John Zeitler

Y’know, there are days when I ask myself, “Why I am so derp?”, and there are days when I think I could give Wile E. Coyote a run for his money.

Guess what kind of day today was.

Considering I meant to have this post up three weeks ago, I suppose that I should consider dropping one or more of my activities. Then again, I care too much about all of them to drop any of them. This blog included. Even if I only wind up making one real-content post a month, I intend to keep up with this thing.

For a while I was feeling more than a little guilty that I had Game Clears up on the blog, indicating that yes, I did in the strictest sense “have time” to write and I was simply choosing not to out of laziness or selfishness. It’s in my nature to feel that if I’m not being “productive” then I should feel guilty, stemming from my theory that if I have the capability to do something, then I also have the responsibility to do it. The problem, of course, was that every time I would sit down to write for the blog, the writer’s block I’ve been suffering under for a while now would reassert itself, and I would wind up staring at the blank page for a while before giving up and playing a game.

Of course, I do have to relax at some point. I can’t be expected to be “on” constantly. If I choose to do so by gaming, well, then more power to me. I have to break myself of the mental block that says “relaxation = selfishness”. It’s going to be a long road, but the first step is accepting that those game clears should be proof that I’m not going completely loco.

Anyway, let’s talk games for a little bit. Portal 2 has been the big one, and even though I finished it before I wrote the first draft of this post, I still find myself going back and getting a chuckle out of some of the more funny aspects of the game. What I found most interesting was that Valve rewards humor on the part of the player, as well as giving the player something to laugh at by him or herself. Wheatley is funny, but when the player is rewarded for doing something stupid-but-funny, that’s even better.

One thing I’m finding to be even more fun about the game, and which extends the replay value of it dramatically, is the co-op campaign. There’s an entirely different dynamic between GLaDOS and the two robots Atlas and P-Body, and that can even be extended to the players. I’m going through it off and on with Chris LoBue, a partner of mine in BM&G, and we recently unlocked a hilarious interaction gesture where one of the droids takes the other’s “head” off and plays with it for a moment, inviting retaliation. It’s slapstick at its finest, and it reaffirms Valve’s choice of using robots for the co-op and not human characters.

That said, someone needs to patch in support for a third robot based on a cube, and then Valve can do the whole Three Stooges bit up properly.

So, after that, there was… Hmm, well, I suppose I could talk about the 3DS. Yes, I did get it on launch day, and no, I don’t regret it for a second. You’d be surprised how much fun I get out of something as simple as StreetPass and Find Mii, but that’s the standout feature of the system so far in my mind. It simplifies the whole interaction between gamers, and it’s the natural evolution of the tag modes that were pioneered in titles like The World Ends With You and Animal Crossing. The simple addition of real-world interactions to certain games is the hidden revolution in the machine, and I only hope that this becomes the breakout feature of the device in the way that the original DS’s touchscreen advanced portable gaming. To steal Microsoft’s phrase, it’s good to play together.

Nintendo is doing a great job of engaging with the playerbase this time around as well, too. The NOA Twitter feed highlights the various city-based StreetPass gatherings and clubs going on around the US. Granted, they haven’t gotten around to StreetPass Pittsburgh yet, but we’re still a small group. That’s actually symptomatic of the rather weak launch that the 3DS has had in the past two months. I’ll be the first to say that it was a little underwhelming– there were really only two titles that were worth picking up, and one of them (Bust-A-Move Universe) will only be worth picking up once it’s in the bargain bin, if a better version doesn’t come out before then. It’s annoying that the software isn’t there to support it yet, but I’m confident that that’s going to be fixed very soon.

It was a little annoying, too, to hear that the 3DS eShop has been delayed until the pre-E3 show– but not nearly as annoying as the mind-games Capcom is playing with Mega Man Legends 3. The big problem there is that the game still has not been given a green-light for full production, according to Capcom’s Dev Room initiative. The official word is that, depending on performance of the Prologue Version– the paid beta that was supposed to be released alongside the eShop– the game would either be scrapped or funded in full. In effect, Capcom is holding the game for ransom.

Now before I continue, I want to clarify something: it could be argued that BM&G is also holding a game for ransom, in that we can’t produce Point of Descent without funding. It’s a tricky parallel to navigate, and while it’s flattering to put an indie developer working on their first game on the same level as an iconic studio such as Capcom, that’s simply not the case. We’re going to continue work on Point of Descent regardless of how our Kickstarter and 8-Bit Funding pages do (I’m sorry I’m not being more subtle about that). Capcom, on the other hand, can throw away resources on a “failed” experiment and not risk ruin. The problem, of course, is that Capcom isn’t just throwing away money, but also reputation. They’ve been on rocky shores in that regard before, and I think it would be very wise if they just went ahead and announced at E3 that they’re just trolling us all and that MML3 is definitely coming out. It’s not like Capcom’s a stranger to being a lying creator either– witness the shell games they played prior to the official reveal of MVC3.

Anyway, E3. It coincides with a major Apple event, too– WWDC– but we’ll get to that in a little bit. This year will see the unveiling of the Nintendo console that will likely be in ludicrously short supply next year. (I learned my lesson and will be putting down a pre-order as soon as I can.) What has me puzzled, though, is that there haven’t been too many rumors about what Sony and Microsoft are doing. This could be a great opportunity for the both of them to steal the spotlight a little bit. One would imagine MS, at least, is showing something worthy of buying live airtime on Spike TV for their pre-game on June 6th at 4:30p EDT. Sony has taken a bit of a bloody nose this past month, but they’re running their own show the same day at 9p EDT. Nintendo is set up for the 7th at 12p EDT, which is conveniently when E3 proper starts.

As an aside: Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but I think Sony and MS have made a HUGE misstep here in scheduling their pre-games the day before Nintendo’s. I draw this thought from The West Wing. See, that show, believe it or not, had some pretty good insights into information control. One of the big tenets was that you want to make sure you get the most press time available. If you want to bury a story, you drop it in somewhere between major announcements so that it gets relatively little attention compared to the big stuff. By placing their shows in such close proximity to Nintendo’s, MS and Sony are trading the lingering effect of being last for the bombastic effect of being first. They’ll get the big initial drops, but Nintendo ultimately will have the most eyeballs on its work because it’ll be in a prime position to react to the other two pre-games.

In the end, though, it really boils down to what games are being shown off, and going by some of the less verifiable rumors I’ve been hearing– which I’ll not lend credence to here, as they come from some really sketchy sources– I think we’re all going to be very, very happy with all three consoles’ output this year. Just trust me on this one.

Moving on to Apple. By the time I get this post up, many of the Apple Stores around the world will have gone into lockdown mode in order to prepare for a major revamp of some sort. Nobody really knows what it is, except that it involves “gigabytes” of encrypted data being pushed to store servers; it might be as simple as giving iPads to employees to use instead of iPod Touches for POS terminals, or it could be a surprise launch of OS X Lion. We’ll know for sure in the morning. The rumors of a new iPhone hardware unit to be announced at WWDC on June 7th are pretty tantalizing, too. But what is probably the biggest news is the formal announcement of iOS 5.0. The mobile OS is slated to include a huge number of improvements to the everyday-use-case of i- devices, with the chief among them being a completely redone push/notification system. Apple, I think, didn’t expect push to be as big or as quickly embraced as it has been, and the initial implementation is starting to show its seams. Granted, there are also a lot of other things that need some spit and polish among the iOS guts, and a few things that are being driven by the (healthy and appreciated) Android rivalry. I would like to see some form of lock-screen widget implementation so that I could see weather and notifications at a glance, and I would be shocked beyond measure if the new notifications platform did not include an option to set truly customizable alert tones.

I mentioned in an aside up there that the rivalry with Android is “healthy and appreciated”. I mean that. The fact that the two operating systems are advancing and pushing each other forward by leapfrogging features means that, no matter which one users pick, they don’t miss out– assuming a long enough timescale. I’ve been an iOS user for going on three years now, and I’m not about to look back at all. Point of fact, I look to Android to see what features will be in the next major version of iOS. About the only thing I’m really unhappy with is the slower pace of releases from Apple compared to Google, but at the same time, not having the dizzying splintering going on that the Android landscape has is a definite plus in my book.

One other thing before I leave the Appleology pulpit: Apple and Google are both learning from the OS wars of old. They may have differing platforms and opposing goals, but both of them are very careful to rely on industry standards and are working towards interoperability. That might just be reflective of the current culture of interoperability in the computing world today, but it’s a breath of fresh air from the not-as-long-ago-as-I’d-like days when floppy disks came formatted in Mac and IBM flavors.

I suppose, really, the last thing to go over in the life-dump is the aftermath of Tekkoshocon and what my next steps there are. I was asked to help out with the RPG room for Tekko, and I did so. I make that sound so banal, but in truth it was probably one of the best times I’ve had in a long time at a con. There was stress, of course– comes with the territory of helping other people have a good time– but in the end it was worth it. Since then, I’ve been working on getting the video game room for The Sangawa Project together, and that itself has been an adventure and a half. At some point I’m going to have to go back up to Sharon to try to clean out Budd Street Video of some rare titles. That show comes just a couple of weeks before Otakon, which… I still haven’t registered for. Lisa Ortiz is a pretty big draw, but it largely depends on whether or not I really want to get into the Dealer’s Room. Which I probably do, but I may have to see how things go in the interim. Otakon probably isn’t going to have an attendance cap again, but if they do, I’m sure there will be enough notice to get things going in time.

That about covers everything I’ve wanted to mention. I’ll try to wr– oh, for cryin’ out loud, I promise that all the damn time and I never deliver. I suppose that if you need to get a fix on me, you could just keep an eye on my Twitter feed. If something big does happen, I’ll set aside time to write about it. Beyond that, I’ll try to keep this place up to date with the Game Clear notices and suchlike as I relax my way through this life. Ciao, kids.

So one of the things I’ve been doing, as part of my ongoing efforts to ruthlessly exterminate any and all free time I might have, is working on the Anime Heroes delve for the Tekkoshocon RPG room. This is sort of a big deal for me, as I tend to not really focus on combat in my own campaigns, but rather prefer to keep things on a more intellectual and RP-centric level. That doesn’t work so much when your players’ characters are modeled on Ash Ketchum, Toph Bei Fong, and Ichigo Kurosaki, three characters not exactly known for their inclination towards talking things through. So they have to fight it out, and I need to give them a decent shot at doing so.

To this end, I’ve been elbow-deep in the Dungeons and Dragons Compendium, which is a great resource for the average DM. There’s just a few hiccups, and that’s that, for the most part, there aren’t really a whole hell of a lot of variety of monsters available to players at Level 1. More immediately, getting data out of the compendium and into a workable sheet for use at the table is not exactly the easiest thing in the world, particularly if you need to adjust a monster’s level down a notch or two in order to make it a fair fight. (And yeah, there’s gonna be one encounter that just plain won’t be a fair fight, because what’s life without a little risk?) To date, I tried setting up an OpenOffice template for that purpose, arranging the carefully-constructed stat blocks and going from there.

The Cheshire Cat, in American McGee’s Alice, said: “There’s a nasty name for people who insist on doing things the hard way.” To that end, I snagged a couple of utilities that make life much, much easier.

The first is a bookmarklet found via NewbieDM that turns on editable mode within the browser window. Basically, once you find the monster you want in the DDI Compendium, right click it and view the frame in a new window or tab. Then, click the bookmarklet and start editing. In Firefox 4.0 you don’t get to see the insertion marker, so be sure you click before you start typing– or better yet, highlight only what you want to edit. It’s nondestructive, so you’re not twiddling bits on WOTC’s servers or anything. The only downside is that it doesn’t play well with javascript-heavy pages, which is why you want the monster in its own, disposable tab. Great, so you can alter monsters, but what about copying them to an encounter sheet?

That’s where the Pixlr Grabber add-on comes into play. Pixlr can specify a region of the browser window, and either save it to disk as a PNG or copy it to your clipboard. From there, you can paste it into your favorite word processor or page layout tool and arrange it as needed or desired. Make sure you do a test run to see how big/small the text needs to be.

Those should cut down a TON of the manual labor needed for me to get the encounters ready. At this point the hardest part is figuring out how to avoid sending my players against yet another kobold horde.

I have a lot to get caught up on here on the blog… Beyond Madness & Genius prime among them. There’s also the extreme flu I’ve had for the past two weeks, the coming start of the 2011 convention season (and it opens with a bang, let me tell you that), the announcement (and subsequent release, and further subsequent coveting by me) of the iPad 2, complaints about the bus schedule shakeup, rants about games and food, and just a general load of life stuff that needs to be addressed. With any luck this weekend I should have the presence of mind to get to it all.

But first, a complaint and and advisory. Most of you know I’m a rabid Pokemaniac, and when the fifth-generation games (Pokemon Black and White) were released last week I was all over them. I discovered, however, an interesting “freezing” phenomenon. When using the game’s instant-start communications tool, the C-Gear, starting it up in the field caused the game to mysteriously stop accepting button inputs. The game appeared to be communicating– the wi-fi light started flickering– but the screen didn’t respond at all. I just now learned through some forum posts that the only way to proceed was to touch the touch screen– which at no point are you prompted to do, in a bizarre break from Nintendo’s usually rigorous standards of always telling you exactly the next step. This isn’t just a bad oversight, this is an outright atrocious design flaw that should have been addressed weeks before the game hit North America.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the rest of the game, and I’m still of the opinion that this could have been the greatest Pokemon game to date. But given that issue, and the other things introduced in HeartGold and SoulSilver that are oddly missing here, that title is still firmly in the hands of 2010′s remake set.

Ciao, folks– hopefully I’ll get to you guys tomorrow instead of next month.

Sorry for the silence, folks, but I’ve been a little busy. Basically, what happens when you get a life in the real world is, you can no longer blog about it on the electrowebs. However, in a little while, I’ll be able to pull the curtain back a little bit on what it is I’ve been doing.

Facebook represents a very strange dichotomy for me. On the one hand, the concept of the service is a wonder to behold: it is a very strongly-focused social networking site allowing vast numbers of people to congregate and collaborate, facilitating events and all that wonderful stuff. It brings people together, which is a goal that at the 50,000-foot level I can appreciate and get behind. But how they have gone about the dirty business of paying for all that wonder, to merely touch upon the subject, sticks in my craw. Specifically the “we own your data and throw the details of your personal life around like a one-dollar chip at the World Poker Tour” bits. So, for the longest time, I avoided using the service, while at the very least just maintaining a profile so I could say “I’m on Facebook, in the same sense that I am on ibuprofen”.

This may have to change in the coming year as I start to, y’know, have a social calendar. I know, it frightens me, too. And not just the whole Big Brother-ness of it, but the fact that I’m not an almost-hikikomori anymore. This shakes up my whole worldview.

I don’t think I made too many promises at the end of 2009 that I actually kept, but the fact remains that I didn’t really keep the one I wanted most to: daily posts. After the move, I wound up inundated with the day-to-day stuff that usually comes with a new place. Thing is, though, I’m wondering if this isn’t going to work out like 2007 did: I had a rough patch at the end of 2006, but 2007 started with a lot of promise and a few opening shots right out of the gate that went so fantastically well….

Anyway. I also didn’t finish Frangible Time, nor did I get any work done on the next book in the Indigo series. Again, shades of ’06/’07. I can’t say whether or not I want to do a full repeat of ’07 with regards to finishing a story in the spring and writing the Indigo book in the fall, but that’s currently the plan. At least, most of the plan.

There’s also the standard resolutions– lose weight, eat better, etc. etc.– but I always try those, and I always fail. I figure at the very least I’ll leave those as “do better towards”, and if I do accomplish them, so be it.

Finally, one which is going to be very, very hard but quite doable is to spend less on games. My backlog is already too large, and in truth there’s only a few games left that I really want to play right away. I can get just as much enjoyment out of them by waiting for price drops and two-for-one deals on the games that I want for “someday”. Granted, I’m still getting certain games on day one… but very few of them in 2011. So far. That’s likely to change as soon as Spaceworld, E3, and TGS roll around, or if a new Super Robot Wars game gets announced.

So that said, I hope you had a great 2010, and that 2011 treats you well.

November was a very interesting month for me, not least of which because it was the first full one in the new place. It was also the first time that I was on the staff of an anime convention. And then I did it again a month later– this past weekend. In short, I’ve been busy.

But I’ll say this, never once did I feel like I wasn’t having fun during it.

Let’s start off with Kurokiiro Festival, which was November’s event. It was only the second year that the event was called Kurokiiro, and it was the first in a rather surprising venue: the Boyd Community Center. The BCC is a converted elementary school, which fit the theme we were going for this year: “school festival”. The idea all along was to have Kurokiiro be more of a cultural festival than an anime con, and as a result it was slightly different in terms of content. Instead of a ‘rave’ there was a formal dance. There was a hosted maid cafe. The video game room gave equal emphasis to CCGs and video games. I wish, though, that I could speak more to the panels and videos played, but I was holed up in the game room for the most part. Overall it went well, though the usual complaints happened: too small, not enough, [thing X] wasn’t there. I think, however, that next year I’d like to do a more ‘festival’ themed game room; maybe set up a game to work as a redemption game or something. I mean, it’s not like I can’t code something like that up, right?

The interval period, then, between Kurokiiro and Sangawa Project was spent working on making sure I had learned something from the whole experience of Kurokiiro and trying to make sure that the people who came to Sangawa’s game room were happy. One thing occurred to me as I was bundling up the systems for Kurokiiro: I don’t have a whole ton of multiplayer games. After I graduated from college the opportunity to play with others in the same room decreased dramatically; it wasn’t until I got back to Erie that I could again, and even then that was short-lived. So, when the Reclamation Project was in full swing, I didn’t emphasize multiplayer games all that much, in favor of rarer or more entertaining single-player stuff. Online games became a bit more my style, though, and while those are fun in their own way, they’re not conducive to playing them in a group setting. Well, not short of a LAN party or anything. Unfortunately, I had no idea where to start, and more to the point, moving had drained my reserves to a point where I was wary of spending too much money at one go. Anyway, I set that aside for the time being and tried to make sure that everything was in working order for Sangawa.

I suppose now’s a good a time as any to explain what exactly The Sangawa Project is and what it was intended to be. Its original description of being “an 18+ anime convention” is, sadly, quite misleading. When people start thinking in that sort of a direction, two things come to mind: porn and more porn. Sangawa was not like that at all, and though there was a bit of an uphill battle to emphasize that, I can reasonably say the message got through. What Sangawa was and is, though, is a bit harder to explain in a vacuum.

Anime conventions in general tend to have certain expectations placed on them. A convention is expected to have X, Y, and Z as draws to the attendees. What Sangawa does is turn a lot of those expectations on their heads and basically “reboot” the concept of an anime convention. Certain staples got retired, and certain new things were added. There was a lot more freedom in terms of programming content and stuff to do and see. Our guest, Dan Woren, was just plain awesome. The best part, though, and something that received a lot of commentary, was that Sangawa had a very different general atmosphere than Tekkoshocon or Kurokiiro. Whereas the ‘mainline’ conventions have a lot of the younger crowd around and the general mood is overeager excitement, Sangawa was very relaxed. This was Geek Night writ large, in katakana, on a window in front of a blue neon martini glass. Everyone had fun, nobody misbehaved, and it was just generally a great con. If this had been my first convention, and I went on to, say, Tekko or Otakon, I’d be in abject culture shock. It’s different, yeah, but not in terms of quality: if those other cons are Pepsi, Sangawa is Pepsi Throwback. Different ingredients, same general taste.

So how did Sangawa Project go? Of course, I’m not at liberty to divulge the specifics of the backroom stuff– nor am I really privy to that stuff either– but the general outcome is that it was a success. Not an overwhelming one, but a realistic one. That, I think, is also important to note. Despite the fact that it’s an offshoot of Tekkoshocon and it has its own tempo and style, the fact is that Sangawa was a first-time convention. Because of this, expectations were high. It was probably the benign thought not to over-promise that caused us to under-promote the event, but in all honesty that hurt us more than it would have if people were breaking down the doors to get at us. Still, that’s just my perspective from the enclave of the game room, and worse yet, it’s hindsight. Don’t read too much into it.

Anyway. Part of the end result of the Sangawa Project 2010 was the feeling of a job well done, in that I’m positive (and was told) that everyone had a very good time. It’s easy to forget that that’s why we do it, but there you go. I’m told that the feedback meeting was the most pleasant one that had been attended by the staff in years, and it’s not difficult for me to believe that. This was just such an incredible convention, and I;m really looking forward to doing it again in the summer– or rather, in the spring, when Tekko rolls around.

So that brings me to the end of the 2010 convention season. This year was a refreshing change for a lot of reasons, mostly because of the whole “staffing a con versus attending one” thing, but also because the season was unusually prolonged due to Sangawa’s presence. It’s no secret that I grew up in Western New York, near the infamously snowy city of Buffalo. (For those of you unfamiliar with American geography, let me put it to you this way: You know how in JRPGs there’s always at least one town situated in the frozen north of the map, where the entire village is covered in snow and everyone looks like they’re second cousin to Sasquatch? That’s Buffalo.) Because of that, I tend not to travel too much during the winter. For me, “con season” is the time of year starting with Tekkoshocon in the spring and ending with Kurokiiro Festival in the fall. In years past that just meant Otakon, but lately I’ve had the freedom to travel to a few other conventions or venues here and there. Oh, sure, I know there are other conventions close by during the chill months, but honestly, I love winter too much to spend it indoors. (That’s a story for another post, I think.)

In the past, after a convention, I’ve felt a profound feeling of peace that gradually gives way to a sort of temporary despondency. It doesn’t last more than a day or two, really, and usually by the weekend following my return home I’m back to my normal self. But this year, I haven’t felt that downer. It’s not something I would hang the word “weird” on, but it certainly is unusual. After the conventions of 2010– all of them– I only felt the continued excitement that led to a resolve to make the next con even better. As it turns out, both of these desires are the result of the so-called Hedonistic Treadmill. Basically, after an emotional or psychological high, the brain becomes accustomed to that level of stimulation. Therefore, the next high has to be even greater in order to experience the same amount of joy. Whereas before, I was simply a passive participant and was therefore expecting that greater high to be provided to me, now I’m actively working to make that high even higher: not just for me, but for everyone around me as well.

2010 was a good year for anime conventions, I think; the troubles at Otakon didn’t really do all that much to diminish the enjoyment I felt at being with friends and fellow nerds. So here’s to 2011, and all that it brings. I promise you, it is not to be missed.

(PS: As for the collection’s deficiencies, I managed to snag a list of all the games that were provided for the game room at Sangawa. Say goodbye to the Reclamation Project, and say hello to… the Gamerdex.)

I managed to get most of the game systems binned up for the trip to Kurokiiro Festival tonight, and also got the metal DDR pad into the car early (as I wasn’t sure if it would fit– fortunately it does). Overall I’m really looking forward to the festival.

Then again, it is 11:30p and I am gibberingly tired, so, yeah.

So, in lieu of sticking to a coherent theme or narrative structure tonight, I’ll just run down some of what’s on my mind.

First, Kurokiiro Festival is coming up, and as I’m helping to staff the Video Game Room this year (read: The Collection serves one of its intended purposes), I needed to double-check some things. The big one was getting a replacement A/V cable for the Dreamcast. Shortly after I’d picked up Twinkle Star Sprites at Otakon, I accidentally ripped the old, flimsy A/V cable out of its socket. Anyway, I’d forgotten about that incident during the move, and when it came time to unbox the retros and get them ready for transport to the festival, I found that little hiccup. Anyway, I ordered a new cable on Saturday from eStarland, a place that Slipgate had recommended on many an occasion. I have no reason to doubt him further, as the cable arrived today, and for the money it’s perfect. It’s an S-Video cable as well, meaning a somewhat nicer picture (and it looks incredible on the big screen TV). So I got my Twinkle on, then set it aside.

Next, in terms of anime, since I’ll be doing things that are not watching anime at the festival, I’ve been trying to get caught up a little more on some series that I’ve had on the stack. I mentioned to some friends that the current DVD set in the player is Slayers Next; this evening I reached the halfway point of the series. It still astonishes me to note the level of progress we’ve seen in made-for-TV animation in just fifteen years, after an equal period of stagnation. Anyway, Slayers Next is a hell of a lo of fun, even when the series is deliberately trying not to be funny. Incidentally, I can see (and hear) exactly why everyone was so happy to hear that Xellos’ voice changed in the dub for the new seasons (I’m on the English track because, quality or not, I can’t associate Lina’s character with any voice but Lisa Ortiz’s for some reason). He’s the most flaming not-really-bothering-to-hide-that-he’s-evil character ever.

Games… well, I ran across a couple of really good deals lately, including my third-ever Super Famicom cartridge. It’s bizarre that a city so far removed from any kind of an anime mecca could manage to be where I’ve collected two out of my three SF games (the third was Seiken 3, picked up at Otakon this past year). Anyway, straying from the beaten path has brought me a decent share of deals, including a game that, just going by its release date and meager print run, I should never have even seen (You Don’t Know Jack Mock 2). If this keeps up I may have to start a second row of PS1 discs. Which reminds me, as soon as I get a shelf or chest of drawers for the retros and the portables, I need to snap a photo of The Collection so you fine folks can see the glory of its new configuration.

As for yesterday’s post– yeah, the back pain is mostly due to my nocturnal contortionism, but the scientific process cannot be denied.

Finally, as it turns out, I picked up a cookbook that I wish I would have found three years ago. It’s entitled “Okay, So Now You’re A Vegetarian” and it details just what each of those scary-sounding things in the meatless section of the Market District really are, and how to use them effectively. With that in mind, I have a new mission: vegetarian gyudon (“beef bowl”), using seitan, sweet onions, and a few other ingredients. I’m sure it can be done; the question is: how? Actually, a better question is: how many fire extinguishers should I have on hand?

Night, all.