I bought the original Animal Crossing for the GameCube a couple of years ago for one of the kids as a gift. While they would play it every so often, there didn’t seem like much was going on in the game. This past summer, I finally sat down, created my own character and played it. And then…I got hooked. Just like Mario Bros. and Zelda in the past, another Nintendo game had me coming back every day to check on my town, buy and sell items, and improve my house. With the DS, there are changes and improvements to the original Animal Crossing, but it is still basically the same game. It’s familiar enough, but has some new features that make it a better game in some respects.
Continue reading Animal Crossing: Wild World (DS)
Musician Humor: Curse of The Bass Player
And just when you think your opinion of bass players could not sink any lower, we have this little anecdote about everyone’s favorite band member…
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Nintendo Wii a big success!
I’ve been following news reports about the new Nintendo Wii console. In its first week on sale, the Wii has sold over 600,000 units, and roughly 3/4 of all Wii buyers have purchased the Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess game to go with it (over 454,000 sold). Even though Nintendo kicked up production in the summer to have a lot of units available for this holiday season, my guess is that there will still be shortages through the beginning of next year. This is turning out to be the must-have game system for the holidays. Sony’s PS3 didn’t fare so well–a hardware shortage, coupled with a very high price, leaves it in a distant second place.
Continue reading Nintendo Wii a big success!
Antonio Carlos Jobim: Stone Flower
For the past 20 or so years, I’ve owned both of Jobim’s A&M/CTi albums, Wave and Tide, on the Audio Master Plus reissue vinyl. They both sound fantastic, and even Verve’s reissue of Tide on CD sounds quite nice. The music is better on Wave, but to me, Tide always sounded like the album was comprised of half-finished songs, and it was rather short in playing time as well. Even the title track was a bad, noodly imitation of “Wave”. It turns out that Tide was the last A&M/CTi recording before Creed Taylor picked up his label and moved it to Columbia. A few years ago, I had found out that there was a third Jobim album, called Stone Flower, that was like the final piece in a trilogy. And others had told me how good it was. And call me a skeptic, but after having heard how Tide came out, I was in no rush to hear it. So is it any good, or is it another mediocre recording?
Continue reading Antonio Carlos Jobim: Stone Flower
Happy Thanksgiving!
I just wanted to wish all of our Rudy’s Corner friends and supporters a happy Thanksgiving! We have no big plans for the day–just a quiet dinner at home, and a long walk after dinner to make the food settle. We’re fortunate in that we have some nice, temperate weather this year–last year it was 13 degrees when we went out in the evening! Today, we’re expecting a nice, sunny mid-50s afternoon. We’re also avoiding the shopping craziness tomorrow. And to be honest, looking at the ads for Black Friday, there aren’t many good deals out there anyway! We’ve got our shopping weekend scheduled for two weeks from now, but to be honest, most of it will get done on Amazon anyway.
Have a good Thanksgiving, everyone!