Sounds of the future

I wasn't originally planning to, but I decided to throw in a soundtrack to the GitS feature as a bonus.  I know I'm being selective by only picking one soundtrack as the music for the TV shows and movies are awesome too, but there's something unique about this soundtrack for the PS1 game that other soundtracks don't, so it gets its own article written for the feature.  Trust me, it deserves it.

Megatech Body CD., Ltd.
The original 1997 Ghost in the Shell game is fantastic enough for its gameplay alone, but when coupled with a great soundtrack, it elevates itself for possibly being one of the greatest games in the PlayStation's library.  Read this to see what the gushing is all about.

New kicks

Both my car and me for about a year now have been in desperate need for some new footwear, so over the weekend I finally decided to help out my car first by giving it a new set of tires.

Beaut, right?  I went with Yokohama this time as many people on enthusiast forums for my car (Honda Fit – 2nd gen) say that Yokohama's are a good brand to go with.  Never having used that brand before I took the plunge after doing some research on the performance of their all season tires.  And after a few days of driving I have to say I made the right decision.

Granted I've only had them installed since Saturday, but I can already feel the difference in how my car handles.  One of the biggest changes I've felt is how much better it is at turning corners.  Before it always felt as if the back tires were only one degree away from sliding outwards, causing a spin out; but now I don't feel that anymore when I go on a circular freeway onramp.  In addition to turning, accelerating is better as it feels like it's gripping the road tighter than before when the tires felt they were floating slightly above the surface like if I was hydroplaning, even though it wasn't raining.  And just overall, the ride is much smoother to where I'm not feeling every little bump on the road anymore.

The last time I had my tires replaced were four years ago and it showed.  The treads were basically gone making it look like I had racing slicks, alignment was way off on I think three tires, and there was a large lump on one of the tires, giving a sign that it was on the verge of bursting any minute.  My M.O. is usually to replace my tires when one of them blows out, but with a generous donation, I took the initiative to get the tires I wanted and replaced them before that happened. Thanks Dad!

I decided to go with the full package, so in addition to getting four new tires, I also got balancing, alignment, and replaced my brake pads.  It's amazing how changing your tires could make it feel like you've bought a brand new car!

Next I'll be replacing my shoes, because like my tires, the treading on the soles are practically gone, the padding has been worn thin and flaking, and the heels feel like they're lower than the rest of my feet.  Bleh.

Fast 5

Here are five random images I found on my phone.  All of them are 7+ years old!  Eeek!

Transparency in 20oz

I came across what I believe is a rarity of a beverage while waiting in the checkout line at the grocery store yesterday.  In the countertop cooler that lines up a variety of soft drinks for impulse buyers, I saw something that was clearly different amongst the other bottles that contain darker colored liquids.  I saw a bottle of Crystal Pepsi!

Probably the last time I saw a bottle of this clear stuff was back in, like, the early ‘90s when clear, non-colored drinks were a short lived fad that even crossed over to liquor with brands like Zima.  Even back then I don't remember ever participating in this phenomenon by drinking any transparent sodas, so I never knew what it tasted like.  But twenty years later I was given a second change to rectify my past sin and can now taste what I've been missing for all these years.  And as you can probably expect, the anticipation was high when I finally had it in my hand, cap removed, and ready to take a swig.

The results? Meh.

It does kind of throws you off with the first sip because knowing ahead of time it's a Pepsi, so you expect to tie together the taste to what you visually see in the bottle to what you already know about the drink, but with my brain expecting it to be black rather than clear, it confused my taste buds, but after you take a second mouthful is when you get it figured out.  To me it doesn't taste like a traditional Pepsi.  It had a strange after taste to it.  I've never drank hand sanitizer (and I never plan to), but that back taste I got from it gave me that inclination.  Next time I see one, I think I'll pass on it.

So in conclusion: I didn't miss much.

Get ready to brain dive!

It's here!  The first entries for the Ghost in the Shell feature that covers the materials of the franchise prior to the soon to be released live-action film are here for your perusal.  This first duping of content includes all of the OG media that's critically acclaimed.

As noted in an earlier blog entry, these are sort of but not really reviews for the listed media, along with some personal opinions dashed in for some originality.  Hey, this is my personal blog after all, so it should come as no surprise.  All of this is to let people get a glance of the Ghost in the Shell world that inspired the upcoming movie starring Scarlett Johansson, which I’m anticipating to watch when it comes out, but am also cautiously optimistic to see if it’ll be good enough to capture the reasons why this franchise is so great.

The order which I’m releasing these may be a bit off from a US release standpoint.  When I organized everything by date via a spreadsheet, I decided to go with the Japanese release dates, but using the dates in which the collective books (tankobon) were published instead of the original comic release dates.  That seemed to make the most sense to order this feature.

Oh, and remember that there will be some spoilers in this GitS feature, so watch out if you're sensitive to knowing plotlines or characters, or endings.  I'm noting it here and at the top of the index page too, so consider yourselves warned!

Ghost in the Shell - Manga

The one that started it all and spawned a huge cash cow for Shirow Masamune.  Oh yeah, in this entire feature I’m referring to him as "Shirow Masamune" rather than what I believe is actually "Masamune Shirow."  Why?  Because all of the US content has it shown with Shirow as the first name, so that’s why and I’m sticking to it.

Ghost in the Shell - Film

I think most people were introduced to the Ghost in the Shell universe starting with the 1995 film rather than the manga.  Acclaimed by many including Roger Ebert, it’s become a classic for both cyberpunk and anime buffs alike.  In terms of availability, I think it’s on every streaming service, so it shouldn’t be very difficult to track down if you want to watch it.

Ghost in the Shell - Game

I don’t think a lot of people know about the PS1 game that allows you to control a Fuchikoma.  The proof for that may be the reasoning as to why the price for the game on eBay is so darned high: a minimum amount of copies exist.  And if that’s the case, then that’s a real shame because it’s a fantastic game with great graphics, fun gameplay, and a cool soundtrack.  Un-oh, I think this article might have upped the price on eBay by a few bucks.

Oldies

All weekend from Friday to today, KROQ's been playing nothing but ‘90s alternative music with Roq of the 90s Weekend.  So far, it's been what I've been mainly listening to over these last few days.

Not that they've never done this before, but it's been a while since I've heard a lot of ‘90s music in a concentrated amount of time; and it's been awesome.  Why?  Because since there is a lot of time to fill for the station, they've been playing not only the big hits, but also minor hits that I've completely forgotten about like Bush's "Comedown" and King Missile's "Detachable Penis."

I guess tomorrow we go back to the new stuff again.  Now old man me wishes there was an KROQ HD3 station that only played ‘90s music similar to KROQ HD2 that only plays ‘80s music with Roq of the 80s.  But maybe too much of a good thing is bad.

Moonshining the good stuff

Love eating oatmeal, but sometimes it's just too much for a weekday breakfast.  It's a problem because I'm a slow eater by nature, and it takes me a while to eat any meal you pass my way.  Oatmeal is one that takes me a while to go through; though not because of the taste (I got over my childish hate for it long ago).  I think it may be because of the runny-like texture it has.  I think it just causes me to consume it more slowly when compared to something more solid.  This may be the reason why I can eat oatmeal and granola cereals faster than a traditional bowl of the oat-to-the-meal.

A pretty good solution was found on the package of the last box of oatmeal I bought.  Rather than showing the recipe for making oatmeal cookies, they instead showed something I've never seen before: overnight oatmeal.

While skeptical that it would taste good (I never ate raw oats from a cold serving), I decided to give it a shot because the recipe was simple enough to where a non-chef doofus such as myself could assemble this together with little effort.  That and the picture on the box looked too tempting to not pass up on trying it at least once.  The ingredients include:
- 1/2 cup of oats
- 1/2 cup of low fat milk
- 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup of blueberries
- banana slices

As the name suggests you make it the night before and then eat it the next day.  It's actually pretty tasty, which I think is thanks to the vanilla extract, spiking the sweet factor up by an extra 10 points.  Of course the blueberries and banana contribute to that as well.  When you consider the health benefits, this thing is loaded with heart healthy oats and antioxidants.  I can sense my blood getting redder bite after bite.

The only negative I can think of is the price.  More specifically, the blueberries and vanilla extract.  If you already have a cupboard with this sweet nectar, then I guess it's not a problem, but those tiny bottles sure do cost a lot when you need to buy more, and then there's the blueberries setting me back about $4.00 a pack, which only allows for about 3 servings.  But when you consider this as a meal that keeps you full until lunch, then I guess you can call it a saving as you can skip the late morning snack.

So yeah, overnight oatmeal.  You have my approval.

The future is now

Hope everyone enjoyed that short exploration of Microsoft Home software because that last one with a big dive into Scenes with screensavers and wallpapers was the final one.  Actually, I know you guys like them as those blog entries are one the most trafficked pages on the site.  It was short lived, but I was able to cover all five major categories the catalog of software had to offer, which was my mission all along, so I'm proud to say the mission was a success.  But don't fret because as one feature gets sunset, another will take its place; and this time it's going to get its own section.

I'm pretty excited for this one.  This is one of those ideas I had mulling over in my brain for a number of years now, but am now finally getting my butt in gear to finally put it out.  Ladies and gentleman, I present to you: Ghost in the Shell: Post Factum.

So I'm a fan of Ghost in the Shell, and have been a fan since 2004 when the TV series premiered in the US.  Yeah, I knew about the franchise much earlier when I was first exposed to it when playing the demo for the PS1 game back in 1997, but I really didn't get into it until the TV show aired; and since then I've been a fan of it.  Well, to be honest, more like a casual fan, as I never really consumed anything other than the TV shows, the original game, or the first manga book.  I kept buying everything GitS related over a decade's time between 2005 and 2010, but never actually took anything out of the shrink wrap.

But now that the live action film of the series is coming out soon, it's acting as a motivation in an effort to finally get through all of the material before the movie debuts in what should be late March.  So over the next several months, I'll be dumping my opinions regarding every book, movie, TV show, and games related franchise into their own articles, so you can get a small sampling of the content that inspired the live action movie.  My goal is to be finished with this feature before the movie premiers.  That's a tight deadline, but I think I can make it; even though Let it Die has been hampering my efforts!

Now even though I hate spoilers and I try to make my write-ups as spoiler free as possible (like my games journal feature), I'm going to make an exception for this feature, so expect to see spoilers throughout it.  I'll provide a warning on the hub page for this feature, so be cautious if you don't want anything ruined in the way of me telling you certain plot points or endings!

And due to the rush in getting this feature accomplished, the index page and a few other things will look bare bones and lite on original designs.  All of that will be added later on after I've written all of the content.  So expect the index page to get a facelift after it's all done.  To get to the index page, click the image you see at the top of this entry, or click the link on the right-hand side of this website where the other features are at.  The first batch of content should be hitting the website next week.  Hope you'll stick around for them :-)

Delicioso

Finally got around to trying out one of the Platos meals at Del Taco.  It's pretty expensive, but you can tell quality is included as part of the cost, and that makes it ok.  From the menu, you can pick from one of four main dishes: two street tacos, two beer battered fish tacos, a chicken verde wet burrito, or a carne asada wet burrito.  For me, I decided to go large and get the carne asada wet burrito.

As what you'd out of one, it was packed with meat, covered in lots of cheese, and drenched with red sauce.  It was dense and the quality of the meat was good as there was no "stringiness" to it when chewed and it filled the burrito from end-to-end.  To top it off, they placed avocado slices to complement the meaty carne asada with a hint of a soft, buttery texture and flavor.

For the sides, all Platos meals come with rice with some pico de gallo on top, chips and salsa, and a whole lot of refried beans with cheese on top.  All the sides were a great filler to the main course, but I wished they doubled the amount of tortilla chips as there's way too much beans for just the amount of chips they offer, so if you plan to get this meal you should either buy a second helping of chips or make sure you have some at home if you decide to do take-out.

For next time, I'm considering getting the chicken verde wet burrito as I love it when our family makes it for dinner from time-to-time, but man does it disagree with me after a few hours simmering in my stomach.  But that's the pain I'm willing to take for deliciousness.

Echoes from the past

Last night I was rummaging through some old backups and I unintentionally went and did a deep dive into it, killing a lot more time than I would have like to.  However, during that expedition I found some real treasures I thought were buried in the sands of time.  And when I mean “treasures,” I mean I found a lot of image editing projects.

This is the earliest one I can find.  It's dated October 2001 and that makes sense as that was the time I bought a used laptop for college, which I started a few months earlier in July.  A friend gave me a butt load of software to go with the laptop, including a copy of I believe ImageReady 3.0, which would be my introduction with photo editing software.  It's like a very lightweight version of Photoshop that included layers, basic filters, and nothing else.  A few months later he would give me a copy of Photoshop and Illustrator 6.0, which opened things up greatly.

Anyways, that image was created as a concept for a game I was thinking about creating once I graduated from college with a degree in computer programming.  Since it's been 15 years and I haven't created even one game, I guess it's okay to let my idea out and let everyone know what a fresh and ignorant 18 year old had in mind for a game.  But as you'll see, over the years, some of the ideas and story points in it would be seen in other games, so it's not really that original anymore.

The story for Outlaws begins in the future where a large corporation dealing with making major leaps in technology fields like medical and aerospace were creating a teleportation system able to travel large distances for space exploration, but accidently created a time portal that pulls in a scientist, along with a bunch of other equipment in the lab, to the old west.  Meanwhile, a pair of outlaws during the old west days, unfortunately being around the same physical location where the lab would be at in the future, witness the time portal open up, throwing the scientist into their time along with one of the outlaws being pulled into it, throwing him into the future.  In addition, the portal causes the surrounding areas to be infested with spiritual beings that came from the portals and possessing people and animals.  Ultimately, it would be a survival horror game.

The game has the player controlling the two who were thrown out of their times with the scientist running around an old west town, assisted by the other outlaw (who is the boss of the two) while the other being the outlaw running through a futuristic city, assisted by the other scientist's lab partner.  There's a special communication device both sides use so they can work together in resolving this incident (the communication device was created for use while subjects were traveling in the portal).  Both parties on the opposite sides of the timeline are needed due to a lot of the lab equipment got pulled into the portal.  Time travel gameplay mechanics like burying something so a character in the future can use it in their time would be used along with survivor horror clichés of running around fighting or running from monsters and item collecting so the player can progress to new locations.

Finding out what went wrong would be on the future side, running into suspicious characters and taking note of what they were doing.  Eventually the player would discover that the lead scientist was actually part of the occult and attempting to free their god who has been imprisoned in a lost dimension that occurred millennia ago.  The time portal was close to but missed the demon's prison, giving to the reasoning behind the evil spirits.  The final boss battle would be going into that demon's dimension and killing it.  I remember I wanted the ending to have a twist in it, similar to a horror movie where everything isn't as rosy as you'd like it to be at the end, but I never got around to actually creating the documentation that explains the game in details.  All as far as I ever got was creating some title images that you see in this post.

As a contrast, with my friend and his game idea, he went way further than I did to where he pretty much had his story written and finalized with a scene-by-scene explanation, script dialogs, and even character models.  But unlike a survival horror like mine was, his was a JRPG styled game.  Before he moved to another state, he gave me a copy of his story.  Man, need to see if I still have that somewhere.  I totally forgot what it was about except for the name of the company which the story centers around: Shadow Fox Industries; or something like that.  It'd be cool if I can find it again to see it with 15 years' worth of hiding in the darkest of backups has caused it to be as good as it was when he originally told me it, aging like a fine wine.

But with my story and game mechanics, you can point out a few games that had similar plot points or mechanics.  The biggest would have to be Doom 3 with all of the demons and portal crap.