Wednesday Blahs, Castlevania, Force Unleashed, Photography, and WINE MAKING!

You ever get that feeling that you are a part of a machine and you are just going through the ropes? It's Wednesday, and I'm just itching for the weekend, just to get out of the grind for even the shortest of moments. I don't have any big plans for the weekend save for helping my wife get through opening a new store (I'll just have supper ready, not actually going in there and helping) so it's not like I have anything to look forward to. Work is just fine, nothing bad going on at all, it's just I feel like I've done all this before.

Anyway, lets stop moaning. We all have to work, right? Let's talk about some fun stuff.

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I started shooting my Macro Photography contest for my camera club yesterday. I've jerry-rigged up a neat little setup, using 3 macro filters, a coupling ring, a prime lens and my 35-80 lens. I get some pretty extreme closeups with it. I'll post a couple of my shots in the next day or so. I was shooting all sorts of things, from rain drops on a window, dead bugs, even the ridges in my fingernail! I think I may have mentioned this before, but I have a real love of macro photography. It takes the standard world you have, and really stretches it out and gives you almost a whole NEW world of things to explore and shoot.

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My newest hobby, wine making, has finally yielded some real results. I bottled 30 bottles of Cranberry Chianti Saturday past. This isn't a hob nob snob wine, it's sweet, like candy. Typically with wine, even though I do enjoy a glass here and there, I'd find myself wrinkling my nose at the dryness of it. With this cranberry wine, for lack of a better term, it tastes like I'm drinking a very sweet Kool-Aid. For those of you out there who was hoping for a gentler, not needed to be an acquired taste wine, your answer is here. Anyone looking for a bottle, let me know.






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I actually (it's hard for me to say this) rr--r-r-rented a game last week. I was uncertain as to whether I actually wanted the game, but given my boredom with Fallout New Vegas, I had to try something new, if even just to kill a night where Steph was working. So, I ... ahem... r-r-rented Fable 3, the new fairy tale like game, sequel to what I term as one of the most over-hyped, short and stupid games ever created, Fable 2. Well, this game strangely kept my attention. The art of forcing difficult choices is not lost upon the developers of this game. Right off the bat, you are required to decide whether your girlfriend or a villager gets executed. Later in the game, another really difficult, what should I do type decision is thrown into your lap. It's an interesting way to play a game. It's not really "run out and buy right now" worthy, but once it hits the $20 bins, I'll likely pick it up again.

















Also this week, in the one of my biggest hypocritical moments of my life (that was a little over dramatic, but hey, I have readers to entertain), I picked up a copy of Castlevania: Lord of Shadows. To me, when I first looked at this game, it was nothing more than a romp in the woods for Kratos from God of War, and he calls himself Gabriel Belmont. It's a action title. It's just like God of War (a theme for a lot of games these days, sadly), but with a fresh coat of paint. Strangely enough, this game is not bad. I am enjoying it thus far. It really is just a basic actioner, with a really kick ass and amazingly heavy whip, but it's held my attention thus far, which is a big deal given how bored I can get with generic games. I've always played Castlevania games, I remember being 10 years old sitting down with my brother playing Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest (still one of the best, if not the best of the series). Given the history, and the great price I got it at, I grabbed it and added it to my collection. It's a long game, as many as 20 hours to get to the end. It's also absolutely GORGEOUS. I'll have more on it later.


I also grabbed a copy of Star Wars: Forced Unleashed II. Both this title and the previous Force Unleashed had very mixed reviews. It is also a bit of a generic 3D actioner, but I did enjoy the first one enough to get this one. The story from the first was absolutely amazing. This one, dealing with a clone of the first protagonist, Starkiller, is a little thinner but the game play is fun and the new skills are fun as well. Mindless fun. Can't beat it.

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That's all folks!

C