Look! Colin's still alive! Woo!

Alright, the brief Christmas blog.

In addition to the usual Gift cards and Cash I also recieved a Printer, two pairs of sunglasses (one of which I brought to Tech), a blue jacket (not especially stylish, though it'd be a rare day when Colin pays great attention to style), a bowl (the shallow variety, you know the kind your parents use to keep old matchboxes or coins or keys, that sort of thing, for, actually, basically the same reason, to keep my keys and pens and everything else I usually splay out on the counter), I also got Neverwinter Night's Gold (essentially the original + Shadows of Unrentide (if that's how it's spelled), but not Hordes sadly) and have beaten the SoU campaign with Maudraum Vi~~~ something (Human Paladin w/ the Valiant Set from the Elven Crypt, black skin and dark hair), and am at the end of Chapter 2 of the original campaign with Loriel Oakwarder (Elven NE Rogue going Dual Wield), there'll be more detail about games in a later post (ie: not one taking place past 3:00 AM (I'd add in the morning, but that's just screaming superfluous redundency), also got Suikoden III which I've yet to have the time to play and Disgaea which I've put a bit of time into. Finially, I got a little kitten that is made of rabbit fur (though I'm told they didn't kill the rabbit for the fur, so my father and I are betting that they killed it for the feet and took the fur as well), it's pretty soft, but the fur seems layered oddly. Oh, and the standard stocking stuffers: LED flashlight, lifesavers, tic tacs, that stuff.

Well, that's pretty much the thrills of Christmas (I did have the largest box of anyone (that blue jacket came in a massive box)), so I'll hopefully have a nice blog/critique later detailing Ratchet and Clank and the Sequel, Disgaea, Unreal 2 and XMP, NWN and SoU, to the extents that I've played them. Melchor'll be getting touched to talk about Lab Practicum, First semester Finals and the aftermath and the current semester outlook, D&D (yes, that old thing) ought to be seeing a few more Legends that I thought up in the time of a few classes and hopefully I'll eventually get motivated to turn my Prism Gatech site into something beside a completion grade for a past CS class.

Oh yeah, I need to do a New Year's Blog (not that I made any resolutions) and talk about some other games. D&D Heroes, SSX3, Double Dash, as well as a bundle of movies that I've seen recently (or, not really, or not at all, I've not seen any movies save LotR and Treasure Island recently).

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So much for tomorrow eh?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Okay, back to blogging since I have the chance. I don't feel like utter scum of the earth for being infrequent, though close, but I'm one day better than our dearest Ting. So, worry not dear reader, there will be blogging, and (hopefully), it shall be good. if I remember what I meant to blog about.

We'll start with a rather vital life lesson: When making hot chocolate using the microwave (cause that's the fastest way when you've used up all the hot water making tea, cancerous or not), always heat the water before adding the chocolate, because otherwise the chocolate won't mix with the water, it'll just sit atop it, and then, for lord's sake, just start over right there, it'll save you the hassle of drinking warm water with bits of chocolate floating in it. Definately the least satisfying hot chocolate I've ever had.

Well, memory lapse, there'll be more tomorrow.

Before I get some debted blogging on the way I'll get this out of the way: fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking. Yep, an overflow of cussing derived from Debate-related stress, rewatching all of RedvsBlue, reading Jeff's blog (yes Jeff, I read it, even the long ones. And umm, I don't have the flexibility to fulfull your request I'm afraid) , and listening to my roomate (who's favorite adjective is still this word). If you're curious as to the point of all that? Now there'll be no profanity for the rest of the posts.

Alright, the Chattahooche Debate Tournament Fiasco, from the top.

The idea behind my being at the event at all was that Mrs. Jolle wanted Cindy and I to be judges for the Indivdual Events (aka: Speech) part of the Tournament. I'd never judged IE before but I'd seen them all at one point or another (okay, not Extemporaneous Speaking, but that's light debate to a degree). Well, Cindy was the communications link and told me that Smiley had told her that all the spaces for judges were full, but then David came to my rescue and told me that Smiley had wanted me to judge. Past that, even if I weren't to judge, my mother had been recruited to help prepare food for lunch (about 2 hours of work for a bunch of moms) and I was going to be doing that with her she said, though that wasn't a request. So, anyways, I arrived with my mother at about 8 to 8:10 ish, about 30 minutes after David. So I went in, and because Smiley didn't give me a 'What are you doing here' kind of look, I stayed. Big mistake. First round that day (round 3) found me sitting in front of what I call the Tag room for no reason other than I'm severely brain damaged by simply being at a debate tournament (I say that because the room is really called the Tab room, aka the Tabulations Room, aka the CHS library). So I sat there and told people that the pairings (schedules, schematics, whatever) for the next set of rounds would be coming out in 30 minutes (in tournament terms, whenever we finished making them) but at least we had seperate rooms for everything (Vestavia Hills sucked for two reasons, 1- Speechers like me had about 2 less rounds than Debaters and take about 30-50 minutes versus the 90-120+ hours for a debate round and 2- They had the same rooms used for both so we had to wait on debaters to get started, which involved alot of Colin sitting on the disgusting floor for 30 minutes after a delayed scheduled time waiting for some windbag to stop screaming about Oceans or Weapons or Capitalism or some other moronic Debate Crap. (Sidenote, all debate, in Colin's opinion, wins boil down to the other team finding something really stupid, stupid thing and latching onto it (like the fact that the Affirmative team used a acronym or the pronoun he instead of he/she) and whining about it). So, my day consisted of sitting at that table, yelling at people, sending people to find morons (err, people that we were paying to Judge who were doing a much worse job of it than me (Cause, see, I've worked 3 of these pieces of crap (err, tournaments) and I know to turn my ballot in ASAP before giving a verbal critique, I know to fill in all the Speaker Points and Ranks and Names and sign a Low Point Win if one occured, these morons didn't all the time so I'd send one of my Asian minions (yes, I have those in Debate as well, and they are related to former Asian compatriots of mine 3/4ths of the time) to hunt people down), a light light light lunch (about 4 inches of bread, two sides, with a slice of store-bought sliced turkey; small bottle of water; and a mini bag of chips), and running ballots to Smiley inside the Library from the desk outside. Yes, running. He wanted me to move faster, cause theoretically the extra 15 mph on my part of that massive 50 ft of distance would make the tournament run that much faster. I played perhaps 15 hands of Spades and another 20 of Chinese Poker (2-3 person, usually 2, with an incomplete deck of cards)) in the time I had. I could rant on and on, but it's all the same boring tedium for the rest of the day. David had planned to go to dinner with his Girlfriend and her parents and grandparents, and by planned I mean they had reservations including him, but Smiley vetoed his request, and by vetoed I mean, made enough of an asshole of himself to easily prove he was replacing Stein. The exact words were something to the likes of "Well tell your girlfriend that you'd love some leftover but that you won't be able to attend." We finially got released to leave at something just before 9 o'clock (Smiley might've felt a bit guilty for David cause it was David specifically out of 4 people he released, but that've been far too little, way way too late). So, to summarize the point of contention here:
1) I'd have been a much better judge than most of the crap there, instead I was basically the public relations liason for said crap. So I got to watch unqualified college kids (Yeah, I'm one too) who were more interested in feeling up the other college girls there to judge (trust me, all of being a female in debate is getting felt up by people you've bested several times in rounds of debate who happen to be at the same place as you do and have a topic they know you share at least a partway intrest in to trap you in conversation of some sort). Nothing quite like having to send out 5 waves of 2-3 people each to hunt down a judge who forgot to finish filling her ballot because she was distracted by her laptop and needing all 5 waves because said judge had stepped off school grounds so they could smoke, or take a cell phone call from someone they wish they were copping a feel off of, but either was smart enough to avoid a debate tournament or was busy.
2) Troop Morale was totally crap and that made my job that much harder. Stein wasn't there because he'd taken the most promising Debaters off to Michigan. I'm told that they've been to triple the number of tournaments of any other team yet not only were they not at the single biggest fund-raiser for the Debate team (the tournament) they also only paid the same debate team fee as everyone else at the beginning of the year. That and I was working next to Jen who just wasn't having a great day (working that table will do that to you), what with a pregnant mother helping at the tournament and getting asked the same thing a thousand times by moronic debaters and having way too much responsiblity and being not in the judging pool so she could devote her efforts to the Tab table with me. So no one really wanted to do anything that was asked of them and I was given more excuses and complaints that night than I've ever made in my life (and that says alot from someone as *cough* indecisive and stubborn *cough* as me.
3) My mother got picked to judge and I didn't. She was asked to Judge the Ted Turner/Controversy debates, which is what we call debate for non-debaters. None of the participants nor the judge are allowed to have even a single day of actual debate experience. I however, who was only there to judge (and I was never told I wasn't going to) never got to. My mother passed the duty to Jen's mother and went home, I should've done the same but I really felt guilty about leaving others to suffer, plus it would've voided my right to fully complain.
4) It was a waste of a damned full day that I could've spent with better people doing things that benefitted me in some way. And no folks (folks being all the other college people there that I know who did judge) I serious don't think I'm going to get paid my due for being there to judge. $15 a round times 0 rounds isn't too hard for a greedy man like Smiley (no, I don't really think he is, but he won't pay me out of guilt, he gave me a 3 minute break at the end when there was already nothing happening instead of sending me to help reorganize rooms so I bet he feels that was my due).
Subnote, Cooney, much as I love you, you're evil for flaunting your departure like that.

Okay, so maybe I lied about not cussing, but I did try, what can I say?

Good news first, cause that's about the only way I can mentally handle this, and yeah, no bitching that it's been awhile, I've been busy and have had more important things to be doing, like trying to figure out how the fuck to check for a empty vector. See, It'd been fine if Scheme had told me that the input (empty? vectorofpirates) was invalid, but instead, I spent 2 hours trying to get the rest of the code not to activate on such a condition. Okay, sorry, that was kinda bad news crap, apologies. Back to the good news: REM's CD, The Best of REM in Time 1988-2003 came out this week, or last week, or something. It's a really great CD containing the following:
Man on the Moon, The Great Beyond, Bad Day, What's the Frequency Kennith?, All the Way to Reno, Losing my Religion, E-Bow the Letter, Orange Crush, Imitation of Life, Daysleeper, Animal, The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight, Stand, Electrolite, All the Right Friends, Everybody Hurts, At my Most Beautiful, Nightswimming. A great collection indeed.

Okay. Time to blog at last. Damn it's been quite some time hasn't it? Okay. Firstly, for my birthday, besides an apparently nefarious gift still in transit, some very nice and pretty goodies from Cindy, and Kingdom Hearts which I bought for myself. I plan to ask my parents for a next Gen system, I just don't know which, cause I could likely long-term "borrow" David's PS2 but that's likely the best system for me cause that's where most of my games are. Note to self, check out reviews on Disgaia cause it looks good (damn I think I spelled that incorrectly, but I don't care at the moment). Food poisoning isn't cool, but it's also not too terrible cause it's a simple action to get it out of your system, even if there were rumors going around about some drunk puking in the bathroom, which amused me even more.

The day before my birthday was quite good, REM concert. Not your standard concert though. Firstly, I don't think there was a single person in the audience who couldn't sing at least a good third of the entire selection and, believe me, every one did. In addition to clapping and cheering (and in David's case, saying "You're Welcome" after Michael Stipes said "Thank you" after every song), everyone stood and sung for, well, pretty much the entire thing. I came out of it with moderately ringing ears and close to no voice whatsoever (it didn't sound too terrible to me, but then again, my hearing was pretty much shot at the time, it made my family laugh though, so I guess I did overdo it a bit, whatever, I enjoyed myself. There was a Freebird moment where a grand total of 3 lighters went up, David quickly countered by lofting his glowing blue cell phone and the other younger gentleman followed suit (same phone nonetheless).

Anyways, the playlist:

Finest Worksong
Begin the Begin
So Fast so Numb
Drive
Animal
Fall on Me
You are the Everything
Bad Day (great song, fun video too, and it's new)
The One I Love
Electrolite
E-Bow the Letter
(Don't go back to) Rockville
Find the River (One of their top songs ever)
Losing my Religion
At my Most Beautifil (another of my tops)
She Just Wants to Be
Walk Unafraid (my Senior Ad's quote came from this song)
Man on the Moon
----------(The Encore)---------
Life and How to Live It
Nightswimming (Their other top song ever, though not as cool w/o strings)
Final Straw
Gardening at Night
Wolves, Lower
Sitting Still
Radio Free Europe (fantatic song)
Permanent Vacation
Imitation of Life (their first #1 song in Japan)
It's the End of the World as We Know it (and I feel Fine). (Yeah, great song, great ending)

I'd have appreciated a little Stand, Catapult, or "Walking on Coals, Sharping Stones, to improve you Business Acumen" (I forgot the name :/ )

As far as Kingdom Hearts goes, I still have a fairly large number of items I need to synthesize, hinging on getting some mushrooms to drop some useful items. Of the 4 optional bosses, The Phantom, The Mecha in the Desert (whose name and origin I've both forgotten), the Ice Titan from Hercules, and mightly Sephiroth himself, have all fallen to my blade (key variety- specifically Oblivion). So, left on the agenda is to beat the Time Trial for Hercules' and Hades' Cups, synth the rest of the items up through Ultima, collect the elemental arts from the white mushrooms to get the Dream Shield even if Save the King will be better, and go forth from the last save point to the end.

Damn. I just figured out how to do select all in Blogger and deleted an entire entry, damn that sucks. Why doesn't this shit have an undo button? I need to start composing in another medium, but then it won't carry across punctuation.

Anyways, once again, on Friday Emory Chang was wearing a "hot as fcuk" shirt, I found it amusing.

Life back at Home is apparently quite haywire. Val's Civic got totalled by a person left turning across two lanes of traffic (Ie, he was in the far right of 3 lines on his side of the highway) so the red 1998 Civic is now quite RIP, though she salavaged most of the add-ons that she'd done to it. Her friend's Subaru flipped going around a curve too fast because the transmission refused to downshift so he filled suit again Subaru and used the cash plus some savings to buy a the next level up Subaru. My manager is apparently getting a divorce, though I don't know who filed for it. Of my 4 grandparents, 2 have been in the hospital in the past week and another just turned 80. My poor Aunt came back from her trip to find that either her daughter or her husband had managed to turn on the oven before they left which just happens to be where she was keeping all their pots and pans having just cleaned up before they left for the trip, so they came back to ugly smoke and right after they cleaned up that mess the water pipe there broke and flooded the kitchen. Almost makes life at Tech sound good, doesn't it?

Ummm. Post later, sleep now.

I have gotten myself another cell phone, a motorola this time, so I'll now be back in the loop of things. It'll be back on the airways at about 10:00 tomorrow, and Jiaz, Jeff, I'll be at breakfast at 9:00 like usual, so you won't ened to call unless things are changed or delayed or relocated or something similar. Note to self, remember to do Chem homework and find the Calc linear algebra book online.

I didn't play any Final Fantasy X this weekend, instead it was alot of SSX: Tricky. Also, I saw Underworld, it was good but I wan't really impressed, I'd rant but I'd spoil something for someone in doing so, even if I was careful, I just know it, so I'll blog later and change the font color to match so people can read it carefully and not have to be exposed.

I also picked up Black and White and it's expansion, Creature Isle. Unfortunately, they seem to have issues with Asgard so I'll have to check EA's support website later to find out what's wrong. Black and White tells me that Asgard is a negative one thousand three-hundred seventy-five MHz processor and doesn't even recoignize it as a Pentium of any sort. Asgard does pass all the other guildelines with flying colors though. Also installed RA2 and Yuri's Revenge as well as all 12 official map packs. With the dissolution of Westwood the entire site has fallen to crap, but that's life for you.

Saw a very interesting GE commercial today. It first showed a Supermodel heading to a laundromat and then a Nanophysicist going to the same location, they run into each other and it's love at first sight. The point of the commercial is that blending beauty and brains gives great results like: [insert some wonderful GE products here]. Anyways, the interesting point is that near the beginning, after they've met, they swap gifts (possibly an anniversary), but regardless, the supermodel's gift we don't see, however what she gets the scientest we do see. He unwraps a shiny Third Edition Dungeons and Dragons Player's Handbook, it was quite hard not to be wildly amused.

Last Weekend was fun, if unproductive. I managed 3 hours of Animal Crossing (We now have another town I'm told), 16 hours of Final Fantasy X (mostly blitzball) (Jeff, remind me to steal your PS2 memory card next time I go home so I can copy some of my files to it and bring in some better games), and still no home cooked meals.

I feel so bad. I have a bandaid on my feet just like all the "in the name of fashion" girls I've ever yelled at. My stupid shower sandals are chafing me, not cool.

Okay. The Xanga has been posted. The Tech bashing has begun.

Don't attempt Melchor yet, I've not posted. I'll say here when I have, as well as blogging my uneventful time at home.

I'm giving blood at ~11:00 or 11:30ish on Saturday (that'd be today), give me a call if you want to show up or just go on your own, blood giving is good. Or as Time magazine says: 80% of people surveyed think giving blood is a good idea, 10% of those surveyed give blood regularly.

Okay. I'll be referring all future school related posts to my Xanga, currently it looks like crap, but I've been busy so what can I say.

To get there, just go to Ting's Xanga and change the username to Melchor, now to go do some school related ranting.

Okay. So scheme is harder than I originally thought, I concede that, but it isn't helping that scheme files are saved as .scm's. That, for the unaware, is the same fscking file format that Blizzard uses for Starcraft, non-expansion, maps. Guess which one Asgard default to?

Blah, I'd rant more but I've got a wonderful 8:00 AM class, and I'd still like to shave and shower...

Time for another of those accumulated "stuff to blog about" blogs, ie: random stuff that spurs thoughts. Damn, I need to enable titles, but I haven't and these would all be little subsets anyways, so this'll be a variety pack of variable amusement (v2.0 with colors).

It's so freaking true
Tommy Boy grabbed himself a bunch of relative unknowns to be his teenage band, and they all do a perfectly good job being the stereotypes they are supposed to be. The intelligent drummer, the loony guitar player, the moody, artistic singer/songwriter, and the bass player whom nobody knows or cares about. You think I'm kidding, yet this bass player, who pretty much is in the whole movie, is never given a name, and is referred to in the credits as "The Bass Player."

Nobody ever gives a rat's ass about the bass player.
Yes, I stole it from the Brunching Shuttlecocks' review of That Thing You Do! but it's still a valid point.

No more titles! You may rejoice

It's conversations like this that keep my late nights/early morning interesting
SonOfBloodII (1:13:50 AM): So. I've got Chicago and Bebop music and DDR music. What else does my playlist need
OmniOnAIM (1:14:24 AM): rap
SonOfBloodII (1:14:55 AM): You will die

Yes, it does go on from there, but wouldn't that get kinda tedious? Actually, it doesn't go much father from there cause he got invited to hang out with girls. So, all the more reason to UPS Ting so deadly implements of pain to deal with him and his attitude. *Angry Mumbling* Bragging about girls when I'm stuck in an all guys dorm */Angry Mumbling*. Anyways, I really do need suggestions on what to download.

Sajit's cool, Rap's not. That's roughly all anyone needs to know about my roommate. Okay, a bit more? He's Indian, he's semi-big, he's a lifter, his father's a doctor, and he's slightly hung-over from the frat party last night (well, he spent today sobering and he's fine now I imagine).

Isn't Ga Tech cool? Too bad everything's closed on the damn weekend. No music listening room, arcade doesn't open until 2:00 PM. On the other hand, I've been here a mere 9 days and I've already seen Chicago (on a big screen), My Sassy Girl (technically only the last half, on Kyle's cpu off a CD), What a Girl Wants and Shanghai Knights (on Kyle's cpu off of Jason's downloaded movies), and The Cowboy Bebop Movie (off a DVD in Kyle's cpu).

I had Kyle upload all the DDR songs to my computer, took perhaps a minute, 2 minutes tops I believe it was. I love having this Fiber Optic connection, too bad I can't use shoddy connection as an excuse for not looking up my homework.

Yay. We have a message board for Political Science and the teacher plans on doing random bi-monthly appearances at the local pizza place, I'm going to enjoy this class.

I think my dorm is officially a fire hazard. Off of the 2 socket plug on my desk (with the aid of 2 power strips and one 1-3 adapter) I have plugged in currently: Cell Phone charger, Asgard, Monitor, Speakers, Phone, Stereo/CD Player, Shredder, and two lights. Plus the light in the room, like the one in the ceiling, randomly gets dim for about 30-50 minutes at a time.

What do I need for Tech? Video games for Jeff, Sunglasses, to actually open and construct the rest of the stuff I brought, and other stuff that I'll get to later when my roommate isn't trying to sleep, cause typing is loud.

There will be blogging, there shall be blogging, but my day so far has been exploring the student center, brunch, Bebop, and Stepmania so the blogging will come at a later time today. But there will be blogging.

Okay. So this took awhile, but hey, it's college, my schedule needed some balancing.

With that out of the way, I'll begin with blanket apologies to everyone for my reclusiveness today, but Stinger Rentals was to deliver the fridge today so I had to hang around so I could finially get some cold drinks without having to resort to cups of ice.

Ugh. Is that heartburn? Anyone know any definition for a rough pain in the center of the chest that runs from about 7-11 PM? The water, the food, damn college, too many changes to try and place a source.

So, Tech's showing the Matrix: Reloaded, which I still need to see, and guess what, I have a Dorm meeting during that time, gotta love how that works, eh?

Classes seem alright so far. My Calc II prof seems a bit odd, I feel too advanced for the class cause we're still in review, and there's a good 7 CHS people in there as well. Chem looks like I'll be fine, but then again the first week one really doesn't do anything. At least I've had those classes twice, I'll blog better about them when there's more to blog.

Okay people, the number for my dorm is 4042060697 so I can maybe save some minutes on my cell phone, not that I'm worried or anything, but I like the phone, it's decent quality for what I paid (perhaps $40 I think).

For those who declare me anti-social I'd like to highlight the fact that I have yet to eat alone, ever. Even when I just wander off at some odd hour for a meal I'll stumble into Sofia or Chris Packard or Helen or someone else that I know. I'm not anti social, I just have deep roots already, plus I'm making new friends in my classes as we speak (well, not literally, cause we aren't even literally speaking, unless you're reading this aloud to me or vice-versa, and that'd be kinda weird).

On a more disturbing note, my father has been using AIM regularly now. It's very disturbing getting msg's from David and my father at the same time. And he sends me the run-downs of his weekly D&D games just like his old college friend. Ie: I've been added to the To: list of addresses instead of it going just to Bill. So now I'll know what's going on I guess, kinda odd eh? Welcome to my family. Well, 8 AM CS is tomorrow so I'll be sleeping before I'm late again.