Penfold

http://wii.ign.com/articles/916/916979p1.html So, in Iwata's clarification of the 'storage solution,' he confirmed it is just the ability to download directly to the SD card and not loading from the SD card. Beyond pointless, given how slow the transfer rate is.

That's what really interests me. It's too bad they didn't show anything upcoming. They could definitely do some cool stuff. As for the GBA slot, I don't own any DS games which utilize it and still have 3 other options if I ever want to play my GBA games so it's not a big deal for me. Personally, I'll probably be picking up a DSi once it comes out. I'm also hoping they'll be clarifying about the SD card slot. If the only difference from now is that you can just download directly to the SD card, then it's extra-pointless. If they actually uncripple it, then I'll be happy but I don't quite understand why they'd wait till Spring '09. Very excited about the game announcements, especially FF:CC and Punch-Out!! I'll be happy to play Pikmin and Metroid Prime WiiMakes when they come out, but I was a little disappointed at no Pikmin 3 announcement (and I'm still holding out hope for an eventual new Kid Icarus ).

Mega Man 9 is awesome! Beat the 8 bosses on the first evening, and had trouble at the 1st Wily Stage until figuring out that C. Shot froze the lava beams. The ending (like the rest of the story) was pure cheese, but that's part of the fun. A lot of nice retro touches here and there. Just about through it for the 2nd time (took me 27 min to beat the 8 bosses this time around, so I'll see if I can get that "achievement" for beating the game in under an hour). I though black hole bomb was the most unique new weapon, and Magma Man had the coolest design of the new robots. Looking forward to some MM9-related OC ReMixes when our fine ReMixers get around to them.

I actually only played MMZ and none of its sequels, so I'm pretty glad to hear it. I'll have to go back to play MMZ2-4 at some point. Thanks for the info . As for Mega Man 3-6, I really liked 3, loved 4, 5 was good, and 6 was not bad IMO. I don't think I ever beat 7 (never owned an SNES), and despite not liking the extra goofy cartooniness of 8 I thought it was a lot of fun. Mega Man X-X4 is really where it's at, though. Anyway, best friend is coming up tomorrow, so we'll finally play through MM9. Watched the vid on the Nintendo Channel again...so damn excited!

I was reading news about that on IGN...I have pretty high hopes, since Studio Ghibli as a whole has proven its prowess at storytelling and characterization. Always thought they'd be good at games, so I guess we'll see how it goes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mega_Man_games Mega Man 3 came out in 1990 and there were really only 2 MM games that came out in the 80's. Personally, I thought Zero was good, but would have been much better if they just stuck to a simple stage select (same with MMZX). Also a big WTF for all the boss names in MMX5 and on that didn't stick to the MMX series' naming conventions.

Fixed for Pacific Time . And yeah, that's pretty much what I did as well haha (more or less...got it by 9:05). On the topic of DLC, I don't see anything in that list that would particularly appeal to me anyway, so it's rather moot from my perspective.

Played and beat Mega Man 2 last night, in anticipation for MM9. I've gotta say, it's not nearly as tough as I recall (had the toughest time with Wood Man, of all bosses)...it was a lot of fun!

Oh man, I'm so excited to play this game! Downloaded it this morning before going to work, though I'll be holding off playing it. Gonna get together with my best friend for our tradition of playing through the game in one sitting, like we did basically through Mega Man X6.

According to IGN's review of Mega Man 9, the game is set for release on Monday. Personally, I'll be getting it on Wii. So excited to play this!

I played the GBA version...the first run through was fun, but playing Reverse/Rebirth killed it for me. I think if that hadn't worn on me so much, I'd be excited for this. Definitely looking forward to the new entries in the series, though.

Doubt it, since according to wikipedia those were developed by Irem.

http://media.wii.ign.com/media/826/826985/vids_1.html From what they show in the trailers (specifically the "Mayhem trailer"), it could be good...but until there are more specifics on the game, how well the control scheme works, etc, I'm gonna say there's not enough info available for me to make an opinion. Looking forward to what critics have to say after this hits Japan at the end of the month.

Personally, I think it's a legitimate comment, since it can detract from the enjoyment of the film, and is the lazy director's out for action scenes ("I don't know how to film action, so I'll just move the camera around a bunch to 'get the audience involved!'"). To be honest, I don't see it being somehow ok in Transfromers just because it had giant robots fighting. Camera movement or placement doesn't inherently have anything to do with whether the characters are standing still or moving around a lot. Like I said, with Dark Knight, the fact that they used shaky cam wasn't a dealbreaker since it had much more going for it, and that it wasn't used to as awful an effect as in Transformers. It's just that if the action was better shot, the movie as a whole would be that much better. A little more nitpicky, I also think that in addition to better camera use, several of the action sequences could have used a little different lighting effects and sharper contrast to make it even more dynamic - as I recall the lighting often got pretty mottled and didn't end up adding value to the sequence outside of basic atmosphere. As it stands, the action was mediocre for the most part when it easily could have been really cool. Offtopic, but for Watchmen I'm not too worried about the technical side since I think Snyder has proven himself in that regard - it's the complexity of the story, etc that I'm more worried about. And Ozymandias looks wrong. I'm cautiously optimistic.

I totally agree! It's funny, those are the exact examples I give whenever I go on my "action needs to be dynamic!" rant, haha.

I'm a huge fan of biking (about 3 months out of the year I do endurance cycling, but not super-hardcore), but the problem with biking is the same problem with running or any other single excercise: doing only one thing (or predominantly one thing) can make you really good at that one thing, but unless you keep it constantly varied you'll lose strength in other athletic modes. I guess, it also somewhat depends on what your ultimate goal is. In a nutshell, as long as it's not your only means of excercise, it definitely can't hurt your general fitness and is also a great means of transportation.

Pretty much...MM4's Ring Man was particularly difficult, the way I remember it. Ahh, the good days, when I accidentally dropped down the hole in Dive Man's level only to find Wire. Good times. Still need to pick up MM2 on VC...

I really liked it as well, especially given the amazing portayal of the Joker. Honestly, though, it certainly wasn't "one of the best" in my opinion, particularly because of the poor quality of the larger-scale action sequences. I look forward to when this "shaky cam" fad is done away with, since IMO it's seldom a legitimate convention and almost always just a crutch in shooting action. I will say, though, they didn't use it to quite as horrible an effect in this as they did in Transformers, and all-in-all the positives of this movie more than outweighed the negatives.

Honestly, I've never had anybody "talk shit" to me in a gym in all my life, not even anybody trying to "correct" my pullups when I kip. Closest thing was 6 or so months ago, when some guy who clearly hardly goes to the gym (must have been faculty or staff...definitely too old to be a student) complains to me that I've been "using the pull-up bar for a long time" (which I was, and for good reason...doing the following workout: 1 mile run, 100 pullups, 200 pushups, 300 air squats, 1 mile run [pullups, pushups, squats partitioned as desired/needed]). I laughed a little, because he clearly never learned gym etiquette. I apologized while still laughing, since I could tell he wouldn't respond well to anything else, and all I wanted to do was get back to my WOD. It's my opinion that if people are being pricks, they're just trying to cover up their own inadequacies, so if it happens best thing to do is just let it go. Again, in my experience, people just tend to not do that sorta thing in the gym, though I think a lot of people have the fear of being criticized in that sort of environment. What I have experienced, though, is that there are always a few people who are really helpful and if they see some serious problem in your form they're politely help you correct it (they're often quite cautious, since they're looking to help and not have it misconstrued as an attack). Hope it helps.

Haha, I like it.

Haha, that's great. I'm pretty interested in the game, although I'll be checking it out over at a friend's house later to see how I like it. The DRM sounds pretty over-the-top, the one which is most eyebrow-raising to me is only getting to activate it 3 times. I'd almost rather not get the game, just because I don't wanna support that bullshit...might change my mind after I sit down with it for a bit.

Yep, that's normal. My last 400m sprint was 75 sec (a bitslower than usual), last mile was sub-7:00, 3k last night was 13:36, and my last 5k was 26-ish. Simply, the longer you run, the slower you'll end up going per unit of measurement. That's also assuming you're maintaining proper intensity for the distance (not jogging both a 400m and a 5k to "maintain a pace"), if that makes sense. As far as injury from running is concerned, read up on POSE method running. I've been doing this for a while now, and I haven't incurred any joint pain/shin splints/etc since (which is the main point of POSE, along with overall efficiency). If you try it, you'll notice a dip in your time, as muscle recruitment is slightly different, but will go back up in time, and eventually faster. If you need resources, PM me. As for the thigh machines, my personal advice is to not use any machines at all (compound movements > isometric movements). My advice: try full range of motion front/back/overhead squats and squat cleans for increased leg power, and wallball shots (heavy med ball throws to 10-ft target on wall from front squat), thrusters (front squat to press), and box jumps for explosive power. Doing air squats (and especially pistols, aka one-legged squats) will help as well. My expereince has taught me that you're not going to increase strength in a particularly functional way nor gain any flexibility by doing isometric machines. Yep. First off, make sure you get enough sleep - shoot for at least 8 hrs. I assume that you're relatively new to this, and your internal clock hasn't quite adjusted to the early mornings. Definitely gotta get that rest to give your body the time it needs to recover. Next, get your nutrition right. It doesn't seem like it would have such an effect at first glance, but a bad diet will kill you when it comes to high intensity PT. My recommendation: at the very least, get off ALL refined sugar, try to mostly eliminate most complex carbs, and eat plenty of fruits/veggies. Try researching both paleo diet and zone diet. I had been eating mostly paleo for the last few months, and that's improved my work capacity right there. I recently switched to a stricter paleo zone, and I've been feeling awesome, but what's more I've been working faster and stronger at the WODs since (example: did 100 burpees for time in under 6 min this morning, when the same workout took me twice as long a month ago). Third, keep your attitude as positive as possible. If you go in, thinking "Aw shit, this again :(" it's going to be harder on you than if you keep more upbeat thinking (ex "Hell yeah, I'm gonna kick the shit out of PT this morning!"). This one is way easier if you get the two above dialed in. If you need resources or anything, PM me (since I'm only rarely in this thread these days). I'd actually be interested in hearing specifically how they set up their PT sessions. Good luck, and don't be too hard on yourself man.

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Super Mario RPG is pretty awesome. Got it yesterday on VC.

Not a bad price. Did a lot of shopping around for mine, and it was $250 before shipping. I think retail is still $400? Anyway, it works well as a blu-ray player. Never had any trouble. Interesting little quirk about the controller is that it won't automatically shut off after x-minutes of inactivity like the Wiimote or 360 controller, which really makes it nice as a blu-ray player (if the phone rings or whatever, you won't have to wait those extra 3 seconds for the controller to turn on before you can pause). The battery life with the controllers is also quite long, so it's not that big a deal that it doesn't automatically shut off in that regard. I think they also have a remote designed for blu-ray playback (just like they had the dvd remote for the PS2) for added convenience. Other games to consider...well, the only physical game I own for the PS3 at the moment is MGS4. I'm thinking about getting Uncharted one of these days, otherwise I'm drawing a blank on exclusive stuff currently available. In terms of exclusive downloadable games, Pixeljunk Monsters is great - relatively simple, but so much fun. They had it on sale for $5, but I don't know if it's still at that price. It's also rather nice to have access to some good PS1 games available on PSN, though the selection is pretty limited right now. At any rate, I'm pretty happy with it primarily as a blu-ray player, as that and MGS4 were my two reasons to get it.