tetradecimal

[Team] Rumble Junkie: your going to want to wait until mobs condense on me
[Team] Rumble Junkie: that way you ensure u dont get hit
[Team] Yoshua: dunno if you noticed, but they aren't really hitting me
[Team] Rumble Junkie: i dont know if u noticed, but im not asking. im tellin u

At this point, I let loose a loud "BAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA", and quit the team. God save us from pretty pretty prima donna tanks. I'm gonna put my humility and everything else aside here, and say this:

( Massive rant to follow )

Dear JF:

Today I am having an attack of raaaaage, but I know exactly what's causing it.

I will cut you.

My supposedly straightforward "make the changes on this paper copy to the electronic copy" hour-long task has become a raging time sinkhole involving testing, writing new material, and revisiting every single file I've already edited to make sure the right changes have been added to provide information that includes the new program mode I know nothing about.

Words cannot describe my rage.

Boyd died again on the VERY LAST ENEMY HIT before the battle ended, so I just left him dead. Of course, then Oscar and Rolf spent the next battle guilting me for it.

I am now on my third or fourth try at getting onto the damn ship for Begnion or whatever, I've FINALLY gotten Zihark (thanks for not giving me a choice about whether or not I'd like to counterattack, FE), and then I forget Kieran needs a heal and HE dies. ARRRRRRGH. I have terrible luck with axe wielders. I'm also terrible at multi-tasking, and this battle involves

(a) visit all houses before they explode
(b) raise my weak little nooblets (Nephenee's not that bad compared to freaking MIST AND ROLF and sometimes Marcia, but my characters are all either KILL ENEMY IN ONE HIT or DO 5 DAMAGE)
(c) recruit Zihark
(d) four-way forces split!

and I am NOT using a guide, so I just have to retry stuff until things work. Garrrrr.

On the subject of bad luck, I saved my drink from spilling while I closed the door, tried to put it down, and then promptly spilled it. I towelled up the mess, poured myself another drink, and then promptly knocked that over, too. FUCK.

STRATEGY RPGS = NOT GOOD FOR MY RAGE PROBLEM.

...I kind of want a marimo. They look so soft!

Also endearing: pit vipers. The way they're always giving you the stink-eye is hilarious.

Aaaaand the drive home took 1.5 hours today, so even though I left work at 4, the office is closed and I can't pick up my manga.

LOL THANKS GUYS

I think I've gotten meaner as a person since starting out in the workplace in 2007. Or at least more snappish and irritable. I guess it's kind of a natural consequence of pretending to be someone else for extended periods of time and then stacking a bunch of pressures on top, little things that add up to ARGH over time.

Quarter-life crisis GO GO GO

Also, uh, starting work at new place on Tuesday. Terrified. And: Bottle manufacturers, please stop making bottle caps that are narrower than 1cm. It KILLS MY HANDS when I try to open the damn things. And if you combine that with FILL THE BOTTLE FILL IT TO THE TIPPY TOP and make the container bendy, the contents of the bottle will FLY EVERYWHERE when I do manage to get it open. Stop that.

Argh, I visited Best Buy and Gamestop yesterday, and NEITHER of them had Diabolical Box.

( YAYYYY THANK YOU BEST BUY )

Heyyy, did you know that the Fatal Frame IV translation project is 90% done? YAYYYYYY GHOSTS!

I know zombie comics are supposed to be full of morons (The Walking Dead, anyone?), but that still doesn't help me cope with the throbbing headache of rage when I read one. And yet, I'm unable to look away from the train wreck. Usually, I can justify the stupidity by telling myself, "Well, maybe they live under a rock. Maybe they've never seen a zombie movie."

The protagonists of High School of the Dead have all seen zombie movies. It's by a hentai artist, apparently, so that should tell you about how trailblazing the plot is going to be.

( Why do you do this to yourself? )
I can only imagine the kind of issues the author has.

Also: There is no way I would ever eat Bio-Meat. Jesus. They're like sentient abs, but with lizard legs and leech heads and they open up and it's like VAGINA DENTATA WITH A SIDE OF COCKROACH. How could... guh... D:

I went to go see Half-Blood Prince. I saw the trailers. And now, I rant about G. I. Joe. Don't expect any sense-making D:

( WHOO! )

Oh, and the movie? Well, it was pretty good, considering. Harry Potter's still a moron, Bellatrix chewed the scenery, Alan Rickman was awesome.

I read yaoi manga in my spare time and so I have kind of had to come to terms with the fact that the majority of it involves rape in some form. Most of the time, the uke is going "Noooo" until about two to five minutes into the foreplay, and then magically everything's okay and LOVE CAN BLOOM ON THE BATTLEFIELD. I don't really get it, but hentai and bodice-rippers have it, too, so I guess it's just a staple of fictional romance. But I digress.

Nayamuhodo Nara Koi to Yobe is a manga by Fujiyama Hyouta. It has three main characters:

Sei: A college student and the uke-to-be. He tutors Jin and lives in an apartment near the home of his childhood friend, Aki.
Aki: A college student who's living at home.
Jin: A fifteen-year-old junior high student who ends up being tutored in Math by Jin.

Basically, Aki has had a crush on Sei for years and then Jin shows up and LOVE TRIANGLE.
( Uh ohs )

I am a fairly decent gamer. I don't die that much in most games (although I do have to start over constantly in Fire Emblem, as I can't stand losing any characters), I can get the hang of fighting mechanics fairly quickly, and I can bluff my way through most puzzles. But the one hurdle I'll never be able to overcome is jumping. And I just can't understand why jumping to different platforms qualifies as a gaming challenge that I have to beat in order to proceed. It's not a test of reasoning or paying attention to the plot or even how you play the rest of the game. The only thing jumping serves as an accurate test of IS JUMPING GODDAMMIT FUCK.

To celebrate my complete and utter lack of jumping skills, here is a list of the many, many techniques that developers have used to torment entertain audiences everywhere!

Time limits!
 It's not hard enough to have a bunch of platforms you need to jump to in succession. There has to be some kind of time limit on it, too. Uh-oh, the door's going to close unless YOU JUMP ACROSS SEVERAL PLATFORMS FAST ENOUGH. I hope you're not one of those gamers for which jumping puzzles are already a significant challenge or something! HAR HAR HAR.

Unpredictable or finicky jumping controls!
Sometimes, the game controls for jumping are just crappy and inconsistent, like in Dororo. In this case, attempts at jumping to a platform that only requires one jump can be completely ruined if you:

(a) press forward too much
(b) press forward too little
(c) double jump, because double jumping automatically pushes you further forward no matter what else you're pressing, but doesn't give you the extra height you'd need to counteract the forward motion. If you only needed to jump once, this essentially rockets you past the platform. FUCK.

Platforms that are too high!
Sometimes a platform requires a double-jump to reach... only it's so high, even a double-jump can't consistently get you up there. In fact, why don't you just sit there trying to figure out WHAT FUCKING COMBINATION of running and jumping, standing still and jumping, waiting mid-air to double jump, or pressing jump will get you THAT ONE EXTRA MILLIMETER you need to get up there?

Moving platforms!
Usually, these move at a fairly reasonable speed, although when combined with other factors (like not being able to see the next platform), they can be extremely frustrating and you just kind of have to trust it's there. But every once in a while, the platforms will move at light speed, like the final dungeon of Vagrant Story. I SURE HOPE YOU HAVE THAT ONE SPELL TO IMMOBILIZE THOSE BLOCKS. Because if you don't, you are ASS OUT OF LUCK. Have fun being launched into a bottomless abyss.

Enemies on the platforms!
Are you having trouble jumping? How would you like spiders and shit to RAIN DOWN FROM NOWHERE and throw you off your goddamn platform? How about flaming bats or geysers or ice patches? Huh? HOW'S THAT SOUND?

Imaginary platforms!
Sometimes, the actual area that you can stand on extends past the visible platform, and you can stand seemingly on thin air. Sometimes you will fall STRAIGHT THROUGH THE PLATFORM, because lolz, it's not really there, the game lied ♥

LAKSJDFL;SKJFLSDJF JUMPING.

I feel I should warn anyone who reads this that I'm just going to be ranting incoherently about how much FFXII is angering me.

( There is no entry. Only rage. )

Oh no, Zettai Kareshi -- fuck YOU.

I should have known better.

Someone has been stealing my newspaper. 

At first I just thought the deliveryman missed a day or two. But yesterday, I was leaving my apartment for work in a tired daze, glanced at the paper on my step, said "screw it", and left for work without tossing it into my apartment.

When I returned that afternoon, my newspaper was gone.

Okay, WHAT THE FUCK. I love getting the Washington Post, see, and I love opening newspapers and scanning through for interesting articles (although not so much putting the damn thing back together when I'm done reading). I understand that other people may also like reading the paper. BUT WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU STEAL SOMEONE ELSE'S NEWSPAPER?

I just can't believe it. When I lived in the suburbs, you could leave your paper out for days and it'd still be there for you to pick it up. What do they cost, like 50 cents? Even less if you get a subscription? Mine cost less than thirty bucks for five months' worth of papers, so it's actually less than a quarter. Really? You can't shell out one frickin' quarter to paw through your OWN newspaper? I can't imagine the kind of cheap asshole that would get his kicks from something like this. Do they also raid the "take a penny, leave a penny" trays and pig out on free samples at the grocery store, patting themselves on the back for saving money?

Jesus Christ. Should I still leave out my doormat, or will someone swipe that, too?

Okay, before we get started, I definitely brought baggage with me when I went into the movie theater. I hate J. J. Abrams. I think that at best, he's a mediocre talent who for some reason manages to avoid screwing up just enough to avoid pissing people off. I think he more or less delivers what he's supposed to, but little else, and people in their eternal search for meaning mistake his gimmicks and thrown-together cliches and explosions for actual substance. He is adequate and perhaps for that reason, people love him. But I hate him. I hate his stupid marketing gimmicks, his obnoxious cliches, and his smarmy little Fringe show.

On the other hand: I love Star Trek. Not all Star Trek, of course; I despised Enterprise, which seemed to consist of a patchwork of fail woven together with constant and heavy-handed references to the Iraq War, a reluctance to even identify itself with Trek, and Trip Tucker, whose obnoxious self-righteousness, unjustified cockiness, and aw-shucks-ma'am accent made him sound more like the then-president of Uhmurrka than a competent engineer (note: I actually hated George Bush much more as a starship engineer than as a president. Is that weird?). But TOS? TNG? Hell, I grew up watching TNG.

Star Trek was funny, exciting, sometimes even scary for me as a kid, but it also had a unique quality that I just couldn't put my finger on. Now, looking back, I think I know what it is. Unlike a lot of other shows that dumbed down their concepts to one-liners like, "don't make fun of the kid with glasses" or "let's explode bad guys", Star Trek always seemed to have something worthwhile to say and characters that were more or less able to say it. It wasn't just about big explosions, it was also about prejudice, morality, and dealing with the unknown.

In most of Star Trek, even the least experienced of the major crew members (with a few exceptions) appeared to be at least twenty. The captains were middle-aged, even elderly. They were articulate, at least somewhat experienced, and if called upon, they could explain their rationale such that even dissenters might understand the reasoning behind their decisions. In fact, one of the things I've grown to value about Trek is that it's not just explosions and lasers and big honking ships; there's a reason behind what people do beyond "huh huh, boobies" or "dude, we should explode shit". There are a lot of movies and TV shows that offer nudity, sex, violence, and whatever else it is that teenagers do that is supposedly so mindlessly interesting. If you want the lowest common denominator, it's everywhere, constantly pandering to males 18 to 29 or whatever. Did we really need that pool scene in AVP2? Did we?

Trek for me was about watching characters I grew to love solving problems, whether it was tracking down Dr. Moriarity on the holodeck or negotiating peace agreements between a bunch of people that hated each other. It was also about the idea that the future might not be filled with killer Terminators or acid-blooded aliens, but instead with people whose goal was knowledge and understanding and striving for equality. It was about how, in the end, it was not who had the biggest guns/balls/whatever that would win the day, but those that could keep their heads under fire and work together to come to a solution. It could be exciting without being crass.

So you can imagine my dismay when the first Star Trek trailer started showing up in theaters, cut to show as many explosions, suggestive scenes, and violence/testosterone as possible. It didn't look like Star Trek to me; it looked like The Fast and the Furious: Boobies in Space. Half the bridge crew looked like they wouldn't know what to do with their own dick, let alone a Federation starship.

But I went anyway.

Yeah, so it's like... Suikoden V rant time. Actually, it's Belcoot rant time, because the major issues I have with this game are a) too many random encounters with too few enemies, b) slow loading times, and c) hugeass towns I have to run through to talk to everyone whose text moves TOO DAMN SLOW.

There are spoilers.

Okay, this is really annoying. This morning, when I got into work, one of my coworkers (who is this East Asia -otaku with a Japanese wife, but is generally a pretty nice guy), is walking down the hall towards me. At the same instant I start to say, "hi", he bows at the waist and goes, "anyong-ha-say-oh". 

What. The. Fuck.

It's a greeting in Korean that even my non-Korean-speaking ass knows, but what? Every other time I've said hi to him, he's answered me in English. And I've told him several times that no, I don't speak Korean, I know barely anything about Korean culture, and, as anyone who knows me marginally well knows, I have zero interest in learning. Because invariably, he'll get excited about some Korean event or whatever, and start talking about Korean traditional musical instruments or clothes, and I'llhave no idea what he's talking about and have to remind him.

It's like no matter how many times I tell him (politely) I don't give a crap about Korea, it will never matter because I'm Korean. Except I'm not Korean. At best, I'm Korean-American. In fact, I'd prefer it if I was just referred to as American, despite what everyone else wants to call me, because not only do I not know anything about Korea, I don't want to know. In fact, I'm Korean in absolutely no way whatsoever except for one: 

I look Korean.

And because I look Korean, I'll always be Korean, despite anything I feel, say, or do. In fact, I'm apparently The Korean, the source of knowledge about all things Korean. Want to know about traditional Korean clothing? Curious about the latest trends in Korean pop music? 
GO AHEAD, ASK ME. I'M KOREAN SO OBVIOUSLY I KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT KOREA AND AM EAGER TO TELL YOU ALL ABOUT IT. I'M THE FUCKING FONT OF KOREAN. PLZ INSERT YOUR SOUL REAVER SO THAT I MAY IMBUE IT WITH KOREA.

Maybe this sounds small to you, but BELIEVE ME MOTHERFUCKERS IT IS CUMULATIVE. Every time some asshole grins at me and proudly says, " Wow, I bet I'm better at Korean than you," (NO SMALL FEAT ASSHOLE CONSIDERING I DON'T KNOW ANY) or someone goes, "Yew shore speak good English" (BECAUSE I GREW UP HERE YOU IDIOT), or someone beams, "You're that KOREAN girl, right?", or someone asks me where I'm really from, I stick it right onto my rolling RAGE KATAMARI and it's getting AWFULLY BIG, YOU GUYS, IT'S ALMOST READY TO BECOME A FUCKING STAR.


Arggrarrrghhhhhurrraaaarrrghgraaaaughnyarrrrrghgahhhhh korea!

So, I recently bought a PSP, only to realize that, well... having a PSP kind of sucks. I mean, I mostly got it so I could try out Crisis Core, but that game turned out to be more of a FF7/Gackt crossover fanfic than an actual game. Don't get me wrong, it's real pretty, but Genesis MADE ME WANT TO CHOKE HIM. Sure, he's kinda hot, but he quotes from LOVELESS all the damn time.

I know LOVELESS is supposed to be this big epic thing in Crisis Core (as opposed to FF7, when it was just an incidental play someone happened to mention), but it reads like some high schooler's "why won't anyone love meeeee" LJ poetry. It's like having someone who bases all their life decisions on Mamma Mia or something.

Aside from Sephiroth and Cloud, who actually remain pretty cool, uh... Zack is like a retarded golden retriever puppy on crack. Angeal keeps talking about "honor" nonstop, although I'm not entirely sure what he even means by honor because there are so many different definitions and he never elaborates. Is honor hunting down your bff? Joining your bff and betraying your calling? Manipulating some shmuck to killinate you? WELL WHAT IS IT?

And protip, Square, adding a lot of optional repetitive "defeat X" missions does NOT make a good game. It was never-ending. And why did they change Sephiroth's backstory to make it seem like Genesis was the catalyst for his psychotic break? How lame is it when Gackt can BS you for two minutes and it sends your life tailspinning down to Destroy Planet With Big Rock-Ville? I did like being able to fight those nekkid-butt monsters from the Nibel Reactor, though.

And Aeris! I've said this before, but I run around all day fighting monsters, gathering materials, and making her this elegantly designed craftsman's flower wagon, and she goes, "I want another one."

I WANT ANOTHER ONE.

I'd give her another one to the FACE, but Sephipon's going to give her one to the abdomen, so I guess it'd be redundant.

Wait, I was talking about my PSP. Yes, so I put my PSP up for sale with the comment "Pretty much mint condition, only used to play two games". A couple days later this guy emails me and asks, "is it boxed and good?"

'BOXED AND GOOD'? What does that mean? Did you even read the comment? What does 'boxed and good mean'?! What kind of English is that?! Why wouldn't I mail it in a box? Does he mean the original box, which I have saved anyway? What the hell does 'good' mean? IT'S IN MINT CONDITION, DAMMIT HSGLKSJDFKLJSDFHSLGJ.

And now that I've blown a gasket, uh... it's hot outside. I need a job. Etc., etc.