It is a painful and expensive hobby, trying to collect every single Studio Ghibli movie, not to mention when they start playing them at the theaters. But we managed to own a couple of them now: Princess Mononoke, Castle in the Sky, Spirited Away, Raccoon Wars and our all time favourite, My Neighbour Totoro. And at 50 US dollars each, plus the costs to see some of them a couple of times on the big screen,… well, Studio Ghibli is turning me into a broke man.

They do make amazing movies and their new addition to the Ghibli family, Hauru No Ugoku Shiro / Howl’s Moving Castle, would even kick My Neighbour Totoro from our number one spot, if it wasn’t for its high cuteness factor. Based on a British story written by Diane Wynne Jones, the movie tells about a young girl who’s cursed by a witch and turns into an old lady. She runs away from home and meets the most interesting, colourful and strangest characters. Vague huh? I hate it when people spoil a movie by giving away too much information, so this will do.

It is almost a typical Ghibli, although it shows that the story isn’t Japanese. Again we have a tale about a strong independant girl and a bunch of characters who are not black or white, good or evil, like your typical Disney movie, but who are quite unpredictable and complicated. But there’s a shortage of Japanese gods, myths and believes, which gave all other Ghibli movies that magical Japanese touch. Nonetheless, they have done it again, bringing us a moving, touching story that is most wordy of your precious money.

We’re checking it out again at the Metropolis at Antwerp. I suggest you do the same!

Arcades are dead. Well, in Belgium at least. We have some places that still house some arcades, but they’ve never changed games since the late nineties. The last good game I remember, was Street Fighter III: New Generation, but it vanished quite quickly.

But there is new hope since I bought my second-hand Dreamcast. Most of the releases on this console were ported straight from the arcades! I am talking Crazy Taxi, House of the Dead, Daytona USA,… anything you played during the nineties that was any good, was available on Dreamcast. But these titles are not that important. What’s more important is that that last game I played in front of a cabinet is available in 3 versions for my beloved white box.

I’m talking Street Fighter 3: New Generation, Street Fighter 3: 2nd Strike and Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike. And I can tell you, they are as close as you’ll get to the original arcade versions. Above that, you can also get the Capcom vs SNK, Marvel vs Capcom, Fatal Fury and King of Fighters series. I have a lot of catching up to do…

But of course, it doesn’t feel right with a plastic oversized controller (although they still feel smaller than Xbox controllers, mind you). Therefore kaato and I are planning on buying an X-Arcade Dual Joystick, which should feel like a real arcade stick and should be able to take the same abuse as a real one can. And that will be necessairy when I’m beating the crap out of kaato, right? Who else wants some?!

“Think American, … think BIG!” said some German character in the Lucasarts’ game Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, if I recall correctly. And he would have said the same after seeing the largest chocolate egg in existance, located only 700m from our place. The thing has a height of 8.32m, a creation of the famous Belgian chocolatier Guylian and can be seen at Sint-Niklaas, Belgium.

Talking about huge, I have posted some pictures of the 1km long cruise ship we had the pleasure of … well, cruising last year, at the expense of the company I work for. Departing in Barcelona, the ship took us on a four day trip on the Mediteranean sea, docking at Palma de Mallorca and Corsica. And although visiting all these places was great fun and very interesting, the boat was a town on its own with endless possibilities. Three swimming pools, more than five bars, a beauty and health center, casino, minigolf, dancing club,… you name it, it had it. It even had a 24/24 buffet, which caused me to gain 4 kilos in 4 days.

Although it was a bit over the top, it must have been the most relaxing vacation we ever had, with people waiting on you all the time, great food and drinks always available for free, free fitness and amazing saunas. And did I mention the bars? I’m usually the responsible driver, but I wasn’t driving anywhere on that boat. Ah yes, the bars…

Anyway, enjoy the pictures.

I am not your typical hardcore gamer. I can’t finish most games I own and sometimes I don’t even come near any game for weeks. But I do love them and it’s been like that since I was 8. Always fascinated by arcade games, my parents bought me a Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES, on only one condition: no more arcades. That didn’t really help but only made it worse. I became literate in the world of games and noticed the advancement in graphics and gameplay. My NES just could not keep up and the arcades lured me back in with their sexy, high resolution sprites.

Their plan backfired and resulted in more arcades and more consoles. After the NES, I got the Gameboy, the Super Famicom (SNES), the Gamecube, the Gameboy Advance SP and the Nintendo DS. And I even ebayed me a Nintendo 64 a couple of months ago.

The smart ones among you might have noticed my love for the Nintendo brand. I have never really liked the Sega consoles, the VCR-sized Microsoft Xbox nor the original Playstation. If it wasn’t Nintendo, I didn’t care. Although…

I played Final Fantasy X at a friend’s place and a couple of weeks later I owned a Playstation2. It should have been the first and last not-Nintendo console, but there was one important thing missing in my collection… the Sega Dreamcast.

I know two people who own one, being kurisu and kaato, my former Level Up! colleagues, so I knew the console. I played all the Streetfighters I missed out on, I finally found a Sonic I really like and I tried Typing of the Dead! Almost every good arcade game is available on the console, which is great because arcades in Belgium are very rare so you can imagine how many games we didn’t get to play.

So last week, I decided that the empty spot in my collection had to be filled, and quick! I pointed my Firefox to Ebay and got me a nice second-hand Dreamcast. And it’s in a pretty good state too. House of the Dead 2 is great fun with the lightgun and a nice improvement compared to the only lightgun game I ever owned: Duck Hunt! And my all time favourite, although I get ass whooped by everly single girl I know, is Super Puzzle Figther II Turbo.

So the collection is complete, for now. This summer there is the arrival of the Sony PSP. And although I shouldn’t, I probably will. Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony should be announcing their next-gen consoles and who knows what else awaits us. I can’t wait to get my hands on some new DS games, certainly after hearing the news about Katamari Damashi!

I guess my parents’ idea to get me a console so I would stop wasting money, didn’t turn out the way it should. It did however get me into computers, which got me into programming, which in turn got me to study Computer Science and earn my money with developing software. And that money I can waste on more consoles and games! So the problem created a solution which in turn feeds the problem. Makes you think, doesn’t it?

21st of March. First day of Spring. Time for a new 5 Dollar Shake!

After 5 years, I present to you the fifth version of our little virtual space, this time without any radical changes, but a simpler version which I hope is more pleasant to the eye. Although the html is mostly a copy of the default Wordpress theme, I assure you the design and all the CSS are built from scratch. I even made my own little icons! And don’t tell me it shows.

New design aside, in an attempt to get a bit more organized, we have added some categories to help you find your way around our blog. Under the hood, 5 Dollar Shake has also been upgraded to the latest version of Wordpress, being version 1.5.

You will find the categories at your right, together with the latest comments, our picture gallery and lots of links. The “Donate” button has been removed, but we did keep our wishlists and ads at the bottom right. As always, you are more than welcome to buy us stuff, we really do appreciate it.

Also this time, the site has been made to work with Firefox and Safari. There might be some problems when viewing with Internet Explorer, but if you are still using that browser, I guess you don’t mind bugs that much.

The color scheme should look good on TFT screens but might be a bit dark on a CRT. I had to make a choice here and I opted for TFT. My apologies go out to those who still get their faces bombarded with electrons.

Don’t forget to point your rss reader to our new feed. Please feel free to comment on any of our posts and we are looking forward to hear your thoughts on our new look and feel.

I’m a sucker for 3 brands being Apple, Sony and .. Nintendo. It all started with my NES when I was 10. The Gameboy followed only a year and a half later if I recall correctly, and a couple of years later the SNES arrived on the scene. I bought a total of 14 games for NES, 6 for SNES and about 10 for the Gameboy. Not a lot I know, but since all my friends owned the same consoles, I played many games without the need of buying them all.

I missed out on the Nintendo 64. I played on it a lot, but didn’t own one, but I do now thanks to a little thing called Ebay. The Gamecube was in my possession pretty fast, since no one in my neighbourhood was very fond of it I had to get one myself. I didn’t care much for the Gameboy Advance, because of its awkard shape and no backlight,… until the SP version was released. Cube connectivity? Hell yeah! Although only Zelda made good use of it (of the games I own).

So here we are, today, 11th March, Nintendo DS release day. I swore to never buy any portable gadgets anymore, since I never take public transportation or am in any place where Gameboys and walkmans come in handy. Still, I do owe 2 iPods, the Gameboy SP and a laptop. So to stop me from wasting money, I convinced myself to say NO to every other handheld device coming my way. Of course I just HAD to go to the local game stores to see whether they had the DS in stock or not. One shop even had one you could try yourself. And no shop was sold out, resulting in dozens of DS’s yelling “Buy me! Buy me!”

I didn’t though. I did not buy the Nintendo DS… my girlfriend bought it for me. Praise her, a backdoor to my “safe” plan.

Until now I’m loving it, trying out the Metroid demo, and the controls are fun. Using your thumb stylus (a small piece of plastic on the wrist strap which you can attach to your thumb), looking around works as natural as using a mouse. No more funny joystick movements for FPS on gaming consoles, but the real thing. They should implement this thing in every joypad out there.

Graphic- and soundwise, it’s quite nice. Finally there are two speakers, allowing you to enjoy stereo sound without headphones. And the DS menus are beautiful and simple, the way we like it. The quality of graphics could be compared to the N64, although it looks better on the small screens. And yes, the screens are used in fun ways. Full motion video is played on the two screens, so you are actually watching a long vertical screen split in two.

So it’s a nice toy, a must for every Nintendo fan and recommended for every person out there using public transportation.

No, not the crappy type that we are used to, but a real first person shooter, reminding me a lot of Unreal Tournament. It’s merely a tech demo, but it looks amazing. Check it out here.

It has been a while, two months if I’m not mistaken. Two months of no gaming at all. Not that weird though, because I have these phases, these periods in which I prefer to do one thing more than the other. These last days I have been working on a redesign of 5 Dollar Shake, but I am not there yet. Also, I am losing goesting as they say in Flemish, meaning after a while I just don’t feel like it anymore. But I got this far so I’ll just try and finish it one of these days. So keep your eyes open for that!

I got my hands on some fun games this weekend, which was the main cause of the delay of the new site make-over. First up, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. Completely not my kind of game since I am your worst stealth player, but I am loving it. Instead of doing my missions unnoticed like I am supposed to, I end up killing every single soldier in the area. That’s only possible because I’m playing on “Very Easy” though.

Next up, I got to play Tekken 5. As some of you know, I am more of a 2D fighter. I love the Streetfighter series and I still kick some ass, mind you. Sort of. But Tekken 5 is pretty nice, although the special moves have an awkward way of having to be executed, which counts for every Tekken I guess, but as I said, I’m a Streetfighter man (45 degrees bottom to right, punch, Hadoken!, etc). Great graphics though, the Playstation can still take on the Gamecube and Xbox in my opinion.

I didn’t know game consoles (except Xbox) could handle surround sound. I knew about the Dolby Prologic II, but never really saw it at work. And apparently, it works! Playstation2 and Gamecube play surround sound in-game! And one game that really knows how to, is Devil May Cry 3. Although until now I only noticed it very well done in the cut scenes, these scenes are in-game, engine-driven scenes. And when Dante kicks some furniture around, you’ll hear it flying right past you. The game is hard though. I passed the first boss without too much trouble (which has to be pure luck since Devil May Cry newbies should suffer at that point), but the pain and suffering in my fingers I haven’t felt since the Mario Party series. This game is the mother of all button bashers and it does it in style. Even a newcomer like myself can give quite a show beating up hords of demons.

Last but not really least, there’s a wonderful wrestling game I tried. The story is bad, the acting worse and the physics a bit over the top, but if you don’t own an Xbox, this is as good as it gets. I will never be able to play Dead or Alive Extreme Beach Volley (I don’t own and am not planning on owning an Xbox), but at least I have Rumble Rose, a female wrestling game exclusive for Playstation2. The gameplay is no better or worse than any other wrestling game. It reminds me of Def Jam Vendetta, which was not that bad, but with my hip-hop knowledge it wasn’t all that. This game however, has a bunch of girls wrestling away in the ring, so need I say more? Most work has been put in to the graphics and physics engine, which allows the female body to move more naturally, although some awkward movement can be expected. It’s not that hard either, but with many girls, swimsuits and other specials to unlock, this game can keep you busy for a while.

My Playstation2 feels a little less abandoned now, but for how long? It’s only 3 more days until the European release date of the Nintendo DS… what do you think… Should I?

It is not a thing I am proud of and I might lose some very good friends saying this, but I went to an ASP .Net 2.0 event. Yes, Microsoft is cruising through Europe showing off their latest development on their much beloved/hated ASP. I am not sure their brainwashing technique had any effect though. You tell me:

I myself am no great fan, having used and still using ASP 1.1 for some small projects at work, purely work mind you! But since the Internet is “hype” even in the world of capitalism, everyone is developing for the web and abandoning the Win32 world. Seeing as how much crap 1.1 is, it is nice to know that 2.0 will bring some very nice improvements, making working with it much less of a hassle and almost 50% as fun as PHP.

There are some very nice improvements in the Visual Studio GUI, mostly rip-offs from Macromedia Dreamweaver, but hey, they would not be shipping Windows if that was not their habit. The ability to just drag and drop complete login/logout modules will come as a gift from god for some people, saving money and time, others will hate more of this prefab code. I guess I am in between. I will never use it for my own websites (nor will I use any ASP), but at work, well, it is certainly going to speed up things.

ASP is getting a lot better though, meaning it’s all starting to look more like PHP. There are still a lot of postbacks and other uncontrolable background events happening, so you will still be coding a lot of Javascript to lessen the load on your server. And although I noticed some CSS again, they are still not following complete standards and are introducing something called “Themes”. I am guessing and hoping the basis is CSS, but it still looks awkward.

In short, it was a fun free event, with free food and drinks, and a free t-shirt. Which I will not wear too much though, unless I want the crap beaten out of me by certain friends.