Shuffle! 23

If I hadn't spoiled myself, I wonder if I would have been able to figure out what Rin does in the end.
She doesn't want to use magic, even at the cost of her life.
He wants her to live.
He has to get her to use an enormous amount of magic.
How?

GGmail

Hello,

Thanks for your report.

Gmail takes the privacy and security of our users very seriously. For this
reason, we can't reveal any further information about this account.

Please note that we aren't able to provide you with information about
attempted logins to your account including, but not limited to, the IP
address from which the attempted login was made, and the time and date
attempted logins occurred.

If you wish to pursue the matter further, you may want to contact your
local authorities.

We appreciate your understanding.

Sincerely,

The Gmail Team

Wow, they value your security so much that they won't reveal your account's IP logs to you, even when your account has been compromised.
That is amazing dedication to user security.
Look, they're even so helpful as to suggest contacting the local authorities!
...
...
...
What the hell is this shit?

Hackers 2

He had my gmail account password.
That's how he knew the reset password, and that's how he got my account.
Luckily he is stupid and I rule and ninjaed the gmail account back.
I've changed every password on every forum/game/program I own.
I'm not going to say how I ninjaed the gmail account back, but let's just say this.
BITCH YOU ARE GOING DOWN.
GOOGLE WILL HAVE YOUR IPS, ARENANET WILL HAVE YOUR IPS, AND I HOPE YOU GET FUCKED IN THE ASS IN JAIL.

OMGWTFHAX

Wow, someone hacked my Guild Wars account.
Amazing that they cared enough.
My password had enough numbers, I thought it wasn't that bad...(Word+numbers isn't too bad)
Anyway, so Peter has been asking why I've been playing Guild Wars without talking to him.
Well, that's not me.

In FACT, if any of you in Guild Wars see someone on by the name of Mia Toma, THAT'S NOT ME, IT'S A HAXOR.

Shuffle! 23

No I haven't seen the episode, but yay 2chan for funny pictures.

How to Eat Sushi

An instructional video.
Everything in this video is accurate and true.

Shuffle! 22

The power of Christ compels you!

Eight Myths About Video Games Debunked

Counter

I'm in the market for a new site counter as webstat went crappy on me and started spamming iLead ads.
I had them auto-blocked and was wondering if it was malware on my home system, turns out they weren't.
I'm sort of bored, so I'd prefer the count to be customizable, so I can put my own images as the numbers.

Gamers versus Normal People

Recently a friend of Kenny's was put under investigation by Pokerstars, as they claimed very very few people could play 25 sit and gos without being some kind of robot/AI.

A sit and go is a minature tournament, basically 9 or 18 people sign up, each pay some amount of money (maybe 5 dollars), and then a small tournament is held, where usually the top three make money.

Understandably pissed off, he offered to webcam himself doing just that (probably in his normal hilarious trash-talking way), playing 25+ sit and gos at once.

Little background, this guy was the closest to a professional Starcraft player I ever knew; he got taken out in a WCG qualifier to someone worse than him though and sort of gave up BW for a while to play poker.
He's actually resuming BW though it seems, just to try to get to Korea once, then he says he'll quit.

Hello Hevad,

There is absolutely no need to be condescending, really.
We take the security of our games seriously, and we have to know if you're using AI before allowing you to continue to play.
You offered a chance to expedite the review... and I accepted.
It's really as simple as that.

Indeed, I will be suitably impressed once I see the video of you playing
those games.
It is certainly beyond my capability (as I've already said), and should be beyond the capability of most players.
I'll certainly congratulate you and welcome you to continue to play on PokerStars once I've seen that you are indeed not "most players".

Pending reception of the video, I have to say that I'm now leaning toward accepting your defense, though I still want to see the video.
However, no matter the end result, I won't be able to apologize as I've simply been doing my job -- ensuring that our games are free to automated robot players.

And I do have some thoughts about how to pay off that crying call on the river.
I can't freeroll you into the TLB, and I can't compensate you for the downtime (this has actually been a pretty speedy review -- sometimes it can take a week to complete this sort of thing).

Let's talk about that once you've sent the link to the video, shall we?

Best Regards,

Jeff
PokerStars Support Supervisor

Hevad is a madman.
Oh yeah, he came out $150 ahead at the end of this particular session.

「気持ちの行方」

Um.
Wow.
Yeah.

Shuffle! Music

So my Shuffle! music torrent is slowly winding down.
Original Soundtrack
Perfect Arrange
Perfect Arrange Bonus CD
Character Themes
Yuria Rainbow Remix
Yuria Anime Opening Single YOU
5 Drama CDS, Sia, Nerine, Kaede, Asa, Primula
Hashimoto Miyuki Anime Ending Single Innocence

Hashimoto Miyuki Anime Ending Single Innocence
(1.19 gigs, FUCK, YOU EITHER GO WITH LOSSLESS or LAME STANDARD!
NOT 320CBR, ARGHHHHHHHHH!)
Talk about waste of space, but whatever.
Anyway, managed to snag the ending theme single CD first
(I like stopped the torrent and restarted with just that song selected...yay bitcomet.)
That song rocks, in case you didn't see the massive links in my profile and away message.
(The one named Innocence.)
Not sure if the other song on the CD, Time Has Come has been ever used in the show.
In fact I have no idea where it's from.
It's ok, I guess.

Character Themes
Going through the character themes, I'm wondering...
Did they have the actual voice actors do the themes?
I mean that would mean they can all sing...
Unfortunately, the themes are themselves standard fluff.
Repeating, long, boring, and sort of annoying.
Honestly, Green Green's character themes had some really good ones, though probably not with the voice actors singing, these all sound the same...crappy.
Except one, Maou and Shin's.
It's actually a two guy duet (Which is why I'm curious about who the singers are of these), and I think it's decent.
Actually two.
I DID NOT REALIZE YURIA was AMA'S voice.
Wow I'm a MORON.
Anyway, Yuria does Ama's character theme, and well since she's a singer first and a voice actor second, of course it's good.
She catches that eternal optimism really well.

Perfect Arrange Bonus CD
Checking the others, I learn that In The Sky is the name of the song Nerine sings on the swing.
The version I current am listening to is on the Perfect Arrange Album Bonus CD Himiwari.
It's done with quite a lower natural range, and a mellower singer, I wonder who she is (SCREW YOU MP3 TAGS, USELESS AGAIN!)
Himiwari itself I swear was used in the series also, probably pertaining to Licorice.
It's this sweet little tune with xylophones.

Perfect Arrange
On the Perfect Arrange Album, listening to Happy Run is sort of nostalgic, I think it was used as the "daily happy life" music in the series.
One problem I have is with the encoding though.
This isn't just my normal bitching, a lot of noise was picked up here, it really ruins the guitar in some places cause of oversampling.
Anyway it's a good song, cause hey, it's classical guitar!
While listening to Twin Fairy, I'm worried the entire encode of the Perfect Arrange soundtrack has this kind of noise.
Twin Fairy is...I think really good!
Moody cello and piano combination for the win.

Asa DRAMA CD
Holy shit yes, drama CDs!
I could just listen to these all day!
Of course I listen to Asa's first (Sorry Nerine =X).
(Though, 320kbps for speech files...ok you're REALLY pissing me off encoder.)
Kareha has her own special sound effect already in place =D.
Wow...already in Asa's drama CDs..."Am I betraying Kaede's feelings?"
Interesting...Kareha's plan is for Asa to ask Rin Kaede to go to an amusement park, and Kareha will lure Kaede away somewhere during it.
So all four go...and Nerine, Sia, Itsuki, and Mayumi show up.
(Asa: "Not just Kaede...huh...-_-")
(Nerine's scared of roller coasters.)
(And Kareha makes her move by asking to sit with Kaede, and...stupid ITSUKI asks Asa.
MAYUMI, of all people gets to sit with Rin.
Kaede faints on the coaster, Itsuki freaks out and does Itsuki things "WHERE ARE YOU TOUCHING", Asa bashes him.
And now the fathers are stalking along too?
Geez, this is like a side story of the anime.
Wow, honestly, Asa's drama CD, Asa spends a lot of time worrying about betraying Kaede. Buuuh.
Yay another chance, while the demon's and angel's parents are busy stalling the girls, Asa lures Rin away!
AGH, Rin's stupid.
This is just the drama CD, but still!
She offers to go alone with him, and he's like the others will get worried.
No, when he says others, he ACTUALLY says "Kaede-tachi blah blah blah."
What a moron -_-a

Yappari...Kaede no issyou ni no hou ga ii no ka na...
O?
Boku to hutari kiri zya....dame ka na...

Translations:
I knew it, being with Kaede makes you happy...
What?
Only the two of us...it's no good is it...

Ok Rin redeems himself!
Goes with Asa on the ferris wheel, says flat out I don't like Kaede That Way since Asa keeps mentioning it.
Asa really is hung up on betraying Kaede...is this how she was in the game?
It's sort of sad.
And of course, as he's about to say something, bzzzt, ride stops.
And the two stooges start calling his name on the loudspeaker.
ATTENTION, RIN-DONO. RIN-DONO.
Asa's like ah well, too bad, we should return.
Rin's like screw that, let's stay together a little longer.

Original Soundtrack
Irony, I listen to songs on the original soundtrack last.
Anyway, With You, good piano, not sure if it was used in the series.
Little emotional piece.
Yuria's Mirage Lullaby(Half Size) was used as the opening for the game?
It was used for the ending of the Prologue.
I'm unsure, all I know is that it's pretty good when listened to in original form.

Yuria Anime Opening Single YOU
Ok the OST was second to last, er wait third to last.
I still haven't touched the Rainbox Remix.
Anyway, this is the anime opening.
I like the ending better, but the opening isn't bad.
It's a good energetic theme, the electric guitar really does well.
The second song Karafuru is a reallllly upbeat song.
I guess well, it IS by Yuria, aka part of I've Sound.
It's sortta weird, I'm not sure what they were going for.
It's like a song you play when you win something.

Yuria Rainbow Remix
And we finally hit our final soundtrack.
Course the first song I chose was Mirage Lullaby, remixed by none other than Hosplug!
Hosplug does his funky dance sprinkles, and the resulting piece is catchy/weird at the same time.
There's this part where heavy heavy synth bass comes in, and it's pretty nice.

Edit: Future edits and impressions will be categorized by their CD.
CD order was determined by which random song I listened to first, then second, then third, etc.

Dilemma.

I...just read a friend's post.
It's dated two days ago, when I was glibly recommending Shuffle! to anyone who'd listen.
She's the only one who took the bait.
If she reads this she'll know.
Episode 19 and 20 can be gotten from #Kazenokoefansubs, so don't go to #AnimeU!

Anyway, her post was about...one's path in life.
I don't know, the post strikes somewhere deep in me.
Something rings back out when I read that line:
"I wanted to study language and become a translator."

I graduated this May, and I now have a Bachelor's of Science in Computer Science from JHU.
I'm unemployed.
Am I really looking?
I don't really know.
I think when I first graduated I tried pretty damn hard.
I had more than half a dozen interviews all over the place, I was getting calls regularly.
I didn't land a single job.
My parents go apeshit EVERY SINGLE DAY because I am unemployed.
Nowadays I mostly sit around, browse the job websites, check my email, waste time on the web, and work on translating Utawareru Mono.
I've started watching anime again.

Do I want to be employed?
Would I rather be installing operating systems, or programming in java, then say...translating a game, as I am now?
I don't know.

「ここで魔法を使ったら、ボクは人間でなくなっちゃう．．．．．．」

Shuffle! Episode 20.
Breaking point.
She went all out.
People bash for Rin for not realizing her feelings, but do people fault her for not realizing Rin's feelings?
It's like they want to simultaneously hope nothing is wrong with the other.

Anyway, I wrote I gigantic post on animesuki, and I'll repost it ONCE YOU CATCH UP TO ME.

Anyway, I've said this many times before...but I felt what he did at the end of Episode 20 was the only thing he could have done, and the right thing.
He had to "break the flow."

Meanwhile, I have so many spoilers about 21-24 by virtue of the game that I'm dying everytime I read some ignorant post on animesuki or statement in #KNKF.
I guess I can't really call them ignorant, as they don't know...well spoilers!
But still, it's like they ignored EVERY GODAMN HINT the series gave, and there are a lot.

Allan, if you pick this up, don't read my last entry either.

Also, the title of this post is ANOTHER spoiler, it's said in Shuffle! the game, and it refers to what's happening in the series now.

Shuffle!

This will be long, we'll start with the first and work toward the most recent impressions I had of this show.
I WILL hide names occasionally because I WANT people to watch this show without getting spoiled; it is AMAZING for what it is (Best damn harem show I've ever seen -_-)
They will be referred to as: Rin(Guy), Sia(Angel), Nerine(Devil), Rimu(Little Girl), Kaede(Childhood Friend), Asa(Sempai)

Episode 1:
Character introduction.
Kaede is REALLY subservient. Almost scarily so.
Asa is wow. A surprise. Second favorite girl already after the one that drew me into the series.
Itsuki (Best male friend) is AWESOME.
He rocks. "Welcome to my heart" indeed.
Mayumi (Female friend) is ALSO AWESOME.
It's nice to know you can interact NORMALLY with females in these types of shows.
Sia is cute, but well, I'm not into characters like her.
Nerine is <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 sooooooooooooooooooo cute <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3.

Episode 2:
Primula/Rimu is <3 <3 <3 <3 ok I shouldn't put so many hearts cause now I feel wrong.
Don't know where to rank her, let's just say I can't because that would be wrong -_-.
Very interesting how she knows his name already and clings to him like glue.
And here we see a very small hint (If you knew spoilers) about Primula and Ama (Sempai's mother).
Also larger hints with Primula and Nerine.

Episode 3:
Sia focus episode.
She's ok enough XD.
Hates studies, math especially, likes rain (because of the romantic implications?), cheerful, a bit low self esteem.
Childhood meetings, ooh clichetastic!

Episode 4:
Nerine focus episode.
Good in studies, weak physically?, quiet BURNING kind, good singer!, scary when mad (attack magic is off the charts)
Wow. She's bad at cooking.
Well, least Asa taught her how to make omlettes ^^a...now if she would only learn something else -_-a
Childhood meetings, clichetastic^2!
That line she says at the end, "Let me love you more and more," was just fantastic.

Episode 5:
Kaede focus episode.
Wow, Nerine is bad at EVERYTHING. Cooking, cleaning, anything remotely housework related.
How...opposite of cliche expectations XD.
Kaede however, is good at everything housework related.
Hm...the relationship he has with his childhood friend is so...odd, but it works.
His parents and her mother died in a car accident, and her dad works to support them both now, so they live together.
That's a pretty choice setup for her.
She's STILL so subservient though, it's really odd.
Gets jealous easily, but is really good at not showing it.

Asa is...really something.
She coaches him in every girl situation it seems, gives him advice in her awesome flirt/teasing way.
I like her a lot.

Episode 6:
Primula focus episode.
Oh dear oh dear oh dear.
I feel wrong -_-a
Anyway, turns out being the wandering weird strange girl she is, she has almost no good clothes to speak of.
This includes underwear, and you can already see where this is going.
All girls going out to help buy some make it worse...
Rin flees pretty quickly.

Episode 7:
Asa focus episode
I was actually waiting for this one...because her character is sooo good!
Flirty, helpful, older sisterish, cute at the same time.
Hm though, they changed animators for this episode, and it shows.
Seems like it's something Japanese animators do amongst themselves and their friends for fun.
Style is DIFFERENT, but not unpleasant.
I guess you could technically count Sempai as a childhood friend, they've known each other from junior high.
Helped Kaede learn to cook. (She's pretty damn good, so Asa must be amazing)
Chef material it seems!
Also has the dubious honor? of being one of the girls Kaede absolutely trusts, to the point that when Rin goes over to her house, she thinks nothing of it. (Kaede also has gone over for cooking many many times and also to eat with Rin)
Has a rather interesting attitude toward relationships, just wants to enjoy what she has a while longer.
I think she's the most similar to Rin in this regard, because Rin doesn't exactly want to start breaking hearts yet.
And that scene at the end...that was close!
You have to wonder about her...

Episode 8-10:
Sia makes the first move!
And what a move it was.
I'm curious here as to whether or not Episode 9 was influenced by her magic or not, there was a very weird quality to the entire thing.
Episode 10 is TENSE.
The rumors have changed the status quo, and everyone is feeling it.
In the end though, Sia "takes one" for the team to return the situation to the status quo and give everyone more time to think =O, which I was really surprised at.
However, her evil self showed itself, and I think we'll be seeing more of her.

Episode 11:
Ooh, a very good sidestory episode.
Goes over the two females who AREN'T in love with Rin (Where are you Kareha -_-), the teacher and Mayumi.
Mayumi is downright hilarious, it's easy to like her.

Episode 12-15:
Devil world arc.
Very well done, Primula takes the cuteness cake, and eats it too.
Plus, we see exactly Nerine's reasons for coming to Earth.
Multiple personality disorder one shows up, and wow it encompassed a lot.
Her singing, her love, it's no wonder that after she disappears things tone a bit down with her other half.
I am still rooting for her ^^;;, but I think Asa has more of a chance now.
Speaking of which, Asa was in amazing form.
She couldn't go with them to the devil world, but giving her ribbon, and her teary performance before they left were really good.
It's hard not to like her more and more.
Also, Episode 14.
KIKYOU comes out!
I did not even notice that, but the voice and the eyes were obvious as hell.
Damn you Shuffle! animators.
You gave so many godamn hints.

Episode 16-17:
Not ONE of these girls is normal.
Oh yeah, I know there's an angel, a devil, two spoilers and a human in one mixed up world and what not, but at least they seemed normal personality wise, if a bit devoted.
But no, EVERY SINGLE ONE IS HALF crazy, minimum.
Anyway, after the devil world arc, Sia has noticed IMMEDIATELY the change in Nerine.
More open, happier, but at the same time, NOT AS ONE-PERSON devoted to Rin.
And it worries her, that her friend has found a sort of happiness in this, because her selfish self can't understand the concept of "Happy as long as he is happy" mentality.
Multiple personality disorder 2, more crying, and I think we've narrowed down the "winner" now.

Episode 18:
The long awaited date episode!
However, things never go so smoothly, and he ended up hurting her quite a bit.
I think that's one of the main themes now of this show; you can't just let things go on as they are, you have to start making choices.
The longer you stall or let others push you, the more it hurts the rest.

Episode 19:
HOLY FUCK. Psychotic. With a capital 'P'. She is fucking psychotic.
On rewatching early episodes, she's very cute when jealous, or reserved, but mother fuck watching this episode was a wakeup.
S-C-A-R-Y, her young self is straight out of a horror film.
I always wondered why she does EVERYTHING for him the way she does, but obviously it is a NATURAL extension of her psychotic personality.
This type of person is...really scary.
To switch from facade to insanity to facade like that, this is NOT a normal girl.

Summary for now:
I think...I think we might have another Mia-like psycho on our hands.
No wait, even worse, cause holy shit what she did when she was younger to Rin was just twisted.
She's so bound to him because of her guilt that if she loses him she will most certainly self-destruct AND take someone down with her.
And now that Rin's basically made his choice, and it's not her, but one of the people she trusted the most, she's snapped.

That last episode was sickening/heartbreaking as hell.

Kid

Boku wa kiddo!

BAND.

How...odd.
I managed to get banned from the [Lunar] anime forums after TWO posts.
TWO.

I don't see how that's even possible, I didn't even say anything remotely insulting.
And hell, I was all excited that one of the main translators was JHU '05!
Ping pong club vice president no less.
(I think Kenny's in that job now? I'll have to ask him)

But yeah, talk about sort of depressing e-drama.
Bleah.

KITA!!

ｷﾀ━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━ｯ!!
Holy shit I've been waiting on this volume FOREVER.
For the uneducated this is official Tsukihime manga volume 3.
The picture is Shiki from volume 2, when he's gone into Nanaya (assassin) mode.

AirRade-Air-

This has been my new distraction for a while, I'm just late in posting because I wanted to unlock more things for that pretty screenshot.

Anyway, it's a sidescrolling shooter with Air characters.
It is hard.
As in "easy" mode is hard.
As in MY FUCKING GOD I HAVE TO BE JAPANESE hard.
Summer mode alone takes approximately 1 hour and 18 minutes to get through, and this is with no heals and only 9 hits before game over.
Yes I used a trainer to get through summer mode, and that's why I have Kanna and Yao Bikuni =D

So far I have:
Misuzu
Kano
Minagi
Winged Misuzu
Crazy Kano
Haruko
Hijiri
Keisuke
Uraha
Kanna
Yao Bikuni

Hijiri rocks, her knives are amazingly powerful with a good spread.
Winged Misuzu is Misuzu on crack, too good.
Haruko sucks -_-a
I have not played with Crazy Kano/Keisuke/Uraha/Yao Bikuni yet.
I suspect Yao Bikuni is broken as well.

Edit: Holy SHIT Yao Bikuni is amazing.
Her punch FIRES A PROJECTILE THAT STILL COUNTS AS A PUNCH and kills almost everything in one hit.
Her fully upgraded shots form a GIGANTIC CIRCLE around herself before moving out at a target, sort of like a cone.

Dead or Alive...mostly Dead

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAOMFGTHEYCANTBESERIOUS

Fresh from the powerbook of another Hollywood hack! I want to work at a theater. Just so I can punch the face of every last man, woman, child, and invalid that goes to see crap like this. I don't discriminate who I'd sucker punch. Equal opportunities... FOR PAIN. Unless they're much bigger than me. Then it's just a stern fist shake... When they're not looking. Naturally.

-Scott Ramsoomair

Edit: Link updated, hopefully it works now. Warning, Rapidshare ahead.

Impatience is the devil.

Call of Duty 2

So I finally caved in.




Random thoughts:
The Thompson is ridiculous at small-medium range.
I can not snipe for the life of me.
I am totally unsure if there is leading at far ranges, as I haven't HIT anything at far ranges yet.
Search and Destroy is ridiculously hard for me as of now.
Shotguns are powerful.

Double KO

Wow, Sony is STUPID upon stupid.
Remember the CD protection that allowed people to install malware without tripping anti-viruses?
Turns out LAME source code was embedded deep within the copy protection.
LAME is open source under LGPL (not GPL), and by open source I mean if you use the code, you have to make your application open source.
So basically Sony used it without permission.

Turducin

chioyoung: they had a Turducin
SibladeKO: turducin
SibladeKO: what is turducin
chioyoung: = duck stuffed inside a chicken stuffed inside a Turkey
SibladeKO: you just blew my mind
SibladeKO: wtf

KBILLY's super sounds of the '70s just keep on comin...

Reservoir Dogs is an awesome movie, the soundtrack only used '70s music, but there's something infectious about the entire soundtrack.
I think it's all the horns and trumpets and real instruments blaring like crazy along with the ragged guitar.
I'm a sucker for real band/orchestra instruments.

I heard Creed's cover of Magic Carpet Ride before I heard the original one by Bedlam.
And of course you have Stuck In The Middle With You, which puts you in that oh so fun homicidal mood.
"Clowns to the left 3SKBITCH of me, jokers to the right WTFUSELESSHOG, here I am stuck in the middle NOIDONTHACK with you."

I find it amusing that centrist political bloggers like this phrase enough to make up more than 70% of the first page hits when googled (the phrase, that is).

Curses!

On Wed, 16 Nov 2005 23:31:11 -0500
Kevin OYoung wrote:

> すみませんけど, utawaml.exeはCDバージョンだけか？
> DVDバージョンじゃない？

作成した当時にCDバージョンしかなかったため、CDバージョンしか対応していません。
また、DVDバージョンは、CDバージョンとはシステムが異なるらしいので、
今のところ対応する予定はありません。

--
m-akita(m-akita@m-akita.sakura.ne.jp)

In short, I had found a script ripper app on an obscure but still updated JP website.
However, it was for the CD version, not the DVD version, so I emailed the guy asking if there was DVD version.

His reply basically says no DVD version, and no plans to work on one at this time due to the differing formats of their ..a files (compressed txt files).

Anyway, at least Oh! Text Hooker works so I can ghetto script rip (Stupid repeating sentences ugh.)

OY!

Slowly but surely converting the layout.
Frikkin rounded corners are built directly into the gifs half the time.
Ugh.
Also, I need adobe photoshop back -_-

Revived

Progress is slow, but finally starting again on Utawareru Mono's translation!

Wish I had a script rip, it'd make things so much easier than doing it myself.

Adel is innocent.

I don't mean he claims to be. I mean the military says so. It held a secret tribunal and ruled that he is not al Qaeda, not Taliban, not a terrorist. The whole thing was a mistake: The Pentagon paid $5,000 to a bounty hunter, and it got taken. The military people reached this conclusion, and they wrote it down on a memo, and then they classified the memo and Adel went from the hearing room back to his prison cell. He is a prisoner today, eight months later.

via Mefi, which shows it CAN be useful sometime.

Oh yeah, absolutely fucking horrifying.
I hate to say it, but I'm glad I'm not a Muslim in this day and age.

Untitled States

GG KANSAS

You lose Kansas.
Heck, even the pope supports evolution over intelligent design.
Now excuse me, I have to set my calendars back one hundred years or so.

That's Half-Baked!

Found a new diversion, a site to throw your uncreated ideas/inventions around.
There are actual practical ideas, and then there are the slightly insane people ideas.

Antivertising is one of the latter.
Slightly insane people to look for are wagster, benfrost, 2 fries shy of a happy meal and squeak (who writes everything in limerick).

Summon Suffering

If you were "in the know" you'll notice I've updated the right side with a link to people's Soul Calibur 3 character creations, including my own.
I only have two at the moment, Unlimited Saga's Laura and FF4's Rydia.
I think I'll post Last Blade 2's Hibiki next.
And then...I might be stupid enough to attempt Stephen Colbert.

Sweet Kitty

Hello Kitty has a pet cat.
This strikes me as wrong on no less than two levels.

Glitch on the level of Roll Cancelling found in SC3

G225, G885
I don't really think this makes everything dead.
First off, you have to basically EXPECT a GI.
No one expects a GI really, but how many people expect Re-GIs?
At high play, a lot.
The Re-GI wars were hilariously annoying, this cuts down on them.
Honestly Kenny learned to GI my Talim pretty quickly, I'm sure if I learned to Re-GI consistently it'd get stupider.
I think it actually gives the initial GI-er an advantage, cause unless you FULLY BAITED A GI (i.e. mindgame aka depth), you're not going to expect it.
And when you try to counter with a GI of your own, they will buffer with G225 and retain advantage.

I have yet to make judgement on the ability to G225 out of stances and throw escapes.
Stances still unsure...throw escapes well...it's like punishing a throw with an anti-throw.
I think it's more mind games again .
(Have to guess right first, then perform the buffer input, then counter with something that will hit fast enough)

I think though this will make high level SC3 very hard for me to even crack -_-a
Like roll cancelling, I still can't do that shit reliably.

EAT YOUR JAM 2!

Behold the son of EAT YOUR JAM!
EAT YOUR JAM 2!

Sooolll Kaariba...Tsuri!

Today first serious unlocking run in Soul Calibur 3.
Thanks to the folks at gamefaqs (specifically some user named Ninja99), I unlocked all the character classes for create a fighter.
Now I don't have to use the fucking 8 move gimped character classes, I can use Soul of Xianghua!
Dress as a ninja, and still level 1 with pitiful HP, but it's still X, and she still rapes.
Until I hit a level 60 Soul Calibur character. (Curse you 60 Ivy and 60 Cervantes)
Least she doesn't suck like OTHER characters.

I am woefully deficient in clothes however, MUST UNLOCK THEM ALL.

Oh shit I SO have to recreate Hibiki with Setsuka's soul.

Edit:
Setsuka is fucking broken.
Cancellable B throw glitch allowing you to DO ANYTHING TO THEM WHILE THEY ARE IN FALLING ANIMATION, INCLUDING ANOTHER CANCELLED B THROW?
Yes please.
I think I found my new main.
Yes she has more than just throws, her 33_99B is fucking amazing.
Her Counter Hit combos all do 100+, etc etc.
X will probably still be alt.

EDIT FOR LAZY PEOPLE:
Fast Unlockables Oh My!
Infininte money glitch
1. Get some cash.
2. Buy as much as you can in the store.
3. Press select+start to return to start screen while in the store. DO NOT SAVE.
4. Load up a Chronicles of Swords save.
5. Lose as fast as possible.
6. Choose return to title, save your CoS game, notice your money is now back!
7. Repeat 2-6.

Fast discipline/class unlocking (Relatively)
Requirements: 2nd controller
1. Create two different custom class fighters.
2. Change your versus options to one round.
3. Have your fighters play standard vs at 0% (one hit deaths) until you hit 100 matches.
4. Repeat with each pair of classes.
5. Screw gaining levels!

And this is basically how I unlocked lots of stuff on the first day without even getting past stage 5 in chronicles and only beating Tales 5 or so times.
Least my Xianghua was able to get to Night Terror and win =D

EAT YOUR JAM!

More notes.

Talim was already low tier?
Why'd they kill her even more.
Anyway, WC evades less than it should, WC into A+B, B seems to be everyones favorite combo, from there the B stun CAN be mashed out of, so the launcher follow ups are rather risky.

Quick updates.

Tasofro has updated Eternal Fighter Zero to 4.01 AKA Memorial.
Two new characters (Akiko aka Nayuki's mom and awake Nayuki) and Kanna is now selectable without haxing the game.
Kanna is still cheese, and she banned from all competitive play because she is cheese.
Akiko's level 3 desparation super (No longer called overdrives, now called final memories) is fucking hilarious.

And, away we go!
All stolen from that grump Kalciane, I can't believe someone managed to convince him to keep Eternal Romancia alive =D
Good for them I say.
Nayuki Minase (awakened)

V-Type Thrust: 236+attack
Somersault Spike: 623+attack
Nayu-chan Twister: 214+attack (air-capable)
Nayu-chan Kick: 412+attack (air-capable) [this is a typo; it's 421]

Eterny Special
Ground to Air Freezer: 236236+attack
Super Nayu-chan Kick: 214214+attack (air only)
Memories of the Snow Rabbit or some shit: 641236+attack [F, HCF]

Final Memory
Totteoki no Collection: 236236+S

Akiko Minase
Freshness of the Food is Important: 236+attack
Let's Finish Preparation Quickly: 623+attack (repeat two more times for normal, 5 times for EX) [NOTE: The first two inputs are done on the same side, the third input is reversed. For the EX version, the first two are done on the same side, and every subsequent command is alternating, so if you were facing right, you would do 623C, 623C, 421C, 623C, 421C)
Don't Panic No Matter What: 214+attack
Cleaning Briskly: 41236+attack

Eterny Special
Let's Fail Next [what]: 236236+attack
Mischief is Useless?: 214214+attack
This is the Secret to a Second's Approval: 641236+attack [F, HCF]

Final Memory
Times When It is Not Sweet: 2A2BC

Character Changes
Ayu: Air EX 623 changed, scimitar goes down now.

Shiori: EX 214 changed, only one snowman comes out and he turns into a cold vortex.

Kaori: You can use Leg Smasher now (2C while in 66) [Haven't been able to get it myself, and the few times I did what looks like a normal sweep]

Makoto: j.C changed, and now has an added normal j.2C which was her old j.C. Nikuman is now 263S.

Mishio: Moves added. She now has elemental-aligned 623 (will drop the element once done) and 6C in Fire mode, a natural launcher. This move is quite good, I played around with a bit.

Mai: Loli Fireball is now Loli Electric Spark. Ugh, nerfed. (Loli Punch is also now Loli Stick Whack, but that was too minor for them to document, apparently)

Sayuri: Magical On Stage is now 22AD not 22AC. Also, Starball only hits once regardless of distance. What. (The multi-hitting Starball was actually neat, why'd they change it)

Mizuka: Smash and Sympathy (the hopping attack) is now 421, not 63214. Pitch and Bend (236 without violin bow) has a C version; it pushes the bow away from you. Tone and Setup B and C (F note) are changed: B will create a single treble-clef note that can be popped once, and C creates a triplet note that bounces around scattering more notes.

Nanase: Her Overdrive (Final Memory) deals 50% less damage when in red life. (Whose redlife, it doesn't say.)

Akane: Aegis Reflector changed. Only hits once for high stun, and doesn't home in but has set distances.

Misaki: Reversal is now 22A or 22B. Air 214AB added.

Mio: Short-range: B Whip added. You can continue this into A Whip. Long-range: Press S to fly briefly. You can keep doing this and you don't lose airdashes from it. Storm-style runaway! Gay.

Mayu: 236A only goes into Ferret Uppercut or something now. 214A followups are altered somehow. Overdrive is now 23693S, not something insane.

EX Mizuka: Followups to 236 were added to the air version. Fly glitch removed (undocumented).

Misuzu: 421 (Poison) is changed; they both send sparks far away that drift to the enemy. A sends them upwards, B sends them behind, C sends two upwards. Feather super is 1-level only now. Book activation area is larger (undocumented).

Kano: Dives nerfed majorly. Something happened to her 236, 421, and 214 moves, but I'm not sure what.

Michiru (no, not Minagi): 623 moves added. Headbounce is now 421. 236236 changed. Dash C is an overhead. EX Michiru Kick wallbounces if close enough. Michiru Kick knocks down.

Doppel: You can add right or left to her throws now. Jin-Mode causes your super meter to remain constant.

There are no notes for Sleepy Nayuki or Ikumi. I know for a fact Ikumi's dust loop has been nerfed, though (see previous post). VMan says her clone supers are different in terms of timing/spacing, but this doesn't really make up for it, and they seem to be the same to me.

The guard meter system seems to be gone completely. The bars are at the top, but nothing changes them.

Soul Calibur III

WHAT THE FUCK DID THEY DO THE TALIM?
AAAUUUGGGHHH!!!???
I DON'T KNOW YOU ANYMORE /CRY

WHERE'S THE AA AUTOSTEP WIND CHARMER?
WHERE'S THE 33A OUT OF WIND CHARMER?
HELL, WHERE'S WIND CHARMER 2?
WHERE'S 33A'S RANGE?
WHERE'S BB INTO WIND CHARMER?
HELL WHERE'S BB ANYTHING?
NO A, DODGE, OR K FOLLOW-UPS BB YOU ARE USELESS!
WHY DOES 3A NOT GO DIRECTLY IN TO AA ANYMORE?
IS AAfBA SUPPOSED TO REPLACE AA?
DO THEY REALIZE THE LAST A IS DUCKABLE NO MATTER WHAT?
HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO USE WIND CHARMER WITH THAT LAME SHIT IF I KEEP GETTING DUCKED ON THE LAST HIT AND PUNISHED?

MUCH GNASHING OF TEETH.

I always felt guilty being with you, having fun, while the rest of my race was dead. At least I can...join...them...now...

Yeah finished Riviera a couple days ago.
I could wish for a longer ending...but whatever.
<3 Serene, I will absolutely have to draw something, even when I'm so lazy already.

Now that I have finished Riviera, I can turn my eyes toward a long delayed project...
A full translation of Leaf's tactics game, Utawareru Mono, translated as Not Quite Human.
This means I will attempt to translate every little bit of damn kanji and hiragana in the game, from options to omake to the battle system to the tutorials.

I have no idea how long this will take me, I've translated the entire starting screen options and their sub-options with the exceptions of the tutorials.
I also have the basic script up to the first choice translated, good thing the choice doesn't really matter at all.
Thank god this isn't one of those multi-ending things; I don't think I could tolerate multiple playthroughs.

Edit: Oh, I finally have a PS2...hell if I'm going to play it any time soon (Ugh, must relearn to solder or something for mod chip -_-)

FF3 DS

Watch me directly link an image from Insert Credit, thus owning their bandwidth.
Oh wait who am I kidding, no one visits here.

Anyway, holy shit.
DO THIS FOR FF6 ALREADY!
NOW NOW NOW NOW!

Harvest Moon PSP
Same deal, crazy 3D graphics of old loved games on hand helds.
PSP and DS are scarily powerful.

FATALITY

Blood on the Carpet
The main site is comprehensive though.

For the sake of science

You killed Nano! You ARS bastards!

Buri

OMFG<, Yukinose finally has returned to GGXX!
Who cares if it's to play SLASH now, BOUT TIME DORK!

Bang!

Hunting Ducks.
Yes, this is old.
Sue me.

New GBA game by Sting.

Screenshots and stuff of the madness at GameWatch.

How do they find people to do such adorable character designs?
Seems like the cards used to battle are being designed by the Riviera artist, Sunaho Tobe, while character designs are by some new guy Satoko Kiyuzuki.

Gundam

The first Japanese space tourist wants to go into space wearing a Char Aznable (Gundam original!) suit.

Are you OK?

SNK has gone and made a KOF dating sim for cell phones called Days of Memories.

Gainax is releasing a figure line of the angels as cute girls.
Kaworu with boobs included.

Vote on which is more disturbing!

Spaghetique tomatique basilique!

Look at me, I'm a wanna-be Allan.

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
(3 turns around the pan)
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 lb. bay scallops, drained well (you honestly might want more scallops)
salt and pepper to taste
1 can (28 oz.) diced tomatoes, drained well
2 cups fresh basil leaves, cut into thin strips (nothing wrong with dicing them)
8 oz. angel hair pasta, cooked until al dente

Place a large skillet over medium heat.
Add oil and heat 1 minute.
Add garlic and saute for 2 minutes, stirring constantly.
Add scallops, season with salt and pepper, and cook for 3 minutes or until opaque.
Add tomatoes and basil and heat for 1 minute.
Remove from heat.
Add pasta to the pan and toss to combine well.

Tada.
By the way, the title of this post comes from a French comedy about homosexuality, which I have forgotten the name of.
The main character has an infinitely dorky, according to his son, way of talking about the only dish he can make.
Hence, "Spaghetique, tomatique, basilique!"

Hori

Hori makes a bloody PORING mouse.
I know at least half a dozen people squealing right now.
Ragnarok Online is Satan people!

I do love noodles...

Oldest noodles found in China.

Shaman King

So I heard Shaman King was/is pretty good, and went out and downloaded all the translations I could find.
Then I realized [UR]DAN of #lurk had 32 volumes of raws, so I got all the raws after the scanlations finished.
I avidly read/picture skimped/dictionary used through all those volumes until 32.
At 32 I basically went, "Huh?" and then checked JP and english sites.
Seems like 32 was the FINAL volume.

And so...I am left with this hideously bitter taste in my mouth.
The manga just CUTS OFF at volume 32, with like a couple pages of epilogue.
The main villain is never confronted, they're in the middle of a series of fights which just STOP after they all go to sleep, and the manga just STOPS.
Did the guy really need that much of a break?
People blame Jump Shueishia, but I don't buy that bullshit, I think the guy burnt out.
BUT STILL, he could have paused it until he was ready, not fucking cut it off in the HORRIBLE HORRIBLE way he did.

I feel robbed of the time I invested in this manga and its characters and story line.

Think of Bleach ending when "Bad guy mysteriously vanished and everyone lived together in Soul Society happily ever after."
It's that level of getting kicked in the proverbial groin.

BAH.

Unicef bombs the smurfs

I, I don't know what to say...


And:
An American in chains

Ugh.
Whenever I hear how badly the war in Iraq is going, I instinctively get annoyed, because it had valid points, and because no one said it would be easy.
They're fighting the good fight over there.
Leave that place alone and you get more planes into buildings.

But shit like the second link doesn't sit well at all with me and my view of the government.

HACKS

Yes I'm overriding my initial birthday post so fast with political nonsense, but an article linked on Mefi originally linked from The New Republic intrigued me.
Since it requires registration, I'm going to provide it for you instead.
Geez christ, I'm having problems finding a job, maybe I should date his daughters...

The events of the past months have awakened the press to the true nature of the Bush administration. It is overrun with hacks--that is, government officials with waifish resumés padded like the Michelin man, whose political connections have won them important national responsibilities. But, in the face of this rush to flay the Bush hacks, we should consider their achievements.

To fully appreciate the virtues of this administration, we must first recall the administration that came before. Back in the 1990s, Bill Clinton recruited a small army of Arkansans and Rhodes scholars to the West Wing. Although there was the occasional kindergarten buddy who was out of his depth, most of these FOBs (friends of Bill) were insufferable wonks who never let you forget their dense resumés. President Bush put his finger on the smug mindset of these Clinton meritocrats when he said, "They're all of a sudden smarter than the average person because they happen to have an Ivy League degree."

Now we can consider this problem solved. The Bush era has taken government out of the hands of the hyper-qualified and given it back to the common man. This new breed may not have what the credentialists sneeringly call "relevant experience." Their alma maters may not always be "accredited." But they have something the intellectual snobs of yore never had: loyalty. If not loyalty to country, then at least loyalty to party and to the guy who got them the job. And their loyalty has been rewarded: Even if they fail, they know they can move up the chain until they find a job they can succeed in or until a major American city is destroyed, whichever comes first.

The hackocracy, of course, reflects the virtues of its architect, George W. Bush. Like Michael Brown and lesser known hacks, the president hasn't allowed personal setbacks to stymie him. The old-fashioned values of fortitude and family have given him the strength to rebound from a doomed oil company called Arbusto, a doomed congressional candidacy, and catastrophic failures at Harken Energy. That may be why, while cronies populate every presidency, no administration has etched the principles of hackocracy into its governing philosophy as deeply as this one. If there's an underappreciated corner of the bureaucracy to fill, it has found just the crony (or college roommate of a crony), party operative (or cousin of a party operative) to fill it. To honor this achievement, we've drawn up a list of the 15 biggest Bush administration hacks--from the highest levels of government to the civil servant rank and file. The tnr 15 is a diverse group--from the assistant secretary of commerce who started his career by supplying Bush with Altoids to the Republican National Committee chair-turned-Veterans Affairs secretary who forgot about wounded Iraq war vets--but they all share two things: responsibility and inexperience.

Although he could not possibly have envisioned what Bush has accomplished, Theodore Roosevelt delivered the single most poetic appreciation of this hackocratic style: "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again...."

Bush, who may or may not be familiar with the Bull Moose, has lived and governed by this dictum. Never before have we so rewarded the valiant striver who comes up short by placing the fate of the nation in his hands. Never before have so many gotten so far with so little.

15: Israel Hernandez
Assistant Secretary for Trade Promotion and Director General of the United States and Foreign Commercial Service, Department of Commerce (confirmation pending)

Fresh out of college and seeking a job on George W. Bush's 1994 Texas gubernatorial campaign, Israel Hernandez showed up an hour early for his interview with the candidate. Impressed by his punctuality, Bush hired Hernandez within days and eventually invited him to live with the Bush family in their Dallas home, where Hernandez reportedly became like an older brother to Jenna and Barbara Bush. Serving as Bush's travel aide for the next few years, "He was always there with the Altoids, the speech box, the schedule, whatever I needed," Bush later wrote in his autobiography. After getting a master's degree at (where else?) the George Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M (named after H.W.), Hernandez--or, as Bush called him, "Altoid Boy"--joined Bush's 2000 presidential campaign and later worked in the White House as an assistant to Karl Rove. There, he helped choreograph Bush's events and was once made part of the first lady's official delegation on a trip to Europe so that he could keep an eye on Jenna. All of which, apparently, was good preparation for managing more than 1,800 employees in more than 80 countries, because, earlier this year, Bush nominated the 35-year-old Hernandez to serve as an assistant secretary of Commerce and to run the United States and Foreign Commercial Service, the federal government's key export promotion agency.



14: Andrew Maner
Chief Financial Officer, Department of Homeland Security

Andrew Maner comes to his job with unimpeachable credentials--not in finance or accounting, admittedly, but as a dues-payer in the Bush family empire. In the first Bush administration, Maner helped to plan presidential travel and served as a junior press aide. Later, he followed the defeated George H.W. Bush back to Texas to be a spokesman and political fixer for the ex-president. After several private sector years working in information technology and procurement, he took over the U.S. Customs Office of Trade Relations, whose mission is to foster "positive relationships with the international trade community." Billing himself as a trade expert, Maner called the Customs gig a "logical next step in [my] career." Less logical, however, was his leap (after a short stint as chief of staff to the Customs commissioner) to managing DHS's sprawling $40 billion budget. Given his slim management background, it's convenient that Maner landed the only Cabinet department CFO slot that doesn't require Senate confirmation. Perhaps it also explains why, when DHS officials recently unveiled a revamped organizational chart, Maner's office was accidentally omitted. (Hack bonus: "Of all the things we do in the Department, charts may not be our strength," said the Department's undersecretary for management, Janet Hale.)



13: Claire Buchan
Chief of Staff, Department of Commerce

As deputy press secretary at the White House, Claire Buchan gained a reputation as a kept-in-the-dark spokesbot who was often relegated to baby-sitting reporters on long trips. But all that changed last spring, when Buchan was promoted to chief of staff at the Commerce Department, where she now helps the secretary oversee a $6.3 billion budget and some 38,000 employees. Buchan owes this stroke of good fortune to her years in the Bush family trenches. Previously, she served as a public affairs underling for the Treasury Department under former President Bush, a flack for the Republican National Committee, and (during the Clinton years) an image czar for the lawn care, extermination, and appliance repair company ServiceMaster. Some of Buchan's erstwhile colleagues in the White House press corps were left speechless when her new assignment was announced in February. One White House reporter who worked closely with Buchan for five years called her "the most useless in a Bush universe of enforced uselessness. She took empty banality to a new low."



12: Paul Hoffman
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, Department of the Interior

Paul Hoffman is an avid angler, hunter, skier, and horseman. So it was only natural to tap this former chief of the Chamber of Commerce in Cody, Wyoming, (population 9,000) to help run the National Park Service. Sure, Hoffman had no parks experience other than recreating in them and, as head of the Cody Chamber, advocating for more snowmobiles in nearby Yellowstone National Park. But he had spent four years in the 1980s working as the state director for then-Wyoming Representative Dick Cheney. Since arriving at the Interior Department in 2002, Hoffman has demonstrated a knack for thinking outside the box. In April 2003, he went against the wishes of the staff of Yellowstone and asked the U.N. World Heritage Committee to remove the park from its "In Danger List." Last year, he overruled geologists at the Grand Canyon National Park and instructed the park's visitor centers to stock a creationist book that explained how God made the canyon 6,000 years ago, ordering up a flood to wipe out "the wickedness of man." And, this year, Hoffman pushed for wholesale revisions to the Park Service's management policies. Instead of giving priority to protecting natural resources, Hoffman proposed that managers emphasize multiple uses for their parks--including snowmobiling, Jet-Skiing, grazing, drilling, and mining. After Hoffman's proposed reforms set off a firestorm of criticism from Park Service employees and members of Congress--"The inmates are in charge of the asylum," one Park Service retiree complained--the Bush administration claimed that Hoffman's suggestions were "no longer in play" and that he had merely been playing "devil's advocate."



11: Patrick Rhode
Acting Deputy Director Federal Emergency Management Agency

As acting deputy director of fema, 36-year-old Patrick Rhode had, until recently, the unenviable job of backstopping the hapless Michael Brown, a man who needed much backstopping. Unfortunately, it's not clear that Rhode is much more qualified than Brown to be managing the nation's worst disasters. Before joining fema, the biggest disaster he had helped manage was the Small Business Administration (see Hector Barreto)--and even that was something of a stretch. Rhode entered federal government in 2001 as deputy director of advance operations for the Bush White House, a job he had also held for Bush's 2000 campaign. Never fear, though: Rhode has covered disasters--as a TV anchor for local network affiliates in Alabama and Arkansas, in which capacity he developed "an acute interest in what responders do in times of crises." Perhaps not acute enough. He recently said that >fema's response to Katrina was "probably one of the most efficient and effective responses in the country's history."



10: Steven Law
Deputy Secretary, Department of Labor

Since 2004, Steven Law has helped run a department with 17,000 employees and an annual budget of over $50 billion. Pretty good for a guy who started out as a lowly Capitol Hill legislative aide. In 1990, Law's boss, Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, tapped him to serve as campaign manager for his reelection race. Law didn't disappoint, running a notably nasty campaign that insinuated McConnell's Democratic opponent was both mentally ill and a drug addict. Law returned to Washington as McConnell's chief of staff, and, six years later, when McConnell was chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, he made Law the group's executive director, relying on him for help in vacuuming up campaign contributions for Republican Senate candidates and thwarting campaign finance reform legislation. In each job he did for McConnell, Law proved to be an unusually dedicated--and worshipful--worker. Asked once by Campaigns & Elections to name his political heroes, Law answered: "Ronald Reagan, for his vision of America; Abraham Lincoln, for his moral statesmanship; and Mitch McConnell, for his principle and tenacity." It was little wonder, then, that, in 2001, the newly appointed Labor Secretary Elaine Chao--who happens to be McConnell's wife--hired Law as her chief of staff, a stepping stone to his current position; after all, once you've found such loyal help, you want to keep it in the family.



9: Hal Stratton
Chairman, Consumer Product Safety Commission

A former state representative and attorney general in New Mexico, Hal Stratton never asked for his current job, protecting American citizens from such dangers as lead-laced toy jewelry and flammable Halloween costumes. Instead, the former geology major who went on to co-chair the local Lawyers for Bush during the 2000 campaign initially wanted a job in the Interior Department. "That didn't work out," he told the Albuquerque Journal, "but I told them, 'Don't count me out' ... and they came up with this." "This" being the not-unimportant position of deciding which of 15,000 types of consumer products pose a health risk and might need to be recalled. Shortly before Stratton's confirmation hearing, Senator Ron Wyden expressed concern that Stratton "has no demonstrable track record on public safety." (Bill Clinton's cpsc chief, Ann Brown, spent 20 years as a consumer advocate and served as vice president of the Consumer Federation of America.) But now he does have a track record: rare public hearings and a paucity of new safety regulations, as well as regular (often industry-sponsored) travels to such destinations as China, Costa Rica, Belgium, Spain, and Mexico. But at least Stratton won't let personal bias influence him: Despite saying that he wouldn't let his own daughters play with water yo-yos--rubber toys that are outlawed in several countries because of concerns that children could be strangled by them--he refused to ban them in the United States.



8: Mark McKinnon
Member, Broadcasting Board of Governors (confirmation pending)

The Broadcasting Board of Governors oversees Voice of America and other U.S. media beamed to the Middle East; and, in the spirit of accurately representing the United States, it reserves seats for members of both major political parties. For one of the four Democratic slots, President Bush recently nominated Mark McKinnon, or "M-Cat" as he affectionately calls him. M-Cat's Democratic credentials, however, are somewhat wanting. McKinnon's career highlights include overseeing media strategy for Bush's two presidential bids, in which capacity he masterminded a spot predicting that John Kerry would "Weaken [the] Fight Against Terrorists." And, in last year's campaign, his company, Maverick Media, accepted over $177 million in fees from Bush and the Republican National Committee--money we assume was not intended to help return the Democrats to power.



7: Stewart Simonson
Assistant Secretary for Public Health and Emergency Preparedness, Department of Health and Human Services

According to his official biography, Stewart Simonson is the Health and Human Services Department's point man "on matters related to bioterrorism and other public health emergencies." Hopefully, he has taken crash courses on smallpox and avian flu, because, prior to joining HHS in 2001, Simonson's background was not in public health, but ... public transit. He'd previously been a top official at the delay-plagued, money-hemorrhaging passenger rail company Amtrak. Before that, he was an adviser to Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson, specializing in crime and prison policy. When Thompson became HHS secretary in 2001, he hired Simonson as a legal adviser and promoted him to his current post shortly before leaving the Department last year. Simonson's biography boasts that he "supervised policy development for Project BioShield," a program designed to speed the manufacture of crucial vaccines and antidotes. "That effort, however, has by most accounts bogged down and shown few results," The Washington Post reported last month.

6: Hector Barreto
Administrator, Small Business Administration

No one can accuse Hector Barreto of being unfamiliar with small business. His Los Angeles firm, Barreto Insurance & Financial Services Company, had only ten employees. Alas, now that he is in charge of a bigger operation--the Small Business Administration (SBA) has over 3,000 employees, a budget of about $600 million, and a portfolio of loans totaling $45 billion--Barreto is struggling. Last year, the SBA failed to notify Congress that it needed additional funding for its largest and most popular loan program and was forced to temporarily shutter it because, as Barreto's spokesperson explained, it was "out of money." Meanwhile, the SBA was doing such a poor job managing the $5 billion in loans the government set aside to help small businesses recover from September 11 that, according to an Associated Press investigation, the vast majority of the money went to businesses not affected by the terrorist attacks--including a South Dakota country radio station, a Utah dog boutique, and more than 100 Dunkin' Donuts and Subway sandwich shops. Last month, the Senate Small Business Committee, prompted by complaints from Gulf Coast small-business owners, held hearings on the SBA's response to Hurricane Katrina. Barreto pledged that his agency would approve Katrina-related loans in days, not months, but a SBA deputy conceded in late September that, out of 12,000 loan applications from small businesses affected by the hurricane, the SBA had so far approved only 76.



5: David Wilkins
American Ambassador to Canada

An unspoken rule dictates that politically appointed ambassadors should be seen and not heard--or, at the very least, not heard provoking international incidents with close U.S. allies. But David Wilkins--a former South Carolina legislator whose chief contribution to world affairs before this year was raising $200,000 for President Bush's 2004 campaign--is not one to stand on ceremony. Though he'd only been to Canada once (Niagara Falls) prior to his nomination in April, the Bush Ranger assured Congress that "I won't be afraid to talk about the tough issues." A man of his word, Wilkins promptly escalated the two countries' dispute over softwood lumber by accusing Canadians of being overly emotional and by threatening an all-out trade war that would have affected multiple industries, from broadcasting to eggs. The Canadian government fought back, however, and, although generally disinclined toward mea culpas--"You talking about regrets by the United States?" he asked a Canadian reporter with incredulity--Wilkins eventually admitted his approach to the lumber dispute had been flawed. "My attempt to bring the emotion down increased the emotion," he said. To demonstrate his diplomatic sensitivity, he continues to open speeches with a jolly, "Bonjour, y'all!"



4: Jim Nicholson
Secretary, Department of Veterans Affairs

In contrast to the four most recent VA heads--who had previously held leadership positions with Disabled American Veterans, the Department of Defense, a state-level VA department, and VA itself--Jim Nicholson brings a refreshing lack of experience to veterans' advocacy. Although he is one of the country's 25 million military veterans, Nicholson--who, after Vietnam, went into real-estate law and development in Colorado--is best known as a campaign veteran. He chaired the Republican National Committee from 1997 to 2000, raising close to $380 million for the 2000 cycle. In Bush's first term, Nicholson was rewarded with the ambassadorship to the Holy See. But he traded vespers for vets last February, joining his brother John, who was already head of the National Cemetery Administration. In June, he admitted that VA had underestimated the number of veterans who would be seeking medical treatment this year by nearly 80,000 because it had failed to take into account the surge in enrollment by veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts--13,700 of whom have suffered blown-off limbs, bullet wounds, and the like. The miscalculation was a surprise to Congress, since Nicholson had written on April 5: "I can assure you that VA does not need [additional money] to continue to provide timely, quality service." Republican House Appropriations Committee Chair Jerry Lewis said VA's failure to identify the problem and notify Congress earlier "borders on stupidity."



3: Rear Admiral Cristina Beato
Acting Assistant Secretary for Health, Department of Health and Human Services

In June 2004, Cristina Beato admitted to her hometown newspaper that she hadn't paid much attention to the details of her resumé. That's too bad, because those silly little details seem to have stalled her confirmation for assistant secretary for health for over two years now. Beato said she earned a master's of public health in occupational medicine from the University of Wisconsin (but the university doesn't even offer that degree). She claimed to be "one of the principal leaders who revolutionized medical education in American universities by implementing the Problem Based learning curriculum" (but the curriculum was developed while Beato was still a medical student). She listed "medical attaché" to the American Embassy in Turkey as a job she held in 1986 (but that position didn't exist until 1995). She also boasted that she had "established" the University of New Mexico's occupational health clinic (but the clinic existed before she was hired, and there was even another medical director before her). For her part, Beato has offered a simple explanation: English is her third language, after French and her native Spanish, and sometimes the language barrier is just too much to handle. How does one say "pants on fire" in Spanish?



2: John Pennington
Director, Region Ten, Federal Emergency Management Agency

The Pacific Northwest is a catastrophe-prone area-- from tsunamis and volcanic eruptions in Washington and Oregon to wildfires in Idaho and oil pipeline ruptures in Alaska. That's why former Washington Representative Jennifer Dunn knew that fema needed "a natural" to head its disaster response efforts in the region. And that's exactly what Dunn said she found in 38-year-old John Pennington. Pennington would have to be a natural, given his utter lack of disaster-relief experience. A former state representative who ran a coffee business with his wife in rural Washington, Pennington served as Cowlitz County co-chairman of the Bush campaign in 2000. Dunn, who had been the Bush campaign's state chairperson, approached Pennington about the fema post, to which he was appointed in 2001. Alas, in the wake of former fema Director Michael Brown's resignation, Pennington's disaster of a resumé has come under increasing scrutiny. Last month, The Seattle Times reported that, just before he was appointed to his fema post, Pennington received his bachelor's degree from an unaccredited California correspondence school that federal investigators later described as a "diploma mill." Pennington's defenders have responded to questions about his qualifications by arguing that he has surrounded himself with competent staff.



1: Harriet Miers
White House Counsel, Nominee for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court

When we started researching this guide to the Bush hackocracy, nobody was sure who would wind up as number one. Competition was fierce. From under every bureaucratic rock, out scurried a Bush buddy. But we endeavored to be fair. There was spirited debate over the nuances between merely mediocre officials blindly loyal to the president and those with a demonstrated history of incompetence. (Alas, Andrew Card wound up on the cutting room floor.) Some argued that, by our own strict criteria, the president himself should be judged the number-one hack, but our deference to the wisdom of the electorate kept him off the list.

Truth be told, Harriet Miers could have easily slipped through quality control. But fate intervened. On Monday, Bush nominated Miers, the personal lawyer who fixed the paperwork on his fishing cabin, to the Supreme Court of the United States. Suddenly, it was no longer a competition. "I picked the best person I could find," Bush said Tuesday. And so have we.

We'd like to think that our process was slightly less arbitrary than the president's. Judging such matters is admittedly subjective, but if one were to express hackishness as a formula, it would look something like the adjacent equation.

Miers's croniness quotient is high. After all, the president has given her five jobs over the past eleven years. And senior White House aides have repeatedly remarked about her devotion to Bush. A Bush official's Danger to the Republic factor can generally be gleaned by the importance of his or her new job. And, while we grant that some unqualified candidates have turned out to be capable justices (see Jeffrey Rosen, "Judge Not,"), Miers's lifetime appointment to the highest position Bush is authorized to fill is like winning the hack lotto.

What, then, about Miers's qualifications? This is where she left the competition in the dust. Take, for example, her two-year stint on the Dallas City Council. Although she may not have been guided by any awe-inspiring understanding of constitutional law, she is credited with calming down a crowd of protesters after a county commissioner punched a police officer.

In announcing his choice, Bush pointed to her storied career as chairman of the Texas Lottery Commission. Although the Commission has historically not produced many Supreme Court justices, Bush has reason to be pleased with her lottery service. Miers may not have dealt with issues like civil rights or the death penalty, but she dealt with bingo. As chairman, she opined that she wanted all bingo-related games "to look and feel and smell like the game of bingo," which seems like a reasonable position.

Miers's solid job at the Lottery Commission and her other work for Bush catapulted her into the upper ranks of the White House. After three years as staff secretary, she beat out Brett M. Kavanaugh, a bright conservative lawyer with a John Roberts-like resumé, for the job of White House counsel. It was this job that positioned her to lead Bush's search for a court nominee.

This is quite a resumé, even before getting to some of Miers's legal writings. A search of the Nexis news database returns three articles by Miers. One is an opinion piece urging legislative calm in the wake of a string of deadly shootings. The second reveals Miers, who ran the corporate law firm of Locke Liddell & Sapp, to be an expert on a legal issue of great importance to the American people: managing the merger of two firms. The final article is a 1996 ABA Journal piece advertising the American Bar Association's new telephone seminars. "If you have heard any of the buzzwords of product promotions lately," she writes cheerfully, "we hope you will spot 'ABA Connection.'"

In hindsight, Harriet Miers was always the obvious choice for the Supreme Court. She is the logical conclusion of the unchecked Bush administration hackocracy. Bush's case for Miers actually rests on her being a crony. "Because of our closeness," he said Tuesday, "I know the character of the person."

In Federalist No. 76, Alexander Hamilton warned that, in presenting nominations to the Senate, a president "would be both ashamed and afraid" to nominate cronies--or, as Hamilton called them, "obsequious instruments of his pleasure." Maybe politics was different back in the 1780s, but we have watched Bush appoint many obsequious instruments of his pleasure. It may be his legacy: George W. Bush--he took the shame and fear out of cronyism.

Zhu ni sheng ri kwai le.

Happy birthday to me.
22.
I'm not going to bother to reflect on the past year, cause it'll just make me sad.

WARNING!

Crazy two handed two plane Ikaruga control.
More vids here, but be aware, they get bandwidth raped a lot.

Disgaea 2

Ok, concrete news this time.
DISGAEA 2!
I don't think Harada is still doing the character designs...
Looks different...
New hero named Adel, heroine named Rosalind.
Etna is back too, all 1473 years of her.

Slash

GGXX Slash is out, blah de blah

http://www.trftrf.com/
http://www.a-cho.com/match/never_link_2_moviefiles/index.html
http://page.freett.com/masakichi0000/
http://rapidshare.de/files/5679271/Intro.wmv.html
http://photobucket.com/albums/v417/WtW_Suzaku/GGXXSLASH/Endings/
http://blue.ap.teacup.com/applet/ggnews/20050929/archive

No hotlinks cause I don't want them to own me.

Hasta la huego!

How can the town not have been depopulated after the cabin stand?
AND WHERE ARE THE DEMON CHILDREN?

Oh yes, mister village head boss?
You can take your life back, if I can take my 5 full-healing items back.
That stupid shitty second form hits for 90% damage.

Dance Dance Immolation

Dance Dance Revolution...with flamethrowers.
Do well and the computer shoots propane blasts into the air.
Suck and get shot in the face with fire.
Ummmm yeah, it's hard to comment on something as ridiculous as this is.
-via IC-

More thoughts while playing Resident Evil 4

Why is this big cheese guy trashing me and letting me live over and over?
And when do I get to trash him?
He pisses me off.

taking out the trash

Just posting some links before I remove them from my profile:
Really nice Touhou video
Butterfly effect
Gorillaz music video

Oh yeah, fighting chainsaw guys with an unupgraded handgun is lose.
Edit: And if these guys are not zombies, how come when they're headless they can STILL GRAB ME? Freakin' cheaters.

Holy Order Cheese

I don't think direct linking the vid works unless you have a registration, but go to my namesake, without the blogspot. That's www.romancancel.com, for the people who didn't catch that. Anyway it's boss Holy Order Sol, with infinite meter, I bet he regens life also. We've been fighting stupidly overpowered bosses forever, but that one counter super !!FRCed!! into the auto combo super that takes off 65% or so is SILLY. Then again infinite meter is silly, you hear that RCing BOSS INO WHO LIKE TO STALL DURING MISSIONS SO TIME RUNS OUT?

Anyway, I've been worrying about Slash for a while. The balancing by nerfing in particular (No Millia combos after her throw? Bah. And they really nerfed Jam. Also, yes Sol lost his dust loop. But christ he NEEDS his dust loop to get anywhere, otherwise well...Sol doesn't have much!) Most of the changes I have lying around somewhere in a big text file. The latest I remember is Johnny's teleport, which freaks me out. It seems to be an attack tele? As in horizontal slash, tele. Seems like trying to corner Johnny will be useless, I sortta wonder what Venom can do against that.

Right, get the Johnny vs Baiken? match at combovideos to check out the teleport.
Registration required yet again, sorry.

Edit: Oh dear, Millia's j.HS doesn't drag the opponent downwards anymore? Animation changed? This already bodes ill.

Explanation

The Halo Dies post needs a little more explanation.
For the 2 people or so who clicked one of the links, they were treated to 20 minutes of action hero-ness.

In short, an innocent coder was coding a mod for Halo for the computer that would be like Ocarina of Time multiplayer.
If anyone remembers Ocarina of time, it introduced the wonders of easyness called "Z-Targetting."
Anyway, good friend asks coder for said source code, coder says sure why not.
Good friend gives it to bad man, bad man says, oh-ho, programs in lead compensators, releases working CLIENT SIDE AIMBOT that works regardless of SERVER SIDE.

Halo PC thus dies.

Guard vs Cardboard box

Description of Metal Gear Solid 3's multiplayer tournament.
USA team's weapon of Choice: Porn Magazine

FBI forms anti-porn squad

'I guess this means we've won the war on terror,' one agent says

It was all that person's fault! That person over there, with the head mounted videoset!

Ok, so I watched Peter's nearly four hour long CMU VR game webcast thing.
Freaking amazing.
As I understand it, these are two week game projects that had to use drumsets, a headset, or something I didn't quite catch its name, but all virtual reality devices.
About half an hour of talking, which was really informative (Disneyland rides, indirect control, etc.), and then the student projects.

The two projects that were truly awesome were 4 way versus multiplayer Nibbler/Snake, which I could totally see being marketed in bars or arcades or something, and Pitt's Burgers, a rather amusing burger flipping simulation.

Sorry Peter, but your wack-a-mole came after Nibbler XD.

But yeah, worth my time =O.
Two weeks is insane though, you must not have any other classes but that one.

Halo dies

Spartan's Last Video
Bamboo's Last Video

CALLING

Final Fantasy VII Advent Children Image Song
FFVII Advent Children Original Soundtrack September 28, 2005
First released September 27, 1989 on Himuro's album NEO FASCIO

Lyrics: Himuro Kyosuke, Matsui Goro
Music: Himuro Kyosuke
Performed by: Himuro Kyosuke

Notes: I replace chi with ti in the word romantisuto because
Himuro really doesn't say chi at all.

眠れぬ夜をいくつ数えたら 俺たち たどり着くだろう
nemurenu yoru o ikutsu kazoetara ore-tachi tadoritsuku darou
どれだけの命なくしたとき　争いは終わるのだろう
doredake no inochi nakushita toki arasoi wa owaru no darou
歴史の上をころがるだけの　救えない道化師たち
rekishi no ue *wa korogaru dake no sukuenai doukeshi-tachi
いつか誰かが言ってたように　答えは風のなか
itsuka dareka ga itteta youni kotae wa kaze no naka

そむけた顔をいくつ打たれたら　気づかぬふりやめるのか
somuketa kao o ikutsu utaretara kizukanu huriyamero no ka
どれほどの苦しみに耐えたら　笑顔は自由になるのか
dorehodo no kurushimi ni taetara egao wa ziyuu ni naru no ka
錆びた鎖につながれたまま　またしっぽをまくのなら
sabita kusari ni tsunagareta ma **made mata shippo o maku no nara
いつか誰かが言ってたように　答えは風のなか
itsuka dareka ga itteta youni kotae wa kaze no naka
　
ふりしぼる声と握りしめるその手で
hurishiboro koe to nigirishimeru sono te de
運命はきっと　変わる時を待っている
unmei wa kitto kawaru toki o matte iru
ちっぽけな愛のささやかな力で
chippoke na ai no sasayaka na ***chikara de
悲しみはいつも　抱かれるのを待っている
kanashimi wa itsumo dakareru no o matte iru

嘘のパズルをならべかえてる　哀れなペテン師たち
uso no pazuru o narabekaeteru aware na petenshi-tachi
不器用さを器用にふるまう　愚かなロマンチストたち
bukiyou sa o kiyou ni hurumau oroka na romantisuto-tachi
歴史がなにも語らなくなる　そんな日がくる予感に
rekishi ga nanimo kataranaku naru sonna hi ga kuru yokan ni
いつか誰かが言ってたように　答えは風のなか
itsuka dareka ga itteta youni kotae wa kaze no naka
　
ふりしぼる声と握りしめるその手で
hurishiboro koe to nigirishimeru sono te de
運命はきっと　変わる時を待っている
unmei wa kitto kawaru toki o matte iru
ちっぽけな愛のささやかな力で
chippoke na ai no sasayaka na ***chikara de
悲しみはいつも　抱かれるのを待っている
kanashimi wa itsumo dakareru no o matte iru

*It says ue o, but hell he SAYS ue wa.
**The "made" is definitely there, even if they cut it off in the lyrics.
***Yes, he says chikara. It's not even a slurring, it's just a ridiculous way of saying it. The second repetition is a lot clearer though.

He's fucking metal man.

The iTunes 5 Announcement From the Perspective of an Anthropomorphized Brushed Metal User Interface Theme

Don't cry!

And hot on the heels of the last post is the list of "Holy plothole, even for an movie rpg!"
More like ESPECIALLY for a movie rpg.

1. Cloud bleeds once in the beginning when Yazoo shoots off his goggles.
NO ONE EVER BLEEDS AGAIN AFTER THAT.
2. Kadaj summoning Bahamut from a GREEN materia.
3. Red XIII has a freaking JETPACK.
4. Bahamut's blast COMPLETELY disappears into magic space after Cloud cuts him.
Shoot the thrower, the grenade is still there. The town should be obliterated.
5. Rufus is in incredibly fine form after having Diamond Weapon shoot a cannon straight into his office. Also, he can't shoot worth a damn. Oh yeah, Kadaj falls faster because he weighs heavier, DUH!
6. Cloud's double sword detach weapon magically gets 4 or 5 more swords in it against Sephiroth.
7. Yazoo has time to FIND A NEW GUN after his old one gets chopped in half and he is blown up by explosives.

That's it for now.

"Notice your lack of familiarity."

Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children is WORTH YOUR TIME.
Or at least Peter Justeson says so, and Peter Justeson hates everyone in FF7.

Honestly though, they really piled on the fan service (not that kind), so I can't help but smile.
I mean I enjoyed the game (not to the extent that 95% of gamefaqs did), but they took what coolness I remembered and expanded on it 50 fold.

Since no one reads this, I'm going to assume you've SEEN the damn movie, except maybe Allan, but who knows if he's even played the game =O.

Cool point 1: CLOUD KEEPS ALL HIS SWORDS in a handy place.
Cool point 2: The oh so "contrived" (Peter's term) battle, you know the one against the big guy. Couldn't help but smile, even if it the setup was so obviously coming.
Cool point 3: Victory fanfare after Tifa wins.
Cool point 4: Rufus shooting while falling with that damnable smile on his face the entire time.
Cool point 5: Motorcycle battle 2. That guy cheats with haste.

Ok there are a lot more, just watch it for yourself if you haven't =O.

Tenbatsu!

Interesing week for music...
First off, we have an "article" on dempa music; here's a link to the Top 10 list.
Anyway, for those Japanese impaired, Miko Miko Nurse sits (I think wrongly), at number one.
Followed by Sakuranbo Kiss at number two, which most any Kotoko fan will have.
Number three however, is a song I had DEFINITELY heard before but could not place.
Turns out it was on a GGXX Jam combo movie.
Tenbatsu! Angel Rabi.
For some reason very very easy to loop, a silly high-pitched ditty about Angel Rabi punishing bad people with a magical baton.

Secondly, Saros wants to make a DSJ combo video, using Kotoko's Re-Sub.
I prefer Agony honestly, then again it could be because I heard it first, thanks again to a combo video (EFZ Mai).
99% of my buddy list and Saros prefer Re-Sub, while almost the entire mIRC channel of #nipponsei prefers Agony.
Oh yeah, some people prefer suppuration above both, but that's different.
Managed to do a really screwy Yuka combo that impressed both me and him, but coming up blank on ideas for other characters.
Lily's damage is pretty bad -_-a

Third, random JHU/AIM buddy Airellian IMs me with Spin, a short clip? trailer? promo thing.
It rocks.

Finally, Dare, by the Gorillaz.
Noodle is win, and incidientally if anyone wants the video or wants to know where to get a stream grabber, just aim me.

And that wraps up this week in music.

Some niggling questions...

1. When a soul "dies" in soul society, they are reborn in the "real" world, correct?
2. What about people in the "real" world who already have both forms (Like Ichigo), what would happen if his shinigami form died, or his human form?
3. Do family ties apply after a soul dies in the real world?
How about if a soul dies in soul society?
4. Rukia is 140-150 years old, therefore it can be assumed that dying in soul society from old age is pretty hard.
Yet, the material world's population is getting steadily larger.
Where are all these extra souls coming from, if there is a balance?
Furthermore, you have a LOT of souls each year becoming hollows or being eaten by hollows.
It doesn't quite work out.

Make a damn new game Nintendo.

EVO2k5

--------------------------------------------------
3rd Strike U.S. vs. Japan 5 on 5:

Team USA:
Watson (Ken)
Justin Wong (Chun-Li)
Hsien (Ken)
Ken I. aka Sextaro! (Finally a damn Makoto)
Ricky Ortiz (Chun-Li)

Team Japan:
Ohnuki (Chun-Li)
Kokujin (Dudley)
Knit (Yun)
Mester (Yun)
MOV (Chun-Li)

FINAL SCORE:

20-5 JAPAN WINS

--------------------------------------------------
TEKKEN 5 U.S. vs. Japan 5 on 5:

Team Japan:
Kenbou (Ganryu)
SDZ (Bryan)
Yuu (Feng Wei)
Mishimaster (Heihachi)
Hato (Heihachi)

Team USA:
JOP (Jack 5)
tomhilfiger (Nina)
Arario (Jack 5)
Jinkid (Steve)
insanelee (Ganryu)

FINAL SCORE:

14-11 USA WINS
--------------------------------------------------

RESULTS

Tekken Tag:

1st - Qudans - [Korea]
2nd - Ryan Hart
3rd - Tomhilfiger
4th - Slips
5th - JinKid / Crow
7th - MadDogJin / SDZ

Capcom vs SNK 2:

1st - BAS - [Japan] (Bout time, then again in a Daigoless field...)
2nd - Mago
3rd - Kindebu
4th - Combofiend

GGXX#R:

1st - RF (Faust) - [Japan] (I hate Faust, but I hate Eddie more)
2nd - Kindebu (Eddie)
3rd - Miu (Sol)
4th - Marneto (Eddie)
5th - Ruin (Eddie) / Mago (Slayer)
7th - Tokido (Eddie) / Bas (Eddie)

Super Turbo:

1st - Gian (Dhalsim) - [Japan] (Dhalsim? Wtf?)
2nd - Ohnuki (Chun-Li)
3rd - Tokido (Chun-Li)
4th - DSP (Vega)
5th - Buktooth, NKI (Chun-Li)
7th - Jason Cole (Dhalsim) / Peter

Marvel vs Capcom 2:

1st - Duc Do - [USA] (HAHAHAH OMFG RETURN OF THE OLD SCHOOL KNIVES)
2nd - Yipes (Who?)
3rd - Potter
4th - Justin Wong (Only 4th!)
5th - Ricky O. / Chris Schmidt
7th - Rawbzilla / Reset

Tekken 5:

1st - Crow (Steve) - [USA]
2nd - Yuu (Feng Wei)
3rd - MadDogJin (Steve)
4th - jra64 (Nina)
5th - Hato (Bryan) / Mishimaster (Heihachi)
7th - Arario (Jack 5) / Kenbou (Ganryu)

SF3: Third Strike:

1st - Ohnuki (Chun-Li) - [Japan] (Chun on Chun. SUCKTASTIC)
2nd - Justin Wong (Chun-Li)
3rd - Nitto (Yun)
4th - Mester (Ken)
5th - Ricky O. (Chun-Li) / Kokujin (Dudley)
7th - RF (Chun-Li) / MOV (Chun-Li)

Stellvia 2 Canned.

Also Nadesico 2.
Ah well...win some lose some.

Rumors

Disgaea II will be released in Japan on 9/30/05.

High res.

Grids.

PS2.
No word yet on a US release date.

via Lolitron.
No I'm not frikkin linking you, that guy has severe problems.
BUT, I think the date's pretty dependable.

Edit:
SHIT, screw you internet.

The site's got a new thread on it now - turns out the guy mis-interpreted it... NIS AREN'T releasing Disgaea 2 in September - however, they will be ANNOUNCING a new game that very month. Chances are it'll feature one of the hidden characters from Makai Kingdom - the one referred to as 'The Next Protagonist'.

PAPA!

They made an anime out of Eien no Aselia?
Christ, I'm out of the loop.
I do hope they DONT SPEAK I FRIKKIN GIBBERISH UNTIL HALF WAY THROUGH THE SERIES.

Nippon1's localization success.

Jump Superstars

Wow uh...this seems sort of cool.

Smash in Japan

Wow didn't know it, but those crazy doofs Ken, Isai, Unknownforce, and Bach (Top tier camerman) are actually in JAPAN right now playing Japanese smashers.
This is ALL BEFORE EVOLUTION which starts August 12th.
That's some crazy ass dedication.
Anyway choice quote from dc++ hub:

Jack did an awesome DK combo and one of the Japanese players watching goes "cheap combo".
CJ replied "not cheap. beautiful". Was so great.

Oh yeah it's pronounced, "EYE-SAY-UH"

Sirlin rides again.

More insightful comments down at Sirlin's corner of the world.
I absolutely adore his MMO money discussion:

Buying Gold in MMOs
Buying gold in MMOs such as World of Warcraft has been a hot topic for years. It's all over the forums on www.worldofwarcraft.com right now. One side thinks "I've worked so hard to earn my gold, why should someone with real-life money get to buy it?" The other side thinks, "I have a job and can't play 15 hours per day. Why should kiddies with more free time get to mindlessly grind gold? They have more time, but it's worth it to me to spend $1 to get over 10 gold, so I do." Neither side can seem to understand the other.

I'm not sure why one side sees grinding gold as some amazing accomplishment that they earned. Farming gold is just as retarded as buying it on ebay, really. A lot of these complaints are coming from the angle that buying gold makes the playfield uneven in the competitive game of World of Warcraft. Newsflash: World of Warcraft is not a real competitive game. I think I've covered that one. There is no beginning, middle and end to a game (except in CTF matches), and people don't come to the table with the same resources the way they do in chess or Street Fighter or tennis.

This is the part where some of you write me mail about how people don't come to the table with the same resources in those games either because some people bring skill and others don't. Or maybe you'll say some people have more time to practice tennis so they get to bring more skill. Surely you know how bankrupt those comments are. The whole point of competitive games is that skill is the one uneven thing you are allowed to bring into and otherwise even match. Some people need lots of time to develop skill, and others don't. But no one buys skill (directly).

Also don't write me about how tennis gear or Magic cards cost money, so people bring different things to the table based on money in those games. No they don't. If you are a real Magic tournament player, you can get any card you want by trading or buying. A certain amount of cash or connections is needed to even play for real. Similarly, tournament tennis matches don't happen between people with $9 gear and people with $9,000 gear. Tournament tennis players have access to reasonably similar amount of gear and get ot compete based on a combination of skill, strategy and stamina.

MMOs are inherently uneven playfields. Unemployed kiddies grinding for gold vs. wealthy professionals buying it only highlights this issue; it doesn't create it. I guess I'm saying you can't really complain about people bringing different amounts of resources into a game that's entirely based on uneven playfields in the first place.

You know who the real loser is? Blizzard. Why aren't they finding a way to make money off this? Sony is. They have new servers for EverQuest that are flat out labeled as 'gold buying' servers. You know going in that you can trade real money for in-game money, and so can everyone else. If you don't like it, go on another server (where it happens anyway, btw), but at least Sony gets to make some money off it.

If you're still upset over this issue, maybe take up a real competitive game such as chess, Street Fighter, counter-strike, Magic: The Gathering, or...I don't know...Scrabble. No one will ever trade US dollars for extra letter tiles against you.

--Sirlin

Extra Extra, Jack Thompson not quite right in the head!

But then again we all knew that already.

Happy birthday Kenny

You're 20, almost a year away from legality.
Enjoy it while it lasts...

Online speech is making its way into offline speech, Peter hates it when I say, "GG."
And I say it a fucking LOT.
I don't know when this first happened but now it's a speech tic.

Power blackout during Kenny's birthday though (August 4), so I missed our assault league match vs NoOne.
Seems like we lost 10-0.
What a downer, I bet I could have made a difference, like say...9-0 or 10-1.
Just maybe.

In other news, we played a random magic draft that day cause of the power blackout.
Got swept by Brady, won two nailbiters off peter.
Hell everyone seems to win nailbiters off Peter.
Played Kenny once and won, but he said I took too long so we didn't play a second game.
Guy would have like 50000000 life and you'd have to whittle it down, or in my case, millstone him down.

Had a really good interview on Friday, I guess that's how the good ones are supposed to go anyway (Got a free magazine too, yay.)

Owned my Oracle certification (well, 1Z0-007 anyway) completely.

I only have five more godamn supers to parry in Duel Savior Justice!
Huzzah.
More stupid videos:
30 Arrows, this one was godamn annoying.
Blah blah blah shut up Mutsuki.
Sonic booms?
Not that hard actually, just timing changes during certain hits.
WTF IS THAT THING?
Mash mash mash.