Month: October 2005

omg u totaly flaked out wtf
dinnar!!111

My birthday comes on the 29th, and I’m hoping to pull people together and do something for once. I’ve sorted the recipient of this post so that only those who are invited can see it… please let me know if you can come by replying to this entry.

Where When and What:
Oct. 29th, around 3:00PM at the Nickle Arcade off El Toro, for a few games of DDR/ITG/etc, and hang out.

Invitation List:
George, Ann, Justin, Kevin, Steve, Sid, Cindy
(and whoever else wants to come, but I doubt anyone would)

I’ll try to bug you over the course of next week via AIM if I get no replies, in case you don’t check your LJ often.

Not a lie. I just woke up from a dream like that. Since nobody likes reading long posts I’ll just give you highlights:

-At one point I was at Blizzcon and snuck into the concert even though I don’t have a pass for it
-Gabe and Tycho’s home was not locked, but I was excused when they had to interview (?) Gabe Newell, the guy behind HL2
-The character who hooked up with me into the raid is named Zodiac
-Somehow during the raid I shift right clicked and took a shadowcraft belt and I didn’t even realize it until the end of the raid

Okay, I think my paypal account is compromised. Since about a month ago, I’ve been getting strange e-mails from paypal about my account activities. I tried logging in, but somehow my password didn’t work. To their credit, I do have multiple versions of multiple passwords to fit all the different stupid password requirements (start with a number, must have a number, end with a number…), so I just ignored it since I don’t use the account anyway.

Now that there’s a new e-mail address added to the account, that probably means I won’t even be able to log in again, ever. Paypal has no e-mail support and there’s one single dainty phone number on the entire site… so I’m fucked. I’ll try to call customer service tomorrow, and quite possibly I’ll have to close my credit card entirely or at least change the number somehow.

All this for an account that I don’t even use. Fucking paypal.

Okay, can somebody explain to me: why does the microphone recording volume has ANYTHING to do with pops and clicks an playback? I’ve been hearing clicks and pops when I start playing mp3 (and only mp3 files, downloaded anime plays fine). You have no idea how annoying that gets when you try to hear things like the piano tracks in the Advent Children OST that I recently found. Anyway, I just sort of remembered that I had this problem before and fixed it. At 1am in the morning, and I remembered it for no particular reason.

By the way, I’m playing World of Warcraft again. Yes, I am weak, and thank you for asking.

I’ve been trying to come up with (yet another) of my own trading card game lately. At first I played around with the idea of encapsulating D&D into a card game format, creating a DM deck type and a characters deck type, with the kicker that

– character decks can be played against each other like traditional 1 on 1 battle card games
– DM decks can be pre-constructed instead of controlled by a “DM”, so players can solo challenge a scenario solitare style
– DM decks can be shuffled and pulled in random order to create random dungeon scenarios
– The game facilitates a group of players trying to run a normal role playing session completely within the limits of the game rules
– And along with the last point, there needs to be a concept of a “higher level” character deck or play mode and the same goes to DM decks.

Yeah, it’d be kick ass if all of the above problems are solved, but so far, I’m stuck at trying to resolve combat as non-traditionally as possible (i.e. attack/defense or power/toughness) without resorting to dice rolling (which simply doesn’t belong in a TCG). If anyone ever has an interest in that sort of thing, feel free to put in your input…

Meanwhile, I just figured I would hijack the “greatest MMO idea EVAR” that Justin thought of and build a TCG around this idea:

You, the player, is a nobody who got rejected by this popular hot chick during High School. Now that you’ve entered the same college with her and a bunch of other guys (players) who also got rejected by her, the lot of you losers conjure up an idea after the consumption of much, much too many alcohol: that you’d all change identity and become “players”, and whoever acquire enough “playa powar” to hook up with this chick who dumped you wins the “game” in addition to being able to exact revenge on this… let’s call her “Jade, that bitch who dumped you before”.

Okay, so to accomplish your goal, you have to start assuming different identities (because obviously being you just isn’t good enough). Each identity gives you some “babe attracting powers” like the illusion of money, fortune, fame, mojo, etc. Obviously the more identities you can juggle with the more babes you can attract, but having more identities also mean you’ll become more vulerable to other players who wants to debunk you in some way… still trying to figure out rule mechanics, but you get the idea.

Then the “chick” cards become your arsenal/objective/liability all in one. You win the game by collecting enough chicks with an added total of some resource value (so as to attract the attention of Jade TBWDYB). Girls are divided into categories:

-there’s the shy type that’s loyal, less questioning about your various identities, and low maintanance, but worth little to work toward your objective, but you can construct a deck around getting a horde of these “fangirls” into a weenie rush deck.

-there’s the rebel troublemaking types that works you toward your objective as well as obliterating other people’s lives – ruining their identities, scaring away relationships… the only problem is that they’re just as prone to turn on you as they are to others.

-then there’s the royal highness types who just won’t get off their high thrones. They devour up the scene if you get them but they’re high maintainance, and can turn out to be psycho if fetched to the wrong side of the fence.

Then there’s the sporty type, the foreign exchange student… basically pulling everything out of the book in a harlem anime. Then you start throwing in surprises and dirty tricks and you have a complete game of tricks, lies, and mayhem, and hopefully lots of good times.

I’ll post once I get some demo cards going…

When I last tried to compile my CD albums, I was hoping that it’d be the last time I do it, hence the fancy CD labels and all… but there’s too much need for improvement that I’ve done another iteration of CDs, and from the way some of the CDs sound, possibly more revisions. But all in all, I think that a lot of the revisions did make things better. Song List and comments follow.

Anime Crossroad

Ai (Excel Saga)
Dopo Il Sogno – Yume no ato ni
Hitori no Yoru (GTO)
Aishitene Motto (Tenjo Tenge)
Loosey (Burst Angel)
Chisana Tegami (Midori no Hibi)
Yogiri no Honey
Glowing Bare Feet (Lodoss War)
Tori no Uta (Air)
Aitai Remix (Kita He)
Bomb A Head! Returns (Tenjo Tenge)
Shizuke (GTO)
Cruel Angel Thesis (EVA)
Thank You! (Bleach)
Suddenly (BPS)
Tenshi no Yubikiri (Kare Kano)
Life is a Boat (Bleach)
Second Flight (Onegai Twins)
Shikino Uta (Samurai Champloo)
Kaze no Hana (Somedays Dreamers)
Raspberry Heaven (AzuDai)
Shikkari! TRY La Lai (AzuDai)

The “Kajiura Unpure” experiment is an utter failure – Mixing Anime OTs and ETs into purely musical OST tracks is jarring to the ears. So now the (mostly) OTs and ETs are seperated into its own CD. This feels much more like the older Anime music CDs that I have, and initial test hearing indicates that it works pretty well overall

Kajiura Pure

Hime Boshi (Mai Hime)
Kyou no Hajimari (Mai Hime)
Magic and Sword (.hack//SIGN)
Your Place (Madlax)
Obsession (.hack//SIGN)
Mai Yume! (Mai Hime)
Limelda (Madlax)
Pursuit (Madlax)
Elenore (Madlax)
Nowhere (Madlax)
Taisetsu na Hito (Mai Hime)
Key of the Twlight (.hack//SIGN)
Snow (Noir)
Ensei (Mai Hime)
Gakuten Ou Kenzan (Mai Hime)
Romance (Noir)
Shining Days (Mai Hime)
The Day, Too Far (Madlax)
Lovely Intersection (Mai Hime)
To Find Your Flower (Madlax)
Flower by the Pond (Mai Hime)
Koi wo Shita Kara (Mai Hime)
Chiisana Hoshi ga Oriru Toki
B.T. (.hack//SIGN)
Tokiro no Mai (Mai Hime)
Fake Wings (.hack//SIGN)
Mata Aou Ne (Mai Hime)

Since *certain individual* was uncomfortable with the “un-Kajiura” tracks in the “Kajiura” CD, here’s a 90%ish pure mix of music and songs composed by Yuki Kajiura. Yes, I did say 90%, but the songs are from the same Anime and so blends much better than previous attempts. I honestly think I don’t have enough materials to work with, though, and some of the music I picked feels subpar.

More Discomfort

Parental Discretion (Clip)
Don’t Let The Man Get You Down
What is Love
Sex Friends (OT)
William Hung (Clip)
Stacy’s Mom
Bad Touch
All Your Base (Clip)
Enter Sandman
Bimbo Number 5
Hi Ho! (Clip)
Menya Zovut Shnur
Fuzzy Math
Japan Break Industries (Clip)
She Blocked Me
Starwars Gangsta Rap
Maxwell’s Silver Hammer
He’s In the Jailhouse Now
Unwell
Flaming Moes (Clip)
Born to be Alive
Quake Master
Magic Missile (Clip)
The Terrible Mr. Grimshaw
Bananaphone
Baby Got Back
Tseng’s Intro (Clip)
Dragoste Din Tei
Your Horoscope For Today
Moskau, Moskau

More wierd crap from the internets. The one that says “clip” are short 10 second audio clips seperated by TV statics. The statics turn out to be way too loud in comparison to the rest of the CD though, which means I’ll need to come back and retouch this… with more wierd crap.

Digital Opera

Melodies of Life (FFIX)
The Sims 2 Theme
World of Warcraft Theme
Max Payne Theme
Orchestrated Theme (MGS2)
Trinsic (UO)
Lonely Rolling Star
To Zanarkland (FFX)
Isolated (VTM:B)
Arise Within You (Parasite Eve)
Opening (FFVII:AC)
Theme (VTM:B)
Katamari on the Rock
Out of Phase
Ocllo (UO)
Downtown (VTM:B)
Lost Painting (C:SOTN)
Tatakau Monotachi (FFVII:AC)
Dance of Gold (C:SOTN)
Title (Morrowind)
The Best Is Yet To Come (MGS)
Stormwind (WoW)

This compilation started its life as a collection of mellow tracks from games, anime, and classical music. All of the tracks were so slow, though, that I fall asleep everytime I try to arrange the song orders. So I re-themed the album and the result is much more of a mix bag. The CD was originally made for people who would feel uncomfortable listening to any of the other CDs, but as it stands the Kajiura stuff would probably work better…

Bemani Speed

I didn’t change the song list at all. I did correct the arrangement of a few songs though.

Bemani Soul

No change to this CD either. I swaped a song but don’t remember what I swapped. The song list is much weaker than the speedy counterpart, but I’m hoping to boost this CD with In The Groove songs once I get my hands on them somehow.

Cafe HeartBreak

This one remains unchanged for rather obvious reasons. There’s not really any personally significant event that is associated with songs to add to the CD. Plenty of space here though, this thing is only like 60 minutes, I think.

Midnight Estacy

Burned With Desire
Somnabulist
Slow
You Promised Me
Drifting Away
Don’t Call Me Baby
If You’re Not The One
Intuition
Never
Burn For You
Dove
Surrender
Come Into My Dreams
Something Happened On The Way to Heaven
Come Into My World

The Trance Tuesday + KDL music CD didn’t work out either, mainly because Justin’s stuff are much longer than the radio edits I typically have… and putting all of his stuff at the start of a CD is just… it just drags on and on. Making 2 CDs even the songs out, and allows me to put some of the songs I missed back in. Thematically the songs are all love related, but it hardly makes an emotional dent like Cafe Heartbreak does.

Midnight Fever

Look At us
Shiny Disco Ball
Burning Up For You
Days Go By
Protect Your Mind
Heaven
E
Sunlight
Don’t Give Up
Komodo
I See Right Through To You
Sandstorm
Shine
Omnibus
Castle In the Sky
Breathe
One More Time
Murder On The Dance Floor

Dance tracks that doesn’t belong in the first CD pretty much ends up here, but strictly speaking this is not the “non-love related” collection, because you just run out of songs pretty quickly that way.

Overall, these improvements are made:

1) The names of the CDs are much more unified, with less caption and utilitarian descriptions.
2) Song lists are now 100% clear to read on the CDs, not that you’d see it unless I post pictures.
3) The song lists are much more conservative and involve much less genre/theme/source/artist crossing than the previous attempt. It just seems to work better this way.

Well, more music to listen to when I get terribly lost.