More on my conversation with Kyle with AAC Direct

This is part two of a blog post. See part one.

I quote Kyle, owner of AAC Direct, as best I can from memory. I am not Plato, and I do not have photographic/eidetic memory.

Summary:
The purpose of this text is to show Kyle's enthusiasm for gaming PC's, his strategies and generally, why I liked what I was hearing.

PureXS versus LiquidXS:
The LiquidXS is what put them on the map on the Internet, near as I can tell. Each clear "see through" case is custom-built (not pre-fabricated) and laser-etched. Everything is water-cooled, and as Kyle said "No expense is spared (depending on the budget of the customer - Dave)." He went on to say "But while the LiquidXS makes a statement... the PureXS is about packing the best hardware we can into a case and giving our customers a PC that just works. We're interested in performance measurement per dollar. A system like the one you're ordering should be around 10,000 points on 3dMark2006. 2006! (his emphasis - Dave)"

Now I know that number is impressive, because I've read about a guy building a Quad SLI system using two power supplies, two Nvidia 7950 GX2's, everything watercooled, just to get that score.

Related to the 3dMark score, we got into a big discussion about Conroe technology, why he was packing an E6700 CPU instead of two X1900 XT's in my system (for true Crossfire, rather than Crossfire ready), and it boiled down to the fact that the CPU was more important than doubling up the videocards. "Without that CPU, you'll never realize the potential of Crossfire." Well, I'd see a difference, but he was right. Most people get that wrong.

Lights as Artwork:
I'm also getting a window side-panel and lighted fans. Kyle asked me what color I wanted, and I told him "I'm an artist. I like almost every color. And as an artist, I'm not going to tell another artist what to draw - you put together what looks good to you." He didn't get it at first, and I explained further "Artists are used to looking at things other people want to draw and finding the value in it. So when I get the computer, I'll think 'This is what AAC feels looks good for the parts they had to work with.' and I'll be happy. Why tell you what I think should be in it? (as far as lights & layout) I don't make computer art every day, you do."

He got it, and apparently it impressed him. He got all enthused about having the freedom to put the case together because he started talking about how a lot of customers demand this or that and - they have to put it in, but it's not a good idea in his mind. So I knew what he was getting at.

Cheaper Shops:
"Places like CyberPower will sell you a cheaper system, but they don't put in quality parts like we do (and they don't test their systems - Dave). In our LiquidXS systems, I use $20 solid steel switches - two of them. That's $40 - for switches. So that just goes to show what we put into a LiquidXS."

Horror Story:
He went on with a horror story, "I hate to tell you this before you place an order, but we had one client that wanted Quad SLI, and that is very hard to configure, works on only a few games and we really don't recommend it. But if the customer wants it... so anyway, we were using the (Nvidia 7800 series if memory serves - Dave) and they had a lot of problems. We built his system and tested it with our burn-in and it died. So we kept replacing parts. Eventually we got the system working, but it had graphical gliches in one of the games we tried. So we went through 5 sets of videocards - 10 cards, before we got it right. It took us much longer than anticipated, but when we shipped him the system, it ran every game we put on it without problems."

"Now, we could have just shipped him the PC as soon as it got working. Maybe he'd never play those games." But Kyle and his team apparently couldn't bring themselves to do that.

AAC Direct's Modus Operandi:
And that, in a nutshell, is Kyle's modus operandi. He talked to me about his business strategy a bit, namely "I think there is a place between the Falcon Northwest computers and the cheap gaming rigs of CyberPower. I want the PureXS to be that alternative to an overly costly system and a system that's (a roll of the dice)."

He understood the cost of materials, how much the silver, gold, and metals cost. The lead-free system compliancy.

The most important point I found was that Kyle believed if he provided a great product that showed a personal touch "I never want (my company) to get as big as Falcon Northwest", that word of mouth and reviews would sell systems and they would always have business. Without saying it, the inverse was implied - selling systems that weren't fully tested would kill his Internet "street cred." He knows that.

To AAC Direct, getting it right isn't a percentage value because they are small and intend to stay small. Getting it right is the reason their customers come to them.

That's Kosher Computing.

If you like, take an inside look at their operation.

Update:
The Fate of AAC Direct / All American Computers

AACDirect / All American Computers

AAC Direct, or All American Computers, custom builds each PC separately, with results that show up in Tom's Hardware as The Best: Beats Alienware, Falcon Northwest and CyberPower. Coupled with great (if comparatively few) reviews on ResellerRatings.com, I realized they might be a good alternative to a Dell XPS, given Dell's recent pricing changes and lack of a cohesive plan to move to Conroe. AAC already has a plan, given they've been beta-building Conroe ATI Crossfire rigs already.

So I e-mailed them and asked for a quote for a computer costing no more than $2,800 with shipping & tax, that can run Oblivion fluidly. I specified no parts other than "I want a Conroe Crossfire capable setup."

AAC shot back:

• CPU: INTEL CORE 2 DUO E6700 2.66GHZ 4MB CACHE
• MOTHERBOARD: 975XBX (handles Crossfire)
• RAM: DIMM 2GB 800MHZ - GEIL 800MHZ DDR2 2X1024MB VALUE DIMMS (or something)
• PSU: 620 WATT ENERMAX LIBERTY POWER SUPPLY (or whatever)
• CASE: LIAN LI PC-V1000 ALUMINUM CASE
• VIDEOCARD: ATI 512MB X1900 XT PCI-E CARD
• HD: SEAGATE 320 GIG 7200 RPM SERIAL ATA HD (double up for RAID 0)
• DVD/CD: NEC ND-3550AGBP DVD+/-RW DUAL LAYER BK
• SOUNDCARD: (built-in)

Damage? 2,599.00! Much less than the limit I specified.

But before I ordered from them, I had to know "what is their support like?" I had read that the owner, Kyle Felstien, will sometimes answer the phone and talk as long as is necessary (indeed, he gave me the above quote), but I had to call them for myself.

The Phone Call:
Well I got Dave, who got Kyle because he said Kyle would know my order, and Kyle and I talked for 1 hour and 45 minutes. First we went over each item in the PC build - does the onboard sound work well or load the CPU? Okay, Audigy SE "Suck Edition" takes the load off of the CPU and doesn't have any fandangled features, but does do 5.1. Great. What's the difference between X1900 XT and X1900 XTX? $100 and 3-4%? Okay. Thank you for not making a "ka-ching" sound and quoting me the XTX. What's a LIAN LI case? Oh it's that good? Okay. I want that.

Then we talked about Gainesville, Florida, because Kyle used to live here. He even knew Burrito Brothers, the famous burrito shop where my dad used to work. I told him the rat story. He kind of chuckled and didn't say anything, like he was wondering "Was I eating there, then?"

Then we talked about the state of technology today, and two things became obviously clear: much of my two weeks of hardcore research had proved me right on many points (from Crossfire Express 3200 - 16x to the old 8x standard and what that means) and Kyle knew of tons of topics I just didn't know about - such as why ATI's roadmap for the future is better than Nvidia's and a distributor's nightmares in dealing with Nvidia (though he offered me an Nvidia rig 5 times just as a manner of speaking), why Conroes are so freaking hot (he knows about the architecture), and why ATI cards made now will, to a degree, support the DX10 standard of using GPU's as CPU's.

Warranty? How about Custom Burn-In of Every PC to go with that?
Oh, and did I mention that every system shipped goes through a complete burn-in? Comes with a 3 year parts warranty (1 year labor) and phone support for the life of the system?

Well, obviously, I found out about their phone support, and though they are a small shop that isn't there 24/7, they sold me.

As Kyle said "We put our major costs into building the computers and making sure they work, rather than technical support down the road." He has the latter, but as he said "We've only got so many people, so you can only reach us at business hours." However, they seemed helpful and glad to discuss any questions about the computers they sell you.

Kyle talked about build quality - about CyberPower's cheap computers that aren't even tested to Falcon Northwest and Alienware's costly systems. He builds custom "show cases" to more gamer oriented PureXS systems (LiquidXS systems are for rich folks at around $4,000).

Lights!
Kyle and I spoke about art and laying out beautiful computer cases, cabling and cooling, airflow; more about why Conroes are badass, lighting, why fan lights are better than lighting tubes (basically the tubes are so bright many people get annoyed after several months, while fan lights are more subtle)...

Summary:
It was an incredible phone conversation and I was riveted the entire time. I never told him that dinner (I was already going to eat alone because my mother had taken my wife & kids out shopping) was ready at 6:30pm. We didn't get off the phone until 7:50 (I'd called just after 6pm EST, when their store closes). Kyle is also an expert at Mexican goodbyes - where Mexicans say goodbye to each other, and in doing so think of something else fun to talk about, and go back at it. I'm great at it because I live with a Mexican girl, but Kyle can hold his own!

I have not had a more exciting conversation about computers since I worked for Rusty Butler in 1998. Only conversations with Jock and Billy come close, but since we're not industry developers like Rusty and Kyle, there's only so far we can go.

Money spent with AAC, I'm sure, will be well-spent.

Update:
The Fate of AAC Direct / All American Computers

E3 Dead

It's true. "The ESA will today seek to salvage some good from the wreckage of E3; but the spectacle that has held the industry in thrall for 12 years is at an end."

"...all major exhibitors have effectively pulled their support from the show, prompting the majority of game publishers to also cancel plans for high-cost booths." "The days of an industry event attended by all the major publishers, spending big money, are gone."

"The decision by big manufacturers and publishers to walk away has left ESA in damage-control mode. As we reported yesterday, E3, in its present form, is dead."

AMD CPU Price Drops

Make with the clickies.

Can't Keep Terecita

Dulce, Alejandra and I have all gotten sick because of Terecita. I made sure to leave the kitten with the girls last night so that Dulce would wake up sick and realize what needed to be done without us just landing the bad news in her lap. It worked. The poor dear got so sick she had trouble breathing, woke up, put the kitten in the guest/girl's bathroom by herself, and went back to sleep.

Alejandra felt so guilty that she tried to hide her symptoms.

I just don't know why I was able to keep Midnight for two weeks and not get ill, as I recall, and this kitten had my allergies going after the first night. We've bathed her and she's quite clean. We keep the litterbox in her bathroom.

Alejandrita showed me a purse this morning with a lab puppy on it that looks reminiscent of Bella. She said "I don't want Bella here because she try to bite Gose (jose)." I talked with her and made her feel better. I realized instantly that she was preparing herself for losing Terecita - she saw that her sister, Dulce, was sick, and her mother.

That poor child. She is so good with animals. I ordered Maria to take the kitten to bed with her for the purpose I stated earlier, and Maria said that the kitten kept leaving her and going to sleep with Dulce and Alejandrita. I knew why - Alejandra has played with the kitten, petted her and let her sleep in her lap ever since I found her.

This morning, the kitten meowed softly, then sadly, then angrily, then despondantly, wanting someone to let her out. She's become so attached to people - she's the cat I've dreamt of having, but alas - I can never keep cats. Alay can't use Dr. Chance's remedy while breast-feeding.

Perhaps my friend, Brandon, can help keep her until he finds a home for her.

A cat like Terecita is good enough to make me wish I had no allergies, that is for sure. She's just so - odd - for a cat. She likes to be around people and is content being in someone's lap much of the day. I taught the girls to let her go when she'd leave, so she wouldn't feel constrained, and it worked. The kitten just chooses to be in a lap and tries to nurse my daughters' long dresses. She doesn't want to sleep alone at night, though she'll nap in her cat bed you bought for her. Sad. I'll have to find a friend to take her - no way this kitten goes to a stranger.

Teresita the Kitten rescued from the street

I was driving to work this morning along the urban-green streets of Gainesville, avoiding the main roads, when I saw a college student walking along the side of the road with a kitten hopping through the grass trying to follow him. Periodically he'd stop and try to wave her off with his hands or feet. The kitten would duck, but continue following him.

A cat that tries to follow a stranger? I did the math quickly and stopped at the STOP sign, turned right, stopped immediately (this confused the red land-yacht behind me, who eventually passed me), turned the minivan around, and drove back up to the walking student, kitten still in tow.

I asked him "Mister, could you grab that kitten for me?"

"Sure," he said, "she's going to get hit by a car." He picked her up; the kitten ducked but did not protest.

"My girls will love her." I said, taking her into my arms.

I held her in my left arm and drove with my right on the ride home; she pressed against me and purred. Every moment I was stopped or slowing down, I'd pet her, and she purred. I showed up at home and got out of the 1986 Plymouth Voyager minivan, Rafael. My daughters, perplexed at my return, opened the front door and saw the kitten. The picture above was actually staged; I had already come inside and given them instructions and was then leaving.

All I said was that her name was Teresita and we were keeping her and to keep Dulce Maria (my 6-year-old) from getting too close because I didn't want her asthma or my allergies (which seem to be fine around a clean one-cat house, but kill me around male cats or dirty houses) to stop us from keeping her.

Lunch Time
When I came home for lunch, she was lapping up her milk. I stepped into the girl's bathroom with her (the crate is in there with some of the colored wrapping paper you gave us outside the crate and a towel inside the crate) and my daughters quickly followed. I brought her out and put her on the kitchen table.

Teresita saw the spaghetti and steak Alejandra had made (though it was cut super-thin, Alay didn't realize until she got home) and stepped over to it and tried to find something to nibble on, so I cut up a piece of steak into tiny bits and fed her one noodle and lots of bits of steak. So she sat on the table and ate with us, and she seemed to think this was perfectly normal. She'd look up at us once in a while and go back to picking at her food. Sometimes she'd come over to my plate, especially if she had finished what I had given her (so naturally I'd give her more).

Once she was done with that we put her back in the bathroom and kept eating. She hopped out immediately and went under the table and startled Maria de Guadalupe (and vice-versa). I picked her up and held her in my lap and proceeded to pet her and scratch her softly. The girls joined in. Then Teresita surprised me by suddenly splaying out her side and lying prone, so we continued to softly scratch and pet her.

Then she suddenly jutted out her neck and chin, offering us her most tender spot without fear or doubt, and I scratched her ever so gently, at which point she fell asleep. After it was time for me to go, I carefully lifted her and put her in Lupe's lap, who was on the couch, and she fell back to sleep. Her head stirred when she heard the garage door, but when I called home at 2:48 PM, Teresita was still asleep in Lupe's lap. I left at 2:20. Talk about a patient 9-year-old!

So, that is what we know about little Teresita so far.

Dell Laptop Bursts Into Flames In Japan

http://cellphones.engadget.com/...Dell-on-fire/

And this article that made me Google it...
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/...fiery_laptop/

Thanks be praised to Google Images search.

GP2X RTS (real-time strategy) game idea

See this post and the one immediately after it.

Based on what Tobriand said:



Can you tell who is flanking who with fighter/bombers? Can you tell which side has the bigger guns, but less corvettes/frigates?

Simplistic symbology, if done right, can tell a lot. After that, it's all gameplay. As you can see here, I assume the ships can rotate their facing, which can be used later for more complicated 2d or even 3d polygons, assuming the game was GPL and someone else came along afterwards.

It's all based on positioning...


Here's how this game works.

1. You have four attack unit types: Capital Ships, Cruisers, Frigates and Fighters selected by pressing SELECT than A,X,B,Y.
2. You have four support unit types: Mothership (makes more, and repairs), Repairship, Minelayers (every RTS needs something for turtles) and Turrets (mothership makes them and sends them to the square you designate) selected by pressing START than A,X,B,Y.

You can't control who your ships shoot at, you can only control their movement.

Selecting and Movement works in this way...

• Press THUMBPAD down and you activate the "select grid", which makes the grid show up in the background with the button labels.
• Press that button and your cursor appears there, 4x as big as usual (takes up the whole Y grid, for example). Press a diagonal to narrow your cursor down (you don't have to). Up assumes diagonal left, left assumes downleft, etcetera, for those accidental presses.
• To grab grids that don't have a button, just move the grid-cursor with the thumbpad.
• Press THUMBSTICK again, and whatever ships you have selected will go there.

To move something, you either select ALL of a unit type (SELECT, A would grab your Capitol Ships, wherever they are), or you select units in a grid (of any of the four types you currently are working on, based on whether you pressed SELECT or START last, either attack or support units). For example if we grabbed B we would net either the Mothership or the Frigates, but not both.

• L, when the thumbstick hasn't been pressed, releases all selected units.
• If you enter Thumbstick Grid-Select mode with units already selected, it assumes you want to move them. If nothing is selected, is assumes you want to select something, and then move it.

Rock, Paper, Scissors
Fighters go after other Fighters first, then Capitol Ships and Cruisers. Fighters are owned by Frigates. Frigates go after Fighters first, then other Frigates, and suck against Capital Ships. Capital Ships go after Cruisers then Frigates, and suck against Fighters. Cruisers are decent against Capitol Ships, Frigates, and Fighters, but don't own or be owned by anyone.

I think the Rock, Paper, Scissors needs to be change to 4 not 3. I think the grid system needs work - that center area is just too hard to select and you can't macro-select it with a 4x square. Perhaps "Volume -" would select the left two unlabeled squares, "Volume +" would select the right two, and THUMBSTICK down would select the middle two, which it would do every time until you press A,X,B or Y to macro-select another grid area.

Just stuff I come up with quickly.

HD: The Format that Nobody Demanded

• 10 Reasons Why High Definition DVD Formats Have Already Failed

Fun read.

Great Sunday

Dungeons and Dragons
My friend Dove proved again his ability to run a D&D game. He's not much on the creative side - he leaves an author's descriptions at the door, but he plays his NPCs accurately and well, complete with voices. Where he really shines is continuity and organization. His world always seems real because it is completely consistent. He has a perfect image of what's going on (even if he doesn't try to mimmick some Dickens and describe it all) and it shows when we play. He manages combat better than any DM I've played with, even Stan Lowman.

Stan's theory of combat was "when it gets so big I can't fit it all in my brain, I'll gloss over it." He'd use homebrew rules to "approximate" what happens when 40 enemies, en mass, do something. It'd be in keeping with the rules so we all went with it, besides which Stan was not a DM you questioned needlessly. He'd listen, but he was always in charge.

Dove, on the other hand, can handle 40 enemies in split groups coming at us from different angles, and keeps track of every single creature's stats & hitpoints - in part thanks to DM Genie (google that), a difficult program to use at first.

So Sunday was good.

GP2X
A GGB fan and Guild Wars fan-forum moderator, LordFu, found me on the GP2X forums I frequent. At the D&D game, my GP2X proved an able MP3 player, if not portable (no way to easily carry it while moving about), and two D&D players fell in love with it. Decker liked Neo Geo (Metal Slug) while Jakob liked the Genesis emulation.

On this handheld, there's something for everyone.

Oh, neat post I found: Visual Comparison of the GP2X and it's predacessor, the GP32.

ROMZ

I now have 575 Genesis ROMs and 144 SNES ROMs including 47 translated SNES ROMs on my GP2X. That enough? No, no, you're right - that's a pitiful number of SNES ROMs, but SNES emulation isn't perfect on the GP2X, whereas Genesis emulation is.

MAME and NEO GEO refuse to cooperate.

PSP: Crippled by DRM

Two good friends of mine have a knack for taking observations and data and compressing it into semi-precious stones. One I have sex with nightly, and the other I don't.

(One is my wife, the other is my male friend, Dove)

I told Dove that my GP2X was EVIL, because it nearly converted Ian, an IT guy and PSP owner, in 5 minutes flat. What got him? When he saw DivX video playing on it and found out it could use 4GB SD cards.

DRM Kills
The PSP is crippled by DRM, Dove pointed out, because everything you would want to do with it requires that you buy something. Not just videogames, but movies - nothing will play that isn't UMD, so if you want to have a movie on it, you have to pay DVD prices to get it, even if you already own a DVD of that movie. To make matters worse, the Memory Stick Pro Duo requirement is hard-wired into the PSP, so that either 3rd party sticks won't work, or at the very least, if you buy a 1GB stick, the PSP will only "see" the first 256 megs.

So when the PSP first came out, having a CD or two of music with you sounded cool (mind you, this is if you bought the most expensive Sony Memory Stick Pro Duo), but people have rapidly moved past this mindset and into the 20GB iPod market where they think "I can take my whole music library with me."

Even a GP2X can't handle more than an SD card can carry (unless you use a Break-Out-Box / USB Host to power an external hard-drive, which isn't portable), but...

• A GP2X allows you to view DivX, Mov, Avi movies without worrying about UMD DRM.
• A GP2X lets you use any kind of SD card you want (certain el-cheapo brands won't work).
• A GP2X lets you play all kinds of games (I have over 700 Genesis games on mine, that I can save at any time) and pausing, saving and restarting these things is easy.

Most of Dove's friends who enjoy their PSP's think of it as a replacement of their GameBoy - and talk about the games they have where they can play for 5 minutes and save - be it their golf game or a racing game.

The GP2X, depending on the emulator used, allows you to save the state of the game you are in wherever you are - mid-jump during a boss fight? No problem! Homebrew games typically don't allow for such, and just have a pause feature - but that's one more reason to load up an emulator while in a line.

At any rate, well said. I had to write it down.

GP2X: What is it?

Some friends of mine were confused! First, head here and look over this review!

GP2X Arrives - Videos!

That's Paul playing Vektar on the GP2X.

• View the Complete GP2X Playlist.

The "I Just Got My GP2X!!!" stickied thread:

Time to get my contribution buried in here for posterity and tradition's sake:

1. GP2X
2. TV-Out Cable (no extra cables to actually use that S-cable yet)
3. 128mb SD card (4gig on the way)
4. Carrying Case
5. 8x2500mah AA's, charger (Energizer)

The screen has a great viewing angle, and I have a Mark 2/Mk2... check my videos!

Overclocks stabily to 280MHz, speedtests to 300MHz (as my sig suggests). THANKS TO EVILDRAGON FOR THIS UNIT!
I enjoy playing:

• Quake 280MHz using every single key (look up/down is volume +/-, strafe is L & R)
• Beats of Rage - When I finally got it running, I was amazed by the fluid animation of the game, the beautiful backgrounds, and the music! Techo from Mortal Kombat? Boss music from Streets of Rage? Awesome!
• Streets of Rage 1 & 2 (3 has sucky music) for Genesis
• Sonic - 'cause I missed that growing up

I can tell I'll need a lot more Beats of Rage mods (around 50 megs a pop) because that's just too much fun. I really enjoy Quake.

My oldest daughter doesn't have a favorite game yet. She asked me to look up Genesis strategy games. Herzog Zwei comes to mind...

The Miscellaneous Post:

I just bought this:
A-DATA Turbo 4GB Secure Digital (SD) Flash Media Model Turbo SD 150X 4G - Retail

It's listed on the Wiki
http://wiki.gp2x.org/wiki/SD_card_compatibility

Edit: Why did I suddenly spend $100 on an SD card?
Because my GP2X arrived yesterday and once I played around with it, I was able to judge whether it was best to buy 1gig, 2gig, or 4gig SD card. Basically, I had to own the system and try it out with my eldest daughter's 128mb SD card to see just how good it was and just how much I'd be using it. Well after staying up until 12:30AM playing Quake1 and trying (unsuccessfully) to get OpenBor working, and loading up a ton of Genesis ROMs, I had my answer.

The GP2X is literally better than I had hoped for with regards to how much I enjoy it.

What I think about my GP2X:
I love it. It plays music, movies, shows my pictures (of family, kids, whatever) and plays a whole heap-load of games which, so far, haven't cost me a penny other than the 4gig SD card I bought to hold them. It is still en route and should arrive today. It is not fickle about what made the JPEG or (usually) video, nor where ROMs came from, with the exception of MAME ROMs, many of which need to be put through a conversion utility. Whoopdiedoo.

This thing runs:

• Neo Geo
• Sega Genesis
• Super Nintendo
• Sega Master System
• Amiga
• Atari variants
• Arcade systems (<1996~1998)
• Nintendo Entertainment System
• Homebrew games
• Linux ported games (that won't kill its dual 200MHz processors)
  

My only regret is that I don't have 2 because I can see I'm hyper-protective of it and my 9yo daughter wants to keep it with her during the day so she can use it when she has baby-sitting duty. Also having 2 would be cool because maybe I could get my dad interested in developing for it - but alas, there are better things to spend money on.

Nacho Libre was Fucking Stupid

Nacho Libre was fucking stupid. It's enough to make me curse, and y'all know I don't curse much.

First of all is that the movie attempted to portray horrible execution as camp movie-making, and it doesn't work. It throws in ancient ditties (songs) poorly recorded and has the whole racist angle that I've read Napoleon Dynamite had — in that the only Mexican that is portrayed as good, intelligent, or even non-disgusting to look at is the nun, and she's essentially a 13 year-old's sex object. The level of thinking of the movie, as reviewers said, really is 12-13 year-old boys, and even they won't like this unless peer-pressure sets in.

• Now, I could get over how Mexicans were treated because — everyone in the film was playing a Mexican. It was the flavor more than a deliberate racist remark.
• I could get over the campiness.

What really burns me is that, when you remove this, you find that Nacho Libre really is just bad film-making. It has a few funny parts but the story can't decided whether its dragging on nor what it's making fun of. One moment, Nacho is in the wilderness, and the next he's singing a love song for the nun making fun of how black women sing love songs. It just has no point and, unfortunately, takes too long to get to each funny segment.

Dumb and Dumber I enjoyed, which is why I really couldn't pin down why I don't like Nacho Libre after wanting to like it so much — I think that's the key. Dumb & Dumber never stood too long in one spot. Nacho Libre does — interminably, through the whole damn movie.

By the end of the movie, I was literally wishing it would hurry up and finish to A) put me out of my misery and B) before they have something even more stupid happen that would ruin what I was trying to salvage of the movie.

Doh! I was disappointed.

As for nit-picking, I've got this one: when Nacho, the Catholic Monk turned Luchador (still a great concept for a comedy, no?), said "Maybe in the next life." And this just illustrated the lack of research as to what they were trying to make fun of — Latin Catholics don't have much of a concept of reincarnation, so that didn't seem like a joke, it sounded stupid.

The concept was great. The execution was pitiful.

MySpace is Stupid

Well at Brandon's behest, I started up a MySpace account just so he can add me as a friend. I'm not sure if he'll want to, now. [see blog post]

Press "Start" To Play

Low and behold, I accidentally came across a good videogame-centric Web comic that doesn't think gamers want a story or to see sexy kittens - granted, my hat's off to everyone in that niche of the biz whereas they are still running, and GamersGoneBad.com isn't.

I actually took time to write the makers, partly because they are talented, and partly because their latest post scares me. I call it the post of death - it's where folks say "I'm feeling burdoned! I have no time!" which is sometimes the last gasp of their own mind not wanting to say "Good lord, I'm finished."

I hope they come around and do well. That kind of talent is rare. They even draw girls. Well.

You mean the Government can't manage our lives as well as we can?

This news article about FEMA's 1 billion in fraudulent relief aid payouts really speaks to a larger issue.

Oh, and as if D&D Online wasn't stupid enough because it lacks a Dungeon Master, now you can solo, too! Yes, I've played it. No, I don't like a D&D game that is basically "Hang out in bar, find PUG (pick up group) or your friends. Teleport to dungeon. Fight stuff. Go back to bar.

Where the hell is the rest of the world? Oh, they omitted it.

Correction: PS3 is all bark AND bite

I turns out I was wrong about this post. I reply to everyone who posts a comment. Anyone who takes the time to read and write, deserves as much. Usually I'll never repeat it as I have here, though in this case, I felt I had to because I hate misrepresenting facts.

Anonymous said...

You don't want to use theinquirer.net for your technical information. They're the FOX News of the internet I'm afraid. The article regarding the slow READ of the Cell processor from local memory has been completely debunked on slashdot

10:25 AM

David said...

Thank you, anonymous! I stand corrected, happily I might add.

6:26 AM

My Great Weekend

D&D that Wasn't
Well I came this close ][ to having fun at the big D&D game. I avoided the County Picnic because my wife backed out on attending it, and I didn't want to drive all the way there with four children alone, so I thought "Great, I can get to D&D on time."

Then 12:40 PM comes, and as I ready myself, my 13-month old walking, abstract-thinking baby boy latches onto me. I try to pawn him off on my lovely lady. He struggles to be free of her and cries. I try to sit down with him and distract him. He's onto my plot before I get halfway through it, and throws the toys down and latches onto me again. Every time I try to leave, Jose Francisco makes it abundantly apparent that - for whatever reason - he wants his Papa today.

My wife pushes me to go, but finally I tell her "What can I say? Sorry, 13-month old baby boy, daddy has a D&D game? This is why parents have no life." She chuckled, and told me to call the restaurant where the game was held to tell everyone I couldn't make it.

Jose & Diablo 2
So Jose Francisco had a Saturday full of Papa. Around 2 PM my wife told me to call my cousin, Paul, and and hour and a half later he was at my place, and we played Diablo 2 until 12:30 AM, with breaks for dinner and a baby boy, who sat with me or around me for a long time. It was odd, as much as he wanted me, he didn't seem to want me to be doing anything other than being at home with him in my lap. This was easily accomplished. Sometimes I let him have my mouse while I was in town.

Sunday was a lazy day. We went to Publix, I rediscovered the joys of Day of Defeat: Source (running on the Half-Life 2 engine), as well as how much I fail to understand what I'm supposed to do in Dystopia (same engine).

Jose Francisco, The Strong
That's a nickname his sisters gave him, independantly.

Jose Francisco and I spent time bashing things on both days. He has a will to conquer everything - whereas I don't care if someone else is better at something than me, I'm happy for them - Jose Francisco behaves more like my cousin, Paul, and his grandfather in Mexico (retired gynecologist and military commendant, separately), in that he has a will to dominate all things around him. Anything that presents itself saying "Ha ha, Jose Francisco, you can't climb me!" or "Look, I'm a toy soldier! Quick! Bash me with your other soldiers!"

Hitman: Blood Money advertisements

"Shockingly Executed" A naked woman, having been electrocuted by a toaster in her bathtub, presumably yet another way for the Hitman to murder his victims.

So there's this young lady gamer's take and Joystiq's open-ended blog which encouraged it's readers to make some unusually insightful remarks (see the large block of italicized text).

My take on the whole issue? Should it be banned? Are people luddites? Is it evocative of sexual power over women? Is it just meant to be sensational? Even so, does it change our culture, bit by bit? Does it matter?

All I can say is the world ceased to be the kind of place I enjoy living in a long time ago. That doesn't mean I expect anything to change, nor that becoming St. Paul's next defender is going to help anything. Discussions usually go like this: Everyone sits at a table, and takes turns getting up on the table, shoes and all, and waving their baggage around madly while yelling, and sitting down again. Nothing much gets done - it's like folks have forgotten how to learn, and instead focus on feeling right (not being right, which often involves being corrected).

I have three daughters, so of course I'm different. But if I am a defender of anything - it is of them. Until the world gets up and announces that it wants David Beoulve to be its Paladin, I'm not interested in trying to "save" it from anything. It doesn't want saving. It doesn't need saving. And it will stab your eyes out if you try. Moreover, folks who try to push what is right and wrong on others run the risk of becoming the wrong themselves.

While there are definite rights and wrongs in the world, most of them have to do with treatment of other human beings. If half the world wants to make a religion out of murder porn, it's only an issue when they gain power over part of the rest of the world. This is, ultimately, everyone's fear. "If enough of the world changes, it will change against me." People who want to take up that torch will do so. For me...

Charity and ethics start at home. If folks want to join you, let them. You can't stop people from being stupid, nor train them out of insensitivity.

POSTAL 2
I think this advertisement line is merely deliberately sensational, which doesn't say much about the game. Look at Postal 2, which I enjoyed maiming and burninating the civilian population in, but there just really wasn't much game there. That said, I could only watch my burn victims writh and whimper and curl up with the realization that they are dying, and give up about 5 times before it lost its mystique, appeal and became something stomach churning. Death is not glory, either in dying or killing. The game hit a little too close to home with that one aspect (burning deaths). The AI was attrocious which meant the world felt more disconnected at all times - other than the burning animations, I never felt like I was killing real people.

Brutality in today's world comes from a disconnect from feeling for other human beings. What games we play might affect the weaker among us, but not the rest of us. If you're already disconnected from the rest of humanity and fantasize about killing them, a videogame isn't your biggest issue.

Topics like this dance around the real underlying themes in life.

EDIT: Actually, I've got a great idea! Why not just ask Old Grandma HardCore? This post actually touches on this overall topic.

The Escapist writes about Blizzard

It's a great magazine this issue, if you read it from start to finish, but it doesn't actually accomplish much other than a history lesson and an informative look at the inner workings of Blizzard that has helped drive their teams to success - and why many have left the company despite it being a wonderful place to work.

I posted a comment about one of the articles here.

PS3 all bark, no bite?

The PS3 "mortgage your house" GPU is underpowered and might get half the number of polygons on screen compared to the XBOX 360 "takes it from behind."

This article talks about the issue.
And this article backs it up.

"You end up with a console with half the triangle setup rate of the 360, a crippled CPU that is a bitch to program, and tools that are atrocious compared to the 360. To make matters worse, you have an arrogant set of execs telling us that twice the price is worth it for half the power, a year late. If it isn't already too late, Sony had better do something about this recto-cranial inversion or it may very well sink the console."

My take on the whole issue? The XBOX 360 came out ahead of Sony's predictions, and the PS3 is suffering for not having as much time for it to be developed and tested as Sony wanted - and needed.

Updates on David

Well, I still need to convert to LiveJournal. I've gotta find a way to get Segmagic or one of its downloadable editors to work kind of like RTF (Rich Text Format). I don't want to hand-code my boldings or hyperlinks.

TRIP TO THAT PLACE THAT'S NOT TAMPA
Don't eat the rocks. I think we ended up in Largo? I rhymed with Fargo, which is why I didn't believe we were actually in Largo, or that there was a Largo, until we were leaving it and I saw a sign that said "Entering Tampa," which got me all confused. But that's easy to do.

Thursday and Friday I had training on Voter Registration software, but Friday was the best, as we got to see the EViD, Electronic Voter Identification system. It's basically a Point of Sale system that's been retooled to run as the Registrar of Voters. You know, when you vote, you see this long line of people who get their names checked and get issued a correct ballot style?

Well the EViD makes this whole process a LOT faster than old ladies looking through large books listing voters. You just give them your Drivers License, they swipe it, see what they have to give you, and hand you a ballot. Though, mind you, individual Clerks will handle that probably with several people rather than one, but it's still a lot faster and other Election Offices say their Clerks and Poll Workers love it.

My coworkers loaned me cash for Red Lobster! That was yummy, and $15 off thanks to the County. 2 pounds of Snow & King Crab for $5? Who could resist?

I got an air-hockey table for my kids, which they love. I believe everyone had fun on the trip.

I drove both ways though :P My friend, Dove, who writes for Gamers Gone Bad, kept me awake and focused on the way back extolling some really cool properties of light and ... I can describe every bit of what he said, but not name it - argh.

DIABLO 2
Maria de Guadalupe and I have been having a lot of fun with Diablo 2 and its expansion. I never tried it before now - no real excuse other than being a father. She's playing a Sorceress and I was playing a Necromancer, which is a lot of fun because I have this BIG ARMY. Sadly, the 1.11 (last patch) update severely hampers the number of undead I can summon.

Yesterday I switched to playing a Druid. It took me 30 minutes to figure out how to get the Druid to be able to hang with Maria's Sorceress (cleverly named Maria). Just grabbing the waypoints won't do, as I couldn't gain any XP from the higher-level creatures. Setting the level does nothing other than change the number and amount of XP to next level. However, against the recommendations of the hero editor, setting the XP, but not the level, and wandering out of town and killing one monster does the trick.

It's been much more fun with my druid because everything I pick up is better than what I have, and because druids cast more offensive fire spells. I do love fire. Necromancers are better army-makers, near as I can tell. None of my dire wolves, carrion vines or ravens have long-range attacks, as the Skeletal Mages do.

One thing I do not recommend is pairing a Druid and a Necromancer, because the Druid's pets automatically eat dead bodies to heal either themselves or the druid, and the Necromancer needs dead bodies to make more skeletons of any kind. My cousin, Paul, played a druid with us on Saturday. Much fun was had when he wasn't busy forgetting he was, in fact, playing with other people who don't magically know where he is, where he is going, or what he is doing. Paul thinks that's leadership to say "I just go and do what I gotta do, and either people follow or they don't."

That's just a pitiful perception of leadership. That'd work in a street gang, but it's not leadership ;)

GP2X
Amazing news! Michael / EvilDragon found a GP2X that overclocks reliably to not 260MHz, not even the coveted 280MHz, but an amazing 300MHz! I know of one guy on the forums who has a GP2X that can do this (and posts about it). Most folks are happy if their GP2Xs make 260MHz, and a lucky few brag openly about their 280MHz (as long as Epicenter isn't there to rain on their parade with his speed demon). I am SO HAPPY.

Since Michael found a good GP2X, naturally he shipped it (on Monday, May 29th), however, it has to pass through US customs first. I predict the NSA will interrogate my GP2X.

NSA: "Are you a part of a guided missile system?"
GP2X: "Uh, no."
NSA: "Are you part of a bomb?"
GP2X: "Heh, no."
NSA: "Are you from North Korea?"
GP2X: "God, no. I was designed in South Korea."
NSA: "Do you pledge allegiance to President Bush, his administration, and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales?"
GP2X: *ponders this* "Uh, you do know I run an Open-Source Operating System?"
NSA: "Process her."
GP2X: "Aiiieeee!"

New GP2Xgamer.com Design Launched

It took me a while, but I changed over the entire site. Be sure to click on the artist link next to Cecilia.

Updated GP2Xgamer.com Graphics

Well it looks like I'm about to get linked so I wanted to share these:

The main page and...

Every page thereafter.

From #GP2XDEV on EFNET IRC:
hooka Hi, I am just editing an interview with dzz and he was mentioning that you were making a new website for him, do you mind if I add the link you just posted?
dbeoulve Howdy Hooka!
dbeoulve Not at all.
hooka cool :)
dbeoulve I kind of forget that that post is out there *chuckles* but it's not wide circulation - maybe it is now.

Proof that the MPAA is Evil

The MPAA is interested in protecting its perceived dollars - they hired a hacker to attack TorrentSpy, who later fessed up.

I always wondered why the law was based around who could pay for better lawyers. Sounds hardly "fair." But I digress.

Crowdsourcing - the movement of Ebay, iStockPhoto, and others

Wired has an article on this. Basically, Internet-born businesses realise the power of the network, and of people contributing to their collective cause. Interesting read.

SPORE for the PC

Spore starts you out as a single-celled organism and lets you evolve into a water-based creature, then a land-based creature (shown in this gameplay demonstration movie), and eventually a space-faring civilization.

The creature editor looks cool, but I worry that the game is too many games put into one. That usually means everything in the game is lackluster, like The Movies, which was neither a good movie-maker (terribly locked in, creatively speaking), nor a great management/sim game.

Burning Armor

This game, judging by its screen proportion, is destined for mobile phones, PDAs or somesuch. However, its graphics speak to everything I love about 2d shooters.

NSA trumps Civil Rights

I don't know what to say about this that hasn't been discussed already by folks who are concerned as myself.

The NSA, after 9/11, got AT&T to allow them to install listening devices on all of their equipment, including equipment used by other phone providers, so that the NSA could not only tell who called who from where and for how long, but the actual conversation, for anyone connected to AT&T's landlines. That means if you've used a landline phone since 9/11, you have been recorded. Hard to believe. Harder still if your response is "So? I didn't say anything they'd care about."

Not only that, but a secret trial has been going on about this for several years, that has only recently come to light. Our judicial system has no check other than public scrutiny, so this makes the issue more absurd. Now we can have trials, judgment and sentencing all without the public knowing it ever happened?

Once power is granted, governments and people are loath to give it up.

I'm not sure where my country is headed. We used to stand for Freedom, Democracy, Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. We used to be a nation of immigrants.

Now, my Latin wife and my four mixes (children) look like their hispanic culture will become a stigma to much of the US, and then - this.

"The Siege" and "V for Vendetta" both try to give us warnings and tell us a story. I never believed "The Siege" at the time, but hearing this - all we need now is to start rounding up US arabs. Can we say that isn't 5, 8 years away?

Do we know, now?

New Look for GP2Xgamer.com

Part 1: Rough Sketch from Life
Each of these pictures enlarges if you click on it.
Well Dzz was foolish enough to accept my offer to spruce up GP2Xgamer.com for an upcoming coding event. I volunteered to draw a girl - which in my mind, meant Cecilia, the Web comic incarnation of my lovely Latina - and get that working with the site.

So, first thing Saturday morning at 7:30am, I started work. I realized I couldn't draw crap without my model, so I had her take a break from her morning workout and sketched the blue sketch on the left.

Notice her arms and waist - I trimmed the latter a bit but those are the real curves. The real Maria is working on getting back her figure, and right now she's at what I'd normally call "approaching maximum density" if she were a woman on the street, but she's not, she's recovering from her fourth pregnancy like a trooper and I love her for it.

Part 2: Refinement
Anyways. I then scanned it for archival purposes, sucked in a deep breath, and penciled over in my blackest graphite.

You'll note that it doesn't look bad - but the pose looks kind of bland for the purpose. Because I was technically accurate and my wife, who is incredible at telling me what lines need moving where, said it was good, I wouldn't realize this until later.

I set up for colors on my Tablet PC by loading the image from my Scanner, to my 4 year-old gaming rig, to my USB 1gig drive, to my Tablet PC. Fun.

Part 3: Exercise in Futility
I realized that I couldn't color that well in my Tablet PC as there were no hard lines for a magic wand to grab, so I traced the paper copy in ink:

I took this and used it as my selection layer and tried to color the digital copy of the 2nd drawing, above. I had to do a lot of hand-editing to get the colors on the edges.

Part 4: Finished Product aka "Not Good Enough"
The graphite, as dark as it was, just did not work with the coloring style I learned from www.GamersGoneBad.com, so I had to take my Tablet PC pen in Photoshop CS and hand-draw black lines everywhere.

The finished product looks like ass. The pose is still good, and the colors as far as being selections are decent, but it looks like what it is: a black and white drawing that has been colored after the fact, just like a black and white movie.

To boot, she doesn't have her hand out to hold a GP2X. I could have shot myself.

By now, I have spent 4 hours, including a quick breakfast and kids coming to ask me how I'm doing, drawing. Maybe longer. All I know is that it's noon, and I started at 7:30am.

Part 5: Redo starting and ending in digital format
I did this in 30 minutes flat. Why oh why did I decide that the touch and tactile feel of paper is better? The truth is: physical paper is easier to draw on. But what's the intended medium? If the end product is a computer-colored computer graphic... a Tablet PC with a high-quality Wacom Cross Executive Tablet PC pen is the best for the job.

I didn't use Maria to model for this because the poor dear was busy, but fortunately I'd just had a good showing of her arms and breasts that morning, I had the physical sketch next to me, and this was fairly easy.

Naturally I added Cecilia's elven ears this time. She didn't look right without them. I love the pose. And she's all ready to hold a GP2X!

Part 6: Finished Artwork
Yeah, she looks nice here. Now, there are problems with the drawing, like how thin her hand appears to be based on how deeply set the GP2X is (when my technical mind activates, my right brain flat goes to sleep and I don't notice these things as I'm doing them), and the pose is proportioned oddly for flair...

But that's my lovely Latina! Just crop the ears back and give her black hair, Mexican cheek-bones, nose & nice, rich eyebrows and there she is. Mmmm... Latina.

So the artwork is ready for the website, at which point I discover a new problem: the GP2Xgamer.com website doesn't fit 800x600 resolution and doesn't fit Cecilia anywhere. So - says I - "I do this for a living. Perhaps Dzz would like some free work."

Website, Parts 1-5: The New Deal
[See Most Recent Updates] This site uses tables, which I feel are evil, but I didn't have enough time to hand-code tableless CSS without charging money. Still, the website works in IE and Firefox, is largely accessible (fonts scale for older folk, which we can't ignore in retro gaming), and it looks decent.

I'm happy with it. I hope Dzz likes it. It's got some room to grow on the menu - and that "About" link tastes like mystery meat to me (when most users see "about" they think "about this company" or "about this website" not "about the GP2X").

I have a version without Cecilia for pages that need the screen real-estate.

This took a few more hours, but it was fun to do - given that this used to be what I did with my days. Now I do this and GIS and C#.Net and computer technical support all put together with a boss who doesn't give a flying fuck how I do my job, he's just happy when he sees I get things done. God, I swear, some days I could kiss him if I didn't think he'd put me through a wall.

Anyway - so that is my Saturday. It is now 7:58pm. I think I should eat dinner.

EDIT:
"Wow, that's amazing, I'm speechless! I'll replace the site with your incredible work right away, what do you think is the best way to do that?
Thanks for your great effort!" -Dzz

I guess that should come as no surprise! XD

Retro Games And Why They're Not Just For Us Old Fogies

Games have gotten too centered on graphics, less on innovation.
[See my Forum Post that this text duplicates]
"PS3" versus "XBOX About Face"
Sony and Microsoft have really declared that the latest console war is about ever-increasing costs and hardware (Web comic on that issue).

Even though it's named after that thing that separates my son from my daughters, the Nintendo Wii looks more enticing because how I'd play games would change more than, say, buying a $2,000 HDTV screen. The Wii offers more than incremental gameplay changes, for around 10% of that cost (plus games). And no, I don't own a GameCube, and got an N64 only when my cousin junked it for a PS2 and XBOX. I'm no fanboi.

Meanwhile, genres we grew up with have died fashion deaths.

Beat-Em-Ups
I must have seen the Beats of Rage download page three times before I saw the download "lots of mods" link. Some of those mods look like crazy fun. I'm sure most of y'all know about it, but it got my blood going.

Hyper Final Fight 2? The original Final Fight was my favorite beat-em-up game. I was sad that the genre died when the PSX entered the scene, because nothing really took its place.

How many 3d games allowed you to run all over the place beating people up? Unless you play Dynasty Warriors franchise, Rygar (PS2) ... there just aren't many options. Lame "play with your thumbs" First Person Shooters began to rule the day.

Halo 2 versus PC Gamer
Using a Lik-Sang keyboard/mouse adapter ("SmartJoy FRAG") for my XBOX, I went from being ranked 4% to 96%, behind only three other guys, one of which was my cousin, who couldn't believe it. I told him "The only reason I'm not beating you guys is that, while you've shown me where the guns are, I'm still not used to the best way to move about the level, and I have to keep my back to a wall or a buddy because I can't turn a 180 with a mouse (the adapter only approximated the mouse movement by using the thumbstick, which can only bend over so far).

Bleh.

Retro is Good
I don't let my kids play games often - and frequently they prefer other things like drawing with me or going outside, but they do enjoy their 2 GBA's in the van. Car rides are killers for 4 kids. Anyway, accidentally I've been showing them all kinds of retro games when I think about it. Other than Shadow of the Colossus (PS2), my oldest daughter prefers older, more strategic games, like Final Fantasy Tactics (PSX), FFT Advance (GBA), La Pucille Tactics (PS2).

Heck, all my kids do in Shadow of the Colossus is ride the horse and run around and explore. They find that immense fun. But how many games let you explore at your liesure these days? Well, ever.

Does he have a point?
Rarely. I guess I'm trying to say that the GP2X's retro gaming, it's emulators, its Vektar and homebrew games, they're good things because they all represent a time when folks without large budgets tried to make games.

For the emulated games, that time has passed.

For homebrew, you can't make a simple game for the PC and get noticed. It just doesn't normally happen. However, if you make a game for the GP2X, and it's good, man, everyone jumps on it. Folks will even pay.

While it's not the "old times" relived, it does have that flavor.

That's something I like about the handheld I have yet to own, and the community.

PUNT! Zelda Classic may come to the GP2X

Well, the whole reason I embarked upon this quest was because the guys at Zelda Classic seemed so opposed to porting their game to Linux, let alone the GP2X, they deleted forum threads GP2X owners made begging them to port it.

However, EvilDragon [online store], who might as well be called BenevolantDragon, is shipping them a free GP2X and offering reduced cost GP2X's for their developers, and in return they are going to port Zelda Classic!

Read all about it.

This is great news! Though I'm not sure where this leaves my artwork - work. I'll probably finish the avatar and some backgrounds anyway, because I hate dead work. From there I'll let folks tell me what they want me to do, based on what they've seen me do.

Line Art

(click to enlarge) I worked on tracing my line-art this morning. Once I get this into a computer, I can manipulate this a little easier - coloring might be easier. It's all about finding the right process for the artwork to translate not just well, but great - onto the GP2X platform.

While the "From Behind" animation uses two completely different poses, the front does not. I'll be playing with the placement of his legs in the top middle drawing - that left leg of his just sticks way out there without a shield in hand to counter-balance.

The bottom middle is actually the top right's alternate animation.

Everything is two-step animation, with doubling so far, which is homosexual. However, the GP2X isn't made of RAM, and this father of four isn't made of time. I realized I could either have a lot of animation and very few characters, or I could have a lot of characters and original Zelda-esque animation. Boohoo ;)

Son of Suck

I'm working on things that don't suck so badly. At the size I drew these (1/3rd to 1/4th of a 9x12" page) I can't use my pastels to color them (too thick) so I played with my daughter's carefully organized 92 color crayon set. She has every color lined up and sheets of paper where she's drawn the color and written the name (admittedly, I helped her with that, but she uses the guide). I'll have to confess I used her art tools tomorrow ;)

These color selections are the son of suck, however, they scale down well.

I bought my 9 year-old a book called "The Art of Drawing" by Willy Pogany. Apparently it dates back before my time, and has my hero's work on the cover, George B. Bridgman - a man who, among other things, taught Norman Rockwell.

I had no idea the book was that old when I got it (being that it was a new, enlarged reprint), but I saw the work on vanishing points, skeletal structure and muscles, all without genitalia, and I thought "This book is the kind I learned to draw on, only it's great for my daughter!"

GP2X community doesn't need more programmers, it needs an artist

I've realized that there's a lot to SDL C++ programming for the GP2X - and the issue isn't that there aren't talented developers, it's that most of them can't draw. With that in mind, I started work last night on my Tablet PC. The efforts didn't translate well to 48x32 pixels, and once again I found the lack of tactile feel on my TPC to be less than desireable.

So, I broke out my 10 year-old pastels, which I never used, and worked up the animation you see. The full original of the first frame is here.

I'm going to build up a graphic library and then find programmers to help me make an original Zelda-like game.

Note: That animation looks like ass. For one, his/her belt doesn't move with the body well. The left shield hand disappears completely, and the pose could just look better. Lastly, the hair didn't come out well with those colors. I intend on making a new avatar with the shield facing forward... if it's on. Otherwise the left arm will be there. In this manner, the hero/ine won't start with a shield. I am my own worst critic, and I think a decent GP2X RPG will be sold on what it looks like (those thumbnail screens we all look at to decide whether to download a game) first.

I won't be letting the GP2X community know about this until I have quite a few characters and general overworld background/tile-set ready to get their mouths watering. Then I'll see who comes to my rescue with regards to programming. Heck, perhaps some programmers need rescue from their lack of art assets!

Neverwinter Nights 2 to ship WITHOUT a DM client

Read it and weep.

Acronyms in this article:

• NWN = Neverwinter Nights
  
• DM = Dungeon Master
• OE = Obsidian Entertainment (the developer)
• OC = Original Content, as in NWN OC
• MCA & JE = initials of people who work at Obsidian
  
• NPC = Non-Player Character
  
• PW/DW = Persistent World / Dynamic World - types of multiplayer games for NWN; one runs continuously, the other keeps getting added onto but isn't "live" 24/7.
• FUD = Fucked Up Doctrine
• FALB = Fucking Acronym-Loving Blogger

Telnarius: Yep, but we're looking at the possiblity of the DM client not shipping with the game
David Beoulve: *minces lips*
David Beoulve: So, Kevin.
David Beoulve: Want to build Draco, release it and then... wander around wondering WTF people are doing?
David Beoulve: How about we cheat first, level up our chars, so's we can at least get around? How's that?
Telnarius: Man, Velas without a DM client. Velas: "Click 1 to get a snide remark" "Click 2 to get me to cast Death Touch on you"
David Beoulve: HA HA HA HA
Telnarius: Yeah now this player hit it
Telnarius: "With the DM Client's release postponed until after the game comes out, many single player gamers may breeze through the included campaign and then move on before NWN2 DMed gaming ever gets started. Without capturing a new player base early, DMed gaming for NWN2 may not be successful as NWN1"
David Beoulve: Sad but rather true.
Telnarius: I mean compare jumping into a NPC and playing it to scripting that NPC..not only in time but useability
David Beoulve: Well basically the whole world becomes static. Not only that, when things go wrong as people play -- and they will -- you can't do anything about it but log off and mess with the module, shut down the server, re-upload, restart the module, and hope a few people come back on. Or you can live with it.
Telnarius: Single-player folks in a game like this are like the extreme power guilds in MMOs. Play it, beat it, move on, who cares what happens to the game afterewards.
Telnarius: I mean without the DM client, it makes NWN2, not much above the idea of Oblivion, can play it, can use a toolset, but umm..what else?
David Beoulve: Ouch. That cuts, bud... but things generally do when they are true. True, it has multiplayer -- but you basically have an easy editor with MP and... nothing to do but beat on mobiles or each other.
Telnarius: Very much so, to delay the DM client, for what could be a couple months, would really hurt things. Download and play modules aren't going to hold attention, even with multiplayer. OC, well that's only good really one time through.
Telnarius: "Nice. One guy posted...
Cost of NWN2: $60.
Finding out that upgrades are need to play it: $250.
Realizing upgrades still are not enough, and buying a new computer: $2000.
Sitting back and watching it get played just as intended, then shelved after a month, priceless."

GP2X Mk2

Well EvilDragon aka Michael, from Germany, is hooking me up with a customized Mk2 from his shop.

Customized in what way? Well he found me a first-edition Mk1 that ran at a blistering 280MHz (200 is normal, 240 is the guaranteed overclock range) - a full 40% faster than normal! However, I read about the joystick problem of the Mk1 and decided to hold out for an Mk2. Nice guy that he is, he's going to go through the whole process again.

I am excited.

GPX2 H4RDK0AR!

I am about to pop. I've spent 4 days - 4 days reading about the GPX2 handheld Linux-powered Emulator-running gaming system [review|development]. My mind harkens to the idea of having tons of old games I remember from my youth available for play when I'm bored. My wallet praises me when it sees that I won't be buying $30-50 games for the system after I get it. My inner child says "Remember when we used to program games for the Commadore 64 and IBM XT? We can make games for the GPX2 too!" My adult self says "Hey look, something I can tinker with all I want, without some angry corporate giant trying to stop me!"

Indeed, the business model of the GPX2 is that it is intended to be an Open-Source system that end consumers can use how they like, whether it's playing movies, music (even OGG format), commercial games (there are two coming), open-source games, and of course - emulated classics!

I'm just bouncing! Hopefully an evil little dragon [german website] can help me get my system.

Galactic Civilization II is still good

[copy of an e-mail to my friend, Sean]
The perpetual refinement is what is so awesome - check out Brad's blog - he's the lead designer who has worked on the game for the last 15 years. Why doesn't he get bored? Because he loves coding AI - and that always evolves.
http://draginol.joeuser.com/

Brad loves to make us cry. He trolls the fan forums for their strategies and then adjusts the AI, releases a beta patch, (most gamers never see them unless they choose to) and we eagerly try it out and whimper that our "strategies" aren't so clever anymore.

There are some strategy Gods out there who aren't phased but for those of us who find "tricks" and such -- we cry a lot. I remember when using a GIGANTIC galaxy was good because the AI didn't understand using bigger engines and less defense in that great expanse. Yep. Those were the days. Last two games I've played I've lost, so I had to completely change my strategy and concentrate on economy more than flanking unfairly. I can still flank - come from where he can't see me - but it's more on even footing.

I still play the game weekly. It's not an every day thing but, because it's turn based, I can just put it down, go do other stuff, and come back to it on my Saturdays. I have no other game quite like that.

The Evil of Microsoft Points:

The "You Don't Own It, You Bought a License" Policy.

Buy a game? Great. Want more content that others might be collecting? You gotta use points. Need points? Gotta buy them; or, if you're a real whizz at XBOX Live competition, win them. But you'll never win enough. It's micropayments, and it's probably the future.

One day, everything we buy will have a monthly bill associated with it, the "new way" of pulling the covers over the masses to how much their total cost of ownership is. Why stop at monthly utility bills when you can get them when they buy DVD's?

Got the DVD? Great! You have to pay a micropayment to unlock the extra ending that wasn't in theaters. But wait! Because you just watched the movie, the chance you'll pay $2 is pretty good! After all -- it's just $2!

"Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive," has a rarely mentioned second line:
"But my how we improve the score, as we practice more and more."

XBOX 360 Annoyances:

The "You want to play a game, but then you met jackholes telling you that black people shouldn't play videogames" annoyance:

The "You can't do anything while you download" annoyance:

The "DVD's have all the standard control features, but you can only play and pause downloaded content" annoyance:

The "XBOX 360 can't do things Media Center XP can do -- not because it's incapable, but because Microsoft won't make money on you buying a Media Center PC otherwise" annoyance.

A good comparison point about the Sony PSP using proprietary memory chips rather than standard digital camera memory chips, as well as a video format nothing else uses, is made. Sony made the chip and the video format. The end result is that the PSP is getting whipped like a red-headed step-child by the Nintendo DS, which is less costly and has better games, by ratio.

The "XBOX 360 eats your DVD game if its nudged" annoyance:
Yep, I'm serious.

The "XBOX 360 thinks keyboards are evil, and so are people who use them" annoyance:
Yes, you will now feel the PAIN of entering in everything by controller with a non-intuitive interface that doesn't help guess at what you need to input. Or you can go grab a USB keyboard.
My favorite:
The "Microsoft strictly forbids gamers using a Mouse and Keyboard in First-Person Shooter games" annoyance.
Sony's take? The PS3 will support it.

One XBOX Live player said:

"1. [Cursing trash talk] is a big reason why I cancelled my subscription to Xbox Live. Seriously. It's a big barrier against anyone but true hardcore gamers subscribing to the service, and it's the reason why MS has only managed to sign up 2 million people (they trumpet this as if it's an impressive number, but that's less than 10% of the Xbox user base).

I just have no need or desire to listen to this kind of crap while I'm trying to have fun. This does NOT make gaming more fun. It does just the opposite.

Online gaming was better when voice was not involved, if you ask me.

Posted at 9:21PM on Dec 5th 2005 by Jeff "

"10. "Online gaming was better when voice was not involved, if you ask me."

Amen to that. That's why I usually never bother wearing the headset, but then people get pissed if you don't say anything. Either way you can't win. Too bad there's no way to set up matches with people of equal social skills...

I guess that's why I like playing Mario Kart DS so much. You might be playing against a total a-hole, but at least you don't have to listen to them."

New Gamers Gone Bad Comic Strip!

This one covers E3, in all it's banal S&M pleasure.

Linux-Powered Gaming Handheld does Emulation

The GPX2 [review] is an open-source handheld with dual-core 200mhz (software overclockable to 250mhz safely) that can run NEO GEO, SNES, NES, MAME arcade (early and pre-90's), ATARI 2600, ATARI LYNX, GameBoy, Gameboy Color (no GBA yet), Sega Genesis, Game Gear & Master Drive games. *phew* And it plays Quake, Duke Nukem 3d & DOOM! All for just under $200.

Read the excellent review with screenshots, or just check out the video.

I might get one. I thought about getting a Nintendo DS because it has the Brain Game, and the Sony PSP because it's screen is so big and wide - but the GPX2 allows me to MOD to my heart's content and features a screen with almost the same area as a PSP (just taller and thinner).

Why get a DS or PSP which will kill me for $30-50 a game when I can have a handheld that lets me play all the emulation games I like (well, that the hardware can run - it will never emulate a PS2, and while PSX emulation is in the works, it's largely unplayable right now).

It also uses SD memory cards (2gig and above supported), has TV-OUT, and hooks up to a PC via USB. No WiFi built in, but hobbyists are tinkering with getting this working, as they did with the GPX2's predacessor, the GP32.

Edit: Another review, which I think glows a tad too brightly. It glosses over the fact that virtually no commercial games will be made for the GPX2, and that the first edition had some issues with the joypad controller.

DirectX 10 is coming, but makes little sense to embrace...

DX10 is coming, and it has a load of new features, the best of which is that our videocards are finally becoming "do anything computational processors," which could kill Ageia's PhysX if a lack of applicable games that use the $250 card don't kill it first.

Of course, DX10 offfers some snazzy new effects and better load management for GPUs to handle bottlenecks, but the real problem is the same as buying a new gaming console as soon as it comes out:

You just spend three times as much as you would in 12 to 18 months; meanwhile there are few games released for this new system. Why? The old systems have a huge installed userbase who want to buy games - the new systems have, if they are lucky, 5 or 10% of that. During those 12 to 18 months you could be perfectly happy playing on your older gaming console (or, in this case, DX9 videocard) until enough games have come out that warrant the upgrade, and the upgrade doesn't cost as much as being an early adopter.

To me, DX10, with its requirement that I run Windows Vista - which hurts your computer speed worse than NT's hardware abstraction layer - is something I'll be interested in after 2 or 3 years. It took 4 years for my GeForce Ti4400 to become completely obsolete - that is to say, games required DX9 capabilities it couldn't render. That means DX10 will probably follow the same curve, as videogames take years to produce.

Ergo - DX10 is stupid to upgrade to right now.

PS3 is $500 to $600 depending on Hard-Drive size

The Playstation 3 has a price, and it is enormous. For the cost of a decent digital media PC, you can have a PS3 with a 20gig Hard Drive ($500) or a 60gig Hard Drive ($600).

What can I say? I held on to the foolish hope that the PS3 would not be priced wildly above the XBOX 360. With four kids, I can't warrant getting this system at launch. That is disappointing.