Always back to the Haruhi...

Before I get into the bulk of what I hope to be able to talk about in the time I have -- I mean, we shut down our ability to process any sort of payment for an hour and didn't suffer at all because of that -- just a few minor notes/errata to get out of the way. First of all, the Christmas Loot should've been 4 PS2 games besides the two I'd asked for, namely 3 .Hack games (I'm told it's the first and third games, plus GU) and Dark Cloud.

David and I are both getting very short on patience with Neverwinter, which seems to have roughly all the stablity of Sacred (If you've ever played Sacred, you know what I talking about). Actually, thinking on that, I get the feeling that might be sort of generous to NWN2 to say.

Also, the dog is annoying the crap out of me, but at least it's easy to play with. It's mostly a personality conflict though -- it likes scratching and licking, and I happen to be semi-neurotic about cleanliness and not being scratched. It's definately a ball of fun though, which is fine when I'm looking for it, not when I'm trying to game or getting to the shower or leaving for work.

Now then, what I actually wanted to say.

So, via ANN--

"ANN recently stated that Bandai Entertainment had licensed The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, which has created some confusion in regards to what role Bandai Entertainment will play in regards to the show. Kadokawa Pictures USA is actually the North American master licensor and will handle all licensing matters. Bandai Entertainment will handle all aspects of production and distribution, as they do for most titles that they have licensed. Bandai Entertainment's Sam Maseba states, "As always, we like to work closely with the creators."
Regarding the actresses playing in episode 00, which is currently available on the asosbrigade.com website, these are not the actresses that will be used for the English dub. Maseba states, "We do not have anyone lined up for all the characters on this show."
Meanwhile Bandai has sent out a press release about the Haruhi Suzumiya Myspace Blog being among the top 50 user pages."

Blergh, just gonna blitz the core and jump onto a new topic.

What strikes me is the polls, and the manner of them. There's barely a vestige of corporate entity here, and for once they seem to be asking for things that people actually care about, like DVD Content and Voices, even if they're doing it in some sort of induced viral manner, eg: Mikuru & Yuki. Will anything come of this? Who knows. But part of me does want to applaud the gesture or taking opinions, the other half is just appalled by the internet-meme-rich handling and execution.

Bits and Pieces

Distracted from my other post by a short day at work and trying to piece together the Cartoon Network airing schedule. We're so close to Renji, and thusly Soul Society's arcs, yet still not there.

Mark your Calendars:
Afro Samurai (Spike TV) -- Thursday January 4 11:00pm - Episode 1 "Revenge"
(Repeats Thu Jan 4 11:30pm, Fri Jan 5 12:30am, Sat Jan 6 1:30am)

Mind you, I do think "Revenge" is an odd title for a first episode.

Spirited Away (Cartoon Network) -- Saturday December 30 6:30pm
Well, so much for Prince of Tennis and MAR. And PoT was kinda funny too.

Bleach (Cartoon Network) -
Sat Dec 30 11:00pm - Episode 1
...
Sun Dec 31 5:30am - Episode 14

Celebrate New Year's Eve Eve by staying up for 7 Hours of a Bleach Marathon? I'll pass, but I've seen the eps at least once in each language already. If you're missing out on Bleach, this is good catchup.

Naruto(Cartoon Network)
Sun Dec 31 9:00am - Episode 42 "The Ultimate Battle: Cha!"
...
Sun Dec 31 9:30pm - Episode 67 "Late for the Show, But Ready to Go! The Ultimate Secret Technique is Born"

12.5 Hours of Naruto. Actually a good thing since I've been watching sporatically, though I have seen definately the first and last 4 in this set, and a few in between (still planning to just borrow from Kyle probably, though I don't care which langauge I'm watching, the show does amuse me and Kyle's got enough that it'll still be a year for Adult Swim to catch up)

I swear some of these episode number orders are drawn by lottery.

Pokemon (Cartoon Network)
Tue Jan 2 7:00am - Episode 417 -- Tue Jan 2 5:00pm - Episode 381
Wed Jan 3 7:00am - Episode 418 -- Wed Jan 3 5:00pm - Episode 382
Thu Jan 4 7:00am - Episode 419 -- Thu Jan 4 5:00pm - Episode 383
Fri Jan 5 7:00am - Episode 368 -- Fri Jan 5 5:00pm - Episode 384

The 5pm showings make sense, even if they are 30-40 episodes behind. The 7am almost do, but fall short on Friday. Be thankful I spared you the episode titles.

Pokemon Chronicles (Cartoon Network)
Tue Jan 2 5:30pm - Episode 16
Wed Jan 3 5:30pm - Episode 17
Thu Jan 4 5:30pm - Episode 18
Fri Jan 5 5:30pm - Episode 21

Seems Friday is just special. And yes, I did just provide the Pokemon listing for amusement at the episode orders.

Christmas Post -- Loot edition.

Loot edition probably isn't a necessary descriptor since I don't think I'll have another Christmas-centric post, just subnotes to other posts relating back, at most.

Just got a good 10 minutes of amusement watching a flatbed driver unsucessfully get a forklift onto his truck. Problem was the ramp was graded steeply enough to prevent the forklift from managing the climb. And I must say, watching a forklift 95% up a ramp, wheels spinning and smoking, but not actually moving, is pretty fun.

I didn't ask for alot this Christmas (since I went with a modified form of the original list -- trimming the Xbox entries) so I got all I expected.

The list, combining the family's gifts (well, relevant to the cause), longer explanation items will be detailed/explained/etc in the rant below, so as to not disrupt the list's flow.

Doom the Boardgame, and Expansion -- Rant below.

Cradle will Rock (DVD) -- David's movie

Basement Jaxx - The Singles (CD) -- Great stuff.
Andy Bell - Electric Blue (CD) -- Good stuff.

Guild Wars: Nightfall (PC)
Neverwinter Nights 2 (PC) -- More specific rant below.

.Hack ... and .Hack .... (PS2) -- Yes, I've forgotten which two Dot Hack games specifically, but two different onces.
Valkerie Profile 2 (PS2) -- Holy crap that's pretty cover art.
Guitar Hero 2 (PS2) -- See below.

Kirby Squeak Squad (DS)
Children of Mana (DS) -- Haven't played much at all, but good stuff.

Nintendo Wii / Legend of Zelda -- Yep, see below.

So, if you've been keeping count, this little rant should include the Doom Boardgame, Neverwinter Nights 2, Guitar Hero 2, and the Wii/Zelda, plus whatever else I opt to throw in there.

The Doom Boardgame falls into the Scenario style games, using planned missions rather than freeform random generation, though the latter could easily be performed. The game is objective driven (ie, escape with your life) rather than combat driven (kill all the enemies) and the ruleset enforces this (monsters generally hit harder than you, don't worry about ammo, and the only cards that get played to influence this are played against you). It's pretty amusing, but horrendously difficult if you take a gunslinger approach. You have to focus on moving fast enough to evade your enemies while acquiring the weaponry to suit your talents before you're really able to fight back against the hordes. It's fun and everything, but it'll take awhile to get through. If you've got that much time to spare, go ahead and spend the extra hour or two for a came of Call of Cthulu instead, cause that game is creepy-good (scales better too).

So, my inital pass at NWN2, which was a hefty install and a heftier set of patches, I recreated Loriel. I played the original game through as her, Half-Elves Rogue, Dual Wield feat progression for maximal sneak attack potency, giving her a mix of Skills (8+Int tw) but very few of the personable ones. Present version has 9 Skills -- Appraise, Craft Weapon, Tumble, Use Magic Item, Hide, Move Silently, Search, Disable Device, Open Locks -- I tend not to use Slight of Hand anyways, though I should've purchased some form of Diplomacy/Bluff/Intimidate. Either way, I'll probably be recreating, much as I like the class, the additional work of moving behind an opponent to get my Sneak Attacks, while an appropriate change, is just extra management on my part, and I keep losing time when the game decides to crash (twice so far).

Guitar Hero is great, like tons of fun great. Both of the brothers seem to have gotten the hang of it, Ian even played a song I'd been playing cause he liked the rhythm (He even passed it, despite having only ever played Level 1 or 2 Songs on Easy, and it being a Level 5 Song on Medium). We've gotten one Uncle to play, it was Christmas after all, and my father once, though we'd like to see more out of him doing it. Rocking out with Judy Nails as my Avatar of choice (well, first pick and only pick so far too), out in the UK-Stonehenge venue for now, that's about 4 hours worth of playtime, in the Face Melter's category. Very afraid of Free Bird.

Songlisting (The Cross signifies a song where Co-Op gets Rhythm Guitar, if unmarked the other option is always Bass)
Main setlist
1. Opening Licks
"Shout at the Devil" - Mötley Crüe
"Mother" - Danzig †
"Surrender" - Cheap Trick
"Woman" - Wolfmother
"Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight" - Spınal Tap † (Encore)

2. Amp-Warmers
"Strutter" - KISS †
"Heart-Shaped Box" - Nirvana
"Message in a Bottle" - The Police
"You Really Got Me" - Van Halen
"Carry On Wayward Son" - Kansas (Encore)

3. String-Snappers
"Monkey Wrench" - Foo Fighters
"Them Bones" - Alice in Chains
"Search and Destroy" - Iggy Pop and The Stooges
"Tattooed Love Boys" - The Pretenders
"War Pigs" - Black Sabbath (Encore)

4. Thrash and Burn
"Cherry Pie" - Warrant
"Who Was in My Room Last Night?" - Butthole Surfers †
"Girlfriend" - Matthew Sweet †
"Can't You Hear Me Knocking" - The Rolling Stones †
"Sweet Child O' Mine" - Guns N' Roses (Encore)

5. Return of the Shred
"Killing in the Name" - Rage Against the Machine
"John the Fisherman" - Primus
"Freya" - The Sword "Bad Reputation" - Thin Lizzy
"Last Child" - Aerosmith † (Encore)

6. Relentless Riffs
"Crazy on You" - Heart
"Trippin' On a Hole in a Paper Heart" - Stone Temple Pilots
"Rock This Town" - Stray Cats
"Jessica" - The Allman Brothers Band †
"Stop" - Jane's Addiction (Encore)

7. Furious Fretwork
"Madhouse" - Anthrax
"Carry Me Home" - The Living End
"Laid to Rest" - Lamb of God †
"Psychobilly Freakout" - The Reverend Horton Heat
"YYZ" - Rush (Encore)

8. Face-Melters
"Beast and the Harlot" - Avenged Sevenfold
"Institutionalized" - Suicidal Tendencies †
"Misirlou" - Dick Dale
"Hangar 18" - Megadeth
"Free Bird" - Lynyrd Skynyrd † (Encore)

Bonus tracks
"Arterial Black" - Drist †
"Collide" - Anarchy Club
"Elephant Bones" - That Handsome Devil
"Fall of Pangea" - Valient Thorr
"FTK" - Vagiant
"Gemini" - Brian Kahanek †
"Jordan" - Buckethead
"Laughtrack" - The Acro-brats †
"Less Talk More Rokk" - Freezepop †
"The Light that Blinds" - Shadows Fall
"Mr. Fix-it" - The Amazing Royal Crowns
"The New Black" - Every Time I Die
"One for the Road" - Breaking Wheel
"Parasite" - The Neighborhoods
"Push Push (Lady Lightning)" - Bang Camaro
"Radium Eyes" - Count Zero
"Raw Dog" - The Last Vegas (Winner of the "Be a Guitar Hero" Contest)
"Red Lottery" - Megasus
"Six" - All That Remains
"Soy Bomb" - Honest Bob and the Factory-to-Dealer Incentives †
"Thunderhorse" - Dethklok
"Trogdor" - Strong Bad †
"The X-Stream" - Voivod
"Yes We Can" - Made in Mexico

For the sake of Contrast, Guitar Hero's Tracklist:

Main setlist
1. Opening Licks
"I Love Rock & Roll" - Joan Jett & The Blackhearts
"I Wanna Be Sedated" - The Ramones
"Thunder Kiss '65" - White Zombie
"Smoke on the Water" - Deep Purple
"Infected" - Bad Religion

2. Axe-Grinders
"Iron Man" - Black Sabbath
"More Than a Feeling" - Boston
"You've Got Another Thing Comin'" - Judas Priest
"Take Me Out" - Franz Ferdinand
"Sharp Dressed Man" - ZZ Top

3. Thrash And Burn
"Killer Queen" - Queen
"Hey You" - The Exies
"Stellar" - Incubus
"Heart Full of Black" - Burning Brides
"Symphony of Destruction" - Megadeth

4. Return of the Shred
"Ziggy Stardust" - David Bowie
"Fat Lip" - Sum 41
"Cochise" - Audioslave
"Take It Off" - The Donnas
"Unsung" - Helmet

5. Fret-Burners
"Spanish Castle Magic" - Jimi Hendrix
"Higher Ground" - Red Hot Chili Peppers
"No One Knows" - Queens of the Stone Age
"Ace Of Spades" - Motörhead
"Crossroads" - Cream

6. Face-Melters
"Godzilla" - Blue Öyster Cult
"Texas Flood" - Stevie Ray Vaughan
"Frankenstein" - The Edgar Winter Group
"Cowboys from Hell" - Pantera
"Bark at the Moon" - Ozzy Osbourne

Bonus tracks
"Fire It Up" - Black Label Society
"Cheat on the Church" - Graveyard BBQ (Winner of the "Be a Guitar Hero" Contest)
"Caveman Rejoice" - The Bags
"Eureka, I've Found Love" - The Upper Crust
"All of This" - Shaimus
"Behind The Mask" - Anarchy Club
"The Breaking Wheel" - Artillery (Now known as Breaking Wheel)
"Callout" - The Acro-brats
"Decontrol" - Drist
"Even Rats" - The Slip
"Farewell Myth" - Made in Mexico
"Fly on the Wall" - Din
"Get Ready 2 Rokk" - Freezepop
"Guitar Hero" - Monkey Steals The Peach
"Hey" - Honest Bob and the Factory-to-Dealer Incentives
"Sail Your Ship By" - Count Zero
"Story of My Love" - The Model Sons

So obviously the Tracklist of the First game is far more recoignizable, but both sets have their merits, and I'll probably pick up the first cheap after I've torn the second one apart.

Not much to be said about the Wii save for the fact that we did get one. Haven't set it up or played with it yet, too busy with Guitar Hero, Setting up NWN, and Family.

The Pre-Christmas Post

Which actually got posted on the rollover of Christmas Eve Morning, but close enough for my purposes.

Uncle reccomends soldering to fix the Hard Drive issue, which seems highly plausable, that'll probably be a goal for next weekend. Not much else to rave about at the moment, as getting some rest is much higher on my todo list.

Yes, I do plan to at least touch on the images recently used, as well as my selection in general.

Subnotes: 1) Damn Inuyasha for movies that Adult Swim marathoned instead of Eureka Seven's Astral Apache (that's the assault on the Capital for Norbu, aka the ultra-cheese moment), as well as Renji/Kuchiki (not gonna try his first name) beating the crap out of Ichigo. And whatever Trinity Blood has up it's sleeve next.

2) Yeah, this isn't part of the original upload, but it's Christmas, and otherwise I wasn't going to have a picture at all, though the Haruhi trio with presents will probably be tomorrow's (today's) image -- that's a most excellent blush.

"Same thing we do every night, Pinky..."

Kinda creepy how giving Gmail permission to "remember me" on this system in turn causes Google-Blogger (Or Ex-Beta Blogger, or New Blogger, or whatever you wanna term it) to automatically log me in as well.

First Blogger, then YouTube, then Nasa. One has to wonder who's next.

Elementary, my dear Watson...

So, I've traced the problem with the 160 Hard Drive. It's 4 pin power only has 3 pins. Now to stir the waters of my font and divine what resolution I can. I need my access to Haruhi~

Work sucks, no shock there, more updates later.

I totally changed this title

Playing with a few layout options related to pictures still, and although this one has so very little to do with Christmas I figured I'd exhaust the supply of Holiday themed pictures I'd included in the first upload (Which does imply that there is another collection of pictures beyond the original 317 forming, and that it has some more holiday pictures).

Ooooh, the new Google-Blogger hybrid Bloggers system is pretty nifty, and when I throw in an image it keeps it there while I'm posting instead of a hunk of WYSIWYG HTML Meta-garbage.

I won't be playing with my labels section quite yet, and I don't think this image ties to what I want to say about anime. I'm no authority on the system, I certainly don't and won't manage a blog devoted just to the topic, but still I do have an attachement to both Webcomics and Anime.

Either way, plenty to get done.

♫ Making Christmas, Making Christmas ... ♫

Leaving it as shortlist, actual list ended up trimming the Wii / 360 items and just tacking on some music from that post a few months back.

***
NWN 2


**
Wii / Twilight Princess
360 //
/ Gears of War.
/ * Enchanted Arms
/ Burnout (The 360 version, grrr)
/ * Ninety Nine Nights
Valkerie Profile 2

*
Guitar Hero 1/2

Thursday Doldrums

I've decided I'd like to alternate my Text-light Picture posts with my more rantish ones. Give an alternation of text and picture. Alternatively (and yes, I do recoignize how many variations of this I've used) I could just tie the pictures more into what I'm writing about and combo them every time; though I might find it more constraining to write to a picture, rather than just using the picture where it goes well with the words.

Anyways, I've got a fair chunk of time (though still mail and lunch to burn some of that) and no coworker, so not only is there solitude broken only by the annoyance of customers - and I hate Christmas season because it's no longer people with 1 box, it's people with 16 boxes - and the radio. The River does not have enough variety, but at least I can stomach half it's playlist, and zone the rest mentally.

Picking up with FFXII chatter I've finally reached the Knight of the Round status, having beatdown every hunt offered to me before Giruvegan (where I should be headed now). I've gained acceptance to the Rare Hunter's club, with no kill past the first turtle (There had better not be any other Rares that are triggered by "Stand in place X for awhile" cause that's just fucking stupid) turned in, but I think 3-4 Trophies earmarked. Beatdown the Hell Wyrm, which was more than I'd bargained for going in blind. It was a particularly brutal battle without Holy Absorb but I triumphed after about 2.5 hours of straight battle (Epic, yeah). Cost me 7 Phoenix Downs, 1 X-Potion, 1 Hi-Ether, and 1 MegaElixir (After a particularly bad Judgement).

I've decided after playing all this time with it, that the Gambit system is like 70% of what I desire out of it. The automation of mundane rebuffs, target acquisition, etc, is brilliant, but it's flawed. What gets me is the acquisition of Gambits.
Take them out of the stores, give me like 10 generic ones to begin with (really broad, like the HP Triggers as 1, MP Triggers as 1, Enemy Types (Flying, Boss, Regular), Spell-Effect Present, etc.) and make their refinements or improvements be granted storyline. In fact, I heartily reccomend giving Gambits as a reward for fights that would've been best served with the Gambit, proving your worth. Right now they're far too swingy, either useful or useless depending on the situation. The fact that I have to specifically trigger on various status-effects irks me, or on Elemental Weaknesses. And the game doesn't respond too brilliantly to "Immune" or "Reverse" or even Stealing. The game could've been smarter, and really I think it should have been, but the gambits should've been harder to obtain to balance it. Even better, they could be some token system, so that there's some strategy in the selection what Gambits you're going to need/use and what the player is going to do himself.

Aside from Stealing, and smart casting spells without taking all the lines to do it though, the system does function, and I do it mostly by hand anyways (Like anyone who's played Baldur's Gate will). So why the rant about Gambits? Easy, because of the rant about Treasure Chests. Overlooking the whole "Don't open these chests" thing for the spear (Note to designers, if you're going to pull that kind of crap, at least do it Crono Trigger style -- That is all) the random chests are pretty much my bane. 90% of the time, even with the Armlet, they contain plity amounts of gil, potions that I have had 99 of for ages (and nothing to do with them, unlike FFX where it's Bahamaut has learned to cast Cure, which while useless, was cute and solved the problem of having 99) or they give me a Gambit. And not just any Gambit, but the same Gambit, over and over and over. I swear, I have Gambit: Self at least 6 times, and Every Copy of Gambit: Hp % twice, including something like 12 copies of Hp 60%, for no good reason. The gil I can store at least, even though I have 1 mil, with the tiny donation of 50K from Montblanc for the Hell Wyrm kill (Worst, Clanleader, Ever), the potions I could at least use with aplomb and replace them. But getting a Gambit I already have? Fucking stupid. There's probably some piece of FFXII's code in there that's commented out, advising development that a redundancy check on the Gambits would be wise, because there's no point to addition copies (And this is have the reason I say they should be bought with special Gambit Curreny, if you're going to sell them instead of making the Sidequested).

I could rant about the Loot System, and how it'd be 100x better served by a Sidequest Recipie-Driven segment for the ultimate weapons, ala Final Fantasy VIII's Weapons-Magazines or a Tiered Craft system functioning like Kingdom Hearts Synthesis; but that's really all I have to say. The blind aspect isn't cool, it's just complicated and annoying, especially with the interaction of multiple recipie loot elements.

Emphasis on Quasi

It kinds occurs to me that I could've just directly uploaded these thing from my computer, but given that this was meant as a worktime diversion (which I no longer need, in recoignition of the pressures of the Holiday Rush) this method suits my purposes.

Asuna is <3. Negima?! is absoutely wonderful, as are the seasonal OVAs that I don't actually have my hands on yet (despite what the hicks assaulting Jiaz's blog via comments might say). I have at least another one of her, with her sword, in the picture trove that I'll get to someday. Negima art isn't too frequent, but at least I don't have to sort through tons of tag-content filtered pages like I do with Bleach (What's that, a Harem series without tons of H-art attached, unthinkable).

Asuna's long hair is totally victory though. Not really a Casual Tag, and the lack of a substancial top removes the chance at a Midriff Tag (another of my favorites, alongside Choker). The perennial hunger, plus the Cosplay card, aren't really my favorites, but the bells are fun, as is the sleeping. Pretty, but not wallpaper worthy.