08.25.07
Posted in Appleology, Rants, Site News
at 8:41 pm
Just a little FYI, I finally got my iPod sync functioning again after a few hours of tinkering. The root cause of the problem was a set of six or seven locked (aka read-only) files deep within the bowels of my library. In a particularly fitting twist, the tracks whose intransigence were driving me to cut myself were all by Linkin Park. ANYWAY. I only found this out by using a bizarre terminal string, provided to me by Joe Eversole on the Apple support forums. Here’s the terminal command to IDENTIFY the locked files:
ls -loR | grep "uchg" (parameters after the dash are lowercase l as in loud, lowercase o as in odd, uppercase R as in rock)
This command should be run from the root directory of your iTunes library (in my case, since the root is on an external drive, I had to first cd /Volumes/Kalique/iTunes Library/); you should close iTunes before you use it just to be on the safe side. It will output a line with a lot of nonsense, including your username and some attribute lists, but the important thing you’re looking for is the filename on the end. Use Spotlight to find the file, open its info (Apple-i, or “Command-i” if you’re insufficiently old-school) and uncheck the “Locked” checkbox. Close the info box (and optionally, re-run the ls to make sure it’s no longer listed).
This doesn’t alleviate any of the slowness of iTunes, but it does help with the “WHY THE F%#$ WON’T YOU SYNC, YOU W’OZ-LOGGOTH-SPAWNED PIECE OF CUPERTINO CRAP”. With that, folks, I’m off to bed. Catch you in the morning.
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Posted in Gaming, Rants, Site News
at 11:48 am
So, yeah. Ideally I would have had some insightful little thing here to say about Essay Week and how I thought it was a good thing, but right now I’m just too happy. It’s inexplicable, too– it’s not like I haven’t finished a Pokemon game before (FireRed, in fact, is so far the only other GBA Pokemon game I’d finished; before that you have to go back to Silver and Blue), or that it had been a long time since I’d completed one (just over three months). But for some reason I’m really proud of having gone through it all again. And so quickly, too– I’m pretty sure my last run through FireRed took me well over three or four months, so twenty-two days is actually quite impressive. Final time on the clock was 49 hours.
Anyway, while I can’t put the game away just yet– now that I’ve cleared it, snagged the legendaries, and unlocked the majority of the LG exclusives, I have to import them into Diamond/Battle Revolution six at a time, one set per exactly 24 hours– I’m at last moving on to other titles. I did accumulate a slight backlog over the past three weeks, prime among these Luminous Arc and Heroes of Mana. So, we’re off to get our tactics on.
Thanks again for bearing with my slight descent into insanity, everyone. You can be assured that I’m going to return to my normal posting habits pretty soon. Well, all right, ‘normal’ relative to the last month. I might have a few words to say about disc one of Air, if folks are interested in hearing those; also, I’ve been re-watching most of Babylon 5 to get ready to finish the fight, as it were, through Season 5. Late as it might be with regards to geek culture, I’ll have stuff to say about that.
For now, however, I’m just gonna unplug for a little bit, and get back in the normal, non-Pokemon-obsessive swing of things. Later, all.
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Posted in Game Cleared 2007, Gaming
at 1:19 am
At 2:13am, I defeated Pokemon League Champion Gary in Pokemon LeafGreen on Game Boy Advance. This is the twelfth game cleared in 2007. The next game that is closest to completion is Super Robot Wars: OG (GBA), followed by Band of Bugs (360) and (nothing else started).
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08.24.07
Posted in Essay Week, Rants, Writing
at 8:14 am
Essay Week 2007 runs from August 20 to August 24, 2007. Each day I’ll present a short essay on a topic of concern to me; as you may already have noticed, though, I have the option of including a pre-essay post giving updates on ongoing life events if necessary. Some of the elements in these essays may be controversial; I hope, however, that most will be well-regarded and at least read with an open mind. If you have anything to say about them, please feel free to leave a comment; I read them all, even if I may not respond due to time or other concerns. We wrap up the inaugural week of verbosity with a somewhat more light-hearted missive on verbiage itself.
The other day, I was talking with a friend who seemed quite upset at my recent blog posts. “You’re on crack, man,” he said; he was, of course, referring to my fixation on my ’speed-run’ through Pokemon LeafGreen and the satellite discussions I’ve been holding on the forums and elsewhere. “You say stuff and I have no idea what it means.” At the time I felt a little abashed at this, as I try to keep things pretty accessible; however, I later realized, this isn’t really all that different from other times that his insider lingo on the games he plays has confounded and befuddled me.
Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Gaming, Rants
at 4:32 am
You know, it’s a funny thing about sleep deprivation. It never hits you until you’re in the middle of something relaxing, enjoyable, and that you actually want to do. As it stands, last night my body ‘remembered’ that I had only managed to get four or five hours of sleep the night before, and insisted quite forcibly that I go to bed. At least it let me finish reading the volume of Bleach I had started.
So, as you can expect, this had some impact on the speed run. My readers, let me alienate you/them: Read the rest of this entry »
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08.23.07
Posted in Essay Week, Rants, Writing
at 8:39 am
Essay Week 2007 runs from August 20 to August 24, 2007. Each day I’ll present a short essay on a topic of concern to me; as you may already have noticed, though, I have the option of including a pre-essay post giving updates on ongoing life events if necessary. Some of the elements in these essays may be controversial; I hope, however, that most will be well-regarded and at least read with an open mind. If you have anything to say about them, please feel free to leave a comment; I read them all, even if I may not respond due to time or other concerns. Today’s essay is a deeply personal one, as it deals with responsibility in giving or receiving advice on individual decisions.
As most of you know, in June, I chose to remove red meat and chicken from my diet. Since then, I’ve found myself in an odd position of having to defend my choice. I honestly don’t see why exactly my dietary concerns or the supposed motives behind them are of anyone else’s interest. Still, that’s not an acceptable answer to the people who question me. In the absence of an answer, people tend to project a motive upon me, a motive which may or may not be correct. I don’t mind so much, but it is particularly irritating when people project this motive on me before asking me and getting the non-committal answer.
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Posted in Gaming, Site News
at 7:33 am
Hey, all. I hope you’re enjoying Essay Week as much as I’m enjoying spouting off more or less random crap that I wrote last week so I could concentrate on slacking. Anyway. Seriously, I am surprised at the reception it’s gotten so far and hope that today and tomorrow’s essays will be of equal interest. Thanks for reading them.
Now, to bore 90% of you with useless Pokemon LeafGreen trivia that you likely don’t care about. Read the rest of this entry »
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08.22.07
Posted in Appleology, Essay Week, Rants, Writing
at 7:51 am
Essay Week 2007 runs from August 20 to August 24, 2007. Each day I’ll present a short essay on a topic of concern to me; as you may already have noticed, though, I have the option of including a pre-essay post giving updates on ongoing life events if necessary. Some of the elements in these essays may be controversial; I hope, however, that most will be well-regarded and at least read with an open mind. If you have anything to say about them, please feel free to leave a comment; I read them all, even if I may not respond due to time or other concerns. Shifting focus a little bit, today’s essay concerns the perils of iTunes and having a little too much of the music in your soul, or hard drive.
I have a pretty big iTunes library, and unfortunately for me, it gets stashed on an external drive (but it’s FireWire, so that’s a help). More unfortunately, I use a pretty extensive set of Smart Playlists to get everything organized for use on my iPod. What this means is that, in general, iTunes is devastatingly slow to load and use. It plays with no problems, and syncing is nice too, but it’s a pain in the ass when I’m ripping new songs or adjusting the SPLs to clear out stuff I don’t care to hear.
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08.21.07
Posted in Essay Week, Gaming, Writing
at 7:03 am
Essay Week 2007 runs from August 20 to August 24, 2007. Each day I’ll present a short essay on a topic of concern to me; as you may already have noticed, though, I have the option of including a pre-essay post giving updates on ongoing life events if necessary. Some of the elements in these essays may be controversial; I hope, however, that most will be well-regarded and at least read with an open mind. If you have anything to say about them, please feel free to leave a comment; I read them all, even if I may not respond due to time or other concerns. We’re staying in a gaming mood today, talking a little bit about game reviews and how they can or should be improved.
Last week, a friend of mine was a bit disappointed and quite discouraged by some reviews he’d seen about a particular DS title. The criticism in question focused around what was perceived as weak writing and a generally overcliched storyline. Now, it’s perfectly reasonable to assume that my friend was upset because he was a fanboy and had some unnatural and improper attachment to the game; but, of course, you’d be completely and totally wrong in this case… Read the rest of this entry »
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08.20.07
Posted in Essay Week, Gaming, Rants, Writing
at 7:21 am
Essay Week 2007 runs from August 20 to August 24, 2007. Each day I’ll present a short essay on a topic of concern to me; as you may already have noticed, though, I have the option of including a pre-essay post giving updates on ongoing life events if necessary. Some of the elements in these essays may be controversial; I hope, however, that most will be well-regarded and at least read with an open mind. If you have anything to say about them, please feel free to leave a comment; I read them all, even if I may not respond due to time or other concerns. I start off, then, with a somewhat lighter in tone essay on the recent announcement of D&D Fourth Edition.
Last week, Wizards of the Coast announced the May 2008 release of the D&D Player’s Handbook, Fourth Edition. As has been stated in numerous other sources, this is the first new reboot of the core rules in eight years, but WotC is emphasizing that it’s an “evolutionary, not revolutionary” change. While it’s not exactly been something I do often or talk about terribly frequently, I have been known to get polyhedral on occasion; as such, I’m still kind of conflicted about this.
Read the rest of this entry »
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