Archive for the 'Xero' Category

QSK's posts

Xero's posts

Welcome to the world of tommorow!

11:41 AM - July 19th, 2005

Good news, everyone! In a recent interview at Comic-Con with Billy West, voice actor extraordinare, he had this to say:
There’s going to be a Futurama movie coming out on DVD. I think we’re gonna start doing it soon. There were talks and I guess they’re really happy about moving forward with it ’cause the DVDs of Futurama sold really well. And then with the possibility of a second one.

Can anyone say TV show comeback? Well, we can all dream…

Score! I was sooooo right!!

10:22 AM - July 19th, 2005

Recent interview with Paul Dini at Comic-Con 2005:
…keeping you updated on what I’m doing lately. Still working on the next season of Lost, and wrote some Justice Leagues coming out for next season.

Damn, I’m good. ;)

Anime Expo 2005

10:39 AM - July 6th, 2005

This last weekend, my roommate Porfirio (you may know him as prez2401) got to go down to the annual Anime Expo in Anaheim. While there, he took a ton of pictures with his camera-phone and asked if I would post some of them and I was happy to oblige. I wish I could put them all up, considering this is only a third of all the pictures he took, but here are some of the cool things that he saw (and a lot of cosplay).

Individual Cosplaying:
Porfirio with Alphonse Elric from Full Metal Alchemist
Bender from Futurama
M. Bison from the Street Fighter series
Boba Fett from Star Wars
Cloud from Final Fantasy VII
Some random girl that Porf thought was hot
Koenma from Yu-Yu Hakusho
Link from The Legend of Zelda series
The Merchant from Resident Evil 4
Jin from Samurai Champloo
Mugen from Samurai Champloo
Solid Snake with a snake…and a beer belly from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
Vivi from Final Fantasy IX

Group Cosplaying:
Battle Royal
Bleach
Chrno Crusade
Dante vs. Solid Snake, Resident Evil, and a Ninja
.hack
Inuyasha
Rurouni Kenshin
Kingdom Hearts
Naruto
Resident Evil
Tetris Blocks!
Trigun
Irvine and Selphie from Final Fantasy VIII
An awesome lightsaber battle

Voice Actors:
RyĆ“ Horikawa - Japanese voice actor who’s done Vegeta from DragonBall Z, and has also worked on several Japanese video games playing such characters as Capt. Falcon from Super Smash Brothers Melee.
Vic Mignogna - Voice of Broly from DragonBall Z and Edward Elric from Full Metal Alchemist, as well as many other animes including Neon Genesis Evangelion and DNAngel.
Mike McFarland - Voice of Master Roshi, Yajirobe, and others from DragonBall Z. Also does the voice for Jean Havoc on Full Metal Alchemist.

Random Shots:
Awesome Yoda Origami
The entrance to the convention center (5:00 in the morning!)
The Fantastic Four Logo

Welcome to my life

1:49 AM - July 5th, 2005

Over the years, I’ve come to understand the fact that in a sleep deprived situation, I tend to become a bit more emotional than I normally am. In other words, when I’m tired, I seem to contemplate my life and what is wrong with it. So, running on little sleep and exhausted from a long day, I am going to attempt to write something. It will most likely include a lot of admissions that most people wouldn’t want to make public. It may be profound, it may be crap, but you’ve been warned.

So…yeah. There’s been a lot of things going through my head lately and I’m going to get some of them out right now. Tonight I went back home to the Bay Area to spend the Fourth with my folks. And while I love going back home, the hour drive each way can get boring. So I start to think. And me thinking is never a good idea. Occasionally I make the trip with a passenger and tonight was such an occasion. Emily is one of my closest friends and I tend to feel that I can tell her pretty much anything. She’s a good listener. So tonight’s car ride got to a point where a mixture of sleepiness and boredom caused my brain to get all mushy.

I started thinking about this site. And when I think about this site, a lot of things come to mind. Firstly, and I state this first because it is the reason why so many other things are wrong, I don’t know you. I’m not trying to be mean or sassy or anything. It’s just a fact. I don’t know you. Ok, I don’t know most of you. Aside from Jon I know like two and a half people. Everyone else, I know nothing about you. For most of you, I don’t even know your real name. And I do understand that we’ve got a bit of a limited audience, but there’s still like 5 people that are unknown to me, and that’s a majority. So, to try and rectify this situation, I’d like to start from the beginning.

Hi! My name is Alexander, but everyone calls me Alexis. I’m 22 and am a senior, studying Dramatic Arts at UC Davis. My dream job is to do voice-over work and become a voice actor. I work at a gas station/repair shop and work on cars. I’m not really interested in cars, but it pays the bills. In my spare time I like to play video games. In fact, I play them quite often, probably more than I should. I’m not the smartest person in the world, but I’m knowledgeable about enough things to get me by. I would consider myself to be a bit of a geek and I think that’s ok in today’s world. I love cartoons almost as much as video games, and have an enormous amount of knowledge about them. Especially when it comes to the voices behind the cartoons. I can usually pick out a voice and say “That’s so and so, and you might recognize them from this other show.” And while I usually get blank stares in return, I still feel good about knowing. I also like to watch anime and listen to music. I prefer classical music and techno music. I’m from El Cerrito, a city near Berkeley and Richmond. I’ve got a younger sister who I love very much and try to talk to as much as possible, and my parents are celebrating their 32nd anniversary this week.

So, who are you?

Yeah, yeah. No one’s going to respond. No one ever does. I post and post and post and I’m lucky if anyone reads these things let alone comments on them. Of course, I’ll probably get sympathy comments now, but whatever. I’d like to make it clear that I am a very insecure person. I like to have encouragement and acknowledgment. When I post something here I like to know if people read it, liked it, hated it, whatever. Even a comment saying “read it. nice post” or something as equally mundane would mean so much to me. I don’t want to say that blogging here isn’t fun, because it is. However, if no one reads what is written, then there’s no point in doing it.

And this somehow leads me (not) to my next point. Four years ago, I was living in the dorms. A few months into the school year I realized that I wasn’t going out and meeting people. In fact I still don’t go out and meet people. Most of my friends today are people that I’ve known since high school. But anyway, I realized that I’m never going to actually go out to meet people, so why not let them get to know me in a way that spares me the fear of talking to strangers. I started writing down my thoughts and tacking them on to my door so that passersby could read them. I called it “Alexis’ Thought of the Day” (TOTD). And that’s exactly what it was. Every day I would write about what I had been doing, or what I was thinking about, or even what I had for lunch. Eventually an old friend of mine offered to host a website for me and I began to post my thoughts online as well as on my door. However, time went by, the school year ended, everyone moved out of the dorms, and I had a difficult decision to make. Do I continue my TOTD online or end it on the last day of school. I chose the latter.

Four years later, I start thinking about what it would be like to reopen my TOTD. To allow the world to reenter the haunted house that is my mind. That is when Quad approached me about doing this dual blog. I, all excited about the opportunity to make an ass of myself again, jumped at the opportunity. Fast forward a bit and the site is now up and running. Having the opportunity to speak about whatever I wanted to was a bit daunting at first. Ah, who am I kidding. It’s still scary as hell, and that’s half the reason I’m in this predicament. For inspiration, I went back and looked through all my old Thoughts. As I read, slowly but surely I came to a very simple, yet extremely true conclusion. Me writing about myself was boring. Not only that, it was damn uninteresting. I was reading about things that excited me four years ago and could not think of a single person who would have found that interesting to read. And that brings me to now.

The other day Quad and I were discussing my posts and he said “I want to encourage you to post about yourself.” I, of course responded by trying to explain that if I were just to talk about myself, I’d either scare or bore people to death. I felt that it was much more interesting to post about things that interested me. But thinking about it now, I’m not sure if any of this works. Writing about myself has bored people in the past. Writing about things that interest me is boring people now. What’s left? Nothing.

So what now? Am I leaving or something? No way. I’ll probably continue to do this for as long as were around. Am I going to be changing? Who knows. I guess I’ll wait and see what the reaction to this is. I guess I just needed an opportunity to get some of these things off my chest. But either way, you wanted me to post about myself? We’ll here ya go. This is probably more about me than any of you ever wanted to know.

I think I’ve just wet myself…

2:52 PM - June 29th, 2005

As some of you may know, I am a HUGE fan of superhero cartoons. In particular, the WB storylines including Batman TAS, Batman: Gotham Knights, Batman Beyond, Superman TAS, Justice League, and Justice League Unlimited. Heck, even Static Shock counts. So while some of you join me in watching new JLU episodes every Saturday night, I don’t share your anticipation of what happens next. Why? Because I’ve seen them all!

Cartoon Network, as great a channel as it is, likes to prolong things as much as possible. They know that they are the only station in the US who is showing episodes of JLU and therefore decides to take their sweet time. However, they’re not the only station in the world who gets to show JLU. YTV, a station from Canada, has all the same episodes of JLU (and even Teen Titans. Yeah, I’ve seen all of those new ones too.) and they don’t like to make their viewers wait. So for those of us who know where to look, it’s a very simple process to download all the latest episodes months before CN decides to show them.

So what does this all mean? It means that I’ve just finished watching JLU 213, the final episode of Season 2. And while it’s taking every last bit of restraint not to tell you everything that happens, let me just say that for us Batman Beyond fans, this is the ending we’ve been waiting for since 2001. However, with Season 2 now finished, it eggs the question (pun intended), will there be a Season 3? Well, I’ve done extensive research and found several things that might possible imply a 3rd Season. So, if you’ll bare with me, I’d like to work it all out.

Back in February, Cartoon Network issued a press release stating its intentions for the coming year. Down the list is the following:
Justice League Unlimited: This season, Black Canary, Shayera, Vigilante, Vixen and The Question step up to face such villains as Lex Luthor, Felix Faust and Tobias Whale. And Superman takes on Cadmus in a battle that will determine the future of the league. Twenty-three new episodes will air in 2005.

23 new episodes? Let’s do some math…

JLU Season 1 had 13 episode. 2 of which aired in 2005.
1/22/05 - 112 - The Once and Future Thing: Weird Western Tales
1/29/05 - 113 - The Once and Future Thing: Time, Warped

That’s 2 down, 21 to go. The schedule of JLU Season 2 has so far been:
2/5/05 - 201 - The Cat and the Canary
2/12/05 - 202 - The Ties That Bind
2/19/05 - 203 - The Doomsday Sanction
5/21/05 - 204 - Task Force X
5/28/05 - 205 - The Balance
6/4/05 - 206 - Double Date
6/11/05 - 207 - Clash
6/18/05 - 208 - Hunter’s Moon
6/25/05 - 209 - Question Authority

That’s 11 down, 12 to go. The only announced and unaired episode left is:
7/2/05 - 210 - Flashpoint

That’s 12 down, 11 to go. However, we’ve still got three episodes left in Season 2:
211 - Panic in the Sky
212 - Divided We Fall
213 - Epilogue

Assuming that CN doesn’t screw over it’s loyal viewers and make them wait till next year to see the end of Season 2, that makes 15 new episodes in 2005. So where are the other 8? Even if they don’t actually air in 2005, thats still 8 JLU episodes unaccounted for. They’re not from Seasons 1 or 2, so they must be from a yet-to-be announced Season 3. And while my logic may not be foolproof, it’s more than enough for me to hope. Anyway, I know this is probably interesting to like three other people in the world, but thanks for humoring me through it. When JLU Season 2 finally does finish here in the US, I’ll try to post some kind of review/wrap-up.

But after all of this, even if there isn’t a 3rd Season, I could die happy. I can’t think of better way to have had the series end.

Probable, and possible releases

2:24 PM - June 27th, 2005

Two little bits of info that might interest you. Firstly, Gamestop has started taking preorders for a new Legend of Zelda game. The interesting part, it’s for the Revolution. Even more interesting is that it’s listed to be released on March 1st, 2006! Either Gamespot got some highly top secret information, or they’re all a bunch of wishful thinkers.

Secondly, a recent article in EGM claims that despite statements to the contrary, Square-Enix is in fact remaking Final Fantasy VII for the PS3. Unfortunately, EGM claims no source for this rumor so I have once again had my hopes raised and then immediately destroyed. Damn you Squenix!!! …I’m sorry Squenix…let’s never fight again.

Look how tiny and cute it is!

1:47 PM - June 27th, 2005

Recently, this image surfaced on the Gamestop forums, and eventually lead to several other gaming news sites including Console Junky. Like everyone else, when I first saw pictures of the PS3 and it’s new controller, I thought ‘boomerang’, but no one had yet to see the size of the controller compared to anything else. Well now with this new picture, it looks like thing’s aren’t going to be as bad as we all thought. Sure it may still look like a boomerang, but it doesn’t really look much longer than the PS2 controller. In fact, some parts of the controller look even smaller (am I the only one who thinks those analog sticks look small?). Anyway, while we still have a long time to wait before we can ever get our hands on one of those, I’m sure glad someone else was able to.

Oh, and on a semi-related note, Japan’s Nikkei Electronics publication recently came out with the dimension specs of both the new PS3 and the X-BOX 360. You don’t need to understand Japanese to get the gist of it, but if you do speak Japanese and feel like translating any of it (I’m looking at you emmy or Wako since I’ve been told you not only speak Japanese, but live in Japan) then that would be great!

Coincidence?

10:33 PM - June 26th, 2005

I know I’m probably the only person in the world who finds this to be awesomely amazing, but I’m gonna share anyway. For those of you who have seen the new Batman Begins movie, you might have missed a very short shot that had Barbara Gordon! Even I, Batmaniac that I am, didn’t catch that she was in it until the credits ran. So afterwards, I go to imdb.com and find out who played Barbara Gordon. Turns out it was an actress named Ilyssa Fradin. So, who is she? Well, you could go to her website and find out, but I’ll save you the suspense of the page loading. She’s a Voice Actress! AWESOME! …Well I told you I was probably the only one who would find it amazing. It’s not my fault you continued to read. ;)

Rumors Rumors Rumors

8:29 PM - June 25th, 2005

For those of you who don’t look into gaming news much, you may have missed some of the biggest Nintendo news. However, whether or not this news is factual or not is still to be determined. Regardless, Gamespot has put together a great article describing the three most common Revolution rumors. One deals with what appears to be US Patents. Another is supposedly an ad for the controller. And lastly, and if true the coolest one of all, an ad that states the Revolution will be released in March 2006! That’s right folks. Just in time for my birthday. ;) And while most of these may turn out to be false, they’re still more than enough to get me excited.

It gets me…right here.

2:05 AM - June 24th, 2005

I may be a sucker for that sappy “this is your life” stuff, but it usually chokes me up none the less. And for anyone out there who has been watching movies for any part of the last 30 years, you’ve all got someone to thank; George Lucas. But for those of you who haven’t thanked him yet, you can at least watch other people doing it for you. Recently, the American Film Institute bestowed George Lucas with the 2005 AFI Lifetime Achievement Award, and for our enjoyment, the entire ceremony was taped and this past Monday, televised. If you would like to see it, you can catch an Encore presentation this Saturday at 2:00AM and Sunday at 9:00AM. Otherwise, you can download it from various Torrent websites (none of which I’ll mention, but I know it’s out there). Anyway, it’s a great tribute and a moving event. If you can watch it, I’d recommend you do.

Freakin’ Sweeet

11:55 PM - June 20th, 2005

TV.com posted an article about the upcoming Family Guy movie. While it’s not going to be coming to theaters, Family Guy Presents Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story will be released on DVD on September 27, 2005. Apparently, the new movie will be about Stewie abandoning his plans for world domination in favor of a plan to find his true father. Interesting

Redefining “Handheld”

11:30 PM - June 20th, 2005

Earlier today, Gamespot posted a new article which discussed the upcoming release of “adult” content on the PSP. And while this may not be real news, I couldn’t not post my title line. That would have been a crime against comedy! Anyway, for the sensitive ones out there, the link contains some “adult content.” Or at least it discusses adult content. Don’t wanna get your hopes up there ;)

pwnage…

9:39 PM - June 20th, 2005

and I was watching TV at the same time. True multitasking ;)

Not as much fun as it sounds…

1:15 AM - June 18th, 2005

Three way game.
Quad, Me, Emmy.
55 turns.
Three hours long.
I end up decking.
Quad had 6 life.
I had 21.
*sigh*

Batman Begins

8:47 PM - June 17th, 2005

Yesterday I went to go see the new Batman movie, and as a huge Batman fan, I just have to say that this movie is awesome! It’s everything a Batman fan could want. They didn’t try to be exactly like the comic books, and that’s a good thing. They took the basics and created their own storyline and I’m here to say that it is good! They even ended it with the possibility of a sequel starring none other than my favorite “Mista Jay“. ;) Also, the fact that the cast was mostly unknowns worked out better than you could imagine. Anyway, if you’ve ever liked Batman, you owe it to yourself to go see this movie. You won’t regret it!

Abenobashi Mahou Shotengai (GAINAX)

4:40 PM - June 4th, 2005

Translated, the title of this show is Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi (MSAA), and it is hands down one of the funniest animes I have ever seen.

Gai-who?
For the anime newbies out there, Gainax may not be a company you know of by name, but you’ve probably seen, or at least hear of, one of their anime series. Furi Kuri (FLCL), Mahou Tsukai Tai (Magic Users Club), and—most famously—Neon Genesis Evangelion (NGE) are all anime series that have come out of the Gainax’s studios. For anyone who has seen NGE, you know what they can do to fuck with your mind. And to anyone who’s seen FLCL, you also know what they can do to fuck with your mind. Gainax is probably most famous for making the most mind-fucking anime’s ever.

So, what’s the difference?
Both FLCL and NGE are excellent examples of the work Gainax is capable of. However, they both screw with your head in very different ways: NGE with it’s intense psychological overtones and FLCL with it’s “where the FUCK did that come from?” Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi is in the same category as FLCL (and RE: Cutie Honey, if anyone’s seen that Gainax production as well).

…wtf?
I, like many other people, find incredible humor in the “wtf” side of comedy. The “that was absolutely the last thing I could have imagined happening” category. For people like me, MSAA is a godsend. Not just for it’s random sense of humor, but for its amazing sense of style throughout it all. When MSAA changes tones, it doesn’t just change the story, it changes the setting, the character, and even the animation style. You can really tell that the creators knew exactly what they wanted and poured their hearts into it.

It all starts with a boy and a girl…
And in this case, yes, yes it does. The story starts with young boy and girl around the age of 10. They’re childhood friends and have grown up together. They live in the shopping arcade known as Abenobashi with each of their parents owning different shops. The whole town is protected by containing perfect Chi and maintaining four statues, one in each point of the town (North, South, East and West). But when one of them is broken, strange things start happening and it seems to center around our two young heroes.

Where to go from here
With their town falling down around them, literally, they decided to follow a rainbow bridge which leads them to a castle they swear must be in France. However, it turns out that things start to look very similar until they realize that they are in the Abenobashi Shopping Arcade—only this happens to be the Sword and Sorcery Shopping Arcade. Here, they encounter random enemies they must fight (and end up always losing to) until they reach the final boss and destroy it by making it’s breast’s explode. Yeah…did I mention that there’s a mole with sunglasses who pops up to tell different things about the enemies like HP, name, etc?

It can’t get weirder than that
Oh, but it can. It can, and it will. The wonderful thing about MSAA is the hundreds of pop culture references they have thrown in. MSAA knows it’s only an anime and because of that, completely doesn’t take itself seriously. Here is a short list of the various Shopping Arcade’s they encounter and a few of the spoofs that you might find (don’t worry, these aren’t really plot spoilers because it’s hard to determine exactly what the plot even is):

The Great Milky Way Shopping Arcade
Spoofs: Gundam, Neon Genesis Evangelion, 2001: A Space Odyssey
The Hong Kong Combat Shopping Arcade
Spoofs: Rocky, Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Fighting Video Games, Dragonball Z
The Ancient Dinosaur Shopping Arcade
Spoofs: The Flintstones, Tarzan
The Hard Boiled Shopping Arcade
Spoofs: Film Noir, Gangster Movies, ‘Chibi’ Anime
The Exciting Campus Shopping Arcade
Spoofs: Hentai, All Girls High School
The Fairy Tale Shopping Arcade
Spoofs: Disneyland, Cinderella
The Battlefield Shopping Arcade
Spoofs: Rambo, The Bombing of Pearl Harbor (they bombed Pearl Barbor….Hilarious!)
The Hollywood Shopping Arcade
Spoofs: The Terminator, Knight Rider, Robocop, Escape From New York, Twister, Jaws, North By Northwest, Indiana Jones, The Matrix, Friday The 13th, The Truman Show, Titanic, Back To The Future, and many many more.

So, have I piqued your interest yet? If so, then go out and get this anime right now. Go to Fry’s, go to Best Buy, heck, you can even get it at Netflix. Just go get it now. There are only 13 episodes and if you can’t dedicate a little over 5 hours of your life to something as entertaining as this, then you’ve got a problem.

Final Thoughts
This is one of the most original, well-made, and downright hilarious anime’s I have ever seen. I guarantee there is NO way that you can’t get a laugh out of this. However, one word of warning. Do NOT listen to the American dubbed version for ANY reason. It is absolutely god-awful and does this show no justice at all. Simply watch the original Japanese with subtitles and you’ll do fine. I can not recommend Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi highly enough. Trust me, you’ll love it.

Happy Birthday Namco

4:58 PM - June 1st, 2005

As most of you probably don’t know, today is Namco’s 50th birthday, and to celebrate the momentous occasion, Pac-Man has been listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the “most successful coin operated game” in history. You can read more about the celebration at Gamespot.

Crack! In the 24th and a half century!

1:10 PM - May 31st, 2005

About a week ago, I saw an article on Gamespot talking about Wizards of the Coast’s appearance at E3. They were talking about a new update for Magic the Gathering Online coming early next year. Being the curious fool that I am, I decided to look into this online world of which I’d forgotten long ago.

For those of you who don’t know, I’ve been playing Magic since…*thinks*…5th grade? Maybe 4th…Anyway, a really long time. However, after high school, and the occasional weekend to come back and play with Quad and Bigi, I haven’t played in quite a while. So when I was reminded that there was an online version, and that there was a free version I could play, I was ecstatic. I even got my friend Emmy to play with me.

However, as the days went on, being stuck with the same five 8th Edition decks was getting to be quite tedious. So I decided to join full time. I realized that for the 20 or 30 dollars a month I might spend playing this game, the amount of enjoyment that would come out of it would be enormous. So, last Friday, I signed up full time for Magic the Gathering Online. It cost’s $9.99 to create an account, but they then give you $9.99 credit in the card store, so essentially, it’s free to sign up. Then you can go about buying cards and creating decks. I personally bought a Mirrodin Theme Deck called Wicked Big (Green), a Darksteel Theme Deck called Mind Swarm (Black), and a few Darksteel Booster packs.

Emmy also signed up the same day as I did and we’ve been playing eachother quite alot. Unfortunately, my decks still need refinement and so her Blue/White Bushido and Counters deck seems to like kicking my ass. However, I still have some tricks up my sleeve and once my new deck is complete (Green/Black), her little soldiers will be running scared. (Oh, and in case you’re wondering, the picture is of me getting slaughtered by some unknown person)

Like most online games, Magic seem to be very addictive. Not surprisingly, it seems to drag in anyone who’s ever played Magic before. Emmy is trying to get another one of her Magic playing friends to join, and I am trying to get my roommate to join as well. But the one person who practically jumped on this idea the moment I spoke of it, was Quad. And although he’ll need to buy a new version of VPC, he’ll be joining us soon enough.

So now it’s your turn. I know there are those of you out there who have played Magic before. You may have thought you kicked the habit, but it’s always there. Tempting you. Haunting you. Waking you from your sleep, calling to you (Tap me! Tap me!). You might as well give in, and enjoy yourself. And if you do decide to join, please let me know. MtGO has clans and we can all play together.

I think Quad put it best: “It’s like sniffing crack in front of a junkie.” Enjoy ;)

ooo…maybe I can be a scab!

6:59 PM - May 25th, 2005

A recent article at Gamespot talks about union voice actors calling for a strike until game publishers offer residuals. Since this is what I want to do with my life, it obviously affects me and what the industry will be by the time I get to join. It’s an interesting article and I would recommend that you read it if you’ve ever cared about the voices in your games. I’ll let everyone know if there are any changes.

Revolution Specs

1:44 PM - May 25th, 2005

A recent article at Techtree has the specs of the new Nintendo Revolution, and let me say that it’s pretty impressive. Four 2.5 GHz PowerPC G5-class processors, a dual-core RN520 with 16MB of frame buffer DRAM graphics processor by ATI, and 512 MB of memory. More information can be found at the article, but all in all, it sounds promising. Now if Nintendo could just learn how to advertise.