So i feel i should have probably mentioned that i’d be having most of this week off. Yes, after monday and tuesday spent working my ass entirely off, i didn’t have to go to work wednesday, thursday, or today. I can assure you that i’ve been spending the time very productively. Mostly i have been sleeping, but i think i could call that “productive.” I’ve also been playing some RE3, and am finally through the damn clock tower. This doesn’t sound very impressive as i was working my way back to the trolley tuesday. I assure you; however, that i restarted the game, reasoning that the crap that i thought was a pile of sodas or somesuch in the gas station was actually Gunpowder A. Turns out that not only was that some A, but there was B all over the place that i had completely overlooked. The second time through, and armed to the gills with grenades, the Nemesis doesn’t stand a chance… Now for the damn hospital as Carlos. Fuckin’ Hunters.

Other than that, not much has been going on. Sorry i didn’t come bother you, Martin, but i actually found parking last night, and with the woman working all day today i really had no reason to leave the house. Well, there’s “food” but there is a deli across the street.

Finally, for the DVR. I’ve been messing around with it, and i have to say that it is well worth the extra $5 a month. The equipment carries a monthly fee that ranges between $15 and $5 depending on what other services you have. I have Broadcast Tier (channels 1-13), Basic Tier (some more channels), Digital Tier (a metric fuckton of channels), and Roadrunner (using it right now). Apparently that qualifies me for the lowest price available, $5. I’m not really using it to its full potential at the moment, what with me being home all day and able to watch all the TV i want. I may set it up to record the rest of “Thanksgiving in the Junkyard” while i watch the Big-Ass Lord of the Rings or try to kill those damned Hunters. You never know. The freedom that this thing provides is more than just and advertising thing, it actually does work.

Comments Off

And now i feel i’ve got to use my time wisely, and we all know what that means… freeware games. So i’ve downloaded something called Vantage Master from the estemable Falcom Software. Unbeknownst to me, the programmers of the Ys games have made available for download a somewhat translated Final Fantasy Tactics-esque game. Did i mention that this is completely free? And i’ve heard nothing about this. You’d think that BoingBoing or IGN or someone would say something. Ah well. I suppose that slamming their servers into the ground may just cause them to start charging or somesuch. As for “somewhat translated,” well, it is somewhat engrish-like. It is also free, so i can get over it.

I’m also downloading the Ragnarok client. I can’t help it, i’m somwhat of a whore. I’d love to know how the game environment is now that it is Pay-2-Play.

On the anime front, i’ve downloaded and watched the whole of “Hellsing,” and well, it is certainly a vampire show, with a big-guns-and-trenchcoat sort of thing going on. I enjoyed it, and may just buy it when i see it in DVD-Boxed-Set form. Also, i’m downloading (with intent to view) Final Fantasy: Unlimited. I figure why not? It’s only bandwidth.

Comments Off

You ever have one of those days? Not a bad one, but a fabulously kickass day. Well, i have to say that this Thursday rocks hardcore. I took the day off to take care of some business, and business is getting taken down. Last month i managed to score one beast of a traffic ticket. You see i was lacking in proof of tax payment, and this means a fine of over $200 in good ol’ SC. I have payed my taxes, of course, so this gave me an option independant of “Pay out the ass,” i could wait the month, then go into court and contest the ticket. I called the Dept. of Treasury and got a copy of my tax reciept, and then got the day off.

Come today, i got up early, tossed the Grey Suit on, and headed down to the courthouse. Its been seasonably cold here in the south, and i wasn’t wearing my trenchcoat (black leather trenchcoats tend to rub authority figures the wrong way) so i was hoping that the 8:00 AM court start time would leave a little bit of time (say between 7:30 and 8:00) for them to open the doors and let us (us from here on out being me and the other court-bound people) mill about the vestibule. No, it doesn’t. The cops instead drank coffee and stared at us early risers freezing our asses off outside. After we got in it got a little bit more annoying. They then locked us in a courtroom and showed us a video explaining the difference between “guilty” and “innocent.” After that, though, the whole day started looking up.

I found my arresting officer, showed him the reciept, and was told “Ok, you can go now.” I didn’t wait for a second word, i ran my ass out the room. The building was a little more complicated, as they had shut off power to the automatic doors. I wrenched them open, and was told by the lawyer that this was because of budget constraints. I think that he was joking, but you never can tell.

After the whole court thing i took care of the second issue with my car, that of the tax sticker that got me in trouble in the first place. I ran on down to the nearest DMV and got a copy of my registration and of my tax sticker after showing them the all-purpose Tax Reciept of Openning. The lady tried to give me a hard time, but unfortunately i wasn’t cowed, so it all worked out.

I then called Time Warner and inquired about the price for their Digital Video Recorder service, and it turns out to be less than $5 for the first three months, then about $5. That’s all i needed to hear, and i ran over to Greystone and swapped out one of my Explorer 2000 boxes for an Explorer 8000. I also moved the 2100 out of my room and into the “Family Room” in order to score said 2000. I figure i should get rid of the crappier boxes first. One of these days i’ll get around to swapping out my cable modem for the newer Toshiba model, and my brother’s 2000 for a 2100. But then that’s just me being a perfectionist, the extra 100 on the set top box does not a better STB make.

Though on the electronics front, i may be buying a new TV. The one i’ve got now has a broken VCR and only two inputs (one RCA and one coax). I’d love something with actual Video + 2-channel Audio RCA instead of the Video + 1-channel that mine has now, and a whole lot of them. I mean i’ve got the DVR, the DVD player, and the Playstation right now, and i may be adding a Gamecube to that mix in the future. Going to PS2 wouldn’t count, as it would be replacing the PSX. That means atleast four inputs, preferably more if i want to add anything of consiquence. I mean five RCA jacks on the back and one on the front and i think i’d be happy with the whole thing. It doesn’t have to have a built-in VCR as i’ve become a little annoyed with that setup.

I got some more stuff done, but it falls squarely in the “Getting books from my mother and getting bagels” flavour of boring, rather than the “Babbling like an idiot” flavour that you kids have been enjoying just now.

I may come up to Florence this weekend, and i do have issue #3 of Last Order for you kids to read. I fully expect to read your manga though, so this will be a two-way street. Ah well, expect some word on Friday. Sorry about last week, i was called into service in the name of the woman and theatre, so i was either unavailable, comatose with exhaustion, or genuinely asleep for the whole weekend, thereby rendering me very poor company.

(Read the article)

Comments Off

Comments Off

For more on the “Brooks ponders a Gamecube” thing, check this out:

As the latest issue of the Japanese magazine Famitsu reveals, and EGM has separately confirmed, Nintendo has quite a shocker in store for Japanese gamers planning to preorder its upcoming Zelda title for the GameCube: a special disc containing The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for the GameCube! The entire Nintendo 64 title–lauded by many as one of the greatest games of all time–will be available, for free, to those who preorder. But not only does the disc contain Ocarina of Time, it also includes Ura Zelda, the expansion pak for Ocarina that was completed, yet never released, for Nintendo’s failed N64 disc drive (64DD) system in Japan. Better still, the disc also features movies of two highly anticipated GameCube titles: F-Zero GC and Resident Evil 4.

In what is no doubt one of the greatest preorder incentives ever, Japanese gamers can begin putting down money for the game (and scoring copies of this disc) beginning on November 28th. However, sources have indicated that this offer will only be available to the first 100,000 people to do so.

Damn. A pre-order and you get a whole other game for free? And the N64 Zelda looked pretty cool from what i saw of it at Chris’s. And then there’s the RE4 feature thinger… that doesn’t look bad either. Pretty rare though, although i’m pretty sure that they’d make the same offer to Americans. They’d be stupid (or par for the Nintendo course) otherwise.

And yes i did post yesterday… i actually added to it for a while, and ended up leaving it in “draft” because i was tired and forgot to change it to “publish” before i hit the sack.

(Read the article)

Comments Off

Ya know, i don’t know what planet Martin is from, but on my homeworld “Five DVDs of Fellowship of the Ring” is pronounced “Gravy.” Seriously. I mean i picked up my “super-hyper-mega edition X” boxset yesterday along with Terry Pratchett’s Night Watch and i have to tell you that the contents of that box well and truely rocked my little black socks. Seriously. The movie alone was good enough, but then to take over half of the scenes and extend them, then add in new scenes, then do full post-production on them, that was almost too much. They recorded new score with the London Philharmonic just for this DVD. I mean this rocked little black socks that i have not yet bought! I should distribute some sort of leaflet to shepards that says “Watch out, your sheep may suddenly tip over and this doens’t mean you’re being invaded by Alabama residents, instead it is a bellweather of intense rocking.”

There was a whole lot of text formatting in the last paragraph. It that sort of thing puts you off, sorry about that.

And Capcom released a movie for Resident Evil 4 today. Hie your asses over to Resident Evil Fan and check it out. In it Leon S. Kennedy appears to walk through the most beautiful backgrounds i’ve ever seen in order to fight DARKNESS ITSELF. I’m almost beside myself in terror and want to buy a Gamecube. This is very sad, as i had promiced myself that i’d buy a PS2, and call the console war complete. Instead everything i’m getting excited about (I.E. Metroid and all the RE games) is GC only. Damn big N, i was done with you when you went insane after the NES. Now they are pulling me back in. Oh well, i’m way too happy to go as the Residen Evil remake looks amazing (check out more cinematics over at REFan… the Lisa Trevor ones in particular, as they give a good mix of action, cinematic, and pure dread.), RE:0 looks better than that, and the scenes of Leon capping evil shadows with the Desert Eagle from 4 just… well, i want it to have my baby.

Did i mention that it comes on 3 DVDs? Just thought that might make it seem abso-fucking-lutely huge. Which it is, no doubt. I wonder if Wesker will be coming back… he’s in Zero.

Speaking of Resident Evil, i’m still playing with that damn airsoft. I really love that thing, and I’m so going to enjoy customizing it. My sole problem now is nobody seems to sell metal outer barrels that are also silver. To maintain the look it needs to not be black, and i’d rather not paint or plate one myself. I just don’t have the equipment and i’d love the extra weight i’d get out of it. Why is it not being mentioned on the project page? I don’t know. I’m kinda reconsidering the whole “project pages” idea. It sounded cool in the beginning, and it is fun to talk about, but i think i may just scrap the whole thing, any thoughts?

And the pistol appears to be lucky. Whenever i’m holding it i seem to beat the hell out of the Nemesis. When i’m not he tends to beat me up.

Well, whatever ominosity is, i appear to have eight. Killer.

Eh, mayhaps more later, but i doubt it. I’ll be asleep the rest of the night in preparation for seeing Harry Potter later. My woman is building the print at her theatre, so we get to watch it tonight before anybody else and alone in the theatre. That’s the good news. Bad news is that it A.) starts at midnight, B.) lasts for three hours, and C.) i have to get up at 6:30 tomorrow for work. I think eight or so hours this evening should get me ready though.

Comments Off

So i’ve decided on a two-pronged purpose for this little area. I’d like to make it the “Brooks babbles about Resident Evil/survival horror” area, as well as the big secret ma-bob. Which, if you haven’t already figured it out, is very related to Resident Evil. You see i found an inexpensive Tokyo Mauri M-92 Samurai Edge airsoft, and i figured that it would make a pretty kickass blank slate for customization. And if that doesn’t sound very interesting, well you can come for the babbling about zombies and so forth.

But as it stands, i’ve got one Biohazard Edition pistol. At the moment, it isn’t mostly metal, but that is soon to change. What i’d like to do is put one order in when i get paid next week and get a more accurate inner barrel (accuracy), a metal outer barrel(looks killer), a more powerful valve (more power) and a stronger spring (bigger kick). After that we’re probably looking at laser sights, silencers and whatnot. You know, just fun stuff like that. It’ll be a good time killer while i’m waiting for my copy of Red Hat to download.

(Read the article)

Comments Off

Just posting quickly to tell everybody that i’m playing with new headphones (the kind that cover the whole ear and stuff) while my girl is playing Atari games. I’m the luckiest guy on the entire planet.

Also:

I took the Paragon Powers Test and tested positive for

Yee-haw. Oh, and either later today or tomorrow, expect the reveal over at the secret thingamajig. I can’t get a digital camera for what i want to spend, but i can always steal images from other people.

Comments Off

Oh well. Atleast i’m not… wait, i’m pretty evil. And all i did is answer the quiz with an emphasis on not obeying the prevading moral code. Stupid cultural mores.

More later (during lunch or something.) I need to flesh this out so the damn window wraps like i like it. That is a blatant design flaw of this little page, and i really need to take care of the damn thing. Of course how difficult is it to work a “width=100%” into the damn table. Pretty hard, it looks like.

Comments Off

Damn, it sucks that your computer doesn’t like Phoenix, Jason. It is currently the cat’s pyjamas over here. I mean the seperate little search box, the fact that terms in the address bar automatically open up the first google hit, and the auto-adding of www.com to urls is the icing on the cake. The fast loading, small footprint, and ironclad pop-up blocking is the actual cake itself. Mayhaps you should try it, if you didn’t get version 0.4 that could be the foundation of your problems, 0.4 being a major bug fixing and feature adding build.

Now MT version 2.51 isn’t really all that different from version 2.5. It really was just a bug fix… what a letdown.

And the foundation of the top secret project is either sitting on my parent’s porch or in their house at the moment. Hmmm, must resist temptation to break into my parents house…

Not really much going on today, i have to say. I think i’m going to go hit Michael’s and see if they have decent paint for the Seburo. That thing has sat on my desk long enough. Even though i’d be paying out the nose for the airsoft that fits inside the kit. Oh well, when i’m done with the server (hah!) or the other thing i may actually build the thing.

Comments Off