So yes, aside from everything that went wrong someone, somewhere (probably in California) did something right: Mastiff is porting over Gurumin for the PSP. This and Every Extend Extra are the only things my PSP hunger for. I wanted to get the game in Japanese, but I just couldn’t bring myself to swing for the price of it (mainly because it’s a PSP game). It looks like an excellent port, the game seems to be solid, and… well, it’s Falcom: rock the underdog.

So, ok, my work, right? Well, it allows you to access many different kinds of sites without much restriction. Like news and business and, well, other generic stuff that some jarhead gets off on. But they don’t let you access personal email. Recently Gmail was added to that list. After two years of using gmail, and in turn associating it as my main email account and even bringing other people to use it as such, it has been put on the banned list.

Yes, my work banned Gmail. While using Gmail on Wed. I was tagged as “abusing the system with a webpage that bypasses security measures of the network” (read also: using gmail). So, I wasn’t told, “Hey, cut that out,” or “We know people do it, just, like you know, stop it.” No. I had my entire history of internet usage pulled and printed out and put into a giant binder (three of them) and laid out on a table which I was called to. Apparently while I could go to CNN or MSN News, I can’t go to Next-Gen.biz, or even The Gamer’s Quarter website. (Though I was later told that, while this doesn’t explicitly break the policy, that it is “frowned upon.”) So I got to sit in on a 45 minute session of getting told how to work better and not “play around” on the internet so much.

Well, seriously, I get all of my work done. Not only that, but I also get it done with less than a 5% error rate (which is among the highest of the staff) and usually before the deadline. So, now, I have had to switch desks and am in the middle of the whole office with my back facing just about everyone. I feel like I am simultaneously in prison and in High School. Were I not under contract I would have handed in my resignation today.

So, I am left to fend for myself. I am now using my cell phone to check my email though m.gmail.com, which makes things … well, bad. The forums that I use to kill 5 minutes here and 5 minutes there or just to have something to keep my mind busy while multi tasking away the mind-numbingly easy day I have here will not get me into more trouble than I care to explain. So, I have to think up a plan. I have worked very hard for the past two years to put the Gamer’s Quarter together and am not going to throw that away because of a job I hate and can’t get out of.

I am writing this in a word document and will then email it to myself here shortly. I can’t save the damn document because then it can be viewed by the system admin (who will be “keeping a close eye on me.”) I’m tired of this shit and can’t deal with it much longer. I highly anticipate school and will now beat the system by using the system. I am probably going to switch cell phone carriers and get something like a treo or a side-kick, because, bizarrely enough, those are authorized. I will still be able to keep in touch, and informed. I will be able to type and forward things that way. It will be fucking infantile but I will do it. I will also be using the computer to spend a lot of time looking to further my education, because again, that too is authorized.

Sorry for bitching, and sorry also if it seems like I have fallen off the face of the earth, because I haven’t, I’ve just fallen off the face of the internet.

APPEND:

So apparently after all this happen the admin that caught the Gmail usage happen to overhear me making fun of the internet usage training which was coincidentally given on the same day that I got caught. The training had this horrible overacting with exaggerated hand motions and other bullshit. So while smoking I was just going over the video with a friend and making these even more exaggerated motions with my hand.

Obviously I was not making fun of the atrocious acting, I was making fun of him.

I then found out later that he was pissed. He went to the head of my division and bitched me out, then the head of the division went to my boss, who bitched me out. I tried to explain the situation, went further up to the division boss and explained things, then ended up talking to the guy and explaining things and apologizing for everything in front of the division head. Needless to say that this was turning into the worst fucking day of my life (work related anyways).

So, things continue to just … suck. Then when work is over I go downstairs to bitch about things while smoking before I catch the train, and right after my friend says, “Seriously, Matt, the wall have ears here.” guess who pops outside? Yes, dude that busted me (twice now).

Well, we got to talking and we straightened a few things out: 1) The policy is crap and he was handed down the order to get my boss’ involved in the email thing. 2) Don’t worry about the other web access stuff. 3) I was actually making fun of bad acting, he watched the video later.

So all in all… the day was not a complete ruin, but I don’t think it could get much worse.

I am now going to play (motherfucking)DOOM on my 360.

Ok, so I haven’t been keeping up with my live journal lately. Sorry about that everyone. As you may have guessed from the image, I finally got issue 7 of The Gamer’s Quarter done. I would especially like to thank: , , , , , , anyone I missed, and anyone else who worked on this issue with out a LJ. A lot of work went into this issue and it really shows.

Speaking of work, yes the issue is a week late, sorry about that everyone. It took a lot more time than previously expected to get the issue done. Our new layout (while very good) is much more difficult to work with. It caused many headaches and delays, though nothing major. Ironing out a few things before production next issue will save a couple of nights of dickering.

This issue probably has my personal favorite article of mine. One that I have been wanting to write for a while (killer7) mixed with a new classic (Umihara) mixed with some overall feelings of… well, the uncanny: it turned out well. My special thanks to M. O’connor and Eric-Jon for dealing with the long process of sorting out my own head and what the hell is going on in it. Both did a fantastic job helping me edit, I just wish it hadn’t taken nearly two months to completely put together.

So, as per usual, I have been playing games on the down time of the magazine. For the last two weeks the only things I have played are Mega Man ZX and Pokemon Mysterious Dungeon Blue DS.

ZX is fairly amazing for coming from what I considered an underwhelming development company (the team behind the Zero games). I haven’t finished it, but I have made five attempts at the end. It’s intense and takes almost a damn hour for the mandatory boss rush and end boss section and is fairly intense the whole time through. My clock is sitting at about 15 hours and every minute has been worth it.

Pokemon MD is going well. I only have about 8 hours into it and about 2 of those were probably the DS just sitting around. Anyways, the game took quite a while for me to stop being exceptionally aggravated at it for being just too easy. This is a rogue-like by the company that put out Shiren the Wanderer with Pokemon infused. I expected the first two or three dungeons to be easy as a sort of tutorial, but it just keep going. I had to challenge myself to even make the game easy as opposed to very easy. The game has gotten good though. Not really hard yet (although the tale of the ultimate dungeon give me hope) but the puzzle and techniques are nice. It is a very good addition to my DS collection, and it is unfortunately getting panned by “major critics” who just don’t get it. This is a very solid title, and while maybe not the best, I’m not bored in even the slightest yet.

So if you have read this far you obviously have an attention span. Go download the magazine, read it, specifically my “from the editor” in the beginning as I make a request of readers.

Thanks again, and I hope you all enjoy.

Oh god, it smells like fall.

I had just gotten into my bedroom and my wife had left the windows in the house open and I smelled something. I couldn’t place it at first, but then it hit me: Fall. It has that distinct but unidentifiable smell. It is so wonderful that I feel like perhaps I should cry.

I haven’t smelled this in over 4 years.

I mean, I have gone places where it is actually fall since then, but it’s not the same to have it just happen one day. Fall is easily my favorite time of year. I just pulled out an old photo album and scanned in some pictures I took while driving up the coast of Michigan about 4 years ago. I love these pictures, and here are three of my favorites:

As many of you probably already know it is the anniversary of the US Dreamcast release. It has been seven years since it was released on 9/9/99. I don’t mean to brag, but it isn’t the same for me as I had already had my DC for about 6 months by this time (I got it in mid/late March of ’99). So while I pull it out to play thought something every year at this time, it really isn’t the same.

The Dreamcast is still one of my favorite systems with so many good games and amazing memories attached to it. I had been looking for and excuse to play through JSR for a while, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. Well, for what ever reason it didn’t want to cooperate with my VGA box, so I decided to play though Space Channel 5 instead.

I have played through SC5 so many times now I couldn’t even count them if I wanted to. I just finished it up with 98%. I guess I haven’t played it in a while… oh well.

The game is still really good and a perfect length to play over and over throughout the years. I have played it on the DC and then on the PS2 when it came out in the double pack (although I admit to playing Part 2 more because it never saw a US release.

It’s games like this that remind me why I am still a Sega fanboi. The arcade-y feel, the excellent pacing, the visual style, the music… they all work together so well. With the VGA box and my new TV I noticed all kinds of little details I hadn’t noticed in the game before (like how Ulala’s toe nails are painted in level two), but mostly I just noticed how bad the background video is.

Anyways, it’s been 7 years… go pull out your Dreamcast and play a game for a little bit damnit.

So, for the past couple years I have been reading quite a bit of Philip K. Dick books. I have sort of realized that I have fallen in love with him as an author. He stands out to me as one of the greatest writers this century, as well as quite possibly the best science fiction writer ever.

Because of this I have decided that I will read his entire body of work. He wrote 36 novels and dozens of short stories. I haven’t read any of the short stories yet, but I have read a handful of books. The following list is mainly for my own records with the ones I have either read, or own and are in queue are bolded

Dates are for completion of first (and usually only) draft. Publication dates follow.
+ indicates subsequent significant expansion, * subsequent revision or minor expansion

1950
Gather Yourselves Together (1994)

1952
Voices From the Street (forthcoming 2006)

1953
Vulcan’s Hammer (1960+)
Dr. Futurity (1960+)
The Cosmic Puppets (1957*)

1954
Solar Lottery (1955*)
Mary and the Giant (1987*)
The World Jones Made (1956)

1955
Eye in the Sky (1957)
The Man Who Japed (1956)

1956
A Time for George Stavros (ms. lost)
Pilgrim on the Hill (ms. lost)
The Broken Bubble (1988)

1957
Puttering About in a Small Land (1985)

1958
Nicholas and the Higs (ms. lost)
Time Out of Joint (1959)
In Milton Lumky Territory (1985)

1959
Confessions of a Crap Artist (1975)

1960
The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike (1982)
Humpty Dumpty in Oakland (1986)

1961
The Man in the High Castle (1962)

1962
We Can Build You (1972)
Martian Time-Slip (1964)

1963
Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb (1965)
The Game-Players of Titan (1963) (ISBN 0-679-74065-1)
The Simulacra (1964)
The Crack in Space (1966+)
Now Wait for Last Year (1966)

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?1964
Clans of the Alphane Moon (1964)
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965)
The Zap Gun (1967)
The Penultimate Truth (1964)
Deus Irae with Roger Zelazny (1976*+)
The Unteleported Man (1966 / 1983+ / 1984*+ as Lies, Inc.)

1965
The Ganymede Takeover with Ray Nelson (1967*)
Counter-Clock World (1967)

1966
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968)
Nick and the Glimmung (for children) (1988)
Ubik (1969)

1968
Galactic Pot-Healer (1969)
A Maze of Death (1970)

1969
Our Friends from Frolix 8 (1970)

1970
Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said (1974*)

1973
A Scanner Darkly (1977*)

1976
Radio Free Albemuth (1985)

1978
VALIS (1981)

1980
The Crack in Space

1980
The Divine Invasion (1981)

1981
The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (1982)

Collections of Short Stories:

The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford and Other Stories, ISBN 0-8065-1153-2
We Can Remember It for You Wholesale and Other Stories, ISBN 0-8065-1209-1
Second Variety and Other Stories, ISBN 0-8065-1226-1
The Minority Report and Other Stories, ISBN 0-8065-1276-8
The Eye of the Sibyl and Other Stories, ISBN 0-8065-1328-4

So far every one that I have read has been excellent with the exception of Vulcan’s Hammer, which was still good. I kind of worry about his earlier works because he still hadn’t quite found his voice yet in Vulcan’s Hammer, although he was starting to explore topics that he indulges in further detail later on.

Ubik is by far his best book of the ones that I have read and I am currently working on Valis, which was nothing like I expected it would be, but still very excellent. My guess is that it will take another 5 years to finish them at a reasonable rate.

So I get home at 5pm last night. By 5:30 I am asleep on the couch. I woke up at 9:30 and then spent an hour helping a friend with some audio problems. From 10:30 to 11:00 I spent some time with my wife between shifts. From 11:00pm - 01:00am I tried to fall back asleep so that I could wake up at 6:30am when I needed to.

What. A. Fucking. Waste.

Now I remember why it took me almost a year before I had a PS2. I remember seeing games like Fantavision at the store, but not a system in sight. It wasn’t until there was a Must Have Game that I bought the console, that game for me was Metal Gear Solid 2. Devil May Cry was a close second, but I ended up not liking DMC. So I got the console and a memory card right before they came out. It looks like Metal Gear Solid 4 will be what I am waiting for to get a PS3.

500,000 units at launch

400,000 units for the US (God only knows what the ratio of cripple-ware to real-ware is) and 100,000 for Japan. This isn’t anywhere near enough, and is probably going to do more for Xbox 360 sales than harm them. Also, pricing will be “open”, meaning that a retail outlet is free to charge as much as they see fit. This is a pretty scary precedent.

Though at least I don’t live in Europe:

Europe not getting the PS3 until March next year

They won’t be seeing them in stores until this time next year on a regular basis.

NINTENDO, where is the Wii info?!