Thursday, November 30, 2006--The snow finally melted today. That makes me sad.
On this day:
In 2004: Ken Jennings loses.
After work, I... didn't play Dawn of War. Instead, we went to the Gym, and I ran. Run, Dwayne, run! Run for your... health?
Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 1) Total: 6
Good Night!
Wednesday, November 29, 2006--This time, lots of people came to work, prolly because the campus was just "open with limited service" instead of closed outright. This time, the doods and I decided to go to cafeteria 34, because our building's cafeteria was closed. It was hella crowded, dood! Mainly because it was one of two cafeteria's open on campus.
On this day:
In 2005: Dwäyne
After work, I played Dawn of War with Michael and his friend Henry again, and this time, we were also joined by his friend Jin. This time, I played the Orks, and they are frickin' awesome. They are
the massing race, and they tech up my massing. And since I like massing, they were the ideal race for me. But I still gotta work on my early game.
Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 4) Total: 8
SQUIGGOTH!!!
Tuesday, November 28, 2006--It stopped snowing, but the snow and ice are still outside. It's below freezing, dood!
Anyways, apparently, I should have checked my e-mail before leaving from work today, because apparently, the Redmond campus was closed on account of the ice. (Then, later, there was an e-mail that said that the campus would be open with limited services--ie, the cafeteria was closed, but by then, it was already too late. Most of the people had already chosen to not drive to work.) So of course, since the cafeteria is closed, me and the doods drove off to get lunch elsewhere. We managed to find yet another Vietnamese Trestaurant called Photai, except this one also had teriyaki and Thai food. o_O
On this day:
In 2003: I dream about Kim locking me out and refusing to talk to me. Kim reassures me.
After work, I played Dawn of War with Michael and his friend Henry. I decided to try out the Chaos Marines, but I couldn't really get the hang of them. That and, they're too similar to the Space Marines, except I have more experience with the Space Marines.
Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 5) Total: 10
Good (but Cold) Night! (Heh... just like last year...)
Monday, November 27, 2006--So I finished
Javascript Craps v2.00. In this version, instead of relying completely on popups, I use a form for input, making it much more elegant. The popups are only needed to give alert messages and the like, and I'm thinking of eventually moving that to some kind of textbox log. But yeah. As of right now, it only has pass/don't pass. More features are gonna be added soon. Feel free to play it and give me feedback. (Yes, I am aware that my version of the game allows you to bet more money than you have.)
Dood, it snowed today! The downside is that it took me 1 hour 15 minutes to drive a 5 minute drive to get home, but dood, it snowed today! I took a boatload of pictures (well, 9 to be exact), and uploaded them to
Facebook.
Also, it's cold, but now, I don't feel so bad about turning on my heater despite my Asian heritage of saving money by wearing sweaters. 'Cause you know, it's snowing!
Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 6) Total: 7
Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!
Sunday, November 26, 2006--Even more FF12 today. *12*
Today, I got Chaos. It was a bit of work. First, I had to do some quests to unlock the two optional bosses Humbaba Mistant and Fury. Heh, Fury is amusing. So you unseal his door, and you see this bigass monster staring at you. Then a little bunny shows up and kills the monster. It turns out the little bunny is the optional boss. But yeah, after killing Humbaba and Fury, I unlocked the path to Chaos.
The Chaos fight was a really annoying fight because your physical attacks are locked during the fight, so you have to rely on magic, but all the high-level magicks take a while to actually go off, so...
Well, I managed to beat him on my first try anyway. I now have 11 espers. (Two more to go.) My best characters were at level 62, and I'm 101 hours in.*12*
On this day:
In 2003: Tracy gives me her SN on one of my CS61a notes.
In 2002: "If you had to be assassinated, who would you want to be assassinated by and why?"
Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 1) Total: 5
*yawn* Good Night!
Saturday, November 25, 2006--
Happy Birthday Orgasmine!
On this day:
In 2005: I do the stupidest, craziet, most impulsive thing I've ever done... I sneak off in the middle of the night so I can go Black Friday shopping with Princess.
In 2003: "You should go home tomorrow so I can see you today."
In 2002:
- "You suck hot dogs!" "I don't suck hot dogs. I bite them."
- "Oh, I really enjoyed it. I had the time of my life! It re-affirms my sight-reading skills." Ihui is very sarcastic.
More FF12 today. *12*
Today, I went into the sewers and got Queklain. Damn, that fat bastard was hard, mainly because the field had an HP Sap, so my characters were constantly bleeding HP. I ended up going through almost 40 X-Potions that battle. Then, I got Adrammelech. Actually, I didn't really mean to get him. I was exploring the Zertinan Caverns. I knew he was in there, but I didn't know where. And he just ambushed me. But he was easy, though. Prolly because I was at level 55ish to 60ish.*12*
Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 2) Total: 3
Cute Night!
Friday, November 24, 2006--Why is it called
Black Friday?
On this day:
In 2005: I solve my first Sudoku puzzle ever.
Today, I went to see Borat with Michael. It was amusing. Although there were a few scenes in there that I simply did not need to see.
Afterwards, we went to eat pho at a restaurant called What the Pho. Heh, what the pho indeed.
Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 4) Total: 8
Good Nighty!
Thursday, November 23, 2006--
Happy Thanksgiving!!
I was originally gonna work on my WoW character some more, but the free server was down, so instead, I played FF12. Since I'm done with the game, I basically spent the day collecting optional espers. *12*
Thus far, I have 5 espers: Velius, Mateus, Shemhazai, Hashmalum, and Famfrit. Today, I got Zeromus. (Kickass! The final boss of FF4 is now under my command!) I also got Exodus and Zalera. (Zalera looks awesome, dood!)*12*
Afterwards, since I didn't have at turkey, I took random meat, vegetables, and some mushrooms and made soup. Mmm... soup...
Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 2) Total: 3
Good Soup!
Wednesday, November 22, 2006--I got a Zune at the company store today. Don't ask why I got a Zune and not a Creative Zen. I honestly don't know. (On a completely unrelated note, don't ask why I didn't get an iPod, unless you'd like to hear a tirade that includes the words "overrated", "bandwagon", and "overpriced hardware".)
But yeah. The Zune is pretty cool device. It's arguable that the hardware is better than iPod's, because, even though it's bigger, it's lighter. (Point of comparison is the iPod Video, because that's the only one that comes close to the Zune's feature set.) The only downside, though, is that the iPod Video has an 80gb hard disk while the Zune has a 30gb hard disk. But you know, the iPod Video is like a 3rd generation device, while the Zune is a 1st generation device.
The software, though... The Zune software (the one on the PC, you know, the Zune equivalent of iTunes) just sucks. Shortly after importing my entire collection of music onto my Zune (which is about 1.4gb, apparently), the Zune software loses my entire library. Not only that, but it's no longer able to connect to my Zune. After about an hour of trying to figure it out, I decide to do the classic Microsoft fix: uninstall/reinstall. And now it works. Except apparently, my Zune already has a home (apparently, the failed installation of the Zune software), so now, my Zune can only connect to my PC as a "Guest". And I can't connect it normally if I don't want to obliterate my Zune's library of music, because the Zune software was so buggy that building my library from my collection of MP3s was a bitch.
Yeah, I love the irony of it. Microsoft, a software company, has the better hardware whereas Apple, a hardware company, as the better software. (Note, this may or may not be true, given that I've never used iTunes before.)
Of course, the question is, why the fuck do we even need special software to connect to our MP3 players? My old Creative Muvo (a flash MP3 player) could just plug into any old USB port and I could just transfer music using Windows Explorer. Sure, the Muvo's interface was simple, but hey,
at least it was simple. None of this complicated "I have to use a special program just to transfer files across a USB connection" crap. (The downside, though, is that the Muvo only had 512
megabytes of storage space, which is only enough to fit 1/3rd of my MP3 collection, apparently. That and, the Muvo can't store my stupidly small collection of photos.)
Of course,
this design flaw is just unforgivable:
There is no dedicated volume switch on the Zune. (Of course, I hear that iPod has the same flaw.)
So yeah. In conclusion, the Zune's execution could be improved (ie, fix the goddamn software bugs). However, as far as concept goes, the Zune and the iPod both have the same critical problems: the need for special software to use and no dedicated volume switch. And since Microsoft basically copied Apple ('cause you know, Apple is so damn popular), these bad design flaws are basically Apple's fault.
As to DRM, I don't have any DRM protected music, and I don't ever plan on getting any.
As to the 3-day/3-play rule, I'll cross that bridge when I get there, but first, I need to figure out what the iPod's implementation of iPod-to-iPod sharing is (if any).
On this day:
In 2003: Big Game 2003
In 2002: Nadia plays Justin's perverted calculator game "to see who we put in it".
After playing around with the Zune, I played some more WoW on the crappy free server.
Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 1) Total: 6
Zune Night!
Tuesday, November 21, 2006--Apparently, these guys at the
forums I frequent are planning on playing
WoW on a free server. So I figured, what the hell, I'll join them. So I ended up buying WoW on impulse tonight. Well, at least on the bright side, it's only $20.
Addendum 11/25/2006: Apparently, the free server is so buggy that we decided not to play on the free server anyway. Well, now, I can either play on the real WoW or not play WoW at all and let these measly twenty dollars go to waste.
Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 6) Total: 9
I bid thee Good Night!
Monday, November 20, 2006--Hi ho, hi ho, it's back to work I go!
Mindy: Hey, who are you calling "ho"!?
me: Uhh... no one?
After work today, I went to the Gym. This time, I succeeded in my goal of running 0.5 miles, then powerwalking 1.5 miles. Not only that, but in the last quarter mile of the powerwalk, I decided to do a nice, slow run instead. Yay, I'm getting slightly stronger?
Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 2) Total: 8
(Yay! All caught up on bloop entries again!)
Good Night!
Sunday, November 19, 2006--Since I beat FF12 yesterday, I didn't really feel like playing it more today, so instead, I spent today catching up on my old
bloop entries. As of today, I'm caught up to November 15. Only 4 more entries to go!
On this day:
In 2002: The name "RustWyrm" is born.
Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 6) Total: 12
Good Nite!
Saturday, November 18, 2006--Today was the
Cal-U$C Football Game. Here's a quick summary.
- USC gets a field goal. Score: 0-3
- Longshore throws a long pass, which gets intercepted on the USC 3 yard line.
- We tackle USC's runner for a safety and we get the ball back. Score: 2-3
- USC gets another field goal. Score: 2-6
- We get a touchdown. Score: 9-6
- Half time
- Somehow, U$C manages to get a field goal and two touchdowns in quick succession and we lose 9-23.
Yeah. Stupid Trojans. And one thing I don't get is, why do the players always play sloppy during really really important games? Is it the pressure?
On this day:
In 2004: Kim H IMs me for the first time ever ...to ask for help on Physics homework. D'oh!
Also, I beat FF12 today. The time on my final save point was 85:32:09. (NOTE: This includes all Hunts from Rank 1 to Rank 4, and a couple of Rank 5 Hunts.) My Baltheir, Fran, and Penelo (active party) were at Level 55 each, and my Vaan, Basch, and Ashe (reserve party) were at level 49 each. Here's my spoiler-free review that I submitted to
Avalanche Online:
Synopsis
I did the math. FF6 was released in 1994. FF7 was released in 1997. That's a wait of 3 years. The last FF release before FF12 in the Final Fantasy core series was FFX-2, which was released in 2003. So the wait for FF12 was 3 years as well. That's a tie for the longest wait for an FF game we've ever had. If we ignore sequels/spinoffs and MMORPGs, though, then the last REAL FF release was FFX in 2001. Which means we had a 5 year wait for FF12.
So it's official. FF12 was the longest wait we've ever had for an FF game. And as things are, the longer people wait for game, the more hype that game gets.
Was FF12 worth the wait? Did it live up to the hype? I'll let you know after I've done a breakdown of the various aspects of the game. (Screw that. I'll tell you now. Not only did FF12 live up to all that hype, but this old gamer dares to say that FF12 was the best FF game he's played in almost a decade.)
Story/Concept
Ivalice.
There's just no better way to explain the heart of FF12 than a single word, a single name. FF12 is a throwback to FFTactics and FFTA. (For those of you who are unaware, Ivalice was the name of the worlds of FFTactics and FFTA.)
But, FF12 doesn't just share the same world name with the two Tactics games, but it even shares its mythology. The beasts of yore. The Viera. The weapons and armor. There's so much I could tell you about the links between FF12 and the Tactics games, but alas, this is a spoiler free review. I'm sure you'd appreciate it so much more if you played through FF12 and discovered all these links for yourself. The throwing back doesn't end there, though. Not counting the obvious ones like "Chocobo" and "Cid", this old gamer has found references to FF3, FF4, FF5, FF6, and even FF9. Basically every FF game that doesn't already have a hundred million screaming fanboys.
The heart of FF12 is in Nostalgia. The ever elusive feeling that Square tried once to capture with FF9, though considered a failure by FF enthusiasts everywhere. Fortunately, FF12 takes a different approach. A subtler approach. An approach that doesn't try to throw nostalgia in your face. An approach that mixes the new and innovative with allusions to the past, so that everything is new and exciting, yet, the old-school gamer in you appreciates all the subtle references. And those gamers who have never played the old FF games (those poor gamers--they really should go back and play the classics) won't get bogged down by those archaic, yet marvelous things.
Nostalgia aside, FF12's story stands pretty well on its own. It's filled with political intrigue, reminiscent of FFTactics, where you were never entirely sure what was going on and who your allies were. That said, the execution wasn't as good as one would hope, and while all the loose ends are tied up, the story leaves us thinking, "THAT was it? I thought there'd be more to it." (For those who care, the storyline is more intellectual, like FFTactics, and less personal-emotional, like FFX.)
The true strength of FF12's story, however, is in it's characters. Balthier is, simply put, one of the best done characters I've seen in a Final Fantasy game. Sure, he might not carry a ginormous sword like Auron or Cloud, but I daresay he has more personality than both combined. Fran is a solid character, too, as are Ashe, Basch, and many, many of the non-playable characters you'll meet. Oddly enough, the only characters that I DIDN'T like were the "main" characters, Vaan and Penelo, but that's a minor blemish in an otherwise fantasic cast.
Graphics
Many people have complained that the graphics in FF12 (in particular, the special effects of magic spells) have taken a big step backwards. I would tend to disagree. First of all, while the graphics might not be as flashy, given the game's battle system, they work quite well. Second of all, whoever made these complaints most certainly made them when all they had were the most basic spells. As the spells become more powerful, the special effects attached to them become more and more, well, special. The flashiest special effects, though, are strictly reserved for boss special moves, which--if you ignore the fact that they deal so much damage to my characters--I absolutely love.
Soundtrack
When I first inserted my FF12 disk into my PS2, the first song I heard was the Prelude (aka, the Crystal Theme). The third song I head was the Prologue (aka, the Final Fantasy Theme), directly pulled from FF4. It simply amazes me that even the soundtrack holds so much nostalgia in it, even if its just from these two songs. (Two songs that, mind you, you'll hear every time you load FF12.) If these two songs were the only good songs in the album, they alone would have gotten a score of "decent" from me on nostalgia alone.
But the FF12 soundtrack is much better than that. All throughout the game, the music is simply great, be it town music, outdoors music, dungeon music, or boss battle music. I don't know who the new composers are, but it goes to show that you don't NEED Uematsu to make a good soundtrack.
Gameplay
The first thing that people notice about FF12 is the new battle system, called Active Dimension Battle (ADB). "OMG," they say, "it's real-time now!" First of all, it's not really real-time. Like the Active Time Battle (ATB) of the old games, you still need to wait for a bar to fill up before you can act. However, the fact that battles occur on the field map and that you can more or less move freely on the field map during battle produces a great illusion of real-time-ness. It amazes me how Square could take the old tried and true ATB, tweak it slightly, and make something so new and innovative and exciting. I'd say that makes ADB a success.
The next two things that people notice are Gambits and the License Board. For those who don't know, Gambits are essentially a list of rules you can create so that party members can act on their own during battle. Think of it as a primitive form of AI. The main advantages are that you don't have to bog yourself down with giving your characters commands in the heat of battle--just set their gambits correctly and it's basically auto-battle. You can even set Gambits for ALL your characters, and they'll do all the fighting for you--all you'd have to do is explore and open treasure boxes. Sure, auto-battle was already a feature in previous games, but in most of those games, auto-battle basically told everyone to attack like a berserker. Slightly more advanced was Kingdom Hearts, but even then, the AI was nowhere as customizable as the Gambits in FF12. My only complaint is that the Gambits seem awfully limited, but I'm a professional software developer, so that's not really a fair complaint. If you ignore that, Gambits are a great new addition to Final Fantasy.
The License Board could be compared with the Sphere Grid of FFX, in that the License Board is your means of gaining strength. (Well, other than levelling up--you can still level up in FF12, like in any other normal FF game.) The first main differences between the Sphere Grid and the License Board is that the Sphere Grid is pretty linear (all your characters basically follow pre-set paths), whereas the License Board is more complex (there are no "paths", although the placement of things on the License Board follow some logic). The other difference is that whereas the Sphere Grid of FFX only boosted your stats and learned new magic and skills, the License Board also allows your characters to be able to equip new weapons, armors, and accessories. The only thing that's off about the License Board is the flavor ("I have this uber-powerful spell, but I don't have a License to use it, so I guess I'll let these monsters kill me."), but it's not really a big deal. The License Board gives you the ability to really customize your characters, as well make character building an interesting, thought-provoking task. That makes me say that the License Board is a good thing.
Finally, as the game progresses, players will discover two more things: summonable creatures and Quickenings. The way that summons work in FF12 is that when a character summons a creature, only the character and his or her summon will be in battle. (The other characters are removed from combat.) Fighting alongside summons is fun, but unfortunately, the summons you get earlier in the game tend to become obselete very quickly--their stats and strength doesn't appear to grow as characters level up. A good concept, but poorly executed.
Quickenings have often been compared to Limit Breaks, but other than the fact that they're really flashy, character-unique moves, there's really not much of a comparison to make. Many have praised Quickenings for their sheer power, but sometimes, a few well-placed elemental -ga spell can be more effective. And Quickenings come with two major downsides: The first is that using Quickenings tends to use up ALL of the MP in your active party. (Technically, you can avoid using up all of your MP, but that's much harder to pull off and usually ends up in a weaker Quickening Chain.) That MP is generally better spent on curative spells, buffs, or (as mentioned earlier) a few well-placed elemental -ga spells. The second downside is that beginners usually will have no idea what the heck is going on with the Quickenings until they have max Quickenings on all their characters. Like summons, the Quickenings were a good concept with poor execution.
Finally, I'd like to mention that FF12 is a long game. I spent over 80 hours before I finally beat the game, and I haven't even done all the sidequests yet. And despite this, the game never feels long and drawn out or tedious. It's just long. And given recent stupidly short games like Xenosagas 1 and 2, that's a GOOD thing.
So what are the main takeaways from FF12's gameplay? ADB = good. Gambits = good. License Board = good. Summons and Quickenings are bad, but they rarely ever get in the way of the good parts of the game. And sure, even Quickenings can be useful sometimes, even if they take away all your MP. Overall, FF12 has very solid gameplay. Once again, Square dares to be innovative in a genre considered stagnant by many, and it paid off.
Conclusion
Nostalgia and a great cast of characters push a good storyline over the top, the soundtrack is simply amazing, and the gameplay is refreshing, yet familiar, but most importantly fun. I daresay that FF12 is the best FF game I've played in almost a decade.
Sure, FF12 has its fair share of flaws. It's not perfect--no game is--but it comes awfully close.
Pros
- allusions to previous FF games provide great nostalgia
- great characters
- amazing soundtrack
- solid gameplay with fun new innovations
Cons
- some features, such as summons and Quickenings, could use a bit of improvement
Overall Rating: 9.5 out of 10
Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 3) Total: 4
Good Game... I said that before, didn't I?
Friday, November 17, 2006--After work today, some of the officemates and I decided to go see Casino Royale, the new James Bond movie (starring a new James Bond actor).
I didn't like it.
I dunno if it was just a bad movie, or if it simply failed to live up to expectations, but I didn't like it. The first third of the movie was like, oh, let's go kill a badguy, then take his cell phone and track down the next badguy we have to kill, and repeat until the audience is bored. The second third of the movie was basically, let's play some Texas Hold'em Poker, except that's kinda boring, so we're gonna throw in a bunch of random, but pointless events. The last third of the movie was, like, WTF?!?
In conclusion, I recommend against Casino Royale unless you're a die-hard James Bond fan.
After the movie, we went to go eat at Denny's, as I had not had dinner yet that day.
Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 4) Total: 10
Good Night, dearest!
Thursday, November 16, 2006--After work today, we once again went to the Gym to work out. As I said before, my goal was to run half a mile, then powerwalk 1.5 miles. Unfortunately, after running half a mile (which I barely completed), I found myself in a coughing fit and was unable to continue. It's prolly because I worked myself so hard today that my heart and my lungs are in shock? I dunno.
It's funny, though. Although the workout was tiring, I finished so fast that I never actually had a chance to break a sweat. Heh.
Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 3) Total: 5
The Night be Good!
Wednesday, November 15, 2006--Today, I decided to apply my newly learned JavaScript skills by making a crappy Craps game. The current version (using dialog boxes and supporting only pass/don't pass with odds) is
here.
On this day:
In 2004: I officially get offered to do an Intership at Microsoft for Summer '05.
So I got off work today at 6pm, but the traffic
inside Microsoft was so bad that I didn't get home until 6:45. I could have
walked back home in that time, and then walked back to work, and then walked back home again. Except I'd end up leaving my car at work and walking through the cold and the rain. That was lame. No, lamer than that.
Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 3) Total: 9
Bad Night Elf!
Tuesday, November 14, 2006--Today, I learned JavaScript for reals. 'Cause you know, I don't actually know JavaScript, and I need JavaScript for work.
After work, I went to play M:tG after a 2 week hiatus (I was playing FF12), and we did an 8-person triple Time Spiral draft. Again, I decided to force my favorite color combination: red-black. Here's the deck:
7xMountain
10xSwamp
Lightning Axe
Goblin Skycutter
Ironclaw Buzzard
Burning Blade Askari
Orcish Cannonade
Bonesplitter Sliver
Flamecore Elemental
Fortune Thief
Feebleness
Premature Burial
Bad Moon
3xSangrophage
Urborg Syphon-Mage
Psychotic Episode
Mana Skimmer
Tendrils of Corruption
Cyclopean Giant
Plague Sliver
Viscid Lemures
Gorgon Recluse
Corpulent Corpse
Other interesting cards in my pool were a pair of Hivestones, Ghostflame Sliver, a
foil Ancestral Vision, Lord of Atlantis, a pair of Telekinetic Slivers, a Shadow Sliver, Swarmyard, Smallpox, Flagstones of Trokair, and Two-Headed Sliver.
My first round was against... I forget his name, but he essentially played a deck built around generating a bunch of tokens, then overrunning me with Fortify. He succeeded. Two games in a row.
My second round was against... I forget his name, too, but he beat me pretty solidly.
My third round was against Jeff, who had drafted slivers. An early Plague Sliver basically meant he had no chance. For the second game, I decided to try out the two Hivestones instead of the one Plague Sliver. Unfortunately, I was unable to draw the Hivestones in time, so Jeff was able to overrun me with a bunch of slivers. In the third game, I got an early Hivestone, but he smashed it with an Ancient Grudge. Since he was playing 4-color (basically, every color save blue), he had the mana to flash it back to destroy my second one. And then he built a huge sliver army.
me: I think I know why the
Watcher Sliver is called the Watcher Sliver. It just stalls the game, sits there, and watches you.
However, I was able to get a Fortune Thief and Psychotic Episoded away Jeff's Pentrarch Paladin, putting his only source of creature removal on the bottom of his library. However, we were still in a creature stalemate: he was unable to kill me as long as I had the Fortune Thief, and I was unable to break through his army of slivers. Then, he got out a Greenseeker and started shuffling his deck (and thinning out his deck of Forests, thereby greatly improving the probability he'd re-draw the Pentrarch Paladin), while I got out an Urborg Syphon-Mage and started draining his life, 2 life at a time. Fortunately, I won.
Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 5) Total: 7
Good Night!
Monday, November 13, 2006--Back to work today...
On this day:
In 2002: Vivian Chu makes her first appearance in my Journal.
I was originally planning on working out at the Gym today, but Michael is OOF and Rohan was gonna go swimming (again), and I didn't feel like working out by myself, so I ended up not working out at the Gym.
Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 3) Total: 9
Good Night!
Sunday, November 12, 2006--
Happy Birthday C. Jean Wu!
On this day:
In 2002:
- Jasmine Tzeng's first appearance in my Journal.
- Alan buys some pie from Jasmine.
So I spent more of today playing FF12, trying to finish it before I go back to work tomorrow. Unfortunately, I did not succeed in that goal. I've clocked in a total of 80 hours on that game (a significant part of it is doing "Hunts", although I did need the gil), and I'm still not done, and there's no end in sight. I wonder how much longer it'll take me.
Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 2) Total: 3
"Good Night!" says I?
Saturday, November 11, 2006--
Veteran's Day, dood!
On this day:
In 2004: Microsoft Interviews Round 2
However, the law that says people take a day of on Veteran's day apparently only applies to gov't. That and, today is Saturday, so we didn't get a day off anyway. But I did spend the day playing FF12.
Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 6) Total: 10
Good Night!
Friday, November 10, 2006--This is my third and final day off this week. I stayed home and played FF12. Then, I watched the new Battlestar. Yay!
On this day:
In 2005: I beat FF3.
Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 2) Total: 3
Evil Night!
Thursday, November 9, 2006--So Michael has blisters on his feet from all that hard running and Rohan's going swimming, so there's no one to go to the Gym with me. So instead, since Hippocleides doesn't care, I just went home early after lunch and played more FF12. Whee!
On this day:
In 2002:
- Joyce Lai's first appearance in my Journal.
- Connie Chu's first appearance in my Journal.
- Bernard Liang's first appearance in my Journal.
- Kellie Liang's first appearance in my Journal.
- Wendi's first appearance in my Journal.
- Wendi and I IM each other on the same comp!!!
Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 5) Total: 10
Good Night!
Wednesday, November 8, 2006--So last night, I dreamt that Robin (little sister of Little Vivian) said "I love you" to me. Which is funny, because Robin
never talks to me. (Something about being shy... it's a thing we've had for the last 5+ years.) So it's funny because Robin
never talks to me, let alone say "I love you" to me. How weird.
Also, I played FF12.
Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 2) Total: 4
Good Robin!
Tuesday, November 7, 2006--So last Friday, I got an e-mail from my boss's boss's boss's boss congratulating everyone for their hard work, so he was giving everybody 3 free days off. So I'm taking today off. And tomorrow. And Friday.
So yeah... FF12, dood!
Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 1) Total: 7
Good Night!
Monday, November 6, 2006--Not FF12, because I went to work today.
Then, later, we went to the Gym afterwards as we tend to do on Monday nights, and we tried the treadmills. I ended up basically power-walking for 40 minutes, whereas Michael ran pretty hard for 40 minutes. Damn, I'm weak. My goal for the next time I go to the Gym is to run hard for half a mile. (Then power-walk another 1.5 miles to get a long workout.)
Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 3) Total: 4
Good Night!
Sunday, November 5, 2006--FF12, then later, the new Simpsons Treehouse of Horror.
On this day:
In 2004: I segfault Verilog. (There are more undocumented incidences like this, I'm sure.)
Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 4) Total: 5
Good Night!
Saturday, November 4, 2006--FF12, I think.
On this day:
In 2004:
- I meet Carise.
- Severin breaks a blade over my head.
- I catch a metal splinter in my thumb. (Ouch!) Sweet little Sarah digs it out for me. (I dig Sarah.)
Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 3) Total: 8
I was Good Night?
Friday, November 3, 2006--Kupo... much celebration today...
Then, I came home, played a bit of FF12, watched the new Battlestar, etc etc.
Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 5) Total: 7
Oodgay Ightnay!
Thursday, November 2, 2006--Today, I used up one of my sick days to stay home from work because I kinda felt sick. That and, I wanted to play FF12. But I was sick, you know?
On this day:
In 2004: The end of a dream.
By the time the afternoon came around, I started feeling a bit better.
Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 4) Total: 10
Good Niiiiiiiight!
Wednesday, November 1, 2006--I didn't feel so good today (or maybe it was just my subconscious desire to stay home and play FF12), so after lunch, I went home early and did just that... play FF12, I mean.
Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 6) Total: 8
Good Night!