what a glorious turn of events

i got a jury duty summons for yesterday, but for some strange reason i had it in my head that i had to serve today.  i have no idea where i got the dates confused, but it happened.  so i spent most of last night trying to find information as to when and where i was supposed to show up today, if i was even supposed to show up at all.  i could find none.  i was very confused and a little nervous, since failure to report for jury duty can lead to bad things.  i went to sleep and a few restless hours later i'm trying to call the courthouse to get info.  i keep getting redirected and never able to talk to anyone.  then i take a good look at my summons.  that's when i notice i was supposed to show up yesterday, and everything fits into place.  i couldn't get any info because my summons date had passed and the phone system was trying to redirect me to the courthouse so i could reschedule.  a few minutes ago i finally get through and i was able to reschedule for December, so i'm not going to jail or getting fined.  yay.

except that when i called i made the unfortunate mistake of deferring to mid-December, which put me right in the middle of final exams.  thankfully, though, i was able to call the courthouse again and rereschedule for late December (27th), which puts me clear of exams and Christmas.  it'll suck having to serve in the middle of Winter, my favorite season, but it beats getting fined for contempt.

anyway i am now one hour behind schedule, as i am going to a barbeque today.

so i finally beat halo last night.  epic game.

Things That I Was Thankful For During The Last Few Chapters Of Halo:

the shotgun.  one shell = one dead Flood.
the assault rifle.  sucks against Covenant, kicks ass against Flood.
Health Packs

Things That Annoyed Me During The Last Few Chapters Of Halo:
the Flood things that explode.  i don't mind exploding enemies, i've dealt with them many times before.  what annoyed me was that these exploding enemies detonated every grenade in the area.  so suddenly it's my fault i'm frugal with grenades.
Flood with rocket launchers.  seriously what the fuck.
sending a wave of tiny enemies from all sides to deplete my shield right before you send in Needler-equipped enemies.
the noise the Flood made.

actually i just hated the Flood in general.

things to share!

it's been nearly twenty years, and it's a little satisfying to know so little has changed.

STAYING UP LATE WASSHOI

before i drive back to the university for the last time until late August, i want to ramble about Accent Core a bit.

i'm rather disappointed.  i had been reading up on the game and heard the voices were being redone, the game was getting rebalanced and almost everyone was getting new moves.  as it stands i'll probably drop this and stick with XX, or Slash if i want to play as A.B.A.

gameplay wise, it's identical to XX and Slash.  nothing major about the graphics, with the exception of flashier and fancier effects during some attacks.  some of the character artwork has been redone, and i like it.  the stages (with the notable exception of Unknown) have been redone, and they look a lot nicer now.  there is a glaring lack of Mission and Story modes, however.

sound is one of the areas that is making me want to delete Accent Core off my PS2.  music is nice, it sounds like they redid the music from XX but i'm probably wrong.  the rerecorded voices are not all that great.  the announcer sounds like a creampuff.  X's announcer was the best, XX's wasn't that bad, Accent Core's makes me want to mute my TV.  some of the character voices are an improvement over XX, some stayed exactly the same, many got worse.  Dizzy, for example, sounds like a high-school girl now.  Sol has almost no emotion in his voice.  A.B.A. was completely ruined.  Chipp, Johnny, and Slayer sound exactly the same.  don't know why they even bothered.

a good number of characters, mostly the ones i use, got nerfed pretty bad.  Jam can't chain together her three kick moves anymore unless they are powered up.  Dizzy's defense got lowered and the range and height of several of her moves got changed which is totally mucking with all my old combos.  Johnny is slower and his offense got lowered slightly. 

Accent Core also got a huge difficulty facelift.  every character now has a 12+ hit air combo which they spam at will.  I-No is even harder now, if that was possible.  Megalomania actually got nerfed a bit but everything else about her is even tougher.  this is probably due to the fact that, as far as i know, she's the last boss.  no more Order-Sol, which probably means he got shafted.  also i am going to find whoever was responsible for making Boss I-No's aerial Tension Move do 25% damage and shove a guitar up their ass sideways.  i can't count the number of fights that she has been able to pull out of my hands because of that one fucking move.  also I-No no longer takes damage in Megalomania and she has absolute priority for blocking and jumping as soon as Megalomania ends.

all in all, it was a good effort but they should stop updating XX and focus on making a new game.  or if they have no intention of making a new game, make the updates to XX worth it.  this seems very half-assed as an update.  i'll keep going with it for a while but chances are it won't last the summer.

Haruhi Poster

EXTREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEME ANGLE because the lighting on that side of the room is poor so i had to use the flash.  also you might not be able to make it out in that picture but the top of the frame is bowed outwards because the frame is rather poorly made and the framing-wire hooks are really close to the top.  if i give the wire more slack the frame hangs low enough to see the picture hook behind it, and when i tighten it up like that the frame bows.  how it is now is the best i could do-the picture hook is level with the top of the frame and the bowing is very slight.  it's too bad the frame wasn't made out of glass, it wouldn't bow at all.

and now i am going to ramble my thoughts on ADV's Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu! and Bandai's Galaxy Angel and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.

first, Fumoffu!

i have to say, ADV did a rather good job on this one.  granted it would be hard to mess up FMP, as it's one of the most reference-free series i've ever seen, but even so they did well.  video quality is excellent, even for a 4-episode disc.  subs are good, at times they're a little obtrusive but there's a lot of signage to translate.  no glaring mistranslations, no glaring grammar errors.  as is the case with most ADV releases, they turn subs on automatically when you choose Japanese audio.  but speaking of the audio i noticed a weirdness.  at times, when the speech is happening at a distance from the "camera," there's an unnatural echo effect.  it was really pronounced on my laptop and it's still really noticable here.  i don't have the energy to dig out my fansub DVDs and find out if it was there too, but i don't think it was.  in any case, it's a very good release and i really want to get FMP and TSR now.

next is a little Haruhiism

i've been a little apprehensive since i learned about Bandai licensing Haruhi.  it's a very popular show and really easy to mess up.  i watched the DVD this morning and so far, it's all going good.  i just wish they were going with Kyon's order and not Haruhi's order, because at this rate the series will hit its climax about halfway through.  well and good for those of us who have seen fansubs and know what happens, but for people who haven't there will be little incentive to continue and some of the best episodes come after episode 6 (Haruhi).  ah well, i can always wait until i have all the DVDs and watch the series in Kyon's order, give my DVD player a workout.  vid quality overall is outstanding, considering how many extras they managed to cram in there.  audio quality is also excellent.  subs are HUEG.  during the scene in episode 3 (Haruhi) when Yuki is giving her long speech, most of the screen is covered with subs despite the fact there are only four total lines being shown, two on top and two on bottom.  they could have used a much smaller font size and not crowded the screen so much.  factoring out the sub thing, a great release.

last a little Galaxy Angel

Bandai did something rather unusual with the box-set release of Galaxy Angel season 1.  rather than pack it in four standard DVD cases or thin-pak it, they used a double-size DVD case that holds four DVDs.  it's unique and not a bad thing.  at first i thought it might be all four DVDs in paper sleeves rubber-banded together in a large box.  anyway, it's a great release.  Bandai actually used a reasonable size font for the subs here, small enough that it doesn't obstruct the video too much but still big enough to read.  vid quality is very high, since they put between 6 and 7 episodes per disc (for those that don't know, Galaxy Angel's first season has 13 minute episodes) and they still had plenty of room to stuff textless OP and ED clips, some "GA Lecture" clips with Ryoko Shintani and a few other extras.  audio quality is nice.  it's a solid Bandai release.

and as a total surprise: none of the discs had UPOs!  what is the world coming to.

AND I AM TIRED

Fanime has been slowly stepping off in quality in recent years, either because my weeaboo level is slowly going down and i am no longer blind to the idiocy that was always there, or because the convention itself is actually getting worse.  no way for me to say which is which, but either way i can't say this year was nearly as good as last year.  i had fun, i enjoyed myself, but all in all i didn't have as much fun as i expected to.  at this point i'm torn as to whether i'll be going next year.  i'm thinking about volunteering as a video room operator to try and spice things up (and get in for free) but i don't know.  in any case i've got ~6 months before i have to make a decision on this matter.

this year i did a lot of gaming, mostly because the people i went with were into gaming.  i played a lot of Ninja Burger and Give me the Brain!  inbetween that i watched anime and bought stuff.  i spent a lot of time doing each thing as opposed to doing a lot of things for a short period of time so it seems like i didn't do much, but suffice it to say i was busy for all 4 days.

as far as anime goes, i watched the first half of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni in a marathon room.  i enjoyed watching the series over again, but i especially enjoyed watching the couples come in and snuggle together at the school scenes and then get up and leave with shocked looks on their faces when everything goes horribly wrong.  i watched two episodes of Busou Renkin, which i enjoyed but probably won't get because the animation was standard XEBEC quality.  i'll probably grab the manga once i recover from my splurging.  i also watched 13 episodes of Ouran Host Club.  fuckin' hilarious.  must get.

and now for the best part of the con: buying stuff.

i'll start out small.

i found a guy in artist alley who was selling those little charms, and to my complete surprise he was selling Touhou characters.
Reisen Charm (watermark'd because it's original artwork)
later i was wandering through the dealer's room and spotted a Fate/Stay Night pencil board, so naturally i picked it up
Fate/Stay Night Pencil Board (spoiler about Unlimited Blade Works: Archer's True Identity)
i found a vendor selling those one-coin figurines, and they had Utawarerumono and Fate.  the Fate figurines were very detailed, and i couldn't pass up the prospect of owning a Touka, Karura or Kamyuu figure so i bought one of each.  i got Lancer and Lolicannon so it's all good.
Lancer: Front • Close Front
Aruru: Front • Close Front
over the course of several days i amassed a rather sizable DVD collection.  i managed to grab the Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu! box set, the first volume of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and the first season of Galaxy Angel.  i bought the Haruhi DVD and the GA box set at the Bandai booth, which officially put me $20 overbudget and earned me a free Haruhi poster.  it's too big to scan but tomorrow i will be going to Michael's to get a frame and i will hang it and take a picture.
DVDs
the one thing i was deadset on bringing home was another large figurine.  i was hoping they'd have the Rider figurine i'd been seeing for years (she's in this pose) but sadly i could not find it.  i was bouncing between several different figures.  one was of Tessa, which i nearly bought.  i also saw a Hisui figurine, one or two of the mini Saber and mini Rin from Tiger Dojo, one of Fallen Angel Flonne, and some figurines from Hollow Ataraxia.  i finally decided on Saber in Summer clothes.
Front • Behind • Close

so if you factor out the minor annoyances i had to deal with and factor in all the stuff i got, this year wasn't so bad.  not the best, but it certainly could have been worse.  i'm still not sure if i will be going next year, but i am a definite maybe.

Fanime out

bit of a change of plans this year.

i'll be staying in a hotel room for the entire convention.  so, unlike previous years, there won't be daily updates on what did, where i went, who i saw, and what i bought.  instead there'll be one bigass update Tuesday morning, like my Vegas trips.

see you all in a few days.

ah...

another day of stickin' it to the man and voiding my warranty.

i am fairly certain i have complained at length about the rattle in my case.  a few days ago i decided enough was enough.  i went onto newegg and started the hunt for a third-party VGA cooler.  i found a really nice Zalman cooler that happened to be the only cooler i could confirm works with the Radeon X1900 series.  so i grabbed one.  it arrived today.

it was pretty nice.  solid copper, two heatpipes, eight VGA RAM heatsinks, and hand-crank hardware.  so i got to work.

honestly, the hardest part was removing the old heatsink

that's the old heatsink, with a CD for size comparison.  one-half pound of solid copper.  no wonder my case rattled.

after that, it was a pretty easy install.  i was sorta worried when the instructions said the RAM heatsinks won't stick to thermal compound, but thankfully ATI uses what i can only describe as "thermal goop" that feels an awful lot like raw meat but didn't leave any residue behind.  so i installed those (i had heard they have the tendency to fall off but that didn't happen to me) and cleaned up the VGA processor.  it got all nice and shiny then i dulled it up with some ArcticSilver.  screwed the retention nipples to the fan, put the rubber washers on, attached the pressure springs to the nuts, screwed on the nuts.  took maybe 20 minutes all told.  i decided to bypass the fan speed limiter and just connect it directly to the board.

it was beautiful.  no noise, no rattle, no vibration.  it was like that time right after a band finishes a song, that instant between the last note and the first clap.  complete dead silence.

there it is inside my case.  you can see a few of the blue RAM heatsinks near the top.  the thermal tape on those heatsinks takes a day to set, so the install won't be "finished" until tomorrow night.  but it's just a waiting game at this point.

my temps have dropped 12 degrees C, and the ArcticSilver hasn't had a chance to set yet.  it's so totally beyond my expectations.

gonna go play Halo now.