Status update

Posted on 2006-02-09 by Stephan Sokolow

Well, I’ve been very busy, so sorry for no updates, but at least I can show off one of the minor nice things I did manage to do. Here’s a screenshot of my new Conky setup. If any geeks see this and want a copy of my .conkyrc file, ask and ye shall receive. I’m too lazy to upload it manually and It’a too big to quote in the post body.

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Music: T-Maxx by PRW

Posted on 2006-01-04 by Stephan Sokolow

T-Maxx by Peter Robert Wagner

Finally, after nearly a decade, I got lucky and found a copy of some music I really liked after hearing it in a shareware game. (BrickLayer) The link is to it’s page on the creator’s official site so you can rest assured that it’s a completely legal download. There’s also two fan-made alternate versions (a MIDI version and a remix).

My apologies for being too busy to do any proper posting.

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Favorites without Reviews

Posted on 2005-12-04 by Stephan Sokolow

My Fanfiction.net Page

Having reviewed my schedule, I now know I may not be able to find very much time to post for a while. As such, I’ve cleaned up my Fanfiction.net favorites lists and at least 90% of the stories listed are stories I haven’t had time to review.

I will continue to add stories as I find time to do so and I’ll add a link to it from the main site during it’s next update.

In case you’re wondering why I haven’t written any fanfiction, let me say this: I’d like to, I have ideas, and I don’t write crap. The problem is that I have trouble allowing even my first drafts to be crap so I end up stalling and getting side-tracked into things I can do with less trial and error (like writing programs).

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Request for info – Name of Song

Posted on 2005-11-28 by Stephan Sokolow

Putfile – Shadow of the Collosus Subliminal Messages

My brother just linked me to this video clip. I’m willing to offer a negotiable reward of services and/or electronic goods (files, not things you plug into the wall) in exchange for either the name or a copy of the music that is used in it. If you provide the actual music, the file must have accurate source data (Title and artist or album as appropriate) either as a separate text file, or in the metadata (ID3 tag or equivalent).

If you’d prefer to keep your response secret, you may use the contact form on my main site.

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Webcomics, RSS, and updates

Posted on 2005-11-28 by Stephan Sokolow

Comic Alert!

I haven’t been able to make as much free time as I’d like, but I did manage to find what is proving to be a real time saver. With all of the webcomics I read, checking for updates can be very time-consuming. Especially since many of them don’t provide RSS feeds.

Comic Alert! is a website I found while googling for an RSS feed on a particularly confusing site. Essentially, you sign in (you don’t even need to give an e-mail address) and build a webcomic favorites list.

It will then check the comics for updates and notify you through your choice of three methods:

  • Your own custom “all my favorite comics” RSS feed
  • A daily e-mail digest (Obviously, requires you to give an e-mail address)
  • Your own “These comics have been updated” page complete with thumbnails.

The service is completely free (even from ads, at the moment) and according to the FAQ, they never want to go beyond in-site ads when it comes to getting paid. My favorite part is how it leverages the social aspect of having all those favorites lists on a single site in order to suggest new webcomics. Of course, I already knew about all of the comics It’s recommended to me, I just haven’t had time to try them.

The other potential gains which haven’t really come into their own yet are the “Related Sites”, “Similar Comics”, and “User Reviews” functions. I spent about an hour this morning submitting Wikipedia articles to be added as related links. I just can’t wait for their planned my.comicalert.com feature. Then I’ll be able to let their software automate the task of maintaining a publicly-visible favorites list.

Anyway, subject change: When I came to post this article, I was informed that there was a WordPress 1.2 vulnerability and my blog had been disabled. As such, I finally got upgraded to 1.5. As you may notice, there is no Captcha anymore. I left it that way on purpose in an attempt to goad myself into giving the blog a major overhaul. It’s needed one for a while.

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Fanfiction – “Hidden in Darkness”

Posted on 2005-11-12 by Stephan Sokolow

Title: Hidden in Darkness
URL: Furinkan.net VFFA
Author: Space Pirate Hamster
Source: Sailor Moon
Rating: 5.5/6
Type: Continuation with a possible hint of AU
Length: 6 Chapters + Omake (Complete)

After doing the bit of reading that resulted in the previous post, I was left with the annoying fact that this was probably the only fic on the Sailor Moon page at Furinkan.net that I had not read. The tab remained open in my browser for weeks as an annoying reminder that I refused to remove, but never had the time to make use of until now.

Hidden in Darkness is one of those fics that turns things on it’s head by doing nothing more than revealing (creating) some hidden fact about the canonical story. (One of my favorite kinds) Essentially, it raises the question, “What if the destruction of Metallia left a race of half-youma refugees who desired only to survive?”.

As with Space Pirate Hamster’s big-name works like newRanma and The Virus, I consider this fanfic to be very well written. The setting and plot are believable, and it’s a true mark of a good author when you can get your audience to enjoy new characters in a fanfic, as opposed to disliking them or not caring. In fact, the combination of skill and subject matter reminds me of Stefan Gagne’s original work, Sailor Nothing. (which really deserves it’s own review)

Anyway, if/when you do read this, I highly recommend reading the “Author’s Notes and Omake” file. It’s rather reminiscent of Arthur C. Clarke’s “Lost Worlds of 2001” in that you might have difficulty telling whether you enjoy the main feature or the discards more.

What really surprises me is that the only other decent fic I can think of which tries the “non-evil youma” idea is a Ranma 1/2 – Sailor Moon crossover which I have yet to review. (Youma 1/2)

My apologies for the fragmentary nature of this review and it’s tendency to go off on tangents, but I’d rather post an over-concentrated review while half-asleep, than risk getting bogged down with work and forgetting about it entirely. Of course, I could say the same thing about the disorganized nature of this blog too.

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Status update

Posted on 2005-10-28 by Stephan Sokolow

Well, I’ve been very busy and probably will continue to be. However, I did manage to fit in three review-worthy things:

Until I have time to write proper reviews, here are some simple ones.

Fushigi Yuugi

If you’re like me, you’ve probably grown really tired of anime that re-uses the same old character designs and plot twists. Especially when it feels lacking at the end.

I like to think of Fushigi Yuugi as Japan’s answer to “The Neverending Story”. It’s an epic with highly unique characters, any cliches that it does use were not cliches at the time it was made, and I consider it to be one of the set of classics which includes Ranma 1/2 and Evangelion.

Slayers Virtual

Ever wonder what Slayers would be like if it were Cyberpunk instead of Sword and Sorcery? This is a collaborative fic (each chapter has a different author) which I considered highly enjoyable. It does a very good job of mapping the Slayers mythos to a Sci-fi setting. I’d rank it as 5.5/6 and, as anyone who reads my other posts knows, 6/6 requires a re-read.

Gabriel

Ever read “The Virus”, “Ranma’s Apartment”, or “newRanma”? They are all written by an author who uses the pseudonym, “Space Pirate Hamster”.

“Gabriel” is a gender-bending work of original fiction which follows a transsexual main character of the same name in a real-world setting. I don’t apply my fanfiction ranking system to original fiction, but I can say that it is very good.

…that reminds me, There’s another work of original fiction that is of similar quality. I have to find it again and review it. (It’s a sci-fi story that’s in some profile on The Lost Library of Florestica)

Anyway, I’m trying to get some of my programming projects done right now so proper reviews may have to wait a while. On the other hand, at least I’m finally making progress against the great deluge of TODO notes.

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