Next Big Appley Thing.... Yawn

Okay, geek rant time.

What is it with all this iTablet, iBook, iSlate crap. I'm fed up of reading about it everyday in my rss feeds. Its boring. And whats more I think its all for nothing. Call me an Apple skeptic (because, well, I am one) but I really don't understand the hype surrounding this one. Its not because it might not come out, its because I simple don't know who they will be marketing it towards.

My reasoning is thus. Lets say they release one (the sooner the better), and lets say its a tablet of 7" to 12" and power of a tegra through to a CULV. What do you market it as and who do you hope to sell it to? Try market it as an Apple take on the netbook? You'll fail, NO KEYBOARD. An MID? Maybe, but there is already the iPhone so why bother. A internet tablet for the couch (JooJoo style)? Very niche market. Give it an easily readable screen and call it iBook and make it an Apple take on a eBook reader? Maybe, but eBook readers are nowhere near popular yet. Something else I haven't thought of? Likely I think, but what?

I just don't really see the need for another device between an iPhone and an MacBook, unless its a very specialised and niche product. In which case, whats all the hype for? Sure apple junkies will by it but most other people won't need it. Not over an iPhone or MacBook. Maybe I'm missing something but I just don't get it. And I'm fed up of hearing about it.

Rant over.

In other news I finished watching B5 and in turn figured out what I didn't like about the 4 (and 5th) seasons. In a word - pacing. The pacing in Season 4 was way too fast for me. Just felt like burnout. It lost all of the slow plotting brilliance of the earlier seasons and went all out in a final breathtaking final splash that just felt off. And talking about feeling just off - Season 5. Yeah.....

Happy New Year All

(tune in next month for some Kindle 2 thoughts maybe)

Babylon 5

I have recently returned to rewatch Babylon 5. I have watched a lot of it before but gave up around Season 4 when I felt the series lost its way somewhat. Still I always remembered that it had tons going for it early on and felt it was worth a second try.

What I didn't remember was just how utterly fantastic it is early on. I'm about half way through season 2 and it just keeps getting better. Even though I'm watching it over again and know it all I'm still feeling blown away each episode with the wonderful scripting, characters and story arks. Its breath-takingly good sci-fi.

That is all.

RPG Brain Dump

I thought of something an hour ago and I want to get some record of it down. So, here goes (I'll try keep it succinct).

I was reading some Shaintar today (a Savage Worlds setting). Its quite good. Its also very high fantasy. A bit high for my taste but the game has enough going for it for me to keep giving it my time every now and then. One of the things I like is all the Empires and Societies that it has scattered around its world. It also integrates the different races of the world quite well. They often co-inhabit without killing each other. But its still too high fantasy (HF) for me, I much prefer the idea of a Swords and Sorcery game with more factions and less loaming evil and cosmic campaigns. I don't like the idea of loosing the other races though. Which got me thinking.

Many HF games have the race of Elves and Dwarfs dieing out. They were big an age ago but are now depleting. Some games (LotR) also have the idea of half elves. But what if this idea was taken further. What if we took LotR and advanced the clock another Age, but instead of the Elves and Dwarfs and Orcs having died out, how about having them absorbed into the Human Gene pool. Characters could then have linages (much like Artesia) instead of being a race. I think this would help with a few problems. First, it wouldn't mater if you had a lot of non humans in your group. It would also lower the power level of such races a touch. In turn this would let you add in a Wheel of Time of L5R or Game of Thrones type setting on top with reasonable ease. I donno, might not sound great but it appealed to me a couple of hours ago.

Lastly, I thought I'd add a logical extension of this. Instead of Elves Orcs and Dwarfs you could go more mythical. Angels and Demons, Minotaurs and Satyrs, Mermaids and Fairies, Vampires and Werewolves, Dragons and Giants. What if they existed ages ago, and as the world grew up, the myths faded. But lived on in the gene pool. Everyone would still be human but some people might show strong aspects of the mythical beginnings......

....just and idea....

Kaiyodo Figure Museum

A few months ago I bought myself a copy of "the Otaku Encyclopedia" in which are details of many interesting little places an Otaku might go in Japan. Upon reading it I had particular interest to go see the Kaiyodo Figure Museum. This was partly because its pretty close by, and partly because I really like Japanese Figures as an art form or something. So, for my birthday, we decided to spend a long weekend on a trip to Shiga. To see, primarily, the figures.

In short, it was well worth it. The museum is not very big but does contain a few thousand small figures, so if you take your time its easy to spend an hour or so looking round. Some of them are just really well made. I especially like the really small ones, often they seem to have the most detail. But the star of the show for me was a set of 3 Goddesses on pedestals. These big figures greet you as you go up the stairs and look stunning. It had almost a 3 Graces feel to it or something, which some might feel is a blasphemy to art but bleh, I liked it. Also, I was going to take some pictures of the BONE (prolific figure maker) stuff, but it was a bit too provocative and I didn't feel like taking a picture.

Anyway, here are some pictures of the place. As ever you can find more if you follow the right links.

Pair of Unrelated Items

Two things I felt like talking briefly about.

Firstly, I completed Prince of Persia last week (the new one) after sitting down for a bit and forcing through it. I stopped playing it a while back because I got bored but I managed to return to it and rushed to the end. It was a really odd game.... it was just one bit quick time event. See a pad press triangle, press circle for rings, press cross for everything else. That's about it. It got really annoying in the last part of the game due to a 3 minute sequence of the things that I kept failing. Nearly gave up at that point. It looked really good but it just didn't make up for the lack of game play. Bleh .... least I didn't spend much on it.

Secondly, I watched through Torchwood - Children of Earth over the last few days. I'm a bit torn on how I feel about this one. On the one hand I obviously really enjoyed it, I was enthralled each time I sat down to watch it and plowed through it as quickly as I could. The story was solid and I really liked the aliens reason for wanting the children, that was just disturbing. But I felt it was let down a little by a poor ending. Well..... actually.... it was just let down by Captain Jack in general. Its a really good character but it seemed like they didn't know which way to write him - tortured old soul, hardened warrior capably of making tough sacrifices, or loving family man and protector of all that is good. They could have picked 2 of these, or some combination of their different parts. But they picked all three and it was just a mess. Combine that with John Barrowman (he has good days sometimes......) and well ........ bleh. On the whole I enjoyed it though.

Now what should I play and watch next.....?

RP on the Brain

Every so often my brain seems to go through phases of obsession. This last week my brain has been in a serious RPG mood. I wouldn't mind so much only these phases rarely seem to get me anywhere. I don't get a second wind on a project that I have already started, instead my mind deviates to some other, completely different idea. Currently I'm stuck on Savage Worlds.

I first looked at Savage Worlds maybe a year and a half ago. I eventually fobbed it off as too random. But something about the simplicity of the dice mechanics intrigues and interests me. You roll a type of die from d4 all the way to d12, you don't need to combine dice but you might roll a wild dice (d6) as well. Your just looking to roll high on one dice. I really like the concept, its so efficient and easy to understand. The system then build some nice rules on top of that for abilities and all the other things you need in a generic rules system. It has depth where its needed and reading various setting books gives numerous modular systems to tweak the system one way or another. Its rules light, but with enough crunch to keep things like combat interesting. But then thats one of my problems with the system.

Its based off a miniatures game (the great rail wars), but modified to add a bigger RP element. Only its pretty plain how much emphasis on combat there is in the game. And that leaves me in a bit of a rut. Its not like I'm against combat. And in fact I think this is one of the finest rules light combat systems I've read (it even makes me want to run bigger miniature skirmishes). But I like to emphasis good RP and I'm not sure how well that aspect is represented in the game. RP though is best done without rolling dice, or worrying about system, so maybe it doesn't need too many skills or rules that help promote it.

I suppose the main problem I have at the moment is that the system easily interests me enough for me to want to give it a go. But I don't have anyone here to test it with. This is very frustrating to say the least. Still at least I can blog about it and give myself a chance to order my thoughts a little.....

Geek Update Part 3 - Gaming

In what I think will be my last of the Geek Update series of posts I think I'll talk a bit about what I've been playing of late.

About a month or so ago I got a few more games for the PS3 - Little Big Planet and Prince of Persia. Both have seem some play time, but not very much. I really like Prince of Persia, I like running around and stuff, but sometimes it can feel a little too like an endless series of press x now, and press o now. It just gets a little grating whenever I spend much more than an hour on it. Little Big Planet has seen even less of my time but I'm honestly not sure why. I think I just game so little that I find it hard to juggle more than one game at a time. And when I say I don't game much I mean no more than 3 hours a week maybe. I just don't seem to find the time.... And yet I have found a couple of hours over the last week to post some silly Geek flavoured updates?

I have also been playing Civilisation 4: Colonisation on the PC. This is a bit of an odd one. Every so often I get hankerings to pick up Civ 4 again. It never goes anywhere, I always get bored a few hours in and loose interest. But on hearing Colonisation had much tighter game play I was interested enough to pick it up. I really like turn based strategy games, I suppose from a background of RPG's and Boardgames, but I've never quite found the perfect one. Colonisation is, unfortunately, not it. But it come so very very close, it was only at the end of sinking another 45 minutes into it this lunchtime that I realised it was not to be.

Essentially it is a much tighter game. You don't have to worry about religion, tech levels, or having warriors when everyone else has tanks. And it has some neat little mechanics in that any of your population units can do anything (farm/ improvements/cigar making/etc) but some are better at one thing than others. It reminds me so much of games like Porto Rico (in a very good way). But its just too long. I realised today I was maybe halfway through my first game and have been playing it for 2 or 3 weeks now. Maybe clocked as much as 10 hours or something. And I'm going slower now than I did at the start. Arrg. I could try shorten game length with tweaked setting but its just not going to make such a difference. Its a shame, if I'd finished a game by now I'd have probably been playing this game for years to come, but alas, it is not to be.

Geek Update Part 2 - Linux

I was hoping to write this update days ago. I was also hoping to write it about how I put linux on this laptop and it went swimmingly and I'm using it to write this post. Unfortunately that won't be happening today.

Mostly the reasons for this are hardware related (go figure). When I bought this computer I though I was being very clever checking to make sure that most of the components were of intel branding for maximum compatability. But the soundcard came and bit me in the ass and the webcam don't like it much either. Doh. Still I do kinda know how to get the soundcard working now and I don't really care about the webcam (its not like I can get it working in windows 7 anyway). So hardware problems are not the only problem.

Software has been proving equally challanging. I've lately tried to speed up my internet surfing by using google reader. Its a bit odd that I never used rss up till then but I honestly never saw the point before. I guess since I've been here I surf more core sites due to free time or something. Anyway, I've been trying to find a RSS reader on linux so that I don't need to have my web browser open all the time. But, well, the gtk+ ones are a little buggy.

I've also been trying to find a flash card program to help me with my Japanese. But at the moment I haven't actually found one of them that I can enter Japanese in. Not a clue what the problem with this one is.....

All this put together has just irritated the hell out of me and worn my patients thin. So I'm trying to slow down and tackle things a little slower. To that end I've booted out to windows and am sitting reading some websites and drinking beer. It seems to be working.

Geek Update Part 1 - Internet

Ever since I got here I have been having some trouble with the Internet. The trouble being, for want of a better word, that it sucked.

It was cable Internet or a reasonably good speed (maybe 5mb) but it seemed to block everything. And by everything I mean Steam, Torrents and Skype. Then when I got my PS3 and realised that the Internet was blocking that too I figured that was the last straw. I don't care how cheap the Internet is and how much fuss it is to change to adsl its just not worth it. Wondering quite what the problem was I got my wife to ask why all these Internet services didn't work with the cable. It turned out that the cable company blocks all of the ports that these services use. Well it doesn't actually block them so much as assign them next to no bandwidth. Their reason was that nobody in this town wants to use all these services and others like them.........errrmmm......... riiiiiight.

So about a month or so ago we started looking into changing providers, asking friends for advice, and calling companies to get everything set up. And after a few initial problems (crossed lines) we finally got fully functional Internet up and running a few weeks ago. Hooray! So I can now use skype and buy PS3 games. That's progress. Its not blindingly fast Internet like you can get in a city (I think adsl here caps out at 48mb and I only went for 8mb) but its better that it was and that's the main thing.

Fed up with Windows

I've mentioned before Lok bought a new laptop in January and its the one that I have switched to using (my old one has been sold on). Initially I had planned to put Linux on it, but the sound didn't work too well so I settled with Windows 7 beta, but lately I have become fed up with it and so am preparing to move over the some more Penguin flavoured.

Windows 7 has been doing the rounds for a while now and most people are pretty taken by it. Its fast, stable, looks good, doesn't hog the system as much a vista, etc. But I still just don't find it good enough. Oddly, for me, I just don't find it simple enough.

This is kinda hard to explain as Linux isn't exactly famous for its simplicity but the fact is I just find Windows 7 more complicated to configure the way I like it. For instance, the other day I was trying to change it to Japanese language version. This meant I had to play with system update, change keyboard settings, changes display language settings, change other obscure language settings, and it still wasn't quite right. So many of the options are buried too deeply in the GUI for me to find. The control panel itself is a mess of options and yet they don't let me change everything I change.

Another problem is that I can't set up my directories as I like them. The Library feature is great but it doesn't override the User file system enough. Grrr.....

And a problem I've had for ages is the sheer amount of stuff I put on to replace all the Windows bits (Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player). But I can't actually remove these parts without serious hacks. GRRRRRR.....

I don't know. It just pisses a geek like me off. So I'm done with it. I'm ready to go in search off roads less travelled. I'll let you know how it goes....

George Foreman Grill

I finally gave up and got a PS3. Yey. And I do think it looks like a GFG. Well it does half the time I look at it, and the other half the time it looks like some sleek stealth bomber kinda device. Either way I'm quite happy.

I purchased it over a weekend trip in Osaka (among other places), for about 32000￥ 2nd hand. It was cheaper than the others because it had a few smudges (now removed) and a few faint scratches you can only see if you look closely for them. I didn't see them in the store when I asked to see it in the store so they don't bother me. Got a few games with it too which again helped lower the price to the one posted and while they are old, they were also cheap and classic I suppose.

Some first impressions -

I've only just set up the device and played a few levels of R&C and 5 minutes of Burnout so can't say too much. The controller has much better R2/ L2 buttons than the PS2 one, they work and don't look like they will gum up as easily. The USB ports on the newer models are really well hidden when placed flat on a surface. The silver accenting is pretty. R&C looks really nice even on the SD TV here. Burnout on the other hand looks cluttered and the map in the corner is tiny so could take some getting used to. Used the Sixaxis on R&C and whilst it did kinda feel tapped on and made for an extra control headache it didn't suck and was responsive. Also the PS Store in SD sucks.

Well thats enough for not. Resistance calls.

Projects

This new blog has been created by me for a number of reasons. One of the main ones of which is to help me keep track of numerous little projects that I am working on while in Japan, and hopefully, to get some external input on them from friends back home. So as a first post I though I would try outline some of the current things I have been working on.

Perhaps the main side project I have at the moment is my work on a Western RPG. For this I have been doing much reading and researching. I'm still very much in the planning stage but things are slowly moving. I will soon be looking at picking and partly inventing a suitable location to run the majority of the in game events. I've decided that the best thing to do is use a few factual locations a people of the West but invent most of it manipulating facts and fiction. I have yet to fully decide on a system but so far it looks like it will be two systems depending on the particular power level I decide to run things at. I recently picked up an RPG - "Gunslingers & Gamblers" which contained loads of useful info, and the Streamlined edition had a really nice set of simple rules that should work for a more realistic/ gritty style of game. All in all things are moving quite smoothly and I hope soon to start typing out some of my ideas.

Technically one of the other things I'm tinkering with is Blogs. I'm hoping to get round to sorting out a slightly better layout to both my blogs at some point but am finding blogger to be a bit of a headache when you try do slightly more complex things with it. Maybe I'll look into other systems but more likely I'll either do nothing or try do the best I can with what I've got.

Well, that's enough for now. More later maybe.....