Saturday, December 20, 2008

The Year in Review

Well, another year is just about over. It’s really amazing how fast they go. This time 12 months ago a lot of things were really quite different.

1st off… I had just turned 16 6 weeks before. Kinda scary… because 17 seems much more mature (heck, I can now officially play MATURE games. ). Then of course, Brian was still in School, I think… yes, he was. He had almost finished school and had told me in he would be going to the Uni of Chicago, after he finished at Hebron.

This time last year I had not yet been to Europe, seen Scotland, or played World of Warcraft. This time last year I didn’t own my own laptop. I didn’t have a next gen console, Jacob had not taken his O’ Levels, I only owned one RPG game… so many things had not happened.

I think the most important experience I had this year was without a doubt: Europe and America. I learned a lot about myself, my future, and my family during those trips. I saw London for the first time and, to put it very simply, London is the most awesome city I have ever been to; better than Bruges, better than Singapore, Bangkok, Calcutta, Mumbai, and Dhaka. If I could live anywhere in the world, right now I’d probably pick London.

I was still in 10th grade and graduation seemed like a vaguely far off thing. I was still in High School and I didn’t really think about College that much. Now, I’m about half way through 11th grade and I’m ready, eager even, for college. I’m sick of High School in a lot of ways; I’m also ready to be off into the might, mystical, strange, and perhaps even frightening land of the USA.

I really got into RPGs this year. I mean, really really. Before I thought just WFRP, but not I have DnD, WFRP, Fireborn, Star Wars, Dark Heresy, and I’ve played in others, Blood! True20, and various other games. RPGs are amazing.

I learned to play DotA. Okay, I could play DotA, but I really perfected my DotA skills. I realized when playing today that I know every hero (basically) in the game. I can play some tanks and lots of pushers/killers/stunners well. Heck, if I could play regurarly with my friends (we can't stupid crazy school schedules) I would be in a proper clan that wasn't half bad.

I learned that only the Asians are true gamers. Sorry all you halo players, you fail in comparsion to pro starcraft players.

I dunno… I become more mature. I grew a lot. I mean, I really grew. Looking back at life there are those important years, you know? The years that are important and that despite the fact that crazy stuff happens, you do okay, you in fact prosper. That’s what I did this year. Crazy stuff happened. A lot. But I lived. In fact, I prospered, I became a better person, a person who, despite all my horrid, horrid, faults that next year when I do my year in review (darn it… I’ll be EIGHTEEN next year… *semi panics*) I’ll be ready for adulthood.

That my friends, is my year in review.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Freedom

I
Am
Free
For
The
Rest
Of
The
Year!

And that spells... Iafftroty... nothing... oh well...

Friday, December 12, 2008

Fireborn

Well, after what was a very slow middle my Fireborn game on pbphouse.com is finally starting to pick up.

The game is the Fire Within introductory adventure. In this game my PCs play as Dragons Reborn in Modern London (well... London 2004). Magic has come back to London and strange things are about.

The PCs I have are Oliver Kneeler, a painter/artist and Felix Drake: A stubborn PI who doesn't want to have anything to do with this "magic" stuff that's been going on. He's in denial about it. I'm running a NPC companion called Robert something who's invovled in a Gang and lives in a run-down part of the city.

So the PCs, after much pushing, pulling, and dragging arrive at a rooftop Cafe where they all talk a bit, and then, suddenly, are attacked. A bullet shatters a pot and a bunch of crazies charge them all and attack with clubs, 2 by 4s and a few random knives. The PCs manage to fight them off (with Robert actually doing the most damage... lol... Felix and Oliver aren't the best fighters). During the fight the thugs overwhelm Felix, meaning that he is unable to dodge a bullet which hits his right shoulder. The party, after defeating the crazies runs off the roof (over the body of teh dead waitress) into an alley to talk a bit.

To put it in nice terms: Felix is mad. Very mad. He didn't want to go to the Cafe (and was kinda dragged by random bouts of pain and naseaa) and now has a bullet in his shoulder. Robert and Oliver manage to help him patch himself up and then Felix (after much yelling, cursing, and name calling by Robert and Felix) walks off in a angry huff. Oliver is more calm, and manages to get Robert's phone number. The two men then depart.

Now, I have a very angry, stubborn PC who proceeds to get drunk and smoke a pack of ciggs. I thought this was really funny but I loved the way it all happened. Plus I really like Felix's character. A very cliche hard boiled PI who doesn't give a darn about anything.

And so now, since he's getting drunk, I have a bit of a solo with the other PC, Oliver. Oliver goes home and does some stuff... and then I have him get a phone call. These people talk to him and tell him to meet these guys at a local bar/restaurant. They talk a bit but basically the guy gives Oliver a package and leaves.

Oliver then, after much moaning, groaning, and thinking, goes to Robert's house. Robert, and his friend Prokash, look over the package and suggest that Oliver should open it. Oliver does so. The package contains a bunch of random newsclippings and photos. Photos of Oliver, Robert, and Felix, plus some guy called Mark Garren. There are also "intelligence reports" on all three people. Robert, using the info given on Mr. Felix, calls the guy, and talks to him.

Several posts later: Felix will be meeting Robert because he is afraid some psycho has info on his family and might use it against him. Felix isn't cruel; just stubborn. So they'll be meeting in a few days.

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Imperium Nova

Recently I’ve been playing a browser based strategy/RP game called Imperium Nova.

http://www.imperiumnova.com:8080/Imperium/

The game is basically a big make a ton of money thing. I’m house Reiand in the galaxy of Erinadius and I’m in the mercantile sphere of influence. That is to say, I run a bunch of different routes about the galaxy buying and selling stuff.

The game is good fun. It would be horribly boring if not for the RP interaction between houses. For instance, due to a complicated system of events two of the major power bases in my galaxy have left the game and their accounts will be deleted due to inactivity in a few days. The result will cause a vacuum of power and will… interesting things will probably happen… Also, the current Emperor of our galaxy is a self-proclaimed Tyrant who enjoys bossing everyone around. It’s not a matter of if he will survive (because if the other houses wanted to destroy him, they could) but more of a when… good fun.

Of course, being the pathetic house that I am I can’t actually DO anything except ask for handouts (which btw are really useful. I just say “hello” to someone and they throw me 20,000 credits, I started with 10K… those credits literally kept me alive in the game. I’m still running off of them 5 months later) and beg for mercy (which I did when I got caught smuggling… no one told me the fine was 50k!). Anyways I’m enjoying it.

That’s all for now!

Saturday, December 6, 2008

A rant

For all I love Star Trek, it bugs me sometimes.

Take warfare in Star Trek, the ground warfare they do… in all honesty, is horrid.

First off, NO ONE WEARS ARMOR! Hello? The American Army/Marines/Navy/Airforce uses armor. Kevlar is useful, as is ceramic plates. All other Sci-fi settings (starwars, 40k, etc) I know of use armor. No armor makes no sense. Seriously, get some sort of suit that absorbs the engery of a phaser/disruptor blast!

Every single army has exactly two weapons: a pistol and a rifle. Okay, that’s great for most small scale boarding parties and the like, but in a few episodes (the Siege of AR-558 from the 7th Season of DS9) we have large scale engagements… proper battles not small engagements. Where are the grenades? The Heavy Machine Gun type weapons? The hi-tech targeting gear? The tanks?!!! Sense making = no.

Then… we have more of a minor quibble: close combat weapons. Two armies equip their soldiers with close combat weapons: the klingon empire and the Dominion. The dominon have knives and polearm/axe things and the Klingons have tones of close combat swords, axes, knives, and the like. Starfleet… has fists -_-. Give the fact that Klingons and the Jem’Hadar pretty much rock and pwn humans in terms of strength… I don’t see how or why this has happened. Bayonets are issued to the USMC today, and the Marines have used them in Iraq, not often, but it does happen. In Star Trek, interestingly, close combat happens a lot, and we are often left with Captain Sisko punching a Jem’Hadar while said Jem’hadar pwns him with his strength… hello?

Another thing… the borg… have shields. But, in Star Trek First Combat Capt. Picard killed two with a Thompson SMG, proving that you don’t need a phaser to kill one. My question is this: if a weapon invented in the 1910’s and used in WWII killed two borg, why did Starfleet not invent a solid slug based weapon specifically meant to combat the Borg? Instead Star Fleet is often panicking when facing Borg Boarding parties because they only get 3-5 shots with their phasers… and then it delovles into a melee where only Vulcans, Klingons and Mr. Data stand a chance. Once again this goes back to the close combat weapons…borg pwns humans, so why don’t the humans get a friggin knife?

Oh well… besides all that, Star Trek is an amazing show. :D

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Stuff...

Well I now have a laptop cooler. I think its helping with my overheating issues... I'm glad I have it in any case.

And what else have I done in the meantime? I've started ANOTHER medieval total war II game this time on the hard setting... its harder for sure. I'm France, and I've only just gone to war with England... and its going very slow. I have no money (NO MONIES!!!!!) and thats very bad. Knights and spear men are expensive (armored sergeants are like... 500 florins+ and Knights are about the same price), a decent army needs like 2 units of knights and at least three sergeant spearmen squads, plus some archers. Also... I went on a crusade. I did it for the money and stuff (its kinda funny, but for an army that has access to south france or spain, or any coastal area in south europe/north africa its really easy to conquer Jerusalem... plus crusader military units are CHEAP like 200 for a squad of knights) that hasn't turned out TO well. I have a ton of priests doing their job to convert the masses... but I lost Jerusalem to riots. :( I'm at war with Egypt and that... isn't fun. I can hold my own (damacus and Arce) but thats really about it.

Oh, and I went ahead and conquered Scotland. Its kinda funny how you can do stupid things like that... in two battles I destoryed the Scottish people. Next stop... ireland! Oh, and I need to kick the English out of Mainland Europe... :D

I haven't done much else this week or last... besides thanksgiving of course. So that's about all I have to say.

edit: Its now December... dang... everything goes so fast in this world!

Monday, November 24, 2008

Thanskgiving Holiday

Hmmm…. I’m… kinda bored right now. My break has been… somewhat interesting. Its more relaxed than a normal school week, but tomorrow is going to be very busy (we are moving upstairs… which means lots of lifting of stuff). I played some Medieval total War II today and yesterday, and I think I might start another Civ4 game… that could be interesting.

What else… hmm… nothing really, hopefully we can start RPing next week, but Julius now has exams so I’m not so sure about it. Also, with the timing we have… it may not be possible BEFORE 4him, maybe we should do it after 4him… though that would mean staying later than my Mom might want me to… perhaps we should do it after Church… we’ll have to talk about it.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Link of the Day

www.koboldsatemybaby.com

Kobolds ate my Baby, an RPG where you play Kobolds who must gather food (Babies) for King Torg (All Hail King Torg!).

It sounds... epic.

Monday, November 17, 2008

Update... games, RPGs, Church... random

Well... I watched a music video on YouTube today. It was… cheesy. But it was a power metal band so I expected that much. Lyrics about some WWI battle... lol. Vocals were strong, and the guitar solo before the bridge was very well done. I asked Jacob if he could get me some of the band (Sabaton or something, European Power Metal)

And what else… I’ve played some Diablo 2 and DotA I swear someday I’ll beat 3 easy AIs with Pit Lord… but it wasn’t this time. Actually, it was kinda my fault as I let the mid lane go to long without my support, trying madly to push the other lanes to the enemy base didn’t work… -_-. Plus, Slayer is really hard to face… three friggin nukes… THREE THREE I TELL YOU one of which STUNS.

Add Panda and some random hero I can’t remember made my job difficult. I managed to get Battlefury and Buzi before I lost though. : )

Dead Space… its good. Going slowly, but I might play it tomorrow.

Thanksgiving Break is next week… but I’m not sure how much time I will actually get off… I have Papers to write and math stuff to catch up on. I should get at least a few half-days and Thursday off.

Church is good, crazy but good… I feel like I run around all Friday get up at 7, go to church, go to church AGAIN, go to the club, come home… I’ve mostly ignored the 2nd service… I just go to see my friends. I miss worship and I’ve heard the sermon at the previous service. I’m thankful for my cellphone, which has cool games and music. :D

Roleplaying… we’re set to go. I have my intro and adventure set up for my party and my party is complete.

Julius – Dante, the Tiefling Warlord
Jacob – Human Fighter
Michael – Eladrin Rogue… forget his name, awesome character though. ;)
Naomi – Human Wizard no name (yet). She’s gonna start in Debt… which means I get to harass her with Lone Sharks. *evil smile*

They will be in a big city (no name… I’ll throw something together) as members of the militia. They will hunting down rat men in the sewers in proper fashion. I like rats. They cause disease *evil smile*

What else… well not much really. I’m enjoying life. Latin is hard, Programming is hard, Adv. Comp is hard. Chemistry is hard. But what is new?

So…

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Dead Space and other things

Dead Space is… amazing. It’s not really epic, but its darn cool. B)

The scary part has lost itself on me. I’ve gotten used to the monsters jumping out and trying to eat my face. The battles are instense though, because well… I’m up against zombie-beings and I don’t have a shotgun… just a plasma cutter and some sort of auto-gun thing.

Oh well… it’s still really fun. I have a feeling I’m about to fight some sort of boss, as the same seems to be building towards something. I’m not sure what though.

Also, my new cellphone is amazing. I like it. :D

What else… I’m working on starting a Face-to-face group again. Well… it’s the same group, but we haven’t done much since summer. So now, I have 4 definant PCs.

Julius will play a “thin only wears black” Tiefling Warlord (who will probably end up being greedy and self-centered, and very cool)

Jacob will play a human fighter who is a wise emo (the emowiser they call him. :D)

Naomi is going to play a human wizard who will start on the run from debtors.

Michael is going to play this really cool character: an Eladrin rogue. He duel wields a katar and a longsword. He uses shuriken (ninja stars) for ranged combat and is amazing. I like him in general.

They will start in a city, and quickly get thrown in jail. It’s a cheap GM trick, but it gives them a reason to get together and start working together. Otherwise, well, it might be hard to get them to work together. :P

And that is all I think of… Latin is hard, Programming is fun, English is normal somehow… I’m not sure, Chemistry is -_- and Math is meh… nothing else to report.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Why I love 40k - Link of the Day

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Thought_for_the_day

You have to admit, 40k pwns. The above site is a good reason why. :D

Also... yesterday was Guy Fawkes Day! And I missed it! Everyone, go watch V for Vendetta and read wikipedia about Guy Fawkes!

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Okay, a life update.

Life is good. I now own Dead Space and Fallout 3. I haven’t played Fallout 3 yet, but Dead Space is… creepy. It’s a horror-shooter game, so its supposed to be… but I don’t do good with scary… somehow though, I’ll press through.

While creepy, Dead Space is also amazing! I’ve played only a little, but I like it a lot. Kicking the bad guys to small pieces is fun. :D

I’ve had a lighter week of school… not sure why… oh well. Also, I’m starting to ENJOY my programming course… its FUN now. Yah! We get to code stuff.

It’s also cool looking at the game… the layout is very different from most games I’ve played.

Hmm… and also… nothing new… life is normal.

Oh, I’ve decided to get my act together and start roleplaying with my friends face to face again. Julius is now coming to 4him normally and Max and Jacob want to start, so we are going to! We’ll do it before youth group, just for a little bit of time, and probably only once or twice a week, but we will do it! We just need to decide, DnD or Fireborn?

That’s all for now! I’ll write more later!

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Politics...

Obama won. Darn.

Oh well… I’m just glad, after two years, it’s all over. We now have our next president. YA!

Still… I dislike Obama. I don’t care how people twist it, he isn’t the right man for the job. My one hope is that he doesn’t have the political power (or will) to do anything for the next four years and the republicans (or better yet, one of the various 3rd parties!) can get their act together and throw out a strong candidate to face off against whoever the Dems come up with (Obama? Hilary? Who knows… I’m pretty sure Hilary will run again).

Anyways… I’m supposed to be doing school…

Monday, November 3, 2008

Random Link of the day

http://www.moleday.org/

For all those budding chemists!

Friday, October 31, 2008

A rant... *sigh*

I would like to add to this article that the key to "fixing" the economy is to, in short, rebuild this nation.

The reason the economy has crashed is becasue people without morals were given control of people's money. They abused this power and lost that money, and everyone now (by everyone, I do mean EVERYONE, this is a global disteaster) pays the price.

Why do these people have no morals? Well, regardless of what they were taught, some will always chose to sin. But I do not believe this is the case. Most of these people probably did not think what they were doing was wrong. They thought it was good, and that it would land them lots of money. But it only crashed and burned.

In general, the more and more I see and read of politics, the more I realize how bad off America is. Nations like Bangladesh, India, Thailand, etc, they have excuses, they were not founded upon the same principles that America has been founded upon, the result is horribly ineffective politicians, military coups, and corruption everyonewhere. But Americans should know better, and yet all we can come up with is two men who will, in the end, do nothing for the better. I've heard various people say that all McCain will do is destory the country, but a bit slower than Obama. At this rate, I think I'd rather vote for my Youth Pastor (who is running, btw) than two... well... people who don't have what it takes. They won't make the right decisions, they will play the political games that ALL politicians (or at least most of them) play.

For years and years, the West has been seen as a place of great immorality, evil, and well, bad things by the East. (yet they all want to go there... go figure). To be honest, we deserve that title. America, in my eyes, has failed its job as the lone superpower of the modern world. We have done nothing in my eyes to deserve this title.

My question to everyone else, all other citizens of the United States that is, is what are you going to do about it? Right now, my goal is to complete my studies, but after that, I know what my goals are. I don't know if politics on the scale of Washington is what God has in store for me, but I do know that I've been called to be a leader. To bring the West (especially the nation of America) out of its fallen state. To recreate what we once were, the light in the darkness (okay... fine, we never were a true light in the darkness, immorality and sin have been part of our culture since the fall of the Roman Empire, before that even). If that means I end up president of the United States, CEO of Coke, Blizzard, McDonalds, whatever, I will do it.

What am I saying? To be honest... I'm not sure... well, I'm rambling, that's for sure. But this election has gotten me so disgusted. Obama won't do anything he promises (and if he does, I don't want any of it) and McCain, no matter how he says it, is just a combination of Bush (who, no matter how good of a person he is, is/was a horrid president. Thank God he can't stay in office!) and Obama. It makes me want to run for president.

Now, when I say that, you have to understand where I am coming from. I am not a politician, and I’m a horrid diplomat. I don’t mince words. Furthermore, I don’t like politicians. Bangladeshi politics have given me a bad taste in my mouth for ANY politician. Tarique Rahman spent the past five years ROBBING THIS COUNTRY BLIND. And for that, instead of kicking him out of the country, throwing him in jail (or better yet, shooting him for all the people he indirectly killed because they didn’t get the right government aid!) we send the man to England because he is “sick”. And we did pretty much the same thing with every other politician in this nation. It’s disgusting. America is by far doing a lot better, but still, Obama and McCain disgust me. The best we can come up with is a liberal conservative and a liberal liberal? Oh, but McCain has Palin! Palin is a good VP. Well… since the VP doesn’t actually do anything...

Fine… I think I’m going to stop now… I’m not even sure what the point of this is anymore… oh well.

I’ll try to get a “real update” up later.

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Weekend Weirdness

Very interesting weekend.

First off, my laptop, the holy grail of my life, well… besides the Bible, that is. :D

My laptop… didn’t work to well… you see, it had some strange issue with turning off randomly. After some research we decided that it was overheating and the way to fix this would be to blow compressed air into my machine. Well, we couldn’t find compressed air. >_<

So, my mom, the more skilled searcher, went searching. She found a “engineer” with a blowing/vacuum machine to come and fix my machine. Well… he did, and it appears to be working.

If John is reading this, once again, thank you for helping us with this issue.

Second… Youth…

Well, it went fine, I guess, it was a normal thing more or less, but afterwards… very difficult time coming home. I do believe all of it was spiritual warfare, most of it coming from… I’m not sure what, yet, but it was bad. We made it home safely, but not after a lot of stress and a lot of help from other people (once again, thank you Nathan and Caleb).

Also… I went shopping. That sounds really… girly, to say, but it I did, lol. I went and bought 2 headphones (for me and my mom) I replaced Gears of War, and I’m going to try this copy this week… if it doesn’t work, I’ll see if I can get dead space or mount and blade. Also, I went two the new Game Café. The one that we had gone to had expanded to a bigger room with better computers. It was huge. I there were at least 100 machines in there, and they were all full! One hundred teenagers all playing Counter Strike, DotA, Gears of War, and Vice City… it was amazing. I played a game of Counter Strike. I got pwned, to be honest, but I think I did pretty good considering we had some pretty advanced players playing. It was a good game.

Finally, I went to North Tower to see a shop that sold… that sold… (drum roll please?) REAL VIDEO GAMES! Only console games, but they had a couple of Wii games… I could not believe it. This is rather good… still, I need to ship in PC games from the states if I wanted non-pirated ones.

And that, was my wonderfully interesting weekend.

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Diablo 2 - My Adventure

Well, I finally got Diablo 2 to work.

Okay, here is what happened, I had gotten some money and I wanted to get some games… mainly Gears of War. So I went over to visit my friend Jacob, while there we played Diablo 2. I made a new character, a paladin, and fought my way through some demons and monsters for a few hours. Then we went shopping. I bought Gears of War, Medal of Honor: Airborne and then say Diablo 2 in the store, so I grabbed that.

Sadly, when I installed Diablo 2, it didn’t work. I got a “compatibility” error so I figured that it was my Vista OS, and there wasn’t anything I could do. But, then, I realized that I could patch the game! I downloaded the patch this morning, since I had insomnia, and lo and behold! It didn’t work. >.<

So I did some trouble shooting. It appeared that my copy of Diablo 2 did not have certain mpq files, which were rather important to running the game. My brother had installed Diablo 2 successfully on his PC, so using the wonderful google talk file sharing system, I copied the (two!) missing mpq files to my own Diablo 2 folder. I then patched the game. It worked! Best of all, my save files from Jacob’s house work! I now have my wonderful paladin warrior, in full resplendent armor, ready to kick the butts of whatever strange and horrid demon that would stand in my way!

I'll explain what Diablo 2 is later.
27 Peace I leave with you… not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled…
John 14:27 (NKJV)

…you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends. 14 You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants… I have called you friends
John 15:12-15 (NKJV)

…If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also…
John 15:20-21 (NKJV)

Thursday, October 16, 2008

I'm better!

Well, I had dengue… I’m still “recovering” but acting normal now…

Dengue… is really, really, really bad. But what to do…

Oh, I took the PSAT. It was easy, I’m not sure why I took it now that I think about it. I did it at the American School, which is REALLY nice looking school. We took it in one of their gyms, and it was cold… I was thirsty by the end of it (even though I had enough time to drink some water in the breaks…).

Oh well… I took the darn thing, never have to do it again The SAT, I’ll take it later… not sure when, probably May.

So… that’s what’s going on in my life. Oh, I’m behind in my school now… I hate getting sick. :(

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Dengue

I had a horrid, horrid, horrid week. You see, I have dengue fever (or something rather similar to dengue, I don’t have a rash yet). My week, therefore, was something like this.

Sunday: Normal school day, I started the Scarlet Letter, got my hair cut. I had a horrid sleep.

Monday: Normal school day, read my science Textbook, had Latin Class at night. I had a horrid sleep.

Tuesday: I realize why my sleep on Monday night was so bad… I was feverish. I slept all day long.

Wednesday: A little better, slept a lot, realized that I might have dengue.

Thursday: I felt much better on Thursday. Still, I am sick…

Oh, and I only got school work down on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. And I didn’t get all the school work I should have gotten done on Thursday…

So, as a warning to everyone reading this DON’T get dengue fever. It is… horrid.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Update on my Life

A lot of things have happened to today…

I had English Class this morning. English is always fun, even if the work itself is rather… hard. We invented a new word! Hiser! You see we were talking about how you should use his or her instead of just his or even s/he, so John decided to invent a new word: Hiser! So, everyone, if you use this word in informal writing often enough, then maybe it’ll become a real word! Ya!

Also, I finished the Grapes of Wrath. Okay, it was actually pretty well written. The middle was garbage in the form of socialist/Marxist doctrine, the end was horridly depressing, but the beginning, the beginning was good.

The plot was predictable in several places. I knew, I knew, that Rose of Sharon’s baby would not have something wrong with it for instance, it just made sense… Still, the story was well written, for the most part, so I guess I’ve give the author that. But really, I don’t see why it was so popular. Who wants to read depressing stuff like that? Also, A Separate peace by John Knowles was depressing, horribly depressing, but it was brilliant. This was only mediocre… so I’m not sure what the big deal is. Give me a Steven Erikson or Tolkien over this anytime.

I start the Scarlet Letter next week. I have a feel it will be more of the same, decent book, but far too heavy for my taste… oh well, I guess they have to smash ‘em all down my throat now cuz in 6 years I’ll be free of their reign of tyranny.

Now… off to DotA!

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Music... randomness... its 10PM and I'm tired and bored... but don't want to go to bed... lol

After listening to DragonForce for about an hour straight… I switched to my “favorites” playlist (a super long list of song I like…) and hit shuffle. I am now listening to Art of Breaking by TFK. It’s a good song, but its so… empty…

I mean… seriously, Trevor starts singing and I went… he voice doesn’t fill the room… he’s so… small… the guitars so… soft… the drum is… noexistant…

Oh well, that’s hard rock for you I guess.

Oh… and after much thinking, I have decided that Nightwish has amazing Bass. I think Marco should form his own band, I’d get the album. I love that guy. Okay… he looks really weird, but hey… that’s Finnish Metal bands…

DragonForce’s new album… its good… overproduced, but I like it. More of the same really, but I mean… DragonForce hasn’t changed in three albums, and stated that they really didn’t want to change. Something about how other bands always say, “we’ll be faster and harder on this album.” And then never really are. So DragonForce said, “you will get exactly what we say you get, which is more of the same.” It’s a good thing, but I have a feeling that they have exactly one more album in them before people stop buying video game inspired (Darn… that’s so cool… in a geeky kinda way. :D) lyrics played far to fast, far to high… every song is like that. I like it, but I listen to LotR metal by mediocre bands… so what can I say?

Not much else to talk about… I started spamming people’s blogs on the Isaiah forums, for those few of you who didn’t notice/aren’t member of the Isaiah Forums. For those of you who have no clue what I mean, the Isaiah forums are an unofficial Invision Free board for The Potter’s School students and Alumni (I think most of the regulars are now alumni… lol). I’m spamming blogs, and I must say, I had a lot of fun last night…

And now POD’s Enternal is playing… its good… but my ears feel empty… I wish more bands could have the level of “power” that DragonForce and Nightwish manage to pull off. I guess that’s why they call it power metal, no?

Anyways… I think I might just go to bed now.

Monday, September 22, 2008

Randomness... and a rant

Nothing new yet… still… I’m updating… why not?

I played Razor in DOTA… I’ve decided that while Razor appears to be imba (imbalanced for you non-nerds) he really insn’t, even if he can get about every level 4 item in the game if he has about 60 minutes and a really good creep count. I nearly did. :D

However, I don’t care what you say, Lich is the most imba hero ever created. NERF LICH!!!! Oh… and buff dragon knight please, that way I can pwn everyone with him :p.

What else… I found an older version of Moo Moo Town that is winnable, you can spam healing potions much easier in this version. Me like! I cheated to win it, but I figure with 3 heroes it could be winnable rather easily.

I’ve also decided that the Grapes of Wrath isn’t that good of a book… clichéd characters and far too much Marxism for my liking… capitalism works! Even if the current economic situation seems to disagree with me -_-.

Ah… I was going to talk about music. You know… its kinda annoying, but my favorite bands of all time do things that I/my friends could never imagine doing if we/they (I don’t play an instrument, remember?) ever formed a band. Nightwish… AMAZING BAND. But… we need a few things that I can’t think of finding:

1. Someone with a keyboard that can be programmed with MIDIs, oh… and the ability to do said programming in the first place…
2. A GOOD female vocalist… one who can sing rather high… unlikely.
3. Someone who actually likes Nightwish to play guitar and drums… oh… and Michael to learn Bass…

Then there is dragonforce… *laughs* why bother… the greatest guitarist I know (Mark) was nowhere close to Herman Li or Sam Totman. Not to mention we need 2 eletric guitars, 5 people with a sense of humor (come one… read the lyrics… they are plane stupid!) and a double bass drum set (not to mention someone fast enough to drum said drum set).

Oh… but how about Demonhunter or another metalcore band… okay, I won’t laugh… but it won’t happen. Only Jacob and me can take music of that level, and even I don’t like As I Lay Dying THAT much… I can’t stand Underoath, for the most part (to… discordant). Plus, we need a good lead and rythmn guitarist, a drum that can do double bass drumming, and someone who has enough vocal skill to do growling vocals/clean vocals and not ruin his vocals… okay… I think I will laugh *laughs*

Sometimes I wonder why I was put here… amongst friends to whom heavy is… Kutless… and can only think of bands in terms of worship music (which rocks… but seriously, think concerts… in Dhaka… worship music isn’t exactly that popular…)

Right now, I think the best we could do is something along the lines of Breaking Benjamin, (Alt. Metal)… but we run into the problem of needing a 5 piece band… on and someone who can actually sing. I mean, Max is there… but remember that line about Kutless? Yep… he’s that person…

If only I could sing… if only Jacob could sing (not that he exactly looks like a singer…) if only Michael could sing…

Of course, we could TRY to have me sing… but that would be… a massive fail… it’d be funny, in a sad sort of way.

*goes off to listen to Nightwish and dream of meeting a vocalist of equal skill as Annette*

Monday, September 15, 2008

Life is normal...

Since I haven’t done so in a while I am now blogging again.

So far, the week has been okay… I’m behind in Science, but that should be soon remedied… mostly. Its kinda scary, I have more math in my Science than I do in my Math… crazy, no?

Also, I got my graphing calc a few days ago. It’s a TI-84 Plus (Silver Edition). It’s… big… but cool. I’m still getting used to all the fancy features and unique button locations (well… at least different from my old Casio calc).

I’ve been playing DotA a bit, as usual. Man… I love that game… it’s amazing.

And I can’t think of anything else that has happened worth mentioning… a bit sad really, that means my life has been normal since I last blogged!

Well… there was the traffic jam that I got stuck in for two hours… but that wasn’t really exciting… I just sat in traffic… broke a sweat… and talked to Jacob, who was with me.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Ah the joys of the first week of TPS...

Well… I’ve had an interesting 24 hours. Well… more like 12 hours, but still, it’s been interesting.

I had Programming 1 last night, and I must say, it was probably the funniest TPS class I’ve ever had. Not because the class was fun, but because everything went wrong! First off, one of the students, Nicholas something, had couldn’t get into class properly. He would log in, but the chat box, participant box, and presentation wouldn’t come on. Yet, interestingly, his mic was on! So he’d talk to Mr. Madison (Mr. M) but he would get cut off every thirty seconds or so… that was weird. Finally, he figured out that something on his computer was blocking GP4… a firewall, parental controls, something like that. He left to figure it out… hopefully he’ll be there for the rest of the year.

After that, class was pretty much normal. Except for a few things… Mr. M ran us through the introduction pretty well… but then… he got kicked… and things went downhill from there. He couldn’t present, and spent several minutes troubleshooting that… when that didn’t work, he gave up, and tried just to talk… but even that got messed up. The best way to describe this would be one word: Aliens.

I’m not joking, it sounded like aliens had hacked into our GP4 meeting and messed with the audio, Twilight Zone type music and a completely distorted Mr. Madison followed. Finally, we figured since class was about over anyways… we needed to quite class.

And that was my first meeting with Programming, ironic that the “computer course” had all the bugs, eh?

Monday, September 8, 2008

EA = Evil

Well… a few different things have happened during the past week. First off, I’ve started playing with Pit Lord against AIs in DOTA. HE ROCKS! Against AIs… he’s harder to use against real players in the cafes but still, the pushing power of the Pit Lord cannot be denied. At one point, me and Michael were fighting 5 Easy AIs, Michael was Tormented Soul, and he wasn’t doing to good, so he left, but I kept playing for kicks. I would have lost once they all got to level 25, but as I was several levels higher than them, I could still push them back. I COULD FIGHT 5 AIs! That is saying something…

Also, I’ve decided not to buy spore, and will have to reconsider buying Red Alert 3, or any PC game from EA for that matter. Why? One word: SecureROM. What is SecureROM you ask? It’s a DRM, a Digital Rights Management program. Now, I really don’t have to many problems with DRMs in general, but they have a bad habit of messing with your PC system, being malware, destroying hardware, and the like. Google search Starforce and Ubisoft. Starforce, Ubisoft’s attempt at DRM ended up destroying a few people’s CD-ROM drives. Starforce wasn’t sued (since they are in Russia… *sigh*) but Ubisoft lost 5 million US dollars, no small amount of money for them.

Now, EA is using DRMs, namely, SecureROM. This is annoying; first off, you MUST register with EA online. Second off, it limits to you three installations. That last bit makes me want to curse… no joke, its downright stupid. For me, I have a Laptop, that’s one instillation, my sister might want to play the game, she has a laptop, two installations, oh, and my brother, and mother might want to play these games too… FOUR INSTALLATIONS! Furthermore, any reinstallation of Windows and some hardware changes (new motherboard, new graphics card, new sound card… etc) might trigger an installation. Great… furthermore, you have to call an NON toll free number to try and ask EA if they want to let you get your installations back, this number is only available during working hours.

The greatest thing about this? The so called, “added security” that SecureROM brings. I mean, such a big deal, it must actually work, right? Nope. Spore was hacked, cracked, and uploaded to the internet BEFORE SHIPMENT. How stupid is EA?

So… this means something very simple: if I buy Spore, it will be a pirated copy. If I buy Mass Effect, it will be a pirated copy, if Red Alert is released with similar software, I will pirate it, remove SecureROM and hack/crack the game until I have removed the friggin stupid software. EA, you’re a bunch of idiots. That being said, I’m sure that in a few years this whole thing will blow over, EA will remove SecureROM and get back to making games like smart people do: without all the extra “piracy protection” software.

Now… to continue this piracy rant… I must speak. People claim piracy is killing industries like the movie, video game, and music industry. Ya, maybe they are losing sales, the Music industry appears to be for sure, but especially with the other two industries, I think it all steam and hot air to get people to not focus on what these industries are really lacking in a lot: quality. I mean, let’s be honest, most Americans, Europeans, and people in the first world do acquire their games legally. That being said, most people in the 3rd World, particularly Asia, do not. However, this does not mean, if given the opportunity to buy the game legally, if the pricing of said game was reasonable (and no, $50 bucks for a PC game is not reasonable to me, I can buy a pirated game for 120tk, less than $2). If EA, Blizzard-Activison, and other Video game and movie companies (music as well I guess) sold their stuff here, legally, for reasonable prices (we are talking $30 dollars max) people would buy them. Okay, some would still pirate and buy pirated games, but not everyone. I’ve lost PCs do pirated software and malware on video games. I’ve had CD Key-gens that are in fact Backdoor Trojans waiting to pounce and hack my PC to bits. I’d rather buy real software and install it, even if I have to crack it later on, I’d still rather have the Real CD.

Oh, and speaking of this, everyone, check the following website: www.gog.com. Good Old games is the website’s name. This site claims to be selling a bunch of “good old games” that are hard to find in stores, and are still classics. It’s not open yet, but the best thing is that it will have no DRM and agrees with me, the best way to combat piracy is low prices and lots of extras.

As for the those who still believe in DRMs… COME BACK INTO THE LIGHT! COME TO ME I TELL YOU! (we have cookies!) :D

Monday, September 1, 2008

Ramadan

It’s the first day of Ramadan today. For those of you who don’t know, Ramadan is the month of fasting for Muslims, I believe Mohammad fasted during this month, and thus all Muslims do. By fasting I mean they are not allowed to eat or drink anything from the time the sun rises, to the time the sun sets.

And so… with this comes the injustice of this month. First off, people don’t eat enough in the first place, couple this with having absolutely messed up eating schedules means people don’t eat properly… (and of course, the kids, who aren’t supposed to fast, do it anyways, because their parents don’t have the energy or money to cook more than 1 or two times a day… not five). And then the prices get raised. Its stupid, its Ramadan, so people raise the prices, why? Its Ramadan. Umm… okay… like that makes any sense. I pointed out that if just ¼ of the population of the city didn’t buy some of the stuff that gets marked up (various fruits, puffed rice, various snack food items) for just one week, the prices would go back down. But, of course, no one does, they just complain, and then buy the item, killing themselves to get it.

Oh the upside, it’s a great time to pray for people. So I guess that’s something to be happy about, no?

Oh, and TPS starts next week. *cries* I don’t want to start TPS… I mean… I do, but I don’t want to… you know? I like my semi-busy schedule… once TPS starts it’ll be much busier… with a proper Latin course, English, Math and Programming, I’ll be quite busy.

Oh well… that’s life.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

SAT Practice Test

I just took my first Practice SAT… very interesting experience.

First off, the Essay, and all the various English bits won’t be that hard on the real thing. If I work really hard I can get a very good score. However, the math… that math will be hard…

Let’s put it this way, there were three sections in the math section of the SAT, all of them were about a problem a minute. The first two, I did decent in, not amazing, but I wouldn’t say I did bad… that last one… I did horrid. Okay, I was tired (darn the test is draining!) and I couldn’t think properly, but still, if it had been a real exam, I would have been in trouble.

I still haven’t gotten my results yet, but I should have them in by the end of the day. I’ll write about my results and what I need to improve on them later.

Overall, it was a good experience, the book has another 8 of these “practice tests.” I’ll probably take at least one more, if not two, as well as the PSAT later on this year. I’m planning on taking the SAT in May 09.

The thing that I think is really good about this test is that it shows me how much TPS has helped me. All the problems on the SAT I could have, if given the right amount of time, and some extra preparation (I basically took the test cold) could have been answered and I would have been confident of my answers. Only the math section was really challenging, I had really been panicking about the Essay, but it turned out to be quite easy. And, while the quality of what I wrote probably wasn’t as good as the one Essay I wrote in English 9 that got a 100 (yes, I did manage to get an A+).

Umm… I need to go gaming, I’ll write more later.

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Random stuff... an update

Well, once again, WCG (World Cyber Games) has come and gone in the wonderful land of Bangladesh. This year, they actually had two tournaments before going off to the finals in some other land (this year, Germany). And, once again, I missed it…

Not that there was anything I could do. I mean, they FINALLY got Counter Strike v1.6 to be played here, but I have no clan to play with… unless you count me, Nathan, Jacob, Michael and maybe one of Jacob’s friends. And sorry, that’s the lamest excuse for a clan I’ve ever seen, since none of us are any good. Okay, I know how to play counter strike. I can play with a SMG, pistol, most rifles (no snipers) and am smart enough to use frag and flash grenades. But, against a real pro, I don’t stand chance.

Of course, assuming that we get DOTA to be played next year, I might actually stand a chance. First off I’d have to get a clan, but that would be easy… me, Michael, Derek, Jacob, one of Derek’s friends. It’d actually be a pretty decent clan, since we actually know what we are doing. Of course we’d have to practice and get our own heroes (a stunner, a killer, a tanker, a farmer, another stunner probably…). Something like: Earthshaker, Spiritbreaker, Centaur, Razor/Drow, Dragonknight… good combination, IMO.

What else… well, 4him was good as always. We had a good time of worship and a very good message, as well as some fun games. Getting home was a pain, but it was a holiday the next day, so the amount of traffic and the lack of transport was kinda expected… still, it wasn’t fun.

And so, with not much else to talk about, I’m going to talk about Talisman. Talisman is good, it’s a bit 2D because all you seem to do is kill various enemies, and team up with other people to kill various enemies. You can duel, but that is only so entertaining…

On the upside, it is fun killing stuff, level up, report to my master (Derek, the guy who got me into this game) and then kill more stuff. I enjoy it. It’s not WoW, or Everquest, or Guild Wars, but it is free, I can play it on my internet speed, and my friends play it. So… I guess, for a free game, it gets my approval.

Okay, off to read my book… write more later.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

School now...

Well, last week I started school. Okay… its not as much school as I will have once Potter’s School starts, but still, I started school.

Also, I went gaming on Thursday. And, furthermore, was told about a game called Talisman by Derek.

Oh, and the Stouts are back, and Charles and Chase are in 4him… its nice. We’re also going to try and get Audrey to come to 4him, but that will be easier said than done… she does her homework on Sat. evenings…

And so… gaming… gaming is fun… I like DOTA. We several games, none of which we actually finished (stupid PCs weren’t working properly!). But it was still fun, I played Stormspirit and Earthshaker for the first time in those games. Both heroes were actually quite good, Earthshaker I wouldn’t want to play to much, since he is a more of an advanced hero… but Stormspirit, if I can get a build for him, then he actually looks like quite a good hero.

Oh, and I also played Dragon Knight in our final game. Dragon Knight, you know, he really is just an amazing hero. Give him arcane ring, boots of speed, maybe a bracer or two, and then Heart, and he is an absolute monster! All he needs is another nuker/stunner and he will kill any hero one on one. Furthermore, I like heroes that have high armor… it’s fun to watch a lvl 12 hero with 1000 HP pwn someone with 2000 HP… just because their attacks don’t do any damage.

And Talisman… Talisman is supposed to be a fun MMORPG, which Derek plays. Jacob said he’d download it and then give it to me, then him, me, Michael, and Derek could all play together. Also, I asked Derek about the Cracked version of World of Warcraft, and he said it wasn’t very good, not patched correctly, buggy, and had no players… so I guess I won’t be playing on that server.

What else did I do… well… I tried to win Moo Moo town, but that didn’t work so well. Also, I played a game of Civ 4. I think I was going to lose, but I’m not sure, Egypt got ahead of me in technology, and I could tell that there was no way I was going to win a diplomatic victory, since I need Germany’s vote, and had no way to gain it.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

School is back!

Well… yesterday was the last day of my summer holiday. It was a good day, I enjoyed myself, but… summer is gone…

Not to say I hate school… school is good… it just… is so hard… so much work… much less free time… I DON’T GET TO PLAY DOTA ALL DAY LONG!!!!!! NO!!!!

But don’t worry… I’m not up to my neck in school work yet… that won’t happen until Potter’s School starts. Still, Latin, Literature (as Advanced Comp. doesn’t have any Lit.) and Chemistry…

What else… well… not much… all my boarding school friends and Brian (who is now a college friend) have left. Some left on Saturday, some on Sunday, and one yesterday morning. Its sad, but I’m used to saying good-bye to them, I’ve been doing it since 7th Grade (or 8th…. I can’t remember) and it’s gotten easier each year I suppose. Sometimes its harder than others, but this year it was quite easy.

Also, I’ve decided that I’m going to attempt to try to play World of Warcraft… which should be interesting… we can get a pirated copy and play on a pirated server… so it should be fun… might not work perfectly, but who knows?

And I can’t think of anything else to write about… shame really…. I like to write so much.

I’ll give you guys a full update of my what I’ve been doing for school later… for now… chemistry is calling.

Edit: Okay, I'm done school, its almost 9PM now, first day of school was good. Only thing I can say is that we need to speed up the time we spend on experiments... it took us far to long to do two short experiments... the reading was easy, it was all review from last year (or the year before that...).

Anyways... I think we're gonna watch naruto soon...

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Small Update

I really should blog more...

Anyways... just a quick update. I start non-potter's school next week, I'll just be doing a little bit of latin, reading and chemistry, but still, it will be the end of summer. :( Potter's School starts in Sept, so I have a while before the workload really kicks in.

Most importantly, I HAVE WIRELESS INTERNET! I HAVE LAN! I CAN LAN WITH MY VIDEO GAMES!

I'm happy. :P :D

Brian will be coming over today for our final sleepover. It should be fun. He leaves before I start school... thats kinda sad. Still, I'll see him this Christmas, so its not to bad. Caleb will leave soon too, along with Toby, and I'll miss them. Still, most of my friends have now graduated or are living in Dhaka... I'll just have to get over not seeing the ones that have graduated (I get this strange, sad feeling that I may never see Andrew B. or Matt again...) Caleb Meyer will be staying for a few months, so that will be nice, I'll enjoy spending some time with him.

And, that is all for now. Nothing much has happened. Write more later.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Its now 9:27AM, my friend Brian is asleep in my bedroom (where I am) and I am listening to Disturbed’s Indestructible Album. On headphones, of course. So far, it’s amazing, in the unique Disturbed way.

Anyways… Brian came over yesterday afternoon, and we played Devil May Cry 4 (FREAKING SWEET GAME!!!!!!!) and Sins of a Solar Empire, both of which he gave to me. Devil May Cry 4…. Or DMC4 since I can’t be bothered to write out that entire name every time. The game is quite simple, kill demons as stylishly as possible with a wide variety of weapons. Unlike the older DMC games you play as a new dude, Nero, instead of Dante. Nero has three weapons, a demon arm, Red Queen, his sword, and Blue Rose, is double barreled Revolver. Oh, and the graphics kick serious butt… at a level I cannot describe… much better than anything I’ve ever seen, EVER. I am so glad I have the PC I have…

Sins of a Solar Empire… good fun. It’s a combination of Homeworld and Galactic Civilizations, which is basically a Civilization game in space. But, unlike Galactic Civilizations, Sins of a Solar Empire actually is fun. Plus its RTS, which is much better than Turn based.

So… Sins of a Solar Empire… you start with one planet, build up your fleet, take new planets, asteroids and the like and then fight off against the other Solar Empires, which tend to be quite difficult to destroy. See, combat in this game takes a LONG time, between tons of frigates and cruisers, and then a bunch of capital ships, if your opponent decides to attack you, the battle can take 30 minutes on-and-off, as you send more ships into the battle, and they do the same. Most likely all it means is you’ll lose the planet and have to fight for it for the rest of the game. At least, that was my experience. I lost my first game… but it wasn’t all that bad… I enjoyed myself. Mainly, it was the stupid pirate fleets that pwned me, because well… they were rather good.

I hate myself and my silly internet… I wrote this… a week ago? And only now have I been able to (well, remembered) to upload it… anyways… enjoy, readers of my blog!

Monday, July 14, 2008

I have been neglecting this blog recently… not sure why… lots of things, mostly not a lot to exciting has happened.

Anyways… what has happened? Well, I had a sleepover with Brian last weekend that was fun. We watch a scary movie (and I stopped paying attention to it half-way through… because it was scary) talked (about everything) and played a game of Settlers of Cataan, and a game of the card Trading game, Timestream. I lost both of themL. To be honest, I was expecting as much, Settlers… Brian is VERY good in Settlers, and Timestream, to be honest, I just got bad luck. If I had gotten some better cards I could have managed a victory, but I didn’t, and just as I was recoverying from my defeat, he beat me. Still it was fun, Brian, in case you didn’t know, has now officially graduated from Hebron School in South India, and will be attending the University of Chicago in September. I’m happy for him, he’s done well in school and I’m sure he’ll do equally well, if not better in College.

Also… DOTA… I’ve been playing DOTA a bit more and I must say I’ve improved. It’ll take a while, but I believe that I can make my way up to the point where, eventually, me and Jacob can take on 5 insane AIs and win. Not to say that this goal is close, but it’s there. I’d say it’s like 6 months down the road of serious DOTA playing.

Today, Caleb comes over, which is great. Also, I’ll play DOTA with Jacob, Derek, and their friends… so I’ll have a good time.

Oh, looking over my schedule for next year, I suppose I’ll give you my list of courses:

Advanced Algebra (Algebra II) with Potter’s School

Advanced Composition with Potter’s School

Latin II with Potter’s School

Chemistry

Programming I (with Potter’s School)

Art History (1 Semester)

PE

Yep… now while that may not sound like a lot, it is… Advanced Composition… one essay a week… I’ll survive, but will my sanity? :D. Algebra II I’m not so worried about, I can do math, and I did good in Algebra, I’m hoping that I can manage another 90 overall in this course, hopefully even better (it’d be nice to be able to get a GPA of like 3.7 overall for Highschool). Chemistry… I won’t enjoy Chemistry so much but it’s the last High School science course I’ll have to take, and that will help me… Latin II well, let’s just say I’m hoping I can survive the course! Programming I want to do, and I hope its fun. PE is required, and I don’t mind it, and Art History, well, its only a half-credit, and I need to take it, so what to do…

That’s all for now… I’ll try to upload this blog entry soon, it was written on the 9th, in case you were wonderings.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Sleepover!

Just came back from Caleb’s (Schmidt) house after a sleepover… lol… more like stay for twenty-four hours… cuz its now nearly six, and I went over at like… 4:30 :P

Anyways… it was amazing. We played on Michael’s Wii console, mostly Wii Sports (Golf and Tennis were the favorites!), but we just talked a lot and we also watched National Treasure some.

Tennis was good, we had a Round-Robin tournament, me, Caleb, Nathan, Michael, and Uncle Silo. I believe Uncle Silo and Caleb went into the finals, and then Caleb won, but it was a good game. I didn’t expect Uncle Silo to get so good so fast… he did very well.


Then, golf… golf was amazing. I didn’t expect it to be so fun, but I loved it! The first game we played was only me, Nathan, and Michael, a nine hole game, and I lost… we all did horrid, actually, cuz I believe the final scores were around 20-25 points…

We also watched National Treasure, which was good… I love that show. We watched it in Nathan’s room, were we all slept (Uncle Silo and Auntie Corina slept in Caleb’s room because they had painters doing there room). But it was nice, because we had AC… so the room was actually almost cold.

Then came the next day, I got up at around 9:30AM (after going to sleep at like… 3:30AM… so 6 hours of sleep… not bad) and had breakfast and a nice, long, conversation with Uncle Silo. After that, Caleb and Nathan got up and we played Wii again… some tennis, some bowling, but our big thing was a 4 person game of golf, all 9 holes.

This game was much better, Caleb lost, because he took some risky shots in two games that ended up messing him up. Michael came next, because despite his strong start, he messed up the last two games and lost his holding of 1st place. Actually, he almost got last place, but at the last moment, he managed to get better than Caleb, he had 9 points to Caleb’s 10. Nathan and I did much better. Both of us were pretty close for most of the game, and at the final game we were tied, 5 points each, since we both made Par, it ended with us sharing 1st place.

Also, we had Samoan Cocoa! It was great stuff… real hot chocolate. Basically, Caleb took pure cocoa butter, graded it, put it in water and boiled it, then poured it into a cup, added a bit of milk and sugar, and there you go! It tasted great… I’ll have to get some more… eh?

And then, realizing that it really was time for us to go (and Caleb mentioning that he needed a haircut…) me and Michael walked back to our house… and now here we are… waiting for the power to come back on… how I hate the lack of power we have…

Anyways… Brian comes back on the 1st of July, and Caleb Meyers should be back with him or sooner… I can’t wait… we’ll have a good month together before both of them leave for College.

And that seems to be all I have to report… write more later.

PS Nightwish rocks! Everyone should listen to them… in terms of musical creativity, I think Nightwish has every other band I’ve heard beat… the combination of heavy metal guitar riffs, opera style female vocals, and classical instruments on the keyboard makes for one extremely unique sound. A good example, IMO, would be their songs Bye, Bye, Beautiful and Amaranth.

PSS: I’ve restarted my Roplaying Blog… read it at: rpdhaka.blogspot.com