Tragedy: Alzheimer's on a PC Scale

Y'know why my Star Trek review was late?

This is easy. My software and storage drive, which is to say the 500GB serial ATA Seagate 7200.11 drive of my PC, died in the worst way possible by getting a short which fried the drive. Along with it, it took out Nero, Red Alert 3, Prince of Persia, World of Warcraft, Puzzle Quest: Galactrix, Fallout 3, Bioshock, the entire season 2 of Gundam 00, the entirety of Firefly, season 5 of Battlestar Galactica, Wolverine and the X-Men season 1, 60% of Tora-Dora, and whatever eps had come out of Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood and Transformers Animated season 3, over 400 music mp3's, and dozens of digitized comics and ebooks.

That leaves me with my original, circa 2004 non-SATA 40GB hard drive functioning, which is already stuffed, leaving me with no room to start getting back all the stuff I lost, and no room to install the software I already have.

Seagate, who found out only recently that that particular line of drives (.11) was defective, will replace my drive in 3 weeks with the supposedly-stable .12 series, so I got nothing till mid-June.

I've already worked out my initial frustration and anger on the first 3 days of the event, so this blog entry is only here as a memorial to my faith in self-made obsolescence. Hooray.

Bunch of Stuff

Some quick hits for now, just to offload all that stuff that's buzzing around in my head these past few weeks. There comes a time when due to my diverse interests, I supersaturate my brain, and I wanna write about everything.

Of course, there's no way I can do that, so I instead end up writing about nothing.

I suppose I'll be writing entries like these more often in the future.

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Secret Invasion - I'm holding off on writing a review of Secret Invasion 7. It's a brawl. The tiny bit involving Spider-Man is the only truly amusing bit in the whole comic, with the rest being a mindless, stupid, senseless fight with no sense of tension whatsoever. People, this is how NOT to invade another planet. Take notes. Given this, I'll wait till the final issue before rendering judgment, on the slight chance that this pointless charade is actually leading to something profound. I'm not hopeful though.

Gundam 00 (season 2) - Macross Frontier's wondrous mecha design and CG sequences have spoiled my brain, to the point where watching Gundam 00 is an arduous experience. The mecha design in Gundam 00 isn't bad, taken in a void. Problem is, I end up comparing it to both Macross Frontier and Gundam Seed/Seed Destiny, and by comparison, 00's mecha SUCKS. The only truly aesthetically pleasing mecha in both seasons for me was the Gundam Kyrios, and they stuck a knife in me by wrecking it at the end of season 1. The remaining mecha range from decent (Gundam 00-Exia Fusion), to hideous (Gundam Seravee and its giant Gundam head... don't get me started). Add the fact that Gundam 00 hosts a set of jaded main characters who are even more boring than Hiro Yui and Judo Ashita and we have ourselves a problem.

Star Wars, the Clone Wars - No, this is the CG series, not that disgusting second Lucas movie. It is shockingly entertaining. Likely because Lucas isn't writing the dialogue. Watch a few eps and see for yourself what a wonderful world Star Wars could be when its creator takes a few steps back.

Batman RIP - Is this bit of Morrison confusion over yet? Because I'm waiting for Neil Gaiman to take over. Seriously.

US Presidential Election - Congratulations, President Obama. You deserved it. You're inheriting a nation that's sliding downhill. I hope you realize you won because you're the only one capable of saving that country. Godspeed.

Super Robot Wars - Look! Bandai made something with CG mecha! Lots of CG mecha! Why is Gundam 00 so crappy then? Ugh. Here I am ranting about 00 again.

CSI - Both Grissom and Warrick are leaving now? Can Lawrence Fishburne really take over, or is this show finally jumping the shark? We'll have to see.

Next Generation Console - Yes, I still want a Wii, but I'm so caught up in retro-gaming at the moment, I probably won't bother yet. Besides, no one can find a Wii. All of them have been presold till next year. Someone said that right now, Nintendo could put its name on a bag of dirt and it will sell. I kinda agree. Ah, poor Sony, how far you've fallen.

Avatar - Have they cast Aang yet? PLEASE don't let it be some white kid.

On the Rain-slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One - The name says it all. I never thought a game co-developed by Penny Arcade would be so good. It's fun. Seriously. Play it. You can spare the 750php.

World of Goo - See what I mentioned about the game above? This is different. But still addictive. Horribly addictive. And sticky.

Hand-Made Greeting Cards - Wow. Our little home business is picking up. Orders are starting to come in. Must be the Christmas season. Anyone else want some handcrafted greetings?

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That's it. Back to watching Clone Wars.

Starter Pack

This is my second attempt at writing a blog. Obviously, the first one fell flat, primarily due to neglect, because I had barely anything I wanted to talk about and I was busy adjusting to several lifestyle changes. Particularly fatherhood. So it's not like there wasn't anything interesting going on. There was a lot of stuff going on.

But nothing I wanted to write about.

Dunno why. Geeks like me usually aren't short of things they want to talk about. But at the time, the thought of putting stuff down on the Internet wasn't so appealing.

Things change though. Suddenly I'm once again dabbling into one or two dozen barely-related activities and interests, and the web provides its welcoming, greedy paws to my random desires to rant and rave about this and that.

Good.

Now that the obligatory self-indulgent whatever is done, here's the stuff I'm presently looking into or involved in:

1. Fatherhood - Last I checked, I still had an adorable hyperactive genius 2-y/o female larva running around. Oh wait, here she is. Yup. Still around. Growing too.
2. 2008 Summer Movie Season - Already seen The Forbidden Kingdom and Iron Man, both wonderfully entertaining films. Indiana Jones is next week. And more is to come, from the nice-to-see to the must-watch: Prince Caspian, Wall-E, Kung Fu Panda, The Incredible Hulk, Hancock, Hellboy 2, and of course, The Dark Knight.
   
3. Shadowmoor - Latest Magic the Gathering expansion. Hybrid spells. Funny mana symbols. A legendary Faerie Queen that eats opposing libraries, makes little faerie tokens, and hits like a dragon. What's not to love?
4. Secret Invasion - Y'know how for each of the two major comic publishers (Marvel and DC), every year they have to put out some huge, epic, universe-altering plot? Secret Invasion is the primary Marvel offering of 2008, and supposedly, it's a plot that's been several years in the making. Quick summary? The Skrulls have invaded. No, wait. They're already here. They've been here for a long time.The tagline of the event is pretty catchy, and very appropriate when shapeshifting invaders are involved. Who do you trust?
5. X-Men - The emo team of the Marvel universe continues to draw me. For a team that hasn't had a stable moment for several years, things are still going from bad to worse. The only upside to their present plight? There's a hint that the team as a whole is moving from New York (that city you might have heard of where about 95% of the Marvel universe resides), to the West Coast. Specifically, San Francisco, CA. Finally, we seem some decongestion.
6. Comics - Yeah, even though the two listed above are my present focus, I still take time to read a lot of other titles. Web archive versions of course. And hell, if I like them, I buy them. I like to think I'm serious about my browsing. Normally though I wait till the relevant storyline gets archived in TPB.
   
7. Role-playing Games - Still running Gotham Knights, my online play-by-post/email RPG. Also presently playing in a muck-driven Amber game (appealingly anime-twisted, for extra flavor). Very much interested in what horribly wonderful or nasty things Wizards of the Coast has done with Dungeons and Dragons, 4th Edition.
   
8. Greeting Cards, Tokens and Scrapbooking - The latest venture of my lovely wife, and one that I willingly got pulled into. We're still gathering materials and paraphernalia. The portfolio of our designs and offerings should be next. After that, we'll be giving out samples and taking orders. I never thought home-made greeting cards would make store-bought varieties seem so lame by comparison.
9. Plant Tycoon - Lovely game. Cute graphics. Good soundtrack. Excellent for stress relief. You grow and cross-breed plants. To get more varieties of plants. Then you do it again. And again. Along the way, you might accidentally discover the particular genetic lineage leading up to one of six varieties of long-lost magic plants. They're wondrous and sparkly and have special effects coz, well, they're magical.
10. Retro PC Games - Because I'm not crazy enough to pay over 40,000php just to be able to get the latest video cards and a system that can support them, I've gone back to playing games that were made when game designers were more concerned about playability and fun than "OMG teh grafix r so awesomez." Presently enjoying Zeus, Children of the Nile, and Master of Magic. Once I've had my fill of that, I'm going into Master of Orion 2 and Fallout 2.
11. Avatar, the Last Airbender - Seriously one of the best animated series ever made, even when compared to Japanese anime. I cannot remember the last time I was this captivated and entertained by a story. Full Metal Alchemist and Full Metal Panic come close, but still fall a bit short. Production and release issues aside, this series is that good. It's good enough to make me want to buy the full DVD collection, a privilege only The Lord of The Rings trilogy and the works of Hayao Miyazaki could claim.

That's the nutshell. I'll break down the nuts some other time.