Fear not! There shall be a Colin Christmas Blog, mostly because those are really freaking easy, but as for now, it's sleepy time cause work hast totally worn me down. It's pretty much David and I holding the fort, Cathy's in for her bits, but Kristjan and Val and Bill are on vacation (and Bill was sick all last week) and Nick is just MIA and likely vacation as well.

As for the previous post, the double 8ths don't appear on the posting screen but a squares whereas the single 8ths did, and then it reversed going into the actual blog, interesting. I still need a function editor for this, but that's a whole 'nother game to be playing.

Alright, I think I can manage a semi-coherent blog at the moment *crosses fingers*, though I seem to have misplaced most of the mini-notes I make from time to time to try and keep my thoughts in some sort of order (or just keep them at all);


"It's called efficiency, look it up."
"Wouldn't it be faster for you to just tell me?"
"Ah, see? Now you're catching on."

As usual, don't expect most paragraphs to flow together, they are a bundle of thought stretch out over a vast amount of time.

Anyways, apparently Pottery Barn Kids makes mini appliances for kids. Trust me on this statement, I packed some, umm, like a week ago. (There was a really long pause here that I attribute to watching West Wing with Yo Yo Ma which I'm only watching because I've settled into blogging and I don't want to get up to go turn it off) (Long pause continues, blending Bach and dramatic flashbacks is a great way to distract me apparently, that and some great pyschological analysis stuff that I could very easily see David doing). Anyways, they had a mixer, a blender, and a coffee machine, complete with the everlasting phrase ~"enjoy the thrill of pretending to brew morning coffee." ?ô?ô?ô?ô ♫♫♫♫ <--- Damn, the double 8th notes doesn't work here in blogger.

Anyways, speaking of appliances, anyone want to tell me what the hell an osterizer is? If it helps, they apparently have on, off, and pulse settings. Apparently it's a kind of blender, but I'm too lazy to find a better site than that (I already scanned the top hits on Google, perhaps I'd be better off with Jeeves).

I played some Double Dash, and damned if I can't get Powersliding (aka Blue Sparks) to work. I really dont' know what tricks they want this time, but I'm sure when I play more than 5 minutes of driving I'll have it figured out. With just the basics it seems like a rather complicated process of mixing cars and drivers (and the stats are hidden unless you're plaing solo (or 2 in one car) and I wasn't doing that, so that'll again take some solo time then I'll have that logic down pat). It plays rather well, no drastic changes which is good, but it seemed pretty short, I'm certain that there's more to unlock though. I can play either position with enough maliciousness, I'd rather drive cause I can maneuver better than anyone, but being the "gunner" person is fabulous as well (sorry for the fabulous, Queer Eye's on, I'm killing it now) since I've gained plenty of skill abusing surronding racers by playing SSX: Tricky. Ahh, the fun of game synergies.

Alright, Bill's out sick so I'm playing backup manager (which sucks, cause having been out for college, I have no idea where Bill keeps things), I'm either chronically understaff or bored out of my mind at this store and the customers don't make things any easier. Let me ask this, is there anything about Colin that would make you think that I have X-Ray vision? Several dozen times in the past week I have been condescendingly told by customers after asking if "anything was breakable/fragile/in need of bubble wrap" (I vary it cause different phrases get different answers from select morons (ie, "Is anything fragile?" "No, but this needs to be bubble wrapped"). Is there some way that I should be able to predict glass in a bag of presents? Honestly, if you hand me a 5 bags with a combined 37 odd presents, don't be suprised if I ask if anything is breakable, and definately don't get snippy with me. I can't see through wrapping and it's quite aggravating to get people who seem to think I should be able to.

Further, this job has quite proven to me that the statistic that 3/4ths of America is functionally illiterate is very true. UPS has, since last Christmas (when most of these buggers were last here) changed the minimum password requirement from 3 characters to 5. Not only do I get freaks who don't understand what I mean when I say it's now required that it be 5 characters (and then get further confused when I clarify by saying 5 letter ("Oh, I can't use numbers anymore?" Right after I say that we suggest using the Zip Code. I don't know what planet stores the hole these fsckers (sorry for profanity, but it's been building and I'd rather take it out here then on someone at work, cause that'd look bad) came out of, but on Earth, we use Zip codes with numbers, shocking, no?). So, besides these people who take a good 5 minutes to get into their address book, we have those rebels who have used their own User ID's (we strongly suggest Phone Number) and then have forgotten them and expect me to be able to help. Also, we have those who were hit stongly with the object of my prized theory (the Retard Stick) and do things like try and stand on my side of the cash register, or ask for me to add bubbles (they mean peanuts, but somewhere around fertilization there was a bit of other substances besides protein involved I guess).

Well, Melvin is still alive, the Advent is being collected (though the servers are being a pain and the featured games are lousy ones (great Christmas spirit that have). The big question is, how do I break it to Sean that Lord_Malystrix, while he was the proud Christmas Wocky is now, well, umm...she's kinda stripey right now shall we say.

So much for tomorrow eh?

I hard a really great new subtitle for this place but I've now forgotten. Something to the tune of: now with 20% less superfluous redundancy, but I'll worry about that later.

I don't really have too much time to blog, seeing as it is close to 2:30 before my day with a 9:30 Class (9:35 technically, but whatever, and I've stopped counting CS as a class cause Ericson doesn't teach anything in there anyways) and it's the week before finals, at Tech, and they matter and also aren't getting exmpted.

Anyways, this'll be retrograde as far as events go, because that seems like the most logical of orderings, so recents events will be at the top.

Alright, tonight was a day of Mario Kart 64 between Cindy, Jeff, Kevin, a bit of Will, and myself. It was quite a violent game by the end, with several stages being replayed multiple times to settle grudges. In the end, we managed to trample every stage in both 100 cc and Extra as well as every battle stage, though mostly Block Fort and Double Deck. As far as players go, Will had been out of it quite awhile, Cindy was a rookie but played frighteningly well at times, Jeff was a bit of a hobby player, and Kevin and I were the most professional, knowing all the possible maneuvers and tricks.

As the game went on a few patterns became apparent. Namely that Jeff got worse as time went on, for the most part, whenever Cindy won it was by a huge margin, and when it came down to Kevin and I at the wire, whoever started with the lead on the home stretch usually kept it despite firepower. The usual bloodbath events occured that can be expected in any mass run of Mario Kart 64: a come from way behind to victory on Moo Moo Farms for Colin, complete decimation of everyone but Cindy on Extra Toad's Turnpike (nothing like racing in oncoming traffic, eh?), far too many runs of Rainbow road, all of them close and filled with the devastation of Lightning Goddess Cindy's Lightning bolts, Jeff getting nailed on all the stages with nasty jumps: Wario's Stadium, Mushroom Speedway, and Bowser's Castle, and a dominating triumph by myself at the nasty Yoshi stage. Oh, and several bouts of Kevin kicking ass at taking the shortcut on Koopa's Beach. Good times were quite had, though I finished with 30 1st place finishes, 18 second place, 4 3rd, and a unknown, non-zero, moderately large, single-digit number of last places, as well as 10 Victories in Battle out of some odd 18 battles.

Going back before this: FFX-2 is awesome. It's varied, it's interesting, it's learned from the mistakes of past games. One definately needs to have played FFX to understand it fully, though alot of story elements are new. Actually, I recind that, you need to have played FFX and have seen the extended ending from FFX-International which bridges the two, if being annoyingly repetitive and sappy.

Pros of the game: It's diverse with alot of different minigames and missions, it's got multiple endings, has newgame+, has jobs and classes, a great variety of accessories and abilities to learn, new areas to explore, bonds well with the old and the new.

Cons of the game: The Layers of loading are painfully obvious: when battle begins your characters appear sans weapons, which are added only moments before the actual battle begins. AP System is never explained so it remains unclear forever as to what solves what, hard to figure out what to do as some missions aren't ever marked and others that are marked really aren't. Cannot carry across anything but the core abilities of a class and not all of the classes even have this ability: for example, it's not really worth being a white mage, black mage, or warrior, because their extra abilities and auto functions are overrriden by others, similarily, Thief skills are easily better emmulated elsewhere and with the Mug Garment grid and Lady Luck can superceed most abilities, not really a cohesive storyline: things happen and then other things occur as a result, much of the game is from the extras around. New areas aren't incredibly inventive: it seems like a rather poor War III Custom: everything is merely palletshifted and size increased from the old characters.

Though the Cons look bigger, they are not nearly as hidering as the Pros are mouth watering. The pause of loading after every battle is annoying, but the variety of actions to take in battle and the resulting statements outweigh.
Rikku "Ducksoup!"
Paine: "Duck what?"

Beserker Rikku "Bite me! Better yet, I'll bite you!"

All in all, the game feels alot like an older Final Fantasy (Anything pre-X, cause it has actual levels), most likely FF5 for the classing with alot of overlays from Charlie's Angels (and if you think I'm kidding, you are greatly mistaken).

On the other side of SquareEnix's spectrum is FFXI, which I cannot stand. I gave it a fair trial, and it is simply not worth the hype of the 5 freaking discs it was forged onto! The game, which took a good 5 hours to install and was a bitch about it (ie: Please insert Disc 2 followed immediately by "Wrong Disc Inserted" and a load of code that only with careful observation could one decipher that it wanted Disc 1 again whereupon it immediately asks again for Disc 2). Moreover, the game requires the disc to run but inserting it automatically takes you to the uninstall screen, not that I'm complaining, it just wasn't a game for me. I don't mean to bash it, but anything you've read in any online comic is true. I don't mind that it has an odd feel to it, that half the time I examine Japanese characters I get nothing out of their detail and other times I get minor detail. But I do find something wrong in a game that is meant to be diverse and varied yet I see always the same Sword, always the same Armor, Always the same freaking Pumpkin helm! Moreover, I don't know what the idea of having the same monster vary drastically was, but it's stupid. More of the pallet shifts, mostly just name changes though, and close to 50% of the time I have no freaking clue what I'm trying to fight. Partying seems like a great idea, but finding a decent party is hard enough, let alone getting them all to find their way through the interface of doom to actually accept the invitation. I feel like I'm running tech support occasionally, and I've only got a mere 5 hours logged into the game. I think it might get slightly better with a few more levels, but then I realize that I'll eventually be back to level 1, again using crap items (the same crap as everyone else) running around fighting the same uninventive enemies who have much better skills than I, getting crap for doing it. I mean, I don't really mind getting .2 Sword Skill every few swings, or that I have to be fighting rather tough enemies to do it, but the fact that if I were to switch to an axe, I'd be at skill 0 but have the same progression and have to fight the same tough enemies, and rarely do I get the points anyways. Perhaps I'm not an MMORPG person, but I can't help but feel that I'm playing a glorified version of Diablo II with a few differences. Firstly, theres' no channel, all the spammers and morons are in the game with you. Secondly, that it was a version of Diablo II that was made not only by monkeys, but they were all being infused with mercury as they programmed it: It's like a retarted version of Diablo II with all sorts of odd requirements. Thirdly, the Rogue Encampment is roughly the same size as, say, Neptune. You run slow, you have no way to get faster, you die and you go all the way back, and finding an NPC to sell you maps (let alone finding the cash to buy them with) is nearly impossible. No matter where I try and go I end up at my Mog house, apparently every freaking extra pathway leads to the apparently extradimensional home of mine with a rather ugly floating whitish blob with a little red rounded blob that's supposed to be the enchanting Moogle that always lit up my day with dancing back in the days of yore (American FFVI, SNES) which now reminds me of a poorly rendered version of the Mog from the Moogle Game in FFVII after you fed him a few too many nuts. Fourth, instead of a 1 minute patch, it's a few hours.

The game has little conception of what a mission is: I'm supposed to see someone but I have no idea who because I lost track of the name amoung the 1300 other NPCS would I even be likely to end up where I am supposed to did I know their name, but I do know that I'm supposed to take my Blue Acid tester somewhere into a place far deadlier that I and find a place where it changes color, but I don't know where in this place, how I'm to survive, how I'll know when it changes color, or anything else. The opening isn't skippable, and while it's unlikely you'd have too see it too often, I'd much rather listen to Decard Cain than whoever the game spawns for me. It's nifty that different races, classes, and starting locations all get different jntros, but had that effort been placed somewhere else, like quality or patching, I'd have been much happier. All the steps in the right direction that I felt X-2 made, FFXI seems to ignore of blatently oppose.