The good news is the diet is going very well. I'm playing DDR more consistently now, doing the ab workout less consistently (but I'm working on it), and so far my weight loss has been steady. To treat myself I went out to the Chinese buffet and ate sensibly there (truthfully-- I ate more than I was eating during the diet, but less than I would have normally), and then came home and did DDR for what the game said was over three and a half miles. Right, that's the good news.
The bad news is that, while I was transferring an unlocked save for DDR Extreme 2 to my memory card... the Max Drive disc decided to corrupt the FAT table on my memory card, thus forcing me to reformat it. I lost my Wild ARMs: ACF saves (including clear data with Movie Theater EX File key), my (unlocked by hand) Guitar Hero save, my 2-hours-in WA4 and Breath of Fire V saves (no big loss there), my We <3 Katamari save (very NOOOOOO... OK, I was only two hours into that, too), my Star Ocean 3 saves, my Disgaea saves (all right, so I hacked these for levels, they're no real loss), my Guilty Gear XX save (like I had anything unlocked there), a couple casino game saves, and about half a dozen PS1 saves (most of which were on the DexDrive anyway). Now that I've actually surveyed the damage (by checking my other card and the PS2 HD-- I did not know I had backed up my Radiata Stories saves and my Xenosaga/II saves, but I wish I'd remembered to back up the WA stuff-- it's not too too bad, but any loss is devastating. I reloaded with fully-unlocked DDR saves from GameFAQs and picked up a couple other ones, but I've learned my lesson now: finish a game, copy the saves. On the plus side, I needed an excuse to play through Metal Gear Solid 3 again, and to be honest I've had Oni sitting on my shelf for a while, and it looks like it would be fun.
This really emphasizes a flaw in the current gen consoles that I want to have addressed during the next round. If you are storing game saves on a medium that has a fixed capacity (such as a hard drive) and you are letting anyone access any of that data at any time (ie a rampant bug in a game's save library), you MUST let your users back up their saves to commodity media. If this means uploading to a centralized server (read: Xbox Live) and then downloading to a pre-authorized PC, then so be it. Heck, if we're ushering in the era of the Always-Online Console, why not do away with memory cards and hard drives altogether and have save data stored on that centralized server? Granted, you'll keep it optional for the user, but wouldn't it be a better idea to have some official way of storing your saved data elsewhere? I hate to admit it, but the PSP did it the right way. Interchangeable, PC-readable Memory Sticks which could be loaded and unloaded at the user's whim. I'll be talking a bit about this in this week's Quicksave... oh, right, you guys don't know about that yet.
Uh.... sssssssssssh. Sore wa himitsu desu.
Anyway. Filled in a few holes in the TMBG collection this week-- I'm actually surprised. There are apparently two different versions of the "Severe Tire Damage" disc. Sibling-person found the one missing a couple tracks and picked it up for me about a year back, for which I remain grateful, but I picked up the main version from iTunes. Also picked up the "Why Does the Sun Shine?" single and came very close to getting "No!", but decided... yeah, I got that one, too.
The spending of money on games shall now cease, until March anyway. Beatmania was announced with a tag of for disc and controller. I feel bad for Alex, who went through hell and back to get his rig, but if that's the list price then I'mago preorder tomorrow after work.
I've got a fever. And the only prescription is more Strawberry Bell.Monday, February 13, 2006 9:35:00a: *
Morning, folks. I realize it's been a while since I wrote last, but this time I'm not going to make any promises as to when I write again. It seems to me there's a better chance of me not breaking a promise I don't make.
Anyway, game news has been pretty slow this past week. Nothing earth-shattering, nothing upsetting (except the Advent Children in Europe thing-- April 24th for the Old World while the US still doesn't have a solid release date)... just mostly quiet. I didn't do a whole lot of gaming this weekend, either, beyond the usual DDR sessions and re-starting Final Fantasy X-2. What I did spend most of my time doing was attempting to burn stuff to DVD.
Let me set the scene: I got Justice (the new gaming rig) back in October. I was thrilled to learn it had a dual-layer DVD drive in it, as well as being Lightscribe compatible. There's just one itty bitty problem-- it burned one Lightscribe disc before refusing to burn any more discs, period. I have wasted at least fifteen discs on bad burns-- and yes, they're wasted, the drive burns 64KB before saying, "Duh, I don't wanna do this no more!" and spitting the disc out. I've found that I have better luck if I shut the computer down for a couple of hours before attempting to burn again. So basically this means I can only burn one DVD a day. I've ugraded firmware, I've checked for new drivers, I've tried different burning software, and I'm using HP-brand discs (given that it's an HP-brand drive). Yet I remain a quivering little ball of hatred when it comes to that drive. I've half a mind to rip it out and install a basic DVD reader, then use the drive with KOS-MOS (the Mac Mini) via a Firewire converter box... but we shall see. That's an expensive project and I'd rather not do that if I don't have to.
So, yeah. Not thrilled with DVD burning right now. DVDs in general are cool-- I picked up Magic Knight Rayearth and the first volume of Hare + Guu this weekend. If you like 'random', then Guu is random in spades. Also, I finished up Kino's Journey last week. An excellent series... very thought-provoking and intelligent. Couldn't find Ah! My Goddess volume 3 yet, and I've yet to even crack open Rayearth in favor of watching a bit more of Tsubasa. All told I have two open anime series (Tsubasa and Tokyo Mew Mew) and two waiting (Rayearth and Mai Otome). Yeah. Too much anime.
Right, well, that's really about it. Catch you guys later.Tuesday, February 21, 2006 7:46:00a: *
Short entry today: Diet is progressing well, things are pretty good there. I went over my limit yesterday but apparently it didn't set me back too far. We'll see after this morning's workout what happens.
10K Commotion updated-- but then again, most of you folks probably already knew that.
I haven't done much hardcore gaming in the past couple weeks-- I'm probably going to be sitting down this weekend and fighting my way through Final Fantasy X-2. I also probably should at least log in to City of Heroes sometime soon, but I've just not been in the mood recently. Once I finish X-2, I'll start on Wild ARMs 4 again. Yeah, I know, waiting on a Wild ARMs game almost seems like sacrilege but in this case there's little choice-- it's either finish something else first or risk getting burned out on the series.
As for anime... well, I did finish Tsubasa and I did start Rayearth. I want more of the first and I'm not really digging the second so much, but then again after only one episode it's hard to judge.
Not much else going on. I'll talk to you folks later.Friday, February 24, 2006 10:13:00p: Cellcast Coming Soon*
A new feature will be added within the week called the TFO.net Cellcast. This is a fancy term for my podcast, which is being syndicated through LiveJournal. I'll add the icon for it sometime this weekend and have a second post.
Nothing else interesting going on right now. Talk to you folks later. Literally.Monday, February 27, 2006 8:02:00a: "But it's... pink."*
Morning. Just some quick news, nothing too exciting. Super Princess Peach hits this week, probably on Tuesday, so that's that. Just saw the commercial for it, actually, the 'princess boot camp' one linked to from Kotaku. Everyone say it with me now-- "aaaaaaaaaaaawwww..." I am confident enough in my manliness to proudly walk into the GameStop near work-- the 'urban' one, nestled between ThugThreadz and Rent-A-Ho-- slap down my pre-order ticket and say, 'Peach me, yo'. I may get gatted. I may have some punk get all up in my grill. I may prove to be even whiter than I already am. It may be on.
Speaking of urban, Mark Ecko is waving the race card and blaming that for the failure of "Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure". He says that gamers have a 'bug up their ass against anything urban'. No, I think we have a bug up our ass over games that have bigger budgets for marketing than actual development. And I am counting lawyer fees in this as well, because that whole baloney with New York City? Pure hype, nothing more. I wasn't going to play it before, because it looked like a rehash of Jet Set Radio that 'kept it real', but now I certainly am going to spend a significant portion of time ridiculing it when I see it. It is definitely on.
Right, stopping use of that 'it's on' thing.... now. Spent most of yesterday in Macedonia at the arcade there, where I got to work on my ITG skill (I don't have enough to have skillz, thus the singular) and my DDR 5k1llz (finished My Summer Love, Superstar, and Burnin' The Floor Blue Fire, all Challenge tracks, thus the l337). Also, I was delighted to note that the Beatmania machine was working. It's a 6th mix 5-key, so it wasn't terribly difficult. I was a bit unimpressed with the song selection-- since I was a beginner, I stuck to 1-3 star songs, the hardest being I think 'Hysteria 2001'. Still, all told there were still only roughly three dozen tracks. I'm looking forward to the home release here at the end of March but I could probably convince myself to head back to the arcade for another few rounds.
Also while I was out, I managed to see The Pink Panther. I wasn't... well, it's not that I was unimpressed, but rather that there were a lot of jokes that were kind of taken a little too far. The prime example of this, sadly, is a spoiler, so I can't say what it was, but you'll know it when you see it. Steve Martin (who co-wrote) did a good job of updating the story, and I'm actually pretty happy with the performances (especially Kevin Kline, who works so well with Martin) but it just wasn't as good as it could have been. The biggest problem with it-- and with a lot of comedies lately, actually-- is the tendency not to diversify the jokes as much. Scriptwriters tend to drag out gags, beating you with the same punchline for thirty seconds or more until it's not funny and just embarrassing. It's more effective to rapid-fire the gags, changing the humor at every moment; while at first watch through nobody will get all of the jokes, you can be sure they'll be laughing all of the way through it and not just for the first ten seconds of the gag.
Of course, I'm mostly looking forward to V for Vendetta and Ultra Violet. But, having lived through the Scripps-Howard Day of Torment (two years in a row, mind you), I can probably get behind Akeelah and The Bee, which looked really, really interesting.
Finally, in terms of the Lost Legacy, I reclaimed two pieces-- the Die Hard Trilogy, and the full set of Martian Successor Nadesico. Nadesico was part of the 'Essential Anime' collection and surprisingly wound up costing half of what they were marked.
One last little note before I stop procrastinating start getting ready for work: I finished the first season of Rayearth over the weekend. The ending is more than a little misleading, and to be totally frank, a little unsatisfying. I realize there's the whole second season, but it's sort of like taking Lost and saying, "Oh, wait, we're not on an island in the Pacific, we're on a very bulbous peninsula and we could probably walk to Bangkok from here over this newly-formed land bridge. Hooray! Where's my kid?" Still, it is CLAMP, and Fuu is cute. I could probably continue for Fuu's sake. YAY FOR FUU
Sorry. Anyway, that's it. For real. Right now, I go to do DDR, for I have a Playstation 2, and... it is on.
(sound of gunshot)Tuesday, February 28, 2006 9:36:00a: *
Incidentally, ADV is back on my good list. Why, you ask? The re-release of Martian Successor Nadesico restores the original visuals and uses soft-subtitles for any signs/displays, as opposed to the original DVD boxed set which used the ADV-produced frames that had accompanied the VHS release. So, I'm happy.
Princess Peach today, folks, and then I intend to do more writing for Inconsequential sometime this week. Really. I mean it. I'm not joking around.
