blueZhift Blog

Here’s what looks like a cool tool from MIT to get your feet wet in 3D modeling and simulation without a lot of pain. And it’s free! From the StarLogo site:

StarLogo TNG is The Next Generation of StarLogo modeling and simulation software. While this version holds true to the premise of StarLogo as a tool […]

After an earlier story on Next Generation, that the big games expo E3 was being cancelled for next year, ars technica is reporting that the show is not being cancelled but downsized. Much of the reason for this was described as the show being too expensive for companies and not really being a place to […]

I’ve been having a pretty good gaming weekend. A few days ago I got some much needed help from a higher level player to get the magicked skull I needed in order to complete the subjob quest. I had obtained the other items such as the damsel fly worm and the crab apron on my […]

I thought that connecting my Xbox 360 to my PC monitor to take advantage of HD graphics without plunking down a metric ton of money for HDTV was brilliant and frugal (as frugal as one gets with these kinds of toys at least). So in the interest of further brilliance, I thought, how cool […]

As World of Warcraft has grown to over 7 million players worldwide, I’ve noticed something about the game that I don’t ever recall seeing in any other game. The price of the game from Amazon.com goes up and down. Usually when a game comes out, it will start at one of the canonical prices, say […]

Next week I’m heading to Baltimore for Otakon for the 2nd year in a row. There’ll be about 20K anime, manga, and all out East Asian pop culture fans in attendance. Most of these people will be much younger than I am. But that really doesn’t bother me at all. Why should I give up […]

OMG, what’s happened to New Zealand? Has it been taken over by prudish grandmothers? An ad for the Nissan Tiida featuring sexy banter from Sex and the City star, Kim Cattrall has been banned in New Zealand. Personally, I think the ad is a bit tame, but heck this gives me an excuse to see […]

Yesterday, after what was apparently a long illness, my PC died… It was very inconvenient since I had work to do, but once again it was instructive and perhaps ultimately useful. For one thing it taught me that Windows is not very fault tolerant. Even in a crippled state, I could still boot Ubuntu, which […]

Microsoft has confirmed that they are launching a music player under the Zune brand that will compete with Apple’s iPod. Already a lot of the hubbub on the internet is the usual anti-Microsoft rhetoric. But I don’t think people should be so quick to write of Microsoft’s chances of success so soon.
I would guess that […]

While one would hardly say that cosplay in Japan is mainstream, one could say that seeing cosplayers in various public venues is not unusual. In Chicago, seeing cosplayers in public is definitely unusual, even more so when the temperatures approach 100 degrees F as they did this past Sunday. Nevertheless, a hardy group of fun-loving […]

Saturday night I went to see Puffy AmiYumi play at the Park West theatre and was not disappointed. While I enjoyed last year’s show at the Vic, the change of venue definitely helped this year. The smaller Park West was a lot more comfortable and intimate than the ancient Vic. And we were lucky enough […]

As noted in a previous rant, I’d become totally frustrated with getting Final Fantasy XI to run stably on my PC. So I went out to Virgin yesterday and bought an Xbox 360, a copy of Final Fantasy XI for Xbox 360, and the VGA HD cable so that I could connect it to my […]

Last weekend I watched the World Cup finals live and when that ended I watched the NASCAR race at the Chicagoland Speedway. It was a great weekend of sports and a World Cup final that won’t be soon forgotten due to the now infamous Zidane head butt. As many suspected, it was a reaction to […]

Initially I had not planned on going to the Puffy AmiYumi show in Chicago on Saturday. It had been scheduled to play the Vic Theatre like last year, but honestly, the Vic is a very old building which just gave me this creepy “in someone’s armpit” sort of feeling. The show last year was great, […]

That’s it! I’ve had it with this f*ckn PC for gaming! Now admitedly, I do a lot of other crap on my PC, some of it work related as in software development, so I’m not really surprised. But still my frustration with the constant Final Fantasy XI crashes I’ve been suffering the last few days […]