I'm going to see my favorite person this weekend, my much missed roommate from college and her fun-loving hubby.

I'll miss you Gamespot.  Well, that's not quite true, I probably won't have time, I'm going to Sarah Hope's! :D

If nothing else, I feel pretty good about writing.  Now that the insane urge to spend every minute perfecting that Star Ocean review has passed, I'm going to turn my attention to another subject that needs attending: playing actual games.

The list is as follows:

Games I haven't bought yet, but should:  Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean, Shadow of the Colossus,

Games I have bought but haven't played: LoZ: the Minish Cap, Xenosaga I, Shadow Hearts, Final Fantasy: Dawn of Souls,

Games I've bought and played but haven't quite finished: Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, Shadow Hearts: Covenant, Kingdom Hearts II, Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, Final Fantasy IV Advance, Final Fantasy VII (*gasp*), Final Fantasy X-2, Lost in Blue,

Note the commas on the end of these lists.  That means they're unfinished.  Now comment on the terrible waste.  Do it!

I was online all day at work today.  Because I'm dangerous like that.  Because I know they'd fire me if they caught me, and because they're not smart enough to know they've caught me already. 

Our IT guy is in his 40s.  Like, my mother 40s.  Like types with one finger on each hand 40s.  Like keeps a literal list of passwords lying about 40s.  Security at my office is a joke.  I could get into absolutely anything I wanted to, and I'm really only a basic human being.  Not that I'm the kind of basic human being who treks around uninvited on the servers at work.  If I was going to be that kind, I'd have worked harder and become a human being+.   The kind that know how to do things.  What things?  I don't know, I'm only a basic model.

So there's a character limit for PMs.  I'm kind of embarrassed to have found that out first hand.

I have a terrible time trying to write anything in the same room with Sex and the City.  It's a good thing Carrie Bradshaw isn't a real person, she'd never be able to concentrate with her life going on in the background.

*grumbles and relocates to another room*

I'm watching the Blue Man Group perform Baba O'Riley with a very weak female vocalist I don't recognize (and who is probably a favorite of someone who'll  read this).  It is one of the least convicing covers of a truly great song that I have ever seen.  The music redeemed itself a bit with the violin solo, which was actually quite good, but all in all I take this as evidence of what bizarre crap I'll watch if left to my own devices.

Korubi made that.

My roommate's boyfriend is an irresponsible spender. That's the truth. He thinks nothing of dropping $100.00 at a time on games he wasn't even planning on buying. Frequently.

I am an irresponsible spender in a very different way. I drop $100.00 on games I wasn't even planning on buying, but I spreeeeeaaaaadd it out over my entire pay period so it feels like less.

I am grateful for his ability to impulse buy. This week he found me the copy of ICO I've been looking for. With the case intact. I refuse to buy games without their proper cases. Out of relief from the fact that he won't have to lend me his copy anymore, he picked it up for me. Whoopee!

He's also located copies of Baten Kaitos for just $15.00... do I want one? Knowing it will probably be a couple of months before I'll be caught up on the last fifteen games I've bought recently? Knowing I'll play like mad during the long snowbound winter in Maine? Knowing that my phone bill was astronomical this month (boy, did I ever go over my minutes... :()? *Sigh* This is my irresponsible spending in action. I'll ponder it for a week or so, then I'll go out and buy it after I've already squandered most of my paycheck, thereby putting myself in serious danger of being unable to keep gas in my car.

I have such an attack of guilt every time I buy games. Not that it stops me.

Last night I was unhappy. Why? I went downstairs and discovered that this:


had eaten this:


That's right. It's chewed. See?



Ok, so you can't really see. Just take it on faith. It's chewed. :(

On the writings:

Had my love of the passive pointed out to me again. Couldn't tell you why I use the passive voice so much in everything. And while it may be well suited to a passive subject (most of my subjects are), it's still a bad habit. Bad. :(

I'm playing Samurai Champloo: Sidetracked. It gives me mixed signals. For one, I didn't really expect all that much from it, given its anime license and general hack-slashiness, but I do love the anime and the combat scheme was supposedly ambitious.

It is ambitious, it definitely tries to do something I haven't seen before, what with the music tracks determining the available combos. It does do something different with its modes of fighting the hyper mode is *gasp* actually useful in a few places, the tate mode is a distracting piece of eye candy, and the trance mode is something I really want to see.

Unfortunately, the regular fighting is just button mashing, hyper is faster button mashing, tate mode is so fast I find the most useful strategy is to put the controller on the bed and pound it with my open palm (yes, literally, and yes I'm using my worn out controller... ;)). Trance mode requires such rapid button mashing I can't even unlock it. Apparently my mindless pounding lacks finesse.

Graphically it pulls me in different directions as well. The character models are awful. Fuu's hair moves by itself indoors where there is no wind. Jin's clothes are a solid piece, so his legs look impossibly wide when he runs. Mugen's face is shiny like plastic. The animations are jerky and robotic (and repetitive!), It may be amusing to watch them try to eat a baked potato with chopsticks, but not over and over again in the background of an unrelated ten minute cutscene.

But it's so stylish. How can I bash something so stylish? The pacing, at times frenetic and at times infuriatingly slow, is just like the pacing of the anime. The art style, where it's not a question of terrible animation, is fabulous. It's edgy, it's funny, it's artsy, it's kitschy, it's catching.

I love and hate this game. It fascinates and bores me.

[Edit] This post is ungodly long already, but I'd been meaning to mention all day. Carrie going away is a sad day for Philosophy majors everywhere. She's been my secret mascot, making philosophy majors look cool ;).  She's like the me I'd be if my rich dad could buy me a job at GS.[/Edit]

Not bad, not bad. :D

I also had Subway with a friend and the clerk charged us together.  Haha.  Awkwardness all around.  Clerk thinking:  "Oh god, I did it again, I thought they were a couple!"  Phil thinking: "Oh god, I hope she doesn't get any ideas..."  Sara thinking: "Oh god, he thinks I'm with HIM?  He's prettier than me, my ego couldn't handle it..."

In other news, my eyes are now both the same size and almost the same color.  Back to work tomorrow.  Farewell, GameSpot, Farewell... I'm training tomorrow, so there'll be no secret browsing at my desk.

*sigh*

Ah well, the dubious pleasure of unemployment begins in a month.