Big Boy Bed

Well, in a break from posts on electronics, here is some Liam news.

Last night we made the switch to big boy bed. The walls of the crib came tumbling down and Liam entered the world of the big boys.

We were a little nervous about doing this for a long time, since he hates going to bed so much. Giving him the freedom to get up, turn on the lights and start playing seemed like it could add some difficulty.

At first, he was very excited to see this bed. You can see he jumped right on and started to party. He is playing with a fan that is actually an advertisement for some restaurant that we got while visiting Japan. Mike Placonouris, if you are reading this you can see we kept all the crap from our visit, even the junk mail.
Claudia next made the bed, finally using the duvet cover and pillow case that came with the set we bought so long ago. You will notice that the bear head on his pillow and blanket match the bear heads I painted on the wall. So very orderly.
I thought he was looking pretty nice here, enjoying the new world.
Getting him to go to sleep in the new bed was not so easy, he just wanted to get up and wander around. Claudia had to first lie down with him and read some books, then I had to take over and just lie next to him on the floor for a while so he would be comfortable. Eventually, he fell asleep though.He fell out of bed once around midnight, but I just quickly plonked him back in and he was asleep in seconds. He woke up again in the middle of the night, requiring a mummy visit, and then instead of his usual morning call to us, he just got up himself, played for a while and then strolled over and climbed into our bed with a book, announcing it was time for reading.

Birthday Purchase

OK, so I could not come to a decision on the Xbox-PC debate yet. I have decided to wait until after my Canada visit in May, so I can spend a few moments playing Xbox with friends to give that system a "fun test" I am in no urgent rush to get something, so I would rather wait and make the right choice.

I did want to get something fun in time for my birthday last Friday though, so I stopped by the HP factory store and bought.... a huge monitor. Here is my new glorious 22 inch widescreen beast.

This has the upside that it will work fine with either an xbox or a new PC should I decide to go that route later...of course, with every new device comes a box. As anyone with a small child will likely know, a box is like the holy grail to a 2 year old...

Xbox vx PC - Day 3

This one is directed at the comments from Jay on the last post:

I have really not made up my mind. I was vigorously defending the PC, but there are quite some upsides to the Xbox as well.

The Xbox as a digital media hub is very appealing to me. The fact that the box is MUCH cheaper than a PC is also a big plus. The hardware failure rate does seem to be better this generation, but the issues on noise and heat still seem to be there.

Rock Band would be a plus if I had people to play it with. I so dearly want to play that one... If the band world tour was playable over Live... wow. It is also not released yet in EU, so I would need to buy it in Canada/US and cart it over here.

I also understand that Shadowrun is the only game currently cross platform. I will dig out the quote. I hear this all the time on the podcasts of PC gamer, where developers are interviewed regularly. Let me seek it out, Mr Rymal...

I know the community is also over here, but for me the appeal of the online play is to have another connection to my buddies back over there (tear tear.) I miss you guys and I saw the xbox as a way to get back together with you all.

There is still the 59-Euro per game quandry. That is steeeep. PC games are between 39-49 here depending on the title but drop in price VERY fast. here are a few AAA titles in this weeks Media Markt Flyer:

Crysis - 29 euro
COD4 - 39 Euro
The Witcher - 12 Euro

I am really in no big rush to spend my money, so I may wait until I head to Canada in May (10-22) and impose on an Xbox friend to two to play with me and let me try their world firsthand. I am sure that stores will still be in stock of everything when I get back.

The Debate Rages on... Xbox or PC

Time to respond to some comments I am hearing...I disagree totally that consoles are superior for gaming.

FPS games on a PC are far superior, the keyboard+mouse is much better control than a gamepad can ever be. Developers on games like Shadowrun and Halo have freely admitted that the reason there is no cross platform play with PC/console is that the PC would dominate.

Next, PCs have RTS games that don't really exist on the console, things like Starcraft 2, Sins of the Solar Empire, C&C, and the soon to come Spore...

Hardware upgrade is a drag, but only if you really want to stay cutting edge. You can still run newer games on older hardware, but just not at the most pimped out settings. Consoles are frozen in time, PCs can evolve...

Tech wise, I think a PC is superior in every way, it just does indeed cost more.

Xbox has a big downside to me as well that new releases cost 59 Euro each here, that is 100$ Canadian PER GAME! I would be only bargain bin shopping as far as that goes.

PC is also multi purpose, I can do all my photoshopping, video stuff, and music stuff.

I am not saying the Xbox is bad, just that I think a PC may more suit my needs right now. The main appeal of an Xbox to me is the community of online play, which would be limited by my location, and the possibility to use it as a media hub. But then I would probably need to add some PC hardware to my network to make sure the hub media is all there and streaming to the Xbox anyway.

Then there is the matter of the Xbox hardware. All accounts are that it is still not very good. 30-40% hardware failure rate, even if covered by warranty is not cool. The 6-pound power brick that heats a small building, the airplane-prop sounding drive... not indicators of optimal hardware.

At the moment, I am leaning towards a mid-level PC, something with socket 775 on the processor so I still have a future upgrade path if I want, but affordable in my small budget now. I would ultimately like to add an Xbox to the mix one day, but I still think that Microsoft will be improving the hardware as time goes by. 45nm processors, a reduced size integrated power supply, and improved cooling would all be on my wish list there.

One other factor about the Xbox experience is that I do NOT have a giant flat screen TV, nor will I be getting one in the next long while. I also don't have any sort of sound system in the living room.

We live with a nice 32 inch CRT TV and use the built in speakers. It is big enough for our needs and we don't have the 1200 Euro or so that a comparable LCD would cost.

Keep in mind, my current PC is a Pentium III.

Purchasing dilemma

So I recently got a little bonus at work(which I will describe later), and I think I would like to buy an electronic device with it.

I am torn at the moment between an Xbox360 and a new computer. Both have advantages and disadvantages...

Xbox360:
Advantages:
-Can play games with friends online all over the world
-Digital media centre to stream photos and videos to television

Disadvantages:
-Time zone difference means I will not see most friends online that often
-Games are very expensive at launch and take a long time to be cheaper
-I think Claudia does not like it

New Computer on special offer at work:Computer specs:
Processor: Core 2 Duo E4500 2.2 GHz
Memory: 3GB DDR2
Graphics: GeForce 8500GT
Storage: 500GB SATA drive

Advantages:
-More applications than games
-tax deductible
-I have lots of games already and they are much cheaper

Disadvantages:
-slightly higher initial cost than games console
-I already have a computer working for day to day use
-computers age more than consoles

So I reach out to my many many readers (ha ha) to ask what you think I should do. Please post in comments.

Seville "fun" Event

Like all working trips, they have to entertain us at least a little. For our afternoon of entertainment, we went on a "historical rally" in the centre of Seville. The idea was we split into teams and then had to follow clues and play little games and things to win coins. The winning team got a prize at dinner on the last day.

I was lucky enough to be a team captain. We were Team #16, the Purple team.

First a woman in costume at a podium gave us direction in "hilarious" fashion.
We were told to follow our clues blah blah blah like I just said, and also to watch out for the pirate villains, who would try to steal our coins. They are also dressed in "hilarious" costume.
Then we all went off in a sea of straw hats to perform our tasks.
Some of the highlights of the rally were:

A station run by a smiling woman in costume who taught the women in our group how to be "Spanish Ladies" You can see my colleague Nataliya doing her best.
Another one had a "blind man" who we had to help by identifying things blindfolded. Here you can see Leobert playing. (Claudia's favorite colleague of mine)
Another station was of course based on the Barber of Seville. At this one we can see Christian giving Susanne a shave.
Then we had to learn about Spanish fans, I am not sure why wigs were involved, but the ladies seemed to like it.
Another famous Seville location is the tobacco factory where the opera Carmen is set. So there was a station which had people racing to roll cigarettes. Not exactly politically correct these days.
I think that is enough fun for one day. Oh, my team did not win. bummer.

Seville in the evening.

As usual, most of my free time on the business trip came in the evening hours. Lucky for me, I prefer night photos of things. Particularly when they light up the buildings in an interesting way.

I think part of my preference comes from the fact that I often seem to travel with poor weather, and the colour of the sky does not matter as much at night...

First, here are some photos of the Cathedral at night. I think it looks pretty neat.
One more of the Giraldo, just as the sun was going down and I was in a little courtyard.
Here is a building in the pedestrian shopping area that I really liked the look of.
I don't actually remember what this is, but I think it was some sort of municipal offices.
A deserted, somewhat less beautiful street near our hotel.
And the fancy bridge, which was essentially right outside the hotel.

Dinner

I just had dinner with five French teachers.
What do you think about that?

Oh, and my German skills were pressed to their limit, as one French teacher made me explain to her what happened in the second season of Heroes. That was not easy.

Seville in the daytime

So, here is my first post about the city of Seville itself. We did not really get all that much time to look around. This is typical of most work trips, you go someplace nice, then sit in a conference room with no windows for 5 days.

We did have one afternoon with outdoor activities, and here are some of the things I saw around the city. Seville was very nice, rather quiet though, and I never really saw many big crowds of people out and about, despite the weather being really really good.

Here is a little park with some orange trees inside. There were orange trees fairly much everywhere and fresh orange juice with every meal. That was a very nice thing to have.Next up are a couple of images of the famous catherdral. The big tower in the middle is called the Giraldo, which is taken from the Arabic word for weather vane. This tower was built during the Moorish period, but the rest of the church was not.
Here is a view of part of the old castle wall. It was pretty nice looking too. Castles are always a pleasure to look at.
This is a big statue in front of the one rain cloud in Spain. It was a statue to Queen Isabella, who did a bunch of stuff, including patron to Christopher Columb
Our hotel was right on the river, in between two major bridges. There is also a rowing training centre right there, so every day, there was an abundance of boats rowing up and down the river right in front of us. I had a quick peek at them during lunch hour one day.
All in all, Seville by day was pretty nice, as you can see we had really great weather, around 20-24 degrees every day and almost entirely sunny. Too bad I was ill and working, or it would have been even more enjoyable.

The Story of Seville Begins

Well, I am back in the office now and I can start the exciting tales of my business trip in Spain.

It was one week of nice warm sunny weather, and I thought it was quite OK, despite suffering from a lingering chest cold. First up I will show the hotel I stayed in. It was a nice business hotel, very large, clean, modern. The sort of place that is good for 300 business people at once, but you would never choose it for a personal holiday. A bit to sterile and out of the centre for that.

Service was good though and the room was comfortable.