[71] Real Shame

console

< Piro >

"ph33l the lov3"

Thursday - January 25, 2001

Ok, i'm gonna keep it short today, because I have way too much to do, and it's 7:40am and I need to get my lazy ass to work pretty soon here... so no 'Piro thinks too goddamn much' threads today.

Added to my list of things i need to cram on this week is a special little project I am working on for a Cafe Press item that is part of a special promotion for Valentines Day. In other words, be prepared for some interesting little Valentines Day swag for your sweetheart (or for yourself - self love is good too). It should be ready by the end of the week. I'd show you the drawings for it, but I don't wanna spoil the surprise. ^_^

And on the subject of Cafe Press, I actually broke down and ordered a few Megatokyo shirts for myself. In reality, i was getting a shirt for Tsubasa (because he's been so much help, i felt i should send him one ^_^) but, while I was at it, I got myself a Kimiko shirt and a B4k4^2 shirt. I've never actually seen them before, and I have to say - wow, they do a really nice job. I was rather amazed at the resolution. I was wondering why I hadn't received any complaints about the shirts. Now I just wish I had bought a mug. :( I just need to get a 'speak l33t' shirt now. BTW, if you order from different stores, just email Cafe Press with your Invoice numbers and they will reduce your shipping and handling costs.

In other PiroNews, I broke down and use a bit of the proceeds from t-shirt sales to increase my hard drive capacity. I ambled on down to the local Best Buy and picked up a Maxtor 20 gig drive and a Western Digital 20 gig drive. My current set up used to consist of two 10 gig drives - one of which was running Windows 98, and the other running Japanese Windows 98. To switch machines, i literally reach down and swap cables. If you remember, a month or so back, the old Quantum 10 gig drive started clicking and whirring the Dance of Hard Drive Death, so i was forced to move all my crap to the one drive and subsist on a single 10 gig drive.

Of course, the other pain with this was the fact that the drive that failed was the one with the English version of windows, so I have been operating solely in the Japanese version for months now (Seraphim is ready to kill me regarding this issue). The other bad thing about this is the fact that i have been running with about 800 meg of free space - which isn't a lot these days. It was getting to be a pain.

In about three weeks I am going to be moving to a new apartment (Relax, plans are already in place to help keep Megatokyo rolling during that time). It occurred to me that the Media One folks might throw a big hairy fit if they had to install a cable modem in a Japanese OS. That being the case, I decided it was time to get some new hard drives. The rebuild went so smooth I am still wondering what is going to blow up. My setup now consists of a 20 gig data drive, which both drives can see, a 20 gig drive running english windows, and the 10 gig drive running Japanese windows. I still have to manually swap out the drives, but the lack of problems that come from doing this is worth the effort.

Oh, and by the way. Erika is NOT a skank. jeeze. You people. The girls (like milkie) picked up on that right away, but you guys have GOT to start watching more girls anime. :)

Anyhoo, off to work....[updated]

Hi everyone. Just a quick update. I finally finished that Valentines Day image I was talking about. (chuckle) Isn't Seraphim cute? The strapless top was her idea. It's amazing what you can do with a little winged character...

Last week I was browsing art stuffs in Ulrich's Art and Electronic store when my cell phone rang - it was Cafe Press inviting us to design an image for a special valentines day promotion. Basically, they print a 3.5 x 5 inch image in a little t-shirt which goes on a teddy bear which you can purchase for valentines day. My first reaction was "i just can't see a Megatokyo teddy bear..." But after thinking about it for a while, we decided 'what the heck.' Personally, i love this image. I've managed to pull this together in less than two days.

Once CafePress makes a bear, photographs it, and puts together a store to purchase the bear, I'll post that information here - should be a little later today.

[previous rant] - [rant archive] - [next rant]

< Largo >

"megabear"

Thursday - January 25, 2001

[Largo] - 00:22:00 - [link here]

Piro talks too much.

I mean really now, there was a time these rants would only be a few paragraphs at most, yet now they seem to just drag on forever like the final years of M*A*S*H*.

It's been my view that the purpose of writing is to communicate ideas. A simple enough analysis, but if you think about it, the most effective way to communicate is with as few words as possible. This is the 'less is more' concept. This concept also applies to the Sports Illustrated swimsuit calendar.

On with the show, first up MegaTokyo is proud to present the "Mega Bear" just in time for Valentines Day. These bears are the perfect gift to make sure your significant other realizes just how much they mean to you. Then again, there is the chance they'll just think you are a big freak for giving them a bear with a webcomic on it. Either way, things will never be quite the same, and that isn't half bad! These bears will be done as a limited run, so please get your orders in quickly, because once Valentine's Day is over, these bears will no longer be available - in fact, the last day you can order these bears will be February 6th.

For those of you that don't currently have a significant other, I'm going to let you in on a secret. The bears make great gaming mascots. Just place the bear near your PC or Console and its magic powers go to work instantly. However every Mega Bear is unique and so results may vary.

Recently MegaTokyo lost the coveted #2 spot on BigPanda - the defacto standard webcomic ranking list. Even with the site's record hits this past week we've been falling behind everyone else, ahwell - as someone bluntly put it to me today 'the honeymoon is over, now the marriage begins' ï¿½ This does not bode well for the advocates of marriage.

Speaking of webcomics, there is a newcomer to the scene by the name of NeoBaka which has been the cause of a lot of email sent my way. The comic is done in a manga style and is targeted towards anime fans and gamers, it also sports a strikingly similar site layout to our own. However let me set the record straight on this one, contrary to the posts in their forums, I do not think they are a rip-off of MegaTokyo. In fact, I think their work rocks. Piro and I did not write the book on manga style gamer comics, nor are we the sacred keepers of the side-by-side yin/yang rant format. As writers and artists, we all find inspiration differently, and a few trivial similarities between our sites should not detract from the coolness and originality of their work. I think they are off to a great start, and I wish them the best of luck in their new endeavor.

Tonight I found a new way to kill some time and listen to some tunes by pointing my browser over to All Game Radio, after listening to their show I've determined two things, they like some weird music, and they are much better at leveling in Asheron's Call then I am.