So yeah. Don’t expect to hear much from me this week. Teachers come back to school on Friday and that should keep me much busier than usual for the balance of this week.

See, during the summer we are pretty much given free rein to do whatever we think is necessary. We image labs, we do server maintenence, we count drops and try our damndest to make accurate network maps, we count hubs to build purchasing lists for the coming year, we attend training classes, etc. The summer is damn busy for us grunts. Then, paridoxically, when teachers start showing up it gets really busy. They all put off doing any sort of work until the last possible minute, then all send in work order requests all at the same time. It is actually one heck of a relief when kids get back. Once everybody is back in school we get tons more work orders, but again ironically, it is all licence plate making busy work stuff, and most of the time is spent actually walking from room to room rather than building snappshots (sic) and so forth. It is more little items rather than a few huge ones.

So what i’ll be working on this week (first week with a two-day weekend) is anticipating the teachers’ movements and trying my best to head ‘em off at the pass. I’ll be completely drained physically, mentally, and emotionally, so don’t expect anything from me post wise. I’ll break radio silence friday and tell you how it went.

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Thanks in part to an obsession with Final Fantasy X i’ve managed to score a rather cheap copy of Fatal Frame. See i’ve been looking for a cheap copy of FFX (cheap being less than $30), and having very limited success with eBay and other conventional roads of purchase. Even used the game seems to bring $35 or more and sell like hotcakes. With a photocopied jacket even. So thereby i’ve started checking pawn shops. Everything is far cheaper there, and usually of a better quality than that found at flea markets. No luck though, as many shops want $15 and up for King’s Field and other PS1 games that from the time when PS1 games came in the tall DVD cases.

Luckily i’m able to salvage good out of otherwise annoying circumstances. The only decent pawn shop with PS2 games had a cheap copy of Fatal Frame for sale. It was supposed to be $30, ($29 actually) but the guy said that he’d sell it to me at $20, and even soak up the $1 tax instead of having to break the $10 i gave him. So things were already looking up.

Now i’ll level with you: i wasn’t that impressed with Fatal Frame when i saw it up in Florence. Why did i buy a game i didn’t really think was all that cool? Well, it was a good deal and i am a big fan of the more cerebral survival horror.

I have to say, after starting a game and playing the thing for a while, it will more than tide me over until Silent Hill 3 drops next month. It took some getting used to, in both concept and in controls, but proved to be incredibly challenging and deeply engaging.

First in controls. I’m not used to employing the analog sticks. I am a d-pad boy heart and soul. Understandibly there was some friction in the beginning, especially with the finder mode needing the use of both analog sticks to stay away from the ghosts and yet keep them in frame for attack. I have slowly gotten used to it though, and am producing some impressive and hilarious pictures bit-by-bit. It is upsetting that my all-time favorite shot was lost when i misused Album mode. See the second or third time i fought Blinded, when i sumbled out of the door into the atrium and she’s all standing there, i snapped one hell of a closeup of her chest. It was pretty awesome, let me tell you. Kristi thought it was funny as hell, and i think it edged out my all-time second favorite: a close-up shot of the Well-Girl’s face.

Now the concept is… wierd. Refreshingly wierd, but wierd all the same. I have to say from Fatal Frame and the translated Ring book i am getting one hell of a picture of Japanese horror. The white-clad ghost, death in water, an emphasis on the sixth sence (and ESP in general), i could actually drop a decent writeup on overriding themes in contemporary Japanese Horror if i wanted to be pretentious. Of course then i could write my own rebuttal citing Versus and Wild Zero, but i digress. For those unfamiliar with the plot, it goes something like this.

• Girl’s Brother (Mafuyu) heads to mansion to find his missing benefactor (Takamine).
• Takamine vanished with his retinue while researching the backstory for a historical/horror novel set in this mansion. (Himuro Mansion)
• In the past, Himuro was the site of some pretty horrible rituals. Then the head of the household murdered everyone else and then himself.
• Mafuyu vanishes
• His sister (Miku) goes to Himuro to find her brother and get to the bottom of this groovy mystery
• Mafuyu and Miku’s mother was a noted psychic and ghost hunter, and she left a camera to her children. This is important as the camera is capable of taking pictures of things that aren’t there (ghosts/the supernatural) and of containing said things. Sort of a Proton Pack/Ghost Trap all in one. Really convenient.
• Then things get hairy: Miku is trapped in the mansion, and the people who vanished sure aren’t having tea somewhere. You had damn well better bet that she’s going to use that camera something fierce in the future

So yeah. Lots of taking pictures of ghosts. Lots of chasing things through the creepy-ass mansion. Lots of genuine scares and jump moments. I’m actually very impressed with this game, and i’m a little over halfway through it (i’m heading to the ritual site on the second night, so i’m thinking i’ll start the third night soon). But the game is very good about having a genuine air of horror about it. I’ve felt that the Resident Evil series has been tending more toward action movie recently, leaving this and Silent Hill as the last true Survival Horror games in the offing. Of course with a follow up to both this and to SH then we’re in business for a while.

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So i’m still talking. Ahem. Like i’ve said i do have quite a bit to put in the last few weeks. Unfortunately this whole thing is making it difficult to come up with new stuff. All that old stuff lining up and all that.

Lord but i do suck at “Population: Tire.” I mean my best is 50. That’s pretty crappy.

Thanks to Jason i’m all playing Escape Velocity: Nova now, and i’m about to register. See, i have to in order to get the Vel’oss Javelin. Atleast that’s what my contact in slavery tells me. See i apparently am a telepath, and that means that the whole known universe is my playground. Also it is my pimp. See i can make starships and kill people with the power of my mind, but also Earth has me under their thumb with some kind of mind-control device. I have to kill the bastards, but i need to register to do so. So damn but i guess i’ll register. Of course Ambrosia is rather badass, so it is my pleasure to register EV:N. Maybe if i do so they will allow us to use the plugins that turn it into EV:O or the original EV. EV i’m not so blown away by, but i mean c’mon, EV:O was the reason i should have been fired from NSC. Well, that and the insubordination. I never peed on the building, but i still hated my boss.

Anyway. EV rocks even though my pilot spends alot of time crying. See he doesn’t want to sell out the rebels, it really sticks in his craw. Mine too, which is why the bureau must fall.

Blast! All this space shooter playing is detracting from my time with my other games. I need to play more iRO now that i’m kicking ass. And see, what i haven’t told you yet is that on last thursday i bought Fatal Frame. You’ll have to tune in tomorrow to hear my thoughts on it.

Speaking of Jason; this weekend is my last three-day, so c’mon down, we’ll have a party. A LAN party unfortunately. We are geeks you know, so it isn’t all that unfortunate. Anyway. Jason bring D&D stuff and the rest of the party. I don’t care if people need to be chloroformed, i want to kick stuff this (dammit) weekend. I have laptops and they are wireless, so its not like they won’t have anything to do while we play iRO.

I’ve got a hella large amount of games to play though. Fatal Frame, Megaman Legends, Ring of Red, Alice, and Crimson Skies just spring to mind immediately. Then Silent Hill 3 when it comes out… jeez, i wonder if i’ll ever make it through all this. Wish me luck, and tune in tomorrow for a special spooky blabbering about cameras.

(Read the article)

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** Names have been removed to protect the guilty, and to stop my Dept from pulling a Martin and censuring me. **

There, its been a busy week. I’ll be dropping a line once and a while, but my “fleshing out the last few weeks” plan is becoming more and more difficult. See school is about to start back up and the department is really gearing up. Airport and Brookland-Cayce High School have something like ten labs that all need to be reimaged to the new standards, i have one labs at my schools as well, then we have server upgrades, and so on.

Finally two of my schools are still under construction. Entering either is almost completely forbidden without a hardhat. See it would have gone faster if it had not rained as much. And if the construction workers were a bit more professional. They were caught stealing each other’s tools earlier this week and hiding them in the woods behind the school for later pickup. Then they were caught taking breaks in a locked portable (which they unlocked). This wouldn’t have been a problem had they asked for a break area with AC. Instead they sort of just openned the door with the master key and left the AC on full blast. The reason i’m not working on Fridays this summer is because the district doesn’t want to run AC and electricity on fridays to save some money.

Oh, and a certain principal’s laptop suddenly has a screen that doesn’t work. And its covered with dusty fingerprints. I don’t think you need to be that Murder She Wrote lady to solve this groovy mystery.

o yeah. Posting will be sporadic for another two weeks, i think. I’ll work on filling this space up, as i do have about a thousand possible entries. There’s a large amount of other stuff to type in here too. A few reviews, my UA character concept, that sort of thing. Anyhow, i’m going to to type something up for Saturday, then back to iRO and EV:N. Thanks, Jason for pointing that out.

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The following is a true story. It involves a huge amout of iRO babbling, so if you don’t like that sort of thing, please stop reading.

So i’ll start this one off with a confession. See i was walking through Pron and i let slip to my girl that i had a Zombie Card. She wants some “of Health Boots” badly, and has a Steel Chonchon card, which i really want for my Saint Robe. Now we looked around and apparently Zombie cards go for around 250k Zenny. I had no idea. I sold the card to my girl for 200k plus a Steelie card. I’m more than happy at this point. Seeing as i now have a “Saint Robe of Heman,” but with 200k free capital i go looking for trouble. That night (friday) i pick up a slotted muffler for 100k, and get 20k back for selling something (can’t rememeber what). To cap it off, i score an Ambernite card for 55k. This leaves me with about 50k or so. I test out my four new points of Def then i go to bed, secure in both being rich and in having the last buckler and robe i’ll ever need.

The next day Kristi wakes me up with a phone call. Apparently somebody is selling three-slot Chains in South Pron for 50k. That’s music to my ears, so i run down there. Sadly though, he’s wised up and is selling for the much more normal 70k. My girl (bless her heart) talks him down to 50 and takes my current +6 Chain for 20. I then leave with 30k and a three-slot chain.

That’s not all though! Almost but not completely. See Kristi found an incredible deal on a Muka card and haggled some guy out of a clip, so she had an extra Rosary. No slot, but +2 Luck ain’t bad. Her DC is incredible, so she offered to sell it to me for 12k.

So to recap, from the sale of the Zombie Card i got:

• One Steel Chonchon Card (Saint Robe of Heman [+2 Def])
• One Ambernite Card (Buckler of Athena [+2 Def])
• One Slotted Muffler (No card… yet)
• Three-Slot Chain (and enough to get it to +6)
• Rosary (+2 Luck, baby)
• 13,000 Zenny

If anybody needs me to pick up some Yggs or something i’ll be more than happy to help out the party. Of course i think i have more Def that 210 now so i can probably soak some damage. Just a bit, though. I haven’t been levelling this weekend so i’m still 39/29. I’m about halfway to both levels though so that’s something.

I feel i should give back though. But hey, i’ll get 210 an andre egg card as soon as i’ve got 100k and we’ll be square again, right?

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So yeah. It has been quite some time since i put pen to paper here. Or rather electrons to whatever they decide to stick to. By way of explaination i’ve been busy. See on Mondays and Wednesdays i have Kung Fu. Before Kung Fu i’m probably eating dinner and after i’m too wrecked to type. Seriously, Hung Gar takes quite a bit out of you. Then Tuesday is laundry and eating with my parents. Lots of time taken up there, let me tell you. Then Thursday i eat dinner with Cristal and hang out there as long as she plans on letting me. Friday through Sunday is the weekend and as you will soon find out, i keep busy.

Thankfully i finally got payed today so i can relax and pay some bills. I was slightly worried about sewer for some reason so i think i’ll call them today. See i did wait a while to pay it (on time) but there is suddenly this smell of dead things in my bathroom. So either the clothes don’t like the humid climate (most likely scenario) or some sort of sewer problem is occuring. And i like to make sure that i’m in the good graces of the sewer people if i call up complaining. Sort of a karma thing, you know? If i’m going to be curt and demanding, i might as well have been nice before so they don’t sneak some kind of explosive into my pipes while they are down there. Oh well, we’ll see what’s going on later.

Also i have pleanty to write about, so expect a whole pile of various entries later today (right now?) and later this week to fill up the last few weeks. Nothing major, just a few entries a week, but i have been watching movies hand over fist, reading books in the same way, and spending whole weekends umbilically attached to iRO. The weekend after the upcoming one will be my last three-day so we will have to get Jason and 210 over here to rock it LAN party style. iRO LAN party style to be precise. I want a Romatic Leaf. And i’d love to find out if the Bongun hat is findable.

Levelling a few times would be nice too. Of course no double XP so it will be slightly more difficult, but if i am to catch my girl i’ll have to do it somehow.

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