yo

yo yo yo

Last post of the night... I swear.

I needed to post to say "Holy Shit!"

Check this that I found on IMDB while looking for Farewell to Weapons by Katsuhiro Otomo.

Live Action Akira

Needless to say, I am friggin' stoked. Still to this day the best Anime ever produced, and they're making a two-parter live action port. W00T!

Girlicious - Stupid Whore Playset?

So Sandy turned me on to a new show tonight. No doubt because the cast of 18 year-old retards are wearing next to nothing. I however saw this as something entirely different, which was aired as a rerun on Fox a few nights ago.

Shout out if you've seen either Pussycat Dolls Present: Girlicious or the South Park episode Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset.

I am basically at a loss for words. I can't believe this is on TV in a setting other than South Park or The Simpsons.

These chicks /can/ /not/ /sing/. Nor can they, as a saving grace /dance/ or /speak/ intelligently. This shit is amazing! I urge you to watch this; if for no other reason than an awesome hour of comedy.

The judges have the obligatory whore - Lil' Kim. Second there is the weird metro, I think his name is Shithead (pronounced Shi Thead) H. Fuckface (Fook Facay). Lastly they have Lippy McBotox.



Kim fills in the American Idol black factor. Lippy has the Paula "Are you drunk tonight" Abdul aspect covered (only with kind of a Heath Ledger smile). Mr. Shitface doesn't exactly fill the void left by Simon, but since that's the only spot left I'll throw him in there. This panel couldn't judge a pie eating contest and sound like they knew anything about it. This is as bad as Ann Coulter's Cliff's Notes for someone who actually pays attention to the world around them. The girls themselves spend their time bitching about each other, followed by crying about being cornered, followed by attempting to entertain the audience by making asses of themselves on a stage.

I just can't believe this tripe is considered Television. Oh my god.

The kittens have a new home

Eileen came and picked up the cats from my parents tonight.

Time to learn Portuguese

MoM: Still cool after 15 years.

Who remembers Master of Magic?

Keith and I just got IME working for our old copies of Simtex' great 1993 game by the name of Master of Magic.

IME is a new 640x480 shell for the MoM gamefiles. It even allows for over-the-network multiplayer! The MP is still turn-based, but you can set it so both players can make their moves and hit go. Once everyone has hit GO, all the moves are executed at the same time. This saves a lot of time. Anyway... it's hella cool. Check it out you old-school knuckleheads.

Download the IME here: Implode's Site

If you don't have the gamefiles... then where the hell were you in 1993?

Kittens

I believe we've found a home for the kittens. Wendy, my coworker, has a friend who's in the market. I've forwarded the information along to my parents so they can arrange transfer. I hope it all goes well!

*sigh*

So right when I get into Lost Odyssey and finish the second [super hard] bossfight, I receive the box to send my 360 back.

Microsoft includes a nifty sheet of paper on which you are to mark any and all line items that apply to your Xbox 360. I marked two:

Disc makes grinding noises.

Xbox powers on with no indicator lights and no video.

Funny..... Of the six possible selections, two of them matched my unit exactly.

Oh well... I went ahead and beat Master of Magic again for the umpteenth time during its glorious 15 year history.

I installed Microsoft's XNA studio tonight. I'll report back when I have a game built. It'll likely be a simple modification to the Spacewar demo they include, but it's a start.

For those wondering about Piano: It's coming along. I have not practiced much in the last week... so whatever I may have gained has probably been lost. During the week that I practiced every day however, I was definitely seeing improvement. It didn't help much that I was using eMedia's Software and my laptop needed a reinstall.... FWIW: To those who want to learn Piano or Guitar and have knowledge of MIDI, this software is amazing.

*listening to Brubeck*

Perhaps I'll go do that now.

TTYS!

Kittens

It brings a tear to my eye to write this....

I gave a pair (Brothers) of kittens to my Father for Christmas. It was a group effort between Sandy, my Mother, and I. The only unknown was whether my Father could deal with kittens again. As it turns out my Father fell in love with them and my Mother is having asthma attacks.

We have two cats in our house already, but we can house these fellas during our home search. Please let me know if you would be able to take in a pair of the sweetest kittens you've ever seen. Their names are Spike and Claw. Blame my Father for that one. I don't have a picture to post at the moment, but feel free to come see them. They much prefer sleeping on necks/heads/arms/laps than by themselves. They are both crazy purr-machines as well. I hope you like affection.

Please friends... help these guys out. Do know however that I will NOT let them becomes the victims here.

P.S.

Farewell HDDVD. The Waltons just pwned you.

2 Down! + Snowmobiling

Finished two games this weekend! Assassin's Creed: Altair's Chronicles and Professor Layton and the Curious Village.

Layton: 9/10 (Based entirely on my comparison with other puzzle games)
Creed: 6/10 (It's a wanna-be platformer/slash-em-up {think God of Playground-fighting})

Layton had 135 of the coolest puzzles I've ever solved. I was actually able to reach 100% completion, which was fun. Not many games allow this sort of completion without hundreds of hours of searching.

Creed on the other hand was kind of a Game-sploitation of the console version of Assassin's Creed. However... it did explain who Adha was, and made for a pretty decent prequel. The gameplay was the worst part.... though not debilitating difficult. I'm very excited to see what time period the sequel takes place in. With the hundreds of clues throughout Assassin's Creed, I am willing to play just about anything to sink my teeth into more of the story.

In the meantime, I think I'm going to play through Mass Effect again as a wussy sniper or magic user.

Regarding things other than gaming, I just returned from Cle Elum Washington with Mark and Heidi + Family. First off - they are SUCH a wonderful group of people. If you're reading this, THANK YOU!! Within an hour of being at the cabin I had a snowmobile stuck on a 50-degree incline, and in eight feet of snow. A few minutes after that Mark had his machine rolled over 15 feet below me on the same hill. Don't take this as a bad thing... at least I gained a healthy respect for powered sleds while it was warm out. The next couple of rides were amazing. Especially the one at 10pm up to the 5k summit to drink champaign and bullshit next to a fire.

In addition to snow-sports I got to experience a pretty awesome bonfire, great company, several games of liars dice, catchphrase, and about 35 pounds of bacon, eggs, lasagna and chicken. Before leaving I introduced the kids to Skeet shooting and handguns. Sandy definitely has a Walther coming in March. ;) On the way home we passed through two semi-famous central Washington boroughs. North Bend (Twin Peaks) and Roslyn (Northern Exposure).

Heidi took a few great pics and videos. I'll post them as soon as I can!

Thanks!

-- T

Xbox 360 Part 2 (.5?)

I reverted back to using component cables, just to get my Optical DD5.1. I had hoped that a second issue I was experiencing would also be solved. However... it was not. I've since opened a repair order and will be sending my 'box back to the repair facility.

For those unaware of the issue, read about it here. I figured this was an HDMI handshaking issue. If the 360 doesn't see something on the end of the AV cable, it won't boot up. I never had this issue with my non-HDMI/non-Elite, so I assumed it was handshaking (component has no handshaking, instead it just completes a circuit - if the Xbox can't see that then I say it's busticated). Oh well.. I finished Assassin's Creed and got a few hours of Call of Duty 4 in before packing it up.

Unfortunately I also finished Uncharted: Drake's Fortune on the PS3 as well as Final Fantasy 1 on the PSP. Sandy picked up a new one for her DS called "Professor Layton and the Curious Village" that's promising. I borrowed it from her for a few hours, and the puzzles are a lot of fun. Layer 5 also made Jeanne D'Arc on the PSP, which I absolutely loved. Hopefully this will be as good. I suppose I always have good old Eternal Darkness to keep me busy. I guesstimate that I am about 60% through with it. The combat system is just so dated that I am having a hard time becoming super absorbed.

Now just to not jones for some Mass Effect while it's gone... and I'll be golden.

More Xbox 360 Woes

Full Story Here

I recently picked up a new Sony STR-DG910 7.1 HDMI receiver. I was very excited that I could finally switch all of my HDMI enabled devices through a single unit. More so, I was excited that I could have my Xbox 360 Elite output 5.1 instead of oldschool DPL2.0. Unfortunately the HDMI on the 360 will /only/ output PCM2.0. If you want to have your games output in DD5.1, you'll need to use an optical cable along side the HDMI. Bulllllllshit. Please take note of the small Dolby Digital logo on the back. This just goes to show that MS could give a shit about the 360 consumer... How hard would it be to send bitstream over the HDMI when you're already encoding it for the Optical channel.... I don't get it.

I'm also having massive issues with HDCP handshaking with my 360. I may just go back to using component entirely. Especially since HDDVD is dead (here & here). ;)

C'mon Paramount! Throw down some Transformers on Blu-ray!