Ravy Comics 2010 Movie Deview

I had an interesting little revelation: going to see a movie in the theater is cheaper than buying the DVD, and takes up less space on the shelf. A DVD can cost anywhere from $10 to $20 dollars, and you only typically watch it once. A matinee costs about $7 and if you have the patience the second run theater costs about $4. And you only watch the movie once anyway, unless it was Star Trek.

This year was a banner year for me going to see movies in the theater. I think I saw a total of 15 movies, more than I have seen in the theater in my whole life. I admit, I'm bored and got nothing better to do on a Saturday night. (Which probably explains my comic update schedule.)

I am not going to talk about every movie, just a few that run the gamut from what I thought was good to not so good.

Iron Man 2.

The first thing I like about this movie is that you don't need to have watched the first movie, or read the comic book to get it. It's pretty much self contained. Fortunately the inevitable slow down in the middle, you know, the hero's house has been destroyed, his weapon has been stolen, and the bad guys are running amuck; is kept to a minimum amount of time.

I think it still ran a little longer than it needed to, but it was worth the full price I paid.


The Bounty Hunter.

One of those in which the trailer has all the good parts. Dollar theater.


The A-Team

Let's see how an Eighties TV series can get totally screwed up. I was pleasantly surprised. It was pretty good. I got my matinee price for it. I did call B.S. out loud in the theater a couple of times. First of all, a United States Veteran's Administration Hospital in Mexico? Then a UH-1 doing barrel rolls? And, stalling and restarting. AFTER making my thoughts to the annoyance of the other movie goers, I double checked with a friend who spent thirty years flying and fixing UH-1s. He didn't say B.S., he used the whole word and spent the next hour or so explaining the finer details of fixed wing Vs. rotor-wing aircraft.

I also thought the part with the flying tank was hokey.

I loved the shout out to Dwight Schultz's and Dirk Benedict's other T.V. roles.


The Expendables.

I didn't like how graphic the bodies being blown up where. And too much time was spent talking about unrelated back stories.

Other than that I was thrilled to see such a throwback action flick. Good guys stomping a mud hole in the bad guys and walking it dry. Rescuing the girl and saving a nation. All those action stars in one place! Dolph Lundgren! Where the hell has he been? I actually wanted to go back and see it again.

Definitely worth the full price I paid. Wasn't it great to see Stone Cold in movie that didn't tank on its first day?


Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World.

The commercials I saw.... (okay, fast forwarded through) really didn't prepare me for this. Once I figured out this was a video game universe, I thoroughly enjoyed it after that.

This movie and comic book series has some very positive aspects to it that time is not allowing me get into at this time. Later I will.


Hot Tub Time Machine.

I declared this the first great movie of 2010. Why? Nothing to do with the plot. Certainly nothing to do with the subtle callbacks to Quantum Leap or Back to the Future. The snow bunnies were nice. (I miss Spandex.)

After the sausage-fest of 2009, boobies live on the big screen. GOD BLESS AMERICA!

The scene that had me on the floor coughing up blood over how funny it was: the guy having to listen to his sister have sex with his best friend. Then the kid returning from nowhere after she says she feels pregnant.


Last movie: The Wrath of Tron.

So, they are in this mainframe in the cellar of an abandoned arcade. No connection to the internet. No one knows about the internet. So how did Clu get the page sent? There has been power going to this system the whole time? No brownouts or blackouts? No floods, windstorms, earthquakes, mice chewing through power cords, somebody accidently knocking a boom truck into a light pole, squirrel in to substation? None of that to interrupt power? No parts wear out? Seriously? I just had to re-install Win 7 after just over a year. Sure, it's no Encom O.S. 12, even you have to do that with Linux and Mac when the hard drive quits.

I have more to say, but hey, it's getting late, and I'm much more interested in seeing those snow bunnies on the back of my eyelids.

Merry Christmas.

Rosenkreuzstilette Oddities.

A fellow devotee of this fine video game, Super Justin, who has done the real yeoman's task of spreading the word that is Rosenkreuzstilette to the masses has come up with his own alternate sound track. After unzipping  the download this happened:

When using Windows 7 Explorer or unzipping utility the text comes up green. But if I used QuickZip the text comes up normal.

The next odd bit is these two images:

 

and

Out of the literally thousands of images on this site. These are the only two that ever show up on my visitor's log. The only real difference from the rest is that these two are the only bitmap images on my site.

The .25 Cent Workaround.

By the way, If you want to skip the next several paragraphs of nonsense, just scroll down until you see "The Paper Clip Trick."

Before I get started on this miracle cure, I need to digress and somewhat fondly reminisce.  As many of you know (okay, both of you) I used to be in the Army. After having read the Army Comics section (okay, none of you) may have guessed one of my jobs was truck driving. I actually enjoyed that and sometimes wished I had gone for that job. Imagine if I had, I probably would have been promoted quicker. Gone to different places. Probably never would have met the guy that introduced me to sprite comics.

Well, one of the things that was most un-enjoyable was dispatching the trucks and trailers. You see one of the major headaches was trailer lights. They didn't like to work. Even in the middle of the day they had to work. Having the brake lights work wasn't enough, no, ALL THE FRAKKING LIGHTS had to be on. It's not good enough that the county mounties, city, state, and for the most part DOT really don't care. The people who couldn't hack it in a maintenance section really did care.

So, we would have to tell our squad leader, he would get a mechanic NCO. Then the mech NCO would tell one of his soldiers to fix the malfunctioning lights on the trailer.

Those two lines took me about a minute to type out. Take that minute times however many minutes in a nine to five duty day. If we were lucky we could get the equipment dispatched after duty hours and signed by the commander before we had to take off first thing in the morning.

Enough bitching.

The Paper Clip Trick.

If only we had known about the Paper Clip Trick. All the time that I spent driving for the Army I never saw one person do this. I learned about long after leaving from an old driver. I say that ironically because he has been driving longer than me, but is a year younger. He told me to stick a paper in the light cord.

 

 Big surprise, these lights don't work.

 

 

Get yourself a paperclip. Don't use one that big. I'm using one like that here because it photographs easier.

  Bend one end into a horseshoe.

 

Clip off the excess.

 

Stick it into the ten-and-two positions in the end of the light cord.

Plug it back in and you should have lights. If not, you may have to get a new light cord, check the fuses, or turn the light switch on in the cab.

Be warned: There is the possibility of a short circuit which could lead to a fire. I have seen the After MASH of such. Due to a little point two-five cent paperclip.

The Rosenkreuzstilette 106a English Patch Workaround.

A fellow fan of this magnificent game is having a problem getting the English Patch to work with the latest version of the game. First thing I did was to replicate the problem.

I got it to happen in three ways. I pointed the patch to a file that contained that zip file. Then I tried changing the names of the main Rosenkreuzstilette folder. The patch worked every time. However I remembered noting to myself awhile ago that the "manual" and "omake" folders are deleted when the patch is installed. SO I deleted them myself. The patch failed. (Ironic.) Now there was one more test, but I couldn't try it.

Patching 106a. I don't have a copy. (Damn the irony.) But I did get one, without having to buy yet another copy of the game. I was trolling erka:es looking for a graphic reference when I saw patch downloads. So starts patching adventures. There's about a thousands variations of the game and a thousand patches for each. After an hour of trial and error, (mostly error) I finally succeeded in upgrading one of my many copies of 105c into 106a.

And the English Patch failed.

But, I had already tested a solution. (Which I have no doubt everybody else has already done.) I took the "scenario" file from the English Patched game and copied it to 106a. And It seems to be working. Now, I have only tested one stage, and went trough it pretty quickly, but I'm sure It works all they way through. For this video, I threw in a few extras.




That graphic reference. I couldn't find it. Let's just say that fairies are evil and if it weren't for their infinite capacity for stupidity, they'd rule the world.

Uh-oh moment, three days later.

Last Thursday, 11 Nov 10 as I recall, I went through my usual rutine of reading the comics I get via an email subscription. Ones like Bloom County, Wizard of Id, Garfield, Calvin and Hobbes, and so on. I laughed and closed out and went about my rather boring business.

The next Sunday I was listening to a nationally syndicated radio talk show I tune into only in times of extreme desperation when the host mentioned in passing about a cartoonist apologizing for a cartoon that ran the previous Thursday. As soon as I could I went back to my email to look it up. I had an oh my goddess reaction.

Before I go ranting myself all over the place, I do some research. I looked up the cartoonist's apology. I had a little bit of queasiness concerning it, but seeing as how this is the first time such a bad bit of timing has occurred to the best of my knowledge. I 'll chalk it up to a collective brain shart.

Collective because it wasn't just the cartoonist at fault. He has a staff of hundreds, if not thousands that missed it. The syndicator that has thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people that missed it. It happens. Really.

So, what's my excuse?

Do Not mistake this for a Mea Culpa.

Way back in May I wrote a certainly derisive missive concerning call for new medals to be awarded to service members. You can read the whole thing here. To paraphrase for those that don't want to go there: "... is already a medal for doing nothing. It's called a Bronze Star."

It smacks of mean, dirty, rotten, venom spewing, vitriol. I meant what I said and I stand by it.

A couple of weeks after posting that, me, my dad, and grandma were at the cemetery decorating family graves. While trying to find them a couple of older gentlemen wearing Vietnam Veteran caps and proudly displaying Bronze Stars on their jackets (Probably the same medals they were awarded in Vietnam) came by and struck up conversations with my dad. All the while I felt a little sheepish.

I think this week is as good as any to tell a couple of stories explaining my emotions on the subject.


About five or so years ago some guy I don't remember the name of because it's not worth remembering started bragging about getting a Bronze Star for supervising a trench across a road in Iraq. Mind you, that trench was important. A pipe going from a water purification depot to a canal was needed and it had to go under a road. This braggart pretty much stood on the side chit-chatting with the other sergeants and whenever a soldier asked for a water break the answer would be "Get back to work!"

"Sergeant, I have to use the latrine." "Get back to work!"
"Sergeant, I'm hungry, we haven't eaten since yesterday." "Get back to work!"
"Sergeant, I'm out of malaria pills." "Get back to work!"
"Sergeant, I've stopped sweating." "Get back to work!"

And, at no time did he or the other sergeants standing around swing a pick ax, touch a shovel, take a turn with the jack hammer, or even run the SEE-truck. He got his Bronze Star. His buddies got ARCOMs.  The soldiers in the trench got AAMs. Which at the time were illegal.


Now we have this: After a month in Iraq, she lost hearing in one ear. Then spent over a week soaked in diesel fuel. Got cheated on by her loved one and dumped. Had a (fortunately dud) mortar round land next to her. Was on a crew that was tasked to wash every vehicle in the battalion so she spent over a month was doused in the nastiest and coldest water in the world. Was one of the last soldiers in the battalion to return home a month after everybody else.

Back home she was kicked out of recruiter school for obviously bogus reasons. Deployed to a hardship duty pay area for four months and was never paid for it. Ordered to drive her personal vehicle to a job site over twenty miles away for several months and was never compensated for it.

Then while in Afghanistan she broke her hip and kept running on it for over a month. After being sent home for about six months she went back.

Worse of all, she had to put up with me torturing her all day long and taking our private conversations and using them as fodder in my little comic strip.


So I leave it to you: who do you think earned their Bronze Star?

Only slightly exaggerated.

I'm now icing my boo-boo.

I normally keep personal stuff like this confined to Facebook, but I can't go on at length there like I can here.

I went to a friend's hometown to attend her Halloween Party. I got there the night before, and rented a hotel room. I asked if I could extend my stay by a few hours, and the clerk said yes, just come down in the morning to make the arrangement. Well, morning comes around, before I head downstairs I decided to fire up the laptop to check the itinerary of events I planned out for the afternoon. I reached over to pick up the laptop and

OW!

My back started killing me. I figured I had tweaked a muscle. Actually I hoped that was all. I went ahead and checked out the locations of the tourist traps in the area. After that I hobbled my way to the front desk to extend my stay and get some more sleep.

No go. They had sold the room out from underneath me, and that the whole hotel was sold out. They told me to get out right away. I guess my kind is not welcome there. The kind that laugh too loudly at the David Hasselhoff Roast. So I get my stuff and leave.

Across the road is another hotel, they didn't open up until 9, it was 8:30. I wait, go the office and they said that they don't open for another half an hour. Thirty minutes later a sign is on the door saying be back a 11:30.

For the next three hours I'm dodging horses pooping in the street, closed roads, and too narrow roads for two way traffic. After 20 hotels in three cities not one let you check in before 3 in the afternoon, I had gotten to be pretty frustrated. By this time my back was so bad I decided to call it quits and go home.

I called my friend to see if it was okay to stop by for a few minutes about five hours before the party. I could tell by the sound of her voice and the ruckus in the background that I had called her at a bad time. At that exact moment in time my phone died. I figured that was the one hint not to ignore. I went home.

Even if the phone had lived, I would not have told her about my back. I feel if I did, that would by like trying to guilt her into feeling sorry for me. And to put up with me when she had more important things to do. Plus, my little owie is nothing compared to the crap she's been through, I know, I was there when it happened.

When I got home I went the emergency room and the doctor said I probably just strained a muscle. I chose to go to an emergency room back home for a couple of reasons: I didn't know if my insurance would cover me at my friend's place. And, if the injury was serious and required an extended stay, I have family that I could brow-beat and guilt into helping me out.

Now, If my friend, if she still calls me that, invites me next year; I'm buying my room for two days at least two weeks in advance.

Update: 11/3/10

I've been invited back for next year. I think I'll ask for the day off as well.

Manga Triple Header.

First we have what I call: "It's a Wonderful Suzumiya." Volume 7 of "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya." This issue was the story board and script for the space battle sequence I already have seen in the anime. In other words, boring. I have been ambivalent towards this series since I first heard about it last year. I liked season one. Hated season two. Manga is not helping what so ever.

Maybe with this issue we finally get into some unknown territory. Almost. While we finally break from the anime, we certainly break character. I had been anticipating "The Disappearance Of Haruhi Suzumiya" for some time. Something new, finally. Except we get Kyon way over-reacting. After all the crap he's been through, nothing could phase him at this point. Wow, the way he treats Yuki and Mikuru, you'd think they were the ones trying to kill him and not Ryouko.

 Speaking of which: "Haruhi-chan."

I used to be one of those guys that thought that the TV show, movie, anime, cartoon, or whatever had to be perfect to the source material to be good. I am so over that. So over it that I am willing to give "The Clan of the Cave Bear" movie another try. If I can find it. (Not a high priority.) The downside of this manga is that I had already seen it in anime format. So I was rather bored reading it. Also I noticed that the manga was a little jumbled up from the anime. Which I find interesting because the original anime is jumbled up form the original manga.

However, I must say that Haruhi Suzumiya actually works best as a comedy. For some strange reason it makes some sense that way.

 ST: OMG! "Conundrums."

"Oh My Goddess" volume 36 flew in under the radar and surprised me by arriving in the mailbox this week. This issue follows the same plot that episode of a popular science fiction series that just aired on the BBCA. Everybody loses their memory. After twenty some odd years, Kosuke Fujishima can still find something infesting to do with these characters. The only part I didn't like was how it dragged on. I was lucky, I got it collected in one volume. The Japanese originally had to suffer through this over six months.

What I found neat were al the mistakes that were made. The back cover said "Plus your fan art and letters..." Which wasn't included. Just fan letters from Japan, 20 years ago. Somehow Keiichi managed to remember the precise location of the girlie mag in his room, but nothing else. At least a couple of instances of Urd having the wrong color hands. A major unresolved change in that Velsper talked in front of Megumi. (Remember, Megumi doesn't know the secret of the Goddesses.) How did Megumi figure out that Keiichi is her brother just from her license and from snooping in his room?


Stuff like this makes things all the more fun. Probably not for the author and publisher. I'm keeping this to just me, you, and whoever else might see this. Imagine that their email inboxes must be flooding from all the otaku's pointing this out.

Here's my question: The original issue these mistakes were made came out sometime in 2006. (The math is very unscientific and I'm very uninterested in getting perfectly right.) The graphic novel came out in Japan in 2007. It's now 2010. So why hasn't the color of Urd's hand been fixed?

Jackass 3: Couldn't these guys have bugetted in a hooker to flash her boobs at least once?

I have an uncredible backlog of stuff to talk about. I was thinking about what to bore you with when I noticed most of the subjects trended negative. So I decided to talk about something I like.

There was stuff about Jackass 3 I didn't like and in fact almost had me vomiting. Suffice it to say these guys are really over obsessed with wieners, close your eyes when you see the toy train go by, close your eyes and plug your ears for "Sweat Suit Cocktail." That even still has me dry heaving every time I think about it.

That aside, Little Person Bar Fight was comic genius. I can't believe those people fell for the gorilla, they've been working with Johnny Knoxville for ten years. Woodpecker Should have been in the main body of the movie. Without a doubt the bit that had me almost vomiting because I was laughing so hard was "Ram Jam." Just seeing that guy knocked around so much was worth the price of admission. It was even funnier for me because my dad has a sheep similar to that one.

It was definitely worth the matinee price I paid.

I can't wait for 2013 as well.

Not because it will be finally the end of the 2012 election season. (Which started January 21, 2009. And, more poignantly will wind up being the beginning of the 2016 Presidential Election.)

Starting about nine years ago I looked forward to that special day in that special month that matched the year. So on all my paperwork I could write 1-1-1, 2-2-2, 3-3-3, blah-blah-blah, yadda-yadda-yadda. Just an icksy-cutesy thing that I found fun, and kept to myself. Apparently unbeknownst to me, this is the scourge of the internet. Millions of trolls going to forums, blogs, and sites with commentary telling us that the date is 1-2-3, 2-3-4, or 3-4-5. (My goddess! Somebody change the combination on my luggage!)
While trolling one of my favorite news sites: Maximum PC, I saw this phenomenon. Unfortunately, (or fortunately,) reality prevented me from making an observation:

That in 2013, all those flat twelvers will finally have to shut up about their end of the world conspiracies.

Carbonite Convulsions

This is a real long one. It would be best just to click on my web site's link on the left there.For now.

Or click here.

Blog Exclusive: Why Spell Out "RKS."

Like everybody else, when it came to talking about Rosenkreuzstilette I would use the acronym "RKS." The programmers use it all over the game in the graphics and even in the icon labels. Like everybody else instead of spelling out that most weird name, and get it wrong all the time and get beat down for it, just use RKS. Only the uninitiated wouldn't know what you're talking about. I myself caught on in a short while.

Then happenstance struck. When I first got the game over a year ago, the name was spelled out in the file folder; so I always copy/pasted it into Google. One day I absent-mindlessly typed "RKS" and got a lot of nothing relating to the game. Like the guy who wondered where the Sun went when it set, it dawned on me: I need to spell out Rosenkreuzstilette all the time.

I've gone back over my articles and replaced most of the "RKS's" with "Rosenkreuzstilette." I've noted since then one of my articles is now on page eight of Google.

By the way, I will never say anything that can be disproved by a simple Google search.

Comic Commentary

Trying an experiment. Probably won't last long.

Vampires do Suck

After a whole day of farting around and accomplishing absolutely nothing, I go to the theater to do more of the same. One movie I wanted to see had already started and the other one wasn't until an hour later. So I split the difference and take my chances.


Vampires Suck was a decent movie. I actually chuckled throughout. I was worried at first because it seemed I was the only one heading in the general direction of that movie. Then two other people happened in front of me and and went in.

"Glad to see I'm not the only one." then I was surprised to see the theater about two-thirds full.

I have not seen Twilight or True Blood, or any recent vampire schlock. But I got the gist. The writers did a good job of downplaying specific references and up-playing generic references and slap stick. Kind of like when the Super Zucker Brothers did two Scary Movie movies. You did not have to have seen any of the movies being made fun of to get it.

I was disappointed because the writers of Vampires Suck stuck with jsut making fun of Toilight. I'm not unfamiliar with vampires. I've played almost all the Castle'roid
games. Read three of Ann Rice's books. (Not Interview, but I have seen both movies.) Watched Vampire in Brooklyn, Under World, and one of the Blades. I've read all of Rosario Vampire.

This movie I think might have been better than Dracula: Dead and Loving it.

Over all, I rate Vampires Suck a matinee.

History Says President Obama Will be Re-Elected.

Over the past couple of weeks I've heard a lot of mouths and talking heads tell us why it is President Obama is going down to defeat, or why he is going to win a landslide. I've heard just about everything, but one: Historical Precedence.

Going to Wiki-Pedia (that bastion of ever accuracy) to do my research, I found a couple of interesting patterns. The first one I don't think applies, but I want to waste the space. Today's two dominant parties each had half of the 1800's. The Democratic-Republican Party and Democratic Party had total domination from 1800 to 1840. Then it switched back and forth with the Whig Party until 1860. Then the Republican Party had an iron fisted lock on the presidency through 1912.

Now we're in the 20th Century. There's a pattern that tells me President Obama stands a very good chance of being president through 2016. That is: Only one incumbent president was defeated for re-election in the middle of his party's eight year run in the White House.

What about G.H. Bush? What about Herbert Hoover? What about so-and-so?

Let's take a look. The first incumbent to be defeated was Howard Taft. He was defeated at the end of his party's 16 year run. From William McKinley to Theodore Roosevelt to Howard Taft. Then Herbert Hoover lost after twelve years. Of course George H. Bush after the same amount of time.

I also noticed something else: Only one president to ascend from being vice-president was defeated in trying for his own term. Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Harry Truman, and Lyndon Johnson all became president after the death of the previous president. Then they all won election to their own term. Each opted not to run again again for a second full term.

Gerald Ford was the only president in the 20th Century to be defeated for election after serving out another president's term. He in turn would be defeated by the guy making my original point.

Jimmy Carter. The only incumbent president to be defeated for re-election in the middle of his part's eight year run in the White House. You had eight years of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford before him. Then twelve years of Ronald Reagan and George H. Bush.

Total that's an awesome historical precedence for anybody challenging President Obama in 2012.

2012!

Screw that! I'm more worried about 2010. What movie should I watch tonight?

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World
or
The Expenables?

Please Forward to Ten of your Friends

"...I myself would probably do the same thing, but I think I'll wait and purchase one copy of Freudenstachel should it ever see a release on DLsite. (I'd by multiple, but I'd rather donate 8 copies worth of money to [erka:es] themselves, since it would not consume as much time.)"

The point I got from this comment from Mr. Justin Satiable that's it's easier, simpler, cheaper, and smarter to just pay Isemiya and Womi directly. He's right. I have no argument with that logic. I'm not going to.

However, I have reasons for why I did the things I did. First of all I had two goals: One was to get more people playing Rosenkreuzstilette. Two: get more people buying Rosenkreuzstilette.

While Isemiya and Womi no doubt would appreciate a direct donation, It doesn't really accomplish my goals. I'm not saying don't give, go ahead. It doesn't translate into a group of people buying the game, therefore doesn't encourage Isemiya and Womi to make Rosenkreuzstilette 2.

I could always go to DLsite and buy ten copies and keep them for myself. I'm just too honest and won't inflate the numbers like that. Still, it doesn't get more people playing the game.

Why is that one component so important? How do you think this whole fan community sprung up? One guy found the game. Talked about. People reading his forum saw it and got the game and played it. They like it and did some fan art. Some guys that did fan art, and wrote fan fics saw it. Wrote their own fan fics. and other people on those sites got the game. One of these guys had a spare hard drive and sold it an auction.

No doubt that me and a bunch of others had an effect. I always felt the was more I could do. I was going to the Anime Conventions anyways. Might as well and see if I can get anybody to listen to me proselytize about Rosenkreuzstilette and at least take a copy to shut me up. I found an interesting tidbit: more people (one) had heard of my site than had ever heard of Rosenkreuzstilette. I found a new audience. And maybe, those 10 people, will go out and tell ten more.

If you think I spent way to much time and money on this venture, Maybe I'd ought to talk about those pennies I buy.

Now at 80%

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A Fraking good time

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Finally at the convention

My alarm clock goes off right at the time I set it for: the crack of noon. I decided not to make the same mistake I had made previous years of going first thing many hours too early; and wait in line for too many hours with just the really fanatical people. You know, those that spent the previous night working on the most mind numbing painstaking detail of whatever costume they are wearing.

So I show up at the convention center with my newly minted T-shirt and the 10 DVDs I spent most of the night making in mind numbing painstaking detail.

Overall I had a good time. There was a lot of side areas set up for people to show off whatever. A couple of people reading palms. I was tempted, only to see if they could see that time when I was a kid and was bit by a Doberman. (My Dad now has a couple of min-pins that love to chew on my hands.) There were plenty of those that would do some caricature of you in the anime style they were hawking. A couple were even using using the same style used in a certain Megaman Clone. Then I wondered into a discussion on drawing comics based on a simple word.

That word: taco.

I couldn't help myself, I had to chuckled under my breath. I came in at the very tail end of the class and it had ended almost as soon as I got there. (I seem to have that effect on people.) A guy who could hear me asked what was so funny. I told him about it and another girl joined in and we remembered the glory days that was Bob and George.

Of course, any shill without even one ounce of self-respect would twist the conversation onto themselves and the wares they are hawking. So I told them all about my web site and Rosenkreuzstilette. The girl said she had heard of me, she then promptly left. That meant she didn't get a copy of the Rosenkreuzstilette Combo Pack. One guy did take a copy. (One down, 7 to go.) This guy was bored fan. He actually drove about two-hundred miles to be there. I only drove about twenty. After that, I left a couple copies of the DVD on the table in the back.

I went back to the dealer's area to check on a table that I had left a couple of copies on. (Forgot to mention that, didn't I.) They were gone. Double checked ever garbage can in a 50m radius to make sure they hadn't found their way in to one. Since I was next to the dealer's room, I went in.

I was pretty disappointed. Most everybody was selling just Deathnote, Naruto, Lucky Star, and Pokemon merch. The rare occasion I saw mecha, it was of course Gundam. What is it with Gundam? Does Big Box have some sort of death grip on Transformers? Anyway I did manage to give away another disk to a dealer. She liked my shirt. I think she actually translated it.

Later on I somehow got into a conversation with a group of kids, boy was that a hard conversion. I don't know how teachers can handle it. But I managed to get through my presentation and hand out two more copies.

Walking around some more I got my attention put in a figure four leg lock by the AMV room. I just sat down and watched it for an hour. One I remember was the Deathnote opening with Lucky Star characters. Picture Konata catching a bullet. It ended so I went back to the comic discussion room to check on the disks, they were still there. I left them and so I left.

Started with 10 copies of the Rosenkreuzstilette Combo Pack.
4:
Went into other people's hands.

2:
Taken of a table.

2:
Still on a table.

2:
Still in the chew toys that I call hands.

I'll be honest, I'll score myself a 60% success rate in giving them out.

That's right, I gave them away.

Night before the Anime Convention.

Rosenkreuzstilette Combo Pack

SO now I'm done with the music. Changed them all out, screwed the pooch on a couple. Got the lengths correct to cover any looping issues, screwed the pooch on a couple. Even made sure the audio levels were the same through out, really screwed the pooch on that one. (I got one sore pooch.)

There's more. I decided to decode ALL the files in the alt-music version of Rosenkreuzstilette I'm putting together. I did this purely for bonus reasons.

Hey, Why don't I throw in all the various versions of Rosenkreuzstilette? Well? Can't think of a reason why not. The easy part was finding the original Japanese and English Hack. They were in my video games folder. Just a quick copy paste. Lucky me Rosenkreuzstilette 2: Demo 2 was nearby so in it went. Now finding the original Rosenkreuzstilette Demo and Rosenkreuzstilette 2: Demo 1 was much harder. I finally found them on some very disreputable sites that (unlike other sites) shall remain nameless here. Scanned them with anti-viruses, tested them out, scanned them again.

Next comes Nero. Burn, Baby, Burn! Until I get to disk 6. (Insert farting noise.) Apparently my DVD Burner took a total crap on me. Fortunately I have a backup. You see, for some reason, a movie will quit on me in one DVD-Rom, I just put it in another a keep going. So I finish up burning ten copies of the
Rosenkreuzstilette Combo Pack DVD

Of course I checked each and every disk to make sure it worked. (I just realized something: I never checked to make sure that they worked in XP, the most commonly installed OS in the world, what a crack head.)

I can kinda sorta guess what may be going through your mind: "He's made copies of the game, and is going to a convention. He's not seriously going to SELL them?"

No, of course not, I gave them away.

Insert Videos Here

Okay, so what the hell does an alternate music track have to do with an Anime Convention? I'll get to it.

There were several goals I set up for myself: First was to use songs of the same styling. What I mean by this is go play Megaman 9. Capcom used the Megaman 2 Stage Start in a game that uses the same feel as Megaman 6. I can hear the difference.

Second was to not use the most obvious songs. Like Toadman for Sichte's stage.

Third was to be able to justify the use of the song. Not just because I liked it.

And I epically failed.

Yes, I wound up using songs from all across the Megaman universe. From Complete Works, Powered Up, Arcade, Maverick Hunter X, to name a few. After about a day of trying to find a CW replacement for Replay Grolla, I gave up and went with Zero's Sacrifice from MH X. I discovered It really didn't matter if the styles didn't match, as long as it sounded close enough.
(I admit to being a little too anal about such things, like safe sex.)

So after that fateful decision, the whole thing came together rather quickly. Except for Talk Tears. I had forgotten about it until I did the last play through. CRAP! I could just leave it, but that isn't my style. So I go back into the Megaman music folder. By about this time I had heard all these songs several dozen times and was sick of them. I'm tired, cranky, and needed to make a call on the porcelain phone.

When I got back, playing through a random happen stance of random shuffling in Windows Media Player was Alia and Gate from MMX6. "Heh, That'll do."

Admittedly, I did use songs that I would have to contort myself into pretzel to justify. Like using Chargeman in Merkle's Stage. I could spend at least another 20 paragraphs comparing the similarities in attacks, or I can simply say, It's my favourite song from MM5, and I was desperate not to use Skullman or Woodman.

One thing I was trying to do for at least the regular stages was to use a song from Megaman One through Eight. I do have the soundtracks for Nine and Ten, but I don't find them interesting, and hey, Splash Woman is just too damn obvious. (Yes, I did use Toadman for Sichte's stage.)

Also, I actually used Geminiman for the Anime Convention, not Frostman Demo. Oh yeah, The Anime Convention, what does any of this have to do with the Anime Convention? Darn, ran out of time for this week.

Tune in next time when we'll hear Grolla say: "Hey big man, let me hold a dollar."

Rosenkreuz World Order

Recently an anime convention came to town and I decided to spread the good word that is Rosenkreuzstilette. Now, what would be the best way to do so? I could set up a booth. But the logistics, time, and money just ruled that out. What could I do to show everybody my fandom of this video game?

How about a t-shirt? That shouldn't be too difficult. (oy-vey.)

Making the images was pretty easy. Just took awhile to find a font that approximated the same look as the NWO logo from the 90's. (Bradly Hand ITC, I believe.) Did up a couple of images and went to a T-shirt shop my brother recommended.

And spent a good couple of hours being told what I wanted was too time consuming and very expensive. There were two other logos I made that had screen shots from the game as well. They said they would have to break down the images to put each color on a separate layer. About $20 a layer. You've all played the game, that would be way too much money.

I commented that I've seen kiosks in the mall that would take your picture and put on mugs and t-shirts. They said they couldn't do it and nobody in the area could.

My brother recommended another shop and they said the same thing. (I'm sensing a pattern.) However, they told me to check out a shop in the mall. The one I rarely go to because the only store I ever went in closed.

So, I gave them a call this time. They said yes, come on down. Bring all my material and they would help me out. Got there, the lady downloaded everything to her computer and said to comeback in a week because they were backlogged. A week later they showed me the final product. I was a little disappointed because it didn't turn out as good as I hoped. But hey, I ain't spending that kind of cash on a video game.

Paid for my shirts, (which now occupy space in my closet). Then went home and finished up that alternate music soundtrack.

I'll take a check.

I just got an email from a group of lawyers that sued classmates.com. here's the pertinent part:

"Under the Settlement Agreement, Settlement Subclass members are entitled to receive either a cash payment of $3.00 or a credit of $2.00..."

What's that phrase? L.O.L?

Sir Hacksalot

Just click on the link for Ravy Comics to read what I'm writing about this time.

For some reason when I paste over the text, it comes up in a myriad of sizes.

Was Cosgrove hall asking too much?

So you're telling me that the 2012 Olympic committee was unable to get Danger Mouse and Count Duckula?

We Already Got a Medal for That

I thought this was a joke. No way this was real. Then I saw it one a real news site. It wasn't sarcasm or anything. Medal for Courageous Restraint. You don't fire at the terrorists. Someone seriously is considering this.

Unfortunately in war civilians do get killed. It's a fact of life. It's been going on now since forever. The debate should be were the Nazis in that church? Was the Taliban in that guy's house? Before that trigger was pulled. In this day and age, terrorists dress like civilians and hide behind women and children like the cowards they are.

A soldier has to ask himself is it worth it? An answer you will not find on some moronic blog.

In terms of medals, yet another one? When the war on terrorism started, the call for new medals came as well. One that was good was the Combat Action Badge. This is new age of combat, more than just the Infantry and Medics see action. Engineers, mechanics, clerks, clerks, and everybody else can wind up being fired upon by the enemy. This is no front or rear echelon anymore. It is all front line. So a separate badge was made for the non-combat arms. I agreed with that.

Then quickly came the crap. The Global War on Terrorism Service Medal and the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal. Apparently the National Defense Service Medal wasn't good enough. They gave to you as well. A while later the Afghan and Iraq Campaign Medal came along. These were preferred over the GWOTEM, but in reality all for medals could have been covered by the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, and by amending the Armed Forces Service Medal.

Das Wunderkind Gen. Stanley McChrystal piped up about the subject. While we both agree that we don't need another medal, we very much disagree as to the circumstances to get one. He pointed out an instance of a Marine protecting a man and child from attack with his own body. He emphasized the fact that the Marine didn't fire back. It should be noted that he is a hero for putting his life on the line. Now While I'm sure that a Marine can't be awarded a Soldier's Medal, I'm certain the are plenty of other Navy and Marine Corps medals available.

Those that want a Medal for Courageous Restraint apparently don't know there is already a medal for doing nothing.

It's called a Bronze Star.

WoWzers

Some time ago somebody asked me what I thought of World of Warcraft. I told him I didn't think anything of it. I never played it. He seemed kind of shocked. I said I just wasn't interested in playing it.

That's pretty much it. Then I thought about it some more. A friend of mine from long ago showed me WoW and let me fool around a bit. I was enthralled by the character creator. I thought I could make a 3-D Becky. So I decided to buy the game for that reason. But, alas, found out after having spent the $30 for the game, you had to get a monthly subscription to even use the creator portion. I said no way.

Of course I did further research and found that the game is much complicated than I thought. You have to talk to other people. I don't like to do that while playing. You can't just play by yourself, you have to form teams and communicate. I'm old school video gamer, I prefer to just play with myself.

As a matter of fact, go watch the Lucky Star OVA. Tsukasa is me playing WoW.

Now here's the scary part: You see, I don't like looking at Megaman's ass for hours on end. I would have to have a female avatar. This came up at my cousin's place during Thanksgiving. He got out Mario Cart Wii and let me have a turn. I choose the Princess. He an everybody else started laughing at me to no end. "What a sissy, playing as a girl." Too which I responded: "Oh, so you like staring at Mario's ass?"

I'm not the only one of that opinion. Some guys even go so far as to have a female avatar, female nickname, and even a female email handle. So beware, that smoking hot bikini clad sword-stress maybe some dude cranking it.

NDSi XLmnop

Normally I never buy a video game system as soon as it comes out. But on rare occasions I do. I did buy the Gameboy Slim. (Maybe I'll look it up before posting this.) Then it was a couple of months later the Gameboy Color showed up. I was cursing all the way to the cash register. I did wait a year for the Gameboy Advance.

I waited five years for the Nintendo DS. I was waiting for the price of new ones to drop to about $100. In the meantime I was snatching up games: Super Princess Peach, all the Castlevanias, and (of course) Megaman. Even after the NDSi, Nintendo still wouldn't drop the price. So I got one at a pawn shop for about $80. Plus tax, lotsa tax.

I enjoyed it , liked the games. You know me, I wouldn't be talking if I didn't have any complaints. First it's hard to see the screens, overuse of the stylus, and size. As I recall Nintendo switched marketing the NDS to adults right away, so why keep shrinking it? The original Gameboy was fine, when I was ten. Now It's unhandlable. (Gives no spelling suggestions.) Recently I unearthed a Game Gear, perfect size.

So when I saw the commercial for the NDSi XL during Raw my first thought was to immediately buy it. Unfortunately reality prevented me from immediately doing that until the weekend. So I go to Best Buy. All out. Had to wait another week and went to another Best Buy, SCORE!

Now the second thought was "Why 93%?" Wouldn't 50% or 100% do just fine? That's kind of an odd number. Is it some metric calculation that I can't comprehend? Maybe I should get out a tape measure and see. NNNNAAAAAAA!

The games look fine and that's what counts the most.

One thing I noticed right away was that the Gameboy cartridge slot was gone. Nintendo has it's reasons. I guess after over 20 years it was time to say goodbye. But, the were a few NDS games that have unlockables if you stuck in an old game. Another thing was the addition of the SD card lot. All I have to say is: "Let the hacking begin!" You know someone is out there right now trying to come up with an emulator to let the NDSi XL play Super Mario Land. Remember, it's the Memory Stick PRO Duo that allows all those hacks of the Sony PSP.

 An update on that. Upon further research it turns out that Nintendo locked down the OS. So you can't hack it to play all those old great NES and Super NES games.

Morale is not our enemy

I have not ever been to OCS, gone through any military academy, ROTC, or even a leaf raking tasking for JRTC. I do know that if you consider Burger King just as dire threat as Al Qaeda, you must have slept through that class on soldier morale.

You know what, I go a step further, that person is an idiot. Who is this moron of which I speak? General Stanley McChrystal.

What he wants to do is ban BK, Subway, Baskin Robins, and maybe even Green Bean Coffee (I think that's the name) from Afghanistan. I am not going into the legalities of such a decision, however I wholeheartedly question his intelligence of actually considering such a move.

A couple of the reason why is that the logistics of these enterprises' operations take away from the war fighting effort; and that soldiers need to be concentrating on fighting the war not thinking about double cheeseburgers. Also FOBs in outlaying areas that don't have such amenities create friction with soldiers on FOBs that do.

I acknowledge that these are valid reasons. But lets look at reality. What are soldiers thinking about? "Is there an IED in that wadi? Is that car going to blow up? Is that kid going to blow up? Are my bills getting paid? Is my spouse cheating? Why am I not getting paid? Why haven't I been stop lossed? Why is that bleephole that pushed paperwork all year getting a Bronze Star? When am I getting a pass like that other guy got five times already? What do you mean you lost my laundry? HOW MUCH? Did anybody get a copy of Hot Tub Time Machine yet? Is that a mortar coming in? INCOMING!!! Where's water when you need it? Did you wake up on the wrong side of the cot? Zulu Time? Why did he get blown up? Why doesn't that bleephole get blown up?
Did I leave the iron on?"

Soldiers are already under a tremendous amount of stress to begin with. Why take away stuff that helps in some way to relieve it? What's next? Banning Playstations, X Boxes, NDSes? How about laptops and DVD players? PX can only sell issued items? If hamburgers and sandwiches are such a big important national emergency, let's close down all the chow halls and just eat MREs three meals a day 365. Think of what Pasta and Vegetables will do for morale.

Picture a soldier, just got a Dear John/Jane letter. Daughter's pregnant, son knocked up some girl. Promotion paperwork was "lost" again. Pay check was zero because of some fubar. Parents are getting threatening phone calls because some bill that was paid but wasn't because of a snafu. Just got a medal that isn't authorized to wear.

Now this soldier may by some grace find himself traveling through Baghram or Kandahar, sees the big ol' Burger King sign. Goes over there with the thought that maybe for five minutes can get a taste of home. But instead see big ol' padlocks on the door and a sign that reads: "Closed due to the order of General Stanley McChrystal."

While reading the article I think I may have come upon the real reason for General Stanley McChrystal's orders: He is one of those annoying little nits that thinks if he does or does or doesn't do something, everybody else should too. He only sleeps four hours a night, everybody else sleeps four hours. He runs everywhere, everybody runs. He eats salad and nut bars, everybody else eats salad and nut bars. People like him are even more annoying because he is in a position of authority to make his megalomaniacal wishes come true.

Try killing the enemy, not our morale.

Making of Vajeweled

I listen to Bob and Tom almost everyday. A few weeks ago they did a segment about how some women will get stuff like rhinestones glued to their pubic area in various patterns. They did a live "Vajazzling" on the air. While that was going on I thought what could I do to make this rather fascinating subject sick and twisted. Out of the blue; "Vajeweled."

Putting it together wasn't as easy as you may think. At first I thought I could just swap out the backgrounds of Bejeweled, but getting screen shots were just too big. The picture became somewhat distorted after shrinking it down. I did try to use the Bejeweled graphics but they were too junked up. A lot of excess pixels needing to be cleaned up.

So I decided to come up with the boxes myself.

I used Paint Shop Pro because I could put all the lines on a separate layer so that way it wouldn't mess up the background image. And I could easily move stuff around once I had it drawn up. Once I figured out that the default settings were screwing things up and took me five minutes to find out that the "mirror" command works the same as "Flip" in MS Paint the thing came together rather quickly.

I used the jewels directly from Bejeweled, but there was something odd. Whenever I pasted them over, the quality degraded. The jewels are saved as a GIF and I was importing them into a BMP environment. I do that all the time with no problem. But here? It would happen with 7 Paint and XP Paint. Even going into a PNG environment. I haven't tried using Paint Shop Pro or some other program because it really doesn't matter.

So what was so difficult? Choosing the background picture. I went through hundreds of sites and thousands of pictures of women in bikinis, thongs, panties, shorts, leggings, leotards, swimsuits, and so on and so forth. Don't worry, I was, and definitely still am, certainly up to this hard challenge. I think I came up with the right picture and can't wait for the next challenge.

Ever being on the bleeding edge

I shall now talk about an episode of Family Guy that aired a month ago. It's the one that Chris fell in love with the down-syndrome girl. She was portrayed as a mean spirited bitch. That got all sorts of media pundits in a tizzy. I don't blame them. Knowing of some of those people I can see where such a character can hit a really sensitive spot.

I however think it was much ado over nothing. It wasn't the dominant story of that particular episode. More like a C story. And, that character hasn't been seen since. The people criticizing Family Guy for having had such a character obviously don't watch Family Guy. Admittedly I've only been watching Family Guy for over a couple of months now. But I've noted that the writers will do just about anything for a laugh, with the glowering approval of the Fox Corporate Lawyers.

My local Fox affiliate airs two episodes of Family Guy a day. From 1999 to 2008. Not long after the down-syndrome bit, an episode of Peter playing being retarded aired. Twenty whole minutes of Peter kicking in doors in the female bathroom and throwing dishes around and using the excuse "I'm retarded." I didn't laugh at all through out that episode. That was the one the media talking heads should have been all over. They probably were, I just don't pay any mind to those evening news shows.

Personally, I had no trouble with the episode. Other than that particular bit wasn't funny. I think they made that down-syndrome girl character that way just to tweak people. And it worked. The particular people commenting about it have an audience that probably doesn't watch Family Guy. Until now. I imagine most of the critics' audience will believe what the critics say and not give it a second thought. Others will want to see it for themselves and look it up. Family Guy probably lost some viewers and gained some new ones.

When watching the Family Guy, I get offended, I find stuff not funny. But, I've noted that me being pissed off over something is far outweighed by my on the ground holding my sides peeing in my pants laughter. I have nearly gotten to the point of throwing up because I was laughing so hard.

There's a lot not to like, there's a lot to like. If you don't like it, just follow my 85 year old grandma's advice: Turn it off.

Now That The 2009 Movie Season is Finally Over

Let me extend it by another week.

Last year there were two movies that took me by surprise at how good they were. The first one was GI Joe. I believed the hype and didn't see it in the theater. It disappeared out of the full priced theaters in my area in under in about a week. But, what surprised me was how long it lasted in the dollar theater. It was there for over a month.

Theaters will not keep a turkey of a movie because they need people's butts in the seats and buying popcorn. Even the dollar theater will drop a movie in an instant. 12 Rounds was in and gone in under a week. I think it lasted a little longer in the dollar theater than in the full priced theater. GI Joe was hanging in there even longer than did Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. I still didn't go and see it. I was more interested in watching Star Trek, again. (The theater was PACKED for a four month old film on a Saturday night.)

Yeah, I know, Saturday night, Star Trek. Go ahead and make your little jokes.

Anyway, some time later a buddy of mine hooked me up with the DVD of GI Joe and told me I had to watch it. So I did. It was a lot better than I was led to believe. Far from the worst, and certainly far from the best, It was worth the time I spent watching it. (Once again on a Saturday.)

I think that the makers somehow knew this movie was going to bomb and tried to cram in as much as possible in case there wasn't to be a sequel. Which bogged it down quite a bit. About a half an hour to forty-five minutes could have been cut and maybe placed in the direct to DVD GI Joe 2.

The second movie was The Goods. The DVD was given to me by the same guy. He said that if I liked the Hangover I will like this one. He was right. I laughed all the way through it. I thought why did this movie bomb out so quick? I came up with two reasons. The first was it was over hyped. There were commercials all over TV. Every time I turned on the radio some actor from the movie was giving an interview. I myself was pretty sick of it. I'm sure a lot of other people were to.

The other reason I can fathom for The Goods failure is Jeremy Pivens's and Ken Jeong's appearance on Monday Night Raw. I don't remember much about it, but what sticks out in my mind is that these two actors decided to play heel, they called the crowd a bunch of idiots, and talk about themselves being Hollywood elite. They got their assess beat by John Cena. I knew the instant that Pivens and Jeong did that, The Goods was going to bomb. Apparently they didn't learn from Kevin Federline's stint.

Now, apart from that, The Goods had two things going for it that The Hangover didn't: no sausage, and (even if it was on a TV screen) BOOBIES!

Over Comming Vista

It has been over four months since I installed Windows 7. Now what is the cultural significance of four months? That's about how long I played with Vista before giving up.

In the time that Win 7 has been running I've come across many a bug that had to be squashed. From Music Match to Power DVD, Soundblaster and even the Blue Scream of Death. (You should have heard me when my video drivers gave me the bird.) And, going so far as to hack stuff with Linux; I have swatted all but one: MS Paint.

I have a dream job, that is to be a head slapper. I would loom over the shoulder of some programmer and when they do something like remove the ability to draw a two pixel wide line I then would slap the back of said programmer's head.

Now normally the speech boxes I use are two pixels wide. One is barely visible, three looks too fat. Now to do two I have to click the box tool, click to bring up the width menu, click one signal pixel, click and drag, click far away from the box to deactivate the handlers, click and drag again, click far away to deactivate again. In XP Paint I click the line tool, click two pixel width, click the box tool, and click and drag.

7 Paint: seven steps.
XP Paint: four steps.

That is where the term triple-clicking comes from.

Stuff like that had me wishing for Vista Paint and even XP Paint. So I fire up XP Mode to see if I can get XP Paint to work as a virtual app in Win 7. I worked at it for awhile, but then an idea occurred: could I just copy/paste the whole program over? I have a version of MS Works I copied from an old computer I bought ten years ago. It still works! Now will MS Paint do the same? YES! XP Paint works on Win 7. That way I don't have to wait for XP Mode to boot up.

But, and there always is a big but, there is till a fatal flaw: random canvas transparencies. When I highlight an object and place it over another random bits of canvass show up. Even with the transparency turned on. This happens in both versions. There is a way around it, cut or copy/paste.

By the way, Vista Paint does not work in Win 7.

There is a lot of good to say about 7 Paint. Stuff I've been wanting for years. 7 Paint has a section for custom colors that doesn't replace the default colors for the duration of the document. Eleven zoom levels. Text at each level of zoom, not just one. Shape Selection and each one you can live preview line fill and center fill! I just discovered that while writing this out.

I do use 7 Paint a majority of the time. I however use XP Paint for the finishing touches on a comic.

After all this. The bitching, whining, pissing, moaning, waking up with a cold sweat, I will say I am sticking with Windows 7. Now, If yet another hard drive fails and I have to reinstall, and someone is holding a gun to my head and says I can't use Win 7, I would not go to XP, I would choose Vista.

And Now Presenting: Ass Zombies.

Many the expert has said one of the most important features of a web site is the title bar. You should place the most pertinent information there so search engines can index it better.

Of course I'm not one to pay attention to those who are alot smarter than me.

Last year one of the local newspapers ran a "bad cartoon" contest. I was all over that. I must have been one of a few to actually send some in because I was chosen to be published. I guess I can toot my own horn here and say this: How many sprite comics can say that they have been published in a newspaper without having to pay the advertising fees?

To be included on the same page with Ass Zombies, I'm honored.

I sent in six cartoons, all five of Mayor's Aid Plea Agreement and the only up for a couple days 2009 Halloween comic. To be honest, I really wanted the Halloween comic published, just hoping that someone would ask what all the costumes are.

I was really wanting to publish the Ass Zombies cartoon so you all could see it, but do to copyright reasons I can't.

I can hear you now: "BULLS**T! You routinely post other people's comics!" Yes, I do. Here's the difference: You see, Dave Anez lives a couple thousand miles away from me. In order to sue me he will have to file in the superior court of his state. Then go through the superior court of my state. A very expensive proposition. However, VK Cleary can go to any phonebook, find my address, and beat the crap out of me.

So instead I'll do my own Ass Zombies and tweak it to my twisted humor style.

Sheepman?

That's a joke, right? Capcom's just pulling our legs on that one, right? No, really? No, kidding?

Sheepman, that's the best Capcom could do? How about Ramman? I know it has been used in another cartoon, but that hasn't stopped Capcom before.

Hey Capcom! You can have Phoenixman! I'll just change his name to Pyroman or something. You can have that one too! I also have a Rotorman and Wattman you can use.

Take 'em! You don't have to give me credit. Like you would anyway.

Hatred By RKS.

For some reason RKS has generated a tremendous amount of hatred. Am I talking about people who played the game and don't like it? No. People who haven't played the game and don't like it? No. Church groups? Nope. Atheists? Nada. It is fans of RKS poisoning the internet with comments on forums and blogs.

Who are these fans? They are people that have appointed themselves the elite. Their words are the only opinions allowed. Their art is the only consideration. Their fanfics are the only just and true. They are the elite fans, or as I like the call them: the Magnificent Fans. (MFers for short.)

What are the MFers talking about? Pirates uploading the game to free download sites? No. People hacking the game and filling it full of viruses? Nope. People having taken credit for making the game? Nada.

The first thing that sets off these Magnificent Fans is fan art that they didn't create in the first place. They wouldn't call it crap, but they call it crap. They go to sites that host art and trash all that is not in the same exact style used in RKS. Completely ignorant of the fact that RKS uses several animation styles. Apparently the MFers never read any comic books. Often fan art is published in mainstream books. I flipped through an old issue of Sonic the Hedgehog. A page dedicated to people as young as ten able to draw really well, and those who don't draw so good. You see, the professionals at Archie appreciate their fans and the time and effort it takes to do fan art. And the bravery it takes to send off one's work to get reviewed that may never even get looked at in the first place. Posting on the internet is even braver. There are people who sole purpose is to take a dump on those who are not to the Magnificent Fans standards.

While on this subject, if you happen to have the Saturn Version Of Megaman 8, there is a fan art section. By the way, most of the robot masters Capcom chose are from fan art.

Now away from fan art and into the next item that sends the MFers into wild fits. They get out the venom-fuel flame cannons for this. What is it? Fanfics. You read that right. Fanfics. The Mfers hate fanfics they don't write themselves. Some of the stuff that is said goes beyond the pale. Rosie O'Donnell would tell these people to chill out. If you decide to give say Luste an older brother, you're a retard. (Their word.) You'd be lucky to get called just that.

You know all those Star Wars and Star Trek books? All fanfics. They are officially sanctioned, but that doesn't mean even Bill Shatner follows the exact characterizing of CPT Kirk.

The people that do the fanwork based on RKS are accused of distorting the game. That someone might happen across one of these fanfics is a complete idiot and not know what Google is. I do know and tried it out. Hilarity ensued. A couple of the people that were falsely accused of stealing RKS through their fanfics actually placed higher, A LOT higher, than the MFers forums. Now the Magnificent Fans will say "See, this proves it, we must seek out and destroy these retards (once again, I am quoting them) because they are ruining RKS!" You guys are smart, you tells us so all the time, and of course a smart person will listen when someone who wasn't sick the day the computer class talked about Google tells you about it.

One of the methodologies (I spelled that right one the first try) that Google uses to rank pages is what term or terms is used and what page is clicked on. So when the MFers trash a site, people actually look it up, and go there. What is written all over these sites? Why Rosenkreuz Stilette. Also Google ranks sites by what common search terms appear on the page. These sites that are trashed are chocked full of the phrase Rosenkreuz Stilette. Funny things is, go to the haters sites and Rosenkreuz Stilette rarely appears. So now you know another reason why I call them Magnificent Fans.

Now, I posit the theory that it is the MFers ruining RKS. Taking me for example, if I had seen some of this crap written by fans of other fans, I would have given up and never would have found out how to legally buy the game. I never would have found out how to hack the music.

We are all fans of RKS. We all have our on little ways of showing it. Some like drawing, some write, and some point of every little pixel that is a reference to another game. I am not asking we hold hands and sing "Kumbaya." I merely ask that we respect each other.

Hell, the guys that riffed "Artemis's Lover" respected the work and the guy who wrote it.

RKS Musical Chairs

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I'm probably not the first

I just did a quick experiment with RKS2. I wanted to see if it was possible to change the music to other songs in my collection. It worked. I'll detail how next week. Of course I'm probably a year behind and all of you already know how.

What's bugging me the most this week:

Between President Obama's State of the Union and Steve Job's press conference, who said the word "I" the most?

Now to this weeks real problem. Two things have been bugging me for awhile first is Rosenkreuz Stilette. Not the game but a lot of people's insistence that some bit of Megaman, Castlevania, anime, manga, or image burned into a piece of toast is a reference contained within RKS. Admittedly I've done some of that, but I made sure to use ones that nobody else has pointed out. (I hope.) Frankly I'm tired of it and could spend all day blubbering on about it.

But.

There has been a hell in the cell steel cage debate going on in my mind for months now: What is a better use of my time? Staring at my lawn in December? Or. Reading Lucky Star? I've been meaning to talk about Lucky Star for months on end, but my oh so busy schedule has prevented that from being able to happen. (Re: laziness.)

Which on of these to subject should I make your eyeballs bleed over? I decided to split the difference:

 

(Times I said "I", "me", or "my" not counting this line: 13.)

Sound Blasted 3. Case dismissed due to facts.

Please go read Over Coming XP to get caught up.
Go there Sunday to get the full story, with pictures!

The startup sound wouldn't play unless I hit the show desktop button. "Why the hell is this happening?" So I look it up.

http://www.sevenforums.com/general-discussion/29907-late-startup-sound.html
http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7music/thread/97030ea0-6b7c-4d8d-b078-5aafb1e00ba4

I followed the instructions and nothing. That irritates me. I hate it when I follow instructions and the exact opposite occurs. The worse part of it: I hate the start up sound! Really! So why bother? Because I want to change it to something I do like. But there's no point in changing the startup noise if it don't work.

I had given up on fixing it which was right after last weeks post, when the strangest thing occurred: the themed changed from Aero to Basic and the startup noise played. "Huh?" Is all I said for about a minute. As amazing as it might sound, a thought pooped in my head: "What if I changed from the solid color theme to the default theme?"

It worked. The noise played at startup. Tried several other of the themes, they all worked. But, not the solid colors I like to use. "Is it possible to changed the original desktop images?" It took some effort, because once more the search results brought of forums with dis-information. After awhile I did find the right folder and edit the original image to a solid color. Once again Microsoft in its infantile wisdom won't let me save back to that folder. So how do you replace that image?

Linux.

Pop in the disk and boot up from the disk. Go to the C drive and copy the new image over the old image. Restart to Win 7 and the sound plays just fine now.

But I still want to get rid of it. Of course I looked it up and in a rare fit of fact, I found the proper tool: ResHacker. I used it to change out the startup noise with one I like. Fired up Linux again and Viola. Remission accomplished. I now have the Windows 98 startup sound on Windows 7.

So, As near as I can figure it out, Sound Blaster probably had nothing to do with the missing startup sound. So let's blame Microsoft.