Reaction: Solid State Society

This was going to be a tubes update (because a few things happened this week: like the arrival of a notification for a depot pick-up, learning that something from PBL turned out to be back-ordered). But instead, I'll concentrate on one thing that went right.

I got my copy of Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex "Solid State Society" from the mailbox last night! Maybe it's been a while since I sat down and watched an episode of SAC, but this was an excellent presentation.

First instinct: I always get the LE version. I'm almost afraid I'm missing out on something if I even consider the regular editions ...borders on OCD sometimes. The LE version of this movie comes in a beautiful "steelbook" package with 3 discs: the movie, an extras disc, and the music soundtrack on an audio CD.
The movie itself is a straight-up sequel to the popular SAC television series. The funny thing being that the movie ties together several concepts seen in the other incarnations of Ghost in the Shell. And as such, the movie seems familiar and new at the same time. We're introduced to a Section 9 with former rookie Togosa in the squad-leader position... and with him is a fellow we (as English readers) only recently met in the GitS1.5 "Human Error Processor" manga published by Dark Horse. Section 9 is also without Major Kusanagi who is now working alone underground (similar to the movie continuity) and surfacing in public using a series of remote-controlled androids (not unlike the depiction in the GitS2 "Man Machine Interface" manga). And we're also back to a mysterious rogue hack going by the code-name "Puppeteer" also not unlike the events in the original manga...
And finally, we're reintroduced to the walking talking tanks... but these are not the Tachikoma we've come to know during the series. Fans will remember that those guys were tragically but unceremoniously wiped out in the line of duty before the series came to an end. Thankfully, they are given their due in this film after a disastrous outing with their replacement units (Batou is lucky to survive the incident).
Of course, Kusanagi is back to kick some serious butt. Which brings up a I point I wanted to address. There's an unusual amount of action-oriented material in the movie. It's distinct from the plodding pace of the Mamoru Oshii films. This movie paces itself with a certain urgency. The team is up against a conspiracy with victims played against each other either being sniped or hacked to commit suicide at every turn. And the body count keeps rising as Section 9 races to uncover the overwhelming plot covering everything from crooked politicians and psycho hackers to child abductions and identity theft.The package: Well, the soundtrack is everything one comes to expect for a Ghost in the Shell soundtrack. More techno than opera this time. However, the Extras disc is jam-packed with must-see material. There's a run-down of the SAC universe for the uninitiated. Interview sessions with the English production team and with Production IG in Japan. A look at a promotional Tachikoma robot built by Nissan labs to promote the film. And also a look at the conceptual design process for the "near-future" cars we see in the SAC series. Very cool stuff for the Ghost in the Shell fans. I'm glad I spent the extra few dollars for the LE version.

I'm so very tired of this...

OK, so I've figured out that the success of a dual-layer DVD burn is dependent on what I ate for supper on the Wednesday of the week I attempt the burn. No really, that's about as random as it gets.

My brother has notified me that after a weekend here doing no less than 3 test burns in his laptop, he went home with one last ISO on his hard-drive that stubbornly will refuse to burn on a Memorex disc! And while I have a couple of burns on Fujifilm discs prior to giving them away to my brother many months ago when this story started, I've found that CloneDVD2 is NOT compatible with the Fujifilm discs...

So what to do with that ISO? I burn it to the last remaining Philips disc I have... and it... works... sort of. At least it's readable and does not give a "no disc in drive" error. Except, and here's where things get REAL weird: it does not readable in my secondary drive (the Pioneer one). It plays in my stand-alone player with flying colours and is readable in the LG burner, but the Pioneer drive will have none of it.

So now I have another mystery: is my Pioneer drive acting up (it's pretty old)? Why does it read some of my Philips burns and not others? Why will it read that Ultraman movie I made (a rip of a Region 2 DVD I bought) and not a concert I made a year ago when all this started? WTF is going on?!

the week in the tubes

The timing was strange but could work out in my favour... I was wary of throwing stuff on my credit card because at the beginning of June I'd put on quite a chunk of money for car repairs... But I'm playing the game: will I get billed for July or for June this month? Hmm...

Amazon listed the full-length movie follow-up to the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex series. It was due out this week on DVD so I pre-ordered it. Got an email saying it shipped today. Also waiting for book 2 of the Marvel Annihilation collection. Love to support the local shops but I'd be a fool to pass up a 37% discount from cover price.

Got an email on Friday night from PBL. Those are the guys I bought my Smart Parts ION from initially. 15% off everything on-line for the Holiday weekend. I still need a gear bag so I ordered a Proto duffel. I also padded my order with a new barrel. A buddy from work has the same Smart Parts Progressive 2k6 barrel for his Kingman Spyder and says he liked it a lot. Don't know when they'll ship... if they're as fast as they were last time, it'll arrive pretty quick (maybe even within the week.

Speaking of holiday sales, Futureshop and Bestbuy both sent me spam this weekend but I ignored it in favour to hunting for my own stuff. Actually I just stumbled on it at Dell. I had missed it earlier during the Days of Deals promo, but I've been looking for batteries. And it seems that Dell will at random discount consumer goods. So I was able to get an 8-pack of NiMH batteries for only $20. Got a shipping notice today!

video wallpaper

File this one under "stupid things you can make your computer do without Windows Vista." You may have heard by now that one of the freebies Microsoft is giving away to Vista Ultimate users is a little novelty app called "DreamScene" which turns any video file into a moving wallpaper.

Well MyDigitalLife has published an article detailing exactly how to accomplish the same thing... for free... and on Windows XP. And all you need is VLC media player.

It's not without its glitches though.
For one thing, you'll need to remember that this is VLC running in the background (i.e.: you can choose to skip the part where you hide it from the task bar, but then if you're like me and like your Alt-Tab shortcut, then you'll eventually swap back to the player. Videos with sound of course will also get annoying pretty quickly. Finally, I noticed that at the end of the playlist, VLC behaves unpredictably - in my case, it tried to loop the video to play again but then it not only paused, but it also became it's own full-screen video meaning an Alt-Tab me to a the full screen video instead of the VLC interface... man it was weird.

I'm going to keep playing with this and if anything interesting turns up I'll follow-up.

Thoughts on UFS

Universal Fighting System pits several popular fighting-game genre properties against each other in a one-on-one showdown. These are my notes based on my newbie experiences with my Taki (Soul Calibur 3) and Terry Bogard (King of Fighters 2006) against Ken Masters (Street Fighter 2) and Cassandra, Siegfried , and Cassandra (SC3).

The game is a throwback to Magic: The Gathering. Players must attempt to play cards to the table from their hand using a combination of "committing" cards previously set down and using a random-number "control" from the draw deck. Each character has a set "vitality" and when drained through repeated attack, loses the match.

General reactions:
Sabretooth Games really need to republish a comprehensive rules sheet. Although all cards issued for the game are compatible with each other, each new revision has a tendency to generate a new vague question that might be obvious to experienced players, but simply are not addressed directly. But on the other hand, a starter deck is 100% legally playable. The boxes inlcude 60 cards: the character cards, a selection of themed cards for that character, and the rest are random cards from the corresponding set. The trick is to learn how that character works...

Playing Taki:
Taki is a character with many attacks. Many of the Taki-themed cards (depicting her special moves and abilities) are more often Attack cards than Foundation cards. And since a majority of Attacks feature a Control-check of 2, the odds of drawing a Control-check of only 2 increase. And the likelihood of drawing a string of successful Control-check for making attack combos decreases. Her upside is that she's got several features that involve healing herself. It's really a matter of being able to use those abilities every chance you get.

Playing Terry Bogard:
Terry appears to be a more traditional character. I've noticed that he's favours the Reversal mechanic heavily. Many of his cards are designed to be played during the opponent's turn as counter-attacks. This worked out well particularly in a fight against someone like Ken who has very few blocks.

Remarks about my opponents:
Ken (or perhaps the SF2 property in general) appears to simulate the button-mashing technique. Ken-themed cards have a tendency to have lots of cheaply-played Attacks. And those Attack cards usually don't feature a block ability. Ken also favours drawing lots of cards to increase his hand-size. While this does allow a wider choice of cards to play during a turn, it also means the draw deck is cycled faster (and the deck will shrink on each cycle according to the rules).

I have no comments to make about the other SC3 character decks I've played against as they've always been embarrassing incidents where I was wiped out while using my unbalanced Taki deck. But overall, it's a decently playable game provided you make up a few rules when the included rules sheet is unclear. I just need to find more players to play with.