Thursday, June 30, 2005--
Pay Day! w00t!
Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 3) Total: 8
Good Night, my dear!
Wednesday, June 29, 2005--Hyper-productive day of work today!
Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 2) Total: 6
Good Night!
Tuesday, June 28, 2005--Today, the high school interns moved in: Kat, Owen, and Ngoc. They're really young.
After work, I went fencing.
Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 1) Total: 3
Good Night!
Monday, June 27, 2005--Really really really really really really productive day of work!
Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 6) Total: 8
Today, I went to lunch with the fencers to a place called Dixie's BBQ, where I met The Man. The Man is this really really hot sauce. The residue of the stuff burns like hell. I never knew the west had something this spicy. I mean, people always talk about how Wasabi burns like hell (although in a different way), but Wasabi's got
nothing on The Man. If you're ever in Redmond/Bellevue, you should visit Dixie's and meet The Man. It's an experience you'll never forget. I guarantee it.</mens-warehouse-commercial-guy-like>
Anyways, Good Night!
Sunday, June 26, 2005--Today...
I went to Crossroads shopping center, and I saw Stargate on DVD. It's a decent movie.
Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 3) Total: 7
Oh, and I put up a new chapter of
Dark Fiends and a new
poll.
I have work tomorrow, so I bid you Good Night!
Saturday, June 25, 2005--This morning, Matt and I played frisbee and tennis in the morning.
On this day:
In 2003: The SJYS Japan Tour begins
In the evening, after dinner at Taco Bell, I went and bought new earphones: the Sony MDR-J10. It's an in-ear earphones that clip onto the outside of your ear. Good sound quality. They stay on my ear no matter how hard I shake my head. There's just one downside: sound leakage. It's not as bad as my old headphones, but it's still there. So now that I have two headphones, I get to choose between having less sound leakage or having the earphones stay on better. More often than not, I'll pick the latter.
Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 3) Total: 4
Good Night!
Friday, June 24, 2005--This week was a very productive week at work. I am content.
Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 6) Total: 9
The SJYS are in Spain now. It reminds me of Japan two years ago. Zzz...
Huh? What? Oh. Good Night!
Thursday, June 23, 2005--My wrist has almost healed completely. In most cases, it's just like I had no injury at all, unless I move it a certain way. And it turns out that one way that I move it is the same way I move it to make a saber cut. Therefore, I was unable to go fencing today.
On this day:
In 2004:
Viltris: k, plan B
Viltris: i can poke you
Viltris: *poke*poke*
[Kim]: eh...not very nice plan...i don't like getting poked
[Kim]: *stab*
Ah, I'm finally up to date with all my webjournal updates.
Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 4) Total: 8
Good Night!
Wednesday, June 22, 2005--My wrist is slightly better. After a full day, I can now start moving it again. It's only when I move it too fast or too far or put strain on it that it hurts.
Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 1) Total: 3
Good Night!
Tuesday, June 21, 2005--After work today, I went fencing. During my last bout, I made a bad 5 parry. Then, to make matters worse, I put force into it, forced my opponent's blade aside, and forced my way down for the riposte. I got the touch, but I felt it in my wrist immediately. I think I sprained it or some other strain-related injury.
On this day:
In 2004: Lei says "Eh?" over AIM
Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 1) Total: 2
Good Night!
Monday, June 20, 2005--
On this day:
In 2004: I beat XenoSaga... and give it a bad review... because it sucks!
I'm beginning my transition to XHTML, starting now.
Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 1) Total: 2
Good Night!
Sunday, June 19, 2005--Today is not memorable.
On this day:
In 2004: I buy my first saber.
Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 6) Total: 12
Good Night!
Saturday, June 18, 2005--Today, I played more MGS3. I ended up beating it at, like 4am.
My thoughts are below in spoiler text, as quoted from my post at
Avalanche Online.
*MGS3*
MGS3 was such an awesome game. I just wish I didn't suck so bad. I started playing in Easy mode, but I couldn't pass the Virtuous Mission, because I sucked. (It's not MY fault I got addicted to the radar.) So I beat the game in Very Easy mode.
GAMEPLAY:
Simply fantastic. The whole jungle/camouflage thing was a twist on the Metal Gear series, 'cause I'm used to sneaking around hallways and buildings. Now, I find myself crawling through grass and trying to match colors that don't even get me past 50%.
Oh, and I have this great story. So after the battle against The Pain, I decide to go fishing in the river. And by fishing I mean dropping a grenade. 10 boxes of fish show up, and I'm like HOLY SHIT that's a lot of fish. Unfortunately, the hoverguards heard me, so they went into Caution mode, so I grabbed the fish and ran.
Good stuff.
STORY:
This is where MGS3 REALLY shines. Maybe I'm just a sucker for well-made prequels, but I thought this game was REALLY well done.
There were two scenes that really stood out for me. The first was Big Boss losing his eye. (Because seriously, who here hasn't scene the sketch of Big Boss with an eyepatch in the MGS1 instruction booklet. Oh come on, I know you guys have looked at the MGS1 instruction booklet. It's impossible to beat the game without some information from the game's original packaging.)
The other great scene was the ending, when Big Boss learns the truth about The Boss. It's really ironic when Johnson says to Big Boss, "You are greater than The Boss. Therefore, I give you the title Big Boss," when in fact, Big Boss knows that The Boss was truly the greater one. And he goes to her grave and salutes her, and if you watch closely, he sheds a tear. It was a truly well done scene.
And now we know why Solid Snake had to fight Big Boss. It was for the same reason Big Boss had to fight The Boss and The Boss had to fight The Sorrow.
And who could forget the young Ocelot. Just as badass as the Ocelot we know, except more naive. And it turns out Big Boss picked the Revolver for him. I dunno about the rest of you guys, but I thought Ocelot was more awesome than the Big Boss himself.
OVERALL:
This game was way better than MGS2 and is almost better than MGS1. Almost. The one problem with MGS3 is that it only developed 3 characters (well, 3.5 if you count Eva), whereas MGS1 developed all of them, and most of them were pretty deep. (It kinda sucks how Otacon keeps losing the women he cares for, huh?) But it was still tremendously well done.
Anyways, if you liked MGS1 and/or MGS2, you'll love MGS3. However, I highly recommend you play MGS1 and MGS2 first because MGS3 contains so many forward references.*MGS3*
In conclusion, MGS3 had good gameplay and even better storyline, but I highly recommend you play MGS1 and MGS2 first.
On this day:
In 2004:
- I use Justin's Goblin deck and win with one mountain!
- Me: They'll be back. They always come back.
Alan: Heh, that's what I said when the lady came to refill our drinks, and she refilled Ryan's drink all the way, but she only refilled mine just a little bit. Lucky for her, she came back later and filled up my drink all the way.
Heh, for the first time, I used the closing li tags and the ul tags, and it turned out even worst. Bah, stupid ul tags.
Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 3) Total: 6
Good Night!
Friday, June 17, 2005--I meant to get off work early today so that I could play video games. However, for some reason, I ended up working until about 8:30pm. Then, I came home to play MGS3, which is an awesome game.
Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 6) Total: 9
Good Night!
Thursday, June 16, 2005--(This entry was produced a week late.)
Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 5) Total: 8
Good Night!
Wednesday, June 15, 2005--
Pay Day! (not the candy bar)
I just got my first pay check. Er, the first corporate paycheck. (Tutoring doesn't count.) So... yay! I have money!
On this day:
In 2004: New style dice roll!
In 2003: Lizzie decides to talk to me for once.
Today, the Sophomores are graduating. Congrats to them!
Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 6) Total: 11
Good Night!
Tuesday, June 14, 2005--Productive day. Glorious day. Glorious, glorious day.
Hey, it was Tuesday, and it wasn't that bad.
Over AIM...
me: and college will be new and exciting for you
me: except that all your friends will be there
me: all your friends and me
vivchu: haha
vivchu: silly, you're a friend, too =p
Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 3) Total: 4
Good Night!
Monday, June 13, 2005--Today, I met some interns in our new office. It was pretty awesome.
Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 6) Total: 10
Good Night!
Sunday, June 12, 2005--So today, Matt and I decided to play tennis, except that court was flooded, making it difficult to play.
Then, I beat Xenosaga 2.
Time: 27 hours 18 minutes
Level: Level 39-43
My thoughts:
OVERALL
XS2 was a
lot better than XS1. The combat a bit deeper this time around, and Magic (Ethers in the game) were actually not useless this time (mainly because there's a skill that regenerates your EP). Also, the Mechs actually mattered this time, unlike in XS1, although it still wasn't done quite as well as in Xenogears.
However, the game was over-simplified in some aspects and the characters were too similar combat-wise. I mean, you're given 7 characters, which can be grouped into Warriors, Casters, and Balanced. That and, they learn all the exact same skills. I mean, there were some characters that I thought "What's the point?" The only reason why I put Jin in my main party was because he was
cooler than Chaos or Rubedo. In a real RPG, that shouldn't be a reason why you put a certain character in your party.
Also, the mini-games were gone. Damn. I liked mini-games. And money and shops and most equipment were gone. WTF?!?
As to length, as we can see by my time, XS2 is stupidly short. They gave me 2 DVDs, so I expected it would be twice as long as XS1, but no, it's actually the same length. (In truth, the only reason why my time for XS1 is longer is because I spent more time playing mini-games and leveling up (because I tried to sneak by the enemies rather than fighting them) which probably bumped me up by an extra 13 hours.) I'm very disappointed how short and undeveloped this game was.
STORYLINE
Better than XS1, but not that great. On the storyline scale, I'd say it's slightly above average. FFTactics and Xenogears surpass it by an order of magnitude, but then again, FFT and Xenogears are pretty much the best that RPGs have to offer in terms of storyline, so it'd be an unfair comparison.
That and it was too short.
For a series devoted entirely to storyline, the story seems a little... crappy.
SOUNDTRACK
Awesome soundtrack. I dunno how they managed to pull it off, but the soundtrack has improved dramatically and is almost FF quality. (Apparently, Yasunori Mitsuda--one of the best video game composers of all time, up there with Uematsu--composed the soundtrack for XS1, but was pissed off when they used it improperly, which is why the soundtrack for XS1 was so bad.) It's a different style than either Mitsuda or Uematsu, so I can't really compare (it's very techno). Unfortunately, only the battle music and boss fight music are memorable.
In conclusion, XS2 is a better game than XS1, but still a bad game. Good movie, though.
Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 4) Total: 9
Good Night!
Saturday, June 11, 2005--Today was mostly playing Xenosaga 2, but it was also cooking spaghetti. Yay, spaghetti!
I also played Yahoo! Pool with VivChu and Yahoo! Literati with VivChu and Mishra.
Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 2) Total: 8
Good Night!
Friday, June 10, 2005--Yay, Friday! Today seemed quite productive. Then, I moved into my new office because the Internet in my old office was croaking. The new office is
huge. It's supposed to hold 16 interns. Hopefully, they move in soon because I feel like meeting new people. I wonder if there will be any cute girls amongst them.
Then, I played lots of Xenosaga 2.
Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 6) Total: 9
Good Night!
Thursday, June 9, 2005--I think today was productive, but I don't remember anymore.
I also remember having a dream last night that involved Franklin running around in the middle of the rain and looking for something, and Deanne shows up and she's found the thing. But WTF,
Deanne?!?
Anyways, today at Fencing, I learned that I'm too tense when I fence, which is also why I use up my energy so fast. Apparently, if I just relax, I'll attack faster, better,
and use up less energy.
Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 6) Total: 7
Good Night!
Wednesday, June 8, 2005--Today, I had a
very productive day at work. w00t!
On this day:
In 2004:
- I get all 300 missions in FFTA.
- Viltris: hey lizzie
[Lizzie]: hey
Viltris: i was thinking about left-handed girls a while back
Viltris: only about 1 in 10 people are left-handed
Viltris: and only 1/2 the people on this world are girls
Viltris: so only 1 in 20 people is a left-handed girl
Viltris: and given any girl, there's probably a 1 in 50 chance that's she's cute
Viltris: so overall, the chances of finding a cute left-handed girl is 1 in 1000
Viltris: and look, i found you!
Viltris: what are the odds of that?
[Lizzie]: HAha
[Lizzie]: you're funny
So I went to dinner with Chao and his college buddies Wong and Feng. Then, we went to Safeway and bought some much needed milk and orange juice.
Dice Roll of Day: (3, 6) Total: 9
Good Night!
Tuesday, June 7, 2005--Today, I had originally planned to go fencing, but Paul couldn't go because he was too sore, so I ended up skipping fencing in favor of working.
Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 3) Total: 5
Good Night!
Monday, June 6, 2005--An unproductive day at work, so I stayed until 9pm.
On this day:
In 2004:
Viltris: hey jen
Viltris: you know what i think we should do?
Viltris: gather up all the peoples from the 6th floor and hang out
Viltris: well... maybe not all of them
Viltris: just the cool ones
Viltris: and me
[jen]: haha
[jen]: you're not cool dwayne?
Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 2) Total: 8
Good Night!
Sunday, June 5, 2005--
Hapy Birthday to Tracy!
Why am I saying Happy Birthday to Tracy?
Anyways, so I was playing more Xenosaga 2 today. *XS2*
It turns out that I finished Disc 1 last night. It was 10 hours. 10 fucking hours! Jesus Christ, and I thought this game was going to be good. Then, I find out that it's already half done and that I only spent 10 hours on it. I mean, 10 hours in and of itself isn't that bad. FF4 was only 20 hours. The difference is, FF4 is 20 hours of gameplay. Xenosaga 2 Disc 1 is about 5 hours of storyline and 5 hours of gameply. So there we go, Xenosaga needs to be twice as long in order to get the same amount of gameplay.
But wait! Even then, it still feels like a really short game, because we have to wait through such excruciatingly boring story scenes, so it seems like there's even less gameplay.
The other reason why Xenosaga 2 feels excruciatingly short is that there are very few dungeons and very few bosses. A game always feels longer if there are more dungeons and more bosses. Fuck, Super Metroid was only 5 hours, but it felt longer because it had more areas and more bosses.*XS2*
Long story short, I'm really pissed off at Xenosaga 2 because it's 2 DVD game that's shorter than a 1 CD game.
Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 3) Total: 9
Good Night!
Saturday, June 4, 2005--I spent most of the day playing Xenosaga 2. The game seems pretty promising. I've played about 10 hours and it has long dungeons. And the combat is also pretty good, too, what with the Breaks and Air and Down. It seems pretty promising.
On this day:
In 2003: "Anyways, lately I've been thinking of cute left-handed girls. You know, 1 in 10 people are left-handed, and 1/2 of all people are girls, so 1 in every 20 people is a left-handed girl. Add in that any given girl has a 1 in 50 chance of being cute, so overall, there's a 1 in 1000 chance that any given person is a cute left-handed girl. ... Lucky for me, I know quite a few."
I'm also playing
Star Kingdoms, and Matt showed me
Earth 2025, which is intuitive, but a lot more complex that Star Kingdoms. In fact, Star Kingdoms has almost no strategy diversity, whereas Earth 2025 is very diverse. (Interestingly enough, I was one of the first people to use Tactical Fighters when they first added those into the game. Clearly, a 16/0 is better than a 9/9, because you can't be on both defense and offense at the same time. That and, Tanks are just so damn costly...
Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 3) Total: 8
Good Night!
Friday, June 3, 2005--Yet another day of work.
On this day:
In 2004: I beat FFTA.
Also, I played a bit of Xenosaga 2. One thing that jumps out almost immediately is how the voice-acting has dropped in quality since Xenosaga 1. Hehe... oops!
Then, we played Dark Alliance 2 and beat the game. Apparently, it's really easy with the Necromancer's Haste spell and the Barbarian just beating the shit out of everything... super fast, of course!
Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 6) Total: 12
Good Night!
Thursday, June 2, 2005--After work today, I went fencing again. It turned out that I was never taught to lunge correctly (ie, I used to lunge with my front foot; I'm supposed to lunge with my back foot). After Wang taught me how to lunge correctly, it extended my lunge range by about a foot. Awesome!
On this day:
In 2003:
Justin: What? You couldn't find your penis?
Me: I couldn't find my keys! What? Are you death or something?
Justin: What? Am I death?
Me: I said deaf, not death.
Justin: Oh, my bad.
Me: Naw, I really said death. Just kidding with you, that's all.
Also, Chao, my officemate loaned me Xenosaga 2.
Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 4) Total: 5
Good Night!
Wednesday, June 1, 2005--Uneventful day of work.
Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 3) Total: 8
Good Night!