The Legend of Zorro

Watched The Legend of Zorro last night. IMDB users gave it a rating of 5.6. I don’t blame them. Movie wasn’t that great, but was fun and enjoyable. You can watch the trailer here. This sequel didn’t really live up to the original The Mask of Zorro, but I guess they’re trying to milk every penny from this franchise. I can’t for the next Batman Begins. I wonder if Katie Holmes is in it, since she’s pregnant.

legend of zorrolegend of zorrolegend of zorrolegend of zorrolegend of zorro

Spoilers:

So this sequel continues and starts off where California is trying to join the Union (United States of America). Zorro had promised his wife once that happened, he’d quit. But Zorro was a bit hesitant to quit and asked for more time. They even have a son now, but the son doesn’t know his father is Zorro and thinks he’s just some money counting aristocrat.

Story develops and Zorro’s identity was found out by the Pinkertons (somewhat similar to Today’s FBI). Something happens and Zorro’s wife sends him divorce papers. Zorro tries to figure out why and meets the new Count. Story continues and it turns out the wife was an old crush of this Count and the Pinkertons believed that this Count has to do with something against the security of the United States. Apparently so, the Count has been importing in soap bars and converting it into nitroglycerin and was planning to help the confederates win the Civil War. The Pinkertons apparently had blackmailed Zorro’s wife to help them or else they’d reveal his identity.

Story goes on, and Zorro fights and Zorro wins, but with the help of his kid and wife. Happy Ending and Zorro continues to live on!

Kilometer High Club

Got this from a thread at work:

Anyone know if the Candians have such a thing as the kilometer high club?

Bah, those Canadians soo hilariously backwater bucking the empirical system used by the rest of the world for their own metric system.

If you don’t get the joke, read about the Mile High Club at Wikipedia.


Random Crap:

Really old joke, but it was retold on a MS newsgroup so I thought I’d share:

An economics professor and a Yankee farmer were waiting for a bus in New Hampshire. To pass the time, the farmer suggested that they play a game. “What kind of game would you like to play?” responded the professor. “Well,” said the farmer, “how about this: I”ll ask a question, and if you can”t answer my question, you give me a dollar. Then you ask me a question and if I can”t answer your question, I”ll give you a dollar”

“That sounds attractive,” said the professor, “but I do have to warn you of something: I”m not just an ordinary person. I”m a professor of economics.”

“Oh,” replied the farmer, “in that case we should change the rules. Tell you what: if you can”t answer my question you still give me a dollar, but if I can”t answer yours, I only have to give you fifty cents.”

“Yes,” said the professor, “that sounds like a fair arrangement.”

“Okay,” said the farmer, “here”s my question: what goes up the hill on seven legs and down the hill on three legs?”

The professor pondered this riddle for a while and finally replied. “Gosh, I don”t know… what does go up the hill on seven legs and down the hill on three legs?”

Well,” said the farmer, “I don”t know either. But if you give me your dollar, I”ll give you my fifty cents!”

A difference between men and womenUsing brain-imaging techniques, they compared how men and women reacted when watching other people suffer pain. If the sufferer was someone they liked, areas of the brain linked to empathy and pain were activated in both sexes. Women had a similar response if they disliked the person experiencing the pain but men showed a surge in the reward areas of the brain. … Men admitted to having a much higher desire for revenge than women and derived satisfaction from seeing the unfair person being punished. I can agree with their revenge statement.

Godzilla PVR (from /.) – With the third installment of our Monster PVR series, we here at SnapStream asked ourselves, “How can we beat the Medusa PVR, our 6 tuner beast, and our Hydra PVR, our 10 tuner monster?” Why, by making an 11 tuner system with HDTV support, of course! This is when the Godzilla PVR system, king of all monsters was born. How do we top the Hydra PVR? This system is an ultra high end HTPC showcasing Beyond TV 4 and capable of recording 11 shows, 4 high definition and 7 standard definition, at once. With Beyond TV 4’s HDTV support and with its unlimited tuners, you can create your own monster system. Crazy!

BetterCampus (from Derek) – PRT: Personal Rapid Transit – PRT represents the first completely new ground transportation technology in 90 years. A PRT “last mile” solution connects a single campus bus stop to 30,000 desks, dramatically increasing transit effectiveness. Remember to check out the video. It’d be pretty sweet if when they do implement this on Microsoft campus. The 3D modeling is actually done quite well too!

pya! Flood:

(vid) パックマン – PacMan – This puppet show was awesome!
(img) こんにちwan – Konnichiwan – Someone got so bored during class, they carved a dog out of their eraser.
(img) 今日は鶏鍋じゃ – Today’s Roast Turkey – Poor girl… I wonder if she could eat any turkeys for the rest of her life. She’s probably a vegeterian by now.
(vid) 体分裂 – Splitting Body – Is this some magic trick? or is this video editing?
(img) ihead – The cult of iPod. Pretty neat head shave though.
(img) 脱走中 – Middle of Escape – basket full of puppies!
(img) ロケット鉛筆 – Rocket Pencil – interesting I must say.
(img) パクリ疑惑 – Mr. and Mrs. Smith in Japanese?
(img) 降りられないwan – Puppy scared of falling downSO CUTE!!! ~kawaii~

‘Star Trek’ star Shatner sells kidney stoneShatner, famed for playing Captain James T. Kirk, commander of the starship U.S.S. Enterprise in the original “Star Trek” TV series, sold his kidney stone to online casino GoldenPalace.Com for $25,000. The money will be donated by Shatner to Habitat for Humanity to build houses for the poor. If I was a celebrity, I wonder if I could sell boogers and poop. For charity of course.

Hamster, Snake Best Friends at Tokyo ZooGohan and Aochan make strange bedfellows: one’s a 3.5-inch dwarf hamster; the other is a four-foot rat snake. Zookeepers at Tokyo’s Mutsugoro Okoku zoo presented the hamster — whose name means “meal” in Japanese — to Aochan as a tasty morsel in October, after the snake refused to eat frozen mice.

The Scanner Photography Project (from /.) – Building homemade digital cameras from low-end flatbed scanners. I didn’t think much of this project at first, then I saw his gallery. It’s just amazing! His site’s been slashdotted, so you may need to check it out through one of the main mirrors linked from his homepage.

MythBusters: Lost Experiments – interesting TV show.

Some Students Use Net To Hire Experts to Do Their School Work (from /.) – Wow! Cheating to a whole new level. CS students hiring coders to do their homework. You can’t tell from the site how much was paid for the help, but usually it’s well less than $100.

Artemyst sent me this photo of a
cute bunny
Cute Bunny (from Frostdesign)

Rob Thomas – This Is How a Heart Breaks

Listened to this new song on the radio a few times and the chorus is just so catchy, I purchased it on iTunes. The song I’m speaking about is Rob Thomas – This Is How a Heart Breaks.

rob thomas - this is how a heart breaks

Lyrics: (taken from A-Z Lyrics Universe)

Don’t you wanna go for a ride
Just keep your hands inside
And make the most out of life
Now don’t you take it for granted

Life is like a mean machine
It made a mess outta me
It left me caught between
Like an angry dream I was stranded

And I’m steady but I’m starting to shake
And I don’t know how much more I can take

This is it now
Everybody get down
This is all I can take
This is how a heart breaks
You take a hit now you feel it break down
Make you stay wide awake
This is how a heart breaks

Don’t you wanna go for a ride
Down to the other side
Feels so good you could cry
Now won’t you do what I told you
I remember when you used to be shy
Yeah, once we were so fine
You and I why you gotta make it so hard on me

And I’m sorry but it’s not a mistake
And I’m running but you’re getting away

You’re not the best thing that I knew
Never was never cared too much
For all this hanging around
It’s just the same thing all the time
Never get what I want
Never get too close to the end of the line
You’re just the same thing that I knew back before the time
When I was only for you

You can watch the music video here.

Amazon.com is selling this CD for $7.50. You can listen to a sample here.

I did find the mp3 online. Not sure how long it’s going to be there, but you might want to read their disclaimer: We strongly suggest you to delete the audio files you downloaded in 24 hours and buy the artist’s CD. Please read our Privacy Policy before you download anything!

I also found this parody music video on Google Video: Exclamation! Films – Rob Thomas – This is How a Heart Breaks.

Happy Birthday to ME!

Happy Birthday to ME!

Thanks to those already wished me a happy bday. Makes me happy that people remember. =)

With that I’ll show you two very cute images:

Kusajika Yachiru
(Kusajika Yachiru from Bleach 63)

saber
(Saber from Fate/stay night)


Random Crap:

One of the funny threads recently was when some guy asks what’s the best place to sleep at work. Here are several responses I thought I’d share:

Yeah, don’t sleep in the lobby – it leaves you open to attack. Make sure you settle in somewhere behind the security doors. Once I slept in the lobby and woke up with a sharpie mustache and my left hand in warm water.

I also don’t recommend sleeping in the bathroom. It’s stinky.

One last recommendation, and a personal favorite:

Just knock your office chair over, and use the backrest as a pillow. You could even throw a few sweatshirts or something down on the floor, if you’re not a big fan of back pain.

As an added bonus, close the door, and get all your CPUs to run at 100% – for that warm & fuzzy feeling. 🙂

Survey Says Youre Stupid! (from MsticAzn) – Africa? Europe? I can’t decide which country I admire more. Asia’s a great country to. Not sure if this video’s worth laughing at.

Transformer explosion (from deadlock) – pretty neat explosion video. Would’ve been better if the camera was closer.

Scientists discover most fertile Irish maleScientists in Ireland may have found the country’s most fertile male, with more than 3 million men worldwide among his offspring.

N.Y. Man Gets Corvette Back After 37 YearsThe last time former New York City resident Alan Poster saw his dream car, he was young and it was blue. Nearly four decades later, he’s a little grayer and the car has turned silver — but it was love at first sight again as the Corvette somebody swiped in New York was returned to him. I wonder if how much he could sell it for and does the poor buyer get his money back.

Tokyo to get world’s first ‘maglev’ elevator (from /.) – The world’s first elevators controlled by magnetic levitation will debut as early as 2008, a Tokyo-based company said Tuesday. I haven’t even ridden on a maglev train yet! On the same topic of elevators, someone posted this link: Elevator hackingCalling this a hack is way too generous, but TheDamnBlog has a little tip for getting the most out of your next elevator ride. Apparently lots of elevators have an express mode that lets you override everyone else’s selections and go straight to the floor you’re going to. You just press “Door Close” and the button for your floor at the same time. Should work on most Otis elvators, as well as a few other models that are out there, but don’t blame us when you accidentally go plunging to your death (blame TheDamnBlog, if you must).

Hot sex treats common cold (from Deadlock) – That is understandable, of course. Up until recently, this was regarded as a logical move. Not so long ago, however, scientists were able to prove just the opposite: it is better to be sick together. This obviously does not mean that one should purposely sneeze at his/her partner. In this case, the effect will be minimal. It is important to battle the disease. And as for microbes, hot passionate kisses and good sex is something they fear the most – concluded Manfred Schedlovski, a Swiss researcher from Zurich.

TV in the bedroom halves your sex life – studyThinking of buying a TV for the bedroom? Think again — it could ruin your sex life. A study by an Italian sexologist has found that couples who have a TV set in their bedroom have sex half as often as those who don’t.

<Tera> shame shame
<Tera> hrm
<Tera> “If there’s no television in the bedroom, the frequency (of sexual intercourse) doubles,”
<Tera> i have like 3 TVs in my room
<Tera> explains why I’m not getting any
<Artemyst> haha
<donkeyballs> hahaha

Killed by chips and toast (from Deadlock) – A LAD who only ate chips, toast and baked beans was killed by his junk diet — aged just 20. Not sure if this is real. Is the Sun Online a tabloid?

Shutting Themselves In (from skylancer) – Like Takeshi and Shuichi, Y.S. suffered from a problem known in Japan as hikikomori, which translates as “withdrawal” and refers to a person sequestered in his room for six months or longer with no social life beyond his home. (The word is a noun that describes both the problem and the person suffering from it and is also an adjective, like “alcoholic.”) Some hikikomori do occasionally emerge from their rooms for meals with their parents, late-night runs to convenience stores or, in Takeshi’s case, once-a-month trips to buy CD’s. And though female hikikomori exist and may be undercounted, experts estimate that about 80 percent of the hikikomori are male, some as young as 13 or 14 and some who live in their rooms for 15 years or more. Quite an interesting read if you have time. Here’s the Wikipedia entry for Hikikomori (引き篭り).

Claws out over claim China discovered AmericaThe Chinese are said to have discovered gunpowder, paper and the compass, but it may be too early to claim they discovered America. A map purported to date from 1418 suggesting a Chinese fleet sailed to America decades before Christopher Columbus was displayed in Beijing on Monday, but the piece of yellowing paper is the centre of a storm of criticism over its authenticity. Why do people forget that it was Native Americans or indigenous people that were here first. No one discovered America before these people.

Goose Poop a Problem for Oakland Parkgoers“Each bird produces about a pound of poop a day — that’s literally a ton each day,” said Stephanie Benavidez, head naturalist at the Lake Merritt Wildlife Refuge. … Chasing the birds away is another popular trick. Cities hire firms with names like Goosebusters or Wild Goose Chase, which use dogs — trained to harass, not harm, geese — to chase the birds away.

Oliver Twist

Just watched Oliver Twist last night. IMDB users give it a rating of 6.8. You can watch the trailer here. The movie was 2hrs long, but was actually quite fun. I’ve never read the book so I can’t tell you how closely it resembled the work of Charles Dickens, but it is directed by Roman Polanski (director of The Pianist and The Ninth Gate, etc.), so it can’t be that far off. Amazon.com is selling the DVD for $17.37 which will be released on Jan. 24, 2006.

oliver twistoliver twistoliver twist

Spoilers:

If you’ve read the book, there’s no point in reading this spoilers unless you intend to find the discrepancies, which I doubt you will since my spoilers aren’t really that detailed.

It starts off with an orphan and his cruel life and his chain of unlucky events. They never fed him enough and make him do boring work (although they legitify it by calling it a trade). When he unlucky gets chosen to be the one to ask the adults if they could give him some more food, he gets marked and they try to get rid of him, offering anyone to take him for for £5. Some chimney sweeping guy almost gets him, but Oliver begs the judge not to sign him off. I’m not really too sure why a judged needed to do it. Probably because the orphanage was owned by the government.

It’s funny how Oliver Twist got his name. Apparently the guy that names these orphans has a who list of names to use and he names them alphabetically. When Oliver Twist came, it was the letter T. He has names all the way to Z. I wonder what happens when he reaches Z. Does it start at A again?

He later gets sold to some coffin selling business owner. He was actually doing good here, but a bit slow. Some bully there mistreats him and calls his mother names. He gets into a fight and only Oliver Twist gets punished. So he runs away to London, 70 miles of walking. On the way there, he collapses due to starvation and a nice old lady takes him in and gives him some food. The old lady never shows up again, but I was hoping Oliver Twist would visit her once again at the end of the movie.

He reaches London and meets another boy name Dodger, who is part of gang of boys that steal stuff for a living. They’re led by a creepy old guy by the name of Fagin. Fagin teaches Oliver Twist the art of stealing and he picks up quickly and also eats and lives there for free. He tells Fagin he’s ready and he sends him off with Dodger and another boy. I’m not sure if Oliver Twist is totally innocent here. At this point, it really felt like he was willing to pick pocket. However, while the 2 other boys did the act, Oliver just watched. But he ran when they started chasing him and he gets caught.

The bookstore owner that saw the act vouches that Oliver Twist wasn’t part of it. However, Oliver had a high fever and the person who got robbed decided to take car of him. This man was actually pretty well off and decides implicitly to addopt the boy. I’m not sure if it was ever stated outloud.

Dogder reports that Oliver had been caught by the cops, and making sure Oliver doesn’t leak anything, they track him down. Oliver is living the good life, in a fancy house with tons of books and in fancy nice clothes. However, he gets kidnapped right in front of a ton of people. He is once again trapped in Fagin’s hands. What’s worse was that the old man had believed in Oliver wouldn’t steal from him and given him a task to return some books and a £5 note to the book store owner. The thieves took both the books and the money.

Oliver’s next task was to help this group rob the old man that had treated him so nicely. Oliver resists but they point a gun at him. They needed over to climb through a small window and unlocked the front door. He makes a ruckus and wakes up the family and somehow gets shot in the arm. The bad men take him away and decided to get rid of him. Nancy, Bill’s wife didn’t want to see Oliver get kill, so she finds this old man and tells him about Fagin (not her husband Bill though). Dodger was keeping tabs on her and finds out this and tells Bill and Fagin about this. Bill goes home and kills Nancy out of rage for betraying them.

Both Fagin and Bill suddenly becomes wanted men. However, they still had Oliver Twist as a barganing tool. They ending goes as you probably know it. Bill manages to slip and hang himself. Fagin gets caught and will be executed by hanging him in the public. I’m not sure what the rest of the boys became, but Oliver Twist seem to be living the good life from that point on.

Bleach Episodes 62-63

Time to catch up on some anime postings. 62 was out a long while ago and 63 is a 1 hour special that I just watched today. Apparently they took a break, and quite well deserved. Thankfully I had my own share of unwatched stuff to catch up on. Did you hear? 24 – Season Five just aired last night! Anyway, back to Bleach!

Episode 62 left us off with a cliffhanger. Several weeks later, 63 comes out and sort of concludes this little arc. Even though 63 was an 1hr special, half of it was reshowing of the great fights earlier. I was sad originally thinking this was an hour of recaps. But thank god I was wrong! The 2nd half consisted of totally new material: funny, sappy, and emotional, but I like that kind of stuff. The funniest part (don’t worry, it won’t spoil anything) was when Hitsugaya startled Matsumoto:

hitsugaya startles matsumoto

Matsumoto Rangiku: *SHRIEK* You startled me so much, they nearly fell out!
Hitsugaya Toushirou: What did?
Matsumoto Rangiku: My breasts, like this…
Hitsugaya Toushirou: You didn’t need to demonstrate!

Bleach Epiosde 62

bleachbleachbleachbleachbleachbleachbleachbleachbleach

Bleach Episode 63

bleachbleachbleachbleachbleachbleachbleachbleachbleach

Spoilers:

It’s been awhile, but my memory is weak regarding episode 62. We already learnt that Rukia contained the key element to merge the power of soul slayers with Hollows. In this episode, Aizen uses some weird sorcery and takes the element out of Rukia. At this point, I’m not even too sure if Rukia still has spiritual power or not, since it seemed that it was that element that gave her the power initially. All the other captains show up and even have them underneath their swords, but suddenly Aizen calls upon the power of the Hollow and they are teleported or taken up into the Hollow world and once that transaction is initiated, there’s no stopping it. So Aizen, Gin, and that blind guy escapes.

The rest of that episode was about healing people. A big chunk of that was Byakuya giving the entire explanation on why he was stern on following the laws. Apparently, Byakuya was married. His wife was Rukia’s sister, but she had died young. In her deathbed, she begged Byakuya to find her sister and take care of her and he promised. Because Byakuya was from a noble family, taking in Rukia’s sister was forbidden since she was a Rukongai, and outsider. But he broke the law once to marry her and had to break the law once more to take in Rukia. So swore on his parents’ grave that he would never break the laws again and be the upholder of them. When Rukia was caught, he was in a conundrum. On one hand, Rukia had broken a law punishable by death and he had promised to uphold every law and rule. On the other hand, he had promised Rukia’s sister to take care of her. Obviously he had chosen to uphold the law of Soul Society.

In episode 63, as I mentioned earlier, the 1st half of it was recaps of the major fights and battles. The 2nd half was just random cute stuff. Ishida (the Quincy bow guy) if you’ve forgotten about him apparently made new clothing, all a bit different from the originals, for the main characters. I wonder why he didn’t make one for Ichigo though. Kenpachi is after Ichigo again for another fight. Rukia disappears and Ichigo and Inoue go off looking for her. Rukia apparently went to apologize to the Shiba clan for killing Kaien. The sister already knew about it and decided that if Rukia ever came to apologize, she would forgive her. Ichigo and Inoue show up and they all have dinner together.

Ichigo and the rest were leaving Soul Society the following day and Rukia decides to stay. Ichigo honors that decision as long as it was her own. Before they left, Ukitake Jyuushiro gives Ichigo a pendant which legally allows him to transform into Shinigami (Death Gods) any time. He said it was a token of appreciation, although this was hardly enough to thank him for what he’s done. As they leave Soul Society, Urahara Kisuke was ready on the other side to catch them. Urahara Kisuke thanks and apologizes to Ichigo for partially hiding the truth from him. Ichigo says the person he also needs to apologize to is Rukia. Urahara Kisuke takes all of them home on a flying carpet, but Ichigo stops by at the river where his mother was killed and just stares off. The episode ends like that with an interesting preview. Aizen and them seem to be out of the picture for awhile while this new arc develops.

Stupid Post Office

So I went to the post office today since they’ve recently increased their rates to get some 2¢ stamps. I get there after hours and they have 2 stamp vending machines, only one which sold the 2¢ stamps and there’s a big note covering the coin hole saying: OUT OF ORDER. The other vending machine only had larger value stamps where the smallest amount was the postcard stamp. I wasn’t willing to pay 10x the amount of a 2¢ stamp just to mail a couple envelopes.

Then there was the postage printing machine. I gave that a try. Went to stamps and the smallest value I could purchase was $1.00. Tried the postage option instead and it weighed my letter and asked me my zip code. Then it asked me if there was already postage on it and I said yes and entered 37¢. It said I needed an additional 2¢. No duh. So it gladly accepted my credit card and printed my 2¢ stamp. I needed 2 of these (for now) and did the process again. So I’ll be receiving a 4¢ transaction for the USPS this month on my credit card bill.

Next time I need to send a letter, I’ll have to go to the stupid post office again.


Random Crap:

Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.” – Rich Cook (from /.)

Fallen Angel: Teaser (from Tera) – Check out this pretty cool flash video. You can also visit the author’s site: Fallen Angel Series. A bit of warning, it is pretty gory.

Incredible Fishing Video (direct download) (from MS newsgroup) – this fishing trip is awesome! I wonder if they fish too long, would they boat sink.

Knife Nail (from Artemyst) – A pretty creepy image of what someone could do to their fingernails.

Did you know you could upload your own videos to Google Video. Check out their Video Upload Program. There’s no size restriction. The only downside I see is that playback is either through Flash or through their Google Video Player. You can even charge money for your videos. Of course it must be your own or that you own the copyrights to. Find more info at their Uploading Videos & Review Process information.

Upgrade Your 4 Gig Nano to 8 Gigs (from Deadlock) – For all you daredevils out there, the weak need not apply, there is a tutorial floating on the net that shows you exactly how to beef up your Nano from a modest 4 gigabyte device to an impressive 8 gigabyte MP3 player. Too bad it requires delicate soldering skills. My soldering skills suck.

MAN DATES GAL ON INTERNET FOR SIX MONTHS — AND IT TURNS OUT SHE’S HIS MOTHER! (from Mandalayx) – title sort of says it all. Read the article if you want the juicy details.

encyclomedia (from /.) – Why did I start this project? Simple, I wanted a PC connected to the TV, to watch DVDs (and DivX). The problem was my mother, who didnt like the idea of having a grey pc in her “beautiful living room”. It actually doesn’t look half bad. The pretty pictures for these mods are always nice.

Postage Paid Envelope Revenge (from Artemyst) – Tired of receiving mounds of unsolicited letters and offers in the mail? Want to fight back? Want to get rid of that old tire in your garage that the garbage man won’t take? Then read on…… I’ve actually swapped spam and stuffed it into these postage paid return envelopes and mailed them back for fun. This guy takes it to the extreme. Too bad they don’t know who’s doing it so they could stop sending you spam. I wonder if they could press charges if they found out it was you.

New personal computer design wins Microsoft competition“How this computer is used closely resembles the traditional use of a bookshelf,” says Son, a second-year graduate student from Seoul, South Korea. “Digital contents are downloaded through subscriptions, then arranged in each hardware attachment, which are provided by the subscription’s service. The physical configuration of the unit permits users to visually navigate the categories of content as they do with books on a bookshelf. This thing is actually pretty neat, but I have doubts it’ll ever leave the design table.

The Bookshelf, a personal computer Bookshelf can be pieced together

Final Fantasy VII

I “was” going to catch up on my blog work today, but I sort of ran out of time. Bunch of new anime post waiting for me to write about such as the new Fate/stay night (I haven’t been this excited about an anime since Bleach). Then there was the pya! catchup work which I’ve decided to postpone indefinitely while I play Final Fantasy VII as the title of this entry suggests.

FF7 sort of came out at the wrong time for me. I’ve personally played FF3 (SNES), FF8 (PS), and FF9 (PS). I’ve never beated anyone of them, though for FF8 and FF9, I did reach the final disc, but the enemies just got too hard and I got tired of leveling up. What basically happened for FF7 was that it came out before my Playstation was modded and although I ended up “getting” the game, I never really played it.

I actually got FF7 for PC awhile back, but I came to the conclusion it wasn’t compatible with Windows XP because the game wouldn’t respond to any keyboard input. Apparently I was wrong and Eidos was stupid when they were deciding on the keyboard configuration. If I had read the README and not be a dumbass and just go uninstall it immediately, I would’ve learnt that the entire gamed used the NUMPAD keys to play and navigate. Fortunately, a friend lend me the game again and I’m finally playing the game regarded as one of the best RPGs ever.

However, the game was not immediately compatible with XP right out of the box. You can download the Final Fantasy VII XP Patch 1.4. The title shows it as 1.3 patch, but during installation you’ll notice that it’s actually 1.4. Since FF7 was such an old game, it doesn’t even support the newest 3d rendering engines, but supports the likes of Voodoo and 3dfx. So basically, you’ll be playing with a software 3d rendering engine, which isn’t noticable at all, since they recommend that if you’re going to use the software rendering engine, you should have at least a Pentium 300MHz. One of the problems I noticed immediately was all the in-game movies were flipped, inverted, and upside down. This was okay initially, but it got annoying and was giving me a headache. It took me awhile to find the patch for this, since the game is so old, but I finally found the support document on it. However, the link it provides is no longer working. However, the UK site is still hosting the file needed to fix the inverted video problem: ff7betap1.exe (other patches available here too). A useful site with a bunch of patches are: FF7 Universe.

My first impressions of the game were well… I literally alt+tab out of the game and said this in an IRC chat room: I’m playing FF7 on pc and I can’t believe how bad the graphics used to be. Then again Eidos screwed up the keyboard layout for the entire game, forcing me to play with the numpad. However, as the game went on, I got really into it. I told myself I was going to stop playing at 2am because I needed to poop (pretty badly too), but after telling myself that I’d stop at the next save point, I continued playing till it was 3:30am. Krunk is SO CUTE!! Well, Cloud that is. I always named the main characters Krunk in Final Fantasy or any other RPG since I’m basically playing him. Tifa and Aeris are cute too! Cute in the sense like plushies and not like cute girls. I can see myself wanting Tifa and Aeris plushies now. Tifa in Final Fantasy VII Advent Children was a lot hotter. The gameplay so far is so fun and I’m pretty sure I haven’t even completed 10% of the game yet. I’m at the part where they’re about to blow up Sector 7 because they found out where AVALANCHE was and I have to warn them.

Here’s the comparison of in game Tifa and Advent Children Tifa.

Here’s the hot Tifa in Advent Children:
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In game Tifa screenshots courtesy of Final Fantasy Shrine:
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I did however see the scene where Cloud comes up to Tifa when her father was killed as shown in Last Order: Final Fantasy VII.

There goes my next few weekends.

pya! FLOOD

Another pya! FLOOD! I’ve finally reached the year 2006! Still half a month to go.

(vid) 完成前の悲劇 – Tragedy of Being Almost Complete – sucks to be the ice chipper
(vid) にらみ合い – One Punch Knock Out – did the opponent kiss him?
(img) 均等 – Uniformity – now you can serve alcohol even faster!
(img) 二人の門出 – The Depature of Two People – I thought these kids looked awfully cute.
(vid) 熱い男 – Man on Fire – a cool contraption, but an idiot nonetheless.
(img) すくすく育ってね – Baby Crib with Electric Barbed Wire Fence
(img) ピアノ – Monster Piano
(img) 黒の騎士とその愛馬 – Black Horseman – I thought the costume was pretty neat.
(img) 通勤前の絶望 – Despair before Commuting – Giant bird poop
(img) ハート – Heart – made of snow!
(img) 日の出を待つ – Waiting for Sunrise – you might have to tilt your head and look from an angle to see the roosters.
(img) ハート – Heart – made of snow!
(img) LOGO Mac – made of Legos!
(img) マイカー – My Car – pretty neat car made completely from wood
(img) もう疲れたクマー – The Stressful Bear – bear is tired of life and suicidal
(img) iPod – iPod baby with Shuffle
(img) クリスマスファンタジー – Christmas Fantasy – this city is so pretty!
(vid) スター – Star – Direct TV ad with scary movie characters being nice
(vid) フォースの – Battle of the Force – a recreation of the Star Wars scene
(img) パンパンパンパンパンパン・・・ – Tons of Pandas
(img) 枕だwan – Dog Pillow
(img) 新手のスタンド使いか?! – Frozen Stop Sign
(vid) クリティカルヒット – Critical Hit – what happens when a wrestler messes up
(img) 大接近 – Too Close – Big Moon
(img) 空からお月様が落ちてきたよ – The moon fell from the sky
(vid) 駐車場なんていらない – No longer needing a parking space – The magical shrinking car
(vid) 見上げた世界 – World as seen from below us – nice video, but I think it’s a advertisement for gasoline: Metro
(img) ガクガク(((( ;゚Д゚))))ブルブルなテニス – Playing tennis on top of a plane
(img) 2020年 – Year 2002 – The Honda Asimo Robot in 15 years
(img) かぷーnya – Cute Kitten
(img) 夢心地 – Deep Sleep – trick eyeglasses
(vid) (´・ω・`)ショボーン – Karate Chop – did it break?
(vid) 顔面蒼白 – PWNED – 2 guys want to lipsynch to a pop song and gets pwned by their father.
(img) えへっnya – Cute Kitten on Pole
(vid) 多機能な携帯電話 – Multi-function cell phone – Sumsing Turbo 3000 Xi Multitask – the phone that does it all!