Hastings ahoy.

Today of course I went with a friend and my girlfriend to Hastings to meet up with yet another mate who lives there. The two friends are great people, so it was fun walking around Hastings as a group, window shopping for manga, and in my girlfriend's case, clothing and sweets. We went to several select stores, one of which was a goth clothing store, but unfortunately we couldn't find any clothes in my girlfriend's size, since she's quite petite. That was unfortunate since some of the clothing looked really nice, but alas, it wasn't to be. After wandering around for a bit we went back to my mate's house, and spent a while just hanging around and chatting. We read some manga and browsed anime a tiny, bit, then I went head to head with my mate playing Magic the Gathering. He's still starting and had a Core Set deck, but improved a lot between the first and second games against me. I leant my deck to the friend who'd come with us from Eastbourne, and he proceeded to do rather well as he learnt the rules, which was pretty nifty. After that we played a few games of Thud, a Discworld-based game. Ye gods, it seems impossible to win with dwarves. Once we got through that my girlfriend asked me to write a romance scene for two of her characters, and though it wasn't really my writing genre (at all) she kept saying please and meowed at me. I simply can't resist such a tactic. In the end I managed to write two sides, and it's not finished yet. She read it and went 'Awww!' a lot and hugged me several times, so she obviously liked it.

Once we'd all had dinner we went up to my mate's room and started playing on his Gamecube. First it was Super Smash Bros. Melee, then Super Monkey Ball. I completely dominated at SSBM, winning constantly when I played. I wasn't the normal 'rush in and attack like a madman' player of the game, instead I waited and killed anyone who came near me. It's a tyactic that works surprisingly well, if you can avoid getting hit into the air endlessly. In Super Monkey Ball it was slightly closer, but at the punching game against the mate who lives in Hastings and two computers I managed a victory, with five wins compared to the nearest computer who had three. Quite fun indeed, heh. After that the time was getting late, so we decided to make our way home, and caught the train back. I'll see my girlfriend and the mate who came with us tomorrow, and I may possibly see my girlfriend tomorrow morning before Games Workshop depending on how tired she is tomorrow. When I got home I immediately went to update the Soul Society forum, and afterwards checked what anime updates were around and webcomics. Surprisingly there was only the Honey & Clover II update to get, so I just have that, Ah! My Goddess second season, Ouran High School Host Club, Higurashi no naku Koro ni and Inukami to watch. That's only 5, I'll probably manage that tomorrow after Games Workshop. At any rate that's all the time for now, so till next time.

A few to watch.

My girlfriend felt quite ill today, so I spent most of the morning with her whilst she rested and got better. I didn't mind at all since my constitution is hardy enough to withstand most illness, and I enjoy simply being with her. As such it was a very serene morning for the most part. When she did feel better during the late afternoon it was back to normal, with some work, visits to Neopets and so forth. I messed around in Photoshop for a while, obtaining new brushes from a few places to create a vaguely gothic and moody wallpaper for my laptop since it's hard to come by good widescreen ones. In the end it was themed in red and black with lots of grune-ish textures adorning it, a scratchy dark blood pattern in the background, and a picture of a dissected man viewed from behind, with all the muscles showing. The man was based on a brush set detailing Leonardo da Vinci's work I believe. At any rate I quite like the look of the whole thing. Since I had spare time I made another with a few dissection sketches from his work, combined with a dark background and lots of script from rather old letters. It ended up being quite gothic too, and looked quite similar to my new forum signature without the person's face or colour. Later on we both watched Top Gear, which was apparantly the last episode of the series. From what I can tell there's only been three episodes, which makes no sense. I guess I'll see if it's continuing next week.

When I got home I naturally had a lot of anime to catch up on, so went straight to watching it. I got through an episode of Air Gear, Binbou Shimai Monogatari, two episodes of Kamisama Kazoku and five of Good Witch of the West. Nine episodes, so slightly above my recent daily average of about seven. Air Gear was nifty. I've been rereading the manga since the art is fantastic, and it was nice to see the end of Ikki's fight with Rika to allow him to continue with Air Gear. As for Binbou Shimai Monogatari there were even more cherry blossoms and yet more sisterly bonding. Admittedly it would have been more heartwarming if I'd watched it at normal speed, rather than four times faster (I'm a fast reader, it comes in handy sometimes). Kamisama Kazoku had a baby appear and grow ridiculously fast, ageing to become a middle schooler in about two days. I highly doubt it's a normal girl. Good Witch of the West was quite good too, as it had more of Firiel and Roux, and Firiel found a baby unicorn which rapidly bonded to her, and seems to dislike Roux, even though it was named after him. How entertainingly odd. I still have an episode of kamisama Kazoku to get, as well as Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, Inukami and Ah! My Goddess second season. Oh, and thinking back, Black Lagoon rocked. The ending didn't seem like an ending at all, it just felt like another episode was due to come. After checking aniDB I saw that the second series is already in the works. That probably explains it.

Well then, tomorrow I need to be up early-ish since I'm off to Hastings with my girlfriend and a mate to see another, so till next time.

Unavailable.

Last night after my post and all through the hours till early morning, and indeed later when I checked in the afternoon, Tokyotosho was down. This was obviously bad, since I follow 38 anime series, and manually checking each one on aniDB for news up updates is a royal pain. I did so anyway, and it at least proved to be useful. I found eleven updates, five of which I'd not have noticed on Tokyotosho. This was because another group was subbing The Good Witch of the West, but using the Japanese name, so I missed them. That was handy. For the rest of the day I hung out with my girlfriend and the mutual friend. The mutual friend left after an hour or so, and after a lot of walking around near the coast and so forth I went back to her place as usual. Cue the normal webcomics, hugging, listening to music, using my laptop to lament at Tokyotosho being down and so forth. When I got home I contacted one of my other friends who's coming with us to Hastings to see another mate, arranging all the details. With that sorted I then moved onto listening to music and updating the Soul Society forum, since that's my job an' all. I also read the newly scanlated first manga chapter for Zero no Tsukaima, a series I like a fair amount. The manga dove into the story a lot quicker than the anime, so the poor boy's already been summoned as a familiar. How unfortunate for him, heh.

Though I have the last two episodes of Black Lagoon to watch I haven't actually watched them. Plus I need to get the updates for Zegapain, Binbou Shimai Monogatari, Coyote Ragtime Show, three of Kamisama Kazoku and five of Good Witch of the West. That's 2 to watch and 11 to get. Not too bad I guess. The thing is I'm busy tomorrow, busy monday, and busy tuesday. Looks like I may not get back to date till wednesday, heh. I still have 11 days till I go back to work, so that's still plenty of time to get stuff done. I don't really have anything set to do, so going out with mates and watching anime seems to fit the bill entirely. At any rate I'm off to watch Black Lagoon now, and by the time it's finished I may have another episode of two of assorted anime to watch. It looks like a plan! Till next time then.

Oh, here's my new forum signature to not only fill space, but add colour.

Trade runs.

Hmm. The majority of today was spent listening to Syetem of a Down music (I still am now) but other than that I just hung around chatting to friends over MSN and Skype. After talking with one girl who now plays SRO a large amount (after I got her interested in the game) I decided to go on myself and try to finish a few more quests. As it was I quickly got bored fruitlessly killing swathes of weaker monsters, so agreed to do a trade run with my friend. We started off with her, level 24, as the merchant. This meant that the NPC thieves that spawned were a pathetic level. Well, the same as her actually, but I'm level 40 and killed them in 2 hits. As such we managed to avoid major incident and completed a trade run with no problems. Because of this we decided to do another, and I made it nearly all the way. Annoyingly a player thief at least 24 levels higher than me, my evaluation based on what weapon he was holding, came along and quite literally nuked me. He did over 4.4k damage in one hit, and I barely have over 3.5k health. That sucked a bit, but I found out that when dying to a thief, as a hunter, barely any exp is lost. I lost 4k of exp which was nothing, since a normal death loses me around 87k. That was a huge relief. Since my friend had completed 2 trade runs with no problem for herself, we decided to do one with me as the merchant and her as the hunter. Though the spawning thieves were level 38 to 40, she only died twice. This was because I kept killing them before they could attack her, so we managed to complete the trade nicely, and both of us made a profit which wasn't too bad at all really.

After the three successful trade runs we both decided to log off for some rest, and I resumed chatting to several people. I'd shown my best friend the game when she was round yesterday, and today she asked for the link to the site for it. Another convert? Oho, I certainly think so. Though I had some spare time instead of watching the two anime episodes I have I started reading Battle Royale instead. I've only got through 101 pages so far since I keep getting distracted and doing something else for a while, talking to friends for the most part, but as it progresses I'm constantly reminded of the manga. The two obviously follow closely, but of course the book has more detail, and the manga elaborated on some other aspects, so it's deeply interesting seeing what is essentially a slightly different version of the tale. It's been translated very well indeed, and so far only one sentence had a non-standard stucture, so it's been quite easy to follow too. Though I'm incredibly bad with names many are mentioned, so it's almost an exercise to remember most of them. I only really remember the main characters. I can console myself with the fact that the forgettable named character die anyway, heh. Tomorrow I'll be meeting up with my girlfriend and a mutual friend who occasionally makes me uneasy, so I'll most likely need a few more hours sleep than normal. Till next time then.

Movies and Beatdowns

I actually had to get up early this morning, since my best friend was coming round for the day. She'd not been out and about much recently, so I invited her round so she'd have something different to do for a change. After working out the train times she arrived at around 2 pm, though she was slightly ill which concerned me a fair bit. Thankfully it wasn't too serious, so after a snack we watched the harry Potter 4 movie together. I seem to be watching this movie quite a few times with various people. I guess it's quite popular really. Afterwards we decided to have a go on my Gamecube, and went through Bloody Roar: Primal Fury, 007 Agent Under Fire and Super Smash Bros. Melee. The beatdowns handed out were pretty even for both sides actually, though in 007 I had the slight edge with knowing where everything was. A photon cannon tends to make killing vaguely easier after all. In Bloody Roar we both quickly found characters that worked for our styles, though in the end she chose the character I was using and proceeded to beat me with 5 rounds to 4 in a surprisingly quick match. That one was pretty fun. After that it was time for her to go, and so off we went to the station, chatting as we went.

Later on after I got back I decided to once more watch anime. Hey, it's just one of the things I do regularly. Naruto, Kiba, xxxHOLiC, Strawberry Panic, School Rumble and Zero no Tsukaima were all watched. Naruto wasn't as bad as normal, as it had a potential rival for Rock Lee, which is always at the least slightly interesting. As for Kiba, Rebecca is clearly deranged and hellbent for revenge. Not exactly a reliable ally you can trust then eh? The pipe fox in xxxHOLiC was a full Kitsune, which made things harder for poor Watanuki. On the plus side he saw the Vestal spirit who likes him again, and managed to give her a present. How noble of him, considering he likes Hima-chan so much. In Strawberry Panic more details about the Etoile came up, such as the fact that there are supposed to be two, yet the current Etoile's partner passed away. next episode looks like it'll be a lot of informative background which'll make a change from what's been going on recently. School Rumble had some pretty dire and unfortunate assumptions about harima, which doesn't make his life any easier. oho, how I laughed, heh. Finally with Zero no Tsukaima, the familiar kid proved how noble his character was by 'fighting' to liberate a maid who'd been claimed by a noble. As that rounds it up, I guess I'll end it there for today. Till next time.

Loungerology.

Yes, yes indeed. Today I did a whole lot of lounging around. Nothing much happened at all really, so I shall now think of anything and everything to say in order to bulk this post up. Huzzah. I downloaded and tried to play Kal Online, another free MMO. It wasn't too bad till the graphics problems arose. I think it made my Ati-made card sneeze or something, as the 'VPU Recovery' error message came up twice, and made my screen go horribly glitchy. Imagine lots of squares over the whole screen, showing parts of the screen blurred and in the wrong places. It was mildly annoying, so after a while playing with that graphical mess I ended up quitting the game, rebooting my computer, then uninstalling said game. At least it was fun whilst it lasted, and I managed to get a few levels. Wasted effort I know, but meh. I looked around for a few other games to try out of a strange mix of curiosity and boredom, but only found 2 that looked aesthetically pleasing, then couldn't be bothered to download them. I believe my body contains almost as much apathy as blood sometimes. Yes, 8 or so litres of apathy. I did some forum updating but there wasn't that much to do overall, so I swiftly moved onto watching quality TV (i.e. channel hopping) then got through half of the Ultraviolet movie before I decided to do something else.

Since I felt like having a varied day, and hadn't yet watched anime, I proceeded to do so. Bleach, Utawarerumono, Black Lagoon, 2 episodes of Powerpuff Girls Z and 3 of the new series I mentioned last post, Binbou Shimai Monogatari were all dutifully watched in short order. Bleach had the big form of the Bound's doll, Gestelle (I no doubt got that spelling wrong and can't be bothered to check), which was slightly interesting. Utawarerumono had yet more conversations with a masked Emperor who turned out to be an Empress, and Black Lagoon was simply awesome. Revy and Roberta fighting like crazy. That was hugely entertaining. Powerpuff Girls Z had yet more of the weird style, but I watched it anyway. As for Monogatari, it wasn't too bad at all. The bond between the two poor sisters seems to be rather strong indeed, and they certainly seem like nice people. If they weren't I'm sure it wouldn't exactly be a good anime. (For others at least, I'm more than happy with cruel or evil main characters.) Checking Tokyotosho just before I came here to post this, I now have a Rec DVD special to get as well as updates for Kiba and Strawberry Panic, which means that tomorrow after my best friend is gone I'll be able to remain up to date even with limited time. How convenient. As such, till next time.

Even more Pokemon.

The day started rather nicely indeed, since my girlfriend came over before we both went to games Workshop. We sat outisde for a bit since it was nice out, but eventually she inevitably wanted to play Pokemon Colusseum on my Gamecube. I happen to like my Gamecube even though I've not got many games, and to be honest I barely play it. However as she loves Pokemon it's nice to see her having fun, so I never mind her playing on it. Over the course of her visits she's racked up a total just above 9 hours of playing time, which isn't too bad considering she's not been round all that often. The game playing was accompanied by random music as I went through the albums on my computer randomly, which certainly leant the game an unusual feel. In the last afternoon we both went to Games Workshop to take part in the Inquisitor campaign.

I thought I was absolutely screwed, since I was the only character outside at all, on the roof of the building, on my team, whereas I faced at least 10 others, I kid you not. Thankfully most of them ignored me and ran for the building I was on, going inside and taking heavy fire from my team mates. I managed to get a few nice shots off, and completely escaped injury. However at the end three others were about to reach me which definitely wasn't good. As such I elected to take a huge fall to try and escape, and instead did enough damage to send myself into system shock. Well, ouch. So much for a covert escape. I was actually captured by the enemy and severely interrogated also. Prior to the game I'd spent a lot of time working out details with my team, and we worked out a lot of important information thanks to a few things I spotted combined with everyone's conjecture. Annoyingly thanks to the interrogation I didn't actually have a choice but to tell the enemy exactly all that we knew, and where we were going next. We're seriously the underdogs since the enemy always without fail seems to outnumber us, and now they know what we're doing. Damn eh? My character did make it back to my team, but since he'd been infected with a great deal of diseases I was shot on sight. So, that means my character's gone from the campaign then. Next week I'll most likely take over another, such as the Eldar ranger since I played him in the first game I took part in and did rather well. Still, it's slightly annoying that I metaphorically spilt my guts thanks to interrogation then died.

Late last night after my post I decided to actually watch the Honey & Clover II, Chocotto Sister and Higurashi no Naku Koro ni updates. Honey & Clover was one of the most serious episodes I've seen in the series, which is saying something as lots of it is deeply meaningful and emotional. Still, 2 of the characters made some progress with eachother in their love lives, which was definitely a good thing. Chocotto Sister had more cuteness, and the introduction of a few new character, and lead up to yet another. From what I can tell the landlady will only turn up for one more episode, making a grand total of 2. Oh, how flash. As for Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, it finally has an arc with Satoshi in it, so now it's possible to judge him according to the other arcs which all mentioned him. I also have an utawarerumono and (at long last!) Black Lagoon update to watch, as well as the first 3 episodes from a new series called Binbou Shimai Monogatari, based around 2 sisters without parents, due to early death, who are very poor but happy living together. That should prove to be different to what I usually watch, so will probably qualify as 'a nice change' for when I feel like watching something different.

Growth spurt.

Well I actually played yet more SRO early this morning, as my last post implied. I finished up at around 2.30 am with 44 minutes of combat time for the last golden ticket remaining, yet I'd already managed my goal. Yes, that's right, I finally have a bigger wolf. Hrilmari now looks frankly cool, and is much more impressive than a little 'puppy'. I decided to take a break with the 44 minutes left as I felt vaguely tired, and so off to bed I went at 5 am after chatting with friends on Skype for a while. When I woke up around 10 am I couldn't be bothered to get up, to lounged around till the early hours of the afternoon. Then it was a case of actually getting some stuff done, so I went to watch anime (to be detailed in the second paragraph of the post as ever). Once I'd got through the anime I decided to watch a movie since Fearless had been sitting on my computer for a while. I have to say, it was a great film. The fights were top-notch without special effects and just a bit of wire work to pull off some of the moves safely. There was no flying through the air like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, so it scored more points with me. The ending was quite powerful too, so if you don't mind Jet Li I recommend you watch the film. Once that was over I went back on to SRO and finished up the ticket time and got to just over 13% towards level 41. Not too bad really, and Hrilmari my wolf is now only 2.5%-ish behind me, which isn't bad at all considering the gap used to be over 30%.

The anime I got through was the aforementioned xxxHOLiC, Coyote Ragtime Show and 2 episodes of Inukami, as well as updates of Ah! My Goddess second season and Witchblade. xxxHOLiC finished up the twins dilemma and the power of words, which shows that sometimes words may have more of an effect than most would assume. The episode could, in that way, be viewed as a valid moral message. hell, most of the series could be with the appropriate interpretation. Coyote Ragtime Show had a gospel preacher with some seriously funky hair. That was funny. The twelve sister also made another slightly briefer appearance. With luck they'll appear more next time. Inukami had yet more costume oddness and misunderstanding, but it was fun to watch all the same. Ah! My Goddess has Chihiro (I think that's her name) appearing after long last to challenge Keichi to a small-bike race. It's following the manga quite nicely, yet is still far behind. It probably won't catch up this series. As for Witchblade, it had more argument from the Witchblade wielder herself, but that was redeemed with the Cloneblade and Witchblade's fight and resulting car chase. That was quite nifty. I still have updates for Honey & Clover II, Chocotto Sister and Higurashi no Naku Koro ni to watch when they're done, so I guess I count as 'always busy when up and about'. Till next time then.

Laptopness.

I met up with my girlfriend at around 2 pm round her place, and since I didn't have to go into town or to work first I was able to bring my laptop. We spent a while getting it connected to her dad's network, and eventually I had internet access. That was pretty cool. I managed to update a load of stuff and install a few things more, such as Windows Live Messenger and Skype. I also had a chat with people over WLM and Skype, so they definitely worked. After that we decided to watch the 2004 Bleach Jump Festa and the first Naruto movie as my girlfriend hadn't seen them. Seeing the Grand Fisher again was nifty. You just can't bear hamster Hollows. Well, unless you're... some of you may not read the manga, so I won't ruin that bit. It was also quite nostalgic for me seeing the first naruto movie once more. Sakura actually proved she had some worth which could only be a good thing considering she's still part of 'Team Kakashi' in the manga. We also watched Top Gear again, and watching the Stig get arrested at the end was quite definitely amusing. When I got home I just had dinner and updated the forum before coming here, as I didn't really have any anime to watch. Once the updates are done downloading I'll have Coyote Ragtime Show, xxxHOLiC and 2 episodes of Inukami! to watch. Not much really. I'm off to play SilkRoad Online now in order to get level 40, and with luck, a bigger wolf. Till next time then.

Oho, walking.

I got up just before midday and had a reasonably good breakfast as I knew I'd be doing some walking today, and having energy is always preferable. I met my girlfriend after she finished work at 1pm, and we went down to the coast since it was a short walk. Whilst there we are marinated baby octopi, and they were quite... odd. My girlfriend really likes them, but I've not ever had them before. Some parts were freakishly 'mushy' when bitten into. I could only eat one whole one and nibble at another. They're not really my thing. The ice cream we had a short while later was nice however, and we continued to walk along the coast and into Meads (Meeds?), where she showed me loads of places she used to go when she was little. It was quite nostalgic for her from what I could tell, even though many of the buildings had changed. After that we decided to walk back to her house in Eastbourne and picked up a pizza on the way back. We ended up watching a few anime shows, Fullmetal Alchemist and Mezzo DSA being two of them, as well as several TV programs that she follows. All varied and all interesting, so that was pretty cool, especially watching more South Park.

When I did get home I swiftly updated the forum and checked for anime updates, and there were only 2 - Utawarerumono and Coyote Ragtime Show. I watched the first episode of the latter, along with some other updates, early this morning at around 2 am, and it was superb. The twelve sisters, androids who are a group of killers for a crime syndicate, were simply impressive. All dressed in various forms of the 'Gothic Lolita' style, though one wore a nice suit and another had a spanish-style dress, they simply struck a chord with me and I liked them immediately. The fact that they managed to kill a ridiculous number of guards quickly was also a point in their favour. The guy called 'Mister', who they were after, was similarly cool, though only because he managed to fire a very well-placed missile, and created a tsunami made of stupidly large wurms. Yeah, you have to see it. I'll be watching the 2 updates now since I'm surprisingly up to date, so as such, till next time.

Wow, it's early.

It's not often I get to make a post over an hour before the deadline, nifty stuff eh? At any rate last night I spent most of my time updating the forum, and in the early hours of the morning decided to try playing Hero Online, as my main gold ticket in SRO had run out. As a game, Hero Online doesn't seem that bad. It has a few features SRO doesn't. For one, any pet can be set to automatically attack monsters, can defend itself when attacked, or can be set to defend you. Not only that but the item-grabbing system is much more convenient. All you have to do is press S to get an item, and it doesn't involve walking to it and actually picking it up, it just zooms into your inventory. That means that if there's enough monsters nearby (and so far there definitely has been......) you can in effect attack continuously with barely any lag time between kills. Naturally this makes for faster levelling. Unfortunately, the game has one major drawback. Ye gods, it's horrendously fugly. Yes, that's right. It officially qualifies as supremely fugly. SilkRoad Online has rather nice visuals, and a good amount of detail. Hero Online? It's not the worst I've seen, as it's got more detail than Xiah, but it's still pretty dire. The pets I've seen look very flat, and some of the monsters don't look all that detailed or textured. I'll probably keep playing it for a bit, but it won't take up much of my time.

As such I went to bed at 7.21 am this morning, and got out of bed at 3 pm thanks to the heat. I was awake from midday, but really didn't have much energy at all. It wasn't that fun. Since most of the day had already gone I went stright to work. Well, SilkRoad Online that is. Yes, my life is incredibly exciting, shush. With the use of 1 of the 2 remaining day tickets, I got up to 75%. I could have got up to 80%, or even 82%, but couldn't as I bloody died 3 times. One of those times was due to lovely lag. Everything paused for about 15 seconds, and when it restarted I suddenly died as 15 seconds' worth of attacks from 3 scorpions suddenly hit me at once. That sucked rather heavily. On the plus side I'm still well within target, as I started at 38%. This means I managed to get 37% from 3 hours, and I still have a 3 hour ticket left. As Hrilmari my wolf is only 15% behind me now, I just may be able to get her to level 40, or insanely close. If the latter, I'll keep going regardless of the ticket time just to get the great result of a much bigger wolf.

Additionally, I managed to fit in 11 episodes of anime into my action packed day, wowzers. I watched the updates for Bleach, Naruto, School Rumble, Air Gear, Strawberry Panic, Chocotto Sister, Zero no Tsukaima, Inukami and 3 episodes of Muteki Kanban Musume. Since I've already rambled on a fair bit I shall, once again, be brief except for the new series. Bleach wasn't too bad. My character on the forum uses shadow, so the newest Bound was interesting. Naruto was simply odd, but passage... I guess. As for School Rumble? It had Harima, Tenma's sister, and a huge manga editor. You know it rocked. Air Gear was similar cool, though not thanks to comedy, as it had the start of Ikki's match to keep going on with air gear. Strawberry Panic had the actual play which was nice. Chocotto Sister is based on the premise that a guy wished for a baby sister for Christmas when he was young, as his mother had gone through complications and the expected baby sister hadn't survived birth. However Santa gives him the sister when he's a late teenager, so you can assume some comedy will ensure. It was also simply a nice episode to watch, and I like the series already. Zero no Tsukaima had yet more 'zero' wizardess antics and her familiar going through pain, but he came out in several good situations. Jealousy from his master? Oh I think so. Inukami had a really strange ferret. As for Muteki Kanban Musume, well... it's very odd. The poster girl involved can get hideously violent which is a laugh, but her massive evil grin can occasionally get odd. Ah well, till next time then.

Overdue again.

Hmm. I completely forgot the time whilst reading webcomics, and so this post is written quite a few hours after the midnight deadline and rolled back in time thanks to the ultimate powers of Blogger. At any rate my thursday went really well. I met up with my girlfriend at 10am and after a while we had a relatively short 2 mile walk to Jevington and visited the Tea Garden there. The scones were pretty nice. After relaxing for a bit we decided to walk back and took our time, enjoying the weather. Though the walk back far sunnier than the walk up, there was a nice breeze so it wasn't overly hot at all, and in fact was quite cool for the most part. It was certainly nicer the the previous few days I spent trying to avoid the heat. When we did get back we spent most of our time playing Rollercoaster Tycoon which was pretty fun. I'd not played the game in ages and working together with my girlfriend was a lot more enjoyable than trying to run a park on my own. When I did get back home I switched on my computer, as per usual, and it wasn't long before my room was heated again. Well that was just great. I'd managed to avoid the heat for most of the day by being outside, yet indoors in my own room it was hotter. God damn.

In the end I updated the forum a fair amount and actually got more RP done for my character Latenter. He's currently on his way to make more NPC contacts, which are always handy if you need stuff qucikly and with minimum hassle. I was tempted to play SilkRoad Online, but since the main ticket had run out I decided not to. Instead 'tomorrow', on friday I'll most likely use the ticket in the morning and use the 3 hours quite quickly, then try out Hero Online in the afternoon. It's not as good graphically, and it seems very similar in places, but there are more levels, different skills, a wider array of pets (but not by much) and a wider array of rewards for playing. For example the more monsters you kill between log on and log out, the better free items you get and so forth. I'll probably not try it out for long, since I still want to get level 40 in SilkRoad Online and get the bigger wolf before I start substantially playing something else. I've not really got much to watch anime-wise, only 7 episodes. I do however also have the Fearless movie to watch, so that may eat some of my day depending on what I choose to do. Ah well, guess I'll end it there for now. Till next time.

Overdue again.

Hmm. I completely forgot the time whilst reading webcomics, and so this post is written quite a few hours after the midnight deadline and rolled back in time thanks to the ultimate powers of Blogger. At any rate my thursday went really well. I met up with my girlfriend at 10am and after a while we had a relatively short 2 mile walk to Jevington and visited the Tea Garden there. The scones were pretty nice. After relaxing for a bit we decided to walk back and took our time, enjoying the weather. Though the walk back far sunnier than the walk up, there was a nice breeze so it wasn't overly hot at all, and in fact was quite cool for the most part. It was certainly nicer the the previous few days I spent trying to avoid the heat. When we did get back we spent most of our time playing Rollercoaster Tycoon which was pretty fun. I'd not played the game in ages and working together with my girlfriend was a lot more enjoyable than trying to run a park on my own. When I did get back home I switched on my computer, as per usual, and it wasn't long before my room was heated again. Well that was just great. I'd managed to avoid the heat for most of the day by being outside, yet indoors in my own room it was hotter. God damn.

In the end I updated the forum a fair amount and actually got more RP done for my character Latenter. He's currently on his way to make more NPC contacts, which are always handy if you need stuff qucikly and with minimum hassle. I was tempted to play SilkRoad Online, but since the main ticket had run out I decided not to. Instead 'tomorrow', on friday I'll most likely use the ticket in the morning and use the 3 hours quite quickly, then try out Hero Online in the afternoon. It's not as good graphically, and it seems very similar in places, but there are more levels, different skills, a wider array of pets (but not by much) and a wider array of rewards for playing. For example the more monsters you kill between log on and log out, the better free items you get and so forth. I'll probably not try it out for long, since I still want to get level 40 in SilkRoad Online and get the bigger wolf before I start substantially playing something else. I've not really got much to watch anime-wise, only 7 episodes. I do however also have the Fearless movie to watch, so that may eat some of my day depending on what I choose to do. Ah well, guess I'll end it there for now. Till next time.

Close indeed.

I spent most of the day in bed, deeply uncomfortable thanks to the heat. Bloody weather. Britain is supposed to represent shoddy clouds and lots of rain, yet every summer there's a brief period of ridiculously hot death. yesterday alone it was about 100 degrees, which isn't a fun happy temperature to be active in. When I did get up I decided I may as well use up the rest of my golden ticket time, as I had just 108 minutes left. I killed scorpions as fast as possible for as much of the time as possible, occasionally going back to Donwhang to spend around 100,000 gold on yet more potions. Killing is apparantly an expensive hobby. By the time the period of 3 hours for the day had ended I was level 39, and at 38% towards level 40. I'd started the 3 hours at level 38 and 98% towards 39, so I got roughly 40% during the ticket time. Now, since I have 2 1-day tickets left, that's another 6 hours, and another potential 80%. That should easily be enough to get to level 40, even if I die. My wolf Hrilmari happens to be 25% behind however as my character gets rewards for quests, and the wolf obviously does not. This means that though I may hit level 40, my wolf just may not, which'll be annoying. One of the main reasons I want to hit level 40 is so I can have the level 40 wolf, which is the level it gets much, much bigger. It essentially goes through 'wolf puberty' really, really fast.

I also managed to watch quite a fair amount of anime today, thanks to using the ticket time in SRO early. Namely - the last 4 episodes of Kagihime and the updates for Ouran High School Host Club, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, Ah! My Goddess second series, Blood+, Kiba, Utawarerumono, xxxHOLiC, Honey & Clover II, and Tonagura! another new series I've picked up. That's only 13, but a bit more than the (by now) usual 6. As there's a variety, I shall be very brief. Kagihime had a reasonably good ending, even if it hinted, or rather blatantly outlined, incestuous love between the brother and sister. Hmm. Ouran was simply great, and another reason why the series should be watched. The end of the episode, not to ruin it, 'added drama'. Higurashi had another mini arc end in a very odd way, with the little priestess girl predicting everything rather exactly. Ah! My Goddess finished up the Peorth storyline by finally having Belldandy declare, to a slightly lacking-in-confidence Keichi that she loves him. Blood+ had lots more fighting action, and the incredibly hard Chevalier with the armoured body actually got taken down by teamwork. It was impressive to see. In Kiba there wasn't as much fighting, but it was still a good episode with lots of ignored politics. Utawarerumono had more of Hakuro debating as to who he really was, and an impressive man made of fire in his nightmares. xxxHOLiC started a story but didn't finish it, so it's shaping up to be very interesting indeed. In Honey & Clover II there was an outright confession near the end which had funny consequences for the guy, since his friend started celebrations, maybe a bit too early. As for Tonagura? I like it already. A girl eagerly anticipates her first love, a childhood friend, returning after moving away for 10 years. However when he gets back he's a bit... well, really perverted. No doubt much hilarity will ensue, heh. Even while being brief I've said more than usual, hmm.

I still have the updates for Zero no Tsukaima, Inukami, Bleach and Strawberry Panic to watch, as well as the beginning of another new series, Chocotto Sister. So then, till next time.

The hard slog.

Well not much at all happened today. As such I'll ve remarkably brief, as I'm also slightly tired and feel like having an early rest. I played SilkRoad Online again, and out of the 1500 scales total needed for the 5 quests, I only need 51 to finish it once and for all. That's not bad at all. I'm currently at 83%, so I should easily level within the 3 hours of time I'll play later, and should possibly get to 10% or so towards level 40. With the two 1-day gold tickets level 40 should be within my grasp when I choose to use them. Games Workshop went well too as I took part in a game of Inquisitor, filling a role of another character in the warband my usual character is in. For most of the game I simply acted as a sentry, but when a grenade injured the char's leg I leapt (or hobbled) into action and placed a sword blade into the face of the guy who threw it. The guy elected to roll off the platform we were on to escape further attacks but landed on his head, causing enough further damage to send himself into system shock. After that someone else appeared to check on him and I jumped down into combat, slamming them in the chest. When my new target, and someone else I'd not seen, ganged up on me however I decided to tactically withdraw before I got badly injured. The lady in charge of my group was quite happy with my actions, as I tied up 4 people by myself, effectively cutting the opposing warband she had to face in half.

I also got a few episode of anime watched today when I had nothing else to do. It was only the Inukami update and 2 episodes of Tsubasa Chronicle, so not much at all. Inukami was more of a flashback episode explaining why the main characters worked so well together. tsubasa had the final part of one world's arc with a happy ending, yet Sayoran seemed troubled that he was able to change future events. The second episode was a standalone one, a little world where everyone was depicted in chibi form. That was certainly interesting and strange to say the least. I still have the last 4 episodes of Kagihime to watch as they were all released at once, as well as the xxxHOLiC, Blood+ and Utawarerumono updates, plus I need to get the newest Higurashi no Naku Koro ni and Ah! My Goddess second season episodes, as well as the first episode of a new series I'm taking up - Tonagura. It's a twist on the childhood friends angle, so that should be funny to see. As that wraps everything up, till next time.

Getting close.

Hmm, though level 40 doesn't seem to be possible, level 39 certainly does. In SilkRoad Online I managed to get roughly 27% of the way towards level 39, and I still have 2 days with the golden ticket. This means I should maybe get 10 to 20% towards my target level. At least I'll be getting kinda close, which isn't too bad really. I also went to do a trade run, with the help of a friend who started up as a hunter as she gained level 20 and could therefore take a job. Unfortunately the NPC Thieves that spawned on my transport were based on my level of 38, not her level... She dies. A few times. That wasn't that good. On the plus side the trade managed to reach the end location even though a player Thief followed me for a fair bit of the way back, waiting for me to die. That wasn't pleasant at all, and made me decidedly nervous since if I dismounted he'd be able to kill me, and he seemed to be rather higher than my level. Hmm. Overall I made a handy profit, so once my friend levels up some more to be able to deal with the monsters along the trade route then we'll probably try a second time. Other than that I didn't do much really aside from kill lots and lots of Yeowas, the medusa-like critters.

Since I had some free time in the afternoon I decided to watch some anime, and got through 2 episodes of Blood+ and a Strawberry Panic update. Blood+ was quite cool, as one of Diva's chevaliers transformed into his Chiropteran form, and it had armour. Saya also managed to actually kill another chevalier, so she's not doing too badly. In Strawberry Panic a play for the three school was decided upon, with the Etoile having one of the main roles, and asking Nagisa to help her with the lines. Oho, what a chance for romance. The two evil girls who happen to be a couple seem to be the token fanservice for the series, appearing in a bath together. I still have another episode of Blood+ to watch, as well as an episode of Air Gear and Inukami! so those'll probably be seen tomorrow. I'm not likely to get sleep tonight thanks to more SilkRoad Online, but no doubt I'll sleep tomorrow morning and get up at around midday or something similar. I'm rather used to odd sleeping hours now, and I doubt my bodyclock is even able to change completely. Ah well, it simply makes for more American friends over IRC, heh. Till next time.

Not going to make it.

Work went vaguely well. Again the morning was quiet, and everything exploded into activity in the afternoon, but thanks to a small respite I was able to ask if I could be taken off the tills to replenish all the bags as many tills were running out. At first the answer was no, but when I kept asking, and after a few more tills kept calling for more bags, I was eventually allowed. I actually managed to spend nearly an hour and a half of the last 2 working hours of my day on that mini job, and then I did returns, collecting all the items that customers suddenly decided they didn't want at the till. I only had to spend 10 minutes out of those last 2 hours on a till, just to relieve the pressure of closing time where all the tills get swamped with customers. That was quite a nice afternoon therefore, and not too bad really. After work I went round my girlfriend's place and watched as her family played the Dungeons and Dragons board game. It went surprisingly slowly as everyone seemed to be thinking about other things. Eventually it stalled in order to watch the opening for the new series of Top Gear, and it was a funny episode. That poor caravan, it went through a lot of punishment...

When I got home I naturally went to play SRO, though it was interrupted by a call from my mum. It was vaguely difficult explaining to her that I wasn't going to America to visit, but I reckon I managed eventually. After 3 hours of constant monster killing in SilkRoad Online my wolf got to level 37, and I unfortunately remained on that level. I did however get to around 55%, and nearly finished the scales quest for the second time out of 5. This implies that tomorrow I'll be able to completye the quest twice more and get to level 38. Unfortunately I'll only have 2 more days with the gold ticket, so I doubt I'll even reach level 39. I'll quite probably get very close, but I don't tink I'll hit it. This is naturally quite disappointing, as I was aiming to hit level 40 by the time it ran out. Ah well, as least I'll have got vaguely close. Once it runs out I'll go and finish the 5 or so older quests in my quest log, and possibly return to the first city, Jangan, to get the extra chain of quests for level 35 there. They won't give me much combined, but it's better than nothing and then I'll at least have completed them. I also got round to watch 2 episodes of anime, which is better than nothing. Chevalier and a Yume Tsukai update to be exact. Yume Tsukai was pretty nifty, what with an evil serpentine dragon and the 'bad guy' getting eaten. Chevalier was also good, but in a much different way. For a start it was incredibly religious, constantly quoting bits of the Christian Bible. Plus the main male character had a slightly... odd transformation at the end in order to fight. It's worth watching for the curiosity alone, and it's well animated. That finishes everything up. I'll be resting a bit longer then it's back to SRO to make a bid for level 38. Till next time.

Just about.

Hmm. A work intensive day it is then. The morning was pretty good, as it wasn't too busy, but not empty enough to bore me. The afternoon however? The moment it hit midday queues appeared from literally nowhere, and I was swamped for the next 6 hours. Jeebus freaking Christ. That was, to put it frankly, 'not pleasant'. That's also putting it politely and not describing it with the aid of all the stress it accumulated.... Bah. Luckily I was taken off the till 20 minutes early, and I think it was that which saved my mind from just breaking. I only had to collect returns for the last 20 minutes, and thanks to a 'damaged bag' (bag with a damaged product inside it) having holes, the resulting spill which I just had to stand around for took 15 minutes. Well, that was a good result at least. During my break in the middle of the day to try and get some fresh air I walked across to Blockbuster and bought 2 games for only £5 as they're 3 years old-ish now. Chaos League, a PC game that is essentially a rip off of Games Workshop's tabletop game Blood Bowl yet still fun, and Max Payne 2, also for the PC. Though I've not played Max Payne 1, the second game looked nice enough for me to get almost on impulse, and it'll mainly be for my laptop. With luck it'll provide hours of random entertainment when out and about on trains.

After work when round my girlfriend's place we decided to watch Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, since she'd not seen it yet had seen the first 3 movies. She seemed to like it, and though I'm still annoyed about the lack of a Quidditch World Cup match scene, seeing Voldemort some more still retained the old 'cool' value it did the first time. For some reason my girlfriend laughed at odd times, which simply reinfoces my assumption that her sense of humour is almost as eclectic as her, heh. The movie ate up pretty much all my time round her place, so I had to return home not long after the movie finished unfortunately. As such for something to do as I didn't feel tired, I went onto SilkRoad Online once more. There are only a few days of the gold ticket left now, about 4. This means that in just over half a weak I can take a few days rest from it without worrying if I'm wasting ticket time or not. During my time online I managed to finally, at long last, complete the 'kill 1000 flower ghosts' the third and last time and collected the reward. After that it was almost immediately onto hunting Yeowas, a medusa-like creature without the snakes for hair. I need to get 300 scales, and it's a quest doable 5 times. 1500 scales eh? Well.... damn. I had to overrun the ticket time for the day slightly by 6 minutes, but I managed to hit level 37, so that was good. 4 days left for 3 complete levels. Possible? I hope so.

On the anime front? Er yeah, got 7 to watch in total now. I'll probably have over 10 by monday, which'll give me something to do, that's for sure. Till next time.

Overtaking.

Today was 'productive', if characters advancing in SilkRoad Online counts as productivity. I managed to get my main character quater of the way to level 37. That's not too bad, as it's only 4 levels to go before I hit my target, and I still have several days. I'm not sure if I'll make it, but I'll probably at the very least get to level 38, and it's not far from there obviously. Later on in the day I played as my second character. Through an insane amount of killing and completing quests as they appeared, I managed to get to level 19, and over 80% to level 20. That's quite good really for 2 days on a character. The overtaking part relates to the friend I mentioned previously who I got interested in the game, who has a character now level 18. I overtook her mainly as she had several internet problems, and also has a pet wolf to level up which makes things slightly slower. I was quite happy with getting my characters reasonably far, even if it did eat a horrendous chunk of my time.

I also managed to watch most of my anime that needed watching, namely the Zero no Tsukaima, Love Get Chu!, PowerPuff Girls Z and School Rumble amidst others I can't remember off the top of my head. Tsukaima was entertaining, and the poor guy summoned as the familiar didn't have much luck, but his innate power shone through, even though he doesn't really know of it yet. Love Get Chu! had more moral boosting messages and lots of resolve, which was ok I guess. PowerPuff Girls Z was slightly random, and I'm not sure if I even like the style yet. I guess only time will tell. As for School Rumble, well, it had Harima. The poor git and always unable to say how he feels.. It was hugely entertaining as a result. The guy really should get some courage or something, even if by alcohol. I still have 2 episodes of Blood+ to watch, as well as the updates for Inukami! and Strawberry Panic and and OVA for Magical Pokan to get. I probably won't have time to watch them tomorrow, but oh well. Till next time.

SilkRoad Online-athon.

You can guess from the title what this post will mainly be about. Anyway, to go through the post in the usual order, I actually got out of bed before midday. That in itself I consider to be vaguely impressive. I dodn't go out or do anything, but rather went onto SilkRoad Online to finish up today's special exp time, as I still had around an hour to go. In doing so I managed to get slightly past 70%, which means hopefully when I start playing at 2 am I should get to level 36 within the 3 hours. After I got that done I went and helped my dad with some heavy bags of pebbles. We collected them from one of my step-sisters, as she, and her husband, moved into a new place and didn't want them. My dad however wanted them as materials for his new smaller pond, mainly for filling in the gap created by the old larger one. As such I did lots of the carrying to save my dad the strain, and we managed to get 5 large bags round the old pond, so that was quite productive. After that I decided to go back to SilkRoad Online, but with a new character. Thanks to following nearly all of the quests in order, as well as using the silver ticket that new characters get, I managed to make it to level 16. This is of course not bad for a singlwe day, as one friend from the Soul Society forum and Skype is only level 17, and I managed to rope her into the game a few weeks ago.

Once that ticket was over I quickly used my spare time to update the forum and watch as much anime as possible before going back to SRO for the gold ticket time for my main character. Overall I got through the updates for - Happy Seven, Bleach, Naruto, Kiba, Disgaea, High School Girls, Blood+, Utawarerumono, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni and 2 episodes of Zegapain. 11 isn't too bad really. In incredible brief then, as I'm posting this as fast as I can to get back to SRO, Happy Seven was funny in an ironic kind of way. Bleach had more filler but at least it was interesting. The Naruto filler wasn't quite as bad as normal, but Gai's afro was soul-destroying. Kiba had more cool fighting and internal mind struggles, and Noa got an apparantly impressive shard. The final for Disgaea was kinda odd in what happened to the characters, but not a bad way to end the series. High School Girls had a very... interesting way to apply massage oil. If you want details, watch episode 12... Blood+ had more of the Sif fighting at high speed which is cool, as their speed effect is like that of the bad guys in the Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children movie. Utawarerumono involved a lot more skirmishing and warfare, and Hakuro is looking decidedly more stressed and worried, poor guy. Higurashi wasn't anywhere near as freaky as previous episodes, but still interestingly odd. As for Zegapain, the main female friend of yo had a huge change, then something incredibly bad happened to her, which was ridiculously harsh. I still have 8 episodes to watch, dang. I'm off to SRO then. Till next time.

Even more levels.

Gah, today since I went to bed quite early in the morning, I ended up getting out of bed at 1 pm. Since my dad had to go to work in the afternoon, he had to take me to work at 1.30 pm, even though I started at 3 pm. This meant that for over an hour I just wandered around, popping into Blockbuster to have a look through their games, and I had time for a small meal in the ASDA staff cafe. That passed the time reasonably well enough. Work itself wasn't too bad at all. I asked to be put on one of the express tills. Though I usually dislike them immensely, recently I've noticed they've not been anywhere near as busy as the main tills. My observation paid off. Though there was a steady stream of customers, I ended up with far more small empty gaps throughout my shift, which made the experience a lot nicer and far more relaxing. There was definitely less stress than the usual. Not much else happened at work really, though I confirmed my holiday dates where I wouldn't be working. From the 19th of July to the 6th of August, inclusive, I'll not have to go into work, which is certainly nice. This means I'll be able to spend more time with my girlfriend, and when I told her this she seemed quite happy about it, so that's all good then. Once I got home I contemplated having a rest, but in the end decided to update the forum then play even more SilkRoad Online.

The 30 minutes I thought I'd sacrificed yesterday were still available. I forgot I'd almost got up to date, so that was extremely handy. Through a shedload of killing I managed to complete the 'kill 1000 flower ghost' quest a second time out of three, and made a start on the third and final one whilst picking up a few other quests for later. Thanks to the sheer volume of killing, not to mention the quest rewards, I made it to level 35 and managed to get to half way towards level 36 with still around an hour of double exp in combat time remaining. At the end of that hjour with luck I'll be at 60% or even 70% if I'm lucky. For now though I decided to come here to post, then to go and get some real sleep. No doubt I'll use up that hour tomorrow, long before the deadline. On the anime front a few episodes have piled up again, namely the Bleach, Kiba, Disgaea, Blood+, Utawarerumono, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, Powerpuff Girls Z, Love Get Chu and Happy Seven updates, as well as 2 episodes of Yume Tsukai. Tomorrow a couple more will probably be released, and I aim to finish them all off before the day is over. That would get me nicely up to date before the weekend, where all the anime usually builds up for me to watch. Well then, that's all. Till next time.

Window Shopping.

In the morning there was a lot of waiting. I was up early waiting for my laptop to arrive, but alas it didn't arrive till the early afternoon. During the morning I went out to get the laptop case strap, and worried a fair amount that the parcel would be delivered whilst my dad and I were out of the house, meaning it'd be taken back. Therefore it was fortunate that the laptop was delivered later. In the end it arrived at 1.30 pm. Now I'd said I'd be going out at 1.30 pm, since I was going to meet my girlfriend at 2 pm and I'd rather be early than late. However I couldn't resist the laptop, and so I spent 15 minutes setting part of it up, then leaving it to charge. Thankfully I got to the meeting place exactly on time, which was fortunate. My girlfriend and I then went window shopping for several hours as she inquired about jobs. I'm not a huge fan of window shopping, especially for clothes, since I don't really buy that many. However with my girlfriend window shopping was certainly different, and wholly more enjoyable. Her randomness made it interesting, which was pretty cool. After that we both went to Games Workshop, and met up with another 2 of our friends. One of them was hungry, so we all went to a noodle place and he treated us to the meal, as a psuedo-birthday present for me, which was incredibly nice of him. He also got me a vlume of manga and japanese movie, not to mention some burnable DVD's, so that simply rocked.

I spent most of my time at Games Workshop either with my girlfriend or chatting with my friends, but other than that I relaxed for the most part. After getting home I quickly went on SilkRoad Online as I was running out of time to use the double exp time before the deadline, and in the end I ended up sacrificing 30 minutes. Meh, that's not that much I guess, though it's an extra bit I won't be able to use to get nearer level 40... On the plus side I made level 34, and I'm already half way to level 35 thanks to the quest reward. I'm now killing the second set of 1000 'Flower Ghosts' which no doubt will take several hours. With any luck it'll get me close to level 36. I also spent some time on my laptop, moving across a good deal of programs from my main PC. Now most of the stuff I use often is on there, which makes things simpler. I also have a few of the smaller games, and I've changed how it all looks, using different icons and so forth. It's all pretty much done now, and I only have Photoshop CS2 left to put on it, which I'll probably manage to do tomorrow. I've not had any time to watch anime unfortunately, but luckily I only have 3 episodes to watch, so it's no big deal. Since that wraps everything up, till next time.

Almost there.

Ah, an active and vaguely early day today. I went to bed at 5.15 am this morning, and ended up getting up at about 9.45 am as I had to go down to Haywards Heath to sign out of college. That went smoothly enough, though for the last two teachers I had to hang around for a bit, since it was coincidentally a year 10 prospectus day, so loads of the little blighters were being shown around. During that time I simply saw a few extra friends, happily chatted with them, then made a few last goodbyes. Some I'll probably not see again for a long, long while. After I signed out I decided to make a few key purchases back in Eastbourne. On the way back home my dad and I stopped off at a computer store and I bought a laptop case, for obvious reasons, and a wireless mouse for convenience. The case wasn't too expensive yet is still quite good, so bonus there. Unfortunately when I got home I found out that the shoulder strap, which was supposed to be stored inside, wasn't actually there. This means that tomorrow morning I'll have to quickly pop into the shop again to claim it. Hopefully the laptop won't arrive when I do that, as there'll be no one home to sign for the parcel, which is naturally a bad thing. Ah well eh? In my spare time I also managed to -almost- get to level 34 in SilkRoad Online, and I actually used up all 5 and a half hours of double experience combat time with over an hour to go till the deadline hit. Classy stuff.

One chunk of the day was concerned with what I'd intended to get round to for a few days - anime. I got through a fair few episodes, namely - 2 episodes of Air gear, 3 of Happy Seven, and the updates for Naruto, Utawarerumono, Ouran High School Host Club, High School Girls, Honey & Clover II, Zero no Tsukaima, Blood+, Kagihime, Zegapain and Kamisama Kazoku. 15 isn't too bad really. Air Gear was simply cool as Crow (I find his nickname easier to remember) had the first team battle and won, following the manga really well. Happy Seven is a new series I've picked up and wasn't too bad, what with the 7 gods of luck and weird monsters. No doubt it'll grow on me. Naruto was pure filler and almost made me despair. Utawarerumono on the other hand was quite dramatic and a pleasure to watch. Poor Hakuro must be confused about his past now. Ouran High chool Host Club revealed that the Host Club's 'King' (yeah, bad with names again) is actually the son of the school's superintendant. I guess Haruhi didn't expect to know that. High School Girls was an interesting episode, and had an incredibly funny, and similarly cruel, twist at the end. That poor girl and her expectations... Honey & Clover II was a peaceful, is slightly anguished, episode. All in all not bad. Another new series I've picked up is Zero no Tsukaima, and the female magic user is truly useless. Her spells backfire, and when summoning a familiar manages to get a 'commoner', i.e. boy. I dare say he's going to class as an 'unlucky bastard' in coming episodes. Blood+ seriously changed Saya's personality and character from scared and slightly unsure to cold, calculating, and rather violent. How odd. Kagihime was a slightly odd episode that dealt with repression and substitution, two defence mechanisms to avoid trauma. Strange indeed. In Zegapain Chris' partner finally expired in a rather impressivly flash dissipation of data, which probably will make Kyo think even more about how fake he really is. Lastly, Kamisama Kazoku reminded me, yet again, of Eureka Seven. Quite a thought-filled episode, for the female angel at least...

That brings it all to a close (at long last). Tomorrow I have a fair bit to do, so I'm off to go and actually get some sleep. Zomg indeed. Till next time.

A little bit late.

Ok, maybe 'quite late', by several hours. Never mind eh? Work today wasn't too bad I guess, though it got insanely busy after the first hour. For some reason the store was packed, and usually when the weather is bad the store is slightly empty. Maybe a shedload of people had a change of heart, but it certainly wore me out, that's for sure. I eventually made it through the day without intense psychological breakdown, which is always a very good bonus. The sight of my girlfriend once again pretty much cured me of my stress, so that was obviously good. When I got to her house there was still some birthday cake left, so I nabbed some. As it was a very nice cake my mood further improved. We didn't do much except for listen to music and, in my case, rest, since work had made me feel wrecked. There was also the football World Cup final to watch, interspersed with more Fullmetal Alchemist and Mezzo DSA, one series I want to get. The World Cup made me laugh, what with the gratuitous violence nearer the end, and the anime had the Homonculus Greed, and the DSA agency respectively, so it was a good evening. Though I felt tired, I managed to stay awake quite well, which makes what happened when I got home vaguely more impressive.

Upon arriving home, I decided to play SilkRoad Online as I wanted to get to level 33. Not that great a target, but one useful to have if I want to actually hit level 40 within another 10 days or so. As such I went on and started the mass 'Blood Death Flower' monster genocide. Then a friend from the Soul Society forum managed to get on, so I helped power level her for several hours, getting her and her wolf a few levels apiece. When she had to leave I kept going, then finally left the game when I did get to level 33. I looked at the time. Well dame, 4 am... I need to be up at 8 am, and I still hadn't written my blog or updated the Soul Society forum... Well, not good then. That's why this post is quite late. I'll have to leave it here for now as I still need to update the forum and I'm feeling incredibly tired now. 'Tomorrow' I probably won't feel so good. Till next time.

So I'm 18 eh?

Hmm. An interesting day to say the least. Work started fine, though I was placed on the express tills. Though I usually hate them, it wasn't that busy, so I coped rather well. However I was then moved onto a normal till, and it was ridiculously busy there. Well damn. Though, as I'm now 18, I don't have to ask to sell alcohol anymore, it does mean that other people started asking me if -they- were allowed to sell. It wasn't as stressful as continuously having to ask someone else, but it was still kinda aggravating. Oh well, guess I have more of that to look forward to as long as I have the job... Le sigh. On the plus side lots of people wished me happy birthday, even if they did seem quite surprised that I was working on my birthday. Next year I guess I'll plan ahead more, heheh.... Thankfully work finished at 6 pm, though by then my tolerance, not to mention sanity, was wearing thin. My girlfriend completely restored me however, as I always feel much better simply by seeing her, so it was all god. Her sister actually gave me a present, what she termed a 'manly' bouquet, as she works in a flower shop. It was a nice gesture, and was surprisingly lacking in abundant colour, which counts as manly I guess. After that I was presented with hot dogs and a really nice cake, so that was excellent.

After that we decided to watch a film, namely 'The Secret Window' starring Mr. Depp. It was certainly an interesting film, and the role Depp played was very well done. I may be slightly biased however as I'm a fan of his acting. I really enjoyed just the act of watching the film with my girlfriend too, since being a human cushion promotes a rather nice feeling of contentment. After that it was pretty late, so I had to say goodbye after I was taken back home. Thankfully it's sunday tomorrow so I can see her again. Yes, yes I know I've got it bad. Several people from the Soul Society forum have pointed this out to me, which seriously goes against my vaguely evil image of 'The Storyteller'. Meh, ah well. Most of them know me anyway, so I don't think they actually consider me evil, just kinda harsh at times. I did manage to play a small, i.e. very small, amount of SilkRoad Online, and out of the 3 hours from yesterday I ended up sacrificing 2 and a half thanks to time constraints. Yeah, dang. Tomorrow I'll be back up to 6 hours, and when I get back home from my girlfriend's place I'll try to use at least 3 hours or so before the deadline. That will at least get me closer to level 33, if not to the actual gaining of the level itself. I need to try to get to level 40 within 11 days or so, so I should probably get cracking as I'm a measly level 32. Ah well, till next time. (I really should get round to watching some anime too...)

The penultimate day.

Well today is the day before my birthday, so naturally I went out to celebrate, in the form of a date with my girlfriend. We went to Brighton and almost straight away went to the cinema and saw Pirates of the Caribbean 2. jeebus, that movie freaking rocked. I thought the original was great, and this one was, to put it simply, far better. There were more funny moments, naturally as there was more of Captain Jack Sparrow, more dramatic fights, and of course davy Jones and his crew who looked hellishly awesome. Both my girlfriend and I enjoyed it, and we're already looking forward to the third film as it's apparantly already finished filming. Looks like they didn't want to wait thanks to the cliffhanger the second film ends on. It was a good cliffhanger, that's for sure. I won't ruin it, but I will say this - go see the film. NOW. After that we walked around the lanes, and did a bit of shopping. It was simply fantastic just being with her, and it was a great way to spend the afternoon. We then came back to my place as she hadn't seen Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail, the only Python film she's not seen. She seemed to enjoy that quite a bit, and the day was finished up with a session of Pokemon Colusseum as she hadn't played for a while. She's doing rather well at it.

After I'd taken her home in the late evening I went to do my usual rounds of updating the forum, which took a while, checking on anime to get, and playing more SilkRoad Online. I now have around 12 anime episodes to watch when I get around to it, and that's after I watched 2 yesterday before bed. Hmm, by monday I may have around 20 or something. That'll at least make for a nice animarathon. I also, when my girlfriend was watching Monty Python, bought a laptop. It was cheaper than the one I originally aimed for, and a lot better. here's the link - http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Acer_Aspire_5672WLMi_Cam_LX.AA705.332/version-1.asp which shows how good it is for me. Considering I'll only be playing a few games on t, and will mostly use it for work and anime, it's perfect. Not too shabby really. On SilkRoad Online I managed to get a quarter of the way to level 33, with my wolf a third of the way there, but had to sacrifice another hour as I didn't have enough time to use it all before the deadline. Oh well, meh. I'll probably end up wasting a few more hours over the weekend, but it's no big deal anymore, I've done pretty well level-wise and have built up several handy skills. With luck I'll hit level 40 within the next 12 days though. I highly doubt it, but it'd be nice to get a level 40 'bigger' wolf before the double exp ticket runs out. At any rate tomorrow's my birthday, and no doubt after work I'll enjoy myself as I've been promised cake, heh. Till next time.

Cinema trip.

Today was a lazy day, a very lazy day indeed. I didn't go to bed last night as I was playing SilkRoad Online, but I did finally get some kip time at around 7.30 am, and got up at 1 pm. From there I went onto my computer, as always, and chatted to various people, the main convo being with my girlfriend. I had to dash however as I was due to meet my best mate in brighton at 5.30 pm, and got there 10 minutes early. Unfortunately she'd got the time wrong, and had already been waiting an hour... whoops. We went down to the cinema and bought the tickets early, then went to a sushi bar and had a meal there. It was really nice, and we'd both been there before, but unfortunately we missed the student discount deadline by 40 minutes, heh. Oh well I guess. After that we quickly hurried to the cinema and saw the film, Over the Hedge. I'd already seen it with my dad, but my mate hadn't seen it, so that was a reasonable choice. Yet again it was good watching the CG, though she was slightly tired by then and missed parts of the film I think... At any rate I filled her in on the general plot and she seemed to like it, so it wasn't a complete loss. After the film it was getting pretty late so we decided to return to our homes. Overall it was a great outing, since we get on so well, and I always have a fun time simply talking with her. Pretty cool then.

Once I did get home I decided to get to level 32 in SilkRoad Online since I was vaguely close, and once I did manage it, using a pacifying circle a hell of a lot to prevent crap things attacking me, I decided to take a break. I needed 32 to get to the next main stage weapon, and it allowed me to use 2 armour pieces that had dropped from monster kills, so that was quite handy. It was then a matter of talking to friends on Skype, and not doing much else. I still have a fair amount of anime to watch, namely the 2 Air Gear, Powerpuff Girls Z, Naruto, Bleach, Kiba and Kamisama Kazoku updates. It's up to 7 episodes, ooer. I probably won't get to watch any anime till monday as all weekend I'm working then going round my girlfriend's place after, so it doesn't leave me much time at home. No doubt I'll lose several hours double exp time in SRO too. Meh, oh well. I still have to update the Soul Society forums, so I'll be off for now. Till next time.

Brief respite.

I'm in the middle of taking a slight break from SilkRoad Online so I can post here. My day didn't start to bad, as I got up at 2 pm. Yesm, that's right, 2 pm. Admittedly I went to bed yesterday ridiculously early in today's morning, but meh. By the time I had my shower to purify myself from the evil heat it was time to go to work. My work day was, to say the least, quite varied. I started on checkouts, went onto replenishing bags at tills, then back onto checkouts, then gathering baskets, then went outside to gather trolleys back, then finally had a meeting with my manager as it was the last day of this week I work, and my probation therefore ends. He seemed very happy with how I'd done in the 3 months, and actually said 'It's nice to be able to keep people.' As such my job is now permenant, so 'woo' I guess. Plus on saturday, the next day I'm working, since I turn 18 my pay goes up. No doubt that is very nifty. Other than all that however I didn't do much at work, but I did appreciate the varied schedule. It reduced my boredom quite a bit, as it wasn't all tedium thanks to repetetively scanning items over and freaking over. When I got home, by taxi as my dad and step mum were out at a magician's lecture, I decided to rest a bit and have a dinner comprised of bisquits. I really should get round to making noodles at least... meh.

I then went on to play SilkRoad Online. What else? I actually managed to get through all 3 hours, and a slight amount of today's time, and it's still not even the deadline yet. I'll probably only use half an hour of today's time thanks to this break, but it's better than nothing, and I'll probably go to sleep once I've finished today's time, so I'll only have 3 hours to use tomorrow during the day. At 5 pm tomorrow I need to leave as at 5.30 pm I'm meeting up with my best friend to see a film to celebrate my birthday early. Back to SRO however, I managed to get to level 31, as well as my white wolf, and I sold the level 21 grey wolf for 1.3 million. This puts my gold stash up to a respectable 9.3 million overall. Not too bad considering I've been playing less than half a month. Unfortunately I still have anime waiting for me. I have the School Rumble, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and Zegapain updates to watch, and I still have to get the Honey & Clover II, Air Gear (2 updates), Bleach, Powerpuff Girls Z and Kiba updates. Gah. Tomorrow there'll be more. Hopefully I'll be able to watch them all tomorrow, since that's the plan. I'll just have to wake up early or something.... Ah well. At least the character singles for The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya keeps me happy. Their songs are pretty good, especially Nagato's. Till next time.

Wasted time.

Hmm, today wasn't too bad. Not bad at all in fact. I got up vaguely 'early' at a small amount past midday, and proceeded to try to keep cool and slightly fail. As it was I retreated to a cold shower, then basically just went on my computer for a few hours, checking anime to download and chatting to friends and also my girlfriend. After that I went to Games Workshop a few hours early to basically just hang around, though I also went and bought a fair amount of blank DVD's to try and stave off the problem of constantly running out of them at annoying times. I ended up with 21, and I'd bought 16 and a mate who works in a computer shop just gave me 5, which was not only kind, but damn handy. I then proceeded to play absolutely no games at all, as my girlfriend arrived and I much preferred to stay with her and hug her than play Warhammer 40,000. It was a pretty easy choice too. Other than that I didn't do much, though I spent a long time sorting through miniature catalogues for parts to make a conversion that my girlfriend is highly interested in. Basically it's a newer slimmer version of my Chaos Lord from Warhammer, the Death Jester Mimi'Kra. In the end we ended up with lots of parts that kinda worked, but weren't really right. The main problem was what to use for the legs, but I'm sure it'll all work out eventually.

Near the end of the evening, when my girlfriend had left, I started painting one of my mate's dwarves, since I had nothing else to do. I'm better at painting than him, and I just wanted to see what it'd be like painiting a model in his colour scheme. Though I didn't have much time I still managed to get all bar the flesh, and possibly the last level of highlighting on the hair and wood, done. It looked pretty good, and I was especially proud of the cape. When I did get home I had to get on SilkRoad Online sharpish, as I still had 3 hours of double exp time from yesterday, and only 3 hours and a few minutes left till 2 am. However I started falling behind a lot, and by the time I was 20 minutes behind, with only 40 minutes to go till the deadline, I still had an hour left. So I decided to sacrifice that hour. It only cost, approximately, 6.6 pennies, and that's ridiculously cheap. Not only that, but I didn't feel like ripping apart my soul to cram in that many hours into the game when it's not really essential, and when I'd still not eaten dinner, posted here, updated the forum and so on. That means that yes, this post has been rolled back a few hours. Whoops. At any rate once the 2 am deadline hits I'll be back up to 6 hours, so no doubt I'll go back on to at least use up an hour or two to make it easier to get back up to date. Anime-wise there haven't been many updates, so there's no worries there. Till next time.

Early-ish.

Not much happened today really. I woke up early and it was too hot to do anything, so I remained in my rom in bed and tried to keep cool. By about midday I decided to actually go and get signed out of college, so my dad and I drove up to Haywards Heath. Unfortunately it was an inset day so the teachers weren't available, so we both went to Crawley cinema and saw the film 'Over the Hedge'. It wasn't that bad really, and the CG quality was impressive. Since it was a film mainly aimed at children, though it focused on death threats and stealing, not to mention addiction to junk food and lying, the trailers were nearly all for other CG films. It's almost as if there are now more CG'd films being made than real ones... After that we came back home and I went onto SilkRoad Online to use up yesterday's double exp time. At the end of yesterday's allocated 3 hours I managed to get level 29 and halfway to level 30, with my white wolf at the same level. The grey one is now level 21, so he's kinda catching up, or at least maintaining the distance. I also managed to watch the anime I had stored, though that was done early in the morning, at about 2 am. I got through the Ah! My Goddess second season, Ray the Animation, Ouran High School Host Club, Ergo Proxy and Higurashi no Naku Koro ni updates.

Ah! My Goddess rocked as per usual since I'm a fan of most things A!MG related. Peorth kept trying to win keichi over to her side from Belldandy, and kept on failing. Plus she also realised just how nice Belldandy was, so it was all good. Ray the Animation wasn't bad, though the series ended. It was slightly anticlimatic, and ray's 'deteriorating sight' lasted barely a few minutes before Black Jack came along and fixed them. Er... dramatic. I guess. Ouran High School Host Club had haruhi dreaming about being in wonderland, with all the guys as characters such as the Caterpillar, White Rabbit, Mad Hatter etc. It was certainly odd, that's for sure. It was also one of the incredibly few times haruhi's been seen with long hair. Ergo proxy well and truly dipped into the realm of Neon Genesis Evangelion, with abstract concepts and repeated scenes galore, though of course with slight differences each time. As the series goes on it gets more complex, and I like it even more. Finally Higurashi no Naku Koro ni finished yet another miniature story arc, and this one was definitely slightly odd. Seems like luck really doesn't exist for the people in that anime... I'm already wondering what the focus of the next little arc will be. For now though I'll draw my rambling to a close, as I have the Today in Class 5-2 OVA to watch, not to mention Blood+ (at long last), xxxHOLiC and High School Girls updates. As such, till next time.

Countdown.

Work was an incredible drag today. My god, it was horrendously slow. Jeebus... At one point I thought 2 hours had gone past, checked my watched, and it had only been 40 minutes. I still had an hour and 15 minutes tio the end, and spent a huge amount of that time changing lyrics to music I know, generally along the lines of my mind breaking and intolerance to the work. When it ended I was immensely thankful. I got to see my girlfriend again, and that improved my day a ridiculous amount. She was a few minutes late in picking me up, and it was ridiculously cute. As her mum drove the car up, she leant out the window and made a kind of mewing noise with her arms outstretched for a hug. That made me get the 'warm and fuzzy' feeling, which was pretty cool. We spent most of the evening filling out a job apllication form for her, which certainly ate up the time. I also listened to more Billy talent, R.E.M., Linkin Park and classical music. Varied, but still nice to listen to. The Billy Talent music caught my attention mostly, as I have the first album, but not the second. As such it was good managing to hear more of his work. Red Flag was on the album too, and that song simply rocks. We also browsed Neopets a fair amount and she seemed to be impressed with how much demirri has improved, even though I've honestly not done that much.

When I got home I checked Skype, anime torrents, updated the forum then came almost immediately here to post early, as I have lots of double exp time in SilkRoad Online to catch up on. I still pretty much have 3 hours from yesterday and 3 from today, and only 3 can be carried over to tomorrow at 2 am when the next 3 hours are added. As such I have just over 4 hours to use 3 hours of combat-only time. I think about 30 minutes or so are going to be wasted, meh. I'll do my best. Anime-wise I have to watch - Ah! My Goddess second series, Ray the Animation, Ouran High School Host Club, Ergo proxy, Utawarerumono, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, and FINALLY the second OVA episode of Today in Class 5-2, which simply rocks. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have spare time to watch them... So, SilkRoad beckons. Till next time.

Mixed.

Well my day was both 'good', 'okay' and 'bad' rolled into one. I guess that makes it a normal day in comparison to most people. I don't feel like talking much here, even though it's on time, so I'll be very brief. Work wasn't too bad, as near the end I got to stand around outside not doing much, then finished by walking up and down aisles, not doing much. I did however have to ID 20 to 30 year olds for alcohol as the lady behind me, whom I get premission to sell from, apparantly couldn't work out people's ages... The time I spent with my grielfriend was great, and I really enjoyed seeing her again. When I got home however I lapsed into a depressive state, crying and so forth. There wasn't a real reason, I just felt supremely bad. I spoke with my step mum, and dad when he came into the room, and afterwards felt a bit better, even if I didn't return to my usual composure and happiness. Since it was late I quickly checked anime torrents, of which there are 4 updates to get to add to the episode of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni I have to watch, then updated the Soul Society forum. I then came here to write this, and now I shall go play SilkRoad Online to further distract myself. Hopefully I'll feel better tomorrow morning.

To my friends from Games Workshop who read this - please do not ask why I was upset. I don't mean to worry, but I need personal space for this. Thanks in advance.

Till next time.