VegettoEX Dot Com

Author: vegettoex

  • General Thoughts and Updates

    So apparently the Master System version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is available on Virtual Console today.  As you may know, the Genesis/MegaDrive version is one of my favorite games of all time. If I understand correctly, the Master System “port” is a similar game, and has different level designs (but is still overall Sonic 2 just like its older cousin). Convince me on this. I purchased the Mega Drive version of the first Sonic game, and while it was interesting to check out (and a relative bargain at $5), it suffered from a lot of problems that make me not want to revisit it all that much. How about the Master System version of Sonic 2? If I get it, it probably won’t be until the new year (hoping I’ll get some point cards to spend!). I know some foreign folks out there have a very different perspective on the Master System, so I am curious as to what they have to say.

    Also, we seem to have solidified our topic for episode six of the podcast. Actually, I’m not sure if Jeff has heard, but everyone else knows! Someone else (new to this show) will be joining us for this particular episode, though it should be a familiar voice for listeners following along from other shows. I am really looking forward to this one! Hopefully we can record it around two weeks from now and get it out by the end of the month.

    Looks like I forgot to do a page for the Top 10 list from our last podcast episode (guest appearances). I will get right on that!

    Check everyone later~

  • Problem Solved: Firefox Bookmarks Toolbar Not Showing

    I guess I can start up a new category for the blog, now that I have two entries with similar subject matter. I had previously posted about a Photoshop crashing issue I was experiencing and how I corrected it. I figure other people will be having the same issues, and since I find the vast majority of “help” on the internet completely incomprehensible (keep reading), I may as well add to the noise with my own suggestions.

    So today Firefox on my work laptop (3.0.4 running on Windows XP Pro SP2) let me know that two plugins/add-ons had updates. Sure, let’s do it! I let Adblock Plus update itself to 1.0, and DownloadHelper update itself to 3.5.1.

    After doing so, my bookmarks toolbar suddenly had nothing in it.

    I checked in the “Bookmarks” >> “Bookmarks Toolbar” menu option, and thankfully the four items I had set there were actually still there. They just weren’t showing up on the actual toolbar for me to click. Huh.

    I did a little Googling to figure out what may have been the problem (assuming it was the add-ons updates), and came across this blog entry. Much to my dismay, it was completely incomprehensible. Sure, there were capital letters and punctuation, but the words didn’t actually make any sense. None of the comments were any more helpful, either. I tried to follow along with what they were saying, but there was a severe lack of context in every single comment.

    Luckily, I happened to resize the Firefox window (I don’t know why), and found something interesting:

    What on Earth are the bookmarks doing way the heck over there on the right…?! I tried a few things (like manually dragging the icons over to the left… not that it would do anything…), but I was not making any progress. They would stay on-screen now that I had changed the window size, but they stayed flush up against the right side. That doesn’t really help me much, since I have trained myself to head up to the left to click them.

    I ended up right-clicking to customize the toolbar area, just to see what would happen:

    Without even doing anything on the following screen, my bookmarks toolbar suddenly reverted itself back to normal:

    Well, that was certainly interesting.

  • Grammatical Insanity

    If there is anything that drives me nuts more than basic grammatical errors in so-called “professional” publications (whether they be “in real life” or online), I have not yet discovered what this additional insanity-maker could be.

    A little part of me dies on the inside (in addition to the part that wants to get up and punch a brick wall) every time I see the wrong it’s/its and they’re/there/their. Just as horrific to me is when people add an apostrophe into a word when they are simply trying to make it plural.

    You are not reading multiple book’s, you are reading multiple books. Nothing is belonging to the books. They belong to you.

    Speaking of books, my buddy Andrew picked me up Eats, Shoots & Leaves a while back. I thoroughly enjoyed it, since I realized that I was not alone in the world with these feelings of rage (not that Andrew shares these feelings… his grammar ranges between wonderful and incomprehensible). The problem is that I simply do not know what to do with myself and this rage. It is impossible to change the world, and it is impossible for me to never encounter these errors that drive me to (non-literal; I’m just making a blog post) insanity.

    I cannot even imagine what copy-editors and other similar professionals go through in their daily lives.

    That’s a non-referral Amazon link up above, by the way. I do not want any money. I just want people to learn and share in my internet rage.

  • Mike Does Some FPSing

    So Valve was running a deal through Steam a little while ago offering the original Half-Life for only 98 cents (it being the ten-year anniversary of the game’s release in 1998; I’m aware that Ocarina of Time is also ten years old, but that’s a subject for another discussion). I had never played the game, and I can’t turn something down when it’s 98 cents… no matter what it is.

    I started playing the game this evening. Got around an hour or so in (according to Steam, I played for 1.2 hours). I’m absolutely terrible at these games, so I’m playing on “Easy” and I died a lot. Without spoiling too much, here are a couple things I noticed / wanted to mention:

    – I hate platforming in first-person. I cannot for the life of me ever fully determine where exactly my character is in relation their surroundings and get any sort of depth-perception. Do you get used to this with time?

    – I hate falling in first-person. See the above description for why I might be having this problem.

    – I’ve noted this before, but I’m definitely a mouse-and-keyboard elitist, despite barely playing these types of games.

    That’s about it, so far. It runs absolutely beautifully in 1680×1050 on this computer (as it should, being ten years old). Kinda nice not having any sorts of stuttering problems! Not much to say beyond those few things… just kinda wanted to write about it…

  • Podcast Episode 003: Dumping Ground

    Wow. Whoda thunk that episode three would be out so soon when there were two months between one and two…? I know I certainly didn’t! Them’s the breaks here, though. When Jeff and I get together and there are microphones in front of us, something is going to come out. And end up in an RSS feed.

    What you’re about to hear is a little bit of an experimentation on a few different fronts. The beginning of the episode (the “meat” of the episode, if you will) was actually recorded after all of the other stuff, which in this case is the end of the episode. Follow all that?

    In a nutshell, Jeff is working to revive Lo-Fidelity (his music review/appreciation podcast), and we were farting around with my mixer and his MacBook Pro to test levels and all that kind of boring pre-recording stuffage. We ended up amusing ourselves in the process and were wondering what to do with all of that material. I suggested we just dump it over here on WTF EX, and then further decided that rather than just dump it, let’s record an “intro” to it and make it an actual episode. Furthermore, let’s not edit a damn thing other than dragging it into the production timeline and creating transitions between the “segments”.

    So here you go. If you ever wanted to hear us completely unedited, uncut, and uncensored (but thankfully not in a cropped-widescreen presentation), this is it. I hold myself absolutely non-responsible for anything I said, and instead place all of the blame of Jeff. What you’re about to listen to is the ramblings of one man who had already recorded an entire normal podcast, and another who’s itching to record his own.

    You have been warned. Please enjoy.

  • Podcast Episode 002: First E-mail Addresses

    So here we are about two months after the first episode of this little side-side-podcast. It’s certainly living up to the “what I want, when I want” mantra that I set forth! While we were waiting around for Julian to show up to record the previous podcast episode for Daizenshuu EX, I figured those of us on the local mixer should go ahead and do something short and fun for this blog. So we did!

    Jeff is back on this episode, and Meri also joins us, as we talk about our first-ever e-mail addresses and some early internet ignorance. I thought we had a couple pretty interesting stories, and it certainly drives home the idea that we were all stupid early teenagers at some point in our lives.

    Enjoy the show, and have a great Thanksgiving weekend~!

  • Conversation 005: Crossover Games and Our Top 10 Special Guest Appearances

    Damn right we have episode five for you!

    It came a little later in the month than anticipated, but hey… everyone’s got busy lives going on right now. Thankfully we were all able to get together and record a great episode, including our buddy Bryce, who’s back once again to shoot the shiz with us.

    This time around we had a nice long discussion about all the games we’ve been playing (especially Andrew, who seems to have become a different man). Phones, handhelds, last-gen, current-gen, PCs… we have it all covered. We moved into our discussion about crossover games, and specifically why and how they are created. Is it a simple money-making machine? Is it beneficial to all parties involved? Do they get better over time? We finished up with a very fitting Top 10 list: the Top 10 Special Guest Appearances. Not specifically from crossover games, these characters took a special role in the games they did a guest stint in, and they are all memorable in their own ways.

    We’ll hit you back again soon with some regular blog entries. In the meantime, enjoy the show, and let us know what you think about everything! We have big plans for the site (including blog entries, podcasts, design, community, etc.), and we’re thrilled to have you along for the ride.

  • Bathroom Note

    Seriously? How old are we, people…? This is a place of business, not a college dorm. Being in a college town is not an excuse.

  • Thinking About Ditching Cable

    So Meri and I are seriously considering just ditching our cable television entirely.

    We’ve come to the realization that beyond her occasional crashing with some HGTV… we just don’t watch anything. Sure, there’s South Park when there are new episodes, but the official website & Netflix can take care of that in due time. We’ve dropped Heroes, so that doesn’t matter anymore. For other, regular ol’ American TV shows (if we’re ever going to watch them), we’d rather much watch them on DVD without commercials, anyway.

    I also finally used Hulu for the first time the other day, and found it surprisingly watchable. We checked out a random, recent episode of The Simpsons, and I was thrilled to see Dilbert on there, as well. It’s definitely making the case for a media-hub PC output to the TV, rather than just the PS3 or 360.

    Speaking of which, those two are also replacing much of the “TV viewing”. No, it’s not because of gaming, but actual programming. Whether it’s material from Game Trailers or Game Videos or even some other random site, I love tossing things on DVD-RW and popping it in one of the systems for TV-viewing. That’s about to get even better with the “New Xbox Experience” and its tie-in with our Netflix account… streaming right to the TV without needing any new equipment!

    At the end of the day, we’re not ever really watching “TV” and saving about $80 on a product (digital cable package + On Demand) we’re not using sure doesn’t sound like a bad deal. Are any of you living (well) without cable? I don’t see myself missing it…

  • Borders Hilarity

    What does it mean when all the workout videos are under “Intermediate Fiction”…?