Bite-sized version available here.
Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!
Welcome to the long-awaited resurrection of my review of Final Fantasy VIII: the game that has plagued my existence for years.
Production Notes
- This will probably be the last time you’ll see the “Break Me” intro in its current form. I’d like to update it to include new moments from my latest reviews.
- If you’re wondering about my t-shirt, it’s similar to the one worn by Matt Damon early in the movie Dogma.
- “I AM A MAYUNN!” is a reference to Linkara’s brilliant series of videos called Atop the Fourth Wall, hosted on That Guy With The Glasses. You should definitely check him out if you haven’t already. I probably should have given him a credit at the end– an oversight for which I apologize.
- This is the first ever use of chromakey in my videos, and I’ll be the first to admit it’s very amateurish in execution. My room is a poor place to set up a green screen, and proper lighting is nearly impossible. Hopefully soon I’ll have some more room to maneuver, maybe get myself a studio!
- Fu Manchu was supposed to be wearing a Chinese-style wig, but unfortunately I went cheap and bought one of those wigs-in-bags things, which is always a horrible idea whenever you’re dealing with hair more than a few inches long. I don’t know why, but when I tried the wig out, it was little more than a matted, greasy lump.
- It was deceptively hard finding good Election 2008 video. I’m still amazed I was able to find anything related to Dave.
I’ve been trying to remind myself to post on the blog more frequently; it’s just that I get so caught up in work I see everything else as a distraction. I get very narrow-focused to the point of tunnel vision when it comes to work, particularly the videos. I hate to get up from the computer with anything unfinished, but I’ve been filming and editing video for about 18 hours straight and I need some sleep.
But before that, some news!
My fantastic web mistress has put the finishing touches on Dean Talks Anime, the japanimation review section written by long-time forumite and good friend Dean the Adequate. I understand he’s also got some new updates cooking, so as soon as I hear more about that, I’ll post the links here.
Speaking of my lovely and talented web mistress, she’ll probably be out of commission for a few days due to a sudden need for emergency wisdom teeth extractions. And I think we all know how that can screw a guy’s week up, don’t we? Until she returns, may you partake of ice cream and ride a blissful wave of Vicodin.
I’ve been feverishly working on the blockbuster revival of my Final Fantasy VIII review, and with any luck, you should see the finished 30-minute special on the site by Wednesday morning. It’s a return to my old school form, with some brand new surprises and guests, as well as the much-anticipated return of the nefarious Doctor Insano and his latest scheme to take over the world with SCIENCE. I hope you enjoy it.
I’m also scrambling to get some material together for some special events about to happen at That Guy With the Glasses, so I’ll be sure to keep you posted on that as well.
Until then, true believers!
(Image created by Pike!)
Declare your allegiance to the mad scientist, and your future world ruler, Doctor Insano!
The story behind the Doc is that I’d actually intended him to appear in a future movie review (don’t worry, you’ll still see that review soon!). But Linkara wanted something comic bookish to appear in the opening to one of his videos, so I let the Doc out of his secret lair a little early to wreak havoc!
You can get the shirt for about twenty bucks, give or take depending on the style. Men’s and women’s styles are available, and you can even get the picture on your very own tote bag, BBQ apron, and mousepad! Now you too can proudly wear an obscure joke nobody else will understand!
Update: I’ve made some changes to the products in the stores. Mainly, I’ve removed the web address from the backs of most of the shirts. This has had the effect of shaving a few dollars off the list price of the shirts. Sorry if you’d already bought some stuff and paid the extra cash; I had no idea putting that little picture on the back would tack that much onto the price.
Fan response has literally been overwhelming, and about fifty people have stepped forward to offer help and possible designs for the DVD project. I really wasn’t expecting such a huge response, but I’ve been swamped trying to respond to everyone. I’ll try to get to everyone who’s contacted me in turn, but it might take a little while with all of the other stuff I’m working on at the moment. Be patient with me.
This many responses almost cries out for a contest…
You’ve all noticed that the site has been down more than it’s been up lately due to Internal Server Errors. I’m not entirely sure why, but looking at the resource usage of my private server (CPU and RAM usage), periodically, they seem to spike sharply up to the limit. When users reach that limit, the server shuts down and gives everyone a 500 error.
After doing some research, I think I’ve narrowed down the problem to the forums. More specifically, the way my current web host (Dreamhost) handles the forums. Every time a user accesses a page in the forum, it calls up a PHP page. Apparently, Dreamhost doesn’t handle PHP well since their servers aren’t optimized for this kind of thing, so if there are a lot of concurrent users, a lot of PHP requests can queue up in RAM very quickly, all waiting for a response. The Wordpress software I use for the front page also uses SQL, so it probably contributes to this problem as well.
I’m not sure what to do about it. The blunt answer is “leave Dreamhost” but where else would I go? Even if we set aside the issue that moving the forum and blog will be a massive headache (you have no idea), I still need a server that can handle a lot of traffic. This usually means investing in a dedicated server, and I don’t have the cash to afford that.
Maybe you guys have some ideas, because I don’t. I’ll try to keep this ship floating for as long as I can, but if it gets much worse I may have to shut the forums down just to keep the site online.
