Friday, September 10, 2004
Anime, waterloo, and too much other stuff
Alright! It’s Friday night, and while all the school kids are out partying after a week of school, I’m here blogging! Anyway, so today is September 10th, and I last blogged on September 6th, so this might be another long entry! I wrote about 4-5 pages worth of stuff, and now I’m elongating it into words and sentences, so… we’ll see how long it’ll be.
I’m not sure why I waited for so long for an update… well, Monday through Friday wasn’t really long, but now I have a lot of stuff to post about. It’s not like when we get to Waterloo, we won’t have internet for a week, and thus this long update is all you’ll see for a week. Alan’s there now, and when I last saw him he didn’t have a working internet (he had a working modem that said it was connected, but he wasn’t… maybe it’s the cable). Anyway, the other entry accumulated a lot of comments (5 from David and 3 from me, plus 5 others), so that’s great. Maybe I should address this one to David again and then he’ll comment a lot…
Anyway, so yeah, we’re going back to Waterloo soon. Maybe Wen will start updating regularly again, and checking other people’s blogs, and hopefully Alan will update more frequently. So it’s a good time for all blogging… hehe… or something…
Anyway, enough stuff off the top of my head… now going through the notes I’ve written… … wait… well, the notes are in some order, but the order must be rearranged… and I write notes chronologically… so by now (now, 8:53 Friday night) I might’ve seen all of Episode 2 of Midori No Hibi, but maybe some part in the journal will refer to the beginning of episode 2, when I haven’t seen the rest yet, and I might’ve formed an opinion then that might not apply anymore.
---------------- songs ------------------------
Anyway, from the previous update, I posted a link to download the Elfen Lied intro, and David took the opportunity to download it, and he suggested I should post links to other interesting/unique/good songs, and do it every entry, so I guess I should put those links at the top of the update.
Unfortunately, the Elfen Lied intro is very good, and kinda unique, and something that David may not have liked from watching the anime. And it’s a very tranquil song, in the sense that it’s easy to listen to. So, I can’t say this entry’s selections have the same calibur or uniqueness that the Elfen Lied intro has. And, I couldn’t make my mind, so I chose about 8 songs, but I’ve uploaded 3 for this update.
http://www.baomon.com/board/tos-sheena.mp3 - Tales of Symphonia, Sheena’s theme. 3.4 mb… it sounds nice. That’s about it. Not really unique, might not be that great, might not even be that special. But that’s one of today’s downloads.
http://www.baomon.com/board/bb-intergalactic.mp3 - Beastie Boys, Intergalactic. GASP! A real life song. 3.7 mb… I mentioned the Beastie Boys once, I think in an e-mail I sent to David and Alan, which they haven’t replied to yet :P I decided to put this up so to broaden everyone’s music. It’s a rap/hip-hop kinda style music. It’s a bit weird. I’ll admit, the first time I heard this song (watched the video on muchmusic), I thought it was really odd, and that I wouldn’t like it. But then again, odd things are interesting, and I watched the video more and more and it’s pretty crazy stuff. Unfortunately, I don’t have this video. So, it might take several listens to like it, it might take 1 listen to hate it, maybe you’ll get a headache, but I’m putting it up anyway. I like it :)
http://www.baomon.com/board/ct-robo-oc.mp3 - Chrono Trigger, Robo’s Theme, OC Remix, 4.5 mb. Now this is the real download of this update. Robo’s theme is great, remixed or not, and the remix adds a lot of energy to it. It sounds really nice, and I love Robo’s theme. At first, I didn’t put it in my favourites list because I thought the lyrics (yes, lyrics) were stupid, but I didn’t really give it a chance. I gave it another listen, and I fell in love with it, and I think the lyrics are kinda funny. I sing along to it nowadays :)
Next week, look forward to Leon Lai, Sugar in the Marmalade English remix, maybe another beastie boys song, maybe some No doubt songs, and probably the ff6 Arab Painting oc remix. Leon Lai… hehe. In case you’re wondering, I heard Leon Lai from a grade 9 friend named Gigi while I was in OAC.
(Lies. Channel 8 and 32 both have the same episode of CSI on, and I saw it a couple days ago… oh well, more time to update I guess then.) – Anyway, I guess, time to go onto the update!
------------------- Symphonia... stilll --------------
More Symphonia talk! So, I’ve been reviewing Symphonia, and telling good things and bad things about it, and Duy’s been talking about it too, and now here’s probably the last thing about Symphonia for a while… well, gonna be back in Waterloo soon, so we’ll play more of that there, hehe.
Let’s talk about the battles… they’re harder than say, FF7. Well… are they? Late game, when you’re leveling, yeah, battles are harder. Because they’re real time, and you have to move your character around, and you still gotta push a lot of buttons to attack. I remember in FF7, to level at the end, you’d go walk in the forest by that town with the hole, and maybe you’d equip slash-all and auto-do-when-you-enter-battle and pre-emptive attack or something, and… that’s all you have to do. Walk around randomly, run into a battle, and gain experience. It’s a bit harder in Symphonia.
And, in Symphonia, you can’t get too awesome. In FF7, eventually you get to a point where you’re too awesome, and in Symphonia, you don’t… actually, I hear you can get to level 250, so maybe you can. But that will take a while, until you get the 10x exp gift.
New Game plus doesn’t allow you to be too awesome either. Unlike Chrono Trigger, where you start with everything and high level and all that, new game plus here doesn’t allow that much… you don’t get to start with all the weapons and levels. But the 10x exp option is a bit strong, and keeping all techs would be nice, although you’d have no TP to use them.
But it’d be nice to be able to be awesome sometime… but not now. Oh well.
Are the battles repetitive? Maybe, maybe not… bosses are different, and enemies vary a bit, the typical variance found in FF games. So it could get repetitive, fighting the same thing over and over again… I think it would’ve been nicer if it was like Chrono Trigger or Earthbound, where when you fight an enemy, surrounding enemies might join the fight, to add difficulty and variance. Oh well.
So that’s enough about Tales for now.
---------------- Futureshop ---------------
The other day… Tuesday, yes, we went to Futureshop. It was closed on the Monday, so… yeah, we went on Tuesday. On the way there, Duy was driving, and it was raining. We approached a right turn that was turning red, so we wanted to go quickly before the green guys get to go, and our car skidded!
It was pretty scary. Well, kinda. We turned, and our car skidded and spanned a lot. Like, instead of turning 90 degrees to turn right, we turned 225. Fortunately, the other cars didn’t begin moving yet, so we did a reverse 3-point turn kinda thing, and we held traffic for maybe 6 seconds.
I guess if we knew our car can skid, then maybe we didn’t need to do a reverse 3-point, and instead just go in reverse and spin the wheel and turn back around :P But nah. Anyway, got to Futureshop, and my mom and uncle were waiting there; apparently they saw our little stunt/mishap. Anyway, they got rainchecks for the DVD+R/-R’s, cuz they were sold out. We bought a beast memory card, although Duy said we didn’t need one – so we definitely didn’t get a 2nd one. I also bought Duke Nukem Manhattan Project, the sidescroller game. I played the demo maybe 2 years ago, and I was always compelled to buy it, but didn’t, until now, since it was $10.
Bargains do that to me… but $10 really isn’t a lot, so it should give me at least some fun. Also, I told myself that I would finally buy that Blizzard DVD collection. Every now and then when I go to Futureshop, it stares me in the eye and makes me want to buy it. So, I wanted that to stop, so I would’ve bought it if they had it, but alas, they didn’t. Now I’ll have to go through Warcraft to see the cinematics…
Speaking of which, we should play Starcraft this term more often. I hear Jason played it a bunch this term or last term… I wanna get back into it… I hear Brose plays it too, but he’s not here… unfortunately… then again, Starcraft over Bnet works relatively well.
My next note says “talk about SSBM ffa and stuff”. I don’t remember what I was going to say, that I didn’t say in my last entry. It might’ve been another tip, or more tips… but I don’t have the energy to think about new stuff and write that down, haha. Still got a lot to write about, mostly anime I think…
--------------------------- randomness --------------------
Previously I read one of David’s entries, that spoke about his foot falling asleep. I like it when my foot falls asleep! It’s an abnormal feeling, and I like those. It’s like, something different, a new sensation perhaps. And things different from normal are always welcome.
For example, for microwaved pasta, most of it is pretty smooth and creamy, but in the corner might be a burnt section of pasta, and I welcome it. It has a different texture, but it might not taste great, but because it’s different, I like it.
So, maybe I understand why people cut themselves. As I said, it’s a different feeling, a new sensation… so hurting yourself, or cutting yourself will give you a new sensation, and that’s why people do it. I dunno, I wrote it in my notes, so I’m writing about it. I also wrote down “understanding people getting into accidents”, but that’s a totally different subject.
It’s true, in sitcoms and stuff, people get into accidents on purpose, so they’ll have a cast and unable to walk for a while. It’s not because it’s a new sensation… it’s because they receive more attention. This happened to me while I had sea urchin spines in my foot. I was given special attention, from parents, and other people, walking around, looking at me. Some just look at me, some talk to me and I take their attention. Not a bad way to meet girls :P
It’s interesting. I also had another dream once, a week ago, where I was a class rep and I had to get to know everyone in my class, and then say something about each one, to the teacher. It was interesting, because I then could talk to girls that I would usually be too shy to. I can talk to them because it’s my job. I can ask them somewhat intimate questions, because it’s my job, without sounding freaky. It was a good dream, and it could have applications in real life.
Continuing with the burnt pasta example, and knowing that David makes up weird recipes, I think it’s okay to have watermelon with rice. I like it, different texture, and the juiciness. Is that weird? Well, you can have pineapple on pizza, and pineapple in sweet and sour pork, so why can’t you have watermelon with rice?
------------------- more other stuff that happened... ----------------
I’ve watched some anime within the past few days, so I’ll go over the other stuff first, and then devote most of the end of the update to anime, and finish off with a conclusion as usual.
The other day my friend Gabriel (pre-highschool friend, first roommate in UW) came over and borrowed 2 SNES controllers (both ascii’s) and top gear 2. Yay, I still have one controller left, so I can play suckjagger and equinox and shaq-fu… I wanted to borrow Goldeneye, might’ve been cool, but he looked in the box and it wasn’t there… he probably lent it to his cousin. Oh well. Maybe I should’ve asked for Killer Instinct… then Jia can teach me to play better… learn to swim while drowning…
Sky Captain comes out on September 17th! At first, I was thinking, okay, maybe I’ll go see it with Hawk. Anyway, during the CSI Marathon, they keep bombarding me with commercials for Sky Captain, along with Pringles and Pontiacs and GMCs. It looks kinda neat, and if other people want to see it, then sure why not? I wouldn’t mind seeing it.
---- minifridge
The other day, while cleaning out the garage of the old house, we found a mini fridge! I displayed interest in it, so we tested it out, and it works! So, I think we’ll have a mini fridge in Waterloo. Either upstairs in my room, or in the basement, so we don’t have to interrupt our playing to get food :P Or, I can put it upstairs, so I don’t have to interrupt studying to go get food, haha.
The other day, I was drinking pepsi, and I liked it. So I realized, this term, I’m probably gonna have massive pepsi! Ahh!! Screw the nutritionist and the smoothies, lots of pepsi!! Well, we should have smoothies too, they’re good, and now we have protein powder. Not sure if protein powder works with pepsi, if it’ll help or be retroactive or if it’ll taste horrible. Vanilla and pepsi… hmm… or Vanilla and coke… maybe that’ll work… ?
-----poker
I called the poker chips place! Good news! They didn’t lose it! Or, the post office didn’t lose it, or whatever – they received my chips. Unfortunately, they are currently out of yellow and orange chips, so I’ll have to wait another 3-4 weeks, that’s what they said. I’m not in a big hurry, but sooner would be better than later. I asked them if I would have to pay duty again, and they said they don’t know, but they’ll mark it as ‘no money’, so maybe that’s the worth, so there won’t be GST on that… we’ll see.
I need a bigger case… well, I don’t have cases, just chip holders… they’re hard to carry around now… I can probably go to J&J’s and get some there. I wonder who’s still left in Waterloo to play poker… they might be on co-op, or one (Toan, the main guy) has just finished, so I don’t think he’s there anymore. Lies.
-----license
Getting Driver’s license… what does it mean? I already blogged once how getting driver’s license wasn’t on my list, it’s something I’d rather not care for much. But it’s possible I’ll get it soon. What does it mean? I don’t think I’m comfortable with driving by myself yet. And there are grand schemes in my mind, like big road trips with several people (that don’t drive, perhaps), to places that Duy or other drivers may not want to go, to visit other people, like ‘board’ people. Can I handle it? I don’t know… I’m not much of a navigator, and I don’t like to panic. If I’m the only driver, I can’t just choose to quit for some reason. It’s like a huge commitment, and I don’t like it.
I wrote down that I should write something about “ELVES” the movie, which I haven’t seen yet. But it’s supposed to be really bad… but probably really funny. Check out my boards if you want to read about it…
I have then 5 notes about CSI, about different episodes during this marathon… but nah, no need to write about it. Some good, some bad, some nasty, etc. Lots of CSI this term, yay. (Now an episode is on, I missed the first few minutes, so I have no idea what’s going on, but I’m taping it so I can write this now… argh, been writing since 8:30…)
----waterlooers
Duy finally chose his courses! YAY! Stat 332 was full, so he couldn’t take that, and he’s in a different Psych section right now. Taking 2 cs’s, and econ 101, with Smith! He’s taking it with Andy too, so that’s a bonus.
Anyway, you 4 waterloo’ers have gotten my e-mail by now, I think, about playing sports in the term. No new info on that yet, but I was talking to Andy, and he said how he sucked at Basketball, which is good, because we all suck. He also said soccer would be a better sport. Anyway, he told me when he first played basketball, he didn’t know the rules, and he thought it was like football, so he tackled someone. The End.
Jason’s living near us! YAY! Read about it from his blog. YAY! Not sure how near is “near” (could be Columbia and King, but that’s still okay), but yay! More Symphonia and games!
----slayer
At the time of this note taking, I was listening to Slayer – Skeletons of Society. It’s not weird to listen to metal music, right? Anyway, this song is similar to Law of Battle, the Tales of Symphonia song. Maybe one day I’ll post that, and the Slayer song, for comparison.
Spoilers! Don’t read this gray small part if you don’t want to know about Ken Jennings.
Apparently some people don’t know it yet, and Duy says I shouldn’t tell them, because, well, it is a spoiler. Apparently, Jeopardy is taped waay in advance of its airing – I thought it would be day of, or day prior, but no, it’s much more than that. Apparently, Ken Jennings has lost, after his 75th or 74th win, with accumulated winnings of 2.5 million. He’s on his ~40th win now, with 1.4 mil, so that episode won’t air till October 27th or so. Websites say so, and Jia said so before I read the website.
Actually, first I heard it on Thursday’s Conan. Conan said it first, and he wouldn’t make that up… he said 75 wins, so I thought it was a joke, since he only won 40, but he doesn’t make that up. Well, I was a bit skeptical, since he did say 75, which is a very real number, too regular.
(The way Conan does a joke is, he first says the real thing, the headline, and pauses, and then gives the joke). So, the first thing wasn’t the joke, so I was a bit confused. But now it’s confirmed.
END SPOILER!
The other day, Joey aired. Joey, spinoff off friends, starring, well, Joey, Matt Le Blanc. It was pretty funny, kinda what you’d expect from friends, but different. I’ll continue watching, yes. At least, for a bit. Some funny people, yes, so that’s good.
-------- trip to Waterloo ----------
Anyway, today I went to Waterloo with Alan. He came a bit late, but it was okay, we still accomplished most of what we wanted to do. I moved in a couple bags and a couple boxes, so I don’t have to move as much tomorrow.
We exchanged our modem, and it works, but Alan’s not connected to the Internet yet, so hopefully that’ll change soon. Some things have been broken or removed, so we might need to talk to the girls about that. The bathroom has been painted, and it looks pretty nice. Well, nicer, at least. Furniture has been moved around, but all that’s fixable. Got a free phone, hehe, and got a free dirty sofa!
We’re gonna get TV! A whole slew of channels too. Got the ultimate pak, which is basic cable, plus the advanced stuff, like Muchmusic and Spike TV, and meTV, which is comedy network and food network and stuff. Also, there are not 1, not 2, and not even 3 working phone outlets in the house. There are 4! So yes, we’ll have 4 phones, and that’s good! So I’ll have a phone, which is good, so I can make more phone calls.
But to the rest of you (well, Jason and Andy and Wen), that means we’ll have a phone in the basement! As before, we couldn’t hear the phone, and it was a long way to run to get it; now, we do hear it! And, if you’re outside the door, you can call us if we don’t hear you knocking :P So that’s great!
So, the TV will come on Tuesday. While we were at Rogers, I bought games! As I said, bargains do that to me. First, I saw Wario Ware for Cube for $24.99, so I proceeded to buy that, and the cashier told me that they have a deal, where you buy a used game, get another for half price (equal or lesser value of course). So, we couldn’t let that go!
Long story short, couldn’t find another good $24.99 game, didn’t know whether to get Crystal Chronicles or whatever, so I bought Everything or Nothing. I hear it’s good. Should’ve rented before we bought? Perhaps, but Alan told me to take a chance. So, we did! We can always return it.
So, we didn’t get the full value of the 2nd for 50%, but on the receipt, it says I saved $15, rather than $12.50, so that’s good. Mistake, or nice cashier? I don’t know, but I’m happy.
Okay, so that’s enough of stuff… or, that’s all my notes say about non-Anime stuff. So, here comes Anime news!
--------------- ANIME NEWS ----------------
The other day I said I saw Naruto 98, and forgot to mention the ending credits were pretty neat! The video of the ending credits was about drawing processes – like, they would paint a scene, and draw someone on it, and then colour and shade them, and I think it was pretty neat.
From nowhere, well, within the same thought as watching Naruto 98, I decide to download and watch MadLax 22 (after watching 1-3) and Ragnarok 22 (after watching 1). Ragnarok is based on the manga and the game, Ragnarok online. The first episode was pretty funny, with references to the game and leveling up and magic spells and stuff. Episode 22 was okay, and it had ac ool intro. Nothing special of an intro, just a pretty cool one, suitable for such an action/adventure anime. The anime itself is okay, could be a long running 100-episode series, while animation is above par.
--------madlax
MadLax 22… first 10 minutes seem intriguing. MadLax and that other girl seem to be connected somehow… it seems like a 24-26 episode series, maybe longer, so maybe watching episode 22 could be too spoilerific. They seem to be sisters, or past sisters, or legendary beings from past myths or something, but it’s intriguing. I might consider watching the rest of MadLax now, but maybe not.
I’m not considering watching the rest of Ragnarok, but I’ll probably download episode 55 when it comes out, just to see what it’s like then :P It might be a fun series (like watching Pokemon) but I don’t think there’s a major continuity story line (like FMA). In MadLax, it’s nice to see some of the aspects from the first episode – artful movement, artful gunshooting and stuff. Also, the arch-rival from episode 2 is still there! And then the end of the episode… yeah, seems like a turning point, so I think the series is indeed ending soon, or it could be like FMA and span for another 26.
At the same time as MadLax was coming out, there was that mech series, Bakuretsu Tenshi or something, but apparently that’s been licensed. I could download it, a later episode, but nah, it’s okay.
-------shinobuden
Saw Shinobuden 1, after Jia kinda suggested me to, or I did. Not really digi charat, but still pretty zany, mixed with Jubei Chan, or something, and all regular people (or most) are replaced with ninjas. Well, not really either. Let’s say, it’s a bit like… Pugyuru! But not. Ahh, never mind. It’s not bad. Silly, and has ninjas, but not really ninja fighting, yet.
HAHAHA… I just watched some funny stuff on Shinobuden… that was gold… well, didn’t watch it, more like, read the accurate subtitles… anyway, David would like it. It’s not Bobobo-ish, Jia likes it :P Anyway, I think I should get at least another episode… maybe I’ll wait for Waterloo to watch them… (update – I have downloaded a batch torrent of 1-6, so I have 6 eps now).
Finally seen Lain 7. Oooh… Lain 5 is my favourite episode. It’s weird… Of course, I’ll watch the rest some day… it’s on my to-do list…
Saw Rizelmine II 2 – it’s a good episode. Back in Waterloo, I would watch rizelmine in the morning, since it was short, so after getting ready and before leaving. Anyway, so yeah, I decided to watch all this anime for some reason.
On my computer, I have a folder called done-dvd-deletable, which are anime files which I have copied onto dvd, that I can thus delete. So I decide I should watch some of this before I deleted it, or kept it, whatever.
------gantz
Gantz, episode 1. OMG. WEIRD. If you liked Lain, if you liked Texnoholyze, well… give it a try. I’ll show it to you guys in Waterloo. It starts with 2 guys, and one guy thinks out loud to us, and everything looks kinda weird, and then the two guys die but they end up in some apartment building with other people that have supposedly died. It’s weird. Mainly because he thinks out loud.
Demonbane – hmm… I enjoyed it. It was part serious, and part funny, and sometimes it sounds like they’re saying something funny but they say it so seriously, so I don’t think it was meant to be funny. As for the genre, I’m not quite sure… animation is quite decent. So I enjoyed it, but not sure if I’d watch too much more.
------champloo
Samurai Champloo – ooh, I like this. From the opening sequence, it has a rap/hiphop turntable scene going on, which was pretty neat. Seemed like it had different story lines, and they were gonna merge soon… and it has that ending effect, like in Fight Club or Grave of the Fireflies, where you know how it’ll be near the end, so you wonder how that happens, or you know that will happen, in the sense of grave of the fireflies.
(Animenation says that effect in Grave of the Fireflies is powerful, because it’s a sad movie, and because of that you keep hoping that it’ll get better, but you know the end, so it’s like all hope is lost, and that makes it more sad)
Champloo is pretty awesome. Well, it has a good vibe – not like The Rock vibe or Zoolander half-vibe, but the music vibe. Hip hop works well, reminds me of Jet Grind Radio but not really. And the Fight Club thing was only for the episode… hehe. I have 3 episodes, at least, so I’ll watch them in Waterloo.
Excel Saga ep 2 – finally saw it, bad quality video file. Crazy? Perhaps, not compared to Bobobo though. It was a cute episode though. Ending credits are… interesting. I would say cute, but it’s not thaaat cute.
-----voices
Finally saw the masterpiece, voices of a distant star. Aww, what a sad romantic love story… I thought it was pretty sad. I’m amazed I haven’t watched this before, but now I have, finally, after putting it off for so long… it’s really good.
Midori No Hibi 2 – I’ve been putting this off. While the first one wasn’t bad by any means, I’m not sure why I kept putting this off. But I watched…10 minutes of this so far. (Sometimes if I can’t watch a whole anime episode, I watch 10 minutes of it and put it in a folder called “10 minutes”, so I can resume it at 10 minutes when I can watch it. Of course, sometimes I watch something for 10 minutes, put it into the folder, and not touch it again, probably because I’m not interested, or because I forget, or it seems like a chore.)
Midori No Hibi, watched it. First, it was okay, not perverted, not too strange… well, yeah, but everything seemed fine. But now (and before, but moreso now), her mother is involved, and she is sad, and Midori doesn’t want to tell her mother. So, I feel her sadness. It’s like in Jubei, episode 8, when Jiyu was sick after the fight with Shiro, and her dad couldn’t do anything, but be helpless and wonder what happened to his little Jiyu.
Also, the burden of keeping a secret is there, and that provides some annoyingness… but from the previews, I see people might figure out in episode 3, unless it happens to be a dream.
-------- C o n c l u s i o n ----------
And that’s it! I must admit, for the last few anime things, I didn’t type much more than I noted down, because I noted a lot, actually. It’s 11:21 now, and I started writing out at 8:30, so it took 3 hours! I watched some CSI in between, but overall, it took at least 150 minutes. I thought I had more stuff on anime… but I don’t. So oh well. Voice of Different star was good, Gantz was weird, Champloo was pretty cool. Shinobuden’s pretty silly.
So… that’s it… tomorrow’s Saturday, so I have my driving lesson, and then we’re heading to Waterloo. Jason will be there on Saturday, so will Wen, and Alan’s already there. I briefly met Alex Chen/Chan, Alan’s friend, so I think we’ll see more of him. We’re probably getting together for dinner, if my parent (only mom’s coming) has left by then. I’m imagining Mel’s Diner, since that’s a usual ‘first time back to Waterloo’ meal, since it was a staple last time. I wanna go to Harveys and try both the Sirloin and Salmon burger, but that can wait.
Salmon Burger… Baja Chicken sub… etc… that can wait. Um… oh yeah, I wish Burnout 3 came out for cube. Darn it. I hear it’s awesome. Get it Wen.
Um… so I guess that’s it? Did you read all of it? It was pretty long. We’ll have internet in Waterloo, I’m sure, so it’ll be like I never got disconnected. Call us. Umm… etc.. I guess that’s it… Enjoy. 10th page, 5" down, >5124 words, >27472 characters including spaces, now time to copy and paste this, change colours, and have it ready for your reading pleasure.
Over and out.
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I’m not sure why I waited for so long for an update… well, Monday through Friday wasn’t really long, but now I have a lot of stuff to post about. It’s not like when we get to Waterloo, we won’t have internet for a week, and thus this long update is all you’ll see for a week. Alan’s there now, and when I last saw him he didn’t have a working internet (he had a working modem that said it was connected, but he wasn’t… maybe it’s the cable). Anyway, the other entry accumulated a lot of comments (5 from David and 3 from me, plus 5 others), so that’s great. Maybe I should address this one to David again and then he’ll comment a lot…
Anyway, so yeah, we’re going back to Waterloo soon. Maybe Wen will start updating regularly again, and checking other people’s blogs, and hopefully Alan will update more frequently. So it’s a good time for all blogging… hehe… or something…
Anyway, enough stuff off the top of my head… now going through the notes I’ve written… … wait… well, the notes are in some order, but the order must be rearranged… and I write notes chronologically… so by now (now, 8:53 Friday night) I might’ve seen all of Episode 2 of Midori No Hibi, but maybe some part in the journal will refer to the beginning of episode 2, when I haven’t seen the rest yet, and I might’ve formed an opinion then that might not apply anymore.
---------------- songs ------------------------
Anyway, from the previous update, I posted a link to download the Elfen Lied intro, and David took the opportunity to download it, and he suggested I should post links to other interesting/unique/good songs, and do it every entry, so I guess I should put those links at the top of the update.
Unfortunately, the Elfen Lied intro is very good, and kinda unique, and something that David may not have liked from watching the anime. And it’s a very tranquil song, in the sense that it’s easy to listen to. So, I can’t say this entry’s selections have the same calibur or uniqueness that the Elfen Lied intro has. And, I couldn’t make my mind, so I chose about 8 songs, but I’ve uploaded 3 for this update.
http://www.baomon.com/board/tos-sheena.mp3 - Tales of Symphonia, Sheena’s theme. 3.4 mb… it sounds nice. That’s about it. Not really unique, might not be that great, might not even be that special. But that’s one of today’s downloads.
http://www.baomon.com/board/bb-intergalactic.mp3 - Beastie Boys, Intergalactic. GASP! A real life song. 3.7 mb… I mentioned the Beastie Boys once, I think in an e-mail I sent to David and Alan, which they haven’t replied to yet :P I decided to put this up so to broaden everyone’s music. It’s a rap/hip-hop kinda style music. It’s a bit weird. I’ll admit, the first time I heard this song (watched the video on muchmusic), I thought it was really odd, and that I wouldn’t like it. But then again, odd things are interesting, and I watched the video more and more and it’s pretty crazy stuff. Unfortunately, I don’t have this video. So, it might take several listens to like it, it might take 1 listen to hate it, maybe you’ll get a headache, but I’m putting it up anyway. I like it :)
http://www.baomon.com/board/ct-robo-oc.mp3 - Chrono Trigger, Robo’s Theme, OC Remix, 4.5 mb. Now this is the real download of this update. Robo’s theme is great, remixed or not, and the remix adds a lot of energy to it. It sounds really nice, and I love Robo’s theme. At first, I didn’t put it in my favourites list because I thought the lyrics (yes, lyrics) were stupid, but I didn’t really give it a chance. I gave it another listen, and I fell in love with it, and I think the lyrics are kinda funny. I sing along to it nowadays :)
Next week, look forward to Leon Lai, Sugar in the Marmalade English remix, maybe another beastie boys song, maybe some No doubt songs, and probably the ff6 Arab Painting oc remix. Leon Lai… hehe. In case you’re wondering, I heard Leon Lai from a grade 9 friend named Gigi while I was in OAC.
(Lies. Channel 8 and 32 both have the same episode of CSI on, and I saw it a couple days ago… oh well, more time to update I guess then.) – Anyway, I guess, time to go onto the update!
------------------- Symphonia... stilll --------------
More Symphonia talk! So, I’ve been reviewing Symphonia, and telling good things and bad things about it, and Duy’s been talking about it too, and now here’s probably the last thing about Symphonia for a while… well, gonna be back in Waterloo soon, so we’ll play more of that there, hehe.
Let’s talk about the battles… they’re harder than say, FF7. Well… are they? Late game, when you’re leveling, yeah, battles are harder. Because they’re real time, and you have to move your character around, and you still gotta push a lot of buttons to attack. I remember in FF7, to level at the end, you’d go walk in the forest by that town with the hole, and maybe you’d equip slash-all and auto-do-when-you-enter-battle and pre-emptive attack or something, and… that’s all you have to do. Walk around randomly, run into a battle, and gain experience. It’s a bit harder in Symphonia.
And, in Symphonia, you can’t get too awesome. In FF7, eventually you get to a point where you’re too awesome, and in Symphonia, you don’t… actually, I hear you can get to level 250, so maybe you can. But that will take a while, until you get the 10x exp gift.
New Game plus doesn’t allow you to be too awesome either. Unlike Chrono Trigger, where you start with everything and high level and all that, new game plus here doesn’t allow that much… you don’t get to start with all the weapons and levels. But the 10x exp option is a bit strong, and keeping all techs would be nice, although you’d have no TP to use them.
But it’d be nice to be able to be awesome sometime… but not now. Oh well.
Are the battles repetitive? Maybe, maybe not… bosses are different, and enemies vary a bit, the typical variance found in FF games. So it could get repetitive, fighting the same thing over and over again… I think it would’ve been nicer if it was like Chrono Trigger or Earthbound, where when you fight an enemy, surrounding enemies might join the fight, to add difficulty and variance. Oh well.
So that’s enough about Tales for now.
---------------- Futureshop ---------------
The other day… Tuesday, yes, we went to Futureshop. It was closed on the Monday, so… yeah, we went on Tuesday. On the way there, Duy was driving, and it was raining. We approached a right turn that was turning red, so we wanted to go quickly before the green guys get to go, and our car skidded!
It was pretty scary. Well, kinda. We turned, and our car skidded and spanned a lot. Like, instead of turning 90 degrees to turn right, we turned 225. Fortunately, the other cars didn’t begin moving yet, so we did a reverse 3-point turn kinda thing, and we held traffic for maybe 6 seconds.
I guess if we knew our car can skid, then maybe we didn’t need to do a reverse 3-point, and instead just go in reverse and spin the wheel and turn back around :P But nah. Anyway, got to Futureshop, and my mom and uncle were waiting there; apparently they saw our little stunt/mishap. Anyway, they got rainchecks for the DVD+R/-R’s, cuz they were sold out. We bought a beast memory card, although Duy said we didn’t need one – so we definitely didn’t get a 2nd one. I also bought Duke Nukem Manhattan Project, the sidescroller game. I played the demo maybe 2 years ago, and I was always compelled to buy it, but didn’t, until now, since it was $10.
Bargains do that to me… but $10 really isn’t a lot, so it should give me at least some fun. Also, I told myself that I would finally buy that Blizzard DVD collection. Every now and then when I go to Futureshop, it stares me in the eye and makes me want to buy it. So, I wanted that to stop, so I would’ve bought it if they had it, but alas, they didn’t. Now I’ll have to go through Warcraft to see the cinematics…
Speaking of which, we should play Starcraft this term more often. I hear Jason played it a bunch this term or last term… I wanna get back into it… I hear Brose plays it too, but he’s not here… unfortunately… then again, Starcraft over Bnet works relatively well.
My next note says “talk about SSBM ffa and stuff”. I don’t remember what I was going to say, that I didn’t say in my last entry. It might’ve been another tip, or more tips… but I don’t have the energy to think about new stuff and write that down, haha. Still got a lot to write about, mostly anime I think…
--------------------------- randomness --------------------
Previously I read one of David’s entries, that spoke about his foot falling asleep. I like it when my foot falls asleep! It’s an abnormal feeling, and I like those. It’s like, something different, a new sensation perhaps. And things different from normal are always welcome.
For example, for microwaved pasta, most of it is pretty smooth and creamy, but in the corner might be a burnt section of pasta, and I welcome it. It has a different texture, but it might not taste great, but because it’s different, I like it.
So, maybe I understand why people cut themselves. As I said, it’s a different feeling, a new sensation… so hurting yourself, or cutting yourself will give you a new sensation, and that’s why people do it. I dunno, I wrote it in my notes, so I’m writing about it. I also wrote down “understanding people getting into accidents”, but that’s a totally different subject.
It’s true, in sitcoms and stuff, people get into accidents on purpose, so they’ll have a cast and unable to walk for a while. It’s not because it’s a new sensation… it’s because they receive more attention. This happened to me while I had sea urchin spines in my foot. I was given special attention, from parents, and other people, walking around, looking at me. Some just look at me, some talk to me and I take their attention. Not a bad way to meet girls :P
It’s interesting. I also had another dream once, a week ago, where I was a class rep and I had to get to know everyone in my class, and then say something about each one, to the teacher. It was interesting, because I then could talk to girls that I would usually be too shy to. I can talk to them because it’s my job. I can ask them somewhat intimate questions, because it’s my job, without sounding freaky. It was a good dream, and it could have applications in real life.
Continuing with the burnt pasta example, and knowing that David makes up weird recipes, I think it’s okay to have watermelon with rice. I like it, different texture, and the juiciness. Is that weird? Well, you can have pineapple on pizza, and pineapple in sweet and sour pork, so why can’t you have watermelon with rice?
------------------- more other stuff that happened... ----------------
I’ve watched some anime within the past few days, so I’ll go over the other stuff first, and then devote most of the end of the update to anime, and finish off with a conclusion as usual.
The other day my friend Gabriel (pre-highschool friend, first roommate in UW) came over and borrowed 2 SNES controllers (both ascii’s) and top gear 2. Yay, I still have one controller left, so I can play suckjagger and equinox and shaq-fu… I wanted to borrow Goldeneye, might’ve been cool, but he looked in the box and it wasn’t there… he probably lent it to his cousin. Oh well. Maybe I should’ve asked for Killer Instinct… then Jia can teach me to play better… learn to swim while drowning…
Sky Captain comes out on September 17th! At first, I was thinking, okay, maybe I’ll go see it with Hawk. Anyway, during the CSI Marathon, they keep bombarding me with commercials for Sky Captain, along with Pringles and Pontiacs and GMCs. It looks kinda neat, and if other people want to see it, then sure why not? I wouldn’t mind seeing it.
---- minifridge
The other day, while cleaning out the garage of the old house, we found a mini fridge! I displayed interest in it, so we tested it out, and it works! So, I think we’ll have a mini fridge in Waterloo. Either upstairs in my room, or in the basement, so we don’t have to interrupt our playing to get food :P Or, I can put it upstairs, so I don’t have to interrupt studying to go get food, haha.
The other day, I was drinking pepsi, and I liked it. So I realized, this term, I’m probably gonna have massive pepsi! Ahh!! Screw the nutritionist and the smoothies, lots of pepsi!! Well, we should have smoothies too, they’re good, and now we have protein powder. Not sure if protein powder works with pepsi, if it’ll help or be retroactive or if it’ll taste horrible. Vanilla and pepsi… hmm… or Vanilla and coke… maybe that’ll work… ?
-----poker
I called the poker chips place! Good news! They didn’t lose it! Or, the post office didn’t lose it, or whatever – they received my chips. Unfortunately, they are currently out of yellow and orange chips, so I’ll have to wait another 3-4 weeks, that’s what they said. I’m not in a big hurry, but sooner would be better than later. I asked them if I would have to pay duty again, and they said they don’t know, but they’ll mark it as ‘no money’, so maybe that’s the worth, so there won’t be GST on that… we’ll see.
I need a bigger case… well, I don’t have cases, just chip holders… they’re hard to carry around now… I can probably go to J&J’s and get some there. I wonder who’s still left in Waterloo to play poker… they might be on co-op, or one (Toan, the main guy) has just finished, so I don’t think he’s there anymore. Lies.
-----license
Getting Driver’s license… what does it mean? I already blogged once how getting driver’s license wasn’t on my list, it’s something I’d rather not care for much. But it’s possible I’ll get it soon. What does it mean? I don’t think I’m comfortable with driving by myself yet. And there are grand schemes in my mind, like big road trips with several people (that don’t drive, perhaps), to places that Duy or other drivers may not want to go, to visit other people, like ‘board’ people. Can I handle it? I don’t know… I’m not much of a navigator, and I don’t like to panic. If I’m the only driver, I can’t just choose to quit for some reason. It’s like a huge commitment, and I don’t like it.
I wrote down that I should write something about “ELVES” the movie, which I haven’t seen yet. But it’s supposed to be really bad… but probably really funny. Check out my boards if you want to read about it…
I have then 5 notes about CSI, about different episodes during this marathon… but nah, no need to write about it. Some good, some bad, some nasty, etc. Lots of CSI this term, yay. (Now an episode is on, I missed the first few minutes, so I have no idea what’s going on, but I’m taping it so I can write this now… argh, been writing since 8:30…)
----waterlooers
Duy finally chose his courses! YAY! Stat 332 was full, so he couldn’t take that, and he’s in a different Psych section right now. Taking 2 cs’s, and econ 101, with Smith! He’s taking it with Andy too, so that’s a bonus.
Anyway, you 4 waterloo’ers have gotten my e-mail by now, I think, about playing sports in the term. No new info on that yet, but I was talking to Andy, and he said how he sucked at Basketball, which is good, because we all suck. He also said soccer would be a better sport. Anyway, he told me when he first played basketball, he didn’t know the rules, and he thought it was like football, so he tackled someone. The End.
Jason’s living near us! YAY! Read about it from his blog. YAY! Not sure how near is “near” (could be Columbia and King, but that’s still okay), but yay! More Symphonia and games!
----slayer
At the time of this note taking, I was listening to Slayer – Skeletons of Society. It’s not weird to listen to metal music, right? Anyway, this song is similar to Law of Battle, the Tales of Symphonia song. Maybe one day I’ll post that, and the Slayer song, for comparison.
Spoilers! Don’t read this gray small part if you don’t want to know about Ken Jennings.
Apparently some people don’t know it yet, and Duy says I shouldn’t tell them, because, well, it is a spoiler. Apparently, Jeopardy is taped waay in advance of its airing – I thought it would be day of, or day prior, but no, it’s much more than that. Apparently, Ken Jennings has lost, after his 75th or 74th win, with accumulated winnings of 2.5 million. He’s on his ~40th win now, with 1.4 mil, so that episode won’t air till October 27th or so. Websites say so, and Jia said so before I read the website.
Actually, first I heard it on Thursday’s Conan. Conan said it first, and he wouldn’t make that up… he said 75 wins, so I thought it was a joke, since he only won 40, but he doesn’t make that up. Well, I was a bit skeptical, since he did say 75, which is a very real number, too regular.
(The way Conan does a joke is, he first says the real thing, the headline, and pauses, and then gives the joke). So, the first thing wasn’t the joke, so I was a bit confused. But now it’s confirmed.
END SPOILER!
The other day, Joey aired. Joey, spinoff off friends, starring, well, Joey, Matt Le Blanc. It was pretty funny, kinda what you’d expect from friends, but different. I’ll continue watching, yes. At least, for a bit. Some funny people, yes, so that’s good.
-------- trip to Waterloo ----------
Anyway, today I went to Waterloo with Alan. He came a bit late, but it was okay, we still accomplished most of what we wanted to do. I moved in a couple bags and a couple boxes, so I don’t have to move as much tomorrow.
We exchanged our modem, and it works, but Alan’s not connected to the Internet yet, so hopefully that’ll change soon. Some things have been broken or removed, so we might need to talk to the girls about that. The bathroom has been painted, and it looks pretty nice. Well, nicer, at least. Furniture has been moved around, but all that’s fixable. Got a free phone, hehe, and got a free dirty sofa!
We’re gonna get TV! A whole slew of channels too. Got the ultimate pak, which is basic cable, plus the advanced stuff, like Muchmusic and Spike TV, and meTV, which is comedy network and food network and stuff. Also, there are not 1, not 2, and not even 3 working phone outlets in the house. There are 4! So yes, we’ll have 4 phones, and that’s good! So I’ll have a phone, which is good, so I can make more phone calls.
But to the rest of you (well, Jason and Andy and Wen), that means we’ll have a phone in the basement! As before, we couldn’t hear the phone, and it was a long way to run to get it; now, we do hear it! And, if you’re outside the door, you can call us if we don’t hear you knocking :P So that’s great!
So, the TV will come on Tuesday. While we were at Rogers, I bought games! As I said, bargains do that to me. First, I saw Wario Ware for Cube for $24.99, so I proceeded to buy that, and the cashier told me that they have a deal, where you buy a used game, get another for half price (equal or lesser value of course). So, we couldn’t let that go!
Long story short, couldn’t find another good $24.99 game, didn’t know whether to get Crystal Chronicles or whatever, so I bought Everything or Nothing. I hear it’s good. Should’ve rented before we bought? Perhaps, but Alan told me to take a chance. So, we did! We can always return it.
So, we didn’t get the full value of the 2nd for 50%, but on the receipt, it says I saved $15, rather than $12.50, so that’s good. Mistake, or nice cashier? I don’t know, but I’m happy.
Okay, so that’s enough of stuff… or, that’s all my notes say about non-Anime stuff. So, here comes Anime news!
--------------- ANIME NEWS ----------------
The other day I said I saw Naruto 98, and forgot to mention the ending credits were pretty neat! The video of the ending credits was about drawing processes – like, they would paint a scene, and draw someone on it, and then colour and shade them, and I think it was pretty neat.
From nowhere, well, within the same thought as watching Naruto 98, I decide to download and watch MadLax 22 (after watching 1-3) and Ragnarok 22 (after watching 1). Ragnarok is based on the manga and the game, Ragnarok online. The first episode was pretty funny, with references to the game and leveling up and magic spells and stuff. Episode 22 was okay, and it had ac ool intro. Nothing special of an intro, just a pretty cool one, suitable for such an action/adventure anime. The anime itself is okay, could be a long running 100-episode series, while animation is above par.
--------madlax
MadLax 22… first 10 minutes seem intriguing. MadLax and that other girl seem to be connected somehow… it seems like a 24-26 episode series, maybe longer, so maybe watching episode 22 could be too spoilerific. They seem to be sisters, or past sisters, or legendary beings from past myths or something, but it’s intriguing. I might consider watching the rest of MadLax now, but maybe not.
I’m not considering watching the rest of Ragnarok, but I’ll probably download episode 55 when it comes out, just to see what it’s like then :P It might be a fun series (like watching Pokemon) but I don’t think there’s a major continuity story line (like FMA). In MadLax, it’s nice to see some of the aspects from the first episode – artful movement, artful gunshooting and stuff. Also, the arch-rival from episode 2 is still there! And then the end of the episode… yeah, seems like a turning point, so I think the series is indeed ending soon, or it could be like FMA and span for another 26.
At the same time as MadLax was coming out, there was that mech series, Bakuretsu Tenshi or something, but apparently that’s been licensed. I could download it, a later episode, but nah, it’s okay.
-------shinobuden
Saw Shinobuden 1, after Jia kinda suggested me to, or I did. Not really digi charat, but still pretty zany, mixed with Jubei Chan, or something, and all regular people (or most) are replaced with ninjas. Well, not really either. Let’s say, it’s a bit like… Pugyuru! But not. Ahh, never mind. It’s not bad. Silly, and has ninjas, but not really ninja fighting, yet.
HAHAHA… I just watched some funny stuff on Shinobuden… that was gold… well, didn’t watch it, more like, read the accurate subtitles… anyway, David would like it. It’s not Bobobo-ish, Jia likes it :P Anyway, I think I should get at least another episode… maybe I’ll wait for Waterloo to watch them… (update – I have downloaded a batch torrent of 1-6, so I have 6 eps now).
Finally seen Lain 7. Oooh… Lain 5 is my favourite episode. It’s weird… Of course, I’ll watch the rest some day… it’s on my to-do list…
Saw Rizelmine II 2 – it’s a good episode. Back in Waterloo, I would watch rizelmine in the morning, since it was short, so after getting ready and before leaving. Anyway, so yeah, I decided to watch all this anime for some reason.
On my computer, I have a folder called done-dvd-deletable, which are anime files which I have copied onto dvd, that I can thus delete. So I decide I should watch some of this before I deleted it, or kept it, whatever.
------gantz
Gantz, episode 1. OMG. WEIRD. If you liked Lain, if you liked Texnoholyze, well… give it a try. I’ll show it to you guys in Waterloo. It starts with 2 guys, and one guy thinks out loud to us, and everything looks kinda weird, and then the two guys die but they end up in some apartment building with other people that have supposedly died. It’s weird. Mainly because he thinks out loud.
Demonbane – hmm… I enjoyed it. It was part serious, and part funny, and sometimes it sounds like they’re saying something funny but they say it so seriously, so I don’t think it was meant to be funny. As for the genre, I’m not quite sure… animation is quite decent. So I enjoyed it, but not sure if I’d watch too much more.
------champloo
Samurai Champloo – ooh, I like this. From the opening sequence, it has a rap/hiphop turntable scene going on, which was pretty neat. Seemed like it had different story lines, and they were gonna merge soon… and it has that ending effect, like in Fight Club or Grave of the Fireflies, where you know how it’ll be near the end, so you wonder how that happens, or you know that will happen, in the sense of grave of the fireflies.
(Animenation says that effect in Grave of the Fireflies is powerful, because it’s a sad movie, and because of that you keep hoping that it’ll get better, but you know the end, so it’s like all hope is lost, and that makes it more sad)
Champloo is pretty awesome. Well, it has a good vibe – not like The Rock vibe or Zoolander half-vibe, but the music vibe. Hip hop works well, reminds me of Jet Grind Radio but not really. And the Fight Club thing was only for the episode… hehe. I have 3 episodes, at least, so I’ll watch them in Waterloo.
Excel Saga ep 2 – finally saw it, bad quality video file. Crazy? Perhaps, not compared to Bobobo though. It was a cute episode though. Ending credits are… interesting. I would say cute, but it’s not thaaat cute.
-----voices
Finally saw the masterpiece, voices of a distant star. Aww, what a sad romantic love story… I thought it was pretty sad. I’m amazed I haven’t watched this before, but now I have, finally, after putting it off for so long… it’s really good.
Midori No Hibi 2 – I’ve been putting this off. While the first one wasn’t bad by any means, I’m not sure why I kept putting this off. But I watched…10 minutes of this so far. (Sometimes if I can’t watch a whole anime episode, I watch 10 minutes of it and put it in a folder called “10 minutes”, so I can resume it at 10 minutes when I can watch it. Of course, sometimes I watch something for 10 minutes, put it into the folder, and not touch it again, probably because I’m not interested, or because I forget, or it seems like a chore.)
Midori No Hibi, watched it. First, it was okay, not perverted, not too strange… well, yeah, but everything seemed fine. But now (and before, but moreso now), her mother is involved, and she is sad, and Midori doesn’t want to tell her mother. So, I feel her sadness. It’s like in Jubei, episode 8, when Jiyu was sick after the fight with Shiro, and her dad couldn’t do anything, but be helpless and wonder what happened to his little Jiyu.
Also, the burden of keeping a secret is there, and that provides some annoyingness… but from the previews, I see people might figure out in episode 3, unless it happens to be a dream.
-------- C o n c l u s i o n ----------
And that’s it! I must admit, for the last few anime things, I didn’t type much more than I noted down, because I noted a lot, actually. It’s 11:21 now, and I started writing out at 8:30, so it took 3 hours! I watched some CSI in between, but overall, it took at least 150 minutes. I thought I had more stuff on anime… but I don’t. So oh well. Voice of Different star was good, Gantz was weird, Champloo was pretty cool. Shinobuden’s pretty silly.
So… that’s it… tomorrow’s Saturday, so I have my driving lesson, and then we’re heading to Waterloo. Jason will be there on Saturday, so will Wen, and Alan’s already there. I briefly met Alex Chen/Chan, Alan’s friend, so I think we’ll see more of him. We’re probably getting together for dinner, if my parent (only mom’s coming) has left by then. I’m imagining Mel’s Diner, since that’s a usual ‘first time back to Waterloo’ meal, since it was a staple last time. I wanna go to Harveys and try both the Sirloin and Salmon burger, but that can wait.
Salmon Burger… Baja Chicken sub… etc… that can wait. Um… oh yeah, I wish Burnout 3 came out for cube. Darn it. I hear it’s awesome. Get it Wen.
Um… so I guess that’s it? Did you read all of it? It was pretty long. We’ll have internet in Waterloo, I’m sure, so it’ll be like I never got disconnected. Call us. Umm… etc.. I guess that’s it… Enjoy. 10th page, 5" down, >5124 words, >27472 characters including spaces, now time to copy and paste this, change colours, and have it ready for your reading pleasure.
Over and out.