*chuck*

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.

PASTA *poink*

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

*guitar solo*

What is...OH GOD IT'S A CAR GET IN THE LION!

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.

School's out

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.

2 classes remain

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.

Summer!

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. =(

Less than a month left!

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.

Fall confirmed

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.

It's weird

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...

Stuff! Yeah!

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.

Spring Break!

Spring Break's here, and guess what I'm doing! Nothing of value, hurray! I did have a shitstorm of homework assigned right before break started, but being as awesome as I am, I managed to finish everything except my programming assignment before I came home. Now to get around to doing that...

Anyway, off my two week break, I'm now back to my minis and actually hoping to have the rest of the ones I have finished painting by the end of Spring Break. Today I tackled the largest set of single monster I had remaining, the skeletons.

There may have been 20 of them,but it's not like there's alot of different parts that need painting. Most of the time was just spent making sure the line between the scythe handles and the bones was smooth.

Since I didn't need another 6 standard white skeles, I opted to make two of them black. Why? I dunno, ambiance? Surprise 'OH SHIT!' moments? My favorite is still Pinky though.

Tomorrow's task is the Zombie patrol. There's only 10, so even if they're kind of detailed, it shouldn't be more than 2 or 3 hours. I don't have anymore of the color I used for the old one's skins though, so I'll get to be creative with the new two, haha.

Reitaisei 7 was yesterday morning! Some cool stuff, some disappointment, and a whole lots of 'Yeah, that's nice' No demo for TH13 yet, but Double Spoiler is out in full, and boy is it GLORIOUS. :D All the features it has makes it control-wise, better in every way than Shoot the Bullet, though the difficulty seems a bit lower. (Not too much, haha) Since now was a good a time as any, I went ahead and also started Shoot the Bullet over from the beginning as well, this time saving Replays for every single stage that I beat. My original goal was that my focus would be on DS, but when that frustrates me, I'd switch over and try some StB, since I already know most of the tricks for the stages. So far it's worked pretty well. Within a single day of DS being released, I've cleared Levels 1-5 and half of Level 6 on *both* games, and DS is now unlocked up to Level 10. I should be able to unlock Levels 11 and 12 within a few days, and maybe even Level EX by the end of Spring Break if I'm really lucky.

Of course, it doesn't end there, apparently there's *another* level after EX, Level SP, featuring a new character, Himekaidou Hatate. She's a tengu like Aya, that seems to get her photos via Google image search on her cell phone or something, lol. She becomes a playable character somewhere around there too, so there's an actual goal for this game haha. And then I get to go back and clear everything with Hatate. XD

Nothing else much happening for now. Picked up Class of Heroes again, but all I can really do right now is grind a ton, which is painfully slow. I'd really like to clear the game before the semester is over. >_>;

ZOMGWTFNOWAI

Hay guys. Did you think I was done with Touhou? Even a little bit?

Not a chance. =D


Touhou 12.5 was just announced: ダブルスポイラー　～ 東方文花帖 aka Double Spoiler ~ Touhou Bunkachou. This is awesome because now I can confuse people and say I play Touhou DS. Especially since they won't even know wtf I'm talking about! =D This is also awesome because it's another SHOOT THE BULLET type game! Hooray! More endless carnage and pretty, deadly lights just trying to take some pictures.

From what I can gather, no opponents will be reused from StB, and there will be over 100 stages (StB had 85 total), and possibly it's harder than even StB which is widely considered the hardest Touhou game. That part could be a mistranslation though.

Guess this means I need to finish up StB then? Haha maybe, but I doubt it. While I have 81/85 clears, these last four are still out of my reach (Except Komachi's 10-5. Sort of kinda almost got that one, but I get annihilated trying to get pics 6 & 7) I was hoping for this though, and this time I plan on actually saving all my replays. I sort of regret not saving any from StB, but maybe after I get my new computer this summer I'll start a new file.

Anyway, in unrelated news, HeroQuest painting may be delayed or not bothered with this weekend. Java's being a pain in the arse and I can't concentrate in the room with all the dumbarses around, so I'll probably lock myself in my bedroom all weekend instead of the basement. Assuming I finish early though, I should still be able to get through the Skeletons. I also placed an order on the last few figures I need to *start* HeroQuest, so I think I'll be ready to roll by the end of Spring Break assuming they get here timely. Now I just need some people, lol.

West Ronfaure

And here we are, all set with West Ronfaure~



Not too shabby, although it was a bit harder to place all the shrubbery about with the large areas with few landmarks. The large area in the middle is intentially left blank, since there is no shrubbery that grows there, just trees and somewhat smaller trees. As with before, I left off the trees for now. If I have time this week, I'm going to root through the RPG Maker files and see if I can put together a proper tileset so I can make these look nice. Whether or not I finally can get a pixel artist though remains to be seen. XD

Since it's March now, I might as well go over how I'm doing in classes this semester so far.
Calculus 2: Who's surprised I take a guilty pleasure with this class? It's the toughest one so far this semester, but when I finish out a ten minute integral and come out with the right answer, it's a damn good feeling. So far, all my quiz scores are high (2A, 1B), so let's see if I can keep it that way.

CompSci 2: Kinda mixed about this one, although tbh, CompSci 1 was a crap class, I just learned alot from doing the assignments, haha. Java isn't nearly as nice to work with as Python though, and for some reason we're spending alot of time talking about memory management, even though Java does all of that automatically. I suppose it might be useful to know down the road, but right now it just seems like more useless information to memorize. I've also been doing all my assignments in Python and Ruby, so hopefully by the end of the semester I'll have a solid foundation for the real CompSci courses.

Discrete Structures: aka Logic. aka Middle School Math. So far, this class is nothing but an insult. The instructor literally spent a 1:15 class talking about division. Not special division. Just division. The stuff I knew going into 1st grade. /wrists

Sceneography: aka Theater Shop. This class is pretty interesting. We have spent a bit of time on really basic stuff, but considering it's a required class for acting majors, I can see why. (Some of the kids in the class are *really* dumb) But I get to build things and run around stage with pneumatic power tools, so it's all good. Haha.

Chemistry 101: Not as bad as I expected, in fact, I think I mesh alot better with Chemistry than Physics. (Good thing I dropped the idea of Computer Engineering) So far everything has been pretty straightforward and understandable to me, and I should have no problem getting an A. This was proven today when we were playing a Review game in discussion session, and not to be insulting, but my 3 teammates had no idea what they were doing. Which means I was basically answering everything for the group myself. And I won, by like 2x the number of points as the group in second place, lol. I think we might've gotten some extra credit for that, though I dunno. Friday's exam is gonna be a snap though.

2 more weeks until Spring Break. I never really figured out something to do, so I'm just gonna spend the week at home, paint minis and play video games, haha. I'm such an interesting person.

BOOGA BOOGA

Halloween is pretty awesome! Except when you can't really do it properly. Hopefully I can fix this unfortunate circumstance whenever they let me into the apartments.

I figured out the source of the floating heads of sillyness in Oblivion! It seems that the TNR NNC merged mod wasn't behaving right and tried to clothe a ton of NPCs with clothes that didn't exist. So I got rid of that and replaced it with NPC New Clothes v2.6 and TNR All Races Final. Now everything's shiny! And I can get all the new clothing too, though that requires messing around with all the additional mods OR just killing the people who wear what I want, lol. Dunno if I want any of it that much yet..

College is continuing to be a pain in the arse, and I have 3 exams within a week. (Still have Calc on Tuesday) CompSci's was pretty easy stuff, except I probably got two or three wrong because I didn't bother looking at vocabulary, haha. Physics pissed me off though, since I basically lost 25% on it because 1 question was so freaking weird I didn't even know where to start. Blarg, I hope I did all the rest right so I at least get a C. >___>;

This week's topic was "People as Places as People". I think Rei told me all of these assignments are song titles. She must listen to some really weird stuff. Of course I'm one to talk, with like 6 remixes of 'Corpse Voyage ~ Be of Good Cheer!' on my MP3 player, haha.


I finally got to go to the RenFaire on the last day! Sort of... I overslept, so I started driving there around 1:10ish, and didn't actually walk into the Faire until after 3:30. Holy crap, there were too many cars. Anyway, got to hang out with Cat a bunch and bother Rei, and saw the Hypnotist show that I hadn't stopped in for before. It was quite funny, since one of the hypnotees were flopping around on the ground alot. I looked at some shops, but nothing in particular caught my eye. That was probably half because I'm poor and half because I couldn't even get at several of the shops. Holy crap people.

Saturday I did an informal photo shoot for Nerd to the Third. Was kinda fun and silly, although I had to balance a camera and mirror in addition to my poses of justice, since I wasn't able to get any lighting equipment. I think they turned out fairly well, other than a couple focus problems and "Holy crap the room is yellow". Afterward I got to run around with Cat's video camera trying to film their podcast when they were all sitting in completely different spots in the house, fun times! Especially when they kept going back and forth and I had no idea who I should have the camera on and inevitably end up spinning in circles. I think the answer to that though is Caramelldansen, because that's the answer to everything.

If you haven't started watching DBZ Abridged, then you're seriously missing out on one of life's finer pleasures. Nappavoice is far more fun than it should be, especially when paired with a Vegeta.

Finally, watch this video. EVERYONE. Even if you don't like Touhou, it's far too awesome not to watch.

Moar Memes

This always happens somehow. I just don't know.

I beat another Touhou game on Normal! Granted it was Mountain of Faith with CHO MARISA, but it still counts! I even somehow did almost all of Kanoko's final spellcard without dying OR CHO POWAR! But then I kinda died then bombed then finished her off with Marisa's burly muscles anyway. I tried Extra stage a few times, and managed to get over halfway through Suwako, but I don't think I'll stand any chance at finishing it unless I figure out a better way to get through Moreya's Iron Ring. Ah well.

I reinstalled Oblivion earlier this week, and subsequently like 10GB of mods. Crazy stuff. I fixed most of the inconsistencies, but like half the townspeople are walking around without bodies. Literally just heads, hands and feet. It's not a major problem, but it was annoying how it refused to be diagnosed. Not sure where I'm going to start yet since I've been too busy to play past getting my feet wet and the water-breathing ring from Weye, maybe the Mage's or Fighter's Guild to wet my feet a bit and then onto the Lost Spires. Gotta remember to try out Shivering Isles this time too, heh.

Still doing good in classes. Kicked CompSci's arse yet again when I came out of nowhere and aced the Graphics Lab without being able to review it beforehand. I also got the Graphics package onto my computer, so I can do some proper playing with it and resume finishing all my work before it's assigned. :3 Physics is on the reverse side, becoming more and more a pain in the arse every week. We were informed *today* that she's collecting the last *two weeks* of homework on Friday by 8am, and if it's not neat enough to her liking, it's a 0. (Homework is normally submitted online) So I basically have to redo 2 weeks of Physics homework tomorrow night. I think I'll leave her a grade for the work she assigned in red ink on my paper to confuse her. But yeah, now I'm understanding why she's rated so low by students. I'm just gonna have to teach myself practically the rest of the material for the semester, as the lectures and discussions do a terrible job of it. I'll have to talk with my adviser to see if I should just drop this after the semester and get my science concentration from Chemistry. >___>;

For the Slayers-inclined: WUT?

New image Hooray!

The assignment (from a month ago XD) was "Percussion Gun". And since it was an ambiguous request, I submitted an ambiguous piece! Artistic license go! I actually almost forgot to take the picture, because I had taken it a few nights ago in my dreams. Fortunately the dream-shot was of a real place! So I walked over there and took more or less the same picture. Neato.

Sushi Friday! Kitteh Saturday! Rennfaire Sunday!(?) MC HAMMERPANTS GO!

Urameshiya!

I didid a comic! Aren't I speshul? Cookeez plz/

Anyway, I'm probably going to start updating somewhat regularly again, but because I generally take way too long to make these, I'm only going to be putting up 1-2 per week. During breaks I might make more, but for now I kinda need to do homework and junk. Yeah.

Anyway, UMBC is going fine. I'm getting A's and B's, and Compsci might be >100% by now with all the easy arse extra credit, heh. I'm actually getting good at programming in Python! And by 'good' I mean 'Programmer Lv3 out of 100+', haha. I haven't even touched graphics yet, though we're supposed to start that next week. Unfortunately I can't just do all the coding for those assignments on my computer, because they have some sort of special graphics module on the server. Bleh.

Other classes are going well. Physics and Calc are the B's, because of technicalities and physics sucks. But it's better than Bio and Chem, so I guess I'll just have to go find Mr. Newton and have a little discussion about his laws of motion and stuff. I know he did Calculus too, but this stuff is mostly derivatives so far, and thus, really easy. Psych and English are just there, neither are really interesting, though I just have to pass the semester.

As for the campus itself, it's kinda boring. Then again, I'm a social recluse being forced in a triple with two guys I don't like, and no one on this side of the floor knows how to STFU before 2am, so that might affect my mood a little bit. Of course, I can just plug my MP3 player into my skull and everything magically goes away, so yay!

I beat Lotus Land Story! I really have no idea how, but I tried it on Easy since I don't play the PC98 games much, and I 1cc'd the whole thing with like 5 spare lives. That one's kinda easy heh. I tried Mystic Square after that, but I was getting pwned from the Stage 4 boss duo onward, and finally died at Shinki. As for the games I actually play, I've cleared several more shots in Shoot the Bullet, bringing me down to 8 total left. I've also almost cleared Subterranean Animism on Normal with ReimuA. Lots and lots of practice against Yuugi and Satori went a long way, and I beat Orin and got all the way to Okuu! Who then nuclear-blasted me in the face with her first spellcard. >_< Ah well, it was much further than I expected to get, and now I can practice Stage 5 (Which is not as bad as people make it seem, you just have to actually move around the screen more than usual.)

For normal video games, I just beat FFIV a few days ago...and it wasn't that great. I guess nostalgia makes things seem better than they were. All of the characters are really boring, they just have cool outfits. Maybe that'll change when I play through FFIV: After Years, but I don't know when that's going to be, because I really don't like playing my Wii or PS2 in here (I'll probably take all that stuff home soon so it's not just sitting around.)

I also played through an RPG Maker-made game called Yume Nikki, and it's unofficial sequal, Yume 2kki. (pun squad!) It's an awesome psychological game that is just awesome. I don't even know how to describe it properly, other than it went on my Top 10 of all time almost instantaneously. It's a SNES-looking adventure game that takes place in some messed-up/awesome dream worlds. There's no real threat, since you can always just wake up, and there's no real purpose except collecting effects and exploring everything. Apparently it's not done, but it's updated only every few years, so I'm looking forward to whatever else this guy has in store.

Anime-wise Pandora Hearts and Zetsubou sensei finished (though the latter's had two unsubbed episodes for like a month =/) Higurashi Rei finally got the final awesome retarded episode subbed and Umineko continues to be pretty awesome. We're on Episode 3 of the game, can't wait for the end of this one when my favorite character shows up! :3 Series in current are: One Piece, Bleach, Gintama, Umineko, Ghost Hunt, and Railgun. I should finish up Ghost Hunt right in time for Halloween assuming I don't slack. =D

Speaking of Umineko, the full version of La Divina Tragedia ~Makyoku~ came out while I was on hiatus, here it be!

Pretty nice, though I still can't get 100% used to it.

I'd love to write more, but I don't want to. More whenever I get around to it. I'll probably resume with Adrienne's photo assignments next week as well.

Imadork

I always think this is going to happen when we work on piecewise functions.

Tomorrow is International Talk Like a Pirate Day! Are you ready to buckle your swashes and shiver some timbers, I know I am! I'm going to see if I can do it as completely casually as I can too, as if nothing is out of the ordinary. Of course, it isn't that abnormal for me anyway, but I digress.

HOLY CRAP BEST GAME EVER! Not really, but it's really awesome, creepy, confusing, and free! It's called Yume Nikki (Dream Diary) and it's a 16bit computer game made by the standard awesome/crazy Japanese people with too much time on their hands in RPGMaker (2003 I think). Anyway, I don't really understand the plot yet (if there is one), but you're a hikkikomori in your apartment (if you try to leave, your character just sits there shaking their head, I don't blame them). Anyway, you go to sleep, and then it's basically an adventure-based acid trip, like real dreams! Seriously, I can't properly describe this game, go play it yourself. Here's the download link. It's in .RAR, so make sure you can unzip that. Then you have to install the RPGMaker player(?) or something which is included, and change your unicode settings on your computer to Japanese. All the instructions are in the file, so it's not too hard to figure out.

So far, while I have no idea what I'm doing but wandering around mostly, I have found some items that can transform my character in the dream world. Namely, I can have long hair, blond hair, no face, be a severed head, traffic light, glowing neon, and a few other things. Notably, I can become a yuki-onna, who's pretty, and makes it snow wherever you are, which I used to put out a fire that was guarding a musical spaceship. No really. Why are you still reading my meaningless drivel, go play it already!

Nothing much to report on campus life. Half my classes are boring, my sink's been flooded for a day and maintenance hasn't gotten around to here yet, and the air conditioner keeps resetting itself. I went to anime club with Adrienne, but it was kinda boring since there was no anime and we were antisocial, but we did get chips and pizza and soda. We left early and went on an adventure, discovering the Rock Garden that has a bench with a journal full of stuff written in it. I might go back sometime and just sit there and read through some of the entries, it looks like it might be fun. Next adventure's going to either be exploring the tunnels or hunting down the duck pond. >:3

PS. This is awesome and win:

ZzzzzTHE PIE IS OVEN BAKED wut?

It's really hot in that Lecture Hall. I wonder who I can complain to?

In other classes, I had way too much fun with the English paper I turned in today, writing a second copy as a highly sarcastic version of netiquette from the POV of the internet. My partner laughed too much though, so Ms. Putzel came around and looked at it too. (by the way, it's funny because she slides around the classroom in a rolly-chair, so you don't see her coming usually) I offered to turn it in alongside our normal assingment, and she insisted I did. I can't wait to see what kind of a response I'll get back from that! XD

Touhou yay! I've started getting into the shooters again when I don't really have time to boot up FFIV, mainly Subterranean Animism. Somehow, not only have I managed to clear Iiji Modo with all 6 teams, but I tried Normal Mode again earlier today, and after being faceraped by Parsee in Stage 2, I somehow got all the way to the stage area after the Stage 5 midboss, a full level past my previous best attempt. Yuugi didn't even kill me once, it's a miracle! I think I'll keep trying a bit longer at that, I'd like to at least be able to fight Normal Mode Orin through once sometime. ;x

This week's theme was 'Pop is Dead'. Adrienne sorta got the idea right before I was able to do the shot, but there's like, no canned soda anywhere on campus. D:

I like this one, though it would've been ever awesomer with a fish-eye. ;3

Now, back to ruthlessly slaughtering small woodland creatures until my trail of blood leads me to my next destination! Ho-hah!

One Week Down

Anyway! As of today I've survived one week of actual school. Technically I've been here for eleven days now, but classes started last Tuesday, so this is important! If I pretend maybe...

This week's photo was "The First Five Times." My first couple ideas were actually really awesome, but I couldn't get the time machine to work right without losing at least 3 meals off my meal plan, so I said screw it and just decided to stay within the boundaries of this dimension for the shot.


Got to do a psuedo-waterpark thing again! More inflatable slides appeared in Erickson Field on sunday, but this time there was water! There still wasn't much though, but it felt good toget dunked repeatedly into a small pool of water, especially after I went on the slip n' slide too fast and rolled through the mud past the end for a few feet, haha.

Spend most of the rest of the weekend doing homework or interbutting. I tried to get back into Oblivion with a magey character, but it's kinda uninteresting. I might remake a heavy fighter type to see what that's like. Still haven't done Shivering Isles or Dark Spire, but I dunno if I'll get to that this time. I also started playing FFIV DS, and have been brutally assaulted buy waves of Nostalgia.

Oh yeah, my finger's doing much better now, it usually only hurts when I clench my fist, so I figure it'll be back to normal next weekend sometime. Wheee!

Nyanya~nya nya~

Our Physics teacher literally said that about turning in late assignments. I thought it was pretty funny.

I'm not really going to type alot today, because I stubbed my right pinky jump/falling out of my bed earlier, and while it's not swollen or anything, it still hurts like hell. Even though you don't use them alot, it's amazing how much you depend on your pinky and ring fingers without realizing it.

Lesse, biked a half hour at the gym, and surprisingly wasn't sweaty or tired at all when I got back to my dorm. Looks like all the walking I'm doing helped warm up my legs enough not to be destroyed like after Capture the flag last week, haha.

STILL no Higurashi Rei 5 subs. Want moar Hirukowashi-hen NAO! T_T

And to all none of you who dare to wonder wtf is up with the end of the flash, I present to you, Neko Miko Reimu. I will not be held accountable for any sanity or narwals you lose during viewing said video.