The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

So, remember while back when I was all like “Man, I want a moped”? Well, apparently EVERYONE ELSE thought the same thing and actually gave in, unlike me. It may just be the gas-saving maneuver thing, but shit, I have seen more mopeds these past three days than I have in my entire life. Every building on campus seems to have at least two sitting in front of it.
Needless to say, I am really quite jealous. There are cute ones and badass ones and arg… I want a moped.
Arg.

The real arg, though, is how busy I am. I mean, I had assumed this semester would be a bit busy, but holy shit, having everything I have to do in solid, long blocks just makes me feel… so busy! Busy! I’ll survive, of course, I have no doubt. But it’s going to take some serious getting used to, I will admit.
I think my internship will be fine, though. On my first day I did fun stuff (making flyers and hanging them about campus for Journey stuff) as well as boring stuff (reading the slush pile) but both were just fine. I would hope that wherever I work will basically cater to… ah… things more relevant to my interests than Big Muddy, but I could probably do the most boring things it looks like it’s going to throw at me for a living. Which is a good thing. Cause, you know, that’s sorta where I’m aiming myself right now.

Let’s see, what else… tomorrow, I’m running what is probably the last part of the story arc of my DnD campaign, tentatively titled “The Accidental Exposure To Nature’s Fury!” That’ll be a blast. Gotta do a lot more planning, though.

OH, also, Castle Crashers. If you have friends who will pick up controllers, it is a MUST BUY. Of course, I’ve been too busy to take serious advantage of it yet, but…

I guess that’s all I really have to say right now. Yep.

Good things are good, right? So here are some good things.

Talking Timer Brickroad just finished up his video playthrough of Mega Man 3 at 150% Speed, and it is very entertaining. Here is the full Youtube Playlist. Watch it. Enjoy it. Enjoy, dammit!

I also read all of this comic, called Our Home Planet, the other day completely at random. I really enjoyed it! It was pretty great! Maybe you’ll like it? I dunno. It’s one of those things I enjoyed but probably wouldn’t normally link? Cause I don’t think others would enjoy it? But I’m doing it anyway.

Also, I guess, me. I’m good. Right? I’m good. Goodish. We’ll pretend, anyway…

So, here’s the bad news.
I’m not graduating this semester.
I’ve already done my screaming and crying about it, and generally being annoyed at the oversights of me and my advisors with this stuff that has lead to this. But it’s a little late now. I have to take one more semester. Yaaaay? At least it can basically be a semester full of whatever the hell I want, since I have all my requirements out of the way basically, and I’ve had a long talk with the graduation woman and am pretty damn positive that as long as I pass all my shit, I won’t have any more issues. Which is good. A good thing. Good as can be expected. Salvaged.

Now I will make a list of reasons why this isn’t so bad.
1) More time with my friends around here, who I love dearly.
2) Don’t have to put up with complete life disruption yet, which is going to be hard.
3) Don’t have to worry about finances for another 6 months.

That’s all I got. Do you have any others? I mean, I’m going to enjoy all those things. But it still sucks. Yesssssss… still sucks.

Anyway, welcome to another school semester. I’ve not been keeping up with blogging cause I’ve been all distracted with things. Some of those things are bad things, like that bad news, and some of them are good things, like all the fun I’ve been having over at the completely Not Safe For Work Le Jardin Mystique MUCK that Brer introduced me to and I’ve been having a blast with. Also, awesome downloadable games, like Bionic Commando: Rearmed, and even, surprisingly, Galaga Legions.
I suck at both, of course, but utterly and completely at Galaga. I tried it when depressed, and it was fun, and so, in depressive weakness, I splurged and bought it. It’s still fun! The little satellite mechanic is completely sweet, and basically makes you feel like an empowered bad-ass, even when you’re dying constantly like I am. The fact that you can try any stage without getting to it in Challenge mode is also a boon. I figure I’m going to keep playing it in little spurts here and there…

Anyway, yes… I’ll try to be better at the blogging, blog. I don’t feel like anyone particularly misses it when I don’t, but I miss it. It feels wrong to be so lax…

Today, I filled out my graduation application…
…incorrectly.
Seriously, there are like 4 things to write on the form, and I screwed up one of them. Sigh. Oh well, I’ll go fix it tomorrow. I’m sure it won’t be any kind of issue. But still, man… so close to graduation. Crazy. Shit. I’m making myself all worried about it.

But seriously, let’s talk about serious things. Like how I’m replaying Earthbound.
Hey, did you know I’m replaying Earthbound? It’s true. I haven’t replayed Earthbound since my “I have to get the Sword of Kings” playthrough where I didn’t get the Sword of Kings. Every time I’ve tried since then, I burn out around Threed, or maybe Fourside. But this time, I’m at Scaraba, and I am having a blast. Why am I being so successful?
1) Talking TIme gave me tips to make the game a hell of a lot easier and less grindy.
2) I discovered the Slime Generator. Holy. Crap. What was wrong with me, not using this before? It, by itself, lets me complete battles without taking damage. It’s amazing. Makes me wonder what else I’m missing in this game.
3) I’m, um, playing it on my PSP, so I can play in bed and at my computer and all over the place easily.
Those are my secrets to success. Yay! But seriously, Earthbound is such a fucking clever game. The only way this replay could be better would be if I could roll it directly into Mother 3.

I also played through Strong Bad’s Cool Game For Attractive People: Episode 1: Homestar Ruiner today. And it was FANTASTIC. Exactly what you think of when you think of a Telltale game made by the Homestar Runner people. It comes fully recommended if you like Homestar Runner and thought the Sam and Max episodes were pretty neat.

It strikes me that I’ve done nothing really impressive this summer… but you know what? That’s okay. I’ve been having a pretty darn good time. I should enjoy it while it lasts. So much about all this I’m going to miss when I finally get to move on, you know? I need to move on… but I’ve always disliked change… and I’m always going to be sentimental…
But eh, who knows what the future brings, right?
Who knows.

I don’t know if it’s lame or not that I get so extremely excited when R. Stevens responds to me on Twitter. But dammit, it makes me feel all awesome. It did last time. And it does in this conversation this time. I’m so awesome! Or awesomely lame. One of those.
Oh gods, I can just picture me meeting him and going “Hey, do you remember me? poetfox? You responded to my tweets twice?” So. Lame.

In other, um, news… all the awesome MegaTen Let’s Plays at Talking Time were all inspiring me, so I tried to get Persona 2 to play on my PSP? But it totally didn’t work. Damn. I guess I’ll just have to play the MegaTen game I actually bought recently, eh? But seriously, both the Persona 2 and Persona 2 Let’s Play and the Soul Hackers Let’s Play are really damn good. If you’re bored, I suggest a read. For something that started kinda badly at Talking Time, the Let’s Plays have been of a very high quality, for the most part. And, uh, mine was pretty good too. Or something.

Okay, that’s it. Oh, wait, besides this: Fuck, I have to get up at 5 AM tomorrow, fuck this shit aahhhhh! Okay, now I’m done.

Let’s start with IoTMs, shall we? First off, the KoL item, the Cotton Candy Carnie. Now, when I read what this did, Potato + Whelp, I was very excited just by that! Could it be? My two favorite familiar effects in one? There was no hesitation snapping it up. I was kinda sad when it was a Carnie, though. It makes sense, however. I just finished a run and started a 100% Hardcore Disco Bandit (For Advanced Cocktailcrafting) with him, and already I think he could easily be one of my favorite familiars. He potatoes, as advertised. He gives HP and MP at the end of battle, Whelp-style, as advertised. However, when you’re mostly full on HP and MP, he instead gives you healing items to use later, which is an awesome little tweak to make him even more awesome. He’s currently named Homespun, but I’m looking for a better name… it is kinda growing on me, though… anyway, I’m real excited to see how he plays out over the course of this run. I’m also looking forward to hopefully having a few less turns to play this run, due to the Hardcore nature. I’m feeling kinda burnt out, especially since I want to play Digital Devil Saga (which I’ll get to later).
I also want to make a quick note about my 100% Star Starfish run I just finished. I see why he’s one of the best non-IoTM familiars. I was overflowing with MP the whole run.

Over in Twilight Heroes, the IoTM is Wolly’s Index. This is… not a very exciting IoTM. No in-game content, just a really powerful effect. I normally pass up IoTMs like this, because I’m not interested in pure power. However, I picked this one up. Why? Well, because I have, over the past months, become a dedicated farmer. If that’s really what I’m going to do until new content hits, I might as well work to be the best at it I possibly can be. And that means picking up all relevant farming gear. +20% Item Drops is insanely relevant, since the highest accessory other than it is only +10%. (Well, and the Hero’s Cape, but me getting one of those isn’t happening, unless I can go back in time and convince earlier me to buy one.) So I picked one up, and I’m going to do my best to get one for investment, too, cause it will eventually be in high demand. I’m also kind of pleased that this sort of… well, I might be reading too much into it, but this sort of suggests that Ryme is dedicated to giving a Hero’s Cape equivalent to the playerbase every year (Well, with weaker effects than the MP regen, but that’s perfectly fine) which I kinda agree with. (though I was admittedly hoping for a permanent cape-type something in the Wok of Stars. Everyone wants a cape, right? Even if it’s not as badass as the Hero’s Cape?) It gives two benefits, one being that the Hero’s Cape is, by far, the most powerful IoTM, and it keeps everyone on a near level playing field while not forcing him to come up with something else that might surpass it. The other is that it had to be crazy easy on Ryme to make this IoTM. Especially after all the programming that had to be done on the plaid couch, I’m glad he could take a break and still please people. I think 1 month of break out of the year is a good idea. Don’t want him getting burned out!

So I’ve been playing Digital Devil Saga, since I picked it up from Rei since he’s, I dunno, liquidating everything he owns to get to PAX. Talking Time and Persona 3 also have gotten me all… in love with MegaTen, so I’m kinda slowly but surely picking up what I missed during the PS2 era. This game is a decent bit different from other MegaTen games, because there’s no recruiting demons and fusing them. Instead, each character is a demon, and then can take on “Mantras,” which correspond to various easily recognizable MegaTen demons stuff, and teach them their skills. Then each character has a growing number of slots to equip moves, and passive bonuses, and stuff that they learn from these Mantras Final Fantasy Fiveishly. (Though instead of equipping two categories of movies, you equip a certain number of moves total) It’s been a lot of fun, and I’ve been enjoying it, and am going to play more of it after I finish this long overdue huge-ass blogpost. I hope I beat it. It seems shorter than other games in the series (which I consider a benefit) which seems to be because there’s a “Digital Devil Saga Part 2” out there, which I may pick up if I beat this one. Anyway, it’s something to keep me happily distracted until the more awesome DS games come out in September. This and the upcoming cornucopia of awesome XBLA releases should keep me happy.

So Talking Time was talking about this anime called Xam’d: Lost Memories. They then linked to the opening, which I watched. The music was awesome and it looked interesting! So I grabbed the first couple of episodes and tried them… and really didn’t like it. But man, that song was awesome. So I looked up the band, which is called Boom Boom Satellites. They’re a JRock band with one album, and honestly, the whole thing is listen-able to me, which is very rare. There’s much better music out there? They’re not going to become one of my favorite bands? But they’re pretty good. Feel free to try them.

Last night, we had out first session of Essner’s campaign. Impressions! He did quite well for his first time, I think. HIs encounters were a little weak, but I think everyone but Jonathan wasn’t expecting “Sten the Potent” to fucking murder everyone with his trusty knife, The Stabernackle, quite as much as he did. I enjoyed playing Warlord, as I expected. It’s a pretty great class! Commander’s Strike is just a lot of fun, and I still get to heal with Inspiring Word (and now, Aid the Injured, my level 2 Utility power) and… yeah. I really like the class. I think we are going to have a crazy amount of healing, though, since Spaeth is making a Healing-focued Pally while multi-classing Cleric. If I had to make some comments, I’d make the comment that Essner was railroading us quite a bit. Do I do that? I don’t know. I try to come up with situations where they can’t help but get into my battles, but I don’t like… tell them to do this or that… but who knows, I probably do. I felt very railroaded. It didn’t really impact the fun for me, though, until he didn’t let Rachael yell at the asshole at the end and give her a piece of her mind… but eh, even then it wasn’t too much of a big deal, and I can only assume he’ll take what he learned into his next session. I’m eager to play again. Of course, that means I need to do more scheduling. Ugh. Worst part of this, let me tell you.

Before the DnD session the other day, though, we went to Champions Games, (Man, I think that’s the name. I’m doubting myself now. Something like that.) the game store run by a cool guy I used to work with named Shane. I really hope he manages to make the store work, cause it’s much closer to what a game store should be than the bleh places that always fail around here… but Cape is just incapable of keeping a game store going, so who knows. But we went in there and bought more little DnD miniatures, because they’re pretty neat and because I’m much more comfortable getting them in the little theme bags for decent prices he has them in. I got a bag of Soldiers, mostly because there were these two bad-ass guys with tower shields, and this long-haired maybe -female letting out a battle cry and holding a flag, which I thought was very badass, and I wanted to represent Rachael Sparklewhisper. I also got the bag of Lycanthropes for Essner. Essner got a random box (cause he’s weird and likes random better. There were a ton of miniatures in the box! But it cost more than my two focused bags of stuff, so I’m not planning on ever getting one) and a bag of goblins, cause we fought some goblins last night and wanted them to use. Anyway, they’re all cool, but I do think we’re quickly approaching the like… threshold of how many we’d ever need. Which makes me wonder what I’d buy when I go in there after that. Cause I want to buy things and help Shane out, but if I don’t need anything? Who knows.
Anyway, while I was there, he had all these little sheets to preorder various roleplaying books that were coming out, and I noticed a DnD 4th Edition supplement I didn’t know was coming, which is Martial Power. More ability, feat, and path options? Yes please. I might actually physically pick up a copy of that. (Whereas some other supplements coming I am interested in, but will probably use various… dishonest methods to acquire, such as this upcoming Adventurer’s Vault.) That makes, um, two DnD books I see me buying in the future (The other being the Player’s Handbook 2, for all the other classes, such as Bard, which I want… though I don’t see it on the 2008 release list, which annoys me. Oh well, it says March. Maybe for my birthday) along with the screen thingy, cause it’s not too expensive and I’d rather look at helpful information instead of Dragon Strike information (we’ve been using the Dragon Strike screen. Heh.)

I continue to have strong urges to buy expensive electronics. I was thinking about getting an iPod Touch for awhile, and now I’m all serious about buying an MSI Wind. Mmm… I should probably resist, but… it’s been awhile since I bought a new toy like that. Hmmm… eh, I’ll probably keep resisting. Who knows.

Whew, that was a fucking long one, wasn’t it? And now I’m done, and can play Digital Devil Saga. Huzzah!

So, these Tarot cards are pretty sweet. Well, as sweet as Pokemon-themed Tarot cards can be.

In other news that I am saving so I don’t forget, Essner has been creating NPC names for his DnD campaign. An example: Dagger Awesome and the Starlight Quartet. I guess it could also be a decent band name. Hm.

Attention, people who own Mega Man Powered Up! I have finally acquired a copy of this game! Tell me what awesome downloadable levels I should be downloading! Also, the fact that I’m having trouble beating the game on easy is a testament to how much I suck!

Finally got a copy of that Persona 4 soundtrack, by the way. Pretty good! Although a lot of my favorite Persona 3 songs didn’t become things I even listened to until I played the game and caught them and fell in love with them in context, so… I’m sure I’ll love more of it later.

So, the new system at work, eh? Well, it’s better in a lot of ways. The chances of me ever staying past 1 any night are now pretty well 0, which is both good and bad. It means I have to pick up other shifts. But I’ve already got that under control, which is nice. I just hope it isn’t too stressful come my last college semester, but if it is, I’ll just tell them to back off and be poor, I suppose.
What I’m having problems with is the cart. I always used to leave my cart on the aisle as a sort of… home base. I got used to this. I built techniques around it, and I never had to fight to get the cart through the little aisles and stuff. So with this new system, there’s a new cart, so I tried pulling it along with me. I hated it. So last night, I started leaving it again. Not only was I less frustrated, I put up about twice the number of signs in significantly less time. This I am getting chewed out about. Apparently I have to pull the cart along because “I am just slowing myself down.” That’s retarded, because looking at the time, I obviously are not. If I was going back and forth for each sign, maybe, but I’m grabbing like 5, 6 at a time and throwing them all up. It saves time. It’s stupid that I’m getting in trouble for it.
What really gets me is the fact that anyone looking at this can tell so much of the system is bullshit. If Kathy would just be honest about it, just say “Yes, this is retarded, I completely agree, but we need to do it to make corporate happy for just one more week” then I wouldn’t be so annoyed. She’s sort of trying to say that? Hinting that that’s how she feels? But she never does. She keeps feeding us the party line. This makes her feel so fake and pointlessly pushy… I remember a time when she was on our side, and that creates an even worse “traitor” kind of feeling in my head. I truly believe that in the majority of situations, you can manage people and be on their side. Just be honest with why you’re doing things, but don’t hesitate to make sure they do them they way you need them to be done. Complete disclosure is all it takes to have your cake and eat it too. Seriously. Instead, she’s just coming off as ridiculous and annoying, and I can’t wait until she’s not hanging around for ad sets anymore.
Anyway, I’m going to keep leaving the cart. My solution is to walk backwards the whole time, so that the cart isn’t blocking my way as I’m forced to pull it about. Then I can leave it and do my thing normally while looking, to the casual passerby, like I’m pulling the cart around. I’m sure I’m going to be chewed out about my backwards walking tonight, though. Oh well. I do a huge portion of the store, and I do it well. They’ve taken a lot of things away from me, and made me not care. So I don’t. I’ll just do things my way and not worry. When I start causing actual issues instead of made up bullshit ones, then I’ll take notice.

First off, Oh. Man. Persona 4 Battle Theme. I’m in love. Apparently the soundtrack hits Japan tomorrow, so I shall, um, be on the lookout for where I can acquire it. But man, I can’t wait for the game! Even though I won’t get anywhere near beating it! Like Persona 3! And Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne! Oh well.

Secondly, take a look at this comic. It’s actually pretty damn funny. I was shocked and entertained yesterday. Here are a couple of favorite strips from their archives. Anyway, I was entertained. You can be too!

Let’s see, what happened since last I posted… well, the “not having any hours” thing I alluded to disappeared when I picked up like 17 more hours, so that was exciting and will make this paycheck exciting. They seem kinda serious about giving me more hours, which is exciting times as well. I may not be poor this last semester! Which is good, because I’m sure I’ll still have waaaaaaay too many video games I don’t need to buy to buy.

I also saw The Dark Knight. It’s good. But seriously, you probably knew that already, cause, let’s face it, you’ve seen it or you’ve seen the internet telling you that it’s fantastic. Well, I’m saying it again. So there.

We also played some more DnD! This time we had a whole lot of role-playing, actually, which was… unexpected! But fun. Spaeth’s “Dagger trap” he created by laying a dagger on the ground and Essner’s bluff tale of everyone’s experiences in a Tiefling Brothel were high points. There was also some good combat! I think I need to kick the encounters up a bit more… Binks Stubblecleft is sort of unstoppable… Combat Challenge is crazy good. I really need to either start ignoring the challenge or come up with enemies that can stop the fighter in his tracks, cause really, as long as Guy de Purplopolis and Captain Darryl Restitution use their healing moves intelligently, Binks is just… not going to die. There should be some element of danger, even if the last thing I want is someone permanently dead.
I also, in my sad little way, decided to roll up a character. Her name is Rachael Sparklewhisper (Thanks, Wizard 101, for the awesomely horrible last name!) and she’s all Eladrin Warlord style. Man, Warlords are all awesome and shit. Eladrins even have a really great racial feat that just adds free damage onto longswords and spears, and I was going to use spears anyway, so I took that. All in all, I feel like it would be fun to play! All badass and such! But I probably never will.
Anyway, our next gameplay session should probably mostly finish up this odd fetchquest arc I have going on, while still having combat… that’s sort of the hard part, I guess, as the next session seems really… talk-heavy in my head. Maybe I could just have it leading up to one HUGE combat. I don’t know. I’m thinking about it.

Last, but so, so, so very far from least, Mama drew me a new desktop background, and it is BEYOND AWESOME. Gaze upon it. My Twilight Heroes character never looked so badass! I don’t know if I thank her enough for how awesome she is to me sometimes.

Anyway, I guess that’s kinda caught up on things… so… bye!

So. The Electronic Three. The EEE. The E3. It was so not exciting! Well, I mean, I’m glad I don’t have to pony up for a PS3 to play FFXIII, but it was mostly not exciting. What was exciting, though, was watching all the big press conferences with all my Talking Time… I was going to say friends, and then I was going to switch to peeps, but that’s lame… so friends. My Talking Time friends. A chat room was made, and it was enjoyable making jokes at all the marketing speak and such going on. I had a good time. Nothing really earth-shattering was shown in these presentations. The big notes are like… Rhythm Heaven on DS this year? OMG. And, like, the FFXIII thing, I mean, I don’t really know. Nothing big was announced. I mean, I will probably get the Wii Animal Crossing, but everyone could guess that was coming and I knew I’d get it. I’m not looking forward to typing letters with the Wiimote, though. It might be faster to point at the screen? But it is a pain. In. the. ass, and I hate it.
Anyway: E3? Uneventful. You heard it here last, folks.

Anyway, the thing I really wanted to talk about, though, was how well my recent game purchases have been working out. Civ:Rev and Chocobo Dungeon are both not games I can play for huge periods of time straight. I can only dungeon dive about 3 to 4 times before I want to do something else, and playing more than 1 game of Civ:Rev just sounds crazy. Still, I was worried about having two new games in the house at the same time, thinking that one would fall to the wayside. That hasn’t been the case, though! I find once I tire of one, next time I want to game, I play the other, and then back again. It’s working out well. Good for me!
They’re both pretty good games, though I could recommend Chocobo Dungeon better if it was 30 bucks, but apparently a DS remake was announced the day after I bought the game? So that would be that OH WAIT SQUENIX TAX. Still, it’s a fun Mystery Dungeon game with the jobs. I just unlocked Scholar, which I am told is “easy mode.” That’s good. I like easy mode. That’s why I like Pokemon Dungeon more than Shiren. That, and because I have a high threshold for still liking and putting up with extremely kiddy games.
Civ:Rev I probably couldn’t recommend on the consoles for $60 bucks, even if you want a dumbed down Civ experience. Knowing you can get so much more and just set it to easy in Civ4 on the PC for the same price just makes me hesitant to recommend it. But on the DS? It’s pretty darn great. Good price, same gameplay… not having a minimap is completely stupid, but otherwise the game is spot-on. If you want an on-the-go Civ, I wouldn’t hesitate.

But yeah, so… that’s what’s been going on! Shocking, I know. Hopefully we’ll be playing DnD again this weekend, which means I should probably put the finishing touches on my notes soon… we’ll see… Also, you know… Dark Knight. It should be a good, if lacking work and thus funds, rest of the week. I think I’ll get to that rest of the week now.

Despite my better judgment, my head has been percolating and thinking and designing a character to go along with my idea for a Warlord in DnD. Gah. I want so bad to play it as a player, and not just a DM< but it’s really just not going to happen. The likelihood of it is just…  nothing. Bleh. I was going to try Dungeons and Dragons Tactics to try to scratch that itch, but Brer was all like “What, are you stupid? That game is horrible” and it is from a time before the existence of Warlords, so I mean, I don’t know. Probably wouldn’t have helped. Sigh. I sorta wish I could just force people on Talking Time to run an online campaign, but I mean, it’s all this work and I’m not going to force it on anyone, and if I start trying to take up the mantle myself, I’m going to end up DMing again, which is like… completely missing the point of me wanting to play an online game of it. I don’t know… just gotta ride it out. It’ll pass.

In other news, I asked for more hours at work! Since Ad Set is no longer going to give me shit, I have a feeling. We’ll see if that worked on Tuesday when I get my new schedule. It better have, or I will be sad. You’ll look at me, and one tear will roll slowly down my cheek. So sad.

I feel like there are other things to talk about, but fuck if I know them. I guess I should probably just stop blogging and get back to nothingness, which is my specialty. Whee!