Why someone doesn't like the holidays.

I know it's rather late, but found this story randomly, and wanted to share it. Kind of sad...

...in other news, Happy New Year? :X In the new year I'm totally going to dump massive pictures of my puppy, so more uplifting post tomorrow haha!

Byond game: Dragon Warrior: Shadows of Erdrick

Different from my guide for Dragon Warrior: Hero's Destiny/Shadows of Erdrick 2, this is the guide for the first game that is probably more complete then the other Dragon Quest fangames. I'm going to go over the quests in the game with all the general spoilers. I won't go into the classes too much though, maybe just brief mentions.

UPDATES:
6/25/2013: I no longer host the game, so I've highlighted the parts only available on my old server, and in some cases, used strikethroughs for features no longer available. Most information available is still correct of the current version, though some changes may have been made that I am not aware of. If anyone would like me to add the new version changes, feel free to provide the information and i'll add them.

If anyone would like to help make accurate descriptions to the spells (rough amount of damage/healing, how much a buff or debuff increases/decreases on a target, MP cost, and so on), you may be rewarded in game for your help! Feel free to make descriptions in the comment section below. Also any errors or missing information reported is also appreciated!

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

To find what you are looking for, use the table of contents as a reference, and search the page (ctrl+f usually summons this on most browsers) for what you are looking for. Just copy and paste the line from the contents to find it.

Quest help and Maps of areas have been relocated to other pages, so just click on their main page links (denoted with +) or if looking for particular maps, you can just click the area/floor you want

+ QUESTS
+ Current MAPS
-- Evil World Map
-- Runweld Basement (Floor 1) (Floor 2)
-- Thenton Tower And Basement (Floor 1) (Floor 2) (Floor 3) (Floor 4) (Floor 5+6) (Basement 1) (Basement 2)
-- Smack's Cave (Floor 1) (Floor 2) (Floor 3) (Floor 4) (Floor 5)
-- BEACOM CAVE (Floor 1) (Floor 2) (Floor 3)
-- Agotrop Cave (Floor 1) (Floor 2)
-- Lava Cave (Floor 1) (Floor 2)
-- Hillock Farm
-- Sky Tower (Floor 1) (Floor 2) (Floor 3) (Floor 4) (Floor 5) (Floor 6) (Floor 7) (Floor 8) (Floor 9) (Top Floor)
-- The Dig (First Cave) (Second Cave) (First Area)


- CLASSES (C100)
-- Soldier
-- Pilgrim
-- Wizard
~~~ Wizard Valrog Weapon Exchange
-- Ranger
-- Bard
-- Monk
-- Thief
-- Goof-Off
-- Sage
-- LEVELING SPEED

- FARMING TIPS (X555)
- PET INFO (D500)
- AUGMENT INFO (A123)

We got a dog: Faith the American Eskimo.

This is our new puppy, Faith! Mom and dad brought her home last Sunday, a bit of a shock to me. I had thought our landlord had told us no more pets after our last dog died some years back. Mom and dad don't seem to care, and dad even has a smart ass response to give the landlord if questioned (Landlord apparently only told the upstairs people no pets, not exactly us... I remember differently though). Even if the landlord threatens us, Dad said we would move before we get rid of Faith.

About that name? Mom named her it. "...because everyone needs a little Faith!" I'm not crazy about the name, but it seems to fit. She's been very smart, too; Climbed out of the box we had for her the first night onto the love seat in the living room. She wouldn't get down from the love seat on her own, so it contained her for a bit. However, she did learn to get down when she needs to, usually by tumbling down. Also in one incident where during the night, she pooped the love-seat and got so upset by it, she jumped down off it and somehow climbed up the couch just to get away from it.

Faith loves to be up high so she can see everyone, and gets upset when someone leaves the room or she doesn't sense them anymore. As such, getting her to sleep is quite the pain! Mom usually is the last one up, so she's the one who ends up suffering. The pup will fall asleep in your arms, but if Mom tries to put Faith in her playpen we got her for the nights, she'll wake up later, barking and crying. Mom spent a lot of nights sleeping on the couch with Faith in her arms. :P

She seems to do okay with other dogs. Our neighbor's dog, Freckles, has been whining for her. Even got into our yard a few times through the fence to come and play with her. She just seems to feel a bit self important around him though. Probably likes the attention or something. On Thanksgiving, we brought over to my aunt's. They have a huge dog named Ernie, and I THINK he's some sort of shepherd dog... The big lug just played protective of her while she was snapping at his maw. Was funny to see Ernie jump back at Faith's little yips though. He shared his toys with her, and when she got in trouble for trying to bite a stone, Ernie tried to run interference by going up to the scolder and licking their face a bunch so she could get away. :P

When we first got her, I didn't really feel all that excited though. All I could think of was bad things that could happen; her getting taken away, mom unable to keep up with her once and she gets hit by a car, eating something poisonous... Everything seemed dangerous or sad, like all those pet related movies I saw as a kid where these heart-wrenching moments would happen. Makes me wonder if I got so pessimistic, it's all I see...


It also made me miss my old dog, Buddy. I don't have a picture of him in a digital format, sadly, and the scanner is too annoying to use, so it's doubtful I'll be posting images of him. But he was my first dog who died 7 years ago mainly due to old age. He was having so many problems, was I think 15-17 years old (hard to remember), so we had him euthanized. But we didn't want him to go out alone, so all of us were in the room when the doctor injected him. I looked him in the eyes as he died... Definitely was one of the most painful moments of my life. I still consider us murderers for doing that, to be honest, even though I know many feel it's the right thing to do. I still don't think it was, but don't know what else we could have done. Even if we got him surgery there was only a slim chance for him to live.

Blah blah blah, sad sad sad, I just get a little sad when I see Faith. She's nothing like him or anything; different gender, eyes and general appearance. I just hate how it feels like I'm replacing my old bro.

I got a one-time job: running the election polls.

Thanks to my aunt and grandmother, I was able to get a small one-time job for extra cash. You know on election day when you go to vote, you have people running the polls? That was me. Normally my grandmother does this sort of thing, but due to her falling down and hurting herself (something I neglected to talk of in my last entry), she was unable to this year. My aunt got a call asking if she knew someone interested in replacing her, so she thought of me!

I first had to take a "training class" to learn how to run the polls and what to do in various unlikely scenarios. The speaker asked us to turn to a certain page in our manuals we were given, but due to a copying error, some pages were wrong. A bunch of old people started shouting at him, "THAT'S THE WRONG PAGE! IT'S PAGE x!!" And then others were yelling that previous people were wrong while the speaker got all pissed off saying it didn't matter. Meanwhile, me and this Indian lady were laughing out asses off at the ridiculousness of people. After things settled down, we learned how to set up a polling machine and watched a boring power point, the end.

Actual election day was a bit tiresome. Had to be at the election place by 5:15 in the morning and stay until roughly 8:30pm at night. Still, I was going to be paid 200 bucks for 15 hours of work (plus one hour lunchbreak) and during down time, I was allowed to play on my 3DS or walk around bullshitting. My responsibilities were also rather simple: Help with set up, get people's names and have them sign a book and a slip of paper, and occasionally work the machine by taking slips of paper from voters and pressing one button. When an error occurred or one of the few unlikely scenarios the training place warned about actually happened, I would refer to a guy on my team who knew everything.

Yeah, I worked with a team. I had a sleepy old guy who suffered a stroke once, so wasn't always doing his job correctly despite knowing it. He did the least amount of work, but I really can't complain other than he ate like a beast and farted nasty farts. Then there was a 42 year old woman who was really fun. It was her first time doing the polls as well. I talked to her a lot. Finally there was kind old guy who knew everything and pretty much said we could take breaks whenever we want.

At the start of the shift, I mainly was the guy that filled in for everyone whenever they needed a break. Smart guy was running the polls, while the other two held the books. Eventually, sleepy guy hardly did anything other than eat, so I would take over the poll book AND play substitute. At one point, the woman took both books while I ran the machine because smart guy needed breaks sometimes. All this though? Hardly any work really. At worst, I might have forgotten to number or initial something in the book so had to go through a bunch of slips of paper to find where it was.

Also provided was fresh and tasty bagels in the morning, with pizza at lunch time. I ate like a pig between that, granola bars I brought, and buying chik n fil-a on my lunch break. Despite the long hours, this job was incredibly easy. When things got boring, I'd play on my 3DS or chat with the team. Most the voters were pretty polite too, sans like 1-3 people that were either impatient or felt they were holier than thou. Also one guy who was running for mayor got all pissy when he visited and saw something that hardly mattered out of place. (Crooked sign, OH NOES!)

Easiest tax-free 200 bucks I ever made. Only problem is it won't get to me until a month later. Ah well.

Life Update

I realize it has been awhile since I actually made a post about what is going on in my life. Mostly it has been terribly boring, but I do have a few things to talk of.

First off, I have gotten back into NEStalgia. That can be seen both as a good thing and bad. The good in it lets me make more strategies for the game, such as the skill tree builds post I made (which by the way, is under construction until a more definite balance is made with them). The bad is it takes away from things I SHOULD be doing in my life, such as finding more places to put applications in for a job, and other lifely responsibilities.

Yes, I am still unemployed, collecting no benefits whatsoever. Because I quit my last job, I am ineligible for unemployment, I'm not disabled in any legal fashion, and I really am not poor, per se, because I live with my parents. Sierra tells me that certain government benefits have toned down, and no longer look into the fact you live with parents/guardians after a certain age. I technically could be eligible for food stamps, which I rather not resort to. I feel others deserve it more than I. This opinion may change should I feel my parents could use more help in the bills...

My sister has officially moved out as of Sunday. I spent the day being general labor for her, which left me awfully tired. With her being so nervous and tired, Sis was generally rather annoying, irritable, and not very direct in her orders on where she wanted her things. Some bad decisions were done by her roommate as well, such as buying an L-shaped couch for where they want their living room to be.

Made quickly in paint.

It's the only space that can be considered a living room unless people want to go to the dreary basement. As you see, the couch blocks the secondary room. They cannot put the TV in the empty room because it's full of windows and the TV is to be mounted on a wall. Radiator is an immovable object. Putting the couch in the empty room would be rather far from the television. They also are not allowed to knock down any walls so they can't just make it one big room either. Sis didn't want this couch really, but apparently agreed to having a couch or something, she wasn't very specific on this when I asked her about it. Essentially it's the cause of a fight they had, and who knows how it'll be decided. The L Couch was also the cause of a dispute between my father and sister when we were bringing in her hope chest. She expected us to slip by the small gap with the hope chest and put it in the empty room. Dad then asked her just to move the couch out a bit so a walkway could be made, to which she couldn't figure out. Dad then threw a hissy fit, shove the tv box out of the way, and pulled the couch out so we could get the chest in.

The whole idea of my sister moving out leaves me with several different emotions. The downsides are mainly that when a blizzard occurs, I'll be left alone shoveling. Of course, there was some years back where that was true when Sis wouldn't lift a hand up to help, but that changed when she needed someone to help her to her car. Now I'll be the only one to shovel since dad usually works during storms and mom doesn't have the strength to do actual shoveling.

Also on the bad, it makes me feel compelled to leave the house when I'm in a horrible financial situation as it is. Granted, Sis is older than me by almost 3 years, so I suppose I can make that my own deadline. I don't actually HAVE to leave, my parents are nice enough to support me as needed so long as I follow their rules and help out around the house... It's just something I feel I SHOULD do.

The good sides of Sis leaving generally revolves around space issues at home. Her room becomes available and will become a Den of sorts. It'll be where dad can have a quiet room to read, mom and I can exercise in private, and what I may make of a place to hang when friends come over. Video games and movie spot! Parents plan to have the big screen television that currently is in the living room to be placed downstairs while the living room gets a flat screen tv mounted on the wall. The wii would be moved downstairs as well, which works for me, my wii won't be subjected to my mother's cigarette smoke anymore.

Besides having a den, my sister's crap that gets left all around the house no longer is here! She essentially took over the love seat and coffee table in the living room and parts all around the kitchen. She also had so many different types of shampoo, conditioner, and body wash in the bathroom (though mom contributed to that too) so we were surrounded by half-used bottles when showering.

I suppose I will miss her too, since despite how she would drive me crazy, I still love her. She helped a lot too, such as getting groceries (which now falls upon me or my mother on her good days), cooking dinner when mom did not feel well (I can cook too, but I'm not very fast or as good as either of them), and helped with any problems I had (though usually butting in instead). I won't miss those days when she had a bad day at work and comes home all moody and demanding, or her weird moments of just bothering me because she has nothing better to do at the moment. Course, I still will have to put up with her dropping in, which I KNOW she will do, but now it's at a much lesser degree.

Two more things. Due to really shitty pockets, my Nintendo 3DS fell out of my pocket and into a puddle of water while helping Sis move. I was very quick to grab it so it was only in the puddle for less than 3 seconds, but I freaked out nonetheless. I did my best to wipe water off of it, and with Sis's instruction, blew into the crevices to evacuate water from its innards. I also let it sit in rice to absorb moisture out of it. As of today, it is working all right.

Also, in a previous post, I mentioned how I was trying to find a home for this cat. Sis's boyfriend did find a home for him out of state, but then the person had to back out on it. The cat now resides at Sis's boyfriend's place. I feel bad for this poor cat to be bounced around like this, but at least it is out of the cold and being taken care of. We'll try and find it another home soon.

That about sums up the news of what's going on.

NEStalgia: Skill Tree builds!

Skill trees for NEStalgia are officially out! Decided to share a few neat builds I have found so far so people may use them or build upon! Feel free to suggest a few of your own as well. I do not claim these to be "perfect" builds, these are just what work for me (or for others in terms of other people's builds).

Last Updated: September 24, 2013. I do not play this game much due to the lack of updates, so do not expect too many updates on these builds. If I get back into the game I will provide more help or if anyone wants to donate their own builds.

I leave you with builds I FOUND on the forums which have no explanation but hopefully can help you build your own unique skill tree. Made by BlackSniper on the forums. Builds located here.


INDEX:
To find a build faster, copy one of the below choices and use ctr+f (or whatever command it is for your browser) to search it.

•  Cleric Builds
  
  • Jumier's PVP Red Cleric
  • Jumier's PVP Maximum Healing Build
  • Smite-Cleric
  • Hybrid Cleric
• Wizard Builds
  
  • Grind Build 
• Ranger Builds
  
  • Paladin Build
  • Heal-Lightning Build
• Warlock Builds
  
  • Self-Reliant Build
  • Split Heal Build
• Merchant Builds
  
  • Treasure Hunting Build
• Ninja Builds
  
  • Dodgy Build
• Conjurer Builds
  
  • Healer Conjurer

MSPaint Hella Fun Time Adventure Friends

I found this on Newgrounds forums at first, then saw it spread around. It's basically one of those, "If you were in X situation with Y options, what would you do" sort of thing, but I could see this as a plausible game, whether someone creates it or just makes a forum game out of it (which I am considering).

If you can't see it, zoom in, that's original size and I had to zoom in to see tiny print under a few.

Everyone keeps trying to find a freaking bang Gwendolyn and Coily. Those who find it fruitless say they'll go gay for Rolf, or resort to fucking Cantelo. It's odd considering they little intro says there are other people like you with these creatures, why not hook up with someone on the island?

Also, to clear up some things...
-All of them are your friends to some degree. Even Mildred and Gwendolyn. Also, some are a lot more loyal than normal, which means those not super loyal might not always agree with what you want to do, but generally will do what you want. Exceptions being Mildred and Gwen.
-Mildred doesn't like you and never will. Using Boleslava on her won't make her like you more, just make her happier. That can still work in your favor though... She does not, however, hate you. She won't let you die or anything, but she probably will often mess with you. Oh you want food? Here, have some moldy bread. I can only see her killing you if you try attacking her or threatening her.
-The tiny text says this for him, but Womba-Womba can only be of any help in anything combat related. Don't expect him to help with digging or gathering food (though hunting seems plausible).
-Cantelo will do any task... to the best of its ability. Don't expect it to be able to build shelter too well.
-Archie can build great things and all, but realize he can only use materials around the island. (People kept thinking he'd build them a fortress of doom).
-Kazoo deems the following acts evil: Murder (unless in self defense or for food, but the food cannot be a sentient being), Theft, Torture, Rape, Bestiality, and stealing Womba Womba's hat (this according to some guy who drew the hella funtime friends)
-Kleptsy's alien weaponry can do some pretty advanced shit, but remember that they are cheap and easily can break. (Some people made scenarios where they'd mind control Mildred to do their bidding, failing to realize that the alien weaponry is cheap pieces of crap, therefore likely couldn't do desired effects for long and eventually break after too much use).
-Unknown how much water = death for Mr. Pepper, but I believe it to be a thing like water = bullets. If those bullets hit vital areas, he dies, otherwise is sick or something (thus damp weather makes him highly uncomfortable).

With all of that out of the way, choices need to be made.

I would probably choose Mildred and Cantelo, and here's why.

Mildred potentially is the best friend to have because she can attack and supply you with food. She doesn't like you, and probably won't help you at time, but in a desperate situation, it's nice to have someone who can head explode and provide food.

Though she might get rather annoying...

Cantelo essentially is someone to pick up the slack. I'd have to rely on it to help me with getting materials for a shelter, hunting/finding food where necessary, and also helping defend me. Maybe it could even find a way to get Mildred to make food more reliably.

Biggest problem would be shelter, considering I'd likely have to be the main builder. Maybe I would get lucky and run into another person to group with who had Archie, and we could team up. Mildred could be a decent ace in the hole, even if not a reliable one.

I think my approach on Mildred would be based on trades and favors in order to get her to do something. I doubt it'd work all the time, but every now and then, it'd be nice to get a food I haven't had in ages.

So readers... who would you pick? What would be your plan of action?

Another writing of the past: Stages of Growth

Just like a previous entry I am sharing with you another writing I did back in high school. It was for the same class with the same bitch of a teacher. The topic was "3 Stages of Growth" where we had to write about occurrences in out lives we felt made us grow. Being the negative person I was, I wrote about moments that pissed me off that caused me to close myself to others.

Just like the last entry, I didn't change anything, so the bad sentence structures, typos, and opinions were that of my 17-year old self. This does not necessarily reflect my current opinions or way of thinking (though certainly was a bit of a basis on how I became today)

------------------------

There are times in your life that you experience tremendous moments that make you feel changed or become stronger. Sometimes it is for the better, other times for the worse. We all hope its for the better, but I can tell you for a fact, that is not true. Events are going to happen, and you’re going to have to make decisions. With your good decisions, you’ll get through mostly unharmed, and with your bad decisions you learn from the mistake made. Well, hopefully you will anyway. I’ve experienced quite a mix of decisions that changed me and made me stronger, or possibly weaker. Each paragraph shows different times I have learned something and start on as a story of its own. Try not to get lost.  

When I was in elementary school, I started out happy and bubbly. Always wanting to make friends, trusting anyone, it was no big deal to tell anyone anything. When I hit middle school, things changed. People became gossipers and I learned the hard way you can’t tell everyone everything. There was one time in my art class I told this guy how I used to have a best friend in elementary school, but then we became enemies. I told him how in elementary I started out pretty popular and everyone liked me until fourth grade when my “friend” stopped talking to me. He became popular and I had a bad end of insults constantly thrown at me with no one ever defending me. This person was also in that art class, but was on the other side of the room. This guy absorbed it and said, “Well, that sucks.” Then my ex-friend was coming over for markers or something and the guy says,”Hey! This kid is whining how you made him unpopular and how you used to be friends.” So the guy betrayed me, and embarrassed me. I started to stop talking so openly after that. I figured only some people will be jerks and other can be kind. Later I found I was wrong still. Through out middle school was horrible and I kept becoming betrayed to a point I stopped socializing with people. People mocked me more, but I held up. In high school, things started to become better. People that were jerks still were, but they were jerks only in their classes and didn’t bother me as much. So I became a little more trusting. I even started becoming closer with my sister since she could drive. We always were sent out for fast food, grocery shopping, Christmas tree finding, and the like, so we became closer. During the summer of my sophomore year, I discovered this great online thing called “Livejournal” and I posted my emotions and feeling into it. Well one summer morning I wake and find my sister logged onto my livejournal reading everything. I was furious. I couldn’t believe someone in my own family had to spy on me. That hit a big point to me where I shouldn’t trust anyone. It taught me if you put too much trust in one person, you’re building up for a bigger and more painful fall. Now, I have the strictest test I give people before I even THINK of telling them anything personal.  I’ve been hurt too much in the past, and I hold grudges. If you made my life painful, I’m going to treat you as I would a pesky fly in my room.

There’s this girl I knew since middle school that I still know to this day in high school. She has quite a good amount of friends, pretty, and is smart. However, she constantly complains about things not going her way and how all the bad things happen to her. She isn’t little miss perfect either. She is two faced; she talks behind the backs of the people she “cares” for. I used to not think the quote, “What goes around comes around” was just BS. However, it turns out its pretty true, and this girl was living proof. She cheated on one of her boyfriends and then made it sound like he did these horrible things that caused her to do it. 3 months later, she finds out she has this disease called hypoglycemia. Sugar is bad for her now and her favorite foods intake was greatly reduced in number. Another time I had to walk home late at night from the mall since I couldn’t get a ride home. I was scared, and wanted to talk to someone while I walked so I wouldn’t feel afraid. I called her and asked her, she told me that she was busy with her boyfriend and can’t talk. I told her how much it would mean to me if she could just talk to me for 5 minutes but she didn’t care and hung up on me. A month later she had a mental breakdown. Many other occasions have gotten her into a state of seeking attention and very mentally screwed. She’s in many bad relationships, but refuses to let go of her cold hearted ways. With that, I found that the quote is true; what goes around indeed does come around.

My sister has a problem with money: she can’t help spending it! One year, she had gotten really deep in her money debts, but wouldn’t tell anyone. A lot of her things started getting shut off, there were phone calls coming on her home line all the time demanding for money until her home line got turned off. When we tried calling her home line one time, we heard the voice recording that said this number was disconnected and we asked questions. She said the phone company must be having problems or something. That would’ve worked if the her home line and the house’s main line weren’t from the same company. Finally, my mother found one of my sister’s bills, and that was when she confronted my sister about it all. She cried on saying she couldn’t help it and was having a hard time dealing with it all. So my parents paid her bills off and told her that she’ll have to give them some money from her paycheck each paycheck to pay it off. She agreed, saying she can probably get organized now. To this day she has not paid them back. They remind her and remind her, but she says, “Oh not this week, I don’t have much money.” The sad thing is she is using so much money she has to dedicate most of her paycheck to paying off other bills she says she doesn’t have. She’s heading toward a direction of incredible debt, but just wants to have a good time. I tried changing her and teaching her to be responsible about her money like I am. She started to get it, but she didn’t like the fact she could not go out all the time just to save money, and quit that. I tried several other times with different ideas, but she just doesn’t seem to want to. If she could only get herself organized, face reality and start focusing on her bills already. I pretty much given up since she refuses to change. From this, I learned that you can’t change anyone but yourself. You can show people the path, its their choice if they want to take it or not though.

These three things made impact on my life. I stopped trusting a lot of people to keep my safety intact. Anything I tell people is usually things that wouldn’t matter getting out, or something I trust with them that isn’t TOO important. However, I’m going to be nice to those who are nice to me. Bad karma can prove to be a dangerous thing, and I rather not chance that. Finally, if someone decides not to take my advice, I tend to leave them on their own unless they ask for it. No point advising someone that won’t listen.

Stray kittie

Been awhile since I've updated. I have been distracted with a contest and game obsessions lately (Namely pokemon heart gold and Dragon Quest Monsters Joker 2).

Today I bring you a cat that survived Hurricane Irene. He's been hovering around our house since then, as well as our neighbors, looking for love... and food~! I present to you the cat I have named, "Kittie." (not Kitty).

Originally thought to be our neighbor's cat, Kittie could always be seen begging for food at their house. One morning, my sister was getting ready for work when she heard mewing. One look at the cat and she instantly felt she had to help. She gave it some of her chicken salad (wiping away the mayo) which it gobbled up eagerly.

Around this time is when I woke up, and my sister jumped me, asking to put out some water for it too because she was running late already. I was cautious about being too close to the cat when I did that, and it seemed to sense my apprehension as well and backed off. I wasn't sure if it had fleas bouncing around it or other diseases. From then on, Sis became one of the feeders of the cat.

During this time, the neighbors noticed her helping out as well and approached her. It turned out that while they did help feed the cat, it wasn't theirs! This cat must have sensed our neighbors other cat and knew they had food or something. They tried to take it in but it fought with their cat. Instead they took to feeding and whenever it stopped by. They were hoping we could take it, but our landlord said no more pets after our dog died some years back.

I ended up feeding the cat once during a really bad rain storm. Sis had too many things to do at night at the cat was mewing for food. Being a bit of an animal lover, I caved in and grabbed the cat food Sis bought and put it out for it. I still was hesitant to touch it. There was a time when I pet a friendly stray cat and had fleas jump on me, so strays make me very nervous to be around. This cat still seems pretty well groomed though, and well behaved!

We believe Kittie got lost during Hurricane Irene, or perhaps even abandoned. It appears to have been well taken care of previously and very smart! it had gotten two households to feed it, seems to know just when someone is walking by a door and able to give you that "feed me please" look. It also is aggressively friendly! Today while Sis was feeding it, I went out to tell her something and Kittie jumped right over to me, rubbing up against me. So while it may not like other cats, it definitely seeks affection from humans.

We are now in the process of finding it a home. We rather not spend money to put it in a no-kill shelter, and refuse to let it anywhere near a kill shelter. I'm also scouring Craig's List to see if anyone lost a cat.

Hurricane Irene: After the storm

As mentioned last time, I had to endure hurricane Irene. While the damage wasn't as bad as it could have been, it was rather tiresome.

A comical Satellite representation of Hurricane Irene. CLICK for animation!

When I last left off, I was just describing the aches we had while away from our home. I was staying at my cousin and her husband's place while my parents were at a hotel, and my sister was staying with her boyfriend.

Hurricane threat levels are now apart of Nyan Cat

Sleeping in a new place is rather hard, I'm sure many people have encountered this sort of problem. I slept on an air mattress that took up all space in the room. No TV, so instead I set my laptop on the mattress with some videos I had downloaded; it sufficed for my noise requirement. I didn't get to sleep long, however, and awoke around 3 or 4am. I was up for the day from there, though did sneak in a 10-15 minute nap around noon before my sister came by to help pick up our fridge supplies we had stored here.

We got home, and a wave of relief came over me. It was so great just to be home! Unfortunately, this relief was not to last; I was put to work! The biggest work we had to do was empty out my sister's room of her things. The carpet that was drenched had to be taken out, and we simply did not have enough room to hold all of her things around the house. Sis had to sort and pack up her things, as well as decide what she wanted to get rid of or sell at a garage sale thing she had planned. I got the honor of grabbing boxes and other things, and walking them out of the house. My sister was not short on crap to keep, might I add.

My cousin and her husband (who I shall refer to as Daisy and Cook respectively) offered their attic space for my sister's things. I got the honor of bringing a lot of the supplies up there too, though Daisy, sis, and I worked together on that more than we did at home. Sis was going to be staying with them until her room could be situated.

In those two days (Day of hurricane and the next day), my pokewalker-pedometer picked up over 50,000 steps! My feet were killing me so badly! I was thankful they weren't too sore the next few days though; it seemed a long rest in bed helped a lot; ended up sleeping for 14 hours.

From that time until just yesterday, my sister had been with Daisy and Cook, except over the weekend where she slept on our couch. Only reason sis did not stay overnight with us during weekdays was because she has work early in the morning, and mom stays up late in the living room. She would keep Sis up until late hours every day which just won't do! During this time period, we were feverishly working on both her room and out storage room (which is next to her room).

Basement floor outline, ignore grayspace as that was reference for an older entry.

As we were moving things about, we also went through some of our old stuff. Nostalgia of items of the past was nice a little, such as finding my old creepy crawlers playset (the original too!). A lot of things were thrown out or to be sold at a garage sale. Not too long ago, Sierra, Sis, and I helped paint Sis's room. Sis made it out to be a lot of help she needed, but she ended up doing a lot herself (by choice). A few days ago, we got her new carpet and just yesterday we installed it. I have a few small pictures of the room I took on my 3ds.

Sister's room, still with a bit of junk at the desk.

Only 20 minutes since the room was redone and she already had her first mess!

This morning, we unfortunately had a small "flooding" incident, but it was due to pipes leaking. It was on the laundry side of the basement luckily, but unluckily, she had a new closet we had just bought for her over there. The backing of it got warped slightly. Sis is feeling pretty depressed about that on top of all the shit that happened. Hurricane Irene happened on the week of her birthday to make matters worse! But still, it's pretty mild compared to other things, it's just stressing her out. She is highly considering moving out sooner rather than later now.

Found out my cousin, Olivia's (in past was referenced as O) mother's trailer was flooded to the point where it was no longer usable. Walls and floor was damaged too much, and the smell would stay forever. She lives right near a creek, so she is used to flooding, but it never got this bad before. My aunt apparently didn't lose much else, and did have flood insurance. Based on what Olivia told me, the flood insurance wouldn't cover much anything other than another trailer. For now she is living with my grandmother, which we would not be surprised if she ends up stayign there so she can take grandma's house. We always suspected she would make a grab for the house, but now she has an excuse to. Don't get me wrong, I'm not heartless to the fact she lost her home, but she has been pretty much living at my grandmothers already ever since my grandfather died. Only thing was she just went home to her trailer to sleep. Good thing her daughters are already out of that house; Olivia at my great-grandmother's old house and Ginny (previously referred to as Y) is at her college dorm. One thing that rather pissed my family and I off was my mother and aunt's brother (or my uncle, but i wanted to show that he is not married to the aunt I am referencing) told my mom she should call my aunt and comfort her for losing something. Yet they said NOTHING to us nor offered and single bit of help when we were struggling with our electricity and nearly-flooded basement. It's just another one of those messed up family things I have mentioned; Olivia and Ginny's mother is always the person everyone must feel sorry for, everything bad happens to her. But if anything happens to us, no one really cares unless it is hospital related.

I leave you with a picture Butterfly took to show the hurricane's damage, along with another friend of mine, Mustang, who had got some serious flooding in his area.

Butterfly's neighborhood, north of me.

Mustang's neighborhood, south of me I think.

Hurricane Irene

Yes, I was in an affected area of the hurricane from this weekend. Not a lot of fun, let me tell you.

I managed to go to sleep at a decent time for once, but of course that was ruined as I awoke to a power surge. The TV, air condition, and light that I leave on had turned off for a moment, but what really woke me up was when everything came back on and the TV was booming again. Confused, went to weather channel where it showed me the hurricane was right on us. They were pretty calm about it, so figured this was all normal and started to drift to sleep again when I saw a HUGE flash outside my window and the power went off, this time for good.

I laid in my bed for awhile, hoping it would just come back on, but after 5 minutes of just laying there, I decided to go investigate a little. After turning off my laptop and grabbing my flash light, I went out of my room and looked outside the front windows of my house. Rain and wind of course, but my street was out of power! I could see some lights in the distance though, so knew it wasn't like all of my town.

Back to my room, I fumbled around and found my incredibly old walkman with radio and searched for some channels for information. My sister awoke about now and came upstairs. I called to her, letting her know what I knew. We talked for awhile and she told me of the AM channel that has info for our area. Apparently, people had lost power all over my state, but it seemed to be only here and there. All coastal areas of course were having trouble, but some towns were perfectly unaffected according to the news on the radio channel.

The old radio-cassette walkman

Sis went back to her room for a bit and I to my mine, but soon our parents had awoke and then everyone was walking about. Candles were lit, flashlight supply gotten, and we spread both around the house. Even my upstairs neighbors could be heard fumbling around. Mom can't handle heat too well unfortunately (she has MS), so the lack of air condition was really messing with her well being. She ended up going outside in the wind and rain since it was the closest way to keep cool. We all ended up out there at some point, whether just to keep mom company, or explore the damage.

WAY down on my street, I had seen lights, so it seemed that just most of my street and parts of others had no power. We saw a service vehicle down the street in front of someone's house that we mistakenly thought was someone already working on the power, but it ended up being someone setting up a generator for our fireman neighbor. Funny enough, dad had actually borrowed two generators from his work, but neither worked, unfortunately.

After just walking around, talking, and complaining, we all conked out around 7 or 8 am. We had all been getting giddy; at one point, my sister was laughing at her own shadow from the candle light... so I put on a stupid shadow puppet show, haha! I ended up being the last one to fall asleep. I need to have noise to fall asleep to, or else I just can't sleep. Also it was hot... The radio walkman helped me with the noise part at least, and I managed to sleep until around 10am, where my sister woke me up to let me know our basement got drenched and she needed help with her room.

Our basement wasn't flooded per se, as the whole floor did not get submerged or anything. However, half of my sis's room had a wet carpet and the laundry side of the basement had a lot of wet floor. Dad was already up and taking care of the laundry side by sopping up the wet with rags, and my sister wanted me to help sop the water out of the carpeting for her room. That really was a waste of time and a pain in the hands, to be honest. The carpet was pretty much dead, and would always stink.

When we finally gave that up, we just focused on saving things in her room. She not only lost the carpet, but a few papers, stuffed animals, and a pillow. The water also finished off her old hand-me-down dresser, but that was going to be replaced anyway, so not a huge loss. Helped dad with bailing some water out of the basement stairs that lead outside as well (General outline of my house can be found in the middle of an old post, the HomeStuck dream). My cousin and her husband came over to help us out with some of our problems as well.

Our neighbors were pretty awesome people during this. My upstairs neighbor not only gave us ice for our fridge, but got tea for my mother. My next door neighbors also gave us ice and let us know what they were finding around the neighborhood; some powerlines went down around the corner. And we all were told by the power company that power would be reinstated next week. Yeah... that's some hardcore bullshit. Parents made reservations at a hotel, my sister stayed with her boyfriend, and my cousin and cousin-in-law invited me to stay at their house.

I went around the corner to see the damage and got some pictures. While I was over, some of the neighbors on that street saw my camera and said, "Oh, want us to pose in front of the damage?" and did a little pose, haha! I wish I actually took that picture. XD

A downed tree limb.

What I suspect to be where the limb broke off of.

A power line this limb took down... or maybe the power line that took down the limb?

Further down the street, this powerline burned into this fellow's lawn and melted.

This power line broke into the sidewalk slightly.

More broken sidewalk!

Here's the big ass damage!

A close up of the above.

What my dad suspects to be the cause of the damage; it's one of those things that keep the wires away from each other and in place. Dad suspects the wind knocked some wires loose and it got shocked, and melted into some wires before breaking off the powerline.

The flash I saw in the middle of the night was not lightning, but in fact these powerlines going down. The neighbors I had met around the corner told me this as they were right there. They, too, got the message of power being restored in a week, and said they were going to raise hell with the power company.

Another neighbor lost his fence.

We spent hours trying to save some things. Since the lunchmeat would go bad, we all ate sandwiches for breakfast/lunch. Dad had a friend that let us put our freezer related goods in their huge walk-in freezer. My cousin and her husband let us put any fridge things we wanted to save (and could travel) in their fridge as well, so we didn't lose TOO much. Ice Cream and a few other frozen deserts were unfortunately could not be saved (RIP).

We all packed up and got to our destinations. Sometime around 7pm after we all were situated, our upstairs neighbor called us to say that power had came back! Since we were tired, we decided to just stay where we were anyway; as we were MUCH too tired.

Yesterday was another day filled with more aches, but I'll save that for another day; I don't have any pictures that are as interesting so it'd just be another wall of text. Hope everyone who had to deal with Hurrican Irene survived all right!

An old writing: Who NOT to become

This came from an English assignment I had when I was a senior in high school. The teacher actually was a huge cunt, but I have to admit, her assignments were somewhat interesting. The topic of this one is, "Who would you NOT want to become?" Keep in mind that I was in a much different thought pattern that I am in today, and I left all the spelling and writing errors I had in it. The opinions I had back then are not necessarily the opinions I have now. But this IS a true story!

An amazing weekend.

Last weekend was probably the best three days I have had in quite awhile.

Names changed to nicknames for privacy reasons.

Last Friday, a friend of mine was heading to one of the few arcades left in our state because a mass music game tournament was being held there for the weekend. I used to go there when I was a DDR fiend and could actually compete, but my competitive days are pretty much over. I asked my friend if I could come along, since it has been months since I stepped foot on a dance machine, and it rather depressed me.

I got a lot of those dance game urges out of the way that night, and even ran into an old friend, Cucumber, from back when I used to compete in these tournaments. He asked if I would be coming the next day saying it would be nice if I could come since there really wasn't anyone from our generation. I originally wasn't planning on it unless my friend was going to go (I seriously have nothing to do while unemployed), but figured why not and went again the next night, rooting for Cucumber as he had entered all of the tournaments.

That Saturday is when I ran into even more old friends from the past! One girl whom I called my "DDR best friend," Butterfly, was there and I pretty much talked her friggin ears off, haha! Because I generally have been stuck inside my home with not much to do, I've been missing this sort of socialization. It felt like a mix of being at a sports stadium rooting for your team, having dinner with old friends, and just hanging out with people you like! I had so much fun that night, I figured I'd go the final day just to see things through.

Sunday ended up with even more friends from the past, including an old best friend that I just had grown apart from, Lex. She made some drastic changes in her life that did sort of made me nervous to approach her at first. When i used to hang out with Lex, she would talk about feeling like a woman stuck inside a man's body, so it shouldn't have been THAT much of a shock to me when she showed up in a dress and sweater. I think because it had been so long since I saw her is what did the shock to me moreso though. Still I had to get confidence from Butterfly to start the talk with her, but after that I realized my nervousness was retarded; Lex was still the same friend, just doing what she needs to in order to find happiness in her life.

I went back to rooting for Cucumber in the tournaments he had left. I barely paid attention to the In The Groove tournament going, and mainly rooted for him with the Dance Dance Revolution Extreme Doubles tournament. That was a hilariously awesome tournament with so many close matches. There ended up being a lot of AAAs (meaning got everything absolutely perfect), and a few upsets. Okay, actually it's kind of hard to describe what the hell happened without being boring, so let's just say Cucumber won that!

After all the tournaments were over, they announced the winners of each individual one, and made the announcement of the winner of them all. The way they determined the overall winner was based on how many tournaments they entered and how well they did in them, then making some sort of average. I don't know the exact formula, but doing more tournaments could only help your score. And who won? Cucumber! Made me glad I came this weekend to see him win! He did say, though, that he was maybe barely breaking even for all the entry fees, but it was worth it for all the fun he had.

After the weekend, i ended up sick until now. The over-exertion with shouting, playing dance games, and being in a germy environment probably did it. I think it's a small price to pay for a damn great weekend, though!

I did take pictures at the tournament, but they were take on the 3DS camera, so the quality is UNBELIEVABLY SHITTY. So... enjoy! :D

I apparently messed with the kind of shot I wanted this to be, thus the black outline. Just an example of the crowd. To the left WAS a Pop 'N' Music machine, but I suck and failed capture that.

The crowd watching the "In The Groove" Tournament. Can't see it, but where the gray shirt guy is standing is where the In The Groove Machine is.

Failing again to get the Pop 'N' Music machine, but a better picture of the crowd. Also worth noting is a shitload of fighting games.

A somewhat decent picture of the Dance Dance Revolution Extreme Singles tournament going.

The winners of the tournament posing for the camera, with some other people. The winners are the ones wearing the bronze, silver, and gold helmets. No, I don't know the significance these helmets have to do with music games.

If it's possible to believe, there WAS shittier pictures! These somehow came out the best. On a sidenote, if someone has a 3DS, see if you can see these in 3D if you put them on there. All of these were takein in 3D originally.

Roseanne Barr wants to run for President

Roseanne wants to run for president, huh? She has my vote.

Seriously, if anyone ever has seen her TV show, "Roseanne" a bulk of episodes deal with how the government does not understand or care about the middleclass. Even if she could only run for a lower government position, I believe she could do some good. he only thing I'd worry about is her getting support from the House of Senate and what not, since she does not want to run as Republican or Democrat. It's highly doubtful she could make it in the proper running, but it's definitely a nice thought.

If election time comes around and she's actually on the ballet, I believe I'll be voting her. Probably throwing away my vote, but still a better option than the goofbags that usually run.

Here, have a random pokemon comic:

Island of the Giant Pokemon - A scene from the pokemon anime

This is one of my favorite scenes in the entire pokemon anime!

Yes, I made that. Was going to try making this a GIF image, but getting the timing right was too tedious for me.

In other news, my sister helped me find a decent price for .Hack GU - Volume 3 - Redemption on eBay. She has used eBay in the past so knew what to do and such. Ended up paying about 5 dollars less than I paid for the previous two games. Now just hoping the seller isn't a jackass.

.Hack

Lately, I have been playing so much of the playstation 2 game series, .Hack.

I originally started playing them a few years back when I was still in college. I had saw the anime on Cartoon network a few times in the past and thought the idea of it in game form would be so cool. Finding out there were games really made my day! I think my parents bought me the first 2, Infection and Mutation. Unfortunately, it was hard to track down the last two. Part 3 (Outbreak) I managed to find in the used bin at ones of the game stores that weren't transformed into Game Stop yet, but it was months before I could find the final one, Quarantine. By the time I found Quarantine though, I had already beaten Outbreak for awhile now and had gotten a bit bored. So I figured I'd go back to it eventually.

Years later, I got back to it (about at most, 3 months ago). Except I didn't feel like continuing the progress I made before; I barely remembered what happened, plus I missed a lot of stuff in my first playthrough. Going through it all again was a lot of fun, and as I finally beat Quarantine, I noticed it mentioned save data that could transferred. What? But... wasn't Quarantine the last in the game?

No. There's another series on PS2 called .Hack G.U. So...  went a hunting for it! I checked my ever so trusty Amazon and... it's fucking 30 bucks for the game USED!

Fuck that shit, I'm not shelling out that much money for the game, USED! If it was New, I'd probably bend over and take it, but not USED! Looking around, i eventually find a few places that sell it for reasonable prices... except most are freaking sold out. Then i finally find the first two games for 19.99 on gamestop and sigh in relief, and bookmark the page. I decided to put off buying them until the next day cause... well i was feeling lazy. The next day? Website said they were unavailable.

RAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE

But luck was on my side! I checked the site again a few days later and they were back in stock. Well, just the first one. I bought, played it, loved it, and bought the second one just before I completely beat the first. I now am missing on one more in the .Hack GU series... and its price is ridiculous. 29.99 is the lowest i can find that currently has the game in stock. Used. Everywhere else is ass loads more expensive or no longer available. I'm sad that Best Buy shows Volume 3 at 24.99 but has been unavailable for weeks. Don't get me wrong, 24.99 before shipping and handling is still ridiculous, but I'm willing to deal with that.

Now the request for assistance: If anyone can find Dot Hack G.U. Vol 3 Redemption for at MOST 24.99 used, please let me know! I'd like to complete the game! If I cannot, I may just end up renting the final game from Gamefly. Hell of a lot cheaper, but more hassle since it's a subscription service and all that I'd have to cancel right afterwards... Plus I'd rather own the game, personally.

Women's World Cup, Part 2

My prediction of the winners had almost came perfectly true. Japan made it to the finals with USA, and when Sweden and France played, Sweden won. But today, Japan beat USA in penalty shoot outs because USA choked.

There is no reason to be angry with Japan for how they played; they were excellent and took advantage of our mistakes just like any team should do. I am happy for them as this has to be a monumental moment for their country after the earthquake related disasters. It even turns out their original coach had died because of the Earthquake. They won it for their country and for their lost coach.

USA played well throughout the main game. It was when they made it to penalty kicks we just choked. They put the goalie, Hope Solo, in an awkward position by missing 3 kicks. She managed to save one goal to keep us dangling, but it wasn't enough, nor should have been relied upon. I'm proud of them for making it so far, however, and will hope for their success in their next big event... I believe it's the Olympics. I think that their showing in this World Cup garnered them a lot of attention, so perhaps more people will watch their games.

I realize many people say, "it's just women's soccer, it doesn't matter," but that because of the stigmata the media portrays, in my opinion. There much more support for male leagues, which is sad but true, thus gives us less interest in the game. Hell, soccer alone in our country is not exactly popular either (though it's gotten a lot better in terms of interest over the years).

However, I really have no interest in watching most sports. Basketball, Baseball, and (American) Football are completely boring to me (ESPECIALLY american football). Soccer does something different, though. It feels much more exciting to watch with a lot more pressure. It's probably because I grew up playing soccer, though I also did play a little basketball and baseball.

I also have to say, despite this being a Women's World Cup, I felt it was a hell of a lot more exciting than the men's last year. I suppose it is because two phenomenal teams I was rooting for made it to the finals this year. I think I shall be watching more of the Major League Soccer matches on TV though, both men's and women's. I sort of wish we had a co-ed World Cup, but I suppose it could be a bit too much, especially how people would react if a man fouled a women... Still, I think it would be amazing to have and would stop dividing our sexes.

Little tangent aside, congratulations to Japan for your well deserved win in this year's World Cup! :)