So I haven't really had time to write a blog for a little while, here. At first I felt bad, but then I looked around at a lot of my friends' blogs and realized I'm not the only one! Everyone must be pretty busy, eh?

I'll be honest, the Mrs. and I have been engorged in more FFXI (finally breaking the first level cap!) and it's been great. Also, I've had a lot of old friends popping in and out of town over the last couple weeks and there's been lots of hanging out and boozles.

One of the main reasons I'm posting today is to tell you all about my big "Play-Asia" shipment that recently came in, and how said shipment came to fruition.

This June, the "fam" is all going up to a Mariner's game in Seattle; and whenever we go to Seattle we usually end up spending a good amount of money at Pink Godzilla (a fine retro/import video game store in the international district). Well, as it turns out, some of the main things we were hoping to find, they don't have in stock... so we decided to spend all of our June vacation money in late April ^_^! [although I'm sure we'll still find something neat to pick up at PG]

We ended up getting all sorts of neat stuff, but there were 3 things I was excited about more than anything else:

I haven't played a baseball video game since Sammy Sosa's High Heat Baseball on the PC, so I didn't know what to expect w/ Pro Yakyuu Spirits 4. Low and behold it's amazing and I'm having a lot of fun w/ it. Not much of a language barrier, so that's nice; most of the menu options are also in English. The players really feel like they have a lot of weight to them, kind of like the main character from "Shadow of the Colossus". The gameplay (especially the pitching system) is solid and visually it's absolutely gorgeous.

The FFXI Soundtrack Collection was a very pleasant surprise, as it had just come out about a week before I'd decided to place the order. I didn't even know it existed, so thank god they featured it at the top of the VG Soundtrack page! All of the disc holders are decorated with Yoshitaka Amano's beautiful artwork, and the set even includes sheet music for the Piano Collection CD! A great deal, and way better than all the bootleg OSTs kicking around on Ebay.

Lastly I picked up a music CD+DVD for the group Kishidan. If you've played "Osu! Tataeke! Ouendan!" on the DS before, you may know this band for the song "One Night Carnival" which plays during the 'sick violinist on the train' story. This particular CD+DVD is a 10 track singles collection w/ the music videos for those 10 songs on the DVD. Such an entertaining group! Check out one of their excellent music videos: HERE!

Anyways, it was pretty exciting when the package came. Sort of like a mini-Christmas. Time for me to get back to work, though. I hope everyone's having a great weekend, and Happy Mother's Day to all those moms out there!

    Updated 02-28-07

Today Sarah and I picked up the new Nine Inch Nails concert DVD (Halo 22) and it got me thinking about my music collection. So, I grouped together a few handfuls of my favorite "piles-o-music" and took some pictures to post. The concert DVD was great - it helps that we saw Trent and Co. for this particular tour - so we had a blast reminiscing. The new album comes out in April here, and from the leaked tracks I've heard it sounds very lovely. Anyways, onto some of the highlights of my music collection!

First up (above) we have my modest Led Zeppelin collection. I'm thinking about adding a few to it because they re-released several of the CD's in limited edition Mini-LP Sleeves that replicate the unique packaging of the original LP's. For example Led Zeppelin III has the rotating photo display and Physical Graffiti has the cut out windows. Pretty neat stuff. Next up is:

My Who collection! I STILL don't have the "My Generation" Deluxe Edition, which is reasonably hard to find, and it kills me more and more each day. Although listening to Tommy on vinyl is exactly as magical as the film "Almost Famous" makes it out to be. "Listen to Tommy with a candle burning, and you'll see your future."

Hooray for The Strokes! Fortunately all of their singles are relatively easy to find, but those 45's were not easy to come by. In particular I like the "Someday" single because the LP is see-through yellow! Also, the Reptilia single has a B-Side with Regina Spektor that I really enjoy.

B-B-B-B-Bowie! Turn and face the strange! B-B-Bowie! Here's my David Bowie collection in all of it's wonderful glory. Again, I'm thinking of adding more to this collection, because like the Led Zeppelin re-releases, Bowie has a few of his own. Recently in Best Buy I discovered re-releases of 5 or so of his albums in similar LP shaped packaging, only they were replicas of his JAPANESE releases! 22 bucks a pop though >.> ... it'd be worth it, I suppose!

Last but certainly not least in the Nine Inch Nails pile. I was fortunate enough to have discovered NIN back when I was 9. My sister made me a cassette tape copy of "Pretty Hate Machine", and it was the first music I REALLY loved. I've been an avid fan ever since.

All of this music talk has me thinking about concerts for this year. I'm going to go poke around Ticket Master and see what I find. More updates to come!

Oh! Also, Sarah and I got a new car, and Japan is being pushed back a few months... although the few people that read this blog probably already knew that ^^ ;

    Updated 02-11-07

It's like they know I'm coming back and they want me to spend all of the money I have.

I just popped over to Square Enix's Japan site to check for updates, and sure enough I find a Limited Edition FFXII Revenant Wings DS Lite... *sigh* ...which would definately be pretty sweet to pick up. These sort of things just don't come out over here. It blows my mind. Even if they did a limited release, they'd still sell every last one of them. Maybe it has something to do w/ loyalty to their home country? Either way, this is officially at the top of my list for items I'd like to find over there this November.

I did a couple of small updates on the webpage here tonight. For starters I updated the "Who?" section of the page (as I hadn't changed my age or my favorite bands in years); and I even added a handful of new pictures. Although, the pictures aren't really new if you've ever been to my Myspace. Also, I added my Last.fm "Recent Tracks" updater, to the Music section of the site.

In other news: today was one of the worst work days I've ever had. Almost every customer was in a bad mood, and getting incredibly snippy, which was unfortunate because I had such an excellent weekend up until this point. It also didn't help that we had no big sales today or Saturday, whatsoever. Instead we ended up buying a ton of stuff for the store (XBOXs, a PSP, PS2s, countless games, etc.). This is a good thing in it's own right, but I know I'm going to get a ribbing for there being such a lack of money in the register after the weekend. Maybe tomorrow morning somebody will come in and spend hundreds of dollars >.>; ...

It's late night, and I'm almost on the verge of just letting my random thoughts flow into a post, but I'd probably just end up deleting it in the morning. So why waste the time right? With this in mind, I'll try to remain focussed.

Up until today here, this weekend was a blast. It was great seeing everyone and playing board games, and I hope those who attended our little get together enjoyed their Valentine's Day Gift Baskets! I usually hate board games, but this Saturday was exceptionally fun. Also, Friday was fantastic, playing Chu-Chu Rocket and Power Stone 2 again. Good time had by all!

Tomorrow night I think we're hanging out w/ Matt and Chandra which will (of course) be awesome. We're probably going to watch a movie, and maybe another episode or two of Cowboy Bebop. I get kind of nervous about showing people shows or music that's really important to me, but I think they enjoyed the first two episodes they saw. There was laughing involved, so that's always good. I'm definately looking forward to it!

Well, I should be going to bed. I've been listening to the Spirited Away soundtrack whilst writing this, and all it's making me want to do is curl up w/ my wife and drift away. I hope I dream about Osaka Business Park tonight.

    Updated 02-06-07

Hooray for Music!

I absolutely love music. I love writing it, listening to it, and playing it. But as of late, I've been ultra busy and haven't been able to actually record any of it. This is very unfortunate because I've been listening to a lot of music that really inspires me to write my own. Here are a few songs that have gotten those creative juices flowing:

Tom Waits - Time

Over the last year I've had the opportunity to discover Tom Waits, who's been writing music since before I was born. He has one of the roughest, most incredible voices I've ever heard. He was quoted saying once, that his voice is an instrument in itself, and he loves seeing all the different things he can do with it. "Time" is by far one of Mr. Waits finest ballads, and it's a song that makes me wish for even a fraction of the lyrical genius and wit that Tom Waits possesses.

The Smiths - A Rush and a Push and the Land is Ours

This is actually from the last Smiths album I picked up, "Strangeways, Here We Come". It was one of the only Smiths albums I didn't own, and I feel silly for not getting it sooner, as it's one of the best. I'm very fortunate to have had a couple friends who introduced me to the beauty of Morrissey, and his exciting body... of work.

Of Montreal - She's a Rejector

I wish that I could have problems with my wife, escape to Norway for several months, and write one of the best album's imaginable. Well, okay, maybe not the "problem's with the wife part"; but hey it worked for Kevin Barnes, lead singer/song writer of "Of Montreal". The best part is, that masked behind this wall of happy pop, are some pretty dark lyrics. It sort of reminds me of a quote from the film 'High Fidelity' - "What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?"

Sunset Rubdown - They Took A Vote And Said No

I've been listening to this album for almost a year now, and still haven't been able to find it available for purchase in any stores... I really ought to just buy it off Amazon.com or something. "Sunset Rubdown" is the side project of one of the two singers of "Wolf Parade" (Spencer Krug). It's pretty similar in it's sound, although the songs are generally quite a bit longer, and a little slower than most "Wolf Parade" songs. I always come back to "Sunset Rubdown" and "Wolf Parade" after a rough day, or even when I want to get wound up a little bit.

Anywho, it's Tuesday, and it's good to have the day off. Have a great week, everyone!

    Updated 01-19-07

A whole new year and my first update! Sarah and I made a new year's resolution to go back to Japan, in November of this year. We've got everything all budgeted out for the most part, and it looks like it may be even a little cheaper than our honeymoon was! It's kind of sad, but we're semi-obsessed w/ the idea of going back. It's basically all we think and talk about, so big apologies to those who've had to hear us ramble about it constantly.

In other news, I wrapped up Final Fantasy XII a few nights ago! I've been at the point where I could go finish the game, or spend lots of time leveling and doing side quests, and out the blue I decided to see if I could go beat the game. At level 57 w/ all my characters, it was a breeze. The bad guys in the area before the actual end boss battle were almost more of a hastle than the final bosses. It took about an hour and a half and was entirely awesome. I really think that this FF had some of the best characters out of any in the series. I continually compare this FF to Star Wars, because it really reminds me of it, what w/ the rebellion and Princess, and the Vader-esque Judges... it's sort of a stretch, but on numerous occassions I was reminded of my favorite Sci-Fi Saga.

Speaking of Final Fantasy, FFXI has been going swimmingly. I'm about 1/2 way to level 50 as of today, and Bella is going to be hitting 45 in the near future here. The Christmas and New Year's Festivals were great! Also, over the holiday break we had the opportunity to play a bit more w/ my nephew who seems to be enjoying the game a whole lot as of late (he's just about to hit level 20!). Recently I installed a version of the game on my XBOX 360 and set up XBOX Live! as well. It runs really nicely on the 360, but at the moment I don't have a really good USB keyboard for the system, making it impossible to chat while I'm playing. In the meantime I've been using it for all the farming I've been doing. Fortunately, there isn't much work required for that.

Tomorrow or the next day, I'm really debating what game I should start up and it looks like Dragon Quest VIII may be the winning candidate. I had a blast w/ Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime on the DS, so I'd love to delve into the DQ mythology a little more.

Today was my first day off in a while, as my boss has been on Vacation since the 6th or 7th. I got a lot of stuff done (Oil Changes, Hair Cuts) so that's always good. Now I have the opportunity to finally update my page and relax a little bit. So I'm kicking back, listening to some Sunset Rubdown and drinking a nice cold porter. Kinner is over playing Trauma Center on the Wii, which her and Sarah seem to be really taken w/ as of late. It's an amazing game! I played through it on the DS and am only a few hours in on the Wii version, but they're certainly cruising. Go Team-Them!

Anywho, I hope everyone had a great Holiday Season, and a swell New Year's Eve. I'll do my best to make a handful of posts over the next few weeks ^^;

    Updated 11-13-06

The games were played, and the votes are in! Every so often Sarah (my wife) and I will have a 'Random Number Generated Game-a-thon', and rank all the game we played. Now, you may be thinking: What the hell is a RNGG? Basically we randomly generate a game from our collections list using a random number generator, and regardless of what the game is we'll play it for 15-30 minutes and rank it. We rate the game based on our overall impressions, and experience with the game in that period of time. It's a pretty flawed system (as most RPG's obviously need to be played longer than 30 minutes to really grasp) so we're kind of lenient in some cases. Most of the time when we do these there's at least a 4 or more people, but this time around we're just tackling it ourselves. Although, closer towards the holiday season, we'll most likely have a much larger one.

Well then, without further adieu, let me take you on a tour of our 8 hour long game-a-thon. The results are posted at the end!

Game #1 - Final Fantasy XI: Chains of Promathia (PS2)

...

How the hell am I supposed to rank an expansion pack? Or an MMORPG for that matter? Hmmm... okay, so with this one I just logged onto my account on the Playstation 2 and headed into the area called Movalpolos (one of the expansion's areas). There were plenty of Goblins and Moblins to kill so I went to town. Not only did I get a couple Goblin Helms (worth 1000 Gil on the Auction Houses), but I got a whopping 20 experience! Visually, 'Final Fantasy XI' greatly appeals to me, and the area I was in was designed pretty well for a big Goblin mine. The gameplay really reminded me of 'Final Fantasy XII' because I've been playing that so much, so that's a good thing. After killing a bunch of stuff, I logged out and we generated Sarah's first game. Since this was the first game, it had nowhere to go but the top! Or the bottom, depending on how you look at it.

Game #2 - Serious Sam: The First Encounter (PC)

Alright, a little more on the right track. This one was pretty straigt forward. We played a lot of this Co-Op back in the day, so Sarah was pretty excited. Although, generally she used to get pretty motion sick playing it... never the less, it was only for 15-30 minutes, so it was all good. Overall the graphics are pretty slick. The textures are very detailed when you get up close. Sarah ran around killing anything and everything, commenting that she really enjoyed the music. It's a very simplistic game, but that's definately part of the fun; kind of like 'Doom', except in much more open areas. Eventually Sarah got to a room where an "Indiana Jones" boulder came rolling at her. Her first instict was to apparently unload her weapons into it, but then she realized she could just move out of the way. After getting to the shot gun, she got into a room full of tons of little frogs that tore her appart. That's all for this one. Ranked, and moving on.

Game #3 - Street Fighter: The Movie (Sega Saturn)

Oh god, why!? Sarah was pretty excited that "Gomez Addams" was the bad guy... other than that (and the AMAZING Full Motion Videos), this one didn't go over too well. I started off playing "Movie Mode" in which the first battle, you get your ass handed to you by Bison. But Jean-Claude Van Guile gets right back up and vows revenge, stating:

"I'm gonna kick Bison's butt so hard, that the next Bison wannabe is going to feel it!"

Ooooh! Burn! We played some versus mode after Balrog rocked me like a hurricane. Visually the game looks worse that Mortal Kombat 1; it also plays a lot worse than it too. The Saturn is so much better than this! Why must the random number generator Gods smite us so? It gets a few points (very few) for camp value though.

Game #4 - Wario Land 3 (Game Boy Color)

Well it's lunch time, and fortunately we got a hand held game that I could take along to go get food. Warioland 3 started off pretty promising, but I didn't really grasp all of the aspects of the gameplay right away. It doesn't look like you can die. When you're hit, you just enable a new ability for a short period of time, based on what you were hit by. This seems good and bad, and is certinaly a nice change of pace from the average platform. For example, if you're hit by a zombie, you turn into Zombie Wario, and to turn back you have to find a street light. The only problem is, Zombie Wario is slow as dirt. Alas, that's the disadvantage w/ only being able to play a game for such a short period of time. I am left wanting to play it more though, and see why it's so highly regarded (review wise).

Game #5 - X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse (XBOX)

They throw you right into the action on this one. Sarah was Magneto, and I was Cyclops, and with Wolvie and Storm we flew through the Military Facility w/ ease. Having recently played a bit of the first 'X-Men Legends', I was kind of interested to see what changed. For the most part it just looks like they changed characters, and upped the graphics a (teeny) bit. There were a few problems w/ the camera every now and then, as it wasn't to responsive to moving like in the first game. As a result our field of view was blocked by pipes and various other objects a couple of times. Other than those minor instances, though, we leveled everyone up once and it was quite a lot of fun. We're so happy Patrick Stewart is still lending his voice to Prof. X! Now all we need is for the good Professor to say "Engage!".

Game #6 - Evangelion - 1st Impression (Japanese Sega Saturn)

Crazy, this was another kind of tough one to rank. Basically the point of the game is to build your own episode in a 'Choose your own adventure' sort of style. The music was great (ripped right out of the series) and the FMV's were also very nice. Plus it had the whole intro to the TV show at the start. Neat! After some early action, Shinji is sitting there getting yelled at by a bunch of women. We're not sure (because all of the dialogue is in Japanese) but we assume this is taking place in his head... ah, Eva. Afterwards we did some Evangelion Unit 1 training with Asuka in a weird FMV Tactics type setup. She ended up beating the crap out of us, although, I think our loss more or less served the plot of the game and we couldn't have won if we tried. After a debriefing, Misato dropped us off at school. AND, 15 minutes are up; on to the next one. Interesting...

Game #7 - Space Channel 5 (Sega Dreamcast)

Yay! We here at the Cherney household are belligerent 'Space Channel 5' fans. If you enjoy rhythm games, I highly recommend this one to ya'! Ulala (a reporter for Space Channel 5, and the heroine of our game) starts off by going down to Spaceport 9 to see what all the fuss is about. It turns out that an alien race called the Morolians are forcing people to dance! Naturally you have to prove your skills and defeat them in a "you got served" simon says, dance off. This game has some of the best music ever, and is certainly a pretty game to look at! After heading to the roof of the Spaceport to fight more dancing aliens and save more confused hostages, I walked out onto the launch pad and defeated the funky-as-ever Coco*Tapioca boss. Good times all around.

Game #8 - Wolverine (NES)

Mmmm, a very difficult game... but hey it is an NES game after all! For some reason you loose more health if you're standing in the same place as a bad guy, than when the bad guy actually shoots or hits you. It's all good though, we can look beyond that. The level design is one big jumping puzzle, but is still pretty fun. In between levels Sabretooth yells at you a bunch, and taunts you from somewhere. We had a game over at Level 3 twice ; ;, but we carried on. Nice to see Wolvie in the tried and true orange and brown costume. In the end, not too shabby.

Game #9 - Ecco: The Tides of Time (Sega CD)

Ecco is always a pretty interesting and fun game to play, so not surprisingly, this went really smoothly. Although, I'm always at a loss for exactly what I'm supposed to be doing in Ecco games (defending the future, OBVIOUSLY). I swam around, ate some fish, talked to some other dolphins, and saw a kind of crappy FMV. The actual in game graphics are really pretty though. As you can see in the picture above, it looks like my TV has one of those cool fish screensavers! Certainly one of the more unique games we played today, and perty darn good too.

I made Sarah play this one because she just LOVES "scary" games... >.>; but this didn't really end up being that scary. It had decent graphics for the most part and some pretty cool gore, but everyone swears too much! Now I'm not exactly a fuckin' prude or something, but I heard more F-Bombs in the first 15 minutes of this game than in some Quentin Tarantino movies! Sarah didn't really dig the camera controls, but did like the dual personality voice over stuff, and the character designs. Torque the main character is pretty crazy, so that always makes for an interesting game. At one point while she was playing, Sarah examined a security camera; it had of view of Torque from the back of the room she was in, and as she was watching the camera she could see something dead looking walking towards her. Sarah quickly got off the security camera screen and turned around ready to kill, only to find there was nothing there. Nice! Pretty neat on the whole.

Game #11 - Advance Wars: Dual Strike (Nintendo DS)

As a reward for braving through the last game, Sarah got to play this while I played the next game. She decided to just continue her single player game that she had already started on, and said she was immediately reminded why she loves the game so much. It's incredibly addicting and fun, and has excellent 2D graphics packaged with some very nice music. Also, you can't go wrong w/ single cartridge multiplayer! Sweet! Unfortunately though, she's been discouraged from playing it as of late because it gets really hard in the later levels. While she was wrapping that up I was "enjoying" my own game.

Game #12 - Teddy Boy (Sega Master System)

I didn't even really know that I had this...

The game makes absolutely no sense, but is sort of fun altogether. It has a 'crappy version of Bubble Bobble' arcade style too it. All of the monsters looking things come out of large dice, and attack our hero, Teddy Boy. You have to kill them and collect the little balls that they drop, which are surely their souls. After beating a couple levels I got to the "Bonus Level" where I could pick some mystery boxes and get items and points! In one box I got a Teddy Bear, and in the other I got what looked like a mug of beer! Alright!

Game #13 - Battlezone (Atari 2600)

I've checked this out a couple of times, but didn't really have much fun w/ it on previous endeavors. This time around was completely different! Fresh off of 'Teddy Boy', I was ready for something, no, anything else. This game actually seems really ahead of it's time, and almost too good for the Atari. It has a 3D like effect graphically, and is overall pretty nice looking; kind of ahead of it's time. Looks like your main enemies are tanks and UFO's. Unfortunately though, all it takes is one bullet from the enemy to put you out of commission. After all was said and done, I came away somewhat impressed.

Game #14 - Yars' Revenge (Atari 2600)

Wowzers! What luck! 'Street Fighter: The Movie' AND 'Yars' Revenge' all in the same day! Nah, I'm being too tough on it. It's not a terrible game by any means. In fact, it's one of the most unique games on the Atari; but I'll be damned if it didn't get old kind of quick. The level's don't really change too much, and as long as you're patient enough it seems like you can keep going forever. I guess it didn't help that we played it after 'Battlezone' which we ended up liking quite a bit. Still, I've played worse Atari games. Like that E.T. one for example.

Game #15 - Ghost House (Sega Master System)

Next up is 'Ghost House' for the SMS. I'd actually never played this game, so I was quite surprised when I found out I really enjoy it! In 'Ghose House', you're what looks like a Halloween Elf(?) and you're running through what is clearly a haunted house. There were plenty of bats and monsters that lead me to this conclusion. It's pretty intense, as there's a whole lot going on at once. I ended up going to the right for like 5 minutes until I finally realized it's just the same area, repeated, over and over again. Eventually I found a ladder down which took me to a sort of mini-boss-bat-Dracula-guy. He stomped my face in, but not before I started over and... he stomped my face in again. I'll be playing this more if I ever have free time. I'll show that Dracula who the real boss is!

Game #16 - Burnout Revenge (XBOX)

Fun time, had by all! Although I prefer 'Burnout 3' this one's by no means a pushover. Sarah stormed through the first Traffic Attack mission, quite proud of her Gold Medal, and I helped her rake in the gold on the first Crash Mission. The game is beautiful, and really the only thing that it suffers from is a weaker version of Crash Mode. 'Burnout 3' had the multipliers you could hit, and little bonus things along the way. This one seems to rely more on luck than anything else. Still, it's really damn fun. Takedown Mode still shines brightly, and it's nice to have a customized soundtrack playing. I imagine this one's going be be pretty high up there.

Game #17 - Mega Man X2 (Super Nintendo)

Yay! Can't go wrong with a Mega Man game. Although I must admit I'm generally not very good at them. For some reason though I did excellent on this outing. We were looking for the game to put it in the SNES, and we couldn't find it. Then I remembered that while my wife and I were on our honeymoon, my friend Greg had stayed here. I looked at the Super Nintendo, and it was already in the system, as he's one of the biggest Mega Man on the face of the planet. The game has wonderful and vibrant 2D graphics, and is incredibly sharp looking. Aside from 'Street Fighter - The Movie' Capcom generally really nails the 2D graphics. Mega Man X2 is a pretty hard game, but overall we had a lot of fun.

Game #18 - Electroplankton (Nintendo DS)

Electroplankton is a pretty odd game, but is also very unique. It's really neat the kind of mystifying sound and music you can produce just by tapping your DS screen. It's the kind of stuff I'd like to fall asleep to. The game is also a very good showcase for what kind of things the DS can do. It's not really a "game" in the traditional sense of the word, but it was entertaining enough, and killed time before I got to watch Sarah go through our next entry.

Game #19 - Resident Evil 4... (wait for it) ... PREVIEW DISC! (Gamecube)

Whaaaaa!? I didn't even know I listed the preview disc on my collection page, but sure enough, there it is. Again, Sarah is required by Washington State Law to play through the scary games today. This game was really interesting for a lot of reasons. First and foremost, if we would've generated the actual RE4 game, it would've more than likely been a shoe in for 1st place; but this, this was a bit different than the game I know and love. The graphics on the preview disc are a lot darker and not nearly as sharp looking as the actual game. Also, there's no women in the village this time around. Or at least we didn't see a single one. And instead of having like 30 villagers constantly chase you, there were like 5 or 6. Also, the inventory screen and map screen were a bit different. It's still, you know, pretty damn similar to the final product, but it was really neat seeing the game in an earlier form. I wonder if this is what people played at E3 when they first started letting people play it.

Game #20 - Dragon Warrior: Monsters - Cobi's Journey (Game Boy Color)

Hoorah, for Dragon Warrior/Quest games! Aside from having sub-standard SNES graphics, this game was a very welcomed outing. I named my character and headed off to an island with my family. Then after the trouble making prince of the island accidentally unplugged the cork that holds the island afloat, I found out that I needed to go get a cork myself... and become a Monster Master along the way! My favorite quote from the game so far is:

"Aaron checked the dresser. It smelled of sun-dried laundry."

I'll probably be playing this more before bed tonight. If only for the love of Dragon Quest slimes.

Game #21 - Mario Kart 64 (Nintendo 64)

We were going to stop at 20 games, but we decided to do just one more, and sure enough it was a big one. Really, not a lot needs to be said about Mario Kart. We played it and had a hugely fun time. Surprised? Nope!

AND NOW FOR THE RESULTS!!! If you've actually read all/most/or even just some of that, I commend you for your patience and appreciate you reading! The rankings below are from worst to best.

21st Place - Street Fighter: The Movie (Sega Saturn)
20th Place - Yars' Revenge (Atari 2600)
19th Place - Evangelion: 1st Impression (Japanese Sega Saturn)
18th Place - Teddy Boy (Sega Master System)
17th Place - Battlezone (Atari 2600)
16th Place - Ghost House (Sega Master System)
15th Place - Wario Land 3 (Game Boy Color)
14th Place - The Suffering (PS2)
13th Place - Wolverine (NES)
12th Place - Electroplankton (DS)
11th Place - Ecco: The Tides of Time (Sega CD)
10th Place - Resident Evil 4: Preview Disc (Gamecube)
9th Place - Final Fantasy XI: Chains of Promathia (PS2)
8th Place - X-Men Legends 2: Rise of Apocalypse (XBOX)
7th Place - Mega Man X2 (Super Nintendo)
6th Place - Serious Sam: The First Encounter (PC)
5th Place - Dragon Warrior: Monsters - Cobi's Journey (Game Boy Color)
4th Place - Burnout Revenge (XBOX)
3rd Place - Advance Wars: Dual Strike (Nintendo DS)
2nd Place - Space Channel 5 (Sega Dreamcast)
1st Place - Mario Kart 64 (Nintendo 64)

There you have it! Love it or hate it, that's how it is. Reading it now, I'm even questioning some of our rankings, but hey, what happens in the RNGG, stays in the RNGG. Well, that's all for tonight/today/tomorrow. I hope you had as much fun reading about my day, as I had living it. Have a great Monday, everyone!

    Updated 11-08-06

Alrighty! Its update time! First off, here's two pics of our final costumes from Halloween.

  
Myself as Ash from Evil dead and Sarah as Ayane from Dead or Alive 2! Nice!

And now on to more current events. For the last several nights (except for last night, which was Guitar Hero 2 night!) Sarah and I have had the distinct pleasure of getting off work at 6, playing Final Fantasy XI until 9:30, plugging through Final Fantasy XII until about midnight, and then relaxing, and playing DS games in bed ^^! It's been absolutely incredible. It's great to be able to spend so much time on the games we love together. We leveled up our subjobs in FFXI the other night in Korroloka Tunnel which was pretty cool. We were just blasting through 'Land Worm' after 'Land Worm' and getting like 70-130 experience a pop!

Final Fantasy XII is fantastic! We're about 7 hours in and since we have today off we will probably get to about 10-12 hours (hopefully). I've been making sure to talk to as many NPC's as possible and make sure I'm not leaving things behind as I progress in the game; although I'm pretty sure it's impossible to get EVERYTHING done right at the start. But I'll be damned if I don't try!

Last night we had a bunch of friends over and enjoyed a night of fruitful gaming. My love of loves picked up our copy of Guitar Hero 2 yesterday, and I spent plenty of time on that last night, eventually beating the game on Hard Mode! It was everything I could've hoped for in a sequel, and more! The multiplayer mode is greatly improved upon, adding the options to play Rhythm, Bass, or Lead Guitar. Greg and Cameron had some excellent face-offs, and on the whole I think everyone enjoyed the game lots. We also had two new friends, Chandra and her husband (officially as of today [CONGRATS!]) Matt. It was a lot of fun hanging out w/ them and I guess while I was attempting to beat GH2 they got to play some Bust-A-Move DS Multiplayer! How fun!

MUSIC TIME! If you're looking for some new music, at the moment I recommend:

These guys are fantastic! It's all very pop/rocky goodness, and if you looking for something fun, w/ good lyrics, driving drum beats, and an egg shaker or two, PB&J are just what you need! Please feel free to check out the following song:

    Updated 10-26-06

Spooky things are brewing!

Wahoo! So I'm getting really excited for our Halloween Party on Saturday. Sarah and I went constume shopping on our day off yesterday and we ended up buying the necessary items for a Ayame and Hayabusa costume from the Dead or Alive series! They look decent enough. We'll be watching movies, playing scary games, drinking, and carving pumpkins. Probably not in that order, though. I'm sure I'll have some pictures posted this upcoming Sunday if we make it through such a frightening night!

So tonight I've decided to give everyone an "Inside Look" at the gaming habitat we've established here. This'll just be part one I suppose, as I didn't get to take all the pictures I wanted to take tonight. Anyways, here goes:

It's time for a Final Fantasy XI Update! So it's time for the Harvest Festival in the world of Vana'diel, and everyone's enjoying the lag from having hundreds of players dressed up like monsters, running around the towns. Here are a few pictures of myself and Sarah getting some work done and enjoying the festivities.

Me helping Sarah level up out in Rolanberry Fields.

Me in my Mog House w/ my cool Witch Hat and Halloween Staff. Also note the neat Bomb Lamp to my left! AMAZING!

Sarah standing next to a very Orcish looking me.

Naoshi Mizuta - Final Fantasy XI - Chains of Promathia OST - Second Ode: Distant Promises

Well it looks like that's it for tonight. I started an IGN Blog yesterday along w/ Sarah, so I'll be posting stuff on there, though it'll probably mirror what's going on here. Either way, check it out if you'd like!

    Updated 10-24-06

New song, Wii-tastic Developments, and Contact abound! Let's start with the least exciting:

      Aaron Cherney - Down On Me (New!)

I've been tweaking this one for quite a while. And I'm finally (sort of) satisfied. Hope you enjoy it!

In other news I pre-ordered and paid off my Nintendo Wii, which I'll be able to pick up on Nov. 19 at 00:00. After which I'm sure we'll be playing until sunrise. With the system I pre-ordered Zelda, Monkey Ball, and Trauma Center; it should be a whole barrel of fun!

Also, today I picked up the new Atlus DS game called 'Contact'. I must say I'm impressed! This is the first game to make me take out Rocket Slime (which I clocked about 30 hours on) so I was hoping it'd be something to give ol' Rocket something of a rest. Sure enough, it's excellent! Very immersive, and almost more in depth than Rocket Slime. Pretty sweet stuff.

I'm really excited for this coming Saturday, as we'll be having our annual Halloween Festival! Horror Movies, Pumpkins, and Costumes, oh my! Check back here next week for some pics. I hope everyone has a pleasurable rest of their week!

    Updated 10-06-06

Wahoo! So, I've finally found some time to post my big Osaka trip picture collection. Our honeymoon was basically the coolest thing ever, and both of us are still sort of caught in the wake of awesomeness that was Japan. Needless to say, we will be going back again with in the next 2 years. Even with roughly 5 days to explore the city, we still barely scratched the surface. However, we got to experience some wonderful things.

Here we are in front of the IMP (International Marketplace), located next to our hotel. This fine building housed a McDonald's that we frequented virtually every morning for some quick breakfast. It's incredible how different things are overseas, in particular, the employees at McDonald's (and virtually ever food place we ate at) seemed to actually care about their jobs.

Out on a stroll at Osaka Business Park on our first night.

We spent quite a bit of yen at these babies.

Mostly because we had such an awesome variety of drinks to choose from! Yay!

The baseball field as seen from our hotel window.

Osaka Castle as seen from our hotel window. What a wonderful thing to wake up and see.

Here is Shinsaibashi, a shopping district that we spent a lot of time at. There aren't too many people walking around yet, because we'd get up every morning at around 6-ish. So we're a bit early...

Pretty Sarah admiring all of the pretty stores.

This is part of Shinsaibashi-suji a 3 mile long shopping strip.

Here's Dotonbori, a restaurant district.

Resting in a side alley by 7-11.

The first morning's "loot".

We spent quite a few "in between" hours watching Sumo Wrestling, which was on very frequently.

Back at Shinsaibashi a little later in the day. Sarah and a giant crab!

Eventually we made our way to Den-Den Electronic Town, which is home to the best video game and toy stores in all the world.

A view all the way down Den-Den Town (which goes all the way to the building at the end of the street.

Relaxing in a nice air-conditioned pizza joint. It was generally 80-90 degrees w/ roughly 80% humidity there, so we'd stop into as many places as we could to cool off.

One of the video game store's floor was covered in vintage game screenshots.

The menu at a lovely Italian place located close to the New Otani (our hotel).

Asahi beer... absolutely delicious.

It took us a while to figure out that we press this little wireless button for service. Upon pressing it, you hear a little jingle from the back area and your server rushes out to help you.

Very happy w/ my meal!

Us wandering around the Twin Building #1.

Snacks and trinkets at the nearby convenience store.

A crazy-cool butterfly moth (buttermoth) that we saw several of.

Sarah heading down to the train station, excited for another adventure!

A train flying by us in the background. Trains we probably one of the most fun/efficient things about Japan. We'd pay about 2 bucks and get basically anywhere in town in under 10 minutes. Really neat stuff.

One of the many impeccably clean train stations. Osaka is definately the cleanest, nicest looking city I've ever seen.

Sarah and I riding the train.

We ended up having to buy 4 more bags by the end of the trip ; ;

Shinsaibashi lighting up as night falls.

One of the many "landmarks" of Shinsaibashi.

The entryway to Shinsaibashi-suji.

Sarah walking by one of the hundreds of slot/pachinko places.

More of Shinsaibashi at night.

Most news/weather programs are accompanied by an adorable anime character/animal. Here the weather is being explained by a sunny lion!

Us on our way to Osaka Castle (at the 'outer moat').

Osaka Castle from still a pretty good distance away.

Sarah looking up at a little piece of history.

Sarah trying to blend in with the Japanese crowd.

Me begging for rain... it's so hot!

A view from the top of Osaka Castle (our hotel is directly behind the dome to the right). Inside the castle were several exhibits and multiple souvenier shops.

For two dollars we got to have a really nice lady dress us up and take our picture! It was so neat! I love Sarah's intimidating smile.

Yakumi Bar! This was a really nice ramen place inside the Twin Building #1.

My delicious Chicken Ramen! I successfully used chop-sticks for the first time with this lovely meal.

North of our hotel were some other neat shops and buildings where we purchased more luggage..

Sarah overlooking some of the cool buildings.

One last stop to Den-Den Town at night.

One of the many anime/manga shops. All of which are at least a few stories tall.

A team was practicing baseball at the field across from our hotel on one of the last days. They all looked quite skilled.

This was at a really cool place called "Dog Mind" in the IMP Building. It's literally a place where you can just go hang out with dogs and enjoy their company, and see if you want to buy them.

One of the several shrines/temples that we came across.

Shinsaibashi-suji as the sun begins to set.

Our last time using the oh-so-fun train.

Osaka Castle lit up like a Christmas tree.

Kansai International Airport, getting ready to go home ; ;

Me, not too excited to leave.

Inside the airport.

Pretty clouds somewhere above San Francisco.

My wonderful Sarah driving us home.

- White Sega Saturn and about 15 Games
- Super Famicom and about 10 Games
- Final Fantasy III DS Lite Limited Edition
- Several Gameboy Advance and DS Games
- Clothes! Clothes! and more Clothes!
- Roughly a hundred dollars worth of capsule toys!
- A dozen or so Dreamcast Games.
- And quite a few Utada Hikaru Single CD's.

So there you go. That's all for now. It's 3:12 in the morning and I'm ready for bed! I hope you enjoyed getting to learn a little bit about our trip! Arigato gozai mas!

    Updated 09-11-06

Alright! Sarah and I are married and it's just 2 days left until we're basking in the glory of Osaka! We played an exciting round of 'Age of Empires II' tonight in celebration. Sarah and I built two unstoppable empires and brought down the Aztec Computer Player pretty quickly. Nice work, sweetheart!

Hooray for Age of Empires II!

We've been cruising through anime like it's nobody's business! The big highlight so far has been Eureka 7. Who would've thought a show about surfing robots would be the best anime I've seen in a long time. I highly recommend you pick up the uber cool Disc 1 w/ Box Set of the series, as it comes w/ a Collector's Box, Soundtrack, Manga Vol. 1, and T-Shirt. Quite a nice buy. The series starts out kind of slow-ish, but really starts picking up by the 3rd or 4th episode.

Now for your weekly marriage update! Looks like Sarah and I will be going down to the Courthouse to elope on Monday. It's super exciting! Then it's just 2 weeks until the big trip. Everything seems to be in order (knock on wood!) so that's good. We went and got the Gazebo reserved for Sunday the 24th of Sept. for our little Reception, and also reserved our hotel in Seattle.

In other news, yesterday was a weird day that started off well, but as soon as I start focussing on negative issues, I started getting really grumpy. I seem to be letting little things get the best of me as of late, so I'm trying to remind myself how good things really are for me; I'm very lucky to be in the position I am in my life. For example, today I had terrible allergies because of this miserable fucking wind (><) and instead of getting all bummed out and going home I worked my shift and made the best of it.

Well Sarah's going to be getting off in a bit, so I'm going to get going so I can shower her w/ fandom as I am her biggest fan. Have a great rest of your week, all!

    Updated 08-23-06

Sarah and I have been thoroughly plugging through Grim Fandango the last couple nights, which is one of the finest adventure games Lucas Arts ever put out. In addition to that, we've been kind of playing a lot of different PC games. Checking out 'Neverwinter Nights' again inspired us to make our own Neverwinter Mod. We loaded up some toolset tutorials to jump start our brains, and it's been a lot of fun. We're going to have our very own town, with characters and plot twists galore. I just may include some friend's and family to inhabit the peaceful little town of Stillwater.

Also, Monday night was nice, because I had the opportunity to get some time in on FFXI. My dad and I did some leveling and I finished some long overdue quests. Furthermore, Chocobo Raising has started, and I'm currently mothering over my very own Chocobo Egg! How wonderful!

Well these old bones are tired... say goodnight to Manny!

Buenos noches, Manny Calavera!

Ah! My Goddess - Yoko Ishada - Open Your Mind!

Bella and I fighting on the Manaclipper!

Other than that, I'm going to help my mom with some chores around her house this evening since my dad's still out of town. I wonder how much he's been playing the game since he went back home to Wisconsin... Anyways, I've got to hurry up and get ready for work! It is the 17th after all, and that's just one more month I've gotten to spend with Sarah (although if I don't hurry up and get into work w/ some food it may be my last!!!).

    Updated 08-15-06

So, I've decided to bring my old site back with a new name! I liked having my old "WeaponX Online". Updating and maintaining it felt quite accomplishing. I'll be using this site primarily to host my music and to post rants/reviews and anything else that comes to mind. Content is somewhat limited as it stands but I'll do my best to bring you hours and minutes of entertainment. Take care!

Quick Update:
I've successfully transfered the original RedJustice homepage to this domain as well. It is accessable here.

Also, if you'd like to learn a little more about me, you're welcome to check out my Myspace (which I'll be permanently linking eventually here).




Well now that I'm all done, time to go pass out on the Power Pad...