Archive for March, 2007

Command & Conquer 3 Released

Wednesday, March 28th, 2007

Yesterday was the day that C&C fans have been anticipating for a long time. The return of C&C…. not just by a new game, but the real return of a kick ass RTS. While playing the Command & Conquer 3 single player demo, I found that C&C3 brought back the “feel” of the Original Command & Conquer and even the first Red Alert game. — IMO, all the other C&C game (thanks to EA) just sucked. Ok, I liked Generals, but that was an exception. ;)

I received my Kane Limited Edition yesterday, but I’ve not been able to play the full game yet… heck, I didn’t even have time to install it yet. But I will, rest assured! Just as soon as the puppy doesn’t demand as much attention, and we get back from our vacation.

Hello Oskar! Welcome to the Family!

Monday, March 26th, 2007

There is a new McDaniel in town, and his name is Oskar. Yes, that’s with a “K” and not a “C” like the hotdogs.

Oskar, the new addition to our family, is a sweet black and tan, longhaired Daschund puppy. He was born on January 2, 2007 (yes, someone else has that same birthday), and we picked him up on Friday.

I actually stumbled upon him by accident on Wednesday. As it would happen, I was a bit early going to get my hair cut, so I decided to stop in the Pet Care Warehouse and see what they had. I must say, I wasn’t to impressed with the place…. it truly does live up to the name “warehouse” but that aside, they had the cutest little puppy sitting on one of the cages.

That evening I took Farrah by and showed her the puppy, and it was all over with.

Two Months

Monday, March 26th, 2007

Friday, March 23rd marked the two month point since Farrah and I spent the first night in our house. Wow! Time really does fly when your busy moving, cleaning, and fixing up a new house.

Battlestar Season 3 Comes To An End

Monday, March 26th, 2007

Well, it’s over… last night’s episode officially ended Season 3 of BSG. I’m hoping that Season 4, which was just upped from 13 episodes to 22 episodes, contains far less drama and a lot more SciFi/action. As I’ve stated previously, I’ve not been a big fan of the 2nd half of the 3rd season.

Now, I’m about to talk about last night’s episode… this will contain spoilers, so if you haven’t seen it yet, stop reading now. This is your only warning.

Alright, big surprise, Starbuck isn’t dead. Who would have thought. They sure had me fooled. NOT! Is Starbuck a Cylon? I’m still not convinced that that is the angle that they are going to take her… or any of the “four” that was revealed last night.

Sure… Starbuck, Cheif Tyrol, Colonel Tigh, Anders, and Tory (that her name???) could be “The Five” other Cylons. They sure played up that angle pretty good. It makes since for Tigh to be a Cylon, I have suspected that since the very beginning. But with the angle they played off in the finale last night, I don’t think it is the route they are going.

I think we may be seeing something new evolve here… something akin to the original series. I think these five, may not be human… but rather than being Cylons, I think they may end up being more akin to “The Beings of Light”. Ok, if not that, then some other race. Perhaps sent to live among the humans until needed. Remember, all of this has “happened before” according to the Cylons.

It’s possible that the “Beings of Light” are what we’ve seen in the dreams and at the “Eye”. White robes, masked, bright light…. yeah, they could very well been the 5 missing Cylons…. or they could have been something different, a trick pulled to throw us off in another direction.

Now, who were the women that picked up Baltar? I didn’t get a good look at them, but it didn’t look like it was any of the known Cylons and it didn’t look like anyone from “The Five”. Could they have been the otehr Cylons? Servants of “The Five”? Humans from Earth?

Whatever route they’ve decided to take the show… and what the story is with “the Five” we’ll have to wait until 2008 to find out. That sucks!

Battlestar Galactica Season 3.5 Worst Season Yet?

Monday, March 19th, 2007

Ask my wife, I’m a huge fan of the re-imaging of Battlestar Galactica. I loved the first two seasons… heck, I loved most of the first half of season 3, but this 2nd half of season 3 is getting pretty damn boring.

Yes, I know that BSG is as much a Drama as it is an Action or SciFi show, but it the 2nd half of season 3 it’s been more Drama than anything, and it has gotten old. I’m hoping the action picks back up during the last couple of episodes of this season.

Did the directors blow the BSG budget on special effects during episode four, Exodus: Part 2? Is that why we’ve been stuck with so much character drama it’s starting to make us sick?

I mean, what action have we seen? There was that whole, “death” of Starbuck. Yeah right, like anyone really believes she died. They played that whole “your destiny” card way to much to simply kill her off and be forgotten about. Oh no, they took her name off the opening credits…. she’s either still alive or a cylon, we all know that. My guess is Katee Sackhoff is out and someone else will be returning as the hot shot pilot. Ok… I’m rambling.

What else have we seen action wise? Well, there was last night’s episode…. Crossroads: Part 1. We had the suspenseful 2 seconds when we thought the raptor might be shot down by the cylons. Wait…. that wasn’t exactly action, was it?

Anything else? Not that I can remember… if there was something else, it’d been long forgotten by the tiresome drama we’ve been fed for weeks now.

Bring Battlestar Galactica back, please! I’m getting tired of the shit.

Frank Miller's 300 Kick All Kinds Of Ass

Monday, March 19th, 2007

Saturday night after I got off work, we decided to go see “300″. Believe the hype, this move is that damn good. And as expected, the visual effects were amazing.

Bloody, graphic, violent, sexy, and ass-kicking are just a few of the adjectives I could use to describe it.

Seriously, go see this movie. If you’ve already seen it, go see it again!

Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars

Monday, March 5th, 2007

EA released a single player demo for C&C3 last week. There isn’t a whole lot to it, but the demo is still worth grabbing. You get to play 3 GDI missions as well as 1 skirmish, again as GDI.

From my time playing it over the weekend, it appeared that EA has done a remarkable job bringing the C&C universe back. Matter of fact, this game felt almost like it was something that Westwood Studios created rather than EA.

It’s much faster than the crap they called C&C2 and RA2. It builds on C&C: Generals (which I really enjoyed), but is much more akin to the original Command & Conquer.

The big news here isn’t that Kane lives… heck, everyone expects that. And for a war that has gone on for ~50 years, the guy doesn’t look that much older. No, the big news is the arrival of the Scrin. A Zerg looking new factions that has come to Earth seeking the Tiberium. Though you don’t get to see them in action in the demo, there is a brief cinematic trailer that shows them…. should make things rather interesting. If nothing else, it opens up a new direction for EA to take the C&C game. Who wants to bet that C&C4 takes us from Earth and on a bug hunt?

Oh yeah… they picked some great people to star in C&C3. Josh Holloway (Sawyer, Lost), Jennifer Morrison (Dr. Cameron, House M.D.), Tricia Helfer (Six, Battlestar Galactica), and Grace Park (Boomer / Athena, Battlestar Galactica) all have roles in C&C3. And of course, we cannot forget Joseph Kucan who returns once again as Kane. <-- I wish this guy did more work. He's a pretty good bad guy.

Blue Man Group

Monday, March 5th, 2007

I knew going to a Blue Man Group was going to be entertaining, but the “How to be a Megastar 2.0″ show was even better than I had expected. It’s definitely something that everyone should go see at least once. I’m hoping now to be able to see the show in Las Vegas…. it is suppose to be even better than the ‘road show’.

Loud… bright… energetic…. entertaining… AMAZING. I don’t know how else to really describe it. It’s a show unlike anything you will ever see.