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...

Nanasi DESU NO!!!

Ok after finishing today's bloody Ancient Chinese history midterm/test (very time constrained, 12 paragraphs = 4 minutes per paragraph = no time to think) I can find a little time to talk about the Duel Savior Demo.

In short, this thing rocks.
It's a wacky hybrid of sidescroller/beatemup/fighting game, using the numpad (shame on you Giga can't you change to godamn arrow keys already) and the standard 'z' 'x' 'c' key interface you see a lot in Japanese games.

You have two air dashes (forward forward/back back) and two normal jumps (up up).
None of the dashes count as a jump, so it's not like if you jump twice you can't dash twice, (unlike ggxx).

'z' is your good old weak attack, chainable into itself (but pushes the monster away so unless your point blank to a large monster you're max of these usually is 4-5, possible in air).
Forward 'z' is a kick, again possible in air, however usually I do it by mistake coming out of a dash so I forget to combo after it.
Can not chain into itself, but I think can chain into 'x' moves in both the ground and air.
Down 'z' is a wacky staff pole maneouver which I believe mini-launches (hard to follow up mini launch with actual air to air combo moves)
Cancels I think into down 'x' but not the neutral 'x's, at least not normally.
Air down 'z' is a jump in multihitting hammer, very good for continuing chains after an aircombo (after beating the crap out of enemy, forego the usual combo finisher and instead just continue with a hammer to OTG)

'x' is your good old strong attack, chainable into itself 3 times, 3 time launches.
Air neutral 'x' is a spear that multi hits in the air, I think you can combo from after it without cancels but I'm not too sure (via your second jump maybe?)
Forward 'x' is a charged punch, VERY GOOD for covering distance/getting away/whatever.
Air forward 'x' has even less delay for its forward punch, is even better at running away, pretty good jump in too.
(Runaway strat is double jump, diagonally away from monster you want to run from, double air dash, then jam forward 'x's. You will traverse the screen in no time.)
Down 'x' is an axe launcher.
I usually just do this after down 'z', it launches monsters after the minilauncher of down'z'.
Air down 'x' is a dive bomb...literally.
Your character takes out a bomb and dives with it for multi-hits.
USUALLY used as a combo ender, but against the headless rabbit chick I USE IT A LOT just to cancel her weirdo autoguard(one hit or so?) combo counter self.

'c' is guard.
Forward 'c' is roll, back 'c' is backhop/step, 'c' at last second cancels your guard frames significantly.
Up 'c' is weirdo move called highjump, I think THIS is the jump you want for air combo chasing, instead of just the regular jump.
I always mess up the timing on this, cause it's the frikkin guard key and I never expect it.

'z' and 'x' together are supers.
Neutral zx is a flashier version of the neutral x times 3 launcher combo, way more hits, I'm not exactly sure if you can chase the launches at the end of the flashy finisher but probably.
Forward zx is a punch super, think the forward x.
One hit, bounces off wall (if you're good you can continue comboing, if you're me you can't), QUITE a bit of damage if it connects.
Down zx is an axe super...very weird hit properties on this one, it raises earth? stones up to hit your enemy in a deceptively large area, however I rarely land this directly (I use it on Nanasi to keep her away or catch her in the blast radius).
I am VERY unsure if this launcher is followable, she seems to fly too high then fall too fast.
Air neutral zx is a super version of the spear, hits more, I think definitely comboable normally (no cancels) after the last hit.
Air forward zx is the air version of the punch super, use like air forward 'x' or to combo finish, GOOD DAMAGE.
Air down zx is a bomb super, multiple bombs all over the place, they cover you while you cough from the dust.

Cancels:
You can cancel any normal it seems into ANOTHER normal for one red diamond (You generally start off with 3 diamonds, unfull)
You can cancel any normal into a super for 2 red diamonds, it costs 3 red diamons if the normal is generally uncancellable (Think combo enders like the dive bomb.)

Simple huh?
The demo would lead you to believe that...except screenshots of those wacky Japanese.
500+hit combos, the highest scores 3rd 2nd 1st being around 5.5k for 3rd and 2nd and 55k for 1st.
Yes not a typo, 55k.
He overloaded the digits!
WTF.
I can't even fathom how that works, and I even asked a random english guy living in Japan who had been to the playtest and saw a 400+ combo in action.
I don't think he knew either XD.

Atama, atama ga?

Tweaks here and there, I noticed my previous posts just seemed to get in the way, links and two new sections (blogs and fyaf moved up to more prominent positions.)
Basically FYAF is going to be the sum of all those random stupid links I spam to you people on my buddy list: this includes: brennan jazzy noob lilyes tanzy yilei rinara zed lah and god knows who else.
I'll probably rotate it when it hits a max backlog of about four-six. (I like even numbers.)

Also started adding some blogs, starting with the first two that came to my mind.
Heh, feeble attempts to wave some social tendrils. (Link me back Lawrence if you care to.)

Anyway I would do a more indepth post about my first FYAF, that being the Duel Savior demo, but it's 5:20am and I'm studying hardcore ancient Chinese history.

FATARU AROU!

Well, I beat Chitose's section of Galaxy Angel: Eternal Lovers. (One of those weird Japanese relationship/tactical?/space sim? games, where your relationship affects how your units fight? Nothing dirty though, GA's pretty clean.)
What can I say...my roommate HATES the yamato nadesico (traditional Japanese woman)image, and with good reason, cause geez christ some STUPID shit happens in Chitose's arc.
Still I found her sweet enough to play through with, although I seem to be missing a scene.

The battles were ridiculously easy UNTIL a certain point.
Then they become "pretty" easy.
Up until a certain point, I had subscribed to a "Get as many points as you can and crush everything, regardless of objectives" method of play.
Nothing too hard, even when Galaxy Angel 7 showed up.
Ironically, it was Unit 7's "advanced" AI that let me exploit it.
Traditional AI in GA went something like this: MOVE STRAIGHT TOWARD ELSIONE, IGNORE GIRLS ON HIGH COMPLETELY TAKING ME APART.
Understandedly, GA7 gave me my first REAL scare, as it is FAST (maybe as fast as Sharpshooter or Happy Trigger), and powerful as all hell.
The thing is, it's AI actually RUNS AWAY when low on life.
Meaning it'd fly straight for my mothership (You lose it, game over), I'd recall all my angels (the six girls/ships I control using crazy tech)to beat the UTTER CRAP out of it, and it'd run away.
So I could still crush all the other units on the map while harassing it.
After that, there were still no problems, in fact in later missions you get Allies, meaning the only obstacle to killing everything is well, having THEM kill something weak, like a fighter.
Admittedly, later it IS rather hard trying to play for score, as some of the missions become rather time constrained and your allies are blasting more things than they should.
But still really easy.

That all changes in the last battle.
I personally think if they set it up like this in the last half of the game I'd have enjoyed it more.
Basically, you have allies, but even then, THERE IS NO WAY IN HELL YOU CAN KILL EVERYTHING in 15 minutes.
Hell forget killing everything in 15 minutes, forget killing HALF in 15 minutes.
What you basically have in this mission is a Galaxy Angel 7, cept with 1000 times the hitpoints, twice to three times as powerful, AND SINGLEMINDED.
The mission objective is to kill him.
No, it's not really number GA007 (Vine's already died in your care), and it is slightly slower, but my god.
First off, the avenues of escape (two asteroid formations) have fighters (paper planes) and A HEAVY BATTLESHIP AND HEAVY CRUISER each behind them.
Meaning, if you decide to run Elcione up or left (which is the first instinct because...described later), your Angels have to somehow punch through this pair of ridiculously high hp ships.
Add this to the fact that the BOSS goes straight for you.
He spends like 1 second if he hits an ally, vaporizes him, and continues.
There is no running from him, he never runs away.
What ended up happening the first two or so times I lost and numerous restarts was this: I'd try to get Elcione to one of the asteroid formations so I could play merry go round with the Boss.
My angels would fly ahead, destroy most of the paper planes, TAKE A WHILE on the heavy battleship and heavy cruiser, and by that time, Boss man would have caught up to me AND new reinforcements would have appeared where I was running around, namely ANOTHER HEAVY CRUISER in each escape zone.
So I'd get pincered, Elcione would die, and the end.
There was another thing to note, while I was concentrating on survival, the MAIN mission objective was to KILL this thing in 15 minutes.
The thing was a godamn tank.
Forte's super barely scratched it, Milfeuille's did a respectable amount if she was CONTINUALLY LOCKED, Ranpha's didn't do that much, MINT'S was unpredictable, and Chitose's was respectable damage.
Anything else did piddlings.
So in fact the crush here was twofold.
EFFING SURVIVE and DEAL ENOUGH DAMAGE.
Considering the large amounts of OTHER shit flying about to help you fail the first objective, I'd sometimes completely forget the second one.

So to finally beat the mission, I had to change my playing style.
Instead of making a break for the asteroid fields...I just took a gamble and had Elcoine run into the WAYYY back of the starting corner of the map.
It would take a while before the mass of Heavy ships and mister boss man would get there (if they got anywhere near it though I'd have no way to run and be dead in like 30 seconds).
Then, I ran the angels UP THE MIDDLE and went for as MANY weakling fighters/attackers/noncapital ships as I could.
These things are paper thin, and die within 30-one minute at most.
Basically after clearing out all the fighters in the middle (I left the capital ships so the angels were taking periodic damage from them, but no time to really concentrate on them) I had them all focus on the boss.
And fired every bloody super within the span of two minutes.
Some twice (thanks Ranpha/Chitose).
I won with about five minutes left, but my mothership had amazingly suffered no damage, cause it was wayyyyy down in the corner.
THIS is the only battle in the GAME where the mission objectives are dire and important enough to warrant completely forgoing anything else.

Also of note is my grasp on the story is ridiculously tenuous at best. Honestly my Japanese picked up a lot more than I think it would but I guessed half the time. (How is Vine from Val Fasc AND Eden? How exactly did Chitose forget her feelings for you? etc etc etc.)

The omake is awesome. You unlock of course battle mode (replay all battles of one girl's scenario) and you can replay them normally or IN FIRST PERSON/COCKPIT VIEW. Meaning I can control Chitose myself, fire her weapons, super, fly around, etc. That alone rocks, in fact I'm sort of annoyed that the main game didn't allow this option.

Still though, I'm going to have to take a break from trying to find that missing CG and playing through with a different girl. I spent a lot of time on this game surprisingly and well, all the major projects I have assigned are due soon.

Courting the law: Why smart lawyers pick dumb jurors.

Lifted from..of all people, Michael Genshimer, who moved to Kansas like a bazillion years ago.

Man there's so much wrong with America it's starting to collectively weigh down on my mind.

Flash mob

Lifted from Lah, once again.
Hilarious? Not sure, but it's a good short story.

What makes you so special?

Wow
Just wow. The perspective in here is riveting, and scary at the same time.
The amount of politics and fragile ground the government had to tread is mind-boggling.
They had to prevent people from suing...for what?
That they couldn't prevent planes from smashing into towers?
And now you have this mess of compensation and what makes these victims so much more special than other terrorism victims.
And the greed and money fights...sickening.

CLICK HERE TO ENLARGE YOUR

I should have known the introduction of "exclusive/premium" services on photobucket were a bad sign.
Obviously free hosting for 9999999 pictures was going to give in at some point, and now I can see how it's slowing down picture upload times.
Ah well, can't you get anything for free on the internet anymore?
No, not those godamn iPod offers you bastards.

FUCK

FUNimation Anime Weekend Atlanta Announcement (11:21 AM EST): According to information received from our contacts at FUNimation, they announced at their 10 AM panel at Anime Weekend Atlanta this morning their acquisition to the domestic distribution rights to Gonzo's latest series, Samurai 7.

FUCK YOU FUNIMATION.
That is all.

You were killed by $Ladyevil$

Heh, nothing like the ridiculous sense of accomplishment at having done something so utterly worthless and small and stupid but yet awesome at the same time.
What did I do you ask?
I pulled off a trick jump in Prisoner in Halo PC not once, but three times!
Go me, go me, go me...yeah I'm sad.
But still I have a feeling of accomplishment.
Also in a ridiculous CTF on Battlecreek, my teammates finally listened and we pulled off the old "throw the flag through the roof routine" at least 3 times or so.
One time I managed to throw it onto the roof without a teammate being there...he got it later.

New singlerplayer game...Galaxy Angel.
It was a love sim yes (Not H though), and I like the characters and their designs (they're an anime after all).
Chitose is...awesome.
Anyway I'm playing the third one in the series, I have very little to no knowledge what is going on cause it's all in Japanese, but it still rocks.

Size does matter

Um yeah well holy shit look at the comparison there.

I...want to kill this man so badly I can't stop

Ok Heihachi is quite a dual faced character.
He said he usually cut wood, in fact he told Gorobei he never cut a person...
BUT he seems to slip into the role of killing people with no problem.
On top of that he seems the harshest when it comes to betrayals, immediately going for his sword on Nodoka...
To top it off, in 12, he's REALLY mad at the peasant, and even states his desire to chop his head off quite plainly.
The fact that he SMILES ALL THE TIME with those damn niko nikos ^_^ just makes it weirder.
Does he have some issues?
Cause a normal woodcutter wouldn't make a jump to being a merciless samurai so fast...

Link spam

I'm going to start putting random links instead of just spamming them across AIM. That way I can force you to come through here to view them.

Wandering eyes.

A Child Can Not Beat A Man

(Is it me or did the toggle for bold grow from bracketsboldbrackets to some wacky span style = value thing)

Second anime review is Samurai 7. This is an adaptation? of Akira Kurosawa's original film The Seven Samurai. I googled this film, turned up its IMDB page, and along with it, A GIGANTIC FUCKING SPOILER. Curse you IMDB for having that right on the movie's fucking front page. Now I'm not sure how closely the anime will follow the film (40 bandits has become 40 no-buseri, these gigantic mecha things which are simply outrageously cool), but all the names are already completely identical. Plus according to those who have seen the original film, the characters are falling into their movie roles as they mature.

Ok, to me, who has never seen the original, this series is good. It's done by Gonzo, home of the big disappointment yes, but hopefully they won't screw it up knock on wood. The series really is good at depicting each samurai's character, and the peasants of the village they are defending aren't just "save me jebus peasants." Rather they're human, and scared, and well...rather pathetic at this point. (Let's go hire samurais and kills nobuseri...oh noes the nobuseris knows! Let's hope the samurais dont come! Oh noes they came!) But I really like how the character designs (borrowed as they were, even for the shifty peasants), are turning out. One slightly bad thing though, all the names are exactly the same, meaning there's no easy to remember shinji ikari crap here. You got seven main guys, plus kirara/rikichi/komachi, and it's sortta hard remembering their names. From left to right in the main smoke picture:

Katsushiro is the newbie. He's a samurai by birth, but he's never been on a battlefield (Kirara passes over him initially because she doesn't smell blood on him even though he saved them in the city.) He's a ladies man...but it's sort of obvious who he likes (Kirara). He also views Kanbei as his master and looks up to him. He hasn't killed anyone yet. (Bwahaha that's changeeeed) I have to say him and Kikuchiyo really play well off each other, cause you got a guy who's pretty bad/useless with the sword and someone who's ok with it...but completely careless. The odd couple, for sure.

Kikuchiyo is the clown. He's NOT a samurai by birth (which means he technically can't be one), he has a stolen lineage scroll and can't read his own name on it (If that's you, you're a girl. or if that's you, you're 10 years old!), carries a gigantic sword, but he can fight. He's also a machine-samurai, another thing that sets him apart. Kanbei has not acknowledged him yet as a samurai, because he really isn't. He often gets into trouble and is a little dull in the head, but he's hilarious. Plus he has this exhaust pipe nears where his neck/mouth would be and when he's mad it whistles. He and Komachi get along really well.

Kyuuzou is the perfectionist. He is BETTER than Kanbei, he dual weilds swords, and he was pitted against the group at first. Having fought Kanbei, and wanting him alive (To kill), he went against his masters and is no longer welcome with them...so he joins. This guy is GOOD.

Kanbei is the man, the general, the leader. He was a general in a war that was lost (evidentally he failed or something), and is now commanding six samurai to defend a village. He views it as a war with little reward and no glory, but he is the leader nonetheless. Respected by everyone, even Kikuchiyo, even though he hides it.

Gorobei is the entertainer. He became one after the last war ended and samurais had no way to eat. He is lively, and constantly making wagers. (I bet if I can catch that arrow before it hits me, you'll treat me to dinner.) He also has a freaky side...he seems to get off on dangerous things (arrows being shot at him, getting cut, etc.) But he has a sense of humor, and this pair of zoom binocs!

Shichiroji was once Kanbei's right hand man (He's the pilot you see in the opening sequence of the first episode), but after the war (Another failed general?) he settled down as...a dancer inside a pleasure quarters house...or something like that. He is the ONLY one who does not fight with a sword, rather he uses this weird polearm type deal. He also has a woman who saved him from death...and they were almost going to be an item...but she knows he wants one last war. So he leaves his settled-down comfortable life to join his former comrade and fight some nobuseris.

Last we have Heihachi. I admit if there is an enigma on this team, it's this guy. And yes he looks like he should be in Last Exile piloting a vanship. He's the techie, and good with machines. This guy has the constant niko niko face, his eyes don't open. (Wait once they did). He has also never killed anyone before, but he is very good at chopping wood. ONCE HE HITS COMBAT, he comes across as surprisingly good...though it's hard to tell if he still hasn't killed anyone. (The things he chops apart so far are small nobuseris, i.e. men riding these little tin can mech type deals...he splits those without killing the guy inside.) Anyway I say he's an enigma because while he does have a sense of humor and almost always smile, there's one episode where they find out a woman has passed information on them to the nobuseris. Heihachi INSTANTLY reaches for his sword and asks...so what do we do about the woman. He also OPENS HIS EYES at this time...and he's not smiling here. This was rather frightening and out of character, cause I mean it's a woodcutter who hasn't killed anyone suddenly saying that we need to remove the spy, even if she was forced into it. Anyway Kanbei says "It is not a samurai's role to judge." which stops him pretty quickly. I sort of wonder how this guy will turn out...

Kirara is a dowser who went to look for samurai on the village elder's request. A bit of research confirms she was not in the original seven samurai movie. She's strong, but yeah she's a pretty normal woman (i.e. she doesn't fight, she got saved only once so far so she's not tooo helpless, she takes care of them if they're hurt, etc.)

Komachi is Kirara's sister. Little cute brat. She and Kikuchiyo (Kiku man, as she calls him) really hit it off. Both enjoy teasing the crap out of Katsushiro.

Rikichi is the guy who went along with Kirara to help find samurai. He DID exist in the old movie it seems, and his wife was taken by the nobuseri to ensure peace. When he seems them he gets very irrational and angry, because he feels helpless that he let his wife be taken away. You feel rather sorry for this guy.

Now it bears mentioning about the mecha, which for some reason has immediately pissed off the losers in the anime club. The series really isn't mecha based, just the no-buseri are fucking beautifully rendered mechs. More like steampunk? but not quite is the technology level. Guns are indeed shown, and they seem to be prevalent as ever, as the lead samurai says "We can not win against guns." (Swords vs guns debate!) But the cg is really nicely done, the mechs are really cool looking (even if they are made of tin foil)

So, after watching 11 episodes, I say two thumbs up! Only time will tell if Gonzo screws up yet another one!

When a bird dies there is grief, when a fish dies there is none.

I just finished watching an incredibly blurry (read handcam) version of Ghost in the Shell 2. Let's see...well first off I'm getting ever more confused about the canon-worthiness of the animated material based on the manga Shirow wrote. I mean I have not seen the second half of the tv series (licensing issues), I have only seen bits and pieces of the original movie, but the second movie is...almost taken straight out of a story from the FIRST manga compilation by Dark Horse. Granted, there are a bazillion differences, such as Motoko is already just a ghost without a body (fused with the puppeteer already), but I mean the underlying case is the same, love dolls with dubbed ghosts going berserk (Girls ask one of the inspectors to sabatoge the robots to get a message out.) Some other changes is that the factory lies in a gigantic submarine and the process of hunting it down takes quite a few side roads, including going through the mansion of an old hacker who starts looping Batou and Togusa's memories.

Also..one of the last lines Batou said...in the manga is "Did you think noone would get hurt?" which refers to the human victims (who admittedly were using slave dolls from shady sources.) However, in the movie, Batou's line changes to "Did you think of the victims, not the humans who were killed, but the robots who did not want ghosts?" This is what my topic refers to...as it means those without voices get sympathy, those without can not.

It's hard thinking of this movie as a continuation, just because so many story elements are the same as the story in the FIRST ghost in the shell manga volume. I guess I have to see the actual first movie and maybe the rest of the animated series. AND I have to start attempting to translate my Manmachine Interface or wait for others to do it.

On the issue of robot and human...there's quite a bit of talking about it, and I guess this case is as good as any to start examining the differences. But geez even the tv show had their version of this story (ghost dubbing), except it was a Che Guevara guerilla type figure who was being copied.

I guess I found it hard to really enjoy the deepness of this movie, precisely because of the rehashing of the main plot, and also because the definite lack of Motoko. Ghost in the Shell Manga 2 Manmachine interface is almost completely about her and her new form, and I really want to read and understand it. (Unfortunately the Japanese is ridiculous.)

It is pretty though, and for people who haven't read the original manga back to front over and over (it's like one of my oldest ones) it's a good plot.