Year 1: 8/11/2003 - 8/9/2004
Year 2: 8/11/2004 - 8/10/2005
Year 3: 8/11/2005 - 8/9/2006
Year 4: 8/11/2006 - 8/10/2007
Year 5: 8/13/2007 - 8/8/2008
Year 6: 8/11/2008 - 8/10/2009
Year 7: 8/12/2009 - 8/9/2010
Year 8: 8/11/2010 - 8/10/2011

Since I've been working so hard lately, I took some time off yesterday (not from my teaching job, but from working on my own projects) to start a game of Final Fantasy XIII-2. It was a nice break and I'm enjoying the game so far.

What I'm not enjoying is the ants. I've had a bit of an ant problem in my apartment for the last couple of weeks (despite keeping the place very clean). I bought some of those poisoned ant bait packs and spread them around right away. And, while it took a little while, that mostly took care of the problem aside from the occasional stray ant. Problem was, every time I got rid of the ants in one room they showed up in another. And, just when I finally thought I'd taken care of all of them, they found my dishwasher. Yes, the dishwasher. They just keep showing up there, never mind the fact that they should die every time I run the thing. I've got some of those poison packs sitting on the floor nearby but the ants never seem to leave dishwasher so it doesn't do any good. And, of course, putting poison in the dishwasher itself seems like a really bad idea. So that's been getting on my nerves all week. I came up with one last idea, which I just put into effect yesterday. If it fails though, I may have to resort to spraying them and then running the dishwasher empty a whole bunch of times before using it. Fun, fun, fun...

Josiah

Remember that you can use the Top Web Comics banner or button to vote for Pebble Version and the latest Blooper Reel comic!

While I'm fine with not going on a day trip every weekend, like I did in Japan, I prefer to spend my time relaxing and/or doing something fun. Of course, that's not always possible and, like last week, I spent most of my free time this weekend working. Like before, I made a lot of progress. Unfortunately, there's still lots to do. For Car Washer I still need to make a trailer video, use the video to finish the updated version of the Car Washer web site so I can get that online, submit the game to the various online stores I want to carry it (Steam, XBLA indie arcade, etc.), and get an online store of my own set up. And, once that's done, I'll still need to update various documents and profiles of mine with the information about Car Washer and then get to work on other things that I've been putting off in order to finish Car Washer. And, after all that, I can finally turn my focus back to Aurora's Nightmare (which will be a nice change of pace).

Actually, I probably wouldn't mind working on the weekend much if I hadn't been spending most of my free time during the week working as well... If you don't count the time I spent bug testing Car Washer, I've barely even played any video games over the last couple of weeks. Anyway, I'm looking forward to a weekend where I won't be spending all Saturday night and most of Sunday working on stuff. Will it be this weekend? Maybe, it'll depend on how much I manage to get done before hand. And, I suppose, if my friends decide to have a Super Bowl party or something. But either way, I'll need to take time for another Orlando trip sometime in the next few weeks if I want to hit every theme park on my list before summer vacation and I'd love to just take a day to play video games (especially with Final Fantasy XIII-2 coming out tomorrow), so we'll see. Things are bound to calm down sooner or later.

Josiah

There's a new voter bonus comic and a new ROM!

It's been a long time since I updated Ink, hasn't it? It's not that I haven't had time. Well, there were periods when I didn't have time, but there were others where I could have updated if I tried. The thing is, I've finished most of the easier work on it. With a couple of exceptions, the rest of things about it that I'd be posting here would take quite a bit of time and effort. And, when it comes down to it, between planning and teaching game design classes at work and spending a significant chunk of my free time working on Car Washer and Aurora's Nightmare, I'm spending enough of my day focused on game design already. I love it, but if I overdue things I'm going to get burnt out and, with all the extra time I've been spending getting Car Washer ready for launch, I'm pushing it a little already. I'll do one or two more updates (I want to get the last party member done), but then I'm going to bring it to an end for now. It's not like I'm giving up on Ink or anything. I still love the concept and the story, and I still hope to actually make the game someday. I may even continue it here on Pebble Version at some point. But, for now, I'm going to focus on other things.

Have a good weekend!

Josiah

Vocaloid music seems to have gotten fairly popular in the US recently, at least among anime/manga fans. If you're not familiar with the term Vocaloid, you can read more about it in my last random Japan comment from last year's stay in Japan (the RJC about Hatsune Miku at the very bottom of the page). In a nutshell, Vocaloid refers to a type of computer software that creates a virtual singer. With some skill and work, you can make them sing just about anything. They're useful for composers and song writers who don't have a singer to work with, but they've turned into an entire music genre of their own. A Japanese company called Crypton really popularized Vocaloid software by creating characters to go with the different voices available. The most popular of which is Hatsune Miku, who not only has hundreds and hundreds of songs, but a manga, video games series, and a ton of merchandise. She even performs in live concerts (via hologram). But anyway, as I was saying, Miku and the other Crypton Vocaloids (such as Luka, and the twins Rin and Len) have become fairly popular in the US. There was a Miku concert at Anime Expo this last summer which sold old almost immediately (I wish I could have gone), and Toyota even used her in one of their US commercials.

So why am I talking about Vocaloids now? Well, I was looking for something in Amazon's MP3 store the other day and, out of curiosity, tried searching for Hatsune Miku. It turns out they've got a pretty good selection of music with not only Miku but other Vocaloids as well. If you're curious, you may want to head over there and take a look. Unfortunately, they don't have Miku's greatest hits albums or the Project Diva soundtracks, but Supercell is an excellent Miku album and features some of her biggest hits like The World is Mine and Melt. It's also a fairly hard to find CD in Japan. If you want to hear some different Vocaloids, I really like the Rin and Len album Sunspot Cycle, and there are a lot of good Megurine Luka songs too.

Anyway, just something I thought was cool. Especially since it doesn't require importing Japanese iTunes cards or anything like that. Amazon is building up a nice little collection of Japanese MP3s (and not just Vocaloid music) and I hope they continue to expand it.

Josiah

This past weekend was a complete opposite of the last one. Aside from my usual weekly grocery run, I pretty much just stayed at my apartment and worked on things. I did manage to get quite a lot done though. Pretty much everything on my to-do list, in fact, which I really wasn't expecting. As it happens, quite a lot of that work was related to Car Washer. Everything is on track for a launch in the first half of February. Actually, I could probably rush it out a bit sooner but I want time to finish updating the Car Washer web site, make a site for my indie studio itself, and do a little advertising first. But anyway, it won't be long now...

Josiah

There's a new voter bonus comic! Now back to the travelogue...

Monday (January 16): Taking in a Concert
The Evanescence concert wasn't until the evening but I naturally wanted to arrive early and it was around an 80 minute drive so didn't want to spend money on another theme park only to leave early. If I'd known how warm it was going to be (the weather report was a bit on the low side), I may have considered a water park. But anyway, since it was nearby (and free) I ended up going to Downtown Disney, Disney World's shopping area. It's a nice area, right on the lake, with lots of shops and restaurants. Unsurprisingly, quite a lot of the stores were selling Disney merchandise of some kind, though there were other things, like a very large Lego store (and, unlike the stores at Legoland, there's no need to get a park ticket to get in). Speaking of Legos, of all the giant Lego models I've seen, this is one of my favorites. And check out this restaurant, it's like a Rain Forest Cafe, only with dinosaurs. Disney Quest (a super arcade / mini theme park) is there too, as is a Cirque du Soliel show. My Disney pass can get me into Disney Quest, so I'll probably go there sooner or later. Maybe try and combine with with Cirque du Soliel, though tickets for that are kind of expensive.
Away, I walked around for a while, looked in the stores, and got some food. They've got a restaurant there called The Earl of Sandwich, which is part of a small chain that was actually founded by the current Earl of Sandwich (descendant of the man credited with the creation of the sandwich). I don't know how much the history matters, but they do make a really good sandwich. I wouldn't mind having one closer to my apartment...
After I finished looking around, I swung by the nearby Whole Foods (another thing that is, unfortunately, nowhere near my apartment) then headed to Tampa. I arrived fairly early so, after parking and picking up my ticket, I walked around downtown Tampa a bit. My past visits to Tampa didn't give me a particularly good impression of the city, but the downtown was fairly nice. It's got a walking path along the river, which passes by several museums and a library. And then there's this building... I spotted it from a distance and had to take a closer look. Turns out it's a former luxury hotel that eventually shut down and was converted into the University of Tampa, much like Flagler University back in St. Augustine. This hotel isn't quite as fancy, but it's still a very cool building. Part of it is also used as a plant museum, but it's not open on Mondays so I just walked around for a bit before heading back to the performing arts center to wait for the concert.
Impressively, it started right on time. However, there were two opening bands and, between their sets and the time taken to re-arrange the stage inbetween, it was about two hours before Evanescence came on stage (as a note, I didn't particularly like or dislike the opening bands). Once it started, the concert was excellent. Cameras weren't allowed (though considering how many people were recording with their cellphones, they probably wouldn't have cared if I'd brought mine in). Amy's voice is just as amazing in person and they did some pretty cool stuff with the lights. The concert went for around an hour and a half. They played most of the songs from Evanescence (the self-titled new album), about half from Fallen, and a couple from Open Door. It made for a good mix and they played all my favorite songs (I never liked Open Door all that much). Amy even played the piano (a real piano, not a keyboard) for a few of the songs, like My Heart is Broken and My Immortal. I had a great time and would definitely see them in concert again.
After that, there was nothing left to do except drive back to my place and get ready to return to work in the morning.

And that should do it. See you Monday!

Josiah

Without further ado, let's get started with the write-up of my weekend outing.

Sunday (January 15): Disney's Magic Kingdom
I still have a lot of of theme parks I want to visit before the end of the school year and, with a long weekend thanks to Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I figured Sunday would make a good day to knock another one off the list. After some thought, I decided to save Universal and Sea World for later and do another Disney park. I was originally thinking of going to Disney's Hollywood Studios (formally Disney MGM Studios) but, at the last minute, I heard that Evanescence was doing a concert in Tampa Monday night. More on that later, but I managed to get a ticket and, in the end, decided I might as well save myself several hours of driving and just spend Sunday night in Orlando. Since I was going to be doing that, it seemed like a good time to go to the Magic Kingdom, since it stays open until midnight a lot of days and, with a hotel nearby, staying up late wouldn't be a problem. Any hey, all the driving was a good test for my new car (yes, I ended up getting a new Civic last week).
Anyway, this is my third visit to the Magic Kingdom, though the others were many, many years ago. It hasn't changed all that much since my last visit, though there were some new attractions. Unlike the other Disney World parks, you can't park right at the Magic Kingdom, you have to take either a monorail or a ferry from the parking lot to the park. I don't think I ever took the ferry before, so I hopped on for a nice ride across the bay. If you've never been to the Magic Kingdom before, the first area after the entrance is Main St. USA. And, of course, it has a great view of Cinderella's Castle. It has a lot of shops and restaurants, but I wanted to save the browsing for later and try to hit some rides before the lines got too long so I quickly moved on to Tomorrowland, the futuristic area of the park. The main attraction there is Space Mountain, which is also one of the most popular rides in the park. I've been on a lot of roller coasters and, while Space Mountain isn't one of the most intense (no loops or anything like that), it's still one of my favorites. The star field effect is awesome and also makes it impossible to tell where you're going, which keeps the ride nice and unpredictable. While in Tomorrowland, I also swung by the Carousel of Progress (which really makes you think about how much things have changed over the last hundred years), Buzz Lightyear's Star Command (a laser shooting ride), Stitch's Escape (more of a show than a ride), and The Monster's Inc. comedy show (which had a lot of audience participation and was surprisingly funny).
Next up was Fantasyland. They're actually in the middle of a pretty major expansion there, which will be swallowing up the old Toon Town that used to be nearby. I couldn't see too much of the new rides they're building but Beast's Castle was pretty hard to miss. What I could see looks pretty cool (though it would be even better if they'd gone with Hollow Bastion instead of Beast's Castle) and, if I'm still here in the fall (when the expansion opens) I'll definitely have to head back and check it out. Most of Fantasyland is still open though. In addition to a nice 3D show, it has several classic rides including It's a Small World and Peter Pan (which, going by wait times throughout the day, seemed to be in very close competition with Space Mountain for "most popular ride in the park"). I know a lot of people tend to discount those rides since they're pretty mild but I like them. They're very impressively done, despite their age, and the attention to detail is amazing. I even re-rode It's a Small World later on when the line was shorter. However, Disney's fast pass system came in really handy in Fantasyland. As cool as the Peter Pan ride was, the wait time was ridiculous. Even the fast pass I got wasn't good until very late in the day.
Since some of the lines were pretty long, and I've been to the park before, I decided to jump around a bit at that point and take some pictures while the light was good. Here's the bell in Liberty Square and the steamboat that goes around Tom Sawyer Island and the the Haunted Mansion. Frontierland comes next and has Splash Mountain, the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and the Country Bear show. And then there's Adventureland, which is best known for the awesome Pirates of the Caribbean ride, though the Swiss Family Robinson Tree House sticks out the most. You know, I vaguely remember watching that movie a long time ago. I should see if they have it on Netflix...
After my whirlwind tour of the second half of the park, it was just about time for the big parade, so I found a good spot and watched as Mickey, Mary Poppins, and many others sang and danced their way past. It was a nice parade, but I would have really loved to see a Kingdom Hearts float in there somewhere (for that matter, I would have really loved to see a Kingdom Hearts anything somewhere in the park, but that's a minr complaint). I went to Tom Sawyer Island next, since it closes at dusk. There isn't a whole lot to do their other than walk around, but it's pretty cool if you're familiar with the book and there's lots of things for kids to explore and climb on. Then it was back to the rides. The lines had shortened a bit so I returned to Fantasyland to go on some of the rides I'd passed up earlier. And, while it looks like I won't be the next king of England, I had to try. I also fit in a visit to the Haunted Mansion (better than anything at Howl-O-Scream, in my opinion) before supper.
I decided not to get anything too fancy to eat and finished up just in time for the Electric Parade, which is a really cool parade of lights. Unfortunately, right about then my camera batteries died and I'd left my spares in the car. Fortunately, I was able to get most of the photos I wanted earlier.
Once the parade had passed, I ran over to Splash Mountain to grab a fast pass but, since there was absolutely no line, I ended up riding it instead. Then it was off to Cinderella's Castle for the night time fireworks show. Speaking of which, Disney puts on great fireworks shows. They had a whole lot of fancy ones that you don't see very often.
Even though the park wouldn't be closing for a few more hours, the lines really thinned out after the fireworks. I went straight to Pirates of the Caribbean, followed by the Jungle Cruise (you know you've got a good guide when he introduces himself as your lion tamer, snake charmer, and pokémon master). I also ended up passing by the Country Bear show and the Enchanted Tiki Room show (a whole lot of singing animatronic birds) just as they were about to start so I watched them before heading back to Main Street to browse the shops for a bit.
I ended up leaving around 11. I could have stayed a bit longer but I was pretty exhausted (it was a long week) and, with the exception of a handful of kiddie rides and the Hall of Presidents, I'd pretty much done everything. Overall, it was a lot of fun. I can't really imagine myself not having fun at Disney. The settings, the rides, the shows, the food, the attention to detail... Disney Parks are just extremely well designed. But anyway, after that it was one quick drive to the hotel and a good night's sleep before starting on my plans for the second day...

Well, that ended up going a bit longer than I'd planned so I'm going to end it here for now and talk about the concert and the other things I did on Monday next time.

Later!

Josiah

Sorry for the late update. I ended up going to Disney's Magic Kingdom yesterday and by the time I got to my hotel I was pretty wiped out and it completely slipped my mind. Why the hotel? Partly because it's a holiday so I don't have work today, and partly because I'm going to see Evanescense tonight in Tampa! Expect a full write-up on Wednesday.

In other news, I got a nice e-mail from Bandai about my news post on media piracy (see the 1/9/2012 entry), so that was kind of cool.

Anyway, I need to hurry about and get going. See you Wednesday!

Josiah

What's in three weeks? Could ti be Car Washer? Not quite. It's probably 4 - 6 weeks from the initial launch. The beta test will be closing at the end of next week, followed by another week or so to make adjustments based on the feedback gotten from the test. Then a bit of time to get the new web site ready and do a little promotion. At that point, it will be ready to go up for sale on my site, though it may take a little longer for it to get through the approval processes necessary to get it on the XBLA Indie Arcade and various downloadable game stores (Steam hopefully being one of them).

The thing that's three weeks away (or a little less, actually) is the launch of Final Fantasy XIII-2. I've you've been reading my news posts for a while you probably know that I've a huge fan of the Final Fantasy series. Plus, I absolutely loved FFXIII so I'm really looking forward to the sequel. Last night, I finally managed to set aside a little time to play the demo that popped up on the PSN on Tuesday. Normally, that's the kind of thing I would have played immediately but, between work, Car Washer testing, and car research I just didn't have the time. Even now it ate up most of the time I was planning to use to write this news post.

Long story short though, the demo is great. XIII-2 has XIII's excellent battle system and amazing graphics, and an interesting system that lets you capture and power up various monsters to fill out the third slot in your party (it seems promising, but I think I'll miss having a true third character). Anyway, pretty much everything I've seen for XIII-2 has made more more excited and the demo is no exception. I'm really looking forward to seeing what became of XIII's main characters and where XIII-2's time travel story is going. The fact that the collector's edition (which I naturally have pre-ordered) comes with the complete four disc soundtrack instead of a single disc "best of" collection like most games is also pretty awesome. It's a little disappointing that, between work any my own projects, I haven't come anywhere close to finishing all the big holiday hits I got (Skyway Sword, Uncharted 3, etc.), but for XIII-2 I don't mind putting them on hold for a bit longer.

Anyway, I gotta run. Look for a new theme park write-up next week (most likely on Wednesday).

Josiah

You know, I was being really careful to make sure I didn't list my dates as 2011 instead of 2012. And then I go and get the month wrong... Of course, now that I went back and fixed it most of you guys probably never would have noticed if I hadn't say anything...

On a completely random topic, I'm currently re-watching Genshiken, an anime about a group of otaku college students in Tokyo. I first saw it in anime club in college before I ever went to Japan. Since my first time working in Japan, I've been recognizing landmarks and even some train stations in anime and manga (especially ones in the Tokyo area), and Genshiken is no exception. But what surprised me was that I actually recognized some of the stores the characters visited in Akihabara. They really put a lot of effort into making things recognizable, but I guess that's really the type of anime it is.

But I really should get my mind off Japan for now and focus on other things. The new semester seems to be off to a good start, but it's only the first week of classes (the one day last week doesn't really count) so it's too early to really make a judgement there. Anyway, work aside, I'm finishing up some Car Washer related stuff (right now, I'm in the middle of a last round of testing and preparing some promotional material) and squeezing in some other things I need to get done here and there. The last couple of days though, I've gotten a bit sidetracked with car shopping. Which, for the record, I really don't like (mainly due to pushy salesmen and majorly jacked up prices). I'm glad it's not anything I'll need to do often (I've had my current car for around 10 years and it still runs very well).

All that said, while that car related stuff has been eating up a decent chunk of my free time, I'm still making good progress on most of the things on my to do list. Enough that I won't feel guilty about hitting up a theme park over the weekend. Besides, since it's a three day weekend (due to the holiday), I'll have an extra day I can use to catch up on things if necessary. So, barring some really bad weather, look for a new theme park write-up next week. I've also been meaning to write a bit about To the Moon, an indie game I played a few weeks back, so expect that sometime soon as well.

Later!

Josiah

I've always been very strongly against pirating music, movies, games, etc. There's two main reasons. Part of it is that, no matter what you say, pirating is stealing. It doesn't matter that they're digital copies instead of hard copies. You're still taking a commercial product without paying. As for the argument that all the big media companies are evil and rich so it doesn't matter, there's two problems there. First off, stealing from a company with a lot of money doesn't mean it's not stealing. Secondly, not all musicians, game developers, movie studios, etc have a lot of money to spare. For example, many independent game developers, like myself, work full time jobs and sacrifice their own money and free time to work on their games. Those sales lost to piracy can be the difference between allowing them to spend more time doing what they love, and forcing them to give up indie development entirely. Even large companies aren't immune. Development can be very expensive. If enough people don't legitimately buy an album, DVD, or game it may never turn enough profit to get a sequel, no matter how great it is. Studios can even close. It's happened before.

The recent closer of Bandai Entertainment's US branch is perfect example. Bandai is a major company with lots of excellent and popular licenses like Gundam and Haruhi Suzumiya (fortunately, it's just their US branch that closed, not the entire company). Considering the popularity of many of their franchises here in the US, Bandai should have been doing really well...if people were actually buying their stuff.

Even if ten million people buy a product, it's still not ok to pirate it. Making an album, video game, or TV show, or even just translating one into another language, is a very expensive process and, in most cases, relatively little of that makes it back to the original creators as profit. Even if the creators have tons of money (which, if you study it out, they often don't) they deserve to get paid for all the time and effort they put in.

The whole "media should be free for everyone" idea is nice, but it just doesn't work. How would you like it if one day your boss said that you weren't going to get paid any more because all the companies' customers decided that they deserved to get everything for free? Wouldn't really make you want to work, would it? And, in the end, if the company isn't making enough money to cover expenses, it's going to shut down entirely.

Kotaku has a great article on piracy and what it's doing to the US anime and manga industry, which I recommend all you anime and manga fans read. Now I won't say that I've never downloaded fan-subbed anime, I have lots of times. But I have some very strict rules I follow. First off, I don't download anything that's been licensed for an official US release. And, if something I've downloaded in the past does get licensed later on, I get rid of my downloaded copy and buy the US DVDs.

I realize that many people can't afford to buy every game, CD, and DVD they want. But that's still not a reason to pirate it. There are various rental and subscriptions services for movies, music, and games (Netflix, Pandora, Gamefly, etc) and, while they're not as good as buying the actual discs, they do funnel some money back to the creators. And, despite all the complaints from video game companies these days about the number of people buying used games, it's still better than piracy (at least the creators made money off the initial sale). And, if after all that, you still can't afford to buy something you want, then save up for it until you can. It's not the end of the world if you don't get every single thing you want. Remember, if media piracy continues to grow, eventually we're not going to have much new media at all because no one will be able to afford to make it.

Josiah

I finally got a Xbox 360. While I've had my PS3 and Wii for years, this is my first 360. I never even had an original Xbox. The reason? There just were hardly any exclusive games I cared about. The 360 has a few, though there were never enough to make me run out and buy one (though I've been considering it for a while). But I got a really good deal so I figured I might as well go for it.

When it comes down to it, the most important thing about any game console is what games are on it. Hardware, interface, and the like are all secondary. I haven't had much time to play with my 360 yet, but I did set it up and spend some time looking over the various downloadable games on XBLA. This is actually my first time spending more than a few minutes with the 360's controller or interface, so I figured I'd write up some first impressions.

First off, the controller. It's a big improvement over the one on the original Xbox and it's pretty comfortable to hold. That said, I do have a few minor issues with it. While shoulder triggers are great, the should buttons are kind of slick and narrow, making them slightly uncomfortable to reach, at least for me. The face buttons also seem a touch slippery. The d-pad also bugs me. I haven't tried it in a game yet, but typing with it proved to really annoying. I kept hitting accidental diagonals and over shooting the letters I wanted. I suppose I may get used to it in time, but I think it's the worst d-pad I've ever seen on a first party controller. It would have also been nice if Microsoft built the rechargable battery pack into the controller instead of charging an extra $20 for it...

Moving on to the console itself. The 360 slim is nice, though the power brick is a little large and it'll take some time for me to get used to having games spread across multiple discs again (I've gotten used to everything fitting on a single blu-ray). The Miis...er, completely original avatar characters, look better than I expected and give you quite a lot of customization options, which was a pleasant surprise. But I have pretty mixed feelings about the interface. One the one hand, both the main interface and the XBLA store interface look great. However, there are ads all over the place. And not just images, these are full blown TV commercials. I'd be a bit more tolerant if they were only ads for Xbox games but do I really need to see commercials for hamburgers and WoW? None of the other consoles have anything like it. Once you get past the ads XBLA makes it easy to find all the downloads related to any single game. Finding anything else, however, is often a bit of a pain. A lot of options, settings, and tools just don't seem to be in very logical places and searching through the store for various items just isn't as easy as it could be. It could really use some more catagories and search options. Not to mention an actual shopping cart so you're not forced to buy only a single item at a time. And speaking of buying items, I'm not a fan of point systems. I highly prefer it when purchases are made in real money (like on the PS3). It's simpler and you're not limited to buying set ammounts of points (which seems to always leave you with a few left over). That said, at least the Wii's point system is very straight forward, with 100 points equally $1. On the 360, 100 points is $1.25, which makes it a bit harder to keep track of how much actual money you're spending.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to playing Lost Odyssey and a few other games on my new 360 but going strictly by the hardware and interface, it really doesn't compare to the PS3 which gives you blu-ray, a cleaner and better organized interface, real money purchasing, and a whole lot of free online features (online multiplayer, Netflix and Hulu access, etc) that are only availabe on the 360 by paying for a gold subscription.

Josiah

I made it back to Florida and back to work! There was a bit of a hang up with my suitcase not getting put on the correct plane, despite the fact that the long lay overs I had gave them plenty of time to make the switch. Fortunately, it was delivered last night, with all the contents intact. Classes start up tomorrow but just basic intro stuff, I won't be doing any serious teaching until next week. Instead, I'm focusing on catching up on stuff post vacation (pretty much done), getting material ready for my game classes (making good progress), and working on stuff for my web and graphic design side jobs (finished the little stuff, but have a couple of big projects to do), and getting things ready for Car Washer's not all that far off launch (barely started). I don't actually have much to do this week other than work though so, if I don't do anything on the weekend, I can probably have most of that stuff done by next week. At least I hope so. Because, once it's all finished, there are plenty of over things I'd like to work on. What? You thought I was going to take it easy and catch up on my video game backlog? I'd love to but, sadly, I don't think that'll be in the cards any time soon. I will, however, continue to take the occasional day off for a theme park visit (still got a lot of places on my list). For now though, back to work.

Later!

Josiah

Well, it's 2012 (let's see if I actually remember that when dating my news posts for the rest of the month), and I'm now 27 years old. 2011 sure was a crazy year. I started out in Japan and taught in Narashino for three months, returned to the US a bit early due to the problems at the Fukushima plant, moved to Arizona for a few months while starting work on my visual novel, moved to Florida to start a game design program at Florida Gateway College, and finished it off with a vacation to Hawaii and Colorado, while finishing most of the remaining work on Car Washer.

So what's in store for 2012? It's hard to say for sure. I'll almost certainly be in Florida through early May for FGC's spring semester. Though there's a week of spring break in there somewhere (while I'll probably spend touring more parts of Florida). Meanwhile (likely late this month or early next month), Car Washer should go up for sale. What happens next is hard to say and depends on several factors. First off is whether or not I end up renewing my contract with FGC for another year (which will depend on several things including how much they like me and what my feelings are at the time). If I stay, I'll have the summer free to do what I want. A trip to Japan is high on my list, though Colorado and/or Hawaii are also possibilities. If I end up getting a job somewhere else, things will vary considerably based on the job, location, and when they want me to start. Then there's always the highly unlikely (though not impossible) scenario where Car Washer becomes a smash hit and I make enough money to do whatever I want (I have some ideas, just in case). I'm also hoping to get Aurora's Nightmare completed and released some time during the summer...

Anyway, it's looking like 2012 has the potential to be just as crazy as 2011 was (though it could also be a lot calmer, just depending on my job situation). Well, nothing to do at this point but wait and see. Whatever happens, you can be sure that Pebble Version will continue. Right now though, I need to focus on my trip back to Florida today and going back to work tomorrow (in my opinion, winter break shouldn't end until at least a week after new years, but I unfortunately have no say in the matter).

See you later!

Josiah

There's a new Blooper Reel comic so just click the Top Web Comics banner or button and vote to check it out. And, since I mentioned updating the Links and Link Exchange pages on Wednesday, I decided to go ahead and do it. I got rid of some sites that aren't around any more, updated some links, and added some completely new comics.

It's hard to believe the new year (and my birthday) is almost here... I feel like talking about my plans for the coming year (though a lot of them are quite uncertain at this point) but updating all those links took a lot longer than I expected so it'll have to wait till next time.

Happy new year!

Josiah

Car Washer is just about to enter beta testing! It's not going to be an open beta, but what that does mean is its release date is getting close! I'm not going to set an official date yet (it's an indie game, so there's no need) but something in the late January - early February period is looking very likely, with a new (and greatly improved) demo coming a bit sooner. Naturally, I'll be sure to keep you posted.

In other news, I spend a while today making some improvements to this site. Though they were more to make some things easier on my end, chances are you guys won't notice them. Though I should probably update the links pages soon, which would be a much more noticeable project...

Anyway, this might not be the most relaxing last week of vacation, but the more I get done now the less I'll have to worry about once work starts back up next week.

Josiah

I hope those of you who celebrate it had a good Christmas. I spent a large portion of the day (and all the preceding night) traveling from Hawaii to Colorado, where I'll be spending the remainder of my vacation. While Hawaii was fun, I'll probably be spending this week trying to get a lot of things done. Though at least most of them are things I can do while watching TV. Anyway, time to finish up the travelogue...

Thursday (December 22): Kualoa Ranch
My mom had originally planned this activity for Wednesday but, due to the weather report, we switched it to Thursday. In the end, we still got rained on, but anyway... While my dad stayed at the hotel to relax, my mom and I went back to the Northern part of the island, specifically to Kualoa Ranch. It's a large cattle ranch containing some of the island's more scenic landscapes. As such, it's been used as a setting in numerous movies and TV shows including Lost, Jurassic Park, George of the Jungle, and Hawaii Five-O, just to name a few. They have all sorts of different tours you can take to the filming locations including bus tours, horse tours, and ATV tours. We did the ATVs. While I've ridden an ATV before (a very long time ago), this was my first time driving one. It really wasn't too hard, though since they lack power steering you really need to keep a firm grip on the handles. Despite the rain, it was a lot of fun and we got to see a number of different filming locations. We ended up being the only people in our tour (which was rather unusual, judging by the size of the other groups I saw) so we were able to move pretty quickly and cover a lot of ground. Unfortunately, movie sets are often built with the intention of demolishing or tearing them down at the end of the shoot, so there wasn't anything too elaborate. But there were still some things to see. This mountain range, for example, is featured in tons of different movies if you look for it. And here's the location of Hurley's golf course from Lost. See the giant footprints? They're from Godzilla (the relatively recent American remake, I believe). Our guide said they were originally ten feet deep, but had to be filled in a bit since the ranch's cows kept getting stuck in them. For Jurassic Park fans, here I am with the log the kids hid behind. Now this statue isn't from any movie or show (though I heard it was shown in an episode of National Geographic). Basically, a lot of scientists have trouble believing that the people of Rappa Nui (aka the Easter Islands) could have made the giant stone maoi heads by hand using traditional tools, so some locals without any real carving experience decided to give it a try. While not on the same level as the real maoi heads, it's pretty impressive considering their lack of training. Hard work - 1. Skeptical Scientists - 0.
During World War II, parts of the ranch were also used by the army and they put a bunker in one one of the mountains. It's been shown in some movies and TV shows but now it's primarily used as a gallery of all the different things filmed there, with lots of signed movie posters, cast photos, and the like. They've even got the submarine from Lost. Well, part of it anyway (the rest was a set).
If you're a movie buff, or just want to take in some beautiful scenery, Kualoa Ranch makes for a nice visit, especially with all the different types of tours you can choose from.
The rest of the day was spent relaxing, though my mom and I did go out for supper at an udon restaurant that was nearly identical to the kind that were really popular on my last visit to Japan. Specifically, the type where you order your noodles then grab some assorted tempura and onigiri off the counter before paying. It was very authentic, both in regards to the food and the style of the restaurant, and just about everyone was speaking Japanese as well. Even better, it charged Japanese prices, so it was easy to get a good complete meal for several dollars.

Random Hawaii Comment: Produce
While Hawaii was once a hot spot for commercial agriculture including sugar cane and pineapples, most of it has long since moved to other countries. That said, it's still a great place to get tropical fruit ranging from the more common (bananas, pineapples, mangos, coconuts, etc) to the somewhat unusual (egg fruit, rambutans, etc). While grocery stores work in a pinch, you've got a much better shot at getting fresh local fruit at one of the many farmers' markets (Oahu seemed to have at least one every evening) or produce stands. If you see something you're not familiar with, it's worth getting a little to give it a try. Just don't go overboard, since some tropical fruits are definitely an acquired taste.

Friday (December 23): Hanging Around Honolulu
My parents had some things they needed to do in the afternoon, so this was a pretty easy day. In the morning, my dad and I walked to the aquarium at Waikiki. It wasn't all that big, but it was nice. Their collection of coral was especially impressive and they had some things you don't see too often like an octopus and a bunch of different types of jellyfish. We also got to watch them feeding their seals.
I spent the afternoon swimming and reading and then we ate supper in the food court at the Ala Moana Mall. That might not sound too impressive but with a lot of nice Asian restaurants (including several types of Japanese food, a fairly elaborate Chinese restaurant, Vietnamese, and Thai, among others) it's no ordinary mall food court.
At night, we went out to watch the fireworks. They weren't for Christmas, the Hilton does a show on the beach every Friday night and, judging by the crowds, it's quite a popular event. The show wasn't especially long but it was well done, and gave me a chance to play with the under used fireworks mode on my camera.

Saturday (December 24): Heading Out
Our flight back to the mainland didn't leave until 10 PM, which meant that we had a lot of time to kill after checking out of our room. Though, since it was a Saturday, that kind of limited our options. I spotted this gingerbread house version of Byodoin on display in one of the Hilton's lobbies and we went to services (getting caught in the rain on the way). After that we walked around a bit, saw one last rainbow (here's a shot of my parents in front of it), and watched the sun set over the ocean once more before starting to make our way towards the airport. We'd planned to stop somewhere to eat along the way but, being Christmas Eve, most places were closed. We suspected a lot of things would still be open down by Waikiki but that was in the opposite direction so we ended up just grabbing some things in the airport.
And that's pretty much it. The flights to Salt Lake and then on to Colorado went well. I'm not a big fan of overnight flights since I really can't sleep on planes, but I managed to stay pretty awake and alert throughout the following day despite the lack of sleep.
Overall, it was a fun and relaxing trip. Oahu (and especially Honolulu) certainly has a stronger Japanese influence than most other parts of the US (the exceptions being the Japan towns in San Francisco and Los Angeles), the weather is nice (though it can get rather windy and rainy at times), and you've got the beach, some nice hiking, and a lot of good stores and restaurants. I don't know if I'd call it "paradise", but it's certainly a nice place to go on vacation.

Josiah

There's a new voter bonus comic and a new ROM!

My vacation in Hawaii is nearing its end (I'm leaving tomorrow night), though I've still got some time in Colorado to look forward to before the end of winter break. But let's get back to the travelogue...

Tuesday (December 20): Hiking Diamond Head
Diamond Head Crater is one of Oahu's major attractions. While you can see it easily enough from Waikiki Beach, the main draw is the trail that goes to the top. Despite iffy weather, my parents and I headed out to hike it. The trail started simply enough. It was raining most of the time but more a drizzle than anything else, so it wasn't too bad. A rainbow even came out later on. The trail was paved and simple to follow, but it wasn't entirely straightforward. Back during World War II, Diamond Head was used by the military and there's a bunch of bunkers and the like carved into it, including a long tunnel that the trail passes through. Overall, it wasn't too bad of a hike. Kind of steep at spots but not too long or rough. And, despite the rain and clouds, the view from the top was still good.
After making our way back down, we did a little shopping and, since it was nearby, we also stopped at the Japanese cultural center. While the center is primarily for events, classes, and the like, they also have a small but well done museum about the history of Japanese people in Hawaii. As I previously mentioned, most of them came to the islands in the mid to late 1800's to work on the sugar planations. Most planned to complete their contracts then return to Japan with the money they earned. However, things rarely went as planned and they had to face horrible living conditions and unfair contracts which ensured that nearly all their money went back to the company. A series of protests and labor reform laws finally changed things and many of the Japanese chose to stay in Hawaii and raise their children as Americans. Of course, that's the highly simplified version. If you like history, you may want to look into the details, as it's pretty interesting.
After a nice lunch at a shabu shabu restaurant, my dad and I ended up walking back towards the hotel. We split up after a while and I strolled around the Waikiki Beach area. I'd been there before, but always with my parents and some specific destination in mind. This time, I was able to explore a bit. There are a couple of long streets following the beach that are lined with shops and restaurants, some of which are set in a series of fancy malls. There's a pretty nice variety of restaurants in the area and the rest of the stuff is mostly divided between souvenir shops and clothing stores (many of which are very high end). Not really my kind of thing (aside from the restaurants), but it was kind of fun to walk through once and, at night, a lot of street performers come out. As I was walking, I passed the beach's most famous surfing area, marked by the statue of Duke Kahanamoku, a legendary swimmer and surfer. Even though all the best waves are on the North side of the island this time of year, the area was still packed with surfers.
Later that evening, since it was the first night of Chanukah, my parents and I went back to Waikiki to see the big menorah lightning. As part of the event, a number of cars drove up with menorah mounted on their roofs. Here's my mom next to the most creative of the bunch. And that wrapped up the day.

Random Hawaii Comment: The Smell of the Ocean
Those of you who have been to beach have probably noticed that you can tell when you're getting close to the ocean by the smell of salt water in the air. It's not an unpleasant smell, but it's there and makes it clear that the ocean isn't far off, even if you can't see it. Strangely, that smell is almost completely absent in Honolulu. I don't know if it has something to do with the wind patterns or water composition, but you can't really smell the ocean here, which strikes me as a bit strange.

Wednesday (December 21): A Palace
After so many days of touring, my parents and I took things a bit easier on Wednesday. I spent most of the morning between the beach and the swimming pools at the hotel then walked with my mom to the big mall I mentioned before to get lunch at Coco's Curry House (a popular Japanese chain that has some branches here). It wasn't until the middle of the afternoon that we headed out to pay a visit to Iolani Palace.
For a while, Hawaii was actually a sovereign kingdom of its own. That began when King Kamehameha united all the islands under his rule in 1810 and lasted until a US official staged a coup and overthrew the monarchy in 1893. Despite the questionable legality of his actions and numerous protests (including those by President Cleveland), that was the end of Hawaii's independence. Iolani Palace is a remnant of the Hawaiian monarchy and the only true royal palace in the US. There palace itself, while not as fancy as some of the ones in Europe, is a nice building and has lots of fancy decorations inside, along with a throne room and all the other things you'd expect to find in a palace. It also has this neat castle like side building. We took an audio tour of the inside of the palace but pictures weren't allowed. It was interesting though and worth an hour or so if you're ever in the area.
After that we swung by a farmers' market (there's a lot of them around Honolulu) to look around and get some food for supper. It wasn't one of the biggest farmers' markets I've been to, but there was a pretty nice selection of produce and food (I got guava chicken). After that, the rest of the day was spent relaxing. After all, this is a vacation.

Looks like I'm still not quite caught up, but I don't really have time for any more right now. I'll try and get the rest of the days' write-ups posted on Monday so I'll see you then!

Josiah

There were a couple of picture links in my last post that were going to the wrong pictures, but that's been fixed if you want to go back and look. Now let's continue with the travelogue.

Sunday (December 18): Museums and Malls
Sunday my parents and I needed to switch hotels. But checkout time at the old hotel came way before check in time at the new one. So we loaded up the car and paid a visit to The Bishop Museum. It's got a lot of different exhibits but the main hall is focused on Hawaiian history. It went all the way from early Hawaiian culture through when Hawaii became a state. It was pretty interesting and each section had a good combination of text and artifacts. While there, I also took a look at a couple of temporary displays. One was about the early Japanese immigrants to Hawaii (but I'll talk about that more in a later entry) and the other was about Mars. It was a good museum overall, and there seemed to be a lot of different shows and presentations throughout the day. Certainly not a bad way to spend a couple hours if you're interested in history.
After that, we got some rather interesting hamburgers (I had a miso and Japanese cucumber burger) then swung by Toys 'n Joys, a video game, anime, etc store that was supposed to be really good. While it was certainly nothing like the shops in Akihabara, I'll admit that I was pretty impressed. They had the best selection of anime figurines and import video games that I've seen in the US, other than at major anime conventions, and they had a lot of other related items as well (plushies, pendants, DVDs, CDs, etc). Prices were a mixed bag though, ranging from really good to rather expensive. I had fun browsing while my parents explored the surrounding area (which has quite a lot of Asian restaurants).
After that, it was my parents' turn to have some fun and engage in their long time hobby of looking at real estate. Considering what a popular vacation spot Honolulu is, it's only natural that it has a number of very nice (and very expensive) condos and the like available. They had already toured some before I came to Hawaii, but they weren't quite done yet. I went with them to see a couple but then headed back to the big mall we'd visited to the other day, leaving them to do a bit more looking and check into the new hotel.
Last time, I really didn't get to see much of the mall aside from the Japanese department store. This time, however, I was able to get a good look around. While not the largest mall I've ever been in, it's very big and pretty fancy. Besides that, without much time left before Christmas, it was also extremely crowded. It had a pretty good selection of stores and one of the more diverse food courts I've come across, but I didn't find anything else as interesting as that Japanese department store. They did, however, have some good Japanese restaurants including Japanese chains Coco's Curry House and Beard Papa (chu, Japanese cream puffs).
After a lot of walking and a bit of grocery shopping, I eventually made it to Hilton Hawaiian Village. It's a really nice hotel (and often featured rather prominently in the new version of Hawaii 5-O. They've got multiple pools (including one with a water slide and a mock ocean lagoon), beautiful flowers, tropical birds (like flamingos and African penguins), and a shopping and dining area with a number of stores and restaurants. The rooms even have Playstation 3's and come with free movie and video game rentals for the duration of your stay. Very impressive. And that was pretty much it for Sunday.

Random Hawaii Comment: The Japanese Influence
Japanese people have a long history in Hawaii, with many Japanese immigrating here in the mid to late 1800's to work in the sugar cane fields. These days, it's also a very popular Japanese tourist spot. As a result, outside of the Japan towns in San Francisco and Los Angeles, it's probably the most Japanese place in the US. There are a number of Japanese stores and restaurants (including major Japanese chains such as Book Off, Coco's Curry House, and Don Quixote) and several Japanese TV stations. Many signs and restaurant menus are in Japanese as well and I've heard quite a lot of Japanese just walking around the city. There's no real Japan Town (though there is a China Town), but Japanese things can be found spread all over the city. It's certainly not the same as being in Japan, but it's not bad for part of the US.

Monday (December 19): The Northern Side of Oahu
Honolulu is on the Southern side of Oahu. Today, my family and I paid a visit to the Northern side. We started out by heading to the Dole Plantation. While most pineapples are grown in other countries these days, Dole still has some pineapple fields in Hawaii. At the plantation you can see pineapples (and a number of other plants) growing, check out a very large souvenir shop, and work your way through what they claim to be the world's largest maze (though I have a tough time believing it's bigger than some of the corn mazes I've visited. Unfortunately, the maze was closed due to mud (it had been raining on and off throughout the night and morning), but seeing the growing pineapples was cool.
Since we couldn't do the maze, we decided to hit up some other sites on that part of the island. First up, a stop by the beach to watch the surfers. Of course, our hotel is right on a beach, but this time of year all the good waves are at the Northern beaches, so that's where the surfers go. Surfing with a paddle in hand seems to be pretty popular these days. I suppose it make it easier to move into position and stay ahead of the waves, but it seems like there's a good chance the thing would hit you in the head whenever you fall off your board...
Moving on, we passed through a moderate sized Mormon town (complete with fancy temple) and stopped at a rocky stretch of coast to see an arch.
My dad wanted to take the long way back to Honolulu so we followed the coast East for quite a ways before starting to make our way South towards the city. Since it was on the way, we decided to hit up another attraction, Byodoin Temple. If you think the name sounds familiar, you're right. The original Byodoin (or Phoenix Pavilion) is an over 900 year old Buddhist temple that I visited in Kyoto. The Byodoin on Oahu is considerably newer and only about half the size, but it's still a beautiful temple set in a very picturesque location. Unfortunately, there weren't any sakura trees around, but there were some other flowers. For comparison, here one of my pictures of the original Byodoin back in Kyoto.
From there, a bit more driving brought us back to Honolulu where I got to spend a while relaxing on the beach and at the pool before going out for kaitenzushi (conveyor belt sushi), which I've been really missing since moving to Florida. I also got some macadamia nut ice cream afterwards which, for the record, is really really good.

Random Hawaii Comment: Rain
It rains a lot in Oahu (and Hawaii in general), though how much and how hard can vary greatly depending on your exact location. So far, I think it's rained at least a bit every day of my vacation. While it can rain pretty hard in Honolulu at times, it's most often something between a heavy drizzle and a light shower. Since the weather is pretty nice, and that amount of rain won't drench you unless you're out in it for a really long time, it's not bad to walk around in, even without an umbrella. That said, it can get rather annoying after a while. I'll note though, that I've been told this is the rainiest part of the year so perhaps it's not always like this. On the plus side, all the rain does lead to a lot of rainbows.

Well, I wasn't quite able to catch up, but we'll see how much I can get done on Friday.

Josiah

Today we've got a guest comic by forum member Blivsey. I was hoping not to have to use any guest comics during this trip but, with how busy things were leading up to my departure, I never did get my comic buffer rebuilt. Hopefully this will be the only one, though I may have to use one more guest comic later in the week depending on how things go. But anyway, as promised, here's the start of my travelogue for the Hawaiian island of Oahu. As usual, updates will be posted here and on their own travelogue page.

Thursday (December 15): Off on Vacation
While winter vacation at the college where I'm working officially began late last week, I still had to come into work though Wednesday. But now it was finally time for my vacation. My parents have always loved Hawaii (they met there, in fact) and have been vacationing on Oahu for a couple of weeks already. The plan was to meet up with them for the rest of their trip and then head back to Colorado for a week before returning to work. Unfortunately, a few phone calls revealed that a taxi to the nearby airport would be way more expensive than I'd expected so I decided to just park there. That wasn't cheap either, but it was close and more convenient.
Gainesville has a pretty tiny airport so I had a quick flight to Atlanta before changing planes for the very long flight (around 10 hours) to Hawaii. Fortunately, I've gotten rather used to long plane rides and, between books and video games, easily kept myself busy the entire time.
I arrived in the middle of the afternoon. Oahu is the third largest Hawaiian island and the most popular among tourists. It contains Hawaii's capital city (Honolulu) and a number of famous sights including Diamond Head Crater and Pearl Harbor. While I've been to Hawaii before, this is my first visit to Oahu. My parents picked me up and, after a stop at a very fancy hotel room, we headed out to walk around.
Honolulu is a pretty interesting city. Due to all the Asians (especially Japanese) who immigrated in the late 1800's during the sugar cane boom, it's a big mix of cultures. It's also become a very popular spot for Japanese tourists, so there's a lot of Japanese stores and restaurants scattered about. There are some nice shopping streets right off of Waikiki beach and we walked around there for a little while before heading onto the beach itself to watch the sunset.
After that, it was off to supper at a Japanese soba and udon restaurant. It was very authentic (we were the only non-Japanese people there) and very good. While it wasn't especially late at that point, I had a fairly large time difference to adjust to on top of a long string of late nights so we headed back to the hotel and called it a day.

Friday (December 16): All Around Honolulu
My mom and I got up early Friday morning and headed down the road to a popular breakfast spot. I got some really good macadamia nut pancakes and then it was off to Hanauma Bay for some snorkeling. There are a bunch of small reefs right off the bay, making it a popular scuba and snorkeling spot. While not spectacular, I did see a lot of cool fish. If you're really lucky, there are supposed to be eels, octopus, and sea turtles around as well, but I didn't see any of them.
After a couple hours of snorkeling, we met my dad at a large mall. I didn't have time to look around the mall much, but the reason we were there was to visit a genuine Japanese department store. While seeing a Japanese department store here in the US was cool enough, this one had a small Book Off (a Japanese chain of used book, movie, music, and game stores) and a number of food stands as well, so that was a lot of fun.
We stayed for lunch and then headed off to China Town. Like most China towns, it's a bit dirty and run down, but there's a lot of stores and restaurants around. After walking around for a while it was back to Waikiki for another sunset.

Saturday (December 17): Flowers and Music
I got to sleep in a bit, which was nice, but it wasn't too long before my parents and I headed off to a botanical garden. This particular garden was up in the mountains and rainforest. Which is fitting since it was raining a lot of the time. Fortunately, the rain was mostly light enough not to cause a problem. We walked around a bit and saw a lot of very pretty tropical flowers. And, for something unusual, check out these pink bananas.
Once we finished looking around, we drove to an overlook and got a nice view of the Northern side of the island (Honolulu is on the Southern shore).
That night, we headed to downtown Honolulu (which, as a note, is pretty dead at night on the weekends). After supper at a Cuban restaurant, we got to see Neil Sedaka in concert. It was a nice concert. Small, but pretty long, and he's still got a really good voice. Definitely worth it.

Well, that doesn't quite catch things up but I really should wrap things up so those three days will have to do it for now. See you Wednesday!

Josiah

There's a new voter bonus comic and a new ROM!

Well, I made it to Hawaii without any real problems. I'll probably be starting up a travelogue on Monday. For now though, I need to get some sleep and try to switch over to the new time zone.

Later!

Josiah

I'm heading off on winter vacation tomorrow! Pebble Version should update normally but there's a chance that updates will be a bit later or earlier than usual. I probably won't have to skip any, though I won't know for certain until I get to the hotel and see what the internet access is like.

I don't watch a lot of American sitcoms on TV. At least, I haven't for a very long time. And most of the ones I have watched in the past are fairly old. Lately, however, that's changed a little. Over the past few months I started watching Big Bang Theory and the occasional random episode of various other shows when I wanted some background noise while working on various things. Just recently, they added How I Met Your Mother to Netflix. I'm much funnier than most of the current sitcoms I'm familiar with so I've been watching a couple episodes here and there when I want a break from the more serious shows I'm going through. But I actually don't want to talk about sitcoms or TV today. Not exactly anyway.
See, watching some newer sitcoms let me to notice a rather strange disconnect between the current American attitude towards love, at least as shown in many modern TV shows, and that in Japanese and even older American shows. In all three, confessing your love to a girl/guy is a big deal, but it takes a much different place in a relationship.
In a lot of modern American shows, couples will date, sleep together, and even share an apartment without ever saying they love each other. In fact, confessing your love is considered to be a much bigger and more serious show of commitment than any of the other things I just mentioned. So much so that confessing your love too early in a relationship is considered to be overbearing and a good way to scare the other person away.
However, if you look at most Japanese shows, and older American ones, it's completely opposite. A confession still carries quite a lot of weight, but it's typically the first (or one of the first) steps in a relationship. Couples rarely even go on a first date without one or the other confessing their love. And while the guy and girl may have been friends or acquaintances first, in some shows they don't really even know each other before one confesses.
Somehow, over the last 15 - 20 years, the American idea of confessing your love has started to change, going from one of the first steps in a relationship to one of the last. It's interesting and, in my opinion, a little worrying of think about why that's happened and what else will change as a result.
My own feelings about love are far closer to, if not entirely in-line with, the Japanese / old American ones. I'm not really sold on the concept of love at first sight, or the need for a love confession before a first date. That said, I don't really like the idea of love being something that comes after sex or living together either. Shouldn't people love each other before getting that serious? And why should a confession of love be so "ominous" that it would drive someone away from a relationship if that confession happens during an ill-defined "too soon" period? A proposal maybe, but a simple confession?
I have to wonder if a lot of Americans today really think that way or if the "love is scary" viewpoint is mostly confined to movies and TV shows. I've talked a lot in the past about the differences between the American and Japanese mindsets and what I consider to be the pros and cons of each. Don't get me wrong, Japan has its own share of relationship related problems, but if this is really the direction the US is going in regards to love, I'm definately siding with the Japanese.

Josiah

Just a few more days till winter vacation! As a note, PV should update normally (and I may do a travelogue as well). Though, as is the usual case when I'm traveling, updates may be a little early or late and there's always the chance that I may have to miss one or two entirely due to limited internet access or something like that.

I have something I wanted to talk about today but, with my vacation so close, I really should try and get my comic buffer built up a bit, so it'll have to wait until Wednesday.

Later!

Josiah

There's a new voter bonus comic and a new ROM!

The winter weather here in Northern Florida is annoyingly inconsistant. Over the past week or so there were a couple of days where I woke up to find my car iced over, followed by a some slightly chilly days leading up to Wednesday, which was warm enough that, had I not had so much work to do, I may have gone for a swim. The next morning, my car was iced over again. I'm ok with warm or cold weather, I just wish it would stick to one or the other. All this jumping between extremes is a bit of pain...

Anyway, there's less than a week to go until I'm officially on winter vacation. Actually, finals at the college where I work ended yesterday and I need to have final grades for all my students entered in by Monday (hoping to finish today though, so I can do other things over the weekend). But I still have to go in to work through Wednesday. There doesn't seem to be any real reason for it, but I'll go ahead and use the time to get some prep work done on next semester's courses. Since I was stuck playing catch-up most of this past semester, I really haven't had a lot of time to devote my upcoming game courses.

After that, however, I'm heading off on vacation. My parents are in Hawaii right now on a vacation of their own and I'm going to be meeting them there. While I've been to Hawaii several times before, this will be my first visit to Honolulu. It sounds like there's a lot of interesting stuff to see and do so I'll probably end up writing a short travelogue while I'm there. After that it's back to Colorado for a brief stay before returning here for spring semester. As far as winter breaks go, it seems a little on the short side (though not when compared to Japan, I suppose) but I'll have spring break in a few months and, if I end up staying on at the college for another year, I'll have a nice long summer vacation to look forward to (which will likely involve a trip to Japan if at all possible).

Well, I suppose that's about it for now. Depending on the weather, how much work I get done today, and a couple other factors, I may try for one last theme park visit come Sunday. I the meantime though, I've got grading to do...

Josiah

As previously mentioned, I've been spending a lot of time lately working on my indie game, Car Washer. Mainly, my programmer has been adding in new features and I've been testing them. It's reminded me just how much game designers need an eye for detail. While a lot of what I've done has been checking for bugs, trying everything in a number of ways to make sure it works, and the like, another important part is looking at the stuff that works and optimizing it. Adjusting an enemy's movement speed by a couple tenths of a second may not sound like a big deal, but it can make all the difference. If the enemy is too fast, the player won't be able to stop him in time and will get annoyed every time that enemy appears. If the enemy is too slow, it won't present any challenge. I also need to make sure the completion goals for each level are reasonable without being too easy. And now I'm starting to tweak the timing for the story scenes. Got to keep them moving at a good pace or players might get bored. Though I need to make sure they stay on the screen long enough that players can understand what's going on. It's a lot of really tiny changes but, when added together, they can make a really big difference in the feel of the game.

And that's your game design lesson for today.

Josiah

This has been a pretty crazy weekend, coming after an equally busy week. And while it wasn't bad (I had some fun and got a lot of things done), it wasn't really relaxing either. At the moment I'm feeling a little burnt out and really can't think of anything to write about. Sorry about that, I should be back to normal come Wednesday. Maybe I'll even get that last Ink character done...

Josiah

There's a new bonus comic up for everyone who votes using the TWC banner or button and there's a new ROM as well. On a different note, I'd like to thank everyone who supported my friends' game, Blink. They got the funding they needed and are hoping to release the game in the spring!

I don't really like the online course system they use at the college where I'm working. The one they used at UAT (where I went to school) had its faults but it was way better than this one. One of the things I like the least about the system here is setting up tests. I had a final exam for one of my classes all written up in Microsoft Word and sat down yesterdat to copy it over into the system so the students can take it online. You'd think simply copying over a bunch of multiple choice questions wouldn't be that bad but the test making interface is poorly laid out, slow, and has to constantly refresh the page All in all, I think it took me around four hours to get the test copied over. Seriously, I could have written two brand new tests in that time...
Unfortunately, that ate up most of my free time, so I can't write too much right now. But, I do have something to show you. Although most of my game development time over the past few weeks has been devoted to Car Washer, Aurora's Nightmare is still progressing. Check out this new concept art from the very talented Hanbee Lee. It's Tia (one of the three main characters) as an adult and as a child.

Later!

Josiah

I'm running a bit short on time at the moment because I spent most of yesterday afternoon and evening testing out various additions to Car Washer! My new programmer is doing a great job and, at the rate things are going now, it could be ready for beta testing before the end of the year. If that's the case, I should have a new (and greatly improved) demo out in early January and have the full game up for sale not too long after. But anway, I'll try and write up something more substantial for Friday. Right now, I really need to get going.

Josiah

Well, I'm back from my little Thanksgiving trip and back to work...at least for the next two and a half weeks until winter break. Right now though, I've got a whole lot of stuff to grade. Not to mention plenty of work to do on Car Washer and, if I have time, Aurora's Nightmare. Speaking of which, I've may post some new concept art later in the week. At the moment though, I need to rebuild my comic buffer...again. I just can't seem to keep it full lately...

Anyway, I'll see you Wednesday!

Josiah

There's a new voter bonus comic and a new ROM!

I hope everyone (or at least everyone in the US) had a good Thanksgiving. As previously mentioned, I'm in PA right now visiting relatives. It's been a pretty nice trip so far. Nothing much to write about though. Between being on a trip and a general lack of interest, I'm not planning on doing any Black Friday shopping this year. There are some pretty good deals, but I already own most of the stuff I'd want. I've noticed that the stores seem to open a little earlier each year but midnight is pushing it a bit, and I've seem some stores that are actually starting a couple hours earlier than that. Though I'll admit that, as weird as the whole thing seems, if I was going shopping somewhere I'd rather stay up late than get up really early. But I've had enough late night recently so I'm going to get some sleep.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend!

Josiah

Time for that promised write-up!

So, I'd had a pretty busy week and was thinking that it would nice to go do something fun on the weekend. I was originally thinking of going to Wet 'n Wild (the last water park on my list) but quite a lot of the slides there require two or more people. I invited some of my friends from Japan Club, but they were busy so I decided to go to a Disney park instead. Animal Kingdom is the one part of Disney World I've never visited, so that seemed like a good place to start.
Every Disney park has its "centerpiece" of sorts and Animal Kingdom's, which I came across shortly after entering, is the Tree of Life. Looking at the tree is a lot like looking at one of those hidden object pictures. No matter where you look on the tree you'll see some type of animal carved into it. It's kind of fun to take a minute and see how many you can find. Anyway, Animal Kingdom is part zoo and each section has its own set of trails winding through a number of animal habitats.
But moving on, the first thing I did was head towards the tree itself. They've got a 3D show inside based on A Bug's Life. Actually one of the most amusing things was all the bug themed Broadway parody posters inside.
After the show, I made my way to Dino Land USA, which is part dinosaur research center, part dino themed amusement park. It's got a pretty good time travel ride in the research area and you get to see a bunch of cool fossils while waiting in line. Then there's the theme park area which has a roller coaster and a few carnival type rides. Despite it being a Sunday, lines were pretty short all throughout the park. I don't know if Animal Kingdom is usually like that or if I just got lucky, but it all worked well.
Continuing counter-clockwise around the park, I ended up in Asia. Now when I think of Asia the first thing that comes to mind is places like Japan and China, but Animal Kingdom's Asia is based more on places like India and Nepal, though some of the interiors reminded me of the Buddhist temples I saw in Japan. They've even got their own Mt. Everest, which has a cool roller coaster inside. There aren't any loops, but it's got a lot of twists and turns and keeps changing directions on you. There's also a white water rafting ride. I think I got hit with more water than anyone else in my raft, but unlike some similar rides I've been on, it doesn't completely drench you. Still fun though. There was also a neat animal walk with monkeys, tigers, and lots of birds, to name a few. One of my favorites though, was the giant flying fox bats. Although they only eat fruit, they're pretty big, with wing spans of up to six feet. Unlike a lot of bats, they're not nocturnal so I caught them at a fairly good time and it's interesting to watch them move across the ropes and branches, especially since they stay upside down whenever possible.
At this point, I was thinking about going to see a show but decided that, since the lines were short, it would be a good time to skip ahead a little and stop by the park's biggest attraction, or at least grab a fast pass. So I made the long (well, five minute) journey from Asia to Africa. The wait time for the safari was only twenty minutes, so I decided I didn't need a fast pass after all. Besides, some of the animal habitats were right next to the line so I had things to watch. The safari is part ride but mostly it's an actual drive through a recreation African savannah with real animals roaming around. All the usual African animals were there, plus some that you don't see so often. There were trenches to keep a few of the more dangerous animals isolated but, for the most people, they're allowed to roam free so you never know exactly what you will or won't see. While I was riding, we actually had to stop for several minutes because an ostrich had decided it wanted to sit in the middle of the road. Riding around and snapping pictures of animals is a lot of fun and the scenery was great. That little Lego safari ride I did a few weeks back made for good practice, but I still feel like Professor Oak should have been waiting at the end to rate my pictures...
I liked the safari so much that I decided to grab a fast pass and do it again after lunch. For lunch, I made my way back to Asia. There's a pretty awesome restaurant there and I ended up getting crispy duck over rice with a orange wasabi dipping sauce. Yes, eating at Disney is a lot of fun.
Back to the safari, I ended up sitting on the other side of the vehicle, which let me snag pictures of some different animals. Then it was on to Africa's animal walk. They had a lot of gorillas, some hippos that didn't seem to be getting along, and lots more. I finished the walk just in time to catch the bird show back in Asia, which was easily the best I've ever seen. They even had a singing parrot.
I made it back to Africa for the big Christmas Safari parade and then went to check out Rafiki's Planet Watch, which has a lot of behind the scenes displays about how they care for all the different animals.
At this point, it was starting to get dark (the sun is setting pretty early now) so I went to see the most popular show in the park, The Festival of the Lion King. I had been expecting something based on The Lion King Broadway show but it ended up being more like The Lion King meets Cirque du Soleil, with elaborate costumes, dances, and acrobatics. Well, at least I think it's kind of like what Cirque du Soleil would be like, I've never been to one of their shows. Though, they actually do have one in Orlando so maybe I will sometime. But anyway, the show was really well done and they did all the major songs from The Lion King, along with one other that, while not in the movie, is very fitting. They even had a fire dancer during Be Prepared. He was really good, but the whole thing was a little funny since, soon after he started, a little boy sitting near me yelled out "Don't play with fire!"
Once the show was over, I took a quick look at the nearby area, which is mainly for getting photos and autographs from Disney characters, then headed back to Africa for a bit and enjoyed a mango smoothie while listening to some live African music before heading out shortly before closing time.
In the end, I saw just about everything in the park, except for one show, which I could have fit in if I'd done a little more planning ahead of time. From what I remember of the other parks in Disney World, Animal Kingdom is the smallest, but there's still plenty to do and it strikes a great balance between theme park and zoo. Even if you stripped out the rides and shows, it would still beat out most of the regular zoos I've been to, and the rides and shows were great. Not to mention Disney's usual attention to detail. I enjoyed just looking at all the buildings and environments. So, all in all, it was a great day and I'm looking forward to visiting the other Disney parks over the coming months.

And that's all for now. I'm off to Pennsylvania to visit my cousin and grandmother for Thanksgiving. PV will probably still update on Friday, though I'm no 100% sure at this point. To all my US readers, happy Thanksgiving!

Josiah

I've got quite a lot of things going on this week. I spent yesterday at Disney's Animal Kingdom where I saw lions, tigers, and...actually they didn't have bears (and least I didn't see any), but there were a lot of other animals. I got back too late to finish sorting my photos in time for today's update, but I'll have the whole write-up ready for Wednesday. But that was only the beginning of my week. I've got work today and tomorrow, but then Wednesday I'm heading to Pennsylvania to visit my grandmother, cousin, and possibly other assorted relatives, for Thanksgiving.

For now though, I've got to get some sleep.

Later!

Josiah

There's a new voter bonus comic! While you're at it, you may want to click that image next to the Top Web Comics banner. Some friends of mine are accepting pre-orders for their indie game, Blink. Basically you pledge some money for a copy of the game and some nifty bonus content. If they get enough pledges to meet their goal by the end of the month, you'll be billed and the game will hopefully be completed in the spring. If they don't get enough funds you keep your money and we miss out on what looks to be a neat puzzle FPS.

Speaking of indie games, Car Washer (one of my own), is progressing very nicely as well. If things continue at their current pace, I'll be able to release it early next year.

But if you want something that's done right now, the final installment of Josiah's Sprite Comic Guide is complete! I hope you guys have found it useful.

Enjoy the weekend!

Josiah

Still working on that final installment of my sprite comic guide, so I'm just going to get back to that. If nothing goes wrong, it should be up on Friday.

Later!

Josiah

I can't believe that winter break is only a month away. For that matter, it's only a week and a half until Thanksgiving... I'm going to keep today's newspost short so I can spend some time working on that final part of Josiah's Sprite Comic Guide.

As I'm wrting this, I'm watching an episode of House Hunters Internaional, where a guy from New York City is moving to Tokyo to teach at a highschool. While I like watching things about Japan, it's kind of getting on my nerves. The show is making a big deal about how expensive it is to live in Tokyo and how the guy will have to compromise due to his budget because he'll be on a teacher's salary. The thing is though, he's willing to spend up to 200,000 yen per month in rent. That's over $2,500 at current exchange rates. And a lot of that is being covered by a housing stipend from his job. Your average ALT salary is only 220,000 - 240,000 with no housing stipend. If he can afford to spend that much on rent alone, he has no right to complain. He's probably making more than I am teaching college here in Florida. I want that job...
Maybe that guy is used to paying so much for rent since he was some sort of New York stock broker but sheesh... When I was in Tokyo this year I was paying around 80,000 yen a month and everyone thought that was pretty expensive for what I was getting. Which it was, since most apartments in Japan require long leases and high move-in fees. Those that don't tend to make up the difference by charging a good bit more per month. So if I was overpaying for that apartment at 80,000 it stands to reason that, if you know where to look, 200,000 could get a pretty nice place.
Another minor annoyance, nearly every time the narrator mentioned Tokyo's high cost of living (which she did repeatedly throughout the show), the camera kept focusing on vending machines and fast food restaurants, all of which are very cheap, even by US standards.

Anyway, I should get back to work. See you Wednesday!

Josiah

There's a special voter bonus comic featuring forum members Saber Knight and Metalheadz. New ROM too.

So, Friday I went to Legoland and that conference was all day Saturday. It was ok, but not really worth writing about here. As it happened, Sunday was the day of Orlando's Japan festival so I decided to go there. The festival was fairly similar to the Matsuri festival in Phoenix though, surprisingly, a good bit smaller. There were two rows of booths (one primarily shops and one primarily food). The food was really good, but it didn't take very long to check out all the booths. There was also a performance stage. Most of the shows were pretty good. This taiko group, for example, is the biggest one I've ever seen and they put on a very impressive set. There were some other types of musicians as well, along with swordsmen and a couple other types of performers that I didn't get a good look at. After walking around, watching a couple performances, and getting lunch I ran into some people from UF's Japan club and ended up hanging out with Jonathan and Fumi (the couple I went to Howl-o-Scream with). It was fun, but I'm glad I didn't drive all the way to Orlando just for the festival. I find Phoenix Matsuri is considerably less impressive than I used to after spending so much time in Japan and Orlando's festival was, at best, a third of its size.
After that, Jonathan, Fumi, and I went off to a Japanese restaurant...and got lost since it had apparently moved to the other side of the city. So we ended up at a different Japanese restaurant called Hanamizuki. While a bit more expensive than my favorite Japanese restaurants in Phoenix, it was really good, and you know a place is authentic when the whole menu is in both Japanese and English. Not to mention that the staff all spoke Japanese as well. We even ran into more J club people there. All in all, it was a nice way to finish off my weekend trip.

So what's next? We'll, this weekend I'm just hanging out and getting stuff done. Not sure about next weekend, but then after that I'm going to visit some relatives for Thanksgiving. And then there really won't be much time left until the end of the semester... Anyway, I'm off. See you Monday!

Josiah

I've got a couple of cool things to announce. First off, my often delayed indie game Car Washer: Summer of the Ninja has a new programmer and is making progress again. If all goes well, it should finally be released late this year or early next year! I'm planning to release a new demo and set up a pre-order program (complete with bonus) so I'll be sure to let you guys know once it draws closer to completion.
In somewhat related news, a couple of good friends of mine have formed a studio and are making an indie game of their own, a rather interesting FPS / puzzle game called Blink. While I've been working on my games in my spare time and funding them myself, they're taking a different approach and looking for people to pledge some money to help fund its development. They're offering some cool bonuses so please take a look. You can learn more here or by clicking on the Blue Void Studios image above.

Switching topics entirely, it's time to talk about what I did the past weekend. Or at least the first part.

As previously mentioned, I ended up going to Tampa last weekend for a conference. However, it didn't start till Friday evening and since I don't have to go in to work on Fridays, I figured I might as well go down early and visit another park. I was originally planning to go to one last water park but weather report wasn't so good so I decided to do something else. Because of when the conference started, I didn't want to go to a Disney park or other place where I'd probably end up wanting to stay late. Legoland Florida recently opened and, in addition to being closer to Tampa than the other parks on my list, it closes at 5, which meant I'd have plenty of time to get to my hotel and go to the conference.
Legoland is around halfway between Tampa and Orlando at the former site of Cypress Gardens (the area's first theme park, some elements of which are incorporated into Legoland). I went to Legoland California once a long time ago and while my memories of it are pretty fuzzy, I still had some idea of what to expect. Like any good theme park, Legoland is divided up into different themed areas. They're based on different types of Lego sets such as city/metro, adventure, castle, Duplo, etc. Wherever you are in the park, there's bound to be lots of giant Lego models around. Some are whimsical, some are recreations of famous characters, and some are very impressive copies of real life items like this full size Ford Explorer.
Aside from the models, there's a number of other attractions. The rides are geared towards younger kids (car and boat driving, laser shooting, etc). There are a few roller coasters, but they're all pretty mild. A couple of the rides, such as the safari, while not all that exciting, make for good photo opportunities. Riding around the safari course while taking photos of the Lego animals as I passed actually reminded me a lot of Pokémon Snap... I didn't go on all the rides (a couple of the coasters had rather long lines) but the ones I did go on were enjoyable, if nothing amazing.
Naturally, there are a lot of stores (containing all sorts of Lego sets, pieces, and merchandise) and restaurants (the apple fries are pretty good). but that's not all. It wouldn't really be a theme park without shows of some kind. Aside from a theater that shows an assortment of "4D" movies about Lego characters (3D plus some fans, air jets, and the like) there's a fireman show (which I didn't end up seeing) and a water show involving Lego men, pirates, wave runners, and water skiing. While the story was a bit corny, the show itself was pretty cool.
After the seeing the water show and getting some of the aforementioned apple fries, I took a leisurely stroll through the original botanical gardens from Cypress Gardens. They've got a bit of a jungle feel to them and are very pretty. I even saw a small alligator hiding in the river (far below the bridge I was on, fortunately).
My last big stop was Mini Land, which is a collection of Lego recreations of famous landmarks. According to the sign, it took a hundred people two years to complete but the end result is utterly amazing. It's divided into sections by city including Las Vegas (featuring many of its most famous hotels), New York, San Francisco, Washington D.C., and more. And, since this is Legoland Florida, there's an entire Florida section too. Remember this place? I visited the real thing a couple months back in St. Augustine.
The buildings themselves are remarkable and look perfect from every side, but that's only half of it. The streets (whether in crowded city scenes or quieter country ones) and even some of the buildings are filled with all sorts of people doing just about anything you can think of. For those with some time to kill, there's a lot of really cool hidden details scattered throughout. I must have spent at least an hour looking around and taking photos. While I haven't done much with them lately (due to a combination of limited time and most of my collection being in Colorado), I was constantly playing with Legos as a kid and got good enough to place in multiple national contests so I had a lot of fun studying how the different models were put together.
Overall, I had a very enjoyable time at Legoland. Though I will note that there's considerably less to do (and fewer operating hours to do it in) there than at Disney or Universal despite them all charging about the same amount for a day pass. Despite that, a strong love of Legos will easily make up for the shortcomings.

Josiah

I made it back from my weekend trip without any problems. I'll have a write-up and photos on Wednesday. Right now though, I need to get to sleep so I'll be ready for work.

Later!

Josiah

There's a new voter bonus comic!

Actually, it's more like a crazy half a week. Yesterday at work I was just starting on a lecture I had to get done when I was told that I needed to compile this big list of stuff ASAP. Things like that happen, but it came on a day when I had a lot of other things I absolutely had to do. And today, I'm heading south. There's a conference I'm going to tonight and tomorrow. But, since it doesn't start until tonight, I'm going to spend the day at Lego Land. I was originally going to hit up the last water park on my list but Orlando is going to be a little on the cold side today so I had to change my plans. Anyway, I've got Lego Land today, the conference tonight and tomorrow, and then on Sunday I'm meeting some people at Orlando's Japanese festival. Expect write-ups and photos next week.

Later!

Josiah

Yawn... Gonna keep it short tonight. The reason? Had a couple of late nights in a row doing stuff online with friends so I need to get some sleep. I'll be doing a lot of stuff this weekend and there's some otther things going on that I'll probably be talking about soon. For now though, bed time.

Josiah

Some of you probably remember the Japan travel and info blog I was doing earlier this year (separate from my regular travelogue). It went on hiatus for the summer since I ended up being busier than I thought I would, but I've decided to start updating it again. Shooting for one or two updates per week right now. Anyway, I put up the first new entry yesterday so check it out if you're interested. If you've already read my travelogue there'll be some overlap but while the travelogue is a record of my experiences, the blog is all about things to see and do and what makes Japan so much different than the US (more of a guide book type of thing).

Well, that's all for now. See you Wednesday!

Josiah

There's a new voter bonus comic up!

And, well, that's about it. Nothing special going on this weekend. I'm just going to run a few errands and try and get a bunch of work done on my own projects.

In other news, it's the start of the usual holiday flood of must have games. There's a lot I'm looking forward to including some big names like the new Zelda, Mario, and Assassin's Creed and some lesser known ones like Fate Extra, which I actually bought a copy of in Japan back in January because I thought it would never get a US release. I'd probably already be playing the first of my holiday release games right now...except that Best Buy seems to have forgotten that you're supposed to order enough copies of a game to actually fill are your pre-orders. While they do have a better rewards program, if I don't get my copies of Professor Layton and Kirby soon I'm going to start pre-ordering everything from Gamestop again.
Actually though, as much as I'm looking forward to the holiday release titles, my most anticipated titles aren't coming out till next year. First up is Final Fantasy XIII-2, which I'm getting more and more excited about with every trailer. Fortunately, it's coming out at the end of January (only a month and a half after Japan) so I don't have too long to wait. Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance only has a vague Q2 2012 release date at this point and while I'm always interested in a new Kingdom Hearts game that fact that it finally picks Sora and Riku's story after the end up KH2 is awesome. But what really peaked my interest is the inclusion of Neku from The Word Ends With You, one of my favorite games ever. Hopefully that means a TWEWY sequel isn't entirely out of the cards either... Finally, I've been hearing a lot of good things about Final Fantasy Type 0 (formally called Agito XIII). It just launched in Japan and is looking like a very cool action RPG with a pretty dark and serious story. Unfortunately, they haven't announced a US release yet. Though, seeing as it's a Final Fantasy game, I'd be pretty surprised if it doesn't make it to the US. That said, there's been a few games lately that really should have been brought to the US but haven't. Though I have Nintendo and Capcom to blame for that, so as long as Square Enix doesn't decide to follow their lead things should be ok.

Anyway, I'll probably be talking a bit about the games I'm getting over the coming months but for now I should get going. See you Monday!

Josiah

I've been trying to figure out just what it is with drivers down here and I think I've finally got it. It's not the same as Phoenix (where everyone likes to speed and slip through tight gaps on the highway). Instead, people here seem to have a favorite speed and they do their best to always stay at that exact speed, regardless of what the actual speed limit is. Which means that, while they do speed at times, at other times they go way below the speed limit. They don't even change speed when they need to slow down or stop. Normally, in a two lane road, if the person in front of you slows down to make a turn, you need to slow down and/or stop until they've turned. Here, however, I'd had plenty of people swerve into the other lane (in a no passing area) or go off the road entirely just so they don't have to slow down.
And then there's the train tracks. I cross some on my way to work. They've got one of those barriers that lowers when a train is coming, but the way it's setup is kinda weird and you can zig-zag through to drive across the tracks even when the barrier is down. And, so long as they can't actually see the train, that's what everyone does. Sure they look for the train first, but the visibility there isn't especially great and trains go pretty fast. Seems rather dangerous to me...

Well, anyway, I guess that's about it for now. See you Friday!

Josiah

Check out the donation bar. It's only $5 away from the first goal, which would mean commentary on another batch of old strips and a chapter of ROM The Novel (though I actually owe you guys a couple of those from way back already). This donation did pass the goal for the final part of Josiah's Sprite Comic Guide, so expect that in the not too distant future. And for what comes next time the $50 goal is met... Well, I've got some ideas but we'll talk about that another time.

Gainesville's yearly Asian Festival was yesterday so I decided to go down and check it out. It reminded me a bit of the Japanese festival back in Phoenix, though smaller and covering multiple countries, instead of one. Anyway, there were a number of booths selling clothes, origami, jewelry, bamboo, koi, and a few other random things. The food booths were mostly Thai, though I really like Thai food so I can't complain too much about that.
There were also displays of bonsai trees and some Indian dolls along with a number of performances. I watched some Filipino dances (one of which involved stepping in and out of rapidly opening and closing bamboo poles), Indian dances (which had a lot of emphasis on head and eye movements), Chinese acrobatics (including plate spinning and unicycle riding), and various martial arts.
Overall, it was nice, though a bit on the small side compared to some of the things I've been to. I walked around, watched some shows, got some food, and was thinking about heading out when I ran into Jonathan and Fumi (the people I went to Howl-O-Scream with) and I ended up staying and going around the festival again with them, which was fun. They also told me about a Japanese festival in Orlando next month, so I'll probably try and go to that too.
Overall, the Gainesville Asian Festival was pretty nice for its size. Not especially impressive if you've been to Asia (or just some bigger festivals), but an enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours.

Josiah

There's a new bonus comic for everyone who votes!

Thanks to my afore mentioned time issues, I barely got today's strip finished in time. On the bright side, my schedule should be returning to normal now so I should be able to get caught up on everything fairly quickly.

Right now though, I gotta run. Enjoy the weekend!

Josiah

It's finally time to talk about what I did last Friday so let's get right to it.

It all started when Jonathan and Fumi, who I know from the local Japan club, invited me to go to Busch Garden's big Halloween event with them. Busch Gardens in down in Tampa which is a couple hour drive from my place, but it's not all that far away from Orlando. And since the Halloween ticket at Busch Gardens doesn't get you in until kinda late in the afternoon, I figured I might as well go down early and visit another water park.
I decided to go to Aquatica, which is Sea World's water park. The price was more or less the same as the Disney ones, though at Disney you can save quite a lot by buying a combo ticket and Aquatica charges you for parking, which the Disney water parks don't. But anyway, Aquatica doesn't really have a theme to it like Blizzard Bay or Typhoon Lagoon. They do, however, have some pretty cool slides, some of which (like these multiple funnel slides) are rather unique as well. They also have a rather strange take on the old lazy river ride (though they had a regular one too), where you float or swim around without a tube in some really fast moving water. It was actually a lot of fun, though since you're moving so fast you do need to watch where you're going or you're bound to crash into someone or something. And since it's part of Sea World there's some Commerson's dolphins (note their black and white coloring) and one of the slides briefly goes underwater through their tank. There were a couple wave pools as well, though they were pretty small compared to the ones as the Disney parks. In the end, I had a lot fun though I think I'd rate Aquatica slightly below Blizzard Bay and Typhoon Lagoon overall.
After I finished riding and re-riding the slides, I got back in my car and headed for Busch Gardens. Their Howl-O-Scream event is a special Halloween version of the park that opens up after their regular hours and requires a completely separate ticket. It does, however, let you get in a bit before things switch from normal to Halloween mode and I had some time before Jonathan and Fumi arrived so I was able to explore the regular version of the park a bit as well. Busch Gardens has a bit of an Africa theme going but the best way to describe it is as a mix between an amusement park and a zoo. The animals were spaced throughout the park and while it couldn't compete with a good regular zoo, they did have a pretty decent variety of animals (mostly from Africa), including some alligators much bigger than any I saw in Jacksonville's zoo the other week. The amusement park stuff included your standard rides and midway games, along with some really good roller coasters. I'm a big roller coaster fan and was pleased with both the coasters themselves and the variety (there was a hanging coaster, a wooden coaster, a normal sitting coaster, a special raised seat coaster, etc). I'd say it was worth the visit for them alone.
Anyway, after the regular day visitors were herded out, things began switching over to Halloween mode. While a lot of the regular attractions closed, many stayed open (including all the coasters) and the lines during the transition period were nearly nonexistent. As for the other changes... First I should probably note that the only other special Halloween event I've ever been to was at Tokyo Disney, which is all pumpkins, cute ghosts, and the like. Howl-O-Scream is aimed at a much older audience and is about zombies, monsters, blood and guts, and scares. That type stuff never really appealed to me, but I was there more to hang out with people and go on the coasters. Some people, however, were really into it. First off, there were a number of "zombies" (costumed employees) roaming around the park. Some just walked around and looked creepy while others were more clever about it and blended into the scenery to scare unsuspecting passersby. Now I know zombies are pretty popular these days (though I'm really not sure why) but I think some people take it a bit too far. I mean, seriously? Oh, as a note, I found the occasional messages warning people not to physically attack the zombies rather amusing.
Now I don't scare easily. Especially when I know that no one is in any real danger (actually, considering how I was during the big earthquake in Japan earlier this year, I suppose I don't scare too easily when their is real danger either) and none of the zombies came anywhere close to scaring me (though I did get slightly surprised a couple of times). Judging from the screams, however, not everyone was as brave as I am.
So I dodged some zombies and checked out the coasters for a bit until Jonathan and Fumi arrived, at which point our main focus switched to the various haunted houses set up throughout the park. While Jonathan didn't seem to scare any more than I did, he's worked in all sorts of haunted houses and the like before so he enjoys checking them out and seeing how they're made. He likes roller coasters as well, which made Fumi a bit of the odd one out as she's scared of both. Oh, I should probably mention that Fumi is Japanese (if you didn't guess from her name) and doesn't speak a whole lot of English, so we were talking Japanese about 90% of the time, which was great practice. But, moving on...
While we couldn't get Fumi on any of the roller coasters she did go in all the haunted houses. I couldn't take pictures inside the houses themselves but they each had a theme (including vampire casino, zombie mortuary, evil sanitarium, etc) and featured lots of creepy decor, crazy lighting, and actors jumping out when you least expect it. Once again, I wasn't even remotely scared (though there were a couple surprising bits) but Fumi was another story entirely. While some of the houses were kind of neat by themselves (the one based on Poe's works was very well done) I would have gotten bored of them pretty quickly on my own. However, I had a lot of fun watching Fumi go through them. She behaved exactly the way I though a scared Japanese girl should (a little surprising since my expectations are based on anime and manga characters). Every time something scared or surprised her (and about 95% of the stuff did), she'd give a little shriek and grab onto Jonathan's arm, which was both cute and amusing. She made such an easy mark that she had a tendency to attract large numbers of zombies when we walked between the houses as well.
It was pretty late by the time I left but I managed to get back to my apartment ok and that's about it. As for final opinions... Busch Gardens is a nice park, though unless you're really into roller coasters it can't compare to the more famous parks in the area. Howl-O-Scream was pretty well done too. Not really my kind of thing, but it ended up being a lot of fun since I was there as part of a group, which was also a pleasant change of pace from all the solo sightseeing trips I've been doing over the last few years. I do like solo sightseeing (there's some definite advantages to it), but hanging out with friends is fun too and it's nice to mix things up from time to time.

Josiah

Well, I'm still staying barely ahead on all my work, though it's much closer than I'd like. Unfortunately, that's probably not going to change until sometime next week. Anyway, some friends I know from University of Florida's Japan Club invited me to go to Busch Garden's Howl-O-Scream event. But it didn't start until later in the day so I decided to go early and visit Aquatica (Sea World's water park). I took pictures and was planning to write about it today but I didn't have time to get today's comic, the photos, and the write up all done in time so look for that Wednesday.

Later!

Josiah

There's a new voter bonus comic and a new ROM!

I'm still managing to avoid falling behind with my work, though just barely. I suppose it would help if I just worked on things all day today, but some people I know invited me to go to Busch Garden's halloween event with them and, if I'm driving all the way down there, I might as well leave early and go to one of the two remaining water parks I want to visit. I can get ahead on things next week. Or at least try, since I've still got one last holiday to interrupt my schedule.

Josiah

Time for a bit about what I did on Friday.

I had plans to spend the night in Jacksonville Friday night to make things simpler for Yom Kippur. Since I don't have to go in to work on Fridays anyway, I decided I might as well go early and spend the whole day in Jacksonville. Thing is, aside from the beach and shopping malls, there really isn't all that much to see in Jacksonville. The two top attractions looked to be the zoo and the art museum so I ended up going to the zoo. While it wasn't one of the best zoos I've ever been to, I have been to quite a lot of zoos and this one was pretty nice. It was divided into several different areas, based on countries. One thing that really stuck out was the aviaries. There were several of them scattered throughout, so I got to get up close to quite a lot of different birds. All your typical animals were there, like giraffes and elephants, but they had some more uncommon ones too like gorillas, giant anteaters, and even an okapi (which I haven't seen since I visited the Yokohama Zoo in Japan). Speaking of anteaters, I got curious and looked up a few things online. Not sure about the giant ones, but apparently small anteaters make pretty good pets. Anyway, since it's Florida, there had to be lots of flamingos. One interesting thing was that all the ponds were absolutely covered in algae. It didn't seem to slow down the animals, but it was kind of funny to see turtles and alligators covered in the stuff, even when out of the water.
The zoo was fun and by the time I got out it was a bit too late to go to the museum (it doesn't stay open very late) so I did a little bit of shopping then went off to find a good restaurant. I ended up at a nice Thai place and had a big last meal before beginning my Yom Kippur fast. The rest of my stay (hotel, services, etc) went well but there isn't much of anything worth writing about. Though I did notice that my moderately priced hotel room was bigger than both of the apartments I had in Japan. It's amazing how little space you get used to over there... Anyway, I may hit up the art museum as some point and, if the weather holds up, I'll probably pay another visit to the beach but when it comes down to it Jacksonville really isn't much of a tourist destination. If I'm taking a day trip, there's a whole lot more to see and do in Orlando or St. Augustine.

Josiah

I just can't keep ahead on my work right now. Not with all the Jewish holidays going on. Fortunately, though only thing I'm behind on at the moment is PV strips, but I'm not really ahead on anything and it's looking like that won't change at least until the holidays are finished (another couple of weeks).

I didn't do anything too amazing while in Jacksonville on Friday, but I'll talk about on Wednesday. I wanted to do it today but in the end I didn't have time to finish both my write-up and today's PV strip so it'll have to wait.

Later!

Josiah

There's a new Blooper Reel comment up for everyone who votes!

Razelle:
MoP: Divine Reflex
Duration: 2 Turns
Recharge: ??
Description: When Divine Reflex is active, Razelle's attack power is reduced by 25% but each attack in her physical combos hits twice. Her evasion is also increased by 20%.

Designer's Comments:
I wanted to do a speed based moment of power from early on, but just giving the character some extra actions wasn't all that exciting. So I thought about what a skilled acrobat like Razelle could do with extra speed and ended up with Divine Reflex.
She discovered the skill during while training as child. Though she didn't understand exactly what it was, she quickly saw how useful it could be in her performances and she often makes use of it during big shows. Fortunately for her, the type of people that might recognize her moment of power for what it truly is rarely attend traveling shows. But, as a performer, how long can she really expect to keep her secret hidden?

That's all for now. Saturday is Yom Kippur and, to avoid a lot of extra driving, I'm going to go into Jacksonville tomorrow and spend the night there. I might do some touring before then, though Jacksonville really doesn't have a lot of major attractions. I I end up seeing anything interesting I'll be sure to write about it and post pictures on Monday.

Josiah

I don't have too much to talk about at the moment. I've had a couple of somewhat late nights this week so I kind of just want to cut this short and get to sleep. So yeah, I'll talk more on Friday. I should have Razelle moment of power info finished by then too.

One quick comment for today. If you've got a PS3 and have never played Ico and/or Shadow of the Colossus, you really need to get the new PS3 rerelease. For $40 you get two of the most amazing PS2 games ever made, now even better than before. If you've already played both on the PS2, like me, it's not a "must have" but there's enough improvements that it's worth a look. Both games still look surprisingly good, especially with the HD upgrade, but it does make me wonder how amazing they would look if the graphics were redone from scratch for the PS3... But anyway, aside from the graphical improvement, you get trophies, a set of trailers, developer interviews, and the like, and a couple of dynamic themes. If only they'd put a demo for Last Guardian on there... Oh, you also get the European version of Ico which (aside from the addition of a couple of somewhat annoying timing based puzzles, has a lot of nice extras that the original US version didn't).

I may write a bit more about it another day, but I think I actually reviewed both games a long time ago so I probably don't need to do it again. Speaking of reviews, maybe I should dig through the old news and give all my game reviews their own page sometime... Anyway, see you Friday!

Josiah

When I used to visit my grandparents in Pennsylvania in the summer, of the my favorite things was visiting the Amazing Maize Maze, a giant corn maze near Strasburg. While I'm not going to be making it there this year, I heard about a corn maize in Gainesville and decided to pay it a visit yesterday. There's actually a few different corn mazes in Florida, though the others are all fairly far away from me. Anyway, the one here really doesn't compare in any way to the Amazing Maize Maze and I could spend a while going over all the ways that it's not as good...but there's no real point in that. All in all, it was still a fun (if somewhat expensive) way to spend 40 minutes.

Now, I did promise that next Ink character...

Ink Character Profile: Razelle Aluna
Gender: Female
Height: 5'10"
Build: Willowy, tanned
Age: 20
Hair: Red; Very long
Eyes: Dark Green
Right Handed
Weapon: Chakram
Clothing: A wispy colorful dress, suitable for a dancer.
Background: Razelle was found in a forest by a group of traveling performers when she was six years old. Although she had vague memories of her parents, she couldn't remember where they were from or why she was on her own. She was raised by the members of the troupe, eventually becoming a skilled dancer and acrobat. Traveling from place to place and putting on shows, while not without its hardships, is a life she truly enjoys. Razelle tends to display a very carefree personality, but she's actually a very smart girl and puts a lot of thought into any important decisions she has to make. Yet there's one secret she never shared with anyone, not even those who raised her. A strange power that she keeps hidden. When she discovers other with the similar powers, she feels drawn to them in a strange way...

Designer's Comments:
Razelle was sort of a spur of the moment creation. I thought it would be better if Jessie wasn't the only character in the story with a romantic interest and it would be interesting to see how she reacted to a girl her own age, especially one with a very different personality.
Razelle can be very good as dissipating tension between the members of the group, or causing it to flare up. While she and Ralin quickly hit it off, much to Jessie's annoyance, she soon forms a strong friendship with Josiah as well. More than anyone else, she's able to look past his status as the creator of their world and see him instead for the person that he is.

That's it for now. Look for details Razelle moment of power soon.

Josiah

There's a new voter bonus comic. Shauni also has a new news post up (though no new ROM comic).

Yesterday was a bit of a long day. In the morning, I headed off to Jacksonville for services (it was Rosh Hashanah). Then, that night, I went out to dinner with some people from the UF Japan Club. I ended up getting back fairly late, so I didn't have time to finish up that Ink character. Sorry for the continued delays with that. Barring some sort of disaster, I will get it up on Monday.
I had been thinking of going to a water park today, but I had to do a lot of driving yesterday and I've got to go back to Jacksonville tomorrow and I'd rather not have long drives three days in a row. I might do something Sunday, but I haven't decided yet.

Speaking driving, I drive a lot more during an average week here than I ever have anywhere else I've lived (and that's not counting my occasional touring trips). When driving I tend to listen to the radio. Now, I don't like a lot of current American music. There's the occasional song here and there but they're the exception, so I mostly listen to oldies stations. Annoyingly, Gainesville (the nearest city) doesn't seem to have one. There's an oldies station in Orlando and one in Jacksonville. On my drive to work and most of my shopping trips, the Jacksonville station is usually the only one that gets decent reception. But I've got a problem with it. I realize that different radio stations play slightly different music. There were songs I often heard on the Phoenix oldies station that I rarely if ever heard on the one I listed to in Colorado and vice-versa. The Jacksonville station, however, takes this way too far. I could swear that at least 75% of their playlist is comprised of the same ten or so songs. If I listen to the station for more than a couple minutes, I'm pretty much guaranteed to hear at least one or two of those songs, regardless of the day or time. I've even heard the same song multiple times in one day. And it isn't like I'm listening to the station all day either. This is around an hour of total listening time broken up into 2 - 4 segments. I'd understand if it was a top 40 countdown station or something but for an entire oldies station? Did they not budget any money for licensing music or something? Even if you really like those songs they're still being played way too often. And that is why I've started using my MP3 player on my daily commute.

But anyway, I really should get some sleep. Have a good weekend!

Josiah

Since I'd been doing a decent bit of touring since coming down here to Florida, and since I still have a bunch of places I'm planning to visit, I decided to go ahead and give all my Florida touring posts their own travelogue page. So if you missed my write-ups on St. Augustine, the Disney water parks, or any of the other interesting things I've done since moving down here, you can find them all there.

Josiah

It was a busy weekend but I finished about 95% of the stuff I wanted to get done and, as a result, am pretty much caught up on everything again. So, it's time for that Catherine review I promised.

Soon after Catherine was first announced in Japan, it started to garner a lot of interest. For one thing, it was developed by the team responsible for the popular Persona series. But what really caught a lot of people's attention was the tone and the art. Trailers were a mix of nightmarish scenes and shots of a beautiful blonde girl in a number of suggestive poses. The developers were clearly out to make a mature game and they did...though perhaps not in the way some people thought. Before I begin with the review proper, let me make something clear. Catherine doesn't have any sex or nudity. Well, to be precise, there is sex and nudity but, despite the game's M rating, you don't actually see anything. So if you're interested in Cather solely because of the box art, you need to change your expectations. Now, with that out of the way...
Catherine is an unusual game in many ways, but it has one of the most normal heroes you could possibly imagine. Vincent Brooks is a 32 year old bachelor living in Japan in the near future (despite the setting, everyone seems to have English names). He's a generally nice guy but a bit of a loser. And, even though his life isn't anything exciting, he's perfectly happy with his undemanding job and is content to hang out with his long time girlfriend Katherine and and spend his evenings drinking with his friends at the local bar. But when Katherine starts strongly hinting that they should finally get married, Vincent finds himself confused and scared about his future. He loves her, but can't decide if he's really ready to make that kind of commitment. He stays late at the bar to think things over and that's when Catherine appears. In many ways, she's Vincent perfect woman. Young, beautiful, alluring, and not at all interested in marriage. After a few too many drinks, he wakes up to find her in his bed and that's when the trouble really begins... On the one hand, Vincent knows he shouldn't be cheating on Katherine, but is she really the one he wants? And how would either girl react if she found out that there's another woman?
But, as it turns out, that may be the least of his worries. There's a strange rumor going around about unfaithful men who find themselves in dreams that can kill. Nonsense to be sure...but at the same time an increasing number of men have been found dead in their beds, with no apparent cause of death. And Vincent has begun having strange dreams where he's forced to climb towers as they crumble and fall beneath him. He doesn't know why he's having the dreams or what they mean but he knows that, if he falls, he dies.
Each day in Catherine is divided into three sections. First are cutscenes following Vincent throughout the day as he interacts with Katherine, Catherine, and his friends. Come evening, he ends up in the Stray Sheep bar where you can chat with the patrons, receive and reply to text messages and phone calls from Katherine and Catherine, drink (and learn some interesting alcohol related trivia in the process), and otherwise pass the time. You'll often get to decide how to respond to conversations and texts, which will in turn change the way those exchanges play out (sometimes significantly). The characters are interesting and believable and Vincent's struggle between responsibility, freedom, and growing up is something that everyone past a certain age should be able to relate to. The plot is graipping, creepy, and will keep you guessing until the end.
Finally, at night Vincent finds himself in the nightmares. These stages play out like a puzzle game. You've got to guide Vincent to the top of each tower by pushing and pulling blocks to create a path. But, if you stop too long to think, the floor will drop out and it's all over. You'll need to move fast and think on your feet if you want to survive. I've seen a lot of reviewers complaining about Catherine's difficulty. And with lots of different types of blocks and arrangements, these stages can be pretty challenging, especially in the boss stages where Vincent's fears are demonized, becoming giant monsters that chase him up the towers while tossing out all manner of attacks. Completing each level feels like a real accomplishment and rightly so. That said, I don't think Catherine is anywhere near as ridiculously difficult as some people make it out to be. There's plenty of mid-level checkpoints, a handy undo button which let's you cancel one or even several bad moves (so long as you haven't died), and plenty of extra lives to be found. While there were lots of areas that gave me a bit of trouble, the last level was the only one that came close to frustrating me. Even when I went back and replayed all the levels to get gold models, there were really only three spots that I found truly frustrating. I realize that I'm a very experienced gamer, but I don't play a lot puzzle games and I was on normal difficulty the whole time. While I suspect that hard mode is pretty brutal, there's easy and very easy modes as well, so I just don't see what all the fuss is about.
Each night features several levels and in between them Vincent reaches landings when he can talk with sheep (who seem to be other people in the same situation as him) before getting questioned by a mysterious figure who seems to be running the show. There's a large variety of different questions, most dealing with life and relationships. There's a few weird ones in there, but most of them are pretty thought provoking and you're strongly encouraged to answer truthfully, at least on your first playthough. After answering, you're shown a graph of what other players answered their first time, which can be pretty interesting at times.
Vincent's answers to these questions, along with how he reacts when texting and talking to his friends, affects his alignment bar. But this isn't really a clear cut good and evil bar. Rather, one side represents duty, responsibility, and normalcy, while the other is for freedom and excitement. This bar, and your answers to the last batch of questions, determine which of the game's eight endings you'll get. It's made clear that there's no right or wrong answers (though some do fall more in line with societal norms than others) and except for the two bad endings (which are a result of jumping from one extreme to the other), all of them present a satisfying and fitting conclusion to Vincent's ordeals, both in the nightmare and in his real life. So it's good to just answer truthly and see what happens, at least on your first time through the game. Unfortunately, other than the ending, Vincent's alignment doesn't change the main story much aside from some slightly different dialogue here and there, which was a little bit of a missed opportunity.
The story and gameplay are backed up by excellent anime style graphics (interspersed with a number of actual animated scenes) and a soundtrack comprised of cleverly remixed classical music. Completing the story your first time will probably take 10-17 hours depending on how much trouble you have with the nightmare levels and how much time you spend messing around in the bar every night, but Catherine packs in a surprising amount of reply value. You can reply any completed nightmare stage to try and get gold medals, which unlock several super hard bonus levels (which in turn unlock an extra story scene). In addition, you can skip over any level you've earned a gold on when replaying the story, which makes getting all the endings a fairy quick and easy process. And, naturally, you can always give things a try on a higher difficulty.
If that isn't enough, there's also Rapunzel, the arcade machine in the bar that Vincent and his friends are all hooked on. It's an old style arcade game where you need to guide the prince to the top of a tower of blocks to save Rapunzel. It plays like the nightmare stages, except that you don't have to worry about the floor falling out from under you (at least not unless you make a really bad move). However, unlike Vincent, the prince can only make a limited number of moves each level, so it requires a much more thoughtful and measured approach. Every few levels, there's a little story scene with Rapunzel and the prince and, with 128 levels in all, both the game and its story are far deeper than they first appear.
In the end, Catherine probably isn't a game for everyone. It's different, difficult (at least on Normal and Hard modes), and involves quite a lot of dialogue and cutscenes. But those who give it a try will find a very well made game with a gripping romance/suspense plot that's one of the most mature and thought provoking tales to be found in any video game. I highly recommend that everyone with a PS3 or 360 at least download the demo and give it a try.

Josiah

There's a new voter bonus comic and a new ROM.

It's kind of annoying. At the end of last week, I was just about caught up on everything and now, with this week drawing to a close, I'm suddenly behind on a bunch of stuff again. There's a number of different reasons for that. A lot was out of my control (work related stuff, unexpected but important issues coming up, etc), but it partly came down to how I decided to spend my time as well. Anyway, I've got today, tomorrow night, and Sunday to try to get caught back up on everything, which I really need to do since Rosh Hoshanna is next week and that's a whole day on which I know I won't be able to get any work done. Unfortunately, that also means I don't have time to write any more right now. Assumine I manage to get mostly caught up over the weekend, expect my Catherine review on Monday and at least one of those new Ink character profiles later in the week.

I hope you guys have a good (and less busy) weekend!

Josiah

Since coming down here, I heard a few people mention St. Augustine but I didn't really know much about it, other than that it was on the beach. But then I looked it up online, saw a few photos, and decided that I absolutely had to go. And, last Friday, that's just what I did. There's a lot to see, but most of the main attractions are in the same general area and I found a good walking tour so I was set.
St. Augustine was founded by the Spaniards in 1565 (though the area was first explored by Ponce de Leon around 50 years earlier), making it one of the oldest continuously occupied cities in the country. It has a pretty interesting history and was controlled by the Spanish, than the British, than the Spanish again, and finally by the Americans. And Ponce de Leon wasn't the only famous historical figure connected with St. Augustine. Sir Francis Drake, for example, burned it to the ground in 1586.
Further attacks by the British eventually led to the construction of St. Augustine most famous landmark, the Castillo de San Marcos, which was also one of the first stops on my walking tour (after the visitor center). The castillo is an old fort made out of coquina (a cement like rock formed out of crushed seashells). Coquina actually made a really good building material. Instead of cracking and shattering when hit by enemy canon fire, the balls just sunk into it. The castillo was in use for 205 years and in that entire time it was never captured by enemy forces (it did change hands several times, as previously mentioned, but due to politics, not conquest). While there, I watched a reenactment of an old Spanish canon drill. Though they didn't use a real canon ball, they did set off the canon with black powder using the same methods as the Spanish did long ago. The castillo can't compare with the castles I've seen in Europe, it was still a cool building and in excellent shape.
Finishing up in the Castillo, I walked along the bay as I headed to my next destination. I had been thinking about going to the beach for a bit after I finished touring but I happened to spot a few jellyfish floating in the water as I walked past, which really lowered my interest in a swim. And, in the end, I spent the entire day touring so there wasn't time anyway. But I'm getting off topic. I skirted the edge of the historic downtown district as I walked, getting a few early glimpses at some of the places I'd be visiting later, and eventually ended up at the St. Francis barracks. It was originally built in the early 1700's as a monastery but has since become the home of the Florida National Guard. As it so happened, I was there on the anniversary of the first muster (when the Spanish called the civilians to aid their military in conflict over 440 years ago), so they were having an open house and I got to go inside and look through the little museum they had covering the history of the national guard and the barracks themselves.
After that, I came to the Oldest House. While it's undergone a lot of expansions and modifications since it was built in the early 1700's, the basic building is thought to be the oldest one in St. Augustine. Each room is decorated to recreate the time periods of the house's various occupants. They had a pretty interesting tour and it made for a nice look into how people lived in those days.
Leaving the Oldest House, I passed the old Catholic Basilica (which was actually one the least impressive churches I saw that day), then headed down the first part of St. Augustine's most famous shopping streets. There were lots of little stores and restaurants, many occupying old buildings. Interestingly, a lot of the larger buildings had been turned into quirky little mini-malls, which were kind of fun to walk though. I got a quick snack but didn't linger too long since I'd be returning to the area later after seeing a few more sites.
The Government House Museum was a little on the small side, but had an informative series of displays on what life and construction were like during the Spanish, British, and early American portions of St. Augustine's history. And then it was time for me to check out some of St. Augustine's most impressive buildings.
First off, we have the Casa Monica hotel. Which was actually the least impressive hotel I visited. Though, to be fair, the other two aren't used as hotels anymore. The coolest building by far is Flagler College. Well, it's a college now but it was originally the Ponce de Leon hotel, which was built in the late 1800's by Henry Flagler, an industrialist who, among other things, built a bunch of fancy hotels during Florida's first big tourist boom. Ponce de Leon was his flagship hotel for a while and no expense was spared in its construction. I arrived just in to slip into the last tour of the day and wow... Modeled somewhat after Spanish palaces, the building is absolutely amazing. And that's just the outside. Inside, it's filled with elaborate carvings and painted ceilings. According to the tour guide, pretty much everything that looks like gold and silver actually is. It was the second building Thomas Edison ever wired for electricity. Early light bulbs only lasted 6 - 8 hours, so Flagler had a ridiculously large number of employees whose sole job was to go around changing the burnt out bulbs. But for a hotel like this, you could never have too much luxury. To give you an idea of what kind of clientele stayed there, the Ponce de Leon charged $90 a night. Now by modern standards, that's not that bad for a hotel room (not cheap, but not particularly expensive either), but this was back in the days when your average worker made about $1 a day, so it was only for the extremely wealthy. But eventually the rich people decided that St. Augustine got too cold in the winter and moved further south (where Flagler built even more fancy hotels), and the Ponce de Leon eventually became a college. The tour only went through the lobby, dining hall (complete with more painted ceilings), and womens' lounge (which had a cool fire place), but the guide told us that many of the classrooms are just as fancy and the second floor (where all the guest rooms used to be) has been converted into the girls' dorm. Oh, and can you believe that the entire hotel was built and decorated in only 18 months? All in all, I think it was the fanciest building I've ever seen in my life (with the possible exception of Germany's Neuschwanstein castle). I wonder if they want to start a game design program...
Anyway, Flagler had built a slightly less fancy hotel across the street as well, which has since been turned into a museum to hold a very impressive collection of high class stuff (clothing, jewelry, antiques, furniture, you name it), making it another serious contender for the fanciest building ever award. And then there was Villa Zorayda, a former private residence modeled after the Arabic style Alhambra Palace in Spain. Unfortunately, I wasn't allowed to take pictures inside but it was a very cool building and full of all sorts of old antiques belonging to the owner, including a 2400 year old Egyptian rug. But that wasn't quite the end of the fancy buildings. Turns out Flagler also built a church. And, once again, the entire thing was completed in the impossibly short (at least by modern standards) time of one year.
Pulling myself away from the magnificent architecture, I headed down the rest of the shopping street from before. Along the way I stopped at the Old Spanish Quarter (a living history museum that tries to recreate St. Augustine in the 1700's). I toured another really old house there and spent a bit of time watching and chatting with the blacksmith, carpenter, and leather worker. All of whom were happy to tell me about the techniques and tools used back then.
By the time I finished there, it was starting to get late so I decided to head home. While I managed to complete my walking tour and hit most of the major sites, there are a number of museums, old buildings, and assorted other attractions that I didn't get to so I may head back eventually. I've visited a lot of cool old towns in Japan, but there aren't nearly as many to be found here in the US, which helps makes St. Augustine really stick out. If you're ever in Northern Florida, I highly recommend spending a day there.

Josiah

You may remember that I mentioned having plans on Friday. Well, I visited St. Augustine. It's a really neat town with lots of old buildings, museums, and the like. I took a lot of pictures and was planning to do a write-up today. However, some stuff came up just as I was starting to work on it and, as a result, I while I managed to get the photos ready, there wasn't enough time left to do the writing. At least, not if I want to get a reasonable amount of sleep before work. So, unfortunately, the write-up will have to wait until Wednesday.

See you then!

Josiah

There's a new voters' bonus comic so click the Top Web Comics banner or button and take a look!

I'm currently working on the last two party members in Ink. I've got their concepts down, but I still need to finalize the details. In the meantime, here's a little teaser.
The first character is a young woman about the same age as Jessie and Ralin. Josiah created her as a love interest for Ralin as well as a foil / rival to Jessie. She's also seemingly unphased by the revalations of Josiah's identity and the truth about their world.
Next up we have a man in his mid twenties. He was originaly a minor character who wasn't intended to have any real role in the story but certain events caused by Josiah's presence result in him joining up with the twins.

I'll probably post the full profile for one of them next week. My Catherine review will also be coming up next week along with a write-up of my plans for today. What plans for today, you may ask? Well, you'll find out next week...

Josiah

I've had a lot of people ask me about Catherine, so I think I'll give it a full review soon. I already beat the game once, but I want to get more of the endings and complete some optional stuff first. So look for that on Friday or Monday. I should have the next Ink character profile done soon too.

In the meantime, take a look at this. It's shabu shabu. Shabu shabu is a type of Japanese hot pot (there's more than one). The way it works is that you have a bowl of boiling broth and a bunch of really thinly sliced meat and vegetables. You pick them up, swirl them around in the broth for a few seconds with your chopsticks while they cook, and then eat. Normally there's a special type of heated pot you use, kind of like a big fondue pot. And, in fact, it was a fondue pot I saw in the store a week back that gave me the idea. I thought about getting it but figured that my wok should work just as well for shabu shabu so I decided to give it a try (whether or not my work will work for fondue is a question for another time). Shabu shabu is really pretty simple to make. Just put in a whole lot of your favorite broth (I used chicken) and keep it at around 300 degrees. The main thing is to make sure to cut your vegetables and meat as thinly as possible or they'll take too long to cook. I had the guy at the store cut my steak so that it was about the same thickness as sandwich meat. And that's really about it. Rice is the normal side dish, and I used some wasabi and my homemade teriyaki sauce for dipping. My vegetable selection could have been a bit better though. All I had was some onion and red pepper. Nothing wrong with that, but peppers aren't a traditional part of Japanese cuisine. Next time I should probably do some extra shopping and get green onions, carrots, and some Japanese mushrooms. Anyway, shabu shabu is fun and easy to make. Especially for a group. Between the broth and meat, it's not the cheapest thing you can make, but considering that it often costs $20 - 30 at a restaurant, it's still a pretty good deal.

See you Friday!

Josiah

Well, I said I'd get back to work on Ink today so I've been thinking about what's left to do.
Characters: There's a few important characters I still need to make descriptions for. They'll probably be my top priority.
Game Mechanics: I've already spent a lot of time talking about how the battles and gameplay will work, but I need to make all the numbers and formulas for damage, character stats, etc, etc, etc... For now, I'm probably not going to spend much time on this. Number crunching isn't one of my favorite parts of the design process and it would be difficult to properly test and balance the system by myself. I suppose I could recruit a testing team and run it like I would if I was actually making the game, but that's way too much time and work when I'm just talking about the design here on Pebble Version.
Story: I could go on and write out a complete plot summary, dialogue, scene descriptions, etc. But that would be a pretty big undertaking (we're talking hundreds of pages) and, since I want to make and sell the game someday, I don't really want to post the entire story online. I might post a bit more here, but not too much.
GUI: I need to make some screenshot mock-ups for the menus and other GUI elements. I'll get that that sooner or later.
Levels: Ink needs maps, lots of maps. A world map, city maps, maps of all the dungeons, forests, valleys, and every other area in the game. I'll do a couple of them eventually for demonstration purposes, but with the number of maps and level designs necessary for a big RPG like Ink, I don't have the time to do them all just for fun.

So that's how things stand on Ink right now. There's some other things, of course. Music, art, and programming, for example. But none of those are my specialties and concept art is really the only one that would be worth doing before the game actually enters production. Look for some of the things on the above list during the coming weeks.

Josiah

There's a new voter bonus comic and a new ROM as well.

I'm running a little late right now but I'm just about where I want to be with my course material and other work. There's a couple meetings I have to go to next week, but other than that my schedule should finally settle down and I can spend more time working on my own projects. I should get going now, but look for a long overdue Ink update on Monday.

Josiah

Looks like I'm still playing catch-up a bit at work. That extra paperwork last week plus some more meetings have kept me from getting ahead like I wanted. This week though... Well, if I can get the next couple of week of course material finished by the end of the week I should be in pretty good shape.

I did have a nice break though. Spent a decent bit of it working on various things, but it was still relaxing. I also grabbed a bit of time to finally start playing Catherine. I wasn't that interested when I first heard about is back in Japan but after hearing some more info and playing Persona 3 (which was made by the same team) I knew that I had to give it a try. So far, I'm loving it. It's different, challenging, creepy, and very unique. The hero, Vincent, is a 32 year old guy in modern Japan (well, it seems like Japan except that everyone has English names). His life isn't anything special but he's happy with his dead-end job and long time girlfriend, Katherine. But when she starts talking about marriage and starting a family, Vincent's comfortable little world starts to fall apart. And that's only the beginning. After a long night in the bar he wakes up next to Catherine. She's young, beautiful, and, best of all, has no interest in marriage and commitment. But Vincent can't tell if she's a dream come true or a nightmare. And, speaking of nightmares, Vincent begins to have horrifying dreams every night. Dreams of climbing endless towers as they collapse below him. There are others in the dreams with him and they say that, if you die in the dream, you die in real life. Combine that with the recent series of mysterious deaths (all young men who died mysteriously in their sleep), and getting caught cheating may be the least of Vincent's worries. The story is not at all the type of thing you'd expect to see in a video game, and I love it. The characters feel very real and the mysteries surrounding the girls and the dreams are fascinating. Plus, it brings up a lot of interesting moral questions. I can't wait to find out what will happen next. As for the nightmares, I've heard a lot about Catherine's insane difficulty. I won't deny that it's challenging but I'm half way through on normal difficulty and have yet to even get moderately frustrated. There's been a few places where I've gotten stuck, though never for overly long and never because of glitches or unfair game mechnaics. You need to think fast and stay on your toes, but the puzzles are fair and solving them gives you a great sense of accomplishment. I really can't see why people complained about them so much, especially since there's an easy and very mode if you need them. But that's enough for now. I'll probably talk more about Catherine after I finish it.

And that's aboutit. Hoping to start Ink back up on Friday, Monday at the latest, since I should finally be ahead on everything. See you then!

Josiah

Friday had a better weather forecast than yesterday or today so I took advantage of the extra time off and headed back to Orlando to visit Typhoon Lagoon, the second water park at Disney World. While Blizzard Beach was themed after a ski resort, Typhoon Lagoon is based on a tropical bay in the aftermath of a big storm (note the boat stuck on top of the rocks and the driftwood and wreckage style of the decor). The centerpiece is the giant wave pool. The wave pool at Blizzard Beach was choppy water all the time. Typhoon Lagoon's, however, is a bit different. It does have some choppy water here and there, but it's mostly about the waves. Really big waves (much bigger than during my last couple of visits to the beach). So big that they actually offer surfing lessons there in the morning before the park opens. When I was swimming around trying to get in a good position between waves, I realized that this was the first time in ages (years, I think) that I've been in water too deep for me to stand. I used to swim in fairly deep pools (10 - 12 feet) a lot but that was a long time ago. Over the last few years, it's mostly been pools at my various apartment complexes. Which, while nice, never get deep than 5 feet or so. I kinda miss deep water...
Anyway... Typhoon Lagoon doesn't have anything to match Blizzard Beach's huge speed slide (there's a set of three speed slides, but they're much smaller) and there's no toboggan slides either. However, there's a rather awesome trio of twisty body slides and some pretty cool tube slides as well. They've also got some roller coaster slides. If you've never seen a roller coaster slide before, they've get some powerful water jets that can actually blast you uphill, so there's lots of bumps, ups, and downs. Lots of fun, though I've actually been on longer ones in Phoenix. And, of course, there's the giant lazy river, which is always good for relaxing. The most surprising attraction is Shark Reef, a saltwater pool where you can snorkel with a collection of fish, rays, and even some sharks (really small ones). Doesn't compare to a real reef, but it's still pretty neat.
Overall, it's hard to choose a favorite between Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon, they both have their pros and cons. If you're ever thinking of going to one of them, I highly recommend a weekday. Even though Friday was the start of a holiday weekend, the crowds were much smaller than they were on Sunday and I never had to wait more than 10 minutes or so for any of the slides (usually less).

And with that, I'm done with Orlando for a little while. I may do a beach trip in a couple of weeks, but I think I'll save the next water park for later this month or early next month. See you Wednesday!

Josiah

There's a new voter bonus comic and a new ROM.

Labor Day is coming up, which means I get a four day weekend! Unfortunately, it's the only holiday I get until November but anyway... Since I've got an extra day off this weekend I figured that I might as well do another Orlando trip. I considered going for two days and spending the night, but it's been a busy week (got some last minute work dumped on me that required me to put everything else on hold for the last couple of days) and I could use some time to run some errands, get a bit of work of my own done, and just relax a bit. So I'm just going to go into Orlando one day and hang around my place and Gainesville for the rest of the break. My plan is to visit the other Disney Water Park so expect a write-up and some photos next week.

Josiah

We're almost to the 1200 Pebble Version strip. And, now that the gym battle is finished, I've got a good shot at rebuilding my comic buffer this week. And, once that's done, I should have time to start updating Ink again.

On the work side of things, I'm getting the hang of my classes and the systems I need to use. I've still got a lot of material to make for some of my classes, but hopefully now that most of the "just starting out" stuff is finished I'll be able to pick up the pace there. Other than that, I'm starting to get a sort of daily routine going. I've even got some time aside each day for Aurora's Nightmare. Though I haven't thrown myself seriously back into it yet, since I decided I could use a bit of extra time to get some of that course material finished. I might start writing again today, or Monday at the absolute latest.

Well, I'm getting back to work on PV strips. See you Friday!

Josiah

If any of you guys are in the Gainesville Florida area, feel free to send me an e-mail sometime and say hi. I haven't had a chance to meet many people around here yet, especially people with similar interests.

I've been talking about visiting the major water parks in Orlando since I moved down here and yesterday I finally got started on that. It took me about two hours to drive to Disney World. It wasn't a bad drive, though the scenery was mostly endless walls of tall trees (that seems to be the norm for highway driving around here). I made a few interesting observations on the way. First off, antique malls seem to be pretty popular here. I must have passed at least half a dozen of them, all of which had a series of billboards leading up to them. Second, the Gainesville and Lake City areas apparently have the highest gas prices in the Northern half of Florida (maybe the whole state). When I went to the beach in Jacksonville, the gas prices there were about 10 cents cheaper. Then, starting at Ocala (the next major town south of Gainesville) and going all the way to Orlando, gas prices were all 20 - 30 cents lower than there are here. What's up with that? And three, Florida has toll roads. The drive to Orlando cost me $3 in tolls. Oddly enough, the drive back cost me $3.75. Not quite sure how that worked...

Anyway, my destination was Disney, but not one of the theme parks. The whole Disney World complex also has two water parks (and quite a lot of other stuff). For this visit, I chose Blizzard Beach, a water park with a ski slope theme (which is one of your more unlikely water park themes, right after electric plant and toxic waste disposal facility). While there, I bought a pass I can use to get into the theme parks and other Disney stuff. While Disney World is kind of expensive if you only go for a day or two, when you buy a multiday pass the prices go way down, and for a little bit more you can add in access to the water parks and stuff too. So now I've got a pass good for ten theme park visits (I probably won't use that many by May, but it doesn't expire) and 10 admissions to other stuff (9 now that I've been to Blizzard Beach). All for around the same price I would have paid for single visit to each of the four parks and two water parks had I bought one ticket at a time.
The centerpiece of Blizzard Beach is this big ski mountain and the Summit Plummet speed slide (for the record, you don't go over that ski jump, there's a tunnel beneath it). It's 120 feet tall, which I'm pretty sure makes it the tallest one I've ever been on by far. It's a lot of fun, at least if you like speed slides. There's a somewhat more mild one next to it and, off on the other side, you got the longest (or one of the longest, different signs said different things) tube slides in the country. Down below you've got a kids obstacle type area and a wave pool (see the first photo), a really choppy wave pool. Which is a good thing, since I think most wave pools are kinda dull. On the other side of the mountain, there's some more tube slides and a couple of toboggan slides (where you go down head first on a mat). One is the usual eight way toboggan race which a lot of water parks seem to have these days. The other, however, is a three way race themed after a ski slalom, which twists and curves and is pretty awesome. They also have an area for really little kids and a very long tubing river running around the whole park.
It doesn't beat Water World back in Denver, but all in all Blizzard Beach is one of the best water parks I've ever been to. The day alternated between sunny and cloudy a lot (which helped keep the temperature comfortable) but aside from some occasional wind, the weather was pretty good until around up until around 4, when they had to temporarily stop the rides due to some thunder. Though I was actually thinking about calling it a day right around then anyway, so it all worked out. Lines weren't too bad either, with only a couple of exceptions. Overall, it was a pretty nice day. Although I will note that waiting in line by myself can be rather dull at a water park, since I don't have my phone or anything to mess with.

Well, that's all for now. While I'm thinking I'll normally go do something in Orlando once a month or so, with Labor Day coming up I've got a four day weekend to look forward to so don't be surprised if I post something about another water park next week.

Josiah

There's a new voter bonus comic up! We're done with the Forum Awards series so it's back to regular Blooper Reel comics now. We've also got a new ROM.

So, I drove all the way from Arizona to Florida and it's not the first long drive I've done either. When you're driving across country on a highway or interstate, pretty much all the big billboards you see are are for hotels, restaurants, and attractions. If you're in a city, you might see some for stores, TV shows, or events. But Louisiana and here in Northern Florida are the only places I've ever seen giant billboards for porn stores. I pass a series of them on the way back from work every day. And I'm not talking about a single sign right by the exit where the store is. There's a whole series of them that starts at least 40 miles before the place. It's kinda weird... I mean seriously, is there something that special about it? Do they think people driving on major highways are desperate to find a porn store? Not that I have any real desire to go there and find out (had to walk through way too much of that stuff when shopping for visual novels in Japan). It just makes me wonder about some of the people around here...

In other news, it looks like the hurricane probably isn't going to hit this area. At least not with any real force. I had been thinking of going to Orlando today but, despite my goal to confine my work to business hours, I really need to make some more PowerPoint presentations for future classes. Between a bunch of "just starting out" stuff going on (meetings, paperwork, etc) and getting locked out of my office for a while this morning (not my fault, there were problems with the lock), I didn't get as much done as I'd hoped. Besides, the weather forecast for Sunday is much better and this gives me a chance to take my car in for an oil change anyway (driving cross country really racks up the mileage).

Well, I'm off. See you Monday!

Josiah

Halfway through my first week of of teaching at Florida Gateway College (second week of work, first of classes) and things are going fine. Though the first week classes are all pretty basic stuff (syllabus review, introduction to the online class interface, etc). Outside of classes, I'm still working on course content. I need to create lecturs and/or PowerPoint presentations, along with some assignments and tets for two different subjects, which should be more than enough to fill the rest of my work day for at least the next couple of weeks.

In other news, it's looking like Florida might get hit by a hurricane later this week. I've been told that this area never gets hit very hard by that type of thing, but we'll see... I seem to really be on a roll when it comes to natural diasters this year, don't I? The sad thing is, if the hurricane does hit here, it's probably going to do so on a day when I don't have to go into work. If it was on a work day, they might close the school. Or, at very least, I'd already been spending most of the day indoors anyway so it wouldn't be a big deal. If it hits over the weekend though, there's a good chance I'll have to delay my first Orlando trip again. Though, if I am stuck indoors over the weekend, I suppose that would give me a good chance to rebuild my buffer of Pebble Version strips...

I had a couple other things I was going to talk about today but the lack of said buffer means I only finished today's strip a few minutes ago and I'm already running a little late so I just don't have the time.

On a quick unrelated note, if any of you are in the Gainesville area (or somewhere not too far away), send me an e-mail somtime, ok? I'd love to meet some people around here with similar interests.

Josiah

Well, after working all day Friday and most of Saturday night, I managed to get to the point where, while I still have a lot of prep work to do for some of the classes I'll be teaching, I should be able to handle the rest during working hours. Hopefully...

Anyway, since I didn't have to work on Sunday, I was thinking of going to Orlando and visiting one of the water parks on my list for a nice break. In the end though, I wasn't too keen on getting up early (especially after a late night) and driving for a couple of hours. Considering how busy things have been over the past week, I figured it would also be nice to just hang out and relax a bit. Plus, a few days ago, someone told me there was going to be some sort of big festival in Alachua at the Hare Krishna and recommended that I stop by. So I decided to wait a little longer for Orlando (this weekend, weather permitting), get some things done, relax a bit, and check out the festival.

While I know quite a lot about some religions, Hare Krishna isn't one of them. A bit of quick Wikipedia research revealed that it's a type of Hinduism (India's main religion). Some elements of it also reminded me of Buddhism (which also started in India) but I'm not going to go into the details here (partly because I'm still kinda fuzzy on them myself). As a note, Hare Krishna isn't actually the proper name of the religion, it's Krishnaism. And the American "Hare Krishna" groups are part of the Gaudiya Vaishnavism sect of Krishnaism. Hare Krishna is actually the name of a mantra they use, but that's besides the point.
Anyway, apparently there's a fairly large Hare Krishna community around Alachua and yesterday was the annual Janmastami festival, which celebrates the birth of Krishna. The local group has a nice temple just outside of town and that's where the festivities were held. According to the schedule, there were religious services running pretty much all day from early in the morning until past midnight, but the main festival started in the late afternoon outside the temple building. The turnout was pretty impressive (especially considering how small Alachua is) and more people kept coming. While there were some people like me who were clearly there just to check things out, going by how they dressed, I'd say at least two thirds of the people were actual believers.
I only stayed for about an hour and a half, but that was enough time to check out the booths (which sold a mix of Hare Krishna related items, Indian style clothing, and a few other odds and ends), get something to eat (whether or not you care about the religion itself, Hare Krishna groups tend to make excellent vegetarian food), and look at some displays based on famous Hare Krishna temples. They also had what had to be the largest cow I've ever seen (in Hinduism, cows are sacred). It's hard to tell from this picture, but that cow looked to be over five and a half feet tall and between eight and ten feet long. Then there was the live entertainment. While I was there, they were doing a play about the three lives of an important religious figure (I believe his name began with a B, but I have no idea how to spell it). Here's a clip from a section where the main character muses on various matters. And here's a part where...actually, I have absolutely no clue what was going on in that scene. The show bordered on humorous at times (the actors had a tendency to ham it up a bit), but was very well done.
While I wouldn't say this Janmastami celebration was nearly as much fun as the various festivals I've been to in Japan, it was an interesting and entertaining way to spend an hour or two.

Well, I've got to start teaching classes today so I'm off to get some sleep before that. I'll see you later!

Josiah

There's a new voter bonus comic up! It's the last of the annual Forum Awards special mini series and features forum member Puyon. Just click the Top Web Comics button or banner and confirm your vote if you want to see it. There's a new ROM too.

Did I ever mention which classes I'm going to be teaching this semester? I don't think I did... Well, as previously mentioned, the game design program (which is what I was hired for) was delayed until spring (though I'll need to get a lot of the pre-planning and prep work done for it later this semester) so I got assigned a few assorted computer classes. I've got three sessions of Computer Applications (Microsoft Office), two of Introduction to Programming (fortunately it's a very simple intro class, since programming isn't my area of expertise by any means), and one of Basic Web Programming (which I'm doing more as web design than programming).
Anyway, since my last news post I've finished all my syllabi (might have to tweak them slightly to get approval though). I'm also around 99% done with the prep work for Computer Applications (I was able to modify the other teacher's files, which saved a lot of time), 40-50% for programming, and 15% for the web class (I have to make pretty much everything from scratch for that one). My goal for today (and the weekend if necessary) is to get enough done on those last two classes that I'll be all set for at least the first week or two. If I can get that done, I can slow down a little bit and take the next week or two to finish up the remaining material I need to make for them. Fortunately, I should be able to do all that during my regular work hours, which will free up the rest of my time for various other projects of mine...

And that's all for today. I know there's a lot of you waiting for the return of Ink updates. I'm sorry for the delay, but at the moment I'm barely managing to get the comic strips themselves finished in time so it'll have to wait another week or two till things calm down enough for me to rebuild my buffer.

Have a good weekend!

Josiah

With everything that has been going on, I completely forgot that last Thursday marked Pebble Version's 8th anniversary. It's hard to believe I've been making this comic for that long (and it's still nowhere near the end). It's strange to think about how much has happened to me since PV began. Or even in this past year for that matter... Back when I started PV, I was just beginning college and now I'm just starting a job teaching at a college....

Unfortunately, I don't have a whole lot of time to reminisce. Over the last couple of days I've attended several long faculty meetings and I've got a couple left before the week is up. But that's only part of what I've been up to. I've also had to run around to get my ID card, parking pass, etc. That wouldn't be too much of a problem except for how the campus is arranged. While Florida Gateway College doesn't have particularly high enrollment, instead of having everything in a couple of large buildings, all the rooms and facilities are spread out between thirty or so smaller buildings. Unfortunately, many of those buildings are labeled only by number and they aren't always positioned where you'd think, which can make finding the right one rather difficult. Just to complicate things a little more, my office key isn't ready yet for some reason and the door locks automatically, which means I can only get in if my supervisor happens to be around with her key.
Anyway, now that I've got all my stuff (except for that office key), and finished most of the important meetings (two more to go), and gotten the textbooks and most of the materials I need, I've started seriously focusing on preparing for the courses I'm going to teach. First step, making all the syllabi (which are due Friday morning). You'd think that'd be quick enough, but there's a lot of stuff that needs to go into the syllabi here, including a basic outline of the course, so they're not something you can just throw together. I did, however, manage to finish my first one last night. And while I can't just copy and paste everything, I can re-use enough of it that the remaining 5 should go a lot more quickly.
Of course, syllabi are just the beginning. Once they're done, I still have to actually get all the material ready for the courses themselves (presentations, reading assignments, projects, tests, etc, etc, etc). I can reuse a decent amount of stuff left by the courses' previous teachers (are previously mentioned, the game design program was delayed until spring so I'm teaching a bunch of assorted computer courses), but there's quite a lot that has to be tweaked and a good bit that I'll still have to make from scratch.
All in all, it's looking like the next couple of weeks are going to be extremely busy. I still might try and run off to a water park at some point in the near future, but if I do that would be the one break in an otherwise pretty intense work marathon. Once I've got this semester's courses all laid out, things should calm down a bit (at very least, I shouldn't have to do anything for the college outside of my normal working hours). Though I only have until the end of September to create syllabi and get some basic planning done for the upcoming game courses... But anyway, it'll be a crazy week or two followed by busy month but after that... After that I should be pretty good for the rest of the year...unless, of course, something else comes up. But anyway, that's just the way it goes. And I'm kinda looking forward to working on the game courses so that could be fun...

Anyway, I'll see you Friday!

Josiah

Well, today is the first day on my new job. Though, as previously mentioned, this week is all faculty meetings and course planning. I won't actually start teaching until next week. Anyway, today's meeting starts particularily early plus, since it's my first day and all, I have no idea which building is which so I need to leave extra early to give myself enough time to find the right one so I've gotta cut this short. I'll try and get some pictures of the campus at some point, though that may have to wait till next week depending how things go.

Later!

Josiah

There's a new special voters' bonus comic up. This week's features forum member Poisonwing14. There's a new ROM too.

Work starts Monday, though this coming week is kinda a weird one since classes don't start until 22nd. There's some meetings and stuff I have to attend but what I'll really need to focus on is planning for my upcoming classes. I only found out what I'll be teaching a couple days ago and I won't get my copies of the textbooks until Monday. If the classes were on game design or writing, I could probably hit the ground running fairly easily, but since the start of the game design program was delayed, I was given several assorted computer classes, some of which really aren't within my areas of expertise. I'll have to work pretty hard next week to review the books, make a syllabus for each class, and start creating lesson plans. It's going to be an interesting semester...

Anyway, with my shopping and apartment setup done, I'm finally able to take it easy for a few days. The weather was pretty nice Wednesday morning (though it got cloudy in the afternoon and eventually started raining) so I went out to walk around and take some photos. First off, here's a look at my apartment complex. Well, one row of buildings anyway. There's some nice grassy areas behind the buildings, a decent swimming pool, a gym, and an indoor basketball court as well. Though I forgot to bring my access card with me when I went out on my walk so I didn't get any pictures of them. The complex itself is on a hill on the edge of the town and there's some nice grassy fields around it, along with some large trees covered with Spanish moss. There's of lot of tiny little towns in this part of the Northern Florida. I'm in Alachua, which is the biggest and most picturesque of the bunch (or at least of all the ones I've seen). Here's the city hall, which also doubles as the utility company. I had to go there to set up my electric account. At least I can pay it online though, which is more than I can say for my rent.
Unlike a lot of the little towns around here, which are pretty much just some houses and a gas station, Alachua has a couple of grocery stores (neither of which is a Publix, unfortunately), a Lowe's (which seems very out of place), and a decent selection of restaurants, along with a couple other random stores. About half the stores and restaurants are clustered around the grocery stores and the rest on gathered down town on an old fashioned Main Street, complete with a number of neat old houses. I have to drive to Gainesville to do any serious shopping, or get any sort of Asian food, but there's an excellent pizza place just a couple minutes away from my apartment and one of the restaurants on Main Street serves really good (and really large) hamburgers, and there's a few other places I want to try.

Of all the days this week, yesterday had the lowest chance of rain so I decided to head to the beach. I ended up at Jacksonville Beach, which is the closest one, though still a good hour and forty minute drive (which is why I didn't want to risk it when there was a high chance of rain). It's a pretty nice beach. There's wasn't a boardwalk or anything like that, and I wish the waves had been a bit bigger, but it was a pleasant way to spend a few hours and I managed to do it without sunburning myself (much). It's too bad the beach isn't a big closer. If it was only half an hour or less from where I live, I'd probably go there fairly often. As is, if I want to go I'd have to devote most of the day to it, which I can't do very often, especially if I want to visit all the big attractions in Orlando.

On an interesting but fairly unrelated note, I'm rather surprised by the lack of Starbucks around here. It's not like there aren't any, but I'm used to seeing one in every big grocery store, every Target, and every Barnes & Noble, in addition to a bunch of stand alone Starbucks. Here, on the other hand, neither the Target or Barnes & Noble in Gainesville has one, nor does any grocery store I've visited. There isn't a single Starbucks in all of Alachua and while Gainnesville does have some stand alone ones, there's less than I'd expect for a city of that size. Not that it's a really big deal. Even at the condo in Phoenix, where there was one right across the street, I'd only go twice a week at most. It's just kinda weird...

Anyway, have a good weekend!

Josiah