The dang Giratina DVD I got from the library is so scratched it won't even play past the first five minutes. :|

There's no was I'm paying the "late" fees on a DVD I'm within my rightful renewal period for that I couldn't return due to my car breaking down, when I couldn't even get to watch the movie to begin with.

So, here's my impression of the first 5 or so minutes of Pokémon: Giratina & The Sky Warrior.

Why do all the movies need to begin by introducing the viewer to the concept of Pokémon? I'm guessing it's just a public service thing for any parents that get stuck watching it. Now that I think of it, the intro in the Darkrai movie used orchestrated music from Pokémon Gold and Silver. As far as today's little kids are concerned, Pokémon Gold and Silver is quite likely before their time and their first exposure to it may very well be the DS remakes. Odd choice of music there.

Why do all the Pokémon movies I've seen lately seem to begin with two legendary Pokémon fighting for no apparant reason?

Why does this this beginnign seem exactly like the beginning of the Lugia movie with some bad guy in an air ship trying to steal a legendary Pokémon?

Why is catching a legendary Pokémon (or an English speaking Pokémon) viewed as morally reprehensible or "poaching" anyway?

What the heck is this little white green eyed thing with flowers for ears?

Hey! It's the same big blue horse dude from the Darkrai movie! Continuity? In Pokémon? I must be dreaming! :o

And that's as far as I got. Looks like I'm going to have to buy the DVD some day to find out.

Today was not my most productive day for school stuff. I got some stuff one, but I could have got a WHOLE LOT more done if I had stayed focused. I did get the house clean at least.

Yesterday me and silvermoondream made plans to hang out with the dude who gave us the MREs because he was in town a day or two for Thanksgiving and we were going to make him watch Nostalgia Critic for the first time.

Then first thing when I wake up this morning I find out I have to drop off Mom at Grandma's house, which is quite a drive away.

So we get in the car, do some shopping for Grandma first, then get gas at a gas station only for the car not to start up again. My plans to hang out were already pretty much screwed already, but the fact that both friends called while me and Mom were sitting in the car waiting for a tow truck and I had to tell them why I wouldn't be able to see them right in front of her made me feel guilty because Mom looked really upset about it and kept apologizing.

Furthermore, today was the day all my Pokémon DVDs from the library were due, (i had it marked on my calendar in fact), and since I now had no way to return the DVDs without a car, for the first time in my life I actually renewed materials I borrowed from the library.

Just one problem, someone put a hold on one of the DVDs, so only now am I aware that I'm unable to renew it, so I'm going to have to pay fines on it until I get my car fixed. I'm really pissed about this, if there were at least some kind of warning I could get once someone put a hold on the DVD so I'd no in advance that I couldn't renew it, but now, the one time when I need to the renewal feature, I can't use it and it's costing me $s.

I'm more angry at the library for setting it up that way than anything else, especially since If i had been warned that someone put a hold on the DVD I would have made extra effort to return it EARLY since some little kid probably asked his/her parent to find the latest Pokémon movie for them and is now going to be dissapointed.

The one that was put on hold was Giratina & the Sky Warior, which is the one movie out of the two I borrowed that I haven't watched yet. Since I have no choice I may as well just watch it tomorrow evening.

At least The Snorks is about to come on Boomerang.

Happy T everyone! :D

Did ya ever make cranberry sauce from scratch before? It's really fun watching the cranberries pop open.

We've got a tofurky roasting in orange juice in the oven. A tofurky is a breed of mock animal similar to a mock turtle.

I'm over here watching the Mythbusters marathon and putting off an Englilish paper.

So Happy T everyone, eat well, and don't drive if you get alcoholized.

I may have mentioned this before, but I LOOOOOOVE pretending my car is a funktastic space ship. The cassette of chiptune music I play while driving adds to the mood tremendously.

This has the welcome sound effect of making car crap like flat tires (happened a few days ago, I installed the donut myself, I'm so proud) and electrical system failures (stranded in school parking lot today, had to dad to help out) from mechanical inconveniences into not quite fun yet stimulating adventures.

Aside from getting stuck in the school parking lot on a cold autumn night (which I also did last semester), I've been doing school stuff (which I have a lot of) and helping Mom run errands.

Look what I got myself while running around town woth Mom! :D





Hopefully I'll have an actual passport to put in it some day. And then some day after that get to use it.


Speaking of fanciful journeys, I'm inching my way to Indigo Plateu in Pokémon Gold.

I was thinking lately, why is your device in Gold and Silver called a PokéGear? Unlike the PokéNav in Ruby and Sapphire, of the PokéGear's features have anything to do with actually raising Pokémon. It's a clock, map, radio, and a mobile phone. What exactly is Pokémon related about that?

I guess the device's name made a little more sense in Japan where it was calle PocketGear.

I remember how high tech and futuristic the PokéGear seemed back when Gold first came out before cellphones were commonplace and iPods were non existent, and the closest thing most kids could get to that was a Cybiko.

I got the 8th badge in Pokémon Gold.

This calls for a short artsy film suffering from the most severe case of Funny Aneurysm Syndrome known to man.

I watched the Darkrai flick Saturday night after a nice long day of cleaning, schoolwork, and a blessedly minimal amount of putting things off.

I'm not going to spoiler proof this so you may wanna skip.

So, Rise of Darkrai is my favorite Pokémon flick thus far besides Destiny Dyoxis, though they do share perhaps far too many plot details including

1. a scary and super-powered Pokémon that everyone thinks is evil but turns out to be good fighting legendary Pokémon that are the real antagonists

2. everyone being trapped inside the city due to the powers of the Pokémon causing the trouble.

3. a Pokémon causing freaky sky effects like dark clouds, static voids, and auroras, amazing the newly introduced nerdy scientist character who runs around with their laptop exposing plot details for the heroes.

Is it just me, or did Darkrai remind me of one of the villains from the first season of Digimon? Probably dosen't help that Darkrai actually talked as Digimin do. Regardless, Darkrai was awesome, the music was awesome (love the giant steampunk music box tower), and I even though I'm pretty behind in my Pokémon (for example, Lickitung has an evolved form? I had no idea.) I enjoyed this flick and found it to stand much more on it's own as a movie than the first three or four Pokémon films.

END DARKRAI SPOILERS

I've also been watching the Diamond and Pearl DVDs I borrowed (and will never have to borrow again cause I'm recording them to VHS as I watch them, naughty naughty me. :o), I've been watching one episode a day and today I plan to watch Episode 5 over the pot pie I'm preheating the overn for as I'm typing this.

Continuing the Pokémon track, I beat the 8th gym leader in Gold today, my Level 30 Crobat, Midnight basically carried the entire battle. I actually wasn't expecting to beat her on my first shot, I was originally planning to do a "suicide" run against her to see what moves and Pokemon I would need to level up and prepare for my actual attempt later on, but by the skin of my teeth (ew) I managed to win on my first shot.

I somehow totally forgot about the gym leaderbeing a sore loser and forcing you to go on a fetch quest for a dragon scale in order to prove that your victory over her wasn't an "accident". I only got this far once back in 2006, but I have no memory whatsoever of this part of the game.

If this were to happen to me in real life, especially considering the pain and suffering my Pokémon had gone through (all were KOed except for Midnight by the end) and the tremendous cost of all the items I needed, if I had been refused a badge after winning a fair and square battle against a gym leader, I would have called up the Pokémon League on my PokéGear and filed a complaint against her.

Oh well. I'll finish the stupid little fetch quest and get my badge tomorrow.

For something non-Pokémon related, did I mention that I picked up Okami for Wii a few weeks ago, but never played it?

Well, I planned to play it yesterday on Saturday if I had a "productive week" in terms of my college work, and though I kept the house clean and got a lot of school stuff done, I didn't feel I had a good enough week to have met my own criteria for playing the game, so I didin't, and instead just watched the PKMN flick I have to watch before it's overdue anyway.

Tonight however, I finished my character analysis of Alice in Wonderland for my Literary Argument & Analysis class, and as I finished it up it suddenly struck me that I had now done enough work to deserve to play the game. So I did.

I played 20 minutes in before I decided to quit and blog about it, and I'm enjoying it so far. Controls will take some getting used to though.

I gotta pop that pot pie in the oven now.

I'm taking a break from my attempt to translate "Meet me Tonight in Dreamland" into pidgin sign language in order to discuss my opinions of the first episode of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, which I watched last night while eating the Mac&Cheese I made for myself for dinner.

Just a little background, I, like seemingly many other people, watched the Pokémon anime back in the day through the Kanto leagee, watched about half way through the Orange Island league filler season, and then lost interest by the time the Jhoto Leauge episodes started. I watched occasionally, but never regularly since then, and I'd say I caught about five of the Gold/Silver episodes, (including the 2 I watched on DVD a few weeks ago) and a couple of the Ruby/Sapphire based episodes, and all the movies for those mentioned seasons.

So basically my opinion of Diamond and Pearl Ep.1 is that it's a HUGE breath of fresh air.

I mostly got these DVDs not expecting to be too interested other than curiosity sake, as I really could barely stand the two Jhoto Leauge episodes (Episodes 1 and 2 by the way) that I watched on the last DVD I got, but the atmosphere and the mood seemed a lot more "developed" and "relaxed".

What I mean by that is it seemed a lot more like a casual look into everyday life in the Pokémon universe than what I've known the series to have been in earlier seasons, and therefore a lot more "realistic" and "engaging" for someone like myself who isn't a big into anime (as in, I won't watch something just becaue it's anime) and obviously well beyond the core age demographic of the series.

Dawn isn't an annoying bumbler like Ash was in the early episodes of the first season, and it's cool seeing a Pokémon (Glameow, which i didn't even know of before because I'm totally alien to Diamond and Pearl) just casually strolling aound Dawn's house being a normal pet and not really drawing much attention to itself. It's those sort of touches that make a world seem more realistic and beleivable.

Also, i once had a teacher who looked and sounded exactly like Professor Rowan (complete with lab coat) who I loved back in high school, and I can already say he's my favorite professor in the series besides Oak. Elm was alright in the game but he was kind of a dope in the anime, and I don't know if whoever the Ruby/Sapphire professor is in the games was ever in the anime so I cant coment on him.

It also added to the "realism" and personally amused me when Chimchar stole a bite out of Piplup's food bowl and the two started fighting, destroying the furniture and causing chaos. This is exactly what my two akitas do at meal time, one steals a mouthfull of kibbles out the other's bowl, and then they start wrestling and rumbling around the house fighting because of it and start knocking over chairs and flower pots until they get tired of it and calm down.

I never remembered the bubbles in Bubblebeam causing huge explosions when they hit something though. Actually it seems like EVERYTHING Pokémon do in this episode cause explosions. I don't remember it being like that in the old series.

In closing, I enjoyed this way more than I thought I would, and will continue watching. I probably enjoyed this most of all because it didn't follow the usual formula of Ash and either Misty and/or Brock and some seasonal other companion meeting some random loser or engaging in a gym battle and fighting Jessie and James in their latest contraption.

I hope this sense of newness and break from the old episode structure isn't lost since I am aware that Ash, Brock, and Team Rocket are introduced in the coming episodes, but overall I am very optimistic.


Non Pokémon related: My car got a flat tire on the interstate today. I performed the roadside installation of the donut nearly all by myself. I would have finished by the time dad showed up if it didn't take 10 minutes to remove the never before used jack from it's compartment, where it was rather firmly jammed.

Now back to translating 1900's pop songs into something vaugely resembling ASL.

My local library is awesome!! :D



So basically I'm going to have no chance of having time for these unless I'm 100% on the ball with all my school stuff and house work, so ironically, these are probably going to keep me more on task than if I didn't have them and just goofed around on the internet in my down time. Plus they'll help keep my morale up and my mood generally lighter.

I may end up making a Kraft Dinner for myself tonight, which would be a perfect time to pop one of these in, if only for a single episode.

I really dislike having to totally put my website and writing aside (and even the few YouTube vids I've been putting out is pushing it somewhat, they take more preparation and that would seem) while I'm in class, but I pretty much don't have any other choice at this point.

Speaking of Pokémon, I reached Blackthorn City today, which I've only reached once before and is actually nearly totally new in my memory. I'll talk more of Pokémon later.

Also, I'm reading Dracula right now for Literary Argument & Analysis, and I find it really disturbing that all the children are without fail referred to as "it" by all the adult characters. How is the undead lord of darkness Count Dracula count as more of a person than a human child?

First off, this is freaking awesome.




Troublesome by ~Cotton-gravy on deviantART

Even though the toony physics in play here totally go against the static immobility of the models used on the TV series and the realistic warmth of the illustrations from the 40's, 50's, and 60's Railway Series books, I love this a whole lot. To think I found it purely by accident.

Second, here's a meme from maniac_online . Go on Urban Dictionary and look up your person answers to the following questions and post the first result you get for each.


1.) Your name?
A slang term for heroin. Other terms that mean the same include Horse, Smack, Junk, Skunk, Mud, etc.

2.) Your age?
The age at which one is finally considered human.

3.) One of your friends?
honest, blunt

4.) What should you be doing
A forgotten art

5.) Favorite color?
The colour which vain assholes turn after a session in the tanning salon; Often confused with Hepatitis.

6.) Birthplace?
behind jfk international airport in front of atlantic ocean. once a great vacation spot that rivaled the hamptons now the baddest block in your hood

7.) Month of your birth?
The best month of the year with February right behind.when the coolest/hottest people were born. Also the prettiest time of the year..snow & winter time. Who doesnt love January?

8.) Last person you talked to?
Synonymous to 'rage'.

9.) One of your nicknames
a food that is fun to eat, but also used as a sarcastic reward.

I got it! :D :D



Not opening it though. I'm saving it for after I'm out of class for the winter. Give me something to look forward too, since very few things I'm looking forward too are even remotely feasible at this point in my life.

I haven't played Okami yet either, I guess I'll give that a whirl next Friday.

I've been pretty much all by myself the last few days doing homework and classwork with some limited Pokemon Gold and Links Awakening playing during breakfast and lunch time (& the potty).

My MacBook has been sitting in the exact same spot for weeks now, I literally haven't even closed the lid in at least a week or two. The slightest jerk could make the power cord go out of "balance" and I'll be screwed and without power. it's actually quite incredible that a dog or myself has not yet ruined everything with the most innocent of wrong moves. I miss being able to take my computer around the house and, to school and all that.

Also, Nintendo, WHY THE HELL ISN'T PEACH PLAYABLE? That's just STUPID. Peach as the fourth playable character is such an OBVIOUS choice, instead we get a palate swap of toad? This isn't the early 90's where Mortal Kombat needed three identical characters with different colored outfits because the computer couldn't handle more than a few characters, yet Miyamoto is actually claiming "technical difficulties" or something to that effect as to why they are two colored toads playable rather than Toad and Peach, as would seem the obvious arrangment.

Furthermore, no matter how awesome this game turns out, I'm going to dock it a full point in my book for not having an online multiplayer option.

As much as I love Nintendo, only they would have so little sense as to make a game with emphasis on multiplayer and not have an online option. Sorry, Nintendo, but not everyone lives in a Wii commercial where they are always three other willing and able family members or three ethnically and demographically diverse and unrealistically enthusiastic friends available in their living room to play video games with.

After brushing off some unwanted and disparaging "advice" about my wardrobe, I rode over to school and donated a pint of blood at my school's fall blood drive. Then on the way home I brought some food items to give to a food drive, also at the school. I didn't drop off the items yet, so I'll go ahead and pick up a few more before I head back to class.

So i feel awesome and good about myself, though unfortunately Nintendo announced this awesome New Super Mario Bros. Wii launch party this Saturday that I would have went to had Nintendo actually announced this earlier like they should have before I reserved my copy of the game at Gamestop already, so thanks alot Nintendo World, I really have been needing an excuse to have visited since Hatcon 08, and now thanks to you not getting the word out sooner I still dont have one.

I've been wanting some Mario or Pokémon plushies for my car too. Darn.

Waiting for ten O clock to roll around so I can watch the new Mythbusters episode, which Mom is now recording for me.

I may record a new Youtube video tomorrow.

This morning, sometime around 8:00 AM, while I was eating my breakfast cereal in Violet City, Autumn the Shuckle hatched from her Egg.

Originally hatched in 2005 on a summer evening in Mahogany Town, Autumn was the first Pokémon I ever hatched the first video game critter I ever felt any genuine affection for (in a purely role playing sense of course). The subject of several pieces of fanart and fanfics that can be found on my site, Autumn is one of my favorite Pokémon, and I've missed being able to play with her ever since my Pokémon Gold cart's battery died back in 06.

So, after changing I bred in the same way, with that borrowed Shuckle named Shuckie from Cianwood City and a wild captured Ditto, so Autumn's back!! :D :D :D

That's one reason video games are better than real life, you can ressurect your departed critter friends.

Training began immidiately, and unlike Autumn the 1st where I went through a long transitional period where I wasn't sure how to make Autumn a useful party member before I finally discovered Rollout, I taught Autumn Rollout first thing and began to train her around New Bark City.

How awesome is Autumn?

Today, at only Level 9, she mopped the floor with 23 wild Raticate! Is that awesome or what?

She gained three levels in one shot and went straight to Level 12 I've never seen anything like that before in all my years of playing Pokémon games! :O

Here's a photo of her current stats! :D



Obviously since she's only one battle away from reaching Level 14, when she'll learn Encore, which I may replace constrict with, since Encore may prove very useful in keeping bigger Pokémon from whooping on her non-existant tail.

And finally, here's all the fanart&fanfics I made about Autumn!

The Misfortunistic Story of Autumn the Shuckle began as the story of me struggling to raise my Shuckle. It was to end with the success I experienced once I taught her Rollout. Instead, I ended up throwing in a "surprise" ending of sorts. :P

Autumn and the Volcano was written as a camp activity for the dearly departed Camp Hyrule events Nintendo of America used to run each summer before they decided having an online community wasn't worth the trouble and shut it all down. What the heck Nintendo. :(

And here's the clay sculpture me and Mom made of her not long after she originally hatched. If there was a house fire, this is probably in the top few things I would save.



And here's Autumn with, veestah 's lil Shiny Shuckle Chu-Chu! Autumn's his big sister type authority figure..

        


Chu-Chu can't get enough of her! :D



Now back to watching Scare Tactics!

I had a dream that I was a Zuraki and that I was the pet of this vampire canibal serial killer lady that lived in Queens, and that my job was to go around town and lure victims to her with my cuteness.

Because in addition (or due to perhaps, though I doubt that) me being a Zuraki, my mind was stuck in this permanent SUPER-HAPPY-JOY-LOVE!! :D :D mode where I was somehow unable to understand that I was helping to kill people or that my owner was in any way a bad person. For example, I actually was watching her put all these severed human body parts in a freezer and consciously decided that these were halloween novelty foods meant to look like people flesh and that all the victims I brought over were actually down stairs in the basement having a party, and I was always disspointed that my owner would never let me go into the basement and have coca cola and pretzels and line dane with them.

Incidentally, this vampire lady only fed me slightly rotten vegetables that were on discount from the supermarket, and all I could think was how kind she way for keeping me on a vegetarian diet, which basically just goes to show that this character was actually me a as a zuraki and not just some random person I was just expereincing the dream through

I also had a bad habit of jumping on people and licking their faces.

So, this was actually a series of dreams I had throughout the night and through several sections of sleep, so I actually had several episodic experiences in this bizarre setting. The last of which the vampire lady took my to the trolley museum for being a good pet, only I ruined it by jumping on other museum visiters and licking their faces, thus getting us kicked out, but I couldn't stop myself from doing this because I was so happy.

So,maniac_online , this is all your fault, and thank you very much.

Now I need to go eat breakfast.

I finally beat Super Mario Galaxy about a half hour ago.

I got Super Mario Galaxy in 07 as a self purchased Christmas gift, and I've been stalling in beating it. In fact for the most of the time I've been playing I've only permitted myself to earn one star per day.

The reason I was stalling is that traditionally since the Super NES there has only been one Super Mario platformer released per system. Super NES had Super Mario World (though strictly speaking Yoshi's Island is the legitimate Super Mario World 2), Nintendo 64 had Super Mario 64, Nintendo Gamecube had Super Mario Sunshine, and so when Nintendo announced Super Mario Galaxy for Wii, it wasn't beyond bounds to expect that this would be this system's sole Super Mario platformer, so i took my time with this in case I didn't get another new Mario until a theoretical Wii 2 comes out.

Since Super Mario Galaxy 2 was announced at last E3 (not to mention New Super Mario Bros. Wii), I was finally able to go ahead and beat the game without qualms, though my general gaming habits still meant that I'd go weeks or even a month or more at a time between times when I'd actually touch the Wii console to begin with, let alone choose to play that paticular game.

I'd say Mario Galaxy is one of the best platformers yet made, and the best 3-D Super Mario game.

The final stage and boss were mad easy though, I honestly had more difficulty during some of the regular stages and minibosses. I managed the last board in a single sitting and didn't die once fighting Bowser.

Also, the whole concept of "lives" and "game overs" in Mario Galaxy is a cumbersome and obsolete vestige of the time when seeing the words GAME OVER actually meant that your game was over. They let you try as many times as you need to beat the levels now anyway, aside from the fact that they deliberately put 1-ups right in your path during the difficult sections anyway, so why even bother?

The most recent "big" release I can remember in which GAME OVER actually meant that you were through and had to start again from the beginning was Star Fox 64.

I guess I'll be working on Super Paper Mario now, and Metroid Prime 3, even though I know I'll never beat it because as fun as the Prime games were, their silly fetch quest based plot structure was un-engaging and very un-Metroid like. Samus dosen't collect pointless trinkets and keys, she blows the door down with a missile.

Gonna go do some more school reading now and then maybe listen to a PotterCast episode.

Today I went back and forth between doing reading for school, (Dracula, and Far from the Madding Crowd, havent finished either, no spoilers please) and cleaning the house. I got the kitchen clean and for the first time in a while tackled the living room, which I rarely use, thought I do try to keep it nice. It's all neat and pretty now, like it was back in 06 when we got the new carpet, and the Wii along with it.

Speaking of the Wii, I actually touched it for the first time in months today, mainly to dust it off and re-calibrate the surround sound speakers since I'm actually going to be using it again in the near future.

And then, around dinner time, I made some fried rice and popped in the Desinty Dyoxys DVD I borrowed from the local library earlier in the week and had yet to watch. This was the first time I remember actually watching a movie in the living room by myself for any reason in many years. And I got my newly rediscovered fold out tailgaiting chair that I now use for gaming (or at least will from now on) to watch it in.

So, about Destiny Dyoxys.....


( Pikachu the Movie: Destiny Dyoxys spoilas! :o )

So, Destiny Dyoxys, good movie.

While the topic is on Pokémon, I just wanna say, the Shuckle still ain't hatched folks.

Best villain theme ever. >:D


Come get some.

So, I was looking around for some stuff and found some site with patches to translate NES games into another language.

I looked at some of the screenshots and...


 




... and after at first just shrugging it off as just some language I didn't recognize, it suddenly clicked in my head how odd the writing looked and wondered just what the heck language that was?

And then I discovered Toki Pona.

This language is awesome, its by far the first constructed language I'd seriously consider putting any energy into seriously learning, though I won't be doing that anytime soon.

Sadly, since the current version of the official site is pretty new, the other wiki's page on it actually has more information for now.

When the book the author is working on comes out I'll surely buy it.

And that's my cool discovery for the day.

I wrote and created this today.

The font is my own handwriting, and created by yourfonts.com for the princely sum of 1,000 pennies.

Cept the background image, I sure hope to heck Icarus dosen't kill me for this. :o



I'm off to a Halloween partay now :o

Here it is, the unabridged footage of me trying an MRE for the first time.

I can't stand all the "umm..."s and "you knows" I have a habit of uttering on camera, and normally I would have forced myself to do dozens of takes until I got those down to a minimum, but in this case I only get one take at doing this for the first time, so here it is.


This basically cost me a day of valuable scholastic productivity, but I'm glad I did it when I did because this came out pretty awesome actually.

I ate one of the MREs my friend left me, and I recorded every second of it.

It was a real challenge considering how much schoolwork I'm now bogged down with, but I managed it, and it came out great.

I already edited and exported the first ten minute segment, but I'd rather not post unitl the whole set is finished and I need to go to sleep now.

My computer is an absolute nightmare to charge. It's like having to roll a 20 every time I plug my computer in for it to charge, I can't rely in it for anything.

If my next MacBook does this, I seriously won't buy another Macintosh notebook.