Which One Will It Be?

According to a gamespot news article, Square-Enix is scheduled to make a surprise announcement this March 2. Apparently, a "flyer" on Square-Enix.co.jp is inviting everyone to a game related event but would not disclose more detail regarding the nature of the mystery news. Could this mark the launch of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children? Or even better,FinalFantasy XII? Either one would be welcome news to fans who have been waiting for the next installment in the series.

Then again, the event might not be the venue for either launch—it could be an announcement regarding Sony PSP ports, a new original series, or something else altogether. It's all speculation at this point, but you'll be sure that many would be on the lookout for any clues until event day.

The Real McCoy and the Internet

Just as I was synchronizing blog posts and journal entries, the phrase "the real McCoy" came to me. So I opened a new tab in Safari, went to a9.com, and did a phrase search—including etymology in the search terms. (I don't remember why I thought of the real McCoy, I have a feeling there's a reason why, but I can't remember anymore.)

Apparently it referred to real, unadulterated Scotch whiskey, and came to mean the genuine article, but other origins still circulate. I thought that was interesting, and got around to thinking how the internet enables such knowledge safaris, in addition to more dubious applications.

It's just too bad that the very nature of the internet also incubates such annoyances, productivity drains, and dangers as spam, viruses and malware—not to mention the proliferation of inaccurate or downright erroneous information, sometimes making research harder than it should be.

Kleenex, Xerox, and MP3s

I received a renewal notice from Computer Associates today, reminding me that my antivirus protection has expired and offering a discount towards renewal. In the envelope was included a glossy, four color insert describing the dangers of not having anti-viral software, with a not-too-subtle photograph of a begloved hand reaching for the handle through the door's shattered glass pane.

Aside from hackers stealing passwords, viral infections spreading through your address book, and pop-up bombardment, it also mentioned loss of financial records, digital photos and MP3s as some of the nasty effects of leaving computers unprotected on the internet. It occurred to me that MP3 might very well be on its way to becoming a generic word, like kleenex, or xerox. It is easier to say "MP3" when referring to all kinds of formats, but come on, why not say "digital music"? It's not like writing telegrams where you're billed by character, making terse and concise messages necessary and three letters win over thirteen.

Getting the Hang of Blogging

After months of neglecting myNoggin, and just reading other blogs, I think now I've gotten the hang of writing in my own. Whereas before, I felt really reluctant to post anything, now I just sit down and write about what comes to mind.

The reason why I didn't warm up to blogging right away is because I never was the kind of person who kept a journal, a diary, or whatever. I always doubted whether anyone would care or would want to know what I thought. You could say that I let the "inner critic" stymie my writing even before I had a chance to consider what I thought about sometimes.

Getting over that stumbling block wasn't easy, but I guess being in an English 101 class this semester helped (I'm actually retaking it because I dropped the ball when I first signed up for the class and although I passed, I knew I could do better, and I plan on doing just that this time around.) We're using this new book which the publisher provided for free because it uses a different approach than the one usually drummed into students (You know, the rigid, step by step process from outline to final essay) and they wanted to see how effective it would be in teaching students to write well.

Basically it says that bad writing is fine as you begin developing your ideas, because what often happens is being too citical so early in the writing process shunts the flow of creative thought. After generating your ideas and maybe discovering what you thought about a topic, then you undergo a process of revision and reflection to polish your paper, essay or any writing assignment, for that matter.

On Naiveté and Plain Old Honesty

Just now, I had an encounter that reaffirmed my faith in the basic honesty of people. Living in Las Vegas, you would expect that I would have a native distrust of strangers who come up to me and ask for money. I've had a couple of teens approach me asking for change saying they had to make a call but didn't have any. Anyone wouldave thought a couple of quarters would be a pittance and just fork over the two bits, which I did.

But today, as I was waiting in front of my local library listening to some Talib Kweli
on my iPod, I was approached by an older gentleman who introduced himself as Steve, and asked if he could borrow at least a dollar, because he ran out of gas and needed to get from the West Charleston campus to an English 102 class in another. I was rummaging for some quarters myself because I wanted to make a call on one of the payphones just inside the library's dual sliding door entrances. I told him that
I'll see if I had any change I could give him, but it turns out I didn't, so I peeked in my wallet and the smallest I had was a ten dollar bill.

He offered to go inside the library and break it for me, and-in what seems on reflection to be a monumentally stupid thing to do-I gave him the ten bucks and said I'd wait outside while he asks one of the library clerks for change. As he went in, I felt that I did
something that I might regret-giving him the ten dollars.

I thought that he might have been lying, and was now chuckling to himself, thinking how easily he duped that shmoe who was still standing outside waiting for change that would never come. After a couple of minutes of kicking myself for being so stupid, Steve came out of the library and handed me a five, and five dollar bills. Again, he wondered if I could spare him some gas money. Because I was feeling pretty good that my naiveté wasn't taken advantage of, I asked him how much he would like to have. He said "Three dollars would just about cover it." and offered to meet me in the same spot tomorrow to pay me back. I said it was okay, and he didn't have to pay me back, and said "You're welcome." as he said thanks and waved goodbye.

God of War

I received a demo disc of God of War in the mail a couple of days ago, but I didn't play the game until today. I wasn't quite sure what to make of a muscular, pallid "Spartan" who sported bright red war paint and swords that hardly looked Greek at all. But because I wasn't engrossed in any games at the moment, I thought "What the heck, I might as well give it a spin." What I saw didn't disappoint.

The game opens with a short but breathtaking cinematic of the protagonist Kratos, who apparently wants out of being the Gods' lackey. Afterwards, you are thrust in the midst of an attack on a flotilla of Greek ships by what appears to be a Hydra with demonic soldiers thrown in the mix.

Game play was decidedly action-oriented and quite easy to jump into, with repeated presses on the square button unleashing spectacular, fiery swaths on your opponents and the triangle button serving up a more forceful, powerful attack. But what at first would seem to devolve into just a satisfying button-mashing frenzy proved to include quite a variety of techniques-pressing the L1 button to block then the square button causes Kratos to pummel the enemy like a lethal whirling dervish.

Once you defeat the foot soldiers, you descend into the holds of the ship, where you finally get to duke it out with the Hydra-one of its heads actually. After Kratos deals a few blows, the hydra seems to get the wind knocked out of it, and that is when you'll want to get more intimate with the thing. Follow the screen prompts telling you when to press the face buttons-done correctly, Kratos then slams the hydra against the sides of the ship and deals a few more devastating attacks.

The demo didn't end there however. You walk across beams exposed by your fight with the hydra and make your way to the other ships, fighting as you go. To make it across the deck of one ship and make it to the level where archers are taking their shots at you and the sailors, Kratos kicks a crate to the other end while taking shelter behind large boxes set in intervals, and timing is key.

God of War also has you climbing rope ladders as more of the demonic horde claw their way beside you, while you lash out at them with your weapons. You can also just reach out and bash them against the taut rope, which has to be the more satisfying way to get rid of the stragglers-on.

In one of the ships you also get to speak to the disembodied manifestation of Poseidon god of the sea, which introduces you to a new attack, Poseidon's rage (which I had forgotten to use).

The last level has Kratos square off against three hydra heads, one of which seems to be larger and nastier than the others. It was in this fight that I discovered that God of War also employs a fair bit of strategic thinking. After going mano a mano with the two lesser heads-which prevented access to the chief hydra, and not making progress, two tiers of large crates arranged to form steps on either side of the monsters caught my attention. Each led to platforms attached to large anchor-like hooks, and jumping on them caused the hooks to plummet down, which I took to mean they are meant to keep the minor heads down once I deplete their health. Perched on the crates at hydra head level, it was a piece of cake to bash them into submission and pin their writhing bulk to the deck. Happy that I figured out how to dispatch the subordinates, I made my way up the mast to confront the head Hydra-and that's when the demo ends.

It sure looks to me that God of War is well on its way to become another classic; hopefully the finished game proves to be more of the same-a fiery, fun romp through Greek mythology.

The Prodigal Feed

Many bloggers have opted to provide site feeds which allow their readers to automatically be appraised of new posts and perhaps other updates to their blogs. This comes as an effort to make it convenient for the site's readers to catch up on their reading, thus making it easier to attract new audiences and keep readers coming back for more of the author's distinctive voice.

It was with that in mind that I enabled feed publishing for myNoggin, and seeing how my blog hasn't grown to mammoth proportions, I republished my entire blog in the space of a few seconds. Everything appeared to go smoothly, and I wouldn't have noticed the gaff if I didn't try to add my blog as a Live Bookmark to Firefox. Apparently, when I changed my blog's address to http://lloydrv.blogspot.com, the index still pointed the browser to the old location, http://chrisrv.blogspot.com/atom.xml.

At first, I thought I might have republished just my index, and not the entire blog so I went ahead and did just that, making sure that I did choose that option, but no dice. Then it occurred to me that disabling the feed, republishing the blog, then enabling the feed, and then republishing the blog might do the trick. After going through that routine-which thankfully didn't take much time, I was finally able to get the site pointing to the right feed address.

I guess my experience demonstrates just how important actual testing is, because while the system or program or whatever might see nothing amiss, errors great and small might actually be lurking in the background.

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Nearing Release?

It seems that a few days ago I received an email from square-enix asking for my participation in a short survey, apparently to gauge interest in the DVD release of its Final Fantasy VII sequel. It appeared to have come from square-enix, and I haven't seen anything to convince me otherwise, so I went ahead and answered the questionnaire. Hopefully, my feedback would influence how, when, and at what price point the DVD will be released. The survey asked for what premium item I would like to see included in a limited edition package, for instance.

Could this mean that they are wrapping up production of this highly anticipated project? I sure hope so, because I've been eagerly looking forward to Advent Children's release since hearing the rumors and seeing the trailers.

So, if you would like to take the survey yourself, I think you might be able to use the same link I used because it doesn't seem to be specific to my maling list address.
Take the Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Survey

One Post, Many Blogs

In the past years that I've gone and signed up for sites which allowed me to keep blogs or journals, I've often wondered if it was possible that everyone could come together and create a common denominator which would allow everyone to post in one place and have the changes propagate across our personal blogospheres.

I don't mean a program or site that allows you to post to LiveJournal, Pyblosxom, and any one of the more popular blogging services, because they're already out there, Gnome-blog for instance. I mean something similar to xml, something which most everyone can embrace and extend.
If ever something like this would emerge, then it would make the task of updating multiple blogs easier. I could just imagine adding a new post on myNoggin and having that same entry published instantly to my Deviant Art Journal and 1up.com blog.