25 Aug 05

The release of the orginal GBA back in 2001 was a little anticlimatic for me. I had been looking forward to the system for months, and it was the first system I ever bought at launch. When the big day arrived, I went out and got my system along with copies of Chu Chu Rocket, Tony Hawk, Castlevania, and F-Zero. While these games were all well made, I didn't get into any of them very much. It wasn't until that fall when a game called Advance Wars came out that I found a game for the system that I could really sink  my teeth into. Fast forward a few years, and I found myself in a similar position with the DS. It is a well made system with a lot of capability, but at launch there wasn't a whole lot of games period, and none that real captured my imagination. Once again the first game I get absorbed in is an Advance Wars title. I admit it, I'm hooked. Look below for my impressions of it!

23 Aug 05

I finally managed to beat Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones for my GameBoy Advance. I am really developing a soft spot for these Fire Emblem games after the first one hit the GBA last year. I can hardly wait for the GameCube; the screenshots I've seen so far look pretty good. Having finished Fire Emblem, I've returned my attention to beating Grand Theft Auto on my Xbox, which has languished since February. I also bought my second and third DS games today, Nintendogs and Advance Wars: Dual Strike. In addition last night I broke down, logged on to Lik-Sang, and ordered an import copy of Elecktroplankton and a GBA Movie Player. I'm having trouble deciding which I'm more excited about, but both look to be fascinating toys.

I've recently started collecting the Chobits manga. Up until this point I have held off buying any manga (outside of the Megatokyo collections), but now that I have started reading Chobits I'm finding it hard to put it down. Really, this is why I have tried to avoid reading manga. At some level, I recognized that I would become hopelessly addicted to reading them, and I need another obsession like I need another hole in the head. However, I am really enjoying the artwork and the story, and I have a feeling that the Chobits anime will be the next series I start collecting ;).

14 Aug 05

After having completed my rew-watch of Nadesico, I decided I would put together a review of the series. I think I have finally sorted out what I want to do as far as Anime reviews are concerned; instead of reviewing individual discs, I'm going to stick to whole series. I hope to come up with several such review in the near future. For example,  I just finished up my first viewing of Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex. If you haven't seen it yet, I recommend it as this is one of the better shows I've watched, anime or otherwise. The production values are great, with a lot of slick CG animation, and the stories are both well written and highly relevant to the modern era. Bottom line, it is some pretty good science fiction, and it will probably be my next review project.

12 Aug 05

Ah, I've been taking some time to re-watch the anime "Martian Successor Nadesico." This is probably my favorite series. The mixture of humor, action, and heart-warming geek antics is powerfully intoxicating...I guess that is the hook: Nadesico is a show by geeks, about geeks, for geeks. Sweet!

Now that it  has been almost a month, I guess it would be a good idear to talk a little bit about the IRCWCC Nationals that were held back in July. So, check out my article and the few pictures I threw in for good measure. Speaking of articles, one about me was recently written in the local paper. It was a very nicely written article, so laudatory that it was a bit embarrassing. True, but embarrassing ;). At any rate, here's the update.

06 Aug 05

Hello there!

It has been quite a while, hasn't it? About two months by my reckoning! This is really truant behavior, even for me. Well, a lot of water has passed under the ol' bridge since I last updated, so much so that I scarcely know where to start.  The biggest thing is that I graduated from the Naval Academy (and got to shake the President's hand in the process). I've also completed NP-500, a math and science review course conducted by the Academy as preperation for Nuclear Power School. Now, I'm knee-deep in my 3 months of OHARP, which stands for Officers Home-Area Recruiting Program. Basically, Iam "helping" the recruiters at NRS Hammond with their work, if you can call sitting around reading and surfing the 'net helping. Oh, and I got to attend the IR/CWCC Nationals a couple of weeks ago, and it was a real blast (figuratively and literally).  Gaming wise, I have pretty much been playing Resident Evil 4 until my eyes have bugged out of their sockets. Because of that, I've decided to make a review of Resident Evil 4 my comeback update ;).

So, the bottom line is that I will be home for a while longer. I recently fixed up my room with some fresh paint and new furniture, because over the course of the last 4 years my room gradually became a depository for mountains of accumulated stuff. Those of you with cable might be familiar with this TLC show called "Clean Sweep." My little room project was a lot like an episode of that. Now, it is actually livable :^).

One final note: This update is a bit of an experiment for me.  l wrote some of it on my Palmpilot, and then imported the text into Frontpage. I'm hoping that updating in this fashion will inspire me to update more frequently, so we'll see.