Digital Leon`s World

I hope this time Bungie decided to finish the game.

Tonight at midnight the conclusion to Microsoft’s best selling Halo property goes on sale. I’m actually pretty excited. This weekend I got a call from the local Gamestop saying that I could show up at 9:00 pm to pick up my copy at midnight. Um no thank you – I’ll just get mine in the morning.

The last Halo game had a really disappointing single player game. The story was extremely confusing and Bungie/Microsoft ran out of time and shipped the game before completing the last level. We just got a extremely lame cliff hanger. Now to be fair Halo 2 also came with a fantastic multiplayer option. It is the most played online game on a game console – although that’s probably going to start changing once people have Halo 3. I personally don’t care for the online multiplayer since
one: I don’t have infinite time to become a ninja master of Halo.
two: I hate the voice chat functionality.
Let me explain, voice chat unlike text chat leaves no records behind. In a game like world of warcraft – people remain civil because it’s easy to log text based chat. If you go on a racist, sexist, swear word laden rampage – there is damning evidence against you. Since it’s impossible to log voice chat it’s the wild wild west on Xbox live. And there’s nothing worse than a 10 year old cussing at you and telling you how you will never get a girlfriend. I’m sure my wife is happy that I won’t get a girl friend..but hey. So in general I will only play online games with people I know. The penny arcade people summed this up nicely:

Basically Take a normal person add the anonymity of the internet and an audience and they turn into a complete @#@# hole.

Jokes aside I’m pretty excited about playing this game through. I generally enjoy the Halo games quite a bit and according to the reviews this one seems to be have quite the value.

We’re finally into the second trimester. In a few weeks we’ll have an ultrasound to determine the sex of the little tike. I know a lot of people want the surprise of finding out on the day but I would rather find out now. This way we can settle on a name and various other preparations. We’re looking at 18 years of wonderful (and sometimes not so wonderful surprises)

Since I have about 6 months left I’ve been trying to get a lot done – focusing on the house. At the point I’m not building a nursery but I’m trying to shed as much excess junk as possible. A lot of it I’ve been able to sell on craigs list which is nice. But some things just go into the trash. A big project I put off forever was shredding old documents – I must have 10 years worth in various file boxes. It’s taken me 3 days to get through 1/2 of them.

Through this process one thing annoys me and that’s our trash service. Growing up in Cleveland the city workers would pick up whatever you left on the curb. However in our current location we have a private company that picks up the trash. And they refuse to pick up anything other than the regulation 30 gallon container that they provided. They will leave any excess trash right on the curb. If you have more trash you can either drive it to the dump that’s 20 miles away. Or you can find an alternative – like drive to the apartment complex next door at midnight and drop your trash off in their large dumpster. I would never do such a thing though……

From Babycenter.com:

At 4 1/2 inches long (head to bottom) and 3 1/2 ounces, your baby is about the size of an avocado. In the next three weeks, she’ll go through a tremendous growth spurt, though, doubling her weight and adding inches to her length. Her lower limbs are much more developed now. Her head is more erect than it has been, and her eyes have moved toward the front of her head. Your baby’s ears are close to their final position, too. Some of her more advanced body systems are working, including her circulatory system and urinary tract. Her heart is now pumping about 25 quarts of blood each day, circulating her total blood volume through her body many times. (By the end of your pregnancy, this will increase to about 190 quarts.) The patterning of her scalp has begun, though her hair isn’t recognizable yet. Although closed, her eyes are moving (slowly), and she’s even started growing toenails.

As I was working on my home computer I turned around to this site. Unfortunately she opened her eyes as I snapped the photo but you can really see.

It’s good to be a dog. (well as long as you’re not Michael Vicks’s dog)