Yesterday, I got around to making another dock/widget for my desktop using Samurize. My previous attempts were… alright, but soon got boring or very annoying. I figure since all I really want is a “now playing” display with maybe track progress, I made one to do just that. In keeping with super minimalism I didn’t cloud it up too much with whizzing and whirring bits of fancy graphics. I’m pretty happy with the result (see bottom right of screeny).
As can be seen in the screen capture, I’ve also got Opera open (don’t worry, I still have the Fox around for my blogging and emailing purposes).** Kotaku had a story about new character screens for Soul Calibur IV‘s Sophitia and Voldo (and that other girl whose name I don’t know). Now, I’ve been a Soul Calibur fan since I got my first (and only) title in the franchise, the original Soul Calibur for the Sega Dreamcast, way back in day. I’m assuming that SCIV will be coming out for all the next- (or I guess, now-) gen consoles since the previous releases were ported to every single entrant from Sony, Nintendo, and yes, even Microsoft.
Yesterday I went to lunch with my family and Jason’s family (from HK)–they are long time family friends ever since my mom met his mom when they both took us as babies, born several days apart, to the local park–to Wasabi for Japanese food (read: sushi and such). While there, us guys (Jason, myself, and our fathers) began discussing possible options for home entertainment.
My dad figured that he wanted to get a new console (mainly considering either a Wii or a PS3) since Blu-Ray was pretty nifty, as is the Wii’s gameplay. I told him to get a PS3 because:
- The PS3 is beefy and can play all our media stuffs.
- The PS3 can run Linux.
- The graphics are delicious.
- Some really hot games (such as MGS 4) are soon to come out for the PS3.
- The PS3 has reflect, barrier, light screen, curl up and a bunch of other protection spells cast on it.
- I am a PlayStation fanboy, simply put.
The only problem was that we don’t have a particularly good or large or HD television set (we’ve got three, but all are of the traditional 4:3 and old school specs). There’s no point in getting a machine that can run circles around its predecessors (and competitors) in terms of graphics output if you can’t tell the difference because of crappy hardware. That, and the PS3 does not even have traditional RCA output (you know, the red, white, and yellow cable heads) if I remember correctly.
This got the four of us onto the subject of cutting costs around the home without really sacrificing any fun stuff. I suggested my idea of cutting the cable service, thus saving fifty dollars or so a month, and getting all our media needs (i.e. shows, the news, weather, etc…) from the Internets (since in Canada, almost anything goes on the webs). I also figured we could consider buying a HD-ready projector for the pure white walls of our condo instead of getting a big screen TV. This saves space (important for a condo with limited space) and gives a massive picture, perfect for gaming with 4-way splitting of the screen or movie watching.
Anyway, this has been me, talking incessantly about buying stuff and playing my role as consumer (or rather, son of consumer). I don’t really expect too much of our discussed plans to take flight but who knows. But damn, Soul Calibur IV is looking hot.