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Work update

Museum of Terror 3 is supposedly out now, though again I’ve not yet seen it. As good as are the earlier volumes, I far more enjoyed this than the first two. Furthermore, I think it should be a lot easier to get into than the Tomie stuff. If you pick up one English-language manga this year, choose this one! Dark Horse isn’t sure whether or not to continue the line, so sales of this book are critical.

Oh hey, remember that article I spent so long finishing? It’s going to go up soon, albeit in greatly condensed and at times summarized form. Colin has no objections to my putting the full version up shortly after its initial publication, so watch this space over the weekend for an excusive director’s cut.

I guess the issue was, I intended this to be published two months ago as sort of a conclusion to TGS. I finished it a few weeks ago, and it got held until now as an “event” piece. Then I guess Colin realized it didn’t quite address the new system launches the way he wanted it to, so it got paraphrased into something kind of different. Fair enough, I guess. He’s the editor.

Anyway, I’ll post the original version on Sunday or Monday, after NextGen has accumulated most of the hits it’ll get. It’s kind of different! I was actually pretty excited about some of the ideas in it; a shame they won’t get more air.

(Yes, Shaper, I’m still working on your article. I’ve got it sketched out, and almost two pages of finished text. Moving slowly! As usual! It’s coming, though — if not in exactly the way I expected.)

(November 16th, 2006 @ 3:08pm)



2 responses

Of Consoles and Cars

Smiley I saw a pretty much perfect analogy in the Daily News today:

  • The PS3 is a Formula 1 racer.
  • The Wii is a VW Bug or a Mini-Coop.
  • The XBox 360 is a standard Honda or GM model.

Aderack That’s pretty good.
Smiley The only thing I’d add is that the Wii can do things the other two can’t. Like a Hover VW Bug. Maybe not particularly USEFUL things, yet.
Aderack Right. Was trying to figure out how to address that.
Aderack Maybe with gull wing doors.
Aderack And oh hell — also hybrid.
Aderack It’s specifically a hybrid, as that’s the idea that Iwata had for the system.
Aderack It runs on as little electricity as possible and produces as little heat as possible, such that it runs as efficiently as it might.
Smiley It’s TINY
Smiley That’s important, too.
Aderack The idea being that you leave it on all the time, so it has to be efficient.
Aderack So. A VW hybrid driven with a novel interface that makes driving much easier.
Smiley Right. But also a standard interface, if required.
Smiley And fewer advertisements featuring scantily-clad women chainsawing zombie dragons in half… seductively.
Aderack Yes.
Aderack And the PS3 is more like an expensive sports car than a racer.
Smiley That might be right.
Aderack Powerful yet extremely inefficient; produced in limited numbers; very expensive. A status symbol more than anything really useful.
Aderack Oh, and they usually only have manual transmission.
Aderack Because people who care enough about cars to want a sports car want that extra anal level of control.
Smiley Yeah.
Smiley I mean, if blu-ray takes off, then some more of its power can be brought to bear. Otherwise, it’ll be forever stunted.
Smiley The XBox 360 is probably the system best for driving on the roads and streets that already exist, in terms of getting it to talk to your computer, playing online, I dunno.
Aderack The original Xbox was an SUV. The 360, yeah. Some kind of standard sedan.
Aderack One with a lot of available options for customization.
Smiley Something that can probably do anything you’d need it to.
Smiley Whereas the Wii is admittedly limited in some respects. Some respects you may not care about!
Smiley The Mountains of Hardcore, perhaps. Uhr.
Aderack Certain limit to top speed, which doesn’t matter because there’s almost noplace you can legally drive past a certain speed anyway.
Smiley Mm.
Aderack Maybe it’s got spheres instead of 2D wheels, allowing you to easily drive in any direction. 2D motion instead of 1D.
Aderack I think we’re closing in.
Aderack Perfect for city driving and whatnot.
Aderack And for long distance as well, due to the fuel economy.
Aderack Maybe not a lot of trunk space.
Aderack Maybe driven with a stick. Push in the direction you want to go, to the extent you want to go, to move in that direction at that velocity. Keep the brake pedal.
Aderack Basically an analog stick.
Aderack The purists will shriek “that’s not really driving!” and people will debate about whether they have to take driving tests all over again.

(November 11th, 2006 @ 5:39pm)



8 responses

The Trouble with Lisa

Finally a pretty good Torchwood episode. Though each of the previous three was better than the last , last week’s height was a respectable mediocrity. Now we’re basically on target with what I expected out of the series from the start. Aside from the story and tone details (A snappy pace! Enough plot to fill an entire episode! “Adult” content that doesn’t feel completely gratuitous!), finally we get some decent characterization going on! For the first time, there’s some chemistry! Even Dr. Sato gets more to do than usual, here — which isn’t to suggest a lot.

And amongst all that, it’s probably the best Cyberman story ever produced. (Which isn’t to suggest a lot!)

Actually, that leads to odd thing: despite this episode being the biggest, most obvious crossover yet with the parent series, it’s also the first one that seems to project its own personality apart from Who. Perhaps it was being set almost entirely in the Hub, mostly using elements introduced in the previous episodes — and the Who crossover, though involving a traditional monster, was directly tied to established Torchwood lore. From the pizza to the Canary Wharf incident to Ianto’s background, to Jack’s intense hardness, for once this series feels like it’s got its own mythology.

Now that I know the production team is capable of living up to some of the series potential, I guess I can be a little harder on it. Given that this is what I had always imagined as an “average” episode of Torchwood, I’ll be expecting a lot from now on.

(November 5th, 2006 @ 10:45pm)



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