I finally got my Raz and Lili plushies in from the Psychonauts 2 campaign, NINE YEARS LATER. They’re pretty cute and I really like them, though Lilis’ has a lot of flaws. Her blouse colors are way off and the triangle pattern is much larger than in the game. Her skirt is only 1 color instead of 2 and they didn’t even attempt to match the underwear. All in all not that big a deal.

Something that really urks me about it though is that they were supposed to be CAMPAIGN EXCLUSIVES that I paid $100 for each. But then Double Fine went and sold them online for $40 a pop.

They already lost my good faith from the “Backpack” campaign reward debacle 4 years ago. It wasn’t the backpack from the first game with the badges. It was the new satchel design from the second game, which is NOT what was promised. I paid $300 bucks for it and its definitely supposed to be the bag from #1 if its supposed to include the merit badges... Granted, the quality was very nice though.

In honor of my recent Sekiro accomplishment, I bought myself a cute little Sekiro letter opener sword to go on my office side desk.

I honestly think I may consider Sekiro the best first player game ever made. It’s by far better than any of From Softwares’ other games (I am a big Dark Souls fan. Elden ring was boringly easy). I had been trying to do a perfect run for about a month and finally got it done.

In 10.5 hours I killed every enemy exactly once (no more, no less), 0 death screens, no cheese, no exiting battles, bought out all vendors, and collected all items. It was a lot of fun.

One of the reasons I love Sekiro so much is that it’s about the zen perfection of a specific skill set, patience, timing, and reaction speed (I am also a big fan of Super Hexagon - almost have a 4 minute run on it). There is no experience grinding to get past bosses, though certain skills acquired through exp are extremely helpful. This makes it harder than dark souls, and winning gives much more of an accomplishment feeling.

It goes far beyond that though. The level design is top notch and art assets are visually stunning. It’s an integrated cohesive world more so than any of the Dark Souls, and I’m a bit of a sucker for Japanese themes.

Combat is wonderful. Pretty much all the fights are fun and fair once you learn how to play, and you can even freaking pause the game! :-D You have to keep on your toes at all times cause ANYONE can kill you. The game both lets you sneak or just run in and murder everything if you’re good enough. The replayability is much higher than any of the other FromSoft souls like games too.

In March of 2007 I was doing research on Mei and the Kittenbus (めいとこねこバス, Mei to Konekobasu), an animated short “sequel” to My Neighbor Totoro by Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli. It was “released” in 2003 for regular showing at the Ghibli Museum in Japan, and has unfortunately never seen a wide release. I believe the Ghibli museum shows different animated shorts on a random basis for their tours.

While researching, I was only able to find three sites on the whole internet at that time that had any real information on it. I decided to backup their contents for mirroring, which I am finally getting around to putting up :-). This information is directly copied from those sites and I do not claim to be the original source of, or in any way own, any of the below content in this post.

моцартинка (mozartianka) wrote in miyazaki_ru, @ 2007-01-28 21:44:00 Entry tags: Mei to Konekobasu/Мэй и Котобусёнок, Studio Ghibli Shorts/Короткометражки, Tonari no Totoro/Наш сосед Тоторо, картинки Mei to Konekobasu Album Полный альбом про Мей и Котобусёнка! обложка Громадное спасибо nazarovsky!

Mei and the Kittenbus     This is a short film about 20 minutes long, which was shown for a limited time only at the Ghibli Museum. It tells the story of Mei and her friend the kittenbus (the child of the original catbus from My Neighbor Totoro). Mei is just small enough to ride in the kittenbus, which is only big enough to stir up dust devils, rather than making whole fields of rice sway in its breeze. One night they have an adventure in which they fly into the forest with many other cat-based vehicles, including many buses and trains. There they meet Totoro and many similar spirits, all heading for a gigantic catliner. This liner cruises off into the sky and the kittenbus takes Mei home. Small Version Large Version Small Version | Large Version Small Version | Large Version Small Version | Large Version Small Version | Large Version Original story, screenplay and direction: Hayao Miyazaki Music: Joe Hisaishi Animation Directors: Maikiko Futaki, Sachiko Sugino, and Hiromasa Yonebayashi Length: 13 minutes 43 seconds Pictures and synopsis by Chris Kuan

This is definitely one of the things on my must-do list for when I visit Japan one day ^_^.

Here is another compilation list from a few years ago for reasons previously stated. This one is a color coded list of Studio Ghibli films (Hayao Miyazaki being a favorite of mine). A more comprehensive list can probably now be found on Wikipedia, but oh well.

I got hit yesterday with a very time critical and large client project that will be taking up most all of my time over the next few weeks, so I may have to get in a lot of quick posts like this to keep up. :-\

A number of years ago I watched the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle (2003) cartoon, and was shocked at how good it was. IMO there has been no other non-comedic American cartoon that has come out of its quality besides Avatar The Last Airbender (which is in its own league of quality for American cartoons). It was also saddening to me when watching the final (5th) season that a lot of those episodes hadn’t aired due to them being “too dark for kids” :-(. Also, for reference, I consider the show ended at 5 seasons. The “6th season” entitled “Fast Forward” is NOT the same show. I’d equate its quality to the Ninja Turtles cartoons of the 1980s, or perhaps worse.

Anywho, when I was giving the series’ DVDs to a friend, I felt the need to compile a list of the episodes, as they were made to be watched in a specific order, but were not aired or released (even remotely) in that proper order. There are some episodes repeated in the list as they were included on multiple DVDs. This information is probably much easier to find nowadays... but when I compiled it, it definitely wasn’t easy information to come by.

After discovering the Alamo Draft House’s coolness a few months ago, I’ve been trying to watch what they’re playing to make sure I catch anything I might want to see on the big screen. Unfortunately, it is not easy to get a good quick idea of all the movies playing from their calendar because it shows movies per day with showtimes, making the list repetitive and crowded with extra information.

I decided to throw together a real quick PHP script that would parse their data so I could organize it however I wanted. The final result can be viewed here. The code is as follows:

//The list of calendar pages in format TheaterName=>URL
$PagesToGrab=Array(
	'Ritz'=>'http://www.originalalamo.com/Calendar.aspx?l=2',
	'Village'=>'http://www.originalalamo.com/Calendar.aspx?l=3',
	'South Lamar'=>'http://www.originalalamo.com/Calendar.aspx?l=4'
);

foreach($PagesToGrab as $Name => $URL) //Grab the movies for each theater
{
	print "<b>$Name</b><br>"; //Output the theater name
	$TheHTML=file_get_contents($URL); //Grab the HTML
	$ShowList=Array(); //This will contain the final list of shows and what days they are on
	
	preg_match_all('/<td class="day">.*?<\/td>/', $TheHTML, $DayMatches); //Extract all table cells containing a day's info
	foreach($DayMatches[0] as $DayInfo) //Loop over each day's info
	{
		//Determine the day of month
		preg_match('/<a class=\"daynumber\" title=".*?, (.*?),/', $DayInfo, $DayOfMonth);
		$DayOfMonth=$DayOfMonth[1];
		
		//Determine all the shows for the day
		preg_match_all('/<span class="show"><a href=".*?">(.*?)<\/a>/', $DayInfo, $AllShows);
		foreach($AllShows[1] as $Show)
		{
			$Show=preg_replace('/^\s+|\s+$/', '', $Show); //Remove start and end of line whitespace
			if(!isset($ShowList[$Show])) //If show has not yet been added to overall list, add it
				$ShowList[$Show]=Array();
			$ShowList[$Show][]=$DayOfMonth; //Add this day as a time for the show
		}
	}
	
	//Output the shows and their days
	print '<table>';
	foreach($ShowList as $ShowName => $Days)
		print "<tr><td>$ShowName</td><td>".implode(', ', $Days).'</td></tr>';
	print '</table><br><br>';
}	
<? PageFooter(); ?>
</body></html>

First, I want to write a little about the Alamo Draft House, which is a local Austin theater chain (though it has expanded). I really enjoy going there for movies for the atmosphere, which includes:

• No children under 6 (unless otherwise noted)
• Food and drinks
• [Sometimes] themed food and pre-movie entertainment relating to the movie (my friends went there for the Indiana Jones opening and there were snake handlers with rattlesnakes and a cobra ^_^)
• Playings of old good and/or cult classic movies

They also often organize shows, parties, and other events, including organizing the recent Austin branch of the largest [worldwide] Thriller dance event. I have been told they are one of the most profitable theater chains in history.

Anywho, I was there yesterday for the first showing (7pm) of the new Star Trek movie. Since I’m not a movie critic, I won’t say more than the fact that I thought it was absolutely spectacular, and Alamo’s pre-movie Star Trek themed clips were hilarious. I do however want to share their themed food menu.

Ugh. It’s been a month today since I made my last post here. Things have just been way, way too busy! I’ll try to pick up on the content regularity, once again. I should be able to handle at least a few weeks worth of semi-regular updates ^_^;.

I’ll keep today’s post short and simple :-).

Chrono Trigger for the Nintendo DS was released a few weeks ago, which came relatively shortly after the release of Final Fantasy IV for the DS. I should mention Chrono Trigger is one of my all time favorite games. I’ve played it more time than I can count, and was very happy for a port to the DS. Yay :-).

It’s pretty much the exact same as the original, not like the 3D updates that were the Final Fantasy ports. It has all the typical “Extras” systems added on to game ports these days like keeping track of the monsters you’ve fought (bestiary) and items you’ve collected, game art, cutscene replaying, game music jukebox, maps of all the levels, etc. It also has a few GUI updates, 2 new areas, a pokemon type fight-your-friend-over-the-DS-with-a-monster type system, and last but definitely not least, a great new translation.

The new translation is probably the best thing about the port. Tom Slattery did a wonderful job on it, though to his credit (according to Wikipedia ^_^; ) Ted Woolsey was only given 30 days to do the original translation. The new levels are all pretty lame :-\ but oh well. I still haven’t finished going through most of them because they involve a lot of annoying back-and-forth between time periods, and bad level design.

The main thing I wanted to mention was a single line of translation that really made me smile. If you take Ayla to Robo’s extra side quest, at one point she says “What you say?” ... Any of you nerds out there should know what that references :-).

Anywho, yeah, Chrono trigger is awesome. And now back to your regularly scheduled mostly technical posts... ^_^;

I have just now finished working a 16.5 hour shift for my current contract programming job, culminating from 5 days straight of work with an average of 13 hours per day, so I’m pretty fucking tired x.x;. I think I’ll be taking a bit of a break from posting, and possibly responsibility, for a little bit... especially since next week = Thanksgiving + Family :-).

Anywho, I was given this link earlier today, and it really made me laugh, so I thought I’d point everyone to it: How to Tell if Your Cat is Plotting to Kill You. Any cat owner/lover should get a good kick out of this ^_^.

This page is owned and was drawn by Matthew Inman, Founder & Designer of Mingle² for said website. Also, check the page source for a cute Easter Egg at the top of the HTML.

I have mirrored this below since I never trust websites that I want to share to stay online. Curse you Internet and your servers going down and domains being lost!

I wrote earlier about my new entertainment center and how evil it has been. Unfortunately, things have only been getting worse. After trying to play music on it while torrenting or doing other things, I found out it can pretty much only do 1 task at a time, and barely, so I’ve decided to make it now only act as a music station and occasionally watch video through it when the video doesn’t require too much power. I even found an old 256MB stick of PC2700 RAM to put in it (yay for finding random antiquated computer parts around the house!), which did not help, as expected. This regrettably means I will have to keep my current home server at its job, which is a major power hog, and way too powerful for what it does, but ah well.

When listening to music I have the obvious need to easily pause playback, and the occasional need to skip songs I don’t feel like listening to ATM. I would normally use the multiple remote desktop hack for this, but the computer just can’t handle 2 XP sessions going at once. For this reason, Synergy (a great way to do KVM through software) would normally be the perfect fallback solution, except I’d rather not have to use my TV (which is the computer’s primary video output) just to control music on the surround sound system. That, and I’d rather not have to use the TV at all for the computer, because, as written before, I have to go through 5 minutes of hoops to get video working right on it. So the solution was to find a remote way to control Winamp, the only music player I’ve used since around ’98 :-).

After some searching, I found WinampRC, and it fits the remote control solution perfectly, especially as it is super lightweight! The only real problem I have with it is that its playlist editor is rather underdeveloped, and it’s hard to add music, especially in batches. Another minor problem is that there are no global keyboard shortcuts :-(, but I can fix this later with other software through macros. All in all though, I’m very happy with it :-).

Unfortunately, one other semi-major problem has crept up with the program, and it will be a hard one, if not impossible, to diagnose. Sometimes a few seconds after switching over to a new song, it automatically skips to the next song on the list. I can only assume this is because it has improperly measured audio playback times and thinks the previous song finished after it already did. This isn’t as bad as it could be though, and is only occasional, so I won’t be looking for another solution just yet.

Ok, just using a normal keyboard, with a PS/2 extension cord, hooked up to the computer to issue shortcuts ~.~ . At least I don’t have to keep the TV on still.

Whenever I need to take a break from working to help clear my mind, there are a few types of “repetitive” or short games I enjoy to play.

One of these is Freecell, a solitaire game that comes with XP, and also came with some versions of Windows 98. I really enjoy it because it is a game of pure reason, with no random chance. You know where all the cards are from the beginning and every game is winnable (theoretically at least... I’ve heard there are 2 combinations of the million possibilities in the Windows version that are unwinnable). When I was playing it a lot, I used to easily be able to win dozens of games in a row in under 2 minutes per game. My goal for this game for a long time has been to win 100 games straight without a loss. I have so far clocked in at ~80 as a record IIRC. Always with the stupid mistakes!

Another fun game I discovered in a computer blow-off class my senior year of high school was Icy Tower. I just picked it back up a few weeks ago, and it’s horribly addicting! I really like it because it’s about 90% skill and 10% randomness. Games that require quick reflexes and sharp hand eye coordination have always been one of my favorite genres, and Icy Tower is full of this. I’ve often found myself while playing the game wishing I could come up with a good idea like it, as programming something of its nature would be incredibly fun. I recently made a high score that I was pretty proud of until I noticed the world high score boards for the game, which are pretty insane (I am linking to a thread instead of the official high score board because the latter is badly programmed and incredibly slow). I can’t help but think a lot of those people cheated... but anywho, the game allows you to save replays of your games, and the file for my high score game is here, and I included a video of it below (more for demonstration of the game ^_^; ). Videos will be uploaded as soon as I get my video card replacement for my laptop, due in later this month, as my current one is failing, but you might as well download the game and play it some, and could watch the better rendered replay there anyways... not that anyone has any reason too watch it, but still XD.

Oh, the memories of the good old days of gaming! When video games were far and few between, and could be made by one to a handful of people. Yesterday’s post [Video Game Nostalgia] touched on some old games I played when I was but a lad. I decided for today I’d drag out a lot of the old stuff, see what I still had for curiosity sake, and take a picture :-).

All of the software packages are DOS applications (except the Windows upgrades, obviously, and Visual Basic), most everything says for the “IBM/TANDY” :-).

On a silly side note, I had the bad habit of calling PCs (Personal Computers) “IBM Compatibles” (as opposed to Apples) until like 1998, heh.

• My dad’s TRS-80 Model 100. The story goes that when he used to have to get up at night to take care of my older sister when she was a baby in ’82, he used it to instant message friends on CompuServe over its 300 baud modem while rocking her back to sleep or such. I also played with a TRS-80, which also belonged to my dad, at my grandfather’s house one summer, and did some programming on it in Basic when I was ~12 :-).
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1989)
• Visual Basic 5.0. Info on a previous version I received here. :-)
• MS-DOS owners guide
• Star Trek: 25th Anniversary (1992)
• Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Pool of Radiance (1988): 3 books for the game plus rune wheel. My sister was the one that played this one IIRC.
• ZZT (1991): Getting started guide and 2 floppy disks
• Muppet Adventure: Chaos at the Carnival (1989): Floppy disk and getting started guide
• Ken’s Labyrinth (1993, Epic Megagames): 2 floppy disks
• Jazz Jackrabbit (1994, Epic Megagames) (can’t find my “Jill of the Jungle” though :-\)

• Bicycle Holiday Collection (1992)
• Cakewalk Home Studio v3.01
• Chutes and Ladders (1988, Milton Bradley Co.)
• Math Rabbit (1986, The Learning Company)
• Microsoft Paintbrush (1985-1986 - Yes, this was once a program you actually had to buy. The manual is a pretty and colorful little neatly bound ring-binder too ^_^).
• Monopoly Deluxe (1992, Virgin Games)
• The Electric Company - Picture Place (1988)
• Solitaire’s Journey (1992)
• Wheel of Fortune (1987)
• Where in the U.S.A. is Carmen Sandiego (1985-1986)
• Windows 95 & 98 Upgrades

And, Yes, I know I’m a packrat. I inherited it from my Dad :-).

So a comic [Gunnerkrigg Court] that I enjoy and read daily [updates MWF] recently referenced Metal Gear Solid, which finally made me decide to play through the series.

For reference, whenever I bring up games from here on out, it’s usually to talk about encountered problems, which I will usually provide fixes for, or technical aspects of the game. I’m not qualified, or funny enough, to want to review games; and that is not the purpose of my postings here.

The first thing I wanted to mention is a fix for a graphical problem. As the game is rather “old” (released in 2000 for Windows), it can be incompatible with modern systems. One of the options it uses in hardware mode is 8-bit textures, which is no longer supported, though for the life of me I can’t see why a hack could be made in the video card drivers for this problem. Because of this, the game only allows you to run in software mode. After a lot of digging and searching, in which every place said the same thing (it’s not fixable), I finally found a hacked executable [Metal Gear Solid v1.0 [ENGLISH] No-CD/WinXP+Vista+GeForce+ATi Fixed EXE] made by a kind sole to fix the problem.

Another problem which really frustrated me was a “puzzle” in the game referring to looking for information on the “back of the CD case”. I had just received an “optical disk” in the game, however, it appeared to be a floppy disk and no matter what I did I couldn’t find the required information with the item. I figured it must have been a bug and finally gave in and looked it up online. It turns out they meant the actual CD case the game came in had a number [radio frequency] written on the back of it - “140.15”. I can only assume they did this as a means of “copy protection” to frustrate anyone who didn’t actually buy the game. Unfortunately, I acquired the game without a CD case so I was frustrated by this myself.

This kind of system reminded me of the very old days of gaming in which some games asked you to input a certain word from a certain paragraph on a certain page of the manual to enter the game, or asked questions with answers found in the manual. One of the games I had that did the former was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles [1989] for DOS. I have fond memories of playing this and a (monochrome? [green and black :-) ] IIRC?) version of Muppet Adventure: Chaos at the Carnival [1989] (Dear Thor! heh) [also a DOS game] as they were, IIRC, two of my first video games, though I got many others around that time. Both games had later released NES ports too.

My real favorite childhood games however, which are still both cult classics, were Doom, which got me into the design aspect of making games, and most importantly, ZZT, which is what really got me started on programming in 1991 at the age of 5. I still have the original floppy disks for ZZT too :-). ZZT was more scripting than programming though, and I didn’t start real programming until I got into QBasic in 1993. I might release some of my creations for these games one of these days for nostalgic sake ^_^;. I also remember thoroughly enjoying Star Trek: 25th Anniversary for DOS in 1992 :-). I was a nerd even as a kid! ^_^; This game also had copy protection I had forgotten about. As Wikipedia tells:

The game had a copy-protection system in that the player was forced to consult the game’s manual in order to find out which star system they were supposed to warp to on the navigation map. Warping to the wrong system would send them into either the Klingon or Romulan neutral zones, and initiate an extremely difficult battle that often ends with the destruction of the Enterprise.

Doh, I wanted to try posting at least once a day all month and I missed out yesterday because I was just too busy with other stuff, alas.

I had lots of work, mostly house work, to catch up on, culminating in transporting and setting up a new entertainment system, wee. I had to wire the darn thing twice because the first setup really didn’t work well and would have been damaging to the cords; and it takes like an hour each time to do the wiring. Grrrr, oh well.

I originally had all my entertainment stuff set up in my living room, as I assumed that I was going to have guests and would want to watch stuff out there with them on the couch. This has unfortunately turned out to not be the case in this apartment, and I usually only end up going to the living room couch mainly to snuggle with my cat, as she will only get close to me on the couch for some reason, while I have the TV on in the background while I work. Now I can have stuff running in the background whenever I want from my room, and can use the surround sound speakers to play my music, as I am getting tired of my crappy (though better than many) laptop speakers, and headphones are more cumbersome than not.

I bought the new parts of my entertainment system from some [married] friends who finished moving yesterday to a one bedroom in downtown Austin that couldn’t even remotely hold all their stuff, so they were desperately trying to get rid of a lot of it in a hurry. I got a 32" CRT TV [$50], the black shelving unit w/ glass enclosure [$50], and an older computer (512MB of RAM, 780mhz CPU, 80GB hard drive) [$20] to use as a new Home Server. All of these were at about 20% of cost, yay :-).

I really needed the new TV, as my current 32" TV is badly scratched up from being dropped on cement a few years back. I am leaving the old TV hooked up to my current Home Server, which I will now be using as just a multimedia station for that TV and a place for extra backup hard drives. I wanted the “new” computer as a new Home Server, as the current one uses way too much power for what it’s being used for, and is too loud to keep in my room. I’ll be just turning it on when I need it now instead; backing up and watching videos that require too much CPU power that the new computer won’t be able to handle.

The new computer is quite tiny and has no AGP slots, just 2 PCI32 slots. I am therefore looking into getting a $25 (w/ shipping) e-GeForce 5200 PCI card for tv-out. I hope it fits in the small case, because if not, I will just have to leave the case cover off.

(1980 - )
The Boy Who Lived, only known survivor of the Avada Kedavra curse and conqueror of Lord Voldemort, also known as Tom Riddle. Harry Potter joined the reshuffled Auror Department under Kingsley Shacklebolt at age 17, rising to become Head of said department in 2007.

The speeding motorcycle took the sharp corner so fast in the darkness that both policemen in the pursuing car shouted ‘whoa!’ Sergeant Fisher slammed his large foot on the brake, thinking that the boy who was riding pillion was sure to be flung under his wheels; however, the motorbike made the turn without unseating either of its riders, and with a wink of its red tail light, vanished up the narrow side street.

‘We’ve got ‘em now!” cried PC Anderson excitedly. ‘That’s a dead end!”

Leaning hard on the steering wheel and crashing his gears, Fisher scraped half the paint off the flank of the car as he forced it up the alleyway in pursuit.

There in the headlights sat their quarry, stationary at last after a quarter of an hour’s chase. The two riders were trapped between a towering brick wall and the police car, which was now crashing towards them like some growling, luminous-eyed predator.

There was so little space between the car doors and the walls of the alley that Fisher and Anderson had difficulty extricating themselves from the vehicle. It injured their dignity to have to inch, crab-like, towards the miscreants. Fisher dragged his generous belly along the wall, tearing buttons off his shirt as he went, and finally snapping off the wing mirror with his backside.

‘Get off the bike!’ he bellowed at the smirking youths, who sat basking in the flashing blue light as though enjoying it.

They did as they were told. Finally pulling free from the broken wind mirror, Fisher glared at them. They seemed to be in their late teens. The one who had been driving had long black hair; his insolent good looks reminded Fisher unpleasantly of his daughter’s guitar-playing, layabout boyfriend. The second boy also had black hair, though his was short and stuck up in all directions; he wore glasses and a broad grin. Both were dressed in T-shirts emblazoned with a large golden bird; the emblem, no doubt, of some deafening, tuneless rock band.

‘No helmets!’ Fisher yelled, pointing from one uncovered head to the other. ‘Exceeding the speed limit by - by a considerable amount!’ (In fact, the speed registered had been greater than Fisher was prepared to accept that any motorcycle could travel.) ‘Failing to stop for the police!’

‘We’d have loved to stop for a chat,’ said the boy in glasses, ‘only we were trying -’

‘Don’t get smart - you two are in a heap of trouble!’ snarled Anderson. ‘Names!’

‘Names?’ repeated the long-haired driver. ‘Er - well, let’s see. There’s Wilberforce… Bathsheba… Elvendork…’

‘And what’s nice about that one is, you can use it for a boy or a girl,’ said the boy in glasses.

‘Oh, OUR names, did you mean?’ asked the first, as Anderson spluttered with rage. ‘You should’ve said! This here is James Potter, and I’m Sirius Black!’

‘Things’ll be seriously black for you in a minute, you cheeky little -’

But neither James nor Sirius was paying attention. They were suddenly as alert as gundogs, staring past Fisher and Anderson, over the roof of the police car, at the dark mouth of the alley. Then, with identical fluid movements, they reached into their back pockets.

For the space of a heartbeat both policemen imagined guns gleaming at them, but a second later they saw that the motorcyclists had drawn nothing more than -

‘Drumsticks?’ jeered Anderson. ‘Right pair of jokers, aren’t you? Right, we’re arresting you on a charge of -’

But Anderson never got to name the charge. James and Sirius had shouted something incomprehensible, and the beams from the headlights had moved.

The policemen wheeled around, then staggered backwards. Three men were flying - actually FLYING - up the alley on broomsticks - and at the same moment, the police car was rearing up on its back wheels.

Fisher’s knees bucked; he sat down hard; Anderson tripped over Fisher’s legs and fell on top of him, as FLUMP - BANG - CRUNCH - they heard the men on brooms slam into the upended car and fall, apparently insensible, to the ground, while broken bits of broomstick clattered down around them.

The motorbike had roared into life again. His mouth hanging open, Fisher mustered the strength to look back at the two teenagers.

‘Thanks very much!’ called Sirius over the throb of the engine. ‘We owe you one!’

‘Yeah, nice meeting you!’ said James. ‘And don’t forget: Elvendork! It’s unisex!’

There was an earth-shattering crash, and Fisher and Anderson threw their arms around each other in fright; their car had just fallen back to the ground. Now it was the motorcycle’s turn to rear. Before the policemen’s disbelieving eyes, it took off into the air: James and Sirius zoomed away into the night sky, their tail light twinkling behind them like a vanishing ruby.

I got back from a couple day trip to Dallas last night. Man do I hate that drive, especially when it’s raining so hard you can barely see 6 feet in front of you, which seems to happen almost every time any of my friends or family make that drive (from Dallas to Austin or vice versa).

I just now beat Final Fantasy 4 DS too, yay. I was thoroughly happy with the remake they did of the game this time around, of which it had only one or two trifle annoyances of no real consequence, which is surprising for me as I always seem to find heavy fault in everything remade that I held dear as a child. The new game plus feature, as far as I can see, is pretty worthless though, as all it leaves you with is the augments, which I didn’t even use anyways. The cut scenes were all excellent, especially the opening credits pre-rendered cinematics, which I have included below. Now all I really have to wait for is the Chrono Trigger remake they are doing for the DS!!! :-D

I also finished the Eragon books again over the weekend, so with all of that sidetracking stuff out of the way I will be getting back to regularly posting stuff here as promised.

Final Fantasy IV DS Opening High Quality
Stolen from YouTube, owned by SquareSoft


Final Fantasy IV DS Characters Art
Owned by SquareSoft, Image from GamesPress

This is a clip from the TV show “Malcolm in the Middle” in which the protagonist, Malcolm, demonstrates his freakish numeric abilities for the Krelboyne [the advanced learning/gifted class] Circus to save the day (episode “Krelboyne Picnic” Season 1 Episode 8).

I encoded this video, apparently, in February of 2007 and do not recall why. It’s a fun little clip, so instead of deleting it, since I recall that I could not find it at the time for whatever reason, I figured I’d put it here.

I had meant to write this post back when I beat “Zelda: Twilight Princess” a few days after it and the Nintendo Wii came out in 2006, but never got around to it, and the idea of writing about a game that came out long ago seemed rather antiquated. The initiative to write this post popped up again though as I just finished replaying “Zelda: Ocarina of Time” (N64).

I have been a really big Zelda fan for a very long time, and have played most of the series. I got to a GameStop ~8 hours, IIRC, before they started preordering the Wii to make sure I could play Twilight Princess as soon as it came out, as I was very anxious to play it. It was a good thing I did too, because when the Wii actually came out, they were next to impossible to acquire. I knew of many people having to wait in lines well over 15 hours to get one soon after the release, and they were still rarities to attain well over a year later.

While I really enjoyed Twilight Princess, I was very frustrated by a rupee and treasure problem. “Zelda” (NES) and “Link to the Past” (SNES) had it right. Whenever you found a secret in those games it was something really worth it, namely, a heart piece (increased your life meter), or often even a new item. Rupees (in game money) were hard earned through slaying enemies, only rarely given in bulk as prizes, and you almost always needed more. As I played through Twilight Princess, I was very frustrated in that almost every secret I found, while hoping for something worth it like a heart pieces, was almost always a mass of rupees. There were at least 50 chests I knew of by the end of the game filled with rupees that I couldn’t acquire because I was almost always maxed out on the amount I could carry. What’s even worse is that the game provided you a means to pretty much directly pinpoint where all heart pieces were. These problems pretty much ruined the enjoyment of the search for secret treasures in the game. You could easily be pointed directly to where all hearts were, new game items were only acquirable as primary dungeon treasures, and the plethora of rupees was next to worthless.

So, as I was replaying Ocarina of Time, I realized how unnecessary rupees were in that game too. There are really only 2 places in the whole game you need rupees to buy important items; one of which is during your very first task within the first few minutes of the game. The only other use for rupees is for a side quest to buy magic beans which takes up a small chunk of your pocket change through the game, but besides that, there is no point to the money system in the game as you never really need it for anything. What’s even more a slap in the face is that one of the primary side quests in the game just rewards you with larger coin purses to carry more rupees, which again, you will never even need to use.

While these games are extremely fun, this game design flaw just irks me. Things like this will never stop me from playing new Zelda games however, or even replaying the old ones from time to time, especially my by far favorite, Link to the Past, as they are all excellent works. I would even call them pieces of art. Miyamoto forever :-).

I just now finished watching Disney’s “The Black Cauldron”. While a rather poor example of a Disney animated film, there is one element that really caught my surprise. One of the characters, Gurgi, acted, sounded, and moved just like Golem from Peter Jackson’s rendition of Lord of the Rings. The way Gurgi talked, his inflections, his character’s nature and actions were all pretty much exactly how Golem was portrayed. I’m not necessarily saying Gurgi was stolen from LoTR, or Jackson copied Gurgi alternately, but they are a bit too eerily similar for my speculations.

I’ve been on a bit of a Peter Pan kick lately. It all started with catching Hook a few weeks ago, which I’ve always loved and enjoy watching from time, on the boob tube. After finishing it, I remembered that I was given the original Peter Pan novel for a Christmas when I was around 9 years of age or so, and I decided to pick it up on my next trip to my parents’ house in Dallas. I downloaded all the other official Peter Pan films in the mean time for a watch, as I had never seen them before.

One of the main reasons for this was I was also curious as to how the stories differed in the film versions from the original story, and from each other. I found out they all varied greatly, especially in the tone from the novel, except for Hook, which got it perfect. I’m not going to go into a comparison of the stories here, as that is not really important. All I’d really like to mention about the movies is that the Disney’s 2002 “Return to Neverland” was a rather poor rip off of the Hook plot line, and I didn’t really find it worth it. Disney has really lost it’s flair since The Lion King, IMO. “Walt Disney’s Peter Pan” (February 5, 1953) and “Peter Pan” (2003) however were both well worth it.

The main difference I was referring to between most of the movies and the novel is the heavy presence of a dark and sinister theme in the original book. The Lost Boys were just as cut throat as the pirates, as it mentioned the often battles and killing each other in cold bold, and it even mentioned something to the extent of Peter Pan “thinning out the ranks” of the Lost Boys when their numbers got too large, IIRC. The mermaids were silent killers when they got the chance, and there was also talk of “fairy orgies”. I thought this was all great for a children’s book, as it didn’t concentrate on these aspects, but they were there to give a proper setting. It was a very interesting and fun read, but a far cry from the brilliant status it has been given, IMO. Makes me wonder what all the people out there that complain about Harry Potter would say if they gave this one a read. Oh, the only thing Tinkerbelle pretty much ever says throughout the book is “You ass” :-).

Speaking of Harry Potter, it came as a bit of a shock to me seeing Maggie Smith, who plays Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter movies, playing as Granny Wendy in Hook. She did an amazing job at looking decrepit.

One final non-related note… the very briefly overhead Neverland island view shown on Hook really reminded me of my Eternal Realms map.

I made the mistake of trying to watch “Kill Bill”, one of my favorite series of movies, on cable tonight. After suffering through commercials and some horrible edits, I decided it I’d acquire a normal movie copy later on. The edits that werre made to the movie so it could air on TV had me cracking up though. One example was in the long term care hospital the protagonist was staying at with the character “Buck” who “liked to fuck”. He had the word “FUCK” tattooed across one of his hand’s knuckles and his car was named and branded as the “Pussy Wagon”. Since this kind of thing was obviously too much for TV audiences, anytime the word “fuck” was said, it was dubbed over with the word “party”, and his branded car and keychain that said “Pussy Wagon” were overlaid on the screen as “Party Wagon”. It was terribly obtrusive and silly, but it had me laughing at least.

I am a big fan of many SquareSoft games, namely, Final Fantasy 4 (US2), Final Fantasy 6 (US3), and Chrono Trigger. I played all of these on the Super Nintendo many many years ago, and still replay them from time to time through emulator.

I recently recalled that re-releases of these games on the PlayStation consoles included cut scenes, so I decided to look them up. I figured these would be of use to anyone in my boat who is a fan of the old school games but never got to see these.

I included the original links to these videos, which contain author credits, in the title. All videos were found on YouTube, and of course, owned by SquareSoft.

I have been a very long time fan of the anime series GTO (Great Teacher Onizuka), though I have only ever owned and seen the first 4 of 10 DVDs.  The series is heavily geared towards adolescent males (shonen) and has its immaturity insecurities, but it’s still a great romantic comedy, with the romantic part paling to the comedy.

So I very recently acquired the rest of the series, and really wish I had just left it off on the forth DVD (19th episode), where the series planning obviously ended. Up to that point, it was very strongly plot driven with character development as the primary outlet.  It then turned into entirely filler content with very loose and unrealistic plot. The series was actually following the manga (comic) plot line through episode 14 when it bypassed it in timeline.  But really, I couldn’t believe how everything past that point was just so much a waste of time.  How people can turn such things of beauty (not necessarily the series visually, but the storyline...) into utter rubbish so quickly always catches me off guard, though I know I should be used to it by now.

Extending series past their originally planned plotline and churning out utter crap is a very common problem among television shows, and especially in anime, as the Japanese have a way of carrying things on for way too long.  Think Mario, Zelda, Pokemon, and Power Rangers, but those are just a few examples of Japanese long standing IPs that actually made it to America.  American’s may have a way for milking things for all they are worth for profit, but the Japanese not only have extra profit as a driving force, but also incredibly obsessive fan bases (Otaku) demanding more content.

• Nadia - See previous post for more information
• Kodomo no Omocha (Kodocha), a SUPER girly (Shojo) anime, another of my favorite series, is 100% plot drive excellence.  Up through episode 19, which I believe to be the true ending of Season 1, the multitudes of brilliantly interweaving story arcs are breath taking and moving. From this point, it continued on for another 83 episodes (102 total) of which I have only seen through episode 44. While the general series worthiness seriously degrades at this turning point, it is still a lot of super-hyper-spastic-fun.
• Full Metal Alchemist, yet another of my favorite series, is an actual example of this problem NOT happening, though it has it happen in a different form.  The series has a strong plot driven and well organized vibe that makes me believe the original 51 episodes were all mostly planned out from the start, but a few inconsistencies between beginning and late episodes makes me not entirely sure. The problem comes in the form of the movie, which I felt to be a complete waste of time to watch. I will expand upon this in the future.
• The Simpsons, which really should have ended in season 3, which I like to call “Classic Simpsons”, turned into utter retard-like-babbling rubbish somewhere in seasons 7-10. It was initially a very intriguing show, with witty characters (yes, homer was in a manner quite witty) and plot, but unfortunately, the series degraded by pushing the characters stereotypes way too far and making them boring, repetitive, and predictable, repeating the same basic plots and jokes time and time again.
• And finally, Stargate SG1, which needed to end in Season 7 when the Goa’uld were pretty much defeated, and is still harboring a bastard child known as Stargate Atlantis. While the shows may still have some basic entertainment value, they are still mere husks of their former glory.

OK, so I lied last time and am not doing the second half of my medical stuff post like planned, and will save that for later.  I should be posting happy stuff on a supposed-to-be-happy day like today anyways ^_^;.  Most of you out there who have heard of Gainax know of it due to Neon Genesis Evangelion (better known, and hereby referred to, as Eva), their “ground breaking” series released in ‘95-‘96.  I’d have to say this was, and may still be, the most well known good anime series, meaning not including such tripe as Dragon Ball Z, Pokemon, Digimon, Sailor Moon (which isn’t THAT bad actually...), etc.  It always gave me a bad tremble whenever I mentioned anime to general people and they replied with “oh, you mean (like) Sailor Moon?” But anyways... I should let you know beforehand, most of this post is a history of anime and some interesting info on the anime Nadia.

The TV series Gainax did immediately before Eva, Nadia: Secret of the Blue Water, released in ‘89-‘91, is one of, if not my favorite anime series.  You can definitely see the influence it had on Eva too.  Before I talk about Nadia though, a little history about Gainax first.  If anyone is really interested, check out their OVA (Original Video Animation) “Otaku no Video” release in ’91, which is KIND OF an autobiographical parody.  I just picked up a copy for myself with some of the Chanukah/Xmas I received this year ^_^.  Basically, Gainax is made up of a bunch of otaku.  So these anime otaku in the mid ‘80s were of the mindset of “man, we can do better than all the shit that’s coming out”, so they started their own “amateur” company of fervent obsessed fans, and revolutionized the industry with their brilliance.  A good chunk of what they do is worth a watch, though I am not quite a fan of all their stuff, it all has its own fun nuances and radiance to it that can only be found by people that truly love what they are doing.

So, back to Nadia.  I’d rather not really go into the story because I don’t want to ruin anything for anyone that may choose to watch it, but it is heavily based around Jules Verne’s works, most specifically around Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and the exploits of Captain Nemo, though with the usual crazy Japanese anime twist.  It takes place in 1889-1890 and has a very steam punk feel to it.  Disney’s 2001 Atlantis: The Lost Empire is actually quite a blatant rip of Nadia too, and not even an iota as worth it, IMO.  I have also heard The Lion King was a pretty blatant rip of Kimba the White Lion, an anime from the mid 1960s.  I cannot personally confirm this however, and can’t complain much as The Lion King is one of my two favorite Disney movies, along with Aladdin.  But um... back to the topic on hand... darn tangents!!  Nadia weaves many different genres very excellently into its story including science fiction, adventure, mystery, comedy, and a hint of romance, but maintains its silly mood throughout, even when dealing with clichéd “difficult” topics like killing, death, and general genocide :-).  The main characters are Nadia and Jean, an engineering genius Frenchman, who are excellent foils for each other.  One example is how Nadia is one of those “dear god how can you possibly even think about eating a dead animal” vegetarians, which Jean just can’t comprehend “what are you talking about, it’s meat”.  And then you bring in the well-mannered 4 year old Marie who is always complaining about how immature/ill mannered the adults are... it’s just a very fun series with a lot of memorable and lovable characters.

So after finishing the ~40 episodes over a week, I went and checked the Wikipedia article on it and found some very fascinating facts, namely tying in Miyazaki with the series, which was a shocker too me.  Hayao Miyazaki is by far my most respected (anime?) director, I believe.  Most people would know of his works under the anime studio Studio Ghibli, though he doesn’t only do stuff for them, and they have other directors too, but Ghibli and Miyazaki are generally pretty synonymous.  I have multiple other topics written down on Miyazaki that I will talk about later, and will post a good list of Miyazaki/Ghibli titles I made a while ago as soon as I can find it.  Anyways, some of the more interesting trivia notes I stole from Wikipedia are as follows:

• This show’s origins date back to the mid-1970s when Hayao Miyazaki was hired by Japanese movie giant Toho to develop ideas for television series. One of these concepts was "Around the World Under the Sea", (adapted from Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea), in which two orphan children pursued by villains team up with Captain Nemo and the Nautilus. It was never produced, but Toho retained the rights for the story outline. This explains why Anime fans often liken Nadia to a Miyazaki production; the animator reused elements from his original concept in later projects of his, notably the Sci-Fi series Future Boy Conan and his action-adventure film Castle in the Sky.
• Approximately ten years later, Gainax was appointed by Toho in 1989 to produce a TV series which would be broadcast on the Japanese educational network NHK. Miyazaki’s outline for "Around the World Under the Sea" was the one which captivated Gainax the most. Under the direction of Hideaki Anno, the animation studio took the central story and setup Miyazaki had developed and touched it up with their own creativity. (incidentally, Anno had previously worked for Miyazaki as an animator on Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.)
• Nadia showed up on the Japanese Animage polls as favorite Anime heroine, dethroning the then top champion, Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaa.
• Nadia was originally intended to have an estimated 30 episodes. Since the show was so popular in Japan, however, NHK requested Gainax to produce more episodes, extending the episode count to 39. These episodes, dubbed as the "infamous island episodes" (which begin on Episode 23 and conclude on Episode 34), took hits for poor animation (since, as mentioned, other animation studios in Japan and Korea produced these episodes), ill-conceived plotting, and character stupidities; consequently, they drove many fans away. Only by Episodes 35-39 does the show return to its initial roots wherein lies its appeal. The setting of these episodes was suggested by Jules Verne’s other novel featuring Captain Nemo, Mysterious Island.
• According to the notes found in the DVD sleeve of the Italian edition, the true reason behind the difference between the "infamous island episodes" and the rest of the series, would be that production was late on schedule. Starting with episode 11, Anno was working up to 18 hours a day on the series, and yet he was unable to cope with the screenplay, which was then handed to the storyboard team. After episode 20 (aired September 21, 1990), NHK put Nadia on hold to make space for news coverage on the Gulf War: the series returned about a month later with episode 21 (aired on October 26th). Nonetheless production was still late, and Anno asked friend and Gainax co-founder Shinji Higuchi to take over the direction of the series, while he was going to focus on the ending. According to the same source, Anno would have stated that episodes 30 and 31 were the only he would have saved among the Island Chapter ones, while episode 34 was entirely scrapped and replaced by edited sequences of previous episodes.
• At the start of each episode, a Japanese inscription appears on screen (written in the Latin alphabet) and is read by a man’s voice challenging the viewer to follow him for an adventure. "Are you adventurers? Do you seek the truth behind the mythical being that lies beneath the blue waterfalls named The Perilous. If you are, then you must first find me." This derives from the perplexing challenge of Arne Saknussemm in Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth.
• The series contains numerous nods to other Japanese television series, as is to be expected in a series by Gainax, which is famously comprised of "otaku" (fervent anime fans). Ostensibly, the Grandis Gang are modeled after the villains from Tatsunoko’s Time Bokan series, and M78, the home system of the Atlanteans, is also the home of Tsuburaya’s Ultraman.
• In the Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual, authors Michael Okuda and Rick Sternbach state that the superconducting crystals used in Starfleet phasers are called fushigi no umi. Sternbach is a noted fan of anime.

One of the most important notes here is the forth and fifth bullets talking about the “infamous island episodes”.  While they are still in the general Nadia style, and are fun, they have their downsides.  I would personally even recommend skipping at least one and a half of these episodes, due to them being so worthless. They are:

• A large chunk of #26 “King’s on his Own” - After Jean gets knocked out after a terribly silly Wile E. Coyote falling gag homage and he dreams of inventing 21st century technologies.
• Most, if not all, of #34 “Love to Nadia”, which is a “singing recap” episode.  What I remember of the songs are especially atrocious.

On that note, the movie really isn’t worth watching at all either.  Especially the first 1/3 (30 minutes) of the movie, as it is nothing but a recap of the series.

Oh, also, the original title was translated as “Nadia of the Mysterious Seas”.

I read through Eragon and Eldest, the first two books of the Inheritance Cycle, by Christopher Paolini, a while back, and was very happy with the novels, mainly for the relationship between the two protagonists, Eragon and his dragon Saphira.  The fantasy novels brought in a bunch of new possibilities of fun with dragon lore and their abilities, a topic which has, to my knowledge, never really been elaborated or expanded on in the past to this kind of extent, though I have heard the lores in these books bears a large resemblance to a novel called Dragonriders of Pern.  I would recommend the Inheritance Cycle to anyone looking for a fun, though not necessarily quick, fantasy read.  The series was originally supposed to be three novels, but as of a few months ago it was announced that it would be four.  The third book should be coming out in September of next year, which I am waiting in anticipation for, though nowhere near the level of excitement as any of the Harry Potter books brought me.

The reason for this post though is to actually rant about the movie adaptation.  One pet peeve of mine is people that say movies or TV shows are horrible without ever having given them a viewing, let alone a chance.  I am the kind of person that will usually sit through anything, no matter how bad I feel it is, just so I can talk to people about it afterwards and be able to validly say why I did or did not enjoy it.  This, however, did not apply to the Eragon movie.  I was retching after about three minutes and think I got through five to ten minutes before I was so thoroughly disgusted I had to stop and just fast forward through the rest to see different parts I was curious about.  Which was a mistake as the rest was even worse than the beginning.  It was that bad.  The movie was very obviously a ploy by the studios to milk in some money by throwing out a half baked fantasy movie trying to parallel Lord of the Rings in style.  I honestly don’t know how it got as far as it did.

I went to do some research and found out the director, Stefen Fangmeier, who had mainly been a visual effects guy in the industry, had no prior experience as a primary director, and only one as a secondary director, and was about as suited to the job as Bush Jr. would be to playing Jeopardy.  What’s even worse is who wrote the screenplay, Peter Buchman, who’s only previous screenplay work had been... get this... Jurassic Park 3.  I’m not even going to go there.

I really have to wonder how the hell those 2 got ahold of the license to make the movie.  The book was, after all, a New York Times #1 seller.  The publishers must have really dropped the ball on this one, or maybe Paolini, being pretty much still a kid by the time he finished the first novel (19), somehow got taken advantage of.  I just find the situation to be horribly sad.

It probably didn’t help that I didn’t expect much at all from the movie as I had heard about its huge flop after opening, with many dedicated fans of the novels walking out of the theater in tears of disappointment.

On another slightly-related note, it has been rumored as of today that it is now official that Peter Jackson will be producing 2 Hobbit movies.  We shall see, but I would be very happy if it was true.  I thought Jackson did the best possible job that could have been done on the movies.  I only had one major complaint, in that Gimli was really given a short end of the stick throughout them, though at least they picked John-Rhys who was perfect for the part.  Gimli was one of my favorite characters in the novels, and they substituted any of his glory to his pretty-boy counterpart elf, Legolas.  I also had a few minor quibbles with it, including some scenes I had wished to have seen (ie Bombadil), but were left out for obvious reasons, and that they changed around bits of the story so some actors would get more screen time and they wouldn’t have to introduce others, like Arwen stealing roles of multiple other elves.  Alas.  The thing I liked most about them was how well the CG was integrated with the live action shooting.  I still consider it the best job done integrating CG into a movie I’ve seen; so well that you can no longer tell that it’s clearly computer generated.

So I’ve been rewatching lots of old shows over the past few years that I watched as a kid and remember enjoying.  The latest reinstallment of this pattern would be Disney’s Gargoyles.  It’s still a lot of fun to watch even though the antagonists’ plots are a little... unbelievable sometimes :-).  The main reason I wanted to mention it though was the fact that it has a plethora of star trek actors, mostly from Next Generation, showing up in it.  Hearing familiar voices I recognize always makes me smile, especially when put to animated characters.  The ones I’ve recognized so far are:

But of course, many of these actors have played dozens to hundreds of other rolls and deserve to be known for more than just Star Trek, including recently Nichelle Nichols on Heroes, right after George Takei (Sulu) left the stage.  If you haven’t ever seen any of Takei’s stand up, I would like to note it’s good stuff, and that he has a wonderful sense of humor.

On another note, John Rhys has always been one of my favorite actors too.  He’s been in more things than you could shake a stick at, and you probably wouldn’t have even realized about half of them.  Most people nowadays would most readily recognize him as Gimli from the Lord of the Rings movies.

One other recent smile came during rewatching DuckTales.  I’m sure anyone of my age group that watched the show will remember the Golden Goose episodes.  I had just noticed on a recent rewatching of the series that when the mystical water is used to turn things back from gold, it uses the lightsaber activation sound :-).

I’ve been a Star Trek fan for as long as I can remember... which goes back to at least the age of 3. One of my first memories is watching the live airing of a Star Trek The Next Generation (STTNG) episode in which a parasitic alien race, very much like the Goa’uld that come much later in Stargate, tries to take over Star Fleet.

I’ve religiously watched STTNG, Deep Space 9 (DS9), and Voyager through the years, and quit at that point with much animosity towards Enterprise and Star Trek: Nemesis.

Anyways, let’s get to the point of this post. I have recently started watching the 3 seasons of The Original Star Trek (TOS). My only impressions before this had been made up by seeing a random episode or two over the years, which screamed campiness to me. I can honestly now say though, after getting through a number of episodes, it’s still, after so many years, quite fun. And that’s saying something, as old stuff usually seems crappy unless you have nostalgia towards it.

The 2 things I respected most about STTNG and future co-spinoffs, for as long as they held it... was that they TRIED to maintain a proper continuity starting with STTNG. At the beginning, it was rare that they ever contradicted themselves, but as the legacy grew, the inconsistencies started becoming ridiculous. This has been my opinion for many years, and now that I am watching through TOS, I can finally see how bad it can really get (well, to be honest, I think Enterprise went way beyond anything in this regard, but I didn’t watch enough of it to talk about it in an informed manner. I will only talk about thing’s I’ve seen enough of to bash, and yes, I have gone through a lot of crap purposely for this reason...). It is actually quite good, however, that STTNG disregarded quite a bit of the original canon because it would have ruined the universe in a manner.

For example, in one of the first episodes of TOS, they traveled back in time by no special means other than pushing their engines faster than warp X. There was another early episode where they had fully functioning androids and the (slightly abused) machinery that created them (contradicting Data of STTNG). These are just two of many other “large” cans of worms they opened up by being too “open ended”. However, the producers made the right decision, IMO, and scrapped all the canon from TOS that they wanted and only made reference to it when they felt like it, starting the true canon of the Star Trek universe with Jean-Luk and his crew all the way through the end of DS9 and Voyager.

I am still very anxious to continue watching TOS but time has been very constrained lately and my multitasking abilities have diminished significantly over the years... a large part I’m sure from medications I take (such as for ADD or whatnot...).

On another random point about the Star Trek universe, while watching TOS, I found myself really enjoying the short costumes on all the female characters. I myself am quite the feminist, so this would usually go against my views, but for some reason, it fits real well and makes it more of a... shall I put it... fun/less serious atmosphere ^_^;. They tried to carry this legacy over to STTNG with Diana Troy in her “relatively skimpy” outfit(s), but they really did not do a good job of it. It just did not fit, at all. There was a specific episode were Picard is forced to leave the ship (to find some Romulan device that he has specific knowledge of due to a senior thesis or something), and another captain takes over. It raised my eyebrow when he harshly ordered Diana to put on a proper uniform, but he was completely right in doing so. I believe this might have been the producers/directors attempt at commenting on the issue.

The final thing I noticed that I wanted to comment on was just a little giggle for me. In the very first episode of TOS (with Shatner, not counting “The Cage” pilot with Pike) in which a crewman gains god-like powers, he creates/materializes a grave for Kirk, which reads “James R. Kirk” - which as we all know, Kirk was given the middle name of “Tiberius”, as he is often cited as “James T. Kirk” .... Just one of those minor continuity things that you wonder why they hadn’t caught it at the time... or maybe they decided to ignore it and still go with “Tiberius” as it is a pretty cool middle name.

Anyways, Star Trek (OST, STTNG, DS9, Voyager) & Star Gate (Seasons 1-7) are all very good stuff that do not date too badly on social issues. For anyone open to checking out new stuff who hasn’t tried watching either of these (is that possible that anyone hasn’t ever been exposed to at least one Star Trek series?), they are well worth it.