A new generation of gaming

Well, originally this was going to be a Wednesday post but circumstances redirected that effort so it was revised to a Thursday post, initally created, then lost completely when Blogger went down for Emergency Maintenance so it's now a Friday post that will hopefully get completed as such.

David picked up a XBox 360 + Dead or Alive 4 early on in the week, I nearly got Guitar Hero as well since $45 for the entire thing is easily dwarved by the $60 cost of 360 games. He went out again later and traded in the old XBox to pick up Condemned: Criminal Origins, Morrowind 4: Oblivion, and Ian got Wario Ware: Touched for the DS.

I haven't seen Condemned, but I did play a bit of Oblivion. Actually, my father and both brothers did too. David's playing a Cat-race Stealth-type, Archery, Sneak, Hand-to-Hand, Acrobatics, Athletics, under the Rogue sign. Clive's got a Warrior, Blade, Heavy Armor, High Strength, etc, human. Ian's playing a mix of the two, Blade and Stealth Cat person. I'm playing the Mage. Wisdom and Endurace Focus, Sign of the Mage; Alchemy, Blade, Heavy Armor, Destruction, Restoration, Security (Should've chosen Alteration, just cast Unlocking). It's odd for me to play this style of RPG and not have a Personality/Speechcraft character, but at least most games aren't as unwise as Fallout was (I could literally take a Signal Flare into a store, and end up with the store's entire stock). Oblivion is pretty cool in the short time I played. Lots of travel nothingness to deal with at the start, and I really hate murky questlines (Ie: Not set with giant blinking objectives or concise journal objectives), but it's still fun.

DoA4 has at least a few new characters. Haven't unlocked anything past Gen Fu and Leon so far, plus a few costumes. They've added a Brazilian Masked (Mardi-Gras style) Wrestler, Gen Fu's Apprentice who's a very girly looking boy who uses what looks like a combination of Crane Style and Gen Fu's martial arts. There's also Kokoro who's another generic Japanese girl, traditional dress and fighting style. Brad Wong has an outfit that looks just like Gen Fu. Christie's main Costume (Costume 1) is a open-front black jacket with no undershirt. Zach still has the horrible alien/teletubby costume. Tina now has a cowgirl outfit, complete with hat. And Bass is even bigger than before.

Story mode now ends with different enemies for different characters, and an uberboss like DoA3 had (much as I hated his cheapness) isn't present. There is, however, an equal evil that some characters get to face. DOATEC's Alpha 152, which is a transparent-greenish energy being, built off of, I believe, Kasumi's model. She's a floating enemy with the ability to teleport as a counter or just of her own free will. Her attacks are lightning fast and her knock range is obscene. She has a few combos that involve swinging her legs at an incredible rate. Most of her combos can deal 1/4th - 1/3rd of your life, and in one particularly nasty juggle I did lose more than 2/3rds of my total life without a chance to counter or break. She has 3 grabs, all wicked. One is Kasumi's jumping leg neck break, but is executeable from a much much greater distance. Another begins like Kasumi's leg-based should grapple throw, but instead of using her legs to throw you, she drops you to a leg-based neck lock and spends awhile pummeling your head (a long ass, duration, combo). The third is absolutely the nastiest, she grabs your character's head, cracks their neck, and holds them with one arm while holding her palm in front of their face and charging energy, then releasing it in a blast of force sending you flying away.

The stages are a bit more dynamic, though not alot. There are a few object here and there that can be broken. The game also introduces low collison barricades, which someone can jump over, or be knocked over, but otherwise act as barriers. Things like fallen logs (outdoors) or the lane divider for the street (Casino Street level). There are also a few enviromental effects: T-Rex in the background, speeding cars on the Casino Street, that can do a bit of damage and add a bit of fun.

I'm thinking I need to at least look at the demo of Heroes of Might and Magic V, though from what I've read via Penny-Arcade's Rants, it's just a magically colorful as the IV, still probably worth my time though. I'm also considering Civ 4, because it is a good series, even if Civ 3 was a rather botched product.

Till then I'll just be waiting for Disgaea 2 and Final Fantasy XII, or for Atlier Iris 1 and 2 to crash a bit more in price.

Anime Outlook

But before that. I've just learned that apparently Nora Jones uses the word Mother-fucker in one of her recent songs. There's something really unsettling about that. I obviously need a new way to get music, since it's mostly Anime OSTs that supply my Winamp's growth these days.

So, the perspective as we near the Summer Season (Yes, Spoilers, and lots of them):

Black Lagoon -
OP: Fantastic. CG'd bullet reflections, fun stuff with Levi.
ED: Has an ED of last season's quality (Aka, on par with Tactical Roar, Solty Rei, Mai Otome, or Cluster Edge; which is to say static and boring without even an appealing song).
Upside: Fantastic show, humorous and shounen. Strong, diverse characters, building relationship tension, well drawn gunfights and brawls.
Downside: Uhh...I'm not really certain where the plot is going, if there is one. Seems like a string of loose jobs without any visible overarching connection.
Impulse: I'm not certain I want a relationship to get settled yet, as much as I complain about FMP stalling Sousuke and Chidori so much, I think I prefer things massively unresolved, or only slowing working towards resolution. Rock better get to fight something sometime, and more Levi doing the music killing please.

The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi -
OP: Interesting and lively, with enough foreshadowing to make me smile. I don't know how many of the Haruhi images are actually straight from an episode, but there's few enough to not feel like a cop-out tactic.
ED: Spawned a ton of knockoffs and a minor dance/parody craze. Not enough said? It's a good song and has great animation to boot.
Upside: Besides being a rather massive hit across the anime boards, the show merits all the praise. Massive art quality, great characters, an interesting plot.
Downside: Depends if you want your episodes to come in the proper order. Not going to be enough episodes of this goodness.
Impulse: Honestly, I think I enjoy the later eps (the true later eps, not the early eps ordered near the end) just for Kyon and Haruhi's relationship. Take the end of the Baseball Ep (4/7 , in order/truth) where Kyon talks Haruhi out of continuing with the Baseball Tournament; or the Split into Groups and tell Kyon your secret (Ep 5/?) episode with Haruhi's failed pairings and the angry straw-sucking. That all said, I don't really like Mikuru, she's sorta an obstacle to Kyon x Haruhi (And my tastes are for the dominant, not the submissive, and definately not the Meido / Loli)

Ergo Proxy
OP: I think I could spend 5 hours analyzing the images of the OP. I'm not going to, but it's that deep and fun. Yes, I know the text repeats alot, but there's still enough of it.
ED: Radiohead - Paranoid Android. Last Season styled though, just scrolling credits. Fortunately the lyrics work for me, so it's not a double whammy, the song isn't suck as well.
Upside: High art level, tons of references and hidden meanings, truly mysterious. Growing relationship and Pino. Pino is victory, pure and simple. Goth makeup.
Downside: Dinkiest fights ever and the weapons are pretty dull for a post-modern setting. Some of the character designs really take some getting used to, and our hero's dream sequences I could do without.
Impulse: Usagi-Pino is like victory^3. I'm really curious about all the plot that's yet to be expositioned. The "villian" is pretty crappy so far, especially after his spacing out in Ep 2. Seems that anyone not in the OP is pretty much assured to die, which is sorta bothersome, but it's been good for plot and development.

Ouran High School Host Club
OP: This is the Jpop-y, sugary stuff that makes me smile. It's not the greatest OP of the season, but it's still firmly rooted on the "like" side of the scale.
ED: The ED is growing on me. It may be static images, but at least they have color (unlike Shakugan no Shana's ED) and the song is both fast-paced and interesting.
Upside: Haruhi's for the win. A full cast of loveable (or detestable) characters, fantastic art, and a Gakuen Alice styled Academy (Bestest School setting, trumps the standard boring-school (See Suzumiya Haruhi, FMP, School Rumble, etc.)
Downside: Kyoya need a bit more development. I'd like the running debt-tally to factor into things a bit more.
Impulse: I think I prefer all the Host Club over Tamaki, but perhaps that to be expected. The first episode with the lightbulbs was so victorious I don't think anything after it can match that level of awesome, but they sure are trying. Honey-sempai's Ninja skills could use a bit more showcasing perhaps.

Eureka Seven -
OP3 (Fly Away): Decent song, shitty shitty animation quality. Also features the damaged Eureka appearance, definately not a plus.
OP4 (Sakura): Good song, though the start is alot stronger than the actual song.
ED3 (Tip Tap Tops): Black and white + new art style = inability to recoignize anyone. That said. Hali Cali is great and the art, while different, is fantastic.
ED4 (Coolon): Credit heavy ending, haven't seen it more than once so I can't really impose judgement.
Upside: I think we're past all the awkwardness as of now (Ep 38 atm) and ready for the drive to the grand finale.
Downside: I can't really root for an underage relationship that extends beyond friendship. I liked old Talho alot better.
Impulse: The last few eps have had some glorious moments (like Grandpa evading the military to deliver the board to Spec2 Nirvash). Still need to see what happens with Anemone. Gotta wonder what'll be resolved with Renton's father's / sister's stories.

Tsubasa Chronicle Season Season
OP: It's a good song, but it's a bit too slow for my liking, especially for an OP that features fighting. I like the portrayl of the shadows of the characters.
ED: I love this song, and the animation is as good as the show, even if it's not much more than static. Enough said.
Upside: More of what we love.
Downside: Mokona seems to be like 20% less cute noises, however the goggles from the dragonfly race totally made up for that for at least 10 eps.
Impuse: While I totally support Syaoran and Sakura getting bolder, I kinda liked just having Kurogane and Fye fight. Not a big deal, they seem to still be doing their basass interplay while hiding from their pasts, so we've still got all the stuff that made last season great, and more.

Well, that's enough text for now.

I actually have a planned post

Well, not really, I had a planned post, but I don't know if I'll have time to get through it all. I'm getting to this approximately 6 hours later in the day than I'd initially expected, so I'll likely have to pick up the torch where ever it is that I end. Standard assortment of mini-posts to follow.

Your stop, sir.
So, I've discovered that being the only person in the family to have a car with more than 2 doors has pretty much pidgeonholed me into the lovely duty of family chauffeur. Not a serious issue, but this certainly wasn't originally as planned (in my defense, all the vehicles in the family minus my father's had 4 doors when I got the CRV).

X III, the Last Stand (Yes, Spoilers)
So, I went with the family to see X-3. Preface to this, I must admit that I did not go into the movie expecting to see my comic book re-portrayed on the screen as it played out there. I'd have to have been a fool if I expected this, because honestly, you know from the first that certain elements have changed. What did I want out of this movie? I wanted some good explosions, convincing characters, and at least as much side-line showboating as I got in the second movie. If you're asking yourself what side-line showboating I'm speaking of, I mean the scene where William Striker's forces are storming the academy. We get to see Siren (it's a girl, so it's not Banshee), Kitty Pryde aka Shadowcat, Colossus, Arcade (I can only assume based on his interactions with the television) and even a glimse of a girl with giant square earrings whom one can only conjecture must be Jubilee, even if she's not wearing the traditional flourescent yellow raincoat. So, bearing this in mind, how does the movie stack up:

Are the characters true to their comic book selves? Yes, all their actions fit what I'd expect. No one does anything that had me questioning motives or reasoning. Is it fully satisfactory? Not quite. There are a lot of things that don't totally add up across the pages. Mystique selling out Magneto after he abandons her for becoming human? Totally within the realm of both their characters. Magneto getting angry at Pyro when the latter suggests he'd have killed Xavier, again fits, though it leaves an odd juxtaposition of ideals that never gets resolved properly (though taking them both out and ending the Brotherhood does alright).

The dialogue could've done with a bit more. Not in any specific venue but across the board there are exchanges that could've been intensified. Kelsey Grammer as Beast? Wonderful, and he has some of the best lines in the movie ("I cannot believe this once fit me"). Juggernaught and Kitty? Not so great. Senseless pandering and namecalling. Though I fully concede that Shadowcat's mocking of Juggernaught was justified, Juggernaught isn't really much of a comedic relief character. Magneto was great, wonderful. He was everything Emp. Palapatine should have been. Phoenix was great too, angry, conflicted, powerful (to continue, I always hated Phoenix. She was trite for far far too long in the comics/show, and served as a consistant annoyance in my opinion).

The effects are wonderful, with exceptions. I've gotta admit I was a bit miffed at the family in the car on the bridge scene. They get such attention, yet when it comes time to the be hurling cars and blasting them with flame, it seems to have completely been forgotten. The moon rising up over the Alcatraz complex? Despite a bright, midday battle? Every car with it's lights on? Those sorts of oversights are not forgivable, though they can be overlooked. The lack of a response from Angel's father post-recue by his pariah son? Again troubling, but at least not out of character that time.

Where I really feel the show needed help was the characters. Did Magneto's secondary wave of minions (Ie, not Multiple Man, not Jugger, not Pyro, but the lesser Brotherhood members) have any real identity? No, they did not. Spike was a recoignizable, if foolish and shortlived character. The rest of them, while appropriate, were virtual nameless plot devices. Mainly the Mutant-Senser, the other two were just there to show the type of brutes the Magneto employed (Well, at least blowfish was, the other one, the Chameleon, didn't even do much except help throw Angel's father out of the window). The Shockwave one (I don't even know what gender he/she was supposed to be) was again just used to destroy the guns that had been modified to stop Magneto, as opposed to having him rip up a bridge girder or defensive tower and smashing in through the weapons in an arcing blow (Ignoring the question of why there were no weapons inside the building).

Watch the credits (not the post-credits, that's another discussion in and of itself) and you'll note credits given specifically to Psylocke and Jubilee. Did either of them manifest their powers, prove their identity, no. Did my favorite X-man make a show, of course not, if he hadn't by the second there was no way to have him make much of a magical appearance. Iceman becoming truly Iceman was great though, and the combat tactics of our team of 6 was fitting and fun ("Don't ever do that again"). Exavier's unnecessary foreshadowing, not needed.

The post credits is interesting, and anyone who doesn't stay through the credits is a fool at any movie in general, extras or not. I don't think they'll make another movie. Honestly, I'd love one, get some different characters some screentime, but I don't think it's likely. I'm just biding time for Pirates II now, although the Snakes on a Plane trailer was amusing, mostly for audience reaction.

Desperation for something to do

... is a pretty powerful impetus, actually. Though I guess it's not exactly shocking that large scale inaction is a strong drive for action.

I keep telling myself that perhaps I should pick up Atelier, both games, but I figure it's only fair that I require myself to pick up the pieces of my life first. That and it's not like I don't have enough things that still require me to beat them. Plus, having played Guitar Hero, I think I want to pick that up, though it did seem to have a relatively short tracklist (25?), but then again, that's stacked up against the full Stepmania, 9 long DDR version lists worth of songs plus two lists of customs, so I have a bit of a bias. Heart Full of Black is probably worth it though. I think I'll just wait for the sequel though, see what that brings to the field.

I refuse to concede defeat by boredom, though the point is sorta approaching. I've still got large-scale comics to read without even delving into either of the comic fallback approaches: sprite comics and searching out comics I know to be dead and therefore nearly impossible to find. I do need to hijack the radio for Dave FM though, seriously.

Collected Musings

...and/or miseries. There's an odd equivalence at some points in time. I really need a steel spike for my back, my posture is so ridiculous atrocious. But unfortunately reversing 15+ years of bad habits isn't a minor endeavor.

Currently a slated August (End of Summer, bleh) release date for Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories. Not exactly the best title ever, but they probably could've mangled it worse I imagine.

"It is easier to stab someone in the back than it is to look them in the eyes.
Society is built upon this principle and it is universal to those who rule..." Great quote, wish I could recall the source of it.

Gatech would have me believe that I've forgotten my password for Email etcetera, which I find difficult to believe, given that I used them in a cyclic pattern (albiet a bit mutilated by the 3-segment Active Directory changes), and none of them work, though I did manage to get into email just a few days ago. It's not a significant deal as I route everything to the gmail, but I like to send school-related emails out from that address just for appearances.

I swear, if I hear Shakira's new song on the radio again there will be a fair deal of violence. Well, probably not, given that the odds of it occuring are pretty massive given circumstances and I don't have a good way to commit violence and get away with it.

2 Months

Technically for the above to be true, I'm a day early. But given that Feburary is short anyways, I think I have all kindas of early written out here.

Well, I can think of a dozen ways to take this, but as per my norm, going down one means delaying others, so I don't choose which lets me keep them all without using any. I hate consumables, in anything (gaming context mostly, though it spills over), I never use them.

So I think Pandora isn't for me, I spend too much time skipping songs that I don't really want to hear, but I think might adversly affect my list to Veto. I'm not really playing the Genetic Engineering card with the whole setup quite yet, though I'm really beginning consider trying for certain themes in a starting set, rather than certain artists, and then crushing expansion to see if I can create a narrowly defined box of music. Probably alot harder than it sounds, since Pandora doesn't tell me all the genes of a given song, but it's the best I've got to work with at present, with Last.fm asking for a download, and Di.fm being, well, not something to listen to at work, with all the distractions and interruptions. I can't settle into that genre with distractions like that.

Beat Kingdom Hearts 2. 57 hours of play between a Wednesday afternoon and the following Tuesday evening. 94% of the Journal, 86% of Gummi Ship things (I never did the Class C of the final area, Juggernaught, didn't ever upgrade my ship past what I created at around the same time that I got Falcon 4). Most used, Valor Form, 57 times. 11 Drives into Anti-form. I didn't drive all that much, I admit. 2 Deaths, Shang-Yu when I first did Mulan (Aka, I had no life and barely any abilities) and the Nobody with the Lances when you return to Re-Lock Beast's Castle (I still don't get how to avoid him). Mickey is hax, not very useful cause I spent more time saving Sora with him than actually fighting, but hax none-the-less. All but 1 of the treasure chests (Somewhere in Twilight Town it sits, mocking me), which will be a real challenge given that it took me almost an hour to find the last one I was missing in Aladdin (Hint: The Huge one that contains the map to Jafar's little tower, still took me awhile even after I figured out I was missing that map as well)

The ending actually ends, which is a plus after KH, though the Bonus Ending was, O.o
Seriously, completely not what I expected, art style and all.

To fill the D2 Niche I've been nursing with Eastern Sun while I'm at home I borrowed Dungeon Siege 2 from Jiaz. I still really don't support the game at it's core, the leveling system is alright (Skills increasing faster than Levels but being capped by Level isn't so helpful though). The never look back system is a bit unfortunate, as the first time through it's hard to say what you want. Probably doesn't help that I'm taking advise from Jiaz about what to choose rather than being impulsive (Impulsive generally lands me with much more spread abilities, being generally far weaker), but Dungeon Siege 2 kinda calls for that sorta thing in order to survive. It does a better job of allowing me to handle multiple characters with special abilites without feeling like I'm not up to full potential than the first did, but it feels like a hollowed mix of Baldur's Gate and Diablo, which isn't a complaint, just I happen to like both parts of the mix, and thus would enjoy either part in purity better than the mongrel that comes from the pedigrees. Still, I think I'll beat it, and then play through with a bit more abandon (throwing weapons and 2-handers and pets for all!). The limited Autocast list is troubling, as I really would like to have a Summon and both Buffs in my Nature Mage's slots, but I make do. They do have obscenely long durations.

Also been playing Burnout: Revenge since it was used and very inexpensive compared to the price the Xbox 360 version of it is asking. Pretty enjoyable. The Traffic Checking changes are a signficant upgrade over what Burnout 3: Takedown offered. Also makes for a nice tradeoff. As Checking offers very little boost for the effort, less than I'd get for simple same-direction "Near Miss" and far less than either "Oncoming" or "Oncoming" with "Near Miss" on the other side. Also makes takedowns a bit harder, as while I can land "Traffic Check" Takedowns fairly easily, but I can't actually knock a car into another, as they'll just Check it themselves. Crash is alot nicer without the Multipliers, quite a bit more tactical, and the inclusion of "Choose your Weapon" with the variety of cars is really enjoyable. I'm not great at Crash yet, Burnout 3 has made me soft, but I'm getting pretty good. Crashbreakers in the other modes is kinda awkward, makes it almost too easy to keep a lead. The Checklists bother me, as they're mutually exclusive at times. Ie: Crashless-Race an d X Revenge Takedowns in a Race (which require you to have been takendown to get a Revenge Rival), but perhaps that's just my inability to either not crash, or crash by something other than my own poor driving, speaking there. And yeah, burning lap and preview events, still suck.

I'm thinking I should get Atelier Iris. Not only is the name pretty alluring (everyone loves Atelier), but there's a II coming out the end of this month, and with Disgaea beaten, Phantom Brave winding down (I can't bring myself to go for the endgame here, I'm not going to Level Characters to Fuse to Characters and Level Weapons to fuse to Weapons and level Titles to put on Created Dungeons to empower the Titles for each of my major players just to go for it. The game is too damn complex) and Disgaea really really ending now: Uber Prinny is next. Ultimate Sword, almost a second once I get the levels to steal it. Ultimate Spear, and working on the Ultimate Fist and Bow. Phantom Kingdom still holds interest for me, that I'll probably play through all the extras, it'll amuse me throughly, and there's alot more endings at stake, unlike Phantom Brave, which doesn't hold a whole lot more to offer.


So I got this glorious question in my head the other day. What game would you advise as a method for getting or keeping someone interested in gaming. Actually, the original question was "What Final Fantasy would you reccomend as a starting point for someone new to the series?" (I pick X btw, more on that in a future rant) I think God Mode Online is partially to blame for the idea, as reading that comic does tend to get me in the Gaming-Thought Mode. Logically, the answer boils down to audience and intended subject. You can't very well introduce someone to the wrong genre, just like Pokemon probably wouldn't be a wise choice for introducing a teacher or parent to the joys of gaming. Platform probably plays a role as well. I'm not so certain that Xbox based Morrowind holds the same sway as CPU based, especially for those who prefer the control offered by a mouse rather than Analog Joystick. Obviously, games with the "Othello" motto/slogan are probably best for this. You know what I mean, the whole 'A minute to learn, a lifetime to master' deal. So, some of the big games on the list, coming from personal experience obviously:
Civilization (Probably 2, or 4 if it's any good. 3 wasn't), not really a console alternative.
Bomberman (None of this 3-d, Revenge, or whatever other fluff, just the pure stuff)
Secret of Mana / Tales of Eternia (Multiplayer RPG goodness)
Starcraft/Warcraft (I really do find these to not only be peak of RTS, but best at user created additional maps), again, not worth trying for the Console gamer.
Chu-Chu Rocket and Tetris, preferrably Tetris Attack (Substitute most of the SNES puzzle games as an additive; Wario Wood)
Mario Party probably takes the cake for multiplayer games of that genre, Fusion Frenzy wasn't quite as good, though also amusing.
Smash Brothers, probably closely followed by a mix of DoA, Marvel vs. Camcom or SNK, Guilty Gear, or Soul Caliber, depending on specific interests.
Halo still dominates my opinion of multiplayer shooting, probably the Duo and Single player as well, unless Perfect Dark: Zero was better than everyone told me, but I doubt that.
Burnout or Gran Turismo or some variety of Twisted Metal for the driving game series. Or Crazy Taxi if you kinda prefer a mix.
GTA probably rules supreme over it's domain, pick one of them. All the knockoffs aren't any good really. The Getaway comes to mind, and that was horrendous.
Splinter Cel and maybe something Rainbow 6 for the more realistic shooters, Stealth and less-Steath respectively.
Unreal Tournament or Quake, kinda a preferance call on that kind of CPU based carnage.


And, what I've come to realize as the god of beginner's games, Animal Crossing.

Seriously.

Not kidding.

You can't lose, tons to explore and do, always something to keep you busy. Things to collect, travel to other towns, meet new people, grow plants, visit the island, upgrade the shop, donate to the museum, storage space, shirts, extras, holidays. This ranks up there pretty highly.

Garbage Collection

Since I told Jefe I'd add something, reciprocation of efforts in the continuation of the field of bloggings I guess, here goes.

An ordinary day in an extraordinarily cilche world
First off, Answerman's contest for this week, is so amazingly interesting I feel completely compelled to work out the best combination of Pirates, Spaceships, Superheroes, Ninjas, Werewolves, Dragons, Demons, Gods, Magical Relics, Music, Mecha, Incest, Breasts, Pantyshots, and other cliches into the masterpiece that I hope I won't be able to even read with a straight face.

Family affairs
My family never ceases to amaze me, seriously. Excluding the amount of times quotes from the BBC's hit show, Coupling, go off in the household, there's more; and it's not pretty.

Exhibit A - Examine closely. Now imagine that this has turned into a running joke about all dreams as a whole being involved with Oedipius-esce relations. Now, lets up the Ante a bit more (and in my defense I played no part in this), add in the passage of Mrs. King. If you can't see where this is going, let's just say David tells me he was trying very very hard not to laugh at a highly inappropriate moment.

Or take today's jewel. In my standard fashion I'm looking over the offerings of Anime-Network on On-Demand, Halfway talking to myself I announce that they have episodes 1 and 2 of Area 88 (If you've heard of this, you're a step above me) and the following conversation ensues with my father in the oher room;
Father: Oh, I've seen that.
Me: You've what?
Father: I've seen that.
Me: You've seen this? I've never heard of it.
Father: It's about fighter pilots.
Me: (Opening the info screen) '... is an Ace fighter pilot tricked into joining a mercenary gang of fighter [sic]pilot'
Father: I didn't say it was very understandable.
Me: Alright then, how did you come across this?
Father: Actually I watched it on demand.
Me: You mean to tell me you were browsing the anime offerings?
Father: Well, I only had thirty minutes, so I figured that was a good way to take care of it.
Me: Just when I think I'm beginning to figure you out...

Hills are alive...
Pandora is awesome. Seriously. If you're intestered in what I've put together so far, it's the Daft Punk Radio on my Sobiius(at)gmail address. Since every little change seems to spawn a whole wave of changes, the radio is consistently being refined as I go, but looking at the songs that I've given a thumbs up is a fairly good indication of what I like.

Closing Thoughts
All I have to say is that Advance Wars: Dual Strike, has made the DS worth the purchase price many times over already. Go it.

Holiday Blitz (Part 2)

Well, I figure it's an apt enough title to be workable for my purposes. Given that I pretty much read the webcomic Goats straight through in two days I think that I'm not really supremely able to manifest creativity at such a rapid rate at the moment. Same style as the Part 1, admittedly not titled as such, bolded mini-titles.


I'm glad I'm not old
Had an interesting experience at work this morning. Watched a car pull up, diagonally, into the concrete barrier of the front parking space of the store. A elderly gentleman ambles out of the car, his equally-aged wife passively sitting slantedly (remember, one wheel is up atop the concrete barrier, offsetting the entire SUV) in the passenger seat. He walks in and our conversation ensues:
Him: "Howdy-Doody"
Me: "Hey there, what can I help you with" (He's holding a few envelopes as best I can tell at this point).
Him: (Walking towards the mailboxes, having obviously not heard me) "Howdy-Doody"
Me: "Howdy-Doody"
Him: (Puts the envelopes in the mail slot) "Do you know what that means?"
Me: *Nods* "I do"
Him: (Walking towards the door) "It means 'How do you do?'"
Me: (As he opens the door) "Have a good day, sir"
Him: (Walking out the door, more to himself than to me) "No, it means 'How do you do?'"

Anime for the Holidays
Static Subs put out a pair of Otome Episodes for Christmas, and despite my having seen the vast majority of both episodes already raw, Corsair Midori continues to be a force of raging awesomeness. Also the Otome OST1 and Mai-Hime Best Collection, as well as GxS OST2 came out and while the Otome lacks the humor song I was looking forward to, the rest of the OST is pretty nice. Good to know that Mai has a song, despite not actually having had a character appearance in the show yet. The Best Collection is really clench with some absolutely incredible songs, not enough Harada Chie though. All this of course inspired me to burn Disc 11.5, which is a continuation of Disc 11 which was rushed and semi-incomplete, mostly due to the iTunes mishap outlined in the first Holiday Blitz.

Did I mention I hate our customers?
Had another lady today come in. She was lugging a decently sized (25 x 18 x 13 I think, I didn't have the need or want to measure it) 25lb prepaid-package. She immediately berated myself and my co-worker for not having assisted her in getting it into the store. In my defense there's two tabletop coupon displays, a standing rack of greeting cards, and two posters between myself and my vision of her, so I didn't actually see her needing assistance, not that normal people should need help with 25lb objects being lifted with both hands, but that's another matter. To top it off, the shape of the store is not condusive to my coming to her assistance:
----|door|-----
|                 |
|                 |
|     ---------
|    /
|   /   X   <---  Me
|   |     ___
|   | Y   | |
|   | ^   | |
|   |      | |
|   |      | |

After processing her drop-off package, she asked me to sign her insurance forms, which quickly escalated to a minor verbal fight as I told her I could hold them for the UPS Driver to sign, because those forms needed to be signed by a UPS Driver and I, was neither a driver nor an employee of UPS; as she tried to convince me that someone always signs them here (I bet Desha is to blame), and that I was employed by UPS and should sign it. In the end, she left with the forms, unsigned, and swore a string of vulgar words as she left.

Holiday Blitz

And to think, I almost managed 3 consecutive posts in 3 days.

iTunes for the atypical American Consumer:

So, in a stroke of madness, which isn't completely unlike myself, I decided last week to play around with the settings of my Music Library in iTunes. Before we get any further, let me stress that I do not advise such actions. What had inspired all this was a drive to cut the excess Harddrive usage of my computer. Since I cannot convince Nero and the DVD-Burner to comminucate yet I have to take draconian measures, and upon discovering that iTunes was keeping almost 2 gigs of duplicated copies of music, something had to be done. Either way, there's a wonderful little option in the program that restructures your music library and renames everything accordingly. Well, unfortunately this meant the Folder on my Harddrive Music Library and not the iTunes music Library (redundant naming systems for the lose). Anyways, my Music Folder got twisted into the idealized Apple vision of an American music folder: Artist -> Albums -> Tracknumbered Tracks named with the Album and the Title. This doesn't work well for the type of music I collect since I tend to group by category, Anime/Game, rather than by Artist simply for the sheer number of Artists a single category can contain. So now the race is on to reconstruct my Music Folder, a truly daunting task to say the least, but hopefully it'll allow me to cut down on the excess.

For a game called Snake-Eater, I seem to be kicking alot of Rabbits:

Since David's venerable PS2 seems to disbelieve that I own a working copy of Suikoden IV I've changed gears and started to play Metal Gear Solid 3. Bear in mind the last FPS I've played Console-side was RE4 (And trust me, I've tried cinematic dodging a few times). So, I started off well enough, earning a few ground-holdups against opponents knocked prone by a roll or a melee combo. I had to look up how to actually capture/interrogate an enemy (the concept of a button hold in MGS outside of a gun was kind of alien to me) and immediately started a few bloodbath's in this manner. As anyone who's ever watched me attempt the Dragon Cave in Star Ocean can attest, the Analog sensitivity of the PS2 Dual Shock 2 is sorta a weak point of mine, I tend to be heavy handed (and thus the long + soft note in the Dragon Cave was roughly 40 straight failures) and thus I tend to fail to interrogate and instead more violently bring my captive to his end. I love the take-out maneuver of a attempt at a frontal capture, the trip-slam, and spent much of the pre-sniper portion of the game using it as my main offensive form. After acquiring the Sniper and the Light Machine Gun it's pretty much been cutting a swath through soldiers, leaving a trail of dead foes in my wake. For an MGS game my killcount is probably nearing triple digits and I've only just reached the Fortress. Overall the camera is really a pain, and the fact that most enemies simply outpace me in movement is stupid. Sitting around to regen is annoying, but ideally I shouldn't be seen or hurt anyways so that's okay.

Boss Fights:
Ocelot - The Revlovler fight. I went into this with about 1 shot worth of life and thus ended up eating the two life medicines I'd gotten by the time just to manage the fight. Not particularly hard, but annoying to fight distance with the tranq gun for no real reward.
The Pain - Actually, remarkably painful but not terribly difficult. The Bullet Bees managed to waste away a fair amount of my precious Cure materials. I managed it in one try, but using Stun Grenades instead of Smoke Grenades was a seriously unwise idea. Much easier without deafening/blinding yourself for a shorter effect.
The Fear - Absolutely annoying fight. I ended up hiding in a corner, praying my Stun Grenades knocked enough food out of the trees and waiting for my chance to blast him. Took about 8 tries to get a good run against him and achieve victory mostly a matter of luck than anything else. Burned through 2 of the 3 batteries I had at the time. He has remarkable accuracy, shooting through solid trees and whatnot. I think he does far too much damage to be anything more than a corner camp really, no other viable way to Tranq him down, I guess lethal would probably be far more feasable as he can't eat that back.
The End - What can I say. I think I spent nearly 2 hours in this fight, never got close to being defeated. Hell, early on I got so tired of playing the searching game that I traded out for Female Kabuki Mask with Fly Uniform camo for a massive -40% index standing still in the light. Not really a hard fight, just an annoyance until you can scare him someplace where he'll leave footprints to track and not run to areas that require massive footwork to get to. That he can restore life photosyntethically is annoying and stupid, but hey, he only did it once before I managed to beat him. And only broke two legs overrolling assualts on him and off of high cliffs.
The Fury - Easy fight until I got him down to the last quarter and the areas he frequented were filled with flames and I got toasted. I sorta gave up keeping distance and using the Mosin and ended up just pummeling him down the rest of the way. And yes, I definately tried to RE4 dodge during that end cutscene there.

RE4 is the superior gameplay though weaker on the story. Don't get me wrong, I loved RE4's story, but MGS just has all the history and content to the borders and goes deeper. RE4 on the Gamecube just feels right, unlike MGS 3 on the PS2 where I find myself using L1, L2, R1, R2, and Square all together inorder to fire while Shoulder Aiming on my tip-toes with any Assult Rifle.

I've heard the conversation about the Cardboard Box and the James Bond Conversation, but I don't use the Call function much, so I've probably missed out on some of the other good ones.

Christmas Loot
Got a Nintendo DS with Mario Kart and Advance Wars: Dual Strike. I'm now 12 missions in, and it's certainly an excellent game. Fantastic characters, challenging, inventive. The new COs are an interesting variation on the previous themes and the music is good as well. I think I'll have to go pick up the latest Fire Emblem Game and Meteos before the end of the week. Wonder if there's anything else there on the DS that is a must have.

Come on baby, light my ire.

The above is not a typo, it's entirely appropriate. The ME building goes to special lengths to see that I'm driven insane, but when even metal grinding on metal is not sufficient they pull out the big guns, Grad Students attempting to win tickets via a fax contest.

Remember, for every number you see I had to hear the dialing and the busy signal. For every ... single ... time.

Viola! The torment I endure.

The truth of this is probably irrefutable

A little conversation held of AIM with my father at about noon today:

Dad: What ya want for Christmas?
SonOfBloodII: Hadn't really given it much thought.
Dad: Better start thinking then.
SonOfBloodII: Will do.
Dad: Probably the only IM chats that include punctuation. :-)
SonOfBloodII: I do believe that that is likely the case.

Black Friday Rant

Or it would have been had I started this > 86 Minutes ago. But that's all relatively irrevelant since this is merely placeholder. Sometime after I finish crashing my ship of life against the rocks of my own shortcomings I'll be back to talk about that which is Thanksgiving and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

But since I have to give you some sort of knowledge before you go.

Kiddy Grade Episode 1 Panty Shot count - 6.

And now you you... (I leave it to someone else to finish that one).

I think this place induces homicidal tendencies...

Conversation (Paraphrased, but close) between myself and Kyle while work today. Apparently a field trip of kids are parading around the lower level of the Lobby here.

Kyle: Do you hear that?
Me: Sounds like a bunch of children milling about.
Kyle: Looks like it too.
Me: Down there amongst all that heavy machinery, seems dangerous.
Me: Any one of those devices could do some serious damage.
Me: Like that forklift, I bet you could just get them all with that, in a line like they are.

Disc 2:

Also known as the vain hope that doing something that can be easily and finitely resolved will allow me to stop mentally wandering and get back on track with learning the madness that Fourier left behind which he studied heat transfer, his Transforms.

Anyways, thanks to the magic of iTunes, and no I don't own and iPod yet, but that's a story for another time, preferrably after I've solved the related mystery before I seriously piss myself off, I've managed to change a setting that totally killed the original ordering of my playlists, not that it alters anything, but just fair warning that the numbers here don't match the order that actually occurs on the discs themselves, and I'm way too lazy to mentally recreate it, though I bet I could.

Disc Two (21 songs, 1.0 hours) AKA: The first Instrumental Disc.
1) ??? - Akui he no Chourou (2:21). The Melody of Oblivion (BGM) : In retrospect this song would've done much better on a Transform / Metamorphasis headlined disc just because of the transition from classical to driving rock beat. Not really an oft used nor well used BGM of MoO, but they can't all be winners, eh?
2) ??? - Anabasis (1:26). Kiddy Grade (BGM) : I have an unusual enjoyment of this song, can't explain it, but I like the humor conveyed by Cesario and Viola, end of story.
3) The Black Mages - Battle with the Four Fiends (4:00). Final Fantasy IV Remix : Actually, I never played Final Fantasy IV, but still, it's Black Mages, it's a pleasant enough vocal-less rock song on a theme that I can emphasize with (Honestly, Uematsu's good, but he's not totally original on every single song, the style prevails).
4) Pillows - Curly Rudy (3:01) : Actually not from a video game nor an anime (*Gasp*, I know), though under prevailent technically they did do the OST to Furi Kuri so it's not totally devoid of traces. Either way, I love their music, it's got a special kick to it, just like the Seatbelts, though they (Seatbelts, since it defaults to nearest specific noun) tend to be a bit more psychological in their humor and music, Elevator Music Robbery (that's totally not the title, but totally conveys the message) for example.
5) ??? - Eclair's Theme (2:01). Kiddy Grade : Kiddy Grade's OST runs on an eclectic mix of classical and brass plus various synth all watered down in volume and tone for a colorful and semi-sugary result, works well with the colorful anime, a bit odd if you're not prepaired for something akin to that though.
6) Melody - Ganbatte Ikou ze (1:31). Midori no Hibi (BGM) : In addition to be a coherent statement, and one that I actually know the meaning behind (scary, no?), it's a pretty repetative and cutsey little song that makes me smile.
7) ??? (I could find this one out, not gonna) - Girl's Power (3:25) : Yes, Eclair's and Lumiere's VA from Kiddy Grade singing a somewhat rock song. I always think Powerpuff Girls when I hear it for no particular reason. Either way, there's something about VA albums I enjoy. After you get used to hearing a character's voice you don't really mind hearing it a bit every now and then after that I guess.
8) Basement Jaxx - Good Luck feat. Lisa Kekaula. Appleseed OST : Ahh...not only a band even anime-free readers can identify with ('Where's your Head at' anyone?) but a kickass song anyways. I've always found feat as part of a title to be a semi-glamorous way of doing things. In the old days it'd just be a simple "and" in the artist listing, but these days we have to make things hip and cool for the current generation. Either way, the song goes hand and hand with Basement Jaxx's offering on the soundtrack to SSX3.
9) Rie Fu - I Wanna Go To A Place (5:10). Off a Single CD of the same name : It shows up somewhere in Gundam Seed Destiny as an OP/ED, I think - never watched GS or GSD and don't remember, but it's Rie Fu, who'll show up alot over the course of the discs because of her excellent and fluid blending of English and Japanese. This song is no exception to that rule, though it's fairly slow relative to most of the rest of the disc. Not Instrumental, but my discs weren't designed with that in mind, just the aftereffect naming.
10) Flow - Journey (3:09). Off of the DAYS Single CD : Days was OP1 to Eureka Seven, but honestly, you can't really go wrong with Flow, upbeat and fun. Also not Instrumental.
11) ??? - Theme (3:01). Koudelka : I don't know who was technically responsable for the music here and it's debateable whether you consider it instrumental or not (Hymnal-esce chant-singing) but it's a good creepy song quite fitting for the atmosphere of the game (As poorly drawn as it itself may be have), perhaps I'll have to finish it sometime.
12) Liquid Tension Experiment - Universal Mind (3:36) : Not a single anime or video game tie here, just incredible instrumental guitar workmanship with some very nice synth accompanyment. Not really fitting for the disc, but this stuff makes up some of the more relaxing without sleepyness music I have on Asgard.
13) The Black Mages - Matoya's Cave (4:46). Final Fantasy I : Another FF that I haven't played, though I probably will some day just for completeness. Unlike most Black Mage stuff this one doesn't overtly display the rock tendencies for a bit, it builds to them onto of a more classic redoing of the score, and it works beautifully.
14) Orange Range - Mission in Taisakusen (3:01). Single - ~Asterisk~ : Opening with a Mission Impossible flourish, it's you standard rock number with some alright synth and good guitar riffs but as with most Orange Range works, it's the vocals that are the key point. Harmonies equal win.
15) Kaijura Yuki - Oharahetta! (1:16). Mai Hime (Humor BGM) : I'm shocked I didn't put this on the first disc myself, but I was more focused on OP/ED works than even some of the songs I would've normally placed higher up. Kickass Xylophone work, enough said. Kaijura Yuki's done alot of good stuff which'll show up in parts on later discs too. Oh, and I really want the Mai Otome OST, just for the v2 of this song.
16) The Pillows - Scent of Sweet (3:14) : I dunno what it is about the song, but I think the Guitar Ostinato really seals the deal here. I like strong opening riffs and this song, as with most Pillows work, delivers beautifully.
17) ??? - Space Activities (1:50). Kiddy Grade : A little pomp and circumstances music (not actually similiar to the graduation song at all, that was not the context intended, try again). A royal feel to the whole thing, but again, it's got that Kiddy Grade washed out softness to it, kills most of the pomp and leaves it as just a fun little song that's maybe a bit full of itself, but nice listening.
18) Tanaka Kouhei - Sunabouza no Theme (1:47). Sunabouza : Go listen to the soundtrack for The Incredibles, that's the same vibe right here. I love that jazzy pop style music, and this song delivers just that at an appreciable length without being repetative. The Artist of this bothers me in reflection of Beck, I'll have to look into it.
19) Tsunami Bomb - Invasion from Within (2:27). Disgaea (Special Event BGM) : God, the first time I went in again Prier this song completely sealed the deal. Nice indie-esce Rock, female lead singer, I should try and track down a CD but I've to date been unsuccessful.
20) ??? - The Spirit of Framenco (2:31). The Melody of Oblivion : As an artifact of translation it probably ought to be Flamenco instead, as it's a flamenco hybrid with excellent violin solo above it all and used for some of the more key events in the middle range of the anime. The smooth guitar in the truly flamenco part of the song is very relaxing, though the song itself has memories of some tense spots.
21) The Black Mages - Vamo Allo Flamenco (4:27). Final Fantasy IX : Much as I hated, though finished, the game, this song is pretty much the best thing out of it. It's a unique experimention in style for Uematsu (was even in it's non Black Mage-d styled, even more so now) and again has the rock-absent introduction to the more ramped up center of the song.

Disc Two had some relaxing songs to it, but the Black Mages pretty much undid all the relaxation with the upbeat rock. Instrumental as a lone style is difficult to make into a CD if you've not got just a few similar artists, I think I prefer things a little mixed, as Sheena would say it's the fruit that really brings out the spice in the curry. Yeah, I just paraphrased Tales of Symphonia cooking advise, I need serious assistance, men in white perhaps.

News from the field.

It would appear that the copier they've installed in the mailroom here has a most interesting power switch. It's like a push-botton toggle on the side, which I of course was passively toggling not noticing what it was for until, upon closer inspection, I noted the standard | and O markings of a power switch.

Stupid new Active Directory requirements have upped the password ante, requiring 3 of 4 categories (lowercase, symbol, uppercase, and numbers) which means that my passwords now all involve usage of the shift-key which is just an annoyance (I think I need to figure out what unshifted symbols qualify and use those).

Picked up the Unofficial Disgaea Soundtrack, I'll stack it against the 20 track original and see how things look, but that's an experiement for a time later in the week after my labs are not looming ahead so imposingly.

Internship/Co-Op headhunting isn't going over so well. Hopefully I can get something after a put this semester of Electrical behind me and have a better knowledge basis on which to search the field.

Stupid computer has managed to lose sound properties, which means that I'm musicless, and I really hate that feeling. It's about time to go hunt down a Better Quality and Lower Priced iPod alternative, I just wish the foolish competitors would actually spend some money on advertising so I didn't have to research so meticulously.

Oh well, I think I'll tinker around with the settings here to try and restore the ability to play The Pillows while at work, gotta have something to keep me sane.
Edit: As it turns out. The speakers are not connected, and connecting them kills the computer. This may prove to be more of a challenge than I had originally intended.

One for the road.

A misnomer of a post title, as it reflects plan rather than reality. But oh well, I still will get accomplished what I wish to accomplish, the logistics will just be slightly different.

Talking about the Tech load isn't really a priority for me right now. Let's just say I consider it to be quite the trial and leave it at that. I'll get into hardcore music nerd in just a bit, but first I think due clarification is owed on the last part of the preview. So here's the story:

G4 TV runs, on weekends aftermidnight, a selection of shows collectively grouped under the label Barbed Wire Biscuit. The show lineup includes
* Brainiac - another one of those shows mixing things men like (blowing stuff up, women, that sort of deal) and science.
* Happy Tree Friends and Friends - Explanation not needed I'd think. Google the first three words if you don't already know, not for those who are squeamish about excessive cartoon violence.
* Anime Unleashed - G4's rotating anime selection. Nothing on here that really stands out as something I really need to see. But then again the polish of modern animes makes even the best of the older ones just seem to come up short.
* Cinematech: Nocturnal Emissions - Basically Cinematech with an emphasis on the high age spectrum game selections and imports.
Now, all of that, discounting Brainaic, has nothing directly to do with brests. However in the trailer, specifically at the Anime Unleashed portion, there is a shot of, not nudity of any sort, but an anime character with a high cut shirt (ie, the bottom of the shirt is above the lowest curve of the breast). I didn't actively go seeking the source, but in playing Guilty Gear X2 it came to me. On GGX2's disc there is the opening to GGX, which is where the scene originates. Dizzy's first transformation into a Half-Gear. The storyline of GGX isn't something to be delved into here and now, mostly since I'm still learning it myself. Story Mode in GGX2 is pretty rewarding. It's hard, with dynamic battle openings as the story progresses and fight scaling based on events (Ie. Sol Badguy absolutely trumps I-No, whereas no one else does; goes along well with their paring at AWA tonight, but Heterosexual kisses and AWA events aren't on the table for topics tonight), and pretty reward pictures. Jam #3 is really adorable, just because of Ky's reaction within it. Now if only I could figure out how to Beat Mission 8, I'd be moving in that mode as well, Burst Aerial juggles just aren't my thing with I-No, I'd much rather have someone with less Uber-Reliance (since I don't get to do Romantic anyways) and more variety to their strengths. At least she can run unlike Potempkin, but that's neither here nor there.

Oh well, time to delve into the realm of music, since I think I'll enjoy this, and frankly enjoyment is something that's been in short supply since school started upping the ante on my classes.

Since I make week(end)ly forays to home I've taken up the habit of burning a disc of
music for myself every time I have to make the trip, so I've accumulated 5 discs of my picks for myself. They were more spur of the moment than planned and really focus on the anime side of the playlist since I've heard most of my other stuff a hundred times more, having owned those mp3s for a good many years longer. They aren't titled, but I've been toying with at least giving them subtitles of some sort based on themes that ended up showing up.

#) Format: Artist - Song (length). Source : Discussion

Disc One (20 songs, 1.2 hours, 130.3 MB)
1) Orange Range - *~Asterisk~ (4:15). Bleach (OP 1) : I really like this song. It perhaps would have been worth it to burn off the Romantic version ( drops out most of the music and basically a recitation of the words, oddly fun). It's about the length I like for my songs (non-BGMs at least). The PV (music video) don't do much for me though, it's basically a street concert of the song.
2) Naoki Sato - No Doubt (1:05). Good Luck (Japanese Live Action) : Instrumental. Drums against ostination guitar with non-word vocal overlay. It's got a nice grove to it. A fun listen, though perhaps better suited to a CD of BGM stlyed musics, or burned off with the rest of the OST for Good Luck (3-4 really good other songs on it).
3) (Tsutchie - fat jon) - Fly [Small Circle of Friends] (3:53). Samurai Champloo (Ep 23 ED, plus insert in a later ep (I think)) : It's a nice mellow song, a bit on the soft side perhaps, but there are methods for altering that (my preferred method being cranking the volume in my car, but that's another story).
4) Saitou San Band feat Tanaka Koyuki & Minami Maho - Follow Me (2:12). BECK (Repeated song, particular being an exerpt from Ep 6 (rough guess)) : I really enjoy this song. It's not quite as cool without being able to see Maho do the dance, but as a general rule of thumb the songs from an anime about musicians are usually pretty good. The Rocket Boys version is a bit cleaner bu I prefer Maho and Koyuki's voices.
5) Savage Genius - Forever... (4:49). Erementar Gerad (OP) : Good techno opening, classic Savage Genius style. A good song and a good quality version at that. Singer's english isn't on the level that some of the other cross-lingual vocalists posses, but it doesn't bother me in the least.
6) Kuniyoshi Chiemi - Genki wo Dashite (3:57). BECK (Insert Song) : This song is lovely. It's all about the getting to be cheerful and happy. Not very bass heavy unlike most of the previous songs (I am a Bass player, you tend to notice these things), but still easily one of my favorite songs when I'm feeling down.
7) Akino - Go Tight! (4:43). Sousei no Aquarion (OP 2) : The anime isn't actually fansubbed far enough for me to have heard this song from it, though I have seen it raw. It's a lively song, good pairing after Genki wo Dashite (despite the fact that I tend to play these CDs on Random, and that I didn't plan the order of any of them). There's some really wonderful vocalizing done on this song.
8) ???? - Hachimitsu [Honey] (3:07). Honey & Clover (Insert Song) : Actually a male singer which is a departure from the previous 3 songs (the other 4 before that are 3 males and an instrumental). Just another one of the more melody heavy songs like most of the rest of the CD (excepting Asterisk).
9) Beat Crusaders - Hit in the USA (2:59). Beck (OP) : A rock song which is generally fairly unique for an anime opening, but then again Beck is a fairly unique anime. High energy and mangled english, I enjoy it (almost a redundant thing to say given that I chose to burn it, but hey, gotta fill space somehow).
10) Melocure - Home & Aawy (4:29). My wife is a magical girl (OP. I guess I could have given the Japanese name in English rather than the translation, but I decided not to) : Again on the lighter side of the musical spectrum. It's again on the slower side of the pacing, but that's not a bad thing. It has a see-saw effect going with alot of the lines, which I enjoy overly much (by see-saw I mean it oscillates the emphasis and pitch between syllables).
11) Younha - Houki Boshi (3:17). Bleach (ED 3) : I've seen this girl perform a few times now, mostly blaming Jiaz for these but not complaining. All I have to say is damn does she bang on that piano of hers. Rock sock, first on this disc to have piano in it. High energy, fast paced, and one I could probably sing along with fairly well (Despite not speaking the language, not bad eh?).
12) ???? - Koi no Mahou (3:57). Maburaho (OP) : Maburaho was a pretty awful anime. Like the sort you inflict on bitter enemies sort of anime. That said, I still think it was pretty cute, the opening especially. Again high energy and fairly fast spoken words though not quite as fun without the accompanying visuals (or the pre-OP sequence for that matter).
13) The Stripes - Loosey (3:57). Bakuretsu Tenshi (OP) : I'm honestly thankful that this song made it though Geneon's translations without being re-edited to be English, but then again I think that fact can mostly be attributed to the fact that no one is really 100% what the hell it is the singer is singing for a good quarter+ worth of the song. The Stripes like to have tap-dancing as part of their songs (see Theme of the Stripes below for a better example), it's pretty damn cool actually, if a bit odd the first time.
14) Tatsuhisa Suzuki - Myself (3:32). Tide-Line Blue ED Single (The other song on the single) : To be honest I think I like the first 12 seconds of this song more than any of the rest of it. It starts of with fun Synth melodies. The rest of the song is above average, but it's really my enjoyment of various little synth or rock-solo parts of the song that keep me coming back to it.
15) Savage Genius - Omoi wo Kanadete (3:34). Uta Kata (OP. And no I am not going to bother with the mutated Mobius that should be between those two words) : Savage Genius has very pretty openings to their songs and a very pretty and high singing voice; this song definately showcases that. It's a lively song with slower parts in between the instrumental riffs. It's a fairly pretty anime, could I ever bring myself to watch the last 12 episodes (out of 13).
16) (FORCE OF NATURE - Nujabes - fat jon) - The Million Way of Drum (2:48). Samurai Champloo (BGM) : Complete instrumental with drum focus (shocking right?) used for tense fights in the anime. As a stand alone song it runs kind of long without any real innovation, nearly 3 minutes without a whole lot of varience. Still good for a break from all the actually sung songs on the disc.
17) The Stripes - Theme of the Stripes (4:06). Bakuretsu Tenshi (OP Single Alt Song) : Song goes for about a minute of instrumental before the song actually gets some words and that's not bad at all. It's a rock-rap styled song, nearly constant in the lyrics with a fun chorus in it.
18) Rie Fu - Voice (3:56). Bleach (OP 1 Single Alt Song) : Rie Fu has really impressive capability with the English Language and this is a pleasant showcase of that. The guitar to go along with the song really finished the equation nicely.
19) Suneohair - Waltz (4:53). Honey & Clover (ED 1) : Once you've seen the animation accompanying the ending you'll be hard pressed not to think of spinning objects as you listen, not that that's a bad thing. It's a male singer again (as was the Stripes) but he sings fairly high up in the octaves, which matches the synth vibrophone musical accompanyment. Long song, but fun all the way.
20) Chihiro Yonekura - Yakusoku no Basho e (4:29). Kaleido Star (OP 2) : Just like Myself, the punch of this song comes at the start, but it's still a fun listen.

Meh, didn't turn out to be the commentary of written that I'd really wanted, probably shorten future disc listings down to shorter commentary (No, "I like it" commentary as well hopefully). Oh well, if you bother reading though it let me know how you'd prefer the future stuff done (Commentary or sans?) or drop me a line if I've got something you'd like to hear, I've got a fairly wide means of dissemination at my disposal.

A Taste of What's to Come.

Music Mixes

Tech and courses.

Dizzy's breasts.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy?

Me: Oh yay...they're using the industrial wood-chipper downstairs...
Kyle: Hahahaha
Kyle: and chipping steel?
Me: Nah, doesn't sound like steel, more crushing than metal on metal grinding.
Me: Definately louder than it would be were it a human (excluding screams) though.

In other news, I really hate this gimp school keyboard, really really really hate it.

Oh well, finished forging signatures, time to actually get things done with the forged signatures. Oddly, it's not much more tranquil when I have no one to do work for...

Just another week of school left...

...and hopefully I'll get some more content back on my own forsaken space of the internet.

"Always acknowledge a fault frankly. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you opportunity to commit more."

Blitz news

Asgard's being Reformatted, he's needed it for awhile. I look to it as an adventure, since I intentionally elected not to save any of my bookmarks, the grand search will be on to resurrect what I have put behind me, especially the array of webcomics. I think I'll switch over to a David-paradigm system for them, but more on that later.

X-Box is still the least reliable system on the console market. Microsoft truly are pros at the having things lock up on my, grats guys, grats (not!). But more on that later as well.

Finished reading Real Life's first book. I'm not an especially large Real Life fan, but I do like comic commentary, nice to see the thought that goes into things. Partially Clips does a really nice job with commentary.

Woo. 9 days until Atelier Iris which I think I've convinced myself to buy despite what I think might be a very contrived merging of systems. And one month to Makai Kingdom, I don't think I can bring myself to not call it Phantom Kingdom though. Well, hopefully those two will tide me long enough for a game with real graphics (I love NIS's art, simplicity and all, but the point stands) to come about (Read, I need KH2 to come out, that's the goal).

Only Jiaz would really even come to understand this, but a mere 11 days until Erementar Gerad is released in Japan...frightening.

More later, sleep now.

I'm around...

...just very very busy. Summer school is just full of scholastic goodness. I'll get content to places when the time rolls around. Until then. Well, I've got nothing, go read a webcomic or something.

Lucas has failed me.

I was originally planning to talk over several topics of the weekend. Namely X-2 (the movie), but I've blogged that in the past, and my feelings are pretty much the same as before: interesting storyline that is independant of the comics yet preserves the feelings of all the characters with festive extras, Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap (Man oh man is this game cute, and it's different. No Bow/Boomerag/Bombs/etc. from the first dungeon, I got a Suck Jar ... how fitting), Mercenaries (It seems that LucasArts LTD doesn't suck quite as much as LucasFilms LTD, but this one is far from perfect as well), but all those are minor points not worth taking from vital sleeping time when set aside Episode 3.

So, I saw Episode 3 today. Relative to everything I had heard before I saw it, I have to say that Lucas's film is decidedly heavy-handed in favor of males (Padme is the only one with any lines) and it does do a good job of setting up the next 3 movies (though I have some issues, those will be addressed later) but what David says rings truest. There is more time spent in the movie that is set to music than there is to dialog or combat.

The opening is alright. There's mere 3 paragraphs of text at the episode opening, which feels alot smaller than usual (didn't bother to compare it to the previous ones) and the space fight is alot smaller of a scale than I would have liked. We focus almost entirely on the two Type-zero (I call all the base model's Type-zeroes, though I'm sure some nerd can tell me their official name) A-Wing's piloted by our two main Jedi. Certainly there are explosions and other things around them, but primarily they are the focus and it's really a wasted time that could be spent better in grand-scale combat / eye-candy rather than a show of whatever extra kinds of droids they could pull out (Vulture Droids, those little gremlin droid things). The Type-zero X-Wings were nice to see, as were most of the other familiar ships involved in the brief moments of the fight.

I won't go moment by moment here, mostly because I don't really recall everything and I'm certain I'd overlook something, so I'll speak in generalities regarding the movie and it's characters.

The movie in general plays the art card way too heavily. Too often I found myself wanting something, anything to actually occur. Originally I thought that the problem with the movies was Lucas's crappy attempts at a love story and JarJar, however it turns out that the real issue at hand was the sweeping landscape views. Yes, those are nice, but when 50% of the movie is devoted to artbook moments I begin to lose patience. From the preview I thought the movie was going to redeem the series, it was actions and emotion and no JarJar. Instead I found myself longing for JarJar to speak (I cannot believe I said that), because then I'd at least have some dialog and some sort of action. As things stood most of the fights were either shown starting or the ending mopping up, but no real substance to any of them, and it was very disappointing. The betrayl/execution of the Jedi was poignant and awesome, but other than that the movie really lacked much of anything, the climactic moment being ruined by crappy characters. Even the new creatures and machines got at least partial looks over them in dramatic fashion (Obi Wan's mount especially), a kind of attention the Rancor or the Sarlac never got, and, honestly, never really needed.

Mace Windu sucked. I waited 3 movies for Samuel L. Jackson to do something, anything, and instead he seemed to be the fuel to Anakin's fire of rebellion. He was neither encouraging nor mentoring, but left to abject detactment for no particular reason. He was unimpressive in the scope of his few combat appearances throughout the trilogy.

Palpatine is evil and insidious, but he feels sort of meager at times. His feigns and schemes and revelations seem poorly timed, as if he were a really good evil mastermind, just really shitty about carrying through his plans precisely. Such as everything he tells Anakin about the Jedi tends to be a warning against something that Palpatine has done or has Anakin do already. His temptations unto Anakin are nicely done though, as are his arguements.

R2-D2 gets more screen time that I expected, and I'm not really certain what the point of that was. Certainly he's a usable humor/plot device, moving elevators and opening doors, but I don't think that his fight scenes were really necessary or very good. It seemed like the (not-very) comedic relief role of JarJar was passed onto R2-D2 in a demeaning fashion.

Yes, the fourth, fifth, and sixth movies are set up, but there's a few things that stand as bothersome. While the first two of these movies were obviously aimed at the new generation of viewers (having very little attachement to the previous trilogy (4, 5, 6)) this movie attempted to woo back former fans while maintaining the new fanbase, and falls short on both deals. The name-dropping and hints at the events of the original movies is decent, but brings up plot conflicts and confusion. The seperation of the events stands to aggrevate the problem further as the people and places seem to be there for no reason other than being there.

Specific issues I hold, most of which you could maybe overlook if you tried hard enough. Warning, this part contains Spoilers:

Obviously the movies are still meant to be watched 4 5 6 1 2 3, else Darth Vader's revelation to Luke is really spoiled and ruined.

1) Yes, Chewbacca is introduced, but why? From his relation to Han it doesn't seem like he's any sort of Wookie Nobility or really of any special note to his people. Further, his appear does nothing to secure his connection to Han, nor his connection to any place close to where Han conducts business.

2) While it is nice to have all the vehicles and soldiers set up and foreshadowed, I don't see how so much of the Empire's Technology can fall away in time for the future movies. Obviously this is nitpicky, as these are the modern series, concocted with far more resources than the original trilogy, but it seems a bit sad that the Clone Army's division and ranks and commands and massive array of vehicles will be reduced to carbon copy, rankless, inaccurate, thoughtless Stormtroopers with ATATs ATSTs Tie's (which don't really make a prominent show) Speeders and Swoops and little else.

3) The Death Star (already a full circle) is a compelling throwaway allusion at the end, but honestly, it feels like a plot hole. Leia is barely born, not nearly of age to be stealing the plans for an in-construction Death Star. If the first one takes them 18 years with the full resources of a newly forged Empire (roughly how old Luke and Leia are in A New Hope, being generous) then how come the second one takes about half a year to be constructed?

4) Is Wedge Antilles (or is it Biggs who is Antilles...) really that much older than Luke? Seems unlikely.

Well, that's all I really can summon forth from memory at this point in time. So, I close by saying that if you asked my favorite of the 6, I'd still say Empire Strikes Back. If you asked my favorite of the latest 3, I'd say it is a contest between the first and the second as far as which sucks less (excessive JarJar/Gungins/stupidity vs. badly written love-angst)

In other news, Chronicles of Narnia is going to be an excellent movie.

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.