City Connection – I Stepped On the Cat

One of my favorite video game-related memories is playing City Connection and hearing my mother laugh when my in-game car would hit a cat, which would be sent flying diagonally off-screen. (The irony is that my mother has had at least one cat since before I was born and, along with my father, taught me to take good care of pets.) The expression on the cat’s face, combined with the comical music that played immediately after the collision, must have made an impression on her because she’s asked about “that game with the cat flying across the screen” on more than one occasion.

While reading Wikipedia today, I learned more about that classic scene:

Other enemies include a cat, which, when hit, causes the player to lose an extra life as the cat goes diagonally off the screen (but does not cause the car to “explode”) with ‘Der Flohwalzer’ played as a comical music (this famous music piece is know in Japan as ‘Neko funjatta’ (I Stepped on the Cat)).

Source: City Connection – Wikipedia

As a tribute to the video games I played during my childhood and to my mother, I’ve recorded in-game footage of City Connection for my first “official” gameplay video. Click past the break to view the short video.

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Homebrewinstaller and Wii Homebrew Installer are scams

Never pay for homebrew.

Homebrewinstaller ($29.95) and Wii Homebrew Installer ($15) charge money for files and information available for free on other sites. Both of these web sites are scams. For information on free Wii homebrew, I recommend visiting WiiBrew or HackMii.

For those who are unfamiliar with Wii homebrew: It is not equivalent to piracy. The purpose of many homebrew applications is to extend the functionality of hardware past the limits of official software. For example: The homebrew application NuGaSa allows Wii owners to backup and restore Gamecube save files from an SD card.

The owners of WiiBrew, HackMii, and Brainstorm Warning do not condone piracy.

I have blocked all Google AdSense ads relating to Homebrewinstaller. If you see any ads attempting to charge money for homebrew files, please post a comment or use the site Contact form to let me know and I will block the ads as soon as possible.

Female figure in new Zelda art a living sword?

There’s conjecture among Joystiq readers that the female figure in the Zelda art released earlier today. The folks at 4 color rebellion seem to think the same and offer this evidence.

To a Western audience, the thought of a living sword likely sounds a bit odd. But several Eastern myths tell stories of the spirits of warriors inhabiting legendary swords. (Chrono Trigger players will remember the Masamune, a legendary sword inhabited by the spirits of two powerful creatures with the ability to merge.) It’s less common to find a story where a female spirit inhabits a sword, but given the Zelda series’ affinity for androgynous characters, it’s not surprising.

With Nintendo revealing Metroid: Other M as a “new, edgier” take on the Metroid universe, it’s reasonable to think Nintendo may be ready to take a risk and give the world a more mature (though very unlikely M-rated) Zelda title.

On mastery of the English language and the expression of love

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

-William Shakespeare, Sonnet 18

I love you like a fat kid loves cake.

-50 Cent, 21 Questions

Short story submitted to three prestigious literary journals

HUZZAH!

I just finished submitting one of my short stories to three prestigious literary journals.

I’ll probably spend an hour or so tomorrow planning out the second wave of submissions so I can be better prepared for the rejection letter if and (most likely) when they arrive. At the least, if I have a plan in place, there won’t be as much time to dwell on the sting of having a story rejected.

Have no fear; I’m not basing my personal assessment of my writing skills exclusively on whether or not three of the top literary journals in America reject my story. Of course, if the story is accepted in any of the three journals linked above, it will do wonders for my confidence in my writing skills (and serve as cause for joyous celebration).

Excerpt from Section 137, On Different Points of View

From The Miscellany of a Japanese Priest (Being a Translation of Tsure-zure Gusa):

All this medley of beauty and magnificence coming and going allows me little time to look at (the procession itself). But at sundown where have all the lines of carriages and ranks of people gone to? In a moment hardly any are left. The rattle of carriages is heard no more, the blinds and the mats are all cleared away, and while I watch nothing is left save solitude, reminding me touchingly of life itself. Truly indeed to watch the high road is as good as looking at a procession.

Wii Homebrew Browser “Unable to initialize network” error solution

If you are receiving the “Unable to initialize network” error when launching the Homebrew Browser application from the Homebrew Channel, press the Home key to return to the Homebrew Channel, wait for the globe icon in the lower-right corner of the screen to stop blinking and remain solid, and launch the Homebrew Browser again.

The globe icon in the Homebrew Channel indicates the network connection status. If the icon is blinking, the Wii is still trying to establish a network connection. If the icon is lit and solid, the Wii has established a network connection.

If the globe icon continues blinking after 30 seconds or if it is grayed out, check your Wii’s network connection settings.

Postcard from 1956 discovered in book sale purchase

I recently purchased a copy of The World’s Great Letters at a local book sale for $1.50. The book was published in 1940 and contains the text of letters written by:

  • Alexander the Great
  • Saint Jerome
  • Christopher Columbus
  • Leonardo da Vinci
  • Michaelangelo
  • Henry VIII
  • Benjamin Franklin
  • Thomas Jefferson
  • George Washington
  • Thomas Paine
  • Napoleon Bonaparte
  • Ludwig van Beethoven
  • Percy Bysshe Shelley
  • John Keats
  • Robert Browning
  • Edgar Allen Poe
  • Dostoevsky
  • Charles Dickens
  • Abraham Lincoln
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • Emily Dickinson
  • Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
  • William Randolph Hearst
  • Mark Twain
  • George Bernard Shaw
  • Lenin

As if purchasing a collection of such letters for $1.50 were not already a bargain, I found a postcard advertising The Sporting News. The text of the postcard reads as follows:

DON’T MISS THIS!

You can have the next TWELVE BIG ISSUES of The Sporting News for only $2.00.

You will receive coverage of all developments in all pennant races in the minors as well as the majors, including World’s Series Games. Mailed direct to your home or office for just $2.00.

Send remittance within five days and receive THIRTEEN issues instead of TWELVE.

C.C. Spink & Son

2018 Washington Ave.

St. Louis 3, Mo.

Click past the break for scans of the postcard.

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Japanese voice cast for Persona 3 FES

Main Character: Akira ISHIDA

Yukari Takeba: Megumi TOYOGUCHI

Junpei Iori: Kousuke TORIUMI

Mitsuru Kirijo: Rie TANAKA

Akihiko Sanada: Hikaru MIDORIKAWA

Aegis: Maaya SAKAMOTO

Ken Amada: Megumi OGATA

Shinjiro Aragaki: Kazuya NAKAI

Fuuka Yamagishi: Mamiko NOTO

Takaya Sakaki: Nobutoshi CANNA

Jin Shirato: Masaya ONOSAKA

Chidori Yoshino: Miyuki SAWASHIRO

Pharos: Akira ISHIDA

Shuji Ikutsuki: Hideyuki HORI

Igor: Isamu TANONAKA

Elizabeth: Miyuki SAWASHIRO

Kurosawa: Hirofumi TANAKA

Takeharu Kirijo: Kouji TOTANI

Eiichiro Takeba: Masashi HAMANO

Ryoji Mochizuki: Akira ISHIDA

Natsuki Moriyama: Yuka KOMATSU

Metis: Chiwa SAITO