Things are light this week due to my big Movable Type upgrade. I pretty much paused the entire site while I knew things were being worked on. The good news is that I can now seriously tweak some templates and archiving as I intended. Whoo progress.
Hacking John McCain (Newsvine) I have a soft spot for guys who punish jerks who steal bandwidth by linking out to somebody else's images, especially since I'm the first result on a Google image search of "waffles".
'And' is the operative part of 'Andreas' (PC Gamer) Fantastic article about the scope of GTA: San Andreas. I love that I can still see pretty much any screenshot of the game and know exactly how to drive to that location.
Had some good times on a very late night last Friday, as tons of people converged on Tony's for a game night. Did some We Love Katamari (I got 96% on the roll-up-animals level), did some Guitar Hero 1 & 2.
Did some Zombies, which the picture illustrates. I decided to use the base set, add in the dogs from Zombies 4, and included the mall expansion from Zombies 3. With the dogs, I gave each player the option of adding either X zombies or 2X dogs per non-building map tile. So we had several roving packs of wild hounds in our city.
I screwed up the mall thing though. I forgot to jump the mall 4-way tile in as soon as the mall front door was revealed... so the next mall tile pulled was a dead-end food court, effectively turning our mall into merely a Ruby Tuesday.
You'd think that this blind game of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 was the dumbest activity of the night, but you'd be wrong...
Here's what I'm playing at the moment and what I think I'll be playing in the near future.
Since finishing Chulip, the PS2 has reverted back into the DVD player. More accurately, "the machine that Clark uses to play They Might Be Giants' Here Come The ABCs over and over again." He's really glommed onto that in the last few weeks. We've had the DVD since before he was born - and we gave out copies to everyone we knew who had kids or had kids on the way - but only since he turned two has he fully embraced it. He's at the point where he just requests "Puppets!" and it now means TMBG, whereas before it meant the Wiggle Puppets.
His review of the DVD would go something like "Puppets. D. Robot. Funny."
So anyway, that's the PS2 these days. OMG PS2 DROUGHT! I keep forgetting I have to start Okami.
EMI to Offer DRM-Free Online Music (Daring Fireball) First the "complete my album" feature, now the ability to buy songs without DRM. Steve Jobs is so fucking serious about cracking the lid off of the music companies' comfortable little world, and it's all because The People started voting with dollars for an easy-to-use, well-designed, OS-agnostic little app called iTunes. Incredible.
You recall the Nintendo PowerAwards right? Where I predicted that Twilight Princess would win everything in which it was nominated, regardless of worth or competition? Let's see how right I was at predicting the winners...
The funny thing about the NPA is that the whole Reader Vote thing is really useless and ends up being totally downplayed. NP knows their fanboy base, so the premise of nominating games is just a front to fill some pages. When the "awards" are printed, the final article is really about what the Nintendo Power editorial team chose. In fact, out of the 21 categories, only one of them features accompanying artwork from the game that the readers chose as the winner. Every other award showcases an image from the game that the editors selected. (This does not affect situations where both the readers and the editors chose the same game, of course.)
Regardless, there's a lot of Zelda imagery in this one.
I have finally completed (I think) the initial phase of website overhaulery. So now I can wax poetic about it.
One of the goals was to keep things in the same place. So the big monthly archive list no longer jumps from the right side to the left side depending on what page you're on. The weblog feature blurb, the search box and the ad banners also (mostly) stay in the same general vicinity. The only confused soul here is the "latest entries" widget, which works fine on the main page and on the individual archive pages, but went a little nutso on the monthly archives and category archives. So you won't find it in those sections.
300 Pokemon (YouTube) This is the audio from a 300 trailer edited (mostly) to clips from the best Pokemon movie, the first one. I still loves me the Mewtwo.
Nintendo replacing buggy Zelda discs. (Aeropause) Even though I finished the game with no trouble, this makes me want to request a new copy of Twilight Princess just in case.
Sports DO Cause Violence (Game Girl Advance) I will bang on this drum at every opportunity. Sports inspire far more violent acts than video games, yet nobody ever dares to suggest that sports (particularly youth sports) be banned or otherwise hobbled in the way that certain legislators and lawyers want to do to games. Gaming is demonized without cause, as is all new media.
But it's also dead simple easy, which is why I like it.
For your luddites who aren't hep to the consultant-mandated inevitability of Web 2.0, Twitter is like the world's smallest weblog system (in fact, people have already coined the phrase "nanoblogging," just to piss me off.) Once you have an account, you can instantly add tiny little updates - no more than 140 characters - to your Twitter weblog. It's marketed as "here's what I'm doing right now," but really it's like a chat room with no one in it but yourself.
You get a page on Twitter's servers, plus the ability to incorporate it into your own stuff via Flash or javascript. The main Twitter site lets you tag other friends with Twitter accounts and collate faux "conversation" pages that list everything your friends have posted.
So I've added my own Twitter widget to the main fourhman.com page. It may or may not stick, depending on its reliability. Strangely, the Twitter-supplied code seems to hate Internet Explorer (jesus! What is it with that crap?), but it looks fantastic in Safari. Even hoary old Netscape likes it. I'm fairly certain it's a CSS subtlety thats wrecking it here, but since I don't use CSS (NOW who's the luddite!), I have no idea what to do about it.
I think I have a resolution to the Twitter code problem that's been bugging me for the last few days. Although I reserve the right to develop new issues should obnoxious non-standard browser conflicts demand it.
I did some serious investigation into the Twitter-Code-On-IE thing. If you do a Google search for '"NaN days ago" Twitter', you'll find a couple other confused souls out there. How can something as (temporarily) huge as Twitter drop this shitty code out there and not have it work inside the world's (unfortunately) #1 web browser? It boggles the mind. I guess nobody is using this particular display option. Or, at least, those who are using it know enough how to fix it. Unlike me.
A few more Google searches brought me to PatMyBelly.com, where the proprietor Ant had posted some clever and brief custom code... an adaptation of the Twitter-supplied stuff with the bonus of actually working in more than one browser. This code even includes nifty back-and-forth buttons to page through the last ten messages, which makes it very similar to Twitter's own Flash solution without being ugly and permanently set to a weird, unusable size.
Green Lantern Corps #11 No Gibbons artwork this time. A ton of stuff happens in this issue, the most worrisome being the big hanging curveball on the corruption of Kilowog. Didn't we just see him go crazy in Superman/Batman, like, two issues ago? And it hasn't been that long since he was rather ceremoniously killed and brought back to life... so it would be terrible to kill him off again. So either we're seeing Kilowog turning evil - which would be a classic mismanaging of the character, but I can see a bored writer going that way since the only thing Kilowog ever gets to do is play drill sergeant for young Lantern douchebags - OR, this arc will end with Kilowog (and the other brainwashed Lanterns) doing terrible, horrible things and then getting returned to normal, with only the C-Team guys getting killed (like the two jerks who were slaughtered in this issue.)
I am more intrigued by the notion of Mogo going crazy. Now there's something that could work into a full-fledged DC event. Have we ever seen Mogo actually use his power?
Baten Kaitos Intro (YouTube) This is the awesome movie-trailer-style intro to Baten Kaitos, which only serves to make you wish they had FILLED the game with this level of quality, instead of just crapping out cutscenes done in the game's boring engine with terrible subtitles and lousy pacing.
Ren and Stimpy "realistic" sitcom acting (John K.) "I love the Honeymooners and the 3 Stooges. They depend on many scenes that contrast the relationship between an asshole and an idiot. Moe is the asshole, Curly is the idiot cartoon character. Ralph is the asshole, while Norton is the surreal idiot character that drives him nuts. Ren is the realistic character who is constantly driven nuts by Stimpy's unreal cartoonish antics."
The anticipation is high for Pokemon Pearl. There's a lot to see and do in this one, perhaps enough to rinse away the lame taste left by LeafGreen. I'm eagerly looking forward to the real-time day/night cycles (which debuted waaaay back in Gold/Silver and should never have left) and, of course, the WiFi play. Flipping through the manual, the only un-reported feature that I found of interest is the ability to customize the effect when one of your pokemon leaps out of the ball. Cool.
The beginning to Pearl is nearly identical to every other Pokemon game. A professor of some local reknown is introduced, he demands your gender and name, and hopes that you will "achieve personal growth." Then you wake up in your bedroom, where, you'll note, you own a Wii. Mom is waiting downstairs. She has your shoes.
I named my "friend" Wedge, not out of any affection for Star Wars but because he has a wedge-shaped head. He seems to be the most affable "rival" to date. Whereas previous rivals were bitchy and elitist, this one is one step ahead of you simply because he is impatient. Maybe his story will develop further along.
I'm up to a small handful of pokemon, including my new favorite, Shinx. Shinx recently faced off against a Magikarp, whose fighting skills, as you can imagine, have not gotten any better in ten years of Pokemon games.
Jubilife City is really nice. It's a great visual antidote to the boring little hovels of the first areas. The awkwardly-named Poketch factory is in Jubilife, and it just so happens that you get a Poketch for free once you visit the Training School and then locate three clowns. The Poketch is super-keen and just screams to be made into a real toy. The starter Poketch comes with a clock, calculator, pedometer and pokemon life meter. There are twenty different features that must be collected separately, so I'm looking forward to that.
Although the life meter does not update in real time, which is stupid. I had that screen up, showing a slightly damaged party, when I went to heal at the Pokemon Center... and after the heal, the screen still showed the damage. I had to click out of the life meter and back in to get it to update.
With Pokemon Pearl so prevalent, I forgot to mention that I finished Baten Kaitos Friday night. I actually had to stay up until dawn to do it, which means that I don't remember it very well. I think there was a ... boss ... fight?
My save has 53 hours on it, but I'll bet the end sequence was another hour. That matches up sorta with the game's claim of "over 60 hours" of gameplay. Of course, you don't get to save after beating Malpercio and rolling credits (THANKS AGAIN), so I can't really tell how long it lasted. Nor can I see how my magnus collection ended, or everybody's final stats. Seriously gang. Let me save after beating the game. It's just better that way.
Here's some spoilerish thoughts. You could bail out now, but come on, simple probability suggests to me that you're NEVER going to play this game.
While Wedge took off for Eterna City, I pushed north towards the small town with all the flowers... after breaking up a rumble with Team Galactic, Pearl's edition of Team Rocket. (Nothing seems to sound as iconic as "Rocket" though, does it?) This is the fight with the "massive damage" meme in it.
I planted some berries, my Starly and Shinx evolved, I rescued a scientist that Galactic was holding against his will, received more TMs that I will never use, blah blah blah.
What's truly important is that I already received a Piplup.
After clearing out the windmill place, I walked back to Jubilife to check on things at the Global Trade Station. I wanted to see if you can have more than one pokemon registered to trade at a time (you can't.) But when I logged in to the GTS, I was greeted by a newborn level one Piplup, straight from Shizuoka, Japan! Check this out:
Crotch-Gate '07 (PostModernBarney) Casual homophobia is all over the DCU fanbase at the moment, thanks to an upcoming Alex Ross JSA cover that does not skimp on the ol' penis. It's a shame that male comics fans think it's acceptable (or at least tolerable) to parade around hyper-sexualized female characters, and then get all twitchy about the depth of field visible in a male character's crotch. They're all dressed in underwear, folks. Generally, that means there's something under there.
To date, every trade I've asked for has come through, and always by a player in Tokyo or Osaka or somewhere in Japan. I've traded out Bidoofs and Zubats and Geodudes for a Turtwig, Piplup, Psyduck, Cranidos and a level 51 Skuntank. I am currently offering a level 3 Bidoof for a Chansey, which is my most aggressive request yet.
All of this online trading means that I've been walking back and forth between the GTS and Eterna City quite a bit. I can't wait for the Fly HM.
An old man gave me passage to the underground world, which is basically the Secret Bases from Ruby/Sapphire relegated to a Pac-Man maze. I think this is local-WiFi only (sucks), but you can check out other players' bases and play a weird little version of capture-the-flag... as well as set booby traps to keep others from taking your flag. Since the underground section takes place on the touchscreen (nice!), you can tap the walls to search for hidden gems, which opens up an odd little puzzle game. Unearth the gems and you can buy more decorations for your base. Interesting stuff - not as cool if this is truly local only - but can you even battle down there?
Had some good times on a very late night last Friday, as tons of people converged on 
Here's what I'm playing at the moment and what I think I'll be playing in the near future.
You recall the 
You've heard of Twitter. It's stupid.
Oh settle down. It was a month's worth.
The anticipation is high for Pokemon Pearl. There's a lot to see and do in this one, perhaps enough to rinse away the lame taste left by LeafGreen. I'm eagerly looking forward to the real-time day/night cycles (which debuted waaaay back in Gold/Silver and should never have left) and, of course, the WiFi play. Flipping through the manual, the only un-reported feature that I found of interest is the ability to customize the effect when one of your pokemon leaps out of the ball. Cool.
I'm up to a small handful of pokemon, including my new favorite, Shinx. Shinx recently faced off against a Magikarp, whose fighting skills, as you can imagine, have not gotten any better in ten years of Pokemon games.
With Pokemon Pearl so prevalent, I forgot to mention that I finished Baten Kaitos Friday night. I actually had to stay up until dawn to do it, which means that I don't remember it very well. I think there was a ... boss ... fight?
While Wedge took off for Eterna City, I pushed north towards the small town with all the flowers... after breaking up a rumble with Team Galactic, Pearl's edition of Team Rocket. (Nothing seems to sound as iconic as "Rocket" though, does it?) This is the fight with 
To date, every trade I've asked for has come through, and always by a player in Tokyo or Osaka or somewhere in Japan. I've traded out Bidoofs and Zubats and Geodudes for a Turtwig, Piplup, Psyduck, Cranidos and a level 51 Skuntank. I am currently offering a level 3 Bidoof for a Chansey, which is my most aggressive request yet.
