Seeing the recent Tetsujin 28go anime is ace in and of itself, but seeing this is making me all kinds of excitable. Suddenly I feel like playing my copy of Robot alchemic drive..

Had dinner last night with wee miss Penda at our favourite Japanese restaurant, as is our tradition once every month. Well, for the most part, it’s every month. As we usually end up talking about our respective Blogs, their fanbases (hers) and enormous pauses in regular updates (mine), she hepped me to a few interesting sites. Actually, I can probably say that any blog-related enhancement site I find out because of her, so really, you have her to thank/blame for the passel of microbanners down at the bottom of the lefthand sidebar. Those little bastards are ace! They remind me of those tiny medal bar things found on generals’ jackets. I need to sign up for more stuff, so I can implement more microbanners!..
She also hepped me to this rather sexy pic of Catherine Zeta-Jones as a Gynoid, but as that has nothing to do with us discussing our Blogs, I will not speak of it..

And yes, it’s that time of the month again! This week’s batch is probably the least worksafe, so don’t say I dinna warn you. Nevertheless, I’m sure you’ll find something that’ll catch your fancy..

Don’t all rush for what used to be here all at once, now. (4.18 MB)

You are 80% Scorpio

I only scored eighty percent?? Ahem. Clearly there’s been some mistake…
And as the original graphic has long since disappeared from Teh Intersnet — apart from the fact that it was actually clip art of a lobster, and not a scorpion — I’ve replaced it with something more fitting

Dear so-called ‘hardcore’ gamers that think that cheat codes are for ‘pussies’: Fuck you. I love cheat codes. I heartily approve of cheat codes. All videogames need cheat codes. I look at it this way: If I pay $50 for a game, I want to be able to enjoy it as much as I can, in order to get the most for my dollar. That means unlocking every mission, getting every weapon, acquiring all outfits, rolling up every object, etc; or, at the very least, the ability to squeeze a lot of enjoyable replay out of it. Sometimes — not all the time, but sometimes — I require a little extra help to reach that goal of Game Satisfaction, and if that help comes in the form of a cheat code, then so be it.

At the time of this writing, I own thirty PS2 games, two PC games (American McGee’s Alice and No one lives forever), between ten and twelve PSX games, and my beloved copy of Tekki/Steel battalion. Concentrating on the PS2 games, out of thirty of those, I’ve finished about twenty-one. ‘Finished’, in my definition, means seeing the ending credits. Now, as all gamers know, just because you’ve seen the credits roll doesn’t mean that’s it for the game — that’s why I say ‘finished’, and not ‘completed’, as there may be items to obtain, or extra areas to clear or what have you, that I’ve not accomplished yet. My tally of completed PS2 games is about four. That’s not something I’m entirely proud of.
SoulCalibur 2, for instance, has a clock feature that enables you to see, in real-time, how many hours you’ve logged in on that game; mine reads somewhere around fifty hours, and I still have yet to unlock Lizardman, and I’m missing a bunch of art cards & weapons. GunGriffon Blaze, the second game I ever bought for my system back in 2001, remains two stages away from completion. And I still haven’t gotten all the feckin’ compasses in Disaster report, and I’ve finished the game three times. I’ve clocked hundreds of hours with these games, but despite that, Total Completion continues to elude me.

Don’t get me wrong; it’s not as if I view these games as a chore to play, otherwise I’d have sold them a long time ago. I’ll still fire up my older games every now and again, and play them for hours on end. So why bother with cheat codes, you say? Well, just because I’m still playing these games doesn’t necessarily mean I’ve gotten any further on some of them — I’m content to play the opened/finished stages over and over again. But if I keep hitting a dead end where I can’t progress past this or that level, to me that means I’ve not gotten my full money’s worth. If I had the kind of free time where I could afford to spend six hours every day of the week attempting to take out Nine breaker, that’d be great, but I have other things I have to do. But I won’t feel fulfilled if I don’t see what else there is of the game past Nine breaker’s demise, or whatever.
Good example: I paid $150 for my copy of Tekki/Steel battalion. (yes, one hundred and fifty US dollars.) The game contains 23 missions total. I’ve finished five. Did I get my money’s worth there? I mean, I love playing the game, as it’s fun as hell, but I’d like to at least finish the initial 12 stages..

So, yeah! Cheat codes are the solution. And no, I don’t entertain any thoughts such as ‘if you use cheats, there’s no challenge’. Bullshit. BloodRayne 1 and 2 have built-in cheat codes, and even with them in use, they’re still difficult games. You can still very easily get killed in Way of the samurai even if you use the ‘Restore life’ cheat. And don’t even talk to me about Grand theft auto.
So I have absolutely no qualms about using cheat codes in difficult areas, and as far as those games that really don’t have any helpful codes to speak of, I’ll be investing in a GameShark sometime later this month. It’s not as if I’ll stop playing my collection once I have Everything, but having Everything will definitely increase the enjoyment of my games

No, no-one’s killed me; I just haven’t had anything worth writing about happen to me lately.
*thinking hard* Err.. I catsat for Monti, played Halo 2 from start to finish over at Mike’s (and I really have no desire to play it again), and my back gradually got better — it’s still a bit sore sometimes, but it’s a lot better than it was. O, and I picked up all of the Tekki/Steel battalion figures over at MediaPlay for $7 a pop. So there you go.

Right; well, the link to the second set of wallpapers was
right here, but now it merely isn’t. (3.47 MB)

A couple of years ago, my first ex-roommate Steve & I were sitting around in the livingroom of our townhouse, discussing something or other, and somehow the subject of Androids & Gynoids came up. (With me in the room? The devil you say!) ‘Wouldn’t it be ace if you could put your brain in the body of an Android?’ I remarked. ‘You wouldn’t have to worry about getting sick, or having to eat, or getting old, or at least a dozen other things!’ Steve, in a shining moment of hyper-lucidity, replied, ‘Yeah, but I’d rather put my brain in a Gynoid’s body. Think about it.’ OMIGOD YES, YES, A THOUSAND TIMES YES. I would probably never leave the house. *big pervy grin*

Yesterday my parents & I were ransacking the house for disposable items, as today is Bulk Garbage Day for our neighbourhood, and my father decided he wanted to finally get rid of the stove-converted-from-an-oil-barrel that had been sitting inactive in the basement for at least a decade. So, believing I had nothing better to do with my time, he handed me a bucket and a garden trowel, and told me to empty the ash from the stove into that, so we could haul it out. After using a larger implement, like, y’know, a fucking shovel, he decides that it’s light enough to haul it out. I had maybe left about two-thirds of the ash in there, as it was so sedentary over the years, that it had become compacted and dense. Nevertheless, out it was going. Everything was alright until we headed out the door, and that’s when I felt a rather sharp pain in my lower back. I don’t think either one of my parents had ever heard me curse to that extent, so it’s nice to know I could teach them something.
So last night, I went to bed at just before midnight, with a throbbing feeling in my back, and I called into work this morning, as Monday is our nine-hour day, and I wasn’t gonna put up with this shit while at work for nine hours. Yeah.
Now who do I grab by the lapels so I can get hooked up with a Gynoid body that resembles Alyson Hannigan? I DEMAND SATISFACTION!!

Right, back to bed wi’ me, I suppose

Okay, so in my mind, it’s Sunday. *shrugs*
So here’s the deal: I have here five .zip files containing 20 wallpapers each, covering typical Davecat subjects such as anime, videogames, tiny 60s cars, and other windows to my manias. (Don’t worry; there’s like only two RealDoll-related wallpapers — I save all of my Synthetiks pics for my screensaver. 😉 Most, if not all of them, are at 800×600, cos that’s what resolution I’m working with. Each .zip file will be up for a week, from Sunday to Saturday (except for this set, obviously), whereupon it’ll be replaced by the next file, and after five weeks, the files will disappear, never to be seen again by mortal man. Unless, of course, you’re immortal; in which case, well done.
CAVEAT: a couple of pics in there may be considered Not Safe for Work, but as I always say, it really depends on where you work! But be careful where you open those anyway..

Here’s where Set One used to be. (3.95 MB)

Enjoy!

That’s right; I’m finally up to 100 walls. I’ll start .zipping and posting probably this coming Sunday at the latest, but for now, I have to get to bed..

Ps.’No cities left’ by the Dears wipes me out nearly every time I listen to it.

Pps. I turned 32 last Sunday. Just so you know.