Hmmmm... Since the last rambling....

During the past few days, I watched all the episodes of Angel Season 2. Outstanding television programming. Made especially enjoyable because when the episodes from Season 2 initially aired, I missed many of them; approximately half, I'd guess. (Various other things happening in my life at the time, and I didn't have easy access to a VCR.) So while I had a rough familiarity of the story sketched together from the pieces, I had never experienced the complete season arc.

I especially enjoyed the episodes which explored the history of the Angelus/Darla/Drusilla characters through centuries past, interweaving their origins with the present day plots; not through explicit flashbacks or anything so immediately direct (except, perhaps, some of Angel's dreams), but just a snippet of ancient, long lost times to open the occassional act before returning to current events. Lovely narrative.

And the anamorphic widescreen transfer -- doubleplus good. Makes me feel like I'm watching a freakin 16 hour long movie.

The Xena Season 2 set -- Well, I've only watched the first disc so far. The content is classic. No surprise there.

But the transfer? Again, somewhat disappointing. Part of the cause could simply be the age of the material. Yes, it seems strange that there would be a noticable difference in shows filmed less than 10 years ago, but there does seem to be a fairly routine difference between DVD's of stuff from the past couple years, and older sets from earlier in the 90s -- Early X Files, B5, Xena -- the picture quality on all of these is noticably poorer. Unfortunately, so far, both of the Xena sets to emerge seem to be near the bottom of that scale, even considering the time period. Nuts.

Saturday. During the day, a visit with $mentor[0]. I gave some free tech support and consultation, and got a free meal. (Maybe I should wear that sign around my neck. "Will give computer assistance for food.") We went for a hike, and were joined by my mom.

$mentor[0] had other obligations at the end of the afternoon, so the visit was truncated to shorter than usual. But this ended up working better anyway, since I then remembered something about an email Jaeger had sent out earlier in the week regarding a gathering at his place Saturday night. The exact time, nor even the certainty of the gathering, had not been clearly defined in the email. But shortly after I sat down at Argo, I recieved a talk message from Jaeger inviting me over.

On the way, I stopped at the Temptation Zone, and contemplated possible gift options. This time around, I decided to go the route of the ever-useful but sometimes generic gift card. Motivated primarily by 2 factors, 1) I was in a hurry, 2) Last time I tried to buy him a movie, it turned out that he alreday had a different edition of the same thing -- though I have a general familiarity with the Jaeger/Kiesa collection, I am not always immediately aware of new additions. Gift Card = Safe Option. And nobody knows what $individual wants better than $individual.

When I arrived at the Jaeger / Kiesa residence, as I parked, another car pulled up and parked in a directly adjacent spot. I looked over briefly was slightly surprised to see the familiar faces of scottgalvin.com and his girlfriend. After I signed the gift card, we entered simultaniously, comparing the pieces of venue-limited pseudo-currency we planned to present as gifts.

Zan Lynx, along with the rest of Jaeger's immediate family were already present. We ate popcorn and drank sparkling punch out of china bowls and fancy wine glasses. The contrast between the formal dinnerware and mostly finger food being consumed using it was utterly hilarious. (I guess they needed some excuse to make use of all those wedding presents.)

After Jaeger opened his presents, everyone got up broke into smaller sub-groups for conversation. Some people started watching Gattaca (Superbit edition), one of the presents Jaeger had receieved. Zan Lynx and I discussed our latest GameCube acquisitions. Of the two notable titles which came out a couple weeks ago -- Soul Calibur 2 and F-Zero GX -- he had bought one, and I, the other. We decided it would be a good idea to get together sometime soon and play them together. I said, "How does tomorrow sound?" He replied in the affirmative.

After hanging out for a few more minutes, the Jaeger birthday gathering concluded. I observed that the apartment had, in this instance, acted as a FIFO structure. All guests left in the same order they had arrived. How very orderly.

Today, I journied to the Flagstaff Compound, bringing with me a few Cube accessories and games. We played Soul Calibur 2 first. Zan Lynx had obtained a massive semi-hard cover Soul Calibur 2 strategy book detailing all the characters and their special moves, with several reference pages for each. Daunting.

However, I found it fairly easy to pick up the basics, and learn a few special moves of some of the fighters. After I had had a chance to practice a few moves, we played a bunch of duels. As well as having outstanding graphics, I found the play controls, while intuitive, to have a great depth of which we barely scratched the surface. While it's certainly possible for two novices like us to sit down and "fight" by jamming on random buttons as quickly as possible, a skilled player who is familiar with the nuances of the different fighters, their moves, and what counters what could get much farther. Toward the end of the day, I started to become a bit better at combinations and blocking timing. But I could envision many, many, many hours being spent learning to become a true master.

We played some F-Zero. After last week's glowing review of the game, I guess I've now found a downside. The multiplayer features are... less than stellar. Though there is a VS mode which allows up to 4 players to compete, I couldn't find any way to assign a real handicap (other than "on", which makes the winning player start a few meters behind at the beginning of the next race). I wanted a way to give a head start of $n seconds when players are vastly different skill levels.

Also, there seems to be no way to make it let the last player finish the race. A few seconds after the first person crosses the finish line, the race is terminated, and the second player is "disqualified". No fun, especially when somebody is working on learning the basic mechanics of the track.

Third, I'd like a multi-player Grand Prix style mode, so you can go through an entire series of courses in a structured competition.

In short: Add all the multi-player features of Mario Kart to the F-Zero game engine. That's what I want.

Despite these short-comings, we had some fun races. I picked a non-optimal car and gave it some crazy acceleration settings as a sort of pseudo-handicap. Zan Lynx played a Grand Prix in the Ruby Cup, and I played the Diamond Cup so he could see a few of the crazier courses. (Until I crashed out on the second one, and Game Over.)

We played some more Soul Calibur 2, and I actually managed to find a character with which I could beat Zan Lynx in several successive games. (Mine: A quick little chick with lots of snippy short range attacks. His: A big slow hulking giant with an ax, but when he hits, it hurts.)

With both of us pretty much Nintendoed out, we decided to call it an afternoon. I said I was thinking about heading back to town and eating Q'Doba. Upon hearing mention of the favored burrito spot, Zan Lynx decided to join me. We drove down the mountain in separate cars, ate burritos, and discussed various happenings before parting.

Tobias was in desperate need of a bath. It's been over a month. So I took a detour to the favored car wash and sprayed all the bird shit off the hood.

There is now another subject which merits discussion. But I think I'll make a separate rambling for it.