What’s It All About?

So, the economy is going down the drain and banks are being bought left and right. With the 2008 Presidential Debate last Friday and things like this and this, it’s definitely been a very interesting few days since my last post (and I use the term loosely
when discussing the debate…it only got interesting after I started drinking).

Well, we have a lot to cover. There’s last Tuesday, the 23rd, up to yesterday, the 28th. I hope you’re all ready for an explosively massive torrent of informative and exciting blogging action!

23rd (Tues): We ran up into Sunwell our second time together. We were much better with trash, the push to Kalecgos went much smoother than our first time in there. Once we got to him however, due to most of the people still having not read the R&R or knowing at all what to do on the fight (we have some pretty slow people / raiders who obviously just want pew pew instead of strats), we didn’t do too well. People freak out with new stuff and act like they can’t figure things out on their own when put in a new situation. You see a portal in front of you that will take you to an alternate realm with a demon, you wait until a tank and healer are in there…pretty simple. Having people still say “DRRR, I WAS IN THE PORTAL BUT GOT NO HEALS” pisses me off. Anyway, we probably got them both down to around 50 – 60%-ish, nowhere near the 10% “real fight”. We finished the night (after trash respawned, which was after about 3 – 5 attempts), by killing up to Shade of Akama in BT.

24th (Wed): Was supposed to go over Gavino’s for some podcast fun and discussion times, but he cancelled again. I’ll delve more into things going on with him towards the end of this post. Edit: I was going to go into things that bothered/annoyed me about the whole situation, but I’ll push it to the side and not discuss it at this time. I think to myself that I’m the one being immature about the whole situation, and then I realize that we’re all to blame, so I’ll just forget about it for now (this has more to do with Sunday instead of Wednesday). So, we rescheduled for what Gavino called “real filming on Sunday”. I don’t really remember much of what I did on Wednesday, probably did some WoW. Ooh, come to think of it, we did Gruuls, and it sucked! High King Mulguar wasn’t a problem, but we wiped like 5 times on Gruul…on fucking GRUUL. We finally got him down, and I think since everyone was upset about the nonsense, and I was just upset in general, we didn’t plan much after that.

(I just noticed that doing a search for certain keywords will bring up my blog, and I realize that they scour the internet for things…but I guess if they find and read my blog [I wanna say without consent, but it's on the internet], then I guess they deserve to read it)

25th (Thurs): We went into BT to finish what we left off, which was Bloodboil (wiped a billion times, gg healers), Gorefiend, RoS, and Mother (shoulders are never going to drop, so I believe making the haste shoulders was still a good idea). Wasn’t really much else going on, at least not that I can remember (main reason why I have this blog, should start having entries every day like I was trying in the beginning; going back, I had pretty consistant posts…I may have to go back to that).

26th (Fri): This is where the meat of the week started. After work, I took mom and Terry out to Red Lobster for dinner, in celebration of their anniversary. It wasn’t too bad, some light political discussion on the way and at the resturaunt (who woulda guessed?), delicious food and drinks at the place, and some tea with after-dinner discussion when we got home. I made it in time for Kara, only a few minutes late (starts at 6 server). Oh, did we start with Kara immediately? Of course not. First we did some BGs. Not that I’m complaining, they were actually pretty fun. I don’t mind BGs when I’m doing them with people I can enjoy the with. It’s when I’m doing them alone, just as a grind, that they start to become really boring (especially when I’m just healing). I think in the expansion, along with more consistant arenas and whatnot, I may get more into PVP (I’m on a fucking PVP server for christ sake, lol). Carl came on and we did some 3s (with Shiyo) and some 2s. After that, I called it a night.

27th (Sat): After some BGs on the paladin, it was time to take dad and Carol out for their anniversary dinner…at…YEP, you guessed it…RED FUCKING LOBSTER. LOL! Who goes to Red Lobster twice in one week, let alone twice in a weekend? Well, I’ll tell you who: THIS GUY! Anyway, it was a much different atmosphere, but it was alright. I got the Ultimate Feast when I took mom and Terry out. I indulged in the endless shrimp deal they had going on when I took dad and Carol.

When we got home, I finished up Bone. Great story, though sadly I wish it had a slightly different ending. Good stuff though, very cute, would definitely recommend to everyone. Next thing to do is print out The Watchmen and read that, or read this Software Piracy Exposed book that Walt gave me. Didn’t do too much after that. Played WoW later on in the night, did some more 2s with Carl, and went to bed.

28th (Sun): Big filming day! We got like 5 episodes done, right? NOPE! Went to mom’s early to get in the area, help her take out their air conditioner, and have some breakfast before heading over Gavino’s. Mom said it was too wet out due to the rain to worry about the air conditioner that day, so we just did the breakfast thing and picked out pictures for the October calender she wanted me to make. Afterwards, I headed over to Gavino’s place.

When I got there, it was pretty dark inside. He had woken up later than usual, and by the time I had put my stuff down and was getting ready to sit down, he was saying his back was hurting. Playing right into it, I asked him if he would rather not film that day, if he wanted to just relax and hang out. Of course, after agreeing that would be for the best, we ended up spending the day lounging around, watching Evangelion, and talking about random things. April got home, we talked a bit more, watched some stuff on the computer, then headed out to pick up Chinese food. We watched the new Simpsons, some ridiculous show about the 80s and 90s actors / actresses, and whatnot. I could care less about both of them TBH, though the Simpsons (even though I don’t follow it like I did when I Was younger) was funny. After that, I headed home (wanted to get home in time to watch Family Guy, but I knew it wasn’t going to happened, so I asked dad to record it). Hopped on WoW and saw they were still doing Council (it was already 6:30 server [9:30PM]). I watched the new Family Guy and leveled up my drood’s herbalism and mining a bit more. I was asked to come in and do Sunwell, but by the time I got there, we wiped two or three times on stupid shit and called it pretty much immediately. So I logged off, played around a bit more on the computer, and jumped in bed (around 3am, ugh).

That’s about it. I ended up finishing the calender that mom wanted me to make for October. She called today and said she loved it. I always enjoy hearing people say they like my work, whether or not I get anything else out of it. She also told me that Terry’s tests came back with no trace of Hep C, which is amazing. Now he just has to pretty much keep doing the shots and taking his medicine for 30 some odd weeks more and it might be a good outlook.

Today (Monday, might as well knock of off the list), was one hell of a day at work. Busy as all hell and yet the time didn’t go by as quick as I had hoped. But at least work is over and it’s time to head home.

Plans this week? Tonight I don’t have anything planned. I might watch a movie and play WoW as usual. Sent the two Gamefly games back (Tales of Vesperia and Lego Batman) in hopes that I’ll get the next two on my list: Star Wars The Force Unleashed and Silent Hill Homecoming. I have a few more up there, like Mercenaries 2, Fable 2, Fallout 3, Animal Crossing city Folk, Harvest Moon Tree of Tranquility, My Japanese Coach, and Kirby Super Star Ultra, but most aren’t out yet (cept for Kirby & Mercs 2). Guess we’ll see! Tomorrow I think we’re pushing Sunwell. Wednesday we’re supposed to film after work, but 2 Wednesdays in a row tell me otherwise. Thursday will depend on how we do in Sunwell on Tuesday. Friday is mom’s for the usual. And that’s all I can think of! Nothing interesting, but whatcha gonna do?

Hopefully I’ll start just updating this every night before I go to sleep like I used to, since it’s a lot harder to update after 5 – 7 days since the last entry. Later!

Hump Day Hyjal (A Look Back)

We were all a bit upset about last night’s raid, but we have to look back at the good times we spent in Hyjal. The togetherness that such an epic fight only as such could bestow upon us must be seen as a reward, not a burden.

We should be able to look back at bosses like Rage Winterchill, and see that there is reason to the chaos in the world…that death and decay are all around us, and that we need to do everything in our power to protect future generations from the hatred and greed that we portray to each other.

We need to take into account that the trash waves aren’t only a means to give the instance substance, but to only show the demons inside ourselves that we deal with every day. How many times have you yourselves felt like an abomination in one way or another. Or felt like your only desire was to just put up a wall against all incoming threats in the world, much like our banshee friends we all know and love.

And if it weren’t for bosses like Anetheron, how else would we learn to never listen to rules that were given to us? When we are young, we are taught by our parents about what is right and wrong. Bosses such as Anetheron teach us that it may not be in the best intrests of our fellow men to pay attention and do what is right, but to go against the grain, to stand out, stand tall, to go against all odds and prove that we can do what we feel is best for ourselves alone!

What of our dear friend Kaz’rogal? If it weren’t for him, would we ever truely know what it feels like to be completely drained of one’s soul? We look at others and try to feel remose and pity, but until we can step into the shoes of those less fortunate than us, how can we ever understand the pain they are going through every day. It’s one thing to be marked by society as an outcast, to be shunned away from the group because we may be different, but working together and giving it our all as a team…we can move mountains.

Again, we must venture forward. But in our ongoing progress through this world, we cannot forget what experiences have brought us to this point. Azgalor taught us, as we all know, to do everything in our power to stand strong against all opposition, whether or not that place is in between something we may fear and those who support us. We find out the hard way that putting ourselves in such a position can rain down depression, anger, and additional feelings of guilt and suffering. Only when we can stand together as a group, maximizing the distance between ourselves and that which we can only fight as one, will we finally understand the meaning of our lives.

And finally, we shall carry on, finishing the extravagant tour with our beloved Archimonde. For it is in he that we all see the corruption and grip that society puts on us every day. This grip, if not taken off as soon as possible, will only deteriorate us slowly, withering us away as each tick of shadowy chaos eats away at our very being. Beyond that, there are many more things that we can take away from our time with Archi. Again, we must prove to ourselves that we cannot fear that which we do not understand, lest we be tossed into the fires of doubt. Do we wish to doubt ourselves? If we fill ourselves with doubt, we will never be able to rise to the top. I believe that, as a people, we can fly…fly higher and higher in our goal to be the best that we truely can. And if we fall, then we must hold onto the tears of our brethren, and carry on, floating gently to the ground, picking ourselves back up, and pushing on once again.

That, my friends, is why we CANNOT simply look back at the Battle for Mount Hyjal as something to be scorned and loathed, but as a life changing, and ever important time in all our lives.

Thank you for your time.

Do It All Over Again

/cry. It’s been way too long since my last post…well, 7 days to be exact. Was the reasoning behind my lack of the week & weekend posts due to the fact that I was super busy, productive, and the like? Doubtful.

Tuesday (Sept 16th): I made my previous blog entry on this day. That night, I believe we ran a train on BT, downing Mother as our final boss of the night. Gavino saw episode 1 and enjoyed it. I’ll mention some of the changes that need to be done towards the end of this post. Tuesday wasn’t anything too special enough to remember.

Wednesday (17th): Was supposed to go over Gavino’s after work as usual, but he had to reschedule for reasons unbeknownst to me (he mentioned that it might happen earlier during the day, so I figured it would end up happening). He had suggested Friday, but I told him that we wouldn’t get decent light to film anything outside since I wouldn’t be there until around 8PM. Didn’t get a response, moved on with my day.

I think we did some Gruuls and Mag that night, both which were entertaining (BoPing Supermassive at 2%, hah). Then we did some ZA. Ring and trinket have both dropped (on separate occassions) and Sukuyan won the rolls…but I wonder if I get him back? Muwahahahaha!

Thursday (18th): Back into BT we go! One shotted Council, which was an achievement for the guild. We charged into Illidan’s room with confidence, however…we wiped around 7 times before finally downing the bastard. The caster staff dropped, and low and behold, look who has more points to spend on it! Yeah, that’s right Sukuyan, the staff is MINE!! MUWAHAHAHA! (foreshadowed that laugh in the previous paragraph, tee hee).

I also hit around 2045 shadow damage during the fight, which I thought was pretty sweet:

I had a few items on that would proc and give me additional damage, so I figured I’d see how high I could get. After I won the staff, I tossed my haste gear on and pumped my haste up to around 165-ish (something like 10%). Was a pretty good night all in all.

Friday (19th): Went over mom’s for dinner after work. Gavino suggested that I come over, we have a few drinks and watch The Producers, sleep over, then the next morning we’d discuss filming, go out to lunch at the Japanese buffet near me, pick up my equipment, and then head back to film. Well, some of that happened…

Mom’s was fine, we had dinner, played UpWords (discussed getting Scrabble / playing Boggle for next time). Decent night, not too much talk about politics or anything to get anyone upset over. Afterwards, I headed over to Gavino’s place. We took a trip over to the store to get some alcohol. I got some Jager, Midori, and some Schnapps. Gavino bought this mini-keg of some beer called Dab. We got back, made some Midori sours and had some Dab…which was the WORST beer I’ve ever tasted. We cooked up some fried chicken again and proceeded to have a few shots, eat dinner, and watch The Producers. It wasn’t a really crazy night, and we were all falling asleep by the end of the movie.

Saturday (20th): Next morning, Gavino came in and told me that April was still asleep (it was around noon) and apologized for the plans getting all f’d up. It took us forever to finally leave to go get some Japanese deliciousness. I was glad that they lowered the prices, and the food was incredible as always. We still picked up my equipment, even though it was around 4:30, and headed back to Gavino’s (was 5PM by the time we got back). After discussing what we should do for a while, we finally tried to do some “leave the camera on and we’ll improvise the scene” action. We figured it was just for a scene where I needed to get up from the slap up episode 1 and transition into the “snack scene” of episode 2. Maybe one of the shots will be decent, I have yet to look at them.

We finished the night by watching some Escapist flash videos that they hadn’t heard of, watched Big Dreams Little Tokyo, chatted it up for a little longer, and then I was on my way home. Nearing the end of Bone, w00t.

Sunday (21st): Mom had discussed buying tickets for White Christmas. She called that morning because they were finally going on sale for non-American Express customers. After some arguing and her hating me for a bit, she finally bought them. It was also Terry and her anniversary, so I suggested I take them to dinner on Friday, since Terry might be up to it by then. He agreed, so we’ll probably be waiting for a table for 6 hours come Friday

The rest of the day was taken up by random WoW stuffs, some TV, and finally a Hyjal raid. The raid was the worst…thing…ever possible. It was told to be our last Hyjal, due to the fact that noone really needed anything out of the instance except for what dropped off Archimonde. AFKs, people not wanting to be there, and just a general hatred for the place caused us to wipe on some trash towards the 4th boss, and just fail at life. We finally got to Archimonde, but even pushing the raid time 30 minutes past normal still didn’t give us an advantage, and we ended up having to schedule a Monday Archimonde raid.

Monday (22nd): Work was busy busy busy. Went by as normal, not too quick for it being busy, but it was a Monday nonetheless. By the time I got home, I just wanted to put my head on a pillow and go to sleep, but of course I did everything but that. Conversed with the family while eating dinner, then hopped on WoW. Did some arenas with Larry’s warrior which weren’t too bad, I think we ended up being like 9 or 10 to 4 (switched between paly and druid healing). After that, we ran into Hyjal for what would be the most incredible night of wipes ever.

We literally wiped at LEAST 12 times, and that’s low balling it. Wipe after wipe after wipe. Thank GOD it was our last time in the instance. I needed my helm off the guy, but I didn’t need it that badly. Finally we got him down after our 4th tank (Elleara by that point) came in to tackle the beast. Chantal got her staff, and I got the fuck outta there (again, no priest/paly/lock helm dropped).

And that’s about it for now. It’s lunch time and I’m tired/hungry. Don’t know too much about the future…I think Wednesday we may film the rest of episode 2. I’d love to get at least 3 episodes done as soon as possible, then show the site to people, and even to sites like screwattack. We need to do some changes to the first episode, even though I do believe we’re pretty close to finalizing it. We need to reshoot the dance scene and come up with a better sound for the blue screen ending. I also should play with the audio a bit, it seems like Gavino’s audio is a bit off. Friday we’re going to try and see if Red Lobster is a possibility for mom and Terry’s anniversary dinner.

Okay, that’s it. I’m out!

I’m Surprised You Remembered

Are you, really? I guess, depending on what the subject is that was, in fact, remembered.

Have you ever wondered if what you knew in life was important? I come across things, like Andy Warhol or Roy Lichtenstein, and I wonder…how many people these days know of or remember these men? Obviously, it’s something that only people that are interested in these types of things, such as pop culture (art, music, and the like), would know in depth about, but even just hearing the name…would it spark something in the brains of everyone when mentioned? Should it?

Sometimes I wonder: what exactly SHOULD be known by all and what exactly IS known. Then I think about it and wonder why people get upset when others don’t know what it is they’re talking about. Has it ever happened to you? Not using the example above, let’s use one that literally just happened: someone asks you a question related to the football game playing tonight, and you just stand there, eyes glazed over and look of confusion on your face. Is it my fault that I don’t watch football? Where is it written that all men (I wanted to say everyone here, but I say all men for another reason that I may go into) are supposed to be inclined to not only watch football, but know everything about the sport (hell, I know how to play, but fuck learning players names and teams and coaches).

It always makes me wonder how much people know about things, and of those things, what is actually useful to know and what is just fluff / junk / useless knowledge. I could go on forever about World of Warcraft, or independent (or even Japanese) music, or movies…but I’ll never admit that I know everything on the subject. Will I help someone who has a question on a subject that I know about? Yes. Will I have a discussion with someone who wishes to on a topic that I’m interested in? Definitely. Will I pretend like I know everything about something? Depends…but I wonder how many people do that as well. I try NOT to be elitist about something, pretending to know everything inside and out on one thing or another, but sometimes it happens. Maybe it’s the old “men trying to be better than others” or “wanting the newest, most expensive thing on the block”, basically showing off what you have (or in this case, know).

I guess it annoys me sometimes when people come off as irrational, elitist jerks. If the same person helped people who deserved to be helped, then I can understand that same person taking an elitist look on things when they believe someone is entirely incorrect in their thinking. But to just think one way and never listen to all sides, to never help others with the knowledge you hold, to never guide people to certain things and show them different aspects of life…it just makes no sense to me. And, though it’s the elitist in myself talking, it almost makes less sense when people could care less about the world around them, only engorging themselves in what they currently know.

Where did that all come from? I don’t know. I guess I get upset when I’m asked a question like “Don’t you know this” or “You don’t know that?”. Am I inclined to know everything in the world? I believe that what I currently know coupled with what I can and will learn/experience in the rest of my life, is and will be pretty damn good. I don’t know everything (and sometimes I wonder what the limit to one’s knowledge is…how much can the brain retain?), and I never intend to…but I also never intend to just sit back and let the world go by without picking up a thing or two that may be useful at some point in my life.

And with that, I’ll discuss my weekend!

Friday: Went over mom’s for dinner and such. Dinner was coupled with talks of politics as usual. I probably could have escaped a Friday night political discussion, because we hadn’t talked about it for a few minutes into eating, but I think something was on TV that showed Sarah Palin, and I had to open my big mouth. Before I knew it, I was getting everything I said countered by Terry and his Republican beliefs. And once again, it went from polite discussion to a bit of yelling on his end. Here is where I say “thankfully, it didn’t go on too long, and we went on to playing Upwords”, but it went on longer…epsecially after mom turned on The View and we had to be subjected to those idiots. It only fueled Terry to continue on his berating of Barack and the Democratic party.

We finished the night with some Upwords, which mom won. Then I headed home, hoping for some drunken something. Kara didn’t happen (at least not normal kara at the same time). We ended up doing some 5s however. I believe it was my holy paly, Luke’s ret paly, Supermassive’s rogue, Shiyo’s enhancement shaman, and Carl’s warrior. We actually didn’t do half bad, and although we ended up around 1600 by the end of the night, we had fun and our rating was higher than before (up from like 1450, hah…but that was our 4 rogues 1 warrior team). We agreed to do it again sometime. I finished up the night playing something…probably Braid (cause I think I played Castle Crashers the next day).

Saturday: Relaxing day. Played Castle Crashers, Bully, and Order Up. Let’s go into them, shall we? Castle Crashers (which I’ve almost completed) is incredible. Besides it being an addicting game to play, it’s a flashback to the old Golden Axe / Streets of Rage days. There are obvious similarities (killing everything on stage before advancing, combo moves and magic, little things that steal stuff that you have to kill to get them back) and differences, but all in all, it’s a pretty damn fun game. The only thing I think I would like to be different is the weapon and pet system. They’re both pretty cool as they are, but it could be better. For one, when you want to check how poweful a weapon is, you have to go to the blacksmith, climb in this giant fish mouth, and walk over to each weapon you’ve ever used in the game. From there, it will tell you how strong it is, if it gives you extra defense, if it gives you extra agility, or if it has some other stuff added to it. And that’s the problem…there’s nothing that really explains all the extra stuff, like the icon that has a cloud and arms punching out of it. What the fuck does that mean? And usually, in a game, when it says +3 or any number, you usually think that means +3 more than what you’re currently using (like in RPGs, when you go to equip an item, it will tell you where it’s stronger / weaker by saying +/- a stat). But not in Castle Crashers. Every weapon just has a + or – next to a stat, sort of confusing if you ask me.

I mentioned the pet system as well. It’s not bad, but to have to run all the way back to the blacksmith, go in the wooden ship, and bring the pet to the chick (i’m guessing is supposed to be a vet of sorts) just to tell you that your stupid pet finds treasure…really? Then, unless you remember what your pets do (or you’ve collected different pets and hadn’t gone back to see what each did every time you got one), you have to walk the length of this hull (if it IS a ship) and walk into the animal you want to find information about, walk it back to her, and hope it’s good…or it’s back to choosing another pet. Ugh. I could do without pets if that’s the way it’s gonna be. Besides that, the game is one of the most enjoyable games I’ve played in a while. I’ve gotten to this part in the game, which I am inclined to believe it is near the end, where you are in this room and there are 5 doors, 4 of which are bubbled off by a force field of sorts. After completing one room, the next room opens up. It sort of reminds me of the mega man gauntlet. You basically burn through some trash and then a boss, then kill this crystal and that opens the next room. Anyway, that’s about where I got to on Monday, but I haven’t really discussed that yet .

Bully: Scholarship Edition isn’t the worst game, and it’s not the best either, by any means. I picked it up because all the games I wanted on Gamefly were “low availability”, so I figured I’d get that and a Wii game until the games were in stock. Rockstar, what can I say about ‘em. The melee combat is about what you’d expect from the game, maybe an extra combo or two. There are tons of weapons you can pick up (not guns or knives obviously, but stink bombs, eggs, and a slingshot to name a few) and you’re constantly being harrassed into beating someone up. Besides that, it’s a pretty decent game I guess. You have to be in class by a certain time, and you have to get back to your dorm by a certain time, otherwise you may be caught and sent there by one of the people roaming around, searching for you with a Metal Gear Solid-esque mini map showing you their Line of Sight. The classes were simplistic, easy to pass mini games, something you might expect to see in Brain Age, but a lot easier.

Order Up, hmm. It definitely gets a “hmm” if anything. The game starts off as you choose if you want the dude chef or the chick. After that, you go to this burger joint and they teach you how to make a burger and fries. Making the food actually is pretty fun, and it’s not too complicated. Once you get it down, you can basically do a few things at once without much effort. After the training, you get your own place and start doing your own thing. It goes well for a while, getting tips and sooner or later, getting a staff to help you out (cooking things that are mundane, or that they’re good at [like frying]). The only REAL problems I have with the game are: the constant health inspector that shows up and makes you wash dishes…kinda stupid IMHO. The fact that you buy spices because your customers won’t shut the FUCK up about them, but then the game doesn’t explain how to use them. It explains EVERYTHING else…EVERY fucking thing else, but when it comes to spices, the best tip you get is where to buy them. On top of that, you’re on your fucking own. I found a menu where they were, but never found out how to put them on.

Sunday: Headed over Gavino’s around 10:45 for some filming. We decided it’d be good to set aside a day to just film stuff. It sort of didn’t turn out that way. When I got there, Gavino was working on his computer. It wasn’t open and in pieces or anything, but his external hard drive was overheating and he needed to take everything off and format it. So the first hour or so was spent fidgetting over that. Then, after April got mad at Gavino because he suggested she use a certain type of torrent site (really? see one of my older posts when I talk about how stupid that shit can be), we started going over what we wanted in the first two episodes. So, the second hour or two was spent discussing what we would be filming, what scenes would go where, and ultimately, realized we would have to reshoot episode 1 in it’s entirety. It shouldn’t have been that much work, but of course, we ended up making it be more that it needed.

After I shot a few establishing shots of the scene, we started filming episode 1. We took out me blinking onto the couch in the beginning, since it sort of didn’t make sense with the theme of episode 2. Instead, I ended up tripping myself into the scene over Gavino’s legs. After another hour or two of adding new shots, scenes, and lines to the episode, we finally finished off the “hands” scene that would be the ending of the episode. It was a lot of work, and probably would have taken a lot less time if we were a bit more prepared and better at acting, but in the end, we had what we needed. Only things we didn’t have to completely finish off episode 1 was an opening (which i’ll discuss shortly) and the reshot dance scene. (because I’ve already got like 2k words, I’ll make this quick) On Monday I played with the old green screen dance that I had, and I’ll be using that to complete the episode preview until we refilm the scene itself. And the opening we want (which I’ll somehow record) will be some typing into DOS, errors, blue screens of death, into the footage we have of us breaking through the code (old green screen).

I know that’s a lot to digest, but somewhere in our heads it makes sense. Anyway, after that, we went to this hotdog place called Ross’. It reminded me a lot of the Windmill. Then we headed back to the apartment, watched some youtube stuff, talked for a bit, and I headed home.

That night, we finished of Hyjal, and then headed into Sunwell. Everyone was excited, new stuff! We actually did pretty decently on the trash to Kalecgos. It was a lot easier than I had thought/heard. Kalecgos however…was just as hard as I had heard and read about. We only had a few tries at him since it was late as it was, and the strat requires a lot of explaination. In the end, we got both the dragon and the demon to around 65%-ish. Hopefully we’ll get another shot at him soon.

Before Hyjal, I finished Braid, and all I can say is…WOW! I never would have guessed the ending. It was so incredible. I had to go online and read up a bit on different views of the ending itself, and it’s amazing what I found out. I may save discussion for this until a later date, hoping some people play the game beforehand. Then, maybe I’ll put some spoiler tags in case someone does read this one day. All I can say is…very, very cool stuff.

Anyway, that’s it. I went over some of Monday, so I can take that off the list. Only thing I don’t think I talked about was that I sent back the two Gamefly games, in hopes that I’ll get 2 better ones off my queue. Tonight, I don’t know what we’re raiding. I’d guess BT cause that’s usually on Tuesday’s, but who knows? Maybe back into Sunwell? Wednesday we’re going to try and film episode 2, which I was surprised that Gavino was the one to mention it. It seems like we’ll have a decent amount to film, maybe he just wants to get the scenes in the underground area first? That’s most likely it, and maybe some green screen stuff. That’s about all I can think of for now.

HUGE ENTRY!

Fixing This Broken Life

I’m not going to say I don’t have problems. I’m human, like everyone else (at least one would imagine), and we all have our mistakes or personal traits that could/need_to be fixed. I know who I am, for the most part, and I know what people don’t know about me, and I also know what people should know about me. Where is this going? I’m sure I had some reason for starting this week’s blog entry like this, but maybe it’s just the product of sitting at work and reading news stories, or just letting my thoughts wander as the minutes slowly tick by endlessly.

So what’s on the board for this week? We have Monday the 8th till today, Friday the 12th (almost there, you creepy people who enjoy Friday the 13th). Let’s jump right in, shall we?

Monday! I don’t remember specifically if it was this day or Tuesday that I did these few things, but I’m gonna say it was Monday. When I got home from work, I hopped on Xbox Live and finally purchased Braid and Castle Crashers. I had already played the demo of both and they were amazing, but I hadn’t felt like dropping money on them. The reason behind that? I also started up my Gamefly subscription again, wheee.

I restarted the Gamefly subscription because Gavino’s been raving over Mercenaries 2, and the fact that there’s a billion new games coming out within the next weeks/months. He was true about that at least (not that I didn’t put Mercs 2 in my queue, but it’s still “Low Availability”), there were more than enough interesting looking games to toss into my queue (i think they call it GameQ or something like that). Since like…everything I wanted was at little to no availability (Tales of Vesperia, Infinite Undiscovery, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Mercs 2), I tossed some older games up there I hadn’t played (Bully: Scholorship Edition and Order Up! [Wii]).

After buying Braid and Castle Crashers, I proceeded to play the hell out of Braid. What do I have to say about it? In-fucking-credible. I for one love puzzle games, and toss some nice, artsy-ness to it, and I’m one happy person. The music, the gameplay, the environment, it’s all amazing. I could only play through a few worlds, but when I finally beat the game, you’ll definitely hear more about it from me. I haven’t put too much time into Castle Crashers (past playing the demo). Gavino said he and April wanted to play with me, but besides being at the end of the game, they did other stuff instead of playing the night he suggested. I’ll probably hop on either tonight or Saturday to check it out more.

To finish off Monday, I’ll add this: Luke has finally started doing dailies on his own! I don’t know if it was because he finally realized, while doing the island quests with me, that it’s the easiest thing in the world (I thought we did them together before O_o), or the fact that he’s finally able to support his own gold needs. Whatever the reason, in the next few days, he’s been doing dailies on his own and amassing a nice amount of money. Though he still hasn’t paid me back for the gold he owes me, it’d be cool to see him on an epic flyer finally (and maybe get the gold back after that, hah).

Tuesday: BT reset push was so horrible, it made me want to throw up. It wasn’t the worst thing in the world, obviously, since we still were able to down Mother before the night was over somehow…but god, like 2 or 3 wipes on Supremus, people not paying attention throughout the night, so annoying. Aside from all that ridiculousness, I was able to get Goochy’s banner ideas out and about around the forums, with the choices narrowed to these 4:

The thread and banner were both really fun to be apart of. It’s nice to have that sort of graphic design ability looked upon as good work. My favorite quote from the whole thing was from Goochy himself: “It’s not very often you give someone a rough plan and it turns out as amazing as the picture you had in your mind.” That made me smile.

It may must have been either tonight or Monday that I watched Big Dreams Little Tokyo. I want to say Monday, just for the fact that I didn’t have too much going on. The movie was awesome. Very funny, nicely done. I’m surprised I had never heard of it until now (thanks Walt). Some of my favorite scenes included the hospital scene where “Sakebono-san” did his chest muscle bounce thing and hummed along with it, and a scene closer towards the end where they had a translation session between Spanish and Japanese. Good stuff, highly recommended…I even tossed it on one of my new USB hard drives (one given to Terry already) and brought over Gavino’s house, with Rec, on…

Wednesday! Interesting day, to say the least. Went over Gavino’s house after work, which was also interesting in a way. Before I talk about Gavino’s, I might as well say what happened at work. We were taking some trash to the dumpsters at Raou’s apartment complex, and as soon as we were done, this old guy pulls up and starts saying stuff like “This is the last time you’ll dump here, I got your tags!” Raou started defending us by saying he lived there, but the old man wouldn’t have it. Thankfully, to this day (knock on wood), we haven’t heard anything of it, but Raou did have an apartment there…however he WAS in the process of moving out, and we were in a company vehicle. Whatever, what was done was done and it’s over.

At Gavino’s house (after heading to mom’s for a bite to eat), we discussed the direction of our show while making fried chicken. Podcast underway (H2 on top of the refrigerator and kitchen counter), we put batter on the chicken and tossed them in the frier while talking about the show. We decided that we want the item that I made to be the basis of where we were going. The item would be seen by the “TV Gavino” and that’s when we’d introduce that character. TV-G would sooner or later give me a better item, the thing that would be the point of each episode. This thing would have different processes/abilities every episode.

The original pilot and first two episodes would be reshot or repositioned. My proposition was this: Currently we have a pilot (the short we did for my school project) and episodes 1 (where I first blink in and we do a flashback to the pilot with the “hands” scene at the end) and 2 (where I discover the “teKnology” lab, make something, and use it to blink around). I want to take the pilot out and redo the first episode. It will stay basically the same, except the flashback will have the full pilot in it’s place. Couple that with the actual “green screen dance” and some reshot stuff, and the episode might be long enough to be decent.

Then, with the second episode, we can reshoot the scene with me discovering the downstairs area and such. April was saying how the scene was funny, but there’s nothing down there to make me seem so interested. We’ll add some boxes, a green screen most likely…basically make the place look more interesting to go with the acting. We’ll also have this episode introduce the TV Gavino character and possibly keep the blinking around all over the place thing happen.

This will set us up for a few episodes, having the device doing different things each episode. Hopefully this will keep us flowing with ideas for a little while at least. ALSO, besides wanting the episodes to be longer with an ongoing story like this, we want to cut it up and put random things in between the story, like sketches or commercials or different ideas. For commercials, we have one idea where we’ll use the “As Seen on TV” stuff, and blend it all together, with people not being able to do the simplest of things, and ending it with a commercial for something that would be funny. And of course, we still want to include the “You Call That An Opinion?” idea in an episode or two somewhere.

Thursday! Back in BT, only took like 3 times to get Council down (people are slowly getting better at standing away from each other to avoid raid damage). The first wipe or so could have been avoided by not letting certain people die (aka mage tank). Anyway, then we went up to Illidan, and surprisingly it only took us about 4 or 5 tries to kill him for the second time. Yay for us! We finished off the night in Hyjal, only downing the first two bosses…but barely. People are so stupid sometimes, and get way too comfortable. So the first boss, though we didn’t wipe, gave us a couple dead people through stupid mistakes. Second boss we actually did wipe on due to more easily avoidable errors on the raid’s part. In the end, it put us further in progression, for now we have only 3 more bosses in Hyjal for Sunday, leaving us with Sunwell trash after Archimonde.

Well, that’s it for now! What’s to come this weekend? Tonight is some dinner/UpWords/political talks over mom’s house, followed by some (hopefully) Kara and whatever else we come up with. Saturday will hopefully be some relaxing times, my brain is all befuddled from this week, and I’ll need it for Sunday. Maybe on Saturday I’ll play some WoW, some Castle Crashers, make sure all my filming stuff is ready, etc. Sunday is our first “every other Sunday FILMING TIME”. I wonder how organized we’ll be / how much footage we’ll get. Should be interesting I’d say, so stay tuned!

Oh, my two random w00t shirts came in. One was a cool maroon colored shirt with dogs playing cards on it, which I think dad gave to Carol. The other was this weird one with a car on it saying “Excuse me”. I really didn’t care for either of them, so I figured I’d let them enjoy ‘em.

K, check back Monday for the weekend update! Later humans!

You wanna live like common people, you wanna see whatever common people see