TwitterHappy Holidays Everyone!
The kids made two gingerbread houses this year, here was the first one 
Too bad Autumn isn’t smiling!
Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!
2 comments December 25th, 2005
Archive for December, 2005
A Honu Story
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This footage is pieced together from my Sony Cyber-shot P93 camera with underwater housing. Certainly beats the disposal camera’s but is nowhere near pro-quality.
I had a really enjoyable day that afternoon swimming with a large group of turtles. Many of them were feeding on the coral reef and I was desperately trying to take as much footage and snap shots as I could. In the end, my 512MB memory stick ran out of room and I was left to just enjoy their grace and beauty.
December 20th, 2005
I just felt an earthquake
I haven’t been that freaked out in awhile but I just felt a minor 3.4 earthquake.
December 16th, 2005
Panic does Official Katamari Damacy T-Shirts!
Completely out of left field, unexpected, and totally AWESOME, one of the premier Macintosh software developers and just a great group of people out in Oregon, Panic, has obtained the holy grail of t-shirts.
The one and only official licensee for Katamari Damacy apparel is now Panic. I’ve always loved their shirts. From the first time I got a free one at Macworld Expo SF for purchasing a license to their ftp software, Transmit. Steven talks about how this came to be in his personal blog, very interesting indeed! I’ve already placed an order for two shirts (elephant and feeling [army]) and you should too. Buy these t-shirts now!
2 comments December 14th, 2005
R.I.P. Working Designs
The dream has ended for the fine folks at Working Designs. Per Victor Ireland’s thread on the WD message boards…
It’s a tough road ahead for games that aren’t of the least-common-denominator variety. The choices you make with your hardware dollars are more important than ever for the generation that is upon us.
Working Designs had been publishing niche games for what seems like forever, I use to play a lot of them on my Sega CD and Sega Saturn; games like Lunar and Dragon Force are at the top of my list. They also helped bring over Alundra and the better late than never PS1 release of Arc the Lad Collection.
What shocks me is that while it appears these niche titles aren’t being allowed to be published on the PlayStation 2 platform, why are we starting to see games like Popolocrois and The Legend of Heroes: A Tear of Vermillion on PSP? Heck, there are a bunch of recent niche Japanese RPGs for PS2 like Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, La Pucelle: Tactics, and Phantom Brave. Something is amiss here.
Thanks for all the great memories Working Designs, you’ll be missed greatly.
1 comment December 13th, 2005
Animal Crossing: Wild World Diary - Entry Two
I’ve been traveling quite a bit lately, visiting friends in their towns all over the world. Joe is hanging out in Adamsvil, cobie is chilling in shelton, and even my wife has a new town, Honutown. With all the traveling, I’ve managed to grab all the standard fruit; apples, oranges, peaches, and cherries. Now I must wait for their painfully slow growth so I can grow more and then sell them all to Nook for a quick buck.
I’m very impressed with my town so far. I currently have 7 live-in villagers, which means I have room for 1 more. Hopefully I’ll get that last townie soon. I’m also excited to have learned that after sending a lot of letters to the villagers in other towns I’ve visited, I received letters with presents back from them in my own town! Talk about a reason to visit the outer world more often.
Nook upgraded his store to Nook’n'Go thus improving his supply. He also upgraded my house, strapping me with a massive debt of $120,000 bells. I currently have paid that new debt down to $60,000 bells.
Crazy Redd made a surprise visit to Kauailia today. I was shocked to learn that in order to even enter his tent I needed to obtain the secret password. I was able to strong arm a local villager to give me the password. However, attempting to purchase an item from Redd resulted in having to pay a $3,000 bell membership fee…
Today, to my surprise, Nook is upgrading his store again! This makes it increasing difficult to pay off my loan as I have to visit other towns in order to sell my fish and shells. The town next door, HonuTown, is also experiencing a Nook upgrade so it looks like I’m stuck with traveling far away in order to sell.
I picked up a wardrobe yesterday and much to my surprise… I’m able to store 90 extra items inside! When I was living in Traverse way back when I was only able to store 3 items in each wardrobe. These upgraded models sure are wonderful for the pack rat in all of us!
The snow is falling more regularly now across Kauailia, hopefully the snow will start to stick to the ground soon. I’m looking forward to making snowmen!
6 comments December 10th, 2005
Animal Crossing: Wild World Diary - Entry One
I arrived in Kauailia by taxi thanks to Kapp’n, who appears to have abandoned his island boat services. I was asked the standard new citizen questions and of course, was asked to verify that indeed his cabs clock was working on the current time.
The ride was smooth although it was dark outside so I don’t think I’ll be able to find my way back. No matter I suppose, once I arrived I was greeted by the Kauailia crook, Tom Nook. After exchanging short pleasantries, Nook informed me that I was now indebted to him for his kindness of providing a most uninhabitable shack for me to dwell in.
I was short some note paper for writing a message back home to Traverse, so I headed down to Nook’s Cranny looking to pick up a stack. Not two seconds into setting my foot in the door I was roped into working as his errand boy in order to buy down my debt! Gah!
After withstanding the onslaught of running all around Kauailia looking for Rob, Olivia, and Gabi I was set free to go about my personal business with one exception: Pay Nook back 18,400 bells or get my knee caps broken!!!!
Thankfully, before the night was done I was able to successfully fish up enough “football fish” and “sand dollars” to pay off Nook. He mentioned something about upgrading my house tomorrow, great… I foresee an even large sum of debt in my near future.
Oh, I almost forgot! Pears appear to be the native fruit of Kauailia, not bad if I say so myself. Nothing finer than sampling a ripened pear on a hot summer day. I did however make a short trip to visit a friend in the town of Cayn and was able to procure a Peach. Georgia would be proud! Now I just need that blasted Nook to sell me a shovel so I start my own cottage peach industry.
Till next time, travel safe and don’t forget to visit me in Kauailia!
7 comments December 6th, 2005
Too many games, not enough time
Every year there are those “must have” games, the ones I just can’t live without. I buy a lot of games each year. A lot of “must haves” and also a bunch of those soon to be relegated to the trash bin games. The trash I usually pick up during a lull period, one in which is really more imagined than real as I certainly shouldn’t ever have any lulls in my gaming.
See, I may purchase over 50 a games a year, I don’t think I ever finish more than 2. The first game I can remember completing this year would have to be Mario Kart DS, which just came out last month. And to say that I completed it is a falsehood in an of itself. I really only finished all the standard 50cc, 100cc, 150cc and mirror 150cc modes thus unlocking the hidden karts and racers. I still need to complete the missions and get perfect ratings on all the tracks. Yeah, that’s never gonna happen.
Some people buy a handful of games each year, maybe one every few months and play it like mad men until every last drop is squeezed out and the 100% completed mark is splashed up onto the vibrant glow of their monitor. I’m to compulsive and lack dedication to play a game that long… expect for World of Warcraft, for which I no longer play… so help me God.
Perhaps it’s because I lack time to dedicate myself to reach the nirvana that is labeled “100% Completed”. Nah. I seem to either be spending time with my family, working, surfing the web, or gaming. I think I need a plan, maybe a forced moratorium on new game purchases? Pfft. I’m picking up Animal Crossing: Wild World for Nintendo DS and Tokobot for PSP tomorrow. I’m eyeing Super Mario Strikers for GameCube tomorrow as well. Later this month Sims 2 University and Civilization III Complete will ship for Mac, yeah, I’ll be buying those two without a doubt.
Just to prove I have a problem, mostly to myself, I present to you the games I’ve purchased in the last 30 days in no particular order. (After the jump…)
Continue Reading 4 comments December 5th, 2005
