Last Sunday Silke and Vader passed their final assessment (grade 4) with Merit. Vader is now a Proficient Hunting Retriever. Here is a photo of him with all his ribbons.

Here is the traditional photo in the corner of our kitchen to commemorate his second birthday:

The weather was really good for this late in the year. It mostly rained during the night and the sun was shining during the day. Silke and I seized the opportunity and went on extensive walks with our dog Vader. This was an excellent way to enjoy the stunning scenery. As I probably couldn’t find adequate words to describe it I’ll simply let the pictures do the talking.

Dead Space is such a masterpiece: a third person shooter set on a gigantic starship drifting through space. Your character Isaac Clarke has to fight his way through a nightmarish maze of dark corridors and find a way off the doomed ship. Most of the crew members have been killed and turned into horrible monsters called Necromorphs. Their relentless attacks turn Isaac’s odyssey into a merciless struggle for survival.

The game rivals a good horror movie: gloomy atmosphere, scarce lighting, creepy sounds and things moving in the shadows. The references to Aliens and Starship Troopers are unmistakable. You know that there is a monster lurking around the next corner because you can hear it. But when the monster finally attacks from just the direction you didn’t expect the game still makes you jump.

If you like a game with an interesting plot, tough fights and a good scare you should definitely try Dead Space. I loved and hated it, both at the same time.

Rid of whom? Oh, sorry. I’m talking about that annoying (almost) unkillable monster in Dead Space. The damned thing is extra crispy now.

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood is very similar to Assassin’s Creed II. You move your character Ezio Auditore through three dimensional historic scenery. At any time you can either play one of the many missions or just roam through Rome during the Renaissance. Some new aspects make the game even more interesting:

1. You can rebuild Rome after freeing a district from Borgia influence. You can reopen shops, fix broken aqueducts or renovate famous landmarks like the Pantheon.
2. Ezio can recruit citizens of Rome for the guild of the Assassins. These assassins can either assist him in a battle or undertake missions to earn money and acquire trading goods. Each mission contributes to an assassin’s experience and over time they can reach new levels and learn new skills.
3. New weapons like a crossbow or a battle axe make Ezio an even more formidable fighter than before.

But I was at least able to visit New Delhi in the afternoon as I felt a lot better by then. Here are a couple of photos I’ve taken of the India Gate monument:

There wasn’t enough time for me to really experience India. But I’ve nevertheless learned that it is a country with friendly people, chaotic traffic, delicious food and extreme contrasts.

In the following week we moved on to a dairy farm near Carlisle. From there we went on several excursions of Hadrian’s Wall’s.

Our dog Vader loved these adventure walks. He was almost flying up the hills.

If only his humans wouldn’t ask him to stand still for a photograph all the time.

The update from VMware 3.1.3 to 4.0.1 worked absolutely smoothly. I didn’t even have to reboot my Mac. Both of my virtual machines booted without problems afterwards. And the really good news is that NetBSD, although still not officially supported as a guest operating system, continues to run very well under VMware Fusion. My NetBSD/i386 current machine using four virtual cores and 3GB of memory actually runs faster since the update:

I haven’t particularly noticed any of the new features except the single window user interface. I suppose those enhancements are more visible if you use Window extensively.

I haven’t decided yet whether VMware Fusion 4.0 was worth the money. But nothing got broken and I could now safely upgrade to Mac OS X Lion. If you think this update is too expensive you can always try out VirtualBox.

And I’m quite sure the nervous twitching will stop after a few therapy sessions.