An Appropriate Metaphor: Aviation Nation 2025
While standing on the flight line waiting for the Thunderbirds to start, a piece of paper got loose in the wind near the F-16’s. Too amazed to raise my camera, I watched three soldiers chase this flying manuscript until one of them deftly trapped it between his boot and the ground, then bent over to pick it up. High-ranking soldiers in front of over $250 million worth of aircraft, and they’re getting baffled by parchment in a breeze. This was an excellent metaphor for this amazing shit-show of an event which itself was a great metaphor for the state of the USA.
The day’s misfortune started with our own misunderstanding. I was tagging along with my buddy Marcelo, who came to town primarily for this event (that’s him in the middle with the big Canon lens). I asked him if he wanted to show up early, but after a couple late nights in Vegas he said he wanted to sleep in a little. That was fine with me–he’s the plane nerd; I was just there for fun.
(more…)Every PS1 Game – Nightmare Creatures
“Dark Souls from the 90’s” was something I’d heard about Nightmare Creatures before deciding to dig it out of my library recently. I’ve had this game for over 20 years, but I have no recollection of ever playing it. But recently–and you may have noticed this just by reading this site–I’ve been into 3rd person adventure games on the PS1, and Nightmare Creatures is a notable example of that genre. With the comparison to the notoriously hard FromSoftware series providing a bit of intimidation, I finally gave it a shot.
Right from the start, the lush graphics are impressive, especially considering this game is from 1997. The game case says it’s compatible with the analog joystick (SCPH-1110, the one that looks like a dual flight stick), but it does actually work with the analog controller.
(more…)Fastest in the Nation?
Even with the advent of social media, I still subscribe to some email newsletters. Every week, one of those emails comes from the suspiciously named “Kerrie Speed” and the SCCA. The Sports Car Club of America, to call it by its official name, is a sanctioning body for both amateur and professional motorsports, and they put on more motorsports events than any sanctioning body in the world: over 2,000 events per year, by their count. Recently, the SCCA newsletter alerted me to a Time Attack event in my area, and it was my favorite type of event they sanction: a National-level amateur event. I love to see people like myself out there taking their hobbies to the highest level. And since I had never attended a Time Attack event, I knew I had to see this one.
This was only my second time attending a National-level SCCA event; the first time was a few years ago where I attended a round of the “Solo National Tour”, which is a series of autocross events that leads up to the autocross (which they call ProSolo) National Championships held in Lincoln, Nebraska. I was super impressed by what I saw back then: it was a huge event with tons of cars in every class, and quite a few epic builds.
(more…)Every PS1 Game – ペルソナ2 罪 aka Persona 2: Innocent Sin
As I laid out in my post about the first Persona game, the main reason I started exploring this series was because I heard about Persona 5 and decided to explore the entire series before jumping into the latest installment. I enjoyed Persona 1 much more than I expected, and even before the credits rolled for that game I was looking forward to seeing what the Persona 2 duology would bring.
Duology? Yep, there are actually two games that make up “Persona 2”, released in 1999 and 2000. For various reasons, the US market wouldn’t receive part 1 until a PSP version was released in 2011. But this website is focused on the PS1 of course, so I’ll be looking at the fan-translated PS1 version in this post.
In Japan this game has two names: ペルソナ2 罪, or Persona 2 Tsumi, where “tsumi” translates to crime or sin. The game artwork and game itself also list its name as Persona 2: Innocent Sin, so there is little debate over the actual name of this game, unlike the first game which was called Megami Ibunroku Persona in Japan and Revelations: Persona in the USA.
(more…)
Star Road 