Macross Messenger Bag

This is a story of serendipity, coincidence, and a touch of irony.

I just spent 3 days in Toronto to attend Anime North 2010. It's biggest anime convention in Canada. I've sort of outgrown being an anime otaku (I have my favourite titles and have very little room for new ones). As for the merchandise, I try my best to support the local shop (which manages to sell at every convention I've been to in the last few years from Toronto to Montreal), but I also get the latest unlicensed stuff over the Internet too.

And this the story of one such bit of merchandise... I present the Macross-themed messenger bag pre-ordered months ago. if you don't reserve, then the international retailer won't be able to keep such intended-for-Japan product in stock for long.

Unfortunately, I didn't have this to show off at the convention in time, but...

Here's what was in my communal super-box when I got home today:I haven't had much luck with SAL from Japan but thankfully, this shipment contained crushable good: a soft messenger-bag won't suffer much. And of course, when I opened it...
It's kind of small, but there's no hard rule on what size a messenger bag should be, I guess. It is however, coincidentally also the first time I've owned a messenger bag that is actually functional as a bike-messenger bag (it has the shorter under-arm strap to keep the bag against one's back). Unfortunately, I'm still not sure how useful that will be since the main compartment doesn't zip up, so smaller items may still slip out when it's worn across my back.

PSP shell swap

As of this month, the Playstation Portable has been out for 5 years (in North America). I didn't get mine at launch, exactly but pretty early on. Yes, I got it with that really bad hockey game.

Anyway, 5 years later and my PSP has seen better days. The battery door isn't so tight anymore. There are cracks and scratches in the faceplate... So I did the most obvious thing to do to a device that has no warranty: I tried to mod it.

I thought, "how hard could changing a shell be?" Heh, right.
I started with the most obvious step: I turned over my PSP and removed all the screws I could see. The faceplate popped right off. I fitted the new clear stick, clear buttons, and clear D-pad onto their rubber mounts. Then... I examined the back.

And that's when I realized for the first time that while the front faceplate is a bit like the panel on the side of a PC, the PSP's back cover is like the chasis of a PC... this would take a little more time. Thankfully there are plenty of visual guides on Youtube on the disassembly of a PSP.
Before I knew it, I had the front button bar out, the LCD screen, the bracket, the wi-fi, power, sound card, and mobo out. To keep track of every piece and screw, I taped stuff to sheets of paper. The hardest part was changing out the UMD drive... popping the door in and out was a scary affair because despite pulling apart everything, I still didn't want to actually break anything.

Reassembling was easy except for the fact that the new plastic shell doesn't quite exactly line up like the original Sony one. I had to Dremel a bit to get screws to fit.Here's the semi-finished PSP in the new shell. Surprisingly, much of it works - I'm pleased to announce I didn't seriously break any of the circuitry. Unfortunately that's not to say it's perfect.

First, the controls are not as responsive as before... I feel like I need to press the D-pad and the front buttons harder. And the power switch is finicky - sometimes not wanting to turn on or off. But the number one problem I still need to debug: the analog stick is sticking! At first I thought it was the new stick being defective. But after removing the shell and holding the stick down in place, it seems to work fine. Not really sure what else to do...

GFFMC bonus item

Those following me will have noted how excited I've been to be part of the latest revival to the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise because Sunrise has seen fit to finally revisit the original Universal Century time-line. While the first installment of Gundam Unicorn only released world-wide this past month, the Bandai marketing machine has been churning away for almost a whole year now.

Last week saw the release of the latest GFFMC (a deluxe collector's grade line of action figures) as the titular mecha from the series with fully deploying panels to "powered up" mode. But you don't need to me to tell you how awesome this not-model-kit figure is (or how expensive it was to import).
I do want to share some pics of something unusual. I'm not sure if this was a pre-order bonus or perhaps just a limited run for the first batch to come out of the factory. I received this art portfolio along with my figure.The translucent slip contains a collection of single-sided cards showing everything from line-art to CAD diagrams that went into the toy's design. All of these A4 sheets are adorned with the fictional figures detailing the abilities and specs of the Gundam Unicorn.
The only thing that bugs me is that I didn't really have a choice to opt out of this item. When I pre-ordered the price included this "special item" but after the initial pre-orders were filled, amiami.com later listed a "version" of the same figure for about $10 less (the approximate equivalent in Japanese yen) but without the chance to own this art portfolio. I'm happy to have this as part of my collection, but honestly, right after I post this blog entry, I'm likely to put it all back into its envelope, never to be looked at again.

Chaos Rising: List of DLC stuff

I just restarted the campaign mode on Chaos Rising once more just to double-check exactly what it was that I got in the supposedly "Exclusive Wargear Pack" from the myTHQ promotion. Now depending where you live, it might be limited (I read somewhere that for THQ UK, only the first 50'000 people who register will get the code to redeem the DLC). On the little insert that came in my retail box (I'm based in Canada, by the way), it simply says "while supplies last" which is kind of funny to think about since these are virtual goods.

So everybody's published and republished the list of items for the Librarian Wargear by now (if you pre-ordered your game as a soft-copy from THQ.com). You get the following 4 items in that one:

1. Sword of Codicier
2. Mantle of the Codicier
3. Tome of Displacement
4. Obsidian Raven

I don't have any further info other than their names. But I suppose they are a power-weapon, an armour, an accessory, and a command-accessory. And of course, probably all useable only by the new Jonas character who happens to be a Librarian.

Now everybody keeps referring to the other DLC pack as being a Force Commander Wargear pack. It is never stated anywhere in the official literature. The only clues given by THQ is the little set of previously existing icons printed in black and white on the paper insert. I also go by the assumption that while the Techmarines stock your inventory at random when you start a new campaign, the DLC items appear at the bottom of the grid. You should find the following items:

1. Axe of the Ravens
2. Fist of Valhalla
3. Golden Fury of Terra
4. Pistol of Ideus
5. Venerated Zeal
6. Helm of Command

The first five are in the weapons (respectively: power axe, power fist, plasma gun, plasma pistol, an auto-cannon for a dreadnought) and the last is a command accessory (a white helmet).

So you ask, are they worth it? To be honest, I'm sure yet. At a glance the new weapons don't have much higher stats that the others you might find during play. For example, my version of Davian Thule as a Dreadnought imported from the first Dawn of War 2 game save already had a powerful auto-cannon equipped with exactly the same stats as Venerated Zeal. However Venerated Zeal also gives a couple of boosts to the percentage chance "Scatter". And one could safely assume that the other items also have such minor boosts compared their same-stat counterparts. The item I'm torn over is the Helm of Command which sounds great (gives boosts to nearby units) but I just love my Force Commander wearing his jump-pack...

Chaos Rising is out... and I still can't enjoy it

I still have this bitter taste in my mouth 2 days later.

All of it thanks to this annoying screw-up with Games For Windows Live to get my free exclusive DLC. This Dawn of War release did not force you to pre-order like the original DoW2. Instead all you need to do is register your game at the publisher's site at http://www.thq.com - you'll need to sign up for a "MyTHQ" account, but that's free anyway and you'll never need it again afterwards.

THQ promises exclusive content and free stuff when you sign up, but in reality thus far I've only downloaded a free wallpaper JPG and a PDF for a print-your-own poster for Soulstorm. And that was two years ago. Lame.

Anyhow, the way it works is that when you register your game (it's listed under "W" for "Warhammer" so don't panic if you don't find it in the drop-down list under either "C" or "D"), a new code will appear next to your listing for Dawn of War 2: Chaos Rising.

Then go to Games for Windows Live - you remember that applet from when you installed the first game and tried to get the exclusive pre-order content, don't you? I sure remember. But you know what's funny? GFWL didn't seem to remember ME!

That is, it would not recognize my password. No, I'm not some kind of computer illiterate. But I think I should be allowed to complain. I logged in before, and I'm not in the habit of altering the settings on my machine. So whatever between the installation of the previous game and this one, shouldn't be my fault in any way. I say this because...

Well, PC gamers tend to be somewhat elitist. There was a time when you had to know your way around an OS (DOS!) if you wanted to get into gaming. PC gamers had a certain right to turn their noses up at consoles because it honestly did take more effort than to pop a cartridge into a slot. But here's the thing: life just shouldn't be that difficult. The days of rudimentary interfaces requiring a knowledge of low-level configuration should be over.

I was appalled when my research into this login failure turned up forum threads (strangely, forums in the GFWL site but not linked to via the Help area) with dozens of users all in the same problem. Clearly others were having more difficulty (such as getting the game to run multiplayer), but I was one of many working all evening on GFWL. Even worse, making my eyes just about pop out of my head, were the suggested solutions like running REGSRV32 on a variety of DLLs or even resetting WINSOCK. I wanted to check my calendar to be sure it wasn't still 1995.

I think the point I'm really getting at is that GFWL is basically just a glorified browser. It shouldn't this complicated. There's another app out there doing something very similar... you may have heard of it. It's called Steam. And it does it well. I've never had a configuration problem with Steam. So I have to ask, why is the code in GFWL so low-level that it's depending everything from OS-level services to port-forwarding on your router?

For the record, I eventually did get GFWL working. I had to get into Vista's Network settings via IE6's Tools and Options menus. Then in Connections, I checked Auto-detect LAN settings, then unchecked it again. And suddenly (no this is not logical to me either), GFWL let me log in.

I haven't been much in the mood to play this game since Tuesday.