Week before xmas

Today is Monday. I have school today. I have no school tomorrow. Or for the rest of the year. YAY! And Christmas is coming up. MORE YAY! And... I give up. I have no idea what to write about.

Ugh.

I accidentally turned on my alarm clock yesterday. I ended up getting up at 7:30 A.M. instead of... whenever I actually should have gotten up. It was not fun. Now I'm almost falling asleep with every minute, because I am tired. Very, very tired. Today is not going to be fun.

Today is a lesson day.

So, today I have a cello lesson. Mom and I are both heading to it, because Dad has a lot of meetings today. The potato salad that Mom and Dad made yesterday was a big success, with pretty much everyone liking it. I even was asked by my teacher for the recipe. I consider that a good thing.

Japanese

Orchestra went well yesterday. Today is Japanese class, with the final, and clay class, where we will glaze our big pieces. I'm looking forward to the Japanese final, as I want to see how I will do.

This weekend

Was spent doing orchestra stuff. I had a gig at the tree lot on Thursday. And then another one on Saturday. and then I had a recital on Sunday. Today I have my last orchestra rehearsal until the new year, and tomorrow is my last Japanese class this semester. And Christmas! When did it get so close to Christmas, anyway? What happened to the year? I say this every year, but still.

My essay

Today, my subject is my essay that I wrote yesterday for the Ocean Grove Schoolwide Writing Assignment. The subject was:

'What do you want to be when you get out of school?" It was supposed to be five paragraphs, each paragraph at least three sentences long. When I was taught those sorts of things, one paragraph was at least four, and it's only gone up from there.

Video games are experiences. But who creates what makes up those experiences? Who is the one who creates the world that the players are in and can imagine doing things in themselves; who creates the characters that are interesting and seem to just jump out of the screen into life; and who creates storylines that can fascinate and move anyone who reads or listens to it. Creating that, and more, is the job of a video game writer, and that is what I want to become when I get out of school.

The job of the writer is to come of with the game’s story, characters, dialogue between the characters, writing the game journals and the development blog, doing commentary, writing instruction manuals, and basically doing everything else that requires a writer. They will often find themselves working hand in hand with other members of the design team, and they are often freelance, working other things as well. Writing for video games, as one might expect, requires additional and uncommon skills when compared to what you need for writing books, but you still need to be able to tell a good story.

To me, the idea of establishing the setting for the game and world in which the game takes place is extremely interesting. The exploration and discovery of beautiful new places is always one of the most fascinating and interesting things about a game. The world in which a game takes place is one of the most important things in the game. No matter how good the story or characters are, if the world they are in does not absorb you, then there is no point. To me, the idea of having other people explore my world and be fascinated by what it offers is an extremely thrilling and exciting thought. To see its sights, and hear its sounds. To be interested by its history. To find out how other people see my own world.

Creating the characters also seems like an interesting thing to do. When the player is playing the game, they are always controlling one of the characters. Without good characters, nobody really is attached to their character and so they would play the game differently than normal. Without interesting and fun characters whose abilities reflect that, nobody would want to play the game as a source of enjoyment.

I find that games can offer to be an exciting and dynamic storytelling medium. Games are very different storytelling mediums than books or even movies. In books, the characters are not moving on the page at all, you can’t really hear them and you have to describe what happens. With movies, you can actually get a bit more done for average sized books because you do not have to take the time to describe every little detail that happens, but you lose in complexity and subtlety of character interaction. With games, however, you can choose to either have full CGI cut scenes or text boxes, both of them fully voiced over.

One game can even have as much storyline as a full series of books. There are advantages and disadvantages for each way of telling your story in a game. For the CGI, it looks better and you don’t have to describe anything, therefore making best use of your time and also being able to see interesting action occur. With text boxes, you can still voice it over, but because text boxes cost less and are simpler, you can make all sorts of different paths that the players can choose, creating differing cut scenes, places to visit, and outcomes.

That brings me to the other reason I would want to show my story in the form of a game: interactivity. The player is the one getting the characters from one place to the next, even if there is no other place to go. The player can choose whether to advance onward, or explore the area and make their characters stronger. Even during a game’s cut scenes, you can choose what your character says, and that can affect the whole game’s storyline, either just that scene or even the ending can change. Video game writers can create an extremely high level of interactivity that you just cannot achieve with books or movies.

Video game writers are people who control every bit of text and every bit of content in the game. The do the entire characterizations of all of the characters and the world. They direct how the players advance the story. They are extremely creative people who can create entire worlds and envision how they are supposed to look like to the player. They effect the entire way the players experience the game, and creating those experiences is something I want to do.

Riding in the vette

Riding in the vette is an interesting and enlightening experience. For one thing, it always is fun. The car can move rather quickly, after all. For another thing, the vette is a really low car, which means that you can se a lot more than you normally could. The speed is comfortable, and the chairs seem to fit themselves around your body to what they need. To what you need. It causes a feeling of comfort, but you also feel like you are in a driving game. A very realistic one.

The LARP

Yesterday, I had quite a lot of fun. First, I had my shortsword and buckler along with my spear and I decided to wear my gauntlet. Unfortunately, I went back and grabbed a buckler after realizing that I had grabbed something too big. By the time I got back, the mission was over. I was gone for at most two minutes. Then everyone got eight gold. So I bought another wakizashi and gauntlet combo. I found that, like at Tony's LARP, dual wakizashis works really well. So I got pretty good. Then we went on a mission to deal with a drake. We almost got it, but about half of us were wiped out by those ----ing mole sharks. (I kid you not.) I was one of those people. They ate my weapons, too. So we went around, and that time I was a baddie. And so that time, on the way back from the mission with the goodies, who had managed to defeat and take the drake hostage, along with one of the mole sharks, the baddies won. We defeated all of the goodies carrying the mole shark and ate it. Then we defeated all of the goodies carrying the drake and ate it. Then we found a wounded dwarf goodie, and ate that one too. So, when we got back, we got to demand reimbursement for what we lost. We each got back one equiment set's worth of stuff, so I had another wakizashi and gauntlet. Then I traded in my shield and shortsword for another four gold, and bought another wakizashi and gauntlet. So I had my stuff back. So then we did small things, because it was absolutely pouring, and I, as a blacksmith, worked to clean up the weapons and stick them under the tarp. I got six gold for it. Then, Stone and I made a sacrifice to our goddess (Hel) to make him a half vampire. Essentially, one of his other characters is on good terms with Hel, the norse goddess of the underworld and death. So even if I PD, I can get ressurected by Hel. However, I sacrificed my ring fingers for stone, so now I have two skeleton fingers that I cannot move when playing as my character. I just have to tape them together. It's not like I actively use them to hold weapons during LARP anyway. Besides that, I can now call myself 'Skeleton Fingers', although it is quite likely that Stone will just call me 'Boney', because he can.

NaNoWriMo

Thirty days and nights of literary abandon. The month of November, given something fun. It's not December, so you don't have the advent calendar or working up to Christmas yet. It's past October, so you don't have to look forward to Halloween or anything else during the month, so you just look forward to being able to write. And write. And write. Or, you practice cello and do your chores and school work (and then write) or you eat (and then write) or you sleep and (and then write) or you go to the bathroom (and write) or you go out somewhere (and then write when you get home).

Today is another day.

I have no idea what to blag about today. Mom is still sick, Dad has meetings most of the morning, and the only thing significant happening to me is my cello lesson. And it's November. So I have nothing to blag about.

Today is Blag day

And Mom is still sick. So, I will blag about my favorite anime. Which is actually a surprisingly hard debate. I could talk about Darker Than Black and its Chinese Electric Batman protagonist, but that one is over and I think I want to talk about one still airing. So, it's going to be Star Driver. Which is an awesome giant mecha anime by studio BONES.

The Voice actor the main character, Takuto, is Mamoru Miyatano. Which means nothing to people who haven't watched Gundam OO, where he voiced the main character, Setsuna F. Seiei or Ouran Highschool Host Club, where he voiced rather hilariously Tamaki there. He also voiced Light in Death Note. Essentially, he voices a character in the role of Setsuna with the personality and hilarity of Tamaki. Its honestly surprising just how entertaining it is. So, I end up looking forward to when the next episode comes out.

The cold

Mom has a cold. That means that she feels unusually cold, for some reason. She also has an icky throat and some coughs. I got this cold last week, lasting about from Wednesday until Saturday, and so, of course, Mom now has it worse than I got it. Which sucks for her. But, she just has a really icky throat, which is better than some people, who have apparently been running fevers. So, I end up with no schedule today, not that I can really blame Mom for it.

NaNo Update

So, today, my blag entry is supposed to be NaNo update, but I have no idea what that means. Do I put up part of my novel? Do I write about how cool my novel is, or how much better I have gotten at writing? Or how much fun I have doing crazy people? Or how I am mixing mystery elements into my regular story, and assume that people are enough on top of it to figure out what I mean? I don't know.

Veteren's Day

Today is veteran's day. That means that today, most schools get the day off. Not mine. We are taking tomorrow off, because it is easier to take a three-day weekend than to take a day in the middle of the week off. So, we are taking tomorrow off, rather than today. Not that I am going to complain about a three day weekend. I have an icky cold, as well, which completely and totally sucks. I keep on coughing and hacking up flem, but it's not as bad as yesterday, when I had trouble going to sleep until like 4 a.m. and ended up spending the entire morning sleeping.

LARP again

Today, I get to blag about the LARP on Sunday. Don't ask me why I didn't do it on Monday, I do not know. So, essentially, the fictional world that the LARP takes place in is turning into America. No, seriously. Prices are up 25% (at least) everywhere. But, enough of that. Playing the game itself was fun, and I wound up with some good stuff on my character, although it kind of counteracts the whole thing with the Saturday group character that I have having no weapons whatsoever. From what I have heard, however, my Sunday character will have to lose almost half of his equipment that is armor because mages cannot wear armor.

Homework

Homework. The bane of most people's existence. You must do it. If you don't, you fall behind and/or fail the class. But you don't want to do it. Because it is time consuming and usually fairly boring. But you need to do it. If you don't do it, you get in trouble. Or you fail the class. And so, you end up spending the evenings working on you homework for you classes, because you need the class to graduate and don't want to fail. So you work on it, except on all of Saturday and Sunday afternoon. Trying to keep up to date.

Laundry

Laundry. One chore that nobody likes doing, but is also one of the most necessary chores to do. Without laundry, we have no clothes, instead forced to suffer in the cold. We could not go outside because we had no clothing, and would be forced to wear old, dirty, and grimy clothing instead of anything clean and comfortable.

Therefore, it should be obvious that doing the laundry is a very, very important thing indeed, for if it is not done, then nobody will have any clothes to wear and grumpiness will be everywhere. And the overall grumpiness will cause everyone to overreact to every little thing, eventually leading to an increased murder rate and eventual total societal collapse.

My favorite manga

Today, I have to blag about my favorite manga. I will honestly say that it is not Bleach. It is just the only one that had a character with a natural hair color that matched mine... wait a minute... okay, the only one with a character that I could find a cosplay of... wait a minute (one google search later) nope. I cannot find a cosplay of the main character of my favorite manga, The World God Only Knows. It is hilarious. The main character is absolutely awesome. The level of hilarity is epic. His expressions are priceless. He is just constantly playing his games, even during class, but his advantage is quite simple:

He has perfect test scores. He always gets 100% on all subjects, even P.E. (if I recall correctly). And yet, all he does during class is play games. He knows all of the test answers before even the teachers for the class. He can guess the test scores based on the teachers' personalities. Even if I did not like the main plotlines (which I do) I would call this my favorite manga anyway. Now, my favorite anime... that's a different story.

Montara

Montara is where I live. It is the planet between Half Moon Bay and Pacifica. I have been asked many times what planet was I from, and that is pretty much my universal answer:
"The one between Half Moon Bay and Pacifica." It pretty much shuts them up every time. I mean, are you going to argue with someone who gives you such an exact answer? It is always an enjoyable thing to mix a bit of truth into your statements when you are yanking someone's chain.

I can also look at people weirdly, because half of the people in my orchestra have never really left San Francisco while still being in California.

Swiftwind

As it appears, I have been told to write about the main character of my novel this year. He kind of is vaguely evil, or at least misguided, but I am going to enjoy writing him. But, he also shares a name with a weather effect. That is, fast-moving wind. So, I can write about either the character or the weather condition. And so I will write about both.

Essentially, what swiftwind does is run around really fast, with the "wind behind his back" quite literally. He carries around a sword, and runs really fast behind enemy lines really quickly. He isn't nearly as broken and Endon or Lightonin, but he gets the job done. He is one of my least favorite of my characters, though.

Today

Today is an Ian - sees - how - many - words - he - can - write - in - a - half - an - hour - day. Just like yesterday. In fact yesterday was also an Ian - sees - how - many - words - he - can - write - in - a - half - an - hour - day for my blag entry. In fact, because of the fact that Mom has factually declared it to be a fact that all of my (entirely factual) blag entries count for my novel word count, I am factually just writing a factual account of what it is like to factually attempt to do this is. (Can you tell it is a fact that it is November now?) Facts, facts, facts. Did you know that the more you say a word, the less meaning it has? I did not. That was an extremely factual fact. There is no such thing as a false fact, or a bad fact.

What is with the word "fact" anyway? As far as I am concerned, it is a fact that factually speaking, the word "fact" sounds extremely factually weird. I mean, factually speaking, it sounds kind of like a bodily function, or some other factual thing. I mean, really, factually speaking, what is up with that word? It goes beyond normal levels of factual weirdness and into the factually ridiculous category. What is with that word?

Well, I am running out of facts to rant about, so here ends my fully factual account of how many words I can write in half an hour turned into fifteen minutes (Answer: IT'S OVER 200!!!! (Fact.)), so here ends my Ian - sees - how - many - words - he - can - write - in - a - half - an - hour - day.

Edit: It is actually OVER 300!!!!. I checked. Factually. Which somehow kind of sounds like actually. Like the phrase: "actually, it is a fact" was merged into one word, and they called it factually. For some reason.

The day after Halloween

The day after Halloween is never a very fun day, especially if it is a weekday. For one thing, you are usually going to bed quite a bit later than you normally would for Halloween, and for another, the candy that you eat can give you a sugar rush. I got one, amazingly enough, even though I never get sugar rushes. Another thing is that having to get up early to go to the dentist the day after Halloween is also not really a good thing. So, I woke up. After some effort, I managed to get up and go to the bathroom and get dressed. Then we had to leave. We got there. I got anesthesia for my mouth. Then I got my cavities filled. Then I went home and went to sleep. And now I am awake.

In praise of Friday

Hooray for Friday, the end of the week!
Hooray for Friday, the end of the struggle!
Hooray for Friday, the start of the weekend!
Hooray for Friday, the start of Saturday!

Yeah, and now I am out of lines. So I will stop. Is it just me, or did last week seem a lot longer than this week did? I mean, the only major events this week were orchestra, Japanese class, the Meet and Greet for NaNo, and my lesson today. Not like last week, where we had something large that we had to do to every day of the week. Like doctor's appointments. Or something similar. Over these past two weeks, starting from last Monday, we have had 9 days in a row of stuff. Not exactly the most restful or fun week I've ever had.

Halloween

Today, I am to blag about Halloween. I have decided to blag about the history of Halloween, after stating what my costume is.

I am going as Aizen Sousuke from Bleach, post-soul society arc. I am going as him because I like the character, he wears glasses, and has the same hair color as me.

Halloween is essentially a large ploy on the part of the candy and costume selling companies to sell way more candy and costumes then they normally would, with the candy just being at movies and the costumes being for like, cosplay things on something. It would not sell at all. So, they have their sell lots of candy thing.

What I am currently reading

Currently, I am reading two things: the icon for my blag as I am posting a new post, and all of the little tabs above it. I was previously reading my schedule, so that I know what Mom wants me to blag about today, and before that I was reading the inside of my eyes. That book has some pretty cool colors on the cover.

The book I am currently reading is The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins. It is a very interesting book, and I find it to be quite entertaining. I think it establishes a good post-apocalyptic world vibe, and I find it be quite the good read.

Two Things That I Worry About

So, today, Mom has told me to blag about two things that I worry about. So, here they are:

1: The future of our country. We are in an economic recession. We have this large paranoia about terrorists. We are getting to the point of being willing to sacrifice our liberty for a false "safety". We do not care about the environment, at least not as much as we should, and the big businesses only care about making more money. Our public school system is horrid, the country is stupid. We are all obsessed with pointless religion. It is fearful for what direction we are going.

2: Doing a music performance and sounding bad, and then having people clap anyway. I don't want to sound bad and get rewarded for it. It makes me feel bad. I would much rather do a bad performance and get told that, than to know that the audience just doesn't care what I do.

The Chamber Music Recital

In the chamber music recital yesterday, I performed the Shostakovich Quartet No. 1, 1st movement with my quartet. We sounded really good, especially when the cellist figured out that he was a measure ahead and got back on halfway through the first page. The solo never happened. Don't ask about it.

Seriously, don't. It was really bad.

NaNoWriMo

I am really looking forward to NaNoWriMo this year. I mean, sure, I probably said the same thing last year and the year before, but I feel like I am more excited this year than last. I know I say that every year. I just am really looking forward to NaNo. I've been spending time fleshing out my female lead, because I know that she is a rather flat character right now. I want a strong female lead, not a doormat. Doormats are no fun. They tend to die in my world. With nobody complaining. Because no-one likes them. Because the never do anything of worth. Besides stand there and go "Oh, (insert hero name here)!" and then get kidnapped.

In my world, the hero would just say "Screw you" and not bother saving her. Because nobody liked her anyway.

Cancer

Cancer is when you have a cell or group of cells are displaying uncontrolled growth. Recent developments have caused cancer to be drastically reduced in terms of the overall threat that it poses. It was previously pretty much a death sentence to have cancer. Nowadays, cancer is pretty much the same as any other ongoing medical condition. Take a pill every night, and you will have it well contained. This is an interesting, as well as good, thing.

Pottery class

Yesterday, I had pottery class. I had fun, as usual. We were working on the wheel, and I built a couple of tall, thin vases. My teacher wanted me to start working on centering my pots myself and starting them, and I did work on it a bit, but I wound up losing half of my clay. It also tends to make your hand hurt when centering. She put it back together after my epic failure, and so I'll try again in a couple of weeks.

Orchestra

Yesterday I had orchestra, and it went as normal, besides the fact that I had auditions. I think auditions went well, and Dad said I sounded really good. I thought that was nice, because the chair I was on was a bench and I am not used to sitting on benches. I kind of had to go to one side in order to make sure that my strap was well placed to hold my cello properly, and I was at an angle that I am not used to.

During orchestra, Mrs. Lim had the cellos each playing their individual parts on the Brandenburg 3, and I was on the 2nd part. The other guy on the part was Daniel, our 2nd chair. Daniel and I were playing our part on our own (Mrs. Lim wanted to hear each cello part individually), and I heard a tapping noise. The kind that comes from touching your cello. The kind that none of our parts have. The kind that distracts you. I knew very well that it was our last chair, Josef (He tends to make noises on his cello when we aren't doing anything, so it was easy to figure out.), and so after we were done, I turned around, angry, looked him in the eye and said:
"It is very rude to make noises on your cello when somebody else is playing!"
Except loud enough that the entire orchestra could hear. He looked at me wide-eyed and shocked, as if he could not imagine that anyone would dare to say that to him. I swear Mrs. Lim was almost laughing. He stopped making noises on his cello after that.

The Mentalist

The Mentalist is a show on CBS that is probably one of my favorites. We mostly just watch it when the full season DVDs come out, because it's too popular to just put online and we don't get T.V. Anyway, the show is about the titular mentalist Patrick Jane, a consultant for the California Bureau of Investigation, (Yes, the entire show, with the exception of a short trip to the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe, takes place in California, although most of the places are made up.) which needs to "Work on brand recognition a bit." Jane tends towards being out of line, uncontrolled, and insult rich people who don't like being insulted, but also "closes cases like a fiend", causing him to be unable to be fired. After getting a new boss, she outright told him that the only way he will get kicked off the job is if he kills someone - anything else and he will be fine. It's an interesting show, and one that I highly recommend watching. Seasons 1 and 2 are both available on DVD, and season 3 is currently on air.

Pumpkin Festival

This week marked the official start of Pumpkin Festival, the worst time of the year. The traffic is terrible. You cannot go anywhere you want to go because there is so much traffic heading into town. The smart locals just hide in their homes until it all blows over. The really smart locals leave town for the weekend.

Today.

Today I need to make a blag entry. But I have no idea what to blag about. I still have no idea what our schedule is, so I get to blag about something. But I don't know what. So I will blag about Japanese class.

I did not sing very well. It sounded pretty bad. What I should have sung, considering that I like the song, it is sung in Japanese, and by a guy (so it is not embarrassing to sing) is this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoDawd3SYfU

What I sung was a children's song. That sounded really bad and out of sync with everyone else.

Post retreat- Mom's side

While I was having fun at the retreat this weekend, Mom wasn't. She got stuck babysitting. A large number of five-year-olds. She had no fun at all babysitting. Then she got Babysitter's disease yesterday. She now feels well enough to go to art class, but she was still a bit unhappy.

The Cazadero Retreat 2010 - Part 3 (The Game of Musical Jeopardy)

If you have not yet read parts 1 and 2, do so here and here. Now, onto my favorite part of the retreat, as well as the conclusion to my epic orchestra retreat saga:

Musical Jeopardy

I was placed on team 4. There were seven teams, going up from 1. We came in third.

The seven categories were as follows:
Music theory
Name that tune
Compsers
Instruments
Musical Vocabulary
GGP History and Trivia
GGP Misc.

Membership of my team was as follows:

Me.
Keary (Viola girl that was in senior last year, and camerata this year).
Two girls from camerata.
Bass girl from junior.
Annoying Indian girl (Known for getting really into it and yelling loudly whenever we got a question wrong or right, and same thing with the other team. Every. Single. Time. It got on my nerves really fast).

The first question answered wrong was by team 2. It was a 1000 point question. They never made it very far.

I, as the only guy in the group, (and probably the tallest as well) got declared the "Person-who-stands-up-and-declares-our-question-and-the-answer-to-our-question-loudly-with-testosterone". A role that I had a large amount of fun with. We came up with the answers (usually either me or Keary, although the two camerata girls helped too.) and I stood up and yelled them. Similar thing with what question to pick. Here is how it worked:
Me: "Vocab 1000!"
Mr. Gallegos: "What does con fuoco mean?"
Me: (pauses)
Camerata girl 1: "With fire"
Me: "WITH FIRE!"
Mr. Gallegos: "Correct! Con fuoco means with fire!"

A bit later:

Me: "Misc. 1000!"
Mr. Gallegos: "Which member of the faculty is also a member of the fire department?"
(I didn't even have to pause or ask my teammates for the answer)
Me: "DONNA LIM!"
Mr. Gallegos: "Correct, Donna Lim is a member of the fire department."
Mrs. Murray: "And, I would like to point out, the president of the fire department of her area."

It went on like that. It was very satisfying. It got to the point that Mr. Gallegos just asked:
"Ian, what does your team want to do?"

We basically farmed GGP Misc. and GGP history and trivia. By the time we were done, all of the easy questions were gone and so we got to laugh at all of the people who got those questions, figuring out that they were really easy ones to get right. They were wrong. Every question in those areas asked by people besides us were wrong. It was epic. The only regular question we got wrong was:
Mr. Gallegos: "How many years did the GGP have a wind section?"
Me: "At least 1."
Camerata girl 1: "Eight, I think."
Camerata girl 2: "I thought it was five."
Annoying Indian girl + Junior orchestra bass girl: "We had a wind section?"
Keary: "I don't know."
Mr. Gallegos: "Ian? What is your answer?"
Everyone: "Just take a guess."
Me: "Six!"
Mr. Gallegos: "Incorrect. The GGP had a wind section for 2 years."

The other one that we got wrong was the final jeopardy question, which was:
"Of the three composers Mozart, Schumann, and Schubert, which one died the earliest and yet wrote the most music?"
All three teams: "Mozart!"
Mr. Gallegos: "Incorrect. It was Schubert."

The team that won bet all but one of their points on the final question. Everyone else bet all of their points on it. We lost. Oh well. I impressed a lot of people during it though, so that is a good thing.

The Cazadero Retreat 2010 - Part 2 (The Junior Orchestra Cello Section)

If you have not yet read part 1 of my post on the Caz retreat, read it here. Once you have, come back here. Done? Okay.

While the basses were quite appalling, the junior orchestra, as a whole, was worse. Especially since they only had one cello. Who could hardly play. And you were lucky if he showed up on time. At a concert. Where he had nowhere else to go.

Considering this, it should come as no surprise to you that Mrs. Murray called me up to help the cello section. As soon as I saw the cello section there, I took into consideration the fact that I was sitting in the front, and had nothing else better to do, and I actually had enough brownie point-want that I would do it. Sure enough, she yelled at the rehearsal for the Junior orchestra:
"Ian, get up here!" I just sighed, and walked up there. The other cellist was not there.
"Where is Tristan?"
He was at the far back of the stage, packing his cello.
"Tristan, get down here NOW!"
He paused, look around, and ran over.
"Where is you music, Tristan?"
He paused, looked around, and ran back up, grabbed his music, and ran down.
By this time, it had already been about five minutes. The piece itself was not that hard. But what it was what astonished me.

It was the same exact piece that they had done last year at the retreat. And the membership of the juniors was mostly the same. It was really easy, and I played it without trouble. Then, at the concert, the real one, Mrs. Murray yelled:
"Where is Tristan?"

I've decided that, while that ending is just too perfect, that there is one thing I should add, after talking to one of the members of the senior cellos that was in the junior at the start of last year, I asked him if he was always that bad. The response I got:
"No. Last year he went to bakery right before the concert."
The bakery, I should add, is a five minute walk, one way, from the performance shell.

The Cazadero Retreat 2010 - Part 1 (The Basses)

The Cazadero retreat. The yearly weekend retreat where the GGP goes to Cazadero, which is about a two hour drive north of San Fransisco. Where chamber groups are formed. Where people are appalled at how terrible, horrible, and terrible the bassists are in the orchestras. They cannot play in tune. They can not play in rhythm. They misbehave. They blame all of their mistakes on the other sections. What did the drummer get on his I.Q. test? Drool. The bassists are the drummers of the orchestra.

At one point, my stand partner threw this swedish fish thing at one of the (drummers!) bassists, I'm going to call him Tweedle-dumbest, as opposed to Tweedle-dumber, the other bass. So, it lands under Tweedle-dumbest's bass, which causes the two Tweedle-stupids to spend five minutes reaching for the fish, without setting their basses down!, and me sitting there laughing my ass off and giving my stand partner a high-five. Eventually, Tweedle-dumbest manages to get it somehow (I was to busy laughing to notice), looks at it, pauses, says "400 second rule." (I kid you not), blows it off, and eats it.

Later on, the basses were having trouble with this one part that the rest of the orchestra had too, so Mrs. Lim had them play it. She paused, looked at us, and said: "Cellos, show them how it's done.", with all of us playing with the basses, and then the basses playing it. This repeated five times before Mrs. Lim decided the basses were so bad that she said:
"Violas, help them."
This went on five more times. They still could not play the part.
"Second violins, help them."
At this point, almost the entire orchestra was helping. Four times later, she said to basses after their turn doing it alone:
"That will have to do."
They were behind, not together, and out of rhythm. But it was still not as bad as what they had been playing before. Mrs. Lim also told them to play better, or else it would sound like someone was moving furniture in the back of the stage.

At another point, Tweedle-dumbest was telling Tweedle-dumber not to mess up. While we were playing. Mrs. Lim yelled:
"STOP! WHO'S TALKING?!".
Tweedle-dumbest pointed at Tweedle-dumber.
"Him. He is."

I should mention that we have one good bassist. Her name is Kendra, and she is in the Camerata. The highest ranked orchestra. Because she can actually play.

On not going to Game Night

Not going to Game Night is no fun. You don't get to meet up with any of your friends, and instead get to spend the day sitting around doing an essay the you get more tired of doing the more you do it, because you were stupid and slow and did not get it done beforehand. And then you finish it, and the achievement of finishing just before you have to go to bed and being rewarded with cake - that was satisfying, as well as very tasty. And I even managed to painlessly upload my flash lessons to my Youtube channel so that my teacher could look at them easily.

Now, as to how I felt about not going to Game Night was a progression of thoughts that went as follows:
6:00 Wahh! I'm not going to Game Night... :(
6:02 Maybe if I get this done I'll be able to go to Game Night.
6:30 I'm pretty close, not too long now...
7:00 I think I can make it, even though I still need to eat dinner and stuff, I am going to make it
7:30 Too late. Oh well. Let's get this done.
8:00 Yes! It's done! I can eat dinner and go to sleep now.
8:30 Now, how did I convert these Flash files so that I can upload them?
8:45 Yes! I did it! Now, time for the cake (which is not a lie).
9:30 Time for bed.

facebook

Facebook, as everyone knows, is basically a very big blog. Except people play games on the blog. And half of the flash-based games don't work in Firefox. And the other half are ridiculously competitive, with PKs running around killing each other. But, it is good to stay in touch.

Sectionals

Yesterday, at sectionals, I was really just trying hard to pay attention. Between not having practiced since I sprained my ankle and being a bit out of it because I sprained my ankle, I was very glad I made a decent sound and was not out of tune. I sounded pretty good, and it helped that it seemed as though Mrs. Hasbun completely forgot about what we were going to be tested on. Not that that is really a bad thing. I know I'm bad. I just felt out of it yesterday.

Crutches suck.

So, because of my sprained ankle, (stupidity in loading the car) I need crutches. Let me tell you, crutches, while better than the alternative (namely, hopping with one leg), are a pain. You are supporting your body with your arms, which, for me, since my arms a a little weak, is painful. More importantly, no matter how soft the handles are, they still make the palms of your hands hurt. Also, my left leg (unsurprisingly) get really tired hopping around all of the time. So, while better than the alternative, I joke that because of the crutches I'll wear out my left knee and be unable to walk on it and need a wheelchair. Which would be awesome, although make it a little difficult to walk down steps.

On being 14

The difference between being 14 and being 13 is simple: Proof that you have survived another year in this world. And the fact that you have a PS3. As well as the fact that, as a surprise, Dad got me the full second season of The Mentalist If you haven't heard of it, google it. It is one of the most awesome shows on right now. Veronica Mars was pretty cool too, but it got canceled. Anyway, so yeah. One year older. I think I remember something about not wanting to date until I was like, 14 when I was 8, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Games I hope to get for the ps3

Today, I get to blog about what games I want for my birthday.

White knight chronicles: Custom weapons, custom skills, turn-based combat, and the ability to make your own town. Total awesomeness heaven for someone who wants high levels of customization, like me.

Valkyria chronicles: awesome combination of RTS and turn-based strategy RPG. Need I say more?

Star ocean: the last hope: It's in space! I can make my own weapons! I can make my own attacks! I can sneak up on enemies! Hooray!

Disgaea 3 absence of justice: It's Disgaea. It has passive abilities. Win.

Cross edge: Comboing, has Etna, can put costumes on characters to change their abilities. Awesome.

Blazblue: Continuum shift: Awesome fighter, large amount of characters, fun.

EDIT 9-30-10: I realized I totally forgot about one game, so here it is:

Final fantasy XIII: It's Final fantasy. Its graphics look awesome. It has a lot of customization of your characters' skills. You can be two classes at once.

Hello, all.

Once again, Mom does not yet have a schedule up for us, as far as I know. So once again, I have no idea what I am supposed to blog about. So I will blog about my upcoming birthday, as well as how orchestra went (Because, as I am someone who believes in non-violince, there can be no end to how much I can pick on the violins).

After all, the violins cannot play loudly. I mean really. There were 23 people there. 12 of them were violins. Mrs. Lim wanted us to play Fortissimo. Which basically means really loud. The violins were managing a Mezzopiano. That means medium-soft. There were 12 of them. Then, the 2 Violas were doing it, and they sounded louder than all of the violins combined. The cellos were sitting there laughing at the epic failure that was the violins, while the two people sitting in the front (Federico and I, because Joey is mad for not sitting first this year and Daniel was not there). I know that we had maybe a total net loudness of four cellos with the six of us (Federico and I each counting as a cello and a half). Yeah. It feels like the ones sitting behind us don't make all that much sound.

New post

Today I need to make a new post. But I have no idea what to post because Mom never got a schedule done. I am not, however, going to complain, after all, Mom did get a ton of laundry done yesterday. A lot more than normal. So, I won't. Talk to you all tomorrow.

Today.... I have no idea.

It's not that I have fee choice or anything, it's just that on my schedule does not show what subject I am supposed to write about today. So I honestly have no idea what I am supposed to be writing about. So I won't. I won't just go into a long rant about it.

my favorite DS game

Today I am supposed to blog about my favorite DS game. I normally would do something smart-aleckey, and then end with something like "I don't have a favorite, mostly because there are so many other good games." Which, while basically my general opinion, is not allowed. I have, apparently, exceeded my smart-aleck limit for the month. So, instead, I will blag about what my current favorite game is. Because my favorite game is whichever one I am currently playing. That is to say, I currently enjoy playing most out of all games whichever game I am playing, because I am playing it. How can you enjoy a game that you are not currently playing, after all? So right now, my favorite game is Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness, because that is what I am currently playing. Previously, it was Custom Robo Arena, because that was what I was playing before.

Endon then and now

My assignment today is to write about Endon, my favorite out of all of the characters in my fantasy universe. What he was at first, and what he is now.

He was originally just a mix of two other guys, very heavy and hard to move around. He had limited power over earth and fire. Not too long later, he was rebuilt, and I gave him an energy sword. Still earth and fire. I later added on a different sword, and wings, and gave him fire and darkness, as well as making him half angel and demon. That was fun for a while. He then developed into a more monstrous form, with claws and wings at the backs of the claws, as well as new powers as the god of nature. His most current form is basically the same as the monstrous claw form, but with a double-bladed staff instead of claws.

Nerd Pod Etiquette

The etiquette of the Nerd Pod is wrapped greatly in tradition and goes as follows:

Thou shalt not have your headphone's volume too loud, or Mom shall worry.
Thou shalt not listen to anything without wearing headphones- it annoys those who have headphones and are listening to something.
Thou shalt always turn on the fan for Mom when she asks- this may only be avoided by having a cat that is curled up next to you, in which case the job may be delegated to Dad, but only if he does not have a cat. If he does, you are just hosed.
Thou shalt not disturb another's cat.
Love thy cat.

And, always remember, the most capital of all sins is to disturb the Nerd Pod.

My birthday

So, my birthday is coming up in ten days. I have been told to blog about how I feel about that. I am excited. Very excited. I am turning 14 in ten days. I can't really wait. I wish that I was born a few days earlier, just so that I would not have to wait as long. It really makes me feel excited about it, for some unknown reason. Mostly because, for the first time ever, I actually want a console that Nintendo did not make- a PS3. The Dreamcast that we have doesn't count because we have had it longer than I can remember. My Mom says that we got the Dreamcast ten years ago, when I was four, but I cannot really remember a pre-Dreamcast time. So yeah.

I am also excited about my birthday because it brings me one step closer to being able to drive and go to college.

To catch a kitten

Today, we shall document the capture of one of nature's most elusive creatures: the kitten. The kitten in question is small (although he has recently been getting more chunky, despite popular rumors that has not made him easier to catch), black, and fuzzy. Very fuzzy. In the early days, before he got smart, it was as simple as closing all of the doors upstairs and then chasing him. Or getting him to run into a bathroom. Both of those were pretty much guaranteed to catch him. Now, however, it is a much more difficult maneuver. Even with him trapped in between two people bent down, you still may not catch him. The best way to get him is either when you get him trapped behind a couch, or when you catch him sleeping. Otherwise, be prepared for a lot of trouble.

Free choice day

Today I get free choice about what to write about. Actually, the exact statement was "your choice". Which means that I am going to have trouble figuring out what to write about, because the whole point of having assigned subjects was so that I didn't need to come up with a bunch of Ideas, and I am not one to talk about my day yesterday because it would go something like this:

Got up. Wrote a blag entry. Ate breakfast. Did literature until a half an hour after I should have had lunch. Got dressed. Had lunch. Did math. Went out for a walk. Knee started hurting. Went back home. Did flash exercise. Sit in the nerd pod for a couple hours. Agree with Mom to order pizza. Wait two more hours for pizza to arrive at 9:00 p.m. Ate pizza. Sat on the nerd pod for almost another anime episode. Brushed teeth. Went to bed. Fell asleep.

Which, while interesting the first few times (maybe), gets boring after a while.

Cats of the nerd pod

In the nerd pod, cats are important secondary companions to the natural phenomenon known as "nerding". The nerds in their natural habitat are happily typing away at their computers, and depending on the mood of the cats, one or more will be curled up on one of the nerds. A highly elusive situation is the "triple-cat pod", which is when each of the three nerds have a cat. It is highly elusive because one of the cats tends to only curl up for about ten minutes straight, as well as the fact that it often signifies that one member of the nerd pod must leave for the night.

Orchestra

In orchestra yesterday, the basses successfully demonstrated that yes, they were there to screw off like last year and prove that they are the drummers of the orchestra, the first violins demonstrated that yes, they are competent, the second violins demonstrated that no, they are not as competent as last year, the violas demonstrated that they really were really bad violins playing viola who liked to rush. Oh, and the cellos showed that they were very solid (consisting mostly of people who were there last year) and that they hated (almost) all violins. We got some music from Pirates of the Caribbean, which is almost entirely fun (except for the blood ritual), and is reminding me that I should probably go re-watch those movies. The other pieces were fun, although I got stuck sitting next to Simone in sectional. She is the single most annoying person in the universe, and we have the same part in our cello group, so I am stuck with her. :(

Dispicable Me

So on Saturday, for the first time since Mom's surgery, we went to see a movie. So, after a 2-1 vote, we went to see the movie Despicable Me. It was a fun movie. The minions were absolutely hilarious, as well as a lot of the character's reactions. It had just the right amount of warm fuzziness and humor that you would expect from a kid movie, but still fun to watch. The minions tend to act like little devils, however, and most of their antics have to be seen to be believed.

Nerd T.V.

Nerd T.V. is an activity that takes place upon the nerd pod, a family gathering. Nerd T.V. is the connection of Dad's laptop to a 23" computer monitor, as well as a connection to the speaker system we have in the living room. We then go online to watch free shows at whatever network site it is that has the show that we want to watch. Fox.com for the next episode of Bones, for example. We then watch and enjoy.

D&D

I am blogging about D&D. I honestly see no reason to do so because all of my readers already both know how to play and know what kind of character I do. So instead, I shall talk about Death & Destruction, because I feel like it.

Death is when you die. You are dead. You are nothing besides worm food. Or maggots. Or anyone of a number of things' food.

Destruction totally erases something from existence. Boom. You are gone. The end.

Playing Cello

So, it appears that I have been told to talk about playing the cello today. Playing cello is about coordination between your left hand and your right. It is about learning how to move your wrist without moving your arm.

Probably the first thing I had to do when learning the cello was gaining enough strength in my left arm to actually be able to hold down the string when playing the notes. After that, it was important to develop enough control over my right arm to not sound really wispy or crunchy when playing my notes.

After a little while, I got to the point of consistently being able to hold the strings down in first position, and being able to kinda-sorta read the notes when there was a finger above it.

And that was when I was put into GGP. I could not read any of the notes on the music. I was stuck. It took me a good couple weeks to get used to it. After three more months, I finally managed to get a good grip on intonation so it did not sound really bad whenever I played. I do, however, have a long way before I can play this.

LARP

So I went to the LARP for my first time ever on Saturday. I found it to be a lot of fun. We voted on missions, and I remember going after one guy with my trusty spear. He was wielding a bow that had blades on it, so he could use it a bit like a sword, and I was running towards him with my spear. He had one arrow left, and he threw it at me, and missed. It went harmlessly by my foot, missing by a couple inches. He looked at me, sighed, and said "I hate Spears." It was one of the coolest parts of my day. It's funny. After a little while, a lot of the players just started to run away when they see a spear going after them.

Game night

Game night today was essentially a long game of Dominion. Everyone rushed to buy treasure maps, so they were the first to go. After that, we all enjoyed buying large amounts of cutpurses. It annoyed Jon to no end, which is a very good thing. He kept on threatening to do mean things like bite us if we did not stop playing them. We ignored him and did it anyway. Most of the rest of us had lighthouses, so we were totally unharmed.

The nerd pod

The nerd pod. After all of us had laptops, it became a family tradition. It is a simple thing, really. Every evening, each of us sits on our respective spots on the couch, causing a large concentration of nerds in one location. We each as well get a cat, curled up on one of our arms. This causes an optimal concentration of cute restfulness among cats and nerdiness among humans. That is the nerd pod.

Language lab

So, in the end, language lab was nothing more than going there and look at what we got assigned at the lab last week and doing that, as well as learning a bit of pronunciation for Japanese. I have a decent ability to pronounce Japanese already, so it was not all that difficult.

This morning, after I had taken my shower, I found a spider crawling around in my armpit. It was quite startling, and so I flicked it off and ran away. It was a average sized spider, one that we call a "Spike".

Orchestra audition

I did quite well in my audition. For my scale, I was stopped halfway through going down the second octave, and Mrs. Hasbun said that Teacher Ellen got an A for teaching me, and that I got an A too for that. For my piece, Mrs. Hasbun stopped me at the part where it just repeats from the beginning, and told me that I played it so well I made her day. As I walked out, I heard a whisper of "Great!"

rockslide

So, as of this week, due to my extreme lack of ability to come up with good ideas for more than about two days a week, Mom is now having me do blag posts with subjects. Today's subject is: rockslide.

Rockslide
1: An avalanche of rock.

2: A slightly chunky cat that is afraid of everything.

Yes, Today I have been told to talk about my cat. He is, as I have stated a good number of times, afraid of everything. He is especially afraid of sudden loud noises, strangers, and people getting within two feet of him. He enjoys curling up next to me for ten to thirty minutes at a time and getting pet before running and coming back ten minutes later. He will sometimes roll over onto his back in order to have me give him belly rubs - he really likes belly rubs. He also enjoys annoying his older brother and keeping his queen happy.

Wow.

Look at that. I have survived the second week of school. Tomorrow is the weekend. I had fun at my first Japanese class, made a decent bowl at my clay class, and my lesson went nicely. We now know not only what piece I am doing, but also what scale. Now all I have to do is wait until Monday.

Wow.

Today is going to be a long day. First, I am going to go to a doctor for an appointment in San Mateo. Then, Mom is going to a foot doctor for her broken little toe. And then after that, I have a cello lesson - the last one before GGP auditions.

I am going to hopefully work out what few kinks remain in my audition piece during my lesson, and play a very good audition for the orchestra.

Japanese class.

Japanese was fun. The person sitting next to me was writing her notes in japanese (she outright stated that she was taking the class for the credits), and so she helped me with writing the hiragana and katakana properly. I learned a lot, I think. I now want to go to Hokkaido, a region in Japan where it is always snowing.

Hello.

God, I hate syncopation. Why? Imagine a metronome. Count the beats. Normally, in 4/4, you are accenting 1 and 3 with a slight accent on 2 and 4. Now, when you have eighth notes, it goes:

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +

With accents on 1, 2, 3, and 4 as the beat. Syncopation is where you accent the 'and's (the plus signs. The and of 1 is halfway between beats 1 and 2.) So you have:

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +

My current assignment from my teacher is to practice clapping syncopation, which essentially means clapping after the metronome beeps. Which is quite frustrating.

End of first weekend.

And so today is the beginning of the second week of school. Tomorrow, I have Japanese class, where I will (hopefully) make it in. I am number 2 on the waiting list, so I have hope. I'm also looking foreword to next Monday, when I finally have auditions for the orchestra. I'm hoping to do well, and be placed at the front of the Senior orchestra. I don't want to be in the Camarata: I would much prefer to have a year where I am not playing catch up with everyone else.

Hello again.

Mom wants me to now, every day, write posts about the length of yesterday's. So, today I have a cello lesson. It's been a while since my last lesson, about a month. That is mostly because Teacher Ellen goes out to do all sorts of music festivals for most of the summer, so today was the earliest time we could get one in. Considering that my auditions are at the end of the month, we will probably spend some time going over my audition piece, however I think that I will want to work mostly on the Shostacovich Quartet that my quartet is working on. It has a part that goes about a fifth higher than what I am comfortable playing. To make matters more annoying, Mitchell, one of our violinists, takes one look at it and says: "Oh, that's really easy. It's just in first position."

I swear, a violin is about an octave and a fifth higher than I cello. So what is in first position for him is in ouch-my-hand-does-not-stretch-that-far position for us cellists. In other words, it is in thumb position (Google it. Look at the pictures. It's not pretty.) Thankfully, I have a lesson today, and can learn about how to do it then.

Hello, everyone.

Been a while, huh? Well, it's been at least since before summer vacation since my last post. Oh well. Summer was long. Between the latter half of May and early June, it was a lot of stress. I went to DMA, and had a lot of fun and learned a lot (but didn't make any friends), and then a couple weeks of taking care of a Mom that could barely walk, went camping for a little bit, had a lot of fun and, once again, did not make any new friends (mostly because that time I knew the people I spent most of the day with).

What was most surprising to me was the feeling of almost excitement that I felt about school starting, and both the lack of panic and fun that I have been having doing my school work.

See you all later, I've got work to do.

Review for Monster Hunter Tri

Monster Hunter Tri is an Action-RPG on the Wii. The basic premise is that you are a, well, monster hunter, and your job is to hunt and kill monsters for fun and (primarily) profit. The game does a good job of making you feel like the world is alive and that you are a part of it, such as in the Moga Forest, where if you are trying to get to the caves in area 7, you could take a shortcut through areas 4 and 6 if you are willing to walk through both a pitch black cave and a nest of carnivores that want to eat you. Or, you could take a different route and only deal with herbivores. If you want to go fishing, you could just take a shortcut from your campsite to area nine, where you can get to the water.

Unlike most RPGs, there is no experience or level up system. Instead, you hunt the monsters and then loot their body. With the materials gained from their corpse, as well as what you mine and scavenge, you can get better armor and weapons to hunt bigger enemies. Whenever you defeat a boss, (or wyvern, as they are called in the game), you gain access to a new set of armor that uses the elements from their body as materials. Hence, you can often judge how deadly a weapon is and how well-equipped the owner is by what armor and weapons they are wearing.

The story is basic, although witty. You are the resident hunter of a fishing village, and a giant sea monster called the Lagiacrus is terrorizing the village with earthquakes and other disasters. Your job is to train and gain skills to prepare yourself for the final battle with the Lagiacrus.

Or, if you are like me and absolutely terrified by that initial battle with the Lagiacrus (there is one early mission where you have to avoid while hunting other sea creatures for their guts), you can try the multiplayer option.

In multiplayer, you have access to most of the stuff that you can have in the main village, but with the added bonus of being able to make all weapons at the forge. You can form teams of up to four members, and most of the early mission include hunting bosses, so it is really good for gaining better armor.

I have yet to encounter other people with the microphone, however, it truly does make you feel like a part of the team to go group hunting. Everyone can loot the bosses corpse up to four times, and then they each get an individual reward for killing it.

On the weapons, there are six types. My personal favorite is the sword and shield, which deal the least damage but have the added bonus of being able to use weapons while they are drawn and that you can carry a torch with them. So, the aforementioned early carnivores, for example, are dog-velociraptors and are wary of fire, so they will not attack you if you have a torch. Or, you can take advantage of your shield to stun the monsters or block attacks.

My second favorite is probably the switch axe, a weapon that switches between an axe and an elementally-charged sword. You can only have it in sword mode for a few attacks, and then it switches back. It's about five times more powerful than a sword of a similar level, but twice as slow and you can't block with it. You move at a snail's pace with sword, but it attacks faster.

The hammer is slightly more difficult. It has a short range, and no blocking. You are forced to wear really heavy armor, because it is also slow. Thankfully, it can and often will stun your enemies.

The Greatsword is so slow that I took one swing with it and put it back. The long sword is like a katana, and has the size of a lance but is easier to hit with due the fact that it is mostly slashes. It also is longer. The lance is a pain to use. Slashes make life easy, and with the lance you are stabbing things. The shield is bigger on a lance, but that is offset by how much of a pain it is to attack enemies with it. I have not tried the bowgun.

The underwater levels are often rather interesting, if you ignore the fact that a burly, muscled hunter wearing heavy armor and a eight feet long sword could not possibly attack or float underwater. Underwater, you also have to move downward as well as upward and side to side. The underwater monsters also usually look a lot cooler.

The environments and interesting and varied. The most basic area is the moga forest, as it is called. It is a grassy area with most kinds of areas in it, although its focus is on mountains. The next area that I've seen is a flooded forest, a rather interesting and awesome-looking area that is mostly full of murky waters and some areas in it are fully flooded. After that, there is a desert with obnoxious shark-things called Delex that swim through the sand. They attack you and then run back under the sand, causing much annoyance.

The music of the game does a quite good job at setting the mood of what is happening at the moment, and usually helps. For one example, when a boss sees you, a dramatic single, loud, accented, and fast note plays from completely out of nowhere, making you jump, and then it switches the the normally light-hearted music to dramatic music that scares you. Smaller enemies are sent flying as you dodge the attacks of the boss, being killed it one hit by its almighty power.

The animations of the characters and monsters are interesting and varied. The animation and character models are very fluid, and it is a sight to be seen when you are running and a giant boss is chasing after you. The animation that you are doing is hilarious. However, like most games with 3D graphics, there are some collision issues. For example, when your sword and shield are sheathed, your sword's tip is sticking out of the shield. Also, when looting the dead corpse of an enemy, you walk through it and just do the same animation for all enemies. You walk through it or stand on the ground below it and then gather from it.

The game is difficult, although not impossibly so, and it definitely rewards you for learning and playing it. It is a very good feeling to kill that boss, or find yourself killing easily enemies that used to give you a lot of trouble. I've decided not to give the game a rating, mostly because if I make reviewing regular the numbers would mostly be high with no lows, so I'm just going to end it here.

Coolness

Yesterday I finally had the chance to try out multiplayer. I think that it is awesome, although I can't wait for my microphone to get here so that I can actually talk with my team-mates. We went after a boss monster, and almost won, but then I died for the third time and we were both ejected from the battle. That was very annoying.

Yay!

Today I have my lesson, where I will hopefully start my next piece in suzuki. In my game, I got to this obnoxious boss-monster that I have to run from, and it is HUGE! It's like, six feet tall and fifty feet long. I have to run from it whilst at the same time hunting these things that look like the pokemon lapras to get their guts (I'm not even rewording it. The game actually says to get their guts.) I abandoned the mission, shaken (what would you do if a whale decided to try to eat you while you were swimming, hm?) And decided to try out the online multiplayer... only to discover that dinner was ready. Oh well. I'll try it out tonight.

Hello, all

So far, in my new game, I've just completed my first real quest. I'm probably going to write a review of it sometime this week, once I've gotten a bit farther and have tried out most of the weapons.

The gala yesterday

At the gala, I was mostly just bored. Really, really bored. Mr. Nelson (who has a bit of authority) told us that until everything was set up, we could not play or do anything besides sit around or help. Mom and Dad got put in charge of taking care of the area where the kids are, so we could not leave until about three hours after I wanted to. In my performance, Mitchell, our first violin (on the odd-numbered pieces, that is), decided, without any prior warning to us to do two more pieces besides North Country Hoedown (which I nailed, even on the icky part in the middle) and Winter (which I did better on than on the last time I performed it) and also did Rococo Overture (a long, grueling piece that gets significantly slower in the middle, matters not helped by Mitchell who decided to take it at about half tempo, and I swear I am not exaggerating this) and March of the Meistersingers, which leads to my main topic of this post: My epic fail on the last piece. And by epic, I mean epic. Ms. Murray is probably going to bring it up on my lesson on Wednesday. I have no idea what I did, but I totally fell off, and Ms. Murray yelling at me where I was prevented me from getting back on, as I knew where we were (measure 36, beat 2, where the mood of the piece changes so suddenly that it is hard not to notice where to come in) and Ms. Murray was yelling that it was measure 40 (a full measure of open G-string sixteenth-note runs). So now I feel bad and am dreading both today, Wednesday, and Saturday.

Hello, all.

I decided to make a new post today. Anyway, on Sunday I beat Sands of Destruction. As usual, the most annoying part of the bosses is when they get a bunch of turns in a row. I found the third-to-last boss to be harder than the last two, mostly because neither one of the last two automatically got an attack every time you attacked them. That third to last boss was a real pain. Thankfully, his most powerful attacks deal elemental damage, and two out of three of my party members had armor with the effect 'null elements' so those ultra attacks only dealt 1 point of damage, which is fairly funny, all things considered.

Sigh.

I got to spend the long weekend feeling like crap.

Bleugh.

Today I feel like crap. I have a minor headache, my throat is sore, I have nasty coughs, and my nose is stuffy and runny at the same time. I went to bed at about 9:30 P.M., but I think I actually stopped drifting in and out of sleep and stayed asleep a around 2:00 A.M. And, what's worse is that Mom and I went to Lensecrafters yesterday and got me a new pair of glasses, which are bigger than my old ones and have a significantly different prescription from my old ones, so although the world is a lot clearer now, my eyes are not used to theses new glasses, so watching anything move while remaining stationary makes me nauseous, hence the headache. I have no plans of doing anything but staying home today. I hope Mom can E-mail or call Ms. Murray to tell her I won't be at quartet or gig book today.

Sigh.

Mom has declared that I make an update. So here it is. I am currently reading Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.

Art class

Today I had art class. It was enjoyable, and, unlike last week, I actually made two things that both came out the way I wanted them. I also finished music theory today (YAY!), which will hopefully open up my Saturdays by another hour and make me a little less busy.

YAY!

Today is lesson day. That means I get to know what to do next. I'll probably need to confirm if I have any solos to perform for the recital on the 28th. I think I might, but it is always good to check.

So,

This morning, the kitten was paying me a visit and woke me up. Yesterday we all got our H1N1 shots and wanted to see the princess and the frog, but it was sold out. We went to the apple store and I got Civilization IV: Gold edition. It is a ton of fun.

Darn.

I am bad at keeping my journal up to date. Anyway, a few days ago, I had the stupidity to attempt to train the kitten to meow when he wants down when I am holding him. I stopped, because he was stronger than I thought. Anyway, it appears as though Rockslide really does not like Chris. Apparently, three hours after he left, Dad found him hiding in the hardest-to-get-to corner of the house, wide eyed, shivering.

oops.

just realized I did not post yesterday. Well, orchestra went well. I didn't get yelled at during orchestra, and I think I learned a bit during sectional.

Away, decorations!

Dad and I just finished putting away the decorations for Christmas. I am very tired.

Hello all.

Mom has officially declared that I write one entry in this blog a day now. Also, as I am doing the fifty novels in a year thing, I will be using this page for summaries. So, here we are.

Name: Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment
Author: James Patterson
Summary: Basically, this book is about six children ranging from ages six to fourteen who have had bird DNA grafted onto their bodies as they were infants. They are all 98% human, 2% bird, but that small 2% gives them wings and superhuman powers. One of the characters, for example, can read minds. Another can copy voices. Et cetera. They all come from a place called the School, where scientists (called 'whitecoats') created them and experimented on them. The oldest member of the group, Maximum Ride, usually called Max, is fourteen years old and is the most long lived mutant from the school so far. Another member, called Iggy, is blind from when the whitecoats at the school did when they tried to improve his night vision. The group is usually being hunted down by 'erasers', the schools second most successful race of people. Erasers are vicious predators the have the instincts and appearance of dogs. After one of the group is kidnapped, they try to save her, and eventually find themselves in New York City, trying to discover who their parents are. What happens there is left to the reader to discover.