The Misadventures of a Mario Nut

It’s looming closer and closer! Mario Marathon 3 is just over 4 weeks away! FOUR WEEKS! I can’t beleive it myself.

Recently the Mario Marathon Team held a Super Mario Galaxy 2 Premiere Event which had over 150 viewers and some good donations made to the Childs Play cause. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to make it, however it was recorded on Ustream.TV for all to see afterward. I went ahead and watched it and was very amazed at the improvements over last years setup. Although I did have one or two little issues with the stream. For one, Couch Dog and Crying Baby. Couch Dog’s barks were just too much for the microphone. As was the Baby crying. (I forgot his name, sorry guys!) It clipped my speakers numerous times to the point where it had to go right down to the “Emergency Mute” button to avoid any damage to my equipment. I doubt there may be any way to fix that but I will do some tests on the weekend in the Theatre Room to ensure there is no damage to my equipment if it were to happen. I’ve yet to do a test on the theatre room display to see the quality and clarity of the stream, so I will do that tonight to test.

I was really happy when Orange Shirt Guy did a shoutout for me because I was unable to attend. He did a pretty good job at pronouncing my surname aswell. Not quite right, but a good try. Brian actually made a comment that I was aparently a chatroom admin aswell! That shocked me! I remember asking once but I never thought I was actually supposed to be one. But if you want me there, I’m more than happy to!

Unfortunately due to the fact that I happen to live in the Country that gets everything Video Game, Movie and Technology related last. The entire premiere event was a big spoiler for me. Unfortunately Super Mario Galaxy 2 is not released in Australia till July 1st. Which is extremely annoying. But what can ya do? It was still fun to start having that familiar atmosphere of a couple of guys, on the famous couch, playing Mario games.

Remember, only FOUR weeks to go! Let’s get our game on!

So I recently obtained a shiny new HTC Desire to play with. It is my first Android OS phone and I must say it is a really great unit! Coming from a Apple iPhone 3GS, I had pretty high expectations. Especially in the GUI department, which the Desire delivers in spades! It’s not as smooth as the iPhone but the practicality is there. In fact, I am writing this blog post on it right now.

Email and contact integration is nice, the Android marketplace is nice too. Stuff isn’t too expensive and there is a nice range of products.

I have used the phone flat out today and the battery is just about flat so I will end it here!

Overall I like this phone, go tu your Telstra Shop today and have a go… or it your not in Australia, go to your local store.

Man! It’s been so long since I last wrote a blog post.

I probably won’t say a whole lot as to be honest, not a whole lot has really happened. I’ve been working day in, day out. However in preperation for the Super Mario Marathon which is less than FIVE months away (or there abouts), i’ve been creating a special area in my house which will be the base of operations for watching the Marathon live for the entire duration. I am calling it, ‘The Warp Zone’.

Alot of money and dedication has gone into building this room up. From the hardware costs to the redundancy links for the internet connection in case of dropout. Hell I’ve even got UPS’ and a Generator if all else fails! Sure it may seem that I’m obsessed and probably taking it too far but I’m a die hard Mario fan and always will be! Plus I reckon the Marathon is one of the best things this side of the 21st century and that’s a fact!

I am hoping to have the first major items covered by my birthday. Which if anyone’s interested, is the 28th Feb. This weekend, the walls are being stripped back and repainted, along with the carpets being steam-cleaned. I am trying to see how much getting special wallpaper made up for the walls as I want to have the SMB1 W1-2 & 4-2 kind of look to it. The underground with the blocks etc. This way it will contrast relatively well with the screen that’s going up on one side of the room. A projector has been purchased and will sit at the back of the room projecting to the other wall. My estimates think that I may be able to cover about 80% of the wall itself, spanning over 4 metres wide. I did some tests and the quality even at that disatance is remarkable!

When it’s all done I will post pics for the Mario Marathon community and the world to see!

Also on the side I have been doing some media-like work with a friend of mine who has directed and produced many advertisements for television shows and products. I am in the process of trying to develop a promo video for Mario Marathon 3. We’ve got some rough drafts up at the moment but yes. It involves myself and driving in a closed enviroment… How that has anything to do with Mario? Well it doesn’t. But the part after does!

Wow it looks like I did write alot… Oh well, I hope people actually read this haha.

I’m off work for 10 days!

That is all…

———-

Okay so Christmas is here. Tomorrow is the big day for us here in Australia and New Zealand. This is just a small blog post that I am writing to just tell everyone to have a very Merry Christmas/Holdays/Insert Celebration-like Day Here and a safe and happy New Year. Stay safe on the roads over the Christmas period and don’t smash your car like I did.

Yeah… I was driving one of my usual mountain roads that I like to drive through quite spirited-like when one of the wheels had collapsed under the pressure of a bump in the road (bad build quality!). This had caused the car to swing left which made me end up in a field about…30 metres away. Lucky!

Anyway the car’s fixed and all is ok now, at the cost of about $2,000. There goes my Christmas bonus. Although I get to play with a new Projector that happened to arrive 7 days early! I’ll be playing with that tonight while I decide where to put all my new posters and what not I’ve also bought. (I bought about ten Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 posters.)

I’ll no doubt be around on Christmas Day and beyond.

Because I have 10 days off.

Good afternoon folks! (It was afternoon upon writing this.) I write to you from work where I am taking a late break as my scheduler decided it was a good idea to not notify me of my upcoming last break. That was 30 minutes ago…

Anywho! I don’t have a whole lot to really speak about as not a whole lot is happening in my life as of late. Christmas is coming which is always a good thing…well almost. I have got my parents presents and I totally do not expect anything in return, which is fine. That’s not what it’s about.

My plans for a US trip may have been cut short with the hostpitalisation of my Dad these past few weeks due to a issue that had risen after he had very delicate surgery on his neck/back area and I had to splash into my US funding to help the family. It’s a little upsetting but eh, what can you do. The time I wanted to go wasn’t the best time for everyone else I wanted to visit anyway. (Thanks Ben for the heads up on that.)

People say we should so some sort of New Decades Resolution. It’s like a New Years Resolution but 10 times bigger… I wouldn’t know exactly what to do for mine so I probably won’t bother. In other news though, I’ve been having fun with the UStream.TV Broadcaster application for the iPhone which I thought was pretty nifty. It’s like I can broadcast a spinoff of OSMacTalk in a very low resolution and very choppy (depending on my 3G reception, or wether I’m connected to WiFi or not) which i’m sure everyone would love.

I’m really rambling now and this is a bad thing, as no one would have dared to read this far as they would have given up and just said, “Stuff you Nathan, you just ramble on all day!”

So I bid you good day!

So i’m totally at work right now. It’s strangely quiet, but then again we have storms and what not at the moment so it’s rather dark looking outside. Considering it was 38c outside today, it’s now 24 haha. I hate the heat!

Anyhow I recently took delivery of two fabulous toys. First one being The New Super Mario Bros Wii game and I must say… It’s a blast! I absolutely loved it! I’ve finished the main storyline but still have all the star coins and World 9 to finish. (World 9 requires you to find all the star coins in every world before you can do a special level in World 9. I haven’t had a chance to do any of the co-op and battle modes as I have no one else to play with. (That’s the problem with being an only child.) I really do hope that they play this in it entirety at Mario Marathon 3. I’ll surely be putting in the hours to see it done! Hey I might even play along side them.

Speaking of Mario Marathon 3… I highly hope they take a page out of OSMacTalk’s book and try some sort of Skype call-in system during the Marathon as I feel that this will be a great addition to the way that the team already communicate with the community! They are surely going to be hearing from me, numerous times! Oh and another thing. I’ve got my work leave organised for the Marathon, I took 5 days off work last year and this year I have extended the leave to 14 full days! That’s right folks, 14 days! (In the emergency that the guys run overtime….for the third year running of course!)

The second toy I’ve obtained is a shiny new (and highly expensive) Apple MacBook Pro 15″ Notebook. I am writing this blog post on it as we go! I must say, I had a Mac Mini prior to this and I really wish I got a macbook pro sooner! Definately worth the money spent! Thanks to Ben @ FunnelFiasco.com for writing up a awesome little blog post regarding Applications for the Mac. It’s given me a good insight to making the Mac a more useful tool in my day to day life. I also own another notebook but that’s a 17″ Behemoth which we will never speak of again. (Never buy a gaming laptop worth nearly $5,000 AUD) The only thing I’ve noticed is that the left hand side of the MacBook Pro is very….warm… I will ask Ben to see if his MacBook Pro (He owns a 13″ model though) suffers the same fate.

One last thing before I go… I’ve been thinking of starting a similar thing to OSMacTalk, however I think I need a partner in crime. Maybe I’ll go bug kassy_ and see if she wants to do some sort of video-esque co hosting dealie thing. Then we can have the guys from OSMacTalk call in and it would be oh so much fun!

Break time is over, time to do some more work!!!

I knew this would happen…

I neglected my blog…

I am ashamed…

Anyway! Now that we’ve got that out of the way, I have only really been neglecting my blog because of work commitments. Work’s been really busy and I have hardly any time to do anything remotely non-work related. Although this weekend I went to Bendigo. (For those who don’t know where Bendigo is. Click Here) Had a great time there, playing Borderlands for several hours. In fact I realise my entire non-work time is probably taken up by Borderlands at this time and with the upcoming release of Left 4 Dead 2, that will soon take up the remaining time I have thus leaving nothing for family and I will most likely become a hermit and never communicate with anyone again.

Speaking of non-work time. I have decided to try and get a month off work and maybe travel to the US! Although I am still undecided on roughly where I might go. I do want to visit my good online friends Ben “The Mac Guy” and Orange Shirt Guy. But that all depends on wether they’ll want a stranger from Australia just finding them and going, “Oh hi!”… It might freak them out haha…. Another issue is when I should go. Do I co-incide it with the upcoming great smash hit Mario Marathon 3 or not? So many scenarios that I need to plan out. At least I’ll be able to drive over there as I found out the other day, I can’t stand public transport!

I’m now in a pondering mood about said trip, maybe I’ll do some research on that area. Who knows… If I like it enough, I wonder how hard it would be to set up residence there? Ah one can dream…

So… I was using my Telstra NextG Wireless Internet today, just browsing sites and talking to friends on IRC. When suddenly the connection drops out. “Huh?” was my first reaction as Telstra’s NextG network is ROCK SOLID! (And I’m not saying that because I work for Telstra either, it just is!) So I checked the modem, no signal. “This is very uncool.” was my next choice of words. Soon I find out my iPhone 3Gs on Telstra NextG has also dropped clean off the radar. By this time I’m rather upset! In a desperate rush, I set 2G EDGE on my wireless modem and 2G on the iPhone. Success! Both connect with no worries. So right now I’m connected via EDGE, posting on my blog! I am unsure wether this is just local or a widespread issue until I finish work in another 30 minutes.

Anyhow, in some other unrelated news. I’ve been enjoying a great deal of Let’s Plays. I really enjoy watching people play through games and make commentaries about their playing. Two people I particularly enjoy watching their LP’s are raocow and ssskinner… Go watch some of their let’s play, they’re great fun!

Well, its another busy weekend for me! I am currently at the setup for Respawn LAN V13 – Black Mesa. There isn’t a whole lot to say about it cept if you don’t know what a LAN is, go to Wikipedia and have a look at ‘LAN Party’. You can see a video of the LAN setup happening, or at least a small shot of it! This LAN will involve much gaming and other stuff going on, but I must leave early Sunday morning to get some sleep. The reason behind this is that I have a Toyota Owners Club Australia Monthly Meet to attend. Because I own a Toyota Aurion Sportivo ZR6 and the fact I double booked my weekend commitments caused me to go to the TOCAU event aswell!

Sorry that this blog post is pretty bland and stuff but I’ve had a BOATLOAD of stuff going on recently and yeah, haven’t had time to do anything lately!

Well, I have good news and great news! The good news is my 2nd ADSL link is active and despite it being an identical path from the telephone exchange, it syncronises at about one full megabit more than the original line I got here! So I’ve taken that one and used it as my primary now! Woohoo! I’ve now setup an ADSL redundancy system thanks to Ben giving me the idea! If this ADSL link ever drops out or hits shaping, its just a flick of the switch to go over to the secondary ADSL link, sure its a bit slower but it’ll survive. This is a must as I smashed over 10 gigabytes of data for Mario Marathon this year and if Mario Marathon does a 3rd performance, I am prepared with dual ADSL links and over 50 gigabytes of overall data! But enough techno mumbo jumbo!

Onto the real battle! Which battle you ask? Well that’s obvious.

The battle with Yiazmat of course!

What’s so bad about that battle? It’s just like any normal battle? Fraid not…

The battle with Yiazmat ended up in a five hour epic battle and i’ll tell you the reason behind that. Fifty, Million, Health! Yes that’s right folks, this boss (not even the final boss mind you) has 50,000,000 health points which TAKE FOREVER to depleat! All my characters were level 86 and even at that level, still took five hours to complete! But as a result I became the victor, as a consequence however I am strangely in love with the OST. I’ve been listening to the boss battle music for a few days now and I can’t get it out of my head, wonder why…

Anyhow I think it’s time for me to leave this blog for next time we’ll have more epic adventures! Down the warp pipe we go!!!