Oh geez

Am I bloody cursed with the death touch?
My laptop has officially died because of a corrupt userinit.exe file while I was trying to change regional settings.
Again I am missing a bootdisk that reads ntfs partitions and can handle a drive larger than 8mb or whatever ridiculously small amount my current bootdisk supports.
Yay.

I hate computers.

Home sweet home

Man this gimpy laptop lacks Japanese language support!
Many apologies to noob who had to send me japanese language files one at a time... pissed him off quite a bit =D.
Anyway, it's nice to be home, it's warm, it's CLEAN-er than my apartment, there is no immediate deathly homework trap of death over my head, and I have access to plenty of FOOD.
Plus ultimate game tomorrow or something?
These are the days...I sort of wish I didn't have this internship and job stuff hanging over my head.
Brennan IS right though, after we get out of JHU we can pretty much find any job we want, just not the really crazy high paying ones...
And until we have a family or what not, we're pretty set for the future.
Thanks JHU, for at least that.

Pilgrims were good and Indians too!

Well it's that time of year again, the time where 90 bloody assignments all fall before we escape for Thanksgiving.
Currently stalling on PL/SQL database query, probability/statistics homework, Internet protocols homework, and a Chinese history museum report.
Go procrastination, that and lousy sleep schedules.

Man perl...a language I never got to good at...it comes back to haunt me...fitting cause it's another Yarowsky class.

In my "spare" time, I decided to ask the people of gamefaqs (hahaha I know what you're thinking), specifically the RO community, on how they can like a game so backwards and old as RO.
Honestly...maybe I should have been nicer, but heck they're GAMEFAQS posters for crying out loud.
Anyway, I sort of already know why people pay for this glorified chat room...
The cute sprites and the people they've met.
At least that's why I was still playing and why I am paid through till February.
It sure as hell wasn't the gameplay or WOE or leveling...
Well here's a shoutout to the people who managed to make me waste money for an untold number of months: Jazzy, Kenton/Sev, Viki, Zed, SM, and more recently Tanzy, Jack, Yiyi, and Yilei.
Thanks for the memories, even though I'm a hell of a lot poorer.

On that subject, after I finish my homework (HAHAHA if), new month coming up = new guild wars preview weekend.
I wonder what they'll have done to the formula, besides the already awesome unbeatable no monthly fees thing.
I for one suggest MORE types of armor, and maybe a weapon store with more types of crazy weapons (different elements, stun, whatever), again all competitively priced of course.
I'm secretly hoping the money bug is still there so I can get full studded leather before my two days runs out again (Brennan was so pissed that the game went down right before he got his while I was jumping around doing emotes in green full studded armor =D)

Chkdsk does not run in DOS

HOLY MOTHER FUCK.
These past few days have been a trying trying time.
Remember all that shit about calm before the storm?
The storm has arrived.
My system is going through convulsions and catastrophic failures by the day, and I had to use seven or so disks in tandem to revive the beast.
I even ordered a hard drive from newegg.com right there, cause I need to move my files and wipe/reinstall xp before the drive explodes from bit errors.

Meanwhile, at the same time, I can absolutely not stop playing World of Warcraft 3 beta.
It's like the perfect counterpart to guild wars...where one is skill based etc, WC3 is going to be your uber Skinner's box.
It's still an mmorpg, but it's done really well, and Blizzard has given you lots of shit to do until the next couple of years.
It's rather easy to figure out too...and FUN, most of all.
If it didn't have monthly fees I'd buy it, but as of now...probably no go.
I'm not rich.

WoW!

Talk about absurd, a 2gigabyte client distributed over "Blizzard installer" (Read, bittorrent), unzips into a 3 gigabyte install package that somehow takes 30 minutes to install.

THIRTY MINUTES.
What the hell are they dropping on my computer that requires 30 minutes to install?
Don't even give me the IT'S THREE GIGS argument, plenty of installations bordering or surpassing 3 gigs do not take as long.
I can't remember the last time a game installation took remotely past 5 minutes.

And now, I can't even make a character, because I get disconnected every few seconds.

This bites...
I'll talk about the gameplay when I can actualy try it, but as of now, man the freeloading populace really brought this game to its knees stress wise.

The Calm Before the Storm

I'm at that point where I know what happens in the next two weeks is deathly important, yet I'm not really make an attempt to try for anything.
Things include, finishing my software router, second stats midterm after the first one went poorly, submitting a proposal for a database final project and finishing assignment 3, finding an internship, and registering for classes.

I think I'm screwed, but I'm just not taking an active enough of a roll.
Must kick myself into doing work.

Guild wars Part Deux

Another weekend, another beta tryout.
New quests, and the chance to start over as a noob (level 1) from Ascalon.
That final mission before Lion's Arch is a bitch, I think it was bugged as hell, we killed every godamn monster and stil couldn't win.
Wow it takes about 4 days to hit 20, if I add up the two days it took me to go from 1-15 and the two days it took me to go from 15-20.
That's very good, low level cap, means we can make new characters and builds and get them competitive really fast.
I discovered a money "bug?" that let me finally get some cash.
Man the grind for cash is trumpeted a lot, but when you think about it, it was only two days, compare that to any other game and you realize it's not really a grind at all.
This game looks more and more like a mmstrategy game than an mmorpg.

FOUR MORE YEARS, FOUR MORE WARS!

Well, Bush won reelection.
I actually had that depressing hunch right when the numbers started coming in.
Heh when I called my dad to ask him who he voted for, his answer was, "Well New York's going Democrat anyway."
As if he were ashamed to tell me.
Thing is the GOP has been far nicer to Taiwan than the Dems have ever been, which I don't understand.
But you can't just vote on the basis of something like that.

Keshine say the weirdest thing to me the other day, "Fing bush is going to instate the draft and we're all going to fing die."
When the hell did he become politically attuned?
It's still hard to think of him as remotely mature or adult.

Welcome addicts, all two of you!
Wow I found another Duel Savior addict.
It's really weird, he seems a lot more technically advanced than me, but some of his theories on the game sort of don't sit well with my thinking.
One of them being the more times you beat the game the harder it gets.
This would imply that all my current battles and trials are somehow easier than his -_-a.
Since he followed a completely wacky ass sequence of playthroughs (mass bad endings, out of order paths and CG collection, etc.) and is on 30 or so replays he arrived at that conclusion.
I don't think he's right at all, I played through everyone's path on normal, and am replaying everyone's path on hard...
And well it's way harder that's for sure but...when I try his save games I don't notice anything harder above my current level of bad guys.
Plus all my enemies changed to their advanced types right when I started through on hard, instead of after a set number of playthroughs like his did.
Who knows, however I grant that he has a much better grasp of the fighting engine than I do.
He also parries a whole lot more, whereas I don't really bother to risk it since so far I've been doing fine without it on hard.
His Kaede is probably better since he has set boss combos for her, which I lack.
But man it's weird finding someone so like-minded, hell even MORE detail obsessed with this game than I am.

Plus he plays reloaded...and is applying for Japanese citizenship.
Yet his Japanese is really bad >_<.
He understood none of the story and likes Mia for being cute.
Man no one could like Mia after her story path, it just makes you godamn hate her for being such a psychotic bitch.

What else, oh yeah Bleach 4-5 out, more Bleach manga up, still no new manga in terms of me and my whorish raws, it's just nice seeing stuff in english I guess.
On the Naruto front, which I have ignored for a LONG while, SAKURA FINALLY STRIVES TO BE FUCKING USEFUL.
Medical ninja, of course, but it's about FUCKING TIME SHE DID SOMETHING!
By the way Naruto and Hinata better hook up cause Naruto Sakura just doesn't work.

You know the best source is your own kind.

Oh dear.
Kotarou is going to lose his mother three times over.
The demon in white and the angel in black.
Pita Ten is starting to get painful to read.

It must have been a lynx.
I spent the weekend playing the Guild Wars preview.
It's made by ex-blizzard guys, it's an MMORPG type deal, but a lot more fast paced.
Actually, it seems closer to diablo with mass emphasis on parties, which isn't surprising considering where the makers are coming from.
It is fun as hell, seeing as the emphasis is on teamwork.
I have to say that even the random mass team free-for-alls were interesting as hell, although godamn Koreans seem to have invaded and mastered the International servers within three days.
Anyway here's the rundown:
You have your six classes, Warrior, monk, ranger, elementalist, mesmer, and necro.
You get to choose a primary and a secondary, and you have access to each class's skill tree, although your secondary misses out on two primary class only skills (which are usually very very good).
Leveling takes like no time, what's going to affect if you win guild battles and missions or not is your teamwork and your skill choices, although equipment is also important.
In truth the leveling grind is sort of replaced by the equipment/armor/crafting/MONEY grind, but then again if rare items are free to all well then what's the point?

I didn't have time to check EVERY skill, cause they cost one more gold each time you buy one and well gold is RARE.
My ranger/necro relied on Powershot/blood something/trollungent/life siphon to basically keep the mana and health flowing and so I could do lots of damage.
On review I should have gone Ranger/mesmer, mesmer's have really awesome support spells...try getting smacked with summon phantasm from 3 people at once and you'll see what I mean.
Warrior: Didn't try, probably bash spells, I've been hit for 40 apiece against these guys.
Monk: Healing. Everyone wants monks in their parties, not too many play monks themselves cause it's a tricky hard job.
Ranger: Range snipers that can do LOTS of damage to spellcasters fairly quickly. Plus the fact they can stop them from moving, interrupt skills/spells and seal them for a short time, and do damage regardless of armor. There is another path which is pets, which I think is rather weak honestly.
Elementalist: In player versus monster, this guy is going to be your nuke. Does lots of damage, against players still workswell if they're stupid, but against smart people they are less effective. Very good damage output, never runs out of mana cause of their skills.
Mesmer: Crazy. Mass regen altering spells, such as mana degen, health degen, drains, statuses, whatever. These guys in pvp are scary with their mass degen effects. ALso never run out of mana, because of their skills.
Necromancer: In player versus enemy, very good cause they can raise an army from their dead enemies. Curses are very useful also. However in pvp they are pure support, and a lot of their abilities become useless.

Anyway the leveling "grind" was through missions, completing one with a party (AND YOU WILL NEED A PARTY) unlocked a new area with a new mission, or a new city.
You could do the missions alone with computer AI henchmen, but henchmen are stupid.
The final preview mission was this long involved affair of killing a castle off.
The first time we did it we had no idea where the damn bridge objective was and basically KILLED EVERY ENEMY on the map.
This took us like 2 hours.
When we finally found the objective we cheered, only to be whisked away to an area called tomb of the kings.
This was a tournament arena, and it was CRAZY.
We were unprepared to fight other humans, let alone 16 other humans in a random 3 team capture the flag orgy.
Still fun all around, and did I mention NO MONTHLY FEES.
Fifty dollars, that's like the amount of money I've spent to play per session on that random loserish mmorpg for the past couple of years XD.

I might get this game, who knows.