Weekend Post

Hey everyone! I know it kinda sucks just reading about me getting my permit and my addiction to Minesweeper, but now I’ve got a variety of things to talk about today! Let’s get rolling.

Yesterday I got about 20 mins of driving practice in. My brother took me out all the way to Mission College since the parking lot at EVC was under construction or something. Almost all of my siblings took their first driving practices at EVC, including myself lol. Don’t tell anyone, but I’ve driven a bit before getting my permit. Anyways, the thing was I promised Martin that I’d hang out with him Saturday and go to Valley Fair with him. I got to his house, we played some Odin Sphere and Magic until his mom finally got around to driving us. I got to his house around 12 and we left around, 3. She ended up taking us to Eastridge, which confused us since she didn’t say she changed her mind about where she wanted to go.

When we got there, Martin and I walked around trying to find a gift for his girlfriend. At first we went to like, the Zales and other places trying to find a charm bracelet or something for her, but since his price range was very limited, we couldn’t get anything at those places lol. You should have seen the subtle changes in the saleswomen’s faces when he told them about his price range. Funny, thing, as we left Zales, I saw the Macy’s and suggested we go there. This is because I had seen/heard a lot of Macy’s commercials recently. O.o Anyhow, Martin said everything at Macy’s would be too expensive, so we kept walking. As we walked, he kept saying “Let’s go to Macy’s” but I thought he was making fun of me for suggesting to go. Shortly after, he asked me where Macy’s was, and I told him we had just past it. He then said he actually wanted to go.

We went in on the first floor, and after a quick glance around, we decided to go up the escalator. However, on the way up Martin spotted the jewelery place and we had to cycle around the go back down. This ended up happening a lot of times, Martin would want to go to a place but go in the wrong direction. So went we got to Macy’s, everything there still was too expensive. But we found one of those discount displays. For the sake of keeping the gift and its price on the down low, let’s just say the price was unexpected.

Afterwords, we went over to Gamestop and checked out some games. For the longest time, I’ve been wanting/needing a PSP RPG fix. Valkyrie Profile wasn’t cutting it for me since you have to work hard on a character only to send him up to fight the battle of Ragnarok and you don’t get to use them ever again until the end. Disgaea, I’ve hit that point in the game where there’s nothing to do but over train to take down Baal. Baal is lvl 4000 at first, then lvl 6000. My strongest char is 1400+. In short, I’ve hit this wall of mindless grind. I don’t have any other RPG games, and I wanted something turn-based. None of that run around on a map kinda thing, like Star Ocean or the Tales of Series. Wild Arms XF, a tactical RPG like FFT and Disgaea started looking good to me. Every review I’ve read said powerleveling is not the way to go and strategy is the key. Plus the game is done with hexagons, not the traditional squares that Disgaea and FFT use. At Gamestop I found the game, priced at $29.99 new. After talking it over with Martin, I decided not to get it on the account of I still have Odin Sphere to finish, I don’t finish a lot of games often, and Martin would have to pay for half of it since I am broke.

We went to FYE afterwords, where I found some awesome DVDs of old anime. Martin bought this movie called, “Perfume”. It takes place in like, Paris of the super old days. The main character is blessed with a super amazing sense of smell and becomes a perfume maker, dedicated to preserving the beauty of scent. While trying to capture the scent of a woman, she accidentally kills her. I don’t know the rest because I had to go home before we finished watching the movie at Martin’s house. It seems like a good movie though. Anyways, back to the mall. We went to Barns and Noble and just walked around, looking for books, checking some out. I bought Hellsing Volume 6, the only manga I will buy at the moment lol. It cost me my last few bills. All my money is now only in coins in my piggybank and shoebox. I keep my quarters in a shoebox. Don’t judge me >.>

Then today, I got to practice driving for 2 hours. My dad took me out to EVC’s front parking lot, which isn’t under construction, so I got my practice in there. I got used to turning left and right. My dad says my progress is so good, that next weekend I can probably starting driving on some quiet and non-busy roads. I say “non-busy” because “vacant” or “empty” just has negative connotations. Funny thing was, while I was practicing at EVC 2 other cars were also practicing, haha. Pretty cool. I don’t have to do Behind the Wheel training since I am 17 and 1/2, but I do have to wait until I turn 18 to take the Driver’s Test. If only February would come quicker.

I managed to watch the last episode of Code Geass R2 today. HOLY S–T it was amazing. I loved it. From my friends that I’ve talked to, the episode had mixed reviews. There was some extra confusing things happening, but then someone on 4chan cleared up the confusion. Dustin sent me a picture of some people at 4chan discussing what happened, and the person’s conclusion made perfect sense. I gotta rewatch that episode sometime later. It blew my mind. When Lelouch first talked about the Zero Requiem, I should have seen what happens in the last episode coming, but it completely blindsided me.

Anywho, I also downloaded and watched some episodes of Zoids New Century Zero. That’s the Zoids series that first came to America, with Bit Cloud and his Liger Zero and Liger Zero’s armors: Panzer, Jaeger, and Schnider. It’s my favorite Zoid series. I don’t know why, but I could never really get into the other series that had dramatic storylines. I liked the lightheartedness of the tournament competition style of Zoids New Century Zero. Ah Leena, one of first anime girls I found awesome.

I’d like to talk some more, specifically about my dog Cherry and my english teacher Dr. Lemco, but I got a paper to write for Lemco, haha. I’ll just leave you with one of Lemco jokes.

A kid asks “How do they make Superman fly on the tv show?” The answer, “They touch him in the right places.”

Timestamp – 10:35 PM

Minesweeper 3000

So today I’ve finally reached 3000 plays of Minesweeper on the basic mode, 9 by 9 field with 10 mines. Out of those 3000, I have 2672 wins, giving me an 89% winrate. It’s eating my life, haha. Just yesterday alone I played over 200 rounds. My goal is to get a 90% winrate before I walk away from Minesweeper for at least a month or so. And while I’m close, don’t underestimate the scale of the task.

2672/3000 = 0.8906666repeating.

If I manage to win the next game, 2673/3000 = 0.8907030. Amazing progress isn’t it?

On the other hand, if I lose the next game, 2672/3001 = 0.8903698

So in other words, a loss sets me back 3 wins. One tiny mistake, or one situation where you have to guess, can make 3 games all for naught. So yeah, I’m looking forward to the day I can walk away from this. I got some other more interesting topics to blog about, but as usual, that’s for another time.

Permit time.

I’m going to keep this brief.

1. I got my permit two weeks after passing the written test since I had to wait for my new glasses.
2. I love being able to see although its pretty weird going into super clarity after years of non clarity.
3. I will post more often in the future.

Timestamp – 4:40 PM

You know what? I blame myself and school

My eyes have gotten worse. For those of you that have been around me in the right situations, you know that I can’t see very well from a classroom away. I am always saying that I need a stronger prescription. I’ve needed one since maybe the last month of Junior year. Anyhow, my parents finally got around to scheduling an appointment and off I was to the Eye Q optometry. The testing was done, and sure enough my eyes have gotten worse. I went from 1.25 in both eyes to 2.50 in my right and 2.75 in my left. The doctor mentioned something about astigmatism, but I was kind of preoccupied trying to wipe my eyes clean of this weird liquid/chemical I had to drop in my eye.

One of the tests was this thing where you put your head/eye near a white screen, focus on the white dot, and every time you see a squiggling black bar you press a button. But I felt that my eyes were playing tricks on me as they often do. Sometimes I pressed the button just because I was sure there was supposed to be a bar and times I press the button after the bar had already disappeared. I felt very reminiscent of the time in 7th grade Science when I kept seeing things in the microscope that weren’t actually there <.<. You remember the sound/hearing test we all had to do a few times in our life? You get into a cramped car, sit in a curtained booth, put on really really pinching headphones, and when you hear a sound you open your hand? I always thought there was something wrong with those sort of tests. You’re asking someone to do something that require skill/timing on their part, thereby adding in a variable that may or may not influence results. You know how sometime to time something just right you have to shoot for going a little early? I just don’t think that testing that way really works. Of course the alternative would be hooking up the brain to a machine to record things, but who is really going to do that for everyone?

I blame the school for all the computer related homework I have to do, but the real problem is myself starting these assignments so late at night. There’s nothing wrong with using the computer a lot so long as you do it in a well lit environment and every hour or so you take a 10-20 minute break, or so I’ve read. The problem with that is, when I’m doing my homework up late I am usually doing it without my parents consent, who don’t like it when I stay up late. Therefore I have to keep my lights off, and if/when I hear their door opening at night for whatever reason, I quickly close my laptop lid and wait for them to back to their room. Yes I do a lot of video gaming/manga reading/anime watching, but this occurs when there is light. I wouldn’t stay up unless I had something important to do, which in this case is a 20 line French 4 assignment and a constitution to write up for DDR Club.

Timestamp – 11:29PM

School started my juices

Creative juices that is. I don’t knwo what it is, but ever since school started up again I’m been getting urges to do more things. More creative/constructive things. I have a story theme I can’t seem to get right, an amv in the works, a PS2 game to finish, a card game idea I’ve been bouncing around, a MUGEN character I want to create,  a music video I want to film, and maybe even a webcomic to start. Sadly, I still have yet to think about what college I want to go to, but that’s for another day.

First of the all is the story theme: Death Riders. I know it’s a really cliche name, but I can’t seem to get this idea out of my head. A Death Rider is a magically modified human being. They are extremely hard to kill; they can regrow any severed/burned off limb given enough time, survive complete blood loss, can not be suffocated or drowned, can be disemboweled, and basically anything you can think of. The only way to kill a Death Rider is to damage the heart or brain, but even that’s not a sure bet. The longer a Death Rider has trained, the more damage they can take to their brain or heart. This furthers their immortality by the fact they don’t age. Once a human becomes a Death Rider, they don’t age beyond that point (hair and nails still grow though).

Death Riders were developed as a means of opposing a race from another world (name pending. Right now I use O-ken as a place holder), ones a hell of a lot strong than humans. Even if a human had strong enough magic/skills to take down an O-ken, the human would be too weak after fighting one, let alone an entire invading species. The Death Riders were developed to combat the O-ken, which they did successfully. The only problem was, receiving and causing so much death and brutality left many Death Riders mentally unstable. Humans started discriminating against Death Riders after the war was over. Tensions rose even further as a plague swept through the world; the only ones immune were Death Riders. In an attempt to regain the world’s favor, Death Riders set out finding the infected and started to convert them into Death Riders to save them. Humans then accused the Death Riders of creating and spreading the plague in order to increase their numbers, and after the plague had passed the humans hunted down and killed most Death Riders.

Flash forward centuries ahead and most records of Death Riders have been erased from history. This is where the uncertainty of the story kicks in. Should the main character be a scholar who is researching the Death Riders, or the first Death Rider who has survived all this time and is now travelling the world to unite any other Death Riders? Either way, should the main conflict be a return of the O-ken or a return of the Death Riders vs human issue? Another option still is to focus on the warped minds of Death Riders in general. I keep retelling the stories, trying out different paths, but I can’t seem to get it right or be satisfied with it. I was heavily influenced by Claymore, Three Days Grace’s song Let’s Start a Riot, and an old character I been thinking of a lot recently: a cannibal girl. She

Speaking of Claymore, that’s the AMV I’m working on. It’s currently set to Three Days Grace’s song Time of Dying. The AMV is suposed to be about Claymores in general, but right now it’s really Clare-oriented. Also, at only 47 secs in, I’ve dug myself into a hole haha. I’ve been using clips from one particular scene, but I’ve run out of material for that scene, and the way that the lyrics are set up it would be bad to suddenly switch scenes. Oh man, it’s gonna be a challenge, haha.

Odin Sphere is freaking awesome. I’ll devote a full post to it later, perhaps when I beat it. But it is so awesome, I can use it as a reason not to play/buy other games since I want to beat it.

Card game idea: it’s way to up in the air right now, to explain with words, haha.

I’ve gotten back into hunting for cool MUGEN characters, and I am so tempted to try my hand at making one. It’s a damn shame I way to lazy and that the urge always haunts me.

That music video Ed, Alan, Pierre, Bryan, and I wanted to do over the summer didn’t happen, haha. We took forever in picking the song, and before we could get any solid ideas down, summer was over. Ed says we’re gonna shoot for the next break to try and pick it up, but I dunno. I want to do it though.

The webcomic came to me as an idea of forcing myself to draw, a personal weakness of mine I’ve wanted to correct. I really started to feel the urge after reading William Zinsser’s On Writing Well because he mentions that writing is hard, and if you don’t force yourself to keep writing everyday, even if its garbage, you’ll never get anything done.

So yeah, I don’t know what it is, but ever since school started I’ve been getting urges to pursue these things. I mean I Odin Sphere daily, but it ranges from 30 mins to an hour or two. I need to focus in though and get something done. I don’t want this school year to fall apart on me. It is Senior year after all. ._.

Timestamp – 2:10 AM