Category Archives: nerd

outrage, horror, panties

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It’s a slow news day, so I will therefore work my panties up into a knot:

LOOK AT THIS!

I guarantee most of you won’t give a damn, but my knotted panties must express my outrage and horror. The article is about a Japanese DS game making its way stateside. Okay, fine, whatever. However, three things are making me frothy in a really bad way (and I absolutely apologize for the mental image of frothy, knotted panties):

  • The character pictured is a direct rip-off (you say homage, I say die die die) of my beloved Jet Set Radio Future
  • The game is by Square Enix, makers of Final Fantasy and my most hated of all loaves
  • There’s a character in the game actually nicknamed Beat, which is the name of the main JSR guy

AUGH! I STILL haven’t forgiven Square Enix for the 30-some hours I spent “playing” (23 of those hours were watching cut scenes) Final Fantasy X with NO FUCKING IDEA WHATSOEVER what I was doing, and now THIS? Stealing the art style and characters from my most favourite of all games ever? OH THE OUTRAGE AND HORROR (hey, I said it was a slow news day)!

Worse than my outrage though is my thoroughly piqued curiosity. The game is reportedly good – although there are millions of FF fans out there who don’t know any better either – and I’m horribly drawn to it based on that one dude in purple alone. There’s no North American release date, but there are ways around that if you don’t mind not understanding any of the text or dialogue in an imported game.

What to do? Continue my full on Square Enix rage, or set aside my admittedly bizarre prejudices and see if the game does in fact hold my interest? It’s really hard to tell if it will – the shot of the guy in purple isn’t game play, it appears to be from a – wait for it – cut scene. The screens of actual game play show a confusing and heavily pixilated mash of button pressing, nothing at all like JSRF. I am all mixed up in the feelings. It’s like going through puberty again, only nothing like it whatsoever.

left right B A start

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I updated my Game Reviews – I’ve started some new games, finished some other games, and gave up on a few more. The prominent games in our house right now include:

  • Guitar Hero III [Xbox 360] – this is actually one of Ed’s Christmas presents. I’m not quite sure how it happened, but he managed to get me to agree he could open it over three weeks early, which is utterly unfair
  • Super Mario Galaxy [Wii] – just as fun as everyone tells you it is
  • Mario Party DS – repetitive but still amusing to me, as I never played any of the original Mario Party games. It’s also fun to play multiplayer!
  • And on the PSP, Crush – I picked this one up on a whim, and it’s actually really cool.

I think I’m going to go outside now, though – my butt hurts from sitting on it.

transform and build me a hotel

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Hell yes.

It is awesome. Sure, we already own Star Wars Monopoly and NHL Monopoly, but none of those had Optimus Prime as a marker. Besides, we play Aussie-Rules Monopoly – you’re free to use markers from any of the other sets, and if you really don’t want to own ParkPlace, you can opt to instead buy Cybertron, the Imperial Palace on Coruscant, or the Toronto Maple Leafs (seriously – they’re the top property in the NHL game. wtf?). FUN! Now, if only I could convince my friends it would be fun to play ..

nerves of milk

Posted in nerd, vroom vroom by

Oscar has an owie. It was beautiful yesterday, so Shan, Josh and I went for a scoot to West Vancouver to look for boots. All was fine and good, except Oscar would not start. The ignition tried to fire up when I pressed the start button, but after a sickly sound or two there was no more – absolutely nothing happened when I pressed the go button. As much as I like to claim I am an independent woman complete with hands being thrown up at me, it is at this point that Shan and I started to call boys. I can build you a computer with my eyes closed then make a 4-course dinner while balancing budgets and textbooks on my head then kick your ass at the video game of your choice for dessert, but I just don’t do vehicles or engines.

Ed didn’t answer his phone, so Josh came downstairs and managed to kick start Oscar. Once he was going, he ran beautifully and we went for a glorious ride. The start button just would not work though, so we think Oscar’s battery may be dead. He has an after-market alarm, and it probably drained his battery so now I have to figure out where to get another one and what to do with it. I should make Ed do it, since I had to call upon a backup knight in shiny armour – seriously, what the hell is the point of having a husband if he can’t come to your rescue when you need it? It’s a good thing Josh came scooting with us; Oscar had to be kick started three times and I was only able to do it myself once. I do not like having a broken Oscar. It makes me sad. I also need to practice my kicking.

I have to go make myself presentable for the thing. I am unfathomably nervous. Between the thing and Oscar’s owie, I could really use some excellent karma so this morning I did this. It is neat idea. You should do it too; then we can try out the mesh network and freak out the squares with our green and white plastic laptops.

here’s some mild outrage

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Spike has released the list of nominees of the 2007 Video Game Awards, and while I rarely pay attention to this because it’s always utter crap, this morning I have nothing else to talk about.

The list is available here, and as expected, it makes my teeth hurt. A lot – not just a few, but many – of the games nominated for awards either aren’t out yet, or came out within the last week. How on earth can something that no one’s played beyond QA be nominated for “best action game” ?! While I have no doubt that Assassin’s Creed is going to kick a lot of ass and be a great deal of fun, it isn’t OUT YET. Rock Band is another highly anticipated title nominated as a “best rhythm game” – its release date is 11/20. Call of Duty 4 is nominated for 4 awards in various categories – it came out 11/05. Super Mario Galaxy is also on the “best action game” list, but it doesn’t come out until next Tuesday. Spike’s Video Game Awards is not and has never been about giving awards out to the developers of the best games of the year; it’s a contest to see which publisher can throw the most money around to get included on the list. It’s bullshit. And yes, I’m still holding a grudge because of this. Shut up.

It would be so easy to give some real, non-fixed awards out for video games. I’m not so naïve to think that other award shows aren’t fixed, but when was the last time you saw a movie nominated for a “best picture” Oscar that hadn’t been released yet? They don’t give Emmys or Tonys out to shows that’ll debut next year; how can you nominate a game that, while highly anticipated, hasn’t hit the shelves for the masses? I can’t wrap my head around it, and for that reason, this is the last I’ll think about the Spike VGAs with even a sliver of mild interest as opposed to nothing but dripping, scalding, toxic scorn.

After my confession last night that I hadn’t left the house since Monday, it was decided that I am “sad” and am therefore going outside today. I have a hot date with Shan and Miranda. We were supposed to have a girlie weekend as our respective penises are out of town, but mine didn’t play along and is fact still here, which puts a damper in our plans mostly because he is permanently affixed to one end of the couch and we want to watch the TV.

Hey, weird sharp cramps in my tubals – go away now.

so hard for it honey

Posted in everyday kimli, nerd by

I signed up to complete NaBloPoMo 2007, a challenge to write at least one entry for every day of the month of November. I did this last year, too. For some this is a huge deal as they tend to post sporadically at best; for me it is just another acronym to abuse because I post every damn day anyway. Last year I even completed it even though I was in San Francisco for part of the month without a computer. I just have that much to say. Hell, yesterday I made three updates alone. I really need to get outside more.

One of the things I picked up from my favourite US postal depot was a Katamari Damacy puppet I won off eBay way back in June. As you can see below, I’ve already put it to excellent use by dressing a cat up as a Katamari and staging puppet photos. The pictures are really an exposé in three distinct parts:

  1. My cat is very, very patient with me
  2. I have a lot of weird shit
  3. I have far too much time on my hands

Heeeee.

I am still spending much of my day looking for a new job. I’ve not yet given up hope that my dream job awaits me somewhere out there, but some days are harder to be upbeat than others. On those days, I start looking at the entry-level clerical positions and mentally calculate exactly how much of a pay-cut I could live with yet still pay my rent. I’m really trying every avenue I can think of, though – I’ve sent unsolicited resumes to every gaming outfit in the city, I’m emailing people I hardly know but once off-handedly mentioned to me they work in the industry, I’ve annoyed the hell out of my friends and acquaintances contacts by all but begging them to help me get my foot in the door, I’ve given my resume to the mailman. It’s actually really encouraging to note the responses I’ve gotten; while I don’t have a job yet there are lots of people who are being awesome with the advice and inside knowledge and the handing off of my resume to Important People. This is good. I am appreciative. Yay for awesome people!

I know this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me; to be able to look for work and not settle for the first thing that comes along out of desperation. We’re doing okay financially; there are some savings still and I am bringing in a bit of money that covers my share of the monthly expenses. It really does help that we have no debt other than the car (although I haven’t looked at the credit card balance since we came back from Seattle), so I am using this period of “not desperate” to go after what I really want. This is good, right? I’m overdue for a position with less angst, aren’t I? Somewhere out there someone will appreciate what I can do, won’t they? Oh, self-doubt. You are entirely awesome, except for the part where you fail at life.

mad hax0rzzZ

Posted in kitties, nerd by

Yesterday was all about the hackin’.

After two unsuccessful Jailbreak attempts, I managed to hack the planet my iPug and installed all the missing iPhone applications. It is now a thing of glorious, fingerprinty beauty – if I thought it was cool before, now it’s just beyond awesome. If only Vancouver’s wi-fi freedom was on par with that of Seattle’s .. still, it is very cool. I love it. Portable internet makes me stiff in the pants.

And! After reading through the advice given on how to smack my router into behaving, I gave up and handed the whole mess to Josh who was able to force a firmware upgrade onto it. MacBeth the MacBook and the iPug are now both attached to our home network with nary a manually entered IP address in sight. Thanks, everyone! Your wisdom has allowed me to get my nerd freak on to even higher levels than ever before!

My cats, though I love them madly, are being giant pains in my giant ass. Each cat is now on a separate type of food, just to make my life incredibly complicated. Sasha is still enjoying the vet-recommended Medicine Food for Very Old Cats, and it’s doing wonders – she’s gained weight and is throwing up so much less than before. Cheddar the Middle Cat is stubborn as all hell and will only eat one brand of crappy horrible food that I have to stock just for her. We’ve tried everything we can think of to get her to eat anything else, but she actively starves herself if we don’t cough up what she wants. She is, however, starting to eat Sasha’s VOC food – this is both good and fine, since a) it’s not the other stuff she likes which is very much like the gas station fried chicken of cat foods and b) she is also getting on in years (we think she’s around 10) so it is not a bad thing to have her eating the VOC food.

Naturally, there is a “BUT ..” to all of this. Cheddar was historically the smallest of our three cats. As Sasha has been losing weight, Cheddar has been gaining it rapidly. She seems to really enjoy the VOC food, but it’s intended to put some meat on Sasha’s bones and is therefore putting MORE meat on Cheddar’s pointy, dumb frame. She’s getting to be a fatty! I’m so happy that she’s finally eating something else that I don’t really care; there’s just more of her to love now. When she starts getting Hobble-sized, then I’ll worry and also get a hernia from picking her up.

Then there’s Hobble. Huge, cuddly, squeaky Hobble. We weighed him last week; he’s 19 pounds of testicle-crushing feline love. He’s been happy eating his own brand of food, but today I caught him sneaking bites of Sasha’s wet + “kitty malt” food. He needs to be on a weight management diet, but I am dreading the though of trying to get him to eat some low-fat cat food when the other two get to eat delicious mashed prunes and puréed peas or whatever else it is they feed old animals. This is complicated. I liked it much better when they all ate whatever the hell I put down; I don’t know who taught them that some things are much tastier than others and almost as easily accessible .

Still, I love my cats. I’ll forgive them their pain in the ass tendencies if they’d do me the honour of living forever, and I don’t even mind the huge scratch Cheddar put on my chest this morning with her cruel and pointy back claws. That’s what the expired ointments are for!

plz help the nice kimli

Posted in angst, nerd by

Okay, there’s got to be a Mac whiz out there somewhere:

I has issues. At home we have a Linksys Wireless-G Router, model WRT54G. Ed’s laptop (runs XP) connects to our mixed WPA network, no questions asked. My MacBook, when Boot Camp’d to XP, connects to the same network just fine. However, since day one, I’ve had to manually input an IP address into my Network settings in order for OS X to connect to the wireless. What gives? This sucks. My home network is the only network I’ve ever encountered this with and it is not good at all. Until now I’ve just been doing what I have to in order to get an internet connection at home, but I have officially Had It and I am Not Going To Take It Anymore.

You can tell I’m serious because I’m using Title Case.

Anyhoo. It appears this problem is present on ALL Macs in my humble abode; a friend’s MacBook Pro would not connect to the network and at the time we did not know this sneaky manual fix. I must fix it, and soon – my iPod Touch is having the same problem, and will not connect to my wireless network. Please help! Why do my Apple products hate me so much?

I know that once upon a time we had a very good reason to be running a WPA network instead of a WEP but I can’t remember that reason. If I switch, will everything be rainbows and lollipops again? Oh please help!

squeeeeeee!

Posted in nerd by

Fedex just pulled up to my apartment and buzzed at my door, which surprised me. I’m not waiting for anything that would be delivered by Fedex, so what gives? Did someone perhaps send me a fabulous present?

I went down to sign for the package, and that’s exactly what happened – someone DID send me a fabulous present! Adam and Lilie, old gaming buddies, sent me a copy of Enemy Territories: Quake Wars with the sweetest note ever! The game made me SQUEEEEE but the note and the thought behind it made me all squishy and weepy because it was just so nice and unexpected. Yay!

I finally got sick of having a meme in place of an About section, so I updated that if you’re at all bored.

And lastly, I am so cold I am sitting at my desk shivering and yes, I am wearing clothes. I think I’m going to go do the dishes just for the sake of sticking my hands in hot water for a while.