...the clocks, a whisper woke him up..."

Wow, that long without a blog may seem like nothing at all, but for me, that was a pretty long blog-drought. I blog once every other day, sometimes every day, and occasionally two times a day with small blogs, but whatever.

First things first, I've listened to all the albums I need for the Reviewtastic blog, but I still need to see a lot of movies. Besides, Shadow keeps saying he might come on less often for a while and Elmis isn't even here (the one who actually wanted to know what I thought of some). And the more reviews the better, so just hold on.

Now, I've been playing Okami continually for over a week, and just beat it today. I had to skip the second to last cutscene to go somewhere, but I went back and beat the final boss again so I could see it, and I'm pissed I missed it the first time because it was undoubtedly the best cutscene I've ever seen. And back on track, I played it almost non-stop and have come to the conclusion that I don't know what's better, this or Ocarina of Time.

Well, it's just the nostalgia factor, I just played Okami, so it'll die down a little, but it's definitely at leats my second favorite game ever. It was absolutely flawless. I can't say a bad thing about it. The idea was so magnificently unique, the graphics were breathtaking, the story was the best I've seen, the fighting was incredible, the bosses were perfect, the dialogue was at times hilarious and at times beautiful, and Issun was basically an improved Navi who had more to do with the story (and less annoying). Most importantly, the ending was emotional, touching, and awe inspiring. It was so emotional, I even felt a tear in my eye. I mean a video game putting a tear in your eye? That's pretty amazing. And I'm not alone. I've heard people say they completely cried. It was beautiful.

I'll give an elaborate review in the Reviewtastic blog, but to put it short it is an absolute must buy. I might immediate replay it. It climbs and climbs, gets better and better (like I said earlier, it continues to), and finishes in an epic climax. I'm still ecstatic about it. The final boss never gets old either. Most bosses have one weakness that you exploit over and over, and the only thing that seperates it from the other bosses is that it needs more damage to kill. Yami (the final boss), had 4 forms in the first part, and one final one, all with the same weak point, but completely different strategies and attacks to kill them. Nothing was near the same, except maaybe the first and final, but they were still different experiences.

Wow, I think I will play it again.

But, the new game I'm looking at is:

I'm not 100% sure about this. Gamespot's been saying their time with it was very fun and the game was unique. It sounds like it has a lot of potential, but I'll have to see it to believe it. Nintendo better have a wave of amazing games about to hit me in the next two years (new Zelda anyone?) or I might forget about the games and just buy an XBOX 360. Although Okami being ported to the Wii made up for a years lack of big titles (more than made up for it really, best game for the Wii), I need to see some new stuff. There's no doubt the next Legend of Zelda will be a masterpiece unless they really flop it. Why? Well, in Twilight Princess, the graphics were incredible, and that wasn't Zelda's full Wii potential because although the Wii wasn't all about improving graphics, it undoubtedly did, and I'm sure whatever they have planned for graphics, cel-shaded or realistic, will be amazing. So far in the series,the plot has never in my experience disappointed me. Ocarina of Time, being the prequel to everything, is my very favorite plot, and Wind Waker has second. Both were fantastic games (Ocarina of Time is my favorite game ever, as I'm sure you recall, well, now tied with Okami for the time being), and I expect the next to be nothing less. Also, although I liked the controls in Twilight Princess, they felt tacked on to the Wii version, after the game had been developed for Gamecube. I'm guessing the sword moves will be much more precise (spin it around quickly for spin attack instead of shaking, swing up or down to indicate what you want to do without pressing a button), the bow and arrow will involve more motion than just pointing, maybe even pulling the nunchuk back and jerking forward to shoot it. I'm looking forward to it. de Blob could could be a great new franchise, but I still want some new familiar-name games.

And if anybody tries to hold me to saying I might forget about the Wii games and get a 360, don't count on it, you know I'm a Nintendo fanboy, can't convince me otherwise.

Enough about games, a little bit about high school. Ever since 6th grade all I've heard is "High school will be the worst time of your life," "It will be such a change," "Going from a school with less than 1,000 people to one with 2,500 will be hard." You know what. THAT IS FUKCING BULLSH!T What are they thinking? It's better than middle school. Having more people doesn't make a difference when the school is four times as big! I ran into more people per 100 square feet at middle school than at high school. Geometry owns Algebra in every way. The teacher's cooler, the work's easier (I aced my first quiz and there's no HW quizzes), and it takes 30 minutes a night instead of two to three hours. I can use a calculator now too. My ****s are.

1. Geography (easy as hell, the teacher's awesome, really laid back, the work's easy, and we don't even have to spell or use grammar correctly as long as we get the message across)

2. Geometry (shape's, lines, points, and planes beat numbers and quadratic equations any day)

3. P.E. (will be volleyball come Winter and Spring, ironic there's no Summer program considering volleyball is the most successful sport at Mira Costa, but P.E.'s pretty fun actually)

4. Biology (nothing new really, just like 7th grade, very easy, not much work)

5. Music Appreciation (they have a ****for this since when now? The teacher's cool, we just talk about music and write about it, except I have to give a 3 minute report about a partner's music tastes and what it says about them, but my partner said I can make stuff up about her if I want, and she might be having a party and our whole ****could come, and as a joke on the ****listen to a bunch of different types of music, accompanied by alcohol, that would be cool. Anyways, the ****is easy, and we may even get to go to concerts with the ****

6. English (again, a cool teacher, really a simple subject, although I got a B on my first thing which pissed me off, but he said he would grade extremely hard on the first assignment to give you room to improve on things, and only one person in the whole Freshman ****got an A, so I'm fine with that, plus I thought my essay was terrible in the first place, but it was timed, pretty effortless)

7. Go home :P!!!!!!!!!!

Back to P.E., we have what me and a few guys have deemed, the funniest guy ever, in our **** He's hilarious. First day of school, we had to sit around in the gym, and for some reason music started playing. He went out in front of everyone, without permission obviously, and started mock-breakdancing. A few days later we're supposed to be walking a lap for some reason, then go to the kickball field. He had other ideas. He starts sprinting, runs on to the football field, and dives. He does this over and over. He then tries to jump the fence (not really), then found a dirt hill, dived into it, yelled "It's fukcing World War 2!". He picked up a giant dirt rock, threw it and yelled "Grenade!" Next day he walks into the locker room whistling some song, and when he gets to his locker, starts banging on it with his fist and singing. He stopped, started loudly singing, and yelled "C'mon everybody!" He's randomly hilarious. He acted like Babe Ruth during kickball when he was up, kicked two fouls, and then kicked it into a bunch of trees. He's like a walking joke. And yes, he's trying to, and it works unlike with most people. During roll call, he pulled his pants up to make it look like he was wearing a sumo wrestler diaper and jumped up when his name was called. Even the teacher burst out laughing. I'm looking forward to volleyball, but it'll be said when I don't have a ****with him anymore :lol:. I knew he was funny because he went to my middle school, but it's a riot. I might occasionally mention his shenanigans on here.

And in P.E. there's a junior who mostly likes some music I hate, like My Chemical Romance and Taking Back Sunday, but he likes Weezer. He sings in a band and wants to cover "Say It Ain't So", and I'm thinking of offering to play lead in a recording of that. Would be cool. And at Mira Costa I'm finding more people who like Radiohead and share my other musical tastes, so I could get a band in the works.

Onto music, I bought some albums at F.Y.E.. In fact, I bought four.

"Marquee Moon" by Television

"Stop Making Sense" by Talking Heads

"Pink Flag" by Wire

"Weezer (Red Album)" by Weezer

I won't give details on each, saving it for the Reviewtastic blog, but I'll leak that none scored lower than a 6. None of them necessarily got a 6 (maybe though), or even a 6.5, maybe not even a 7 or 7.5, but they all got at least generally positive reviews. You'll see the details later.

It's club volleyball season time again. I've got a lot of tryouts coming up, and I'm hoping to make thebest team I can. Here's the names, logos, and ranking of which club is my priority.

1. SCVC, tryouts on Tuesday

2. MB Surf I ALREADY MADE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

3. Riptides tryouts next weekend (I have no interest in playing for the, but if I had to, I guess I would)

I've played for SCVC the last three years and the 15s team next year will be phenomenal. If I make it (which I'm fairly certain I will, exlanation in a second), I can bet I'll have a Junior Olympics medal to boot by the end of next year)

The reason I'm very sure I'll make SCVC's team next year is simple. I was the next in line for the 1s team last year. I go to Mira Costa along with most kids from my middle school and everyone from MBMS (Manhattan Beach Middle School) as well. However, the ones who went to American Martyrs, a Catholic school, went to Loyola, also a Catholic school. The coach for volleyball at Loyola is coaching a team for MB Surf. Two of the players will likely go there because staying on SCVC would be a bad move politically for them at high school. If two people leave, and I'm next in line, I'll make it. It also helps that one of the players was allowed to play 14s last year because he was still in 8th grade, but has to play 16s this year. That's three people possibly out of the way, and one definitely. If new people come along, with equal skill as me (no newcomers at the camp were better, most were pretty bad in fact), I'd get a boost having been loyal to them for three years, and even sticking to them through a year of not making the 1s team. I'm almost guaranteed a spot. I want to be an Opposite hitter (right side hitter), but another player is likely to get that spot, so I'm basically trying out to be an Outside hitter (what I was last year, left side hitter, I'm good at it). If I don't get one of those spots, I use to be a libero (back row only, but constantly playing), so I have great defensive skills, as well as a wicked jump float and jump serve, so at very least I'd be a defensive specialist, just serve and play defense, initially, and then prove my hitting. Things look good for me right now.

And the God awful coach I had from my 12s and 13s years is no longer the assistant!!!!!!!! Yay!!!!!!!!! Instead, who do I get? Only one of my idols in volleyball (I've never mentioned him)!!!! Juan Figueroa, who's been a two time All-American (second team I think, which is still incredible), is one of my idols because he's 6'0" tall (tiny for a hitter) and has a 44" vertical jump, something you well know I aspire to have (my current 32" is impressive at my age, things look bright for my vertical). The other coach will now be playing football at USC because he got ascholarship off it. But now I get a fukcing awesome coach and assistant coach. And I get a bette chance at the team. Wow. It looks REALLY good right now. We'll see how it works out.