Please be advised that the content on these pages is STATIC and for archival purposes only. Links may not work.
Monday, November 8, 2004 8:34:46a: *
Tonight they say something very wonderful is going to happen. Personally I wouldn't know, seeing how as I've got no way of partaking in this glorious event, but yet it seems as though the world may yet be a better place once this comet of hype passes by us. We can only hope. For now I will simply go about my day wearing a grin and lightish-red armor. Chupathingy.
We're a week into National Novel Writing Month and so far I'm half a week behind. This may be curiously due to the fact that for the past four days we had what could really only have been described as a festival of geek. Come to think of it it wasn't even really a festival of geek because the only group geek activity we engaged in was D&D (actually, my Modern campaign). For the rest of the weekend we were all pretty much engaged in the dutiful application of slack to ourselves and each other. We did go to Outback last night and Lightside Alex, Janelle, and Max all learned that I have no tolerance for alcohol. I had one "pixy stick" martini (which was a dash of Midori in way too much gin and just as overmuch sweet and sour) and was off-balance for the rest of the night. Either that or the combination of being utterly exhausted and having imbibed alcohol was a bit overwhelming. I barely was conscious enough to see everyone safely out (thankfully, Max drove us back from the Outback).
Regardless. Half a week behind. I am going to sit my behind down and get to 15K today if it kills me. But first I need to clean up a little, start some laundry, and make some calls regarding my continued lack of employment. I want to work, I want to be a productive member of society, but I heard absolutely nothing back from anyone these past few days, which bothers me. It's time I stopped being so Mr. Nice Guy about this and took the bull by the horns. My first order of business is to talk to the three people who said they'd get back to me, and then talk to a human being at the unemployment office to see if getting a part-time job would kill my benefits. There is another problem-- the part-time job is a last resort if nobody brings anything else to the table for me, because I don't want to say "Yes, yes I can work" and then three days later say "Nope, got a real job, you suckers are on your own". As cathartic as it would be (think a sledgehammer made of irony kind of catharsis), it's not my style.
I also need a new toilet seat because Alex and Janelle broke mine while they were "washing his hair", which is the latest teenage code-speak for SEXINATION!!!. Actually, no, it was broken before, but I needed a real excuse to go out and get another one. The thing about it is that I will have bought a toilet seat for every apartment that I've lived in if I go ahead and get a new one. Or, well, I'm not sure if the landlord would cover this or not-- and quite frankly I'm afraid to ask, so I might as well just fix it myself and get the self-esteem boost for not being totally useless with tools. That's part of the reason I buy bookshelves and stuff-- so I feel like a Man when I've turned a cardboard box full of wood into a shelf or some metal pipes into a bed or desk.
Yeah, I get my thrills where I can. Woo, go me.
Speaking of thrills. Escaflowne boxed set. Amazing stroke of luck with McDonalds Best Buy bucks. Yeah, the math isn't hard there, kiddies. I have to say that I like the television series MUCH better than the movie or manga because quite frankly Van isn't a cockbite in the TV series. (Hey, sue me, it was either Esca or Red Vs. Blue.) Also, Hitomi is definitely more attractive here than in the movie. I mean, yeah, not going to jail. I'm really only about one disc in-- Fanelia's toast and Allen barely helped everyone get away. I really think the only thing Allen has going for him is that he's too slippery to catch because of all the pretty-boy gel he uses in his hair. But yeah, the bottom line is I like Escaflowne and Dilandau is nuts.
Seeing it again really makes me want to find Nescaflowne, the fan-parody shown at Otakon, but sadly it's not available. I can understand why it's not been released, but it still makes me sad and a little wistful. Meh. That's life.
Anyway, not much else to say here. I really need to get moving, though, or I'm going to spend all day slacking off like I normally do. Later, folks. I should have news on how badly Aaron messed his underwear shortly after midnight tonight, but that may have to wait 'till morning. In any event, anything earth-shattering will be reported as it comes along, just like always.Wednesday, November 10, 2004 10:10:41p: *
Hey folks. By now I'm sure many of you have enjoyed thoroughly the creamy goodness that is Halo 2. Myself, I had a chance to check it out-- co-op, no less-- at EB this evening, and quite frankly I'm thrilled. There were some niggling issues I had with the gameplay-- for example, it's still a lot harder to use the dual analogs when one is so used to keyboard and mouse for an FPS; also the level design is a bit, shall we say, uninspired compared to other titles (or did Jedi Academy's mission with the train on Corellia just spoil me?). Regardless of these trifling snits, Master Chief did not disappoint in the ass-kicking department. There was plenty of ass being kicked and to be kicked, and not to be modest or anything, I kicked it.
I also got a chance that I surmise many gamers might not receive for another week or so-- a chance to check out the Nintendo DS. I ran the system through its paces insofar as the demo units would allow me to, meaning I screwed around in Pictochat and played Metroid Hunters. Let me start with Pictochat, though-- I cannot for the life of me fathom how this could ever be in any way useful in the United States. The maximum usable wireless range of the unit is about a hundred yards. This is the length of a football field. If you have something you desperately need to say to someone on the other end of the football field, you can just yell it out. There is no need to whip out a DS and send little smilies and crude drawings of penises over a wireless 802.11b connection. Admittedly it would be an interesting thing to see impromptu oekaki chats spring up at, say, Otakon. But the software is extremely limited in its capabilites and has NO handwriting recognition-- not even Palm's whatchamajigger script. I have terrible handwriting, and to be totally honest I also have little patience for tapping out letters on a virtual keyboard. So, Pictochat is essentially going to be that really cool thing that I never ever use. Well, except to see all the oekaki hentai at Otakon next year.
Now, the real meat of the day-- Metroid Hunters. The EB clerk exhorted me to try multiplayer mode with him; this after I had been killed off repeatedly in Halo by the swarms of Covie forces. I figured, eh, why the heck not, and loaded up the demo. The first thing you notice is that the in-game interface is a bit sparse in terms of what you see and what you do. It is very difficult to make the logical leap that your pen movements on the lower screen act as a pseudo-mouselook while your left hand (or right-- we quickly realized that the game is set up perfectly for ambidextrous folken) handles movement and firing control. Once I got the hang of what I was doing and focused my attention on the top screen, the game became much more intuitive. Multiplayer was apparently a straight-up five-minute deathmatch affair, which I could appreciate. It's one thing to be Samus Aran and run around with all her cool toys; it is so very much another thing to shoot at Samus Aran with all her cool toys. I did a few experiments as well-- laying bombs, jumping, and circle-strafing-- but overall I was left with a sense of great "meh".
It's not that I didn't think the game was impressive-- on the contrary, the machine's power shines through and the whole shebang is probably one of the biggest, if not the biggest revolution in mobile gaming since the original Game Boy. What you have to understand is that I did not like Metroid Prime, and Metroid Hunters is basically Metroid Prime Pocket. At the risk of sounding greedy, Nintendo is gambling big time by only including one demo with the machine (Pictochat notwithstanding, not to mention the fact that folks will probably want to buy a game with the thing anyway). Even the Playstation came with a demo disc with multiple games-- so that if one thing didn't strike you, perhaps another one would. Of course, the PS2 had no such disc but really, it didn't need one. The same cannot be said about the DS; we are leaping into uncharted territory here and without a set of killer demos that sell all of the system's strong points, the machine is pretty much going to be hesitating a bit off the block once the starter's gun fires on the handheld console war. Of course I do still want to reserve judgement until I've had the chance to play the PSP, but I'm thinking there won't be much there that hasn't already been done anyway.
So, the overall verdict? Yeah, I'm psyched about the possibilities that the DS has to offer; sadly, though, until something worthy of an "OMG TEH OWNAGE" comes out I'm content to stick with my SP. Which is cool 'cause pre-orders are locked out and the odds are good there won't be a surplus of the machines until February-- or so the guy at EB said. I kinda doubt that.
Damn, maybe I oughta ask Rick if he wants to run this on the 'Jak. Meh, he'll see it and if he thinks it'll fly, I'll toss it out there.
Anyway, I realized this afternoon that I'm about 4000 words behind on my NaNo. By tomorrow morning that'll be 5500 words. So, all things considered I have to get crackin'. Later, peeps; I should have something interesting to discuss tomorrow night. Maybe. Enjoy your Veteran's Day if you live in the U.S.A. and remember that freedom isn't free.Saturday, November 13, 2004 1:00:45p: *
This coming Valentine's Day is going to be extra sweet, if GameSpot is to be believed. Star Fox: Assault, Klonoa 2 GBA, and WarioWare DS all hit in February according to the Big N's latest release forecasts. Top this off with Xenosaga Episode 2 on the 15th and you have a truly underwear-destroying day. I for one am glad that people are looking past the thrills, chills, and spills of November and forward to what comes AFTER we've beaten all our games before New Year's Day-- or, hell, before December 1st.
I don't really want to comment on the Marvel vs. City of Heroes thing-- I mean, yeah, the joke has been made that Statesman has, er, "appropriated" Magneto's helmet; more than that, I really do fear for my life saying anything negative about CoH because once Pez gets that look in his eye I either get a face full of plasma or my butt kicked from here to the moon. Not to mention the legionofdoom gettin' all up in ma face.
Heh. I just now got that Crystal Method joke. Legion of Boom. Cute.
Anyway, so let's talk about the novel. We're just about halfway through now, and it's coming along nicely. Except that I'm not halfway through the book, just halfway through the time allotted to write it. It could be worse, though-- I could have nothing started. 17,000 words is a decent start, but I'm not even into Chapter 4 yet; the plot is progressing way too slowly. Regardless, I'm confident I can write another 30,000 words of drivel once I get a solid plot in my head. Now if I could only figure out what it was....
I saw what can only be described as a Japanese man with far too much time on his hands. ASCII art is one thing, but ASCII and kana/kanji art takes it to a whole new level. It's a four minute or so Flash animation with ASCCI/kanafied versions of the Azumanga Daioh cast set to the opening theme to an H game, but the song is just really catchy too, and the animation is well done. Rather than feature it as an AMV of the Month (which would be kind of bad, as it's not really an AMV) I'll just give you folks the link to the originator's site and his animations page (the one I refer to is the fourth one down, Azumanga-Princess.swf). I sent him an email a couple days ago; I'm not expecting a response because of the language barrier.
I've been toying with the notion of dropping DMG Ice from my links list for a couple months now, solely because there's hardly ever any updates anymore and when there are they're not nearly meaty enough to warrant a look. As a matter of fact, bam, it's gone now. The site had a good run, and Philip is a brilliant writer; but all things considered he should look into retiring what he's done and joining a legitimate magazine. Fanboyism is a good thing individually; it is far from an adequate base to build a site upon, and that's what's killing DMG Ice. Since Nintendo has started clamming up on its policies and upcoming releases the dedicated sites like Philip's have had very little news to report that doesn't already come from somewhere else. Perhaps more than anything, though, I was disappointed in the negative tone of the site overall. Still, if he has a reader base that hasn't left him yet, so be it; my opinion is that he should just move on.
Now that raises an interesting question for me, too-- if one day I tire of the whole furry schtick, will I have the graciousness to move on to a different site? Almost certainly. I'm practically counting on the day when this site remains just a memory for those who knew me way back when. Of course I don't hold any illusions of grandeur that I'll ever have a way back when to look back at, or that I'll leave this site behind at all-- I'm probably just going to remain a quiet, safely anonymous person here in my little corner of the Internet and attract little or no attention at all. And that would be fine, too. There's something to be said for the status quo.
Still, y'know, if something does come up, I wouldn't mind, strictly speaking, being relatively famous. But yeah. What are the odds?
Well, I've wasted enough time as it is, so I'm going to wait for this download to finish, grab a bite to eat, and get back to writing. To facilitate this, I'm going to finish bittorrenting the I Love Bees DVD (those of you who want in on this, the link is here; thanks to Slashdot and the mysteriously proud-of-his-geekiness Maxx) so that my connection speed drops through the floor. Hm, speaking of plunging into the basement, maybe I ought to do laundry, too. BAH! I cannot multitask while I write! ARGHRGHRGH!
Oh yeah, last thing. Zohar, get your butt over here. Many of us miss you.Tuesday, November 16, 2004 8:16:08p: *
Yes, I am 7000 words behind on the novel and counting. Still, today was a day I really needed to spend away from a computer for as long as possible.
Which in this case turned out to be about an hour. Maybe two. Well, actually, if changing the track in iTunes counts as using the computer, then today was a total failure as I got my playlist on from the minute I woke up to about an hour or so ago. ANYWAY.
Probably the single biggest cliche in my life right now is "shit happens". Yesterday, shit happened repeatedly, without warning, and constantly. Yesterday-- for a while-- I forgot the one thing that makes it bearable: that just because it's a cliche doesn't mean it isn't true. So, I choose to set aside all the horrible things that happened yesterday and just concentrate ont he one good thing that did happen; I'm going to be taking a trip to New York City early in December. For the record, if anyone wants anything from there, say the word.
Today was better. Last night I finished up a review around midnight and started work on what I wanted to use for my next one; however, the topic was Halo PC, and I was about three levels from the end. Rather than write a half-assed review, I fired up the disc and decided "well, I'll just patch it, see if that makes a difference, and then finish it up; how long can it take?" FOUR HOURS. I slogged through the last three levels over the course of FOUR HOURS and finally got to bed around 5a this morning. Oh, and for the record, the patch didn't help things. It was still a barely-playable pile of garbage, but a well-designed and engaging pile of unplayable garbage all the same. Maybe it was my machine, but I knew that I couldn't review Halo having played it on a gimped laptop (ooooh, integrated intel video card... I hates you so much!). Anyway, the review I did finish was for Klonoa 2. Expect to see that maybe in a couple days.
The reason I continued to play Halo for so long rather than doing the sensible thing of uninstalling it and sleeping was because in the other room I was hard at work burning the first six episodes of Kanon to DVD. Much love goes out to AnimeINC and AnimeSuki for bringing it to folks like you and me. Regardless of how I got it, I have to say that I was well armed going in to the show, having been warned by Slip not to judge it by the first few episodes. I took my time with the show and let myself get a feel for the characters, but I'm halfway through it right now and I'm wondering where the plot is going to go. It seems almost too quickly-paced to be believable-- Yuuichi is meeting girls left and right and they all seem to have some connection to him from the last time he visited seven years ago. Wow, and you thought Keitaro had it bad. Still, I think Ayu is adorable and Nayuri is a close second. Those two are peas from the same pod, I'd be willing to bet.
Oh holy hell no, please don't let the story take a turn for the seriously weird by making a body-snatcher type thing out of it. The monsters are bad enough.
Anyway, long day tomorrow. I'll probably get some input on what's going to happen over the next few weeks and let you folks know what's going on. Let me just say this: though I may sound bummed every now and again, I am refusing to give up until I literally have nothing left. So we'll see what happens next.Friday, November 19, 2004 1:53:13p: *
OK, a few clarifications today. First, I have yet to finish either Kanon or Escaflowne, so I'll be doing those at some point this weekend. Second, I did manage to pick up the last disc of Azumanga Daioh, so that's now complete and legit. Third, I will be doing up the Otakon photos sometime this weekend as well. Finally, the completion of the above tasks hinges on me not playing Metal Gear Solid 3 any more for the weekend.
You probably saw the post on Penny Arcade wherein Tycho lambastes MGS3 for being more of what made MGS2 so tedious, specifically longass cutscenes. And yes. I sat through the first cutscene and saved immediately upon being allowed to do so, and my timer read 33 minutes in. I'm not going to complain about this because it's a Metal Gear game and they are known for having long cutscenes. In fact I relished the whole feel of the game as it was set up by the cinematics. Oh, for what it's worth-- yes. They are exactly as gorgeous as everyone says they are.
I'm also impressed at how well the characters interact this time around. There's always been a good rapport between the cast in the previous games, but this one simply blows everything away. Sigint and Para-Medic are excellent supporting cast, and even Major Zero (who I still catch myself calling "Major Tom"-- yes, that is a reference and no, it's not the reference you think it is) gets in a few good lines. More than a few, which of course leads in to the whole length debate again.
My opinion is that you cannot build up a story like Metal Gear without taking your time. The meat of the game is stealth missions-- great for gameplay, not so hot for storytelling. To balance this out, Hideo Kojima has ordered many cutscenes-- which will simply blow you away, true, but there are a lot of them. It's easy to give in to the temptation to skip a cutscene, but then you're lost for a brief amount of time while you wait for the story to catch up. However, if you want to just skip the story, go right ahead. But then why bother with MGS if you're going to skip the story? Just go play Splinter Cell or something. The point is, MGS is a stealth game whose primary draw-- for me, at least-- is the story. So I say bring on the cinematics.
I also tend to go through the game pretty slowly-- taking my time, waiting for perfect shots, and calling Para-Medic and Sigint to get the skinny on EVERYTHING I find. If you desire, equip the cardboard box and call Sigint. The exchange is just priceless.
Oh yes, you most certainly do get the box again. The box is love. Embrace the inner peace that is the box.
Another wonderful little bit that the MGS staff decided to throw in is a replacement for the VR missions-- Snake Vs. Monkey. Solid Snake-- the one who brought down Metal Gears and helped that whiny kid kill Solidus-- is called back from his vacation by Colonel Campbell for a rescue mission. The target? Monkeys. Not just any monkeys-- the Ape Escape monkeys. It's a fun little diversion with a hilarious opening codec call, but purely optional. And seeing the little dance Snake does when you complete a level is also pretty funny.
Regardless, I need to get back to work. Lots of cleaning to do in the apartment-- it no longer smells like old socks in here, but that's probably because of the really pungent cleaning cone I have set up. No news on job fronts yet but we'll see. Later, folks.Saturday, November 20, 2004 5:26:22p: *
So, Kanon. Finished it just about half an hour ago and was very impressed. Slip, you have yet to steer me wrong with recommendations, but I think after watching the series I might skip the game.
Oh yeah. Let's get this overwith. This post contains spoilers for Kanon. I figure it's safe to put here as nobody could wander by this without actively seeking it out, but if you haven't yet finished watching, you are forewarned. I'll put a little thingy later on to let you know when it's safe to read again.
First off I want to congratulate Anime-Fansubs on tackling an excellent and powerful series like Kanon. I figured that it was just your run-of-the-mill romance, but as the body count started to rise I was wondering if the girl Yuuichi finally ended up with would be doing so by default. And as it turned out, yeah. Kind of.
You know that one pivotal moment in "The Matrix" where Morpheus finally hammers home that the "real" world isn't real, and the viewers are stuck trying to shift their paradigms without stripping the gears? Yeah. The last ten minutes of Kanon are pretty much like that. Finding out that Ayu was actually alive...
Of course it makes no sense whatsoever that Ayu was able to interact with the world, specifically Akiko and Nayuki. Neither does Mai's suicidal tendencies and the fact that Makoto was really a fox. Kanon really is "The Matrix" of anime because you're presented with what seems to be a reasonably accurate simulacrum of everyday Japan, until the weird stuff starts happening. It reminds you that what you see, hear, and feel can deceive you, and will deceive you-- if you let it.
I let it. I fell totally in love with Ayu and when I found out the truth, I was horrified. When I found out the real truth... words fail me.
So. The series is about two years old and it still has yet to be licensed. This I find surprising, as ADV or Right Stuf would be rolling in the cash if they brought it over. Still, as Slip had mentioned, the connection to the H-game that the series was based on (and, as it turned out, the sex scenes were renounced for further releases on Dreamcast and PS2) might make some of the more prominent licensors a bit wary. It's a shame, though-- the series is beautiful both emotionally and visually. I'm looking forward to AIR and all the other assorted works that Key might be up to in the future.
Spoilers Over
Not much else going on. I've resisted the call of Snake Eater so far this afternoon, but it's getting late. I should probably play, but the prospect of the sniper duel with The End and having to go through that whole ordeal again... argh. We shall see. Later, folks.