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.
