Even though there are plenty of ways to get software illegally, I actually buy games that I and my kids will play. I think it’s important to support the developers, so that they have a reason to continue creating great software.

Anyway, my son and I downloaded a trial version of cool new driving game last night (Burnout Paradise from Criterion Games) and were immediately blown away. GREAT GAME. The trial is basically the full game that’s limited to 30 minutes. While I think this may be too short for some of their customers, it’s at least much better than the crippled “demo’s” some other companies supply, IF they supply a demo at all.

So: great game, and I want to buy it. I have heard horror stories about EA before, but figured I’d give their online store a shot anyway. They happily accepted my credit card, and sent me an mail immediately urging me to create an on-line persona. The only problem is, they didn’t send me a key – which is why I was on the site in the first place. It’s now a full hour since I clicked the order button, and I STILL DON’T HAVE MY FREAKING KEY, and it seems impossible to feret out a screen using their system where I’d go to get it.

I’ll be attempting to cancel the order, and will use Download2Drive instead (I love these guys, and am annoyed with myself I didn’t use them first off). I’m resisting the urge to just download it via uTorrent – but I’d have it by now if I did.

But how the heck does EA expect to stay in business if getting their software is so darn hard? It’s 2009 – processing credit cards on-line has been figured out….

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, everyone!

For anyone who’s interested, here are some backgrounds in various resolutions of our Christmas Card image:

1024×768, 1280×1024, 1920×1200

As in past years, the image is a compilation of several shots (anyone who has kids knows that it’s IMPOSSIBLE for all of them to be smiling and looking in the same direction, at the same time) put together with Photoshop. This year, I used Photoshop CS4 (64 bit). The card itself was done in Illustrator CS4.

It only took me 400% longer than the box indicated it would (and only 200% over my original guess), but the swing set is finally all done. Except for sanding, and staining, and mulch.

Anyway, here’s our picture gallery of the whole affair:

The Swing Set Project of 2008

Here are all the images from the Swing Set project of 2008.

17 Photos

By the way, here are my modifed swing beam plans if anyone is interested. The original plans were not satisfactory to me, with the swings much too close together, and also too close to the overall structure.

And here’s the layout diagram with dimensions, etc.