The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

So, if I know you (and I mean, I probably do, if you actually know about this blog) then I’m sure you have five hours you wish to fill with humor. (okay, that one I can’t be all the positive about. Sorry.)

Then follow this link. You can thank me later. Just, you know, don’t be stupid. Start on the bottom at hour one and work up, okay?

Oh, what that link is? I guess I can share that information.

Basically, Brer found this guy, his name is Noah Antwiler, and he has a website where he does video Let’s Plays and reviews and whatnot called The Spoony Experiment. Every so often he links me to something by him, and if nothing else, you have to give this guy credit. He has a TON of stuff on his website, and all of it is entertaining.
That which is linked above, however, is certainly one of his best that I’ve seen. That is his let’s play of Phantasmagoria 2: A Puzzle of Flesh. This is one of those FMV adventure games back when FMV was, you know, something that nobody realized was retarded yet. It’s, honestly, just an amazingly bad game in so, so many ways, and Noah is completely and utterly hilarious MST3King it all the way through the whole damn game. I enjoyed every minute of watching it. And, you know, it was at least funny enough to get Jonathan to come over and watch for a little to figure out what all this hilarious dialog was from.

So yeah, you have five hours to waste and want to laugh? Give that shit a go. Or anything on his site, really. I’ll probably still rely on Brer to link me to the really good stuff, but I’m sure you can’t really go wrong with anything on there.

So, we played another (short) session of Jonathan’s DnD campaign in the magical wonderland of Crystaengland on Sunday. It was exciting times, I suppose! There was only one serious combat, and that was against a big rock that Essner dealt like a million damage to in one turn. He was all gloating about it, and I’m like “Dude, you’re the damage dealer. You don’t see me gloating when I throw down some heals. Whoop dee doo, you did your job.” Yeah. That put him in his place. Yeah. Heh.

Anyway, it was fun as always. Jonathan gave us an NPC teammate for the next part of the quest, which… I dunno. We’re all being dicks. Having an NPC to be dicks to constantly… is that a good or a bad thing? WHO KNOWS. But he’s good at carrying gear, and he has a beautiful pompadour.

It’s amazing how dickish I can get, though. I’m always such a good guy when I play any kind of game like this, and yet, somehow, in this particular group of people, I’m the one suggesting we beat up old men to take their stuff and encouraging all kinds of stupid evil. It’s not a bad thing, but it’s certainly a change for me. I’m having a lot of fun with it, though… though I don’t think I could do it in different company. I can be a total ass around Essner, Spants, and my brother because they know me. Being that way around people I’m less familiar with? Probably won’t work.

In any case, we apparently are going to get in one more session before school starts up again (Fucking school… so close already! Bah.) so we’ll see how things go at the windy temple of windy wind or whatever it’s called. Maybe I can get a commemorative jerkin there, too.

So, this last night, we got to finally play some of this Dungeons and Dragons campaign my brother has been working on. It went well!
Rachel Sparklewhisper made a slightly re-specced appearance as team Warlord/Healer. I took roleplaying her much less serious this time, though. Cause, you know, it seemed appropriate. So I ate muffins and I went into battle wearing souvenir T-shirts from the temple we were trying to purge evil from… our team leader was Essner’s wolf companion (which, of course, only he could understand) so that was nice. We kept giving the wolf all our gold for safe-keeping. (Though I demanded compensation for muffins purchased, because they were a business expense.) It was fun times.

The combat, as much as I hate to say it, seemed to work a bit well overall than mine did. His “more hitpoints, less damage, very accurate” setup of the monsters kept the tension higher and generally more exciting than my builds, which were based off the numbers in the books and seem more geared for a “high miss rate, high damage” kind of experience. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But I dunno, we’ve all grown up with games like FFT where missing is a catastrophic failure, so missing as often as you hit just doesn’t feel like you’re a badass hero, you know? In any case, his combat was pretty good stuff.
It was, however, based around “battlefield gimmicks.” This is not something I have a problem with! But I’m pretty sure it’s also something that isn’t going to seem special, because I’m pretty sure he’s built every fight around a different gimmick. I would more build those as special encounters as opposed to something that’s normal and expected, and let the combat and monster mix stand on their own to make things interesting. Still, maybe that’s an error on my part. I know Essner especially loved the gimmick twists on each of the battles we did tonight, so… yeah.

I feel like I’m comparing myself to Jonathan as a DM. I don’t know why I’m doing that. I guess because I always just kind of assumed that I would be better at such things, you know? It’s not that I don’t want him to do well, because hell, if he keeps doing great, that means I get to play more DnD from the character side, which I am all for. Still, I dunno. I feel something there. I need to get the fuck over myself. Heh.

Anyway, it was, overall, a damn good time, and certainly a nice change of pace from the hard workings I’ve had to do recently. Plus, as my commemorative jerkin states, “I Rocked the Temple – Crystaengland Earth Temple”

As of today, in Twilight Heroes, I am ranked 9th overall in PvP.

What the fuck.

You might recall there was a time where I was really into the PvP in Twilight Heroes. I still think it’s pretty awesome. But I haven’t really been worrying about it for a long while. I’ve just been doing a fight every now and then to keep me as a viable target. Somehow, this rocketed me up the ranks. Perhaps I was one of the few higher-ranked people who kept themselves targetable, and thus those who were trying to grind rank specifically for the board kept attacking me, and losing, and up my rank went? That’s just a theory, though. This came out of nowhere, and I might not have even noticed if Cris hadn’t pointed it out to me. Why did it happen? Must have been Hitsuzen, I suppose…

But seriously, wow. Just wow.

I’m not going to worry about staying on the board. I’m just going to keep doing what I do. If I stick around on there, awesome. But fun is my first priority. Constantly worrying about a leaderboard seems to be the exactly opposite of that. But man, there’s my name. And it’s not even about snowflakes or anything!

Wow.

Welcome to 2009. May it be more awesome than 2008.

At this time of year, it’s normal to want to sit down and think about how you want to change in the coming year, and, you know, make resolutions. I mean, this year is going to be a huge year for me. I’m finally going to graduate college (Yeah, how many years have I been saying that, but seriously, this time, it’s happening, whether I want it to or not) and perhaps get started on my new life, wherever that takes me. It’s big scary shit. But exciting big scary shit. I can’t wait to give it a try.

Still, what is my New Year’s Resolution this year?
Be happy.
No matter what happens, I need to be happy. I need to enjoy myself. I need to be able to genuinely smile. I need to appreciate every moment I have with all the awesome people in my life. I need to know, to know, that I am damn lucky, and that my life is damn awesome, despite all the flaws. I need to be happy.
And dammit, that’s what I’m going to do this year. I’m going to be happy.

How are you approaching the new year, hm?

So one of the things I got for Christmas was this Anotherholic book. It’s actually kind of shockingly lame, since it amounts to xXxholic licensed fiction, and we all know how amazing licensed fiction is. (Not that there’s anything wrong with it, though, if it’s a series you like. Knock yourself out! And I mean, there is good stuff out there that’s licensed. But in general? Plenty of crap.)
Still, it’s fun stuff to me, who is such a rabid fan of the series. It makes some weird decisions, though, like strongly pretending it’s three anime episodes and having, like, an opening credits sequence in each one just printed in the book? It’s also extremely wordy. I mean, I guess xXxholic can get wordy, but I don’t know. It just feels dense, where most of the time the manga doesn’t, besides a few of Yuuko’s speeches and whatnot. Then again, I suppose Yuuko has more speeches in this book, too… heh… anyway, I am totally enjoying it.

However, like actually xXxholic, it’s just making me very introspective and forcing me to think about myself. Last night, in what I was reading, Yuuko said something along the lines of “There is nothing more self-centered than thinking everything is your fault.” That sort of hit me right to the core, I suppose.
I don’t think about myself as a self-centered person. I mean, I guess I think of myself as a “small world” person, where I have this sphere of influence and everything in it is extremely important and everything outside of it can fuck off because I just don’t care. Then again, I suppose in the middle of that world is me, you know? Maybe it is self-centered… maybe I am self-centered, because that certainly is something I have a huge problem with. I always feel like everything is my fault, that I fucked up, and that it’s all on my shoulders. I’ve been trying to break that habit, but it still happens often.
I mean, hell, I write a blog where I talk about me, me, me, constantly, all the time, and I have been for years. Maybe I am self-centered…

I guess the question then becomes whether or not that’s a bad thing… I was always told by nice people that you need to take care of yourself before you can take care of anyone else. Goodness knows I still have problems with myself that need to be addressed, so maybe it’s alright. And hell, isn’t everyone self-centered to some extent?

But dammit, I don’t want to make excuses…

I want, most of all, to be a positive force on people around me… I don’t think being self-centered is the way to be that positive force… you know? It’s all something, a bad habit, I should probably break, I guess…
It’s weird, though, because one of the things I’ve been working on so hard in myself recently is just to be honest with shit. I want x, or y, and I should just say it and be done with it. I shouldn’t beat around the bush, or hope quietly and stew on it and generally be unhappy. I should just say it, admit it, and go for it. I’ve been working so hard to make that happen in my life, and now just to look at it and notice how selfish and self-centered that is… I don’t know.

I don’t know.

Hey, here’s a bit of wisdom you probably don’t know: Work sucks.

Now, I’m not one of those people who complain constantly about work. I try not to be, anyway. I rather like working, in general. It lets me buy useless crap and it makes me feel useful, and I appreciate it for such things. Once I’m at work, I just do the job in front of me, and don’t worry about it. Me and work get along fine.
However, these last few days at work have just flat out sucked and been completely horrible. Overnight shifts coupled with shitty ad sets is enough to kill just about anyone’s enthusiasm. I mean, I’m glad I”m not working again until the new year, because fuck, these last few days at work have SUCKED. (Also, ha ha, not working until the new year only means I have two days off of work! Amazing!)

I really kind of dislike people who constantly complain about their work? Get a new job if it’s that bad, you know? Everyone has to work. I mean, everyone needs to get shit off of the chest sometimes, but if it’s so bad that’s all you can say about work, do something else, you know? I try not to complain like that really hard. Still, I’ve been complaining a lot more lately. Is it because work has just gotten that bad at this point? Or perhaps is it because Essner is so open about how shitty Kohl’s is that I feel it’s okay to bitch now that I have a third party to back my complaining up? I really don’t know.

But dammit, work has sucked SO BAD recently. Ugh.

Well, it’s here. And while I’m ripping open presents and spending time with my family and stuff, just let me make it clear to those out there, my friends who read this blog… gods, I appreciate you. The connections, the bonds I have with all of you mean so damn much. So much. I certainly can’t express it easily in words, and even less easily in a post that’s not specific to one person… but dammit, thank you. Thank you all. I hope I make it clear to you all how I feel.

And seriously, Merry Christmas, everyone. Hope your Christmas goes well. I really do.

So, the results are in, and I got all A’s. Even after those bitches of finals there (Heh, I got a 75 on one, but my grade was so high I still got an A overall. And I somehow managed a near-perfect on the other final. Who knew?) I managed to pull it off. This is the first time that’s happened in a long time.

Still, it doesn’t really feel like a victory. I hadn’t worked this hard in so long, and it’s very obvious to me now why I didn’t. I got all A’s… so what? What does that get me? There’s nothing all that heartache and effort gained me, really. Just a bunch of letters on a piece of paper. I just… I don’t feel like it was worth the shitty time I had. I really don’t.
It’s not only that, but it’s the fact that I knew all along that if I tried I’d get all A’s. I’m smart, you know? I really am. Anything lower than an A on my part was always a matter of not applying myself enough more than not being able to do it. Actually getting the A’s is more of a “as it should be” than something I’d pat myself on the back about…

Still, I suppose I only have to do it all one more time, huh… I suppose I did gain that. But this really feels like an empty victory. I wish I wasn’t.

Hey, I guess it’s Christmas Eve, huh? Man, it’s come so fast… I don’t really believe it… heh, but Christmas is nice. Will be nice. Yes.

So, on the topic of game related shit I think too much about, I’ve been putting a lot of thought into trying to figure out what my Shadow would be in the Persona 4 sense. For those of you who aren’t playing the crap out of the game right now, a Persona 4 shadow would be the side of yourself that you deny, which is probably, you know, mean or evil. I feel like I should, you know, throw the question out to the crowd, but at the same time, asking the internets “Hey, what’s my bad qualities?” seems potentially stupid of me. Heh.
But yeah, the part of me I deny. I mean, the obvious thing is my masculinity, and if you’d, you know, caught me some years ago and threw me into the backside of the TV, that totally would have been it. I feel, though, I’m much more accepting of that kinda thing now. I still get hits of depression about it from time to time, but in general, I accept it.
The other thing, I suppose, is my anger, but at the same time. I think I realize how much I hate, you know? I try my best to hide it to most people, but that’s just because I don’t want to bother them with it. (and also because, if I get mad at anything, my parents act like I got mad at them) Like, if you asked me, I think I would be quite honest about that.
I guess I really comes down to how the TV world really works. Is it always something you’re denying to yourself? Or is it just something you’re denying to the world? It’s seemed like things you’re denying to yourself, and on that front, I really do think I’m pretty… good. I’m pretty good on that front. I mean, there are things I am uncomfortable with, but I’m not about to say they don’t exist, I suppose. But who knows, maybe I do have something. The whole point of denying it would be that I don’t really know it, eh?
You know, now that I think about it, perhaps my thing I deny is my need for control. Often I want attention exactly when I want it, and not before or after. Constantly wish I had control of my life (even though I do, really) and wish people would listen to me or do things, you know, not stupidly. (at least in my eyes) Maybe that’s what my shadow would focus on… my need to control the whole world.

Who knows, really. The important thing, though, is that Persona 4 is awesome, and that I am awesome. I think.