updates

2/18/01
Well, Eliot just had the most awesome weekend he's had in a very long time, so please excuse any spontaneous bursts of euphoria that might come through. And Oasis is back in Sluggy! Yippee skippee! Ahem. Anyhow, back to the business of this webpage thingamajig. Mecha Thrash is done! As promised, v1.00 is finally up and running, complete with flechette weapons, explosives, new advantages & disadvantages, and generally a few things that were missed in the first released. I probably will revise the formatting at some point in the future, but I still haven't figured out how I'd want it arranged, so we'll hold off on that for just a little while. It'll work for now. There's a new ET Challenge! This one, of course, is for the Mecha Thrash fans out there - Break Mecha Thrash! Complete details can be found on the BMT! main page, so go there and see how you can be the proud person who laid to ruin all of my hard work. This one's just running for a month, though, so you're going to have to get on it quickly. Best of luck to anyone who wants to enter - hopefully this will generate a few more hits to the page if nothing else. After she whined to me, Elaine's e-mail has been corrected. Apparently she didn't have her UCONN address set up to forward to her normal account, and claimed that her legions of fans were mailing her and thinking she was blowing everybody off because she had never responded. I told her, "Don't be silly, Elaine - nobody's mailing you. Nobody visits the page." But she insisted, so it's now going to work. If you've mailed her recently, try again and now she'll get it. If you haven't already, then I'd recommend you check out the Framed! Message Board. It's a lot like the Steverino! board was back when Elaine bothered to post there. Except more of a Framed! crew. Crud, my analogies are falling completely flat lately, just check it out. And isn't it about time to rant on about what is coming in the near future? Of course it is. The neat/weird idea that Elaine and I had is indeed a go, so there's a good chance of seeing that in the near future, between our other various projects. Of course, there will be more Erin propaganda. There's always more anime fiction on the way, probably a new Valkyrie Legion before anything else. We've still got to do more artwork, and we'll need something in the RPG Making and Video Games sections before I get lynched, so that's on the way as well. And since the Cool Stuff list is getting towards the bottom, there will be new links, and new cool stuff. Bottom line? Worship Erin. Visit Lostfactor.net!

2/15/01
Hey, did I or did I not say that Tuesday's update probably wouldn't be the last one this week? Better start to recognize, hear? Word. Yeah. Okay, so it's a lot funnier when Chris Rock does it. But, like I said, I'm upping the production level and speed of things here, and that means we have our first blue links on the front page. Yippee skippee! More of the wondrous on20! Still going strong, with on20 no 3 up, we once again... um... well, post something on20 related, I guess. It's only got Episode 5: Slice of Life in there right now, but that's a good one, and marks a couple firsts for the series that I'm very proud of. Expect more ASAP. Well, as soon as I get over the high from an incredible Valentine's Day, anyhow. There's a Torg Dream Fighters T-shirt! If you're a Sluggite, click on my Sluggy button and check it out! We still don't have those darned placeholders, but we don't like placeholders! Well, okay, we like them better than broken links, but really, I'd rather not put just an empty page up where the pages will be in the near future. What's ironic, however, is that my sidebar counter shows a lot of people click into this site looking for precisely that. Hopefully, they still click around a little, but I'm not going to make bets for or against that. There is an RPG we're working on (Broken Legend: Tales of Light and Darkness), so when we do put up that placeholder, I'd like to at least have a couple screenshots of it up. That's a little something to look forward to, I guess. Mecha Thrash 1.0 is coming, really! I've been slacking off, I know, but the newest version is being tweaked right now on my computer. There aren't any major changes - the thing works damn well as it is - but there are a few more things added in, and a couple of notes to clarify problems people obviously had with it. If it makes you feel better, many of Eliot's blood vessels have burst specifically because of MT-related things, which I will not ennumerate on. So what other new stuff is coming onto this page? Well, once Eliot gets some new artwork that doesn't make others want to vomit, that'll be thrown into the mix, of course. Tonight will also at least partially determine the fate of that really neat/strange idea that Elaine and Eliot concocted, as noted lower down on the page. Magic Knight Sabres is being worked on, albeit slowly and with multiple changes occurring every so often. And, of course, more fiction, more contemplations, and more of the stuff that makes this page... well, makes it whatever it is. Worship Erin. Visit Lostfactor.net!

2/13/01
Valentine's Day is tomorrow, and I actually have a valentine for once in my life! Not to mention that she's the most wonderful woman in the world. Her name's Erin. Have I mentioned her before on the site? Okay, okay, shutting up. There's another Contemplation up! For reasons unknown, I slammed out a little contemplation last night on the Mega Man X series, entitled Why Mega Man X?, conveniently enough. It's a good seller for the games, but it also marks the first time that I really have just ranted on about nothing for a while. It's a nice, catharsistic feeling. (I do know that isn't a word.) In other news, the Studio Gallery has doubled in size, as you'd know if you had checked the counts carefully. It didn't happen Thursday or Friday, no, but it did happen, and we wouldn't have gotten some stuff up if we had rushed it. As it is, there are three new pictures by yours truly, and one new one by Elaine - an Escaflowne-related picture, too, which makes it all the more godlike. Go and admire Elaine's artistic talent, then laugh at my inability to capture the human form. Go ahead. I know you're just waiting to. We still don't have placeholders for Games or RPG Making, I know, and I apologize to those of you who get dumped here by search engines that look for practically any mention of a word in a page and latches on to it. There is stuff coming for both sections, though the Video Games section will probably not feature just bland 'ol FAQs and such. I'm working on a few conceptual pieces right now... it might be nifty. This is hopefully not the last update for this week, as I'm trying to up the level and speed of things I produce. Since I've beaten X5, the PS2 fixation is dying down for a little while, and hopefully I'll be able to focus long enough to get some serious writing and drawing done. The fact that I have developed an addiction to Megumi Hayashibara's Slayers music has nothing to do with this fact. Promise. So what the hell will you be producing? Obviously, more of the anime fiction, and probably covers of some existing anime sketches for practice (I'm horribly out of practice right now). Elaine and I had a really neat, really madcap, not-at-all beyond the realm of possibility idea after a chat on MSN Messenger last night, so we'll divulge more information if anything develops in that department. Here's a hint - it involves history. Other than that, there are lots of things that could happen, especially since in two days it's another Thursday night game of pool, during which ideas flow freely. In summary: Worship Erin. Visit Lostfactor.net!

2/6/01
We will start with the statement that if I had just updated, like, three days ago, I would have been at least within a week of the last update... bugger. Ah, well. Anyhow, the Fractyl Depot Contemplations have been expanded at last. The new one, Thieves By Any Other Name, is probably as downright inflammatory as JC's one about education... let's see if I get a mountain of hate mail because of it. I'm standing by it regardless, so you can feel free to flame away. After all, I wouldn't be a proper webmaster if I didn't use my webpage as a forum for my personal views and pretty much disregard anyone who confronts me with differing opinions... um. That came out wrong. Anyhow. There is new Cool Stuff on the front page, which I didn't really explain last update - every so often, I'll just find something that is temporarily cool, and I'll note it down on that list. It only goes up to 10, though, so once it falls off, the link either goes onto the Travel Center or evaporates, and everything else just goes away. As for the counting colors, each one represents how recently things were updated - green indicates within the last update, blue within a week of the last update, red within a month, and black is any other span of time. It'll make sense eventually, I promise. That explain why I wanted to be within a week? Elaine is getting a webcomic! Of course, since it'll be showcasing the ever-popular The Chosen Few, featuring yours truly, we will be working very closely with this site. It'll be good for everyone, just wait. And we're even looking into getting a little animated .GIF button to signal all pages that belong to members of the Magic Knight Sabers!... or something. Okay, so we didn't plan this out ahead of time. Bottom line, it'll be good. So what comes next on this page? Well, we're going to get more artwork up on either Thursday or Friday, so that's a given. Elainene-chan has some new sketches, and so do I, plus the ones that were supposed to go up before. on20 Episode 5 is being worked on, with lots of... well, pretty much the stuff you've come to expect from on20 by now. It'll be good. I'm also making some serious progress on the massive parody / epic of the Magic Knight Sabers, so all the talk about it will finally make some amount of sense. I'm trying to broaden the material that gets updated on this site in between bouts of video-game playing and dealing with my courseload. Bottom line, of course, is this: Erin is a goddess. Visit www.lostfactor.net. (I'm shameless...)

1/26/01
Okay, bunch of stuff... wow. Let's start at the beginning, since it's always a good spot. The ETWN is gone. Sad but true, especially after the opener for the last issue... but it's gone. It was an idea that I thought might work really well, but wound up not being very functional at all. Let's face it, virtually nobody read it, and it wasn't terribly interesting to those few souls who were a lot kinder to me than I deserved and read the damn thing anyhow. So it's gone. The reviews might pop up in other spots, but the other material pretty much already exists in non-encapsulated form. Maybe it'll surface again sometime in the distant future, but that's neither here nor there. It's gone. Next item: Another page tweak. It's probably the last one for the forseeable future - I'm pretty darned happy with this version. It looks like it was supposed to in the beginning, which is a good thing. The big changes are to the main page (no more annoying marquee!) and to the new text dropdowns for multi-page locations. There are still a couple broken links here and there - five, total - but we're working on them as best we can. Should be done in the near future. Anyhow. The cool thing is here! You guys proved that you loved me by pushing the site's counter far above 16000 well before 1/27, so we've got our cool thing, which is... Lostfactor.net! That's right, there is now a brand-new, top-level domain devoted to this site! It's exactly like it... actually, it is this site. Thought that was cool. The question, of course, is what about Crosswinds? Well... I don't have any ill will towards them, but I've given up on them as a webhosting service. They set forth with an admirable goal - free hosting, no banners, unlimited space - which turned out to be far more than they could handle. Once they had to implement the popup banners, that signaled the beginning of the end for them as a webhost. Cascading technical malfunctions convinced me that I was best off taking my business - or to be entirely accurate, my website - elsewhere. So what next? Well, obviously, more fiction. There might be another "mini-cool thing" coming soon - but I'm going to be intentionally silent about that, so you'll just have to wait and see. Erin kicks incredible amounts of butt. Oh, and visit the site! I'm paying lots of money for it, so you'd better visit it. Your friends, too. And family. And the friends of your friends and family. And their... you get the idea. VISIT WWW.LOSTFACTOR.NET!

12/17/00
Well, after the last update I've been thoroughly exasperated with both of my web hosting providers, so I suppose it justifies Broken being there. The fact that he wasn't there much just is a good sign, I suppose. And, hey, in one more update, we'll have nothing but post-Traveller's updates. Wow. Surprising, isn't it. You don't care, I'm certain, and I don't really either. So let's move on. Obviously, unless people get really lazy, the ET challenge is going to be met, so I suppose I'd better start working on things really cool. In any event, we've got a bunch of updates this time around. First and foremost, the Fiction Vault at long last sees the inclusion of the much-vaunted Battle Helix. Sequence 1 will be followed by more material, we promise, it's just not there quite yet. Second, and probably already obvious, all of the buttons have been replaced with .gifs... it's a simple matter of loading time, 39k worth of images instead of 52k. 25% reduction in size, that. ;> Third, we've updated the Studio Gallery with Elaine's Ice Cream Girl, whom she apparently bears some jealousy towards. (Kidding.) Finally, we've got a new link in the Travel Center, honoring another entertaining webcomic whose artist is actually a regular at the Steverino! forum. Check it out. Unfortunately, since I have finals all this week and I've got to head back from UCONN on Friday, this will be the last update for a little while, probably for files, definitely for major webpage structure changes. Hopefully everyone will live. The next ETWN is coming soon, so I'm obviously working hard on that, and I'd really like to get up another Valkyrie Legion chapter. Elaine has still not sent me the two pictures that didn't mail correctly (hint, hint, Elaine), but I'm still working on more artwork. And, as usual, miscellaneous crap is being tossed around, blah blah blah, I'm sick and tired of Dentyne Ice commercials, iMacs tick me off, Erin is the most perfect woman in the world, you know the drill. Well, let's restate that last one: Erin is the most perfect woman in the world. And that's it. I'm going to finish with this and go to bed. Big day tomorrow...

12/10/00
As the counter up there shows, the challenge we set for everyone - to break 16 thou by the site's six-month anniversary - is going quite well. Looks like people respond when Eliot promises to do something really cool. Neat. In any event, here's something that's at least a little cool: Electronic Transcendence is now in v3.0! As you've no doubt noticed, there is now a picture of Eliot sharing space with the ET logo, a Sluggy Freelance button on the sidebar (worship the niftiness), and a brand-new section with accompanying mascot! We were supposed to have three pics by Eliot and two by Elainene-chan, but due to a technical mishap two of Eliot's pics have been waylaid, and so Erin is not yet gracing the page as our spiritual advisor. Oh, well. Soon, I promise. In other vaguely interesting news, Battle Helix is nearly ready to see its debut on the site, although it does look like we're going to fall short of 100% Coming Attractions completion in the ETWN. (And if you haven't read this month's, do.) Time for a couple of plugs, now. If you haven't yet seen it, you need Vision of Escaflowne in your life. If you haven't yet played it, you need Final Fantasy IX in your life. And if you haven't yet realized it, you need to worship Erin. (I'm shameless.) Near future? We will get some more artwork up, we promise, and we already reported on the status of stories and whatnot. More stuff in the contemplations section of the Fractyl Depot is a definite likelihood. Of course, finals will make things hectic, but we'll do our best to pull through and deliver more interesting stuff, which might include finally seeing some video games material up in the Fractyl Depot. At this point, it's really tough to say what's in the future, but if we break that 16000 mark, I do promise something really cool. Before this update is over, though, I'd just like to apologize for the sparsity of updates. My only excuse is that it's been an extremely difficult time recently, something I'd rather not go into detail about online. Everybody close to me knows exactly why it has been, anyways. So keep up with the hits, because it gives me more incentive to write, draw, and basically do stuff. And vote. That too.

11/30/00
Well, it's a confirmed fact now - Eliot can draw. After a sketch yesterday of Erin, there's no longer any evidence to support a contrary argument. So, with any luck, we'll be seeing that sketch up on the page as Erin takes the position of Spiritual Advisor. Or something. I suppose there's about zero chance of me getting away with just making that the update, so we'll keep talking, as per usual. In fact, we'll be radicals and talk about what actually got updated this time. For starters, the webcomics have now obtained their own section in the Travel Center as the links list expands once again. It's the biggest part of the site in terms of sheer file size. Go read a few of them - I'm consistently floored with how good some of them really are. In other news, Genesis has finally been updated, with Chapter 3 on-line for your reading pleasure in the Fiction Vault. That still leaves the Vault at 98.6% functionality, but hey, better than nothing. Upcoming? Well, I do have some finals to study for and a term paper to finish for a class, but that doesn't mean I will abandon my duties as a page supervisor. We still are hoping to get Battle Helix, Element Knights, and Valkyrie Legion up before January, and since we managed three stories in a month, there seems to be a good chance of that happening. Obviously, art is forthcoming in the near future. Yes, that will require a new section and mascot, but don't worry - we've got that covered already. In addition, the massive parody known only as Magic Knights UCJAS: Slayers Crisis Yuugi 1/2! is progressing nicely. (The title is a parody in and of itself. ;> ) Depending on the degree to which I can steal Elaine's scanner, I may also put up pictures of myself at long last. A couple of final footnotes: tell your friends about this site! Really! It's lonely! More hits make for a happier webmaster, which makes for... well, I don't know, but it would be something good, I promise. In fact, I'll set the quota right now: if we break 16000 total hits by 1/27/01, I promise to do something really cool. You've got two months to get 178 hits on this site. Go on.

11/13/00
Just to prove that we're up on the issues, the staff of Electronic Transcendence (meaning me) has signed a deal with CNN, and we've just been informed that there's been a new development in Election 2000: America never will have another president. Come on, people, most of you probably half-believed that already. In any event, we'll shut up about the incredible fiasco that this is becoming and move on to other things, like, say, page updates. It's been longer since our last update, but that's okay, right? I hope so. It should be, because the Fiction Vault is now at a whopping 98.6% functionality! If you go right there now and check, you'll probably tell me that I'm on crack, since X-Files: Beloved is obviously online, so we should be at 100% functionality, but such is not the case. Why? Because X-Files: Beloved is still in Word format, and I'm not a fan of putting things on the page that aren't accessible by everyone. I'm assuming that about half the people who visit this site will be able to read it anyways, so we're only counting that as half a completion. Still, we're getting ever-closer to 100%. In addition, on20 no 2 is complete, with the inclusion of Episode 4: New Horizons, making it the longest-running anime on ET at the moment. (Of course, if you'd seen the overall plan for on20, it would be a minimal surprise.) Next up? Well, Mecha Thrash v1.0 is coming in the near future, with some updated and expanded material, a few more optional ways of running things, and the ilk. In addition, we've still got a priority to bring out new episodes of Genesis and Valkyrie Legion, not to mention introducing the worlds of Element Knights and Battle Helix. Of course, there's aways other stuff in the works, and right now we might see a new Electronic Transcendence WinAmp skin, new stuff for Battletech, and other goodies. Just keep checking back (now that we're back to updating with at least vague regularity), and keep looking towards the future. Oh yes, and one last thing: Erin is the greatest woman in the world. Thought it merited clarifications. ;>

11/7/00
Ah, the time-honored tradition of election day. I trust everyone remembered the three important points: vote early, vote often, and vote Democrat! Anyhow, you didn't come here for political rhetoric, considering that any projection tonight would be guesswork from hell - in fact, you probably didn't expect to come here at all, considering that the last back-to-back update was way the heck back in August. But we've got an update, and that's not up for vote or anything, so let's be happy. We've now got a link in the Travel Center that'll send you off to pick up WinAmp, which is one of the better freeware programs out there. In addition, as we promised in the newsletter and the update yesterday, we've come through with the next big anime for Electronic Transcendence - Iron Saviour. (Yes, the Anglicised spelling is intentional). Episode I: The Black Mystery has been placed in the Fiction Vault, and will hopefully soon be followed by new episodes in the near future, though our first priority is fufilling everything within this months newsletter, which means new on20, Genesis, Valkyrie Legion, Element Knights, and Battle Helix if at all possible. Coming up? Aside from hopefully celebrating four more years of Democratic presidency, we'll be going for exactly what we said right up there, and still hoping that we can get Magic Knights UCJAS off the ground. Stuff is still being kicked around for RPGM2k, but in all honesty I've learned by now not to promise anything whatsoever in that department. And... well, in all honesty, I don't know what else, although I am aware that stuff other than the Fiction Vault has been starved for updates for a while now. Of course, I'd say that's just more impetus to read the new fiction, but there are those who would probably disagree with me. The election drags on, and my hopes for saying the words "President Gore" does not falter at all, so we'll keep up until the whole thing is over and the dust settles. Who knows what tomorrow will bring...

11/6/00
Late at night, the inept mad scientist types away, updating his page while listening to blaring J-pop that Elaine has addicted him to, kicking himself for being five days late with this update. Of course, in this case, I have an excuse - I've been reporting on the UCONN Model United Nations conference since Thursday, and have therefore had a lot of stuff flying around and preventing me from finishing the ETWN. But, now, it's done, we're done, and we've got stuff on the site. Sort of. Obviously, there's a new newsletter (which we're gradually working to the point that it's really useful to read), and this page is updated. In addition, the ET FAQ got another update, with something of an expansion and the Mascot section finally giving full info on all of our little monsters. And, thanks to Anime Pitstop adding our site into their directory, we are now sporting their button on the side, in addition to the new option of switching between Fortunecity and Crosswinds at will. Yeah, the whole "delayed update mirror site" thing just wasn't working at all, especially when FC decided to be wacky. In any event, there's little new on the site right now, I'll grant, but we're working on the renamed Iron Saviour (explained in the newsletter), on20, Genesis, Valkyrie Legion, and even still kicking Element Knights and Battle Helix around. All of these series should have at least one episode up this month pairing, so be on the lookout. In addition, time warranting, we might see Eliot's conceptual anime parody, Magic Knights Ucjas: Slayers Crisis Yuugi 1/2!, coming to the site (though whether or not it'll be finished at all will hinge on multiple factors). Art is steadily being worked on, and, well, the newsletter outlines a lot of stuff in there, and suffice to say that I might pull out a few tricks. Okay, we don't see the volume of updates we saw back during the summer, but I will not let Electronic Transcendence Productions fade silently, or at all, into the night! It's gonna be a weird two months...