2001-06-11 - 5:19 p.m.
#71: No Need for Quick Recant of Events in Recent Days
Note to self: Okay, turns out my new CD-RW isn't such a big deal afterall, since it produces about 2 coasters for every 5 CDs burnt. @_@ Which is rather nasty of the little thing to do. Not only can't I run anything while burning anymore (the rate of misburnings increases to 4 out of 5, then) but 8x write speed is more than a mite bit unreliable. So I have to stick to either writing in ye elde 4x or 6x, which both apparently write at the same rate, in any case. And just when things were looking so good, too. *sighs* Also found out that the blame for the texture corruption I seem to be having in a lot of games lately lies solely at the feet (har dee har har) of my graphics card: A Matrox G400 card which the computer shop owners said was "just as good" as a Geforce 2.... Ergh.... Why do I ever listen to their opinions anymore? You'd think I'd have learnt from my previous experience of being sold my Cyrix lemon....
And right after I get my computer to do a diary entry, I just as quickly disappear again.... For a whole WEEK! Are those the actions of a sane man? I think NOT! Well, actually.... Considering that an online diary doesn't fulfill the one true tenet of diarydom (ie being a secret memory storage device) just writing in this thing is probably not the most rational decision one could make. Hmmmm. I'm incoherent before I even start my diary entry. This is probably a bad sign. In any case, time to do my now usual thang of updating events on the last couple of days.
Wednesday.... Nothing much happened then so let's skip on ahead. Oh, wait. That day I found out how uncooperative my CD-RW really was by burning three coasters in a row for the same set of files. Blargh. Lousy, stupid so-called 8x burner.... Also found out that I couldn't delete ALL my papers through the Universitys online enrollment system: nDeva which shouldn't have surprised me, I guess. Especially considering how much I complained about its inadequacies at the start of the year. O.o Wow, seems like such a long time ago since I did that entry....
Thursday.... In complete contrast to Wednesday lotsa stuff happened. First, I woke up late (as per my usual "lack of any form of life" schedule) and then my parents and I rushed down to the city to have lunch as well as drop me off in front of the university to see someone about confirming the withdrawal of all my papers. Had to wait about an hour to see the Dean about such matters, so instead of spending time in the Engineering Building (which was giving me an ulcer just STANDING there.... Too many bad memories. O.o) I decided to go down to the city for the time. Which probably wasn't such a great idea either, as I splurged quite muchly on blank CDs (grrrrrr.... stupid.... CD chewing.... CD-RW.... MONSTER!) as well as two Bubblegum Crisis 2040 which I technically didn't need since I'd already had those eps in realmedia format but.... eh. I'm a completist; at least in terms of time wasting hobbies. Anyway after my hour was up, I wandered back to the Engineering Block to see the Dean and confirm my withdrawing of all papers for the year.
Well, it appeared that I couldn't withdraw my first semester papers (which was understandable, considering I was trying to do it while in the middle of the examination period. I'm probably not going to like the big "did not sit") but it also appeared that I couldn't withdraw my double semester paper; which was a mite bit more distracting, since it was a paper that required putting the class into teams. And since I wasn't there, that'd put the team I would have been on at a serious disadvantage. Actually, they would have been at a serious disadvantage even if I WAS there, but it's a thought, isn't it? Fortunately, some fast talking by the Dean with some faculty members produced a form for me to fill out so they could take me as a special case of a sort. And after that, it was over. The Dean gave a small pep talk about how at this time, this was probably the best decision anyone could make and that I should try and go out looking for something I like to do. I also asked about returning to engineering at a later date; her reply was cautiously optimistic, saying that I'd have to talk rather quickly in presenting my case.... So, I hope it'll be okay. Not that I might even consider returning to engineering, that is.
Came out of that meeting feeling rather.... mellow, actually. Maybe a little sleepy too. Having this final confirmation just lifts a whole bunch of worries off my shoulders. Only to be supplanted by the worry of finding a job and learning how to drive. -_-;;; Still, it was most likely with this mellow feeling that I shelled out 130 dollars for the Gold Digger Brick Collection a massive graphic novel that collection 25 issues/9 TPBs worth of Gold Digger comics; which is a pretty sweet deal for me, since I'd fallen behind in collecting this series ever since moving to New Zealand. Lousy comic book stores don't pick up this title often.... Hmph. And for those of your wondering just what the heck I was doing with so much money in my pocket, I say to you: I didn't think I was going to the comic store walkabout organised by the AAC for Saturday. All that money was saved for that day and I blew it all on one graphic novel. Don't get in mah spending spree ways, ye wee laddie! @_@
But that was not the end of my spending spree ways, no sirree. For as I wandered along to Joshs flat (oh yes, I forget to mention that it was an anime night at his place and that he was showing the rest of Initial D 2nd Stage) I doth passed by GameZone; and though I had not felt compelled to wander in before, I felt struck! Yes, struck! by a strange and unholy power. To entrance myself in its halls and soak in its gaming fullness. And as I wandered the pristined halls of gaming titles the like of which I had never seen in that crappy discount store known as Warehouse, my eyes doth rest upon a paragon of evil.... Daikatana! Firstly, I was rocked with mirth at seeing such a title take a place on the shelf amongst more worthy brethren.... But lo, I was intrigued, for the game was but a mere trifle of a cost. "30 dollars!" I doth exclaimed! and with my sense of curiosity overriding that of disgust, I wrenched the squared artifact from its resting place and bore it up to the shopkeep, shouting, "Well met, good sir! I wish to purchase this title with my eftpos card in order to satisfy my twisted fascination!". And the shopkeep doth looked me in the eye and spoke unto me, "Why are you talking like that?". So uhhh.... After regaining my senses outside the store, I realised I had a copy of Daikatana in my hands, and was genuinely curious as to how awful it was. Besides, I liked the soundtrack, from what I heard in the demo anyway. BTW, for those of you who don't know the full infamous story behind this tainted title, click this link here.
At any rate, arrived at Joshs place mucho early, but not as early as EB, who'd apparently arrive at 3PM. Still, I was only a half an hour after him, so I didn't have much to boast about. Waited about one and a half hours for the appointed time of anime watching enjoyment (while jabbing repeatedly at the "B" button for the flat to see if anyone was in) talking about movies with zombies in it, Daikatana, Paul Holmes.... You know, the usual stuff members of the AAC ramble on about. At about a couple of minutes past 5, Fergus showed up and let us into the flat (he actually knew the pass code, y'see) and turned out that Josh had been inside the flat all along and that we didn't NEED to be waiting outside. -_-;;; Also turned out we'd been pressing the button to the wrong flat. Like, oops. Anyway, we had a 2 hour wait ahead of us for the rest of AAC to turn up, so Fergus set up his computer next to Josh and set it to "leech" to get all of his anime goodness. I wish I could do that. @_@
Anyway, lotsa people turned up, which quite effectively crowded the room and squished everyone together into one huge soylent green jam tart. Lessee, there were EB, Fergus, Josh and me, of course; and Nick, Matt, Chris, Michael, Finn (who brought me Esio Trot and The Twits by Roald Dahl for me to read, thanks!), JP, James, Joe, Amy, Zeb, Nadea (hope I didn't miss anybody!).... Ahhhhh.... Reminds me of all those nights at Steves place. Oh, the memories. Watching anime and AMVs, playing the Dreamcast, running across a wide green meadow in spring.... No wait, that last one didn't happen. Unless we were setting fire to those green meadows with fire breathing or chopping up the shrubbery with Steves katana.... Ahhhh, good days they were. Ahem. We did play a spot of Soul Calibur on the Dreamcast though. Butt kicking for goodness!
After this we watched the final couple of episodes for Initial D 2nd Stage and like last time at my place, I felt kinda distracted. I don't know.... Maybe I'm watching too much anime? Hmmmm. We took a break in the middle to speed off to Wendys for a quick spot of dinner. Or rather, EB, Nadea, Zeb and I sped off (in Zebs car) while everyone else had to walk, mwaha. After this, sped right back again and back for watching the rest of Initial D. The Initial D 3rd Stage movie was also circulating, but unfortunately didn't get to see that. What I would get to see, however (if I dared) was Macross 7, being lent to me by EB, which had the same reputation for badness as Daikatana. Oh dear. After the anime watching was over, the group more or less split up and we all went home. Me with two decidedly deadly titles in my hands to try out. Bwaha.
Friday.... Evening saw my parents and I out of the house and into the heart of the city for one final look around before my dad went home to Malaysia. I've never been in the city on Queen Street on a Friday night before, I don't think. O.o Strangely nice to see it so busy, there was even a flea market in the main square, which I thought was pretty neat even if we didn't want to buy anything from there. ^_^ Did a little bit of shopping (one more step towards finishing my cosplay costume! Or so I think. O.o) and settled down to a dinner and a small underground asian foodcourt, whose entrance is just next to the Sounds store on Queen St if you want to have a look. Had some fried kuey toaw and fell hopelessly in love with it. It's just so hard to find good stuff like this, yanno? @_@ At least, good food on routes that are buseable to.... I really should learn how to drive, I really do. So after that short trip, we went home.
For some reason I was still feeling quite mellow. Maybe it was because of the "quit the university" thing I'd completed just the day before, or the fact that I'd finished watching all of Saber Marrionette J and its bitter sweet ending.... But for whatever reason my mellowness remained. Even playing Daikatana couldn't ruin my mood, because I actually thought it started out with quite a promising premise and a (admittedly stiffly animated) game engine real-time rendered introduction. I didn't play it very far though, since I wanted to get the patch that addressed the "save gems" issue that limited the number of saves one could make (ie Ion Storm got rid of the system completely once they realised it sucked eggs and that the PC wasn't a console gaming unit).
Saturday.... Woke up, had a drive to the airport to drop my dad off there. Normally I'd be able to drop out of this sort of thing (and hence get to the AAC comic shop meet on this of all days) but dad really needed my help here since he had to navigate past the construction work that was going on there; and since he's almost completely blind (he had cataracts, just like me. Or rather, I had cataracts just like him. It's something that seems to have run down in the Tiong family line) that makes the modified layout and new dropoff area slightly confusing to him. So we drop him off.... That hurried into the city so that I could catch up with the people planning to go on the shopping trip. Managed to meet up with them thanks to EBs assistance over the mobile phone. After being dropped off in the city, I stuffed my face with a deluxe sushi pack (ah, those "buy one, get one free" coupons from the Auckland Entertainment Guide are great) and awaited at the appointed meeting place.
Zeb and Kunfei turned first, which lulled me into a sense of security that I was in the right place. (and it was a TRUE sense of security! No nasty surprises here!) and after that, everybody else who was coming turned up as well: Amy, Chris, EB (who'd apparently come over right after his morning exams. O.o), David, Gemma, James, Joe, Nadea and we picked up one new girl! Who may have been frightened by our weirdness, I dunno. Didn't speak too much to her, unfortunately. O.o First stop of the day (well, for me since I'd arrived late) was Heroes for Sale at K Road, from which I had bought the 130 dollar GN just two days before. It had apparently achieved some kind of notoriety, as David was trying to find it on the shelves to show to Zeb. Too bad I had snatched it before that could happen, eh? ^_^ Bought a couple of issues of stuff I've been collecting, but since I was already low on cash (and buying stuff using eftpos) I was really all that willing to splurge. I already did that on Thursday. ^^;;;;
Next stop (and final one, apparently) was Gotham Comics and we had to get there by car. I thought I'd be able to catch a bus there sometime, but looking at the stores location and feeling somewhat lost I think I'd better just stick to these occasional trips as my source of getting anime/comic goodness from this particular store. Picked up a copy of the latest issue of Gold Digger there too, which made me leap for happiness and joy since it's usually pretty goshdarned difficult to get. Also got myself a copy of the original A Chinese Ghost Story, which I'd never taped while it was shown on SBS in Australia and now had to fork over 30 dollars to get. It's a good deal, I guess, considering Marbecks is selling those same Chinatown labelled videos for 50 dollars.... Well anyway, with this new video purchase, it reminded me that I should try and hold a second "Hong Kong Cinema" marathon sometime. Hmmmm. Maybe these coming holidays, I dunno. It's not as if I'm doing much, is it? -_-;;;; Oh yeah. Job. *slaps fist into palm of hand* Sou ka.
After a half hour of wandering the small store, drooling over stuff I wanted to buy and couldn't (and making the shopkeeper guy nervous, too) we all split up and headed our seperate ways after only about 2 hours or so of shopping. Kinda short, now that I think about it. ^^;;;; Got a lift from Kunfei back home, after stopping off at his place to pick up some anime goodies from him; including Ayashi no Ceres, Candidate for Goddess and Dual. All of which were incomplete unfortunately, but still they look rather nice, so I hope to be able to wait out until some kind soul would help me fill in the missing episodes to these shows to their conclusion. Please? *shiny shiny eyes* Anyway, didn't have much to let him borrow in return (on top of what he'd borrowed already, that is) so he had to, uh, walk away with Digi Charat. Eheh. Poor him. ^^;;;; Also showed him the intro to Daikatana with which he was also just as intrigued as I was. Even asked for a copy of his own, which is either a sign of madness or just plain boredom. I choose boredom. In any case, I'm probably going to play through the game just to see the storyline to its conclusion, no matter how hackneyed it may be. It was from him that I discovered my graphics card may not be all up to spec. I weep uncontrollably.
Sunday.... Lazed around the house, and applied various patches to Daikatana and found that none of them worked. Which is a rather bad sign. However, it turns out that I owned the UK version of the game, a feature which was NEVER documented in the readme file ANYWHERE. So, after running the right patch and apparently recompiling the huge Quake 2 *.pak files in order to complete fixing the game, I decided to play the game "for real".... After turning God mode on and playing it on the easiest game setting possible, that is. I'll post a mini review of a kind once I finish the entire game (currently on episode 2 out of 4: The Ancient Greek levels) but so far I think it's.... okay. Like, "shrugging"-styled okay. Burned some more anime movies unto my CDs and made more coasters (grrrrrrrrr....). Played Daikatana late into the night and completely ignored American McGees Alice in favour of it (sorry Nadea! While Alice may be the superior game, it also requires the CD in the drive in order to play even on full install; something which Daikatana doesn't need, to its credit).
Whew. And now here I am on Monday, having spent most of my waking hours writing out this entry. ^^;;; Well, it means I get out of writing an entry for today, at least! Unless something were to happen in the next few hours to midnight that I have to write for today. I hope not. O.o In any case, I've just broken my record for longest entry yet again! Woohoo! Admittedly I had to stop writing for about a week and sum up all the events in that time in order to achieve such a length, but yay for me, anyway! ^_^ Now to get down to writing the Giant Robo story synopsis like I was meant to, along with the Daikatana review later on.... And tomorrow is another AAC anime night at the lecture hall in AEC, isn't it? I'll have to write about that too when it comes. Ai yai yai. So much writing to do, so lazy am I. @_@
