Ah, patriotism. Flag waving, flag burning, whatever floats your boat. Yeah, I know I'm usually apathetic about these things, but hey sometimes a song can get you in the mood, ya know?

I mentioned Damian Marley's Confrontation in my previous blog. I removed the link because some tightassed nut got it taken down :P

Damian Marley / "Confrontation"

Mr. President, Distinguished delegates...

[H.I.M. Haile Selassie I dialect]

[Bunny Wailer dialogue]
Since the beginning of modern civilization
Generations have witnessed and inherited the only conflicts of world wars
But behold the marriage supper of the lamb and the bridegroom onto his bride
Then shall the earth's children know the true expression of ONE LOVE
Then Mother Earth shall honeymoon in peace.
Forever eliminating the aspirations, lust and anguish of wars and rumors of wars...SELAH!

[Verse 1]
See and know the innocent going up in vapors
And propoganda spreading inna the Sunday papers
Not even superman coulda save you with him cape cause
Red-a Judgement a blaze, blaze ya
And Babylon a gamble the youth dem life like racehorse
And gi' dem a uniform and a shave dem head with razors
And now the clock-a strike war, don't be amazed cause
And inna dem churches tryin to save...saviours

[Marcus Garvey dialogue 1]
Can we do it? We can do it, we shall do it!

[Verse 2]
Boom!
Tell dem fe uh draw mi out when the world government inna falling out
Only few men survive crawling out
Run left him collegues dem sprawling out
NEARLY DEAD!
Medic haffi haul him out
And give him two tranquilizer fi stall him out
DEH PON BASE!
Can't get no calling out when him hear from the shout last week
Him mistress find a new shoes
Wife can't get no news and lately she starting to doubt
SHE STILL SEARCHING!
And the youth dem bawling out
Working hard not to let it all come out
Well it's not safe to go walk about
A slaughterhouse from Bagdad to Waterhouse
She start to arouse sometime she want a spouse
She start go out, start beat a darker stout

GUNS COME OUT!
Working people funds run out
Keep a show last week and no one come out
BOMBS COME OUT!
Mi gas tank just run out
BOMBO CLATT!
The scotch tape just run out
WEED RUN OUT!
Yuh senses must dumb out,
Mi have a pound round a back deh a gwan sun out
NAH COME OUT!
Till the chalice bun out,
NAH COME OUT!
Till the malice bun out, A WAR!

Zimbabwe to Berlin Wall
Blazin' like a burnin' ball,
Loose ball...dat no work...IN WAR
Sleeping...dat no work..IN WAR
Can't wear jheri curl...IN WAR
No diamond and pearl...IN WAR
Can't drink weh a serve...IN BAR
Gas wifvck up yuh nerves...IN WAR
Shot wi blood up yuh shirt...IN WAR
Can't go lift up no skirt...IN WAR
Now disease and the germs...IN WAR
Can't go release your sperms...IN WAR
Stamina must preserve...IN WAR
Fire constantly burn...IN WAR

RED...IT RED...IT RED...IT RED...IT RED!

[Marcus Garvey dialogue 2]
If you cannot do it, if you are not prepared to do it...then you will die.
You race of cowards, you race of imbeciles, you race of good for nothings
If you cannot do what other men have done
What other nations have done, what other races have done
Then you have let us die.

[Repeat Verse 1]

[Verse 3]
Hey!
Now wi fore parents sacrifice enough
Dem blood sweat and tears run like syrup
Any day a revolution might erupt,
And the skies over Kingston lighting up
For the new generation rising up,
Of youths now a days were dem sighting up
And through reasoning dem biding up,
Searching for the sign and the sign is us,
Searching for the truth all you find is us,
Searching for the troops still behind is us,

The almighty we recruit and we come from the root
We build like roach building boot
Weh just can't done, Rastafari we design tuff
If a the fight for freedom sign me up
Cause you Tell-Lie-Vision can't blind me up
Soldiers and police dem wising up,
Realizing they're no more right than us
Realizing there's no use fighting us
Realizing their open their eyes to see the same demoralizing life as us
So we not tek talk nor smiling up
Cause the word temper tantrum boiling up, and who...
Calling the shots and nah bust none
Controlling the mind of the young, bring down...

Bear famine, no rain nor fall
From London to Dadeland mall
All the son of the virgin bawl,
Institute of the church IN WAR
Preaching and researching WAR
Practice and rehearsing WAR
Teaching and dem learning WAR
Instigating and urging WAR
Always keep alert in WAR
Man will jump out a swerving car
Now the bees and the birds IN WAR
And the freaks and the nerds IN WAR
And the straight and curves IN WAR
Forward and reverse IN WAR

RED...IT RED...IT RED...IT RED...IT RED.

[Marcus Garvey dialogue 2]

- - - - - - END - - - - - -

I listen to it while grinding in Flyff though ... -_-

The part labelled Marcus Garvey dialogue part 2, that's kinda electrifying though. Imagine saying that at an independence rally, imagine the reactions of the firebrands who came there expecting positive reinforcement motivation, and instead they get this hell-and-brimstone guy.

Oh, and hell has frozen over recently; I joined a union.

I'm not referring to Sister Rei Darkeyes' stomping grounds (scroll down that page a bit),although you may want to check that story out. I really hope Mark MacKinnon posts the next chapter soon; I tracked down a discussion on the last update which was dated... a year ago. That's par for the course for that story, but all that waiting gets to me sometimes. Heh.

It's been a while since I posted, but there's been quite a bit to sort through, and I don't really want to write about that. This is supposed to be a gaming-centric blog, after all :|

I hear Overlord is out, gotta track it down. Reviews sound mostly good, yet I'm kinda surprised GameSpot's didn't allude to the Dungeon Keeper series; is it totally different altogether? The premise sure sounds similar. I don't think there's been much development on the other genre fronts, although I've been a bit preoccupied to check lately.

I figure I've already complained enough about Space Force: Rogue Universe, so I'll stop beating that turd of a dead horse. Doesn't augur well for later titles in the space sim genre, though. Hell, don't these guys (devs, publishers) READ the complaints? We aren't fps players, ffs. It's called "space sim" for a goddamned reason. Sure, it'd be nice to tool around in high res graphics with the latest effects, but that's merely the icing on the cake. It doesn't mean anything if your cake is rotten. Those morons keep missing the point. It's things like these which make me hate mindless shooting games even more. They were tolerable before, now I despise them. Aim, click, aim, click, an 8-year old can do that. Hell, they already do.

Was trolling around for a decent MMO (in the vein of RO or Flyff), came across Sword Of The New World: Granado Espada. Apparently, though, free accounts have a level 20 cap. Heh. Otherwise it sounds pretty decent; I think it's the first game to have a multicharacter singleplayer feature. Wonder how they're gonna balance that. Looking through the game forums it sounds like another half-baked Korean export, sigh. These mindless grindfests are getting tired. Any decent MUD can kick their collective asses.

Oh yeah, before I forget, I hear Hellgate: London's got this pay-for-later-features-monthly scam going. I say scam, because the only difference between this model and the old expansion pack model is that, they can dribble as few features as they care to you per month (and maybe none at all), and yet you'll STILL have to shell out money for the subscription. And resurrect all the old complaints about how if they tank or you move somewhere without 'net access, you're screwed because the updates aren't on a handy cd which belong to YOU (after all, you PAY for this crap), but granted by them to you at their mercy (so long as you feed the beast it's monthly due).

I wouldn't mind so much if the pay-subscription features were ONLY for the online portion -- I have plenty of good gaming friends to LAN with, thank you, no need to rely on finding decent and reliable strangers online (hah!). The people who are supporting this aren't using their brains; what's to stop OTHER companies from imitating this? "Buy our game, then pay us each month to receive the patches and fixes, which really should have been in the game from the start"? Not to mention, since you're teethered to them online, they can easily make mistakes like ban you and crap when they "detect" stuff like mods (which you play for your own enjoyment offline), or do anything which THEY don't like. WTF? You pay for the game, and then you pay for that abuse? What the fvck?

First it's pay MMOs, and then this, and eventually everything will have a goddamn subscription. Screw it. There's a name for that, it's called extortion. If they're gonna sell a singleplayer game, then leave the damn monthlies out of it. I'll participate in the online thing if I want to, don't make me subsidise your other players. This is a cash grab, pure and simple. What was wrong with the Diablo 2 type of retail, then expansion release? Oh yeah, that's right, despite the millions of players, they only got a couple sales each from all of us. Imagine if we had monthly subscriptions for Diablo 2. They'd have tons more loot now.

On that sour note, I leave you. Sorry, no song this time. Go look up Damian Marley's Confrontation (it's the first song in the Welcome to Jamrock album I think). I was listening to that while mountain climbing recently, hence the blog title.

Edit: anyone else notice GameSpot screwing around with spaces in posts and blogs lately? I hardly make mistakes when typing, so it's really annoying to see my posts littered with noob-looking "mistakes".

I'm not really a 4channer, I just channel one during odd moments.

Sometimes you sit down and think to yourself, I've got to get this done. 'This' being some oft-delayed long-term project that you've always been meaning to do. And somehow you manage to put it off again. Maybe it's a sign I'm not really interested in doing it.

ラハール様の賛美歌
Laharl-sama no Sanbika

composition and arrangement: SATOU Tenpei
Vocal:YURIA

彼の名を聞けば 死者も目覚める
血も涙も流れる悪の化身
どんな悪魔でも裸で逃げ惑う

     Even the dead will wake up if they hear his name
     He's a evil incarnation who's blood and tears flow
     No matter what kind of demon they are, they run around nude trying to escape

その名もラハール様

     That name is also Lord Laharl

魔界を捨てる貴公子 神の敵対者
人は彼の前にひざまずき（ひざまずき）
命乞をする

     He is a royal youth who abandons hell He is God's adversary
     People kneel in front of him
     Begging for their lives

「控えよ者共」

身の毛よだつ魔性の行進
誰も彼を止められぬ（止められぬ）

     Take note! people

     It's a hair raising diabolical march
     No one can stop him

暗き道を清く正しく
魑魅魍魎（ちみもうりょう）と跳梁跋扈（ちょうりょうばっこ）
悪の華道 永遠なれ

     To the dark path purely, righteously
     Demons and rampages
     The magnificent way of evil   Eternal experience

誰もが憧れる悪のエリート
トイレで手を洗わぬ皆のお手本
趣味は夜更かしに火遊び高笑い

     He's an evil elite that everyone admires
     He doesn't wash his hands in the bathroom; he's everyone's role model
     His hobbies are staying up late playing with fire and laughing loudly

その名もラハール様

積んだ悪行 数知れず
魔界のNo.1（No.1）
好きな言葉は「悪逆非道」「傍若無人」

     That name is also Lord Laharl

     You can't count the number of wicked deeds he has done
     He is hell's number one
     His favorite words are treachery, unjust, and arrogance

「良い子のアイドル」

身の毛よだつ 魔性の行進
誰も彼を止められぬ（止められぬ）

     He's a good kid's idol

     It's a hair raising diabolical march
     No one can stop him

暗き道を 清く正しく
魑魅魍魎（ちみもうりょう）と跳梁跋扈（ちょうりょうばっこ）
悪の華道

     To the dark path purely, righteously
     Demons and rampages
     The magnificent way of evil

闇に染まれ この世の全て
誰も彼に逆らえぬ（逆らえぬ）

夢と希望 悪夢に変えて
正義の味方打ち砕く ダークヒーロー

     Stain this whole world with darkness
     No one can disobey him

     He changes dreams and hopes into nightmare
     And crushes the supporters of justice Dark Hero

悪の生き様 永遠なれ

     It's a demon's way on life eternal experience

      - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Laharl-sama no Sanbika, one of our favourites, and sung by girls too ^^ Normally, there is no WIN without FAIL, but I think the t3mdc get this one just right thanks to keyboard magic ^^

Edit: linx0rz for teh winnage:

http://rapidshare.com/files/33436149/Laharl-sama_no_Sanbika.mp3

Enjoy.

Alright, so I was wearing a baby-T with "MOAR" emblazoned on it, we were jamming Beyond The Bounds from Zone of The Enders, and out of nowhere we experienced an Anonymous Legion moment.

I tell you, there are way too many people on teh internets lately.

Sorry, not much of an update, busy fixing stuff. Hardware-wise. It's that time of the year again, uh, spring cleaning. I think. Otherwise it's mostly quiet on this end, just marking time as usual. Other than narrowly avoiding getting a speeding ticket, nothing much happened. Oh, there was this one idiot who was driving pretty dangerously, cutting queues and stuff. That pissed me off, and I had nothing to do, so I tailed the bastard to a supermarket. Where I fixed him by stuffing his tailpipe with a bunch of potatoes. And I caught some poor bastard staring at me on the public transport, so I said loudly "What are you staring at my chest for, are you some kind of pervert?" Then the bunches of schoolgirls around (it was school out time) started giving him dirty looks, and he bailed out at the next stop.

Good deed of the day: warning oncoming motorists of a speed trap up ahead.

Okay, so I had to join the stupid Leonidas bandwagon as well (google image for some laughs), but since I'm gonna rip noobs apart in today's blog it would only be appropriate. I mentioned playing an MMO in a previous blog, right? Okay... anyone who's played any online game for any length of time will most likely have encountered people with IQs lying on the left side of the Bell curve.

Far to the left.

Now, it doesn't take a friggen' genius to play these games, but one side effect of appealing to the lowest common denominator (i.e., the graphics whores) is that you get people who have no clue how to behave on the internet. Or maybe they do, it's just that they left their marbles at home. Or something.

[ 1 ] People who don't read the goddamn instructions and complain about not knowing how to do stuff. There's a manual somewhere for most game, or docs, or online help, or in these degenerate days, forums (I say degenerate because forums allows lazy devs to shove the responsibility of providing "help" onto other players). The game I'm talking about, Flyff, is - as I may have mentioned - an engrishly translated Korean title, with all the cliches of same (including no manual).

Thusly, being a SMART player, before I dove in I  headed over to the forums, checked out a couple of sticky threads, looked at what provokes 20+ page flamefests, and glanced through the bugs reports... and I was set. Took all of 2 hours, tops. This allows me to NOT stand my character around in town yelling for help, or begging for items and money. If I was a genius I could understand lesser mortals' need to stoop to such depths, but frankly speaking I'm just a regular person - albeit one who uses her brains and common sense. The forums, by the way, are also chock full of people who post on 20+ page threads questions which have been answered zillions of times before, often in the immediately preceeding post. I don't know what the hell they're thinking. Or maybe that's just it, they DON'T think. In today's "me, me, me" society, people don't care to read other's questions but want their own questions answered NOW. Well, you can take that egotist attitude and shove it sideways up where the sun don't shine.

My conclusion is that, if I am not a genius and just a regular person, then the people who do such things must be idiots and morons. It's not illegal to be an idiot, but if you're on a PK server then god help you, because you're going to piss off so many people that you'll be eating so much dirt you're gonna be able to fill wells all by yourself.

[ 2 ] The social aspect. Now, most of you MMO players are aware that characters come in multiple types, or job classes - from those whose primary function is to heal and support others, to those whose job is to tank and dish out the damage. True to form, my characters tend to be support characters, albeit dealing with idiots daily usually turns them (me) into a permanent PMS rage case.

Imagine this: you're in a party (a group of characters exploring together), and then some idiot comes up to you (the party healer), and demands healing or buffing. How hard is it to type my name, or say please? "Hi Celine, can u heal me?" Hell, I've even mellowed to the point where I won't take offense to a curt "heal plz". But again, timing. Say your friends are in the middle of a battle, and you're busy healing them. Now imagine said idiot coming up to you and begging you for healing, repeatedly. Worse, demanding it. Worst of all, following you around. It's like a beggar walked up to you in real life and started hustling you, and following you around. "Man, gimme a dollar. C'mon, just a lousy dollar. One more dude, I saw your fancy car, you can afford it." And imagine you're out on a date, and this moronic beggar keeps pestering you, following you into the mall, etc. These kind of people are only alive because it's illegal to kill them.

[ 3 ] Partying. My beef is mostly with stupid tanks @ meat shields. I'm the party healer, so my job is to keep you alive. Your job is to kill monsters WHILE taking other party members into account.

Let's say an aggresive monster (agro) spawns nearby and starts to attack me, the healer. Okay, look at the situation. Is it weak enough that I can survive a few bites? If not, can you spare a second to get it off me? If not, am I too busy healing that I can't run? If I run, do you think you can still finish your current target safely, or do you need to run too? By the way, I will always say "run" if I have to bail. I've never abandoned a party member just like that without warning. See, I'm not some stupid player who just spams the heal spell but freaks out when disaster strikes.

Let's say the agro spawns and then attacks you, who are already dealing with another target. Does this force me, the healer, into heal lock? (i.e. I can't do anything but heal you because if I stop to move or do anything else, you're dead meat). And ffs, if you've killed your target, take out anything agro first before moving on to other targets. I recently partied with this moron who'd get into the habit of having a couple of agros chewing on his ass but he'd still go attack something else. I pointed it out politely, and then when this advice was ignored I let him die a couple of times to let it sink in. Just because a healer (me) is there, doesn't mean you can take stupid risks. What if I lagged? What if I got into heal lock, but then had to run when another agro comes after me? I'll save my own skin first, after all as a healer I can resurrect you, not the other way around. You dying = minor, easily remedied inconvenience; me dying = you and the rest of the party are screwed.

What if we had several others in the party which I need to take care of as well? It becomes even more important that you try not to become a pain in the ass. Sure, inevitably there'll be some moron who gets into trouble because he's too stupid to figure out how to stay out of it, but it doesn't have to be YOU. 

Like positioning. I can only heal you when I can SEE you and click to target you. If you stand on the same spot as the monster (especially the big ones), sometimes I can't target you (because the stupid game isn't smart enough to know that I want to target YOU, even though it'll complain if I cast heal while a monster is targetted). Or, if there are 2 or more party members fighting together, GET OUT OF EACH OTHERS' WAY. I can't stress this enough. Many people just click to run up to the monster and whack at it. What doesn't get through your thick skulls is that when both of you do this, you'll often end up standing on the same spot. Again, I can't target either of you correctly with precision. I might heal your friend by accident when I mean to target you. So make goddamn sure to learn to flank monsters. In certain games flanking even brings other benefits (not in these crap fluffy MMOs though). Not standing in your friend's face means I can target you with confidence and heal you.

A related issue is area-of-effect (AoE) damage. Some monsters have this type of attack. Say a humanoid-type monster, and it spins around in a circle slashing people around it. Ok now, most, if not all, monsters can have only ONE target. They will conveniently keep attacking that target, allowing me to concentrate healing on him. Now, if you also need to go up close to fight, and the monster is NOT targetting you, but you are taking AoE damage (e.g. from the spin slash example), then move out of the goddamn way, or reposition yourself so that you can attack the monster without getting hit by AoE. After all, my healing priority will be your friend who's being targeted by the monster. AoE damage is something you can deal with by yourself, simply by getting out of the way, or healing yourself by eating some of all that junk food items you lug around.

- - - - -

Those points are merely, like, common sense. I'm no leet online gamer, hell most online games are shooters and I despise them and don't play them, which means most gamers probably have more online gaming experience than me. Yet I consistently see stupid people in MMOs, getting themselves and their friends into messes which they could have easily avoided. You can't all be 12-year olds playing hooky from school. Why are there so many idiots out there?

Also, a little reading of the forum goes a long way to "edumacating" yourself. Why people feel the need to yell in-game for help, when the answers have already been posted? Think about it: if somebody ingame was sh!tting you, you'd have no idea. However, on the forums, posts get moderated, or other people post clarifications and corrections. False info won't stay up for long, unless the game is crap and nobody bothers to find out whether something is true or not.

Is what I get for prancing around clothesless at home but I doubt this site allows blogs of that nature. Sometimes a girl just feels frisky, ya know?

What, lv19 already? I hear 20's bugged and takes forever to get through. Oh well, there's nothing that GS ranks give you. I suppose they could do one of those phpbulletin style RPGs but that'd just stress the servers even more for no good reason.

Started playing Flyff - yet another engrishly translated Korean content-free MMO - only because a friend is, and it's similar enough to most others I've played to make it a breeze, especially RO (almost uncannily so, wonder what the lawyers are doing). Also wonder why people care about grindfests like these. They're mindless as hell. I mean, strip the pretty interface, and any decent MUD will pound these fluffy MMO-lites into the ground. I quit Imperian btw, for MateriaMagica, the Iron Realms MUDs are too pvp-centric for my tastes. MateriaMagica is pretty nice, fairly newbie friendly too, large population supported by large areas, which means you often have lots of space to yourself. Sure, towns are traffic-heavy but even then it's hardly like MMOs where one glance at the town centre shows dozens of players. Makes a decent intro to MUDding, if you don't want to start on mini sandbox-style MUDs.

Not much personal talk today, gotta run. All's quiet on the gaming front, kinda preoccupied with RL stuff. Death and taxes may be inevitable, but there are plenty of other annoying unavoidables to deal with which happen on a regular basis. Like bills and love triangles. But I'm a monogamous nymphomaniac now.

Just a short allusion to the fact that I've not being doing much this week except bug my banks and accountant. Money talks, and people listen. I forgot just how much preparation there is involved in travelling. Hopefully I'll have everything ready in a couple of weeks.

- - - Dreams In A Pie - - - 

The story is over
But sometimes it's under
Which makes me just smile and wonder

I float down the river
Of freshly-made hot tea
Till the future is far behind me

Here comes the boy with the butterfly eyes
Who can sing like the birds in the bubble gum trees
I hear him say
That the sun will not rain today

(Chorus): Wide awake
     Wide awake sleeping
     Through the day when the moon is bright
     Dreams in a pie
     Eat up, it's supper time

     Wide awake
     Wide awake sleeping
     Through a land when the day is night
     Dreams in a pie
     Eat up, it's supper time
 ~

I skip down the path
That goes half the way nowhere
To the other side of somewhere

All the clocks tell me
It's quarter to never
Or three minutes past forever

Here comes the boy with the butterfly eyes
Who can sing like the birds in the bubble gum trees
I hear him say
That the sun will not rain today

(repeat chorus)

- - - eof - - -

Slow piano, violin, layered vocals... perfect.

vocals, piano - Izumi
violin 1, tier 2 vocals - Shinju
violin 2, keyboard, tier 2 vocals - Mikami V
percussion, tier 3 vocals - Itami

http://rapidshare.com/files/27325797/Dreams_in_a_Pie.mp3

(edit: that is, of course, the original by Yoko Kanno) 

There was a large thunderstorm all through yesterday evening, so we opened  the curtains and let lightning illuminate the studio.

Of course, after that we went back to our regular Fukasawa stuff (e.g. A Way To Nowhere), but it's always nice to have company when you go off the beaten path.

Yesterday was technical challenge day. Izumi's been hounding me awhile, since most of the time I hog all the piano/keyboard pieces, and the poor dear's stuck with lead and vocals. She was considering a career in music previously before bailing out, and she's actually more of a violinist - thank Shinju for leading her astray with the guitars. So we sat across each other at the studio and battled it out. Shinju wanted in, naturally, she's a pretty competitive girl.

To make it fair I let them go first; I play the keyboard practically everyday, that would be a huge advantage, no? Izumi was merciless though, she went with Rachmaninoff's concerto 3 in d minor. As a warm up. I don't know if you guys know your pieces, but when I was younger and less skilled I listened in awe to maestros who play that kind of stuff.

Shinju's not much of a pianist, but she's fairly good. She went next, I think hers was Liszt's La Campanella (from Grandes Etudes de Paganini no.3), and her playing style sounds much different than what I expected. Her specialty is stuff like the flute, and it's only recently that she picked up the guitar. Itami on the other hand doesn't play the piano, she's pretty much a dedicated drummer. We like her upbeat atittude though - she's like the solid base which anchors our flights of fancy.

My choices were Lizst' b-minor piano sonata and Islamey (Balakirev). I daresay modesty is not one of my virtues :P

Ach, to be so young again. They're almost as good as me, and I need to practise more - I'm getting sidetracked with all this new crap. I mean, you don't exactly see an abundance of harp soloists do you? Guess it's back to the scoresheets for me, I've been neglecting the classics for way too long.

Oh, and I realise many of you out there don't think highly of the classics. Well, they're classic for a reason; nobody remembers yesterday's manufactured pop (of which unfortunately we ourselves indulge in playing so much), but the names of the maestros live on. That's one of the big reasons we like game music, there's some interesting technical stuff out there that intrigues the technical musicians in us. True, there's a lot of crap as well, but as Sturgeon observed, 95% of everything is, we just have to sift through it.

We're getting together early today, I have a surprise proposal for all of them. It's got to do with my hare-brained last minute travel scheme.

Dropped by my brother's office this afternoon. They were kinda busy so I just hung around, pestering him with a few comments on his ASP.Net, although he didn't let me near the old AS/400 (for obvious security reasons). Maybe I could do some db work for a while... kinda easy going, compared to lecturing. Just sit there, code like crap, go back at 5.

Then again, treadmills bore me real fast. Still yet to check up on the train thing, gotta get my travel docs in order; been a while since the last move. We're playing tonight, I'm about to drive over and pick Izumi up. Not cosplaying though, didn't have time to plan, although I could name a few h games where baby Ts and micro minis made an appearance. Playing is hard work; after several hours we're slick. Avoid sweatbands though - they make you look real campy, about as bad as fluorescent headbands, spandex, and glitter suits. Ponytails, on the other hand, once saved the world (re: Kyon).

It's my turn to pick up the drinks, gonna drop by Giant for a couple cartons of fruit juice.

I'm kinda getting bored of lecturing. I don't really care about the kids, and that's not a good sign. Gonna hand in my notice tomorrow, then figure out where to go. I want a short break, a 4/5 day trip somewhere. I don't really fancy the sea, or any place in particular. I guess I just want to sit in a train coach and stare at the scenery. I've travelled so much that it doesn't matter what the destination is; the interesting part lies in the journey itself. Oh hey, that's an idea, the trans-Siberian express. Gotta look that up, been meaning to try that someday. Wonder if it's even still around, haha. Last I heard of it was in some article in a magazine somewhere, could be years ago.

Nobody felt like singing last night, so The Starry Sky's postponed. The regular was being serviced so Shinju had along her electric violin, a bit too raw-toned for my tastes. I'm not too well-versed with the classics, although I can follow them easily. Improvising gets easier the longer you've been playing. Itami had a hand injury so no percussion :/ Mostly just brushed up on keyboard technique, played some stuff like the ending song for the Incredible Hulk tv series. Kinda depressing. There was this uncleaned sample I recorded, was gonna upload it but I forgot where the stupid file was. That's the problem with having so many input devices, there are dozens of main folders. Or maybe it was on Izumi's laptop, not mine.

Not really in the mood for playing games much, although I still have an occasional go on Shandalar (Magic: The Gathering). Still playing a red deck, biding my time collecting cards for a multicoloured deck to assault the dungeons and castles. Most of my cards are weenie creatures, creature enchanments, and some land destruction. I like cheap casting cards, in 3 turns I can usually field a couple of boosted creatures to whittle away the opponent's life, unless they come out with crap like flying walls, or anticreature decks (hate those).