fausty

birthday

2008-01-28T16:36:51Z

Turning 32 in a few hours.

Been a great day so far, raining (which is rad) and got a keen present from the lady (which is even radder).

Limited edition print from the last i am 8-bit show.

Ah, she knows me well. :)

the future. finally.

2007-11-21T06:24:37Z

How is this not the greatest invention ever?

Like, seriously? How did it take this long to invent something this amazing? I'm so firing this directly into my mouth. Or onto a heated griddle, as that suddenly sounds less gross.

TGS @ home

2007-09-24T03:45:35Z

One day I'll go to TGS again, really. It's been a long time, the last time I attended it was when the Dreamcast was being debuted. Which, needless to say, was awesome.

Anyways, this year I was like almost everyone else I know - at home, glued to updates. Very happy with most of the announcements, including Sony's keynote.

Actually, I can't believe how most of the press said it sucked. Yes, the new Dualshock was a given, and the lack of a price-drop plus the delay of Home made it a disappointment for those hoping otherwise.

The big news, however, was with the bit of crow Kaz ate, and the fact he committed to providing a better game experience with the PS3 in the future. That alone was ten times cooler than announcing FFVII was being re-made for the system.

Well, sort of.

The thing is, Sony's previous focus - toting the PlayStation 3 as a "home media machine" - was freaking me out, and I'm glad they're setting their sights on what made the PS a household name. You know, the games. But, of course, we shall see if it's too late or not. Yeah, really doubt it's too late.

Favorite Thing Announced: Well, not really a big TGS announcement, but the fact Yakuza 2 is officially coming to America made me damn happy. LOVED the first one, and the very fact a (nearly) year old PS2 game is being brought over here made me more excited than seeing Rex and Ray in the new MGS4 trailer. Oh god, that was cool too. Really, really cool.

Worst Thing Announced: The new Rockman Dash (Mega Man Legends), Great Five Island Adventure. Was SO excited when I heard about this, but then I saw the platform. Cellphones? Gah. Where's my PS3 (or, hell, even PS2) Dash, dammit...

tingle time!

2007-09-19T01:10:44Z

Happy package day!!

That's right, feel the sour pang of jealousy - unless, of course, you live in a European and Tingle-loving country.

I can't believe we live in a world where a Nintendo-made, fully translated DS game - staring quite possibly the greatest and most influential Nintendo character ever - must be imported. From England. Really, the hell? It's in five languages! Two of which are utilized heavily over here!

Apparently we hate Tingle in America. I don't! What's not to love about a single, 35-year-old man who lives with his mother and is obsessed with forest fairies? That's right, nothing.

Tingle made Majora's Mask, folks - and the very fact he's didn't make Twilight Princess even better was apparently our fault.

Make it up, write Nintendo and demand Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland for America - say you won't buy Smash Brothers or something until they announce this important game for our shores.

mojibbing

2007-09-13T16:18:56Z

I was sitting here, deep in work with my iTunes library on random, and a certain Mojib Ribbon song started - it almost freaked me out as I broke out of my writing zone, trying to comprehend the sounds coming through my headphones.

Never played the game, is it any good? Loved Vib, and this soundtrack is pretty cool once you get used to the...interesting sound.

!!!!

2007-09-12T14:38:09Z

Holy shit.

Damn that makes me happy.

mrfausty @ 2007-08-17T10:09:00

2007-08-17T17:12:38Z

Wow, I sure pulled the wool over Best Buy's eyes last night, and got Persona 3 four days early! Um, what?

So then, I was on a mission yesterday. I had to have Persona 3, and every game store I called had sold out - which drove my obsession even stronger. Went into Best Buy for the hell of it, even though their web site said they wouldn't have it in stock until Monday.

Although it wasn't on the shelves, the first guy I asked said they had it, and then he went to the computer to make sure. At this point I was happy. Then he came back, and my mood dropped.

"Oh, sorry sir, the street date for that game is on the 21st. Come back then!"

I then explained to him the game was out. Like, everywhere. Hell, it was sold out everywhere.

"We can't help it if other people break the official date," was his response.

I explained the situation again. That it was really out. Like, really, really. I think they had some run in with Bioshock fanatics or something, because he said something about just because Toys R Us had sold it early, Best Buy follows the street date.

Getting a little pissed - hell, I was so close to my goal - I asked to speak to his manager.

This fun went on for a bit longer, until I called EB on my cell and handing it over. After asking the same question twice to the EB employee, the manager handed back my phone and said they'd make an exception for me.

An exception? To sell a game that's officially out? Nice.

Was only able to play for a few minutes when I got home. But hot damn, neat stuff. This weekend is going to be fun...

host

2007-08-13T04:37:05Z

Finally bought my first Blu-Ray on Friday (was holding out for a great-looking movie I hadn't already seen), and had the chance to watch it today.

On par with Jaws? Not quite. That said, The Host rocks in all sorts of rad ways.

The creature is simply fantastic to look at, and the soundtrack was surprisingly grand. The movie itself was...well, good. Hell, very good. It was fun to watch - aside from a few slow parts - and had an interesting mix of laughs and loss. Overall, though, the hype was too large, and I was expecting more.

Certainly glad I bought it, at the very least.

iphone. nine days later.

2007-07-09T03:38:33Z

It has a scratch. Not on the screen, mind you, but on the shiny metal edge.

It's not a major scratch - it's actually quite small - but I'm glad it finally happened, because now I'm not super paranoid anymore. And that's one of my complaints about this device down.

After a week with my iPhone, I've come to a few conclusions:

1) It's the greatest phone I've ever owned. By far. And it's actually a joy to use, in almost all of its abilities. Plus the screen is super ace - colors are great, smudges like mad but seems to repel scratches like a pro.

2) That said, it comes so close to true greatness, some parts of it actually remind you of its glaring faults:

Keen maps and traffic, but no GPS? Gah.

Super fast Wi-Fi connections, then super slow Edge? Gah.

Bluetooth 2.0, but it can only be used for headsets? Gah.

Can make notes, but can't sync them? Gah.

Hopefully updates will fix the software issues, and I'm sure the version 2 model will address the rest. Of course, I'm sad they're not available now, seeing as how other high-priced phones include them.

3) The touch interface is simply grand. Love the way it's implemented (although, a bit inconsistent across different apps), and it just feels nice. Typing took me a few days to get used to, but I'm enjoying the heck out of it now. I never, ever, ever enjoyed typing on my SX66 or Treo or E62, as their keyboards were stiff and actually hurt my fingers after a bit.

4) The way it moves between Wi-Fi spots you've already selected and Edge is seamless and fantastic, but it's a constant reminder how fracking slow Edge really is.

5) I'm a bit mixed on a few of the apps:

SMS - Hot: love the way it looks and functions
Calendar - Mixed: love the list view, hate that it clumps everything into one calendar type in the month view
Photos - Hot: but I don't really care about carrying around photos on my phone. Neat interface though!
Camera - Poor: it sucks both in quality and function. Too simple and almost impossible to take a picture of your vain self
YouTube - Mixed: awesome on Wi-Fi, the suck on Edge
Stocks - Neat: but I don't care
Maps - Hot but Mixed: it's a joy to interface with on Wi-Fi, and it's not bad on Edge. Traffic is great. No GPS sucks something serious
Weather - Hot: neat interface
Clock - Hot: very cool interface, especially with the timer
Calculator - Hot: or as hot as a calculator could be
Notes - Poor: crappy font and you can't sync with a computer
Settings - Hot: rad interface and lots of options
Phone - Hot but Mixed: voice quality seems great, love the interface, hard to dial numbers while speeding on the freeway
Mail - Hot but Mixed: love the way it displays emails (and most word, pdf, excel and picture attachments), hate how you can't just mark emails as read (instead of opening them all up), and there should be a spam filter on the phone
Safari - Hot but Mixed: love the way it displays most sites, great tapping and dragging and sliding interface, crappy that there's no flash support and it's crashed more than a few times
iPod - Hot, Hot, Hot, but slightly Mixed: love the interface, love the fact it's in my phone, love the screen quality for movies, sad it's only 8 gigs

6) Last one, but it's important. By purchasing this phone I've become a salesperson for Apple. Even when I don't want to be. Every time I pull this out, be at work or in the elevator or in line at the super market, people start asking questions. Random people. They all want to touch it. Which is fine if you seem like a keen person, but that one dude who actually dropped his phone while reaching for mine? Scary and omg please no.

OMG

2007-07-09T02:52:11Z

Just found out Sony's PlayStation.blog has a flickr account, which is quite nice for large screenshots. Today's update, though, featured this:

Which I'd very much like to play.

Now.

Twisted out of Shape

2007-07-05T21:12:48Z

So, I finally got around to trying out the Nike+ kit I bought myself...er, last fall. Because, you know, there's never a better time to get in shape than the present.

After my 15 minute mile (screwed up my ankles last time I did the running-for-exercise thing, so I'm starting slow) - puffing and wheezing near the end - I realized something: I'm a tad out of shape. It didn't help that some old lady was doing the same clip on her treadmill, and she hardly broke a sweat.

Sigh.

Overall it went well though, and the software is pretty keen. Being able to track your progress on the website is a good motivator, and...hell, I actually feel pretty good right now. Might try to keep this up for a while.

At least until I wake up in great pain tomorrow morning, that is.

celebrate independence

2007-07-05T04:34:25Z

This is what I call a perfect July 4th, just sitting on the couch with the girl and watching non-stop awesomeness.

Zoning out to the July 4th Twilight Zone Marathons are my favorite part of this holiday - aside from getting the day off, of course - and it's something I've been doing since I was a young'n, and something I plan on doing until I'm old and grey.

Hope everyone else had a rad day!

iGot!

2007-06-30T02:34:46Z

Six hours in line. Over a hundred people ahead of us, several hundred behind. Lots of clapping when we got into the store. It was cool.

Transferring my old number over took two minutes. Screen is fantastic. Syncing stuff now.

iPhone! Neat!

iron movie

2007-05-09T00:18:57Z

Me circa last year: "An Iron Man movie? Shaw, right."
Me circa now: "An Iron Man movie? All right!"

Look at that suit! Plus, Robert Downey Jr. plays an substance-abusing rich dude? He can do that. I just can't believe Hollywood actually isn't letting me down. Well, yet.

dissidia

2007-05-08T18:51:04Z

So then, a new Final Fantasy game for PSP? And not an [apparent] offshoot of FFVII or XIII?

Please be something worth getting excited about. Oh please, oh please.

monolith

2007-05-07T16:26:04Z

OMG, how is this not the coolest thing ever? More from this guy here.

in!

2007-05-04T05:09:22Z

css

2007-04-30T00:49:16Z

I've been putting it off for long enough, but I finally got cracking on learning CSS this weekend. And after many (many, many) false starts and false endings, I finished up with something very basic in appearance, but actually WC3 compliant.

I was incredibly surprised (and, at times, just as frustrated) by the ways different browsers handle the same code - there were times I thought I had the perfect recipe to do something, until I tried it out on Explorer. Or sometimes things would look great on Explorer only to fall apart in a fantastic fashion when using Firefox. Sigh.

The end result is here (that is, of course, unless you're already reading this from the home page). Like I said, simple. I'm going to use this as a starting point to trying out more advanced (and attractive) methods. There are plenty of things I want to try...

Hopefully this page will look less boring in a year. :)

the perfect easter game(s)

2007-04-09T06:40:04Z

This weekend I finally got the chance to check out two very similar games I've been wanting to play for ages. One I kept putting off for the last couple years because I was lazy, and the other...well, because it wasn't out yet.

First off, thanks to the fact I have friends that are rad, I was able to nab a copy of Super Paper Mario early. I got to Chapter 3 on Saturday, and would write lots of stuff, but it all boils down to this: It's fun. Like, tons of fun. And cute. And packed-full of Nintendo goodness.

Once you get past the overly-copious amounts of intro text, and get into the actual gameplay (and start screwing around with the fantastically-excellent 3D aspects), it quickly shines as one of the best games on the Wii. And, unlike Zelda, it really doesn't feel like a port of a Gamecube game.

You know, aside from the fact it is.

On the other hand, if you're just as lazy as I am, and never got the chance to try out a certain Vampire PC game Activision brought out a couple years ago, and you have 20 bucks burning a hole in your credit card. Well then, Steam is your friend.

I picked up Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines on an impulse while browsing through Steam's selection, and I was shocked - shocked - after a few hours of play. It feels a tad rough (even with the much needed unofficial patches), but by the time I finished a certain haunted house, my enjoyment meter was hovering around the "playing Deus Ex" level. Which means I liked it. Lots.

I'm not sure if it's the fantastic voice acting, or interesting sub missions, or the feelings of choice, or the dancers in The Asylum, there's just something about Vampire that grabbed me after a few hours of play. And I ended my experience tonight excited about playing again, rather than getting temporarily burnt out. A rare but cool thing these days...

creepy suite

2007-03-27T17:05:21Z

Wow, Adobe finally (officially) unveiled Creative Suite 3. Yay!

Although the nightmare-fuel clown sort of dampers my excitement.

Gah!

folding@night

2007-03-26T18:23:09Z

Back in the day, I was all about Seti@home. Like, in a hardcore fashion. Looking for aliens ALL THE TIME, with my badass PIII and its unused CPU cycles crunching radio telescope data, endlessly searching for extraterrestrial life. Then I got a new computer, started using it mainly for games, and forgot to install the Seti client after one of my (many) OS re-installs.

That said, I've always enjoyed the concept of distributed computing, and I was thrilled when Sony and Stanford announced that the Folding@home (wikipedia) client would be made available on the PlayStation 3. Plus, being involved (even a little bit) in finding a cure for Alzheimer's, Huntington's, Cystic Fibrosis, and other life-threatening diseases is only a few million billion times more important than trying to locate alien life.

Last night was the first ever Foldathon, so I joined up with Team Joystiq (#57516) and got to work. And by that I mean downloading the client and leaving my PS3 on all night. Which I plan to do every Sunday night, at the very least. Sure, my electricity bill might jump a bit, but throwing a half dozen results back a month (they take about six or so hours each) will be worth it.

Plus, it helps the "I spent all this money on a PS3 and I don't have any new games to play" shudder I get every time I look at that black monolith.

ps3. two days later.

2007-01-02T05:26:52Z

My PlayStation 3 experiences thus far:

Happy - Initial setup was a snap, got it online in a wireless fashion in just a few minutes, downloaded updates with glee.
Happy - Bought the PS3 memory card adapter at the local EB, transfered three PS2 and ten (!) PSone cards over.
Crappy - Put in Dragon Quest VIII as my first backwards compatible experience on the system. It found and loaded up my save game easily, but the picture quality is ass on a stick. Now I understand the "ridged text" complaints, and Sony better fix this quick.
Happy'ish - Linked up my PSP to the system, worked out Remote Play after a few minutes, it was neat but useless (for now)
Happy'ish - Purchased a couple PS1 games (Crash and Syphon Filter) and transfered them to my PSP for play. It was a long and strange process, which forced me to hook up my PSP before it would even download the game.
Happy - Played a whole bunch of Resistance. Started slightly mediocre, but has since turned into one of my favorite games of the year.
Crappy - Had more than a couple experiences of "controller craziness" in Resistance. Every once in a while it had me running into a wall for a few seconds, which often led to my death. Checking online confirms this is happening to more than a few people. Sigh.
Happy - Purchased and downloaded Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection thanks to this trick. I'm sure Sony will release this here any day now, but thanks to the exchange rate, it only cost me $15 or so. It looks great for a downloadable game, even though a few of the stages look a little blurry and it's most certainly a last-gen game with a nice coat of PS3 paint... Whatever, yay for PSP on PS3!

quick "end of the year" recap

2007-01-02T02:10:53Z

It's been a while since the last post, so time for recap fun:

Went to Japan, took tons of pictures, bought a few games, came back. Large post on that is coming, but I'm going through nearly a thousand pictures, and once the few good ones are selected, I still need to process them. Yay for RAW.

Got really, really sick right before Christmas, and ended up shivering in bed for two days. Which made me miss the family Christmas Eve for the first time in my life, which sort of sucked.

Aside from the feeling shitty, Christmas itself was grand. I got and gave many neat presents, and now have many more games added to my collection. And the HD-DVD player for the 360. And a new iPod Nano. And lots of rad shirts.

Yesterday morning I got up super early, went to Best Buy and got myself a PS3. It was funny, at 8 am (two hours before the store opened) there were five people in front of me. By 9am, two more people had lined up behind me and then left. Meaning I so could have slept in an extra hour. By 9:30, though, there were around 30 or so people. Which was good, because if no one else came, I would have felt like an idiot getting up that early. Around 10 they gave us tickets, we went inside, charged up insane amounts on our credit cards (100 bucks for an HDMI cable? Lordy), and walked out with heavy boxes full of Sony goodness.

Last night we rang in the New Year with another couple playing some sort of Gin Rummy tile game and got drunk on wine. Like really old people. But it was shockingly fun. I guess getting old isn't all that bad...

Japan

2006-12-19T05:58:32Z

Japan is rad. Internet connection being off in my room is crap. Kinkos is rad. Japanese keyboards are crap.

Seriously, how do people type on these things? The space bar is two inches long! My forearms are already hurting! Is it supposed to hurt to type?

Tons of pictures of statues and shrines to follow in the near future.

japan. zelda. stuff. huzzah!

2006-12-15T19:22:52Z

About exactly a year ago I made a spontaneous trip to Tokyo. And, as it made my stress levels drop dramatically, I planned a second trip for this year in a slightly less spontaneous fashion. Which I'm leaving for tomorrow. This time I'm going to be doing tourist-type stuff, including a day trip to Kamakura. Should be grand.

Anyone going to be around? If so, send me an email or just leave a message at the Tokyo Grand Hotel in Shiba.

Also, Zelda.

Last weekend I was able to finish this off. Thank you Nintendo for not forcing me to go through some lame Triforce hunt at the end of the game. Also, for not making me sail. Also, for giving me one the best gaming experiences I've had in years.

Also, we - and by "we," I mean the office - is moving again. To an even larger place - the "Jamdat" building for those who've driven down the 405 between LAX and the 10. In fact, we're taking the Jamdat space, as they're moving in with EA LA. Meaning it's no longer the Jamdat building. And now I'm rambling. Anyways, thankfully movers are doing it whilst we're all on holiday break, but man, I think I have too much crap. 20 boxes, just for my office. It took all yesterday just to clear my shelves. And I can hardly wait to see what didn't survive the move...