WELCOME to the personal home page/blog of Matthew La France. Please enjoy your stay.

11/26/2005

I hope everyone had an enjoyable Thanksgiving. I spent the day with my family, we had a nice dinner and watched some movies. I had to work the next day which sucked the most in that I had to get up VERY early in the morning, but the actual work day was not that bad.

I am not getting an XBox 360, and though two of my friends are, neither got it on launch. It seemed like launch supplies were low and a number of games were pushed back. A typical but not very impressive system launch. Most notable I would venture, is the fact that the demand seems high enough that folks are dishing out up to $2000 per system on ebay. WTF? :P

I have been playing a few Xbox games recently. I tried out Tron 2.0, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and Mace Griffin. All first-person shooters, all pretty good. I think I was most impressed with Tron 2.0 in terms of it's faithfulness to the spirit of the movies though I've only just started it. I was a little disappointed that the Wolfenstein game is not a direct port of the PC version, since I wanted to play in on Xbox, but it seems cool anyway. Mace Griffin is good so far, a little frustrating and a little derivative but highly enjoyable.
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11/18/2005

Apparently I have to be that guy who blogs about Harry Potter on opening night...

I just finished watching the movie. This was the first Harry Potter movie I saw AFTER having read the book. The other three I saw without having read the books. That being the case, this was the first movie where I was constantly comparing the movie to my expectations, which understandably detracted from my enjoyment. The thing I think was done the best was Ron and Harry's efforts to get a date for the ball. This was funny and came off as enjoyably as in the books if not more so. Most of the rest of the movie felt a bit rushed, though I think this is the fault of the amount of story needed to get through. One thing I was dissapointed in was a bit of over-acting on Emma Watson's part. I always enjoy Hermione's scenes, but they felt a little forced in most of the scenes she was in, perhaps because this is a more emotional movie for her character. Daniel Radcliffe was really good though. He does a great job, as does the general story, of making you feel for Harry. Another scene that came off really well was the scene involving Harry and Myrtle in the bath. The actual tri-wizard challenges were good but not great. This Harry Potter movie went way outside the classroom, outside the Dursleys, and the "school" sorty of storyline, with a lot more action and suspence. I think I expected this to make a more exciting movie, but in the end it's the characters and the little moments that make this Harry Potter movie enjoyable.
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11/17/2005

I beat Kid Nikki: Radical Ninja today. Thanks to my awesome ninja skills, peace has returned to our castle one again. I will not be forgotten. I am one rad dude.

I don't know if I will ever sort myself out. I understand that thinking about shit and doing something about it are two different things. It's not always necessary to have everything figured out, and sometimes doing is more therapeutic. Still I think about shit. I can't help it. Anyway, I was doing that today and I realized that I need to learn to love myself more. I mentioned on a previous post that I hate myself sometimes, I guess another way of saying that is "not-love". I realized this when I was trying to draw, and I remembered that what I used to put into making artwork was love. When it dawned on me that I am no longer able to put love into drawing, it made me realize that my most fundamental deficit is my ability to love, and the thing I am unable to love right now, that effects my ability to put love into what I do, is myself. What to do about that I don't know. Like I said, thinking and doing are two different things, but at least I've managed to discover the main reason why I am miserable most of the time.
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11/16/2005

As much as I bitch about Google, I put a search box on my home page since I use it so much. I'm making a promise to myself to to some hard research into some other search engines/methods though since I've put it there, and provide an alternative search alongside it.

I sort of realized that I miss watching mindless shit (i.e. anime) during my free time to unwind a little so I am currently re-watching Azumanga Daioh. It is such a cute show that is more than good for a few laughs. Speaking of cute shows, I'm sort of becoming that creepy guy that watches anime for little girls, but I've been watching Ojamajo Doremi (as Magical Doremi) recently my friend has been tivoing from cartoon network Saturdays. It's fun watching somthing cute, cheerful, and generally non-challenging.

I've also been playing more old games on my PSP. I got to the end boss on Ninja Gaiden on the NES but I can't beat it. I think if I go through the last level again and get a power up I may be able to do it, but I haven't had the nerve to replay it. I did beat Parodius on the PCE which was fun. I'm currently in the advanced stages of some games from my childhood, Kind Nikki: Radical Ninja, Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode, and Mag Max, though I have yet to beat any of them, I am close with at least the first 2. I'd like to sit down with some games like Maniac Mansion, Blaster Master, Rygar, and Magican, but I haven't spent a lot of time with any of them yet.

Just picking up one of these games for 5 minutes it's easy to wonder how the hell I ever managed to log hours of play into these games. Usually they are fairly inane, either overly or underly challenging, and generally short. It's not as much of a shock as going back and playing an Atari age game, but close. Still, after having progressed to the "dungeon" I could never get past in Golgo 13, I am reminded what a cool game that was. It's a little simplistic by todays standards, but it really does still have gameplay that is engaging. And Duke hits it twice in the game (so far) which is more than you can say for pretty much most games aside from grand theft auto (excepting most games released in Japan that is). ;) I'd almost like to go back and compare the Japanese and US versions of this game to see what the script was originally like. I feel a retranslation project coming on...
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11/14/2005

Well, my job is a little stressful but I'm starting to reap the benefits of my hard work over the past couple of months so I'm just taking it as it comes right now. I'm listening to what I assume is the version of the Love Tropicana theme song for Jungle wa Itsumo Hale Nochi Guu Final. It's really cute and catchy (you might even say ADDICTING!), it reminds me strikingly of the old themes from one of my favorites, Urusei Yatsura.

I don't want to get any hopes up specifically, but just as an update, I've seen some great progress on 3x3 Eyes: Seima Kourinden from KingMike recently. I translated the intro and sent it to him this weekend so yay, that is pretty cool. I also got the FM Towns Marty emulator Unz up and running on my PC so I could check out the 3x3 Eyes game for Towns a little bit. It's ok so far.
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11/06/2005

I had a fairly non-eventful weekend. I've decided my job is kind of stressful. I'm going to deal with it for now, but I really hope it becomes more managable for me, otherwise I may have to start considering my alternatives. :(

I've been having a lot of fun getting some emulation going on my PSP. It was sitting around gathering dust for several months since there hasn't really been any releases of games I'd like to play for it. Come to find out, a number of emulators are available for it, though you have to be mindful of the verion of firmware installed on the PSP. You can find emus and other homebrew stuff on PSP Updates. The site is kind of ugly, ad filled, and hard to navigate. Just start with the "Newbie Help & FAQ" section in red, and the "Files" section will get you to downloads.

I've been having a blast playing some PCE, Famicom and Super Famicom games. I beat 1943 Kai for the PCE today playing on my PSP. I also got really far in Parodius on PCE and made some headway in GS Mikami for the SFC. Those kinds of games are perfect for a portable system and look absolutely amazing on the bright, saturated, PSP screen. Most of the emulators need to use the 333mhz mode to run smoothly, but work great even with sound and smoothing effects. There is even a port of the PC98 emulator "Neko Project" which runs pretty well. I got a bit frustrated with it since it doesn't support one of my favorite games and the other one I tried didn't seem to have mouse support, but the emulator seems pretty good regardless. I think I just picked some bad games to try first.
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