Just watched episode one of Wonderfalls. I suggest you do the same (don’t feel bad; you’re not ripping anyone off — yet. Consider it a long trailer, whetting your appetite for an eventual DVD release).

My question is: Why the hell was this show cancelled? In a field of increasingly inspid and mind-rottingly poor programming, good shows like this and Firefly are relegated to the Nielsen ghettos and delivered stillborn, before they can find an audience.

First impressions? This is a show with tight writing, good comedic values, and actual heart. Caroline Dhavernas is absolutely fascinating as the show’s central character Jaye Tyler. She’s snarky, she’s underachieving and conflicted, and she hears voices. In that sense, it’s actually quite easy to generate audience-identification.

Plus, the actress is Canadian! And, whilst set in Niagra Falls, New York, it’s actually filmed on the Canadian side, where the view is much, much prettier.

Maybe, like that other great, sadly cancelled-too-soon series Firefly, they’ll come out with a DVD set. I’m not holding my breath, but one can hope.

Odd factoid: Wonderfalls is Tim Minnear‘s show. Same Tim Minnear as in Firefly (cancelled). As in Angel (now cancelled). Fox sucks. Is there something not financially viable in fantastical shows with a core composed of equal measures of good storytelling and heart?

Courtesy of Slashdot Games comes a charming tale of some university students with too much time on their hands, who attempted and succeeded in playing Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles without using a single Game Boy Advance.

The basic method was as follows:

1. Obtain a GameCube with Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles
2. Obtain four more GameCubes, each with their own Gameboy Player, wireless Wavebird controller, and hooked up to their own individual televisions
3. Connect each Gameboy Player-equipped GameCube to the GameCube with FF:CC
4. Play the game in multiplayer mode.

This project earns geek points due to its ridiculous nature, adherence to the strong foundations of Maxwell’s Demon’s principles of perversity, and for the sheer cabling mess involved.

The only downside I can think of is that, with four TV’s as monitor-sources for the individual GameCubes, each player now knows what the other player’s secret objectives for Loot Maximization Earning are. On the other hand, it’s now a helluvalot easier to see the overall map / monster stats / treasure locations / etc.

I still don’t know what the author of this piece is on when he claims to resist giving in to Nintendo’s marketing scheme by not buying a GBA. Because, you know, the other four GC’s + wavebirds + TV’s are so much cheaper. And, as the owner of a GC and a GBA, I gotta say I use the GBA a lot more than I do the GC. Remember kids, if you don’t have friends with GBA’s, you can always evangelicize. Right Dave? Dave B? Doug?

So, I’m headed off to The Comicshop’s 30th anniversary party tonight (they didn’t have to twist my arm hard; they said there’d be refreshments). Think about that, for a while: my local comic store’s been open for thirty years. I was told that, at an event held at the annual Diamond Comics Retailer’s convention, all comic store representatives were told to stand up. All those whose stores had been open for less than a year were told to sit down. Then those whose stores were open for less than two years… four years… six years… In the end, when the announcer had reached the twenty year mark, only The Comicshop’s rep and one other rep were standing. This in a room filled with over several hundred people.

I’m proud to shop there; the staff is genuinely friendly and they don’t suffer from Comic Book Guy syndrome. And with the ever-increasing range of products out there, it helps to have some input and opinions from the staff on whether or not a certain title or author would suit my tastes. It’s not as if they don’t know what my tastes are; I’ve been shopping there (intermittently) since I was thirteen, and regularly since I was sixteen. Together with Orion, I have subscription Box #1 (though with Orion off in the wilds of Alberta, the box is all mine these days). I’d rather pay a bit more for my product obtained from The Comicshop than for the same product bought elsewhere; I know I’m supporting a geek-friendly environment that, in turn, supports geek-friendly activities.

I’m also relatively pleased to see them stocking more manga titles these days. It attracts a different crowd of comics-buyers (it’s always good to see more girls reading comics, and it might just help the next generation of young geeks become a little less terrified of interactions with the opposite sex).

Well, happy day! It looks like Season 2 for Maria-sama ga Miteru — Maria-sama ga Miteru ~Haru~ will be airing starting July 4. I sincerely hope Lillicious picks this up for fansubbing, seeing as the odds of this show ever making it over here to these puritan shores look as bad a boy sneaking around the Lillian Academy grounds.

Yumi and Sachiko

Woot! July! That gives me a whole month to put together a cogent review on the first thirteen episodes.

Wow. Movable Type 3.0 is out, and it has a pricing scheme that essentially kills its use among its most devoted following. Mena of Movable Type has stated that they’re devoted to providing a free version of the product, which, on the surface, has reasonable limits: one author, three blogs.

On the other hand, most Movable Type adopters tend to fall into the “web design-geek / server script-monkey” mold (guilty), and these people like being able to set up multiple weblogs for, say, their friends. That was one of the reasons I adopted MT in the first place; many of my friends were scattering across Canada and the States, and I would have liked to see them post about their experiences as a way of keeping in touch (granted, this has not been as easy as some would like, and the hard drive failure from last winter has put quite a few blogs on hold — my apologies, Orion, Yomimono, and Andy).

I’m not such a total skinflint that I won’t pay for good software (I purchased the copy of Opera I use, as well as Trillian, EditPlus and numerous others), but if I wanted to spend $119.95 USD (that’s something like three million dollars Canadian, methinks) on a hobby, I’d rather go out and buy a new XBox, or put the cash aside for the Nintendo DS, or buy a better digital camera, or save some for a gashapon shopping spree for Japan. But with MT’s new pricing scheme, and no new features to boot? I think I’ll stick with MT 2.661. I’ll not be so foolish as to return to my old home-rolled content management system, but I’ll definately be looking into the alternatives (pMachine, WordPress, Drupal and others come to mind).

Ah, the exciting world of software licensing. Watching the trackbacks from Mena’s post has certainly been interesting; there’s a lot of negative feeling in the MT community, and a genuine sense of betrayal. While I wish Movable Type and their employees all the success in the world, they’re going to have to do a lot of hard work to earn back the goodwill they seem to have squandered.

My personal opinion? All told, $119.95 USD for 6 authors and 8 blogs (which is, I believe, what numenor.ca’s maximum load would be if it were functioning at full efficiency), is actually a rather reasonable price — if MT existed in a content management system vacuum. Compare this to what the average anime / video game hobbyist would pay for their personal vices ($20 – $40 USD per volume of a series, or around $40 USD per game, and that’s not including peripherals like new controllers or memory cards), and it’s actually quite cheap.

There are, however, other content management systems which cost users absolutely nothing out of pocket. And if a devoted Movable Type non-profit power user were to upgrade, I think that springing a $50 – $70 USD minimum price increase (previously $0 USD) on them is a bit much. This is what seems to have brought the community’s wrath down upon Six Apart: expectations simply weren’t managed, and they’re now paying for it. I’ll be very curious to see how this plays out; will this be a Netscape-ish end for Six Apart, with other CMS’ like WordPress stepping to the fore, or will they parlay this as a simple misstep for a growing company, and show some goodwill by changing the pricing scheme?

Hmm. I should really change this category from “Blogwork” to “Oh, god, he’s blabbering about website stuff again”.

First up comes news of the official unveiling of the Nintendo DS, courtesy of Matthew.

Nintendo DS: mockup and actual

Rumours have been flying about this new handheld since its announcement, and I’m not sure what to think about the actual device, now that I’ve seen it. However, Square-Enix is coming out with a release game for the DS, so my RPG heart is all a-flutter (inventory management on the second screen! automapping! who knows, it’s all so exciting). I’m not sure I’ll buy the first generation DS, though; like the GBA, there may yet be a better form-factor DS SP in the future… and I can wait.

Still, with its specs (more power than a Nintendo 64) and generous price point ($150 USD, and sure to drop quickly, compared to the ridiculously overpriced PSP), I can see early adopters being happy. While I’m waiting for a new form-factor, price drop, I’m sure many viable “extenders” (cough, flash carts, cough) and emulators will surface, so it’s a winning situation all ’round.

The other piece of news comes courtesy of Dave (B, damn, I know a lot of Dave’s…), who’s pointed out that there’s a news of a realistic-looking Zelda for the Gamecube. Oh, and check out the next-gen Zelda trailer, too (where I got my shots from, thank you Quicktime). I’ll let the following pics speak for themselves:

Next-gen Zelda gorgeousness

Was cruising Electrolite’s blog links, and found this lovely piece of political allegory from Spacecrab. Basically, it discusses Nader’s role as a spoiler in the overall scheme of the upcoming American presidential electrons, in terms of The Lord of the Rings:

“The One Ring had to be destroyed. In my opinion, Samwise was the one who actually got the job done — not Frodo.”

“So, I said, “I think this is actually contrary to the spirit of the book — but suppose we’re there at the Council of Elrond; and it’s deadlocked 50-50 between choosing Frodo or Boromir to get the job done. Now, someone puts Sam up as the “level-headed” worker’s candidate. Samwise: loyal, sensible, agrarian, won’t buy an inch of Gollum’s BS.

“The votes of the hobbit fans among the Wise are split; and the ring goes to Boromir. Boromir brings it to Denethor, who keeps it for 10 minutes before Sauron sends him to Hell. Everyone in Middle Earth winds up working minimum wage for the S&S corporation; and the Shire is converted into an Orc football stadium.

“What do your agrarian, populist politics get you then?”

“Sam was a better ringbearer,” my roommate said. I went to bed on that note.

Man, I wish I kept up as much on Philippine politics as I did on American politics, but it’s looking like a three-ring circus down there, what with the entire lawsuit between two presidential candidates between the rights to use a nickname.

Other people (notably David and BluWacky) are covering Kenran Butoh Sai – The Mars Daybreak, and I find myself generally ambivalent about the series. It’s on my weekly watch list, after all, but it doesn’t have the “Dear God, I need my next fix of this NOW” pull that Twin Spica or Fruits Basket or RahXephon had on me (to name the last three series I’ve been watching regularly). I’m not quite sure why this is; maybe because, for all the cool details, the show just feels dated, like it’s not saying anything new or interesting. The mecha combat is actually mildly boring, pretty as it is — I’d rather see more first season Full Metal Panic! to watch the hot mecha-on-mecha action between Sagara and Gauron (Gaul? Damned romanizations).

But, getting back to Kenran Butoh Sai, when the show absolutely has no mecha action is when it’s at its best. Episodes 4 (where Vess and Gram meet again) and the recently released Episode 6 (when the President’s granddaughter joins the Aurora) are true of this trend (hah — bad science at work, using only two points to indicate a trend, woe). I recall Jascii stating that the Kenran Butoh Sai world is loosely connected to the Gunparade March universe; in that case, it only makes sense that the mecha combat takes a back seat to the socio-political / character drama (which is a revelation that comes early to Gunparade March viewers, sometime after the death of an important character and the rehersal for the school play).

On a purely technical note, does anyone know who the seiyuu are for this show? AnimeNFO’s been slow updating data for the spring and summer season of anime (almost none of the new shows like BakuTen or TenTen or Kenran are listed). Further, does anyone know what the a.f.k stands for in a.f.k anime? Just curious about my fansubbing groups, is all.

Well, it looks like a good start to the summer for console RPG’s. First up is La Pucelle, which is Disgaea’s sequel prequel ¹. David brought up the subject of La Pucelle on his blog, and I’m leery about starting a game that may have the capacity to devour my very soul. La Pucelle looks really good (hell, an endorsement from Gabe does wonders), and is currently available at my local EB (where, sadly, they know my name all too well).

Priere: Divine Storm!

I say this as a Disgaea veteran; my last save file says that I’ve spent over 250 hours playing the game. Sounds about right (insert wracking sobs here). Actually, the last save file says 252 hours, but that’s the “goddammit, I’m not spending untold hours levelling in Cave of Ordeals 3 or the deep Item Worlds just to reach level 9999 — where’s my frickin’ Gameshark?” save file. Lemme tell you, beating Baal with Laharl alone is a treat (2 million damage per blow!). But I still haven’t done any true Item World delving to find the Ultimate Weapons for my major characters.

And with La Pucelle having the look and feel of Disgaea, I really hope Mastiff did well with their localization of the game. Most of the fun came from the awesome voice work of the actors and the snappy dialogue. I’m really looking forward to playing as Priere, though (seeing as she was a hidden “bonus” character in Disgaea — just like Etna, Flonne and Laharl will be hidden bonus characters in Phantom Brave, Disgaea’s sequel).

The other cool news comes courtesy of Matthew, who mentioned that a sort of doujinshi 3D remake of Chrono Trigger was being developed. Chrono Trigger Resurrection, I believe it’s called. I actually saw the first inkling of this on 4chan, with a screencap; I know it won’t be the full game, and I’ve not entirely made up my mind if the 3D port would be a hindrance or a boon to the game — seeing as it was the ridiculously convoluted plot (time travel! whee!) and the cool battle sequences that made the SNES version so special.

Chrono’s home town

Still, Resurrection comes at a good time, as I’ve been looking at trying my hand at Chrono Trigger: Radical Dreamers (the text-adventure true sequel to CT), before going on to Chrono Cross (lent to me by the ever-generous Andy). And I sincerely hope that, in the spirit of FF I and II being re-released for the GBA, that Square will get off its ass and do a similar port for Chrono Trigger. Because, hey, who needs sleep when you have kick-ass games?

So you want to sample the bounty that this great union of connected computing has to offer? Okay then, this is how this breaks down:

• Kazaa (or better, K++ / Kazaa Lite — which may now be missing, or assimilated by Sharman) is for Top 40 stuff
• WinMX is for more obscure music, like, say Tommy February6 or L’Arc-en-Ciel, or Deltron 3030.
• Bittorrent, baby, is for TV shows and anime. Yeah, you could try using it for warezing, but don’t forget that the protocol is transparent, and your IP gets broadcast all across the goddamn stream. If you’re using Azureus, use Safepeer, at least.
• DC++ is like the modern, evolved form of Hotline (ah, Hotline, before it got bought out and sucked). Huge barriers to entry, though; generally, minimum share size is in the 5 GB range, and the hub operators usually want to to limit the maximum number of connected hubs to less than 10.

I can’t speak about Overnet much (or its clients, like eDonkey), because the above four generally meet my needs in toto.

Just sayin’, is all. Remember kids, if you find an album with three or more songs you actually like, then go and buy the damn album (unless you’re one of the lucky bastards who can use the iTunes Music Store).

Roughly the same could be said for anime, though substitute “episodes” for “songs” and “series” for “album”.