The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Okay, okay, fine. Halo 3.

It’s a shooter and it’s pretty good. It’s obviously well-made. I’ve been skipping all of the plot, though, because I don’t really care… whenever someone talks to us, Jonathan and I yell “WE’VE GOT GUNS! WE WILL SHOOT YOU! VIOLENCE SOLVES EVERYTHING!” I think there’s a plot, though. People on Talking Time seem to be trying to dissect it. There are even Marathon-style terminals, apparently, with more plot. I haven’t found any, though.
In any case, I can’t imagine playing through it and being entertained without Co-op. It’s just that much more fun. I can’t wait to get into some sort of 4 player co-op game on Legendary and bring everyone down! Because I will.

The real reason I got the game, though, was for multiplayer. I’ve been having so much fun with the Talking Tyrants in Halo 2, I wanted not to miss out on a moment of it. Just last night, I jumped into a huge game of Forge that people were doing… the dicking around was beyond entertaining. I picked up Mr. Beatall in a tank and flew him around the level while he shot at people on the ground… it was fun, fun times. Just that alone seemed worth the price of admission. Add that to all the normal online matches I’m going to play, with great new variants I really enjoy like VIP, and it’s going to be worth the cash in the long run.
Oh, also, you can have up to four guests playing online with you, this time! So I can bring a full splitscreen worth of people into online matches. I expect to do this a lot. Spaeth and Jonathan and I have already played a fair share of Big Team Battle matches, and it was good times. Granted, it’s always better to have the full screen for these things, but the enjoyment of co-ordinating with people in the room with you can’t be beat.

Anyway, with the cool features that make it easy to pull screenshots out of Halo 3, I thought it prudent to reset up the image dump gallery I used to have… I think I’m using a different backend now, but that was just because it was so easy to set this up. (Fantastico is a great resource for people who are only partially knowledgeable about these things like me) I guess all my WoW screenies are lost to time, now, but oh well. No big deal. If I lose these, it won’t be a big deal either. But you can either click here or use the link on the top bar to go look at the gallery if you’d like, though. Yes, it’s ugly and default. I might change it sometime if I get the urge. But it’s mostly just a way to upload pictures and store them easily so I can link them other places with little hassle.

Well, guess I best be getting back to class… fun times… fun times…

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!

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…

Hey hey. New Deadpan. New crap of mine in the Deadpan. Specifically, the opening, a poem, and hey, I got a Greasy Spoon point! Score!

So let’s talk about Worms: Open Warfare 2 for the Nintendo DS.
It’s the best version of Worms I’ve played in a long time.
The Xbox Live version of Worms was pretty disappointing, overall. It’s still fun, but the lack of the wide variety of wacky weapons that the series is known for really hurt it. It was very bare-bones. Coming from that, Open Warfare is a joy. It doesn’t have quite the huge weapon set of Armageddon, but it is very sizable, and contains classic favorites that were completely left out of the XBLA version, such as the Holy Hand Grenade. It has “Hotseat” multiplayer, where you pass the DS between all your friends as you play, as well as Single-Cart multiplayer and, of course, Multi-cart multiplayer. It also has ranked online play over the Wi-Fi connection. I know this is just a list of features, but seriously, the Worms gameplay is classic and hasn’t changed much since the original. What you want are the robust set of features to make playing a great game customizable how you want and easy to get into. This does that, most definitely.
The only real complaints are that you sometimes feel you don’t know what exactly is going on, since Worms is really built more for a widescreen view, instead of the tall vertical view you get over the two screens of the DS. Add in playing Hotseat, where you don’t get to see your Worms exploding because the DS isn’t in your hand when it’s happening, and you can get a little confusing. Also, the lack of Napalm strikes, Molotov Cocktails, and Napalm Throwers is saddening. But there’s not much that can be done about that on the system. I assume all of those are technical limitations, which I can accept. I mean, this is a DS game that has a loading screen. It’s obviously pushing the hardware pretty hard.
In any case, if you like the “pass around between your friends because we’re bored” multiplayer of Advanced Wars and have played and enjoyed Worms (or, if you’re really old school, something like Scorched Earth) before, this is a really easy recommendation. If you don’t like playing Worms, this isn’t going to convert you, though.

Also, damn, I hadn’t seen the Concrete Donkey weapon before, but holy shit that’s overpowered. I was playing online (which you should do with me, if you pick up the game. Check out the new version of my Gaming Info page. It’s linked at the top, too, in that little bar) in a mode where I had infinite everything, and there was absolutely no reason not to use that every turn. It practically guaranteed a kill every time.

In other news, I keep thinking about writing more Role-Playing… finishing up the first story arc and getting it out there and seeing if people are interested in the adventures of Rebecca  “Tailrazor” Ai… but I dunno. I have such problems with focus in all things… we’ll see.

Here is a short review of Shoot ‘Em Up.

The entire time, I was laughing because what I was seeing was so completely ridiculous, and that was the point. It’s not some sort of high art thing, it’s just incredibly exciting and stupid fun. You should see it, if you would like exciting and stupid fun. At the very least, give it a rent when it hits DVD.
I’d sort of like to say more about the movie, but that’s really it before getting into details that I really think you shouldn’t know beforehand. They’ll add to the enjoyment. So… that’s it, I guess. Do give it a try sometime, though.

In other news, my wrists are really hurting. Which sucks. I also finally completed my quest to acquire Casino Royale in a buy 2 get 1 free used DVD deal, so that’s happy. Also, I need to write a poem using the word “Littoris.” Probably something talking about some book needing to “lick my Littoris.”

Yeah.

You know what? Fuck it all.

This entire semester I have been so focused on “have to do good so I can graduate on time” that I have been sick, nervous, and moody throughout the entire thing. Brer has had to deal with me, people have had to deal with me… you know what? Fuck it. It’s not worth it. Being miserable isn’t helping me do better at school anyway. From now on, focusing on having fun and relaxing. So what if I have to do one more semester? What the hell is one more fucking semester anyway? It’s not like I’m ever going to be closer to getting what I want, and it seemed likely that I was going to have to do a third anyway. So fuck it.
Fuck.
It.
Fuck it.

In other news, happy Talk Like A Pirate Day, Matey! Arr, Avast, Etc! I took some sort of Pirate Name poll, and it said I was some sort of smelly person, which I didn’t appreciate. Oh well.

It’s time to test blogging from Flock on the new system. If you’re seeing this, it’s working! SCORE!

So now, I’m going to review Kino’s Journey, the anime, also known as Kino No Tabi. I’ve got two episodes left. Short version, it’s really good. I’m happy to have paid money for it.

The story is a tale of a youngish girl named Kino, who rides around to all these various countries that are stora like City-States, on her talking motorcycle, Hermes. She’s got two guns and she sometimes kill people, but that’s not the point of the show. Basically she just goes and looks around, talking to people, and finding out how they live.
Most of the characters Kino meets have a decent amount of depth to them. They’re interesting, which is good, because a lot of the episodes involve these people just telling their tales. These tales are happy, these tales are sad, these tales are infuriating. Most stories don’t seem to have a point or a moral, they just how things are. It’s just sort of reporting on how things are in the world the show takes place in, and thus talking about how our lives work.
Most of the emotion, though, is very detached. Kino herself is a very deadpan, detached person, probably because of her past, and all the death she’s experienced. She’s a good person, but she does kill when she feels it appropriate. The book opens with her asking Hermes if she’s a bad person for all the people she’s shot. She’s not, really, but at the same time she shows very little remorse for the death she causes. The most remorse and sadness she’s shown in the show, really, has been over the deaths of three rabbits she killed to make food for some travellers that are stranded. The fact that most of the deaths are fairly graphic and not obscured combined with this sort of “That’s how life is” additude the show has towards death is kinda… refreshing and interesting. There are no dramatic deathbed speeches or crying over dead bodies. They’re just dead.
The whole show feels detached, and it leads to a more… distant feel than most shows. You really do feel like you’re, I dunno, looking through a camera at all this, and aren’t really a part of it. Even when Kino is involved, doing things to help, she’s very clearly just passing through. It’s just a small stop, an interesting story to tell others, and after three days she’ll be gone and likely never have any effect on these people. You watch, and very emotional things happen, and the show has real emotion behind it, but you can barely feel it, because you’re so far away. It’s like a little quiet echo of feeling. It’s kinda unsettling, but it fits the series perfectly. I might be over dramaticizing what I feel here, of course, but it’s a hard thing to explain.
In any case, I suggest you watch it if that sounds like something you could enjoy. The Light Novel this is based on is amazing too, which I think I’ve written about before. It was the reason I bought this, and I’m going to buy the rest of the Light Novels as they come out. Brer claims that the show is similar in feel to The Little Prince, which is something I’ve always wanted to read but never got around to it. I trust that he’s right, as he’s watched a couple episodes with me (though it didn’t keep his interest) so that might be a good thing to keep in mind if you’re thinking about watching it.

There you go. Another rambling review done. Man, I feel exhausted for no real reason… I should go take a nap.

Okay, I have minutes before class, and I’m going to do a quick review of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, because I’ve been watching it.

Short Version: It’s really weird, but the kind of weird I laugh at. For example, see Youtube video of the opening.

Long Version: It is a story of a man who is over-dramatically depressed. When you write his name sideways, it says “Despair.” Apparently one of his brother’s names, written that way, is “Death” as well. He’s a doctor.
Anyway, he’s a school teacher, and he has a class full of female stereotypes: Panty-shot prone forgeiner. Shy Text-messager. Anal-retentive leader-type. Stalker. Hikkomorri. Etc, etc. All of them have very punny sorts of names that reflect who they are. Although all of these characters are fairly one-dimentional, it’s just silly to watch them all interact together in one place. You add this sort of feeling to the incredible randomness of the people making the anime (every time the camera cuts away from a blackboard, it says something different, and what it says is almost always pointless and unrelated. They also use this head of someone I assume is on the anime team all over everywhere. It’s even in that opening I linked.) and you get this sort of crazy humor which often appeals to me. It’s not going to break any sort of new anime ground or be art in any way, but it’s an enjoyable show. About how I feel about Lucky Star, actually, now that I think about it. Not going to become fanatical about it, but it’s entertaining enough to make me want to keep getting new episodes to fill my time. I suppose that’s all most shows can ask for.

In non-review related news, apparently Ecks was not insane, and the title of my blog is cut off when you’re viewing it with Vista’s version of Internet Explorer (I’m on a Vista PC at the computer lab at school right now). I’m not going to worry about it, it looks pretty fine anyway, but that’s really weird. I guess that’s just more proof that Vista is not something you really want to be near right now. Give it at least another year for Microsoft to hammer out a lot of the suckiness, yeah?

Okay, class time. Trying to catch up on reviewing all the stupid things I’ve been consuming. Up soon: Invincible, Metroid Zero Mission, Metroid Fusion, Kino’s Journey. I’m sure you don’t care, but stay tuned for thoughts on those anyway.

Ah, blogging… how I missed you… here, let me hold you once again… oooh… oh yeah… that’s good… that’s real good…

So, as you can see, new blog setup. It seems to be running purty gewd, which is good. Hopefully it’ll transfer well, though, since apparently Droid is going to be changing the servers again, soon. We’ll hope for the best, yeah?

But yeah, this new blog has all sorts of features, like Categories, and a wonderful little picture Mama doodled for me! Neat, huh? I think so. Brer doesn’t like the shade of green, but I do, so… yeah.

In any case, what’s been happening while I’ve been gone? DEPRESSION. So I’m not going to talk about it.

But tonight, there was no depression. No no. Tonight, I played more Halo with the Talking Tyrants of Talking Time. Whoo! I suck so bad in general, although apparently the one game type I don’t suck at is free-for-all Land Grab. Which is fun as shit. Eh, you can judge my worth for yourself. Bungie.net Link Go!

Anyway, I’m sure I’ll have better things to say soon… but for now… here’s a post, enjoy the new blog, and hopefully I’ll… be interesting… soon… yeah.

Setting everything up again, this time in WordPress. Fun times abound.

Apparently I can’t delete posts. Amaaaaaazing…

Well, figured a workaround, but still getting weird-ass errors… hm…

I guess it’s time for me to type a big paragraph to make sure the text goes all the way over la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la!