Mal

Calling in July 4th early on the West Coast...

Fury You all know that I love my tanks so with that said: That tank battle! Some stuff irked me for sure but it's a movie. Similar stuff (plot armor) happens in a lot of other movies.

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2015-07-02/sentai-filmworks-adds-legend-of-the-galactic-heroes-higurashi-anime/.89987 Holy shit, it happening! Legend of the Galactic Heroes anime and novels are coming State side!

With that said, tonight was a good night to start Rick and Morty. It's the general banter from Rick and the odd random quip that gets me. Good show.

http://gfycat.com/WellmadeBitterDotterel Just the link since it doesn't autoplay (for me anyway). England commit sudoku against Japan in the Women's World Cup. The running joke and the wish was for an England win so we could have a Revolutionary match on Sunday July 5th. I guess Sunday will ether be Pearl Harbor or the Battle of Midway. Saturday will be England versus Germany. Since I don't have cable or anything, I need to figure out ways to watch soccer/football online... I kind of want to get into it... minus the politics...

Trigun hold up pretty well. Some story oddities but nothing too weird. Trigun has some sort of Christian magic. Edit: Done. Holds up. Skimming the manga, that seems a bit more fleshed out but I guess this one is more concise. More or less everything happens in the same order but the manga got some extra neat bits.

Yeah, a tad bit long but that last level bit makes up for it I think. Too bad it doesn't carry over to New Game +... I'm stoked for the sequel. Edit: I didn't realize it was ported over. A quick search seems to indicates that this is a good port so here I go. I really just want a nice short cheery game.

So... I'm finally getting around to watch Trigun and Outlaw Star. Considered classics back in the early 2000's, you don't really hear much about them now when classics comes up. Let see if they hold up!

And so my stay in the Voynich Hotel ends...

Welcome to LA or any decent* city in California. With the amount I've spent on rent, I could've bought a place in say Fresno or someplace like that. Sure I could get a place for say $400-$500 (I have never seen anything lower with my standards) but the locations tend to be subpar at best. *Not in the middle of nowhere which to be honest, I'm fine with... lets see where life takes me first. For most of my life, I've lived in or around the more expensive places in the US (NYC, SF Bay Area and LA Region). Due to Cal Poly, SLO is expensive as well. Almost on par with the averages(?) in the Bay Area and LA.

It's that time of year again where I look for a new place to live (SLO LIfe was so easy... same place for three years). This time I have the added bonus of knowing people so that is nice. I'm chill with my current roommates but all of us decided to move away from campus. Whether we stay together is up in the air but it certainly wouldn't hurt. One guy also got a girlfriend that we all know since we're all in the same department and work together in one form or another. Which brings me to asking this: What do you guys think of two couples living together in one place? My only experience with it is with family members and one is fine and the other still has a smoldering bridge. I spied 4 beds, 3 baths last year and again this year in a nicer part of town that would cost each of the 5 people about $650 (At least $100 less than currently paying) in rent, if split evenly, with one room extra. If that room got filled, the rent would tank even more but at $650 per person with one spare room seems fine (also to consider fridge space). That room can be useful for our family and friends visits (which does happen and I'm fine with it). Every group got their own full bathroom too.

If any of you or new people ever do field work (any natural sciences), the Note and its pen is quite awesome out in the field. The screen might not be able to fully fight the bright sun but being able to do this: out in the field is invaluable. As a TA, it allows me to snap a picture and point out features immediately. No more trying to point out features and hoping the other person sees it the same way as you do. Helpful as a student too since I can show it to the professor and see if I'm on the right track. These doodles could be closer than the first photo or be something like this: I can also make sketches of stuff so I can save space in my notebook. I'm sure the other smart phones has similar features but the pen for sure makes this more precise. For documenting science and junk, the Note # are pretty good.

I still have the luxury of having the ability of just playing dead* for a day or two for a really good game. For all other games, I just put a hour or two here and there when I find the mood and time. Being in the mood to play something is a biggie now since I just have so much on my mind. Like Goh, I tend towards single player games now since they're like books. I can work through them at my own pace. * Or just become shut-in since I need time to think

Anybody here ever read The Witcher books? I'm interested but it seems to as involved as Dune is. Shit ton of books to chew through. Speaking of Dune, I'm currently mustering the strength to start Heretics of Dune. All the books are good but it is a chore to learn and love new characters, especially with God Emperor of Dune (This is really is a curse for all long lived series though). With God Emperor, the only people you that appeared before is Leto II and Duncun Idaho. Now, I think it is down to Duncun Idaho. As a side note, I am also starting to read The Ring of Void... I forgot who here (or was here) who wrote it. It should be easy enough to chow down on since it is so short. Tenshi, I swear I'll get to your books someday but it for sure hurts that I kind of need a e-reader to read the copies I have.

I was away during the sale so lucky me.

I see a rough estimate of Fall 2015 on the Steam page. After reading about all the issues, I could believe it taking that long to fix the port. Come on, there seems to be some insane problems with the game installed on HDD (content streaming related?).

So I've been camping for the past week (one more week)... pretty interesting surprises. A new South Park game and a FFVII remake? I was honestly disappointed that we didn't get any DLC for The Stick of Truth but I guess a new game will be nice. I assume Matt and Trey will again have their hands on the game or else why bother? About FFVII remake... I guess it is time to open the floodgates on remaking the others as well in the next decade. It'll be interesting to see how they remake VII since now they can include other information from the other games. Mechanics wise, they have to update it a bit. I wonder if they'll get rid of the horrid random encounter rates (or get rid of it entirely). Time to dig through more E3 news. I only got the above in a quick skimming.

Games as a product has services attach to it. Pretty much like any other product that you buy in stores or directly from the dev/pub or manufacturer. The product can differ vastly (e.g*., how they are consumed, durability, how they exist), they more or less have similar flows on how they get to the consumers. While there is no perfect analogy to video games but I best relate to the food service industry, a very expansive industry that encompasses the food on store shelves to mom and pop restaurants. Both have services revolving around products. For the services, both have a front side and a back side. It isn't uncommon to see front and back side being one and the same, especially so if the establishments is independent. While I'll hate to get a game that breaks 2 hours in (kind of like if I get food poisoning hours after my meal), at least I can return very sloppy products now on Steam (this cooked meal is raw or you swapped between salt and sugar). As always, be a smart consumer. You really shouldn't walk into a blatant cash grab of a game or food. Word gets out. You can look at the product prior to purchase. I'm just not sure how the hell we can deal with games like Sim City. That game's problems were really deep and required many hours to get to and confirm. * Really, there are too many things to list.

After this episode...

Surely you'll spend that investment 10-20 or even 30 years from now directly in Kansas. So it's all fine.