Snow, Snow And More Snow

It snowed for about 40 hours straight, on top of the 8 inches we already had on the ground. Jesse, Seebs and I all took turns shoveling as it continued to dump down on us, but our work was undone over and over again throughout the day.

It's still sprinking down in little bursts, but there hasn't been much accumulation since the big blowout. Even with wind gusts shaving off billowing clouds of snow, there's enough still piled up on the carport that we actually parked the cars down the driveway in case the roof buckles under the weight. It's a bit decrepit at the best of times and I can almost hear it bitching about the extra strain the weather's put on it.

I love snow.

Another thing that happened today is that Seebs brought home a big fuck-off 6X8 Wacom 4 and presented me with it. This thing is sweet beyond belief, a major improvement from my little Wacom 2 (which I've been using since 2002 or so). The old one was too small for me to draw comfortably and painting was a chore. This one actually makes digital inking comfortable and easy. Looking forward to playing with it in the coming weeks...

I got the Gold Chocobo and beat FF7 again. What an amazing story. The gameplay and translation were occasionally like being raped by a leper, but it was worth it just to finally understand what the fuck was going on with Cloud and Zack. The last time I played it through, I missed out on all the subtle shit and ended up kind of confused by the whole thing.

And the ending. Wow.

Going on in this vein, I have shifted from mild disdain to nose-wrinkling disgust on the topic of Final Fantasy: Advent Children. Talk about messing up the best ending ever by trying to tack on a postscript. Square may think they're just keeping a great party going, but really they're just the loser telling a joke and repeating the punchline five times to make sure everyone laughs.

Note to all you budding screenwriters out there: if you're ever offered a wheelbarrow of cash to churn out a sequel to what was essentially a complete story, please be aware that the man with the money is Satan himself, and respond accordingly with a kick in the whatnots.

I think the worst part was how everyone regressed for the movie and lost their hope so they'd be all angsty and dark again. I really don't want to see that shit, not after what they went through in the original story. I see why the writers did it, but just because a formula meets with wild success once doesn't mean a close imitation is going to be cruise control for win.

Then again, if the same people I roll my eyes at for cashing in on AC would just do the damned remake everyone's been whining about instead of eight billion tie-ins on different gaming platforms (a la .Hack//Shit), they would be my best friends again. I'm very fickle and will acknowledge this without reservation.

But enough about that. I have to get this update scanned and ready to color. I think I should probably make it official and move to Sunday updates, since that's when I post the pages most of the time anyway.