The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

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, the other night, after showing Jessie Left 4 Dead and having a good time at that (though she obviously isn’t a shooter player. It shocks me that she beats games like Silent Hill that frustrate me. She must either be better at them than me or have extreme patience) we went looking for something to watch, and, after looking through what I had, we ended up trying some Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. I’m happy to report that it hasn’t lost any of its humor from the last time I watched it. It’s still got such intense randomness combined with horrible stereotypes. Heh. It was, you know, good times.
About halfway through, though, I remembered a series that relied on random humor that I hadn’t seen in an eternity and got out the DVDs. That series is Excel Saga. Going back and watching it, I barely remembered much about it. I feel like it doesn’t hold up quite as well as back then. It’s still totally random, of course, and the humor comes from that randomness (Space Butler!) but it’s significantly less character driven. There’s all kinds of random shit happening, but Excel is just this crazy person who does crazy things as opposed to a character, really, and stuff just… well… happens. Like I said. Yeah.
Basically, mulling these things over, I think I’ve kind of figured out what makes randomness work so well, and that is an adherence to a strong internal logic, even if the events don’t make any sense. Granted, Excel Saga is purposefully lacking an internal logic because they change everything around every episode to spoof various styles and whatnot, but that’s also hindering it. No matter what fucked up things happen in Mr. Despair and his class, they are still internally consistent, even if their characters are kind of expanded stereotypes. Each member of the class is going to react in a logical way, given what you know about them. It gives the wackiness some grounding, a baseline to compare the craziness to, and that just makes it more funny. Right?
That’s the theory, anyway.

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.

So we took a bunch of Christmas family pictures like we do every year, and just like we do every year, it was an exercise in frustration, with my mother running around, constantly changing things and dressing me and my brother up and all kinds of shit. I mean, I guess that’s all to be expected. All families go through that bullshit, I expect. But goodness, it just really gets on my nerves. It’s not just because I feel like she’s constantly picking out flaws in who I am while we’re doing this, saying I don’t smile and so many other things, and it’s not just because she makes me stare and stare at pictures of myself to find every flaw when I’m all wrong and she should know it if she cares… and then she refuses to look at herself because she can’t stand to look at herself… it’s not any of those things, although they are all certainly complaints that I have.

No, what bothers me is that I feel like she is trying to set up a picture of the family she wants, as opposed to the family she has. It’s always been obvious that I’m not what she wanted. I mean, she wanted me to be a son, for one thing. But as she makes me do everything I never do to myself and look how I never look, I just feel like she doesn’t want me there. She wants this perfect idea of me instead. She wants the me she wishes I was, instead of the me I am.
I just don’t get the point of even taking a family picture if that’s the case. It should be a picture of all of us, as we are. And sure, dressing up is appropriate, and I’m more than willing to give it a go, but it should still be my thing, shouldn’t it? I should still look like me? I should still be me in the picture? And I mean, why not have some pictures where we’re looking normal. Isn’t that more likely to remind of good times when you look at the picture? Or am I just completely crazy for thinking so?

In any case, it’s over now, but I’m just left with such an empty feeling. Maybe it’s just because the camera stole my soul or something. I don’t know. And it’s not like I want to completely bitch at my mom. I do love my mom, even if I have a ton of things I wish she would do to make it a less stressful time for me to be around her. It just… all this stuff just reminds me head on how wrong I am, and how wrong these people, who are very close to me, see me… and honestly it’s just pretty depressing, I guess.

Yay holidays, huh?

I feel like I’ve spread a meme around here, even though it’s probably unlikely.
It’s just occurred to me recently how often I now hear the phrase “No worries.” I’d never really heard the phrase before a few years ago, when I read a book with a character that used it (I think it was one of the Rincewind Discworld novels) and went “You know, that’s exactly what life needs. No worries.” Then I started using it often.
Now I just feel like it’s everywhere around this area. Random people at work say it to me. My brother just sent me a text message with it in it, which is what prompted this. I feel like everyone is throwing it out there, when it wasn’t in use before.
Now, I mean, I know it’s stupid to think it’s all my fault, but at the same time, I’ve seen my quirks and memes spread to my friends before. I know it happens. I’m likable and somewhat charismatic when I try to be, and I suppose I, you know, rub off on people the right ways. But this is just… on a much larger scale than noticing one person has adopted one of my mannerisms, I suppose.

In the end it doesn’t really matter whatsoever, and hell, if more people can live their lives with no worries, so much the better. I know I want to. But it’s just… neat, I guess, if it is true. And something stupid that I thought about if it isn’t. And dammit, this blog is a collection of my thoughts. So here, blog. Collect my thoughts.

This semester is officially over, and, frankly, it’s about fucking time.
I mean, honestly, I had checked out a week ago. It’s good to finally get those finals out of the way. But damn, they didn’t pull ANY punches. Those were two of the hardest tests I can ever remember having. Still, the fact that I KICKED ASS this entire semester will more than make up for any, you know, B-level grades on those tests. I should be fine.
Man, though, I think 94 was my magic number this semester. I got 94% on like… everything. It was kind of ridiculous.
Anyway, I suppose it’s time to be REALLY LAZY. Well, besides work. Me and my silly picking up several shifts this weekend…

So, after reading this post over on Gamespite, I bought Dokapon Kingdom for the Wii on the cheap to give it a try. Me and my friends have been known to play some Mario Party, and I would be all for a better Mario Party, you know? Anyway, Essner and I finally managed to sit down and give it a little trial, and I am going to share some of my wisdom that I have gleaned from that experience.

First off, this is a fun party game. I mean, like, seriously fun. The 1up Review was all down on how little interaction there is between the players? This is also true, but there’s more to it than that. This is a game of huge wins and huge losses. When you win, you win easily, and when you lose, you lose incredibly badly. If you’re in a group of people who enjoy trash talking and making fun of each other, the game is utterly full of fuel for that, and that, honestly, is where most of the fun is. Although, I would say that most of the fun of ANY competitive game with a small group of friends is this kind of talk, so…
Secondly, don’t play this game with computer players. The computer is like… good. Really good. And you have to watch every single one of its turns. Even on super-fast, it got kind of old pretty quickly, not to mention how much the computer just trounced us. Four Human players seems the only real way to enjoy this game.
Thirdly, man, I fucking suck at this game. I was in dead last the entire time I was playing, and my warrior kept constantly dying. I have no idea what I was doing wrong, but I was doing it VERY wrong. Still, I was having fun. It wasn’t frustrating. But goodness, it was horrible. But hey, at least I got “Anime Heroine With Punk Rock Dye” hair near the end of our session. I was losing, but at least I was looking good.

I still don’t quite get all the mechanics in the game. For example, what bonuses to Magic-users get? Warriors get random strength boosts, and thieves steal things, but we never figured out what the magicians get. What exactly does the SP stat do? I know it’s speed, but does it just affect dodge rating? Does it change both dodge and hit chance? I couldn’t find these answers in the manual easily. I don’t know if I was just missing them, or it wasn’t there, but it was odd.

I’ll be sure to report more next time we dive into the Kingdom of Dokapon, but, you know, at the very least I’ve learned that it’s worth trying to get us all together to dive into said Kingdom again, eh?

So I finally, FINALLY got in my copy of Persona 4, and I have been playing it COMPLETELY non-stop. It has not disappointed whatsoever. I’ll give you some first impressions, eh? Without being too spoiler-y.

First off, I love, love the characters. In Persona 3, everyone was kind of depressed or stressed, and the tone was, for the most part, almost completely serious. In this game, though there are important events going on and, you know, fate is on the character’s shoulders, they’re still high schoolers. They crack jokes. They hang out and talk about all kinds of stupid shit just like I did back in the day. They are much, much more entertaining to watch.
Not that there was anything wrong with the Persona 3 characters? But it was an extremely rare occasion where they would let loose and have fun. It was an ever-constant focus on “we need to deal with Tartarus.” Just the basic structure of how the dungeons work inside the TV makes there be more opportunity for fun.

Secondly, I enjoy the modifications to the combat quite a bit. I like that all my characters can still run on their own the majority of the time, because that makes the combat go super-quick, which was one of the things I loved about Persona 3. However, being able to take control during bosses is kind of a godsend, and makes them significantly easier, which is a very good thing. I mean, I picked Beginner, because I mostly wanted the story and experience of the game, not the challenge, and I’m still having a little trouble in combats here and there. It’s a hard game, you know? Having that extra control during times when I especially need it really helps. The rest of the modifications seem to more be balancing issues, but I don’t really find any problem with them.

Thirdly, and perhaps, in my opinion, most importantly, I LOVE the new Social Links. The Social Links in Persona 3 seemed like little isolated pockets, completely disconnected from the story that you had to seek out. Here, almost every single Social Link is tied right into the story. They’re your family, and every single one of your party members. It just makes complete sense that you’d have these strong bonds that affect things with people you are truly close to, and not some random shop owner you visit every day, and I love it. I also like the fact that raising Social Links with your party gives them additional moves in battle. It’s a nice and logical touch. Basically, in Persona 3, I was happy just to pick a few favorite Social Links and work on them. In this game, I really want to work on them ALL, because they’re all characters I’ve already gotten to know through other things and I like them. Plus, you know, one of them is a fox. Heh.

Anyway, I’m going to keep playing away at this game until Christmas, I assume, but damn, it is really great, and if you like the MegaTen stuff at all, you should really pick this up for your PS2 at some point. Seriously.

For the first time in a long while, I am relaxed.

I don’t think it’s any huge revelation that this semester has stressed the shit out of me. I was in shitty moods and generally having a bad time. I mean, I was keeping it together? But I never had time to just sit back and recover.
Now that the semester is over, and I’ve had several days to just be completely and utterly lazy, I’m starting to feel kind of normal again. Damn, but I missed it.

It does kind of scare me for the future, though. I never want to be that busy on a permanent basis. I always want to be able to take days every once and awhile to just sit back and enjoy the wonderful nothingness. Is it going to be that way? Am I going to be able to find a job where I can just sit back and relax every once and awhile? I mean, I don’t think that’s completely unrealistic, and I don’t want to be greedy. I’m fine with working. I need some working to keep me from feeling completely useless. But I can’t just be without leisure, you know? All work and no play…

I don’t know. No matter what, though, I am feeling a whole hell of a lot better, and I’m damn glad for that.