Vanderbilt Fantasy

So it's been an interesting and semi busy week(s). Work has been busier, but it comes in spurts, often at inopportune times, like early morning, lunch, late night, or weekends. Which just takes some getting used to. So with work and adapting to a new summer schedule without the distractions of TV, I found it harder to blog a little. Oh well, life has been pretty boring without much to talk about anyway. Great weather provides some great hiking opportunities which did some up at Ferncliff Forest and plan do hopefully do some more in the future. I also went to visit the Vanderbilt Mansion while I still have some time on my National Parks pass. It was cool to see and being free is also cool. It's a shame that a large portion of the parks and historic sites around me are mainly just houses, don't receive a discount, or are already free. It's a shame I didn't get anywhere further north while I had it since it's pretty much dead now.

I saw a few movies recently. The first was Frost Nixon which I found to be a pretty good political movie, but ultimately moved along at a pretty slow pace and the whole first half was pretty uninteresting. I also saw The Reader. This was a good character driven story drama about a boy who falls for an older woman and then deals with her the rest of his life pretty much. Unfortunately, Netflix spoiled the movie for me having a major plot point in their synopsis. I just wanted to refresh my memory as to why I put it on my queue in the first place, but they ruined it. I thought the movie was good and the rich characters kept it interesting, but it moved along pretty slow as well. Luckily it didn't drone on and on like other life stories and kept it pretty succinct at 2 hours.

I have been finding time to play some video games but wasn't able to give full reviews. I already mentioned how I thought Uncharted was really good and am waiting for the sequel. I played and finished the new Prince of Persia. It pretty much held up to my first impressions. The platforming was fun, but the battles almost seemed tedious. The open world has horrible pacing since it's do the same basic task 24 times. It was still a fun romp. I tried out the Infamous demo. Seemed like a fun super hero game and the reviews I've seen seem to improve on the GTA open world with a more plot driven narrative. So I decided to purchase it since I had a Gamestop gift card, but who knows when I'll get to it. I also decided to pick back up an epic RPG for the start of my summer gaming. Not having TV allows me put in time almost every day into gaming which is great. And choosing an epic 100+ hour RPG now ensures that I won't take almost a year to complete (hopefully). I decided to reach back into my PS2 pile and pulled out Final Fantasy 12. It's one of the few I haven't beaten and feel like I can get into it now. I started to play it when it first came out and got maybe half way in it, but since it's been ~2.5 years, I decided to start from the beginning. So far so good, but I can see why i probably didn't like it to begin with. For one, the game feels very open ended with different areas opening up all the time which was probably a bit too much. Also and probably more important is the pure random of everything. Everything is so random which makes things a chore, like treasure hunting. It's random when the chest will appear, random if it's money or not, and then random which item you'll get. Because most times you won't get the good items out of them, you are forced to buy them from shops which means that you are almost always short on gil. So far though, since I have the time to devote, I'm still enjoying it.

Time in NYC

This past weekend was a good weekend. Kristen came up with Jared and visited along with touring NYC. On Friday they went shopping down at the Woodbury Outlets and had fun, so I guess I should go down there sometime. Maybe some weekend where I'm not doing much or hiking down in that area. On Saturday we took a trip to NYC. It was essentially the same basic trip that I took with MOM and Dad a few weeks ago, but with them it seemed more relaxed and I had a better idea of more efficient areas to go. We did the Statue of Liberty and briefly Ellis Island. It was a shame it was kinda an ugly day, especially in the morning. We then went towards Times Square and had lunch. Afterwards we wandered over to 30 Rock. On the way, we saw a huge street vendor sale on 6th Avenue. It was pretty cool and really big. I was surprised by it and enjoyed it immensely. It was probably my favorite part. We then wandered around Central Park for a while before getting tired and headed home. We also made a quick stop by Central Market and picked up some delicious desserts. When we got back in Poughkeepsie, we ate at O'Shea's and got some good food and drinks. Sunday they left early and I played catch up with all of my podcasts and Hulu stuff. By the way, what a great season finale for Grey's anatomy. Up to this point, I was so dead tired of the show and was going to give it up. I was no longer the prime demographic and was looking for something to dump. I didn't care about the characters anymore since they all seemed too crazy now a days. Then this finale just roped me back in. It was extremely good and the whole season up to now seemed to be for that episode. Great.

I also was able to catch a small budget foreign flick called Time Crimes. It is basically about time travel and a pretty normal man's experience with it. It started out pretty slow but by about half way through, it was really good and I liked unwrapping some of the twists and turns even though some of it was pretty predictable and confusing. The ending gave a pretty good twist and I liked it a lot (I wonder what happened after the cops showed up). A great indy flick.

Way to go Mikey

So last night was an excellent night. I attended the local Penn State Alumni Association's Spring Banquet. Normally I'm not a very big social butterfly, but the main reason I attended was that they invited Mike McQuerey to be a guest speaker. During the opening social hour I met a few people (whose names I all forget, go me) and got to mingle with Mike himself for a very short while. We then had a pretty good dinner. Lots of small portions, but they tasted good. Mike then gave his speech. He was a great speaker, being very open about himself, the program, JoePa, media, conference, everything. It was really great to see. It was wonderful that he was so open since I did hear a few things not quite heard before. He was a super nice guy and is always busy. I hope he keeps up the good work since we've been landing some good recruits. It was a good night, even for a hermit like me.

Wow, Fringe-y

Wow, I just wanted to say what an amazing season finale of Fringe. At first I thought it was a little gimmicky but by the end with alternate dimension [and grave yards] and then the [NYC Skyline]. Absolutely brilliant! Then Leonard Nimoy was an added bonus. Truly a great series. The whole season has been great and I hope it continues with lots of good stuff in the fall. I don't want some lulls like Lost had. But concise to say, yes, I am still very much in love with this show.

Set to Stun

So I had a pretty good week and weekend. Nothing too exciting, but good none the less. So on Saturday, I went and saw the new Star Trek movie. It was pretty amazing and a great space adventure. I'm glad I went and saw it opening weekend. Although in the past I wasn't too big of a Star Trek fan, I think I may be after the movie. It made me want to see more, although if I act on it is yet to be determined. I think the plot did get pretty crazy at times, which may be off putting to some watchers, but I liked it. I also wonder if this whole thing is supposed to be in canon or not since it seems like it might through some things off.

Also this weekend I went on a very short hike. I read in the NYT an article about Hudson Valley vistas and Burger hill was listed, so I decided I would check it out. It turned out to be a very short hike up a medium sized hill. The view was ok, but it was nothing special and didn't even have a view of much. I was more surprised that something like this would be listed in the NYT. If I was closer to NYC and decided to come check this out, I would be mad. Since I am much closer, I was ok with it, but was expecting more.

I also finished two rentals this week. I got Benjamin Button which was a pretty good life story, but was epically long which detracted from it overall. I also thought there were some major plot holes since he's born and died with the body of a baby which doesn't make sense. He's also stupid with each. This strides from the original story since he was supposed to be born with the knowledge of an old man. I also just wish that his body didn't somehow shrink.
I also saw Tropic Thunder. Nothing special really, just an ok comedy. I found my self laughing a few times, but not too much.

In my weekend gaming, I finished up Uncharted and started the newest Prince of Persia. Uncharted was great and I look forward to the sequel. I even did a little bit of trophy hunting (although I'm not too sure why since they mean nothing and I don't really have any PSN friends that would care). Prince of Persia seems ok as of now. It is beautiful and the platforming is fun, but the pacing is absolutely horrible and the game can get repetitive. I would guess I'm halfway through or so. The game opens up to 24 different levels and after you complete one, it's just rinse and repeat 23 more times. For now I'm sticking with it since the platforming is a lot of fun.

A bunch of Cupcakes

Why does Penn State's schedule suck so bad? Is it too hard to ask for maybe two BCS schools a year? If not, how about no Div-2 opponents? I just feel that we can achieve all of the programs goals of having at least 7 home games and pack the stadium while also increasing the strength of schedule. Think about it. How about 2 Big East schools since we like easy opponents in our recruiting area with alternating away years. We could then have two guaranteed wins in a Div-2 team and a MAC team (Temple?). This would be hands down far better than what we've been having the past few years. Or if that is too much to ask, how about we schedule our one BCS team, preferably of higher quality (Alabama comes to mind) but even that I could dodge, as long as we then schedule a bunch of MAC, C-USA, MWC, and Sun Belt schools. This way we would at least be scheduling all Div-1 schools which is an improvement over our current system of a measly BCS school and then a Div-2 with some other non BCS schools. I don't know I'm just tired of all of the cupcakes and want to make the most out of not playing anybody and guaranteeing our wins.

So it seems that our Penn State football program really has a problem with weed and parties. Rumors are circulating that some more players were caught. I hope it's nothing serious and no potential starters, but this is getting out of hand. Someone on that teams need to take some leadership and show those kids.

I have to say that overall I'm feeling good for the team. It seems many aspects are coming together although I question the strength of the secondary after the Blue-White game. I hope they can get better and the offensive line can get better at blitzes. Quarterback play seems to be reasonable, but I feel that we lost too many and have too many hole to not lose a few. I'm thinking ten wins or so. Maybe lose to Ohio State and either Iowa, Northwestern, or MSU. Hopefully it's a good season. I know I've got a long way to go until Fall, but I'm starting to miss it. Hopefully Summer goes fast.

Valkyria Chronicles

So as promised, a brief little synopsis of my feelings about Valkyria Chronicles. So in case you are unfamiliar, it is a turn based strategy game with some real time elements that takes place during a fictitious WWII. The actual game play is great. I love being able to take my time by taking turns and how I want to spend my command points when it comes down to my turn. This is one thing I found I dislike with more recent RTS games in that I can't take my time doing stuff since there is so much to do, I always have to be doing something. I also love the real time elements in getting to control a character with cross fire actually happening. It is truly a great mix of action and strategy. The game is fairly difficult in places, but some of this is that you don't know what is coming at you. If I were to play again, I know I wouldn't have as hard a time. The game is sort of nerve racking though. I always felt the pressure of war since if I made a big mistake I felt I could lose a lot of my troops. I wish the AI would have been a little better in some places. Once you got the hang of it, it became easy to trap soldiers or make their moves worthless. Some of the Boss fights seemed like they had better AI and it would have been cool if that was always present. Most of the mission difficulty always stemmed from being outnumbered instead of being out thought. It also would have been nice if the grade you received on missions was based on more than the speed at which you performed the task. It would have been nice to get a bonus for going beyond the mission like eliminating troops.

I thought the story of the game was mediocre at best. It was a typical love story inside of a war story. There wasn't anything really exciting or new about it, but it wasn't bad either. Just totally average. The story was presented in a book format, which I had mixed feelings toward. I liked it at first because it was a cool concept and I liked the go at your own pace mentality, but some of the scenes became tedious since I had to initiate each new scene even if the last one was very short. It would have been nice to some how string scenes together better. The presentation in an anime format was superfluous. I appreciated it, but I imagine it might have sold better without it. The graphic themselves were really good. They were simplistic at times, but they got the job done and looked good. The pencil filter they had was cool for going with their book motif. Since the game was optimized for 720p and I had it in 1080p, I got plenty of jaggies but that didn't really bother me at all. The voice acting for the game was extremely good. I can't imagine Sega made their money back since there were some good talent in there. They also used a bunch of people for all of the different recruits you get in your squad. On top of being very authentic, it made the game seem real. This also made me not want to bring much harm to any of my characters since they each had a personality. The music wasn't anything great, but it wasn't grating so I guess that's good.

The game does have a New Game+ option to go back with more difficulty, but I'll pass for now. The game also had 3 DLC packs. One was just an advanced difficulty for new game+, which I won't take immediate use of. The one was another mission focusing on some of the recruits. This was a fun little mission and took some getting used to the troop layout. The last was a couple missions where you are the enemy. This was the most fun, but ultimately since each character didn't have a personality, I felt like I didn't care about them too much which kinda detracted from the game. Overall, these missions were fun and a good challenge, but I feel like since my party was weakened and taken back to an earlier level, it left me feeling weak and powerless. I didn't master the missions, but still got the feel for them. Still good fun though. There was talk of a sequel, especially for Japan. If it would come stateside despite the initial poor sales, I would grab it up in a heart beat. A great strategy RPG experience.

Weekend Ren Faire

So it's been a nice week. Kinda lazy, but busy at work and keeping busy with nice weather. This weekend I went to the Hudson Valley May Faire. It was a small Ren Faire that was close by so I checked it out. It was rather small, but it was fun. Many of the performances were good and humorous. The only main problem with the fair was the weather today. I originally planned on today since it seemed like they had more activities and I yesterday I was running errands, like going to Free Comic Book Day (Woo!). Also as of Friday, the weather seemed like it would be better on Sat. Turns out it was quite wrong. It was nice on Sat and rainy on Sun. Overall though, I'm glad I went.

I also recently saw 2 more movies. The first was Changling. It was a pretty good movie, but nothing too special. I felt like the plot was pretty predictable but everything was done well. It was a good historical drama.
The second movie was Vicky Christina Barcelona. I heard some good things but I was highly disappointed. The whole movie was rather boring. It moved along so slowly and the whole thing felt like it didn't even have a point. I also was hoping for a good performance from Penelope Cruz, and she delivered, but she was hardly even in the movie. The movie was a pretty big disappointment.

Lastly, I finished Valkyria Chronicles this weekend. Clear to say, I am very pleased with it. I hope to have a write up sometime when I get around to it. Meanwhile, I started Uncharted. So far, this is a great game and I look forward to playing it more. It is unfortunate that it is kinda short.

Guild Hero

So a quick post on some things wrapped up tonight. I watched season 2 of the Guild. Just like the first, it was a whole lot of fun and a joy. The characters are great and I think that's the biggest appeal. The jokes and situations are funny, even though I don't play any MMOs. Great stuff.
Heroes Volume 4(?) also finished this evening. It's clear that it's improving and has improved from it's low and horrible volumes 2 & 3. I like how they killed off some of the characters and feel that at times the writing is good creating unusual situations and bringing back some unusual powers. I feel that overall it's not as good as the first season, but it's back on its way up. I felt the ending was a little bit of a cop out, but they can definitely have some fun with this for next season. (Although the ice woman's recurrence was surprisingly unexpected.)
Other than that, I went to the dentist today. Good to have nice clean teeth :D I guess they'll hurt tomorrow though. One thing that came up was the possibility of braces to straighten up my teeth and fix some of my alignment problems. Although clearly cosmetic and not necessary for me since I'm only minor, it still is something to think about, especially since I'm eligible for invisalign. I still have to do a bunch of research before I make any decisions.

I Can Drive!

Just a quick post about this weekend. It was a beautiful weekend, but besides for taking a bunch of walks outside, I wasn't able to truly enjoy it, although it did warm up the apartment which is always good. Saturday I was stuck in a Defensive Driving Course for most of the day. IBM was offering it so I signed up to get a great discount on my insurance. It was mostly all common sense, but the instructor was pretty good even if he did stray off topic a lot.
I also saw Zack and Miri Make a Porno later that night. I found this comedy to be pretty good actually. Maybe walking in with a title like that sets the bar kinda low, but it passed it. I laughed at several moments even if it was a low brow comedy. The plot was totally predictable and boring, but weak plots in low brow comedies combined with retarded plots in pornos isn't going to produce something amazing.
Didn't really do much else this weekend. I wanted to beat the main plot of Valkyria Chronicles, but some of the parts took longer than anticipated. It would have been nice to go back to PSU this weekend for Blue and White, but maybe another year.

Sunset Strip Bitch

So last night I went to an Eve6 concert at The Chance. I never saw them before and figured it would be a good night out. I was a little concerned about the turnout at first. It was relatively sparse, but people turned out before Eve6 went on. The openers were all local bands. The first and third were pretty good but the second was total crap. Some sort of eighties hair band where the lead singer was like a gay, British cowboy. Eve 6 put on a good show playing most of the hits and a lot of new stuff. I guess most of it sounded ok, I'll have to see when a new album comes out. I really like having the Chance close by to get good bands like this, although everything about the whole ordeal seemed expensive though. There were over 7 dollars in fees on top of my ticket price, I had to pay for event parking which was an additional $5, and the drinks were kinda expensive ($4 for a beer plus tip). It just seemed to add up for only one night out. Oh well, I had fun. Plus, this was my first concert in a long time where I didn't go wild at the Merch table. In fact, I didn't get anything. Can't remember that happening in like forever.

Squeenix and it's Body of Lies

Tonight I saw Body of Lies. This was a great political thriller in the world of spies and the Iraq war. It was a really good movie keeping my attention and following the subtle nuances. My main thing I feel like pointing out is how good Leonardo DiCaprio's latest movies have all been. He has been a very consistent actor and someone who I now respect in all of his movies. I look forward to any of his upcoming movies since they seem to be really good. He's definitely turning into an Edward Norton class of actor in my mind.

So a little bit ago, I posted about the recent love of PS3. I think I spoke too soon, or rather lumped in one company I shouldn't have. Square Enix has really been pissing me off as of late. They used to be my favorite and most dependable game company and now I feel they are worthless. First it seems like they haven't developed anything significant in recent years and not having a DS has certainly made that even worse since I didn't get The World Ends with You. Even more so, they have show absolutely no love to the PS3 and the Sony brand in general even though they used to be almost exclusive publishers. The PS3 has gotten a little love in Japan only with a few PSN titles and re-releases. In America, they have not released a single thing and have taken away exclusivity from future titles. They were planning on a Last Remnant port, but that even seems to be out the window. They seem to now be in love with the Xbox with a few disk based games already released. They even have Crystal Defenders which is fully translated and available in Japan only, but for some reason Xbox only in the US. What got me started was that Square Enix recently announced I think 2 more new Xbox Live Arcade Games. Meanwhile they show nothing for the PS3. It is truly ridiculous how much they are pandering to Microsoft nowadays. The only exclusive that is left is FF Versus 13 and since the regular 13 is behind schedule, seems development is extremely slow as of late. At one point they were saying similar release windows and now it seems like the game will be distant, at best. I'm afraid E3 will hold some sort of evil surprise and this game will lose exclusivity. All I know is that it's difficult to see a company that I once love show no respect for a fellow Japanese system, which happens to be the camp I'm in. I feel a lack of loyalty now. I used to buy a game just because of the distributor was Square, now I almost feel the opposite. Instead Distributors like NIS and Atlus have replaced them. It's a shame when a childhood friend like that drifts away.

Budgeting Woes

So I seem to be having some trouble with my budget. I'm not necessarily breaking my budget or going over it. It's more along the lines of if I allotted money for it, I seem to spend it and having a surplus is no good. Lately I feel I've been keeping the whole floundering anime industry alive with my incessant spending. I've rediscovered Rightstuf's awesome sales and have been purchasing titles like crazy. Now even though I've allotted a set amount each month for entertainment and haven't really gone over it, I still feel guilty. This recent anime addiction is going to turn into my video game addiction where I have a nice collection, but haven't played nearly as many. The same is going to happen to my anime I've been buying I feel. I've bought several series lately: Boogiepop Phantom, Noein, Gunslinger Girl, GTO, Beck, Getbackers, Basilisk, Tsukihime, and several more that are staring me down. Maybe it's just me catching up for not really being into anime that much in the past 5 years after drifting out of it or me only really buying about 1 series in the past 5 years. Maybe it's how I'm kinda caught up buying all of the video games I wanted to get for the current and past generations (which aren't prohibitively expensive). I just know I feel bad for spending my budget.

Passing time

So a really slow and boring week for me, but I wanted to make a post just to say the few small things I've been up to. Work was pretty slow this past week again, but it appears it will pick up this coming week. I've got the outline of three different tasks I need to get done now, so that's good and I'm excited for it. This weekend was incredibly lazy. I first did some regular 'ol chores and errands including picking up some new contacts since the past pair was wrong or something. Also, I renewed Game Informer at Gamestop...hopefully they did it correctly. The highlight of the day was most likely passing my NY inspection for my car. It's a major relief, although I wish they would have put a May date on it. Beyond that, I did some reading and played a bunch of Valkyria Chronicles. I'm advancing really far and feel I'm very close to the end.

I also saw two movies this past week. Nothing too exciting, but I saw Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist and Special. Nick and Nora was a pretty good and just a decent teenage romantic comedy. The soundtrack was very good but some of the acting felt fake. Tonight I saw Special. It was a decent dark comedy about perceived superpowers during a drug trial. It was good and all, but wasn't really drawn in to the movie. I ended up just feeling sorry for the main character. It also was incredibly short at just 81 minutes. I did enjoy that it was independent, if nothing more than to see other independent trailers which normally don't get much exposure.

I hope to make some more posts this week, but we'll see how that goes...

An Easter with Doubt

So I had a pretty good weekend at home for Easter. It was good to spend some time with my family and get some good food out of the occasion, which I swear I must have gained a few pounds this weekend alone. I was also happy that even though it was Easter, not really any religious conversations came up. I don't know if this was just by chance (more than likely) or if they actually realize that I'm not religious at all anymore. On that very topic, it created some interesting topics of discussion this past week at work, with some members finding out others are actually religious or that others aren't religious at all. I found the situation pretty funny since I at one point was in both camps and now I'm looking back on the whole thing. (And this whole past week I found myself more and more cynical to religion and Easter in general so I was curious how this past weekend might go)

This past week I saw the movie Doubt. It's about the suspicion of a priest in a catholic church doing inappropriate things to a young boy. The movie itself never lets you know whether it is true or not since it is supposed to cause "Doubt". The film was excellent and I found it pretty riveting since I was trying to find indication of one way or another. My main problems with the film all stem from just the setting of the film. The film does a very good job of depicting judgmental attitudes along with holier than though attitudes among other things. Basically it easily reminds me of tons of things I hate about the Catholic church and made me angry at several parts. Having that battle between a good movie and something I hate provided an interesting viewing experience.

Also last week was the premiere of some new shows on NBC (and some more coming up). Particularly, I saw the first episodes of Parks and Recreation and Southland. I thought Parks and Recreation was a little awkward but had some potential and was kinda good. I remember some of the initial Office episodes being a little awkward and it turned out quite well. My main problem is that it might be a little too similar to The Office. It is the exact same thing and I think Steve Carell does a better job than Amy Poehler. I though Southland was ok at best. It mainly seemed like another cop drama that didn't bring anything new to the table. I think I may stick with both shows at the moment though since they have some good time slots on Thursday nights. P.S. that night's 30 Rock episode was one of the best episodes I've seen in quite some time. I was actually laughing out loud for once and it just kept me laughing. Good stuff.
My main fear with adding two more potential shows I like to watch is that I'm following way too many shows as it is. I barely have time to do anything else and I know I'll have trouble once fall comes around, although it seems like some may not get renewed.

Lastly, this weekend I briefly tried out Boxee. I've heard lots of great things since it's supposed to be a decent streaming aggregate software. I have to say, I'm not impressed. I had tons of problems that aren't enough to win me over. The main site I use is Hulu, so I checked this out first. It doesn't really support my queue feature as it was grabbing from the bottom of the queue which kinda defeats the purpose. It also was unable to go back many episodes of shows like anime. I then decided to go try another channel so I checked out Netflix. After some trouble logging in, I tried to stream something but got another error forcing that channel useless. Lastly I went over to Rev3 to just try and stream something and found the quality to be pretty crappy. Missing from the main Boxee are features like a main queue and key channels like ABC, CBS, Fancast, and Crunchyroll. As it stands, I do not like this software one bit and don't see what the fuss is about. Maybe in due time I will come to check it out again, but right now I have no problem going to individual sites.

PS3 Love

I am getting so stoked about some upcoming games for the PS3. For a short while there, it looked like absolutely nothing was coming out and I wouldn't really have a purchase until FF13 rolled around after Hell freezes over. A bunch of announcements for Japan releases give me a bunch of hope that some may come stateside. hopefully E3 turns up some juicy goodies about even more good RPGs coming forward.
So besides for some of the big name other genre releases coming up (Uncharted 2, Assassin's Creed 2, New Team Ico game, Katamari, etc.), I wanted to focus on RPGs at the moment since that is where my core interests lie and what I'm currently overy excited for. Coming up recently we've got Cross Edge, which I know is solely Fan service, but it's got Etna and Prinnies and for that I'm sold. Also in the next week or maybe even tomorrow, more DLC for Valkyria Chronicles, which is great since I'm enjoying the game immensely. (Although I'll probably skip on the Extra Hard mode since I doubt I'll replay (especially without a tank) and the game is pretty challenging already). Already released, but have seen very news about is Demon Souls and White Knight Chronicles. Although not my immediate style of RPG, I would probably still pick them up since I imagine they might be pretty cool. Recently announced we have the Tales of Vesperia port, Atelier Rorona, and End of Eternity. Probably all would be preorders for me, especially if they through in some bonus. I love Nippon Ichi and I have heard great things about Vesperia. The Tri-Ace could be pretty cool and from what I could tell is not cell shaded. Other distant games include both FF13, FF Verses 13, and Last Remnant. Last Remnant I'm a little hesitant but being Square-Enix, I'd probably pick it up to show SE that there is support on the PS3 (even though they have essentially abandoned us). Overall, I love the recent announcements and hope some new games come over here.

Quick Random Thoughts

Some more slow days this past week or so but wanted to post some quick comments on a few things since I haven't made a post in a while it seems.
- Heroes is starting to pick up again. Although Monday's episode was pretty predictable, I found it to be fun again which is an improvement from some of the earlier episodes. Hopefully they can keep up that pacing.
- Fringe is back! yay! Although I'm mad at American Idol for running over by like 10 minutes. What's the deal with that? You have a time slot. Stick to it. I don't tune in for a reason.
- I've been watching a bunch of Naruto recently. Although I'm not the core demographic and it's old news by now since I'm starting from the beginning, I'm having fun watching it. I definitely stated watching at the worst possible part of the entire series which helps explain my initial dislike for it. I'm still a little embarrassed about it though.
- I watched Seven Pounds. Pretty good movie. A good story although pretty predictable. Not nearly as good as Will Smith's other movies, but still good
- I am glad I don't have Time Warner. There are rumors that they may soon start charging based on usage plan and $1 for each extra gigabyte, effectively raising charges for customers. Cablevision is a pretty big company so it seems it may be only a matter of time before they try something similar. (Frankly I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet) I wonder if FIOS would be a viable option. If so, I think I may have to go that route.
So this weekend I'll be heading home for Easter to see the family. Can't hurt for more good food.

Statue of Catching Up

So it's been a busy week. Work has been picking up (outside of today) and this past weekend my parents came up to visit. Since then, I've been mostly trying to catch up with stuff since I was out of whack. The one thing we did do was go down to NYC on Saturday. We first went to the Statue of Liberty. It was a nice site and I'm glad I finally got to go see it. We also went to Ellis Island. I found this extremely interesting seeing all of the immigrant's stories. The artifacts they had were cool to look at. I never realized just how similar the situations in America relate to the ones of today. I knew it was close, but it was amazing how exact. We also got to walk by the WTC site, Chinatown, and Little Italy. I was a little disappointed with Chinatown since it wasn't as good as the one in San Francisco. Little Italy was cool and it was a nice place to grab some pizza. We also walked around midtown Manhattan too. I think in total we walked over 7 miles. It was quite a long day.

Other than that, I watched the latest Coen Brother's film. I thought it was pretty good. It was a little over the top and pointless from a plot perspective, but I had fun with it. I seem to be a fan of the Coen brother's films.
It's also good to see the Penn State Basketball team having some success. Tomorrow they are in the NIT championship game. If they can win against Baylor, that would be awesome and huge for the school since we are normally bottom dwellers. Let's go State!

New Katamari?

A new Katamari Damacy game for the PS3?!?! I can't contain my excitement if this is even remotely true. The franchise is so much wacky fun, I would even buy a crappy port at this point. Naaaa na na na na na na...!
Thanks Joystiq! http://www.joystiq.com/2009/03/25/katamari-damacy-tribute-coming-to-ps3/

Dairy Queen Value Menu

So as I was watching TV, I saw an ad for the new Dairy Queen Value Menu. I wanted to post my gut reaction. When I was treasurer of PSAO, I sold Japanese Snacks with the same basic pricing scheme: # of items + $1. (I wonder if DQ's stops at 4 for $5). Nobody understood the pricing even though I explained it for 3+ years. I just see DQ having many of the same problems, only difference being that many people won't care because of tax and buying other things. I just picture many people still being confused and it leading to much explaining and confusion, since I had similar first hand experience. Just saying...good luck DQ.

So a little while ago, I downloaded and completed Flower for the PSN. This is an awesome game, simply put. In the game you start out as a single flower petal and use the wind to fly around and awaken other flowers. The whole story is like a flower's dream. You control the game almost entirely using the six axis control of the PS3, which to me, is the first time it actually had a specific and good use. The game is just an amazing feeling. It can be relaxing and peaceful as you fly around and collect flowers. It's just such a change in pace form the normal types of games and it is a welcome change since it is done so well. The game doesn't really have much of a challenge since you can't die. You can get lost or not find the correct flower you need to bloom, but you can't die. The trophy support, although buggy, is a great addition to this game as after it's done gives you some more challenges to complete since the game has very few. The graphics are amazing and very artsy. Each blade of grass reacts to the wind and you just feel right out there with your flower riding the wind. The sound, although minimalistic, adds to the mood and is a great addition. Every time you bloom a flower, you get a chime of music, so you can add to the ambiance. The game is a little short, but the experience was worth it. My only real complaint about the game, and it would be hard to change, is that it is very easy to get motion sickness. Since you control with the controller, you are also moving about as the screen is so it can become sickening if you get too much into it, luckily the game is relaxing. A great game that I'm glad I got to experience thanks to the PSN. I'm happy they take chances like this and support little independent games.

Also of note, there was an article on CNN today describing the game company that made the game. Ironic.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/03/23/santiago.games.tedx/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

Slow Week

So it's been a rather slow and uneventful week. I've been pretty busy at work, which is great change of pace. I didn't really do much outside of work this past week. I saw two movies, Pride and Glory, and Pineapple Express. Pride and Glory was pretty good, but deep down it was just another crooked cop movie. Edward Norton did a great job, but he wasn't as standout as some of his other roles. I thought Pineapple Express was pretty bad. I only found it funny in a few parts and the action sequences were mediocre. The stoner comedy I suppose was ok, but I was mostly bored with it. Much of the movie was over the top and it didn't add to the comedy, more like why won't that guy just die. Other than that, I started to play Valkyria Chronicles this week. I have high expectations and so far it is living up to them, but the game is nerve racking and pretty hard at some points.

The only other thing this past week was that I splurged and bought a couple of things. First I saw that Right Stuf had the Full Metal Panic Season 1&2 on sale. Since I've been in an anime binge lately from seeing some good stuff on Adult Swim and getting back into things from the cons I went to, I decided to buy it. I saw at least the first few episodes of both seasons in PSAO and enjoyed what I saw. Since I needed just a little more for free shipping, I decided to purchase Season 3 while I was at it. It was on sale and it made sense. Then later this week, Right Stuf announced a really good Bandai sale. Sigh, so I splurged and decided to buy some Bandai stuff as well. I bought the entire series of Cowboy Bebop and the first season of Code Geass. They shouldn't arrive for a while though. Hopefully this will settle my impulse buying for a little while. My credit card bill will thank me.

Grow Grow Boy

So a little bit ago I picked up Noby Noby Boy from the PSN. I figured it was cheap enough and from the same guy that made Katamari Damacy, so I knew it would probably be some good quirky fun. Well, that is exactly what it is. It's the combination of like Katamari Damacy and the cell phone game Snake, while trying to stretch yourself. The concept of working together towards a common goal is really cool, but I feel that growth will drastically slow down as the game gets older. The game is definitely quirky, just like Katamari. The game is also fun in such a way that I passed several hours without even noticing. But I have several complaints. The first is that this really isn't a game. Without the trophies, there would be no challenges and no objectives. Instead this is more like a toy you got when you were a kid (the perfect analogy is Stretch Armstrong). This makes it very hard to continue to repeatedly to pick up. Also, although, the levels are randomly populated with such great objects and have endless possibilities, I feel they are too small. It would be nice to really let loose and eat everything. Noby Noby Boy is a great toy, it's just a shame it isn't more of a game with some traditional objectives or levels.

Random complaint: I'd like to know why the SciFi channel is digitally blocked, like HBO, when other channels around it are not. This prevents me from watching it on my analog tv and not using my TV Tuner. This is annoying since I want to watch Ani-Monday and might not always be able to and would like to record it.

Watching a Little Taste of Milk

So a pretty busy weekend and a bunch of stuff I want to share. The first would be my experience with Apple Care. So my power adapter finally died after being on the fritz for a while. After already replacing one from Best Buy, I remembered I had Apple Care so I called them up and they said they would replace it, I just had to take it "to any place that sells apples". So even after checking if Best Buy was ok, I tried at Best Buy to find out it had to be an Apple Store. Friday after work (since I had a tour down in Fishkill) I went over to the Store in Danbury. The process was incredibly easy and simple and I have to say that my experience with Apple Care is good, but running over to Danbury is a pain and the whole idea of my power adapter failing is stupid.

Friday night, Joe was having a wine tasting party at his apartment. I enthusiastically went since I've been trying to get more into wine and this was a great opportunity to try a bunch of stuff, especially wines from around the world. I had an absolute blast at the party. I tried a bunch of new stuff, something like 11 new wines. The theme was new world vs old world. For the most part, I feel I liked the new world stuff better. I enjoyed the Chardonnay he had, preferring the buttery California one. I tried three sauvignon blanc wines. All three were spectacular and I feel this could be my new favorite variety. The red wines I was disappointed with, but still found some I liked, like a Cali Petit Sarah and a Pinot from France. I had a great time and just had a wonderful evening.

On Saturday, besides for getting a few things done, I went and saw a matinee of Watchmen. Now, never reading the book and coming in blind, I thought this was an excellent comic book movie but have nothing to compare it to in terms of source material (but here it stayed pretty accurate). It is clearly a comic book superhero movie and it is unapologetic in that. This doesn't try like some of the other movies to be more mainstream, which may explain the huge drop in sales this weekend. The beginning part of the movie felt difficult for me to adjust into this alternate world where vigilantes are everywhere. This seriously detracted me for quite a while, luckily being a long movie allowed me to get past this and still have a lot to watch. The character drama was pretty good and I felt it was a good ride of a superhero movie. The real kicker at the end, really hit home and I was stunned and awed. To imagine that type of twist and resolution in a huge overarching comic book series that was being released during the cold war is incredible. There were many parts of the movie that I thought could have been explained better or just have anything mentioned about them (the villain's tiger thing). The amount of gratuitous nudity in the movie was a little over the top, luckily it didn't detract too much. I'm guessing this was all straight out of the books being originally directed towards men audiences. The clip at the top I now find pretty funny even if I don't get all of the jokes in there. A great movie that is unapologetic in what it is.

Tonight I watched Sean Penn's Milk. This was another amazing movie. Sean Penn did an amazing job and I think deserved the Oscar. All of the acting was great and the writing was spectacular. Even though this is a rather slow moving movie, I was hooked and was thoroughly entertained watching and wondering what was going to happen next. By the end of the movie, I was somewhat actually moved to tears. It was a touching ending and it is just sad as to how these people are treated even now, thirty years later. How all Americans don't have the same rights and the same freedoms. It was a wonderful movie that was done with great taste and with an extraordinary message.

Oh yeah, and lots of blue penis.

Death Race

So a few quick words on Death Race, my netflix movie. Somehow this movie made it to my queue (I suppose of the sorts positive reviews I've heard and Jason Statham certainly helped) and also somehow made it towards the top. I pegged this movie as clearly a B movie with total ridiculousness and I approached it cautiously and didn't have very high hopes going in. I have to say that I was kinda surprised and did kinda enjoy it. It still was overall a mediocre movie, but certainly better than I had planned. The action sequences and races were cool but certainly over the top. Most times, I could predict about what would happen, and they certainly killed off a major antagonist way too soon. The ending mini twist worked, but feel it didn't surprise me too much. I mean, I guess it is kinda hard to root for criminals to break out of jail. The blu-ray had some crisp visuals to see all the gritty racing and had a great audio soundtrack. (Although I know that recently especially Dolby and DTS are supposed to be somewhat equal, but it always seems I am more impressed by movies that feature DTS audio.) Overall, I was surprised by the results and did enjoy the film, but probably won't remember it.

In other news, I love turning my keyboard into a Daft Punk mash up board: http://www.najle.com/idaft/

Trusty Sonata

So over the weekend, I finished and beat Eternal Sonata for the PS3. This was a very enjoyable game and I'm glad that I picked it up. It provided such a great, traditional RPG experience that I haven't had in some time due to the number of other games that I've been playing.
The story of this game starts out incredibly slow. It is so mundane at first ("We're going to go complain about taxes") but gradually picks up throughout the game. I think that was something that this game did surprisingly well. Although it didn't really grab me in the beginning, it kept building on to itself making the story more complex and easy to continue with. The pacing was pretty good for most parts of the game since it kept building and getting more intense. The ending wasn't really a let down, but I wish it could have been tighter and less confusing. Much of it made no sense and it is a shame to an overall good game. The story also made little references to Frederic Chopin's real life either through in game events or through documentary style cut scenes usually every chapter. The documentary scenes were told through text while a solo performance of Chopin's music was played, usually telling bits of his life and possible inspirations for the piece. I found these pieces interesting and something fresh in the game since much of it was repeated stereotypes. I found the solos didn't harm the pacing too much and were too interesting for me to not like them. In addition, it provided some great insight to the main character.
The battles in the game were done in a very interesting action RPG way. Each player had their turn in a 3d battle field and could then execute actions like an action RPG for a certain amount of time. The game starts you off with a very easy battle system and it gets increasingly harder as the game progresses (to the point where buttons are randomized). This keeps the battles fresh since it keeps changing certain aspects of the game. Most times I didn't find them too tedious or monotonous since I feel it was one of the high points of the game. the battles also move along at a very quick pace which is great. The battles also added the option to guard or counter attack certain enemy attacks. This also kept you actively involved in the battle during the whole time. It did feel a little unbalanced though in that you almost always had to guard against attacks since if you didn't you would take huge amounts of damage. The addition of light and dark areas of the battlefield also added an interesting dynamic. Overall, I thought the game had a pretty good difficulty. It wasn't too hard by any means, but it wasn't easy in that you had to time your guards so that you didn't take too much damage. I only died a few times, and mostly during boss fights. These is a new game+ mode where things get twice as harder and a few additional treasures and such, but I didn't partake in this since I feel it would take too long for the small additional benefit. If I ever want to come back to this, I certainly can.
The graphics of the game were beautiful cell shaded models and environments. It looked great in HD. Some of the characters felt like they had hollow heads, but I get this feeling with a lot of recent games. The music and sounds of the game were really good. Besides for the solo performances, I can't say there were really any memorable scores, but there weren't really any grating songs either. This is good since the game is essentially music based and themed. Every character and most places are music names since this is Chopin's dream. I enjoyed this original take on things and am glad the music didn't detract from this, although it would have been good to have a few top notch songs. The voice acting in English was hit or miss. Some of the characters sounded great, while others felt pretty forced. It would have been nice for this to be a little more consistent.
The additions and fixes made to the PS3 version were pretty good. I enjoyed the extra costumes, changes in difficulty, extra scenes and dungeons. Although I didn't experience the changes in the new game+ mode, I feel that this version has to be much better than the 360 version.
Overall, a really good standard next gen RPG. I liked it a bunch and it was a welcome addition to my collection. It also introduced me to the possibility of other Bandai Namco RPGs like Tales (although vastly different).

Mountainous Weekend

This is a little late it feels, but I wanted to make sure I wrote some stuff on this weekend. I had a great weekend with the great weather helped me do a bunch of stuff. I was able to get a few things done around the apartment, and then since it was so nice, I decided to take a hike in the beautiful weather. I traveled down to Beacon to hike up Mt Beacon. It was only a mile or so to the top, but they weren't kidding when they said it is one of the most strenuous 1 mile hikes. Combine that with me being out of shape and I was really huffing and puffing. The trail was pretty muddy from the melting snow and at some points, dangerously icy. I actually slipped and fell twice. The views were pretty good. I liked looking down on the Hudson and Beacon. I have to say that the actual trail wasn't the best maintained though. at several points it would split and I imagine would seemingly come together. This happened unfortunately to me coming back down. The path would split, and both would be marked red, so I would take the easier path. But coming down, I never met up again with the main trail. I actually was lost for a little bit. Nothing too scary or anything. There were still for the most parts rough paths, and I knew the general direction to head, downhill. So that is exactly what I did. I kept going until the path spit me out onto a nearby road at the base of the mountain. Using the mountain and the old cog railway as my guide, I walked along the road back to my car. I imagine the trails may get cleaned up a little more towards spring, but I was having some trouble with them. I still enjoyed getting some good exercise. The rest of the day and weekend were pretty lazy as I was able to relax and enjoy some digital entertainment. I did beat some games, and I'll most likely give my impressions in the coming days.

I did watch the movie Appaloosa. I thought this was a pretty good Western. I have to say nothing stood out incredibly good or bad, but it was some fun cowboy action. I have to say that I did not like Viggo Mortensen's facial hair. It looked way unnatural. Everyone else's looked rough and aged. His looked like he just visited the barber in every shot. I don't know, that was mainly the only thing that bothered me.

Later on Sunday, I saw Howl's Moving Castle at MCAS. Somehow I did not see it yet, so I'm glad I was able to see something new there. It was an extremely pretty anime. We watched the English dub, mainly I think for Cristian Bale as Howl and Billy Crystal as the flame. All of the voicing was done really well, which I shouldn't be too surprised since Disney always does a good job. I have to like how Cristian's voice for Howl and his transformation were exactly the same as Bruce Wayne and Batman. It was laugh out loud hilarious for me since Batman's voice was always a little comical. It was a great movie. It felt a tad too long overall, but I could have just been tired. My only gripe is how the main character's appearance and voice would change for sometimes no given reason at all. With it, sometimes it looked like the animation quality would vary as well. Overall, another great Miyazaki film.

I have to say, I hate Daylight Savings Time. Getting up is now so tiring.

Raging Excel

So tonight I pretty much was just finishing up some stuff. I started out by watching the last DVD to Excel Saga and finishing up the series. This took me a crazy amount of time to finish, and I'm glad that to say that I'm finally done. I originally got this series sometime over the 07 summer. I started out watching it often and enjoyed it pretty much, but I suppose I quit once school started or just got tired of the repeated craziness. I then picked it up again recently to finish it up. I liked the series overall. It was genuinely funny in many places and way over the top. But it can get a little annoying after a while since it has no plot what-so-ever. When they tried to add some towards the end, it felt forced and would have almost enjoyed it better with none. One feature I loved about this purchase is the ADV vid notes that are on the normal dvd releases. I love reading those crazy little factoids. Although it did get crazy sometimes with the amount of text on the screen.

I also watched my netflix movie tonight, which was Raging Bull probably making its way to my queue because of Martin Scorsese. I did not have a good time watching this movie. I thought it was boring and very slow paced. It felt like it dragged on forever. I don't understand the rerelease on Bluray as the sound and video were both nothing memorable. I don't quite understand the movie being shot in black and white, although I'm told Scorsese explains this in the special features. The black and white just seemed superfluous and it didn't make much sense since there were shots of color mixed into the film. I found these jarring, especially since at one point they were used to show the passage of time. The one shining point of this movie is the acting. Every actor did a fantastic job and made their character believable. The story of a broken down boxer, his family struggles, friends, and battered wife are all convincing and well received, I just wish I enjoyed it a bit more.

My Emo Live Journal Entry

So before I turn this into the emo, live journal portion of my post, I might as well get by the fun stuff first. This weekend was State Patty's Day in State College. I still don't fully understand why you need an unofficial day full of drinking when St. Patrick's Day is when school is in session. But who am I to try and make excuses for college students to drink. I happened to be in State College and hung out with Jared and his friends for the remainder of Saturday. Although not fully accustomed to drinking for 9 hours, I did, and had fun for the most part. We started at a friend's apartment where it was good fun. We then moved downtown later in the night where we went to the Rathskeller for a quick drink. By then, it was starting to catch up with me, so the Skeller wasn't ideal. We then left and ended up at The Cellblock. Although I'm not into dance clubs and was kind of tired of drinking, it was ok. I did see Sam Glick, which is always a plus to see fellow graduated friends. A good, long State Patty's Day, but kinda disappointed I that I didn't see Greenman anywhere.

Now onto my emo portion of this entry which probably none wants to read and I'm just putting down to get out. I also apologize for speaking on the cusp, more so than normal. So on Saturday I headed down to State College in the morning and dropped by Michelle's place. After much thought for quite some time now, I decided to break up with her and that was the main reason for my travels. We had a nice discussion where I explained my feelings and some of my reasoning I could formulate into words. She seemed very understanding and I was quite surprised at how well she took it. Of course she wasn't happy, but all considering, I thought it went quite well. I explained how it was clear she liked me way more than I liked her back, and that she deserved someone who would like her equally. I explained how it might have worked better as a friendship and told her that I'd be willing to keep her as a friend if she wanted, but understood if she didn't. After talking and consoling for a while, I left to give her space, time, and perspective. When I left she was doing well and was genuinely interested in still being friends or so it seemed. It will be interesting to see how things go from here on to see if now that she had some time, how she will behave differently toward me.
So I think ultimately, the relationship came down to personalities. Many other things complicated the relationship, like being long distance and having vastly different views in terms of politics, religion, and ideals to name a few. When we first started going out, she paid attention to me and was infatuated with me, which was exactly what I needed in a relationship. Also we had similar interests and I was the dominant person in the relationship, determining what to do, making decisions, and not playing my normal submissive role. This was exactly what I needed after my previous relationship and also at that time in my graduation since I had just gotten through some of the worst semesters. Eventually, I found out that her personality was eerily similar to mine and the way I acted when first in a relationship. I found this interesting and understandable since I went through that. Though even later, I think this all started to fail and not feel fresh any more, and I would like to think I know why. Her personality was almost identical to mine, but my weaknesses were even more apparent in her and much "stronger". I to one degree or another am asocial, don't approach people, quiet, don't like confrontation, don't speak up, difficulty in resolving problems, making decisions, dependent, etc. to name a few of my character "defects" for lack of a better word. I feel in a relationship, one aspect people seek out is character traits that complement your own, not to accentuate your weaknesses, which is why some crazy opposites attract towards each other. I feel that the more and more I found out about her personality, the more it only helped accentuate my own weaknesses and dislike those traits. I'm pretty sure I'm just speaking gibberish now, but either way, I am now single and hope that Michelle and I can maybe continue to be friends, since we do have similar interests. I guess that's about it for this emo entry. I guess the obligatory thing to do after writing one of these is to cut myself....
Maybe I'll just pretend.

Wanted (Dead or Alive)

So I watched the movie Wanted and wanted to give my quick 2 cents. I heard very mixed reviews so I wasn't sure if it was going to be any good. Overall, I thought the movie was ok, rather mediocre. Definitely wasn't missing much. Although I liked some of the director's other works like Night Watch, when you bring the movies into English, they are rather absurd. There were points that were just so over the top that it took you out of the movie. The action sequences were great and stylistically awesome, but they couldn't make the whole movie. The dialog and struggle of the main character were ok to watch. Although you can't relate to him in any way, it didn't remove me from the movie like I've heard others hear. The soundtrack was good for this movie and appreciated it. The movie had potential, but it was too over the top I think for me to really get into.

Presidential Address

Just wanted to post my quick thoughts on the presidential address I just got finished writing. I have to say Papa Obama made me feeling hopeful towards the end. He seemed to cover a lot and be very ambitious. Which I suppose is good over all to have an ambitious president. I liked his description of stuff in his way of describing to the public. It felt like a dad or teacher explaining to kids. (This is how the economy works...you see, there's this thing called credit...). A lot of what he was talking about felt very moderate in appealing to a wide range of people. But it also felt A LOT like it was a campaign speech and he was still in campaign mode. He even used some of the same lines. This just makes me worry since one of Bush's problems was his constant campaign mode. My personal favorite thing to do was add odd/inappropriate comments for the audience members they showed, like guys randomly walking out, people not clapping, people clapping too enthusiastically, or just making Penguin noises for McCain (which looked very old, boy am I glad he wasn't elected just alone on that). The republican response was interesting in that the Louisiana Governor had a weird accent to me. An Indian guy sounding like Kenneth from 30 Rock. It was odd having a prewritten response saying some of the same stuff that Obama did, but way to sound semi ridiculous since New Orleans got tons of money from the government for Katrina. Well now that I'm hopeful, time to go to bed since PSU was a downer dropping a very winnable game to OSU. Screw you Buckeyes!

Noncon9

So I had a rather fun weekend going to Noncon. It was incredibly small, and it didn't feel like it was too heavily attended. I was surprised at the size as well as how it was relatively unorganized (compared to my expectations). That being said, I had some fun and would probably attend again, especially for the guests. I attended some fun panels on anime trivia (which I somehow won), fandom battle and dating, and some web comic panels. The best event by far was the lecture and session hosted by Scott McCloud. I've seen his work before and thoroughly enjoyed his lecture. It was fantastic and thought provoking. Other than that, I pretty much did smaller things like watch a few episodes of anime and watch the video games they had. Since I didn't play any of them, it got kinda old hearing the same rock band songs over and over and watching SF4 and Smash Brothers matches. They had some other events like table top card games and live action Role playing, but I wasn't going to do those, especially with strangers since I'm more than likely going to clam up and be quiet. I was disappointed about the down time they had. Some times when there weren't panels going on, it seemed like almost nothing was going on which was disappointing. I suppose the limited staff needed to take breaks too, but it just felt very unprofessional. Overall, I had fun, but was a little disappointed. I guess being in it's ninth year, I was anticipating something equal to or larger than Setsucon. And although the guest list was equal to or better, every other aspect was not. I had fun and will probably go again next year.

A quick note on Adult Swim since it caused me to scream at my TV in disbelief (and in a good way, not like last season's Heroes). Code Geass is amazing in that it was able to get the reaction from me. To go from last week's momentous revelation, to killing off a semi-main character so abruptly. And the repercussions it will have on the rest of the series, along with the presumable killer. I just thought it was an amazing moment of shock that I thoroughly enjoyed. I am really liking this series, and much more than I thought I would. I hope it can keep up the pace. This is now at least 2 weeks of really good episodes.