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WoW is serious business!

Patchu Patchu Patchu Patchu!

I have been playing IaMP (Immaterial and Missing Power) netplay almost every waking moment I can, mainly against people on the West Coast.
I use Patchouli Knowledge.
Isn't she adorable?
Anyway, she's a bookworm/magician/youkai who "lives" in the Scarlet Mansion's library.
Meaning she's a nerd.
I have a feeling if she had internet access she'd never move from her chair.
Master of elemental magic, her strengths and spells vary with the days of the week (because JP calls the days {mondays, tuesday, etc} by "elements", such as gold/metal, wood, fire, water, moon, sun, and earth. Wind is under wood, in case you're wondering.)
Patch first appeared in "Embodiment of the Scarlet Devil", the first Touhou shooting game for modern PC where you go to the Scarlet Mansion to smack the vampire Remilia for being a dork and blocking out the sun so she can go out in the day time.
However she has almost never appeared after that, but does show up frequently in endings.
Her second appearance, however, was IaMP.
Her third appearance is in Shoot the Bullet with very annoying spellcards (i.e. trick spellcards instead of dodge spellcards)

Patchy in IaMP is very good.
Second best good?
I'm not so sure about that...she has her weaknesses.
She lacks good anti-air, for one, and when trapped in a corner has very few answers besides bombing her way out.
Her projectiles take less spirit than everyone else, and combined with some heavy hitting melee she can play a modified rushdown style (i.e. spam projectiles then chase them with overheads)

Anyway, the people I play who can take games off of me are:

flandre aka kalciane aka bellreisa aka owner of eternal romancia before he killed it off: Uses Sakuya (knife maid), reckless knife rushdown, very good, currently can pull about 50% on him, last spellcard of his (time stop) I think is the deciding factor in our matchups, though he denies this. Reads patterns easily, recently won a match with almost only two moves to punish my lack of variety. However it came down to spellcard in the end with him doing time stop again. One of the people I play regularly.

CR aka Chronoreverse: Uses Yuyuko (hungry fan ghost), Yuyuko is ANTI-PATCHU, meaning she counters patchouli's style. I HATE fighting yuyuko, stupid jA, stupid guard crushing jB, stupid guard crush period, so little effort involved on yuyu's part and so much on Patch's part. Currently at about 33% win rate, though when I first played him I lost 50 matches in a row. The second human I ever played, and pretty much the only reason I've improved in such a short time (one week). The other person I play regularly.

Sakuya-Izayoi aka Survive: Uses Suika (drunken tree ogre loli). First human I ever played. Also won 50 matches in a row when we first played. However I win about 70% or more now after figuring out how to fight Suika (basically by playing and losing to CR over and over). Uses the fire kick a lot for stupid damage, however really easy to counter with Patchouli. Suika strikes me as a very inferior yuyuko, with no triangle jumps, and completely weak to patch's As when airborne. Has backed off playing me for a while.

Yukari-Yakumo aka Raven: Uses Reimu (traditional? shrine maiden). Haven't played him much recently, but when we first played (pretty much coming off of CR) I took about 50% of the matches. A large part of Reimu's game is her projectiles, but patch's projectiles are just better, her C can just knock Reimu out of anything she throws, so Reimu is forced to go close for a chance to win. Now that I have been playing against complete rushdown characters (Yuyuko, Sakuya, Youmu), I think I'd win at 80% or more, as Reimu's melee isn't rushdown worthy and her far game is dominated by Patch's far game.

Blitzwing: Uses Youmu (half ghost samurai gardener) Has taken a couple(like 6) matches out of 50+ or so so far, but he can at least win sometimes. He's getting better, but I think his character will prevent him from ever putting up a serious fight against Patch, as Patch counters youmu pretty badly. I don't exactly learn from playing him, but he learns from playing me, so I play him when I can. Because honestly I would be no where as good as I am if CR didn't keep killing me over and over.

The rest:
wongexe aka pocketmancer aka that guy who made gunbound comics lah!: Uses China (no her names not really China, it's Hong Meiling, but everyone forgets her name and she's constantly picked on. She guards the Scarlet Mansion gate)(how appropriate), but China is a very bad character -_-
Kuik: Just starting to get into the game, he kept saying "this isn't mvc2" and how gimpy it was, I think sending him the tournament replays opened his eyes. I hope he picks up Remilia seriously, because SOMEONE needs to be broken ass Remilia. As of now I'm the only one who uses her semi-seriously, and usually when I am angry at losing to Yuyuko for the umpteenth time. Currently using Youmu/Remilia.
linalys: Sort of a famous name (I think) in doujin fighter gaming. Has recently picked up Iamp after being purely MBR and EFZ player. Plays Youmu, I think he will get very good very quickly if he practices, because he is a good player overall.
Dyne-Yakumo: Alice? player, not entirely sure, actually beat survive before, but for some reason I can handle him with ease.

As you can see I am hoplessly addicted right now.

Fate Stay Night 11

I was getting worried.
For a second I thought Shinji's character would be left somewhere and not dealt with.

But this is awesome.
HE WILL DIE.
He has to die.
This episode foreshadows it, he's a pure bastard and he must die.
Also, the MOMENT Shinji uses up all his command spells, if he's still alive, Rider WILL kill him.
Rider's alignment is natural good, you have to wonder how Shinji ever got control of her, even temporarily.
I sort of hope actually that it ends that way, Shinji dying by Rider's hand.

Immaterial and Missing Packets

Ok, for a while there was a netplay patch for Immaterial and Missing Power.
However, the lag was pretty atrocious, and the highest frame rate I got was 45 and still able to do moves.
You could get 60 frames, but lost all ability to do a command (cause of frame skip).

ANyway, a new netplay patch has appeared, that COMPLETELY rapes the old one. (Different programmers).
I can play 60 fps to people on the west coast, and lose to more people than ever before.
Plus playing at normal speed makes it a lot closer to the real game, instead of 0 frame blocks and seeing crap coming 900 miles away.
Lol it's like everyone has rediscovered IaMP again, this is HOW good this netplay patch is.
It even lets you spectate.

Only cons are many desyncs.

Status

Anyway, job I thought I had is being argued on in the courts i.e. higher chambers i.e. between my referrer and his boss.
Shana 23 and Fate 11 are out.
Our family has been pretty sick lately.
I got tricked into doing a video edit job for three of Keshine's classmates (girls).
I think they use him as some sort of slave or something, it's very odd.
Haha little did they know that was pretty much my first edited video of ANYTHING (I've done cuts and song placement, but nothing like a 10 minute string along this into this into this debacle).
It was actually pretty fun, but...there was this odd sense of duty to get it done, like I was in high school again and it was MY project or something.
Kudos to Kenton for picking out songs while I was half conscious in the morning.
Slops to Windows Media Maker for RECOMPRESSING everything into shitty divx when I was already using Xvid clips and lame encoded audio.

The Judge

Opened up Phantasmagoria of Flower View.

HERE is a link of me beating the final boss, Sikieiki the Judge, on EASY.
Yes, that is easy difficulty.

Planes on a Snake

It's reallllllllllllllllllllllll =D

Touhou

A bizarre bizarre experiment in roleplaying groupthink.
Short stories on main page, daily going-ons in friends.
Medium chosen of course, for the sheer ridiculousness of it.
Feel free to browse through.
Just a note, all characters are attempting to act as how they are portrayed in game.
Certain one's have taken liberties, and those familiar with the series will quickly figure out which ones, but for the most part, this is how they are.

You use potion on zombie! Zombie takes 100 damage.

The first reports from Japan are in.
It seems that Potion...tastes horrible.

<Toyoch-Yakumo> it tastes quite awful.
<Toyoch-Yakumo> I'M NOT GOING TO GET ANOTHER ONE

<Toyoch-Yakumo> some people said like "I felt my HP decreased, I'm like an undead" on their blogs

Maybe hi-potion will have an upgraded taste.

Wow teaches wrong things.

I'm not going to link to the Sirlin article.
If you know who he is, you've read it.
If you play WoW, you've probably read it too.
Instead I'll include today's quote of the day:

HopkinsExpress: I know a JHU grad who turned down a job offer because it interfered with his raid times.
HopkinsExpress: He leads a miserable existence.

Final Fantasy XII Suntory Potion Commercial

Oh those wacky Japanese.
Edit: Higher quality downloadable version HERE
Please right click and save as.
And oh, firefox hates xythos, what a pain in the ass.

Fate Stay Night 9

Quite a bit of fighting, and we get to see Assassin/Caster in action.
And yes, he's THAT Kojiroh.
The "sheath" he asks Saber about is a sheath of wind that creates a vacuum and also refracts light.
Anyway Saber attempts to release the "Wind King Bounded Field" as a projectile, which is one of her attacks.

You PISSED HER OFF REALLY BADLY this time Shirou you moron.
Plus the reasons she's having so many problems is cause you suck =O
Then you go and say I'd rather fight than have you fight.
Rin nails it on the head, he cares more about other people than he does himself.
Cough, though secretly, both Rin and Saber admire this attitude a lot.

Actually, the problem is when you have two of those types of people together, they get mad at the other for trying to do everything alone.
Such is the case with Saber and Shirou.

CURRENT Funny spoiling hint numbers (# in parenthesis are numbers I am pretty sure will change soon):
Number of masters: 7
Number of servants: 8
Number of servants controlled by people at school: 4
Masters who control more than one servant: 1
Servants who control a servant: 1
Servants who have lost a master: 1 (2)
Male Servants: 5
Female Servants: 3
Male Masters: 4 (3)
Female Masters: 3 (4)

Next episode looks to be o_O
There's...Illya love? AND Saber love?
=O =O =O =O
I'm looking forward to this one quite a bit.

Shakugan no Shana 21

DO NOT WATCH THE PREVIEW FOR THE NEXT EPISODE. (i.e. episode 22)

BIG MAJOR CHANGE.
First off, Shakugan no Shana will only be 24??? episodes.
Second off, no signs of a second season yet.
Third off, MAJOR MAJOR DEPARTURE FROM THE NOVELS.
Anyway, this entire episode is just wacky newness and craziness.
In short, everything caught me COMPLETELY off guard as up until this episode they had been mirroring the novels almost perfectly.
I'm mixed on this.
Instead of making a longer, awesomer show they are going with what they have.
Then again, the things they've changed are HOLY SHIT DRAMATICS.
That being said, they did a pretty crazy good job on this episode.

Anyway, since it's obvious they're not going to follow the novels, now in their 13th? or 14th volume anymore, I can spoil freely about the future which they won't go into.

First off, the enmity between Wilhelmina and Yuji takes time to grow, instead of being a one-sided termination affair.
In the end, Wilhelmina attacks him a second time, but at this point Yuji has had a time to prepare, and manages to focus existence power plus use Blautsauger (incest twins defense penetrating sword) to stab her through her shield and attacks.

Volume 10 is completely a flashback ARC to Matilda (Wow the TV series doesn't even get to reveal her name), the former flame haze, Merihim, and Wilhelmina's past, who they were and what happened.

Volume 11 is back in the present.
Wilhelmina seems to have recovered mostly, and I think she's rather impressed or at least tolerant of Yuji (who can fight now).
The rest of the volume is about a school play and all the silliness of who gets to be the prince and princess and what not =D

Volume 12, new villain/character interrupts school play, was in love with the man SEALED within Reiji Maigo.
I think sees a LOT of that in Yuji (Oh noes a third girl? and manages to piss of everyone else at the same time).

And that's it for now, so here you've heard everything BUT stuff on episode 21, and it shall remain that way until you watch it.
BUT AGAIN DONT WATCH THE PREVIEW FOR THE NEXT EPISODE.

Spore

Holy crap.
This is why I want Peter to sneak me into GDC (Game Developer's Conference)
Seriously I was amazed.

Speeding

Fate must be conspiring against me this week.
Anyway, first speeding ticket woohoo.
First, I stay on that road at most 15 seconds.
Second, 5 seconds of the time on that road is a steep hill.
Third, when I was on the road today, I HAD to completely stop at the bottom of the steep hill cause some guy with a STOP SIGN pulled across anyway in front of me.
In short, I got a speeding ticket for 5 seconds of 45 on a 30 mph road while going downhill.

Playing to Win

This is an old old article, but it still rings true, even today.
Case in point, Ragnarok Online.
I play on a private server run by Soojin over there on the right side of my links.
There is something in RO called WOE, aka War of Emperium.
Basically, you try to walk into a house all the way to the back and break a stone.
Then you get the house.
This can be repeated until WOE ends, and then you have to wait till the next WOE.
You can buy defenders and what not, but on a server with 10 people max and max level 255, they almost do nothing.
So what it comes down to is duels.
Guess the person's weapon element wrong, or just have a wrong build against him, and you can see how this becomes stupid.
Holding a hall is almost impossible, and requires you to time yourself for the last 5 minutes...or other methods.
There is an item called bloody branch, which summons 1 MVP monster.
MVPs are tough, they can at least damage level 255s, and 5 at once will pack a punch.
My idea? Use 50 of these branches inside the house to hold it after I kill the stone.
Anyway, turns out you can't use them inside, which is unfortunate, but you CAN use them outside.
So I use them right at the entrance, die, warp back to the exact point and reuse them.
When I've used 50 branches I keep warping back to the exact entrance to ensure they stay there (Also to test if I can get in my house without dying).
Perfect defense, or so I thought.
The person who I was gunning for had a GM(Moderator) account.
He went on his GM account and despawned ALL my monsters, then changed to his regular character and walked in and broke the stone.
First off, using GM characters to benefit your normal character is probably the ONLY rule on this server, or on any server.
Anyway, he also comes up with a trademark line, "I see no MVPs" when I flipped out and went ballistic.
Later on he argued all sort of stupdities, like WOE takes skill, WOE should be player vs player not player vs monster, he'd have gotten in anyway, general stupid bullshit.

In short, a scrub.