Aggregate Blogging

Yeah, so I've managed to make myself busy (well, Physics played a role, but I think that ultimately it's easier to point the finger at myself) so I've just jotted a few quick notes to cover the intermission and lay down here, hopefully in some substance.

Saam, Sean W., Anna, and Charbak can be added to the list of people that demonstrate that Summer isn't really any less crowded than a typical semester.

My ECE professor isn't really getting any less odd these days. Making remarks such as:
"You all had recitation yesterday, did they teach you real kung fu?" or "It's hard to explain some of these things sometimes. I wish this was like the Matrix where we could all just jack in and I could think it to you, and you'd be all like 'I know DSP Kung Fu!' and I'd be like 'Show me' and we'd go into the room." and the ever popular, while running out of the room at the start of class to get something he forget really quick "Today's topic: the Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy nor Roman nor an empire" and yes, it did grammatically bother me, but that another story.

So, Working at MechE hasn't been too bad, I haven't figured out a way to get them to buy me a Laptop yet (they've got the budget, I've seen bits and pieces of it) but they have shown me that Technology really will destroy mankind. And no, I don't mean all the complicated devices they have for actual Mechanical Engineering, I just mean the stupid Copier of death. Not an official title, but this thing was being a royal pain the other day. It was inverting copies (I put in 8"x11" vertically, it prints lengthwise. I invert the paper to be lengthwise, it prints vertically). It jammed every time I tried to feed it a copy through the top, and not only did it jam, it jammed hardcore (5 jams, only 3 of which were real, off of 4 pieces of paper). That said, I've been forced on several occasions to get creative due to the lack of available materials. The room lacks Staplers, Staple Removers, and Paperclips though I chalk this up to theft rather than lack of supplies, but it makes things interesting as I often resort two the pair of straight knives (they really aren't quite letter openers, but I think that might've been the original purpose for them). It's interesting to watch I imagine, me with a pair of long blades operating on the various machinery (I actually disassembled a three-hole punch the other day to get it working).

Relating back to the family festivities of David's Graduation, this was truely an event to make those of the Orient ear's bleed. What do I mean by this you may ask? Quite simple really. Somehow the movie Shaolin Soccer was brought to topicality and discussed. Suffice to say, having a group of grandparents in late 80s and early 90s raised in England and North of the Mason-Dixon Line, trying to pronounce Shaolin is truely an assailment on ones ears. This disturbance across cultural barriers was later compounded by Ian pronouncing (terribly I might add) the credits to Tales of Symphonia.

I'm worried about this Physics test mostly because of the Professor's response when asked if the test was roughly the same length as the tests of other years. After replying that he really hadn't checked, and probably should have, he added, "If the class were only an hour long I feel that I could give the test and while it would be about the right length, many of you would still be here when it ended. However the class is 70 minutes long." Yeah, inspiring, not.

I dragged Jason home to give blood, cause he was foolish enough to actually accept the offer, showed him Interstella 5555 (which I'd also watched the weekend before, but it's fun so no complaints on my part) and had him subjected to both Settlers of Catan Expansion and the grandparents. Giving blood wasn't quite up to par this time around. While the nurse asking questions was lively enough to have some fun with, the actual blood drawing nurse (I bet they have technical titles for those jobs, hell if I know them) wasn't quite so good at it. My needle torqued, which didn't actually cause pain, but it made my flow incredibly reduced and I spent a good deal of time waiting for the blood-bag to fill. They'd gotten a new set of questions on the forms, updated about a week after the last time I'd given, and I had a good deal of fun discussing the possible reasons for the changes as well as why the Red Cross's latest order of plastic gloves apparently had been placed for Purple Colored gloves (yes, they really were, like a deep purple). As far as question changes, gender specific quests now had an opt out for members of the other gender (Ie, Woman no longer fill in the "No" bubble when asked if are a man who has had sex with another man since 1976, but rather fills in a "I am a Woman" bubble), a military personal question was added, and the thing was overall made easier on the nurse to read (the names of drugs being produced on a handout rather than said, and countries of danger reduced to general areas which would be followed up with specifics if needed).

During the last time the family ordered Chinese, Ian's fortune cookie read "Support Literacy, Buy a box of Fortune Cookies."

I was originally going to say something about the decent gas mileage of the CRV and how I'd gone the whole week close to low fuel without actually hitting it, however the little yellow light I rarely see did pop on as I was pulling into the parking deck on Friday morning (which took place on the 27 despite what one of the higher ups at MechE might want me to believe). However, since I'm on the topic of cars, I developped (well, I had these, but didn't really ever have to deal with them) two pet peeves to other drivers. The first being those who sit at a green turn light too long (twice I was made to wait until the light had turned yellow before they finally wised up to the world around them and went, and once only becaue honking was done), the other is specific to the Apartment. It's a gated community, and there are a few people whose specific ailment, be it chronic retardation, blatent unobserveration, or ass-hole-ic nature compells them to disregard the location where you are to place your card key to open the gate and instead roll right up to the gate and sit there. It's quite annoying for now I have to trigger the gate twice if I wish to get in, once to get them out of the way, and once to keep the gate open so I can pass. Annoying as all-get-out.

And, to end on a note of general randomness I draw from the Horoscope from Creative Loafing, placed adjacent to Tiny Sepuku (which can be read online here and includes cute ones like this and this just to choose two really fast. Anyways, here goes:
Horoscope for May 12-18:
(Caution: Information in this horoscope contains references to exotic sexual practices. If you might be offended, stop reading now. I present this material to you because you are in a heightened state of arousal, both physically and metaphysically, and could benefit from outrageous provocations as you rethink your approach to intimate acts of love.) The ladybird beetle copulates for up to nine hours at a time, and males may have three 90-minute orgasms in one session. Bonobo apes are not obsessed with orgasm, but have frequent erotic exchanges of every variety, from intercourse to mutual masturbation to oral sex; homosexual contact is common. The male sponge louse disguises himself as a female to aid his seduction strategies. As soon as praying matises begin coitus, the female bites off the male's head and eats it; sex continues, however. Slime mold comes in 500 genders and at 13 of these have to collaborate to have a sucessful mating session.

Just to think, someone had to research all the information, and some scientests had to have discovered that. Though it leaves you wondering, how exact does a species have 500 genders, and exactly how is that supposed to be an inspiritation to rethinking a approach to initimate acts of love?

Extra notes

A few random tidbits of things to toss out, there are more to be said than I'm saying, but at 1:30, after being up the better part of 17 hours, I'm not really running at full speed.

Watched episode 2 of Samurai Champloo on Adult Swim. Dub isn't terrible, Fu's a pretty common voice among America's far less extensive VA pool of talent.

NIS will be releasing Atelier (Alchemy-themed RPG, 6th in a series, 1st US release (I think)) come the end of June and Phantom Kingdom (or Makai Kingdom: Chronicles of the Sacred Tome if you want to get technical (good lord, why does the main character appear to turn into a book?)) sometime in mid July.

For those who were wondering who specifically I meant by most everyone still seems to be at Tech, I've so far encountered Gena, Tim, Alex, Jiaz*, Kyle*, Christen*, Jason, Nathan, Clara, Victoria, and Sean*. Anyone marked with the * means I've seen their vehicle as well as them, though admittedly I don't know half of the un-*'d people's vehicles anyways.

Well, that's all I've got, I'm of to bed.

Saturday makes the week...

So I'm at home today in recoignition of David's graduation. Mind you, I didn't actually attend, the 6 tickets were utilized by parents, grandparents, and a girlfriend, I was the home director of festivities (Very much a made up on the spot title just now). Basically I cleaned up the house and ordered the pizza (more on that later), but the true tale of the party begins yesterday.

I had all of one mission to accomplish before the party, well, before Saturday started that's all I had, the list exploded exponentially on Saturday, but that's a bit further on. Either way, this mission was the sucessful retrieval of an Oreo Cheesecake from Micks, which is located in Lenox, which is near the apartment. So, I made my way to Micks, which took a bit more guesswork than I would have liked because I forgot where it was (for those keeping score at home, it's right next to the California Pizza Kitchen). So, I get there and ask the seating guy what I should do if I'm there to pick up a cheesecake, he directs me to the bar, tells me to ask there. So, I go in, and the following conversation is had:
Me: "I'm here to pick up a cheesecake."
Bartender: "A cheesecake to go?"
"Yes, an Oreo Cheesecake."
"I don't see any takeout orders on the list."
"Hmm, that can't be right."
"So, did you just need a slice of Oreo Cheesecake?"
"No, an entire cheesecake."
"An order like that would take...wait, did you call in earlier?"
"Yes, the order was placed yesterday."
"Alright, let me check."
At this point she gets the manager of the place, who, after an exploration of the back, discovers that they do indeed have a complete Oreo Cheesecake in the back. He goes to get things together, discovers they don't actually have any cake takeout boxes, proceeds to wrap in it saran wrap with circular cardboard protection (a valid way to do things, just less elegant). Elapsed time, about 15-20 minutes. So I take my precious cake and head home.

Important detail one, my bed at the apartment is my bed from home.
Important detail two, we don't have a guest bed in my house.
This means I slept on the sofa, not for the first time, but I definately prefer a nice bed.

I get up fairly early (8:30 ish), hard not to with everyone else being awake already and proceed to get into my cleaning and such. I even shaved, mostly because it's getting to be a hassle to have to wait on the Food Court employees to decide that my Student ID does probably look like what I'd look like without the facial hair. Then I get a phone call. Kyle's car battery is dead, and he'd like either a ride or a jump, I figure I've got the cables, and can provide a ride should that fail. Jiaz o course won't be up for a good 4-5 more hours. So I drive down to the apartment, we mutually discover that jumping is not sucessful (for the record, Dead's Positive, Live's Positive, Live's Negative, Grounded (usually Dead's engine block) is the proper way to jump) so I just give him a ride back to his house and then to work. I go home, spend a meager amount of time discovering how the starting levels of Guild Wars are since Ian had finially relinquished his grasp on the computer. I'll talk about my limited experience with the game later. So, then I head out to get some pizza's because it's about time for graduation to be ending and the relatives to be showing up. So I head over and order 4 large pepperoni, 1 large cheese, 3 large sausage, and 1 giant anchovy and black olives. Manager's new hire is pretty bumbling, much to the annoyance of the manager, but my order does eventually get completed, along with the 3 large greek salads I needed, and I somehow manage to maneuver all of that out to my car in one go; quite the sight to see I'd imagine. Get home and have a get together with relatives. David will be going to Oxford @ Emory, just to quell everyone who's going to be asking me. Conversations within the relatives tend to get very stream of consciousness at times, it's pretty interesting to deal with, scary to outsiders though, how everything just kinda flows along in conversation. Meal finishes, most of the relatives move on to other places, the remainder plans a few hands of cancelation hearts (I lose, not by a huge margin, but a loss is a loss). David's glad to have all the pomp and circumstance behind him so we go play a few rounds of Halo II online, I do rather well for once, several fall before our combined might. Ian has all this time retained his death grip on the computer. I boot up Tales of Symphonia and plunge a bit closer to the end, find inceasing amounts of dialog and dialog and steadily decreasing actual gameplay, FFX-esce anti-game game trance sets in (play FFX, you'll understand). Ian eventually gives up the computer, I play a bit more of Guild Wars, find that I've missed talking to a few people online, check anime releases.

Father takes over the computer for online D&D, I resume Tales of Symphonia. The last two hours of the game contained all of 5 fights, 3 laughably easy, 1 nice and challenging, and one that perhaps would have been challenging had I not elected to take a party of fast hitting characters rather than a mix of spellcasters and melee. Last 2 hours also contained about 3 or 4 anime-drawn cutscenes. The game as a whole contains 2 more than that, if you count the opening of the game as one. I'll maybe mess with the New Game+ features another weekend when I have a few hours to spare of less than prime online time.

But yeah, that's been my weekend so far. Tomorrow looks to be finally getting a piece of Random Curiosity as well as misc Physics work and bookkeeping on my part.

Well, I'm here

Even if my internet connection isn't always, hazards of the place I guess, nothing major, just an annoyance, but I'll get over it at some point. As usual, I really need to shave, but other parts of school life and moving in have taken major priority, so that'll be something I'll hopefully take care of soon, lest I have to kill a fresh blade entirely in one go.

After lunch today I had about an hour to burn so I went to my standard kill-an-hour-on-campus spot, the Music Listening Room. Turns out they've had a DDR machine added since the last time I was there. I feel that it is very fitting. Listened to Daft Punk's album Homework, still the only Daft Punk the MLR has on tap, but it's a good CD so no complaints here. Put me in an Interstella 5555 mood though. The lights on the volume control for my headset flashed in time to the music, which was fun to watch.

Anyways, a few quotes from my various Professors of this year and last, just for general amusement purposes.

Physics 2111, the second time:

* "Now if [he moves the center of rotation of a sphere to a line that doesn't pass through the center] you as students have a pretty justified case for child abuse. So no, that won't be on the final."

* Prof: "Alright, everyone get out your PRS's"
Student: "PRS is the highlight of my day."
Prof: "PRS is a big fucking pain in the ass."
-A few minutes later-
Prof: "I hope no one is recording this, there's only so much that tenure can save you from.

ECE 2025 (also the second time I guess, though I withdrew the first time, so not really retaking):

* "Saying Shit into an early synthesizer and listening to it play it's demo song with that /7 Shit shit, shit shit shit /7, that was the pinnacle of humor at age 13. I'm trying to cuss less in lecture."

* "The Math and Physics people make fun of us for using j instead of i, but we make more money then them."

My ECE Recit prof (I'm going to enjoy this).

* Comes in and starts up his computer while lowering the screen and turning on the projector. "Windows '95 on my Pentium 1 Laptop, it'll be a minute."

* Drawing a sample sinusoidal wave, "Now let's say that this is graph of... Ameobia Lifespans in Alaska."

* "Nothing happens instantaneously, nothing lasts forever, well, unless you're in the math department, but we have to build things that actually work."

* After drawing a Frequency against Amplitude Spectrum and declaring that it was an Impulse Graph, "Now I know those of you who've been in higher level math are going 'Oh no, Impulse graph, infinately tall, infinately thin' but this is ECE, so just pretend that it's merely really really tall and really really thin."

* Prof: "Has anyone taken any of the higher level ECE courses yet?"
Me: "Does it count if I took this before and dropped it?"
Prof: "Shh...don't scare the rest of them like that."

* As he tries out and throws away 3 dry erase markers, "When you all graduate and become rich, I want you to send me lots and lots of markers."

* "Can something ever be totally quiet? Abraham Lincoln's speeches are still floating around out there somewhere, but they've lost so much energy over time that things like grass growing and century old hurricanes drown them out."

* Continuing in the same topic as the above. "You can sit in one of [room with padded ceiling, floor, and walls to absorb noise] and you'll still hear this 'ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump'. The sound of your blood flowing. And if you shift you'll hear all your clothes rustle. Drive yourself crazy really fast."

Alright, time for me to get some sleep so I can be up for work. Hopefully I find some time to make a mark on Jiaz's Random Curiosity with some of the anime I was finally able to get after buying my 100' ethernet cable (and yes, I needed most of that to reach the router). Well, I wish myself luck, lots to do tomorrow. All my classes plus getting a cake and heading home for David's Graduation on Saturday.

Hope everyone else is having fun these days, for a summer semester there's still alot of people I know around campus.

Song of the moment,
Hazel Fernandez - Number One (Vocal Version)
off the Bleach OST.

Round two of the GameFAQs Spring Villain Battle

This keyboard does not have a functioning left Ctrl key, it's starting to bother me. Anyways, let's see how well my guesses were.

Quick link to the stats from last round here.

So, I made three mistakes. I underestimated Devil May Cry's fanbase and, as usual, I expected more out of Final Fantasy and less out of Sonic. And of course I figured there'd be more Suikoden support, but that is not the case.

Those mistakes aside, the next round is now set.

Round 2:

Battle 1
Bowser vs. Sigma
Should probably be a landslide of a victory. While Megaman has cool villains and everything, Bowser will take this round, Dr. Wily stands a much better chance than Sigma.

Battle 2
Revolver Ocelot vs. Dr. Wiley
I think Megaman's main foe might be just strong enough to edge out a victory over the gunman who was foolish enough to be possessed by a regrafted hand. Then again, there is strong support for both sides so it will be close, but my bet is on the Dr.

Battle 3:
Sephiroth vs. Vergil
Well, I was wrong to think that Vergil wouldn't get this far, that was my mistake, but he's not going any further. No question, no contest.

Battle 4:
Lavos vs. Liquid Snake
Again, this will likely be a fairly close battle and I'm not certain that Lavos will prevail over a better Metal Gear Solid character who manages to live on even after death, but I'm thinking that since Lavos should have the support of most of the RPG and specifically Final Fantasy fanbase he could manage to win this one.

Battle 5:
Kefka vs. Wesker
I take back all the bad things I said about Wesker last time. Yes, he is far behind the scenes, but he also has a hand in practically everthing occurs in all of the Resident Evils 1 through 4, and he does alot of pretty damn villainous things. Not nearly on a Kefka scale, but still pretty villainous.

Battle 6:
M.Bison vs. Diablo
It's sad to say that I think that Diablo is the underdog suprise of the contest, but I was expecting that. I think that Diablo has enough undercurrent support to be a strong part of the contest. With that said I could concieve of the only Fighting Game character evil enough to be considered a Villain taking him down, but for now my support is on Diablo's massive PC fanbase which should give him the edge in a mostly console contest.

Battle 7:
Ganondorf vs. Ansem
Ansem doesn't play a very massive role in the first Kingdom Hearts and really hasn't made his presence known in the GBA continuation. I'm glad he made it two Round two and I'm hoping for big things out of the second game, but either way he's going to be crushed this round. Ganondorf is bigger, better, badder, and has the Smash Brothers background to seal his total victory.

Battle 8:
Robotnik vs. Master Hand
Obviously I'm doing this on a revised basis, my actual entry for the contest has Sin picked to win this fight, but that's not going to happen. I'm quite proud of Master Hand for proving me right that a presence in Smash Brothers is superior to a presence in a very poorly done Final Fantasy game, though Kuja was fairly evil, if not very able to express it. Sonic fans will again carry this one through in what should be a crushing victory.

Overlooked

You know, it was Friday the Thirteeth two days ago? Really missed that one. I'm so not chronologically with it.

Still doing stuff other than moving in

Well, just a few quick notes to toss out to make it look like I'm keeping this alive.

Found this page while surfing Gatech's Parking site while at work, note the charts at the bottom and who's the "loser" as far as pricing is concerned. Now we see why D'Oraz bikes.

Also, just watched Appleseed, DVD Special Edition. Wow, and I thought Air was pretty, spectacular effects, nice plot twists, and of course a good strong moral similar to MGS 2's ending moral. Speaking of MGS, the latest VGCats is an absolute fantastic read. Alright, more later, I think I might need to actually finish packing stuff, like Asgard, now.

Just to aggrivate every English Teacher I've ever had...

I'll be covering myriad topics today, catching up on everything and all.

I'll get a run down of how well my predictions (which don't necessarily coincide with my actual entry) for the GameFAQs battle worked out as soon as the first round ends.

So, here's a little something to just ponder, it is an actual question that comprised the entirity of an employment application, and the answer that got the job is interesting.

"You're driving along on a dark, rainy night when you pass by a bus stop where you see 3 people waiting:

The first is an elderly woman who is quite sick and will certainly die if she is not taken to a hospital.

The second is your best friend who once saved you life.

The third is the perfect lover of your dreams.

So, who do you take with you in your car knowing that you can only take one of them (Note, don't even think about bending this rule). Do you save the old woman's life? What about your best friend who once saved your life? You may never meet your perfect mate again."

I'll leave the answer that was chosen for the end of all my rambling, but I would like to point out that it seems like the Best Friend is just setup to be shafted in this whole deal, a shame.

Well, Spring Semester is over, so no more will I be in Uzer's Physics class, no more T-shirts with Math is Hard or I Make Stuff Up, I somehow doubt my Physics II professor will be interesting.

For once I don't have a little handwritten note of all the events that need retelling, or not retelling as might be the case with my threat to use Jason's shower. My rage over the annoying David @ the Apt place has pretty much subsided now that all the stupid forms are in the past, hopefully it'll be some good times.

Actually I think I'll leave the winning answer to the question above for later, just as incentive to do a bit more blogging when I actually make it home, and am a bit more focused.

Hodgepodge Events

A variety of news and stories from the past few days, subtitled for distiction as needed.

Deadly with unconventional weapons
So, today I managed to cause abrasive damage to the point of bringing forth blood twice. Now, of the following categories:
A) Attempting to hold two large gatorade bottles by the tops in one hand.
B) Losing control of an undersized flathead screwdriver while trying to change the blade of a box cutter so already loosely sealed that the spare blades slide out of it in random intervals and locations.
C) Carrying a stack of flat cardboard box patterns.
It makes no sense but is complete truth that only A and C actually got me cut.

When it rains it pours
Well, Housing is a place for of Bastards these days it appears. Since our Shower began to leak (profusely when used), Housing has been by on several occasions, well, twice so far, and has failed to be able to find either a leak or a cause. Now, the cause I concede might not be the easiest thing in the world to find, but when they run the water and I can come back to find the floor soggy, I begin to question the basic axioms that support my reality. Either way. This past Friday, Kyle took a shower at their request, basically to give them evidence of a leak. So, of course, to alleviate that marshland scent, I opened my window to give the room some fresh aid. We went out for lunch down at the Student Center, and I didn't give it another thought. Well, lunch was alright, perhaps the pizza was a bit on the liquidated cheese side of the spectrum, but that's alright, it's above par for Woodruff anyways. Well, upon our leaving the Student Center the sky decided that Jiaz, Kyle, and I looked far dryer than it really intended, and promptly opened with a torrent of rain so severe my Technique dissolved in my hands. Well, upon our more than damp return, I discovered that the wind's direction of choice was not condusive to my choice to open the window. So yes, wet floor, wet room, and wet me; very much not a good thing, but a little rain never killed anyone who wasn't a witch to begin with and Asgard doesn't seem to have exploded as a result, so I guess everything's okay.

In other news
David's Psych book has today informed us that the definition of health is no longer "The slowest rate at which a person can die." It didn't tell us what the new definition is, but we found the point interesting nonetheless.

Clearing my notes

I really must admit that my Winamp playlist is sort of intimidating, I mean, especially in how terribly formatted/identified some of the songs are. Suprisingly long average song length, I was thinking the eyecatches would've knocked that down a bit, but I guess there's a bit of balance against the few 10+ minute songs. Having 5.3 days worth of music on one playlist does seem a bit excessive though, perhaps I should import all of Stepmania a well, just to see what that would do.

So, family and I have finially reached disc two of Tales of Symphonia, just a little under 40 hours of gameplay.

I'll get to editing in some more here later. Gotta sort out Registration and Parking decisions for the time being.

GameFAQs Spring Character Battle

So, we have the Battle of the Villains, meet your contestants here. Anyway, my thoughts on the matter, welcoming discourse as usual.

First matter is to realize that the quality of a villain is not really any indicator of how far they'll go in this contest, it really is nothing more than a big old popularity contest.

With that in mind, past contest results look like this. 2004 2003 2002

Format-
Battle Number
Villain vs Villain (winner in bold)
Reasons for choice


Battle 1
Bowser vs. Pyramid Head
Hands down, no comfrontation.

Battle 2
Sigma vs. Andross
Megaman > Starfox, especially when Starfox just has a big floating head. I mean, at least Sigma has a human form leading into his big floating head stage.

Battle 3
Revolver Ocelot vs. Nemesis
Really, Nemesis is a pushover. Sure, he harasses you, he chases you around, but he just don't pack the same punch. It's a split call because it's a similar genre pairing off he bat, but I think the master of the gun is better than the trenchcoated mutant with a one word phrase.

Battle 4
Dr. Wily vs. Ultros
Hard call, Ultros isn't really a major villain, but he recurrs majorly, and he's a Final Fantasy character, however I think the man responsible for terrors such as a robot with the power to launch snakes takes the cake in this pairing.

Battle 5
Sephiroth vs. Ramirez
No contest. I don't really like Sephiroth, but he's got cool music and he's never failed to finish in the top 10 of any prior contest. That and I bet there's no users out there with Ramirez in leet with numbers attached on the GameFAQs boards.

Battle 6
Vergil vs. Ghaleon
I hope Ghaleon wins. I mean, Devil May Cry wasn't very good off that bat, and although I didn't play the third, I don't really see it being redeemed. Ghaleon on the other hand, was quintessential evil, plain and simple.

Battle 7
Lavos vs. Mother Brain
Hard call. Both Samus and Chrono do remarkably well in all the previous battles, however I think that Lavos, destroyer of worlds has a bit more a kick than the big medulla oblongata in a jar.

Battle 8
Liquid Snake vs. Officer Tenpenny
I don't think you can really call any GTA character a villain, and while the game was cool, Tenpenny isn't really what I ever consider worth a vote in a contest like this.

Battle 9
Kefka vs. Mithos
On a scale of evils, Mithos is pretty damn evil, like insidiously evil. He's not Lord Yggrasil, who bound two worlds together in competition for existence because he could, but he's pretty damn evil. Kefka on the other hand, blows him out of the water. In addition to be irredeemably evil to the point of slaughtering innocents and practically destroying the world, he's a multiform boss battle via an interesting system and a Final Fantasy Character, and remarkably popular in prior contests at that.

Battle 10
Luca Blight vs. Wesker
Luca's evil on a Kefka level of evilness and I think Wesker's just a bit too far behind the scenes in most Resident Evils to win big on this one, but I'm pretty iffy on the matter.

Battle 11
Albedo vs. M. Bison
I don't really think a villain can come from a fighting game, but I don't think Xenosaga has the same reach as Street Fighter, so I've got odds on the Psycho Crusher man. Plus, Albedo was always a non-serious fight (letting you get blows, talking to you), M Bison always just kicked your butt and laughed.

Battle 12
Ridley vs. Diablo
I just don't think one can underestimate the power of Diablo's far reaching fanbase, even if you are the coolest Metroid villain ever, especially better than the immobile mother brain.

Battle 13
Ganondorf vs. Giygas
Okay, Earthbound is cool and all, but it doesn't really stand a chance against much anything else on this list, especially not Ganondorf, who's standing as a serious Link villain and as a powerful addition to Super Smash Bros Melee, just whoops up some serious butt.

Battle 14
Ansem vs. CATS
I'm overturning my initial thoughts on the matter. The all your base is a far reaching effect, CATS historically just doesn't really make it past the first round, sure we like the phrase, but it's not worth our vote. That and Ansem shares a game with Sephiroth.

Battle 15
Dr. Robotnik vs. Sin
It's a hard call. I vote Sin because he's a final fantasy character. However it's in my nature to sell Sonic short. I could see Robotnik going through this round and the next if the fans come out in force. Honestly there are better choices than Sin out of FF-X that would've fared much better.

Battle 16
Kuja vs. Master Hand
This battle should just rot. I hate Kuja, I refuse to acknowledge FFIX as a FF game, and Master Hand is not in the least a villainous character, but he's definately harder to beat. So for those reasons (hating Kuja and Master Hand being a bit of a toughie at times) I give this to Master Hand, however, whoever does take it, they're not getting past the next round.

I won't get into further rounds on speculative voicing though I suspect Boswer Sephiroth Kefka/Diablo and Ganondorf will be the final four, with Seph taking down Ganon for the final win.

On a more personal level of opinion, I'm quite disappointed in some of the characters omitted, especially Magus of Chrono Trigger, who, while able to convert, was pretty damn good at being bad.

Last 5 CD's listened to in my car:
Eve 6 - Horrorscope (You have to admit, it's a great album title)
Appleseed OST
Widespread Panic - Ain't Life Grand
Ima Robot's self titled album
They Might be Giants - Apollo 18

Last 3 games bought:
Phantom Brave
La Pucelle Tactics
Disgaea
(Noticing the trend?)

Last 3 games gifted to me:
Unreal Tournament 2k4 (Like I have 5.8 gigs to spare. I don't even have 200 megs at the moment)
Ratchet and Clack: Up Your Arsenal (100% completion to boot)
World of Warcraft (A whole set of stories in itself)

Latest dark indulgence:
Darth Mix M&Ms (Dark Chocolate Peanut M&Ms for those who aren't aware, Star Wars Episode 3 themed/inspired, if the name doesn't give that way.)

Yeah, there'll be substance later, after I can get equations of laminar flow in non-circular tubes cleared from my mind.

Hopefully my immune system can hold.

So David caught a very nasty stomache bug, suffice to say my awakening today wasn't very present. Hopefully I won't be getting sick, but until it clears up, I guess I'll have to postpone a showing of Shaolin Soccer and/or The Incredibles. The former for knowing the roots of the Evil Team, the latter cause it's just cool.

Speaking of wanting intelligence, I could use some myself.

Okay, I really don't feel so bright. I've really got to start looking at the big picture before doing things these days. Seriously.

So, Kyle, Jiaz, and I laid down a deposit to secure a very nice 1500+ sq foot apartment 10 minutes from tech. A bit above $500 a month, which comes in at a fair bit less than what Jiaz and Kyle calculated Gatech's housing costs at some $620. So everything so be grand, right? Not quite, on several levels. Here's how it pans out.

First off the bat, that $500 covers, well, space, space and more space and some kitchen appliances. Nothing more. Tech furnishes sofas, a bed, a desk, a cabinet, a closet, as well as the kitchen stuff (for an apartment at least, though in the dorms the stuff's just communal). Sink's alot nicer, so's the fridge I guess, and the showers, so all pluses, but nothing that's super critical or anything. However, Tech also covers utilities. Okay, perhaps $130 total a month, so not enough to bring it up to the level of Tech still, we're still ahead, even factoring the gas of a 10 minute drive to campus rather than already being there (though if prices keep rising under the current administration this could definately change). I can get the furniture for the most part (probably minus a bed, I don't really want to move my desk either, or a table, but that's most of it I guess) and the community offers alot. Again technically not anything that Tech doesn't provide (pool, weight room, raquetball court). Parking's free, unlike at Tech however I'll likely need parking there as well so that my driving to campus amounts to something other than the boot getting attached to my CRV.

At this point I'd like to apologize in advance for spelling mistakes before I continue, I've had a major headache ever since traffic coming home and nothing's fixed it for me yet.

Alright, so so far things sound pretty good right? Saving a bit, pretty posh community, beer and skittles lifestyle right? Well, not quite. I don't know what to say about meals. Honestly at the 10-14 plans it's cheaper to eat at Woodruff than to furnish my own food, especially if I want to attempt the same level of variety and beverages. Well, alright, I can manage, just have to get a bit creative, force myself to cook with something besides the microwave perhaps, it'll be a learning experience, I guess. Learning that I suck at cooking perhaps, but I doubt that'll be the end sum of my attempts, I figure I can do well enough, if I push myself. Ah for the good old days of lovely enchilladas.

Alright, food's not really a big deal, I can just cut the savings from the inflated plans into buzz funds and dine on campus for lunch, decent variety and a passable value. What's the big kicker then? Simple. The per month cost of living at Tech is greater than the per month cost of living here, however, I wasn't planning to live at Tech this summer, when the lease starts. So, simple mathematics (and I've had way more than simple) will tell you that any number is greater than zero, alot greater. I've said this several times, innumerable times perhaps, but the way things work is often quite different in theory versus application for me, no matter what I try. Oh well, hopefully I'll have 3 jobs to juggle around which should account for it if it doesn't break me completely. *Cross fingers*

When I started the post 2 and a half hours ago I'd kinda planned another bash against my own intelligence for voting for Bush (and yes, I did, I admit it, and I regret it) but I'm not feeling up to it this evening, perhaps at another time.

However, Karma's not complete without a bit of balance, so: Anyone remember the Geogia High School Graduation Test? David had to take it. Included on the test was the following.

Anne held her stethoscope in her hands to warm it up for her patient. Anne is most likely a:

A) Secretary
B) Doctor
C) Farmer
D) Engineer

When David informed me of the question, I rationally pointed out that maybe 20% of Georgia High School students would be too stupid to know what a stethoscope was (I admit I'm too stupid to spell it on my first try, wanted to add extra letters), however he tactfully countered that you don't need to. The inclusion of the context clues "her patient" is more than enough to answer the question. Nothing but a Doctor has patients. So much for my line of thinking (and George W. Bush's purpoited No Child Left Behind program, but that's a story for another time).

Well, Happy World Water Day everyone. Hopefully the link works for someone, keeps timing out for me, but my net isn't as infailable as it is at Tech.

All I want is some intelligence...

Alright, so David borrowed Tales of Symphonia from a friend so I booted it up for about 2 hours today. Interesting game, I wish the damn skits had voices too them. Works like Tales of Destiny II from the Playstation if anyone remembers that one. The game is quaint, nice in its allowance of multiplayer, but not exactly bright. You start off with a 3 character party, quickly advanced to 4. So of course we jumped in David and Ian. Then it dropped back to two pretty swiftly, but Ian had bedtime anyways so we just unplugged the controller and moved on. Then it fell to one for awhile and David went to bed, so again I just dropped the controller and moved on. Turns out, that although there wasn't even a viable controller attached, the game left them in Manual mode and doesn't give me the option to swap modes mid-combat. In short because of the games own shortsightedness, I fought a rather nasty boss fight sans half my party who were merely standing in place doing nothing. My other major gripe is the Z axis. Like most games, there's a 3-d element to battles. Unlike Tales of Destiny where you had merely a forwards/backwards and an up/down, this game also has a z-axis, or relative depth. Unfortunately for you as the player, your selected target designates your z-axis, the direct line between you and them. What this means is that you cannot deal with the surronding enemies without changing targets repeatly. Logically you'd divide targets to avoid this in a full group, but even still, easier said than done, as such acts quickly bog down the pace of combat. I imagine that higher levels will eventually grant me more sweeping abilities to strike across the Z-axis rather than merely the X-axis, but that remains to be seen.

In other news, ingrown toenails are a major pain, good lord I didn't realize that they hurt quite so much.

The low res trailer released by Gonzo for Speed Grapher seems interesting, if way too low res. I can somewhat make out what's going on, but i've got to say, that was a damn tiny (size, not length, though that wasn't too great either) video.

Oh well, I ought to be sleeping, apartments to look at tomorrow, and they tell me I'm driving, so I'll have a report on that when I get back. Fortunately we have neither a pet nor an AnthroPC to worry about, so there shouldn't be any special complications with our search.

Wow...this is new.

Okay, so I usually come home on weekends to escape the drudges of weekends at Woodruff and usually the meal with grandparents and is pizza or hot dogs and hamburgers or occasionally london broil. Last night was indeed pizza with grandparents: 1 sausage, 1 pepperoni, 1 anchovy and black olives (definately not for me). Tonight however was completely different, in a very good way. Caeser Salad and shrimp with dip plus london broil with grilled mushrooms and onions and deep fried french fries. Quite good. Yay for home cooked meals. I guess I should thaw out some icecream for dessert, that sounds good.

Let's get retarded, part 2.

So, I'm convinced that work makes me stupid on the basis that I actually managed to mangle the pronunciation of the word pronunciation while in traffic on the ride over to work. As a sidenote, before you go looking at me like I'm crazy for talking to myself aloud, I'd like to remind everyone that I was taking David with me, so quit thinking I'm crazy like that.

(Misc) Don't look directly at the light.

Yes folks, I have slight astigmatism, yes, I will be getting glasses, get used to the idea.

(Apology) Well crap... it's been awhile hasn't it?

My forthright apologies for my failure to maintain this blog. I'll see about doing something about that. But in my defense, my Dwarven Paladin is borderline to getting him war horse, priorities and all you know.

(Misc) Uhh...yeah....riiiiight, sure.

So, my one source of knowledge of the outside world, Google News (and no, I'm not conspiratorizing something by posting about Google on a Google owned Internet Shoutbox linked to a Google email address) tells me that Apple is doing very well curtesy of the I Pod and considering the number of said device that I've seen around campus, I can see why.

However, on another note, Google also has a newspot about J-Lo and Ben breaking up, the featured picture for this of course being Lara Croft from the Tomb Raider movie, a media production I have so little faith in I still can't recall the actress's name.

I realize that (Misc) has been the tag of most of my recent posts, but that's pretty much what I'm about when it comes to blogging. I've buried my Rants for now, I'd rather landslide the past than keeping it topside and angry, it is all stuff that I'm past anyways. School topics will be the next to surface with the revivication of Tech. Those and WoW stuff at least.

(Misc) Hey look, I'm blogging!

Yes, that's right. As the New Year Begins (or has began, I think I've already missed the boat on that one) no one really wants to be Shipping anything at the UPS Store, so I think I might manage to actually finish this damn post like I've been meaning too. I once again don't have my notes with me (which I figure is tantamount to a sign from on high that I should just blog my stuff when it first comes to me, but oh well).

So, before I delve back into my previous intentions I wish my brother a happy 18th Birthday and everyone a Wonderful New Year.

I think the singlehanded highlight of the Christmas season, besides procratinating customer's expression when we told them how much it would cost to guarantee their 67 pound packages delivery to California in time for Christmas would have to be Jessica's: "My husband brought me coffee, foolish mortal." Nothing like a statement like that to liven up a day, or coffee to liven up a day for that matter, not that I drink the stuff...yet.

So over the Christmas break I went and saw The Incredibles with my family. The theatre (look, I'm getting all proper and European on you) wasn't exceedingly crowded, however it was stratified enough so that I ended up sitting only with David while Ian and my parents took another row a bit further back. Now, I must say, I was dissapointed by the direction that Pixar had taken with the pre-movie animation that they have, as it was no where near the typical level or humor, though still quite well done. The movie itself was fabulous and I was throughly amused. Now, as no one but myself knows, I like what I call movie corollaries. These are, simply put, other things that, if you have seen them, make watching a movie more amusing. In general these things bear similarities to certain parts in a movie, and thus can invoke a sort of nostalgia or subliminal echo of previous enjoyment. Now usually there is a whole slew of corollaries that occur, and almost always you can find some way to work Final Fantasy in there in one manner or another, but there are the big ones from The Incredibles, in my opinion:
Marvel and DC Comics specifically Mutant Apocalypse and the Fantastic Four - Duh.
Bakaretsu Tenshi (Burst Angel) - Anytime Sei's driving the Megavan on the highway.
Star Wars - Speeder bike scene on the forest moon of Endor.
Farcry - The general island scenery of the game.

The Incredibles is also responsable for what David and I hold to be the single greatest evil mastermind's henchman's drinking game ever. Simply put, everytime they run away in fear, take a shot.

For those of us without superweapons capable of inducing mass hysteria in the general populace or alliegance to people thusly endowed, I suggest this simplier alternative drinking game borrowed from Queen of Wands.

(Random, Long, Possible Rant) Highlights, if you could call them that, of the past 2 weeks.

Well, it's not been quite 2 weeks since my last post, but really, that one hardly counted anyways. Contrary to the piles of evidence against me (which none of you have access to) I haven't really had the time to blog, especially since Cindy was nice enough to give me World of Warcraft for Christmas.

I realize that when I blog from work not only do my posts tend to be more fragmented, grammatically deficient, and flawed in spelling, but also that I tend not to cover all the points I wanted. However, even with this warning in mind, I really don't find the time at home so where's harm.

Nothing like stating the obvious to bum yourself out, ala this conversation I had today:
Kyle - "Hey, we've been out of school for 19 days now."
Me - "Yeah, and I worked all but 3 of them."
I said that immediately and without mental computation, but it turns out I was right. I didn't work one Sunday, and the past Saturday Sunday (aka: Christmas). More heavy hitting is the realization that of all the days I have worked, I have worked a full day (9-6) every single time with the exception of shortened days (Saturdays, Christmas Eve) and 2 hours which were owed to a Haircut and having 3 cavities filled, and I've worked until 7 twice, so it all nicely balances out.

So the 2005 Honda CRV has come out, and it basically addresses everything I had to go out of my way to try and get in my vehicle (without going to EX and being unable to fit in it). With Standard ABS (yeah, that whole rant again) and Side Airbags (cost me extra, see same rant as above) plus a new seat material that's alledgedly more comfortable, I've not had any problems. Gee, Hindsight really is 20/20. Honda bastards.

My Co-workers are alot of fun. It gets dangerous to strike up a conversation with David and I after we've been customerless for almost an hour, but that's not really suprising is it? Gary's gone, which is a sad thing, you can read David's work profile to see the style of humor this place is now lacking.

Space for Vent.











Cute pun, no?

(Music/Politics) REM Concert with a side of Kerry...

Alright, I'd originally delayed this blog in hopes of making all the song titles into direct links to their respective lyrics, but with the recentness of Around the Sun and the general ad-ridden quality of most Lyric sites, that idea has been scrapped.

That aside, the concert was fabulous. There's something really nice about knowing a band well (in terms of characteristics "We are REM and we approve of this concert", "That's Paul, he's Mike, and I'm Michael. We are REM and this is what we do.") and liking all their songs, just an over all good concert.

After a very nice opening by a Michael Stipe favored group, Now It's Overhead, the concert got underway.

Song List
Get Up: David and my father had a gentlemen's bet riding on what song would open the concert, one would've thought that the second song would be a good strating point but REM rarely does it that way.
Begin the Begin:
These Days:
Animal: Really easy to sing along with song, good contributor to the loss of my voice this concert.
Boy in the Well: New song off of Around the Sun

Songs about Trains
Driver 8: Another sing along for me, I really love this one.
Hi Speed Train: Another new song, really different feel to it, but I like it.


South Central Rain: This is one of those songs that I never can remember the title to.

The Political Set- They opened this set of 4 off by pointing out their support against Bush including their part in the Rock the Vote tour. This was met by a wave of Yay's followed by a wave of Boo's (That's Georgia Republicans for you). On the record I was among the Yay's, cause REM's good and I had a inkling of what songs were going to be played.
The Outsiders: Another one off of Around the Sun, very fun song even if you don't want to look at the political ramifications of it.
Bad Day: The Song. I sang along here as well. This song is among the creme de la creme of REM songs in my opinion. If you do happen to check the lyrics. In place of "...not one more time." they sang "...not four more years!" just for the record.
Wanted to be Wrong: New song. For the entire concert they had incandescent tubes of light hung vertically behind them | | | which were usually a color (or pair of colors) either alternated or just left static. For this song, each tube was Red, White, and Blue.
Drive

That was all of the political quartet of songs, they got back to some regular REMing after that.
Imitation of Life: #1 Hit REM song in Japan
The One I Love: A very nice song as well.

Though it wasn't hailed as such, I do think this qualifies as another Polical Song in REM's songbook.
Final Straw: A new song, fantastically well done.

This was the quinessential ending trio of songs, for every concert thus far on the concert tour.
Losing my Religion: You see the mandolin, there's no question what song it's going to be.
Walk Unafraid: Personal Anthem, this is the source of my, and David's, Senior quotes. Also a sing along.
Life and How to Live It: A older, but still greatly fun song.

The Encore-Note that this was accompanied by Michael Stipe wearing a pro-Kerry T-shirt and some more political commentary (this time focused on voting, regardless of "which side you butter your bread on").

Nightswimming: This was a special hometown treat. At all the other concerts before Atlanta the Encore was 5 songs, specifically the 5 that followed this one. This is a wonderful song, done in a small group, namely Mike and Micheal along with a celloist and a obeoist they pulled out of somewhere.
What's the Frequency Kenneth: A very classic REM song, ranks alongside Radio Free Europe, Losing my Religion, and Nightswimming. Speaking of Radio Free Europe, after the political set, someone in the audience reportedly yelled at Michael Stipe to "Sing Radio Free Europe and save your ass" to which Mr. Stipe coridially replied that he would play what songs he wanted.
Leaving New York: Leading song off of Around the Sun, very very nice.
Something old and something new...- The Oldest and Newest REM songs paired back to back.
Permanent Vacation: Ancient song, incredibly fun.
I'm gonna DJ: First song to be heard off the upcoming album, sounds like it's going to be a good disc to buy as well.
Man on the Moon: An interesting song to choose for the finale in my opinion, but a good one anyways.

REM knowledgable people will immediately note the conspicuous absence of End of the World, but I'm gonna DJ has the world ending reference to satisfy me, and I got enough vocal cord damage from Bad Day to not need End of the World to finish me off.

(Employment) Well, what can brown do for me?

I returned home from college this Friday in anticipation of working at The UPS Store on Saturday to find that UPS Corporate had sent me a little postcard in the mail informing me of their job opening for Seasonal Driver Helpers. Little details other than the promise of $8.50/hr were included. So, out of benign curiosity, I decided to google said position. Namely a search for UPS Seasonal Driver Helpers and oddly enough I can't seem to find the exact position I was offered in the first place on job listings. One offers $8.00/hr for Seasonal Delivery Driver Helpers, another (in Louisville, Kentucky) offers $11.75/hr for a job with the exact same name and description as well as $8.50/hr for a job with UPS Worldwide sorting package from ~11:30 PM to 3:00 or 4:00 AM. All of this news notwithstanding, since I'm certain it's mostly price fluctuations based on locality and need therein I begin to wonder what prompted UPS to send me such a note (and how they found me in the first place) because with all the facts considered, they're practically offering me a job in lieu of a job with a subsidiary of themselves, and that doesn't really seem like the most brillant of plans. Either way, riding around in a truck for 12 hours a day with a man who's most likely a smoker (and has all the more reason now that he's got someone else to do the walking) is not my idea of a Seasonal Job, especially because I don't think I'd even get a chair.

(/)

I just wanted to congratulate Adventure Quest for having its second birthday (and yes, this is also belated...noting a trend yet?) and say thanks for such a wonderful free game that I'm certain will group to be something very impressive. I am seriously considering the one time cash donation to be a Guardian so I can still play even when the public server is stuffed, but we'll see about that.

(Random News) Calendar notes and Disturbing news

For all those who asked when I was coming back to Tech, if you haven't yet broken the code; the more vagueness I use in my reply, the more uncertain I am about my schedule for the weekend and possible changes or events that I may or may not remember. So, what does mean? I have an REM concert this weekend. I'll be back Sunday.

As far as disturbing news goes. The radio of awkening tells me that Hooters just opened its first location in Shanghai, they didn't comment on the nationality of the well-endowed waitresses that would be staffing the store but I really doubt that there is a "Willing to travel for work" question on the Hooters application.

(...)...

Yeah, a happy belated birthday to myself as well. And no, I'm not dead, and yes, I do plan to add links to this thing so it actually goes places, and yes, there will be much discussion of the end of last season and the start of this seasons anime.

...


...


...


Just not right now.

(Misc Humorous) My day is made

Okay, there's alot to the compound humor contained herein, but that's alright, it's how I gain the most enjoyment out of life; jokes within riddles within analogies within...well, you get the idea. Anyways, the latest Applegeeks comic is the cause this time. Besides being
A) An amusing comic in its own right.
B) A continuation of both a quality crossover and a funny Mac vs. PC rivalry.
there is a link in the rants at the bottom that really brings it all together. Not only does the information of the link and the rant bring forth a smile, but the hosting site for the link clinches it all, and in the end, I smile.

Edit: Since the link itself has moved into the blog archives, I reproduce it here.

(AWA) Freaks coming out of the woodwork

So, Friday I went to AWA with Nathan, Kyle, and Jiaz. Did not manage to run into Piro, not that that suprises me, but did have a throughly enjoyable time anways. As was expected, Naruto character were everywhere, though not many were Naruto himself. As far as Cosplay goes, there were several disturbing images, mostly invoked by either eating-disorder or chubby girls wearing far less than I'd fell they should, though I think the record should show that I feel these types should wear no less than 2 layers and an overcoat. On the top of the list however was the Rose Ball attendee who decided to go as a Pikachu in a Prom dress/Wedding Reception gown. I cannot convey this in words, so I won't try; just don't injure yourselves trying to imagine it. There were also the typical cop-outs of creativity, Sound Test blocks, Tetris blocks, creative but not very elaborate. Several Vashs, Squalls, White Mages (of FFXI), an Irvine, a few Wolfwoods, a Kingdom Hearts Cloud, a few Yunas, and assorted other miscellaneous characters, Oh and a fair number of assorted Catgirls (ugh) and Sailor Scouts (actually, primarily Sailor Moon). If I had to chose my 4 favorite Cosplayer groups I'd go with:
4) Yugi from Yugioh simply because of the look when Jiaz realized that I was right when I told him who the girl with the really really funky hair was supposed to be.
3) The Keybladed Riku and Sora from Kingdom Hearts weilding the Kingdom Key (Sora) and the blade that Jiaz and I can't remember the name for (Riku).
2) Lily and Futch, complete with a tiny white dragon doll, from Suikoden III, Lily's costume was better done than Futch's, but I say that mostly because I happen to like Lily's hat more than Futch's headband, Bright was cute though.
1) The better pair of Riku and Sora complete not with Keyblades but with a Goofy doll (Sora) and a Heartless doll in her purse (Riku). In retrospect, I should've asked if she made the Heartless, it was pretty damn cute.

As far as merchandise goes, the shirts and posters and wallscrolls aren't my style, so while I looked at them, there was nothing really all that impressive. References to Hentai, Glomping, Kawaii, Geekdom, Tentacles, etc, nothing too outstanding or impressive. The Japanese Manga place that Jiaz and I favored in the dealer's room had quite an outstanding selection, including Hot Gimmick in Japanese, art books for Phantom Brave, Disgaea, and Valkerie Profile (bonus points to anyone who's even heard of that), a Star Ocean 3 figure of Cliff, Japanese Disgaea manga, and a little Yuzuyu (of Aishiteruze [Cannot spell this for the life of me, I'll fix it when I get to Tech] Baby ) keychain. It was cute and not to costly, but I'm broke and a disembodied Yuzuyu head is kinda creepy. There was an abundance of weapons, mostly swords, sais, and throwing items (cards, knives, and shurukens) as well as a few maces, axes, and hammers. Plenty of Gundam Models and some action figures. There was an asian gentleman with an extensive selection of Jpop, Video Game, and Anime Soundtracks, but at massively inflated prices. I did stumble upon both sizes of Johnathan plushies from Kaleido Star but I'm not certain if the larger one was a display or for sale, ADV didn't have their own booth. Wizzywig had a adorable selection of Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronices Moogles in all 4 of the major colors (white, red, green, and blue for those who have never played the game). I saw a little girl with a moogle earlier at AWA which looked more like a Kingdom Hearts moogle but might have been from Crystal Chronicles, I didn't have a good look, but I didn't see them at any of the displays. None of the other plushies at any of the booths struck me as being kawaii enough with the exception of that Fox thing from Inuyasha.

(Gatech) "Let's get retarded..."

Okay, no insensitivity intended by the title, just a complete Mac Hall reference and as well as a self-referential degridation. I apparently botched my latest Chemistry Lab, being off by a factor of 10 on a Lab where accuracy is 60% of the grade, so my generous TA handed it back to do again by Monday; guess what I'll be spending my Sunday doing. I'd reference my complete idiocy as to Mastering Physics, but fortunately I don't know the jpeg addresses, suffice to say, I apparently cannot read numbers and find which cancel out, really really terrible. I did discover however, much to the suprise of Mastering Physics' Tech support, that 20 incorrect guesses on a single question locks out the rest of the question, which can be really damaging to a GPA, fortunately most of my homework grades for Mastering Physics are still in the low A to high B range. As for the Diff Eq. test that I tore through faster than anyone else, I ended up with a 40.5/65 which is the C range for the Test but not too terrible for not having any clue what his tests were like. Apparently I guessed the contents rather well, but was flawed in my execution of everything. Draw my axes backwards on the graph and generally had serious issues with the "plus or minus" concept that occurs with square roots and realizing that that creates 2 seperate equations. That said, I apparently made an unmodified 17/20 on my Chemistry test and a 89/84 on Java so I ought to be fine in all my classes despite my own best efforts at sabotage.

(Gatech) Another one bites the dust...

Another week is finally concluded, despite the best efforts of our unfriendly regional weather. Got through my two tests today in what I hope was good order, I was the first finished with Diff Eq's. We were allowed one side of a 8.5"x11" piece of paper for all the notes we wanted, I had alot less then the people around me, fortunately I anticipated most of what was going to be on the test. Unfortunately the Euler was worth alot less than I'd hoped (and was really damn easy on top of that). The phase and bifurcation diagramming I'd hoped wouldn't have made it on, but I still think I managed to convey the general idea though I concede that I suck when it comes to diagramming diff eqs. I don't know about the roots stuff, I think I had the right idea, but somehow I feel the fact that I claimed the second half of the problem was impossible doesn't seem like the greatest thing. I guess perhaps the two constant sets could have been different, but I wasn't totally sure about the process as a whole. I cribbed the formula for the Bernelli equation and the eventual simplification, but I ended up trying to solve 1/((C - 2x)^(1/4)) = -1, which doesn't occur, so I guess something went astray somewhere. Unfortunately that Bernelli accounted for the substition question as well, but the remained was just a basic diff eq that was simple enough.

Chemistry was pretty easy, no real curve balls, and for once I actually had a grip on what we were doing, not the first done this time, but among them (and for the worriers out there, yes, I checked over my work on both tests). No partial pressure question which suprised me. Pity I failed Bloch's class, I can't even get partial credit on my multiple choice this time but I should still be fine. Lab is going pretty well as well, I think my partner is very accurate, which is great. I've now got my TA's lab report preferences figured out, so the 83 Average on Lab reports should be moving up into the 95 range shortly (especially as the labs get more and more Excel intensive, I've got all sorts of Excel talents).

I went on Webwork to take a look at my CS grade so far, apparently I botched the applet badly enough to not get credit, so that was a sliver off my Homework grade, but nothing I can't balance out easily enough given the way things are headed. I apparently made a 89/84 on the test, getting everything correct and the extra credit, though I'll have to pick up my test at Recit next Tuesday to believe with my own eyes.

And once again...

Just two more quick notes, again with the belated birthdays.

One to the artist/writer of Hana Kimi, just cause it seems like the obligatory admission of my pursuance of manga.

And of course, one to Kyle for being the first of all of us to break out of the teenage years. Yay for Kyle.

A quick side note:

Happy belated sixth birthday to Google.
Happy belated fifth birthday to Blogger.
Happy belated first birthday to Kawaii Radio.

Oh, and, I think I start trying out Ad-sense, but I have no clue how they'd managed to associte ads with my posts. Given the frightening things that Gmail's tried to show me, I'm not certain that it'd work well at all.

Blog Conglomorate:

Is it conglomerate? *Shrug*, Whatever, not looking it up.

Anyways, the radio was actually playing The Smithereens, I didn't know that that ever happened these days, I guess they're a bit more mainstream that I thought.

So, I've decided that watching Mexicans distribute sour cream through a large, transparent housing, caulking gun is perhaps one of the most disturbing images that I can readily recall. I guess that's one of the key signs that I'm at a college campus when it's practically industrial sized food dispensers. Having a mental image of giant food pellet dispensers like in all the cartoons that they use to feed the smart hampsters.

Anyways, as Jiaz was keen to point out, college has kinda killed both our blogs to a practical halt, and Kyle's as well, though he's freaking prolific compared to the two of us these days. Props to Kyle (yes, I did just want to use that phrase).

I have, as of now, completed all 5 Harry Potter books that Mrs. Rowling has released. Very good reads and I look forward to the books. I'm quite interested to see who they cast as Viktor, Cho, and Fleur (which still sounds like a name straight out of Disgaea though that's another matter altogether). All around there's a bit more violence than I'd expected given the intended audience of the first book, but it's all very well done (My favorite bit being, and shameful this is to say, the use of Latin roots for all the spells). I'm quite satisfied that the 5th book did not end at all as I expected, many things that I expected did not occur and many things I did expected didn't, all of which is a very good thing in my opinion.

Despite the amount of time I seem to be able to dedicate to reading (evidenced by the fact that I've finished 5 books in 4 weeks, plus all the side literature: 4 volumes of Hot Gimmick and Ha Jin's Ocean of Works) I'm doing quite well in all my classes as things stand (and I believe I'll do fine on the Tests of the coming week) mostly because instead of sacraficing schoolwork for reading, I've exchanged one vice for another, shelving anime in interest for the coming new season and patience at the reduced rate of fansubs given the start of school.

I'm thinking I ought to start flagging my titles to posts with a parenthetical note to warn my readers as to what type of post to expect. Ie: (Rant), (Comics), (Anime), (Gaming), (Gatech), (Misc), etc. So, sound like a good idea, bad idea?

In the end of the beginning...

So, first week of Tech is finished, my schedule is now cemented as stands unless the will of a Registrar be enacted (though I don't see why that would occur, but I guess it's a possiliblity that I have to concede from the standpoint of truth). It's not exactly everything that I ever hoped for, but I should be able to survive it, assuming the book stores managed to meet my academic needs sometime before I start hurting for wont of what they lack. I do wish they'd coordinate these things though, I can't get Chem Lab Book at B&N, I can't get PRS's at Engineer's, I'm just moving back and forth between these two challenging the integrity of my impoverished savings account. So, without further ado, the present Fall 2004 lineup of courses contains:

Introduction to Chemistry - Yeah, I have to take this again, and lab as well because I managed to fail that as well, I swear that something went horribly wrong with the grading of my Lab Practicum but I really don't have a way, or the will after all this time, to try and prove that, so I guess I'll just have to suffer through both components of the class. The professor this year, whose name I don't know, is you, carefree, yet to be broken by Tech. That ought to change, should be fun to watch it happen. Either way, he's a worse teacher than Block in the sense that he teaches the book, but that's really what I need, Block just reinforced, and that didn't do me much good, since the book didn't explain it too well, and she was the one who wrote the brink. So, the up side is that I didn't have to buy a book, the downside is that this is one course I should've only had to take once.

CS 1322, Java - Oh boy, more Java. After a whole summer of the crap you'd think I'd hate to do this, but guess what, it's a requirement for the rest of my years as EE. What great fun this'll be. Even better, I have the same professor. Glad to know that my TBA materialzed as Waters again, this time I won't use Emacs though, so I won't have such a lopsided homework grade, that's a blessing I guess. This one should be rather easy, since I've seen it all before, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to enjoy it in any way, shape, form, or whatnot.

Differential Equations - Hmmm...Mark Demers is also one of those younger men to be teaching such a course. The other day he was just solving Diff Eqs to demonstrate a Theorem that is the basis for the course. So he'd throw up something and then the answer, no work, nothing. Scared the whole class cause we were all desperately trying to figure out how he was doing it. Someone actually asked, and he admitted that we'd be learning how to solve basic equations starting next week. But still, that was such an odd approach, cause he was just throwing equations on the board, commenting on how most of it was math that we'd never see, but that he for some reason felt had some usable implications despite all that. Either way, he's really damn softspoken and recovering from a cough, so despite lecturing in a Skiles classroom, it's a strain to hear what he says. Fortunately, he writes what he says verbatim, so that's not really a major issue. Class ought not to be that bad, but we'll see how hard Diff Eq's can be, since I've not done but the most basic of related rates in quite awhile.

Physics I - I don't know precisely why I put this off from last Semester, but I did, and I don't think I totally regret it. It isn't cool that I couldn't just borrow a book cause they changed it, and that they're no longer using Webwork but this vicious other online system that they use to ask all kinds of stupid questions. Either way, I don't like the book's approach of using 4 different models and diagrams for every problem (mostly because that means I have to draw them all to get credit for some of the most basic problems), but even worse, we don't even get like equations and math until the next semester. It's quite unfortunate that Tech wouldn't take AP Physics B, cause I've already learned everything that this class has to offer, but I just have to prove it, so I guess I will.


Other sundry blogging will be forthcoming, but now that academics are aside, my hands are aching.

Yeah, it's official

I have to retake Java this semster in order to qualify for ECE 2025, I asked my advisor about the conflicting details and got the worse of the two possible responses. I didn't ask if the information on Oscar was outdated or merely inaccurate of EE majors (I shudder to think of a situation where I could change majors to take ECE 2025 and then change back, but this might be the case, I mean, I really hate to think that a class should be harder to get into if it's your major, but who am I to question it, eh?). Oh well. Then to add biting insult to the injury, my advisor fired off an afterthought email reminding me that I have to retake Chem as a pre-req for another class later on (getting later all the time with having to retake Java). The bad part is that with my schedule out of wack, I don't know when I can schedule that Orchestra audition, hopefully I can pull off some last minute practicing though, hopefully I don't have to be too impressive to get in as a Bass cause I certainly haven't practiced at all over the summer. Once again it didn't occur to me that there'd be auditions for a thing like this, guess I've got to stop trying to skate through life and start putting out real effort, what a shame.

Well Jiaz, guess I spoke to soon.

Yeah, it exists:
[Spork] Pugyuru 11.avi

Worse yet, it's short for SailorSpork, this world scares me sometimes.

It figures...

...Mac Hall is down the moment that I want to show Kyle Ian's latest rant.

...Laura is out today, so I'm called in to replace her and of course the day is so completely dead.

...The ECE class that I don't meet the Pre-reqs for, I do. It specifically says that I need a C or better either in either 1322 (Java, I got a D) or 1321 (Scheme, I made an A). So I need to talk to Tech about resolving this in a manner that keeps me with enough credit hours to be a full time student still.

...That I can't figure out what Etudes I can actually play for the Orchestra audition. I hate auditions. Why can't we have sight reading? I do so much better when I'm not expected to have practiced. Oh well, that's life for you.

"Holding the panic button for longer than a second"...

So, I finally got my after-market Keyless entry for my CRV, looks remarkably like the one David has with his Civic except that I have a button specific to my Trunk as well, unlike him.

Damn, this Gatech situation isn't going to sit well with my Parents, but I'm not going to think about that right now, it's time to perform a ritualistic pagan sacrifice in some vain attempt to get some customers into this store. That and get someone to release some anime that I care about, I mean, a full blooming week and a whole 1 episode of Champloo (which I'd already seen the week before in French curtesy of Nerae) is all I have to show for the time passed. That's just not a good omen at all. Anyways, back to sacrificing.

Good Grief

Rats. So according to the map of my future, I'm in trouble, but fortunately it's all kinda canceling itself out in the not-so-uncertain terms of an extra semester at Tech. Namely, according to the map if I take ECE 2025 this semester, I won't be able to take next semester's ECE class until after I've finished with Physics 2. However, that's kind of a moot issue seeing as not getting a C or higher in Java means I don't meet the prereqs for the class, so I'll take it and Physics II this Spring. So, currently I have 9 credit hours (Physics 1 - 4, Diff Eq - 4, Orchestra - 1) meaning I ought to add back in Java and Chemistry and go insane this semester but come out better for it. I mean, all I have to do is read the Chem book to pass that class (though maybe I'll delay that idea a bit later) and I can practically sleep through Java class now, not that I didn't before, especially once I install Eclipse and use that instead of Emacs, meaning I'll actually be able to do multipart applications without going crazy (which seems to be the major theme of my life at Tech). And there's still the blasted issue of getting into my LCC that I'm supposed to take this semester that's full up, what a pain. And speaking of pain, the keyboards are really in an awkward place over here, at least this one doesn't have nearly enough space.

So, on Bortz radio today, he was playing Jibjab, so I guess that puts him roughly 2 weeks behind the curve or whatever. It was interesting hearing the radio trying to censor what it found offensive (only to have the show continue on and the next topic being Bortz's talking about slang for Lesbian being used in a game of Scrabble without censorship, but that's another topic). They weren't using a beep either, but a comedic noise to try and blend with the song I guess, it didn't work.

They also had the greatest caller into the show that I've ever heard. It took all I had not to break into laughter. His statement was, and this was following Bortz's talking about all the men who served with Kerry in Vietnam arguing against all his claims of heroism and the validity of his Purple Hearts etc, "If the Democratic party nominated Jesus, how long would it take before some Republican in Texas got a group of Apostles together to say that the nails driven into Jesus's hands were only 2 inches long, not 6 inches." Needless to say, it's a nonparallel arguement, and the comparison of Kerry to Jesus is so completely laughable that I had to step into the back for a drink of water. Sean's comparison to Mother Willow is a whole lot closer to the actual situation. Bortz's answer was 2 hours 46 minutes, which seems about right although it was simply an answer for the sake of answering the question as he justifably hung up on the moron.

Appendectomy : Appendix (from the body) :: the College Board's latest decision :

Analogies (from the SAT I).

Yes friends, it is true, the Sat I will no longer hold analogies within its pages. I, of course, really don't give a damn having already scored my score (definately could've done higher as is always the case with anything I do involving score), but this could be good news for analogy challenged future SAT takers, depending on what they replace the questions with.

So, Kyle installed the language settings on Asgard, which means that most irregular text patterns have become Japanese characters. Ie: French months, such as August, have had their circumflexed o plus the following u transfigured into the symbol for, honestly, I haven't the faintest idea. However, it's less of a bother for me, and more vaguely reminiscent of Gunbound than anything else.

I had thought about a nice little compare and contrast post illustrating the differences between Kyle and my workplaces, in the long run justifying his high pay simply by the amount of responsability he manages and the amount of boredom and flak that get flung his way. I mean, the closest I come to getting customer angry is calling a mail-box holder Mr. (Insert Lastname Here) and having them ask me to call them by their first name, Kyle gets customers (or one in particular in this case I guess, and hopefully only ever this one time) completely infuriated at Kyle for something he didn't even do to the point of full blown profanity and obscene gestculations. People certainly can get ugly when they are angry, but then again, I've always maintained that humans are ultimately a rather ugly race.

Perhaps I've been brain-washed by too much Neal Boortz (perhaps it is only one o, I don't really care) but I've almost begun to think that giving Bush a second term would let him finish his part in the war on terror and bring a close to a chapter in history (not saying that he'd end the war, but...actually I don't know what I'm saying). I really don't like either candidate. Kerry is too damn wishy-washy, and I'm the authority on knowing that that approach to live doesn't solve anyone's problems. Bush is still a moron, but then again smart people don't do politics, so that doesn't suprise me. His human rights record in Texas aside, I actually can't find much fault about him besides his dearth of intelligence and his belligerance. Not saying that he didn't take the proper course, not my place to judge that, but that it was quite the means of violence. As much as Bortz (double o might be the right way, but that's faster to type so I'll stick to that one) might like to herald the chemical weapons that we found in Iraq and the intelligence that Sadaam was seeking to acquire nuclear weapons program enabling materials, I do still maintain that the American public was mislead into this war in Iraq that has been too poorly managed to give my any faith. I mean, I fail to see the logic in a deployment that has American boys dying to Iraqi guerrilas while corperate employess get paid to stand around not doing anything mere miles away.

It's time for Acirema, and yes that c is pronounced like a hard k to maintain the general idea. This is totally on the fly, so bear with me here. A nation built on the premise that an acting Republic, responsive to the people's will, can best arrange for the wellfare and happyness of those people. Ideally failure to vote should be punishable, but devoting the resources of the people to monitoring and regulating the people is a self-defeating act. Where the archiac electoral college is disbanded in favor of the pure will of the people. Where a new judical court is created purely to enact Judical Review and keep the actions of the Legislative and Executive branches in check. Where Church and State are seperated firmly and unconditionally: utterances or proclamitions of religious nature being outlawed in places of Government but morals and vitures are not left to rot. Where men who believe that they should be leaders because they are so willed by their God are not even presented with a chance at office for those whose entire plan is to rest cradled in the palm of their creator do not have the judgement and capability of action necessary to lead a nation of mixed peoples. Where lying is once again a capital offence, direly so when under oath or in office. Where those who would evade taxes or embezzel are giving as harsh of punishments as those who would rape or murder. Where ignorance of the law is no excuse. Where a compounding rule applies: if one stupid unlawful action of a person's undertaking breeds another unlawful action or result to transpire, their punishment shall be greater than the mere sum of the punishment for all the crimes combinded. Where an abortion is a matter of choice, not a matter of law. Where streamlined processes are the forefront of plans, because the less time things stay tied up in red tape the more good they can do. Where Pork Barrel spending is recoignized as a difficulty and a liablity and disbarred from it occurance, which in turn breeds a nation of constituents who do not need their incumbant to waste 20 million of taxpayer's dollars building an airport in the middle of the mountains just to provide a construction job for his voting area so that they'll vote for him over his challenger. Where decisions on candidates are made by their stances and opinions, not by how well they can sling mud. A nation where economic disparities are recoignized as a function of modern living and, while methods of minimizing them are sought, they are not so done at the expense of burdening those whose creativity, ingenuity, or hardwork has brought them to fruition. Where middle management is a relic of the past and efficency is king.

Yeah, not going to happen is it, I don't think so either.
Oh, and if my beliefs managed to offend you, don't whine to me presuming that I give a damn.

A)bort R)etry F)ail mode 2 is now underway.

We'll see how far I get with this before my ancient template and Blogger's recent updates manage to kill each other.

Turns out that the answer to that question was approximately 13 seconds.

Another week of cross working 2 jobs, slightly shorter hours though so perhaps this one won't waste me quite so terribly. Blogging, emails, and visitation rights will, as usual, still be shot completely to hell though. So, enjoy webcomicy goodness while I'm not here Star Crossed Destiny

So, question of the moment: Why does Regal abbreviate Harold and Kumar go to White Castle as Harold and Kumar go to WR. Where do they get a R in there?

Song of the moment: Cowboy Bebop Movie OST - Time to Know ~ Be Waltz. Yes, that seriously is a song with a tilde in the actual title.

Harry Potter 3 Movie Spoiler

Now I know some kid is going to google the title of this blog post and read this post instead of seeing the actual movie.  But I warn you, this is only a review and not a plot summary of the movie.  Still, if you want to find spoilers on the harry potter 3 movie on the internet, be my guest!
Since Colin is too much of a wuss to write the spoiler (and he almost jumped out of his seat in the scene where Prof. Trelawney goes all psychotic on Potter) , I guess I will :D
Well, first off, the movie was half good, half bad.  As Katan points out, the cinematography was the BEST out of all the previous HP's.  Alfonso Cuarón is an AWESOME director!  But due to the length and detail of the book, they had to cut out LOTS of bits and pieces from the book. But I'll explain that part later. Rants first:
Observation 1. Dumbledore
OMG Who is *that* new old guy and what happened to the old Dumbledore?? Oh yeah, he died.  But still, this new Dumbledore, played by Michael Gambon, will NEVER fill the old Dumbledore's shoes!  Ever!  Where the old Dumbledore was kind, all-powerful, and grandfatherly, the new Dumbledore was too sharp, too quick, and dresses like a retired hippie painter. Overall, I don't like him, but I guess I'll have to put up with him throughout the next 4 HP movies.
Secondly, I'd like to discuss the book/movie discrepancies (something that colin could not possibly write about because he never read the book!)
Dude, Prof. Lupin's class was supposed to be *awesome*.  From what I remember of the book, they fought a lot more evil monsters and what not in Lupin's class.  And their final exam was to go through some sort of obstacle course fighting monsters right? To me, it seems as though they just glossed over the book, picking out only the most crucial parts of the story to maintain a logical plot.  I mean, the Harry Potter books are not just all about Harry going to school, Harry fighting evil Voldemort, Harry triumphing and moving on to the next book.  Rowling actually creates a whole wizarding world. I think we as the movie-going audience should get to see what it's like to go to a school of witchcraft and wizardry.  I know you get to see Prof. Trelawney's class some and Lupin's class, but come on, they had more classes than that!
And their clothes.  The first two HP movies were more traditional in the fact that they pretty much stick to the book.  All the students wore their little Hogwarts uniforms.  But how much uniform did you see in this movie besides the bit they wore on the train?
Speaking of clothes, what's up with Hermione and wearing these bust-enhancing, butt-hugging clothes? We know she's growing up and becoming more "feminine" but there's no need to market her body to the general public. She's too young for that. Another thing she's too young for is all this hitting on Harry the second Ron's back is turned.  I don't recall Hermione's character being all lovey-dovey towards Harry in the books.  In fact, if any of you have read Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix, ***SPOILER AHEAD*** you would know that Ron and Hermione had relationship issues in GoF and she ends up going out with that Viktor Krum guy while Harry goes for miss priss Cho Chang as evidenced in the 4th and 5th books. ***END SPOILER***
Also, WHAT WAS UP WITH MALFOY??? He's the big boss of Slytherin! He's Mr. Tough Stuff #1 Bully of the whole series! He's not some wimpy pansy-pants okay? So why was he backed up against the tree being beaten up by a girl?  I could understand his running away after Harry uses the invisibility cloak and starts throwing snowballs at Malfoy and his two stooges, but his wimping out to Hermione is either really bad, fake acting, or else it demands some justification!
Lastly, they never explained how Lupin knew that the Maurader's Map (sp?) was a map! I guess they cut that scene out and are putting it in the DVD.  ***SPOILER*** Lupin = Mooney, Sirius = Padfoot, Harry's Dad = Prongs, Peter Pettigrew = Wormtail ***END SPOILER***
Don't you love how all traitors have the word 'worm' in their name? (Grima Wormtongue from LOTR)

Okay I do have some good things to say about the movie, I promise. 
Like how the dementors in this movie could be distinguished from ring wraiths.  Dementors have a very round, oval-shaped head, which makes me wonder if their heads are just really one large rubber balloon filled with helium and covered with black cloth.  The movie really gives you the sense that these black hooded phantoms sends darkness and despair into everyone's hearts.  Whereas the ring wraiths from LOTR just sat on their various beasts-of-transportation and looked scary. 
I don't know if it's just me, but Ron is starting to look like the big Pete from that old Nickelodeon show, The Adventures of Pete and Pete.
The songs in this movie are wonderful! I definetly want a copy of this movie's sountrack.
Finally, there's Buckbeak the hypogriff.
The hypogriff is an AMAZING creature! And I didn't mean to steal that line from the nightelf in warcraft. They did a great job in the CG of that hypogriff.  It looked much more realistic than the incredibly fake unicorn in the first book.  You could actually *see* the blue feathers rustling in the wind during the flight scenes.
And that concludes Cindy's movie review of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban!

*Kicks Blogger*

This place is getting some serious trouble, perhaps to do with the worm attacking Google though, but it definately isn't going nearly as smooth as it should.  Always  a bad sign when I have to load a page at least twice to get it to actually take hold.

And the answer to the $10,000,000 for this week was, the ED to FMP:F.  If you didn't know the question, and anyone not reading my mind shouldn't have been able to, it was: What anime song do I know that reminds me of the song they play on the radio where the voice goes really high in the vocal range (I think it's a Michelle Branch song, but I can't swear by that, cause I'm usually working when I hear it and don't have the focus to devote to listening for the artist, or even really to the song).

I've found the inhibitor paradox of my life.  I don't want to read any literature because I want to get my own ideas out and do some writing of my own, but the issue therein is that I don't really want to write, because I'd never be serious about it, it's mostly action/humor snippets as are most of my stories, that and I'm not much a writer, as seen by my frequency, or lack thereof with this.

Current musical addiction: The Melody of Oblivion OST - The spirit of FRAMENCO.  An anime also getting my vote for my favorite of the season.

I'd post my opinions of the third Harry Potter movie, but I'm not certain that I can do it without spoilers, so I'll suffice it to say that it was a very good movie, and I hope I find the spirit to do some reading so I can finally read them, as well as the LotR series that I've yet to manage reading.

There, I fixed the temporal vortex I'd temporaly created, much better not to be 2 years in the future (an odd posting option, but, whatever.  It'd be cool for a Psychic blog though, being like a week in the future with every post).

Testing to see if the Changed date affects the location of subsiquent posts.

It would appear that Blogger has gone and changed their interface once again.  Hey, messing with fonts is amusing.
 
But, we'll still to normal sized Georgia font, cause it's a good font to use.  And hopefully, damn this new interface is annoying.  Keeps reverting to Tiny when I turn away for a moment.
 
So, as everyone can see.  As soon as I get nice and post links to Jiaz's lovely pictures, he goes and one-ups me by actually blogging, and making all the photo links individual with descriptions.  He's just mean sometimes.
 
Lesson for the week.  If you've created a Note-keeping place inside your Java application that saves and retrieves intself from a SQL database table, it's probably not a good idea to recreate the database from null values if you had important notes.  My uncle and I knew there was a reason we didn't want to have to null-state the database, we just couldn't remember the specifics offhand.  Now we know, and of course we left a reminder in the Note program, just in case we should try it again.
 
In other news, I've apparently got a package at Tech.  But between 2 jobs and a lack of care, I'm not about to take the trip down there just for my package, plus, they probably close the office on weekends, I'll have to check.  Now if only I had some clue as to why I'd be getting packages at Tech in the middle of Summer (well, not really the middle any longer).
 
So, I need to warn the world about a PS2 game that David borrowed from his manager for all of a day before giving it back, it's called "The Getaway". 
 
I describe it as: GTA3 + Winback, with the drawbacks of Resident Evil and Valkerie Profile.
 
But, that description is kinda lacking in the details.  So I'll break it down.  Take a lovely GTA3-esce City, ie:  Mostly unenterable buildings, abruptly terminating streets, yelling pedestrians.  Now take all that and make it British.  Yes, British.  Driving on the other side of the street, profanity in every cutscene with speech.  As for Winback, which I hope none of my readers have had the displeasure of playing.  It's like a poor man's Metal Gear Solid.  You can hide against barrels and boxes, peek around corners, roll, and that's about where the similarities end.  You, and your team of similarly colored, soon to be dead allies, go about through the FPS campaign with no inventory whatsoever.  You get one gun at a time, a few flashbangs, and go about fighting less and less innovative battles.  But enough about Winback.  The Getaway is a real piece of work.  You don't have a radar, or even a HUD for that matter.  You figure out which direction to go while driving by your turn signals.  As if that weren't bad enough, when I say no HUD, I mean it.  You cannot see the status of your ammo, the condition of your health.  But you can, and must, reload, and you can and will die.  The only reasonable way to judge your current status is how badly your character is gimping around.  You have the ability to do all the standard FPS maneuvers:  Rolls, duck behind low objects, take hostages, etc. but the controls are so horrid that you'll have extreme difficulty getting any real benefit out of them.  Moreover, you have to lock on to someone to be able to fire, that or manually aim (Which happens via a diesembodied over the should kind of camera angle that makes hitting buildings difficult).  The vehicle damage system works like GTA, white smoke turns to black smoke, then the car ignites and you burn to death if you don't bail really fast.  Windows can get shot out by gunfire, and I'm not sure about tires but a damaged car performs really substandard, as it should.  Also, the hero cannot run.  There is no run button, there is not speed other than moronic shuffle.  Even better, despite having a whole City, perhaps more, to explore, you don't have the option.  All the missions chain onto one another, and you have to do them, or gameover, no exploring allowed until the end.  I only got through the first mission before losing the thrill but here's how genius your character is.  The game opens with 4 thugs plotting to, and then moving to kidnap a woman and her son.  They screw up when she struggles and shoot her.  You are awakened by this (turns out it's your wife and son), so you run outside, pick up the murder weapon and then put it back down complete with your fingerprints.  Then you carchase the guilty party, shoot a bunch of guys, get clubbed over the head, and wake up faced with the old leader of a rival mob who has a bunch of jobs you have to do or your son dies.  Now David's play Enter the Matrix, I figure he'll have beaten it by tomorrow.
 
I leave you with this quote that I see outside a church I pass coming back from Java.  Is it just me, or does this seem to be the wrong message to be sending to parishoners?
"Salvation is a gift for the guilty not a reward for the righteous."
 
Hmm, I wonder what happens if I change the post date ahead 2 years for fun?

China pics for everyone to see. These are Jiaz's not Cindy's though, which means less cute animals and more vivid portrayals as to why as to why American capitalism needs to be destroyed before it causes any more trouble.

Take this web address:
http://www.swiftpublications.com/ChinaPhotos/DSC0###.JPG

and replace the ### with:
021
037
049
057
066
073
120
126
160
239
251
556
736

This concludes your China pictures for the moment.

Hmm...one might very well wonder why I'm around blogging at 2am when I have work in less than 7 hours, but the answer to that lies in wondering why Lunar had to release a second version of their Torrent, I won't where the flaw lies in the first, and curiosity killed the cat and whatnot.

The CRV is fun, even some nice oh-shit handles for the passengers, just something to point out considering that the old van didn't have them and there was much discussion of this in the past. I've got to admit though, it's a bit odd having the lock/unlock directions for the rear hatch be the reverse of the rest of the doors, but I'm not one to question engineers anymore, it doesn't get you anywhere. The only serious annoyance with my precious (mostly in the costly sense here) vehicle is that the CD player, when a song ends and it moves on to another, doesn't inform you of it. It just dilligantly displays the time, while the CD moves on, and if you're on random, with a CD like They Might be Giants or Dave Matthews (note, specifically chosen for having a good 10-20 5-75 second songs) you'll end up having no clue where you are at on the CD. Fortunately, I buy CD's where there's only 1 or 2 songs I don't really like, so it's alright.

Well, GSpot give the Torrents results a clear prognosis, perhaps I'll never know.

Wow, I get the greatest stories giving blood, perhaps I should answer the questions normally. Anyways, as goes, when I was asked if I had, since 1980, given money or drugs to someone in exchange for sex, I replied that I was far too broke for such a venture, which I had indicated earlier when I got my donor card out by inverting my lovely duct tape wallet and having nothing fall out. Either way, I got a parable from my nurse about a story she got from a teacher in medical school about a boy whose friends. Actually, hold up, This is a warning, the following isn't exactly what one would consider to be a pleasant mental image, you have been warned . Anyways, about a boy whose friends got him a hooker for his 18th birthday. Not very long story short, she bit him, he got gangrene 'there' and they had to amputate an area which my nurse indicated with self-directed gestures, but I'll say was roughly, everything between his hips. Yeah perhaps I'll answer the questions more simple yes/no from now on, save myself the increased bile levels.

Oh, and D'Oraz, they changed the out of country prohibition time from 1980 up to 1996, interesting, no?

Ergh. Burned out on Java, intermittant work hours, and a whole lot of July 4th related events. There'll be posts sometime, but for now I'm just crashed.