[20:54] Mannakun: WHAT FEMALE NARUTO ARE YOU
[20:56] jeiku: THE ONE THAT’S MOST KIND OF COOL

(No, I’m not reviewing that movie. )

My absenteeism excuse this week is a doozy- you might have even heard about it on the news. Such is the power of. My. Excuse. For you see, gale-force winds, offal from Hurricane Ike, hammered Ohio and knocked out the power of several cities for a matter of days. I should probably consider myself lucky this kind of thing isn’t the norm for our area, and that I’m not someplace that needs evacuated on a yearly basis. On the other hand, that’s also probably at least part of the reason we got knocked so firmly on our asses- Ohio is so far inland we’ve got trees and above ground power lines out the wazoo. Anyway, I spent most of the week at my parents’ place, only got power back at the apartment about sevenish on Wednesday (possibly while stopping in to see if the power was back on, since the traffic light on the corner was out on the way in and lit on the out.

Anywho. Other than being more acquainted with Izuna 2, I haven’t much gaming news to report! And I didn’t do a heck of a lot else to make up for it. Don’t look at me, blame the weather!

Every now and then when I get a little egotistical and do some hunting around sites that do/have linked to me, it’s kind of interesting that at least a couple of them seem to think that 3/2’s some sort of last bastion of the age of the Personal Site. Probably more appropriately dubbed the Seanbaby Boom. Personally I think that kind of undermines those of ‘us’ who ‘made it’ and started bitching about games professionally for various magazines (or, the Seanbaby Boom II) but managed to keep on truckin’ their own way on the side. I kind of wish I’d had the gumption to throw something the way of Ziff-Davis back when they seemed to be aggressively chloroform-napping webmasters left and right, though some of the travelogues and accounts Parish posts make me glad I didn’t turn this particular hobby of mine into a job. If I were writing gaming articles for a big name site, I might be pressured to fact check or actually issue corrections when I get comments/emails about how Miracle Girls wasn’t the story of two underage girls being molested by the cast of Little Nemo.

So, come the end of the year, 3/2 will be ten years old. Seriously. If TransFormers and Mega Man both celebrating 20+ year anniversaries recently made me feel old, watching the nth anniversary of my own work creep up is downright frightening. Further dating it all is the fact the earliest drafts of Revolver Knight hve been around since before I got online. Though the comic itself only really went public in ’04/’05 for Ohayocon after an eternity of petering around.

In conclusion, I bid thee- RAISE THY ROOVES. Send fan art! Toss some donations at me! Spam the comment threads with something other than spam! But above all else, thanks a lot for bothering to tune in for these things. I R AN INSTITUTION NOW

Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping, lately, and I had an eventful week and a half or so. Tomorrow I’ll no longer be restricted in travel distance by our pathetic Daytonian transit system, the strength of my feet, or my horrifically disproportionately healthy legs, too since I finally found a car in my price range (cheap) that runs smooth and surprisingly, doesn’t look like total scheiss. Coincidentally, it’s also red, which means it goes well with the Gurren-Dan sticker Christina got me last year. Maybe I’ll call it… Auto-Gurren.

Or not.

At any rate, I’m overdue for another burst of significant updates thanks to work and uh, Bangai-O, though hopefully soon I can turn that buggery around too. It occurs to me my last few reviews have been missing my awesome rating system, so I’ll fix that later this evening. Maybe. It’s not like it’s essential or anything.

GaoGaiGar v2 is out in stores, those magnificent bastards snuck it into stores a couple weeks ago with little brouhaha. It’s the same low, low, price of 23.99 that the first half of the series was, so need I remind you that said series carries my hearty seal of approval*? Or if you don’t mind being a little lost, the series really hits its stride in volume 2 anyway. Rewatching it, I hate to admit, makes me painfully aware of its pacing problems- the first DVD collection ends at about the same time that the show is only beginning its wide turn from ‘Monster of the Week’ to ‘Sci-Fi Thriller.’ (Those who pay attention to minor details and characters during the ‘grind’ episodes, though, will be rewarded with more than a few “OH! That guy did…!” moments later.)

NiGHTS is creepy. [TRANSMISSION ENDS]

It’s a shame that the Bangai-O Spirits Sound Load System doesn’t have anything to do with yelling at your DS to raise attack or anything like that, since it inspires me to yelling like few games do. Not necessarily even bad yelling like a good I dunno, 80 percent of my backlog. Just a deeply-programmed need to call out things like GEKIGAN FLAAAARE or BANGAI BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURST before loosing a flock of deathmissiles in all directions.

I’ve also been invoking FALCON PAWNCH! during Heroscape bouts lately. Seems to help Captain America’s dice rolls. Yes, I still play that game. The new Wave 8, Heroes of Kinsland, does something remarkable by single handedly making the Elf race stop sucking with a wonderfully broken team of linked wizards. One of the things that I love most about Heroscape is the CCG-ish synergy bonds between figures. In the aforementioned example; placing an order marker on one particular figure can activate a ‘bond’ ability that lets you take turns with two other elf wizards, one of whom is capable of summoning 1-3 other Elf characters to his side, letting you quickly move a pretty good sized formation on a single token. Factor in that many of the elves get boosts by being in proximity to other elves, and well, they’re starting to seem a bit more like a pointy eared, effeminate bum rushing squad.

Yakyakyakyak tabletop buggery blah blah blah yakity shmakity.