Specifically, it happened shortly after clearing “Phase 1″ and engaging in a bit of diving (getting both girls to lvl 6) before heading back down the tower. I went back to the inn to save one final time before leaving town and got a “Load failed” error. I tried switching out virtual memory cards but no luck.

Upon eventually rebooting the console, the save failed to read again… so I’m stuck with much lost progress. And it chose a very dramatic moment plotwise to die on me. Ammon is not well pleased.

Kotaku has a report of somebody else experiencing exactly the same problem. He even provides a screenshot. [However, Kotaku is also a bunch of elitist meanie-heads and they won't let me comment on the post ]

I’m still not certain whether it’s the PS3′s fault or the game’s itself. I have noticed a few possible bugs that I am blaming on the software not the hardware (I do have a pre-order of the game, so there could also just be a bug with the first print or something…). I’ll reserve passing judgement against the console until verifying that the problem only happens on the PS3 and not on the PS2.

I’ll write more about the game later… when my heartache heals enough to start over from scratch… on my PS2… *sniff* For now, just the warning.

update – feb 14, 10pm

After reading the comments on the Kotaku post, it was suggested that the problem was with a lack of free space on the virtual memory card. I copied the save over to a fresh card and attempted to restore from there, with no luck. So the save file is in fact corrupted. *sigh*

Hostname? Anathema. Not in the traditional dictionary sense, but as in Anathema Device, the heroine of Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens.

Hostnames matter to me. It’s also nice to keep a pattern to them. The current criteria I use when determining hostnames is as follows:

• The name must be a character from a fantasy novel, preferably by Terry Pratchett.
• The name should ideally be a female character – as every server I’ve ever had with a male name has been nothing but trouble.
• I should ideally be able to make some sort of pun or other bad joke about the hostname and the computer’s intended purpose (ex, Hedwig was my mail server).
• The name can’t have already been used on any machine I’ve had any sort of shell script level access to.

Well, Anathema meets the desired criteria. It’s an unused female name from a Terry Pratchett novel, and there are certainly some connotations and jokes that could be made about it. That, and it’s been a name that I’ve been kind of sitting on in hopes of finding powerful enough of a machine for it.

I followed the guide at http://overlays.gentoo.org/proj/cell/wiki/InstallGentooOnPS3 with one minor exception. I did 99% of the work over SSH because I don’t actually have a high res display to plug the system into… but other than that, this was my easiest Gentoo install ever.

The Gentoo PS3 LiveCD (Beta) does not support the WiFi device in the 60gb PS3. Turns out, no distro does yet. According to Terra Soft, this is currently under dev with some support from Sony. Unfortunately, there are also no USB WiFi options that I know of that are supported under Linux either…

So until that happens, the device will be using a wireless bridge/router toy that I’d picked up to support my laptop in my travels.

I’m also only seeing two cores atm… so that’ll also take some doing. But we’re running. And that’s what matters most.

This morning around 4am, I woke up to the sound of my wife’s stomach being emptied. Unpleasant. Unpleasantness continues now. Apparently her mother and our niece are also exhibiting similar symptoms.

I couldn’t go back to sleep, so I came in to work a bit early to catch up on end of month paperwork type junk. Around 9:30, Penny asked me if I could get her some sort of electrolyte laden sports drink for obvious reasons. I drove to the Target next to our house and acquired a suitable beverage.

Upon acquiring the beverage, I figured I’d go see how the Wii display had grown since the last time I looked. It gets bigger and takes up more real estate every day. But there are no consoles. Only games and accessories and propaganda films.

And lo, I cried out, “Where are Wii?!“

There. I did it. Everyone else on the stinking planet has made their little Nintendo Wii pun, and now I have too. Imma go bang my head on the wall or something in penance.

…

Anyways.

I want one. I want one more than I want an HDTV in my living room. But I will never find one. Because the stores, they mock me.

Walking around the corner, on my way back to the front of the store to purchase said electrolytic beverage, I was met with a sight unlike any I had beheld before.

One phone call (for permission), $600 and 16 minutes later…

Now. I’ve always planned on acquiring a PS3. I’ve been actively waiting for about two years now. But I honestly did not expect to acquire it until a few months/weeks after we’d adopted ourselves a little replacement for our dying Gamecube.

I have still yet to see a Wii on any store shelf anywhere. But I guess that’s ok. The only games I’m interested in on the console are Zelda and some of the virtual console stuff (ok, most of the virtual console stuff, really…). I wouldn’t really expect to use any of the system’s other features… it would mostly just be a reason to pack the GCN into a closet.

But the PS3… that’s replacing our DVD player. I picked up The Fifth Element on Blu-ray (it’d never actually found its way into my DVD collection). It can play mpeg-4 videos… so 20 or 30 gigs of anime will probably be taking up semi-permanent residence on the hard drive.

It’s a supercomputer. I’m gonna see what I can do about Linux tonight. I don’t care which distro it takes, I’m gonna have a Linux server back in my home this very evening (current machines are all either dismantled, broken, or Windows). Tomorrow, I will be able to SSH into my PS3 from work.

Games? Shrug. I already have about 100 PSX/PS2 titles.

I am not impressed with the launch titles, but then again, I never am.

Actually, this is a lot like when I acquired my PS2 (in Feb of ’01).

I had walked into Ye Olde GameStoppe in pursuit of a PSX because I wanted to play FF9. As I was about to purchase the console, I asked the shopkeep if he happened to have any PS2′s in stock (since they were still quite rare at the time). He replied that he doubted it, but he’d check. Turns out, a shipment of two had arrived the night before. I acquired the PS2 for $300. It was to be our first DVD player.

My justification was: $100 for PSX, $100 for PS2, $100 for DVD. In addition to the console and FF9, I picked up used copies of a few other PSX titles I liked and took a look at the launch titles.

I wasn’t impressed. But I figured I may as well. I picked up Evergrace. It wasn’t as bad as some of the reviews would make you believe. I actually played it all the way through (a few years later, actually) But I don’t have it any more. It is one of only console three games I’ve sold back to a store.

If memory serves, our first DVD was The Princess Bride. Interesting contrast between the two movies there…

And I also decided to pick up a game. And for some unknowable reason… I picked up Genji in stead of Marvel: Ultimate Alliance or Tony Hawk… both of which I’ve had my eye on. Shrug. For fear that I am on the road to duplicating my Evergrace experience, I think I’m gonna be making an exchange tonight for some comic book style Gauntlet