The Silver Age Begins...

Now that I've got a scanner I can subject you all to the various pictures that I can't reproduce in MS Paint. Here's a brief comic showing my standard reaction to the presence of a cat:

PSP Shenanigans: A True Story

I don't want to do my TAFE work so let's hear about a frustrating chapter of my recent life.

Ever since I'd sold my Gameboy Colour several years ago, I had not had any real desire to get any kind of portable console. My Ipod was enough in most circumstances and there were rarely games that caught my eye anyway.

Last year though I became aware of Dissidia: Final Fantasy, a fighting game which pitted the mian hero and villain of the first 10 games in the series against one another. It had the two thing I like in my fighting games: recognisable characters and unconventional gameplay.

But alas Dissida was PSP only and there was no real chance of it being ported (games only get ported from consoles I own, not to). As any person with basic comprehension will have figured out, I bought a PSP.

Realising I just spent several hundred dollars for a single game, I looked for others in an attmept to justify my purchase (although Dissidia did get me through Brisbane with my family so it has been fairly worthwhile).

On the suggestion of internet personalities I like, I bought Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles. The downside with this is that it is a remake of game from era when games were still at ridiculous arcade difficultly, and so I'll probably never finish this. It did come with Symphony of the Night which was decent.

So it was around this point I decided I should actually do some research on the console I bought several months earlier cause I'm all about careful planning. Turns out that the PSP is the loser by far in comparison to the DS. It has a weaker battery life and game library. Just like with the N64 I made my choice and it was the wrong one.

Only recently a lot of my friends have been getting into mod chips for their DS's. Why don't I do the same I thought. Well I can't because my PSP is a 3000 with version 5.5 on it, and no one can hack that. Oh boy, things just keep going my way (irony).

And that's basically where I am now. Really the only good thing about the PSP is that it is region free so I can get games from the US and Japan. If only there was something particularly worth while.

PS I apoligise for all the dryness between the few interesting parts.

MYOB

I don't wanna study,
So I'm doing a blog,
This is almost a poem,
Almost.

~~~

If there's one thing I'm good at it's procrastination, which is why I'm here and not studying for tomorrow's test. I was going to do an actual half decent post on either another Steam game or maybe get around to doing another GitS draft but common sense pointed out that would be unwise.
After all, I want to put off the work for some time, not outright skip it, because when I start a post there goes the night.
You see, I can get rather anal about sentence structure and word usage, and will whittle away hours of my life agonising over trivial choices. Eventually I'm left with some decent but unconnected paragraphs and no more interest in my topic. At this point I say fuck it and force the post together like a guy gluing odd lego blocks to each other. This is one of the reasons my conclusions suck so hard, if they are even there.

~~~

In completely unrelated news I want this game. Now.

Bandwagon

As you probably have noticed, I've got a Twitter account now. I signed up so I can keep in touch with all my vocal readers who have stuck with me for so long. I did this because as an earlier post hinted, there are times when there is something I want to say but it is not worth writing an entire post about it (not that it always stops me).

While writing the Indigo Prophecy 'review' I realise most of my thoughts would have been better suited to brief, as-they-happened messages rather than trying to stuff them into an overview at the end.

So now there's Twitter for all the minor things that I want to voice regardless of whose listening.

Steam Sale Review: Not Really

Whenever I view something that is either head-explodingly brilliant, fist-pumpingly exciting, retch-inducingly terrible.....you see where I'm going with this; whenever something results in a strong emotion or two I consider writing up a post. Key word, consider.

As you may have noticed from the lack of updates I don't really get around to doing it very often...or at all for some weeks. Because while I frequently spend my time in the shower composing choice phrases which then turn out less clever or logical in reality than in my head, I don't get around to the actual act.

Really I need to just learn how to use Twitter or something because what I frequently want to do is just deliver a brief paragraph on what just happened moments ago while the emotions are still raw. This would satisfy my immediate need to be recognised, and would allow me to cover many more topics than I currently do. Quality would dip though as posts would be much less informative, interesting or really anything substantial.
Here are some examples of what things would be like if I adopted a more social-networky style:

Now and Then, Here and There: Holy crap did they just imply what I think they implied?

Real Life: Hmmm nothing good on TV.

Team Fortress 2: FUCKING LAG. People keep shooting me from around damn corners!

Real Life: Seriously, I've got Foxtel and there's nothing worth watching....HOW?

This was initially going to be a lead in paragraph or two for other Steam game review but I kind of got side tracked if you hadn't noticed. Maybe I'll do one this weekend.




But don't hold your breath.

Subversive Playing

Since I last posted I've gone through several more failed GitS drafts and I've come to the realisation that while I have plenty of opinions, I don't seem to have adequate way of stringing them together in a coherent shape.
I find myself able to word my views better when it's in a conversation with another person, where the other person can pick up the social slack when I falter. So when I'm faced with a blank white screen, hungry for text and order, my opinions seem to wither into vague musings and my inner critic looks down at what I type.
In conclusion, no GitS actual yet.

And now for tonight's entertainment.

As you may or may not know, the FPS Team Fortress 2 is a class based game. Periodically the developers, Valve, release an update for one of the nine classes, offering 3 new alternative weapons/items. This time Valve are updating both the Soldier and the Demoman at once, and naturally there's a twist.

Valve has just announced that either Soldier or Demoman (but not both) will get a 4th unlock. And how is it decided who gets this rare privilege? By pitting the two classes against one another. Until the end of week (I think) every time a Demoman kills a Soldier or a Soldier kills a Demoman it is recorded and which class has the most kills, wins.

Now this makes this pretty interesting. As well as giving people a new goal to work towards it also shakes up the maps themselves as players adapt their strategies to the new class ratios. I found myself being lured back into the game having been bored with it for several months.

In theory this event should lead to plenty of Soldiers on the attack, and plenty of Demomen on the defence. In theory.

Because everyone who has a preferred class wants it to win, people are having to come up with some fairly meta strategies. One has to decide when it is worth risking your class to take down the other because the last thing you want to do is feed the opposing class kills.

I found myself foregoing playing as a Soldier because of the sheer number of enemy Demomen. Instead I was playing as another Demoman, who just didn't kill any Soldiers, as I found it was more productive to the Soldier's cause to not play the class.

And any sort of situation that generates this sort of out-of-the-box thinking is alright by me.

Bump

Yesterday I decided that I should do a Ghost in the Shell week, with a post each night discussing a feature of the franchise as a whole. Since there wasn't a finished post from Sunday, one can conclude that this idea did not prove successful. Worse still, I started on the one topic that I thought I could talk about at length only to find that I said all that needed to be said with one paragraph.

Go team.

So GitS Week will never be. I will however endeavour to do a post or two summarising the major concepts I wished to praise and/or condemn. If I'm feeling adventurous I may even try to make it entertaining AND insightful, something I constantly struggle with.

Clip Show

Several months ago I finally got around to turning clips from my various DVD's into GIF's. It had been an intention of mine for quite some time.

Like usual the simple idea turned out to be a complex endeavour that consumed far too many hours. In the end I worked out a 4 program system to do it......and I also filled my computer with viruses. One stolen account and reformat later I decided to put off GIF making.

But Present Me scoffs at the silly precautions of Past Me and decided to try again (no malware detected yet which could just mean it's well hidden). And so now I've encountered another problem; a problem I have met before with Garry's Mod. I don't want to do anything I can do, and what I want to do I can't.

Theoretically I can make videos, GIFs or just take screenshots, and from these I could make all sorts of potentially funny videos and so forth. The internet is practically founded on humorous stuff made with copyrighted material (that and porn).

But in actuality making something halfway decent is a lot of hard work for very little reward. Look at this blog, the amount of time I invest in this is way more than the amount of enjoyment people (assuming this is read) get out of it (assuming they enjoy it).

So basically, I've once again risked my computer for the ability to do things I don't need to do.

P.S. Here are some awesome screenshots from FLCL:

Don't mind me, I'm just chilling out.

Even in context this shot is both brilliant and wrong.

Sanity? Who needs that when you have got a shotgun-guitar.

Obsolete

I was wasting time on TV Tropes when I happened to find out that Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation fame also does articles in addition to his weekly video so he can elaborate on things he had to leave out.

Awesome.

Until I realise that Extra Punctuation covers the same topics as my blog (minus the anime) except that he does it more entertainingly, with more skill and focus, and has an actual audience.

So it's one more name to the list of websites that do what I do but better.

Back from Purgatory

It's been a while since I last posted; complete loss of password security tends to interfere with schedules.

What I had been planning to do just after the last post was an apology. Self-deprecating humour aside the previous post was a new low. It wasn't entertaining, informing or insightful.

While I could laugh it off and say that the lack of focus, structure and quality are part of this blog's style, similar to how the font, size and layout varies from post to post (long story). I could say that, but that would be like Uwe Boll saying he's a good director whose signature style is 'making crap movies'.

Part of the basis of this blog was to experiment with styles till I found a good one and maybe even developed some sort of fan base (I don't aim or dream particularly high). However I took the easy way out with basically textual diarrhea; I sprayed unpleasant paragraphs of unfinished thought out onto the internet.
Also I hope I just killed someone's appetite.

Since I know myself rather well I'm not going to bother promising to produce better quality posts because I almost stick with any vows I make. I will however try to produce better quality.

In conclusion, here's a picture with no relevance to anything:

Totally Epic

It has occurred to me that I've been neglecting the main purpose of blogs, nay the internet. The world wide web exists for people to tell others about the inane details of their daily lives and I haven't been doing my part. After all, if we don't do this, who will? Foreigners, homosexuals and communists that's who.

I'm a fairly lazy person. I tend to procrastinate as much as possible, but sometimes I just can't be bothered to do even that. So just earlier I decided to have that shave I had been needing for the last fortnight. Trivial enough yet? Well I can do worse better.
Despite being a simple procedure the act of shaving varies in the details from person to person. For me the mundane routine goes:

1) Apply shaving cream. It doesn't seem to do anything but I'm not going to argue with every other male of the modern world.
2) Find the comfortable angle to shave with, then reverse it because biology hates you and this is more effective.
3) Avoid slashing throat. Getting those last few hairs is not worth the potential embarrassment/death.
4) Give up on the last lingering hairs. They win this round.
5) Realise how much time has been wasted on this endeavour, cue existential crisis.

And now you know how I shave. But for those of you who want more than just a recount of basic life exercise, here's a low fantasy style story* inspired by the act of shaving:

Grim Dark and the Tsinogatna

Gripping his well-notched sword tightly Grim brought it down past his opponent's guard and carved deeply into his torso. Blood spurted from the gaping wound as the Tsinogatna savage collasped into a heap.

Glancing around Grim noticed that he had now been completely surrounded. It had been only a matter of time but he had hoped to make more progress before it had happened. Only a scant five Tsinogatna lay dead at his feet.

"Fight me like warriors you bastards," Grim exhorted, assuming a defensive stance.
The Tsinogatna were a hostile people. From their mountain refuges they would raid nearby, more peaceful villages and towns. None could predict when and where they'd strike so the only way to deal with the Tsinogatna was to take the fight to them.

After some less than effective attempts from local militias Grim Dark had been approached. Even in this backwater country the pilgrim's exploits were known.

Two of the vicious Tsinogatna began to approach the lone fighter, their weapons rusted and wicked, their eyes dark and violent. Spinning around suddenly Grim slashed the third savage who had been approaching from behind. They'd need more than that to down the legendary mercenary.

Undeterred the remaining two attacked at once. Grim dexterously rolled to the left and struck one of them in the his unprotected side, Grim's sword cracking ribs and piercing organs.
The last attacker leapt at Grim, snarling and bringing his axe down. The sword met the axe and the weapons locked. Grunting Grim forced the clashed weapons aside with one hand and punched the Tsinogatna in the face with his other. Nose and jaw broken the savage was hopeless against Grim's finishing blow.

One on one the Tsinogatna stood no chance against the pilgrim as Grim was by far physically superior to them. His chiselled muscles were covered in a network of scars, each one a hard won fight and life experience. While muscular, Grim was not bulky, but rather lean, like a lone wolf. And like a lone wolf he was ruthless and determined.

Before he had even managed to pull his sword from his latest corpse another five Tsinogatna from the surrounding dozens surged forward. Quickly looting the his last opponent's weapon, Grim stood defiantly sword and axe in hand.

"Your Gods have forsaken you," he laughed.

Grim danced the dance of death. Tsinogatna fell before him but more filled their place. Whatever they gave he gave back better and soon there was nothing but blood and silence. A few Tsinogatna had fled but most were dead. You could never get all of them, all you could do was lessen their numbers.

On top of a pile of his slain enemies, cut and bruised, Grim stood grinning. On this day he was the victor but there would always be more fights for that was the way of the drifter.

*Assume any and all cliches and bad writing are a deliberate parody.

Some Jokes Never Get Old

Metal Gear?!

In Memory of a Failed Post

There was going to be a different post here, but I chose to delete it. The post would explained some of the fundamentals of this blog and my writing style.
It was also going to address the unsatisfying lack of humour in previous articles but it lacked humour which was unsatisfying. But not ironic.

Ironic Title

Well after having no internet for a week I returned to my blog to find no one has commented in that time so clearly my loyal and devoted audience are just mute with anticipation for another post. And who could say no to such a touching response.

During the Dark Week of Netlessness I had a good......adequate idea for a post, but as the past tense has indicated, this is no longer the case and it has the gone the way of my frequently surreal dreams, and the six years of high school education: forgotten.

So instead I'm just going post some random stuff that I've thought of but can't find a appropriate context to use.

1) The unsatisfying nature of the 'linear warrior quadratic wizard' issue with older versions of D&D:


All I can say is that using Paint takes much longer than drawing something by hand and the quality is lower (though my hand drawn stuff is still pretty bad).

2) Time-freezing speech in anime:

Ok I get that in manga (comics too) that you have characters say several paragraphs of angst or heroic resolve whilst in mid-punch. This is something that should not be transferred over into anime at all yet seems to always happen. A perfect example is in Gantz, where the various aliens seem to always have to periodically pause to allow the characters to struggle with inner turmoil/state the bleeding obvious/remember they have freaking guns.

3) French Foreign Policy:

No opinion.

4) Half-Life 2 getting overrated:

I'm seriously getting sick of HL2 getting so much acclaim over its clever avoidance of cutscenes. Instead of a cutscene you get the fun of being locked in a room while the various NPCs info-dump. There's only so many times you can throw a book at Alyx's head before you realise all that's happening is a cutscene.....which you cannot skip. Go innovation.

I'm rather tired now (it's 11:30 for those playing at home) so I'm going to leave this for now and continue tomorrow, or maybe the next day....definitely sometime this week.
Alright, night.
...
...
...
Back.

5)......christ I've forgotten what I had next.

Bugger it. I don't care that much and I doubt anyone is reading this why bother continue this filler level of quality post.