Tickity Tack

I haven't played anything from the Persona line before so some aspects surprised me. When I first scoped the box and some of the manual (I'm not into reading manuals unless I'm stuck on something stupid), I thought I would get confused with the timeline aspect. I got used to that pretty quickly. Student by day, monster hunter at midnight. Scenes play during the day that will hold relevance like questions for the exams, afternoons open for school clubs and hanging out in town, then midnight rolls around for some good ol' dungeon-style monster hunting. The time line pushes the story along instead of that free time in other RPGs where the play can spend all the time they want leveling up.

It has a very human aspect to the game. Time management is needed so to be sure your character develops enough for the next events. Developments could be anything from taking time to study for school, to hanging out with friends about the town. The choices made in the daytime affect the character's ability to fight well at night and the type of Personae they can summon.

Now the summoning must have been the biggest shocker for me. I'm still trying to get used to these teenagers using Evokers to summon their Personae. An Evoker looks like a gun that the user has to point to their head and pull the trigger. Not the best message to give kids. I normally couldn't bat an eye to video game violence, but this gave me a pause. Just a pause though. I still can't put the game down but I'm sure I'm only 15% of the way through the first story.

As for The World Ends With You, I've only scraped the surface of that one too. The hip hop, modern style pops out the most. And when I say 'style', I don't mean just the pictures. I mean that thing in real life that I lack: the ability to recognizewhat clothing labels are the hot things to wear in that area of Shibuya (or any location in my case). The right styles can boost a player while wearing what is so five minutes ago will hurt their ability. And no outfit would be complete without pins with super power abilities. Good thing that their cell phones can help them keep all this and much more in order. Take that iPhone!

The combat is still kind of confusing for me. I'm pretty much a one-button masher for the main character's partner. I'm concentrating more on the stylus in my other hand controlling the main character's pin abilities and only mashing the partner's buttons when 'puck' is passed to them for the attack multiplier.

I haven't gotten much into the story line yet since I've been taking my time with leveling up which actually surprises me as something I can do. The characters are being timed on completing the tasks given to them but it has no bearing on real time. Granted, real time hasn't been a factor in console RPGs normally, but this game does get affected by real time. There's even a clock on the screen for real time and still doesn't hold bearing on the character time for the tasks. So far, I've found that real time affects things like pin points given for up to seven days the game is not being played.

I still have more ground to cover since I've barely seen what the character is able to do. I haven't even gotten to the pins that are controlled by microphone. Looks like I need to dedicate some more time. At least I get to sleep in two hours tomorrow but I'm going to be itching for a game to play as I sit there and babysit jewelry. I might die of boredom before I get to fight another monster. Ooops, main character wangst getting to me.

"Some men aren't looking for anything logical. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to see the world burn." -Alfred

"Madness is like gravity. All it takes is a little push." -Joker

And push he did with Dent. Two-Face coming to surface, or rather the surface burning away to Two-Face, required a very little push from a guy in a nurse's uniform.

And previews? Hello, Rogue James Bond... The hunt-down-the-super-agent trailer felt more Bourne than Bond. And I wonder if anyone else noticed the girl who looked more like Hepburn ala Breakfast at Tiffany's aside from the plastic rocks for diamonds.

With that over with, I finally was given an advance notice for some apartment maintenance. Seems like they finally got it through their heads that they're supposed to give notice. The fun thing about this notice: it's for a two week period. Oh... so I'm supposed to sit around for two weeks for them? And people thought those 'sometime during the day' time frames were horrid.

I brought up an idea at work which didn't fly. Not that I thought it would, just found it funny. I would come in at 5am, do the paper work shuffle for two hours and then head home with my to-do stack. I can just use a remote desktop on my laptop. I can answer questions, key transfers, research discrepancies, locate rejects, fix sales, test system bugs and make stupid looking picture notices for the buyers all while waiting for the maintenance people. I think voicing that idea just showed how freakishly possible it is to do my job without being present. I could be sitting in a coffee shop and still do my job. Just come in long enough for a paperwork shuffle or a cycle count in a couple of hours and I'm golden.

Instead, I had my information passed to the maintenance people to call me when they want to come over. I can make it back home in less than an hour so that should suffice. But considering how well people pay attention to these details (like when I first signed that contract that they wouldn't enter without my presence or signed consent when I first moved in), they'll still try to use their key on my door and give me another whine notice that I changed my locks without giving them the key. As soon as they respect that contract and my privacy, I might think of letting them have an emergency key in the safe. But I sure as hell wont be giving them one for maintenance. I wont trust any of them in my apartment again.

Oh, to those who sent those freaking mass IMs feeding the interwebs rumor mill, you forgot to sign it, "Goodnight Sweet Prince." /b/...

Some outtakes from the Samurai Deeper Kyo DVDs:

As for something more scary than Anderson...

I also have three books that I keep stacked behind some filing baskets. These I don't keep in the open but I like to have them near because they make me smile. They're actually notebooks that I've never used, I just like the covers. Two of them being volumes of Icha Icha from Naruto and the third being a Death Note. The Death Note I kept behind the other two so all that can be seen is the blank black binding. Turns out some one rooted about and thought I was making a kill list.

While I will not deny I jot names of people I hate in a notebook at home (the Bride from Kill Bill stole my idea), it's not like I'm some trench coat wearing wangsting teenager who's actually going to do something about it. It's a way I shake off stress by putting my anger towards someone in the writing of their name and then shelving it away out of my mind.

I have nothing written in the book at my desk. I understand the scary thought of someone making a list to kill at work since a girl I work with did mention having a list too, but there was no evidence that I was doing that. And I would hate to believe that someone actually thought that anything in that book was real to begin with. But someone was insulted by something that was hidden on my desk because there's no reason I should feel insulted that someone was even rooting around.

A part of me does smile inside though that someone actually believes I'm capable of such acts.

Today, I researched two different vendors asking for payment for some invoices that we didn't have record of. Both times when I tried to e-mail my findings, I couldn't gather and sort my thoughts properly. I had to rewrite e-mails multiple times over as I tried to make it clear. The more effort I put into trying to clarify, the more it was just like rambling. Kinda like my blog posts...

I don't know what happened, but I really do feel like I'm losing brain cells. It's more than just a 'blonde moment'. One coworker asked multiple times for a SKU of a display piece when we don't inventory displays so they don't have SKUs. That's a blonde moment. I've gotten worse than that. I stare a stack of invoices that I've already gone through twice and I forget what it was that I was looking for or find out from them. Maybe it's just that case since what started as a simple vendor payment request turned into an inventory problem due to poor receiving and crediting. Everytime I looked at the stack, I found another problem. Oh, and a note to all small business owners: come up with your own part numbers and don't just use the line numbers from the PO of your customer. Especially when you have multiple POs from the same customer and each PO uses different line numbers for the same items. I'm here to help organize my company, not tell you how to organize your small business.

... Look! I derailed again! Now that I've lost my train of thought...

Anyway, I was bored this weekend which seemed to drag. Must have been because I went out on Friday night and drinking seems to always make the next day last forever like it slows down time. No, I wasn't drunk still or hungover, it just always seems like that to me. During this superlong day even after staying in my PJs until 3pm, I decided to leave the house to see a movie. On the way to said movie, I decided that I want my hair cut. Yes, that's how I decide when to cut my hair. After all, it has been 15 months since the last time this mane saw a blade. And man was that blade friendly.

I chopped off more of my hair than last time and the sad thing is, I want it shorter. I wanted really short. Not buzzed short, but fun-to-gel short. The guy cutting my hair wasn't understanding me though. He seemed so reluctant after chopping off a foot of hair to make anything but a bob cut. I kept telling him shorter and he would just use those annoying 'texturing' scissors that normally kill my hair. I even tried telling him I wanted it more like a guy cut grown out by shortening the back some more. More 'texturing'... I gave up on him and told him it was fine.

When I got home, I attacked the Pat Benatar circa 1980 mini-mullet to try and soften the transition from the bangs to the back. Either that, or get some skin tight plastic pants, spike heel boots and a striped shirt. It is better, but I wanted to keep on going to the back but I was uncoordinated enough with the sides. I'm hoping that Candice can help me fix it on Tuesday. I was just thinking of shortening and thinning out the back but I'm thinking of just shortening the whole thing.

I really wanted to do this so I could play around with the different lengths as it grows out. I was getting way too bored with the long hair. Oooo, pony tail or bun. My god, the choices are so varied...

I was reminded why it was that I preferred to go to matinees but I didn't have much of a choice since this was a two-night showing only. Most people there were loud morons. I don't mind so much the screaming and cheering when their favorite characters come on the screen or say certain lines, it was the commentaries from the peanut gallery I could have done without. And they all sound the same, people who think they're the biggest fan and know more than anyone else in the theatre. One person behind me kept talking about bootlegs already being out. I've had this movie on DVD for the past couple of months but it's called an import, not a bootleg. Just because it's the first time it's been in an American theatre doesn't mean it's the only way it could have gotten here.

Another person next to me kept having to tell the girl he was with what was going on in the movie. Problem is, he kept getting her more confused since the movie didn't follow all the same events as the manga and anime so things he would tell her would turn out differently in the movie.

That said, I do like how they changed the events. The manga and the anime drags out like a well played game of chess so things had to be changed for a quicker character development in the movie. It accomplishes its goal of showing how evil Light can be as well leave the set up for the second movie.

I'm not really a fan of dubbed live action movies. No matter how hard they try, it still looks corny. At least they used the same voice actors as the anime series.

And yes, a green Isuzu Trooper kills one of the people. My car got in on the action too.

And it's only fitting to watch Weezer's video on YouTube: