blueZhift Blog

Microsoft’s Xbox 360 development tools aimed at indies, students, and hobbyists are in beta and available for download today! I can’t wait to see what I can do (or fail to do) with these tools. I’ll start with something goofy just to get my feet wet real fast.

XNA Game Studio Express

Yesterday I got some news that I really did not want to hear. Fortunately, I had already taken some steps in the right direction to solve the problem, nevertheless it was not welcome news. If a hurricane is coming, it’s great to be prepared, but it is still bad news that the hurricane is coming!

I remember when I was growing up being rather excitable. It didn’t take much to set me off, and it got me into a lot of trouble at times. In the end two things saved me, Spock and Jesus. An odd combination I’m sure, but for me it was essential. Christianity gave me a spiritual base, but it was Spock that gave me a practical model of self control that resonated with my inner core and still does. I don’t deny my emotions, but I have found that being able to act based on logic, sometimes in spite of how I feel, to be a useful skill. Being cool and logical can be fun too.

Some things just take a long time to recognize, carrying a man purse is just one of them. Few men go out looking to buy a man purse. Like me, they probably had a problem they were trying to solve. I had been carrying a laptop bag, but after a year discovered that the steel button on the inside of the bag had been wearing holes in my jeans. Not only that, it was too big for what I wanted to carry most of the time. I wanted something that was slim and sexy, just big enough for a few file folders and my usual support electronics. I ended up buying a Tumi bag at Marshall Fields for about $150. I’ve had the bag for almost two years and I love it! I don’t like spending a lot of money, but I will pay for quality, and this is a good bag. All was well in the world.

Now flashbask to spring 2006. I’m waiting in line to pick up my Anime Central passes in the Thursday night pre-reg pickup line. This is usually a long wait, so I’ve brought my bag and supporting goodies, my iPod, manga, and I’m reading Dream of the Red Chamber. After a while, two women in line behind me ask me about the book. And during our conversation, they notice my bag and refer to it as a man purse! Was I shocked? Not really, I was rather proud that the bag had drawn some attention, since it’s a really nice bag.

Back in the present, the issue 43 of Giant Robot has just come in the mail. There’s an article about Asian American Film Fests that includes humorous caricatures of the different types of people who attend these events. One of these features a film-maker wannabe who has a man purse. Then it all comes together and a quick Google search turns up the damning final evidence that I have indeed been pursed! Here are the links for your enjoyment.

The Man Purse

It’s Not A Purse

Man Purses: Hot or Not

As for me, I have no plans to stop carrying my bag. It’s useful and looks good, so if man purse it is, then so be it say I.

I have a lot of Japanese anime songs, JPop, JRock, and Canto Pop in my music collection. For a long time I’ve been annoyed by the fact that iTunes on my Windows XP box would only display the titles of Chinese and Japanese songs with those little boxes that mean it didn’t know wtf to do with it. After much googling to no avail and a fruitless search of the iTunes site, I stumbled upon the answer while installing a Japanese game. The game required the installation of support for East Asian character sets. Once I did this, the Japanese and Chinese song titles, etc., displayed correctly! Here is the procedure.

1. Open the Start menu and click Control Panel
2. In the Control Panel, switch to Classic View if you aren’t already in it. Then open Regional and Language Options.
3. Click on the Languages tab and then click the empty check box next to Install files for East Asian languages.
4. Click Apply. Now at this point or just after you click the check box, a message box will come up and tell you that installing the support will take about 230MB and you will also need to have your Windows XP installation CD handy.
5. Just follow the installation instructions, and at the end of it all, you’re good to go!

Out on my walk today I noticed an overabundance of cute women in skirts with skinny legs. Given all of the news about how Americans are overweight, all of these skinny women just stood out that much more. Regardless of the reason, it was a nice sight to behold.

Another lovely sight is the release of Neon Genesis Evangelion: Angelic Days Volume 2. Evangelion is one of my favorite series, so much so that I bought a Japanese copy of volume 9 of the first manga series at the Mitsuwa marketplace. Knowing the story as presented in the anime helps, but I was pleasantly surprised at how much Japanese I’ve been able to pick up in my very haphazard studies. I’m looking forward to diving into Angelic Days later today. From what I’ve seen, the retelling of stories using the same characters or similar ones is common in manga and anime. The first time I saw this myself was in the three Tenchi series I’ve seen. And I’ve seen it in the herd of Gundam series I’ve watched as well. Angelic Days does the same with the Evangelion characters. Like enjoying the work of one’s favorite actors, I’m looking forward to seeing how the story unfolds with these familiar characters in a slightly different setting.

Since I started working on the first costume for my cosplay project, also my first major sewing project, I’ve been noticing women’s fashion with what I’ll call a deconstructed view. No longer is that skirt just nice, or that blouse oh so sexy. Instead I’m seeing front and back patterns, interfaces, and fused linings! OMG! It’s full of fusible web! I certainly have a new appreciation for the work that goes into designing and making clothes, especially women’s fashions. So thanks mom for all the work you did making clothes for me when I was little!

Today I discovered that my son also has the coveted onigiri hands of which I wrote previously. Together we fashioned 14 rice balls with a minimum of stickiness to our hands. The onigiri could not stand against our combined assault! It was a cool and super cute father son moment captured by my lady of the sticky palms in the bad cell phone pic below, if I bother to upload it that is! Next on the list of things to do is a rousing bout of Super Smash Brothers Melee!

CNET News reports the denisons of the virtual world Second Life are getting together in real life at the second Second Life Community Conference. Even as it seems that people meeting online are getting together offline with increasing frequency, I’m always reminded of the line from Ghostbusters about not crossing the streams. In this case, the streams being your real life with the virtual one. In retrospect, I suppose these meetups are inevitable. A recent study done at the University of Illinois showed that playing some online games may increase the player’s sociability. Second Life is more of a virtual world than a game in the traditional sense, so the sociability enhancement factor would probably be greater relative to other MMOGs. I wonder if people will cosplay as their online avatars?

Custom avatars aside, I really don’t believe that a person’s online personality can differ too much from their offline one. The virtual world can allow unprecedented freedom of expression, which unfortunately some manifest in a negative way. But generally people act from their inner core personality. Maintaining a convincing alternate personality requires a lot of work, so observed over time the online personality is probably indicative of the offline one in most cases. I’ve crossed the streams a few times this year and the world hasn’t blown up just yet!

Gamesindustry.biz reports that developer Planet Moon has been signed on to bring Sega classics to the PSP. The first thing I wondered when I read this was whether or not NiGHTS into Dreams might be reborn on the PSP. The article doesn’t say anything about specific titles, but there was some speculation about games involving flying based on recent Planet Moon job adverts. NiGHTS was not a free 3D flyer, it was on rails, which I’m guessing might make a PSP port easier. Not only that, NiGHTS might actually work fairly well with the PSP’s single analog control stick. And the music should sound pretty good on the PSP as well. So I guess a guy can hope and dream.

Yesterday it was announced that Microsoft would make Xbox 360 development tools available to hobbyist programmers. The XNA Game Studio Express development tools will be available as a free download. Those wanting to share their creations with other homebrewers will have to pony up $99 to join what is currently being called, the Creator’s Club.

Even with the distribution restrictions, this is a dream come true! I’ve wanted a chance to write games for consoles for a long time now, but the development kit costs were just too high for this to be practical. So I’ve turned much of my attention to web games, which has meant a very slow road learning Flash. Not that Flash is horrible, but as a traditionally trained programmer, Flash is a bit of a paradigm shift that my brain simply has not embraced as quickly as I would have liked. Being more familiar with Microsoft development tools in general, I think I can get my head around the XNA tools in short order.

This is a good move for Microsoft too which really needs to do everything it can to fill the Xbox 360 games pipeline. There’s little doubt that some of those homebrew creations will make it to the big leagues and could very well become the next big thing that sells systems. So I applaud Microsoft for embracing the homebrew community rather than pushing it away. Even with Sony’s well publicized problems getting the Playstation 3 launched, Microsoft is going to need all of the help it can get.