Going to try Wordpress.com for blogging

https://avgi.wordpress.com/

Self explanitory, I think wordpress is better than blogger. =p So add that to your bookmarks instead of this.

~Fei

Playstation 2 Controller

I remember when the controller was first introduced to have "pressure sensitive" buttons. Back then, when I first heard of it, I thought it was the most amazing thing. I thought about how fun it'd be for games to make use of a variety of "moves" with just applying different pressure to the same button. My mind raced with all sorts of random thoughts and what if's... like "What if codes in new games required percision from pressure sensitive buttons on top of quickly tapping multiple keys (think MvC2 dial-a-combos)."

Years later, the reality of it is rather depressing to me. I look at the titles available that make use of these buttons and I'm not pulling many out... Some racing games incorporate it into their acceleration and break buttons. The Bouncer made use of dual layered moves (albeit only hard presses and light presses for different moves), the coolest thing was in the configuration you could actually see how hard the game thinks you're pressing buttons. Overall, this feature that's apart of every official Ps2 controller just doesn't see much use and that's just a shame.

I really like the Ps2 controller, it's light, percise, comfortable, has so many buttons, it rumbles, there is so many good features to it. I just kind of wish developers put more thought and work into something as basic as taking advantage of the hardware and peripherals of the console they make the game for, instead of just looking at their own games.

~Fei

Karin 1 - 6

I wrote earlier that I was on another Vampire'ish anime when I was writing about Blood+. I'm a little further in that now, but a quick run through of what I've seen from Karin first.

It seems that I'm seeing a lot of vampire themed series recently, from Blood+, to the bounto in Bleach (I'll cover the seasons in that later or something), Tsukoyomi Moon Phase, and now this anime.

Karin is about a vampire in a family of vampires, however, she is unique among other vampires. The twist? Karin's body actually produces blood, so instead of drinking it, she bites to give her blood to the "victims" of her bite. On that note, she's nothing like a vampire outside of the fangs really... She likes the day, afraid of nights, likes garlic, pretty much all she wants to do, is be a normal girl.

Karin is a very colorful anime, probably the brightest I've seen about vampires. It's typical high school love story between two races deal, so you can more or less adlib the entire thing based on watching the opening (which is rather fanservice laden, which is misleading as the series is rather clean [from what I've seen so far]). The humor is pretty good, there are a few really funny sketches. Characters are generally likable.

I'm pretty sure I'll be watching the entire series pretty soon, rather lighthearted change of pace from what I've been on.

~Fei

DDR at age 5

What did you play when you were younger?

He's pretty adorible isn't he? I wonder if I could have been that good when I was five... I wish DDR exsisted back then,... I think I was learning how to play Super Mario for the Nintendo.

I don't think I even heard about DDR until like second year in highschool,... And when I first started, I was pretty bad (and that's being generous).

The gamer inside of me wonders still, what would it be like if this exsisted back then... Would I even play DDR?

~Fei

Konjiki no Gash Bell - Movie 2

A monster from the future wants Kyomaro to be his partner and sends future Vulcans to capture him.

Animation quality was good, music was bland, story was rather boring. They don't spend practically any time in this movie working on a story or plot (it was one hour twenty three minutes). Most of it is just CG scenes or long animation scenes where you how they drew out this movie by animating lightning for a few minutes.

The one interesting part was when Kyomaro asks the monster about the future, however, he gets brushed off,... So this is pretty much a stand alone movie with no relivance to the series.

~Fei

Shopping for a Psp

I got my hands on a little bit of money and decided to binge spend on myself for the first time in a bit.

What am I going to try to get? A Sony Psp (A little late, but saves money too =p ).

Target goal: Get everything I'd need for 300$'s.

So lots of ways to try this.

Let's take a look at a few routes.

The obvious approach would be the mostly risk free way of going to the story, 250$'s + 15$'s NJ Tax). 300 - 265 = 35$'s left for a game. Note, the 32 meg memory stick that comes with this set is too small to take advantage of the PSP. This option just isn't appealing.

The other local way would be to buy the new core release, that comes with nothing but the system and AC adaptor for 200. 180 used. That'd give you a more reasonable 100'ish to get a decent memory stick, games and accessories. Going this way has no real penalty if you regret the purchase, mainly because the cloth and case are 15$, the remote and head set is 25$, and a 32 meg Memory stick is around 10$, rounding you back to 250$ anyways.

If I were doing the buying online. No clue how it'll turn out. But the prices are amazingly cheap.

http://www.hyperhardwaresl.com/index.php

The site above gives different offers for Psp bundles and stuff. The core system, no frills, no cloth, no memory card. Just the system, power source. For 132.10$'s USD (They sell the normal bundle for 158 USD). That's over 120$'s saved (And gives about 170$'s floating to cash in on games and accessories) on the spot. The promotion on the site is "Free shipping" and no import tax. The catch? Odds are ordering from this site would mean the system would be a UK Psp, meaning region 2 UMD reader. Region 2 is pretty cute if you were into importing Japanese UMD's since Europe and Japan are both region 2. Other than that, it should serve the same exact functionality as a Psp, from firmware, to how it'd play games sold in the US.

The biggest bulk of time spent while doing this reseach came looking up memory stick facts. Let me list a few key notes. SanDisk shares the patent with Sony for the sticks, but sell better quality stuff, cheaper. Buy SanDiskbrand.

SanDisk

Price to shoot for is more or less 20$'s for each 512megs. So 2gig for 80 is pretty decent at the time of this writing. Don't go any cheaper or any brand that isn't SanDisk. As it seems memory stick speeds differ. It's pretty important that you get your memory stick online, since it is definitely cheaper in 90%+ of cases as opposed to buying retail.

Random accessories I looked into.

USB adaptor. Need a USB cord for the computer, it's like 5$'s buying a more expensive one would probably mean you have a higher quality one that'd allow faster transfers from PC to Psp.

Protective cover. Looks like another 5$'s, paying 10 would probably mean you're paying too much.

Case. The big brick like thing, or the travel stuff. The starter "sets" that give all sorts of items ranging from car charger, to another headset (if you don't buy the 250 bundle) seems to go from 20-30$'s.

Games. This is a gaming system after all, I don't have my eye out for too many games.

They're still a little pricey for a portable game at 40$ a pop (the new / good stuff). Metal Gear Ac!d and the sequel, Legend of Eternia, Legend of Heroes, and Valkyrie Profile are on my personal to watch for lists.

Head Set. I'm a little unsure about this. The 250 bundle has this and the remote, which I thought was rather cool. Stand alone, the Sony brand one costs 25$ give or take.

Completely not necessary, but I dunno.

PSP WiFi Max. If you don't feel like getting a new router, this device lets you surf the web, with a cable connection. Just connecting this to your computer and letting your existing connection connect your Psp. The idea sounds cool, but I wonder how the latency would be like having yet another medium to go through before reaching your Psp. This is like 40$'s.

http://www.ebgames.com/product.asp?product%5Fid=802259

On the other hand you could get an actual wireless router too. Something like this for 50$'s is pretty good.

Wireless Router

Extended Battery. The Psp battery life is rather short, two to three hourish. The battery boasts that it'd give up to 20% more life to the playtime (Like maybe half an hour ish more, but over charges and time, it'd probably be more fun to charge your Psp less, depends on how much use you put into your Psp).

With all that aside, let me sum stuff up and give a few opinions. There's a lot of frill's that I don't need. But US UMD's are an option I'd like to have (they're selling so horribly in the states, it's only a matter of time before you can buy them by the handful REALLY cheap). So if I get the UK system (the cheapest option), I may regret that my Psp would be unable to play this bargain UMD's in the future (and should Sony change their mind about region coding their actual games, buying a US one would be safest, if you lived in states). So finding a core US no frills pack for 200 or less is what I'll do. In my opinion, the only two other essential items are the memory stick (1 to 2 gig's) which are a lot cheaper now than when they were released (they're up to 4 gig's and Sony says they'd be released an 8 gig one soonish). And the last item being a USB cable for your computer to connect with your Psp (some bundles have this). With these three items, you could make your Psp the versatile media machine that people claim it to be (which is what I want).

On the other hand, on bare bones basics, you could just order the UK one for 132$, spend 10$ on a 32 meg stick, and just commit to buying games. So start up cost would be about 142$ total, which is pretty hot.

So yea, random urge to get a Psp, and that's what I looked into.

~Fei

PS This doesn't fit too well anywhere, but if you import a firmware 1.0 or buy a 1.5 ish firmware Psp, you have an exploitable system (in a very good way if you want to pirate stuff, firmware is the Psp OS, so to speak). Later versions fix this, and you can't go down in versions. However updating from them is free. Good luck finding it if that's your thing.

PPS Yea, at the time of writting this, no pictures, to save space for words... o.O

Online Gaming and Grade School

I remember way, way, wayyyy back in my elementary school days (I'm thinking first grade), there was this time this kid came up to me and asked me what 10 times 10 was. I remember clearly saying 100 (I know a lot of Chinese households teach their kids multiplication at an early age). But the story goes on! I followed up, suspecting he only tried to memorize the biggest multiplication pair and that he didn't know anything else, "What's seven times four?" The other kid gave me a blank look. GG, I win.

I was reminded of this story because it just came to me while playing one game online or other that day. Some random person goes "Ohhh I have this and that..." another person chirps in, "Ohhh, so what? To be pro you have to do this, and that! You n00b!" Granted outside of the "You n00b!" part, the rest of the lines were close to hypothetical, I found this argument, and many others I've seen in the past, really similar to that one test of ... wits (?) I had in my earlier years.

So what's the big deal? I'm comparing adult behavior to that of mine when I was seven years old? When you take away the binding unspoken laws of social behavior and realize you'll never meet any of these people, nor are you bound by social ethics and morals. People are such immature asses. What is it that make people act like that? Why do people log on just to give other people a hard time? What's with this serious inferiority complex people have with online gaming?

My excuse was that I wasn't even at the age where I knew what modesty was... but what's everyone elses?

They're probably millions of this kind of rants about how people act online, so I'm just going to stop mine early,... like now.

In summary, watch the video below.



Link of it: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5829962112288504909

~Fei