Return of the Revenge of the Son of Saying Hi to Josiah!

[PoisonWing14]

Moi,

Hello, world! I'm currently posting this from my new computer. It's nice and fast, so I'm very happy with that, but there is something about it that makes me a bit uneasy. It's running Linux and I am not accustomed to Linux at all. I have always used Windows so...I'm either going to have to learn how to use Linux or I'll have to download Windows on this computer. Most likely, I'm going to end up downloading Windows. The the moment, Linux and Ubuntu are just too confusing for me...

Well, stay radical, people! Peace off!

[shauni]

Ni No Kuni is awesome!

Didn't think I was ever going to get a copy! The EU release was delayed for a week, then Game and Amazon had really bad stock shortfall. I tried to pre-order it two weeks in advance but couldn't. I went out and asked at a few other game shops local, and just so happened to get the last copy in Grainger games which only opened a few weeks ago near me. I couldn't even get the Wizards addition. Amazon's price went up from £35 to £47 over night when it was released, (I got mine for £40. Tidy!) with a back log arrival date of the 19th Feb. Proper underestimated demand.

The Wizards Edition is like £160 everywhere now. Blimey!

[Josiah]

Hi! I got Wizard's Edition, despite all the issue that were had here with Namco Bandai's shipping company. The plush, coin, and litographs fall into the neat junk catagory, the wizard's guide is really cool, though I think it's all available in game as well, and the soundtrack is a complete dissapointment as it only has two songs (even for a partial soundtrack, you'd think they could at least fill up CD). There's also some DLC, but it's just gold versions of a couple of the monsters you can normally recruit in-game. So yeah, as a package it's not but not a must have by any means. I'm hoping to finish Persona 4 Golden within the next few days and move right on to Ni no Kuni after that...

[Cheezdude]

I went back to school today. I had the entirety of January off except for exams. I'm glad to be back, I really do like school. This semester I have a spare first period. I slept in today and then watched Mad Men when I woke up. The house was so quiet. I like not having anyone home. My friend Kyle was in the hospital over the break. Had some real obscure virus that he picked up on vacation. I visited him a few times. It's really scary seeing someone hooked up like that to fifteen different machines, a shell of themselves. He's out and better now with reduced muscle function for now. What an incredible relief. Mortality is absolutely horrifying. We have a new Computer Science teacher. He's okay, I guess. One of my circles of friends is all sad cause they collectively bombed their report cards and their parents are mad at them and I said they brought it upon themselves and now they're collectively mad at me. How silly of me/them. I brought my bicycle down. It's still snowy but it's been like 5 degrees for the last couple days so it's nice to get out and breathe. I wish I maintained the feeling I had at school when I got home. I really like it but it sucks the energy out of me. That's true for anytime I go out and do things. It's fun and then I just can't muster up any energy at home. Introversion, I guess. I don't have a whole lot else to say. I hope you all find purpose in what you do.

[shauni]

Josiah, when you went to Japan did you need any injections? Its only just occurred to me to look into that. I didn't think you did, but then again...

[Josiah]

Hi! Nice to see you Cheez!

To answer Shauni's question, no you don't need any injections when going to Japan. If you want to work there as a teacher, you need to take a blood test, but it's a clean and modern country, so there's no required vaccines or anything like that.

[shauni]

Thanks Josiah. I didn't doubt that Japan is very clean, but I don't know what biting insect and such might be over there.

[Saber Knight]

Hey.

So I've been practicing for the annual chimesmaster competition at Cornell. A bunch of people compete, and anywhere from 1-3 people are accepted as new chimesmasters.... so, yeah, I don't think I'll get it, but it's worth a shot! I have 4 weeks to memorize the Jennie McGraw Rag with 4 hours of practice time on the chimes per week. Except when you're practicing on the main console you only push the levers down halfway so you don't play bells for most of campus to hear. I also have to learn our evening song (though without the duet descant) and our alma mater, which we are not to memorize to prove that we can read music and not look down at our hands/feet as we play. 3 note chords are hard when you really don't have the time to look down at your feet and you're bouncing around on one foot. On a side note, I also adore the lyrics to our evening song. In marching band, we always played it after our post-game concert and then we'd all sing the 2nd verse and chorus together with our arms around one another in a big circle and it was always such a peaceful moment.

Welcome night and welcome rest
Fading music, fare thee well
Joy to all we love the best
Love to thee, our fair Cornell

Music with the twilight falls
O'er the dreaming lake and dell
'tis an echo from the walls
Of our own, our fair Cornell

Also, I love hearing the current chimesmaster concerts. You hear stuff from the muppets theme to Hallelujah (one of my favourites) to Call Me Maybe to the ever-popular Here Comes the Sun.

Long story short, I really hope to become a chimesmaster. Not only would I be able to play 3 or 4 concerts a week for all of campus to hear, but it's also permanent card-access to McGraw tower which has an incredible view and is one of my favourite places on campus and I'd love to just hang out there at the top and nap or do homework or something. For the next four weeks, I have given card access, so at least that's something!

[Josiah]

Hi! Good luck, Saber!

More on what Shauni said... Japan does has mostquitos in places, and there are probably some other biting insects but yeah, nothing you need to be vaccinated against.

Ugh... I sorta missed lunch and now I'm really hungry but it's too early to eat. Plus, I can't leave work yet anyway and when I do get home there are some things I really should get done and... Oh hey, there's a mosquito in my office. Well, this afternoon is going just wonderfully... But hey, tonight is pizza night and I'll have some time to play Persona later so things should be improving soon enough.

[Saber Knight]

Hey.

HOO BOY the past few weeks have been really bad for relationships for my friends. Three good friends got dumped (one after a 2 month relationship, one 7 month, one over a year) and one good friend had a relationship end, though I don't know what the circumstances were. The 7 month one, though... he told her he was breaking up with her because of distance, but yesterday, not even a week after breaking up with her, his facebook status changed into a relationship with someone else. Knowing how painful it is to have your ex start being with someone else so soon after a relationship (though, geeze, it's been like 5 days. At least have the decency to understand her feelings and not put something like that on facebook), I can tell she's not in a good place right now, but she's trying to hide it. Ugh. What keeps me going is regarding my ex as immature for falling back into hooking up with someone else so soon after our breakup. Which... well, I guess it's really not soon anymore. Nearly been 4 weeks. Merp. Stupid thing still stings a bit.

And I can't tell whether it's progress or just sad that there was a party a couple days ago and we went the whole night without acknowledging one another.

Also, you remember how overflowing my quote board was before? It's even more so now. Halp.

[shauni]

Sorry to hear your Ex is being like that, but it sounds like you are in a better place anyway. I had an ex get with someone weeks after we broke up, its not nice.

Talking of relationships, mine is going very well. We are spending Valentines Day together on Thursday. I'm looking forward to it.

I've spent just over 30 hours on Ni No Kuni so far, I'm finding it fun but the capture system is frustrating when your trying to catch specific monsters for a quest. I spent two hours last night killing the game dame creatures with no luck. Wish it had a version of Pokeballs....

[Josiah]

Hi! I may start Ni no Kuni later today, though that depends how long it takes me to make curry bread and finish writing the last chapter in that story I'm working on. Though, with Metal Gear Rising coming out in a week I'm kinda tempted to just start on my P4 replay or some short game and save Ni no Kuni until after MGR...

I saw The Life of Pi over the weekend. Great cinematography and really strange, though rather interesting story.

That's pretty much it here. Japanese language tables is going to be on Valentine's this week, which makes me wonder if any of the girls will decide to do things the Japanese way and bring chocolate for the guys. I'm guessing no.

[Silver]

Eh heh... I was on the other end of that... that is, I was the person that got with the ex not long after their last relationship ended. Type 7 triangles, man.

In my case, person B had liked person A before, but person A wasn't really interested. They went out, A cheated on B with B's best friend, they broke up (A went out with B's best friend for a while) and B moved on to person C. As Person B and C are hitting it off, A decides that they really like B now and they want to be with B! Well, since A gave B a chance before, B gave A a chance this time. But it didn't work out so B broke up with A and got with C about a week later... I'm not proud of it but I don't regret it.

As a person C, I promise that neither C nor B is out to get A or to make them feel bad. It's just like... B was unsure, and gave A a chance, but realized that C was a better match, which they never would have known if not for A. And I would just like to say thank you to all the Person As out there! Through your sacrifice, B can know that C is the right one for them, without wondering about person A for the rest of their lives! Yours is a noble cause indeed! I'm sorry that Person B always seems like a jerk to you guys though.


...In related news, not doing anything for Valentine's day because I've got class all morning and Person B has class all night on Thursdays... but besides that because Valentine's Day is pretty insignificant compared anniversaries, which in our case is twelve days later. It's a good thing we didn't wait longer, see? If we had waited until person A moved on, I wouldn't have a "Get out of Valentine's Day Free" card! Instead, I'd have to do big expensive dates with presents and all sorts of things for two months in a row and my wallet would cry to me, "Why couldn't you have asked her out sooner?! Then you wouldn't have to do both of these!!"

[PoisonWing14]

Moi,

Well, it's been a while. Not much to catch up on in my life. Same old, same old. I have a sore throat right now, so that's a bit annoying. Can't really do anything about it though, so I might as well not complain.

So, some of my friends (and by some, I mean 2) and I have been playing an online board game called, who would have guessed, boardgame-online (.com). It's pretty fun, especially when playing with good friends that you regularly joke around with. It's free to play, no registration or anything required. Just create your own game (I recommend making it private if your just playing with some friends), send some people the link given, and play! I play by myself sometimes, mainly just to mess around with the jukebox. You can pick from a bunch of songs from YouTube to play while you're playing, and everyone else gets to listen to whatever music you picked as well. When the song is over, the person whose turn it is next gets to choose the next song. There's a chat box too, so you can chat with other players while other people are taking their turns. It's a bunch of fun, though with more players, I would recommend decreasing the number of spaces on the "board". When playing with more then four people, it can take a while just to get through one game.

And that's pretty much how I've been spending my free time over this past week...Yep.

Stay radical, people! Peace off!

[Josiah]

Hi! I just made curry bread!

Since we still seem to be on the relationship topic... I ended up asking a friend of mine out last week (the one I mentioned in the past). I'm not in love (not yet anyway), but I really like hanging out with her, she seems open to religion (she's currently agnostic), and I figured I should at least give it a try before I break down and check out that messianic dating site. She's essentially a chronic non-dater like myself, but I propsed we try a couple of casual date type outtings, see how we feel, and go from there. Though I also said I'm fine staying friends if she's not interested. For better or worse, I ended up asking her via Facebook message. Not ideal by any means, but I haven't seen her for a couple weeks and, going off past experience, have no idea when I will next since she tends to get very wrapped up in studying to the exclusion of all else. Last semester she had some especially tough classes and I only saw her twice the entire time. But anyway, it's been a few days and I'm still awaiting an answer. I figure I'll give her through Thursday to reply since language tables are where we're most likely to see each other in person (whenever she's not caught up studying, anyway). I figure there's a few possible outcomes at this point.
1. She turns me down (online or in person) and we just stay friends.
2. Thursday passes and she still doesn't respond. In which case I'll assume that's a no (or that FB ate my messages as part of a global conspiracy to keep up apart), drop the subject, keep treating her as a friend, and hope she doesn't find the whole thing overly awkward.
3. She accepts at the last minute either due to procrastination, nerves, or wanting to talk in person. Or maybe to take advantage of the fact that Thursday is Valentine's. She's half Japanese so I can kinda picture her bringing me honmei choco as an answer... That'd be really cute...but probably unlikely.

Anyway, I'll be a bit dissapointed if she turns me down, and a bit annoyed if she never responds at all, but I won't be heart broken or anything. Staying friends is ok too. So, nothing to do but wait a few more days and see what (if anything) happens...