Disney Dreamers trip - 2009

The Disney Dreamers outside of Universal Studios

..or how we survived a trip of 5 theme parks in 5 days and came out with our sanity.

I just got back from California yesterday. It was a fun but whirlwind week. To give a bit of a background, the Disney Dreamers is the brainchild of my boss and another owner of C&R Inc. You see, once a year Silverwood opens up the park to adults and children with disabilities called, "Night of Stars." Well, this got my boss to thinking. Why couldn't we take a bunch of the people we work with to some place better than Silverwood? Why not Disneyland?

By the end of May, my boss approached the rest of us and told us that she thought we could pull it off. June, July, August, and September are all spent fund-raising with yard sales, benefit concerts, raffles, and so on. October hits, and many of us realize that it is actually happening. We are going to Disneyland...only to find out that my boss got a package deal that included Universal Studios, Knott's Berry Farm, and Sea World. To cut down on the length of this entry, I'll just give highlights from here on.


Sunday: Woke up at 2:30, picked up PJ (friend of me and Misti, also a worker at C&R) and Toby. Arrived in John Wayne Airport and drove to the Fairfield Inn Marriott. Many of us took off to see Disneyland that night and ended up staying for the awesome Fireworks display/Disney Villain show.


Monday: Woke up around 7 a.m. and took Toby to breakfast at Millie's. Spent the day running around Disneyland park.


Tuesday: Woke up around 7 a.m. again and started our day off at Disneyland before heading over to California Adventures. Went back to Disneyland in the afternoon and then had dinner at Medieval Times. Lucky for us, our knight (the Red Knight) was the eventual champion.


Wednesday: Woke up at 6 a.m. to drive to Sea World in San Diego. Unfortunately, most of our drivers got lost on the way so we didn't get into the park until late. We hit rush hour traffic on the way back so it took a bit longer to get to the hotel. Went to Downtown Disney with Toby and PJ where we ate Mexican food at Torilla Jo's.



Thursday: Had another early morning as we had to drive to Universal Studios. Had a great time at the park (Highly recommend the Simpsons Ride as well as the Jurassic Park Ride). We tried to leave early so that we could get back in time for a basketball pre-season game (Lakers versus Nuggets), but we hit the bulk of rush hour traffic. 2 hours to go a distance of 45 miles (approximately). Got to the show about half time and watched the Lakers destroy the Nuggets in the second half.

Fast And Furious on the Hollywood Tram Ride

Me with Curious George: Pirate Monkey

Friday: Today we got to sleep in until about 7 a.m. since we were going to Knott's Berry Farm (just down the road from Medieval Times). By this time, we were pretty much theme parked out. Many of our participants were very tired/exhausted and just ready to get home.



Saturday: Woke up at 5 a.m. to get ready to head to the airport and fly back home. Home sweet home.

All-in-all, it was a wonderful week. I had a great time hanging with Toby who was just awesome everywhere we went.

Recommended Reading: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

....Or how Misti may have stumbled upon the best graphic novel I've seen in a while.

This will be a quick entry since I've got work tomorrow morning, but I thought I'd share a quick glimpse into one of the cutest, most creative interpretations of The Wizard of Oz I've ever seen.

While the story itself is simply a retelling of the already timeless tale, young author/artist Eric Shanower manages to stay very true to the original story. The pacing can be a bit slow at times as each character gives their unique backstory (something the classic movie doesn't have the time, nor inclination to get into). However, this bit of information helps the reader to identify more with each character and to contrast their desires (brain, heart, courage) to the absurdity of their actions, e.g. the lion claims to be a coward, yet willingly risks his life for his friends, or the tin man crying over the death of insects that get crushed accidently, despite lacking a heart.

And though the author has managed to condense the novels, the artwork is where this book really shines. Skottie Young has cultivated a loyal following in the comics industry for quite some time now, and managed to develop an artistic style that fits Oz perfectly. To quote Misti, "this book's artwork is a combination of Anime/Manga with a bit of Precious Moments thrown in."



All I can say is...Fantastic. While I've dabbled in Art and drawing off and on for years, this artwork is almost exactly the style that I was working towards. Detailed where it needs to be, yet simple enough to possess a child-like innocence. While I enjoyed the story, it was the artwork that keep me turning page after page. Every panel was done beautifully, framed perfectly, and not a line wasted.

I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone who loves comics, classics, cuteness, or any combination of the above. Misti and I snagged a copy this last weekend and I'm already looking forward to the next book. Enjoy!

Gaming in September - a study in diversification

.....or how life has been a bit busier of late.

I couldn't let the month go by without putting in at least one blog entry. Unfortunately, the game (or games) that I'm currently playing are not quickies.

As you may have seen in passing, I have a section of my blog sidebar called "Chip's List of Required Games for Greater Edification." This list includes games that my best friend feels that I should play for a myriad of reasons. Perhaps the game is ground-breaking in design or conception. Perhaps it is one of the greatest games of its time. Whatever the case may be, it is considered my "homework" and so I usually try to do a review on it after completion (Symphony of the Night being an exception...didn't have a blog at the time).


So my latest Chip-required game is Dragon Quest 8. Initial impressions are very favorable as it seems to be a perfect blend of old-school hardness and new school graphics. Plus, in the tradition of older RPGs it takes a long time to complete. I've put in about 10 plus hours (at this time) and I'm still chewing my way through the opening areas.

Now were I just to focus my efforts on Dragon Quest 8, I might be able to finish it and review it soon. However I've also started up a game of Final Fantasy Tactics. Thankfully, the latter is a game I've played a few times already (and one that Chip has ultimate mastery of), so I don't feel as much pressure to play through in a hurried fashion.


And as if playing through two lengthy, time-involved games wasn't enough, Chip has convinced me that we should try the Lord of the Rings: Online - Mines of Moria.


As you may have gleaned from my World of Warcraft post, online gaming is an experience that I'm always coming back to and feel very nostalgic about it. As it turns out, Chip was beginning to wax nostalgic himself about the "good ol' days". While he was very happy playing through his current game (Final Fantasy XI), he missed "rolling with his homey."

So we put our heads together to look for a game that would be new to both of us and preferably one that was decently priced. Star Wars - the Old Republic won't be released for some time, and all the "free" games (Aeria, Perfect World, Ragnarok - free servers) had the same problem - they all boiled down to a basic "rinse and repeat" formula as Chip puts it. Novelty lasts only so long in those games as a result, which makes sense because you get what you pay for (or don't, in this case).

Lord of the Rings Online has a free trial period (10 days), allowing you to explore the land and do some quests before deciding if you want to continue with it. While I plan to give it a more indepth review later, I have to say that initial impressions are very favorable.

Gaming aside, my personal/work life has also been quite busy of late. My company is helping a group of adults with disabilities (that we provide services to) save and raise money for a trip to Disneyland. So my weekends and occasionally weeknights have been spent volunteering to help raise money. We've put on a basketball tournament, had several yard sales through out the summer, set up a benefit concert with local country stars, and next week we'll be doing a spaghetti feed/dance to raise more funds. It's been a busy few months, but it'll be worth it to spend a week in California taking this group to the various theme parks (I think we're even renting a van and driving to Sea World). For many of the adults we help, this will be their first and maybe only chance to do something like this. If it's successful though, we may try this again next year or the year after that.

The trip will be October 18th through the 24th. Wish me luck!

Secret of Mana: A retro-game review

....or how cute monsters nearly killed me, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

So I just beat Secret of Mana a little bit ago. I mean literally minutes ago (Misti by my side). I had forgotten just how much fun this game was. Everything about it is just great. The colors are vibrant, the areas very well fleshed out, the storyline is straightforward and interesting, the characters are well defined, unique and wonderful music, etc.

When I first purchased this game as a young teen, I bought it because it was a Squaresoft game that looked fun. Little did I know just how wonderful it was going to be. From the very beginning you are just thrown into a world as a young boy trying to grow into a destiny thrust upon him by taking a sword found in the middle of nowhere. And after taking this sword you learn just how dangerous this world becomes as cutesy little rabbits (named rabites in this game) attack you without provocation.

From a technical standpoint, this game was unique all around. First of all, it had a new menu style, which I believe was never before seen in a role playing game. While most games had a series of menu where selecting one would bring up a new one in a list fashion, Secret of Mana boasted a series of rings where pushing up and down brought up a new "ring" of choices and left and right made selections. A very time effective way of doing things, which leads to the next point. Prior to this, most RPG's were turned based. This was a real time RPG where you had to run from enemies to power up your attacks. While the game did "pause" while you selected spells or items or exchanged weapons, all fighting occured without interruption. Finally, this game allowed Cooperative play, making it even more unique. That's right, a buddy could walk in, push start on his controller and control one of your characters. Furthermore, if you had the multi-tap, you could have up to three people playing at the same time.

Versus

For all the good in this game, it did have a few flaws. First, the computer controlled players may have difficulty with "tracking"or "pathfinding", that is, following a path close to what you as the main player decide. As a result, the computer may become stuck running against a wall or running along a different path to try to catch up with you, preventing any forward progress. That being said, this has always been a probelm in games when the computer controls a player character and one that plagues games even now, almost 13 years later.

Another aspect that may turn players off is how unforgiving the hit-detection may be. When you fight with enemies, your attack is compared with their defense (straight-forward, eh?). However the animation of your attack may not connect fully thus causing you to miss, or worse, the enemy may appear to miss, but send your character flying anyway. This can get even more frustrating when attacks are stacked upon you, causing you to continually fly back without being able to defend yourself or run away.

Overall a great game and one that players should pick up, even if it's the re-release on the Nintendo Wii. I guarantee at least 30 hours of pure fun if you just try to do the minimum to beat the game.

Now for the Nostalgia: One of my favorite early gaming memories involves this game. It was actually the first night that I, as a teen, stayed up all night playing a videogame. I had invited some friends over to hang out (it may have been close to my birthday, I'm not exactly sure). My high school best friend Cody and I decided to start a game around 6 or so at night. And we kept on playing. Around 4-ish in the a.m. I started to get a bit nervous about thinking it may be time to sleep, but the game just kept on holding our attention and pushing us forward. Finally I looked over and realized that the sun was coming up and I had just played videogames literally all night long. We decided to stop sometime around 8:00 a.m. to get some food, and to talk about how far we had gotten in the game (all the way to the Sunken Continent before the Mana Fortress is raised). The fun of co-op play was a novelty for most SNES games, so it was doubly fun just hanging with my best friend and playing one of the best RPG's of it's time (and I might argue one of the greatest of all time.

So if your looking for a game with fun graphics, a great story, and most importantly a chance to game with a buddy, look no further than Secret of Mana.