Today's track listing (1/12/09)

1. Azymuth - Voo Sobre O Horizonte (3:47)
2. Stars As Eyes - You're Awesome (3:44)
3. Ituana - You Can't Always Get What You Want (4:06)
4. Pearl Jam - Yellow Ledbetter (5:03)
5. Radiohead - No surprise (3:43)
6. Cibo Matto - Working for Vacation (3:15)
7. Yuri Misumi - The Wonderful Star's Walk Is Wonderful (3:12)
8. Aoi "Ed" Toda - Wo Qui Non Coin (3:43)
9. Afu-Ra & Gentleman - Why Cry (instrumental) (4:34)
10. Telefon Tel Aviv - When It Happens It Moves All By Itself (3:28)
11. The Real Tuesday Weld - The ugly and the beautiful (3:03)
12. Telefon Tel Aviv - TTV (3:33)
13. Smashing Pumpkins - Try, Try, Try (5:09)
14. Kilburn - Trace Effect (6:33)
15. Seatbelts - Memory (1:31)

Hmmm, so marks the beginning of the first good evening, san francisco stream. It went off perfectly, aside from the fact that a mix-up in plug-ins caused the stream to randomly crash during Ituana's You Can't Always Get What You Want and Pearl Jam's Yellow Ledbetter.

Eh, that will be addressed at a later date.

It's pretty awesome.

California Speed was an okay game.

I only own a handful of games for the Nintendo 64. Nearly most of the games I played on the Nintendo 64 were rented from The Warehouse back when they did video rentals. That changed when a BlockBuster Video opened up nearby. While that Blockbuster may have been the best thing ever in the 90's and early 2000's, always carrying the latest and best games for the PlayStation, Dreamcast, PS2, and Xbox, it eventually fell from grace. The game selection today is horribly inadequate and disappointing. Anyways, back on topic.

I rented California Speed one day because it looked interesting. At that time, I totally didn't know it was just a California-flavored version of the Rush series. Recently, I've had a desire to play my old games since my big TV finally called it quits. For some reason, I really wanted to play California Speed. I never owned the game (...and in a way, I'm glad since I owned both San Francisco Rush and Rush 2, which were essentially the same thing as California Speed.) and I'm not really sure where my Nintendo 64 is, so I had to emulate it.

Since this blog is about Somewhere in SF, I thought that I should have some sort of relevancy and play the San Francisco track. What followed next was a nostalgiabomb from a game that I'd completely forgotten about, but in a way, still remembered.



Oh hey look, it's the Oakland Bay Bridge! I remember that I hated how the bridge consisted of two sections, the lower section and the higher section just like the REAL bridge. When I played, I would always fell below and I hated myself for it. TO THIS DAY I STILL DO.



Okay, now we are in Downtown San Francisco! Thanks to that sign totally telling me where I am, I though I would get lost driving along these linear tracks that head from the Oakland Bay Bridge straight into the Port of San Francisco! Thank you city planners of SF.



Look it's the Transamerica Pyramid! I always hated this section of the track. When driving, I would always go too fast and jumped the hill which caused me to crash straight into the Transamerica Pyramid. As you can tell, I still can't get it right, even after all these years.



All racing games from the 64-bit era that included San Francisco always had these Victorian-style homes somewhere in the track. Come to think of it, I never wondered what kinda people lived in those houses. I'd bet they were really fucking tall. Look at that door, Jesus!



All racing games from the 64-bit era that included San Francisco always featured the Golden Gate Bridge. Always.



The first time I played this track, I was all like "HELL YES YOU ARE THE BEST SAN FRANCISCO TRACK EVER" as I gleefully drove up on the railing of the Golden Gate Bridge, a task normally impossibly in real life, and beat all that traffic below. Fuck yes.



It's like some sort of roller coaster.



After the Golden Gate Bridge section, the track gets really boring, going straight into Golden Gate National Park, then into a generic version of San Rafael, and then into the train station, which somehow is connected to the street and leads me back to San Francisco.

I'm still glad I totally didn't waste my money on this game. :\

Somewhere in SF updates with: "Chapter Three"

A general rule of the thumb for Somewhere in SF is that every single chapter cover, or "splash" as some like to call it, has to pay homage to some promotional poster from a well known soap opera... be it current or long past. This chapter is no different, playing homage to a little soap called "The Hills" on the MTV network. (...which is a spin-off of Laguna Hills, and yes, before you ask, I own two seasons of the show, DON'T ASK WHY DAMN YOU.)



The first SF chapter took after The OC promotional poster, where the cast of The OC is relaxing upon a beautiful sunset beach. Our bastardization took the same poses as the ones in the promotional picture, replaced the beach with a poorly drawn SF skyline featuring a very ambiguous Transamerica Pyramid, and line scribble color.



Looking back, it's pretty awesome how much BigFish's art has evolved over the course of 9 months. Practice makes perfect, amirite?



The second SF chapter takes after the One Tree Hill's promotional poster, which, using split images, the main cast of One Tree Hill looks splendid. Our take on the chapter basically replaced all the original cast with the SF characters... such as Jenny, Natalie, Brandon, James, and Sara. This cover also reveals the names of the characters of SF.



Honestly, I didn't like this chapter cover too much. It felt like it was lacking something. Maybe stronger colors? I dunno.



The third SF chapter references The Hills TV soundtrack album cover. It features the cast of The Hills looking pretty, with a twilight Hollywood Hills in the background. Our slice at the cake replaces The Hills cast with the four main women of SF, Jenny, Natalie, Sara, and newcomer Lucy, set up against a twilight San Francisco Bay.



It's crazy, it's weird, it's awesome to be able to look back, to see the old chapter covers and realize how much both me and my lovely partner BigFish have improved art-wise. The chapter covers resemble some sort of time capsule, representing our best art at the time.

Also, I hate you, Spies.

I click over to our blog one day and I realized Myxo has re-done the layout and posted actual updates...also that this blog really has no connection whatsoever to our actual webcomic anymore. Now it's even more of a black hole that sucks up all our useless thoughts than it used to be. How about that?

I just drank two cups of coffee and two really weak drinks so I'm wide awake and dreading tomorrow but in the meanwhile, I thought I'd also contribute to the blog nobody reads. I'm guessing Myxo is getting much better at coding in general from all the C++ I am sure he is learning and whatnot so hey, our collective skillset is improving! Hopefully, all the writing I've been doing will eventually improve and I too can contribute in some sort of useless way. Nothing makes you babble like trying to think up things to put into a blog nobody reads. My life has been sucking lately, mostly because my job is less than awesome and I have had very little luck getting a better job and I've also come to the sad realization that it might be impossible for me to reach my goals directly...that I might have to take more detours than I want to and I'm not sure I'm ready to accept that yet.

I can't wait until I have enough work experience to be able to easily land jobs that I don't hate. Oh man, then I could focus on trying to improve the other areas of my life that suck...ie - lack of friends and boyfriend. You'd think the interest in video games alone would give me some kind of leg up, right? right? Nope. Nobody in video game marketing actually cares about video games, most of them enjoy sports and other outdoor activities. Nobody I meet at work and outside of work has any interest in video games either and nope, merely announcing that I enjoy playing video games does not automatically create a satisfying crowd of men for me to chose from. People need to get with the program and realize I am awesome then hire me/be my friend/date me. At least I'm not starving in Africa.

...ugh.

 

Holy crap do I hate you, C++.

It’s been countless, countless times where I slammed my hands on the desk, Edgeworth-style and cursed the heavens of the one who may or may not be up there. I’ve fought with it many times anew. Say I’d be adding some additional code, say, the addition of AudioEngine. I’d go, “Hey C++! Wouldn’t it be cool if you could make my little mishapped game play this super awesome sound?” …then C++, in a snobbish way, replies “…well, I see that you’ve placed that colon in the wrong place, jackass, so no.” and all I could reply with is “…you didn’t have to call me a jackass. :(” followed by my computer exploding for some unexplained reason that defies physics in all ways.

I swear once I get a good grip on the mechanics of C++ without having somebody hold my hand through it I will create a game based on Somewhere in SF… and then eventually scrap it since I'm way to lazy to actually follow up on that. Seriously.

...or, you never know. 

Hey, it's a full page update:

A Well Spoken Speech!

yaaay.

Somewhere in SF updates with a load of stuff:

"Jenny so Crazy!" - 1/03/08
"They All Need Watches" - 1/02/08
"Public Speaking" - 1/01/08
"Things Aren't Always What They Seem" - 12/16/07
"Stay Awesome, Stay Cool" - 12/15/07
"Continuity Be Damned" - 12/13/07
"Mr. Jacobs and Jenny's Stomach" 12/12/07
"Sara's Super Awesome Bed" - 12/11/07
"That Gardener (ButterSafe version)" - 10/12/07
"That Gardener That Looks Like Mario." - 9/12/07

Here's a return back to the blog that rarely anyone but myself reads and BigFish glances at.

Welcome back, nobody. It's been a fun break, not blogging about who knows what and what knows where, stuff about our daily lives and the very comic made by the two creators. Not a lot of things have been going on over here at the SF front, so, you missed nothing. Well, maybe Somewhere's first scathing review. (...awww, they grow up so fast, don't they?) and the fact that I got IP banned from the SF page.

See, that IP ban had a disastrous chain of events that lead to killing off all site views. Yup, where I once said no one visited the site, I was mearly joking. Now that I say it, I honestly mean it. That gives me a, well, a reason to get off my ass and finally buy some ad space on Project Wonderful or someway to shamelessly whore-out this comic. That or I could just sit back and not do anything. I'm perfectly content reading a comic that I make for my own sole enjoyment.

Hmmm, so I bought The Orange Box the day I came back, only to play Half Life 2: Episode Three. (Hey, Myxo! Why not just buy it for the PC on Steam? HEY WHY DON'T YOU STFU.) That means I now have 4 copies of Half-Life 2. Half Life 2 on the original Xbox, Half Life 2 on the PC, and Half Life 2 inside the Half-Life 1 Anthology I received as a gift.

Right now, I'm trying to complete the entire semi complete trilogy by play through Half-Life 2, then Half Life 2: Episode One, and then, Episode Three. Also, I suck at Team Fortress and Portal doesn't seem that challenging, not even all those Advance maps. (Though the least portals challenge still gets me every time, I miss the mouse and keyboard. :/)

At the airport in El Salvador, I bought a Coke for $0.40, I took it with me through out the whole terminal until the little x-ray thingies where you have to take off your shoes and send all your carry-on luggage through the machine to get exposed to radiation. The man told me to put my can of Coke into the machine and so I did. I really didn't want to drink it then. It's between my monitor and my speakers, unopened.

I call it Cancer in a Can. :/

Somewhere in SF magically updates with: "The Ugly and the Beautiful!"

Ugh, I fucking hate bushes.

I hate shading them in. It's always a long and complicated process that never comes out exactly like I planned. It requires constant shading and reshading only to end up deleting it since it never comes out right. I think I'll try to find a way to not draw them anymore. Possibly the rain will start up again, thus making Natalie go back in? Oh, dear. I really hope so. I really do. On a side note: there is no side note.

Also, it's time for me to post some pictures. Let's call it Myxo Takes Pictures of Things That Matter Only To Himself. (The title is as long as it is hurtful. ;_;) This time featuring the place where Somewhere in SF is created.

SF Comic update: "BigFish, this thing needs a tite."

...'doh. I always forget I'm supposed to name half of these comics. I think that's a fine title for this page though and maybe I'll actually remember to name the next one I send out on my turn? Anyway this page doesn't have too much going on which means it's easier for me to draw so yaaaay. Jenny looks sorta odd on the floor but whatever.

As a testament to my increasing laziness, I magically obtained Portal in a zip file that I didn't unzip until friday, didn't install until Saturday, and then didn't attempt to play until this morning only to realize that I needed to go install some kinda windows upgrade. So, I plan to install that upgrade next week and then actually attempt to play that game probably on saturday. Boy, my life is exciting.

I play a lot of phantom hourglass on BART though and that's pretty fun. I tried playing wind waker and all I kept thinking was "man, this is just like playing phantom hourglass except with a gamecube controller." It's also ridiculously simple looking on my gigantic 42'' TV so when Link starts swimming in the ocean, it looks....odd. The ocean is just blue so it's like a big blue screen with a little something in the middle.

Anyways, I hate my life. KTHNXBYE!