|
|
the space in my life where I left you gapes a chasm only the wind crosses stealing the chill through me to my fingertips the part of myself mirroring you has been shattered torn out left behind sorrow and loneliness creep into the void learning to ignore the pitiful bereft self that wails for mercy begs me to turn back go home try again learning the hard way how to break a heart destroy the thing you love the space where once I had you echoes frigid and aching learning the hard way how to let you down. |
|
|
|
in the changing season, finally alone with myself, I can hear you - on the shore of molten winter; in whispering, tentative green and pendulous droplet - isolate what creates me; your voice separate from my thoughts - you surround the surface of my mind like frost on clear glass. spring comes - the sun warms; you melt from me and I am not less, only unhindered. |
|
|
|
the joy of motion: I feel, therefore I must go forward. I live, therefore I must go elsewhere. never so alive as I am with a plan; perfection in departure. I breathe, therefore I cannot remain here - so I leave, and therefore I rebuild my world. striving to find the place I belong in, and once I have found it - to set off again. |
|
|
|
I ask myself more times than there are pebbles on the beach: why now and here? did my path divide? would I have gone another way? yet. the wheel turns, and things do change. and to see this place alight with warmth and laughter; to feel the sun on me and all the living things that grow and thrive; to smell the ocean, a glimpse of waves - the wheel turns and my path is clear: I was always coming here. |
|
|
|
just because you cannot see the majesty of this night sky doesn't mean I will close my eyes lay down my head become blind because you freeze at winter's touch does not mean I also wrap up and miss feeling the North, the thrilling chill on my own skin you can reject this place in favour of somewhere different, called home unwilling to understand but I was born to inherit the cold lands the forests, prairies and oceans just because you follow your narrow road and you don't catch the rain's scent does not mean I stick to the given path so I run for the fields breathe in the storm just because you choose not to belong here does not mean I do not claim this place that belongs to me. |
|
|
|
illusions like scales from the eyes fall and now I see it. take me back to believing it was that easy. I have seen into the hearts of others, and now I see that what faith I held in you was fruitless. perception changed and vision altered so I can see that vain hope for better was a pacifying drug exhausting my reserves of courage. and now I see it: becoming alien to myself in naive distraction I can't identify the body attached to my soul but I can see that I was lost the moment I began trying - it was never going to be that easy. |
|
For me, finding a decent pair of jeans at a reasonable price is hard to come by. While I was at my parents house this past winter I decided I would take a trip to Wal-Mart as my recent pair of jeans wore a hole in the knee. I really just needed something for the stay, as I have other jeans (Levi's) at home. I was looking for a pair of jeans $20 or less that would just get me through the week. Well I found a hidden gem at Wal-Mart, which were a pair of Wrangler Jeans. The jeans cost me $14.99 + Tax and have been worth every penny. The Fit I am not much for tight fitting jeans, so the pair or wranglers I bought were Boot Cut, Relaxed Fit. They fit great, from the moment I tried them on and even today, they fit great. For the price I could not pass up a pair of jeans that fit that well. I never really considered Wal-Mart to buy my jeans, as I have had other clothing (and shoe) related items I bought from Wal-Mart that just wore out within a week. But I am glad I did not hesitate to buy these Wrangler Jeans. The Style Not being a stylish guy, I just like jeans that fit and do not have the "pre holed" designer holes in them (why would I want holes already in my jeans when I wear holes in them myself?). I am more of a simple man who likes a lighter color jean with no fancy design. Wal-mart had a few varieties for me to choose a darker color or a lighter. Although, I really liked both designs, in the end I decided to stick with the lighter color, as it seemed to suit me more. The Wear and Tear Well 9 months or so later, I am proud to say that my Wrangler jeans from Wal-Mart are still in tact, holeless and going strong. I tend to wear my clothes into the ground and can be very hard. However, these Wrangler Jeans that I bought from Wal-Mart have lived up to the challenge and still holding up. So the next time you are in the market for a new pair of Jeans, and do not want to spend an arm and a leg on a pair that will only last maybe a year of normal usage, I would suggest going and checking out Wal-Mart's Wrangler jeans, who knows, you may find that you been over spending on Jeans this whole time! |
|
0 Comments
Mood: popular inspiration: wrangler, wal-mart, good, style, hard, great, pair, jeans, excellent, strong, sturdy, cheap, affordable, cost, effective |
|
|
|
sometimes I am still and the world spins around me and I am the centre of a great wheel going round; I'm the axis in the storm's eye awake, I hold my breath and wait for the floor to decide throw open the window, drink cool dark air which tastes of the sea and calls me, like a needle finding north, to the ocean lost in chaotic tides, and the sand revolves beneath me I am the axis of earth, ocean and sky, circling I am still and the world spins around me in the storm's eye I sleep, breathing the salt air, and wait for the ground to decide. |
|
|
Ever since I got my HP Touchpad I have been trying to find different uses for it. Today I successfully set up my HP Touchpad to stream Movies, Shows and Audio over my SAMBA share. This is thanks to the guys over at Pre-Central who figured out the Ubuntu Chroot environment. As the first step, you should head over there and work on installing the Chroot environment (I setup the Debian because I prefer that, but either or works). Mounting the SAMBA Share After the Chroot environment has been installed, go ahead and load it up in Xectuah. Once in you should be in the root directory by default. I made a directory called "Media". Notice the captiol M, since Linux is case sensitive, this will create that directory. There is already a "media" directory, but that tends to be used for other items. I find it best to just do the capital M instead of messing with that directory. After you have the directory created, you will need to map your SAMBA share. (Note: Windows 7 Shares are different and may not work / need tweaking. I do not have a Windows box, so I will not be posting the directions on doing that). To map the samba share it is a simple command: mount -t cifs //SERVERIPORHOSTNAME/Share /Media -o username=user,password=pass Make sure to replace the "Share" with the actual name of the share and set the username/password if you need to. Once that is done, pop out of the card (do not close it). Go into Preware and install TouchPlayer. Open up TouchPlayer and Browse for Media. By default it should open under /media/internals we need to go up one directory and enter into ext3fs. Once in there enter the debian or ubuntu chroot folder (whichever you setup). And then enter the "Media" directory, and as long as the share connected you should be able to stream any file on your server just fine! I have not tried any 720p or 1080p content but it works great for my 480p videos and shows. And there you have it. You can now easily stream your network media to your Touchpad. I have not tried this from a remote location yet, but I plan to setup an SSHFS or OpenVPN and try to connect to my home network and see how that streams. I figure it will be fine as long as the network can handle it. As always I will report my findings. Update: I tried a 720p Video I had, and it is streaming, it is a little choppy, but it does stream. If I come across a 1080p file and try it, I will report how that runs. Update 2: I have also found that using SSHFS yields a lot better performance over Samba. So if you have a linux File Server setup with SSH, this is deinfately the way to go. Even better, using the SSHFS remotely over a 1Mbit connection streams the 480p content perfectly. So it has the upside of being able to stream from almost anywhere! |
|
0 Comments
Mood: angsty inspiration: hp, touchpad, ubuntu, debian, network, media, stream, streaming, chroot, how to, setup, linux, web os, touchplayer, preware, precentral, tutorial, samba, share |
|
|
During the HP Touchpad firesale, I was one of the lucky people to pick up a 32GB HP Touchpad for $149. For the price you really cannot beat it, especially since the estimated cost of just the Touchpad hardware is $300. Now that I have my Touchpad, I really am not into paying an insane price for an HP specific case / keyboard. So I ventured over to Amazon.com to see what other items were being sold for the iPad 1 (since the iPad 1 has comparable dimensions). I came across a case / bluetooth keyboard set that was $38 shipped and it finally came! Getting the Keyboard to Work The real point of this blog is to help others pair a Bluetooth Keyboard (of any time whether it be from Dell, Microsoft or Apple) to the HP Touchpad. The process threw me off guard because most Bluetooth keyboards pairs ask you to type a key on the keyboard itself instead of asking for a pair key. This threw me through a loop. I searched all I could to figure out how I could get the keyboard to pair, fearing that I would have to bog down and return this nice case and buy an HP specific setup, until I decided to try something that I did not even think would work and to my surprise it worked. The Process Edit: Thanks to anonymous comment, it was found that a 1 numerical code is all you need. The process is simple. When you pair the Bluetooth Keyboard to the touchpad it will ask for a passkey, enter any 1 numerical code (I just used 1). After you do that, and the icons are spinning and it says, "Pairing" enter the same passcode used on the Bluetooth keyboard Edit: and then press the enter key on the keyboard (thanks to anonymous for correcting that). Voila, you now have your Apple, Microsoft or Dell type Bluetooth keyboard working with the HP Touchpad. Now you can use your Touchpad for other items much easier! Yay, it worked! I was so excited to get this working, and relieved that I did not have to go through an RMA process and spend more money for an HP Specific Bluetooth keyboard. Hopefully you find this entry useful and easy to follow. If you have any other tips, please let me know. EDIT: For those wondering about how the HP Touchpad fits into this iPad case, the fit is nearly perfect. Nothing is blocked all buttons and ports are available and the screen fits everything. It is a little tight at first, but either or it works great! |
|
18 Comments
Mood: forsaken inspiration: connect, connecting, connection, ipad, tablet, touchpad, hp, 32gb, pairing, bluetooth, keyboard, pairing, howto, cheap, price, apple, dell, microsoft, work, specific, tip |
|
|
|
we go on somehow. each day as your flame grows dimmer and fades the distance each moment draws and we go on. somehow. even without your light your spirit. because you were, I am better. and now I feel you everywhere you make us strong; you make us free our glowing hearts aflame, for you we go on somehow, even now. and I light this candle for you. [ My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world. - Jack Layton 1950-2011 ] |
|
|
|
it was never - you were never. there's nothing here to see. looking over my shoulder, I find you were not following me - and now, at last it's clear that it never was; will never be. find me in the glow of dusk, streetlights - lit up in your bright headlights - smell of summer asphalt, your tires and the speed, my pulse. find me - I will get in and we'll go. scent of your skin; your closeness lingers in me - this scene that never was, and now I know will never be. and I didn't see: we did not miss our time - you had no time for me. so find me in the dark with your search lights, your headlights - I will ask you nothing; I have somewhere else to be. |
|
|
|
goodbye. goodbye. [the only good learned from constant leaving - trailing from one place to yet another] goodbye, goodbye [is that you can take it with you: home is nothing to do with where you are] goodbye - goodbye [the only good in any number of partings is to discover you lost nothing and are whole] and so, goodbye; goodbye. |
|
|
|
For the past 5 years I have been battling an auto-immune disease that attacks the Thyroid, called Hashimoto's disease. Since I am not an expert by any means on Thyroid diseases, I will let you do the research on that, but the basic gist is my auto-immune system attacks my which causes my T3 and T4 levels (also recorded as TSH levels) to be low and causes a ton of side affects to my body, such as weight gain, numbness, hair loss, fatigue, and many other symptoms. I found my thyroid problem when I was having Body Numbness back in 2006 and forced a doctor to check my Thyroid levels, as my genetic line has had a history of Thyroid problems. Low and behold, my TSH levels were dangerously low. Well 5 years later, I am doing better, still not my old self, but that could be for a number of reasons, including the Thyroid. But what I really want to talk about is my experiences with the different Thyroid Medication I have been on for the past 5 years and how they made me feel, so lets get to it! Levothyroxin On Levothyroxin, which was the original thyroid medicine I started taking, I was feeling great. It took about 3 years to fine tune it and the .88 dose was where it was at. Well it figures that right after we get the Thyroid medicine fine tuned, and I am actually feeling normal and like myself for the first time in years, they stop making the medicine. I had maybe 3 months of joy until my prescription for the drug Levothyroxin could not be filled anymore due to it not being produced. This was extremely depressing for me, as I felt great on Levothyroxin. Well it figures. I guess talking with my Doctor it is not uncommon for non-brand names to stop producing a pill on the whim, either due to the economy or not enough demand for the product. Now I needed to find a new brand to help get my thyroid under control. Thinking that I would go with a major brand name, I decided to try Synthroid next. Brand Name Synthroid Perhaps the most popular thyroid drug of choice is Brand name Synthroid. I started Synthroid after my Levothyroxin was no longer being produced. The first 3 months on Synthroid was hell. Since we were switching prescriptions my Doctor wanted me to come back in 3 months. Well I was glad that we had an appointment so close (its usually 6 months to 1 year checkups). On Synthroid, the best way to describe how I felt was I just wanted to rip off my skin and crawl out of it. It was pain to just get up by 8:00am let alone stay awake all day and then finally trying to have the energy to do anything outside of sleeping / sitting on the couch. Synthroid did not bode well with me, and perhaps if I had stayed with it for a bit longer my body would have adjusted, but to me it was not worth the time to try. Once my Doctor found out how I had been feeling he immediately gave me a few options of medicines to choose from and I chose Levoxyl. He said it would be the next closest thing to Levothyroxin so I decided to try it. Levoxyl I am currently on .75 Levoxyl and I can say that I may not feel the best all the time, and I still have problems with fatigue and getting up in the morning, but it does feel a ton better than Synthroid did. I am pleased with Levoxyl, although it took about 2 years to get the dosage tweaked. Since I was still feeling tired I wanted to try something different, so my last checkup in May I asked to be put on Cytomel, it is a T3 synthetic thyroid drug. The Cytomel is suppose to give you a quick energy boost, unlike the T4 which can take weeks or even months to start taking affect, Cytomel is generally instant. Well unfortunately for me, Cytomel really has not made much of a difference for me and I am probably going to go off of Cytomel after my next checkup. However, my Levoxyl is still working decent, if I could just get more energy I would be extremely happy. That left me doing a bit of research, as I know my vitamin levels are below normal I decided to look into what vitamins may help with my Thyroid levels. Vitamins I am Currently Taking for Thyroid Taking Vitamins on Thyroid, in general are fine (consult your Doctor) as long as they are 4 hours before or after you take your Thyroid pill. I have heard from friends and from online forums that there are a few Vitamins that can help your thyroid and give you a bit of an energy boost. From that I gathered that taking Selenium, Vitamin B, Vitamin E and Vitamin D, can all play an essential role in assisting with giving you more energy and removing "the fog". I have been on my Vitamin Regime for the past 2 months and I can say it has definitely helped. I do think clearer, I have a bit more energy and the best part is I think more rationally. For $45 every 90 days that is a small price to pay for feeling better. I plan on talking to my Doctor more about this next visit and maybe get a prescription written for some of the vitamins, so my FSA account can cover it. If you do have a Hypothyroid and need more energy or help clearing the fog, I would suggest talking to your Doctor about those vitamins, as they may help you. The End Well ending it up, I have had my ups and downs over the past 5 years. I am finally on something that seems to be working somewhat decent. I am still about 20-30lbs overweight and trying to lose that. With the extra energy I am getting I am starting to hike each weekend 9+ miles, and hopefully that will help kick start my weight loss. The vitamins do seem to help, its not like a night / day change, but I do notice a difference in my mood and my energy. Hopefully this can help you a bit if you do have a Thyroid problem. |
|
0 Comments
Mood: uninspired inspiration: hypothyroid, thyroid, graves, disease, synthroid, levothyroid, levoxyl, expert, issues, hashimoto, immune, numbness, body, levels, tsh, problems, solution, immune, help |
|
|
|
restlessly wanting, I hear and follow and chase the echo I ache inexplicably for a thing I do not recognize or grasp so I fill and overflow with this: a desire I cannot make real toss and turn tonight, sailing out the storm of wide-eyed hunger perpetual scanning of hallways and corners fearful of missing it hopeful of some sign show me which way epiphanic insomnia endlessly craving, I wander in the wake of a dream slipping a ghost I pursue to edges of meaning and then... beyond. |
|
|
|
Having received a Google Music Beta invite and finding out that Google Music Beta supports linux, I decided to venture down the path of getting Google Music Beta to run on my headless Linux Server as a daemon. In an attempt to not have to copy my music off of my RAID Array just to upload it to Google. Luckily this process was actually really easy. My server is Debian based, so the instructions are for a Debian based Linux server (Ubuntu distros should work as well). The first thing to do is to download Google Music Beta Linux version. There is a .deb or .rpm, since this is for a Debian based distro I opted for the .deb. I have heard rumors that in order to get the Linux download file, you need to have a Linux User Agent setup in your browser. If you are not using Linux, google your browser and how to change the User Agent. I have provided an Agent string that should work: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.0.4) Gecko/2008102920 Firefox/3.0.4 (Splashtop-v1.0.5.0) Let me know of any problems with it and I will find another one. Installing the Google Music Beta Manager The first step will be to obviously install Google Music Beta Manager, this will require a few pre-requisites on the Server. Since my system is headless the main package that needed to be installed was X11 (I already had X11 installed for other items I do on my headless linux server). If you do not have X11 installed, the process may take some time to install, so be patient with it. Next I ssh'ed in to install few extra packages that are required by Google Music Manager Beta. Running a: sudo apt-get install libqtgui4 libqt4-network libvorbisfile3 xdg-utils should install the packages required. Once those are installed, cd to where you downloaded the Google Music Beta Manager to on the server (I used wget to download the .deb) and since I have a 32 bit system, I grabbed that version, here is a link (this may break at anytime and could change, so I would suggest getting the link from Google Music Beta's site.: wget http://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-musicmanager-beta_current_i386.deb. Now that the file is on my server and the pre-requisites have been installed, it is time to install Google Music Manager Beta! Luckily this is pretty simple: sudo dpkg -i google-musicmanager-beta_current_i386.deb (again that may change if you are on x64 or a different distro so use that file name instead). Now Google Music Manager is installed, but how will we access the interface on the headless? Accessing Google Music Manager Beta on Headless Of course, if you do not want to run Google Music Manager Beta as a daemon (running the background) then all you have to do is setup X11 forwarding over SSH and you can stop reading here (ssh -X servername), however, if you want to leave it running as a daemon like process, we have to get a bit more creative than that. First up let's install the pre-requisites for this part. sudo apt-get install xvfb Xvfb is a VNC server, which we can setup on a headless linux as a display and run the Google Music Manager Beta inside of it. Once that is installed, we will want to create a bash script, the script is very simple: Edit: Thanks to anonymous, I updated this with a cool option so you do not have to vnc in and enter your password! Thanks again! #!/bin/bash export DISPLAY=:2 Xvfb :2 -screen 0 1024x768x16 & google-musicmanager -p mypassword & x11vnc -display :2 -bg -nopw -listen localhost -xkb I named the file googlemusic.sh. After that I did a chmod +x googlemusic.sh to make it executable. Once that has been done, I simple did a ./googlemusic.sh When this runs you will see a lot of output on the screen, do not worry about it. Press enter and you should be back at the command line. A ps aux | grep google should tell you if google-musicmanager is running. Edited instructions, given the -p command line option. Notes After doing this myself I learned a couple items. Edited instructions, given the -p command line option. Finished That is pretty much it. Hopefully Google offers a Command Line Interface mode or daemon option in the future for the Music Manager in Linux, that would be awesome and extremely helpful. If Google does not well at least the method I described above should work just fine. If you have any tips, problems, etc please let me know, I am all about improving the article and getting a better performance for myself as well. For now, enjoy your Google Music Manager Beta running on a headless Linux server! |
|
5 Comments
Mood: carefree inspiration: google, music, beta, manager, linux, headless, daemon, automatic, run, vnc, server, command, line, cli, x11, xserver, x windows, setup, howto, tutorial |
|
| I cannot believe that its been five years since I was last on here. Im going to try to keep up on blogging her again since I do actually miss it. Life has changed a lot since I was last on here and may have some updating to do. For the time being this is a proclomation that I have returned to pain the eyes of those that read my blogs. Cya all again in a few days! |
|
|
|
A few months ago I was in dire need of a way to backup my server, effortlessly and efficiently, as a down server does not generate any income! Since the server is running headless (meaning no monitor attached to it and it had no X Server), the backup software needed to support Linux headless. A friend of mine turned me onto CrashPlan Backup Software, I was intrigued and did a bit of research. The research turned up great results and CrashPlan appeared to be the backup solution that my server required. I decided try the 30-day trial of CrashPlan Pro, as I wanted a Central Backup for my files. Setting up CrashPlan on Linux was pretty effortless (at least for me), just had to download the binary file from CrashPlan and run it on my server. The next step was a bit more difficult, accessing the CrashPlan interface to setup the backups on my Headless Server. Although it took some reading with trials and errors, once I figured it out, I have never second guessed the $5/month I spend on CrashPlan Pro to make sure my server stays backed up. In fact CrashPlan has saved me a few times from stupid mistakes. Setting up CrashPlan Pro on a Headless Linux Server The CrashPlan Backup Software setup on a Linux Headless server was actually pretty simple. Once the backup program software has been installed you need to install CrashPlan Software on your personal computer, as the method to access CrashPlan remotely requires an SSH Tunnel over a port, which will give access to the CrashPlan daemon running on your server. If you have ever setup SSH Tunnel's it is a fairly straight forward process. Basically you will take a local port on your own computer, setup the CrashPlan on your computer to use that port, which then connects to port on the server that the server's CrashPlan backup software is running on. However, before we can tunnel the port we need to make a change to the %CrashPlanInstallDIR%/conf/ui.properties file. Go ahead and open that file up (remember to change the first portion in %'s to be the actual path) and we need to edit the portion that says: #servicePort=4243. Remove the # sign from that line, and then change the port to what you feel like. Just make sure the port is above 1000. I just changed the 4243 to be 4244. The final step is creating a simple SSH Tunnel: ssh -L 4244:localhost:4243 %YourRemoteServerInfo% The 4243 port is the port that the CrashPlan daemon is running on at the server, so be sure to modify that if you setup CrashPlan to run on a different port. Now just open up CrashPlan Backup Software locally and it should be pointing to your server, and you can now setup the backups how you want! Restoring Files from CrashPlan Pro Backup Unfortunately, I have had to restore a few files, even a database from the CrashPlan Pro Backup my server does. This was actually a very easy system to use, if you are using the Software with the port Tunneled, you can have it restore the backup right to your server. However, I was not using the CrashPlan Backup Software over a Tunnel and needed to restore a file (as I was on a different computer). The CrashPlan Web Interface, although lacking a bit in functionality, provided me the means to download the file to my local computer, where I was able to SCP (Secure Copy) the file to my server and have it restored within minutes. The Web Interface saved me a huge hassle of trying to find a good backup of the file, which would have taken hours. Fortunately, CrashPlan also versions the file. So even if the backup has overwritten the latest file, you can still go back to clean version of the file by date! A major advantage for when you accidentally copy the wrong file over and overwrite the good file. Needless to say, this made me happy and completely justified the money I spent on the CrashPlan Pro backup! Want a Means to Backup Amongst Friends? CrashPlan offers it Backup Software free of charge. What comes with the free version of CrashPlan? Well you can easily setup a cluster with your friends and backup to them, and vice versa. CrashPlan allows you to do backups from Computer -> Computer effortlessly and easily. This feature is extremely handy, especially for families, where their data is not necessarily important enough to do a Central Backup, but want it backed up remotely else where. You just install the software on your families computer and your computer, and viola, you can easily synchronize files between the two (pictures and such) and everyone can have a backup of everyone else's data in case of a fire, flood, hardware crash, or any other type of disaster you can think of. I am extremely impressed that CrashPlan allows you to use their software, free of charge, to backup to other people, friends and family. As well as being a reasonable price for a Central Backup of your highly important data. Overall If you cannot tell yet, I am extremely satisfied with CrashPlan's Backup Software and Backup Solution as a whole. It puts my mind at ease, in case of any hardware failures, human mishaps or even natural disasters, knowing that I can easily get my data back and restored. The CrashPlan service has many benefits, one is perhaps a "Send us a harddrive we will copy your data and send it back" system, it costs quite a bit of money to do, but if you need your data back as soon as possible, this option eases your mind a bit more, as you can get your data back up and running in a matter of a day (if overnighted) vs multiple days of file transfers. The multiple options of retrieving and uploading data the CrashPlan offers, mixed in with being able to backup to friends and family, really sets CrashPlan apart from most backup software and to me puts CrashPlan as a must have in my book. |
|
0 Comments
Mood: obscene inspiration: cheap, backup, remote, friends, computer, pc, server, linux, headless, effortless, easy, tunnel, ssh, crash, plan, crashplan, remote, easy, web, web interface, storage, setup, help, central, central backup, software, solution, review, simple, low cost, co |
|
|
|
the wind changes shifting senses dry summer heat and now, late, the storm arriving these days spent learning never to expect anything, fate altered and restless air is electric, my signals crossed or I'd have gone elsewhere but you drew me - inexplicable magnet - chance transformed wanting to reach for you, a new path just to know how it'd feel, holding you to discover if you'd taste as I imagine like the summer storm these days I never expect anything, only wonder and hope and feel the air shifting something electric in you pulls me in signals crossing, wires sparking want you to see I am here, open, if your path changes a quiet storm in the summer twilight. |
|
|
Ready to Dance? Well neither was I, until at my parents house for Christmas, my sister brought Just Dance 2 for the Wii. Well, I still cannot dance, but I did have a blast at trying! Just Dance 2 for the Wii Nintendo Entertainment System is a great game to getting you up off the couch and moving with even a bit of a cardio workout if you let yourself get into Just Dance 2. The variety of songs are not the best, but Just Dance 2 does have some fun songs and decent dance songs. So let's take a deeper look at Just Dance 2! Is Just Dance 2 a Workout? Well this all just depends on you. If you let yourself go and dance for 30minutes +, yea it can be a heck of a workout, I know I work up a sweat! How great of a cardio workout is it, I am not sure. I do not think I ever really lost any weight with it, but it was fun. I could play Just Dance 2 for hours, and I did, many nights. The game has a high replay value, in my opinion, because the game is fun, and I always wanted to try and beat my high scores. Just Dance 2 also has a "Just Sweat" feature, where there is a weekly plan for you to do, and all you have to do is get enough "Sweat Points" for the day to hit your mark each week, to promote doing a workout each day. The sweat meter is judged by how much the remote shakes, so it is easy to trick the system, but if you are doing it, why trick it? Well let's move on to the music. Decent Music Variety Just Dance 2 has a pretty decent dance music variety. From the Outkast's Hey Ya! to the Jackson 5's I want you back, to my Favorite, Rasputin they all are a blast. Although were a few songs that I did not really care for, like "Big Girl you are Beautiful" or "Cosmic Girl", mainly because it was for me to get into the groove with those songs, but over all most of the songs are easy to get into and have fun with. The Wii Store offers a free song, Fireworks. My wife seems to love this song, again another song I could not really get into, but now anytime we hear the song somewhere, shes gotta start bustin' out the Wii dance moves. Overall this has been a fun game for the whole family. A Great Game Overall, I feel that Just Dance 2 was a great game. It had a great re-play factor and is even funner in a big group where you have "Dance off" competitions and try to stay in the game as long as possible. It allows you to be creative and to have a great family game to play, even my 10 year old niece had a blast and my 1.5 year old daughter even got into Rasputin (I guess that shows how much I played Just Dance 2). I have been very happy with Just Dance 2, and if you are looking for something a bit more fun and exciting for the grown ups on the Wii, that has a great replay value and will have your family laughing and dancing, you cannot go wrong with Just Dance 2! |
|
2 Comments
Mood: dangerous inspiration: wii, nintendo, game, review, just, dance, just dance, just dance 2, two, 2, fun, laughing, blast, workout, cardio, sweat, challenging, family, friends, dance off, competition, exciting, songs, replay, factor, great |