Update on my life

Today is a day of happiness.

Well, actually, its more of this week. You see, this week, Starcraft 2 was announced by blizzard!

So, ya, check it out, at, www.Starcarft2.com.

Also, I am almost done school, just 2 more science test, 1 history report, one book report, and one math test, YAA!!! PARTY!

Umm… what else to say? Not much… maybe this is why I haven’t updated this blog in a while. I haven’t had anything to say. Life’s been going on as normal, I’ve been doing school, writing, reading, eating, talking to people, etc.

Oh, well, I suppose I could tell you a bit about my history report. It’s a World War I report, with a serious (as in, the point of the report) focus on three weapons used during that war. Those weapons are: The tank, the machine gun, and the various artillery used during the war.

Anyways… so, with the advent of summer, I’m wondering what I’m going to do… hopefully, I’ll get Malazan Book of the Fallen Volume 5 (Midnight Tides) soon, that and Harry Potter 7 should be fun to read… I should also try and read the Simillerion, or however you spell it.

And now, I’m going to go do something else… maybe play gamecube for a bit.

4him Retreat

Well, I just got back from the annual (or at least, usually annual I think) 4him retreat.

4him is my Church Youth Group, this current generation (somewhere in limbo between the 1^st and the 2^nd generation I’d say) is about 44 people. Of these 44 people about 30 live in Dhaka (many are now in university or boarding school abroad).

Anyways, so I’m back from the retreat, we left from church on Friday after the morning English service (yes, church is on Fridays… it’s a bit lengthy to explain), and arrived at the place were we spent the retreat (a Bangladesh Baptist Campground sorta place called the Prayer Garden) in time for a late lunch (2:30ish) of Dhal, Rice, and Chicken Curry.

Anyways… I could go on about how what we ate, but I’m not. Mainly, we had a lot of free time to hang around, as well as a good bit of worship and sharing from everyone, some people shared some really personal stuff, which was cool.

Oh ya, I also converted Julius (one of my friends at 4him) to Warhammer Fantasy Role-play, which is cool, I (as the Game-Master) ran a intro scenario called Through the Drakwald for him and Jacob (another one of my friends), and we set up a place were we can meet regularly.

It was a blast… the Prayer Garden is a great place to go to relax and enjoy ones self. It’s very basic: cots on the floor with mosquito nets, hard pillows (which I like), and very simple food, but its still a great place. I think some of my favorite memories are from playing with my friends at the Prayer Garden… but I’d better stop thinking about that ‘cos I’m already getting nostalgic.

The only thing I think that the retreat was missing, was more time, I felt this retreat we had more time than the last one, but, still I would like to have another 12 hours to spend, you know, leave Dhaka Thursday afternoon, and comeback Saturday afternoon. 48 hours instead of 24.

For more on Through the Drakwald, check out my other blog, dhakarp.blogspot.com (if that doesn’t work, check out my profile, that’ll give a proper link).

Well, my Mom finally decided, after much straining, thinking, and stressing, decided to sign me up for a Potter’s school English class.

So, this morning, while I was pursuing the magic section of my WFRP Corebook (I haven’t really read the others as much, and, at least for a while, don’t need to do so), my mom handed me to groups of paper and said, “Which class do you want to do?” So I had a choice, English 9 (yes, I know it’s a 9^th Grade Course and I’ll be in 10^th Grade), or Writing Composition, I chose English 9.

Why? Well, Potter’s school is pretty demanding, my sister has had to work her butt off for her class, and mine hasn’t been that easy either (okay… actually, that’s not totally true, I’m maintaining a straight A average with ease). The Writing Composition looked really challenging (like, PLEASE, PLEASE DON’T give a C!) and while the English 9 looked like I could pass pretty easily (while at the same time, learning quite a bit). Also, Writing Composition was like an all grammar class… grammar, grammar, grammar, grammar. Grade 9 English on the other hand was a little of everything… essays, reading stuff, Bible stuff, grammar, journaling, AND NOVEL WRITING!!!!

So, yes, I’m doing English 9.

Peace People.

Isaac the masterofweirdness

Oh, anyone who hasn’t already done so wanna leave a comment? I’d appreciate it. I know that at least one person is reading this… but, well, one person in the entire world of bloggers on blog.com is sorta depressing.

Well, recently, I got my hands on my three WFRP books, which have begun my venture in the realm of Role-playing.

I've starting a campaign blog here... I think its http://rpdhaka.blogspot.com/ so feel free to check it out... I'll have the first official campaign update up soon.

As for the rest of life? Well, school is slowly plodding along... 4him is doing well, I'm enjoying helping out in Kid's Church (once a month thing for all the kids at Church), and well, ya... nothing to report, except, the only PC game I have worth playing now is the Sims 2, which is fun, if not a bit boring.

TTYL

Well, here I am, madly trying to finish school a week early so I can get more time to play this summer.

School for me ends mid-June, however (the 3^rd week), but, if I work hard (and get up early each morning to do school) then I can be done my school a week ahead of schedule at least, which is exciting.

So… I’m a week ahead of my Science. WAY ahead on my Grammar stuff (according to my schedule that I created, I should be done in 2-3 weeks when I have 7 more weeks of school). My Math, which is done with Potter’s School (an online school) will be done by 25^th of May, the only thing I need to worry about is my English and History.

English, well, you see I have a ton of books I need to read… which means I’ll probably end up reading and stuff over the summer… something that I don’t look forward to.

But, nothing to do but press on and get my school finished… the sooner I get the work done the sooner I can play video games all day long an focus on my writing a bit more.

Oh, and I'll be starting a new blog for my WFRP group soon... hopefully, I be putting up regular updates.

NWN2 - A semi review

Okay, I’m not going to a proper review of Neverwinter Nights 2 seeing as I never bothered to finish it, but, I suppose I might as well tell you guys what I thought of it.

In all, it wasn’t worth it.

Now, mind you, one of the greatest things about NWN 1 was the online play, something that I don’t do, so, I don’t know if NWN2 had amazing online play or not.

Anyways… I think for me the biggest problem was that NWN2’s graphics just annoying. My graphics card, a rather nice one, and one that runs Oblivion fine (it works perfectly, though I’m not sure if it was set to “low” or “medium”), but doesn’t run NWN2??!!!! I mean, IMO, Oblivion has MUCH better graphics, yet, it manages to work on my mediocre PC MUCH better than NWN2… that’s just messed up.

Also, I’m not sure why, but I think I enjoyed NWN MORE than its sequel. The only reason I would ever buy NWN2 over NWN is the fact that you get a proper party, 4 people (actually 5, but the 5^th doesn’t come in till mid story). However, your companions are pretty boring, the only one with any real depth is your dwarf dude, to compare this to KOTORII (which is quite logical, since Obsidian made both games), KOTORII, a older game with less variety in your character (only 3 classes, and 6 prestige classes, which are really just good/evil versions of the 3 primary classes with some new abilities) was SO much more fun, why? Because it had depth. Each character had some sort of twist to his background (except one, but that’s out of 9 mind you), plus it FELT epic… and, when I think of it, NWN2 is supposed to feel epic, yet, when I played it, I just sort of felt like it wasn’t.

I could go on, but, I’m not going to… you can read professional reviews everywhere. www.ign.com, www.gamespy.com, www.gamespot.com, etc. so go ahead and read a review there if you want to buy the game… but, from what I’ve played, it wasn’t that great, if I had to review it, I’d probably give it a 6.8 out of 10.

However, mind you, that rating doesn’t include exploring your castle (which supposedly is AWESOME), online play, and completing the single-player campaign.

Now, back to finishing up my Space Marine DOW Dark Crusade Campaign… how I wish I could get 4 squads of termies instead of 2… just two more and I’d be happy, I’d be willing to drop Landspeeders, grey knights (even if they are awesome) and my chaplain for them.

Boredom

Well, I’m bored.

Okay, I’m not actually bored, I just don’t have any decent PC games to play.

I should try and win HL2: Episode One, but, it tends to freeze my PC and I’m not all that fond of playing the whole game all over again.

I could continue Total Annihilation, but, it gets a bit old pretty fast.

I probably will continue to play DoW: Dark Crusade, it’s a fun game and I enjoy playing the space marines, Grey Knights are cool, even if they don’t add anything to the game and are, background wise at least, probably not going to fight with Space Marines very often.

And so, I’ll probably continue playing the most entertaining game I have right now, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, a GBA game I have for my PC. How does that work? Well, my friend Jacob has this technology and P2P software that allows him to put GBA files on his PC, I went over to his house, copied the files to a USB Stick and then put them on my computer.

Now, onto FF. Final Fantasy Tactics advanced is a Grid Turn Based RPG. What does that mean? Well first of all, it isn’t realistic. Units determine when they move by how fast they are (initiative and speed or something similar) as well as how many actions they used (up to a maximum of 2, moving and then using a ability like fight or a class specific power). Grid means the map is a grid, think of a piece of graphing paper, where a unit is placed in a square… only with some 3D things to think about such as height (which is really important for units who used ranged weapons like archers and gunners (yes, there are gunners)).

The game is fun, the story isn’t amazing, and the combat system isn’t new, what is cool is the class (jobs in this game) system.

You see, every race has some basic “jobs” humans have the most, while bangaa (lizard men, but they look more like dogs) have the least (I’m not sure what the other races are called, you have moogles, which have wings and technology, people with bunny ears and then some weird thing who I have no idea how to describe). Each job has different abilities, archers have ranged attacks, black mages have ranged offensive powers, white mages have ranged defensive powers (like cure, protect and such) solders have random melee powers (which aren’t that useful). Also, each class has different stats, thieves are fast, and warriors are slow.

Then you have more powerful special classes, like fighters, templars, paladins, ninjas, and snipers, and after that I think you get even more powerful, but, I never made it that far.

Anyways… that’s what’s keeping me sane these few days, hopefully it’ll tide me over till Brian comes back and I can play more of Oblivion.