Well, I figure it's an apt enough title to be workable for my purposes. Given that I pretty much read the webcomic Goats straight through in two days I think that I'm not really supremely able to manifest creativity at such a rapid rate at the moment. Same style as the Part 1, admittedly not titled as such, bolded mini-titles.
I'm glad I'm not old
Had an interesting experience at work this morning. Watched a car pull up, diagonally, into the concrete barrier of the front parking space of the store. A elderly gentleman ambles out of the car, his equally-aged wife passively sitting slantedly (remember, one wheel is up atop the concrete barrier, offsetting the entire SUV) in the passenger seat. He walks in and our conversation ensues:
Him: "Howdy-Doody"
Me: "Hey there, what can I help you with" (He's holding a few envelopes as best I can tell at this point).
Him: (Walking towards the mailboxes, having obviously not heard me) "Howdy-Doody"
Me: "Howdy-Doody"
Him: (Puts the envelopes in the mail slot) "Do you know what that means?"
Me: *Nods* "I do"
Him: (Walking towards the door) "It means 'How do you do?'"
Me: (As he opens the door) "Have a good day, sir"
Him: (Walking out the door, more to himself than to me) "No, it means 'How do you do?'"
Anime for the Holidays
Static Subs put out a pair of Otome Episodes for Christmas, and despite my having seen the vast majority of both episodes already raw, Corsair Midori continues to be a force of raging awesomeness. Also the Otome OST1 and Mai-Hime Best Collection, as well as GxS OST2 came out and while the Otome lacks the humor song I was looking forward to, the rest of the OST is pretty nice. Good to know that Mai has a song, despite not actually having had a character appearance in the show yet. The Best Collection is really clench with some absolutely incredible songs, not enough Harada Chie though. All this of course inspired me to burn Disc 11.5, which is a continuation of Disc 11 which was rushed and semi-incomplete, mostly due to the iTunes mishap outlined in the first Holiday Blitz.
Did I mention I hate our customers?
Had another lady today come in. She was lugging a decently sized (25 x 18 x 13 I think, I didn't have the need or want to measure it) 25lb prepaid-package. She immediately berated myself and my co-worker for not having assisted her in getting it into the store. In my defense there's two tabletop coupon displays, a standing rack of greeting cards, and two posters between myself and my vision of her, so I didn't actually see her needing assistance, not that normal people should need help with 25lb objects being lifted with both hands, but that's another matter. To top it off, the shape of the store is not condusive to my coming to her assistance:
----|door|-----
| |
| |
| ---------
| /
| / X <--- Me
| | ___
| | Y | |
| | ^ | |
| | | |
| | | |
After processing her drop-off package, she asked me to sign her insurance forms, which quickly escalated to a minor verbal fight as I told her I could hold them for the UPS Driver to sign, because those forms needed to be signed by a UPS Driver and I, was neither a driver nor an employee of UPS; as she tried to convince me that someone always signs them here (I bet Desha is to blame), and that I was employed by UPS and should sign it. In the end, she left with the forms, unsigned, and swore a string of vulgar words as she left.
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Friday, December 23, 2005
Holiday Blitz
And to think, I almost managed 3 consecutive posts in 3 days.
iTunes for the atypical American Consumer:
So, in a stroke of madness, which isn't completely unlike myself, I decided last week to play around with the settings of my Music Library in iTunes. Before we get any further, let me stress that I do not advise such actions. What had inspired all this was a drive to cut the excess Harddrive usage of my computer. Since I cannot convince Nero and the DVD-Burner to comminucate yet I have to take draconian measures, and upon discovering that iTunes was keeping almost 2 gigs of duplicated copies of music, something had to be done. Either way, there's a wonderful little option in the program that restructures your music library and renames everything accordingly. Well, unfortunately this meant the Folder on my Harddrive Music Library and not the iTunes music Library (redundant naming systems for the lose). Anyways, my Music Folder got twisted into the idealized Apple vision of an American music folder: Artist -> Albums -> Tracknumbered Tracks named with the Album and the Title. This doesn't work well for the type of music I collect since I tend to group by category, Anime/Game, rather than by Artist simply for the sheer number of Artists a single category can contain. So now the race is on to reconstruct my Music Folder, a truly daunting task to say the least, but hopefully it'll allow me to cut down on the excess.
For a game called Snake-Eater, I seem to be kicking alot of Rabbits:
Since David's venerable PS2 seems to disbelieve that I own a working copy of Suikoden IV I've changed gears and started to play Metal Gear Solid 3. Bear in mind the last FPS I've played Console-side was RE4 (And trust me, I've tried cinematic dodging a few times). So, I started off well enough, earning a few ground-holdups against opponents knocked prone by a roll or a melee combo. I had to look up how to actually capture/interrogate an enemy (the concept of a button hold in MGS outside of a gun was kind of alien to me) and immediately started a few bloodbath's in this manner. As anyone who's ever watched me attempt the Dragon Cave in Star Ocean can attest, the Analog sensitivity of the PS2 Dual Shock 2 is sorta a weak point of mine, I tend to be heavy handed (and thus the long + soft note in the Dragon Cave was roughly 40 straight failures) and thus I tend to fail to interrogate and instead more violently bring my captive to his end. I love the take-out maneuver of a attempt at a frontal capture, the trip-slam, and spent much of the pre-sniper portion of the game using it as my main offensive form. After acquiring the Sniper and the Light Machine Gun it's pretty much been cutting a swath through soldiers, leaving a trail of dead foes in my wake. For an MGS game my killcount is probably nearing triple digits and I've only just reached the Fortress. Overall the camera is really a pain, and the fact that most enemies simply outpace me in movement is stupid. Sitting around to regen is annoying, but ideally I shouldn't be seen or hurt anyways so that's okay.
Boss Fights:
Ocelot - The Revlovler fight. I went into this with about 1 shot worth of life and thus ended up eating the two life medicines I'd gotten by the time just to manage the fight. Not particularly hard, but annoying to fight distance with the tranq gun for no real reward.
The Pain - Actually, remarkably painful but not terribly difficult. The Bullet Bees managed to waste away a fair amount of my precious Cure materials. I managed it in one try, but using Stun Grenades instead of Smoke Grenades was a seriously unwise idea. Much easier without deafening/blinding yourself for a shorter effect.
The Fear - Absolutely annoying fight. I ended up hiding in a corner, praying my Stun Grenades knocked enough food out of the trees and waiting for my chance to blast him. Took about 8 tries to get a good run against him and achieve victory mostly a matter of luck than anything else. Burned through 2 of the 3 batteries I had at the time. He has remarkable accuracy, shooting through solid trees and whatnot. I think he does far too much damage to be anything more than a corner camp really, no other viable way to Tranq him down, I guess lethal would probably be far more feasable as he can't eat that back.
The End - What can I say. I think I spent nearly 2 hours in this fight, never got close to being defeated. Hell, early on I got so tired of playing the searching game that I traded out for Female Kabuki Mask with Fly Uniform camo for a massive -40% index standing still in the light. Not really a hard fight, just an annoyance until you can scare him someplace where he'll leave footprints to track and not run to areas that require massive footwork to get to. That he can restore life photosyntethically is annoying and stupid, but hey, he only did it once before I managed to beat him. And only broke two legs overrolling assualts on him and off of high cliffs.
The Fury - Easy fight until I got him down to the last quarter and the areas he frequented were filled with flames and I got toasted. I sorta gave up keeping distance and using the Mosin and ended up just pummeling him down the rest of the way. And yes, I definately tried to RE4 dodge during that end cutscene there.
RE4 is the superior gameplay though weaker on the story. Don't get me wrong, I loved RE4's story, but MGS just has all the history and content to the borders and goes deeper. RE4 on the Gamecube just feels right, unlike MGS 3 on the PS2 where I find myself using L1, L2, R1, R2, and Square all together inorder to fire while Shoulder Aiming on my tip-toes with any Assult Rifle.
I've heard the conversation about the Cardboard Box and the James Bond Conversation, but I don't use the Call function much, so I've probably missed out on some of the other good ones.
Christmas Loot
Got a Nintendo DS with Mario Kart and Advance Wars: Dual Strike. I'm now 12 missions in, and it's certainly an excellent game. Fantastic characters, challenging, inventive. The new COs are an interesting variation on the previous themes and the music is good as well. I think I'll have to go pick up the latest Fire Emblem Game and Meteos before the end of the week. Wonder if there's anything else there on the DS that is a must have.
iTunes for the atypical American Consumer:
So, in a stroke of madness, which isn't completely unlike myself, I decided last week to play around with the settings of my Music Library in iTunes. Before we get any further, let me stress that I do not advise such actions. What had inspired all this was a drive to cut the excess Harddrive usage of my computer. Since I cannot convince Nero and the DVD-Burner to comminucate yet I have to take draconian measures, and upon discovering that iTunes was keeping almost 2 gigs of duplicated copies of music, something had to be done. Either way, there's a wonderful little option in the program that restructures your music library and renames everything accordingly. Well, unfortunately this meant the Folder on my Harddrive Music Library and not the iTunes music Library (redundant naming systems for the lose). Anyways, my Music Folder got twisted into the idealized Apple vision of an American music folder: Artist -> Albums -> Tracknumbered Tracks named with the Album and the Title. This doesn't work well for the type of music I collect since I tend to group by category, Anime/Game, rather than by Artist simply for the sheer number of Artists a single category can contain. So now the race is on to reconstruct my Music Folder, a truly daunting task to say the least, but hopefully it'll allow me to cut down on the excess.
For a game called Snake-Eater, I seem to be kicking alot of Rabbits:
Since David's venerable PS2 seems to disbelieve that I own a working copy of Suikoden IV I've changed gears and started to play Metal Gear Solid 3. Bear in mind the last FPS I've played Console-side was RE4 (And trust me, I've tried cinematic dodging a few times). So, I started off well enough, earning a few ground-holdups against opponents knocked prone by a roll or a melee combo. I had to look up how to actually capture/interrogate an enemy (the concept of a button hold in MGS outside of a gun was kind of alien to me) and immediately started a few bloodbath's in this manner. As anyone who's ever watched me attempt the Dragon Cave in Star Ocean can attest, the Analog sensitivity of the PS2 Dual Shock 2 is sorta a weak point of mine, I tend to be heavy handed (and thus the long + soft note in the Dragon Cave was roughly 40 straight failures) and thus I tend to fail to interrogate and instead more violently bring my captive to his end. I love the take-out maneuver of a attempt at a frontal capture, the trip-slam, and spent much of the pre-sniper portion of the game using it as my main offensive form. After acquiring the Sniper and the Light Machine Gun it's pretty much been cutting a swath through soldiers, leaving a trail of dead foes in my wake. For an MGS game my killcount is probably nearing triple digits and I've only just reached the Fortress. Overall the camera is really a pain, and the fact that most enemies simply outpace me in movement is stupid. Sitting around to regen is annoying, but ideally I shouldn't be seen or hurt anyways so that's okay.
Boss Fights:
Ocelot - The Revlovler fight. I went into this with about 1 shot worth of life and thus ended up eating the two life medicines I'd gotten by the time just to manage the fight. Not particularly hard, but annoying to fight distance with the tranq gun for no real reward.
The Pain - Actually, remarkably painful but not terribly difficult. The Bullet Bees managed to waste away a fair amount of my precious Cure materials. I managed it in one try, but using Stun Grenades instead of Smoke Grenades was a seriously unwise idea. Much easier without deafening/blinding yourself for a shorter effect.
The Fear - Absolutely annoying fight. I ended up hiding in a corner, praying my Stun Grenades knocked enough food out of the trees and waiting for my chance to blast him. Took about 8 tries to get a good run against him and achieve victory mostly a matter of luck than anything else. Burned through 2 of the 3 batteries I had at the time. He has remarkable accuracy, shooting through solid trees and whatnot. I think he does far too much damage to be anything more than a corner camp really, no other viable way to Tranq him down, I guess lethal would probably be far more feasable as he can't eat that back.
The End - What can I say. I think I spent nearly 2 hours in this fight, never got close to being defeated. Hell, early on I got so tired of playing the searching game that I traded out for Female Kabuki Mask with Fly Uniform camo for a massive -40% index standing still in the light. Not really a hard fight, just an annoyance until you can scare him someplace where he'll leave footprints to track and not run to areas that require massive footwork to get to. That he can restore life photosyntethically is annoying and stupid, but hey, he only did it once before I managed to beat him. And only broke two legs overrolling assualts on him and off of high cliffs.
The Fury - Easy fight until I got him down to the last quarter and the areas he frequented were filled with flames and I got toasted. I sorta gave up keeping distance and using the Mosin and ended up just pummeling him down the rest of the way. And yes, I definately tried to RE4 dodge during that end cutscene there.
RE4 is the superior gameplay though weaker on the story. Don't get me wrong, I loved RE4's story, but MGS just has all the history and content to the borders and goes deeper. RE4 on the Gamecube just feels right, unlike MGS 3 on the PS2 where I find myself using L1, L2, R1, R2, and Square all together inorder to fire while Shoulder Aiming on my tip-toes with any Assult Rifle.
I've heard the conversation about the Cardboard Box and the James Bond Conversation, but I don't use the Call function much, so I've probably missed out on some of the other good ones.
Christmas Loot
Got a Nintendo DS with Mario Kart and Advance Wars: Dual Strike. I'm now 12 missions in, and it's certainly an excellent game. Fantastic characters, challenging, inventive. The new COs are an interesting variation on the previous themes and the music is good as well. I think I'll have to go pick up the latest Fire Emblem Game and Meteos before the end of the week. Wonder if there's anything else there on the DS that is a must have.
Monday, December 12, 2005
Come on baby, light my ire.
The above is not a typo, it's entirely appropriate. The ME building goes to special lengths to see that I'm driven insane, but when even metal grinding on metal is not sufficient they pull out the big guns, Grad Students attempting to win tickets via a fax contest.
Remember, for every number you see I had to hear the dialing and the busy signal. For every ... single ... time.
Viola! The torment I endure.
Remember, for every number you see I had to hear the dialing and the busy signal. For every ... single ... time.
Viola! The torment I endure.
Sunday, December 11, 2005
The truth of this is probably irrefutable
A little conversation held of AIM with my father at about noon today:
Dad: What ya want for Christmas?
SonOfBloodII: Hadn't really given it much thought.
Dad: Better start thinking then.
SonOfBloodII: Will do.
Dad: Probably the only IM chats that include punctuation. :-)
SonOfBloodII: I do believe that that is likely the case.
Dad: What ya want for Christmas?
SonOfBloodII: Hadn't really given it much thought.
Dad: Better start thinking then.
SonOfBloodII: Will do.
Dad: Probably the only IM chats that include punctuation. :-)
SonOfBloodII: I do believe that that is likely the case.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)