I do not like spending money on this stupid stuff. I have never purchased a ring-tone or game for this or any cell phone I have ever owned …until now. There are a lot of free games out there and there are a bad games out there. One does not necessarily dictate the other. There are a lot of good developers out there that should be encouraged to keep developing good, fun software and therefore supported by earning their 70% cut of ninety-nine cents (or whatever the case may be) that you could go dig out of your couch.

Under attack!

The most expensive game I bought was all of $5.99. I heard and read good reviews for ‘Hero of Sparta‘ and decided to go for it. I haven’t played it extensively, but it seems like it will take some commitment to beat. ‘Hero of Sparta‘ is a 3D action game with a 3rd person perspective. You are a spartan warrior fighting giants, undead and other weird creatures. The virtual Joystick provides pretty good (direction pad-like) controls and cool sword moves are thrown in. The way combination attacks work is pretty interesting. On a boss enemy, if you hack and slash him enough, buttons appear in different places on the screen and you tap them with your finger in order to execute moves that vaguely mimic your button presses.

Right as it all went wrong...

A really fun free game that I played for a few weeks is ‘Topple.’ I would describe it as a combination of Tetris and Jenga. The premise is pretty simple. A random Tetris shaped piece appears at the top of the screen and you use your fingers to pull it down and stack it on a platform. You can use multi-touch to rotate the pieces and you have a time limit to reach a certain height. The height requirements grow and the piece shapes become more sophisticated. If your pieces don’t balance well they will fall off and you get to try again. You can literally help balance out the situation by tilting your phone one way or the other. I love this concept because it is something I notice myself and others doing a lot while playing video games, making our bodies react to something on the screen in front of us, whether it helps us or not. In this case it does. To make the situation more challenging, levels 4 and 7 introduce new platforms. Like many puzzle games, this can cure your boredom a few minutes at a time. There are only 9 levels, but a little replay value is added in the form of achievements. Each level has an associated time achievement, target score, and bonus height. Let’s not forget the price is right.

Yes, NOW I see the word 'looped'

Another free game that I have found has hours of replay value, comes in 2 minute doses and keeps your mind sharp. This game is ‘Word Warp.’ In this game, you are given six letters randomly arranged and 2 minutes to unscramble them into as many words as your puny brain can come up with. To help you out, you are shown groups of dashes, each group representing a word, and each dash representing a letter in that word so you can see how many 3, 5, and 6 letter words there are. When you start unlocking words, they are listed in alphabetical order so you can help reason out which direction you need to go. If you press the ‘Warp’ button, it randomly rearranges your six letters so you can have a different eye on them. There is a $0.99 version, but i have the I have the free one that shows you an ad every 2 or 3 games. I sometimes catch myself randomly thinking of short words during the day after I’ve had a few sessions.

Another game I really like has both a free version, and a $1.99 pro version, and is totally worth it. ‘Rick Rocketson‘ is a side scrolling game that makes me foget I am holding an iPhone, and makes me feel like I am holding a rectangular NES controller in my hands staring at a 13″ TV. The concept is simple, you are a space marine and you need to kill robots and solve puzzles. The puzzles come in the form of colored keys needed to unlock matching doors. Guide Rick through the levels with a space gun (unlimited supply of ammo) and grenades. You get 5 grenades for each level, but can find hidden grenade packs and health packs hidden throughout the levels. I must say the controls take some getting used to. Your left thumb is used for the left/right controls while your right thumb is used for the up/down and the grenade/space gun. Most games of this type leave the directional conrols to the left thumb and the ‘trigger work’ to the right. I played through the first 5 levels of the free version and it was an easy decision to go back for seconds in the form of the pro version for only 2 dollars.

Space marine with laser, pew pew.

I encourage everybody with an iPhone or iPod Touch to venture into the app store and download and try some games, free or paid. Your iPhone will be happy, the developers get to put a coin in their pocket, and you never know when you might need it.

Do you have any (iPhone) games that you can’t put down? Did I misspell something above? Let me know! Leave a comment below or send me a tweet.

This was not an easy decision for me to make. The past two and a half years at Bayside Church have been very rewarding. I have genuinely enjoyed getting to know and work with everyone the church staff on a wide variety of activities. I will truly miss seeing everyone on a daily basis.

Everybody I have spoken with has been very supportive and excited for me as I – take the next step in my career / begin a new chapter / finally get out (pick your own, pardon the cliches).

I will be moving into a position that will have me working more directly in my career field of my degree in Computer Information Systems. I have learned a lot at Bayside and expanded my knowledge and skill set in customer service, finance and leadership.

I don’t plan on going very far. Bayside is still my church home and I intend to remain involved with the Events Team as a volunteer as we move into an exciting and busy season. There is still much to be done and I am excited for where Bayside is going.

My last day at Bayside will be August 8th (following the Leadership Summit (register online today)).

I am looking forward to the traditional “Bayside goodbye Chevy’s lunch” treatment which will probably be in the next couple weeks.

if you want to get ahold of me or have any questions, I would be glad to answer them. My personal e-mail address is cbshearer [at] gmail [dot] com.

FREE:

Shazam - listens to a 12 second sample of a song and then tells you what song it is, the artist and album and gives you itunes and youtube links. This app is amazing.
lifechurch.tv has a really good bible. It has suggested daily readings and user submitted notes. It’s in the reference section.
Exposure - A flickr browsing app., it looks at geotagged pictures on flickr and shows ones that were taken near your current location.
Jott - Leave voice notes for yourself and it transcribes and e-mails them to you . The audio file of the recording is attached in case it transcribes something wrong.
Banner Free - Simulates a scrolling LED banner, you tell it what text you want to scroll
iPint - Its a lame accelerometer game, but when you win, your phone turns into a beer glass; which is sweet.
Tap Tap Revenge - Think dance dance revolution / guitar hero. The hacked iPhone version used songs from your phones library and user submitted button maps. This one uses built in songs and maps but they may change it again, I hope.
Phone saber - It seems a bit nerdy at first, and it is, but it’s sweet when you hear the person next to you pull out their saber and you have an impromptu battle.
Jirbo Break - A breakout kind of game, its hard to get the feeling at first. Just put your finger in the middle and pivot it one way or the other for best results.
Morocco - Othello, i have it but i havent played it.

PAY

Pool - A really good pool (as in billiards) game i think it cost $5.99. i had it on my hacked iphone until they started charging money, it has 2 player and single player and versus computer 8ball and 9ball.
Poker - a dice poker game it cost $4.99. it’s pretty fun, but simple and a lot of the same thing. cool accelerometer use for shaking the dice

I want a good solitare game like the (free) one I had on the hacked 1.4 iPhone. I also want a good blackjack game like I had on my hacked iPhone. It used gestures for input (hit stay etc) which simulated ‘being at an actual casino.’ I want to get the texas hold-’em wifi multiplayer game.

There was a sea of people outside of the Metro stop, but we quickly pushed through and embarked upon the 20 minute walk to our grandstand, which was packed. We plopped down and ate our track food and anticipated the mechanical carnage we might see at the start of the race. We had a great view from our seats looking across turns 1 and 2 towards the pit exit and the start/finish line.

The race actually began without incident, though Steven and I were armed with a zoom lens and a video camera respectively just in case anything happened. Just a few laps into the race a driver had spun off somewhere out of our sight and the safety car came out, stacking up all of the racers behind it. After a few laps behind the safety car the pit lane was opened up and the 4 race leaders all dove in for fresh tires and a splash of fuel.

The first two cars ready lined up at the pit exit at the red light. All of a sudden, the next McClaren of Lewis Hamilton plowed into the back of Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari, much to the crowd’s dismay. The damage caused was enough to force both racers to retire from the race. On the screen Kimi patted Lewis on the back and pointed at the red light. Oops.

This incident however, mixed up the field of racers quite nicely. For a few laps, each of the Toyota racers led, and even a Honda driver, until they each went for their pit stops and finally the BMWs of Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld took to the 1 and 2 spots and completed the race. This was a major victory that promoted Robert Kubica to the top of the driver’s championship. Even though it was his first career win, because of the consistency of his racing he was in a good spot. Besides, that the 1 – 2 victory was great for BMW, who is advancing from the ‘middle of the pack.’

Once the race was over, we noticed that race fans were swarming the track, crawling under and through fences to run across the track to see the podium ceremonies. I was hesitant, but once I noticed security wasn’t stopping anybody; they were actually helping people get through. So Steven and I scampered out of the bleachers around to the fence, under the chain link, and through the barrier. We ran across the track (passing the aforementioned wrecked Ferrari) towards the podium ceremony to cheer and take pictures.

We wandered the finishing straight of track for a little bit and peeked through the pit lane fence into the various teams’ garages and then took a turn for the Metro. There were a ton of people, all hot from the sun waiting to slowly board the train and get back to town. We made it and went back to the hotel to cool off, clean up and give our feet a rest.

This has been an amazing trip that has been a lot of fun for us both. We had a fun time seeing a different country and exploring downtown Montreal a bit. It put another much needed stamp in our passports and has been a great experience for us both.

Thanks to everybody who supported us on our trip, we couldn’t have done it without you!

Our hotel shuttle took us on a 5 or so minute drive to the Metro where we hopped on and easily found our way to the correct stop. As we headed downtown we began to see more and more people in race paraphernalia (mostly red, Ferrari) ready to enjoy a day at the track.

At our stop when we emerged from the crowded stairway we saw a massive amount of people, scalpers selling tickets, vendors selling their wares, lines going further than we cared to count and the scream of F1 engines in the distance as the day’s first practice session had begun 30 minutes before. After picking up our tickets at the box office we orientated ourselves and made our way to the our grandstand. We discovered that the metro stop was at the complete opposite end of the track from where our seats were waiting for us. We began the nearly 1 mile journey winding over bridges, across grass, sidewalk and street, under passageways and through crowded vendor’s plazas. We promptly sat in our seats to watch the closing 30 minutes of the 90 minute session.

Next on the agenda (and everyone elses) was food. With the quick purchase of a jumbo hotdog and a bottle of water I was back in my seat. Steven wandered a bit further down for some pizza but shortly returned. We watched the beginning of one of the supporting races and then set off to explore.

One quick highlight – during this supporting race practice, the jumbo screens showed a little beaver or hedgehog or something as it ran across the track while cars were whizzing by, stopping in the middle to let one or two pass. The crowd reacted when it looked like it was hit, but the dumb little creature scampered away safely.

When exploring we took note of the shabby hotel/casino encircled by the track. Later we found out that the whole site had been the grounds for a world’s fair.

We wandered through the McClaren-Mercedes merch. booth along with that of Ferrari and BMW Sauber. Steven scored a cool Kimi Räikkönen shirt and I came across a BMW Sauber Team shirt that caught my fancy (Thank you grandparents for birthday money!). There was also a big Honda display with the history of the Civic. They had a display of all 8 generations of the car which has been the best selling car in Canada for the past 10 years (congrats Canada?). Budweiser is the official beer of the 2008 Canadian Grand Prix and had a stage with a band playing party music. There is something funny about long haired middle aged men declaring that they would ‘fight for their right’ to party whilst swilling $5,95 beers.

We completed our circle around (and in and over and through) the track just as the afternoon’s final 2pm practice session had begun. It was a rather uneventful session. When a driver would set the session’s fastest time (as shown on the jumbo screens) the crowds would cheer as he drove past (our voices almost drowned out by the vehicles’ roar). The only other bit of excitement was when Fernando Alonso spun out in the second of the turns that our grandstands overlook. He recovered and didn’t damage the vehicle, but allowed it to roll too far backwards. He put the back wheels off the track and either because of the angle or lack of traction was unable to bring it back on.

We watched the beginning of a Ferrari F430 race and then headed to town for some food. We found ourselves a mall and made our way to its food court with no fewer than 5 different varieties of asian food (Chinese, Thai, Japanese, Teriyaki, and another I cant remember). This was no easy task considering that everything is in French (luckily about everyone speaks english).

I’m getting tired so I’ll wrap this up. We ate, went to a pharmacy to purchase water at less than $4,95 per and took the metro and shuttle went to our hotel.

Tomorrow is the 3rd practice session and the qualifying session. The rain has rescheduled itself for sunday so we should be dry. We will try and upload some pictures tomorrow. I can’t put up any video because i brought the wrong firewire cable (6pin-4pin instead of 4pin-4pin).

Cheers!

The flight from Chicago was not so full, and not so long. About half way through the two hour or so long flight we ran into some storms below us and I spend the rest of my time listing to music and watching the lighting in the not so distant clouds. We landed just after midnight local time in Montreal, got through customs, and wandered our way to the hotel shuttle pickup, and then on to our hotel.

We are both looking forward to tomorrow’s Friday Practice, and exploring the town. Don’t forget to keep your eyes on viddler for video updates.

Wet races are exciting.

One of the more dramatic examples of this is the 2007 European Grand Prix at the Nürburgring in Germany where only 13 cars in a field of 22 completed the race after five spinoffs, one collision and several mechanical failures. This doesn’t count the vehicles that spun off and were able to limp back on.

This may be understating things a bit because they weren’t just spinoffs, they were hydroplaning multi-million dollar machines which need speed to turn. That doesn’t make sense does it? You see a F1 car is very light, and in order to make the tires stick to the ground they need ‘downforce.’ They accomplish this much the same way as an airplane, they use a wing and go very, very fast. Except the wings or have the opposite orientation so instead of lifting off, they stick the tires to the ground.

Wet races are exciting.

Racing isn’t all about the mechanical gore and carnage. In most races, you see the same four names from the same two teams up at the top. Accidents are interesting because it scrambles the field, somebody may advance dramatically just by correctly navigating around and through the resulting mess, and keeping one’s nose clean. For example, Sebastien Vettel in the last race started in 19th spot and finished 5th. Don’t get me wrong, racers are always optimistic, and even tho he started 19th he is one of the top drivers in the world, these racers split seconds to advance. But I don’t think Sebastien Vettel planned on advancing to 5th. The reason he did is that he took advantage of the situation and stayed consistent.

Rooting for the underdog is fun, and wet races are exciting.

Register to leave comments, and stay tuned for updates.