chock fulla SPOILERS!!! from dreamfall: the longest journey:
- the mood and atmostphere is fantastic. much more adult than tlj1 and about a hundred times more creepy. much as i dislike the clunkiness of the keyboard controls, shifting (ha!) from point-click to an fps-style perspective movement made for some pretty tense moments. if the camera rotation wasn’t so jittery, i’d have enjoyed the troll caverns more.
- more complaints about that damn camera and keyboard. kept getting stuck in corners, couldn’t center my focus on anything. and i seriously hate the sequence where you had to run away from fat lardface peats. ugh. that took about thirty tries it did.
- hopefully they’ll keep this 3d enviro setup for tlj3 but with improvements. like with the center on screen option in gk3, click to shift between panning up/down and left/right, and speed control options (cuz damn it moved so fast that it actually hindered action sequences at times).
- if anyone actually made a watilla, i’d buy two of them wonkers.
- does damien cavanaugh look like paul walker or what eh? leave him in the flesh and i find him boring. digitize the man and make him a computer nerd and i get all giggly. i’m so, so lame.
- proof of the power of gk1: over six years later and the first time i hear the name cavanaugh i immediately hear the voice of a god-fearin’, voodoo stylin’ old lady inside me head.
- as with tlj1, some of the locales leave you with your jaw dropping below the waterline. of particular drool-action is the dark people’s library, winterland (creeptastic), the interior of the st. petersburg factory, the fringe, zoe’s room, and damien’s little studio. the nipponese vibe was strong with the set designers.
- what is it about abused, abandoned children’s rooms that seem so frickin creepy and shit. ugh. faith’s screen flashbys in stark were so reminiscent of the ring. did they do that on purpose? with the shifty electric static noise and with her black hair all in her face? damn you designers for making me jump in my seat in broad daylight!
- love, love, loved that charlie was back. that we can now go up the backstairs in the journey man inn. that we be stealin’ past that oh-so-not-random door next to the fringe. that april is now hawt, gothy, angsty girlie with spear-through-your-right-eyeball action.
- wtf is up with westhouse. just. wtf. splainy already.
- crow! much more sarcastic and downright corny! better than ever before.
- april is not dead. she either a) shifted out before falling into the water, b) fell into the water anyway but hey, she’s fully equipped with water-breathing equipment, or c) got saved by furious traitor apostle action.
- she and kian are so gonna get together.
- brynn is not dead. well. i hope not.
- where did damien end up?? for that matter, i hope reza aint dead either.
- who the hell is the black tatoo dude in dreamland?
- helena chang begot zoe with gabriel castillo. who knows who she begot faith with. she’s also the white lady faith refers to.
- who the hell attacked the white kin?!?!
- is eingana a kin? the green or red one?
- so need to replay tlj1 again. refresher much required.
- why do people want everything tied up into a nice, neat little package? the open ending to this episode was excellently done in leaving you edgy and sad all at once. perfect for a middle chapter. closure is over-rated — especially if the creator clearly stated he’ll finish this story no matter what. it’s why esb and rots are so great. that emotional hangover…there aint nothin like it.
- this game cries out for a better grafx card than what jedi bob currently carries. jaggies suck eh.
- theme song is pretty good.
- as are the character models. zoe’s figure is realistically done and the shading on her jeans was fantastic. i kept finding myself staring at april’s costume and wanting to wear boots like hers.
all done for now. until i replay this thing. uh. yieah.
in between
writers block
wrasslin with windoze blinds
tweaking xp
butt pain
caffeine jitters
and general shenanigans
it’s been a trying day.
all i want at this point is for windoze to remember my settings. fer gods sakes remember my settings you crochety os.
shall now attempt to pull a true all-nighter. praise be for the invention of ipods and soundtracks.
thank god for tweak ui. hours later, jb’s desktop looks somewhat decent. certain fonts are still too small for comfort (dammit, i liked it when the font size was actually legible) but hey, overall a lot more slicker. imma keep this theme for a looong time. at least until i break down and start making my own [legible!] version.
less than 70 days till comic con 2006. instead of writing a speech, i went trawling on the net (when do i not) to the tunes of the ff7 soundtrack. snarkisms and general smart-assery commences in between the tidbits of useful advice:
bryan k. william’s massive site for comic con newbies and junkies
a hobo’s guide to out-smarting the jungles of comic con
my personal advice? hmmm, lessee…
- make it a digital camera with a ginormous memory card. take a bajillion pictures and don’t bother erasing them on-site unless the result is ultra-blurry. you never know what random stuff you’ve caught in each shot because there’s always just so much going on at the con.
- carry a huge lightsabre/wooden katana over your shoulder. force miscreants who didn’t shower to keep their distance from your space lest they wish to get a big whack across the head.
- watch your time there buddy. if you plan on going to popular panels (e.g. kevin smith, ray bradburry, sg-1), git yo ass in line at least half an hour before the doors open. otherwise your seating (or most likely lack there of) will suck, you won’t be able to see much, and you’ll hate the fat dude who didn’t wash his hair sitting in front of you guffawing and taking up the space of three normal peoples.
- save the shopping till friday afternoon. spend thursday scoping out the booths for prices, saying hello to friends, stalking that one particular artist you always wanted to have a drink with. the dealers’ room is always jam-fricken-packed on saturdays. further, the best events are always planned for this day, so wait out to your little heart’s content for panels on saturdays.
- if you’re a bargain whore, buy your loot on sunday afternoons. massive discounts and really tired booth people who’s attention spans are short. good times.
- fer chrissakes, don’t buy cawfee at the con’s starbuck’s. you’ll lose much precious time waiting in line. precious time that could be spent gawking at that statue of clone wars yoda.
- drink and be drunk. nothing funnier than to wander the dealers room slightly tipsy. do that at least for one of the days.
if nothing else has stuck from that one women’s history class (dates? what dates?! what happened when?!?), i’ve at least taken away with me a more refined definition of what feminism should be. both a movement to reach the “seperate but equal” plateau as well as a women supporting women society…ultimately to live in a world where women can choose what they want to do (whatever that would be but with obvious regards for the intent to harm) and not be harrassed for their choices.
so ferchrissakes, why should a woman taking her husband’s last name make her any less of a feminist? just because she chooses to commit her love and relationship in a more traditional manner she’s now devoid of “true” feminist principles? pssh. whatevs. you know the one redeeming quality of that extremely lame movie mona lisa smile? that the julia stiles character totally flummoxed julia robert’s teacher person by choosing marriage over school and career. she’s not any less intelligent than before simply because she values family first. nothing wrong with that. what irked me about julia robert’s seemingly oh-so-strong feminist person is that she pretty much rejected stiles’ character after learning of her family over career choice. forcing your ideas (be it religion or feminism) onto someone, particularly when it’s obvious that the said someone is well-versed in their own character, is not intelligent feminism. neither is rejecting the other person because of their choices (made in complete consideration of their personal circumstance i might add!) being supportive of feminist principles. i’m not a fan of drawing strict lines around a supposedly progressive civil rights movement. the very definition of “civil rights” precludes limitations on an individual’s choices. what else are we fighting for then dammit?! duh! so that we can do what we wish without societal censure and legal ramifications…that inherent freedoms clause thing in the constitution…remember that?! it’s stuff like this that leaves a smear on what should be a move forward for society. why people often immediately have militant images of the angry woman feminist. i find myself walking back over and over again to the “men and women can so be equally lame” concept. always posited negatively (yieah that’s right, i’m an angry-at-society person) but, put simply, seperate but equal.
now i’m off to put the ff7 soundtrack on repeat to wash the bad icky taste of incompassionate militants outta my brain.
accidental chicken wuss transformation
some people drive me mad daily. stop calling and then yapping. i’ve got worlds to save and gibberish to graffiti.
uh, i’ll just skip rabble people concerns and jump straight to: yieah, i’m a fan of that. me and the gehry-man’s works are pretty much 50/50 hit-n-miss, but damned if i don’t give him lotsa props for his newly tweaked version of the atlantic yards project.
i should just stop with the “oh, i can’t go this year” when it comes to comic-con. they just updated their guest list. amano and george rr martin are now storming the castle.
[START lj/xanga IQ]
ZOMG! DATZ SO GR8!!
[END lj/xanga IQ]
somewhat stressing about the submission rules (ugh, can’t stand wading through regulations and legalese) but yieah, i’m, kinda, uh, really fucking psyched. even if i personally don’t think my stuff is all that and even if i won’t sell a single image.
rufus shinra is a sneaky bastard. three viewings later, i finally caught on that he flat-out lied to cloud’s face about not finding anything in the northern cave. what was his arse mucking about there in the first place? whatever his motive, it most likely stems from selfish goals. and, for a guy who got blowed up bad in a serious explosion, he’s looking way too flawless. he doesn’t even really need that wheelchair! totally posing. and i like that.
cloud has more reason to pull the introverted loner act than squall. compared to the crap cloud had to endure, squall just seems like a whiny nancy boy. wah wah wah, i lost my sister. wah wah wah, i’m now an orphan. wah wah wah, seifer pushed me around. somebody smack the boy already.
sephiroth plays the bigbad better than ultimecia. much of that has to do with the insane amount of backstory that went into his character development. it doesn’t get better than setting up the anti-hero with a “it wasn’t his fault he was born screwed up!” past. then, stick in a personal history between the bigbad and the hero, have the bigbad do a terribly evil murder thing, and BAM, you’ve got yourself a story with a villain that’ll suck you in for 60+ hours because the buildup was just that damn good. with ultimecia, you don’t even know about her until, what, disc 3? when you finally meet her for the final showdown, she’s got nothing going for her…not even good dialogue (spelling your c’s with k’s has been killed to death by xanga-ers everywhere). edea was a better bigbad than ultimecia. better looking too with all that purple eyeshadow and a neckline cut to here.
even knowing all the great heroic things that tifa’s done (for city, planet, orphans, boyfriend), i still don’t like her. something about her just turns me off. in contrast, i know exactly why i find rinoa annoying. not the least of which is her “lookit me! i’m so rebellious yet feminine!” pose. why didn’t they bother developing quistis more?
blah blah, cloud’s bike and swords in the movie are extra sparkly cool. but i’m still all for gunblades as standard hero equipment issue.
the new 100 of geek/nerd/fanboy/uggomgswrawks
becase the older 100 is now in archive state, capital outdated.
1 : biggest geek crush? dr. daniel jackson, egyptologist.
2 : swords rule over guns any day.
3 : boys with spiky hair and tortured mental issues? i will always be a fan of square/enix.
4 : dream a little dream practically every night. and occasionally, it’s a nightmare.
5 : loooove comic-con. but know jack crap about comics.
6 : played 8 (9?) years of piano with not much to show for it.
7 : can instantly tell apart a work by mozart even if i haven’t heard it before.
8 : mozart kicks ass in everything. beethoven is always just that bit too over-done and handel is staid.
9 : am a fan of boy bands. happy kids psuedo-harmonizing is amusing.
10 : graphic adventure game freak. will swear by the power of the pegasus project any day.
11 : will swear by the power of grayskull too dammit.
12 : but back to games. because rpg/rts/sim (s) are some of the greatest braingasms ever gasmed by mankind.
13 : will keep diablo and seven kingdoms 2 installed on jedi bob forever.
14 : that’s right, my computer is named jedi bob. with a lightsabre external drive and everything.
15 : right atop jedi bob’s custom black case…is darth tater.
16 : won’t ever shut up about star wars. it looks to be a lifetime affliction.
17 : obiwan kenobi (old, young, bloated, hologram, whatever)…the best manipulative fucker ever.
18 : in that same vein, rufus shinra is awesome.
19 : emo is crap. vampire groupies are crap. get your own damn religion already.
20 : photoshop junkie. it’s true, oh it’s true.
21 : once a upon a time, i had kurt angle’s tune as a midi ringtone. and now i seek the final fantasy victory jingle.
22 : clothes are overated.
23 : but long coats with tails and mandarin collars are not.
24 : filet mignon bloody, thank you. with a 2:1 helping of gravy and mashed taters please.
25 : beef noodle soup, ikura, bulgogi, ramyun, and kfc extra crispy.
26 : total wait time for tpm (7 hours), aotc (4 hours), rots (10 hours).
27 : total view times for tpm (15), aotc (2), rots (5).
28 : are the prequels perfect? no. do i wanna hear you whine about why they aren’t perfect? hell fucking no.
29 : cobra commander is an excellent alter ego.
30 : can, will, and do make up nonsense words that carry much weight in meaning.
31 : haagen daaz junkie. a pint a week is tastier than any apple crap mmkay.
32 : freakiest sg-1 episode…a matter of time.
33 : teal’c with hair? i can’t…it’s just…i’m still trying get used to that one.
34 : so, uh, okay, whatever, sirius black died. right. i cried more for frank bryce getting the green zap.
35 : DUMBLEYDORE IS NOT DEAD. dammit.
36 : the more complex and layered a plotline/story, the better.
37 : many many props to kevin smith and his skewed views.
38 : ending to buffy? perfect.
39 : ending to angel? perfect.
40 : best buffy episode? tie between hush and touched.
41 : best angel episode? uh, i’ll get back to you on that.
42 : remember orco? well you should dammit!
43 : and slimer too. i’m all for funky sidekick pet thingies.
44 : grew up with streetfighter, mortal kombat, and double dragon.
45 : not that i could ever pvp for squat.
46 : can’t fps for squat either. the motion sickness inevitably kicks in about 10 minutes into a lvl.
47 : i cook the best…rice. in the whole world.
48 : not a code geek. wysiwyg saves me everytime.
49 : played violin for about 4 years. i sucked but no one knew. benefits of playing in an orchestra.
50 : collector of maps. with enough money, i’d probably start looking for the antique ones.
51 : also collect lightsabres. it’s a lost art.
52 : venti cap please. venti americano ain’t bad either.
53 : unless it’s 100% saturated lard, i’ll eat it. and even then, i’d hesitate and reconsider.
54 : back in the day…it was all about the intellivision burger time.
55 : good friends with the dictionary and his cousin, the thesaurus.
56 : what i really need are a giant collection of quotes and a book on word origins.
57 : ask me anything about king tut and i’ll tell you all. about. it.
58 : hardy boys? nancy drew? psssh. three investigators get it done better baby.
59 : anyone else ever read all of the phyllis a. whitney books?
60 : ender and co. always break my heart, whichever story of theirs i re-read.
61 : i got sucked in. it’s all george r.r. martin’s fault.
62 : first fantasy book ever read: robin mckinley’s the hero and the crown.
63 : will drink down anything by garth nix and jude watson.
64 : newbie feminist. life-long “all people suck equally” believer.
65 : use webmail exclusively. and it’s not yahoo or hotmail or even gmail.
66 : wheezy is our king. harry/ginny shipper kthxbi.
67 : t’ang dynasty > song dynasty > ming dynasty…..and any dynasty beats out the qing dynasty.
68 : not that the three dragons of the qing dynasty weren’t sofuckingbrilliant.
69 : a big fan of charlemagne and his chapel at aachen.
70 : greatest architects of all time? imhotep and kahn.
71 : whoever built chartres cathedral doesn’t suck either.
72 : there will never be enough room here to list my favorite buildings.
73 : buying thomas dolby’s retrospectacle album is some of the best money i ever spent.
74 : have logged 350+ hours on ff8. jesus christ.
75 : merchant/ivory productions are that damn good. usually.
76 : have watched about five different film versions of pride and prejudice. that story’ll never age.
77 : don’t leave the house much. too much to read, watch, play, photoshop.
78 : can and will climb onto ledges or lay down on the floor to get a good photo angle.
79 : have a camera wishlist. and a thinkgeek wishlist.
80 : used to know the entire script to pulp fiction by heart. also the entire script to a few good men.
81 : chunk. chuuuunnnnk!! y’know, the goonie kid.
82 : master of impatience.
83 : but anal about control issues and perfection (hence the 350+ hours in ff8).
84 : malcom x and donald duck. personal superheroes.
85 : drive a tank…with rust and everything.
86 : a fan of lists and organization. following through is something else entirely.
87 : jeans are the best invention ever. as are tank tops and button down shirts.
88 : the peak of brad’s sexiness? as louis in interview with a vampire.
89 : the house of flying daggers is not all that.
90 : power rangers suck. voltron is way better.
91 : i’ve got midichlorian theories and i don’t think the concept of midichlorians suck.
92 : loooooove disneyland. my happy place.
93 : best all-time first person anything? thief: the dark project
94 : copied down an entire website by hand once. complete with sketches and drawings.
95 : i credit any skill in my writing to spending three years of late-nighters on the highschool newspaper staff.
96 : all these years later, and still harboring a crush on tears for fears.
97 : persistent potty mouth.
98 : talk to myself. all the time.
99 : have dreamed in spider solitaire and photoshop layers.
100: salty preferred.
i want to be dropped.
from everything.
i think i about cracked a rib. at the least, i snickered hard enough that my nose now hurts.
back to cloud gazing, kthxbi.
one too many people in surround sound who are currently driving me bat-shit crazy. that’s right, i’m being force-fed about three tons of guano at the moment. fuckdammit.
add to that about one too many ridonkulous problems also currently pushing me towards the severely attractive prospect of relocating to a different planet, thankyousoverymuch. hot, unbreathable atmostphere of venus? ohmigod, i am so there.
at least there’s huge text and mouse cursors now on jb’s os. with pixel-jagged icons forsomereason. anal. absolutely anal. if everything else in life must insist on being stupid, i refuse to relinquish control-issues when it comes to my computer. everything’s got to be perfect. because i am god of my computer and i say so dammit!
ANNOYANCES: part 2,344,456,567,123,334.452342656
the equivalent of cool as sick. it. sounds. STUPID. pick another word fercryinoutloud.
survived till two this afternoon without the usual sunrise dose of cawfee and glazed donut. but not without casualty…there was about a twenty minute black out period in the middle of computer lab sometime during the eleventh hour (occasional scrolling up and down when coming into consciousness so the folks around me won’t think that i was falling asleep, not that i wasn’t, but that’s not the point, oh shut up).
too much cawfee and sugar in the morning means hyperness till the point of queasiness — not enough cawfee and sugar means a world of s-l-o-w-m-o. whatever. i’m currently too s-l-o-w-m-o to decide which fucked-up consequence is more preferrable.
werd to the arch geeks: apparently pierce patchett’s house in l.a. confidential is the lovell house by neutra. recognized the nine bajillion window panes i had to draft when i saw a photo of the house today. elevation views are nothing…i’ve loved that house since i saw its interior shots during the movie.
p.s. started autocad today. i’m in looooove.
