Culix's Haven of Diversion

Links - My collection of links. Nice little places within.

Downloads - All of the downloads that I've seen fit to put up here. Yay for them!

Previous Updates - Many of my old updates have been moved here to save space.

Written Stuff - All of the stuff that I've written and put up here. If you like things kinda like them, they may bring you joy. Or not...

E-mail Address: culixiii@yahoo.com
AIM Screen Name: Culix III

8/12/08 - 10:02 PM
Still easing in.

For some sites, updating with nearly two weeks in between might be considered scandalous. But, should we look at it from a geological perspective...

Anyway, about a week and a half after the move was technically finished, we're still unpacking and getting everything together. It could probably be going faster, but I'm just glad to have the luxury of taking my time. Still, since there are about two weeks to go before I'm off to college, and it'd be nice to enjoy an almost box-free room if only for a little while, I'm going to try to pick up the pace, and with luck have it done by this Sunday. Here's hoping that works out.

There's not a whole lot else to say, really. But I haven't yet filled this Notepad window* to the extent that a scroll bar has popped up on the right. And not having typed at least that amount... just feels wrong. So, to remedy that... I'm going to do reviews! On RPGs! Of the Pen-and-Paper variety! Because over this summer, for some reason, I got it into my head to look over some non-D&D 3.5 roleplaying systems. And through the magic of torrents, I had the means to do just that, with a dash of Playstation emulation on the side. Maybe I'll cover some of those games later, actually. After I actually finish one.
* - Update on the internets: it's working, and quite phenomenally at that, just not all the time. But consistency levels seem to be on the rise lately, so maybe I'll actually make an AIM appearance one of these days. Or nights, rather; if you aren't nocturnal, you likely won't notice.

In any case, onto those review-like gibberings!
EDIT: 8/15/08 - 6:34 PM
A warning before that ball gets rolling: LOTS of text lies ahead. I know that's par for the course for these updates, but it's in the neighborhood of 30 KB of text in a Notepad file. So, you may consider taking a break in the middle, then making for the summit after a rest.

1. Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition - Yeah, this one should come as a surprise to absolutely no one. Especially since my "non-D&D 3.5" business seemed a bit of a hint. But eh.

   Anyway, at this point, there's not all that much to say about it. So, for my next trick, I'll materialize a hell of a lot more words than it needs. But seriously, by now you've seen the rules, or heard enough about them from a credible source, if you have any interest in the matter, so you probably already know what you think about it. And the general populace seems somewhat divided. Now, I haven't done all that close a reading of the entire thing, just most of it, and I doubt I'd feel right about passing judgment even if I had, if only because I tend toward wishy-washy indecisiveness. But just for shits and giggles, let's give her a looksie.

   One criticism that may or may not be leveled at it is that it doesn't have as much as 3.5 did. Parts of this are fair, others, not so much. Just from an overall stance, of course 3.5's voluminous collection of sourcebooks and supplements, not even touching on the relatively easy-to-convert 3.0 stuff, is going to dwarf the handful of 4.0 books; 3.5's complete set dwarfs pretty much everything. And while the supplements and other books I saw under Wizard's upcoming D&D releases don't wow me, I'm sure it'll eventually get to the point the Wizard's site had reached a few years ago, when I was interested enough to check it fairly often. Granted, that'll probably fade soon enough, but it could be a fun ride while it lasts.

   Anyway, flipping over the "it doesn't have as much" coin, a lot of people are rightly annoyed at the omission of things like bards, druids, monks, and summoning and shapechanging magic. All of these things feel like inseparable parts of what D&D is, and almost all of them feel integral to the Fantasy genre itself. Sure, not all campaigns or worlds make use of them, but enough do that it seems silly not to have rules for them yet. And I say 'yet' because I remember reading an FAQ announcing that those things and others were on the way in, if memory serves, a 'Player's Handbook, Part II.' Obviously, Wizard's is a business with the goal of making money, but this feels kind of tacky to me; I feel like I had more real options in 3.0/3.5's first couple books than 4.0's serve up. For instance, the Warlord could have been a more interesting and unique class concept had he actually revolved around having followers of his own to direct in battle as part of his class abilities. Instead, he just kinda strikes me as a paladin or fighter with mildly different skills and combat abilities. Without an animal companion or the spells, the Ranger sorta feels like this, too.

   Then again, maybe it's just that I'm not yet familiar with 4.0; I can't deny that I kinda skimmed the Combat chapter, which seems to be the game's focus. The classes look like they'd play different enough from each other to be distinct experiences, and they'd probably seem even more unique if I had a better grasp of how combat works. And, while it may have seemed like I was giving 4.0 a hard time, I do have to give Wizard's credit: all the classes seem a hell of a lot more balanced than they did in 3.0/3.5, where the full casters seemed to pull ahead of everyone else as they got closer to level 20. That'd be nice to see in action.

   And I really think I have to see this game in action before I know how I feel about it. At the moment, I'm leaning toward a negative view, but I think I know why. I've heard a lot of people saying they don't like it because "It's not D&D." And, well, in a way, they're right. It feels so different from 3.0/3.5 (all those 'DNDMMORPGROFL' cracks have a kernal of truth to them, and it's more than just the similar terminology) that it feels like an entirely different game. I don't remember 2nd edition rules terribly well,* but I do remember 3.0 changing things in a lot of ways, most of them I thought for the better.** 4.0 could just be a case of the same thing, but... The differences just feel too extreme. I could note the differences between 2nd edition and 3rd, and it still felt like the same system at its heart, but I just can't say the same about the 3rd to 4th transition. Again, maybe if I actually play the damn thing, I'll start making connections I haven't yet and see that it's still mostly the same, I'm just not confident of that, based on everything I've heard.
   * - Exception: THAC0. And special emphasis on the 'terribly.'
   ** - Level caps per race never seemed so hot an idea, for one thing. And for another... Seriously, fuck you, THAC0.

   And, since the new combat feedback I've heard is pretty much all positive, that may not be a bad thing. However, since it does feel like such a drastic change, Wizard's might have done a better job with 4.0's introduction. As an analogy, I bring up Lun Calsari's "The Way." It's a really well-done RPG series that I wholly recommend, but it should come with a warning: if you expect all plot threads -- or even most plot threads -- to be tied up by the end, disappointment awaits you. Had I been aware of that ahead of time, the end might have been less frustrating for me and others. By the same token, I think a lot of people first expected 4.0 would basically be a tweaked and better balanced 3.0/3.5, and then got irritated by the change in direction. They might not have been if Wizard's had been more open about it. Then again, maybe analysts predicted it wouldn't sell as well if they'd done so. If that's the case, damn you, decisionmakers! Your consumers want near-transparency, damnit!

   It really does look like it could be a good game. Just different. Even if it really isn't to your tastes, 3.0/3.5 is still there, just like it has been for a good long while. If balance is one of your concerns, I'd recommend dropping by Wizard's own forums, where some homebrewed fruits wait to be picked from the PEACH Market. I remember a few rebalances looking promising. And there's still plenty of other surprisingly well done content around those boards, or Giant in the Playground's*** for that matter.
   *** - On the topic of the Giant, I also feel compelled to point out his Gaming page. Almost everything there seems worth a look, but if nothing else, I'd point you toward his 'The World' articles at the bottom of the page. Interesting stuff.

   Or you could try another system. Speaking of which...

... Actually, I'm feeling kinda bushed. So, I guess I'll just pick this up tomorrow. I don't count on the other two being nearly this long (though I do expect to shrink that rightward scroll bar down to size), so, internet willing, all should be up tomorrow. ... Unless the dentist and optometrist appointments, both in the next 12 hours, leave me discombobulated. ... Eh. Only one way to find out! G'night everybody!

EDIT: 8/13/08 - 6:55 PM
Well... The way things are looking, I doubt I'll be getting this up anytime today. I should have known better than to say anything about the internet working more consistently. Maybe referring to it as 'the internets' was enough to draw the present blight. But so goes it. Beyond that, there isn't much to say. The dentist appointment's been pushed back a week for some reason, and Mr. Optometrist says my vision's rock steady, as it has been for the last year or two. But, since my current lenses have been scratched halfway to hell, I'm getting new glasses in about a week. Finally... Relatively sufficient levels of vision!

Anyway, I don't have much else to say, so I think I'll get back to the list I started. It'll be interesting to see, since I'm honestly not sure HTML list tags allow for this gap here. So, I guess we'll find out! But moving along...

2. Mutants & Masterminds - Here we have a superhero role-playing game. An interesting idea, I think, though they're apparently pretty common, meaning I'm clearly out of the loop. The only other one I'd heard about was Silver Age Sentinels by the now-defunct Guardians of Order. They're better known as the group behind the anime role-playing game, Big Eyes Small Mouth. Which kinda resembles Mutants & Masterminds:* they both cover a subject matter with a lot of variety, and do a great job of presenting lots of character options. Really, M&M** has a ton.
   * - Part of me wants to abbreviate this from now on, but... Well, then my stomach makes itself known.
   ** - Screw it. I'll just be hungry. If I start into inane food blatherings, you'll know why.

   To roll off a few powers... Weather Control, Spinning, Power Nullification, Suffocation, Shrinking, Shapeshifting, Inducing Nausea, Time Control... And those are just some choice abilities from the latter half of the alphabet, without even going into the Super-Strength/Speed/Senses type powers. Even within those powers, you can add on extras and flaws to capture almost whatever you have in mind. And that's not to say you can't build an effective Power-less character with only skills, feats, and/or tools, either. At least, from what I can get out of reading it over; everything looks pretty balanced, but, especially with something that has this many options, that's difficult to be sure about without seeing the game in action. Which I wouldn't mind doing; just making a character with this system looks maybe a little complicated, but fun.

   Since BESM is the closest thing I can think of to it in the meager pool of RP systems I know, I can't help but do some comparisons. First, while BESM went with the intuitive Tri-Stat system that, while new, didn't take long to get down, M&M is based off the D20 system of D&D (and, err, D20 Modern) meaning you basically already know it and just need to learn M&M's tweaks. In terms of options available... Well, no contest, M&M just presents more, but that's not quite far, seeing as M&M's current edition came out about the time BESM was due to release 3rd edition, before the company kinda went under. Besides, BESM's attributes tended even more toward the general than M&M's powers do, and seemed a lot more flexible in allowing new ones in. Probably the biggest difference between the two, and it may simply be that one's D20 and the other's Tri-Stat, but M&M just seems more... well, structured than BESM. I don't know how else to express it, but things like a rule for how super-strong characters can use cars and rubble as improvised weapons probably give a good idea of what I mean. Of course, M&M being a more orderly game doesn't necessarily make it better; sometimes players are up for more structure, like D&D or M&M, and sometimes they'd prefer something like the looser BESM. It's just good to know that, if you're looking for a game with the level of variety found in either system, you've got a choice in how much structure you use.

   I feel like I didn't get too deep into the mechanics, but... eh. Unless something jumps out at me (like the 'automobiles as improvised weapons' rule), it's just not something I feel like writing much about. I should mention that it uses a much different system of dealing with health than... pretty much every other game, pen and paper or console, does: there are no HP. It's based around a new 'Toughness Save.' I remember raising an eyebrow at this the same way you might be now. For the umpteenth time, it's something I think I'd have to see in motion before I'd really get it, but it looks like it just might work.

   To be completely honest, I'm probably more interested in the system than the superhero idea. It's not to disparage the genre itself: the Superman, Batman, and Justice League shows of the last decade were great, and most of the recent movies (though I do prefer the Spiderman show's telling of the symbiote and Venom story more than Spider Man 3's... interpretation) have earned the praise they get. Maybe it's just because I'm not such a huge comics fan, but I'm not sure how much I'd enjoy playing through it. Long-term, anyway; short-term, I know I'd have a blast. I know it's kind of a dumb attitude to take, since superhero stories can do so much more than just the 'discover some foul play going on, confront the villain, foil the plot, the villain almost always gets away' set-up. But one of the things I'm not so happy about with M&M is that it REALLY seems to play up that angle. Which feels odd, what with how it goes on for a while about how the system works great for everything from gritty, more realistic settings to four-color realms of relative moral simplicity. So, with such emphasis on the possibilities available, that feels like kind of an important ball to drop. Even then, I don't know why I feel reluctant about it since it's still a pen and paper RPG: every group reserves the right to say, "Screw you, rules!***" whenever it suits them.
   *** - ... We have money...

   Bah. It's probably nothing. One way or another, with friends and a good GM at the wheel, any game can become something special. And since M&M's core system and character creation options look pretty strong, there's a lot of potential for some great times.

   Well, that's all I've got on this baby. I've heard a lot of very nice things about it, and I'd definitely be interested in taking it out for a spin sometime. If anything here piqued your interest, the .pdf of the main book clocks in at just over 30 MB, so I could probably send it your way if you catch me on AIM. The next RPG on the menu... eheh... Not so simple to transfer. So, onto that!

... Tomorrow. I know it says I started this at 6:55, but that doesn't count the few hours' break for dinner and other such... evening thingies. Anyway, my eyes are drooping, so I'ma give them a nice rest. Tomorrow, the third and last of these should be complete. So, something to look forward to! ... So, scroll down. Almost forgot you wouldn't be seeing this if all the reviews weren't finished. Which is a bad sign. So, g'night!

EDIT: 8/14/08 - 2:02 PM
Huh. I seem to be updating earlier and earlier. Anyway, not much to report, so I think I'll dive right into the reviewness.

3. Exalted - If you clicked that link, you might have raised an eyebrow at the publisher. "White Wolf? The guys who made those really gothy Vampire and Werewolf RPGs?" And I had pretty much the same reaction. My mood didn't improve when I saw Exalted's product line is called 'Age of Sorrows.' But, going off some positive reviews I'd seen floating around the internets*, I decided I'd give it a look. And I'm glad I did. There are just a lot of things I found to like about it. It has a more unique premise than other RPGs I've seen, a solid-looking system, and one of the most interesting settings I've seen in a while.
   * - Must I tempt fate like this?

   The system, while not one I'm used to, looks pretty good overall, with lots of options in character creation and some interesting ideas, like Virtues, brought into play. It seems like much of combat consists of throwing around fistfulls of dice, after all Charms (basically special abilities) are added up. Which is fine, particularly since electronic means can take care of that without much trouble. Anyway, from what I've heard, those Charms are one of the game's high points, since all of them are well-balanced against each other that there feels like a legitimate choice, both in their selection and their application. Going back to my mantra for these reviews (overviews?) : I'd have to see how it plays to know how I feel about it. It looks promising, though.

   The setting and premise are probably what hold my interest the most. Basically, the designers claim they drew inspiration from entirely non-Tolkien sources, and it kinda shows. Which isn't a negative for anything influenced by Tolkien's writings; I still enjoy D&D and fantasy remains one of my favorite genres, and most of those took more than a hint from the man's work. But because so much of fantasy has been influenced by Middle-earth, when someone mentions the 'fantasy' genre, you can't tell me you don't immediately see images of knights and wizards in a setting like medieval Europe. And that's probably why Exalted, drawing more from Greek, Roman, and Norse mythology, and heavily from Asian culture and mythology, gets my attention.

   As for the premise... It's told very well in the book, and I'd take too long to relate everything. So, in my quest for a 'short version,' I'll be leaving out a lot. In ages past, the gods blessed a number of mortals with great divine power**, called exaltations. With the exception of one hereditary strain, all exaltations would pass to new mortals as their previous bearers died. These worthy mortals, the Exalted, were then basically told to run the world, called Creation, for the gods. And for a time, all was peachy. However, gradually, the Solar Exalted, the most powerful Exalted and leaders of the world, grew decadent and, well... just a little crazy. The Sidereals, the seers of the Exalted, looked ahead and predicted with horror that this continued reign would in time bring about Creation's end. So, with some reluctance, they conspired with the Dragonblooded, the weakest but most numerous of the Exalted, to strike down the Solars and imprison their exaltations, and banish the Solars' Lunar protectors to the edge of Creation.
   ** - It should be emphasized that this power made those chosen FAR greater than mere mortals. For instance, there's a mechanic for a character's Motivation, which kinda defines their purpose and is one of the few things they cannot be magically compelled to act against. The book goes on at length about picking a motivation epic enough to not be too easy for the character. Among the more mundane of these were ending all slavery everywhere, protecting an entire nation singlehandedly, and toppling the present world empire.

   Flash forward over a thousand years, where the Dragonblooded rule Creation under their Scarlet Empress, with the Sidereals meddling from behind the scenes, their very existence a secret. Their religion, the Immaculate Order, teaches that Dragonblooded are enlightened, infallible beings, and that Solars and Lunars are monstrous Anathema to be killed on sight. Things aren't as good as they were at the height of Solar rule, but things seem fine. Then, in relatively short order, a coupla bombshells hit.
   1) The Scarlet Empress disappears. As she had kept power by, among other things, playing a number of her children families against each other, and being the only one who knew how to keep at bay the reality-destroying horrors at Creation's edge, that'd be a bad thing.
   2) New Solars exalt. As almost all of them are just wandering around, confused at their new powers, and trying to find their place, the jury's out on what this means.
   3) Abyssal Exalted appear. As they owe their lives quite literally to the not-so nice Deathlords of the underworld and were apparently made from half of the original Solar exaltaions, meaning they're just as strong as those Solars, but with the long-lost power of Necromancy in their hands, this one's... pretty catastrophic.

   The core book only covers the Solars and lightly touches on the world, with other books covering the other four Exalted and parts of Creation in detail. And kinda makes me shove my foot in my mouth for badmouthing Wizard's of the Coast, earlier; there are a ton of sourcebooks and expansions for Exalted and, unlike some of Wizard's 3.5 offerings, most of these feel like things you'd really, really want, and for upwards of $30. Of course, that's not quite fair, as these books are packed with content. The core rules have around 400 pages, and each book on the other types of Exalted has over 200 interesting and informative pages, with surprisingly little overlap. These books present a number of interesting details and game hooks, such as the truth behind the Lunars' moonsilver tattoos and the thankless war waged against the alien Fair Folk, the Sidereals' near absence from destiny itself and the role played in the Celestial Bureaucracy, the Dragonblooded's harsh and structured upbringing and the dynastic houses' preparations for civil war behind a polite veneer, and the Abyssals'... Well, I don't have that quite yet, but I'd imagine some specifics on their creation and some information on the Deathlords, the Neverborn, and the underworld they all call home. And it seems we like our run-on sentences here at the Haven.

   Of course, from an abilities perspective, some of the Exalted look more interesting than others. I mean, next to the Lunars' shapeshifting and the Sidereals' fatecrafting***, the Dragonblooded and Solars being able to do things better and much better, respectively, than mortals kinda looks vanilla. Paragons of what vanilla should be, perhaps, but still vanilla. Fortunately, all of them look interesting to play, regardless. While the Dragonblooded are the weakest, they still have a unique social structure, and the world's major religion basically says their every act is good and their every word truth. The Solars, meanwhile, were just ordinary people before they suddenly had a ton of power dropped in their laps, with nobody around to tell them why, except maybe the world's major religion, which speaks of them as abominations. The Lunars, sharing this 'Anathema' status, have a better understanding of the truth, and, in addition to the continued problems from beyond Creation's borders, must now decide how to respond to the reemerging Solars. The Sidereals have the capacity to directly alter destiny, and must balance its use between their own projects and the machinations that keep much of Creation running smoothly. They all just come from such different places that it really feels like it's hard to go wrong.
   *** - And they do indeed have a skill called 'Craft: Fate.'

   While it shouldn't technically matter all that much, there's another thing I liked: it leaves a fair bit of mystery, putting things very much in the GM's hands. For instance, it never explains what happened to the Scarlet Empress, though it does put forth a number of plausible and interesting theories. Actually, while it presents quite a few details on her, there really is a lot explicitly pondered about her, such as how she's managed to live several times longer than any other Dragonblooded on record, how she learned to use the artifact capable of defending all Creation, and why not even the Sidereals know the answers to any of these questions. To be fair, I haven't really looked over many campaign settings, so it's possible this isn't an unusual thing to do, but I still really like the approach.

   Actually, because there aren't many campaign settings I've read (I haven't done any from D&D, if that means anything), it's possible I'm gushing over all this for nothing. But I've never been this excited about a setting. In all honesty, I'm interested in playing the game entirely because of its setting, even more than I'd like to play M&M because of its character creation system. Hell, I'm not even sure I need to play it; if I can keep getting supplements to devour more information about the world, I'll be happy.

   Anyway, there's not much to add, really. I think I've gotten across how interested I am in Exalted. If you've got 70 MB lying around and any interest, I'd be glad to send the core book over, or any of the others, for that matter. Again, presuming you catch me on AIM. Which'll get easier to do as soon as the internet situation improves.

4. Nobilis - This one should be a quickie,* since I've had trouble finding a torrent for the game; I'll just be describing the concept behind it, since it sounds kinda cool.
   * - Y'know, like the last two were supposed to be.

   Basically, the players take control of a Noble, a personification of a concept or class of things, and then wield limitless power over it. Further, these concepts or class of things aren't chosen from a list, they can be anything. Time, Death, Household Appliances, anything. And to give an idea of the sort of 'limitless' the game actually allows, I saw a forum post somewhere mention a 'Missile Test,' for determining if a domain was useful or not. If your Noble's powers could somehow prevent/negate the damage a missile would obviously do a normal person, it was considered potent enough. A Noble with Time could just stop it, or at least slow it down so much it couldn't hit, while one with Death could cause the 'death' of its propulsion system. And, so said the post, a Noble with power over Words could drop the 'ile' and turn the 'Missile' into a 'Miss.' Obviously, Words still looks like a relatively difficult field of influence, but that's beside the point. Just the thought of the game allowing such a thing... Surely I can't be blamed for wanting a look at it.

   Incidentally, Nobilis, like BESM, was published by Guardians of Order before they went bankrupt. But, presuming I don't find a torrent, it sounds like it's Eos Press to the rescue, as they picked up the license earlier this year, and should be coming out with the game's third edition... eventually. With as interesting an idea as the game has and the almost entirely positive reviews I've seen, I think I can stand to wait.

Alright! Finally! Man, getting those out took almost as long as reading all the rule books! But it felt good to write such huge numbers of words. I'll look into doing it more often.

In the meantime, sleep! And if that strikes you as odd, considering the 2 PM starting time, know that there were a number of biiiiig gaps between then and now. Anyway, I'll put this up tomorrow, internet willing. ... See there, internet? I used your name in an expression where most would have used 'God'! Ego inflation's gotta be good for something, right?

Pah. Time for the snoozing!

EDIT: 8/15/08 - 4:21 PM
Well, so much for that trend of working on this earlier and earlier. On the bright side, we have internet again! Rejoice! Cheer! Fling fistfulls of confetti! Unfortunately, my computer seems to think that puttering along at a snail's pace is the best way to celebrate. So... having internet doesn't do me much good. But it will, damnit! All I need is a little time for everything to recover, and then I'll be off to put up this near-30 KB text monstrosity! Honestly, that's almost halfway to the other thing I've been adding to this summer. And what is that, you wonder? Oh, in good time, my friends, in good time. ... Which, if you are interested, I'll be happy to send your way through AIM; I just want to edit and organize what I've done in there before putting it on the Haven. Which I'm sure I'll do. One of these days...

Anyway, since it looks like my computer's stopped being a baby, I guess I'll finally... Oh, you've gotta be kidding me! What the hell do you want!? Internet, you worked great, like, five seconds ago! Bah. I've fiddled with it about all I can for now, so here's hoping things'll be fine later today. I'm going to go unpack some more. Culix out.

EDIT: 8/15/08 - 7:20 PM
Yay! The internet works! I'm not going to say much more, in case it craps out again. Here's hoping the reviews are well-received. Until next time!

7/31/08 - 12:19 AM
A faint sign of life.

So... Hey. Been a while. I wish I could check the site to see exactly how long it's been, but, alas, the internet isn't in a working mood. Which is odd, since the little computer icon down there is blinking merrily away and reporting an Excellent signal strength. Ah, well. When I'm able to post this, I'll just remember to throw in a stunned reaction at the time gap. Especially since I might have turned 21 and 22 in the interim. If I also said something like 'more frequent updates are imminent,' expect me to scold my past self for writing checks my future self can't* cash.
* - Or should that be 'wouldn't be able to,' since we're talking about what the future me is up to? Noooo... It's been too long since I've written; my iron grip on grammar is slipping awaaaaay...

Anyway, that comes later. For now, you're probably wondering about a few things, such as...

• Why did I stop updating?
• Why am I breaking that silence now?
• What have I been up to in the meantime?
• Why can't I think of a decent joke question for this last bullet point?**

I've been wondering some of these things, too, actually. I don't fully know why I stopped. If I could check my last update, I might have an idea of what was happening around then, which would give me a better idea, at least. For want of that, I'll just guess and dive right into idle speculation: I think it was around the time a lot of projects, exams, etc. were coming up in a row. They all overwhelmed me and really wore me out. As my update schedule has always resembled a list of all the days of the week with the word 'Maybe' scribbled next to each one,*** I felt entitled to rest up before I made another update. But what then? Maybe I just got so used to not updating that it became easier and easier to let the site gather dust. If that's the case, maybe this post will be a step against that kind of inertia. There are some less cheerful possibilities I've been bandying about in my head, but, considering those don't offer many avenues for improvement, I think I'll just not dwell on them for now, and see where things go. Which sounds kinda naive, come to think of it... Ah, well. Positive thinking, woo!
*** - The optimist in me wishes to point out that this way adds the excitement of chance to the mix. The pessimist in me replies that the chance of an update popping up deters even the most compulsive of gamblers. After some consideration, the optimist in me cries, "Pistols at dawn!"

As for why I'm updating now, the short answer is that I'm doing it on a whim. That's right: I was sitting here, not really feeling like going to sleep, despite being kinda tired (no sleep last night and an hour's crappy nap today, all sandwiched around working almost non-stop can do that), and decided that giving the Haven some attention was a good idea. So, I think I'll dive into life events. College has been going well, for the most part, but it's not really what I want to focus on. Maybe I'll say something in another update. Eheh... And maybe that update won't be over a year down the line.

Anyway, some of this may sound a touch depressing (possibly because the divorce was the catalyst), and, admittedly, I'm feeling a little sad about some of it, but I think it's more that things are changing than anything else. I may not adjust for a while, but I think I will and I'll be fine when I do. On another note, there are a lot of very good friends of mine who haven't heard much or any of this, and I'm sorry for not telling you before. It wasn't that I didn't want to tell you, just that it never felt like there was a good time to mention it. ... And reading that over, for some reason, the situation sounds more severe than I think it is. Ah, well. To current events!

First, the bigger of the two bombshells I'm holding. A long time after my parents separated, my dad started seeing someone new. He wasn't sure how my sister and I were going to take it, so he decided not to tell us for a few months. We didn't actually meet her until he brought her to the Christmas party my grandmother holds every year. She's very nice, and I do like her, but there's still a certain awkwardness about the situation I'm still not completely past. But it looks like I'll have plenty of time to get there. For the last three weeks of June, when they'd been seeing each other for about a year, my dad took his vacation with her to meet her family in Italy. And kinda get engaged along the way. The wedding's set for next year in March or April, with a trip for them, Sarah, and me to her family's planned for mid-July.

So... I'm happy about it, because I do like her and they make each other very happy. Still, it kind of feels otherworldly to me. I knew a long time ago it would probably happen sooner or later, but a part of me kind of expected later. It just feels a little soon to me. Maybe I'm just not as used to the divorce as I thought I was, so it feels surprising to me that my dad is past it enough to move on. Which might make sense. I think I've mentioned this before, but, since I'm at college for so much of the year, I feel like I'm sort of insulated from what's happening at home; it just comes up a lot more for my dad, mom, and sister than it does for me. So... Yeah. Mixed, but mostly happy feelings on the topic. Here's hoping I feel more comfortable with things as time goes on.

Next up, the reason the internet's being screwy (and also for the work and sleepiness I mentioned some paragraphs back) : my family's in the middle of a move. The reason stems from the divorce: our old home cost too much for just my dad's salary to cover, so we actually sold it a long time ago, on the condition that we would hang onto it for this past year, so my sister could finish high school. Packing's been ... Pretty godawful. It seems a family of four builds up rather a lot of junk over fourteen or so years. Over the past week, we have put and thrown away an absurd number of possessions, and there always seems to be more hiding just beyond the latest load. Of course, we probably could have handled it better. For one thing, while we'd all done little things over the past month or so (my little sister in particular, since she knew she'd be taking a trip during the move), we didn't get as serious as we should have until a week or two ago. Even with lots of help, my dad and I were still shoving things into boxes right as the movers were pulling up to take the heaviest stuff for us. And yes, that'd be the thing that cost me my sleep last night.

As for the new house... It has some things going for it, no question. Our old home had some foundation problems,**** so it's kinda nice that all the doors close fully. While it's not a new place, some of the money from selling the old house went into sprucing it up a bit, so it certainly looks newer. And it's definitely a lot less filthy,***** which sounds fairly minor, until enough furniture at home was out of the way to see all the accrued dust and shed animal hair (over our run, six cats and six dogs have lived there at one point or another).
**** - "Behold! The slanty shanty!"
***** - "My house is dirty, buy me a clean one."

But it's not a universal improvement. On a selfish note, my room's a little smaller; even considering how many things I've thrown away, all the boxes in here say it'll be tough to fit it in managably. I could always get rid of more, but... We're not even done moving yet. And part of me feels like I'm just going to sink back down into the Bog of Sloth the instant we are. So much laziness... Anyway, as more of a legitimate, albeit temporary grievance, the work that's gone into pretty-fying the house? Kind of a work in progress. The rooms are fine, thankfully, but the kitchen's going to be off-limits for a few days while they redo the floor, and we're not sure how long until the phone and internet will be up to speed. What's worse, the heating system apparently isn't up to code, so we won't have hot water until maybe Monday. This blows particularly hard because I kinda need a shower by this point, and my supply of clean clothes is starting to dwindle.

Mainly, though... It just doesn't feel like home. We lived in another house until I was 8, so I spent the two-thirds of my life I remember best at what I still think of as home. It's going to be hard for me to let go of that. Not that I think I'm the only one feeling less than chipper about it; my sister has me beat in the portion of her life she's spent there, and my dad, who grew up there, has me beat in years. But so it goes. I'll miss the place.

So, I guess I'll have to make the most of tomorrow. There's still plenty left to move out of there. Sooooo... Off to bed for me. It felt good to do one of these again. Hope I didn't come off too angsty and melodramatic. ^_^ G'night everybody!

EDIT (8/1/08, 12:24 AM)
Alright. The internet's been going... well, not exactly 'strong' today, but at least functional. I'm amused that, according to the blinking monitor icon, the internet works fine at a signal strength of 'Low' or 'Very Low,' and not at all at 'Excellent.' So, after putting some more things together to move over here, I'm again at the 'winding down' part of the day. Anyway, still about the move, some bad news and some good news: there is WAY more to do than anyone ever imagined, so we'll keep on working up through Sunday night. On the bright side, our home's new owners are being nice enough to let us keep going for the few extra days, instead of wanting us out tomorrow/today. This is also kinda nice, since it means most of the work on the new house will be finished by the time we're living here full-time, and we won't have to worry about keeping the pets out of the workers' ways.

Now then, addressing my last update... Apparently, I came bearing links after a three month break. So, after this fifteen month hiatus,* I should theoretically provide at least five times as many links now as I did then. Now, to the layperson, that would mean I owe you guys 20 links. But seeing as how I'm now working toward a fancy-pants Econ major, I thought it would be more fitting for me to plug the relevant variables (and a few less-relevant ones) into some brobdingnagian formula and claim the answer is somehow more accurate. So, after crunching that out... Each and every one of you owes me half a baker's dozen links.
* - Wow, by the way.

... Ah, screw it. Enjoy your two links:

1. Socksmakepeoplesexy.Net - An interesting site to be sure, with a lot of amusing things scattered about. It's almost all gaming related, but I think I once found, of all things, a (read: the) song by the Beats, the band from Doug. Incidentally, on this very day, Sega Genesis Week is coming to an end, so that's an influx of new files. In addition to those, I might point you toward a highly entertaining retrospective look at the Final Fantasy series by Pat of 8 Easy Bits, the articles from NES Week some time ago, and a collection of Top 25 Games lists. In that last grouping, you might even see a familiar name or two down as authors.
2. El Goonish Shive - Here's a webcomic of high quality. It's got a good sense of humor, the characters are well-developed, the situations are interesting, and... well, it's pretty. When you start reading, you may question that assessment, but don't be fooled: the very early comics are a far cry from the quality it's achieved lately. And if it's the artwork that's throwing you, just let it go; *insert pretentious simile about how, like wine, all aspects of the comic only improve with age*.

Anyway, I think that's all for tonight. It feels really nice to update the site again, so here's hoping I'll manage it more often from now on. For now, there's another labor-intensive day ahead of me, so I needs my sleepies. 'til next time, everybody!

4/2/07 - April 2 - 4:42 PM
Zounds! A Three Month Hiatus Without Cause!

So... Yeah. Sorry about doing nothing with this place for so long again. Which everyone might be tired of hearing. It's distinctly possible everyone's also tired of hearing how sorry I am that I come bearing no actual content. It really would be nice to show up here and do something other than make a news update and put up some links. But the links are better than nothing, I guess, so I think I'll cut to the four webcomics and the other things I had in mind. List function... Go!
...
*kicks it*

• Legendary - If you take a look at its style your first thoughts may resemble, "Hey! I didn't know Rich Burlew found the time to make another comic and didn't bother to tell anyone about it! Sweet!" Or maybe they won't. ... Annnnnnnd nothing sufficiently witty is coming to save that bit, I fear. Regardless, it could be described as doing for console RPGs what the Order of the Stick does for D&D. And I'm not saying that just because of the subject matter; Legendary makes for a very entertaining read by itself. Wholly reccommended. ... Reccomended. Recomended? Ahhah! Recommended!
• Squidi.net - I get the feeling this one's very well known and I've just been kept out of the loop. I don't know why; maybe everyone secretly hates me. Because this is a very awesome site. Is it a webcomic? Yeah, kinda, only more like three of 'em, plus extras. And while 'A Modest Destiny' is the only one of considerable length and clearly the pick of the litter, 'The Starship Destiny' and 'Zombies of the Living Dead' shouldn't be counted out. As for the extras... Well, here's an example I rather liked. And, as if the hand-made sprite-based* comics evoking pleasant memories of Kid Radd weren't enough, there's more! Like his portfolio! It's a collection of all the ideas for concepts in games he's had, and some of them a really cool. For some reason, it's no longer accessible from the main page, unless I'm just not looking hard enough, but I think it's definitely worth a view. I approve of this website.
• True Magic - Sure, it doesn't use a less common style like stick figures or freshly made sprites, but the art in this one is, at times, kinda unique. Besides, it's a solid style. And colored! The humor's good, too. So... Yeah. Not a whole lot more to say about this one, really. It's an enjoyable one.
• The Golden What, Now? - And the creator of this one went on to band with several other webcomic creators in creating this interesting blend. The artists engage in a round robin retelling of a fairy tale, The Golden Bird. Some transitions are a little odd, as some of the styles are very different, but it's all fairly well done, so I can't complain. Well, won't, anyway.

As for the story that last webcomic covers, odds are good you've heard it, but it's possible you haven't. When scrounging Wikipedia (no link's needed) some time ago, I found that there are a number of variations of the tale. They all follow the same basic plot, though:

1. Some king has a tree that grows golden fruit, and is happy.
2. The king notices that one whole piece has disappeared.
3. Rather than staying mellow because he still has, in essence, a money tree, greedily makes his eldest son watch it.
4. Sonny boy goes night-night.
5. The king, not bothering to get, y'know, a guard to do it, gets his middle son to watch.
6. The middle son surrenders his consciousness.
7. The king either watches his tree of lucre himself, or defines insanity by expecting a different result from the next kid in line.
8. Either the old monarch or little prince inexplicably manages to stay up, beholding a golden bird swoop off with an apple, without making any attempt to stop it.
9. Rather than setting up a trap or, again, putting out a guard, the king decides to send out his sons in sequential order (hey, it worked so well before), or sends out his oldest two at once, perhaps in the hope that the one idiocy will cancel out the other.
10. Regardless, the princes (each) run into a fox/wolf/[insert other woodland canine] who tells them not to stay at the good inn.
11. Clearly having never heard a fairy tale before, or only having heard Little Red Riding Hood, they blow off the talking animal and stay at the most decadent of the two inns for quite a long time.
12. The king gets sick of waiting and decides, rather than sending a professional, to throw his neglected third son to the wolves (or fox), just as soon as the boy gets home from the family therapy session he'd had to attend on his own.
13. The kid runs into the fox like his brothers, but actually takes its advice; the elation the fox feels at being listened to will have to last him a good long while.
14. The kid meets the fox again the next day accepts the offer to take him to the golden thing by riding/clutching its tail with distressingly little hesitation.
15. The fox tells the prince to go in and take the golden thing, having made the task as simple as touching one's nose while sober, with some inane caveat.
16. The prince manages to screw this up, suggesting stupidity runs in the likely very inbred family.
17. The golden thing's king promises to spare the boy if he goes out to get some other golden thing owned by another king without any armed escort to make sure he doesn't run away.
18. Repeat steps 14-17 for two or more other golden objects, including a horse and ending with a princess (yeah, just roll with it).
19. The princess's parents/evil-stepparents/owners/[some derivative] prove themselves evil, but worthy of their divine right to rule, by stationing guards around the prince and announcing death unless he moves a nearby hill in 1/3/7/8/X days/hours/seconds.
20. On the final evening, the kid's whining about his failure, but the fox shows up again and says he'll take care of it if the prince will start listening to him again.
21. The prince agrees, and, lo and behold, the fox manages.
22. The prince and fox take the princess back to the second-to-last king, and sucker him out of her and the golden thing that's likely been in his family for generations.
23. The three go back down the line and eventually make off with all the golden objects in the land, like a dishonest Legend of Zelda trading game.
24. On the way back to the kingdom, the fox asks for the prince to do him a big favor and bump him off.
25. The prince feels too thankful to the fox and insists he can't kill him, so the canine gives "one, last bit of advice" in explaining that the prince not save anyone about to be hanged using some metaphor.
26. Stumbling upon the first town of the journey, the prince sees his brothers about to be hanged, and decides to do the opposite of the fox's suggestion, since the many jail cells it landed him in were apparently among his nicer resting places.
27. The two older princes promptly shove him into a well and take all his stuff.
28. The kid probably starts crying until the fox shows up again, and proves that saving young, stupid princes is an addiction for which no support group exists.
29. The fox takes the prince back home, where all the golden stuff has apparently been unhappy without him.
30. The boy's return makes all the gold things sing/neigh/whatever, so his father decides he must have been their rightful owner, and, desperate to seize the fabulous wealth, begins actually treating him like a son.
31. The older princes realize they're screwed and either make a break for it, or get executed by their sycophantic father.
32. The "hero" runs into the fox later, who asks again for assisted suicide, apparently not considering that curling up to sleep in a henhouse would have probably gotten the job done quicker without having to deal with a royal family that probably has trouble getting their pants on in the morning.
33. Anyway, the prince complies this time.
34. The fox then turns into the princess's long lost brother who'd been under the most convoluted witch's hex I've heard of in a while.
35. I think the words "And they all lived happily ever after" come next.

Huh... I was actually expecting something quite a bit shorter, there... Oh, well. Maybe someone'll get a chuckle out of it.

Well, more things have happened in the meantime than my discovery of those comics, and my retrospectively inane babble, but they can wait until the next update. With any luck, that will come before widespread distribution of the flying car.

So, thanks for reading. Hopefully the comics will tide the approximately 6.53333333333 of you over until I have something substantive of my own. Good day!

12/25/06 - December 25 - Christmas Day - 1:50 AM
Little Check In

It's been a while, so I just thought I'd drop by. To the 14 or so people who apparently visited yesterday and, if the counter's any indication, every other day this month, I hereby bestow upon you the title of 'Awesome Person.' Sure, it may not seem like much, but since you probably only invested about a second's worth of checking time, and that you're one of only 14 people to receive the honor out of everybody on the internet... And many apologies if that last bit made me sound like too much of a prick. I mean not to demean those who care.

Anyway, I'm alive, and sorry there's been nothing new for those who keep coming back. Fortunately, I do have something today. I've actually had it for... almost a month and a half. If you noticed the subtle change to the text over the NaNoWriMo icon up top, you already know, and have already seen what's coming. To everyone else, I didn't quite make the deadline for that competition. In fact, I... kinda stopped on the 18th of November with 15,191 words. Here we have what I'd reached, if you're interested.

There were a number of factors. My college workload, as it often does -- and even as expected -- suddenly ascended from trough to peak, effectively turning on its head the reality of my free time. Part of this is just the timing; National Novel Writing Month is November, which happens to enter the homestretch of the fall semester, when most teachers assign substantially more work than before. So... That's not too big a help.

However, the main problem was with me. I probably mentioned this, but Stephen King recommends in On Writing that a writer work each day on the story, explaining that even on holidays and other special occasions, he still tries to get in at least 2000 words a day. Had I done that, instead of working once every few days, I am convinced things would have turned out much better. If it had become more habitual, I know it would have been easier, things would have flowed better more of the time, and the extra work wouldn't have spelled total shutdown. There's no denying that I wasted a lot of the time I had. I have to wonder how many words those scattered moments might have become had they been more properly refined. Really, it's always been a problem for me. I wanted to finish this, too. That wish is probably the only reason I held out as long as I did. But then I finally gave up when the excuses I could give became too plentiful and tempting. "I've got too much work to do," "There's no way I'll make it to 50,000 by December," and "Things aren't moving well at all now, so there's no point in doing it" were probably the biggies. I'd probably say the first one was the biggest, but mainly because it made the others seem much more imposing. In truth, though, I'm sure I could have taken that down if, as King suggests, I'd just kept at it much more consistently. Ah, well. It's a long road ahead. I'll try to make that my first meaningful New Year's Resolution in a long time and see how it goes.

As for the story itself, there are some things I like (the opening), some things I hate (the last couple of sessions before I stopped), and some things I'm unsure about (much of the fight). But I think that's a good thing; I didn't obsess about the stuff that provoked uncertainty. That's the main reason Unknown and my couple of other tales are still in limbo. However, while I'm not going to do anything about those pieces, I am probably going to do away with the last few sessions of writing. There's not much I'll be losing, and I really wasn't happy with it. So, I'll just come up with something else to do that I'll enjoy, or just redo it in... well, a better way. Because I do intend to finish, no matter how long it takes.

So, if you read it and feel so inclined, I'd really appreciate any comments you have about it. Either send an e-mail to me or be lucky enough to catch me (Culix III) on AIM. As two to four blue moons have been known to pass in between occurrences of the latter, I'd probably go with the e-mail.

Anyway, it's getting late, so I'll just babble a bit more and go to sleep. In fact, I think I'll just throw up a list. It's not that I don't think you're capable of understanding my words otherwise, it's that I don't think I am. Now then... Do I remember the html commands...

Well... If there's anything else, I'm too sleepy to share it, I'm afraid. Fare thee well, everyone. Also, a Merry Christmas, a belated Happy Chanukah, an early Kwazy Kwanzaa (to the 1.6% of Americans (or approximately .224 people visiting my site) who practice it) and a ???? Festive Fusili Day!*

* - See end of last year's update on Christmas Eve Day

11/15/06 - November 15 - 1:44 PM
Quick NaNoWriMo Update and Amusing/Terrible News Item!

I don't have much time, so I'll try to be brief. If anyone's interested in how the novella's coming along, you can check here, and easily access my novel's first (MS Word) page. As you can see, I'm... a little behind schedule. I should be at around 25,000 by the end of today and I've presently achieved 13,439. So... I may not make it. Not that I'm going to stop, of course. I'm enjoying myself quite a bit, though I wish I a) had more spare time, and b) wasted less of what I do.

Anyway, onto the amusing/terrible news item. Apparently O. J. Simpson has written a book. His subject of choice? How he would have committed the murders of his ex-wife and her friend. I really wish I was kidding. So, I'll leave you with that.

10/31/06 - October 31 - Halloween! - 1:12 PM
Ha! Made the monthly update marker!

The last one came on the ninth of September, so, with under 11 hours to go, it's still technically true. Sure, it's kinda meaningless, but it's an achievement nonetheless! *performs the cabbage patch in celebration*

Anyway, it should be clear from my mild overreaction that I'm feeling better than during my last update. Still not up to 100%, yet, but it's the right direction. So, I decided it was time for a site update. I probably would have done it sooner, but schoolwork's actually been kinda crazy for some time. It's really pretty annoying... And, even though I've seen a lot of it in my life, the 'long periods of inactivity punctuated by brief periods of intense work' progression still seems to catch me off-guard. Why!? Take a psychology class, life! If you want me to do well, you shouldn't go with that fixed interval reinforcement schedule! Variable ratio is the way to go. Get me into a position where I feel I have to do everything an unknown number of times to get a benefit out of it!

... And I just realized reinforcement schedules don't exactly apply as well as I presumed. But no matter! I've demonstrated that such information kinda stuck (I only had to look them up a little bit), which I consider a victory! On that note, I've jumped from C+ to A- on my Psych. test grades. Which is good, considering that godawful proposal I turned in earlier. Really should take care of such things beforehand... Which is why I intend to gather books together for my European History paper. Assigned topic: Explain your opinion on the quality of Queen Mary I of England as a ruler. So, I'll be looking up resources later today, since the bibliography's due by the 16th, and the paper another two weeks after. Really, since it's only 10% of my grade, and the tests are quite easy, I'm not too worried about my performance. For Psychology, though... Eheh... Well, as long as I don't wait until the weekend before it's due, all should be reasonably happy. Just means some extra work next month.

Work, conceivably, I might be unable to perform, thanks to November's National Novel Writing Month. The objective? Write at least 50,000 words, beginning on the first, and ending about a second before December. Insane, you say? Probably! I'll almost certainly be putting myself through hell for this. However, it does sound kinda fun, and it's been a very long time since I sat down for any substantial length of time and had a really great time writing. I maintain that Jannin's still a lot of fun to write for, but I've just accumulated so much rust, it's hard to get the machinery to churn well. So, by undertaking something like this with quantity instead of quality in mind (I actually put 'quality instead of quantity' in there first; I guess it's a good thing it's so deeply etched on my mind's surface, but I just found that amusing), I think I'm quite likely to achieve the coveted flow state. I'm confident I've entered it before when writing, but it's definitely been a while. I haven't fully settled on what I'll do, but I've got an idea that I'll flesh out some more before tomorrow.
As an addendum, I encourage everyone who checks in here occasionally to give the 'competition' a shot. Assuming everyone who visited yesterday is a regular on the Haven (which I find a little odd, given the erratic updating schedule), that'll be an even two-thirds of a dozen regulars in with me. ... Huh... That was kind of a sub-par description. Oh, well. I know at least one of you's participating, so, to you and everyone else who chooses to do so, I wish you the best of luck.

Anyway, onto potential bits of amusement! ... Uhh... Hang on... I'll find something left in the bowl... Think of them as low quality substitutes for actual Halloween candy. Pro: These won't rot your teeth. Con: Some may rot your mind. And, while I'm reasonably confident about a lack of razorblades, it is not reccomended to physically sink one's teeth into them.

• Kid Radd - Kinda old and I'm confident I've mentioned this before, but I found it again recently and remembered how much I liked it. So, if you've never read this finished sprite comic before, I highly reccomend it.
• Sluggy Freelance - It's... kind of an odd webcomic. But I like it. It updates daily and it's been around since August 25, 1997. So... the archives may seem a tad daunting, but it flies past fairly quickly. Again, strange, but entertaining.
• A Wii Adventure - If you visit VG Cats, you've probably already seen this. I just find it kind of amusing and cool.
• Mathematics Genius - If you understand high school level math, you'll probably enjoy these. You may have already seen them before, but, if you've not, behold the creative ways people have developed to misunderstand math problems.
• Doukutsu Monogatari / Cave Story - Haven't reccomended a freeware game in a while... Haven't really recommended a game in a while... In any case, I enjoyed this one. It's a traditional action-adventure game in the style of Castlevania and Metroid, but it's clear a lot of time and effort went into it. The gameplay is really, really nice on this and I wholeheartedly reccomend it. Enjoy the quality freeware!
• Civilian Vs. Dark Lord (waaaaaay early preview) - Yay! Culix wrote something! There's really not much to this. I'm not at all happy with most of the writing or pacing and I stopped at an awkward point. However, the idea that inspired it, that seen within scene 1, entertains me. So, I'll probably do a major rehaul of this concept at some later point in time. As of now, see this inferior version of what I will hopefully achieve someday.

So... Hope there was nothing too rotten in there. I suspect the last one may leave something of a foul taste, though. Here's hoping I get better soon, and that your recovery from any trauma it induced is swift and painless. Anything else? Hmm... Ah, yes. Anime.

The techie of Trinity's Anime Club Triumvirate (The Techie - codes voting systems and provides lotsa anime; The President - takes blame for anything bad that happens and swears vengeance if he must take said blame; The Talker/Decider - does most of the talking and... I guess makes arbitrary decisions (not associated with George W. "The Decider" Bush)) fairly recently uploaded a lot of his extensive anime collection to the Trinity network. So, I've been enjoying some series that would be too much of a pain to acquire otherwise during most meals. I'll just give the main ones I've been watching:

• The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya - An odd one. Indeed, the first episode is an incredibly low-budget live-action (still anime; you just see lots of amusingly crappy "camera" movements) mishmash of some prominent high school anime cliches with lots of comments about how terrible everything is, before it's revealed to be a student film by a small club. The anime covers the events of this small club and its incredibly eccentric leader, the titular Haruhi, from the perspective of a cynical guy. The episode order is... kinda weird and random for no particular reason, but I still mostly enjoyed it.
• Yakitate!! Japan - Proof that you can turn almost any given topic into a shonen manga and anime (guy manga/anime; DBZ's the most prominent example). It's a bread anime. Yep. Bread. And, astonishingly, it holds my interest. I... really have trouble saying why. There are puns all over the place in here, so it's a good thing the fansub drops down little explanation windows (for instance, 'pan' means 'bread', so 'Japan' from the title -- I think there's more emphasis on the 'pan' -- also means 'Japanese bread'). The opening of each episode reads as follows: "There's English bread, German bread, and French bread, but Japan's bread, Japan, does not exist. In that case, there's no choice but to create it. This story is a serious biographical ballad of a boy who possesses Solar Hands, Azuma Kazuma, who will create a Japanese bread by and for the Japanese people, which can be presented to the world proudly." So... Yeah. Weird as hell, but entertaining.
• Ouran High School Host Club - I say the following with confidence: This is the funniest anime I have ever seen. It centers around a high school for students from ridiculously wealthy and upper class families. The 7-member Host Club is a group of attractive guys with too much free time who entertain equally idle girls. However, one of these is actually a girl from a middle class family (the school's only scholarship student) who accidentally broke a club vase valued at 8 million yen (about $80,000) and, initially mistaken for a boy, was put to work to pay it off. Comedic insanity ensues, mainly from how ridiculously over the top most of the characters are. Strongly reccomended.

Whelp, it felt good to make an update at last. So, here's hoping the next one won't be quite as greatly spaced. And hoping that National Novel Writing Month doesn't turn out a bust on my end, or on anyone else's. G'night everybody!

9/9/06 - September 9 - 4:50 PM
Fairly depressing update.

Sorry about the unoriginal title. Even if it doesn't always seem like it, I usually give them some thought, but I want to get a few things off my chest. I think it definitely gets the point across, so, while I would like nothing more than to make another vaguely amusing site update, there just isn't a lot of room for jokes right here. Hopefully, they'll stop affecting me as much before long.

Before I get into those things, though, some apologies.
To... everyone I know on AIM, I may have seemed kind of distant lately -- this is one of my longer periods of being off AIM, I think -- and I'm really sorry about that. If nothing else, I'll try to be more active soon.
To any portion of the Althanas community who reads this, I'm sorry I haven't been too active lately. Fortunately, I recognized that and didn't involve myself in too many threads as a result, but I still feel really badly for everyone I inconvenienced. Raelyse, I told you I'd have my next post up almost two weeks ago, because I thought I could manage it, so I'm sorry for making a liar of myself. I do want to finish the thread, though. But, again, if you'd like to just end it and devote your energies elsewhere, I'll completely understand.
To EB, I'm sorry I haven't made a post in well over a week in the character creation thread. Part of it was just thinking things over, but it still shouldn't have taken this long. On that note, to everyone else, I recommend checking out EB Master's new RPG. Character creation is different from almost all other systems, and it's done well enough to make it a very interesting, engaging experience. It really made me smile when I saw the rules behind it and then when I saw it in action. It's shaping up well, so check it out.

There are three depressing things that have happened this summer that I haven't described to any of my friends. I really didn't think any of them were getting to me, but... Well, my lack of activity and general ennui had to come from somewhere and together these three make pretty good candidates. I'll go over each one in order.

Sometime in mid-June, after returning from the road trip with friends to Colorado, I learned that Master Kim had died. In late May, he had gone on a fishing trip with some friends, and suffered a heart attack on the drive back home. I trained at his Tae Kwon Do school for six years, and I wouldn't be who I am without that. I hadn't seen him in about a year, and I really wish I'd kept in touch a little better. It just feels weird to me that someone like that, not very old (early to mid fifties, I think) and in very, very good shape would die like that. Kind of like Steve Irwin, in a way. Master Kim was a very warm, strong, supportive teacher and I'll miss him.

Unfortunately, his wasn't the only death. For the past two years, my grandmother has been suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Or at least its more severe stage. To those of you unfamiliar with it, the disease at first causes short term memory loss that grows gradually more pronounced. I didn't see her often enough to really witness this part, but I saw the later part of the illness quite clearly. Motor, linguistic, and recognition skills are all weakened considerably, meaning she needed to be moved with a wheelchair, to be dressed, and to be fed by others. During most big family gatherings, we all usually made time to visit her at the institution she'd been moved to, though my mother, aunt, uncle and grandfather visited quite a bit more often than I did. In mid-July, her condition degenerated to the point that she could no longer swallow properly. The doctors believe when taking some water, an amount went into her lungs, and she contracted pneumonia. In her condition, chances for recovery were slim. I was able to visit her one last time when she was hooked up to a respirator and unconscious. About an hour after we left, we were called and told of her death.

I wish I'd taken more opportunities to visit her while she was hospitalized, but I really regret not seeing her more before the disease developed. I remember her being an incredibly kind woman who loved her family and especially adored her grandchildren, but I just don't have many specific memories. I really wish I did. I know I'd miss her more, but at least I'd be able to remember the good times. At the moment, all I have is regret for not getting to know such a wonderful person any better.

I'd really hoped the funeral would help bring me peace. That's the entire point of a funeral, from my understanding: to ease the pain of those who attend. And, were I more religious, maybe I would have taken some solace in the generic prayer detailing nothing of her actual life. I refuse to count the sentence, "Elsie developed a number of relationships in her life; first she was a daughter, then a wife, then a mother, and finally a grandmother," as it was both infuriatingly obvious and clearly intended only as a launching pad for the sentence, "But her most important relationship was the one with God." I'm not going to claim that the preacher meant ill, and I'm confident at least a few of those attending were helped by the prayer, but... Talking about a person's life just seems to me the most important part of any funerary service, and, without it, I feel cheated.

The final event this summer came only a few weeks ago, but I can't deny that I saw it coming to some degree. I just wish I'd seen it sooner. I found out when I went home for the weekend before Labor Day. Last Wednesday, my parents began living apart, and will get a divorce as soon as is possible. According to my dad, Mom has been very unhappy for a long time. She brought up divorce ten years ago, but he was able to talk her out of it. But, since she seems much more determined now, it's going to happen. I really wish she wasn't pushing for this, but... Well, since my dad recently told me she's been on anti-depressants for years -- I had no idea -- maybe there are just factors at work here I don't understand. I still feel upset with her, though.

A part of me wishes that, if she was so set on doing this, she would wait about two years or so; my sister would be in college, then, so she wouldn't have to deal with any of this. Especially since this is her junior year, which I recall being my roughest as it was. She'll probably be staying with my dad as, over the last couple of years, my mom's developed the habit of not being home most of the time; she works pretty reasonable hours, but then goes to the dog park for several more, and usually out to dinner with friends after that, before heading almost directly to bed. Naturally, there's also going to be some moving involved. My mom's staying at her sister's place and planning to get an apartment, but my dad can't afford the current home on his salary alone. Fortunately, his brother's giving him a great deal on a house, so he and my sister will be alright. I wish, if nothing else, the house could have been kept. I have a lot of memories of that place. Dad also planned to sell it in a few years and the projected profit from that would go a long way toward paying off debts and helping his retirement.

My dad seems to be taking it about as well as one can. He still makes jokes pretty often, and even a few about the divorce. I was expecting him to be very resentful about this situation, and the resentment's definitely there, but he didn't berate Mom at all, simply describing things to me factually. He actually said he was glad, since he'd worried for a while she might try to kill herself. That he can still focus on the positives and remain pretty cheery even amid everything else really gives me a lot of new respect for him. I just hope he's really as happy as he's acting.

My sister was busy with her friends most of the weekend, so I didn't get to talk with her much. She seemed to be in fairly high spirits, though, which relieved me. My dad told me she's really mad at Mom, and I guess she should be to an extent. I just hope my sister doesn't wind up hating her.

I didn't see much of my mom, either; just dinner on Sunday with my aunt. She seemed happier than I've seen her in a while, which I guess is a good thing. She didn't seem to be in the mood to talk about the divorce, though, and she also doesn't want many members of her family to know about it.

As for me... Like I said, I'm a little mad at my mom for this, though I do feel bad that she felt she needed to do this. I feel worse for my dad, both because of what's happening now and much of the marriage before that (in his words, "It must be hard to live with someone you hate. I know it's hard living with someone who hates you."). I'm worried about how my sister's handling this, and hope things turn out okay for her. And I can't deny that I'm feeling a little sorry for myself. Out of the four of us, my day-to-day life is least affected by this, but I think I'm entitled to some self-pity. At least for a little while. I've been wracked by ennui for most of the summer, even before Master Kim and my grandmother died, and I guess I've finally figured out why; on some level, I saw the divorce coming. Better late than never, I guess. So, there's no denying that I'm kind of depressed.

It wasn't fair to have halted virtually all productive activities and dropped off the radar, though; I haven't written anything in far too long, and there are people waiting on me to finish a few things. With what's been happening, I'd allow myself to slow down. That would seem healthy to me. Coming to a sudden stop, as I did, does not. I really hate feeling this way, but I'm going to try to get over it and get back on track. Trust me, I want to as much as anyone. So... Here's hoping this depression gets behind me as soon as possible. I can't guarantee it'll happen soon, but I really, really hope it does. Please bear with me until then.

Well, sorry for this bummer of an update. But I do feel better after writing it all down. So... ^_^o On the bright side, my next update's bound to be more upbeat. I hope you're looking forward to that cheerier update! I know I am. Until then, everybody!

7/30/06 - July 30 - 4:15 PM
Been a while since I went this long...

Many, many apologies go out to those of you who had been expecting an update for the past... four months. Jebus... I'd hoped I was past neglecting this place... Ah, well. Clearly, that's yet to happen.

Anyway, part of the problem may actually have been that I feared giving an up to date... well, update. Basically, the longer I didn't describe the events of my life -- which is, let's be honest, the primary use this site receives -- the more said events piled up. That would span pages of description. And, considering how long a normal update of non-ridiculous proportions takes me... ^_^o I was honestly quite mortified at the prospect of remembering everything, writing it all out, and reflecting on it. So, I'm afraid that's not going to happen. Not right now, anyway. But maybe I'll slip them into following updates. Presuming I get on a more reliable schedule, at any rate. Again, I'm very sorry for neglecting the Haven for the umteenth time.
This update's snippet of Culix's recent past: I've successfully completed my first year of college! Woo! ... Which I declare not too long before my second year begins! (The 24th of August, if you're curious)

Next up, Althanas stuff. Guess which character of a relatively new Althanian made it to the finals in the ongoing Cell tournament... If you guessed 'Jannin,' you have clearly not been keeping up with that place's goings-on; the little guy wasn't even competing. Also, technically, there are several answers to that question, such as Arsenic Ruin (I think...), Jada, or Meerplex. Big hand to those three! However, the one I was actually going for was... Walter! He gives reason to reconsider an adjective in the phrase, "You can't keep a good man down."* Hurrah for the excellent roleplaying job done by EBMinion! I haven't actually finished the giant thread yet, but I very much like what I've read so far. Kudos, man! Kudos!

Next up... Links to... thingies! Thingies!!

• If you read The Fortuna Saga, (if you don't, I humbly suggest you start), you probably noticed a little while ago that they were running guest comics based off a template. The idea, of course, is to insert speech bubbles and make with the funny. Naturally, given my ego, there's only one reason I would ever mention this: I created such a guest comic for it, and it went up as #5 a day or so after submission. Not sure how funny it really is, though. Bah.
• This site has some interesting games. All are pretty good, but the best ones are the puzzles that involve setting down items (the GROW series). It's pretty intuitive trial-and-error fun!
• The Chrono Compendium is a site I've found quite interesting. In some ways, it resembles the Ogre Battle Encyclopedia I mentioned long, long ago (which appears to have since vanished), with two important differences: first, it is far more comprehensive, and second, it remains active. Go there if you have any questions about the series' details** or just want to see some of the theories people have developed (for instance, I found the Lavos article quite interesting). They even have a looooong section explaining the laws of time and dimension travel seen in the games! That takes dedication! I say it's worth a look.
• And now some Newgrounds stuff!
  
  • Ignorance is Bliss - Nintendo apparently released an album called 'White Knuckle Scorin' in the early 90's. Here is a song sung by Jellyfish. Enjoy. Warning: gets stuck in one's head with the greatest of ease.
  • Joan and Mark - "[The] story of a one-armed boy and a one-eyed girl hunting bounties in the old west." I kinda like it. If you absolutely detest J-pop, however, I can virtually guarantee you will not. It's done by the same guy who did The Maxwell Edison Story, if that means anything.
  • Mecha Duel - Again, this is not for those who simply cannot tolerate modern japanese music. The animation is quite well done, though. And it acts as a cautionary tale of when two fighting game players take things too far. ... Y'know, if fighting game players generally had mecha at their disposal...

Next up... D&D-related matters! Specifically, the campaign with Kyle and Jacob, which is nearing the end of its second stage. I don't think I've actually described it before, so I'll just give a little rundown of how it operated. Kyle, as usual, has done a very good job as DM, while Jacob and I play twin brothers named respectively Bartholomew and Edgar Medius. They grew up as part of a noble family, their father having earned that position in a demonic war some years before. Their mother passed on some time before the game begins as well. Among their originally living family are Richard, one of the kingdom's finest paladins and the boys' older brother, Diana, their trouble-making younger sister, Nathaniel, a half-orc adopted by the family and like a brother to the twins, and their father. Edgar had always been intrigued by nature, so, when a Druid settled nearby, the boy persuaded him to become his teacher. Of course, not wanting to draw too much attention to his family, he practiced the paganism he was taught in secret (the established religion being Illumian) and didn't embrace the fully druidic way of life, instead blending the lore of nature with more traditional fighting techniques (read: Ranger; specifically dual-wielding scimitars). Bartholomew, on the other hand, gravitated more toward the arcane, studying wizardry from an old master. The art of magic was possessed by only a few individuals, so he wound up taking classes alongside the kingdom's younger prince, Toncrid.

Now, since I don't feel like launching into an in-depth of explanation of everything that happened, here's the whirlwind tour:

1. The Medius family contributes forces (including Edgar, Bartholomew, Nathaniel, and Richard -- and Diana, the little stowaway) to the army put down an insurgence of goblins.
2. The army of Altwinn is betrayed; Sir Randal, claiming his cause as that of the Illumians, assassinates the crown prince and frames the Medius clan for his death.
3. The Medius brothers are able to convince Prince Toncrid of their innocence, but he is unable to help them; Richard is executed, and the rest of the family is banished to the eastern badlands. The father doesn't survive the trip over.
4. They settle in a mountain-surrounded area where they can eke out a meager existence, competing with the orcs.
5. They stumble upon an ancient place, the Temple of Darkness, below their settlement. There, they are contacted by an evil demi-god Sebek who offers them power, which they accept, and makes fertile the land around them.
6. When out traveling, they accidentally awaken the husk of Laraegus, an immortal member of the long-dead race that preceded the orcs.
7. Looking over some runes near the Temple of Darkness, Bartholomew's apprentice (Sera, I think her name was) explains that he came from the Temple of Death, as well as the existence of five temples in all, capable of bestowing great power.
8. The group then travels to and receives blessings from the Temples of Death (eternal life with aging), Life (eternal youth), and Knowledge (understanding of the way the universe works). Laraegus also receives these blessings, hounding the group to no end. Edgar and Bartholomew instruct two former servants, Mary and (Sara, I think) in the ways of the Druid and the Bard, respectively.
9. During their quest, Edgar becomes a lycanthrope (some help from the drows' Black Flame gives him some control over the condition), Bartholomew an Alcolyte of the Skin (after sowing the flesh of a still-living demon onto his own, he receives demonic powers), Diana a Shadow Dancer, and Nathaniel a Black Guard. Edgar passes on his 'gift' to a small town's survivingpopulation, loosing a number of werewolves on Altwinn, while Bartholomew sacrifices the souls of the dead to form a small demonic army.
10. They enlist the help of a specter named Samir, who later helps them assassinate Altwinn's king, with the hopes that King Toncrid will pardon them (the plan doesn't exaclty peter out) Diana and Nathaniel fall in love, as does Edgar with Mary.
11. After the Temple of Knowledge, the brothers are visited by Richard, then an angel, who persuades them to stop their madness. The two are able to sway neither Nathaniel nor Diana, forcing the brothers to betray their kinsmen. The brothers hope to redeem themselves by joining with Richard, King Toncrid, and the army of Altwinn to fight Laraegus's growing army. In the fray, Edgar's ferocity proves too much for his sister, though he manages to stabilize her, while Bartholomew kills Nathaniel by turning him into a wine glass and jumping on him (seriously; the half-orc's life ends in the same manner as a Jewish wedding).
12. Laraegus makes a dash for the Temple of Light in Treben City (burning the city to the ground in the process), but the Medius brothers beat him to the blessing and lock him out. The pair then ascends to the Netherworld, for stage two.

Phew... As for phase two, the Netherworld basically consists of all the planes in D&D cosmology, save the Material Plane. Edgar finds himself on Elysium, while Bartholomew awakens just outside Celestia on a small plane that is home to the Ashura. The two discover that, from their blessings, they have passed through and become Psions, ones able to shape the ectoplasm of the Netherworld with relatively little difficulty. Soon after the game begins, there is a demonic invasion of the Ashura homeworld, where they hope to use it as a foothold for an attack on Celstia. Edgar is sent to reinforce it, but not even the brothers' reunion is enough. With what few Ashura that survive, they escape to a small plane owned by a slightly batty elder god named Ursix. It becomes their base of operations as they try to gather aid to take back the plane. Richard and a small contingent of angels rejoins them, and they make a brief trip into hell to free Nathaniel from Sebek's clutches. Later, all the demonic energy is expelled from Nathaniel in the form of a demon, Ley'nwerhoughigsxe234o980#%***, who the brothers quickly renamed Bob; he looks exactly like Nathaniel with a darker tint and greater power. Finally, just before their offensive begins, Ursix reveals that he was not an elder god, but an Illithid. He prepares to kill them, but, again, they manage to escape. Seeing the size of the demon army and the need for action, the brothers Medius form a desperate plan.

This plan was enacted in our last session. The brothers slipped unseen to the base of the Pylon, the lifeline of the plane. Combining their psionic powers, they were then able to wipe clean the entire plane, eliminating all demons on its surface. The plane then began to reflect the minds of its newly bonded psions, dividing into two halves. Here is a description of Edgar's half of the plane, Valshara. Once Jacob gives me a description of Bartholomew's half, that, too, shall go up. Anyway, after the bonding was done, the brothers tried to leave, escaping the plane-cleaning shockwave. However, they were diverted to a little corner of hell, where Sebek and Bob awaited them. The dark demi-goddess, having them trapped, then gleefully launched into a lengthy speech. Amusingly, if she hadn't, the pair might not have had time to manifest their own divine power, slipping back to their new plane soon after she was finished. The two new demi-gods now, with their allies, prepare to go after the demons that had invaded Celstia.

Alright. Now I'd like to apologize for that piss-poor description. There are a great many more details and intricacies I could have included, but did not. Forgive the lack of coherence! I've still not recovered from the lock-in the other night. Which I still haven't gotten to, yet! Zoom!

On Friday at midnight, Jacob, Kyle and two friends, and I went to another Laser Quest lock-in. I have to say it was the best one I've ever attended. I never got last, so I exceeded my very, very low expectations. The Highlander game, while not the best for me score-wise, was still really great. Two teams of about sixteen with limited lives firing at each other at fairly close range with relatively limited cover. How can't that be awesome? They even put all of us on a team called 'Jesters,' after Jester Shadow Productions! Yep, it was a really nice feeling for all of us to be recognized from our parts in that group! Because of course that was what it was, and totally not putting up our names as wJester, mJester, cJester, aJester, and kJester (for War/Kyle, Midnight/Jacob, Chaos/myself, A/(I'm a bad person 'cause I've forgotten his name), and ???/George (who's apparently a tribal prince of Ghana)).

And, of course, there was the crowning achievement of the night: playing Dracula with all the jesters as the vampires. The game works as follows: players are split into two teams, vampires with infinite lives and humans with five or ten. Living up to the jester name, we listened to Jacob's suggestion and spent the entire game running around cackling maniacally and shouting crazy-sounding gibberish. Once the marshal started announcing how many humans remained, I, for whatever reason, began shouting things out in a weird voice, among them, "Nine little humans running about, they'll soon all be made to scream and shout!" , "Humanity, which now numbers six, will very soon be all out of tricks!" and "Two humans left, but where hides the duo? For living this long, I'll give them something to rue o'er!" So, yeah. In the spur of the moment, I can apparently come up with some stupid-sounding threats that seem appropriately jester-ish. ^_^o My voice still hurts a little, though.

Anyway, I think I've said all I need to (and, with the D&D description, probably a little more), so I'm going to stop. Hopefully, my next update will be a) soon, and b) more coherent. Look forward to it! Oh, yes. And, if you've read all this, congratulations on officially being the only visitor to the site who is not a dust bunny! Seriously, after four months, that stuff really piles up...

Farewell! *proceeds to sweep*

* My apologies. I wanted to do something good along those lines, and what you see is the best I could come up with. Blah...
** Really, this only applies to Cross; while Trigger's plot was very lucidly given out, its successor's, while excellent, could probably have been better paced. Incidentally, if you are under the impression that Chrono Cross is a universally hated game, I might reccomend this article.
*** I can't remember anything beyond the apostrophe, so... yeah. The numbers and symbols aren't actually in his name.

4/24/06 - March 24 - 12:07 AM And another month flies past.

Terribly sorry for not posting in a great while. I'm also afraid this won't be a particularly lengthy update; I must complete preparations for tomorro-- err... today's exam in Statistics. I'd actually been preparing something substantial to post on Thursday morning, but... Eh. Somehow, I just wasn't quite feeling it. So, the meat of that update is now sitting in a small file on my desktop, pleading with me to complete and upload it. I've no guarantees it'll happen, but I'll at least give you the gist when I make a reasonable-sized update.

Anyway, onto happier things: journal entries for part 1 and part 2 of Derrick and co.'s first exploits with regards to the mysterious Egg are now ready! Well, mostly ready; there's a certain short, easy riddle that I couldn't completely remember for part two. However, because that part also contains a very old, well known riddle, followed immediately by a rather tricky, largely unknown riddle, I think it meets it more than esceeds the riddle quota. Add to this evidence that I will add the riddle's words when I receive them from the DM and I doubt anyone will be too sore about it.

And speaking of evidence... ... Well, unless your name is Jacob, I think you can click the link and see for yourself. You've probably already seen it, if you happen to have read the blurb at 8-Bit Theater... like, just over 8 months ago. And yes, I did actually dig through the archives just to find that link. Perhaps, some day, I shall shed light on why, precisely, I did this. However, I'd rather see it graded, first. And I'd had to deprive any of you of an opportunity to connect the dots between the search for that link and my cryptic statement. In lighter news, I also dug through the archives of Ctrl+Alt+Del in search of this semi-ancient comic.

Well, I think I've actually babbled on a bit too long. That Statistics exam isn't going to study for itself, after all. ... At least, I hope it's not; if the examination is sufficiently complex that it has developed enough cognitive thought that self-reflection is possible, I doubt any amount of late-night studying could truly prepare any individual to face its awesome might. I could see it making the catalyst for an interesting plot, though. Speaking of such catalysts, an interesting topic on Althanas some time ago prompted what I deem an amusing idea of mine. There are other entertaining responses in that thread, but few involved me, so I decided I would mention them not. I'm quite the pretentious bastard, you see. For instance, there was no reason at all for me to directly link to my post in that thread, but I did it any way. See? Pretentious bastard.

Anyway, I seriously need to go study. Another update comes... eventually. I probably should have mentioned it sooner, but you should try to ration this update out; you never know when the next update famine will strike. Fortunately, if you're really starving, there's always the leftovers bin. Speaking of that, I think this page is getting too long. So, I'll remedy that, later. Maybe I'll even divvy up the 'Past Updates' section by year or something. But not now. Studying! Then sleep. G'night everybody. Stay cool!

3/27/06 - March 27 - 7:42 PM
Okay, so I may have lied.

On Friday, I promised I'd have something up on Saturday. Sadly, I was unable to keep this promise. As tends to happen with me, time slipped away and I didn't actually get started on polishing the first one off until late at night on Saturday. I then made it up to the end of the planning session before my writing started to suffer and I went to bed. On Sunday, again, time slipped away, but I almost got to the end of the second session. About an hour ago, I finally got the bloody things finished. That doesn't excuse the fact that I didn't report, however. I just kept thinking, "Oh, writing the next bit won't take long. Then I'll put them all up together and everyone will be happy." Actually, it's quite possible everyone will be happy, anyway; I'm not egocentric enough to believe that people's lives revolve around what I do. However, to those of you who've been waiting for this, thank you for your patience.

So, without further ado, I give you...

• Derrick Redgrove's First Journal Entry (second session),
• Derrick Redgrove's Second Journal Entry (still second session),
• And, just for fun... He, and it, are back. Huzzah!

It's not much, but enjoy these small offerings. Take them as a sign that, when I say I'll write something, I will, eventually, get to writing it. So, with regards to all those other things I've said I'll provide... I can't say when, but I'll create all of them someday. Jebus, I wish I had a stronger work ethic... But whaddaya gonna do?

Anyway, I don't have much more to say at present. I may or may not have two tests tomorrow, so I'll be busy with those for much of the evening's remainder. So, until next time, everybody.

EDIT: Eheh... The layout of those two .txt files were... slightly screwy when I uploaded them. Fortunately, they're fine now. Also, if you were strongly empathizing with me over the 'two tests' thing... Thankfully, that was an exaggeration; I recalled that the Sociology test's been moved to Thursday. So, all I need to do is take care of my PAD 1 homework and studying. Then, all should be peachy. That is all.

3/24/06 - March 24 - 1:58 AM
For the record, I didn't lie.

You can see for yourself. I said earlier that I'd probably post again later today. I honestly thought I would. You see, I had to worry about reclaiming my laundry (not a clothes-washing anecdote!) at the moment the update ended. Then I needed to grab and consume lunch before heading to PAD 1. I had planned afterwards to take care of my Statistics homework. But... instead I kinda screwed around, pacing a bit and playing some Web Sudoku (Note: by reading this note, you waive all rights to hold me accountable should you click that link and have your soul consumed by the game of 9x9 squares). As it kept me up for the past two hours, I kinda wish I'd done it then... Anyway, I later had dinner and then thought really hard about getting to work on the homework for a solid chunk of time. Out of the blue, I was called by Kyle and asked to look up the password for the robot in 'The Day the Earth Stood Still.' One Wikipedia search later, I informed him that it was "Klaatu barada nikto," and then returned to my non-existant productivity. During and after two late(-ish) TV shows, I began to do something.

I'm kind of annoyed when such things occur; I'm going to peg the uncomfortably warm temperature in the room for most of my lethargy. I also blame my room-mate's friend, who decided that last night was a great time to visit with the dogs she was looking after. I have nothing against dogs, really. But we were on the third floor, so the 'bathroom problem' was rather a prominent one and those dachsunds were really annoyingly needy... So, they kept me up a couple of hours later than I'd have liked. Woo.

Unfortunately, I can't blame all my inactivity on unexpected canine guests. I can still blame a fair portion on the room temperature, but... I've really got to get with it. Althanas has been down for about three months now and I don't believe I've seriously written anything in the mean-time. Chapter XIII for Unknown is nearing the 'one year overdue' mark,* I haven't added to my Joint Project side-story for about six months, and any things I've written since then have been few and far between.

However, the cosmos willing, I plan to take a step towards putting everything right later today through those Derrick Redgrove journal entries I believe I mentioned. The D&D game hasn't actually progressed beyond what I mentioned; our DM, 'Fro,** was in Egypt for the three weeks before Spring Break, and is going to Mexico this weekend. But I've mostly finished an account of the first half of the session already. Why the devil haven't I posted it? Two reasons: first, I kinda rushed it near the end, so I want to fix that; and, second and foremost,*** I still don't know all the character names, so I left little [name] place-holders everywhere, until I find out what they are. I am going to finish the necessary edits on that first one, and then compile the second. The style isn't bad, I think; it has a feel kinda like when I'm writing for Jannin, but a bit more subdued, perhaps because Derrick's a more mature person and perhaps because it's a journal entry rather than a tad more 'stream of consciousness' oriented. So... Look forward to that! I hope it shan't disappoint!

* I feel a bit better because of that small side-story about Eikre, but still...
** He and all those who know him adamently refuse to explain where in the hell that nickname comes from
*** My, that sounds strange.

I promise! Activity tomorrow! But sleep now! Nighty!

3/23/06 - March 23 - 10:35 AM
Life's laundry lession discontinued.

Yep. I'm fazing out the laundry anecdotes. They're just not getting the kinds of numbers I was shooting for (although I'm apparentally getting about 10 hits a day, which is, I believe, more than I had ever hoped for). Profit margins are down, people. In fact, they've been down since this site began. Down at... scientifically speaking... zilch. If things don't improve, I'm going to have to close the site. Much like, sadly, Jester Shadow Productions is going to be doing at the end of the month if my source (Kyle) is correct. So, I'd advise that you download whatever you think you might miss from there ASAP, because when it's gone, it's gone. ... Until they add something to it to justify spending X number of dollars per month to keep it up. Also, I really hate the segment of the populations known as x--*
... Wait a tick... "spending X number of dollars a month"... I'm not spending X dollars a month! Ha! Guess that means it was a false alarm.* I'm not spending money on this place; just time. And, as the old tautology goes, "time is not money." ... Hmm? Oh! You're referring to its common misquotation: "time is ... money." The difference is subtle, but present.

* For the record, this is here solely because it seems out of character for me. I do not believe I have a strong bias against any group of people in this country; the word begins with 'x' because... It's one of the most ridiculous letters with which to begin a word. It has Xylophone, Xerox***, Xellos and X-[insert whatever (Nauts, for instance)****]; that's really about it and half of those are fictional constructs. No offense intended to fans of any of the above or fans of whatever few X-beginning words I've inevitably missed.
** or an excuse to make a fairly lame joke
*** I'm not going to rant about this, but... Really... Who the hell decided this word needed to begin with the letter 'x'? That just feels incredibly random to me...
**** see 'Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door' if that one's slipped you by

To those of you who are displeased by the fact that I placed footnotes within footnotes, calmly write down your gripe and place it in my non-existant suggestion box. You should then proceed to count your blessings because it briefly crossed my mind to repeatedly tack footnotes onto my footnotes until the line became completely subsumed with astericks. Odds are, they'd resort to utter randomness, ellipses, and statements of "this is the last one" followed immediately by "... until the next one" in vaguely amusing, cliched format long before nearing the halfway point. So, be thankful that you've escaped such torment for now. I'm confident I'll do this someday, though; it's just a matter of time. Beware!

Actually, that's all for now. I'll probably post something new (by which I mean an update; NOT a text file of my writing or anything other than my supposedly witty banter) later today. As well as a reminder to check this update, as they came in such relatively rapid succession. Until then... Tally ho!

2/21/06 - February 21 - 10:33 AM
Life's laundry lesson continued.

Last week's clothes-washing report was followed by nothing out of the ordinary. Today, however, I forgot to put a sock in with the load. A sock. Singular. I know it isn't a big deal, but that kinda bugs me... One sock, just kind of abandoned to toil in its own filth... It's vaguely depressing. Or just barely annoying. I get those two confused a lot.
Anyway, as a relatively -- and only relatively -- more serious irritant, I trudged back to my dorm room from Intro. to Sociology with the intent of putting in some laundry, then napping. Sometime after I got to my room, it seemed like a good idea to wash my sheets. My brain didn't quite realize that little inconsistency until the machine had started. Ah, well.

On another note, if you don't mind changing gears from my no-doubt enthralling laundry room anecdotes, I played D&D with a group of friends on Saturday. And it was good. Because our DM likes giving out bonus XP for doing things outside the game like writing up a report of the previous session's events, I'll probably make some kind of in-character journal entry soonish. Not to the exclusion of my still non-existant Perils and Mist character* or my contributions for the Joint Project. Just a short detour from those two.
Regardless, since the points of interest and amusement for that event will be chronicled and placed online in due time, I thought I'd mostly go over my character and some of the party. All of them grew up in the same orphanage, where they met and, to a lesser or greater extent, became friends. A philanthropist (of sorts) by the name of Xavier took an interest in them for reasons unknown, giving them toys and other luxuries. When the orphanage kicked them out, their benefactor found instructors to train them. Afterward, he wanted them to work with him, to which all the group agreed. After passing a series of tests (from which I was absent for... reasons), they were admitted into his group, the Armani Spectres.
My character is Derrick Redgrove, a chaotic-neutral human sorceror with a penchant for enchantments and loose aspirations for world domination. I say 'loose' because, unlike Jannin, Derrick has few delusions about how much luck he's going to have with that. However, he knows he can do a lot, so he'd decided to aim high. He has some loyalty to his allies and the Armani Spectres, but he primarily looks out for #1.
As for the others... My data isn't quite complete, I'm afraid. Our party consists of twin female half-elf rogues, one named Atara, a dwarven ranger by the name of Gohr (... no comment), a gnome wizard named Tim Dimple (I can only hope he arrived at that name through much effort to find the most ridiculous name in recent memory), and a human rogue whose name escapes me.
This at first seems rather an odd party. However, once it is revealed that most of the emphasis is on roleplaying and not on combat, the choices make significantly more sense.

* As a bit of a teaser for what I've got in mind, if Class was a part of the profile, its entry would be: "Transmigrator."

Anyway, I'm going to eat now. ... What? You want something witty? Fine. ... Umm... Wait... no. Too bad. Nothing's coming. With any luck, I'll have something more meaningful to leave with you upon my return. Until then.

2/16/06 - February 16 - 10:15 AM
Life has taught me many things.

For instance, no matter how well I believe I have gotten down most mundane activities, I am quite likely to screw them up if I don't thoroughly double-check what I'm doing. A few moments ago in the laundry room was an excellent reminder of this personal truth. I put in one load perfectly fine, and then returned with my second. At first, I was pleased with myself; for the first time, I felt no need to check what water temperature was needed (Hot = Whites, Cold = Colors, by the way), nor was I required to consult the wash settings to ensure my clothing would not be torn to shreds. However, after activating the machine, it began to make some strange churning noises. My train of thought was as follows: [i]Huh... That's odd... It shouldn't be doing that... I mean, I remembered to put in a reasonably sized load, give it the right water temperature and wash se-- OHMYGODIFORGOTTHEDETERGENT!!![/i]* Yep. I somehow forewent the vital clothes-washing component that makes the difference between actually cleaning the clothes and merely playing Bowser Revolution with their collective dirt.

* Come back, Althanas! Come back! Because of you, I habitually type like that whenever an inner monologue comes up! Make my newly developed tendency useful again! ... Or, brain, come up with a decent character concept for Perils and Mist and stick with it! I mean, you've gone through about half a dozen of them already! And if you get about halfway through the history before deciding you don't like it... Oh-ho-ho... There will be repercussions... ... Which isn't technically appropriate to those circumstances. I looked it up. So... Consequences. Yeeeees. That works.

Anyway, I yanked open what I choose to refer to as the chemical compartment and dumped in about the right amount. So, chuckling at my careless error all the way, I left them and headed up here. So, yeah. I'm sure you're all pleased beyond words I decided to make this semi-spontaneous mid-February update to tell you all that. I'll let you know about any further developments of equal importance. ... Or greater. Yeah, it'll almost certainly be greater. Well... Until then.

Oh yeah. I had a Sociology test about an hour ago and I have a Computer Science test in about two hours. Wish me luck as a cram away! And then spend the rest of the day working on the paper I decided not to think about until today, fully aware that it is to be turned in tomorrow. ... It seemed like a good idea at the time...

1/25/06 - January 25 - 11:37 PM
Oh. Additional: The Evil Overlord List

I'd imagine some of you have already seen this (especially if you're the type to go back through the Bob & George commentary), but I just thought I'd share the Evil Overlord List, a list of things that an evil overlord should do. It covers the particularly common mistakes that evil villains tend to make ("Look behind me? Ha! I'm not falling for that old--" *dead*), as well as bits of general advice (whatever your one weakness, fake a different one) for succeeding where such a laughably large number of others have failed. Reading these is an excellent way to pass the time.

There. Now, I'm certain that I've provided something amusing on this day. Huzzah! Later, everybody! Or, according to the number of people who visited yesterday, you lone individual!

1/25/06 - January 25 - 8:08 PM
Good thing I don't make New Year's Resolutions...

... Because one of them would probably have been to update the site more consistently. Which, as you can see, has not quite happened. However, there is a reason I don't make them: I forget about them within two weeks, I am reminded of this failure by the end of January, and then I feel bad about it for a little while until the entire situation is forgotten until the following year. Not the best reason, but, oh well.

Anyway, I had a reason for popping up here, other than my sudden recollection that, yes, I do have a website. It's a certain announcement that was made almost a week ago, though I just glimpsed it today. It has me feeling quite happy right now. Behold!

I've been highly expectant of games before. For months, I recall looking over many previews and pictures of Mario 64, Bomberman 64, and Ocarina of Time in anticipation. I recall finding a way to slip Super Smash Brothers into several game-related conversations before its release. And I was bouncing off the walls a bit some time after Ogre Battle 64's announcement.* However, were all my anticipations, expectations, and cogitations to be added up (presuming such things can really be quantified) over the almost ten years since its first announcement, they would probably mean that I have been hoping to see Mother 3 more than any other game ever made.

I'd probably been thinking about the sequel before the first game itself actually ended. You see, as one of its many easter eggs, there's a building in Fourside or Summers with a sign that reads, '(Planning Meeting for EarthBound 2. Only those who are related to this project may enter. APE Software Developement Team)'. Then, there was the short scene following the credits that pretty much pointed to a sequel. That, and the first screen shots in Nintendo Power's Epic Center, the starmen.net Mother 3 petition, long periods of Ness's presence during Super Smash Brothers and SSB:M games, and all the relatively recent starmen.net updates and... Yeah. I've been looking forward to this for a while.

* Yeah, those are all N64 games. This is probably because I didn't start keeping up with gaming information until the later days of the SNES. After that, I only owned a Nintendo 64, so, naturally, I only looked forward to N64 games. And since those days... I don't know. I just haven't felt particularly excited by too many game releases for the past few years. I can't wait for, say, Twilight Princess to come out, but it's not quite the exuberance I remember. I'm really not sure why that is. The last one I can really think of is, interestingly enough, The Way - Episode VI. ... Whoops. That actually came out on the 14th. Guess that means I have to use the past tense, now. ^_^o Ah, well. Kind of odd that I'm now giving that so little fanfare on this site, considering that beta test preliminary review of mine... Hmm... A good cover story is... The final product speaks for itself! There we go! ... I've yet to actually play the final product, but, well, there it is.

So... Anyway... Classes have now started for me and are going fairly well. I'm only taking four classes this semester, so, with any luck, I should have a lot more free time. Also, now that I've gotten the hell out of the Engineering program, I'm trying a number of different courses to test the waters a bit and decide on at least a tentative major by the end of the semester. Going down the list...

1. Statistical Mathematics - My dad taught a statistics course last year and said that a lot of his students had trouble with the material. So, I was a little worried about taking this course. So far, it's not too bad, though. And, since it may be a course requirement for whatever major I select, not to mention that statistics are just generally good to understand, I've got a good feeling about this.
2. Writing Workshop - I hope I don't sound too arrogant when I say that my writing skills are above the norm, but, because of that, I don't think this class will be too bad. I didn't really know what to expect, and was hoping for a bit more creative writing, but so it goes. As a note, we watched Super Size Me in class. I'd seen and enjoyed it before, but I'd like to take this opportunity to advise everyone who's yet to see it to give it a look.
3. Introduction to Sociology - According to a highly detailed skills/interest assessment test, I'm apparetnally well-suited to be a sociologist. Since I've never been one to go against what a test tells me to do, I dove into this course without bothering to learn a thing about it. ... Or I looked up some of the basics and it sounded interesting, so I signed up for it. I'm enjoying it so far. The professer seemed a little dull at first, but he's growing on me a bit.
4. Principles of Algorithm Design - A computer science course, this one is! It's kind of interesting, though working with LINUX felt a little awkward at first. Of course, it could be worse; a friend of mine had the other PAD 1 teacher last semester and talked about the thick chinese accent she had to deal with for much of the first few weeks.

So, this semester's shaping up pretty well, I'd say. I have to get up at 8 o'clock for Sociology on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but at least I have the 11:30 Statistics class on Monday, Wednesday and Friday to compensate me for my hardship. ... Hmm... I wonder if anyone hates me, now...

Anyway, I'd usually babble about my writings and/or Althanas about now, but... Well, there's been little discernable headway with the former and the latter is, umm, off-line. I'm not entirely sure what happened. I suppose I could ask someone, but that would require getting on AIM. And I can't have that, for some stupid, obscure reason that probably makes sense when it occurs to me, but is so mind-bogglingly idiotic in hindsight that my mind likely represses the memory each and every time, preventing me from learning from my horrifically massive mistakes. ... *ahem*

To make a sudden, sharp turn in duscussion, flinging from the metaphorical vehicle all those who don't care for safety belts, I've been playing Crystalis lately. I wouldn't be too surprised if you've never heard of it; had I not read 8 Easy Bits, I'd never have known. The webcomic, in case I've never mentioned it, is pretty good. It takes something of a 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit?' approach to sprite comics, which is fairly interesting to see. As for the game, it's also pretty enjoyable (though the plot is probably not the reason to play it). It's essentially a Zelda-clone, but, as I played few such games in their heyday, it's kinda nice to see what I missed. So, if you're looking for a way to kill a little time, I'd recommend this NES game.

... And I've got basically nothing else to say. ... Oh. Since I recently found out that Althanas-goer Yamihara reads this, I thought I'd say: Congrats on making it to Round 3 in the Serenti! Also, I hope you don't mind that the 'Protect the Vineyard' post may take a biiiiiiit longer than I thought.

With that, I declare myself done with making these failed attempts at witticisms. Tune in next time for still more of my futile struggle to peak your interest! G'night everybody!

1/1/06 - January 1st - 12:45 AM - New Year's Day!
And so arrives 2006!

Alright... Now... Just pretend the time up there is... three quarters of an hour fast. ... And however many seconds. ... Yeah... Okay. Pretending? Good.

Wow! I timed that so perfectly that I made this post at exactly the first instant of the year 2006! My impeccable timing will go down in history! And, at some point when I am remembered, I will personally thank each of you by name. Granted, this technology doesn't let me see the names of everybody currently viewing my page, but... Eh. I probably know most of you, anyway.

Anyway, I'm without any New Year's Resolutions. So, I expect all of you to make enough for all of us. ... Which sounds ever so slightly lame, actually. Ah, well. G'night everybody! Enjoy the new year!

12/24/05 - December 24 - 2:41 PM - Christmas Eve Day
It's Christmas Eve Day!

Sadly, I have no excuse for that painfully unoriginal title. Or for my lack of updates in the last two weeks. I've been a tad busy. And, for the first time since this website came to be, that isn't code for 'I was too lazy'! Y'see, I've been posting in the Serenti Invitational at Althanas. Round One concluded less than 24 hours ago and... I lost. By a single point. That's a tad disappointing since I thought I had a shot (the 'single point' is a bit of salt in the wound) and I had hoped to get some EXP for Jannin. But I wasn't penalized, so I'm not really bothered by it. Besides, I lost to a favorite to win the tournament, so I can't really complain. I'll do better at the next Althanian tourney. The match is still a pretty good one, even though it isn't complete, so I'd say it's still worth a look. For now, I'll just not worry about it, I'll root for some that I expect are advancing (Go EB!), and I'll finally get back to Protect the Vineyard.

On another topic, I've been annoyed by spam a lot, lately. That may seem like an unnecessary thing to say, but it really just doesn't feel like they're even trying any more. I mean, if they're trying to sucker me into wasting my time or picking up a virus from them, could they at least make a decent effort? I opened up my junk mail box and saw '3.25%% approvedd rattee.' ... Yeah. Sure. I'm totally going to take that seriously. It has twice as many d's, t's and percentage signs as required, with an extra e thrown in to round it out! With all those extra letters and symbols, how can I not blindly click on it?

As for another thing that annoys me a little, on GameFAQs, Kingdom Hearts II jumped to the tops of both the 'Top 10 FAQ' and 'Top 10 Wanted FAQ' lists. Honestly, people... The game came out two days ago in Japan. It won't see a stateside release for three more months. Are people really that interested in ruining the game for themselves? I mean, if the gameplay is anything like the original's, it'll still be a fun game, but knowing the plot, how to slaughter everything, and where all the secrets are does, as with all games, kill a big part of the enjoyment factor. Of course, it's probably nothing to worry about; the list-topping was likely just the result of a massive spike from the two partially complete FAQs that went up earlier. So, that's enough outta me on the topic.

Next up: my writing. I enjoy Althanas a lot and I believe it's helping me improve. However, EB brought to my attention the other night that we've spent a significant amount of our free time writing for it instead of working on the Joint Project I haven't mentioned in a while. So, after I finish up my current quests on Althanas (one of which has been going for about six months and counting) and, with any luck, level up, I think I'll take a little break to work on the side-stories. Who knows? Maybe I'll finally write a chapter of Unknown, too. I've only been promising it since... like... June. ^_^o Eheh...

Anyway, that's all I have to say. So, Merry Christmas, Chappy Channukah,* Kwazy Kwaanzaa,** and a Festive Fusili Day!*** See you sometime after the 25th!

* Ah! Ah!! You see what I did there? Aren't I clever?
** If you found that offensive, please don't sue; Krusty made me do it!
*** For you mildly distressing Flying Spaghetti Monsterists.

12/10/05 - December 10 - 2:16 PM
I hate final exams...

... Really, that says it all.

Yeah, that's my main explanation for a lack of recent upda-- Heh... Like I need a reason... Anyway, this could just be seen as my monthly, "I'm still alive," announcement, in case people missed me when I was on AIM a week ago or so. But I have more! Admittedly, very little more, but more nevertheless! For instance, three more jokes from the Anime Club! This time, you'll only get one if you've seen Chobits, while the other two are fun for the whole family. Well, maybe not the whole family, but it's not like the rest of your family actually sees this page, anyway. So, without further ado...

1. The Chobits Drinking Game - You take a shot every time the word "Chii" is spoken*
2. One guy announced that he attended only the first and last Anime Club meetings. One meeting-goer
   promptly asked if this meant that he was the alpha and omega, and therefore God.
3. Red Hot Linux - The title of a random book seen in Chobits**. An erotic Linux novel, mayhaps?

* To those not in the know, this probably means alcohol poisoning will be the death of you about halfway through the second or third episode
** I'm not kidding

Ah... Good stuff. As for some more good stuff, gaze upon the image of Jannin Relm: South Park-ified. To perform the process on yourself, your own characters, or others, here's where you want to click.

And now for one last thing. About a week ago when I was scrambling to get my final paper done for my first year seminar (incidentally, I'd told myself a couple of days before that I'd give myself enough time so I wouldn't have to scramble... ^_^o Maybe next time...), I found a... "unique" ad on thesaurus.com. I've shown it to some other people and they agreed with me that, yes, on first glance, it looks quite like something other than the intended product. The disturbing image is here. Please let me know if you also find the product to be quite odd-looking. Oh. The original image was also vibrating periodically. I just thought you should know that. Crazy iTunes and Cingular...

Now that the crazy things are over and done, time to babble a bit about my finals. I finished my first one for Classical Mythology earlier today. Taking it required my presence at 8:30 in the morning. To those of you following along at home, today is Saturday. And, since I had to get up about an hour earlier to get in a last-minute study session and wolf down some breakfast, I actually had to get up at half-past seven. On a Saturday. ... It's odd... I actually lived through the experience, yet I still cannot wrap my mind around the concept of awakening on a Saturday at some time before eleven...

Anyway, I don't think I did as well as I'd hoped (I'm blaming the early hour in part, but I also should have studied a little more), but, since I got an A- on the first paper, an A- on the midterm, and an A on the final paper (it involved me pulling about six pages of material out of a 40-line choral ode. Much like my 7:30 rise, I still have trouble believing that), I'm not too concerned. Acing the course would be nice, of course, but I really just can't concern myself with it.

That's because I've got to concern myself with Calculus and Physics. You see, to say, "I haven't done well in those courses," would be a bit of an understatement. I need good grades on these finals. So, until Wednesday and Thursday respectively, I shall be studying like a mad man, hoping to learn in little over half a week what I should have been learning all semester. Joy of joys!

Whelp, now that I've whined about my predicament for a while and left you with a couple of hopefully amusing jokes and images, I am off to hit the books yet again! Wish me luck!

---

11/18/05 - November 18 - 9:35 PM
Jannin's first battle and gaming related comments

After a few weeks, Jannin Relm has recently completed his first battle in the Citadel. It's not particularly awe-inspiring, and certainly not my best work, but, well, it's here, if you'd like to read it. With any luck, his first big quest will be over in a few weeks, as will another thread under a slightly... "different" context. Oh, and as a note that may increase interest in that second thread by a facter of some number significantly greater than one: EBMinion's relatively new character, Card Meadowlyre, is also posting in that thread.

Anyway, I've recently been replaying Final Fantasy VII. It's going much nicer this time, as my computer now takes less than twenty seconds to enter a random battle. Hurray! I'm just outside of Costa Del Sol at this point, and currently wondering how in the hell Hojo managed to get that many women to hang around him. I mean, the man goes into convulsions whenever he experiences pretty much any emotional extreme. Granted, he does appear to have survived having his throat ripped out by a talking lion-like creature, which I guess some women might find an attractive quality in a guy, but...

I also have another comment: Shinra needs to fire the advertising geniuses that put out the commercial for its automobile (which can be watched in Shinra HQ). The visuals in and of themselves are fine, really, but... What made them think their musical selection was a good idea? That selection, in case you've forgotten, is the Shinra theme. Yes; the product is presented with that insidious-sounding music in the background. It'd be like a guy in a Honda commercial pointing at the vehicle in question and saying, "People, this thing is just plain evil." Then again, maybe the commercial's really a way for the Shinra to send a message to the proletariat about how they hold a monopoly on... like... everything: "Yeah, the ad totally turns people off to our product. But what are they gonna do about it? Buy another brand? Ha!"

Lastly, I found a walkthrough at GameFAQs that is, at times, pretty hilarious.
As an example, when Cloud and Aeris are running from Rude shortly after his appearance, "Cloud jumps it with no problem, but as Aeris is jumping, the Shinra soldiers arrive and, with a hearty cry of, "stop the Ancient!" shoot at her... She misses the jump and falls to the floor below. I'm sorry, but when your job involves you shooting flower girls in churches, you might as well slaughter a bunch of nuns and kittens while you're at it, because your job as inhumanly evil as possible."
And later, when infiltrating Shinra H.Q., "So, let's forget for a second that you're stopping in the middle of breaking into a building to take a nap, because that's just not ridiculous-sounding enough... No, what's really incredulous is that you can approach the building's head of security as he jogs away on a treadmill and have a nice chat with him about how well he's protecting the building. And what really disturbs me is that by this point, the Shinra obviously has to know that you're in the building somewhere; they just apparently don't seem to care." Amusing little observations of that kind abound in BTB's FFVII FAQ/Walkthrough.

Well, that's all that happened this week, so far as I know. Unknown's thirteenth chapter will come eventually. I simply can't say when. So... Yeah. G'night everybody.

11/5/05 - Novbember 5 - 1:55 PM
\/\/001!!!!!!11!!one!

Hurrah, huzzah,
callooh, callay!
Good news reaches
mine eyes today!

And now you know why I should stay faaaaar away from poetry. Rejoice at the announcement, if you feel so moved!

Later.

11/5/05 - November 5 - 2:56 AM
Ya know what feels good?

A massage. Our Hall Mentor apparentally went crazy and hired a massage therapist for our floor for an hour last night. At $75 per hour, that's rather an insane thing to do. That massage felt very refreshing, though... I was in a state of euphoria for the rest of the night... And then, less than 24 hours afterward, Calculus class managed to return me to my normal level of stress. Such stress-inducing classes never cease to amaze me!

That isn't all that feels good. Finally writing something Unknown-related feels quite pleasant. Placing it in .txt and .doc formats isn't bad either. It really is nice to get back to writing something in this universe. It's been over five months since Chapter XII. I mean, five freakin' months! Even for me, that's horrible. But now something is up, so you can't say I'm not working on it. Maybe this'll finally get me going!
Anyway, you may be disappointed by this submission, since it isn't Chapter XIII, as I kept implying it would be. It's kinda like Chapter II, in a way. Chapter II was basically a bunch of cool-seeming concepts that I pulled out of thin air, with plans to use them in a plot that, at the time, didn't exist. The more recent thingy, however, is composed of a bunch of cool-seeming concepts that were built directly around a plot that I've already decided upon. Not similar enough for you? Umm... They've both got a gothicy and semi-depressing coating. Yeah... None of that light-hearted Jannin stuff in there!
This piece also intrests me because I can actually name most of the things that bumped into each other in my subconscious and inspired it: a bit of Greek mythology, a program on the History Channel, and a certain scene from Kill Bill. The work contains some bits that are meant to be shocking, so I'll not say what specifically came from each of those sources. Still, it's always interesting to see what's influenced my work.

Another thing that feels good? Sleep. Sleep feels good. I'll go do that in a moment. Before that, though, I feel the need to relay a bit of humor from the most recent Anime FLUX meeting because I am convinced I shall forget it before the next time I make a site update. We've been watching Chobits for most of the semester. While not that important in itself, you must have watched some of Chobits to have any idea where the 'funny' angle comes in. Basically, the most recent meeting was in celebration of Halloween, so we watched some Halloween-y anime. Specifically, Vampire Hunter D (described by those who had seen it as "the good one"). Near the beginning, the protagonist moves onto the scene, grabs an arrow fired at him out of the air, and snaps it. The astonished onlookers ask who he is. He calmly says, "D," and rides off. Afterward, one member of the audience suggested, "Chii?" eliciting laughter. When the movie was over, the same person suggested an amusing anime title in the same vein of his previous joke: "Vampire Hunter Chi."

Like I said, you won't find it particularly funny if you've yet to see Chobits. And with that, to bed I go! I hope the new bit of Unknown was worth the wait! Give me feedback, people! It is my lifeblood! You don't want to deprive me of my lifeblood, do you? You do...? ... Too sleepy to resist... G'night everybody.

10/29/05 - October 29 - 1:58 AM
And I seemed to be doing so well...

... with regards to frequent(ish) updates, that is. Now, some number of hours and minutes short of an entire month have passed without an update. Oh, well. At least you'll be caught up with my life's recent events, and maybe get some more empty promises on things I'll be creating. Ooh! And you'll get an image, too!

Anyway, I'd heard a lot of horrible things about midterm weeks starting almost a month ago (about the time of the last update, incidentally. Coincidence, or part of a cunningly wrought plan disguised as a coincidence? Smart money's on the former), but I hadn't really had any midterms on which to form my own opinions. Well, I had a single midterm about two weeks ago for my Physics Lab (I didn't do that well, but, since all of my other grades have been in the 95-100% range and are collectively weighted higher, I'm not too worried), but that wasn't particularly stressful. Oh, how my opinion would change within that time span.

You see, after weeks of relatively little activity, in what I can only describe as a scheduling hiccup, I had the following due this past week: a Calculus test (about 20% of my final grade) and my Classical Mythology midterm (about 25% of my final grade) back-to-back on Monday, an Engineering project my partner and I were supposed to have started on a month ago (just 5% of my final grade, but come on...) on Tuesday, and a paper due for Frankenstein & Beyond (about 10% of my final grade) on Wednesday. So, lotsa fun and craziness over the weekend and a few weekdays, in other words.

Worried mostly about the two significant tests on Monday, I studied like a madman for Calculus and Classical Mythology (the midterm, for your consideration, covers the Iliad and the Odyssey in depth, along with a number of other Greek sources) during most of Saturday. On Sunday, while I still studied a great deal, quite a few hours of the day were devoted to the Engineering project, which turned out to be far easier than expected, somewhat time-consuming though it was. Anyway, after several additional hours of studying I went to bed, confident that I'd prepared well, but still a tad worried about the exams.

So, Monday came, and I opted to skip my Physics class at 9:30; I'd been too busy with the aforementioned shindigs to do the homework in that class, anyway. I got through discussion in Frankenstein & Beyond and ate lunch, all the while various equations, integrals and sequences mingled oddly with the various Greek gods, heroes and others rushing about in my mind. So, I took the Calculus test and, while I couldn't solve every problem flawlessly, I did a good enough job with all of them that I'm confident a good grade is coming my way. Then, immediately afterward in Classical Mythology, I realized I'd forgotten the 'blue sheets' required for exams in a number of courses back in the dorms. Fortunately, our teacher had several extra copies (which advised their users to "Use Your Imagination") on hand, so I was spared a frantic dash back to my room. That exam aslo went very well. I only forgot two fairly important names (one for a character I simply couldn't place, and another, frustratingly, on the tip of my tongue throughout the exam), but I apparentally did well enough elsewhere, as I received my grade of 92 on Wednesday.

Pleased by how well these exams had gone, I worked on the Engineering project with my partner that evening, getting it to within an inch of completion; my partner wanted to check something with the professor before we declared it "done." So, too tired to start on the paper (it was after midnight by the time we parted ways), I went to sleep, awoke, went to class the next day, polished up the project afterward, and delivered it about 15 minutes before the deadline.

So, after completing my Physics homework for the following day, I got to work on the paper. Things didn't go well. You see, normally, papers in his class simply ask us to think critically about certain issues relevant to the works we've been reading. This assignment, had little common ground with such works, instead giving us a new, very lengthy thing to read: one man's very elaborate, disorderly ramblings on his idea of a utopia. After getting about halfway down the page and seeing that the process had taken me over an hour, I had retained far less than half of that information, and that it was midnight, I realized there was no way I would be able to finish the piece and be coherent enough to write the paper about it. So, I set to work with what I had and, by the time 4 in the morning rolled around, I had completed the shoddiest writing I have composed in recent memory. Nevertheless, it fulfilled almost all of the criteria. All it lacked was a bibliography, which, thanks to an almost amusingly timed system crash throughout Trinity University, I was unable to fabricate. Yes, fabricate; in that course, you're supposed to gather resources before you begin writing, but the amount of time is absurdly minute, from when we'd have all we need from the course to write it and when it is due. Thus, it is necessary to look for scholarly works that, based on their titles and abstracts, seem as though they could be useful to your essay and slip them into the bibliography.

Annoyingly enough, he later sent us an e-mail, informing us that, because of the crash, the due date was extended to Friday. So, I gathered the "necessary" resources and created the bibliography, touching up my paper in the meantime. I sent it in and now await its judgement. And that, ladies and gentlemen, was that.

Anyway, today I was in a blissful mood, because the massive weight of stress had been lifted from my shoulders. ... Huh... That's a cliche metaphor... But no matter. I was also feeling good because I'd seen posters around campus for a video gaming event thingy, which took place from about 8:30 to 10:30. Amongst the options were X-Box set-ups for Halo 2 and showings of Fire Fly. I've never been a fan of First Person Shooters, so Halo 2 presented no interest for me. I would have enjoyed watching the Fire Fly episodes, as I never watched the show when it was on Fox and I've heard nothing but good things since its cancellation, (I still have yet to see Serenity, though my interest is quite piqued, indeed) but... ^_^o the chaos that is a series of 4-player free-for-all Super Smash Brothers: Melee games with people one has never played against before was simply too alluring to resist.

SSB:M has always really impressed me. Not just by virtue of its impressive glee factor, but also the fact that it's been around since 2001, and, even after playing it on-and-off during these years, I and so many others still find it such a joy. There aren't many games that have managed to achieve that (much as I love a lot of classic RPGs, playing the same RPG in the way I've played SSB:M would probably not be too enjoyable). It just strikes me as a very remarkable thing.

Back to the gaming thing, though: it goes without saying, but I had a blast. There were a lot of people that were very highly skilled. It really made the matches interesting and much more fun than a game against 3 level 9 computer opponents. Finally, there was the tournament. In addition to myself, there were 7 other very adept players. I have been to two SSB:M tournaments before, and the level of skill I saw in most of those 7 seemed at least the level of those that had clobbered me in both of those tournaments. Victory would be hard-earned for any of us. To quote Douglas Adams's Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, "Stress and nervous tension are now serious social problems in all parts of the Galaxy." Thus, to follow his example and to put a stop to any feelings of suspense you may be experiencing, I shall simply tell you how it ended: I won. That said, I would like to make clear that I did not give the exposition on how skilled everyone in the group was to make myself look better for winning. Every match was difficult to win and those experiences combined with the intermediate fights made it abundantly clear that I was dealing with some exceptional people. The fact that I won with at least an extra life or two in stock isn't particularly relevant.

The final match was kind of insane, though. I had seen my opponent's earlier match, in which his Dr. Mario took out all five of Young Link's stock without perishing a single time. He was good, in essence; a cut above the rest. However, I was really on during that match. As an idea of what that means, he stared at the screen and said, "Whoa..." when my Fox KOed Dr. Mario's first stock after sustaining only 8%. I don't mean to sound arrogant, but that impressed me. Then, with at least one stock down for both of us, he accidentally slipped through the gap in the middle and lost a life. In case you're wondering what level it was, the answer is the same as for all the other matches: Yoshi's Island (the Super Mario World version; not one of the Yoshi's Story incarnations). It's really pretty easy to slip up and kill yourself in that middle pit; it was the reason I lost in one of my second tournament's first rounds. So, feeling sympathetic, I decided to do something nice, that, in hindsight, probably seemed kind of pretentious to him: I purposefully TKOed myself in the same pit. The rest of the match consisted of a lot of near deaths that I escaped by the skin of my teeth (Oh, how I miss that toothskin...). In the end, I won with two stock remaining. From that last victory to first entering the room, I loved the entire experience, and I'll definitely look into any other such events on campus.

Anyway, I mentioned an image, earlier. It's not particularly good, but it gives a pretty good telling of a certain Greek mythic event. It's just a little something I scribbled down in class. As some background info, a man named Asklepios was a highly skilled healer, instructed by a very wise centaur in the ways of medicine. He could cure all diseases he faced. However, one day, he tried to cure death. Here's how that turned out. As some other notes, the other man's identity is both unknown and unimportant and you are a disgrace to the amounts of Greek influence that have permeated our culture if you cannot identify the third panel's entity.

So, that's all I've got and... Hmm? Oh, right. Empty promises. I've yet to dole those out. Okay. I have a better idea for Chapter XIII in Unknown than I did before, somehow finding a way to wedge thinking about it in between all the craziness of the past week. So... Yeah. It'll come soon. I just refuse responsibility if you suffer any ill side-effects from holding your breath until it emerges.

G'night everybody!

9/30/05 - September 30 - 7:18 PM
My Online Pseudonym: Culix; My Anime FLUX Title: Salaryman Nick

I'd imagine that makes up for the laziest title I've ever come up with (see the update immediately beneath this one if you've forgotten). Anyway, I really, really hope that everyone understands the first one, so I won't explain it. However, since I sincerely doubt anybody who visits the site routinely has a clue what the hell the latter of those two is supposed to be, I'll go into it. Enjoy, my friends!

Anime FLUX is Trinity's anime club. The leaders were ecstatic that they were able to legitimately write, "There are 31 people in this room!" at the first meeting. It was their largest turnout ever, apparentally. Anyway, they soon held nominations and elections for the club's officer positions. Also, they have something of an odd system: after naming the real positions, they make some fake positions. Normally, if you run and you don't win, you get one of them. However, with this election, everyone who ran either got the position, or chose to take a co-position. So, left with the fake positions they had put on the board, they either gave appropriate titles to veteran club members they knew (Those Who Shall Not Be Named went to a group of girls in the back of the room, for instance) or just started handing them out at random. And I was selected to receive the position of Salaryman. When writing down my name, though, they somehow heard it as Nick. I can't imagine how, but, well, now I'm Salaryman Nick. Go me!

Anyway, lately I've had to deal with a fair amount of work, which explains why I've been on AIM very little. The weekend before last, I had two projects to take care of. One was pretty easy, though I did start worrying a bit when my partner didn't contact me until quite late at night, while the other took up a great deal of time (basically, we were to do a very thorough explanation of a Frankenstein paper's topic, including citing sources, without actually writing the paper; I got a B+ on it and, considering the hour at which I did it, I'm really not disappointed). Then, on Monday, I had my first Calculus II exam; could have gone better, but could have gone far worse, as well. And, as the last big thing, hopefully, for a while, a few nights ago I scrambled to get my Classical Mythology paper finished. With that paper, we had two options: one that seemed too limited to really add up to the 3-4 pages required, and the other with a good enough outline that putting the paper together greatly resembled connecting the dots. ^_^o Guess which topic I went with...

And now I feel like dropping what may be, though it probably isn't, a bombshell. Several updates ago, I recall mentioning an activity that was taking up a fair portion of my time. I chose not to reveal that activity because I feared that it would come out in a manner too similar to bragging for my tastes. That was something I really wanted to avoid. However, I've decided since then that it's least likely to come out as bragging if I simply come out and say it: I was in the fifth wave of beta-testers for Episode VI: Truth Hides Nothing of The Way. So, odds are, those of you with an interest in the series are wondering why the hell I'm telling you this now instead of, say, sometime in the month of April, when I first heard about it, or near the end of July, by which time I had played through the game pretty thoroughly. If you'll click that link earlier in the paragraph, you'll see that Lun plans to release it after the next wave of beta-testing is complete. And, given the very small number of bugs I found in the wave 5 version, I anticipate a release within a month, two at the most. Thus, I feel it's close enough for me to pique your interest with my preliminary review. I really hope that doesn't feel in any way like I'm bragging... I just know that I'd like to hear about how things were developing on a project like this. That review is spoiler-free, by the way, both A) because I agreed not to reveal anything plotty when I signed up for it and B) because I just don't believe in spoilers; you wouldn't enjoy the game itself as much and I have no desire to take such enjoyment to anybody. If you've got any other questions about the experience, feel free to ask in an e-mail or an instant message.

Anyway, now that that's out of the way, I have some other things to put up. They aren't things I created, unfortunately; they're just links to little bits of amusement on the net. So, in no particular order... It's listy time!

1. The Maxwell Edison Story
2. Apathyman
3. The Fortuna Saga
4. The Lawn Gnome Liberation Front

And now to comment on them. ... Backwards!

4) Yep. Apparentally, there's a Lawn Gnome Liberation Front. I'm presuming it's a joke, but I haven't cared enough to check. The very fact that somebody made such a thing is enough to make me chuckle.
3 and 2) These are two sprite comics that I thought I mentioned before, but I'll provide links to them now just in case. I know that if I haven't mentioned #3, #2 has definitely never seen this site, so...
3) The Fortuna Saga is the most serious sprite comics that I've ever seen, but it's also one of the coolest and most interesting (and interesting-looking: sprites juxtaposed against real-world backgrounds, providing an unexpectedly nice effect). It appears to be based to some extent off of FFVI, but the only certain connection is a mentioning of the War of the Magi. Unless you're looking for a laugh in your webcomic (FS has its moments, but it maintains a mostly serious tone), I'd suggest you check it out.
2) If you are looking for a laugh, however, then Apathyman might be more up your alley. It basically makes a lot of jokes in a political setting, without actually getting into political issues. So, it's a fairly amusing read, I think. Read it and enjoy. 1) Lastly/Firstly, we have a flasher's rendition of Maxwell's Silver Hammer, by the Beatles. Kyle showed it to me a while ago, but something reminded me of it recently, so, here we are. It's pretty funny, so, if you don't mind a lot of blood and violence, I reccomend giving it a look.

Let's see... What else... Ah. Writing-related thingies. Well, it seems it'll be a while before either of the Althanas threads I'm currently posting in will be complete: Yamihara, a resident of Thailand, is reaching the end of her first semester of college, so she'll be without ready access to the internet from the first of October, until the 24th, while Shadabejin is having some personal issues with motivation, so there's no telling when he'll post next.

As for non-Althanas writings, I believe I've reached a solution to the problem I was having with Unknown: Write Chapter XIII about something else. Specifically about Vallen. You'll recall, if your memory far surpasses mine, that he was the individual Wes and Diana mentioned at the end of Chapter XII. It's something I was planning to write once Josh and Julia were done in the capital, anyway. It's a little odd, though; Josh and Julia's next segment involves details that I'm sure about, but some events that I'm not, while Vallen's involves events I'm certain about, but some details about which I'm quite clueless. Still, it should be an interesting chapter, if all goes well. The Da Vinci Code, a little of which I read every night before bed, will hopefully inspire some of it, if I can think of enough tricky little bits of data to slip into it. I'm certain beyond a reasonable doubt, however, that I'll have to go back and make edits later. You see, it's going to foreshadow a lot of what's to come. Which is a bit of a problem, as I'm really not sure of exactly what's coming. Oh, well. With luck, I'll muddle through as before

There's not a whole lot to say about the Live-A-Live project. It's coming along, but I'd quite enjoy it if I'd suddenly get inspired on what to write next for the side-story... Fortunately, EB seems to know what he's doing, so at least that half of our combined creative muscle is flexing regularly. C'mon inspiration... Heap upon me thine bounty of gifts!

Whelp, I do believe that's all I've got for now. Hopefully, I'll have something to put up by the end of October, but, if not, so it goes. I'm also sorry that this update probably wasn't as amusing as some of my others. Hopefully the next one'll be able to make up for that. Sadly, I can make no promises. Ah, well. Until then, g'night everybody.

9/15/05 - September 15 - 11:46 PM
[Insert creative & witty title here]

That may be the laziest title I've ever come up with... Oh, well. I'd imagine that everyone's entitled to at least one of 'em. It'd be cool if I could come up with weird, random titles that don't connect to anything like that Secret of Mana Theater feller. It'd also be cool if I knew how to make things with Flash, come to think of it...

On another note, about that writing file-like thing I arbitrarily mentioned I'd put up... Well, I lied. If you clicked on that link and saw its contents before seeing the words 'I lied,' I apologize for briefly getting your hopes up. I was just feeling kinda jerky for a moment. And for those of you who will form the argument that I did put up a 'file-like thing,' I point out that I added 'writing' to the front of that phrase. So it's bulletproof. Ha hah!

Anyway, not very much has been going on. I've been settling into college life (t'is far superior to high school! Huzzah!) and... Well, that's mostly it. Oh. And I've been doing some writing. I wrote the first part of a little side story for the Live-A-Live project I have spoken of, and some posting on Althanas. I think I'll write a bit about writing on Althanas (sounds weird, but... eh)(EDIT: It also goes off topic a bit at first. Enjoy). The system kinda makes me think of a more well-written (in terms of the posts, I mean) version of the original Planet Namek. To those of you who never knew that glorious game ever existed, it was basically a forum, like quite a few others, devoted to a DBZ (shoulda been obvious from the name) RPG. The system there was that both people in a fight (what else would one do in a DBZ RPG?) posted free-form, in the sense that they could post, controlling anything but their opponent, who would then respond detailing what happened to their character, along with his/her actions under the same constraints. When the bout ended, both players got PL (I refuse to explain what that expression means to the handful who don't know on principle. You can learn quite easily by watching an episode or two of DBZ picked at random) increases based on how well they did.

On Althanas, though, getting Experience Points (for reasons that should be self-evident, I also refuse to explain what that expression means) is based off of one's actions, but also off of a number of other fields (Intro, Character, Setting, Climax, etc.). These scores are also accompanied by feedback on each person's writing. And I do love feedback. Oh yes I do. I recall giving a long, detailed IM spiel to EBMinion on that very topic once. Further, it's kind of an interesting format. With the Live-A-Live project, I've learned how great an effect 2 writers of some level of skill and imagination can have on a big cohesive storyline. However, I had always thought that 2 or more writers actually taking turns on something might not work out as well for some reason. My experience on Althanas is showing me that I was quite mistaken. My first and, so far, only completed thread doesn't exactly prove that point (not to say Grim was bad, of course), but the two threads I'm in right now seem to be going a bit better. If you check the date, you can see that first one's been done a while. ^_^o I think I mentioned having some idea of not posting any until Jannin hit level 1. However, seeing how much longer it's taking than I expected... Enjoy it. I think my style turned out quite well in that one. Definitely captured the mood I wanted.

And now just two final things. First, I'm not sure if I mentioned this, but I'm enjoying playing around with Jannin. It's kinda refreshing to work with a character who's such a radical departure from my usual fare (i.e. highly skilled, usually physically oriented, and somewhere between confident and lightly arrogant, while Jannin's not very skilled, magically oriented, and amusingly egomaniacal). I'd reccomend everyone try something like it sometime; you might find it far more enjoyable than you'd expect. Second, Althanas's format seems to work well enough for me that I should probably emulate it when writing normally. By that, I mean the whole 'only adding a little bit every day or two to the story by necessity' thing. Because of it, I think more about each individual section when I'm feeling fresh. It makes a bigger difference than I would have thought.

I'm really finished talking about Althanas now. Onto two amusing things I found semi-recently. When I went back to Houston for Labor Day weekend, I was able to hang out with Kyle a bit, during which time he showed me this little wonder. It should be noted that you won't fully appreciate it if you've never played Super Mario 64. If you have, though, you'll likely experience a mix of awe and amusement. Also, an Althanas forumgoer recently put up a link to this place. For the sake of humanity, I reeeeeeaaally hope that's a joke. I mean, "Stop Oppressive Gardening!" is just too hilarious a slogan to be serious, right?

And I believe that's all I've got. Hopefully, I'll eventually produce something to put up on the site. This I'm not counting, by the way. So, hope with me. On an utterly unrelated topic, Captain SNES, despite VEEEERY sparse comic updates, has been continuing to grow interesting lately (you should be ashamed if you claim to be a master of all SNES RPGs and can't name, based solely on the outline, the sprite of the individual who appears at the end of the current (#494) comic, by the way). If you don't read Captain SNES regularly, though, I'd advise you start from the beginning. It's a good enough sprite comic to warrent reading through all of it. ... I get the feeling I've mentioned something like this before...

Anyway, sleep calls to me, and I'm afraid I cannot resist. G'night everybody.

8/24/05 - August 24 - 11:24 PM
The day before classes

I'm very, very pleased that my computer's back to having internet access. I'm not quite sure it's as good a connection as I get back at home, but I can't complain. Other than illegally downloading things, I can do exactly what I could at home. So, I'm sitting pretty here. The cable TV's up and running, too.

I'm not totally happy with the way the online network works. For one thing, I had to uninstall my anti-virus program and install theirs. This just felt kinda pointless, since I think the one I had was superior or equal to their software. Ah, well. There's also the frustratingly irritating fact that Firefox doesn't work; I'm forced to use Explorer. I mean, it's not really that big a deal, but I much prefer Firefox, and I don't understand why the system refuses to work with it...

Anyway, all the orientation stuff has finally come to a close. I'm feeling a bit more at home here at Trinity, though I still wish I knew how to get to all buildings in the campus without taking a map with me everywhere. I know that'll change with time, but.. Bah. I also wish I knew more people a bit better, but, cnce classes roll around, I'm sure I'll meet a lot more people.

Speaking of classes, they start tomorrow, so says the title. Since I plan to major in Engineering, I knew I'd have to take a lot more science courses than I'd prefer, but I'm still a little worried about it. After a tour of the Engineering department, I saw a lot of the machines I'd apparentally learn how to use some day. To be honest, it scared the hell out of me at the time. Fortunately, I'm not panicky enough to give up on Engineering. I still feel kind of intimidated, but I'm going to see how things go for a semester or two, since getting that major will require four years of such courses. Other majors won't need quite as much effort.

Anyway, here's my schedule:


First Year Seminar (Frankenstein & Beyond)	Mon, Wed, Fri; 11:30 AM - 12:20 PM
Introductory Physics Lab	Tues; 12:45 PM - 3:25 PM
Introduction to Mechanics	Mon, Wed, Fri; 9:30 AM - 12:20 AM
Calculus II	Mon, Wed, Fri; 1:30 - 2:20 PM
Classical Mythology	Mon, Wed; 2:30 PM - 3:45 PM
Engineering Analysis & Design I	Tues, Thurs; 9:55 AM - 11:10 AM Thurs; 2:10 PM - 4:50 PM

Hmm... That means I'll be sitting in Engineering Analysis & Design I in about 9 hours and 23 minutes... I should prolly get some sleep soon. Ah, well.

Anyway, tonight concluded the orientation 'festivities.' And what a conclusion, it was. You see, at the center of Trinity's campus, there's a large bell tower. Students are allowed to climb it only on the final day of orientation and on the day of graduation. It's said to be the highest point in all of San Antonio. Getting to the point, tonight was the night that the class of 2009 ascended the spiral staircase up the enormous building.

The climb, overall, wasn't the most pleasant of experiences. They had a band playing at the tower's base, and the foolish organizors seemed to believe nobody would mind this. If you don't understand why I think the organizors foolish, consider that the line to enter the tower (it was a veeeery long staircase, but there were still a great deal of students) extended back to the speakers. So, those unfortunate souls that showed up on time (I was with the smart party; we got there about 15-20 minutes before it began) had to endure some obnoxiously loud music. The fact that the band wasn't very good only made things worse.

However, while the climb was a tad on the arduous side and we had to frequently stop for those descending (I'll bet the architects thought such a huge tower with only a thin spiral staircase to go up and down was a great idea at the time), when we finally reached the top, the view was breathtaking. I mean, I expected that looking over any place from the highest local point would be incredible, but I was pleasantly surprised. The sun was barely peeking above the horizon, so, with the lights around town and the city's pollution, San Antonio looked more beautiful than I had ever thought a city could look. It was a very good feeling.

The trip down took about 20-25% as much time as the climb, so, all-in-all, the process took about 25 minutes. I then went to the room that Aimee, one of the few friends I've made since arriving, calls home and watched an illegitimate copy of Shaun of the Dead. If you've yet to see that movie, I very strongly reccomend it. I'd already seen it at Jacob's place earlier in the year, but I still found it hilarious. I was kinda disappointed that its particular illegitimate nature meant that Special Features weren't watchable. And, since the 'Plot Holes' section was so great that I now fervantly believe all movie DVDs should be required to include them, this felt like something of a loss to me. Oh, well.

Now for a quick update on the Live-A-Live project. I'm almost completely finished with the final, final, FINAL revisions to Chapter 7/6, and I'll soon get to working on a supplemental side-story from that world. I may do a touched-up version of one of my first two chapters, as well. As for EB's end, he finished one excellently done side-story a while ago, made a coupla backgrounds (which, sadly, I've yet to see), made a few very fine-looking sprites, and has started to majorly rework his second chapter, and character, for this project. I think things are coming along nicely at the moment.

Well, I think that's basically all I've got for now. So, until the next time I update, likely within the week... Oh, wait. And I'm now going to spontaneously and arbitrarily declare that I'll put something file-like up on this site (not counting Installment The First of the Live-A-Live project) within the next two weeks. Don't worry; I'm not going to stupidly overextend myself with the beginning of college. However, I will finally get off my lazy duff and... sit down on my lazy duff to do some writing that most of you will actually see once it's finished. ^_^o I don't know what exactly it'll be. Look forward to it, if my constant broken promises haven't killed any capacity for trust in me you might have once had! G'night everybody!

8/20/05 - August 20 - 12:44 AM
The first college update!

Unfortunately, this update also contains nothing filewise. In my defense, it's been less than a day, I've been getting settled, and I'm using a computer that I'm not accustomed to. Anyway, I think I'll give a vague overview of how today went.

I woke up at around 8:37, with the plan of getting all of my stuff packed so that my family and I could leave at 9, to reach the campus with spare time to get settled in and to attend the first orientation thingy. It was a good plan. It really was. Unfortunately, we didn't wind up leaving for San Antonio until about an hour and a half later. So, we basically got there about 50 minutes after the orientation thingy had started. At that point, I had no clue where to go for the second orientation thingy (I never really found out what the points of those two were, either ^_^o), so, while my dad and sister were nice enough to unpack some of my stuff, my mom and I went out to search for the group.

It would seem that such isn't the best organized system. Basically, after everybody meets at one spot (I learned too late what spot it was), the RM (Room Monitor, methinks. If wrong, feel free to laugh uproariously at my ignorance) takes everyone in his/her group to a different spot and matters are discussed. Again, it turned out not to be very important, but I was still a tad worried that I was missing something. Anyway, my mom and I decided that, while we were wandering in our futile search for the group, we might as well pick up the Tigercard (basically, Trinity basically covers all of its students' on-campus payments with funds loaded upon it) I'd missed receiving earlier. After hearing 'Storage Building,' we spent a great deal of time wandering the hot, sunny hills in search of what turned out to be the 'Storch Building.'

As usual, the picture on the card turned out badly, but it was, at the very least, in my hands. Anyway, we went back to my dorm room, to find that the group had returned to that section of Trinity and my room-mate, Gordon, was waiting for me, likely wondering where the hell I'd been. He's a nice guy, but kinda shy. Not long after letting my parents and sister meet him and my other suite-mates (basically, they're in the room next door and we share a bathroom), they thought they'd go. Downstairs, it dawned on us that the first dinner (due to space constraints, students were divided into two dinner groups) would be served in only a few minutes, so they decided to stay for that.

The food wasn't bad in that cafeteria. I mean, I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I'm glad it turned out edible. In any case, my family left after that, and I returned to the room. I spent a little time trying to get connected to the internet. Basically, once the Ethernet cable was in, I opened Firefox and found that, before I could actually do anything on the net, I had to download some anti-viral software. So, I tried, but they had a strange reaction to my laptop and simply wouldn't load onto it. They mentioned something about needing to be loaded in setup. After struggling with it for a little while, I gave up, and decided to go down for the second dinner with Gordon.

Perhaps you think me mad for going down to have two dinners. Your concerns would be quite apt, if not for the fact that I ate nothing other than a roll. I just chatted with other new people on campus for a bit, then went back to the room. We were called into our RM's room where I memorized her name: Karen. She basically just went over the rules and then, not long after, we went outside to what was called, for whatever reason, a 'mixer.'

There was band playing, but I didn't really care enough to get their name. There were bouncy castles in the area, after all. Also, within a nearby building, somebody had connected a PS2 to an overhead with DDR and two floor pads. I hadn't played much DDR before; frankly, I didn't know what to make of it. So, I thought I'd give it a try. It seemed sensible to broaden my horizons, especially if it meant I could make a fool of myself in front of my peers. Two birds with one stone!

Anyway, I came home a while after that to face something unpleasant. The room possessed two TVs, but neither were connected to cable (as their resting place and the connection point for cable lie on opposite sides of the room, and ne'er shall they meet until a large extension cord enters our possession), and my computer still could not access the internet (sadly, neither of these two things have changed). At that moment, I realized something: I cannot call a place home if it lacks a computer with internet access and a working TV. If I can have those two things, I believe I'll be content. As I did not, I began to long for home. Kind of a selfish reason for getting homesick, but it can't be helped.

Hoping to keep myself busy, I pulled the Gamecube out and played with it a bit. I felt better, but, given the mood I was in for Earthbound last night, bashing Bowser with Ness's bat just wasn't as satisfying as it usually is... Ah, well. After that, Gordon was nice enough to let me use his computer (which seems to be immune to the evil anti-internet protocol that plagues mine) to look at my regular webcomics, to check my e-mail, and to make this update.

Speaking of the e-mail I received, EB, thanks for answering promptly. I'm afraid I wasn't able to look at what you sent me, because I don't want to download anything onto Gordon's comp. I'll look it over closely once I get somebody to fix my laptop's problem. Until that time, though, please keep me up to date with all the happenings. Err... Obviously, please keep me up to date beyond that time, too. ^_^o

Anyway, once the internet finally works on the wonderful machine sitting far to my right, I shall feel much better. I will fervantly hope for the extension cord, as well, but being able to get on AIM should do wonders for my state of mind. As it is, though typing this helps a lot, I'm feeling kinda homesick. I'll probably go with the standard Earthbound cure of calling home tomorrow, and hopefully the internet and working cable TV will help prevent such further problems.

Well, I doubt you found too much of that interesting, and most of it involved my griping about things that everyone goes through. Hopefully, once my basic desires have been obtained, the next update will feel worthwhile. Hope with me, people! This is Culix, signing off of Gordon's computer. G'night everybody.

8/19/05 - August 19 - 1:28 AM
A kinda sappy special update

Before you ask, no, sadly, I've got nothing to put up. I really hoped that I would for this update, since it is, as the title indicates, kind of a special one. I mean, in many ways, it's not special at all. It's just another update in which I've given you little more than promises, hopes for the future and, with any luck, a light chuckle. In case the title wasn't enough of a warning, I feel obliged to tell you that much of the rest of this update is likely to have quite a bit of sap, so you may want to skip ahead to the end, for a link to a webcomic you may not have heard of, some info on that Jester Shadow Matrix parody I believe I mentioned, and more promises of things forthcoming.

So, why is this update special? Because it's the last one that I'll be making before I'm off to college. Perhaps that's a very lame thing to concern oneself with, but I can't stop myself. I think of that, and I can't help but think of when I created this site over three years ago...

I was so naive, back then. I thought within a year, this site would be filled with lengthy, completed works. Now, there's not a long, completed piece of any merit that's on this site. I also seemed worried about a little thing like not updating the site for 25 days. ^_^ Hah! I'm lucky if I get a post in before 25 days have passed. I can recall some crazy desire of mine to make a sprite comic, as well. Heh... Since I seemed to think it wouldn't blow, I obviously hadn't seen any of the countless non-successful sprite comics on the internet that give the medium a bad name. If only I'd known about Screw These Comics (sadly defunct) or Crashman's 10 Commandments of Sprite Comics... Oh, well. At least I can laugh about that now.

Hmm... I thought this'd be a lot sappier than it seems to be... I was feeling a lot more nostalgic when I sat down to type this. I think I'd originally envisioned something like 'My childhood is slipping away from me,' but it seems I'm too sleepy to let that bother me. I usually feel pretty sad when I think about 'my wasted youth.' And there is still some sadness, of course; a part of me wishes that this summer could keep going endlessly. I had so much that I wanted to get done. But I know that wanting something like that is pointless. It simply isn't happening. Sure, I wish I'd gotten a lot more done, but it's my own fault for not focusing on my goals. I spent most of the summer screwing around.

To be honest, I was fine until a few days ago, when I glimpsed an article on Starmen.net. For some reason, that article appears to have vanished without a trace. Anyway, it summed up my thoughts and beliefs perfectly. And it really made me want to play Earthbound again. I'll have to do that, sometime soon... Such a great game... So many memories... It really does feel like all the positive aspects of childhood at once, held together by the glue that is wierdness. If you've yet to play that game, then for heaven's sake, man! Grab an emulator and ROM and get through that classic! Pronto!

Anyhoo, thanks for putting up with that. I wanted to get it off my chest. It wasn't quite what I envisioned, though. ^_^o Anyway, on to what I mentioned earlier. The Order of the Stick is an awesomely hilarious webcomic. You don't have to be a Dungeons and Dragons nerd to enjoy it, but being one certainly helps. I'm not really sure what more I can add, so I'll just say that even if you've known about it for a few months, like I have, read through the archives again to remind yourself again how great it is.

Now, for an update on Jester Shadow Production's next film: The Matrix Regurgitated. I think I mentioned how, earlier in the summer, the first four members of the group, including yours truly, got together to come up with some ideas for the script. Well, some time later, Jacob put together that very script, and it's looking great. We've done very, very little filming so far, and we're unlikely to get any more done until the winter, when Jacob and I will be back in Houston. However, most of what we have filmed took us quite a few takes, thanks to all the laughter. There was a reference Kyle suggested (not technically obscure, but...) to a 50's movie starring Jimmy Stewart that most of us were initially afraid nobody would find funny, but Jacob's James Stewart impression put those fears to rest. Nevermind the scene with the frighteningly large number of Jeramys... If you don't understand what that means, don't worry. Neither did I.

Before my 'promises for the future,' I'm going to make a personal note. The fact that the personal note ties in with a significant part of the 'promises for the future' is an utter coincidence, I assure you... *aside* I wonder if they bought that... I mean, I rolled a one on my Bluff check, but... *notices that he's being watched* ... And now the two makes perfect sense.

EB, I'm sorry that I've replied to neither your first e-mail, nor your second, update e-mail, but I do have two reasons. One isn't a very good reason, mind you, but the other makes perfect sense. You see, I've basically been making the revisions you suggested to Chapter 7/6 (7, really, but, for the nature of this project, it might not be a bad idea to make those two basically interchangable just as 1-4 are. Let me know what you think of that really minor issue) and the going is quite slow. I think I made some funky promise to myself that I wouldn't reply to your e-mails until my reply could contain the really, REALLY final version of that story.
I've not even been able to devote much time to the request you made of me in the first e-mail; whenever I think about it, I draw a blank. I guess I wasn't really paying much mind to it when I came up with Kyo. Hiro and Mehdian look quite nice, though. For some reason, my computer couldn't see the backgrounds, though. Quite odd, as they appear to be .pngs...
Anyway, as per your second e-mail, I would very much like to see the revised versions of Mehdian's story and your chapter 6/7, when they're done. If rewriting improves those chapters as much as it improved mine, then, given their initially awesome status, the insane level of quality may make me go blind. Anyway, I am planning to write a/several side-story/stories as you are, and I even have a few ideas of what I'll write about. However, the ideas I have are veeeeery vague, so I'd like to discuss some possible specifics with you over IM first. Not that I'll be starting with it/them before I finish those revisions, of course.

To those of you wondering what the hell that was about, I'll tell you quite plainly that those paragraphs regard the Live-A-Live project I'm so fond of mentioning in a semi-cryptic manner. Good luck deciphering the true meanings of those, though. Fuwa ha ha ha ha ha! ... *ahem* Anyway, the first future promise is the one that may be delivered soonest, as it concerns that very project. To be honest, the pieces EB and I plan to release have been ready for quite some time. The quality isn't quite what you might expect from us at present and, in fact, looking at those chapters then looking at chapters 6 & 7 makes it very clear that our styles have come a long way. Anyway, we didn't release them because... Well, I guess we just didn't have a clue what we wanted to do with regards to the release. Sometime relatively soon, however, you'll have the first installment (Chapters 1-4) of our project ready to read. Then, you'll have a glimpse of what I've been going on about for so long. Just need to make sure all is ready for the unveiling...

Anyway, the other future promises get much, much less fanfare. And rightly so, as there's only one person working on them. In fact, they get so little fanfare... that they get tabled!

Unknown

Unknown... Heh... That old chestnut... I'm sad to say it, but I'm just as hopeless at coming up with the way I want chapter 13 done as I was the last time I mentioned it. Sorry. I thought coming up with that supplement I hinted at would help get the creative juices flowing, but since said juices won't even flow for that, I'm afraid I'm a little stuck. Again, sorry. No telling when it'll come. Confound you, writer's block mixed with poor time management skills!

The Comic Thingy

I don't think I've mentioned that one in a while... Anyway, I'm no closer to recruiting an artist than I was so long ago. It's probably just as well, since the non-artistic parts of the comic (i.e. scripts, written plans for the future, character descriptions, etc.) are little more than a lot of potential ideas buzzing around in my head. Until I come up with a way to lure them down and petrify them in an appealing manner, this thing's going nowhere. The biggest problem is the opening: I have an idea for how I want it to go, but it's fairly dark, and I want more of an upbeat, comedic feel to this. And, realistically, there's no way to avoid a rather large helping of despair with the plan I have, and such might make the cheerful tone difficult to create. Here's hoping this eventually manages to take off.

Wow... Just two projects, neither of which have gone anywhere. ... That's kinda sad. I guess you could count my Althanas character, but there's not much to show for him quite yet. When he hits level 1, I'll put up links to all the threads he's been in for all the world to see.

Anyway, not much for the 'promises for the future,' but whaddaya gonna do? I'm supposed to be at Trinity in far fewer than 12 hours now, so I think I'll go sleepy. Wish me luck on my first day. I'll describe it at the first college update in a few days.

8/2/05 - August 2 - 3:45 AM
... *wipes dust off of site*

As some of you may have noticed, I haven't updated in a while. Quite a while, indeed. In fact, RPG World has managed to update in my absence. Given its rather inconsistent updating pace lately, this is quite the pitiful 'achievement' for me.

So, what have I been doing all this time, you wonder? Well, believe it or not, I've been writing for most of the time. Sadly, it's not for any work that I'll be posting to the site any time soon: it's a MASSIVE rewrite to a chapter I did several weeks ago, as part of the project EB and I are working on that I may have mentioned, but am too lazy to check for. Yes, I ended that situation with a preposition. I don't care. And something tells me I've done a 'joke' like that in the past. And another like that one, too.

What's that? My drivel seems more disjointed and far less amusing than usual? Well, perhaps you're right. I should be getting my sleep, after all. Nevertheless, I'll go briefly into the other things that have occupied my weak, mortal attention:


• Colorado Trip! : Yes! My family took the annual trip to Colorado. ... Nothing much happened, I'm afraid. It's kind of annoying that a one day trek into the wilderness with a few friends can yield so many horrible, yet somehow amusing moments, while about three weeks in Colorado with my family yields pretty much nothing. I mean, those weeks might have provided something had I actually done anything, but that would have required... y'know, effort. And that's something I simply cannot have.
• Gaming! : Actually, this technically falls under Colorado Trip!, as the games were bought for the trip and only played during it, but... Anyway, I purchased two GBA games for the long car ride to the mountainous state I have never heard referred to as 'The United States' Slightly Off-Center Belly Button.' ... Don't ask about that wierd name. I don't know where it came from or why it refuses to go away... And, before you ask, I was certainly NOT abducted by aliens in the mountains and then returned with a mildly less functional brain. ...
  Getting back to the matter at hand, both had role-playing elements, so both pleased me. One was a game that I suspect everyone has heard of, Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones. T'is fun and interesting. If you enjoyed the first GBA Fire Emblem, you'll likely enjoy this one as well. The other game's existence was not even known to me until I actually looked up GBA RPGs on GameSpot; where was the fanfare I ask you? Where! Anyway, that game is : Rivera: The Promised Land. I actually preferred it to Fire Emblem, partially because the former's unforgiving nature with regard to death is a tad trying at times. However, I just actually found it to be a more enjoyable experience. If you like RPGs with a lot of dialogue that lets you get to know the characters, you'll very much enjoy this one.
• Reading! : Yep. Despite being in Colorado and having all those fancy high-tech games to play with, I've lately spent a fair amount of time curled up with a good book. Three, in fact. They make a rather eclectic trio, in retrospect. They are, in the order that I began to read them: Angels and Demons, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and Naked Pictures of Famous People. I think that all of them are fine works in their own ways, so I'll speak of each individually.
  Angels and Demons by Dan Brown - Much as I've enjoyed a number of the books I've read in the past few years, the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy as a series has never lost the top spot, ever since I began reading them so many years ago. Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time, we have a serious contender for that position. This is a very, very smart book that I think anyone would enjoy. It's funny from time to time, dramatic when necessary, and interesting throughout. Need I say more? Buy, read, and enjoy.
  Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling - Something tells me a few people might have a problem with my reading this book. I'll admit: it's the most kid-oriented of these three. However, by no means does that translate into a bad story. I think a part of the reason I enjoyed it is that I've really started to notice style lately. I don't quite know why, but, recently, the way that a writer says and describes things has become very important to my opinion of a work. And Rowling's voice was appropriate throughout this story. I consider it the best of the series, so, even if you're not much of a Potter fan, I'd still say give it a chance.
  "Naked Pictures of Famous People" by Jon Stewart - Not quite as good as America the Book, but hey. It's still very funny. A lot of it is pretty vulgar, however, so if that bugs you, you may wish to look elsewhere. To the rest of you, you'll enjoy this one, I think. It paints some hilarious pictures of... well, the naked truths of famous people. ... Huh... Well, that certainly explains the title... I was wondering about that for a little while... ^_^o

Yep. Such occupied my attention. And nothing else at all did. ... Nope... Nothing. ... Other than several sessions of an evil campaign that I've played with Jacob and Kyle. ... And an additional session or two of the Star Wars campaign. ... And another game-related thing that I've decided I'm not at liberty to discuss. ... Though I might be persuaded to talk, if pressed. In time, the truth will come out to anyone who matters, anyway, so don't worry too much about that.

In any case, I have nothing of my own creation to share and for that I am sorry. However, I did stumble upon a peculiar review of Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Or, more specifically, a review of the english subtitles on the bootlegged Chinese version, Backstroke of the West. Now then, as part of the futile effort to promote a family-safe internet community, I feel obligated to advise you not to click if the F-bomb offends you to the point of wanting to write angry letters to your representative/senator in Congress about banning such gratuitous usage. That said, my favorite line involves the mentioning of the Presbyterian Church. If you've no clue what that means, then clicky the linky.

One last thing I feel I should mention. Some time ago (so long ago that I REALLY should have mentioned it by now), I stumbled across an online roleplaying messageboard called Althanas. Normally, I wouldn't have cared. However, after checking the rules and seeing that the powers that be seem about interested in good roleplaying, interesting plot-formation, and well-written posts more-or-less equally, I became interested. After all, a site with such priorities is bound to be a hotbed of talented writers, which may mean a place for my skills to receive some badly needed development. A few hours later, I had created Jannin Relm, a pint-sized villain wannabe. If you have no interest in joining Althanas, I would still reccomend looking at the kid's profile. Though by no means a wholly original concept, I consider it one of the most amusing things I've typed in some time.

And that's all. I'll try to type up that supplement I've been going on about sometime within the week. My line of thinking on at least one thing I've planned for that supplement has changed a bit, after reading Angels and Demons... And so, with a promise and a cryptic comment, I take my leave. G'night everybody!

6/9/05 - June 9 - 9:11 PM
That list I mentioned. ... Yeah.

If you were hoping for another chapter of Unknown, that supplement I mentioned, or even "prettier" versions of the existing chapters with this update, then I apologize, but you can go put those crushed hopes in with the other dreams of yours that I've shattered. And, yes, if you're curious, I do have an absurdly high opinion of myself and my dream shattering capabilities.

However, before I get to the main update I had in mind, I'd like to give some explanation for why that is. The more aesthetically pleasing chapter format is easiest: I've given a currently higher priority to executing time. However, now that one of my better axes, Final Fantasy V, has reached the end of its natural life, that may change. The supplement and next chapter actually have part of the same reason, but the greater problem is that I'm having trouble thinking of what to say in them. Granted, it's a bit difficult to think about such things when the time with which you would think is dying by your hands, but... Well, with the supplement, I'm trying to get the enclosed information right the first time, so I have to think about a number of things I didn't think I'd have to worry about for some time. As for the chapter... Those two characters that weren't planned to appear until later? I'm having some trouble deciding how to integrate them now that they're present. So, in short, all I really need is time. Well, some end to the homicidal leanings I seem to have towards spare time would help a bit as well.

Anyway, onto, as the title says, "That list I mentioned," less evasively dubbed The List of Some RPGMaker 2000/2003 Games Worth Playing. Yep. I am the master of clever names. But, getting to the point... RM2K/RM2K3 games are often overlooked. Perhaps this is because there are countless swarms of them lurking on the internet that are really jus terrible. However, there are still quite a large number of games that have accomplished great things with the program that one would really be quite foolhardy to pass up. So, below I have created a table with a link to the game's location on Gaming World (or another website, in one case) and a fairly brief overview of the game. Also, note that, after the first one, the games are in no particular order and the list is definitely incomplete.

The Way	Ah, The Way... In the opinions of many, it's the greatest RM2K game to hit the internet. I mean, not that you should judge a game by how popular it is, but how many other games made with that program do you know that conduct beta-testing? Its graphics, music, and gameplay are all top notch. The plot and characters, however, are the true gems of the series (in which there are five episodes so far, with the sixth coming out in a coupla weeks to a coupla months); all of the characters are interesting and have a 'real' feel to them, which only draws you deeper into the game's very intriguing and intricate plot. As a note, every episode will end on a cliffhanger, with 5's being the most... well, annoying, of them all. The episodes seem to get progressively longer as the series goes on, so while 1 will take you only 1-2 hours, 4 and 5 will probably take about... well, 4-5. I really can't say enough nice things about these games, so I'll stop babbling and either let you check out Crestfallen Studios to download what seems to be Lun's masterpiece (though I've heard good things about the Crestfallen series) or read about the other games.
Lysander86's games: A Blurred Line, The Book of Three, The Blue Contestant, and The Frozen World	Wow. Four for the price of one column. Aren't you lucky? Anyway, A Blurred Line is considered by many to be the greatest RM2K game of all time. While I think The Way is better, I certainly agree that it's one of the top RM2K games out there. The two even have something in common: legions of fans have been awaiting the next part of each for ages! C'mon, Lys! Show us some love! The Book of Three is rather unique: an RM2K game adaptation of a children's novel. I've never read the novel, but the game is pretty good. Not the best I've seen by any stretch of the imagination, but still light years beyond most. Kind of short, but still definitely worth a playthrough. The Blue Contestant doesn't seem to be too big on plot at first: you're a contestant in a virtual reality game show, just trying to win. However, about halfway through, things will take a fairly interesting turn. Gameplay centers around changing classes as needed to get through the area and gathering points, which is more amusing than it sounds. Not really that long and pretty hard (especially if you're trying not to get 'cautious'), but pretty fun. It's good, but not particularly impressive until you consider that it was created in only two weeks' time. Again, The Frozen World doesn't seem big on plot at first: you're a warrior who lost a battle to a dark wizard, who then stops time. There's a reason for the game's cliched-seeming plot, which is revealed in a nice plot twist about half-way through. The main custom system here involves using 'plates' (vaguely materia-ish) at varying powers to use abilities in a pretty cool manner. All things considered, it's kind of unfair that A Blurred Line was Lysander's first game; that makes it the bar to which all of his other games are compared. It's a shame, but, good though they are, they just don't match up. I'd actually reccomend playing through the latter three before the big one, so you never think, "Well, it's good, but it's no A Blurred Line." Besides, the later you play the unfinished game, the less time you spend hoping he'll complete it soon.
Kinetic Cipher	Recently, Lysander86 (see above) sponsored an event known as "Release Something." Quite a good idea, since the game-producing community wasn't being particularly active. The idea was that people would release the best parts that they had of their games (a demo, a boss, a dungeon, etc.) to let people know that, yes, they were working on something. From this, a few very nice things were wrought. A remake of Kinetic Cipher (a fact that I realized about halfway through typing this... ^_^o I thought it was an original game... somehow) was one of those things. I've played only a demo (about 1 or 2 hours), but it looks very, very good. It has informed me that the original exists, which I know I must play. The characters, even in what little I've seen, all feel very well-developed, as do the systems. The dungeons, however, are the real hallmarks of this RM2K3 game; I've heard this game called the Lufia II (if you've not played that game, by the way, then go out and play it now! I don't care if you've not played/finished Lufia I! Neither have I!) of RM2K games, and rightly so, from what I've seen; the pyramid housed the most difficult puzzles, particularly the one nearest the end that kinda punishes you for being skilled. Now, three final notes: 1) The first scene really looks pretty terrible, so you may be tempted to stop playing. Don't. 2) In battle, the characters' sprites have been adjusted to not have faces. It makes them look odd, but it reminds me of Ogre Battle and sure as hell looks better than those vacant grins. 3) The game's difficulty level is quite high, so a fair amount of levelling may be required. Put up with it.
The two horror RM2K games: The Longing Ribbon, and Backstage.	I can imagine what you're thinking: "Horror RM2K games? Wow... Someone must have a stupid sense of humor." However, these games actually succeed in creating their own fairly creepy atmospheres. The Longing Ribbon is a pretty creepy game that begins with a rarely used premise: some teenagers are driving through a wooded area when their car breaks down. In front of a creepy-looking mansion, as luck would have it. It even starts to rain just then. The storyline does get much better, rest assured. The game is also quite interesting, as you must check most paintings and bookshelves along the wall, and all sinks, as they are the only ways in which you advance your character's stats. There's no real explanation for doing this; I guess the paintings and bookshelves free your mind and body of weakness, while the sinks... err... clean away the... grime of ineptitude and ignorance. ^_^ There we go. Anyway, give this game a shot, I say. Backstage has a screen that shows the M rating displayed on games that the ESRB deems worthy of bearing it. I will say this now: it isn't a joke. While The Longing Ribbon is merely creepy, this game actually crosses the threshold into disturbing. Also, the other horror RM2K game could be said to have a fairly reasonable level of difficulty, but this one is frustratingly hard; you need to pick up almost every item at just the right time, or you will likely get stuck in a position where you can't help but die at the hands, fangs or claws of some bloodthirsty monster. Well, unless you cheat. ^_^o This game is said to have been inspired by the Silent Hill series (which I should probably play at some point), so if you're familiar with those games, you should know vaguely what to expect here. Incidentally, this game was created in a month's time for 'Release Something.'
Jay's Journey	This game is one of the other 'humor' RPGs, but, since it's actually finished and good all-around, I'm giving it its own section (The other good, though incomplete, comedic RPGs are Final Fallacy and The Ruiners (I'd like to add Legendary Adventure to this list, but the link is kind of... Well, 'screwed up' would be the nice way to say it. I'd advise against it, but you can see for yourself by looking for it at Gaming World) and a funny game that's kind of... bleh otherwise is The Stupidest Game Ever). It's really just a basic RPG, with no system-related frills attached. The plot is a bit unoriginal, but it's executed rather well. The characters, dialogue, and humor are the game's strongest points, though, with gameplay coming not far behind. It's nice to see a 'humor' game that knows to turn down the comedy when it's time for some serious character development. However, such scenes aren't overly common, so you'll be treated to the game's amusing running jokes and other humor for the rest of the time. It even has some little bits and pieces of voice acting that you'll hear every now and then. There aren't many, but, considering the size such files tend to have, that may be a good thing. I wholeheartedly reccomend this game to you.
The Pangaea Chronicles: an adventure game trilogy starring Suki Na. Foreshadow, Revelations, and Conclusions	As I said, it's an adventure game, one in which you go around, finding objects to use in various situations with no real combat, which means it's likely to be hit-or-miss; rather than finding a happy medium, it's likely to be either pathetically easy or infuriatingly difficult. Unfortunately, I can tell you right now that Foreshadow falls into the latter category. However, the other two games are actually fun to play. Well, one of the final scenes in Conclusions isn't; I cannot see why the creator thought it was a good idea: in it, a counter counts to a rather high number at a speed that isn't quick enough, leading to several minutes of your looking at something not particularly interesting. Overall, though, the series is actually pretty fun with a fairly engaging plot, so I say give it a try.
Three the Hard Way	The last game I'll be going over for now is, as you are no doubt aware, Three the Hard Way. If you were not aware, then thank you, kind sir/madam, as you have proved to me that even those who cannot figure out the nigh-obtusely obvious still have the patience to read this far down the page. Anyway, back to the game. It's good, for the most part, but it's no A Blurred Line. The characters are all done rather well and the plot is pretty intriguing. Humor level is rather high, too. However, there are a few problems, though I'll only go over two of them: 1) One character is an Alchemist; she picks up components and uses a menu to make items, which she then uses in battle as though they were spells. Now, this is all well and good, but, as far as I know, you can't actually buy any of these components and there are so very, very few of them to be found lying around that you may only be able to create one or two of her most powerful spells if you hold off on making any others throughout the entire game (something tells me this is an exaggeration, but I do remember being incredibly frustrated by what seemed so promising a system). 2) The game uses a random level-up system. Basically, every battle/few battles against enemies the game has decided are difficult enough for your level, your characters will level up, giving them a boost in one area that seems to be random. Eventually, they stop gaining bonuses from fighting certain enemies and must move on. This sounds kind of interesting, but a few times, I found my characters gaining boosts in areas that do them no good (fighters without any magical abilities gaining boosts to intelligence and MP, for instance) and then not being able to handle the harder enemies needed for another level without using a ridiculous number of healing items. Despite those qualms, I say give the game a go. The plot and characters more than make up for those problems. One word of caution, though: the game is complete, but the overall story is not. This game is, apparentally, part of a greater work the creator has planned. Which is fine, though it would have been nice had he mentioned where any info on that work could be found, as the veeeeery long ending leads to some kind of interesting things.

So, was this a failure or a dismal failure? I can't tell right now, since I'm rather sleepy. I've sampled War of Warcraft (a game that needs no link) recently, courtesy of Kyle, and, while it's definitely an amusing game, I'm unsure if I'll actually buy it. I'm also considering Guild Wars as well, considering the positive reviews I've gotten from Skull. So, that's something of a tricky decision I'll kinda have to make sometime soonish. Anyway, maybe, if you're good, I'll have something Unknown-related with the next update. Since, again, it's me, holding your breath is not advised. Whelp, until next time, g'night everybody.

I got this from The Counter Art Museum. And thanks to The Ultimate Counter for making it so easy to set this up. There. Now, by endorsing them, I'm legally in the clear. Woo hoo.

Technical update: 3/28, 11:03 PM - About five days shy of a year since the last one
Only doing it now since I received a worrisome e-mail not long ago. *sigh* But someday I'll come back to this old place for real. Count on it, whoever sees this.