Correction from previous post after getting into the eyeshield 21 manga:

"So, I finally finished watch all 145 episodes of eyeshield 21 a couple days ago. I really enjoyed the whole anime. There were only a few filler episodes which I skipped over. They were usually around the time between matches there would be like 1 filler episode and then training and character development of the other team the Devil Bats would be up against.

The most interesting thing I find about this series is that the anime is meant to augment the manga I think. After 145 episodes we are, maybe, halfway through the storyline and there are some major things that apparently happen in the manga past the final episode. The final couple episodes is only the semi-final match of the tournament the whole series leads towards. Although this kinda sucks because it feels that the series could have gone on but I think they should have kept going! What the hell Japan?chose a good point to end it. Since the ending of the semi-final match is so over the top and they are doing crazy things throughout the whole game. it would be a step backwards to try and top, as well as almost impossible.

I actually want to continue on in the manga to see more of the character development and where the story goes from here though. From what I understand through Wiki, it seems like the end of the final episode is actually a little bit of a sneak peak as to how the manga has things happening near it's own end. I'm trying not to throw out spoilers in case people are going to go and watch it but have watch almost all 5 seasons of Major! I can say it was a good point to stop the anime, since From here they just keep going up in difficulty (international competition go!) and that doesn't work out too well cause you have to leave a bunch of the very well developed characters behind in order to compete against new teams.

Very good anime, I'm going to go read the manga now I think."

Finish the anime series with one more season and make that the final battle of the tournament and then the battle at the Nationals! Make it happen Japan! From there, make a movie about what happens in the international competition. Holy hell the Finals and Nationals were awesome...

So, I finally finished watch all 145 episodes of eyeshield 21 a couple days ago. I really enjoyed the whole anime. There were only a few filler episodes which I skipped over. They were usually around the time between matches there would be like 1 filler episode and then training and character development of the other team the Devil Bats would be up against.

The most interesting thing I find about this series is that the anime is meant t augment the manga I think. After 145 episodes we are, maybe, halfway through the storyline and there are some major things that apparently happen in the manga past the final episode. The final couple episodes is only the semi-final match of the tournament the whole series leads towards. Although this kinda sucks because it feels that the series could have gone on but I think they chose a good point to end it. Since the ending of the semi-final match is so over the top and they are doing crazy things throughout the whole game it would be a step backwards to try and top, as well as almost impossible.

I actually want to continue on in the manga to see more of the character development and where the story goes from here though. From what I understand through Wiki, it seems like the end of the final episode is actually a little bit of a sneak peak as to how the manga has things happening near it's own end. I'm trying not to throw out spoilers in case people are going to go and watch it but have watch almost all 5 seasons of Major! I can say it was a good point to stop the anime, since from here they just keep going up in difficulty (international competition go!) and that doesn't work out too well cause you have to leave a bunch of the very well developed characters behind in order to compete against new teams.

Very good anime, I'm going to go read the manga now I think.

I've been grinding through rep like a mad man and doing so many low level quests it's really kinda sad. I remember struggling with these on my warrior when I was the proper level and now I'm just ripping them up as my 80 DK. Makes past me feel so damn gimp ; ;

The game plan:

• Orgrimmar, check.
• Thunder Bluff, check.
• Darkspear Trolls, not check, Revered ~9,800/21,000 (currently grinding out through quests and dailies).
• Undercity, not check, Honoured ~7,400/12,000 (next to grind after Trolls).
• Silvermoon, definitely not check, Honoured ~9,200/12,000 (will be last of the 5 cities to grind, saving writs from tournament to be used once I become a Champion of Silvermoon to make it easier).
• Argent Crusade, not check, Revered ~294718,400/21,000 (currently grinding through the 3 dailies I can access and random level 80 instances).
• The Sunreavers, not check, Revered ~1,500/21,000 (currently grinding through argent tournament dailies).
• Frenzyheart Tribes, not check, Honoured ~5,100/12,000 (currently grinding through dailies).
• The Oracles, check (currently hated due to faction swap to Frenzyheart but was exalted at one point).

• Argent Dawn, not check, Neutral ~900/3,000 (figured that I will have already hit exalted with the Argent Crusade so I should hit exalted with the dawn and go for the achievement for having them both).
• Timbermaw Hold, not check, currently not even listed in my reputation tab (oops, heh, for "the Diplomat" achievement).
• Sporeggar, not check, Friendly ~1,900/6,000 (for "The Diplomat" achievement and mounts).
• The Mag'har, not check, Honoured ~9.900/12,000 (same reasons as Sporeggar).
   

Beyond that, I will probably look into grinding old school factions that I don't currently have plans for. I would imagine when Cataclysm hits some of them would probably not be around anymore or will play a bigger part and have good rewards for having high rep so I might as well be prepared for that. But that's still a long ways off. It's going to take me another 11 days of dailies just to finish of the Argent Crusade, 13 days away from championing ever city, and who knows how far I'm off some of the other ones that aren't really involved with dailies. At least I will get to look at my faction rep and not feel gimp once this is all over.

So, I started doing the argent tournament like, a few weeks ago, it was one of the things that made me kinda wanna come back to WoW so I jumped back in and now I've become something I feared. A reputation whore! You know those jerks who are 1 shotting all your level 20 mobs cause they are grinding rep with low levels quests? I'm one of them now! Gah! So I've already hit exalted with Orgrimmar (I get to represent them in the tournament tomorrow after dailies) and I'm almost exalted with Thunderbluff (I can already represent them in the tournament). Next I'm going to start work on Darkspear Trolls in both reputation and being able to represent them in the tournament.

Silvermoon is gonna be a pain (unless someone can please prove I'm wrong) but when doing the Silvermoon dailies from the tournament they apparently don't give Silvermoon rep! What the heck!? Is this true? I hope not, that would make them a pain in the ass. Oh well, once Thunderbluff is exalted I can just use my tokens from the tournament and throw them at Silvermoon as much as I can.

I also (for whatever crazy reason) decided to change from Oracles to Frenzyheart (was already exalted with Oracles) so I've got more rep to grind there...grah!

There are 145 Episodes in Eyeshield 21 so I'm definitely over halfway there but this seemed like a good place to look back at it cause it's in between games. It's definitely a great anime so far, and they'd have to do pretty bad to screw it up at this point.

All the characters are really well developed, and I mean all the characters. Like, even random characters that are on teams that aren't the Devil Bats (the main team the anime is about). Like, literally characters we only ever saw once during 1 play of one of the games or something have good personalities and sometimes come back later on in the episodes and have cameos and it works because they can fit into their rolls well.

Every time there is a sports anime it can usually fall into some traps. Eyeshield 21 looked especially susceptible of this main trap since they implemented a tournament style for the games. Now, the problem with the sports animes is that you either have a team win forever (making it harder to create suspense since deep down you know they will win anyways), or have a team usually get to a certain point and then always lose and the whole thing starts again (I'm looking at you Major!).

Eyeshield 21 pretty much has to follow the first since it's a tournament style but they have done the suspense really well and I have found myself thinking, "Ok, if they lose they'll have to get back into the tournament...maybe there is a losers bracket? Maybe the whole other team will be killed so they will be bumped to the next round? Maybe Hiruma will do something awesome?" (Hiruma is their oni-leader, he's awesome).

It took me a couple days to get the entire series going but I've got it all sitting there and I usually watch a couple episodes a day and I'm loving it. Should definitely check it out if you haven't heard of it. Without getting into it too much there is actually going to be a change in character interactions coming up because of something that happened recently so it should get more interesting! The last anime I found that kept me interested and seemed fresh this far in was One Piece. Main difference is that this anime actually has an end in sight. One Piece has been going for like 10 years and could theoretically go for 10 more before coming close to finishing XD

Firstly, I hate getting ganked, it's the most annoying pussy thing in WoW as far as I'm concerned. You can't beat me in a fight 1 on 1, fine whatever I can deal. Hell they'd probably still beat me even if I knew they were coming so it doesn't make much of a difference. Anyways I've been trying to do Argent Tournament Dailies to give it a try cause it looks pretty interesting and you can use it to get easy rep in the major cities it looks like. So I was doing one where you have to kill 8 scourge or whatever and there was an area near the Argent Tournament where you could do that so I went to do it there.

Low and behold a Druid was lurking around in Cat form and jumped out at me after I had finished one of my mobs. I've found that most people want you to fight back for whatever reason but I've adapted the logic of not fighting back, especially when someone pops out of stealth at me cause they want you to fight back despite it's futility because often if they jump out of stealth they are stun lock machines. So, I don't give them what they want and usually they just kill me and move on because it's no fun if I don't fight back cause then they can't feel big about themselves. If I fight back they corpse camp me more.

So, Cat jumps out of stealth and starts going nuts on me. I was taking like no damage. Their big crits were doing like...maybe 1000 to me each time and I wasn't even buffed or anything (<3 frost spec) so I just sat there and watched them attacking me. Watching them spazz around, clearly flailing at their keyboard/mouse trying to move around to prevent me from getting a bead on them and so they could get around behind me. When I reached around 1/2 health they realized I wasn't moving and stopped spazzing around like an epileptic rag doll and just stood behind me. Then at about 1/4 health they either had blown all their cooldowns or didn't want to use them and were just meleeing me down. They got me to about 300HP and then stopped completely and backed off and looked at me. They looked at me for about 5 seconds before stealthing up and moving around behind me.

At this point I had a brilliant idea! I had over 40 runic power! So right when they got behind me I hit Hungering Cold (which freezes them for 10 seconds) ran off, jumped on my mount, laughed at them, and went back to the tournament grounds to heal up. This is going into my list of "How to aggravate gankers" right next to "If I am near a cliff big enough to kill me, jump off and death grip them with me."

Ok, I've hit a snag in my FFXI career. I have gil...

I know that sounds weird but for the first time I have gil and I wasn't really saving for anything in particular. Like, when I was going for my Hagun I went all out for that and when I was going for my Azoth I went all out for that but my recent wealth is a lot more random (thank you union!). I'm sitting on about 1.3mil right now (that's like, crazy amounts for me) and I'm stuck with an issue. Do I take that gil and go for gear (mainly work towards an Adder Jambyia) or do I take that and invest it into leveling another job (Probably COR, just got my 4th relic piece for that tonight, WHERE MY HAT!?)?

Normally this would be easy as I would just go for the gear since I don't know how long I'll play FFXI for so there is plenty of chance to level a job later. But, now FFXI has a time limit placed on it for me with FFXIV announced and it expected to come out in about a year. I know there is the group that says, "Oh well it's just going to end, might as well quit!" But to me that's like saying, "Well my life is just going to end, might as well end it!" I think it calls more for a change in what I want to do in FFXI. Just like if you find you had a terminal illness and you were going to die in a year you wouldn't kill yourself (well, normal people wouldn't). But suddenly your priorities change; suddenly that trip to France or learning to play the piano takes precedence over your mortgage payments or you job.

So, I'm kinda leaning towards COR since that's in the group of jobs I haven't leveled before. But since I'm all about experiencing stuff in FFXI that I want to have some really really good geared jobs @75 so that I can do those things (I want to beat all the salvage bosses and Odin specifically). I'll probably think about this some more tomorrow and then decide what I want to do but I think leveling COR might be fun. Plus it shouldn't be all that hard considering it is a buffing job so if there is a party to be made, I'll probably get the invite over another pure DD assuming they didn't already grab a BRD or something.

Now I understand why I never tried to have gil! To much thinking involved >< Unless...I could go the route that I go with everything else and then just get so much gil I don't have to think anymore!

...

Haha ya right.

Looking for level 100 bonecrafter with 60 goldsmithing and 60 smithing subcrafts, must have the No HQ ring, +skill gear is welcome. I enjoy long walks on the beach and synthing Khimaira Jambiya without losing the 1.4mil Star Sapphire.

>.>

Stupid Thistle, leaving BEFORE I need all the help with crafting ; ;

Apparently...yes wai.

Probably one of my earliest memories by far as a kid is of a certain kids book. This book only contained 10 sentences. This book is of course Where the Wild Things Are! Remembering back on the book, it scared me as a kid because the Wild Things were so weird and monsterish. But, as you read through it and look at the pictures you see they are actually really nice, but still kinda scary because of how they looked. I mean, that right there is the entire foundation of how I view people in a different position then I might have on a subject! Although at first someone might seem scary and dangerous (See: Gun people, PETA members) or just different (See: Gays, religious people, PETA members) if you give them a chance they can turn out to be really nice. They might seem odd or strange to you still but you know deep down it's just on the surface because you know they are really a great person.

If the world could work on the messages that 10 sentences taught me, we'd all be in a better world right now...

Anyways! I only really started to think about this recently after going to watch Harry Potter with my family and they are making a Wild Things movie! When the trailer came on at first I was very confused as to what it was but then when I saw Max with his fox outfits hood up my brain lite up like a Christmas tree and I had a wicked happiness flashback to me younger days. The trailer seems to nail the feelings that the book invoked in me so long ago so there is hope for it! It looks like they are doing physical/CG Wild Things as well! That's the way to go because it makes physical interaction with Max (the kid) work better then if it was all CG.

Although I want to get really excited about this and jump up and down and wait in line with a Max costume when the movie comes out (crown and scepter version of course!) I have to try and remain on the sides and try to keep a critical view of it. Since I don't want to get sucked in, go see it, then be really pissed off cause they destroyed one of the most important parts of my childhood (I'm looking at you Transformers!).

So, I've been thinking about maybe doing a temp. return to WoW for a month or 2. I don't know, the game has potential in there but I can't play it all out over a long period of time because I just get bored and I don't want to do WoW endgame because everything I work towards just get wiped away when the next big patch hits so it seems kinda pointless to me. But there are many points that I am unsure about in my return:

1) I want to do it on a PvE server. I tried PvP server, I didn't much like it. All the PvP stuff I did like what things like battlegrounds and wintergrasp anyways and they are available in PvE servers.

2) This means I need to go to a new server but I don't exactly know where to go.

3) Faction. I've played Horde a lot. I have pretty much mastered Tauren leveling, undead leveling sucked, so did Blood Elf, so that would leave me with Troll or Orc. I don't wanna be an Orc because that seems like too much of the obvious and easy choice and Trolls remind me too much of Elvaans. This means I'd have to goto Alliance...but they are the enemy! Also, I would play Draenei if I did that.

4) Class. I've done Death Knight and I don't want to do it again. Not because I think DK sucks, on the contrary, I love DK. But the fact that you have to respec constantly because Blizzard keeps doing massive changes to it since they can balance about as well as a 1 legged top heavy elephant, whose drunk. So if I was a Draenei that would leave me with Paladin, Warrior, Priest, Shaman, Mage, and Hunter.

-I'm not much of a fan of pet jobs so Hunter is out of the picture.

-I don't really want to be a Priest because that means I'd probably have to level as Shadow and I hate the whole thing they do to help them do more damage that basically just makes them black. I think it's ugly and stupid.

-I already did Warrior to about 67 and I got bored of it halfway through Outlands so I don't want to try that again.

-Back in the days of Diablo II I played mage a couple times. It was pretty fun and I had a good time with it. I didn't play mage on the PvP server because I would have been destroyed since I suck in the "getting ganked" situations and I can just hang out in the back (until death grip that is) in any battlegrounds if I were to do those. So mage is a possibility.

-Shaman has kinda seemed neat to me. I like the idea of being a support class in WoW but I'm not really sure if Shaman is that. I mean, I hear about all the damage Shaman can do but I hear that they are also very support so I think it ends up falling into the same issue as COR in FFXI. Is it a DD with buffs or a buffer who can DD, sort of thing. I'm almost unwilling to do Shaman because I don't want to deal with people being like: "You're a shaman, you can main heal!" "Hey you could DD for us!" "Hey we need your buffs!" sort of thing. I like my jobs to be good at basically one thing and then just excel at that. Hence PLD (TANK!), SAM (DD!), DNC (DANCE DANCE DANCE!).

-That leaves Paladin...I tried leveling PLD as a Belf (Belfoxe...I loved my names I made. My Draenei would have to have a weird name like Draenoxe or Velnei or something strange.) and it just didn't work out well for me. I'm not sure if I just didn't like the way Paladin played in WoW or if I just didn't like BElf or the areas or what. It would probably be the closest thing to my prayers for a Tauren Paladin though.

I think I will do either Mage or Paladin. I don't see myself doing Shaman but I will try it out just to make sure it's not actually something I will love if I do decide to go back. But I guess that depends if anyone out there is on a PvE server with a guild I could meander about in for a month or two mainly during the day.

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

^^^ Powerful dividing line of power.

In the FFXI world we got an update! New mog house furniture! I have hopes for it but I will have to wait and see! New zones, actually, more like old zones but deadlier (Beaucedine (S), where dreams and EXP buffers goto die)! Union, which will probably be broken and result in an emergency server Maint! Missions! SE is doing it again. They do a really good job of pissing me off with these missions to the point of where I want to leave the game (you have to do these 5 mini games (4 of which are redlight/greenlight variations) that suck major balls and are surrounded by aggro so you can die just be finishing the cutscene!) only to make me go "THESE ARE THE BEST MISSIONS EVERY!" once I finish the cutscenes because they were so awesome! They added an evil purple galkan fomor! Yes!

So much stuff to do, gotta wait for people to figure out the whole Augmenting weapons thing to see if that's any good. I also grabbed the Cobra Unit Harness, this thing is awesome! It's only slightly worse then the DNC relic (which I don't have) so it was a great pickup until that time comes. It also looks pretty good if I do say so myself. A good update overall I think. Wasn't too amazing but it was about what I imagined it would be so I'm not disappointed, I'm content with it.

It's been almost a fucking year but all the excitement for the WotG mission line and the characters (except Lilisette, I think shes a git again) returned like a tazer gun to the base of the spine! Also, SE is secretly sending me messages in the mission names! Here are 3 that occur all in a row:

A Proof of Valor (PLD clearly) > A Sanguinary Prelude (Sanguine Sword anyone?) > Dungeons and Dancers (DNC clearly). You see, SE has mapped out my FFXI career in 3 missions! However, the most interesting thing is the future SE says I am in for with the next mission being...Distorter of Time! That's right, Time Mage is next for me! Can't wait! :P

My Mom has been looking for a new car (used) and there was a computer listed in the car section on the site that she was looking at which initiated this:

Mother: Why is there a computer here? I can't drive a computer!
Me: But...a computer has drivers...

Yep, dying a geek.

I got all the parts in for my computer yesterday and went to work on putting it together! After about an hour or two of work (I had no idea what I was doing so about 3/4 of that time was spent flipping through the manual) I finally had it all put together and I booted it up. To my surprise everything is working perfectly as well! I was worried about the sound but it runs basically silent. Like, I could hear my sisters (our quietest computer) from across the room over this computer so I am going to keep it on my desk as long as I can!

My Mom's Super Camera of Death usually sits right next to me on the computer table so I took some pictures of the computer! The flash was on and the pictures might not be too good but I don't know how to operate this monster so deal with it.

Front of computer w/ monitor.
Side of computer w/ panel on.
Massive image of inside w/o panel!

So far I only have one issue with it and that's that the LCD panel on my G15 keyboard doesn't seem to be working right. You can see in the picture that it just has "G15" on it and that's normal for when booting but it should have other things on there. I'm running all the right stuff but it just doesn't want to work for some reason. Maybe I just need a reset or something. And that for whatever reason if I do a big /sigh with my headset on I can hear myself breathing through the headset...probably something to do with the audio drivers but it's nothing major.

I've also pumped FFXI up as well in the graphics. Oh my god...it's so beautiful...

So, it's 4am...it was 3am when I was lying in bed and couldn't sleep since Coast to Coast was talking about EMP blasts from nukes knocking out electronics over a large area of any nation from space and I wouldn't sleep cause of that. They can talk about ghosts and have the scariest stories ever on that show and I don't really get freaked out by them but just thinking about all the hell that would break loose sending our society back to a time before electronics of any kind scares the crap out of me. I'd rather just get hit by the nuke and call it quits almost.

Anyways, so I came downstairs and decided it was time to touch my woodworking again! I'm 69 and I've decided to give repairing fishing rods a crack (*bu dum tish*) so I need to go break some! Light Crystals, check. Meatballs for bait, not check (getting on airship leading to windy then going to sleep for a bit to get them though). Fishing Rods, not check (going to buy clothespoles from tav and watch for Rosewood logs/lumber to make Hume Fishing Rods to snap as well). If this goes well I should end up with 3 more levels on woodworking which will put me at 72, from there it's a long and excessively painful road to 100. Somehow, my poor butt will make it though!

I must be insane, I don't have the patients for making gil off my crafting. Mainly because the crafting market is insanely congested and I hate competition where someone can force me out of the market because they have millions to blow doing it just to get rid of me. But I love to craft, it's just so damn addictive...if I won the 80mil from the mog-lotto, I'd still be crafting my face off (I'd probably be at like 90-100 by now) and then start crafting my subs into oblivion!

Ok, so I'm going through Suikoden Tierkreis still, I'm almost done (at least...I think I am o.O). So far I've done about 22hrs of gameplay but that's by basically only following the main storyline with a little bit of side questing and no farming done to upgrade gear for the characters.

Speaking of the characters. You can choose who to bring along or who to take during a lot of points and a bunch of the time you can change who you have taken with you. You and these people are known as Starbearers (You can name your company [Starlight Company hoooo!] and you can name your castle when you get it [Castle Sirius hooooo!]...I'm such a nerd ; ;) and each one of you is for a different Star of Destiny. There are 108 Stars of Destiny in the games storyline. I currently have 40ish characters unlocked and from looking at things, ALL 108 characters can be unlocked! Holy hell.

Suddenly this EXP system makes much more sense. Especially since I've recently started taking lower level characters with me because my highest characters are 50 and my lowest are like 10 (can you blame me? I HAVE 40 DAMN CHARACTERS TO PLAY WITH!) due to mainly choosing my favourites in the storyline. But I mean, within one quest I can take characters from level 10 to caught up because the system works so well.

I'm going to try and work on unlocking some more characters for now before I initiate the next part of the story (since it's sounding like it's a no-turn back stage) so that I can get the most out of the storyline and characters.

( Storyline stuff goes here! )

I love this game. It's pretty easy (or maybe I just think it is cause I know it's tricks?) and the storyline is so deep and makes me think so much about stuff that it's just a great exercise in philosophy and physics possibilities. *nerd glee*

So, I've been working on putting together a new computer. This is gonna be the first computer I basically assemble myself so it's pretty exciting to be able to get, within the budget, everything I want instead of just what comes with the system. I'm linking to newegg to show you guys this stuff but I'm not buying from them. I'm actually getting all this stuff from a local place to avoid shipping/handling costs and the prices are comparable anyways.

Motherboard: (I refuse to call it a MoBo for the same reason I refuse to say Meripo) ASUS P5QL PRO Will serve what I need it to do well for the next couple of years. Supports up to Core 2 Quads (no i7) but that's fine because I probably won't goto i7 for a long time and by the time I do I'll just completely upgrade the computer anyways.

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 Pretty solid little processor. This is also going to be the first system I attempt to seriously overclock (I'm going to do some testing on my current system but it's very old so I probably won't be able to do much in terms of speed increase) and from what I hear this thing is capable of going up to 4ghz while still running well under air cooling but I figure I will probably get it to maybe 3.2ghz or 3.5ghz before I stop messing with it. Which is still a nice increase. Alternatively is the Intel Core 2 Duo E8400. It's like $50 more but it's also supposed to be nice quality with good OC potential. I'm not going to goto Quad because I don't really see a new to. It's just so many cores I wouldn't know what to do with them all and I don't want to have to work on figuring out everything.

RAM: I'm currently undecided on RAM...I'm going to be going up to 4gb (I'm going to be running XP for the time being, if I need more RAM, I'll goto Vista or 7 when I need to.) but I'm not sure about brand. I hear Kingston is good but it seems so expensive. I think this one actually might come down to an epic battle between Kingston and Crucial at the store shelf itself...

HDD: Went with a Western Digital 320gb SATA 7200RPM drive. It's fast, it's cheap, and it does what I need it to do (*insert hooker joke here*). Plus 320gb?! Sweet jebus that's a ton and a half of space. To give you an idea, I'm currently running like 2 drives for a total of about 120gbs and I still have a bunch of space lying around. 320gbs is a huge amount of room...

Video Card: An EVGA Geforece 9400GT 512mb DDR2. That's not the exact model I don't think but I'm not exactly sure, the one I'm looking at doesn't have enough information to figure out what exactly it is. If it comes down to it I can change what card I'll get when I'm at the store. But I can guarantee 2 things, 1) It will be a geforce. 2) it will be PCI-E.

Sound Card: It's currently an onboard sound card. I've always used onboard sound cards since I started getting computers. I don't know if I should get an actual sound card and if I did I wouldn't even know where to start.

Case: The Coolermaster Elite 330, there are fans on PCs now! Can you believe this shit? I mean...I don't know why I never thought of it, it seems so damn obvious! As for the case itself, it's cheap and it does what I need it to do. Comes with no power supply since I'm buying that separate instead of getting another gimpy little PSU like my current PC has. There is only one thing I worry about the PC and that's noise. With a fan on the graphics card, the fan on a power supply, a fan on the CPU, and then 2 fans on the case itself...that's a lot of fans. I had been hoping that I might be able to put the PC on the desk itself so I could have easy access to the front of the case and it would be easier to mess around in the back. Plus air flow would be improved up here since it's currently down below between the desk and the TV. I hope it's not too noisy so I can do that without bothering people. Especially the people watching TV cause I figure that's the direction most of the noise will go in.

Power Supply: COOLER MASTER eXtreme 600watt although this is similar to others and may change when I goto the store. I've been trying to get information on this one specific power supply but the site I found it on isn't very good with the information so I'm not sure about it's exact specs. It will likely change based on price/specs when I get to the store. Either way I'm going after something >500watts of power.

Operating System: Like I mentioned earlier I'm going to be running XP. I have vista on this computer and there is a lot of things I don't like about it. I have them all turned off and even disabled to prevent them drawing more resources but it still feels like Vista does so many unnecessary things and it's way harder to navigate through then XP was. I hear Windows 7 is much better then Vista but I'm going to be sticking to 4gbs of RAM for now and if I decide to go up from there then I will goto Windows 7.

Now I just have to think of a name for my computer. Initial thoughts are: Kogarasumaru (in honour of Air Gear), Captain McFeathers IV (as this is will by the 4th PC I can remember owning in my lifetime), Perceptor (In honour of...Perceptor), or simply Computer (Star Trek hooo!).

So, I recently decided that I tend to lend myself to being a Transformers fan. I mean, I grew up with the show, I know a lot about the characters from the shows and I have the 1980's animated movie pretty much memorized. I had it on VHS when I was younger and I wore the VHS out I watched it so much, then I proceeded to destroy the Voltron VHS by watching that to much but whatever. Then I went and grabbed a digital copy of the movie (this was before the 20th anniversary thing where they re-released it) and have it sitting on my computer and every month or so I load it up and watch/listen to it again. Also, Beast Wars (NOT BEST MACHINES! Fuck you and your organic techno BS Beast Machines) was a favourite show when I was younger. I thought the idea was pretty cool and after awhile it started to get darker and it was pretty damn cool (plus it was Canadian! JPs had to wait for Season 2 and 3 to be translated, eat it JPs!)

However, there is one issue. I've never actually read the comics; I know, I know, shame on me. So, I'm making an effort to amend this negligence and am going to read, at least, all the comics in the main story arches in the Transformers cannon. So, I have to know where to start! I went in search of a general time line for the Transformers comics. This proved to be a little trickier then I had hoped but, being a master of the internet, I landed with this mess of a thing with arrows and boxes to help me along. I think I'm going to have to go through and mark off anything that's a TV show so that I can clean it up a little and be able to quickly see what I'm after. Also, I'm thinking I'm going to stick with english comics (UK/US) and not go into any JP story arcs (or arks? [joke few will get])...at least for the time being. Also, I'm not sure if I'll go into the movies comic arc either. Although we'll see how much I'm enjoying things if/when I get there.

Somehow...I feel as if I will regret this decision, although I doubt it.

This is a Pen.

At first I thought, "Ok, what the fuck Japan?!" Like I do with most Japanese videos I see now adays. But then I stopped to think, "You know, it's got the same lyrical level as many kiss songs...and I mean, Rap is all about shooting caps and pimpin' bitchez so it's not all that weird." So, I'm not sure what to really think about it. I think it would have been cooler if like they had of been drawn by the pen at the beginning instead of just being teleported in like that, but whatever.

In the end, the pen is mightier then the sword...

...but the axe is mightier then the pen! Rock on Japan! \m/(><)\m/

(I couldn't think of a mood to be in so I went with pensive. *bu-dum tish*)

My MHMU, or Mog House Madness Undertaking, has once again kicked into high gear! Although I'm skeptical if this is a good time to do this or not, with Celestial Nights just around the corner. And then I stop to and think to myself, "What the fuck am I worrying about? It's Celestial Nights...by far the worse event." Hell, the event with all the armors running around in the beginner zones is better. And I don't even do that event anymore because I have enough wooden katanas to sink an airship! The only thing that could make me do it again is if they introduced a sword rack; then I'd be out there in a flash! But I doubt Celestial Nights will have anything new this year and if it does, that's fine. I don't know how much work I'll do between now and tomorrow since I'm thinking of taking a day off FFXI anyways.

This all started with going into Divinius' mog house to view his DRG Relic Galka Mannequin. Of course, this led to the only place it could go: My mog house! So I showed it off a bit, a bunch had changed since he last came into my house (it was pre-egggggstravaganza!!) but it was still the basic same. We started talking and I expressed my interest in buying an Elvaan Female (cause I can't stand the males outside my mog house when I can choose NOT to look at them) and a Mithran mannequin to go in front of my flags on the left side of the house. So, I made the stupid question of, "How much does a mannequin cost now adays anyways?" For those who don't know, it's 100k, I had been sure it was 200k and hardly wanted to drop that much on 1 mannequin, nonetheless 400k on 2! But 100k for 2 new mannequins that I had wanted to get anyways? SOLD!

Of course this messed with the trees on that wall so I had to temporarily remove them, and I wanted to make more space where the tables had been before. So I needed a new bed since, although awesome, the hammock is just too damn long! So I hunted down Gladeeater and bought a noble's bed! Yes, they are slightly cheaper on the AH as opposed to his bazaar but he's a Galka, I'm a Galka, he's been selling them since I was new pretty much, it just seemed like the right thing to do! Also, I wanted to get a coffer to go on the end of the bed to put stuff on. None on the AH so I did what any San d'Orian who goes to the far side of North Sandy would do! I built it myself! It hasn't fallen apart yet, so I must have done a good job.

PS: I'm going to buy the Vana'collection 08 for PC probably for when I get my new PC since I don't actually own the PC version in physical form and I'd like to. As such, when I do, I am very, very, VERY, tempted to spend the $50 or so dollars to get a 2nd accounts first character up to 100 days so I can GET A DAMNED TIMEPIECE! GRAH!

Hope that I know will not come true but I can hope anyways: The timepiece will be a reward from Celestial Nights which starts on Friday >.>

I'll try to keep this spoiler free and not go into spoilers except behind cuts in case anyone really wants to see this movie and they don't want to know how it ends (the good guys win btw).

Those who know me know that I've bitched about the "Transformers" movie that they did a couple years back endlessly. It played out more like Teenage Romance: Featuring the Transformers then the movie that I wanted it to (bare in mind my favourite movie of all time is still the 1980's animated movie). I can say they did a better job with it this time around and tried to incorporate the puny humans into a role that would actually lend purpose to the plot as opposed to just being there. Because of that a bunch of the sequences with humans also are action oriented and involve giants robots fighting (which is what you goto a transformers movie to see...).

However, one of my annoyances about the first movie has carried over to the second movie, Transformer character development. I mean, at the end of the first movie you barely knew who any of them where unless you followed Transformers outside of the movie (especially who the decepticons were) and there was a lot of death of Transformers that didn't really amount to anything. This carries over. They introduce a lot of new Transformers into this movie and they don't even bother to tell you who they are! Devastator shows up and they don't even let us know it's Devastator! There are so many new people and I think only 1 new name was ever dropped during the movie for a Transformer and that was Arcee (pink female autobot who is actually shown in the movie as 3 motorbikes that are supposed to, but never do, combine into one transformer). I mean, by the end of the movie there was 4 Autobots who had personalities (Optimus, Ironhide, Bumblebee, and The Twins [I count them as 1 because they are always in the same scenes and have basically the same personality]) and like, 3 Decepticons (Megatron, Starscream [to a lesser extent], and the main enemy behind Megatron). I mean, that's like 7 characters...there in a scene where Optimus fights that many Decepticons by himself for shit sake!

There are a lot of nice additions in characters that weren't around in the previous movie that I know who they were: Soundwave (with Ravage), Wheelie, of course Devestator, a version of the Insecticons is in the movie as well, and of course Arcee was there as well. There were a few others that seemed sort of familiar but I'd have to look it up to see exactly who they were (I haven't done a good job following the most recent generation of transformers stuff). However! There is still one GLARING omission from the movie in terms of characters and this occurs on the Autobot side of the fence! Dinobots. Where the fuck are my Dinobots at?! "Me Gimlock kick butt!" common damnit their lines are easy, they are nice comedy relief in Transformers form as well! Hell, replace Sam's stupid ass parents with the Dinobots as comedic relief and I will be satisfied! Honestly, it'd probably be cheaper then hiring them and CG acts perfectly pretty much every time!

Although they did include new characters, I can't simply let it slide that they didn't even bother to mention them off hand as their names, of give them any type of personality or anything. I mean, they introduced 1 new "major" human character in the whole movie and you couldn't find time to give personalities to even 1/4 of the new Transformers you introduced? Ya, not buying it. Star Trek introduced a whole number of character (that I knew of but some people wouldn't have) and they managed to give them all at least a basic personality and back story in the same amount of time and STILL being a good action movie. They need to spend less time going on about the stupid romantic crap and bad American Pie-esk comedic routines and spend more time on character development of the actors the DAMN MOVIE IS NAMED AFTER!

( Storyline Complains/Spoilers back here... )

Final Thoughts:

The movie looked good and the action sequences were solid. However there needs to be much more of a focus on Transformer character development! Also make death have meaning to it if you're going to kill of Transformers! Remove Sam's stupid parents from the picture and replace them with the Dinobots if you really still need the comic relief. At least it was better then that first one. Also, what is up with the idea of dog humping in this movie? Seriously, that doesn't need to be within 50 miles of a Transformers movie...

7/10

Decent, lots of room for improvement. Not a must see, but if you were looking for a movie to go see anyways and haven't seen Star Trek, then go watch this.

Finished my second day of working on this crap. Put in another 6 hours today.

Total of 12 hours of work so far.

New things learned about .dats: 13

Things that have worked in what I want to do: 0

Remaining ideas: 1

I understand fully why my previous attempts failed and it makes sense now. At least I'm learning from my mis-steps and figuring out the direction I need to go in. This next idea I'm working on is probably the most brute force way I can think of. Basically here is the issue:

I can set the helm to let the hair show through it. But I want this new additional hair that I've added to show through so that I can move the vertexes (points on the 3d-mesh) behind the helm, thus allowing the hair to be there and not stick through the helmet. The issue is that I need to set the helmet high enough that the actual hair doesn't stick though the helmet. When I do this, my additional hair I added to the helmet disappears.

Reasoning: The game is trying to get the UV (the skin, the thing that lets you see stuff so your not invisible) information for the hair from the actual head model, but can't since it's hardwired to be hidden when the helmet is set at the level it is.

Solution: Add the hairs UV (skin) to the helmet model as well. This way, I don't have to rely on the game finding the hair on the head. Instead, the helmet displays the hair like it's part of itself. Since...well, technically when this is done (if it works) the helmet and the hair will be part of the same .dat file.

Assuming things don't COMPLETELY DESTROY THEMSELVES and this works I can only think of 1 downside: Depending on how much of the face I add onto the .dat file my character may become unable to express emotions in the emotes that have them or do the little mouth talking things. Although I'm not sure how that part will work. I'm tempted to do it twice, once in a way I think I will work, and once in the way I think won't. Then I can know if I'm right and if I'm wrong well...I've advanced my learning that much more.

Trying very hard not to spiral out of control and start going on about priorities of IVNF1, 3, 4, and 5 (why the Galka head model has no IVNF2 is beyond me) and start complaining about random shit that wouldn't make sense to anyone who will read this asides from me...