Last Saturday I had to skip my anime club meeting to go to the beach. I was upset about missing the meeting, but it would have been difficult convincing my father to skip beach on Saturday since I had already convinced him to leave on Thursday so I could go to Otakon (there's no way I'm making the trip to the beach in my own car). At the beach I got sunburned pretty bad out on my uncle's boat, on Monday. Then on Tuesday, my cousins and I went out on the boat again, for even longer. Ore wa baka. Angry sunburn. Never applied so much lotion in so short a time before in my life.

So I come back on Thursday, get home and can't remember a damn thing to do. I unpack everything I don't need for Otakon (dirty clothes and such), and now I'm packed for Friday's trip to Baltimore. I wish I had set my alarm to get me up earlier, because it took a really long time to get there due to traffic. I heard it was really light in the morning. Then, the massive at-con line, which I hear also wasn't bad in the morning. Fortunately I saw my friend [name removed to protect person until I ask him if it's okay], and he invited me to cut in line. Normally I wouldn't do such a thing, but after five minutes of walking I hadn't found the end of the line.

Had I remembered to check the forums on my anime club's website, I would've known about a lunch meeting after the first Megatokyo panel. Friday I had been hanging out with friends almost all day. Saturday, I didn't see anyone till late afternoon, so the lunch thing would've been really cool for me. That and apparently nobody showed up for it, so it would've just been me and the asian girl in the pink kimono (which would've been cool).

I didn't take many pictures. In fact, I only took two pictures of cosplayers. Most of the time I didn't even have my camera with me. I wished I had a video camera, especially when I saw a cute redhead in a black Chinese dress doing DDR in the Video Game room. Not to sound like a pervert, but damn. I wasn't the only one who wished he had a video camera for that. I've definately gotta get me one for the next con (a video camera, and a cute redhead). My friend Matt disagreed with me, saying that there weren't any good costumes, but I retorted by telling him how I judge a costume by the chick wearing it. You'd never know how perverted I am by looking at me.

Was it just me, or was everyone who dressed as Alucard from Hellsing short?

I have to give madd props to the people in the dealer's room who were selling the Chinese dresses and Japanese school-girl uniforms. That was cool. I didn't buy one, but a lot of cute girls did. That was one of the things that made this year's Otakon so great, even though the cosplay sucked (unfairly comparing it to the awesome cosplay Katsucon 8 had, and keep in mind I missed the first 45 minutes). It wasn't so much the events that were going on that made this my best con so far, it was more the fact that I saw everyone I knew that was there, and most of them multiple times. I consider an anime convention to be a 3-day party with several thousand people (12,000+ for this one) and a theme, and I've found if you go with that mentality, you'll have a lot more fun.

I'll probably do a write-up of my actual memories from the con later. Right now this post is too long as it is.

The first video game ever was multi-player. Both players had to be there to play it, but it was, in fact, multi-player. The first game ever was multi-player. Most sports are games, and what sport is fun by itself? The point is that games should be played by more than one people.

Introduce the internet. Now a lot of people can play the same game with a lot of other people they've never even met. While it's true most people are fuckheads, it's fun to play these games with other people rather than by yourself against the patternistic computer.

Grand Theft Auto 3 should be multi-player. I've heard rumors that the next one, Vice City, will be multi-player, but I haven't heard anything more than rumors. I can imagine what it would be like running amok in a city with 30 other people doing the same thing throughout town. Ah, the crazy shit you'd see. You're cruising down the street in your brand new cop car, the suddenly a bus on fire comes crashing into the street out of nowhere, helicopters and police cars chasing it down. The bus explodes, setting all the cop cars on fire, which in turn explode causing more explosions. This scene would scare the shit out of you in real life, but it would be cool as hell in a video game.

During the Warcraft 3 beta, there was a good version of Tower Defense. Now they all suck. I'll probably just have to make my own version.

Morrowind seems like it would be a great MMORPG. It's got many things I think MMORPGs need, and a nice big massive world for them to play in. There's just two problems with it: 1. Even on my 950 Athlon and GeForce4 Ti 4200, it runs slow. 2. It's single-player.

Now I completely dig much of the concepts of the game, but there seems to be too much dead space for this lone player to wander around in. Just about everything kicks my ass, and it seems like I spend more time reading than doing anything else (NPC dialogue is written more like a book than a dialogue). In a world where patience = 30 seconds (that being the real world), this doens't work out too well. There's also way too much repeat dialogue. Why would I talk to anyone else in a town if they're all going to say the same thing? Okay, about three people will say something different, but they look just like everyone else and are difficult to find. There should be some kind of indicator that lets me know if I should bother talking to a person.

What's cool about Morrowind is all the stuff you can do. This is also why I think it would make a great MMORPG. I think RPGs need the ability to do more stuff in them. I also like the openness of the game, how I can right away go wherever the hell I want and do whatever the hell I want. I think the followable plotline needs to be more evident so people used to Final Fantasy don't get so easily lost. I'm the kind of guy who wants to do all the other stuff, so it doesn't even matter to me, but most people I've talked to don't even know there is a plotline you can follow (when you start the game, they give you a task, and just about everyone ignores it).

I still don't understand why it runs so damn slow, though. There doesn't appear to be that many more visible polygons than in other games. Grand Theft Auto 3 runs fine on my system, all the (few) options turned on, view distance maxed out (which has no impact on when people and cars appear, mind you). I think they need to do distance optimizations like everyone else does. The problem is probably just the engine trying to render shit you can't even see.

Well, here's to hoping that the perfect MMORPG comes along one day. It certainly isn't out yet. Look at my wishlist of stuff I want out of a MMORPG if you're really bored. E-mail me with your suggestions and if I like them I'll add them with your name/alias.

Neverwinter Nights was supposed to deliver a new kind of CRPG, one that had an "all-powerful DM" overseeing the game. It was supposed to be closer to tabletop RPGs than anything ever before. So why does it feel like an advanced version of Diablo?

I found the DM tools to be lacking in the "all-powerful" department. I can posess characters, make them run around, say whatever I want them to at oportune times. I can kill characters, res characters, place monsters and such. I find this avatar to be extermely limiting, though. Why do I, as the DM, have to run around obstacles like the players do? Sure, I run at 6x the speed, but shouldn't I just be able to go through them. Why do I need an avatar in the first place? I should just be able to scroll around like in Baldur's Gate, and select where I want to go from a map, like in Baldur's Gate. Camera angle isn't something I should have to bother with.

From a player's perspective, I've found that I just run around attacking things. Short of dialogue and puzzles, both of which are infrequent, I'm just engaging in combat. Traps are weak. Where are my pit traps? There's just too much stuff missing for it to be comparable to table-top.

I remember playing tabletop D&D. We did things like hire torchbearers to go out front and get snagged by traps or eaten by ogres so we'd know they were there. We tied a hook onto the end of a rope, threw it up at a chest, and pulled said chest down. Hell, one campaign started off with my party burning the town we started in to the ground (ah, to be chaotic neutral). The torchbearers could be handled by simply having more control over hirelings, the rest would be taken care of by the currently available tools. The hook on the rope would require a massive overhaul of the physics and play engine, so that just wouldn't work. The burning towns down thing I can live without, and should never have been successful in the first place (bad DM).

There's a lot of spells and abilities that are missing, too. Fly, levitate, color, slow fall, etc. 3rd Edition makes D&D more computer-friendly, but they didn't completely remove the ability to do non-combat non-dialogue stuff. That's what I really want out of an RPG that I just don't get out of CRPGs. Combat I can get out of action games. Dialogue and the level of character development are really only available in RPGs, but neither is anything new. At least the tools are powerful enough so that dialogue actually matters. If you want to do anything else, though, you basically have to program it in as a dialogue, so it would be like a text adventure all of a sudden, which is something I would actually like to see a lot more of in this game.

Basically I think the engine is just too weak to support my idea of RPG. Maybe if Looking Glass got back together and did a project with Bioware, it would all work out. Thief had a lot of features I think NWN is missing (especially for thieves). Well, before I make this post too long (too late)...

It's request day. Sony didn't want Bleem around because they were afraid people would stop developing for their system if everyone just played their games on the computer. They were afraid the playstation would just be seen as a convenience. Well, dammit, I want that convenience.

I want a console system that plays PC games. I want a system I can throw into my backpack, take over to my friend's house, hook it up to their TV, plug in some controllers, and play computer games on. I know there's efforts in the works to make the Xbox do this, but I want a console specifically designed for it. A toteable (not a real word) computer, if you will, but not a laptop. An item of convenience.

Developers wouldn't have to completely redesign their games to match the system specs, they could just have an optimization of settings for the game and the console would run it. That would be a system I'd buy into. Of course, there's half a bilion problems with making it, such as Operating Systems. Microsoft would make a fortune off of licensing. If it ran Linux, it would only play Linux-compatible games... which would encourage more game development for Linux... that's a damn good idea. There's already many games that run on Linux. But then there's still other issues, like how the company putting this out would actually make money off of it (you may not know this, but the makers of consoles make all their money through software licensing, and actually lose money on the hardware).

If someone figures out the secret to success of this, they'd probably make a small fortune. We can always hope.

There should be a button on CD-ROM drives that allows me to manually eject them. I know they can do this. Most CD-ROM drives have a tiny hole into which you can insert a pin of some kind, which causes the tray to pop out. Pulling it out manually probably isn't good for the drive, but if your computer is powered off, it's either that or power it on. I've also found that paperclips tend to mysteriously disappear whenever I need to manually eject a CD. That's why there should be a button. The CD-ROM should also be designed with this button in mind, so it has a smooth eject rather than forcing the user to pull it out while listening to the resistance of the gears.

This is just a minor blight on this world, but god damn is it annoying.

Last night I went to see Rush in concert. I hadn't been to a Rush concert before, but based on their live album and what few videos I had seen of them playing, I wasn't expecting much. For the first hour, I got pretty much what I expected, and wondered if it was really worth coming. Then they took a 15-minute break. You see, rather than have a band open for them, they just opened for themselves. Then, something happened. Rush came back out while everyone was distracted by a little CG that was displayed on the monitor, and suddenly started to, for lack of a better term, kick ass.

While the first hour of the concert was a little disappointing, the following two hours were amazing. I think the first hour was designed as a warm up. While the sun still lights the sky, special effects are mostly useless. So, obviously they saved their best stuff for nightfall. The special effects weren't the kind that make you shit your pants, but the performances by the band certainly were. Their studio recordings pale in comparison. They are definately a better band in concert.

Neil Peart's drum solo (the rhythm method) got the most applause, but no one sang along to it. While it does seem to have some basic construction, all the bootlegs I've heard of him doing it are different. It's worth going to the concert for this part alone. Geddy Lee should've done a bass solo.

My only complaint is that the speakers obviously couldn't handle the volume, so every time Alex Lifeson did anything on his guitar there was a massive amount of static-type noise (there's a term for it in the music industry, but I don't know what it is). I'm sure if it hadn't been for that I could praise his performance as well, but I couldn't hear it all that well through the unintended distortion. I've found that most large concerts I attend have that problem, though. Even Tori Amos had the problem when I saw her back in October.

I'm not much of a concert goer myself, but I'd definately go see Rush again. Even if you've never heard of them (you live under a rock), go to their website, see if they're coming to your area, then try to get tickets. If it's sold out, get to the show early, and find a scalper. Normally I hate scalpers, but for this I'd buy a ticket from one if I had to. If you're lucky, you get one from someone who's friend copped out and he's selling it for face value.

If life is indeed a journey, what's the destination? Death? Sounds like a journey I don't want to make. I'll just stop here and hang out for a while, if you don't mind.

But people always say that we should slow down, enjoy the ride, because life is a journey. Always wondering why people are trying to get where they're going so fast, running around so fast. We don't have much time in this journey, and we want to spend as much time at our own determined destinations as possible. I know I don't like to spend several hours getting somewhere only to spend five minutes there then go back home. I want to be there for five hours and spend five minutes getting there and home, because I probably like the place I'm going to, hence me going there. On my way to and from work, the time spent on the journey is time I'm not at home. Home is where I usually want to be.

"This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time." - Chuck Palahniuk

I originally posted this in my anime club's forum, but I figured I ought to repost it here because I can.

I used to have these really terrible nightmares. Last night was the first one I've had in over a year.

Giant two-headed dog was coming out of a thick fog with green chain lightning going through it (the fog, not the dog), and the dog was eating people off the ground. I was, of course, watching all this from my room in the creepy mansion teeting at the top of a mountain spire. Freaky stuff ensues. Not quite the end-of-the-world type stuff. Not nearly as bad as the stuff I used to get a couple years ago. I found out that the whole "if you die in your dream, you die for real" thing isn't true (not that I ever thought it was). It is really freaky, though.

Through nightmares I've seen wars of nothing but cannon fodder, complete with cannons. I've seen the skies and forests burn as a result of large fireballs falling from the sky (one of which hit and killed me). I've seen hundreds of people fall to their deaths from floating buildings (that was the most grotesque and disturbing dream I've ever had). I've seen the night's sky during the day, and life quashed from the surrounding lands, which is a lot more frightening than it sounds. There's a lot of stuff you can see in movies that I won't get into.

I was actually having these nightmares at a particularly good period of my life. Aside from the constant nightmares, I was having the best time. I'm pretty sure I've got an evil subconscious that makes sure some aspect of my life is bad. Honestly, I would've been okay with the nightmares if any of them would've made good subject material for short stories (one of them did, which is available on my website, story titled City Trains). Armageddon came out long after I had my "fireballs from the sky" dream, and that was a terrible movie.

In closing, I can't think of anything to close with.

I should've edited it first.

In my humble opinion, the best fireworks aren't the ones you light and run away from. I can watch similar spectacles with better sound on my computer. To me, the most fun ones are the ones you hold, or the ones you setup in cool fassions so they do stuff they're not intended to. There's these tanks you can buy that actual shoot stuff out of them. You're supposed to just light them and watch, but it's more fun to set a bunch of them up in two angled rows facing each other, then light the first one, and watch the battle. Sparklers are good, too. They can light other fireworks, like the grain alocohol I've spelled my name out with in cursive on the street (can't do that where I currently live, as there's a lot more cars).

I think the people that go somewhere to watch someone else have fun with fireworks are missing out. So you get to see balls of dotted light expand in the sky, making more and more visible the air pollution they've produced. They never do what I want to see. 50 fireworks all at once. Then after the light dies down, a flare flies through the remaining cloud so you know just how much smoke is up there. An illuminated fog of char. What an interesting world we live in where setting fire to our sky makes us happier.

If you'll excuse me, I have to go point a roman candle at someone's open window. I always knew geometry would come in handy.

Right Stuf has assured me that I will get my copy of Kare Kano in a couple weeks. This puts it at just two months after its release date. So, not only do they push back the release two years, they release it, but don't make enough copies, so no one gets their copy for another two months. I'm sure something will happen to delay it another two weeks, then another two days, somehow. I haven't bought a DVD in a long while, and I said to myself, "That's the DVD I'm going to buy next." So I preordered it about a week before the release date. And yet I'm still waiting on it. If they knew they weren't going to have enough copies to fill the preorders made on their site alone, why didn't they just push back the release date rather than lead everyone on to think it was actually coming out that day? Bastards. Damn good thing it's got six episodes on it.

No, the title is not a pun. Dammit.