Category Archives: reviews

Fuzzy Slippers part 1

Fuzzy Slippers.

Fuzzy slippers are fantastic. They’re soft, they’re warm, and they’re fluffy. That all combines to make a valid post, don’t you agree? Wait, don’t answer that.

Fuzzy slippers can be categorized in several basic ways. There are several sets of “two types”, and I’m going to go through the first one today.

Slippers that are animal-like, and slippers that are not animal-like.

Slippers that are animal-like. These are your traditional bunny slippers, Bear Paw slippers, or anything else that is reminiscent of an animal.

These are fun, since they give you a sense of nostalgia. You can pretend that you’re back in the days of yore, when people hunted to make clothes, and your shoes might actually have come from real, soft luxurious fur of an animal that would kill you if you don’t turn it into slippers first.

They can also lend courage. Would the monsters in the closet attack a bear? Of course not! So the monsters clearly wouldn’t attack you if you wore bear slippers.

Uh, the monsters in the closet don’t generally attack at all… And what about the rabbit slippers you mentioned?

Bunny slippers are also good. They can serve as decoys. After all, the monsters wouldn’t need to climb into your bed to get to you.

No matter what your style, if you’re looking for protection on cold winter nights, Animal Slippers will not let you down.

But what if you’re looking for something stylish? Something you can wear outside, and use to celebrate the new day as you get your newspaper, and is stylish enough to not get you laughed at by the neighbors? That, my friends, is where the other type of slippers in this category come in.

Non-Animalian Fuzzy Slippers. For those of you who fondly remember your bunny slippers, or other animalish slippers, but need something more stylish, fear not! Solutions exist!

There are some delightful slippers that have no resemblance to animals, but will still protect your feet from the cold. They may not make as decent decoys for the monsters in your closet, but not everyone is cursed with closets linking to the monsters’ home dimension. In such cases, you can wear your stylish non-animal slippers, and still be comfortable.

Further, if your reason for avoiding animal slippers is that you dislike animals, there are solutions for you, too! Even if you have monsters in your room that you need to be protected from, you do not need to resort to animal slippers.

You could get hobbit-feet slippers, which are sure to lead you not only “there” but also back again. (“There” is an adventure, and “back again” implies safety.) You can get car slippers with working headlights, which would protect you from anything you might come up against in the night. You could even get cupcake slippers, which might provide an even better decoy for the Closet Monsters than the bunnies! Monsters’ greatest weaknesses are cupcakes, after all.

I’d never heard that about Monsters before… Do you even have monsterologists on your world?

…Uh… I’ll get back to you on that.

Well, that’s all for right now! I hope that you’ve started to learn a bit about slippers. After all, I personally think that everyone should have at least one pair of slippers.

Have a great day!

Age of Empires II Game Review.

Game Review:

Age of Empires II: Age of Kings.

Age of Empires II: Age of Kings, by Microsoft, is a real time strategy game for computers where the players try to build an empire. The player plays the role of Supreme Commander of a civilization. The player cannot directly participate in any activities, but instead issues commands to: create characters and buildings, tell characters to gather resources or attack enemies, and to explore and to trade. The user interacts with the game through a combination of keyboard shortcuts, and both the left and right buttons on the mouse.

In one-player mode, the goal of the game is simple: become the top civilization in the world map. This can be achieved through a few different ways. Specific goals with a time limit include collecting a certain number of items and holding them for a specified amount of time, and building a particular structure and keeping it for a specified amount of time. Scoring is based upon completion of these goals, how many buildings and units are built, how many resources the player still has at the end of the game, and how many enemies the player destroyed. There are other criteria as well, but they are not as interesting.

Now I think you were just being lazy by not including that.

…Does this surprise you?

But back to the review.

The art, sound, and music tie together in a pleasing way. Although the graphics are a bit slow on certain computers, and therefore stutter a bit, the landscapes are well done. Useable resources are clearly identifiable, and a convenient mini-map at the bottom updates in real time to show where various units and resources are on the map. The music adds an ambiance of adventure- there is a definite beat, which adds excitement, but the music is not so obnoxious that it distracts game play. The sound effects are also used to great effect. If a player’s characters or buildings are attacked by either enemies or wildlife, a small fanfare plays. Each class of armed character has its own distinct sound as well. The game also uses other sound effects to indicate events in the game.

And again you let us wonder what they are…

Do you really want more detail? I could mention that there are random bird calls, each character makes its own noise when created, the horses whinny, the arrows have their own “SWOOSH” sound when fired, or-

All right! I get the picture. I’ll let that one slide.

Good. Now back to the review.

Some of my favorite special features in the game are its Easter-eggs or cheat codes. My personal favorite simultaneously makes the game easier and harder. It is a cheat for being able to instantly build projects, research, and collect resources. The challenging part is that other players gain that ability as well. Others include the ability to gain resources instantly, declare yourself the winner (“I R WINNER”), kill everyone (including yourself through the cheat “black death”), call in advanced weaponry, or take over nature.

I enjoy this game for several reasons. The first is that there is an almost infinite amount that can be done with this game. A player can start off with a very easy game, with lots of resources, only a few players, and lots of cheat code use. A player can then continue to make things more difficult by decreasing resources, increasing the number of players, and using no cheat codes. Built in campaigns add additional options, as does the map-creator.

There are less fun aspects of Age of Empires II, however. First is control. I use the built-in mouse that comes with laptops, and which are difficult to use to scroll around the game with. The second is the length of the game. It is possible to put time limits in, but especially if the “instant” cheat is not being used, it can still take a while for game play to start.

Wait, you use rodents to control this game? No wonder this qualifies as fluff!

No. In this instance, a “mouse” is a type of technology that we use to control computers. Do a Google search to see what they are.

I really like this game. I can’t compare it to others in its genre, since I haven’t really played that many in its genre, but it’s really fun. With expansion packs, and Age of Empire 3, you can even justify it as a semi-history game!

So, yeah. I really enjoy the game, and I recommend you play it. It’s really fun, especially when you do things like call in nuke strikes, or cars that have machine guns, and other random fun stuff. Or design your own maps to have things totally stacked in your favor.

Happy Wednesday!

I love my $5 headphones.

‘Panasonic RP-HT21 Lightweight Headphones with XBS Port’ Review (And they’re not even paying me to do this!)

Background

Ok. So, first, a little bit of background on me. As my post on my favorite soundtracks might have indicated, I’m a bit of a music fan. I have a tendency to like to listen to my music privately, though. (That way, if there’s a song that I really like, I can play it like 5 or 6 times in a row. It’s fun.)

I also travel a lot. I just did the calculations, and at least for the last few years, I’ve been traveling on average about once every two to three months. Since I like having music with me wherever, I go, that means I need to take headphones.

And yes, they have to be headphones. I can’t stand earbuds. They are plainly uncomfortable. And they don’t block out as much noise as the on-ear or over-ear headphones do.

I used to get $20-$40 pairs of headphones. They would be comfortable, sound great, and then break. I went through headphones about once per year. It would be a year-and-a-half if I was lucky.

I did some calculations and realized how expensive this was getting. So I did a bit of research, and made a few decisions.

First, I decided that I didn’t really need the “absolute best sound $40 can buy.” I’m reasonably fine with lower quality speakers, as long as they work and come out of both ears. (It drives me nuts when sound only comes out of one ear.)

The Headphones

I then found a pair of $5 headphones from Amazon. They’re sold from a 3rd party vendor, but they still have free shipping. And they’re only $5! I figured that I’d try them, and see how they worked. If the worked, I’d just saved between $15 & 35. If they didn’t, I’d have wasted only $5, which isn’t that expensive.

So I got the pair, and they showed up. They played sound from both ears. They weren’t that uncomfortable- and they were a lot better than ear buds. The sound quality wasn’t phenomenal, but it wasn’t atrocious either. I decided to keep them and see how long they lasted.

They lasted a year. With six or 8 rough plane trips. They were mashed up against my computer and various other junk in my backpack, transported to and from work or class every day, and they lasted pretty much an entire year. That’s about the same amount of time as my previous sets of headphones! I figured that for $5, at least while I’m still in this stage of my life where I can’t afford really good headphones, the savings totally make up for lower sound quality.

Sometimes it can be annoying when they break. First the plastic bits of the headphones break, thus eliminating the ability to control headphone length / height / whatever-you-want-to-call-it. Then the sound goes in one (or more) ear.

The very funny part came on the most recent pair of headphones. The ear on one side completely came off, while the sound didn’t work on the other- unless the wire was in exactly the right place. I actually got fairly good at jiggling the wire around to make it work. It normally involved wrapping the wire around my ear a couple of times to keep it in the right spot. Yeah, I got annoyed when people interrupted me and made me need to reset my wire next time, but at least the sound work!

panasonic headphones with an ear fallen off

My old broken Panasonic Headphones

In all, I love these headphones. I’m on, like, my third set now. They’re inexpensive, not bad quality, and they last for a while. And they’re $5. You can’t beat the price.

Happy Sunday!