the smell of rain

tonight i had a “free” night when bernadette went out with her friends for a little dinner and dancing. meanwhile, marco and i had a quiet night like old times with some video games, vodka tonics, and of course, some jack in the box tacos.

since there aren’t any good co-op shooter games out right now (why aren’t there more of these games?), we were forced to play an old game that we never finished. that’s not the important part, though. we were playing with the window open, and all of a sudden, i smelled one of my favorite smells. the smell of fresh rain.

i think it’s ozone or something, but it reminds me of growing up in washington. the first rain of the season, where everything gets cleaned up, reservoirs start to fill up again, and the air gets cleansed. marco claimed he couldn’t smell anything, but i don’t buy it.

does everyone know what i’m talking about here?

wii fit is cool… and mean

bernadette convinced (didn’t take much) me that we needed to get a wii fit. i did a quick search, and they’re pretty much sold out everywhere still. i ended up biting the bullet and paying a $40 premium on ebay to get it right quick.

so we’ve been playing lately, and it’s pretty fun, but it is also kinda mean. after you turn it on it says, “step on”, and as soon as you step on it says, “whoa”. maybe that’s just me. but it did wish bernadette a happy birthday, which was pretty nice.

but i’m off to vegas tomorrow and i’m sure it will say much meaner things when i get back.

i’ve had it with spore

okay, so i spent quite a bit of time on spore this weekend. i even got bernadette to play, since i thought the early levels were cool. however, after getting to the galaxy stage or whatever it’s called, the game pisses me off beyond belief. flying around with the mouse sucks. rotating the camera is hit or miss with the keyboard and sometimes requires trying to click on a control so small, and so right next to another control that flies you off the planet (literally), it’s extremely frustrating. i’m really not a fan of these missions where you have to fly around a planet, using a metal-detector-type beeping radar to tell you when you’re near something. the things you’re supposed to find are creatures or plants that seem to emit a yellow gas on the ground. however, often those animals are under large trees, and without good camera controls, you’re often left trying to see through gaps in the leaves, or worse. and, if the creature you’re trying to find is in the water, the yellow gas on the ground near him is also under water so you don’t see it at all!

maybe i’ve just been playing this game too much (really, only a few days). i think i’ve had it now, though. the galaxy level is vast, which makes it interesting, but it gets redundant and the controls piss me off almost more than the uncontrollable camera and too-tight-for-two-players that is lego star wars. don’t get me started on that one…

playing spore

so i’m now playing spore. i never really got into the sims, only playing it a few times, but i played a lot of simcity in its day. and simtower. and simant, though simant was pretty lame.

anyway, i picked up spore today, after making a half-hearted effort to get it at best buy as i drove past it yesterday. sidenote: best buy really sucks. their store organization is horrible, it’s hard to find anything, and no one is helpful. so, like i said, i picked up spore today and have been playing it for the past few hours. as with all games that have known sets of levels, i tend to play it a bit slow because i want the game to last. i made it through the cell stage pretty quickly, only dying a few times. the creature stage was certainly harder, with what i was supposed to do less clear, and enemies a lot harder. as for my creatures, i clearly became a carnivore and a pretty aggressive one at that. do people actually decide to be herbivores? and make friends with others? seems like a hunting pack is a lot more fun.

so i’m at the point now where i can evolve to the tribe state, but i first had to walk around and kill most of the other creatures on the map, mostly because i can. the game is pretty cool, though the initial experience would have been a lot awesomer if the game detected my widescreen an appropriately set the resolution. once i did that, it looked great! third-person camera control is always a bit frustrating, but the game seems to handle things pretty well.

okay, off to get some food now. on to the tribal stage another day.

anyone else playing?