SOLVED MYSTERIES (SOLVED/UNSOLVED MYSTERIES) SOLVEDUNSOLVEDMYSTERIESPODCAST

Heyo, it's been over a year. It's almost like nobody blogs anymore and that all new media is some form of alalgamut facestagramtube or some bullshit like that. Anyway.

Star Wars: Rogue One Red Carpet

 We went to the Japanese red carpet for Rogue One, and we took photos and video. Diego Luna smells like sunshine and joy.

Gunpla Expo 2016 Part 2

Last time, I introduced the Gunpla Expo Winter 2016. This time, I actually went, and I got to vote in the GBWC 2016! (Video and Update)

Gunpla Expo 2016

The Gunpla Expo Winter 2016 is coming to Akihabara this month. Don't know what that is or why that's awesome? Read on.

Tokyo Video Journal & MECHA REVIEW Updates!

Whew! Almost waiting an entire year before posting again, can't have that.

An insane amount of things in my life have changed, and it's taken a huge workload from 4 years ago and pushed it even further back...to oblivion. Whatever. Mecha Review is still going strong. Soon. Anyway...

MECHA REVIEW: My Dumbest Project to Date!

BEFORE YOU THINK IT...
Yeah I'm still not done with like 5 other things I've announced on this page, but at current I am actually still working on a bunch of stuff at once.  With that out of the way...

(Almost) 5 Minutes of Kitties!

Nothing much to say, but I made a stupid video about kitty cats I've been hanging out with lately.
Sound is synced weird, but the video is so dumb I don't care. :D  Click here or press play below.

I Have Vimeo Now.

I just realized I have been posting all my more recent work to Vimeo, not Youtube, and I wanted to make a quick post about it here.  Basically, this account is for my Video Art course in college, but I also put some personal stuff up there and I have some stuff from my Motion Graphics class on there, too.  These, for now, are just exercises and assignments, so I'm learning as I make these.  Hopefully I'll keep making short films and animations and I'll start publishing more content like this to Youtube as well, but for now this is all there is.  Enjoy.  Click here to visit my Vimeo account.

Microscopic Update

Hurrduurrrr

Another update without actual content? Yup.

Update to my last update: Forget all that shit.

1. One Possible Future is done. The article is in-progress, the only reason it isn't finished is because I ran out of free time today and still wanted to write this article about how I don't have free time--what the fuck am I doing?

2. Protoman Helmet DIY is nearly done. I have the article about 85% done, and I might even cut together some video for it. I'm not even going to estimate when it'll be done, but I now have time in the middle of the day to work on this site, thus this update.

3. Famicom Twin repair is officially Half Life 3. Google and you will find a recent article and video that does nearly everything I was going to do in mine and works well enough to explain how to repair a Famicom Twin/Famicom Disk System.

4. Untitled Video Game Project is officially Half Life 3 as well. I just couldn't get it to work. I have tons of footage and hours worth of possible content but I can't figure out the format for it, so it's just gonna sit on my hard drive for a while.

5. Super Secret Video Series. There is a video series I've been planning for almost two years that I've never mentioned, and is part of why all my updates are super slow and stupid and non-existent on here. The first footage of that is going to come out December-February. I hope you like giant robots.

6. Branching out.
Seriously, it's not that I'm not doing a ton of projects all the time, I just wasn't posting them here. One of the major things I've been working on is my car. Why not post my car stuff on here? It's not nerdy. But know what? That's bullshit. Cars are actually pretty nerdy when you think about it, especially my cars. I'm going to start putting a series together for my car project, a 1991 Miata restoration/mod. If you don't care you can just not read it, that's totally cool. I do other shit like that too, like at-home gunsmithing and making my own beef jerky, so that other stuff will make it up here too. I want to actually post to this blog, so I'm going to. I do everything, so this blog's gonna have all that stuff on it.

Also, I am officially returning to college tomorrow. 3 days per week I will have nearly two hours free in the middle of the day once or twice a day every week. I intend to spend that time organizing this blog better and actually posting all the articles/builds I've been compiling and not releasing for the past two years. I have 2 TB of game footage, pictures, written articles, DIY tips, and buttloads of other stuff I just haven't quite finished enough to post here. I'm thinking of enlisting some help getting it done as well, that'll be nice.

Don't give up hope, it's all we got.

Tiny Update

Good morning.

How are you? Did you have pancakes today? Good.

I am still working on all the projects I have going on here (I think there are 7 of them, one of them is about 30 hours in) and I am also working 40-48 hours per week, so if you thought posting once every two months was shitty, welcome to the fucking THUNDERDOME of slack. Anyway.

UPDATES

1. Binary Domain Review (v2.0) is now up. 
1. It contains extra visual jokes and lots of audio fixes. 
1. Since I compress about 5 layers of audio in this review, it compresses strangely, and throws lots of errors I can't figure out. For instance, I can only hear all of the audio channels on my mobile phone by plugging in a set of headphones. 
2. People reported issues understanding me and the music being too loud, so I changed those things.
2. One Possible Future is back on track
1. I have finally found some affordable parts. I think the holidays had drastically increased the prices on NES parts, and thankfully used NES consoles can now be had for sane amounts of money, and in greater numbers.
2. Any paintwork can now be done at home, due to the warm weather.
3. Tweaking the board modding and deleting the idea to use red LEDs.
3. Untitled Video Project
1. I have an untitled video game video project that should come out late next month. It involves Famicom games and the frustration of not understanding Japanese. I'm not confident enough to go further on the name or the content yet. It looks too much like a shitty version of AVGN right now, which is not my aim. This might get recycled as something else in the future.
4. Famicom Twin Repair 
1. This is another project that might get abandoned again, due to my lack of confidence in it's quality. I bought a Famicom Twin by Sharp and explain how to remove the diskette drive and replace broken parts. Part of it will be animated. It's sitting at 40% completion right now.
   
5. Protoman Clean-up
• It's literally been years since I made a similar update saying a Protoman/Megaman helmet creation guide was imminent, and I never finished it. I am going to gather up all my resources and put something out in the next couple of months. It's sort of what started this blog up, so I think it would be a good idea.

** DestructoShop

• The original idea for this blog was to be a place where people could look at mods to things and learn how to do simple projects on their own. I had also played with the idea of selling things through here for people who simply aren't interested in DIY but want cool DIY'd things other people made. I've been talking with friends about setting up a small shop where I sell modded gameboys and cosplay bits and stuff like that. And t-shirts. This might not go ahead for a long while.
• I DO have my amazon/ebay stores linked where I do already sell refurbished consoles and games. If for some reason you want one I touched all over, for some reason, you can do that.

Unfortunately that's all I have for now, without going into boring personal bullshit.

Did you put syrup and butter on those cakes, dawg?
Yeah, you know you did BRO.

-K

15 Years of Pokemon

 
 Hello Pokémaniac People!

I was on reddit and someone brought up that today (Sep. 30th 2013, this may be published later,) is actually the 15th anniversary since Pokémon Blue and Red debuted to shelves in America. This filled me with incredible feels, and I ended up writing a fucking novel about my love of the game, and decided I could edit this into an article for reasons. REASONS.

This actually marks a time in my life when games stopped being just enjoyment or general childlike wonderment, but it really make me feel crazy deep emotions about video games. You see, I've been struggling writing reviews of games for the past year, mostly because of horrifying procrastination, but also because what I write tends to come out really, really gushy. I don't like to focus on the mechanics of games, I mean, I recognize them and analyze them like everyone else, but what I tend to focus on is the emotional gravity the game pushes onto me. I don't so much play games for fun, but to feel truly happy and alive and like everything in this fucking planet is A-OK while I'm doing it. It's a weird muddy affair that causes my grammar to suffer, as evidenced by the previous statements and the ones you are about to read, and many times I convince myself nobody wants to read it. 

But fuck it.

I got this game on or near October 4th, 1998, which would have been my tenth birthday. That means my 25th birthday, Friday, is my TWENTY FIFTH FUCKING BIRTHDAY HOLY SHIT OH GOD I'M GOING TO DIE SOON. Anyway. The added feels of this game coming out the week of my birthday, and my getting it on my birthday, made me remember my experience with the game so fondly it might make you sick to your stomach. Enjoy.

My Life with Pokémon 
 
This was an important time for me. I had gotten a lot of crazy video game stuff for my tenth birthday, including my first Playstation with games (a partial trade my father pulled off for working on a guys Firebird), and I had spent the earlier part of the year playing this first Playstation and obsessing over how the hell to be Resident Evil 2. Technically, I got the PS much earlier in the year, sometime around summer, as a sort of late-Christmas-but-not-quite-birthday-present. I could only play this PS at my dad's however, and with all the crazy graphics and 3D rendering I sort of reverted to playing Gameboy games at my mom's house. The seed was planted however--I wanted more video games like crack, and I was freaking out.

 My birthday was coming up, and Pokémon was just released. I asked mom for it after seeing the commercial of kids making cute monsters fight and I lost my god damn mind and begged for it. She was planning on getting me a game for my red gameboy I got for a previous birthday anyway, just had no idea what.

I only ever had 2 games for it (Iron Man/XO Manowar and Batman: Return of the Joker, both of which were shitty ports of home console games) and had to borrow games from friends, which was a dire political issue. I asked for the blue version because I thought you could only get the Pokémon that was on the cover, and I wanted the turtle thing, because I like turtles, motherfucker.

I opened it up as my last gift. I remember it was last because my mom has always saved the shit I really wanted for last, and I remember being especially mind-fucked. I carefully removed the game from the package, put it in the DMG, and was...surprised at how much reading and boring shit was involved. I just came from gaming on the most amazing game system I've ever seen, seeing fucking Clair Redfield's "photo-realistic" face in cutscenes, shooting shit. This didn't look like it did in the commercial.

 I was mildly upset at first, however, something strange happened: Four hours had gone by. Four.  And the next day, six hours disappeared. From then on, pretty much every day went by quickly. I struggled, at first, but the game gradually became more natural, and I began to love it more than anything I have ever played in my life. I loved the cutesy artwork, the weirdly dark back story of some of the monsters, the shadowy Team Rocket, everything. I played that game every damn day, little by little, with no guides or no coherent strategy whatsoever...until one afternoon...I beat it. I had burned through handfuls of AA batteries, playing the game for so long it actually damaged the label of the game from excessive heat. Seriously.

Yup, heat damage. I remember it happening.

I had finally finished it: At my babysitter's house, friends at my sides with their Red versions in hand,  I teared up with the purest childlike happiness I ever felt. I had spent countless hours of grinding in tall grass, trying over and over to catch Mewtwo, burning through hours of training to defeat the Elite 4, and finally wiping the shitty 8-bit smirk off of that asshole Gary's face (or Red, I think I named him Red.) The ending music to the Staff Credits crawl was the most important moment in my 10 year old life. Over time, our little Pokémon cabal gradually all finished the game, and we all restarted our playthroughs just to do it all over again, as a team of Poké breeders, traders, and opponents. We heard rumors of new Pokémon being hidden in the game, GameSharking, and we hotly debated whether or not it was possible to catch a Mew (nope). It was a group of kids all sharing a mostly single player experience. It was more than a game to some of us--it became our lives.

The time just after I beat Blue Version was the most complete I ever felt as a kid. It was the first game I ever finished. It was the first RPG I ever played. It was the first time I felt like I could actually accomplish something. It was mind altering to be able to see real progress in something that I did my own way. I got to make choices, I got to customize my play style, I got to name the characters and feel involved in the story, I could explore, I could gamble, I could train, and most of all I could share my experiences with friends who also had the game--I never experienced that before. I never sat down with a group of other kids to discuss how to play a game and the things we've experienced. This was more than jumping and shooting shit--this was living via a virtual character in a virtual world, experiencing things that happen in the virtual world almost as if they actually happened.

After this, I became a Pokemon nerd, got into Japanese culture, and in a short time I started to really figure out what I liked. I became obsessed with the feelings I felt with that game, trying as hard as I could to recreate them. I was now a certifiable video game nerd, and I started beating other games with renewed resolution, chasing that high that Pokémon Blue gave me. I stopped asking for anything else at Christmas time and birthdays. I wanted video games, anime, and Pokémon. That's what I lived for.

This is only most of my TCG collection. Can't bear to get rid of it.

 I took this pretty far. I became obsessed with everything Pokémon; from the clothes to the trading card game. I can very clearly remember the first time I cosplayed, before I even knew what that was. I dressed as Ash for the premiere of the first Pokémon movie (much to the embarrassment of everyone involved). Pokémon was the first anime I obsessed over. Pokémon TCG was the first trading card game I ever played, and god damn did I play it. Pokémon was the first manga I read. Pokémon CDs and cards were the first things I ever imported from Japan. It was the first time I recognized that another culture could create something I really, truly loved.
Pokémon was fucking formative for me.

I also just really dug the artwork in the manga.

Aside from completely informing most of my obsessions for the next decade and beyond, this is essentially the story of how video games became my favorite hobby. I always enjoyed games, I had an NES growing up and I got my first Gameboy at around age 7. I had always loved them, but they were mostly a way to pass time when I was bored, or when there were no other kids around to play with. It was never about deep feelings, or learning or sharing experiences. 15 years later, nothing makes me feel quite as happy as sitting down with a close friend and just playing a video game together. Hell, I just love watching people play. I have spent a lot of money as of late on numerous consoles and games, from the Famicom to the latest PC stuff, but the best feeling I ever got from a game happened when I saw those GameFreak Staff Credits for the first time.

With 22 years of gaming under my belt, from the first time I picked up a controller at age 3, with hundreds of games played and thousands of hours of gameplay, I can honestly say Pokémon Blue was the most important gaming experience of my life. It was an important stepping stone in my development as a person; I can't imagine what my life would have been without it. And for that, I'd like to say Happy Birthday to Pokémon Blue and Red. Thanks for changing the way I look at games, and...everything...forever.

So today I'll be popping in good 'ole Blue, and reliving a little slice of my childhood.

Thanks for reading.

Small Update

Hello!

The Binary Domain video is nearly completed, but I'm being super anal retentive as usual, redoing work I already did over and over again. It'll get there.

I've mostly been spending my time working on my eBay/Amazon stores, since I've spent all my time working on projects instead of like, working for money. So now I have a little income incoming and I get to modify and repair consoles pretty much all the time, which is awesomely fun. I tweet about it constantly @jackoctober, check it out if you like tech porn.

I will be updating the blog with a link to the amazon store so people can peep in there. If you're in the market for some consoles it would give me great pleasure if you took a look, although it's hard keeping stuff in stock for long. I mostly deal in DS Lites and such, as those are simple and easy to fix.

I don't really have a whole lot to update with recently because of the new work I've been doing, but I have not yet lost faith in all my media projects. Don't forget me, this shits probably all going to be releasing at the same time.

I shall leave you with this teaser of a project I'm referring to as One Possible Future, because I like the idea of giving projects nicknames and I don't know if I can actually afford to make it happen. If it does, it will get a full work log as I'm doing it (including materials lists and such), which I enjoy doing and people seem to enjoy reading.

Who will survive?

-Late.

Oh, My Mecha Death Christ...

Welp. That was a fun two month absence from my blog again. Derp.

After much agony and possibly-giving-up-on-this-shit-oh-fuck I am 50% of the way through editing the BD review. I'm pretty much only doing it to prove to myself I can do it at this point. Not to say it won't be good, but it might not be good. Nah, it'll be fine. Probably. For sure, it'll be like 8 minutes.
I just need lots of coffee and the Pacific Rim soundtrack.

My concept for this was mostly about nods to X-play, and keeping it light hearted. I cut the script for this guy in half and rewrote it a few times. I am still not really sure how to balance me being stupid and actual criticism and details. It's a sort of trial run review to see what the hell I'm doing.

PROOF. Even has a fancy intro.

----
Aside from that, I've taken up video game console repair and the resale of games and etc. game things again. That means I'll be finishing some of my repair/mod videos I have footage in the can for from last year. That was poorly worded. Essentially, the youtube channel began out of my frustration for shitty DIY/Modding videos on youtube, so, I shot a few hours of footage of me doing shit that I never finished. The only video that was finished was the Genesis Mod 1 region changer. I have other shit, including more Sega repair stuff, because Sega stuff is legendary for capacitor failure.

I'll be selling said video game shit on my ebay store, which is linked on this site. Almost all of the things I sell are refurbished personally by me and tested endlessly because there is nothing I hate more than electronics that don't work like they're god-damn supposed to (see: Sega 32x). I am also willing to buy any broken game consoles you have, provided the price is right.
----
Also, my stupid idea to review Japanese games I can't understand is actually underway. I have 3-4 hours of gameplay ready to be edited into short little videos on how terrible I am at being a human being. It'll be fun! I'm starting out with some Famicom games (which I have plenty of) and then I'll move on to some PS3, Super Famicom (SNES), and MegaDrive (Genesis) games. Expect robots and lots of confused swearing. OH GOD, THE TRAIN-THEMED BOARD GAMES. WHYYYYYYyyy
----
One last thing: If you are into game reviews/youtube and that whole deal, the Angry Video Game Nerd is now getting an official video game (officially, it officially exists) and his movie is coming out before you know it. Check out Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures gameplay on youtube. That shit looks amazing. It's incredible that the guy that sort of inspired me (and lots of other people) to do their own reviews on things is now getting a damn movie and a video game based on his character. I don't aspire to that level of greatness (you have to like, finish your videos or some shit) but I'm super glad for the guy, and he'll probably be getting my money soon.
----
That's more or less all I have to say at the moment. I'm trying to keep myself motivated, but me being me, I create more work for myself than I can possibly do and then don't do any of it because there's something wrong with my brain.
I'M WORKIN' ON IT.

NOBODY'S BUYIN' IT

Youtube Madness

Hello there!

I've been struggling with getting my first dastardly creation, the Binary Domain game review, off the ground.

Firstly, I fucked up all my live action footage beyond reason in three different ways.
1. I fucked up my focus on my camera while shooting. I use a standard def screen to check my focus. Guess what? You can't tell the difference when it's out of focus.
2. Sound was totally jacked up for shit and there was all kinds of shit in it (if I'm being too technical, I apologize).
3. I can't fucking read. Jesus Zombie Christ, I can't fucking read.

This resulted in me buying a new, more mobile microphone, as well as a FiiO E6, to keep track of my audio more efficiently, as well as totally dumping and restarting on the video from scratch. Oh, by the by, if you shoot video on a Canon DSLR, look for a firmware mod called Magic Lantern. I finally decided to check it out and holy-fuck-did-it-make-a-difference.

I think I'm going to go ahead and push forward with the project in a different direction: Shorter videos, more self destruction, and tons of sexy green screen action! Shit.

The upside? I have approximately 45 minutes of the dumbest, least interesting footage anyone has ever shot in the history of the universe. I'll probably be making a blooper reel, as I like to laugh at myself. Jesus the Christ.

Anyway, here's this.

There was a whole thing about how there was a fly in the room and I was going to murder it with an Uzi. This is the genius, professional kind of comedy I generate. Weeeee!

I'll be working on this while crying through new episodes of a JonTronless Game Grumps.
Seriously though, Real Talk; Danny Sexbang is a beautiful replacement. :;--;:

Later!
膣

HOLY SHIT

 I haven't updated this blog in over a year. Hello.

The website was Half-Life 3'd into development hell by yours truly. I am restarting on the resources for it and hopefully it'll be done in 8-10 years.

In the mean time, I have actually been saving up a lot of content and projects to show you all, including more Protoman cosplay related shit, because about 7 thousand people have checked on that section of the site in the past year. Which is a lot for some dick in his bedroom.

The Youtube page is live! The channel name is indeed DestructoBlog.
This is now my primary youtube account. The other one wasn't deactivated because I think I lost those videos...so I just burned my password and left everything the way it was so all the old videos are still live (and they should still be usable in this blog).

Oh by the way, here's the link http://www.youtube.com/destructoblog

So, at your mercy I will be trying to produce a video every 1-2 weeks, eventually getting down to 1 major upload and 1-2 little snippets per week. The website will still have other things on it but for the time being I'm going to focus on the youtube and the video making, because that is what I'm really passionate about, and it's also the thing I know the least about. That makes sense, right? No? Fuck.

Site Is Moving!

Hello! If you're still paying attention to me, then great news! This blog is being upgraded to a stand-alone wordpress style website at www.destructoblog.com.  I will leave this blog up for a while then take it back down and move all the articles to the new website.

The new site will have sections that deal with DIY fixing things, mostly game consoles probably, a huge section of youtube video reviews of games and whatever, and probably also comics, if I ever get off my lazy ass and finish one.

The original reason I really started this blog was to do comedy articles and teach people how to make things. That is essentially what the web site will be about. I want to have a large section dedicated to video game reviews because I'm super passionate about them, but I really want to bring things to the site that most people don't feature: How to keep your old video game consoles working.

Being a Sega fan means having to repair your own consoles. All the time. Always.

There are NO good guides out there for replacing broken parts, or figuring out what's wrong with your system if it's broken. The best we have are text guides hidden away in forums that you may or may not find on google. I want a place where all those projects are shoved in one spot. (#sexy)

We'll probably also feature articles about nerdy music or shit too. Whatever.

Anyway, big update for anyone who still finds this page looking for Protomen helmets and GameBoy modding and however else you found me.

This is likely the final update to this blog. Kinda sad to see it go. 

Laters.

-K

GameBoy Shit Update!

It's been a damn while since I've gotten any damn news on my package from Nonfinite (I ordered shit April 12th, do the math there and you'll have nerdrage).  I ended up finding another sweet GB through my lovely girlfriend at her store. Its a pristine Play It Loud edition in black with red lettering. This was the most desirable one they made before the Gameboy Color came out. I was lucky to find it but it wasn't exactly the cheapest. It did however come with all the original shit. I'm debating on whether or not I should cannibalize it for music making or just leave it alone and let it be sexy. Life is just so goddamn hard sometimes, amirite? Shit.

Thar she blows. Original case and everything with a penned in purchase date just like my red one.

I don't know what this pic is but I started typing this before I realized it was shit.

All the stickers are there and look good.

I think this is everything that came with is save for the batteries.

These are all my gameboys. Two in the middle are the LSDJ projects.

Welp that's all for now. If I ever get my damn LSDJ I'll be posting my music on this blog but who knows when that'll happen.

www.shitfuck.com/depression

Quick, Early Post

I got home super late today (6:00AM :)) but I wanted to make a quick post about this USB drive I got in the mail today. It is a Ravage G1 style Transformer that turns into a 8GB thumb drive. It came in a small plastic wrapper with no instructions or packaging, but I tested it and played with it and it seems to be a pretty good buy. It costs about 19 dollars on Amazon. Its an American version of a rarer Japanese version that was on the market a few years ago that was made for the Japanese market only. The different is that version has silver legs instead of white, and is only 2GB. Also, costs about 3 times as much. All in all it's a good buy I think. If you like nerdy useless gadgetry housing useful gadgetry (I happen to love it).

That's all for today, I'm going to bed.