Categories
Reflected

The Cat Is Stuck In Popcorn

Back in February, I detailed one of my few recurring health problems – bloody noses – shortly after I had it fixed. I wrote at the time that I had only two slightly bizarre health problems, and was otherwise normal.

I’ve been reminded of a third after events of last night; a health problem that I am not consciously aware of until it’s too late.

You see, my friends, apparently I talk in my sleep, in a somewhat hilarious manner.

My sister told me once long ago that one time when she was coming upstairs, she heard me repeating “TACO….TACO!!!!” in my sleep. I shrugged – and started sleeping with the door closed.

This isn’t a frequent thing – I’m not babbling every night, as far as I know. Then again, maybe I am and I just don’t wake up Katie half the time. After getting married, I do have someone who has to put up with me next to her each night.

Katie has occasionally mentioned that I’ll wake her up with some babbling, and annoyingly I seem to know how to shake her arm to wake her up while I’m asleep; one time while we lived in Ithaca, I woke her feverishly claiming that “the Chinese were coming”. This becomes problematic because when she starts shouting “WHAT?!” at me, I wake up – and my brain is fully in the context of yes, Kate, the Chinese are coming, yet I have no idea why or what it means or anything. So I sit there, wide awake, trying to explain what exactly I mean, only to inevitably get exasperated and tell her to just forget it.

Last night, I apparently shook Katie awake and uttered the words that will now haunt me forever:

THE CAT IS STUCK IN POPCORN.

Artist’s rendition of my wacked-out brain.

Katie’s retelling of this to me while I was on the phone with her this morning:

You shook me awake really hard, and your eyes were wide open, and you looked so scared, and just kept telling me, “THE CAT IS STUCK IN POPCORN.” I looked at the cat, and he was looking at me as if to say, “I don’t know what the HELL he’s talking about.”

So, needless to say – if you want hilarity, just hang out with me when I’m asleep. I am apparently a freaky laugh riot.

Categories
Endured Found

Nintendo World Launch

Today was the much ballyhooed Nintendo World launch, christening Nintendo’s new retails store in what used to be the Pokemon Center. For those not in NYC who are dying to see what it looks like, I took a boatload of cameraphone shots, and you can view them at:

My thoughts? Utter, bitter disappointment.

– There’s nothing game-wise that’s unique to the store. The only merchandise you can’t find elsewhere is some Nintendo-branded clothing.
– The prices are exactly the same as any other retail outlet.
– The historical items are sort of neat but a very small section of the store.
– There’s tons of empty space; the space that is used is cramped, leading to bad people flow.
– There are portions of the store that are just devoted to playing promotional movies, rather than pushing product. I am not joking when I say the Apple Store in Soho has more product on the shelves than this store does.
– Most of all, the store lacks personality. Whether you love or hate Pokemon, when you went into the Pokemon Center, the store had energy laying somewhere between cute and obsessive. It was always fun to go in there and giggle, if nothing else. The Nintendo store is without any sort of feeling, just existing and nothing more. It does not feel like there’s anything related to fun or gaming occurring here. Toys R Us in Times Square is more fun, and the Toys R Us gaming section *blows*.

On the up shot, it was nice to see Herbie and John, so it wasn’t a wasted day. But steer clear of the Nintendo Store – there’s no spectacle, no enthusiasm, no feeling.

Categories
Debated

Deconstructing Konami vs. Roxor

*Please note: I am not a lawyer.*

Big news hit the Bemani world yesterday, as Konami filed a 16 page patent suit in Texas against Roxor Games.

Konami, as most of the world knows by now, are the creators of the very popular Dance Dance Revolution (or DDR) video game series. While DDR was hugely successful in Japan in the arcades and has seen large success at home over the last few years, the series has been unofficially on hiatus since the end of 2002, when the last Japanese arcade version was produce. Players differ in opinion as to what exactly represents a hiatus – Konami continues to make home versions, particularly for the US where only one legal arcade mix was created – but many players realize that without constant new versions in the arcade, their interest in the game was diminshed.

In the last two years, one of the many DDR simulator programs – Stepmania – was spun off into an attempted commercial project called In The Groove (or ITG). Available as a PC setup called a “BoXoR” (as in “*RoXoR BoXoR*”; I will refer to them as “kits”), In The Groove raised eyebrows during its introduction to the marketplace as it required to be plugged into an existing DDR arcade machine to be used. People representing the project, as well as fans, hail ITG as a game designed for fans of the dancing game genre.

Konami’s attempt to get an injunction comes just days before the release of the home version of In The Groove, produced in conjunction with Red Octane, arguably the most successful dance pad maker in the US. The court filings, available in PDF form from DDR Freak, include seven separate counts that Konami is seeking damages for.

There seems to be a lot of confusion in the community about what the exact point of the filing is, and what it means for DDR and ITG in the future. So, I’ll try my best to break it down to easy to digest portions. Click through for my deconstruction and analysis of the claims.

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