Dyson's Fear

The Delineation of the Blogs

Just to set the ground work of my posting:

Dyson's Fear is my geek/fluff blog.

Herding Cats is my writing blog.

Textploitation is the issues/whatever blog. It's as much mine as it is the others.

This isn't to say that there won't be crossover, but I've decided on this line of delineation in order to divide the audiences. For the record, the actual blog is now over at Blogspot as I'm unable to update this one anymore. It's only here for archival purposes.

Oh yeah

Happy May Day folks.

May you have lots of sex, be fertile, and stand up for the rights of the worker, comrade.

I am such a geek

I bought the original Xenosaga game in the fall of last year, and I still haven't finished it yet. Honestly, I think I may have screwed up and I've ended up much further through the game than I should have. Sort of like what happened with me and Final Fantasy X. When Xenosaga 2 dropped to $20, I bought it immediately, even though I still haven't finished the first one, and probably won't for a while to come. Now, with that said, I'm itching to get Xenosaga 3... despite everything.

The game looks bigger, and prettier, than either of its predecessors, and I'm a sucker for a pretty console RPG. So, with that, I'm going to show you why I'm jazzed about it.

The obligatory shot of the opening menu.

RPG mecha combat.

Great character modeling, and great camera work/mise-en-scene

Ignoring Shion in her space-bikini, just look at the environment details.

Again, it's the character models, and the detail of the skins.

One final dynamic combat shot.

Yeah, I am such a geek.

I think I might just end up buying a Gamecube

From Gamespot:

An EB Games employee today told GameSpot that the company had sent out promotional materials that strongly suggest Nintendo is planning a GameCube price drop next month. The materials, which were sent for use in the company's next marketing period (May 3 to May 23), include GameCube posters with GameCube-branded stickers that read "New Low Price," according to the employee. A specific price was not listed for the machine, which currently retails for $99.99 new, but it featured a blank number template which employees could fill in should a drop be announced.

I'll hopefully hear more about this during the coming week, either through my own channels or through my sister's, but I think I might have the inclination to get a 'cube finally.

Just when I think I've heard everything....

I just came across this Livejournal entry, and I'm actually kind of disturbed by it. It's no secret about my loathing of furries, but I've learned that there's not one, but two other subcultures out there that make furries look normal by comparison.

(Fursuiters... don't ask, it will hurt your brain.)

First up are the Otherkin These folks don't believe that they're anthropormophized animals, nope. These folks believe that they're anthropormorphized mythical creatures. We're talking dragons, pixies, and werecreatures of all manner. Now, if the detachment issues of the furries were bad enough, I can only imagine how bad the Otherkin are.

But wait, it gets better... or rather, weirder...

At this point, I'll introduce the Otakin. These are people who believe that they're, and I'm a little fuzzy on this, either the incarnation or reincarnation of Japanese anime characters, who may or may not be anthropormorphized animals or mythical creatures.

No, I'm not making this up.

There are really people out there who believe that the spirit of Genma Saotome rests in their soul.

(Genma Saotome, human & panda form.
from Ranma 1/2.)

No, really.

Seriously, I wish I was making this up. We all have our share of delusions, but man... I'm nearly speechless. Not speechless enough to not laugh and point, but seriously, can we stop accepting seriously mental health issues as being normal in geek culture?

That said, according to this, Asperger's may actually be the issue at hand, but isn't it always when it comes to the dregs of geekdom?

At the very least this makes me happy, as it shows that once again I am normal. Potentially less normal than other normal people, but still well within the realm of normal.

Can I get a Hallelujah?

Oh, and pass the Pocky.

The CD Cover Collage Meme

Well, call me a bandwagoneer, here's my CD cover meme. These are what I've been listening to recently:

Create your own Music List @ HotFreeLayouts!

Note: this will not replace my media rundowns. Ever. It's just a thing.
(Corollary note: I will be doing another media rundown sometime in the next couple of days.)

Wii have a new name

From Gamespot:

Revolution renamed Wii

[UPDATE 6] Nintendo announces the console formerly known as the Revolution has a new--and surprising--moniker. Analysts' reactions are mixed.

By Staff, GameSpot

Posted Apr 27, 2006 9:14 am PT

In a surprise announcement this morning, Nintendo revealed the new name of its forthcoming game system: Wii. "As in 'we'," the official statement adds. For the official announcement visit the Revolution...err...Wii Web site.

After a brief Flash introduction, the site explains Nintendo's move. "While the code-name 'Revolution' expressed our direction, Wii represents the answer. Wii will break down that wall that separates game players from everybody else. Wii will put people more in touch with their games … and each other."

The site goes on to say that Wii should be easy to remember for people around the world, no matter their language, and that it will avoid abbreviation. As for the unusual spelling with the lower-case letter "i" doubled up is intended to represent "both the unique controllers and the image of people gathering to play." It may also be worth noting that "ii" means "good" in Japanese.

Nintendo sums up the name change with the following comments. "So that's Wii. But now Nintendo needs you. Because, it's really not about you or me. It's about Wii. And together, Wii will change everything."

Game-industry analysts were swift with their responses. "Looks like a good solid name for Nintendo," said an optimistic Michael Gartenberg, vice president and research director of Jupiter Research. "The key is making sure they follow up with a strong launch campaign to evangelize the new brand and help drive the message forward."

Michael Goodman, senior analyst of media and entertainment strategies at The Yankee Group, believes the name change is a mistake. "I thought Revolution had much more meaning," he told GameSpot. "It was an apt description for the console. It was a revolutionary design ... the controller is pretty revolutionary. Wii just doesn’t do it for me. How do we even pronounce this? WEEE? I'm not sure this is technically a word. What is a WEE, W-I-I?"

But it's more than the name that bothers Goodman, who went on to state that Nintendo has made it tougher than it had to for itself with the new name: "You're building everything from scratch in terms of awareness and in terms of building a brand. Verses Xbox 360--you're taking the core Xbox brand and leveraging it to a new product. With PlayStation 3, it still has all those great attributes of the PlayStation."

Wedbush Morgan Securities' Michael Pachter was more mixed in his assessment. "My initial reaction, of course, is that the name is dumb," he bluntly stated. "However, upon reflection, I thought that the name Game Boy was dumb, REALLY thought that the name Xbox was dumb, and can't even recall my reaction to PlayStation. Let's face it, devices with cool names like Dreamcast and Gizmondo fail, and the lame names seem to do well."

Colin Sebastian, Lazard Capital Markets' senior research analyst for Internet and interactive entertainment, displayed Vulcan-like logic responding to the Wii revelation. "The success of the console will have much more to do with the quality of the games and the gameplay," he said. "Nintendo probably believes they've found a name that can stick with consumers. Revolution was catchy, but given similarities with the Xbox 360 name, perhaps Nintendo felt they had to make a change."

One industry analyst who spoke in the condition of anonymity said flat out the choice was wrong, for a number of reasons. "It's a sound that doesn't exist in Japanese, so Japanese people will struggle to pronounce it."

Acknowledging that Nintendo has had code names for their consoles before--Dolphin became the GameCube, for instance. But this time, the analyst said, "Nintendo let the code name gain a little too much currency: people were used to it, and it was widely accepted as the console's name."

"Now they have a stupid-sounding manufactured name that probably wouldn't have tested well with English speakers if they'd bothered doing any market research," the analyst said. "And they're going to try to use it to replace an evocative, well-accepted name that people have been using for well over a year. Bad, stupid move."

However, Nintendo is confident that, after the initial shock wears off, people will take to the Wii name. "The other systems have an extension of their current names--ours is a new leap to something different," Nintendo of America vice president Perrin Kaplan told CNN/Money. A rep for the company echoed similar sentiments, assuring GameSpot that "the name will grow on you."

Quote of the _______

Sound familiar:

"The free access which many young people have to romances, novels, and plays has poisoned the mind and corrupted the morals of many a promising youth; and prevented others from improving their minds in useful knowledge. Parents take care to feed their children with wholesome diet; and yet how unconcerned about the provision for the mind, whether they are furnished with salutary food, or with trash, chaff, or poison?"

- Reverend Enos Hitchcock, Memoirs of the Bloomsgrove Family, 1790

(found on Wired.com, by way of boingboing)

And now for something completely important

The following is from Gareth-Michael Skarka's Livejournal:

OK folks -- this is serious.....and it's not a liberal vs conservative thing. It's a corporations vs. freedom thing.

I'll forgo my usual verbosity and summarize:

Background on the Issue: The internet is open because private companies haven't been allowed to block content they don't like. Now, however, telecommunication companies want to change that, so they can block what you see.

Not A Paranoid Fantasy: These companies have already blocked competing services, censored emails, and prevented customers from reading political web sites. The CEO of AT&T is on record, saying "The Internet can't be free..."

A Simple Explanation of 'Net Neutrality': This video at YouTube.com explains the issue clearly. Watch it, and get mad.

So right now, we've got corporate lobbyists trying to push legislation through Congress: (PDF Link)The Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement Act of 2006 (AKA The COPE Act), sponsored by Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX). Basically, it would end Net Neutrality.

The internet developed as the ultimate democratic expression -- ideas are the currency, and concepts rise and fall by their own merits. Once people figured out how to adapt the internet to commerce, it meant that companies could succeed on the strength of their services, rather than whether or not they had huge corporate backing. The telecom giants are trying to figure out a way they can turn all of this into a profit-generating engine for themselves. Don't let them do it.

Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), along with Representatives Rick Boucher (D-VA), Anna Eshoo (D-CA), and Jay Inslee (D-WA) have submitted an amendment called the "Markey Amendment" or the "Net Neutrality Amendment", with 250,000 citizen signatures. It would add protections to the COPE Act to maintain Net Neutrality.

Get involved. Call your Representative: Most don't understand the issues involved and the ones that do don't think anyone's paying attention.

More info can be found here: SaveTheInternet.com

The part that irritates me the most, despite one of the links being to the CBC, is that while this is an international issue, it's being imposed on us from the US. It can potentially effect me personally, but I will have absolutely no say on the matter. None whatsoever Call this my first "I weep..." post of the year.

Heh, that was easy

Yep, I did what I was going to do. I claimed textploitation.blogspot.com for my own.

If you want to participate, drop me a line.

One thing: I have no idea what I'm going to do with it yet, so keep this in mind. It's going to be my project, but I really haven't found a reason for it yet, and it possibly will become something completely different by the time this is all over.

New web endeavours

Well, I've finally gone ahead and done it. I've started up that much threatened writing journal that I've been teetering on for what's become years now. Herding Cats is now a reality, and can be found under my new links category "Other Personal Sites". For the record, though, Herding Cats really isn't meant for public consumption, so don't expect a lot of commentary on things. There'll be some, as I try to understand my own creative process, but it's not really there for an audience. Hence, there's no counter and there will be no comments.

Also, I'll mention that I've started up both a MySpace site and a MSN Spaces site. These are there for twofold reasons: 1. To let people know that I'm alive, and 2. To advertise this place. The MySpace one is also there to promote Pete Williams' efforts to bring Undergrads back to TV.

The next thing I might end up doing is the whole 'Textploitation' community blog, but that's probably going to be a little ways off. I'll be doing it through one big hosts, but it'll be my baby.

A little whine and cheese pity party (or Fandumb, part the X!)

Y'know, there's one thing about geeks that I've still yet to understand, and that's their ability to whine about everything.

(Pause for irony.)

Today was the North American release date for the CG animated Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children movie, and I decided (against my better judgment*) to check out the forum over at Anime on DVD. Over there we've got people who can't speak a word of Japanese complaining that the translation isn't right, and we've got people who are up in arms that a character who has a total of three lines of throwaway dialogue is given a Scottish accent. (Note: the character is Cait Sith, and with a Gaelic name... yeah, I can buy it.) They aren't complaining about the nearly nonexistent script, or the flat characterizations, or the sort of weirdly rendered action sequences. Nope, they're whining about things that don't matter what-so-ever.

And people wonder why I have such geek hate.

Is it too much to ask for to have some semblance of perspective in fandom that doesn't hinge on slavish devotion?

Is it too much to ask that people not speak through their sphincter?

Well, yeah, probably. I think the thing that gets me most is that these people tend to be well educated, but they don't seem to be well socialized. These are the loud obnoxious people who long ago poisoned the idea of me being able to express interest in public about my interests. This is the subculture the bred the 'people' who come into my store to ask me about stuff that we don't carry, and never buy anything. (Usually because they've already downloaded it, and are too cheap to support the industry in North America.) Granted, I'm not the most social person in the world, and I really don't particularly like being put in the spotlight, but &@$%ing annoying is still &@$%ing annoying.

These are the people who sing, way off key, the theme's of shows at nearly the top of their lungs. These are the people who talk loudly during movies about the character designs. These are the people who shout "Pedro" when watching Excel Saga. And it goes on and on and on ad nauseum.

Why, oh why, can people who aren't freaks be in the spokespeople of genre fandom?

I know there are others like me, and that we're arguably in the majority, but where the hell are they? They don't come into my store. They don't post on internet message boards (well, I guess that'd be a given.) They just don't show their faces.

Arrrrrgh....

Yeah, I think I'm better now, but it still doesn't change the fact that the whining of geekdom really, really gets under my skin.

(*Y'know, for someone who tends to be a stickler for spelling, grammar and punctuation, I find it oddly disturbing that I had no idea that there was only one 'e' in the word 'judgment'. I'd always assumed that it was 'judgement'. Weird, that.)

Wow, just wow

I just checked my woefully small visitor's log, and I've discovered two really interesting things.

1. People whom I assume I don't know actually read this thing.

2. People whom I assume I don't know have actually looked up this blog through a search engine. (I assume that it's specifically my blog as the only other references to 'Dyson's Fear' are a pun from Tom Holt and a joke about Albert Dyson's frog phobia.)

These two things I find fascinating, as I really don't expect my friends to check this thing out more than a couple of times, let alone complete strangers. So, I give you folks a big shout out for stopping by.

Also, for those of you who do stop by in the next few days, could you please leave a comment. I think that there's something up with my comments system, and I want to see if comments from other users are actually showing up. Thanks in advance.

This is the sort of thing that keeps me up at night

From DailyKos:

State police said the men drove up to the Beaver Valley Power Station in a tractor-trailer on Tuesday night to pick up two large containers of tools for a contractor for whom they worked.

Security guards stopped the men for a routine inspection, but they drove away, police said.

The guards became suspicious and called police, who pulled the truck over about a mile from the plant.

A state trooper got a warrant to search the vehicle and found a duffel bag, which he said contained $504,230 in mostly small bills.

It should be pointed out that it's the Beaver Valley Nuclear Power Station.

The reality is that it's probably drug money, but if you read the whole entry, it's also sort of disturbing if it turns out not to be.