[626] they want to be free!

console

< Piro >

"small problems"

Friday - October 22, 2004

Just a quick and important announcement regarding Canadian and International customers for the MegaGear store:

A few weeks ago we enabled taking orders from Canada and have sent off many packages to fans up north. Unfortunately, what we have been seeing is that some customers have been charged exorbinant brokerage fees by UPS - wide ranging fees for essentially the same service. We think that this is not acceptable, and we feel that we must find a better solution. So, for that reason, we are going to disable Canadian orders until we resolve this issue, which will probably involve shipping thru other carriers.

International shipping will always have some fees and extras associated with it - we can't control what your country my add to the cost of a shipment by way of tariffs or taxes. What isn't fair is unreasonable brokerage fees, and this can be changed, by using different carriers.

If you are one of the many Canadian customers that have ordered from our store, first i would like to say thank you, and i would like to apologize for any unreasonable fees you may have had to pay to get your stuff. I think that in the process of solving this, it will get us a step closer to being able to ship worldwide in the near future. Thank you so much for your patience.

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< Dom >

"Continued sports craziness"

Monday - October 25, 2004

[Dom] - 13:30:00 - [link here]

Sorry about the brief pause in updates, this Saturday was the 100-day mark since my grandmother's death, and oddly enough, my family full of Vietnamese Catholics holds ceremonies on that date just as if we were Buddhists. Strange, but hey, it's a cultural thing, who am I to knock it.

This weekend also marked a Cal win over a pathetic Arizona squad. Two World Series games that were very sloppy, yet still won by the "Why not us?" Blood Sox (that's what I'm calling them for the rest of my life, and you can't stop me).

Oh, and did I mention that it's my birthday tomorrow?

Busy time of year, with a few more Anime Insider articles due. But that should be all taken care of by next week. On to the news!br>

October 25th, 2004
So later this week, Gakuen Alice starts airing on Japanese TV. I would talk a little about Gakuen Alice, but honestly, I've barely read the manga I own, since it's been on loan for so long.

However, Gakuen Alice amuses me in too many perverse ways for me to let it pass without comment. Y'see, I like to call it the "Shoujo X-Men". And I'm not joking.

Y'see, the main character, Sakura Mikan, and her best friend Imai Hotaru, transfer to a school for Alices (thus the name, Gakuen Alice). What are Alices? They're people who have special abilities beyond that of normal humans, and to develop their abilities, the principal of the school is gathering them up.

See what I mean? I can't help but be fascinated by the Bizarro World version of X-Men, especially since they're all ten years old. One of them controls fire, one invents, one... emits animal pheromones...

But c'mon, how can you not be morbidly fascinated by that?

Sentimental Cancellation
You may know about Sentimental Graffiti from the Media Blasters release of Sentimental Journey. If you don't, well, Sentimental Journey was based on a Saturn/Dreamcast series of games called Sentimental Graffiti, which was basically a stalking simulation. Fans of the game might call it something more euphemistic, but the main character basically went back to one of twelve places he'd gone to school before and stalked a girl who'd fallen for him when they were kids. Then in Sentimental Graffiti 2... well, Sentimental Graffiti 2 has perhaps one of my favorite premises in dating/stalking game history. Because the main character becomes road pizza.

Anyway, the Sentimental series is continuing with Sentimental Prelude for the PS2, and comes out on October 28th. However, it has little to do with the Graffiti games other than the name and the company putting it out. Meanwhile, a game called Sentimental Graffiti Saikai (Reunion) just got cancelled, most likely because Interchannel finally got the memo that the Dreamcast died long ago.

Poor, poor DC...

October 26th, 2004
Thanks to all for your birthday wishes! A few of you asked how old I am. I ain't tellin'.

But I am saying that my favoritest console controller ever, the Japanese-style Sega Saturn controller, is currently being sold for the PC for a limited time, and online only. Mmmmm, USB Saturn controller. That feeling like it was made for my hand... the ease of access of every button, including Start... the D-Pad that seemed to be caressing my thu... okay, I should stop there.