WELCOME to the personal home page/blog of Matthew La France. Please enjoy your stay.
1/26/2005
I've been working pretty hard today, not necessarily on things that will get me where I want to go (directly), but things that I am very motivated to finish up anyway. ^_^ I finished another block of Ace of Spades and the remaining extra text for Magic Knights Rayearth. I also grabbed a whole lot of additional screen shots for the PSX Anime List and posted most of them. I did some reseach on the NEC PC98 and found a cool website called simply PC98 images. It looks like they post 4 new images every week, in addition to a few other images (mostly translations) on their site. They also have a lot of short game descriptions/reviews and nice screenshots (warning: lots of 18 and over kind of stuff). Sort of a companion site to FMV, not as comprehensive but the content is similar. As a result I also came across the amazing PC8801 Game Library (Japanese) which looks to be a comprehensive list of games for the PC88. I am such a freakin' game otaku. :P
Speaking of which I found possibly the rarest game in my NES collection today. I was in EB games and happened to decide to look through the few used NES games they have had kicking around and I found a copy of Quattro Sports. How accurate this is I do not know, but it's supposed to be several degrees more rare than Quattro Adventure (which I also have). It's apparently rarer than any of the American Video Entertainment games I have like Deathbots, Venice Beach Volleyball, or Trolls on Treasure Island. Needless to say I was quite pleased to pick it up for a reasonable $6. ^_^ 0 comments
1/25/2005
I'm feeling rather exhausted again, but the possibility of rest and rejuvination is upon me. I have 4 of the next 5 days off so I should be able to find some inner balance again. I'm getting caught up in work, feeling awkward about myself and feeling trapped by the necessity of getting my paycheck every month, it's causing me to lose focus on the fact that I'm feeling creative again and working some some things that could be sucessful for me.
It doesn't help that I'm reading High Score (a history of US gaming) pretty much cover-to-cover that tells a lot of tales of success (and failure) in the video game industry, and it's making me very envious. But I understand also that I've personally made all the choices in my life that have lead me to where I am now, and that I'm positioned as well as I have ever been to have my "success story". I promised someone that I will "work towards things that will benefit me in real ways", and "let those acomplishments give me value" and I am going to do just that. I'm going to have the passion of a zealot, the dedication of the faithful, and the patience of a Buddha. I am going to succeed no matter what. 0 comments
1/21/2005
I ran across a cool website the other day. It's called "the Escapist" and it's a site dedicated to rpg (and various other) game advocacy. Basically, it's a great resource for learning about the injustices and prejudices that games (RPGs such as D&D and Vampire) and the gamers associated with them suffer at the hands of frightened and misinformed people and possible how to combat them. I located the site after the question occured to me "Why is it that my mom never wanted me to get into D&D?". What was it in the early 80's that stigmatized a perfectly good game to the point that middle class housewives were scared of it? I found the answer to be a couple of highly publicized suicide cases, one in 79 and the other in 82, that were inappropriately associated with role-playing and role-playing games.
The fear probably stems from a greater paranoia that there are people out there trying to get your children. It probably has something to do with the anxiety and guilt of having to spend most of your day away from your children while they are at school and/or home. Like you are going to come home one day and find your child has been indoctrinated into a cult that worships satan and advocates taking your own life while you have been neglecting them. Why that is much more believable than the fact that kids can have anxieties or even mental illnesses that lead them to suicide, I don't understand. Maybe it's just human nature to see problems as being external when almost always they come from within. It doesn't help that elements of media like to sensationalize events and enforce popular misconceptions. It reminds me of Michael Moore's idea about a "scared society". Like we are all being kept on edge because it makes us better consumers and probably voters.
Anyway, it's a really cool site and I encourage you to check it out. 0 comments
1/19/2005
I am happy to say that I'm launching my PSX anime games site in a semi-official way. Please feel free to visit it at http://psxanimelist.mechanicomics.com/. I may get a domain name for it later but for now it's a sub domain. Thanks again to Eien ni Hen who did a lot of work on the game descriptions for me. I did a lot of work on the site today, adding the last of the games, and adding pictures of Japanese telephone cards and advertizements. I hope to add some more screen-shots and other information and images in the future as available. 0 comments
1/16/2005
I just got back from having dinner with my folks. It was kind of relaxing for me to just hang out there. I'm gonna try to just take it easy for a few days. It hard because there are things I'd like to do, I feel like I have to keep going and maximizing the working potential of my free time. I'm really just feeling a little creative and feeling like I don't have any time. It's annoying, that when I have too much time, I tend to have no inspiration or motivation, and when I don't have enough time, I have lot's of things I want to do. That's just how it works I guess. You need to be stimulated by things in order to be motivated, but the things that are stimulating take all of your time. :P
I think I am cultivating my ability to persevere though. I am much more able to follow something through to completion than I have been in the past. I feel like I am becoming more comfortable with that sort of tireless exhaustion that is involved in working to finish anything that you are truly interesting in seeing completed. 0 comments
1/13/2005
I've got a couple of days off after a 5 day work week. I'm a little uptight, but it's probably because rather than relax, I want to get a bunch of stuff done. I'm adding links for faqs, reviews, and series info to my game pages for my PSX Anime List page. It's going quickly, but it's tedious. I dug out some writing/research I was doing a number of months ago on video games. I'm thinking of trying to make a book out of it, but I might settle for a website or something. It's fun to read through again anyway. I've been somewhat inspired to start writing again, fiction stuff, like comics scripts. I haven't done that in a long time. My life is starting to be normal enough again that I am able to think about stuff like that during the day. It's also starting to be normal enough that I'm worrying about stuff I normally worry about too, so it's a mixed blessing. I'm more creative, but more moody at the same time.
I dumped some more text from the Magic Knights Rayearth game for the Game Gear. It's not a lot of text, but having gone back and looked at the rom I'm wondering how the hell I missed some of it. Like the end credits were right after the ending text, and I dumped the ending text but I missed the credits. :P Apparently I just wasn't looking very carefully. I watched some more Rozen Maiden today, as well as the first episode of the Ah! My Goddess TV show. I liked the Ah! My Goddess epsiode. It wasn't just a rehash of the OAV story, which is nice. The character designs are different yet again, but not in a bad way really. I'm not sure what I will be doing with the rest of my time tonight and tomorrow, hopefully relaxing a little. I'd like to just chill and play a game for a bit. I'm not playing any right now but maybe I can find one to get into. I'll be trying out Guild Wars with some friends come April, but that is still a long way away.
0 comments
1/10/2005
I'm pretty beat. I've been trying to recover from being sick. I'm better now, but I'm still a little run down. I've had a bit of down time to watch some anime though. I'm up to episode 30 of Inuyasha. I like it quite a bit so far. It's got a lot of cool Japanese ghosts/monsters in it which is a lot of fun. It reminds me a little more of Mermaid's Scar in it's tone than let's say, Ranma. It is a romantic comedy though, and I expect that it might get pretty interesting later on.
I also watched the first 2 episodes of Rozen Maiden. It looks like something made for readers of Gothic & Lolita Bible magazine (that's not a joke or anything, it's a real magazine). I kind of like it. Speaking of magazines though, I ran across an issue of Retro Gamer magazine on the rack at Waldenbooks. I always feel a little taken when I find the magazine that exactly caters to my hobby, but really, what a cool thing. I was pretty excited to flip through it. At around $11-12 newsstand the price was a bit steep, but it looks like it has a CD/DVD with a bunch of PC remake games and some dev tools on it. I will be picking up a copy when I get my paycheck. 0 comments
1/01/2005
Happy New Year! I am sick in bed. :(
Edit: My fever is down a bit. I reposted my old slayers patch in a fit of nostalgia. I remade the patch and was going to post that, but actually found the old one on the Whirlpool with my old readme and everything. I also checked all my links under the "links" section so everything should be working. 0 comments
I've been working pretty hard today, not necessarily on things that will get me where I want to go (directly), but things that I am very motivated to finish up anyway. ^_^ I finished another block of Ace of Spades and the remaining extra text for Magic Knights Rayearth. I also grabbed a whole lot of additional screen shots for the PSX Anime List and posted most of them. I did some reseach on the NEC PC98 and found a cool website called simply PC98 images. It looks like they post 4 new images every week, in addition to a few other images (mostly translations) on their site. They also have a lot of short game descriptions/reviews and nice screenshots (warning: lots of 18 and over kind of stuff). Sort of a companion site to FMV, not as comprehensive but the content is similar. As a result I also came across the amazing PC8801 Game Library (Japanese) which looks to be a comprehensive list of games for the PC88. I am such a freakin' game otaku. :P
Speaking of which I found possibly the rarest game in my NES collection today. I was in EB games and happened to decide to look through the few used NES games they have had kicking around and I found a copy of Quattro Sports. How accurate this is I do not know, but it's supposed to be several degrees more rare than Quattro Adventure (which I also have). It's apparently rarer than any of the American Video Entertainment games I have like Deathbots, Venice Beach Volleyball, or Trolls on Treasure Island. Needless to say I was quite pleased to pick it up for a reasonable $6. ^_^ 0 comments
1/25/2005
I'm feeling rather exhausted again, but the possibility of rest and rejuvination is upon me. I have 4 of the next 5 days off so I should be able to find some inner balance again. I'm getting caught up in work, feeling awkward about myself and feeling trapped by the necessity of getting my paycheck every month, it's causing me to lose focus on the fact that I'm feeling creative again and working some some things that could be sucessful for me.
It doesn't help that I'm reading High Score (a history of US gaming) pretty much cover-to-cover that tells a lot of tales of success (and failure) in the video game industry, and it's making me very envious. But I understand also that I've personally made all the choices in my life that have lead me to where I am now, and that I'm positioned as well as I have ever been to have my "success story". I promised someone that I will "work towards things that will benefit me in real ways", and "let those acomplishments give me value" and I am going to do just that. I'm going to have the passion of a zealot, the dedication of the faithful, and the patience of a Buddha. I am going to succeed no matter what. 0 comments
1/21/2005
I ran across a cool website the other day. It's called "the Escapist" and it's a site dedicated to rpg (and various other) game advocacy. Basically, it's a great resource for learning about the injustices and prejudices that games (RPGs such as D&D and Vampire) and the gamers associated with them suffer at the hands of frightened and misinformed people and possible how to combat them. I located the site after the question occured to me "Why is it that my mom never wanted me to get into D&D?". What was it in the early 80's that stigmatized a perfectly good game to the point that middle class housewives were scared of it? I found the answer to be a couple of highly publicized suicide cases, one in 79 and the other in 82, that were inappropriately associated with role-playing and role-playing games.
The fear probably stems from a greater paranoia that there are people out there trying to get your children. It probably has something to do with the anxiety and guilt of having to spend most of your day away from your children while they are at school and/or home. Like you are going to come home one day and find your child has been indoctrinated into a cult that worships satan and advocates taking your own life while you have been neglecting them. Why that is much more believable than the fact that kids can have anxieties or even mental illnesses that lead them to suicide, I don't understand. Maybe it's just human nature to see problems as being external when almost always they come from within. It doesn't help that elements of media like to sensationalize events and enforce popular misconceptions. It reminds me of Michael Moore's idea about a "scared society". Like we are all being kept on edge because it makes us better consumers and probably voters.
Anyway, it's a really cool site and I encourage you to check it out. 0 comments
1/19/2005
I am happy to say that I'm launching my PSX anime games site in a semi-official way. Please feel free to visit it at http://psxanimelist.mechanicomics.com/. I may get a domain name for it later but for now it's a sub domain. Thanks again to Eien ni Hen who did a lot of work on the game descriptions for me. I did a lot of work on the site today, adding the last of the games, and adding pictures of Japanese telephone cards and advertizements. I hope to add some more screen-shots and other information and images in the future as available. 0 comments
1/16/2005
I just got back from having dinner with my folks. It was kind of relaxing for me to just hang out there. I'm gonna try to just take it easy for a few days. It hard because there are things I'd like to do, I feel like I have to keep going and maximizing the working potential of my free time. I'm really just feeling a little creative and feeling like I don't have any time. It's annoying, that when I have too much time, I tend to have no inspiration or motivation, and when I don't have enough time, I have lot's of things I want to do. That's just how it works I guess. You need to be stimulated by things in order to be motivated, but the things that are stimulating take all of your time. :P
I think I am cultivating my ability to persevere though. I am much more able to follow something through to completion than I have been in the past. I feel like I am becoming more comfortable with that sort of tireless exhaustion that is involved in working to finish anything that you are truly interesting in seeing completed. 0 comments
1/13/2005
I've got a couple of days off after a 5 day work week. I'm a little uptight, but it's probably because rather than relax, I want to get a bunch of stuff done. I'm adding links for faqs, reviews, and series info to my game pages for my PSX Anime List page. It's going quickly, but it's tedious. I dug out some writing/research I was doing a number of months ago on video games. I'm thinking of trying to make a book out of it, but I might settle for a website or something. It's fun to read through again anyway. I've been somewhat inspired to start writing again, fiction stuff, like comics scripts. I haven't done that in a long time. My life is starting to be normal enough again that I am able to think about stuff like that during the day. It's also starting to be normal enough that I'm worrying about stuff I normally worry about too, so it's a mixed blessing. I'm more creative, but more moody at the same time.
I dumped some more text from the Magic Knights Rayearth game for the Game Gear. It's not a lot of text, but having gone back and looked at the rom I'm wondering how the hell I missed some of it. Like the end credits were right after the ending text, and I dumped the ending text but I missed the credits. :P Apparently I just wasn't looking very carefully. I watched some more Rozen Maiden today, as well as the first episode of the Ah! My Goddess TV show. I liked the Ah! My Goddess epsiode. It wasn't just a rehash of the OAV story, which is nice. The character designs are different yet again, but not in a bad way really. I'm not sure what I will be doing with the rest of my time tonight and tomorrow, hopefully relaxing a little. I'd like to just chill and play a game for a bit. I'm not playing any right now but maybe I can find one to get into. I'll be trying out Guild Wars with some friends come April, but that is still a long way away.
0 comments
1/10/2005
I'm pretty beat. I've been trying to recover from being sick. I'm better now, but I'm still a little run down. I've had a bit of down time to watch some anime though. I'm up to episode 30 of Inuyasha. I like it quite a bit so far. It's got a lot of cool Japanese ghosts/monsters in it which is a lot of fun. It reminds me a little more of Mermaid's Scar in it's tone than let's say, Ranma. It is a romantic comedy though, and I expect that it might get pretty interesting later on.
I also watched the first 2 episodes of Rozen Maiden. It looks like something made for readers of Gothic & Lolita Bible magazine (that's not a joke or anything, it's a real magazine). I kind of like it. Speaking of magazines though, I ran across an issue of Retro Gamer magazine on the rack at Waldenbooks. I always feel a little taken when I find the magazine that exactly caters to my hobby, but really, what a cool thing. I was pretty excited to flip through it. At around $11-12 newsstand the price was a bit steep, but it looks like it has a CD/DVD with a bunch of PC remake games and some dev tools on it. I will be picking up a copy when I get my paycheck. 0 comments
1/01/2005
Happy New Year! I am sick in bed. :(
Edit: My fever is down a bit. I reposted my old slayers patch in a fit of nostalgia. I remade the patch and was going to post that, but actually found the old one on the Whirlpool with my old readme and everything. I also checked all my links under the "links" section so everything should be working. 0 comments
Site Archives:
June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 December 2003 January 2004 February 2004 March 2004 April 2004 May 2004 June 2004 July 2004 August 2004 September 2004 October 2004 November 2004 December 2004 January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 December 2007 January 2008 February 2008 March 2008 April 2008 May 2008 June 2008 July 2008 August 2008 September 2008 October 2008 November 2008 December 2008 January 2009 February 2009 March 2009 April 2009 May 2009 June 2009 July 2009 September 2009 October 2009 November 2009 December 2009 January 2010
