Survey Says...

So my trigger finger may have been itchy, and I may have jumped the gun so to speak with my previous assumptions of my new colleague Hannah. She's actually quite cool, all admiration for horses aside. I'm still deciding whether or not to regret giving her the link to this. As I seem to have lost the power to bitch if she rises my irk. But we'll cross that bridge if we come to it.

Meanwhile, I figure it's time to let a whole gush of geek just flood it's juices all over this thing, and start-a-pluggin. You all know I'm shameless like that.

Firstly, I'd like to speak about Gun. It's a free roaming western that tries its hand at the whole GTA style sandbox thing from Neversoft Entertainment. You may have heard of it a while back when it first came out. In all actuality, it's not a half bad game, giving the well received 'Red Dead Revolver' a run for it's money both story and gameplay wise. But unfortunately, that's where it ends. A fun cowboy game, that's missing the very sandbox ideals it was created to portray.

Allow me if you will, to explain. In GTA, you can follow the story at your whim, spending your time between missions exploring the vast city, and generally causing a whole mess of trouble for the local law enforcement. As you progressed through the series, this became more and more vast in span. A similar approach was taken in Spiderman 2, where you could explore at your whim. But it introduced the new idea of helping people in distress, allowing you to continue the never-ending fight against petty crimes. Once more, True Crime followed a healthy mix of the attributes of both Spiderman’s 'help society', and GTA's 'create a mass genocide'.

Gun on the other hand, does none of these things. Once you have completed the story side of things, you can then go on to complete whatever side quests may be left unfinished, and perhaps tackle a bandit or two. But that's where the fun ends. Once you've done everything there is to do. You've quite literally done everything there is to do.

Even going on a gun totting rampage in town feels tacked on and unrewarding, as the NPC's will simply flee in terror, while one or two may shoot back. And if you kill enough innocents, you will enter a 'showdown'. Now that sounds unbearably cool. But it's not what you might think. No pistols at dawn. No 10 paces then shoot. You quite simply take on a barrage of up to about 20 guys with guns. Guy's who are easily dispatched with a few shots from the contents of your Zelda like inventory. And for what? Nothing. There is no civil unrest. You do not become feared. There are literally NO consequences or rewards for doing this. Just a small pat on the back telling you that you finished the showdown by killing everyone or escaping.

Sadly unimpressive. Perhaps if they make a Gun 2, they will fix this fundamental flaw in their games design...

Stay tuned for my next blog, where I will talk about the much more pleasing topic of Xmen 3: The Last Stand.

CYOTFS
- Mav

Good vs Bad?

Well it appears that I have a co-worker. Well... Not that I didn't always have co-workers at the office. But more in the sense that, there is now someone else who does the same job as me in the building.

It's not the first time that someone else has had this job. But it IS the first time anyone's actually been doing it, and I must say, I'm intimidated... I mean, I'm a laid back guy at heart. And I had found an interesting medium between getting work done, and having leisure time. But now that there is someone else there, I can't help but feel that she will not also find this leisure time. And it will no doubt start to look quite embarrassing if the work starts getting done, and all under her name, while I still mill along at a slow but bearable pace.

'Work' as I know it, it seems, will become more like work, and less like... Whatever it is I've been doing all this time, very fast, very soon. And it's a concept I'm not comfortable with. Not in the least.

On the upside, I DO finally have someone I can throw bills to, lessening my perpetually growing work pile. So maybe it's time I actually buckle down and earn my paycheck? It's a concept I've yet to truly explore. Something that both pique's my curiosity, and fills me with fear at the same time. Much like I assume the Pandora's box might if it were ever to fall into my possession.

You know what they say. Curiosity killed the entire human race. Or something like that...

CYOTFS
- Mav

On Japanese Teenagers

I'll give them one thing... They are incredibly persistent... I had someone of Japanese decent add me to their MSN, and I attempted to engage in some form of dialogue with him. This unfortunately proved harder than first expected, as the extent of his knowledge of the English language seemed to end at these three words "Hello", "Camera" and "Yes". He seemed quite intent on conveying some form of invitation to share webcam feeds by mashing these 3 words together in every conceivable order possible.

Oh how I tried in vain to query him of where he obtained my email. I managed to dig up a dictionary, and attempted to ask him in Japanese if he was a friend of Napz. To which he replied "Hello. Yes. Camera" And offered a webcam feed again. I eventually gave up on this tangent, and tried to convey that the "Camera cannot function. Internet slow" all in Japanese. I'm assuming you've guessed his response. "Yes. Camera. Hello" And away he offered that damnable connection once more...

It has come to my attention that conversing with Japanese people may prove difficult. For you see. It appears they speak a different language. And if this kid was any thing to go by... It's not their language. That only seems to make them insist on babbling further.

I believe I shall need Napz for backup on this one. Maybe he will try and actually engage his brain when he see's someone he knows and will actually allow me to put my little dictionary to good use... But until that time...

CYOTFS
- Mav

Expectations

Good gravy was that expo pointless. There were a total of 3 stalls actualy selling tangable merchandice, and one of those was selling pins... The anime theater was tiny, and I could barely read the subtitles... Talk about raising one's expectations... I did manage to pick up Chrono Crusade and DVD 6 of Gantz. That and a cool buildable moddle of a Gundam.

There were other reasons that made the day a WHOLE lot better... But I beleive those are still of a personal nature, and not for the prying eyes of the general public. Yes. That's right. I just broke Blogging rule no. 1, and refused to log something by aknowleging that this is public access. Fight the power people!

Significantly shorter than I expected... But that's what SHE said!

Yeah... Those jokes are lame. But I couldn't resist. In any case, that's really all I have to say here. I'll see what I can't do about having some crasy hyjinx during the week to write about. But untill then... As I always say.

CYOTFS
- Mav

Keeping Up With The Times

So I see that my pal Yoshi has learned how to harness the strength of HTML within his blog posts. Let us hope this power does not go to his head shall we?

In more relevant news, I am headed out to another Anime convention on Saturday. This time my accomplice shall be the ever lovely Rhiannon, a girl I have recently come to befriend (Trust me. This story goes FAR deeper than I'm letting on. But such is a tale for later days). But you know the funny thing? It was this very fact that made me turn to myself and say "What the fuck? You haven't even posted your Supanova exploits yet!" (Indeed. I DO talk to myself) And so, I decided to give a brief overview of my experience that was...

Supanova Pop Culture Expo

Day 1:

How shall I start... Well. I guess I shall kick it all off with the point at which I exited the train. I have learned an interesting fact of Supanova. The journey to the exhibition is almost as interesting as the show itself. I exited the train, and found myself following what could only be described as a Shogonate Samurai. This is usually how I find my way to the hall. I pick the nearest Anime character and follow them. They usually tend to know where they're going...

So after an awkward few kilometres (Yea, I looked like some weird stalker... Oh well. Live and learn I guess), I finally reached my destination. Now... The funny thing about this, was that I was overjoyed to see no line down the street as previous years had yielded. I then foolishly concluded that there must be none by now, and that getting in would be a breeze.

Heh... Wishful thinking at it's finest folks. I found a line, and began to follow it back. All the way back... Through a twisting car park. Hell, I don't think I actually lined up the right way. I just got in the first one (there were several) that seemed to connect to the hall itself. And proceeded to wait... And wait...

About an hour or so later, I find myself in the bowels of a void of people, threatening to envelope me into it's warm waiting womb, from which I would never escape. Needless to say, I kinda wished I was back outside in the line. Because at least out there I had room to breath... But none the less, I pushed forward in the hopes of finding that golden glimmer of hope. The madman Anime table. But even navigating my way into a position to see what was on sale was a battle I prefer not to recall.

Finally breaking through the barrier, I purchased Apple Seed, Serial Experiments Lain Box Set, and the ever controversial Gantz box set (Well... What was available of it). Though not all was purchased at that time, I wish only to give an overlay, as the events are not quite as fresh in my mind as I would have liked them as I wrote this.

Eventually, after much stealth and espionage on my part, I managed to band together my band of miscreants, and we set off to find SOMETHING worth doing. Because you see... As luck would have it, with so much to do, there was so little to actually do. If you can decipher my insanity, a gold star.

We did run into an old friend of mine from primary school, whom I had not seen in such a long time, and who happened to be volunteering at the time. A sort of uncomfortable setting settled upon this positioning, as I was at the time trying to 'steal' a media CD, which was something everyone decided to question whether or not those were actually meant for taking. But regardless, I DID get one. Whatever it is.

There wasn't much else worth noting on that day, and so we all retired to my place to watch Anime and laugh at the Pac-man hat Yoshi picked up. It did indeed scream "I got drunk at an Anime convention". It's really too bad he didn't though...

Day 2:

This day was far more interesting. Well... Not in a whole sense... But more in the... We bought ass rapingly good lightsabers, and spent the day swinging them at anything and everything that moved. You simply would not believe the number of times I was asked where to buy one.

We met with James briefly for lunch, who had some cool nick knacks. It was here that Yoshi and I got into a number of badly choreographed light saber battles, all of which were accompanied with signature sequences from the movies. Yes. We are indeed geek's when we want to be.

What was the absolute highlight of the entire event however, was when both Yoshi and I had a run in with one Darth Vader and his escort. Not a word was spoken, as we all ignited our lightsabers and leapt into combat. Needless to say, the two of us beat him back, and the fight was over. I must say. These things are quite durable for something that looks like it's made out of a fluorescent tube.



And that dear readers, was my quaint little experience, condensed into a 'slightly less frightening than originally planned' format. I hope you enjoyed my ramblings... Well... Actually... I don't really care. The important thing is that you read them. And that's what it truly means to be a blogger. Ponder this, for I now leave to obtain sleep. And possibly pudding...

CYOTFS
- Mav

And Lo

I know I promised photos... And I may even post them someday. But not now... Such things will be seen too at a later date. For now, I feel the very simple need to shamelessly plug another blog... Indeed it is a bizarre thing for someone to direct attention to a blog other than his own. But I feel that Yoshi's unstoppable vortex of text requires the attention it deserves. And so, I do tell you all to go forth and gaze thin eyes upon the "Super Happy Yoshi Blog of Shameful Dishonour"!

It is indeed a strange and disturbing world we live in... And as I am at work, I shall cut this short right here.

CYOTFS
- Mav