So looking at the 'similar' anime section of Panty and stocking on aniDB, I saw this film.
The synopsis is as follows (copypasta from aniDB)
In the future, all energy sources are depleted, except human excrements. To reward production, people receive addictive, Popsicle-like Juicybars. Aachi and Ssipak are street hoodlums who struggle to survive by trading black market Juicybars. Through a chain of events involving their porn-director acquaintance Jimmy the Freak, they meet wannabe-actress Beautiful, whose defecations are rewarded by exceptional quantities of Juicybars. For that reason, Beautiful is also wanted by the violent blue mutants known as the Diaper Gang (led by the Diaper King), the police (most notably the cyborg police officer Geko), and others.
...... yeaaaaah.....
The film is bizarre to say the least, the art style is somewhat of a cross between beautifully detailed and oddly proportioned characters like Geko in the screenshot above , the story is odd - but you sort of just go with it eventually, the highlight of this film however is the action scenes which are fucking ridiculous to the max, generally featuring geko and the diaper gang (below), probably the most absurd action scenes ive ever seen - more ridiculous than your average devil may cry combo montage youtube video.
The film is an action comedy, with more emphasis on comedy depending on who you're watching it with and what you're expecting, as always - watching with a bunch of like-minded people is recommended for maximal comedic value.
The film is also really quite explicit with its gore, decapitations, bloodspray, grenades stuffed in throats, people getting impaled... its all there, and very animated.
^ This bitch creeps me out.
This film is a definite 10/10, comedy and raw explosive action scenes, thats everything i need in a film.
So after seeing a trailer for a new Makoto Shinkai film, i figured i should check out the rest of his stuff, I was sort of looking forward to tear jerkers from both of these but neither really did it...
So I had already seen 5cm per second, and heard this was sort of similar, hearing this... I was pretty terrified to watch the film, 5cm per second was depressing to the core, I dont mind sad but... sheez.
Anyway. So in Makoto Shinkai fashion, the films visuals are fantastic, easily better than the average ghibli film, the film also had a very powerful score to go with the emotions in the film, the film itself however - for me anyway, was a total bore....
Synopsis here :
In 1996, three teenagers, Hiroki, Takuya and Sayuri, make a pact—they will build an experimental aircraft, almost invisible to surveillance, cross over to Hokkaido and unlock the secrets of the tower. Their dream was never realized, because Sayuri was sent to Tokyo for treatment after she fell into a coma. It is now three years later. The rosy illusions of youth have fallen away, but not the unbreakable strength of the trio’s promise. The truth of the tower will be uncovered, and with it, the link between it and Sayuri’s mysterious, carefully tended condition.
While I know for this sort of film its important to build on the characters and spend lots of time on the characters relationships with each other, its basically the entirely of the film, very very little seems to occur, the pacing was just too damn slow, and then the climax of the film is depressingly underwhelming after waiting 80 minutes for it...
Just not for me I guess, It has a very high rating on aniDB so im sure its just a taste thing, I'd say the film was mediocre but then I get bored pretty easily, and I did just watch Aachi and Ssipak the other day (review of which coming soon)
6/10
VOADS isnt a proper film, but a 25 minute OVA, despite this, it manages to achieve about the same emotional impact as The Place promised... (above) which ran 90 minutes.
The film tells of a couple seperated by space, with one of them flying deeper into outer space as a gundam pilot or some shit, they try to communicate by mail but the distance between them results in messages taking longer and longer to arrive...
The film gets its point across well enough, and manages to do so without amazing visuals and music, sort of proving that a good story is way more important than the former. Its a good watch for 25 minutes and I recommend it if you feel like watching something a little depressing.. You all love watching depressing stuff right?
85/100
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And heres the teaser trailer thing for the next film that the director is doing....
'Children who chase lost voices from deep below' - which im pretty sure is a completely different title from its japanese counterpart 'Hoshi wo Ou Kodomo'
Black rock shooter is a 50 minute OVA roughly based on the Hatsune Miku song composed by Supercell of the same name, I say roughly based because its a fucking song to mini-film adaptation.
It does feel like a film, and it does feel like it runs way longer than 47 minutes, but you'll be wishing it was a full length film....
The story is... intresting... Im not going to say its deep because you'll watch it expecting a really deep film and hate me but the way in which the film is presented is very artistic, there is minimal explanation of anything throughout the film and it jumps between High schooler life and Black rock shooter who has an eye which catches fire and a gun for an arm. Its definately something you'll probably want to rewatch in hope of understanding what the director is trying to deliver.
Im not entirely sure why but parts of the film reminded me of the girl who leapt through time, ordinary life, with a supernatural subtext
I've probably said too much already as I had no expectations or background on the story and rather enjoyed it ,
You can grab 'Mochi fansubs' 720p version here
I find most films go on too long, so i sort of liked the half-film style of BRS,
4/5
Finally finished my second minecart rail system so I have a way from central to my mountain hideout.
Also made a volcano, a really badly done naxxaramas and some other misc stuff.
Need ideas for stuff to try and make, If anyone has any ideas, send em and i'll consider it... I generally only have cobblestone/rock/dirt/glass/gravel/sand to work with though
So our kitchen was a right state the other day because, as usual for a student house, nobody was doing their fucking washing up. A few people decided to just wash everuthing up that was left out (i personally didnt want no part of that shit, because i always wash my stuff up eventually, unlike some people that conviniently 'forget')
Go into kitchen after lunch today, see this...
Also, some pictures on here from a while ago that I havent uploaded (havent been using my phone for pictures much because its so shit, not sure when i get a new phone but i cant fucking wait, think i'll go out and specifically buy something that has a good camera on it, i dont even use the rest of the features - if it texts, calls , rings in the morning to wake me up and takes pictures im happy...
And a few badly shot pano pictures from new york
^I believe these two are taken from the 'top of the rock' (the Rockafella Center)
^ And this REEAAALLY bad one is from The statue of Liberty
Its...... good....
And its a new sonic game...
How could this have happened....
But uh, yeah... its genuinely a really solid game. The graphics are really nice for a wii game and the framerate is good, the game feels fast and mostly fluid and the music is (surprisingly) amazing - ( Planet Wisp and Aquatic Park- are good example of some of the better tracks in the game, but even the 'bad' tracks arent horrible)
Sega seem to have understood roughly what fans want and have taken the best parts of the last few games:
- The rush/boost system from Sonic Rush
- The 2.5D platforming segments of Sonic Unleashed
- The full 3d path bit from Sonic and the secret Rings
And they left out all the shitty gimicks, the werewolves, the extra characters...
The Colors system is new and different, but it works well with the game and doesnt slow it down too much.
The game also has a good amount of replay value, time trials, hidden rings, S ranks and LOADS of multiple pathways, particuarly on the first 2-3 worlds where you don't have all the colors unlocked.
Went to see it at the cinema the other day.. Its.... a Jackass film. Im not sure what else needs to be said. It runs about an hour and a half and is pretty entertaining if you enjoy Jackass antics.
There is a LOT of pain, shit, cocks, slow-mo facepunching and shit.
Did i mention shit?
The 3d, sadly, doesn't enhance the film much at all, the opening and ending is shot in full 3d, with exploding shit flying out of the screen and so on, but majority of the film is in pseudo 3d which was abit disappointing.
Highlights for me was the guy sitting behind the Plane engine , High-five and beehive tetherball (which i laughed so hard at i could barely breathe).
Lowlights was probably the 'Poo cocktail supreme' which basically involved steve-o being put in a bungee capsule filled with liquid shit. The people outside the capsule were throwing up, it was pretty horrible to watch :X
Oh, the sweat drinking and then throwing up was pretty fucking nasty to watch too.
Im not entirely sure whether i would recommend seeing it at the cinema or not, if you have friends, go see it and hope its pretty full so you at least get that atmosphere. If not, its probably fine to just wait for the DVD to come out since the 3d effect is pretty mediocre.
So i went home on saturday, thought i'd pick up lots of the stuff I left at home (glasses, game controllers, etc) and then get some work done, i actually packed a really really optimistic amount of work to be completed. Instead, we ended up going out for dim sum in the morning and then the family watched TV pretty much all day, X factor, strictly come dancing, etc etc. All that shitty TV. And i really didnt feel like doing any work at all , so instead I started up a new game of Minecraft (totally worth the £9 btw) and made a new base - http://www.mengsbizarreadventure.com/uploads/World3.rar - , its kinda coo', really need to find some diamond though so i can make a portal to hell (or whatever it is you do exactly) . I still feel like I have alot to learn about that game though.
The next day then, Because saturday was so unproductive, I thought i'd wake up nice and early and do some work.... Instead, I watched extreme house makeovers. So then I thought i'd go back to the uni-house, because i'd be able to work better there.... 2.5 hours or so later, I log in to vent and cross is installing Dynasty Warriors Online, Guess i should check this out....
That was about 6 hours ago. The game is very very awesome, my workload is very very un-awesome. FML.
Work / studies:
Realling getting the better of me at the moment, i've failed to get any jobs so far to the point where applying for others just seems like a waste of time, they're so much effort to fill out only to get a goddamn automated email back saying 'nope'. Ive also been struggling to keep up with lecture notes, or more specifically 'integrative neuroscience' - all of which is just a complete bitch to understand.
I started my 3000 word assignment yesterday, its due on thursday week 10 , so I have exactly 5 weeks to complete it - It seems pretty dickish to write, mostly because its based on genetics which i fucking suck at.
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Gaming:
Since amnesia.....
Started playing League of Legends again, such a fun game, although I suck at it now and completely fail at last hitting creeps, also all of the champions I used to love have been nerfed to a state where im not even sure if they're viable anymore - im pretty set on saving up for Kog Maw, becuase he's a badass.
We've also been playing the 'Bloodline Champions' beta, which is an arena style DoTA - No creeps, no mana, lots of different skills and a high need to utilize skillshots to be able to do proper damage.
There are 16 characters currently and the game needs some balancing work, but its pretty fun. Its also nice that it is advertised as completely skill based so you sort of know that when you molest the other team, its purely because you played better than them. I did record some footage the other day which i may edit and upload, but in all honesty my character (gunner) is kind of boring to watch [basically just me being a dick sitting in the background and sniping people for stupid amounts of damage]
November 3rd, is this blog's birthday. 3 Years. 3 goddamn years. Holy shit. I cant believe I, not only still have this site, but still update (semi) regularly. Thats got to be some sort of achievement.
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721 posts over 1095 days Thats apparently an average of 1 Post every 1.51 days , sure doesnt feel like it eh.
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The low amount of blog comments makes my dick kinda soft if im honest. Makes me feel like nobody reads the stuff i type, in which case why bother.
So Amnesia is by the same people that made the relatively unknown 'Penumbra' series, a game known for its unique engine and inability to fightback against the world around you.
I heard about it initially from a kotaku post on 'scariest games', Amnesia was listed multiple times as THE scariest game ever made, and being that its halloween - I wanted to have a little scare, unfortunately I got slightly more than a 'little' scare. Being a complete wuss in these types of games, I figured id be more compelled to play through if I had someone else playing with me, hence I made cross get the game and we played together, without him I probably would have gotten to about 20 minutes into the game before closing it and never wanting to play again.
You wake up in a castle and have amnesia and stuff, there is a plotline with lots of diaries and allsorts but I sort of didnt care about that, instead placing priority on my survival.
The main game mechanics which distinguish this game from others is the 'hand control' system, which basically means you have to turn cranks yourself, and open doors or drawers by pushing or pulling on them, its a weird feature at first but becomes natural pretty fast and it definately adds to the tension in the game - being able to peek around doors before you open them fully, or having to quickly spin around and close a door if something is chasing you - is much more intense than pressing F and having the door fly open/close shut.
Another pretty key feature in the game is light and your sanity, the latter of which relying on the former, and the former relying on you checking every crevase for lantern oil or tinderboxes to light torches to illuminate rooms, without light your sanity will begin to falter, your vision will blur, your senses will dull, your reactions will fail and in general you'll just feel all sorts of nasty. Lantern oil thus turns into the only thing you ever want to see when you look around an area.
What you dont want to see (or in some cases, wont see) are the monsters, which are genuinely terrifying. These guys may lumber around initially but instantly turn into world class sprinters upon spotting you - and its fucking horrible.
The graphics, what you can see of them, are pretty fantastic and the atmosphere, the music, sounds and set pieces are perfectly done.
Its without a doubt the best genuine survival horror game ive ever played, and i've never screamed so loud at.... anything... before...
So Cladun asis a Nippon Ichi RPG, anyone who has played a few nippon ichi games knows what this basically leads to... Level and equipment grinding , create a char and random dungeons!
The game sort of gives you some form of story, but it could probably be summarized in a 10 minute TV show, I paid really little attention to it - whatever.
The core of the game then is going through the dungeons presented to find treasure, there are proper dungeons which have been constructed well and usually have mechanics to them (almost like mini zelda dungeons, hit switch, kill monsters... little flags like that) and then theres the random dungeon (ran-geon), which has ~100 floors, clearing 20 floors takes me about half an hour, sound tedious? I should mention this half an hour feels like around 10 minutes - and its a fun 10 minutes too. Realistically you'll be spending majority of your time grinding the rangeons, which operate in a 'take the money and run' or progress further style - every few floors you'll find an exit which will let you keep 100% exp gained, money and all the items you've found - or you can keep going and get more of all the former listed - the catch being if you die, you only recieve half exp and no items (i cant remember about money).
The character creator is pretty much what you see in the trailer below, its kinda cool and the way their stats pan out is always intresting but there arent any massive benefits to doing so (other than being able to model the character yourself - i personally made a hatsune miku because it was easy, but other people have made some really sweet stuff).
The 'magic circle' , sort of explained in the trailer below, is the main driving force of the game, and what will probably be driving your grinding of rangeons, leveling gives chars more mana, which lets them power up with more items, which makes your main character kick more ass, which lets you get further in the rangeon, which lets you level up and get better items, which gives your characters more levels, which gives them more mana, which lets them power up wi........ you get the idea. Its addictive.
The below trailer should really start at 1:25, I advise you skip to that bit so that you miss out all the boring stuff at the beginning.
All in all, this is Cladun. an RPG!
And its a good one too, as long as you like dungeon grinding.
The game shares alot of similarity with Disgaea and dungeon crawling games, However its unique and charming - im a sucker for 8bit though.
In other news, completely wasted today more or less. Didnt manage to get much revision done, sent off one or two job applications (pleeeaaaase riot games marketing intern), and watched some of the ol' animu. Panty and stocking this week was particuarly ridiculous, which is saying something from a series which has a monster made of shit, an alliance which shoots sperm and a bunch of other kooky shit.
Oh, I also started watching Bakuman the anime, based on....
Im sort of growing to like weeky released stuff, although its annoying when you really want to know what happens next in the story. I mean with the other stuff im currently following it isnt much of a big deal, with bakuman seems REALLY story driven so it might get annoying.
Oh and for the record, shibby didnt deserve to be fired from apprentice this week. Just thought i'd get that out there.
Might try and wake up nice and early tomorrow to get some work done.... But i'll probably sleep through 5 of my alarms and wake up at 12.
Ive given it a playthrough, and its pretty awesome. Some things look a little weird, and its a bit bizarre playing Sonic with a keyboard (I couldnt get my 360 pad to work), but overall its beautiful and the physics feel right. Its really awesome stuff considering it was made by only 2 guys (one artist and one programmer).
Who knows, maybe some fans will eventually make a good streets of rage fangame too..
So... Machete is probably the closest thing we'll ever get to a Duke Nukem film without a Duke Nukem film actually being made. (and lets face it, if it was announced, it wouldnt show its face for a good 20 years anyway)
Machete is basically a guy that doesnt give a fuck, the sort of guy who if sent on a mission of impossible odds and is shown into a big room of guns - will almost immediately go for a Machete. He walks around, doesnt give a fuck, chops peoples heads off and fucks bitches. The plot is pretty laughable, but nobody is watching it for that, its just a pure hack and slash gorefest style film, and im quite okay with this.
Also, jessica alba has a semi-nude scene, lynsey lohan is topless for half the film and in the first 5 minutes of the film a woman pulls a mobile phone out of her snatch. Guns, blood and tits.
If you have a pair of balls, you should probably check the film out.
<'Machete' and 'Cladun: This is an RPG' will get their own blog posts because they deserve them>
Work/University Bit: It feels like whilst theres not strictly a whole lot going on currently with university, its really really busy. I decided this year instead of waiting until the end of the year to summarise my lecture notes, i'd read through them during the year and summarise as I go - obviously, this has not worked out. Im constantly falling further and further behind in lecture summaries... I also got an essay title yesterday, I havent actually read the details on it yet.... i guess i'll read it now............................. Okay, so its 3000 words and due in about 40 days (fucksake.) , you also know you're in trouble when the description on what your essay is about actually specifies "this is a HARD essay" (yes, in caps), the essay is also about the human genome, which is fucking hate - mainly because I dont understand that shit. Uffff.... Contributing to the stress of university is the knowing that I need to start applying for graduate jobs or internships now, with most deadlines being in November sometime, I actually spent 3 hours today filling in 1 application, which will probably not get through screening phase anyway. Very very depressing.
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Games bit: Our internet actually went down for 4 days or so, but thankfully I had just finished downloading 'DJmax Portable 3' and 'Cladun: This is an RPG!' , both for PSP. DJMP3 is pretty awesome, a twist on the traditional DJmaxPortable gameplay style with remixing tracks and stuff in (kinda like DJhero ,where you have a pseudo crossfader to deal with now) , the downside is that it doesnt have many songs (about 40?) , ah well. I also downloaded Starcraft 2, but I dont think the crack i've got will work with it because it autoupdated to latest. I just wanna try out the campaign without having to shell out £30 :< I'll give Cladun its own review at some point because its really good, i clocked 10 hours into it over 2 days, and being on the PSP, thats probably the most play its gotten in such a small period of time.
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Films bit: Along with seeing machete, I also saw 'Chaos' (2005) , starring Jason Statham. Its a pretty weird film, starting off as an action film and then seeming to lose its own way half way through, changing genre a few times before eventually deciding it wants to flip the script on the audience. It was alright i guess, I personally thought it was a little boring, but maybe thats just because I was expecting something along the lines of crank or the transporter after hearing the film title 'Chaos'. I guess its sort of a detective/psychological film by the end? ehh....
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Anime Bit: I picked up a bunch of currently airing series, something I dont usually do because I like to be able to watch through all the episodes at my own leisure (and because sometimes its awesome to be able to clear half a season in 1 sitting, especially if its a series that likes using cliffhanger endings) Anywho... The weekly shows im now watching are... - Panty and Stocking with garterbelt - [which had a really disgusting 3rd episode, no wonder it almost got banned...] - The world god only knows - Which has a shit title, its about a guy that is the king of dating sims, he is then tasked with making real girls fall in love with him (or he gets beheaded) - Squid Girl (Ika musume) - Who is... a squid. Really funny, nice lighthearted comedy (always good when something listed as a comedy actually makes you laugh) - Ore no imouto... (Theres no way my sister can be this cute) - Guy finds out his sister is a super otaku, and has to help her out I also recently finished 'Umineko no naku koro ni' , from the makers of Higurashi (when the Cicadas cry) , Its a complete mindfuck of an anime, and I dont really recommend it at all, it IS watchable but in general its such a mess that you wont want to, the characters are also annoying as fuck. Im coming very close to the end of Seto No Hanayome (My bride is a mermaid), so will give opinions on that too soon... If this blog post makes you want to pick up a series, Id go with Squid Girl for sure.
So i came across a 'Hatsune miku live' download link and ended up checking it out mostly out of curiosity (not that im denying i enjoy the music but...), Japan is truly a bizarre place, Its certainly not often you see a live performance by a virtual voice. I suppose The Gorillaz do somewhat similar stuff at their live gigs but this just seems crazy. Hordes of japanese people with glowsticks watching what is essentially a video of a dancing avatar along to semi-live music (live instruments, synthesized voice) Very very bizarre. Its quite cool that they use it to change her costumes and stuff between and sometimes mid song, quickly i might add - unlike a lady gaga or pink concert (or someone who changes outfits constantly between songs, i wouldnt know, ive never been to one). [a bit when she appears in a swimsuit was a little creepy though]
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Also The below picture should be all the incentive you need to start watching Detroit Metal City and witness its greatness. only on a second watchthrough have i realised just how damn funny it is. Shame its so short.
So it doesnt quite comply with the 'Sonic Cycle' , Sonic really does seem to be the only character in the game, and the reviews havent been too bad yet, And from my playthrough I wouldnt really say i endured 'Massive disapointment' , although that may be because I never really raised my hopes in the first place.
Ima break it down right hurrrr...
Graphics:
Fine, I like the background layering technique, im not too keen on the animations of sonic himself but they could be worse i suppose.
Gameplay (Core) :
Ehhhhh........ Mixed opinions. For starters the physics are off, sonic accelerates at odd speeds and airbrakes like a monster.
The airdash/lockon thing which has been put in works fine however, coming in useful to speed up gameplay and keep you moving in the right direction with bursts of speed. The gameplay is for the most part classic sonic though, its a shame the physics make it feel like it isnt.
Gameplay (Level design) :
There are 4 zones
a green hill/emerald hill ripoff ,
a casino night/carnival night ripoff ,
a Labyrinth zone / aquatic ruin / sandopolis 2 ripoff ,
and a chemical plant / scrap brain ripoff
There is a SHOCKING lack of originality, they straight up use parts of the unique things about the copied zones and shamelessly incorporate it into the level. Examples are the spiral bridges from emerald hill, the slot machines from casino night and rotating cylinders from carnival night , the water slides from labyrinth zone, the arrow spitters and spears from aquatic ruin, the darkness from sandopolis, the teleporters from chemical plant.........
They even copy paste bosses from previous sonic games, the boss from green hill zone that we've all seen a dozen times is fucking back, why? So is the electroclaw boss from Carnival night. They both have a new berserk mode but the core of the boss is the exact same. its silly.
I'd also like to add that the vines in (i think it was...) splash hill 3? or 2? are fucking stupid and should never have made it past beta. At least make shit work if you're going to put it in, i spent about 2 minutes swinging around on vines unable to make a particular jump because the mechanic is too precise.
Audio:
The biggest disapointment in my opinion, the entire soundtrack was leaked a while ago but its only when you hear it in game whilst playing do you realise just how horrible it is. I cant believe a company as big as sega can't find someone good to make Sonic music for a sonic game. Can you not rehire howard drossin or Masato nakamura? or hell, even Hideki Naganuma would have made far superior music to the shit thats currently in the game.
Summary:
A reasonable sonic game, completely let down by a lack of originality, terrible music and odd engine/physics.
I can only describe it as a sonic fan game as opposed to an actual sonic sequel.
I dont understand how fans somehow manage to make much better looking games than they do....
Good british cinema?... Really? So i saw 'The disapearance of alice creed' last night, I started watching it knowing absolutely nothing of the plot, actors, origins etc. And tbh it was probably for the better, if someone had told me the story is about 2 guys that kidnap a girl and keep her in a room for 90% of the film, I probably would have walked out and gone to do something else. Thats the story in a nutshell really, they kidnap her, gag her, strip her, make her pee in a bottle and shit in a bucket, and thats the majority of the film... until everything gets flipped on its head. About half way through the film, its like someone realised 'wait. this is going to be a boring as fuck film' and then decided to put as many twists in as they could think of. I wont spoil by revealing any of the twists, but the way the film pans out is alot more intresting than I expected.
Havent quite finished it yet, actually.. that makes it sound like im close mind you. They really seem to have fixed everything wrong with the original Dead Rising though, although the lack of the photography system ala frank west is kind of lame. Psychopaths are challenging as before, and there seem to be plenty of survivors around to save for dat longevity, and thats not even getting into the huge puzzle game of working out what items you can combine - half of which are just bizarre (battery + garden rake anyone?). Special mention also for the blanka mask and battery pack - fucking genius capcom.
Civilization V
Better than Civ IV. By a mile. I actually hated Civilization 4 but Civ 5 just seems way easier to play, way easier to understand and.... just... better... my only gripe with the game is that you turn it on, and 3 hours of your life are missing.
On the whole not too much has happened this week, 4 half days of lectures full of boring material - although our EXTREME enviroment biology module is actually kind of cool, shame i slept through it today due to Crash last night.
Crash is basically a rock night, and is usually really really bad. Like.... 15 people in the whole place and the DJ just plays metallica and iron maiden and shit that im not really into. Last night however.... Goddamn. I can only assume its because of all of the freshers around but it was beasty , surely nobody can turn down Andrew WK's 'party hard' and Bizkits 'Rollin' , it was totally bizzarre, I knew (and liked) about 80% of the music , which is something which NEVER happens. I sung until my voice went hoarse and skanked til I got a 2nd stitch. Great fun. The only problem is i paid for it today when i had a 9am lecture (after falling asleep around 3:30am), was a complete cawps and then came back and had the most amazing 5 hour nap.
Cant remember most of my dream but im sure one of them involved me screaming at a giant motherfucker of a daddy long legs (although it was like.... huge and mutated with a mosquito or some gross shit) , I also vaguely remember being in some sort of gypsy hut which was actually a van that was travelling somewhere, and in another dream I had some sort of handglider backpack and picked up an old school friend (JennferD, who I havent seen in like 8 years wtf) and we just flew around together.
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Gaming side: Ive been putting off finishing Dead Rising 2 because im what i can only assume is the final boss and its like the final boss of DR1 all over again (aka. annoying as fuck), and i really dont have enough health and stuff to deal with that shit >_>" The game other than that has been really awesome though, seems like theres lots of survivors and psychopaths hiding around to keep replay value up, the events which arent announced by female otis are such a nice (or sometimes horrible) surprise, particularly when you want to save because you've been playing ages and havent saved... and then you turn the corner and its some psycho that tries to shank you with a shard of glass...
Got to around turn 200 of Civ5 and havent played it since, I feel like once you start to get past a certain level it just gets a little too much to manage unless you put all of your units to sleep. And also what are you supposed to do in that game? Ive done the whole wage war thing but it seems like its inevitable before everyone else forms an alliance against me, so am i just supposed to sit there and spam end turn to research stuff and gain citizens or what? idk. Cool game but I still dont think its for me, it really is a great time burner though.
Played through mirrors edge again, the time trials are really brutal, as are the speed runs. The times they set are so silly, it seems more or less impossible unless you proper study the world record times on youtube, and even then, some of the shit they pull is ridiculous (and in a speedrun, death is practically an 8min run failed)
I also started playing through Resident evil 5 again with a housemate, I forgot what that game is like on a first playthrough, it actually feels like a resident evil game again when you have the shitty starting weapons and are scrambling around for ammo. Its such a different game after an initial complete, sort of why I wanted to play it again, I forgot the fear of those headsnake things, and dogs are annoying as fuck... and chainsaw guys refuse to die and I havent even met the locust things yet but preemptive FML for those.
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Anime stuff: Did i already recommend you all watch Detroit Metal City? Do it. Other than that, Ive recently picked up 'Umineko no naku koro ni', vaguely similar to higurashi i guess? But very different and weird at the same time. The anime runs almost like a game, with particular characters being in an alternate universe and watching the main universe, and trying to solve the riddles as they come and stuff.... Its sort of what i'd imagine a Phoenix wright anime to be like, although probably slightly worse. Its intresting though.
Ive also almost finished Rec, an anime about a voice actress living with some random guy, its okay i guess,
I watched the whole of Hajime No ippo : New challenger , which was a really good boxing anime, first time ive watched anything from the ippo universe but it was easy to understand and get into despite being a sequel. Worth a watch i'd say.
Finished 'Moyashimon' , which is about a kid that can see microbes... Kind of up my street, its pretty cool and sort of educational i guess, Not sure if i could recommend it unless you have some sort of grasp on science though as its not terribly intresting other than seeing the little microorganisms floating about in the room making cute noises.
Oh finally, I saw the first episode of 'Panty and stocking with garterbelt' (hereby PSG) . Its actually really funny and odd. A very PPG style but with a dirty jokes twist. I would say this scene sums up the anime, but its actually way better.
Long delayed blog post about my new room, Moved in about a week ago now and had to clean a hell of a lot. The room still feels filthy in all honesty, I sometimes feel like im having an allergic reaction to the room itself.
We had internet for a whole 2 days or so, but we got it sorted out eventually. It does have a weird issue of sometimes dropping connection though.
Other issues with the house includes... - A leak from the 2nd floor ceiling from our bathroom, we now need a new bath and stuff... - Not enough kitchen storage space - and a fridge which needs a fucking bungee cord to keep closed - A cubicle shower which puts out about as much water as i could run up and down the stairs with a shot glass...
On the plus side, we have 2 TV's in the lounge and another TV upstairs in one of the guys rooms. Allowing for a potential system link xbox scenario in the future.
In the time my WoW account was out of action I found myself without much to do (other than the 360), I ended up finishing up a bunch of anime I had started earlier in the holiday.
K-On! (!!) - Season 2 just ended, and the show is entertaining, although im still completely unsure why. Its like azumanga Daioh but way less eventful (and with 100% less chiyo/osaka)
Arakawa Under the bridge - Salaryman that ends up living with a bunch of weirdos underneath a bridge, including a fishergirl from venus, a man in a kappa suit, a male nun who's fought wars, young twins who escaped from a research lab, a guy that only walks on white lines, and so on. A quirky show but the humour can be a bit odd at times, it was sort of a good watch i guess, I didnt think it was amazing though. (unlike....)
Detroit Metal City - Only 12 episodes and 15 minutes each, I started and finished this one in a few hours in one day. Mild mannered guy who hates his life as a popular death metal band leader, he also probably has a mild case of schitzophrenia. It is, basically, fucking amazing. fuck.
Download and watch the first 2 episodes and that'll probably be enough to make you want to watch the rest... in one sitting. Its honestly that good and it makes me really sad that its so short. I havent laughed so hard at an anime since School rumble.
So thanks to a friend I got a chance to play this thing, I was pretty unimpressed by what I had heard about the game - linear gameplay, no towns, that sort of stuff, so i was already pretty prepared to play the game and dislike it.
15 minutes into the game and I get to properly see what the whole linear map pathway thing is about, and its... pretty much that. Its no exaggeration, pretty much the entire game is travelling down a long corridor moving towards an exclamation mark, fighting enemies (or if you're anything like me, trying your best to dodge them all), you hit the exclamation mark and are presented with a boss battle, cutscene or both. This is Final Fantasy XIII.
The story is.... terrible, a confusing mess of a story which isnt really explained very well. You end up just accepting stuff and stop trying to understand the core points of the story like why they can suddenly cast magic... Dont even get me started on the nonsensical ending which is essentially 'OH MY GOD A MIRACLE, I GUESS WE WIN!'
What else.... The fight system...
I actually kind of like the fight system, somewhere in the middle of Final fantasy ATB system and the gambit system from FFXII. Unfortunately at a point it just ends up in mashing 'A' constantly to use the 'Auto-battle' function and occasionally switching to a defensive stance to heal up. 'Hard' battles can mostly be won just by having your party sit in defensive the whole time and slowly wittling away at the enemy health...That is unless its a super gay boss that has a 'kill everyone' attack (Sup. I'm Neochu/Tonberry/Adamantoise).
Despite the negativity in this blog post, I did actually enjoy playing through FFXIII, and finished the game in a relatively short period of time. It has its flaws for sure (eg, Lack of golden saucer) and the tutorial lasts 20 hours, but its a good game. And at the bargain prics its at nowadays, its a pretty reasonable buy.
Other stuff:
- My main team is Lightning / Sazh / Vanille with Hero's Charge -> Relentless/Diversity paradigms.
- I completed the main game in 42hrs with about half the side quests done
- 36 Sturdy bones + ultracompact reactor ftw
- Characters, in order of cool (from Good to bad) - Sazh , Vanille, Lightning, Fang, Snow, Hope
Just spent about an hour trying to fix a crashed database table, and in the process ended up breaknig my admin panel by leaving 2 blank lines at the end of a php file.
Im typing this up, and who knows, perhaps some other poor soul will stumble upon it through the miracle which is google if they have the same problem.
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How do I solve the Headers already sent warning problem?
Description: You get a warning message on your browser that says:
Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at
Reason and Solution :
It is usually because there are spaces, new lines, or other garbage before an opening <?php tag or after a closing ?> tag, typically in wp-config.php. This could be true about some other file too, so please check the error message, as it will list the specific file name where the error occurred (see "Interpreting the Error Message" below). Replacing the faulty file with one from your most recent backup or one from a fresh WordPress download is your best bet, but if neither of those are an option, please follow the steps below.
Interpreting the Error Message:
If the error message states: Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /path/blog/wp-config.php:34) in /path/blog/wp-login.php on line 42, then the problem is at line #34 of wp-config.php, not line #42 of wp-login.php. In this scenario, line #42 of wp-login.php is the victim. It is being affected by the excess whitespace at line #34 of wp-config.php.
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The blog is back and working now, and is paid for until September 2011. Who knows, maybe you can actually expect some updates since im going back to university soon (end of this week most likely)
Not much to report on this day, we just walked around, saw an apple shop which was underground, went into the NBA shop and found out how ridiculously expensive jerkins are, saw the trump tower, went to Macy's, victorias secret and then bought a ton of snacks to take home. We also ate at some really nice noodle shop which had the most awesome japanese decor but i didnt take any pictures of it :<
An early and boring breakfast in McDonalds, although i had a 'McGriddle' which was weird, like an egg and sausage mcmuffin but with small pancakes with raisins for a bun, bizarro.
We headed to the docks via the subway and collected our tour tickets and stuff before setting off to the Statue of liberty island (liberty island? idk) by boat. There were also about 3 security checkpoints just to get onto the fucking pier where the boat leaves, the 9/11 stuff obviously really made them paranoid.
When we got to the island we went to a small cafe to get some drinks, 3 bottled drinks... $10 , conversion rate of pounds to dollars is 1.5 (aka. NYC is fucking expensive)
Then finally, the main attraction - which we already actually saw a few times from boats, the rockafella centre and just walking along the coast..
Yeah, you've probably seen it in pictures or on TV, it really is pretty impressive though. Really really big.
Walking through the building underneath it is a museum about the construction, architecture and whats inside and things like that, which was actually more intresting than you'd expect from a museum underneath a statue, (for example, the copper layering is 2x 2pence pieces stacked , or something like that.
We also got the pleasure of a 150step flight of stairs to get onto the podium (just underneath where she is standing), pretty nice view of the NY skyline from up there
We 'splored a little more, then traveled by boat to staten island, which is where US immigration to NYC used to occur, it was pretty boring and exactly like you'd expect from a museum on immigration to be like. No photos because it was all crap.
Back on the shore, we saw this - which was random.
From here we went to 'Ground Zero' , which i hear used to be a monument or memorial, but is now just a MASSIVE construction site in the middle of a bunch of skyscrapers. They are building the 'one world trade centre' now, and it'll apparently be done around 2012. We did however run into a red bull car, with hot girls outside giving out free cans of red bull. Yass.
Walked around and looked at shops and stuff before returning to the hotel due to exhaustion.
Came out at dinner and took a cab to 'Ichiumi', which is probably the most amazing buffet restaurant ive ever seen in my life, (and i thought golden corral in FL was good).
It was a huge japanese seafood array (as you'd expect from a restaurant whose name translates to 'one ocean/sea')
Those of you that read my malaysia holiday blog posts will know what comes next..
Pictures really dont do this place justice, you cant really understand just how long that fucking buffet spread is without walking it, they also do gyoza, noodles, rice, teppanyaki, fresh oysters, crabs, lobsters (2 lobsters for $10) and the drinks are bottomless, its ridiculous.
We ate until it was coming out of our ears and then walked it off slowly over 10 or so blocks in a reasonable 25deg C (at 9 or 10pm)
So today was a slower day, we had a bit of a lay in and then just shopped around Times square for a while, we saw the M&M shop, hersheys shop, and found a market which spanned about a mile...
M&M shop was HUUUUGE! And had so many different types of M&M, we actually bought some coconut flavor ones and a pack of 'pretzel' ones, which are apparently 'salty,sweet and crunchy'....
This market spanned pretty much the whole of the road, all the way down (i think it was 8th avenue or something), all the way from times square to central park, which is a really fucking long way. Sold some really nice food as well, bubble tea, roast Corn on a cob, crepes, gyros and these weird pancakey cheesy things which i forget the name of.
From here we went to Central Park and rented some bikes, we rode around for a good few hours... in the BLAZING SUN.
It was seriously like 30 degrees C or something silly.
Its a very pretty, and very big park, it would be nice if it wasnt so hot and you could actually take your time riding around and taking in all the sights, as it was though it was just riding around trying to find downhill sections so that you could stop pedalling and enjoy the breeze.
Afterwards we went to mcD's to cool off with some drinks (fuck yeah aircon) and then headed back to the hotel to shower and stuff.
Dinner at ruby tuesdays, a gorgeous steak dinner and then some more shopping afterwards where i bought some shoes from the 'element' shop.
A surprisingly uneventful day actually, although biking around Central Park really was a nice experience, its such a massive park (842 acres or something i think i overheard)
Tomorrow is statue of liberty and some other things, also i think i'll upload all of the photos when i get back to my own PC as its just way easier that way (tiny netbook screen ftl)
Today we went to the rockafella center, which is basically a cluster of buildings and stuff. Breakfast Bagel for breakfast, basically just a BLT with egg.
We went to the 'top of the rock' which is similar to empire state building sort of a deal, ride a lift up and check out the sights from the roof (about 80 floors up or something), it was pretty cool and actually way better than the empire state building in just about every way.
Afterwards we had a look around and ended up taking the NBC Studio tour, which was a guided tour with some chirpy (and p. hot) tourguides, the tour went through the filming studios, behind the scenes in the control rooms and just a general overview of how the industry works, it was really intresting and well worth a visit.
From here we walked to Grand central station, the main train station in NYC (and that place that cyclops destroys in the Xmen film, or the place where a scripted event occurs in Crysis 2). It was pretty damn huge, and we had lunch in the food court area there - which was kind of terrible but oh well.
We travelled uptown to the American natural history museum next, which was pretty standard fare as natural history museums go (although the 'Fare' was significantly more than standard [$40] ). It was filled with dinosaurs and animals and some sciency stuff, pretty intresting i suppose.
Another trip on the subway (which are fucking abysmal by the way, really dirty and poorly made subway system, which is confusing to use and just pretty skanky in general) to near chinatown, I say near because the train decided partway to turn into some sort of express train which basically means it goes past all the stops you want it to go to and means you have to take extra effort to trackback go wherever it is you wanted to go...
Chinatown was really impressive, unlike the London chinatown, this place is actually a goddamn town. Loads of streets filled with hawkers, fresh fruit and all sorts of weird asian shit (including shop which exclusively sells chopsticks wtf). Dinner at 'Peking duck house' or something to that effect, which specializes in peking duck (derp). Good stuff, although we wasted a ton of food because we were all too full.
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Cant be bothered to upload photos right now tbh, we've really been zerging through NYC and as such, totally fucking exhausted. My feet ACHE :(
Our day started with us going downstairs to collect some free tea/coffee from the hotel lobby, I dont really like hot drinks so i went for the ice coffee - which was fucking horrible.
We had a walk around times square and ended up eating breakfast in Hard Rock Cafe which wasnt particuarly great eating, but they had alot of cool stuff on the walls to look at (guitars from bands and stuff)
We then walked off and around, and ended up at madame tussauds (wax museum thing), it was pretty cool, although really fucking creepy. You'd be standing around and wondering who was sculptures and who are people.
Actually they have a 'scream' exhibit, which is actually just really dark and filled with actors who pretend to be fucking scuptures then grab you and shit.
Uhhh.... After this we walked down to the docks to buy tickets for the cruise tour, we went to the intrepid museum afterwards - which basically has a Aircraft carrier battleship, a submarine and a concord for you to look around the inside of, it was pretty kewl.
We then lounged around for a while , went to a place to get a snack and my brother ordered a hotdog and chips... We were all disappointed when a small hotdog appeared accompanied by a packet of Lays crisps.
We played around in a fountain for a little and then sunbathed it off, before going for the cruise. The cruise lasted 2 hours and went round the coast of New york with some guy yapping over the mic about all the history and stuff.
We walked back to the hotel ,where im typing this up now.
We're going to the empire state building tonight and i think we're going for bubba gumps shrimp for dinner. Tomorrow i'll hopefully be meeting with cross and doing some other stuff which i cant remember.
So if you was following my tweets you'd know that our flight to NYC got delayed as fuck yesterday.
The flight was supposed to take off at 2pm, we ended up having to wait around until around 8pm and then the boarding and the plane taxi'ing made it so that takeoff didnt actually occur until about 9:30pm.... We arrived in NYC at about 30 mins past midnight, we were supposed to arrive at around 5pm :<
The bridge to connect the plane to the terminal then didnt work for some reason, and... yup. more delays. After this we had to queue for ages to get past immigration and shit.
Just overall a terrible first day of a holiday, we got to our hotel practically on the verge of consciousness.
