Tekken Girls 8

Angel

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 9

Becky & I were having a conversation the other day. I was trying to encourage her in her gaming ability. "I can't play Halo! I was point UP the whole time" she told me. "Yeah but if you happened to be shooting up and something got above you, you would have nailed it good!" "They need to make levels that guys can play with their girlfriends... Quickly! You have to shoot the ceilings and floors! It's the only way!"

This sounds like a brilliant idea and I'm not sure why they haven't implemented that sort of thing before. Other than paltry efforts at creating the co-op character into a mobile brick that stands on buttons.

I also got her playing Tekken Tag 2 for the first time. She got brought up on Tekken as well, so we have similiar memories of the game. Except the one memory of her dad constantly saying "hwoarang!" She didn't really dig versus mode. But when I got us onto the same team to do tag battles that really got the cogs cranking. We got up to the final boss fight and got our arses handed to us, but it was totally fun. She admitted that it would be rad if we had four players tag teaming it. Nothings says teamwork more than tagging out without warning to let your partner get a round house kick to the chesticales.

Oh yes, there's an epic debate raging on G+ about PS4's and Xboxs, you should totally throw in your two cents so we can nitpick it to hell. Yay for another round of console wars!

Tekken Girls 7

Michelle Chang

Jun Kazama

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 8 - Part 9

I'm digging Michelle, but Jun looks gumby as. Not long before I've done all of 'em.

I'd like to use this opportunity to say that picking your nose is (literaly) a cathartic experience and shouldn't be shunned nearly as much as it is. You all know I speak the truth.
In a new feature I like to call Old News, Today! I would like to discuss some art that has been floating around the media recently.
Kate Middleton, The Duchess of Cambridge's recently got an oil painting done. It took Paul Emsley the artist three and a half months to complete, and when he did the critics decided that it was no oil painting. I hadn't read the linked article before deciding that everyone was kind of being a dick about the whole ordeal. I think she looks kind of cute in it, and the flack he's recieved is undeserved. You start to read lines about it saying it
"will hardly bear sustained scrutiny in a major art gallery." as if the weight of peoples gaze beaming out of their snobby eyeballs would crush the painting somehow.
I started writing a section here about George Bushes leaked paintings but eventually gave up. Suffice to say I think they're aight, and it's cool that he's getting into painting. Oh yeah, have you noticed his signature?

Tekken Girls 6

Zafina

Miharu Hirano

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 7 - Part 8 - Part 9

Admittedly Miharu looks all wack and warpy, but Zafina totally makes up for that. Zafina has been one of my surprise favourites of Tekken Tag 2. She wasn't in Tekken 3 and she makes a great addition to the series I think. I kind of imagine of her as the Voldo of Tekken with more sex appeal.

Valentines went better than expected, but I'm not gonna eat my words or anything. What a waste of perfectly good words. Becky & I went to pick up some nerf guns in the middle of nowhere and ended up strolling down Dominion Road looking for something to eat. We went past a million ratty Indian, Thai, and japanese restaurants, which was sort of what we were after until we hit a New York styled pizza place. The waitress servicing us (heh) asked me "Did you play *insert obligatory sport here* at high school?" "No?" "Have you been here before?" "Uh no." "Were you at Piha the other day playing cricket where you had the one hand one bounce rule?" "Yes. 0_0"

Afterwards I turned to Becky and said "If I was single and Matt I would say this was destiny!" she didn't seem impressed. But it was valentines! If there was ever an appropriate time to get a number this would be it.

I discussed these points with Matt the next day. I think we tapped into how this dating random people thing should work without having to resort to clubs, bars and date rape. Just bump into someone once. Then stalk their day to day life for a while, and find the most appropriate way to slot yourself into it for a "chance" meeting. An example could include going past with your trolly in a supermarket several times until they notice you, accidentally bumping your trolly into them if they turn out to be quite unobservant prey future soul mates.

I hope this helps.

Vampires Day Again

My history with Valentines day has never been good. Too much pressure is involved I think. It's an evil day in which you are urged to show your affection for a change. As if we're part of some totalitarian state that requires us to stifle our emotions until given periods of the year, and when the time does come you have to force it whether you're in the mood or not. How is it ever a win situation? Either you make a big show out of loving someone but then leave the other party with the thought that maybe you're just doing it because "it's the day" or you don't do it and they assume you hate their guts.

Of course we can't do this rant without mentioning the other side of the coin. The lonely side that's all by itself. When I was younger I have three quite clear memories of valentines. The first was when I met the likes of Zara and a few other peeps from youth group for the first time. We were all scared as hell because no one knew anyone. It was at the Auckland Domain and we all ended up having a rockin' time. I showed off by sticking my head under some randoms deck chair and screaming at their butt. The next involved me a few years later being dumped a couple days before Valentines and then being taken back a few days after. The next was when I was a bit older and at a stage in your youth where you presume that since you don't have a girlfriend you must be too ugly and obnoxiousness (Remember that I screamed at someones reclined buttocks) to ever be loved. I was at the mall and there were a billion people holding hands and PDA'ing all over each other. The most recent Valentines events have been traumatic at best, and self destructive at worst. Actually they're "worse" and "worst". The only thing worse than worse is worst.

Red Face knows what I'm talking about. His is a true story and I feel that now is the best time to show it to you. I'm like some sort of Valentines Grinch that puts razor blades in your chocolate. With all that said, Here's an awesome song. I recommend it.

Tekken Girls 5

Kunimitsu

Christie Monteiro

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8 - Part 9

More girls finished. More are in the works already. Kunimitsu is up there as one of my top favourites I've finished so far now. Which is good since Christie came out as a total shit-fest when I started her.

I've found my mood at work can be directly tied to the Effective PPI of the images I have to work with. Dad tried conspiratorially telling me last night that they use big pictures in magazines so they don't need to write as much. To a certain degree this is totally true. And the other half is that big pictures always look fantastic. Also people feel ripped off if you have a little bit of text floating in the middle of a page with an equally tiny image above it swimming in a sea of white space. Those are my wise professional industry words on the subject. Take that to the bank. Get interest on it, and send the interest back this way to this post plz k thx.

We've had a few amusing phone calls at work. The first I recall was when the app version of the magazine was released. We have a deal that allows subscribers of the magazine to have a free subscription of the digital version. Which is nice. Anyway, some guy called up demanding a free iPad with the app version installed on it. Worth a shot I guess.
I've heard tell of another caller who rang up to abuse us over an article published in a gay mens magazine. I don't think they figured out that ours was a totally different magazine which has none of that sort of content in it.

Tekken Girls 4

Lili

Anna Williams

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8 - Part 9

Anna Williams needed to be reworked, the original one kept getting mistaken for Ada Wong from Resident Evil.
I've started to develop a way of doing "cute" feet rather than sharp points. Hopefully this won't be a jarring style change when I do the final group shot at the end.
I bought Tekken Tag 2 today! Just to make sure my nostalgia of the series wasn't ill placed. I have to say it's definitely a step up from Street Fighter. It flows better, and the control scheme and instructions for how to do moves make sense. Street Fighter showed you how to do moves by way of arcane scribblings which vaguely resembled a controller and nineteen billion times out of ten the move didn't work. Feel free to put this down to me being a noob. But with Tekken you can learn your character pretty quickly and then get down to the business of figuring out how to juggle your opponent for as long as possible.
Unfortunately everyone who plays online already knows how to do that. I think of it as the mode you go on to to say "Ha, look at that idiot with that random arse character, he couldn't do shi-" and then promptly watch your character not touch the ground for the duration of your shameful visit to Put-in-your-place-ville.

Quin

Work has been going well! A lot of funny stories are starting to leak out of the place which I'm enjoying. Deadlines galore, but let us assume that this is always the case and not worth mentioning. One of my first came from Quin when I totally hooked him up with a job there. He was gonna act as our online marketing guy, playing on Facebook and stuff all day. After our morning meeting (and about an hour or so into the day) he comes to me and tells me he may have got another job somewhere else, and then promptly buggers off. Andre (Editor) comes in and says "I didn't think my morning meetings were that bad."
The aftermath was that the job he was told he got somewhere else was twisted into being "Oh we found some more people and now your all vying for the same spot."
Fortunately he's found himself some decent work now which doesn't require a week of unpaid work and parking fairs.

Ben

Later on Ben heard of the event and tried applying as well. Tim sent me an email asking if I knew who Ben was. I said I did but quickly added a disclaimer that I'm in no way responsible for friends and acquaintances who suddenly ditch the premises. The great thing about these run ins is that I got to have a fun look at their CV's. Ben appears to put "Ladies man" at the top of his skills list. It's a very long list. Which makes sense, since chicks dig guys with skills. Having so many skills starts to snow ball after a while.

We've had our first positive reviews on Spark and M2 Australia. I've found out that Apple is deceptively fragmented. Reviews and ratings seem to be all over the place willy nilly. Some only show up on the website, or iTunes or on the app store on your device. It's a real pain in the ass.
While we're on the topic of iTunes being a (surprise surprise) pain in the ass, I've been trying to copy over my Walking Dead data so I can keep my save for the second season (whenever it comes out, I don't want to leave 3gigs or so of data clogging up my pitiful amount of space).
So I start it up, "shit not enough space on C:, I better change where everythings getting offloaded... Ok that Should have worked, but it isn't, fair enough. Can't expect it to move everything over half way through an operation."
So this part was forgivable. But what I didn't appreciate was when iTunes found my meticulously arranged folders of games and apps & decided to go spasticated and THROW EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE. It felt like it was saying "Haven't you seen an average mac desktop?? We despise foldering systems! HERE! Have everything spread across 4 or 5 screens, now it'l be much easier to click on what you want!" "But won't it be harder to find it?" "Ha ha, we made the search feature for a reason and we don't need organised people like you thwarting that magical feature."
Screw you iTunes, I wish I didn't have to rely on you for a career.