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Saturday, January 1, 2005 5:08:43p: *
Welcome to 2005, fans of The Furry One! I'm proud to say that this year I'm actually going to make progress on redesigning the site and maybe adding a few more things. Let's start with the first of the obvious changes-- the site no longer uses Blogger for its updating. It might seem like a very trivial thing to you folks, but the fact of the matter is "Blogger is being retarded" showed up far too often in my archives for me to even consider starting another year with it. It's served me well in the past, but now I'm on my own. I'm using WordPress, so if you see anything weird going on with the site be sure to let me know. Some of the older posts that had images linked to them won't show up correctly-- I'll probably go back and fix those later, maybe. Oh, quick opinion-- WordPress is all right, but you really do sort of need to know a little PHP if you want to convert an existing template to the WordPress format.
So how about I tease you folks with what I've been working on? Before I left for Christmas, I was banging out a calendar program. It still has a few kinks in its code, but it will eventually be part of an online, open organizer for folks to check my schedule. Obviously not too open, as there are some times when I'd like my privacy respected, but still an interesting project. As far as other coding tasks I'm fixing to do, I'd like to finish up DEPTH before March is out; however, the often-dreamed game project is something I've decided to shelve for the time being. Most of the time when I come up with a player-limiting game mechanic it seems to work in more of a story context than a gameplay context anyway. Until I come up with a really strong idea for a game, I'm out of the game-development business. Expect First and Last and Goblin Dice to be removed from the site soon, as they were failed experiments.
Wait a sec, did I say "story"? As I live and breathe, I do believe I did! I'm going to declare 2005 my Year of the Storyteller, and concentrate very heavily on my writing. In June of 2004 I retired from fan fiction in the excuse that I'd be able to write an original tale if the avenue of fanfic was closed to me. I wouldn't take up the pen again until November and the failed NaNoWriMo project Id started then. However, I've kept working off and on on the novel, and expanded the idea beyond the initial hundred pages I was shooting for. I'll post up an excerpt in the forums if anyone's interested. Additionally my mother has convinced me that practically anyone can write a murder mystery as long as there's some clever catch to the detective, so I'm in the process of plotting out a novella in that vein. It goes without saying that my protagonist is going to be a snarky-mouthed gamer who winds up very much accidentally in the middle of a murder. As for other stories, well.... we'll have to see what the winds bring in for me.
And no, I am not so much of a dreamer to believe that all of this can be done if I remain jobless. If anything I intend to redouble my efforts to find gainful employment. On the 26th I threw about three dozen resumes out into the ether, hoping for a bite. The lack of response thus far can probably be attributed to the fact that everyone was on vacation, so I'm not willing to hound people just yet-- I'll give them a week to look over the landscape and see what they can do for me. I came very close in November-- part of the reason why I didn't get to finish the NaNo-- but that particular stumble really disheartened me. I'll keep folks updated-- big stuff here, little stuff in the Inner Circle.
I hope I can get things setlled and decided before the beginning of March, so I can get the preparations for E3 finalized. As with everything, we shall see. For now, I'm going to upload the new AMV of the Month-- a very good Azumanga Daioh video set to probably one of my favorite DDR tracks-- and we'll be back to normal soon enough. Once again, and as always, Happy New Year!Saturday, January 1, 2005 8:39:00p: Techknowledgy*
NCIS tonight. It's all right but the fact of the matter is that Hollywood still has decided to insult gamers everywhere. They identified the machine right as the Nintendo DS, but the child playing with it must have been in an intense Pictochat session, judging by the sound effects.
I'm not slacking off, really.Monday, January 3, 2005 9:54:11a: *
Morning, all. I hope we've all recovered nicely from the holiday blitzkrieg? Good. Much to talk about today, so far.
First, I'm coming very close to removing Slashdot from my links page. It was fun, for a while, being part of the "digital elite" as they like to think of themselves, and having my opinion put out there. Then things started to change, the overall atmosphere became far more hostile, and the comments-- which used to be interesting discussions-- began descending into bitching about semantics in the articles or troll/flamewars about completely irrelevant stuff. Besides, I guess being in a slow news period tends to skew my perspective, but they just weren't reporting anything interesting. Go figure. Other "professional blogs" like Kotaku seem to offer what I'm looking for-- opinions on the news by one person, who may or may not be influential. I'm also very happy with the concepts behind GameRankings and Rotten Tomatoes, which aggregate game reviews and user reviews into a single overall score. Not that I don't like to use my brain, but all things considered I'd really like to not have to hunt through eighteen different sites to see why a game rocks/sucks.
I suppose now is as good a time as any to address the whole "HAY GUYZ I WUZ PERSON OF THA YEAR LOL" thing. I harbor no delusions that ABC and Peter Jennings took even the most cursory glance at my site before coming to this decision. I know I've received absolutely NO national attention from anyone-- and no, Inner Circle folks, that time I saw all those hits from 989 Studios notwithstanding. And there are a few things I do here which have no bearing at all on what a "real" blog does-- for example, the lack of a commenting/trackback feature; I've even been called on this by a few people sending me nasty e-mails because my site doesn't conform to the "Blogger ideal" (another reason I ditched the Blogger software). There are reasons for this, and it's summed up pretty much by this statement: "It's my damn site and I'll do what I want with it." I don't like comments systems because they invite abuse-- witness how I was reluctant to put even a forum on my site until six months had passed. I don't use trackback/pingbacks because they're nothing more than a venue for blogs to feed in on themselves, stagnating news. And I don't post "memes" here because they offer nothing to this site. (I do have a LiveJournal reader account where I occasionally post a meme I find interesting enough to warrant it, but primarily it's so I don't clutter my bookmarks page with eighty-nine different LJ links for my friends here in Erie and elsewhere.)
The purpose of TFO.net, as stated waaaaaaay back in the beginning, was to provide me a place to publicly put up some of my thoughts and code snippets. I still intend to hold to that ideal, though the focus has shifted from the coding to the writing now that I'm starting to be a minor player as far as the writing and reviewing is concerned. If it attracts attention-- which, judging by the number of people leeching the Otakon photos, it has-- then so be it. So many blogs are concerned with how many comments and readers they can rack up. I was like that back in the day-- the old Open Diary account I had had me bitching about why nobody was commenting on a regular basis. Now I'm not so concerned.
Enough complaining. Let's make with the real news.
....which there isn't any, yet, as apparently I'm jumping the gun on the whole thing. Most sites don't actually resume normal operations until tomorrow, so I might just have to call this quits for the morning. I'll keep you folks updated if anything interesting happens, but tomorrow expect a good amount of news coverage. We'll see what tomorrow brings.Thursday, January 6, 2005 10:04:10a: *
I knew there was a reason I bookmarked Kotaku. Tops on their list of "GameCube blockbusters" is Star Fox Assault (nee Armada), which they've conveniently put up the box art for. So full of fuzzy love. Anyway, early reports indicate the game's improved quite a bit since the sort of meh. showing it had at E3, so I'm looking forward to it. Still. But I warned you once, Nintendo, if this one sucks I may not be able to forgive you. Just bear that in mind.
Well well. Lee Desmond, who now resides in South Carolina, you may have been on to something when you harbored a grudge against Titus Games-- GameSpot reports they're going under. And unfortunately it looks like they'll wind up taking Interplay with them... Maybe. There's 67% of Interplay's stock up for grabs, I'll give you three guesses as to who's going to be first in line for 'em, and the first two don't count unless they're EA. At this rate they're going to have to change their name to "Everything Acquired".
Oh, speaking of EA, I thought about posting this yesterday, but I needed corroboration. Apparently they're trying to distract gamers from the whole slave-labor thing by having Mario, Luigi and Peach join in for some roundball in NBA Street V3. Now, given that I hate basketball with a burning passion, you might think that I wouldn't care. And normally I wouldn't. But they put her in short-shorts. I thought the whole thing about Peach these days was to de-emphasize the fact that she was the stereotypical damsel in distress and eye-candy for Mario? Come to think of it, Mario's given height is usually somewhere in the vicinity of five-foot-SHORT, so what the hell is he doing playing basketball? I can see Luigi, and maybe Peach, as they're both taller, but Mario? What are they going to to, give him spring-loaded shoes? Or maybe go for the full licensing monty and line his soles with Flubber.
...gah. They aren't even cute short-shorts-- er, sorry. I'll try to stay focused now.
A few new screens and sketches showed up for Musashi Samurai Legend, and all things considered I'm jazzed. I'm really impressed with the way Nomura's characters will be rendered on-screen-- if you thought Kingdom Hearts' visuals were impressive, you literally ain't seen nothin' yet. I can't accurately get an idea for how the game plays from a few screenshots, but what I do see indicates that it's going to play out a bit like the original Brave Fencer Musashi, and a little bit like some of the more recent beat-em-ups such as Shinobi or Gungrave. Some of the English screens also show a really good level of localization. So notch up another title for The List, which is lookin' to get really really long.
I picked up the Broadway Cast Recording for "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown" last night, only because Rob kept singing it REPEATEDLY after hearing Seneca might do it for their musical, and even after it was revealed that no, they weren't, they were going to do Jekyll and Hyde. I like, but I'm going to have to listen to it again later as I sort of fell asleep through the first run through.
I thought Vilbert was dead. Well, I mean, yeah, he was dead, and remains dead, but you know, deader than dead. My next question is when the Sulk is going to make a reappearance.
Not much else right now. I'll talk to you folks later, mmkay?Thursday, January 6, 2005 1:37:26p: *
The Street madness continues. I noticed that Peach is the only character who looks absolutely fugly in every other shot. The one I linked coincidentally doesn't give you a good look at her face, which looks like it was the victim of assault by the entirety of the Cleveland Cavaliers. I knew EA was just doing this to milk more money out of a franchise, but this is going too far.Saturday, January 8, 2005 11:47:35a: *
Well, I was just wondering how I could have racked up 800 MB of bandwidth usage in eight days, when I checked my referrer logs. According to them, three hits have come from the web address "We_are_Borg._Resistance_is_futile._You_will_be_assimilated.". I realize it's probably one of those dumb privacy things which hides where you're coming from but it was still somewhat frightening to think that three of my hits came from a cube in space. Also, curious note, thirty people have watched the Weapon of CX movie, and fifteen managed to find the BioRush track I did. No disturbing search strings as of yet so far, so I'm not worried.
We'll see what happens as the month wears on.Saturday, January 8, 2005 12:40:49p: *
Oh, for anyone interested in trying out a new Dynamic Toy that's sort of in beta, have at it-- it's video poker. Without any of the betting or anything like that. Fairly simple concept to get behind. I'll be working on getting card images done up eventually. Or I could just leave it as-is for whatever purpose.Sunday, January 9, 2005 6:45:41p: *
Well, that just about does it. Mario is now in DDR. We have pretty much reached the end of the world. The only possible way this could get weirder is if Konami managed to snag some rare/original tracks exclusive to this mix. Say, Let's Get Down or Daikenkai. This actually would be a good thing-- a very good thing-- if Konami uses a good track list (and oh yeah, makes sure all the options are in the options menu this time). But for now I'm just going to wait for the four horsemen to show up.
Actually, in the meantime I'm going to go see "Meet The Fockers". Not because I really want to, as I really don't like Ben Stiller, but hey, I have a free ticket, and it expires today. Might as well. And I like the theater, anyway-- comfy chairs and well-heated. Meh. This had better be funny... though for "free" I probably won't complain too too much.
And no, I still haven't seen "Meet The Parents" either. Bit too late for that now.Sunday, January 9, 2005 8:03:37p: *
.....aaaaaand I'm back from "Meet The Fockers". The movie started at 7:20. In my defense I tried to stomach it. I lasted ten minutes. I wouldn't have minded it so much if the movie had had just one intelligently-scripted joke, but NO. Everything was as banal and cheap as possible, and the whole thing was just one string of lousy gags connected by Ben Stiller's bad acting.
I don't think it was a total waste, though. I got to see the previews for Miss Congeniality 2 and Star Wars Episode 3. And it got me out of the house for about an hour. But beyond that, yeah, I should have just stayed home.Wednesday, January 12, 2005 9:54:42p: *
And suddenly February doesn't seem so dreary anymore... Star Fox Assault has got some good buzz going for it, well in advance of its 2-16-05 release; Xenosaga 2 has consistently kicked ass in every preview I've seen, and it's out on the 17th; and if that's not enough, I need only wait 'til the end of March for Musashi... and the... end of May for Wild ARMs?! What the heck happened? The game's a year late now! Gah. Still gives me time to get through WA2. Which I have to start over 'cause I have no idea what happened and I think I'm stuck anyway.
GameSpot, why must you torment my soul so? Your headline of "Another Code to head to DS" set my heart all a pitter-pat, but the article within dashed my hopes of DS Wild ARMs goodness. Curse you! Curse you and your mockery of my pain! The pain of my SOOOOOUUUUL.... All right, there's only so much of the goth thing that I can do at any one point. I think I need to lay off the Nine Inch Nails for a few weeks.
So, howbout that Fullmetal Alchemist, eh? I'm sad to say I didn't get a chance to catch it while I was home, partly because by the time Adult Swim was on I kinda was too tired to even think, but hey, it must be catching on if the game comes out next week, right? Right? Ah, I'm just reaching here. Depending on how things go here the next few weeks I may find myself in the series or I might wind up continuing my streak of apathy.
Actually, right about now I think I've been awake far too long. I'm gonna curl up with a drink, watch CSI, and then hit the sack. Later, folks; hopefully I'll be lucid in the morning.Friday, January 14, 2005 10:08:34a: *
Well, let's get down to business, I guess. No time like Friday to get a good heaping helping of news in.
Despite the fact that, on my computer, it ran slower than a turtle on barbiturates, I liked Halo. After completing it I wanted to experience more-- minus the mind-numbing slowness, of course. Well, flash forward to yesterday, when it was announced that Bungie was releasing the Marathon series gratis. Short of buying 0 in Xbox accessories, this looks to be the best way for me to get my rampancy and AI and suchlike on. Now all I need is the 0 Mac Mini.
Oh yeah, had a discussion with Leah about the iPod Shuffle, too. She knew it only carried a gig, but she didn't know it was only 0; she'd been under the impression she would be lookin' at Apple's usual obscenely high price listing. Of course, for her, the point is moot-- she's already got the main iPod, so good for her. I'm still mad at myself for not being able to get the U2-signed 20GB one. But all in good time-- I expect I'll be snagging the 40GB one soon, assuming things go well.
But getting back to the Mac Mini-- DAMN. That thing is TINY. I have a very messy desk so I'd be willing to bet if I put it on there I'd lose the damn thing. But, you know what, for 0 + a KVM switch, getting a G4 Mac would absolutely ROCK. I'd been looking at a Mac to do some of my more non-text projects-- let's just say I've lusted after iMovie (for making AMVs) and GarageBand (for continuing my music career) for a long time-- and this may actually seal the deal.
Apparently Mother Nature is off her medication this week. In Erie we've gone from snow to 65-degree weather to torrential downpours and back to snow again. I wouldn't care so much except I've been doing a lot of traveling, and I've been lookin' forward to tonight for a long time-- the return of Friday Night Improv at Behrend. Aaron invited a bunch of the DDR Erie folks a while back, and I've gone a couple times... but tonight Aaron takes over as host, and he's said that I bring a good presence, so I figure, why the heck not. If anything it gives me a chance to get on campus and find out where the heck the course catalogs are.
...Oh, and yeah, I have to schlep down to Kinko's and send out a cover letter. I really ought to get moving on that, too. Later, folks.Friday, January 14, 2005 1:53:44p: *
Back from Kinko's. For those of you keeping score, my iTunes playlist shows 6253 tracks. There are probably still some duplicates in there somewhere-- I think maybe I ripped the Eurythmics disc twice-- but for now it's still over 16 days of continuous, non-stop music. Sixteen days. My computer can't stay on for more than about thirty consecutive hours and I have sixteen days worth of music on it. I would literally have to be in my room for two weeks-- possibly four if I decide to pause it while I sleep-- to listen to it all at one go.
I guess what I'm trying to say is "Nyaah nyaah, I'm so l337 I can't even listen to all the tunes I have! Booya!" but I certainly wouldn't be so immature.
Yes, I would. Booya.Saturday, January 15, 2005 9:12:00a: *
Well, yesterday was a good day: I got a call for an interview, I had lots of fun doing the improv, and managed to add another three or four songs to my list of completes in Pop'n 9. But last night something else occurred that made my move to WordPress vindicated-- LiveJournal's servers went down. Now, this is the first time I've encountered a serious problem with LJ's service-- a service, I should add, I don't even pay for and thanks to ol' Rusty here (/me pats domain, watches corroded bits fall off) will never pay for-- but that won't stop places like Slashdot from making cruel jokes at the expense of bloggers. Won't somebody please think of the bloggers?
My point, and I'm stretching every metaphor in existence to actually even call what I have a point, is that like it or loathe it LJ is an integral part of the internet that just happens to be infested primarily by morons. Now, certainly, it would be hypocritical of me to say that knowing full well that I myself use the service to house some of my intelligence-draining impulses (read: memes, quizzes, viral word games, etc.) but I know that Sturgeon's Law applies to LJ, just like everything else. And I would like to think that the few LJs I read are home to important information to me, even if for the most part they contain content strikingly similar to the rest of the LJ populace. The difference is that it matters to me, whereas the other 90% of the LJ community, for the most part, doesn't.
I approach LJ as a sort of a newspaper service-- I can see what my friends have to say and make the occasional snarky remark back. To save myself the trouble of re-typing everything I post here, I simply don't post to my LJ unless it's something I don't think is appropriate to mention here (such as the aforementioned quizzes). Simple concept. It works much better than the last time I tried to maintain two different setups (Open Diary vs. TFO.net). So I've separated my action from my reaction.
Still, I kinda have the guilty pleasure of envisioning the DDR Erie folk et al all sitting at their computers this morning saying, in inexplicable unison, "Double You Tee Eff? Oh Em Eff Gee! El Jay Four Oh Four! Oh Em Gee Double You Tee Eff Bee Bee Queue!" (Just kidding, guys.) And that reminds me of the old Flash animation about posting where the announcer actually expands the acronym... "Oh my f[bleep]ing god Steam roxors the big one one one one one!". I ought to post that for you guys. I think I will later today.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to see a man about a tie.Monday, January 17, 2005 7:47:59p: *
Just a quick test of a perl Dynamic Toy I'm working on. Part of the thing that really limits me here on TFO.net is that I can't set up cron jobs, making automated tasks very tricky to do-- which is why Goblin Dice kinda crashed and burned. But the thing that has me really psyched about perl is that I can use it to make cell-phone based D.Toys very very easy to make. So let's see how this works out. More news as the experiment progresses.
EDIT: The experiment was a success, so far. If you have a web-enabled phone, point it to http://www.thefurryone.net/perl/user-tstamp.pl and you can check to see "latest update" information for both TFO.net and DDRerie's forums. It's less impressive on a real PC, though, so I do recommend checking it out at least once from out in the wild.Wednesday, January 19, 2005 7:48:59a: *
Time is short as I've got things to attend to this morning. However, just wanted to check in regarding a) the departure of Soraya Saga from the Xenosaga series (here's hoping she gave Monolith a full synopsis of the series before she left); b) the lack of being able to get on World of Warcraft (I'm going to bite the bullet and download the trial today, just to see if the bloody thing runs on my computer); c) The EA-ESPN deal (RRRRARGH! FURRY SMASH!); and d) ...
Actually, yeah, I think I'm going to keep d) my little secret. Yay for d)!Wednesday, January 19, 2005 2:18:53p: *
"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end." -- Fastball, "Closing Time"
It's strange how the little things wind up affecting the big picture. Details once forgotten soon become harbingers of a greater force in the universe; heralds which indicate that yes, there is someone up there watching over all of this, and even if what happens sucks sometimes, it's for a greater purpose which you in the immediate cannot comprehend. You can call him God, Allah, Yahweh, Bob, or even the mailman; what matters is that on some level you notice it, even if you just think it's good luck coinciding.
So let's set this up, then: A couple days before I was let go from my last job, I bought a DVD burner from Best Buy. One of the reasons I bought it was the rebate offered by the company, which effectively dropped the price down to about 0. I sent the rebate off the Friday I was let go, on my way in to work, actually. Today, just about an hour ago, I received the rebate check.
On my way back from accepting my new job. There's a deeper meaning there. I'm sure of it. Some force at work.
So, folks, I guess this means a few things. First off, my trips to E3 and Otakon '05 are hereby permanently cancelled. Next year, folks. Secondly, I'm going to halt development work on any new Dynamic Toys for the time being-- that includes the little experiment I was playing with this week. It's for my protection as well as yours-- I don't want to have the site nerfed due to suspicions of impropriety, and I don't want to put you guys through that, either. Next, I am going to probably re-purpose the site to be a journal and news feed thing for my own opinions and game type stuff. Well, officially re-purpose it anyway. Expect that and a new layout to happen before May. Ish. And finally, it means that there is no way in heck I am going to be able to play World of Warcraft. I just won't have that kind of time anymore. Meh. I might drop in on FFXI every few weeks, like I do now, but now that a steady job is upon me, I think my MMO days are pretty much over.
So let's take a quick time-out and go over a few bits of hot news before I let you all go. I had the chance to pick up Zelda: The Minish Cap, and there's no way I could pass something like that up. After the first dungeon, I'm of the opinion that the game has a lot going for it-- specifically, being a 2D Zelda game. While some parts of the Oracles series felt sort of cramped and linear, Minish Cap still guides you gently on where you need to go next; but it never feels like the barriers are artificial. The size difference gimmick is kind of neat but it hasn't been put to too much use yet. I'm looking forward to all the dungeons, however.
Also, I got started on Suikoden IV. I've never been a big fan of the Suiko series, and passed up III altogether, but this came with such glowing recommendations that I found it a bit hard to slip by. About half an hour in, I'm not exactly blown away, but I'm not of the opinion that I'm wasting my time, either. We're probably going to be hearing about me blitzing through it later in the season, probably in an attempt to finish it before Pop'n 10 arrives. Oh yeah. First paycheck, definitely gonna have some Bemani lovin' in it.
For now, folks, I have some relaxing to do and preparations to make. Oh! And a rebate check to cash. Later, all. Thanks for sticking by me through this tough time.Thursday, January 20, 2005 7:26:48p: *
Y'know what? Coming home after a long day's work feels damn good.
Later, folks. I am now intent on resuming my previous schedule of "wake up, work, video games, sleep. with occasional eating in there somewhere".Thursday, January 27, 2005 7:15:44a: *
So, uh... yeah. Hi. [microphone feedback]
Things are OK here-- nothing major to report. Konami was going to be the topic of my rant, as on Monday they said they were going to announce something big today, but... well, they haven't. Announced it yet, anyway. So I'll probably check back tonight.
You probably noted the two new comics on the links page-- I'd been talking about Exterminatus Now for a while, and Misfile was just a random shot that I found from the front page of 8-bit Theater. Both are excellent-- particularly EN's art style and Misfile's writing-- and deserve a look. Oh, and speaking of comics, Neko Machi's funny again. Anything that references SeaQuest for a laugh is automatically funny, no matter how old it makes me feel.
And today, Slashdot has stopped being funny, useful, and informative all at once. It's gone from my links page.
There are a few things I'm still wrestling with as far as getting a new site design together-- two years and this old thing is starting to look pretty stale, not to mention kinda cheesy. All things considered I had intended this template to be only a temporary measure until I could get up the desire to build a new one, but oh well. It's going to be very slow going because after I've sat at a desk for eight hours coding, the last thing I want to do is come home and code some more. Regardless, it'll probably be relegated to a weekend project-- more than that I have to figure out how to get perl to force PHP to process a page or else I'm going to have to rewrite the blogging system entirely. There's a way I can work around it, but I know there has to be another way to do it. We'll see.
Anyway, time to get ready. Talk to you cats later.