Playstation 3. Everybody wants one so they can sell them on eBay and make lots of money. Well, the tide is turning. While a good many are going for around $3,000, here's a PS3 that hasn't even cleared the $200 mark yet (as of this blog post):

PS3 on eBay  ¶ 12:37 AM

  It's cold again.

Steve Ballmer says I owe him money because I use Linux. Ballmer says Linux uses Microsoft's "intellectual property". Yet, he hasn't said what code or given an example. If you don't remember, Steve Ballmer is the same guy who comes out at conferences screaming like he's trying to call a pig and jumping around like he's on fire. I don't know if he's a nut or a hyperactive, over-zealous hype-man. Never the less, if he thinks we Linus users own him money, prove it or hush.

To be honest, Ballmer's comments do strike me as desperation from M$. I am not a M$ fan. Let me say that up front. I am sick of having to use M$ for a hand full of applications. So what I'm about to say may come off slanted, but I really do think that M$'s days of top software-dog is almost over. Why? Well, they have an OS and an Office program. Who needs to upgrade Office? If you know of one company or person who needs to upgrade, please email me. Who needs to upgrade their OS? Every single Windows user. Why? Security. But I don't think most will. Vista is a strange, costly beast. It requires a top of the line computer. Sure, you can get it working on many different kinds of computers, but to get the full, pretty Vista going, you need special hard drives, lots of ram, and new video cards. If I'm going to spend that kind of money, I'd get a Mac. I think most people will. Plus, Vista is heavy with DMR and all kinds of tricky moving to another computer policies and all that icky stuff that makes it harder for regular computer users to use. So from a software point of view, what does M$ really have going for them in the future?

While I'm talking about M$, let's talk about the Zune. The Zune: It comes in brown for a reason. Why is that thing so big and has less battery life than an iPod? It doesn't work with iTunes. While I am not a fan of iTunes, if you are going to make a portable MP3 player that can buy songs, you need to have it work with iTunes. And if you are going to buy music for the Zune, you can't just pay a $1 and get a song. You have to buy points. A MP3 costs like 77 points and 77 points cost 99 cents. So you'll always own M$ money unless you buy like 450 MP3s (I heard that on an episode of TWiT). M$ really did miss a once in a life time opportunity. All they had to do was make something that could work with iTunes. That was it. Then everybody would have benefited with a legitimate alternative to an iPod. Given the choice, I'd probably go with an iPod, but I'd love to be given a choice.

When it comes to M$'s recent decisions, greed seems to be the biggest factor, survival a close second, and smarts no where on the table.  ¶ 5:55 PM

  Fans of Vagrant Story rejoice; Vagrant Story II is good. I've been playing it since it came out on Halloween. I was able to get it the day it came out. While I'm not that far into the game, I've seen enough to know if it's good or not. Of course, some of you may be confused because the game isn't exactly called Vagrant Story II. It's called Final Fantasy XII.

Back in 2000, Vagrant Story came out for the Playstation One. It was a sleeper hit. It was produced and directed by Yasumi Matsuno. Matsuno directed Final Fantasy XII. Though he did leave the project in 2005 due to health concerns, his fingerprints are all over Final Fantasy XII. The look of the game, so far, has the familiar look of Lea Monde, the town of Vagrant Story. Even the main character Vaan looks like Ashley Riot of Vagrant Story. FFXII also seems to "reuse" some of the very same sounds that were used in Vagrant Story. Even the battle system in FFXII seems like a modified and tweaked out version of the one used in VG.

Of course, FFXII is not a copy of VG or really a sequel in the sense of story. Though, at times, I can't help but to think while playing FFXII that this is what VG would be like if it was a PS2 game instead of a PS1. There is another half to the game; the Final Fantasy half. That means larger than life cinematics, a long and complex story line, and... well, quirkiness. I haven't played the game long enough to get to get to the part of summoning Espers. Espers are FFXII version of FFX's Aeons which are just big monster thingies that help you out. I believe the term Espers was used before in previous Final Fantasy games.

Along with playing Final Fantasy XII, I have been finishing up the game Okami. Okami may be one of the best games ever made. Okami is a cell-shaded game that looks more like a painting. In fact, the screen has the texture of a canvas on it at all times. And everything looks painted on it. There's even a brush feature that allows you to write "magic" and interact with the world and enemies.

The story of Okami is based on Japanese mythology. You play Amaterasu the mother wolf, and she's out to rid the land of curses and eventually fight the big bad boss Orochi. I don't want to give too much of the story away. But I will tell you it took a while to get to Orochi and defeat her. And when it was over, I felt satisfied that I had played a great game and had gotten my money's worth. Then my little companion in the game, Issun, said that this was just the beginning. I thought that was a nice send off, perhaps a nice riding off into the sunset moment looking for more adventure that'll be found in a sequel. I could not be more wrong. After Orochi, there's so much more, even more towns, even more bosses, even more brush "magic" to learn. It's like the makers finished the first part and decided to make a sequel and then mushed the two together. I have already played twice as long in the second than the first. I am at the ending, though I have no idea how long the ending will take. Okami has been lengthy and satisfying game that's been like swimming through art and one of the best games ever made in terms of story and gameplay. And I'm not just saying that because Okami looks like my site either.  ¶ 5:09 PM

  "I'm cold" - Julia Cotton

It was below freezing last night. And the power went out. For the first twenty to thirty minutes, but after that, you could feel a chill in the air. After an hour, I was in socks, a long sleeve shirt, and bundled up in bed. I read by flashlight for a few hours waiting on the power to come back on. It did in the morning. I've come to realize how important computers are in my life. No, not the Net, email, and video games, but the warmth they, the computer hardware, provide. Chips get hot. Cases get hot. That hot air is blown out the back of the case, and over time, does add a lot of heat to the room. And when it's gone, I really miss it, especially when it's below freezing.  ¶ 1:10 PM