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Tuesday, June 1, 2004 10:58:08p: *
A late start to June, I guess, but here we are. Let's talk about the new AMV Of The Month for June 2004, Cardcaptor Sakura: Last Regrets by Onegai Studios. This was actually one of the first few AMVs I ever downloaded, way back in 2001. The song, "Last Regrets Xmas Floor Style" from the Kanon soundtrack, turned out to be a really catchy tune that I hummed on many a bus ride to and from Electronics Boutique. Even now I can still hear the angelic choir singing the first few harmonies, and it's simpy beautiful. The video itself shows a decent mixture of action and substory scenes, and does a very good job of showing Sakura in some of her most characteristic moments. It got me to buy the manga series, at least, and once I get some extra cash, I'll start in on the DVDs.
There are a couple things I should mention about my criteria for selecting the AMV of the month. First, I have a few in mind that I really would like to showcase-- stuff that may have flown under some people's radars. Last Regrets was one of those-- I haven't seen it in too many Kazaa searches. Secondly, the video has to be well produced and not over-produced. I found a decently-conceived AMV for Noir set to Die Another Day; it would have made it up at one point if its creator had not gone overboard with the visual effects. Simplify, simplify. I also factor music and animes used into account when I select the AMV-- I absolutely refuse, and I mean REFUSE, to post any "Linkinball Z" garbage here. Unknown artists (like last month's selection by The Youth Ahead) and lesser-appreciated tracks from established folks are always endearing to me. (Slip, I haven't forgotten about that Candyman vid... I just am so darn conflicted about it. ^_^)
Finally, there has to be something about the video that really strikes me as being unique or particularly memorable. I was on a Chobits kick last month, so the two vids I chose to inaugurate featured that title; but they're good enough to have stood on their own, as well. I'm looking forward to bringing you lots more videos.
I was in the store the other day, and saw a DJ station setup-- dual CD decks, pitch and speed shifters, fader-activated queuing... the works. It was 0. I'm seriously tempted... I wonder what it would take to get me back into DJing. Besides a radio show of my own. ^_^
Later, folks. Sleep beckons.Saturday, June 5, 2004 6:23:42a: *
Ladies and gentlemen, not much to say this fine Saturday morning. I'm taking off for Cranberry today to attend the Springboard Into Summer Dance Dance Revolution tournament, being held at Fun Fore All. From what I hear it's a nice arcade, and the machine (a pristine Extreme setup-- good stuff) is situated directly underneath the A/C vents. All the same, I'll be bringing a bandanna and a towel.
Not to go off on a random, tangential, Seinfeldish rant here, but my hair has always been a kind of damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. Witness: I was starting to look pretty shaggy this week, so I got it cut Wednesday back to what I consider my usual short and fuzzy look. The idea being that no matter how long I thrashed around on stage, my head would maintain a somewhat consistent appearance. Well, yeah, plus one for that idea, but minus one for forgetting that all the hair I used to have up there was doing a mighty fine job of collecting sweat and keeping it out of my eyes. So I think I'm going to wind up either doing really well because I was smart enough to use the bandanna, or I'm probably going to have fluid run in my vision at some inopportune moment, trip, and perform a suicidal finishing move.
Anyway, folks, that's the plan. For reference, I should be finishing up either my final fanfic tomorrow or a new Dynamic Toy. Unless of course by some miracle I win or place in the Light division. But we'll see. This is new territory for me, you know. Figuratively and literally. Wish me luck-- and wish me rhythm.Friday, June 11, 2004 6:26:44a: *
OK, so here's the deal. Been playing some Final Fantasy lately, getting my White Mage on; you know, the usual. Since I completed two huge projects and placed fourth in the DDR tournament, I've noticed I have a LOT more free time on my hands. Funny how that works. Aaaanyway. Managed to see my first notorious monster last night, Tit Tat Tom. Found him wandering around near Giddeus. And I was alone. Yay, all the XP to myself, right? BZZZT. In my defense, I did get him down to about half HP before he killed me, and I was above threshhold. Of course, I also realized: I am a White Mage, so I probably was lucky just to survive to get him down that far. If I was a Warrior and had by two-handed sword, yeah, he'd be dead... but I'm not.
More to come later today.Sunday, June 13, 2004 8:26:45a: * 10K updated, bringing us to the end of Chapter 6. I'm serious, though, about what I said-- the second I hear that a print version of 10K is in the works you can bet I will lay the money down. It's that good, yo.
You ever notice that after you read something you tend to keep the mannerisms for a while? For example, the extraneous "yo" at the end of that paragraph, or "oi"s interjected shortly after Megatokyo marathons. Maybe it's just me, of course, but I've noticed it. Weird, huh?
That will be all. Back to Vana'diel with me!Tuesday, June 15, 2004 9:48:56a: *
So my exploits in Perl continue. I've written a tool to help me HTMLize fanfics for RPGamer, and I've also done some additional tweaking to my older projects; in addition, I wrote a version of the number guessing game that I always seem to write when I'm learning a new language. I'll probably be opening up a section in Dynamic Toys for the most polished of my scripts.
However, one of the things that's got me a little concerned is that I spent some time today messing around more with regular expressions, which Perl handles in a very beautiful way-- I tell you, Perl is the language to learn regex in-- and I decided a script to encode in l337 was an excellent test of my skills. Or 5k!11Z, as it turns out. I copied a big chunk of my blog text and ran it through the baleeter (sue me, I was in a Homestar mood)...
Bonus points to whoever can tell me the date that I pulled that entry's text from. Anyway, it works... very well. Almost too well. I actually had a metric assload more character substitutions, but they made the text far, far more indecipherable. Well, I mean, almost completely so; the first revision was total line-noise and very nearly doubled the size of whatever was fed through it. At this point it's readable if you go REALLY SLOWLY and it only increases the file size by about 10% on average.
More goodies as they get good.Friday, June 18, 2004 11:36:36a: *
OK. I'm going to be very nice about this. Of late I've started to notice a LOT of hits from various sources that I KNOW damn well shouldn't be direct-linking my files. The latest culprit seems to be the "Whatever" picture, you know, the one with Squall... yeah, that one. Seems like a lot of people tend to like that one for forum avatars. BZZZZT! I will let you know if you are allowed to link a file off my server. I'm getting close to running low on bandwidth and I want to make sure my site doesn't wind up a smoking crater. Now since I can't register on the forum that the person linking to my files is using them on, I've resorted to this. Moral of the story: I'm through being nice about this. Next time this happens I'm firing up the disturbing pictures.Wednesday, June 23, 2004 6:42:27a: *
You know what would be cool? If I wrote in this here blog.
New Kingdom Hearts info, for both Chain of Memories (GBA, boo) and KH2 (PS2, yay). The good news first-- Aeris returns; and the bad news-- so far, she only returns for Chain of Memories. Five FF characters are slated to appear in KH2, counting Auron; this number should be adjusted as we go along. I'm waiting for a grown-up Selphie to show up... ahem.
I think I mentioned this, either here or back on the old blog, but I've seen a LOT of good reviews for CIMA: The Enemy for GBA. I'm tempted to pick it up, but I have to limit myself here these next few weeks-- Otakon savings, you know. I'll probably skip it just because Mega Man Collection comes out, and I'd much rather have that (maybe-- preliminary intel says the game's graphics are atrocious, even by 80s standards).
Finally, yeah, I've got to take some time and change the DDR icon over there to link to my DEPTH profile. I think I'll do that today. More to come, ladies and gentlemen.Friday, June 25, 2004 10:15:36a: *
Couple things to mention today. First, Mega Man Anniversary Collection is, well, less than spectacular. This is by no means a slam against the games-- the games are perfect-- it's the presentation and some questionable design choices which are giving rise to the greatest ire, among the TFO.net denizens and residents of other forums, as well. In short, since I've been over this repeatedly in the open over in the forums-- reversing the control scheme was not wise. Fiddling with the graphics in even the slightest amount was not wise either. Adding save features was very wise-- but the way you handled it was not wise. All in all, it's a grudging anniversary present for fans of the Blue Bomber, and a welcome revival of one of the greatest video game legacies of the last twenty years. Here's to fifteen more, Capcom.
Oh yeah, while I've got your attention: fire the monkeys who made MMAC and hire a good U.S. team for a Mega Man Legends 3. This concludes my message to Capcom.
Now that the unpleasant business is overwith, a few bits of a more uplifting quality. Erie is turning into quite the cultural center; we have 2 DDR machines, the bookstores here are one of the bigger markets in PA for manga (according to pretty much all of the clerks I've spoken to), and now we have an Initial D machine. I'm happy with this; though Namco, if you're listening, could you find it in your heart to send a Beatmania IIDX and a Pop'n Music to Family First Sports Park? We'd all really appreciate it. Anyway, getting back to Initial D, I was never much of a fan of the manga or concept behind it-- basically, it's The Fast And The Dragonball, in my best estimation, though many people adore it. Seeing as its big debut was at Radio Shack, of all places, I'm surprised it's gained as much popularity over here as it has. In any event, I'm interested in giving the game a spin, if only to learn how to drift properly. I managed a few good drifts back when I was in Coudersport-- Route 44 at 2 AM is EXCELLENT when you get up to about 70 (but ssssh, don't tell anyone I took curves at 55 one night)-- but I can never do it on purpose. Come to think of it, if I get a little gas in the tank this afternoon, I might roll out to the mall parking lot late tonight and get in some practice. Depending on how brave I feel after playing the game, that is.
I have to be very careful linking to the IMDB. Every time I do, I wind up reading trivia and quotes and get distracted. Maybe it's a problem with my attention span, but I'm not sure. I've tried often to conce
About movies, actually, Fahrenheit 9/11 opens in Erie today. Pez is psyched about it. I am less than thrilled. It's not that I fundamentally disagree with what Moore is trying to say-- that Bush is an idiot; those who know me, know how I really feel, so there's little point in detailing it here-- it's the ridiculous amount of hype and zealotry that predicates and follows a Moore release that REALLY pisses me off. I'll preface this by saying that I've never been able to sit through a Moore documentary myself, but F9/11 seems a bit hypocritical to my best estimation-- Moore is removing context for his own purposes, to wit: to prove that the Bush administration removed context for its own ends.
I hate politics. I've been oft inclined to use Larry Hardiman's definition of politics: ""Politics" is derived from the Latin, "poly" meaning "many" and "ticks" meaning "blood-sucking parasites"." It is global Risk, and I feel vaguely offended that we accept that people are going to jerk around freedom in the name of furthering their careers. I'll be honest: clerical errors meant that I could not vote in the last election, but I am going to make sure I'm there for this one. But what I really dislike about politics is the fact that propaganda is legal as long as you don't actually call it that; and that you're expected to accept every piece of propaganda given to you as fact and without questioning, otherwise you're a member of al-Whatever and a terrorist. THAT is my big beef with politics in the information age. An overabundance of contradictory 'truths'.
This is how I would run a campaign to promote me for presidency: No spokesmen, no yesmen, no commercials, no nothing. Just me. That's it. What I said, I said. What I mean, I mean. The two are intertwined and inseparable. I'll have a website with a forum. Ask me questions. ME. Not the campaign flunkies, not the Minister of Corporate Indulgence; ME. Just me. I'll be honest, and I'll expect honesty out of you. And when I'm shot down in flames, I'll say that the American People disagreed with my position, but that I will continue to run until they do, or we can come to a compromise. My platform would be simple: power in the hands of the people, for the people. Fair laws, and a restoration of the right of the individual to choose. To choose right or wrong, and to be responsible for the consequences of that choice. Laws would punish, and punish to a just extreme; laws to prevent should be minimal. That's all. You'll be taught the law, and you'll be given the chance to break it. If you do, then deal with the consequences; if not, then enjoy your freedoms.
But, since I hate politics, I won't run. That was a hypothetical situation; I have no intent of throwing money that I don't have away on a campaign where I have no chance of even making it on my home state's ballot. Nor would I even consider throwing away supporters' money on a death-march campaign.
I'll vote, though, since that seems to be the only freedom still afforded to Americans without reservation.
But enough depression. I'm back to Vana'diel this weekend, trying to get to WHM15 before going back to RDM to level to 30. My ultimate goal has been set-- RDM with SMN subjob. The low-level summon quests have made Summoner an excellent choice... I just need to activate the Ruby, which could be tough. But we'll see; I still have 11 RDM levels to go before then. See you on Monday, if not sooner.Friday, June 25, 2004 1:20:35p: *
This just in: The North Koreans are picking a fight with the Americans over a French-made video game. The Cubans and Chinese have remained eerily quiet, while Britain, Canada, and Australia are pointing and laughing at N. Korea. More news as more countries get into the mix.Monday, June 28, 2004 1:14:28p: *
OK, folks, lots to talk about this week.
First, let's go with an update on the Otakon situation. I am confirmed for attendance, and hopefully this year the combined forces of the DDR Erie and TFO.net folks will be enough to help me achieve my dream of world domination feeling somewhat important. Moreover, it'll kick so much booty to be there for the second year running. I'm hoping we manage to take care of any potential problems (such as, oh, I don't know, me remembering the RF adapter for the Cube) before they come up. Speaking of which, I have to look for that tonight, and if not tonight then when I head back home this coming weekend. Oh yeah, anyone looking to see me bust some steps at Otakon's DDR machines, speak now-- I won't enter any tournaments, of course, but if you want me to Get Up'N Move, just say the word.
Next, how about some gaming news? Final Fantasy: Advent Children has a few more confirmed characters-- Marlene, Rude, and... wait for it... Reno. The ultimate badass. I honestly think that Square needs to get Bill Paxton to voice Reno; there's just nobody else who could do it. Of course, why settle?
The Finish Line, a shoe store, has made a commercial for a brand of Nike shoes. This commercial features DDR's knockoff cousin "Pump It Up", but that should in no way deter you from watching the commercials. (It should deter you from buying the shoes, but that's a different story.) I'm interested in PIU, just because Pez and Colton have made mention that a machine exists in Pittsburgh; I'll have to take a trip out there sometime.
Mega Man Anniversary Collection... well, having had some time to get used to the new controls (read: marathon session wherein I finished 1, 2, and 3), I'm still glad I got it. Just five more games to go... And just FYI, the difficulty got jacked up in MM4 somehow, either that or I just lost my touch.
Finally, I did manage to swing out to Tinseltown and get an Initial D card. I drive a red Toyota MR-S S Edition. Go me. I also suck mightily, having beat Iggy by the narrowest of margins in my first race and losing repeatedly to... who, Kenji? Kenta? Not sure who, but I lost. Then, when I challenged Iggy again, I lost twice. So I played time attack. Go me, it's not my birthday.
There's very little more disconcerting than getting a phone call from an ex, you know? For some readers it may be shocking enough to know that I even had someone in such a relationship with me so as to produce the current relationship of "ex", but yeah. She called yesterday, said her son turned one, and her husband is a doofus. I'm confused as to why women do this kind of thing-- and I even asked two women, both of whom could give me no real explanation-- but what bothers me is that she seemed like she wanted me to say something that I couldn't say. I don't know. Maybe I'll never know. Yesterday was a weird day for all of us, it seems. Yesterday is always a weird day.
You might be intrigued to know that I'm writing again. I've kept the topic a somewhat guarded secret-- known only to one man, and that's because we're sort of critiquing each other-- but what I'm writing definitely has a very interesting premise behind it. Every time I think it's going to work out too perfectly, I think of some new twist to throw in there. I don't want it to get too bent-- twisting too much is an easy way to break a story-- but there're plenty of opportunities for some very good storytelling and just a little philosophy.
I said this on Slashdot a long time ago, but it's worth repeating. Sometimes, really good sci-fi stories aren't science fiction at all, but applied philosophy. This actually kind of applies to all fiction-- take Camus' "The Stranger". Camus details his philosophy of absurdism through Meursault's actions, and in how Meursault grows and develops as a character. "The Plague" was also an interesting read, albeit somewhat gross. Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land" is an excellent examination of religion and the philosophy of human interaction. And, as a personal favorite of mine, there's Xenogears... lots of philosophical subtext there. That's a little of what I'm going for in my story-- a story, entertaining on the surface, but with enough depth to really get into. I know, it borders on pretentiousness, but to be honest I don't really care. I have a story to tell, a question to ask, and come hell or high water I'm going to tell it and ask it.