Accursed blog upgrades!
You may have noticed, as I did, that with the new blogger comes tags. Wonderous things they are, I am now compelled to (perhaps when I am not at work taking a 5 minute break) go through my vast history of jibberish and tag everything.
In other news, the examples for labels are "scooters, vacation, fall". Read into that what you will.
20070129
Vroom.
I've had a lot of fun in Excite Truck for the Wii, and before that I lit blue rubber fires in Mario Kart: Double Dash with my Bro Steve on the GameCube (Apologies to Waluigi and Yoshi for the smell of burning tires), but before even that was Mario Kart 64.
Today Mario Kart 64 joins the Wii's Virtual Console titles. My excitement is only dulled by the grim prospect of playing the game alone.
In any case, I needed something pointless to post about, and here it is.
Expect to hear the anguished cries of my racer as I expertly miss the vaunted Rainbow Road shortcut, thus flinging them into the abyss.
Today Mario Kart 64 joins the Wii's Virtual Console titles. My excitement is only dulled by the grim prospect of playing the game alone.
In any case, I needed something pointless to post about, and here it is.
Expect to hear the anguished cries of my racer as I expertly miss the vaunted Rainbow Road shortcut, thus flinging them into the abyss.
Labels:
Gamecube,
gamer,
Mario Kart,
Steve,
Virtual Console,
Wii
20070112
NintendOwned
Last week's video game sales charts from Japan paint a very interesting story...
In short, you need to go down fifteen places before you find a single game title that wasn't for a Nintendo console. In fact, nine of the Top Ten were first-party Nintendo titles, fifteen of the top twenty, and twenty of the top thirty.
Even more surprising is how OLD some of these games are. Animal Crossing was released over a year ago, and was still #7!
Worse yet for Sony, four out of their six titles on the list aren't even for a current-generation system! The PS3 doesn't make a single appearance on the list, while the PSP only has two titles able to break Nintendo's stranglehold on software sales. Meanwhile, Microsoft isn't anywhere to be seen at all.
Quite simply, if there was any doubt that Nintendo was going to pwn this generation you need only look to Japan. Nintendo is trashing all comers there, leading in both console and software sales by a long, distant shot.
Microsoft can trumpet their 10 million consoles until the end times, and rightly so. However, they don't have a single million in Japan, while Nintendo is screaming forward in all regions as fast as they can produce systems and games.
Sony is only at 1 million consoles worldwide, and already they are sitting on shelves here in North America.
I'm doing my "told you so" dance right now. We'll see how long it goes before something changes in the industry and I have to stop.
In short, you need to go down fifteen places before you find a single game title that wasn't for a Nintendo console. In fact, nine of the Top Ten were first-party Nintendo titles, fifteen of the top twenty, and twenty of the top thirty.
Even more surprising is how OLD some of these games are. Animal Crossing was released over a year ago, and was still #7!
Worse yet for Sony, four out of their six titles on the list aren't even for a current-generation system! The PS3 doesn't make a single appearance on the list, while the PSP only has two titles able to break Nintendo's stranglehold on software sales. Meanwhile, Microsoft isn't anywhere to be seen at all.
Quite simply, if there was any doubt that Nintendo was going to pwn this generation you need only look to Japan. Nintendo is trashing all comers there, leading in both console and software sales by a long, distant shot.
Microsoft can trumpet their 10 million consoles until the end times, and rightly so. However, they don't have a single million in Japan, while Nintendo is screaming forward in all regions as fast as they can produce systems and games.
Sony is only at 1 million consoles worldwide, and already they are sitting on shelves here in North America.
I'm doing my "told you so" dance right now. We'll see how long it goes before something changes in the industry and I have to stop.
Labels:
console war,
DS,
Japan,
Microsoft,
Nintendo,
PS3,
PSP,
Sony,
video games,
Wii
20070102
FAQ Grammar Paradox
One of the foundational lessons is grammar is that of a/an. When does that mysterious little n jump out of the woodwork and grip itself steadfastly on the right side of that a? As most of the internet will not be able to tell you, it is whenever the first letter of the following word is a vowel or vowel sound (e.g an eon or an hour).
Example: That is an operating system, an OS if you will.
However, you will notice something that sentence assumes, namely the pronounciation of acronyms. Some people would read OS aloud as "operating system", some would read it as "Oh-Es" and others just "Aus". This leads to the following confusing sentence.
Example: I wrote a FAQ on the Legend of Zelda.
Nothing wrong with this sentence, save for potential eternal wrangling over proper grammar. Now, I am no expert grammarian but my instincts here lead be to believe there is a problem. A problem coming from the acronym "FAQ".
Some people will say aloud "Frequently Asked Questions" but those are very few because of the great mouthful that is, so most will default to either "Fak" or "Ef-Ay-Kyew". Therein is the problem.
"Fak" is a distinct consonant, while "Ef-Ay-Kyew" sports a vowel sound at the beginning. This creates a very real and confusing dichotomy between whether we should use a or an.
Anyone who prefers "Fak" is going to read that sentence and be perfectly content and happy, barring a complete failure at basic grammar and spelling. However, people who prefer "Ef-Ay-Kyew" will twitch when they reach "a FAQ" because as far as they can tell the author screwed up in the attempted sentence.
What results is an impossible situation wherein any perfectionist writer aware of the problem will be forced to refer to all such acronyms in the definitive or else risk going insane.
The problem consonants are as follows:
F - Ef
H - Aych
L - El
M - Em
N - En
S - Es
X - Ex
Many acronyms starting with this letters will cause great issues for writers. Thankfully a large number lend themselves almost fully to one pronouciation or another (MADD would very rarely be pronounced "Em-Ay-Dee-Dee" while NAACP would almost never be pronounced "Naspa" or "Nakp") or are large organizations requiring definitives.
As it stands, FAQ is probably the worst and singularly common case of an acronym commonly used by the public which exemplifies this problem.
Now that I've ruined the word for all you grammatical perfectionists out there (I know I've sent some of you into seizures), I can rest for the day satisfied with a job well done, if overly verbose.
Example: That is an operating system, an OS if you will.
However, you will notice something that sentence assumes, namely the pronounciation of acronyms. Some people would read OS aloud as "operating system", some would read it as "Oh-Es" and others just "Aus". This leads to the following confusing sentence.
Example: I wrote a FAQ on the Legend of Zelda.
Nothing wrong with this sentence, save for potential eternal wrangling over proper grammar. Now, I am no expert grammarian but my instincts here lead be to believe there is a problem. A problem coming from the acronym "FAQ".
Some people will say aloud "Frequently Asked Questions" but those are very few because of the great mouthful that is, so most will default to either "Fak" or "Ef-Ay-Kyew". Therein is the problem.
"Fak" is a distinct consonant, while "Ef-Ay-Kyew" sports a vowel sound at the beginning. This creates a very real and confusing dichotomy between whether we should use a or an.
Anyone who prefers "Fak" is going to read that sentence and be perfectly content and happy, barring a complete failure at basic grammar and spelling. However, people who prefer "Ef-Ay-Kyew" will twitch when they reach "a FAQ" because as far as they can tell the author screwed up in the attempted sentence.
What results is an impossible situation wherein any perfectionist writer aware of the problem will be forced to refer to all such acronyms in the definitive or else risk going insane.
The problem consonants are as follows:
F - Ef
H - Aych
L - El
M - Em
N - En
S - Es
X - Ex
Many acronyms starting with this letters will cause great issues for writers. Thankfully a large number lend themselves almost fully to one pronouciation or another (MADD would very rarely be pronounced "Em-Ay-Dee-Dee" while NAACP would almost never be pronounced "Naspa" or "Nakp") or are large organizations requiring definitives.
As it stands, FAQ is probably the worst and singularly common case of an acronym commonly used by the public which exemplifies this problem.
Now that I've ruined the word for all you grammatical perfectionists out there (I know I've sent some of you into seizures), I can rest for the day satisfied with a job well done, if overly verbose.
20070101
Empty
Vacation ends.
It's been wild, fun, exciting, crazy, and a whole slew of adjectives the likes of which the world has seen many times before. The myriad of interesting variations our inter-familial activities created in our interactions was astounding. The whole thing was a blast.
Yet there can be little as chilling as returning to one's apartment, finding none of the dear relatives who had been guests in the humble abode I call home. It is all so empty.
Everything I have, everything I see, it's all empty when I'm alone. There isn't a video game I own, a picture I can view, or word I can type that isn't a painful reminder that the people I care about most are beyond my daily reach. Whether they were present at this family reunion or not, the gaping holes left by friends and family distant fail to mask the void of a bachelor pad and a lonely bachelor.
I feel as though the very walls scream at me. Beating against me for my solitude, railing at the lack of social activity I muster to fill the stagnant rooms of my residence. Even as I type my concentration falters for the complete lack of people.
There are times where I enjoy being alone. I can say that as much as 50% of my waking hours and days are pretty much required to be away from society. Unfortunately my current conditions leave me precious little interaction with my peers. What little social activity I have is largely with people decades my senior, great people but far removed from the thoughts, needs, and desires of a man still fresh out of college. As it stands what should be free time spent inviting friends over for poker, Wii, or a movie are instead flittered away without company.
Honestly, I don't know how to make friends. I'm not the kind of person who goes out on their own motivations. Despite the ease of demeanor I display in social situations I am not one who begins them, but must instead be directed to them by others. When the number of others directing me to said situations is zero the nature of my problem becomes apparent.
I fully realize how ludicrous it seems. The simple answer it to force myself to go out there and meet people, find a group or something. However, the simple answer for what to do when bitten by a highly venomous creature is to completely sever the affected area from oneself immediately. Simple completely fails to address the difficulty associated with said solution and even the practicality thereof.
So I'm left with my conundrum, and the painfully empty apartment.
It's been wild, fun, exciting, crazy, and a whole slew of adjectives the likes of which the world has seen many times before. The myriad of interesting variations our inter-familial activities created in our interactions was astounding. The whole thing was a blast.
Yet there can be little as chilling as returning to one's apartment, finding none of the dear relatives who had been guests in the humble abode I call home. It is all so empty.
Everything I have, everything I see, it's all empty when I'm alone. There isn't a video game I own, a picture I can view, or word I can type that isn't a painful reminder that the people I care about most are beyond my daily reach. Whether they were present at this family reunion or not, the gaping holes left by friends and family distant fail to mask the void of a bachelor pad and a lonely bachelor.
I feel as though the very walls scream at me. Beating against me for my solitude, railing at the lack of social activity I muster to fill the stagnant rooms of my residence. Even as I type my concentration falters for the complete lack of people.
There are times where I enjoy being alone. I can say that as much as 50% of my waking hours and days are pretty much required to be away from society. Unfortunately my current conditions leave me precious little interaction with my peers. What little social activity I have is largely with people decades my senior, great people but far removed from the thoughts, needs, and desires of a man still fresh out of college. As it stands what should be free time spent inviting friends over for poker, Wii, or a movie are instead flittered away without company.
Honestly, I don't know how to make friends. I'm not the kind of person who goes out on their own motivations. Despite the ease of demeanor I display in social situations I am not one who begins them, but must instead be directed to them by others. When the number of others directing me to said situations is zero the nature of my problem becomes apparent.
I fully realize how ludicrous it seems. The simple answer it to force myself to go out there and meet people, find a group or something. However, the simple answer for what to do when bitten by a highly venomous creature is to completely sever the affected area from oneself immediately. Simple completely fails to address the difficulty associated with said solution and even the practicality thereof.
So I'm left with my conundrum, and the painfully empty apartment.
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