Just a few days ago, Overclocked Remix released its first original soundtrack composed by Another Soundscape (including one track by djpretzel), and it’s quite a treat!

I’d never heard of the game, Kaleidoscope, until now. It appears to be a platformer developed by Morsel Games for Xbox Live Indie Games. Quite interesting!

Every track here takes a bit of “new” and mixes it with the best of the “old”. In other words, if you love hearing some 8-bit music in a mix, you’ll love this soundtrack. From the beginning to the end, you can see the colorful worlds that make up this game just through the music.

I hate to pick “favorites”, since all the music sounds wonderful, but I admit I can’t stop listening to “variations on navigation (map theme)”. If Super Mario Galaxy had been released on the NES (or even SNES), I think that’s what the map music would’ve sounded like. Beautiful.

To put it in a few words, it’s colorfully nostalgic.

You can check out the thread here, and find the .torrent file here.

Here’s a big thanks to Another Soundscape, djpretzel, and everyone for releasing this original soundtrack!

*Checks the last time he posted* It has… been awhile since I last posted. Truth be told, nothing much has happened in that time. Work is still slow (and still searching for a web application development company that trains – I’m probably just looking at the wrong web sites) and all of that stuff.

I’ve got the base concepts of a standards-compliant static frontend layout down pat (XHTML 1.0 Strict), but my skills for the dynamic backend are… about as sharp as a bowling ball…

So, in the meantime, I’ve taken up learning Java along with ASP.NET (VB specifically), Ruby on Rails, and Django, as they seem to be, for lack of a better description, right up my alley. I’ve been enjoying Java, and I will use it in the future, but I do have a partiality towards VB because it is the very first programming language I used.

Anyway, I’m just about finished with my book on Java and I can finally have a base understanding of its concepts – enough to move on to web application development entirely. Right now, I’m looking at Wicket for the web application framework that I’ll learn. I’ve also been looking at Hibernate for the database abstraction tool, but I’ve been reading some posts here and there that state that the concept of persistence (which Hibernate uses) is outdated and the caching technologies of various databases and lighter abstraction layers should take its place. It’s rather confusing, but it wouldn’t be programming if it wasn’t challenging to the mind!

On the flip side of the coin, for the free time that I do have, I’ve been replaying Diablo II: Lord of Destruction on the USEast realm. I’ve been watching Diablo III, and I think it’s going to be awesome once it’s finished (same for World of Warcraft: Cataclysm).

Anyway, that’s what’s up here – nothing too much!

Well then, hot on the heels of Overclocked Remix’s last arranged album is Echoes of Betrayal, Light of Redemption – an album dedicated to the music of the game of Final Fantasy IV. I must admit, I never really have played Final Fantasy IV much past the beginning, so I’m not too familiar with the original source material and, thus, I can’t really “review” but one or two of these tracks. Nonetheless, I’ll still list my favorites (though I appreciate the great care each remixer has given each remix and all are a joy to listen to).

1 – 01 – Full of Courage (Remix of The Red Wings) by Nutritious

Oh yes! Just like the Summoning of Spirits album, this one starts on the ground running with this beautifully epic orchestral arrangement of The Red Wings theme.

I remember first listening to one of Nutritious’ earlier works, and, now, anything from Nutritious goes straight to my playlist without question. If you enjoy this remix, like I do, I’d also recommend Step into the Light and Fighting for Tomorrow just a bit further down.

1 – 02 – The Might of Baron (Remix of Kingdom of Baron) by Audio Fidelity

From my short time playing Final Fantasy IV, I’ll never forget the awesome theme of the Kingdom of Baron. So, how do you make an unforgettable theme even better? Well, one way is to totally rock it out as Audio Fidelity has done here! One of my absolute favorites thus far, it is.

1 – 05 – Ana(pro)logue (Remix of Prologue) by Another Soundscape / 1 – 07 – Read the Sine (Remix of Welcome to our Town!) by Mazedude

Now here’s two remixes that should be filed under the “quirky and very cool” category! I especially dig the names of the remixes themselves. Two must downloads.

1 – 08 – Emerald Beauty (Remix of Rydia) by Cyril the Wolf / 1 – 13 – Edward’s Dream Quartet (Remix of Edward’s Harp) by Abadoss and James George

Looking for something a bit slower? Check out these two absolutely gorgeous mixes.

2 – 02 – Metal Mage (Remix of Palom and Porom) by Cyril the Wolf and OA

I love this short but sweet mix. I had a smile the whole time while listening to this. Definitely check it out.

2 – 06 – Rhymes with Elixir (Remix of Chocobo Chocobo) by The Scuba Divers featuring Liontamer

Oh man, now here’s a remix that defies categorization. I wasn’t expecting a “Team Gato” in this album! A must download, that it is!

Naturally, I’ve heard nothing but amazing music thus far and I continue to be amazed with all the talent these artists display time and again. Definitely check out all of these arrangments and listen to them one by one as they are well worth a spot on your playlist and have loop power levels of over 9,000. I look forward to downloading and listening to more awesomeness – I’m on track 17 of Act 2 – dang dial-up

Thanks Overclocked Remix!

This is a list of music I’ve downloaded that has been vying for attention on my repeat button on my media player.

Well, this list is basically all from OC ReMix, this week. Some of these songs were submitted and approved over a month ago, but I’ve been a bit off on my video game music downloading and listening. *puts up giant flame shield*

Ok! On to my string of useless words, which I’d like to call “reviews”, that completely do not do justice to the remixes they are next to.

Final Fantasy VI: ‘Vision of Celes’ by Gorgonian

* An orchestral mix by Gorgonian of Celes from Final Fantasy VI (one of my most favorite games of all time). So – Orchestral + Final Fantasy VI + Gorgonian = For The Win.

Phantasy Star Online: ‘Ragol Weather’ by zircon

* Oh wow. This is an awesome to the ‘ness fusion piece here. I’ve been developing a love for the sound of fusion lately, and this song only reinforces it. Definitely check it out. On one hand, this song reminds me of the map theme of Grandia III in a strange way. On the other hand, I really hope zircon works with this genre some more.

Final Fantasy IX: ‘The Rose General’ by katethegreat19

* A. gorgeous. vocal. masterpiece. Wow. This is a vocal remix of Rose of May (Loss of Me) from Final Fantasy IX. Beautiful vocals. Gorgeous song. Final Fantasy. Download now.

Final Fantasy VII: ‘The Shinra Shuffle’ by The Runaway Five

* Oh. Em. Gee. Love jazz? This is live, kick axe stuff right here. Absolutely amazing! Definitely download this, and check out the band’s website!

Little Nemo: The Dream Master: ‘Sunshine Through My Window’ by metaphist

* I remember playing this wonderful gem of a game when I was a little kid. Now that I’m a bigger kid, I don’t play my (half-not-working) NES, but I still have fond memories of Little Nemo, so it’s great to see this game get remixing love like this very sweet mix from metaphist. This mix is definitely one to go to sleep by, and I mean that in a good way.

Neverwinter Nights: ‘Kara-Turian Nights’ by Ceracryst

* Asian-style orchestra meets Neverwinter Nights. I admit, I haven’t played this game much at all, but I fully appreciate this beautiful mix. Definitely a download and keep, even if you haven’t played the game itself.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past: ‘Sacred Flute’ by Blue.Nocturne

* Remember the flute boy you meet initially in the Light World in Link to the Past? The song he plays lasts but seconds. Blue.Nocturne’s mix greatly expands upon that very limited material that’s available and does a spectacular job on creating  a full-fledged mix out of it.

Chrono Trigger: ‘Corridor of Time (Time Warp Mix)’ by The Vagrance

* Corridor of Time (the theme of the Kingdom of Zeal in Chrono Trigger) has received a lot of remix love, so it’s always a treat to see a different rendition of a heavily remixed tune. This mix fades the main theme into the background while expanding upon it with a breakbeat-ish (I think) piece in the forefront. Corridor of Time’s one of my favorite Chrono Trigger songs, so even if there’s 5,000+ remixes, that’s 5,000 mixes to enjoy, plus one more – this one. Awesome mix.

Anyway, that’s some of the music I’m into. I’m always willing to talk about favorite songs or what have you. Hit me up via e-mail if you want to chat about your favorite songs, remixes, or complain about the “things” I call reviews.

I was surfing the “interwebz” as usual and came across this hilarious image from GameSpy. It certainly does describe the usual reactions, in my view. Numbers 2 and 6 made me laugh out loud.

A humorous videogame message board reaction chart from GameSpy

As for PC gamers, I do believe all of the reactions would be “LOL @ All”.

And here’s a link to the original picture:
Videogame Message Board Reaction Chart

Check out this little and fun quiz below – it asks you some questions about HTML in general and some of its elements. How well do you know your HTML?

http://www.webdesignerhelp.co.uk/index.php/2009/06/html-quiz/

I missed one question about HTML 5, and I had to guess at the character code question. So, basically, 19 out of 20 here – how about you?

From the official website:

The Form Letter Machine is a program that will help you to write letters and emails by mixing and matching from pre-written paragraphs.

It’s useful for people who regularly need to send out emails which include different components in different circumstances. For example if you field technical support requests, or if you need to reply to various inquiries, etc.

It enables you to assemble text from multiple paragraphs, each one customized for a specific type of inquiry or response. You can build your own configurations using checkboxes and radioboxes and nested groups, and then easily write new letters or respond to inquiries by checking off the components you want to include. A real-time preview allows you to view the message as it is composed. The program also supports user defined variables, which allows you to quickly personalize the template with a name or other data that is specific to the task. The text is then copied to the clipboard and can be used in your e-mail program or word processor.

It initially comes with just one configuration tree (where you can set a reply to someone based on: whether they are an employee or not (for instance), what their problem is, and, finally sign the letter with your name (or someone else’s name).

Here’s an example:

A typical Microsoft Word issue…

This program, while quirky and hilarious, is quite useful for sending out replies to many issues regularly to many people.

The program itself is right at 2 megabytes, so it’s a very quick download. You can also view a Flash video of it in action. Worth the download!

Zembly is several things, actually:

1. It’s an online IDE for a social web application of your own.
2. It’s a collaborative effort between you and, if you wish, many others on said application – you can share pieces of code, or widgets, with others if you wish to for use in other’s applications.
3. It’s a host for your application.

Here’s a few bits about it (or you can read all about it here):

Bring your creativity, bring your skills, bring your friends

• Browser-based: Do everything in your browser. No downloads or installs.
• Social programming: Create apps socially with other users, and reuse pieces and parts that they create. You choose the level of collaboration, from keeping everything private to making your app public and open source. We call it social programming.
• Social networking: Connect with other zembly developers, watch their activity feeds, and send them messages. Be an expert, or get to know one, while working side-by-side with people in your social graph.
• IDE-class editor: When you want absolute control, use zembly’s exclusive IDE-class editor to tweak any aspect of your app. Features like full syntax highlighting, error annotations, code completion, and automatic formatting and full language support for HTML, CSS, JavaScript, FBML, and FBJS give you all the power you need to make advanced changes your application.
• Built-in hosting: Not only is zembly the fastest and easiest way to create your application, it’s the fastest and easiest way to deploy it. Click the publish button and your app just runs. Best of all, zembly apps elastically scale on Sun’s cloud infrastructure so you don’t need to worry about creating or maxing our your own datacenter.

With zembly, you can create applications that are stand-alone and that can also be used with other web applications like Facebook or Meebo (a list of other applications can be found here).

Zembly looks to be pretty cool and takes the social networking concept up another notch with its social programming aspect, and it gives web developers quite a few tools to develop with and a venue to show off their own applications without worrying about hosting them somewhere.

Hosting is free during the beta, so check it out.

One last note: The website works just fine on Opera.

For far too long, many “high-rollers” have simply passed these streets by and have only supported those as rich or richer than themselves – this ends now.

The federal government, who only exists to serve the greater good, has identified the culprit of all of our economic woes:

Monopoly!

For far too long, people have just “rolled” their way past the Baltic Avenues, and sometimes, the entirety of the south part of the Monopoly world. Using their incredible wit, they also pass by the “Income Tax” with their clever little schemes or only opt to give us a mere $200 dollars of their vast stores of wealth.

Every American passes “Go”, but, unfortunately, not everyone can collect $200. Some are hauled off to jail simply by taking a chance on the market of real estate. Others simply manage to evade these areas altogether.

What exacerbates this problem is that Broadway, and even recently Park Place, has been asking residents of the Baltic Avenues of the world to continue paying for their high-rolling lifestyle and yet they never give back to these communities – instead, they keep taking from the chest of the community, insist on monetizing free parking, and always seem to get out of jail free and clear while those who take a chance and give to the community chest are stuck in jail, unable to receive anything resembling a shred of luck, or footed with the bill, whether it is maintaining or constantly repairing their buildings or even streets from years of wear, but little tear due to being passed over. Why is it that Broadway always seems to bypass these aspects of the community? Why is it that Broadway can’t pay its fair share of investment in the community of which it is a part of? Today, we, the government, are here to solve that very problem.

We are hereby introducing the “Share Prosperity and End Numerous Discrepancies in Income Now for the Greater Good Act“. We call this the S.P.E.N.D.I.N.G. Act (or the SPENDING Act) which will now be called “the act” because we’re longwinded enough already.

The act will ensure patronage by the “high-rollers” by giving them fuel-efficient convoys during their drive throughout the southern neighborhoods as demonstrated below:

[*] [  ]

This new vehicle is called the Roll Royce. Not only will this revolutionary vehicle ensure energy independence (by going to one area at a time), but it  will create new manufacturing jobs.

By going to one place at a time, this will enable the high-rollers of Park Place and Broadway to absorb the rich heritage of Baltic Avenue and beyond. The high-rollers will be encouraged to stay with a family, rent a house, or stay within a hotel via numerous incentives. This, in turn, will create additional investment opportunities and thus, far more potential for new jobs to accomodate the increased demand of services. Finally, taxes will once again be fairly and progressively distributed.

Now, with more money and capital at the disposal of the southern areas, investment will then follow what we like to call the “Square Effect” which will start with Baltic Avenue and wind up at Broadway itself which will then collect money and go once more! As you can see, it never ends!

Given just a bit of time, we’ll have equality in income and ensure the security of our nation, the robustness of the foundation and principles of our economy, and the security of our national security.

Of course, our current economic advisor, the Centrallized Central Center of Commerce, otherwise known as C4, Bank Chairman, has advised us this could cost 1 gajillionbillion dollars or even as much as googolplexgajillionmillion dollars. Also, many within the Committee of Running A Press, a subsidiary of the C4 also known as C.R.A.P., are concerned about printing this much money as the printing press has never been left on, constantly, for so long before. On the other hand, an entirely new building (or several buildings, actually) will have to be built to secure this amount of money, and a new organization, called the National Organization of Regulatory Oversight on Overseeing Money, or N.O. R.O.O.M., will be created and thus create some jobs and has been praised as a dynamic investment by the C4. As for the printing press, it’s a valid concern, but the C4 chairman, focusing only on a sensible outlook of repayment and investment, estimates, however, that if we simply pay $1 per minute ($60 per hour, $1,440 per day, $43,200 per month, or $518,400 per year), utilizing what the chairman calls “generational distribution”, we might have this debt paid off before Earth is swallowed by the Sun as it becomes a red giant – it’ll certainly ease taxpayer’s minds to know that they are debt free before Earth is incinerated, yes?

As you can see, with just a bit of spending and stimulus, everything just comes out nice and even and prosperity is restored.”

Hope you had a bit of a laugh or at least a chuckle; have a great weekend.

From time to time, however, it’s also equally fun to watch the computer face off against itself, and this is where some unintended hilarity can ensue. So, I thought I’d share some of the funniest things I’ve watched the computer do whilst observing it in various matches. I’ll list if it was a normal brawl or a special brawl (and what specific options I selected). One more thing, unless otherwise specified, the difficulty level of the computer was set to 9.

- Wario “Waft Out”

The Wario Waft is amazingly powerful and just down right funny to behold. However, sometimes it can also be a guaranteed knock-out if used in certain places or conditions. Set up a Special Brawl with 4 Warios with the size set on mini and set the gravity to light. Once that is done, set this match to take place on a stage like Battlefield. Now, just wait and watch – eventually, after Wario has “held it in” long enough, he’ll use his waft … and away he’ll go – even if he uses on the ground, he’ll still K.O. himself! It’s even funnier when he’s Wario-Man.

- “The Landmaster Down Under”

For this particular gem, you’ll want to set either Fox, Falco, or Wolf to the difficulty level of 1. It’s even better if they are on your team. Now, select any stage (it’s funnier with a stage in the sky, like Skyworld or even Final Destination), and let Fox (or Falco or Wolf) get the Smash Ball and call down the Landmaster. They’ll come down in the Landmaster… and “roll over” the other computer players just once and ride off the stage! This is especially hilarious with Falco. For some reason, though, I haven’t seen Wolf do this as much…

- “PK Down Thunder”

Now this one is the most random of all. It seems to happen quite equally from as low as level 1 to as high as level 9. I’ve noted that PictoChat or New Pork City seem to be the most likely stages for this to happen on. For this, you’ll let a computer player play as Lucas or Ness. For some reason, sometimes they’ll aim their PK Thunder in down-right direction instead of an up-right or even straight right direction, miss the ledge and just fall straight down. I suppose the computer somehow hopes the stage will “tilt” a bit like the Lylat Cruise stage does if PK Thunder hits the edge perhaps?

- Sonic’s “Up, Up, and Away!”

I’ve yet to see a computer do this, but I admit I have done it once. Naturally, this humorous event involves Sonic’s Up Special Move. Kind of like how if Wario jumps high enough and uses his Wario Waft he’ll be knocked out is how this works as well – jump up high and use Sonic’s Up Special Move, and you’ll spring right out of the stage! Quite hilarious, actually.

As for matches that I’m in with the computers, there’s one particular thing I love doing. In a 2 versus 2 where Jigglypuff uses its Final Smash, wait for just the right moment (around when Jigglypuff says “Jiggly!”) and throw the other team’s partner up there and watch him or her get knocked out. Everytime I play a match with computers, the opposing team always has Jigglypuff as a team member.

Hope you enjoyed some of those or will try them out later on (if you haven’t seen them yet). If you have some other humorous things that the Super Smash Bros. Brawl computer players do, please let me know!