Not just another NPC - (ds-x2 ver.)

I have soooo much to blog about. A few times I tried to blog last week, but I either got distracted or was pulled away from my computer while writing. So I’m starting fresh today to write about what’s been happening lately and holy shit has a lot happened.

Beginning with the days before graduation, I went on an all-out blitz to complete Earthbound before graduation. For about 2 and a half days I did nothing but play Earthbound… well, I also ate and slept. Point is I played a shit load of earthbound to where I was going a bit crazy. In fact I’ve been having some crazy dreams that I can’t seem to elaborate on. Trust me though, they’re crazy. Sadly I didn’t finish Earthbound before graduation, the last part of the game was hanging me up. More specifically those f^cking Nuclear Reactor Robots spawning everywhere.

After the graduation ceremony I went to Lucille’s which is one of those generic BBQ places with lots of random crap on the walls. However not only is their food better than the average - generic BBQ place with lots of random crap on the walls - but they had a badass blues cover band playing live with a band member whose middle name was actually “guitar”. I kid you not.

When I got home I received a call from my friend Tyler who said I should come over and “party” with him and his friend. I use quotes on “party” because our ideal party is one with lots of video games, soda, and various chips(likely Doritos). It was here that whilst (ironically) not paying attention and stuffing my face with Doritos that I got around to the last part of Earthbound up to the final boss. Then I beat the insane last boss and finished the game in complete awe. Tyler then remembered he had to work early that very morning so I ended up walking home at 5AM. I kinda felt like a zombie… who needed to brush his teeth.

The next day I went to a few other “parties” which was sort of surreal. I was really tired so that probably had something to do with it.

Couple days later I got everything sorted out with Sierra College… I’ll spare you the details, but it was really complicated. I’m just glad I’ve got classes to take coming this fall.

Bought a microphone(more on that here), stand, and some Midi cables. What do I need midi cables for? For my… wait for it… keyboard! Yes that “surprise” item I bought during the mega-garage sale event a couple weeks ago was a 48-key keyboard. A complete steal for 22 bucks though it required dragging home a mile and a half or so. Heck, that wouldn’t have been so bad if I didn’t have my bike to drag along as well. That was awkward - but so worth it. With midi I can make it sound like any synthesizer I can emulate on my computer. Now I have to teach myself Piano… I have some books on it somewhere.

Last Saturday I got a car. Yep a car. I’ll make a post about it later or something it’s too ugly to take pictures of now(getting detailed soon). My uncle really trashed it.

aaaand so that’s basically what I’ve been up to.

Just for the hell of it, here’s this:

Another week, another pair of retro headphones.

Better picture here

This time it was by complete coincidence. Last Saturday there was a mega-garage-sale event in my part of town - basically a bunch of people sold crap in front of their homes simultaneously - and I originally planned to take this time to hunt for some records. Well that didn’t go so well, but I did find these awesome headphones for the irresistible price of $1.75. After some cleaning(these things still smell like the 70s) and some research googling, I learned these cans are actually quite collectible. This thread here at head-fi.org explains the details of why these headphones are somewhat desirable. Basically, these are practically the first headphones to have full rage of sound: high and low frequency response. Plus they look hella tight.

I bought one other thing from a garage sale, but I’m keeping that a secret until I’m fully ready to reveal it. Hint: I need some midi cables.

Besides some last minute school work not much else is going on. I have been playing Earthbound for about an hour a day though. Classic RPGs are hard to sit through these days…

Oh and I have a very ambitious(more so than a game review) broadcasting project in the works. Sadly, filming will commence up until the very last day of school so I’m going to have to figure out a way to import it all and edit it outside of broadcasting class. Perhaps my friends could help me with this. I don’t know, we’ll see.

(California Poppy)

Ah spring, my favorite time of year here in Northern California. It’s warm, but not too warm. Weather like this makes you want to go outside and get some exercise. Cycling is my preferred method of recreation, along with inline skating, but I got tired of being called “fruit boots” so I got rid of them(that and I outgrew them). Yea I’m actually brave enough to type that, mainly because I actually find it humorous myself.
You know what though?(rant about skates in 3…2…1… )
I love skates. I miss them so much I might just go ahead and buy myself another pair despite the negative reputation. Screw the haters. The feel of gliding across smooth cement and asphalt is unparalleled. I remember I used to play roller hockey for a couple of years too, that was loads of fun. The program fell apart though: One city stopped competing, our coach went on to do something else(ice hockey I think), and I was left being the oldest one around(at 14 or so). Still wanting to skate I tried to get into “aggressive” skating. For various reasons I grew bored of it, at least the skates looked cool and performed well.

(great skates)

I never posted about my bike, have I? For summer school last year my mom bought me a really nice bike to transport myself - bittersweet obviously, but I’m not complaining. It’s a beautiful bike, probably the most (single) expensive thing my mom has ever bought me. Check this beast out:

It’s a sweet ride, don’t think I’ll be selling this thing anytime soon. I’ll spare you the specifics, just go here if you’re curious.

On a gaming note, I’ve been honing my SSB:Brawl skills with my local Smash Brothers champ. He’s crazy good, I don’t think I’ll ever be half as good as him. I’m (sadly) going to be busy with homework this spring break. If I can catch a break I might try my hand online. Maybe hand out my Friend code here and there… we’ll see.

Quick update! (still busy/slacking off/playing games/saving the “world” )

14th -Valitines day was a boring but interesting day of reflection.

18th -GDC came and is uneventful to me so far. Playing is believing though. *shrug*

19th -Took a Sierra College assessment(English/math) and felt very ill about 5 minuets in. Couldn’t focus and started guessing on some problems I would normally take the time to solve. Somehow still got normal results - perhaps better than my sister. haha!

Nick: 1
Logic: 400082

20th -Turned 18! Woo!(meh) Went to the doctor as well. He took me off my acne medication finally.

21st -Feeling much better without that medication crap. Unfortunately I have lots of work.

Oh and this set is simply kick-ass. Best headphones EVER. Didn’t think there was an RJ-11 to 1/4″ plug out there.

Whoops, did I say I was going to write another entry on Wednesday? I meant Thursday. Because Wednesdays almost always suck. You can’t argue with that logic… *ahem…

Actually, school is kicking into overdrive so I have no time for blogging or other web-related shenanigans… well except for right now.
Times up!
…Nah just kidding.

Gaming is on the back-burner as well. Advance wars has been in stand-by mode for about four or five days now, and still going strong! Who knows when I’ll get back to it. Maybe if I finish this blog post fast enough… hm.

Two weeks from now my school will be - basically - adding a 30min class to my schedule. I say “basically” because it’s actually pretty complicated and some days I may even get out of school earlier than I already do. But given this is me I’ll be stuck staying that extra thirty minuets that is (what they call) the “plus period”. If you click that link you’ll witness some Rocklin High school web designing at its finest. Who knows though, maybe I could turn this time into something productive.

Good’ol Fabrice Lig(AKA: Soul Designer), who I talked to briefly before I jumped off the Myspace bandwagon, has uploaded some short and sweet videos of Standard 9. Which is something Ken Ishii’s website for Standard has yet to do(and I doubt ever will at this rate). Check these out if you like techno!

Edit: BTW I titled one of my previous posts “rapping up jan08″ - and I forgot the w!(w-rapping) Talk about embarrassing!

What a week, I knew it was getting down to the wire, but wow.

What the hell are you thinking?!

…Is what my English teacher said to me Wednesday(or was it Tuseday?).
You see I was behind in my work… very behind. So I took drastic measures to avoid…
*shiver *
…night school.
I planned what was basically a project-a-day plan where I would stay up all night working on a project to turn in the next day. Now you’re probably thinking the same thing she did. Yea I know it’s crazy, but it had to be done! My crazy situation also provided me with some material for my work. For example, this sonnet by yours truly:

Courier new is my font of choice
For creative writing it is preferred
You could say it gives me my voice
Otherwise my work would be deferred

I write too much about my homework
These poems must be very boring to read
I get it done though, that is one perk
After all these assignments are of dire need

Next year I know to do my work as it comes
Bite the bullet and get it done
These assignment points total to great sums
I really hate to do them all as one

Finally I’m on the last line
Too bad it is six hours past nine

Yep, I dipped pretty low on all some of these.

After I accomplished that amazing task of cranking out crap-tastic-hopefully-pass-worthy material, I was swept off to the bay area on Saturday to repeat what we basically did with Thanksgiving. It’s weird knowing there’s a new Nintendo office within 4 miles the whole time. Which reminds me, I took a picture of the top of the US Sega HQ coming back from thanksgiving.
…er… that’s right, I’m not on my computer. I can’t post it. Aw and I was going to set up a flicr account too. Newegg got my card and a replacement is in transit though. It should be here in a couple days, probably the day after Christmas. I’ll do an update once it arrives too, I’ll blog about whatever I get and post some pictures or something.

Ten bucks says I get a Wii. Just a feeling.

No post this week I’ve got too much homework to do.
…
Alright alright I will admit I’ve been floating around the new* insert credit forums - but come on I’ve been waiting for that forum to open forever!
…
Ok back to work.

I lived!(in reference to last week)
For now…
And to top it off last Thursday I finally got my drivers licence! To celebrate I went out with a whole bunch of Inanetalk.com members to the arcade on Saturday. I posted about it here. This is by far my favorite picture, and no, it’s not me(for those of you who don’t know what I look like - warning: I’m ugly).

My game-playing has been at an all-time low, it’s been: homework, eat, *coughsurfewebcough*, school, and sleep(not in that order obviously). That’s my excuse for the late blog this week as well. If I make it out of this semester alive though I have a feeling the second semester will involve more game time on hand. You never know. That’s the way school seems sometimes; either they give you tons of slack or none at all. Summer is really the only time of the year I’m able to relax. Then I find myself doing things on the side to keep myself in check, it’s weird. Wait, what am I ranting about? Lets focus on more important things!

Like this!

I was never a fan of Gerstmann, in fact for the days that I remember watching “On the spot” he was probably my least favorite Gamespot editor. What Gamespot has allegedly done to Gerstmann though is so bad that I find myself rallying behind all the other people supporting him. Even if it was a poorly written review that looked like one of my blog entires written on a late Monday night after consuming too much sugar via ice cream, M&Ms, and six blueberry muffins(holy crap I ate six?) - that still gives them no right to fire him the way they did. I doubt it was even a bad review though, it was merely truthful, and Eidos didn’t want to hear it. As “they” say: Credit travels up, and blame trickles down. It’s not right. He was just doing his job. A job which he obviously takes enough pride in to maintain his position, and stand by his judgment. I think he’s also gained some new respect from me in that light as well now that I think about it.

The eerie part is no one has heard from him yet. I wonder why he’s laying so low? Is it all just a big rumor out of control? Or are two Gamespot hit-men standing by, waiting for the moment he “sings like a bird” to the press? Perhaps their names are Kane & Lynch. …Time Paradox!!

On a scale of one to ten on how dead I am, I would put: 9.9987654321
Why? Because I have lots of unfinished homework and when I go to school on Monday I’m pretty much toast. It’s not like I haven’t been working this past week that I’ve had off. Just a lot of things got in the way… and I’m not very productive to boot. On the other hand I can’t wait to get back to school, see all of my friends, talk, socialize, and of course learn something in class(right?). Thanksgiving wasn’t that great, I just wish I didn’t have so much work to top if off. At least the weather was nice in the bay area.

uncropped original here(in case you were wondering why I got so much sky̷

An acquaintance of mine walked up to me on Tuesday and flashed an Initial D Arcade Stage 4 license. This could only mean one thing:

The Sega Lindbergh -was in town!
(to the uninformed: The new Sega arcade platform, think Naomi)

In case you’re wondering, yes, there are not many arcades around here. To compensate the arcade in “Sunsplash waterpark” doubles as my local “arcade”. It seems they get new arcade releases too so it’s not all that bad I guess. When my friend “chase” came over randomly yesterday I reminded him and we sped off to Sunsplash in the classic Miata. Quarters on hand and drifting in mind.

The Initial D Stage 4 cabinet was right at the entrance to greet us when we arrived. It’s a very nice cab, very. Padded seating, displays are WXGA(1366 x 768), and the steering wheels are well built and beautiful. Chase broke a 20 for… some reason…(gave him an insane amount of tokens) so for 20 tokens he bought me a license! Thanks Chase!

Hey guys? It’s not working in my E-reader!

He wrote up some nice impressions too, I’ll link and quote some of them:

The Physics are a little wierd, still. The car I was driving (Roadster, of course) wanted to slide every dang time I turned the wheel with the gas on. Although the “mystery-power-braking” is gone (you actually need time to stop, now), the car wants to automatically countersteer for you. And that “downshift-to-turn” trick still works to a degree, as does left-foot-braking. As NPC pointed out to me, there is a degree of weight transfer, but it is marginal. Overall, in the passes it still feels like youre riding a roller coaster and not driving a car, but less than the previous one.

I really like the license too, it’s not just for looks, it actually stores a good amount of data. It is essentially a 5 dollar memory card with a randomly generated dot-matrix avatar. Worth it if you visit the arcade enough.

I have this week off for thanksgiving! But I have a… *sigh*… insane amount of homework. To top it off I’m going to my grandmas for the holiday(Thursday) so I’m a bit jammed on time. I’ll try and take a picture of the bay though! Expect a really short blog on that one.