I am home. Well, not that I have been anywhere. A lot of times I post an entry that discusses the fact that I have recently returned home. But tonight, I have been here the whole time. What I mean is that I am home, back at GearWERKZ OnLine as my primary writing venue.

For about a month I was splitting my writing time between here, my personal webspace, and MySpace. It was an experiment. An attempt to see what all the hubbub was about with regards to Web 2.0 and social networking and all of the other catch phrases that have been given rise in the past 3-some years. It was fun. Well, it was ok. At the end of the day, it was not very fulfilling. At a minimum it felt outside my comfort zone, which is maybe a good thing. At its worst, it felt vapid. I felt like I was just posting comments on other people's pages for the sake of posting comments, not because I had anything of any particular value to add. More incriminating is that all of the mechanisms are there to attract the attention of others. {...and add to that a ton of the so-called Applications are broken and function with a low degree of reliability...}It is sort of like a big "Look at me, I'm worth noticing" kind of software app. I think MySpace is well and good for people who already have a group of friends in their off-line life who agree to maintain pages. And in the generation of the younger, maybe it is a way to maintain contact with geographically dislocated family and friends. But at my age, not everyone in my circle is computer savvy and imbued in living in the web as a portion of his or her life management space. At the end of the day, the people who really know me, know about this webspace, and know to come here periodically to check things out. That being said, I am going to bring back a page that a lot of people have complained about me removing some number of years ago, the GearWERKZ Photo Page. Crap. Another website task I have to take on.

As I return to the 'WERKZ, I am also getting back to my core activities, my continuing investigation and participation of technology, and, yes....gaming. And all is not well.

As I prepare for the reality of potentially beginning a doctorate program next year, I am taking serious stock of things I have spent money on that are not providing a huge return on investment. Not due to the quality of the product(s), but because I either am not finding time to use it all, or because I just do not enjoy using them enough to use them frequently enough. In truth, the main reason I left MySpace was because it was taking up so much time to constantly check my account for messages, bulletins, newly posted comments and the like. I was making very little progress in putting other items to use or participating in the things in my evening, morning, and weekend routines outside of work that I truly find enjoyment in.

Chief amongst the low ROI devices in my place right now is my Nintendo Wii. A part of me is disappointed that the only tech device that I have actually camped out for is the one console that is receiving the least amount of attention. There are, of course, a few reasons why. One, no games. I thought that Nintendo and 3rd party developers would at least provide a handful of decent, mature, and (I hate to use the term, but) more hardcore, or perhaps I should say, more mainstream game titles on the system. To date, they are not forthcoming. And when they are presented, they are typically cross-platform titles that I, of course, would prefer to play on another console if available. While the mechanics of games like Madden NFL on the Wii are more immersive, I prefer the higher res, high-definition graphics and the reliability of a trusty game-pad on the 360 or PS3 to the questionable reception capabilities of the WiiMote. Ever play Madden and sworn that you juked right before your running back was subjected to a monster tackle and wonder what the heck happened? Add the full-body movements required of the Wii control scheme and you begin to go bonkers wondering if any of your commands are making it to the console. And while the movements are typically intuitive when first picking up the controller, once you play a title, leave it alone for some time, and then come back to it, it is not as easy to regain the muscle memory of before without some re-learning time.

Madden tends to control pretty much the same on any console or PC that uses a gamepad control scheme. Shooter controls, with slight differences in button assignments, are pretty much intuitive even when you have not played the game for some time. Every time I sit down to play the Wii, there is a certain amount of time invested in re-learning the control scheme that I do not feel prevalent with other gaming platforms. To say nothing of the learning curve when trying to pick back up a legacy GameQube title that I am playing on the Wii, given that the 'Qube controller defies every gaming control convention ever known to man. The Wii is a good console, and provides good entertainment. It is turning out to not be a very good tertiary gaming platform for single-player experiences. When it comes up in the rotation, I find myself more interested in skipping it for the Xbox 360, PS3, PC, or PSP.

Another platform not getting a lot of love is the PS3. Solid platform, solid graphics, solid everything...except the way in which the manufacturing company and its 3rd party devs manage updates. I spoke recently about the umbrage I took at having to update to PS3 firmware version 2.42 only weeks after updating to version 2.40. Tonight, I was looking very forward to finally getting to play Battlefield: Bad Company, whose attributes have been acclaimed by friends of mine, both online and off. I was quite happy to see that I did not have yet another PS3 update to perform tonight. That joy was quickly crushed by the need to get an update for the game itself, that was significantly more invasive than the Xbox method of game updates. I was booted back to the home screen, told to pull down the update, saw a progress meter, then saw a prompt to install the update. While all of this was going on, I had booted my NintendoDS for some MechAssault: Phantom War and was too immersed in that to be bothered getting back to Bad Company when it was finally done with its ridiculous gyrations.

I the like vein, I have also not been spending a lot of time gaming on the PC. But that one I do not fear. As much as I have to bear the promulgation of the impending doom of PC gaming each year, I never worry about not spending a lot of time on that platform. I always know that I will eventually get back to it. The Wii is potentially moving itself to the auction block. The PS3 is on the verge of being committed to simply being a Blu-Ray player. If I get a true HD TV in the living room before Sony gets some decent titles on the market in order to make up for the abhorrent update system, the PS3 will get kicked out of the living room and be relegated to single-player only games. As I contemplate what is in the computer room that will eventually age, be retired, and will not be replaced, one group of platforms that I am not worried about is my Macs. I'm typing this post on the MacBook and am just as happy with it and the MacBook Pro as ever.

So for those who have joined the small but august readership in the recent past, and have been concerned by the low frequency of posts, I hope that there will be more content here for you to take, absorb, and use or ignore as you see fit. I'm back. Take care, and I'll see you online.
- Vr/Z.

"Good afternoon, Mr. President. Sorry I've been away so long. I won't let you down again."