I was considering joining a beer of the month club a while back but after giving it some though decided it wasn’t as practical or as fun as scheduling a monthly outing to Bevmo to stock my liquor collection with some spirits. My thought was to go monthly and purchase several beers I have never tried. I make it a point to stick to 90+ point rated beers, but can stray at times.
I also like other spirits besides beer and they will sometime find their way into my monthly process as was the case today. Below you will see a photo of today’s purchases followed by details of my choices.
Wine - Dahlia Pinot Noir 2005 - $14.99 I’m always on the lookout for highly rated wines that are reasonable and on sale. Today I came across this one which came in at 91 points and was on sale from its normal price of $19.99. Seemed like a good deal.
Beer - Moylan’s Kilt Lifter Scotch Ale - $3.99
This beer has one of the best names ever and timely since I watched Braveheart the other night. I’ve made it a point to seek out scotch ales lately. I had my first ever scotch ale at a Karl Strauss brewery a few months ago and loved it. This one got a 91 point rating so I’m hoping it’s good.
Beer - Samuel Adams Triple Bock - $4.69 I always see this beer on my trips and every time I say that I need to try it. Well today was the day. I’m a Sam Adams fan and I look forward to trying this high end version of their brew.
Sake - SakeOne G Joy - $16.99 A friend of mine turned me on to this great sake. You drink this stuff cold people. Cold sake is the best. I had finished a bottle of this a while back and liked it so much I decided to restock it. This isn’t your average Sake because it is produced in the the U.S. (Oregon to be exact). In any case, I found this to be really good and am happy to have it once again.
Sake - Zipang Sparkling - $5.99 In the last episode of Diggnation, Alex and Kevin started out the show drinking this stuff and raving about how good it is, so I had to try it. I have some chillin in the fridge right now and plan on drinking it tonight. I’ll post my thoughts in an update.
5/14 Update on Zipang So unless I got a bad batch, I have no clue what Alex & Kevin like about this stuff. I have tasted quite a few different Sake’s and this has to rank as one of the worst. I think the problem is the novelty of it. The sake itself didn’t have much of a taste to it, and the sparkling side of it tasted flat to me. So perhaps they cancel each other out, but it fails on both counts. But you know what the worst part was? I didn’t even get a little buzz from drinking the whole bottle. I recommend staying away from this stuff. And if you haven’t tried it, go get some unfiltered Sake. That’s my favorite.
Twitterlocal.net is a site that lets you find local Twitter users based on proximity to a given location. They got mentioned quite a bit on Twitter today due to a newly created leader board that shows a breakdown of locations with the most tweets over the last 24 hours. The way it works is you supply the location in the form of a zip code or city / state combo along with a selected range within # of miles and it returns a list of the top tweeters in the area.
I decided I wanted to find all users from my city. So I went ahead and entered Chatsworth CA with a range of 1 mile (the minimum). The results came back with only 2 users, myself and 1 other user. Turns out the results only shows users who have sent a tweet within a 24 hour period. It got me thinking about how I can find all users from my city. I couldn’t find a service that does this though, so I had an idea.
I figured I could come up with query to Google to find this so I went ahead and created this query “site:twitter.com location chatsworth ca“. I figured I’d query the profile pages of all Twitter users who supplied their location. Sure enough I got more records. It returned 5 users. This seems to be a nice little hack to find users of your city until Twitterlocal.net offers to show all users or another site comes along that does.
I encourage my normally calm Chihuahua Cha Cha to chase a cat for a little exercise in my backyard and her attempt to hop the wall doesn’t go as planned. Thankfully even though she failed, she dusted herself off and pretended that nothing ever happened. She’s a trooper and I love her.
The Escapist : Zero Punctuation: Crysis - If you’ve never seen a Zero Punctuation review. Here’s a great one to accolomate ya. Very Very funny stuff and spot on in many ways.
I really enjoyed the 5 part (and 5 hour if you don’t have a DVR) special “100 Greatest Songs of the 90s” that VH1 ran. You can see the complete list on the VH1 site here. It did make me wonder though whether there were some songs that were neglected from the list. So I opened up Winamp and started looking through my music to see if I could spot any. It didn’t take long to see that there were some blaring omissions. So behold my list of songs. One thing to note is that I didn’t bother to include a song if the band had any that made the top 100.
So here’s my list:
1. Depeche Mode - Enjoy the Silence - from Violator - 1990
I’ve been a fan of this band since the mid 80s. I’ve seen them live many times and I buy they’re new releases sight unseen. Martin Gore has a knack for coming up with some great lyrics that make the gears in your brain spin. More 90s songs: Personal Jesus, Policy of Truth, I Feel You
2. Moby - South Side - from Play - 1999
You can throw a dart at the “Play” CD and probably have a worthy song but it was the track that paired him with Gwen Stefani that packed a 1-2 punch for me. More 90s songs: Go, Porcelain, Anthem
3. Tori Amos - Silent all these Years - from Little Earthquakes - 1992
Tori is considered a great artist by many. And this is regarded as her best CD ever by most reviewers. Here’s one of the most powerful lyrics: “Boy you best pray that I bleed real soon. How’s that thought for ya?”. More 90s songs: Crucify, Cornflake Girl, God
4. Nine Inch Nails - Hurt - from The Downward Spiral - 1994
Closer was the bigger hit, but man…Hurt is a very powerful song. More 90s songs: Closer, March of the Pigs, The Fragile
5. Seal - Prayer for the Dying - from Seal - 1994
Many would argue that the tracks Crazy or Killer from his 1991 debut should have made it, but I’m a bigger fan of Seal’s Chill Out tracks that would come several years later. More 90s songs: Crazy, Killer, Kiss from a Rose
6. Bjork - Hyper Ballad - from Post - 1995 I’ve always been a huge Bjork fan. It actually started when she was in The Sugarcubes. I was lucky enough to see them open up for U2 many moons ago. She’s also undeniably one of the best music video artists out there. More 90s songs: Human Behavior, All is full of Love, Hunter
7. A Tribe Called Quest - Check the Rhime - from The Low End Theory - 1991 I was a fan of some Rap back in the 90s and this was probably the CD I played the most. These guys had a knack for the verse and some sweet beats. Qtip is dope. More 90s songs: Buggin’ out, The Scenario, Award Tour
8. Dave Mathews Band - Ants Marching - from Under the Table and Dreaming - 1994 Dave came out of nowhere with a very unique sound and a bandmate who plays a mean ass fiddle. I first heard the song on KCRW here in LA. More 90s songs: Satellite, So Much to Say, Crash into Me
9. No Doubt - Sunday Morning - from Tragic Kingdom - 1995
Before Gwen became a pop star, and there’s nothing wrong with that, she was the rockin’ voice behind her ska inspired band. This song still makes me want to jump repeatedly every time I hear it. More 90s songs: Just a Girl, Spiderwebs, Simple Kind of Life
10. Hole - Celebrity Skin - from Celebrity Skin - 1998 I must admit to having both pre and mis-judged what Hole would sound like knowing that this was the wife of Kurt Cobain and was probably funded by him. Boy was I wrong. Celebrity skins has one of the most powerful openings of any song. Courtney proved she wasn’t a novelty. Well….musically speaking. More 90s songs: Doll Parts, Miss World, Awful
11. Creed - Higher - from Human Clay - 1999
This is definitely a band that didn’t get the critical acclaim they deserve. Reviewers claimed they were “derivative” and “formulaic”. Uh, had they listened to pop music? And it wasn’t even as bad as it is now back in the 90s. More 90s songs: With Arms Wide Open, My Own Prison, Are you Ready
Turns out that VH1 has a message board dedicated to their “Greatest” shows so you can join the fray if you want here
This is the first in what may become a regular feature here on the blog. I fancy myself as a bit of a beer connoisseur. Well connoisseur may be overstating the facts a bit. I just like good beer, I’m not a snob about it, or know much about beers, but I do appreciate good ones.
I recently was interested in joining a monthly beer club but then realized it’s a pretty simple task to create your own. In this era of “do it yourself” I decided to come up with my own method. Just visit a good local beverage house that carries a wide array of your not so average spirits and pick up a few I’ve never had before once a month. It’s a pretty simple concept actually. Also, this way I can control the varietals to my liking as well as save a little cash.
In the process of researching beer clubs I did come across the beer of the month club from Clubs of America which seemed like a pretty good one and is even the club selected by the Diggnation guys. So it should be a decent choice if you want to join one.
So now that you have the history behind my motivation, it’s time to get on with the first review.
In this first month of my newly created club I ventured out to my second favorite store to visit…Bevmo (Fry’s Electronics is my first). I excitedly began picking out my first batch of beers for the month. I decided that I needed to create some sort of guideline to help me determine which beers I would be selecting. In the case of Bevmo, they list the scores of their Bevmo Beer Amabassadors rating system on the beers in the store. So the first guideline was that a beer needs to score at least 90 points to qualify. If I run out of Bevmo’s top rated beers then I can move on to Beer Advocate and draw from their top beers list. My second qualification will merely consist of either a novelty factor which could include either a fruit infused beer, fancy label, or other strange criteria that perhaps will trigger the purchase.
Now that I have my beers in hand it’s time to unveil the first entrant. I will try to keep a fairly simple and fun system for these that will resemble the stats on a sports card. Below is the results of the first one.
Beer: Anderson Valley Poleeko Gold Pale Ale (22 ouncer) Bevmo Rating: 95 Points Brewery:Anderson Valley Brewing Company . Check out the website which appears to be stuck in the 90s, but I guess that’s pretty futuristic considering their theme is more Greatful Dead circa 70s. They do have some coolness though by having deployed solar powered system. Cool Brewery Bonus: 18 hole Disc Golf on the premises! Varietal: Pale Ale (get used to this varietal. It’s my favorite) Food Pairing:Orville Redenbacher’s Smart Pop Kettle Corn. The sweet yet salty taste created the perfect palette cleansing and trigger to pull another long sip from the bottle. Description: Right after savoring that first sip the taste left behind was as if I just took a big bite out of a celery stalk. This is a good thing as I like celery. It was a lighter Pale than I’m used to and I found it to be very smooth. My Score: 3.5 out of 5. I happen to like a bolder taste with my Pales, but that’s not to say this isn’t a good beer. If you’re looking for a lighter taste this is a good choice.
Below you will find Guides, FAQs, Tips, Demo, Cheats, Tweaks and more for Call of Duty 4 PC…I will continue to update this page as I find more information.
The Crysis PC Game Demo came out on Friday and since then I’ve been searching for quite a bit of info to get the most out of it and prep for the game’s full release in a few weeks. Finding this information can be tricky and for the most part it’s tucked away in forum posts and comments littered all over many different sites. A few years ago the same situation occurred and I created a page with info for Battlefield 2. Now I’ve decided to do the same for what appears to be the next game I will be immersing myself into.
Anyways, below you will find a Guide, FAQs, Tips, Demo, Cheats, Tweaks and more…I will continue to update this page as I find more information.
For a list of Torrents available click here for a list from Torrentz.com (I recommend using one of these)
Additional Demo Map
So you finished the demo and want more? Here’s a map someone created for the demo called Frozen Island. Single Player Demo Video Walk Thru
Voodoo Extreme has posted a Video showing complete gameplay for the demo. You can see it here
Display Your Frame Rate In-game
Enter console mode (hit the ~ on your keyboard)
Type in the following and hit return “r_displayinfo = 1″ (no quotes)
Hit the ~ again to exit console mode
You will now see your frame rate and other info on the upper right part of your screen
Removing the Intro Videos
Speed up the load time by removing all those videos at the beginning
Go to this folder from your install location “Crysis SP Demo\Game\Localized\Video”
Create a new folder to backup the videos (i.e. Backup)
Move all videos from the directory in step 1 to this newly created folder except for bg.sfd and intro.sfd
Next time your run Crysis it will go straight to the game menu
Run Benchmarks It’s easy to run both a GPU & CPU benchmark in Crysis as they have provided batch files to do this. Keep in mind that the benchmark is based on the current settings you have already setup in the game. You need to change the settings in game before your run the benchmark.
Go to this folder from your install location “Crysis SP Demo\Bin32″
You will see “Benchmark_GPU.bat” & “Benchmark_CPU.bat” in the directory
Open a command prompt (Click on “Start Menu” then click on “Run” then type in “cmd” and hit return
Navigate to directory in step 1
Run either file in step 2 to benchmark your system. Once benchmark is complete you can hit the “ESC” key to return to the command prompt and view the results
Benchmarking Tool
Voodoo Extreme User Madboris has released a great benchmarking tool available here
Run Crysis using Direct X 9 on Vista
If your run Crysis on Vista it will automatically launch using Direct X 10. Some people claim that you can get better frame rates running under Direct X 9. You will be doing this at the expense of some nicer eye candy available in Direct X 10 and you will not be allowed to access the “Very High” settings within the game.
Copy or Create a shortcut for Crysis.exe
Right Click on the shortcut and select “Properties”
At the end of the “Target” line add -dx9
The Target should now look something like this (”C:\Program Files\Crysis SP Demo\Bin32\Crysis.exe” -dx9)
Launch the game from this new shortcut and you should be all set
To verify you can enable the console command to display frame rate (described above) and it will tell you what version of Direct X you are running
Recommended Video Settings Based on Video Card Memory courtesy of user “MadBoris” on Voodoo Extreme
“Just to give people a heads up about video memory usage, especially for the 256MB and 320MB cards need to be aware.”
* 1280×1024 (All Medium)- 300MB
* 1280×1024 (All High - textures medium only)- 300MB
* 1280×1024 (High)- 380MB
* 1280×1024 4x AA (high) - 460MB
* 1680×1050 (All Medium) - 300MB
* 1680×1050 (High) - 390MB
* 1680×1050 4x AA (All High - textures medium only) - 530MB
* 1680×1050 4x AA (High) - 580MB
* 1920×1200 (All High - textures medium only) - 380MB
* 1920×1200 (High) - 490MB
* 1920×1200 4x AA (All High - textures medium only) - 570MB
* 1920×1200 4x AA (High) - 650MB
* 1920×1200 8x AA (High) - 710MB
“These should be fairly accurate. The higher you go over your local video memory limits, the more hitching and thrashing you will experience. So it’s good to first make sure you are using the right settings for your cards memory. You can crank textures down to conserve memory.”
Listing of All Console Commands Courtesy of user Koroush Ghazi at Tweakguides Forum
Complete list of commands available in a text file here.
Suit Shortcuts
There is a much easier / faster way to access all the suit functions from the keyboard
Make sure you have the “Suit Shortcuts” option enabled on the keyboard settings
You can then “double tap” the following keys to access the suit powers
Jump (spacebar) = Strength
Sprint (shift) = Speed
Move Backwards (s) = Armor
Crouch (ctrl) = Cloak
* Note: the keys are based on default keyboard settings
Mod to get ragdoll physics and decals on dead enemies
Here’s a post at inCrysis to do this
Enable ability to take in-game screenshots
Info is available on this page of the Tweakguide. Just make sure to read the docs with reference to “set con_restricted=0″ and using the console command “r_GetScreenshot”
Complete Tweaking Guide
Here’s a great tweaking guide over at Tweakguides.com
Cool Physics Demo Video This is a very fun to watch video with some great background musicSandbox Editor Hints & Tips These are courtesy of user Sharpy on the Tweakguides forumInstalling the editor
Firstly, you need to install the editor. This is found at: Program Files\Electronic Arts\Crytek\Crysis SP Demo\Sandbox2 Installer
Secondly you need to run the editor, this is not done from in the game. The editor runs as a window. You will find the editor in: Program Files\Electronic Arts\Crytek\Crysis SP Demo\Bin32\Editor.exe
Loading in a map
Firstly you need to load in the map, so go to file, open and go to islands (you should alread be in the levels folder, under game), one is called island.cry this is the demo level and theres also the MP map from the beta called shore.cry. An interesting point is you can add AI to the shore map and it provides a good idea of basic level editing. This will take a while to load, as its loading all of the map info, but if you havnt edited a map before this loading is hardly anything and is amazing considering the scale of what its loading.
Navigating the map
CryEditor gives you an amazing real time display of whats going on in your map, but imagine the world is in pause until you get in-game. To move around this map use WASD as you would any FPS. Other controls include holding right click and rotating with the mouse to move your view. Scrolling the mouse wheel will zoom in and out. Holding the mouse wheel down and moving the mouse up/down will change your elevation.
Getting in-game
The wonderful thing with cryeditor is the immediate drop-in. This is done with ctrl+g. Be careful you will literally drop in from your view, so if your miles high you will die. Get the view near the ground.
Adding Items On the right of the screen are your main tools. You should be on Objects, where you will see Entities. This are things you can add to a level. You can drag any of these items into the map, its best to do this near the ground at eye level, otherwise you can have items added below the map. If you cant find an item but know it is on the map then you can always duplicate that item. You can do this by clicking the item in the main window. Make sure you do not have anything on the right tools selected otherwise you cant select items. Then press ctrl+c to duplicate the item.
Moving items
At the top of the screen you should see a pointer selected. The tools next to this dictate move, scale, rotate etc. In order to move anything in the game select the move tool and put your mouse over an item. You should see several axis on which you can control. You can control multiple axis at a time by hovering over the square between two axis. Then simply left click and hold and drag.
I recently decided it was time to upgrade to a new computer so I thought I’d provide some details.
I’m quite the technology fanatic and that holds true with computers. I hadn’t had much of a reason to upgrade my (now several years old) Dell 8400 which has been doing a great job. And I’m almost embarrassed to say that the primary reason I wanted to upgrade was for PC gaming. Sure I also do video editing and encoding which is another reason to upgrade. In fact you can now encode video faster than real-time with the CPU I chose. But this is not as necessary a reason to upgrade as the latest gaming requirements are.
The planets have lined up just right for the release of a slew of amazing games (links below) for the PC platform that haven’t been matched in recent history. One of the compelling aspects of these games is their video quality. This is largely due to the new graphics technology built into Windows Vista in the form of Direct X 10.
My last 2 computers have been Dell’s but because I decided to go with some bleeding edge tech this time, and Dell hadn’t yet built systems around what I wanted. So it was back to building a machine on my own this time around. In Doing so, it was time to choose from a menu of components to provide the exact recipe for my needs. Here’s the highlights of the system I ended up with:
CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 3.0GHz (Best price/performance choice right now) Motherboard - Intel DP35DPM (1333 FSB) Case - Antec Sonata III (Amazingly quiet!) Hard Drive(s) - 2 Western Digital WD5000ABYS 500Gb in RAID 1 Configuration + Another WD5000AAKS 500Gb for additional storage & backup Video Card - eVGA Nvidia 8800 GTS 320Mb (mid-range DX10 card)
Memory - 4Gb of PC-6400 800MHz RAM OS - Windows Vista Business 32bit (almost went 64bit)
I’ve had the system for about a month now and it’s awesome. I’m amazed by how quiet the system is. Everything is also soooo much faster. Of course I’m not using any of the fancy Vista stuff. In fact one of the first things I did was revert to the Windows Classic Theme and use a Classic Start Menu. I’m not a fan of all the fancy look and feel crap…I like it old school and simple.
I’ll post more details on some of the Vista setup quirks I came across and methods to get around them as well as my current software suite. But for now, here’s the amazing slew of games that prompted me to upgrade.
May 13, 2008 
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