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

Still a couple hours until the new year and I just want to make one last post. Starting with that flickr album I’ve been meaning to start. The first picture I uploaded was of today’s sunset since it’s the last sunset of the year. Taken on top of one of the many hills in Rocklin(more specifically for locals: “backside” Park Dr. by the Water tank).

I rode my bike thinking I could use the exercise, but wow it got hella cold after I took that photo.

I plan to upload more later. I seemed to have gotten into taking pictures for the blog this year for some reason. I think I’ll get my own camera sometime this year(er… next year).

Sometime in the past - maybe last year, or the year before I can’t remember - my good friend Tyler and I celebrated the new year together playing games all night into the wee hours of the morning. It was fun, but this year he wanted to celebrate it with his Girlfriend(I don’t blame him). So Saturday(I think… man I’ve lost sense of time thanks to this break) he invited me over to play some games. I didn’t stay over too long since it wasn’t a planned sleep-over like before but we played a good variety of games. Everything we played on the 360 somehow seemed too dull for that evening. It could’ve been the size of the TV, plus the split screen. Or maybe it was that every game we played was either not my type of game, or not his type of game. We needed some variety, or more importantly something we could evenly compete in. I ran back home and threw the Dreamcast in a back-back and ran drove back. Ah, now the Dreamcast is quality entertainment. Soul Caliber saved the day, so did some other off-beat games like Tech-romancer, and Ikaruga. An acquaintance from school and I discuss and joke about Ikaruga a lot in front of Tyler. He had never played it before so I showed it to him and… um… blew his mind. The thing about Ikaruga is that it isn’t based on reflex more than it is knowing what is simply going to happen next. Probably should have stepped him through it more. Now that I think of it we didn’t even give two player mode a chance, that would’ve been ideal for teaching him the ropes. Or at least as much as I know about the game, there are people out there that play Ikaruga in ways far beyond my capabilities.

Good times were had, so I have no regrets sitting at home this New years eve.

One thing I forgot to mention the other week was this Dutch Electronica blog I stumbled across a couple weeks ago. Yea, I can’t read it worth crap. But every now and then they post a set from a DJ I recognize and it’s good stuff! Reminds me of a typical Gawker blog. So hey, if you run out of things to listen to go check’em out.

Speaking of electronic music, I stumbled upon a Roland Tr-909(drum machine) emulator for my DS. It’s quite awesome, I’ve been playing around with it on and off today and I love how hands-on it is compared to something on a computer. Now I just need a synthesizer and I could compose something of my own.
Ha- no. But it is fun.

Happy new year!

Christmas is over, but the fun has just begun! Still a week and a half left of nothing but messing around with what I’ve received. Got my graphics card back today too so I’m ready to do anything! Orange box here I come! Oh but let me total up what I’ve hauled in so far.

I was right on the money with the Wii. Finally in “next gen”… but I lack games. I plan to go out and buy Mario Galaxy today as soon as I’m done posting this. I was at Target the other day exchanging an extra nunchuck controller my mom had bought, then reminded myself to go buy a Wii points card and classic controller. Saving my Bestbuy gift card for game purchases in case you’re wondering. I own a lot of classic games, and “own” even more of them (that I play with an emulator). Sin and Punishment is pretty much the only reason I bought a points card. It isn’t emulated 100% anywhere else except on the Wii and I think it’s a great game to actually own. That and Blazing Lazers since I could never find(or figure out) a Turbo Graphics16 emulator for my PC. I kind of regret it, it’s not as good as I thought it would be. Even for a late 80s game I think Cho-ren-sha is much more impressive. Not to mention this now leaves me with a useless 200 Wii-points. WTF? Oh well, I’ll put it towards Wii-ware titles.

Another major gift(in my book) is a cell phone! Woo!
Unfortunately it’s very limited in terms of applications(damn you Verizon), but it plays music(yay!), with 2GB of internal memory accessed by a USB cable(yay!), and… sigh… output through a 2.5mm jack(what?!). Yep, same miniature “jack” my calculator uses to talk to other calculators. It’s weird, it’s small, and I don’t like the headphones earbuds(even worse) it came with. If it exists, I’ll buy the adapter. It has a nice long-lasting rechargeable battery at least.

Ok maybe I won’t total up everything I got.

Just one more thing.

Tis awesome. I got the “European version” apparently because it has an extra track on the main CD, and came with the first Disc of Ken Ishii’s Play, Pause, and Play. Which is awesome. Especially since it has my favorite track from Joris Voorn “Incident”.
Ah, some great driving music.

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.

I hate it when someone says “oh snap”, it’s like they’re trying to be cool and at the same time conform by not say anything offensive. Just say “oh shit” people, it’s not that hard and no one really cares except for maybe the school principle himself. Well I used it as my title for this week’s blog entry simply because it’s a nice play on words with the latest in the world of NPC.

Rewind to friday when I was minding my own business, with my computer practically idle when I suddenly heard a loud “SNAP”. First thought was: Blown capacitors! Second thought: Sound card! Third thought: FUUUUUUUUCK! Forth thought: Turn it off!

After inspection it was indeed a blown capacitor, but not my sound card. No instead it was my graphics card. *whew*
…
*thinks about that for a moment*
…
FUUUUCK!

Luckily it is still under the standard RMA with Newegg. Just by a couple of weeks. Not 100% sure what caused it, but lets just say I know how I might be able to prevent anything from happening to my replacement. The wait is going to kill me, I’ve got a couple files I need for school. I’m going to have to take out the Hard drive and copy them to another computer(you know how many times I’ve done that this year?). Currently using my dad’s Celeron-based computer running win2000, it may be my main computer for the week.

At the very least, I’ve figured how to gain access to most of my music without actually having my computer on. Just go to last.fm–>listen–>select username–>type and search NPC82. Or i could just embed it.

Edit to DS-X2 readers: I can’t seem to get the embedding to work here, I probably need some wordpress plugins or something. sorry.

I’m always surprised at the collection of music available with last.fm radio. Only downside is that buffering sucks sometimes.

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!!