JOIN IN KIDDIES!

Losing all sense of reason

OMFG CAMPZORS!
Christ, how the hell do you enforce "remaining competitive throughout the match?"
If by some act of God I was forced to play classic snipers 1v1 on BG, am I being competitive if I hide in the caves with the overshield forever?

Nub

Some crazy cat Dole made a video showing off his halo pc prowess.
I show up for one second as Sol Badguy and die!
Woot.
Good thing Naota gets sniped .5 seconds after killing me.

Revenge of Changpo!

Maybe it's just me but in Senkou tourney play I'm seeing a LOT of Changpo B.
She seems pretty damn good, but I have yet to see her fight Karel.
(Ok damage, very very insane mobility, super's pretty ridiculous also)

Better late than never

Yeesh, I'm out of the WoW loop.
Anyway, fun times in Molten Core.
Also, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog on MJ trial.
And finally this
and this.

Yeah they are all several days old, shut up, I just saw them now.

Kore kara hontou no syoubu nan da yo!

New Senkou no Ronde matches up at Sega.
They're streaming again so I recommend using SDP or whatever to capture them.

Anyway, Karel seems...pretty overpowering!
He doesn't gain meter that fast at least.
His primary shot isn't spread or anything, but it's a VERY fast VERY powerful direct hit, and if you're caught in his other spam (for one bar) he can combo it off.
It does way too much I think.
His super isn't anything to scoff at either, with the two waves of shots from his arms.
Some people I think can give him a run for his money, like Mika (who if he has meter can just AOE bomb the shots away), but people like...Changpo I don't really think have a way to stand up to it.
Fabian's super also strikes me as overpowering, and that guy builds meter like CRAZY.
Hopefully we see more character matches, and at least one using the secret girl.

Edit:
Forgot to mention THIS. What the hell, have character designers lost their minds. By now I bet you're wondering what's so weird about that picture. Well, who cares if the kids a robot, that is a GUY. A GUY. IT'S BRIDGET VERSION TWO. And he got on the cover of ARCADIA as fucking well. (OMG I'd RATHER HAVE THE GODAMN SKIRT THEN THE BLUE THING AGHHH.) Anyway, I'm already dreading the wave of fanart that's sure to come.

Further edit:
Ok, this guy's attacks...maybe I'm reading too much into it, but his shots revolve around large circles (not the massive bullet spam you see in shooters, we're talking uh...LARGE circles), and his SUPER is a sword. A SWORD. That shoots LOTS of large circles.

Evangeline rules

I'm actually staying the fuck away from the Mahou Sensei Negima anime because it has all sorts of things wrong (GUILTY) about it; I stopped dling the manga! Really! I did! Even if I enjoyed it more than I should have!, but this cracks me up.

I think 2chan can pull it off, they are fucking scary powerful when they get zerg rush.

In other news...I think I have to resume dling Mahou Sensei Negima manga XD.

Inori

Hm...a couple weeks ago I managed to get a bunch of AIR soundtracks from Tanzy because I was so in love with the OP and ED.
So I send the ED to Darren and he was like, "I think your love of the anime affects your love of the music."
To which I had to respond with, "Fuck you."
Then he sent me Inori, which was fucking unfair.
I mean he sent a song from one of my favorite singer/voice actors, and the song was crazy good.
It was like the perfect song to show me up.

Anyway, I didn't really think much more about it until Tanzy started asking for Maaya Sakamoto albums.
So I basically sacrificed all my space to get ALL HER(Maaya) SINGLE ALBUMS in the space of a couple hours, then I sacrified MORE space because a certain person on 56k wanted the Ys VI soundtrack AND the Romancing Saga -Minstrel- soundtrack.

Long story short, one of those soundtracks (Romancing Saga), stopped midway (It was 4 fucking CDS) because I had run completely out of space on OMFG (Drive D:\)
So I basically deleted about 10 or so game imgs because I still have the original zips for torrenting purposes, and also made a vow...finish one Japanese game at a time so I wouldn't have to keep unzipping imgs onto my hard drive that wouldn't get used.

So that's right, I'm resuming my slow translation of Utawaweru Mono, no matter what.
I had done quite a bit of work on it surprisingly, massive kanji lists and translations and what not.
After I finish that I'll probably move on to Aselia.
Funny how both are getting ps2 releases in Japan.

Anyway, I need a good paper Japanese-English dictionary.
Also want an mp3 player, ipods don't seem to cut it from what I'm seeing about their specs.
ALSO want a ps2, but haha, I don't want to kill my work ethic more than it has suffered.

The new battle lines have been drawn?

Ah...mangaka wimped out.
That or that crazy 4th division...then again if you've seen Ichigo's permanent injuries...
Exactly, there are NONE, NO FUCKING PERMANENT INJURIES AT ALL.
Anyway, status...
EVERYONE DEAD IS ALIVE.

Haha wow that's really literal.
And hilarious.
Basically my shocks are:

Hitsugaya is absolutely perfectly FINE.
We're talking he had his bankai sliced in half, and himself almost, and he's acting almost normal.
I'd be fucking brooding like crazy, he's just a kid after all, and one of the people he looked up to turns out to be in league with one he hates the most.
Plus they killed (ok NEAR killed) his girl.

Hinamori is alive WTFBBQNESS.
She had plenty of time to lose all her vital signs...PLENTY OF TIME.
How is she alive?!
It's not that I don't want to see her alive, I just don't think she could have SURVIVED.

DEMOCENSORED

Microsoft you bunch of fuckign wimps.
These words are forbidden speech?
Fuck you sirs, fuck you.

"The pirate captain behaves like the president of a small company that makes and packages Sytrofoam peanuts."

Tim Rogers scores again with ANOTHER "Game Review."
I love this guy, I wonder if he'd have such creative energy if he wasn't constantly an endangered species.
Brennan just might enter the voice acting contest he has on his site.

You found 1 Job!

Starcraft link spam.
Really nicely done Starcraft clan video
SCLegacy's 2004 Pimpest plays

Battlefield 2

I think I'm going to have to play the single player first before I figure out how this game works.
It's not intuitive, or even semi intuitive like BF1942.
First off...shooting seems...really screwy.
I have a reticle, but damned if I know I'm hitting them or not.
Second, VEHICLES are scary as shit.
They are hard to control, harder to aim and shoot, and HARDEST to fucking kill.
Grenade launcher point blank range at a tank?
No damage.
Hell, the jet planes (f-15s? SOMETHING) and the helicopters make it scarier.
How are you suppoesd to kill those without finding AA guns/bazookas/or going anti tank.
I suck at grenades...
But c still changes points of view, just there are like 4 points of view per vehicle, and hell if I can drive while in first person mode in a tank, I have to switch out to 3rd person mode, but then aiming is RIDICULOUSLY hard, so I have to hit c 3 more times to get back into first person to shoot...
Craziness...
Too weird right now, I need to learn some basic ability first.

BIG BEN?!

Yakitate is too ridiculous.
I fear if the anime mirrors the manga that the episodes would explode out of sheer ridiculousness.
TIME TRAVELING BREAD.
That and the fact they accepted ANOTHER challenge from a guy who tried to kill them no less than three times.
25 bread battles?
They're going to lose some aren't they...probably going to get sandwiched by some dirty trick othello play (I have Othello skills!)
And the latest reaction with the DBZ hair parodies...
Too many puns, too many horrible references (Conan detective boy?)
It was insane...I fear my brain might explode if the author keeps at it.

The Yakitate translators have a picture of a crying Tsukino. Sick bastards. -Allan

Bread Battle

Hm, well holy shit Yakitate manga is wayyyyy ahead of the anime.
But godamn the intrigue really is something.

Tsukino's family is fucking wacky.
Her little sister isn't so bad (I think she's cute), but the fucking older one is straight from hell.

Poor Mokoyama, if he ends up at the southern branch, their store will be unstoppable.

OMG, nice fatherly bread baking man has become evil St. Pierre cigar smoking with Yukino owning mogul.
Azuma must reclaim his soul!
At least that's what I think is going to happen.

New addition of Kanmuri, the scientist.
Hm, his character is interesting, Yukino probably knew more about his feelings then she let on, which is why she completely eradicated his research. (He's vindictive so I had to crush him completely.)
But he's FOCUSED, and he wants to kill Yukino (join the club!) so he's A-OK in my book.
It'll be interesting to see how it plays out.

Celestial Star!

Al Gore is a bitter man.
The prayer at the beginning of the graduation was off, as was Al Gore's speech on the environment.
He should stick to jokes.
Some kid wore a monkey face on stage.
Where did Andrea go, did she not graduate?
Back at home, and I pick up a Time magazine about twixters, young adults who live off their parents, bounce from job to job, etc, etc.
Hmmmm...

Finally finished all voice for Valkyrie Profile Japanese.
I think Freya's last hit sound (Ko kai sasete ageru wa!) did the trick.
Moved computer upstairs and installed wireless card, can't bother with games (the ping is crazy) unless I move modem and wires upstairs.

GRADUATION

Uh yeah, I forgot my digital camera.
Sucks =/
But my diploma ISN'T BLANK, and I'm FREE...till I find a job that is.
Have to move out too (I'm so weak heavy furniture argh).
But yeah, it's nice to be king.

USS...Anime?

Well, one of the political bloggers (USS Clueless) I read a lot (not as frequently as say, Instapundit, must I say his views are slightly conservative? As opposed to common sense? Then again, trying to tell people that Iraq without Saddam was better than Iraq with is an exercise in the lack of common sense), has hung up his political blogging shoes to blog about ANIME.
I know, it just strikes me too as wacky, and sort of cool at the same time.
Anyway, creepy entry from May 22nd.

His reviews seem pretty on the ball (Noir four stars? That's a bit TOO nice), and I'm seeing a COUGH tendency toward series people would consider "shoujo."
Which rocks.
I wouldn't have pegged Denbeste as a shoujo person.
However, I'm disappointed he didn't give Azumanga Daioh a chance.
First DVD blah, get in on the fansub community Denbeste!

He should watch Card Captor Sakura.

The duel savior title page has a picture of a crying woman. You sick bastard. - Allan

The Gamer's Manifesto

John Cheese strikes again!
Anyway my personal take:
1. In shooters, not really that important, bot intelligence honestly doesn't matter much if they can't aim. And then what, only a certain percentage of their shots hit as a difficulty meter?
2. See Japan.
3. Ha! FF8 was trash. But yes, if that tech demo of ff7 is bullshit, then SAY it will be bullshit.
4. See Japan again.
5. See...guess what, Japan, once again.
6. Well, I am a QUICKSAVE WHORE. As in give me an emulator, and you'll find I use 5 or so save states constantly. This promotes sort of laziness, but I do agree some games won't die from a quicksave function.
7. Do you know that on an emulated PSX for computer, you will still get "loading" times? It's like built in.
8. Madden sucks!
9. I LIKE THIS. However, the thing you have to remember is, for a console, everytime you put in jump, you use up a button. PC, no excuse.
10. We've just started on being able to do this (HL2). Immersion only depends on the game honestly. How the hell would you immerse yourself in a tactics game?
11. Hm...again, depends on the game genre for point a. For point b, well, if you have multiple angles, who cares if you can just choose the one you want. Sometimes you want to see the sunset around you (See WoW or Everquest or whatever). Point c is YES. Keep it Japanese, stupid.
12. Yes about RPG triggers. No about ammo starvation (Ammo does not pop out of zombie dogs, immersion wise, and neither is it infinite.) Yes about confusing floor plans with no maps. Yes about instafail stealth levels. Not sure about ending levels, as most of the one's I've seen are RPGS, and as such, aren't challenging at all. Ambivalent about speed cheating, there's not much you can do with racing car AI (see 1) besides corner perfectly and taking the most effecient route. Speed cheating just gives them a chance, or would you rather they drive like God.
13. Unlocking stuff is CRUCIAL to keeping a gamer occupied. So no.
14. Haha on the crates. They seem to show up in FPS the most. I really have no beef with crates.
15. YES ON PATENTS. YES ON EA. YES ON CRAP.
16. Anarchy online, anyone?
17. Reminds me of the sega fantasy VI flash. People WANT their consoles to do their taxes...really a pity with nintendo there.
18. This WILL HAPPEN. Sony's giving in was ALREADY THE FIRST SIGN. Game economies, especially mmorpg economies, will become linked to normal economies.
19. AHAHAHA. Can't see your feet. I like that. Yes jumping puzzles are hilariously bad.
20. Eh, careness factor zero, I always had lots of room =D.

DUEL SAVIOR JUSTICE

HOLY FUCK.
Leave it to Giga geez...
Duel Savior is coming out with an ADDITION DISK.
TOO FUCKING AWESOME.
HAREM ROUTE!
Ahahaha harem route, but screw that.
IM SEEING TEAM PLAY.
And they are adding in VG NEO Characters for kicks.

I can't wait.

Teaching in Japan

If you haven't headed over to I am a Japanese school teacher I suggest you do so now.
There's some scary shit that goes down there...but it's hilarious.

I remember when my roommate first saw the Naruto Kancho (1000 years of pain!)...his face turned into this mask of holywtf that's horrible.
Well it happens, and it hurts.
I think if I were to each English over there, I'd teach high school, cause holy shit 12-15 year olds ass-stabbing just isn't cool.
I don't think they'd dickgrab though...I can BLEND IN with my yellowface.
Plus well...uh...stereotypes...bah godamn just go read the stories on that webpage already.

The night before my plane left, I went to a baseball game. The regular season hadn't started yet, it was just exhibition (A's vs Giants), but it was still a bajillion zillion times better than Japanese baseball. In Japanese baseball, the strategy is to get a man on base...then bunt. They bunt with no outs, one out, two outs, runners on first, second, third, the bases loaded, it doesn't matter. The pitcher bunts, the power hitter bunts, the leadoff hitter bunts, they might as well call it Buntball and just be done with it. The funny thing is, the Japanese almost sort of think that they invented baseball. A friend of mine asked why do the Japanese always bunt, and I told him "Are you kidding?! Sacrificing yourself for the good of the team, really was there any other choice?"

Admiration is...a feeling furthest away from understanding.

WELL, been a fucking WHILE since I did this...but yeah with the shifting of powers it is worth mentioning.

Here it'll be really simple:

Bad guys:
Aizen, formerly "dead" captain of the 5th.
Gin, former captain of the 3rd.
Tousen, former captain of the 9th.

Good guys:
Everyone but those listed in neutral. Which is one guy.

Neutral/just bitter:
Mayuri, captain of the 12: The guy Quincy fucked up is back and doesn't really care about the axis of evil. Heh I bet he's just jealous that there were two researchers (Aizen and Uruhara) more fucked up then he was.

Dead?:
Momo, sub of the 5th
Hitsugaya, captain of the 10th
Byakuya, captain of the 6th
Renji, sub of the 6th

In short, holy shitness.
Aizen's alive, and even without hypnosis he has the power to fucking CATCH PEOPLES BANKAIS SUCH AS ICHIGOS AND RENJIS WITH HIS BARE HANDS.
WTFBBQ.
Hope for Momo to live seems to be fading faster and faster, and Hitsugaya's in really bad shape (but rather recent so I think he has a better chance than her.../cry for Momo)
Byakuya and Renji are tough, they probably won't die.
Gin...I honestly don't know what's up with him and Matsumoto...there was something, and he almost looks genuine sorry before he leaves.
Tousen is wtf.
Need an explanation soon on that guy, amazing how that one got pulled over us.

Rukia at least has been retrieved!
But at what cost -_-
I really hope Ichigo and her do spend a long while together...

And then there's the problem of Uruhara...he's not evil, but he still used them to try to fix his own mistake...and now it's too late.

Crisis

I wonder why the last semester had to go spectacurly bad.
It's like every one of my worst fears materialized and hit me in the face.
Now I'm in risk of failing not one, not two, but THREE courses.
The third one is completely my fault too, and in a lot more serious ways.
I'm surprised the professor didn't just completely write me off and leave me to die, cause that's what I deserve.

Suicide gets you no where but man I've been contemplating isolation in a box with a computer for these past two weeks.

Ground Zero

Well, here I am, four minutes before a modern complexity theory final, and I'm with four other guys PRINTING 100 pages out each of notes.

Hilariousness.

By the way, I hope the death the TA of programming languages is a nice soul who won't fail me.
Otherwise I'm not graduating, and that would suck.

Wow Linux is sexy.

Time to go pick up my share of the pages.

Random stuff I've read or heard

Some winners here:
The story made its rounds in the fall of 2001: a Filipino high school student created a Photoshop collage (Ok, turns out it was submitted to his site but he didn't post it out of respect...still other followers posted it anyway) of Sesame Street’s Bert interacting with terrorist leader Osama bin Laden as part of a series of “Bert Is Evil” images the student posted on his home page.
In the wake of September II, a Pakistan-based publisher scanned the Web for bin Laden images that could be printed on anti-American signs, posters, and T-shirts.
CNN reporters recorded the unlikely image of a mob of angry Pakistanis marching through the streets waving signs depicting Bert and Bin Laden.
American public television executives spotted the CNN footage and threatened to take legal action: “The people responsible for this should be ashamed of themselves.”
Coming full circle, other Sesame Street spoofs began to surface on the Web, linking various characters with the terrorists.

THERE ARE NO TIERS:

Originally posted by RoyPikachuMario
Look, I do NOT believe in tiers. It's like ordering people to be good with certain people and suck with others.

Originally posted by CORY
JESUS FUCKING CHRIST! NO IT ISN'T! ok, well it is, BUT ONLY IF YOU'RE A FUCKING SHEEP AND CAN'T THINK FOR YOU OWN GOD FUCKED SELF! can you NOT understand that you can play ANY GOD FUCKED CHARACTER you want to, regardless of tiers? do people understand this? do they also understand that CRAPPY characters will still be FUCKING CRAPPY CHARACTERS whether or not the Ffucked tier list existed or not? do people honestly think that if the tier list was fucked to all fucking hell, never to be seen EVER! that all characters would magically sing in three point harmony and be balanced? honestly? DO YOU? the tier list just says "statistically and in the current metagame this/these character(s) have more advantages than this/these character(s) in the overall scheme of things". it DOES NOT say "THESE CHARACTERS WILL ALWAYS WIN, NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO, SAY, OR TRY. DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT PLAYING ANY OTHER CHARACTER BECAUSE YOUR CHANCE OF WINNING IS ZEROOOOOOOOO!!!1"


AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH! I FUCKING HATE THE GOD FUCKED TIER LIST BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE FUCKING RETARDED! that's it, it's gotta go...

other mods, feel free to reopen it whenever you want and/or edit/delete this stupid fucked post i made. i just couldn't take it anymore...

Goal

Air ended.
Fuck me.
Massive spoiler crap.
I really can't say anything I guess.
But yeah Jeff Lawson was right, 10 was really weird and off (Stupid Yukito crow), 11 was right on and really touching, and 12 was sort of soul crushing.

I actually liked episode 8 and 9 a whole lot, even though they were in a completely different setting.
I really liked those three characters Kanna, Uraha and Ryuuya.
It sort of makes me wonder if Yukito had stayed alive and only Misuzu had died, would Yukito and Haruko have gotten together?

Misuzu's level 3 overdrive in Eternal Fighter Zero makes me feel a lot sadder now.
It's recreated so faithfully...when she gets out of the wheelchair and walks toward Haruko and falls into her arms she says, "Goal."
But yeah, why did BOTH of them die.
Both.
What the hell!
I thought at least one would live, but one died to save the other and even though he did he didn't.
The thing is they followed the original game storyline almost to the letter.
It makes me sort of prefer the arcs where Yukito's still alive, like Kano's and Minagi's.
I hate Sora crow, he sucks.

It sort of makes me wonder how Kanon would have been received if they kept the true endings for everyone, i.e. not only Makoto bites it, but Shiori dies from her sickness (OHNOES), Mai stabs herself and Sayuri doesn't stop her (OHNOES x 2), Ayu isn't in the hospital but already dead (UGUU), and the only one who makes it out alive is Nayuki.

I wonder...how Clannad is.
I hear it isn't that great comparitively to the other two.

Anyway, here is my picture commemorating the end of Air.

EAT LOV BISH!

Black Cat

More news on the downloading 1000 mangas sprees...
Downloaded Black Cat, Allan was sort of hinting on this one.
Hm, I don't know...there's some really weird off moments and such, then again I'm a pretty bad judge of manga, as I read it all.

Right, the girls, ESPECIALLY that pyro schoolgirl in particular, I just think what the hell...you've come straight out of FLCL.
And then you have a nanomachine chick who's basically Millia Rage cept with her entire body (the author changes her into a bloody mermaid and gives her wings...geez christ), and finally a thief who plays the damsel in distress role over and over.
Oh right, and don't forget Saya, the "most important friend" he lost.

I think the author really likes his girls, or something, cause there are lots of things that magically disappear or get overshadowed concerning the males when they show up.

One is pyro chick's former partner, who left on his own.
I mean where the hell did he go?
Also, even though Sven is the one who recruited/decided to save Eve, TRAIN AND EVE HAVE much more of a relationship than Sven and Eve, which isn't exactly what I thought it would be.
(Sven takes care of Eve, blah de blah, father figure or something, but it's become more centered on Eve wanting to own the crap out of Train)
In fact, what the hell they've ignored poor Sven and let him get kidnapped even.
Must be a tough break being the hero guy's partner (hey, wolfwood held up pretty well by himself)

Ok, time to list other cheesy points:
Railgun
Mermaid Form
Pyro chick chibi devil angel
CHIBI TRAIN

Inconsistencies:
Train kills two people in the first volume, and then, almost never kills again.
I honestly think Eve is much closer to Train than Sven at this point.

Hope to see:
Sven as a bad ass, come on where did your coolness go.
Maybe something with Rinslet, maybe not.
If you kill Creed I think the entire manga ends, as you've covered Eve's background, Sven's background, and the only one with anything tying him down is Train.
If and when Creed dies, alls that's left is Chronos, and I think I and II don't really care to forcibly tie him down again.
Something more with Sheldon or Kyoko.
Now.
They were like the most interesting of the apostles, and now, since they're not apostles, they get forgotten.

Food fight

Well, crazy Allan has insisted I watched something called Yakitate Japan.
Normally I don't really question Allan's tastes too much, but this anime is about bread.
Baking and making bread.
Yes you read that right.
Now, sit back and think for a minute here...what he's trying to do is convince me that 13+ episodes of an anime about BAKING FUCKING BREAD ARE WORTHWHILE TO DOWNLOAD AND WATCH.
And for that I applaud him for his audactiy.
Then, I found this link of over 1200 or so manga volumes on a 200k/second line.
If you scroll from the top, you'll see a manga called Addicted to Curry.
The name was absolutely ridiculous, so naturally, on a 200k/sec line with lots of bandwidth but shitty ass gaming speeds, I do what anyone would do, I download it, cause hell I can't do much else.
And then I download more.
And more.
And now I need chapter 37 badly.
It seems I will read almost any manga, no matter HOW niche or shoujo or ridiculously silly in the premise if it has tolerable art and minimals hooks in the storyline.
Anyway, this incident with Addicted to Curry scared me, because it implied that...yes, maybe I could get excited watching 13 plus episodes of bread.
Of course, there'd have to be bread duels and bread fights and lots of burning enthusiasm for baking bread all over the place, but hell, if I can get interested in a manga on curry...what's to stop getting interested in an anime on bread?

Lack of Interest

Anyway, so I'm currently being held on a leash for my application to Windriders, most notably my current "lack of enthusiasm" in Wow and other things, so I have no sponsors at all.
Meh whatever, they may be right; it's funny how I know so many of them too...perhaps I should have joined earlier.

Not sick anymore (that thing lasted a week, probably most miserable week of my life amongst my last couple of years of existence), now it's spring break, post failed midterms and post failed papers.

My sleep schedule is a 7am to 4pm deal (yes that's when I sleep), that's not good, nor is the fact that I'm just playing games every day during break.

Finally got Allan to fucking read Amber, I hope he's enjoying it, but he's taking it slow and in fact only IMs me to tell me when he has time to read Amber but DOESNT because of something like Rocky 4 on TV.
Yes, Allan is a bastard.

I'll have to resume my torrents of Air, played Majokko a la Mode, found it pretty indecipherable and lacking, what else...oh right, replaying Tales of Symphonia, this time going for Sheena.
Wahaha, I beat the fucking sylphs at level 21, IN YOUR EYE GODAMN SYLPHS, WHO IS SAD NOW! (Yes I have all my old techs, fuck you though, it's the godamn Sylphs!)
And I beat Sword Dancer 2 at level 31 (Everyone did 1 damage, cept Raine...so I basically chose Zelos, Colette, Sheena, and Raine and pinned him down with infinites (or block chains) while she RAYed/healed away...if Zelos died I'd switch to one of the other two to continue the pressure while Raine ressed.
I beat him twice really sloppily, and I was pretty unhappy with my performance there (-7 to -10 grade or so, massive use of life bottoles)
Final time went near perfect, I think I only lost two characters (I think Zelos once and Colette once), must have hit him with over 1000 worth of 1 damage combo hits, 15 grade or so woo!
Regretably that jumped everyone's levels by like 3-4, so there went my keep low level strategy to get to Rodyle with only level 36-37 (Yes I could kill off the people I want to use and use the others until then to gain exp, but that's just too much work...)

Oh right, more stupid links
Why did the chicken cross the road?
Trust me fools, NO ONE ON MY BUDDY LIST YET (Roommate doesn't count) TRULY understood the chicken joke until I sent them this link.

Sick as shit

This weekend has been horrid...
I feel crappy, headaches on either side of my head, coughing a lot, stuff nose/throat, probably will be sore soon too.
Plus it's snowing.
And like midterms coming up this exact week?
Anyway yeah, not good times.

What else, oh right, anyone know of a wav or mp3 splitter?
Preferably not one of those shitty shareware things I keep googling up.
I need to fix the Immaterial and Missing Power OST I ripped...

Post-Katsucon

So there I was last friday, working in the wee hours of the morning on a programming languages assignment (OCAML YOU SUCK!), when my phone rang at 7am.
Since NO ONE calls me at 7am, I pick it up...and it turns out to be a rather frantic Andy (anime club president), asking me when I would be ready to go to Katsucon.

Double take.

I hadn't received a confirmation email, and I hadn't even paid the deposit; I just had expressed some interest, then promptly forgot the whole thing.
So the fact that I was PREregistered and PAID for gave me a start.
Plus that ocaml assignment wasn't finishing itself.
Asked if I could just pay deposit off and not go.
"That would be forty dollars of nothing."
So...what the hell.
Hastily threw some clothes in a suitcase, hurriedly finished OCAML, and off to Katsucon I go.

Short summary:
Played some GGXX, got owned quite a bit, played a LOT of smash, got owned quite a lot, learned a whole shitload at the same time.
Managed to get in the cosplay this year (last year I was blocked at the door), waited a fucking hour or so to get into the dealer's room, FOUND 200% MARKED UP official Tsukihime manga (FUCK YOU SASUGA, YOU AND YOUR 600yen = TWELVE DOLLARS SHIT).
Talked with many drunks, bought instant ramen, almost starved myself at the same time, slept on the floor over and over (bah), saw the VGCats and MacHall guys, had quite a lot of fun.

In short...I sort of want to go to Otakon in a bad way.

VAFFANCULO

Quartett! is fucking beautiful.
I know I might say this every time, but there's this terrible urge for me to replay a BLOODY visual novel again.
And again.
And again.
The fact that a lot of it is about string instruments helps a lot, and the fact that the music is really really good too.
But geez, like Shuhua's story had me VERY VERY VERY worried and distraught until the final day.
I think I'm going to wimp out on replaying her story more than once...
I could probably replay Charlotte's story forever though...I like her character a lot.
And who knows, if my Japanese one day evolves far enough, I can grow to forgive Rossi too...cept in Charlotte's path of course, he's the absolute worst.
(I think the bastard's Phil's father too! Least from what the epilogue tells me...but the fact he "let?" Ruka kill that fucking bastard old man and helped him leave the country, plus the fact that he's at Phil's mother's grave in the epilogue, well he definitely has some good points at least...)

Anyway moving on to WoW business...
Two incidents which come to my attention, one is Glans/Jolson, who Dex hates, then again Dex hates everybody, vs the entire Obscured Reasoning guild.
Now I'm pretty neutral toward Obscured reasoning, and I'm really unsure about this Glans guy, nevermind the fact that his former name has a violation of TOS definition, but the argument pretty much went Glans and common sense - 1, all of Obscured reasoning - 0.
Best caster dagger in game...let's ignore the 40+ dps shall we.
What's the point of even trying to hide behind a shroud of neutrality when loot assigning, just come out and say you're going to be fucking biased before you bring people outside of guild to raid with you and be done with it so everyone knows.
Glans pretty much accomplished what he set out to do, which was paint Obscured Reasoning as idiots.

The other issue has to do with some crazy former Everquest guild and their highly "unusual" raid tactics.
I'm sort of undecided on this one, both sides make hilariously bitter filled comments that really put a new spin on spite, but in the end I'm inclined to lean toward the Conquest guild's side even though they are technically wrong.
They really are fucking hardcore though, their videos and strategies are really really well thought out.

What these crazies did was the first time in an instance, they did a hunter line of sight exploit pull, which basically pulls single mobs out of linked ones using feign death and frost traps.
In fact, I think it's sort of ingenius, it's been kicked around on the hunter boards for months, but Blizzard gave them a warning for it.
24 hours later, they tried another sort of pulling technique on the boss mob and his adds, this time involving a warlock summoning a rogue back to the main group.
In fact, every mob in the path also aggroed, however, boss ran faster than the others, and so they were able to section him off (I believe the rogue used vanish or died so the rest of the "trash" would reset and the guild hit the boss before he turned into the magical unhittable retreat state) and took the boss mob down to 5% (that's HALF AN HOUR, these boss mobs aren't your fucking blackrock spire losers) before getting owned by a GM, and getting several suspensions.
The suspension was basically as a result of..."Repeating an offense."

Now, to parse words, they in effect did not repeat the hunter line of sight bug at all. In fact the methods involved were really different. So the suspensions for a repeat of previous offense would not stack up UNLESS the listed offense was..."skipping content."
This euphemism seems to be engrained in MMORPG culture, which I was never a part of when I feebly attempted to play EQ, it basically means ignoring the crap and trash you have to fight through before the good stuff.
Evidentally, after waging a war with their players for a good few years, it's basically a standard tactic accepted by Sony on Everquest.
It's what I was doing when I stealthed through solo and assassinated Archmage Doan 20-30 or so times.
I completely ignored the "content" (trash mobs, etc.) of the rest of the instance and instead went straight for Doan, slicing the crap out of him and getting money from his drops.
They nerfed the selling prices on his drops pretty fast once they figured out what the rogues and druids were doing.
It's what I did when I called for a party of rogues to help me assassinate the hydromancer in Zul'Farrak to finish some quests.
It's also what our two druid three rogue party did in Maraudon, that is we skipped every single non named mob and went straight for the nameds, using a massive amount of stealth and distract to avoid about...3 hours worth of encounters.

Are we being asshats and "expoiters"?
I wouldn't like to think so, as we HAVE godamn stealth for a reason, and I'm sure hell the first thought of any semi intelligent rogue or druid would be...hey...we could frikkin stealth this entire damn instance.

Now the problems come up when you're talking about molten core, which is a raid instance.
Honestly, farming poor old corrupted Cerebras, farming until we all get photoskin spaulders and Vyletongue's lashes and crocodile skin boots is honestly NOT going to be a big deal.
These pieces of equipment are pretty good, and hell the spaulders and boots might last you to level 60...I know I sure haven't found anything better (I don't even HAVE the godamn spaulders or boots...because the damn other rogue won them.)
But when you're talking about say...molten core, with a named that takes a good HALF an hour alone to kill...how much time have you saved by pulling him through the trash.
We're talking shit that takes 40 people to kill and can sometimes win.
Yeah, you're saving a whole shitload.
And these are epic drops.

Now, to me, what these guys did was ingenius.
It's basically an extreme version of killing the named and his adds only, cept in a FORTY PERSON RAID INSTANCE.
Is it an exploit?
I don't know...but I have to say the burden sort of goes on Blizzard to FIX their high-end content and state if they specifically want to prohibit valid Everquest tactics in their game, considering they have some former EQ staff and players employed and are in the same genre.

"There's no such thing as cheap."

I read Sirlin's post on PvP a while back, and being on a PvE server and reading the forums constantly, it made sense.
Even on PvE you have forms of morons who can't take pure PvP because of the constant crap, so they instead kill all the quest npcs in crossroads, a level 20 horde town and camp it for hours.
People are fucking stupid.
But it was the responses that were the best, as s-kill came and beat all the "Anonymous"'s heads in with a truth baseball bat.

Anyway what the hell, we lost another student...this one apparently a suicide.
So this makes two murders from my year and one suicide from Kenny's year during my four years at good old JHU.
My mom is probably flipping out again.

Anyway, the day before my Modern Complexity Theory homework is due, I'm wasting time on Immaterial and Missing Power.
This game is...fucking weird.
It's a fighting game from the EFZ people Tasofro, cept all the characters are from Shmups.
EFZ is one of those doujin fighters, and it's pretty good, and now that I'm watching Air some of the things they put in are really cool...like Kano's level 3 desparation super when you just defend is when she starts choking Yukito and saying "With my own hands" in the story.
And Misuzu's crow turns into Yukito who pours juice on the ground, or kicks potato at you like a fireball.
And Minagi's level 3 is her stardust.
But Immaterial plays...really really weirdly for a fighting game.
Like...more like direct versus shmups or something.
Oh sure there are combos, and some really hard ones also, but the general idea is everyone's "normals" at long range actually shoot bullet patterns.
The thing is, everyone has two dashes in the air and on the ground that just go through almost anything, so what ends up happening is at far range you have two people (or the cheating computer, who has more than 2 bars of life almost all the time and access to crazy versions of their supers) throwing bullet patterns and such at each other in such a way to catch the other.
The power meter is the life and blood of the game, when you are at far range and do your bullet patterns, certain patterns take more power meter than others, and if you hit 0 you have to wait for the ENTIRE bar to charge before doing projectile moves again.
Also, if you continually block, you lose power meter, and I believe if you hit 0 you can't block anymore either.
You can ALWAYS dash however.
Special moves (hadoken, srks, half circles, whatever) also usually take meter, but some don't...meaning some of the girls can still continue a pretty good assault while meterless, as they can still dash through bullet patterns and waves and can use some special moves.
Close range normals suck.
Like they don't chain, except maybe into itself twice or a medium move (forward + button), and the forward version might buffer into one of the specials, but in general if you're stuck with only your close range normals (meterless), you're pretty screwed.
Bombs work like in shooters, they clear all bullets from the screen...and they also let you cancel any move.
You get two per match, and well...I'm really bad at using them.
Usually for some reason I get hit while I'm doing a bomb, they're not the full screen livesaving things they are in shmups.
But they do launch, meaning you can do some really long combos with them, I'm just not good enough with them yet...hell I'm still trying to use them effectively like they are supposed to, removing bullets from the screen (maybe it's only a certain area or maybe I got jabbed out or something.)
While you're hitting or getting hit, you're building up super.
Normal matches start each player at two life bars, and you can choose a super for each life bar, meaning when you lose one life bar your super changes.
Each girl has 3 supers and their upgraded versions to use.
Supers also take power meter, some more than others, so you can spam some supers if you have enough meters, while other supers will actually take your entire power meter and leave you in helpless mode for a while after they are done.
Anyway, the characters still play differently, amazingly enough.
Like the sword girl is rush down.
Her dash is LONG, her dashing moves stuff all sorts of things, her specials are sword moves that take NO meter, her projectiles...well they're not that great.
But I like her, her supers aren't bad, one's a really easily comboable Hibiki type dash you got anime sword owned move, one's a gigantic instant overhead slash (the first version is pretty meh, I usually go the dash move for my first bar and her upgraded near full screen overhead slash super for my second life bar), and her third super summons a clone that mimics her moves but steadily drains your power meter.
Her third super honestly sucks, from what I can see, it's only good if you're fighting the cheating computer, where it becomes annoying as hell.
Then you have some sleepy library girl who has probably the best keepaway in the game?
Tornados, book fireballs, normal fireballs, a move that pushes you away from her if you get too close, water fountains, her supers are all pretty good too.
One she throws a ball onto the ground and if it's remotely near you it bursts into a tornado, pretty instant.
Upgraded version is a larger radius on the ball.
The second one she shoots a lot of waterballs at you, very nice spread and good if the enemy is on the ground.
I honestly forget what the upgraded version of this move is, it's sufficiently different, I think it summons lots of water bubbles that explode on contact?
Third super unupgraded version I've also forgotten, because the UPGRADED version is a full screen instant YOU GOT OWNED move.
True it takes out your power meter and such, but I'd have to say it could be better than Gill's jump into the middle of the screen and chip you down move.
Thing hits EVERYWHERE, does quite a bit of damage, has almost no startup.

Thing is Patchouli (her name's coming back to me) is sort of meter reliant, so she's really sort of vulnerable after it.
But it honestly doesn't matter to me.
I usually use her unupgraded watershot super and her upgraded FULLSCREENOWN super.
Finally you have this maid...
Her speed is on par with sword girl and her projectiles are pretty damn good.
So she's a good mix, she throws knives, lots of knives.
Her hadokens throw shadow knives that are activated if you press C, her C throws a stream so it's really two streams.
Her supers are summoning a circle of knives that then proceed to home on you (I believe when she just summons them they aren't in existence), this weird ass freeze time move I still haven't figured out yet, but when the computer does it a whole bunch of knives come out and basically guarantee if you're in reel animation you're going to get hit and if you're on the ground you're not going to be able to jump avoid it (good for chip). Her third super are these mad slashes with guess what, her knives, upgraded is full screen.

The problem comes from story mode, as the girls you fight in there don't exactly work the way you do.
In story mode, the girls will not do any supers or what not until they are low life (regardless of which life bar it is), then they have INFINITE SUPER METER and from what I think almost infinite power meter.
Also, the farther you go on, the more life bars the girls have, so instead of facing 2 supers, you'll face all 3, or maybe some crazy upgraded versions near the end.
Oh right, I forgot to mention that each girl's final life bar will will let her have infinite meter when it's full, meaning she will start with free supers on the last lag.
There's a whole series of bosses near the end too, that just have super sequences for their ENTIRE last 4 life bars or so, and they have like 7 total.
These overpower supers usually give the girl super armor, and or totally uninterruptible, hence the problem with some of the moves I mentioned.
Knife maid's slashing super is pretty good, but when you do it against unflinchable psycho children of doom, you're going to get interrupted by the ridiculous bullet patterns (reminiscent of shmups final bosses) that are flying all over the place.
So it's better to go her circle of knives, as the cast time is very short and she doesn't need to continually perform the move.
With the sword girl, her near full screen sword slash is very very fast, and with library girl, well her full screen move COMPLETELY YELLOWS out the screen when it's hitting meaning she is INVINCIBLE while it's happening, REGARDLESS of what craziness is going on screen.

Anyway I sort of wonder how competitive play is for this game, it's just too weird for me to imagine it being anything other than a keepaway fest and massive mind games.

Is there a use for wings that can't fly?

Air 5.
Ahhhhhhhh, they're really going to screw us along here aren't they...
I sort of feel the absence of Kano from further episodes (I hope it is not permanent), but Minagi's story takes place now, and it's depressing too.
Plus we're beginning to see a lot of the cracks around Misuzu.
I wonder how they're going juggle this in the end...

Oh right, level 60 Rogue.
I win.

While the weather outside is frightful...

55 in WoW...after having an absence of 22 days.
Talk about money wasted, but it was my old computer's fault...thing finally died.
Ha, all of Kenny's friends all hit 60, so he laughed at me.
Then he told me to stop playing.
True, continuing to play is like a hazard waiting to happen but...I have to hit 60.
And hell, my guild's fun enough, even with bastards like Dex.
Ok, bastards like Dex make it worthwhile honestly...
It's a pity we lost a lot of our female influence due to our coarseness...but at least no grudges?
Better then can be said for the OTHER unfortunates who left.
The only one I slightly missed is Aerogoth, the rest are good riddance with a capital G.
Cept the asian fob chiao.
He owes me money.
Warcraft money.
Plus it was hilarious listening to him on Vent.

My first dream is a secret, my second dream is to fly in the sky.

I don't know if it's because I haven't slept and it's 9:46am in the winter in Baltimore, or the absolute beautifulness that is Air, but I am shivering.

Tin can!

Hm, a link so interesting I had to blog about it.
Anyway, this is downright interesting.
I'm already thinking up uses, but basically it's a crazy vortex machine that turns anything dumped into it into micron size powder.
And the guy only had a high school education?
Take THAT, college!

But yeah, still thinking of uses...

Edit: SOYLENT GREEN!

???

So, after narrowing down my problems to NOT the power supply, probably NOT the motherboard, etc. etc etc., I was reduced to fiddling with 999 options in the bios.
None really mattered...what was for sure was somewhere in my case something was shorting any power supply that I used.

This goes on, and then, on a whim, I switch keyboards.
And for some reason, it works...so far.
We'll see how it goes, but I'm cautiously optimistic.

Oh yeah, THIS is sort of funny.
Seems like Japan is the land of unsecured cameras.

Air

Perhaps it was the nice feeling Kanon left me that makes me in awe of Air.
Anyway, Key finally made/started on an anime version of Air, which I only know through whispers and doujin games, such as eternal fighter zero.
Comparison to Kanon?
The girls are almost drawn the same, in that rather weird but cute style.
The guy however is a step UP, cause he looks so fucking cool.
Yuuichi, you're a nice guy, but come on you look dorky =D.
But right away, yeah, I notice a gigantic shift in the mood.
While Kanon started off with that sort of homegrown coziness of a school anime, Air...starts off expansive.
I don't know how to describe it; it's just this wonderful feeling of a journey permeates the episode.
I can sort of figure out the main story from Eternal Fight Zero, most likely the guy, Yukito, is searching from someone he saw or from his dreams, a girl with wings, who I happen to know is named Kanna.
Anyway, the cast of MAIN girls seems more tightly knit, with Misuzu (Testament clone in EFZ =D), Kano (Top tier, she's a magic/RO freak!), and Minagi (She has that little red haired crazy shrimp with her as a stand!) being the main trio.
There's also Misuzu's mother, who I'm really not sure is her real mother and this dark haired sort of mysterious girl (School nurse?)
But I'm really like the show after episode one, I hope it has that free spirited mood through the entire thing.

Edit: That and the fact the fucking opening and ending and production values are bloody awesome...those songs really help the expansive move, and godamn everything looks nicer than nice.

Repetition

Bloody hell I never read my past posts, especially if they are like 2-3 weeks old.
Anyway, problems with Power supplies...k8n neo seems to require a 24A or higher 12V rail.
Now, before this, I only knew one number about power supplies, and that's wattage.
Turns out wattage is a horrible bullshit measure to go by.
In fact, reading up on power supplies turned into an EE minicourse.
But anyway, I'm going with what the wacky danish certified electrician geek said, and that's an Enermax 460W.
Wish me luck, but it's free two day shipping!
Woo.
I'll be able to play WoW...SOON.
I hope.
My rogue is probably cold.

AHEM

Well holy fuck.
Anyway we all knew the computer would die one day, just did it have to be RIGHT after I got home.
Catastrophic failures all over the place, and so I have been basically computerless until...well today.
Still, my measly 350w power supply is lacking, so I can't play WoW just yet.
But damn it's good to be alive.
I'll be going back as soon as I can, hopefully like...Thursday or Wednesday or something.
And then...job hunting time, GLEE.
Oh and for the curious nerds:

Athlon 3200 XP (Not 64 because of WinXPs problems with it)
K8n Neo Platinum
1024MB ram
Reused radeon 9800

Rawr!

Passing on...

Wow some repeat posting here about WoW, I guess I really don't have track of the time I spend on that game.
Anyway, my old computer has finally given up.
It's laying down in the middle of the road and waiting to die.
I ordered a whole bunch of new parts, going to salvage the card and the two hard drives and just copy stuff over then format both of them.

Man I'm sort of excited, even though I had to spend lots of money =/.
But my computer had given up the ghost anyway, it was seriously pushing it.
I'm surprised it didn't explode earlier.

Anyway the new thing should be pretty sweet:
Athlon 3200+
1 gig ram
Some crazy mofo motherboard
Salvaging radeon 9800 (yes yes it was WASTED on my old piece of shit.)
Some funky case which I HOPE TO GOD fits in my suitcase back.
That's basically what's changing, oh right already have a SATA drive.
Wish me luck fools, hopefully I don't own myself again (REMEMBER THE THERMAL GREASE MORON!)

The war on my computer

Well, everytime I turn my pc off, it gets the bright idea to fail spectacularly.
I've saved this pos no less than 10 times by now, and right now I'm working on the 11th.
Seems like ntoskrnl.exe is...guess what, corrupt!
Plus it doesn't fit on a floppy, and the expand function doesn't work in dos mode.
Good job microsoft, I hate you.
I'm also getting slightly behind in World of Warcraft.

All righty, big description of the good ole Wow.
I was originally not going to play this game at ALL.
But good old Brennan bought a copy, and it was DEFECTIVE.
Actually, when I look back, I think it just might be his computer sucking worse than mine (amazing!)
But either way, his good old friend who works at the game store WROTE off the defective copy and got Brennan a new one.
Thing is, defective copy, nondefective CD KEY.
You get the picture.
So that's why I sold my soul to World of Warcraft TWO WEEKS BEFORE FINALS.
Ouch.
I owned myself.
But it's a great game, I'm currently playing a level 46? or 47 NE rogue.
Rogues own, they really got the sneaky thing down.
We excel at assassination missions too, ironically.
We just can't take mobs like those fucking hunters and paladins.
But yes I'll write about the actual rogue class itself later.
Right now I have to figure out how to move a file slightly larger than a floppy onto another computer.

Doom

Reading period for finals, and Blizzard released World of Warcraft.
Wasn't going to buy it, cause of the initial cost and I knew the risks.
Roommate buys a copy, it's defective, he gets a new copy.
Still has defective copy's cd-key...

And that's why I haven't written anything or been on aim in the past 2 weeks.
He has doomed me to waste more time and money by giving me something for free.
The irony.

Those of you who are playing it, know how awesome it is, and know how hellish this time is if in college.
Those of you who aren't...get with the program.

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.

SUPER BATTLE OPERA!

I finally got my hands on the GGXX Tougeki/Super Battle Opera matches for this year.

Both the semifinal matches were sweeps, with Matu's Millia (They started with Matu...usually different than what they normally do, which is Baiken/Bridget/Millia) cleaning up and Imo's Zappa owning house.

HOLY MOTHER FUCK.
YUKINOSE GOT PERFECTED IN THE FINALS.
I noticed Yukinose's ENTIRE team was really scared of Imo's Zappa.
All THREE of his team members incurred NEGATIVE PENALTIES against him, something I have never seen so many skilled players do in one set of matches.
Once Imo's dog was out Baiken and Bridget and Millia would go into stall poke TURTLE mode, it was weird as shit considering these guys's reputation as gods of the game.
But yeah, Zappa won by timeout twice, once against Baiken and one against Yukinose's Bridget.
And then...he perfected Yukinose, in the corner, with the SWORD.
The FUCKING SWORD, of all things.
I don't know, it seems like non pure rushdown (zone rushdown like Bridget, defensive melee like Baiken) have trouble against crazy ass Zappa.

And yeah HOLY SHIT FOR THE MILLIA.
Honestly, I had heard about the results of this match way back when, but just watching it in action...is fucking amazing.
The Millia has the throw attack complex down pat, she misses it like twice in all six matches.
Plus absolute rushdown perfection...that second to last round against Faust was a nail-biter (See semifinals team that Millia swept, THAT'S how you play Faust against Millia)
But man...Matu took the entire thing back for Troublermaker Sharon.
Absolutely fucking amazing.

MVP of the finals is definitely Matu's Millia, followed by Imo's Zappa.
They both swept for their team in the semis, and they both absolutely dismantled and destroyed so many good players it was sickening.

Q. Why is Mia psycho? A. I have on idea either.

Well a friendly gamefaqs board member sent me the third demo that was released with the Duel Savior LE.
Playing Nanasi vs Nanasi is ridiculously silly.
Lily first try I got like 560 or something, same with Kaede.
I think I have to refine Kaede a little more for one on one's or monsters that like to block, cause as it stands her combo has a lot of open ends to get hit in the middle of.
Anyway I near finished my Duel Savior faq, alls that's left is lots of extraneous menu translations and making choice numbers for really really lazy people.

Bleach 3 is out.
It seems the big hollow that killed Ichigo's mother is getting a larger villain role than he had in the manga.
Good enough I say, but I really wonder...how many episodes can they devote to Ichigo's magical journey through soul society land.

I hate Berio, I hate Kaede, I hate Rico, I hate Nanasi, I hate them all and I ESPECIALLY HATE THAT GIRL THE MOST.

Um yeah, finished Mia's path in Duel Savior.
Mia is the most possessive vindictive powerful evil sad half sister ever.
In fact, Mia's path only serves to make Lily (the second to last girl), look like a saint.
"Is Lily so important that you'd let me die?"
Not only does Lily basically take on all the anger Mia has against you for letting her fall down, she stands in front of you and basically shields you from the arrows Mia is so happily firing.
Also, of course the final battle is you against her, but she doesn't even have the excuse of being brainwashed.
She says the quote in bold and basically goes on to say, I hate this world, I hate all these people who like and are trying to take away my brother (i.e. Lily), most of all I hate myself, I've killed so many people, so kill me or I'll kill you first.
And so you fight and kill her, and then you kill yourself in the normal ending.
Around this point my intense hatred for this girl had turned into something of pity.
Anyway the TRUE ending you let her stab you and fall down.
So she starts laughing and crying cause she thinks she killed you when you say something akin to "Shut up I'm trying to heal here."
And then you fight...a caterpillar god who's immune to almost all chains and has autoguard on all his moves.
This fight is lame.
I don't even know where this guy comes from.

But yeah, surprise surprise Imanatei helps you and lives!
Shock!

But let it be said that Toma Mia sucks.
Lily, Kaede, Rubinasu/Nanasi forever.
Seriously how can Mia be winning the character poll...fucking Japanese and their sister love.

Edit: Holy fucking shit!
Out of nowhere Lily's got 18k votes to Mia's 4k.
Maybe there are sane Japanese after all!

Super seed mode: ON!

Wow seeding is a pain in the ass...
Anyway I spent the entirety of today trying to figure out my computer science login name.
NOT MY PASSWORD, which I've memeorized for like 4 years.
My login name.
After trying koyoung1, oyoungk0, oyoungk, oyoungk1, koyoung, koyoung0, etc etc etc, I finally tried "oyoung".
The hell!
Logins are supposed to have your first initial in them godmanit!
I also had a feeling of dejavu...of going through this stupidity before.

"Completed":
One incomplete Duel Savior faq, I'm proud of myself, well not really, but hey I've got CONTRIBUTER status on gamefaqs now.

Anyway time to work on that sql baloney.

Getting quite hectic out there

Current sides as they stand:
Ichigo, renegade shinigami REBEL
Yoruichi, renegade shinigami REBEL
1st captain, Ganryuu ESTABLISHMENT
2nd captain, Soifon ESTABLISHMENT
3rd captain, Gin FOR HIMSELF (He's still an evil fucker, it's been confirmed in one of the chapters I'm missing when he talks to Rukia.)
4th captain, Unohana ESTABLISHMENT
5th captain, Aizen DEAD
6th captain, Byakuya ESTABLISHMENT (Worth mentioning cause this is the only division where the vice and the captain are on opposite sides)
6th captain vice, Renji REBEL
7th captain, Komamura ESTABLISHMENT
8th captain, Shunsui REBEL
9th captain, Tousen ESTABLISHMENT
10th captain, Hitsugaya REBEL
11th captain, Kenpachi REBEL
12th captain, Mayuri INCAPACITATED ESTABLISHMENT
13th captain, Ukitake REBEL

So you basically have a 7 on 6, cause Mayuri, Aizen, and Gin are liquid, dead, and selfish as hell.
Renji's a vice though so it is closer to 6 on 6 in terms of captain power.
Pretty even!
I was thinking our heroes were a little undermanned after losing Ishida (who was definitely captain power).

INSERT SMASH BROTHERS ANNOUNCER BELLOWING FAILUREE!

FUCK
IP midterm. FUCK didn't check point distribution till I had no time left!
Then again that FORTY POINT QUESTION I had no idea how to do ANYWAY!
FUCK FUCK FUCK.

UM I WAS LIED TO

Raws indeed, liar ALLAN!
Shinigami Scanlations chapter 153 is a REAL SCANLATION.
They're just going ridiculously out of order is all.
Anyway updates...up to 153 from what I can gather.

The 4th division's Vice is named Isane (female), she might be related to Kiyone (Ukitake's female third seat)
Abarai lost to Byakuya, but good old healer boy makes him alive again.
Abarai probably managed to get Rukia away when Ichigo and Kikuchi start going at it.
Ichigo probably mastered Bankai, cause he's really heavily bandaged and fighting Rukia's brother.
Ukitake (and his two 3rd seats) and Shinsui and Nanao (Shinsui's vice) have DEFECTED.
(These are the 13th and the 8th division CAPTAINS, if you need a refresher it's Rukia's commander and drunken samurai.)
Hitsugaya and Matsumoto have DEFECTED.
Soifon is fighting Yoruichi. (Soifon is 2nd division commander chick.)
Kenpachi has DEFEATED Tousen, is FIGHTING Komamura, whose basket has fallen off.
Yachiru has left the main group to CLEAR OUT the stronger enemies and make a path to the tower.
Yumichika is FIGHTING Hisagi Syuuhei (9th vice)
Ikkaku is FIGHTING Iha Tetsugiemon (7th vice)

Righteous!

Tick off two more Duel Savior endings, this time Nanasi's and Lily's.
After the depressing crap that is Rico's ending, Nanasi's was...surprisingly happy.
I really liked it.
Little miss undead isn't really undead after all.
I really enjoyed the challenge of fighting all four stooges at once. (Lobelia, Imanetei, Mudou, and Shezar)
Plus Nanasi gets a sword in the last two final battles and a "I'll beat the crap out of you" voice.
A pity though that she doesn't count as Nanasi but Rubinasu in the final two battles, so no you can't use her in those two battles on your second playthrough.
I'm not sure when they started subtley altering how she looked but Rubinasu is noticeably different by the time you hit the ending than the DESU NOOO girl we started out with.
If anything she's more mature and a hell of a lot sexier. (Cute -> Sexy)
From what my feeble Japanese can gather you're the "red king" or so of the current age, while Nanasi/Rubinasu was the "red king" of 1000 years ago.
You're fighting against the servants of the white king I believe.

Lily's was a surprising change.
It is also LONG AS HELL.
All female wizards have a Lina complex, and this one was no different.
But seriously Lily's story is why she's tied with Nanasi as my second favorite characters.
Lily has a HUGE inferiority complex because her mother (the school head) was an avatar that kicked major ass. (She's not a native)
What she doesn't know is her mother was walking around 1000 years ago as an avatar along with Rubinasu and I think maybe ?Lobelia? and one more person.
Some serious story revelation here, plus the bad guys start coming out in force, they even get their battleship.
Plus some of the hardest battles since Nanasi's scenario.
You fight Shezar (not toned down), Mudou (not toned down, and you're alone), Myurieru (This fight is touching, cause Lily's crying and screaming her head off. Myurieru is Lily's mother and somehow it seems like you're supposed to die to let the world have a better chance at surviving), Lobelia (NOT toned down, 1 on 1), and Downy (He's added a fucking sword to his arsenal along with Onslaught's eye laser super move from MVC to his whorish magic now. I sort of shudder to think what he gets in Mia's episode...8 arms and a AHVB?)
Still, a touching ending, Lily's really cute when saving you from Lobelia.

Something I noticed is MIA starts showing insane signs of jealousy and breaking down. Poor girl sort of wants to go home, but you're staying for now so she's staying with you. But when she realizes she's lost you to Lily she flips. I sort of wonder how her path is going to play out, but I'm really wary cause it's the godamn Japanese "imouto" love scenario. That alone makes me sort of queasy.

It might be just me, but the game sort of biases you toward the later characters. It feels like each time you choose a different character more and more about the main storyline is revealed or extended, and you start spending a longer time with the later characters. They'll need to do a DAMN good job to bias me toward Mia though.

What time is it Mister Fox?
I think I'm one of the few people who unconsciously jetlags himself.
This sunday I slept at 12pm, woke up at 8pm, went to sleep again and woke up at 3am, and now it's 6am.
What the hell, is this normal?
I think I need pills or something, cause I seriously just can't control how I sleep anymore.

Woot updates

Commander of 7th: Komamura Sajin(Basket head, owes Commander of 1st)
Commander of 2nd: Soi Phon(Chick, ponytail, no right or wrong, just with us or against us) / Oomaeda Maresendai (Vice, eats a lot, interesting character)
Commander of 1st: Genryuusai (Old guy) / Unknown (Vice, white hair white mustache...freaky ass looking o.O)
Tousen (Dreads cool pacifist guy is BLIND)

Kenpachi (DEFECTED) is proposing a four on one fight with Tousen/Komamura(Man why them) and both their vices.
Geez louise...don't die there crazy man.

WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER READ MAHOU SENSEI NEGIMA
(I'm going for largest percentage to scare away per reason here.)
1. It's by Ken Akamatsu, the guy who did Love Hina.
2. Instead of 5-6 girls, you have THIRTY ONE. (Count em folks!)
3. They are all MIDDLE SCHOOL.
4. If you're screaming jailbait, you're right...cept it's reversed! THE LEADING GUY/BOY IS TEN.
If you can somehow stomach these four reasons...then god have mercy on you (Cause he sure as hell has no mercy on me...yes I'm hooked so shut up bastards.)

Surrounding Clutch

More thoughts on Bleach's Ichimaru.
I honestly think he is either:
1. A secret ally.
2. Doing some wacky fucked up manipulation shit.
Cause first off even if he rewrote Aizen's will he STILL LAID OUT THE ENTIRE PLAN IN FULL FOR ANYONE TO READ.
Meaning Shiro was basically GIVEN a fucking rundown on what the evil plan was.
And Hinamori, and Matsumoto.
That alone makes me think Ichi's not really quite all the way behind this evil plan, even though he does show plenty of evil spots and tendencies, because he is TOO FUCKING SMART.
If you could rewrite a will laying bare your master plan, would you INCLUDE THE MASTER PLAN ALONG WITH IT and just change the name of the conspirator?
DERRR NO!
Also, Ichimaru NEVER attacks first.
In fact, it's the sole fact that he NEVER STOPS SMILING that provokes first Hinamori, then Shiro to go apeshit on his ass.
He always draws in defense, it's just too weird.
The biggest thing also is he let Ichigo live when they first met.

TOO MANY FUCKING NAMES!
Anyway, per ALLAN's (Edit: SORRY) request, since we're both getting confused, a big old list of Shinigami ranks members, distinguishing traits, miscellaneous information, etc.:

1st Division Captain/Vice/Members: Old man, name unknown, the leader / Vice is unknown also

2nd Division Captain/Vice/Members: Girl with pony tail, name unknown / Vice is unknown also

3rd Division Captain/Vice/Members: Ichimaru Gin (Captain, Nikoniko Evil, FOUGHT with Shiro, Ichigo, Aizen?, YIELDED! to Matsumoto) / Iziru Kira(Vice, Really shaken after fighting Hinamori, most likely in medical ward after witnessing/experiencing Shiro's Ice Dragon, FOUGHT with Hinamori)

4th Division Captain/Vice/Members: Unohana Retsu (Captain, one of two female captains, kind, motherly)/ Unkown (Vice) /Yamada Hanatarou (7th seat, really nice guy, the healer Ichigo and Ganjyu kidnapped, sortta sickly looking, DEFECTED)

5th Division Captain/Vice/Members: Aizen Sousuke (Captain, Glasses, good guy, DEFEATED/MURDERED by ?) / Hinamori Momo (Vice, Waif, currently unconscious due to going apeshit on Shiro. Her first name is Momo? Figures she's a waif XD, she's anti-Rukia execution but her current situation makes it hard to count her as true DEFECTED, DEFEATED by Shiro)

6th Division Captain/Vice/Members: Kuchiki Byakuya (Captain, Rukia's brother, Itachi clone, heartless, ?strongest? of all captains, Ichigo's target to beat the shit out of, DEFEATED Ichigo, Ganjyu) / Abarai Renji (Vice, Flaming red spiky hair, crazy ass forehead tattoos, friend of Rukia, Chainsword, DEFEATED by Ichigo, DEFECTED)

7th Division Captain/Vice/Members: Unknown Komamura (Captain, Hasn't spoken yet, wears a basket on his head XD, friend of Tousen so can't be that bad) / Iha Tetsugiemon (Vice, Shows up once, glasses, mustache) / Jidanbou (Guardian of the west gate, DEFEATED by Ichigo) / Kamaitachi Jiroubou (Uses a sword that splits into shurikens, gatekeeper's younger brother, 4th seat, DEFEATED by Ishida)

8th Division Captain/Vice/Members: Shunsui Kyouraku (Captain, Drunken Samurai, DEFEATS Chad) / Nanao Ise (Vice, Meganekko) / Tatsuhusa Enjyouji (Third seat, DEFEATED by Chad)

9th Division Captain/Vice/Members: Tousen Kaname (Captain, Black dude, dreads, goggles, too fucking cool for words, ?!PACIFIST!?, DEFEATS Ishida (not too hard since Ishida is like dead tired, Tousen actually cries when he takes him down) / Hisagi Syuuhei (Vice, Ninja looking, asian spiky hair, black line across face)

10th Division Captain/Vice/Members: Hitsugaya Toushirou (Captain, aka Shiro-chan, very bad ass kid, Hinamori's friend, had to fight a crazed by emotion Hinamori and fought against Gin because he smiled, I really like this kid actually, very possible DEFECTION (anti execution and in a position to act), FOUGHT Gin, DEFEATED Hinamori) / Matsumoto Rankiku (Vice, Mature older woman under a commander younger than her. Knows Gin from earlier, it seems he sort of cares for her or vice versa, very possible DEFECTION (anti Rukia execution and in a position to act), DEFENDED Hinamori against Gin) / Takezoe Koukichirou (7th seat, messenger dude)

11th Division Captain/Vice/Members: Giraki Kenpachi Ziraki (Captain, Big, crazy spikes hair, only captain who doesn't need Ban-Kai cause he never found his sword's name, wears an energy sucking eyepatch, several times he is referred to as 'Giraki', which just confuses the shit out of me (nick name is Kenpachi), DEAFETED by Ichigo, DEFECTED) / Kurushishi (Kusajishi? shit they dont help with their multiple translations) Yachiru (Vice, Little blond haired girl, happyscary waif =D, DEFECTED) / Ikkaku Madarame (Bald, first guy Ichigo fights when penetrating barrier, Captain of Squad 3, uses a chain polearm. 3rd seat, DEFEATED by Ichigo, DEFECTED) / Ayasegawa Yumichika (Pretty boy, DEFEATED by Ganjyu, of all people, 5th seat, DEFECTED) / Aramaki Makizou (11th seat, figures out Ishida and Inoue's disguises, Makimaki nickname given by Yachiru, DEFECTED)

12th Division Captain/Vice/Members: Kurotsuchi Mayuri (Captain, 2nd President of the Research Institute of Technology, wears a mask, FUCKING PSCYHO MAD SCIENTIST WHO WANTS TO EXPERIMENT ON EVERYTHING, sadist who blows up his own students, the only captain who I say truly deserves fucking death, he has no right to live, DEFEATED by Ishida (But lives by turning himself into liquid and running to heal) / Kurotsuchi Nemu (Vice, created by Mayuri, helplessly devoted to him, a nice girl all around but gets treated like dirt and stabbed and stepped on and all sorts of things, I really hate Mayuri because of what he does to her, SAVES Ishida from Mayuri's poison(because he missed Mayuri's head (not on purpose mind you))

13th Division Captain/Vice/Members: Ukitake Zyuushirou (Captain, long white hair, sickly, nice as hell) / Kuchiki Rukia (Vice, if you don't know who she is stop reading Bleach) / Kotsubaki Sentarou (3rd seat 1, hopelessly devoted to Ukitake male)/ Kotetsu Kiyone (3rd seat 2, hopeless devoted to Ukitake female, they're a funny pair) / Shiba Kaien (Shiba Ganjyu's brother, former Vice, KILLED by Rukia, black-haired Ichigo?)

Rogue/Random? Shinigami:
Kurosaki Ichigo (Again if you don't know him stop reading Bleach)
Shyunshin Yoruichi (Ex-Commander of Special Operatives, Ex-General of Keigun Brigade First Division, Likes to walk around as a black cat, HOT AS HELL)
Urahara Kisuke (Ex-Captain of 12th division, Ex-President and founder of Research Institute of Technology, SANDAL HAT MAN!, utterly crazy but in a good way, actually when you REALLY think about this...Urahara sort of shares some of the tendencies of the current 12th division captain Mayuri, cause some of the shit he does to Ichigo is downright insane)

Rogue non-Shinigami:
Shiba Ganjyu (Stop reading!)
Sado Yasutora (Aka Chad, stop reading!)
Ishida Uryuu (Stop reading!)
Orihime Inoue (Stop reading!)
Tsumugi Ururu (Bazooka oh-so-cute girl! Urahara posse)
Hanakari Jinta (Crazy spiked bat swinging brat! Urahara posse)
Tsukabishi Tesai (Muscleman with glasses! Urahara posse)

What kind of rescue attempt is this?

Tick off another Duel Savior ending, this time Rico's, which involves the LEVELING of the town (instead of the mere gigantic laser cannon fired at it), the death of the princess, the death of your supposed arch-rival person, and fighting your traitor teacher at the end.
Yeah...so much doom and gloom seriously?
The guy who died in the first two paths didn't die in this one, but instead the princess who gets ABUSED in every single path actually died because you tried to save her early! (You usually meet her final chapter to save her, for some reason Rico's patch you go straight in like 3 chapters before the end.)
Plus when you get back to town it's a fucking wasteland and your traitor teacher kills off Rico's counterpart/enemy?
And you never see anyone else like again either. (Berio's final fight scenario you could fight with anyone on your team (didn't even have to use her), Kaede you had to fight with at the end, but Rico's...you let your entire team run away except Rico, you never see any of the others again (cept your sister), AND you fight the final boss completely fucking alone.)
Yeah I don't like her storyline, because it's depressing.

Bleach is...well it's become ONE gigantic story arc, that of saving Lukia.
Is there going to be a followup?
Cause I want more Rukia x Ichigo interaction, but Ichigo's pretty much near god level power right now so I think once he beats her brother that's the end of it.
BUT SERIOUSLY, whether the mangaka realizes it or not, the splitting up of the team AND forcing Rukia into a prisoner position really sortta weakens the friend dynamic it had.
Hopefully the rebel army of Shinigamis (Some they've beaten, some realizing something the fuck is going wrong here) will lead to an interesting new team dynamic, red hair chain sword has already joined proper. (The rest all broke out of jail haha).

Things to predict for the end:
Hollow Ichigo, most likely NEEDED to take out Rukia's brother, who is a fucking scary bastard.
And then Rukia will have to deal with a hollow version of the person she loves again.
Seriously, the white form he fought inside his mind when he needed his soul sword was definitely hollow ichigo from the time Urahara Kisuke/sandal-hat guy XD (I actually had to look his fucking real name up! Ichigo's right, so many of these guy's names are too hard to remember!) cut his soul chain off and it started eating itself.
Plus, when he speaks to Zangetsu (His soul sword, again had to look up the fucking name...geez louise I knew it started with a 'z' at least)..."He's strong, Zangetsu-san. Train him well, because one day that power will become mine."
And Zangetsu doesn't disagree or deny or even argue though to this weird hollow/white version of Ichigo...he's actually the one who summoned him to test Ichigo out.
Also since he is Ichigo's soul sword...he shares some things "I hate rain, too. When you are sad, the rain comes down..."
So I think it's going to be a symbiotic thing, because Ichigo's old hollow mask (He came back as a shinigami...but with hollow armor on him, including a freaky mask) has saved him twice EVEN THOUGH he threw it away the second time.

Speaking of that mask...it's under the care of Yoruichi now...the black cat chixor.
She's hot XD.
I was wondering how long a frikkin talking black cat was going to stay well...in cat form, although I thought it'd be a guy or something (honestly).
She better not die, but you never know =/.
Seriously if there's one thing this guy's good at it's drawing SO MANY STYLES of characters.
Yoruichi's...arabian? looking of some sort, the Ikuchi are Sasuke level looking Japanese cold guy type, frikkin crazy chain-sword has the looks of the star of his own show, the crazy captain who doesn't even need his godamn soul cutter looks like a mob boss, sandal-hat alternates between utterly stupid looking and really cool looking (All pictures sans hats and sandals he looks really cool!), Ichimaru has that freaky ass niko niko face that all good badguys (and some good guys) have, Shiro looks like one of those freaky young but uber powerful sidekicks (like the Tenmari guy in Samurai Deeper Kyo), the females range from Orohime (I like her but she...seems to have such a small part) to Yoruichi to Hinamori (waif. but powerful. but still...innocent, she goes crazy >_<), to Matsumoto to well...Rukia (XD wow I guess she sortta qualifies in waif category with Hinamori).

That Ichimaru is mixed bag though, he's obviously cruel, except for some reason he listens to Matsumoto when she tells him to sheathe and he also helped her when they were both little.

Who knows how this entire thing will end (Ok I predict Ichigo vs Rukia's brother, Ichigo wins by somehow going HOLLOW during it or he just wins on his own merits, and then Rukia has to somehow bring him back. All the shinigami's in jail (most have escaped) will rebel or form their own faction allied to Ichigo's. Ichimaru WILL probably get his hands on the soul weapon anyway. And uh no idea how it will end.)

Oh yeah, I'm worried about Ishida (Quincy). He lost all his powers, couldn't take the most fucking twisted captain out either, cause he turned himself into fucking liquid to run away and heal.

But the chance of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 coming up in the lottery is...

Just the same as any other group of numbers.
Prob stats midterm today/tomorrow, but I'm pretty awake due to the abusive sleep schedule I've been on lately.

Anyway, new things...I've cooled off on Duel Savior a bit (I have like three more paths to do) because I got my Xarcade joystick in the mail.
For those of you who don't know, the xarcade is an EXPENSIVE but compatible with EVERYTHING (And i mean everything...with the right adapters) LIFETIME warranty joystick.
Yeah, that means you don't have to buy another as long as you live...unless for someone else.
So I was all giddy and plugged it in, and after some mass configuring was able to play reloaded on my pc with a joystick.

Holy shit I suck. I havent touched a stick in ages cause lack of arcades anywhere and I dislike one mvc2 (one sorry ass mvc2 machine in local mall at home which I think has even been replaced), so it was a rude awakening trying to use this beast.
For starters, I failed Millia's launch super jump chase like 8 out of 10 times.
I could not super jump.
It was saddening.
But hell that's what practice is for right?

Also, for some reason the manga/anime Bleach is making me excited.
I actually have a volume I bought in Japan because I had SPARE FUCKING YEN AGAIN and regrettably I left it at home.
I had no idea what the story was, in fact I never even considered it until I saw the first episode.
Now that the manga's licensed, I'm kicking myself for not picking up on this series earlier.
But yeah...well there's always ways to get what I want online.
It's typical shounen fare, but for some reason Rukia/Lukia's character I really really like.
Maybe it's the fact that they took a rather weird uncute character design and well...made her cute somehow.
Seriously I thought she was a guy at first because well...it's sortta hard to tell when she has that black shinigami robe and sword on.
But for some reason the romantic in me is fucking screaming whenever she interacts with Ichigo (Main guy, general badass), just cause they go so well together, even though well she's lived 10 times as long as him and is a God of Death.

What the fuck is with the Japanese and Avril Lavigne?

I mean seriously, I haven't heard much of her music (It seems Kenny has developed a deep seething hatred of it..."She has the honor of rhyming the word "boy" with...the word "boy!") but her albums were all over the place in Japan, and I guess Taiwan though (She was there when I went to Taiwan this summer. Her concert Asian thing was on TV.)

But now that she's showing up as music for my combo videos I can not accept.
Although...they were choreographed well.
But I had the "honor" of listening to skater boy in full (on one of the combo videos) and my god its lyrics are so silly that I find the song hilarious.

Still though I wonder why she has such a large fanbase/appeal over there.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO FRIKKIN ME!

I'm a fucking idiot.

Heh, when will I learn to fucking get my priorities straight.
Two week database homework > everything else.
Of course, the entire week before today was, stats homework on monday, midterm on tuesday, IP homework on wednesday.
Anyway, I'm using up the only late you're given in this class (you're given one, then no more and no credit if you fuck up again.)
THe irony is...

THIS SHIT INTERESTS ME.
I don't know, it's been fucking eons since I've been interested in a computer science class.
And of course right away I fuck it up.
Sigh, I'm going to have to turn in a 400 level project to hopefully counteract using up that late (i.e. maybe extra credit? who knows)

Honestly, I've already fucking thought up of a final project idea.
A fighting character database!
How fucking cool is that?
Hell I could make it solely a JAPANESE DOUJIN FIGHTING character database!
I was already thinking up diagrams...

AND yet I've already used my only grace extension on the first homework.

Sigh...
Priorities...