Author: vegettoex

  • Reviving the Ol’ Personal Blog

    Reviving the Ol’ Personal Blog

    Is this blog alive again? Who can really say?

    Truth be told, I let it get so out of date that it got infected, so I had to just trash the whole install and start fresh. In the process, I was backing up a few things, dug up a few other things, and remembered that sometimes I do actually like to write.

    So right now it’s really just an experiment. I have a few things I’ve already written that are ready to publish, and a few drafts that are just about done:

    • Already live is a recap of some podcast guest appearances over the last… uhh… three or four-ish years. I tweet about them when they come out, but after that they pretty much disappear into the ether, so it’s nice to be able to collect them here and re-promote them.
    • I have a post in the works that acts as a follow-up to my “Amateur Podcast Production Tips, Tricks, and Techniques” article, this one instead focusing exclusively on interviewing (on podcasts, not for jobs!). I drafted it… uhh… it looks like almost exactly two years ago. I should finish it!
    • I have what I think is a fun article looking back on Final Fantasy XIV already written that at this point I’m just gathering screenshots for. It looks back at A Realm Reborn and my time learning and growing with the game. It was one of those articles just started poking at when I needed a distraction, and suddenly a pretty long piece of writing emerged.

    And then there are the experiments I’m running. I leave all of the technical stuff on Kanzenshuu to Heath, so here I’m all on my own customizing themes and such. A few things I’m toying with:

    • First thing’s first: you should be running uBlock Origin. I am. That said, I’m running ads on the blog. I really don’t get much traffic here, but I figure I can learn how it all works, customize the ad displays, etc. If anything happens to take off, great, I can make a couple cents off it. (There are still no plans to bring ads to the actual main Kanzenshuu website, so don’t worry about that.)
    • I have no idea what I want this blog/site to look like, I don’t have design chops anymore (did I ever?), so it might look wildly different every time you visit.
    • Every once in a while I’ll toss something out on Twitter, it ends up getting some traction, and I wish could have had a little more space to expand on it or otherwise provide a little more context. One example in recent memory was our Animal Crossing save corruptions right as the game hit the Switch. It would have been great to archive that in a more longform kind of way. (I don’t know that this belongs here in the “what I’m experimenting with” section, but it didn’t fit anywhere else.)
    • I’m recategorizing a bunch of posts and adjusting the menu to make things a little more clear/obvious. I’m going to keep all my old “vgconvos” writing (and, begrudgingly, podcast episodes), but that branding is just confusing at this point.

    Anyway, it’s wild going back and reading some of the stuff here. A decade doesn’t feel all that long ago to me; our podcasts and news coverage from that era on Kanzenshuu sound in tone and presentation as if they were made today, but some of the crap I was writing here was just wooooooooooow who even WAS that guy. I might clean up some of those articles (namely the “Why Episodes of Bardock Makes So Much Sense“, “The Great Canonical Debate“, and “Why the Frieza Spelling Drives Me Nuts” articles) — they’re all perfectly good evergreen content, just written kinda… well, extremely sloppily, and it’s a bit embarrassing.

    If you’re reading this, cool; if you’re not, well, you didn’t just read that.

  • Podcast Guest Appearances: 2021 Catch-Up Edition

    Podcast Guest Appearances: 2021 Catch-Up Edition

    It is I, killer of podcasts.

    It seems that when I show up on someone else’s podcast, there’s a significant chance that podcast will end soon after. I wonder if that’s why people stopped asking me to come on their shows? It can’t be that I’m a terrible and unlikable guest, right?

    Welp, as I reflect on all that, here are some things you may have missed (embeds where available):

    September 2017: LongThoughts with Baloo – Interview / Journey to the West

    I really enjoyed the opportunity to talk about Journey to the West here, and specifically sharing my thoughts on the poetry and how it shapes that story in a way that the abridged versions just can’t compete with. I recorded a follow-up to this show as a joint-interview with Heath and… uhh… I don’t… know that it ever actually got released…? I’m glad I kept and archived this episode!

    July 2018: Fresh Geek Context – Interview

    Josh and Jace invited me on to talk anything and everything Kanzenshuu and beyond. I really enjoyed the conversation, and very much appreciate the invite. There’s some solid behind-the-scenes insight here, if I do say so myself!

    September 2019: Fresh Geek Context – “Nine” (Blink-182) Album Review

    Josh and Jace had me back on to flex some musical-reviewing-chops as we took on Blink’s 2019 album Nine, the second (uhh well kinda third if you count the extended edition of California…?) with Matt Skiba in the lineup.

    August 2020: Motion City Podcast – “1000 Paper Cranes”

    Longtime friend and fan of the various websites Naaim and his co-host Jacob invited me onto their “review every Motion City Soundtrack song” podcast series, and me being me, I chose a random b-side because of course I would.

    June 2020: Up on the Lookout – Dragon Ball Trivia / etc.

    Lawrence (“MasakoX”) has been a longtime friend and supporter of Kanzenshuu, so I was happy to be invited to chat on his own show. We recorded an entirely separate discussion that seems to have gotten scrapped on the cutting room floor somewhere along the way; not sure if I was just terrible, derailed it, or what, but what remains is still a good listen!

    If you think I have something insightful or valuable to share with your audience, be it about anime or podcasting or online culture, hit me up on Twitter or anywhere else you see me around!

  • Amateur Podcast Production Tips, Tricks, and Techniques

    Amateur Podcast Production Tips, Tricks, and Techniques

    So You Want to Improve Your Podcast?

    When I started my podcast back in 2005, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing; some (myself included!) would argue that I still have no idea what I am doing. I have no audio engineering training, I continue to use incredibly basic software, and I only have a rough idea of why some of the equipment I use is “good” in the first place.

    That being said, I’m fairly confident that when someone loads up a recent Kanzenshuu podcast episode, they are going to: (1) have a good time, and (2) for the most part, not want to rip their ears off from poor audio quality.

    I was slow to “get” “into” podcasts. I didn’t quite understand their purpose in 2005 as radio continued its slow death. I wanted to do something very different for the website, though, and it seemed like as good a time as any to get in on what still felt like the ground floor of a new movement.

    These days I still listen to a wealth of podcasts. Some are old stalwarts, some are mainstream corporate shows, some are plucky amateur upstarts, and others come and go. Whereas in 2005 I found myself very forgiving about audio quality so long as the underlying content was there, these days I consider my time a little more valuable: I need both engaging content and “good” audio quality… not necessarily perfect, but something where clear effort and care went into it.

    These are a few of the most important tips, tricks, and techniques I have taught myself over the years. Again, I preface this by saying I still have absolutely no idea what I am doing. I have been faking it since 2005. If you are an audio professional and you want to “correct” some of the awful habits I have lodged in my brain, by all means let me know.

    For the most part, this should take you — the aforementioned plucky amateur podcaster — to heights you didn’t think were possible. People may not be able to articulate it when they hear solid production, but they certainly recognize it far back in their reptile brain. They’re thanking you for your time and effort!

    Your Recording Space

    Don’t record in a gigantic airplane hanger. OK, that’s probably not your scenario, so at least maybe don’t record in your kitchen. Turn your air conditioning and fans off. Send your roommates and significant others away if they are not recording on the show.

    Microphone Etiquette

    Figure out the exact position where the best sound comes through your microphone. Stop moving and shaking around. Stop typing on your keyboard. Stop nervously clicking the mouse. Stop smacking things on the table. Speaking of tables and desks: your microphone shouldn’t just be sitting on them. Get yourself some kind of stand or holder. Use a pop-filter to cut down on those plosives. Once you’ve figure out a good position, don’t wander away from your microphone. It’s tempting to sit back and relax in your chair, or look to the side and keep talking. Don’t do it!

    Also hey uhh good lord please stop eating while recording a podcast.

    RECOMMENDED:
    Samsom BT4 Telescoping Boom Stand
    NEEWER Adjustable Microphone Suspension Boom Scissor Arm Stand
    CAD Audio EPF-15A Pop Filter

    Initial Test Recordings

    After you’ve done all the above, start doing some test recordings of yourself. Is there a low hum going on somewhere? Figure out where and make it stop. Do you hear your pipes clanking in the background? Time to choose a different room. Is there a clock ticking on the wall that’s getting picked up? Move it elsewhere.

    Headphones

    You should never be podcasting with audio coming over speakers. At best, you’re going to get random operating system sounds when Windows invariably decides it absolutely has to let you know right this second that a new update is available. At worst, you’ll be recording with someone remotely and you will get their audio picked up on your audio track resulting in an awful echo. This is easily avoidable: put headphones on. We’re not talking stock Apple earbuds here; you need to wear actual, over-the-ear headphones. You don’t necessarily need anything crazy (we’re not doing heavy metal studio session monitoring), but you do want headphones that won’t leak out too much audio. A long cord might also be a plus so you can set things up comfortably. Go with traditional analog headphones (not USB) for more versatility and no chance of audio driver issues or conflicts. Turn your audio volume so you can hear your podcast co-hosts and participants, but not so loud that your microphone is going to pick up audio leaking out the sides.

    RECOMMENDED:
    Audio-Technica ATH-M20x
    Sennheiser HD 201

    Multiple (Remote) Hosts Means Multiple Audio Tracks

    Ideally, all of your co-hosts are in the same room. There’s something to be said for that real-time feedback and ability to play off each other. This isn’t always realistic, though. I get it.

    If you are going to get serious about this, each individual host (co-host, guest, etc.) should be recording just their own audio track by themselves on their own computer. Skype conversations sound like Skype conversations (and/or Discord, TeamSpeak, etc. conversations). There’s audio quality degradation, there’s that extra moment of silence between speaking, etc. It sounds amateur-hour because it’s really super amateur-hour. The biggest step up you can make is having everyone record their own audio track. This is going to be a little more work for the editor in the long run, but if you’ve already decided to get serious about this, well, this is what you’ve signed up for.

    Realistically, not every special guest you have will be able to do this. We can’t expect every expert in the field to also have audio recording setups the same way we do. However, if you have the same couple people on your podcast every episode, they’re in this deep enough to respect the craft and your time to step up their game and help out.

    Record Your Own Backup

    That all being said: always record a backup. Things go wrong. They always do. Someone’s computer is going to crash. Someone’s export is going to corrupt. Someone is going to forget to send you their audio and go on vacation for two weeks in the middle of the ocean.

    In lieu of re-recording the entire show (which is also an option!), if you record your own backup you at least have something to fall back on. Ideally your backup should also be multi-track as if you were still all recording locally. At the very least, you want your own audio track in one channel/track and the “call” (whether it’s one other person or multiple other people) in another channel/track.

    When you’re just getting started with editing multiple audio tracks, this backup can also be a good temporary tool to line up everyone’s recordings where they’re supposed to be. You’ll eventually get used to the flow of things and will be able to line things up naturally all on your own.

    RECOMMENDED:
    Ecamm’s Call Recorder (Skype, OS X)
    Craig (Discord)

    Selectively Silence the Other Audio Tracks

    If you’re reading this, you are (like me) not an audio engineer. We can set our recording spaces up to the best of our ability, but we are still not radio professionals. We need to overcompensate a little bit.

    This is the next step and reason why you were just recording multiple audio tracks. Go through and start silencing out what should be total silence in the other tracks. You don’t think you’re making noise, but you are. Again, we’re not professionals: we’re all breathing in the mic too hard, we’re all knocking into things at some point, our phones start buzzing, the cat starts meowing, the neighbor starts chainsawing trees… the list goes on and on. Look at your waveform: you’ll see little dots and hiccups, which you can and should just kill off.

    There might be plugins and automatic procedures that look for frequencies to silence out, but I prefer doing it manually. It takes more time, but I get finer control over what I want to silence out. Consider setting some hotkeys if they aren’t already available in your software. I like to set “Z” as “Cut” (for the ring finger) and “C” as “Silence” (for the pointer finger) in Audacity.

    Edit Your Damn Podcast

    You have all the tools at your disposal now! Did you start accidentally talking over your co-host? You have multiple audio tracks; silence yourself out and let it play out as if you never did. Did you start a sentence over because you randomly hit puberty and your voice cracked? Cut it. Is there a long, awkward silence before someone answers a question? Cut it down to something natural.

    It can be tempting to OVER-edit; resist this. Don’t be the equivalent of that dude on YouTube who’s doing jump-cuts within the same sentence. You want to edit it, but you want it to still flow like a natural conversation.

    Do you have musical bumpers? Listen to a “real” radio show or watch a “real” television show. You’ll notice the music fades down right at the very second someone starts talking. Yeah. Do this. We can’t hear what you’re saying when you start talking over music that’s still playing at full volume!

    Noise Removal

    Experiment with noise removal and leveling. Even Audacity has some pretty powerful noise removal tools built in to it; if you have done everything above, you are bringing in some halfway decent audio, which means the noise removal is going to be easier than if you have your fan blasting at you from two feet away.

    The basic idea is that you tell the software what the ambient “noise” you want to remove sounds like, and then have it remove that from the entire recording. Select a portion of a couple seconds where you’re not talking, there’s no audio echo, you’re not breathing all over the mic, etc. Basically, what does “nothing” sound like in the room? Let’s get rid of that! Do this individually for each audio track; your “nothing” will be different from someone else’s “nothing”. I like to set aside 10 seconds or so at the very beginning of a podcast recording for everyone to shut their yappers to sample as this “nothing”.

    The default removal settings in Audacity tend to work well for me after sampling my “nothing” to remove. You may need to go higher depending on your setup. Test, undo, test again, and keep testing until you find a nice balance of audio quality versus that weird, echo-y artifacting caused by removing noise at the higher levels.

    For what it’s worth, I prefer doing the noise removal, then doing the aforementioned selective silencing.

    Equal Volume Levels Among Participants

    Since we’re not audio professionals, we don’t necessarily have all the equipment and studio monitoring crew to keep us at the same volume all the time. However, through the magic of software, we can fake it!

    If you are recording with others over something like Skype, look for a setting that tries to adjust your volume automatically. Turn this off. You’re stepping up your game and acting like a super-awesome podcast host, right?! All this is going to do is blow out your audio when you come back in after someone else talks. While you’re at it, make sure your audio recording program and your call software are recording the correct microphone/input (that is to say, not your laptop’s internal microphone!).

    Once I’ve done all my noise removal, silencing, and editing, I toss the “final” voice-only export into Levelator and let it do its magic. If someone is whispering the entire show it’s going to have to work harder and you will definitely have some artifacting, but if folks are in the same ballpark, this is your last step to take things from 99% to 100% awesome.

    (This “Levelated” voice-only audio track is what I ultimately bring back into Audacity to edit in the intro, bumper, and closing music. The truly final/master audio is then exported from there.)

    RECOMMENDED:
    Levelator

    The Car Test

    Load your near-finished podcast up on your phone and go for a drive (or, if you don’t own a car, maybe take a little mass transit trip). Can you hear it well? Can you hear everyone well? If you ever have to adjust your volume even once more during the trip, you’re doing it wrong. It’s a podcast, not a classical music performance; you don’t need extreme dynamic range on the voices.

    Umm… What About Equipment?

    Yeah. That’s important, too. Sure. If you master everything above, however, you’ll be able to squeeze an impressive product out of an $80-$100 mic without going out of your mind spending money on things you don’t know how to use anyway.

    What Else Should I Know?

    A podcast isn’t a podcast unless it’s distributed the way podcasts are distributed; otherwise, it’s just a show you made. You can and should post your show on YouTube and SoundCloud… but you have to actually make that MP3 available via an RSS feed. You can upload and hand-code a feed, or use any variety of blog and podcast-posting services (maybe something like Libsyn). Get your show out there as a real podcast, and make sure you submit it to things like iTunes and Google Play. Hardcore podcast fans are using tools and apps like Overcast; your SoundCloud ain’t gonna cut it.

    Congratulations! You are theoretically now a slightly-more-informed plucky amateur podcaster!

    P.S.: You will eventually know what your own breathing and your co-host’s “Uhhh…” looks like as a waveform without having to listen to it.

  • Podcast Guest Appearances: Early 2015

    Podcast Guest Appearances: Early 2015

    Blog clean-up in progress. Looking for something to post. Guest podcast appearances! That’s a thing!

    Back in March, I helped our buddy Chris/Kirbopher kick off a multi-episode series on his “Kirblog” show all about Dragon Ball. He specifically asked me to come on to talk about the “early days” of fandom, but we ended up talking about comparisons between the original Japanese version and FUNimation’s English dubs. To spoil the conversation: that’s basically what early fandom was for me.

    At the end of April, I came back on “Kirblog” after Dragon Ball Super was announced to chat with him and our buddy Scott/KaiserNeko. I decided that I was going to interact with his fans/listeners in the comments. That was certainly an experience. My working theory is that Chris’ fans aren’t used to him being challenged on opinions or follow-up questions. They’re also not used to me in general. Or realize that we’re all actual friends.

    Also in April, Dustin/Innagadadavida released an episode of his “Kind Soundwaves” podcast that he recorded a few weeks earlier with me. This is actually one of my favorite things I’ve ever recorded. It was completely cathartic for me. After chatting a bit about where Dragon Ball is heading these days, we talked about Kanzenshuu, running such a giant website, dealing with criticism on the Internet, and how people are pretty much awful. But they’re also awesome. Be sure to also check out the rest of Dustin’s episodes — there’s an RSS feed for proper MP3 downloading.

    There ya’ go. More Mike listenings if you need ’em.

  • Final Fantasy XIV #EorzeaIRL Runner-Up

    Final Fantasy XIV #EorzeaIRL Runner-Up

    Dragon Ball. Final Fantasy XIV. Can’t do anything else. This is my life, and it’s ending one duty roulette at a time.

    So Square-Enix and the FF14 team started up a contest called #EorzeaIRL. The basic idea was to take a photo of something “in real life” that looked like or reminded you of a location in Eorzea (the setting for the game). I’ve been lucky enough to take some pretty spectacular vacations, so I figured I’d have something worthwhile to toss into the mix.

    I remembered an hour before the contest closed to submit something. Whoops. I probably could have found something better, but this is what I came up with:

    ff14_contest_winning_photo

    On the left is a bit of ruins from Costa Maya in Mexico. On the right are the stairs leading down to the entrance to the Tam-Tara Deepcroft dungeon in the Central Shroud (with me waving at the camera like a doofus).

    Obviously there are no walls surrounding the Costa Maya ruins, but I felt like the colors and overall structure seemed really darn similar enough to give it a try.

    And hey, I got a runner-up award! I actually already own the Blu-ray soundtrack for A Realm Reborn and probably would have just tossed it on eBay, so perhaps it is for the best that I did not win one of the grand prize selections. I just received the confirmation asking for mailing info today, so I am definitely looking forward to seeing what the bag looks like when it comes in.

    Definitely a cool little contest, and I am glad I entered!

  • Consolidating Old Websites

    Consolidating Old Websites

    Whoops, better not let two years go by without posting something on a personal site that no-one actually views.

    (Well, that’s not true. My “WHAT IS A CANNON” and Bardock posts actually still get lots of traffic.)

    Anyway, I’m just consolidating things over here. There’s no “front page” anymore on vegettoex.com and vgconvos.com will soon just resolve over here. Speaking of which, “vgconvos” was a fun little experiment and could have made a lot more sense if we all still lived really super close by each other and weren’t all married off and starting families. Video games were never the number-one hobby for any of us, so yeah. Makes sense to just let it be a fun memory of a cool thing we tried.

    I’m porting all of my own blog entries from said video game site over here to a “vgconvos” category since I did actually like some of what I wrote. Who knows? Maybe having everything tossed together in one place here will make it easier for me to type something up if I really feel like it.

    I also think an updated “My Podcasting Setup ~2014ver.~” post is long overdue. But that has nothing to do with video games. Except I never get around to writing it because I’m playing video games.

  • Lo-Fidelity Mini-Resurrection: Episode 38’s Review

    Lo-Fidelity Mini-Resurrection: Episode 38’s Review

    It’s July 4th, and that means a few things: grilling, beer, Will Smith fighting aliens, and Brad’s birthday.

    Our buddy kicked us a tweet the other day saying he was listening to an old Lo-Fidelity episode. Remember that? We do, too! We actually have two full episodes (sorta kinda) that we recorded back in 2010 and 2011 that never saw the light of the day… until now. Well, again, sorta. I had edited together the review from episode 38, and we always intended to toss it out in some fashion, but just never got around to doing so.

    So, with it being Brad’s birthday, and with The Early November‘s new album (In Currents) dropping next week, it made sense to finally toss up this review of the I Can Make A Mess Like Nobody’s Business album from back in March 2010, The World We Know.

    Ta-dah!

    (I haven’t really touched this file since 2010. Hopefully it sounds OK and is actually edited. The file name says it is. I’ll trust myself on this one.)

  • PSP Game Transfer and Error Message Woes

    PSP Game Transfer and Error Message Woes

    It seems I don’t exactly have the best luck with video game hardware lately. My 360’s USB ports seem to be on the fritz, my Wii has graphical glitches that seem to stem from WiiConnect24 (a story which I somehow missed back in 2007), and my PSP? Well, other than the one that just flat-out died in its first year, my replacement has been pretty fine!

    The system has not gotten a whole lot of use over the previous year, last being the system of choice for a play-through of the original Suikoden. I have been amassing a bunch of PSP games (along with lots of cheap PS1 games via PSN) though, so I decided to pick up a 16GB memory stick to load up, which arrived a couple days ago.

    Since tossing a 320GB drive into my PS3, I have greatly enjoyed using it as the central location for the entire PlayStation family (which is… well, really just the PS3 itself and the PSP for now) — I keep every single game I have purchased over PSN right there on the system without having to worry about juggling content due to limited hard drive space. That includes things like ~35 PS1 games, a crap-ton of free Minis, Neutopia for the PCEngine/TG-16, and the two free PSP games I got as a part of the “Welcome Back” program last year (LittleBigPlanet and ModNation Racers).

    One of the features I have always liked so much about the tight integration with the two Sony platforms is the ability to play PS1 games on both systems with just a single purchase, and freely copy games and save files between them. With PSN being prone to massive slowdowns and bottlenecks (even with the magic of FiOS!), it has always made the most sense for me to just keep it all on the PS3, hook the PSP up to it via USB when necessary, and copy stuff over — it is far more efficient and painless than loading up the PlayStation Store on the PSP itself, navigating the store or my download history, and individually selecting things to re-download from there.

    So imagine my surprise when I could not copy things over to my PSP the other night. There was simply no “Copy” option (navigate on the XMB to the item you want, press “Triangle”, select “Copy” when the PSP is hooked up and in USB mode; you can do the same thing with video and audio files when, for example, a USB stick is hooked up). That was… weird, to say the least.

    Those familiar with the PSN download process know that, unlike over on the 360, the PS3 separates the “download” and the “install” of items. If you download an item from the store and let it be (without going to background downloading to putt around elsewhere), it will finish the download, and then immediately install the item. If you go elsewhere, however, the download file will sit in a type of “bubble”-icon within the “Games” section of the XMB — pressing the “X” button on this will “install” the game and place it into the appropriate folder (PS3 games, PS1 games, Minis, etc.).

    I had a couple different types of files available to me, so I started experimenting. Could I press “Triangle” and then “Copy” a PS1 game already installed like I use to be able to? Nope. Could I do it with the Dissidia Duodecim Prologus Final Fantasy files (game + Aerith assist) that I had downloaded the prior day, which were sitting in a “bubble” above the folders? Yes. Could I do it with the three PS1 Syphon Filter games I downloaded for free the prior day as a part of PS+, which were also still sitting in their own “bubble” icons, not-yet-installed? Nope. Was the copy option there with Neutopia? Nope. Was it there for any of the Minis? Nope.

    How about the PSP software from the “Welcome Back” program (which was not in a “bubble”, but filed in its respective PSP folder)? Yes, the option was there, but would result in an error message:

    My next thought was that somehow I had too many systems “registered” with my online identity — I did have another PSP, after all (the one sent back to me was a replacement, not a fixed version of the same exact one I sent back). After slogging around the main us.playstation.com website and knowledge base, I ended up over on the account.sonyentertainmentnetwork.com website. From here, I was able to see that I had three systems “activated” with Sony and tied to my online ID: one PS3, and two PSPs. One of them was clearly the old system, which of course had been activated and tied to the account, but I no longer had physical possession of.

    This, as I would correctly figure out, all ties in to a new policy Sony put in place this past November: the amount of systems that could be “activated” and tied to an account to play downloaded games would be decreased from five to two.

    PS3: Users will be able to play the game on up to 2 activated PS3 systems.
    PSP: Users will be able to play the game on up to 2 activated PSP systems.

    Even then, the policy was confusing. What about things like PS1 games that were playable on both systems? Was that one PS3 system and one PSP system (equal to two total systems), or one PS3 system and two PSP systems, since that still restricted it to two systems of the same type? It went on to be clarified that the new policy was only applicable to new downloads you made after the November 18th cut-off — things you downloaded prior to that could still be played on the five-system limit.

    Plenty of my content had been downloaded prior to that November 18th cut-off (things like Suikoden on the PS1, which had still been sitting there the whole time, and which I had transferred via the USB method from PS3-to-PSP a year prior), but that “Copy” option was inexplicably no longer there.

    The next thing I tried was simply logging onto the PlayStation Store directly on the PSP, and checking my account information. All good there, with an accurate download history as well (though entirely out of chronological order, which is another mess for another day). I could even re-download things with no problem (such as Grandia for the PS1, which I had recently grabbed during its $2.99 sale). So it was not like I could not use content on my PSP at all, but the break-down point was clearly between the PS3 and the PSP.

    It is here that we circle back to those three activated systems. Even with older-downloaded content, I wanted to check to see if perhaps having three systems was the problem. I tried to simply “activate” the PSP right on the system itself (“Account Management” –> “Activate System”). The error message: 80109D80.

    Huh. OK. The new customer site allows you to remotely deactivate your systems, though you have to do it in one fell swoop, and cannot individually pick a system to deactivate. That was fine — I would just deactivate them all, and then re-activate the PS3 and PSP that I own and have in my possession. That seemed like the cleanest way to start fresh with the systems I truly, actually, physically had right in front of me and could fully account for.

    It went fine for the first few steps. The deactivation went well, and I was able to activate the PS3 immediately. The PSP would not activate, however — not through the PS3 when hooked up over USB (“Account Management” –> “Activate System” –> “PSP System”), nor directly on the PSP. The following error message popped up each time and in each location: 80109D80.

    OK, weird yet again. I tried a few more times (and attempted to look up the error messages on Sony’s own website, which was not even listed in their database!), and decided it was time for a call to PlayStation customer support.

    The phone call was ~45 minutes in total. Probably ~10 of that was the initial maneuvering through automated prompts and being placed on hold for a live support representative. When I finally got through, “Joe” was totally awesome — very personable, very understanding, very knowledgeable, and very quick to compliment me on actually knowing what I was doing and talking about at every opportunity he could (I can only imagine the crazies that call in).

    I explained the whole situation, and as expected, the 80109D80 error code was not listed in his database, either. We tried a bunch of basic stuff first (check that the online ID is actually the same on both systems, restore the PSP to factory settings, try reactivating the system again, try different types of content again). I asked if attempting to activate a system so many times would raise some security flag. Joe asked how many times I had tried (I dunno… maybe 10?), and replied that if I had tried so many times, one more was not going to hurt — indeed, we kept getting the same 80109D80 error code. At some point Joe suggested that, if re-downloading on the PSP worked, I should just stick with that option. That was unacceptable to me, though, since I no longer had a feature that had always been available to me, and it was far more convenient to copy from the PS3 than to navigate to the store on the PSP and individually select each item to re-download.

    Joe eventually decided that we reached the limit of what he knew and could do, so he asked if I would be willing to wait around 10 minutes for the next level up of a specialist. “Sure, why the Hell not?” I was only on hold for maybe one minute before Joe came back on:

    “You’re not going to believe how we can fix this.” (well, something like that; it definitely started with “you’re not going to believe”)

    For whatever reason that we still could not clarify, the new DRM wrapping and two-system policy was indeed the likely culprit. To test the possible solution, Joe wanted me to delete something on the PS3, re-download it, and see if I had the option to copy it over via USB mode — all while still on the phone with him. OK! I wanted to go with something small enough that would not take forever to re-download, so I chose Where Is My Heart?, the pretty-well-regarded Mini that I had not yet had a chance to play (~50 MB or so). Deleted, signed in to the PlayStation Store, re-downloaded. The game did not automatically install, so it sat there in the “bubble” icon above the folders. I selected it and tried to “Copy” it… and yes, the option was there!

    New error message, though: 80029780.

    The groan/sigh/laugh of understanding on the other side of the phone was hilarious. Joe knew exactly what this was. This was finally the “you have been locked out of copying files for seven days for too many activation attempts” error message (Sony’s site defines it as, “You have reached the maximum number of downloads for an unactivated system”). Yes, the account had eventually been flagged for security concerns. What was never really answered, though, is why older content (that should have still had the five-system limit, and had been copied a year before with absolutely no system changes or alterations in the mean time) could not be copied.

    Thankfully, it was not as if the online ID was “banned” or not usable in other ways; I could still re-download items directly on the PSP if I wanted to, and seven days from that phone conversation, I would be able to start copying files again. The caveat was that I would have to re-download all of those items on the PS3 (to get the new DRM wrapping and account syncs) before I could transfer them to the PSP… which still means I have to re-download every single last compatible item, but at least it would be on the PS3 for centralized/future access.

    So that is where we stand. Seven days from now I will try copying files over again, and will update the post with the results! With no real, well-written, informative posts out there concerning these specific error messages, my goal here is to hopefully save someone the trouble of how to go about “fixing” this issue; documentation for this kind of stuff is clearly limited. As Joe and I both discussed, we both knew exactly what we were doing and talking about, and neither of us could get it resolved in a timely fashion — how on Earth is the everyday gamer supposed to figure this out?!

    Also, someone please give Joe a raise or at least a free day off. He was great. My favorite part of the conversation was (other than being told over and over how awesome I was) probably reading my online ID aloud (which is, of course, just “v – e – g – e – t – t – o – e – x”), and being asked with a laugh what that spells out. I wasn’t sure if that meant he knew who I was by some cosmic coincidence; if he did, he didn’t mention it. I guess that means it was just funny, and hearing someone else say “VegettoEX” to me on the phone is indeed hysterical.

    If you will indulge me just for a tad bit longer, let me point out that the root of this entire problem was DRM (and specifically, a policy change with regard to DRM). I understand the reasoning for changing the policy — “game sharing” had (apparently) gotten slightly out-of-control. Reducing the number of allowed devices was an attempt to squash that issue in some way. The problem that it created was that I — a legitimate customer — was suddenly unable to do what I had previously been able to do with the items I purchased (well, “licensed”). All I wanted to do was transfer games from one system to another. Had I hacked my PSP and installed custom firmware, I would have been able to load up my memory stick with any PS1 and PSP game(s) I wanted, with absolutely zero restrictions.

    I am not advocating for free-reign piracy on the system. This entire ordeal was a clear example of how the wrong approach and policy shifts within an existing DRM scheme can really rub your paying customers (and I have significant investments there) the wrong way, however. I have to be honest: in this case, the great customer service I received basically talked me out of finally getting around to hacking the damn system. The slightest extra inconvenience would have pushed me over the edge. I am half-tempted to buy another PSP just to have one totally legit and one with custom firmware just to compare the two experiences side-by-side.

    Am I just being spoiled? Sure. I could have (as Joe suggested) just re-downloaded every item I wanted directly on the PSP rather than transferring it from the PS3. Why should I have to, though? I am almost starting to come around to a full understanding-and-sympathizing viewpoint of the “they took away my Linux!” crowd… and that was always crazy (albeit in an understandable way) to me.

  • Some Extra Funny Images

    Some Extra Funny Images

    So late last month I wrote something called “The Great Canonical Debate” (it was pretty good; you should go read it). I wanted to include some type of moderately-snarky image of some type of god handing down a daizenshuu to go along with the section about how there is no officially-declared canon to the franchise, so I had requested on Twitter a great Photoshopped-image to include.

    I ended up going with one by our good buddy Tekkaman-James — you might remember him as the great artist who brought Appuragas to life. As seen in my original article, here is James’ image (now available in full-size when you click! Whoa!):

    I wanted to share some of the other ones that came in, though. Our One Piece-lovin’ buddy Alex tossed this together, which I almost used:

    Our artistically-awesometacular buddy Karan gave us this one. I liked it a lot (‘cuz… it’s God. Get it?), but if you didn’t “get it”, it wouldn’t have really worked.

    And that’s all I’s gots for ya’ today.

  • The Great Canonical Debate

    The Great Canonical Debate

    AUTHOR’S NOTE: This blog post was written in late 2011, about a year before Battle of Gods and about three years before Dragon Ball Super. It’s a little rough around the edges in terms of writing, but in particular I’m rather proud of how SPOT-ON PROPHETIC it is… not in terms of calling us getting a new series, but with regard to fandom’s canonical categorization split.


    It’s that time of year — there is a new Dragon Ball production (the animated adaptation of Episode of Bardock), and all the fans across the Internet want to know:

    “Is it canon?”

    Actually, they all ask if it’s “cannon”, and these people should all be promptly shot out of a cannon.

    Back in August 2008 on Episode #0145 of our podcast over at Daizenshuu EX, we talked with our buddy Desire Campbell about the idea of “canonicity” with the Dragon Ball franchise. I’m pretty sure I remember a good deal of what we talked about, but if you’re looking for more (and someone else’s perspective, which is always important), definitely check out the episode.

    It might be important to actually define what “canon” means. Let’s ask our good friends over at Merriam-Webster (yes, I just did the total-hack dictionary definition thing):

    1
    a : a regulation or dogma decreed by a church council
    b
    : a provision of canon law
    2
    [Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin, from Latin, model] : the most solemn and unvarying part of the Mass including the consecration of the bread and wine
    3
    [Middle English, from Late Latin, from Latin, standard]
    a
    : an authoritative list of books accepted as Holy Scripture
    b
    : the authentic works of a writer
    c
    : a sanctioned or accepted group or body of related works <the canon of great literature>
    4
    a
    : an accepted principle or rule
    b
    : a criterion or standard of judgment
    c
    : a body of principles, rules, standards, or norms
    5
    [Late Greek kanōn, from Greek, model] : a contrapuntal musical composition in which each successively entering voice presents the initial theme usually transformed in a strictly consistent way

    More often than not, you’ll see “canon” tossed out there with regard to religion. Lo-and-behold, most of the definitions you’ll see will thusly head in that direction. You’ve got things like the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were not “canonized” into the Bible. In other words, some dudes decided that those particular words written by some other dudes weren’t what they wanted to bank on and teach to more other dudes.

    And that’s really the big difference between the Bible and Dragon Ball (among… uhh… a gazillion other things, I guess). Whereas the Bible has THE CHURCH™ to define which particular collection of stories into one book (and even which translation) they abide by, there is nothing like that with Dragon Ball. Sure, there are the ultimate rights holders and production companies, but none of them have ever come out and said, “Look upon ye’ official canonicalness!” and pointed over to a very specific number and type of books. No-one has ever blatantly said, for example, “movies don’t count” or “GT never happened”.

    There are a couple things you might toss out there, though. “Hey dumbass!” you may say, “Toriyama said DBGT was just a side-story!” You would be correct, Mr. Rude Fan! In his introduction to the DBGT Dragon Box, Toriyama wrote, “DragonBall GT is a grand side-story of the original DragonBall, and it’ll make me happy for us to watch and enjoy it together.” What does that mean, though? Is he saying he personally does not consider it part of the story (and whether he does or does not, what does it matter to you?), or is he just making a general, sweeping statement?

    You may go on to say, “Hey jerkface! Those diaz books put the movies on the same timeline as the manga, so it thinks they count!” You would be somewhat correct there, as well! At points, the daizenshuu will note how, if it had to fit, a particular DBZ movie would possibly fit in at Story-Point-X… but then go on to say that it would be impossible for it to work out that way. They acknowledge them, though, so are they considering anything they talk about part of the canon?

    Which brings me right back to my main point: no-one’s ever sat down and said, “Mmm, yes… we consider the official story to be the original 519 chapters as written by Akira Toriyama, plus these other things, and absolutely nothing else what-so-ever!”

    They just haven’t. No-one in any official capacity, that is.

    image courtesy of our buddy Tekkaman James

    I’m always curious what folks really mean when they ask: “is it canon?” How are they defining what “canon” is for themselves? I would assume what they’re asking boils down to something like, “Did someone say this is supposed to fit in with the original manga, and are we expected to accept it as always having been this way, despite it being shoehorned in so many years later?”

    But it just circles back around at that point, since no-one’s ever said anything like that. Whenever a new animated special comes out (Jump Super Anime Tour Special), whenever a new spin-off manga comes out (Dragon Ball SD)… no-one from the production side ever makes any claim like that. They’re just making stuff for the sake of making stuff (well, they’re making stuff in an attempt to make money off you at some point down the line). They may make an attempt for whatever new story they write to fit in in the loosest sense, and maybe even give it a broader description, like was the case with Episode of Bardock, which was promoted as a “sequel” to the original TV special from 1990.

    Well, of course it was a “sequel” — it picked up where Bardock’s story left off. You don’t have to like it, and it can be tons of fun to point out some of the inconsistencies which causes it to not actually work out flawlessly in conjunction with its inspiration… but no-one’s making any claim about “canon” in there. It just… kinda… “is”.

    So are they inside or outside the ship…?

    Lots of fans like to create their own canon. A pretty common one is: “if Akira Toriyama wrote it in the original manga between 1984 and 1995, I consider it — and nothing else — to be canonical”. That makes sense; it’s from the original author and written during the time frame of the franchise’s original publication and production.

    They may go on to create different “levels” of canonicity, too. The manga may be the base level, and then the TV adaptation below it (basically “less seriously”). In cases like this, it’s usually for the purposes of ironing out contradictions (generally created by filler material or expanded conversations) and deciding which “truth” to go with.

    Going even deeper, you have things like the movies and TV specials, and how they are placed into a canon, if at all. One traditional viewpoint is that movies 9 (Bojack) and 13 (Hildegarn) can pretty easily fit in with even the original manga, so hey, let’s consider them part of the canon just to flesh it out and have extra material. What about the TV specials? Bardock gets all the spotlight these days, but what about Trunks? The TV special adaptation took huge liberties from Toriyama’s original “TRUNKS THE STORY” (such as Trunks already being Super Saiyan versus transforming due to Gohan’s death), but most fans seem to “go with” the TV version, and usually because they simply like it more. Is liking something reason enough to consider it part of the canon, though?

    Which is her natural hair color…?!

    Whatever you “decide” to “go with”, it’s all fine and dandy. It’s a great way to get further involved with the franchise that you love so much, and even just to keep track of things in your ever-increasing head of knowledge.

    But that’s really the extent that you can take it. You have examples like Dragon Ball GT, which was an officially-produced sequel (as in one of the rights holders, Toei Animation, had permission and the capacity to produce it). Is it part of the “canon”, though? Well, you can’t really answer that. Some fans will accept it since it continues where the story left off, and the producers were the ones who made it (as opposed to Joe Schmoe on the Internet writing another AF fan-manga). Other fans won’t accept it since Toriyama’s involvement was limited and only at the beginning of production. Other fans will accept it but also try to work in Dragon Ball Online, despite the two crossing paths.

    No-one’s “right” or “wrong” here. There is no, to bring it back to the definition, “authoritative list of books accepted as Holy Scripture”.

    Maybe there is, though. I don’t see anyone debating that what Toriyama originally wrote for the pages of Jump shouldn’t be taken as “canon”. That’s pretty “accepted” as the “authentic works of a writer”, correct?

    It gets tricky the instant you step outside of that, though. How about things that Toriyama wrote or decided later on after the series’ completion? There are things like Mr. Satan’s real name being “Mark”, the Kaioshin coming from the Shin-jin and apples and Makaioshin and all that jazz… the original author declared all this, so is it “canon”?

    While we’re at it, what about the revised ending that Toriyama drew for the kanzenban? It’s from Toriyama. It’s manga. Is it “canon”…? What about the prior version? Should it be disregarded, as if it never happened?

    That brings us to a fun little thought exercise. Let’s say that Toriyama decides he doesn’t just want to keep slapping his name onto things with a “supervisor”-esque credit anymore, and writes a true continuation of the series. It could be right after the original manga, or after GT — it really doesn’t matter in this example. What would you consider this new story? Would it be part of the canon for you? It could go one of two ways. One school of thought places anything that the original author writes for the series (in this case, let’s say just in manga form to keep it simple) in the canon. The other school of thought believes that unless it was part of the original series and was always intended to be a part of the series, it doesn’t matter if even the original author comes back to it — it’s still a new addition, separate from the original canon.

    And that’s why I think you can’t (and perhaps shouldn’t) even attempt to ask: “is it canon?” No-one who produced the series seems to care enough to make a declaration of canonicity, and it continues to expand with new productions every single year. I’m not pulling the, “it’s a fun series from a poop-joke author” card here like I usually do, either (well, maybe just a little bit). It really does continue to build with so many different bits of lore every single year, and so much so that if you’re asking what the “canon” is, you’re already so far down the rabbit hole that you’ll never decide on a proper answer.

    (Next time on “Mike Rants About Insignificant DBZ Stuff”, perhaps something like “Why you’re missing the point about battle powers”… along with some of the other great “God hands down ye’ golden daizenshuu” images folks slapped together for us!)