March 26, 5:00PM

I've been sitting here figuring out how to write this. Let's start with this morning.

I had a rather exciting dream yesterday (this morning?). It was heavily influenced by Tales of Vesperia (gahahaha!). In the dream, I wanted to break away from the rules of society so I created my own guild. My guild grew to be the most powerful guild in the world. There were plans for my assassination because I was just that powerful and it was believed that someone in our own guild was trying to betray me. There was a conference/speech scheduled to happen (with other guilds/the world), so I went to join my appointed guild commanders who were already there. I didn't know which side they were on so I randomly went left and there they were. My commanders were made up of some of my irl friends, though I only remember seeing Simon and Jason. I had a hunch that Jason was the one who betrayed me so I interrogated him. He continued to be suspicious by avoiding eye contact and refusing to answer my questions. The speech was about to start so I fixed my seat on the front row (there were only three rows, my dudes were on the 2nd and 3rd). The first row was empty so I sprawled myself across 4-5 seats.

The speech began and more of my people lined up across the stage. Then my 2nd-in-command who was called Gary for some reason (but had no face I recognized) announced himself as the new guild leader, which was actually my plan. Apparently that saves the guild and me and all the problems get resolved.

Now that I was an anybody, I roamed around freely. I used my car to travel to places (my irl car) but this one time my car gets electrocuted by lightning with me in it, but I was fine. My car stops working but apparently lightning is common in that area so I was not surprised. The next thing you know, I was on one of those one-footed scooters standing in a river of other one-footed scooter riders and one of the opposing enemy guild members (who was Korean for some reason) recognized me in the crowd. I guess she didn't like me. I swear there was more to it, but that's as far as my memory goes.

Ok, back to reality. I woke up again at 8 and was like ugh school so I forced myself up and arrived at the academia at 9:30. That morning I struggled with CSS amnesia due to my rustiness. I should really go back to some good ol' coding.

On my way home after school, I got a call from a Withheld number who was actually a girl who tried to steal my identity. The whole conversation was in mandarin unless otherwise stated:

Me: (English) Hello?
Girl: (English) Hello, do you speak Chinese?
Me: (English) Yes.
Girl: [really fast mandarin I didn't understand]
Me: I don't understand. Can you speak Cantonese?
Girl: Oh you speak Cantonese. Can you understand Mandarin?
Me: A little bit.
Girl: Where do you live?
Me: What? I don't understand why you're asking me...
Girl: Where do you live? Vancouver? Richmond?
Me: [ugh fine see what she's up to] uh, Vancouver
Girl: Where do you work?
Me: I don't work.
Girl: Where do you work?
Me: I have no work; I'm a student. Hey, I'm driving, can you call me back later?
Girl: Oh you're driving?
Me: Yes.
Girl: Oh okay, what's your last name?
Me: Uh..... I don't understand why you're...
Girl: What's your last name?
Me: Cheung.. maybe.
Girl: Your last name is Cheung? What is your first name?
Me: ......
Girl: Hello? What's your first name? Hello?
Me: *hangs up*

K, so I was kind of slow in realizing that, oops, shit!, this person isn't normal and I have no idea why I went with it. I was plenty confused and I just went with the flow without realizing. It was my first time experiencing something like this so it caught me off guard. Those identity thieves, they're tricky. (Or just that I'm just that dumb...) Luckily I don't think I have anything important registered to my cell phone number, assuming that's the only thing they got ahold of.

When I got home after an afternoon of errands (at ~5pm), I got a call from my aunt telling me that my grandma passed away. It was way too sudden considering my parents saw her the day before, but it was obvious that she was weakening drastically the past week. My mom and I waited for my dad and bro to come home early and we headed to the hospital where she passed. My Auntie Lily, and two cousins were already there. It was a relief to know that she passed away peacefully (rather than painfully) during one of her regular heimo-something appointments (manual kidney cleaning with blood). The nurse who assisted her throughout the day told us her last moments and we regret that not one of us were there to see her off. Her body was already failing quickly throughout the day and we were told that she did not show any weakness or pain... though, it was just her personality to not show or express that. It wasn't until we did a short prayer, I felt a pierce in my heart and I couldn't control my tears.

Dinner followed. Seems like there are plans for getting things organized and tidying up tomorrow and I'll be helping out with that. Surprisingly, my grandpa is coming back for the ceremony. A side note, we've been trying to get him to move back here permanently but there has been no progress.

I seem to be taking it slightly better than I expected, though this is the third time now. I'm glad there's something like this (blog) around for me to just dump my brains out on.

Skies of Arcadia Legends: 99.8% Completion, doh D:

Pulled out and dusted off the GC for this game. I said I'd play this game eventually, so now it has finally happened. A miracle it is! With a new pair of batteries for the wavebird, I only wish there was another game I want to play on the GC so it's not wasted on just one game... but anyway, I'll concern myself with that later.

Story - 3.5/5
Surprisingly I enjoyed the whole idea of sky pirates, as opposed to the real world sea and that there really is no "land". So the story follows Vyse, a newbie pirate who wants to sail the world, encounters mysterious girl on a mission and decides to help her and in turn he CAN sail the world (and save it) while doing it. The story itself wasn't very deep and the devastating events that do happen don't feel particularly devastating like it should. It could be because basically everyone is so extremely positive, absolutely nothing can go wrong... and if it does, no worries, we can overcome it! That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it sure makes the story a bit less realistic, thus in turn making it less engaging (for me anyway).

However upon saying that, I noticed myself playing it continuously... less for the story but more for the journey to that part of the story. That will fall under gameplay.

There were a few lolwut? moments like sailing into space and still breathing! and our ship can destory a planet-sized monster/creature/thing!

Characters - 2.5/5
Speaking of engaging, I didn't feel much connection with the characters. Again probably because of the absolutely blinding positivity everyone radiated. I won't say it was completely positive throughout the whole game... Ramirez, Belleza and Drachma had darker moments.

About the three main protagonists though... There was little to no character development. They came as they are, they left as they are. That's probably my main gripe with the characters. Vyse is the perfect hero - good looking, cool, strong, smart, a leader - the guy's flawless. Aika is the hyper happy spontaneous girl and Fina is her opposite. They balance each other out a bit too well perhaps. There was nothing really "deep" with any of them.

It was too obvious there was a triangle relationship happening with the three main characters too but at the same time, they're too friendly with each other to have anything really happen. If the story were to continue, I bet Vyse would end up with someone completely different.

Gameplay - 4.5/5
Now, the gameplay was deep. Deep as in there was a whole lot of stuff you can do.

Battles revolved around Spirit Points. At the beginning of every turn, you automatically get a certain amount. Unused points get carried over to the next "round". Casting spells and special moves relied heavily on those points, so as soon as you figured out how spirit points works, battles were relatively easy. I'd end up using the same set of moves all the time (magic protection, damage halved, charge up, unleash deadly move, rinse and repeat) which made it a bit, dare I say, boring. There were still difficult battles outside of the main storyline as sidequests so I still had my fill of challenges.

Some fun challenges were some of the ship battles. It still required a whole crap load of spirit points to do things but the fighting tactics offered variation.

A negative on gameplay was the pacing during battles, may it be with people or ship battles. You had to watch your ship circle around the enemy a few dozen times before the round was over or watch your player run to the enemy for a point blank gun shot (lol Gilder)... The little animations felt unnecessary and it all just made the game go slower than it should. At least you can skip special move animations, but not spells and the enemies' special moves D: ....

Traveling is a bit of a bitch too. I got lost so often, it's not even funny. However the book of polarity was godsend and made traveling a little less stressful.

Side quests were greatly fun. Cham collecting, moonfish collecting, ship battling, wanted battle battling, fishing if you care... even though the story lacked, the extra content there was there made it more worthwhile.

This game also seems to like to fight with me for the best camera position. Some camera positions are rather questionable and usually leaves me pretty frustrated.

Sound - 3.5/5
The voices were lol and benefitted little for being there. It gave an idea of the certain character's personality a bit more but the character design themselves spoke more than the voices themselves. Considering the date of this game, I'll let it pass.

The GC version is well known to have the shitty BGM version compared to the DC and true, it did sound pretty old school. It made the game feel more ancient than it really was. Trading the bgm for new content... eeh, a little iffy but the content did give the game a new level of difficulty.

Some tracks totally had a Wild ARMs vibe, which makes me wonder if either party found inspiration from each other... Either way, I found myself loving those tracks in particular :b

I also noticed this one sound glitch during battle. Some random person's battle grunt noise would be heard from nowhere during battle sometimes. Often occurs before a player's turn.

Graphics - 3/5
I'm surprised at the draw distance in this game (during ship sailing). I often found discoveries by paying attention to the smallest specs in the far distance.

Speaking of draw distance and just rendering in general, there were quite a few graphical glitches here and there. Walls would disappear (Dangral or Soltis, I think) and Aika would fall from the sky after that 12 spirit point special move. Nothing major but it sure makes the same less solid.

Less about glitches... the actual character renders were a bit kiddy. Kind of reminds of the issue Tales of Legendia had where characters look younger than they should. Facial expressions were kept anime-style which made it a little awkward looking but I got used to it afterwards. Again, considering the age of this game, I will let it pass!

Overall - 3/5
Indeed at 99.8%, it's frustrating as hell, but it cannot be helped. I seemed to have missed a treasure chest (and I bet I know which one) that is unattainable now that prevents me from getting the "Vyse the Legend" title which is a bit of a shame.

The ending was more or less predictable 'cept the wtf giant planet. I was expecting a bit more to the ending boss... and the planet didn't cut it, sorry.

If only the game was a bit more deeper in terms of story and character. The ending was almost a bit like Suikoden... in fact, the whole crew collecting and base creating was very Suikoden. Speaking of base creating, I wish there were more customization options. I should, like, pull out a Sim game just to relieve myself of that urge.

Shopping... and things

I want this SHIRT http://www.hlj.com/product/CSP35279 to go with this figurine to finish the set. Here's hoping I can find the figurine, at least, at AX(it isn't released until August 09 D:). I might just have to buy that t-shirt online.. like, NOW. Or soon...... maybe. I'll probably rarely (to never) wear it, like my Monster Hunter geek shirt but still. COSPA IS EVIL. They stuff needs to be more accessible.

While on the topic of shopping and the such, this year I'll be aiming for either Rocker version Haruhi or/and Kasumi or/and Sumika. I figure my budget will only allow maybe two out of the four. I've given up on fate/unlimited codes version Saber and a few others, so the list is better already!

And I'm having a designer's block right now. I should be working diligently on my homework right now, doing serious overhauls on my work but NO GOOD. I ended up ONLINE WINDOW SHOPPING INSTEAD AGRGHHGAGH.

LJ Posts Import Complete!

Alright! About 150 some odd posts from my LJ has been successfully imported. I've scanned through to toss out the really, really worthless posts (which was about ~200 posts or so) and saved ones that seemed to have some sort of worth. I've probably mentioned this before when I was tagging my old blog posts from Forevermore, but man, during the early LJ years, I was such an annoying teenybopper. So many of these effing ^_^ ^^ faces plus lots of spazzgasmic posts that went on like HOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!

It was quite difficult to go through, but I like how this blog has truly become the main blog/diary of me. I don't think anyone would want to read something from 2001, but for some reason if you do decide to, you were forewarned.

Also, I think I'll start doing more memes again now. I forgot how amusing they actually are. Not to mention, such time wasters. It's great!

Marchtastic

Before I start typing away at my review on Skies of Arcadia Legends and while taking a break from posting up (aka. tagging) my old LJ entries, let's talk about this week and stuff in general.

I suddenly had this itch to clean yesterday night, at like, 1am SO I went and cleaned out the whole front room that used to be my computer room, which used to be the gaming room, which also used to be my brother's room before that. The room's now a giant closet slash the place where I put all my empty figurine packaging. The room was once piled messily with huge empty boxes (my computer parts, my mom's laptop box, my mom's massage machine box) and clothes but now they're neatly sorted and organized thanks to moi. I then followed to vacuum the place the next morning (earlier this morning). My room was recently cleaned too... Hm, I should seriously take a picture of it before it piles up again.

The server my domains are currently sitting on is officially mine. My friend (Mike) who was sharing it with me for the last 10? years has decided to give up on it for good. It'll be a bit of a toll on my wallet, being unemployed and all still but I will continue to keep it. I am considering hosting other people to balance off the bill but I don't know anyone who needs it. That just means I'll need to work harder to find a job... that is, if I'm aiming for both AX and PAX...

Speaking of which, AX days planned are July 1 - 7. Just waiting on more better hotel announcements and Shi2 to hurry up and find time off to buy plane tickets. Not to mention, they need more guest announcements. Effing smile.dk, Yamaguchi Kappei and Nozomu Sasaki's appearance at sakuracon d-doesn't faze me one bit...!!

PAX's "limited number of badges" is a bit concerning... But budget is not confirmed so I better not yet.Semester end approaches and I've got some serious revamping to do for most of the projects I've done thus far. Been quite unsatisfied with how most of them have turned out so I'll be (hopefully) dedicating this weekend to do just that.

While on the topic of projects, my upcoming portfolio revamp turns out to be the same colours I used in my current. I was having trouble figuring out what colours "suited" me, and my classmate kept urging me to use orange because I was an "orange person." She can imagine me wearing orange (I have no orange clothes) and said it was perhaps it was because my hair is orange?! Either way, I didn't accept such a crappy answer so I kept looking for a colour combo. I somehow ended up poking around the Pantone community and (re)encountered the colorology page to find that my colour was indeed orange. That wasn't the only thing... Back at school, while I was working on my portfolio, I began looking at my old portfolio site just to see what stuff I plan on keeping and in fact, I've forgotten that my page was actually already orange. So finally, hey, what the heck, sure orange it is. So it's official, I'm orange.