NFG Games

Interview with Henk Nieborg

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 16:50:00 +0900

With my humblest apologies to Henk, I never did post this interview from March 2008. Here it is now, please enjoy!

NFG:
Contra 4: According to the credits, you were responsible for bosses and backgrounds, the latter typically being a specialty. Is that accurate, or did you have a hand in other parts of the game?

Henk:
Yes, I was the senior background artist for Contra4 and did [i]most[/i] of the Bosses. At first the Bosses weren't on my to-do list but they wanted to have consistency in the overall look, and gave the remaining bosses to me as well after seeing the result of another artist. Personally, I just wanted to do as much as possible on this game. I would have loved to do more but due to time limitations and a serious eye virus infection I wasn't able to do more. Also, It was quite an ambitious project looking at the development time. All had to be done within 3 months you know. :)

Three months is a very short time. Were you satisifed with the final result, given the time pressure? I mean, did you deliver the graphics with a smile by the deadline, or were you clamboring for every extra minute?Dunno if it would have been much better if they'd given me more time. Most of the gfx were done on time but sometimes i had to work 7 days a week to achieve this. Not the healthiest thing to do really. At the end the steam was a little bit off but for the rest everthing went fine. I'm quite happy with the result because i was able to capture the oldschool look they wanted. Also, most clients ask me to do fantasy stuff, this time there was more techno involved which was a nice departure as well.

I work very well under time pressure. Without the deadline things can just get out of hand very easy. I've got the habit to keep on adding stuff to my work and go really crazy. I've learned through the years that this doesn't make it necessarily better looking. Being a perfectionist can be a problem sometimes but more for people around me i think. ;)

Did you have any additional pressure, either from yourself, the developer (Wayforward) or Konami? I mean, you guys were updating a classic game held dear to many players' hearts.

No, Not really except for the time pressure maybe but this is the case in most projects. Being a retro gamer myself and a big fan of Contra3 on the Snes i knew exactly what to expect. I was really happy about the fact that Konami wanted an oldschool pixely look like the original Contra's. After setting the gfx style of the game which took only 2 tries everything went automatic. I also have to say that i had some amazing development support and feedback from Matt Bozon at Wayforward Technologies during development. Very easy to work with!

I've tried to find a comprehensive game list of titles you've worked on, and it appears that this is your first DS title. True? Was it any different from your perspective, or was it a console/portable like all the rest?

Not entirely true. I've done some 3D textured backgrounds for Shinen's 'Garfields Nightmare' on DS as well. (not mentioning ShantaeDS) Development wasn't really that much different on Contra 4 then on any other platform or project i've worked on because it's all about pixels again. When you know the hardware specs all pixels will be the same in the end. Have to say that the DS is my favorite platform to develop for at the moment, which also makes sence.

What makes the DS platform different?

For an artist there's not much of a difference really. I'm just very enhousiastic about the whole package that the DS has to offer. You can do some cool things with the dual screen and the touch and voice functions. Also think that gamedesigners and coders will experience the difference much more than artists do compared to other platforms. In that way the DS is quite unique.

I've been hearing rumours of a new Shantae title. Recently insertcredit.com noticed the mockup that's been on the wayforward site for a long time... It looks, predictably, mind-blowingly gorgeous. Is there something in the works? Are there more mockups you can share?

Hmmm, Yes Shantae DS. One thing i know for sure is that this project has been put on hold for some time now. I've been pixeling about 5 complete backgrounds for ShantaeDS including some anims. There were even words about a PSP version, but this was way back at the end of 2005 so i doubt it will ever see the light of day. Maybe you could ask Matt Bozon at Wayforward because in the end it's his pet project (NFG note: I did, and was not graced with a reply) . I personally think that Shantae DS will just remain a techdemo. In a future website update I might post some more mockups.

What are your primary tools for pixelling? Not a black and white TV, surely? =) (references this earlier interview).

At the moment I'm using a four year old PC with a decent GeForce card. Got two big HQ flatscreens connected that give me quite an impressive workspace. (3200 x 1200 pixels) Having dual screens is very useful for an artist. Having the reference on one side and your tools and work on the other works quite well. I'm using 'Promotion 5.1' to pixel all of my stuff and 'Photoshop' to create mockups and make palette changes with.

Pixel art in general: It seems that there is a significantly growing interest in the style, but I think sometimes I see more of it because I'm looking for it. Are you finding more opportunities as a pixel artist? Or do you find it more or less the same now as a few years ago when I last asked you the same question?

I'm quite happy with the way pixelart is treated right now. It's also interesting to see that there are only a few really good pixelartists out there. Whatever that means. In the older days i did a complete project by myself, the good old days i call them. Now-a-days its just small parts like tilesets or animations. Also, Everything needs to be faster today. Most jobs i get need to be done ASAP for some reason. ;) It also shows when you look closely at my pixels from the last few years. I do not use that many different tints (gradient) for a single color anymore. For instance i used about 4-6 different tints on one color for Contra4. I used about 16 tints per color in Lomax. That was a little bit overdoing it really looking back on it. :) Anyway, Reducing the amount of colors is saving a lot of time. People are still happy with the result so why not. I will go nuts again someday on my own project. But it's too early to mention anyting about this yet. That's called teasing for anyone who cares. ;)

Finally, what's next? Have you got anything in the works you're allowed to talk about? If so, is it 2D or 3D this time?

I just finalised two projects for DS again. They're both movie licences. I pixeled all the backgrounds for those projects and did some main character animations. I already moved on to another DS project again and this year i will also start on another very big PSP title. Feels good to have a lot of things lined up. :)

I hang out with a lot of pixel fans. They'll be excited to hear about anything new. Tease away!

I'm also finally starting my personal project/prototype this year. I'm planning to come up with a really nice technology demo on the DS. This projects will involve some major pixeling and hope that this will be the crown on my pixel career. I'm really enthousiastic about this one and hope to invite some old colleagues around for this as well. :)

Cheers, Henk.

New NFG site: NFGcontrols.com

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 18:06:00 +0900

My love for game controllers knows no bounds. I've created a website that will focus solely on controller reviews, theory, tech details etc.

Please check it out if you love controllers as much as I do!

Neography: Moving on!

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 21:04:00 +0900

I've moved Neography to a new place! Sort of. I've started a new forum which is where I'm doing all my posting these days. If you want to stay up on the madness and hang out with a really groovy set of people, check out NFGworld!

Remaking Street Fighter

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 21:03:00 +0900

So Capcom's remaking their seminal beat-em-up with all-new high-def graphics for the XBox 360 Live Arcade. It's gonna be the same gameplay we know and love with a glorious new skin.

But Capcom's not alone in doing a Street Fighter remix. While the PC Engine version of Street Fighter 2: CE was the best looking 16-bit version of the game, it turns out that NEC Avenue didn't do the best job possible when porting it to the PCE. Their choice of colours was often poor, and despite having two and a half times more storage than the next largest HuCard, they cut a lot of detail from the backgrounds as well.

Determined to right this wrong, some hardcore fans are adding more details, sourcing graphics from the arcade and other console ports, and converting them to the PC Engine's tile-based 9-bit colour palette. Then they're going to shove the graphics back into the PC Engine game, creating the ultimate 16-bit Street Fighter.

Check out these screenshots:In the Guile stage you can see they've added the two missing characters, a girl and guy on the left side. The background has been darkened, the shading on the jet completely reworked, and people in the background now have accurate skin tones.

The most obvious change to the Ryu stage is the addition of the moon, taken from the arcade version. The only home version to originally feature the moon was the MegaDrive/Genesis. The colours have been heavily tweaked: the wooden planks are less garish, the background tiles less green. The sky's shading has been changed, and the small building in the background has more detail, visible because of a palette change.

Vdigi VDW2 Wii VGA Cable Review

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 23:51:00 +0900

Ahh, yes! Ever since the heady days of the Dreamcast, I've longed for that pixel perfect display that Sega's VGA box delivered. I've tried many tricks and products - some that I'm not proud of, but the relentless pursuit of RGB glory continues undeterred. So how does my latest attempt to dodge the $300+ XRGB converter line fair? Let's find out!

The Vdigi VDW2 arrived from Hong Kong in a simple plastic bag nestled inside of a bubble wrap padded envelope. No box or instructions? Wait! Look closer and you'll find the box and instructions flat-pack style next to the cable. Very cool packaging, truth be told. Simple but sharp. No gaudy colors or hacky pseudo-game/anime graphics. If I had a game shop, I'd stock it.

At any rate, on to the product. The cable itself has the density of a high quality power cord. That is to say, it's thick, sturdy and makes me feel like I could tow a car with it. The VGA connection point itself is sturdy and appears to be shielded. A nice feature of the cable is the green RCA cable you see dangling in the picture. If your Wii isn't already set up for 480p, you can use this part of the cable to hook it up to a TV (HD or otherwise) and make the necessary adjustment. Very clever.

The main two test beds I used were No More Heroes (because I remain highly enamored with it) and, the true test, Guilty Gear XX Accent Core.

If you want a gold standard for testing a video cable - look no further than a high res 2D game. And since GGXXAC is currently the highest res 2D game I own... the Vdigi will live or die by her.

Both the Wii interface and No More Heroes showed a marked improvement over the component>VGA box I was using previously.

There was less dot crawl and blurring that I could see. The overhead map was much sharper and I could find treasures and Lovikov balls without straining my eyes. There was a general overall improvement to the visuals of the game, granted NMH is not an eye candy fest, so I was mostly looking to see if the game appeared better in a qualitative sense. In that regard, the VD W2 did quite well.

Onto Daisuke Ishiwatari's masterpiece Guilty Gear! Getting reaaaallly close to the monitor and focusing on the edges of the graphics I was very happy with the results. All of the pixels were sharp and clear, colors were solid and uniform... all in all a very nice picture. The only reason I can nitpick is to say it doesn't have that same humming razor sharp edges that the Dreamcast VGA or an arcade monitor has. That said, I'm fairly happy with what I know is a component to VGA conversion. So happy, in fact, that if a true VGA cable is released that the pricing on that peripheral would determine when/if I were to swap it for my VD W2.

The Vdigi VD W2 is not a cheap piece of cable, but with shipping it should only set you back $50 or so (which is about what the official GameCube component cables originally cost). Overall the cable seems to be well worth the purchase price. Longevity of the product and how well it stands up to use is yet to be seen, but based on the solid construction (it really is a thick cable), I think things will turn out alright.

Interview with Henk Nieborg

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 21:07:00 +0900

Near the end of 2005 I interviewed Henk Nieborg, one of the greatest pixel artists around. He's been pixelling since the earliest days of the C64, and he's still going strong today - he recently completed all the backgrounds and boss art for Konami's recent DS release, Contra 4. The interview was printed in my book (Amazon.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.com), and is reproduced in its entirety below. I've also included a couple of bonus quotes that didn't make the book. Please enjoy!

Henk Nieborg has been pushing pixels for a very long time, since before mice left the lab and before colour palettes needed two hands to be counted. Back in 1985 Henk could be found "pixeling with my joystick on a black and white TV". Since he couldn't afford his own colour TV, Henk would memorize the Commodore 64 colour palette, draw the images in black and white, then check them on the colour TV in the living room. He used to make pixel art in the early days with Koala Paint and a suzo joystick.

Henk has been the principle artist on many games, all featuring a distinct style, with incredibly lush backgrounds and very detailed sprites. From the very first efforts with the Commodore 64, to his first commercial release on the Commodore Amiga, Henk constantly worked to improve his skill and the results are unparalleled.

Ghost Battle (Amiga)

Ghost Battle was the first published game for Henk, and it garnered considerable praise. It also landed him a full time job with Thalion, an intensely popular but short lived German publisher of computer games. His next game was Lionheart, a game which sold well considering its platform, but not well enough to keep Henk employed with Thalion who, like most publishers of the day, peaked early and soon folded.

Misadventures of Flink (MegaDrive)

The Misadventures of Flink was next, released for the MegaDrive and MegaCD. It featured some of the most impressive graphics ever released for the MegaDrive, with backgrounds and sprites that did astonishing things with the relatively muted palette offered by the hardware. Flink looked great but was released too late in the MegaDrive's life. It wasn't supported well by its publisher and it achieved unremarkable sales.

Lomax mockup (Playstation)

It did, however, land Henk another game deal: Adventures of Lomax. Released by Psygnosis for the Sony Playstation, Lomax was continuing a trend for Henk - games released on platforms that were no longer appropriate targets. When Lomax came out Sony had convinced the world that polygons were the future, sprites were old fashioned, and so Lomax didn't sell well either. The gaming press more or less overlooked this pixel relic released in a bold new polygon world.

Atlantis (GameBoy)

Harry Potter (GameBoy Advance)

Henk shifted his focus to the portables, which continue to be the last place to find significant amounts of pixel art. First with Disney's Atlantis for the GameBoy Color, and later with Harry Potter for the GameBoy Advance, Henk's pixel prowess finally found an appreciative audience. And from there? When he's not pixelling Henk can be found working on textures for 3D games like Harry Potter and Batman Begins. Currently he's working on a new game, a big release for the Playstation 2 and PSP that is, so far, a closely guarded secret.

Henk Speaks:

When developing Flink, Henk describes the process. "I Think there were a few reasons I started drawing everything on a black background, not just on the MegaDrive. First, back in those days I drew most of my gfx on a black background, I just liked that. You could get away with a lot of stuff by fading it into darkness. It's also quite handy when you're dealing with systems like the MegaDrive which didn't give you much memory to play with. I also prefer to draw to blackness because the contrast on the megadrive system was insane, if i would have anti-aliased everything to white i would have probably gone blind."

Asked about the popularity and future of pixels, Henk remains philosphical about their relative unpopularity. "Pixel games being on the big screen could work both ways. More exposure means a bigger market which in my opinion kills a lot of the creativity. Just look around at what happening now with the big game industry. Keeping it small and special means people will appreciate it even more."

Unused Mobile Phone Graphics

Regarding pixel art's resurgence, with portable games and even outside of gaming, Henk thinks "Pixeling is almost regarded as a real art and i think it really deserves it. There will always be pixels one way or another, profitable or not. You still need pixel skills for mobile phone, GBA and Nintendo DS games. Even on next-gen platforms pixel skills are suitable for HUD and icon gfx."

On portables: Most portable gaming is nothing more than a portable version of a console that was already very succesful a couple of years ago in another form. For instance the GBA had a lot in common with the SNES, and the PSP is actually a heavily modified PS1. But still, they're all great platforms with huge potential but no one really took the opportunity to make something really nice on it.

On mobiles: First, I'm really happy with mobile phone game development because it opens up a lot of opportunities again for pixel artists like me. The quality of mobile phone games is getting better and better but there's still a lot of mediocre stuff around. This is also a good development because there might be new talent out there struggling to get into the gaming scene.

Unused Mobile Phone Graphics

I've emailed Henk for his permission to post this interview, and he's graciously given it. He's also agreed to take my abuse for a second set of questions, so I hope to talk to him about the last two years and his recent work on the DS release of Contra 4.

In addition, here are a few choice quotes that didn't make the book:

Regarding Flink
I do still remember because it was a hell of a lot of fun to do that game.
Flink had 12 to 16 frames per animation. I drew one or two of them per day.
I think all of them were done in two weeks time. Yes, I didn't get much
sleep back then. No pay and no sleep, Good old days! ;)

Time to complete one Flink level
A single tileset for the fore- and background took me approx. two to three weeks to pixel. Damn was i slow back then!

Famicom Disk System Manual

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 16:37:00 +0900

It's a sad truth that modern manuals don't encourage consumers to learn technical things about the stuff they buy. Back in the day if you bought a home computer it'd have a descirption of every connector, a copy of basic and a brief programming guide. Now you're lucky if there's room to describe the power switch after fifteen pages of epilepsy warnings and fancy icons telling you not to leave your expensive hardware outside in the snow.

The good old days, then.

When Nintendo released their Famicom Disk System they included with every unit two manuals: One with an adult-oriented description of the system, its functionality and so on. They also included a kid-friendly comic that detailed not only how the system should be used and the things you shouldn't do, but also the inner workings of the device. Included were cutaway drawings, explanations of magnetic media, troubleshooting advice, flying space aliens with tails and the obligatory hot foreign woman to ensure the reader was paying attention.

Naturally we couldn't let a gem like this languish in Japanese. We've translated the book and created an English Famicom Disk System Guide. Please, enjoy.

A Short Crysis Review

Sat, 24 Nov 2007 18:45:00 +0900

Far Cry was awesome, totally cool, with a wicked setting and solid game beneath the unparalleled graphics. Crysis is the sequel, the game that many people - myself included - had firmly in mind when building a new PC not long ago. Read on for my review... And please, beware of spoilers!I really loved Far Cry. Sneaking around in realistic vegetation was damnably cool, and the tropical island setting was unique and well done. It fell apart at the end, and I've never completed it 'cause somehow I've saved with like five shots left and I'm in a dark lab full of things that want to annihilate me. By the time I got that far I'd had a great time and watched as the game became less and less linear. At the start I had free reign - I could go where I wanted and get things done the way I wanted, but by the end there was only one path.

Crysis, as a sequel to Far Cry, beats it in nearly every way. Visually it's far and away the better game, with graphics that punish my 2-month-old PC so hard it runs a few degrees hotter than it does when idle. That's hot indeed!

This time around you're a US special forces something or other in a 'nano suit' that gives you superhuman strength, speed, armour or cloaking. You can choose one at a time and, like Half Life, you've got a limited time to use 'em while the battery runs out, at which time you've got to shut it off and recharge.

Running around the island bush is dreadfully fun: the graphics are unmatched by any other game yet released, and it's not at all hard to imagine you're really wandering around in the scrub and grass hiding from nasty men with big guns.

If this were a standard review I'd probably talk about the relatively decent voice acting, convincing physics and solid sound. Instead I'm going to cover two things:

1. Playing Crysis is pure bliss. It looks amazing, and the controls are easily grasped and your character in the game does exactly what you want him to. The first three quarters of the game are nearly perfect.

2. The last quarter falls apart more than Far Cry did. You get no more choices: you do what you're told, and if you don't someone will shut off your suit or tell you over and over what you should be doing instead of the more-fun thing you're actually doing.

During the last boss battles I had the crap annoyed out of me by teammates who would repeat the same orders over and over regardless of what I was doing. "You must shoot the cannons!" as I'm shooting the cannons. "Use the special weapon!" which I didn't actually possess. I was several times exhorted to do something while I was lying on the ground, very much dead. The final level scripting is draconian and inflexible, a marked contrast to the unrestrained bliss of the rest of the game.

Have I mentioned how good it looks? It's fucking brilliant.

Most of the game was worth the cost of admission. The last level annoyed me so much I sold the game to a friend 12 hours after I beat it. The distaste was too strong in my mouth to keep it.

I tried multiplayer once, on a level so large that the three of us playing never once saw one another. Screw that, I'll stick with Unreal Tournament.

Taito's Command War

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 15:18:00 +0900

There wasn't much to see in Taito's unreleased prototype arcade game Command War. Even the cleavage wasn't particularly special, but hey, it's unreleased, right? So it's special.

Yukekobo's Blazing Star

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 15:07:00 +0900

Blazing Star was a score-attack shooter from Yumekobo. The game itself is an awkard mix of pre-rendered crap and hand-drawn pixel fabulousness, but the intro is all gold. I mean, a space shooter with cleavage! How can you go wrong?

Allumer's Blandia

Fri, 28 Sep 2007 14:52:00 +0900

This completely unremarkable arcade fighter was released in 1992 by Allumer, a completely unremarkable game developer. The graphics were boring, the game was weak, and except for the title-page boobies, it does not really merit remembering.

Razorsoft's Stormlord - part 1

Fri, 21 Sep 2007 14:10:00 +0900

Back in the day it was not uncommon for 16-bit consoles to get ports of 16-bit computer games. The Amiga computer was an especially popular source, as the low cost of entry and similar architecture made it easy for artists and programmers to prove their skills. Hewson's Amiga hit Stormlord was ported to the MegaDrive / Genesis by Razorsoft, but on the way all the fairies in the game somehow ended up clothed.

Naughty Dog's Rings of Power

Fri, 14 Sep 2007 13:29:00 +0900

Back in the 16-bit days every game for release on a console had to pass a stringent quality inspection. Everything was scrutinized before being allowed to enter production, presumably to prevent things just like this. Naughty Dog was a developer that managed to sneak a topless chick past Sega's quality control team. The MegaDrive / Genesis game Rings of Power would, if you punched in a code during the startup logo, show the Naughty Dog girl without her shirt.

Xpand Rally - A Brief Review

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 08:34:00 +0900

It's a little known secret that I love racing games. Not just any kind of racer though, but the rare breed that strikes a balance between simulation and arcade action. Tokyo Xtreme Racer and Sega Rally for the Dreamcast are two examples. Race, upgrade, race some more. Realistic as I want it to be, with consequences for driving off the road but not so real that I get bogged down in minutae.

The other day, while casting about for something to play, I stumbled across Xpand Rally for the PC, available on Steam for $9.95.

What a bargain. (Read on for screenshots and details!)It's a rock-solid arcade rally game with some great maps and a fun career mode. You start off with a tiny front-wheel-drive Eurocar and, as you start coming to grips with the action, you can start making some significant improvements to the engine, turbo, transmission, suspension, body, etc etc. Racing is as easy as selecting an appropriate ride height, putting the right wheels on and hitting the circuit.

It's a lot like a console game, with a friendly game pad and no need for any complicated keyboard commands.

There are a vew caveats, but none so serious they take away from the joy of this ten dollar game. Techland, the game's developer, has created a fun game with a solid engine and lots of expandability. You can make your own maps, with the included 3D track editor. It's messy and complicated like any 3D modelling, so I won't mess with it, but the tools are there. And despite not having any licensed cars, Xpand Rally allows you to import new models and cars and get the licensed cars of your dreams into the game.

The game doesn't annoy you with in-game music, the engine sounds are not as grating as many other games, and the visual effects are restrained but enjoyable. There's a thriving community forum over on the Xpand Rally site, I think. Most of the links are broken and the forum is completely hosed.

Sega 7-disc Hotel Saturn

Sat, 01 Sep 2007 07:48:00 +0900

This one seems to have been lost, I don't know why but no links were found to the page from ... well, anywhere!

So here's an oldie but a goodie: The Sun-Seibu Hotel Saturn 7-game changer!!

Another Site Redesign

Sun, 26 Aug 2007 22:18:00 +0900

I just can't help myself some days. In lieu of actual content, here's another new look. I'm very pleased with the way this turned out. Still a few parts to fix, individual article pages are still broken, but the hard part's done.

Here's the intro from Zoom's Phalanx for X68000. This GIF is made from 153 sequential images, captured using animget. The timing is off, I had to adjust the delay for each frame by hand, but it's pretty close.

Banned in China!

Fri, 11 May 2007 08:59:00 +0900

Add this one to the list of quality-assured awards for NFG Games: Banned in China!

At least, according to the Great Firewall of China tester.

[update] It turns out the GWoC tester doesn't work very well. This site remains accessible to users within China. for now...

Parkour

Sun, 15 Apr 2007 07:20:00 +0900

Every Saturday is parkour day. They get to practice their moves, and I get to practice my photography. It's a good situation, at the end of every jam they've got a record of their activities and I've got some more experience to work with.

Today's jam was a short one. I foolishly made plans for the early afternoon and had to bail early. Not many pics as a result, but you can check out the full day's gallery.

This is an average shot made better by great lighting. I really like the sky and clouds in the background:

Australian Sunset

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 20:48:00 +0900

Just a quick photo for ya.

A new toy

Mon, 09 Apr 2007 09:03:00 +0900

I was in Japan last week and while I had a fantastic time I didn't find much to buy. A man can only eat so many メロンパン or メロンソーダ, ya know? I bought a couple of cheap trinkets for the camera, but was otherwise prepared to go home with total expenditures of less than two hunnerd bucks.

So I bought something ridiculous.

Click for larger

That's right kids, a Konami Beatmania IIDX Arcade controller, for PS2. What a behemoth it is, a real monster. It very nearly caused me to go overweight with my luggage, but the kind girls at the JAL counter didn't give me any flack. Or, thankfully, that 'wtf, what a geek' look.

Now I just need a game to play with the bloody thing. I tried to burn one, but my slimPS2 won't touch it. Looks like I'm stuck with legit software, which wouldn't bother me except that, well, the controller itself cost as much as pretty much the whole IIDX library. =/

PC Engine Modem - Unveiled!

Mon, 09 Apr 2007 07:19:00 +0900

According to one Japanese source the PCE Modem, or Tsushin Booster, was released as a prototype to 20-30 PC Engine groups or fans, for monitored testing. After this, up to 100 'final' units were produced before NEC pulled the plug and ordered them destroyed. The 20-30 early units were not recalled, and some of the 100 final units were spared, so with a run of anywhere between 30 and 130, the booster is possibly the rarest production PCE accessory.

Chris Covell has managed to find a PC Engine modem in Japan. He won't say what he paid for it, but it was almost certainly a vast blow to his wallet. It was, however, a blow he took for all of us: he's posted the details for everyone to enjoy. Everything's up there: a look at the software, the documentation, and the hardware itself.

Surprisingly it's a 300-1200 baud device, which at the time (early 1990s) was beyond slow. By this time in the real world 14.4k modems were available, more than ten times faster. Normal modems, however, didn't come with groovy sprite editing software. On the other hand, with a PC and a normal modem you had a keyboard. Programming and communicating with a PC Engine pad was probably not fun for very long. For reference, here's an old PC Engine Yahoo auction I saved.

[UPDATE] An anonymous donor has offered up the Tsushin Tool ROM for download. Grab your own copy!

So I'm back in Japan!

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 10:32:00 +0900

I love it here. Screw australia. Consider the two 7-11 breakfasts:

Australia:
Sausage Roll
Coke
Cost: $6.60

Japan:
Koala March chocolate snacks
Fanta Melon Soda
Vanilla Cream Crepe Roll
Indo-Chicken-Curry steamed bread
Georgia European iced coffee
Cost: 609円 ($6.37 AUD)

Twice as much stuff, twice as good, the same price!? I ran into a very friendly Japanese couple returning from an Australian honeymoon, and even they were shocked to find Australia so expensive. I mean, come on, when the Japanese think your prices are high you're doing something wrong!!

Australians are so laid-back and easy-going that they just sit there and take it too, which is infuriating. Their normal response to complaints is "if you don't like it, leave." That's right, it's not just americans who say that.

Here's a clue, Australia: if you don't demand change, nothing changes. You're getting screwed, stop accepting it.

Anyway, back to Japan. You can't get pepsi here anymore, except for Pepsi Max (Called Pepsi Nex here for reasons I don't begin to understand). You can't get RedBull here either, I guess their big roll-out last April didn't go so well.

Lots of things have changed, lots of things are exactly the same. New businesses here and there, my favourite Joyful Honda has expanded again, now they're roughly 6x larger than they were when I moved here in 2000. One store with practically everything you need for your house. It's amazing.

The people here are friendly. I'm finding that thanks to my newly rediscovered confidence in my abilities (Thanks Australia for making me feel awesome) I'm more willing to try out some Japanese on the people who remember me. The guy at Family Mart and the lovely couple at 7-11 both smiled when they saw me and we had good conversations.

I really dunno if I could live here, the things that used to piss me off still do, but... Where's better? I like Australia, I like my friends and my car and the people, I can't stand the prices and the 3rd-world shopping.

Ah well. More updates soon!

XCM Component to VGA Review

Wed, 21 Feb 2007 12:57:00 +0900

It's astounding as time goes on that popular products, such as the XRGB line, become harder and harder to find. Even older versions. People are wising up to the beautiful picture one can get with a fine upscaling device. The days of the universal composite to VGA converter are happily coming to an end as more and more devices are transcoding component into three colors and some syncs. The question remains, though, pound for pound and dollar for dollar - what's your best investment?Ah, the eternal question: Can something that's $40 treat me as good as something that is $400? Answer: No. Full stop. You think it can, close your web browser and go enjoy the world with your sweet, sweet ignorance. How I envy you...

For everyone else, this question becomes: Is something that's $40 even worth purchasing? Let's find out, shall we!?

The XCM Universal Ypbpr VGA Box.

My reason behind this purchase is very simple. Carrying a long time desire to emulate the wonderful experience of a Dreamcast on a VGA CRT, I seized the opportunity to purchase not only a VGA box, but a component cable for my Nintendo Wii and my non-existent 360 and PS3's. At a retail price of about $40-$50, that makes it a pretty easy pill to swallow if you think of it as $25 for a box and cable. Never the less, even with my frugality and ability to divide by 2... I'm left a little disappointed.

For starters, unlike the XRGB line or even the low-cost component adapter the X2VGA the XCM box does NOT support progressive scan. Now, bearing that in mind... and I didn't before I bought it, foolishly assuming that it would support 480p, any real testing of this box is irrelevant. The colors are good - I guess. The contrast is okay - I guess. The colors don't bleed - I guess. The picture seems clear - although with the interlacing, you've seen much sharper edges. It's almost like it has dot-crawl!

So with that in mind, it makes it really hard for me to review this sucker. At the very least I expected some well defined pixels, and I'm just not gonna get 'em. Whether it's the fault of the box or not can easily be debated.

At the end of the day, I purchased it so I could take my Wii into the office for lunchtime goodtime. And the XCM delivers that promise with a (pro-rated for the cost of a component cable) of about $29 bucks. It's certainly better than any picture you'll get from composite and at least as good as S-Video on a standard set...

So if you're in the market for one or more component cables and have very low expectations... it's not a bad product. It does what it's designed to do - I just wish it was designed to do more. If you have component cables, pass it and pick up a VGA box that's specifically designed to do progressive scan, because 480i is for the birds. When all is said and done, I'm still going to have to buy an XRGB... but the XCM is a passable stop-gap until the time I bite the $400 bullet and never look back.

An interesting day.

Wed, 31 Jan 2007 10:59:00 +0900

Recently someone told me I was not updating this page often enough. Well Mr. Fodder, this one's for you.

Today I received my new fisheye lens. preliminary results lead me to believe it was $500 USD spent very well indeed.

Today Hudson USA emailed me about my book, asking if they could feature it on their site in exchange for a few copies of it. I guess they're too cheap to buy one, but still, Hudson knows I exist!! That's pretty cool.

Yesterday in the early evening my screaming neighbors were screaming again. Unusually this time they were in front of my place screaming bloody murder at the people across the street. I dunno what happened, there were plenty of half-intelligble accusations flung about, but while I had the camera ready they never came to blows. These were adults with grade-school-aged children, brandishing at least one stick and generally just freaking the fuck out at each other.

In other news, apparently we are now old.

Sonic the Hedgehog Sprite History

Tue, 02 Jan 2007 22:27:00 +0900

A large part of my book was sprite history analysis. I've been posting segments from the book here, and the newest one is now available:

Sonic Sprite History.

Please have a look if that's the sort of thing you like. Also, if you haven't already, check out the Castlevania Sprites and the original History of Mario Sprites.

New Japanese gaming ads

Sun, 31 Dec 2006 08:44:00 +0900

I have a weird interest in Japanese commercials, and not those 'zOMFG how funny!' ones that seem totally otherworldly, but normal, every-day commercials. They're fascinating to me because of their differences from what I'm used to in Canadian (and to a lesser extend, Australian) ads. I think they're a fascinating insight into a different culture.

So I record them. I've got over 300 on my server in Japan for everyone to enjoy (if you're into that) but the reason I bring it up here is a recent crop of game ads I recorded.

These are perhaps less interesting culturally, but they're about games so... here they are!

Pink PSP
New PSP Colours
Secret of Mana 4
DS Cooking Generations
DS Chocobo
PS2 Gundam S
Wii Kororinpa
DS DragonQuest
DS Card Fighters

There are over 300 more available!*44 more!
17 good ones!
12 over here!
39 more ads!
11 ads zOMFG!

And finally, here are over a hundred more J-Commercials!

* Never mind that there are only 200 linked from this page, there are 300+ on the server. ...I should really fix link the other 100!

USB Cell + Wiimote Review

Wed, 27 Dec 2006 13:50:00 +0900

The ultimate in geek batteries, USB powered AA cells, meets the Nintendo Wiimote head on.If you haven't had a chance to check out USB Cell Batteries then take a second to have a look. Essentially they're rechargeable batteries that you can plug into a standard NiMH charger or a free USB port. They run a little light at 1300mah and a little pricey at $20 for a two pack, but can't be beat for the cool factor. I received 4 of them as presents, so I'm pleased as punch at my out of pocket cost.

Operation is simple, plug it into any powered USB port and the battery will glow green while charging, will flash at 90% and will stop flashing when filled. Directions say batteries take 5 hours to charge but personal experience makes it seem more like 2-3. Like every other battery on the planet, usage will vary depending on device.

I tested one set out on Madden 07 for the Wii. It utilizes both the accelerometer and pointer functions, so it'll drain the batteries as fast as possible. After about 5.5 hours of gameplay I still have 2 bars remaining on my Wiimote (assuming 5 bars = 100%, I should have about 40% remaining). We could probably roughly extrapolate the numbers to about 10 hours of average usage, 7 of power intense usage. Just about what you'd expect from a good set of batteries.

Now, top that off with the fact that you can easily recharge overnight in any USB port and you have, basically, all of your battery troubles cleared up. What's that you say? There's USB ports on the Wii? Right you are! However, the batteries are just a little too big to fit both in there. A trip to the neighborhood $1 store nets you USB extension cords and now you have a Wii that will charge Wiimote batteries.

The only real problems are the price. 4 sets of batteries will cost you $80, which is a tough hit to take considering you can buy a mountain of standard rechargeable batteries for the same amount. Top that off with not always having 8 free USB ports, might make you have to go pick up a USB hub for another $20. So is $100 worth not having to buy batteries for your Wiimote ever (hopefully) again? Not the optimal solution, but a very cool one. Hopefully USB cells will be dropping in price soon so they can compete as a best option. Still, being able to charge Wiimote batteries wherever you are with the system (friend's house, vacation, etc) without having to drag along a battery charger is a fantastic thing. For now, only technophiles need apply.

Alien Crush Re-Review

Sat, 16 Dec 2006 10:54:00 +0900

The Turbo Grafx 16 classic revived on the Wii's Virtual Console. It seems awful stupid to be reviewing a game that is over 16 years old - I mean, what could I possibly say that you can't find with a quick Google search? Good question. Only one way to find out...Earlier this week, gamers who pay close attention to this sorta thing were shocked at the release of the venerable Alien Crush on Nintendo's Virtual Console. The reasons for this shock are varied. First and foremost, Alien Crush marks the second pinball title released on the VC in under 1 month of existence. Pinball the NES classic was the first. Personally I'd never have guessed there'd be two pinball titles on the VC period, let alone this quickly. The second part that was shocking (that a TG-16 or video pinball fan could tell you0 is that Alien Crush is one of the better video pin titles around. So to see such wisdom at chosing this title for release this early was a lot for someone like me to handle.

But after having some play time with the game everything that would be expected is true:

1) The title is emulated to perfection. For good or for bad, all of the VC titles play exactly like they do on thier authentic hardware.
2) The game remains an easy to play but challenging to master title. The physics are passable, and certainly good for a game of its era. The ball moves quickly but it's possible to get a good amount of play time every time. All very important factors to good video pinball.
3) The graphics of the game are fair but age has caught up with Alien Crush. It's certainly better looking than NES Pinball, but NES Pinball is so basic and antiquated that it's almost stylish now.

So it's pretty much the game that everyone out there says it to be. You can assume that any review you read for the TG-16 version will hold equally as true for the VC version. Which is a good thing since most review it favorably. Personally, I feel that this is an excellent example of the price of a VC game being reasonable. While any schmo can find a copy of NES Ice Hockey for $1 at n - where n is any random flea market, thrift store or garage sale - Alien Crush nets about $10 on eBay and something similar in your higher end game stores which carry retro systems. Top that off with a good TG-16 running anywhere from $40-$200 (depending on make, model, condition and your location) and it's easy to see why the VC version is a great solution for anyone interested in picking up a little intergalactic Geiger-esque pinball.

So how do you review a 16 year old game? Let people know it's as good as the original and well worth the purchase. See?

Nectaris on Wii VC

Thu, 14 Dec 2006 11:52:00 +0900

NFG's Patron Saint of Strategy Games, Military Madness, hits stateside next week.

Audible waves of angst from Australia expected to coincide.According to a barely cryptic message on the Hudson forums, Wii owners will soon be blessed with Nectaris on the Virtual Console. While many, myself included, hold the cost of the Virtual Console games to be overpriced - $6 is a very reasonable sum for one of the best strategy games around. This marks the second week in a row where the TG-16 title has been a well chosen fan favorite, previous selection is the pinball classic Alien Crush.

At this current rate it seems the console getting the most proper attention is the TG-16 and exciting times are ahead.

Nintendo Wii: Kororinpa Review

Sun, 10 Dec 2006 10:37:00 +0900

One game that gets too little press in the Wii's launch lineup is the Japan-only release of Kororinpa from Hudson.

Bottom line: It's a great 3D Cameltry. Read the Review.

Send Anonymous Email To My Wii

Thu, 23 Nov 2006 15:18:00 +0900

Wiimail at you!While the Wii is in its infancy, people sending cute little messages to one another is still a good deal of fun. The only problem is the hoops that Nintendo makes you jump through in order to communicate with other people (registering each other's "friend code" or email registration). So as an experiment, I've set up a webpage where you can send my own personal Wii a message anonymously and - obviously - without the need for a Wii yourself.

Blaine's Wiimail

Check it out. I'll be posting any particularly interesting or amusing missives I receive.

Castlevania Sprites!

Fri, 17 Nov 2006 07:07:00 +0900

As some of you might remember, after writing my Mario Sprites article I was given the opportunity to write a book focusing on video game sprites. Included in the book were several game sprite histories like the Mario one. One of them is Castlevania.

I've put it online, along with some updates and what I hope are slightly better captions describing the sprite sources. Included is every pre-DS 2D castlevania main character released from 1986 to 2003. They're divided into six distinct groups, more or less divided by hardware era. In addition there are the ugly-vanias, the ports to platforms that might better have been left ignored.

Please have a look!

Published again!

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 19:45:00 +0900

Acclaim magazine has run a short article on parkour, and have used a couple of my pictures:

Larger versions of those two pics are here:
Top image
Bottom Image

Woo, etc!

Sadly the cover's not mine.

Blowing power supplies

Sun, 05 Nov 2006 09:06:00 +0900

I've been working on my JAMMA gear here at home, trying to make my arcade games run on my TV. After a couple of weeks fucking around with joysticks and RGB cables I finally got things working, more or less.

I've got a weird problem with the TV, the image skips and rolls frequently, enough to be annoying but not enough to prevent play. I tried everything to fix it, and as a last resort I decided to try ANOTHER power supply (this being the third).

When I was in Japan I picked up a surplus PC power supply unit (PSU) and I pulled it out of storage, and checked it out. 50/60Hz (good), 100V & 240V (good). I plugged it in and turned it on and BAM, smell of smoke and asplodey bits.

Turns out the 100V/200V switch was hidden under a metal mounting plate, and I fried it before ever getting to try it out.

Trials and Tribulations

Thu, 26 Oct 2006 09:15:00 +0900

The other day I had a hankering for some Street Fighter.

I don't actually have Street Fighter for any consoles, so my options were limited to emulation or dragging out some arcade gear and playing it for reals. I decided on the latter - emulation doesn't compare to the real thing, and after all, I'm hardcore.

And by hardcore I mean stupid. Read on...When I moved from Japan to Australia, I brought more than 50 large boxes of games, consoles and controllers with me. It's a ludicrous amount of stuff, and though it pleases me to have it all, it's a massive pain in the ass to actually dig out anything when I want to use it. One room of our house is devoted to storing this stuff, and there are still some 40 unpacked boxes in there. All I wanted to do was play Street Fighter, right? Easy!

I knew exactly where my CPS Changer was, so I busted it out quickly. So far so good.

It took me a lot longer to find my CPSC copy of Street Fighter Zero. It was in a dark, unused corner of the room. One hour gone.

Now, where's my Capcom Power Stick? Oh, yeah, here it is. (Another half hour goes by)

And now, finally, I put it all together. PCB box, add fingerboard, dig out Svideo cable, power, joystick, turn on the TV...

Huh, the screen skips and rolls every ten seconds or so. Dang. WTF, it makes it really hard to hadoken someone's ass when the TV scrambles your view! And lo! The A button doesn't work. No weak punch for me.

Cue another hour's fiddling while I take apart the stick, open up the PCB case, clean all the contacts, reassemble... Still doesn't work. Fuckit, I'm going to bed.

Next day I have a revelation - the fingerboard on the CPS Changer has a notch in it, like all good JAMMA PCBs should, but there's no key in the female plug, so I've installed it backwards. The notch is on the A button's pin, so that's solved.

But... Street Fighter Zero really sucks. And the screen still rolls.

So for whatever reason, it seemed a good idea at the time, I dragged out some CPS2 games - Super Street Fighter 2 and Vampire Savior. I took apart the CPS Changer and plugged it in to the CPS2 board (It won't normally fit). Then I remember - oh yeah, the CPS2 uses an extra connector for the kick buttons. Sooo... I can only punch. And if I accidentally press hard-kick, the game resets.

And the screen still rolls.

So I go hunting for the crappy JAMMA adaptor I made in Japan out of spare parts. Another hour gone as I locate the power supply, harness and joystick.

It's midnight, and I've gotta work in the morning. I still haven't played anything for more than 2 minutes. Screw this, I'm going to bed.

Emulation's looking better all the time.

You're all wrong.

Sun, 22 Oct 2006 19:48:00 +0900

It's been bugging me for a while. I see it most on sites written by people who can't write, but sometimes I'll see it on sites mixed in with words from people who can and it surprises me. Recently someone I know did it, and I gave him shit for it. He demanded I prove to him it was wrong, and so I set out to do exactly that.

couple things versus couple of things

I maintain that 'couple things' is just plain wrong. If you omit the OF you're doing it wrong.

Searching google for things like this is maddeningly difficult. Eventually I tried dictionary.com to see what they could offer, and found the following two Usage Notes:

--Usage Note: The shortened phrase a couple, without OF (The gas station is a couple miles from here), is an Americanism of recent development that occurs chiefly in informal speech or representations of speech. (Random House Unabridged Dictionary) (Bold emphasis mine)

--Usage Note: The of in the phrase a couple of is often dropped in speech, but this omission is usually considered a mistake, especially in formal contexts. Three-fourths of the Usage Panel finds the sentence I read a couple books over vacation to be unacceptable; however, another 20% of the Panel finds the sentence to be acceptable in informal speech and writing. (The American Heritage® Dictionary)

Basically it's about as gramatically correct as ain't.

I've talked about this before in a hilarious comic.

That is all, carry on.

DS University #1: Cooking Mama DS Review

Wed, 18 Oct 2006 07:56:00 +0900

The avenues of education are various. Some people are Book Smart, some are Street Smart, some are a delightful combination of both. Unfortunately, any manner of smart person is sometimes hard to find. We here at NFGgames.com would like to present you with a new, bester type of smarty - Video Game Smart. Welcome to DS University...

DS University is the tongue-in-cheek motif for my next set of game reviews. DSU will show you everything you can learn from the great variety of vocationally themed DS games. The first course (pun) is Culinary Arts, courtesy of Cooking Mama.

The subject matter found in Cooking Mama is rarely seen in games outside of Japan. While titles based on culinary prowess and restaurant ownership are typical fare in Akihabara, video games about chopping onions aren't going to be clogging the shelves of neighborhood retailers in the West. This alone makes Cooking Mama stand out. Combine that with equal parts clever mini-games and ginsu-sharp controls and you'll find yourself dining on a delicious and affordable game - albeit one that may leave you hungry in a few hours.

Cooking Mama is bundle of cooking based mini-games. You'll do everything from peeling potatos, slicing beef, grating raddish, chopping carrots to deep frying dumplings and ripping the heads off of prawns. Utilizing your stylus and microphone, you'll use your DS to prepare delectible food - served up for the grading. Every round of the game is set up like a recipie for a particular type of food. You can select which dish you want to make next.

Each portion of the recipie is broken down into a little mini-game related to making that recipie, for which you'll recieve a grade. Do well and you'll make Mama happy. Do poorly and Mama will have to clean up your mess for you. Finish each section with a high enough score and you just might win yourself a gold medal.

Complete recipies to unlock and modify new recipies, 76 total...All for the relentless task master named "Mama". And there in lies one of the main problems with Cooking Mama - there is no story. There's no objective why you're making all these dishes. Aside from the love and adoration for Mama, there's no specific reason why you should care that your octopus dumplings are a mere 70 in Mama's book. Had you some sort of rival (as japanese story tellers are wont to do) and you had to complete certain dishes at a certain score in order to defeat them, then the overall story of the game would be a more compelling reason to seek perfection. The ability to unlock even greater master recipies would have been nice too. But as it is, simply passing the test is more than enough to progress through the game. No distinction is made between a merely standard omlette and a perfectly executed burger. Top that off with no real multiplayer, there's not a lot to do after playing through once. Although, playing the game side-by-side with another person does actually make for a fun time, it doesn't really have the staying power that an official 2-player mode might offer.

You do have the ability to hone and perfect individual techniques like chopping and slicing in the Skills mode, but achieving a gold metal in all of these progressively harder mini-games might not be everyone's idea of fun.

That said the game itself plays flawlessly, while repetative none of the steps ever feel mundane. The controls are very responsive and almost to a letter, all of the minigames are fun and clever. There's a small handful of 'dummy' games like "Set The Clock To 10!" which you press a 1 and then a 0 on a digital keypad. For the most part the mini-games are clever, quick and frantic. The mini-games in Cooking Mama offer you all the fun you'd find in a Wario Ware title, with nowhere near the bizzare aftertaste (Whether that's good or bad is debatable). The gameplay is tight from top to bottom.

Graphically the game is super clean 2D graphics. Everything is bright, colorful and well animated. What little parts of the game are realtime 3D are blended almost seemlessly into the remainder of the hand drawn sprites. The title certainly doesn't push the DS to the extremes, but for my tastes 2D graphics with a high polish will always be more satisfying then barely-making it 3D. The lovingly crafted pixel art chirping along at a velvety smooth pace is pure mana for sprite lovers.

Surprisingly, one of the nicer elements of the game's presentation is Cooking Mama's sound effects. Every action you perform is accompanied by an appropriate sound bite, delivered in a crisp and clear audio. I still can't tell if the game actually uses different sounds when you're cutting different items, or if it's just my imagination. In either case, the effect is convincing and well delivered.

Musically the game is a little on the repetitive side, with a quirky snappy little soundtrack that seems to accompany everything you do.While you won't be purchasing the soundtrack anytime soon, you probably won't hate it so much as to turn it off. In the end the music is unremarkable background dressing in the best way possible. Much the same way I'd rather have finely crafted 2D graphics over average 3D, I'd much rather that if the musical score isn't going to truely enhance the project... I'd just as soon you'd keep it off in the peripherary.

Cooking Mama has a very well defined sense of style. All of the elements of presentation tie in well together. While none of them individually makes or breaks the game, they do an excellent job of supporting the title and allowing the gameplay to shine through. I'm more than a little interested in seeing how well all of these make the transition to the Wii and 3D. Clear and clean 2D is pretty easy to do on a portable LCD screen, the 3D graphics may easily wind up detracting from the title if they are a little rough around the edges. Cooking Mama doesn't have the most charisma of all the games out there, but she does have her own little groove working.

One of my favorite additions is present in the game, namely the ability to upload a demo copy of the game to someone else with a DS. While I'm sure I'm in the minority on this, I've used this function on more than one occasion with other DS games and I've used it at least once speciffically with Cooking Mama. Aside from that it's pretty much your basic packaging from the box to the manual. I'd have loved a little Mama keychain or wrist strap, but you can't ever penalize a game for not having these rare perks. Particularly for a budget title.

Which is actually one of Cooking Mama's strongest points. While you'll often notice the game get's panned for it's lack of depth, you'll also notice that more often than not people love it despite it's somewhat shallow game play. The fact that the game was released as a $19.99 title really allows it to appeal to a larger audience. In this day and age of cookie cutter game play, sometimes the only places where you'll find innovation is in the budget title realms. It's very hard to do something totally out of the ordinary and then attempt to go penny for penny with some of the big boys of gaming. Luckily, Cooking Mama never pretends to be anything it's not. It's a fantastically fun (and again, short) game and they don't attempt to drag you through the ringer for it. While many video games are sold at a $60 price point, and many DS games are sold at the $36 premium it's a lot easier to take a flyer on an out-there game idea like Cooking Mama when it's costing you less than a trip to the movie theater. This is a trend I certainly hope will continue.

It doesn't take much to get you hooked on Cooking Mama, although you might find yourself running out of game long before your appetite is satisfied.

Gameplay:

Presentation:

Product:

Buy Cooking Mama At Play-Asia.com

Recent goings on...

Tue, 17 Oct 2006 10:35:00 +0900

It's been busy times around here.

You may have noticed in a very recent post I recently took a trip to Sydney. It was the first Australian national jam for the parkour peoples. It was an interesting time, Zumi and I had no trouble navigating our way around Sydney, saw some sights, rode the pathetic monorail, people-watched for a while, slept in the park. Sydney's a lot colder than Brisbane, dunno why anyone would want to live there. Our experience with Sydney people as a whole left us feeling the entire city is populated with angry people.

The jam was fun, you can read a little more about that if you like. Check out the gallery!

Sunday Oct. 15 was Drive Day. Four of us Renault Sport drivers got together and tore up the backroads. There are some brutally awesome roads around here, and we put our vehicles to the test. Here are some pics.

I recently had some pictures published in a local 'scene' magazine put out by a chain of nightclubs. There's a scan of the two-page article right here.

I've started a new website: NFGphoto.com. So far so good.

Oh how it sucks to be me.

Fri, 29 Sep 2006 09:16:00 +0900

So we rocked up to the airport and filed into the plane like good sheep, only to find that our window seat was a dirty lie of the worst sort. What kind of bastard fills in a window??

Overclocking the PCEngine

Wed, 20 Sep 2006 06:56:00 +0900

RobIvy has thrown a faster clock into his PCEngine and, apparently, it was a success. Games run faster, but so does the sound. A marginal increase in speed reduces slowdown in some games without raising the pitch too much.

Veeery interesting!

New Super Mario Bros rant

Tue, 29 Aug 2006 23:59:00 +0900

A very good friend has written a brief NSMB rant. He says what I wanted to say and didn't get around to.

My favourite quote: "The mentality of everyone-is-a-winner might be appropriate within the confines of a preschool, however, being both an adult and a dedicated gamer, the only thing afforded by the hollow victories was apathy and cynicism". Check it out.

Australia Rocks: Part 2

Fri, 25 Aug 2006 13:07:00 +0900

So, an update.

I called Customs about the airsoft pistol they didn't want me to have. They said I couldn't import it without a permit, but in order to get a permit I needed to get a license, and for that I needed to know what category of wickedly dangerous firearm this plastic gun really was.

It's a class H, an air powered pistol.

The customs guy assured me that in order to get a license I had to have the gun pass safety testing, which it wouldn't because it's plastic. Nice work, despite being plastic it's dangerous enough to be outlawed, but because it's plastic they couldn't approve it for use. That was, he was quite firm in telling me, the end of it.

In Australia you also need a license to have ammunition. This must naturally extend to nearly weightless plastic BB pellets. Despite confiscating a bag of 2,000 pellets Customs left about 20 pellets in the box I received. "Oh," I thought. "Oh shit, I'm in possession of illegal ammunition!" So I called Customs again, and the conversation went something like this:

"I need a license for ammunition, don't I?"
"yes"
"But you left 20 of them in the box."
"Oh.. well, they're just plastic balls."
"Yeah, well, it was just a plastic GUN, and you need a license for THAT."
"Oh..."
"So do I need a license to dispose of them properly? Should I take them somewhere?"
"Well, they're... Uh..."

and I think she started to doubt my mental faculties at this point:

she says "OK look, can you send them back to us?"

That's right folks. In Australia you can't have plastic guns and you need to send plastic balls to customs for safe, licensed disposal.

UPDATE: My dad points out I probably can't send illegal ammunition through the mail.

Australia rocks.

Fri, 25 Aug 2006 09:02:00 +0900

I've been abused in the past for hating on Australia. I'd like to take this moment to write some positive words about this country. Specifically, I'd like to talk about Australia's super-happy protective gun laws.

Let's start with the backstory. Nolan sent me an airsoft gun from Korea. Customs in Australia seized it and sent me an 8-page letter detailing the reasons for seizure and the methods for claiming the gun. Bottom line, I need an import license, the same license I'd need to import a high-powered hunting rifle, to import this $5 toy plastic gun.

Australia is so eager to protect its citizens that it has classed a toy gun in the same category as real rifles. I need a license to import it, but to get that I need a license to own it, but to get that I need a REASON to own it, and to get that I have to get permission from a landowner to shoot it on his property.

Let's recap:

Someone who owns land needs to give me written permission to shoot a plastic gun on his land.
The government needs to give me a license to shoot this plastic gun on his land.
The government needs to give me a license to import this plastic gun to shoot on his land.
The government needs me to apply to get my newly licensed toy gun out of customs.

Let's be clear: It's a plastic gun. It shoots plastic pellets. It has a spring inside, it's not a high-powered maglev CO2-driven armour-piercing plastic gun. It can't pierce the skin of any normal human.

Booyah, Australia for the win!

The Death of E3 - For Better or Worse?

Fri, 11 Aug 2006 16:09:00 +0900

The death of E3 has been predicted for a while by some, but now that it's happened (And despite their claims of restructuring and refocusing it might as well be dead for most of us) the general consensus is that it was a good thing. I wonder if perhaps they're missing the point.

Larger publishers like EA were upset about the increasing costs, and businesspeople were upset about the noisy environment, which simply wasn't conducive to business discussions. Media hated the competition for game trials, and everyone hated the long lines.

Another problem was the increase in spurious admissions, people who weren't legitimate (or big-time) business pretending they were, with lots of little kids and their little websites having the time of their lives.

So they've scaled it back, quieted it down, and moved on. Or, I think, backwards.E3 is chosing to forget the spectacle, forget the public clamoring for a peek, and dull things down. I don't know if anyone really noticed, but E3 is a social event, people network and hang out, the revel in the splendor and sympathize with the failure. You can do this at the normal E3 with a couple of quick trips to the quiet zones, or booking time before and after the show. As for playing and reviewing games, you don't have to get off your ass to do that. Mail a CD or download a demo, and try it out for reals in the comfort of your office.

There is another way.

The Tokyo Game Show is a massive show in Japan that takes the E3 formula and makes it work, with a business day followed by two public days. The first day is much less crowded, considerably quieter, and much real business is accomplished. On the next two days those companies looking to impress the public pull out the stops - the volume knobs are cranked up, the crowds start to form, and the boothbabes start to really wonder if the money's worth it (yes, yes sweetheart it really is).

If anyone asked me, and I'm sure they won't, E3 has made the wrong decision. There was It seems now that CES is picking up the slack, and the Tokyo Game Show is getting bigger. E3 thinks the best idea is a show of only 5,000 attendees instead of the 60,000 it used to get. Well, I guess it's the end for E3.

Working in an Indian call center

Mon, 07 Aug 2006 16:06:00 +0900

So not long ago I had to call 3, my cellular provider. While we waited for answers I chatted up the girl who answered the phone.

The company that pays them chooses their name. Though she said her name was "Julia" she confessed that it wasn't her real name, and said it was assigned to her when she started working there. Company policy prohibits them from giving out their real names, which is unfortunate.

It's an interesting tack, giving random names (but assuredly not using the same one twice) to your employees. I can't help but wonder if that doesn't lend their job a sense of unreality, and whether it prevents them from taking the job seriously on any level. I mean, if I rocked up to work and people called me Dave all day I think I'd have to find that pretty weird.

I got a new cellphone.

Sun, 06 Aug 2006 17:33:00 +0900

So I sold my soul and picked up a new cellphone. Another two years under the heel of 3, but now I've finally got a phone I can enjoy. Why, you might ask, do I hate the old one so much? why do I now hate Motorola with a fierce passion? I'll tell you why:

If the camera was accidentally activated, it would never shut off and the battery would go dead.
while charging the screen wouldn't shut off, it was on like a fucking lighthouse in your bedroom.
there were menu items that were blank. You could highlight and select them only to see an error and get booted back to the main screen.
the camera was ass, it was so ass it would have been bested by my first digicam back in 1996. 1.3 megapixels of crap.
the memory card slot was under the battery.
the little joystick was between the 5 and 2 keys, and was never totally comfortable to use.
the battery would go dead in 24 hours even if I didn't use it.
the image viewer only used half the screen.
selecting '50%' didn't show the image at half size, it showed it at half of the half-screen size it was at. Ditto for 25%.
the digital zoom didn't enlarge the image, it cropped it, so on the phone it looked like it was zoomed in, but on the PC it was just smaller.
the little loop for a wrist-strap was so badly designed it was a lengthy ordeal to actually thread something through it.
it wouldn't auto-lock the keypad.
the alarm clock wouldn't work at all if you didn't leave the phone at the main menu.
it had a nice high-res screen, but used such a large unchangable font the extra resolution was wasted.
the phone didn't charge from USB, and the USB cable covered the power port, so if the USB cable was attached for, say, accessing the internet, the phone would quickly go dead. Use, recharge, use, recharge. Stupid.

Seriously, Motorola, this phone is fucking pathetic. You guys should be ashamed. Other companies should be using this as a case study in how badly things can go completely wrong.

Nectaris for Verizon

Fri, 04 Aug 2006 17:25:00 +0900

Forum regular Blaine has posted a review of Verizon's new cellular title, the amazing Nectaris. If you can't have Nectaris on the DS you can have it on your cellphone.

Read the review!

Story of the Blue Car

Tue, 01 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0900

This is a Renault 5 GTE. It's the last model made before the Clio and is, IMHO, a better looking car. It's all sharp edges, more agressive, less girlycar. That said it didn't go quite like a Clio, though I'd wager that it cornered nearly as well.

It was a homologation special, this. Despite the appearance it was not a GTturbo, it instead had a normally aspirated 1.7 litre engine, multiport injected, with a massive over-the-top intake. The speedo only went to 220, but I can confirm that it would easily do 190 given a straight stretch of road.

This is the only car of its kind in North America. It's nigh impossible to import a car into the US or Canada, but this particular model was brought over by an immigrant as 'personal effects'. The government-run insurance body registered it as a 1987 Renault Encore, the closest match they had for it. My father saw it on the street in vancouver a couple of times and eventually tracked down the owner, and they swapped phone numbers. A while after that, this poor guy crashed it, and couldn't afford to get parts for it. My dad swapped my mom's Renault GTA (a 2-litre sport version of the Alliance) for the GTE, and proceeded to order a massive pile of parts from Renault France.He had to go through American Motors in the USA. An old racing buddy of my dad's created several never-to-be-used-again part numbers in their system and ordered a crate full of parts; fender, hood, headlight, grille, trim, and a complete set of service manuals. When parts came in I drove four hours to Spokane Washington to pick them up and bring them back to Canada.

We finally got it back on the road, and it was the darling of our family. During one of the test drives my dad was tearing down the road about about 120 in a 50 zone, and got nailed for speeding. The cop marches up to him, furious, and yells "Do you know how fast you were... What kind of car is this?" He got off with a warning.

When times were tight the idea of selling came up, but us kids and mom talked him out of it. We'd rather suffer than lose the car, dad!

Later my dad moved back to Australia, and left the car to me. I babied it and cherished it, managing to last a whole week before crushing its tinfoil front end into the trailer hitch of a ridiculous old man who changed his mind about going while I was checking for traffic the other way. Whups. Cue another parts order (just a headlight this time) and some bodywork. A few years later I did it again, at the very same intersection, coming from another direction. Dammit dammit! New hood and fender and grille, again. It was in the body shop for six months. The insurance company wrote it off, let me keep the wreck, and gave me a cheque for enough to cover what we estimated the parts and repair costs would be. They didn't want to risk committing to fixing a weird foreign import model!

Then I moved to Japan and left the car in storage, with about 120,000km on it by this time. Eventually I tired of paying the bill and gave it to my sister. Now, five years later, it needs some TLC. Switches, some upholstry work.

When she separated from her husband part of the agreement was that she got 'the blue car'. There was no way she would part with it, even though it was undrivable.

I'm thinking about bringing it to Australia, since she can't drive it anymore. What a treat it would be!

NFG Book: The first review!

Tue, 25 Jul 2006 16:09:00 +0900

UK magazine Advanced Photoshop has reviewed the NFG book and has apparently been bribed into giving it a 5/5 rating, saying "...there's inspiration galore here for you and although it may be out of your usual book budget, it's well worth a splurge."

What were they thinking?

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that they liked the awesome stuff that Brandon wrote* and kindly ignored the tripe that I contributed.

Also, Game Set Watch mentioned it as well.

*Brandon wrote a lot of good content, and didn't get jack for it - including the proper credit!

Stupid internet.

Fri, 14 Jul 2006 22:01:00 +0900

I still don't have internet at home. My ISP has thrice requested connection at my house and thrice been told it had failed. The reason given the first two times was that I already had ADSL - the third time they got an error they'd never seen. Something about an already requested code, or something equally obtuse. They said I had to call Telstra, the national telecom monopoly.

To no one's great surprise Telstra said I had to get the ISP to take care of it, since the problem was with Telstra wholesale, who won't talk to the little people, only ISPs.

So I called the ISP back and they were disgusted that Telstra would say such a thing, and were convinced they were simply passing me off.

So I called my mobile provider, 3, and asked for their $30 monthly internet plan. 100MB for thirty bucks seems like a better deal than $4/MB, but get this - while the last guy said I could have it applied to my account in 4-24 hours, the truth of the matter was that it would only be enabled at the start of the next billing cycle, the 13th of next month. If I'd only called yesterday, the thirteenth, she said I could have had it ready that very day.

Instead I had to wait a month - A MONTH! Preposterous said I. The poor girl - Anna was the name given to her by 3 (She was not allowed to tell me her real name) - offered to see if there was anything she could do, and promised to call me back inside of two hours.

She didn't.

She called back four hours later, which would have angered me but for the fact it was 10PM, well beyond normal hours, to let me know that while they couldn't give me the internet plan until next month they'd be able to let me use the internet this month at the obscene non-plan rates, and they'd credit me next month for the amount I spend this month.

Hot damn, says I! Hot damn indeed. No massive DLs for me, but I'm online and that's what counts.

Grr, gnash whine complain

Tue, 11 Jul 2006 16:49:00 +0900

I have no internet at home. It's been almost three weeks. First it takes a week for the useless Australian monopoly that is Telstra to actually TURN OFF the ADSL at my old place, then it takes a week to confirm that yes, in fact, it's taking too damned long to turn it back on, and then a week later they say that "Oh, we tried to turn it on, but the computer said you already had ADSL from a different provider."

What the hell.

Seriously. It's NOT THIS HARD. Assholes, I want my internet back!

I can't fit enough porn on my 256MB USB-key at work to make the effort worthwhile.

Sharp X-1 Twin Disassembly

Tue, 04 Jul 2006 09:14:00 +0900

The Sharp X-1 Twin was a weird combination unit, featuring the X-1 computer (a Z80-based precursor to the X68000) and an integrated PC Engine. I use the term integrated loosely, the two systems shared the same shell, but little else. It's more like an Amstrad MegaPC than a Sega/IBM TeraDrive.

Sharp were no strangers to odd hybrid hardware. They had previously released the Famicom Titler, a Famicom + video titling unit, and the Famicom Twin, a Famicom with a built in Famicom Disk System, and two TVs, one with an integrated Famicom and the other with a Super Famicom inside.

That said, I opened one up for your enjoy.

The Atari Curse: Part 4

Thu, 15 Jun 2006 21:46:00 +0900

The Atari name is a curse. Atari were kings of the world back in the day, but Time Warner bought Atari, and squandered it all. That's part one. Then the Tramiels, kicked out of Commodore, bought Atari and drove it into the ground, more intent on stock manipulation than releasing quality products. That's part two. Hasbro was part three, they couldn't turn a profit with Atari's unbelievable IP after paying a paltry five million for the name and the back catalogue.

And then Infogrames bought the marque, and look where they are now: $67 million in the red this year. Bruno Bonnell explains the strategy to keep Atari sucking harder than a black hole:

"The Atari brand has stood for innovation and pioneering spirit for more than 30 years. [...] we must recapture what made Atari an iconic brand. [...] we will focus our efforts on established franchises, new major motion picture licensed IP with significant marketing campaigns..."

That's exactly right, Bruno: recapturing innovation and the pioneering spirit requires sequels, licensed crap, and enough advertising to sell your shitty games to the unwary. Were you always this stupid or is it the Atari curse that makes you a moron?

It's been a quick decade.

Thu, 15 Jun 2006 15:49:00 +0900

So far so good.

Hard to imagine it's been ten years, but it has. June 15, 1996, we tied the knot. There's been no shortage of adventures since then, and with a little luck there'll be a few more to come.

Announcing The NFG Book

Tue, 06 Jun 2006 21:28:00 +0900

It's funny how things work out. A couple of years ago I was doing some freelance writing for the Official Nintendo Magazine (UK), and I'd done a review of Mario vs Donkey Kong. As part of this review, I had put together a quick look at Mario:

As a result of this I had the idea to write up a complete History of Mario Sprites. Some time later an editor from Rotovision, a company normally above such things, contacted me about the possibility of writing a whole book on pixel art and sprite design. Long story short, I accepted.

This book is now finished and should be available to purchase any day now from the usual places:
Amazon.uk
Amazon.de
Amazon.com

The book focuses on sprites and character design, and portable game devices from the GameBoy to modern mobile phones. It's stuffed full of sprite histories, developer commentary and interviews, a history of mobile game platforms, some pixel tutorials and more exciting stuff besides. Read on for more!These are excerpts from the book, which covers a wide range of pixel goodness in its 200 pages.

Artists

Pixel virtuoso Henk Nieborg says "back in those days I drew most of my gfx on a black background, I just liked that. You could get away with a lot of stuff by fading it into darkness. I also prefer to draw to blackness because the contrast on the megadrive system was insane, if i would have anti-aliased everything to white i would have probably gone blind."

There's an interview with Michael McWhertor, creator of Marios 64, and Sato Takayoshi who ported Sexy Pariodius to the Sega Saturn. Army of Trolls, eboy, Jan Halfar, and Chris Hildenbrand - who creates graphics for over 20 games a year - are also featured.

History

There's a substantial section on the rise of portable gaming, from mechanical to rudimentary electronic to LED and VFD games, to the modern era of DS and PSP sophistication. No important stone is unturned - mentioned along the way are the Wonder Swan, Neo Geo Pocket, GameBoy, Turbo Express, Game & Watch and Atari Lynx. There's plenty of screenshots for them all, with special attention paid to the sprites and how they compared to other platforms.

Regarding the Game & Watch: "They were functional as well as entertaining, each one had a tiny clock display and could be used as an alarm. The plus-shaped directional controller was first seen on the Game & Watch, and Nintendo has used it on every one of their game systems since then. Nintendo was very successful in with the series, releasing several games based on big licenses like Snoopy, Mickey Mouse and Popeye. Several of Nintendo’s greatest games had Game & Watch versions too: Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Junior and Zelda all received the treatment. Even Super Mario Bros, Nintendo’s flagship title, was released as a special edition prize Game & Watch. "

Sprite Histories

Exhaustive histories are given for many famous game sprites. Castlevania, Bonk's Adventure, Ghouls n Ghosts, Sonic the Hedgehog, Donkey Kong and, of course, Mario, all make an appearance. It's a fascinating way to see at a glance how we got to here from there. Every platform under the sun is covered. 8, 16 and 32-bit platforms, portable and console, and even mobile phones. There are some big surprises in there, with games you probably never heard of featuring characters you thought you knew.

"Like many game characters there was a time when Sonic went through a very ugly stage. Sega’s effort to keep the franchise new and fresh went completely awry when they tried to make Sonic 3D. Using pre-rendered graphics Sega put Sonic in a 3-dimensional world, which not only made Sonic lose the majority of the hedgehog charm he posessed, but also made for very poor gaming."

Theory

Several artists contributed some how-to guides, brief introductions to the amazing world of pixel art. There's a section on choosing the proper tool, and the difficulties of porting images from one platform to another. There are technical chapters as well, covering important concepts in pixel art, like the technical limitations of LCD screens, and the differences between pixel and vector images. There are hundreds and hundreds of images throughout, and every chapter is packed with pictures and diagrams.

"LCDs do not create light, they block it, so every LCD screen requires a light to function. The first black and white LCDs used environmental light, like the sun or a lamp, to illuminate the display. This worked well for a time, but colour LCDs require much more light and can’t rely on external sources. When the Lynx, GameGear and TurboExpress were released they used backlights, expensive and power hungry flourescent tubes tucked behind the screen. These provided ample light but drained six AA batteries in 4-6 hours. "

Genre Histories

There are several genre histories, covering the advance of graphic power from beginning to end. The difference between Karate Champ, Street Fighter and Guilty Gear are astonishing. Ditto the changes made between Final Fantasy 1 and Chrono Trigger. RPGs, Fighting games and Platformers are all covered.

"A year later Konami created what is almost the first modern fighting game. They introduced many new features which later became staples of the genre: status bars that decayed as a player took damage, a roster of opponents, including two hidden ones, that had to be defeated in sequence, and the gravity defying leap. There weren’t many moves, but the character art was superbly charming. Unlike Karate Champ however it didn’t offer head to head play, and so the fighting game boom was delayed a little longer. "

Developers

Glu Mobile, Jadestone, Game Loft, Capybara and Blue Label Games graciously contributed images, stories, anecdotes and fascinating info about their development methods. The book is jammed with images from their cutting edge games, as well as past releases and several secret looks at unannounced and unreleased titles.

Henrik Pettersson of Jadestone writes: "The greatest opportunity, then, is that everyone carries a gaming platform with them everywhere. The nature of the phone dictates what games are suitable on them and right now the industry is in a learning phase. I think that when the developers, publishers and consumers get more accustomed to the format it will outshine all portable devices in gaming."

And Much More!

It's amazing how much you can pack into 200 pages. There's a pile of porting examples, from SNES to GBA, or Genesis to Master System to Game Gear. There's amateur creations from talented artists across the world, and a fascinating look at the trials of creating new releases for the PC Engine/TurboGrafx 16.

It's a pixel party, and you're invited!*

*admission prices vary, check Amazon for details. ;)

Oh, and the author bio is pretty over-the-top. I swear I had nothing to do with it: "NFG Man (Lawrence Wright) is the human face behind two of the largest independent game sites on the Web, nfg.2y.net and gamesx.com. He has also run a successful game store and writes for some of the worlds leading games magazines. He lives and works in Australia."

It's flattering though, don't you think?

The Book

Thu, 01 Jun 2006 19:33:00 +0900

The Book (Amazon US) has consumed a large part of my life in the last twelve months. It was an incredible ordeal, a real pain in the ass. The story goes something like this:

After agreeing to do the book, but before a contract is signed, the focus changes. Thanks to the US publisher/distributor the book shifts to cover more of the mobile space, cellphones and their ilk. Everyone with half a brain knows that the cellular industry is a faddish maelstrom of moneygrubbers and, as a platform for games or art, it's a wasteland. From a development perspective there's little substantive difference between developing images for a mobile screen or a TV screen. Sure, there's a difference between modern consoles and mobile phones, but phones today are remarkably similar to consoles ten or fifteen years ago. It's not different, and from the perspective of pixel art, it's completely uninteresting. But what the publisher wants the publisher gets. Thinking I could work in a lot of screenshots of cellular games, I agreed to do the book and signed the contract.I set up a special wiki for the effort and told my editor about it. He was really enthusiastic about being able to track my progress in near-realtime. He suggested I start off with a table of contents, and based on his approval of that I could start working on the book. I had some four months to write it, not enough time by half, but I was game to give it a go.

I write the table of contents and the first four thousand words (ten percent). I tell the editor where it is and invite comments.

I get nothing. Not even an acknowledgement of my email.

I write a few more pages and ask again for his approval of the beginnings of the book. I get nothing. FIguring they were just trying to yank my chain or that they lost interest, I move on and find other things to do.

Two months later, he pops up again and asks me to submit the 50% of the book, and 100% of the images, that I should have ready. Oh, I thought to myself. Oh shit.

So I scramble. I bust ass. I write like a demon, I make hundreds of screenshots and painstakingly edit the crap out of them. I work on it for hours every night for several weeks. I reach the 50% mark, and submit it.

I don't hear back. It went on like this - the only time I heard from my intrepid editor was when, I imagine, someone else was breathing down his neck about it. Then he'd not respond to emails at all. It was intensely frustrating. The book is DONE, and to this day I've not heard a single word of praise or criticism about the content. Some suggestions were made about changes to the included segments, entire pages were dropped when the word count reached the right amounts, but I have no fucking idea, at all, if anyone at the publisher liked what I wrote.

To make a long story short, I finished it all up, after many late night phonecalls from Britain making demands and pleading with me to get everything done. After submitting it all and getting requests for a glossary, credits page, etc, I submit an invoice. This was at the beginning of this year, I believe. It took them until two days ago, the very tail end of May, to pay up. They twice promised payment and didn't deliver. For one reason or another the money was put off. To their credit they did pay, and that really makes me feel better about the whole thing, but come on! The whole thing was slightly ridiculous.

They didn't put my name on the cover.

I'm mightily pissed off about this - they asked me if I wanted my real name or nickname on there, and I told them to use my real name, but no. No, it has "NFGman" on the cover. Damn it!

So I wrote a book and I've never seen it, it doesn't have my name on the cover, and until two days ago I didn't even get paid for it. I guess I should be happy, I wrote a book and I got paid, but the trials of it all have kind of soured the bliss. It's interesting that for several months before I finally got paid I had no idea if they were still going to publish the bloody thing. No idea, I was in author-limbo.

Ah well.

I wrote a book! =D

Plenty of changes around here.

Thu, 01 Jun 2006 19:05:00 +0900

Things are happening. Things are always happening, of course, but lately they're happening a lot.

First, the big news: I got paid for the book. More on that soon. With the money I've paid off most of my car loan, and I've earmarked a couple of dollars for some new toys.

My love of photography has increased lately. With the book money I'll be getting a new lens, a wicked nifty 18-200mm beauty, which will allow much greater flexibility than the 18-70mm I'm using now. I look forward to that. The other day I took a picture that I'm really impressed with.

I joined a gym. I've been going frequently and am rewarded with near instant results. I've always had a pretty decent metabolism, and it's nice to see that it's not failing me in spite of my advanced age. I leg-pressed 300kg the other day. Almost triple my body weight. Yow, who da man? (Hint: me)

Zumi's still in Japan, she's still sick, but getting better slowly. I look forward to her return, but in the meantime the girls at Domino's keep me in smiles.

Oh yeah, almost forgot: We're evicted. The landlord sold the house we rent so I'm scrambling to find a new place. Four weeks is all I'm allotted, it sucks, like I need this extra stress? Bah. There's no houses to choose from either, rental properties are down 75% compared to a couple of months ago.

Silent Hill 3 Review

Mon, 22 May 2006 06:39:00 +0900

Having recently acquired Silent Hill 3 after trying for three years to find a complete Japanese version with all the packaged extras, I have created a belated review of this instant classic.Silent Hill 3 Review

Introduction and Air Diver Review

Sun, 14 May 2006 03:21:00 +0900

Well... Lesse... I run the site Megadriver.org and do my best to update it every decade or so. NFG Games has helped inspire me to actually publish some long lost articles and reviews I have written over the years. With that in mind, here is the first of what I hope to become a regular series of reviews, some retro, some more up-to-date.Air Diver Review

New Photos

Sun, 07 May 2006 09:32:00 +0900

In my never ending quest to become an amazing, fawned-over chick-magnet photographer, I went out last night and took a bunch of pics of the Brisbane Buddha/Lantern festival. 200 pics made, about 10 worth showing off. That's about par.

There was a lot of experimentation, so every shot was taken several times, to see what worked and what didn't. The hope is this'll see me ready for instant action when the time arises.

Brisbane from South Bank. I had the white balance set to tungsten, which gives everything a very cool, blue appearance. City lights look excellent this way. This one's from the same spot, facing the other way.

A fireworks shot. The problem with fireworks is they all look the same. I have 50+ pictures of pretty explosions, but after you see ten of them they get kind of boring.

Some candles from the large shrine/display. I've always wanted to do a shot like that, with a very shallow depth of field. My old camera wouldn't do it at all, everything was in focus. I think it turned out well. Again the WB was tungsten, otherwise the whole image was too red.

On the way home I took a picture of my car in the parking lot. I'm very pleased with this one. There's a gritty feel lent by the concrete which I really like, the "ENTRY" text looks neat, and there's a certain dynamicism to it all.

Here's a train I found in Corinda, covered in grafitti.

I've been experimenting with other techniques and fancy trickery. Here's a Hori Gamecube controller that, while interesting, serves more as a learning experience than an actual nice image. Here's me shilling for RedBull, a cow under a tree, A butterfly candle,

Latest images in my gallery. are here.

More Brisbane shots are here.

Finally, an update

Sun, 30 Apr 2006 20:40:00 +0900

I haven't updated in a while, I'm sorry.

Let's see... I'm back in Australia and I've been running amok with the new camera. I've put up a new gallery (again) since the old one sucked. The new one doesn't have a "Show latest images" button but in all other respects it's pretty great.

Best image taken this week: Looming Buildings. There's no shortage of other Brisbane shots in the gallery, and a lot of them are quite decent, if I dare say so myself. Have a look at the best looking Burger King in the world, and the Pancake Manor, a 24 hour pancake joint inside an old converted church.

After work I often crest a hill to see a sunset that really is impressive for reasons I can't put my finger on. While it seems plain it just cries out "Enjoy me!" and so I do. I snapped this picture, which looks all the better having been taken with the new camera.

I thought I'd mentioned it, but I don't see it anywhere, I took some pics of an accident where an idiot trucker going too fast around a corner tipped his truck right off a bridge. He survived, but his truck was a mess. Carnage 1, Carnage 2, Carnage 3.

Also, I got a couple of really groovy shots of lightning with the old camera: Lightning 1 and lightning 2.

Some new pics of the Megane.

I tried shooting in RAW mode today, which is basically allowing the camera to save a massive ton of extra data compared to the basic JPG, which can be edited to no small extent later. The problem is these files are massive, 3x larger than JPGs, and they take forever to work with. I messed around with them and decided I didn't like the extra hassle, so screw RAW.

While cruising around town on the City Cat again today. While taking pictures of nothing in particular, two chinese guys (I assume they were chinese, and I assume they were students as they got off at QUT) asked if I could take a picture. I assumed they wanted me to take a picture of them, but no - one guy stands next to me and his friend takes a picture of us. How bizarre, I've no idea why I was picture-worthy for them, but I got my revenge!

While out with my dad we ran into a group of Parkour... Guys.. They were running and jumping, just a practice session. I sure as shit wish I had heard of this when I was younger, it looks like a mad amount of fun. Here's their site.

That's all for now!

More Japan Pictures

Fri, 14 Apr 2006 10:45:00 +0900

Had quite a busy time around here. Well, not so much busy perhaps as... Camera-filled. I picked up a great hand-strap for the new camera, which essentially bolts the camera to my hand, and since the DSLR never needs to be shut off I can walk around with a camera ready to take an image in less than a second flat. My old camera took several times longer than that just to turn on, never mind zoom and focus and release. So it's been a magical fun time.

For no other reason than "I can!" I took this interesting shot. It turned out very clear, but really it's kind of pointless.

While shopping at a local pet store I took some pictures of their beetle supplies. Stacks and stacks of exotic imported beetles, and entire shelves full of food and cages and accessories and so on. I love this stuff. You walk into a pet store in Australia and ask about beetles and the clerk goes "What? Eeeew, we only carry dogs and cats, birds and fish. What's wrong with you?" What's wrong with me indeed. For fun, here's a map of beetles around the world.

To try out the camera a little I went out for a walk at night, and took some pictures. This one looks like a snow strewn trail, this one kind of looks like a disneyland fantasy, and this one has a lot of lights.

Tokyo Tower
We walked to the Tokyo Tower last night, and I took some 100+ pictures while we were out. In the interest of maintaining sanity around here, I present to you only a few.

En route to the tower, there was this lovely park of sorts, with an interesting contrast of old fashioned silhouettes and new buildings in the background. A little farther on, I spied this incredible view of the tower, through some trees. When you get close to the tower, you can see how much it resembles the Eiffel tower, but orange. This image shows the two observation decks more clearly, and this one shows the rather intricate girder structure. If it were me I'd have painted them red and thrown some enormous Mario and Donkey Kong sprites on them. Finally, here's a shot of the foot of the tower.

Tokyo from the Tower
From way up in the tower you can see an awful lot of Tokyo. We had originally hoped to get there during daylight hours and maybe catch a sunset, but we were too late. It was pretty foggy besides, so I'm sorry to say you'll have to settle for some night shots of Tokyo from 150 and 250 metres:
Tokyo at Night 1
Tokyo at Night 2
Tokyo at Night 3
Tokyo at Night 4
Tokyo at Night 5

Tokyo at Night: Street Level
After the tower, we walked back to the Yamanote line and headed back to Ueno. Between these two locations, I snapped a few interesting shots, like this incredible street shot. Try as I might, I couldn't match it, and I swear I really did try. I did however get this really neat image of a piece of sculpture.

Random Tokyo Street Scenes, near Ueno Station
Ueno Station Overpass.
Ueno Station street.
A temple in Asakusa.

Cats
This is Hiro. He's old, but oh-so-lovable.
Charan, an ex-stray.
Goku.

Pictures of Japan

Tue, 11 Apr 2006 19:39:00 +0900

It's picture time! I got the new camera, but most of the images below were taken with the old one. There's some interesting stuff here, along with no small amount of dross.

On the flight over I got bumped into business class, and was served this amazing meal. I can't remember the last time I had bad food on a plane, really. When arriving at Narita, I took a picture of what appears to be a madman's solar panel, overcome by moss. After crashing for the night, we hit Akihabara where we saw this lovely creature and met up with a friend from Europe.

While in Akihabara, we found a surprising number of street performers. Young people, mostly girls, trying to get their faces out there, trying to be noticed. Or, perhaps, merely attention whores tired of singing in the karaoke box near their homes. They're pretty much entirely talentless. This not completely unattractive lass was completely unremarkable. She could sing, but you just couldn't care. She wasn's alone in her mediocrity, this girl had a tambourine but was otherwise just as forgettable. This girl had a guitar, and a hat, and was quite talented if the slobbering mass of otaku photographers around her was any indication. Also note, she has a lacky. Then there were these three girls, whose voices were shrill enough to shatter glass. Because there are three of them, I offer another image.

The last girl was amazing. She didn't look amazing, couldn't dance, and she sure as hell couldn't sing. She was terrible. From here we headed back to the main drag and ran into this freak of nature. Seriously, how does anyone get out of bed, let alone go out in public, when they look like that? And he's on TV to boot.

This girl was gorgeous, and she kept on smiling and handing out band pamphlets aven when the cops were hassling the rest of the band for setting up shop in the middle of the street. The sign behind the girl reads "No street performances".

And now, some Akihabara pictures:
The Akihabara crowd was present, an ever-moving stream of people. Check out this shot from Mister Donut's 2nd floor window. What a crowd! Here's the Taito S@Y arcade, one of the largest Don Quixote stores, the Tsukumo tower, the Rocket Soft Centre and a lovely night shot of Ishimaru and LAOX.

This is what you see exiting Akihabara station, here's two more electronics dealers, and finally, Club Sega and the Akihabara main drag.

Here are a couple of rainy-day snapshots of flowers in the neighbor's yard:
Purple and Red.

Back in Japan

Sun, 09 Apr 2006 09:07:00 +0900

I'm back in Japan for ten days. I arrived yesterday in the early evening, after what can only be described as a fantastic flight. When checking in at the Brisbane airport I had asked for first row seats, since the first row of economy seats have by-your-side storage compartments and lots of legroom. The guy running the checkin said he could get me first row window, no problem. Great, I said, and it was great.

It wasn't until I got onto the plane and the stewardess directed me to the very front of the plane that I realized - first row, the very front of the plane, is business class. Wahoot! I was pampered in luxury the whole way over. The flight, normally about eight hours, seemed like six. Or five! Barely had I gotten used to it all that it was over. Good times.

So Japan - wow. It's like I never left. Except everything's different. Despite all the familiar neighborhoods and sights, there's a ton of new buildings near the place I'm staying. And wow, the changes made to 7-11. Crazy. All the smells of the old house I'm in are immediately familar from the year I spent living here when I first moved to Japan, and Zumi's mom cooked up a massive great meal, the kind she used to make. It was deleriously cool.

It's nice to be home. Despite never really synching with Japan I do feel more at home here than Australia, no doubt because I've only been in Australia for twelve months. Japan's so wonderfully dynamic. Every week there's something new in 7-11, or some crazy event to go see, or some wacky thing on TV. By comparison Australia's in a coma. Nothing changes, tho from what everyone says it's much better now than it was even a decade ago.

Yeah, that's true, even my own recollections of a decade ago in Australia lend credence to that, but still... Australians are too complacent and too unwilling to complain, so nothing changes for them. The Japanese on the other hand are kept in a constant state of distraction, to take their minds off their cramped little polluted corrupted society.

I really feel that once you've travelled you realize that everywhere sucks, but in different ways. When you live a life as ludicrously unproductive as mine, where the important things are trivial and ill-considered at best, then you're just never happy.And this is the lesson I can't convince Australians is true: If you don't kick up a fuss, nothing changes. You may think I'm whining now, but if someone joins my crusade and something changes, then we all win. I'm complaining for all of us, you lazy sack of 'roo dung. Your complacency hurts everyone.

I'm digressing.

Today's new camera day if I have any input on the matter. The budgetting committee is still somewhat happy to have me around, so I think I can push this one through.

Going to Akihabara in a few minutes to meet up with a friend from Holland, for a day of excessive consumerism, buying things that Australians don't even dream of, for no good reason except that I can.

New photos, new permanent gallery

Sun, 02 Apr 2006 13:10:00 +0900

I've installed a new gallery script, it's the new permanent home for all my photos.

Here it is.

It uses the Coppermine gallery, which is dreadfully ugly but very functional. Someday I'll try and pretty it up. Now, on to the pictures!

Of course there are some of The Megane, this time in the dark under a light in a parking lot. I think they turned out really nice, even the badge is very dark and moody. Also, key card!Went out shooting with friend Ben last night, and took some really nice shots of Brisbane at night. This tree and building are practically neon-coloured, with some really gorgeous lighting. Brisbane's nighttime scene is really hopping, with plenty of fun things to see, like this police sign and this skyline.

I also stocked the gallery with some older shots, many that have never been shown off before, like this incredible shot of a X68000 motherboard, and this Hitachi HiSaturn. Also, here's a bee, and a V601SH celphone.

Speaking of random, here's Zumi and Central Station and, well, proof that my lawn needed mowing.

Here's a composite image of the car under a beautiful sunset. These shots need to be composited because the sky is so much brighter than the foreground. The camera needs the full range of brightness for either fore- or back-ground, so the only way to make both visible is to take two shots, one exposure for each, then copy and paste the bits. Consider this shot:

Notice how the building in the foreground is a solid black? With a second shot exposed for the foreground, I can copy the building and paste it onto the image of the sky, like so:

It's like cheating, but not really.

Foxmail comes with spyware! Or not.

Sun, 02 Apr 2006 12:33:00 +0900

There are no good email clients. Every single one of them has a flaw, a bug, a problem that prevents it from being totally great. In my never-ending quest to find a decent app, I tried Foxmail, a chinese program that works very well, is very polished, and does more or less everything I want. The only place it falls down is in HTML mail representation - it uses Explorer, and it doesn't show the URL when you hover over a link. (Talking of Foxmail 6 beta 2 here).

Microsoft antispyware freaked out when it ran a scan of my system. Foxmail 6 Beta 2 comes with CnsMin Browser Modifier, an Internet Explorer plugin of sorts that converts chinese characters into usable URLs. It's considered a "high level threat", though it seems innocuous enough. In fact, I seem to remember it asking if I wanted international character ability. Doesn't matter much, I don't use IE, so I nuked it anyway.

FoxMail also has an RSS reader, though it comes preinstalled with a billion Chinese links and crashed after I deleted a dozen or so of them.

Nice mail app, they don't have any English info on their page, but by deleting the Chinese language file it magically starts running in English. Go figure.

Not sure if I'll keep running it, that Explorer/URL thing is a big problem for me, but in all other respects it's great software.

Playing Games: Dreamcast (2)

Tue, 28 Mar 2006 21:11:00 +0900

In the second of a silly little series, I'm playing every game in my Dreamcast library, offering impressions from a fresh perspective, as many of these have lain unplayed for a long time. Fun or a ridiculous exercise in self-fappery, I leave up to the reader to decide.First up tonight, it's Gigawing
Capcom loved us, and they expressed that love with a string of awesome Dreamcast releases. Unfortunately, when they released this early bit of affection they forgot how to express themselves properly. It won't run with an RGB cable, so I can't play it. I can trick it into booting, so I can hear sounds, but no visuals ever appear. I am at once saddened and angered that Capcom would tease me so!! You bastards!

GigaWing 2
I used to really rock at this game. I love it, the presentation is so awesome. Absolutely astonishing soundtrack, gobs of bullets, and the awe-inspiring REFLECTO-LAAAAAZZAAAAAAH!!

But now I suck. Three continues, that's nine lives, before even reaching the first boss, and I used to shut it off if I died even once before the second boss. I'm humbled, thanks Capcom.

Mars Matrix
Oh, I always wanted to love Mars Matrix. I loved the one-button mechanic, and I loved the pure excessive levels of polish Takumi lavished on it, but still... I can't brook games that make you combo for powerups. In fact, games with combos as a primary mechanic just piss me right off. And the soundtrack! "That's one s-s-small step for man...." over and over. Give it a rest!!

Zero Gunner 2
Ah, now this is the good stuff. Looks better and plays better than any of the Capcom shmups. Silky smooth polygons, and a wonderfully refreshing gameplay device: One of the buttons drops a pivot point allowing you to rotate your helicopter to face danger. It adds just a dollop of complication and makes it extra frantic. A real joy to play, though on the default difficulty the game is unplayably hard by the 5th stage. I can typically one-life the first three stages, knock off a continue on the fourth, and then it's a credit-feeding festival from then on. Still, a great fun ride.

Border Down
G.Rev needs to hire a mech designer and a musician ASAP. This shmup tried valiantly to be awesome, but it had totally spent its load by level two, and all the levels, bad guys and bosses totally sucked after the first stage. The music is that worst of styles, fusing everything I hate about new-age elevator music into one audible assault. Everything about this game just screams competence without direction. Talent wasted for lack of a clear and focused goal. Very disappointing.

Psyvariar 2
I just can't stand bullet-hell shmups. I don't want to think about combos and buzzing and trickery, I want to shoot stuff, make things go boom, and not have to use my brain for a while. The very idea of letting an enemy live longer so I can buzz more of his bullets and rack up a higher score is anathema to me. I don't like it.

Raiden, Raiden, wherefore art thou, Raiden?

Bangaioh
What lunacy has brought us here? What preposterous gim-crackery is this, this madness that purports to be a game like so many others? It's silliness to the extreme slammed head-first into the concrete wall of 16-bit 2-dimensional simplicity. Shoot things, collect things, rah rah rah! Launch 200 missiles, GO!

This is good stuff.

Incoming
Am I the only person who thinks this game is brilliant fun? Ten levels, ten stages each, and each of these hundred stages sees you thrust into another space-age war craft or another. Helicopters, AA guns, massive turrets, jets, tanks, and UFOs - it's a bonanza of destruction. Sure, it's a first-gen release, but it oozes gameplay, with tighter control than its PC cousin. This is the perfect zone game. There's nought to do but survive and destroy, with the occasional half-hearted attempt at making it seem like there's a point. Escort this, protect that, go fetch yon thingus and put it over yonder. Huzzah!

Expendable
This is by Rage, the company that brought us Incoming. Expendable was their next release, and sadly the last good game they made. They're no longer with us, which is a shock considering the heights they had achieved on the PC. Expendable kicks ass. It's Soldier meets Heavy Metal magazine. A ridiculous backstory sees you, an engineered fighting man, thrown to the wolves and given only a destination and a gun. And then another gun. And then several more. And, well, you get the idea. Run and gun, shoot everything and then shoot it again for good measure. You'll be hard pressed to find an equal to Expendable when it comes to top-down blow-em-ups. (Blups?)

Puyo Puyo 4 and Cleopatra Fortune
These two games are not really at all similar. The former is the gel-dropper we know and love, and the latter is some sort of falling-block egyptian-themed surround-and-capture-gems puzzler thing. The thing is, they're both made in the fastest, cheapest way possible. If Flash or Macromedia existed on the Dreamcast, this is the kind of game they'd put out. Heavily polished by artists and implemented by programmers who seemed to be operating from too great a distance from the target. Despite the lavish attention to detail both games seem spartan and sterile. Neither one is a great deal of fun to play.

Neo Golden Logres Pinball
Oh dear god. What a mess. There are so many things wrong with this game I don't know where to start. It's ugly, the tables are unremarkable except for their blandness. You can't see where on the table the targets are, because they're not sufficiently separated from the background (such as it is), and they're ugly besides. Y'see, pinball is a vertical game. Long skinny tables with the narrow end towards the player. TVs are not as narrow and have the broad side down, so a pinball table is either laid on its side when shown on a TV (bad) or squished into a tiny space to fit vertically (also bad). Logres chose the latter, so the tables take half the screen, are ugly, tiny, boring and generally irritating. There's not much to see, and the sound isn't saving the day by any stretch. It sounds tinny, small, as if the sound effects were sampled from a child's toy pinball table.

I haven't played this since I bought it four years ago. I didn't like it then, I don't like it now. Bleah.

That's it for my Japanese games, tomorrow we'll start in on the North American releases. Can you stand the excitement?

Playing Games: Dreamcast

Mon, 27 Mar 2006 21:17:00 +0900

As part of a new series, I'm going to play a massive series of short games and write about it. Fun or a ridiculous exercise in self-fappery, I leave up to the reader to decide.

Tonight I'm playing every Dreamcast game I own. The Dreamcast is the best console since the SNES, and I've got a sizable library of games for it. In no particular order, here's the games I played:Super Puzzle Fighter 2X for Matching Service
I always had trouble with this game. It's at once too fast and too slow for me. I can't explain it, I find it slightly sluggish to control, but after the first few rounds the PC kicks your ass so hard and fast that it's not really a lot of fun to play. On the Dreamcast there are three very different versions of the core game, but I played the first which is basically the classic Puzzle Fighter game.

Capcom took a hell of a risk with this game. I cna't help but play it PuyoPuyo style, and I'm sure i'm not the only one matching up massive series' of ~~blobs~~ crystals and wondering why they don't disappear. The 'starter' gems are too unreliable for my style of play (the wrong style, I know) and I find that they're like the straight-four in Tetris: too rare to count on when you need them, and I generally just die. I made it to the fourth round, long enough to revel in the remixed Street Fighter tunage and the exceptional production values, but I still suck and I still don't really like the game.

PuyoPuyo Fever
Ugh. What a waste of a disc. I used to adore Puyo, back when Sega released it as Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine. We played it for hours, there was something about that gritty, 16-bit slapdash appearance that was very appealing. This late Dreamcast release is all polish and no fun. Too many silly weirdisms, like the triple-clusters and one-hit quads. By the third round I was just holding diagonals and did fairly well. Eventually I died and I'm pretty glad I did. Moving on...

Heavy Metal: Geomatrix
This game, a kind of sequel to Capcom's maligned Spawn, is damnably awesome. It takes a while to come to grips with the controls, and since the camera always faces the enemy you've got to learn every stage to run around it without seeing where your character is facing. Once you put in the time though it really shines. Capcom pulled out all the stops, making a game that's varied, unique and utterly over the top. The character designs kind of suck though, the only character worth playing is Kacey, and even she's only good 'cause she kind of reminds me of Winona Ryder.

This game really shines on the Dreamcast. Capcom put their all into it, and the sound, music and visuals are all top-notch. The Dreamcast did amazing things with a very few polygons. This game is much better than most people give it credit for.

Power Stone
I love this game. Capcom at their very best, bashing out the hits with creative abandon, taking silly risks and being utterly, totally ignored for it. What could they have done, released these fantastic types of game on the PS2, only to be lost in the crowd? Or the Dreamcast, to be ignored like everyone else who backed Sega. Capcom was the Dreamcast's crown jewel, but it was for nought. Power Stone was, without question, total aces. I sure wish I could remember how to play, all I do is run around and get beaten on. How do I pick things up? I forget. Oh, there we go, now to shoot... Oh, I dropped it again. Bollocks, I've just been annihilated.

Ikaruga
Ah, Ikaruga. Hyped to such an extent that it's almost impossble to separate the game from the fanboy machine that propelled it through the mesosphere. It's good, it's shiny as all-git-out, and the atmosphere is delicious. It is not easy, and it's damnably difficult if you, like me, can't stand to play without acing the first half of the first stage. The problem is, if I'm NOT playing for score, the game doesn't hold my interest. It's no Raiden, but then, what is?

Sega Bass Fishing
Umm, yeah. Nice controller. It's fun, in a zen kind of way. The perfect mellow-out game, if slipping into a coma makes you mellow. I'd have more fun if I didn't have to worry about lures n shit, I just want to trawl through the murky waters and haul in giant maneating fishies. Moving on...

Cosmic Smash
What the fuck was Sega thinking? This kind of game doesn't work, dammit! No one's ever made it work, not on the Lynx with its scaling capabilities, not on the NES with the PowerGlove (I love the Power Glove, it's so bad), and not on the damned Dreamcast. Sure, it seemed like a good idea, making a unique game on a zero budget just to see if it'd fly, but it sucks. What's with that pathetic voice? Did they pluck some gaijin off the street? I want to smack him, he's so annoying. The best thing about this game is the case, but even that pisses me off 'cause it's a DVD case, so doesn't fit with the rest of my DC softs. And no spine-card? Get the fuck outta here. Ultra-cool Rez stylings, but that's it. Bah.

Chaos Field
Another of the after-death shmup releases that we love the Dreamcast for. Shame it's a mediocre game, plagued by slowdown and an uninteresting game mechanic. It's also ugly, but not as ugly as Trizeal. Anyone want a copy of Chaos Field? I've got one going spare.

Jet Set Radio
Oh, yeah, this game just oozes awesome. It's a shame about that occasionally iffy camera and often dodgy control, but in all other respects there is nothing to complain about here. A wonderfully quirky soundtrack and the very first cel-shaded graphics cemented Sega as the kings of innovation. Sadly for Sega that's about as lucrative as being the kings of Shit Hill - no one cared.

Still, I can't help but love it. And I've got a crush on

Chu Chu Rocket
Chu Chu Rocket! Neko wa kowaii!! I love this game, except that I bloody hate it. It's damned hard, too fast, and hard. I haven't the patience to enjoy it, instead I have a great time for six levels and then WHAM it's too hard to be fun. The best part about this game is the commercial, though I confess the special orange pad was also nice.

The game is exceptionally well done, but it's so frantic!

New Domain Name

Mon, 27 Mar 2006 12:14:00 +0900

NFG Games is now, finally, after all these years, nfggames.com. 2y.net, which has served me very well for a very long time, has been offline for 24 hours now and I'm finally tired of it.

It's as much a surprise to me as anyone that my server is more reliable than, well, anything, but there it is.

Update your bookmarks: nfg.2y.net = nfggames, anything that worked with the former should work fine when replaced with the latter.

Welcome to the new world.I guess I'm pretty lucky no one reg'd it before I got it, eh? =)

A few new pics.

Wed, 22 Mar 2006 22:59:00 +0900

I want to be a photographer. The more pictures I take the more I like taking pictures.

Here and here are two pics I took tonight, and if you'll wander yourselves this way there's a bunch of pictures of Brisbane at night.

Last sunday was a RenaultSport drive day, and I took a small handful of pics.

Finally, while out at the airport on Friday, I found these amazing Cotton Harlequin Bugs. Yes, that's actually what they're called. Or you could call them Hibiscus Harlequin Bugs. Whatever, they're very orange, but despite appearances they're not beetles.

Sony: Crack Smokers

Thu, 16 Mar 2006 16:01:00 +0900

According to GamesIndustry our friends at Sony - who've long been failing to emulate Nintendo's hype mastery - have made another mind-bogglingly stupid announcement. They're claiming they'll shift six million PS3 consoles in four months.

Does anyone believe this crap?

Warning: Ranting ahead.Not three weeks ago they were admantly proclaiming a spring 2006 launch, but now it's November, according to the Nihon Keizai Newspaper (No article link, it's behind a paywall). Sony's Kutaragi has tried to soften the price blow by scaremongering: "It'll be expensive", but this is obviously an attempt to make people happy with the marginally-more-than-normal launch price. First it had no harddrive, but now it does, so Sony can compete with Microsoft, offering a home media server and downloadable... Downloadable what, exactly? PS1 games? Um, downloading massive CDs of content isn't remotely a mass-market idea yet. The rate of broadband penetration increase isn't nearly high enough to count on the sort of bandwidth required. Sony'll have to create a whole new library. Their in-house back catalogue's laughable anyway.

And now, they're claiming six million. They'll make a million a month, and sell six million in four months. Wait, that's two million more than they're making, but maybe they're just pulling numbers out of a hat. Every console Sony's launched has been fraught with shortages (in fact most consoles are). Sony promised to launch the PSP globally, but took nine months to roll it out in three regions.

Sony, in short, is talking out their ass.

And the PS3 is ugly. Real ugly. The console's a FMTowns Marty with a chunk missing, and the controller's a clone of the Alps pad from 1996. Frankly I'm bored of the whole affair, and I'm tired of Sony's lies.

Recent photographs

Wed, 15 Mar 2006 23:44:00 +0900

I realize I haven't posted most of my recent pictures here. Whups. There's a bunch that you might like to check out.

Here's a bunch of the Brisbane skyline at night. In a similar vein, I offer you a set of Goodna at night, complete with motion trails and time-lapse trains.

Recently I checked out the Brisbane Auto Show 2006, but I was quite disappointed to find there weren't many girls. It was, in fact, a really boring show. Got a couple of good pics out of it though.

In downtown Brisbane there's a series of shops, skyscrapers, and parks. You see the most incredible bodies sometimes, as well as Buddy Jesus, chicks with cat-ears and other stuff.

I'm getting a new camera. I tested it out, and these are the test shots.

One of the girls I work with occasionally throws some pretty fun parties.

Here's a cicada shell, a bearded dragon, a goanna lizard.

Finally, I've been growing habanero plant. Read on for some details about what happens when you dare touch a habanero pepper.hint: They'll kill you.

I sliced a tiny piece off, a few millimeters long. It wasn't hot. I ate another. It wasn't hot. I ate a quarter of a pepper. It was about 15mm long, and about 5mm wide.

Oh my god.

It burned. It was so hot. Hottest thing I've ever tasted. I broke out into a sweat, my eyes watered, my mouth was drooling so much I could hardly breath, it was incredible. I finally got over it, five minutes later, and washed my hands vigorously with soap.

Then I scratched my eye.

Oh, holy fuck me dead. Ow ow ow ow IT BURNS MY EYELID!! It wasn't even in my EYE, my skin burned!!

So I washed my eyelid with soap and water and OH SHIT IT'S IN MY EYE OMG OMG OMG AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!!!

Ten minutes later it was more or less OK.

And then, after I'd washed with strong dish soap, I scratched my ear.

MY EAR! IT BURNS!!!

SO yeah, they say habanero peppers are 50x hotter than Jalapenos. I believe 'em. Yow. Watch yourself.

CEO Assaults Employee - Batshit Insane!

Wed, 15 Mar 2006 23:12:00 +0900

This morning I was assaulted by the CEO of the company I work with. Names have been changed 'cause it's really not important. This was my reply, sent to everyone in the company who deals with me on a regular basis. I sent it on the advice of my boss (Daddy).

The back story: Our company has an e-commerce solution that has suffered a lack of development for a year as the old programmer jumped ship halfway through and didn't leave a lot of documentation or source code behind. Customers can't do much with it, as the programmers have been basically recreating one wheel after another to catch up to where we were, with working modfiable code. Two days ago one of our newest customers, the nicest people you could possibly meet, finally had enough of waiting for a simple problem to be resolved, and emailed the head cheese.

The cheese called me, and we had what I thought was a one-sided conversation where he ignored what I had to say and demanded I follow their established procedure. After one completely failed attempt to explain myself (I've set up a wiki and several other tools for our Australian office, which head office won't even read, let alone participate in), I capitulated on every score, and shortly thereafter I sent in the required documentation in the required format, but managed to use the wrong URL. I went to bed, and shortly thereafter the staff in the other office - a world away, in a different timezone, rolled into work only to find I'd prepared documents they couldn't find. That's about when the CEO went batshit insane.I shouldn't have screwed up the URL. I should have checked it. Mea culpa, I admit it, my bad. Rather than call and wake me up, they (I imagine) ran around screaming and beating the shit out of each other all day. By the time I woke up, I guess they'd worked themselves into a froth, and I got a letter from the CEO that said: My server is crummy (It's faster than theirs, maybe it's server envy?), I have a bad attitude, I'm sarcastic, I'm rude, I denigrate Canada and make myself look good to the customers, I had to be begged and pleaded with to use proper procedure, and our entire office was hereby officially cut off from the E-commerce stuff, and could no longer sell it at all.

Wow.

Really, wow. It was so over the top, so completely out of proportion to what had happened. I was dumbfounded. My boss (my dad) was gobsmacked. Our entire office was basically stunned. What he said was so untrue, it was tantamount to a personal attack, not a reaction to the situation. I can only surmise that he confused MY issue with some long-standing historical problem he's got with someone else. Or maybe he's responding to some long-buried memory of me as a rude teen (I've known him for a loooong time, though I haven't seen him more than once in the last decade and a half).

So I wrote this letter to basically everone:

Good afternoon gentlemen.

I find myself once again in the center of an upset hornets' nest, and I feel it might behoove me to clarify a few things. It could be in my better interests to just shut up about it, but I can't stand to be misunderstood.

----

First off, my attitude when dealing with the Canada staff. I'm a happy guy, and I maintain a level of jocularity when dealing with people. If I come off as flippant, irreverant or sarcastic, it's probably because, to some extent, I am. I try to maintain an appropriate perspective, and problems with software are fun-filled trials to be overcome. I treat them as such.

To the best of my knowledge I am on good terms with everyone I deal with regularly. Emails and ICQ conversations are filled with smiley faces and we often discuss matters not related to work, hardly the sort of behaviour I'd expect from people who are fed up with me. I have asked the people I talk to, point blank, if I'm a pain in the ass or if I'm hard to deal with, and the answer is, basically, that I can be fiesty but they don't have a problem with it.

----

Regarding my recent conversation with the CEO: I can't help but wonder what he read into the discussion that I didn't. After one abortive attempt to explain my reasoning, I capitulated on EVERY demand, and promised to follow all official procedures to the letter. In fact, I made this point several times. To the best of my knowledge I was friendly, polite, and completely willing to do what was needed.

-----

I screwed up the URL for the resource file. Entirely my fault, it was sloppy and I'm sorry it had to happen on this important matter. That said, if it was worth swearing at me over I'd assume it was worth waking me up for. my boss could have given you my number at any time, and for future reference my mobile number is . Call me any time, I love to hear a Canadian accent in the middle of the night.

----

Finally, we all know the E-commerce system is a broken product with a lot of promise. We're all looking forward to the day it works right the first time. Currently every install has enormous problems, and though we've all worked incredibly hard to fix it, it still happens. I defy anyone to come to me and tell me I haven't done my fair share of work and bug hunting and problem solving, in the face of incredible adversity. If anyone could have done a better job, hitting the ground running without any useful documentation and without being updated on changes, I'd like to shake them by the hand. I think I've done a pretty good job, all things considered.

The sun is shining, it's a beauitful day, and all this foofarah is water off a duck's back as far as I'm concerned. I'm going to get back to work.

Lawrence.

Vodafone useless, pulls out of Japan

Mon, 06 Mar 2006 09:00:00 +0900

It would seem Vodafone have no idea WTF they're doing in Japan. They were consistently innovating, making giant advances with the assistance of their hardware partners (mostly Sharp, but also Toshiba, Sanyo and a handful of others) and offering many features well in advance of other carriers. Docomo gets all the press overseas, but Vodafone was first with great family pricing, 2-megapixel cameras and a unified gaming structure: There are only 4 levels of gaming for Japanese Vodafones, where trying to find compatible games on Docomo is a bit of a minefield.

But I digress.

It would seem that Vodafone K.K., the Japanese arm, simply couldn't or wouldn't communicate with the rest of Vodafone's global operation, and none of the world-class phones, customer-first philosophy or affordable pricing made it out to the rest of us. Vodafone worldwide is an evil giant, with the same shitty phones as everyone else, and the same shitty rates. Vodafone is, it would seem, better at colluding with its enemies, the other carriers, than it is with its purported partner in Japan.The newest vodafone unit, the Sharp 904-SH, is like a mini deity. Check out this feature list: VGA screen, Bluetooth with a neat new 'near chat', letting you talk to people within a ten metre radius, 3.2 megapixel camera (featuring an incredible zoom mechanism, with 5 lenses!), optical zoom, motion sensor gaming, Felica e-payment chip, 3D sound, face recognition, 3G, GPS, SD card, W-CDMA + GSM, USB, infrared, video output, Flash animation, and QR code reading capability.

The top of the line Motorola does, let's see, less than half that, and costs twice as much. Japanese manufacturers, combined, have less than a 10% market shar of worldwide phone sales. Vodafone was uniquely positioned, as the only Japanese carrier, to launch these amazing phones - most of which were already running in 100% English - worldwide.

They didn't.

So, as far as I'm concerned, they deserve to lose Japan. They squandered the resource, fuck 'em. Not being able to take advantage of these kinds of capabilities speaks of nigh criminal incompetence. SoftBank, a large ISP and publisher, will be buying what's left of Vodafone in Japan. They can't possibly do worse than Vodafone themselves did. With luck they'll change their name back to J-Phone, and forget this nasty little incident ever happened.

I hate this place.

Mon, 06 Mar 2006 00:02:00 +0900

It's official.

As of now, I hate Australia.

Allow me to tell you a story about my incredible inability to make a collect call.I need to call Visa and change our address 'cause we're expecting them to mail us a new card any day now. I can't call the 1-800 number in Canada from here, so I need to call the local number. I've twice called it and been disconnected, so I decided to try and call collect, figuring if I'm going to suffer it'll be on their dime.

First I tried asking Zumi. Zumi told me questions like this are what the internet's for.

So I checked the internet, knowing that I could never refine my question enough to get an answer. Sure enough, I couldn't find an answer.

So I checked Telstra's site. Telstra, the gov't owned phone monopoly, has a website that doesn't return search results 4/5 times.

I try dialling zero. I get nothing, zero doesn't get you an operator here.

I ask a friend in Perth. He tells me to call an operator. "How do I call an operator?" By this point I'm really angry, I'm typing all in caps. This guy's from Canada too. "Dial zero" he says.

So I asked someone in Melbourne, who was on ICQ, what the number was. He doesn't know, he uses the internet to talk to people. He asks a friend. His friend tells me the number for calling direct-dial long distance. I gently bash him and tell him I'm trying to make a collect call. "Oh," he says. "I dunno. I don't even know what that is." He then proceeds to bug me about it for ten minutes. "What's a collect call?" I finally decide it'd be easier to explain it than ignore him, and he says "Oh, a reverse-charges call."

So now we've got new clues. It's not a "collect call", it's "reverse charges". I wonder what they call it when you call Visa to have a charge reversed. "Oh, a woodgumdidgeridoo." Australians are assholes, they've invented weird, cute or inappropriate words for a lot of things that should have been left alone.

I check Telstra's site. I search three times for "reverse charges" before finally getting results. They list methods for calling within Australia, and to Australia from other countries. There's nothing about calling other countries from within Australia.

Someone suggests I use the phone book. "Phone book? Do I even have a phone book? I have the internet!" How quaint is that? A phone book. Desperate, I try it. There's three different methods for calling long distance: within, to and from Australia. Each seems to require a different procedure, 'cause really, why should this be easy? It would be too much to expect the phonebook to have the answer I want, but at least it has a number to call for information about calling collect.

They're closed.

The operators have gone to bed.

Apparently, in Australia, people don't use the phone after 10pm. They don't have the urge to call people collect, or if they do they've somehow got the knowledge, the ability, genetically programmed into them. Or something, fuck me, I don't know. This is retarded!!

As if that wasn't enough, it costs more than four dollars to make an operator-assisted collect call. If you can even find an operator in Australia they're going to shove a painful thing up your ass for the privilege.

Zumi tried searching for the details from Japan. She found TWO numbers for calling Japanese operators.

I'm tired. It's late. I've spent an hour trying to make a collect call. It's not supposed to be this hard, you know? I come from a country where they make it easy for you to spend your money. In Australia the thinking seems to be different. It's hard, bloody hard, to get someone to take your money. When they do, though, they'll take more of it. Four bucks! It's obscene, and I couldn't do it if I wanted to anyway.

I hate it here, how does this shit make sense to anyone? I'm not a stupid man, I swear I'm not. How can this be so bloody hard?

Book Review: Ringworld & Ringworld Engineers

Wed, 01 Mar 2006 19:56:00 +0900

When I was a lot younger, about nine years old, I was reading a lot of sci-fi. Ringworld Engineers was a book I picked up from my school library, and I read it from cover to cover. The book was a bit beyond me at the time, I remember getting quite lost while reading it. I don't remember much of it, beyond the central character's name (Louis Wu) and his problem (He was a wirehead). I liked the concept of ringworld, and I vaguely remember thinking it was an immense thing, this ringworld, and I couldn't imagine trying to find anything useful at that kind of ridiculous scale.

Recently I picked up a copy of the first book, Ringworld, and read it again as an adult.It's a good book, though now at the advanced age of 33 years I thought it was a bit simple. My tastes in sci-fi tend to run toward space opera, I like to think big, dream things 'out there' and travelling to get there. Ringworld is a little of this travel, but most of the book takes place on the surface of the ringworld itself, and it's more of a ground-based romp. It's a bit irritating at times when it drifts towards the barrier-free random bullshit that many unlimited-environment novels can't avoid (Yes, Tad Williams, I'm talking to YOU), but Ringworld never quite goes too far. Larry Niven seemed to sense this boundry and pull back before losing the plot.

Ringworld is really good for an old sci-fi book. It's about thirty years old now, but manages to avoid sounding old like so many do. It's not intellectually demanding (unless you're nine, perhaps) and I tore through it in a few days.

It was good enough that I bought the sequel, Ringworld Engineers. This book was similarly enjoyable, though I think there were a couple of places where Niven had to kind of rethink some of the events of the first novel as he strove to explain them more fully in the sequel. In this return to the Ringworld our hero has to save the ring from destruction, and to do that he's got to find the 'command center' that must exist. Years of neglect have taken their toll and realigning the ring turns out to be a difficult task, with a great price.

Good books both, but I think they're not worth the obscene Australian prices ($20 AUD each). If you can get them at a sane price you could do worse. As far as classic SF goes, it's a good pair of books.

Getting a new camera

Wed, 01 Mar 2006 17:06:00 +0900

I'm going to get a new camera. I probably won't be able to afford it until I get paid for the book, but that said I can't really afford anything until I get paid for the book. Moving on:

I currently have a Canon G3, which has served me very well for a very long time. It's the top of the line for Canon, before moving into the DSLR gear, which I've always feared. DSLR introduces a whole new level of complication I've sought to avoid, but I think I've reached a point where I need t move into a camera that's a little more advanced.

Primarily I'm looking for two things:
- Speed. I want something that powers up instantly, focuses in an instant and generally operates quickly. The G3 tends to 'hunt' for focus too much, and takes a good three seconds to power on.
- Low light, low noise. The G3 couldn't even focus in low light half the time. Trying to take a picture of a possum in a tree at night was nearly impossible, it'd make four blurry shots for every clear one.

So I settled on the Nikon D70s, a DSLR which has achived practically universally great reviews. Its failings are few, and its benifits are many. And it's a 50% resolution increase over what I've got (4MPix to 6MPix).

I'm really, really excited.

Hudson Announces Nectaris DS

Mon, 27 Feb 2006 22:45:00 +0900

"Hudson Announces Nectaris DS", that's the headline I long to hear. Nectaris, released in North America as Military Madness, is fantastically popular in Japan, and it has a cult following overseas.

Unlike most hex grid strategy games Nectaris focuses on strategy and tactics rather than unit stats and realism. Realism is, in fact, eschewed in favour of a fanciful plot, with tanks and planes fighting for dominance on the surface of Earth's moon.

It's much easier to learn than Nintendo's popular Advance Wars, not being bogged down with frivolous features like commanders with different skills and special attacks. Nectaris is also very hard on the player, with the odds stacked against the player on every map. Unlike Advance Wars' endless battles of attrition, Nectaris demands that players use strategy and terrain to their advantage from the very first stage. Playing your units against the CPU head-on is the quickest way to end the game. Players must instead use field effects, called "Zone of Control", to surround and weaken enemies, and boost the offensive and defensive capabilities of allies. (See NFG Nectaris Guide)

Nectaris is a game that cries out for a DS release. It could make especially good use of the DS' dual screen architecture. I imagine being able to tap a unit on the bottom screen and seeing its details on the top, or scrolling around the zoomed-in map on the bottom and seeing the whole battlefield on top.

And the wireless capabilities! Nectaris has always had a two-player option, but hinking about wireless or (dare I say it) internet multiplayer makes me weak in the knees.

And then the extras. The virtually unlimited storage afforded by the DS carts could easily see all the maps from the PC Engine and Playstation versions as well as the extra units from the incredible Neo Nectaris bundled into one package. The DS is such an ideal platform for this game that it is nigh criminal for Hudson to not release this game. It's easy on the resources and there's a guaranteed audience of old fans, and the success of Advance Wars has created an awareness of the genre, with new fans looking to scratch an itch.

Come on, Hudson, how about it?

If not for them, do it for me.

Check out Base Nectaris

Some great game fonts

Wed, 22 Feb 2006 13:10:00 +0900

The Japanese site GEBSiTE has some really nice free game-alike fonts, featuring some favourites like Gradius, The Simpsons, Cameltry, Zelda, Esprade, Guwange and more. Thanks to elend for the heads up.

Nintendo's Fils-Aime Speaks

Wed, 22 Feb 2006 12:47:00 +0900

This is really interesting. Nintendo's Reggie Fils-Aime talks a bit about the competition during a recent phone interview with Engadget. Nintendo is playing it right, as far as I'm concerned. Everything he says rings true to my ears, and it's a welcome fresh breeze after listening to Sony's "Oh, it's expensive!" lies, and Microsoft's "Networking networking!" bullshit.

Fils-Aime says: “To be perfectly clear, the Microsoft and Sony strategies are based on overall corporate objectives versus what’s right for the consumer. That’s a reality. Microsoft is essentially trying to get you to put a PC in your living room because they are fundamentally a PC software company. Sony is trying to get you to put an entertainment hub that has Blu-ray technology because that’s important to their movie business and the rest of their entire electronics business.

We are a gaming company. We are gamers at heart. We love creating great, innovative content and superbly designed hardware, that’s what we do. And with that passion comes a laser-like focus to do things that are right for the consumer and right for the business. That’s the fundamental difference in our strategy versus our competition.”

Blasts from Ye Olde Pasts!

Wed, 15 Feb 2006 07:00:00 +0900

These posts are really old, but it might be worth revisiting. They came to the fore again curing the conversion of the old archives.

There's some pictures (most with boobies) of the lovely new Psikyo Visualworks Poster Book.

A Herzog Zwei review. Herzog Zwei was, if you didn't know, the first ever Real Time Strategy game.

Konami's giggly little 3DO M2 shooter, Polystars.

The best pinball game ever made, Necronomicon, by the one-hit-wonders at Kaze. See also this Power Rangers Pinball (Kaze again) review.

A Cameltry clone, Koro Koro Post Nin for PS1.

Finally, this review of the GameCube Star Soldier. (Spoiler: it's great!)

Also! Check this forum post for details on the super-cool new PC Engine mod I'm working on.

Enjoy!

Some slightly more up to date arcade news

Sat, 11 Feb 2006 21:33:00 +0900

Afterburner Climax (which is either Sega's new arcade game or a jet powered vibrator) is currently on public location test in Club Sega Shinjuku in Japan until the 12th Feb. If you can make it there it's probably worth a look on the off chance it's not an arcade game.

According to the ever elusive grapevine, Virtua Fighter 5 isn't getting an arcade release outside of Japan (at least it's not getting a release in the UK and the USA) so expect an uproar from the fanboys and terminal apathy from everyone else...

Homura 2 is in the works from Skonec, the peeps who brought you, erm, Homura... (O.K. Psyvariar as well)

Mobile Suit Gundam: Union vs. Z.A.F.T is the latest Gundam game from Banpresto, making it about 40 in the past 6 months or something.

The AOU arcade show is on in Japan soon, no doubt there's going to be some news from that as well, but that's for another time.

I'd put links in, but I'd hate for you to think I was keen and not the lazy bum I actually am.

Greetings (and arcade goings on...)

Sat, 11 Feb 2006 19:44:00 +0900

So, I'm Toby from System16, NFG's talked me into posting at his site so I better actually post something before he shows the photos of me, the milk, the llama and the shower. I've probably crossed that invisible line again haven't I?

Anyway, on with some game news I suppose, you're going to have to get used to arcade news from me, as that tends to be my thing. I'm about as interested in consoles as I am in having a colostomy bag installed. You might get some random PC game stuff occasionally tho' so you'll have to bear with that...

First, all new old news! My ATEI Arcade Show review, originally from my own site!

Time Crisis 4 rocked in many many ways, House of the Dead 4 was a great braindead shooter (even tho' the hand motions to unjam your gun were...erm...suspect...) DDR Supernova took ages to load and made my legs hurt and my pits sweaty, Power Smash 3 looked loverly, Metal Slug 6 looked arse, Battle Gear 4 had the best cabinet and Fist of the Northstar was as confusing as the cartoon (and I pulled the knob off, fnaaarrrrrrrr).

Gashaaaan was just mad, think 4 player Point Blank with plastic balls you throw at the screen instead of using guns, huge multiplayer fun and crashingly depressing as the chances of it making it over here are distressingly slim...

Love and Berry was one of the games of the show, and yes, I'm scooping my masculinity out the window with a large shovel.

New design (and more!)

Sun, 05 Feb 2006 22:06:00 +0900

You may have noticed this page has changed a little, and more changes still are afoot.

NFG Games is expanding. More content and - hopefully - some that doesn't suck. Still some bugs to work out, some new features to add, and obviously this page isn't finished yet.

It's an all new back-end as well, and there was no easy way to migrate the content over. I'll be manually re-entering all the old stuff from the old system, but that'll take an age and I doubt I'll ever get around to bringing over every post. For the time being the old version of the site can be found here.

Out with the old and in with the new, wot? Pip pip, jolly jolly! Tally ho!

Meanwhile, Back at the Hall of Brisbane...

Sat, 04 Feb 2006 23:24:00 +0900

I went into Brisbane today, to the Queen Street Mall (it's not, like, a MALL) and hung out for a few hours. It was pretty awesome. First I arrived late and missed my train into town, and since I was going in to buy books I didn't bring any with me, so it was a long boring 25 minute wait for the next train.

Anyway, that boring tale behind us, the day was a lot of fun. They're filming another commercial in town, so one major street is blocked off. A bunch of Koreans were hard at work, though they didn't actually DO anything while I was there. So I wandered around, ate mall-pizza (in, like, a MALL) and then sat around and watched people for a while.

And I took their pictures.Not every picture was great, and it turns out I forgot to set the camera back to hi-res, so the first forty or so kind of sucked.

Some kids were trying to perfect a three-foot drop onto a skateboard, so I took pics of that.

There were tons of goth kids out, as usual, and I took a picture of these charming girls with their cat ears and monkey.

This girl had an amazing body. Look at those shorts! It's a shame about that nose though...

I had a Gloria Jean Iced Chocolate which was really great.

And, finally, Buddy Jesus.

Exploded N64 Controller

Sat, 04 Feb 2006 22:56:00 +0900

I really wish I had thought of this. Someone's taken an N64 controller and blown it up, suspending all the components with pieces of wire. It looks fantastic.

A few quick updates!

Mon, 30 Jan 2006 18:53:00 +0900

A few updates for you on this fine summer day (I'm in Australia, remember?):

1. A short story about Nintendo, Atari's Jaguar, and Tetrisphere.

2. Some ebay auctions of mine. I'm unloading a ton of stuff - PC Engine and Saturn softs, and coming up: a Samsung Saturn, a brand new 64DD, etc. Support NFG Games, bid high! (or, you know, not. I don't like to shill for my own auctions, but I need the money for a solid platinum Saturn pad...)

The Samsung Saturn Revisited

Mon, 30 Jan 2006 18:53:00 +0900

You may remember an older writeup I did on the elusive, nearly mythical Samsung Saturn. I recently received a pair of additional units, and after having had a look at them there are definitely new things to learn.

The two biggest things of interest are:
1. Not all of them have the Japanese-language option disabled from the boot menu, and
2. Either no one in Korea could refrain from opening their systems and mucking around with, and losing, the innards, or Sega foisted some pretty shoddy gear on poor Samsung. All three are missing parts and/or screws.

I've started a new page detailing some of the findings on the wiki.

Excellent article - go read it!

Mon, 30 Jan 2006 18:52:00 +0900

There's a fantastic interview over on insertcredit, with the head man of Mitchell, a company that created games like PuzzLoop (ripped off by Popcap games and renamed Zuma) and Pang/Buster Bros.

It's a very good read.

No more Horienergy

Mon, 30 Jan 2006 18:19:00 +0900

A few days ago I posted about Livedoor still selling Horienergy on their site. The energy drink, no longer available from AM/PM, is no longer available from Livedoor either.

The site still lists the sale page when you search for it, but the page is now gone.

Translated for your convenience.

Sometimes things make me crazy.

Sat, 28 Jan 2006 11:03:00 +0900

So I've been clearing out a lot of shit on ebay, partially to lighten the load (shoulda done that in Japan, I'm an idiot) and partially because I'm totally broke. Stupid car. Stupid rent. Stupid Australia.

Anyway.

People kept asking me about one of my auctions, a game + controller set. "Have you got a picture of the paddle?" they'd ask. "Yes," I replied, "It's on the box." Dumbasses, there's a picture of the damned thing on the box, what do you want from me?

So the auction ends in 25 minutes, and I check it to see what the bidding's up to.

Oh.

I forgot the picture of the box.

I just hate that. I'm such a retard.

Why Livedoor?

Wed, 25 Jan 2006 19:37:00 +0900

In case you're wondering why I talk so much about Livedoor, the Japan Times has a great article on the subject. Some choice quotes:

"...Horie's aggressive M&A style, which has been intensely covered by the media, helped change the way people think..."

"In its reported quest to become the world's No. 1 firm in terms of market value, Livedoor bought out about 40 companies."

Livedoor "tried to take control of Nippon Broadcasting System Inc.", which "was probably the first hostile takeover (attempt) of that size in Japan."

"The young Internet tycoon first grabbed attention when he tried to buy the Kintetsu Buffaloes baseball team in late June 2004.
The team flatly rejected the offer.
Livedoor then applied to start a new team but was again snubbed by the closed circle of big companies that run the league.
Massive media coverage of the failed bid, however, made him a young national hero who challenged the conservative old guard."

It's a good article. Go read it.

[note: the linked URL above was deprecated without notice by the Japan Times. It's been corrected. For those who care, the text is included in the rest of this post.]LIVEDOOR'S STRATEGIES DEBATED

Will Horie's impact on Japan business world last?

By HIROKO NAKATA

Staff writer

The arrest of Takafumi Horie, 33, founder of high-flying Internet startup Livedoor Co., has shocked business leaders and prompted some soul-searching.

"There are rules and ethics that companies have to follow and should not breach," Hiroshi Okuda, chairman of the Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren), told reporters soon after Horie's arrest late Monday.

"A young and challenging figure like Horie did not have to engage in (alleged illegal) acts," Okuda said.

In Japan's business world, management used to place priority on employees, and mergers and acquisitions for the sake of shareholders was once almost taboo.

But Horie's aggressive M&A style, which has been intensely covered by the media, helped change the way people think, observers say, noting the technical terms of such business deals have become household vocabulary nationwide.

In its reported quest to become the world's No. 1 firm in terms of market value, Livedoor bought out about 40 companies.

It tried to take control of Nippon Broadcasting System Inc., a radio broadcaster belonging to the Fujisankei Communications Group, last February.

"It was probably the first hostile takeover (attempt) of that size in Japan," said Shinichi Ichikawa, a strategist at Credit Suisse First Boston Securities Ltd. in Tokyo. "It is true that the concept (of hostile takeovers) struck not only corporate managers but the public."

The young Internet tycoon first grabbed attention when he tried to buy the Kintetsu Buffaloes baseball team in late June 2004.

The team flatly rejected the offer.

Livedoor then applied to start a new team but was again snubbed by the closed circle of big companies that run the league.

Massive media coverage of the failed bid, however, made him a young national hero who challenged the conservative old guard.

Horie's vocal pledge to maximize stock prices also helped highlight the rights of shareholders, bringing about debate over the role of companies in a country that once had a history of life-time employment and strong employee loyalty to their companies.

"There is no doubt that companies exist for (the sake of) shareholders," Ichikawa said. "Livedoor's takeovers, however, not only underscored those interests but also those of customers and employees, as well as long-term corporate value."

Horie's aggressive efforts to push up stock prices also affected many people on the street, even kids.

Together with Waseda University and a nonprofit organization, Merrill Lynch Japan Securities started a three-day "summer camp" in August 2004 in Tokyo's Nihonbashi district to teach kids the finer points of finance, each time drawing seven or eight times more applicants than could be accommodated.

"Their interest in the 'Roppongi Hills Tribe' is one of the reasons why the camp has been so popular," a Merrill Lynch spokesman said in reference to the circle of corporate executives centered on Livedoor, whose head office is in the Roppongi Hills commercial complex in Minato Ward, Tokyo.

Online brokerage Monex Inc. also held a one-day stock workshop for kids this month to address growing interest in a pursuit not covered in regular classes at schools. The forum was attended by several dozen children and their parents, out of several hundred who had applied.

But Livedoor's aggressive style apparently had a dark side, prompting business leaders to raise questions of ethics after the arrest of Horie and other Livedoor executives.

"What Livedoor has been doing is extremely unique to that company. It was OK for them to act illegally if they were not found out," said economist Takuro Morinaga, author of the best-seller "The Economics to Survive the Era of Annual Income of 3 Million yen."

Shigeru Nakajima, an attorney specializing in M&As, said that ideally, companies take over other entities because of the synergic spinoffs of such integration, but Livedoor pursued takeovers without clear synergy.

"The relevancy and necessity of mutual business should come first in doing M&As," he said.

Livedoor's share price has been deemed overvalued by M&As and share splits. But other Internet rivals -- including Net shopping mall operator Rakuten Inc. -- pursued more moderate M&A strategies.

"Since our foundation (in 1996), we have aimed to augment our corporate value for the medium to long-term," Masahiro Inoue, the president and chief executive officer of Yahoo Japan Corp., the nation's largest Internet portal operator, said Monday. "We are not thinking about patching up the short-term value."

Economist Morinaga said that although the Livedoor group's share price will suffer, the overall stock market will be buoyed by robust corporate results to be reported in April and May.

Attorney Nakajima said: "The recent (Livedoor investigation and arrests) will force companies to focus again on their products and services. I believe it will turn out to be good (for corporate management)."
The Japan Times: Jan. 25, 2006
(C) All rights reserved

Rise and Fall of Livedoor

Wed, 25 Jan 2006 17:34:00 +0900

So Horie, the charismatic leader of Livedoor, has been arrested. Then he resigned. Someone else has taken his place. You might assume the ride's basically over for him, and I think that's probably going to prove to be the case for the short term.

Interestingly, Crisscross says Livedoor's #2 man implicated Horie, but on Mainichi's site they report on Horie's denial, and refusal to sign a confession.

CrissCross also says Horie has offered his resignation, though Livedoor hasn't accepted it, but Mainichi counters with the news that Livedoor's already named a successor (who's already slagging Horie!).

In an uncharacteristic response (For a Japanese politician) Prime Minister Koizumi says he'll accept responsibility for backing Horie. FujiTV, which bought 12% of Livedoor to settle Livedoor's takeover attempt, is dumping stock in apparent breach of contract. The Tokyo Stock Exchange has limited Livedoor trading to a mere hour and a half to prevent it from 'disrupting' the otherwise enjoyable fall of Japanese tech stocks.

Koizumi's not the only person who's distancing himself from Horie. Several politicians are suddenly finding their previous Horie-backing something they'd like to forget.

Joi Ito has some interesting things to say about the Livedoor saga: "My wise attorney in Japan always tells me to try to stay out of the press. There is an old saying in Japan that the press always get to use you twice. They write about you to push you up and they write about you to tear you down. This is clearly the case with Horie."

He goes on to offer four pieces of advice:
1) Manage media exposure
2) Don't believe the hype
3) Don't say or do ANYTHING that might be used to tear you down
4) Don't piss people off for fun

Horie's rocketship ride to the top made him a lot of enemies, and they're falling over themselves to knock him off his lofty perch now. AMPM convenience stores have gone so far as to stop selling his energy drink. "We can't put products on our shelves that are connected to someone who has been arrested," a company representative said. (Mainichi)

Business is still continuing as usual at Livedoor. Yahoo, who you might consider a Livedoor competitor, still shows the cutest little Livedoor Credit (one of many popular, legal loan-sharks in Japan) ads on Yahoo Auctions:

Livedoor's site still offers the drink for sale, though I suggest some changes to the banner:

Syriana sucks.

Mon, 23 Jan 2006 13:19:00 +0900

There's a reason the movie industry doesn't want people downloading movies: They'll find out they suck and not pay to see it in the theatre (or anywhere else).

Syriana sucks.These are pastes from an IRC conversation, forgive me if it sounds a little disjointed.

syriana's like an amateur foreign film
lots of silence, lots of people staring thoughtfully as if we know what they're thinking and it's really important.
it's boring as fuck
you can tell something's happening, but there's like 20 threads going at the same time
and everyone talks quietly
or stares

one of the biggest gimmicks of this movie is having a conversation, usually only one side of it ('cause the other side is silent and staring), while showing something else.
So bob's walking down the street while jane talks about something unrelated. Dave talks to his wife (who is silent and certainly staring at her phone) while the movie shows dave in the lobby of a hotel.

I like to think I'm a smart guy
I do
but this movie is fucking stupid, or it's way, way smarter than me
but either way it's boring me to fuck.
like, out of nowhere this guy goes back to somewhere (not going to spoil anything, in case you can make head or tail of it all). He's got no motivation for it that I can see, he's got to clear it with an organization he doesn't belong to, he gets there, and suddenly the music's all tense and loud.
what's going on?

so I finished syriana
and I still have no fucking idea what went on. The entire story was 10 minutes long, there was about 1 hour 40 min of filler.
people with no names talking about important stuff, important people with nothing to say. ugh.

ask me if it's good. You'll hear that it is, in fact, not.

The things you see...

Sat, 21 Jan 2006 17:35:00 +0900

So I went into town today to buy some books. More about that later.

What I saw will shock and amaze you!

This is my hand, holding a hamburger, in front of a trainload of cows that are about to become hamburgers. Notice their lightning eyes!! While they were stopped, their delicious fate hit home and many of them pissed themselves. In cold hearted fear, no doubt.

And now, some real live scientologists:

Note their fantastic machinery, designed to deceive and mislead! Oooh, free stress test!

And a book on Dianetics by third-rate SF writer L. Ron Hubbard!

They look so earnest!

On TV

Fri, 20 Jan 2006 18:04:00 +0900

There are three TV shows in my life right now. Read on, if you care.

1. Boston Legal
My father returned from a trip to Canada and said that pretty much everyone he knew was watching this new show called Boston Legal. If you don't know (and I can't imagine anyone else is as out of touch as I am about this) it's a lawyer show with a demented comedic bent. It features William Shatner (Kirk from Star Trek) in a role he seems to have been born for - an aging, once-great lawyer with mad cow disease who speaks his mind in a hilarious, lascivious fashion. Candace Bergen (Murphy Brown) is his ex, and a partner in the firm. The pedigree of the actors is unquestionable and the writing practically... Well, if it was a comic their word balloons would scintillate. It has a lot of what I want in a show - good writing, good dialogue, snappy comebacks and little speeches which virtually resonate in my mind.

2. House
A show about a doctor who is a real misanthrope. He believes everyone is a liar, as if it's a condition of humanity, and he's not shy about speaking his mind. He is as I see myself - angry, bitter, but having a fantastic time telling people exactly what he thinks about them. Also there's a fantastically cute girl in the show, who in season 2 got a makeover that makes her look just drop-dead. Umph!

3. BattleStar Galactica
It doesn't move fast enough, and it's intentionally drawing out the resolution of mankind's hatred of the Cylon doppelgangers. I can't watch it without screaming at the actors to just get over this irrationality and consider for a moment that this poorly written hatred is just a plot device. But the action scenes... Well, they're pretty damned cool, if short-lived. The cinematography is exceptional, all of the space battles have me cheering on the edge of my seat. More boom and less gab, please. And, oh yes, Grace Park. Yow.

That is all, carry on.

Excellent article - go read it!

Thu, 19 Jan 2006 21:07:00 +0900

On DRM and other madness

Thu, 19 Jan 2006 10:50:00 +0900

There's not really any question that 'the industry' (Pick one) is way off base with this whole DRM crusade. Digital means that only one un-restricted copy needs to exist and then anyone can make a copy of THAT file, and everyone who paid for a legitimate, restricted copy now owns something less useful than the pirated version.

Given that you pay more and get less, why would anyone do it? I sure as hell won't - there's not a signle piece of restricted-use content (music-wise, anyway) on my harddrive.

This topic comes about as a result of this forum thread. A quote from a post I made:

My problem with DRM is twofold:

1. I hate real CDs. I like their durability and their quality, but when I move or travel I curse their very existence. Heavy, and not very data-dense. It takes a 20kg pile of CDs to equal my 300g music player stuffed full of OGG files. And this is where the idea falls down. Copyright nazis would freak out if they found 2,000 audio files on my harddrive, unless I could prove I bought them. Having to lug around heavy, tangible proof is a PITA. What about the rips I made of CDs I've since thrown away? Do I have to delete them now? Bullshit, I say. The whole idea of ownership in a digital age needs to be completely re-thought.

2. Don't limit me. Fuck off, I bought it, I own it. NONE of these limits stop actual pirates. They ONLY harm legitimate purchasers. This goes for showing "Don't steal movies!" to people in the theatre too, it's fucking insulting.

Australia wins one

Wed, 18 Jan 2006 11:17:00 +0900

I bash Australia a lot. It's expensive here, and the amenities are few. It's a beautiful place and the people are nice, but it costs a lot to live here.

But now, finally, Australia has won one.

Bubblewrap is cheaper than Japan. I thought it was nearly double the price until it arrived and turned out to be double the size. So it's cheaper. Wow, WTF will I do with 250m of bubble wrap? Seriously, I'll never use it up.

More about Livedoor

Tue, 17 Jan 2006 15:19:00 +0900

Livedoor, a Japanese portal company offering many Yahoo-like services, has long been an underdog in Japan, an unruly upstart challenging the old guard and, generally, kicking ass at it. (intro and recap here)

Well, Livedoor's in the news again. The crime? Basically Livedoor announced they were buying a company they already owned, and the Livedoor share price jumped up as a result.

From CrissCross: "According to prosecutors, Value Click Japan Inc, now called Livedoor Marketing Co, announced in October 2004 that it would turn a publisher, Money Life, into a wholly owned subsidiary through a stock swap.

"But Money Life had already been effectively controlled by the Livedoor group at that time because an investment fund, financed by Livedoor, had taken a 100% stake in the publisher, the prosecutors said."

Many observers are convinced this is a tar-and-feather campaign by the established powers. This has resulted in, as you might expect, the typical denials of wrongdoing, panicky stock selloffs, political posturing, and obligatory apologies.

Life in Australia

Tue, 17 Jan 2006 12:30:00 +0900

It's bloody weird here. It's as if Australia's stuck in some sort of pre-revolution world where corporations are not answerable to their customers, where fundamental services can just go dead without explanation or apology, where things just run out.

Last week the power went out for over an hour. It was a clear evening, no storms, and suddenly BAM, no power. I can't even remember the last time this happened, it was so long ago. Before Australia, I mean. Here it happens a lot, as if electricity isn't something that can be controlled and guaranteed. It's still a mystery, it's hard.

Our internet at the office has been spotty lately. It's on for a couple of hours, it's off for a couple of hours. Like Canada, Australia has been divided into two non-competing territories between (in this case Fox Cable and Optus Cable), and where there's no competition there's no love for the customer. Calls to Optus go virtually unheeded. There's no problem, sir. A few other complaints, yes, maybe ten in your area, but there's no problem. The earliest a tech can get out here is ten days from our first complaint, as if having a node go down simply doesn't matter.

The other day the gas station ran out of gas. Can anyone tell me why this isn't incompetence of the highest order? As if it's hard to build stockpiles, reservoirs, or accurately predict demand? And don't get me started on the general acceptance of gas prices that shoot upwards every weekend! It's preposterous.

And Australians, by and large, accept it without comment or complaint.

A momentous evening.

Sat, 14 Jan 2006 21:43:00 +0900

It's been an interesting night.

First I found a microscopic baby gecko in the kitchen. After chasing him around for a while, I coerced him onto my hand.

Then I had a nasty, nasty shock. Witness The Lurking Horror!!

He's missing a leg. After hosing him down with enough poison to gas a moose he wouldn't f##king die, so I can only assume he sacrificed one leg to his gods to become immortal.

Some new pictures

Thu, 12 Jan 2006 21:21:00 +0900

I took some new pictures recently. I'm particularly proud of the first one, a Spotted Katydid. The next is a Jewel Spider, then an unidentified grey spider, and finally some sort of beetle... You can click them for larger images.

There are, of course, more images of bugs and other animals.

H2O's Phear brochure - full text

Wed, 11 Jan 2006 12:46:00 +0900

If you're at all interested in the Tetris/Phear Saga I've got the full text of H2O's brochure here. At the time it was written it's pretty clear that they were a small team of bedroom coders.

I wonder where they are now...

Read on for the full text.

And pictures of the brochure!All errors are theirs, unless they're mine. All the misplaced apostrophes are theirs. All the spelling mistakes are theirs. The bad grammar is theirs. I did not make any errors transcribing this (I think). It should be noted that the original text was in ALL CAPS.

--

H2O Entertainment Inc. is a "Hands on" video game-console entertainment research & development company. H2O Entertainment's focus is creating innovatinve, high quality software.

H2O Entertainment Inc. has affiliates who have done products for the PC, Amiga, Sega Genesis and 3DO. Our team members have vast experience on what makes a great video game.

Our esources for development include many machines ranging from several Amiga's & PC's to a Silicon Graphics Indigo2 Extreme running all features of Alias. As well as a extensive set of programming tools which have been developed over the years.

H2O Entertainment Inc. is specialized in 3-D geometry focusing on virtual reality. Our programmer's have been doing assembly programming for over 10 years, right back to the Commodore-64. This experience has guided us on optimizing routines so they are fast as possible. Our 3-D designer's have over 8 years modeling experience and know exactly what it takes to make the best 3-D objects.

H2O Entertainment is a team of individuals that have worked for other companies and came together to form H2O Entertainment Inc. As a group of friends we expect to make the best games possible.

H2O Entertainment is glad to produce games for the Atari Jaguar. Atari Jaguar game-console is an amazing machine and incredibly fast. Until now there hasn't been enough power to do the type of games we wanted. Be prepared to see something radically new!

--

The other side of the brochure had some additional text and specs.

"Phear it to chunks" is a great tagline. No, wait... What?

"Be blown away with the experience of moving, rotating, spinning and zooming into 4-dimensions. Don't miss this ultimate experience! Using the power of Jaguar 64-bit entertainment system."

Phear Specifications:
Resolution: 384x240 pixels
Palette: 65,536 colours
Polygons: 50,000+ / second
Sound: 8-channel sound / FX
Playability: Awesome
Geometry: 4-Dimensional
Lastability: Virtually Addicting
Music: 12+ Modules
Release Date: January 1995

--

I should clarify that I totally love Tetrisphere, it's one of the N64's unquestionably great moments, and one of the few that didn't rely on a license or character to achieve this greatness.

[edit: I typo'd 'demensions' instead of 'dimensions', a mistake I apologize for.]

Ebay, cursed ebay.

Tue, 10 Jan 2006 22:08:00 +0900

For most of the five years I lived in Japan I was selling games on ebay. It was fun, back when you could get stuff cheap and sell it dear, but times changed. Still though I find stockpiles of games now and then and I sell them on ebay. Currently I've got about 85 games on auction, and I've got at least double that again to go up, in addition to a fairly sizable stack of hardware.

But ebay, oh how it's changed.

I posted an auction for a soft called Tennokoe Bank, it's a data backup card that allows a user to copy their save data from one machine to another. It's possibly the first 'memory card' system ever used. But ebay, that champion of all things straight and narrow, threw up this warning before I'd even finished posting the auction:

It pisses me off to no end that ebay caters so willingly to the DRM crowd, to the intellectual rights holders who insist they have a right to tell me what I can and cannot do with the stuff I purchased lawfully. Here they are giving me shit in advance, promising to investigate my auction, and threatening to turn me in to law enforcement! Ebay's always been like this.Like the years ebay banned the sale of Japanese Dreamcast games 'cause Sega asked them to, quoting in their defense a law that, if you read it, specifically ALLOWED these imports to be sold.

Ebay has tortured the auction listing process so badly that what used to take seconds to rapid-fire list auctions now takes considerably longer. Instead of one screen showing all the auction details, it's now spread over five or six. Their rules are draconian - you can only place one link to your site on your auction. Only one! It's absurd.

I tried switching to Yahoo auctions back when they actually competed, but they were unable to charge my credit card for some reason, and all my attempts to resolve the situation met with a form letter that ignored my pleas and then demanded I pay up.

I tried voting with my feet, I was willing to take a hit by moving to Yahoo where the buyers were few, but Yahoo fucked that up for me. So I stuck with ebay, and I hate them for ruining every part of the auction experience.

It's Rex, the amazing Cancer Dog!

Tue, 10 Jan 2006 17:35:00 +0900

According to this New Scientist article dogs are 99% and 88% accurate at smelling and detecting lung and breast cancer in patients, with a miniscule 1% and 2% false-positive rate, respectively.

This isn't the first time New Scientist has talked about it, and National Geographic has mentioned as well that dogs can detect more than just cancer.

This is very interesting, and could lead to all sorts of reduced-cost detection of treatable cancers, and possibly to better, less invasive electronic testing as well.

A few quick updates!

Tue, 10 Jan 2006 10:03:00 +0900

Tetrisphere, the Jaguar and the Nintendo 64

Mon, 09 Jan 2006 17:53:00 +0900

Back when the Nintendo 64 was new and the Jag was still clinging to life, I was at CES. This would have been January 1995. Atari was flush with cash from a settlement with Sega, I believe over Atari's game controller patents. I asked the guy at Atari how the money from Sega was affecting their ability to market the Jag, and he just smiled and waved his arms around at the impressive booth.

I played some interesting games, but one that caught my eye was Phear, a weird game with a polygonal sphere over which the player dropped tetris pieces, trying to etch a hole in the core. It looked neat and moved smooth as a dream. It was never released, at least not for the Jag. Instead it came out a year or two later in a HEAVILY revised form on Nintendo's N64 platform. Rumor has it Nintendo saw it running in Atari's booth, walked over to the developer and offered $madcash for the rights to it. I sure wish I'd snatched that dev cart out of the Jag, it's a bit of history now.

I did manage to pick up a few copies of H2O's (the developer) promotional pages for the game. It's got spelling errors and is really pretty ugly, but it's basically the only lingering proof that the game was originally for the Jaguar. (update: that brochure is here)

Anyway, when it came out for the N64 it was pretty great. Nice colours, great music, and very decent gameplay. It was very much a zen game where you could play for a loooong time. It had multiple modes and two-player action, and it had 'cute little mascots' courtesy of the Nintendo influence.

I was a Jaguar fan, but even I can admit that this move was a good thing for everyone. Well, not Atari I guess. At least when Nintendo bought the game they ensured it would reach an audience of more than six people. For a few images, click -->

Pixel Art Book

Mon, 09 Jan 2006 08:36:00 +0900

Many of you might not know I've been writing a book. I don't talk about it much 'cause of the problems I've been having getting it done, and working with the publisher, but it's starting to look like it'll actually get printed, so here's an update.

It's nearly finished. I've completed the main body of text (some 40,000 words) and supplied about 99% of the images. Recently I finished writing all the captions for the images, which accounted for several thousand more words.

The whole adventure has been something of an ordeal,with the publisher seemingly unsure about who's in control.

They tapped me to write a book for them. It was their idea, their book. I'm fine with that. They changed the focus right at the start and moved into an area I'm not as familiar with, but I knew that before I signed the contract, and that was fine. It was their book, I was writing it for them.

The editor asked me to provide a rough contents list first, but then said he was too busy to check it and I never got feedback on whether it was acceptable. I was told it was my book, and I could write what I wanted. So I did.

I provided the pictures I wanted too. There were never enough pictures for them, they wanted more so they could choose the best ones. But then I was catching flack for not selecting the pictures I wanted to use. This happened a few times, where they'd tell me to do it however I wanted then tell me I was doing it wrong.

I'll talk more about it once I get paid. ;)

It's due to be printed in May.

It looks a little odd.

Sun, 08 Jan 2006 17:32:00 +0900

This is a screenshot from Art of Fighting 2, a decent little brawler from SNK for their now-venerable Neo Geo system. The screenshot has been enhanced to isolate the characters, but has not been otherwise modified. The two characters are brother and sister, the story goes. In this screenshot I can't help but project some lecherous intent onto the actions of the brother. I also can't resist a caption.
Gimme some sugar, baby.

Redesigned mainpage + other updates

Sun, 08 Jan 2006 14:05:00 +0900

I finally redesigned the site, as you can see. Gone are the dark colours, and multi-coloured side-boxes which complicated and compromised the design. I hope all three of my irregular readers approve of the change. It's better than it was but, while I'm satisfied for now, there are still things I want to change. It's quite a lot of work making even these small changes; editing templates and CSS files, rebuilding archives to see how it looks, repeat.

Current news: Zumi's in Japan for a few months. Her health has been deteriorating lately as she found herself sucked into a spiral of not being able to eat 'cause of old stress, which resulted in a real inability to live normally, which caused new stress. So she's gone home to try and relax.

I've not posted to this blog in a long time, most because the layout sucked and I hated looking at it. It's much cleaner now, so let's hope that leads to more content. For now, a billion images for you.First off, don't forget there is a gallery. It doesn't have a 'newest pictures' option, so I'm going to try and post more here with links to there.

I finally got the car. It's a gorgeous RenaultSport Megane. 2 litre turbo, 0-100km/h in a little over six seconds. You can see all sorts of pictures here. Of course it's blue; who would I be if I wasn't drivng 'the blue car'? Sadly the exorbitant cost of the thing has kind of crippled us financially; had I been thinking clearly I might have passed on this dream car, but fuckit - a man needs at least one major debt in his life, no?

There's a decent group of Renault fans here, and every few months we go on regional Drive Days. It's mostly just a social event where we tear up some back roads in a group. As if we needed an excuse to go driving in these hot, hot cars. There are gobs of pics of some drivedays here. . A bit of a writeup from the last one can be found here.

Yesterday I took some pictures of what appears to be a wasp-like insect plated in brilliant blue and green armour. The day before, I found this stumpy little gecko in the kitchen. More insects and other animals can be found here.

While making images for the book (more on that later) I took some images of consoles in the grass.

That's it for now. More to come.

The Samsung Saturn Revisited

Sat, 07 Jan 2006 11:03:00 +0900

Playing Games: Dreamcast

Tue, 27 2006 00:17:00 +0900

Playing Games: Dreamcast

Tue, 27 2006 00:17:00 +0900

Playing Games: Dreamcast

Tue, 27 2006 00:17:00 +0900

GameSX Update + Stuff

Mon, 26 Dec 2005 09:12:00 +0900

Two new items of note:

1. I've been updating GameSX.com a lot recently. There's no splashpage anymore either. After nine years I finally had a complaint, so I removed it.

2. There's a short article on Backup Technique + GameLab Magazines you might be interested in. "If you were any kind of hacker in Japan during the late eighties or later, you’d have had a hard time staying away from Backup Technique magazine. Starting with the Famicom, this A5-sized magazine covered nearly every console and computer system available, and was filled with hard and soft hacking, cracking and duplication." Read On...

GameSX Update + Stuff

Mon, 26 Dec 2005 09:12:00 +0900

Australian Rhinoceros Beetles

Sat, 10 Dec 2005 11:48:00 +0900

Yesterday afternoon I spotted a rhinoceros beetle on the side of the road. I screeched to a halt and picked it up, but it was dead. I was heartened, however, by the thought that beetles were around the area, and that I might actually find one or two. As you may or may not know one thing I spent considerable time with in Japan was the beetles, large rhinoceros beetles that had massive scoops on their heads, with which they did battle, trying to scoop and flip other beetles off tree branches. I raised them, from store-bought larvae to adults, and then the offspring of those adults.

When I left Japan it was one of the things I knew I'd miss the most. I knew there were beetles here in Queensland, but I worried that they wouldn't be near where I lived, and that they'd be more like the Atlas and Hercules beetles which were much stronger and far less fun to play with.

I'm pleased to report they are more like the Japanese Kabuto than any other beetle I've found. They're not very strong, move when you scratch 'em on the back, and are content to just sit on your hand as long as you want them to.

I found three of these great little beetles last night while out at the office xmas party. They're currently in a cardboard box clinging to a plush Santa, which is kind of inglorious. I picked up a plastic box to keep them in, and as soon as I find out what they use as a base material I'll throw in some feed (they're happy to eat syrup, it seems) and some branches for them to cling to.

There are some images in the gallery.

Electroplankton Review

Sun, 27 Nov 2005 19:38:00 +0900

I think Electroplankton sucks. There, I've said it. Read the review if you want to know why I think this.

Mario Kart DS - Online Play

Sun, 27 Nov 2005 16:09:00 +0900

First, a lost review of Electroplankton. Now:

Nintendo has finally, finally joined the rest of the world and has made good on the promise that the DS' built-in wifi (802.11) offered players. Mario Kart DS was released last week, and it's the first of several upcoming DS releases that can be played online. This is not a review of the game, it's a review of Nintendo's networking prowess. Or lack thereof... Read More...

New layout time

Tue, 25 Oct 2005 10:34:00 +0900

It's really time for a new layout here.

It hurts.

Fri, 07 Oct 2005 08:43:00 +0900

My left wrist is really starting to hurt.

I can't type at home at all anymore, the pain starts almost immediately. I can manage five minute bursts before it starts to bother me. If it wasn't for this ergo keyboard at work I wouldn't be able to get any work done there either. This is going to spell the end for the book I'm writing.

Even though I was behind I had hopes I'd be able to complete it, but when every minute of effort makes my hand tingle and my wrist hurt I think... Well, shit, I don't want to suffer more permanent injury.

Marios. 64.

Thu, 06 Oct 2005 08:17:00 +0900

This is really awesome. 64 Mario sprites remade. Do check it out. Thanks to elend for the link. See also: Mario Sprite History.

Marios 64

Thu, 06 Oct 2005 08:17:00 +0900

This is really awesome. 64 Mario sprites remade. Do check it out. Thanks to elend for the link. See also: Mario Sprite History.

WoW made me sad.

Tue, 13 Sep 2005 19:20:00 +0900

When World of Warcraft came out I was hyped. I plopped for the deluxe set with the deluxe case and the collector's hardcover book and cloth map and soundtrack and I was hyped when it finally arrived. I was ready for it and I was completely enraptured with it. At first it was everything I wanted: online gaming that was ping-tolerant (being in Japan sucked for overseas gaming), varied and fun. Lots of varied quests, lots of new things to see. I was playing first with one then another good friends, and it was great fun. I have a directory stuffed with screenshots I took every time I entered a new area.

And then the suckage started in: after level twenty the game ceased being something you could play solo, or with one friend. Everything required a team, all the experience was in dungeons and a team of two was lambs to the slaughter.I wanted to keep playing, I did. Finding a team was frustrating as all hell. There were three types of players: the fast levellers who were winding their fourth character of the week up to level sixty, and wanted you to back them up, the retards who, because of mental deficiency, were as bad for your health as the monsters, and useless tits who couldn't be counted on to show up when they said they would. There was a fourth type too, the type who was literate, friendly, and willing to do their share for the team. So I hear - they only seem to exist in other people's copies of the game, or on servers I couldn't find.

I spent a lot of money on WoW, pestered two friends to find me the game and then use their visa to pay for my account when Blizzard refused me 'cause I was in Japan. And, after all that, I got a social game populated with morons and illiterate teens. Every time I needed to complete a quest it was in an area filled with Alliance players who, at level sixty, had nothing better to do than kill me, a lowly level 22 player. One hit and I'm dead, I'm stuck walking for five minutes just to get completely crushed again by the next level sixty moron with nothing else to do. And then, assuming I survived, I found my quest involved a dungeon where I'd die without a larger team.

Where is the WoW I read about on Penny Arcade or PvP? They say guilds are cool, but all the guilds I joined split for other servers in short order, or were focused on repetitive mining or crafting to earn money for horses I wasn't high-level enough to use. I'm sad, and I'm jealous - they're playing a game I remember wanting desperately but hated playing. And thanks to Blizzard's no-transfer policy I can't even sell my copy of the game.

QRCode code update

Fri, 26 Aug 2005 23:11:00 +0900

Swetake has announced that there is a security issue in his QRCode generating PHP script. Since I used his code extensively throughout my experiments with the QRCode maker as well as the link you see on the left column I had to update.

What kind of sucked is that I made the generator years ago and had completely forgotten in the meantime how I put it together. Swetake's script is very easy to implement, but I had made significant changesto it.

The code itself didn't change very much, I'd hardwired a few settings to streamline the process, but the QRCode generator was made, with the help of a very good friend, with a lot of javascript. I don't know javascript at all, so I had to reverse engineer this code. I sorted that out and figured out where the script was sending the data: to another short script that parsed the input and sorted it into the proper syntax for swetake's script.

For some reason it just wouldn't work when I replaced the old script with the new version.

After pounding my head against it for two days and grasping at all kinds of straws I found that by rearranging a few lines I could make it work happily. I made so many changes and tweaks that I'm not sure exactly what the problem was, but now it works and it's not a security risk.

Whew!!

Some people are nutty.

Tue, 16 Aug 2005 21:56:00 +0900

According to a site I won't even dignify with a link, you can pay more than $655 AUD for a PDF featuring a hundred pages on QR Codes, each with about as much content (or less) as a power point slide. This is information you can get off my site for free. Yay for fucking retarded people. I hope this guy makes a mint, and I hope every retard who buys his stuff, rather than doing an hour's research (like I did) finds my site. And I hope they cry.

Seriously, do people buy this stuff? Unreal.

In case you forgot:
My QRCode Generator （日本語　バージョン）
QRCode Primer 2
QR Code Capacity chart
Silly little QR code fun
Bunch of QR Code links and apps
QRCode maker abuse

Free! Enjoy!

Gastric Atony

Tue, 09 Aug 2005 16:00:00 +0900

Gastric Atony:
(Perhaps also known as gastroptosis). It's a condition where the stomach is far lower than normal, and quite a bit stretched as a result of it. The stomach becomes weaker and more prone to hyperacidity resulting in heartburn. Typical symptoms also include continuous indigestion, and rough, dry skin as the stomach is unable to absorb enough nutrients in this condition. A small meal will make you feel full. It can be easily diaagnosed with an X-ray.
Gastric Atony appears to mimic many of the results of overeating and overdrinking, overwork, insecurity and stress, and indeed these can trigger the same effects in a person with this affliction. It is not a disease, but a condition one might be born with. Often symptoms never appear, but once they do recurrances are easily achieved and can be long lasting.
Recovery begins with proper eating of foods that do not upset the stomach, not drinking, avoiding stress and generally relaxing.

Basically it's endless heartburn unless you live on a diet of milk and bread.

I have a problem

Sun, 07 Aug 2005 09:41:00 +0900

My mind does a lot of processing on a subconscious level. In the background there's a lot of mental shit going on that I am unaware of. It manifests itself in different ways - the sudden burst of creativity or the revelation of a long-standing problem's solution.

It also, and this causes me no end of grief, keeps me informed of my components inventory.

Every time I'm possessed with the urge to play a game it results in a time-consuming hunt for the piece I've lost that would let me actually play. Last night I spent an hour and a half searching in vain for my GameCube power adaptor, and then a further half hour searching for enough parts to play a Saturn game. I had it all, handy and ready, except for the god-damned controller! I can't count how many times this has happened to me, and the only conclusion I can draw is that my subconscious is trying to tell me, in the only way it can, that something's missing and I should rectify the situation.

It must be true, 'cause I know I have all the parts here to play Robotron but I don't have the urge. Instead I have the urge to play GameBoy Colour games when all I have is a DS and GBPocket. I also want to play Game & Watch Gallery 4, which is the only one of my GBA games I can't actually find. The rest are here, but I don't have that fucking urge, damn them! Damn them for being so smug!

On Microsoft and DRM.

Sun, 07 Aug 2005 08:46:00 +0900

(With apologies, this started as a 'damn Microsoft...' rant, and turned into a bit of an anti-DRM sermon)

In light of some recent news (Microsoft is essentially killing OpenGL, either 'cause it's too hard to implement or because they didn't invent it...) I was thinking back about Microsoft's history, and I was wondering... Why does anyone with a brain or a sense of self-preservation support them, or any other company that seeks to lock us in?Microsoft got their start by writing a BASIC program for IBM, and by buying a CP/M clone that was just different enough from the software it copied to be considered legal. This set the stage for behaviour that was alternately brilliant and borderline criminal. In many cases, such as Microsoft's outright theft of Stac Technologies 'Stacker' software, they actually were proven to be illegal. This isn't isolated behaviour, Microsoft's history is littered with the husks of companies it's bought out or ripped off. This isn't really anything more than normal cutthroat business procedure, but it brings me to my point.

Microsoft only innovates when they have to. Like many monopolies they reach their all-conquering pinnacle and then stop. Explorer stagnated until Firefox/Mozilla (and my favourite scrappy browser, Opera) started to kick its ass. This can't be good for us, not for progress as a whole.

Microsoft wants control, so that they can lock you in to their products. Then they can stop innovating and rake in the profits without actually working to earn them. Consider Windows Media: There are dozens of free formats out there, and Windows typically ships with applications to convert your media to Windows Media (WMV or WMA). There are no free apps to get OUT of this format - Microsoft threatens to annihilate any free apps that work with WMV formats through legal action. Easy-in, no-out is their preferred modus opperandi, and while again you can argue, to some extent correctly, that this is just normal business, it's not good for US.

Their new operating system is dabbling with content control so severe that it will dictate what kind of monitor you can use. If you don't use a MS-approved monitor it will cripple your video quality.

I can accept that MS' tactics are smart, but they're not good. Not good for consumers, not good for MS' partners, and not good for technological progression. Throw open the gates and let the competition begin in earnest, I say. Break open the DRM and make them fight for their dollars. No company, and this goes for Microsoft, the RIAA and MPAA and many more, deserves my money. They have to bust ass to get me to part with it.

It's a proven fact that people will pay more for unlocked technology. I went way out of my way to buy a portable music player that plays .ogg files - a free, better alternative to the MP3 format device makers need to pay for. I went to Hong Kong and bought a region-free DVD player, 'cause I like to import DVDs. I chip my consoles, often at no small cost, so that I don't have to be locked into one or another region's price-fixing scheme. I bought a phone that lets me up- and down-load my own media without restriction. My wife's phone is unlocked so that she can use it overseas, and she paid a lot for the privelege.

Give us the tools to do what we want. Stop locking us in to your bullshit pay-per-use schemes. My phone is locked to the 3 network, and their online content is the typical ridiculous shit all cellular companies think we want. Live 'Big Brother' coverage, horoscopes, sports scores, ringtones and really bad games. They think we're going to pay for this shit, and to some extent we do. I can guarantee you however that the first cellular company to unlock their gear and make it easier for people to create the content is going to profit big-time from the sudden massive boost in network usage. Consider Google's massive popularity. Free apps, free tools, free APIs so we can access their services and run amok in any way we see fit. Consider Linux' rise to popularity, on the backs of insane people working their ass off for free because they can and because they like to create things.

Stop locking us down and set us free. Create a good product and we'll give you our money with a smile (and come back for more). Keep locking us in and we're going to be doing everything in our power to get away from you at the earliest opportunity. We're all of us creative people. We're not thieves or pirates or, worse, consumers . We want to create and share, and companies that let us, with good and easy products, are gonna get some loyal followers. But don't change your mind later, we'll be displeased.

That is all, carry on.

Moving, FanArt and other things...

Fri, 29 Jul 2005 10:23:00 +0900

We moved into our new place, it's pretty nice. 3BR, double remote garage, nice neighborhood. Outfitted it with a mad stack of new stuff - fridge, microwave, washer, dryer, bed, toaster, blender, and all the other frippery a modern house needs.

--

Yesterday at work it was remarked by the boss that the office was getting a bit messy, so I started tidying up. One of the girls said we needed a cleaner to take care of it, and I said we already had cleaners for the office (meaning us, the staff). I come into work this morning to find I was in the doghouse for suggesting the women on staff were the cleaners. The boss comes in before me and faced 'a vagina revolt'. Whups.

--

Car comes in first week of September, with luck. In the meantime I got some very funny fan-art. It was remarked that my buying a Renault was a lot like a friend marrying the wrong woman. Silly kids.

Something else to read

Thu, 28 Jul 2005 21:57:00 +0900

While I'm busy unpacking my 50 boxes of games I lugged from Japan to Australia and can't be bothered to put up the endless pages of fun stuff I've got percolating I invite you to read YouAllBoreMe, a whiny livejournal a friend of mine has inflicted upon the world. This month he's reviewing one MegaDrive game per day. If you can stomache the silly stuff between reviews, you'll find gems. Gems like:

"...whatever other catchphrase cocksuckery has been used in the past..."as well as: "So you're Zur fighting against the Ko-Dan armada, and it is your sacred quest to blow all manner of shit up in order to impress women and get blowjobs."

And the rather subtle "THEY'RE ALL THE SAME! SNK HATES YOU ALL! EVERY FIGHTING GAME IS A MASSIVE GREEN LOOGIE OF HATE SPAT INTO YOUR EYES".

Read those, and later I promise I'll have new content. Really.

...a Brand New CAR!

Mon, 11 Jul 2005 20:56:00 +0900

One significant reason for moving to Australia is the availability of Renault automobiles. You can't buy them in Canada, Renault simply has no presence there at all. The entire North American continent is a Renault-free zone, and as anyone who's ever met me knows, I dig my Renaults. I've had at least four Renaults of my own: a couple of R5s, an Alliance/GTA (like an R9 with a sport upgrade) and a super-rare 1989 R5 GTE (released in only 3 European countries, none English speaking).

My dad's been racing and fixing and selling Renaults since before I was born. He took one of the first R5s released in North America ice racing the weekend they got it, and stuffed it into a snow bank. Apparently there was no shortage of disbelief when, come Monday morning, he's calling Renault and asking for a new door, windshield, front quarter panel....

And now, finally, I made the move. I went to a local dealer on Saturday and test drove both the new Sport Megane and the Sport Clio, two incredible cars that easily go faster than anything I've ever driven, and with more refinement to boot. My GTE is 16/17 years old this year, and it was pretty shit-hot for its time. A hot hatch with power windows, a total weight of ~850kg, and a 1.7l multiport engine pushing ~100hp. Cornered like it was on rails, it was a thing of beauty.

These new cars kicked its ass. I'll ramble a bit more (read more!) but before I do that, here's a picture:

Except I didn't go for this model,I went for this one:

This isn't exactly it - this model's a bit older, but from this angle most of the details are the same. 2-litres, turbo, 225 horsepower, the speedo goes to 270km/h. There's a fancy keykard that slots into the dash like a PCMCIA card, and it's push-button start. Beautiful ergonomics, and fast like nothing I've ever been in. Corners like it's glued to the road, and I tells ya - there's nothing like the sheer white-knuckle adrenaline when you put your foot down and race through the six gears.

I was really torn between the Megane and the Clio. You can read up on my decision making here if you're so inclined. You can also read there about the bad news phone call I got this morning:

My new baby's not rolling off the line until August, and it won't be here until November. =(

More than just Firefox...

Tue, 21 Jun 2005 22:08:00 +0900

Firefox isn't the only great new browser out there. Opera is better in many ways. Faster too, in most ways. Please click on this link at your earliest convenience and check it out.

I love Opera. I've been using it for many years, and it's grown into a very competant browser, with all the features you'll want and many more you never knew you wanted. Support the underdog, give Opera a try.

Opera supports, out of the box, mouse gestures, a wealth of keyboard shortcuts, slick skinnable interface, custom menus, RSS + news + mail reader, and a whole lot more.

Click, so I can earn a free copy! =D

And yeah, it's adware - it shows a two-line google ad at the top of the page. It's tiny, and I never notice it anymore, and I'll bet you won't either.

Book writing and other angst

Mon, 20 Jun 2005 20:57:00 +0900

I've been offered a chance to write a book. I had written a BLAD - book layout and design - for these people recently and while it was hard work writing to a short deadline I enjoyed the challenge. The BLAD went well apparently, and they've asked me to write more on the subject. The BLAD was great fun, I could write volumes on video game sprites and game art, so when I get paid to do it I smile and write away! But the focus has shifted on this book,to portable and cellular game design and graphics. The new subject focus mentioned such dreadful things as ringtones and cellular wallpapers, which are totally unrelated to games and are really kind of a scam. Any idiot who pays $3-5 for a wallpaper needs to have their wallet confiscated. Cellular gaming is the videogame equivalent of being kicked in the nuts by a prostitute. It's expensive and the experience leaves you writhing in pain. Cellular phones suck for games, period.

And portable game design? There's no significant difference from developing on a portable platform now and developing on a console in the SNES era. The resolutions are more or less the same, the number of colours are similar, and with modern portables you've got oodles of extras like wireless, link cables, non-volatile memory and so on. It's a whole lot better and easier for modern developers than the old consoles were. How can you fill a book on the challenges faced by coders working with the easiest systems they've ever worked with? Never mind that - I could do it, but here's the kicker:

40,000 words in 70 days. That's like 570+ words per day, a phenomenal amount when you consider there'd also be images to create, interviews to coordinate, copyrights to clear... A massive, massive bit of work. And the money, while good, doesn't quite justify quitting my current job for two months and locking myself in a room.

It feels like such an opportunity, but man... Writing about something I don't like, ad nauseum, full time... It's hard enough pumping out three hundred words for a one-page review of a crappy game, but forty thousand for a crappy concept?

If only they'd kept with the original plan, I'd have been in like Flynn.

Nothing to see here

Thu, 16 Jun 2005 21:11:00 +0900

As some of the more observant have noticed, I redesigned the site. No content was lost, but the old design is gone forever and not archived (sorry).

It's all 'cause I have no new content, so I'm faking you out with a cosmetic rearrange (sorry).

Here's a very old proto NFG Games article, Sega CD Silpheed. This was the first thing I put together on the server, before NFG Games existed.

There's an interesting thread on the forum about Sony's recent decision to allow porno vids on their PSP.

That's all for now.

Nothing new here, move along.

Thu, 16 Jun 2005 21:11:00 +0900

Australia, again.

Tue, 31 May 2005 18:17:00 +0900

So here we are, living in Australia.

I'm working at my dad's office. Currently I'm putting together web templates for his customers to select from, in order to minimize the design work we have to do. Typically this work is never ending, with tweaks and adjustments and misunderstandings stretching on for months, and I aim to minimize that. I don't know what I'll do after I'm done, but it's fun and educational work. I'll prolly be redesigning these pages soon, with my newfound skills.Or lack thereof, I guess. =D

There's a little white gecko who runs down the wall inside the office every day between 1:30 and 3:30. He just crawls out of the roof, zips down the wall and - after lurking for a few seconds - darts out the front door. I tried to catch him the other day but he was too quick and he managed to crawl inside the window frame, where I thought he was trapped. I felt really bad about it for a while 'cause I thought he might have been stuck forever, especially since we lock the windows at night. But there he was again today, happy as only a gecko can be. Trivia: geckos make a really charming "cupe! cupe!" noise.

My dad should be back in two days. He left for a six week holiday the same day we arrived in Australia. It'll kinda suck giving up his room with the en-suite and living in the cold downstairs room.

If you've been wondering what we're up to, I apologize. I've not updated this page as often as perhaps I could have. I've been steadily adding pictures to photo gallery however, and you should pop over and check it out if you haven't. Look for 05_05_Australia for the most current stuff.

Before coming to Aus I decided there was some stuff I'd like to have here ASAP, like my Saturn, GameCube and EPROM burner. I kept this stuff aside when packing up the rest of my gear and I intended to ship it via EMS courier so I'd have it soon after arriving here. Silly me, when I stacked the PCEngine, Xbox and PS2 in the same box, along with associated cords and pads and whatnots, the weight hit nearly 20kg. The price to ship it was enormous - several hundred bucks - so all the stuff I wanted most is still in Japan.

Zumi's really dying to start nesting, it makes her very uncomfortable to be living in a house that's not hers. She can't customize the kitchen, she can't start buying new utensils, and she's dying to get a new bed that's not so damned soft. It's making me a bit crazy, TBH, we're not paying rent and there's no one else here but Simon, the son of my dad's wife (which makes us, what, step brothers? Weird...) and he's not even here that much. It's just us in the whole large house, it's very relaxing, so what's her problem? Bah.

The women here are gorgeous, and their breasts are very large. It's quite a bit different to see a low-cut shirt and find it filled with breasts instead of chestbone like I most often found in Japan. On the other hand the girls here are, by and large, quite a bit heavier than the lovelies in Japan.

I need a mistress or three.

So we got screwed.

Fri, 13 May 2005 22:23:00 +0900

Today was Customs and Quarantine day. Our freight has finally arrived in Brisbane, 4.5 cubic meters (or so) of video game crap I thought at one time I couldn't live without and then discovered I could live without at least 5% of it. So a shipment full of 95% goodness has arrived and we had to go pay for the local port fees, clear it with customs, and arrange a mandatory quarantine inspection. While dealing with quarantine (customs had no beef with my $30k shipment of games) we were told we were, in fact, the winners.

We had paid more than anyone else. "what," I asked her. "Today, this year, what?" "Oh, no," she replied. "ever."The girl working the quarantine desk had not, in three and a half years on the job, seen anyone who had paid as much for port service fees as we had. People with entire containers, those giant 20-40ft boxes you see on giant ships, pay about half what we did. We had a LOT less than a FCL (full container load) and got charged $770 (including GST) for the honor of having some bilge rat bung our stuff from one box to another. AND we get to pay for the quarantine inspection. If those fuckers want to inspect my gear let them pay for it themselves!

Anyway, back to the ripoff thing... According to the documents I could find "port service charges" are $150 or less for a FCL, and an LCL (less than a container load) is, in fact, less. Apparently they charged us $90 per cubic meter - where this magical fee came from is anyone's guess, but the girl at customs suggested that there probably is a regulatory agency that deals with this sort of thing and that we really ought to, you know, give them a call.

I thought that was a good idea. In fact, I thought that was a good idea before we paid the asking amount, but what do you think the odds are that the company with all my stuff, that gets paid for holding it more than three days, might find some way to hold onto it a little longer if we start bringing the government down on their little scam? I figure it's better to have my stuff in my hands before poking sticks at the bees' nest.

Of course, now that they have my money they have no reason to answer my questions, so it's kind of a catch-22. Either way I'm fucked - pay and get no satisfaction or don't pay and watch the bill skyrocket.

So yeah, back to quarantine again - she said we won! Normally people pay less than half - half! - what we paid. Bah and double bah!

Remote NFG Missive, 05-10 20:17

Tue, 10 May 2005 20:17:00 +0900

With apologies, my phone only does UTF-8 and my mailserver chokes on it. This badly encoded text had broken the RSS feed - this meaningless text is designed to resolve the problem.

Moblog test post.

Tue, 10 May 2005 11:37:00 +0900

Here's Zumi! Yay!

Life in Australia

Sat, 07 May 2005 11:28:00 +0900

So far so good. It's been three weeks today since we arrived in Brisbane. So far it's been nothing but entertaining, despite some troubles with the new celphone. ProTip: Motorola sucks.

Australians have a strange habit of shortening words and/or adding -o to the end of them. Service stations become servos, vehicle registration becomes rego, yummy is yummo. Atkins fans don't count carbs, they count carbos. Afternoons are arvos. It's all fucking bizarre and I don't let them go a moment without reminding them how bizarre they are. Australia will conform to me!!

Also, new pics are up, have a look if you're into that.

Japan apologizes for WWII - again. Sort of.

Sat, 23 Apr 2005 23:02:00 +0900

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has caved to China and Korea's demands for an apology for Japanese aggression and generally bad behavior leading to and during World War 2. China and Korea have both said Japan has never apologized, conveniently overlooking the apologies immediately after the war (though admittedly, having been invaded and abused they might not have been watching the two or three working TVs at the time...) and another made in 1991 by then prime minister Toshiki Kaifu.

What's interesting is that English language news sources in Japan are reporting this, including quotes and a rather detailed analysis, but the Japanese news has kind of ignored it, prefering to say simply that, and this is paraphrased and translated, "Koizumi has apologized in a speech that quoted a 1995 speech by Prime Minister Murakami" but managed to avoid quoting any of Koizumi's words.

Korea's Chosun newspaper made note of a large contingent of Japanese politicians visiting the controversial Yasukuni Shrine, dedicated to those who died in war, but also contains the remains of several convicted war criminals. China and Korea go berzerk every time a prominent politician visits this shrine, and there's the logical conclusion drawn that maybe Koizumi's speech was timed to take some attention away from this annual Yasukuni visit.

As might be expected, neither China or Korea seemed pleased when Japan gave them what they demanded, and instead made quiet note that maybe actions should follow the words.

Sigh.

Picked up a new phone!

Thu, 21 Apr 2005 22:14:00 +0900

Went to the mall today and signed my soul on the dotted line for a new cellular phone. Picked up a Motorola E1000, on the 3 network. It's pretty snazzy, offering a good number of the features I've grown attached to with my Sharp V-601SH Vodafone.It's open enough to allow me to use my own images as backgrounds, and MP3s as ringtones, so I'm not stuck paying six bucks or whatever for every little tune I want to download. 384kb/s is nothing to sneeze at either, though for my money I'd rather get more than 1kb for four cents. Or whatever - it's pricy.

Here's my first impressions, a kind of uneducated first review of the Motorola E1000. I posted this on another, cellular-related forum, so forgive the introduction and other stuff that seems a bit out of place:

Went to the helpful folks at (apparently) Queensland's top-performing 3 dealer today, and walked out with a shiny new E1000, my first non-Japanese cellular phone. Below are my first impressions after playing with the thing for an hour.

First, my background: I'm a tech junkie, as I assume many of us are. I dig shiny new toys and I typically seek to make them bend to my will. I don't suffer well tools that try to make ME conform. I've lived in Japan for five years and went through three phones there, and have been generally pleased with them. Sharp's Vodafones are really pretty damned cool. So with that in mind...

1. Why the sweet f**k is the E1000 memory card slot under the battery? 3 gave me a free 32MB TransFlash card and an SD card adaptor for it, so clearly they expect me to pull it out and stuff it into my computer's SD card slot (or the also-included SD USB card reader). I'll tell you what, that bugger's not coming out from under the battery until I buy a bigger card. Stupid stupid stupid - my Sharp had a flip-open slot and push-to-eject SD slot, you could bung it in or out on the fly at any time. Did Motorola see the NGage and go "Damn, good idea!" or what?

2. The screen is lovely, very clear with a tight dot-pitch and fantastic colour. It's easily the equal of any Japanese phone I've used. I wonder who makes it?

3. The camera kinda blows. Haven't pulled any full-res pics out yet but the low-res one I MMS'd myself was total blurvision. The 2MPixel camera on the 602SH I had was really fantastic (have a look at a sample pic I took in Canada) but this, while the very top of the line by Australian (and most everywhere else) standards, is still pretty crappy.

4. Buttons are nice, though lighting is a bit uneven, especially on the side buttons. Easy to hit, and surprisingly the stick between [2] and [5] isn't really in the way...

5. ...unfortunately making the stick so unobtrusive kinda made it harder to use. I'm always pressing it inwards to [select] things when I only want to go UP or DOWN.

6. UI is clear and, for a change, English. It's not as user-friendly as other phones I've used, for example there's no ability to press a number to correspond to options listed onscreen. Kinda sucks having to scroll down to the middle of a long menu every time instead of hopping to it. Response is snappy, where 2/3 Japanese phones I've used were quite sluggish.

7. The screen doesn't turn off when it's charging. Why the hell?

8. Can't charge it and use the USB cable at the same time - the USB cable blocks the power connector. This is stupid - if they couldn't put it somewhere else or make the USB cable thinner why can't it charge from the USB power? Or at least draw active power from USB?

9. Manual is, at best, substandard. Many features are only explained at their most rudimentary level. Email, for example - setup instructions indicate only how to get to the email setup, but not how to set it up or how to access the three.com.au account I signed up for. Still dunno what to do about that, .

10. Why, for the love of all that is holy, is the memory card under the battery!?

11. TransFlash is too damned small.

12. Motorola's packaging is uber-cheap. A half dozen plastic zip-lock bags with cables and things with a tray on top holding the phone, and a few manuals shoved in the bottom of the box. The manual is a total amateur job, with large fonts, few icons and thick paper making the lack of real usable content take more space and look more respectable. By comparison, a Japanese phone comes with a half dozen quick guides, some content catalogues, a users manual and a quick reference manual, a matchbook-sized quickquick reference manual, a couple of fold-out cardboard trays for it all, and accessories neatly tucked in slots.

13. The power adaptor has flip-out prongs for a NorthAmerican/Japanese style connector, but came with an Australian monstrosity (why are the power connectors here so damned big?) adaptor. It's really cool, it slaps onto the prongs when they're retracted, and clips into place so the PSU and adaptor are one solid unit. Excellent design, except the box hangs off the connector sideways and nearly covers the next port on my power bar...

14. Lots of included MIDI-ish sounds, surprising quality sound from the two speakers in the E1000. Haven't worked out how to get my own tunes on the phone, largely 'cause the battery died after fiddling with other things for a while.

15. Phone seems to drop into 2.5G mode happily, but doesn't switch back to 3G as quick - sure I'm in a borderline area (out of 3G range entirely according to 3's map) but if it works most of the time in 3G why does it switch to 2.5 and not switch back? Manually reselecting the network seems to do the trick...

16. The guy and girl at the 3 store were ultra friendly, setup was a breeze and they were very knowledgable, thorough and answered all but the toughest of my questions without looking it up. The tough ones took only a few seconds to find answers for, very impressive (And the girl was cute too, yay!).

17. Browsing files is a chore. Images go in an images directory that's stuffed full of undeletable, ugly little chicken icons and animations that clog up the works when I put my own pictures on there. Selecting a wallpaper doesn't bring up a list, just a blank blue screen with up/down arrows on it. Nothing appears until you press up or down, unlike other select screens where something fills the void initially. There's no page up/page down button (that I've noticed, maybe I'm blind) so scrolling takes a long time. There's an icon view and a list view, but the icon view - which shows 2x2 thumbs - is very slow and only scrolls one line at a time. Icons take about half second or longer to appear.

Overall I'm pleased - other phones and networks don't offer as much and 3's packages were quite reasonable and feature-packed. I'm pretty pissed off at every carrier, 3 inclusive, for acting like scammers after a quick buck. I can get more expensive packages, but not cheaper ones should the need arise. I can't switch from a cap plan to a prepaid or bonusplus plan. I can change my cap once, then I have to wait six months (!!!) to change it again. Here's a thought, guys: sell me a product I can use without having to decipher your complicated plans and ScrewYou terms and I'll stick with you till the bitter end, paying with a smile. You know why your customers are so angry? 'Cause you pull stupid lock-in shit like this. Grr, I say.

Let's hope the phone works as well as I hope. So far, so good.

So far so good...

Mon, 18 Apr 2005 19:47:00 +0900

We're here in my dad's place, the flight over was short enough and we arrived without incident. When checking in they took my bike and weighed it, then weight the rest of the luggage separately. This was a great relief, since we had worried a lot about being over the limit and having to carry my computer and monitor as carry-on luggage. I checked my computer in instead,and it arrived safely. Since the video card has a massive replacement heatsink on it I figured it would snap off in transit, so I pulled it out, wrapped it in six layers of bubble wrap, and wedged it in a drive slot. Surprisingly the CPU cooler, which I completely ignored, made the trip without using its massive copper mass to tear the CPU connector right off the mobo. Whew!

Australia's nice, but we're a bit north of Brisbane in a town called Goodna (or something) and it's kind of like hickville. There's a real dearth of shops, no restaurants to speak of and not many fast food joints. Two subway dinners in a row, woot!

Getting used to the grocery stores is a fucking ordeal. They don't list the cream percentage on their milk, so there's no way to tell, at all, whether you've got 3.5% or 2% or Skim milk in the jug. Simon, a great guy who's been showing us the ropes around here since my dad left for a six-week vacation the day we arrived, said that "regular milk is, like, regular milk, and 'lite' milk is, like, skim. Or something." Zumi says "which ones are 'regular milk'?" and I looked and there's two entire racks full of the same milk and one single rack for twenty other varieties. "Hmmm..." says I. "I think, maybe, that's 'regular milk'." And lo, it was. So she's got her near-cream for drinking and I've got my skim for cereal and it's all good.

Fuck it's expensive here. $1100 for a phone that's $50 in Japan, no shit. $1.12 for diesel, $1.04 for regular unleaded. Diesel costs more, say wha? I don't get it, but whatever.

This is fun: Broadband comes in two basic styles: Unlimited or 20GB limit. The difference is with Unlimited you get throttled back to 56k/s when you hit your TEN GB limit for a month, and with the 20GB plan you just pay for every extra MB after the 20GB limit. So you pay $100/month for 1.5/256 ADSL and you can download a whopping 10-20GB before you either rocket back to the dark ages at 56k, or start paying through the nose for the joy of pathetic speed.

And yeah, hosting servers at home is, like, verboten. Who knew Australia was a communist country?

The Big Day

Fri, 15 Apr 2005 11:20:00 +0900

Today's the day, The Big Day, moving day, the day when we pack up the few things we have left and board an airplane bound for Brisbane Australia. 9pm tonight we leave, means we're out of Zumi's mom's place by 4pm, 2 hours to the airport, 3 hours to kick around and beg for the airline to let us check my bike and overweight crap into luggage, or find the airport post office and mail our shit to Australia instead.

I'm stressed out like you wouldn't believe,for a number of reasons.

Customs stopped our shit from leaving Japan, wanting assurances from the shipping company that the $30k in games and computers and crap I'm shipping isn't for commercial use. I guess they don't get a lot of game collectors moving overseas - something that really doesn't surprise me at all when I think back over how much fucking work it is to box and ship all that crap.

I'm not convinced Australia was the right move. In fact, I'm pretty unhappy about leaving Japan, I can't really recall with such force the reasons I had for wanting to leave Japan, but I'm sure I must have had them. In hindsight I think I've handled this move more or less completely wrong, though there's a good chance that's the panic speaking.

I've realized that I have only three layers of stuff. There's the tiny amount of stuff I absolutely must have - my computer, clothes, the Nintendo DS and things like a toothbrush, wallet, a razor. Then there's the B-level stuff: my toolbag. With my tools I can make/fix/adapt anything to anything, but I don't strictly need it. Everything else I own falls into the C-level, and this is what makes packing so fucking hard for me.

How can I prioritize the packing when EVERYTHING is as valuable (or worthless) as everything else? I'm a gamer, a game hacker, a tinkerer, a useless old man with a knack for turning one thing into another. I rely on an enormous pile of useless shit to do what I love to do, much as a carpenter would (I imagine) rely on a pile of different kinds of wood. How do you rank the wood when you don't know what you're going to need next? How can you prioritize the packing and moving of the wood when it all has the very same potential?

So I've got 4.4 cubic meters - about a third of a small room - of stuff I had sent surface. All games, consoles, computers, parts, accessories and bits and things. It's all junk worth its weight in gold, but only to me.

There's a fear that we'll get to Australia and be faced with the same crush of clutter and crap that we had in Japan once this shit arrives, mitigated only slightly by the knowledge that I won't be growing the pile in .au. Australia is, if you didn't know, the biggest backwater in the western world. Shitty internet, shitty games and general tech availability, ridiculous prices - more expensive than Japan!!! And so on. So I won't be buying shit at every turn.

Which means I won't have as much to sell which means I'll be poor. Another reason not to leave Japan. I make a LOT of money here, or at least a lot compared to how much work I actually do.

...

[sigh]

I can't help but think I've basically wasted the last five years of my life in Japan, making money and playing games but in all other respects regressing. I look forward to being able to talk outside the house for a change.

I'm not convinced Australia was the right move, and I'm often convinced I've screwed the pooch here, but I daren't discuss it with Zumi, she's not one to tolerate self-doubt in the leadership well, and it's a rage I'd rather avoid.

So yeah. I hope my old self made the right choice a few months ago, or this is going to be an expensive debacle.

The NFG/GameSX Wiki

Wed, 13 Apr 2005 16:26:00 +0900

I've activated a wiki for GameSX and NFG Games. A wiki, if you don't know, is a publicly editable page. Wikipedia is based on this concept. In theory, since anyone who can click a mouse can completely erase a page, no one does. There's no street cred with teh homies for wiping out a page that anyone can wipe out, right? That's the fervent hope.

In any case, it's here and I encourage everyone to add content if they have some, and fix content if they know of any errors. More contributors means more value for everyone.

In other news, I put up a page with a detailed disassembly of an NEC PCFX, and some pictures of the inside and outside of a PAL TurboGrafx.

the NFG/GameSX wiki

Wed, 13 Apr 2005 16:26:00 +0900

Everything according to plan

Sat, 09 Apr 2005 20:07:00 +0900

Today I got the server installed in its new digs at Zumi's mom's place. It's gonna be three months before the new 100mbit fiber line's run in, so until then this server will be running on a pathetic 1mbit pipe. That's enough bandwidth to serve the requests it gets on an average basis, but individual response will be slow and another slashdotting will swamp the line.C'est la vie, non? Zumi feels guilty - but not guilty enough, I reckon - for leaving the fiber so late. I asked her to do it months in advance, but she didn't listen. Bah, I say!

The house is nearly empty. Our (And by that I mean MY) gear was picked up yesterday, all 4.4 cubic metres of it. Most of that was games and consoles and other assorted shit. It was so cheap to just add more stuff to the pile that I took nearly everything, and that's an awful lot. I did throw away some 30kg of AV cables and 25kg of power adaptors and a half dozen Neo CD systems, four Famicoms and countless Saturns, PC Engines + Duos... Bah, I say. Shit needed to go anyway.

So yeah, proceeding apace. Sorry the server's slow.

Moving sucks (continued...)

Thu, 07 Apr 2005 15:12:00 +0900

We're still in the process of preparing for the move and things are progressing apace.Today Off House (part of the network of stores that includes Hard Off, Book Off and others) is coming to check out our Fridge, Dryer, Kotatsu (A coffee-table-alike with a heater underneath it for warming the legs in winter), bookshelf and cupboard. If they don't want to buy this crap from us we're gonna be a little more up ye creek than we are now.

My stuff's about 90% packed, with about 40% to go. Much better than two days ago when I reached the 90% mark with 90% to go. The amount of stuff that turns up when the visible stuff is packed astonishes me. What the hell do I need with seven litres of PC Engine controllers, or 40kg of AV cables?

I still need to pack up a half dozen boxes for tomorrow, then we get the fun of moving/junking everything else but the bikes, computers and clothes we're taking with us. When we get to .au we're in for some fun. Australian internet is soooo ass backwards - what's the point of always-on ADSL that disconnects you every three hours for fifteen minutes without fail, and every two hours of inactivity? Their AUP prevents 'any publicly accessible service' so no webservers or family FTPs or anything of that sort. The AUP for Asahi.net (our Japanese ISP) reads, in its entirety, "You shall not spread spam of viruses."

And!! $100 / month for 100mbit line, dedicated not shared, with no transfer limits and a one-time fee of five bucks for a fixed IP. Fuck Australia, I mean really. My dad was telling me about Australian ISPs, how they had originally offered unlimited services but were forced to cap transfers and online times because people were using the service! Don't offer something you're not prepared to deliver, isn't that a golden tenet of business? It's unconscionable.

So yeah, still having trouble with the server behind the disgusting ADSL router, but... I'm working on it.

Moving overseas and server troubles

Fri, 01 Apr 2005 15:19:00 +0900

Due to unfortunate circumstances my beloved webserver - hardened and redundant for life unattended - will have a very, very pathetic straw through which it will suck bits from teh intarweb. For this reason I'm gonna have to disable japanese commercial downloading, and a few other features. Like basically everything but the webserver. For a few months.It sucks, I know. I had grand plans, everything was sorted, but unfortunately someone (Not to mention any names...) thought it would take a week to get it installed where someone else (also nameless) said "do it months in advance, just in case!"

So it was done late, it'll take months, and the server will be living on a 1mbit connection (instead of 100mbit) until the hikari fiber comes in. It sucks. =(

Space Invaders DS Review

Sat, 26 Mar 2005 04:11:00 +0900

It's new, I bought it, it sucks. Here's why.

More Livedoor fun: Softbank enters the fray!

Thu, 24 Mar 2005 21:38:00 +0900

As you might remember from a couple of recent postings, I'm closely watching the battle for FujiTV waged by Livedoor and the management of Fujisankei, which controls Fuji + Nippon Radio (and countless others). As is the norm for Japanese companies, sibling companies buy stock in each other, obfuscating the ownership structure and making it harder to buy out part of a company. Livedoor tried to take control of FujiTV by buying stocks in Nippon Broadcasting Systems, a sister company that owned a large chunk of FujiTV. FujiTV's management slammed Livedoor for their sneaky tactics, but Livedoor reckons it's just being smart about it - why pay for the more expensive FujiTV shares when buying NBS' stock is cheaper and results in a disporportionately large stake in FujiTV? Many in Japan see this as the young versus the old, and it's not an inaccurate view on many levels.

There was a new twist today, as NBS loaned their stock to another party.Softbank, an ISP and infrastructer provider (They are the other half of YahooBB, with over 4.7 million subscribers) was given a five year loan of 100% of NBS' stock in FujiTV. This gives Softbank some control over Fuji, and completely bones Livedoor which is now left with almost 50% of NBS (which now has no stock in Fuji).

So what's livedoor to do now? I can't wait to find out!

Livedoor vs Fuji TV: Part 2

Tue, 22 Mar 2005 00:56:00 +0900

Since my last post about the Livedoor saga quite a bit has happened. The entire country is watching this very public battle for control of Nippon Broadcasting System Inc. and, by extension, Fuji TV. You might recall that Livedoor won an injunction against Nippon Broadcasting, preventing them - temporarily at least - from creating new shares and selling them directly to Fuji. Livedoor argued correctly that it would seriously dilute the value of not only their shares, but of all NBS' shareholders, and was clearly illegal. Naturally NBS appealed, but the appeals court ruled against them - a surprise to me, since Japan's courts are more or less ineffective at best. NBS appealed again, taking it to Japan's Supreme Court (or equivalent), and that judgement is expected to be handed down tomorrow.

Lately there's been a very disconcerting wave of racist anti-foreigner propoganda coming out of Tokyo, and now that Livedoor - a Japanese company run by Japanese - has gone to a foreign company for financial backing, the LDP (the governing party) has announced plans to study the idea of enacting new laws to preventforeign companies from engaging in hostile takeovers in Japan. Japanese companies (domestic ones without significant foreign business) are, by and large, incapable of new thoughts, and the collusion between goverment and business has mired Japan in a recession it is unwilling to face. It's a nice snapshot of the Japanese old-guard mentality as they play the racism card - always popular in a recession - and use it against the Big Issue of the day. The old men have been snubbing Livedoor's president, Horie, at every turn, and I can imagine how galling it is for them to see the courts they created and paid for (and bought) ruling against their little club.

Most of the Japanese press - or the English speaking press at least - is commenting less on the merit of Livedoor's audacious maneuvering, and more on the furor as a whole being a necessary shakeup of Japan's system. I'm rooting for Livedoor, 'cause I've seen firsthand what these old men are doing to Japan. They pave and repave the street I live on because they have a budget, and if they don't spend every dime they get less money next year. Everyone knows it, no one's willing to change it 'cause the construction industry - run by old yakuza, accounts for some 5% of Japan's working population. Caught in the ludicrous machine they made, and now Livedoor's championing the idea that change can happen. I think change should happen, so ganbatte Livedoor!

Mar 12: Fuji allows for the possibility of working with Livedoor.
Mar 14: NBS mulls plan to sell off Pony Canyon, their most profitable subsidiary, to screw Livedoor.
Mar 16: Fuji announces share dividend will suddenly be 3,000 Yen instead of 1,200.
Mar 17: Toyota sells all their NBS shares - but not to anyone in particular.
Mar 19: LDP to set up anti-foreign-takover think tank.
Mar 19: Livedoor meeting with Fuji goes exactly nowhere. What a surprise.
Mar 21: Fuji Group management offers, in advance, to accept NBS employees who want to leave if Livedoor wins. Nice PR move, guys!

(It should be noted that all the editorial content is, at best, a wild-ass guess based on totally misunderstood facts and, basically, I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about.)

120/70

Mon, 21 Mar 2005 14:30:00 +0900

Meteos Review

Mon, 14 Mar 2005 04:08:00 +0900

I should know better than to post updates at 4am, but here it is, my Meteos review.

PacPix Review

Sun, 13 Mar 2005 19:36:00 +0900

As promised, one Nintendo DS PacPix Review.

Livedoor vs Teh Man

Fri, 11 Mar 2005 19:47:00 +0900

There's a pretty fantastic fight going on in Japan, pitting the young, scrappy internet company Livedoor against the grumpy old-man establishment. Nippon Broadcasting System (radio) owns a very significant chunk of the much larger Fuji TV, but NR's stock is worth less than Fuji's. Japan allows off-hours trading which isn't subject to the usual scrutiny and disclosure given normal trading. In a move that surprised pretty much everyone, Livedoor - an internet portal - bought a large enough portion of NR's stock to give them a good shot at veto power of NBS, and hence some control of Fuji TV. It was intended to give Livedoor a backdoor entry into the world of TV... Or at leastthat was the plan...

This Japan Today article (English) has a great summary of these events.

Fuji TV is part of the old guard, the grumpy old man brigade that holds Japan back, and prevents new ideas from taking root and causing widespread havoc and, you know, progressing the nation. According to this analysis: "As is common in Japan, members of the same group of companies hold shares in each other, which creates a complex ownership structure designed to keep management entrenched and outsiders out." And that's exactly what's happening, as this report shows. The Japanese government trying wish the bad old outside world away. According to a Bloomberg columnist, the Livedoor fight is Old Japan vs New Japan.

Late February NBS announced a move fool.com describes thusly: "In a classic example of maintaining control, as opposed to doing what's best for shareholders, NBS has moved to dilute all shareholders by more than doubling their share count and offering all the newly issued shares directly to Fuji TV." Today Livedoor won an injunction against NBS' attempt to issue new shares to Fuji, which would of course reduce the value of Livedoor's stake. I imagine the courts, notoriously corrupt in Japan, were quite unhappy to find there were no loopholes they could use to hand the win to NBS and Fuji. (As of this evening NBS has announced they will appeal the decision).

For their part, Fuji's management is exhibiting exactly the kind of childish, frightened-old-man behaviour that is so detrimental to Japan. After a party thrown by Horie (the Livedoor pres) that two of Fuji's staff attended, Fuji issued an edict prohibiting Fuji employees from socializing with Horie.

Livedoor is one of the new crew, scrappy young companies fighting resistance from the old farts running the country every step of the way. Last year Horie, president of Livedoor, tried to buy a baseball team. He was denied the pleasure by a baseball league (run by liverspotted old men) who objected to his t-shirt and jeans appearance and probably the fact that he smiles a lot (Livedoor competitor Rakuten, whose management wears suits, won the fight). It was pretty clear they were trying to teach him a lesson, and they're still trying. In late December the governor of Gunma prefecture announced they'd rather close a horse-racing track than accept Livedoor's help in rebuilding it. (The next day Livedoor announced a deal with another track offering online betting. This Japan Times editorial suggests 'the establishment' has declared war on Livedoor.

Horie himself suggests Japan is entering a new age of mergers and acquisitions, but according to The Japan Times, these recent events illustrate "an unwillingness on the part of 'teh man' to accept that the age of mergers and acquisitions has already dawned."

The man on the street seems to support Livedoor. As long as that man is under 40-50 years of age, at least. One girl says "I feel like crying for him because he's been harassed by the stinky necktie tribe."

Feb 10: Fuji rejects Livedoor's offer of cooperation. (more)
Feb 15: Government studies the idea of closing the Livedoor loophole.
Feb 16: Fuji TV drops Livedoor pres from his regular spot on a popular quiz show. Wow, petty.
Feb 19: Fuji offers to buy NBS stock from Livedoor at a low price. Livedoor intends to buy more stock instead.
Feb 20: Fuji asks Livedoor to sell the shares. Livedoor says 'nuh uh'.
Feb 22: Livedoor increases stake in Fuji to 40%.
Feb 23: Fuji chairman confident they will achieve 33.4% stake in NBS.
Feb 24: Livedoor asks court for injunction against NBS' attempt to create more shares for Fuji.
Feb 26: Majority of 'junior business leaders' behind Livedoor, more than triple those siding with Fuji's old fart leaders.
Feb 27: Livedoor asks SEC to investigate NBS' plan to issue more shares.
Feb 28: Livedoor suggests NBS' 'corporate value' would increase with Livedoor collaboration.
Feb 28: Daiwa Securities, Tepco, Mitsubishi + Kodansha will sell their shares of NBS to Fuji. The old men stick together!
Feb 28: Fuji's chairman disagrees.
Mar 03: Fuji complains their biz with Rakuten (A Livedoor peer) would suffer under Livedoor. (duh)
Mar 03: Canon president whines about Livedoor's perfectly legal maneouvering.
Mar 04: NBS employees collectively whine about Livedoor.
Mar 04: Livedoor's chief lawyer suddenly resigns (insert conspiracy theory here)
Mar 05: Livedoor's stake in NBS passes 45%. Number of available NBS shares is dropping.
Mar 06: Toyota, an NBS shareholder, refuses to take sides.
Mar 08: Fuji increases stake in NBS to 36.4%. Fuji can veto dismissals, but not new appointments.
Mar 09: Livedoor Pres suggests a less hostile business arrangement.
Mar 09: Financial Times unimpressed with Livedoor's moves.
Mar 09: NBS claims advertisers are threatening to withdraw their business if Livedoor succeeds.
Mar 11: Livedoor wins injuction against NBS issuing new shares to Fuji, diluting Livedoor's stake. ~~In a surprising move,~~ NBS has announced they will appeal.
Mar 12: Fuji allows for the possibility of working with Livedoor.

3x Galaga Comparison (plus!)

Fri, 11 Mar 2005 13:57:00 +0900

I did a comparison of all three of Namco's Galaga '88 ports: PC Engine, X68000 and Arcade. If you like, you can click here.

I picked up PacPix and Meteos for Nintendo's DS yesterday, and there'll be a review of both very soon. Initial impressions: PacPix is really well done, challenging and varied, but so far I can't find teh fun. Meteos, which scored 38/40 in Famitsu (astonishingly high) completely baffles me. I understand how it works, but it seems so preposterously limited. If the official videos weren't so frenetic I might be able to figure out what I'm missing...

A few new updates

Fri, 11 Mar 2005 13:57:00 +0900

Moving sucks

Thu, 10 Mar 2005 00:17:00 +0900

So we're moving in about five weeks. It's going to kill me, for sure. Moving overseas for me is like reinventing myself with all the work done months before results can be known. Should I sell all my games? Keep only the good stuff? What about the insane rare stuff? And the pile of stuff I really adore, would never have the chance to buy again, is worth nothing to sell, but I'll probably never play again?It makes me crazy.

If I make decisions now and the move doesn't pan out I'm fucked. If I put it off I'll be in .au with the same enormous stockpile of crap as I have now. Bah! This crap isn't worth anything to anyone but me, unless it is in which case it's prolly something I want to keep.

Server crash! ZOMFG!

Fri, 04 Mar 2005 17:41:00 +0900

The server died the other day. Plagued by unnoticed intermittent errors for almost six months, the motherboard finally gave up the ghost.

New RAID array with a new motherboard and the site's back. For more juicy details, see here

Namco Museum for PSP Review

Fri, 25 Feb 2005 02:16:00 +0900

I picked up Namco Museum for the PSP today, primarily because I'm an idiot and can't find a reason not to buy games I've already purchased four times already. I wrote a review.

And for no good reason I put together a visual wish list of six games I really want to see on the PSP. I guarantee there's some surprises in there.

Girls (and games) of AOU 2005

Sat, 19 Feb 2005 18:41:00 +0900

The AOU (Arcade Operators Union) show was this weekend. It was a livelier show than last year, and there were a few interesting things to see.The show wasn't very big, but still had giant beetles.

Cave had five machines running Ibara, as well as a few girls.

Atlus was in top form, though I can't remember what they were selling... Something for the whole family no doubt.

Namco was very proud of Mario Kart though it really looked like an overhauled MarioKart64 to me...

Sega was there. They were showing some stuff...

Ah bollocks, for the rest of the Ibara screenshots and the girls of AOU 2005, click here!!

-- Oh yeah... Saw a very attractive Namco rep bend over to talk to a boy, who looked about ten years old. He just reached up and grabbed her boob, surprising her to the point where her jaw dropped and the boy sprinted off. For the next half hour the poor girl, completely flustered, kept her arms crossed.

Cellular gaming update!

Fri, 18 Feb 2005 22:35:00 +0900

There's a lot of fun stuff coming out for Japanese cellular phones. It's a lot of what you'd expect, but some surprises as well.

Here's the editorial and, as if you even cared about anything else, here's the gallery.

Packing and stuff

Wed, 16 Feb 2005 21:30:00 +0900

So I'm packing and getting ready for the big Australia move. My plan at this point is to just pack up stuff I want to keep, and whatever's left is stuff I should sell. So far the sell pile's reached about 300 games, twenty games and about 40kg of controllers. And about 50-100 books, magazines, and countless irreplacable rare shits I don't need now but can't really justify selling ('cause they're worthless) but - and here's the packrat mantra - I'm sure I'll need them eventually.

Pics!Here's my keeper shelf. This is where I keep the boxes and cases for the games I'm keeping.
The server shelf. I've moved my computer upstairs for the winter 'cause it's warm, here's where it used to be.
Misc stuff (Server shelf 2). Mostly consoles I'm keepin'. Parts and shit.
Storage Closet. X68000 parts, monitors, old consoles, cables, pads. My stuff mostly.

So I've got a lot of shit. A LOT of shit. It makes me crazy.

Tecmo sues game hackers

Thu, 10 Feb 2005 20:49:00 +0900

According to several sites, The US arm of Tecmo has sued a group of game hackers for, essentially, making nude codes. Tecmo has sued people for playing with games they legally own in a way Tecmo doesn't approve of.

This is ludicrous. The Register has more.

In a surprisingly coincidental move, Taiwan's Foam Max Enterprises has launched a suit against a group of 'ball hackers' who bounce their rubber balls the wrong way.A representative of Foam Max Enterprises told reporters "These kids are abusing the product we poured dozens of dollars into. Parents will see these hackers [and here the FME rep spit onto the floor] employing this 'English' and assume our balls always bounce backwards when thrown.

"What's worse is these kids have a website where they show other kids how to twist their wrists when throwing the ball, encouraging them to play in ways we never intended. The DMCA clearly prohibits this kind of tampering, and we will persecute anyone who dares play with our products in a way we don't like."

120/80

Mon, 07 Feb 2005 16:23:00 +0900

Two game guides - Works in Progress

Sat, 29 Jan 2005 15:03:00 +0900

I've been working on a couple of game guides.

Hudson's Nectaris is one of the greatest hex sims ever made. I've put together a light guide to the basic strategic elements of the game, with more to come. For more detailed info, Base Nectaris offers more on the series than any other site I've seen.

Necronomicon Pinball is a fantastic Saturn game, so I've put together about 75% of the data you'll need to play it right here. Some pages are still unfinished, sorry.

130/70

Sat, 29 Jan 2005 00:53:00 +0900

Catch! Touch! Yoshi!

Thu, 27 Jan 2005 22:34:00 +0900

I've put up a review for Nintendo's newest DS release. It might as well be the first DS game, as the rest were ports or games that hardly required the stylus.

Catch! Touch! Yoshi!

Sony acknowledges PSP faults.. No, they don't.

Tue, 25 Jan 2005 17:48:00 +0900

You might remember my recent harsh appraisal of Sony's PSP. According to a GameSpot article the head of Sony Computer Entertainment, Ken Kutaragi, said only .6% of the PSPs sold have been returned, and that people complaining about the buttons are overreacting to intentional design choices.

Which completely dodges the issue of defective units where the buttons don't just feel different but actually hit the screen preventing comfortable use.

This is an acknowledgement of nothing, Sony's just dodging the question. GameSpot's article only serves to help gloss over the significant variance in Sony's manufacturing process which often results in very unsatisfactory user experiences.

Happily my unit, purchased only ten days ago, works fine - but I've used units that don't, and I know people who have imported one and are stuck with it. Sony's non-acknowledgement serves no one but Sony.

More Japanese commercials

Sat, 22 Jan 2005 21:22:00 +0900

I've whipped up another batch of lovely Japanese commercials for you!

Toyota Dreams - Toyota's rather strange concept vehicle
Haagen Dazs - A rather lesbian commerical
Sony PSP - Ridge Racers. This game is great, make no mistake.
Car Insurance - featuring SMAP and cars with feet.

Adelance Hair - Since being bald is for total losers, Adelance!
Tokyo Power Co - Tepco's 100mbit fiber to the home
Shiseido Cosmetics - Lipstick (And lovely lips...)
Vodafone - Vodafone's big 3G push (part 1)
Vodafone - Vodafone's big 3G push (part 2)
Nissin Tank - Nissin Cup Noodle, retiring tanks and saving the world
Boss Coffee - A global team of layabouts sets up reflectors and prisms for a nighttime rainbow over Tokyo

More commercials...
Still more commercials...
Yet more commercials...

Two rare things for your enjoy.

Fri, 21 Jan 2005 21:59:00 +0900

Recently someone auctioned off a prototype PC Engine modem on Yahoo's Japanese auction site. This is the second one I've seen, but the first with software. The PCE modem was never released, and according to this auction only one hundred units were made. Check out this image of the modem and a black PC Engine. And in case you're wondering what something like this sells for, now you know.

In other news, I picked up an X68000 game no one's ever seen before. It's called Shoot Range and it's made by a company and producer no one's ever heard of. The box has some neat screenshots on the back and it also looks cool in-game. It's basically a hex-grid sim with cute units and a nice coherent design, but instead of just setting your icons against theirs, you have to hit their vital spots in a Battleship-style crapshoot. Except for a rather old-fashioned, unrefined interface it's quite an interesting take on the military strategy genre.

Update! Found some more info on Shoot Range, as well as some other rare X68000 softs. Have a look.

123/75

Tue, 11 Jan 2005 17:45:00 +0900

135/85

Sun, 02 Jan 2005 17:29:00 +0900

Nintendo's chairman speaks!

Sun, 02 Jan 2005 00:01:00 +0900

Hiroshi Yamauchi is famous for his tirades against whatever bugbear of the day he selects to take blame for Nintendo's ills. He bashes competitors, developers and even his customers with equal abandon. In today's episode he isn't at all suprised to find the DS is selling very well. I'm sure the complete lack of compelling software for the platform was all part of his plan.

New years, old years, and the force of nature.

Fri, 31 Dec 2004 23:38:00 +0900

The last year was kind of a waste for me. Living in Japan, far from everyone that I know or who speaks my language, has kind of drained me. Here's hoping next year sees changed the things that need to be changed.

From Cryptome.org I bring you scenes of incredible devastation:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Remember kids, without the people we're nothing. Treasure your friends, and if your family's not evil, treasure them too. When the uncaring universe takes your world away the people prove their worth. The reverse is likely not to be true.

Carry on.

Ten Million Served

Wed, 29 Dec 2004 22:31:00 +0900

Ladies and gentlemen, nfg.2y.net has passed the 10,000,000 hit mark for 2004, with a couple of days to spare.

Thanks to all who visit this pathetic site. Maybe one day I'll figure out why you bothered. =)

Hardcore Gamer

Mon, 27 Dec 2004 19:31:00 +0900

This one is from the wayback archives, it appears to have never been linked on the list, and while I'm not sure if it was really worth the effort or anything, here it is for your enjoy.

The Local Pervert

Mon, 27 Dec 2004 19:26:00 +0900

You might remember a little comic I made a long time ago (though you probably don't) which featured me as the local peeping tom. Here's the next in that vein. I think I fucked up the punchline a bit, but meh, you get the idea.

130/80

Sun, 26 Dec 2004 00:58:00 +0900

Nintendo's DS: An NFG Review

Tue, 21 Dec 2004 23:09:00 +0900

After writing up all the things that went wrong with the PSP a few people asked what I thought about the DS.

The bottom line: Nintendo's DS is far better designed and constructed. Never mind the specs and features and games, the DS hardware isn't as flawed as the PSP.

Read on for details.

As an interesting aside, a little birdy told me a Nintendo PR flack, when pressed about the GBA cart slot in DS game cases, mumbled something about the DS being able to access both the DS and GBA carts at the same time, and that there are plans for expansion cards for the GBA slot with software in the DS slot. Therefore you might conceivably want to keep your GBA-shaped expansion cart with the DS games. Therefore, two slots.

Now if only there were good DS games to play...

Nintendo's DS: A review

Sun, 19 Dec 2004 15:53:00 +0900

After posting my thoughts on the PSP someone asked what my impressions of Nintendo's DS were. So I wrote some down.

135/80

Sun, 19 Dec 2004 12:05:00 +0900

Sony's PSP: A review

Sat, 18 Dec 2004 10:38:00 +0900

Sony's PSP has been out nearly a week now and after playing it for a while I have to say I'm hugely disappointed in it. The two games I picked up, Ridge Racers and Lumines are really quite cool, Lumines especially, but the hardware is total ass.

The D-pad catches on the LCD inside the system. The discs have no sliding cover so are partially unprotected (and this is right where yout thumb goes when you remove it from the case!). The door doesn't close flush with the case. If you twist it (A lot, it's hard to do) you can cause the disc to eject and fly out of the machine.

All this and more for the import friendly price of $500+, or $250 if you live in Japan. Check out my review.

Sony's PSP: Reviewed

Fri, 17 Dec 2004 11:16:00 +0900

So the PSP has launched and after a crazy adventure I managed to score one. Four days later the lineup for Nintendo DS units at my local Toys R Us was five times longer than the lineup for Sony's PSP. A harbinger of the future perhaps? For all the fervent interest in the PSP it would seem that they didn't try really hard to make a product people might actually enjoy using, so much as they made a tech demo that impresses journalists and looks good under glass.

Read on for the gory details.

140/75

Fri, 10 Dec 2004 10:50:00 +0900

Poetry while I sleep

Wed, 08 Dec 2004 09:06:00 +0900

In the mornings I like to check my IRC logs to see if anyone tried to talk to me during the night. I found this:

here's a haiku about neo
Lawrence and Japan
We need to hunt him down now
He has all the games

Thanks sik. =)

Alastair Reynolds, Absolution Gap

Tue, 07 Dec 2004 00:07:00 +0900

The last book I read was Alastair Reynolds' Absolution Gap, the latest in a series of books including Revelation Space, Chasm City and Redemption Ark. The first book starts off a bit slow and I confess I had a hard time sticking with it until about the second third. Chasm City was very good, but it was Redemption Ark that was teh kickazz. A veritable gale of space opera goodness sweeping me from start to finish in short order. This really cements Reynolds as one of my favourite authors, along with Vernor Vinge and Kim Stanley Robinson.

Absolution Gap was harder to get into than its predecessor, but not for any reason I can put my finger on. The whole series is highly recommended as some of the very best sci-fi you will likely find.

140/90

Mon, 06 Dec 2004 19:23:00 +0900

140/90

Thu, 02 Dec 2004 19:23:00 +0900

"It's me" fraud in Japan

Sat, 27 Nov 2004 09:30:00 +0900

You see in the news an awful lot how crooks call old people and somehow confuse them into believing the caller is a relative in desperate need of cash, defrauding them out of thousands and often tens of thousands of dollars. It's called "It's me" fraud in Japan and it's quite an epidemic, if the news is to be believed.

Zumi's friend's mother received a call like this recently, and I'm surprised at the amount of research the crook put into their attempt. First, the caller knewthe daughter's name, and where she worked, but didn't know what she did there - in this case, she's a nutritionist. The caller was hysterical and sobbing so the voice was quite hard to recognize - or not. She claimed to have recently injected a patient with the wrong drug or dose and caused them to slip into a coma. When the mom asked "What are you doing giving people shots?" the crook apparently replied in a normal voice "But... Don't I work at a hospital?"

Needless to say this scam failed. =D

More Japanese Commercials

Wed, 24 Nov 2004 21:36:00 +0900

Here's another batch of amazing fun-filled Japanese commercials for you! This batch includes Nintendo, Sony, Rena Tanaka, Waka Inoue, Hikaru Utada, and more! See this page for reasons I think these commercials are interesting and perhaps important, not just entertaining. There are lots more commercials for your enjoyment here, here and here!

A special welcome to boingboing readers! Please note that you're allowed a max of 2 simultaneous downloads per IP. Living in Japan affords me as much bandwidth as any minor deity but I discourage mass leeching. Take as much as you like, but no being greedy ok? ALso, share!First up, some new game ads.

Nintendo DS - featuring the lovely Hikaru Utada
Nintendo DS - this one shows off some gameplay
Nintend GBA - Advance Wars 1 + 2
Sony PSP - Funny - kid gets caught playing Ridge Racer in class.
Sony PSP - There's a LOT of PSP ads on TV.
Sony PSP - Hot Shots Golf for the PSP
Sony PSP - Hot Shots Golf for the PSP (It's different)
Sony PS2 - Dragon Quest VIII
Sony PS2 - What's the message here? DQ8 puts you to sleep?

Tech:
Olympus M:Robe - Strange portable media viewer.
National Nanocare - some sort of humidifier? Gorgeous white chick.
Intel Inside - this ad is totally inscrutable. I have no idea.
Panasonic Viera - This chick's in a lot of ads. Nice TV too.
NEC Valuestar - NEC computers
Skyperfect TV - The incomparable Aya Matsuura hawking Satellite TV
Canon Photobox - It Scans! It Prints! It does photos!
NTT Flet's - ADSL Video phone from NTT
NTT DoCoMo - This poor girl is really popular until one guy's phone rings with a video message from another girl stepping out of the shower.
Arisan Mark - Submit pics of your domicile via celphone and they'll quote a price for moving it somewhere else. As if low-res pixellated pics are representative of anything.
Canon Ixy - Another in a series featuring Milla Jovovich and Japanese soccer superstar Hidetoshi Nakata

Hair + Beauty:
Shick Razors - The Incredibles cross-promotion, featuring Typical Gaijin Man. This Schick ad is better.
Nail Pens - Eiko Koike from this breasty ad in a role very unusual for her. She normally plays very strong, kick-ass smart-aleck types. This seems like an ad for 13-year-old girls.
Liese Hair - Why does this seem so ridiculous?
Shiseido Foundation - this girl is really really pretty. Mmmmyeah.
Lux Hair Products - with Natalie Portman (Imagine her fee for this!)
Lux Hair Products - Natalie Portman swashbuckles, Zorro-style
Mod's Hair - they run a LOT of ads here.

Etc:
Ajinomoto Foods - featuring the adorable Rena Tanaka
Leo Palace - Norika Fujiwara looking better than she has in a while.
Komuro - I dunno what the product is, but I like the bikini girl on mechanical bull theme.
Febreeze - This girl imagines fish in the living room. At the end, "The fish are gone!"
Pizza La - No more Bob Sapp, but the pizza still looks great!
Suzuki Swift - Dead Link but here's a screenshot. Seriously, what's with this kid?
Super Autobacs - Anime-style ad for a chain of car accessory shops
Tepco Power - two kids discover 'antique' cellular phones + vlnyl records. Not sure what it has to do with a power company. =)
Clear Wrap - This girl gets into mischief when she discovers cling wrap
Takeda Energy Drink - These ads are aimed at salarymen. The drinks are uncarbonated, taste medicinal, and almost always contain nicotene. F**king NICOTENE in drinks!! Freaky.

Waka Inoue video

Wed, 24 Nov 2004 19:25:00 +0900

I still get tons of hits from people looking for Waka Inoue stuff, so this one's for you guys. She was on TV tonight as part of a celebrity chick cooking contest. Japanese TV is full of these ridiculous time wasting shows featuring 'talent', people famous for being famous, doing ridiculous things to make the guy behind the camera laugh. Waka's a bit of a dimwit and her cooking is apparently terrible - a croquette, which is supposed to look like this turns into a chunk-ridden shapeless lump which is described by the judges as 'incredibly salty' and 'not a croquette'. "Tastes like lard" was another comment. She didn't win. Enjoy the video.

Because sometimes they like it.

Tue, 23 Nov 2004 13:08:00 +0900

According to the Mainichi Daily News (A large and respectable paper in Japan) "Of the 632 women recently interviewed at Tokyo, Shimbashi and Shinjuku stations in the capital, 66% said they have been groped in trains ..." The article also said 30% of the women asked would "hope for women-only train cars to keep molesters from them," this according to a Tokyo metropolitan government panel.

66% have been groped, but only 30% wanted a car free for women only. I can only draw two conclusions from this:
1. 36% of the women polled like or don't mind being groped
2. 36% of the women polled think sometimes women do the groping, and car for women only won't save them.

JAMMA + Signs.

Mon, 22 Nov 2004 15:02:00 +0900

Couple of new signs in the sign gallery for you. One's a warning not to hop over the fence and play in the river, but it looks more like a warning about the lions. The second was put up in a parking lot near a little park and large river. Littering is a problem in Japan like you wouldn't believe, it's a filthy country. The general rule of thumb is: If it's bushy some old fucker'll dump his trash there. Including but not limited to cans and bottles, printers, laptops, TVs and other appliances, bikes, scooters and cars.

-topic change-

JAMMA is a term you hear a lot if you're into arcade games. It stands for Japanese Arcade Machine Manufacturers Association. When spoken, it sounds like the Japanese word for "In the way". While mailing a few parcels this afternoon I saw this scene. A few minutes ago the guy in the sweater parked his little econobox right behind the crane truck as it was backing along the road. The guy in the white hat yelled at him, telling him he couldn't park there, he was in the way. In the image above he's telling the driver of the car, in the inimitably polite Japanese fashion, that he'd have to wait to get into his car 'cause they're quite busy and maybe if he hadn't parked in their way in the first place they wouldn't be blocking the road and his car now.

Speaking of in-the-way, I nearly rode my bike straight into the side of a car on the way home from the post office'cause the filthy bastard saw me coming and decided I wasn't a threat. This happens a lot, most people see a bike and (I assume) don't imagine I'm travelling nearly as fast as a car might. I recently replaced the brake pads on my bike and they're still really noisy, so it sounded a lot like I'd layed on the horn as I skidded to a stop before denting this fucker's door. He had the nerve, the appalling gall to glower disapprovingly at me!! Come back here, you son of a bitch, and let me plant my foot in your ass!

This is, sadly, what I see frequently in the Japanese. A desire to avoid confrontation that's so strong no one is ever chided for getting in someone else's way. They're always riding bikes into the street without looking, parking where they shouldn't, throwing their shit out in parks and creeks, and basically behaving antisocially.

In the beginning...

Sat, 20 Nov 2004 10:16:00 +0900

It was as if the legions of Hell had erupted from their confines, spewing incandescent bile. Enormous masses were consumed to feed engines of annhiliation, massive batteries, instantly exhausted, give life to unimaginable wretched fury.

There was no chance for us.

New Camera

Thu, 18 Nov 2004 09:02:00 +0900

I'm desperately keen on the new JVC video camera, the Everio MZ-GC200. It's a palm-sized video camera with features that make me drool, hardcore: 10x optical zoom, 2-megapixel camera, dual memory card slots (SD + CF) and far more. It's about a grand street price though, so it's going through a more rigorous vetting process than is normal around here.

I was drooling over the live demo unit in Yamada Denki yesterday and thought it'd be fun to try out the camera part of it. I shoved my SD card (which is always nearby in my cellphone) into the video camera and snapped a few pics around the store.My first reaction is that 10x optical zoom is mad fucking cool. I really wish my still camera had that, instead of the almost half-hearted 3x zoom. It's fast to zoom in or out, and has a little indicator on the viewscreen showing the current zoom level. I didn't actually notice if it had intermediate zoom stages, but at the most extreme levels of zoom it didn't appear to, the slightest touch of the zoom control would send it from one zoom level to the next without pause. It may not act like this at the other end of the scale.

Here's two image samples, the first showing zero zoom, the second showing full 10x zoom. Click for larger, though the large ones are still reduced 50%.

I had also taken an image at 5x zoom but it came out a little blurry. In fact, most of the sample images I made came out blurry. The camera's focus ability seems a bit weak. Not a huge deal for me, really. The last reason I'd be buying this would be for the 2mpix camera. My regular camera's four megapixel. Hell, my cellphone's two megapixel. It's the VIDEO camera I want, but sadly there's no way to get the video files home without investing in a massive memory card of my own. The shopkeepers are going to be quiite reluctant to let me run off with their 4GB microdrive, I'm sure. =)

In the supermarket today...

Wed, 17 Nov 2004 16:26:00 +0900

this little girl was giving me grief today. she's apparently camera-shy but didn't hesitate to pull one eye open and stick her tongue out at me. If you've ever read or watched Japanese cartoons you'll know what I mean. It's the kid's version of the finger, a cheerfully rendered "you suck!"

it was the highlight of my day.

Espresso, Illness + Rain

Mon, 15 Nov 2004 09:58:00 +0900

Since we got back from Canada I've been suffering from a not-too-terrible cold, with accompanying cough and mornings full of phlegm removal procedures. As far as plagues go this one's really not too bad. The shame is it's kept me off my bike for the four or five days of wildly unusual hot weather. Early November isn't supposed to be 20-25C in Japan, it's freakish. I got one afternoon out on the bike when I first got back, but since then I've been inside being bitter.Now that it's rainy and cold I don't mind being sick so much; couldn't ride if I wanted to.

We bought an espresso machine!! This one, in fact. We didn't get it from these guys or pay anywhere near that price, but that's the one we got. It's f**king great! It shocks me though how much coffee it takes to make such a tiny, tiny cup of espresso. I was also surprised to find espresso has much less caffeine in it than coffee. It makes me wonder if, OMFG, I like the taste of coffee!?

Zumi's in a mood today, she's not exactly warm blooded at the best of times and this cold weather has made her exceptionally grumpy. My offers to warm her up were rebuffed, and now we're both pissed off. =D

Halo 2 should be here today or tomorrow, with luck. Combined with tomorrow's release of Half Life 2 and Worlds of Warcraft at the end of the month... Well, no one's gonna see me for a while.

ATMs + Headphones

Thu, 11 Nov 2004 14:20:00 +0900

Yesterday we went out for sushi lunch and we realized after we'd eaten that we had no money to pay. We had tried to get cash from a 24-hour ATM the night before, but in Japan the 24 machines don't dispense cash 24 hours a day. Yay! I ended up being collateral while Zumi ran to a bank machine to get some lunch money.

While on our way to the airport I picked up a pair of Sony's new MDR-NC11A noise-cancelling headphones. I've always wanted some noise cancelling headphones, every time I take a trip on a plane I think "Fuck, this might be tolerable with some noise cancelling headphones!"

And how do they work, you ask?Pretty well, actually, with some caveats.

The headphones are pretty complicated. Between the normal headphone plug and the earbuds there's a triangular module with a passive volume trimmer, shirt clip and on/off button. Into this you can shove any standard AAA battery, which powers the active noise cancellation. The earbuds include little microphones to pick up background sounds and these sounds are sent back to the triangle module where they're magically eliminated before being sent back to your ears. I thought it couldn't possibly be effective, but I bought a pair anyway. I'd probably have gone for the over-ear model but they didn't have any at the time.

The unique soft plastic earbuds nestle a lot deeper in your ear than a normal one might, and they completely seal off the outer ear canal. This alone accounts for about 80% of the noise reduction you're likely to experience, it's just astonishing how well it works with the noise cancelling turned off. With the noise cancelling activated there's a further reduction in background noise, but it does add a fairly noticable hiss.

First the good news: there's two unexpected bonuses to using these headphones, there's almost no outside-ear noise leakage, and bass response is astonishing! Not only will you not piss off everyone else on the train while you deafen yourself, the canal-plugging design provides amazing bass transfer, totally unlike any headphone I've ever used. Whatever your musical poison these headphones provide far, far more low-end love than any I've ever seen.

When turning the noise cancelling on outside sounds are reduced, but not really to such a level that you might say to your friend "Wow!". Instead I found myself thinking "Hmm.." and pondering the $100 hole in my wallet. What's quite strange is that when the noise cancelling had been on for a while I noticed a marked increase in background noise when I turned it off. Whether this is because the headphones take a while to 'warm up' to the job or because of other, unfathomable reasons, I can't be sure.

The shape, design and material of the earbuds make these babies totally mandatory for me on any future airline trip. After some twenty two hours in various planes last month I'm prepared to say that there's no way I'm flying again without them. It's totally possible to enjoy all kinds of music, at surprisingly low volumes, in nearly complete peace. The benefit of the noise cancelling is debatable, as I said I found the increase in noise to be greater after they'd been on for a while, but the initial noise dampening effect when they're switched on is unimpressive.

There's one final caveat: These headphones are useless for use in quiet environments. When you plug your ear canal with anything, be it your fingers, these earbuds or chewing gum, every noise in your head becomes magnified. Breathing, chewing, swallowing - these activities will make you insane if you use the headphones in a quiet room. You can compensate by turning them up loud, but there's no way I could use them at low volumes.

So, if you want headphones for a noisy environment, or want to be able to listen to loud music with incredible bass and no noise leakage, these are unquestionably worth the money. Thumbs up, kids!

Baldr Force EXE: Pocket Review

Thu, 11 Nov 2004 11:50:00 +0900

I picked up Baldr Force EXE from Sega recently. It's the latest Dreamcast release and based on the demo I played in Akihabara the other day, it's a top-down button mashing robot combat-fest in high-res, featuring 16-bit gameplay and wicked graphic enhancements.

Read More!

I am a goldfish.

Wed, 10 Nov 2004 21:10:00 +0900

In the HBO series Oz there was an episode where the narrator talked about goldfish, and how they had a very short memory. It was suggested that with a total memory of about thirty seconds a goldfish who is happy for that length of time believes he's been happy his whole life. It makes sense, if you can't recall anything before that thirty seconds it might as well have never existed.

I have a bad cold. Zumi asked me if it's worse than the colds I normally get. I don't remember any other colds; I don't get sick often and every time I do it seems to be the worst cold I've ever had because it's the only one I remember.

I am a goldfish.

130/80

Tue, 09 Nov 2004 12:43:00 +0900

Earthquakes freak me out.

Mon, 08 Nov 2004 11:19:00 +0900

There's another earthquake shaking my stuff right now. Pretty mild, goes on for about 10-20 seconds. Kind of a swirling motion, nothing falls over but you can see things wobbling and swaying. Freaks me out, wondering if the swirling will be followed by a BANG as the big tremor hits, or a massive WHUMP as the ground shifts to a vertical movement - which is far more dangerous - and then my house collapses.

There was a vertical quake the other day, tho I'm happy to report it didn't break anything. They're becoming frequent and I don't like it. It's definitely time to get the hell out of town. Onward to Australia! Or something.

This one measured 5.8 on the Japanese scale. Here's a screenshot from the TV. I'm off to the left on this map.

125/83

Mon, 08 Nov 2004 11:18:00 +0900

love to ride!

Sun, 07 Nov 2004 16:07:00 +0900

I fixed my bike. It was a 4-step process:

1. find bit what launched itself
2. reinsert bit
3. ignore spongy response, compensated for somewhat by thick new pads
4. loooooooooooove to ride.

Pics of Canada Trip!

Things that go ffPOP!

Sun, 07 Nov 2004 12:28:00 +0900

While in Canada I bought a new rotor and two sets of brake pads for my bike. Disc brakes are great. Or at least, they are when they're not exploding and shooting streams of brake fluid across the floor... The old pads were so thin the pistons in the calipers were extended and needed to be compressed so the new pads would fit. This is what the Hayes instruction manual said at any rate. Problem is when compressing one piston the other would come out, and vice versa. After an hour of fucking with itI stuck the old pads in and wedged a screwdriver between 'em. This is when a valve or seal or something in the brake lever went blooey and now when the brake lever is squeezed a nasty liquid comes out instead of the expected reduction in tire rotation speed.

Well FUCK. Gorgeous 20C+ weather outside and I've got no damned bike.

grr.

Another laptop falls!

Sun, 07 Nov 2004 12:20:00 +0900

Today I got sick of the loose power connector on this IBM thinkpad laptop (i-series, model 1445 if you care) so I took it's ass apart and beat it into repaired submission. The IBM is a piece of junk compared to the Sharp Mebius Muramasa I just finished repairing. It was a nightmare of screws and snap-together plastic bits, I'm honestly surprised I could put it back together, but I did - and it works!!

PICS ARE HERE!
Pieces all over the couch
Pieces all over the table
Closeup of teh flawed bit

125/85

Sun, 07 Nov 2004 10:37:00 +0900

130/80

Sat, 06 Nov 2004 07:09:00 +0900

Back in Japan!

Sat, 06 Nov 2004 07:09:00 +0900

So we're back safe, after our much-dreaded 11-hour sardine-class flight turned out to be ten uber-comfortable hours on a brand new Airbus A330-200 with video on demand (not just different channels, but movies that start, stop and fast-forward as you like) and happy friendly staff. A new plane does wonders for everyone's morale.

Stopped taking the beta-blockers to see what happens with my BP and there's a small increase, but nothing out of what I'd consider a normal range of fluctuation. See what happens over the next few days I guess.

No food in the house, and I'm hungry. Good to be back, feels like we've been gone forever. My space is a cluttered mess, must resolve. Pics coming soon.

Going home again

Thu, 04 Nov 2004 21:19:00 +0900

Heading back to Japan again. Leaving Kelowna @ 6am (an hour and a half from now) and then the reverse of our trip to get here, hopefully not including any five hour waits on account of unqualified immigration wenches.

In case I asplode nastily 'fore alighting in Japan again,I'd just like to say "Thanks". That's more or less it. Fodder, Pigeon, NolanXL, my sister and her family, and all the happy English-speaking shopkeepers who made this trip a lot of fun for me - thanks. It was a blast. If I get back safely I might have a few pics to post, but nothing exciting. If I asplode you're not missing much, and the intarweb is prolly better off without me.

-off drug-

Thu, 04 Nov 2004 10:51:00 +0900

122/78

Wed, 03 Nov 2004 16:15:00 +0900

Visiting people

Wed, 03 Nov 2004 16:15:00 +0900

Tonight I went and saw Nolan again, which was fun as always. He gave me his copy of PS2 Frequency, for which I cannot properly express my gratitude. I showed him my PStwo and he did exactly what I did when I bought it: Looked at it, marveled at the size, checked the ports, opened the lid, then checked to ensure the little PS logo could still be rotated for use in horizontal or vertical positions (it can). Except for the 3-inch Atari logo he has tattooed on his neck we're damned alike, he and I.

Last nightZumi and I met up with Zalasta and his girlfriend, as well as Fodder. we went to Montanas, a rather trendy restaurant with thoroughly average food. I ordered a natchos and a burger, and I really think I should have had one or the other. By the time our meal was finished I was feeling more full than I could recall ever having been before. It wasn't fun.

Also, I think by the end of the meal I had basically talked too much and made an ass of myself. Apologies to all.

120/70

Mon, 01 Nov 2004 22:01:00 +0900

WTF does the doctor know?

Mon, 01 Nov 2004 14:43:00 +0900

I came to Canada to see a doctor about some issues I was having. Turns out the Japanese doctor basically didn't do his job and failed to let me know I was suffering alarmingly high blood pressure. Well my doctor in Canada, a happy and personable new doctor, hasn't really instilled confidence in me with his recommendation for this hypertension. His recommendation was basically "Take these beta-blockers". These are high-powered pills that dilate my blood vessels, slow down my heart, reduce the effects of adrenaline,and have some potential - but not certain - side effects,such as:

depression
cold hands or feet
dizziness
nightmares (!)
impotence (!!)

Well it seems to me the side effects kind of... what's the word... suck! There was, surprisingly, no talk of my diet (bad but getting better for a year), my lifestyle (sedentary with wild bouts of high-speed biking for hours at a time five days a week) or anything else you might expect. I asked him if it was normal procedure to prescribe the drugs first, and worry about other treatments later, and he said "yup!" I'm not convinced.

Since I don't have EXTREMELY high blood pressure (not counting one intensely alarming measurement taken in Japan a couple of years ago) I'm going to take these beta blockers only as long as I am in Canada, just to see that there are no wild side effects to this particular brand, then I'm gonna stop taking them and see if I can't bring my blood pressure under control on my own. I bought a blood pressure testing kit so I can measure it often without seeing a doctor. If I can't bring it down, I'll go back on the beta blockers until I get to Australia and can find another doctor.

Also there's no authoritative word about my TSH levels (which are the brain's signal to the thyroid to kick up production a notch (or down)) so no one knows if I'm taking the right amount of thyroid pills, which can affect my blood pressure.

While I understand my doctor may be taking the easy way out since I'm not going to be around for frequent tests, I'm pissed off they weren't even discussed.

Well it's only going to get worse.

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 15:07:00 +0900

Today after driving my baby around for a while I decided to have the increasingly irritating rattle examined by someone who knows their stuff, and lo!! The bearings in the alternator are shot and it's essentially just grinding metal in preparation for a massive seizure. So we're bussing into town tomorrow to find a rental for the next week. That kind of sucks, it's a $200 dent in the travel fun, and this is in addition to the other expensive thing I want to buy before returning to Japan...

In other happy news, Zumi's laptop was snared by a virus exploiting one of the ridiculous many vulnerabilities in Windows and, only four days after we fixed it for this trip, it's dead again from a corrupted registry. All hail an OS that gets viruses just from being connected to the internet, and that won't boot if a single file is damaged. Yaaaaay!

-on drug-

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 10:51:00 +0900

150/100

Tue, 26 Oct 2004 15:30:00 +0900

Alarming news of the day:

Tue, 26 Oct 2004 15:30:00 +0900

My BP was measured yesterday at 150/100, and in order to give the new numbers some sort of context I had the records from my exams in Japan pulled and this is what we got over the last few years:

2001/Oct - 140/110
2002/July - 152/100
2003/Feb 180/102!!!

Fucking hell, 180/102 while I'm in the bloody hospital for heart palpitations, and NO ONE THOUGHT TO TELL ME ABOUT THE BP!? Is it any freaking wonder I dislike Japanese doctors!?

And here we are!

Mon, 25 Oct 2004 14:37:00 +0900

So we made it to Canada, and we learned a few things:

1. Most young American men have goatees most of the time. Note to the herd: you're a member of a horde.

2. Narita's terminal one, the old terminal, is for the B airlines, and all the cheap-ass economy fliers are there. If Wal-Mart ran an airport, it would look like this. Filled with the older and less friendly staff, dirty, grubby customers all being loud and stupid. It was creepy compared to the clean, smile-filled Terminal 2.

3. Canadian Immigration sucks my ass. We were an hour late leaving Seattle 'cause of a delay in Vancouver. When we got to Vancouver, now with only two hours to make our connection, the stupid bimbo running the immigration desk decided Zumi's intention to enter Canada as a visitor - perfectly legal and above-board - wasn't going to fly because she also had an expired spouse visa, never mind that the rules have changed and it effectively doesn't expire as long as she's outside the country WITH ME.

So we spent a solid two hours in a fucking lineup only to be told that we didn't need to be there!! We missed our flight and had to wait another five hours for the next plane to Kelowna. Vancouver airport's the most beautiful airport in the world, but five hours of entertaining it ain't. Zumi was livid,and was near to asploding.

Doctor says my blood pressure is alarmingly high, so I'm scheduled for a raft of tests tomorrow. Gotta get my thyroid levels checked, blood sugar, and a half dozen other fun things. Whee!!

nothing to see here...

Fri, 22 Oct 2004 23:30:00 +0900

BTW, the new Battlestar Galactica (The first 1-hour episode after the 2-part pilot last year) is every bit as fucking great as the pilots. I can't fault the show. Every single complaint I have is a niggling matter of style, but I can find nothing wrong with the acting, the writers, the plot, the pacing, or the camera work. It's amazing, I'm really really digging it. Which traditionally means I'm dooming it to failure, but it's still great.

Also, season 6 of the West Wing started up and it's off to a good start. Season five really left me kind of cold, the show kind of... wandered. I miss Rob Lowe, but Martin Sheen kicks ass as a pres.

And that's all the ridiculous blog-alike TV babble you get out of me today!

Some days...

Fri, 22 Oct 2004 22:07:00 +0900

Some days, in fact too many days, I feel a bit like this guy.

There's a Lupin movie on TV tonight, from 1978. It's surprisingly funny, once you learn to ignore the appalling animation. In one scene buddy with a sword leaps into the path of an oncoming helicopter, samurai-style, and they pass in the air. Cue mid-air introspective moment, they pass, and a pause. Guy lands dramatically, helicopter travels a bit and hovers, brief wait and BAM!All the rotors just fly off. Then there's a cliff-side car chase with a ridiculous oversized semi chasing the little Mini Lupin drives, and the result is five minutes of insanity that reminds me of nothing so much as the Road Runner with vehicles.

Leaving for Canada tomorrow. Packed and ready, more or less. Didn't get a chance to find some noise-cancelling headphones which, I'm convinced, would make the whole idea of sitting for hours between four roaring turbines a lot more enjoyable. So that'll suck.

Been getting a lot of emails lately from idiots. People asking questions because they simply can't be arsed to do thirty seconds of research on their own. What the fuck is with people - and I generalize only a little when I say they're mostly Americans - who interpret any suggestion that they do a modicum of research before pestering me with their easy questions as a personal affront? Jesus fucking christ, you guys are stupid and somehow I'm an asshole when I suggest they do a google search before asking someone else for the answer? Google doesn't sleep, has all the answers and doesn't give you shit when you ask ridiculous things.

Lights at night linked to cancer

Wed, 20 Oct 2004 17:11:00 +0900

According to this article on ScienceDirect.com there's been a link made between bright lights at night and cancer. Turns out bright lights in the early morning hours trigger blue receptors in they eye which signal the hypothalamus to suppress melatonin production in the pineal gland.

Basically, bright lights with blue content will signal the body to produce less melatonin, which can allow cancer to grow more rapidly.

That's pretty alarming.

Typhoon 23

Wed, 20 Oct 2004 09:12:00 +0900

Another typhoon is rolling in, this is the 23rd of the season for the area, a new record. It's also the strongest so far this year. It's expected to pretty much roll it's whorly way across the whole country, passing Tokyo 2 days before we're due to leave for Canada (which would be tomorrow). All the TV channels are running footage of people bent into the wind crossing streets assaulted by rain and wind, evacuated old folks in gymnasiums, and the ever popular pedestrian having his umbrella blown inside out. Whee for weather!

Coming to Canada!

Mon, 18 Oct 2004 13:37:00 +0900

Coming to Canada again! Here's the schedule:

Saturday 10/23
Leave Narita @ 3:25pm
Arrive Seattle @ 7:55am (8.5 hour flight)
Leave Seattle @ 10:30am
Arrive Vancouver @ 11:20am (50 minute flight)
Leave Vancouver @ 2:15pm
Arrive Kelowna @ 3:20pm (Be at the airport to see us greasy, tired and cranky!)

We'll be leaving Kelowna @ 6am on November 4th.

As for why...We had been planning to come to Canada before the end of the year and get some shopping done; there's talk of a move to Australia (or still possibly Canada) next year, and if it's the former we'd like to get a trip back home in before we end up in Australia, broke and unable to return if we wanted to. Not that it'd happen, but it could. =D

Also gonna go see the doctor. In early September I had a lymph node in my armpit swell up and last time this happened to me it turned out to be thyroid cancer. I confess I freaked out a bit when this happened. subsequent internet research led me to believe that it was almost certainly harmless, a result of a brief allergic reaction to something I ate perhaps. I also read that it was very important to get this checked out ASAP, and after my last experience I thought that yeah, cancer, shit man, call the doctor!

I was a roiling bundle of stress for a month and a half since I was in a foreign land without decent medical care and, in addition to the complete cessation of ebay sales making me worry about money, as well as another overseas move I wasn't certain about.

I hadn't even realized how stressed I was, but this lymph scare (which, BTW, went back to normal in about 3 days not counting the bruise I gave myself by probing around every fifteen minutes) just terrified me beyond rational thought, I was kind of a mess. I started having heart misfires, which for the last year or so I'd always blamed on my posture and - until a few days ago when I finally determined it was my heart and not another twitching chest muscle - my general lack of exercise. It was really infrequent, and it was not unlike the hiccoughs where if you're concentrating on it it would stop, but the instant your mind drifts it does it again. This made it really hard to tell exactly what the cause of this chest twitch actually was...

After worrying about this as a side-effect of some elusive cancer I realized that it would go away when I'd forget to take my thyroid meds for a day or two. It seems that for whatever reason the amount of replacement thyroid hormone I've been taking has become too much, where it used to be the proper amount. Perhaps a change in my diet (for the better I might add) has meant I need less of the Levothyroxine drug to function normally. It might be that I'm getting older, it could be anything, but I'm gonna have to have it re-evaluated.

The stress combined with the excessive thyroid hormone basically made my heart freak out. It's back to normal now but I'm obviously not going to stop taking the pills entirely... Not sure exactly how to maintain a balance, gonna have to submit to dreadful checks when I get back from Japan since I doubt I'll have time to get more than one or two tests done while I'm in Canada.

In case you're wondering why I'm not getting these tests done here now, it's 'cause Japanese doctors are arrogant stupid fools who cannot handle dealing with foreigners. Naturally I'm generalizing a bit, but a good friend of mine went to a doctor with a bad rash and freakishly swollen skin sometimes making it hard for him to breath, and the doctor told him "Sometimes foreigners don't wash very well."

When I had this impact-related fleshy lump on my head examined locally two doctors were unable to tell me what it might be, were unable to get a sample no matter how hard they tried to mangle me with their primitive tools, and eventually told me 'the tests are inconclusive, we have no answers for you.' Well fuck you too. Wow.

It should also be remarked that doctors don't generally accept appointments, rush to get you in and out, demand you take your shoes off and walk around the clinic or hospital in your socks when the slippers don't fit your feet, are astonishingly filthy, crowded and if the constant stream of news reports are to be believed, staffed by incompetent, petty turf-warring prima-donnas who can't fill out forms properly, run their own pharmacies, and routinely kill patients out of ignorance, impatience, or malice. It's astonishing the politicians allow this to happen, but then they pay top dollar for private hospitals, who cares about the slobbering masses (like me) who have to suffer with affordable health care?

Zumi's HD totally snuffed it

Mon, 18 Oct 2004 12:54:00 +0900

Just in time for our trip to Canada Zumi's Sharp Mebius laptop - which we bought earlier this year specifically for trips as it's about 2cm thick and weighs as much as a magazine) suffered a complete harddrive failure. It was doing odd things and, 54% through a windows-mandated disk scan it started spinning up and down, and making a happy 'clack' sound every few seconds.The result, sadly, is a totally dead drive, one that won't even try to spin up anymore.

Sharp wants nearly Y50,000 (almost $500 USD) to replace this drive (a Toshiba 1.8" MK1503GAL). This drive, by the way, is available from Germany for a mere $110. Can't seem to find any Japanese dealers that sell it. I guess no one makes PCMCIA-sized 15GB drives anymore.

If you're interested, here's a picture with the keyboard removed, with the top of the case removed and finally a picture of the teeny tiny HD itself.

Typhoons, Traffic and sTuff.

Wed, 13 Oct 2004 19:33:00 +0900

The Typhoon the other day was pretty big. The overflow reservoir that has never had more than 10cm of water in it, even after torrential rains, was almost two metres deep. The large river 7km north of me was three or four metres deeper than normal - it returned to the normal level a few days later. Astonishing.

Traffic for the Mario Sprite History article was astounding, over 48,000 visits (not hits, visits!) to that page alone in the last two weeks.

I took a bunch of new pictures lately, including this interesting this raptor (not sure what it is, a falcon? hawk? It was gloriously predatory and large when it flew away), this Kawau (A river cormorant), this really wicked looking caterpillar, and some pics of consoles and other crap. (this month's and last month's galleries).

Been raining up a storm here lately, got caught out in it yesterday while biking. Made it to within 3km from the house before it was really annoying, but that's 3km on a fenderless bike slinging road muck against my ass. Sucked, but ah well.

GameSX.com update

Sat, 09 Oct 2004 01:39:00 +0900

After a long time of no substantive updates I completely reworked the PC Engine RGB mod page. All new pics, all new text, and gobs of new links.

Check it out.

PC Engine CD ROM Mod: Done!

Tue, 05 Oct 2004 01:58:00 +0900

I spent the greater part of my evening putting together a PC Engine CD (with case) system that I could call my own. I pulled out all the stops, with a white (not yellow!) PC Engine system, the cleanest CD ROM I could find, RGB amp, LED swap and region mod. It turned out great, though there was a brief nightmare when a design change at the 50% mark caused intense grief at the 98% mark... Had to backtrack and add another two inches of wire for the RGB amp....

Lots of pics to show you!The new, super-cool teal-coloured LED was a bit tricky for two reasons. The old one was a tiny rectangle in a plastic spacer assembly, and the new one was round and tall enough on its own that the spacer wasn't required. Since the round one wouldn't fit the rectangular hole, I yanked the LED diffuser from a Mitsumi Floppy Drive I had broken the other day. I used the soldering iron to melt it into place and not only did it fit perfectly, it looks damned cool. Problem was then the tall LED was pressed too tight againsed the diffuser, so I had to use a spacer which meant the LED PCB was wedged against a piece of shielding... Fuckit, push hard and your problems are solved.

The RGB Amp was one I'd made a long time ago and never gotten around to actually installing. Worked great first try (whew!). I tapped the RGB signals from the base of the IFU PCB, based on the data from this page. Sync and Composite Video were tapped from the same place.

Audio was tapped from the same PCB, but from the underside of the connector that runs the signals to the AV port on the opposite end of the IFU. If you tap it from the Expansion Bus connector you'll not get the CD sound, only PCE sound.

I wired up a region mod as well, connecting these two points (as detailed here) with a piece of lovely white wire.

Cutting plastic to install a DB9 is a chore I absolutely dread, but this one turned out nicely indeed. Wiring the inside was pretty easy, though space got tight when I added the RGB amp PCB only to find all the wires were too short to fit the eject lever on the interface unit...

The final product looks great, works great, and includes a switch to change the sync output (pin four, see here) from composite sync to composite video as required.

Anatomy of a Joystick

Sun, 03 Oct 2004 00:27:00 +0900

I've put together a page on the Anatomy of a Joystick, the first in a series of articles about controls (I hope!).

Enjoy, and let me know if there's anything that might need to be changed.

Tokyo Game Show 2004

Fri, 24 Sep 2004 19:44:00 +0900

I hit the Tokyo Game Show today. It's all about the booth babes, right? The G in TGS stands for GIRLS.

Because the girls are all anyone wants to see, that's all I put in the gallery. Later, maybe, I'll include some pics of, oh I dunno, games, or something similarly lame.

Here you go!

Tokyo Game Show - Live Updates

Thu, 23 Sep 2004 23:59:00 +0900

I'll be updating live from the Tokyo Game Show tomorrow, you can catch those live udpates from this page. A full gallery will follow tomorrow night.

UPDATE: The TGS 2004 Gallery is up!!

CPU thieves!

Tue, 21 Sep 2004 19:22:00 +0900

A Japanese website has decided that their "delivery health" service (and by that they mean house-calling whores) would be well served by offering QRCodes to the visiting public. This is fine and dandy, as we all know how cool QR codes are. The problem is they're using a script located on my server to do the job.

I don't normally have a problem with people linking to my content,but these guys are linking to a script they can get themselves for free, and it causes a not insignificant amount of CPU usage every time. Granted thirty hits an hour (on average) isn't taxing my system much, but these people are either greedy, stupid, or inconsiderate.

so the script they're linking to, instead of creating a code for their customers with a night.jp link and email address for the girls, gives MY email address (no mails so far) and a link to our friend. They haven't noticed for a couple of days so far.

The PStwo

Tue, 21 Sep 2004 18:15:00 +0900

Sony's PStwo has finally been unveiled and it's a stunner. Much smaller than I thought (and smaller than Spong thought), it turns out the system is really tiny. According to this Japanese page the system will launch in early October, and will be $149 (Y19,800).

What's really surprising, to me at least, is that it'll be top-loading. A good thing, really. This will reduce the number of things that can be broken, a definite bonus since Sony's totally incapable of making a games console not built like a five dollar watch. More pics on this Norwegian site (and how often do I get to say THAT?)

Site Renewal!

Thu, 09 Sep 2004 01:20:00 +0900

I've redone the site, as you can see. You can see the old crappy page here. If you like it, or don't, email me.

Server rebuilding and other fun

Tue, 07 Sep 2004 21:51:00 +0900

Yesterday evening I had a rather freakish hardware failure. My decade old (good god, has it been that long!? Very nearly, figure nearly 8 years) computer, a P2 450 which has been serving me reliably as a web/mail/ftp server, decided it was going to dis-recognize my 120GB drive and corrupt the 6GB boot drive. Hilarity ensues.As I'm sure you can imagine.

I don't know what caused the failure, but my remedy was simple: Identify the problem then crush it like teh bugz0rz. First off I tried the drive in another system, fearing the worse. My fears were unfounded, this entire website was not wiped clean by the cruel bit-hating hand of fate. Plans to employ a RAID-5 system have been upgraded in importance.

So I slapped a new motherboard in the case, one leftover from an unfinished project (The Stick), along with the rather overkill 1GHz C3 processor I was using in the firewall. Problem was the boot drive, containing Windows, was corrupted and wouldn't boot. Cue 24 solid hours (minus six hours for sleep) of fucking with the bloody thing trying to make it work again. I reinstalled XP no less than five times, instead of getting out and enjoying the sun. Here's the crux of the delay:

If you install a new HD into a functioning system and install XP onto it, the XP install routine will see your old bootable drive and will not install a 'boot sector' onto the new drive, meaning that your old drive does the initial boot then XP loads from the new drive. You can't, therefore, remove the old drive. There's no easy way to put the boot sector onto the new drive either, you know what the ultimate fix is? REFORMAT AND REINSTALL. And make sure the old drive's at least six metres away from the system when you do, XP will sense its presence and refuse to make the new drive bootable.

What a fucking ordeal, I'm so pissed off. Oh, and it gets better. If you install a new XP instance with the old XP install still there, the new drive will be ID'd differently, so that my new main drive was E: instead of C:, even when I removed C: from the system. And don't give me shit about it being on the wrong IDE interface, or the wrong master/slave settings. DOS says "HI C drive!" and XP says C Drive was over there, this is E Drive. You can't change this without rendering your entire Windows install null and void."

So, remove, format and reinstall. That's what I learned today, after trying a half dozen other things first, each one requiring an XP reinstall or repair (And repair is EXACTLY like a reinstall, except.... for nothing, it's the same. Takes just as goddamned long too).

Stupid microsoft. Fuck windows.

AM Show Live Coverage

Sat, 04 Sep 2004 00:26:00 +0900

Just for fun I'll be posting live updates from tomorrow's open-to-the-public AM Show. You can catch them here:

http://nfg.2y.net/games/amshow2004

Hopefully everything goes well, but with live feeds it's just asking for trouble.

dog poo campaign

Fri, 03 Sep 2004 22:18:00 +0900

The Japanese people, as homogenous as they are, all share the same dream: Get a job, get married, get a house, get a dog. Putting aside for a moment the fact that they consider it a dog's duty to bark incessantly and their apparent unwillingness to train them, everyone with a dog walks the dog at least once a day. This creates a rather serious problem with squishy landmines on every paved surface (which is most of Japan that isn't a ricefield). In order to combat this they've made a concerted effort to encourage people to carry little bags around into which the doggy joy is to be scooped, and carried home for disposal. Most people are good with this, though from the dodging I have to do when riding my bike I'm prepared to say with conviction that not quite enough people do it.

It's spawned a rather interesting situation where many fashion-conscious Japanese women carry around name-brand (Louis Vitton, Chanel, etc) bags in which their plastic-ensconced squishy pet love is carried. It's a good thing, I think, when carrying dog shit doesn't mean you can't still be fashionable.

Also, there are a lot of signs encouraging the lazy to clean up after their goddamned animals, and as soon as the number of cutesy dog doo signs is matched by the "Stop throwing your garbage in the fucking creek" signs (to date I've seen none of these so the trash problem continues unabated) I'll be a happy. More happy, that is. And by that I mean my rage will be alleviated by a miniscule amount.

This is a test!

Fri, 03 Sep 2004 21:25:00 +0900

Please ignore this test.

Today's tech fun!

Fri, 03 Sep 2004 02:46:00 +0900

Tonight I spent some time putting the finishing touches on an X68000 power supply repair. Once I got it all finished and put it together, it failed to function.Turns out the floppy drives were dead. Let this be a lesson unto you: If your power supply blows, and they often do with these awesome beasts then it might fry your floppy drives also.

If your floppies die, you get an error similar to having a dead CPU: the system will power up but not power off, when you try to turn it off the power light flashes rapid-fire, and never shuts down. There is no display. Drives load and eject disks just fine, but the system does not boot or even attempt to read the disks.

I have an XVI system with someone's failed overclocking hack and it does exactly the same thing; I was going to try swapping out its floppy drives but the fucking goddamned power supply failed as I was using it. Remember I said the PSUs on these things go boom a lot? I wasn't kidding. On the bright side it works now, though I do now have a dead XVI system with dead floppies pulled from the one I repaired.

In other news, I've been putting a lot of effort into copying Nectaris (Military Madness) for the X68000. It's a ridiculously rare game, I've never seen it mentioned online and I've never seen another copy for sale. Because of this, and the fact that I treated it poorly and accidently bent it to fuck (note: 'bent it to fuck' is a technical term, use sparingly) and it ceased to work, I decided effort should be applied to making it redundantly operational. After flattening the disk with 25kg of porn, I used my expert fingernail to smooth out the final wrinkle and it worked... From this original I attempted to make a copy.

Turns out it's a real bitch trying to make a copy of an X68k game, even when you have the advanced copying software and appropriate dongle. After about 12 failed attempts, I made a working copy. After 2 more failed attempts I made a working copy of the copy. Now I feel safe about the game, and can put it back on the shelf where I'll forget I even own it.

I'm stupid that way.

Capcom CPS Changer

Fri, 27 Aug 2004 04:15:00 +0900

I've recently acquired a Capcom CPS Changer system, a kind of bizarre Capcom console for a very few lucky souls. have a look!

Fun with public phones

Thu, 26 Aug 2004 18:12:00 +0900

Today I was in an electronics store where they sold phones with cameras in 'em. I wanted to sample the image quality so I took the memory card from my phone, shoved it into the functional demo phones, and made a few snaps. And then realized they were stuffed full of pics people had taken of themselves and their friends. So I copied them all to my phone, and now please say hi to these fine folks!

While you're there, check out the images of people from these Dreamcast DreamEye cameras.

Kids + Tattoos = NO!

Tue, 24 Aug 2004 17:05:00 +0900

I swear this actually happened. Every word is true!!

My doorbell broke.

Mon, 23 Aug 2004 22:43:00 +0900

My doorbell ceased to function a few days ago. I only noticed 'cause, as a complete fluke, I happened to be on my way out the door when a delivery arrived. The first time I watched the guy through the window as he filled out two forms, put 'em in my mailbox, and left. I was furious, how dare he not even try to ring the bell before leaving his detritus in my box? The next time it happened the guy knocked as a last resort, and I answered it, and tried the bell. "It doesn't work," he said, or words to that effect. "Well I need to pull pins out of your comrade's voodoo doll then!" was my unspoken response.In any event, I fixed it later that day.

At first I thought the switch, which looks a lot like the switch out of your mouse, had cacked it as they often do. Turns out it wasn't the switch at fault, it was a hairline crack on the PCB. Some fucker'd probabbly mashed his stubby digit against it in a fury and caused the failure, I'll find him one day and we'll have some words. Problem solved, carry on!

QR Code maker - finished!

Wed, 18 Aug 2004 10:30:00 +0900

[update] Opera has added the QRCode Generator page to their panel selection!

The QR Code Generator is finished! Now featuring some of that wacky Java the kids like so much. You can create random text QRCodes as well as web, address-book and email shortcuts for Vodafone + i-mode (DoCoMo) systems. This QR Code Maker is suitable for use as an Opera panel or Firefox Sidebar as well, so please feel free to use it as often as you like! Though naturally if you're living in a 3rd-world cellular country (ie: not Japan) you can't really use the codes for anything... But they're fun!

Thanks again to the indefatigable Mr. Fodder for his ceaseless battery of fixes, tweaks and problem solving.

Don't forget these other handy links!!

What's a QR Code?
QR Code data capacity.
Denso Wave, the creators of QRCode.

On Moral Compasses...

Tue, 17 Aug 2004 15:12:00 +0900

In this interview with the creator of Craigslist, the term 'moral compass' comes up a lot, and he talks of his company's recent acquisition by ebay, and how he likes their moral compass. Now my understanding of this phrase is that it refers to a company's sense of responsibility; which way the compass points isn't as important as the fact that they've GOT one at all. I was given cause to wonder a moment, what is ebay's moral compass all about?

I think it's fear.Ebay's moral compass is dictated by fear, primarily fear of lawsuits, and fear of bad publicity.

American culture is, at least as portrayed by popular media, controlled by fear-mongering groups of all stripes. In ebay's case they fear reprisals from the religious right and these ridiculous 'won't someone think of the children!' groups, so they've hidden their porn behind a credit-card wall. They fear breaking any law, so rather than do research and act appropriately they won't let anyone outside the US + Canada even BROWSE the pornography section.

They fear legal action from businesses also, and will spring into action at any company's request and ban auctions without considering the legal or moral obligation to uphold the truth. As an example, ebay prohibits mod chips and system modifications that allow the use of imported software. They even, at one point, completely disallowed the listing of Sega Dreamcast hard + software claiming it was illegal. The law they quoted in their reasoning specifically allowed the import of suchy items for personal use.

It's one thing to want to cower before another business, but I think it's quite another to lie to your customers about it. It's all about fear.

How can you respect the moral compass of a company that capitulates to anyone that asks them to?

It came with the house.

Sun, 15 Aug 2004 09:20:00 +0900

the house we're renting came with an imperial (not metric) thermometer. this morning is the first time it has been under 100F in over a month. in fact it's a LOT under 100F as you can see. This heat has set a new record for consecutive days over 30C,
and it's finally over!
now if it would just stop raining!

My articles published in Nintendo Official Magazine!

Fri, 13 Aug 2004 23:00:00 +0900

Unlike the publications of a certain North Korean dictator, when I say 'my works have been published' I mean they've been done in a format I expect more than six people will actually read. Nintendo Official Magazine in the UK has, in their most recent two issues, published quite a bit of my writings, check it out.

Some readable versions of some of these can be found here.

Pages I've done for Nintendo Official Magazine!

Fri, 13 Aug 2004 22:57:00 +0900

Have a look at the pages I've done, if you're so inclined:

http://nfg.2y.net/grafx/nom2.jpg

My Official Nintendo Magazine articles!

Fri, 13 Aug 2004 14:44:00 +0900

I received in the mail today two of the newest NIntendo Official Magazines from the UK, with articles in 'em that I wrote. I'm very excited. =D

Here's a link to a few of them; these are single-column or single-page short versions, and I'm happy to say I was allowed to slam the games when they sucked, no misleading people, me.

Gadget Racers
Asterix + Obelix XXL
Barbie: Secret Agent
Spyro Fusion
Crash Bandicoot Fusion

I also did a much longer article for Mario vs Donkey Kong, but I think you're better served reading the one I did for this site (found here).

There are a few more in next month's issue, but in the interest of pretending you're actually going to buy the mag if you can't read my words here, I'm holding off on posting them. (FYI: I'm in the August and September issues).

Phenomenal Travelling Array

Thu, 12 Aug 2004 12:55:00 +0900

we're off on a little road trip this morning and it occurred to me that my little array of goodies would have made the old me - as recently as two years ago even - quite envious.

There's the handheld GPS, the great camera, the complete music library and the phone used to make and send this image.

I mean, I've got a portable device to locate myself anywhere on the entire planet. I've got another containing every CD I've ever owned. Another to record it all at fantastic resolutions, and one more to keep myself in contact with the universe at all times. Astonishing, really. It's a shame people want to break it. The phone companies are convinced they have to lock you to their service, like making us angry is good customer relations. Companiese like Sony want to dictate what we buy, from who and where we'll play it.

NTT Docomo is offering domestic-rate cellular calls for all of their FOMA phone users from anywhere in Athens for the Olympics. This stuff is easy to do, and the first company to open up and make their phones compatible and cheap with fixed-rate uncomplicated calling is going to take over the world. But of course they don't see this, they see year-end profits and quarterly statements and locking customers unhappily to their gear, and offering poor service. Grr.

PvP, Scott Kurtz, Syndication, and money.

Wed, 11 Aug 2004 13:49:00 +0900

Scott Kurtz draws a daily comic that's quite successful. He announced his intention to give away his strip to newspapers for free, which would bypass the syndicates' lock on the funny pages (which ain't so funny these days thanks to the geriatrics that keep Blondie and other tripe in print) and many hopeful or already syndicated artists kind of freaked out at him.

"How can you make money!?" they cried. Again, and again.

Don't any of them do it for love of the medium?

New DariusDX for Vodafone

Mon, 09 Aug 2004 11:55:00 +0900

Taito's finally put up some screenshots of their newest DariusDX for Vodafone in Japan. One of their deluxe 256k Applis, costs four hundred Yen to download and looks as good as the PC Engine version, I'd say.

New 256k app from Taito

Mon, 09 Aug 2004 11:19:00 +0900

I should rename this category to Cellphones.

Taito's finally put up some screenshots of their newest DariusDX for Vodafone in Japan. One of their deluxe 256k Applis, costs four hundred Yen to download and looks as good as the PC Engine version, I'd say.

PC Engine on the left, Vodafone Appli on the right.

Expensive whups.

Sat, 07 Aug 2004 17:23:00 +0900

So i fried my phone by adding the new switch. Camera no workee. Phone completely locks up when i try to use the cam. Took it in for repair today.

If they replace it i lose my expensive downloaded games. There's only a tiny chance it can be repaired, if they deign to try to fix it at all.

This loaner sucks! It's an SH-52, same phone MrNES had when he was in Japan. No English menus, low-res camera, shitty screen. Bah! Please enjoy this picture of my old (pre-recently fried) phone while you're here:

Lots of time spent on new hacks.

Thu, 05 Aug 2004 22:40:00 +0900

Remember that speaker killswitch I made for my celphone? It was externally ugly so I remade it with a different switch and a button I ripped out of a dummy (demo) phone I bought at a surplus shop. It looks damned near factory now, shame it works in reverse now - no sound unless I push the button, so there's no ringer at the moment. I'll fix that soon I think. Pics forthcoming. (Pics attached, read more to view 'em)

In other news I spent a lot of time working on combining two PHP scripts,and the results were timeconsuming and complete failures for a couple of days. For reasons I still can't fathom there are things the PHP Pear libraries still won't do for me, and there are significant variances with the quality of the documentation on their site. Even with shitloads of sample scripts to work from I couldn't figure out for the life of me why they wouldn't work in my scripts. Combining the POP3 parts of one working script with another working script would cause them to fail, commenting out the other parts of the 2nd script would STILL result in a failure of the POP3 bits, it was fucking maddening.

But I kicked its ass eventually, and now - except for the fact it won't post anything without an image (why, dammit WHY!?) it's working very well. I had to learn a lot of new PHP, including PEAR's POP3 module, and a few new PHP tricks like loops and string parsing. I've already forgotten it, but I know where to look for answers next time, and that's the best I can really hope for in my old age.

Ah, the pictures:

Cellular Nectaris

Tue, 03 Aug 2004 22:17:00 +0900

Hudson, now a division of Konami and past purveyors of all things PC Engine, have released everyone's favourite future military sim Nectaris for Vodafone cellular phones in Japan.

Check it out.

This is in addition to several NES and PC Engine releases like Adventure Island, Star Soldier, Lode Runner and Bomberman.

NTT DoCoMo's i-mode on the other hand has lots more to be excited about, like this Wonder Boy remake, which looks incredible. Panic Bomber looks great, as do these other PC Engine cellphone remakes. Ys 1 and Ys 2, Zero 4 Champ and a lot more. Like this nearly hidden Ai Cho Aniki clock app that replaces your phone's normal clock.

More J-commercials!! Yay!

Mon, 02 Aug 2004 17:37:00 +0900

Here's a few more commercials for you, including several game ads and the usual assortment of oddities.Please enjoy!

Amo's Style - For some reason white chicks always do the lingerie modelling.
Namco - Taiko no Tatsujin + Tales of Symphonia
Nintendo - Donkey Konga (GC) + Stafi 3 (GBA)
Nintendo - Paper Mario for GameCube
Sony HiMD - Sony's really pushing their ridiculous DRM'd gear.
Skinguard Aqua - It's like, bugspray - but for girls!
Staff Service - Another humorous Staff Service ad. At the end, she says "Which way is good?"
AM/PM @Loan - Ninja Action! The sign says "repair bill". Another loan shark.
Ban Anti-perspirant - Giant girl terrorizes Tokyo in the name of armpit hygiene!
Malt's Beer - Kokanee did the beer as fish thing years ago.
Skyperfect TV - Ayaya with a box on her head. Woo!
Edwin Jeans - Brad Pitt doing goofy shit for scads of cash.

I made a QRCode Generator.

Thu, 29 Jul 2004 20:30:00 +0900

Because I can't get enough of these nutty QR Codes I made a page that allows you to make your own!

[update: Fixed!]

Waka Inoue fans

Wed, 28 Jul 2004 14:07:00 +0900

A surprising number of people find their way here looking for Waka Inoue, and probably don't find what they're looking for. There's a Waka Inoue commercial here for a Japanese loanshark called Promise. You can see more J-commercials here and here.

More QRCode fun

Mon, 26 Jul 2004 23:59:00 +0900

This post's a bit terse 'cause the last verbose one was a bit annihilated.

I love these QRCodes, they're like modern machine-readable heiroglyphics, I think they're pretty neat indeed. Here's a few downloadable or web apps for creating your own QRCodes if you haven't got a capable phone,but be aware they're all Japanese only. I'm going to put together an English version, but in the meantime, this is all you get.

[update] I made the English version I promised.

Psytec has a great app that updates the QRCode as you type, so you can see what effect your verbosity has in realtime, which is quite interesting to watch. You can download it here (top central link).

Vodafone has a couple of apps, a pro and an standard version (both on this page, near the bottom. The bottom one is Pro) but the Pro one seems to only offer a number of tweakboxes that basically break things, so I recommend the Standard one.

There's a great web app for making i-mode codes here that uses the free PHP script created by swetake.com. You can download both a perl and PHP version of this script, as well as English documentation, from this page.

I've put together a chart showing the maximum character capacity of QRCodes version 1-10, which was ripped off from a Japanese DoCoMo page. I also found this page on the Denso Wave English site which details versions 1-40. The versions effectively relate the size of a QRCode, each 'version' is larger by four 'modules' (pixels) per side, and therefore is capable of holding more data. Naturally increasing the redundancy or the number of characters used requires a bigger code, so as it's needed the QRCode goes up in 'versions'.

According to the official spec my V-601SH phone is rated to only read up to version 10 QRCodes but I've successfully used it to read up to version 16, which is an 81x81 pixel matrix capable of containing over 1400 numbers, or more than 850 alphanumeric characters. Neat! There's a detailed breakdown of versions 1-40 (40 is the max @ 177x177 pixels) on Denso Wave's site here.

QRCodes have another nice feature: effective compression. For numbers 10 bits are used to store 3 digits, and for alphanumeric 11 bits hold 2 characters. Using standard ASCII would require 8 bits for each character. The QR Code spec is an ISO standard now, but it costs USD $155 to get the 114 page document. Happily swetake.com has detailed a lot of the frightening math you'd find in this ISO document, saving everyone some money.

For more English details, see Denso Wave's English data pages.

Clouds!

Sun, 25 Jul 2004 01:17:00 +0900

The other day I was out riding and I came across the most beautiful cloud formation I've seen in a long time. Here they are. Sorry there's so many, but most of them are simply stunning on their own. Perhaps you get numb by the end, but I was just gobsmacked. Here's a couple of my faves:
Clouds!
Clouds!
Clouds!

Also a couple of new shots I snapped with the phone recently:
Some cicada shells under a leaf
A sunset outside a sushi shop

Canon, why do you hate me?

Sat, 24 Jul 2004 21:22:00 +0900

Why does Canon hate me? My beloved and uber-capable Powershot G3 developed a really strange issue with horizontal lines in dark shots, so we called Canon. "Sounds like a problem with the CCD!" they said.So we took it into Tokyo, to their Akihabara QR Factory (Quick Repair) and were promised a fix in a few hours. Great fun - do some shopping, have some great ramen, and pick up the camera again. Except... Nothing changed! Somehow they thought maybe if they replaced the mainboard - resetting my picture count and wiping all my custom sounds in the process - I'd be happy.

So we phoned, bitched, and sent the camera back. 48 hours later it's arrived on my doorstep and woohoo! It's fixed! All the lines are gone and it's like a brand new camera, taking great dark image shots.

Except for this f**king ridiculous red pixel cluster that refuses to go away. It's not even a single pixel, it's like a 3x3 array. With a glow. The total is larger than 7x5 pixels!! Did they think I wouldn't notice!?

I love this camera, it does amazing things, but c'mon guys, fix it!! As an aside, there's one month left on my warranty.

Sega Saturn Switchless Mod: Done!

Fri, 23 Jul 2004 12:58:00 +0900

Someone recently asked me to modify their US Sega Saturn with one of my switchless mods and last night I did it. Since my camera's in the shop, I had to use my celphone to take pics. It did a fairly decent job. Here's the pics of the job:

Closeup view of jumpers
Jumpers with jumpers removed, wires attached
Reset switch that changes region
Location of unused capacitor, handy power for the 74157 chip
Overview of finished mod

V-601SH speaker killswitch

Fri, 23 Jul 2004 01:11:00 +0900

My phone makes a loud chime sound whenever I take a picture, as part of an anti-upskirt measure all Japanese cellphone makers adopted. I'm not particularly against this, tho it'd have been nicer if I could choose my own sound...

Recently we were taking care of a kitten, a very cute photogenic kitten, and I was taking pictures of it with my phone - but the chime woke him up.

So I made a speaker killswitch. Now I can take silent pictures!

This was a bit of a chore to install,the phone uses a six-pointed screw (which was easily removed with a small enough blade driver) and was incredibly tight inside. I had to cut a hole - larger than I wanted - to allow access to the switch from outside. This was the smallest switch I could find, and it fit absolutely perfectly. Had a bit of trouble after wiring it up when there was no sound at all - thought I had fried it, but the phone was in 'manner mode' and was silent while I played back the sample tunes.

Learning some more CSS.

Sat, 10 Jul 2004 16:10:00 +0900

So I'm learning some more CSS, and this is what I've come up with. The white block will scale with the width of the screen, the orange one is static. Or, at least, they were when I wrote this. If I can come up with a fix this post might be irrelevant.CSS pisses me off at the same time it delights me. There's so much newfound power here, but damn it's poorly implemented. Why isn't there built-in support for custom borders instead of this four-class kludge? Or am I missing something?

A few more Japanese TV commercials

Fri, 09 Jul 2004 17:35:00 +0900

Just a few more commercials for you. Windows has a weird issue when I connect my ASCII pad, it assumes the pad's mic input is my preferred audio input device so, when recording commercials, all the audio is just a static hiss. No matter how many times I change it the preferences aren't saved by the shitty recording software so, next time I load it up, it's still recording the wrong audio. What pisses me off is it PLAYS the right audio, but when I record it gets the wrong track so I'm none the wiser until I go to trim the files and find there's no audio. And of course I forget to check it, 'cause for fuck's sake this isn't brain surgery! Remember what I chose last time. Damned thing. Grr. etc.On with the ads:

Vodafone - featuring Becky, a popular half-Japanese girl.
Vodafone - showing off the MP3- and TV-capable phones.
i-mode - Panasonic i-mode/DoCoMo P900iV phone/videocamera.
AU A5506T - Toshiba's newest, stylish AU (KDDI) Cellular Phone.
AU Cellphones - showing off some uses for packet technology in phones.
NTT CoDen - rewriting the song YMCA to hawk cheap phone rates.
NTT CoDen - video phones, again. Isn't this an old idea?
Kirin's 903 - Featuring schoolgirls in bathing suits!
Aube - Lots of plump Japanese model lips parting for you.
PS2 - Eyetoy featuring that Sumo guy, and ApeEscapeKart (or something).
Panasonic Viera - flatscreen TVs, featuring large breasts.
Mitsubishi - flatscreen TVs featuring Digital Prism technology.
Canon Ixy - featuring Milla Jovovitch and soccer star Koji Nakata
Kirin IcedTea - featuring Aya Matsuura, and I'm starting to think she's gorgeous.
Nissin - Instant noodles featuring the busty whassername from this ad.
Regain - another energy drink featuring Nicotine.
Whiteen Gum - Go Go Whiteen! Two lovely girls who don't need whitening gum.

Enjoy!

Note: They use the xvid codec.

Today I made something.

Sun, 04 Jul 2004 23:03:00 +0900

Today I made a QR code with my phone.

These two codes will, when scanned, produce the below PNG file:

This image, when scanned, says "QRcode"

So two QR codes scanned produce a third QRcode (image) that scans to produce the text QRcode. How cool is that?

Rarest of the Rare?

Sun, 04 Jul 2004 10:47:00 +0900

There's a lot of rare things in the Saturn world. The Samsung Saturn and the HiSaturn Navi spring to mind, but there's nothing so rare as this:

Sega SGX HSG-0007

nfg.2y.net in the news again

Sat, 03 Jul 2004 23:33:00 +0900

Australia's Official XBox Magazine has linked to the X68000 Sleeve Gallery in their latest issue. Click below to see what they said!

Vodaphone 256k Appli Gallery

Thu, 01 Jul 2004 20:57:00 +0900

J-Phone is now Vodafone in Japan. And that's all the pre-amble you get, here's a new gallery of only 256k games (roughly five times larger than the norm) which are really quite impressive.

I made a picture. And stuff.

Wed, 30 Jun 2004 00:47:00 +0900

Just before sleep claimed me last night I noticed the screen light shining on my half-closed phone looked really nice. Tonight I took a picture of it. It was really hard to do, pesky gravity kept pulling it closed. The final result (on the second try!) turned out about as well as I could have hoped. Have a look.

There's a new gallery here too. Gonna put whatever random images I take on there.

Cellular phone of the gods - V-601SH

Sun, 27 Jun 2004 17:16:00 +0900

I picked up a new cellular phone the other day, and it's a bloody amazing thing. Never mind that it's more powerful than the average computer a decade ago, it's jam-packed with unreasonably astonishing fun stuff.

[Update June 30 2004] 256k Appli GalleryI'm stunned.

Let's start off with the normal stuff. It has a 240x320 screen, a 2-megapixel camera, and an SD-card slot for easy PC-phone file transfers.

[the screen]
The screen as mentioned above is equal to most every pre-playstation console and most early computers. It does over 200,000 colours onscreen. There's a second smaller screen that's visible when the phone's closed. Interestingly the phone does sub-pixel font smoothing, which makes for some very smooth fonts and an effective text resolution of 720x320. Amazing, really.

[the camera]
The 2-megapixel camera is pretty remarkable for its size. This entire phone is smaller, by far, than the camera I was using as my primary camera until October last year, with the same pixel count and very similar image quality. It has three image quality settings, though in testing I cannot tell the difference between the three. Filesizes range from 200-600k per image at max size. The only thing it lacks is a flash. It has far, far more features than your standard digital camera, and it's a free bonus with the phone.

Sample image (full rez)

It has astonishing photo-editing abilities, including frivolous things like cutesy frames and overlays, mirror and lighing effects, strange facial editing features (make a face smile, frown, darken, be angry, etc), and the ability to wrap an image around a soda-can. Included also are very useful things, like text labels on the image itself, including such information as time, date, comment or location (see below). You can rotate it, add special effects like bubbles, light sparkles, sepia, kaleidoscope, emboss, scrunch and several fading frames. You can also add markers, to point out certain features.

So you can take a picture of your friend, put a fake wig on them, add a marker pointing to their misshapen nose with a humorous label, add sparkles off their greasy face, make 'em happier than they really are, sepia-tone the image then wrap it on a soda can. On a goddamned phone.

[gallery]

It also does other things, see below.

[interesting stuff]
The phone can tell you where you are. It doesn't have a GPS built in, but each cellular antenna in the country has a unique identification which the phone will happily tell you. It keeps a daily log, so you can see where you've been. Kuki-shi North, is where I was at 12:47 this afternoon. I can cut this info as a chunk of text and use it in skymails (like SMS), emails, labels on an image, filenames, whatever.

It plays MP3s, but you have to purchase an expensive software package to do it, and it comes with (I'm sure) some restrictive DRM, so no surprise to anyone I'm not going to bother. The SD cardslot allows me to more easily put large files into it, and using Yamaha's SMAF tools I can convert short .wav files into the .mmf format which the phone can use for effects and ringtones. Different ringtones for everyone I know, baby. The sweet sounds of PacMan or DigDug now accompany every email or call I get. This is a nice way to avoid paying the exorbitant packet and subscription fees Namco asks to DL gametunes. On the other hand their tunes are generated by the onboard synth instead of using sampled sounds, so theirs are a lot clearer...

The UI is clear, but the option screens are somewhat spread out and not as intuitive as my old phone. It doesn't allow me to add sounds for some events, like opening or closing the clamshell, which makes me sad. Also the camera, when activated, has a loud sound you can't turn off. This is to prevent upskirt photography, and I applaud its use, but really I think it's handy to be able to choose my own sound (I'm offered 3 pre-chosen sounds only) or turn it off. I'm prolly gonna put a speaker-killswitch inside, so I can ... uh... be stealthy. 'cause that's important. Moving on...

It has TV output via a stereo AV cable, though this is largely useless as the only things shown are photos (and only when specifically activated) and Java games - but only the ones that support the feature, of which there are approximately one available so far. Even when showing off photos, which is keen and all, it uses about a quarter of the screen and cannot be expanded. I put the cable back in the box and don't expect to use it again.

[weird + amazing]
The camera can be used as a barcode scanner, reading both UPC codes and the 2-dimensional QR codes. It can also create them; you can instantly turn any bit of text, including names, emails, phone numbers and URLs into a QR code. You can then export this via email or the SD card, and print the resulting image anywhere you like (or even read it off the computer screen!). These little codes are fairly common on advertising flyers and posters in Japan. They allow the customer to quickly and easily point the camera at the code and instantly have access to the name of the salesman, a phone number, web page address and whatever else. It's really a neat gimmick, though with the more convenient use of RFID chips I expect this will be a short-lived phenomenon.

[QR Codes]

It can also read normal text, which I find totally amazing. Point it at any bit of text on a page, like an URL or headline or email address or basically anything and it will scan the text and copy it to the buffer where you can jump to the URL, send an email or whatever. Much quicker than typing it in. It only reads Roman (ie English) text, but it's proven to be 100% accurate for black/white text.

[games]
It also plays games. It can play 3D Java games like Rage Racer and StarBlade Alpha (wow!). It can play applis up to 256 in size, and in QVGA (240x320) resolutions, like Raiden and countless others.

Sadly most of the big publishers are moving to a model where the appli contacts the main server, ostensibly to check for updates, every few runs. This means the games are effectively locked to Japan, since if you leave the country you can't use the network anymore. This also means you pay for packet traffic every time this happens (which can be EXTREMELY expensive), albeit in very small increments in this case. I'll be supporting the smaller publishers like Success and G-Mode instead of Namco, Capcom, Taito and Konami. Fuck them, they got my money and now they want to tell me how often and where I can play? This is what DRM is all about kids, it's fucking evil.

[the cost]
The total cost for this phone? Nothing. $zero. Not a dime. I had to subscribe to some program or another for a month at a cost of two bucks or so, but beyond that the phone was totally free for a new account. This means I have a new phone number, which doesn't bother me a whit. I could have kept the number for a $100 fee (since I didn't own the old phone for 2 years yet) but screw it, no one phones me anyway, I get all my contacts through email. All hail Vodafone. While we're hailing things, let's hail restrictive and arbitrary regional lockouts that prevent me from using this phone anywhere but Japan.

It's a good phone. I love Japan. =)

Rarest Video Game Extant

Mon, 21 Jun 2004 19:44:00 +0900

Recently I was contacted by someone claiming to be a researcher for a TV program, and they were interested in my opinion (as a somewhat disreputable seller of pre-abused crap) of the rarest game ever. Here's my response.

New Japanese Commercials!

Fri, 18 Jun 2004 12:58:00 +0900

comments are closed due to spam, sorry.

It's been a while, but here's a stack of new Japanese commercials for you. Some are good, some are weird, some are just commercials. All are chosen to highlight the differences between your culture (Whatever that may be) and the Japanese. There's Japanese idols, western stars, goofy strangeness and strange goofiness. To view, clickhere!

(Old archive is here, featuring over a hundred more J-Commercials)

People:
Edwin Jeans - Brad Pitt, or burapi as he's known here, hawking Edwin Jeans. "Check out my ass!"
Panasonic Diga - HD / DVD combo recorder, featuring Bob Sapp.
Ajinomoto Foods - featuring the incomparable Rena Tanaka.
Dai-Ichi LifeInsurance - featuring Rena Tanaka again.
Fujicolor - Rena Tanaka's been doing work for Fuji for a long time.
Epson Colorio - popular idol Aya Matsuura plays four horrible characters.
Epson Colorio - Here she is again, playing the same four.
Epson Colorio - yet another ad featuring Ayaya, but this time cuter.
Puyo Fever - featuring Ayaya, and Eyetoy featuring ... That sumo guy.

Games:
Sammy + PS2 - featuring Spy Fiction + Seven Samurai.
Naruto + Zoids - GBA Naruto + GC Zoids from Tomy (Dream Energy!)

Technology:
Pioneer Car Navi - where an outdated navi has a couple driving through a shop.
Sharp Airconditioner - featuring negative ions! Also featuring Anpanman's nemesis, Baikin-Man. (Baikin = germ)
Panasonic D-Snap - Digital Camera ad featuring Ayumi Hamasaki.
Panasonic Lumix - Digicam ad featuring Ayumi Hamasaki again.
Canon Eos - Digital Camera ads. There's a lot of 'em.
AU Cellular - Navi on a celphone? Sure!
Sharp Cellular - the Vodafone 601SH - featuring 2 megapixel camera + TV output.

Strange:
Nissin Noodles - strange western-themed 'noodles will unite us' ad.
StarSuite 7 - absolutely bizarre, woman gives birth to a horse = software ad?
Staff Service - very funny commercials, appealing to people sick of their jobs.
Staff Service - very funny ad, guy just can't get into work.

Food:
Shinoa Tea - CocaCola's new Chinese-style bottled Tea. These drinks are very popular now.
Dill's Smile Mint - Relax and Refresh!
Unknown Sauce - Japanese ads regularly feature strangely obsessive housewives rescued by imporbably visits from strange men.
Kirin Tea - another bottled tea.
Natto - horrible traditional food made from fermented (ie: Rotten) soybeans.
Instant Noodles - very cute ad playing lie-detector with the free mayo included in every package.
Wonda Coffee - Guy hates mornings, drinks his coffee, girl sits next to him. Guy loves mornings. Part of a series.
Pocky - You know it, you love it, here's the ad.
Sapporo Beer - note the lack of bikinis.
Miki Prune - I don't understand a universe where makers of Prune Extract can run ads as often as these guys do.
DonTacos - excellent brand of nacho chips in Japan.
Pepsiman - featuring Diet Lemon Pepsi Twist. Pepsiwoman!
Kizakura Sake - the image of a tradional, beautiful, doting wife features strongly in hard alcohol ads. Wonder why that is?

Loansharks:
Aiful Loans - an ad for one of Japan's many legal loan-shark companies. This is part of a series of ads, featuring a father and his strange love for an ugly dog.
Aiful Loans - Same guy, same dog, new snowboarding action.
Promis Loans - another legal loanshark, featuring the weirdly popular (and weird looking) Waka Inoue

Other:
Visa - credit cards are relatively uncommon here.
Takasu Clinic - plastic surgery ad.

Broken:
These files have bad sound, sorry:
MokoMoko Muffins - two Morning Musume girls hyping microwavable muffins (which are quite good).
Takara's E-Kara - home karaoke for kids. Schoolgirls, in this case.
Staff Service.

Dentist: Been there.

Thu, 17 Jun 2004 13:25:00 +0900

Dentist's appointment was today, first one in 15 years. I was apprehensive, 'cause I expected bad news. What I found was: "I haven't seen teeth this nice in years." Not only do I have no cavities the tiny hole that's been worrying me is so tiny as to be unremarkable. It may in time need work, or it may not, but for the time being i've got happy healthy teeth and gums.

You hear that kids? 31 years old and no cavities so far! All hail parents who're sugar nazis for their kids.
.In other news someone stole my nick on EFNet. Someone who knew I had the nick 'cause he had been sending me messages every seven minutes for 23 hours as part of a poorly configured anti-idle script. He was very decent when I tracked him down, and he fixed his bot without complaint. Today I wake to find his bot has taken my nick, and his excuse for not giving it back to me: "I've already changed it for three other people, I don't want to do it again."

It makes me realize that there are people in this world who are petty and unreasonably stubborn over stupid things, and I can see now why peace talks fail. It's very depressing, not because I lost the nick - the value of it is trivial - but because this person is so adamantly unreasonable.

Mario vs Donkey Kong Review

Tue, 15 Jun 2004 15:55:00 +0900

I've put together a review of this year's biggest platform-gaming release, the 128Mbit Mario vs Donkey Kong for the GBAdvance.

http://nfg.2y.net/games/mariovdk

Consumer Electronics...

Mon, 14 Jun 2004 18:38:00 +0900

There's a refreshing openness in the consumer electronics industry that's lacking in the game industry. When I wanted to learn more about my Pioneer LaserActive LaserDisc player I called Pioneer and asked for the service manual. No problem, they said - call this number and ask for document #whatever.

When I called Sony and asked for details about their Playstation I was told in no uncertain terms that a. I didn't need to know and b. I should be ashamed for even wondering, let alone having the gall to pick up the phone and call Sony.

That Sony assumes I'm a filthy pirate or thief and Pioneer acknowledges their customers' occasional eagerness to prod about and occasionally fix their hardware does not escape my notice. I'm sure you all know what happened next: Sony conquered the gaming world while I took over the lucrative LD-playing market from Pioneer. It's obvious, really - screw the customers to win! Give them what they want if the idea of massive layoffs appeals to your stockholders.

Another meaningless update

Sat, 12 Jun 2004 17:12:00 +0900

Mario vs Donkey Kong is killing me, 'cause I have to race through it to make screenshots + write 4 pages for the new job, and I want to slowly savour it. It's a really phenomenal game. To solve the problem I'm running two sessions concurrently, one for ripping-through screenshotery, one to actually play and enjoy, to get top scores and find all the stars to unlock secret goodies.

See?

--

Someone brought up the concept of reforming the English language, creating a unified spelling structure.On the surface of it this seems like a good idea; who needs a billion ways to write a few sounds? Why does 'ough' have so many sounds in English? Trough, tough, hiccough, slough, though, etc. The English teacher in me rails against proposed changes, like getting rid of unnecessary double consonants. Acomodate, exessiv, miniture, professr. There was a 16-word spelling test, which I naturally aced, however it transpired that this was the exception not the rule. I question the validity of a test that shows intentionally mispelled words and asks for them to be corrected, it's suggestive and potentially misleading IMO.

When I think about it I believe the English language could really use some reform - but I can see both sides of the issue. First off, I think if I can do it so can anyone else. This is a life-long paranoia of mine, it's the reason I'm a perfectionist in much of what I do, I'm never satisfied, I can't stop moving for fear someone else will come and do my job better than I do. Even if it weren't for this inferiority fear I think a job is worth doing right if it's worth doing at all.

Hence I think it's very possible people who cannot spell are merely lazy and resisted education, I know this is the case with me and math. I hated it, I refused to learn, and now I suffer. A little. It doesn't bother me overmuch.

There is talk of spelling being a problem for immigrants - well duh! Learning a second language is hard on anyone! I don't hear a lot of talk of reforming Chinese or Japanese to make it easier for foreigners! And besides, who cares if a foreigner can spell as accurately as you can? Most foreigners who actually care - my wife included - can spell better than most of the native English speakers I know. If you can believe it there was actually a protest at a recent American spelling bee claiming the contest was unfair to immigrants. Fucking preposterous.

If you can't spell for shit, that's a shame. If you rail against anyone who attempts to correct you or suggests you try harder, becoming violent and resentful, then you're an asshole. Luckily most of these people are on IRC and posting on weblogs, which (in theory) keeps them from breeding...

The dumbing down of the English language - or any language - should be a crime. Life's not easy, we shouldn't try so hard to make it easy, this does not make people, or our race, stronger. Raise the barrier! Try harder! Do more! If some fall behind, help them. If they refuse help, fuck 'em - let 'em rot.

Until they take office and screw you.

Dentist!

Thu, 10 Jun 2004 16:41:00 +0900

I have a dentist's appointment in a week. I'm absolutely dreading the truth of how decrepit my teeth are. It's been a decade and a half since I've seen a dentist, and while I had no fillings then I am reasonably confident I won't escape the molten metal wrath this time. I can feel holes. My teeth don't hurt, but they're becoming more sensitive to hot and cold, so I'm going to try and nip this in the bud, so to speak...A Japanese dentist! Ph34r!! Going to the same dentist Zumi went to when she had her fillings in a few years back, she seems reasonably satisfied with them, and that's good enough for me.

I don't mind dentists, I really don't. The noise, the drilling, the poking and scraping - it doesn't bother me at all. I do, however, fear knowing what horrible things have befallen my beloved teeth since they were last inspected by qualified personnel.

Pizza with Kim Jong.

Tue, 08 Jun 2004 14:58:00 +0900

Last night I had a dream. I won't clutter up this page with it, click...

So yeah, I had a dream last night. I've always kinda wanted to visit North Korea 'cause it is - let's face it - one of the last bastions of ridiculous propoganda with a freaky maniacal ruler. There's apparently tours where you have to had over your passport, never leave the group for fear of (no doubt) evisceration, and the Arirang show with tens of thousands of people involved in a fantasic show for the merest handful of guests. Truly the sign of a society worth aspiring to, no?

At any rate, as we entered NorK we somehow attracted the attention of Kim Jong Il, the Grand Poobah himself, man with a thousand titles, overseer of PRetty Much Everything, and Ruler of Ye Universe (if only those pesky Americans would get out of the way!). He wanted to come mini-golfing with us, and it was up to me to find a place to play. There were eight minigolf establishments on the one block, and for one reason or another Scandia (A minigolf place where I lived in Canada) was decided to be The Place to Play.

Before the game got started however it became apparent that I had forgotten to acquire the special permission stamp necessary to enter and leave NorK without being mauled by the Australia authorities with whom NorK had a tourism arrangement. After a brief discussion I excused myself to run back to South Korea, to the Australian Embassy in Seoul, where I'd try to get the stamp and rush right back for the game.

On the way out I of course asked Mr. Despot if he needed anything from the south, and he replied "Pizza."

Of course.

When I aked what kind, he replied, in his heavily accented way, "I don't care. Lots of pizza, a festival of pizza. A banquet!" It also transpired that he had a shopping list of other things he wanted that he kept on his person at all times, just in case. He gave me his list which included things like 'flowers', and sent me off to the border.

The Australian borderguard welcomed me back and asked why I was returning to South Korea so soon. I told them I'd rather not say since it might cause me grief, and they said they pretty much had to hear it now. I explained about the missing stamp and was informed there was apparently a two week wait to get it, but if I explained my situation to the embassy they might be able to rush it through.

"Oh," I said, "I also have to get pizza for Kim Jong." This was met with a smile and a nod, like they expected as much, and I was waved through.

There was something about a search for the embassy, a bus ride to Seoul, and a hunt for pizza but then Zumi woke me up, so here we are.

Misc old crap from ye bin...

Mon, 07 Jun 2004 20:30:00 +0900

Here's something I dredged up that I found a couple of years ago and put online, but I can't remember if I told anyone or not. In addition, I found news images + clips of a Sep/2003 bombing/suicide in a Japanese office building. Recently found Nintendo's F-Zero cartoon on TV, it's a pretty appalling blend of crappy animation + CG. Speaking of Nintendo, here's their Club Nintendo offerings for points holders. Not a good item in the bunch, and nothing good on the horizon.

Something fresh, the spam I started seeing a lot of until I filtered it.

A GBA kind of day...

Sat, 05 Jun 2004 16:16:00 +0900

Nothing but GameBoy Advance updates today. Last night I decided to try an old Super GameBoy game (Donkey Kong) on the GBA to see if it did, in fact, function the same as the GBPlayer. It does - it has the same flaws as the GameCube's GBPlayer, and the GameBoy Color. You can see what I mean right here.

Turns out my GBA was broken.I had sound and the thing appeared to be functioning, but I had no display. Since I had removed the GBA TV adaptor (no reason to have one of those if I have the GBPlayer, right?) I reckoned the ribbon cable to the screen had become loosened. It had - I cut a small piece of stiff paper to fit, wedged it under the ribbon cable, and presto.

I still hate the GBA, though I'm looking forward to Mario vs DonkeyKong which is an followup to the amazingly cool Donkey Kong puzzler/platformer for the GB/SGB. I have reservations though; they've eschewed their history in favour of modern fancy crap again. Gone are the classic bonuses (, , ) that littered the stage, in their place are three generic presents. In typical Nintendo fashion too they've decided good enough wasn't nearly good enough and they've drowned the game in horrible sounding MarioVox. Little inane 'woohoo' and 'here we go' and 'okie dokie' noises pour out of Mario's filthy gob at an astonishing rate. I wish it had the purity of the original Donkey Kong, or even the GB DK which this game succeeds. Just because you've got 4MB of ROMspace doesn't mean you have to fill it with this shit, Nintendo. At least let me turn it off!

Oh, right, GBA is for kids. If I was an adult I'd be playing the latest 3D crapathon on the GameCube. Which brings me to my daily anti-GBA rant:

We're all buying your damned GBA because we want to play classic 2D-styled games. 3D by and large hasn't fulfilled its promise. If you made these games for a console that wasn't designed eight years ago (The GBA was completed and shelved in 1996, see: Project Atlantis) there'd be more of us buying them. CDs are cheaper to make than carts, right? Give us the 2D glory on a system that doesn't suck, Nintendo! The GBA has shitty sound and a shitty screen, even the SP's screen is a washed out mess compared to the average TV. The GBPlayer is a step in the right direction, but every time I play a GBA game I'm disgusted by the crappy graphics and appallingly low fidelity sound.

The games are good! The console is poo! Make them for a good console also and the sales will be GREATER. It's common sense!

Today I conquered RSS.

Mon, 31 May 2004 22:45:00 +0900

Today I finally figured out was RSS was. Opera supports RSS directly as of version 7.5 and I wanted to know what the fuss was about. Lots of news sites and blogs do RSS, and now that I'm running the incredible Pivot system on this page, which does RSS, I thought I should figure it out.

RSS is, at its most basic, a standardized way of labelling headlines and content so that automated apps can gather the important bits and present them to users. It's always required a separate app or scipt to do the gathering and presenting but with Opera now it's easier. I wanted to put RSS on my games page and needed to learn how. Read on for fun with RSS, XML and more!It turns out that RSS is easy. You can think of it as an HTML extension, with a bunch of tags that specifically refer to the parts of your page the RSS grabber needs - site location, topic, titles, contents, copyrights, etc. I use Coranto for my other page, and it was easy enough to put up a second output page containing RSS tags every time I posted news. It was mostly straightforward but there were a few hurdles to overcome:

1. RSS requires a very specific date format. I had to edit the Coranto date presentation - which is easy enough - to change the order of the date pasted into each article. There's one undocumented tag - Abbrev_Month_Name - which came in handy when I found it, and I had to write seven If:Then bits to change Monday to Mon, Tuesday to Tue etc. That took a while but was simple enough.

2. In order to get the base document with an RSS header and footer to build itself with the actuall RSS content I had to use a server-side-include, and I had to tell the webserver that .xml documents needed to be parsed for SSI commands. Normally they're just sent without processing. This caused trouble because:

3. RSS prefers, but doesn't actually demand, your webserver present the RSS document with a specific MIME type. A MIME-type is basically the webserver saying 'here's your document, and it's this kind of file.' where 'this kind' could be HTML, MP3, TXT, whatever. When I told the server to parse it as an SSI-posessing file it decided the MIME-type was going to be HTML, so I could either have it as RSS, or HTML, where one worked and one didn't. The RSS validator approved my work but did chastise me for not getting the MIME-type right. It seems to affect Opera, I can't just click the RSS button and have it parsed properly, I had to manually enter the RSS URL. But it worked.

4. There was some sort of strange bug in Coranto not wanting to spit out the username twice, so that I had to hardwire my email address into it. A bit ridiculous, but easily solved.

Extra Bonus Thoughts:

Now it does seem to me that RSS is a technology looking for a use - a standard in search of a purpose. The benefits now are slim - but I think there's potential there, and it's nice that there's now a standard. I'm sure in hindsight the concept of having everyone label the important bits of their webpage - title, intro, meat - the same way is blindingly obvious and a few people are kicking themselves for not doing this back in 1996.

One thing I've seen stressed a lot lately, not just for RSS, is XML and the necessity of using proper XML standards. This is a hell of a thing. Where HTML is a rigidly defined* set of tags used to indicate which parts of a text document are for what purpose, XML is this incredibly long set of rules that essentially boils down to "It's HTML, but you can use any tag you want, anything at all, we're not kidding, just try and stick to letters and numbers, no special characters ok?" seriously, they needed dozens of pages to say more or less exactly that.

*Rigidly defined until Microsoft started fucking up the universe with proprietary web-breaking nonsense, that is.

I was gonna do up an RSS primer, but fuckit, it's something that needs to be tailor-made to the application. You're on your own, kids.

RSS Feeds Online

Mon, 31 May 2004 18:30:00 +0900

No one asked for it and likely no one cares, but I've enabled RSS Feeds for NFG Games. You can check it here.

Humidity and other things.

Sun, 30 May 2004 21:48:00 +0900

The heat and humidity kicked into full gear today, a little early, and more humid already than it was at the worst of last summer (which it must be said was unnaturally dry). So what did I do? I went biking. Twice. Nothing beats the moist sweaty feeling like making yourself totally drenched, then having a cold shower!!

Converted most of the old archives to the new format, clear up to March last year (or May, or something) which means I'm nearly done but - as is the story of my life - I'm done for now. No one cares anyway.

Tell the class what you did today.

Sat, 29 May 2004 21:50:00 +0900

I'm liking the new blog format. I've even come to terms with the word 'blog' which, while it still fills me with some rancor, doesn't send me into frothing fits like it used to. The layout is the bog standard pivot intall, except for some tweaks to the background colours (and I added some lines). It's far prettier than the old Neography but it's also a little more... Generic. Spiffy, legible, better, but generic. In the same way a shiny new Corolla is better than a beat up old Hyundai. Sure, it's nice, but it's not exciting. And as you can see from the games page I live to excite. Also, boobies! Now if only I could work the moblog into this layout the way I want it...

Went to Akihabara today.Had some fun, bought a Wonder Swan Crystal with a few games for about half the price the system alone was selling for last month. Taito's got a new arcade, bringing their total to two on the same street, and within 500 metres of Sega's two arcades. It's very shiny, loaded with gorgeous Egret III cabs, and loads of retro goodies for play.

I'm really looking forward to the new Mario v Donkey Kong, but it's not f**king out here yet, not until June 10th, even tho it's already out in the states. It's a sequel/upgrade to the kick-ass (Super)GameBoy title Donkey Kong which is far and away my favourite GB title. Which isn't saying much perhaps since I hate GB games almost across the board. the GB DK is however a solidly kickass piece of work and from what I've played of the ROM for MvDK it's every bit as good and then some.

My one complaint is the removal of the oldschool Donkey Kong bonus items. Gone are the umbrella, purse and hat, to be replaced with three generic ribbon bedecked presents. Oh well - the kickass platform + light puzzle elements are all intact, and although there's a raft of 'let's fill space' sound effects that I could do without it looks like a real winner.

Also bought 2 Nightwish CDs today in anticipation of next month's release of their new album. Lots of nice music, the mix of metal, orchestral + female vocal sounds really strokes me the right way.

That is all, carry on.

Mangling English

Fri, 28 May 2004 00:50:00 +0900

Behind the Scenes

Fri, 28 May 2004 00:45:00 +0900

I hear birds singing!

Fri, 28 May 2004 00:43:00 +0900

This conversation really happened.

Where'd she hear that?

Fri, 28 May 2004 00:42:00 +0900

Hands Off the Dome!

Fri, 28 May 2004 00:41:00 +0900

Adjust Your Brightness

Fri, 28 May 2004 00:40:00 +0900

Lots of people can't see this comic, it's very dark. It's supposed to be, the streets of Japan are VERY dark at night. They use what seems to be regular indoor flourescent lights to illuminate the streets, and... It's dark!

Now that my good monitor has fried itself I can't see the comic either. =(

Humming Birds

Fri, 28 May 2004 00:39:00 +0900

I thought this one was hilarious. No one else agreed.

Cams. Illness? Research!

Fri, 28 May 2004 00:38:00 +0900

Sound of Horns

Fri, 28 May 2004 00:37:00 +0900

Pretty Lady! C'mere!

Fri, 28 May 2004 00:36:00 +0900

Valuable Research

Fri, 28 May 2004 00:35:00 +0900

This one's more autobiographical than I care to admit.

Ikaruga 2-pack

Fri, 28 May 2004 00:30:00 +0900

When Ikaruga was announced for the DC it was a huge deal. When it was announced for the GameCube I think I half expected it to go the way of a certain fighting port with 1-button specials. Easy Operation indeed.

Sony's PS3 = Suck

Fri, 28 May 2004 00:28:00 +0900

This one made a lot more sense in my head. The suited chumps are always in different positions, check out the ties. Their little comments didn't come through well, I've since come up with a better method for making small text (And Paintshop Pro's a little better with the text handling, it must now be said).

Nintendo Fears Change

Fri, 28 May 2004 00:27:00 +0900

Nintendo still hasn't gotten their online shit together. Sega did it best with their multi-lingual PSO, Microsoft has the best reliable experience, Sony sucks with online, and Nintendo doesn't even try.

Tron Revisited

Fri, 28 May 2004 00:26:00 +0900

When I was a kid I used to daydream about being able to turn the world into vectors like in the Tron movie. I never developed this mutant skill, tho it's probably for the best.

Rain in Japan

Fri, 28 May 2004 00:24:00 +0900

You'll notice in this one I experimented with a different face angle. It didn't turn out well, and I never tried it again. Fear Change! Fear it!

Stealing Quarters

Fri, 28 May 2004 00:07:00 +0900

This is really real. A confessional of sorts. My dad really didn't seem as impressed with it as I was, maybe he didn't know?

The Intro

Thu, 27 May 2004 23:58:00 +0900

Dig that Retro Style!

In the beginning I wasn't sure how I was going to do this, and this ugly mess is what I tinkered with. It was a case of "just do SOMETHING, or you'll never do ANYTHING". Some people prefer it, but they're stupid.

Very sexy controllers from Nuby of all places.

Thu, 27 May 2004 23:41:00 +0900

Spong.com has some nice pics to show us.

Microsoft makes me angrier!

Thu, 27 May 2004 23:38:00 +0900

I have a Microsoft Natural Keyboard. The learning curve was steep, but my wrists thank me for the effort. They don't hurt like they used to. The keyboard however has a serious bug: If I hold down SHIFT and type anything ending in CK quickly the K doesn't show up. This means when I'm exceptionally angry and yelling SUCK or FUCK it comes out SUC and FUC. This only makes me angrier, and of course it's Microsoft's fault. What isn't these days?

More strange PC Engine stuff...

Sun, 23 May 2004 19:26:00 +0900

If you enjoyed last week's Vistar you'll love these Chinese-made PC Engine clones!

New Neography + CVG Magazine!

Sat, 22 May 2004 22:19:00 +0900

Welcome to the new home of Neography, with a new system and - wait for it - news!!

I've been published (again). Two of the most recent issues of the British magazine Computers + Video Games have articles that I wrote. You can see the covers here and the articles themselves are here and here.

The old Neography can be found here for now.Yeah, they screwed up my name on the first issue, and both appear to have been tweaked quite a lot without my knowledge (not that the changes were major or that I care overmuch). It's nice to be in print, though I confess I'm more proud of the appearances in GameGo. A real shame issue 2 was never printed, it has some of my best work in there. Maybe I'll dig those up and link 'em here...

Making a Saturn USB pad...

Wed, 19 May 2004 20:58:00 +0900

I've whipped up a more detailed mod than normal over on GameSX.com, showing in detail how I made a Saturn pad into a USB pad. Have a look-see!

Test post!

Sat, 15 May 2004 23:59:00 +0900

This is just a test post, etc.etc etc etc

Korean TurboGrafx 16

Wed, 12 May 2004 20:23:00 +0900

Unknown to more or less everyone, I give you the Korean Vistar, a recycled TurboGrafx-16. As far as I know this is the first bit of information about it in the western world.

Internal Section Review + Gallery

Sun, 09 May 2004 20:20:00 +0900

I've put up a couple of pages on Squaresoft's Internal Section. Less a game than a graphical miasma, a visual trip far smoother and detailed than either Rez or Jeff Minter's amazing Jaguar VLM. As a game it's a failure, basically Gyruss, with weapons very loosely based on the Chinese zodiac. All the weapons suck, the bosses are too hard, the game too boring, but what a visual adventure! Stunning, Check it out.

More Pics!

Fri, 30 Apr 2004 00:04:00 +0900

Here's a few non-sunset pics of Australia for you:

A sleeping Koala. They sleep a lot.
Isn't he cute?
My sister's husband, and Oliver.
Me chasing a ghost-crab.
Kookaburra
Me, feeding the Kookaburra

There are more pics on the photos page.

Yet more pics of .au

Thu, 29 Apr 2004 21:47:00 +0900

No one wants to hear about the trip in this modern age, it's all about the visuals. So here's some visuals for ye:

Sunrises and Kookaburra
Sunset in Howlong (1)
Sunset in Howlong (2)
Sunset in Howlong (3)
Sunset in Howlong (4)
Sunset on the road
A plague of locusts upon ye bumper

Some pics for ye:

Sat, 10 Apr 2004 20:49:00 +0900

Here are some pics I've been taking on our little journey.

Narita airport at night, looking at the moon rising over the control tower.

The beach up at Childers where we spent an afternoon waiting for my dad. 20 mins in the sun and I had a lovely sunburn.

Brisbane at Night as seen from the top of a lovely little hill. Zoomed in on the city center.

Brisbane at night showing the moon and the crowd on the mountain.

The Family. Me, Zumi, my dad, my sister Adina and her husband Andy.

Sunrise from the plane (1)

Sunrise from the plane (2)

Sunrise from the plane (3)

So it's Good Friday...

Fri, 09 Apr 2004 21:07:00 +0900

Yesterday we drove up to Childers with my dad. He had a demo to do with a potential customer so we tagged along and checked out the scenery on the way. While he was busy we took off in the truck and went looking for the beach - glorious sandy beach from horizon to horizon, with a total of about 3 other people on it at any time. Just lovely. I've got the sunburn to prove it, after 20 minutes on the sand.

Today's Good Friday, and apparently all the shops are closed so we're kinda stuck for something to do. Big dinner tonight, lots of seafood apparantly. Looking forward to that.

We're Here!

Thu, 08 Apr 2004 21:09:00 +0900

We made it to Aus safely. Got some great pictures of the sunrise from the jet. My dad's place is a lovely sprawling house with all manner of wildlife in the backyard. Great fun, lots of pics forthcoming. Six hour drive today, going way up north to see what we can see. More updates soon!

GDC News

Tue, 30 Mar 2004 22:01:00 +0900

InsertCredit has some of the best writeups of the conferences at the recently held Game Developers Conference I've seen. Go check them out. Don't forget to hate them just a little for having such good content all the damned time.

X68000 Gallery, Technical + more

Sat, 20 Mar 2004 22:10:00 +0900

I've been busy. For your enjoyment, here's a few galleries:

X68000 Technical Gallery

Includes more specs than any other English page anywhere, and includes fancy tables, screenshots and pics of the X68000 motherboards.

X68000 Visual Gallery 1
X68000 Visual Gallery 2

More screenshots than you can shake a pointy stick at!

I also dug up an old comparison page I made showing the different versions of Ghouls n Ghosts including arcade, X68k, MegaDrive + SuperGrafx. Finally, here's a look at Genesis vs arcade vs X68k Strider.

Vintage SNK ads

Thu, 11 Mar 2004 22:59:00 +0900

I've recently capped and put online four vintage SNK ads. These are capped directly from LaserDisc and should be very agreeable quality. First up a Samurai Shodown 30-sec ad, two 30-sec Fatal Fury 2 spots, and a five minute Fatal Fury 3 promo video:

Samurai Shodown
Fatal Fury 2 1
Fatal Fury 2 2
Fatal Fury 3 Promo

These vids use XVID, and the best xvid codec I've found is FFDShow.

[update 03/16] This spanish site ~~has direct-linked my videos, which I discourage~~ is staffed with wonderful, happy + reasonable people. Yay for gamers worldwide. If you want to share these, and I would be happy if you did, please link to this page.

Spriggan Powered JAMMA PCB

Tue, 09 Mar 2004 13:31:00 +0900

A very rare, possibly unreleased arcade game called Spriggan Powerd, was recently sold on Yahoo's Japanese auction site, and it cleared a thousand dollars in bidding, making it one of the most expensive PCBs in the world. There are some pics of the PCB and in-game screenshots on the auction page, but you can't view them without a yahoo account. So I saved a copy. The auction number and buyer's ID have been removed to protect their privacy. [update] I forgot to mention a similarly named game, Spriggan Powered, was released for Super Famicom in Japan. It sucked.

Psyvariar 2

Sat, 06 Mar 2004 02:17:00 +0900

I've posted a Psyvariar 2 mini-review and gallery.

EDY Cash Card for Arcade Use

Mon, 01 Mar 2004 13:20:00 +0900

Something I noticed at the AOU show last week but only recently put together with actual facts was the EDY contactless cash-card from Bitwallet. Launched in Japan in 2002 it's a prepaid cashcard that users can fuel up at over 1,400 AM/PM stores in Japan, among other places. Based on technology from Sony the EDY system has been adopted by NTT DoCoMo, the dominant cellular carrier in Japan, and trials are being run for use with things like railway tickets. No need to buy tickets or pre-load your cashcard, just smack your phone against the turnstile as you walk through and you'll be billed accordingly.

As you can see here (close up) there's an EDY terminal on the newest cabinet from Sammy, along with a cradle/reader for your cellular phone. Slot your phone, or your EDY cash card, and you're ready to play. EDY-capable phones from DoCoMo are expected to be available in mid-2004. No word yet from Vodafone or AU on similar capabilities, though they are no doubt considering similar systems.

Currently the only innovating force in the Japanese arcade industry (see AOU 2004 at Insert Credit) this is a very interesting move in an industry that's more or less imploding. Sammy owns a majority stake in Sega, and in completely unrelated news Sega is also rolling out an EDY payment system, together with their own Sega Passport line of Visa cards:

This Sega Visa supports not only the EDY cashcard system but also Sony Financial's Elio (see below) system, which allows the use of a USB reader for making online purchases without sending your sensitive credit card numbers over the evil, evil internet. The Elio side of the card also ties in with Sony Financial's affiliates, offering discounts and convenience for Sony's insurance companies, theatres and affiliated businesses. You can also, after purchasing the $20 reader and downloading 30MB of Microsoft .NET software, view the purchase history of your EDY, Elio or Suica (railway card).

It's easy to see how this card is suddenly the consumer's very best friend: Purchase things online from supporting sellers (like Sega Direct), use it in arcades, when you take the train, and at AM/PM convenience stores. This page (Japanese) shows many possible uses for the EDY card: apartment or hotel keyless entry, karaoke purchases, airline flight check-in, ticket purchases, Vending machines, and more.

Personally I fear for the privacy issues in all this, but as a standalone I think the EDY system can only draw in more players when it's useful for so many other things as well. The idea of a cashcard is very appealing - Japan has never embraced bank card purchasing like North America has with Interac, and credit cards have only become popular with the rise of online shopping. Five years ago it was hard to find any small retailer that accepted credit cards, and any business that dares accept bank card payments even now faces lengthy delays when staff explain the system to every single customer. Cash cards are easy to figure out, and with Sammy, Sega and Taito expected to support EDY there's little doubt it will catch on, at least with the younger set.

Installed at only one location now, Sega expects all of their 500 arcades (or those that are still open) to have the system in use within three years.

What if...

Sun, 29 Feb 2004 21:09:00 +0900

What if Synaesthasia IS thinking? What if there is no center of thought, some phantom consciousness of our brain that accounts for our sense of self?

It struck me while I was biking today that synaesthasia might be just extra communication among brain components, that these components were already communicating and that synaesthasia was just an extreme of this interlink phenomenon.

Now it's been said that creative people are seven times more likely to be synaesthetic, but what I'd like to know is: are intelligent people likely to be MORE synaesthetic!? One way of measuring intelligence is raw computational ability. Another is memory or recall. Another is lateral thinking, the ability to piece together parts of a puzzle that might not be related at first glance but later prove to be so.

What if this is intelligence? What if the synaesthetic condition is just an extreme form of the interconnects that drive our brains?

We have vision centers, sound centers, shape processors, facial recognition, sound buffers, 'fight, fuck or flee' centers... They're all connected - what if smarter people have more connections, or more efficient connections?

Have there been studies of any correlation between synaesthasia and intelligence? Damn damn damn, this is amazing to think about.

And I was thinking about the nature of consciousness - still not more than 5 pages into these new books I got (was reading the Vernor Vinge novel instead) but I was thinking (heh)...

Perhaps there is no consciousness, per se. The brain is a big lump of specialized interconnected data processors, each gulping down as much input as it can and sharing the symbolic, digested concepts with other centers. The more interconnects (or more effient ones, I don't know which is more likely to prove true but the result is the same) you have the more information can be shared and the smarter you are... But what if these processors, tied together by a shared memory, ARE consciousness?

I imagine one possibility is the temporal lobes, largely believed to be the foundation of actual thought and/or consciousness, are time-sensitive correlators of data. This region of the brain simply (hah) monitors the entire symbolic network and pieces together an entire world view from the echochamber of babbling processors we call a brain. I wish I could find confirmation of that idea presented in a Dilbert cartoon that the brain doesn't show any 'conscious thought' activity until after actions have been decided, 'cause this would lend credence to the idea that the lobes are merely an after-the-fact piecing together of what the brain has already done.

This is how drugs affect the brain, we can't control this because there is no "we", we're a processor trying to make sense of the babbling output of a collection of processors!

This doesn't absolve us of responsibility, or show that we have no 'free will' but instead reinforces the idea that we are what society makes us. Our brains are wired up from the moment we're born, making sense of this onslaught of data and creating a worldview based on things that the brain centers and memory consider consistant. If the brain decides 'good kids' are really a survival priority then we'd create more systems were kids are instructed properly, programming them in effect to have the values and interconnects necessary to function the way they should...

Suppose the brain really does work this way, we don't have a consciousness so much as an animal instinct to preserve and prolong life, and the brain - based on a lifetime of observations and accepted relationships - instinctively picks the proper path! I don't see a huge leap between "fire hurts, must avoid" and "if I teach my kid how to act fairly and honestly it will be easier for me to work with him, and he with the world, and my survival chances are better when others pull for me instead of push against me."

Now assuming this is the case, we've got a massively complicated parallel processing device that's designed to input data and sort it into relationships. These relationships are stored in a communal memory which all centers share, and the entire mess is driven by an instinct to avoid pain, fear and ultimately death. It's true that a few simple rules can create forms of infinite complexity, and from these simple parts we've arrived at a brain that seems conscious, seems aware, and functions as we've come to expect.

Wow.

[oh yeah]

I meant to wonder: Language is passed to us from our parents and our society, it's one more set of input, another tool to forge relationships between concepts. How much does language affect the sense of self, and if there are languages without a word for "I" do people natively speaking this language lack the sense of self we're seeking here?

New books came in!

Fri, 27 Feb 2004 16:51:00 +0900

So I got a few new books from Amazon today. Part one of two, the next set should be here in another 10 days or so. I splurged on international shipping after I realized there was really no savings having it shipped to someone else's place first.

The first item on the list is the newest novel from my current favourite author Vernor Vinge. The Peace War seems a short (300p) read but if it's anything like his other works (A Deepness in the Sky and A Fire Upon the Deep) I imagine I'm going to dig it hardcore.

Next up another couple of Brain Books. One's a 1200-page monster from the MIT Press called Essential Sources in the Scientific Study of Consciousness detailing the latest studies into the nature and function of human consciousness. This should be fun, if I can manage to sink my teeth into it. First glance seems to put it beyond the layman. O_o

Lastly is the popular-audience (ie: easily digested) Mind Wide Open which is a much slimmer tome weighing in at a mere 260 pages. I expect to chew through this one in no time, but it was recommended so what the hell.

More brain stuff

Tue, 24 Feb 2004 16:51:00 +0900

As you probably don't recall I had written about the concept of a modular mind with regards to creating an artificial intelligence. One thing I had thought about (but not written down yet) was the creative process, which a strictly logical computer simulation would have trouble replicating.

I thought about a random 'synaptic misfire' system where parts of the brain, subprocessors if you will, would connect and shoot off random images or concepts to other subprocessors. I thought perhaps this would stimulate a creative process where the individual components would struggle to reconcile hard facts or 'truthful' data with the spurious ones randomly shuttled about the brain, drawing unusual conclusions.¹

A couple of days ago I was reading up on V. S. Ramachandran's studies into synaesthasia and the idea that creative people were seven times more likely to be 'afflicted' with the condition and I was struck by an epiphany as if a bell had rung in my head.

The synaesthetic condition seems to have remarkable parallels to the creative process I was trying to replicate, except where I had considered temporary, random connections and images the synaesthete experiences a more 'hardwired' condition. It is this connection, where certain subprocessing nodes are always connected and certain kinds of data are always shared, that the perhaps inappropriate data is processed as creativity².

I think in my synthetic brain I would start experimenting with these cross-wired conditions on a more temporary basis. I don't see an advantage to a permanent communication between two normally disconnected nodes except in a larger pool where one mind can be completely bent and the rest 'normal' enough to compensate. Perhaps short-term synaesthetic connections between random centers?

The synaesthetic condition fascinates me, and I always wonder how many of our modern phrases or cultural traditions are a result of crosswired brains? "Green with envy," "Cowardly yellow." Was the first person to use these a synaesthetic writer? My mind at least is fascinated by the idea.

1. Naturally this wouldn't be occuring all the time or legitimate thought processes would suffer excessive corruption. Perhaps though this would mimic real life thinking in a tired, drugged or dreaming mind? I've had days like that. =)

2. I've been thinking of the nature of consciousness a lot lately as well, and one thing I come to repeatedly but can't verify as truthful is a statement made in a Dilbert strip. "The region of the brain responsible for conscious thought doesn't show activity until after a decision is reached" or similar. I envision a 'conscious' center that doesn't plan the actions so much as reverse engineer the processes completed by the rest of the brain. 'A decision was made to turn left, deemed correct because the memory center recalled a left at this location at a previous time resulted in a favourable result' or 'A decision was made not to trust this man because men fitting the profiles flagged are reinforced as dangerous. Flagged attributes include dirty, mean looking, holding an ice-cream towards me, and driving a freshly painted van with no license plates. And that's why I'm running, I get it now.'

NOTE: Comments on this entry are closed on account of excessive spam. Sorry!

Brain Mumbo Jumbo

Fri, 20 Feb 2004 16:51:00 +0900

So yesterday I was looking up V. S. Ramachandran, the author of a book mentioned in the last post's recommended reading list, and found a list on his official site which had links to PDF articles he's written. Recently it seems he's been researching synaesthasia, which can best be described as a cross-wiring of the senses or regions in the brain.

Below are some of the most fascinating bits I gleaned from his research.

Initially they were concerned with the specifics of synaesthasia, whether it was perhaps a memory, or imagined or actual 'cross wiring' in the brain. One test they cite involves people who see numbers in different colours. Subjects were told to stare at a mark in the center of a screen, and a number was presented to one side, in the subject's peripheral vision. Most subjects could identify the number easily.

Next this number was surrounded by another number, a 5 with several 3s around it, for example. The resultant image was more complicated and normal people couldn't tell what number was in the center. Synaesthetes, however, saw red surrounded by green, and could deduce "It must be a five." Clearly then though the visual part of the brain is overwhelmed by the peripheral data, the crosswired parts - normally dormant - are active on the image. They received and processed the numbers into their synaesthetic colours when the vision center could not identify them.

A similar test involved a 5 made of tiny 3s. Depending on the synaesthete's focus, on either the larger number or the component smaller ones, the colour would change.

Also intensely interesting: colour blind synaesthetes perceive colours they're not physically able to see. One subject called them 'martian colours'. I can't help but feel jealous of a brain that can vividly see colours never seen with the eyes.

Research also showed that the synaesthetic condition is seven times more common in creative people than the normal population. Very curious!! I wonder how much of our history has been driven by defective hardware.

More of his articles can be found on his bio page, here.

Hardly worth mentioning...

Fri, 20 Feb 2004 13:13:00 +0900

Of interest only to the techy geeks, I found a strange new Saturn.

Here's a thought...

Wed, 18 Feb 2004 16:51:00 +0900

[With apologies, I suffered a rather incomprehensible outflow of ideas around the halfway mark and it gets a little wordy.]

Something that I often wrestle with is the idea of our brains as being mere machines, machines that when presented with different chemicals - either natural or introduced - function differently. You can essentially change the man by changing the chemical cocktail his brain is soaking in.

To me, this raises the question of value, of worth. Is a human more than the sum of his parts? Is this steaming pile of neurons what defines and creates a man? When the system breaks down the man is changed, sometimes to the point of unrecognizability, and what then?

A construction worker who suffers brain damage on the job becomes a vegetable, and his friends and family are now dealing with two people: The man in their memories and the new, lesser man in the old man's body. The man himself may not even realize he's been changed; consciousness is a funny thing - when our brain is altered we are not, and cannot be aware of these changes. Witness the many documented cases of people who lose a limb but still feel it and try to move it. Observe the woman who, after a stroke, is no longer aware of the right side of her body, and consistantly fails to straight clothes, apply makeup or clean one side? Or the woman who no longer recognizes her own arm as belonging to her body and when asked replies "Someone must have left that here!" If your brain is changed and its perceptions are altered though drugs or damage or stroke your conscious self is unaware and in effect is recreated. Changes to the brain via drugs or damage can result in debilitating operational deficiencies or milder changes to the personality. If the person is so easily changed or erased, it is the machine that in effect controls us. A man in England had a tumor that caused him to exhibit pedophiliac tendencies. Remove the tumor and he reverts to his normal pre-tumor non-pedophile behavior.

These are not insignificant changes, and they are not under our direct control! When a man's brain is changed the man changes. Change it enough and the new man is not recognizable as the old man.

What good is 'free will' when a chemical injection can make you more violent, more restrained, happier, or depressed? When a knock on the head can make you forget who your family is, or where you live, or how to talk? If a tumor can make you a pedophile is it much of a stretch to suggest that by tweaking the brain you can make pedophiles NOT lust after children? Where's the border of good control versus bad control? Mood altering drugs are commonplace. More active tools can directly stimulate the brain. One region, when stimulated, causes people to 'see god' and fell very fervently religious.

The world we know is basically defined by our brains; as two people have different brains they also exist in two different worlds. Tweak them both and you can bring them closer together with regards to how they view and react to the world. As we learn more about the brain, and can more often and safely tweak it to root out undesirable behaviour or correct 'deficiencies', we must face the idea that a man is a pliable and ultimately changable animal.

What value does a machine have if reprogramming it changes it entirely? It seems to me then that a man is nothing on his own, and is instead given value only by the people he interacts with. A man by himself is a pile of naturally occuring elements, nothing more than a fast moving plant with a mouth. It's the people around him that give him value, that make him real, that create the collective image of the man.

When we die, and at this point it seems inevitable that we all will, will we be remembered fondly like the Ataris and Amigas of our youth? Or will we be swiftly forgotten as our carcasses rot in a box under the earth that we used to tread on?

At this point I'd just like to digress and say "Screw god." People should do what's right because they feel it, not because some giant phantom overseer is cracking a whip and threatening Big Bad Things if we're bad! If a man is defined by what other people think then a man's afterlife is defined by people's memories.

Do unto others, etc. The golden rule makes sense. Respect, yo.

Also, you should floss.

Suggested reading:
Salon Book Review
Mapping the Mind by Rita Carter
Phantoms in the Brain by V. S. Ramachandran

Interesting SNES Demo Cart

Mon, 16 Feb 2004 09:24:00 +0900

I bought a few EPROM boards from someone recently and some had chips on them. Turns out it's a 1996 Tokyo Toy Show version of Nazo Puyo 2, with new special screens, but missing about one third of the content in the released game. It's kind of neat.

Unreal Tournament 2004 Demo

Fri, 13 Feb 2004 22:45:00 +0900

So the demo was released. I think it's bloody fabulous, and you can read why.

Dammit

Sun, 08 Feb 2004 16:51:00 +0900

Someone I know once summed up how I feel in a few short words: "What the fuck is wrong with you fucks!?"

Trying to decide where to move, now that the decision has been made to leave Japan. As much as I want to sit on my ass making easy money my whole life I want to get the fuck out of here before the country shakes itself to pieces, starts a war, or I shoot myself out of pure boredom. I've been looking at both Canada and Australia, and I've come to the decision that basically everywhere sucks. A lot.

Canada's job situation sucks ass. Trying to find work may be tricky no matter where I go 'cause I haven't any letters like BSc or MD after my name, nor have I any specialized training or, in fact, any recent job experience. Who's gonna hire a guy who can only put on his resume that he's been smart enough to pay the bills and buy lots of toys without actually doing any real work for the last eight fucking years? Trying to find a job would not be unlike trying to get a loan when you're self employed: You'd have better odds if you were dead. All I've got in my favour is my brain, somewhat less than the tack sharp monster it used to be, and my attitude - which, it must be said has soured somewhat. So basically it's back to The Grind no matter where I go... Which doesn't bother me so much as the very thought of working for some asshole for minimum wage.

There's the relative situation. My sister's family is great, they live in Kelowna. Pretty much the entirety of the rest of the relatives live in Australia, but despite their sheer quantity I confess I've never really enjoyed their company. Well let's face it, I don't really enjoy anyone's company!! They're nice enough in their own, quaint, primitive kind of way. We're not all cut from the same cloth, it would certainly seem.

There are no beetles in Canada to speak of. The ones in Australia don't really compare to Japan's but they are at least as plentiful, and as colourful. I like insects.

Australia's a legislator's wet dream, with strict laws about fucking everything. You can't bring anything into the country that might have been alive at one point, including sausages or seasoning for your rice that might have had something resembling an egg involved in its creation. When we moved to Japan we brought over some really large, really heavy boxes full of our gear, but Australia's luggage limits are half what they are for either Canada or Japan, and the overweight or oversized rates are so extreme you might as well chuck your old gear and buy it all anew when you get there. Which, I'm sure, is the intent.

Biking in Canada is world fucking class. In Australia I've been told it's not at all bad, so that's kind of a wash. Canada wins the snowboarding competition tho, kind of a no-brainer there. Housing prices in .au are good, but let's face it, it'll be decades before that's an issue for us.

Cellular phones in Canada or Australia are three years behind what we have in Japan, and they're three times more expensive. That's nearly ten times shittier, all told, and the situation doesn't appear to be getting better. It depresses me to now end that in either .au or .ca I'll go back to being some sort of fucking technophobe, disgusted by anyone who has a sexy phone, because of their extreme cost and retrograde features. When I hear people saying things like "I only want a phone that makes calls!" I want to tear off their skull and then hurt them real bad - but after seeing how shitty their phones are I expect to be one of them, and that pisses me off. Cellular carriers in other countries are dragging their feet bringing out new features, counting on their virtual monopolies and price fixing agreements to keep prices high and devices antiquated. It's fucking disgusting, but when I read about the prices and feature availability ($989 for a phone in Australia that's not as good as the free ones in Japan!) I can't decide if I should shoot them or myself. Where's their sense of national pride? Of competition? Of self fucking respect!? There isn't any, it's all about milking the old cow and dragging the feet.

Which brings us to internet access, about which I have really nothing good to say. In Canada at least prices and availabilty are decent - Australia's restricted services and high prices are what I'd expect African fucking Jungle tribes to be paying. I like to run my own servers, I like the level of control and reliability I get out of the effort, and there's a shred of accountability this way - I have only myself to blame when the server slags itself. Canada doesn't allow servers of any sort, and Australia's ISPs permit in a month the traffic I chew through on a busy DAY. And let's not talk about the SPEED! Australia's 1.5mbit connections for a mere $100AUD per month may sound good when you're a 56k user, but that's 1.5% of the speed I get here now for triple the price! And fuck me - 100mbit in Canada is $1788 per MONTH and there's traffic fees on top of that!!

The same non-competing foot-dragging assholes beating you to death with cellular phones are in charge of the internet!! And don't give me that shit about Japan or Korea being so small that it's cheap to wire everyone up with fibre - I paid $450 CDN to have fiber installed at my house - and then I moved across town and paid it again! It's cheaper by 50% to leave my computer running as a server here in Japan than it is to pay hosting anywhere else, and I get the whole system to myself, can run it how I like, and never pay for traffic.

The only drawback to Japan is the language barrier, total lack of professionalism, shockingly incompetant doctors, corrupt goverment, earthquake threat, warlike tendencies, and infrastructure that's wound so tight it'll go completely spastic the very nanosecond Something Bad happens.

So basically I'm fucked. I'm bored. I'm depressed. This shit enrages me - every country's filled with greedy self-centered assholes trying to fuck their fellow citizens and I can't stand it.

Radio Show Tomorrow

Sat, 07 Feb 2004 03:06:00 +0900

I realize it's short notice, but what the hell. Tomorrow at around 1:30pm Tokyo time (that's 8:30pm North American WestCoast time) I'll be doing a rock'n game-tune set for about 45-60 minutes. High-energy tunes from games you know, and ones you don't. You won't be bored!

http://nfg.2y.net/radio/ <- woo!

Guaranteed not to suck!

You can tune in early and ensure it's all working, I'll be broadcasting ambient arcade noises until the show starts (and those are worth checking out themselves!) These sounds used to represent arcades in the same way an Apple II drive noise represented a computer's activity.

Another new toy...

Sat, 31 Jan 2004 01:35:00 +0900

I picked up a huge and rare Saturn Address Checker made by IS Electronics. No, this isn't a repeat, this one's a LOT different. About 8kg different in fact.

New word!

Tue, 27 Jan 2004 19:44:00 +0900

I coined a new word today:

Uglygons, n. Used to describe the primary 3D components that make up beloved 2D game characters or items when they're re-released on a new generation of hardware. For examples, see any Bomberman or PS2 Sega Ages remake. Usage: They remade the game with uglygons instead of sprites.

Floppy Disk Art Gallery

Tue, 27 Jan 2004 01:13:00 +0900

A lot of old computer software had more bonuses for the consumer than modern games do. Many X68000 games (And I assume games for other platforms) had ilustrations and comical tips for safe handling of your floppies. I've put up a gallery.

Soldier Blade Time Attack Guide

Mon, 26 Jan 2004 01:47:00 +0900

SiK and I, along with some of the #shmups denizens, have put together a preliminary guide to the Caravan stages of Soldier Blade for the PC Engine. Have a look if you're into that.

/games/SoldierBlade/

New link banner...

Fri, 23 Jan 2004 00:59:00 +0900

Every now and then someone asks me for a linking banner, and I've always said "I don't have one", partially because it's true and partially because all the banners I've tried to make have sucked.

But no longer!!

Here's the new official 140x35 pixel link banner/button for nfg.2y.net:

So, how about that Nintendo, eh?

Wed, 21 Jan 2004 15:54:00 +0900

So Nintendo has announced their new amaze-o-tron product, the DS. According to the official press release (seen here on GameSpy) it's a dual-screen portable system. The press release is phenomenally light on details - there's no information about titles, developer support, design, features, resolution, processor... Just a vague comment about 'semiconductor memory up to one gigabit' and dual processors.

Nintendo also stated that it will not be marketed against the GBA, but that it in effect will have a niche of its own to fill. No one but Nintendo knows what the plan really is, but without further information it's impossible for me to come away with this with much more than confusion. Gone are the days when I could count on Nintendo to be going somewhere with their freaky announcements, now I'm filled with dread instead of anticipation.

Discuss...

New graphics...

Tue, 20 Jan 2004 03:15:00 +0900

Some of you may have noticed the new NEC consoles gracing the background of this page instead of the screenshots that used to be here. Please rest assured they'll be back after I tire of my own vektorgraphik magnificence. I whipped up a CoreGrafx, PCE and TurboGrafx so far, and as you can see here I'm doing a SuperGrafx next. There are some WIP shots at the above link.

Strange Saturn Device

Mon, 12 Jan 2004 20:34:00 +0900

I bought something interesting the other day. It's a strange Saturn system made by IS Electronics. Have a look.

101 Secrets of the PC Engine

Fri, 02 Jan 2004 13:53:00 +0900

A bit of a trivia collection for you: 101 Secrets of the PC Engine! Includes pics + diagrams!

New Adventure Island review!

Sun, 28 Dec 2003 02:35:00 +0900

I've posted the newest mini-review for the GC version of Adventure Island. You can read it or just check the gallery.

Tweaks + fixes etc

Wed, 24 Dec 2003 16:23:00 +0900

I've tweaked the video primers I put up two days ago, and added a whole 'nother page, bringing the total to six pages. Please enjoy!

X68000 PSU Repair Guide

Wed, 24 Dec 2003 14:33:00 +0900

I've put up a detailed guide on repairing those flaky X68000 power suppies, have a look.

/nfg/x68repair/

New Video Primer: Complete!

Tue, 23 Dec 2003 01:18:00 +0900

I've been working on this for more than three months, but finally figured out how to put it all together coherently tonight. This is a layman's introduction to a number of different things, starting with different video formats and how they stack up in terms of quality and resolution.

There's also a series of supplemental articles, including one on JPG compression, and more specifically, the effect chroma subsampling has on your images.

I touched on human visual inadequacies as well, a followup to this article on gamesx.com. Now with better pictures!

There's a brief history of televisions in there as well.

Finally, for those of you with short attention spans, there's the short version with big pictures. =)

Hit the forum link to your left to discuss this.

Stupid Sony! Ridiculous PSX!

Thu, 18 Dec 2003 17:03:00 +0900

The PSX has been released in Japan, and despite a high price and harsh industry criticism for Sony's yanking of the MP3 + DVD recording facilities at the last minute it's selling well, tho apparently because of preorders and not launch-day demand. PC Watch (Japanese page) has a PSX dissection and it's quite interesting, moreso for what's outside the box than in.

The joystick ports are on the back, so you'll not be swapping in specialized controllers easily or often. All the other ports are, unsurprisingly, in the rear as well. They're also under a ridiculous overhanging platform so you can't reach it from the top at all.

There are HDD access+write and DVD write LEDs on both the top face and front face, tho one seems to be present on one side and not the other (HDD access is only on top). Why they put a DVD-write light on there when this feature is disabled is beyond me. Rushing to meet the New Years sales season is the reason bandied about by those in the know, and sony says both this and the MP3 feature will be updatable. According to PC Watch no small amount of anti-dust measures were employed to allow what is apparently one of the first slot-in DVD recorders.

PC Watch also has a significant amount of detail on the manus and actual use of the system (All in Japanese). It is revealed that the music ripping and compression technology is Sony's better than * ATRAC, but strangely it uses ATRAC 3, where MD recorders have used 4 + 4.5 for years (And Sharp has even gone to ATRAC5).

Pre-orders were apparently significant, but launch-day sales were 'quiet' because of the late announcement of cancelled features. Bottom line appears to be that the system is crippled, rushed and user-unfriendly (at least from a cabling point of view).

More thoughts on the brain.

Tue, 16 Dec 2003 16:51:00 +0900

The MIT Press recently sent me an update concerning some books they've recently published that I might be interested in, one of which is a kind of introductive series of primer articles on human consciousness. Reading through the introduction sample chapter they have online I was struck by a bit of an insight, and remembered an earlier article I had written about the brain.

I had talked about creating an artificial brain, and I had come up with two levels of brain function that would communicate between the various brain 'processors' such as vision, memory, feelings and so on. I figure there's a symbolic network that allows for fast communication of concepts and emotion (A blue car) and a detailed network carrying hard data (A blue 1989 Renault 5 GTE).

The book MIT offered has a list of the differences between conscious and unconscious thought. By the time I'd reached item #3 I was reeling from some part of my brain saying "Yo, here's an idea!" By #4 I had to stop and sort out this idea pinballing through my head, force myself to sort the idea into words like putting a shirt on a hyperactive child (At this point I'm resisting the urge to digress into a discussion on labels and the way language determines what and how we think only because I think the first idea is more important).

The MIT book excerpt concentrated on the idea that since we cannot yet define consciousness the best way to work on it was to focus on the difference between conscious and unconscious. Here's the first four items on the conscious/unconscious list from the MIT book:

	Conscious	Unconscious
1.	Explicit cognition	Implicit cognition
2.	Immediate memory	Longer term memory
3.	Novel, informative, and significant events	Routine, predictable, and nonsignificant events
4.	Attended information	Unattended information

The very idea of these different states seemed to directly correlated to my idea of a detailed and symbolic network within the brain (note that there need not be only two networks). Conscious thought seems to be exactly what I imagine would result from a focus on the detailed network's communication. Conscious: Explicit, immediate, informative, attended. This car is blue, slightly darker than sky blue. It's a Renault five, you can tell by the boxy shape and hatchback configuration. Unconscious: Implicit, long-term, predictable, unattended. This is a blue car, it's mine, I've been driving it for years, it's a friendly, warm, reliable car.

I imagine someone whose faculties are impacted, perhaps by injury, and in a state where the base brain, the symbolic part is functioning more than the advanced, detailed part, and I see how closely their actions seem to coincide with the unconscious list. They can't answer complex questions, but know old memories by heart. They know their address, but couldn't give you directions. They know you're a friend, but can't tell you why, or where you met, or perhaps your name.

An example of the opposite state, someone with an overactive higher-level network focus might be the professor so intent on noticing details of the car that he fails to realize it will knock him over if he does not move. The lower brain performs the gross calculations, the higher brain checks the details, does the math. Between the two a balance is struck and action - or inaction - is chosen based on available data. Two networks, both mandatory for complete operation of the brain.

Herein lies the crux of my internal debate on the algorithm for creating a synthetic brain, and what seems to be the question among scientists trying to study the nature of consciousness: What is the mechanism for evaluation and decision? What part of the brain receives and processes the different layers of thought and arrives at a conclusion?

One idea I had was that there is no such part, and that the body is merely a puppet of the out of control mind, constantly warring between the primitive mind (Eat, hate, fuck) and the advanced mind (it's tuesday, I have a 3:30 appointment). When the signals from one brain network become significantly energetic or forceful that network is given priority of the body, a kind of "Incoming rock, flee!" vs "What's Jimmy doing bending over and moving his arm like that?".

Food for thought...

Influence of Alien in Video Games

Sun, 14 Dec 2003 03:16:00 +0900

A Japanese gamer with an extensive knowledge of games has put together a detailed list of games with elements influenced by the Alien series of movies. Check out his page or our local mirror.

Very good work! Discuss!

Also, check out this cool Saturn mod. An easy hack, but it sure looks nifty IMHO.

It's all true.

Wed, 10 Dec 2003 21:09:00 +0900

The rumors you heard are true. The other day Zumi and I started playing Magic: The Gathering again. We had great, great fun with these cards back in the day, no doubt largely due to the quality of our companion players. Since moving to Japan we've played not even once, but now... "Oh, yeah, this was FUN!"

Copy protection...

Sun, 07 Dec 2003 23:06:00 +0900

So they figure it's a good idea to copy protect PC games by requiring me to have the original CD handy to play games. Sure, fine and dandy, except this copy protection gets cracked, without fail, mere days after a retail release. It always happens, that's how it works.

Today some friends wanted to play Unreal Tournament 2003 with me, a game I love dearly and rarely have out of the player. Except... I was using the CD ROM drive for something else recently, and I've misplaced my UT2k3 disc. I own the game. I paid for it. I've had to CRACK IT twice to replace codes that can only be entered during an hour-long install procedure, by using a hacked app allowing me to insert my LEGITIMATE key again.

Now I have to crack it again to play without the CD I actually own. I have to risk viruses and thousands of popup adds on countless hacker/warez sites to crack an app I paid much money for. I had this problem with StarCraft too, a game I purchased TWICE. Pisses me off. [edit] A kind reader has informed me the latest update removes the need for the CD to be present. Thanks for the tip!

PC Genjin / Bonk's Adventure

Thu, 04 Dec 2003 21:51:00 +0900

Hudson's recently released their update to the great PC Engine platformer Bonk's Adventure for GameCube + PS2. Check out my review.

Micomsoft's XSelect-D4 Reviewed

Wed, 03 Dec 2003 02:10:00 +0900

Jeremy Pallant may be long winded, but he's also very thorough. Please read his incredibly detailed review of Micomsoft's world-beating XSelect-D4 component/RGB transcoder. Update! Jeremy's whipped up a shorter NFG-style review if you want to get the bottom line faster.

The store is now open!

Mon, 01 Dec 2003 22:29:00 +0900

As some of you may or may not have known, I fund this little website (as well as gamesx.com and the now dormant AtariLabs) through the sales of video games and assorted hardware. I've was selling games at my dad's store when I was about eight, I was selling games imported from Japan to kids who found my ad in the newpaper classified, I managed a computer department for a large electronics chain, I managed a game store, and then I owned my own game store. Now, finally, I've opened an online shop.

Breadmaking

Sun, 30 Nov 2003 21:09:00 +0900

Today's breadmaking adventure: Raisin Bread. Breadmakers are dreadfully cool, the procedure is simple and fast: insert ingredients according to list. Put tray in baker. Starto!! It's surprisingly fun watching it first mix the ingredients, then beat up the dough. Come back in an hour, and add some raisins. 3 hours after that come back and eat bread. Nothing to it.

We did a rush-bake of some super-rich Milk Bread the other day. Super-delish bread in 2.5 hours. Excellent stuff.

Zumi is, as I'm sure you can imagine, hugely pleased.

Makin' bacon bread

Thu, 27 Nov 2003 21:09:00 +0900

Zumi, long a champion bread eater, bought a breadmaker the other day. A few questions were answered:

Q. Why breadmakers the size of large, upended toasters?
A. Because most Japanese homes don't have ovens.

Q. Who's this no-name company MK that made our breadmaker?
A. They're the Japanese company that invented it. All other manufacturers sell licensed makers.

So our adventures in breadmaking were filled with excitement. Zumi somehow got it into her head that 140g of flour was equal to 140ml, so we put in about half as much flour as we should have. Wait until morning for the sweet smell of fresh bread, only to find a half-sized misshapen loaf of disappointment in the machine.

Last night we tried again, making sure not to press the wrong button and mix some of the yeast in too early like last time, and also using the proper amount of flour. Fast forward to this morning when we enjoyed delicious fresh-cooked whole-wheat bread for breakfast. Woo etc.

Check out an unmade zumi examining her new toy.

Three updates!

Wed, 26 Nov 2003 22:33:00 +0900

1. Zumi was mentioned in this month's Edge magazine. Never mind that the mag is a mere shadow of its former self, they're talking about Zumi!

2. Nintendo's Monopoly was good for us.

3. The forums lost a chunk of the archive, but there's a new backup regimen in place and I apologize for letting you all down.

Another SQL failure

Wed, 26 Nov 2003 03:38:00 +0900

MySQL has failed again, and the forums are down until I can find a way to possibly reclaim the data and resurrect the missing forum. I'm somewhat displeased, moreso because I didn't start doing the regular backups I promised last time this happened. ;)

The Atkins thing

Tue, 25 Nov 2003 21:09:00 +0900

So we tried the atkins diet to roaring success. Seven kg in about two weeks were lost by me (that's 15+ lbs) but then, as warned, there was a plateau. Zero weight lost since then, a full week of zero weight fluctuation, so fuckit - probably going back to the crappy food we used to eat, just 'cause it's so damned convenient. pizza + vanilla coke here I come!!

Cellular Phone news

Mon, 24 Nov 2003 21:09:00 +0900

Our first month after I was granted a PIN to download cellular phone games cost us nearly $125 CDN. A lot, considering the amount of our normal bill. The most recent Dorimaga shows the download fee for Namco's Ridge Racer to cost nearly Y1,100 - Y500 for the basic game, and Y600 for the packet fees, a mere 256kb in this case. Regular users pay through the nose compared to AU's all-you-can-use 800kb/s service, a mere Y4,000 / month. That still astonishes me.

There was an interesting bit on cloned cellular phones on 6ch news tonight, where users are being billed for packet charges they deny are theirs.

In one case a teenaged girl had her phone locked in a drawer for 30 days and still racked up nearly Y20,000 in charges. The phone company's (Docomo) response? "Parents today are often unable to tell if their children are lying" and other similarly rude statements.

Another user, carrier unknown, was charged the equivalent of several thousand dollars for a months' packet charges, including a one-hour segment where he allegedly sent over four thousand messages. The speed typing king or what?

The end result is Japan's first lawsuit against a phone company. The girl's family is seeking Y60,000 in packet fees to be refunded. The girl apparently made the choice even knowing it would cost nearly 10x more for the lawsuit, in order to clear her name. Interestingly Docomo refused to release detailed information on the packet charges.

2003 Video Game Buyers Guide

Sat, 22 Nov 2003 13:39:00 +0900

Turn to this buyers guide to make sure that you picked up all the hottest games released this year as well as a preview of the best to come in 2004!

It's raining.

Fri, 21 Nov 2003 21:09:00 +0900

We went for a short walk today, to a new supermarket that opened a klick or two from us. Maruetsu, it's called - part of the giant Daiei conglomerate I think (the logo is the same). It's one of, if not the first 24-hour stores in the area that's not a corner-store. It's very lovely inside, with a wide variety of stuff, some I've never seen before. The problem is... The prices! They're mad, they're crazy high. They've taken the idea of a supermarket with a huge selection and combined it with the convenience store's 24-hour schedule and prices. If they really wanted to fly I think they should have gone with the supermarket pricing instead. We won't be going back.

The real Japan

Wed, 19 Nov 2003 21:09:00 +0900

Just a followup to my last post, here's a few more ridiculous things you might not know about Japan:

Foreign perspective on Japanese politics: "hopelessly corrupt and run by yakuza."
A bogus two party system: If this trend continues, the health insurance system itself will go bankrupt.
The looting of Asia: 30 million murdered and thousands of tons of gold hoarded by Japan.

Every couple of days there's a special on TV about Kim Jong Il, the bizarre lunatic leader of North Korea, or how the North Koreans are freakishly brainwashed and no doubt dangerously mad. If you were a goverment intent on confrontation with a country, wouldn't you belittle them in front of your people first?

Freaks me out. No one has rights in japan. no consumer protection, no medical protection, no legal protection. If _anything_ goes wrong I'm so far down the list of people to be helped I might as well swim home. Between their faltering economy, belligerent attitude toward N. Korea, political reform... It's a nation run by blind, angry old men with money. The faltering economy, belligerent attitude toward N. Korea, lack of any kind of reform... Subservient to a deranged America...

Dooshiyoo...

Wed, 19 Nov 2003 20:00:00 +0900

What should I do? Trying to decide what next to do with our lives... Japan's out because it's a country headed for a meltdown, Canada's troubling because the internet and celphones are so astronomically expensive there, and we can't get the same quality of food we can here, and Australia seems to be a one-way solution: where we can fly from Japan to Canada for $500 return, it costs $2000 to do the same from Australia. Welcome to Australia, chaps. You can't go back.

I love the alure of my life back in the Okanagan, my friends, the roads, the mountain biking (which can't be underestimated in my evaluation priorities), the weather, the snowboarding... But that's basically it. Social and leisure paradise, economic disaster. The jobs in Kelowna are ludicrously bad, the IT sector pays less in Canada than any other developed country and since everyone runs their own business the competition is cutthroat. It's not healthy.

If I want a nice car, I can get 'em cheap in Japan, but can't import anything to Canada that's not 15 years or older. It's for safety, see - no new cars that aren't specifically matched to Canadian standards, but you can import any 15-year-old bomb you like. Everyone knows standards were stricter back then.

So here I am, agonizing about it. Everywhere sucks. I think I'd rather go back to Canada and be a social animal, with the biking and the movies and game nights and hanging out with my old friends, to hell with money and internet... But christ, I can't even run a webserver in Canada, if it's not prohibited by the ISP's AUP the costs of bandwidth at a hosting facility would murder me ($200+ per month!). The cost of a 100mbit line in Canada: $1788/month, $2000 to install it, and you pay for your bandwidth. The cost in Japan: $80. In South Korea: $30. Australia's worse than all of the above. Hell, in Japan I can get unmetered cellular internet at 2.4mbit speeds for $40/month! That's mobile broadband faster than a cable modem for less cost!

I love Japan, but I can't stand the fear and uncertainty. The justice system - isn't just, the political scene is a farce, the medical systems are hellishly broken, industries practically unregulated. It's frightening.

It's all over!

Tue, 11 Nov 2003 20:00:00 +0900

So we're thinking seriously of moving back to Canada. There are many reasons, I'll try to detail a few here, as if anyone cares.

I like Japan, I love a lot of the things I can get here. The food is great, the drinks are far better and more varied than the sugarfied crap in Canada (or at least it's different sugarfied crap).

There's a lot of things I don't like. I don't like the Japanese government's complacency, the complete lack of consumer protection, the pathetic and inexcusably primitive medical services, the blocking of the sky + horizon by powerlines...

I'm gonna go into a more detailed rant soon, but suffice it to say we're (and by that I mean zumi) checking out housing prices back in Ye Olde Valley, and we're evaluating other places to move to, but not as seriously.

Reckon we can do the same thing as we're doing here but pay 50% less to live. Zumi figures she can fly back here every month or two if need be, I'm working on a plan to leave a computer behind with the 100mbit fiber and a capture card so we can record the shows Zumi wants to see and not hassle anyone to send a tape.

That's the big news. No date set, but I'm thinking fall next year... Time to plan, save up, pack, maybe buy a cool car to bring back...

Shikigami no Shiro 2 Review

Fri, 24 Oct 2003 21:03:00 +0900

I wrote a worthless review for GameCube's new Shikigami 2 shmup. Please have a look.

New Zumi Console

Mon, 13 Oct 2003 00:22:00 +0900

Zumi's done up a Neo Geo plush.

Cool Cool Toon Review

Mon, 06 Oct 2003 01:30:00 +0900

I whipped up a short review for SNK's Cool Cool Toon for the Dreamcast. Despite the promising appearance it never quite gels into a fun experience.

/games/coolcooltoon/

Zumi Madness

Sat, 04 Oct 2003 23:05:00 +0900

Zumi's finished the GameCube and she's hard at work on her next console. Pics soon!

Plush Stuffed Dreamcast

Thu, 02 Oct 2003 11:08:00 +0900

Zumi whipped this dreamcast up the other day. As a first attempt I think she did an amazing job. Here it is with eyes. Next up: GameCube or PC Engine.

A bleak view from the TGS...

Sat, 27 Sep 2003 20:42:00 +0900

While at the Tokyo Game Show I found I was rather disappointed by what I saw. InsertCredit.com is exclusively reporting what I thought.

TGS report

Fri, 26 Sep 2003 22:43:00 +0900

My opinions on the Sep. 2003 Tokyo Game Show are here. Bottom line? The 3D Adventure genre needs to die.

Border Down Review

Thu, 25 Sep 2003 16:45:00 +0900

Border Down is out, I've put up a mess of screenshots and a review.

/games/borderdown/index.htm

Bangaioh for Dreamcast

Tue, 23 Sep 2003 21:38:00 +0900

I was just making screenshots for someone and I decided to put up a small gallery, and it turned into this monstrosity here.

/games/bangaioh/

J-Phone Cellular Games

Sat, 20 Sep 2003 14:11:00 +0900

I posted 257 screenshots from Japanese celphone games. This is a drop in the bucket, but as you can see there's no shortage of quality.

http://nfg.2y.net/forum/index.php?act=ST&f=10&t=200

PC Engine: Ai Cho Aniki

Fri, 05 Sep 2003 01:20:00 +0900

I put together a review and gallery of the amazingly strange Ai Cho Aniki (Love Super Brother). Released in 1995 by a company that normally knows better on a console not known for sexually questionable content. Have a look.

http://nfg.2y.net/games/aichoaniki

IGS' PGM DoDonPachi 2

Sat, 30 Aug 2003 03:02:00 +0900

I've posted a smackload of screenshots for the as-yet unemulated DoDonPachi 2. Coming soon: a review!

http://nfg.2y.net/games/dodonpachi2

Sega Hardware Guide

Wed, 27 Aug 2003 01:31:00 +0900

This is the most complete guide to Sega hardware in the universe, as far as I know. It covers all their hardware from the 8-bit pre-Master System stuff to the MegaDrive, Saturn and Dreamcast.

It's a sickness.

Mon, 18 Aug 2003 03:02:00 +0900

I put some pictures of my games stockpile up. Please forgive me, I am an addict.

Neo Geo Video System Detailed

Fri, 01 Aug 2003 00:54:00 +0900

I've made a comprehensive list of differences between old and new Neo Geo cartridge hardware. Please have a look. Warning: Technical!

F-Zero GX + Star Soldier (GameCube)

Wed, 30 Jul 2003 00:48:00 +0900

Here, for your reading enjoyment (or not), are reviews for:
F-Zero GX GameCube
Star Soldier GameCube

/games/fzero/

The Koei PasoGo Portable Console

Thu, 17 Jul 2003 23:03:00 +0900

Koei, creators of Romance of the Three Kingdoms + Nobunaga's Ambition, among other things, made a cart-based portable system that only plays Go. Check it out.

Neo Geo RGB/Composite Revisions

Fri, 04 Jul 2003 02:29:00 +0900

SNK tweaked the console over the life of the system. No surprise there, gotta keep things moving or you die, right? Well, many in the Neo community didn't want you to know what changed, when, and how. One secret email to me later, along with a chart and some clues, and... Well, have a look.

Sega/Hitachi HiSaturn Navi

Mon, 23 Jun 2003 04:23:00 +0900

Ladies and Gentlemen, for your viewing pleasure, the HiSaturn Navi, possibly the rarest and most expensive console in existance (Assuming the Halcyon doesn't exist).

IGS' Demon Front (PGM/Arcade)

Thu, 19 Jun 2003 12:03:00 +0900

I've posted a review of this excellent Metal Slug clone, along with nearly fifty screenshots and pics of the hardware. Have a look!

Sega's Megumi!

Wed, 11 Jun 2003 20:29:00 +0900

It's not quite games-related enough to be shunted into the Games Division, so here it is: Japan's Megumi, spokesboobs for Sega and countless other companies, and she's famous simply for being famous. Check her out. Videos and pics! Woo!

TeraDrive Page up!

Wed, 11 Jun 2003 20:26:00 +0900

The Sega TeraDrive is an unusual computer. Have a look!

Sharp X68000 Bonanza

Mon, 09 Jun 2003 10:16:00 +0900

Dug up a page I made a couple of years ago comparing screenshots of the X68000 version of (Ghouls n Ghosts) against the Arcade version, and as a bonus there's comparisons of the Genesis + SuperGrafx versions. Also here's a WIP: an X68000 Info Page with gobs of screenshots and some info on the hardware. More to come!

Current Goings on:

Thu, 05 Jun 2003 23:36:00 +0900

Found my old SNES JAMMA system under a pile of MSX hardware today. It's ugly, but it works. Also here's an early look at a WIP: Konami's 3DO M2-based Polystars.

Three new game reviews!

Tue, 03 Jun 2003 01:10:00 +0900

I've been busy. Here's some writeups for some games you've probably never seen or even heard of:
Korokoro Post Nin for PS,
Power Rangers Pinball for PS,
Necronomicon Pinball for Saturn.

All three are loaded with screenshots and a review, please check them out.

Lost Gem: Mezase Senkyuo

Mon, 19 May 2003 23:31:00 +0900

Mezase Senkyuoh (known in America as Battle Balls) is one of the best games you've never played. From the makers of Raiden comes a kickass puzzle game that throws everything together in ways that few other games could dream of.

The Sega + Samsung Saturn

Thu, 15 May 2003 22:56:00 +0900

Well, it really does exist. Please have a look at the incredibly rare and virtually unheard of Samsung Saturn. Mad props to The Gord for procuring this bit of novelty for me. Please pass your most magnificent eyes over this baby right here.

A Day with the Arcades

Sat, 10 May 2003 20:11:00 +0900

Today I went to Shinjuku to meet up with Rayforce (from #shmups). He showed me a half dozen great arcades and I actually played some arcade games for the first time in too long. Here's what I played and what I thought about 'em.

Ketsui (Cave) - This game is the absolute bomb. Total kickass frenzy from the instant you pop in your hundred Yen. Super-small hitbox and massive walls of bullets and a gameplay system that doesn't demand memorization like the Donpachi series or Mars Matrix. You're awarded bonus medals based on proximity. Get up close and get a 5, kill an enemy from a distance and you get a 1. They're more or less magnetic too, so grabbing them is a breeze. Thrash the button for rapid-fire or hold the button for lock-on (which makes you slower). My only complaint was the graphics - pre-rendered sprites demoted to low-bit colour = f**king ugly. Hey Cave, your sprites are UGLY!! Your games rock tho.

Border Down (G-Rev) - Very capable horizontal shooter. The game was quite solid, the weapon (And there is only one) unique enough (hold for rapid, tap-tap for homing) and a boss system that's a lot of fun. While boss-fighting a timer counts down to zero, and you're awarded increasing points for killing the boss closer to zero. I got as close as 01.08s. Yay me! Also, the Border system: There are three borders, Green is Beginner, Red is Advanced and Yellow is in the middle. They signify difficulty, I think; and when you die you advance to the next Border (which means it gets harder as you suck more? Not clear on that part)... Each Border is also a different path, so there's 3 ways to each boss. You can choose a more difficult Border at each stage, but you can only choose an EASIER Border if you play an above-par level. If your score is too low you don't get to Border Up. Also your laser power approaches over time, and you can 'cash in' that laser power with a super-laser attack which counts up enemies killed as a kind of combo system. You're also invincible. It's fun.

Technic Beat (Arika/Namco) - Weird kinda rhythm game... You play a little dude on a glass surface and there are rings, see, and when you stand on 'em there's an internal ring with expands to the outside edge and you press the A button when the two rings meet. B drags one ring around and you can A that ring when it's touching another (or a series of them) and it'll do the subsequent rings for you. C is a super attack of sorts that expands and gets all the rings on the screen. Or something. Anyway it's neat, but you'll never get the chains until you learn the levels. IT has music from a buncha old Namco games too, which is fun.

Also saw Playmore's new Matrimelee which looked really lame (Note to Arcade Ops: Don't put Matrimelee next to Guilty Gear!) and Shikigami 2, which looked awesome. Also saw Puzzle Bobble: Azumanga Edition, which was so cute it hurt. And played a couple of rounds of Battle Balls with Rayforce, which was a nostalgic fun time.

Dammitalltohell

Fri, 02 May 2003 20:00:00 +0900

Yesterday I went biking out to Kazo and back, a trip of some 40-50km. It was a gorgeous sunny day and I had a fun time, even with the slight headwind on the return trip. I met up with Zumi at McDonalds in town here and since we were heading out for some shopping I loaded the bike into the back of the car. I left my helmet and gloves on the roof, and now they're gone. We retraced our route twice yesterday and they're still gone, and I'm seriously bummed about it, in ways far more intense than I'd have expected.

I don't lose. I never lose. I'm a slow, disorganized lazy useless sumbitch, but I never lose my battles, and knowing that I fucked this up is just killing me. I've been thinking about little else for the last 18 hours, and there's this horrible gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomache won't leave me alone.

A lot of it has to do with the fact that they were quality gloves + helmet, they weren't cheap costco crap. Also, I Can't replace them here, nothing in this country comes remotely close to fitting me, so I've got to go through the hassle of finding an online retailer or having someone I know pick them up for me in canada, then pay them for it, etc.

I've still got my old helmet and gloves, luckily, so I won't have to give up biking, but I feel like I can't be bothered to even do that. I'm pissed off and disgusted and depressed about the whole sad affair.

Bah.

Capcom's P.N.03 GameCube Review

Fri, 25 Apr 2003 08:04:00 +0900

THIS ENTRY HAS MOVED! Click here!

This song rocks!!

Sun, 20 Apr 2003 10:44:00 +0900

Download this now!Space Fantasy (Pretty Version) I don't know if it's specifically game related though... Thanks to TheGord for the hookup. Now we just need it in .ogg format...

Namco + Sega merger??

Sun, 20 Apr 2003 07:56:00 +0900

It' just a crazy world when Sega is considering mergers with Namco, Microsoft, Electronic Arts, and Sammy. It's pretty damned clear Sega isn't capable of doing much but running themselves into the ground, and when they drop their earnings estimates by ninety percent it's tantamount to admitting "we suck."

Here's a scan I made from the International Herald Tribune's business section (It made the front page). Does this mean we might get a Tekken vs Virtua Fighter that isn't a HK pirate's masturbatory fantasy?

The PS2 ain't so bad

Mon, 14 Apr 2003 15:50:00 +0900

So my friend lent me his PS2 and a smackload of games. I've been playing them and I've gotta say, after no less than three and a half years, the PS2 finally has a small selection of software that doesn't suck. Here's a list of the games I tried and the first impression scores I gave them.

Frequency
85%
Amazing visuals and great sound combine to elevate the merely average gameplay into something amazing. DDR meets Internal Section. Lovely.
Rygar
70%
My guess is it gets repetative fast. This is confirmed by Nolan, among others. Amazing presentation.
Ico
70%
Low res? Damn. Seems to be Prince of Persia meets Whistler's Brother. Excellent production values, lots of frustrating gameplay.
Maximo
80%
Average 3D platformer with gobs of polish and effective use of the Ghouls n Ghosts world.
Devil May Cry
75%
Problems with the levels blocking the camera view. Excellent theme, but I'm tired of this style of hero. Effeminate hard-core messy-haired angst-ridden loser men are the RPG-staple SD character of the modern age.

Contra
80%
Fantastic work, it's like expendable but horizontal. Good stuff.
Stretch Panic
45%
This is crap. Complete garbage. Treasure made this? Was it unfinished? Bah!
Guilty Gear X2
90%
This... This is lovely, lovely stuff. Pure beauty. Every frame is a work of art. Some of the rock n roll inspired charas could use an overhaul but it is, at first and second glance, as nifty as my beloved Samurai Shodown.

Catching up to 1996...

Sat, 12 Apr 2003 00:51:00 +0900

So I donated my old workhorse PSX to my sister as a kind of belated xmas present, and it's the first time she's held a PSX pad. Picked up a copy of the Crash Bandicoot pack (Crash 3, CTR and CrashBash) and resident evil (no memory card, oops) and her and her husband were whooping and hollering for a while playing CTR. "How dare you do that!? I'm your wife!!" Good times. Nolan lent me his PS2 with a stack of games I've never tried: Frequency, Rygar, Ace Combat 4, Ico, Maximo, Devil May Cry, Contra, Fatal Frame, Stretch Panic, Guilty Gear X2... Pretty much everything good on the PS2 and then some, I think. Looking forward to finding the time to try them for even a few seconds.

Herzog Zwei Review

Sun, 06 Apr 2003 01:33:00 +0900

The Herzog Zwei writeup I did for GameGo #2 is here.

Soul Calibur 2 Poster, + more!

Fri, 04 Apr 2003 00:49:00 +0900

Took a quick pic of a gorgeous Soul Calibur 2 poster (large). Very cool. Also, a long time ago I made up this brief recap of the incredible (At the time) SegaCD Silpheed. I've created the ultimate GBA assist: AuthentiScreen!

MAME Gem Discovered!

Mon, 31 Mar 2003 01:23:00 +0900

Found a wonderful little game on MAME .66 today: RongRong. Sex + tile-matching! Woo!

Automated GBA News

Tue, 25 Mar 2003 02:46:00 +0900

I've created a script (for which I had to learn perl) which will scour the universe for the latest GBA news. Simply reload the page at any time for all new info about the GBA! Check it out!

New MegaCD Database

Sun, 23 Mar 2003 11:58:00 +0900

Friend of mine's made up the world's first English complete MegaDrive CD game database. check it out.

Some weird prototype gear:

Sat, 22 Mar 2003 00:52:00 +0900

For your viewing enjoyment and wonderment, some protype PC Engine gear and a few pics of some MegaDrive protos: MD Floppy Drive, a MD Floppy + keyboard and a MD FDD + touchpad. None of these items were released, but in the case of the PC Engine gear you can clearly see where some of them made it into different products that were released. The CD ROM drive went through some seriously heavy changes, the modem made at least the proto stage (And was auctioned on yahoo a few years ago), and you can see a proto DuoMonitor there. Neat stuff. (MD pics stolen from this page). PC pics scanned from a PCE mag by me.

Delicious Irony: The Full Circle

Tue, 18 Mar 2003 14:53:00 +0900

I think this is great:
[-] Sega launches the Dreamcast, purchases millions of PowerVR chips. Dreamcast dies, many chips unsold.
[-] Sammy buys the chips from Sega, reports indicate Sammy is to incorporate them into pachinko machines. Instead, Sammy lauches the AtomisWave system, a Dreamcast-like system apparently in direct competition to Sega's Naomi.
[-] Sega runs out of money.
[-] Sammy buys Sega, demands Sega make games for Sammy's AtomisWave system.
Is that a full circle or what?

"Fuck the hardcore"

Tue, 18 Mar 2003 01:17:00 +0900

There's an excellent article in the latest Edge magazine by RedEye, a supposed industry hack who generally rants about shit I don't care about but hit home this month. I'd like to present to you a few quotes if I may. He starts out referring to a girl he used to like because of her sexy accent. She was foreign and therefore more appealing. I think we all know how that works.

"Snobbery is innate in those who believe they have the smarts. We are all attracted to things that are rare, different, because appreciating those things makes us elieve we are connoisseurs. We may not even be aware we are doing it, but we do it all the time. This is why people who think they know a lot about music like band X that no one's heard of, why film buffs name Swedish epics as their favourites. And it is present, naturally, in videogames.

"But it also manifests itself as racism. Generalising, of course, so perhaps you're different because you're perfect, but hardcore gamers love Japan. They consider it their homeland, dream of being on first-name terms with shop owners in Akihabara, of high-fiving the teddy boys in Shinhuku park, of local noodle bars and overpriced alcohol, of tiny Japanese girls treating them like David Beckham. Of being an accepted gaijin; it is utopia, and it is the home of the best videogame makers in the world."

He interjects at this point with a story about a website at a press conference, but it's a boring story so I won't repeat it. Then he talks a bit about otaku:

"Otaku isn't a good term, you know. It means unhealthy obsession. [...] It's not glam, different, interesting. It's dirty, pathetic, lonely."

He says a Japanese company can make a sexual game for an otaku audience and we don't care, where a western company would be hung out to dry. Referring to the Japanese, "But we let Japan get away with it, because, hey they're a different culture, and it's all a bit of fun, and they're exotic and exciting and we are head over heels in love with them.

"RedEye doesn't believe that the Japanese are really any better at making videogames than the west - just that they happen to have made some of the best, and that mediocre games of theirs appear exotic and interesting to us and that makes them more than mediocre. Take scripting as an elemental example. Videogames with terrible dialogue are damned over here, but we forgive Japanese stuff because, hey, it's lost in the translation, and the bad grammar and bad spelling's just part and parcel of the experience, and it's crazy and we can laugh at it. Only it's probably not lost in the translation; it's just bad writing, translated badly, and we're idiotic, patronising fools.

"A land of invention? Christ, EA has nothing on the seuquential habits of the Japanese: Capcom, Taito, beloved Nintendo, Enix, all companies who thrive on squeezing franchises to within an inch of their commercial lives. And Square, Square is the worst. Kingdom Hearts, whatever its merits as a game, was nothing more than a cynical attempt at hitting the Japanese market dead on, old Final Fantasy characters and Disney all wrapped up in a (typically absurd) plot which makes nonsense out of any of the series' previous lighthearted attempts at coherence.

"RedEye's been reading a lot of ill-educated comment recently about western design, and most of it seems to be rooted in cultural snobbery. Sudeki uses Japanese aesthetics and gets damned for it. They're bland, apparently, although RedEye can't help but think that if they'd come from Sega they'd be labelled sumptuous by the same people, people furiously masturbating over 'Famitsu' as they anxiously await their copy of DoAX. And there are other examples - Rare moved from eastern hands to the west, revealed a new manga Joanna Dark and got criticism from bitter Nintendo kids for ruining their heroine. Silly, ghost-white otaku desperate to prove just how genuine they are.

"If this is hardcore, then fuck the hardcore, or let them fuck themselves."

I made this.

Sun, 16 Mar 2003 04:36:00 +0900

Check out this picture. For explanation, there's a vitriolic piece on the GBA and state of the industry over on AtariLabs.

More interesting stuff...

Sat, 01 Mar 2003 19:03:00 +0900

So MicroSoft + EA are both interested in buying Sega, and who can blame them? Except for the fact Sega's totally unable to make money, they've got a lot of gold in their backcatalogue. I bought 4 brand new MegaDrive consoles for about $18 each the other day. Also found this interesting toy for about $5. The PCI version sells for about thirty times that price, 'cause it's the one everyone wants. Still... Oh yeah, I made a cover for a non-existant MegaCD game: #Shmups. There's also a larger version here.

Another interesting toy.

Sat, 22 Feb 2003 22:57:00 +0900

Some neat stuff game in the mail today. A JVC V-Saturn Xmas Nights Edition (who knew?) and this JVC WonderMega 2, which is very different than the first. Also got an N64 with an interesting RGB amp, which I'll be disecting later.

More Samsung/Sega madness

Thu, 20 Feb 2003 20:51:00 +0900

Yowza. TheGord has found not only a Samsung Saturn (pic1 - pic2) in Korea, but also a Samsung Genesis/MegaDrive.

Samsung Saturn

Sat, 08 Feb 2003 21:54:00 +0900

So the rumors are true: There is a Samsung-released Saturn system. Only in Korea, I'm sure. Here's a couple of pics. Pic 1 and Pic 2 + Pic 3. Freaky.

Another weird thing.

Fri, 07 Feb 2003 13:51:00 +0900

Picked up this strange Saturn modem recently. Apparently it's from Nissan, or something (Thanks Millar) but little more is known. If you know, tell me!

What's this thing?

Wed, 05 Feb 2003 21:07:00 +0900

Found this white Saturn the other day. It has a Sonic silhouette on the lid. What is it? Where's it from? I can't find any info on it at all... If you know anything, please leave a comment!

180/102

Sat, 01 Feb 2003 15:30:00 +0900

150/100

Mon, 01 Jul 2002 15:30:00 +0900

140/110

Mon, 01 Oct 2001 15:30:00 +0900