Another Blog?

I am considering making a new blog. I usually get this feeling every one to two years, but I just feel like if I do I would want it to be something different from this one.

What should I do?

I was thinking doing a daily blog about my life and recent happenings but would that be too much like a bitchy LJ? I don't want bitchy LJ if no one wants that either.

Like Claws Creeping Up

I am getting depressed again.

Or maybe I am depressed.

I don't enjoy things I use to. I am always tired. I am always disgruntled. I am moody. I am irritable. I am unpleasant. I am sad. Always sad. I don't like to be alone. I feel angry. I am never satisfied.

And yet despite that, I am somehow happy. I look forward to each day. I am in love. I am loved. There is nothing wrong.

I don't know why I am sad. I am just sad. I have been depressed before, and I know what it feels like to be gripped by it's cold claws. It feels like something... like a dementor is stalking me. Stealing my happiness.

I am sure it has something to do with my father's passing.

But I am just sad. It isn't that I think about it. I try to move on. Acting like nothing ever happened. I don't dwell on it. I accept it. I can't change it. It will always be there. I don't want to think about it... if I can help it.

And sometimes I do think about it. It isn't bad. Just another memory surfacing like a balloon held under water. Sometimes I am afraid I will forget them all, but I know I can't. Not now at least.

And I don't dream dreams anymore. If I do dream, I dream nightmares. Terrible things. Always loss. Always fear. Always alone.

And I am always afraid. I am afraid of loss.

FFVIII - Angry Posts!

I just read a blog post degrading FFVIII... and I held back the urge to reply with this:

I have to argue that FF8 wasn't as terrible as it seems.

When FF7 launched and FF8 followed soon after, it was praised by many companies and highly regarded magazines for being in league with, sometimes surpassing, FF7 in many ways. Even today it is regarded as a "Greatest Hits" title and sells well to this day.

Now, I have played through FF8 twice and enjoyed it each time. I can't make people like the battle system (which I thought was great, and I loved the GF system!) but I can sympathize with those who hate the story.

I can honestly say the first disc was pretty good. I mean, you're basically a soldier trainee that goes on an epic mission with magic, gun swords, and mystic beasts to dispatch machines and wild dinosaurs!

But then it all goes down hill. In Disc 2 the mysterious happenings turn into ridiculous things that feel almost like the creators had to rush the story. Suddenly everyone is related, memories were conveniently erased, and magic becomes nearly useless. In the end, Disc 4 is completely useless, Disc 3 is where you spend you're real fun NOT doing the story, and Disc 2 is almost unbearable.

But still, FF8 will always have a place on my shelf. Just don't hate on people who enjoy a game just because you feel otherwise. :(

Quarantine - Story pt.1

The story revolves around the adventures of a boy who enters the new world through a series of tragic events. His family is part of the wealthier class in the failing economy. The boy is involved in a terrible accident that leaves him in a deep coma. There seems to be no way to reawaken him from this state, even with modern medicine, and someone suggests that the family allow the boy to be connected to the super computer. This way, they may be able to communicate with him and watch him live another life without wasting away. The boy would be under the protection of the new world's administrators and would be safe from any harm.

Word travels throughout that a new person, a boy, was going to be sent into the new world. No one knows if the procedure will work or not. Word actually travels to a few people in the new world that a boy is coming. One of these people is part of a resistance. The resistance is an under-cover group of people that seek a way to leave the world, seeing it as a prison. The resistance decided this is their chance to escape, using this boy as a means of escape.

Quarantine

I just felt it was time to post about an idea for a story I've been working on for a while called Quarantine. Maybe posting it will help formulate it better into a more coherent story.

This story takes place in the not-so-far future. In this world technology has advanced so that we can "dive" into the human mind. I haven't decided if this technology is wide-spread or restricted, but it exists. Through government funding, and the dramatic rise in crime rates and life-sentences due to a failing economy, prisons are being rigged with the ability to house large numbers of prisoners in a restricted area in which the prisoners are connected to a computer using the "dive" technology. While connected to the super computer, the prisoners are put into an induced comatose state and given basic survival care.

While connected to the super computer, the prisoners' conciousness is moved deep into a simulated world. Inside this new world, prisoners are given a chance to build a new, simulated life. Most use this chance to make something of themselves and learn a lesson or two while some reject the new world and revert to their old habits of criminal activity. The new world is primal. Everything must be built by hand and nothing but basic resources are supplied by the administrators of the new world. There is nothing different in this world except that time passes much more quickly than in the real world (I'm thinking 2 days for every one in RL but it might be more like X4).

Eventually the program is shutdown because the prisoners are almost useless inside the world and funding begins to slow. The final cut results when the creators of the new world discover there is no way to return a person injected into the new world back to their body. The programs assosiated with death and "retrieval" (the return of someone to their body), which worked alright in beta stages have become corrupted and fail to excecute successfully. In the end, the government decides to host the power required to maintain the new world until all the prisoners' have deceased.

Unfortunately, the prisoners within the new world do not age normally. The remain stagnant while the body ages outside in the real world. Thus, even if the prisoners were to awaken they would be awakening from fit, young, healthy bodies to dusty, old, worn ones tested by years of being bed ridden. The debate to just shutdown the computer entirely is still bouncing around the courts with arguments as to whether or not the people are actually salvageable or are forever bound to electronic existence.

Key things of note are: the people inside the new world can be contacted by the real world, the new world can be manipulated physically to some degree by real world technitions, there are a small amount of programs that resemble people within the new world that create order when nessesary but this enforcement is largely uninvolved with 95% of happenings within the new world. The only problems that the enforcement team deal with are A) severe disturbances and B) illegal activity.

Now, time passes much faster in the new world and soon the prisoners build a whole new world that functions much like the real world, just in a more rustic environment. I was thinking almost like a modern medieval experience... but more harsh. This is a realm ruled by former criminals after all.

Next time I'll post the primary plot for Quarantine.

Post # 200!!!

200 posts... wow...

Who ever knew I could go this far?

Anime Boston 2009 - Prelude

So tomorrow begins my third venture to Anime Boston. In 2005, I went on a last minute adventure that was brought up by a friend which turned into quite the weekend of excitement. The following year, 2006, we made a more glorious excursion where we actually dress up in Dole Uniforms. Now, 3 years later, I will be returning for round 3.

Anime Boston is always an exciting trip. Whether you like Anime or Japanese themes or not, it is definately a wonderful experience with many things to do even if you don't do anything!!! Just wandering around looking at all the costumes is an adventure in itself.

This year, I am actually dressing up as something Japanese (although the influence it had on Dole Comics is to be debated). I will be going as Roxas from Kingdom Hearts II in his organization 13 outfit. I have the whole costume finished, but the Oathkeeper Keyblade needs to be painted. Luckily I've got a friend who has as much passion about Kingdom Hearts and is willing to sacrifice her afternoon to painting it while I work!

I will post pictures of My costume and the group photos once I have them. I wanted to take pictures of us working on finishing touches of our costumes, but my hands were covered in plaster :( so no before photos. Oh well, the finished product is always better!

Even without the finished Keyblade, my outfit will look very good amongst the group. I am going to gel my hair into Roxas' style and I will be wearing contacts for at least the first day. Hopefully everything will go well. Everyone who is going and dressing up will be looking great.

Also, I've finally got around to start contacting people I've been either avoiding willingly or unwillingly. It is a slow and painful process that makes me feel tired and sad at the same time. Eventually I hope to have met up with everyone I need to at least ONCE this summer... but work will probably do a good job of messing that up. Fortunately, I'm only on for 4 days out of 7 this coming week after Anime Boston so hopefully I can start to get things done.

OK, time to shower, shave, and put my contacts in to surprise everyone at work. Update later!

What I've been waiting for!

FINALLY!!! My favorite pokemon game (silver version) to be released on the DS in an remake!!! OMG!!!

I'm sorry... I'm a pokemon nerd <(;_;)>...

the pokemons are so good...

The remakes are called Heart Gold and Soul Silver. I'll be reserving Soul Silver ASAP!

Hard to tell a difference...

I can't seem to understand when I'm being selfish or just being human. Is being human being selfish?

I just cleaned my room with a help of one of my mom's friends. I think I'm going to clean it off and take a nap or something. I'm really tired again today.

Discovery!

I am tired of being tired ad I realize I am tired because I am not active enough (or at least I hope that's the reason).

I am going to make an effort to do that.

Saturday Sadness and Some other emotion.

So a lot has happened in a few days.

I feel like this blog has become a syphon of my horrible emotions. I don't want this to be a live journal or a rant site, so please forgive me while I get this out of my system.

I had a major disappointment hit me recently. I won't be anywhere near my Snuggle and we don't have anywhere to snuggle for an entire summer. Originally there were arrangements... and in one day it fell apart. I feel like I did last summer: alone, sad, upset, and emotional. It happens to you when get close to someone and have to be seperated for a long period of time. And the worst is that I know how desperate time together gets and how sad it makes me to have no way to be together without supervision. (We are older than 16 year-olds...)

I got my grades back and it was the first good news I've had in a while. I actually managed to pass and increase my GPA to a 3.0 (a huge leap from the 2.0's)!!! Yay!!! At least I didn't completely mess up.

Work has been boring as usual, but I've been feeling sick, tired, and moody lately. I don't know whats the matter besides the fact I'm exhausted... and there is no cure for that besides bed rest.

I kinda wish I could break my legs for a month or something. That would give me a break. :-)

What does this mean?

If someone has a translation for this dream, please indulge me:

I am in the middle of the quad at my school. It is an autumn day, the wind is blowing lightly. There are leaves everywhere, scattering across the ground and twirling in circles. I am wandering in the quad wearing a black trench coat. Not a Matrix-ish or fancy leather trench coat, just a large, plain, black one. I am in third person watching myself wander the quad. Everything outside the quad is blurred and I never wander outside of it, but I know the lay of the things beyond.

Sometimes during the dream, I am sad and feel like I am going to fall to the ground any moment. Others, I am just wandering without emotion... well maybe content if anything.

And that's it.

My life in Japanese

I decided to post this in honor of Anime Boston. It is a list of songs that remind me of specific years of my life and each of them is in Japanese.

I remember the first time I ever got into anything Japanese besides a video game. At the time I hadn't even considered liking "Anime" or "Manga". Then one day, I was sitting next to Lindsey, a girl I'd been in school with for most of my life, and finally asked her what she kept reading during class.

She was more than happy to enlighten me.

Within a few days I was allowed to borrow the manga Inuyasha and had read volumes 1-3 in a matter of a week. It took some getting use to but soon it became natural to read the pictures backwards, turn the pages from left to right, and the most confusing part of all: who was a boy and who was a girl.

After I had read those volumes I asked for the rest. Lindsey didn't have the rest of the Manga but said that she had more of the story as an anime. So I brought the illegal first box set home of the Japanese with Chinese or English subtitles and began my adventure into anime. And that's how it started.

Now for the main event: THE LIST!!!

1. Change the World - Inuyasha

This reminds me a lot of early high school, for obvious reasons. It started it all!

2. Every Heart - Inuyasha

Also reminds me of early high school, but also of my early attempts at understanding what love is. Lots of philosophical debates with myself and not a lot of work on school.

3. Shinjitsu no Uta - Inuyasha

Last Inuyasha I promise! This is a part of me coming out of the "shell" of my mind and venturing, if only briefly, into letting people know a little about myself. I was very shy and didn't let anyone know much about me... because I didn't want to know myself.

4. Obsession - .Hack//SIGN

You knew it was coming if you know me. .Hack is my FAVORITE Anime and was one of the first ones I got my hands on. If there was a universe I wish I could dive into, this would probably be it. This reminds me of late nights watching .Hack when I should have been doing school work and wishing I could play FFXI.

5. Reckless Fire - Scryed

Scryed is interesting because I never fully watched the anime nor fully read the manga, yet I respect it. It was my first impulse buy anime and I learned my lesson: research before you watch! This reminds me of not wanting to be in school, yet stuck to working when I had time off. Isn't it weird what songs remind you of? Inevitably this reminds me of my friends, who I never could see often.

6. Tooku Made - Do As Infinity (artist)

OMG! Just an artist no anime?! Well if you count Vampire Hunter D: Blood Lust which I didn't even see until college years... then yes it was! I finally learned how to master the art of the internet search engine and found out many things I wanted to know! This reminds me of Dole Comics, the one thing about High School that made it bearable for me in later years.

7. Sanctuary - Kingdom Hearts II

Now we're really getting off the beaten path... a game! Not just any game though, this one is practically legendary! This reminds me of the end of high school and the fresh start awaiting me in college... but the results were far worst than expected... good thing this is a nice song anyways!

8. Silly-Go-Round - .Hack//Roots

Finally at college now, and look! .Hack is back for more hacking action! G.U. was just being released and I was on fire with eagerness. I got my hands on the new anime for the series, Roots, and started downloading the subbed episodes every week or so when they were released in Japan. This reminds me of struggling to survive first year at college, dealing with Prout: Part 2, and everything else that caused the rapture later on.

9. Inner Universe - Ghost in the Shell: SAC

We're getting closer to the present. I got into this new anime called Ghost in the Shell that I downloaded every few days to occupy myself. It really kept me going when I needed it. Now it's sophmore year in college and I've transfered away from my problems and found myself alone. I became depressed and withdrawn, talked to no more than a few people and my professors, lost around 35 pounds, and finally had the time to reflect on myself. This is when the rapture happened that changed my life forever and I decided to take my life by the reins.

10. Rise - Ghost in the Shell: SAC 2nd GIG

After finishing season one of Ghost in the Shell, I got season 2. After my rapture, I began to rebuild everything about myself. It was kinda like in YuGiOh! where YuGi mind crushes Kaiba and he has to put everything back together. Good song nonetheless.

11. Oblivious - Kalafina

Now we're just about to present time. This song is from a popular anime in Japan translated to The Garden of Sinners. I didn't find out about the anime until I had the band so that doesn't count!!! This song reminds me of things that haven't even begun to heal yet.

12. Sprinter - Kalafina

This song gives me hope for the next day, week, month ahead. Simple as that.


Some might ask "Do I know any Japanese?" "Do I know what these songs mean?" "Did you look up the lyrical translations to understand the song better?" and I say it doesn't matter at all. Like Plato said before me (in common words) "Words take away from a piece of art because they limit the choices an artist has to describe or integrate an emotion into the artwork." I don't entirely agree with this, but I can argue that without the english filling my ears I can feel a deeper connection to a song and the emotion it is trying to convey. Maybe that's just me. In any case, I can still sing as loud as I can in Japanese without knowing what I'm saying... as long as it sounds in tune with the song!

... ok I thought I just typed "Thong" in place of song but I didn't... I must be tired. I'll post again soon!

Is it over?

I just finished writing one of the last papers for the semester.

So how was the semester in general?

...

Do I even need to say?

For whatever reason I really want to play Kingdom Hearts... probably to get pumped for Anime Boston.

Where I've been...

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. It's been rough.

I am finally getting done with school. Today is my last "exam" of the semester and due is a huge paper I'm only partially completed with and Tuesday there are 3-4 papers each 2-3 pages in length...

I don't really know how I'm alive.

I'm really tired all the time. I go home as often as I can, and yet that doesn't feel like enough. When I slot a time in for my Mom she makes me feel bad when I have to leave... and it makes me upset. I don't know what I'm suppose to be doing.

I'm tired a lot. I haven't had a real day of boredom yet. I need one so bad. I want bored. My whole face feels tired all the time, like a mask of exhaustion had been placed over my whole face and senses.

At work I just got a promotion to shift supervisor, which allows me a short nap in the morning while working. But is that really enough? And this symptom can't be cured with a pill or a day off. It just can't. I need to have a vacation I think.

Anime Boston is coming up, but how much sleep do you think I'm going to get during that? And it's not that I'm not entertained by anything. Heck, I can't turn once in my room without finding a million things to do. It's just that. There are too many things TO do.

OH btw, I finally got that stinkin' Yinyang Robe thanks to the efforts of my brother. He got it for me by winning it while I was unable to attend. It was one of those "Oh shit" moments in Final Fantasy where it just kicked that much ass. I mean, this item is literally unmatched in FFXI for a Summoner. The best. Amazing.

And yet I can't even find time to use it. Now I"m my bro's Nyzle Isle whore since he got that robe for me. It's ok though, it is a lot of fun! And I get to flash my new YYR while kicking ass and taking names.

What else... I recently tried to fix a friends' PS3. I almost had success... until I found out the problem was with a 100$ piece of hardware that Sony broke on a lot of PS3s when they launched version 2.7x for the OS it runs. For Sony to fix it for you it is 150$ flat rate, so they add maintenance, shipping, etc. I just feel bad for the friend :( no PS3 and a 400$ DVD player...not even backwards compatible....

I'm sorry to everyone I've lost touch with in recent months. I am just tired. I hope you understand that. I haven't forgotten you in the slightest. I just need time to rest.

I get jealous every time a cruise commercial comes on TV and the part comes where they say, "Or you could just do nothing at all!"

1000$+ for a week of nothing would be amazing. And expensive. <(-.-)>

I hope I do well on exams... but I am not going to fail or do uber poorly in anything (i think) woot!

and my grammar is failing...

I'll post something more substantial and less insomniatic at a later time.

Good night!