One Punch Man

One Punch Man is an Anime that recently started airing sometime in September, I believe. The concept of the show is that the main character, Saitama, trained so much that eventually he became so strong he could defeat anything in one punch Also all of his hair fell out. There's also some hero organisation, but for the most part, it's just the antics that go around that and good ol' Baldy himself trying to find something that he can't instantly kill in one punch. Upon hearing that concept, I was immediately intrigued. Something about it just clicked with me, and I knew I had to watch it. I can safely say that it did not disappoint, One Punch Man has quickly become one of my favorite shows out there. Aside from how absurd the concept is, the entire show feels like a parody of some of my least favorite cliches in Anime, but yet still manages to keep an engaging plot despite it's more comical nature. I love it when a show can find the perfect balance between comedy, story, and good old badass fights. After the first episode, I ended up getting hooked and couldn't help myself but watch all 6 episodes that were up at the time. Sadly, I now have to wait for a new episode every week, just like all of the other shows I watch.

Why can't I just be able to bingewatch a series for once?

The main character, Saitama, is really likable too. Despite the fact that he's the most overpowered thing in existence, he's just a total goofball. He never seems to take anything seriously, and being a hero is more of a hobby to him than anything. It's not too often that my favorite character in a show is the main character, since most of the time, the main characters just seem to be too perfect and focused on "the power of friendship" or some garbage like that. Saitama is just your average dude who happens to be the strongest fighter out there. His design is also great, there's something about it that always puts a smile on my face. It's great how he looks really silly, but then suddenly look surprisingly menacing.

Wait, wrong character!

This show is also one of the most inspirational things I've ever seen as an artist. Not because the story has morals or anything like that, but because of its origins. Before it was an anime, it was a manga, and even before that, it was a webcomic, with... Interesting art, to say the least. Despite it's poor drawings, a professional artist teamed up with the original writer to remake series, and eventually that remake got popular enough to get its own adaptation into an animated series. There's something inspiring about how it went from this:

To this:

And finally, to this:

Who knows, maybe someday, even a crappy webcomic I make could become an animated series? I mean, it probably wouldn't, but still. Either way, I recommend this series to anyone interested, although the series is currently only available in Japanese, so you'd need to watch it with subtitles to understand what's going on. If that's not your thing, you can always read the Comic, although I recommend reading the redrawn version and not the original webcomic, unless comically bad art is your thing.

And with that, I end this blog post with a GIF of Saitama biting a sword.

Did I mention this show is badass?

Carg Made a Fightstick. Woooah!

You read that title, Carg made a fight stick! Made one! By himself! In woodshop class! What do you do in woodshop class, huh? Swords? Pssshh! I made a functional video game controller!

For those of you who are not aware (Which is probably most people reading) a fight stick is a controller that is basically the controls you would find on an arcade machine. They're often used in fighting games such as Street Fighter, Blazblue, Marvel VS. Capcom I still wanna play that dangit, and Skullgirls, my fighting game of choice, mostly because I don't suck at it.

One question I seem to be asked a lot is "does it work?". Of course it works, why would I be going around with a non functional controller with a joystick buttons? I guess it is kind of surprising that I managed to make this, but still. If you ever want to annoy me, just ask if my fightstick works. Or when I'm going to beat Battletoads, either one of those.

As for how I made this, it's basically just a box with some wires and holes inside of it. I ordered the buttons and joystick off eBay for about 40$, which came with a small circuit board that all of the wires connected to. I didn't even have to solder them, they just plug right in. It's supposed to only work on PC, but I haven't tested it on other consoles. It probably wouldn't work, but there is a thing I found online that would let me connect it to PC, PS2, PS3, and even Xbox 360. I plan on hopefully getting that for this someday, when I finally manage to get Marvel VS. Capcom 3 so I can use this to play it. I just wanna play Marvel VS. Capcom 3 ;0;

And that about wraps up this post. I'll probably update it with more pictures later, so stay tuned for that. If you like fighting games, I recommend trying out a fightstick, and maybe making your own, assuming you can get access to the materials. Overall, the fightstick is not yet 100% complete, I still need to make it work on other consoles, but aside from that, I'm really proud with it. Who knows, maybe one day I'll see myself winning a tournament one day! I probably won't since I'm a filthy scrublord, but hey, a guy can dream, right?

Carg's Stupid Xbox 360 Stories

The Xbox 360 is a console that has brought me a lot of disappointment and frustration. Not only do I find it a fairly boring console with not enough exclusives to warrant a purchase, but I've had some really bad experiences with the console in the past. The original white Xbox 360 model from 2005-ish is known for having many hardware issues, such as the infamous 3 light error, or the "Red Ring of Death." I myself have a few stories involving these rather stupid hardware issues, so I'd like to take a minute, just sit right there, I'm gonna tell you how I bought 2 Xboxes that don't work.

The first one happened about a year ago; I was biking out looking for yard sales as I usually do, when I managed to find myself an Xbox 360 for 5$! What a Steal! The owner of the house was an older man, so he likely didn't even know what he had. Sadly, the small little bag I had was too small (INSERT DICK JOKE HERE) to fit an entire Xbox 360 and cable inside of, so I had to bike all the way back to my house to pick up another bag. After going back and biking a rather heavy console on my back during the rain. The rain! When I got home, I was ready to play test out the console, only to find out it didn't have any AV cables! Of course, this meant I couldn't use the system. In order to test out the console, I went over to my friend's house for the night. As it turns out, the console was only 5$ for a reason: It didn't work. It had the error code 74, which  according to Google, means a hardware failure. I would need to bring it in to get the console fixed, but I never got around to it. The console has just been sitting on a shelf for about a year now, not doing anything.

The next story happened sometime this summer. Once again, I found an Xbox 360 at a yard sale! This time,  the guy said it worked and was fully functional, he had tested it the night before! Well gee golly oh my, I can finally play Marvel Vs Capcom 3! I bought it for 50$ along with some controllers, and then set it all up. It seemed to work perfectly fine. I went over to my friends house, borrowed his copy of Marvel VS. Capcom 3, and went home to play it! Wow, I love this game so much, pulling off combos is so much fun, and it's great having 3 characters to switch between! Man, I am having such a good time!

GOD DAMMIT

Friggen red ring of death, ruining my day, all I wanted to do was play Marvel VS. Capcom 3! JUST LET ME PLAY MY FIGHTING GAMES MICROSOFT!

Thankfully, I was able to return it the next day and get my money back, but I still wish I could play Marvel VS. Capcom 3. I only got to play it for about 20 minutes total before my console decided to kill itself for no reason. It's insane how a console can be this faulty, my Super Nintendo from 199-something never has these kinds of issues. Heck, my Wii never has these problems either, and it came out only a year later in 2006! No other console I've ever had has ever just not functioned for no reason. I should just get a PS3 instead, it probably doesn't have these problems on it. Probably. At least I could play Marvel VS Capcom 3 on there without it breaking, and maybe I could even get my fightstick to work on it! On the upside though, they did release an updated version of the Xbox 360 with some issues fixed and improved hardware, not to mention it's black like the original Xbox!

And that's the end of my Xbox 360 stories. Hopefully one day I'll learn my lesson and not buy used Xboxes from yard sales, but I probably won't. At least I know what I'm doing the next time I get another broken Xbox 360: