t
o
n
y
a
n
g
'
s
 
w
e
b
l
o
g


i installed sine mora last night, a relatively small game at less than 1GB. the big sticking point was it couldn't find the D3DX9_43.dll, since my 64-bit copy of windows 7 runs on directX 10. i had to go online and find a copy of the file, making extra sure that i don't accidentally download a fake trojan horse copy. once i copied it into the game folder, it played just fine. it's a really pretty game, but i was playing in the story mode and there was a lot of needless talking that got in the way of the action. the characters - anthropomorphic animals - all spoke hungarian (since this is a hungarian-japanese game). sine mora is also unbelievably hard, even at the easy level, in a fit of frustration, ended up erasing the game. maybe one day i'll come back to it, when i develop more patience.

next, i installed bioshock 2. i originally bought the game back in august 2011, one of the rare occasions when i've actually purchased a game instead of just procuring it through less legitimate means. but after successfully installing it on my old MBP, i soon discovered that it required a lot more processing speed than my old machine could muster. bioshock 2 would have to sit on the bookshelf until i got a computer upgrade. fast-forward a year and a half later, and now with my faster MBP, it was time to revisit bioshock 2.

bioshock 2 uses the windows game marketplace system, which requires creating an account and registering in order to play. an additional copy-protection scheme requires the dvd to be in the drive despite the installer copying over nearly 10GB worth of data onto the hard drive. i wasn't able to register with microsoft games so it'd only allow me to play but without saving. after installing the latest version of windows game marketplace and registering through my old account, i finally got the game working. having the DVD bothered me enough that i went online and found a hack that basically mounts a small dummy disc image of the game in order to fool the copy-protection. bioshock 2 is such a hassle to set up that i sort of regret buying it. there's actually a OSX version of the game floating around online which i may end up downloading, just to forgo all this microsoft-registration/dvd-check hassles.

bioshock 2 is kind of boring. it feels a lot like the original, except i'm playing as a big daddy now. maybe it gets better later on, but for now it feels like a rehash of the first version. i have dishonored watching in the queue, i'm tempted to erase bioshock 2 and go play that instead.

i finally did visit the supermarket today. i also took the opportunity to deposit some cans. i mainly wanted to get some meats for my sandwiches.

in the evening i went to amazon to check on the status of my packages and was surprised that my usb 3.0 to esata adapter was marked as delivered. i checked both the front and the back of the house but there was nothing there. i don't doubt it was delivered, just not to the right address. you'd think a package with tracking wouldn't just accidentally go to the wrong house, but maybe my regular mailman was still in shock about losing saturday deliveries come august and in his depressed state accidentally left it at the wrong address. of course it got me all crazy, thinking of where it might be. later in the evening i even took a walk around the neighborhood, visited the other house a few streets down with the same number as mine in the distant hope that maybe the package got dropped off there (i saw nothing). best case scenario is whoever has the package will drop it off on my doorstep tomorrow. worst case scenario is i never see that package again.