Derelict by Design

Haven't written for a long time...

2012-01-25T17:06:00.002-06:00

I've been trying to put my life back together and haven't exactly had the time to be writing things for the internet. This is an ongoing situation... I plan to get back to track as soon as I can.

Videos in the future... maybe...

2011-11-12T06:04:00.004-06:00

Anyone who has been reading for a while knows that I've been contemplating video blogging for quite a while... believe it or not, I've actually tried to film a couple of things and find that I still feel awkward and stilted when trying to record one. It's odd to find myself speaking to an inanimate object, regardless of its recording ability, and I find myself stopping cold in the midst of my speech due to the uneasy feeling it gives me. I imagine that I'll still pick things up eventually.

Don't have much else to say right now, really. I think I've gotten boring... strange to say that considering that I've always considered myself boring.

A slim return.

2011-11-07T02:14:00.006-06:00

It's been a long time since I've had regular access to my blog and what I'm using now may or may not change that - only time will tell. I've been spending a lot of my time lately failing to do anything worthwhile but I plan to change that as soon as possible. I've had this certain ambition, you see, and I've had it for quite a long time. To take college classes in mathematics... I'd like to become a mathematician. I'm going to be looking into every possibility as to how I could make this happen and I'm certain that it will be taking much of my time - which may be for the better these days, really.

Recently, within the last two days, I purchased two games for my love. Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon: Magical Melody. The one I'm more interested in myself is the latter - never been much of an Animal Crossing fan.

While, like usual, there are things I like and things I don't like about this game that I'm currently enjoying... I'm not sure if it is worth going into my usual spill about the aspects of it... I mean... it's a farming/life/whatever simulator. It's Harvest Moon... what's there to say? Things are slow - that's the game.

I've been recording a bunch of gameplay and I intend to record some commentary tracks for them with someone else... maybe you'll get to see them sometime soon. God Hand is done, Star Wars Battlefront 2, and also Star Wars Jedi Starfighter. Not sure what to do next... maybe Naruto: Gekitou Ninja Taisen 4?

Realization - stupidity.

2011-10-22T20:04:00.003-05:00

I really need to try to stop being so damned stupid.

More Dark Cloud 2 speak...

2011-09-18T16:50:00.002-05:00

For starters... seriously... fuck Spheda.

Okay... Spheda is a mini-game in Dark Cloud 2 which is basically golf. The premise is that time distortions cause little vortexes which lose a fragment - of time presumably, which causes the instability in that area. The idea is that the fragment needs to go back into the distortion in the opposite polarity in order to fix the problem - however, the fragment cannot be touched with your hand. Though the fragment will remove one's hand it apparently has no power over the might of a simple Handy Stick. Basically what this turns into is a hyper tedious version of golf - just in case you ever thought golf needed more tediousness. What's even worse is that this tends to take place in areas where 90% or more of the area in which the fragment (golf ball) can travel is "off course" and you get limited tries. Going to have to go ahead and say it's the worst RPG mini-game that I can recall... possibly the worst ever.

I think I forgot to nitpick a few things in my last post about Dark Cloud 2 so here's one more that I've remembered... when you kill an enemy, rather than simply receive experience, it falls to the ground in a form that must be collected. Along with the items and gold that an enemy drops, experience falls to the floor, and you must wonder near it to obtain it. Worsening the issue is the fact that enemies only expel the experience at certain points in their "death sequence" which, on some enemies, is more time consuming than it should be. What's even more is that if an enemy dies next to a cliffside or river, the experience will fall into a bottomless chasm and will be unrecoverable. Now, I don't mind the idea of the EXP being in the form of tiny blue gems, but I do mind the fact that they don't simply come to me and that I have to pick them up as physical objects... it causes unnecessary problems and loss. This also doesn't bode well for the time limit goals that were mentioned in my prior post because the time limits early on are so strict that you need to completely ignore enemy drops in order to make time... you must kill and move on immediately.

Still love the game a lot right now... but I cannot deny that it has some serious problems.

Moving stuff, stress, busy, no internet.

2011-09-16T15:28:00.005-05:00

It's been a while since I've written here and there's good reason for that. First off my lovely lady and I up and moved - again... we'd had a somewhat okay living situation whereby we were renting some area in a house that belonged to my friend/ex-coworker's boyfriend. That quickly became a tense and passively hostile situation and so we began looking for something else. Thankfully, against all odds, we found an apartment and have successfully moved most of our things there - aside from the things that we can't find, sadly. The main reason I haven't written here aside from that should be painfully obvious - we don't have internet yet. Though I've recently been hired and we should have that detail dealt with relatively soon. How often I write after that is yet to be seen.

There's a lot of things I've been doing lately so I'll try to be brief with each of them. I'm much happier with our living situation now than I have been with any of our prior cohabitations. First off the area is a lot safer than the apartment we shared in Fort Worth - "The Hills Apartments". Second, management actually manages stuff and maintenance actually gets maintained, which is a huge departure from the aforementioned apartment complex in which we used to reside. Third, there's no unnecessarily hostile home owner throwing his weight around, being hostile and aggressive, and making a big deal over every little thing - we are the king and queen of this castle. Fourth, we actually have friendly neighbors... we've even been given a microwave as a loaner until we get our own - or until the original owner needs it back due to circumstance, such as his own microwave suddenly breaking. Things are going rather well in this regard.

Been hired as an overnight dry-grocery stocker at Wal-Mart. I haven't started yet and I'm officially waiting on my background check and drug test to come up clean - which it will. I'm not entirely thrilling about stocking but I am very thrilled about having a paycheck coming my way in the near future once again. I'm also quite pleased with the overnight aspect as I often find difficulty sleeping at night due to the simple fact that I'm rarely actually tired. So if I must be awake I may as well be getting paid for it.

Started playing Dark Cloud 2 recently. Originally I wasn't interested in it, but then I saw Ashley playing the first one, asked her if she'd ever played the second one, obtained it for her, then became interested in the sequel. Thankfully I was able to confirm that there is no storyline connection from the first and that it is perfectly safe to play the second with little to no knowledge about the events in the first. Now... let me start off by saying, so far I love this game. But with every game that is loved, there are things that are wrong with it, so to be fair I'll be writing about those first.

Much of this game is rather well put together, but the inventory system could have used a bit more work, the most effective way to manage your inventory is to manually move everything around yourself - which can become quite the task as your inventory will get filled up with a large variety of things rather quickly. The select button can be used to sort them in what appear to be arbitrary ways, but from what I can tell, the type of sorting that it does seems to have very little method to it, and there appear to be many different kinds of sortings and no indication as to which one you're using. All you can do is repeatedly hit the select button until items end up being in a somewhat manageable order.

Next we've got things that any other game would consider key items. During stages you must defeat enemies at least until you defeat the one that holds the key to exiting the dungeon. In the first area you're in an underground water channel, so the key is a valve of some kind, but when you approach the exit and attempt to leave you don't simply use the key upon interacting with the door, a dialogue appears which forces you to select the key. This would make more sense in situations where you may not know what item should be used here, or if there were a puzzle element involved, but then you must repeat this process for every dungeon every time you attempt to use the exit. The same is experienced for sealed off corners of the dungeons, there are items used specifically for unlocking specific doors and when you interact with them you must sort through your inventory to find where in the massive list that key landed then select it. It just seems arbitrary, unnecessary, time consuming, and very annoying after a while.

There are time limit goals in the game, which while being optional, seem to be biased against you at first. While later in the game the time limits became far more reasonable the earliest ones seem to almost entirely depend on a certain factor to work very much in your favor. You see, every time you enter a stage the map is different - at random. There are many RPGs that use this method, it allows the game to have a lot more various content in it and keeps individual stages from taking up much larger amounts of data. However, in this case, when you have a time limit which is mostly used by walking, when you end up with a map where you have a great deal of mandatory backtracking in order to complete the task being timed, it can be quite literally impossible for you to complete your task in the time allotted. Later on, this does not seem to be much of a problem.

There are many things that I love about the game so far, I'm a big fan of the idea of your weapons leveling up and upgrading, etc. That makes things very interesting so far even if it does make trying to figure out just exactly what you're going to level up and when very tedious. But since the stages are randomly produced and replayable at your leisure there's no reason to worry much about that - if you've got the time (which you'd better if you chose to play an RPG). I like the Ridepod idea quite a bit - even if they did add the arbitrary voicebox thing which does nothing but annoy the player. The inventing concept is really good, even though the whole photography thing feels unnecessary - if Max already has an idea which he can create with the concept of a Belt, a Barrel, and a Fountain, why does he need to photograph them when he clearly already has the idea? I understand that this is such that there'll be a viable RPG-like mechanic here but that doesn't mean it necessarily makes sense. I love the enemy variety... many times, when you've experienced quite a few RPGs in the past, when you tackle a new one you see the same types of enemies repeatedly recycled throughout gaming history. But never have I seen a tiny dragon wrapped around an elemental orb firing bursts of holy breath - that's a new one on me.

So to sum it up, the game has some lexical flaws, but overall I'm having a grand time with it. Especially with Monica's short swords - definitely enjoying that.

~Until next time, whenever that might be.

Personality Assessments

2011-08-17T07:40:00.004-05:00

I've been doing a whole lot of job hunting as of late - go ahead and write that in as yet another reason why I haven't been writing - and I've run afoul of yet another grand problem in my life. It's very strange to me to suddenly have this problem because I've never had it before and it seems to have simply appeared out of nowhere. See, for the last month or so I've had maybe seven possible hirings shafted by personality assessment results. This fact is currently destroying my life.

What's even more frustrating about this tool that my future is currently in a state of flux and quickly losing its balance on the brink of disaster is nary a tool at all... you see it's purpose is to define the applicant's personality in an attempt to see if that applicant fits well with the company. The way the tool was used at first, presumably, is to gather data on incoming applicants and then to study the data as such - people who drop out quickly, have poor performance, come in late often, etc. Their assessment data would be put together and compared to future applicants in an attempt to avoid hiring like individuals. Obviously the opposite for people with ambition, enthusiasm, good rapport, punctual, etc. would be have their data put together as examples of the results given by those who were likely to do well at a company.

The problem with this is that often the questions usually don't make a lot of sense. Often you'll answer a lot of questions that are not even slightly relevant to the job that you're applying for. Things may have changed over time and some questions that I remember answering may no longer exist, but I remember responding "Strongly Agree / Strongly Disagree" style statements during my application to Wal-Mart and coming upon the following statement, "It is maddening when the court lets guilty people go free." What exactly are they meant to figure out about me with my response to this? Is it whether or not I am easily angered? Is it meant to find out if I'm highly judgmental - perhaps not judgmental enough? What could this question possibly have to do with Wal-Mart? But that's not where it ends, I remember responding to another statement which read, "I have used illegal drugs in the past, but that is behind me now." So I meant to agree that I've used illegal drugs in the past, or disagree that they are behind me now, leaving me no response choice that applies to me - which is that I've never used an illegal drug in my life and never will.

Then sometimes you'll come to the part where the assessment will throw a hypothetical situation at you... say for instance, a customer is unhappy with the service and complains, how would you handle the situation? The problem here is that it assumes that I already understand this company's particular inner workings and leaves me to assume that I've chosen correctly. It gives me multiple choices such as "apologize for the inconvenience and try to improve matters myself" or "get a supervisor to help" except this is a two step process in which I'd try to help the customer myself and then if that didn't work I'd get the supervisor on scene. These types of questions do not allow for a well educated or reasonable answer when it comes to things like returns or product issues, especially when the question's multiple choices mention something about discounts, because you could not possibly know without asking someone whether the company would ever allow discounts - and how the hell would an entry level employee even have the authority to use that word on company property?

I think that the point of all of this is to help managers avoid the egregious task of doing their job. I guess I must be old fashioned, but I remember a day when you would fill a paper application, the person or people that might hire you might actually see your face/demeanor/attire/attitude, then if things went well you would be interviewed. Now we've got a system where upon placing the application is done on a computer, online. This means I either need to have my own computer and internet connection - which I can clearly afford whilst jobless, or I need to do so at a library, which will have a time limit - likely of one hour, which will be completely consumed by a single application due to the super clever assessment... it isn't even unlikely that the single application could run over that one hour time limit... and let's not forget that you might be panned due to the assessment. THEN, you have to hope that the person/people in charge of looking through the online applications somehow draw your name out of the cyber hat, because at this point you'll just be a couple of words on a screen that is filled with words. Then maybe you'll get interviewed, now interviewing is step four, if things went amazingly well on the previous steps you now have a fourth chance to screw things up, and there'll probably be a second interview, so if you were hoping for yet another roll of the dice to possibly fail worry not - it will likely be granted. It's possible that there are more places for pratfalls and hidden mines along the way that I've simply forgotten at the moment... Lord knows we clearly need more of them.

Really, the part that I hate the most is that at my most recent assessment failure location, Office Depot I was actually shown the results of my assessment. It showed that I had nearly zero energy and no initiative. This, I find out, after having biked a total of 45 miles there and back several times to try multiple times to talk to the manager, apparently this shows neither energy nor initiative. But since this lexical detail is no longer in the control of hiring managers there's nothing he can do to get past these electronic results regardless of the fact that they are polar opposite to reality. I had proof, on paper, right in front of me, that showed without a doubt that these assessments are not even remotely accurate. I discussed it with him a little bit and he said, "Maybe you took the assessment wrong." If there's some trick to it that makes it different every time then what manner of confidence can it hold?

Another thing... there are some questions that I'm sure if I were a less intelligent man, I would've seen differently. I'm sure I would've been able to take certain questions blankly in the most simple way possible without a second thought and answer them. Unfortunately I'm not that way and when I see questions or statements that are vague and allow for much interpretation I find myself wondering exactly what the question is meant to mean to me because I'll end up with several possible interpretations which provide opposing answers.

Bottom line - I'm pissed, I'm frustrated, I'm jobless, because the world is stupid. The world is using a tool to try to do something that the tool should not do. This whole method is silly, unreliable, and unrealistic. If companies do not want intelligent thinking people, with consciences, who don't steal their things, who want to work... then what exactly do they want?

And after all this time... pt, 2

2011-08-06T01:00:00.002-05:00

Okay, there was a point at which I had the intention of writing a second part to this post. But... after some careful consideration, none of which actually took place, I'm not going to. The short version is that a lot of things are going on and it has kept me from writing regularly - or at all - things that are going on include gaining and losing of job, new place, moving, some rough spots in my relationship which continues to thrive despite aforementioned rough spots, and other like stressful situations.

At some point I should get back to writing regularly but may not have the time to do so and don't really know what to expect out of the near future. Things are wildly uncertain at the moment and I'm actually quite worried about it. Yay stress.

Are you home?

2011-08-01T00:00:00.003-05:00

Suddenly I find myself unable to consider this question like I normally would... are you home? What does home mean to me? Have I ever been home? I can remember feeling like I was home for the first time when a certain someone held me close and told me that she loved me. Now there is no vehicle that can take me home again, now there is no such thing, no such place exists.

Edit: I was wrong... she came back... she provided me passage back home.

And after all this time... pt, 1

2011-07-30T21:37:00.003-05:00

It's been a disgustingly long time since I've written... and this indicates that, to me, eleven days is a disgustingly long time to go without writing... but to the matter at hand - many things have changed for me.

My love and I have moved to a location that, thank God who art in Heaven, is not Fort Worth. While I appreciate that the location in which we resided had a notably low rent cost it didn't stop the utility bills from making up the difference. This low cost encouraged many other things within the nearby environment among which were drug dealers, prostitutes, thieves, little to no grounds maintenance, little to no building maintenance, problems with the mail system - which resulted in not receiving most of our mail, a pool that was often green and sometimes had feces in it... the list goes on. So basically what I'm saying is that it was a terrible place to live and that the area itself was causing our relationship a great deal of stress.

There was a clench time during which we were both quite frightened of not having a place to go at all. That is to say that we both had separate roofs over our heads - the separateness was another form of stress for us, by the way - but that both of those roofs had inherent expiration dates. If something wasn't done quickly then we would both be on the street... theoretically. So we dealt with the immense stress of possible homelessness.

Love and money.

2011-07-19T00:00:00.000-05:00

One of my friend's recent Facebook status updates: "I really dislike girls that are after money only. They see a man and ask what does he do for a living and see dollar signs. Man, get off that shit and get on your own grind!"

To which I replied, "My lady and I realize that true love is far above and beyond the value of these worldly "dollars". Love is exponentially more rare to the degree as such of being immeasurable."

However, there may be a real problem in both of these viewpoints...

When two people are coming together in a romantic and meaningful way such as to become truly connected and intimate with each other, things of worldly value should neither add to nor diminish those possibilities but the sad fact is that it usually does, and not always in the way that you'd think. There is, in fact, an innocent way for this to take place.

Obviously you'll always have the guilty reasons, where one person will see the other as a mealticket and that this will either go along with romantic intentions or possibly be a replacement thereof. But there's a further possibility and it's one that until I read and responded to this I hadn't realized. The latency of this realization is somewhat embarassing because it may very well be quite relevant to the happenings between my love and myself.

Now before I get into this, it's entirely possible that this doesn't really factor in and that somehow we would have gotten together due to the cosmic fact that we are meant to be together. However, it is worth noting that money is needed in the city to survive, or even just to have a variety of fun times.

A great deal of our early relationship was spent going to restaurants and having other such good times. I also had to help her with gas money because she was driving to see me from a great distance away. Those good times cost me money, which held no value to me, because it was spent in the pursuit of something far greater than that money could ever hope to be. It is entirely possible that if we had not been able to experience those times together - those times we wouldn't have had if I had been unable to pay for them - then perhaps we would not have been capable of weaving together such an amazing bond.

It's possible for two people in the city to make a legitimate connection by theirselves with no monetary involvement at all but after considering my own situation I feel like that might be a different world of difficult.

Finding love in and of itself is difficult beyond understanding possibly because the task itself is not understandable... doing it without the ability to travel, spend the night out, enjoy luxuries together... that sounds much harder.

Oh, also... there's other innocent reasons to want to know what your potential significant other does for a living, such as how much time you spend at work and therefore not with him or her, or if you enjoy your job or not and how that affects your mood on a regular basis... just other things to consider.

Hank Raps about w00tstock...for real

2011-07-18T00:00:00.002-05:00

Oh wow... been a little while.

2011-07-17T11:40:00.007-05:00

Now, I know it's been a little while since I've written here and it puts into question as to whether or not any release schedule could ever be devised here until things in my life settle down... for an idea as to how not settled down things are in my life right now my lady and I are trying to acquire a different place to live and our mission is a stressful one... things are improving rapidly now, however. My job hunt got super hot, so did the temperature, her job hunt got pretty involved, and still is... but she's got several temporary to possibly long term things so we're well equipped for the time being.

Though, this is not the topic that I intended to write about today. Once upon a time I wrote about someone I once knew named John Roper - in a post which has since then been deleted - and mentioned that he had a terrible habit of talking excessively on his phone whilst he had actual company in his presence. The other day I saw an acquaintance of mine - Andrew Foster - for the first time in years (literally) and I had an important phone call come in which I had to take. Even though I kept the call very short, thirty three seconds short, I still felt a little awkward taking the phone call in that situation. It is extremely poor form to overuse your phone in front of company or when you are someone's guest. So I took the call, got the relevant part of it done, and ended the conversation. Andrew had an instance where he had to do the same, neither call lasted over a minute and a half, this is a good length for a call in this situation to be.

Do you know anyone who has that bad habit? Someone who'll get on the phone while you are hanging out with them and stay on the phone almost as if you aren't even there? It's extremely irritating, isn't it? Don't do that to others, mkay?

Sometime ago a friend of mine suggested that I should start a vlog on YouTube and though I held great reservation for the idea at that time I am gradually warming up to the concept because I am gradually getting ideas for what I might do with it. If I were to start doing such a thing, of course, they would be posted here as well. There really is no telling whether this will actually come to pass or not because I haven't exactly figured out exactly how I'd like to do the filming. It's an idea in development, I s'pose.

Bored and writing.

2011-06-29T08:01:00.005-05:00

It seems like things have been completely off track here, I know that I've discussed revising my release schedule, of which there hasn't been one for a while, really. But to be completely honest, on top of not spending my time writing, I also haven't been spending any time planning to write or devising a better management strategy for my writing. It seems as though I ought to leave it as is for now and simply write when it feels natural to do so. But there are a lot of things that I'm terribly truant on at this point... such as VirInPro. I've repeatedly tried to make it clear on the site itself that it's not dead and that there will eventually be more content but I haven't bothered doing that as of late and I'm not even sure if the site gets traffic at this point. Though, there is a pretty big release due in the near future, but it's still not quite ready and is still being tweaked by someone who knows infinitely more about the complex coding of StepMania than I do.

I'm still with my lovely lady and still very happy about it. She sometimes reads this blog, so right here, I'd like to say "Hi, love!" And then I'll get back to writing...

I'm not entirely certain if I've mentioned here, but we're moving... it's a lot more difficult than I would've thought to arrange such a thing and we're both in the midst of looking for work in the relevant area. Thankfully I've got two interviews already on the books, am in talks with yet another manager about getting a third on the books... he wants to hire me, I can tell, but there's bugs in their stupid online application system that need working out... and she's got a fat stack of paper applications all filled out and ready to go. I'm so proud of her, I don't think that my wrist would've cooperated with me for that amount of abuse in that span of time, and then we'll be going today so that I can appear at my first of the aforementioned interviews and so that she can turn in this fat stack of apps.

This is a bit of a miracle though and I'd like to take it as a cosmic sign that we're actually supposed to be moving to the area we're headed to... the reasoning behind that thought is the fact that I normally have a phenomenally hard time finding work. To be more specific, usually when I get an interview, I nail it and get the job... but I usually have an extraordinarily large amount of difficulty getting the interviews. These three sources that are panning out however, in this instance, occurred on my very first day of looking for work in that particular area. It can't be that the area is easier to get work in because I've looked in the area before and have met with the exact experiences that have allowed me to learn that my job finding luck is quite low. It's somewhat a bizarre experience to have one twenty-four hour period pay out so effectively for me. Luckily, she's never had any trouble finding work, and I'm quite sure that she'll have employment quite soon... it really looks like we're going to make this happen - which is good because we've both a bit of a time limit in this particular scenario.

And now for the portion that my lovely lady will not be reading, because it evidently bores her, the gaming portion. However, this is about a game that she has told me that she'll be willing to try to play with me, so who knows, maybe it'll interest her at this point after all.

A rather large update is being implemented on Dungeon Fighter Online today, one that's been in the making for quite a while, and they've sure dangled it in front of us for a good long time to. I'm sure that they'll repeat the same mistakes that they made the last time that they put together a game update this large... by that I mean that I expect the maintenance downtime of the game will last a good nine to twenty hours beyond the projected time for the update, so I've got plenty of time before this game steals a little bit of my soul again. However, thankfully they are implementing several awesome changes on the game that I'm soooooo ready to experience.

One change that they're making is something that I've been silently wishing for since... well damn near since I started playing the game, but definitely a lot more since my first time to use a Gunner class character. See, for each of your special moves you have two options - hotkey or command. Hotkeys are self explanatory, you assign the move to a button, hit that button, and the move happens - simple. Commands however are quite apparently for instances where all the hotkeys are occupied by special moves that you use most often or that you're most comfortable with and you have overflow special moves. It's the classic Street Fighter idea where you press certain directions in succession with a button at the end which causes the move to happen. For example:

Basic buttons:

C - Jump

X - Attack

Z - Special

Space - Second Special

The Z button for all characters is setup for their original special attack which usually involves an aerial. The Space button is there specifically for command style special move input. Oh yeah, the example... the Priest's special move Forward Straight is Left/Right + Z. So either Left or Right simultaneously with the Z button. This allows for use of the attack without having to assign it to a hotkey.

The problem is that the Gunner has this giant gatling gun that demands very appropriate positioning, immobilizes him/her temporarily - long enough to be uncomfortable if positioned poorly, and is stupidly easy to command string by accident. The command string is Down - Foward + X. So if you were busy adjusting your position downward in either direction when you try to do a normal attack then you'd set off this special move and likely be punished for it - very very annoying.

The change is this... you can now assign the command strings yourself, no longer are you stuck with command strings which are inherently inconvenient or that make little to no sense to you. Such a glorious change... it won't help all moves though, some moves are more versatile when hotkeyed because when you perform them holding certain directions at the time of their input you can change the direction and/or distance with which they are performed and this control over the attack's mobility is vital to some moves.

Another change that damn near brought tears of joy to my eyes is the addition of what they call "Ghost Status"... y'see in olden days some people would join teams, die early on in the stage and refuse to resurrect themselves because of whatever reason. In doing so, they would continue to receive experience, gold, stage clear bonus, and even a reward card at the end of the stage. Basically... these people are assholes. However, now these people will receive "Ghost Status" during which they will receive nothing and for which they will be penalized at the end of the stage.

Also among the changes is what they call the "Difficulty Sharing System". Once upon a time, when I started the game, I started unlocking "Roads" which were higher difficulties of the same dungeons. For each different character I had to continue to unlock these Roads such that each character would have them... not anymore... now if any character on my account has access then they all do. This is a lot less irritating...

There are a lot more changes but these are the ones that I'm looking forward to the most. Aside from the changes in game logistics there are the things that they are adding to the game, such as a completely new character class, with the one downside being that out of the four subclasses for it there are only two currently available - even on the Korean servers. The problem is that if I bust my ass to build up my brand new Thief, get her all the way down a certain path of a certain subclass, then the two other subclasses open up and look way more my style... but maybe this is a useless concern.

That's enough words for now...

triplejctick11 - Greatly Escaping, possibly down Robert's Sink

2011-06-24T05:20:00.003-05:00

I've found myself in habit now of responding directly to spam in hopes that it will lead to something entertaining and perhaps give me practice at doing something fun. It doesn't always work and often leads to short correspondences. However, sometimes even in the short conversations there can be some gold.

I don't really have a fondness for people I don't know sending me messages asking for my commentary, subscription, or whatever else about something that I've never heard of and that I've never expressed interest in. However, I find it humorously inane to receive one such message that suggests I go as far as to pay for it.

Sent by - triplejctick11

Subject - If you like Alternative/indiee/metal rock then read this message! :)

Date - 06/08/11

Hey guys! Please check out my new album on iTunes! It was just uploaded yesterday, and I'm a little indie guy needing as much support as possible. So please Help! :)

You can get on iTunes and search "Robert J Sink". The album is called "The Great Escape". You can buy the full album for $6.93 or you can buy a song individually for $0.99. thanks for the fun, and support! :)

Sent to: zaiedro, zainin666, zanasoybayncuh, zapatitotv, zellepia, zephyrwolfhealing, zerohour2384, zeropremise888, zetaplays, zethyguitarist, zetsushima, zibulewsky, zidert12, ziryanhd, zitaheymann285, zoey10133, zoneboygraphics, zorankolica, zorin1972, zuca480, zuzi681, zxzjohnmusicfan91xzx

Sent by - ZanasoYBayncuh

Subject - Re: If you like Alternative/indiee/metal rock then read this message! :)

Date - 06/11/11

Dear Style-confusion.

Thank you for your commitment to music and solicitation. It's a wonderful feeling to know that I was among the 21 other special recipients of this vitally important message - without which I'm certain all of mankind would have been annihilated by boredom.

Since your metal is alternative to independence... or something... I can only assume that your commitment to a particular style is nonexistent and that this leaves your art completely fluid such that it never dries or actually becomes art.

Actually, allow me to apologize for that last comment, I did not take any time to listen to any samples that may have been available for whatever tracks you released on iTunes. Due to the fact that my time is otherwise spent on curing AIDS, solving worldwide famine, and inventing teleportation methods - all of which you would've been aware of already if you'd looked over my channel and seen my video entitled "Important Science Discoveries I'm Responsible For", I released it shortly after a video I titled, "How much I love independent alternatives to metal." Along with all of those other headbanger related videos that I've poured out and all of the metal talk I've thrown about on my channel page. So I guess it's no wonder that I was chosen along with the 21 other superheroes of wonder and science to receive this message.

Due to the aforementioned activities taking much of my time, I normally see messages that immediately ask me to purchase something that I know nothing about from a source that is incredibly lacking in credibility as garbage and a waste of my time, but when I saw this one I decided that you were special and that your specialness was worth Greatly Escaping, possibly down Robert's Sink.

~Regards, Zan

Sent by - triplejctick11

Subject - Re: If you like Alternative/indiee/metal rock then read this message! :)

Date - 06/11/11

thanks asshole. You sure waisted a long time telling me how much of a nerd you were. I was just trying to get the music that I spent months and months on out there for people to hear and maybe pick up if they felt the want to.

...Real cool

Sent by - ZanasoYBayncuh

Subject - Re: If you like Alternative/indiee/metal rock then read this message! :)

Date - 06/11/11

Dear Waist Time,

You're very welcome, I make it a habit of making my waist and hips aware of the time regularly, it's routine for small sugar coated candies by Willy Wonka to do so. I could see that you were trying to spread your music around but first you were trying to get paid for a product that is unproven, untested, and unwarranted. You were also mailing a lot of people who've warranted no such mailing.

As for trying to be recognized for music that you've worked months and months on you could try taking a page out of Stabilizer's book, they released their music in full for free and still people ended up buying it later, but then again... they were good at what they were doing and they weren't loading people down with spam.

~Regards, Zan.

Sent by - triplejctick11

Subject - Re: If you like Alternative/indiee/metal rock then read this message! :)

Date - 06/11/11

k troll

Sent by - ZanasoYBayncuh

Subject - Re: If you like Alternative/indiee/metal rock then read this message! :)

Date - 06/11/11

Thank you for acknowledging my kind! you know, we trolls don't get much recognition in your human world, but it's great to know that there are a few more advanced humans such as yourself that realize that man's technologies cannot produce the teleportation that I previously told you I was involving myself in creating. Thankfully, we Trolls are a proud race and do not need to feed our pride with puny human's praises.

Once I fed my Troll brother spam, it gave him chronic diahrrea for three days and I told him that he could either have full access to the toilet for $6.93 or that he could pay per use a fee of $0.99... so thankfully I have something to compare your spam filled proposition to.

~Regards, Zan.

Realization

2011-06-20T05:13:00.003-05:00

I am coming upon the epiphany that perhaps the ability I once had to keep up with this blog - having a new post every day - may have been a sign that I had no life and/or nothing important or useful happening in it. Since then I have filled my life with my lovely lady and much of my time has gone to building a legitimate life... such as spending time with her, occupying most of my days with finding work or better work, cohabitation, etc. So this is why I consistently fall behind now... it makes me somewhat sad that after quite some time of remaining diligent in my daily update schedule that I have faltered so very much.

With this realization I may have to accept the possibility that I may have to change to a different release schedule in the hopes that it'll be something that I can actually keep up with. Perhaps in doing that I'll have a decent enough backlog at most times to deal with these lengthy absences.

Readers may be glad to know that my time spend with this wonderful woman are going well and that our relationship is moving along quite nicely. Not only has our interactions improved but I believe that we're growing up and maturing even more as adults... this is terrific progress.

...Oh shit... it is late. (or is it early?) *thud*

Portal 2 - This time it's not Portal 1.

2011-06-13T18:38:00.005-05:00

Yet another Portal 2 speed run attempt. Still trying to shave it to 2hrs.

Ch1 - 20:15.71 -10.52

Ch2 - 08:55.60 -39.68

Ch3 - 13:28.60 -1:35.91

Ch4 - 09:40.62 -44.62

Ch5 - 15:00.84 -51.68

Ch6 - 17:22.83 -1:14.97

Ch7 - 14:23.87 -3:52.42

Ch8 - 21:51.45 -47.89

Ch9 - 11:16.81 -43.65

Total - 2:12:16.36 -11:51.36

Just for funsies, I guess...

2011-06-07T00:00:00.002-05:00

This is my second attempt at speed running Portal 2... used a stopwatch app on my Android phone to get the times, they aren't perfect but they're accurate enough.

Ch1 - 20:36.23

Ch2 - 09:35.28

Ch3 - 15:04.51

Ch4 - 10:25.24

Ch5 - 15:52.52

Ch6 - 19:37.80

Ch7 - 18:16.29

Ch8 - 22:39.36

Ch9 - 12:00.46

Total - 2:24:07.72

Shaved off over a half an hour from my last attempt... wonder if I can do it in less than two hours?

Also, this time definitely includes the loading screens.

Integra rear wiper.

2011-06-06T00:00:00.003-05:00

I sometimes get bored and go through my Twitter and Facebook looking for things that I can respond to in smartass - hopefully humorous ways... whether or not I take care to avoid being offensive depends entirely on who I'm responding to.

Status update posted by Amanda Hacks - May 12 at 3:41pm

Anyone need an integra rear wiper? :D

Response by Jeremy Andrew Pearson - May 12 at 8:47pm [liked by 1 person]

I love wiping integra rears, it's amazing to see someone ready to fill that niche, and I'm glad to see that someone - anyone - heard my prayers and created a product specifically for this activity.

kepakalakaua - The internet version of handing out fliers.

2011-06-05T00:00:00.005-05:00

I cannot rightly say that this post and posts I've written like it are not inspired by David Thorne, though I wouldn't consider them to be exact copies of his style either, even if they are wildly similar. The truth is that I've done the same type of thing for ages for my own amusement and never considered the entertainment value of sharing the results with others... clearly that is where his genius lies and where I fell short. Having seen the error of my ways I am correcting this failure of mine immediately and thought this would be a great place to start.

I don't normally respond to anything that looks like spam - unless I'm particularly bored, so when the following message showed up in my YouTube inbox I immediately dismissed it as bot noise, however I had very little else to do and thought that I could give my smart-ass muscle a workout. Soliciting in general is a bit of a put off, but it's one thing entirely to do it blind, having no idea what relevance the topic of your solicitation might have to your subject. However, in this case my YouTube channel is completely open for the viewing, so it wouldn't be completely unreasonable to think that, just perhaps, someone could skim the videos that I've posted and get a small idea of some of my interests...

Contents of my YouTube channel:

Amateur music videos of my own creation - 2

Friends and Gaming - 3

IIDX footage - 11

ITG/StepMania - 21

My son - 1

Random gaming footage - 8

StarCraft/LRR thing - 1

There she is!! - 5

As a point to note, these are also included in my YouTube channel:

Rap Music - 0

Hip Hop - 0

Mainstream music - 0

Sent by - kepakalakaua

Subject - kepakalakaua sent you a video: "Blackwater Refuge - Love for Love"

Date - 04/26/11

Hey, what's up? I just wanted to introduce a new hip hop group to you, Blackwater Refuge. Their latest song is entitled "Love for Love" and I have attached it to this message. Please give it a listen and let me know what you think. If you like it, please leave a comment and also go to their facebook and click on the LIKE button. If you have time, please also check out their first single, "Hawaii Nice", in which they created a cool new Hawaiian Hip-Hip sound.

Thank you and much love and blessings to you...

[attached video]

Sent by - ZanasoYBayncuh

Subject - Re: kepakalakaua sent you a video: "Blackwater Refuge - Love for Love"

Date - 04/26/11

Dear [name of many syllables],

Thank you for your recommendation, I see that my reputation of being a hip hop connoisseur has finally paid off as it has brought me YouTube gold such as this and pop hip hop fusions such as "Friday"... yes, indeed this is right at home on YouTube and doing its average in quality justice. I'm even more pleased to see that it isn't trying to make much sense or to sound anything more than mediocre since hip hop's greatest weakness tends to be taking itself far too seriously.

~Regards, Zan.

Sent by - kepakalakaua

Subject - Re: kepakalaua sent you a video: "Blackwater Refuge - Love for Love"

Date - 05/29/11

Thanks for the feedback. Please subscribe to Blackwater Refuge's YouTube channel. Here's the link... http://www.youtube.com/user/PanaJonesMusic?feature=mhee They are releasing some new songs soon.

Much Love and Blessings to you,

Kepa

Sent by - ZanasoYBayncuh

Subject - Re: kepakalakaua sent you a video: "Blackwater Refuge - Love for Love"

Date - 05/31/11

Yes, I'm sure the feedback which referenced ideas like "cliché" and "useless" is usually quite valuable and worthy of gratitude. It's somewhat like I went to your restaurant, ate your food, and did you the wonderfully polite favor of telling you that I would have rather eaten the rats that infest your kitchen. Though I guess I should have commended "Blackwater Refuge" for coming up with both a title and a long string of lyrics that make little to no sense. That was quite a feat, unlike those fools with Red Hot Chili Peppers and They Might Be Giants, this particular brand of senselessness takes things a step yet further and makes things somewhat unbelievable... it is, in fact, somewhat surreal how inane it is.

You know, once I wrote a rap, and even came up with a name for my "group" of one person - which only included me. The rap contained words like "mischief", "malfeasance", and "grotesquery" which puts it a lot more on the white side than I would have considered myself to be. So Diwreckshin was off to a great start of having very little if any street cred at all and absolutely no gangsters with pants worn improperly. Because of this I gained no fans and kept my rad hip hop freestyling limited to the time I spent showing dominance over others with my hacky sack skills. I feel that this is probably where "Blackwater Refuge" and your talents belong, hidden... in the dark... where no one else is overwhelmed by how awesome they are... preferably seen by no other person ever.

~Regards, Zan.

Sent by - kepakalakaua

Subject - Re: kepakalakaua sent you a video: "Blackwater Refuge - Love for Love"

Date - 05/31/11

Thanks for the feedback. Although you don't like our music I do appreciate your opinion and I hope you have a great day.

Much love and blessings,

Kepa

Sent by - ZanasoYBayncuh

Subject - Re: kepakalakaua sent you a video: "Blackwater Refuge - Love for Love"

Date - 05/31/11

No, no... you've got me all wrong, I absolutely adore being exposed to the repetition inherent in 99% of today's hip hop, that's what keeps it new and fresh. I never said I disliked your music, I'd be lying if I said that what I experienced was music, I'm quite sure that it was an interesting new breed of mismatched notes alongsside incompatible syllables that were grue-like in nature. I found it refreshing, like a Diet Coke left out in the 97ºF sun until it is not only very hot, but has also gone flat. Now not only does it taste like cancer, but it also has that mouth melting property that many people crave, along with removing any of those annoying soda bubbles that pop drinkers can't stand.

However, thank you once again for appreciating "my opinion", I'm certain that most of the people that you solicited are now lining up at the post office anxious to send their letters of commendation to every record label that they can think of, and I'm positive that the aforementioned record companies are having their determination to ignore those letters dwindled down by the sheer mass of the pile that the letters are creating. Once they read through the several sextillion words cheering praises of your glory, they will most assuredly let down their guard and allow your oncoming eardrum assault.

~Regards, Zan.

Sent by - kepakalakaua

Subject - Re: kepakalakaua sent you a video: "Blackwater Refuge - Love for Love"

Date - 05/31/11

Zan, I truly do appreciate you taking the time to respond and I'm sorry for bothering you.

Much love and god bless,

Kepa

Sent by - ZanasoYBayncuh

Subject - Re: kepakalakaua sent you a video: "Blackwater Refuge - Love for Love"

Date - 05/31/11

Dear Syllables,

You get me all wrong again, I was not bothered, I was instead entertained... I would've said that I was touched by your actions if it were not for my haptephobia and the genophobia that it causes - because I did feel a little screwed out of four minutes. But I digress, were it not for your internet version of handing out fliers, I would have forgotten what mainstream rap/hiphop "styles" looked like and in the near future may have let down my guard and allowed some of its kind into my playlist. You just may have saved me from losing my taste in the genre and from losing the ability to identify actual music within it. Some people have talent and others act as amazing examples of what not to do.

Ellen Degeneres is probably the coolest gay person in the world, she's amazing, pretty much everyone loves her. But there's this guy I know who gayed up hot tubs, saunas, bars, and every place he possibly could until he contracted late stage HIV. He's a greaat example of what not to do...

~Regards, Zan.

Sent by - kepakalakaua

Subject - Re: kepakalakaua sent you a video: "Blackwater Refuge - Love for Love"

Date - 05/31/11

Thanks for the clever advice. Have a great day.

Sent by - ZanasoYBayncuh

Subject - Re: kepakalakaua sent you a video: "Blackwater Refuge - Love for Love"

Date - 05/31/11

Dear Lotsa Random Letters,

You're quite welcome for the advice, I make it a habit of giving advice to those in need, and when one makes it so very obvious that they are in need I simply must help.

Thank you for referring to it as clever, I would've feared any cleverness misidentified due to the content originally shared with me, but you've gone ahead and done your best to break that particular mold held firmly in place by most basic mainstream flavor rap/hiphop fans. I imagine that would make you the most evolved of your species.

I will do my best to have a great day - my attempts begin with replacing as much Blackrefuse Water with MC Frontalot as I can.

~Regards, Zan.

Absence of necessity - partially by force.

2011-06-04T03:46:00.004-05:00

Some time and a day ago I found that I could connect to the internet on my laptop using my Android cellphone using a method called "tethering"... weeks later I found out that the program used to do this was in a "trial period" that it never hinted at until it blocked off anything useful about itself and harassed me for payment. Obviously payment isn't an option due to the simple fact that the very reason I am using it is due to my lack of money. So I found a much older version of PdaNet which doesn't require purchase and still allows me to operate as needed -- Thank you, internet.

Things are going great between my lady and I... in fact they appear to be moving along far more nicely than I could've hoped... my things have been moved in, even placed in appropriate locations in the apartment, and I'm officially an occupant here. Though, I won't be an occupant here for long and neither will she - because these apartments are run by swindlers who do the swindling... basically there is little or no maintenance or care for tenants of any kind. We've had a faulty AC unit leaking into our bathroom floor for nearly two months despite telling management four times and being responded to four times with promises of "we'll send someone." What I plan to do is video record evidence of the problem and the date, then video record another telling of management of what the problem is - and the date, and repeat. After gaining the evidence necessary to prove that they are in violation of their legal duties as landlords we will take action.

~Ja ne.

My Everything... Sang as "Thanks for Nothing" by Sum 41

2011-05-24T00:00:00.002-05:00

I wrote this for my love while we were trading love letters, it was meant to be my first reply, but then I lost my nerve to try to perform it for her... thinking I needed more practice... then I never got the chance. I figure I've got no reason to try to keep it quietly any more... so here it is.

I'll never think of you as just infatuation
or think our time wasted in this creation
Forget who I knew
My love's about you
And I want you to know

I was jaded, frustrated
it was so complicated
Passion, compassion abandoned me

But now I know this
I've never loved before
You're the one I'm for
I ask you to believe in something real
I give all of myself to you
Love that you love me too
This is who we are and
you're my everything...
you're my everything...

I felt fargone and completely disillusioned
I'd been long lost in a sea of confusion
Won't phase us
You, I do trust
Even if they're dishonest.
Our romance, this great chance has changed my faith and my stance
Lying, deep sighing next to you

And now I know this
I'd never loved before
This is what love's for
I ask you to believe in something real
I give all of my love to you
My heart and spirit, too
This is who I am and
you're my everything...

Don't think I could ignore this
You're so very amazing
Never want to ignore this
This love is not the same.

What I know is
I never loved before
not once at all before
I asked you to believe in something real
And I'd like to say it more
You are my Heaven's shore
This is who you are and
you're my everything...

(My everything)
You're who my love is for
(My everything)
I'd never loved before
(My everything)
I'm so glad you're not the same
(My everything)
My love's not gonna change.

If you're wondering...

2011-05-23T00:00:00.004-05:00

If I still care... I do.

Minor absence.

2011-05-22T00:00:00.002-05:00

The main reason that it is minor is because it was me... I was the one who was absent... so I'm quite sure that no one noticed, and therefore it isn't important.

I've been spending the last few days feeling pretty sick and trying desperately to behave otherwise. I don't want pity, nor concern, it's not a big deal. However I've also been spending that same amount of time, or more, very much missing my father. I know that it's been seven+ years, but that doesn't mean that I've gotten over it, I still mourn his passing. The road has been rocky in general and my emotional armor has been taking quite a beating... and I often don't know what to do with myself right now.

To whom it may concern...

2011-05-21T02:45:00.003-05:00

Dear Blogger...

What the hell?

~Sincerely, Zan.