January 2005

Ow, my cranium!
Submitted Monday, January 31, 2005 - 4:32:38 AM by Klaitu

After a hard day of slogging through CGI and HTML codes, it's a fine time to go and take a nap! Enjoy the new colors and completely random title image!

In the meantime.. Dormata!

This is a Test
Submitted Sunday, January 30, 2005 - 11:25:23 PM by Klaitu

This is only a Test!

but if you must know, this is a test of the old icons on the new color palette.. as you might have noticed, some of the old icons look like crap on light blue. They'll be upgraded sooner or later.

In the meantime, I guess you can enjoy the parade of icons!

Krazy Kolor Konfluence
Submitted Sunday, January 30, 2005 - 4:52:41 PM by Klaitu

(The good KKK)

This is usually where you'd see the guy shovelling pudding with the words "under construction" placed somewhere in the vicinity.

Anyways, it's time for Special K version 2.0! Coming Soon!

Oldschool Adventures
Submitted Saturday, January 29, 2005 - 2:55:31 AM by Klaitu

I've been cleaning out the mess my root canal left.. mainly in that I just dumped entire huge folders onto my spare drive. Old mp3's, some old MIDI files, and even some somewhat old screenshots.

Ahh, good times!

I've got some highlights from the Adventures of Klaitu-Ben Johhn and Goldberry in the wonderful world of Star Wars Galaxies!

Clever Klaitu
I'm a master at stating the obvious, nevertheless.. I felt it had to be said!

Tough Guy
I found this one particularly ironic. "I've taken worse in basic training" he says.. oh, and that explosion, that's from Jax's ROCKET LAUNCHER. Silly NPC!

The X-Files
Way back when I took this picture, I knew we reminded me of someone.. and now it comes through loud and clear! We look like Mulder and Scully! Okay, well a tripped out sci-fi Mulder and Scully, but still. Oh, and that's GB beside me.

Dental Hygiene
In space, Dental Hygiene is important. A Lightning Cannon was pretty important too, and I wasn't too bad at shooting them, either.

Jabba's Guts
Here I am ripping out Jabba the Hutt's Guts! Actually, I was just giving the old lug a hug.. I was on a quest to hug everyone from the movies. You should have seen the one where I was hugging Boba Fett, it's just wrong.

GB's Sword
I have to say, some of GB's martial arts moves were pretty spectacular.. such as this one, where she missed me by just inches!

Fields of Grass
Here's me and GB taking a breather from the harsh life of.. well, stuff killers. It's also one of the few screenshots I took with my graphics card on Max.. looks pretty good, even though my card is crap.

Adventure GB!
If this was a movie poster, they'd photoshop in an explosion behind her or something.. pretty adventurous pose, I dunno how I caught it, but it looks cool!

GB's first day
Technically, GB's first night, but you get the idea. I remember we were on the way to a cantina so that she could learn to dance.

That's all I have for now, just felt like a trip down memory lane! Who knows, maybe I'll dig up some REALLY old screenshots..

Snow Day
Submitted Friday, January 28, 2005 - 1:34:20 PM by Klaitu

Woah, I went to bed, and then I woke up (at 1PM) and it had snowed! Ich bin impressed!

Oh, and I know you guys are all impressed, too. Especially those of you in northern climates. You guys get snow all the time. It's been 60 here for the last few weeks.

Blocking Ads
Submitted Friday, January 28, 2005 - 1:51:21 AM by Klaitu

Another sideeffect of my computer Root Canal was that ads started to pop back up again.. I'm not talking so much about those that my popup stopper swats down with no mercy, I'm talking more about banner ads. Flagrant "shock the monkey" ads. You've seen the ads.

Well, there's a neat trick you can do with just about any computer. It's so easy, anyone can do it! My instructions here are for Windows XP only. If your computer doesn't have Windows XP, it's old! Go buy a new one!

See, what happens is that when you pull up a webpage, it has a code in it that says "go to X location on the web, get that ad, and put it in this space". The code is instructing your computer to do this.

Well, well, we can head that off at the pass.. all we have to do is tell our computer that "X location" is actually nowhere. Effectively what this does is make your computer unable to see ad sites.

The magic number: 127.0.0.1

Everything on the internet has an address that looks like that.. four numbers. 127.0.0.1 is special though, this address ALWAYS means "this computer". What we're going to do is say "anytime you see an ad site, change the address to 127.0.0.1". When your computer gets the code to go and get an ad, it won't, itll pull a 180 and look for the ad on your computer.. and since you don't have the ad there, POOF, nothing happens.

There's a file on your computer, it's called the Hosts file. It's located at:

c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

You can open it with a Text editor, it's innards look something like this:

127.0.0.1 localhost

Lemon Jello
Submitted Friday, January 28, 2005 - 12:08:03 AM by Klaitu

Did you know,
They make the Lemon Jello?
Belly Smiles!

(That was a Haiku)

Oh, and in case you've been reading, I did forget an important program.. an FTP program! Luckily I found one now, so I can bring you THESE PICS!!!!!

Root Canal
Submitted Thursday, January 27, 2005 - 11:53:38 PM by Klaitu

Hoot! I get to use the computer icon! Go me!

Every once and awhile, computers like to suprise us.. they'll up and explode for no reason, and the.. err.. Special Komputer is no different. So, this time around my computer decided it didn't want to display the title bar for any window. You know. it's that thing up there with the Minimize, Window/fullsreen, and close buttons on it. Needless to say, this made it exceedingly inconvienient to do.. well.. just about anything.

So, it was time for a root canal. It's a goofy term I use whenever I have to beat the crap out of my computer and start all over again. I've done this so many times over the years, that I am a grandmaster at it. This time was a little more fortunate than usual.. I was able to use my obsolete knowledge of DOS to save all of my precious files!

If I can, I like to save all my webpage backups, my mp3's, assorted video files, and other nifty and/or rare junk.. like my copy of Thumbsplus 3.0 that I've had since like 1994.

Once my secret files were moved onto my other drive, it was time to do something particularly destructive! "Format c: /q" Yahaa! Gigabytes of data.. GONE! Okay, so sure it got rid of the good stuff.. but it got rid of all that old stuff too.. like the leftover stuvs from FF11's playonline that I couldn't ever get rid of.. and I finally eliminated all traces of symantec in my system, so that's good!

So then, it was time to pop in the Windows XP disc and let it rip! I was prepared for that dreaded OEM code baloney that usually stops me in my tracks simply because I no longer have the Windows manual. This time, though, it didn't ask me for the number! It figures, the ONE time I actually have the number, it doesn't ask for it (heck, the number was bolted to the back of my computer).

Installation took about an hour from the time I popped in the CD until the time when the ever-so-hideous nasty green field and blue sky popped up.

After fiddling with my network card's drivers for about 10 minutes, I was on the net, visiting Windowsupdate.com! 22 updates later, I had to reboot, and then I had to install the Windows XP SP2 update.. and then I installed another 6 updates after that.. and all that was just for the freakin OS. Then, it was time for what I like to call "Base level third party apps"!

1. Zone Alarm
This baby is the pimp of free internet firewalls, and it's always my number 1 pick!

2. Winzip
Winzip is decidedly less annoying if you happen to have a registered copy. I also got a free upgrade here, because the last time I installed winzip, we were on version 8, and now it's version 9! Ahh, compression goodness!

3. WinRAR
The only thing that Winzip won't do is RAR files.. well, and it won't do ISO files either, but who cares about that?

4. f-Prot Antivirus
I got this one from http://www.fsecure.com! one of the great advantages of the Root Canal is that all trial periods are made new again! Ordinarily, I use the DOS version of f-prot, but this time I opted for the 6 month free trial of the windows version! Score!

5. Spybot Search & Destroy and Ad-Aware SE
The tagteam of Spyware removal goodness!

6. Paint Shop Pro version 5!
Oh sure, JASC software is up to PSP version 9, but I have a fully functional copy of version 5, and a new one costs like $120, so sorry JASC, but I'll stick with version 5.

7. Thumbsplus version 3.0
Thumbsplus rocks, especially because I disable thumbnail view of pictures in the explorer menu. You can get version 3.30 at http://www.cerious.com because, you know, it rocks. Oh, and in case you're wondering why I like version 3.0 when there's like version 6 out.. it's because the 3.0 is "oldschool" shareware.. meaning it expires, but who cares? You don't lose any functionality.

8. Easycleaner and RegscrubXP
Keep that Registry free of invalid and empty entries! Easycleaner also lets you clean out your MRU lists and will eliminate duplicate files. You can also alter your startup programs with it.

9. Divx Video Codec
EVERYTHING is encoded in Divx these days, thank goodness.

10. Xvid Video Codec
Xvid is for those freaks who don't like to use Divx and want to make everything complicated for everyone else.. nevertheless, you've got to have the codec so that you can convert it into Divx for normal people to view.

11. Quicktime with gopher-chucking-I-wanna-kill-you iTunes
I hate quicktime. You hear that, movie sites? I HATE quicktime. Put your blasted videos in a format that doesn't suck.. like Divx, or MPG, or even Xvid. If you didn't have those studio exec's in a vice, I wouldn't even bother with your garbage. Oh, and while I'm here, I might as well say that I just seperate quicktime from iTunes and delete the latter anyways. I don't have an Ipod, and I'm not getting one anytime soon, and no, you may not associate with every single media file that exists. Shut up and go back in your box!

12. Realplayer
I forget what they call it already.. is it "Super Real Player One G4 Xtreme Hyper Turbo Edition" yet? If you thought I hate quicktime, it pales in comparison to the garbage which is realplayer. Hey Kids, can I please have a proprietary format that I can't convert into any other format, cant burn onto a DVD, and dan only watch at 1/5th the correct size in a player that has about 500 features I will never ever use?

13. Winamp 5
Ahh, my old friend, I have missed you well. I don't care that you can play videos, or stream crap off the web that I'm not interested in. You play MP3's splendidly, you have a small footprint, and while you're not as cool as your 2.73 counterpart, you still pack a punch.

14. Trillian Basic 3
In the beginning, there was ICQ. There was nothing wrong with ICQ, but AOL decided to go ahead and invent the buddy list. Feeling left out, Yahoo got into the action, and that pissed off Microsoft, who invented its own messenger. Thank you, Trillian, for combining all these services into an almost-functioning mishmash of all these services put together.

Now if I only had someone to talk to. Being Klaitu is so lonely!

15. StyleXp 3
Dear StyleXP3,
You make my desktop and window borders purty, and your selection of visual themes goes on for 188 pages.. it really is a good thing I remembered what my theme was called before I deleted it the first time, otherwise I might have had trouble finding "chaninja blue" amongst all the flotsam!

16. Editpad
Some may call you notepad, but I know better! I can change your colors however I want so that my eyes don't die, and you have tabs for multiple files that I find readily convienient! Please, never go away!

17. BitTorrent
While some may use you for illegal purposes, I know better. Your distributed multi-user download model is an inspiration to everyone who.. likes to download stuff. They even distributed World of Warcraft beta via your method. Raise your hear high, and while you're at it, please download me some more crap.

hoot!

Okay, anyways, things are looking up again for Mr. Computer (which I have affectionately named "The M5" because the unit was designed so that man may achieve!)

What vast suprises await tomorrow? What essential piece of software have I left out? I'll probably find out tomorrow when I attempt to remember all my E-mail passwords and that kinda thing.

Ouch
Submitted Thursday, January 27, 2005 - 2:25:22 PM by Klaitu

Last week's Enterprise "Observer Effect" achieves a milestone.. the worst ratings that Enterprise has ever gotten. They were only able to haul in 2.76 million viewers. It put them in 4th place on UPN.. behind Smackdown and two black comedies. Of course, UPN finished fifth again among the network, which pretty much means that Enterprise's ratings were the worst of the worst.

Not the kind of thing you need when the renewal question is hanging overhead.

Lum the Mad?
Submitted Tuesday, January 25, 2005 - 10:10:11 PM by Klaitu

You guys remember Lum the Mad, also known as Scott Jennings.. the guy who took it to the hole and spoke up about the crap that goes on in MMORPG's?

Well, He plays the Sims 2, and he's made a story all about.. well.. see for yourself!

http://thesims2.ea.com/exchange/story_detail.php?asset_id=86&asset_type=all&user_id=84899

Kobol's Last Gleaming
Submitted Tuesday, January 25, 2005 - 12:59:38 AM by Klaitu

I've just had the opportunity to see the season finale of Battlestar Galactica that aired today in the UK. It's a two part episode entitled "Kobol's Last Gleaming".

Since most of you out there are watching the US version, you won't be to this point for another 9 weeks or so, so I'm not going to spoil anything for you. Suffice it to say that BSG retains its quality to the very end.

In fact, the last few minutes of the season suprised me, which is a rare treat in television these days.. I actually jumped, startled. I can't remember the last time that happened to me.

To date, 17 hours of BSG have been produced. 16 of them are outstanding and top notch, while one is merely bland. I have nothing but praise for this remake of the classic series, and I look forward to season two.. if there is a season two.

And if there's not, there will be riots in the streets, because much like Farscape, this baby ends with a cliffhanger of the worst sort. It's evil.

Song of Solomon
Submitted Monday, January 24, 2005 - 12:50:17 AM by Klaitu

Have you ever heard of the book called "Song of Solomon"? Well, I'm guessing about half of you have, and half of you haven't.

Song of Solomon is the 22nd book of the Bible, between Ecclesiastes and Isaiah (Unless you're Catholic, in which case you'll find it after Ecclesiastes and before "Wisdom").

Anyways, Song of Solomon gets overlooked by just about every church I have been to or heard of. When I was in Bible class in High School, they skipped right over it. In a regular "church" setting, the book simply doesn't come up for study.. ever..

And just so you know, I've been studying the Bible for over 20 years.

So, when lifechurch announced that they were doing a 6 week study of Song of Solomon, I was practically stunned. I've read the book multiple times, simply because I'm a big fan of Solomon, but to do an actual study on it, that's pretty neat.

So, why is Song of Solomon so overlooked? Simple! It's essentially a collection of ancient Jewish erotic poetry. Many churches consider the subject of human sexuality to be too controversial to touch. I think a lot of times they just try to keep the board members happy and keep those tithes coming in.

Don't believe it? Okay, check out some racy examples:

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth--
For your love is better than wine.
Because of the fragrance of your good ointments,
Your name is ointment poured forth;
Therefore the virgins love you.
Draw me away!
We will run after you.
The king has brought me into his chambers.
We will be glad and rejoice in you.
We will remember your love more than wine.
Rightly do they love you.

News Burst
Submitted Monday, January 24, 2005 - 12:22:14 AM by Klaitu

Because I've been saving up! Or maybe I've been playing Star Ocean and haven't had the chance to come around and post. Anyways, here's some news.. in a very psrticular order.. the order of the day: Erratic.

1. Rick Berman, AKA the fool in charge of the Star Trek Franchise, is not optimistic about an appearance by William Shatner anytime soon. He also is "disappointed" in Jolene Blalock's comments regarding the cheapness of the Trek franchise under his leadership.

In related news, Berman blames Enterprise's poor performance on inaccurate Nielsen ratings, as opposed to his own poor judgment.

Article

2. Battlestar Galactica has beaten Enterprise in the ratings war. For January 14, the BSG episodes "33" and "Water" raked in 3.1 million viewers, whereas Enterprise's "Daedalus" only brought in 3.03 million. Coincidentally, it also beat JAG, which I find remarkable, as JAG has been the number 1 in that timeslot among dramas since it moved to Fridays 2 years ago.

This is particularly amazing considering that both UPN and CBS are available in more households than the Sci-Fi Channel. The show needs to take in at least 3.87 million viewers to make the cable top 10.

Article

3. Speaking of Battlestar, producer Ron Moore has a development blog on the official Sci-Fi Website. Start here: http://blog.scifi.com/battlestar/

4. The much-unheralded poor remainder of Andromeda's once-proud season five is nearing an end. There are 4 episodes left, and the series will conclude on February 18. In all, Andromeda will have completed 104 episodes. The plug was pulled on the series as Kevin Sorbo has decided not to continue with another season.. which is just as well, because he's on Fridays against SG-1, Enterprise, Atlantis, and BSG.

Andromeda episodes air following the week of their Sci-Fi broadcast in syndication, so you non-cable people will catch that last episode the week starting Feb. 20.

5. In the "news you've already heard" department, Johnny Carson has kicked the bucket. Cause of death: emphysema. He was 79. For those of you who don't know, emphysema is "An abnormal distention of body tissues caused by retention of air," especially in the lungs. People with emphysema are especially prone to infection.

Also coming out of his death is a report that he was secretly slipping jokes to David Letterman, whom he regarded as his true successor instead of Jay Leno.

Article

6. NASA has decided not to repair the Hubble Space Telescope, which really comes as no suprise since they said they weren't going to way back when President Bush outlined his new space exploration plan. Still, people seem to be suprised, and it's made headlines. HST was scheduled for end of mission in 2005, but now they're just going to let it ride until it finally breaks itself and burns up in the atmosphere. Analysts are expecting the satellite to become useless for astronomy purposes before 2008.

The HST is old, it's sort of like Jed Clampett's truck out there in space. It was approved by congress in 1977 and construction was completed in 1986. It sat in a warehouse for 4 years because of the Challenger disaster. The HST was finally hauled into orbit in 1990 witha faulty lens, which was fixed in 1993.

There are other space telescopes being planned.. the James Webb Space Telescope and the World Space Observatory. The James Webb is supposed to go up in 2011.

Article

7. In the land of Merchandising, they've come out with BSG toys.. not from the new series (because the only "action" they see is making otu) but from the original series. The toys look nothing like the actual actors, but will probably look okay from a distance.. if you squint.

Official Site

8. Word on the street for all you people who own TiVo Directv receivers (all none of you) that the "superkeen" 6.1 software update has been pushed back until the first of March. Previously it was supposed to go in at Christmas, and then go in mid-January, then at the first of Februsry.

The latest problem was apparently something to do with an internal problem. DirecTV rejected the software build last week.. according to Dan Collins, a DTIVO insider.

The DTV release schedule reminds me a lot of the schedule over at Electronic Arts, where they like to delay updates for months on end for "testing purposes" and then when the update is released, it turns out that it underwent very little testing whatsoever.

I guess we'll find out.

9. Junkscience.com has released a top ten list of 2004's worst junk science scares, including the Erin Brockovich story. They've also got some good information regarding Global Warming and Killer Obesity.

Article

Crunch Time
Submitted Thursday, January 20, 2005 - 3:43:27 PM by Klaitu

Some more vague news has popped up from UPN management.

The network is considering expanding its coverage to weekends, according to The New York Daily News, with shows that may include another edition of America's Next Top Model, The Bad Girl's Guide starring Jenny McCarthy and a reality show, R U The Girl, in which the performers of TLC search for a new band member.

Animal News!
Submitted Thursday, January 20, 2005 - 3:30:31 PM by Klaitu

Frogs, Bosoms, Cats.

Reese Witherspoon had to be rescued by a farmer's wife - when a frog got wedged in her cleavage.

The slimy creature landed on the star's plump chest when filming a scene for her new movie 'Vanity Fair'.

It's Peepee Pants Time!
Submitted Tuesday, January 18, 2005 - 4:51:12 PM by Klaitu

At least, for trek nerds.. Manny Coto, the big cheese on Enterprise let slip some minor spoilers for the last half of the current season. Are you ready for this?

In the second half of the season, you can expect this: Stories that take place on Andoria, a Klingon moon, Romulan outposts, Romulan Marauders, Orion Privateers, Earth's Moon, Mars, a Constitution-class Federation starship and more. And you'll see a live Tholian... and a Gorn."

OMG YELLOW LINKZORZ!!
Submitted Saturday, January 15, 2005 - 9:51:54 PM by Klaitu

I decided to go with a change of pace here with the yellow links. Aren't they just whickety whack? I knew you'd approve!

Anyways, enjoy enjoy yellow E7BD08!

A Public Service Announcement from Rachey
Submitted Saturday, January 15, 2005 - 9:43:23 PM by Klaitu

I don't often see my sister turn five shades of red, but I was there when it happened.. here's the story, straight from the horses mouth:

I would like to entitle this entry: "A Lesson on Predictive Text Messaging"

As text messaging is becoming more and more popular, more people are finding out how to use their predictive text which, in case you haven't figured it out, is when you phone predicts the word you're spelling before you actually complete the word. I would consider myself a pro at text messaging with an emphasis on predictive text. I also have friends who choose to use predictive text, however rarely do they check what they've written making for some pretty interesting messages.. "Foot" means "don't", "me" means "of", "if" means "he", etc..
Here's is the recap of a brief conversation I had with one of my male friends who wasn't feeling well today::

Me: Are you up for doing anything tonight or are you in for the evening?
Him: Im not feeling good.. Worse today.
Me: I'm sorry.. Let me know if you need done or anything..
Him: Thanks.

FYI - "Done" and "food" are interchangeable in predictive text messaging! Therefore, in my case, creating quite the interesting text message.

The lesson: Always re-read your text messages before sending them.. It will hopefully help you avoid potentially embarrassing situations.

Ben Browder talks Stargate
Submitted Saturday, January 15, 2005 - 9:40:06 PM by Klaitu

Over on Gateworld:

Browder is already aware of the great expectations for his new role on the long-running series. Unfortunately, he doesn't even know his character's name yet! "As I understand it, the last time I talked to Robert [Cooper, executive producer] they were working on clearance and stuff," he said. "I'd better call up Rob. Tell him to start writing! 'Dude, I don't want to put pressure on you, man, but my head's on the line!'"

When we asked what he's most looking forward to doing on the show, one answer immediately leaped to his mind: "Going through the gate! I'm looking forward to what's on the other side of the gate."

In addition to the new character's name, fans have been speculating how the producers will deal with the fact that Browder and co-star Michael Shanks ("Daniel Jackson") look so much alike. "I don't know that when we get on camera whether there will be a problem," Browder said. "I have seen comparisons. It's been drawn to my attention that we look similar, but you can match up a few photographs. Anybody can almost look like anybody."

Series creator Brad Wright recently joked that they were going to shave the actor's head. "Shave my head?! Oh that'd be interesting," he joked. "That'd be a fun day at the barber's. Yeah, because Christopher Judge has grown hair now. If I shave my head then they're going to confuse me with Teal'c. 'God, he looks so much like Christopher Judge!' We'll have a whole separate set of problems. Or I'll look like the chevron guy!"

La Pucelle Tactics
Submitted Saturday, January 15, 2005 - 9:34:14 PM by Klaitu

Do you know how hard it is to find a hardcore anime game like La Pucelle Tactics in Oklahoma? It's REALLY FREKKIN HARD!! Strangely enough, I was able to spot this puppy in my local EBgames.. apparently someone had requested it, but never bought it. Too bad for them, suckers! Oh, and it was right next to Disgaea too.. which I hear good things about.

Alright, so this rareness is only somewhat unwarranted. The voice acting here is some of the worst that has ever been uttered by humans. It's actually distracting and disturbing.. simultaneously.

If you can get over the voice acting, what lies beneath is.. way too japanamped music. I mean, this is music that sounds like it came out of the most obscure anime film ever. It does, however, have vocals.. this is rare for video games.. these vocals, however, are in gibberish.

But don't take my word for it, check out some of the soundtrack at the official website. you don't even have to click anything.. automatic title song flash animation on there.

Anyways, if you can get over the voice acting and the overblown music, there's actually some decent game going on here. It's a lot like Final Fantasy Tactics, but you plan multiple units to move simultaneously. So far as I can tell, the game is 100% sprites with next to no 3d effects of any kind. This is kinda refreshing in an age of "everything must be 3d".

Story? Well, I'm not exactly sure what the crap is going on. There's this one red-haired girl, and she's a "demon hunter".. and apparently she wants to be the Holy Maiden or something, I have no idea.. and you know what? Shut up! Okay, so what if the story is on crack, it's a japanese game, so go figure.

I haven't gotten the opportunity to play all the way through just yet, what with Star Ocean eating up a lot of my time, but the gameplay seems solid enough.

Just so you know, it's so good because it's so very very bad. It's Skeleton of Cadavra bad... that makes it good!

This article has an update: 2/3/05

Star Ocean: Till the End of Time
Submitted Saturday, January 15, 2005 - 9:23:43 PM by Klaitu

Alright, so I haven't beaten it, but Star Ocean is pretty swell.. Swell and nifty. It's sort of like a cross between Xenosaga and Kingdom Hearts.. which makes it SQUAREly into the RPG market (see how I threw in a little pun there?).

You're a young boy, a college student, really. Vacationing on a tropical paradise planet (it's not phloston, but it'll do). Suddenly, the evil empire attacks the planet, forcing you to flee on a refugee ship.. and guess what? The Refugee ship is also attacked, so it's time for an escape pod!

Anyways, long story short, you end up saving the universe as we know it. I know you saw that coming, but it's really the journey in getting there, isn't it?

Star Ocean has similar graphics to Xenosaga, but the voice acting is about a zillion times better. The battle system is a hybrid.. part beat-em-up, part Chrono Cross. There are no random battles, you see your enemies on the map and can avoid them.. but if you get caught, you enter into a Kingdom Hearts style beatemup.

So far, the game is pretty fantastic, and I look forward to finishing it sometime next week.

Oh, one other thing though.. get this, the game is 2 discs. Not CD-ROMs, but 2 DVD's long. That's a lot of gigs, man.

Overall Score: 8 of 10

Black Interview
Submitted Thursday, January 13, 2005 - 10:11:25 PM by Klaitu

More obscure sci-fi news. Claudia Black recently did a BBC interview that is pretty interesting:

What was it like playing Vala on Stargate?


I found it interesting. I only did my scenes with Michael Shanks, I didn't really meet any of the other actors, but I found that he was, professionally, very similar to Ben.

They were very open-minded on the set about the banter between me and Michael and what we could improvise if required, but it was a very well-written episode.

And there's a possibility you might reprise the character?

It was funny because the crew said to me at the time, "Your character doesn't die in this episode, so you might come back," and they're very consistent in Stargate, they do bring a lot of guest characters back.

So there's definitely the scope for Vala, and I'll be interested to see what they come up with. And I'll be very interested to see Ben and Micheal Shanks working together.

A beautiful partnership
If both you and Ben end up working on Stargate, there'll be a campaign to have you acting opposite each other within moments.


Oh god! That's a really frightening prospect.

Def Jam: Fight for NY
Submitted Monday, January 10, 2005 - 3:31:32 AM by Klaitu

Greetings, my excellent friends!

*AHEM* I mean whut up, dawgz!

ENGAGE THE BLACKOTRON 3000!

Def Jam iz no way really da kind o’ game ya’ll would expect me ta play, but you’re in fo’ yet another suprise.. fo’ this review iz fo’ da X-BOX version o’ Def Jam. Sure, ya’ll can get a PS2 or Cube version, but Carson waz havin’ a X-box an’ da game, an’ da lil' punkipus let me borrow em!

I think da thang haz mainly because dat punk needed a skilled an’ powerful opponent ta test hiz skills against. Nevertheless, meh fond da game ta be most enjoyable, an’ a little frustrating.

The meat o’ da game iz story mode, where ya’ll an’ a group o’ ya’lls friends iz fighting da evil Snoop Dogg an’ hiz posse. dem O.G's apparently make money by staging illegal fights, an’ guess wa’tch? ya’ll just happen ta be da best fighter ever!

The game iz part Tekken, part da Sims, an’ Part "Boyz n da Hood". Most every character iz voiced by a rapper, or Carmen Electra. As ya’ll progress through da game, ya’ll meet more an’ more o’ ya’lls hood heroes, until at long last, ya’ll beat da crap out o’ Snoop Dogg an’ throw him out da window because he’s just that evil. Along da way, you’ll build up ya’lls skills RPG style.

Unlike da traditional fighting game, ya’ll can’t win by knocking a guy’s life ta zero, ya’ll haz ta deliver a particularly devistating blow.. like.. beating da guyz’ head in with a baseball bat, or slamming them repeatedly into a steel I-bar. In a pinch, ya’ll can also stomp on da biyatch’s heads while they on da ground, or run a train over em.

As ya’ll might expect, da soundtrack iz 100% rap.. but da thang haz no way so terrible, da thang haz mostly just da heavy rap beats that come through, an’ da thang fits with da game pretty well.

To lampoon this, meh made mah character da whitest guy possible. On mah first run through, meh dressed him like an amish guy.. but Carson thought dat brotha waz too white. So, meh deleted that character an’ made another one hoo looked Irish. Satisfied with this, meh learned da ways o’ kung fu, an’ in no time at all, meh waz beating da crap out o’ Ice-T an’ Method Man... wit Whitey O'White.

If you’re into fighting games, this one’s a serious rental. da thang haz mildly entertaining an’ iz certainly no waste o’ time.

Overall Score: 7 of 10.

Uhh.. I think my BLACKOTRON needs some work, it's like.. Jamaican Alabaman Ebonics actions going on y'all. Peace out and whatnot.. or is it pizzle now?

Okay, so NOW it decides to snow?
Submitted Wednesday, January 5, 2005 - 8:35:40 PM by Klaitu

Freakin weather!

For me, one of the big things about the end of December is the winter weather. There's something about crisp, cool air permeated by the smoke of a thousand chimneys that makes Christmastime just a little more special.

Oklahoma usually delivers in this department.. the average Christmas temperature high is 47, the average low is 27. In my lifetime, the averages are slightly lower, but this year the high was freaking 65 degrees! There wasn't even rain!

I'm not expecting a white Christmas here.. it's only happened twice in my lifetime (in 1987 and 2000) but the at least we could have some COLD weather, right? You know, cold enough to require a coat?

Well, now that's it's freaking January, Oklahoma is in the middle of an ice storm.. the present temperature is 19 degrees, the wind chill is 6 degrees.

If only this had happened about two weeks ago!

Battlestar for the Unwashed Masses
Submitted Tuesday, January 4, 2005 - 11:02:53 PM by Klaitu

If this keeps up, I'm going to need to make a new BSG icon.. you know, maybe that's not such a bad idea.. a little cylon head icon would work nicely! Oh, but that's off track!

Anyways, now EVERYONE can see Battlestar Galactica in all its glory! It is going to air on NBC on Saturday, January 8 at 8 Eastern (7 Central)! Of course, this will be an edited down version of the mini-series pilot, but for free, what more can you ask?

The new Battlestar Galactica shares a similar premise: the Cylons attack and utterly annihilate mankind, and now the last survivors of the human race are stuck on a fleet of 200 ships searhing for their long lost colony.. named Earth.

There have been major changes in the new series from the original series.. most notably Starbuck being female, but that's really a minor issue. The entire look and feel of the show is different. Originally, I thought this was going to make the new series really sucky, but the result is actually pretty refreshing. I had to reject my preconcieved notions about it.. It's really better if you think of the new Battlestar as "based on" the original, and not a remake.. because it's definately not a remake in any sense of the word.

Battlestar is one of those rare treats that only come along so often, so don't let yourself miss some great television!

Oh, and for those of you that have the Sci-Fi Channel, the complete miniseries will be aired January 11 and 12, with the double-bill premiere on January 14 (Fri). Sci-Fi will be playing the first two episodes of the series on the 14th.. 33 and Water.

"33" has the crew fighting their own fatigue as the Cylons are somehow following the fleet and they arrive every 33 minutes.

In "Water" a Cylon saboteur destroys the fleet's water supply, forcing a desperate search for a new water source.

Small Wonder
Submitted Monday, January 3, 2005 - 10:51:39 PM by Klaitu

HELP! SOS! DISTRESS!!

Now that I have this TiVo, I am picking up the most unusual things in the middle of the night. Sometimes TiVo guesses pretty good, and other times it guesses bad.. but there is a third option! Sometimes, Tivo chooses strangely.

Let us observe exhibit A: Small Wonder.

Let's look at the premise of Small Wonder. A genius engineer at a robotics firm designs a robot shaped like a 10 year old girl. We're not really sure why he is making such a robot.. but we're not supposed to ask that question. He not only designs and builds a 10 year old girl robot, he brings it home with him and raises it like it is his own daughter.

Oh, and the nosy neighbors are suspicious, and are always trying to figure out the secret, but are never quite able to do so.

There is just no way to accurately describe in words how horrible this show is, so what you need to do is think of the worst show you have ever seen, and then imagine it's worse than that.. because it is.

Check out the theme song:

She's a small wonder
Pretty and bright with soft curls
She's a small wonder
A girl unlike other girls
She's a miracle, and I grant you, she'll enchant you at first sight
She's a small wonder
And she'll make your heart take flight
She's fantastic, made of plastic
Microchips here and there
She's a small wonder,
Brings love and laughter everywhere!