This comic is unable to proceed because its contents reach the present moment. Right now. If I were to go further, I would be revealing the multiverse of futures upon your unsuspecting eyes and it would surely melt your brain into blue Jell-o. Not green. Blue.
That being said, I'm not actually panicky and crazy and OMFGASFEGJIRANGRVAEM. I'm just sort of waiting for the mess to die down. It's interesting to note that I think Square is underestimating their game, as they're opening FFXIV with only 17 servers for a worldwide release, while FFXI had 20 for just a JP release. Ah well, there might be (literally) OVER 9000 people on the Mysidia server now, but as the weekend is just about over, populations should drop off a bit, at least enough for me to sneak in. Various servers have been popping in and out as their populations fluctuate, so it's only a matter of time.
Wha I have been doing is playing WAY too much Pokemon! =DDDDDD I went on a crazy-hyper-level evolving spree over the last few days and have now increased my Pokedex to 334. While I might be forgetting some, I think there's only 7 more Pokemon I can get without connecting to other games. Technically there's a whole buttload in the Safari Zone that I haven't caught, but the Safari Zone can go rot in hell and die forever. Pa-tooie. Anyway, finished up the Kanto Gyms and got more training in, so I've got a full team of Lv65's, ready to try vs. the Elite Four Round 2. After that...we'll see if I can take on RED. =D
I checked my Diamond game to see how many I could transfer over later on to help out my Soul Silver Dex, and gawd I sucked at Sinnoh. D: Srsly, I was in the Postgame stuff and I only ever caught 63 Pokemon. Looks like I'll have to play that some more to get most of the 4th gen. Might play Emerald too if I don't feel like abusing the GTS for Gen 3s.
Up to Chapter 11 in FFXIII now, and I think the game's 'opened up' now? I'm not sure. I just found a Cie'th Statue in a big field, and then I saved and went back to Pokemon since my DS finished charging. I'll probably get back to whatever it was that I'm supposed to do after my Pokefever dies down a bit.
Finally got all of the Higurashi question arcs, in manga form! Happyhappyfunfun. Need to read Himatsubushi-hen, since the anime was only 2 episodes and probably cut alot. (The game probably has more, but I'm so lazy about reading those >_>; Still on Umineko 6)
And more or less nothing happened at Reitaisai SP. Lame.
Obviously, I've been playing FFXIII. On my new 32" HDTV! So far I'm up to ~Ch.7, and enjoying it. The encounter system reminds me of Chrono Cross, so I'm not too disappointed I can't randomly grind my characters +10 levels higher than they should be.
In Dissidia 2 news, Tifa is confirmed for the roster, as well as every character from the first Dissidia. *crossfingersprisheprisheprisheprisheprishe*
Also been playing Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale. It's a fun and quirky little RPG where you're the shop owner instead of the hapless adventurer who buys overpriced merchandise and throws themselves to their deaths in dungeons. It's repetitive, but interesting, in a similar way that people still play Harvest Moon game after game. The dungeons could have been designed a bit nicer though. Too often I'm killing practically an entire floor (sometimes *more*) just trying to find the damn exit. The dungeon-onry items could stand to have better drop rates too. At least you get a slew of adventurers with different styles to do your bidding. Currently on the 100F Lapis Lazuli ruins. Fun fun.
Quit LOTRO, like I thought I would. The game throws so many damn quests at you, many of which are level-dependent, that it's too easy to be overwhelmed by everything. The story is told decently though, and it's better than the vast majority of free MMO's. But FFXIV starts in a few days, and I should be playing next week. Yar!
Soul Silver really needed a VS Seeker, the Pokegear phone sucks butt. I've got a team together to take on the remainder of the game, I just need to level them (they're ~30, half of where I need them) and get all the TM moves that actually make them work. I may skip most of those though, because Pokemon games rank pretty high for having some of the most arse-backward retarded minigames. Non consumable TMs in B/W is going to (hopefully) be so awesome. Speaking of B/W, it's out and stuff, but Serebii got a C&D to take down all game images for some unfathomable reason, and Bulbapedia is taking forever +1 to actually compile any information. So probably a few weeks before it's worth sitting down and taking a look at all the new stuff. Just a warning though, there's a *lot* of retarded new pokemon, but then, that's expected of most generations, rite?
Ookami-san and the 7 companions ended, I guess I'd rate it a 7/10? Maybe because it was so short, it felt like the only character that was actually developed was Ookami herself, and it sort of ended on a fizzle. Ah well, another episode or two of K-ON!! and I'll be back to just randomly checking in with Shonen series to see if I feel like watching the part they're on or not.
I've got enough Leaf and Moon stones to start a bloody army, but they refuse to cough up a single Water stone. Pleh.
I've been playing alot of Pokemon recently since I don't have any of my console games available yet. Still working pretty good at my pace, 227 pokemon caught and 10 badges earned. I'll destroy the last 6 gyms soon probably, after I finish getting evolution stones and swarm pokemon. Gonna have to start trading soon to get more stuff though, would be easier if the 3DS would just be out already. =P Black and White versions are coming out next weekend! 156 new pokemon too, that's the biggest increase ever, at 5 more than the original lineup. Let's hope for moar Eevees. >:3
Also next weekend is Reitaisai SP! I'm not really sure if it's going to be noteworthy, as ZUN's already put out Double Spoiler and Great Fairy Wars this year. I feel like there should be a reason to the second Reitaisai this year, but it'll probably just be a bunch of average doujin stuff.
Been trying to find other stuff to do to pass the time too, since grinding the Bug catching contest was boring after the second attempt. Downloaded and tried Mabinogi and Lord of the Rings Online at various points. Mabinogi was cute, but meh, so I only played a few days. LORTO I started up yesterday, and while it's better than the average Free MMO, it hasn't really made me feel like I want to keep playing it much longer. Maybe when I get to Bree things'll seem more interesting.
Finally put in my preorder for the FFXIV Special Edition. Been holding off all this time mostly to make sure my finances for the semester were in order first. I've read some things about the game, but I'm not getting in to too much and I'm staying out of the Beta, so when late-Sept, early-Oct comes around I can get a fresh, new world to play around in. Of course, I very much hope it's good, because if I end up stopping my subscription for any reason, I'll probably find myself back in Vana'diel faster than a pos-h4xing THF Fleeing off Thousandfall Ridge.
Speaking of Final Fantasy, a new Dissidia game has been announced, Final Fantasy Dissidia Duodecim. So far there's not really much information on it yet, however Kain from FFIV and Lightning from FFXIII are confirmed as playable. Here's to hoping Prishe makes it in this time. >:3
Nothing special about school yet. Though we didn't have Japanese class all week. Apparently our professor is ill and had to go to the hospital (nonemergency I think) I'm still keeping up with the lessons we missed, although I doubt she'll completely skip them, so I'll just end up ahead for a class or three if we start up again this week.
Gonna start doing weekly photo assignments again. I'll bother Adrienne later this week to see if she wants to again, unless someone else wants to think up topics for me to try to photograph this year.
I can make pasta! And curry! I CAN MAKE PASTA CURRY!!
Pokemon is being annoying. Unlike pretty much *any* other gen, there's literally no good way to get evolution stones in Soul Silver, and the only ways that do work don't open up until I get off my arse and beat the Elite 4. Hopefully the Bug catching contest won't suck too much, because the Pokeathelon does. On a good note, I managed to catch both Raikou and Entei today, so that's 2/3 roamers. I think I'll just chuck my Master Ball at Latios when he shows up and save myself the headache.
School's off to a good start more or less. Jon showed up, though he's not around much. As for classes, Geo I'm not sure about, since we've only had a very brief lecture so far. The first lab's this Friday, so we'll see if I get what's going to happen yet. Stat is easy peasy lemon squeezy glancing over the first few chapters, but maybe by November the math will be more difficult than the vocabulary? Haha. IS310 is kinda boring, and it's the only one I'm confirmed to write papers for this semester, so yeah. The teacher seems decent at least, so maybe the class won't suck too much. Management gives me severe deja vu vibes from Microecon over the summer, so I'll expect to pass with a 98% in this as well, hahaha. Maybe not, since there's no math, but it doesn't seem like a hard class. Japanese is the same as I remember it from 2004 when I took this teacher this first time. A new section of the class was added though, where we meet for an hour once a week and no English is permitted. I like it, but there are more than a couple people struggling with basic pronunciation. It might've helped more if we were using the Hepburn system, but c'est la vie.
Nothing else really this week. I did go get the car, so I can do stuff outside school now! I'll probably just play video games all day though. Or I would, but my living expense check still isn't here, so I have to wait to buy my TV and bring all my crap up here. ;x
Just in case you were looking at older entries before now, there were a surprising number of comics that were no longer functioning. I moved to a different host for all my Flash files, and they *seem* to have more than enough bandwidth for me, unless people actually start liking my comic for some unfathomable reason. Even then, I can probably just do a fake-out and create more accounts with them. Lemme know if anyone sees more broken comics though.
Comic right? Holy carp! It's like a mountain of needles in your face! Don't worry, my friend I have just the remedy. UPDATES EVERY SUNDAY! Or Monday. Usually. Unless I forget. Or get bored. Or asfljanfLSANVKAJGNAWKLJVBAKLJmkjnsldkgnaejrn. But expect it!
Why did this happen? Because I made monies, and bought this: It's a tablet! So I updated! Like I said I might! Aren't I thoughtful?
Out of nowhere except right here! It's a HeroQuest update! Because I actually got off my arse at the end of summer and finished painting the couple dozen or so I still had sitting around. Here's the 5 metal girl figures I ordered back in winter: Overall there's close to 150 figures I think. I didn't count. I have even more, but they're not really needed right away. With the set I have now, there's no problem playing through the main Heroquest game, and the Kellar's Keep and Return of the Witch Lord expansions. I'll need to buy and paint more if I surprisingly actually ever find a group to play with and even more surprisingly they last through that far to get to said quests. But for now the game's finished, aside from minor things like a method of transport for the minis, or a DM screen, or something.
I ended up going to Otakon anyway in Kogasa mode (BEROBEROBA~!), even though I was only able to attend for two days. I still had quite a lot of fun, and spent far too much in the Dealer's Room, as opposed to my usual nothing. I bought a Marisa Nendoroid plushie to sate my Touhou needs, and a slew of Higurashi figurines. Adrienne was also awesome and got me a Rena plushie, so now Rena and Marisa can enact plushie warfare throughout my room while I'm in college. Saw a few things like Axis Powers Hetalia (a bit confusing, but better than I expected) and Welcome to the Space Show (Not quite Ghibli quality, but a very fun movie).
Comiket 78 has come and gone, leaving us with many, many goodies. Umineko Episode 7 is out, which is good as the Episode 6 translation patch was just finished recently as well. It's predicted Episode 8 will come out this winter and wrap up the series. In a related Tangent, mangagamer.com has now released the entirety of the Higurashi series, Episodes 1-8~!
For Touhou, there's been a slew of new games. Officially, ZUN released 12.8, Great Fairy Wars. It plays like a standard Touhou shooter, but you can now freeze most bullets in ice, as you play Cirno. You face off with the 3 fairies Sunny Milk, Luna Child, and Star Sapphire in the order of your choice in a 3 stage run (as opposed to 6) Daiyousei, Lily White & Black (Official now! =D) and Marisa also make appearances.
Next up is the New Super Marisa Land. It's a Mario fangame that's *very* well done, even if a bit short. Enemies and powerups are similar to many things done in Mario games, but with plenty of unique stuff too. But you don't care about all that. You just want the Bunnycopter. Fine, have the damned Bunnycopter.
Touhou Pocket Wars EVO+ came out, but I tried EVO and...I dunno. It's good, but there's just not that much to do. Maybe I'll check it out when it gets translated. There was also an RPG named the Genius of Sappheiros that looks really good, but there's no point in playing it if I can't understand the damn story. =P
Lastly, Touhoumon v1.8 came out. Also, Drakuaza's Insane version too. Honestly, I haven't really bothered with either, as most Touhoumon games are just kinda blah. And Kanto's freaking boring, do something new gaiz.
Onto other stuff, I bought a PS3 and a good camera as well this summer, and hope to be buying an HDTV soon, so I can see FFXIII in the pretties. Already beat Flower and Soul Calibur IV. I really wanna start FFXIII, but it all depends on when that living expense check comes in.
Speaking of which, I'm back at UMBC now. Living in the apartments this year, and things are already looking alot better. First off, both of my roomies I've met are gamers to some extent, and I've enjoyed hanging out with both so far. There's supposed to be a fourth person with us, but as of yet, he's MIA. So maybe only three people? At the very least, that'll cut down on bathroom smell, hahaha. Here's my awesomely tiny room: Doesn't bother me since it's ALL MINE >:3 Still working out a few kinks with making my laptop more mobile around the room though. Bought a TON of kitchen stuff. We're actually mostly set now, and it wasn't as much a money sink as I thought it'd be. I paid for most of the non-food items too, so I can keep them and reuse them for future stuff. I fel iz gro'd up nao yish?
Got a major role in another of Erik's films! In what? You'll have to wait and see! I'm going to kill you with anticipation that you won't feel because you'll have already forgotten what I just said by the time you make it to the end of this very long run-on sentence.
Phantasy Star Portable 2 demo came out. It uses the PSU system again, but they're very much improving it. Of course, they also just announced Phantasy Star Portable 2 Infinity in Japan, so I might instead wait for that and just mess around in PS Zero more, heh.
FFXIV in 3 weeks! FFXIV Open Beta in 2 days! ARE YOU RAWRDY!?
My Dream Diary's seemed to started to work really good. I've had detailed remembrances (mostly) 5 times in the past week, which blows away the spotty stuff here and there throughout the summer. Hopefully my dream memory will continue to improve all the way to lucidity! >:3
And, I'll finish up with a song. Because you're not the boss of me.
Or just about. I still have my weekend adventure class, but I hardly think that counts as school, haha.
Finished the summer session pretty easily. Billiards was an obvious Pass, I'm not actually sure how to fail that course. I haven't gotten my grade for Microecon back yet, but assuming I didn't totally bomb the final, I should easily have an A. Infosys I *did* get my grade back, and it's not really that surprising I got an A, haha. My lowest assignment grade in the class was an 88, and the next lowest was a 97.5. =D My Hiking class is this weekend, so I'll be out in West Virginia for about 2 days. Sounds fun.
Finished FFIV: TAY a while ago, it certainly had a rather interesting ending to everything. Unfortunately, they opted for one of those final bosses that look like a mass of...stuff. I totally had no idea what I was supposed to be fighting the entire time aside from what the name told me it was, haha. Overall, I'd rate the game as a 6.5/10, like I gave FFIII, haha. I *do* recommend that anyone who wants to play FFIV also play TAY shortly thereafter, because TAY is notably better and develops the characters alot more than they bother to in the original game, especially Kain.
Currently playing Pokemon Soul Silver now, although at sort of a lax pace. Pokedex is @ 60-some odd, with 3 badges. Once I get past the Lake of Rage event, I'll probably spend most of my time filling out my pokedex for a while, so I'll probably start playing another game around then to break up the tedium. Not sure which one yet though.
FFXIV has entered actual beta-testing finally! Of course, I don't really follow it that closely, haha. I'll get it when I get it. I'll probably preorder the collector's edition in a few weeks after I figure out how much money I need to spend on a new camera.
Oh yeah, I guess I never said which laptop I ended up getting. It's this one. The cheapest of the G73s sure, but I don't really need any of the stuff that makes the others cost more. And it can still kick arse. Almost hit 4000 on the FFXIV benchmark, which is absolutely amazing for a laptop right now, especially for this price. Hoping this will take care of my gaming needs for 3-4 years, until I finish college and all that jazz and it's practical to actually build a proper desktop, with modifications. ;D
Looks like K-ON! S2 isn't finished after all! I was expecting another half-season, but they've started a new intro, so it'll be a full-length season it seems. That's good, as KyoAni isn't trolling everyone like they did with Haruhi S2. Looking around at the other summer anime seeing if anything's worth watching, but I haven't seen anything yet.
Me and Erik hit up the PF Chang's in Annapolis to see how their cuisine held up. It was certainly quite good, and the servers were surprisingly professional, but the food just didn't match up to the local stuff from Hunan L'Rose. And it cost more. So Hunan L'Rose has been added to our list of places we like to eat often (incl. Matsu Sushi, Potato Valley, Famous Dave's, etc.) Probably gonna move away from Asian cuisine now and look at other stuff, and I'd also like to try out a few new curries before the end of the summer. Hopefully I won't "discover" Death Curry Mk. II, haha.
And then I'm finished with most of Summer stuff. Still holding out with high As in Microecon and Infosys, and I managed to score second place in the Table Tennis tournament. (The guy who beat me had a crazy flat shot, haha. Still managed to get the score 4-2 though) Also, more word on my Hiking class finally, there's an info meeting a week from Monday, so I'll finally be able to learn something about what's happening. Hopefully there'll be finalized dates so I can let people at work know when I need off.
Changed one of my classes for the Fall this week. Instead of doing my SciLab credit with Water: An Interdisciplinary Study, I changed over to Exploring the Environment: A Geo-spacial perspective. So instead of running around outside looking at mud, I get to run around outside with a GPS. Sounds neat!
FFIV:TAY is actually shaping up better than it seemed at first. The first story segment with Ceodore is really the most painful crappy part of the whole game so far. Rydia's tale was a complete 180, and very enjoyable to go through. Obviously the single-character tales aren't that long though, but there are challenge dungeons you can grind for special gear and whatnot. I don't care enough to do that. Overall, the only ones that weren't that good were Edward's and Edge's, for somewhat obvious reasons. Palom's was surprisingly one of the better tales, and Yang's, while enjoyable, had one of the dumbest plot devices in history. Okay, so they're on a boat. A boat with sails. They're crusing to Baron, and suddenly run out of fuel. So, with no fuel, they turn around and stop at an island. To look for coconuts. So they can run the ship on coconut oil. Riiiight. Only one side-tale left, that being the Lunarian's Tale. Then onto the latter half of the main game, hopefully with as little forced Ceodore as possible.
SUCKS! =D You know it's true. God damn giant fireball thing.
Anyway, today's a recap post since I've been too busy/lazy to post for two months.
Spring Semester I more or less dominated. A's in Calculus II, Chemistry I, and Scenography (Theatre Shop). B's in CompSci II and Discrete Math(Logic & Proofs). No idea how I pulled the A in Calc, other than being awesome. GPA for semester was 3.6, overall rose to 3.5.
Started Summer classes (half over already, lol). Microecon is easy and I currently have a 98%. Management InfoSys is also easy, but more annoying, so I *only* have a 97%. lol. I actually went out of my way to write up all the assignments for InfoSys early, so now I don't have any outside homework assignments except reading. Billiards/Ping Pong is a Pass/Fail class probably, and I don't see how I could possibly fail, haha. My Trail Hiking course sent me a notice a few weeks ago, but I still don't have dates on that. I guess it's early though, but it should be confirmed in the next two weeks.
GAMES. I CAN PLAY VIDEO GAMES AGAIN! =D Haven't done too many, trying to work down my queue (But it's only getting bigger? haha) Played through Fallout 3 and all the add-on scenarios. Honestly, while it was a good start, the game just flat-out isn't as good as Oblivion. Combat in particular, but there's also significantly less story to explore and the fan-content isn't quite as good either. The Add-ons mostly sucked though. Mothership Zeta and maybe Broken Steel were passable. Was on a post-apoc kick, but the fuel died out pretty soon after exploring Megaton. Maybe there's something else out there to satisfy me...
Also played through Pokemon Colosseum's Story Mode, since I sort of had skipped that before and gone straight to XD: Gale of Darkness. Was somewhat interesting, though XD was longer and better, even if the main characters in Colosseum are significantly cooler, haha. I picked up Pokemon Soul Silver the other day, though I'm trying to save it just a little bit more. I played enough to start messing around with the PokeWalker though, so I've been carrying that around now. =D
Current game is FFIV: The After Years. Honestly...it's kinda painful. I've cleared the first scenario, but this has potential to be the worst FF game I've played. As a small bit of respite, Kain isn't a one-dimensional failure of a character like he was in FFIV, now he's two-dimensional just like everyone else. =D No complex plot here yet though, but maybe I'll like it more after all these side stories. Of course, maybe it'll all be tedium. Let's find out! (Thank god Rydia's story is next.)
Oh yeah, I started working! Yeah... It's not too bad though, even if it is dreadfully boring. Better than most jobs I've worked. Working 3 nights a week atm, might bump it up after classes are over. Hope to buy at least a new laptop and a PS3 along with some games by the end of the summer. Not finalized on which PC yet, though I've got it narrowed down to a handful, and I may very well buy it next weekend or the following. If I have enough funds, I'm also thinking of getting a new digital camera and a tablet. We'll see how long they keep me around, haha.
No additional progress on the HeroQuest minis. I know, it's been sitting there since Spring Break. >_>; I'm actually hoping to start that up soon in-between bouts of being ruthlessly frustrated at FFIV:TAY.
Nothing much new on the anime front. I ended up watching Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou through to the end. It wasn't terribad, but after about 3 episodes it seemed like they just said "Screw it!" and threw the plot into hyperdrive. Amusing at least, though I'd only give it a 6/10. K-ON! S2 should also be ending this week, and has been significantly more irrelevant than the first season.
I managed to get my hands on the Higurashi translated game! So far I only have the first four chapters, but I can't wait to actually sit down and realize all the loads of stuff they had to cut from the animoo. Hoping to get Ch5 and 6 soon too, since Tsumihoroboshi-hen is easily my favorite of the series. I probably won't get to read any of these until August though, haha.
Discovery! Hunan L'Rose in Odenton is absolutely fantastic for Chinese cuisine. Myself and Erik went there for a curry lunch a few weeks ago, and got almost more delicious food than we could eat for dirt cheap. I didn't see any steam buns though. =(
And good golly I can't wait for this semester to be over. Granted, I'll probably be saying that about all semesters, summer and winter included until I graduate(save one, but that's a SERKET ;D).
Anyway, I more or less systematically destroyed the rest of Nanoha, including all of StrikerS, the A's and StrikerS manga, and what's come out of the ViVid manga. StrikerS feels a bit drawn out in places, and more or less all males have been reduced to token appearances, but it was still enjoyable nonetheless. Especially Nanoha's power of Friendship, aka FULL POWER TOTAL ANNIHILATION. Overall I didn't like it quite as much as A's, so I'll drop it just a bit to 7.5/10. The manga for Nanoha is neat though. Instead of the anime based off the manga, or them being just retellings of each other, the manga actually fits into the series in between and around the anime seasons and fills in more of the background, and in the case of ViVid, it continues to extend the story. ViVid's not quite as interesting as the previous iterations though, so I think the series might be tapering off after this.
Beat FFIII. I sort of rushed the end, since the pacing was bad and all, but that's to be expected of the earlier FF's. My final party was Dragoon, Black Belt, Summoner, and Devout, although I didn't grind the BB's JL enough, so I probably would've got more damage leaving him as a Thief. Ah well, it didn't matter too much since Refia as a Dragoon dual-wielding Gungnir and a Holy Lance was retardedly overpowered most of the time. I didn't bother with any of the DS-exclusive content, because it was designed like crap. Anyway, the remake is better than the original, but not by a significant amount. 6.5/10? Maybe I'm being generous. Anyway, next FF game will be FFIV: After Years this summer, followed hopefully by FFXIII toward the end of summer when I get my own PS3 =D I've also got an itch to play FFV Advance at some point, though I'll save that for now. Maybe they'll release news on an FFV DS by the time I want to play it, right? Right? Yeah, I didn't think so either.
I'm managing to have a better grip on Java and OOP in general, but alot of times it's still a pain in the arse. It took less than two days to completely get the Document Storage System Database for Project 4 working flawlessly, and surprisingly the hardest part was getting started. However, I still want to punch someone in the mouth with a knife every time I hear the words 'code reusability' or 'class abstraction', because that's bullshit and Copypasta does the EXACT SAME THING AND WORKS WITH ALL PROGRAMMING PARADIGMS. GAH! Anyway, only one programming assignment left, and I get to find out what crap it is this time on Monday. /joy
Touhou news! The English patch for Hisoutensoku (12.3 - Unthinkable Natural Law) has finally come out! It only took 8 months! lol All that just to find out exactly how retarded Sanae, Cirno, and China were. But that's why we love Touhou. Because where else are you going to get kappas building nuclear fusion-powered giant robots guarded by an idiot crow who ate the sun? With this, the only Windows game that lacks a patch is Double Spoiler, and I've heard that the hacking is mostly done, there just needs to be the translation finished. Hopefully they'll use an actual translator and not the Valleygirl crap that loser put up on the wiki.
So I finished Nanoha, and then I accidentally watched the first episode of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's, which led to me watching the other 12 in rapid succession. Fortunately I was still on top of my homework this week, haha. Anyway, S1's plot was a bit cliched, but what isn't these days? Still one of the better Magical Girl series I've seen, so I give it a 7/10.
A's was in every way superior though. It pulled off the 'conflict without any villain' really well too, which I was glad to see. That type of plot setup is usually too difficult to pull off, so it's very rarely even used. Vita was a great addition, though some of the other arrivals could do with some fleshing out of their characters. Nanoha StrikerS is next, and a full 26 episodes this time, so we'll see where things go from here. Looking forward to the rumored Psycho Nanoha anyway, heh. Anyway, Nanoha A's gets an 8/10 from me.
Still chugging along in FFIII. The game's a fair bit easier than I remember from the NES version, though I might just be better at RPG's now. Didn't need to do any training even until after the Fire Crystal though, and most of it's just been grinding Job Levels when I want to use a new class. Geomancers and Dragoons pwn. =D
Signed up for Fall classes, and I got to sign up on time too! Unlike last time where I had to wait an extra week because my AP classes weren't calculated in my total credits properly.
Pretty much everything is the same, except I have my Stat discussion class later in the evening on Tuesday (The earlier one only had room for 11 people, weird). Also, I needed departmental permission or something to take Sewing, so I just said screw it and signed up for the Management class I need to take on Tu/Th mornings. Now I got class pretty much all day Tu/Th, Water on Wed, and a 4 day weekend. Rock. On.
Also, it seems Nanoha only bothered with the super-animation for that part in the first episode, since then it's been standard quality, haha. It's not bad though, I'm halfway through the first season and it's still interesting.
This past weekend was nice, first time in a while I just kicked back without worrying about schoolwork at all. Even started to work on my HeroQuest minis a bit more. I didn't get any done though, so I don't have anything to show yet. With Finals just around the corner, I might not get another weekend like this until after that. And then I need to get a job and start summer session. Haha, Katy, you're nuts.
Tried out a Thai place down the road from Marley on Saturday with Erik. A bit pricey, but the food's pretty good. Been a while since I had Thai. The staff was really good, but the atmosphere was...off? I do't really know how to put it. Maybe it was too bright inside? Not good for casual dining, but a good place to bring your parents. Next up, gotta find a good Chinese or Ramen place in the area.
After Thai, went to go check out Lunar Golf, WHERE WALDENBOOKS USED TO BE. It's a neat little place, probably the best minigolf for your money (unless other places changed in the 10 years since I've been), as you get to go around 3 times for 1 pay. Personally though, I'd prefer to go to an outdoor course. The holes are larger and Lunar Golf had no Windmill! How can you have minigolf without a windmill!? My wall-bouncing and jump tactics were pretty awesome, but I ended up losing in the end, haha.
Picked up Phantasy Star Zero, and FF3 again, the later of which I got sucked into faster. I should have FF3 done by the end of the month, god I have too many games to play.
- To Aru Kagaku no Railgun (A Certain Scientific Railgun) S1 rating: 8.5/10 Railgun ended a week or so ago, so I needed more animoo to keep me entertained. Especially after Mikoto's epic Railgun halfway through the finale, I don't think I can just slug through crap for a while. (Even skipped through OP's Luffy vs. Hannyabal fight yesterday, and I never skip OP filler) Lucky me though! K-ON! season 2 just started, so that's another 3 months of them eating cake and not performing, haha. Decided to try out Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou, but it looks like there's too much ecchi and not enough substance, so I might drop it after a couple more eps. Finally, on a whim I decided to start Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha earlier today, and it was pretty decent. Then about halfway in HOLYCRAPWEHAVEANANIMATIONBUDGET. Seriously, that was a surprise. Not your typical Magical Girl series either, much darker. I'll update on that later on as I have time to work through.
when you go from being constantly busy, to suddenly having nothing to do, isn't it?
Anyway, finished up Umineko Ep5. Unfortunately, while Erika has some interesting brain mechanisms, she's too predictable of a character, and the middle section really ends up dragging as a result. However, the finale switches it all over to awesome mode again, and ends on another "OMGWHYDIDITENDALREADYINEEDZMOAR" cliffhanger. Unfortunately, while Episode 6 came out at Winter Comiket, Witch-Hunt has been extremely busy since then, and is likely not even 10% finished the translation yet. They're last status update said that they *might* have Episode 6 done by Summer Comiket, when Episode 7 comes out, but they can promise nothing. Gragfasfnvksmm irenwefgvwvnowi. Maybe I'll go buy the Higurashi SN then. I needz moar plz.
There actually weren't that many alternate class times to work with for Fall semester, so I've got a rough plan on what I intend to sign up for now. As I said before, Japanese 101 and Software&Hardware Concepts are a given. I also went for Statistics for Busn/Econ, Intro to Costuming, and the Science of Water. One of the Stat classes has an online lecture, so that'll be convenient. Water counts as a Lab credit, which saves me 3 credits I would've spent on Chem and gets me through my GED's quicker. Assuming I get the schedule I want, I'll only be sewing on Mondays, playing around with water on Wednesdays, and off on Fridays. The meat distributed Tu/Th. Hope no classes fill up in the next five days...
First things out of the way, I've changed my major from Computer Science to Computer Information Systems. CIS seems more the stuff I'm interested in, as CompSci is going to get more abstract and weird the further I delve into it. I might still go for a CompSci minor, but I haven't decided yet. (CompSci minor for a CIS major might not mean anything, y'know?) Anyway, this summer I've got 4 classes. 3 6-week courses in Session 1 being Billiards/Table Tennis(hellz yeah), Microeconomics, and Management Information Systems. I've also got a weekend course in the latter half of summer somewhere for Trail Hiking. aka ADVENTURE 101. I look forward to it with much vengeance. Or justice. OR BOTH.
Fall semester sign ups are next week, so I'm weighing that stuff as well. Software&Hardware Concepts and Japanese 101 will obviously be on there, but the other 3(?) classes are up in the air. I'll figure it out this weekend with my awesome schedule-making index cards. They're awesome.
Finally started playing Umineko Ep5. As usual, I'll try not to spoil anything, but holy crap Erika is both awesome and horrible simultaneously. I'm starting to think that Bern really isn't Rika, but then again, Ryukishi will probably pull a lot of crap out of left field that will cause awesomeness and WTF and then When They Cry 4 will be grand.
So I beat Double Spoiler. Lemme put it in perspective a bit.
The game was released on March 14, at Reitaisai 7. It's not actually going on normal sale until Thursday. Note that the two Bunkanchou games are considered to be the hardest Touhou games(I find them the easiest though, lol) It took me roughly 15 days to re-beat all 85 stages of Shoot the Bullet(including 3 I had never beat previously), clear all 99 scenes in Double Spoiler with Aya, clear the 9-stage Spoiler level to unlock Hatate, and then clear all 99 stages again with Hatate. That's 292 scenes. Best waste of 2 weeks ever.
Now...what do I do for the next 3+ years until ZUN releases another? ;x
I don't know how I beat this stuff, it must be magic. This is why I save the replays. Because holy shit.
Starting off, I decided to push Hatate a bit in Double Spoiler, and ended up clearing the remainder of Level 8, as well as the entirety of Levels 9 and 10 with her. Yes, that includes Iku's stages, and holy shit, 10-4 with Hatate is the absolute most bullshit stage ever. But I finished it, hurray! Now I'm on Level 11 with both Aya and Hatate, though I haven't put too much time into this group yet.
I did more with Shoot the Bullet too! Earlier today, I finally finished saving replays for all the stages I had previously beaten. (82/85) But that wasn't apparently enough, as I managed to finally clear Suika's "Pandemonium" after only a few tries. ALSO. HOLY CRAP. I finally beat Komachi's Old Rain ~ "Rain in the Underworld Journey" Probably the hardest StB/DS stage I've managed to beat so far, it took me 1085 shots to clear. Now I'm at 84/85! The only spellcard left is Yukari's Boundary Sign ~ "Boundary between Particle and Wave" It seems like a tricky card, but it's also a pattern with no random shots(I think). So all I have to do is spend time learning how to navigate the pattern and I'll make it somehow. Ah well, I'll save that for later. Yukari is hax.
Finally got to go see Alice in Wonderland today. While it's not even remotely faithful to the books, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Tim Burton made quite the visual treat as always, Johnny Depp wasn't immediately discernible by his character, and there was lots of really cool stuff. I do have several complaints about deviating *too* much from the books, like the Jabberwock wasn't really Jabberwockish enough for me, and the dormouse wasn't narcoleptic(the hell?), but they're pretty minor complaints. Overall I'd probably give it a 3.5/5
And last for today, guess what I got in the mail!? Tarutarus! I ordered these back the same day I did my Reaper minis a few weeks ago, but it seems these had to be shipped from Japan. Most excellent figures indeed though! The main reason I wanted the set was for Shantotto, but getting Robel-Akbel, the Star Sibyl, and Ajido-Marujido is neat too. Now I just need Square to make more. Like Prishe. Yes. Ohohohoho~!
I won't even be completing the retexturing of the FFXI Offline project, just because all of a sudden teachers are firing work out their arses like freaking lazer guns. No big loss since I never found a spriter I suppose. Maybe someday I'll find something I don't suck at, haha.
In unrelated news, I cleared Double Spoiler Level 10. Iku is a goddamned nightmare. That is all.
Thank goodness too, I almost stopped painting in the middle of the last gargoyle because I was so bored, lol. Anyway, finished up he set of 13 Chaos Warriors on Wednesday. And yesterday I moved onto the Gargoyles and Chaos Sorcerers. There's only 3 of each, and only one Gargoyle was unpainted, so I just shoved them all into one evening. Of course, I'm not done yet. The heroes still need something to fight with! I saved all the player characters for last, because I knew if I instead ended on 34 Orcs I was likely to just say 'Screw it', haha. From left to right they're NPCs, Wizards, Elves, Dwarves, and Barbarians. I might not do much if anything with them this weekend, as I'm gonna shift focus to my programming homework, but maybe they'll be finished by Easter? We'll see. I also have a few *more* minis that need painting, but they're all ones that exist outside the main game system, so I'm not too worried about them if I don't even have any confirmed players yet, heh.
Played too much Touhou Photo-shoot as expected, haha. I got alot done though! I cleared Stage 8 and 9 entirely in StB, as well as a quarter of the remaining scenes. 12 scenes left now, 3 of which I've not beaten before. I find it a bit amusing that Stage 9-6 is apparently considered the hardest stage in the game, but I've beat it twice now. In Double Spoiler, I cleared the rest of Level 8 and most of Level 9 with Aya, and then every stage in Levels 1 though 7 with Hatate. After playing as her that much, I don't really think she's any harder or easier than Aya. The faster film speed is great, but lack of any zoom really hurts on some stages. Her lens is also thinner, so about 80% of Aya's scores on the same stages are higher. Ah well, I reached some decent checkpoints I suppose, I'll probably hold off on spamming the game too much for a while at least.
In other news, the combined shinies of FFXIII and FFXIV have finally allowed me to supress the urge to go back to FFXI (for now, lol) Not that I could until June or whenever I get enough money for a new laptop, but whatever. Class of Heroes has also been pissing me off something fierce. So, I beat the next-to-last boss around level 15. I go to beat the final boss, and my attacks hardly do any damage and she wallops my arse in 2 turns. 'Kay. I go train for a while and try to find new weapons (I don't, because random drops suck =P) I come back 7 levels later to the final boss. My attacks hardly do any damage and she wallops my arse in 2 turns. ...Wat? I sort of see what I could have done, but that's like another freaking 10+ hours of retraining, which is really not something I want to bother with. Unfortunately, the game is overall fairly mediocre. I'll probably shelve it for a while and then hack through to see all the post game stuff somewhere down the road. Not sure what I'll play next though. Back to MHFU? Probably, but then I'd have to go farm that damn Blangonga again. Might also pick up FFIII(DS) when I get back to skool, just to burn through an eeji-modo RPG, heh.
