efaardvark

I've owned dogs, cats, turtles, hamsters, birds, newts, frogs, lizards, spiders, various insects, and snakes. (So far.) They're all cool in some way, but of those dogs are my favorites, no contest. They are social creatures that you can interact with, even talk to, and have them respond in kind. Cats are probably second, but they're kind of assholes. They just want to be fed and scratched, then it's like, "Don't bother me, Human."

https://myanimelist.net/anime/37992/Jingai-san_no_Yome Things like this are what make people say that 70% of all weirdness comes from Japan.

There was a more modern VR setup of some sort at the hotel I stayed at in Vegas a couple weeks ago. Looked like a small room but I never got a good look at it because it was either closed or the line was way too long every time I went by to check it out. There used to be a Battletech center over in Pasadena (nearby city) years and years ago too. Kind of a primitive single-use VR setup where you would climb into a physical mech cockpit and play with up to a couple dozen other players in similar rigs on a LAN. In the waiting/viewing area they had a couple Dactyl Nightmare rigs too, as well as a bunch of regular arcade games. The Idea has been around for a while. Someday the technology will be there to make it work.

Binged The Quintessential Quintuplets today. Was thinking about starting Love is War, but I think I'm going to want to pay attention to that and I had other stuff to do today. I'll save that for next weekend or something. The Quintuplets was interesting, but not so engrossing that I neglected the household chores with it kind of running in the background. [mal type=anime id=38101]

Tired.. got some work done outside, finished the laundry, etc. Ready for the weekend! Oh. Wait.

It depends on what type of tea I'm drinking, but generally black/straight. Sometimes with a bit of honey though. Sue Bee brand has an "orange blossom" honey with just a hint of citrus flavor that goes great with most teas.

Have you seen the prices on a nice VR rig? An HTC VIVE with a wireless headset and a set of knuckles looks like it'll set you back nearly a thousand US$... $1500 computer to connect it to not included! I can see why some people who play in VR are claiming weight loss. Eating might not be an option after that!

Thinking this looks like fun...

Barakamon. Slice of life with a similar vibe to My Roommate is a Cat. (Or at least what I've seen so far of the latter.) https://myanimelist.net/anime/22789/Barakamon

I wouldn't say it was sad exactly, but it certainly didn't live up to the hype that preceded its release. Especially after the E3 demo expectations were so high that some sort of let-down was almost guaranteed. It wasn't the first time I've felt bad for the people that bought into the hype and pre-ordered. I wish the industry wouldn't do that sort of thing. That said, my brother bought it about a month after release* and we had fun with it. Even at that point it was an ok game. If they'd released it without so much hype as a Steam style early-access or something along those lines I think everyone would have been fine with it, especially given the support and development that Hello has demonstrated since then. *Word to the wise: always, ALWAYS, wait for at least the first bug-fix/patch to be released before purchasing any game! I wish that the gaming public wouldn't continue to be so "generous" (gullible) with their pre-orders. Why people continue to pay full price to essentially be unpaid beta-testers is beyond me. This wasn't the first and as long as companies are rewarded for their behavior it won't be the last time something like that happens. In other news there's a new version of Kerbal Space Program coming out... now that I finally got all my favorite mods working in the current version. https://youtu.be/moagDHUYWQs

I have quite the collection myself.

Been reading up on the latest No Man's Sky news. Now that I have a system that meets the VR specs I'm kind of looking for a game or app that'll impress me enough to buy some VR gear. Ironically, this "DOA" game might wind up being the one that actually gets me to take the plunge, especially now that they've got multiplayer working reasonably well. Of course, Hello has a history to get past so this is definitely an "I'll believe it when I see it" situation. That said however, I've been following the game's developments for the last couple years and there's a 'tuber that livestreams NMS play that I've periodically been watching. Murray and crew have released a steady stream of bug fixes and new features since launch that have really turned NMS into an interesting and playable game. It kind of reminds me of the early Notch/Mojang days of Minecraft in a lot of respects. https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/288825-no-mans-sky-vr-wins-praise-beyond-promises-major-improvements

With me it was Coulton's "Still Alive" from Portal. Try explaining that one to the people at work!

omg.. I remember playing that on the old Apple ][, a thousand (computer) years or so ago! I'm pretty sure I had it for the Game Boy as well, but I just rummaged through my cartridge bin and couldn't find it. (I did find a few hundred versions of Tetris however.)

I get all sorts of random stuff stuck in there. One time I had the number 45 stuck in my head for a day. Why? No idea. That was probably the oddest I can remember offhand. More often like you it is a song, or sometimes a bit of a song that I then spend a day or so trying to figure out the name of. (If I can queue it up in spotify and listen to it completely then I can often get rid of an earworm right away. Gotta know the name or at least a useful search term before that can happen though.) Not just music though. Sometimes I'll get a brief video loop from some show stuck in there. Or sometimes it is a bit of a quote from a book. Again, if I can figure out where it's from and watch/read the whole thing I can usually get rid of it and get on with life, but figuring out where it came from is sometimes nearly impossible and it'll drive me crazy until I can figure it out. This happens a lot with anime. I'll spend half a day trying to remember exactly how an anime character said something - usually something idiomatic - in Japanese. I'll wonder about it at work but not *quite* remember and it'll get stuck and rattle around up there until I can get home to look up and replay the episode to find the quote. I've been known to spend hours scrubbing through whole seasons of anime looking for a particular scene or quote.

That's your story and you're sticking to it, right? Not that I can say anything. I don't have kids of my own, but I've been known to borrow those of my friends occasionally for trips to places like the Lego outlet down at the mall.

You know, one of the most intriguing things for me - from a Game Master perspective - about the NerveGear in Sword Art Online was that it could read the mental state of the wearer and communicate that back to the game engine. Not talking about just the obvious physical I/O here, but the player's emotional state as well. Imagine giving a save throw modifier based on how emotionally invested the player is in some aspect of the "game". In one episode of the SAO anime's "Aincrad" arc for instance there's a swordsmith character who really, really wants to make a great sword for a specific special customer. Imagine the game engine being able to distinguish that mental state from one where the same smith is just building inventory to sell. Imagine the game being able to tell that the player is aware that they absolutely positively need to make this next bow shot or sword blow count. The Kayaba Akihiko in me could sure find ways to use that information to ah, enhance my players' game experience. Give me a few minutes and I could probably come up with a whole class of magic/psi use dependent on the emotional state of the individuals wielding it for its effects. Or how about a Nerve Gear version of something like Soul Eater? Offhand I can think of several animes where this sort of technology could be put to good(?) use in the game version. Of course the other side of that same coin is the one exploited by Sugou Nobuyuki (aka "Oberon") in the Alfheim arc to brainwash and control people. Fortunately things haven't gone that far in real life. There we (so far) only have to be concerned with the technology being harnessed to do things like maximize micropayment profits... https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/03/valve-software-dreams-of-analyzing-your-brainwaves-to-tailor-in-game-rewards/

And now Warcraft 1 & 2 are apparently available as well. Still seems bizarre to see Blizzard titles there. Not that I'm complaining.. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/03/jobs-done-warcraft-1-2-now-for-sale-on-gog-15-combined/