Speech went well at Centennial. Well, I think it went well, won't know until Monday. Ironically my room of Duo was the last to finish and David's debate was also the last to finish. We were around so late that Parker (the Centennial Debate guy) was getting pissed, it was fun unnerving him and Smiley. Oh and David's little Debate, which apparently boiled down to the judge reading cards, was apparently constantly harrassed by one Denise Boder (and they called us Ballot Nazis)

Okay, another blank spot here. Pretend I posted something and I'll get back to it later.

Make an effort to work Chasmotic into your converstation tomorrow. It's definition is vague, but it seems to deal with chasms and Mrs. Lakly likes it. Perhaps I should ask her to make it word of the day? Speaking of which, when's our rewrite due?

I'm decided to cancel my rant about the Goverment conversation started by Mr. Reeder in Econ since I don't feel that it will accomplish anything productive.

Apparently my car is more vindictive about its temporary abandonment then I expected. My mother drove it to the shop and it gave her absolutely no problems, yet it 'stalled' (though that's not really the true verb) once on States Bridge and once on Taylor Road and it died on the way to work as well. Evil car.

More Music Theory strangeness, in math form this time:
1 Waffle = 2 homes
1 Waffle House = 3 homes
Jiaz = Tim
Any major scale = 4 Wa-Ho's

This is not going to be my week. I got harassed yesterday in the lunch room over my milk (and I thought that high schoolers would have been more mature than that, my mistake) and today I got called shorty by the short black male teacher (one of our random math department additions after the Northview Exodus I imagine). Here's to hoping that things get better before they get worse.

Anyways, the Orchestra Concert (not the trip, which'll be a longer and more involved post when I'm more aware of what I'm doing) went well enough. The Elephant was a blunder more than a triumph, stupid rushing lower-chair bases, but the Swan was very nice. Everyone should clap for Jackie. The Vaughn Williams was wonderful despite our inexperienced Harp player's efforts contrary to that effect. The rest of the songs were decent. Well, Lullaby was very nice, but one can only take that for so long. We had a good ~120 people in the audience in the fabulous auditorium that seats 2200 or so.

Well, my car decided that it didn't like me leaving it outside at school so it didn't want to work and then it didn't show any signs of damage when we took it in for service so I'll try driving it to school tomorrow. I assume it's feeling nice enough not to kill me.

Check this one out, you'll need the sound for it though

I need to find a way to deepen the color of my links, oh well.

Well, I survived the Orchestra Savannah Trip, though I'm much too tired to relay much so I'll get the random tired details that I have:

1) Fringes are cool.

2) The great conversation of the ride (okay, the one conversation I remember), it was borne of boredum between Clara and Chris, so Clara decided to do a game where you use each letter of the alphabet to make a phrase describing yourself. The highlight was:
Clara: Oh how I wish I had someone to take me to prom.
Chris: Prom is a waste of money.

Reason why Anime is better than Real Life: One Word: Mecha.

Hey Jeff, Guess who just left the store. Michael Zarazour. And then just after that, Mrs. Weaver (which probably means nothing to most everyone, but oh well)

--There was a statement to go here, but my mind is blanking so there isn't one--

Rhetorical Work Question: What happens when you have 2 "People First"s and a 2 witness notary all at the same time, all atop the regular 2 o'clock crowd, which then endures on to 3 o'clock when both FedEx and USPS show up and you're in the middle of doing an Express Mail for one People First and have a Priority Overnight still to do?

Answer: Thank God that there was enough foresight to get the Notary who knows how do to People First's in the store so that everything is only really chaotic as opposed to totally hellish.

Merciful fate has allowed me to "co-write" my lit paper with Jiaz. It was decided with a very tense set of coin flips. Best 2 of 3, going for heads. The first flip landed Tails. The second flip landed, partially obscured in Ting's binder, as heads. The third, and ultimate flip (penultimate is so much more fun to say), landed and immediately began spinning, which it continued to do for nearly a minute before finially stopping on heads. So, now I'm doing "The Turn of the Screw," more demi-victorian gothicism fun.

Gaming related statement: Wow, Diablo II has changed a lot without my notice and the one thing that I did try to find out they never announced (at least now I know why I wasn't able to get on East last night). The changes at a glance:
1) Crushing Blow now affects everyone, though tons less than before (it's down to 25% naturally and 10% vs champions and PvP).
2) Deadly Strike and Critical Strike no longer stack for 4x damage, there is just a slight increase of the chances for the 2x.

In other D2 news, I crafted a war pike yesterday out of boredom (started as a war pike of performance), it ended up a mere 40% enhanced damage, but its 6/8 dual steal and 6% enhanced defense (cause we all know how important that tiny def change is to a barb (since only a barb or an unwise amazon would every come close to the reqs for it).

Having fun at work stories. (No, seriously, its not about some maniac on the road this time.)

1) Yesterday, I was using the vacuum at 4342 (the quote, "New Store") and apparently the combination of the vacuum's engine frequency and the physical design of the paper shredder made for some very powerful audio feedback. It's actually rather frightening to be able to get such a screech out of a vaccum.

2) Today, I did the stamping of mail for Northbridge Dental. I don't usually read the address of every letter, in fact I didn't this time either, but two names caught my eye. The first name, and the first letter, was addressed to Edmund's father, the second was for a Laura Marcy of Cumming, GA. On top of that, the one time I left the store (ie: to go get mail from 4342) she was 2 cars ahead of me, I think. Creepy.

Alright, there isn't a purpose behind this but it was a digital cable movie that evoked it.

If your parents, instead of the birds and the bees or the stork, used a hard taco shell to explain babies, how bad would that be?

Waffle Waffle House Waffle Waffle Waffle House. Try making sense of that, non-music theory ones.

Today is a day of Machismo, all day long that word has been coming up. Though I do think I spelled it wrong.

Wow. Apparently neither Michael nor Jiaz knows who "Her" is. Well, I'm certain that won't be a long-standing mystery. Anyways, speaking of that topic, I need to get some Prom decisions plotted, evil plans welcome.

On a un-related topic, sorry for the lack of longer articles of a non-gaming topic, I promise they're coming.

Elsewise non-sequencial: Anyone happen to know the French word for trenchcoat? Moreover, anyone happen to know why I care? (Mad points if you can guess it, since those who would best know don't take French)

Current Mood: Pissed for a stupid reason (damn Hatians in Vice City decided that it'd be fun to drag me from the firetruck. I was on level 9 of 12 in the damn missions when this occured. Such is life).

In Econ posting, so it'll be a bundle of short and sweet topics.

Well, a whopping 37.5 out of 60 on the French Vocab quiz, what a major improvement to my grade (considering that I hadn't done the first assignment).

In school posting has an air of nervousness, but its more productive than doing Word Racer, and I am trying to decipher what exactly frictional unemployment is.

www.Kartoo.com : Though I know you could easily find the link through Jiaz I wanted to see if I had anchor commands down in HTLM yet.

I wasted this weekend meaning that I have a ton of work to do this week though that's not really a recent development.

A Sentinel under police surviellance cannot possibly beat a Stinger in an illegal street race. Too much Vice City.

Okay, Simple Symphony (a major misnomer) is in need of serious attention an my part, hopefully I'll get to it though between Piano, Work, Calc, Speech, French Lit and Non French Lit it may be a while into the weekend before I get there.

I downloaded all the random songs from Animal Crossing, its scary.

Wohoo! I got a 6 on the Lit quiz on Tess. A whole 6! Should have been an 8, but somehow I managed to get Angel confused with Gabriel. Don't know how I managed that, don't really care, just have to make sure I don't do it on the essay next week.


Today's reason why Anime is better than real life: What? Were you seriously expecting more of these? Wow, I haven't convinced you yet? Alright, here goes: In Anime, being a musician automatically qualifies you for any lesser job; ie. saving the world, stopping invading aliens, that sort of thing, try doing that in real life.


I'm on a temporary break from Tales of Destiny II since I burned myself out playing far too much WHIS (The infernal elemental Uno variant that you're sick of hearing about), though I still don't understand the scoring of. Plus, Gnome's lair is a pain to get through, constantly running back to the start to change items.

Instead I've taken up Wild Arms 3, another RPG, though slightly less random. You start with the 4 main characters all meeting on a train regarding something most of them wish to steal, but before you get to that fun you have to play each character's background to learn the basics. So here's the lowdown (don't you love that phrase?):
Virginia (* Difficulty, out of ***): Virginia lives with her Aunt and Uncle, her mother's dead and her father is a Drifter (someone who roams the desert, apparently about 1/2 the planets population are Drifters as near as I can tell. Their village gets robbed by Hobgobs (perhaps a shortened form of Hobgoblins, but they more resemble a cross between a hobo with a knapsack and a dwarf with a pickaxe. Still with me? Good, hard as that may be to imagine, it gets worse). Virgina sets off to steal the stuff back, talking about how she wants to be able to "fly on her own." So you adventure through the little dungeon, find some items, a ripped picture of her father as a scientest (who is the man who taught her how to use guns, though the game calls them "ARMS" (yes, all caps is necessary for that)). The random enemies of the game can be avoided if you hit "O" at the right time, signified by a hulking exclamation mark above the character's head, though it depletes a little gauge so you can't do it forever (just almost forever). Anyways, Virginia dual wields revolver ARMS (6 rounds of ammo 2x hits) and gets the the boss. The Hobgob Boss (what an inventive name) is no special fight, though the game does give you a major stat boost so you can unleash "Gattling". Despite its name, Virginia only shoots the regular dual shot, the rest of the frenzied attack being a bunch of ridiculously weak punches and kicks. You win, the rest of town arrives, and you're done.

Jet (**): Jet's a Drifter, treasure-hunter with white hair and no care for memories. He explores a ruin, finds a kid hunting memories. Kills a rather pitiful boss by activating a metabolism boosting ability so he can smack the beast before it regenerates. He uses a multishot gun of some sort (4 rounds of ammo, 5-6 hits).

Gallows (**): I can only say, don't name your kid Gallows. He's a priest with spirit powers who doesn't want to be a priest so he tries to run away. You leave town after being accosted by a manical sombrero wearing mechanical pinnochio that speaks on in CAPS that is apparently a Save point and run towards the Southern Sanctuary. Along the way you fight Hobgobs. Where Virginia nimbly dodged them and killed them is 1-2 attacks, Gallows takes 0 damage half the time, and blows them away no problems (Shotgun, 3 rounds of ammo, 8x hits) even when he runs out of ammo he can fatally smack the little buggers. So you're going along, life is good, when all of a sudden you run into the demon Caterpillers. Yes, hey have a far less cool name, but that's not the important part. Where Hobgobs had roughly 25 life, these creeps have about 150 (or 3 shots from Gallows, a whole round of ammo), they also act faster than our priest and do roughly 25 damage per hit and never appear solo. That wouldn't be so bad if Gallows had more than about 120 life, but he doesn't. So that's where I died 3 times and called it a night.

Other factors in the game. Music is pretty bad, the graphics are pretty eerie: Characters are bright, cartoony, vibrant while the backgrounds are dull and bland. The battles involve lots of random running about by all involved though it serves no actual purpose. Well, the bell tolled midnight some time ago, so I must rest.

We did the wonderful "letter to ourselves to recieve in a year" event in Lit today. 30 minutes to do 3 pages isn't cool with my handwriting and my font size (or the manual writing equivalent). I did come to the conclusion that tons of black, an overly wet blue, a decent green, and a nearly dead red pen do not a letter writing arsenal make. Simply put, I need to go buy some more pens.


I'm considering starting a less me, more creative blog. Anyone ideas are welcome. Further, I'm seeking D'Orazio to get me an new Email over at Swift since AttBi.com is absolute crud since it takes roughly 20 tries to actually send an email to a valid address and since Hotmail.com is even worse since it will never send an email, regardless.

Lesson for Today. Double Leet is 2674.

Don't you just love simple lessons?

Today's Reason why Anime is better than real life (no, it is highly unlikely that this will be daily, since we know how terrible I am with deadlines): Because when I throw off my trench coat in real life it crumples to the floor and I'm wearing normal clothes beneath. In Anime, not only would my coat float majestically backwards even if there was no previous wind, but I would also instantly change in appearance as well.

I forgot to mention it in my mass post yesterday, but this break I started replacing my drink alongside my lunch with an Instant Breakfast. I'm not certain that its nessicarily a bad thing, but I'm basically eating two meals at the same time. Oh well.

Sorry about the long empty interval and the lack of the New Years post, I went off on the Eve of 2003 and forgot to call home, so I got banned from the computer. I had a pretty self-aimed rant but I figured that'd create far too much sympathy so I nixed it.

Lesson of Today is Budget's Rule for Moving #32: Don't pack the cat and dog in the same box.

Our maniac party in Tales of Destiny II made it to Celestia. They have lots more technology. I was finally given the card game minigame, its like a demented form of Uno. Everything in that game leads to a minigame.

Today's Reason why Anime is better than real life: Anime Pets are really cool, enough said.

During my forced CPU hiatus I watched some old movies that I'd been meaning to watch for a long time. Namely, the Sting (cool), American Graffiti (I'd seen it before, just didn't remember doing so), and something else that obviously wasn't good enough to stay in my memory. The basic end of that tale is that I haven't seen an Asian in this entire time, not counting cartoons.