blueZhift Blog

It looks like the PSP homebrew community has once again taken things into their own hands and come up with something great, a flash player for the PSP! Now this only works on PSPs using firmware version 1.5, but this tells me without a doubt that the PSP can support flash, so why isn’t Sony doing this? I can only speculate that Sony doesn’t want competition from free flash games, for which they would not get a royalty. Game royalties are how console manufacturers make money since they generally sell the console hardware at a loss to build marketshare. I’m no expert, but I think Sony has more to fear from people buying iPods and DS’s than people playing flash games on the PSP. Supporting flash would add more value and, ahem, coolness, to the PSP which should ultimately sell more units. More units of course mean more people likely to buy PSP games. Free flash games could potentially serve as great game demo vehicles as well.

I am not the target demographic of shoujo manga! You will not pass me on the street and even suspect that I have 12 volumes of Fruits Basket on my bookshelf, am a huge CLAMP fan, and have just fallen in love with Kare Kano. No, you’re more likely to clutch your purse more tightly, than think that I’m into any of that… So it feels a little embarassing to whip out Kare Kano for a quick read at McDonalds. Most people around don’t have a clue as to what it is, but the often soft girlish covers are definitely not on the books that I would be expected to be reading.

But I make no apologies! I like what I like and I don’t care that I’m too old, or the wrong gender or ethnicity to be liking these things. That just doesn’t matter to me, especially if it gets in the way of having fun. There are a lot of good things in this life and I refuse to let artificial barriers get in the way of enjoying them. And I’ve always loved a good story and great characters I can care about, whether they are flying in starships from star to star or working up the courage to confess their love in high school. Story is what it’s all about.

Silly Rabbit! Blogging’s not for a living! Cnet is reporting that full-time blogger Jason Kottke has given up his attempt to make a living blogging. Full-time and blog simply do not go together. Blogging is more often than not that thing that goes on at work while you’re supposed to be, well, working! Nevertheless, as an empiricist by training and nature, I admire the guy for trying.

As for me, I blog purely for the fun of it, and if it leads to world domination, well so be it.

In a not too surprising example of how Homeland Security seems anything but secure, control of six major U.S. ports is about to be turned over to a company in the UAE. Now even if 9/11 had not happened, turning over control of your major ports to a foreign company/country is just plain stupid. Why don’t we just outsource our southwestern border patrols to Mexico while we’re at it. I’m sure they could do it for less money!

Except for being sick the whole weekend, I had a lot of fun dragging out, dusting off, firing up the old Sega Saturn. For me the highlight of it all was finally finishing D after 11 years. In the end I cheated a little on the garden puzzle (push the green button for Sagitarius and the light blue button for Aquarius). I felt justified because I finally realized that the Knight Room level is just a cheap time synch. Anyone who has played D knows that you will suffer many many falls into the pit in the Knight Room no matter what you do with the controls. Getting through this level is virtually random. I did it once before years ago, but used up so much time that I ran out. D has a two hour time limit and no saves. Now, 11 years later, I realized that the only reason you’d need to go to the Knight Room is to get the sword to open the Observatory door where you would get the clue to which buttons to press on Sagitarius and Aquarius. Well, I’d already seen that and missed the clue anyway because it was far too simple. So I skipped that nonsense and finally finished the game. Clearly, the true purpose of the Knight Room is to slow the player down, boo! Later I played it through again for the kids because they wanted to see how the story ended and just what D stood for. All in all, I’d say that D was an okay game more interesting for the style than the gameplay which consisted of extremely simple puzzles.

Other old favorites to make an appearance were Virtua Cop and Virtua Cop 2, the reason I wanted a Saturn in the first place, and Virtua Fighter 2. Forget Grand Theft Auto! Capping bad guy asses with a big orange light pistol is a lot more fun! I remember driving all over Chicago before finding a copy of Virtua Cop that included the Stinger light gun which is really the only way to play the game well.

So thanks again Saturn for all of the fun!

Nostalgia is a bug that bites very hard. Last week I watched an Icons episode featuring Yu Suzuki who is probably best known for the Virtua Fighter series of 3D fighting games and more recently the sprawling adventure/rpg Shenmue. The young Suzuki sounded a lot like my oldest son, so I TiVo’d the show and watched it again with my son. This lead to digging up my old Shenmue discs for movie clips and to my joy finding the soundtrack available free and legal online. Now my son has discovered my old Sega Saturn games, including Virtua Fighter and Virtua Fighter 2. So the Saturn is being dragged out this weekend for some serious gameplay. I hope the thing still works!

Yesterday I had the opportunity to buy a couple of cans of Sapporo beer which is one of my favorites. So once my little kaiju had gone to bed, I cracked one of those bad boys open and started to relax at the computer a bit. A little while later I felt compelled to practice my Japanese writing, so grabbed my workbook and headed off to the living room.

I was only working on A through Ko which are pretty simple, but try as I might things just wouldn’t come out right. Well, in one of those “Duh!” moments, I realized that I was already pretty wasted and should have been happy to get as far as I had already. An hour or so later things started coming out the way I wanted them to. So all you kids out there, don’t drink and do kana! It may not be the law, but it’s still a good idea!:oops:

Yesterday I was soooo happy to get a Valentine’s Day card! The card was from my wife, but that is not a usual occurence most years since of the two of us, I go more for sappy romantic stuff on average than she does. I was so happy I actually had to restrain myself a bit. Not only did she get me a card, she also got me the Swimsuit Edition of Sports Illustrated. This last part I felt was a bit odd (in part because I generally prefer to ogle Asian women) and in fact I would have preferred chocolate, but it’s the thought that counts! I was sure that once again I’d be forgotten because she didn’t have time to get a card. Yayyyy!

While the rest of the world is enjoying the Winter Olympics, I’ve been counting down the days until the Daytona 500 kicks off my favorite sport, NASCAR auto racing. So I was absolutely shocked when I read the news that Jimmy Johnson’s crew chief Chad Knaus had been ejected from NASCAR’s premiere event. The thing that got me was just how blatant the attempt to break the rules had been. I mean, things like the car being too low, or a spoiler angle being off are one thing, but a device to raise the rear window is no accident or oversight!

Knaus’ team has been one of the strongest and most consistent during his tenure, but this rules violation suddenly casts all of their success under a different light. Allegations of cheating and forbidden technologies, like traction control, abound during a typical season. But for a team of such stature as Hendrick’s number 48 Lowes Chevy team to be caught red handed is a real bombshell. And it is also a warning for any other teams out there that think that they’ve gotten too big for NASCAR.

Well, in the end, Knaus should count himself lucky. In some other sports blatantly breaking the rules like this might draw a full season suspension or even a ban. So based on what has been reported so far, Mr. Hendrick might not want to complain too loudly.

Yesterday I successfully replaced the battery in my aging 3rd generation iPod. I bought the replacement battery and installation kit from Other World Computing and let me say right now that THIS IS NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART OR WEAK OF HANDS! I say that because, just as the instructions warn, opening the iPod case is very difficult and you will fail many times before succeeding. Once inside, you’d better have two things, one, rock solid confidence in your mechanical skills, and two be ready to buy a new iPod if you fail or slip! The last thing I’d say is make sure you print out the instructions from the web site because the bundled instructions are really too small to read.

In the end, all went well and my little 10GB pod now has a new lease on life! So am I 1337 yet?