TheFurryOne.net Blog Archives April 2004

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Thursday, April 1, 2004 6:36:19a: *
Happy April Fools' Day, everyone. You can't believe how tempted I was to let slip that I was planning this all day yesterday. It's kinda lame, but in its own way I guess it fits the site. Anyway, you can feel free to flame me all you want on the forums-- those still work. And don't worry about the site ever getting taken over by a spammer/porno site or anything-- I've learned many lessons from sites like the former NekoNekoWai.com (which was a really nifty comic that I now have forgotten the name of... sad, Molly was a great artist-- and I can't believe I remember Molly's name and not the name of her comic), and I plan on calling my host the minute I deposit my first paycheck to make sure the registration doesn't lapse.

Enjoy the day, and don't take anything you hear too seriously today, OK?

Thursday, April 1, 2004 8:45:58p: *
Just posting to restore the site to normality. Not a whole lot happened today-- but I did manage to fool my boss, whom I hope is gracious enough to understand that I wasn't laughing at her, but... aw, heck with it, yeah, I was laughing at her. But that's what April Fools' is for, isn't it?

...hey, what's this pink thingie on my desk? ^_^

Saturday, April 3, 2004 8:51:57a: *
Ladies and gentlemen, we here at TFO.net once again are proud to present to you Disturbing Search String Theater. Today's meditation on chaos theory as it pertains to Google is:

im drunk

This, of course, raises the question: Was this person too inebriated to type an apostrophe? Or was this person simply looking to get his or her chat on while intoxicated? The world may never know... Regardless of the mystery, we thank you and urge you to stay tuned for the next installment of Disturbing Search String Theater.

Sunday, April 4, 2004 8:04:29p: *
Yo. Just a quick note here before I take care of some housework. I managed to find a stuck in between the pages of a book I was reading (and believe me, if I knew I'd stuck it there sooner I probably wouldn't have stuffed myself full of ramen this morning). So what did I do with this glorious bounty?

Hell yeah, I played DDR. I'm talking about after that.

I went to see Hellboy, actually, and came away thinking maybe that I should have thought more carefully about it. Don't get me wrong-- it was a decent movie, and there were some kick-ass moments-- but I'd have to say it wasn't even worth the matinee price, let alone the .50 for a night ticket. I'd actually rather have seen it at the dollar theater-- which was my first stop, really, but I was half an hour late for the 4p showing of Return of the King and I sure as hell wasn't going to wait 'till 8, knowing that it might be daylight when I got out, but if it was then I was already late for work. Anyway, yeah, go see it in a couple weeks. Just not now. Why, you ask?

Hellboy is invulnerable. I mean, come on. He got sliced up, shoved through every damn plate-glass window in the movie, blown up (TWICE), run over by a subway train, had the hell beat out of him repeatedly, and he still keeps going. For a superhero story to have any kind of suspense, the hero has to have a weakness. Hellboy, for all the wonderful hellboyness he has, doesn't have any flaws or cracks in his armor. So the movie becomes an hour and a half episode of DBZ, only funnier and with less staring at the bad guys. It's eye candy, really-- maybe worth a buck and a half on a weekend, but certainly not worth .

On the other hand, it did have the intended effect of turning me on to Mike Mignola's comic, which (obviously) is a LOT more interesting than the movie. Wait, scratch that-- I might just start off small, with some Johnny the Homicidal Maniac first; I always wanted to get into that.

I identify with the character so well. [evil grin]

Thursday, April 8, 2004 7:09:01a: *
I really hate the fact that 130 buttmonkeys all decide to share the same damn wrong version of a U2 song I ALREADY OWN. It's real cute how they append six and a half minutes of static to the first twenty seconds of the song...

Saturday, April 10, 2004 1:08:37p: *
Gamespot has a very interesting Spot On article this weekend regarding our favorite Corporate Overlords, Square-Enix. In the article (found here), analyst Ichiro Otobe (a relatively new addition to the S-E family) talks a bit about how Final Fantasy: Advent Children will be different from the "certifiable flop" (GS's words, not mine) that was Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. Otobe says:

"We should have created something that looked more animation-like. Think of artists. They have the ability to create realistic pictures, but they don't. They create artistic expressions. We should have done the same thing, but we didn't. That was a huge mistake."

Don't get me wrong, I thought TSW wasn't a phenomenal film by any stretch of the imagination, but calling it a flop and a mistake seems to be akin to beating a dead horse, here. S-E has got to get over it and keep going. Hopefully Advent Children will look just as awesome three years from now as it does in these days before its release.

In other news, a port of Final Fantasy 1 & 2 is headed for the Japanese GBA sometime this summer. I expect that at My Birthday Party (aka E3) we're going to get the word on a US localization, if one is to be. Actually, come to think of it, S-E's probably going to have the single most impressive booth there this year-- Final Fantasy XII, Dragon Quest VIII, all the kick-ass GBA stuff... plus, never let it be said that Square hasn't pulled out any surprises in May. Heck, between Square-Enix, Nintendo, Sony, Capcom, and Konami, this year may just turn out to be the best Party ever.

Say, speaking of birthdays, guess what's coming up soon? I'll let you all mull that over for a little while...

Finally, I'd like to give a shout out to all the crew at DDRErie.com, most of whom showed up at this week's DDR Thursday. Lots of fun to be had there, and I'm glad I got the chance to meet you all. If you're ever in the area, dear readers, feel free to drop by and drop some moves.

Anyway, home now for a little while. In case I don't get around to updating tomorrow, enjoy the Easter holiday (those of you who celebrate it).

Tuesday, April 13, 2004 6:21:30a: *
You know there's something seriously wrong...

...when you look at Lain's dad's setup and say, "Well, that's a nice start, but I've done better in my room."

Wednesday, April 14, 2004 5:27:18p: *
Odd, it would appear that /. is down. Hmm, maybe they got slashdotted? heh heh heh

...

Yeah, I know that joke was pretty lame. Sue me, I've been desperately trying to remember how to play Magic: The Gathering for the past three hours.

Thursday, April 15, 2004 6:37:21a: *
OK, so Slashdot isn't down. DDRErie's forums are. I wonder what happened...

Thursday, April 15, 2004 7:35:29p: *
I love stuffed-crust pizza. It's one of the few things that can make me eat all of what I paid for on a pizza; normally the crust is too dry for me to stand. (Papa John's is an exception, but only because I tried drinking the garlic butter dipping sauce by itself and that was just a bad idea.) But as I was happily consuming my dinner this evening, I realized the fastest way to become a multizillionaire:

Step 1) Open up a chain pizzeria near a major tech school like MIT or Case Western.
Step 2) Talk/bribe the phone company into giving the pizzeria the phone number 555-3141.
Step 3) Distribute fliers on campus reading: "Hungry for pizza? Just dial pi!"
Step 4) PROFIT!!

Who's with me on this? We could make a fortune! A fortune, I tell you!

Friday, April 16, 2004 5:52:56p: *
TFO.net Presents: An Equation For Evil

Car stereo volume set at 20 + so full of bagpipes + open windows + MP3 player + lady in other lane trying to talk on cell phone at red light = EVIL.

Needless to say, I got a good laugh out of it.

Monday, April 19, 2004 6:45:43a: *
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Year Two of TheFurryOne.net.

Technically, of course, the site was begun on April 17th, but I didn't actually start the blog until the 23rd. So this week I'm going to add a couple new things to the site which you may or may not find surprising.

First off, I'll be adding a page showing off the websites I'm working on. I've decided to take this web design thing professional, and the best way to do that is to actually get out there and do design. I've already received my first assignment-- I'm working on the page layout and a special project for DDRErie.com. I had hoped to get that together before announcing it, but time did not work in my favor this weekend. Hopefully that will change this week.

Next, I'll be adding the final pages to "So You Want To Be An Otaku", not simply as a gesture to finish the damn thing off, but because there's literally very little left to say. As I learned last night from the truly awful opener for Weird Al, sometimes the gift of comedy is knowing what not to say. Also, there's plenty of sites which do the "sarcasm about our chosen obsession" far, far better-- F'n Otaku prime among them-- and insult comedy really isn't quite my style anyway. So I tried, and failed; but the trial made a few of you laugh, so it stays.

Next, I'm planning on adding a new feature to the site-- one which will surely suck down far more bandwidth than I'd really like to think about right now. It's called the AMV of the Month. You guys have no idea how many times I've found some brilliant piece of editing or a completely hilarious clip that I just had to share or give the appropriate credit to... well, I suppose you know now that I've announced the feature, but let's not dive into semantics here. So starting on May 1st I'll upload a different AMV each month, along with a short bit explaining why I decided to put it up. Hopefully this won't attract too many people and kill the site... but we'll see.

Finally, in order to help the renewal of the site be more complete, he following features will be removed as of May 1st: The d20 subsite and the forums to support it (don't worry, I'm leaving the rest of the forums alone); the Character-O-Matic Dynamic Toy; the Webcam page; They Might Be Anime Reviews, from the Anime section; and most of the content from the Video Games section (pretty much everything except the Speedpad Profiles). I'm sure you'll agree that most of this stuff either wasn't updated enough or wasn't used enough to warrant its continued existence. Compared to what I'm adding and what I'm working on, it's only a drop in the bucket, though, so don't worry about the site dwindling down to nothing.

I hope that you, the faithful readers of the site, have enjoyed the past year and will continue to stay with me as we go forward into Year Two. Thanks as always for your continued support and readership, and I can only hope that I don't let you down.

John Zeitler

Year One was dedicated to the memory of all who died during it. Year Two is dedicated to the spirit of all who live in peace during it.

Monday, April 19, 2004 1:51:11p: *
Dark rumors, ladies and gentlemen. Sources are murmuring the heralds of the end times. All shall soon be brought to nothing, if these fell prophecies come to pass. Should the rumblings prove to be the first ripples of a tide of evil, then I fear no gamer shall be safe.

Bioware (Canada, righteousness, Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic) may have been acquired by Microsoft (Washington, evil, Wacked!, Kakuto Chojin).

Please excuse me. I need to craft a rosary from the cords and buttons of seventy-seven Atari 2600 joysticks.

Monday, April 19, 2004 11:27:28p: *
Just a quick note, folks-- Gameforms is reporting that Final Fantasy I & II on GBA may yet be released in the U.S., with news to come at E3. Also on the agenda at My Birthday Party is the issue of whether Final Fantasy III will be re-released for a twenty-first-century console. And as always, if Square-Enix ports it, the odds are good that the U.S. will finally be able to complete the collection. I mean, hell, we're getting Star Ocean 3.

Oh, and for those of you wondering, yes, I have finally broken down and picked up Final Fantasy X-2. I haven't actually had a chance to play it yet, as it's late now and I've been running errands all day, but tomorrow I hope to get a chance to check it out. One can only hope that my masculinity will be intact afterwards.

Tuesday, April 20, 2004 11:36:00a: *
Hm. Strange, I'm not entirely sure why the last post never got published. Anyway, just wanted to comment that the Microsoft-Bioware thing is not true. And there was much rejoicing.

One last bit-- if you happen across a copy of Boulder Dash EX for the GBA-- GRAB IT. It is a damn good diversion and cheap, too. I love puzzle games like this one, and for I couldn't leave it there. The battle and multiplayer modes kick ass, too (single-cart multiplayer! woo!).

We'll talk about X-2 later tonight. After work, I have to see a man about a vacuum.

Friday, April 23, 2004 7:11:22a: *
Good morning, folks. Lots to cover here, so let's get right into it.

RPGamer is reporting that Auron is confirmed as a character appearing in Kingdom Hearts 2. This news is probably even more exciting to the horde of rabid fangirls out there who thought that Auron should have, and this is a direct quote from someone's blog I lost the link to, "mad sexx0rs with Tidus". Personally, I'm wondering if his personality's going to do a complete 180 (like Squall's did-- er, ahem, Leon).

News of E3 lineups is starting to trickle in-- and prime among those passing up the opportunity is Eidos, who could have redeemed themselves for Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness, but won't. I repeat: No Tomb Raider game will be on display this year. Again, this news makes me happy, but probably not as happy as it makes Angelina Jolie, who right now is thinking "Thank God-- now I don't have to deal with thousands of sweaty nerds, at least until the next movie."

SNK proves it is the Company That Will Not Die, as it intends to release two new "double pack" games this year-- King of Fighters 2002/2003, and Metal Slug 4/5. I never got into the KoF series too much-- at the time I felt they were just knockoffs of the Capcom fighters, until the Capcom games started to look that way too. I've heard good things, though, and Metal Slug doesn't look like it will ignore my hardcore side either.

I've already talked about "The URBZ: The Sims Get Racist" on several forums, so I feel no need to boil my blood further about it here.

Here's something I noticed. Sam & Max 2 got cancelled because Lucasarts felt there wasn't enough interest in the point-and-click adventure game market. However, Sierra/Vivendi/whoever they are now feels confident enough in their Leisure Suit Larry series-- a borderline pornographic game, not exactly a top-selling genre-- that they're still continuing development of the next installment, "Magna Cum Laude" (which is only a mild double-entendre). I want to support adventure games, sure, but I'm afraid that officially endorsing LSL would result in the Lucasarts execs getting the wrong message, and opting to put a scene in their game where Sam bends Max in half and forces him into the Fruit Friend.

Yeah, I know what it's really called. The F-word rule, remember? I can say shit, hell, damn, and holy motherpusbucket, but not f***.

Anyway, let's talk a second about my own experiences. In the brief moments I've been able to play it, I've received large amounts of pleasure from Boulder Dash EX. I'm about halfway through it and still having a blast; the puzzles are varied enough and engaging enough that I've never gotten to a point where I could be considered "stuck"-- sure, I might have some difficulty with a puzzle, but a quick break for something else will usually grant me the insight needed. I wish my friends all had GBAs; the battle mode looks to be fun enough to get the crew together again. Of course, if they all had GBAs, I probably wouldn't have sold off Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, either, but that's a different story.

Speaking of different stories, I'm really enjoying FFX-2. Admittedly, I had my reservations about the series upon hearing that changing clothes mid-battle would be a primary gameplay element, but actually it's not as bad as all that. I rarely use the mid-battle class changes, though, but it's nice to have them. One important note: Rikku is no longer allowed to be a White Mage. Ever. "Boo-boos be gone!" AAAARGH MY BRAIN

Johnny the Homicidal Maniac proved to be a purchase well-worth it. Jhonen Vasquez certainly has a deft touch for writing; and despite the horrible and comically excessive violence, the message is overwhelmingly positive-- "Be nice to people or you're going to get disemboweled by a skinny man with a big freakin' hook". I love the [Z?] shirt, though-- I so want to get one of those.

Oh, and I still can't pass "The First".... I just need to keep trying Paranoia until I can pass that regularly.

More stuff as it becomes available, so keep your eyes open. Later, folks.

Saturday, April 24, 2004 7:51:12p: *
I'm not really a religious person, but I'm actually in tears right now because of this quote, found conveniently at bash.org:

 Our Father, who 0wnz heaven, j00 r0ck! 
 May all 0ur base someday be belong to you! 
 May j00 0wn earth just like j00 0wn heaven. 
 Give us this day our warez, mp3z, and pr0n through a phat pipe. 
 And cut us some slack when we act like n00b lamerz, just as we teach n00bz when they act lame on us. 
 Please don't give us root access on some poor d00d'z box when we're too pissed off to think about what's right and wrong, and if you could keep the fbi off our backs, we'd appreciate it. 
 For j00 0wn r00t on all our b0x3s 4ever and ever, 4m3n.

Edit: Hm, the IRC handle of the person who wrote that apparently is being interpreted as an HTML tag. Since I'm a lazy bastard, I won't fix it, istead opting to say that the above "prayer" should be credited to a chatter who goes by the nick of Firefly.

Also in the "weird" category, when I went to edit this post, I was made eligible for a beta spot for Google's Gmail. I'll let you know how it works out.

Saturday, April 24, 2004 8:14:02p: *
Oh, and one last thing:

Square-Enix Is Running Out Of Ideas

Sunday, April 25, 2004 6:42:01p: *
This is a notice for Slipgate, Katya, Eyeglazer, and anyone else interested.

Do you folks remember when I mentioned Tsubasa RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE way back pre-Otakon? At that time I hadn't actually read anything by CLAMP, short of a few pages of X back when it was in Animerica long long ago. I had also just been dipping my toes into X and Tokyo Babylon.

Eight months have gone by. I've gone deep into exploring the territory of their work, and now there is no going back.

Eight months have gone by. And the manga is now available in English.

Bottom Line: You want to read this. Though if you're like me, you might want to wait 'till Otakon, as the next volume is about five months out yet. Del Rey has done right by me as a publisher, though, by preserving a lot of the original work and adding quite a bit of extras. September is so far away...

Oh yeah, and Mokona makes a return. [whoosh sound as Katya rushes out the door to get the book]

Oh well, I have four volumes of Chobits to read tonight. That ought to keep me busy.

Monday, April 26, 2004 10:00:21p: *
This story caught the attention of both myself and Lord Jim-bob (praise to him!). We're not really sure who to root for here... I mean, on one side, you have the foul emanations of the excrement of Satan himself, and on the other side, you have the whores what spawned it.

Somewhere, John Romero is weeping, because "The Olsen Twins are about to make Acclaim their bitch."

Monday, April 26, 2004 10:25:51p: *
You know, putting that quote down there in such close proximity to my undying praise for CLAMP is just bound to come back and haunt me. I know it. We're going to see a few damn freaky Disturbing Search String Theaters really soon now, I'd wager...

Tuesday, April 27, 2004 6:27:06a: *
THERE IS A GOD.

That is all.

Friday, April 30, 2004 6:59:51a: *
Well, as you can see from the sticky text, I'm working closely with the members of DDR Erie to develop the scoring/profile storage system. I'd talked about this near the end of December, and never got around to implementing it until now, but since I've been involved with the site I've had a greater drive to build it. It's close in concept to the Aaron In Japan site, where users currently go to store their DDR data, but in actuality it's nothing like the AIJ site (it's going to be much cleaner, more organized, and expandable). I expect I should have it live on DDRErie near the end of May, if not sooner. Links to it will be on the Dynamic Toys page as well as on a few other areas here on TFO.net.

But rest assured, once it works, you folks will be the first to hear about it. ^_^