Last night was the 3D episode of Chuck. 3D today is different from the 3D of the 1980s. Back then, 3D meant that Jaws was jumping out of the screen at you. Today, 3D means the show doesn't look flat. The characters stand apart from the background. If you were standing in a store (a BuyMore, maybe) and you looked at someone standing in front of a display (maybe Chuck standing in front of the Nerd Herd booth), there is obviously a separation between the person and the display. In regular 2D television, you don't get the depth perception needed to separate the two. The human brain makes assumptions based on things it has already experienced. That is why we can look at 2D television and not be like "HAY! THAT PERSON IS IN THE DISPLAY!" However, the 'new' 3D makes it so our brain doesn't have to assume things. It can see that the person is standing apart from the display. And it is awesome. I wish all of my TV shows were 3D. Though I don't want to wear those cardboard classes anymore. Those suck lots. I would happily buy a good pair of hard plastic sunglass-type 3D glasses to wear if all my shows were in 3D. But a television that did that for me would be cooler!
Game review: Westward III: Gold Rush
Last year, I played Westward II. Since I enjoyed it, I decided to give Westward III: Gold Rush a try. For some reason, this storyline didn't seem to progress as quickly as the second one did. It took a long time to get through the tutorial, much longer than it did before, and then the game seemed to just dump you. I spent a lot of time wandering around the borders trying to figure out where I was supposed to go next. (Well, 'next' in the storyline after the tutorial. The game sticks you in a new area and leaves you there.)
However, there were some interesting changes. Instead of just finding food laying around, you now have to hunt for it. You don't have to aim your gun like you did in Oregon Trail but it's still requires a bit more interaction from the player than just finding a bundle of food. Sadly, I did not make it far in the demo of the game. There is a possibility that it gets better later on but it's difficult to see how it will.