Tuesday, August 31, 2004--Second day of classes...
9:30am, EE105... meh...
11am, EE122... apparently, the Internet was invented on September 2, 1969, by UCLA researchers... and UC Berkeley didn't get the internet until the the 1980s, pretty late in the internet game as far as universities go.
Lunch at the GBC...
3:30pm, Music 26ac... not much to say...
After dinner, I spent going on the internet. However, at roughly 7ish, the fire alarm went off, so we all got to go outside to play in the... uhh... kupo...
*mutters*Stupid fire alarm!*mutters*
MTG Mood Meter:
Raise the Alarm
Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 4) Total: 5
Anyways, I'm off to be a good student now. Good Night!
Monday, August 30, 2004 - Addendum--
MTG Mood Meter:
Culling the Weak
Yeah, I better explaing... you see, the first day of Fencing practice was today, and well over 100 beginners showed up, so while it's good to have so many fencers, it's
way too overcrowded. Thus, so begins the process of having the weak drop out and keeping only the best.
In any case, Abdul, our new coach, is crazy (but good). He pushes us so hard in our conditioning, that I was sweating like mad before I even began fencing.
Monday, August 30, 2004--First day of class today... how depressing...
At 9am, I had an EE105 Discussion, except it wasn't meeting today, so I just left.
Then, at 11am, I had CS61C Lecture. From my first impression, Prof Garcia sounds like a good prof, but he talks so damn fast!
Lunch at the GBC...
At 2pm, I had EE120 Lecture, which was in 277 Cory, which became stupidly crowded as 150+ people tried to jam their way into a room with only 100ish seats. I sat next to Tracy, because's she's cool like that.
Since there was no Music 26ac Discussion today, I had the rest of the day off, so I went back and began my reading in the lounge (for two reasons... I'll leave it up to you to guess) before dinner. After dinner, I went online, and after this, I will go fencing. Perhaps I will post up an addendum later tonight.
Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 5) Total: 9
MTG Mood Meter:
Metal Fatigue
Good Night!
Sunday, August 29, 2004--Tomorrow's the first day of class... grr...
In any case, I decided not to play
Gunbound today. Instead, I worked on my special project. In the evening, just before dinner, Jen, Tiffany, and Steven came and visited me. Yay!
Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 1) Total: 5
MTG Mood Meter:
Goblin Psychopath
Good Night!
Saturday, August 28, 2004--
Gunbound... more
Gunbound... lunch...
Gunbound... dinner... not
Gunbound, but surfing the internet randomly...
(I've obtained the rank of stone hammer.)
Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 3) Total: 9
MTG Mood Meter:
Timmy, Power Gamer
Good Night!
Friday, August 27, 2004--Today, I got Bernard to get me into Putnam, where is apparently on the same floor as my old friend Alice Tzou. So I get myself into Putnam, and later, I meet up with Alice again (who looks the same, yet so different that I hardly recognize her). So then she, I, Bernard, and the Putnam 5th floor had lunch together, but then I ditched them and finished my lunch with Anika, Yanmin, and their friends, because I needed to catch up with Anika, Yanmin, and their friends.
Anika: Oh, hey, it's [name]! Hi [name]! *waves*
Dude: Maybe Anika's just waving randomly in hopes that she'll get
someone's attention.
Anika: I'm not
that desperate.
Then, I went to Caltopia and did a little Saber demonstration.
Then, after a quick nap, I went to the card shops and then went to a booster draft. I drafted a deck so crappy, it's not even worth writing down. What happened was that I tried to force red at first, but then, after about 3 picks, there were no more reds coming, so I quickly went with white as my second color. Unfortunately, white stopped coming, too, and I had seen so much green going around, that about 10th pick or so, I decided to go into green... then green stopped coming around...
What I did do correctly, though, was that I managed to snag two
Tyrranaxes, two
Ouphe Vandals, a
Tel-Jilad Justice, and a pair of
Tel-Jilad Wolves.
In any case, it was my first 5th dawn booster draft, and my first time trying to force red, which means either one of two things--either I suck at 5th Dawn booster drafts, or I suck at drafting red. Actually, since most of my best cards were from 5th Dawn, and since my deck was mostly green, it probably
does mean I suck at drafting red. Oh well.
In anycase, some dude named Ryan (not to be confused with Taco Ryan) got 3
Blind Creepers, 2
Nim Helments, and 3
Grimclaw Bats. All three of those Blind Creepers came through me, and they were all consecutive. For those of you who don't know, Blind Creeper is pretty much one of
the best black creatures (so damn mana-efficient) that has seen print in a long
long time. I regret not hate-drafting at least
one of those things. And I'm trying to figure out why Dave (the Games of Berkeley booster draft grandmaster) passed him all three, even though he was playing black. In any case, thanks to this, the Dave vs Ryan (Grandmaster vs 3 Blind Creepers) was quite interesting. Dave himself admitted that Ryan outplayed him, but he managed to win, apparently, thanks to a pair of
Fleshgrafters.
Another story worth telling is that in my first game against my second opponent, a lady named Amanda, got a turn 4
Green Bringer on me, and since I was mana-flooded, I promptly forfeited.
Amanda: You're no fun.
On my way back to my dorm, I picked up some Top Dogs...
Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 6) Total: 10
MTG Mood Meter:
Relentless Rats
There's a story behind that. My Rat deck has 20 Relentless Rats, 6 real, 14 proxies. Today, I bought 8 more at Eudemonia, bringing the count up to 14. Then, I was passed one in the booster draft, which I prompty drafted (which probably hurt my deck, but meh), bringing my real rat count to 15. Yay! I'm so close to the finish line!
Also, Ralph (the guy in charge of the booster draftering) gave everyone promotional
Kitsune Healers... even though they aren't actually promotional.
Anyways, this entry is too long. Good Night!
Thursday, August 26, 2004 - Addendum--There's a war going on between the halls of Unit 2. I live in Griffiths, and it started a few days ago when I saw Andrew and Aneesh with the stolen Davidson banner (which was supposed to be hung on their 3rd floor balcony). The next day, I noticed that Cunningham was missing, so only Ehrman remained. Finally, tonight, I learned that we had stolen all three, and they were all hanging, one on each balcony, upside down, so I decided to take a look. However, when I went to look, I discovered that not one, but 2 parties had come to steal them back. (Later, it turns out there were three, all acting simultaneously, though perhaps not independently.) There was some commotion. I stalled the Ehrman team, but didn't get directly involved. An RA had to write some people up (a girl was pushed against her own knowledge... "Who was pushed?" "You were!" "Really? I was?"). Next, I saw Cunningham hanging on Cunningham. It began to fall off. Now, it's not there anymore. Whether it was taken back by us (or by somebody else) or whether it simply fell down, I don't know, but I will check. More information later!
Thursday, August 26, 2004--Calapalooza today. I went there with Joyce and Guillermo (Irene was nowhere to be found), and after going to the fencing table, I
completely lost track of them. However, while a-wandering around, I ran into a bunch of people, including, but not limited to: Kim, Melody, Maria, Angela, Mark, Ryan.
Okay, that's not quite so many people.
Then, in the afternoon, I played
Gunbound for
way too long. (I know this because my eyes are tired.) It was fun, though. I'm still a double wooden hammer. My GB SN is "Viltris".
Dinner at X-roads...
Watched TV...
Later tonight, I intend to go meet the Health Workers at the "Meet Your Health Workers" event. Other than that...
Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 1) Total: 4
Ahh... the end of the long journal entries... Good Night!
Wednesday, August 25, 2004--After waking up at 7 and showering, I decided--since I was worried I'd might disturb my roommate--to go chill in the 3rd floor lounge, which I did. There was Jabberwocky on the chalkboard, which I had written up there out of amusement. (I had also written it up on the 4th floor mini-lounge, to which somebody had replied with a chalk-written "Huh?")
At 9, I decide to go back to my room and discover, to my joy, that the internet was finally up, so I spent from 9am to 2pm--stopping only for half an hour to eat lunch--on the internet. I only stopped when I finally decided that I had spent too much time in front of my computer.
So I went down to the third floor and visited around. Coming back up, I saw Joyce, and we had grapes, and she tried to buy football tickets. In the meantime, I decided to get back on my computer and play
Gunbound... Hmm... Gunbound is Korean... I'll have to ask Minjung if she's heard about it.
Speaking of Minjung, I asked her if she had a measuring cup we could borrow, and that apparently prompted her to come down to do her laundry. Oh, wait, I'm getting ahead of myself now. Yeah, Irene wanted to do her laundry, so we went down to the 2nd floor laundry room, and I quickly showed her the ropes. However, she was using powder-detergent, and couldn't find her measuring cup, so I went a looking. I didn't have one; Guillermo didn't have one; Joyce didn't have one; Minjung didn't have one, so I went back to Irene and dug and found the measuring cup. Unfortunately, in the process, we spilled a bit of the detergent, so I got some paper towels to clean it up. I then suggested that we wet the paper towel, because it would pick up the powder better.
"Worst case scenario," I say, "we have a clean floor."
I was
almost right. It was actually a clean
soapy floor. A clean soapy
slippery floor. A clean soap slippery floor that had been caused by my careless suggestion. So at that point, Minjung arrives with her landry to launder, and I busily try to unslip the floor.
Then, while waiting for the laundry to be done, I tried to figure out what was wrong with Minjung's not-working internet... but to know avail. I came to the conclusion that she was unable to connect to the network, but I didn't know whether the problem was on her end or ResComp's end. Eventually, I gave up because
her frickin' computer is all in Korean.
Eventually, I go back to my room, and then headed off to dinner at Crossroads. There, I ran into none other than Anika, Kim's former roommate, and Yanmin, the lefted-handed fencer. I planned to have dinner with them, but while making my rounds to get food, I run into Minjung and her friend who's name I forget. They asked me if I was here with friends, and to be honest, I told them that I was there alone, so they invited me to sit with them.
Then, after dinner, Minjung, her friend, and I went to the Griffiths Main Lounge where, again I played the piano, and then we played pool. Various people came in and out of the lounge and we played several games of pool. Caesar from my floor is hella good at pool. Apparently, playing
Yahoo! Pool is a good way to learn the angles and the collisions, but the only way to get good shooting technique is by playing... the sticks sucked though.
Then, I came back to my room.
A Year Ago Today: The first day of Freshman College classes.
Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 4) Total: 10
MTG Mood Meter:
Wonder
Good Night!
Tuesday, August 24, 2004--Woke up at 7. Showered, breakfast, brush teeth, usual morning stuff... headed out to the bookstore at 8, but apparently Ned's opens at 9. Heh, whoops! Anyways, at 9, I managed to buy my books all right.
Also at 9, there was an event scheduled to take the dorm to the gym. Since I was not at the dorm, I didn't go with them, but I saw them on the other side of the street as I brought my books back to my dorm.
Later, at 11:15-ish, I invite Guillermo, Joyce, and Irene to go eat lunch with us at Crossroads. It first started with me inviting Joyce...
Me: Hey Joyce, you wanna come eat lunch with us at Crossroads?
Joyce: Okay.
Me: Cool. If you see Ivy, invite her too for me, k?
Joyce: K.
(I walk away... apparently, Irene comes up the stairs at that point) Hey, Irene, you wanna go eat lunch with Dwayne and Guillermo right now?
Me: Oh, crap, did I just call you Ivy?
Irene: It's okay. You said you would.
Me: Yeah... but I didn't mean to.
Slip of the tongue...
Anyways, after lunch, I tell Guillermo, Joyce, and Irene to head back without me while I finish up, so they did. On my way back to the dorm, I see them on there way from the dorm to the meeting place where the RAs would be taking us grocery shopping, so I thought what the heck, since I'm here, I might as well go with them. So we all take this huge hike to a grocery store on Telegraph who's name I forgot, and we buy stuff and we come back.
After some time that's taken up by a memory lapse, at 3:45, Guillermo, Joyce, and Irene head over to the Chancellor's Reception, despite my warnings that the Reception was the same as the Convocation--boring speeches and free food. During that time, I visited the 3rd floor, and I ran into Angela Nguyen, who apparently lives
directly below me. That is, if I were to drill a hole in the floor of my room, I would end up in Angela's room. Cool, isn't it? Apparently, her boyfriend Eugene was here visiting.
I also chilled with Lynn and Aura (mostly Aura, as Lynn went to take a shower), who had opted out of the Chancellor's reception.
After taking dinner by myself, I went to the CalConnect workshop and registered for an In-Room Connection (which are
godly fast). Unfortunatly, it would be a while before it started working. During that time, I went exploring and finally ended up chilling in Minjung's room and talking to her and her roommate and trying to get Minjung's Korean computer to connect to wireless all while Minjung was taping paper to a box. I must have spent a good hour and a half there...
In anycase, I finally went back to my room, watched a bit of TV, and then went to bed prompty at 11 as my schedule demands me to be in a habit of doing. (Remember, this entry was written on Wednesday as well.)
Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 5) Total: 9
Woot! Same roll as yesterday!
Man... these are some long entries. Oh, well, Good Night!
Monday, August 23, 2004--I'm trying to figure out what happened when where and why. You see, I moved back into Berkeley today, and I haven't had internet until Wednesday (it's actually Aug 25 when I'm writing this, by the way), and I've had so much fun that everything's become a jumble in my head and I'm trying to figure out what happened first, what happened next, and what happened last.
Hopefully, looking at this schedule of Res Hall events will help...
circa 10:30am... I finish packing and mom drives me over to Berkeley in her van, a Nissan Quest. It's pretty old, I forget which year exactly. Anyways, I already know I'm in Unit 2 Griffiths room [censored... ask
Viltris for more information], since I signed up for it last year. It's essentially the same room as I had last year--a corner Double, right next to the elevator.
circa 12pm... I arrive and make myself at home.
circa 1pm... I eat lunch at Crossroads.
circa 1:30pm... Upon getting back into my room, I meet my roommate, a kid named Guillermo Murga. He's a cool kid. He uses a Mac, but he uses AIM.
circa 3:45pm... Guillermo decides to go to the Student Convocation, even though I've warned him that all it is is a boring speech and free food afterwards. I decide to go work on my project on my computer--I had no internet and was bored since most of the people in my hall had gone to the Convocation.
circa 4pm... Earlier today, I had found Lily's room (she's on the 3rd floor--the all girls' floor--as we had previously suspected) and I left her a message on her whiteboard. So she came a-walking, a-knocking upon my door. So yeah, she chilled in my room, then we went to her room where we chilled, and I met her roommates, Lynn and Aura.
Then, Lily said she needed to use a computer, so I offered to take her to the Unit 2 Computing Center. Unfortunately, the damned thing was closed, so I offered to take her to the Library, where there would be internet access. On our way there, we ran into Joyce Lai (Joyce, Lily, and I all know each other from ARML) standing near the Convocation hoping to get some free food. So we chilled and chatted, and then finally I showed Lily to the Library.
Upon coming out, I chilled with Joyce some more and ran into Ke, Ken E, and met Anthony Wee (I think that was him), who were here for the free food. In anycase, I opted out of the free food and went back to my dorm. It was roughly 5pm.
circa 5:30pm... I went out to Crossroads for dinner, but apparently, today they don't open until 6, so I went back to my room to chill for another half hour. At 6, I make another attempt to eat dinner at Crossroads, and on my way down the stairs, I met this girl on the 3rd floor named Minjung, whom was moving a refrigerator into her room.
circa 6:45pm... I return to my room and meet Joyce and Irene (who's full initials spell IVY) who live next door to me. There would be Ice Cream at 9pm that night, so we chilled first in the Main Lounge (where I played the piano for them and later played pool with them), then somewhere else I don't remember.
9pm... Ice Cream... Joyce, Irene, Guillermo, and I got lucky, as we were right in front of the table, so when the ice cream was ready, we got in and got our ice cream before the line had properly formed. It was cool. In the meantime, I ran into Lily who thanked me for being her guide.
circa 9:15pm... Joyce, Irene, Guillermo, and I watch the Olympics in my room... Funny thing was, I didn't know Joyce and Irene wanted to come in, so I almost closed the door on them. It wasn't until I heard Joyce go "ack" did I realize that something was wrong.
10pm... Joyce, Irene, and Guillermo go Ice Skating. I declined, so I chilled in my room watching Friends (the last few seasons are so soap-opera-ish... it's unbearable sometimes) and using my comp until I finally went to bed at 11...
Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 5) Total: 9
Good Night!
Sunday, August 22, 2004--Chances are, you won't see me for a few days because I'll be moving into Berkeley and it'll be a while before my internet comes back up.
In any case, I spent time running maintenance on my computer. You know, the usual: Spybot, Virus Scan, Scandisk, Defrag... my computer's still in pretty good shape, but hey, it's only been about half a year. While waiting, I also played some FF8, and when the maintenance was finally done, I did some work on my project.
Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 1) Total: 4
Good Night! And in case I don't see you, Good Night, Good Night, and Good Night!
Saturday, August 21, 2004--We finally came home today, but not before eating at Half-Acre gardens for lunch. After playing some FF8 for a while, we went over to Jasmine Tzeng's place for some kind of dinner party, where while the adults chatted, we kids watched Dodgeball and the Olympics, and then I went and played Texas Hold 'em with Franklin, Willy, and Jeffrey... using betting with another deck of cards. For some reason, I kept winning. I dunno why. I'm just damn lucky, I suppose.
Later, there was a dispute whether the Straight was higher or a Flush was higher. Jeffrey had the Straight. I had the Flush, but I thought the Straight was higher. The parents said it was the Flush, but the kids said it was the Straight. It's kind of funny... I was either wrong, or I'd lose the round, so it was a Lose-Lose situation. Then again, I was either right, or I'd win the jackpot, so it was a Win-Win situation. It turned out eventually that the Flush was higher, so I won it all, and the game was over. Like I said, I'm a damn lucky player.
Oh, and for the record, the people attending the party included but not limited to me, Franklin, Jeffrey, Connie, Jasmine, Vivian Chu, Elaine Kuo, Deanne, and various little brothers that I do not recognize.
A Year Ago Today: I meet Kim Hung on the Chancellor's Lawn.
Dice Roll of the Night: (4, 3) Total: 7
Good Day!
Friday, August 20, 2004--Oh, and all these entries are going to be short, because I don't remember much, because I'm just like that.
Today, while our parents were tasting (and buying) wine, Franklin and I went over to somewhere else and played this game called Bocce Ball, where we had to throw these heavy balls and see who could get closest to this tiny white ball. It was amusing, except Frnaklin beat me 12-1 because he's Franklin and he's good with balls.
Then, we drove over to this place for lunch and Franklin ordered a 1/2 lb burger, which he only took one bite out of. I finished half my turkey sandwich, and he traded sandwiches, and he took 3 bites out of my turkey sandwich and I ate half of his burger, so it was like I ate a whole sandwich while he ate nothing. It was amusing.
Then we went over to our family friend's place in Vallejo and chilled there for the night, where we watched the Truman Show.
Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 3) Total: 8
Good Night!
Thursday, August 19, 2004--All of the entries starting today until Sunday were written on Sunday. That's because I was away from home these last few days because the termite killing dudes had to come over to gas the house to kill the termites... I hope it worked... because termites eat wood.
Anyways, my family and I went over to Napa Valley to chill. We stayed at an Inn called Comfort in that night.
Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 3) Total: 4
Good Night!
Wednesday, August 18, 2004--Actually, yesterday, I didn't go over 100k. However, I think this time, it will go over... but I still won't make a new archive yet, because I'm lazy like that.
In anycase, the Terminators came by to prep the house for the gassing. I tutored. I played FF8 (Disc 3 now), and... umm...
Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 4) Total: 6
I forgot.
Good Night!
Tuesday, August 17, 2004--
Happy Birthday to Nadia!
In any case, today I did some stuff on
AO, and it was also the last day of my algebra class. I'm glad it's over, but I'll miss the kids... well, at least the good ones.
That is all!
Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 2) Total: 7
This entry will go over the 100k limit. I'll fix it some other day. Good Night!
Monday, August 16, 2004 - Addendum--Last night, I had a dream that I was at some kind of camp (possibly SJYS music camp). I forget most of the details, but I remember this much: There was this cute girl that really liked me and we were really hitting it off. She liked MTG and candy, and we spent time together on both. Come to think of it, she looked kind of like Sharon from SJYS. Hmm...
Later in the dream (random scene change style), there were these dudes talking, and I disagreed with them, and they were like "Dude, what's the point? You're not going to fight us." or something like that. Again, hmm...
Finally, back to the camp, the girl betrays me for some reason. What a nasty omen. That sucks!
Anyways, here's a second good night!
Monday, August 16, 2004--Today, I spent most of my time preparing for the Algebra class I will have to teach tomorrow. I also spent time playing FF8. I also spent time discovering that my printer is out of black ink... which sucks...
Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 2) Total: 3
Good Night!
Sunday, August 15, 2004--I don't play FF8. Instead, I decide to work on my project, but I fell asleep. There is one line's worth of
addendum to my August 13 entry, by the way.
Anyways, I also go and play basketball with Justin, Mark, Ryan, my dad, Frankie, and me. I sucked, as usual.
Ryan: I count as zero players.
Me: Oh, yeah? I count as negative one players.
Later, my dad suggests that he and Justin play 2v4 against me, Frank, Mark, and Ryan...
Ryan: Dude, but I count as zero players.
Franklin: Yeah, and with Dwayne counting as negative one players, that means it's actually a 2 on 1!
Anyways, after I get home, I showered, ate, and went online for not particular reason.
Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 1) Total: 3
May the Night be Good!
Saturday, August 14, 2004--I play FF8. It appears to be better than Golden Sun, because I don't remember Golden Sun being
this enrapturing. Then again, I've only had FF8 for all of 3 days, and I've been playing Golden Sun for quite a while. But then, I remember putting down Golden Sun pretty quickly to play Final Fantasy Tactics Advance.
*8*
It's probably too early to judge, but FF8 actually has decent gameplay. The Junction System makes for some interesting stuff. Unfortunately, the game is way too easy. Especially since Curaga is available really early in the game, and for hella cheap, too. (You get Siren from the 2nd boss, and you can teach her the Menu Ability to make Life Magic pretty quickly. You can use this ability to convert 1 Tent--which costs 1000 gil, into 10 Curagas, so you can effectively buy Curagas for 100 gil a piece.) And not just that, but if you junction 100 Curagas (which can be obtained easily for each and every character) to HP, you can increase your HP from 600 to 3000, which makes your characters godly strong, since most bosses only do 100 damage. Even Edea at the end of Disc 1 can only do 300 damage, and I could have beaten her by having Squall summon Quetzacoatl all the time, except that I discovered that if I use Carbuncle continuously, Edea will spend all her time dispelling my Reflect shield instead of attacking me. Stupid Edea.
So... yeah, FF8 has a pretty good system (except for the enemies levelling up with you), but the game is too frickin' easy.
And Alex's number one complaint (as always) is that the game has bad storyline.*8*
In any case, I can't help but play more FF8. If it's anything like Xenosaga, I'll play it almost non-stop for a week (roughly 40 hours of gameplay) and then complain that the game is too short when it is infact
me who is too short.
Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 2) Total: 3
Good Night!
Friday, August 13, 2004--
Happy 19th Birthday to me!!?!!
Anyways, today, after lunch, Justin, Frank, and I went to Oakridge Mall for my birthday. We were on our way to see Alien VS Predator... except for Franklin, who opted to spend X dollars at the video arcade, where X is an undisclosed amount. (Not even Franklin knows... actually, he probably does, I didn't ask him.) So it was just me and Justin watching the movie. What happened to everyone else? Alan didn't want to see AVP (Justin said some shit about dick-huggers and ball-bursters); Mark was still at Cal; Ryan was AWOL; Alex had work; Joyce had disappeared off the face of the planet; Kim had relatives to attend to; Sarah was gone to Harvard; Elizabeth was at the SJYS music camp. So... yeah, everyone was MIA. ...well, not quite
in action.
Justin: Dude, I think I just saw Diane Ko. Either that or it was just my imagination.
Me: It was probably your imagination. I don't see her anywhere.
Justin: Never mind, it was just a chick that looked like her.
Me: Did she have long light brown hair?
Justin: Yes.
There was a poster for Resident Evil Apocalypse that had a woman wrapped in a towel and there was text that said, "My name is Alice, and I remember everything."
AVP was a pretty decent movie. My biggest complaint is that the movie made the Predators seem way too wimpy.
Afterwards, we went back to my place, but not before stopping by at Justin's house to jack his Dominoes' coupons. Apparently, it took him well over 5 minutes because Alan called his ass in the bathroom. Apparently, Alan was already at our place, but Uncle Shawn and Aunt Fanny let him in.
Am I the only person who likes mushrooms, because I suggested that we put mushrooms on our pizza, but the other dudes were like NOO!!!, so we ordered the second one with ham & bacon instead. (The first was pepperoni & sausage.)
Alan & Justin play MTG. Alex arrives. I demo my project for him. He was impressed that I knew so many advanced techniques. (I am a high-level programmer.)
Oh, and here's the quote of the moment. "Holy shit! I have negative one of nothing!"
I suggest we play Bomberman. We end up playing Soul Calibur 2 (Voldo has one costume where his face mask looks like an alien from Alien.) Pizza arrives. Long political talk. We go back to playing Soul Calibur 2. Alex leaves. We eat cake. I fall asleep while Justin and Alan are still around. (Oh, this entry was written on Saturday, by the way.)
Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 5) Total: 8
Good Night!
Thursday, August 12, 2004--Last night, I had a dream where me and Hyde from That 70's Show were on the run from the cops (literally running down the street and dodging traffic) because I had parked a car illegally (in the middle of the road), but like hundreds of people were also doing it (they were also obstructing traffic), but for some reason, they all got into their cars and escaped before the cops showed up, so Hyde and me ran. We went to this run-down apartment-ish building that was labelled USC (which is kind of ironic), and Hyde got into the elevator and I almost didn't make it. (Apparently, the cops were so close behind, Hyde didn't have time to wait for me before hitting the door close button... either that or he was ditching me and letting the cops get to me first to buy himself more time, because if you've ever seen That 70s Show, he is that kind of person.)
In any case, today, after going to Fresh Choice, I finally got around to buying FF8. You know, it's kind of funny. You rarely ever hear about the Materia System in FF7 or the Junction System in FF8 or the Gain-Abilites-From-Items System in FF9, because nowadays everyone focuses on storyline and graphics instead of gameplay. The ironic thing is that in the PSX FFs, Square has actually been doing a
lot to make an original and unique system for their game. It makes a person wonder...
Oh, and I got the Greatest Hits print of FF8, and it cost $15, and it says "Square-Enix" on the cover and on the inside of the instruction booklet, it says, "Any inadvertent references to prior corporate entity are no longer valid and effective. This game is published solely under the management and operation of Square Enix USA, Inc." How amusing... This must be a
really newly printed copy of FF8.
Anyways, in a conversation with Alex, it seems that we (well, mostly me) have come to the conclusion that FFT is the best FF ever. It has great gameplay (since it's not really an RPG, it's a tactical combat game) and a truly amazing storyline. (I like gameplay and Alex likes good stories.) It even has a good soundtrack. The only thing it lacks are 3D graphics to please the graphics whores.
Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 2) Total: 8
Good Night!
Wednesday, August 11, 2004--I agree with Chris on my guestbook--I
do need to get out more. However, Berkeley has instilled within me an attitude that if it's not within walking distance, it's not worth going to--unless it's fencing or involves me getting paid (or laid, but I don't currently have a girlfriend, so that's highly unlikely).
A Year Ago Today: Convo with me and Lei about how girls with boyfriends are more flirtatious...
Anyways, I went tutoring, worked more on my project, and then I went
sword-fighting. Woot!
Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 3) Total: 8
Good Night!
Tuesday, August 10, 2004--I did a little bit of project work, but a lot of preparing for class and tutoring.
Florence: When--
Lydia and Evelyn: Florence, shut up!
Florence: is--
Lydia and Evelyn: Florence, shut up!
Florence: the--
Lydia and Evelyn: Florence, shut up!
Florence: test?
Lydia and Evelyn: Florence, shut up!
Me: Next week.
I dunno... I found it amusing.
Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 1) Total: 2
Good Night!
Monday, August 9, 2004--Grading papers and preparing for tomorrow's Algebra class that I have to teach... Quiz #2 was apparently harder than Quiz #1, although there were fewer problems that
nobody got. It was more of that everybody missed something in different places. *shrug*
A Year Ago Today: Booster Draft at Daniel Hedayati's... I claim that Daniel won because he's the best player... I think I could beat him in Constructed now...
Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 5) Total: 10
In any case, Good Night!
Sunday, August 8, 2004--More of my project... the other team members are Alex Jukl, who apparently is busier with his job at GEC teaching English than he is at college, and Kellie Liang, who has no specific orders, because no specific details have been issued as of yet.
Oh, and I need more artists.
Also, I played
Monopoly with Franklin and his fiends. It was amusing... until it wasn't.
Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 1) Total: 2
Apparently, the MTG World Championships are on the same weekend as the TBP Officer Retreat. Grrr...
Good Night!
Saturday, August 7, 2004 - Addendum--Last night, I had a dream where Angela Nguyen was driving a truck, and I was in the passenger seat, and we were chatting. I don't remember what we were chatting about, but yeah, she was driving me in a truck and chatting.
Angela Nguyen... heh... she's short!
Saturday, August 7, 2004--More of my special project...
Lunch at Burger King, dinner at Black Angus--it appears we ordered too much food, even though we only ordered four meals.
Oh, and I saw Michele with one L at Black Angus. It was cool!
Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 2) Total: 7
Anyways, Good Night!
Friday, August 6, 2004 - Addendum--Here's a real life conversation for you...
Mom: Tomorrow, we can go eat at the Cheesecake Factory.
Aunt Fanny: But I don't like cheesecake.
Friday, August 6, 2004--Kupo!
Anyways, I was playing GS2, and I decided this time, I'd write something in spoiler text. *GS2*
Went to the Yampi Desert Cave and fought Valukar for another summon. The gimmick of this guy is that he can use my own Djinn against me. Ouch! It made it really hard to beat him with summons.
Later, I travel up Anemos Sanctum, and fight the unequivocally hardest boss in the game--Dullahan. He has an instant kill attack; he can summon Charon, which has a good chance of instant kill; he has an attack which does 600-700 damage, so it's as good as instant kill; and he has Djinn Storm, which takes all the Djinn on my frontline fighters and puts them into recovery mode. That meant I had to juggle between all 8 characters as some of them would become useless without their Djinn. The worst part was that he recovers 200 HP per turn and has hella good defense. In my first three tries, I fought him for about an hour each and it was a stalemate, until Dullahan gradually wore me down. (I had used up all my Waters of Life.) Then, I decided to adopt a Suicide Blitz strategy, where I'd standby all my Djinn and go in with my most powerful summons and pray that I'd kill him before he kills me. (It's especially good that I had two chances, once with my frontline, and once with my back.) Well, I went to GameFAQs.com for a list of Summon costs so I could maximize damage, and I ended up finding a Suicide Blitz strategy for Dullahan. So I followed it, but it still took me three tries to get it to work (although thankfully, each try took about 5 minutes instead of an hour).
I feel kind of bad for using a strategy off GameFAQs instead of using my own, though, but hey, at my level, it would probably have been impossible otherwise. At least I was smart enough to figure out that a Suicide Blitz was the way to go, and if I hadn't stumbled upon that strategy, I probably would have determined the correct combination of summons myself.
In any case, Kellie used a password from a hacked file online, so her GS1 party is already at level 99 with godly stats. Heh, she'll kill Dullahan no problem.*GS2*
Speaking of GameFAQs, apparently, Character Battle III has begun, so go vote!
Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 5) Total: 11
Good Night!
Thursday, August 5, 2004--Today, I had yet another strange dream. Apparently, in my dream, people have been saying that I was good at football, and that I could sprint really really fast, so the football coach shows up and tries to get me to join the football team. Heh. I woke up soon after that. Dwayne playing football... so ridiculous. I'm a
fencer.
In any case, my uncle Shawn and auntie Fanny are coming over from Taiwan today. My parents are currently at SFO picking them up.
Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 4) Total: 10
Good Night!
Wednesday, August 4, 2004--I had a strange dream last night in which I was fencing saber with somebody, but instead of sports sabers, we were using actual sharpened sabers, and his saber instead of being 3 feet long was 6 feet long. In other words, he had such long reach that I was forced to go on the defensive the whole time. What a wierd dream.
In any case, tutoring, Golden Sun 2, and fencing.
Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 2) Total: 3
Good Night!
Tuesday, August 3, 2004--Teaching Algebra + tutoring... kids learn how to factor...
Florence: Is it okay if I guess?
Me: Only if that guess is correct.
A Year Ago Today: I have a weird dream involving Kristen Kurimoto. Hmm... I wonder whatever happened to her.
Anyways, it turns out Connie Chu isn't mad at me anymore. Hell, she claims she was
never mad at me. I put her back on my buddy list just today for the hell of it, and she was online, so for the hell of it, I said hi, and we ended up talking. Weird... I could never understand that girl. The freakiest part is...
A Year Ago Today: "I was talking to Connie on AIM a while ago. She seemed... pleased..."
Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 5) Total: 8
Anyways, Good Night!
Monday, August 2, 2004--While Franklin was checking something on
GunBound on my computer, it screwed up, and dropped me back into windows in 640x480 resolution and
8 colors. It was so amusing, I took a picture, with giant AIM window and all. I also took a picture later when I rebooted and the thing was fixed, but the AIM window had moved to be at the middle of the screen, and it was
tiny. I'll post up these pictures later in an addendum.
Anyways, today, I had did some private tutoring, and I beat Golden Sun 2. It's a good game. It plays a lot like the original FF. It even has a similar storyline!
Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 4) Total: 10
Good Night!
Sunday, August 1, 2004--Secret Project #1 is going quite well. I wonder how much of it I can show off on my birthday.
Ring me up on
AIM (I bet you 14
eProps that nobody is going to do this) if you're interested in watching Alien VS Predator on opening day.
Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 6) Total: 12
Good Night!