Journals
It seems I had some sleeping problems yesterday night. Funny ones actually.
At about 2:30 AM I woke up(note that I DIDN'T KNOW IT WAS 2:30 AM). For reasons I can't explain myself I concluded it's morning. I assumed I woke up again before the phone could ring, I picked it up and saw the time. I was so sleepy that immediately after seeing the time I closed my eyes and only actually saw '-:30".
In about a couple of seconds I realized:"Holy shit! I didn't wake up! There's half an hour remaining until school starts! I must make myself something fast to eat and go to school!". So I got up from bed and went into the kitchen. At this moment, when I was at the kitchen entrance I was looking towards the sink and thinking: "hmmm, I'm not gonna wake up mom, I'll do everything myself". Good thing I didn't wake up her :D.
So I eat a cereal bar and made myself a sandwich. I then sat down to eat and noticed that it's dark outside.
"I guess the clock has been changed for daylight saving" I assumed.
I doubted that in a short time, and I raised my head to watch the clock.
"2:35 am.... damn batteries !"
I continue to eat. I begin do be more doubtful about the actual time. After a couple of seconds I go back to my room to see another clock. When I saw this one indicating 2:35 too...
"Oh shit =)), it's 2:35 am in the morning! lmao!".
Yep, I think while preparing my food I was actually asleep and had my eyes opened. I must say I didn't actually have the conscience of time, but when the doubts began the logic started to kick in and I woke up.
My mom laughed when I told her this, she says it may be related to the fact that's full moon now... I don't really believe this, but I anyway went outside to take a picture of it :D.
I'm a little worried though. I hope this won't happen again any time soon.
At about 2:30 AM I woke up(note that I DIDN'T KNOW IT WAS 2:30 AM). For reasons I can't explain myself I concluded it's morning. I assumed I woke up again before the phone could ring, I picked it up and saw the time. I was so sleepy that immediately after seeing the time I closed my eyes and only actually saw '-:30".
In about a couple of seconds I realized:"Holy shit! I didn't wake up! There's half an hour remaining until school starts! I must make myself something fast to eat and go to school!". So I got up from bed and went into the kitchen. At this moment, when I was at the kitchen entrance I was looking towards the sink and thinking: "hmmm, I'm not gonna wake up mom, I'll do everything myself". Good thing I didn't wake up her :D.
So I eat a cereal bar and made myself a sandwich. I then sat down to eat and noticed that it's dark outside.
"I guess the clock has been changed for daylight saving" I assumed.
I doubted that in a short time, and I raised my head to watch the clock.
"2:35 am.... damn batteries !"
I continue to eat. I begin do be more doubtful about the actual time. After a couple of seconds I go back to my room to see another clock. When I saw this one indicating 2:35 too...
"Oh shit =)), it's 2:35 am in the morning! lmao!".
Yep, I think while preparing my food I was actually asleep and had my eyes opened. I must say I didn't actually have the conscience of time, but when the doubts began the logic started to kick in and I woke up.
My mom laughed when I told her this, she says it may be related to the fact that's full moon now... I don't really believe this, but I anyway went outside to take a picture of it :D.
Over the past few months I have been replaying my final fantasy games, and I have finished Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy X-2 and just entirely completed Final Fantasy XII. I don't really have much to do at the moment so I figured I might as well write little reviews for each one of them, So If you're interested in them or want to see what I have to say, read on (also feel free to discuss in the comments)!
_____________
Final Fantasy X
-
Over all I have to say this was a brilliant game. It was a good game and it exceeded in some particular areas, like music and story; Everything story wise was laid out perfectly, you'll be fascinated with it all the way through. The game is also very challenging, there is almost never a moment where you over power the content due to being too high level or too well equipped, it always throws new things at you to make you die over and over again. It is also very strategic. The only flaw to this game I can think of is lack of freedom; something that exceeds in final fantasy xii, but this is not a major problem.
Game-play: 8.5/10
Sound: 10/10
Story: 10/10
Character progression system: 9.5/10
Battle system: 9/10
Entertainment: 9/10
___
Over all around: 9.5/10
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Notes: If you do choose to buy the game, buy the international version. There are a few different variants of this game, but the international version has better graphics, additional end-game encounters, and more equipment and quests to be acquired/done than in the normal version.
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Final Fantasy X-2
This game to me overall was a big disappointment. Over time I grew to somewhat like it, but it did not have the same impact on me as the previous game and in no way was it better. The music was worse, the story was worse, even the graphics were worse which was weird since the game was released at a much later date. The battle system in this game was the one you see in ff13, you don't take turns but you still engage in the same manner. It was also way shorter than ffx and the character progression system was awful. I don't advise you to buy this game unless you really want to, in fact the only reason you should buy this is if you want to know what happens next.
Game-play: 7/10
Sound: 7/10
Story: 7/10
Character progression system: 6/10
Battle system: 9/10
Entertainment: 8/10
___
Over all around: 7.5/10
___
Notes: Again, there is a normal and an international version of this game. There is a big difference between them and I can't say which one is better, this is what you get to choose from: In normal version a story that still makes some sense but you get less content or in international version the same thing except you get this new in-game tournament which when beaten allows you to acquire new weaponry and characters; which completely go against the whole story.
_____________
Final Fantasy XII
This game was equally good to FFX, It was very good over all but it exceeded in different manners. The music was very good and the story was equally good, but not good enough to beat FFX. It did however have better game-play, it was more entertaining, and It gave me much more hours of play than the other two games. This game has a complete new battle system to the other final fantasy games, rather than opening a new battle screen whenever your character is under attack, you are in an open world with all the monsters already roaming the area, allowing you to freely attack them. This game gives you massive freedom, more than any FF game has ever seen besides the on-line one.
Game-play: 10/10
Sound: 9/10
Story: 9/10
Character progression system: 9.5/10
Battle system: 9.5/10
Entertainment: 9.5/10
___
Over all around: 9.4/10
___
Notes: I don't advise you to buy the international version, It only adds some over powered weaponry and a new character progression system (which is not better than the old one in any way), If you want a real challenge buy the normal version, The game contains several very hard supper bosses, including the longest fight in all ff history: Yiazmat, it takes around 3-6 hours to kill him. With the international version you get weapons and armour which make this fight four times easier, which is pretty terrible.
_____________
Final Fantasy X
-
Over all I have to say this was a brilliant game. It was a good game and it exceeded in some particular areas, like music and story; Everything story wise was laid out perfectly, you'll be fascinated with it all the way through. The game is also very challenging, there is almost never a moment where you over power the content due to being too high level or too well equipped, it always throws new things at you to make you die over and over again. It is also very strategic. The only flaw to this game I can think of is lack of freedom; something that exceeds in final fantasy xii, but this is not a major problem.
Game-play: 8.5/10
Sound: 10/10
Story: 10/10
Character progression system: 9.5/10
Battle system: 9/10
Entertainment: 9/10
___
Over all around: 9.5/10
___
Notes: If you do choose to buy the game, buy the international version. There are a few different variants of this game, but the international version has better graphics, additional end-game encounters, and more equipment and quests to be acquired/done than in the normal version.
_____________
Final Fantasy X-2
This game to me overall was a big disappointment. Over time I grew to somewhat like it, but it did not have the same impact on me as the previous game and in no way was it better. The music was worse, the story was worse, even the graphics were worse which was weird since the game was released at a much later date. The battle system in this game was the one you see in ff13, you don't take turns but you still engage in the same manner. It was also way shorter than ffx and the character progression system was awful. I don't advise you to buy this game unless you really want to, in fact the only reason you should buy this is if you want to know what happens next.
Game-play: 7/10
Sound: 7/10
Story: 7/10
Character progression system: 6/10
Battle system: 9/10
Entertainment: 8/10
___
Over all around: 7.5/10
___
Notes: Again, there is a normal and an international version of this game. There is a big difference between them and I can't say which one is better, this is what you get to choose from: In normal version a story that still makes some sense but you get less content or in international version the same thing except you get this new in-game tournament which when beaten allows you to acquire new weaponry and characters; which completely go against the whole story.
_____________
Final Fantasy XII
This game was equally good to FFX, It was very good over all but it exceeded in different manners. The music was very good and the story was equally good, but not good enough to beat FFX. It did however have better game-play, it was more entertaining, and It gave me much more hours of play than the other two games. This game has a complete new battle system to the other final fantasy games, rather than opening a new battle screen whenever your character is under attack, you are in an open world with all the monsters already roaming the area, allowing you to freely attack them. This game gives you massive freedom, more than any FF game has ever seen besides the on-line one.
Game-play: 10/10
Sound: 9/10
Story: 9/10
Character progression system: 9.5/10
Battle system: 9.5/10
Entertainment: 9.5/10
___
Over all around: 9.4/10
___
Notes: I don't advise you to buy the international version, It only adds some over powered weaponry and a new character progression system (which is not better than the old one in any way), If you want a real challenge buy the normal version, The game contains several very hard supper bosses, including the longest fight in all ff history: Yiazmat, it takes around 3-6 hours to kill him. With the international version you get weapons and armour which make this fight four times easier, which is pretty terrible.
So I thought I'd do one of those movie review things I sort of did a while back. You know? Where I talked about Inception and the shit that is Transformers 2.
The movie this time is one that has been out for two years called "Jumper". Basically the short version is that the idea behind the movie is pretty neat but the plot was thin and the ending was forced or dealt with at the last minute.
Actually it reminded me a little of the Assassins Creed series as the Templars fight the Assassins and in the movie it's Paladin's vs Jumpers.
Anyway I wouldn't recommend it.
The movie this time is one that has been out for two years called "Jumper". Basically the short version is that the idea behind the movie is pretty neat but the plot was thin and the ending was forced or dealt with at the last minute.
Actually it reminded me a little of the Assassins Creed series as the Templars fight the Assassins and in the movie it's Paladin's vs Jumpers.
Anyway I wouldn't recommend it.
So today marks 17 years of me sitting in front of a computer...
I just played a castle HL1 mod that you probably never heard of yet. Because it was released very recently.
Like reissues and project quantu------ screw that. You don't really need an exposition this time. Let's get straight to the points. I fiddled around with the mod for like 10 minutes because the console crashes my WON HL. So what I did was, I removed all the WON-offending folders from the mod structure (cldll, dll, resource, media) and then it works. Alright then. I will take this from the top down for all you guys. (Read: spoilers ahead. It is recommended that you play first, and read this later)
Remember I was playing in WON software mode, so for me the brush faces disappear regularly. I wouldn't comment on the maps' aesthetic quality because then most people would get ridiculously low marks there.
This mod has some problems, which I'll get to when I get there. We'll divide this article by list number style, for extreme coherence.
Adventure begins here
0. The castle. What can I say, it's a cool little cobble castle that kinda reminds me of super mario N64 for a very obvious reason. Fun.
What's NOT fun, though, is that gold-dang ladder. I fell off it the first time and end up walking around the next 4 levels with 15 HP. Very, very uncomfortable.
1. Hotdog's castle - Oh boy. The rspeeds for me were atrocious. I spent, like, 20 minutes trying to figure out this puzzle. But wow did I feel like some blind idiot when I found the fuse. Doh.
2. Skals temple of death or whatever temple it is - I don't think it matters how strong you are, if you run into those "residue processing machines", you are done.
3. Capt. Terror's complex - A nice looking lobby with a nice, simple puzzle.
4. Deadeye - this thing is about half of the entire mod. But there is a big problem: With 15 HP I spawned into this map taking fall damage, and died. The second time around, I tried to get health off a red soda machine, which exploded but didn't kill me. Oh, but then the screen faded and I was forced to load the last save. The third time around, I crowbarred some bird posters and the fade-load-save thing happened again. That area took me forever to figure out.
Towards the end of this part the HL quit with another missing texture warning. I think the texpack in question was "deathtex.wad" which is easily available on the internet. Be sure to get this before you play this mod.
5. srry - Typical predisaster scenario where you try to reconstruct the four big letters to your favorite website of all time.
6. jeffmod's flat: Well I spawned into this map stuck to the floor. The info player start's position is fine but you have to realize that if I transition into this map from a fall, chances are I would be stuck in the floor.
Also that pipe was really hard to get into.
7. psilous - this is the (second to) last map, and finally we are told that we're playing as Gordon freeman. But I walked out of my dorm and saw "Bond" pasted to the doortag. So, I guess, I'm James Bond going undercover as a Gordon Freeman today. Awesome.
There were lots of fireflies in the bathroom, which leads me to believe that something very wrong is happening in there. I don't wanna know.
I don't know if this mod will be updated or not, but if it is, I hope that this journal is read and its contents contemplated. Good day, everyone!
Like reissues and project quantu------ screw that. You don't really need an exposition this time. Let's get straight to the points. I fiddled around with the mod for like 10 minutes because the console crashes my WON HL. So what I did was, I removed all the WON-offending folders from the mod structure (cldll, dll, resource, media) and then it works. Alright then. I will take this from the top down for all you guys. (Read: spoilers ahead. It is recommended that you play first, and read this later)
Remember I was playing in WON software mode, so for me the brush faces disappear regularly. I wouldn't comment on the maps' aesthetic quality because then most people would get ridiculously low marks there.
This mod has some problems, which I'll get to when I get there. We'll divide this article by list number style, for extreme coherence.
Adventure begins here
0. The castle. What can I say, it's a cool little cobble castle that kinda reminds me of super mario N64 for a very obvious reason. Fun.
What's NOT fun, though, is that gold-dang ladder. I fell off it the first time and end up walking around the next 4 levels with 15 HP. Very, very uncomfortable.
1. Hotdog's castle - Oh boy. The rspeeds for me were atrocious. I spent, like, 20 minutes trying to figure out this puzzle. But wow did I feel like some blind idiot when I found the fuse. Doh.
2. Skals temple of death or whatever temple it is - I don't think it matters how strong you are, if you run into those "residue processing machines", you are done.
3. Capt. Terror's complex - A nice looking lobby with a nice, simple puzzle.
4. Deadeye - this thing is about half of the entire mod. But there is a big problem: With 15 HP I spawned into this map taking fall damage, and died. The second time around, I tried to get health off a red soda machine, which exploded but didn't kill me. Oh, but then the screen faded and I was forced to load the last save. The third time around, I crowbarred some bird posters and the fade-load-save thing happened again. That area took me forever to figure out.
Towards the end of this part the HL quit with another missing texture warning. I think the texpack in question was "deathtex.wad" which is easily available on the internet. Be sure to get this before you play this mod.
5. srry - Typical predisaster scenario where you try to reconstruct the four big letters to your favorite website of all time.
6. jeffmod's flat: Well I spawned into this map stuck to the floor. The info player start's position is fine but you have to realize that if I transition into this map from a fall, chances are I would be stuck in the floor.
Also that pipe was really hard to get into.
7. psilous - this is the (second to) last map, and finally we are told that we're playing as Gordon freeman. But I walked out of my dorm and saw "Bond" pasted to the doortag. So, I guess, I'm James Bond going undercover as a Gordon Freeman today. Awesome.
There were lots of fireflies in the bathroom, which leads me to believe that something very wrong is happening in there. I don't wanna know.
I don't know if this mod will be updated or not, but if it is, I hope that this journal is read and its contents contemplated. Good day, everyone!
14 Months in the making, and Castle disposed is finally finished and released!
I'm so happy to release this as my first mod, and I'm also very happy that it didn't take FOREVER.
For all those who submitted maps, I send out a heartfelt thank you, because the mod plays for a good 45 minutes exploring it for the first time.
Hopefully, if everyone wishes, we can do another compilation like this sometime in the future!
What are you all waiting for? Check it out!
I'm so happy to release this as my first mod, and I'm also very happy that it didn't take FOREVER.
For all those who submitted maps, I send out a heartfelt thank you, because the mod plays for a good 45 minutes exploring it for the first time.
Hopefully, if everyone wishes, we can do another compilation like this sometime in the future!
What are you all waiting for? Check it out!
Ah, the plastic smell of conditioned air. I'll never really know what causes it, but what matters tonight is that it's in my room right now.
My house is very hot in summer (and very cold in winter, so I guess it was designed to work with the weather), my father kept complaining about not being able to sleep last summer so he decided to get a few of these curious devices for our bedrooms.
So anyway, what's awesome about it - besides timer functions and shit - is that it has this super cool LCD display which I am unable to read clearly from any viewing angle. Which has this insanely bright blue backlight that is always full bright if the unit is operating in any way. It fills my room with this beautiful blue light all night, affecting sleep as well. I haven't yet decided what to stick on it.
But the awesomest feature of them all, is a mirrored front. Mirrored. As in, with a mirror glued to it. It's beautiful, because from any normal viewing angle, all you'll see reflected is... the ceiling. It's undoubtedly the best design decision they have made.
Attempting to create a very artistic photo of my very ornamental bare bulb reflected in it, I realised the LCD reads perfectly from this angle of view. Now I regret not being 2.40m tall.
Also, it beeps. Every time a button is pressed on the remote. And when it starts up. And when it shuts down.
My house is very hot in summer (and very cold in winter, so I guess it was designed to work with the weather), my father kept complaining about not being able to sleep last summer so he decided to get a few of these curious devices for our bedrooms.
Also, it beeps. Every time a button is pressed on the remote. And when it starts up. And when it shuts down.
posting words in a journal!
Made a LED flasher. I'm so enthusiastic! Besides being able to repair that system, this is actually my first circuit I ever made that works!
Probably until next week I'll be able to make a small bicycle mod with flux LEDs.
[EDIT] Well I think this is my 2nd circuit actually, I remember I did this LED mod to my pc last year...
Probably until next week I'll be able to make a small bicycle mod with flux LEDs.
[EDIT] Well I think this is my 2nd circuit actually, I remember I did this LED mod to my pc last year...
I don't think I wrote about the mouse I ordered. Basically it's just what I wanted as it fits my hand nicely and allows long sessions.
Only snag is that the middle mouse doesn't always work and that's a problem with all of the ones out there so I set all three buttons on the side to mouse 3. This makes things easier and probably helps reduce hands pains as I can use my thumb now instead of my middle finger.
Also wireless...love it. Oh and the Dark Field thing. I can browser on my leg. XD
Only snag is that the middle mouse doesn't always work and that's a problem with all of the ones out there so I set all three buttons on the side to mouse 3. This makes things easier and probably helps reduce hands pains as I can use my thumb now instead of my middle finger.
Also wireless...love it. Oh and the Dark Field thing. I can browser on my leg. XD
One fine day, I was just on steam browsing thru some free stuff, when I came upon what seems like weird-looking visual novel-ish game. If you didn't know, a visual novel is an anime played out in a video game.
The steam game turned out to be a cross between a visual novel, final fantasy, and zelda. Can you imagine what it is like. The premise is: your dad abandoned you in your home, leaving you with a huge debt. The Fairy World Loan Office comes to your home one day to collect your payment, but your daddy high tailed it and left you to deal with the loan officer. So, since you are unable to pay, they threaten to foreclose on your ass, and you will be forced to live in a box. Luckily, the loan officer takes pity on you and gives you about a week to repay part of the debt (10,000).
Oh, I forgot to mention, you are a prepubescent girl. So, I wonder how the flip you can get the 10,000 in one week. Well, I'm sure you've played some final fantasy, so go be an adventurer and save the world? The random monsters you defeat are sure to drop cash like they drop droppings. Oh, but wait. You're a prepubescent NPC girl, not some RPG game's main character. So, I guess you can do what smart NPC's do: sell items and crap.
There you have it. Your role in this game is to run a final fantasy style item shop, selling stuff to NPC's and adventurers who will get all the glory from killing monsters with the iron sword they bought from your little shop. But the game isn't as plain as "iron sword - 1200gp" Apparently, you are tutored by the loan officer to sell your stuff at rip-off prices. A "heal HP by 20" crappy item can be sold by you for over a hundred rupees. And what's worse, your customers are gonna haggle with you like you're some kind of low-brow flea market. As a grade-school girl under a huge debt, you need to be in tune with the fine art of business and shopkeeping. Good luck.
BUT BUT BUT that aspect is only half the game. The other half involves you hiring diablo-2-ish adventurers (who may also become your customers) to battle in the dungeons and pick up random drops. You can then take the items dropped by the digusting monsters and sell them to everyday people. That apple that your customer just bought was dropped by a hideous wolf-sized spider in the dungeons. Nah, it's okay. Don't ask, don't tell. Then everyone's happy.
You've played all those RPG's where you buy equipment and potions from those item shops you frequent. Well today you can be one of those item shops, to see what it's like. But since this community is centered on an action game involving direct interactions with monsters, this particular game may not be your cup of coffee. I actually never played this game. But if you are a business or economics major or something like that, then maybe you would be interested in this game.
Name? Oh, er, I think it called race tear or something. It's very early in the list of steam demos.
The steam game turned out to be a cross between a visual novel, final fantasy, and zelda. Can you imagine what it is like. The premise is: your dad abandoned you in your home, leaving you with a huge debt. The Fairy World Loan Office comes to your home one day to collect your payment, but your daddy high tailed it and left you to deal with the loan officer. So, since you are unable to pay, they threaten to foreclose on your ass, and you will be forced to live in a box. Luckily, the loan officer takes pity on you and gives you about a week to repay part of the debt (10,000).
Oh, I forgot to mention, you are a prepubescent girl. So, I wonder how the flip you can get the 10,000 in one week. Well, I'm sure you've played some final fantasy, so go be an adventurer and save the world? The random monsters you defeat are sure to drop cash like they drop droppings. Oh, but wait. You're a prepubescent NPC girl, not some RPG game's main character. So, I guess you can do what smart NPC's do: sell items and crap.
There you have it. Your role in this game is to run a final fantasy style item shop, selling stuff to NPC's and adventurers who will get all the glory from killing monsters with the iron sword they bought from your little shop. But the game isn't as plain as "iron sword - 1200gp" Apparently, you are tutored by the loan officer to sell your stuff at rip-off prices. A "heal HP by 20" crappy item can be sold by you for over a hundred rupees. And what's worse, your customers are gonna haggle with you like you're some kind of low-brow flea market. As a grade-school girl under a huge debt, you need to be in tune with the fine art of business and shopkeeping. Good luck.
BUT BUT BUT that aspect is only half the game. The other half involves you hiring diablo-2-ish adventurers (who may also become your customers) to battle in the dungeons and pick up random drops. You can then take the items dropped by the digusting monsters and sell them to everyday people. That apple that your customer just bought was dropped by a hideous wolf-sized spider in the dungeons. Nah, it's okay. Don't ask, don't tell. Then everyone's happy.
You've played all those RPG's where you buy equipment and potions from those item shops you frequent. Well today you can be one of those item shops, to see what it's like. But since this community is centered on an action game involving direct interactions with monsters, this particular game may not be your cup of coffee. I actually never played this game. But if you are a business or economics major or something like that, then maybe you would be interested in this game.
Name? Oh, er, I think it called race tear or something. It's very early in the list of steam demos.
Repairing my audio system was a success! I have such a cool feeling I could do this by myself.
Here's the link to my blogpost:
http://sjackm.wordpress.com/2010/09/13/repairing-the-audio-system/
Here's the link to my blogpost:
http://sjackm.wordpress.com/2010/09/13/repairing-the-audio-system/
Hey guys, I'm having this problem with my video card... It's an Nvidia Geforce 7600GS. Basically what's wrong is, A couple of days ago I downloaded the latest driver from the Nvidia website, It searched my system and told me which one to download and said it's for my model as well as many other newer cards... Anyway, since I've had this new driver installed, my pc keeps getting the blue screen of death and freezing up commonly, I'm ultra sure it's the new drivers fault since it's been happening since I installed it, and I'm pretty sure Nvidia won't bother fixing this error for a 4 year old card, so what should I do guys? I'm thinking of buying a new card soon anyway, but I don't have the money for it (I want something good so I don't have to upgrade for some time). So I have to fix this somehow in the mean time.