Plot a course, Mr. Arex
Today was video day… finally watched the Miyazaki DVD raininva purchased for me, “Spirited Away” – very good, much superior to “Princess Mononoke” in my opinion. Not sure if I like it better than “My Neighbor Totoro” or “Kiki’s Delivery Service”. but it was a good way to spend two hours.
Also, I acquired all the episodes of the Star Trek animated series, so I was treating myself to some good mid-seventies flashbacks. That show was definitely ahead of its time – weak animation and writing compared to much modern anime, but compared to the Saturday morning cartoons it was aired against, it was solid stuff. Besides, animation can do much wilder aliens than all the latex forehead bumps in Hollywood.
I even got some dishes and laundry done, so I’m all productive and stuff today.
Puppet violence on the increase
A gentleman named Laz Rojas makes new character “skins” for the Voyager: Elite Force shooter game. Thanks to his work, one can clothe the Voyager characters in uniforms from any series except Enterprise, play Original Series, Next Gen, or Deep Space 9 characters, or even some unusual creations such as Tom Paris as a Blues Brother, or the feline Lieutenant M’Ress from the Animated Series. (trenn, take note!)
But with the upcoming Thunderbirds movie in the works, Rojas has apparently decided to go even farther afield… soon, Scott Tracy will be able to take out all those long-held frustrations on the other players!
(Click for a larger image)
All Rojas’ skins and practice bots can be found at his Elite Farce website, and most can be modified for use in Quake 3, No One Lives Forever, Medal of Honor, or other Q3-based games.
Celestial Light and Magic
Having tried twice, this Thursday and Saturday, I’ve discovered that I can’t go to see The Matrix Reloaded without rain coming from the sky in bucket loads and lightning searing my retinas away. Apparently, it’s an extra special effect arranged by Warner Brothers.
I shaved my beard off this weekend, just to re-introduce the skin of my lower face to the outside world. So far, the reviews of this new (quite temporary) look are mixed and a bit negative.
Happy news I’ve had for a while, but not posted; I’m running the Crimson Skies marquee for WizKids on June 7, at Xtremes in Tanglewood Mall. Time to dig out Commader Coalsack’s (and the Rabbiteer’s) old rocket backpack! I’ve also got some venues interested in having me Battlemaster for them, so it looks like I will be able to fulfill WizKids’ minimum activity requirements.
Had some thoughts this weekend on gaming personas and how they relate to the player who maintains them, but that’s a lengthy, introspective post that is going to need some more thought before I put it up here.
Battle Fury
Every time I see a hostage situation in the movies, the angry, violent part of me wishes I was watching the Klingon version, where the good guys sorrowfully declare the hostages martyrs, sing songs of their brave sacrifice, and blow up the building.
One of the worst times was actually during a Star Trek episode, where some culture had gotten hold of a space probe of ours, reverse-engineered the matter-antimatter technology (wrongly), and wrecked their planet. They then had the gall to blame us, and kill off a hostage to show that despite their idiocy, they still had really big sex organs. And to make it worse, our captain starts feeling guilty about the whole thing!
On the other tentacle, the Klingon version:
Terrorist: “Despite the fact that you were agreeing to our demands, we’ve killed one of the hostages. I bet you regret your mistake now, huh?”
Klingon captain: “I sure do. Good-bye, honorable landing party.”
Klingon landing party: “Bye! You’ll find some death song ideas in our personal logs – we’ve been working on them just in case!”
Terrorist: “What? Hey! Wait! Wait a minute!”
The landing party’s communicators, being really sturdy, register the first half-second of incoming photon torpedo fire.
Klingon captain: “Too bad. Let’s go find a planet with some real warriors!”
Now, I want to make it clear that I’m not suggesting this as a solution to any real-world situation. Whatever the flaws in the idea, though, I bet it would cut down on hostage crises.
The Matrix Has You
From the useless-but-cool department…
You can now watch your movie files in ASCII in the Terminal application of MacOS 10.2!
Here’s some shots from a certain video – each image links to a larger version:
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| Space Rogues logo | Brion (Me) |
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| Extra (ypawtows) and Kat (snidegrrl) |
So I don’t bore everyone: if you want to know how to do this, leave a comment and I’ll reply.
My dreaming has been way over-active these last two weeks. among other things, I dreamed last night that I went to see a movie and caught the trailer for a new Buckaroo Banzai movie… also, that someone saw me in the lobby and shouted, “Hey, I know you, you’re ‘Ambercritter’!” And I seemed to agree with them. I wonder if this is a premonition that I’m going to be playing in a furry Amber RPG where I use my Jet Car to Hellride?
Or not.
dahdahdahdahdah – JunkYard Geeks!
Tonight on TLC Online, our challenge is for mikailborg of the TechnoFetish team. His job – to build a working analog-to-digital video converter from things he finds in his apartment – before the end of the afternoon!
He’ll have an easy time with the digital end – he’s already got a FireWire-equipped computer made for digital desktop video. But, how do things look for conversion?
He’s got a Sony digital camcorder that he’s wired in there! It’s got an analog adapter cable with RCA jacks at the far end, and it plugs right into that computer of his, so conversion is okay. But here’s the rough part – he’s got to find a way to deliver that analog signal, and his wife probably wouldn’t be amused if he borrowed the living room VCR. So what will our challenger do?
Look at that! He’s blowing the dust off a 15-year-old Sharp VCR he pulled from his bottom shelf! I can’t believe that thing still plays tapes – it hasn’t even been plugged into the wall in over 4 years!
He’s got it all hooked together… now he’s changing the arrangement of plugs in his FireWire ports – and it’s working! Image quality isn’t the best, but then most of his originals weren’t that good to begin with! It’s working!!
Thank you for joining us for this edition of Junkyard Geeks. For the benefit of lekythen, subbes, and rubinpdf, this episode will be re-broadcast next month on BBC Online as part of “Scrapheap Geeks”. Join us tomorrow as Richard O’Brien hosts an episode of Sony’s Virtual Crystal MazeQuest Online (subscription fee required).
mikailborg‘s still going to have to return the camcorder, though.
Technology marches on
Thanks to Jaguar, QuickTime 6, and DivX for Mac 5.0 Alpha 3, I can finally watch DivX .avi files now. Time to catch up on those “Chobits” episodes I was loaned!
Pre-dawn Wednesday, our office blew its hot water heater. Efforts to fix matters have only made it worse, we can’t shut off the sink, and now the ladies’ bathroom is rapidly taking on water.
We have rechristened the office “Her Majesty’s Ship The Titanic“. Sentries have been posted with orders to shoot Celine Dion on sight.
Telling no real story
Well, we watched our first NetFlix last night – we both sat through Storytelling, and Rain watched Ghost World. I actually was a big fan of Daniel Clowes’ “Lloyd Llewellyn” comic, but i just couldn’t deal with the “quirky teenager” movie after watching the “I couldn’t think of anything, but I had to spend this money before they pulled my grant” movie.
Sometimes, I read a book or watch a movie, and I finish it with the horrible feeling that, somewhere, the author or filmmaker is laughing hysterically at having tricked me into wasting part of my life. That’s different from, say, the Battlefield: Earth feeling where I end up feeling very sorry for the filmmaker, actors, crew, and backers of the film. Not this time! The creator of Storytelling should be smacked around.
Oh, well. I picked out a couple movies I wanted to see, Amelie and the new anime Metropolis. Haven’t found many more yet, but there’s time.
