November 4, 2007

If only my superhero could learn Gymkata…

You’ve all heard of Gunkata… but have you heard of… Gymkata? It is the ultimate martial art. Seriously.

So the makers of Kingdom of Loathing, my beloved browser game, pointed me towards a game that a KoL fan is making in a similar style and that all of the KoL people were beta-testing… it’s called Twilight Heroes. It’s pretty awesome, actually, although it’s still in beta, so there are things like… missing picture and such. Also, there’s no huge wiki of everything you’d possibly need to know about it out there. Some might consider that a benefit… I admit it’s a different sort of experience, not knowing exactly what to do all the time… at least I’ve been able to figure everything out… the thing is, though, if it ever gets into KoL-levels of puzzlage I’m going to really want a walkthrough or hints or something… some of those KoL puzzles I would have NEVER figured the fuck out without looking at things…
However, I do have to say that the equipment makes me laugh… in KoL land, everything is ridiculous and drawn stick-figure-style, but in Twilight Heroes, most everything is modified photographs of things… which makes me think about my outfits realistically, which makes me giggle. I’m currently wearing a Flak Helmet, Skateboarder style kneepads, Skeptic Sandals, a Leather Jacket, a speedo, and carrying a beanbag gun and a riot shield. Just putting that image into my mind… man, I’m a completely bad-ass looking super hero, aren’t I?
Anyway, if you want something else to play while at work or while you only have a computer or something, you could do a lot worse than Twilight Heroes. I’m poetfox on there, of course, and I’m an Elementalist… if you want my weird Air Shield buff, let me know, I can totally hook you up.

Now I’ll just have to check out Cthulhu Nation sometime… although from everything I’ve heard about that, it’s extra super completely confusing… definitely going to have to find a help resource before I pick that one up.

Essner let me have the two The Go! Team albums… and they’re kinda nice, but I’m liking them less than I thought I would. They’re good music, and nice to just put on in the background, but they have less that really grab a hold of me and thrill me than I thought they would. Hm… oh well. I’m just really stupidly picky on music… as future Listening Time entries will show (there was actually a positive reception to all that liveblog rambling I did for Nich’s CD, so I’ll probably do it for every one I come across. Just a warning.)

November 1, 2007

Liveblogging Nich’s Listening Time Mix

JUST BECAUSE I CAN!
“Talking Themes – Nich’s Michs”

Track 1:Debaser by The Pixies. I’ve heard of the Pixies… I don’t really care for this guy’s voice… he’s like screaming but not screaming? It’s kinda weird. The song isn’t bad, though… but it’s not like… clicking into me and energizing me like I like my music to do. It’s in that large grey area of songs I can say “Yeah, that’s alright” but then never listen to again… then again, this project is supposed to expand my music experience… or something…

Track 2: Ageless Beauty by Stars. Female vocalist… that’s nice… it’s all like airy and barely there, though… and I dunno, there’s not a lot happening in the background or whatever… it’s just like this steady constantly repeating thing that occasionally changes pitch a little but doesn’t change… it’s kinda hypnotic, I guess, but not doing a lot for me. I guess it does make the refrain like… kick it up a notch… but it’s still so… subdued. Sure seems to go on for a long time, too…

Track 3: Last Dinosaur by The Pillows. Oh yeah, this like the first track from the FLCL soundtrack… the Pillows are good stuff… first song and band I actually know, too… Oooh, lyrics. This is an expanded version, or the one on the FLCL soundtrack was a shortened one. Yeah, good track.
I will admit, though, that I think I’m sorta getting what they mean by flow…? All these songs have a sort of similar… background feel. I don’t think the current draft of my mix has that… I switch it up a lot… ups and downs. This has kinda been one constant sort of feeling. (although maybe a little different with the vocals in track 1) What does this mean? Fuck I dunno. Just trying to think like… something about it.
Oooh, back to the song, I love this bridge… that’s nice.

Track 4: What’s Mine Is Yours by Sleater-Kinney. Another female vocalist…? Heh, maybe not… no, that’s a girl. Mmm, not bad, so far… yeah, if it keeps slowly building like this, I could get into it… mmm, it isn’t getting much more… powerful… like I was hoping… but it’s still good… what the hell is up with all this random stupid reverb guitar…? Okay, dislike building… this section is kinda stupid and it just won’t end… now they added some bass to it… okay, starting to get back into the song proper… and it’s starting to build again like in the beginning… but yeah, I never really want to hear that section in the middle again, it was kinda annoying. Wow, that ends abruptly…

Track 5: Soft Power by Ladytron. I have some Ladytron CDs, but this song doesn’t immediately spring to mind. Their music tends to be a little too slow for me to completely get into them, even though the female vocals and electronic music seems like a good fit… but this one isn’t too bad… I could probably have guessed it was a Ladytron song without reading the track list, though… something about how the lyrics are sung just reminds me of their other song. They do that DA DA da da DaDa DA! thing with the vocals all the time. This is definately one of the better Ladytron songs I’ve heard, though. Oooh, drum track with some energy added… and now we’re into an Ahh ahhh ahhhh section…
In general, I really want this mix to kick up the energy, but I know that’s just a personal bias… that’s what I turn to music for. To energize me. It’s why I do things like collect boss battle themes, because they’re sort of designed to do that.
The Aaaaahs are apparently the end, but they’re just going on forever and ever… I really sorta dislike songs that do that… it seems kinda pointless, really. The interesting part is over, you’re like… wasting my time.

Track 6: I Spy by Pulp. Whispery… hmm… lots of whispers… and now it’s picked up a little with some nice background stuff… but man, all of the tracks on here have this sort of subdued energy, though… like… almost to the point where I can rock out, but they’re keeping it down… on the down low… keeping it calm… sorta thing… I do like the little bell-y noises, and the little tiny bits of sound from the guitar… we’re back to whispering now, though… apparently the singer wants to be caught fucking someone’s wife…? What’s up with these LA LA’s… hm… yeah, I don’t know… it’s… yeah. Now it’s all slow again towards the end… I don’t know if there’s enough time for it to pick up at all again…

Track 7: Blood Tree by Mary Timony. Still the same sort of feeling going on with the subdued music… yeah, I already don’t like this song… also, my brother is back in here now which makes me annoyed that I’ll have to get out the headphones… Oh, it changed… that’s better… let’s see what it does after this point… yeah, it does the little change thing again… I like the refrain, but the rest isn’t doing a whole lot for me…

Track 8: Accused of Stealing by The Delgados. Sort of a methodical walking forward sort of feeling… more… more… and now they went to this echo-y piano… and what’s probably the refrain… which is only in the right speaker, which is… odd… oh, okay, so they have a male voice on the left… alright. Well, now it’s back to the original… okay, so just going through the various parts again with different lyrics. It’s alright, but again, it’s not clicking and interacting with me. It’s alright, certianly. If someone put this on, I wouldn’t complain. But that describes so, so much of the music I listen to… probably like… 70%… 20% I don’t like… 10% I love… maybe something like that. Hmm, the music is building slowly… has been over the whole song, and now it’s pretty like… strong… not like… powerful but just… louder… I guess a little more powerful…

Track 9: Pyrite Pedestal by Pretty Girls Make Graves. I think these guys opened for Franz Ferdinand when I saw them… they kinda sucked in concert. This one starts out promising, though… nice and fast with neat little keyboards… Oh yeah, this is nice… all energetic drum roll behind the sorta slowish lyrics… it… yeah. I could do this… this is closer to what I want… knowing how he’s slowly moving in energy or whatever, this might bode well for the end of the CD. Mmm, yeah, now the music is even stronger… yeah, that’s nice… Jonathan left, I can take off the headphones, thank goodness… yeah, it’s got my head nodding to the beat and whatnot. Good job, song. But… it’s got the long fade out… bleh, why? And Jonathan comes back in after leaving. Wonderful.

Track 10: Dark Matter – Andrew Bird. Mm, whistling…? Oooh, lots of building… lots of building… yeah… yeahyeahyeah… mmm, a little slower now that it got going than I was hoping…. yeah, Nich definitely has a style he likes… and I guess everyone else likes it on the board, as he’s got nothing but praise for this mix… hm… is this leaving any kind of impression on me…? It’s all kinda fading together, they’re all kinda similar and this isn’t really affecting me in any strong way. I keep wanting to use the word methodical again… it’s very like… marching in the background… duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh constantly… like a lot of these songs. Hmm… sorta ending kinda sad or something.

Track 11: I Summon You – Spoon. These are the guys who did the soundtrack to Stranger Than Fiction, right? Essner likes them… I like like… the theme song to the movie. I don’t know what it’s called… but yeah, this is definitely an Essner-like song. Nothing wrong with it… and it has a beat I can nod and tap my foot to and general get into a little bit… ooh, tambourine. And see, this is different from the other songs because it has… what’s the word… a syncopated rhythm…? Go go, Wikipedia… yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s what this is. That makes me get into it a little more. Maybe I just like syncopation? Abrupt stop… man, no in between stops for Nich…

Track 12: Lord of the Netherword by Shoji Meguro. Organs… oh, this is the song from one of the MegaTen games… not Persona 3. But the same guy. Yeah, it sounds like his softer less hip-hoppy energy pieces from Persona 3… that means I really appreciate it, but have no real want to listen to it outside of a video game context where it can set the game’s mood well…I worry about setting my mood to anything but happy in my spare time…

Track 13: Skip Divided by Thom Yorke. Beepy… hm… weird… definitely differentish… hmm, I wasn’t expecting a male vocalist even though Thom is probably a male name… his voice is kinda getting eaten by the sorta annoying electronic noise music… it’s like deep bass that eats everything… and there are weird noises in the background too… yeah, it’s just like totally eating the singing… it’s hard to focus on it… I guess that’s the idea they’re going for… but it just makes me feel distracted, like I’m missing something… or I could miss something, if I don’t keep the two things like… separate… The vocals are a little louder now, but they seem focused more on the left side which still makes me feel kinda awkward… Also, the like… emotion of the song doesn’t really change at all when the music changes, it’s still giving the same feeling out… it doesn’t really feel like a break or whatever.

Track 14: Seven Swans – Sufjan Stevens. This is an Essner band… I’ve heard them before… I think they’ve even played one of his songs in Kohl’s, though it was an upbeat one… this one is all this acoustic something… and very slow… so I already hate it. It’s kinda haunting, I suppose, but if I wasn’t trying to like… be open and was just listening for something to listen to I definitely would have already skipped this… ooh, they added some piano now… but it’s probably going to be more of the same only with some piano behind it… I guess the instrument is like… a Ukulele maybe…? It has a kinda toy-ish quality… Wikipedia go… oh, he’s holding a Banjo… yeah, that could be a really slow banjo. Another vocalist… female… just on the left… hm… mmm, they keep building… I’m liking this a little better at the end with the sorta full group going at it.
Nich seems to be about… haunting… they all have that kind of quality… is that all he listens to…? Or was he just trying to make a haunting mix? See, I dunno… I was trying to make something entertaining as well as a cross-section of what I enjoy listening to while trying to keep things maybe a little more obscure so that it would be new to people… I wonder if that’s what Nich did, or just put a lot together with similar themes… music people might be able to do that.

Track 15: Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating in Space by Spiritualized. Started with a voice saying the title… and there are vocals sorta fading in… Hmm, you’ve got a singer and another singer whose voice seems to be pumped through a filter to make it sound like a radio… and now it’s all grown out and built… but still very slow… and walking slowly forward, like I was talking about before… they keep adding more and more vocal parts overlapping each other, though, that’s kinda neat. Sorta like a round I suppose. It definitely builds the intensity. I keep spelling definitely incorrectly and using spell-check to fix it… I wonder how many times I’ve done that so far… oh, look, yet another vocal part. Another abrupt end.

Track 16: Warm Night by The Concretes. Mm, what is this start reminding me of… “In the good ol’ suuuumertiiiiiiiime!” Or something… it’s like… carousel-like? Does that make sense? Goes around and around and around, slow and gentle… not too bad, I suppose… but yeah, definitely that sensation I said… of moving but not really going anywhere… gentle… got some violins in there… hm. It’s interesting, but again, not really my thing. It does sort of invoke a mood, though. And we all fall down. Hey, it didn’t end abruptly or forever!

Track 17: Debaser by Feed. Last track… a cover of the first track, or so I understand. Only with a female singer. Ooh, I like those drums… hm… what are they going to do with them? Mmm, taking awhile to get going… and like… modem noises in the background…? And dogs barking… that’s… hm… not really enjoying that… weird little stall pointless point here with some big like… cymbal hits and more weird seemingly random beeping… now those drums I like are coming back… and some more music is coming back into it… Ooh, there we go… that’s more my style… I could get into a whole song like that. Ooh, guitars… yeahyeahyeah, that’s much much better! A little repeating, but nice… and now it’s fading away and… done… that’s the CD.

Overall, yeah, this CD is not for me. At all, really. It’s mostly the sort of music I’m indifferent to and never seek out… I might give it a second listen sometime just to be fair, but… yeah. It doesn’t make me want to do so besides out of a duty to this whole mix CD project…
I do feel like I might have a good grip on the musical whatevers of Nich, though… I wonder if that’s everyone’s goal or if I shouldn’t assume I can get that from these CDs… hmm…

October 25, 2007

What a Horrible Night to have a Curse.

Been having depression fits again. Yaaaay! It really is related to how much I work… it can’t be coincidence that I’ve only worked two days over two weeks. But enough of that.

See, I can’t really play Phoenix Wright while I listen to podcasts, because I want to pay attention to what’s going on (although the Milkshake reference in the beginning of PW3 was uncalled for… if you’re going to make bad references in games, make bad video game references, dammit!) so I randomly started playing Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles on the PSP while listening to the new Retronauts and such… and man, it’s good. I never really played the old school Castlevanias… I mean, I’ve played Castlevania, sure… but I sucked at it and never got anywhere and never built any fond memories of it… Talking Time got me into the “Metroidvania” style of gameplay hard, and I caught up on what Symphony of the Night style Castlevanias I hadn’t played… the game is mostly a remake of Rondo of Blood, though, and that’s the last old school level based Castlevania… and it’s really damn good. Hard as shit, but really good. I’m dying a lot, but it lets me restart at the beginning of any level I’ve gotten to with full lives, and I’m playing with Maria (thanks, Jakanden, for telling me where she was) so that makes the game easier, (plus, I get to throw cats Student Witch Soul style) so I am making progress. The fact that I’ve only found one alternate route so far (The route into 3′, and only because someone told me how to get there, since the thing that unlocks Symphony is in that level) bodes well for how long the game will distract me… but who knows. I may hit a wall soon where I can’t beat any more levels and get distracted again.

In other news, what? Really? I would have thought Metaknight was enough… really? Well, okay… I guess HAL is making the game, after all They can put more of their characters in. No Lolo? He could… push… blocks? Turn people into eggs? Eggs are cool, right? Yoshi likes eggs and Yoshi is cool. Maybe.

Jonathan bought Clive Barker’s Jericho. I don’t especially know why he’s so damn excited about the game, but he was so much to rush out and buy it the moment it came out… I’ll probably give it a try later, since it’s here, but I think the darkness is going to get to me. Scare me in bright light, dammit… I’m tired of games and their “we have a great flashlight simulation” shenanigans.

October 19, 2007

I was having a great time with it, and then, in today’s final play session, it filled me with anger.

I think I must be missing something in Half Life 2. Seriously. Because every time I complain about things that bother me in the game, someone tells me I’m completely fucking insane. And I just really don’t get it. I really don’t get how my complaints aren’t valid. What I’m talking about certainly ruined sections of the game for me as I yelled in frustration. Bleh.
(Note, I talk about the end of Ep 2 here, so there’s probably spoilers)
Anyway, I finished Half Life 2 Ep. 2 a moment ago. It was better, overall, than Ep. 1, very much so. I only got seriously frustrated at the end sequence, which, sort of ironically, was when the game tried to do something different… I appreciated the change in pace. I did not appreciate having to kill 2 Hunters around every Strider while giving me no ammo to do so. If I tried to not kill them, then I couldn’t throw the stupid bomb because they’d shoot it out of my hands. It was maddening. I ran out of everything but pistol ammo over and over, and it got to the point where if I missed with the first bomb, I’d just die and try again, as opposed to attempting another go. And then I turned it down to easy, and it affected almost nothing of what I was being frustrated by (which is why I never did it in episode 1 when Brer suggested it… Easy doesn’t change the environment, it just gives your guns more punch and you more life, and it was the environment that was making me angry) I ended up with barely enough ammo until the very end, so I guess it helped, but it still drove me mad every time I’d hit the striders and then the fucking sticky bomb would SLIDE OFF while I’m trying to pull out my pistol. Fuck.
The ending was completely idiotic as well. “Well, we best kill off a character.” Well, then do it while they’re doing something interesting instead of having a guy pop in a window and kill him. That’s just stupid. The battle had been over for a long while, and then, magically, these two things appear, break a window but nothing actually important in the room, and kill the guy. That is just a waste of killing a character. Completely. Yes, to make you really FEEL a character’s death, it shouldn’t be drawn out, it should just come out of nowhere… but making it come out of nowhere in a situation where there IS NO DANGER is retarded. The fact that these enemies just fly away afterward makes it even more random. Sure, you can start a battle with this random death, why not? But there is no battle. They just go “Oh, we killed one guy, see you later!” Bleh.

Anyway, that’s what I think of HL2 Ep.2, but apparently I’m insane and don’t know how to play video games, so you’ll probably adore it. I think Half Life does SO MANY things right that it makes me mad when it does things I perceive as wrong, more so than if some shitty game did it.

While I’m reviewing, I also beat Zelda: Phantom Hourglass.
It’s Zelda. It’s very by the formula. It does a couple really neat things with the grappling hook, but otherwise it’s pretty well just as you expected. I’m satisfied, but more creativity like with the hook, and maybe two more dungeons with the new sword you get at the end of the game while giving this sword a power… that would have been appreciated as well. But if you like Zelda and you have a DS, there’s absolutely no reason not to pick this up… well, unless you’re under Zelda fatigue… like you just beat Twilight Princess or something. Then don’t.

Finally, Megaman ZX, you would be so amazingly perfect if you JUST HAD A FUCKING MAP! Every DS game has a map on the second screen! HAVE A MAP! HAVE! A! MAP! It’s still pretty good Metroidvania action, though… After dying on the first easy tutorial boss, though, I switched the game to easy mode. I still die, so that was probably the right choice.

October 16, 2007

My Impression of Alpha Rant and a short discussion of perceptions of games.

Note that this is written with love, because I continue to listen and am entertained.

Joe: Well, I got Game X that everyone is playing, got great reviews, and everyone loves.
Chris: It sounds like crap. Like crazy joke time. It’s not a realistic shooter. Who cares? I don’t care. I saw a trailer. It was all silly. Wacky fun time. Not interested.
Joe: Well, it’s not that bad. I can see why someone would like it… you know, for the kids… in the same way they like those… you know… kids toys. But it’s not really doing it for me.
Chris: I just really don’t get why they just can’t make good games! Just make good games. No more jumpin’ around, running around, good games. Go make good games. I remember when they made games that were good.
Joe: I don’t really know why I buy games anymore…
Chris: Me either. Me either.

They’ve spent the last two episodes talking about how they hate the gameplay of Team Fortress 2 based on Joe playing it from the Orange box, and now I just listened to Chris buying it on Steam, so the next podcast will be all about him hating on it. I just really don’t get it. I get they like their little genre of realistic military games, but that doesn’t make everything else bad. Just… different. I dunno, I enjoy their crazy opinions, but it’s just… reviews purely for them and for nobody else.
Honestly, listening to anyone who isn’t a hardcore gamer or part of the gaming press talk about games is really sort of surreal… like when Leo talks about this or that that he’s playing on his 360 on This Week in Tech… it’s just… odd. I know those sorts of people are the norm, as opposed to people like me who read gaming news blogs for fun… but it’s just interesting seeing that different point of view, I suppose, because it’s something I don’t have at all. I know everything about any game I’d want at least a month or two in advance, if not more… but there are people out there who just walk through the store and buy things for their PS2 or whatever just based on the title and some art… who don’t know the release dates of this or that game, or even if a sequel to a game they like is being made. It’s kinda weird and wrong that I can’t imagine me not knowing these things… I guess it really is just that much a part of my life…

October 14, 2007

Headache-less, I finally get back to blogging.

Things What I’ve Been Doing Instead of Blogging

  • Having possibly migraine-level headaches on a regular basis.
  • Playing the games in Orange Box.
  • Spending time with friends doing friend-like things.
  • Working.

So, yeah. I guess that’s my excuses. I kept meaning to, but every time I sat down to write I had a headache and it was starting to come off very “god I feel so horrible god have pity on me” which I don’t want to come off as. So… yeah.

If you’ve been on the internet, though, you know Portal is fucking AMAZING. It’s short, but it’s one of the best gaming experiences I’ve had in awhile. I felt completely immersed in the world, much more so than even, say, Half Life 2. (even though it admittedly employs many of the same strategies to do so and I appreciate them… I’m just often too busy being incredibly mad at design decisions to become fully engaged) The last time I felt like that was starting up Bioshock… and I don’t know of another game off the top of my head that made me feel like that… so… that’s awesome. Also, it’s hilarious, and the game play is solid. It’s just… great. If any of the other pieces of the Orange Box interest you, pick it up so you can play Portal. Seriously.

What else… Phantom Hourglass is still fine, though I’m only playing it while waiting for classes to start, so I haven’t been playing over the long weekend… it’s very… by the numbers? Though I appreciate some of the little tricks they do with both screens during the bosses. Anyway, hopefully I can finish it up before the new Phoenix Wright comes out… I have over a week, so I don’t doubt I’ll be able to, but we’ll see.

On an unrelated note, what the hell.

October 2, 2007

What Was Up With That Himawari-chan.

Before my morning of actually getting shite done, I’m going to talk about xXxholic Volume 10, which I read last night during break at work. I don’t know if anyone else who reads this blog likes xXxholic, but it will contain spoilers, so you probably should keep that in mind if you keep reading.

This volume was basically centered around the whole mystery of Himawari and what she is. There had always been hints of it, but back during the plot of the Spider’s curse, when Doumeki was searching for a way to save Watanuki’s eye in his shrine’s texts, and Himawari seems to release a bookworm that destroys the one book they need… since then, it’s hard not to wonder what she is. She’s obviously not a ghost, because Doumeki can see her for the entire series, but she’s definitely something supernatural. The supernatural really care about Watanuki, not to mention it’s been hinting that he has a destiny to play that entwines with the plot of Tsubasa pretty strongly… I had all kinds of theories about her being a spy for Fei Wong and so forth.
I didn’t end up getting anything like that, but what I got was completely fulfilling and engaging.
The first half of the book involves Watanuki helping out with getting well water that hasn’t touched any water from plumbing, which was located via a deal that Yuuko makes with a Neko-Musume. Yuuko needs a lot of big jars of this (who knows why, of course. One assumes for magical reasons, or for another deal she’s doing), so Watanuki and Doumeki go every day after school for a week or so to fetch more water. The main plot at this point is about a girl who stares at them as they get the water, but this ends up not to be the important part. On the last day, Watanuki and Himawari talk, and Himawari points out that Watanuki isn’t as energetic as before, and maybe he shouldn’t go and get the water today. Watanuki says he’s going anyway, of course… but then Himawari makes him pinky-swear that he’ll not over-exert himself. Seeing this happen hit me hard, because there had been entire story arcs before about the dangers of pinky-swearing and then breaking your promise. I envisioned Watanuki doing some sort of crazy chase or something to save someone in danger, and getting very fucked up, the moment I saw this…
What happens is a bit more subtle. They need to investigate inside the house to retrieve a cloth that Watanuki loses. Doumeki, who probably knows about the promise, tells Watanuki to stay outside, but he refuses, and a short adventure occurs. However, the moment he started drawing water, his pinky started hurting. We only learn this after the fact, though, when he relates the tale to Yuuko. She responds by pointing out that he lost the cloth right after his finger started to hurt.
The next scene is Watanuki using, by accident or on purpose, another of the dream balloons he bought from the dream vendor, and talking to Doumeki’s grandfather. He makes Watanuki confront the fact that Himawari seems to cause bad luck… Watanuki agrees that he now believes what Yuuko said, way back at the beginning… that there is no coincidences in this world: only Hitsuzen. Doumeki’s grandfather warns him to take his last dream balloon with him tomorrow. He does, but gives it to Kohane (during a nice meeting where he lists off a huge list of Yuuko’s faults… but ends with “I’m very glad I met her.”) on the way to school. This obviously worries Doumeki, who points out his grandfather didn’t tell him to give the balloon away… just to have it. Watanuki tries to tell him not to worry…

And then it happens. Himawari enters, has a conversation with Watanuki, gives him a gentle pat on the back… and Watanuki walks forward, stumbles and falls against a third story window, shattering it and falling three stories to the concrete below, covered in glass shards.

He’s saved by Yuuko’s intervention, as well as Doumeki’s grandfather, in a dream Yuuko conjures (one would assume that the dream balloon would have made a similar dream, if Watanuki had kept it)… this requires payment from three sources. Doumeki gives blood, as much blood as Watanuki lost… we see him bleeding outside of Watanuki’s room, trying to hold together. Himawari takes all of Watanuki’s scars from the accident… and the rest is paid by Syaoran… the real Syaoran. What he paid isn’t revealed… I suppose I should catch up on Tsubasa and maybe I’d know.
In any case, Himawari enters… Watanuki tells her that he’s realized she brings bad luck… and then, with the biggest smile on her face, she proceeds to tell him how she’s always been that way, and everyone besides her parents (and, apparently Doumeki, since his sacred bloodline protects him from most things like this… one would assume that blood transfusion might transfer that same protection to Watanuki, but it’s not revealed for sure yet.) that she gets close to gets killed, or has horrible accidents and bad luck. Just her expression during this whole speech and explanation is unsettling. She’s accepted this horrible thing she can do nothing about, and she refuses to let it break her, basically. It… it’s emotional but subtly. Then she says she was very happy to have spent time with him, and goes to leave his life forever…
To which Watanuki responds that he’ll be sure to cook up quite a meal for them once he gets better. Himawari says he’s a fool, and tells him he’ll probably die…
And then, bam, Watanuki says he doesn’t care, that meeting her was one of the best things to ever happen to him, and… BAM, that he loves her! Hit. Me. Hard. Granted, I have a lot of attachment to the characters, but man! That was quite the moment!

The volume ends with Yuuko telling Watanuki not to ask her to fix Himawari’s bad luck towards others, as the price would be all the happiness she would ever have. Watanuki show’s his character growth off by not immediately declaring to sacrifice everything to pay for Yuuko to do it… but instead to find ways to make Himawari happy despite her cursed nature… the final page has Yuuko telling Watanuki to rest, because he’ll need it… another bit of foreshadowing for the destiny that has been hinted at so many times before…

In any case, I don’t know if that walkthough of the plot was interesting, but this definitely fulfilled what I wanted out of chapters with such a foreshadowed reveal. Himawari’s condition wasn’t anything complex, but it was used the right way, and I loved every second of it.
Gods, I love xXxholic… I can’t wait until Volume 11…

October 1, 2007

What I Done Did on Sunday.

Dammit, Nintendo, stop being such a cocktease. Either translate the fucking game or don’t.

So I’ve been in a Halo 3 haze, mostly… been playing it quite a lot, online and stuff. The Tyrants played on Sunday, and it was every bit as awesome as I thought it would be… we played Rocket Race (which we should try split-screen. It’d probably still be fun with two teams of two) and Infection and Pirate Ship… it was good times, yes indeed. There was only one moment worth capturing on video or whatnot, for me anyway, so I did, if you wanna look at my file share or something.
Anyway, it’s still pretty fun in it’s Halo 3 way, and I expect to enjoy playing multiplayer with the Talking Tyrants for some time to come.

Spaeth and I also went to the Lorwyn prerelease yesterday, and lost as per usual. My first impressions of the set are pretty positive. It was a lot of fun… besides the Planeswalker cards, which are unintuitive and basically bullshit. I really don’t know what they were thinking. Granted, I’m no tourney player, but I can’t see any serious deck not running Planeswalkers of their color(s). They’re just crazy powerful and can only easily be dealt with by spells that affect permanents (as opposed to spells that affect creatures, etc, which are more likely) like Boomerang or Desert Twister… I don’t know…
Oh, I wanted to pick up Dunwich Horror while I was at the game store, but they didn’t have it… so I ended up getting the Traders and Builders expansion for Carcassonne instead. I’ll let you know how that plays soon as I play it.

Plan for the rest of the week, in vagueries: Write Paper, Stick lots of little yellow stickers on things, play Zelda: Phantom Hourglass.

September 25, 2007

It’s Halo Day! And That Means I Talk About…

My new phone! Hurrah!
Seriously, though, Happy Halo Day, everyone! Rejoice and finish the fight! Or something! I’ve been enjoying Co-op with Jonathan, but it’s not like… awe-inspiring like Bioshock was, or anything. It’s just fun. The game is well made, and things with co-op are fun. So… yeah.
Anyway, where was I… oh yeah, my new phone.

I’ve got my new phone up and working, and it’s a lot better than my old phone, although confusing. Weird things like this “Ok” button serving the purpose I normally expect a “Cancel” button to do, for example.

Anyway, here is a list of things I’ve gotten my phone to do, and things I want to figure out how to make my phone do.
My Phone Can:

  • Play DivX and Xvid videos, though bigger sized videos make it lag. Converting to a smaller size would probably fix that.
  • Make phone calls without creating an annoying echo for the person on the other side, like my last phone did.
  • Play old adventure games via SCUMM VM (although the picture tends to be a bit too tiny to play something I haven’t already beaten, because you can’t see small details)
  • Be large.

I don’t know how to make my phone:

  • Do a countdown timer. I keep looking for a program online to do it, but people think I’m going to pay 15 dollars for a silly clock program because they’re insane. There has to be a good freeware countdown timer out there somewhere. I just have to find it.
  • Go into Speakerphone mode. I think I just need to read the manual for that one. It has to be able to do it.
  • Easily close programs when I close them. I think it might just be how Windows Mobile works. But whenever I close something, it doesn’t really close. It just minimizes, only there isn’t like… a task bar or anything to use to close them. They just run invisibly, and I have to pull up the task manager to close them. It’s kinda annoying, but not a deal breaker, perse.

Anyway, it’s quite nice to have a phone that can actually do shit instead of the intentionally hobbled SLVR I had before. I can also sit there and wish that cell companies weren’t charging insane prices for data. 40 bucks a month? Fuck no. Give me 10 dollars a month unlimited data, and I’ll pay for it, most definitely, just to have AIM and such on the go.
But yeah, it’s nice. And the SD card I bought for my SLVR works just fine in this one with the converter, so I didn’t have to spend extra money on storage, either. Fun times.
I don’t know if I should get a case for it, though. I’m not worried about the exterior, I’m worried about the screen… and cases that cover the screen that I’ve seen are completely annoying to use… I dunno… I should look for one, I suppose…

Oooh, think I found a lead on a countdown timer… Blog: END!

September 24, 2007

I felt like updating, but felt compelled to write about nothing interesting.

So here I am, week of Halo 3. I’m kinda excited, though mostly because I have so much fun with the Talking Tyrants. I find I’m best at CtF and Territories… mostly because you can help out in those without actually having to kill anyone (grabbing the flag and running like an idiot, or just running from lightly guarded territory to lightly guarded territory and capturing them for a few minutes). This sort of thing is why I’m probably going to be a Medic or an Engineer most of the time in Team Fortress 2… or maybe a Scout, in the “capture the flag” sort of objectives.

Anyway, life has been pretty okay, I suppose. My phone still hasn’t shown up. If it doesn’t get here today, I’ll be unhappy, because this is the night I have nothing else to distract me from fiddling with it… in any case, I’ll write one of my stupid rambling reviews after I play with it… it can apparently run SCUMMVM, or so I hear. It will entertain me trying to play Day of the Tentacle on there.
Mostly, though, as far as games on the thing are concerned, I hope to get a good version of Frotz to play text adventures. It seems well-suited to text adventuring on the go, since it has a full keyboard and shit. Eh, anyway, we’ll see. I’m mostly just dreaming of a magical life with a new phone. It might get to me all fucked up, as far as I know, or I might have trouble activating it. I’m sure you’ll hear about it here, if it does. Damn, I’m so interesting.

In the class I’m going to in a few moments, I get to Photoshop up a cover for an album that an imaginary band has. I am, of course, using my fictitious solo project, Girl in Drag. I’m gonna be fucking around a little with all the imagery in the opening to Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei to make weird faceless bondage cover. The title of the album? reStrained. Witty? No? Oh well. Tracks include “Sex Is An Enjoyable Pastime” and “Asterisk Ampersand Exclamation Point Dollar Sign.” Pick it up at your favorite fictitious music store today! I’ll probably share the cover, if it turns out decent…

Ramble ramble… ramble ramble…