I knew that the transition to medical school was going to be anything but smooth, and I was correct. I had a lot of misgivings before the start of classes and a lot of imagined problems with my soon-to-be classmates. Somehow, however, I was able to persist and flourish: perhaps this is the reason that they call man to be the superior being, as his capacity to adapt is nearly limitless. (more…)
While other post-graduates were busily preparing for what to bring the next day, I was on the computer looking at a red-and-black screen, dodging a missile at one point and ducking an alien at another. While they were excited to open a new chapter in their life, I was totally focused on vanquishing the ecclesiastico-military palette.
I was playing the Super Cobra (using the Adventure Vision BIOS) on the MESS and I sought to finish the game (by myself) without infinite Cobras to see whether the game would present an alternative ending or not. I was so besotted with the completion of the game because it would give me closure, a closure that I desperately needed to prove to myself that my lust for that failure of a handheld system was juvenile. I vowed to myself to finish it before classes would start primarily to prevent any distraction from my studies. While I had quite a few misgivings regarding medicine, I am a man who sticks by what he has chosen, and as I had chosen medicine I am going to stand by it (despite the fact that I barely slept yesterday and probably wouldn’t later). After about five days of persistence, I was finally able to finish the game with a limited number of Cobras and I also finally discovered that there was no difference in the ending whether one had infinite Cobras or not: the game kept on without end.
Having played as if demon-possessed for a few days, I could not help but notice the different flaws that the Adventure Vision system had. For one, it was very fragile: a short fall and the rotating mirror mechanism that allowed the game to proceed would break. There would be no more game, and no more system. Another flaw to its design was that it was primarily built with red LCDs. The VirtualBoy was merely an upgrade from this console: both have the same red LCDs that cause eye tiredness, headaches, nausea, and dizziness. Finally, the games other than Super Cobra have barely any replay value: the system possessed mediocre graphics at the time, and once one finished with Super Cobra there wasn’t really anything else left to do but to start all over again (or stop playing, which was what I did).
My finishing of the game came at the most opportune time, because after I completed it I could finally disassociate myself with the game and with the obsession that plagued me for a good few weeks. I could also finally focus studying for the medical profession that I have chosen; and while I am still not quite sure of the decision that I have made I am extremely certain on my commitment to my choice. I can only hope that I can surpass the obstacles that I am encountering currently and the even bigger ones that I will face in the future.
Thank you for everyone who has supported me throughout my stint of blogging. While I probably will not stop watching anime, and while I will probably still blog, it will most certainly be not in the same volume or length as before. Right now I have dealt with three-hour night sleeps: I will probably have to deal with worse.
As Samuel Beckett most aptly put it, ‘I can’t go on, I’ll go on.’
I have searched high and low in different Philippine cities for the Entex Adventure Vision. It’s an American-built quasi-handheld console that is purported to be the Holy Grail of all video game collectors. Now, I don’t really believe in or have faith in people who keep their rarest consoles boxed and sealed, unused. Whether rare or not, a console should be played, not stored.
It may look like that, but it's so cool!
I was taken in by the Super Cobra cartridge for the Adventure Vision; I thus wanted to get an Adventure Vision for myself, even before I knew of the exorbitant prices people paid for one. Granted, I knew I was most probably never going to find anything, but I simply wanted to reassure myself that I did everything that was possible for me in the attempt of procuring that console (except that I was without cash to burn).
As an alternative, I downloaded an imperfect ROM of Super Cobra for the Adventure Vision. It had flaws with both the sounds and the graphics, but I thought it would at least give me some peace of mind if I finished the game so that the pangs of desire would no longer penetrate so deeply. I set to finish the game with that in mind; however, the ROM being flawed, I played through an infinite regression of the final level of the game. There were no congratulatory messages; there was no return to the first level despite my time and effort put into the game.
So, yes, I still want the console and the cartridge. But writing my grievances out often makes me feel better regarding my bad lot, so here I am. I technically finished the game, so all I have to do now is to curb my obsessive nature and just wait and hope that the day I’ll finally have money to pay for a console will also be among the days where a working Adventure Vision still exists.
Until then –
I have been snooping around the Internet these past few days for older handheld gaming consoles. By older, I don’t mean the DS Lite or the PSP Slim. I don’t even pertain to the Game Boy Advance. What I’m talking about are handheld consoles such as the Atari Lynx and the Sega GameGear, perhaps even the QuickShot Supervision. These are the consoles of many a yesteryear that I could only yearn for when I was a child. (more…)
Ever since I started reading about and experimenting on file-sharing programs, I have had this quixotic fondness of it. Ultimately, I know that it’s not with the program itself but its userbase that provides the files, but that doesn’t stop me from experimenting with the different programs and their corresponding gimmickries: I have mulled over and studied different instances and permutations of file-sharing programs over the past week. After finally completing all the requirements prior to graduation, I have once again found the study of its different programs interesting and consuming. (I still watch anime, but the bulk of my time was spent attempting to scientifically observe the different properties of different file-sharing programs.) (more…)
Back then when the most prevalent form of Internet connection was still dial-up, I discovered Kazaa. Older batchmates talked about it and how it got them the latest music for free; being ignorant, I hazarded to try it out. I wasn’t able to use much of it, however: it was primarily my older sister who asked me to obtain the popular songs of that time. I didn’t know about spyware back then, and I really didn’t care. However, as time passed I noticed that my computer functioned slower and slower. I wanted to get to the root of the matter, and so I started reading about Kazaa. A lot of people were decrying the presence of spyware in its program, so I read more about that. What is common knowledge nowadays was back then quite a formidable opponent, since spyware was still relatively new as well as silent yet insidious. Eventually that computer was reformatted: I, however, had already learned my lesson. I didn’t install the original Kazaa Media Desktop anymore.
This was the interface of Kazaa Media Desktop (the spyware-ridden version).
It has been a highly frustrating week for me: I just got my results from my previous exam, and it totally knocked down the house of cards (my grades) that I built up with difficulty. My undergraduate thesis also isn’t going too well.
This is my week in a nutshell.
More importantly, however, I have once again become immersed in download managers. I thought I outgrew this phase, but nostalgia simply jumped upon me, and here I am once more. I’m especially enamored with NetPumper v. 1.0 with Banner Killer, though (and the ad-supported version at that). If one asked me, I myself don’t know why, just that I currently am. I have been disappointed with Download Accelerator Plus of late, however, so I uninstalled it. In most cases, it simply didn’t function the way that I wanted it to. (Since I’m a fickle man, however, I may reinstall it in the future.) While I’m fickle and quite easily swayed (especially during these stressful times) I decided to keep two download managers. I kept the old version of NetPumper simply because of nostalgia, but I tried searching for more capable download managers and I found DownThemAll for Firefox. It performed very well during my first try (unlike the picky behavior of DAP), so for the time being I’m keeping it as my regular download manager.
I uninstalled NetPumper Pro because I didn’t want to have two download managers that performed the same function at the same time (DAP had several more advanced features than NetPumper Pro because its development was not halted). I’m thinking about reinstalling it; if DownThemAll continues to perform excellently, however, I’ll find no reason to do that.
I made three drafts regarding this matter and was even highly hesitant posting about it, since it’s not about anime at all. Nevertheless, I thought I’d allow myself some respite from all the bullshit that’s going on around me. So here I go.
P.S. The NetPumper v. 1.0 with Banner Killer contains the installer of NetPumper v. 1.0 and its accompanying Banner Killer. I installed it on my computer, and there aren’t really any advertisements to an obsolete product any longer. However, it’s still better to have an anti-virus guard. Feel free to delete all DLLs except the IEProxy DLL.
P.P.S. I will get back to writing about anime: I’m just waiting for Toradora to come out, since I just simply know it’s going to be a saucy episode.
At times, reminiscence, despite everything, provides enough of a stimulus to coerce action. Like an intruder in the dust, its specter appears to different people at certain points in their lives, and this triggers irrational acts. What do I mean? I also quite don’t know.
This Manabi is cute. I think I'd be less averse to watching that series if I saw 17 year old girls instead of 17 year old girls looking like 10.
For the past few days, however, I have been watching Gun-doh Musashi and downloading anime with the use of TorrentStorm. Both objects, while totally different from one another (it should be enough to note that one is an anime series and the other is a torrent client), share the fact that I have liked them in the past for no strong reason whatsoever. When it was last updated in 2005, I was primarily using BitComet and BitTornado. Aside from the fact that these two torrent clients were consistently updated, they also possessed significant advantages over TorrentStorm: the two clients maximized the use of my Internet connection (which wasn’t much). The efficiency of the two clients of TorrentStorm, however, could be perceived in the fact that I could never attain a constant 25 KB/s with TorrentStorm which I could with BitComet and BitTornado (I was on a 256kbps connection back then).
Three years hence, little has changed. TorrentStorm stopped development on 2005: it does not possess DHT; it cannot host trackerless torrents; and it still couldn’t download at optimum speeds, compared to the newly improved BitComet, or the light but heavyweight uTorrent. Because I was fond of the program back then, however, I am using it once more, and I like using it (especially for torrents which are not that exigent for me to complete). There isn’t logical progression in that decision: whereas the same torrent hadn’t gone beyond 5 KB/s with TorrentStorm, it hovered between 55 KB/s and 60 KB/s with BitComet. Yet I still am using TorrentStorm and will use it at times.
The reason is that reminiscence, in all my reflection, doesn’t have to be rational. As humans we cling to the memories we cherish in our past and try to review them and experience them once more. The simple design, the simple logo and the memories I had in using TorrentStorm were quite enough to trigger in me using and experiencing the client once more. This time, however, I have been enjoying its use more thoroughly. Perhaps the same could be said with Gun-doh Musashi: it is quite undeniable that its budget was very low, even for an anime series. There are still frames; most characters, even Musashi, are badly animated; the animation is often out of sync with the Japanese dubbing. While nigh intolerable, I’m at the last (troll)subbed episode. Despite everything, I enjoyed laughing at the bad animation and the horrible subbing. It’s not something most people could do, but it’s something that reminded me to lower my expectations in most things so that I will never be disappointed. In conclusion, memory is quite a powerful thing; perhaps this is why some people can only live in the past.
Today is the last day of our semestral break for this year. Because my days of being able to read freely were dwindling, I sought to read as much as I could the previous week (thus the lack of updates). It has become a ritual during the past years; I don’t think anything is bad with attempting to expound the horizons of one’s mind, however.
One wishes there really were a book like that.
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