Kizyr

Man, I know! I really didn't want to leave when I had to (although in retrospect it did save me from... y'know). I hope to be back; I've just gotten incredibly busy in the past month with barely any time to rest (haven't had time to check the forums or IRC at all). I will be at MAGFest though. I think there might be a bit of social pressure mitigating against this, at least with people who are well-known around here. Like, say, if Darke needed a place to crash for MAG and stayed at my place (trying to pick someone well know I haven't met before). If he messed up the place and stole my stuff, it'd just be really weird, like Neil Patrick Harris stealing your car or something. That make sense at all? KF

It might depend on the venue you first meet someone at... This thought occurred to me a while back when someone asked if I felt uncomfortable going to meetups I was organizing at another forum (XKCD's fora, in this case). It actually hadn't occurred to me--after all, the venue was in an open, public area, over half of the folks going posted semi-regularly, and just by virtue of that it didn't feel as if I was meeting up with a bunch of strangers. I'm not sure how I'd feel about inviting a bunch of them over to my house first thing, though. Level99, Xerol, and others have a lot of trust (not unfounded nor unreasonable trust, mind you) in doing that--incidentally, before Level99 let me in, the only thing he knew about me was my username and the Super Mario 3 reference on my car's license tag. KF

Clouds, clouds, and more clouds. ...I got nothin'. Damn. KF

Chance of thunderstorms around here. Doesn't look like it'll be a good view, but it could clear up. What's the best time for viewing, by the way? KF

Coming in late, but happy birthday! KF

Well, DragonCon is rather a cut above any other convention. It's definitely run far, far better than any other convention I've been to (the possible exception is MAGFest, but the two are so different in size and style that you can't really compare). Had there been a meetup last year, I would've gone. But, unfortunately I don't think I'll be going this year... KF

Say, could you move me from "Tentative" to "Definite"? I haven't pre-regged yet, but I'm 100% committed to going to MAGFest this year. Unfortunately considering my apartment is rather small, I'm not really the best one to offer accommodation. HOWEVER! If anyone is going to be in Arlington/Alexandria and needs a ride (i.e., if you're near a metro and don't have a car), then let me know and I can probably pick you up each day. KF

I've been wanting to do a remix of this theme for a while. Very different style in mind, though. Anyway, onto this one. The main 'problem' is that it sounds like it's still in its early stages, so... quality is the issue there. I'm sure that'll improve once your satisfied with the composition. There isn't much variation in volume level, so your melody is getting drowned out since everything is at the same level, and it sounds a bit too straightfoward (no one part is given more prominence than the other, e.g., so it sounds like it lacks variety). I'm having trouble determining where the source tune is. I only hear it clearly in with the brass/trumpet sound from 0:06 - 0:33, and possibly in a few other spots. Regarding the length, being short in itself isn't a problem, but it the structure makes it sound like it's meant to be a short loop. That might be intentional, but... I don't think it'd make it as a remix if that element remained. I actually do like it, but I mean I'm particularly biased toward anything Lunar. Really hope you continue working at it, though. KF

I really have the urge to play more Super Kaizo World right now... ...because apparently I'm masochistic. But really, whenever I'm in a good mood, I feel like going for any of the old 2D platformers, back when those were still the predominant type of game. Preferably something with bright graphics. KF

I really want to get back to DragonQuest IX while sitting here at work... There was the one day my hard drive failed, so all I did all day was play Super Mario 64 DS while waiting for tech support to believe me that my computer was actually broken. KF

Original trackball, all the way. That's why the 4-5 of us were all getting seriously into it. We also tried doing 2-player, but given how... animated we were, we kept running into one another (in person, not in the game). The D-pad is just no substitute for the trackball, unfortunately... It might just be my imagination, but playing NES/SNES/Genesis games on the original hardware feels like it gets a lot better reaction time and control versus emulators. Since I mostly play RPGs, though, this isn't much of an issue. But it's really noticeable when playing, say, Mariokart or Starfox. KF

I just remembered another really difficult game, although not as old: Panzer Dragoon (Saturn) I used to be able to beat that not only on Difficult, but on the Expert mode that you had to input a code to get. I actually had that book! It might still be at my mother's place at the back of some cabinet... I'm gonna have to look for it the next time I visit... And to continue the nostalgia: I had about 4-5 of the Mario Bros. CYOA books. Man, those were fun... little puzzles and everything, certain choices depended on if you were able to pick up power-ups or a certain number of coins earlier in the story... It was even better than the Super Mario Brothers Super Show. At Katsucon this year, they had an original Marble Madness arcade cabinet set up. After playing that the entire weekend (we were making more of a commotion than the guys playing SF2), I went back and played the original NES version... and got to the last level on the first try. I only did that once back when I first had the game. (I only had, like, 15 seconds so I couldn't make it, but still.) So, yeah, the arcade version is even harder than the NES one. KF

But, it let you use your gun as a club after you ran out of bullets! Though if it ever got to that point, you may as well reset the game. I don't think I ever made it past the first level in that one. KF

Thanks! Can you add my name to the list, please? I haven't pre-regged yet. Still deciding if I should go for the supporter badge or not. KF

I'd definitely like to hear this carried through to completion... It sounds good so far, and improvement in a few areas would take it up to a level of awesome really easily. I have to agree with Gario on re-recording the vocals. It's a bit off in parts, and approaching it anew (particularly since you said it's been years) would be the best place to start for vocals. After that you can consider using auto-tune or to what extent. KF

Can someone start up a list of folks going to MAG? (Broken in the first post, maybe? Or someone could start a new thread if that'd be clearer.) Anyway, I'm going to MAG, definitely. It's, like, 5 minutes away so I don't have much of an excuse not to. I suppose I could give rides from Reagan National (DCA) if folks need it, but... there's a free airport shuttle from there anyway, if I'm not mistaken, so I'm not sure how necessary it'd be. KF

Pretty much what's already been said: tons of practice. Legend of Zelda wasn't too bad; I did have to use a guide for the 2nd quest, though (too much trial-and-error). A few of the tougher games I managed to beat: - Kung Fu [NES] (2 times through*) - Karate Kid II [NES] (AVGN overestimated how difficult this was) - Metal Storm [NES] - Bart vs the Space Mutants [NES] - Paperboy [NES] (could get all houses on the block to subscribe, too) - Star Fox [sNES] ("easiest" path only, which was still damn tough) - Sewer Shark [sega CD] * Kung Fu, like a lot of games then, had you go through the game once at 'normal' difficulty, then a second time at a harder difficulty. Zelda was like this, just more epic. A lot of platform games (Mario 1-3, Super Mario World, Sonic 2-3, etc.) I don't consider as difficult, given just a bit of practice and all the continues/saves/warps you'd get. The ones on the list above, plus tons more that I never was able to beat, are on another level... the ones that really required a lot of practice to get good enough to beat. KF

Aw, I wanted to get in early in this thread. But a Page 8 is fine too. Congratulations! And of course, AWWWWWWWWWWWW. KF

I'm afraid I can't offer much advice here, but I'll try. The first thing that struck me was the lack of bass. I have to agree that an acoustic bass would really add a lot. I don't think you should try adding in other instruments (mostly flute, percussion also) just yet, at least until you've tried seeing how a bass part would affect it. The first half mostly was wanting for an acoustic bass. The second part sounds good to me as-is. KF

Ok, I got pics, so it happened! The OCR Panel ones didn't come out so good, so I'll just put up a few of the BBQ: "Level99: You know the site Cake*? Liontamer: ..." And thus you have: OCR-BBQ-CakeWhat1.jpg OCR-BBQ-CakeWhat2.jpg A few of the group shots: OCR-BBQ-Group1.jpg OCR-BBQ-Group2.jpg OCR-BBQ-Group3-SeriousShot.jpg Fun shot: And finally, this one really needs a caption:

BBQ was a lot of fun. Listening party was a lot of fun. Panel was a lot of fun. Basically, there were many times during that weekend where I sort of just didn't want it to end. (Oh, our Lunar Panel was a success, too!) I'll be able to post up pics from the BBQ tomorrow evening. Sorry for the delay. KF

Saturday afternoon is my panel! {..} And the Kanon Wakeshima concert. The Zombie Apocalypse panel is always fun, too. As for lunch, bear in mind that the Inner Harbor gets incredibly crowded around lunch during the con (not to mention that CPK closed like 2 years ago). So, larger groups are liable to get separated, and it can take like an hour to finally get some food. You might want to do, like, 2pm-ish? KF

I'm not sure what you like... but I can offer a couple suggestions. For movies, Jin-Roh is one of my favorites, and often overlooked. It's set in a contemporary police-state Japan, with conflicts between riot police, terrorist groups, and an officer who gets mixed up in a plot between rival factions. Really good. For series, I really liked Samurai Champloo--I believe the DVDs are out of print now, so if you do manage to find it, the price might be steep. I'm also sort of getting into Baccano. My tastes in anime have really narrowed in the last few years, so I don't keep up so much with what's current, I'm afraid. KF

If anyone else wants to know, they've posted the entire schedule up now so you can plan ahead: http://www.otakon.com/events_schedule.asp I'm mostly happy my panel (Lunar panel at 4:30) doesn't overlap with OCR (at 6:15). The OCR one does overlap with the Tales series and Iron Editor... though the choice of which of those to attend is obvious for me. KF

Aw! Well, y'all will be missed. But yeah, what Ferret says: you got other more important priorities. I'll plan on being there; it was a lot of fun last year. KF