Discworld Noir: An Exercise in Futility.

Update 12-19-18

Here's some videos about the setup and beginning play. This does work on the latest versions of Virtualbox and React OS.

https://www.virtualbox.org/
https://reactos.org/







Update 3-21-18

Futzing around with ReactOS. Seems pretty stable. Played all the way through the intro and past Lewton and Carlotta's office banter with no crashes. AT FULL SCREEN! Now trying to figure out how to get the sound work consistently. Unfortunately on the rare occasion it does there's what sounds like a reverb on the voices.

Update 1-18-15

I spent some time in the past week loading up Windows 10 and trying out Discworld Noir. It was pretty frustrating at first because my test machine for some reason doesn't like DWN. I did everything. Even went into the registry to reroute all the paths and rename the file on the C drive. Let me tell you what, Windows 10 is not easy to learn for people who have been using Windows for about 15 years. (Any particular reason why Accessories needed to be renamed and moved to the bottom of the Start menu?) The test machine was a failure.

During the weekend I loaded Windows 10 on my main machine and Discworld Noir worked about as well as you'd expect. On a new game you have to play in windowed mode until you have control of Lewton then you can go back to full screen. An interesting tidbit for loading saved games I learned is that when you are on the title screen you can press F1 to bring up the menu and load a game that way. No crashing at full screen.

I did do some checking into the Debug Mode I heard about and couldn't find any results other than a forum of people more devoted to this game than I. No specifics on how to enable Debug Mode. I'll be honest, while I do like the game, the only real reason I continue to do such research on it is because it is the number one draw to this blog. Far surpassing sprites, foxgirls, magical frauleins, and bipolar vampire chicks.

Update 10.5.14

Ran a couple of tests on a tech preview of Windows Ten. Don't bother trying to install Discworld Noir. It is now too unstable to play for long. The only way I could get it to go is by clicking the "tin3_dxd.exe" file on the CD. Then it would crash randomly. The Playstation version does seem to work fairly decently. Just have to figure out how to properly configure the plugins.

I have no plans to mess with it beyond that. Maybe after the retail version of Windows 10 goes on sale I'll try to see if I can get Discworld Noir to work through a virtual machine.

Update 8.10-21-13.

Turns out I have been over thinking it the whole time. (Never thought I'd see the words "I" and "over thinking" in the same sentence.)  All you have to do is install it normally. Here is the catch: each and every time time you want to play it you have to click on "New Game." On top of that you need to hit Alt and Enter to put it Windowed Mode. Then hit Esc until you have control of Lewton. Now you can go back to full screen and press F1 to load a game. So far I have had only one crash to desktop, but that was totally my fault. I was trying to look up the Registry values in my Windows 8.1 test machine and compare them to the ones on my Win 7 machine.

You see I have been having an issue now for years trying to get Discworld Noir to run on my particular Win 7 rig. Turns out I needed to fix the entries in the Registry. Since I run 64 bit the keys are in a different place.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Perfect Entertainment\Discworld Noir
 After adjusting the "Paths" the game played fine, almost. Had to do the same process as detail above. (Note "Wow6432Node" Also note that this may (will) not represent your setup. I got involved in trying out the L-Space fix. On top of that I used ISOs I downloaded instead of the original disks I used on the 8.1 machine. I don't have the foggiest idea why it is this way in Win 7. I always test the 64 bit version of Win 8 and never had a problem with the game in that sense.)

On another note: I kinda sorta suggest getting the Discworld Noir no CD patch. I scanned it as it was downloading, I scanned it after downloading, I scanned it after unzipping, I scanned it after patching tin3_dxd.exe. So far nothing bad has happened. Makes the game much less of a hassle to play and I swear makes it a little more stable.

UPDATE! UPDATE! UPDATE! 6-23-2013!

NEW ROSENKREUZSTILETTE SLIDESHOW IS NOW UP AND RUNNING!

In other news: Discworld Noir is now up and running on Windows 8.

Here is what you need:

VMware Player

Windows 98 SE (Boy have those prices gone up.)

VBE9X

SBPCI_WebDrvsV5_12_01

direct_x_9c-redist (Optional. I got the game to work without it.)

(I made sure to save copies if they should ever disappear off of the live web.)

Step 01: Install VMware Player.

Step 02: Set memory to 64MB and HDD to 5GB. (You can set it higher if you want.)

Step 03: Install Windows 98 SE on the virtual machine.

Step 04: Place VBE9X and SBPCI on Win 98 Desktop.

Step 05: Right click My Computer, Properties, Device Manager tab, Display adapters, double-click listed adapter, click Driver tab, Update Driver, Next, make sure “Search for a better driver...” is selected, click Next, deselect “Floppy...” and select “Specify a location,” click Browse, navigate to VBE9X folder and select “Uni,” click OK, keep clicking Next until done.

Step 06: Restart. (I forgot how much Win 98 loves to restart.)

Step 07: Double-click SBPCI and install.

Step 08: Restart, again.

Step 09: Install Discworld Noir.

Playing Discworld Noir:

When you start a new game you will need to hit Alt+Enter immediately after clicking on “NEW GAME.” For some reason during the opening sequences the game will crash to desktop. The graphics will be screwed up, but this is the only way to get past the crash zones. Once you see (if you can) Lewton standing in his office hit Alt+Enter again to go back to full screen. 

(Press the Esc key often to warp past all of this.)

I have not played the whole game so I have no idea where else the game may crash. So employ RPG Rule #1: SAVE OFTEN! Then there is a small issue with sound. The voices just aren't quite right. On my test machine they sound is if they are talking into a cup. Then with headphones they had a slight electronic sound to them. Oh well. It now works.

That is until Windows 9.

Be sure to click for a larger view to a thrill.

 Now back to your regularly scheduled and very wrong blog post.

What in the world ever made me think that I could play this game on Windows 7 and Windows 8? Well, the fact that I am playing it on Win 7. Now I'm not talking about the PlayStation version. That works on Win 7 and 8. Surprising since the emulator I use is about seven years old. However, while the PSX version is a more polished game, the PC version is more fun and easier to play. It was designed for a mouse not a controller.

The PC version of Discworld Noir presents a very unique challenge to play on modern systems. Hell, it was a chore to get it to run on Windows 98. Most of the conversation I found tended to center around running it natively or in DOSBox. That talk was several years old and didn't discuss newer operating systems.

So now I come in. I'm having a fun time playing this game on Win 7 I want to tell the whole world about it. Now comes a challenge. You see I don't have your standard setup that most people have. Most just buy their systems off the shelf. The most common version of Win 7 is Home 64 bit. The most common version of Windows 8 is Windows 8 64 bit. I wanted to give a clear concise set of instructions that anybody can follow to play Discworld Noir on their machine.

After about a day or so I gave up. I did get the game to play, but it ran like crap. I tried many different setups but each one failed in some way. I'm not going to bore you and describe each one, I'm going to to skip ahead to the ones that actually had some success. On Windows 7 using Virtual Box with Windows 98 installed. On Windows 8 using VMWare and Windows 98. In both instances I had to use an independent set of video drivers that really do not work all that well. The sound would be static-y or the video would be choppy. (By the way: VMWare doesn't have audio drivers for Win 98.)

I was disappointed.

Okay, now how am I playing Discworld Noir on Win 7? You see, Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 does work on Win 7 Pro and Ultimate. It has the drivers you need to run Windows 98.

What is the point in writing about a failure? Well, I'm hoping that some day someone a whole lot smarter than me may see this and go “Oh hell, all he needed to do was this.” Then comment in on how to fix things.

There are some bonuses to having done this project. I had to work with Windows 8 quite a bit. While it didn't win me over, I found it to be not as bad as I thought. There's this myth running around that Win 8 is just Win 7 with a Start Screen. No. No. I could not get Microsoft Virtual PC, WindowsVirtual PC, or Virtual Box to work on it. (Update: VB does work now on Win 8.) I found that the Start Screen to be really nothing more than the Start Menu with the functionality of the desktop.

I got introduced to a nifty little program called MagicISO. At first it's not obvious how to use it, but I was able to figure it out after awhile. The free version is fine for about 99% of everything you need to do. I had to use ISOs because Win 98 doesn't recognize thumbdrives and I have never been able to get shared folders to work.

The most important thing I did: After all these years I finally went out and bought a real copy of Discworld Noir.

Veteran's Day 2012

Rosario Vampire Season 2 Volume 10.

Total number of panty shots: Two, maybe three.

At the end of the last volume we were told to expect this one in October. Well, October rolls around and nothing. Ironically enough not even by Halloween. (Though I think it is kind of poetic that a monster manga comes out on Election Day.) The most surprising thing was that it came out in electronic form first. I got an email from Viz saying so. I thought that was incredibly stupid. If they had changed the way the images were stored on the iPad I could see it, but they are still stored as individual JPEGs. They got it right before: Sell the hard copies for a couple of months and then release the digital version. This is the smart way because no doubt there is someone seeding torrent sites with official copies as I type this out. 

It was interesting to read it that way first. The backlight of the iPad really helped me see all the detail put into it. The screen size really enhances the readability of the manga format used by Viz Media. It is really-really nice to be able to read a page flat as it was intended without it having a bend.

Overall. The writing was a little hack in this volume. Explaining Fairy Tale's plan with Moka and Alucard twice. The whole boss rush thing. Character development did get pushed a little but was overshadowed by other elements. The background artwork was mostly outstanding but was punctuated by simplicity. Same with the characters. This is a technique employed by artists the world over. They work their asses of to put awesomeness out for a few pages and then switch to ink saving, time saving, writer's camp/carpal tunnel preventing giant head on white background. I did notice what seems to be a style change going on. It's in the eyes.

Did I say "Boss Rush?" Oy Vey. 

These types of stories get tedious after awhile. Made even more so because I am concurrently reading Oh My Goddess. Its boss rush is running somewhat similar to Rosavam's: The overwhelming power of the boss is defeated by the clever tactics of the goodguys. The badguys are really nothing more than monster-of-the-day with no backstory to make you care about what is going on. You do learn a little bit more about the goodguys, but it seems more of a retcon than anything else.

The first match starts off with the witch who really knows how to crack the whip: RUBY!

This match is so typical: Ruby gets her ass handed to her throughout. Ruby does get in a few blows. When it seems that Ruby is about to lose, Ruby uses her magical spell book to invoke science fact to win the day. I think it was a very clever way of teaching the reader a little bit about some of the properties of electricity.

 Then we have this:

The Dirty Little Secret of Early Voting.

I am basing this on pure speculation backed up by a conversation I had with an election observer many years ago. The rules in my state probably have changed quite a bit since then. I certainly can't speak for whatever state or state of mind you're in, but I can speak for both of me.

I went in and early voted a few weeks ago. I did this for several reasons: What would the weather be like today? Would I get stuck somewhere far away from my polling place? I mean, the day I early voted I got stuck in a ten hour traffic jam. It was a HAZMAT spill that closed the only two roads through that section of town and evacuated another. On top of that some car got tangled up in the truck that was leaking. Fortunately no one was hurt. However the whole time I was worried the Taco Hell I had a few hours earlier would get me moving before the highway did.

Probably the best reason for early voting is you can time it so you don't have to wait in line. Go to your county elections office, vote, go get another taco.

When I went in something seemed amiss to me. We all had to fill out an absentee ballot request. Why? Give me the ballot for my precinct and enter my name in the computer as having voted. Then after voting I was instructed to fold my ballot (something would should NEVER do,) stuff it into an envelope, and then put it in into what possibly could be a secure ballot box. It was right then it hit me: my vote may not get counted.

My vote, my dad's vote, my brother's vote, my grandmother's vote, our friends' votes, everybody in the elections office that day, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, the guy at the liquor store, and all the other people that early voted may not get our votes counted.

Why?

Laziness, mostly. You see, why do all that extra work if the margin of victory far exceeds the total number of provisional and absentee ballots? Even if the margin is less than the total uncounted ballots, then statistical analysis is used to avoid counting them all. One guy gets 1000 votes and the other has 900, what are the chances that 151 of the remaining 200 absentee ballots are going to the other guy?

So why vote at all? That's a decision you have to make. Remember: you get what you vote for. All I can really do at this point is get on my soapbox. Even if you are caught up in the aftermath of a hurricane, snowstorm, or a south of the border restaurant's stool softener of a secret sauce, put forth the effort. So what if your state is called for the candidate you're voting for or against months in advance? There's other races, initiatives, propositions, and constitutional amendments. There's also momentum. If a candidate wins by only a small margin or in some rare cases by fewer votes. He or she can't push their agenda forward as easily if they had a landslide.

Do you want him to have a mandate because you didn't even try?

A Hard Headed Holdout for Hard Copies.

Something to keep in mind: as I write this out I am currently downloading the last couple of episodes of Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Why? Because the brand new disk I bought is so screwed up the last couple episodes are unwatchable.

Each generation is a tween generation. My dad had to go the the movie theater to watch movies. Then he stopped doing that because in the 1980's you could buy them and watch them on TV. His dad got to live in a time period in which we went from the horse and buggy, to cars, to watching a man walk on the Moon, on TV!

My generation saw the computer go from a $2000 typewriter to a $200 movie theater. Going from however much the Encyclopedia Britannica cost to free on Wikipedia. Now you can recycle those voluminous volumes and make more space for movies, books, magazines... ...but, you can now get all that on your computer.

I must say, I'm going to miss looking at my book shelves and seeing them full of all the books and movies I bought. I look over and see Arthur C. Clarke, Terry Pratchett, J.A. Jance, House, The Closer, G.I. Joe, Transformers: Victory, Haruhi Suzumiya, Oh My Goddess, Rosario Vampire, and lots more. Soon it's going to be terabyte hard drives. Even then, how long is it going to be before the online storage companies can give you terabytes of storage? With all this you can by stuff on the web, how long is it going to be before all brick and mortar stores disappear? Suncoast and Borders are gone. Best Buy is cutting way back. Even Hastings slacking off on stocking the newest greats.

Why buy a movie, book, or video game that you really only use once and it sits on a shelf taking up space that you can use for something else? A thumb drive the size of five cents worth of cents can hold all 18981 cents (not counting tax) worth of 450 square inches of Rosario Vampire books.

(How long are we even going to still have pennies anyway?)

What I'm going to miss a lot is the thrill of the chase. Going from store to store all over town and all over several towns. Searching for that one place that has what I'm looking for and rewarding them with my money. While I'm in each place no doubt I will find something else that grabs my attention and I might buy that as well. I went into one place looking for Yuki-Chan and came out with Madoka and Outland. Ironically that is what annoys me about iTunes and Amazon. I type in my request and they give my hundreds of suggestions other than what I'm looking for. Don't misspell it. They'll just say we don't have Paula Madako. In a real life even if you don't have the right spelling, at least you'll be in the general area. Of course the may file Haruhi under H.

The thing I will miss most of all is supporting my local businesses. I really believe in that. I want them to stay open and do what they do best: make money and give people jobs. If I and everybody else buys Family Guy on iTunes, why should Hastings, Best Buy, or even Wal-Mart hang around? I've already seen a lot of cutting back. The economy has been crappy for the last five years, but with Netflix and Amazon on the scene, it gets harder and harder to justify stocking stuff that barely sells.

Thinking about it a little deeper, there's a lot involved in tracking down Family Guy Volume 10. I get in my vehicle that I bought from a local dealer. It needs gas which I buy locally. (Okay, I admit, not so locally because my town doesn't have the best prices, it's the next town over.) My car's dirty, and I'm not using MY water to clean it. So of to the car wash. I usually use an automatic wash because that way I can get a good coat of wax and tire shine put on. The automatic car washes, the gas stations, and car dealers all employ people and pay them for their services. Of course I pay them for their services. Oh, and I forgot: in order to buy that vehicle, I needed a loan. So off to the bank.

Look at all those people and local businesses that I have already supported and I haven't even made it to Hastings, Best Buy, or some used video store that bought out all of Hollywood Video's stock.

Then again what do I do if all 5 Wal-Marts, 5 Hastings, both Best Buys, all the second hand books and videos, and numerous pawnshops don't have what I'm looking for. Or worse yet, disk three of Makado is crap? That leads into next time's discussion.

First Thoughts: Rosenkreuzstilette Freudenstachel.

I now have a file folder labeled Rosenkreuzstilette Freudenstachel. Its sole purpose is so I can highlight and copy/paste the name Rosenkreuzstilette Freudenstachel.

Just got my own LEGAL COPY of  Rosenkreuzstilette Freudenstachel thanks to Super Justin. As to my first impressions, let's say that fans can be the harshest, but perhaps the fairest critics. Let's get the stuff that's bugging me out of the way first. The first one is something I really hesitate to bring up because I think it is two things on my part. It is the screen resolution. At 1x all the details are too small for me to see. Then 1.25x and 1.6x the graphics get distorted. Finally 2x too big for my screen because the top and bottom portions of the game window get cut off. Then full screen is right in your face. A lot of the problem is most likely my monitor. It's a tweny-inch widescreen. I went back and played a little of the first game and trials and it seemed to be wrecking some of the same havoc. (I haven't really played the games in a couple of years and back then I was using a smaller monitor.)

The other reason is that my eyes are not as good as they used to be. Long time reader of the comic can probably guess why. I do have plans of talking about it at some length. Now's not the right time.

There were numerous changes from the trials to the final product, one change that had me scratching my head was why was Eifer's attack changed from leaves to energy balls? Also her vine attacks from the ground come in an easily avoidable set pattern instead of always focusing on Freudia. Makes for a much easier battle.

I guess at this point I should admit to only playing two stages: The Prologue and Luste's stages. Right now, I just don't have the time to give the game a thorough play through. Yesterday I got caught in a ten hour traffic jam which made me almost too late to vote. Now I have to get my vehicle in for service and then it's off to a friend's for a Halloween Party. On top of that is all the stuff I need to do for the web site and blog for 2013.

Now the one thing that is bugging me the most:

    

Okay, it's a Megaman clone. WE GET IT! What makes it even more annoying is the fact that such graphics are incongruous with the rest of the game.

Now let's talk about what was done right. Unlike the previous examples, when other stuff from Megaman was borrowed, the concept was improved upon. In Megaman 4 you had the ceiling going up and down. Here it's the floor. Plus badguys and traps are hidden from view to surprise you. I think that almost every apsect of the original Rosenkreuzstilette that was imported in was very much improved. I think that the musical score is holding its own when compared to the previous game. The best part: if you are playing Story Mode, just hit the Start button and you're warped right through it. Why bother playing Story Mode if you do that or even can't read Japanese? Easy, there's lots of little things going on that are not in Arcade Mode.

Give me some time and I'll play through the whole game and review it.

Addendum:

It has come to my attention that my criticism of Isemiya and Womi's blatant use of Dr. Cossack and Beat may have left an impression that I was implying nefarious motivations on their part.

NOT AT ALL.

My criticism is based on a couple of factors. The first being is that these graphics stick out like a sore thumb. They are of a style that clashes with the rest of the game. There are plenty of other characters from Megaman and other games that are used in RKSF and those graphics have been reworked from scratch to fit in properly.

Now I know in the past I have criticized the programmers for doing too much. That stems mostly from having to wait so long between sequels. The point in this article is that if you use one style, you must use that style at all times. Dr. Cossack and Beat look good, they just don't work.

Second: Most of us playing RKSF have played Rosenkreuzstilette. We know that it is a Megaman clone, it feels as if it is being rubbed in our faces. One of the funnest parts of playing Rosenkreuzstilette and RKSF is reference hunting. What video game, manga, or anime is being used here and there. Those images totally spoil the fun. Couldn't they have used Talos? Or go for the really obscure reference and used Reggae.

Jeeze, where are they getting their graphical advice from: a sprite comic?

I'm Not New to Downloading.

In my last article I discussed how much I liked going from store to store in search of whatever treasure I was having O.D.D. issues over. (Mind you, that article is going to get posted after this one so that way it will be in somewhat of a coherent order. I hope.) Now I am getting dragged kicking and screaming into the 1980's.

1980's? Yep, or was it the 90's? I don't remember. I do remember playing with the C64 and being on Q-Link. (That's where I got most of my trolling habits out of my system. Most.) Printed out a bunch of those car acronym jokes. You know: Fix It Again Tony, Found On Road Dead, Cracked Heads Every Valve Rattles Oil Leaks Expensive Trash. If you were really adventurous you could download music and games. It would take about eight days to get a minute thirty MIDI onto a five and a half inch floppy. Only downloaded one game. It was an overly simplified version of Risk. Bunch of hexagons provinces with up to six players duking it out to be king. However the NES was much simpler: pop in a game and away you go. Then of course it was remove the metal bar and insert two games and a pen.

     

I would take my leave of the internet for awhile. Then it beckoned me back a number of years later. Friends would tell me all about the games, books, videos, college and correspondence courses that could be had. I was intrigued until a guy showed me a nude picture of Sailor Moon he printed out. I asked “Is the what the internet is all about?” He said “Yeah! Isn't it great?” I snorted and turned away for about another year. Fortunately other friends that used the Net for real work showed me the real deal. What had me hooked was a site in which you could make free phone calls from all over the world. I bought a new computer that week. Then it was several more months before I could actually get on the net.

Boy did I have a lot to learn. I ran for the first year or so without an anti-virus. No kidding. I was copy/pasting those fanfics. Many an image was lost because I didn't know about internet caches and right-clicking. NES, SNES, Genesis ROMS? I thought for the longest time those were circuit boards you had to buy to insert the ISA slot on your motherboard.

Then I found Napster. I now could locate songs that I had heard on the radio for years, songs I had on rapidly deteriorating audio tape, all those anime themes at full length. Best of all, I could try out a song and see if I actually liked it without having to buy a $20 CD. Yes, I would put every effort into finding a hard copy of that song. I considered it the right thing to do. Studies have shown that even though you could get free music off the internet, most people would still buy the CD. For me another reason is that often one crappy version of a song was all you could find on Napster.

Let's fast forward to today. There are advantages and disadvantages to downloading off the Net. They really are no different to having a hard copy. A fire can wipe out you book shelf, a fire can wipe out your hard drive. Someone can break into your house and steal your hard copy of Flash CS6. Someone can break into your house and steal your computer. There is one advantage to a hard copy: I bought Rosario Vampire on the shelf long before it showed up in the Viz Media app.

Then the irony being is was Puella Magi Madoka Magica that got me into it. When I did my review of it I wanted images to comment on. I'm not tearing apart my copies, and I'm not buying another copy to rip up. The manga site I got the images for Rosavam didn't have Madoka. The Yen Press app still doesn't have it. Viz Media does have all of Rosavam. Unlike Yen press that puts its manga in a big blob, Viz stores its manga as JPEGs in file folders. Unfortunately it is not backed up on your computer inside the app.

I know, I tried. You see you can copy the app IPA into the Zorin OS Linux distro and open it up like a file folder. Try it with Angry Birds. You can find all the music, SFX, and graphics. However you won't find Rosavam and all of Moka's ass kicking action in there. So here's how you properly

Back that APP up.

There's two ways of going about it. The first is noninvasive way. Just take a screen shot of each page.

Then there's the somewhat frustrating but much faster way.

I used iExplorer for Windows. Get it from the official website. Not anywhere else. I went with CNET. While it is a good place to find software that is not virus laden, they love to junk up the install with 80,000 toolbars. You may have to instal another variation of the .NET Framework. Always best to get it directly from Micro$oft. Once everything is set up. Plug in you iPad and turn on iTunes and double click iExplorer. The best way to go about is to right click the app and copy the whole thing over.

There you have it. The main advantage to the Net: saving multiple copies of your 19 volume set of Rosario Vampire on as many hard drives as you want. As well as the online back up of your choice.

Plus they're not as expensive as the actual book.

The Thrill of the Hunt.

(Keep in mind this is part three of a series. Part two will get posted next time and part one will the time after. Also, there is nudity in Girls Bravo.)

In part one: A Hardheaded Holdout for Hard Copies, I discussed going from store to store looking for whatever movie or book I'm obsessing over. I am a firm believer in supporting my local businesses. What if none of these big boxes or mom and pops doesn't have what I am seeking? Or worse yet the copy I got is screwed up?

Remember the fecal storm of cursing I had over the anti-virus AVG? The hard copy I bought in the store turned out to be no-good. AVG made it good two months after I installed the competitor. Here's the thing, the version of the program I wanted wasn't on the shelf, it was in the online store. On top of that the boxed version I got was out of date. The company has honored the key code so far. There may come a time.

Other than supporting local people there is a technical reason for buying boxed software. When I installed Windows 7, my downloaded copy of Bejeweled wouldn't activate. You see Pop Cap lost my registration information. If I had the disk it would have worked no-prob. A lot of companies put excessive registration forms on downloaded software. It is even made it way onto CD/DVDs. I understand why: in this age of high speed internet and massive hard drive space it is easier than ever to upload Photo Shop CS6 to some torrent site. Cracked and ready to to go. If only these companies would realize that by dropping the price to a reasonable rate and stop with the DRM rootkit schemes that more people would buy their products. All that stuff really does is turn honest persons into pirates. People will support you if you give them a reason.

Oops. Seems as if I drifted off onto another soapbox. Where's the soapbox labeled for digital downloading? There it is.

I've gone to every store in town and nothing. My first choice of online retailers is Amazon. That way I can get a hard copy. I typically reserve iTunes for music. What if disk three of Puella Magi Madoka Magica I bought from Amazon is unwatchable. Due to technical reasons and not the content per say? (Buy the way, I always have to look at the DVD cover when spelling that out.) I could always order another disk, but the anticipation of waiting for it to arrive in my mail box has long since turned to gripping. That new disk may be screwed up as well. Also it wasn't cheap. Looking at iTunes, all there is a couple of Kill QB apps and some podcasts. No episodes.

The thrill, and frustration, of the hunt now goes into the dork underbelly of the net. There are plenty of sites to be had that post anime, OSTs, and manga. I use them when all else has failed me. You can find just about everything, almost. It's these sites where I found all those images for Rosario Vampire I used in my reviews. (Another great thing is that sometimes they are far in advanced of what we get here. Rosavam 19 on the Viz Media app finally appeared two months later. Online you can get volumes 20 or 21.) Also I found Samuri Pizza Cats and that one series I promise not to talk about ever again. You know, the one about the fox girl trying to be a “dog-god” and falls in love with a human. Plus my newest guilty pleasure: Azu Manga Daio. It's free, I am not losing any money on it, except now, I just ordered it. It wasn't available anywhere locally. (I am NOT posting a video of the opening credits. It is one of the most obnoxious anime themes of all time. Even I'm not that cruel.)

What about that messed up copy of Madoka disk three? That was a hard one to find. Most sites didn't have it. One said it had the dubbed version, but alas no. It supposedly had the entire series subtitled. It had episode one complete. Which was great, but only had half of episodes 11 and 12! No kidding. Wait a half an hour for each one and only get half. (I spent that time writing part one of this series.) Checked several others to no avail. What makes it more frustrating is that it could be under Puella or Madoka, or Mahou. I finally found it on a site that had a very slow server (which allowed me the time to write out part two of this whole rambling ramble of a ramble.)

I guess hunting for anything on the net is just as frustrating as driving around. It could take awhile to find what you are looking for, it may be a bad upload to begin with, or even laden with malware. But uses less gas.

I watched the last two episodes of Madoka, and I'll save the review for some other time. Next up: the greatest advantage to those bootleg sites. Of course that will have already been posted before this article making that line seem kinda of sillier than normal. If you scroll down it will make some sense.

Won't it?

The Unintended Advantage to Bootlegging.

Coming up over the next couple of months I'm going into a long discussion about my evolution of going from store to store to buy movies and games; to going from web site to web site to download the same. I originally started on one subject and immediately rabbit trailed into several others causing me to go over one page in my word processor. I typically type out these posts there first and try to keep it at about a page to a page and a half. I just had so much to say I figured it was best to break it up into multiple parts. I'm going to post them in reverse order so that way down the road anybody doing the typical tendency on these blogs of scrolling backwards through the entries will see them come up in the correct order.

Or maybe I'm thinking too hard about it. Maybe I'm the only one that does that?

This article is really a direct continuation of the previous. (Which will be posted in another couple of weeks.) In it I discuss the advantages (to me anyway) with going to all these manga and anime sites. One I didn't touch on was the fact that often you can find translated manga and subbed anime that is not available here in the States at all. An example of this is Magikano. The anime is here, and parents, just so you know, not for kids. The manga on the other hand isn't. It is online. Might I say, it's WAY creepier than the anime. After seeing such stuff I warn my friends about it.

Now we're back on course.

I hang around a group of friends that are not otakus. They consider Japanese comic books and cartoon shows to be kids stuff. What adult in his right mind would waste his time watching that crap? So I have always kept my mouth shut and talked shop or if the discussion went to TV it would be shows I watched like House, Closer, or classics such as Knight Rider and A-Team.

After finding all the watch for free anime sites, I would then tell my friends about them. First I would ask if their kids like Japanese cartoon shows like Bleach, Dragon Ball, or Naruto. Inevitably they say yes. By now they are looking at me kinda cross wise. Then I suggest all the sites. Then they look at me like I'm clearly crazy. I can see the wheels spinning in their heads: “That Iraqi heat must have fried what little brain he had left.” Then I point out that they would probably want to preview, for free, what it is their children are asking you to buy for them. Unlike the stuff you see on Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network, the stuff you see on store shelves is a lot less like She-Ra and Bugs Bunny and more like Playboy.

My friends will say “Yeah, I'll give it a look.” Whether or not they do is up to them. From that point on it's back to work. I'm not on any kind of holy crusade here. I just want to inform parents as to what is going on out there so they can hopefully make the best decisions in raising their kids. Especially since the age range of a lot of anime is mislabeled.

Mind you, parents: You can control what your children read and watch in your home, but you have no control over what your kids watch in their friends' house. It was one of my buddies' son that told me about a couple of these manga sites.
He doesn't even have the internet!

Patriot Day 2012

Zook the Hero Z: The Complete Instruction Book.

I have been receiving numerous comment, countless phone call, not to mention voluminous card and letter. Bowing to the pressure, I shall forestall talking more about Madoka and Rosavam and instead present the entire Zook Z instruction booklet.

Sans snarky remarks by me or even long drawn out stories on how much trouble it was to scan these images.

Just so you know, I have no problem what so ever with people saving the Zook the Hero Z instruction manual scans to their hard drive. You may even go a head and upload them to the net community of your choice without any credit given. You don't even need to link back to Ravy Online, or Ravy Comics. However any link is appreciated especially to here or here.

By the way, click on each image and it will take you to a page that has a full size version.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica Volumes 1 and 2.

You've probably gotten those Nigerian Prince emails, right? Now it's Libyan General pleas for help. I got an email the other day from someone that was a general's daughter. You can pretty much guess the rest. Her daddy was killed and she managed to escape with much of "his money." Now she is stuck in some other African country. Her accounts have been frozen and she needs a loan to finish her escape. All she needs is your credit card number or better yet you bank account routing number.

The sad part is that these scams do work on enough people so that they keep doing it.

Admittedly I really only read the first few lines of that email. I mean, come on, you're asking a guy that does a webcomic and reviews manga, for money? (Now THAT'S a segue.)

         

Looking at it on the shelf you would think to yourself that this is just another magical girl snooze fest. I decided to pick it up and give it a try. You just don't know unless you give it a chance. A lot of the stuff you would expect is indeed in there. Younger teen lead character with overly bubbly personality: Check. Totally impractical silly costumes: check. Weird hair styles: check. Cute animal sidekick that has a bad habit of not telling you what you need to know: check. Guns: check.

GUNS!?

Hand grenades? Blood? Head splatters? Trying to kill each other? Holy cow! This is done by people that are sick and tired of She-Ra, Sailor Moon, and Pretty Sammy. Parents watch out. This is NOT for little girls. Yeah you get the “Does this ribbon make me look pretty?” conversations. That is quickly dispensed with in favor of scenes of possessed people attempting mass suicide. You wouldn't guess that looking at the covers. It looks like some kind of super heroine team. Anything but. Homura spends most of her time fighting everybody. Mami dies. Sayaka gets a little bloodthirsty. Madoka has yet to transform by the end of volume two.

I think I got a winner here. Now I admit I'm bothered by the fact that the main characters are in their younger teens, but, this is a magic girl manga after all. Graphically it swings between the simplistic: characters on a white background, to hard to follow complex action. The writing is good for the most part with some leaps in logic that leave you scratching your head. Of course if it was all logical then it wouldn't be mahou shoujo. I really like the character development. Each one has some kind of back story that is tragic and can even twist a character into something quite unexpected.

In my research for this article I was totally unable to find any scans of it what so ever. The site I got the images for Rosario Vampire did not have Madoka. Yen Press didn't have it in it's app store. So no extra images to comment on. I did find a few episodes of the anime on one of the manga sites I go to. This series is trippy. The one thing I didn't like was packing in too much detail. Glass walled classrooms? Those hallways, jeeze they're huge. Just because you can do it, doesn't mean you have to. All that detail overpowers the characters on screen and make it even more difficult to read the subtitles. Fortunately the DVDs I ordered are in English. What I liked the most was how the character animation looked almost like color manga. It was awesome.

The battles in the witches' wards piqued my interest. It seemed very much like British animation I watched a very long time ago. Maybe some inspiration from Ralph Bakshi. With a twisted twist of Terry Gilliam.

Can't wait for volume three. When's that out? December? Aw man.

Hard Drive Capacities by OS.

I bought my first computer way back in, well, it was quite awhile ago now. I'll just say it was the period of time I got tot watch anime such as Samurai X, Power Stone, Dual, and Ghostsweepers before they came out here in the States, in English, and mostly uncut. Even then I was not new to computers. My family has had one of some kind since as long as I can remember. A VIC-20 and then a Commodore 64. Admittedly I only used them for video games. It was my mom that actually used them as PCs. She was practically running the local library with a C64.

Fast forward a few years, (and minus a lot of stories because I think they're irrelevant) I decided it was time for me to buy my first PC. It was a Compaq Pressario with 475 MHz (that's mega) CPU. 32 MB (that's mega) of ram. Finally an eight GB hard drive ( that's eight, as it 8, not eighty, not 800, 8.) Even then at that time I noted something was hinky. Windows wasn't reporting the total usable space as 8GB. I asked the computer nerds at the time what was up. They all told me that the missing space was being used by Windows and other programs. I believed it for awhile. Then as I bought bigger and bigger hard drives, the amount of space Windows used stayed the same, but the amount of usable space went down even more.

How could this be?

I would learn that it was the way Windows reported usable hard drive capacity as opposed to the way hard drive manufacturers reported capacity. Manufacturers used the a base of 1000. Microsoft used 1024. This was a burning issue some ten years ago. At least every few months in the computer mags I read there would be a letter from a reader asking about that. In those days of 4, 8, 10, 20 GB hard drives, that was a big deal. I think the controversy has died in this age of terabytes. As long as we can can fit all of our music and movies onto one. If that should fill up, just get another terabyte drive that is cheaper than a forty GB was ten years ago.

The one thing I never saw anywhere was an actual study done as to the comparison of drive space lost to actual manufacturer specs. So I decided I was bored enough to do that study. On top of that I also decide to see which operating system did the best job of using hard drive space.

First the OSes: Windows 7 Home 64 SP1, because it is the most common one you will find.
Mac Snow Leopard Extended (Journeled) because I have a disk of it.
Then Ubuntu Linux 64 12.04 64 ext4 because I'm most familiar with it.

Next I needed some hard drives. A 500, 1000, and 2000 GB. Arbitrarily decided. Two test systems. Why two instead of one? The Intel system requires that I burn the Linux distro onto a CD. The AMD one I can use a thumb drive. The test systems:

For Windows and Linux:

Compaq Pressario:

CPU : AMD 64 Dual Core 3600 2GHz

Ram: 4GB DDR2

For Mac:

CPU: Intel P4 3 GHz

Ram: 2GB DDR

Installing each OS was interesting. Linux took the least amount of time at about 15 or so minutes. Windows was up around a half and hour. Mac took the longest. First I hard to use a boot disk based on a Linux distro and then swap out for the Mac disk. Then Mac took so long to load up I was able to play a good chunk of an old SNES game and paste together a couple of dozen comics for next year. I also noted that a couple of options in the Mac setup were identical to ones used in Linux. Specifically the pick your time zone map. I guess possibly because both were originally derivatives of Unix.

Mac had an interesting quirk: after installing on the 500GB drive it would boot up just fine. However on the 1TB and 2TB drives I had to use the boot disk. I guess possibly because I not familiar enough with the Mac setup options and clicked something that caused this.

Back to the main point:

The interesting thing I noted was that each OS fairly accurately reported the total capacity of each hard drive. However total usable space was quite different.

Linux was the worse of them all. The only consistent number I could get was that the bigger the hard drive, the more space the file system used. I tried three different methods and each one gave me wildly different sets of numbers. The most I can say is that Linux used up the most space.(I did try Linux Mint, the now most popular distro, same messed up results.)

Windows was middle of the road. On each hard drive it used 14GB of space. The usable capacities looked like this:

Labeled by manufacturer capacity:
500GB    1000GB    2000GB
Total usable by Windows:
451GB      917GB    1800GB
Total lost:
 49GB        83GB      200GB

Your mileage will vary. Keep in mind, store bought systems usually have hidden partitions for OS reboot. My test involved a wiped hard drive with only the partitions made by the OS. As we can see the bigger the hard drive, the more space is lost. Looks to be about 10GB per 100GB. Seeing as how a 2TB drive effectively costs less than a 200GB drive; no big deal nowadays.

Now for Mac. Mind you, I don't care for Mac. One reason is that I have to click twice to eject a disk instead of just pushing the damn button on the optical. However, might I say, it was the best in hard drives. Let's see shall we?

Total usable by Mac:
493GB     993GB    1993GB

Is this real? Can some Mac addict set me straight on these numbers? Really? (say it like The Miz now:) Really?

There was a little inconsistency on Apple's part. It was the total amount of space used by the OS:
5.92GB     6.2GB      6.1GB

There it is, my little contribution to a long dead conversation.

Video I'm trying to get makes for an unusual fix.

As you all know, one of the things I have bitched about a lot over the past years are those morons that do 40-45 MPH in the 55 MPH. Especially on this one section of road where you can't pass them. Hey, you're not the only one paying for this road, how about showing the rest of us some respect? You pass by at least two or three signs that clearly state 55 MPH. Still Tweedle-Dumber can't figure it out. Then we come to an intersection in which the road splits from two lanes to four. Right there is when it must dawn on the guy that wonders where the sun goes when it sets what the speed limit is.

Actually I think that most of these a-holes are doing it on purpose. They must have this attitude that no one will be allowed in front of them at all. A number of times when I went to change lanes to pass them, they magically match my cruise control settings. Thereby blocking me. On top of that often they shoot up to 70 MPH! No Kidding! I tried keeping up with them, but when my speedometer reaches 60, common sense on my part kicks in and I slow it down. Knowing my luck there is a cop up ahead and I'll be the one nailed.

My driver's license is my lively-hood. I'm not risking it on some dumbass trying to prove how big his dick is. I already pay through the nose for the best insurance I can get, I'm not paying any more for it because it doesn't cover MY stupidity.

I don't know what it is about this particular section of road. For some reason people act like they're the last lap of the Daytona 500. In both directions. Then they slow right back down at these two intersections. Never fails. Idiot does 45 MPH for several miles, at intersection one speeds up to 70, at intersection two slows it back down to 45. That's the other reason why I think they're doing it on purpose.

Now, what I have been trying to do for the past eight or so months is capture footage of this. I have had zero luck so far. It's amazing. As soon as that camera comes out, BOOM! Up to 55. Never fails. This is my theory: everybody has figured out that those traffic cameras right next to the stop lights are not on. If they were, nobody would be running the red lights. However, when looking in your rear view mirror, and a guy has a camera pointed at you, you know you're going to be on YouTube within hours.

Thanks for the new road, but...

Over the last month or so, a mile and a half stretch of road near where I live was ripped up and replaced with brand new asphalt. Let's make no mistake, I appreciate it. While it was being worked on I had to drive on it a number of times. I was able to closely observe the workmanship going on. I was very impressed.

They got the whole road tore up in about two days. Then they ripped up the base and put in some new fill material. The guy running the grader did an outstanding job in moving the dirt around and not spilling over the sides. On top of that he crowned the road perfectly. The soil was kept wet enough so it compacted just right. I drove on right before it was paved and it was just about as smooth as asphalt. The road was paved in about two days. The pavement is smooth from one end to another.

Remember that I used the word "but" in the title?

So here's my gripe. Keep in mind, this not on the people who built the road, not at all. It's directed solely at the people that decide we needed a new road. The old road was not in all that bad a shape. Filled potholes here and there. The edges in a few places were starting to crumble. The one end of this road that intersected with another was a little too narrow. But, this was a total waste of time and money. Especially considering that there isn't a whole lot of people that drive on it.

On top of that, three months ago a new drainage ditch was dug on one side and culverts put in across the road to drain into a canal. The guys did a great job of covering that back up nice and smooth. I have to ask, why couldn't both jobs had been done at the same time? Could have saved several thousand dollars in work and materials.

You see, about two miles away there are three intersections that have needed right turn lanes for at least ten years now. In order to make a right turn at these intersections you have to practically come to a complete stop and then turn. While that's going on there's a guy behind you doing 55 MPH. Then there's the dumbasses who will pass you using the left turn lane. What surprises me is that there haven't been any accidents, to my knowledge. It's only a matter of time until there is a major rear ender or a head on.

In closing, I appreciate the new road. I appreciate all the hard work in this heat.

However, I would have gladly given it up just to be able to make a safe right turn.

What I should do is start attending county meetings where these projects are decided. Then again I'm too busy earning the money that gets used for these "Your Tax Payer Dollars at Work" projects.