• 5Sep 08

  A General Entry

  I'm just posting a regular, albeit messy, blog entry tonight. Nothing bad, I just have things to write tonight.

  School's back and kicking into high gear already. My morning and evening train commutes are now a lot more uncomfortable now that college students are packed into the mix. Even though I managed to get through college, I still miss it. The main thing I miss is the ability to talk with people/friends on campus. Sure, I get along with my co-workers fine, but there's something about talking to a bunch of different people each day. It doesn't matter what the topic of conversation is, I just loved having that variety around, even if I didn't have much to say myself.

  My brother (Paul) is having a hard time getting back into "school mode." He had a quiz today but he didn't think he did well on it. I'm also worried about my cousin (Aaron), since he wasn't a diligent high school student and I think college will just level him non-sense. My parents always ask why can't my brother and my cousin be like me. Well, everyone's different. They have their choices to do whatever they want and set whatever goals they have for themselves. I don't think my experiences will get through their heads, even if they'd asked me how did I get through college in four years. The thing I will always say about college, it is challenging. Every course is essentially a marathon, knowing how to pace yourself and fighting through the pain to make it toward the finish line.

  Work hasn't bothered me too much lately, which is good. The only day where it got hectic was on Thursday, when I had to start running new project invoices for the project managers. Other than that, it was quiet. This blog used to be littered with work related entries and rants, but that hasn't been the case lately.

  Now my mind's been active on other things. On my last entry, I wrote a short fictional story from sheer boredom and was slightly surprised with the finished product. I plan on doing some more writing as soon as the right inspiration hits. I do have a few things floating in my mind, but I just haven't had the right things to flesh it out yet. I'd wish this hit me during the summer.

  It looks like I'll be spending a majority of my day tomorrow here in my room as we're expected to get a lot of rain from Tropical Storm Hanna going through the eastern coast of the United States. I'll probably be doing three things tomorrow: play video games, browse through the internet, and watch sports (college football and baseball). In the gaming department, I'll end up playing Tales of Vesperia for most of the time. I'll probably write up some impressions of the game as I progress further into it.

  Music is starting to become a constant on my blog entries, and this one's no different as well. On my previous entry, I posted a list on some of my favorite albums that were released this year. Well, I'd like to make a few additions to that list. Now my 2008 favorites stand as so...

  M83 - Saturdays=Youth ; Oneida - Preteen Weaponry ; Paul Weller - 22 Dreams ; Portishead - Third ; Shearwater - Rook ; Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - Real Emotional Trash ; Stereolab - Chemical Chords ; Wolf Parade - At Mount Zoomer

  I'd also like to mention these two albums as I have been listening to them a lot lately...

  Bottomless Pit - Hammer of the Gods ; Sebadoh - Bubble & Scrape

  And here are some songs I posted on a forum that I'd like to share on this blog as well...

  Paul Weller - Why Walk When You Can Run

  Guided by Voices - Back to the Lake

  The Cranberries - Zombie

  In the midst of this, I think my blog is going to be a bit "messy" as I intend to post more music-specific entries, slip in a short story entry, and other things along with my normal run-of-the-mill life entries. I hope you guys don't mind the mess.

  That's all for tonight, I hope all of you are doing well. Till next entry...

  • Posted Sep 5, 2008 8:18 pm GMT
  • Category: General
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• 1Sep 08

  Labor Day Weekend and Other Items

  Summer isn't officially over yet, but to many people, the end of Labor Day weekend is the end of summer. My brother and my two cousins are getting ready to head back to school tomorrow while I try to brace myself for work again. For now, I'll post how my Labor Day weekend fared.
  
  First off, my brother and I are happy that our new user-built computer works! And it works like a charm (so far)! We mixed up some computer parts from my uncle's desktop along with some computer parts we purchased online. We took the DVD-ROM and CD-RW, hard drive and processor from the desktop and ordered a new motherboard, video card, memory and a new tower online. It took my brother four hours to install everything together, but it worked!
  
  Now that we had a competent computer, we decided to test if Command and Conquer 3 would work. My cousin purchased the game when it was released, but the game wouldn't work on his desktop because it was simply a "desktop." We installed the game and it worked! My cousin's jealous that the game works on our computer and probably wants to come to our house every weekend to play it. We let our cousin play the game for a few hours. My brother's been playing the GDI campaign throughout the weekend.
  
  I purchased Tales of Vesperia and played it a bit this weekend. The technical aspects of the game are great. Beautiful graphics, great English voice acting, etc. The gameplay is simple for the most part. It's essentially button mashing where you can combine normal attacks with special "arte" moves. I can't make a true impression of the game yet since I'm still very early into it, but I hope the game will be enjoyable as I progress through the game.
  
  In other Ruri gaming news, I've starting to get better at Ouendan as I was able to complete a couple of songs on the game's third tier (second hardest difficulty). I also dusted off the old Sega Dreamcast and played a short game of Last Blade 2. It was short because I got my butt whooped on it. I also can't seem to play the drums well on Rock Band.
  
  My other cousin moved into his dorm room at Temple University last Wednesday and already has some drama over his roommate. I know I had some issues with my roommate when I dormed at Temple during my freshmen year. My brother had no issues with his roommate during his dorm stay. Damn, I miss college.
  
  Another week, another set of more music album purchases. I purchased Boris - Smile and Stereolab - Chemical Chords while my brother purchased a Mono 10-inch and a Jesu/Battle of Mice split. All the albums were purchased on vinyl format.
  
  We're three-fourths through the year and here's some of my favorite music albums of 2008 so far.
  
  M83 - Saturday=Youth
  Oneida - Preteen Weaponry
  Portishead - Third
  Shearwater - Rook
  Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - Real Emotional Trash
  Wolf Parade - At Mount Zoomer

  Lastly, I got bored last night and decided to write up a fictional story. In high school, I used to write so many stories because I was being exposed to new great things, such as anime, independent music, and other things. It's been a while since I wrote one and had the urge to finally write one up. The story is inspired from a few things. The first inspiration is the song I took the title and lyrics from, and I think they're self-explanatory. The other inspiration comes from watching the final performance from one of my favorite bands, Pavement. On the Pavement DVD documentary, Slow Century, they showed clips of the band's final performance at London. You can see on the band member's faces that they just couldn't play together as a band anymore.

  I hope you enjoy it, though it's sloppy.

  Soul and Fire (from my Livejournal blog)

  Let me know if my fictional story is worthy of it's own blog entry here on Gamespot.

  Thanks for reading! To those heading back to school, or already back in school, good luck! For others, I hope things are going well with your lives! Till next entry...

  • Posted Sep 1, 2008 12:32 pm GMT
  • Category: General
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• 29Aug 08

  A Shorter Entry Tonight, and More Music [EDIT]

  I apologize if I bored you guys to death with my previous entry. It took me about four hours to type, and probably took you guys about an hour to read. Tonight's entry will be shorter (I promise), and another music mixtape. I hope you enjoy the songs I post here tonight.

  ---

  I should've took the day off today. The trains were pretty empty in the morning and evening rush and the office was devoid of people. I only did a few things in the office today. The rest of my time I was browsing through the internet and listening to my iPod and being bored to death as I waited for that magical time (5:00 PM) to arrive.

  On Tuesday, one recruiter called my cell phone four times as he got a firm to arrange an interview with me. I was busy on Tuesday and ignored his calls. I e-mailed him back on Wednesday apologizing and wrote to him that I'm not quite comfortable moving on yet. I didn't receive an e-mail back from him, but I guess he accepted my message.

  My brother got his computer parts in on Monday. He set everything up and try to connect everything together onto a Sony Vaio desktop. Unfortunately, he quickly realized that the motherboard was bigger than the space available on the desktop. So we quickly ordered a bigger computer case (which came in today) along with other items. So I hope the computer works once it's all hooked up! [EDIT: It works!!!!]

  I am going to purchase Tales of Vesperia tomorrow, even though I have other games that I should get back into. [EDIT: Purchased the game today (Sat. 8/30).] I'm disappointed that Harmonix botched the release of Rush's Moving Pictures albums for Rock Band on Tuesday, I was very eager to play the album by then. I hope they'll make it available soon, though I have a small feeling they may push it back with Rock Band 2's release.

  It's the end of summer. I admit, I'm feeling a little blue right now. I didn't do much again this summer as my work responsibilities were top priority again. My brother got to do a couple of fun things this summer (friend's party, Philadelphia Zoo, Six Flags), my younger cousin vacationing at South Korea for a month, and my other cousin graduating high school and entering college. Oh well, I'll find my time soon enough. [I tend to get more irritated during the fall and winter.]

  Last weekend, I received a PM from a friend who wanted me to return to his union and post a bit. So I accepted his favor and posted sparingly over there. I'll primarily be posting on the music thread, since I love music so much and enjoy sharing the songs I find to others. My first batch of songs I posted there received some good reaction, so I guess I'm doing something right.

  That's all I have for tonight. I hope all of you have a great Labor Day weekend! To kick it off, here's another batch of songs I hope all of you will enjoy!

  Andrew Bird - "Heretics"

  Six Organs of Admittance - "Desert is a Circle"

  Spoon - "Someone Something"

  Beirut - "Elephant Gun"

  Bodies of Water - "Doves Circled the Sky"

  Smog - "Rock Bottom Riser"

  • Posted Aug 29, 2008 5:21 pm GMT
  • Category: General
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