I picked up Gradius V a good while back, but only yesterday got around to playing all the way through. The reason of course is that I play that game as it is designed: like an old arcade game. I play for points, not to win, which is good because playing to win in that game is just absurd.
I was curious, though, so today I sat down and played through the game in some sense. I’d played so many hours that “free play” was on, so what I really did was just keep dying and continuing until the game was over.
And now that I’ve done it, overall I have to say the game is disappointing. The movie scenes are annoying, the new weapon options you get after winning are weak, and too many parts of the game are unplayable without massive upgrades.
It’s a good thing I won’t ever even SEE half the game playing it my way: once through, without continues, to maximize score.
No I’m not censoring it, because I think this is history. About Israel, President Bush said this to Prime Minister Blair:
See, the irony is what they need to do is to get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it’s over.
Thought for the day: I don’t care if Greece is in NATO or not. Macedonia is Macedonia, not “FYROM” or other such nonsense.
The comics I read, ordered roughly by frequency of publishing:
- Foxtrot
- Sheldon
- Pearls Before Swine (Provisional)
- Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal (not family friendly)
- Real Life
- Evil Inc.
- Starslip Crisis (Provisional)
- Megatokyo
- Krakow
- Chugworth Academy (not family friendly)
- Red Meat (not family friendly)
- Perry Bible Fellowship (not family friendly) Interim location
- Tang’s Weekly Comic (not family friendly)
- Mac Hall
- Life on Forbez
It may sound silly that I’m thinking of some comics as provisionally on my list, but when you have that many to check on every day, it’s probably important. And I do actually drop comics that I try for a while. Applegeeks, User Friendly, PVP, and The Wotch are four I stopped reading after a little while because I decided they just weren’t worth it, for example.
Dropped provisional comics are of course distinct from those comics I had to drop because they got too political in 2004: Sinfest (not family friendly) and Little Gamers (not family friendly).
Yes, I like comics. Maybe one day I’ll write up reviews of all of these comics and more.
I’m always on the look out for new comics to add to my list, so Pearls Before Swine is one I’m reading now on a trial basis. Some of it is really weird, but some of it really makes me laugh in a way few comics do. Try this for example:
In one of those articles whose headlines give me a big scare, AP says that Kobe just had knee surgery and will miss playing for USA basketball for this year.
Importantly, though, he will not miss any action with the Lakers. That’s all that counts by me, so I’m completely relieved.
I support Israel in the War on Terror in Lebanon and Gaza.
A play which may or may not have current political meaning.
The scene: a juice stand outside a courthouse. PATRON approaches the stand, which is attended by the VENDOR.
PATRON: I’d like some juice. What do you have for me?
VENDOR: I have apple juice, cranberry juice, grape juice, and orange juice.
PATRON: Very well, give me some grape-flavored orange juice.
VENDOR: Grape juice coming right up.
PATRON: No, I said I wanted orange juice.
VENDOR: Alright, orange juice coming right up.
PATRON: But I don’t like orange juice! I like the taste of grape!
VENDOR is puzzled.
VENDOR: Then why did you stop me from getting the grape?
PATRON: Because I don’t want you discriminating against me.
VENDOR: Come again?
PATRON is demonstrative.
PATRON: You heard me. You sit here with your grape juice and your orange juice, and every day discriminate against those of us who want orange juice but hate the taste! Why don’t you meet my needs? Isn’t that what freedom of enterprise is all about?
VENDOR is exasperated.
VENDOR: I’m sorry, sir, but orange juice is what it is. Oranges grow in
nature, and when squeezed produce orange juice. You can’t get grape juice from
an orange. That’s just the way the world works.
PATRON: I’ll have none of your bigotry. This is America! I’ll go to the
courts and FORCE you to cater to the orange juice haters of America by serving
us orange juice! Save your nature lectures for your science classes, where
they belong!
PATRON storms up the courthouse steps. VENDOR is alone, and opens a bottle of orange juice to take a sip for himself.
VENDOR: Wait until he finds out he hasn’t got a womb and can’t have babies.
Someone broke into Debian’s CVS machine. Now sure, Debian’s the one OS most likely actually to tell the world when its servers get attacked, but also Debian’s is the one whose project servers are the most exposed to the world to begin with.
I’m not sure what this says about the OS, but I think it’s likely to be bad.
Got SCUDs? No problem! THAAD has you covered! Says the Las Cruces Sun-News via Robert A. Hahn:
The pre-dawn art show was the result of the third of five tests planned at White Sands Missile Range to determine the effectiveness of THAAD — Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile. And military officials said the test went better than they could have hoped.
“This was phenomenal,” said U.S. Army Col. Charles Driessnack, the project manager for the Missile Defense Agency’s THAAD program. “It performed as expected.”
The test demonstrated the THAAD’s ability to “completely destroy that warhead so that no chemical or nuclear residue would contaminate areas” below the explosion, Driessnack said.
I don’t think it’s 1991 anymore, Toto.