (easily in fact. every time. without exception.) and distribute their magic on the Internet. So the only one you really hurt are the poor souls who are in fact legitimately trying to use your technology. The music studios are getting the hint and starting to sell MP3s instead of protected crap. Games... soon I hope.

Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Let me say it again.
If you talk about how great the Wiimote is, you can ship the exact same stuff all over again, with no upgrades, and people will love it.

Twilight Princess plays just like any modern Zelda game. It's basically what Ocarina of Time would be if it was made today. Except with the Wiimote. Thankfully all the cel-shaded suck of baby tribal Link from Windwaker was left out - unlike that 'game', this one actually has more than six hours of gameplay (a *lot* more), doesn't look stupid, isn't 90% ocean and has more than just three dungeons.

There are some quirks... the fishing comes to mind (they never explain that you need to use the nunchuck as a reel). And there is still the fundamental brain-grinding pain that comes with a puzzle-heavy Zelda games as you try to figure the odd quirk you need to get you to the next step. But really, I can't criticize the game beyond that.

We were just renting it... and Kyna got the Master Sword and knew where the boss was. I was like "GG, game over". But apparently we were like less than halfway through the game. And still having fun. We decided it would be cheaper to buy at that point. While I doubt it's ultimate replay value, we probably still have a couple of hundred hours between us (a couple of clears/collections each), which is more than I can ask of most games.

Ticketmaster Finally Gets Told Off

About time!

Wait... no... you still have to pay their outrageous 'convenience' fee, or their Internet fee to recoup the expense of us printing tickets on our own printers. But at least now you don't have to agree to be spammed by them and their friends, just to buy a ticket. I've been stung by this a couple of times, and I'm glad they are finally being told to correct this blatant violation of Canadian law.

http://www.canada.com/cityguides/halifax/info/story.html?id=19c769a4-84d1-43da-bd13-a5dc5669dcc1&k=64331

You have to be kidding me!

The VERY NEXT DAY after I get off travel lockdown, the USCIS announces that they are eliminating the requirement for I-485 receipt notices, essentially making the receipt I waited two months for useless.

It was certainly the right thing to do, but come on, seriously, couldn't they have done it back in August???

Travel Lockdown is OVER!

It's true; I hold, in my hands, all the required implements of international travel. Canadian passport (old and new), I-485 receipt, employment verification and status clarification, H-1B documentation. Nothing stands in my way between me and the world!

And by the world, I mean probably just weekend trips to Vancouver.

2.5 months lockdown... much less than the 6 months I had last time. Not bad. Hopefully I won't have another lockdown for a few years, if at all.

I am planning to go to Vancouver this weekend, mostly to get my I-94 transferred to my new passport and to remind the Irishman's liver that it has to make up for the time it's had off.

Kingsgate is Mine!

What, do you ask, is Kingsgate?




THAT, my friends, is Kingsgate!

Yes, though I've been hinting at it for awhile, it's just been finalised today. I have just "closed" on the transaction, and now officially own this two-bedroom townhouse in the Kingsgate region of northern Kirkland. Since the name is cool, I will just refer to the townhouse as 'Kingsgate' from now on.


First off, I would like to thank three people, without whom this would not be possible.

First, of course, my darling Amber, without which any abode would just seem empty.

Second, my real estate agent, Mary Dobson. While she sent us dozens of potential listings, Kingsgate was actually in the very first set she sent us. She showed us lots of patience while we we reviewed listing after listing, and helped us navigate the tricky waters of American real-estate. Drop her an email - she can help you buy or sell your Puget Sound home I'm sure!

Third, my mortgage broker, Jeff Keeney from Golf Savings Bank. I think the most telling experience was when he dropped house renovations on a Sunday afternoon to drive to the nearest coffee shop with Wi-fi, to generate a new estimate for me to look over. He was friendly, helpful, and extremely knowledgeable in the field. I can't sing him enough praises. Oh, and of course, he got me the best deal on my mortgage too with no hassle.

In terms of Kingsgate's vitals:
Built 1982. 1280 sqft, 2 bedrooms, 1.5 bathrooms. A large master bedroom upstairs, and a neighbouring second bedroom/office and a bathroom. Downstairs has a large square kitchen with some dated countertops, but a new stove. Living room facing the rear. One car garage, attached. Fully fenced back yard with patio. Attached to one neighbour on my East wall.

It is technically a townhouse, with a homeowners association, but it is what is known as a Planned Unit Development. Basically, the HOA only exists to manage a few small patches of common space and to regulate the interactions between attached neighbours. Otherwise, it's pretty much hands off - I own the place, inside and out, and can do what I want with it.

Over the next few days, I'll be moving small collections of stuff over, and preparing for some minor painting I want to do over the weekend. The movers will move the furniture on Monday, and then we'll work on finalising the whole project.

For those of you who are curious (and aren't using Facebook for some reason), here's the photo highlights.

Canadian Passport is Here!

Though I've been holding my first British passport for several months now, I now finally received my new Canadian passport.

On one hand, I appreciate the Canadians' personal touch - when one of my references' phone numbers was disconnected, a nice lady from Ottawa called me to ask what was up. Similarly, the Canadian consulate in Seattle was friendly and cheerful. Never once did I feel like I was being processed by a computer or an Indian call centre.

But why on earth did it have to take so long? Two months before it was processed [FYI: you know it's being processed because they charge your credit card when they start]. Another two weeks for them to mail it to the Canadian embassy in Seattle.

Why mail it to the embassy? Simple. They need to cancel the old passport. But in the current US immigration climate, you'd have to be stupid to let your passport out of your hands even for a second.

After all this, I still only get a five-year passport. WTF. You'd think they'd make a ten-year passport for those outside the country, especially since non-residents don't qualify for the passport renewal program. Thanks for the help - way to help those that need it the least!

Of course, with a day off work, some train tickets, and some clever fast-talking, several Microsofties have discovered how to get Canadian passports SAME DAY! Cheapens my accomplishment a bit. Email me if you want to know how these clever individuals did it.

BTW, this does not mean that my travel lockdown is over. The Nebraska Service Center has been processing some early August applications, so I predict that it will be another month before I can travel.

Top Five Things That You Screwed Up In Your House Ad

I'm tired of seeing flyers, pamphlets, Craigslist ads, and even MLS listings that are meant to sell me on a multi-hundred-thousand dollar purchase, but end up feeling like they weren't even worth the three seconds of consciousness I dedicated to looking at them.

Without further ado, the list of reasons why your house ad sucks, created solely by my unenlightened inexperienced homebuyer self. Oh wait... it's "a great starter home for first time homebuyers"? Maybe you should listen to me.

1. Your photo sucks
   Practically every home ad includes at least (sometimes only) one photo. Why on Earth would you use that photo to take a picture of the complex welcome sign? Could you not just use words for that? Is that picture of four words really worth a thousand words? If there's only one photo I get to see, it had better be a shot of the front of the house! Or, if there's something truly impressive (ie. newly remodelled kitchen, or stunning view), then maybe that, but it had better be gosh darn impressive.
   Collary: the rest of your photos suck too!
   If you're using a website, you can generally include lots more photos. THEN DO IT! Why only include two or three? Digital cameras are cheap, webspace even more so. Anyone who can afford your house has broadband, so don't worry about my poor overworked Internet connection. And lrn2photos, people! I admit openly interior house shots are difficult to photograph well, but at least try to get a few with decent lighting. And it really isn't that hard to maintain the aspect ratio when you upload them. Oh, and take at least one picture of every room - if you leave one out, I'll assume you did so for a reason.
   
2. Location, Location, Location!
   Sorry, I don't care how nice your house is, if it's in Tacoma, and I work in Seattle, I'm not buying it. Plus, this tempers everything else you say about the house - price can vary heavily by region. And no, the county is not enough! I *must* know the neighbourhood of the city in which it is located. Ideally, I want the exact address, but I acknowledge that this may not be appropriate for some venues. Thankfully MLS listings always seem to require exact addresses.
   
3. Size matters.
   It may be newly remodelled and be in the best school district, but I'm not spending my life savings just to close a deal on something smaller than my bachelor apartment. This applies to all the main statistics: square footage (both the house, and if applicable, the lot), bedrooms, bathrooms, floors. If you don't tell me, I assume it's because the numbers are bad for the price you're charging.
   
4. HOA / Community Issues
   While not always applicable, or simply not enough room, if you can, I need to know about the community. HOA dues are good to know, but what do they cover? What about the inevitable pain the nearly pervasive HOAs around here inflict? Pet policies? Restrictions on modifying unit exteriors?
   
5. It's Nice?
   Come on now, you have a text box to sell your house with. You should really fill it with key selling points, and avoid duplication or fluff. This is the 21st century; I don't need you to tell me that it's minutes from the highway - I'm looking at the satellite imagery of you on your front porch as we speak! If the stats are elsewhere, don't repeat them. I want to know about the sweet upgrades, your buyer bonus, how you get complimentary room service for life, and how it's peaceful and quiet. Oh, and it's "luxurious, modern living at an affordable price?" Strange, so were the last three!

Now people are wondering two things, I'd bet.

First, do people really do nooby things like this?
Go visit Craigslist, and take a look. Next question.

Second, some may be of the opinion that leaving out details can make sense. Build the curiosity, convince the potential buyer to call to find out more. Then the magic seller agent can weave the web of salesmanship from which the hapless buyer has no chance to escape.
Sorry, no. Maybe in a hot market you can get away with that, but when I'm seeing a dozen listings a day for potential purchases, let me tell you that I'm not wasting my time on your crappy ad. Anything I don't see I assume the worst about, and that'll quickly get you cut from my shortlist.

That's my rant. Carry on.

Dead Rising

I got the chance to borrow Dead Rising the other day, and have played it a significant part of the way through (partway through 'Overtime').

After playing for awhile, I'm left bewildered.

How on Earth could such an innovative, creative, diverse replayable game be released with such obvious gameplay flaws?

Let me give you a bit more. You're a freelance photographer/reporter, in a mall, filled with zombies. Your objectives are to:

• Survive.
• Reach the helipad in exactly three days of gametime, for your ride out.
• Reveal "the facts" about how zombies ended up in the mall, as dictated by a set of chained quests.
• Rescue a variety of survivors hiding in the mall, desperately avoiding both the zombies and a variety of psychopaths.
• Killing psychopaths and zombies.
• Gain "prestiege points" (read: XP) by doing varieties of the above tasks, as well as taking photos for later publication.

All of these (except survival) are optional, and in fact, it would be exceedingly difficult to satisfy them all simultaneously (I think there are at least 5 main endings based on combinations of above). This automatically means heavy replayability, but is further augmented by unlocked game content, including a continuation "overtime" day following one possible ending, a free-play mode, and plenty of fun Xbox achievements.

And, in the end, you get to rummage through an entire mall, taking whatever the hell you want from it, and using these objects to kill zombies, and perhaps take pictures afterwards of your handiwork. Oh, and the graphics are great.

But one must wonder where their test team was on for all this. Such a great game is completely ruined by several fatal gameplay flaws.

• Controls. Every single button on the controller is used, normally in unintuitive ways. Plus a series of special moves for which they do not describe the controller combinations to activate.
• Control utility. When your weapon durability expires (yes, all weapons do this), it automatically switches to the next item (no you don't really control ordering).... if you're wildly swinging a bat, congrats, you've quaffed all your healing potions before you realize it. If you get a radio message, it beeps intermittently until you answer, locking out all combat controls; unless you get attacked, in which case it cuts you off, then you get chastized for interrupting the speaker. Your guns are practically useless without targeting, which takes forever to manually perform (no Z-targeting!). Likewise, action shots are not enabled for your camera, and even if they did, taking any 'good' photos basically means you're going to get hurt.
• Difficulty. The game is hard... very hard. Without an FAQ, most are just going to get frustrated and quit when you encounter your *first* psychopaths which outnumber you three to one, have the game's most powerful weapon, and a jeep, before you've even really seen much more than your first handgun!
• Unforgiving. Most games these days seem to have a "no stuck" mentality - ie. you can never play yourself into a dead-end. This game explicitly counters this - the main plotline is heavily time-sensitive, and offers no outs. You can only make one save game, so you can screw yourself easily by saving with too little time left or with too little health to survive an encounter.
• Quirky human fights. Fighting hordes of zombies works gracefully. The human fights are downright lame - they're pattern fights at best, and at worse simply require you to exploit pathing and clipping bugs to make possible. This gets even worse when they start loading the mall with humans with full automatic weapons.
• Heavy zoning. Come on, if WoW can have an entire continent with seamless transitions, one should expect a single group of mall stores without 15 seconds of loading time.

Seriously, how can anyone with any experience of enjoyment of games justify all of these as non-critical issues?

Game companies just make me mad sometimes.