Transformers: Movie Critics vs. Fans

I don't think I've ever seen such a big divide in opinion over a movie between critics and fans as with Transformers 2. All the critics are like "no plot, incomprehensible story, only two or three redeeming moments" and so on. All the fans are going to see it just to see giant robots blow shit up.

I think this is a signal to society. Movie critics are largely unable to suspend disbelief when watching a movie that's clearly fiction. I've always disagreed with some critics, most notably those that work for The Washington Post, who hate absolutely everything.

Back when Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (or whatever it was called) came out, The Washington Post had this long article praising the movie for its CG and so forth, the entire time suggesting that readers should go see this movie when it comes out. Then when the movie actually comes out and the review is published... surprise, they hated it.

If you ever want to find a bad movie review, just look for a review of a comedy. Critics seem to forget the most important thing about a comedy (humor) and take it like it's a serious movie with a few jokes here and there for relief. The most effective way I know of to review a comedy was actually mentioned in the UHF commentary when Weird Al was mentioning the reviews the movie got. Basically, critics should review comedies with their back to the screen, and just see if the audience is laughing. If they are, then it works. Comedies aren't meant to be huge summer blockbuster movies. They're meant to be the moviegoer's comedic relief from all the huge summer blockbuster movies.

Just to drive the point home, and get back on my original subject in the process, here's Roger Ebert's review of Transformers 2. It's almost like he was expecting the movie to be awful before he ever watched it. He tries to take everything way too seriously, and in the process is unable to suspend disbelief, which is necessary for a movie that's fiction. Of course things are going to happen that don't make sense in the real world. Did he forget mid-movie what he was watching? It's not some random crime drama with lots of action, it's Transformers. Cars and trucks turning into giant robots to fight for humanity. What part of "cars and trucks transforming into giant robots" suggests a serious true to life action movie?

The nail in the coffin is his footnote at the bottom, copied/pasted here for convenience.

Footnote 6/24: Does it strike you as a lapse of Pyramid security that no one notices a gigantic Deceptibot ripping off the top of the Great Pyramid? Not anyone watching on the live PyramidCam? Not even a traffic copter?

Seriously, how does one confuse Transformers with real life this horribly?

Flash games are fun too

xkcd makes a good point. Even with all the awesome games, awesome game consoles, and state-of-the-art entertainment center equipment in existence, sometimes we just can't put down a small flash game that one person who's only known by a pseudonym wrote in their spare time. So here's a list of some flash games I enjoy during time that could be spent playing much less obscure titles.

Most, if not all of these, are on Newgrounds. A good portion were also developed by Armor Games, whatever that's worth.

Karoshi: Suicide Salaryman (flash sequel Super Karoshi, there are also three PC games) - Puzzle platforming with a twist: to get through each level, you must kill yourself. However, you have to solve the puzzle to do so. Puzzles range from simple timing exercises to complex block-pushing button-hitting extravaganzas that can render the level unfinishable if you don't do it right. Later levels do weird things with the engine itself, such as reversing your controls or having spikes that aren't actually spikes. The second PC game has a level editor.

Shift 1, 2, 3, and 4 - Another puzzle platformer. This one's in black and white, but to get through most levels, you need to shift from the white area to the black area or vice versa. Levels tend to be really confusing up until the point where you go "ohhhh! I see!" and everything clicks. Includes a level editor starting with Shift 2.

Portal: The Flash Version - I sure do like me some puzzle platformers. Based off of Valve's Portal, this 2D platformer has all original levels and is pretty good. Can you think with portals?

Winter Rider - A sidescrolling motorcycle game. Ride your motorcycle over all manner of snow-covered obstacles including tree stumps, houses, cars, trucks, and snowplows. I seriously recommend switching to the bike you unlock after level 9, it's so much easier to control than the piece of crap you start with. I'm still trying to get a sub-10 minute time on the game, but doing so is really difficult as you basically can't mess up ever.

Achievement Unlocked - Who needs gameplay when you have an achievement system? 99 achievements are ready for you to unlock in this hilarious parody of achievement-whore culture. Some are as simple as preloading the game, viewing the Armor Games logo, and finding the main menu, all of which happen right away with minimal interaction (one click in the preloader), but others are a little more obscure, such as finding the developer's favorite spot or turning your elephant a variety of colors.

Xiao Xiao No. 4 - The legendary stick figure death series' fourth installment is a 3D rail shooter. If you've played Virtua Cop, Time Crisis, or Area 51, you know what I'm talking about. My only complaint is that it's rather short.

Windows RG - It says it's a movie, but it's fairly interactive, so it counts. This is the Windows that Mac commercials claim Windows is actually like. It crashes all the time. Nothing works right. At least you can play Solitaire. Oh wait, that's broken too. Have fun.

The Legend of Zelda: The Lampshade of No Real Significance - A parody of the Legend of Zelda series. Includes a classic Zelda item trade sequence, a boss, and a lot of video game humor. Make sure to run around talking to everyone before you start the trade sequence, just because the things they say change once they've got their item.

Upgrade Complete - This is along the same vein as Achievement Unlocked. Only this time instead of trying to get all the achievements, you're upgrading everything. Including the game's graphics. You need to buy the background music, the mute button, better menu graphics, better logos, and the main menu itself. To finish the game? Yeah, you buy the end. The actual gameplay is a top-down shooter, that starts out with Atari-like graphics and sound. Simply defeat each wave and collect the coins as they fall to get money to upgrade your ship. This part has a fair amount of depth, as you have a limit of 12 ship parts, but what those parts are exactly and where they're placed is up to you. It almost feels like it should be its own standalone game with bosses and stuff.

HOLY FUCK HOLY FUCK HOLY FUCK

I'm just sitting here minding my own business playing Guitar Hero: Metallica on Expert Bass like usual. I decide to load up Enter Sandman.

1183 notes and 274,020 points later, I have a full combo and 1st place on PS2.

1st place.

1ST PLACE.

I don't even know the SP path for the song. I was just playing like I always was, activating when I felt it was a good time to do so. On bass, a long string of eighth notes is about the best you can get most of the time. Figuring out a decent bass path is as simple as recognizing the verse/chorus structure of the song to know where those long strings of eighth notes are going to be, which is easy enough after a couple playthroughs of a song.

I guess I've gotten used to Enter Sandman's overall structure or something.

I've gotten some 2nd places and a couple 5th places before, but... 1st? Really?

I'll take it.

Edit: looking over my GH:M Expert Bass scores, they're all in the top 5. All the competition must be on the 360/PS3 :(

Roadside Memorials

Yeah, I know it sucks that somebody died. Yeah, I know a car accident definitely isn't the best way to go out. Yeah, I know you want to remember lost ones. Yeah, I know you want to send a message to other motorists to drive safely.

None of those things matter. Roadside memorials are distracting. If there's a sign on the road, it should contain useful traffic information, such as how far it is to the next city or what road is at the next traffic light, instead of depressing information. Drivers' minds are usually trained to read roadside signs to see if they have information useful for their journey. When it's a sign that simply says "Drive safely for Bob", it serves no other purpose but to distract the driver from their commute.

I almost ran into the back of a Comcast truck today because of one of these. Now, I would have gladly plowed right through the Comcast truck had I been driving something that could do it and win (a 1990 Honda Civic loses against pretty much anything that isn't a Mini or a Smart), because I hate Comcast. But that's not the issue. A roadside memorial almost caused a traffic accident. That's the issue.

Department of Transportation officials really need to stop these things. Our society's habit of perpetually mourning the deaths of loved ones is depressing. People die. Go through your grief. Get past the depression stage of grief and advance to the acceptance stage. They're gone. Nothing can bring them back. Once you accept that and move on, you'll realize that it's not worth staying in the depression stage forever, and that life is generally a lot brighter outside of the depression stage.

A certain portion of the population would decry everything I'm saying as "insensitive". That portion of the population is the portion I'm talking to here. How can someone that never knew the person that died ever be able to express the same feelings as those that were around them every day? It's simply not possible.

my earpiece just broke again

This is now the THIRD earpiece that's broken on these glasses. I've had both of them replaced once already, and neither of the ones I have now are actually made for these frames. It's kinda funny going in to get it replaced because they're always like "well, we don't have one that matches it exactly" (oh teh noes whatever shall I do) and I always respond "just find an earpiece that fits and attach it so I can wear my glasses again". They're so completely concerned with form over functionality that it disgusts me.

Whoever designs these things does a real shitty job and gets paid extravagantly for it. WHY do you make an earpiece that's not solid construction with a hinge? So you can make it spring if it's hyperextended? I guess that's reasonable, except optometrists don't seem to be able to find me a pair of frames that's actually fucking wide enough for my face, so the earpieces are always hyperextended.

Their "men's" frames are always the most effeminate pieces of shit, and I have to reject tons of them to get one that's just a simple fucking metal frame with no bullshit decorations, and then within that my selection in terms of the width of the frames is always pitifully limited.

I guess this is what I get for trying to get more than a couple years out of a pair of frames, but they should realize that frames NEED TO BE FUCKING DURABLE because some people's prescriptions don't change every year.

You know what I was doing when the earpiece broke? Cleaning my glasses. I wasn't being overly reckless or anything. I was just holding them over the sink spraying the cleaning crap on them and wiping them with a paper towel (because fuck if I'm buying a "special cleaning cloth" for like $15, shit's a fucking overpriced washcloth).

sleep at last

Plumbing's fixed. I have the completely reassuring knowledge that the plumber referred to the valve that broke (the specific brand of which is used all over the house) as a "ticking time bomb". Quest valves just randomly fail apparently. I would have said so from the start just based off of the fact that they're plastic. We're most likely going to have to get the entire house changed over to better chrome valves as a pre-emptive measure.

Plumbing's actually been fixed since about 5:45 PM. The problem happened at 7:30 AM, after which I proceeded to leave message after message on my mom's cell phone. Turns out that in the house in Indiana that they're staying in, the phone doesn't get reception, but outside the house it does. So four whole hours later they call back and the whole thing got set in motion.

I ended up only getting a little over two hours of sleep, from 1 PM or so to around 3:30 when the plumbing company called to say they'd sent someone to come fix it.

And that's it. I've been up since 2 PM Thursday, with only 2.5 hours of sleep since then.

If a specific day's experience in life could have a theme song, this one's theme song is definitely American Hi-Fi's Another Perfect Day.

Then at 6 PM or so, after the problem was fixed and the main water valve long since turned back on, I decided to go ahead and eat dinner instead of going to sleep and messing up my dinner plans. After that, I played some Guitar Hero to take my mind off of things. Fired up GH2 for the hell of it and despite having not played the song in forever I got -1 on Message In A Bottle. The drop was stupid, too. Long before the closing solo, which I FCed and got the entire wtfhax tapping portion (which I don't tap) of Solo D under star power. I followed that up with re-watching the first season of Minami-ke in its entirety.

I should probably go out and get Friday's mail now that I think about it. In fact, I should probably stay up until the newspaper gets here, but I don't know if I can make it that far and I'd rather get sleep and leave the newspaper in the driveway all day than gorge myself on coke zero trying to stay up for another hour and a half.

おやすみなさ～い *yawn* *falls asleep* *isn't enough of a weeaboo to know the Japanese emoticons for those things*

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Ok so I was using the bathroom and about to go to sleep and suddenly I hear a weird noise.

I go check it out and the water shutoff valve to my parents' toilet has burst and water is spewing out all over the floor.

I went into the basement and shut off the main water valve but for whatever reason water is still leaking out of the toilet's valve.

I've left about 4 or 5 messages on my mom's cell phone (they're conveniently in Indiana on vacation), which of course is not on because she never has it on, even while charging it.

I know it's 6:30 AM or something where they are.

I don't care.

TURN YOUR FUCKING CELL PHONE ON MOM WHAT THE FUCK SERIOUSLY WHY DO YOU HAVE A GOD DAMNED CELL PHONE IF YOU NEVER FUCKING TURN IT ON.

I just want to go to sleep, but I can't when water is leaking throughout the house.

Papa John's just failed hard.

I've been a fan of Papa Johns' Barbecue Chicken and Bacon pizza for a while now (sans the onions, I like my pizza without heartburn). When they unveiled the whole grain crust, the tastegasm was complete. Every time I ordered it, it was warm, cheesy awesome in a box with pepperoncini and garlic butter.

A couple nights ago I decided to order another one. I don't order pizza all that often, but sometimes there's nothing else that'll satisfy your cravings. So I hopped on their website, logged in, and... WTF, I can't order the pizza with a whole grain crust.

Because we'd been planning on ordering the pizza I hastily ordered it with a regular crust. Drove to the place to get it carryout (it's two blocks away, fuck if I'm paying for delivery). Asked the people there, and sure enough, the whole grain crust has been discontinued. I dropped the "well that's a shame, it was better than the regular crust" line, and left.

There's one part of this I don't understand. Their motto is "Better Ingredients. Better Pizza.", right? Well, whole grains are definitely better than refined ones (both by taste and nutritional value), so... aren't they voluntarily making their pizzas worse?

Later that night, I hopped on Facebook (lol, social networking. I guess I still need to write up why I social network despite not seeing its value) and made a group called "I refuse to buy a Papa John's pizza without a whole grain crust." and invited my entire friends list (even the vegetarians). Only one of my friends has joined so far; and since Facebook fails yet again for not having any way to view outstanding invites and see who's turned it down, so I can only assume the rest of my friends turned it down.

There are probably better things to complain about, but right now if Papa John's wants me to stimulate the economy by buying their product, they'd better bring back the product I want to buy. Otherwise my money will go elsewhere.

Latest GW/GH status updates

Guild Wars

I'm finally done farming for Sunspear and Lightbringer promotion points. That's right, my ranger is now both a Legendary Spearmarshal and a Holy Lightbringer. I actually broke out the calculator and did some math (and three Sunspear-only runs) so I'd get the two titles in the same run. Now I never have to take another bounty when I'm playing in Nightfall, and the skills linked to both titles will be as awesome as possible. The title tracks continue to register points past the 50,000 needed to max each out too, which is a little weird.

Of course, as always, a screenshot.

I was so glad when they announced that this weekend's event was going to be double Sunspear/Lightbringer point gain instead of some random bullshit PvP thing. I started doing runs promptly at Noon Pacific (3 PM Eastern) when the double point bonus began, and by 7 PM Eastern, with breaks for bathroom, food, and rebooting my computer since it shits bricks when DirectX games run for an hour or so, I had the titles. I was thinking it would take the entire weekend, but instead it took four hours.

I also contributed this neat exploration glitch to GuildWiki's Portal Jumping Project. I discovered it a long time ago (before I got Legendary Cartographer), but just recently got around to making a video of it. YouTube gave it HD, which is both lulz and helpful at the same time.

Guitar Hero

I fired up GH3 to practice a few solos and stuff, and finally FCed Bulls on Parade. 288,943 points, 5.167x average multiplier, 177th on PS2. Had a few runs before the FC where I kept dropping stupid shit in the verses. The first run I make it to Kill Switch Scratch without dropping, I get the FC. Kinda random, but hey, I'll take it.

I guess the massive amount of Guitar Hero: Metallica I've been playing lately has gotten my alt-strumming bursts a little better.

Speaking of alt-strumming, take a look at War Ensemble on Expert Bass. There's some god damned alt-strumming right there. That video is on Hyperspeed 3, so the notes are spaced out a lot more than they really are. Take special note of the "purple wall" at 4:15-4:30. Pretty much 15 seconds of insanely fast alt-strumming.

Okay, that's it, I'm turning off the PS2. Constantly hearing "Rally 'round the family with a pocket full of shells" in the background is getting annoying.

No more elbow pain

For a while now, using my computer meant a lot of pain in my right elbow. My trackball has a nice pad for my wrist, but it elevates the rest of my arm to the point where my elbow doesn't rest comfortably on my desk.

I got a mouse pad with a gel cushion from the bargain bin at Giant today while we were out on our weekly grocery shopping trip. Staples brand, marked down to $5.50. Works perfectly. Sadly, it's not one of those mouse pads with a female anime character's breasts as the cushion, but those would cost considerably more and I'd have to hunt for a specific character.

Since I've finished sightreading Guitar Hero: Metallica on both Guitar and Bass now, I'll post my impressions.

Soundtrack: Awesome. Almost the entire Ride The Lightning album is in the game, with the exception of Ride The Lightning (it's in Rock Band... :( ), Trapped Under Ice (it's in World Tour though), Escape, and Call of Ktulu (lol I guess that makes it only half of the album in the game). They added the 11 minute long Mercyful Fate, which to date is the only song in any Guitar Hero game that you can score a million points on in solo play. The non-Metallica songs are pretty good too.

Engine: Better than World Tour's. They fixed the slider notes so that they have a back-end timing window now (meaning you can hit them late and have it still count). The HO/PO window, while still no different from GH2's, has a subtle change from World Tour. The windows can now overlap, meaning fast HO/PO parts are easier to play.

Graphics: Better than World Tour's. The new addition is the star meter, which tells you what your current star rating is and gives you an idea of how close you are to the next one. Also, in my opinion one of the best graphical cheats ever: Black Highway. The fretboards in this one aren't all that bad, but you can enable this and not have to worry. Also there's a cheat that changes Metallica around between three different costume sets, their modern ones, their 80's ones, and Zombie costumes. Pretty neat.

Charts: There are some weird parts of some of them. Like in Mercyful Fate where the pitch you're playing goes up but you go down a fret from blue to yellow. The section of For Whom The Bell Tolls called Ring To The Sky is charted as hammerons but if you listen to the music each note is clearly being individually picked. The section right before it consists entirely of two note chords and I'm convinced they could not have charted the transitions any more awkwardly. I've FCed the section, but there's always a chance of dropping a chord or two. Also you don't get to play the closing solo :( One's chart is different. Overall it's more accurate, Fast Solo A is charted properly this time, and the song as a whole is both easier to pass and easier to get 5 stars on. I had to work my ass off to get 5 stars on One in GH3, but in GHM it happened sightread.

Letdown: The PS2 version is a shitty port, and as such DOES NOT INCLUDE THE MUSIC EDITOR OR ANY OF THE NEVERSOFT CUSTOM SONGS. This massively disappointed me because I really wanted to play Desimate on bass.

One note that's important: when you start up career mode, before you get a chance to choose a song, you see a cutscene of Metallica walking up onto a stage. Then out of the blue a fretboard appears and you're playing For Whom The Bell Tolls. It's immediately followed up with The Unforgiven. Then you get to see the career mode setlist menu and choose a song from there. Career mode this time works off of the number of stars you've gotten from star ratings on the songs you've played. It's pretty cool, you can move around between the sets playing whatever you want and when you get enough stars the next set gets unlocked. Except that I 5-starred everything starting at the top and working my way down, and opened up the entire setlist before I was about halfway through (75 stars unlocks everything).

As for the one remaining question, "which song is the hardest?" I'd have to say War Ensemble by Slayer. It's the only one that took me more than two tries to pass on Guitar. I passed it sightread on Bass, and I haven't seen it on drums (it's got Expert Plus) or vocals. I've only been playing on Expert.

Guitar Hero 5 (World Tour was GH4) was demoed at E3 and looks pretty neat. They're adding a party mode where you set up a playlist of songs in the game and start it playing. There's the music for your party. But while this is going on, you can pick up a controller, press a button, and start playing. People can drop in and out as they want to, and you can have multiple people playing the same instrument. In the demo they showed two people playing on drums, with one on guitar and one on bass. Four highways on the screen at once. The Expert Plus option was available, so it looks like drummers will be getting more of a leg workout. They also added a mechanic for saving band members who've failed (basically keep playing and as long as you play well they'll be revived), and STAR POWER IS FINALLY PLAYER SPECIFIC. Some people have been saying "lol they're copying Rock Band", but what it boils down to is that the community was begging for these two things and they listened. There's some other stuff but those are the important things. Here's a youtube video of the presentation if you're interested.

BAWWWWW PEOPLE BLOCKING ADS

In another Newgrounds themed post, they've rolled out their banners targeted at people running AdBlock Plus (like me).

The funny thing is, all I had to do was right click on one of them and say AdBlock Frame and now they're gone. A little playing around with Stylish hid the boxes they were in and it's back to life as normal.

Edit: I put my style on userstyles.org so others can benefit too!

GG Newgrounds.

The main complaint is that by blocking their ads, people are somehow causing them to lose money. This is bullshit, because if they get paid per impression and there are people seeing the ads, then they're still getting money, just not as much of it. Slower positive cash flow != negative cash flow. Learn basic algebra.

Aside from that, think about it. Why are the people that run ad blockers compelled to do so? The ads that have become the stain on the underpants of the internet are flashy, annoying, consume system resources for no gain to the user, and are generally intrusive. The user of the web browser should be firmly in control of the content they see on the internet, not the providers of said content. If I'm blocking your ads, it's because I wasn't going to click them anyway and they're just taking up valuable space that could be otherwise devoted to your site's content. That's what the internet is about. Content. Not advertising, not commerce, but content. If someone doesn't want to see your ads, just live with it. Don't cry and make special banners to show people in place of your ads that bitch at them for blocking your ads. That's not going to make people turn off their ad blockers.

Seriously.

Much later edit: LOLWUT GH:M THE THING THAT SHOULD NOT BE EXPERT BASS SIGHTREAD FC 2ND PLACE ON PS2

Obvious Warnings

What's up with all the completely obvious warnings on things these days? Are people really that fucking retarded? Also, why does our legal system allow their frivolous lawsuits to be brought to court?

In the store a couple days ago, I picked up a box of breadsticks to see if they were whole grain or not. They weren't, but right below the ingredients list it says "Contains wheat". WELL NO SHIT, THEY'RE BREADSTICKS, ONE WOULD HOPE THEY CONTAIN WHEAT.

On Pop-Tarts, the little foil packages that they come wrapped in say "DO NOT MICROWAVE IN THIS POUCH". Seriously, are people that fucking stupid? First off, anyone who's going to warm up Pop-Tarts is probably going to toast them. Second, on your package, you clearly state in both the toaster and microwave directions to remove the Pop-Tarts from the pouch. Why do you need to say it a third time?

Chainsaws inevitably have a warning on them saying "Do not attempt to stop moving blade with hands." Like anyone with half a brain is going to try that anyway. Someone would have to be fucking retarded to try to stop a moving chainsaw blade with their hands. If they seriously want to maim themselves like that, let 'em. Natural selection exists for a reason.

I'm sure any of you zero people on either Blogger or Facebook that read this have seen many more of these completely obvious warnings, so I don't really need to cover that many of them.

The annoying thing about all this is that inevitably, someone had to try to do everything that those idiotic warnings are telling you to not do. It's sad that there are so many retards out there. What's even sadder is that they will inevitably take the company to court over it, which means there are lawyers that would consider these kinds of lawsuits to be valid and judges that don't recognize them as frivolous, wasting court time and money that could be better put towards much more legitimate purposes. Sadder yet, all these lawsuits over the obvious cost corporations a lot of money, which means they have to re-do their packaging or product design to include the warning, and then they have to raise their prices to make back the money they had to pay some idiot that tried to stop a chainsaw blade with his hands.

All of this is nothing short of a colossal waste of time and money for everyone involved. How can the average American have any faith whatsoever in our country's legal system when lawyers will take McDonald's to court because people that eat there every day of the week got fat? No shit you got fat, you consume your entire day's worth of calories in one meal and inevitably don't exercise to burn off those calories and the fat that came with them. Stop wasting the legal system's resources for your own ignorant personal gain, put two and two together, and get on a fucking treadmill?

Where has personal responsibility gone? Seriously everything these days is "I got hurt, who's responsible so I can sue them?" Our neighborhood has a park behind it, with a trail to it heading up between two of the houses. Apparently our shoddily-organized neighborhood association (which was much more organized back then, and wasn't like the tyrannical ones that require you to have 13 bushes in your front yard and call the fire department when you're having a barbecue) decided that if someone hurt themselves on that trail, our neighborhood would somehow be at fault. So now we have an insurance policy for that trail. Has anyone ever made a claim to that policy? No. Has anyone ever gotten hurt on that trail? Somehow, despite its lack of maintenance, no. This is just a waste of our neighborhood's money. We shouldn't be at fault anyway since if someone falls down and hurts themselves on that trail it's their own god damned fault for not looking where they're walking.

HARDWIRED NECK GET

Armed with a Torx T10 screwdriver, scissors, wire strippers, and electrical tape, I successfully combined those four things with my guitar controller and now have 100% reliable fret buttons.

SUC-FUCKING-CESS.

I forgot to put the paper shim back in though, so the wobbly neck feels weird. I might have to do something about that. Also partway through I found that the wire strippers weren't really the right size for the job (20 gauge wire, the strippers I had only went up to 18) but I was able to score the insulation and pull it off with the fingernails I've been neglecting to trim the past few days.

I wouldn't have had to do this had the neck had a female connector for the pins on the body of the guitar, or if the neck hadn't been detachable in the first place. End-users having to fix a shitty controller design manually = fail.

One last time for good measure, whoever came up with the idea for the detachable neck should be shot.

I celebrated with an almost-FC of Slow Ride. I got through the hard part of the final solo only to fuck up the bit after it :(

Newgrounds Wide Layout Issues Followup to the Followup

They discovered the concept of a preferences panel. It's all better. I can go back to having flash not auto-load. Curiously there's a separate autoplay option for flashes with adult content, but if you have regular autoplay turned off it still says "Adult Content" by the play button.

In addition, you can go back to the previous method. Which is nice since some flash authors bitched about the ability to resize their shit so much that they added the ability to disable that when submitting. I'll just rewrite my greasemonkey script that resizes things and haha fuck you.

I still need the style for Stylish to hide the boxes that cover things up, but at least now I can go back to the way things were.

See Facebook? When you change your layout and people bitch about it, instead of ignoring them YOU WORK WITH THEM TO MAKE IT BETTER. User preferences are a good thing.

K-On episode 8 finally introduced Azusa (well, she introduces herself in episode 9, but whatever), the fifth band member. Azusa actually plays guitar, unlike Yui who learned it after joining. K-On has two moeblobs now, it's confusing the hell out of me. There was a pretty funny scene with Mio trying on the cat ears when she didn't think anyone was watching. At my estimation with the current pacing, I say there's only one more concert remaining, and it'll be in episode 13.

I've been watching Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood and Basquash almost a week behind the episode release, I think I'll go watch both series' respective episode 9 and fix that. FMA has slowed down to a sane level of pacing, which I guess they paced the beginning as quickly as they did so they could have an ending that wasn't rushed, which to me suggests it's going to be 26 episodes instead of 50, unless they've got some entirely new material to show us. Basquash on the other hand has picked up its pace (and the disguised reverse trap loli princess has met up with the main cast now). Things are definitely getting interesting.

Also, new Haruhi ftw. The new episodes were completely unannounced and are airing in chronological order during a chronologic rerun of the series. The first new episode, Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody, explains the one thing I'd been wanting explained: The comment in broadcast episode 2 Haruhi made after a little bit of talking to Kyon, "Haven't I met you before? A long time ago?" I won't go into specifics but it's a pretty good episode. If the schedule I found in a reply on CoalGuys' blog is accurate, the next new episode airs on June 18th.