Saturday, April 17, 2004

My Excuse for Not Posting More

	Hmm, it's been too long since I posted anything on here. Mainly because I've been pre-occupied with other things, such as school and OtakuBoards. I haven't even gotten around to beating the Wind Temple in The Wind Waker yet, which I'm looking forward to doing some time this weekend. It's been too long since I played TWW, also, and I'm missing it. The problem is, I prefer playing in the day time or evening while doing stuff on the internet at night. Like today, I had school in the morning and afternoon, and after dinner I went to the usual Friday night Bible study, and now I'm here. And it's night -- being 11:06 PM at the moment -- so I don't feel like playing videogames so much as I do stuff on the net. It seems like I rarely play games at night unless I've recently gotten a new game to play, in which case I usually put it on my priorities list above online stuff no matter what the time. Heck, some games I put above sleep, such as when I stayed up till dawn playing Final Fantasy Tactics Advance almost the entire first week I had it. I had 40 hours of play time in a week; that's as much as a full time job, heh. About school, I just finished reading Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet today. In my literature book, they pretty much just reprinted the entire play for the whole of the section on drama. And, even though I'd already read pretty much all of it before, I had to read it once again. On one hand, it wasn't any better the second time, but on the other hand, it wasn't really any worse either. Remembering bits from the Reduced Shakespeare version while reading through it was funny, however. (A nose by any other name would still smell). Right, I have nothing interesting left to say. Goodbye.

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Monday, April 12, 2004

Easter Day

	Easter, which is now technicaly yesterday, went pretty well I'd say. I got up at about 9:30 AM, got ready, had some coffee, and then headed off to church with my family at about 10:30 AM. The Easter church service at my church was held at the fair grounds this year, with seating in the grand stand, and only a single service was held. (Instead of the usual three). It was cool; the stand was completely filled, and then some as some people had to sit in some of the other side bleachers. The only downside was that, with so many people and the junior high and highschool groups being together with the main service in the stands and not seperate, I wasn't able to see any of my friends. After we returned home, I had another mug of coffee -- the last in the pot, and I didn't make more, heh -- and then settled in to play Zelda: The Wind Waker. My figurine collection recieved a valuable addition as I added the Jalhalla figurine after beating the Earth Temple, which was just as fun as I remembered it from my first time through the game. This time, however, I had the Hurricane Spin, which made beating Jalhalla easier and more fun. What I'd do is, after I picked it up and threw it at one of the spiked pillars, I'd immediately charge up a Hurricane Spin. Then when it split into all the little Poes, I'd release the Hurricane Spin and take out about ten of them in a matter of seconds. And I would've taken out more each time, except there's apparently a limit on how many you can kill, since it cut short my Hurricane Spin to let the Poes reform into Jalhalla every time. But the joke was on it, because since it cut the spin short, I didn't have to stand there dizzy for a few seconds afterwards. Sucker! Oh, and I discovered something while in the Earth Temple. (Quite by accident, mind you). I found that when you're carrying Medli around, and you switch to the first person view and look all the way up, you can almost see up her dress. But not quite; if only you could look up just a little farther, heh. And while on the subject of The Wind Waker, I've decided that my favorite island is Shark Island. Why, you ask? Because of the huge battle that you find on it when you drop down the hole. It's just a big, open room with elevated entrances for monsters to jump down from, and when the fight is over the ground is just littered with tons of monsters' weapons. It starts off with a few Miniblins coming after you, quickly followed by a couple Bokoblins. Then come the full-sized Moblins, still with their smaller cousins coming at you. Then . . . then the Darknuts start coming. Two at once, still with all three types of Moblins streaming into the room. And after you beat those, still more Darknuts arrive, accompanied by a few Blue Wizrobes (though the Wizrobes only appear one at a time). After you beat that wave of Darknuts and Wizrobes -- still with all the Miniblins, Bokoblins, and Moblins mixed in, mind you -- you get to fight four more Darknuts at once, plus another Wizrobe, though by now the Moblins have subsided. (Unless you've been slacking and haven't killed them yet). Now, this is where you can show some real prowess when it comes to swordplay; taking on four Darknuts at once is no walk in the park. The third time I did this (yes, I went through this battle three times in a row, I had so much fun), I was at my best. I successfully managed to pull off a counter-attack against each Darknut without getting hit, and all in a row. I'd do a counter on one, land after knocking its helmet off or slicing away its armor, target the next one and tap A again immediately as my sword flashed green to do another counter, and so on until I'd hit all four of them. And then, once they were vulnerable, I mopped them up with flurries of sword combos and Spin Attacks. In the end, I think I only took maybe one heart of damage while fighting those four. . . . I really need to get a video capture card so I can take video clips of some of the insane crap that I do, heh. Anyway, now that I've finished my crazed rant about TWW, I'll get back to how Easter went: After playing The Wind Waker for a couple hours, I helped out withy dinner a bit. Shucking the corn seems to have become my chore, so I did that, emptied the dishwasher, prepared some celery sticks. . . . Nothing interesting, heh. Dinner was very good, though; tri-tip steaks, fried potatoes, corn on the cobb, and homemade rolls. Afterwards, I managed to get in some time playing my ocarina while everyone else was gone except one of my brothers, whose room is at the other end of the house. I don't like to play with others around yet, because I still suck, lol. So, I got out my notebook and pencil, fired of Winamp, and managed to make some more progress in figuring out the finger positions for the notes to the Final Fantasy IV Prologue theme (which you can find in the Midi Archive). The ocarina is really quite the funky instrument; none of the sheet music for flutes that I've found fits with its scale, and even looking at the notes used in the midi itself, they were too high for it. And since I can't find any sheet music specifically for ocarinas, I'm stuck figuring out the notes myself. I have most of the song figured out by now, however, so I'll probably be able to finish it the next time I play. And after that, not much else happened, other than I burned an audio CD of The Black Mages mp3s that I have. If you like the fight music in the Final Fantasy series, you should check this out. The CD has 10 different battle themes done with electric/bass guitars and drums, and each track is absolutely awesome. You can get the CD on GameMusic.com, or possibly elsewhere; I haven't really looked around, as I have the mp3s, heh. And that was my Easter for the year of 2004.

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Sunday, April 11, 2004

Now Playing #35

	Game: The Secret of Monkey Island Track: Title Theme Time: 2:54 Size: 29.0 KB My first Now Playing song from a PC game; The Secret of Monkey Island, an old point-and-click adventure game by LucasArts. This is the song that plays on the title screen, and then continues on into the little intro scene before you actually gain control of Guybrush Threepwood, the main character of the game. He wants to be a pirate. Yes, his name is Guybrush Threepwood, and he's a wannabe pirate. Quite a main character, eh? If anyone has played the game -- and I know there are at least a few of you out there -- you should already be familiar with the game's humor, but for those of you that haven't, I highly recommend getting The Secret of Monkey Island and/or its few sequels. They're hilarious.

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Saturday, April 10, 2004

Figurine Binge

	I just spent the past...hmm...three, three and a half hours playing Zelda: The Wind Waker, doing almost nothing but collecting figurines. And dang am I tired of it. But, it was worth it, as I was able to complete both the Outset Island and Windfall Island collections, plus most of the Great Sea collection. So now I mainly just have to get figurines of all the different types of enemies, except for the few that I already have. Which is going to be a pain in the butt, having to go in and out of dungeons over and over again, since you can only take three pictographs at a time. But hey, I've now got about 2/3 of all the figurines in the game. And, considering that I started the second quest with barely any, I think I've made pretty good progress so far.

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Friday, April 9, 2004

PlayStation 2 - Coming Soon

	Well, there was a rather unexpected happening today. After the church youthgroup got back from going paintballing (those that went, anyway, which didn't include me), a movie was shown at the church, which I went to. (My church is in an old movie theater, so each room has its own nice, big screen on which to project stuff onto). And, after the movie, while waiting for my mom to come pick me up and I was talking with a couple people, the subject of video games came up and I happened to mention that I was looking to get a PlayStation 2 next Christmas. It just happens, however, that one of the youth leaders -- one of the people I was talking to -- has a PS2 that he doesn't want anymore and he said he'd sell it, a few games, a multi-tap, and three controllers to me, all for only $40. At first, I couldn't believe he'd sell all that for only $40, seeing as he could get at least twice that much and probably more by selling it at GameStop or something; and I told him this. He said he'd rather sell it to me for cheap, though, and who am I to argue, heh? So I told him I'd definitely like to buy it, though I don't have the money currently, but that I'd be getting enough money soon. And he actually offered to just give it to me Friday, at the Friday night Bible study, and I could pay him for it later, but I told him I'd just wait till I have the money. So now I'm really anxious to get the $60 that one of my brothers owes me. I'm going to have to e-mail him tonight and remind him to send it to my PayPal account. I was expecting to have to wait about another nine months before getting a PS2, but here one has just fallen into my lap. Amazing.

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Wednesday, April 7, 2004

Figurines and More

	I've been progressing well in the second quest of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Yesterday I beat the Tower of the Gods and got a bunch more figurines, including a couple that you only get one chance at. Those would be Gohdan and Zephos & Cyclos; Gohdan was easy to get, but getting a good pictograph of Cyclos was a pain in the butt. It took me about five or six attempts before I managed to get one that Carlov would accept for making a figurine out of. In addition to those, I also filled out the entire Dragon Roost Island collection, all except for Medli, which I shall be getting after I go back to Forsaken Fortress (and get beat up by Ganon). With the addition of those figurines, my collection is getting to be decent sized. Once I get Medli's figurine I'll have both the Dragon Roost Island and Forest Haven rooms full, as well as others scattered about in the other rooms. Next I think I'll be collecting ones from Windfall Island -- it's a lot easier now that I know the Ballad of Gales and can warp back and forth between the area I'm getting the pictographs from and Forest Haven. And also while I'm doing that, I figure I'll get the rest of the Legendary Pictographs from Lenzo. (The Song of Passing is also very handy, heh). Now, for something completely different . . . the Otaku Awards. The results have finally been posted, but I'm not really surprised with how I did. I won the same two awards as last year: Series Otaku Member of the Year and The Triforce Award. Though of course, for anyone that wasn't around before version 7, those are pretty meaningless. Gone is the Otaku Series section, its forums merged with the old Otaku Gamer section to form Hardwired. If the awards had been done post-v7 I doubt I would've won anything, unless there had still been series specific awards despite there only being a single console gaming forum. Hold on, here's yet another subject change; I have no algebra class on Wednesday. My professor's wife is apparently scheduled to have labor induced, being two weeks overdue with her baby. I'm not really sure if I'm happy or disappointed that I don't have to go out to class, though. On one hand, it means not having to go to class (duh), but on the other hand, it means I'll just have more school to do at home. History and literature aren't bad, since I just have to read a book for each, but chemistry has been a real pain lately. It's the first class where I've gotten an F on a test -- two of them, in fact. I understand the concepts behind the subject, and why things happen the way they do, I just can't memorize all the different little steps involved in calculating whatever the heck it wants me to do. And I can do all the math that's required for it fine, but if I don't remember what it is exactly that I'm supposed to do, that doesn't do me much good. Really, though, it's gotten to the point where I don't even care anymore. I've gotten sick and tired of trying to cram into my head all the stuff it wants me to memorize and getting stressed when I still can't, so I just don't bother anymore. (I'm sorry, but there's no way I'm going to memorize about twenty polyatomic ions' chemical formulas, names, and charges -- it's just not going to happen). And really, I don't think this chemistry class will even matter in the long run. I seriously doubt I'm going to major in something that requires taking chemistry in college, and I'll most likely just end up taking the CHSPE (California High School Proficiency Examination) instead of actually graduating from high school. Chemistry is interesting, and I actually do enjoy just reading the book, but beyond that it's pretty much just "yeah, whatever." It's over!

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Sunday, April 4, 2004

The Battle of Strings and a Cell Phone

	Okay, I just had to make a post about this: A couple days ago, I was looking through some of my brother's mp3s, and I noticed he had added a "Video Game Remixes" folder to his collection. So, being the game music collector that I am, I checked it out. Most of them were pretty average, but then there was this one. . . . The Battle of Strings and a Cell Phone, a remix of the Final Fantasy IX battle theme. Curious as to what it could be, I listened to it -- and proceeded to laugh my ass off. Exactly like the name says, it's a remix done with a guitar . . . and a cell phone. While not the best sounding remix, though the guitar work is actually pretty good, it's just the fact they actually used a cell phone. And it works. For about the first 45 seconds, it's just the guitar, so you kind of wonder "where's the cell phone?" And then there it is, beeping out part of the tune. It's just crazy; especially for someone that considers the FFIX battle theme to be the best in the series, like I do. You can go to OverClocked ReMix to download it. Trust me, it's worth downloading just for the "What the hell is this?" factor. If it weren't an mp3, and therefore too big, I would've put it up as this week's Now Playing track.

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Now Playing #34

	Game: The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening Track: Mount Tamaranch Time: 1:23 Size: 9.42 KB I think most people tend to overlook the music of most Game Boy games, but really, some decent music was put out by that little 8-bit handheld. Even I tend to, as was the case with the music from Zelda: Link's Awakening. Though I still regularly find myself humming or running a couple tunes from the game through my mind, I never really thought of the music from Link's Awakening as anything special. When I came across some LA mp3s a couple days ago, however, I realized that the Mount Tamaranch theme from LA is one of the catchiest songs in the whole series, at least for me. And even though I have a heck of a time trying to hum it correctly, I still try anyway, heh. For a few details about the song itself, this theme actually plays everywhere in the Tal Tal Mountain Range area of Link's Awakening, not just on Mount Tamaranch. I usually remember it as the Mount Tamaranch theme, however, because the Wind Fish's egg sits atop Mount Tamaranch, so it's a pretty important place. . . . Though actually, both Level 7: Eagle's Tower and Level 8: Turtle Rock are also on the Tal Tal Mountain Range. Level 7 in the eastern corner, Level 8 in the western corner, and Mount Tamaranch right in the center. But whatever; call the song what you may, it's still my favorite tune from Link's Awakening.

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Saturday, April 3, 2004

You Can Never Have Too Much Zelda

	Guess what? I started another -- yes, another -- game on Zelda: A Link to the Past. This time I'm trying to do it with as few hearts/items as possible. Currently I only have six hearts, and I'm about to head into Level 1: Dark Palace. And I don't even have the Boomerang. No Boomerang, no Red Shield, no Bottles, no Bug-Catching Net, no Bombos. . . . It's a lot harder this way. I've already died once because I wasn't being careful enough, and out of this and the other six times that I've played through the GBA version before this, that's the first time I've died. And as if that wasn't enough, I also started a 2nd quest file on Zelda: The Wind Waker, which I just stopped playing. I figure it's been just over a year since the game was released, so it's a good time to replay it and finally use that 2nd quest file I saved after beating it the first time. And this time, like I had been planning ever since my first time through, I'm making sure to get all of the figurines. Though I'm a little miffed at it not accepting my pictograph of Tetra even though her whole body was clearly in view and not very far away. Guess I'll have to get another shot of her when I rescue Aryll. So yes, lots of Zelda playing in my day -- but not too much. It's never too much. Even that time I played The Wind Waker for twelve straight hours. Never too much . . . never too much . . . never too much. . . .

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Friday, April 2, 2004

Shameless Plugs

	Yeah, as you've probably noticed, I've followed along with this trend of myOtaku buttons. Right now I've got my own button, which you can use to link to my page if you'd like, and then below it, James', Semjaza's, and Shinmaru's. These are the people I have deemed "plug worthy" thus far. (That just screams of being dirty, lol). I'm still considering who else to add. Oh, and if you specifically ask me to add your button, chances are I'm not. I'm going to have two rows of buttons (ten altogether) max, besides mine, so I'm being very selective of whose I put up. Just like with the friends list, which I've limited to 30 people, I find an overly long list of buttons to be unsightly. If I deem you "plug worthy" (I don't think I'm ever going to get tired of saying that), I will add your button, but begging and pleading won't get you anywhere. (Though bribes might. ~_^) Edit: Okay, I've added a couple more buttons -- Shy's and Japan_86's. I've also added a couple variations on mine. Now I've got three, each with different color Rupees. Instead of just blue, you can now choose from green, blue, and red. Blue is still my favorite, though, as I think the blue goes better with the indigo and green.

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