infinity zone

Finished Dark Dawn.

... 8| I cried. Just a little.

And yet I'm not surprised by some of the twists. What I am surprised about is how much I enjoyed the new characters, and how much is introduced without being given proper explanation. A good way to set things up for future games.

Jumping from Golden Sun to The Lost Age to Dark Dawn is crazy. I feel like I'm playing in a different world in each game, just because of the geography.

I find it hilarious that the hero manages to become more explicit than the last two. I was tempted to go through the entire game with angry-face answers after Karis responded to an angry-face reply with "Wow, graphic."

Now I'll go to sleep and be glad I don't know the series well enough to app characters. Except for maybe Pewter. Pewter was awesome.

I've been burning through video games again in between work and RP since the holidays ended. I started and finished Golden Sun 1 and 2 last week (finished in 2.5 days each), started Golden Sun: Dark Dawn yesterday, and just received Kingdom Hearts Re:coded today since I pre-ordered it. Whew.

Still need to beat Professor Layton and the Unwound Future, Mario & Luigi Partners in Time, and Crisis Core sometime. Might get a copy of my brother's Ys: The Oath in Felghana remake he recommended it ... if I'm really bored. I'm so close to the end of Dragon Quest V, but I haven't beaten it yet... And Dragon Quest VI comes out next month.

Ahhhh, so many games. u_u I'm kinda glad I don't have any work tomorrow.

My personalDNA Report

I ... think I'm done with Christmas shopping for the family now. I keep going over a mental checklist, but I'm worried I'm forgetting something. :|a

And I'm still checking over my bank account in that fretful kind of way. I'm just a miser when it comes to my money. Ugh.

Finally finished book_of_chaos's profile. I ditched the idea of using someone else's profile coding and just jazzed up the actual picture and added a background so I could put words on it. Still debating changing it since I hate the dividing line that shows up when I tweak the browser.

I can't believe he's 16. 8| He's perpetually 12 in my head, and I have to keep track of how tall he's getting. Man.

Hrm... Need to go to the store as soon as my brothers are out to buy guinea pig food. Guess I'll be working later than usual today. I really need to get my act together at Damned and finish that thread with Yukari. u_u But ... Minato. Processing death. What.

...And I need to get over this whole stressed feeling of buying things. This is the one time of the year when I actually buy a lot of stuff -- and not just for me, but for other people. I need to flip that frugality switch off.

My siblings and I went to the Pacific Science Center today because my little sister told us there was a Harry Potter exhibition going on. Unfortunately, the exhibit had a huge queue when we arrived, so there was a four-hour wait until we could line up to go into the exhibit.

So we spent the time spending too much money on parking and lunch ... and hanging out in the insect exhibit. We looked at all the beetle models and insect zoos. The hissing cockroaches still creep me out. We also spent a good amount of time in the tropical butterfly room with these owl morpho butterflies ... and atlas moths. 8| So huge, even if they weren't flying around when we were inside. I think I'd freak a little if they were flying around. They were easily twice as large as the butterflies in there.

The Harry Potter exhibit itself was very neat. They had many of the costumes from the various movies, along with main characters' wands and small accessories -- like Hermione's time turner and Ron's broken wand, along with the Marauder's Map and Lupin, Snape, and McGonagall's wands. My brothers were amused by the fine print on Umbridge's decrees, which literally had "Blah blah blah blah b-lah blah" at the very bottom. It was also really neat seeing Dumbledore's wand up close after seeing the emphasis on the Elder Wand's shape in the Deathly Hallows movie (which I saw ... uh, last weekend with my cousins).

Seeing Hermione's costumes up close made me realize just how short Emma Watson is. It was kinda funny. The beds in the Gryffindor dormitory looked much bigger in the films than they were in the exhibit, too. Kreecher and Dobby's models were smaller than I expected, and Fawkes' much bigger than I thought he looked in the films. Hagrid's entire hut was huge, too -- very cool seeing how large his armchair was.

Despite how much I enjoyed the HP exhibit, I restrained myself in the gift store -- I only got a Slytherin beanie. >> My brother asked why I got it, and I told him that Slytherin got no love. :| All the kids who were picked to try on the Sorting Hat (at the very beginning of the exhibit) picked Gryffindor as their favorite house.

So we had a housewarming/birthday party this past Saturday with mostly family. It makes me happy that my family is full of geeks and computer-savvy types; my cousins set up a LAN party with Halo Reach (complete with full-wall projection) while the parents streamed a college football game. My cousins raved about how they love our house because there's a TV or computer (or both) in every room.

One of my cousins let me borrow Alan Wake, which I blazed through on Sunday and Monday. I bought The Signal DLC on Monday and went through that, then watched a playthrough of The Writer since I didn't want to shell out more money if the DLC was as short as The Signal. Considering I can't stand playing scary video games myself, I'm kinda surprised I went through Alan Wake so quickly. But the game gives you warnings and slows down the action to allow you react, which ... really, really helped me for forest sections.

I'm in the process of finally getting around to replaying the Quest For Glory series. I bought QFG5: Dragonfire sometime ago and told myself I'd play through all the other games and import my characters along the way. I've finished as a thief on the EGA version, and now I'm playing as a magic user on the VGA version. I might go back to the EGA version for the fighter, since I recall not being fond of the VGA speed. This will also give me the chance to play the fan remake of Trial By Fire.

In other news, I think I'm in an RP slump. I think the crazy tagging of the Luceti Malnosso mission has left me less than enthused about picking up dropped tags with Albert or starting new ones with Leon. I can't even get the willpower up to write for the new NS at Damned, even when I have a clear plan of what Minato should do. ...I also need to stop looking at reserves and apps; I get this conflicted feeling that I'm not fond of. I hope it'll pass soon.

So I drop one angry guy and app another angry guy.

...

Yeah, that would go over well. I think I better wait out this finished-a-new-game rush before doing anything stupid. But augh, I'm getting random KH muses all over the place.

In related news, Birth by Sleep has my favorite battle system of the series so far. And I think it's the first one since the beginning of KH2 to make me cry. Very good game.

I should probably comment about how much time I've been spending moving things and getting settled into the new house, or apologize for being so spotty with RP lately... But I'm tired at the moment and completely "/blank face" at Kuroshitsuji II right now.

What the hell, anime. What the hell.

I don't... I don't even know what to say. But it's definitely not a nice feeling welling up inside me at that ending.

I'm glad I didn't watch the majority of the episodes now.

Soooo... I've been back since Wednesday, but I've been putting off replying. First it was because I was feeling lazy, and then I kinda forgot, and then it just started feeling overwhelming trying to write down everything that's been going on. So I'll skip the finer details and just focus on some broad summaries.

Hawaii was fantastic. Apparently we missed a heat wave in the area by going on vacation, so I think we lucked out in that sense, too. We went snorkeling at three different locations, looking down at the coral and all of the tropical fish. We also walked through a lava tube (read: lava-created cave) and did long-exposure light writing in a pitch-dark section of the tube. Very, very cool. We also ate ... expensively. Hahaha. And visited three candy factories. The big island is apparently big on chocolate and macadamia nuts. :| I'm almost out of my chocolate-dipped macadamia shortbread cookies. I'm already debating ordering more and having them shipped.

On Saturday, I attended a Lady Gaga concert with my brother and his fiancee. It's the first concert any of us have attended, and it was amazing. Bright lights, smoke, rising platforms, a burning piano, springboards, a fame monster, a disco stick, and lots of crotch-grabbing. The song "Boys, Boys, Boys" featured a lot of crotch-grabbing. :| I also found myself preferring how she sang Paparazzi live versus the album. We had good seats for paying the cheapest price for the three sections; I think it's because the seating was reserved for Citi card users.

Aaaand the Luceti events. Holy crap. So much stuff going on to get back into. And there's applications just around the corner, too. So excited about a lot of the reserves by returning players and characters.

Then over at Damned, my hiatus ends-- er, like, tomorrow. Ahahaha. I have no plans for the nightshift, so this will be interesting. Huzzah for Yukari and Mitsuru apps, though! ...Minato's going to have all the girls except Fuuka there. Oh boy.

And on top of all this... We're moving into a house soon. I need to start packing stuff. My new bedroom set will be delivered sometime in the first week or so of September. I'm so excited about that; I've never bought my own furniture set before. So much to do ... and I haven't really started at all.

...I posted on this HMD surprisingly early, but never linked to it. Hilarious, me. 8|

The How's My Driving? Meme

Ummm. I've been watching a lot of random Let's Plays recently. Ended up watching more of TraskNari's stuff, which is somehow fitting since I enjoyed his LPs of the Chzo Mythos so much. He doesn't have an annoying voice to listen to, unlike some other LPs.

I've been neglecting RPing again. Ick. I ... need to learn how to balance my characters better, or just figure out what the heck I want to do. Leon's been quiet the entirety of the mushi plot, Walter's not really active, and Albert's ... something. At least I'm fairly certain I didn't render his character unplayable. :|; That would totally suck.

Attending my sister's ballet performance tonight, then going to my cousin's college graduation party tomorrow. Should be fun and relaxing before I need to do jury duty and everything this upcoming week.

I think my brothers have reached a compromise on the housing situation, which will be a relief if it's true. We had way too many family discussions and private talks about where we would be going after the apartment contract expires this fall, and I think my older brother (who has the biggest complaints with all of us living together) has compromised with my younger brother. We'll see how things go.

Next weekend is river rafting. Hope the weather is good.