| day |
[Jul. 12th, 2009|12:55 am] |
got up and mailed off a bunch of ebay packages (yay) and then headed down to california extreme, in santa clara, this year, with andrew the vestal, who came up this weekend especial.
it was really really fun, as always, though this year extremely crowded. it made it particularly hard to play pinball. arcade games were easier. i played a lot of both, but not as much pinball as i would have liked. the demolition man and apollo 13 pins were surprisingly fun. i guess it was just that all the pins in the '90s were licensed, more or less. doesn't matter what the license is when it comes to pinball, after all. did not get to play starwars ep1 though sadly.
arcade games: cosmo gang the video (a favorite, and i have more appreciation for galaga now post-retro game challenge), mouse trap (a favorite on coleco back in the day, arcade version is odd but good for a pacman wannabe), mr. do (finally realized it's mister DO as in do re mi, not mr. do as in "do a job". that's why it plays the scale when you collect the cherries. argh) and ... well, i dunno, a lot of stuff. played SF2HDremix versus a guy and it was fun but my inability to reliably do shoryukens with a stick makes me useless. so useless. i do love fighters. it's nice to be reminded how much.
i dunno, it was good, hung out with ppl aplenty, had a monte cristo at bennigans, generally = good.
had dinner with one of vestal's friends, dave, and his wife, which was fun. social mixing. came home and vestal and i played PS1 games. magical drop 3 is seriously in my top 10 ever, i think. and kururin pa! still fucking rules. |
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| toripuru toripuru toripuru |
[Jul. 8th, 2009|04:43 pm] |
 reflecting on the tandy 1000 HX.
realizing that this is the first time in 20 years i have not had a PC with a microsoft OS.
the tandy 1000 HX was a stupid computer with a crappy featureset. but it was pretty cheap for the time. my mom would listen to me about what hardware to buy; problem was, i was a kid and i just wanted what i saw at the store and though i could wheedle out of her.
bigger pics here. a weird system. it was too small to put a monitor on so you had to buy a monitor stand if you wanted it to sit on top (helpfully, radioshack sold those, too.) it was really hard to expand, but the people who published ads in the back of computer magazines sold unofficial upgrades.
i (successfully) got a serial port onto it (RS232C!) and rocked a 2400 baud modem (external.) all tandy sold was an internal 1200.
conversely, i ordered a hard drive kit from a mail order company and couldn't get it to work. fortunately, they let me return it.
the tandy had a suite of software called deskmate that was partially built into the BIOS so you couldn't load it on non tandy systems. heh. i still have some of the pictures i drew, recovered off of those floppies i found over christmas, and i was able to convert them using a PERL script to something you can actually view in 2009. but they're too lame to post.
we replaced the tandy with a 386SX in 1989. we sold the 1000 HX to one of my dad's coworkers; his wife as an elementary school teacher and she wanted to use it to prepare stuff for school. i hope it worked out for her. i remember going to the house to set it up for them.
the 386SX-16, again, was underpowered but available (i bought it from the computer department at boscov's, a local department store chain.) it was called the PC partner and had the best keyboard ever (except maybe the IBM model M) and was a strange purplish grey with purple accents. oh, 1991. what was it with purple (SNES!) i wanted the PC because i liked its industrial design. not a great way to shop for computers. but i guess it works for apple. |
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| games! |
[Jul. 8th, 2009|01:17 am] |
apparently, if you turn on your playstation 3, that's what happens. games. i did, and three happened to me... in just one night!
i am just going to cut this post now. this post covers three games in varying levels of detail. of course, there's always hidden omake and fanservice in these posts, so you never know what you're missing if you don't click, for...
GAIASEED! a rare playstation shooter that costs upwards of ¥25000 in akihabara now!
KILLZONE2! a depressingly common playstation 3 shooter that will cost $5 in gamestop in 2014!
BLAZBLUE! a relatively attainable game that will probably be like $20 once asw farts out one or two minor upgrades.
( HAAAAAAI MAJIDE! ) |
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| Ruins of the Second Gilded Age |
[Jul. 7th, 2009|06:08 pm] |
new york times photojournal on dead construction projects caught in the economic maelstrom.
i could say something but i think the title, reproduced above, pretty much says it all -- the rest is at the link (click the pic).
haha wow fail nyt! yeek. |
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| moider |
[Jul. 7th, 2009|10:34 am] |
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murder and games is a subject i hit on when i was thinking about how much of popular media revolves around murder stories, but how few games outside of point'n'click adventures/visual novels/etc actually manage to take it in. so i thought about why. then i wrote this editorial about it. |
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| bop |
[Jul. 6th, 2009|11:41 pm] |
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andrew vestal bought and played and wrote about a brilliant-sounding adventure game in the classic SCUMM mold. it is called "time, gentlemen, please!" which made no sense to me until it was explained that this is what people say instead of "last call" in the UK. so hit that link and find out more if a mix of uncomfortable british humor and clicking on things sounds as though it might please you. it is a prime reason i am considering bootcamping this maccy. |
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| mac life is rubbish |
[Jul. 6th, 2009|11:16 pm] |
not really, but it's catchy!
a clickable pic of my mac desktop in its 1920x1080 crazy glory for your amusement.
so i spent way too long dealing with getting the data i wanted off of my external NTFS (windows format) drive and onto my mac and then either burned to DVD+R, or, as i am still doing right now, shunted back onto the drive now that it's mac OS formatted.
hooray for shitty shits.
but it's basically all but sorted out right now.
one thing i will say: formatting a drive on a mac is a lot more arcane than on a PC. macs are generally slicker and easier to deal with, but sometimes the Alien Brain People (aka engineers) devise a feature and then it's like, what? i had to download a PDF on how to format a FUCKING DRIVE from the people who made my drive. that has never happened to me in a microsoft OS.
oh well. quirky! all seems to be well. i named my drive 弐号機 which i guess is cute or something. seems odd to be doing eva references but those are the times we live in. the icon is orange so i guess it should be 零号機 but we all know i prefer asuka. and yui creeps me out.
anyway, almost all is well in chateau du maq. i just need to get that keyboard, and the 4GB of RAM i ordered, and then everything should be almost screamingly peachy.
and we can resume normal non-boring blog service at that time. well, it'll be boring, but it'll be less boring and about something else. cha-ching! |
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| jamietoperation |
[Jul. 6th, 2009|05:55 pm] |
this is absolutely the best song i heard last year that nobody but nobody else i knew ever acknowledged the existence of. it was on a (go figure) Q best of britishy britishface music CD. the album it comes from is pretty 3-starrish, but this track is a major major standout. it just comes up on my iPod shuffle and rocks me rockingly rock and then goes away. a crazy fusion of british indie and rap and reggae (dub? i don't know this shit!) and god knows what. catchy and messy. |
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| now that you're back at work and missing the long weekend |
[Jul. 6th, 2009|11:13 am] |
i didn't want to post this over the weekend because it seemed that online activity was really low. it's a feature interview with hiroshi matsuyama, president, cyberconnect 2.
cyberconnect2 developed, among other things, tail concerto, silent bomber, .hack, .hack//G.U., and the naruto ultimate ninja games. wait, i don't think there are "other things" since i just listed them all.
for some reason i am not fully able to explain i became really really interested in tail concerto in the lead up to its launch on the PS1 and played it immediately when it came out in japan. in fact, i bought a dual shock controller to play the game since it was the first game for the PS1 i played which supported it.
it's a really charming but questionably fun 3D platformer.
the company's next game, silent bomber, is really excellent. it's an original action title that i actually don't remember very well besides being totally addicted to it when i finally got around to playing it in 2002, i think, after i got laid off. it's one of those games i'd encourage people to go back and check out, especially if it were on PSN (it is in japan.)
of course, we all know my relationship with .hack. so i'll skip the descriptions here.
i first met matsuyama in 2002 at E3. he was there at the bandai booth to promote .hack. milky had roped me in to helping him out with appointments at that E3 for no pay (which i did anyway, to bolster my chances with EGM.) one of the meetings i ended up taking was the matsuyama/uchiyama (daisuke, bandai producer) interview. milky and i really got along with them. .hack was a month out for release in japan at that point, and when it did come out, matsuyama signed and inscribed and fedexed two copies of the game to milky -- one for me.
over the years i interviewed matsuyama a number of times. i became an obsessive .hack otaku only to become sick to death of the series in the end, despite still loving it at the same time, and totally skipping .hack//G.U. and the .hack//Roots anime series because i was burnt out. (generally as well as specifically, by that point!)
i've probably spoken to matsuyama like six times at this point. memorably rannie set up one meeting as a formal japanese lunch during TGS, on the top floor restaurant of the makuhari prince hotel. the sum total of questioners turned out to be me, milky, and vestal, and since i knew milky wouldn't use the interview, and vestal didn't have a publication, i just threw the whole thing up on gamespy. (at that point i was freelancing TGS for them.)
and look, here's my E303 interview with matsuyama. just, because. and why not: here's another gamasutra Q&A about naruto. and then one from gamesradar. google is wonderful.
anyway, since matsuyama had a talk at GDC this year i was determined to get a really meaty interview out of the guy. it's not obviously always apparent from the transcribed text, but he's really eloquent and clearly determined. he has a funny showy way of speaking and shows a lot of personality.
tgs 2005. matsuyama 2nd from left. 2nd from right, daisuke uchiyama, producer of all of his games, publisher side
anyway, i think the interview (good interpretation!) shows how strong his personality and ideals are, which is pretty cool. at this point CC2 has grown up to the point where it has 3 active teams and is producing CG anime (!!) as well as games.
anyway, that's my deal. i dunno when or where i'll talk to him again (TGS?) i wonder what's in store. .hack next gen? it would be preferable to star ocean. |
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| i think in a weird way |
[Jul. 6th, 2009|02:13 am] |
what i will miss is winamp. i still use it. i don't like to add everything to iTunes. if i'm rarely if ever going to listen to something and don't think i need it on the go, or if i'm just testing something out to see if i like it... i use winamp.
i've tried audion and it seems ok. it's free, anyway. dunno. been using winamp for more than 10 years. yikes.
also, i was leaning forward just now to stare at the screen and my neck started to hurt. i'm going to have to figure out my posture and stuff with this new setup. life changes! i am not optimistic i'm going to be able to resist bringing my old desk back, really. it may be the best solution in the end, even if it is gigantic. |
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| thing |
[Jul. 5th, 2009|09:49 pm] |
so thinking about it, while i could get ntfs working in mac, really what i should do is actually, go through the drive and pare it down to the shit it actually needs to have, clean and organize the files, and then copy it over, wipe the drive, and put it on there all pretty anyway. it's kind of a fucking ad hoc mess anyway.
^__________^
and i better do it soon; i'm going to want to back stuff up off the mac and onto the drive. hence its existence. cheeeezu |
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| augh now the real horror begins |
[Jul. 5th, 2009|07:37 pm] |
i need to move like everything onto this computer off of my external hard drive, and then reformat the external hard drive (cos mac does not deal with ntfs) and move stuff back.
alternately i could install one of those ntfs-liking apps. hrm.
blarkblarkblark
either way that sounds like notfun. and getting ntfs running sounds like the less worse option.
or i could just say fuck it for tonight and listen to this squarepusher song |
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| hrms |
[Jul. 5th, 2009|07:23 pm] |
pondering this keyboard
it has good ratings and sounds like it's not plastic mush like most modern keyboards. then i can dump this belkin one in the goodwill pile (original price: $15)
i expect if i go to best buy or fry's or office depot they'll just have windows-marked keyboards. IT IS A MYSTERIOUS
this is all i am going to be thinking about for a little while obviously. blah blah blah blah blah |
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| hrms |
[Jul. 5th, 2009|07:03 pm] |
 ok, so.
first up, it's kinda funny that the macbook is sitting tiny and alone in the bottom of that giant tower case spot in this 2000-era desk.
second, this monitor is really nice, but the people who wrote about it having a shitty stand on newegg weren't kidding. not only can you not adjust height, at least on mine, it seems to lean just perceptibly forward ... so it's almost like tilted toward you. i may have to put a little something under the edge to prop it back. so odd. and chintzy. there's no angle adjustment, see.
third, i really need to get a new keyboard, with the mac keys. but not an apple one, barf. this is a windows one and it's all bass-ackwards with the windows key being alt and alt being command. or something. it's confusing me and is lame. i think the logitech one i have at work has the keys labeled both ways. i'll have to remember to notice that tomorrow. |
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| movin |
[Jul. 5th, 2009|06:56 pm] |
so now i'm on the macbook, on the old desk, on the new 22" monitor.
i'm pondering how this is going to work for me.
didn't hook up the printer or scanner yet -- not essential -- but have hooked up the crap USB keyboard i bought in 2005 to use with my laptop when my PC was dead, and man, it's not that great. but not super horrible. i may have to investigate a better keyboard option in the near future. same mouse i had on the windows box, of course, so that's fine.
i think this will work fine.
oh, yeah, the macbook defaulted to displaying this as its primary monitor when plugged in to the power supply so i dunno wtf peter was talking about! |
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| formage |
[Jul. 5th, 2009|04:58 pm] |
i bought the dell PC i am currently fomatting (while i post from what has supplanted it, my macbook) in 2003.
it was a really good slickdeals deal from dell; it's a pentium 4. i don't remember the specs anymore. it's served me well over the years. at some point, it got to the point where you didn't really need to upgrade PCs anymore. for years, i'd upgraded every couple of years -- since i got my first "IBM-compatible" tandy 1000 in 1989.
i'm finally putting it to bed because i've realized the macbook can be everything to me, and actually runs a good deal faster than the PC. it seemed, suddenly, redundant -- in way my last laptop most definitely did not make it. (i actually had to use that laptop as my primary PC for a couple of weeks in 2005 when i came back from japan to find my PC wouldn't boot -- the power supply had died. i was well tired of it by the end, even with keyboard and monitor and mouse plugged in.)
since i bought this PC in 2003, i've added...
1. a bigger hard drive
2. a DVD+R drive
3. a 19" LCD
4. an external 750gb HD
5. a hand-me-down nvidia video card (from zak!)
6. a second monitor (i didn't dig that at all)
7. a scanner and printer (different ones at different times, even)
8. that new power supply
all in all, a lot of stuff has moved in and out of the PC. but it's still been the same thing for years. and the desktop paradigm is one i've been rocking for, well, i guess since i got my commodore 64 in... 1987?
it's funny; given all the time i spend at PCs i don't really develop any connection with the devices themselves. i guess it's because i thought computers were inherently cool when i was a kid that this seems odd anymore. or thinking about those guys who customize and care about their PCs so much. or thinking about people who name their cars. for something i spend so much of my life staring at, it doesn't mean a lot to me. i think my favorite thing about my PC is the industrial design of the LCD monitor i bought in 2005. and the case design is really nice, functionally. i haven't been inside the case in years, of course...
computers.
1987 - C64
1989 - tandy 1000 HX
1991 - PC Partner (yes, really) 386SX-16 (with my favorite keyboard ever, which i sadly broke in 1997)
1996 - pentium 100 -- with windows 95!
1998 - premio (lol @![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) dravenfrost) pentium 100mmx (what a huge upgrade! however, the mmx-ness and some more ram allowed it to play mp3s without making the system chug. wow.)
1999 - my only built-from-scratch PC; a wanna-be iMac style PC case. (here's a slightly more flattering image.)
2003 - the dell
and now, the macbook.
i remember reading that last year was the first year notebook PC sales outpaced desktop PC sales. i can easily believe it, though i'd not thought about it before. even companies are just giving people notebooks now (i was at facebook last week; everybody there gets a laptop.)
i am kinda forgetting what the point of this post is, or if it even has one beyond reminiscence and timekill while my PC's drive formats, so i can install XP on it, so i can give it to goodwill.
dunno. it was definitely time for a change. that desktop is a giant obtrusive powersuck that doesn't really serve a major purpose. certainly nothing the mac can't duplicate... and if i feel like i want a dedicated desktop again, windows 7 is right around the corner (and won't run well on the old dell.) and then there'll be another slickdeals deal from dell... |
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| 4g |
[Jul. 5th, 2009|01:56 am] |
it's funny how moving a shelf from one corner of the room to the other can really transform it. i'm slowly modifying my room.
i'm now wondering if my plan to switch desks is misguided -- i feel like my room opened up that much from switching the location of that shelf. of course, saying that, i still can't put my CD racks up the way things are right now.
decisions, decisions.
tomorrow is the planned switchover to the mac.
i really would like that space back. but i have some doubts about my ability to fit the mac and a keyboard and the new monitor on that desk. problem is, you can't run a macbook closed as a computer; it has to be open and functioning.
well, i'll figure it out. it's easy enough to test before i move the desk into my room.
boy, this is fucking fascinating, isn't it?
oh, and i started playing gears of war 2 with lucretius77 tonight. fun. really. i like that series. dumb pretty fun. they're such games. not trying to be anything but video games. |
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| laundry and cleaning |
[Jul. 4th, 2009|04:29 pm] |
how to spend my fourth of july!
it's kind of relaxing or weird. i dunno, that hoarder video sent me into something of a cleaning mania. i'm not exaggerating. i keep diving on things and organizing them.
it's like an episode of daria, now that i think about it.
<daria voice/internal monologue> "am i really just an obsessive compulsive hoarder who will die crushed under piles of unplayed video games?" |
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| perspective |
[Jul. 4th, 2009|02:15 pm] |
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POSSESSED from Martin Hampton on Vimeo.
21 minute short film on hoarders.
makes me feel both more and less fucked up about the eva game post below. whee!
my mom is a crazy-ass packrat. not up to these standards, of course. but she definitely keeps tons of stuff. watching this video makes me want to get RID OF tons of stuff. just -- anything.
related: i'm pondering getting rid of my dreamcast collection. |
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| eva |
[Jul. 4th, 2009|03:04 am] |
so i have this semi-policy that i kinda need to have all of the eva console games that were out at the time. there are tons of them coming out now, but i don't need any of them. what i want to have are the ones that were out when eva was originally around.
i bought two of them this week, one that i had been meaning to buy for ages (yoshiyuki sadamoto illustrations, for saturn -- which was originally released by gainax itself) and one i'd forgotten existed (evangelion digital card library, also for saturn.) not exactly expensive these days, crappy saturn eva games: $9.99 and $5.99, respectively.
comedy: NCS wanted $49 for each of those back in the day. i know i must have hemmed and hawed over that and decided no way. i have some sense. i do remember debating the sadamoto thing in particular. i also remember eyeing a copy of eva digital card that sat under glass at the gamerary in philly. probably was going for upwards for $70.
the one time i saw the sadamoto disc in japan, i'm pretty sure it cost more than that, because i debated it and put it back on the shelf. and i wouldn't have at ¥1000. but saturn prices are still dropping. nobody cares about that system anymore.
anyway, i am pretty sure that the last game i need is the abovepictured one, for wonderswan. that's from an auction for a really beat up copy for $15. no thanks. i'll have to keep my eye out.
oh, and there's the mahjong game for PS1. that's on the edge. there's one with a $9.99 BIN on ebay right now which implies it ain't worth shit, so i'll have to keep my eye out for it in japan for, like, ¥500 or something. you know. just because.
this totally neurotic collector's post brought to you by being up at 3 in the morning. |
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