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Archive Part Fifteen First | Previous | Next | Current Tuesday, August 17, 2004--Happy Birthday to Nadia! In any case, today I did some stuff on AO, and it was also the last day of my algebra class. I'm glad it's over, but I'll miss the kids... well, at least the good ones. That is all! Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 2) Total: 7 This entry will go over the 100k limit. I'll fix it some other day. Good Night! Monday, August 16, 2004 - Addendum--Last night, I had a dream that I was at some kind of camp (possibly SJYS music camp). I forget most of the details, but I remember this much: There was this cute girl that really liked me and we were really hitting it off. She liked MTG and candy, and we spent time together on both. Come to think of it, she looked kind of like Sharon from SJYS. Hmm... Later in the dream (random scene change style), there were these dudes talking, and I disagreed with them, and they were like "Dude, what's the point? You're not going to fight us." or something like that. Again, hmm... Finally, back to the camp, the girl betrays me for some reason. What a nasty omen. That sucks! Anyways, here's a second good night! Monday, August 16, 2004--Today, I spent most of my time preparing for the Algebra class I will have to teach tomorrow. I also spent time playing FF8. I also spent time discovering that my printer is out of black ink... which sucks... Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 2) Total: 3 Good Night! Sunday, August 15, 2004--I don't play FF8. Instead, I decide to work on my project, but I fell asleep. There is one line's worth of addendum to my August 13 entry, by the way. Anyways, I also go and play basketball with Justin, Mark, Ryan, my dad, Frankie, and me. I sucked, as usual. Ryan: I count as zero players. Me: Oh, yeah? I count as negative one players. Later, my dad suggests that he and Justin play 2v4 against me, Frank, Mark, and Ryan... Ryan: Dude, but I count as zero players. Franklin: Yeah, and with Dwayne counting as negative one players, that means it's actually a 2 on 1! Anyways, after I get home, I showered, ate, and went online for not particular reason. Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 1) Total: 3 May the Night be Good! Saturday, August 14, 2004--I play FF8. It appears to be better than Golden Sun, because I don't remember Golden Sun being this enrapturing. Then again, I've only had FF8 for all of 3 days, and I've been playing Golden Sun for quite a while. But then, I remember putting down Golden Sun pretty quickly to play Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. *8*It's probably too early to judge, but FF8 actually has decent gameplay. The Junction System makes for some interesting stuff. Unfortunately, the game is way too easy. Especially since Curaga is available really early in the game, and for hella cheap, too. (You get Siren from the 2nd boss, and you can teach her the Menu Ability to make Life Magic pretty quickly. You can use this ability to convert 1 Tent--which costs 1000 gil, into 10 Curagas, so you can effectively buy Curagas for 100 gil a piece.) And not just that, but if you junction 100 Curagas (which can be obtained easily for each and every character) to HP, you can increase your HP from 600 to 3000, which makes your characters godly strong, since most bosses only do 100 damage. Even Edea at the end of Disc 1 can only do 300 damage, and I could have beaten her by having Squall summon Quetzacoatl all the time, except that I discovered that if I use Carbuncle continuously, Edea will spend all her time dispelling my Reflect shield instead of attacking me. Stupid Edea. So... yeah, FF8 has a pretty good system (except for the enemies levelling up with you), but the game is too frickin' easy. And Alex's number one complaing (as always) is that the game has bad storyline.*8* In any case, I can't help but play more FF8. If it's anything like Xenosaga, I'll play it almost non-stop for a week (roughly 40 hours of gameplay) and then complain that the game is too short when it is infact me who is too short. Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 2) Total: 3 Good Night! Friday, August 13, 2004--Happy 19th Birthday to me!!?!! Anyways, today, after lunch, Justin, Frank, and I went to Oakridge Mall for my birthday. We were on our way to see Alien VS Predator... except for Franklin, who opted to spend X dollars at the video arcade, where X is an undisclosed amount. (Not even Franklin knows... actually, he probably does, I didn't ask him.) So it was just me and Justin watching the movie. What happened to everyone else? Alan didn't want to see AVP (Justin said some shit about dick-huggers and ball-bursters); Mark was still at Cal; Ryan was AWOL; Alex had work; Joyce had disappeared off the face of the planet; Kim had relatives to attend to; Sarah was gone to Harvard; Elizabeth was at the SJYS music camp. So... yeah, everyone was MIA. ...well, not quite in action. Justin: Dude, I think I just saw Diane Ko. Either that or it was just my imagination. Me: It was probably your imagination. I don't see her anywhere. Justin: Never mind, it was just a chick that looked like her. Me: Did she have long light brown hair? Justin: Yes. There was a poster for Resident Evil Apocalypse that had a woman wrapped in a towel and there was text that said, "My name is Alice, and I remember everything." AVP was a pretty decent movie. My biggest complaint is that the movie made the Predators seem way too wimpy. Afterwards, we went back to my place, but not before stopping by at Justin's house to jack his Dominoes' coupons. Apparently, it took him well over 5 minutes because Alan called his ass in the bathroom. Apparently, Alan was already at our place, but Uncle Shawn and Aunt Fanny let him in. Am I the only person who likes mushrooms, because I suggested that we put mushrooms on our pizza, but the other dudes were like NOO!!!, so we ordered the second one with ham & bacon instead. (The first was pepperoni & sausage.) Alan & Justin play MTG. Alex arrives. I demo my project for him. He was impressed that I knew so many advanced techniques. (I am a high-level programmer.) Oh, and here's the quote of the moment. "Holy shit! I have negative one of nothing!" I suggest we play Bomberman. We end up playing Soul Calibur 2 (Voldo has one costume where his face mask looks like an alien from Alien.) Pizza arrives. Long political talk. We go back to playing Soul Calibur 2. Alex leaves. We eat cake. I fall asleep while Justin and Alan are still around. (Oh, this entry was written on Saturday, by the way.) Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 5) Total: 8 Good Night! Thursday, August 12, 2004--Last night, I had a dream where me and Hyde from That 70's Show were on the run from the cops (literally running down the street and dodging traffic) because I had parked a car illegally (in the middle of the road), but like hundreds of people were also doing it (they were also obstructing traffic), but for some reason, they all got into their cars and escaped before the cops showed up, so Hyde and me ran. We went to this run-down apartment-ish building that was labelled USC (which is kind of ironic), and Hyde got into the elevator and I almost didn't make it. (Apparently, the cops were so close behind, Hyde didn't have time to wait for me before hitting the door close button... either that or he was ditching me and letting the cops get to me first to buy himself more time, because if you've ever seen That 70s Show, he is that kind of person.) In any case, today, after going to Fresh Choice, I finally got around to buying FF8. You know, it's kind of funny. You rarely ever hear about the Materia System in FF7 or the Junction System in FF8 or the Gain-Abilites-From-Items System in FF9, because nowadays everyone focuses on storyline and graphics instead of gameplay. The ironic thing is that in the PSX FFs, Square has actually been doing a lot to make an original and unique system for their game. It makes a person wonder... Oh, and I got the Greatest Hits print of FF8, and it cost $15, and it says "Square-Enix" on the cover and on the inside of the instruction booklet, it says, "Any inadvertent references to prior corporate entity are no longer valid and effective. This game is published solely under the management and operation of Square Enix USA, Inc." How amusing... This must be a really newly printed copy of FF8. Anyways, in a conversation with Alex, it seems that we (well, mostly me) have come to the conclusion that FFT is the best FF ever. It has great gameplay (since it's not really an RPG, it's a tactical combat game) and a truly amazing storyline. (I like gameplay and Alex likes good stories.) It even has a good soundtrack. The only thing it lacks are 3D graphics to please the graphics whores. Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 2) Total: 8 Good Night! Wednesday, August 11, 2004--I agree with Chris on my guestbook--I do need to get out more. However, Berkeley has instilled within me an attitude that if it's not within walking distance, it's not worth going to--unless it's fencing or involves me getting paid (or laid, but I don't currently have a girlfriend, so that's highly unlikely). A Year Ago Today: Convo with me and Lei about how girls with boyfriends are more flirtatious... Anyways, I went tutoring, worked more on my project, and then I went sword-fighting. Woot! Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 3) Total: 8 Good Night! Tuesday, August 10, 2004--I did a little bit of project work, but a lot of preparing for class and tutoring. Florence: When-- Lydia and Evelyn: Florence, shut up! Florence: is-- Lydia and Evelyn: Florence, shut up! Florence: the-- Lydia and Evelyn: Florence, shut up! Florence: test? Lydia and Evelyn: Florence, shut up! Me: Next week. I dunno... I found it amusing. Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 1) Total: 2 Good Night! Monday, August 9, 2004--Grading papers and preparing for tomorrow's Algebra class that I have to teach... Quiz #2 was apparently harder than Quiz #1, although there were fewer problems that nobody got. It was more of that everybody missed something in different places. *shrug* A Year Ago Today: Booster Draft at Daniel Hedayati's... I claim that Daniel won because he's the best player... I think I could beat him in Constructed now... Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 5) Total: 10 In any case, Good Night! Sunday, August 8, 2004--More of my project... the other team members are Alex Jukl, who apparently is busier with his job at GEC teaching English than he is at college, and Kellie Liang, who has no specific orders, because no specific details have been issued as of yet. Oh, and I need more artists. Also, I played Monopoly with Franklin and his fiends. It was amusing... until it wasn't. Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 1) Total: 2 Apparently, the MTG World Championships are on the same weekend as the TBP Officer Retreat. Grrr... Good Night! Saturday, August 7, 2004 - Addendum--Last night, I had a dream where Angela Nguyen was driving a truck, and I was in the passenger seat, and we were chatting. I don't remember what we were chatting about, but yeah, she was driving me in a truck and chatting. Angela Nguyen... heh... she's short! Saturday, August 7, 2004--More of my special project... Lunch at Burger King, dinner at Black Angus--it appears we ordered too much food, even though we only ordered four meals. Oh, and I saw Michele with one L at Black Angus. It was cool! Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 2) Total: 7 Anyways, Good Night! Friday, August 6, 2004 - Addendum--Here's a real life conversation for you... Mom: Tomorrow, we can go eat at the Cheesecake Factory. Aunt Fanny: But I don't like cheesecake. Friday, August 6, 2004--Kupo! Anyways, I was playing GS2, and I decided this time, I'd write something in spoiler text. *GS2*Went to the Yampi Desert Cave and fought Valukar for another summon. The gimmick of this guy is that he can use my own Djinn against me. Ouch! It made it really hard to beat him with summons. Later, I travel up Anemos Sanctum, and fight the unequivocally hardest boss in the game--Dullahan. He has an instant kill attack; he can summon Charon, which has a good chance of instant kill; he has an attack which does 600-700 damage, so it's as good as instant kill; and he has Djinn Storm, which takes all the Djinn on my frontline fighters and puts them into recovery mode. That meant I had to juggle between all 8 characters as some of them would become useless without their Djinn. The worst part was that he recovers 200 HP per turn and has hella good defense. In my first three tries, I fought him for about an hour each and it was a stalemate, until Dullahan gradually wore me down. (I had used up all my Waters of Life.) Then, I decided to adopt a Suicide Blitz strategy, where I'd standby all my Djinn and go in with my most powerful summons and pray that I'd kill him before he kills me. (It's especially good that I had two chances, once with my frontline, and once with my back.) Well, I went to GameFAQs.com for a list of Summon costs so I could maximize damage, and I ended up finding a Suicide Blitz strategy for Dullahan. So I followed it, but it still took me three tries to get it to work (although thankfully, each try took about 5 minutes instead of an hour). I feel kind of bad for using a strategy off GameFAQs instead of using my own, though, but hey, at my level, it would probably have been impossible otherwise. At least I was smart enough to figure out that a Suicide Blitz was the way to go, and if I hadn't stumbled upon that strategy, I probably would have determined the correct combination of summons myself. In any case, Kellie used a password from a hacked file online, so her GS1 party is already at level 99 with godly stats. Heh, she'll kill Dullahan no problem.*GS2* Speaking of GameFAQs, apparently, Character Battle III has begun, so go vote! Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 5) Total: 11 Good Night! Thursday, August 5, 2004--Today, I had yet another strange dream. Apparently, in my dream, people have been saying that I was good at football, and that I could sprint really really fast, so the football coach shows up and tries to get me to join the football team. Heh. I woke up soon after that. Dwayne playing football... so ridiculous. I'm a fencer. In any case, my uncle Shawn and auntie Fanny are coming over from Taiwan today. My parents are currently at SFO picking them up. Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 4) Total: 10 Good Night! Wednesday, August 4, 2004--I had a strange dream last night in which I was fencing saber with somebody, but instead of sports sabers, we were using actual sharpened sabers, and his saber instead of being 3 feet long was 6 feet long. In other words, he had such long reach that I was forced to go on the defensive the whole time. What a wierd dream. In any case, tutoring, Golden Sun 2, and fencing. Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 2) Total: 3 Good Night! Tuesday, August 3, 2004--Teaching Algebra + tutoring... kids learn how to factor... Florence: Is it okay if I guess? Me: Only if that guess is correct. A Year Ago Today: I have a weird dream involving Kristen Kurimoto. Hmm... I wonder whatever happened to her. Anyways, it turns out Connie Chu isn't mad at me anymore. Hell, she claims she was never mad at me. I put her back on my buddy list just today for the hell of it, and she was online, so for the hell of it, I said hi, and we ended up talking. Weird... I could never understand that girl. The freakiest part is... A Year Ago Today: "I was talking to Connie on AIM a while ago. She seemed... pleased..." Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 5) Total: 8 Anyways, Good Night! Monday, August 2, 2004--While Franklin was checking something on GunBound on my computer, it screwed up, and dropped me back into windows in 640x480 resolution and 8 colors. It was so amusing, I took a picture, with giant AIM window and all. I also took a picture later when I rebooted and the thing was fixed, but the AIM window had moved to be at the middle of the screen, and it was tiny. I'll post up these pictures later in an addendum. Anyways, today, I had did some private tutoring, and I beat Golden Sun 2. It's a good game. It plays a lot like the original FF. It even has a similar storyline! Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 4) Total: 10 Good Night! Sunday, August 1, 2004--Secret Project #1 is going quite well. I wonder how much of it I can show off on my birthday. Ring me up on AIM (I bet you 14 eProps that nobody is going to do this) if you're interested in watching Alien VS Predator on opening day. Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 6) Total: 12 Good Night! Saturday, July 31, 2004--I spent most of today playing Golden Sun 2. You do get an airship... just not one as good as the Final Fantasy Airships. It's kinda crappy, actually. A Year Ago Today: I get my wisdom teeth pulled. Ow! Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 4) Total: 5 Anyways, back work. Quirk! Jerk! Ferk! Ed Ferguson! The horse? Yeah! Good Night! Friday, July 30, 2004--Today, the Termite Terminators were terminating the subterranean termites in the garage, so my family and I went to the mall to see I, Robot. It's a pretty good movie... if you ignore the fact that it has almost nothing in common with what Isaac Asimov actually wrote. The movie was actually originally called "Hardwired", and it originally had nothing to do with the book I, Robot, but the producers decided to inject the 3 laws of robots and change the name in attempts to get the movie to sell... which is actually ironic, since most people don't have the foggiest idea who the hell Asimov was anyway. Stupid producers. Joyce: Wow, I, Robot is such a good movie! Me: My friend Alex hates it because it gives the book a bad name. Joyce: There was a book?!? Yeah, so my review: As a movie, I, Robot was good. As a movie based on a Asimov book I, Robot is simply sacrilege. Me: I saw I, Robot today. Alex: What? How could you support such mockery?!? Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 4) Total: 6 Good Night! Thursday, July 29, 2004 - Addendum--So I invited Kim to come see the movie with us on my birthday, but she said some shit about having other plans on that day, something about family friends and having to show them around. Grrr... Then, I ask Kim if she wants to play a computer game, so we went onto Yahoo Games and played Pool. Yay! She won 3 out of 3, because I wasn't aware of all the rules. Kim: Are you letting me win? Me: No, of course not! Thursday, July 29, 2004--Today: Tutoring, Golden Sun... I think we get an airship in GS2, but I'm not sure. Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 5) Total: 7 Good Night! I need to talk to Kim... Wednesday, July 28, 2004--Today: Tutoring, Fencing... learned some new tricks. Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 2) Total: 8 Good Night! Tuesday, July 27, 2004--Today, I prepped up for my algebra class and went and taught. Today's lesson is a change from the usual (Polynomials... "What?" "Polynomials... I'll teach you about what they are."), but it was a lot simpler lesson than the previous ones. I noticed during the classwork, people were a lot more productive... although it's possibly because of the bad quiz scores I returned to them... heh... Tutoring, then back at home I updated my website because I missed an update last night. Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 6) Total: 9 Apparently, Aliens VS Predator comes out on my birthday. That's what we should do on my birthday--see that movie! Kupo! Good Night! Monday, July 26, 2004--So... tired... Anyways, today I spent correcting papers for my algebra class and tutoring. It was tiring. Then, I went fencing. After my lesson, I fenced Matt. Apparently, I'm improving. I lost 8-10, but one of my touches was quite fantastic. Matt was just charging down at me, apparently waiting for me to make the first move so he could react, parry, and riposte, but somehow, I just went straight for the head and got him. After the bout, he and I and coach Dirk talked about how my friend Zach said that the best fencers fence on instinct and about how if you need to think about your every move, you're fencing too slow. All in all, it was a good day. (Not like last thursday, when I was so tired, I nearly collapsed.) Back at home, I was going onto my computer, but I noticed that the fan was making weird noises, so I took it apart. It turns out that the connection between the motor and the fan blades was too loose, which was why it made that snap sound every time it started. (The motor starts, and the connector hits the fan, making that loud nap; it also made that sound when I turned it off, the motor would stop, and the fan would turn over and hut the motor connector.) So I tightened it with the screw. Now, the fan works much better again, although fixing the fan in the hot summer heat made me sweat a lot. Urgh! And I just showered, too. Oh, well. 'Tis the smell of sweat that makes me... umm... never mind... Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 5) Total: 11 Good Night! Sunday, July 25, 2004--Golden Sun 2... very non-linear. It's less linear than the first Golden Sun. If you enjoy non-linear RPGs (and trust me, FFX-2 does not count), play Golden Sun. Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 5) Total: 7 Other than that, Kupo! I mean, Good Night! Saturday, July 24, 2004--Working on my special project. I have a screenshot... which I will not post up. Haha! Other than that, Good Night! Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 4) Total: 5 Friday, July 23, 2004--Today was mostly me playing Golden Sun 2. Anyways, I have an addendum to Wednesday, July 14. Read it if you're interested in another one of my weird dreams. There's also an addendum to yesterday that adds an interesting miscommunication. A Year Ago Today: I had the ninja school dream in which Lizzie says "Oh great, now I'm stuck with Dwayne." Showgi for lunch... Burger King for dinner... played Goldun Sun 2. Yeah... Good Night! Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 4) Total: 9 Thursday, July 23, 2004 - Addendum--Franklin and I were playing poker... Franklin: I need to play with more money so that I can lose and still win big when my time comes. Me: What? Your kind thumbs? Thursday, July 22, 2004--I had a strange dream last night. Apparently, I was back at the SJYS and not only was I playing the viola, but I was also playing the piano, and they had some 11-note chords in that piano piece they wanted me to play. Me: "Holy shit!" Later in the dream, I frolicked with Emma and Lizzie. Anyways, I did some tutoring, I worked on my project, I fenced (but I was so friggin' tired today), so I came back home early. 'Nuff said. Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 1) Total: 4 Good Night! Wednesday, July 21, 2004--Heh, it seems that I have forgotten to add a monday entry, and that I accidentally labeled my tuesday entry as my monday entry instead. Whoops! Now, to fix that grievous error. Anyways, today, I completed Golden Sun and got everything etc etc, so now I'm transferring my file to Golden Sun 2. They gave me a 260 character password, which I messed up on the first time (got a single character wrong) and had to start over. Sucks. You know what sucks more? In Golden Sun 2, Felix doesn't talk. WTF?!? Man, Felix was cool, but now that he's mute, he's totally lame. Stupid designers. If I ever make an RPG, the main character will talk. Wait, I am making an RPG, and the main character does talk. LOL! Oh, and apparently, Jasmine Tzeng is taking up the sword... fencing! In any case, last night, I had a dream that I was at Katherine Yang's house and that she had grown up, except her house had a huge pit in the middle, in which we would be eating dinner, but I didn't go because I had a fear of heights. Later, people started fencing in the house's vast expanses of space, so I grabbed my gear and joined them. Mark Applebaum made a cameo appearance in my dream as one of the many fencers. Later, as I was running around with my sword, I ran into Linda and Sarah, who were barbequing in the backyard. Weird... Joyce says that dreams are a prophecy of the future... hopefully the good ones... not the bad ones... (neither of us was too fond that we would be fighting in my Berkele Mech Battle Competition dream... Alex says I've been playing too much Xenogears... no wait, I said that; Alex said I liked Xenogears too much...) Anyways, after tutoring... and more tutoring... Good Night! Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 3) Total: 9 Tuesday, July 20, 2004--Time for me to dig into my mailbox and reply to some mail. Unfortunately, no one sends me mail, but one person posted something in my ghostbook, which I will respond to: Students getting a 15/20 DOES NOT mean solely that you did a good job. Did they understand everything, is your teaching method correct? --------Albert Well, it's certainly not the teacher's fault. I go over the material, I give plenty of example problems, plenty of practice problems, I give opportunity for the students to ask questions. It's just that the students don't do the work. I mean seriously, who spends 30 minutes just to do 3 algebra problems. And trust me, it's not a matter of not understanding the material, because the students spend more time chit-chatting and playing around during "classwork time" instead of actually working. That and I often hear the students say that the homework is easy when they think I'm not listening. Oh, and that quiz was purposely made hard (I gave them 20 minutes to do 20 problems), so 15/20 is actually good... just not by middle school/high school Asian Honors AP insanely high standards. Anyone else would like to send me a message for me to reply to? Or how about that guy who likes to post in my guestbook about "Karen". If I write the name "Karen", would he just show up saying, "Oooh! You mentioned Karen 26 times today!"? Heh, that's a funny thought... although Karen might not think so. Anyways, today, I passed back the quizzes to the students and taught them how to solve systems of equations in two variables. Now I'm tired like a pancake. (For those of you who don't know, I like weird analogies.) Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 3) Total: 4 Anyways, it's Red Week at MTG.com. Red is a cool color. Blow up shit! Good Night! Monday, July 19, 2004--Today... playing Golden Sun... tutoring... fencing... that's all! Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 5) Total: 6 Good Night! Sunday, July 18, 2004--Spent some time working on special project... ate lunch at Burger King... watched Simpsons (a satire on the new "patriotism"... supposedly a re-run)... that's about it! Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 3) Total: 8 Good Knight! Saturday, July 17, 2004--I got back to play Golden Sun, the Nintendo RPG for the GBA. It's a pretty good RPG for Nintendo, and a pretty good RPG in general. Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 2) Total: 4 Anyways, I'm going to go play some more Golden Sun. Good Night! Friday, July 16, 2004--Freaky! A Year Ago Today I was getting nosebleeds, and today I was getting nosebleeds. Hmm... Anyways, we went to Super Buffet for lunch, and I had too much to eat. Other than that, it was playing Xenogears and watching Emeralda grow up, and working on my project. Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 2) Total: 3 Good Night! (Yes, I like to keep my boring entries short.) Thursday, July 15, 2004--More work on my project... tutoring... fencing... that's it... uneventful day... Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 6) Total: 7 Good Night! Wednesday, July 14, 2004 - Addendum--I remembered my dream. Apparently, it was a spinoff on X-Men or something, and I was an alternate Shadowcat (don't ask why I was dreaming I was a girl... I have no idea), and apparently, instead of being able to phase through stuff, she was a half-cat beast mutant thing (except she looked mostly human... I think...), and she had Mystique for a mother and a lion for a father, and she had sharp claws, like Wolverine except not as long, more curvy, and not retractable, and for some reason, she could create illusions. Also, in this dream, Nightcrawler was evil (and this is the Nightcrawler from X-Men: Evolution), and he had stolen a pair of Chaos Orbs (not to be confused with the MTG Chaos Orbs, and he and Kitty were driving in a car trying to escape Cyclops (who was chasing after them, and he wasn't fooled by the illusions, and it was the grownup Cyclops from the original X-Men cartoon), and finally, to save Kitty, Nightcrawler offers to stay behind and turn himself in to Cyclops, but before he does, Kitty takes one of his Chaos Orbs from him to keep it safe for him. Then, as she escapes back to the X-Mansion to the safety of her room, the ending theme from Xenogears plays. What does it mean? I have no idea. Wednesday, July 14, 2004--There's an addendum on Sunday, July 11 if you're interested. It's dream analysis... kinda... And today, I have another dream to write about... except I forgot it so I won't write anything about it just yet. If I do remember it, you can expect another addendum later. Anyways, other than that, it's been more work on the secret project and more tutoring, plus more getting tired... tired... Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 1) Total: 3 Good Night! Tuesday, July 13, 2004--'Tis my birthday minus a month. I must begin to make plans... or should I? Hmm... I ought to do something different this year. [censored]! That would be a good idea. You know that [censored] is really [censored] and [censored] would make a fine addition to my party. (Note: Dwayne is just randomly censoring shit and speaking nonsense. He is not talking about anything illegal or immoral or the like.) Anyways, today was a long day. In the algebra class I teach, I gave the kids a quiz, even the best student in the class got 15 out of 20... so I did a good job. Heh... Anyways... Private tutoring... Dinner... More private tutoring... Franklin's Counter-Control deck has been resurrected... still godly powerful... new Elf and Nail deck is pretty deadly... ow! Tired... cannot speak in complete sentences... Although my Blue-White Control deck did beat Franklin's Counter-Control deck in a really weird matchup. His mistake? Trying to cast Time Stretch twice, both times I Memory Lapsed. Lucky for me I had been able to draw out nearly my entire deck thanks to Serum Visions and Condescend. Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 2) Total: 7 Anyways, Good Night! Monday, July 12, 2004--Secret project... I'll let you know later. If you're realy curious, ask me over AIM. Other than that, I had a quick tutoring job and a good fencing work out. Stab! Stab! Slash! Lunge! Scrape! Kill! ...okay, not kill, but the others yeah. And the word "KILL" can be easily transformed into the name "KIM". Hmm... bad omen? Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 2) Total: 4 Good Night! Sunday, July 11, 2004 - Addendum--Dream analysis for those of you who are interested... Last night, I dreamt I ate fried chicken... then I ate fried chicken for lunch today. Secondly, I had a dream in which everybody at Berkeley had giant mechs, a la Xenogears, and we were having this mech battle competition, and in my first bout, I was scheduled to fight Joyce. We didn't actually fight, but it was a strange dream. Maybe it means I've been playing Xenogears too much. Sunday, July 11, 2004--Okay, I added an addendum to Thursday, so look for it. A Year Ago Today: Funny math team meeting Other than that, today, I played Xenogears and beat the game. Right now, however, I don't feel like giving my feedback for it, but I will say it was a hell lot better than Xenosaga... which I've said before. Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 4) Total: 6 Good Night! Saturday, July 10, 2004--Today, Frank and I went to lunch with the SSS gang--meaning Justin, Mark, Alan, and Ryan. At Ariake Sushi, we ended up sitting in order from most perverted to least perverted--Alan, Justin, Me, Ryan, Mark, Franklin. Alan: How ironic! Me: No, how coincidental. Then, we crashed at my place for some MTG. First, Justin used his goblins to duel Alan's Mirari's Wake deck, which he copied off some Worlds 2003 decklist. In any case, he lost 2 out of 3, but in his second game, he managed to draw most of his deck, got out three Wakes, made 72 mana, cycled Decree of Justice for 69 4/4 soldier token, attacked with all of them (Justin blocked one), and dealt 272 damage, which was 252 overkill (because Justin was at 20 life... the whole time). That breaks Ryan's record of 180 or so overkill. It was insane. Dude, the only way to break this record would have to be an infinite creature combo, like a squirrel deck! (The irony...) Then, we played a damage-based 5-player FFA, which Justin won. It was better than last week's format, which was horribly screwed up. Highlights include: Justin gets a cell phone call from his parents... Justin: (to cell phone) What movie are you watching? Alan: (to Justin) What movie are they watching? Me: I Smother your warchief. Justin: Jerk... Franklin: Wait... they're watching "Jerk"? Alan: "Jerk: The Movie", the sequel to "Jackass"! And... that was the only highlight. Next up was the 2v2, the Jeng brothers versus Justin and Alan, because Mark wanted to see Franklin's "Cannon" deck in action. Now, Franklin's deck is a blue-red control deck which wins by dropping huge creatures like Akroma, or Scion of Darkness using Sneak Attack. So Franklin paired off against Alan (control VS control) and Justin and I paired off (aggro VS aggro), him using goblins, me using slivers. In the beginning, it was Justin and me duking it out. Alan is doing nothing but tutoring out lands, so Justin says, "My partner is useless." Franklin quickly got out his Isochron-Counterspell combo out, and Justin ends up having almost nothing on the field. Alan, who now has a decent land-base, sees Justin's powerlessness and counter-taunts him by saying, "My partner is useless." Later, while Justin attacks me with a Gob King and a Gob Warchief... Franklin & Me: I-- Me: Magma Jet him. Franklin: Aether Burst him. (Franklin and I look at each other funny.) In attempts to resolve this, he bounced the King and I Magma Jetted the Warchief (I wanted to scry). Then, when Justin replayed the King, Franklin countered. Whoops! Later, Franklin gets out his Sneak Attack, uses it to play Akroma, then sends it to me. He had to sacrifice Akroma at the end of the turn, but because he didn't have her anymore, he couldn't, so I got to keep Akroma. However, since this forced Franklin to tap out, Alan had the opportunity to play Mirari's Wake unopposed. Me: Okay, now Alan's a threat. Later, I attacked with Akroma and a Muscle Sliver, but Alan plays Vengeful Dreams and removes both of them. Franklin: You're going to hate my next play. Using Sneak Attack, he plays out another Akroma and a Scion of Darkness and sends them both to me. However... Next turn, Alan cycled Decree of Justice (which Franklin can't counter) for 17 2/2 Soldier tokens. Franklin and I were at 28 Life. Justin and Alan were at 17. Me: And so it begins... I quickly sent the Scion and the Akroma back to Franklin. In the meantime, he already had my (1/1) Hunter Sliver. Franklin attacked with Akroma. Alan plays Moment's Peace. Franklin counters with his Counterspell-on-a-stick (Franklin: "Hot Dog on a Stick"). They take 6 damage. 28-11. Alan decides whether or not to attack with his 17 soldiers. Justin: Dude, just send them to me. They have no blockers on this side. Alan: But my Wake only pumps them up on this side. Me: That's right. If you send them all to Justin, you can't deal lethal damage. (I was scared until I realized this.) Thus, Alan decided to counterattack with all 17 of his tokens. Franklin bounces 2 with his Aether-Burst-on-a-stick. I Lightning Bolt another. 3 down, 14 to go. The Akroma and the Scion block and kill two more. The Hunter Sliver chump blocks one more, so that's 11 2/2 attackers. We take 22 damage. 6-11. Franklin: Now we have to get ready for the second wave. Me: No, just counterattack for the win. They have no blockers. You have two 6/6 tramplers. They can't beat us unless Justin draws a double Lightning Bolt. (It was just before Justin's turn, and he had no cards in his hand.) Justin: *draws a card* I hate you. *plays his useless Goblin Goon* I pass my turn. Franklin attacks with the Akroma and the Scion. Alan flashbacks Moment's Peace. Franklin counters it with his scepter. We win. Whew! Close game... Franklin: You know what was really cool? There was a power battle on this side at first (between me and Justin), and in the end, there was a power battle on this side (between him and Alan). Me: Well, duh, you have aggro VS aggro and control VS control. Aggro decks are early-game decks while control decks are late-game decks, so it's only natural that the game would turn out like this. Later, we went to Vivian's new house. Bernard & Kellie were also there. Highlights include Franklin and I playing a power game of Badminton while Vivian and Robin just smack the birdie around beside his. Other highlights include me talking to Robin, and Robin replies without using words. Me: Oh, wait, I can't ask you that because then you'd have to use words. That Robin reminds me of Maria. Both of them are quiet. Vivian: Mrs. Liu! Me: Wait, you call your mom "Mrs. Liu"? Vivian: Well, what else would you call her? Me: I'd call her "mom". Vivian: Mom! Anyways, that's about it... or at least as much as I can remember. Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 4) Total: 6 Whoa! Long entry. Long day. Good Night! Friday, July 9, 2004--You know that sound that the moogles make in FF9 and FFTA? Well, that sound sounds kinda like "kupokupo". Funny, isn't it? Franklin doesn't think so, though. (the sound, not the funniness) Anyways, today, I tried playing Xenogears, only to find that Disc 2 kept getting stuck in a certain place, so I visited Alex and he got out his little kit to fix it. At first, it didn't work, so Alex told me to get a lint-free cloth and buff the surface of the disc, so I did. Eventually, it worked. So... yeah, I was playing Xenogears pretty much the whole night. Man, this game's storyline is so much better than Xenosaga. Hell, all of Xenogears is better than Xenosaga. Sometimes I even wonder why they made Xenosaga, that piece of shit. I'll be sure to borrow Xenosaga 2 rather than waste N dollars on it. (Or else I could just buy it when it gets cheap, like I did Xenosaga 1.) Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 3) Total: 6 Good Night! Thursday, July 8, 2004--This poem is based on a true story... NOT IN SERVICE driving down highway 87 in the slow lane traffic stops i spot a trolley NOT IN SERVICE it says the fast lane merges in i yield a cop car dashes by it gathers with its mates ahead blocking traffic i merge into the merging lane they yield the last car flies away leaving nothing between me and the tragedy an officer walks by flashing his light into my eyes making sure i see him as he tells me wait we're clearing out the street another kicks a piece of debris off the road in the stillness motorcycle wreckage litters the floor a car is smashed against the inner wall the way clears i move carefully i glimpse a helmet lying on the road floating upon a dark pool a man no a boy rode his motorcycle carefree unaware of his doom a car swerved destroying everything embedded itself into the wall a startled trolley driver stopped the car alerted the police the boy lay in the middle of his road the impact knocked his helmet off his bare head lay gazing at the stars as his life drained from his body and dissipated upon the street i pass a glance in my mirror the trolley still says NOT IN SERVICE never in service again Thursday, July 8, 2004--Kupo! I think I'm turning into a moogle. Anyways, I have a new tutoring student that needs to be tutored, so I tutored her. Later, I went fencing, and I learned a new technique. Speaking of which, I should be practicing it. It is a very good exercise. Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 4) Total: 7 Good Night! Kupo! Wednesday, July 7, 2004--Coding can be fun, and so can Xenogears. Woot! I also did some tutoring at Jumping Up today and caught a brief glimpse of Stephanie. A Year Ago Today: I come home from Japan Here's a historical MTG story: There is a rule that says creature cannot attack or use tap abilities on the first turn. In the olden days, this effect was unofficially called "summoning sickness" (which was an official term at one point, see Heart Sliver) or "jetlag". The day I returned from Japan last year, I claimed to be suffering from summoning sickness. Well, I certainly don't need to explain this to you. A conversation in Japan... Me: I'm suffering from summoning sickness. Greg: Well, I have haste, so I'm fine. You know, the other day, I was in a chatroom called "sarah", and some other people joined the room. Wow... I didn't know anyone besides me used the chatroom "sarah". Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 5) Total: 10 And now, back to our regular programming... programming! Good Night! Tuesday, July 6, 2004--Morning: Prepped up for the Algebra class I'd be teaching in the afternoon. Afternoon: Taught Algebra. The funny thing is, the parents will complain if I make the class too easy. They won't complain if I make it too hard. Currently, the best students in the class are just barely keeping up. The worst students are doing poorly. Conclusion? No one's going to complain. Hehe... I also tutored the other math girl. Evening: I went online and I will start writing code for an undisclosed project. The time is soon to come. Mwahahahahahahaha!!! Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 5) Total: 7 Good Night! Monday, July 5, 2004--For some odd reason, I felt like playing the Sims, so I did. Now, I'm starting a family of 8, all girls (which is harder than a family of 4 girls and 4 guys, because I can't make them in love so they can share beds and bathrooms... but I'm using a slightly different system, which still works, but is prone to chokepoints...) Anyways, it's fun, etc, etc. After lunch, Justin showed up to play some MTG. He wanted to test out that decklist the dude at the cardshop gave us. It was decent, but had a few bugs that needed to be corrected, the biggest of which is that there weren't enough targets to explode. Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 3) Total: 4 Good Night, people person thingies! Sunday, July 4, 2004--Happy Independence Day!!! ...wow, that used a lot of FONT tags... well, I hope it was worth it. Anyways, I played much Xenogears today and had several "Holy shit!!!" moments. It was crazy. Disc 2 seems to be lacking, though. Anyways, time to work on a not-so-secret project... Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 3) Total: 5 Good Nights! Saturday, July 3, 2004--Today, I went and watched Spiderman 2. It was pretty good. It delivered everything the trailers had promised, plus a little more, plus it was pretty faithful to the original comic. (Well, at least in contrast to some horrible comic movies, like Hulk and X-Men 2.) If you liked the original Spiderman, I recommend this to you wholeheartedly. Other than that, I played more Xenogears. Then, I had dinner with Jeffrey Ho and his family, but not Connie, because she was away for some thing. Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 4) Total: 5 Good Night! Friday, July 2, 2004 - Addendum--Here's a bonus conversation with dad: Me: *walks in from backyard* Rosebush is dead. Dad: What? Really? Me: Yeah... Well, at least no roses are growing on it, and there are barely any leaves. Dad: Oh, I thought you said George Bush is dead. Friday, July 2, 2004--Hot Pot City for lunch. (No, Hot Pot City isn't a city. It's a restaurant. If you don't know what they serve, you suck.) My brother is funny... Dad: [says something about getting something in Chinese, which I misunderstand] Me: What? Flamethrower? Dad: No, hairthinner. Franklin: Oh, yeah, that's a good idea. Thin your hair with a flamethrower. Me: [discarding a scam letter] I do with these things what I do with junk mail. Franklin: You mean burn them? Me: Dude, no! Dad: If it's a letter-bomb, you just detonated it. Franklin: Don't worry, just use a hairthinner. Anyways, other than teaching Franklin physics and playing Xenogears, that's pretty much it for today. Speaking of which, I think I'll play some more Xenogears! Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 2) Total: 8 Good Night! Thursday, July 1, 2004--"I thought you was sick?" "I got better." Uhh... yeah... right... Anyways, today involved resting in bed, playing Xenogears, updating my website... and... yeah... Good Night! Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 4) Total: 9 Wednesday, June 30, 2004--I had some weird disease today. Here's how it progressed. Phase 1: 1am to 1pm Symptoms: Diarhhea, Vomiting, Weakness Phase 2: 1pm to 4am the next day (yes, I wrote this article on Thursday) Symptoms: Fever, Headaches, more Weakness All in all, not a good experience. I had to cancel from my tutoring in order to recover. However, it reminded of the last time I was sick, I had this conversation with Jackie: Me: I hate being sick. Jackie: No no no, don't hate it. It's a fact of life. Just accept it. Something like that. It made her sound like the wise little girl she is. Stephanie: Hey, who are you calling little? Me: Uhh... not you. Either that or it was Lei. I can't remember. Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 6) Total: 9 Good Night! Tuesday, June 29, 2004--In the morning, I had to prepare the worksheets for the Algebra class because I'm a procrastinator like that. The worksheets came out on time, just in time for me to leave to Jumping Up and hand them to Mrs. Yaung for the photocopies. Class ran much better this time. Instead of me trying to figure out what to do, I actually had a plan. I also gave them a lot more homework, at the request of the parents. Hehe... parents wanting more homework for their kids... amusing. Well, so long as their the ones they pay me, I might as well listen to their requests. Anyways, now I'm back at home. I've eaten dinner. I've updated my website. I intend on playing Xenogears some more. Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 5) Total: 10 Good Night! Monday, June 28, 2004--Today, after lunch, I went and bought Soul Calibur II, which is pretty good as far as fighting games go. My favorite character is Raphael, the left-handed fencer, because fencers are cool and lefties are cool, too. Franklin: What? Raphael's your favorite just because he's a fencer? Me: Yeah. Fencers are honorable people. What? Is it better if I like Xianghua best because she's cute? Note: I don't actually like Xianghua, cute as she may or may not be. Anyways, I also had to teach Franklin calculus. Later, I'll have to teach him Physics. It's all good. I was also talking to Lizzie today, about how a year ago today, we were in Japan. I was talking to her about some of my memories in Japan, including eating Tempura Soba at at least 5 different restaurants, getting completely soaked in the warm rain (yes, the rain is warm in Japan) in Kyoto while coming back from the Internet Cafe, and about the whole Lizzie/Beth incident that always reminds me what a good person Lizzie is. I miss Lizzie already... even though I talk to her on AIM pretty often. Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 5) Total: 6 Good Night! Sunday, June 27, 2004--Same as yesterday. Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 3) Total: 9 Good Night! (short entry...) Saturday, June 26, 2004--Today is a huge blur. All I can remember is that I was playing Xenogears. Of course, part of the reason that today is a huge blur is probably because I actually wrote this entry on Tuesday the 29th. Hehe... whoops! Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 4) Total: 9 I'll keep my endings plain and simple for a while, simply because I'm tired of thinking up good ones. Good Night! Friday, June 25, 2004-- A Year Ago Today: I leave home for Japan with the SJYS. (This is why I wanted to talk to Lizzie.) Anyways, today, Justin invited the SSS gang to lunch at the Palace BBQ buffet, but Alan was stuck on a mountain (that's where his home is) because his car was jacked up, Mark was stuck at Berkeley, Ryan was doing something with his family, so it was just the JENG brothers and Justin. I drove. Then, we went to Superstars, where there was this really good kid who had a mono-blue Control deck, a reanimator deck, and black kill deck, and that's all I remember. Justin fought those three decks and lost. Then, I played the reanimator deck, won one (I got lucky), then lost one. Finally, we went back to my house where we did some shit... mostly played MTG, I think. *shrug* Then, I played some more Xenogears after dinner. Man, these journal entries are getting boringer and boringer, aren't they? I should include more interesting incidences... provided that they exist. My life is boring... K[censored]! Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 1) Total: 5 May the Night be Good! Thursday, June 24, 2004--I believe my day started when I something something, I don't know... All I remember is that eventually, I went and borrowed Xenogears from Alex. Man, Xenogears is so much better than Xenosaga. That and the graphics (this might make some of you graphics whores look at me funny), Xenogears is one of the few games whose graphics have impressed me. 2D sprites in a 3D fully-rotatable world. Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 3) Total: 6 Good Night! Wednesday, June 23, 2004--To start, an AIM conversation: Viltris: man, where's lizzie when i need to talk to her [Justin]: lol [Justin]: girls usually arent on at this hour unless they're studying Viltris: true Viltris: vincy's online, though Here's another AIM conversation just for fun: Viltris: k, plan B Viltris: i can poke you Viltris: *poke*poke* [Kim]: eh...not very nice plan...i don't like getting poked [Kim]: *stab* (This happened on June 2, 2004, btw.) And last, here's another one that happened today: Viltris: why does everyone like you? Auto response from [Sarah]: out Yeah, Sarah is amusing. Anyways, other than that, I played some Xenosaga (Drill game and Card game... it has good mini-games, remember?) and then after lunch, Justin came over to my place to try out his low-level deck (of leftover cards) against my low-level deck. At one point, he plays an Argothian Wurm. I choose to sac a land to it. He then plays another one. Me: "Oh, shit! ...I sac another land." Then, after dinner, I went to the San Jose Fencing Center. It was good to fence again. I'm slowly getting back in the game after a month's break. These dudes are skilled. I feel proud to have gotten 8-9 points against 15 in these bouts against them. Of course, they might not have been giving their all, considering I'm new at the fencing center, but *shrug*. We take what we can get. Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 6) Total: 12 Good Night, dudes! Tuesday, June 22, 2004--So after working on Dark Fiends for a bit, I had to go to the Jumping Up place to go teach the Algebra class that begins just today (the kids were smarter than I thought, so I've decided to push the envelope) and to tutor this girl who needs help preparing for the SAT II Math 1c test in October. Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 5) Total: 11 Good Night! Monday, June 21, 2004--I'll start with your daily dose of amusement: No, wait, that's Alan's website. My bad. I'll start with your occasion interesting-but-not-in-a-perverted-way-like-Alan's-website AIM conversation: [Lei]: eh? ...later, when I inform her of my plans to put that line on my Journal... [Lei]: hey!! [Lei]: gahhhh Viltris: heh, sorry Viltris: something wrong? [Lei]: *grumble* [Lei]: i dotn say eh that much!! Viltris: which is why i must capture it whenever you do! [Lei]: lol [Lei]: so easily amused.. Viltris: yes i am Yes I am, Lei, yes I am. (Lei is Canadian.) Anyways, other than that, I had to go tutor at Jumping Up and prepare for the Algebra class Mrs. Yaung has assigned me to teach. Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 4) Total: 6 Hmm... I think I've ended enough entries with "Hmm", hmm? Good Night! Sunday, June 20, 2004--Heh, someone posted this in my ghostbook: "Another post about Karen! Hooray!" It sounds like someone is obsessed with Karen, huh? Anyways, today, I beat Xenosaga. Here is my review: You know how people often say Xenosaga is an interactive movie? Well, they meant interactive movie. The game is about 20-30 minutes of cutscenes and FMVs at a time with about 5-10 minutes of actual gameplay in between. Yeah, it's not surprising considering Xenosaga was made with the storyline in mind, and all of its good reviews are based on the depth of its storyline etc etc. Well, this may possibly be the first bad review for Xenosaga you've ever seen... a review based off its gameplay. Don't get me wrong, the gameplay wasn't horrible. It's just that there wasn't any gameplay at all. Fine, there was, but there was so little that Xenosaga could hardly be called a game. I mean, there are so few dungeons that I could count them with my fingers, and of them, only about four of them qualify as actual dungeons, and most of them were pretty short anyway. The other major problems was the lack of random battles. All the enemies can be seen on the world map, and in the game, they actually discourage you from fighting unnecessary battles, which basically means you won't be levelling up much and it discourages you from exploring dungeons, thanks to the guard work of well-placed powerful monsters. Honestly, for an RPG (and trust me when I say this, the main point of RPGs isn't storyline, but character development, collecting items, and exploring) discouraging combat and exploration is pretty much gameplay suicide. Ryan Chao asked me a good question when he asked if the storyline makes up for Xenosaga's horrible gameplay. Well, to tell you the truth, I'm not the right character to ask. Anyone who knows me knows I play games solely for the gameplay (I wouldn't play the game if it sucked), and storyline is important to me only as far as it drives the gameplay. Xenosaga does a good job at this, but then again, I've never seen a storyline fail to drive the gameplay in an RPG, so that doesn't say very much. To tell you the truth, though, I much prefer FF storylines than Xenosaga storylines, mainly because they're longer and more involved than a 20 minute cutscene focused on a single event. I dunno, maybe this just means I need to play Xenogears. As to the music, the lack of a separate battle theme for bosses and for regular battles was annoying. They should have included an extra bossfight music. Would that have been too much to ask? Or had they filled up the disc with so many FMVs that they simply didn't have room for one more song? Lastly, the game was much too short. I beat Xenosaga at Level 37 in about 39 hours. The back of the box promises "80 hours of gameplay". I beat it in half that. Now, if by gameplay they mean actual gameplay and not FMVs, then we can subtract the 5-6 hours worth of cutscenes from my game time and I'll feel truly ripped off. No wait, Xenosaga only cost me $20, so it wasn't that bad. To end on a positive note, though, Xenosaga has the best mini-games since FF7--possibly even better. The card game was especially good, better than any FF card game ever created. It's like a real card game, like MTG, not like a stupid 5 card little thing like Triple Triad. Overall... Xenosaga: -Bad gameplay +Good mini-games ?People rave about the storyline--I don't particularly care Depending on what you like in RPGs, I wouldn't know if Xenosaga is a blessing or a curse, but if you're anything like me, I'd whole-heartedly recommend it to you--the mini-games alone are worth the $20. Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 4) Total: 9 Hmm... it's time to close this window and to come back another day. I hope you enjoyed my content today, although many of you will choose to not read it. Hopefully, the fact that I included no major spoilers so as to not have to put it in spoiler text will make it more accessible to all of you. Anyways, Good Night! Saturday, June 19, 2004--Finally, I buy the sword from American Fencers Supply. I now have a saber and a full fencing suit. *burns-like* Excellent! Other than that, I just played some more Xenosaga. I ate dim sum for lunch and cheap (and crappy, but edible) Costco pizza for dinner. Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 2) Total: 6 Hmm... It looks like... Oh, hello! Good Night, persons! Friday, June 18, 2004--Today, I was playing Xenosaga when Alan called and said he and the gang were on their way to my house. It was not a question. So they arrive, and Mark decides to play DotA on my laptop (which no one ever puts on top of their lap for some reason), when the phone rings (DSL has had problems lately), and he and Alan both lag out of B.Net simultaneously. Damn! Mark: I think we should get together as many Frozen Throne CDs as possible so we can DotA. Alan: Are you suggesting we have a LAN party? Me: Well, we only have 2 comps here that run Frozen Throne, so we'll need to get everyone else's laptop here. Justin, do you have a laptop that supports Frozen Throne? Justin: Me: Oh, wait, no you don't. Me and Justin then duel in MTG, him using my slivers, me using his gobs. In one game, I had only 1 mountain in my opening hand, so I thought what the heck and I kept it. I didn't draw another land for at least 10 turns, but I drew pretty much all of Justin's 1-mana plays, and so I somehow managed to beat my slivers even though they got out so much more mana than me. Then, we play an MTG 5-player ring-based, point-based melee. I think I'll need to tweak the rules (or look up Wizard's official rules) because both Alan and I lost first, but neither of us got last place. Instead, Ryan, using my Arcbound Deck, managed to pull off a Ravager/Disciple win against both Justin and Mark simultaneously, getting both the bonus for being last man standing and winning by a good margin of 3 points. Then, they left. Me: They'll be back. They always come back. Alan: Heh, that's what I said when the lady came to refill our drinks, and she refilled Ryan's drink all the way, but she only refilled mine just a little bit. Lucky for her, she came back later and filled up my drink all the way. Me: Wait... you guys went to the Crazy Buffet? Alan: Yeah, and it was crazy. Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 6) Total: 12 Hmm... hmm... hmm... hmm? Good Night! Thursday, June 17, 2004--Today involved some order of Time Crisis 3, Xenosaga, and tutoring physics at Jumping Up. I don't really care anymore. Now, for some content. Here are some dreams I've been having: 1. I dreamt that my mom took me to the Asian ghetto to buy shoes and shirts. Problem #1, I've never been to the Asian Ghetto. We buy our shoes and shirts at Mervyn's. Problem #2, I don't need new shoes or shirts. 2. I was giving a speech and I saw Maria talking to Karen. I don't think the two of them know each other, and I don't think I would ever give a speech to an audience big enough to contain both of them. 3. I dreamt that I had to go to the bathroom, but the first bathroom I found had a faulty lock on the door, so I dared not to go lest someone open the door on me while I was pissing. The second bathroom I found was actually a kitchen. Then, I woke up and went to the real bathroom. Why is it that when you have to take a piss and you're sleeping, you always dream that you can't find a bathroom? 4. (This entry was written on Saturday, June 19, but I wanted to consolidate the dream material.) Last night, I had a dream about straight lines. It probably has to do with the way I cut with my saber. Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 1) Total: 6 Hmm... Good Night! Wednesday, June 16, 2004--It's the last day of school for all the Lelenaders--I mean Lelanders--so... congrats, all you Leland dudes and chicks that I know! Other than that, I played Xenosaga. Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 6) Total: 10 Ahh... maybe I should stop ending my journal entries with an "ahh..." Good Night! Tuesday, June 15, 2004--More Xenosaga for me today. (Don't worry, just because I play it a lot doesn't mean it has good gameplay. I just like playing new games... unless they're uber-bad, like Splinter Cell.) A Year Ago Today: Lizzie decides to talk to me for once. After picking up my little bro, we went to eat at Showgi, the Japanese restaurant. There, I saw little Stephanie (who's actually really tall Stephanie). Of course, when I saw her, she had her back turned to me, but I recognized her by the marshmellow thing, as usual. Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 5) Total: 8 Yep, I decided to do a new format for the dice roll, mainly so it doesn't look like I'm writing obvious equations. Ahh... no point in continuing this any further. The Night be Good. Monday, June 14, 2004--On impulse, I bought Xenosaga. I heard it was a good game, so I've been wanting to try it for a while now. That and, at Circuit City, I could get a brand-new copy ("Greatest Hits") for only $20, so I thought what the heck. Of course, before I even had a chance to play, I had to prepare and go tutor this dude for the SAT II Physics. As to Xenosaga, when those people say that it's an interactive movie, they mean interactive movie. That game is more cutscenes and FMVs than actual gameplay, which is a problem if you're a gamer who goes for the gameplay, like me (and not the storyline). There is one good point about this game, though, and it's that Xenosaga has the best mini-games since FF7 (possibly even better, I can't decide). Dice Roll of the Day: 6 + 3 = 9 Ahh... Good Night, everyone! Sunday, June 13, 2004--I've gotten down to playing Golden Sun (the game, not the Dim Sum Restaurant). It's an RPG made by Nintendo, and it's pretty good. Storyline-wiese, it feels a lot like some of the older RPGs. So far, it seems to be a good game. *GS*For those of you who don't know, the game officially began when Saturos and Menardi, along with Alex and Jenna's thought to be dead brother Felix, stole the Elemental Stars from Sol Sanctum and kidnapped Jenna and Kraden and we had to chase them across the world map. My first quest took me to some city, the name of which I don't remember, where I met this psychic named Ivan, who joined my party (of Isaac and Garet) in order to find the bandit's who stole the shaman's rod, and thus, in my first boss fight (incredibly easy), I beat the bandits. Later, I made my way to Bilibin, then to the Kolima Forest, where Tret, the holy tree, had become posessed by the Psynergy fragments and, in his anger, turned all the lumberjacks into trees. His peaceful side was dying, but I defeated his wrathful side, but he was still dying anyway and didn't have the power to turn the people back from trees. Then, I travelled up north to Imil, where I met Mia, from the Mercury Clan. Apparently, the people of Imil have caught a nasty cold. After travelling up to the top of the Mercury Lighthouse (she had sensed intruders), she joined my party, we met Saturos & Menardi and their gang at the top. They had lit the lighthouse. While the others were retreating, we fought Saturos, but the Mercury power had weakened him, so he was easier (but it was still a tough fight... he's the first guy to KO one of my characters). But he got away, too. So Mia joined my party permanently to get the other Elemental Stars back and protect the world. With the Lighthouse lit, the fountain of Hermes was running again, so we could use the waters to cure the people. We also used the water to cure Tret, so the forest was revived and the people turned back into... uhh... people. Then, I travelled down to Fuchin Temple, where I did the Waterfall Trial and got the Force... or rather "Ki", but the move is called Force for some reason. The dude told me to use this power to reveal hidden animals in the evil Mogall Forest and then follow them, since animals never got lost, but at the other end of the forest, I was ambushed by this boss, a Killer Ape, which I beated quite soundly. So I made it to Xian, this Chinese-ish place where the people were learning to use Chi, but then Feizhi, the grandmaster's daughter, ran out to look for Hsu, who was on his way back from Lama Temple, but never arrived. Unfortunately, the road is blocked, so I took a detour... To Altin, the mining city, where spitting monsters have flooded the city. Extermination time!*GS* Anyways, other than eating at Fresh Choice for dinner, that's pretty much it. Dice Roll of the Day: 1 + 6 = 7 Ahh... well... Good Night... Sliver! Saturday, June 12, 2004--Today, I worked some more on Dark Fiends. Chapter 53 will be up on Wednesday. If not, then I have failed. Miserably. For some reason, Joanna's at my house. Joanna: *goes up the stairs, falls, screams* Me: What the-- Are you people tripping over yourselves? Joanna: No, I slipped. Oh, wait. Joanna reads this website. Ah, whatever. (If I recall, I paid too much attention to Joanna last year.) Dice Roll of the Day: 1 + 5 = 6 Also, I watched Naruto ep 87. Good Night! Friday, June 11, 2004--I worked on Dark Fiends. Dice Roll of the Day: 6 + 2 = 8 You know I'm tired of writing journal entries when this is all I write. Good Night! Thursday, June 10, 2004--Blah blah blah, blah blah blahblahblah, blah blah! Dice Roll of the Day: 2 + 3 = 5 Good Night! Wednesday, June 9, 2004--Today, I mainly wrote some shit for Avalanche Online. I would have done some work on Dark Fiends, except Franklin was using my laptop and his comp doesn't have Word. *shrug* Dice Roll of the Day: 6 + 2 = 8 I've been researching AIM tricks. I've learned how to put hidden text that can only be revealed using F2 and how to make links that load URLs inside profile windows and chat windows. However, I still want to know all the AIM chatroom commands outside of the infamous //roll... the "Online Host" seems to imply that there are others, but I've never seen any. Anyways, that's all I can think of. It's getting late and I just want to say Good Night! Tuesday, June 8, 2004 - Addendum--Two things: (1) AIM convo with Elizabeth, Viltris: hey lizzie [Lizzie]: hey Viltris: i was thinking about left-handed girls a while back Viltris: only about 1 in 10 people are left-handed Viltris: and only 1/2 the people on this world are girls Viltris: so only 1 in 20 people is a left-handed girl Viltris: and given any girl, there's probably a 1 in 50 chance that's she's cute Viltris: so overall, the chances of finding a cute left-handed girl is 1 in 1000 Viltris: and look, i found you! Viltris: what are the odds of that? [Lizzie]: HAha [Lizzie]: you're funny Yeah, Lizzie's a nice girl. She'll laugh even when I'm being lame, like Jen. (2) I promised you a post as quoted from what I wrote at Avalanche Online regarding FFTA and getting all 300 missions... in spoiler text of course! *TA*"Okay, I finally beat all 300 missions, got Cid, and did all the Cid missions. These stats come from my save file where Marche is standing on top of Sprohm, ready to do the "Decision Time" mission. Clan Level 66 Time: 91 hrs 48 min My final party: -Marche, Level 35 Paladin with Chivalry & Fighter Tech, Double Sword, equipped with Excalibur2 & Sequence (does about 400 damage per hit) -Victor (Human), Level 36 Fighter with Fighter Tech & Hunt, Double Sword, equipped with Ebon Blade & Adaman Blade (does about 300 damage per hit) -Cid, Level 35, equiped with Nagrarok -Cochran (Nu Mou), Level 28 Morpher (with an Ice Flan that has stats at around 500) -Malchelo (Nu Mou), Level 35 Black Mage with Black & White Magic, Turbo MP -Tosca (Viera), Level 34 Summoner with Summon & White Magic, Half MP And just so you know, Marche, Victor, and Malchelo can kill pretty much everything they encounter in a single attack. Cid can kill MOST things. As to Cochran, I don't know. (I never had a chance to use him in any of the last few missions, hence his low level. In general, everything in the battle was killed before he took a turn. Of course, I hadn't spent all that much time on Morphers...) LOL, Dark Squall, you spent more time than me and you have higher levels, but for some odd reason, I deal more damage. Have you been putting your melee fighters into caster jobs? On another note, thanks to Dash Boots (I have 1 for every person in my clan) and the Ninja Tobi, and some items like Nagrarok, Sequence, Peytral, and Sapere Aude, my Marche and Victor have a Move of 6, and everyone else has a Move of 5. Yes, I do run Move really high. It was all the Move+2 and Battle Boots in the original Tactics that helped my characters REACH the darned enemies so that I could slay them. --- On another note... MORPHERS! You know what I like about them? They're mechanically unique. I mean, where else in an FF game can you capture monsters, train them, and use their abilities in battle. I mean, it's like FFX's Monster Arena combined with FF6's Gau. (For those of you who don't know, Gau is considered by many FF6 experts to be the SINGLE MOST POWERFUL FF6 character, but also the hardest to use and most time consuming to learn all his best abilities. From what I've read, the Morpher is also considered by some to be the most powerful of FFTA classes.) Power issues aside, Morphers are quite interesting. They seem a lot like the Calculators of the original Tactics--a quirky and original caster class which, if abused, could overpower everything in the game. It's only a pity that I didn't get them until so late in the game. Heh, GUESS WHICH OF THE 300 MISSIONS I DID LAST? (That's all.)"*TA* So... yeah. This is my 2nd Good Night tonight, even though it's the first night. Uhh... Good Night! (Oh, shoot, that was my 3rd.) Tuesday, June 8, 2004--Today, I completely cleared FFTA, getting all 300 missions, getting Cid, and getting all the corrupt judge missions. I'll post my thoughts later, after Avalanche Online starts working again and I can post my thoughts in the forums there. Dice Roll of the Day: 4 + 5 = 9 Good Nights! I'll post an addendum laters! Monday, June 7, 2004--*TA*273 missions and counting. Heh, in one of the missions (save Bervenia), I had to fight Gukko, who came back from the dead, except he's now a Lucavi (or a Rukavi, as it was translated in FFTA... I don't know which one's the correct one, because there were lots of typoes in FFTactics). Needless to say, I killed him. Anyways, at some point, I needed to level up like hell to make my chars strong enough to take certain dispatch missions. It was tedious, but yeah, I think my guys are strong enough now, because supposedly, the Thorn something mission has the larget required stats for my chars, and I have a guy who can already clear it.*TA* Other than that, Dice Roll of the Day: 6 + 5 = 11 *yawn* Good Night, everybody... Sunday, June 6, 2004--I played some FFTA. I'm up to 248 missions now, I think. Here's an AIM convo that may or may not be amusing: Viltris: hey jen Viltris: you know what i think we should do? Viltris: gather up all the peoples from the 6th floor and hang out Viltris: well... maybe not all of them Viltris: just the cool ones Viltris: and me [jen]: haha [jen]: you're not cool dwayne? Dice Roll of the Day: 4 + 6 = 10 Yeah, this entry was meant to be short. Good Night! Saturday, June 5, 2004--I should stop beginning my entries with "Today", shouldn't I? *shrug* Today, I visited the ARML. I arrived after they had already finished the Individual and Relay rounds, but before they did the super-relay. Then, I visited Lei, Ke, Bernard, Joanna, Kevin, Grace (and her sister mini-Grace), and Jongmin. SFBA-A won 2nd place again, losing to Thomas Jefferson by 16 points this time. SFBA-B won 4th place in the B division. (Last year, they were A division, but meh...) Later, we played Mafia, then I played the piano. Bernard: Go play Fantasie Impromptu. Me: Why? You know I can't play that song. Bernard: Well, you play it better than most people I know. Me: *plays the song* Guy (I think it was either Darren or Yi): Wow... you make me look bad. Kevin: Moonlight Sonata Movement 3, huh? Joyce has been practicing this song like hell. Me: I'm out of practice. Can you tell? Kevin: Oh, that explains it. Joyce was telling me how she learned from you, but today, you don't sound so good. Then, Lei's dad was so generous as to give me a ride home. Upon arriving at home, I fell asleep because I had a headache (hadn't had one of those in a while... probably because I skipped breakfast today). Then, I played FFTA and discovered that Reserve Missions (the missions that require you to trade to do them all) don't count as part of the 300, so I can still get all 300 missions. Dice Roll of the Day: 6 + 4 = 10 *shrug* Good Night! Friday, June 4, 2004--Today, I had an appointment with the dentist. Then, I played some more FFTA. *TA*I won the clan championships, and I got Shara into my party. It's pretty funny, someone posted a mission at the pub saying that he had heard someone (Shara) scream, so I sent a dude out to go investigate. It turns out an antlion larva as big as your arm landed on Shara's head and she screamed. LOL, sucks for her. Later, as my inventory of mission items got full, I decided to look online to figure out what I don't need, so that I could throw them out. While I was there, I discovered that it's impossible to get all 300 missions in FFTA without trading for items... which sucks. I'll have to post something about people who play FFTA.*TA* Anyways, lately I've been thinking of cute left-handed girls. You know, 1 in 10 people are left-handed, and 1/2 of all people are girls, so 1 in every 20 people is a left-handed girl. Add in that any given girl has a 1 in 50 chance of being cute, so overall, there's a 1 in 1000 chance that any given person is a cute left-handed girl. Lucky for me, I know quite a few. I will not name their names... unless they want to be named... of course, they'll never see this tangent, so they'll never know. (Wow, I'm so lucky.) Dice Roll of the Day: 6 + 3 = 9 Good Night, sir and/or madam! Thursday, June 3, 2004--Today, I beat FFTA. You can read my thoughts, as quoted from Avalanche Online, in spoiler text, of course! *TA*"These last few days, I've been playing FFTactics Advance. I beat it in 55:05 with a Clan Level of 51 and 180 missions cleared. On average, my party (the 6 characters I used to beat the game with) was at around Level 25. (Mind you, Remedi/Li Grim is at Level 36.) My final party: -Marche, Level 28 Thief with Steal & Fighter Tech, Doublehand (did about 180 damage per hit) -Montblanc, Level 25 Black Mage -Victor (Human), Level 24 Fighter with Fighter Tech & Hunt, Double Swords, equipped with Ayviur Red & Ayviur Blue (can anyone say "The Hero Gaol"?) (did about 100 damage per hit, twice per turn) -Madeline (Viera), Level 24 Fencer with Lunge Tech & Sharpshoot -Tosca (Viera), Level 27 Summoner with Summon & White Magic -Blanch (Viera), Level 23 Summoner with Summon & White Magic Yes, I DO use a proportionately high amount of Viera. For those of you who don't know, I'm a big fan of Summoners. That and, I'm a fencer myself, so naturally, I'm inclined to use fencers in my party. Here's my breakdown of the game. GAMEPLAY: A vast improvement over the gameplay in the original Tactics. For example, in Tactics, magic really sucked because of charge time. However, when they eliminated charge time, magic suddenly became really powerful in TA. Also, since MP regenerates automatically at a rate of 5 per turn, you can make some REALLY powerful mages. (Especially in combination with Damage > MP, which, unlike MP Switch in Tactics, ALWAYS reacted.) The only problem with the no charge time is that the Dragoon's Jump doesn't make much sense unless he stays in the air for a while. That and magic sometimes seems TOO powerful. Personally, I liked the new expanded job system and learning abilities from weapons. I mean, it made more sense than learning abilities from Menus. ("Hmm... I think I'll save up my JP for a Level 8 Jump and don't need to waste JP on a Level 2, 3, 4, or 5 Jump...") I also liked the differentiation between the races etc etc. I didn't like the Law system. I mean, it was a good attempt at innovation, but not one most players would be too pleased at. I can see that it was meant as an obstacle, but rather than inspiring strategy on the part of the players, the Laws mainly were just annoying. Besides, having random judges appear in the middle of the battlefield just doesn't make sense. Another problem was the Jagds. I mean, under the old system in Tactics (with the meter counting down until a charater dies for good), it was easy to save your characters from death, but when I first played in the Jagds, I accidentally got Montblanc killed because I didn't realize that he would die if I finished the battle without him--I was expecting some kind of countdown. (That and, all my White Mages died, too.) Needless to say, I resetted. SOUND/MUSIC: It was pretty decent, considering that hand-held systems have one of the worst sound systems ever. Still, if anyone knows me, they would know that I prefer having bad sounds quality over silence during a game. As to the soundtrack, there's only one song I remember as being any good, and it was the Totema battle music. STORYLINE: The storyline started out REALLY bad, and only in the last 5 missions or so did it get better. Other than 5 Totema battles etc etc, playing the storyline missions didn't get you much of a storyline. I mean, with all the optional missions going around, you would think they the 24 storyline missions would be concentrated in story... which they aren't. I would have understood it if there were, say, 50 or so storyline missions, and only 20-30 were important (like how it was in Tactics), but with so few storyline missions, I'm surprised how the game designers wasted most of them. This is one of the least developed stories in all of FF (with the FFX and FFX-2 being the other poorly developed stories). One might argue that those who play Tactics don't play it for the storyline, but considering its predecessor, TA was a HUGE disappointment storyline-wise. GRAPHICS: FFTA was 2D. So was Tactics, except one important detail. (No, not FMVs, those aren't important.) Tactics had 3D maps (which were basically 3D terrain with textures painted on them), but the important thing was that, since they were actually 3D rendered, you could rotate them. I remember when I first played FFTA, I was reaching for the L and R buttons trying to rotate the map to get a better view, but I couldn't, and this was because TA has purely sprite-based 2D maps. I think this points out one side of Graphics that is often overlooked--function. While most games today use Graphics mainly to look pretty, Tactics used graphics for a gameplay function--rotating the map. Now, I know I'm going off on a tangent here, but I think we should think about all the other games that could not have been possible without 3D technology (FF7, 8, 9, X, X-2, and 11 NOT being these kinds of games), and I guess we old-school people shouldn't look at the 3D revolution so harshly. Yet, that in mind, 3D has STILL done nothing to improve the Gameplay of FF. OVERALL: If any of you know me, you'll know that I play games mainly for Gameplay, and since TA had generally improved gameplay over Tactics (ignoring effects like the Law system and the Mission system), I'm pretty happy with FFTA. I recommend it to anyone who likes the first Tactics, or who likes the Job System, or who likes FF in general." As I was playing some more, I got Ritz on my party after doing a mission with her. It turns out that the bullies who were throwing snowballs at Mewt turned into Vampires in the book-world, and we had to go pwn them. Then, later, I got Babus after going with him to fight a ghost of Queen Remedi and finding Mewt's stuffed bear. Oh, and Queen Remedi is hot!*TA* Anyways, other than that, I had to meet the girl that I am to tutor Math Ic for the Jumping Up place something something to arrange the dates. Dice Roll of the Day: 2 + 5 = 7 Good Night! Sweet dreams! Wednesday, June 2, 2004--Same as yesterday! A Year Ago Today: Justin: What? You couldn't find your penis? Me: I couldn't find my keys! What? Are you death or something? Justin: What? Am I death? Me: I said deaf, not death. Justin: Oh, my bad. Me: Naw, I really said death. Just kidding with you, that's all. Dice Roll of the Day: 5 + 4 = 9 Good Night! Tuesday, June 1, 2004-- My day: -Playing FFTA -Dice Roll of the Day: 1 + 4 = 5 Whoa! That was fast! Good Night! Monday, May 31, 2004--I played some more FFTA. *TA*You know what I think is cool? The Borzoi/Redwing sidequests. After beating the Borzoi Capos (including Dread Raven), I had to fight Gukko, the Borzoi boss. Then, later, an "unknown warrior" asks me to find him a boat, so I did. Then, I hear rumors that Gukko escaped on a boat. Heh, whoops. Then, we get attacked by the Redwings, which include the Four Fiends (Marilith, Lich, Kraken, and Tiamat), the Magus Sisters, and lots and lots of Mog Knights. Finally, after creating the Spirit Stone from the four Elemental Sigils, I fight and defeat the Dark Knight Grissom. Then, for some reason, Marquis d'Elmdor, Celia, and Lede try to revive Borzoi. Heh, it was funny... but easy. You would have thought that that would be the end of the Redwings, but then, we get attacked by some Level 40 "fiends" (and I'm only at level 20), which include a Lamia Queen, an Adamantoise, and the double-team of an Ochu and a Neochu, and I think that was it. Then, at last, I battle with the Dread Lord, whom after much fighting, I kill. I hope that's the end of the Borzoi/Redwing story, although I wouldn't mind continuing it. It's much more interesting than the regular storyline, anyway.*TA* More teaching Franklin Chemistry, blah blah blah... A Year Ago Today: I waste 2 half-cups of soda. I finish Kingdom Hearts. Linda: Midnight? Do I want to know what you were doing? Me: I was playing games with the other kids downstairs. What did you think I was doing? Linda: Oh, right, Joanna didn't go. Hmm... that's about it. I also went to Chevy's today for lunch with the Math team. Yeah, it was pretty bad. I had to call Joanna 3 times because they left before me and I needed to find them. That and, it seems Lei was the only one who knew I was going. Whoops. At Chevy's, Me: I remember last year, I said to Stephanie, "Doesn't quesadilla mean cheese?" And Stephanie says, "No, that's quesa." And I say, "Then, what's a quesadilla?" And Stephanie replies, "It's what I'm having." Albert: Yeah, I'm ordering a quesadilla. Amy: You know, you're about to have the exact same conversation again. Some person: Where did [those people] go? Lei: They went to the washroom. Me: Is that what the call it in Canada? Lei: Eh? Me: Yeah, here in America, we call it a bathroom... or a restroom. Lei: Silly Americans. Hmm... I still think last year's Chevy's lunch was more amusing. Joanna: My watch makes me itch. *scratches her other wrist* Yeah, I switched my watch-hand while playing pool. Also, apparently, Joanna is a right-hander who wears her watch on her right hand. Hmm... Oh, and Joanna still wears the same glasses--or at least the same frames that don't have the frame on the bottom and the snake/vine design on the side. Yeah, those were cute glasses. Earlier today, while talking via cell phone with Joanna... Me: So... yeah, I don't know where you people are. Joanna: What? Me: What? Dice Roll of the Day: 3 + 2 = 5 Good Night! Sunday, May 30, 2004--Basically, I had to teach Franklin Chemistry today, even though I don't know any Chemistry. (Of course, Joyce would have me believe that I do, considering my performance on the AP Exam... *shrug*) A Year Ago Today: I discover at the ARML that Stephanie doesn't know how to play Chess. Anyways, after playing some FFTA, we went to dinner with Kellie & Bernard, Jeffrey & Connie, and Vivian & Robin (whom I haven't seen in the longest time). As usually, Vivian is extra-talkative and Robin is extra-quiet. After dinner, we went to Kellie's place to hang out, and we played lots of Bomberman, but then everyone got bored so that there were only two players left. (Incidentally, I wasn't one of them.) Also, at one point, I said, "Vivian! You left your pants downstairs!" *chooses not to put it into context* Dice Roll of the Day: 1 + 2 = 3 Anyways, that's pretty much it. Good Night, folks! Saturday, May 29, 2004--So last night, I had an AIM conversation with Tracy: Me: That and you're older than me. Speaking of which, I'll have to remember to say happy birthday to you next week. Her: Oh, you remembered! Wait... or is my SN a convenient reminder? Me: Haha, your SN is a very convenient reminder. Anyways, today is very boring. You do not want me to tell you about it. Good Night! Dice Roll of the Day: 2 + 5 = 7 Friday, May 28, 2004--Anyways, just today, I archived the stuff that was left in my guestbook. You can read the guestbook archives here. Hehe, here's a quotable entry: Name: GOD!!! E-mail: GOD!!! Website URL: GOD!!! Message (comments and suggestions): nope she [god's mother] said I am a smart little girl! where the [brackets] and the italics are mine. I thought this was amusing because of how "god" says, "I am smart little girl." Heh... amusing... someone should post this in my forums... just not me. A Year Ago Today: Linda: (referring to Franklin) He's cute, he speaks well, and no one else wanted the job, so we gave him the job. Emma was tired at the quartet because she was studying for finals... except she didn't know what finals they were. Whoops! Emma's cute! Anyways, today, I pretty much played FFTA... and that's all. Dice Roll of the Day: 5 + 5 = 10 Good Night! Thursday, May 27, 2004--*yawn* More FFTA... doesn't it get boring? Hmm... not really. It will eventually, though. *TA*Storyline Mission 10: I got into a fight with Babus, who was pathetically easy to kill. Then, I played a whole bunch of optional missions. *shrig*TA* I dunno why, but I feel like saying it again... Diane Ko is a Viera. A Year Ago Today: Me: Linda, don't give me that look. Linda (not giving me a look): What look? (gives me a look) Me: That look! Right there! Chevy's lunch with Math Team. Hmm... yeah... Dice Roll of the Day: 2 + 6 = 8 Joanna: What's with the "daily dice roll" thing? Anyways, Good Night! Wednesday, May 26, 2004--I played some more FFTA last night. *TA*Storyline Mission 7: Some shit about diamonds raining, except there were no diamonds and lots of monsters. I feel so ripped off... Storyline Mission 8: Go investigate a volcano... which contained the Fire Crystal, which Marche promptly destroyed... except first we had to fight Ultima and her Crystals, which was annoying, but easy.*TA* Then, I played some more FFTA today. *TA*Storyline Mission 9: I had to go fight these people who were cutting down Magical trees. How random and how crappy. I also played an optional mission where I had to rescue Ritz, but alas, she didn't join me. She's pretty cute for a Viera. ...wait, Ritz is a human, my bad.*TA* Heh, Diane Ko is a Viera. (Rabbit!) Am I playing too much FFTA? Possibly. Do I care? No. I have no homework, so I can do whatever the hell I want! Although I did work a little on Demons, but the details are to be kept hush-hush for now. (: Dice Roll of the Day: 6 + 1 = 7 Anyways, I think I'll go play FFTA some more. d; Good Night! (Why am I putting smilies in my journal?)