20 July 04

On a less bizarre note, my Dad and I got out to a local theater to see "I, Robot" this afternoon. For those of you that haven't seen it, the movie is a pretty decent sci-fi story. When you  get right down to it, "I, Robot" is a mix of a number of plot points seen in other sci-fi movies, which means that nothing in the movie was overly surprising.  However, this particular permutation of theses plot elements, along with some well done action sequences and effects, kept the movie from being very boring. I wouldn't call it a must-see, but it is sufficiently well crafted to warrant attention of sci-fi buffs like myself.

I managed to get my hands on a FreeLoader disc last Saturday, so I've been playing a good deal of Donkey Konga as of late (when I'm not busy installing toilets, that is). Saturday, after not getting the FreeLoader I ordered online, I decided to call up a local Gamestop to ask if they had one. Lo and behold, they did indeed have that particular item that has since been the key to unlocking the wonders of Donky Konga. On Sunday, I even had the opportunity to run the game by my friend and his brothers, who happen to be much bigger music gamers than I. Available for your perusal below are some written impressions on the game. And, since this is a game I got in Japan, the article has been added to my Japan Coverage page.

14 July 04

Have you ever waited impatiently for something to arrive in the mail? I am in that situation right now, eagerly awaiting the arrival of my FreeLoader disc. This disc will allow me to play the copy of Donky Konga I imported on my American GameCube. From what I understand, the disc is put into the GameCube first, before the  game. FreeLoader then convinces the GameCube to play games from whatever region you choose. The best part is that by using this disc, I can avoid the hassle of cracking open my GameCube's case and making a hardware modification.

Today, my Japan coverage continues with a look at the other model I brought back with me, this one of the refit Constitution class USS Enterprise.

13 July 04

Whew! How time flies. I can't believe it has been a month and a half since I last updated. However, this time I have a good excuse. Honest! I just got home Friday from my 6 week trip to Japan where I had an absolutely fabulous time meeting all sorts of new friends and seeing all sorts of strange and interesting things. And I'll be darned, I think my Japanese language ability has improved slightly as well. I will be posting a photo essay about what I did on the trip soon, but for now here is a shot of a portion of the mountain of stuff I brought home.

As one might suspect, my trip to Japan and the things I brought back from it will be providing a large bounty of fodder for future updates to the site. Besides the photo essay I mentioned above, I also plan to make features in the Anime, Games, and Trek sections. To make things a little easier, I've set up a page dedicated to my trip which will collect the links to the articles I've made relating to it. I've put a small link to it in the upper right of the main page, and it will stay until I feel like taking it down ;). Kicking of my Japan coverage is a review of Bandai's (relatively) new model of the Enterprise-E.