So, I'm not really feeling like getting back into this, but at least while the site is still live, I don't want that kind of negativity festering on it, so I've removed my grim post of grimness. Here's a replacement paragraph.

It's sad that I took so long to remove it too, because the dark times didn't last for long; three days, more or less. I guess sometimes people just gotta get their shit together, and it's just too bad that sometimes it involves hurting the people closest to you. Anyway, happier news!

There's this Mario Bros. level creator see, and over at Talking Time, they're making a whole game with it. Interested in the project, I downloaded the editor jsut to play around, and quickly found myself deeply entrenched in it because let's face it, making your own levels for a game you grew up with is a pretty great power trip.

I decided that I'd make my very own Super Mario Bros. game, and while "development" was going smoothly and I was very proud of my work, I quickly came to the realization that all my hard work would never be appreciated by anyone but myself. And while self-satisfaction is great and all, I wanted at least someone to critique a little of my work, so I submitted a stage to the Super TT Bros thread, and not only was it accepted into the game, but was given fairly high praise! So yay me. If you want to see what I made (and it's really not that great), download the SMBX program and then put this level in the Worlds folder somewhere. It's most easily accessed by booting it up in the editor and choosing "test level."

So yeah. I'm very happy about this. Maybe Super TT Bros. will only ever be played by a few dozen forum patrons, but dammit, I made a contribution to a real goddamn game. Fan-game maybe, but a game no less. I can now die happy. How many times have I typed that over the lifespan of this site?

The saddest part is that this is the second time. I knew it was inevitable, and that all 360s succumb to the RROD at some point in their lifetime, but I hadn't realized that having it repaired would only last so long. Maybe it was just me being naive, but I really, truly believed that once it came back from Microsoft's Xbox Resuscitation Centre it would live on until it literally fell apart.

But nope. Hardware's failed again, and this time it's gonna cost me to get it repaired. So I was thinking about just waiting out my lack of Xbox until I can scrounge up enough pocket change to pick up one of those "more reliable" Slim models. I was needing a hard drive upgrade anyway, so I figure I might as well bite the bullet. If the one I have is just going to keep suiciding forever, why not spare myself the agony and pony up for a new one?

I just really don't have $300 to fritter away on a game console I already own. Only now do I realize why I shouldn't have bought each new iteration of the DS (excepting the XL of course, even I'm not that bad with money). It's not like ol' Phatty there is going to kick the bucket anytime soon.

Quite often in the world of television games, there are set standards that will always ring true. Licensed games (based on movies, TV shows, toy lines, etc) will almost always be unplayably bad. Japanese RPGs will require hours and hours of level grinding. Madden 20XX will sell like hotcakes. Japanese and western developers will have exactly the opposite ideas of how games should be. And that last one is the important one here, because recently I've noticed that two completely different game series have evolved in almost the exact same pattern, and not only is one American-born and the other of Japanese heritage, but they're of nearly opposite genres as well and come almost exclusively on different platforms.

Our first series is the "illustrious" MegaMan Battle Network. A stiflingly brilliant mash up of action and RPG, the Battle Network series was the first standout RPG series on the GameBoy Advance. It reinvented MegaMan and his world, and even cut him down to co-star, forced to share the spotlight with a rather vanilla human hero. Then we have Guitar Hero, which blew up the music game genre, and made the world embrace the art of playing a pretend guitar. Both series have come a long way, and coincidentally have shared many of the same steps along their separate paths.

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So! Hard drive enclosure get! Also it was fairly cheap. I was expecting $70-$100, got it for $45. Which is still more than I'd like to pay for a glorified cable into my computer, but whatever. The new compy is now set up to feed on the delicious informations held within the old hard drive, so I've got access to all my old crap.

That said, I think that in keeping with the spirit of moving old stuff to a new system, I should really get on with moving all the old website stuff over from Angelfire. I beleive I said I was going to start doing that some months ago, and kind of forgot. Or got overwhelmed. There's a lot more to go than I'd expected, so it's going to be quite a task, but it needs to get done. And just moving the stuff over isn't so bad, but updating the layouts and making sure all the links are live is a huge pain. Makes me wish I was coding this site in something more efficient than bare-bones HTML. Oh well!

Yeah, that's about all. I moved a couple articles over tonight. Not enough that I'm ready to make that second "Ryan's Favourite Articles" post though. That'll be next week maybe?

So I got me a new compy, and it's quite slick. Not a a top-of-the-line model, mind you, but more than good enough to suit my needs. Those needs being running a crap-ass blog and playing Borderlands. Also Portal sometimes, but mostly Borderlands.

The (very temporary) downside to all this is that not everything is quite in place yet and I currently do not have access to my old hard drive. This means it's gonna be about a week or so until I'm back at peak efficiency. Of course peak efficiency isn't much more than what I've got going now, it basically just means I have my entire music library to listen to whilst I blog, as opposed to the... (let me see here)... three CDs I've bothered to rip again.

In any case, here's a picture of the new beast. Though really, it's less than half the size of the last machine, so "beast" probably isn't the right word. Also it's a jillion times quieter too, so I can leave it on and stuff downloading overnight. Uh, nothing that I'm not supposed to be downloading, of course.

Look at all that space! I actually have a desk now! Also I can move my mouse! Hooray!

But cheering aside, I was going to go to work on moving more old articles over from the Angelfire mess, but then realized I no longer had access to the files! Silly me. Oh well, I'll be uploading flashy new versions of stuff in less than a week's time, so stay tuned. Also, that Dove deodorant is totally not mine. I use the manly stuff. For men.

Here's a shocker: I've updated the long-neglected CD archive section of the site. Yeah, thought I'd given up on it, didn't you? I'll admit it was (and still is) a monumental task, but I'm feeling like it's time to git 'r done!

Ahem.

You can go here to find out more. Gold letters are ones that are recently updated. Yes there is only one currently; it's been a long, slow process, and I don't plan to increase speed too much. I do hope to have at least all currently available letter updated and three more done by the end of the year though. Remind me about that in November too please, cause I'm damn sure gonna forget.

so yeah. Mostly I just didn't want that condom dispenser label to be the first thing people saw anymore. And that kinda failed because this post wasn't nearly meaty enough. Oh, irony!

I know that it's been a while since Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, but it's a real testament to how poorly the Metroid Prime Trilogy sold that Samus has had to resort to selling condoms to make ends meet. At least Metroid: Other M comes out soon and her regular cash flow will pick up.

Interesting tidbit: While typing the two sentences above, I missed typing nearly half of the o's. Weird.

So the other day I went out on my lunch break and bought a bucket of peach rings candy from Wal-Mart. It's not that I really love peach rings that much or anything, I just needed some candy, and that seemed the most appealing at the time. Also it was like two bucks, so how could I refuse? I ate a few, went back to work, and left them sitting in the car.

Now, this summer's been pretty crappy, and most of our days have been cold, rainy, windy, or any combination of those three. So of course when I got home and settled into my room and I realized I'd left the peach rings in the car, I wasn't worried. I'd just take them in tomorrow after work. Of course, I forgot they were there in the morning, and they sat in the backseat all day long. And that was the day the sun came out to shine.

The little bastards melted something fierce, creating a horrible gelatinous peach blob. I was disappointed at first, but quickly discovered that the blob was not only still edible, but it also made a great plaything! The blob was unexpectedly smooth and soft, but it was also sticky as hell, as evidenced by the fact that if I put in my finger, then lifted it out, the whole bucket would lift with it, then slowly stretch back down. See!

Yeah. Sticky. And there's really not much else to say about that. I showed a close-up picture to people (without telling them what it was) and they were totally grossed out, thinking it was some kind of gore. Then I said it was just candy and they were only slightly less disgusted. I ended up eating most of what was in the bucket, but it hardened back up pretty quickly and it became much harder to tear chunks off. So I'm out a couple peach rings, but I think the entertainment value was still worth the two dollar price. Also an easy blog post!

I suppose I should also mention that I'm going to Canmore again for the next week, so no blogging until Saturday at the earliest. Not that I've been keeping up very well over the last couple weeks though... Whatever.