The inside of Dave's mind

As if you needed it, more proof Japan is going insane

2008-06-22T00:46:52Z

This is just marvelously asinine and hilarious. Note that the article's claim of you having to count to 10 in several languages isn't actually on the flier, and the flier says that what you do every morning changes, but whatever. Just go look.

http://gizmodo.com/5018588/wake-up-first-sun-warrior-of-the-morning-challenge-kit-turns-waking-up-into-crazy-anime-game

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More wonderful news title mishaps

2008-06-13T06:10:54Z

I should talk about how awesome Metal Gear Solid 4 is. It's awesome. Okay, I'll stop, you've probably heard what you want about that game from elsewhere.

What I want to share is a news article with a wonderfully bad title. Unless they change it, the title is "Boy Scouts praised as heroes after twister kills 4". This sounds more like a party game gone wrong than anything else. If you want to read the article, see here.

Okay, I'm off to bed.

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I cannot suspend my disbelief all the time

2008-06-03T03:39:02Z

Was playing some Dragon Quest 4 for the DS and found a very, very silly situation. My way into a building was being blocked by... a dead body. Can't I just... you know, step around it? Step over it? Push it out of the way? Cast fire on it and blow it up?

No, I can't. I have to go do stuff elsewhere in the game before the body will go away. Oh goody.

Love the game overall, but that was a very, very contrived moment. So bad I had to use "very, very" twice in the same short blog posting. ;)

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real work is real hard

2008-05-30T01:41:36Z

I've had my first real job in a while for about two weeks now. I'm doing web programming (well, sorta - I'm working on the backend right now, haven't done any real web stuff yet... but I digress) for a startup-ish company in Boulder, CO. It's fun. Lots of fun. But it's also a -lot- of work. I was hired because I knew some Ruby (I'd have rated myself as "decent" going in), but it turns out that I also needed to know a lot about databases & SQL. Which I only sort of did.

I'm working hard to catch up - and all my co-workers have been wonderfully supportive - but it's tough to learn a bunch of new stuff while getting used to a new work environment and trying to acclimate to a large-scale project after only having done classroom-level work before. Whew. I don't want to sound too whiny. It's great, and I really am enjoying it. It's just taking a lot of effort as well.

A Wii Bit O' WiiWare

2008-05-14T07:06:01Z

If you have a Wii, you've probably noticed that the WiiWare game service started up. I'm really excited about some of the potential this has, as Nintendo has worked really hard at reaching out to small, independent game studios. I know proof of this - in the form of one of my friends who actually got a dev kit. He's has had a game in the works for literally years, but never released anything - the fact that Nintendo is willing to work with groups this small (one main guy that does almost everything except the art & music) speaks volumes. Xbox Live arcade has festered in recent times, with the only interesting things on the horizon being Capcom's remakes - Bionic Commando and Super Street Figher HD. Sony... well, their online store still feels so "young" that I don't think it's really amounted to much yet.

But I digress. WiiWare is here, and there's two games on it you should really look at: Lost Winds and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King. Lost Winds is an amazingly cool platformer with a lot of puzzles. It feels a lot like a 2D platformer version of Okami - the "wind" controls work much like some of Okami's painting moves. It's from a tiny studio called Frontier, who will hopefully grow up to do big things. The game is really, really good. Oh, and they've apparently announced a sequel to the game already... So they're learning quickly. ;p

FFCC:MLAAK (how's that for a long name?) seems really odd and kinda dull for about 30 mins... and then it turns cracktastic. I played the game for like four hours today. I'm SUPPOSED to be studying for finals... but no, I'm watching my minions (read: adventurers) run off and explore for me while I build up my happy little town. And I talk to everyone CONSTANTLY to make sure they stay very, very happy. If you like simulation games much, this is definitely worth a play. (And for reference, yes, I did buy most of the add-on content... but I'm not high enough level to really do anything with it yet. This will hopefully change soon).

So open up those wallets and support WiiWare! You'll be happy you did. :D

Boom Blox for the Wii is scarily good

2008-05-07T22:16:20Z

A while back, Steven Spielberg and EA announced a deal to cooperate in making some games. At the time, nobody really cared. Spielberg? Making games? Um, right.

So time passed and I pretty much forgot about that. Then I heard about their first project: Boom Blox. It was a Wii puzzle game. Not what I expected out of the strange union between a game behemoth and a movie magnate, and not particularly interesting either.

Or so I thought. The game lay pretty low under the radar, with a few positive previews blipping up now and then, but I didn't really hear much about it. Then the game got close to being released and there was a sudden burst of -REALLY- positive reviews. That got my attention. Could it be? Was this game good? That good?

I decided to pick it up today (what can I say, I'm a sucker for puzzle games, and the great reviews made me want to try it) and it's incredibly good. It has no right to be as good as it is. There's tons of levels, a huge variety of modes, and as simple as the game is, it really has some depth to it. You probably wouldn't expect a game where the primary gameplay hook is "you throw balls at blocks" to be fun or deep (or both!), but this time, EA (and Spielberg ;p) really pulled it off. Give the game a shot if you like puzzlers, you won't be sorry.

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Everything old is old again

2008-04-29T03:37:02Z

I'm a little too young to remember this show being on, but there are a bunch of full eps of Starcade online now. Go here to see them if you're interested. Starcade was a TV game show about playing arcade games. It's an early 80s show (you can tell by the games and the way people are dressed), and while it's nostalgic to see some of the old games, the show doesn't have nearly the same cheese factor that Video Power (check YouTube for some clips of that one) did.

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Amazon product description of failure

2008-04-25T04:53:17Z

I was looking at Fatal Fury Battle Archives Vol. 2 on Amazon today, and noticed this in the product features section:

"This collection brings the trilogy of this 7 game series to a finale"

Har har har. That sure brought a smile to my face. ;p

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Hokuto no Ken online... um, right

2008-04-18T04:13:58Z

This, my friends, is a fine example of a franchise run amok. I love Fist of the North Star / Hokuto no Ken / 北斗の拳, I really do, but I simply have NO desire to play an MMO based on it. You see, the thing that made the series what it was was Ken (the villains he fights are sometimes interesting and sometimes not).

Ken is just a badass. And in this, you aren't Ken. You're just some random guy in the post-nuclear wasteland the series takes place in. (Or some random girl, but most of the screenshots are of guys...) Whee.

At any rate, take a look:

http://www.hokutonoken-online.jp/index.html

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VICTOLY!

2008-04-10T03:20:59Z

Hhhhholy crap, I actually beat Mysterious Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer / Fuurai no Shiren! I was getting -really- annoyed at it after first getting to the final boss then getting totally wasted (in a rather cheesy manner), and then going back through the whole damn dungeon only to have the 29th (out of 30) floors be a "monster house" - filled with powerful and angry monsters, many of whom had ranged attacks, and no walls to protect me. Argh.

Well, today I took a few deep breaths then jumped right back in ... and came out victorious. I got a lucky break in the form of the monsters in the final room along with the boss being easier this time (no spellcasters, yay) but I almost lost again when some unexpected stuff happened. I managed to bring things under control and beat the boss - albeit barely... that thing was TOUGH.

So I feel muuuuch better now. Yay. :)

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Random dungeon games ftw

2008-04-09T01:16:44Z

I can't believe how much I'm playing Mysterious Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer. (Aka Fuurai no Shiren DS.) It's amazingly fun even though it's really, really hard on the player when they goof up. And trust me, you won't be able to help but goof up. A lot.

Despite the fact that I picked this one up mostly at random - expecting to get a few hours of play out of it, maybe not much more, I'm getting the feeling I'll really get my money's worth. So much fun.

Official site here if you care.

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Bangai-o Spirits

2008-04-06T04:07:18Z

Back in the day, there was a great but easily overlooked game for the Dreamcast called Bangai-o (it might have been released here as Bangaioh, I don't remember... and yes, it started as an N64 game, not a DC game, but whatever). Treasure somehow got the idea to make another game in that series, and it recently came out for the (what else?) DS. Being a big fan of the original, I imported it.

The game is a lot of fun, but it's -very- low budget. D3 normally publishes lower-budget stuff, so maybe this shouldn't be a surprise, but the game doesn't exactly push the envelope any. It's still a great little action title, and the awesomeness of your tiny tiny robot shooting TONS of stuff (usually large missiles, but there's some other stuff you can use too) is still cool.

One other thing the game does is use a "sound load system" - which is kind of strange. It has a level editor, but it doesn't support the standard Wi-Fi service. This would normally mean you can't share levels, but you can... you see, levels you save can be encoded in audio form, and this sound can be played into someone else's DS through the microphone, and they get the same level.

It's an interesting idea, but I have no idea how well it works. Might try it out sometime - I'm sure some bored Japanese guy (possibly girl, but most likely guy) will invent some totally awesome level.

If you're interested in seeing more, take a look here.

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Cute cute kitty~

2008-03-31T02:38:38Z

I bought Madeline the first volume of this series a while back as a present because... well, it's adorable and she loves the kitties. Now they've animated it. And... it's adorable. And full of kitties. The show is incredibly short (3 minute episodes, wah), but soooo cute. Watch. Now. Kitty.

Picking back up where I left off in Disgaea 3

2008-03-28T05:13:22Z

Normally not being able to play an RPG for a few weeks hurts my chances of ever picking it up again by a lot. Saying that, I like the Disgaea series enough to try and avoid letting that happen to it... and I started playing it again last night. Got one level done then promptly got to a story level that was -really- hard given my current party. Spent a little time building up the levels on a couple new characters (yay Mothmen, I've always liked them even if their defense -sucks-) and voila, totally pwned the level.

Then Sapphire, the princess, showed up. She's totally awesome. I don't just mean in the "powerful character" sense (although she is pretty strong and can heal, which is incredibly nice), but her personality is just hilarious. She's a strong-willed fighting machine that does whatever the hell she feels like and doesn't take no for an answer. The scene where all the main characters were together in the classroom (which you can see when the came comes out in English later this year [or now if you speak Japanese! ;) ]) was hilarious. Makes me even more eager for Raspberyl to join my damn party already, wah...

Oh, and Smash Brothers Brawl continues to be super awesome. When I got

------------mini-spoiler alert----------------

ROB to join my party, I was totally stoked. I mean, ROB? In Smash Bros? And he shoots the little top things? Oh, that made me so damn happy. I actually had a ROB waaaaaay back in the day. Mmm, go Nintendo.

------------end mini-spoiler-----------------

so yes, I'm really enjoying my games now. If only I had a bit more time to play them...

Then again, I say that all the time... ;)

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Sonic Unleashed actually looks kinda cool

2008-03-26T04:06:30Z

I'm still a Sonic fan. Yes, despite the fact that the guy has had a string of bad luck in the last... um, decade, I still really like Sonic. Heck, I even liked the next-gen Sonic for the 360/PS3 (which most people hated)... although I'd still say that Sonic Rush (For the DS) was the best Sonic game in years. Sonic Adventure DS is a pretty close second, but I digress.

As far as this new one goes... Sonic possibly having an alter-ego or Jekyll-Hyde thing going on with turning into a wolf or beast or whatever isn't the greatest idea I've heard for a Sonic game, but I could live with it. The video (see below) of very preliminary footage from this one looks -awesome- though - it's 2D gameplay!!! A real new Sonic with 2D gameplay! If it stays that way, I'm sooooo sold on it...

Back in action (or something)

2008-03-24T04:00:58Z

Just got back to Fort Collins. Had a great time out in Indiana seeing Madeline. Watched Kamichu and Ah My Goddess with her, both of which were great shows and had umpteen cuddle moments. ;)

Just though I'd share that, hope everyone had a good week (it was spring break for some, myself included). Will post something more meaningful later this week.

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Some viruses come pre-installed (AP)

2008-03-14T03:24:41Z

This is a pretty sad tale of electronics gone wrong. I've heard stories about this before, but they were more in the "urban legend" category - this is from the AP. They're pretty trustworthy, or so I hear. ;)

View Original Article

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Israelis Sue Government For Laser Cannons

2008-03-13T02:33:51Z

This is an interesting article, but the title is what really does it. Slashdot is just good at coming up with title sometimes. Be sure to read the subtitle too...

Israelis Sue Government For Laser Cannons

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Looking much better than expected

2008-03-12T03:27:38Z

Hrm, this actually looks pretty nice. I've been hesitant to believe that they could make Street Fighter work with 3D in any shape or form after the EX series was so ... blah, but this looks like it has some merit.

Unfortunately, the game is supposed to be very "straightforward" in the combo department - as in "combos are like 3 to 4 hits max," which sounds a little too old fashioned, but could still be fun.

Incredibly awesome "virus"

2008-03-11T05:33:56Z

I'll leave you to decide if this is really a "virus" or not, but it is totally awesome and incredibly amusing. Watch and laugh. :D

Sun will make Java work for iPhone

2008-03-08T05:36:08Z

In case you had any doubts that the iPhone was about to jump into a dominant position in the marketplace after the announcements the other day, I present this:

The company will make Java Virtual Machine available by June to enable Java apps for Apple's smartphone.

View Original Article

Think about this for a sec. Seriously. Sun doesn't even make the Java implementation for OS X itself. Apple has to do the heavy lifting themselves. This is just even more great news for Apple (and iPhone users). So glad I bought an iPhone. :D

Trying out a new browser

2008-03-07T05:27:19Z

I heard about a new browser called Flock the other day in a magazine. Decided to try it out. It's built on Gecko (the same rendering engine that Firefox/Mozilla use - heck, it even mirrors some of the plugins and updates). It's pretty neat so far - the main difference between it and other browsers is it has a lot of built-in integration with social apps and such.

Including an LJ plugin!

Seems pretty neat so far, will give it some time to see if I like it or not.

Teamwork in programming

2008-03-04T05:29:54Z

If you've programmed much, you've probably had to program with a teammate. Maybe more than one. At first, this seems like a nice arrangement. You do some of the work, they (and I mean they in both the plural and grammatically incorrect single sense) do some of it, everybody is happy.

If only it worked that way. You see, it just doesn't add up like that. Normally when you work on a team, your efficiency is only reduced a little bit due to team overhead, and you're able to output more work overall without too much of a hitch. With programming, it just doesn't work that way. There's no clean way to divide work. The amount of output different people can make varies wildly, and is inconsistent between projects. Even getting basic formatting the same across files is hard.

This is the whole basis behind "software engineering" - which some people believe is a real and worthwhile discipline and others think is just a bunch of BS. I'm in the "it's worthwhile" crowd, but perhaps not as solidly as I'd like to be. I want to believe that there is some way that you can get software teams to do stuff well as a group. I really do. But so far, I'm not really sure how. And I don't know if I'm really learning how.

I've got some books which I plan on reading once I have more time (like that's gonna happen anytime soon...), but for now, I've got my software engineering class - which isn't bad, but it moves reeeeally slowly. If only we could pick up the pace... Well, then again, I guess the last thing I need now is more work, so I should be glad we're moving at such a slow trot rather than a gallop.

Angry music to make me happy

2008-03-01T07:23:20Z

So as I mentioned previously, I've been shopping a lot on iTunes. The primary consequence of this is that I've been listening to a lot of heavy metal. And symphonic metal. And prog metal. And orchestral metal. And... yeah, you get the point. Besides the fact there there are a lot of types of metal (which I didn't really know before, but yeah, there's a lot of types of heavy metal), I was kinda wondering why I was getting so into this type of music again.

Well, the answer was pretty obvious I think (and a quick check with Konoha got instant agreement, hehe). I've been stressed. Really stressed. And kinda pissed off and a little moody because of it. I've had a lot of work (both of the classwork and work-work varieties), tons of stuff to do, and not enough time to do it all. I'm pretty laid back most of the time, and pretty good at dealing with stress, so I'd been keeping my frustrations at bay rather well, but I can only handle so much I guess. The music has been a nice way to vent some frustrations without actually having to do anything.

Well, that and I honestly do really like heavy metal. But the additional incentive of some emotional release has been very nice as well.

As another plus, I've found so many cool (and lots of really unknown) bands that my music library has increased significantly! If anyone needs suggestions, lemme know~ :)

Had another interview

2008-02-27T05:29:47Z

I had an interview with Agilent Technologies today. It went really well - the guy I interviewed with and I got along well, and the questions they asked me made it pretty apparent that they're looking for people like me. I hope this one pans out, it shows a lot of potential. Plus, they expressed interest in Ruby! I loooove Ruby. Best programming language around, let me tell ya. :)