Society Crumbling Around Me

Sept 30th (Tues) – Oct 5th (Sun)

Sept 30th (Tues) – Work as usual, though this week was pretty ridiculous. Jackson Woods stuff finally came in, so we were overrun with tons of prints and whatnot to do all week. After work, I got home and hopped on WoW. We did the BT run up to Mother to set us up for later during the week (in case we didn’t do too well in Sunwell). Went fine for the most part (from what I can remember), so not much new there.

Oct 1st (Wed) – Wednesday, the usual “head over to Gavino’s for podcast and hanging out” day. We missed the previous 2 due to him cancelling, and with work being a bit crazy and just not being in the mood to drive all the way down for nothing, I said that I wouldn’t be able to make it. It gave me time to relax, watch some stuff (this week I’ve been watching 30 Rock and Little Britain [wanted to re-watch it since they had the new show coming to the US]), and play some video games. I hopped on WoW and we proceeded to kill Gruul as is the norm on Wednesday off nights. I ended up winning the roll for the pants on my paly (was going to use as ret gear), though the master looter (stupid, stupid Fatweight) gave them to a priest (wrong class even), because the stupid priest rolled on the wrong loot. And although I talked to a strange GM about it and the priest said he/she put in a ticket, I never received the pants. Ahh well, whatcha gonna do.

Oct 2nd (Thurs) – Time to head into Sunwell again. We cleared trash pretty quickly again, even with the big event going on: The 2008 Vice Presidential Debate. Now, I’m not going to go into it here, I’ll just post a link to the debate and leave it at that. There was enough debating going on Friday between me and Terry to make me not wish to worry about it at the moment.

Anyway, so we wiped numerous times on Kalecgos, getting him to around 50-ish% again a few times, but not much more than that. So, we finished off the night, after trash respawned, by heading back into BT to finish what we had left in there. We killed Council after a few problems and then proceeded to have a wipefest on Illidan. So, we pushed that to Sunday and called it a night.

Oct 3rd (Fri) – Headed over Mom’s after work as is the norm. Brought her a DVD with Mamma Mia! on it and some episodes of Little Britain for Terry to enjoy (hadn’t seen it yet, though he’s heard of it). We ate some dinner, debated (or as I like to call it “had Terry yell at me, saying I’m stupid for what I felt or believed to be true, and ended up just saying ‘yes’ / nodding until it was over”), and so on. We ended up playing Spinners instead of the normal UpWords. Spinners, a variation of Dominos, was actually pretty fun. It didn’t take much longer than a normal game of UpWords, and we had a lot of laughs.

When I got home, I finally bought and got to play Mega Man 9. What an amazing game it is. All the nostalgia of the original 2 Mega Man games, mixed with some sweet new stuff (new enemies that are really cool, new puzzles to get past, etc). Within the first 30 to 45 minutes, I had played every board, getting to some end bosses, sometimes not. I put it aside for a bit to play some Silent Hill: Homecoming that had arrived for me, but ooooooooh my god, scary shit right there. I got through about 10 minutes of the game and said “that’s it, back to something that won’t scare the hell out of me”. *laughs* Sadly, I really never played any of the Silent Hill games by myself for very long, which is probably the reason it took me so long to beat them. Although, I think this one is aiming to be a pretty damn good, creepy version of the series. It’s probably because it’s a lot darker than the original few tended to be…that may be because I turned the screen a bit darker for the occasion? Who knows, all I know is that I have to beat it sooner or later (well, at least play it, lol).

Oct 4th (Sat) – Noone was on WoW Friday night, so I wasn’t really too in the mood to hop on very much Saturday and Sunday. Saturday I woke up a bit late due to the fact that I didn’t go to bed until pretty late the night before (watched some stuff, I can’t remember if I watched Primer that night or some other time). Played GTA4 for a few hours. Finally decided that I bought the game months ago, only played the multiplayer with some WoW friends, but barely played the story. By the time I was done playing Sunday (stopped playing before raid), I had finished a decent amount of the game (as far as I can tell). I was pleased by how the story moved along, and the gameplay was pretty fun (as to be expected), although I was a bit miffed by the mini games they put in, such as pool, bowling, darts, and some weird arcade game. They’re neat to have, but really…kind of pointless. And anyone else who says that they’re cool is just too lazy to call up a friend and see if they want to do them in real life (and I don’t want to hear the excuse that you don’t have money, especially when you buy video games).

I also played more Mega Man 9. By the end of Sunday, I had cleared up to the first Willy stage (all the 8 bosses). I wanted to try and kill as many of the bosses as I could without using any special weapons, and I was doing good for a while, then when I had 3 bosses left, I couldn’t take it anymore. I think I started using special weapons first on Plug Man (that bastard). I’ll end up going back and playing the game again, trying to beat it as I wanted to in the beginning, and then trying to see how fast I can do it the 3rd time around (the time attack videos I’ve seen are pretty awesome, gotta try it myself someday).

Oct 5th (Sun) – Again, not much going on this day. I was stupid this weekend and didn’t watch any tutorial videos like I usually enjoy doing. Instead, I played more video games and just hung out around the house. Gavino ended up calling, saying how he thought I hated him, that he didn’t hear from me in a while, how he wanted to get back into making viral videos (as a joke to put out that he wanted to go back to filming), yada yada yada etc. I told him that I liked watching anime again with him and that we should do it again sometime (to try and put out that I didn’t want to just sit around and talk about making videos).

Let’s go into this for a second. He’s a great friend as I’ve discussed before, and although I know already that I have my faults, he’s got his own that can sort of bother me sometimes. Sadly, though I told him that it was a joke when I said that he wasn’t invested enough in our project, and it was at the time, it kills me to think sometimes that he really isn’t. There have been numerous times he’s stated that he was going to do things to help out, but they just disappeared as soon as the word were said. Gave him some audio to extract from the H2 and send to me for the first time we were out filming for Julius, never happened (at first I asked him to cut it up and send it, but then shortened it to just taking it off and sending it, neither happened). Gave him some storyboards to work with and write up some ideas, and I even rewrote most of the first and second episodes in front of him with the storyboards. He said he was going to use them and come up with stuff, never happened. He said he was going to work on the device that would be used in the second episode, never happened. So, you know how sometimes you hear someone say that they’re going to do something or that they want to do something, and it just goes in one ear and out the other since you know that it’s not going to happen? Well, that’s sort of where I got to with filming when it came to him.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate the guy for it. I just don’t know what to do anymore. This was the main reason I cancelled out on Wednesday, and although I didn’t “ignore” his texts like he said that he thought I was doing (I actually replied to 90% of them; which is funny, because when I send him a bunch of texts and receive no reply and mention it, I get the “I was busy” or “I don’t usually read texts, I like talking on the phone more” response), it moved into the weekend and why I didn’t ask to hang out. It’s sad sometimes, I don’t know what to expect. If I put a lot of time into the project and expect to get things done, like hanging out Wednesday (to discuss what we will be filming and hang out) and one day on the weekend to get things done (film for a few hours, prepare episodes, etc), it works out for a week or so, and then the excuses start piling on. Maybe it was just because I was glad that we started filming on a schedule and he complained that he wanted to “hang out instead of work for a change”. That was pretty upsetting, because for the most part, all we ever did was just hang out. We only did a small amount of filming (I’ve got the tape to prove it). For the most part, we would just sit around and ponder what it is we should be filming, instead of actually doing anything.

Anyway, I’m really debating on what to do this Wednesday. I’ve got the choice of heading over there like we used to do 4 weeks ago and seeing how it goes (with the possibility of either just sitting there and discussing what we could do and then watching movies or some stupid tv show), or I cancel and continue to think about what I really want to do with the whole project. It’s come to the point that I want to work on a documentary of some sorts, something that will take some time to work on, but something that I can plan out and put together over a few months…that will be something amazing once it’s finally put together. I wish I had the support or people to work with on this, instead of one day a week, if that, to film for 15 – 30 minutes. I know everyone wants to say that they’re tethered down to their job and their relationship and whatnot, and maybe because I’m currently not in a relationship I don’t see it, but if that’s the case, then just don’t feed me false hope that things can and will get done.

Ugh, life is such a fucking complicated thing sometimes.

Oh, and we 1 shotted Illidan on Sunday, then wiped a billion times to finally down Archimonde that we bought from some guild (helm finally dropped and had less points than Zomm, jioqthatatalhklh).

Now it’s 15 minutes after I should have been out of work, but I’m finishing this up. So this week I’ve got whatever we raid on Tuesday, whatever I decide to do on Wednesday, whatever raid we do on Thursday, dinner and cards with mom/terry/aunt joan on Friday, and then whatever my crazy mind can come up with this weekend.

Peace.

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!