curiousities - the Jurassic Park 3 Dino Dex

okay, so there was a tiny little bit of a delay as far as updates go on here, but that's what happens when you got a old virtual machine set up and you goof around with it for a while. for now, have something a bit different.

one of the things i've been taught as a kid is what decisions to make, and sometimes those decisions are really hard. as we grow in age, we also begin to outgrow the toys we liked in our younger years, which leads to one of the hardest choices we have to make. do we give our old playthings to a new generation of kids for them to enjoy? or do we keep them as mementos of a time long gone?

for me, i went the middle road of "keep and actually still use to a degree since i've resigned to the idea that i'm still a kid at heart and enjoy kid things despite being in my twenties".

long name for that road, but hey. first time reviewing a toy on here. and for that first time, i'll be reviewing a Jurassic Park toy. :"D

i'll be honest, i never watched Jurassic Park as a kid, let alone the third film. then again i've heard less than favorable things about the third film so it's probably for the best. despite that, i was familiar with the Jurassic Park brand, half because it was one of those series of the 90s that most kids were familiar with due to being plastered everywhere, and half because i really liked dinosaurs.

never did own much of the toys or anything that came out of it, but i did own a few demo CDs from cereal boxes, and the Jurassic Park 3 Dino Dex.

the bare dex itself (img courtesy of the Museum of Play), my sticker-covered dex, and the open dex

manufactured in 2001 by Tiger Electronics and Hasbro, the Dino Dex was pretty much John Hammond's response to the Pokedex. this five-inch-tall handheld not only served as a comprehensive (if outdated) database on over 50 dinosaurs, but also a planner, notepad, and calculator. it also had two games that were enough to keep kids occupied for a while.

while nowadays pretty much all of those functions can be covered by stuff like Androids and iPhones, for the early 00s, this was a pretty nifty device for kids. it was a PDA built for kids and younger dino fans, and was a cheap alternative to more expensive PDA devices at the time, and pretty sturdy for what it's worth. kinda surprised mine still works after 15 years, even if i had to get my dad to replace a rusted battery coil in it recently. and the fact that mine's covered in dino stickers that are well over several years old.

anyhow, let's give this thing a more indepth look, shall we?

to 1998 and beyond (and back again)

so i finally took a chunk of time out of my life to set up a virtual machine for windows 98.

downloaded Oracle VM Virtualbox for this purpose some time ago last year, but i haven't gotten around to actually setting up a digital Win98 on it till yesterday. mostly did it because there were some old games i wanted to run on it that i can't on a Win7, but i've got a bit of nostalgia for the system, too.

up until 2013, i've had a Win98 in my old bedroom as a work computer of sorts. 'course, i did play games on it and such, but i mostly used it as a platform for browsing the internet, talking with friends via MSN, and the occassional Wordpad drabbles and MSPaint scribbles. even in the years prior to that, most of my time was spent on the old win98 in my dad's old room, which is also currently my new bedroom. funny how these things work.

of course my history with the win98 stretches to even way before that time to when i was a kid, but my memory's foggy on that period outside of all the Jumpstart and Reader Rabbit games i played. in my current age, i stick with my trusty Win7 since there's a wider pantheon of games and emulators i can run on it, but nowadays i've been dabbling in the technical aspects of old OSes. stuff like what older systems could achieve with their technical limitations; it's part of the reason why i have an interest in tech demos and scene demos.

granted, i set up a virtual win98 almost purely for the purpose of older games, but perhaps i'll be exploring some of the technical things behind that OS. i'm older and a bit more knowledgeable on those sorts of things, so maybe i'll know a bit of what i'm getting into, and maybe learn new things in the process.

for now, i'm gonna have some fun decking out this ol' thing.

so yeah, while this wasn't that big an update on mine or the site's end, it's a step in keeping the place frequently updated. plus since i have this set up now, maybe i'll get to reviewing some old win98 stuff at some point in the future.

if you wanna set up a virtual win98 of your own for retro gaming or whatever reason, go grab yourself a copy of Oracle VM Virtualbox and follow along this tutorial if it's your first time using the thing. you're on your own for the setup bootdisc, though. or any tutorials for getting other OSes running in it.

until then, hope you guys enjoyed this little retrospective of sorts. stay rad, everyone!

gen's daily life - the dream is real

so last night i managed to finish my collection of sixth-generation consoles: i finally now own a Dreamcast.

i did say i had the famous 6th-gen trinity of the PS2, classic Xbox, and Gamecube (via Wii's native GC emulation), but i've been meaning to get Sega's console swansong for quite some time. why? because it's got a solid library for its time, it's the very first console of the sixth generation prior to the PS2, and it still has a cult following and devoted modding fanbase to this day.

... okay, i mostly wanted one to play Power Stone 2 after playing it at Anime Boston last year. also Jet Set Radio. and i have a revision 1 console too, so i can run homebrews and bootleg stuff on it.

but yeah, gushing aside, it's a little interesting piece of gaming history and Sega's past in the console market. there's also a good deal of decent games for the system like Shenmue and Sonic Adventure, and they're pretty cheap at around 30-50 dollars depending on where you're looking. got mine for 35: 30 for the console/cords/controllers themselves, 5 for the VMU. if you want to run homebrew/bootleg games on it, make sure the revision number is either 0 or 1; revision 2 DCs won't run bootleg discs.

while i don't have any Dreamcast games yet, i'm planning on doing some reviews of some in the future, so that's something to expect.

meanwhile, i think i'm done with console collecting for a while. a probably-10-years-long while.

probably good that i don't have any incentive to get a PS3 or PS4 or Xbox One or whatever

MAKAIPUNK - building a netherworld travel diary

so first week of the new year went pretty well so far. managed to grab a couple obscure ps2 games, been working on getting my sleep schedule back on track, been helping out with quest writeups and design for that WoW private server i mentioned in my last non-jukebox post, and even got back to practicing my hand at pencil drawing. alongside a variety of other things. one of which was getting a cold last week and having to suffer through that.

been cleaning up a bit of my room a while back; my drawers and cabinets, mainly. stumbled upon a handful of drawing pads and various notebooks i had shoved in there when i moved into my new bedroom. they're a bit worn with age, but a majority of the pages of them are unmarked, so i'll use them for drawing instead of using a lot of printer paper for it.

the book before and after the new cover. art by airana@DA

that aside, stumbled upon a hardcover notebook with the title of "Forum for Excellence" and "The Warren Conference Center 2002" on it. so yeah, seemed pretty old, but the pages were all in perfect condition, oddly enough. from what my dad told me, he got it at a meeting way back when but never seemed to had used it. as for why i shoved it in my own cabinets when i got my own room... okay, to be honest, i'm not even sure why i had it there to begin with.

so now that i've rediscovered this little gem, i figured i'd make use of it and get started on a project i've been meaning to do for a while: making a "journal" of sorts centered around the world of Nippon Ichi Studio's Disgaea game series.

might seem like an odd project to write about on here, but it's been a while since i did a MAKAIPUNK thing anyway, so have a bit of a warmup on my end before i get back to bigger things. like hopefully chapter 3 of the Disgaea 1 manga readthrough thing. or maybe some game reviews or something. i don't know.

jukebox - Winterstorm (Machinae Supremacy)

bit of a belated new years post, but considering how hectic last month was, i'm still trying to get my bearings back. luckily it's going well. hopefully might start working on something for this place soon.

what's this? a jokebox post that isn't strictly video game music? unheard of. or maybe heard of now. audio jokes.

haven't heard of these guys until recently when i was talking demoscene stuff with a friend. Machinae Supremacy is a pretty fab indie band that mixes rockin' metal chords with squarewave and synthisized sounds that one might hear on a NES or Amiga or what have you. they've done music for the games Jets'n'Guns and Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams, and have even performed live at The Assembly demoscene event in Finland!

so yeah, if you don't mind game synth in your metal, you should probably check them out. c:

gen's daily life - no promises, no bets

so uh, kind of remembered something from last year, and... well, remember when i posted some new-year's-resolution-type things last December?

well, uh, looking back at it, seems i only got a tiny bit of those supposed goals done. did review another steam game a while back (said game being Undertale, of course), did get one chapter of the Disgaea manga readthrough up this year even though i haven't mustered up the motivation to snap shots of the other pages after chapter 2, did do a musing writeup on Hearthstone which i guess would classify as Warcraft-based things...

but yeah, outside of those three and probably some others i forgot, i haven't gotten too much done in terms of living up to any of those resolutions. i guess this is what happens when i expect too much out of myself despite the fact that it's hard for me to really get into writing about things.

well, i did a few other miscellaneous writeups like the BKPC review and my Anime Boston experience over the first half of the year, and then things just... kinda slowed down exponentially. i know i should stop excusing myself for leaving drafts unfinished and generally slacking on here, and the whole "i've been busy" excuse gets really old after a certain point, but that genuinely has been the case for the latter half of the year.

around summertime i got a PSP as an early birthday gift, so i spent most of my time customizing it and tinkering with homebrew things on it. pretty much got well over 2500 games slapped onto it as well, even if most of them are emulated retro titles. mostly spent autumn wrapping up things with the PSP and (admittedly) struggling to keep the site updated with actual content. eeeeeven if the only substantial things during that time were the Undertale review and a little writeup on my thoughts on the upcoming Disgaea PC.

also was considering doing a liveblog playthrough of Soul Nomad on here, though i haven't started it up yet. or touched any of my consoles in a while, for that matter.

with the holidays just around the corner, life's just gotten more busy for me. got a scanner/printer so i'm now able to get back to traditional pencil drawings, and i've been spending most of my time talking with my friends and getting gifts ready for them. i've also been frequenting another WoW private server and doing things on there, to the point where the admin asked me if i'd like to be part of the staff. so now i've been answering player tickets and shaping up my SQL knowledge so i can help with database stuff.

it's been a busy year in general, to the point where i've p much realized how much i haven't been living up to the goals i set for myself last year. this site is mostly a personal sort of endeavor, so compared to things like... idk, i guess completing video games, working on drawings, and finishing roleplays with my friends, it hasn't really been a major priority for me. i dunno if it's because of the lack of too many visitors on here or my own lack of motivation, but i'd have to say it's the latter, honestly; i haven't been doing too much vidya/drawing/rping this year either.

at the very least, one thing i'm p happy about getting done this year is expanding my video game collection and talking with my friends more. got the famous 6th-gen trio that is the PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube (Wii, but it can run GC games, so), and i've even made a few new friends and started hanging out more with some older pals. plus with learning about SQL, i might get into learning some other programming languages as well in the coming year.

so while i haven't been able to do a lot of stuff i've been hoping to do and keep the site updated like i promised, i don't think this year's been a complete waste. especially with how well this month has went so far. c:

as far as new year resolutions go, i'm just going to focus on getting last year's actually done over the span of the next year. as well as generally just improving my skills in what i know. hopefully i can get at least half of the unfinished drafts done at some point.

not that i can 100% guarantee it, but it's a step up in keeping this place active, at least.

anyhow, have a wonderful holiday this week, and thank you for sticking around for so long despite the lack of activity here on KKGS. <3

card games by a mage's candlelight - gen returns to hearthstone

honestly was considering penning this under the "gen's thoughts" title, but this falls under more freeform musing than rambling about my opinions and thoughts on things. i don't know why i need to stick nearly everything under specific categories; it's not like this site even follows a specific trend or theme to the things i write about. :y

at the start of the month, i've gotten myself back into playing Hearthstone, a digital collectible card game spinoff of the Warcraft series. which is also free for windows/mac and iphones and tablets if you wanna try it out. the microtransaction/free-to-play stuff is pretty fair, too. buy packs and adventure parts with either money or earned ingame gold which is fairly easy to get.

i initially got into Hearthstone around April or March of 2014 when the game was released to the public. played it for a while, got a few card packs out of it, and got a nifty pandaren-themed card back from ranked play. while i did enjoy it, i soon retired from HS for greener pastures, which naturally meant i missed out on a lot of cool card backs from the following months up to now. ah well. such is how life goes, i guess.

wasn't to say i wasn't interested in coming back to the game at some point in the future. my younger brother still plays Hearthstone as of this writing, and of course i had a ton of fun just watching him blow opponents to dust with cheeky tactics. just didn't have the proper incentive to actually play the game again myself. which, knowing me, that incentive most likely involved either more variety to cards, more cosmetic stuff, more content, or tauren. preferably tauren.

'course, we got new card set expansions and adventures and new modes, and i even followed the official Hearthstone twitter, but i wasn't coaxed into coming back until my brother let me know about the latest shaman-themed card back for the current ranked season.

as someone who played shaman in both Hearthstone and World of Warcraft, that was what got me back into the game. got myself to rank 20 now so i'm guaranteed to get the card back after this month, but now i've found myself enjoying the game even more; not solely because of the new cards and content (tavern brawl is fun as hell, i should mention!), but for more poignant reasons. not really the sappy kind of poignant, just stuff that just kinda draws me into the game in a different aspect.