The Internet continues to feed childhood love of the Transformers.

I dream a lot. When I'm asleep mostly, though if you pass by my desk shortly after lunch you may see a blank look on my face which indicates I'm daydreaming (or I have a Twinkee stuck in my esophagus--either possibility is just as likely). Most of the times my dreams are pitifully mundane (seriously, we're dreaming about watching TV now?) and often they pull from a roster of typical reoccurring dreams:

Kato is back in school but doesn't know his class schedule.

Kato is in his underwear in a public place.

Kato is back in school and doesn't know his underwear.

You get the idea. But the other night I had one of my more interesting dreams. I was sitting in the lunch room of my old high school ("The Commons" as it was called), but unlike my usual anxiety dreams, I wasn't confused about where to go when the bell rang or afraid that I was going to fail the final because I hadn't been to any classes. No, the setting was considerably more relaxed. I think it was early morning, before the first bell, before we could go to our lockers and homeroom.

Other than being a walk down memory lane, this dream wouldn't have been particularly notable except for who I found sitting in the lunch room with me. As I sat there waiting for the bell, the radio or intercom was on, maybe something akin to "morning announcements". Mixed in was a little ad encouraging people to check out Galacticast. At hearing mention of the sci-fi parody web series I gave an appropriate "Woo!" to show my support. Wouldn't you know it, I looked over to one of the other tables in the sparsely-populated lunch room to find none other than Casey McKinnon sitting there.

Dreams are awesome, aren't they?

She looked up when she heard my cat call and gave me a smile of appreciation. Noticing the attention, and ever the smart ass, I added with a wry grin, "Of course, it's no Mahalo Daily...." and gestured to another table. There sat Veronica Belmont, diligently studying. Casey put her hands on her hips and frowned. I don't think Veronica even heard.

At this point it would be prudent for me to point out something in case Misses Belmont or McKinnon (or, more importantly, Misters Block or Jahchan) read this. This was a perfectly G-Rated dream. It didn't break out into a spontaneous sexy pillow fight or anything (I don't have those kinds of dreams--like I said, my subconscious fantasizes about television and sitting on the couch, apparently). But honestly, dreaming that I'm hanging out with some of my tech/geek/internet idols is way better than some tawdry adolescent romp.

(Not that there's anything wrong with adolescent romps).

Of course, this whole situation seemed perfectly natural to me, even though I clearly didn't attend school with either of these internet video entrepreneurs. I don't remember much else, other than the fact that I then proceeded to get up and go over to talk to them both about video production, an act which clearly dictated this was fantasy and not a flashback. The real high school Kato would probably have taken all morning to get up the courage to go over and talk, started walking toward the table of girls, only to chicken out when one of them looked up. HS Kato would abort the mission, making a bee-line for the vending machine to grab a "Chilly Willy" or a Chocolate Milk, adjusting his glasses uncomfortably and shuffling his feet as he pretended it was his destination all along.

So, anyway, I apparently fantasize that I went to school with well-known contemporary geeks. I wish the dream had gone on longer (or that I could remember it better)--I wanted to take a look around to see who else might have been sitting in my fantasy lunch room. Maybe Gabe and Tycho working on a comic in the corner? Or Randall Munroe sitting nearby finishing his math homework while doodling in the margins? Would upperclassmen Ze Frank and Jonathan Coulton be hamming it up at the "Senior Table"? I bet Molly Wood and Tom Merritt would be delivering the morning announcements. Of course who would notice all of this when you're tasked with determining the best way to relieve an Orc of his pie in Wil Wheaton's D&D game.

*tingle* Now that would have been an awesome high school experience. Never mind the fact that the small sampling of attendees presented here vary in age by as much as fifteen years. Never mind that they live in different parts of the country and it would take some crazy Steven King-esque "A bunch of strangers somehow wind up together" type of fluke to make it happen. It would still be awesome. It would be Eden. It would be Utopia. It would be my own Unimatrix Zero.

We can all dream, can't we?

So apparently the high-definition format war is over.

And, as one might expect, I picked the loser in this technological pissing match.

If you've been under a rock for the past year or so you may not have known that we were embroiled in a fierce format war. The generals of each camp, Sony and Toshiba, each set loose on the high definition battlefield their own hand-picked champions: Blu-Ray and the more aptly named HD DVD, respectively.

Technologically they were quite similar, with differences between them lying mostly in total storage capacity and interface implementation. What was important was that they were both formats for storing High Definition video content. Anyone who has watched a High Definition movie or television show will attest that it looks gorgeous (it should, high def contains about 6 times the information that standard definition does). It was about time we started thinking about upgrading our television resolutions.

Sony sought out to win the format war by building the Blu-Ray player into their current generation console, the PlayStation 3, gambling that the popularity of the unit would have the benefit of establishing an early beachhead in the homes of many consumers. Toshiba had no such "secret" weapon and had to rely on undercutting their competition's steep prices (both for the PS3 and standalone Blu-Ray players) and working with Sony competitors such as Microsoft to offer an add-on HD DVD player for their current gen console, the Xbox 360. Both camps would rely on behind-the-scenes deals with movie studios to attempt to sway favor (and, more importantly, exclusivity) and gain the upper-hand.

Already owning a 360 and wanting desperately to sample this budding and attractive high definition video market, I went the early adopter route and purchased said HD DVD drive for the 360. The movie 300, which I loved at the theater, was about to be released on video and I salivated over the prospect of watching it in 1920x1080 resolution. Faced with buying a PlayStation 3, a standalone player, or an add-on to my Xbox 360, the HD DVD add-on drive was the only thing that made financial sense. For less than $200 I could add high definition video capability to my existing system. 300 came out, the price on the player dropped another $20 bucks, and I walked out of Best Buy with a new toy under my arm.

And then Toshiba somehow royally screwed it up. Microsoft didn't seem to do much to support them (why should they when what they really care about is people downloading high def content via their Marketplace service), and Sony clearly backed up dump trucks full of money to the doors of studios to secure their partnerships. Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Blockbuster, and Netflix saw the signs and in recent weeks all but abandoned HD DVD in favor of Blu-Ray.

*sigh* At least it's over and we have one major format for our next generation content. But I'm stuck with a device that supports a quickly obsolescing medium. I'm too honest to go on eBay and pawn off my player to some poor schmuck who doesn't know any better. No, instead, I will become my generation's "Laserdisc Guy". When guests are over to the house I will invite them into my entertainment room with the promise of showing them "Something I bet you've never seen before". I will lead them to a cabinet that will hold an Xbox 360 and HD DVD in mint condition, carefully dusted and seemingly untouched by human hands. I will reveal my vast library of titles: 300, King Kong, Shaun of the Dead, Training Day, and they will ooh and aww over those old "classics". I will carefully remove the foreign-looking disc from its shiny red plastic case, holding it by the edges, my hand draped in an expensive and soft piece of fabric. I will clean the disc once, in a counter-clockwise circular motion, before inserting it gingerly into the player. An hour will go by as I wax on about it being "before its time" and "way better than anything else that was out at the time". I will make the inevitable comparison to Betamax. My audience will dwindle as guests find excuses to leave the room "for a moment", until that one too-polite guy is stuck there listening to me prattle on. Finally I will put away my treasure and close the cabinet again--a cabinet that, from all outward appearances is devoted solely to this device--and will close the door behind me until the next time I have guests.

Oh well, at least I have "Serenity" (an HD DVD exclusive). That movie alone may have made it all worthwhile.

After a hard day of battling stormtroopers, he likes to kick back with an ice cold Colt 45 and lead a high-speed chase through the streets of Poughkeepsie.

I had a hankering for a Snickers bar the other day so I purchased one from a little charity fund at work. I plunked down a few cents and greedily unwrapped one end, shoving it quickly into my mouth. It wasn't as good as I was hoping, and as I pulled it away from my hungry maw I glanced at the now exposed innards of the remaining bar. What I saw frightened me.

It was green.

I stopped chewing immediately, my eyes widening, my stomach churning, and I looked for a trash can to spit into. In the confusion, I flipped the bar over in my hand--I was holding it with the front of the wrapper in my palm--and the marketing on the face set me at ease... sort of. It was some special Shrek-branded Snickers and the sickening green filling was intentional. I don't know what this green stuff was--food coloring, grasshoppers, ground up Shrek--but it didn't really make me eager to finish the rest of the candy bar. The wrapper claimed it was a different color, but "same great taste", but I have to disagree. Of course, since I suspect it was a Halloween promotion, I imagine the four months it sat around didn't improve the flavor.

Anyway, here's a message to food manufacturers: If you are tempted to dye your food green when it isn't already, don't. It's not clever... it's kinda gross.

Then again, had it been a deal with Bungie to make it a Master Chief Snickers, I probably would have cut it more slack.

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!

The other day at work, a woman addressed me as "Handsome".

She's older, married, and the kind of person who refers to everyone as "Sweetie" or "Honey" but still, I puffed up my chest a little and strutted down the hall like the cock-of-the-walk.

I'll take my compliments where I can get 'em.

I just finished my first run through of Mass Effect the other day. It took me around 60 hours to complete (not counting reloads, etc.), so it was a substantial investment in time. But I thoroughly enjoyed it. I sat back and watched the ending cinematic, reveling in the conclusion of the first part of BioWare's space opera trilogy. The credits began to roll and I decided to sit through them as I might with a good movie, partly to take in the myriad names of people involved in the project, and partly in hopes that there might be something after the credits worth waiting for.

As I sat there I took in the end credit theme. I expected a reprise of the main theme or other music from the game, but I was treated to something different, something I hadn't heard before. Starting off simply and unassumingly with a drum kick rhythm and ambient keyboard, the tune quickly builds as an electric guitar plucks out a melody. The singer enters, in a breathiness appropriate to the somewhat ethereal sound backing him: "I / have wondered about you / where will you be / when this is through?" The song builds from there and continues on for a good eight minutes, all worth listening to.

I waited to see the name of the band in the credits but either missed it or it wasn't there (and if so, for shame BioWare!) But a quick trip to Google answered the question almost immediately--apparently I'm not alone in enjoying the tune and wanting to know more. Apparently, it's called "M4, Pt. II" by an Edmonton band called Faunts. I was surprised to find that the song wasn't written for the game because it was an excellent choice for the end credits both in sound and in content. If you've played the game and heard the song, you'd probably agree that there are several sentiments expressed that reflect well characters and situations in the game, for instance the lyric quoted in the title of this post, as well as the segment in which Faunts asks "If all goes as planned / will you redeem / my life again?"

Without much hesitation I jumped onto iTunes, found the track, and bought it. That's a first for me--I don't think I've ever bought a song from the soundtrack to a game before.

In case you're wondering, here's the song, as uploaded to YouTube (no video, just audio).


Lyrics available at LyricWiki.

You can also check out their myspace/faunts page which features a shorter radio version of the tune.

If you are interested in buying it, the following iTunes link should bring up the song in iTunes (from their album, not from the Mass Effect soundtrack):

M4, Pt. II - Faunts
It should be noted that there is an iTunes Plus version available (which is DRM free) but I found it doesn't come up when you search on the song, it only seems to come up if you search on the album M4.

M4 - Faunts

"That is one classy blowfish."

Someone at work needs to learn how to wash their effing hands.

KATO STATUS:

Tonsil: Golf-ball proportions.
Swallowing: Glass.
Temperature: Freezing/Burning.
Attitude: Kill me.

I anxiously await a visit to my doctor. Until then I'll just enjoy the hallucinations I guess.

Oh look, a Gremlin. Please don't eat me Mr. Gremlin...