FUCKING EMOLGA

Emolga (Japanese: エモンガ Emonga) is a dual-type Electric/Flying Pokémon introduced in Generation V.

Emolga is a rodent-like Pokémon, primarily white in coloration, that most resembles a flying squirrel. It possesses facial features similar to Pachirisu’s, such as its eyes, tiny nose, and yellow cheek patches. Its ears, positioned at the top of its head, are rounded in shape and black in coloration, with yellow and white sections of coloration in the inside of its ears. Emolga sports a vaguely hood-like patterning of black around its head, with a spiky extension of the pattern above its face. Emolga possesses winglike, yellow-colored flaps connected to its three-fingered arms. Its feet are white-colored and fairly small and its black-colored tail is in a jagged shape.

Similar to Pikachu, Emolga can store electricity on its electric sacs located on its cheeks. When threatened, it releases this electricity to fend off other Pokémon. Emolga lives in the treetops and glides from tree to tree using its cape-like patagium, sometimes discharging its electricity.

This fucking thing. Oh my god, THIS FUCKING THING.

Emolga is the worst possible thing to come out of Pokémon in Generation V. It’s Electric/Flying dual typing gives it immunity to it’s primary weakness: Ground; and instead replaces it with a weakness to Rock and Ice. Normally this is fine, as the only other Pokémon with this typing are either legendary (Zapdos, Thundurus), or only acquired the typing in Gen V and aren’t available in Unova anyway (Fan Rotom).

However the primary problem with this thing is the fact that it appears so early in the game, and when it does start to appear, it appears in force. Through a combination of it’s 103 base Speed, Static ability, and early access to Double Team; this is the most annoying Pokémon you will come up against, especially if you lack the necessary tools to be able to dispatch it.

Part of the problem lies in the fact that Emolga appears prominently in the Electric-type Gym of Unova, in Nimbasa City. It is the 4th Gym of the region, which differs to the other Electric Gyms in Vermilion (3rd), Mauville (3rd), and Sunyshore (8th).

Another part is the lack of availability of Electric-types in general in Unova. At that point in the game only Blitzle/Zebstrika and Emolga are available, and as such the Gym also features only those two evolutionary lines. The other Electric-types of the region: Tynamo/Eelektrik/Eelektross, Joltik/Galvantula and Stunfisk all appear after the 5th Gym.

And finally, the lack of viable counters. The Ice-type does not come into play until the next town, which you cannot access before the 4th Gym battle. As for the Rock-type, there are a few more options, but unless you already have them, it may be too “out of the way” to bother with. Pokémon-wise, there are Roggenrola/Boldore/Gigalith or Dwebble/Crustle. Both have a high physical Attack and Defense, but suffer with a lack of Special Defense, opening them up to Volt Switch. Also, their lower Speed means getting an attack off before a Double Team is nigh impossible.

As well as that, the available moves aren’t great either. Smack Down is the best as it renders them vulnerable to Ground, but requires that it actually hits, which may be a pain given Double Team. Rock Slide requires a higher level, and has less accuracy, as does Rock Tomb from TM39 found in the desert.

In general, these fucking things were designed to make you tear your hair out, swear profusely at your DS, and to rage-eject the game cartridge before running it over with your car. Add to this the annoying strategy they employ with the Gym Leader (Double Team, then Aerial Ace in case you try the same, and Volt Change to GTFO to Zebstrika when the going gets too tough).

FUCKING EMOLGAS.

PS: On my Facebook page, you can find an album of images with other people’s expressions of anger, with regards to these little rodents. Also, feel free to express your anger at these things in the comments, or rant on Twitter with the hashtag #fuckingemolgas.

Unless you’ve been under a rock and haven’t been noticing the Fantasy Premier League this week, you’ll have noticed Rooney’s scoring in both the first match, and his quad in the second match. Those combined with all the bonuses, and most importantly captaincy, resulted in this:

Bloody brilliant. Except for the fact that just-about everyone in the game did the same…

Then came the finding out of the news that the HeartGold and SoulSilver arc for PokéSpecial has been announced as actually going to happen! Just as bloody brilliant as well – GSC is my second favourite arc of the series (after RS of course!) and Gold is one of my favourite characters of them all. It will be interesting to see what happens, especially if he and Silver are now both coming of age – seeing as they were thirteen in their last appearance in the Emerald arc, and now they’ve taken on the qualities and facial structure changes as what Red looked like in FRLG when he had turned sixteen.

Besides, the HGSS outfit is even more win now that I see how manga Gold looks in it. It was badass enough on the in-game Hibiki, but with the youth of the kid… Now though, with teenage Gold, with his same goggles and snooker cue as before…

Let’s just say I now have a fuck-ton more research before Nom-Con…

Also, three-page preview courtesy of Coronis is even more win, despite the fact that there’s not all that much in it, other than the blatantly obvious evolution of Ataro to an Ambipom.

Just. Win.

There’s been an awful lot of playing, a lot of editing, rendering and definitely a lot of uploading. On average, each video takes about 12-13 minutes of gameplay, about 20 minutes raw editing, between an hour and a half to two hours of rendering, and depending on where I am and what sort of connection I have, anywhere between seven minutes and four hours to upload to YouTube.

The result is this:

I’ll be back amongst the living soon though, don’t worry! Especially with college starting up again at the end of the month. I really should work on a nice backlog of gameplay in the meantime…

Logo

Right, let’s start to rip on the interim Japanese version logos. Yes, we’ve made it very obvious that they are Gold and Silver, you don’t need to go absolutely overboard on the colours and the shine. Also, I fail to see how the "heart" is reminiscent of Ho-oh, it’s just a heart, possibly in the form on wings. And how is Lugia a soul…? Sometimes I don’t understand these Japanese people and how they come up with the most random things like these and expect people to be wowed by them.

Player characters

Where to start? Well the first choice of who to rip on absolutely has to go on the new female player character. Why introduce a new one, when we had Kris in Crystal? Way to break with continuity. Sure Leaf was kinda considered a new character since there was no female player in RGBY, but she was supposed to be a revamp of a female character that was supposed to be in the game originally (but supposedly removed near to release) but remained in place in the manga (as Blue), and Blue was revamped to Leaf in FR/LG…

Also, copy and paste on official artwork FTW. Faces look exactly the same on the pair of them… and they both seem to have hoods on their jackets? Hard to tell at this point in time. And to stay true to form, again the female has the absolute skimpiest shorts ever, as if trying to compete with Dawn’s micro-micro-mini skirt. I’m just glad there’s no way you could actually look up there.

Oh, and as for Gold… all I can think of is the TF2 Scout. An incredibly young Pokémon trainer version of him that is. Waiting for the first video of him with the Scout’s in-game dialogue super-imposed!

Also, this will screw up the manga somewhat, provided we’re going back to the original ten after the Diamond/Pearl/Platinum arc of the story. Gold will likely be updated to match the new look, but what’s going to happen with Kris, and how is this new female going to be intertwined with the story?

And the other shit

Some interesting new official artwork for some of them. Blissey’s turned into quite the fat bitch, for sure…

And as for those two, I hope they get a complete nerf. I absolutely hated it with those who played Silver, caught Lugia and swept the Elite Four with that and their starter. They really need to fix that…

Ranting Review Score

As this is only a preview of course, there’s no score for this at the moment. But as soon as it’s out in the Autumn and I download it, there will be a proper rant and nitpick etc. here!

BTW, if I ever have to link that fucking article again since you have no idea what on earth I’m talking about, I’m seriously going to have to kill you.

While the occasion itself isn’t for another half a year, the addictive personality inside of me wants everything to be sorted and ready now. Which unfortunately means I need to start researching where to get the different bits of the outfit, where to get the materials for the details, figure out how on earth to use a sewing machine! Amongst other things.

Since I’m probably going to end up referring back to this post in the future (and because it’s ten to two and I don’t feel like sleeping at all), may as well go into excruciating detail. Whoop-de-doo…

The one odd thing about this outfit, is that I never really understood the bottom half of it. By that I mean, is it a pair of baggy long shorts over his track bottoms, which themselves are long enough to be tucked into his sneakers; or are they three-quarter lengths over really loose-fitting leggings? I could never really tell myself. The games may seem to go with the second option based on the in-game sprite (off to the right there), yet official artwork may contradict that. Also from what I’ve seen of the fanbase, it’s the second option as well, but again it’s iffy.

Other than that, top half is simple. Gloves should be easily modifiable from… well, anything. The epically wild hat shouldn’t be too much of a problem, just need to get a hat somewhere close in shape, or even just grab a white one and modify it (in case you were wondering, it IS a hat, not some weird anime hairstyle!). Finding a big headband shouldn’t be a big deal either! And if I were to spend enough time browsing through The Bag Shop, I’ll find one that’ll do. If not, I’ll just see what I can do modifying a yellow bag I already have into it (Ruby’s bag remains yellow in the manga, not emerald green).

From left to right: Ruby’s official artwork for the manga series (and overall what I’m going for), Brendan’s official artwork from Pokémon Emerald, a different cosplayer’s created outfit based on Brendan.

If anyone wants to help me out in this quest, it’d be a great help. You may want to consider me a rookie in this field for the moment, so don’t get all too technical on me! If there are any details I may be missing (or if you’re as highly inquisitive as I am), let me know, I should get around to it, when not being distracted by fancy things flying around the offices.

Oh and by the way, anyone want to go with me as Sapphire? You might need to be able to bear the cold quite a bit though!

PS: I haven’t touched the content of the post at all from what was in the draft. All that was added were the images.

Just before I start, let me take the chance to say that this has got nothing to do with the Kaiser Chiefs’ song at all. Rather, it’s a Ruby of a different kind. Think more “imaginative”, more… Oh, screw trying to come up with clues, it’s the Ruby from the Pokémon Adventures manga. See here. Go brush up on your knowledge before delving deeper

On my first read-through of the entire series, Ruby was the first character that really stood out to me. He’s the first character in the series whom I really liked. It’s probably also why the Fourth Chapter (also known and the Ruby/Sapphire arc) is my favourite out of the six chapters so far, although that may change when volumes 27 onwards come out in English and Ruby and Sapphire make an appearance in the Sixth Chapter

The second time I read through that story arc was over the last two long weekend, where I had time to head home. I brought along the books with me to get a chance to read over them again during time I had to myself that wasn’t otherwise used taking advantage of Magnet’s digital TV
Believe me, whether you have 17 or 70+ channels, at some point, there will be absolutely NOTHING on.

The entire manga series seems to put an emphasis on a lot more details of all of the characters. Such as their birthdays, ages and, which I find quite odd, their blood types. Not as if there has really been many scenes in which blood has been involved (the only one that springs to mind is the Ruby vs. Salamence scene in which he obtained the scar on his forehead), which makes it rather a peculiar thing to mention. More to the point, it is these fine details which have made me realise that Ruby is actually quite similar to myself, which is probably why I “connect” with the character so well.

Alright, so there are only two things about us that are similar. Both of us were born on July 2nd, and our eyes are myopic, hence why we both wear glasses (although one of us not as much as they should!). Yes, when one detail matches, you’d probably say “coincidence”, yet two traits makes for more of a “WTF – they seem to have copied me”.

Maybe it’s also the evolution of the character that intrigued me as well. At first, you can see that he is just a self-centred little kid (alright, I will admit that it is sort of like what I used to be) focusing solely on outer appearance and masking inner strength. However, once you hit the end of volume 20 onwards, were the outfit change and the dive to the Cave of Origin takes place, his character drastically changes. From this point, he no longer looks nor acts like an 11-year old kid addicted to Pokémon Contests. You could say, he rivals Red at this point

Oh yea, speaking of the outfit change, that is one point that does make no sense to me. Yes, I know that characters change appearance over time, but why the sudden change before going down to the Cave of Origin? And how did he do it so quickly, given he changed looks in the time it took him to get from Slateport Hospital to Sapphire and Walo? Well, there are some things that remain unanswered. But you could answer me this: What is with the shorts on top of his trousers? One of the two would have made more sense. Probably the shorts on their own, since they seem to match the rest of his outfit. Then again, it wasn’t Hidenori Kusaka’s (author of the manga) idea for his appearance, rather whoever was in charge of character design for Pokémon Emerald, which was “drafted” into the manga.

So, you can probably tell that I really like the character. Probably a little too much for my own good. But hey, I guess that’s part of my obsessive nature.

Reading over this is actually making me think about the quality of the crap I used to write just one year ago. I guess it was the fact that I finally found a proper blogging community as to why my writing style and attitude changed. Whether it was for the best – well we’ll soon find out.

iDeaS now has a 1.0.2.8 beta out. I wonder if that will fix the Platinum transparency issues?

Damien wants you all to donate your phones to help the Jack and Jill Foundation! I accidentally mistyped “kill” there…

The Guild Season 2, Episode 4!

I’d cut down on the Left 4 Dead if I were you…

And sticking with VG Cats – Super Effective shows you how your characters get their prize money – and why the losers always stand in the same place after you beat them…

So Ranger 2. Yes, it’s a sequel of Ranger 1. No bonuses for getting that right. Once again, you are thrust right into another new region, this time known as Almia (hence the title). You start off as a student in the area’s Ranger School learning the ways of a Ranger with your wimpy School Styler (that thingy they use to “capture Pokémon with). Note that capturing in this sense means it follows you around until you decide to use it – and by use that means… well whatever it can do, be it tackle something, fly you somewhere, give you a ride down a river or the funniest one of all, stink out a room of bad guys so that you can pass through unhindered. I like that bit

To save all the boring details, you graduate, become an official Ranger, start kicking the asses of the bad guys “Team Dim Sun”, become a Top Ranger, get to use the fancy Vatonage Styler like in the anime, save the world, yadda yadda yadda…

To the nitty gritty details. The gameplay is basically the same as before, you need to use the stylus to draw loops around Pokémon to capture them. Unlike before, where you had to circle them a set number of times without stopping or having the line break, by hitting the Pokémon or a hazard, or being hit by an attack; this time each Pokémon has a sort of a HP bar, and with each loop, you do “damage” to them. Fill up the bar and it’s captured. This means you don’t have to circle endlessly (I remember playing the original Ranger, and circling that Rayquaza 13 times was practically impossible – I had to enable the 1 loop cheat to get it…) to get the bosses, some of whom can take over 100 loops even if you have a really high level!

One thing that the game seems to have problems with is trying to decide which genre to be in. There are several cases where it seems to take on a Mario-esque behaviour by making you dodge things that are flying around while you move from one place to another, because getting hit deals damage to your Styler’s energy… And given that you have to repeatedly do those bits, wteher it be because you made a 1-pixel error judgement that forced you to start again, or because you have to go through the place on new Quests makes them very annoying indeed…

Oh, I forogt to mention the side quests. Well, they’re side quests. Doing them all gives you the opportunity to get new partners and also earns you bonuses for your Styler that reduces the damage you take from certain types of attacks, and a couple of other effects. Oh, and your choice of partner isn’t restricted to the Pikachu wannabes Plusle or Minun. Instead you can have a choice of 17 partners, one for each type, although you only unlock three during the main storyline – you need to do the quests for the other 14.

Another big problem with the game is the fact that it does kinda end. A Pokémon game that has an ending fails. In Ranger 2, there is sort of a limit to what you can do. You can complete the storyline missions, then complete all sixty side quests, and then register all 267 available Pokémon in your Ranger Browser by capturing them all. While it may seem like a lot, it’s actually quite short, as shown by how long it took me:

Completed all storyline missions: 19 hours, 11 minutes
Completed all side Quests: 25 hours, 1 minute
Caught all 267 Pokémon in the Browser: Eh, I’ll get it done eventually, but let’s say around 25 hours, 52 minutes

By that I mean, I’m at the big boss fight for the final boss Pokémon, Regigigas. I’ve only tried to beat him once, but he’s fucking tough! When a boss can deal 18 damage to you just by walking (and when you have 97 hit points…) things are going to to be tough… All I know is my play time at my last save point (just a bit before him) was at 25:40, and I don’t expect it to take longer than 20 minutes…

UPDATE @ some point… : 25:48 was the total final time. He actually wasn’t that much of a bitch as he could have been. 84 seconds of partner Gible’s Draco Meteor assist, followed by the Electrifying from a Magnezone couple with some very fast looping took him down

With that, when you actually do complete the browser, you get a cutscene where you have everyone gathered around you on the roof of the Ranger Union just to congratulate you on completing the Browser, at which point your pause screen displays a little Pikachu head symbol to denote so. Then the game is officially DONE. There is nothing else worthwhile to do afterwards

So in brief, you run around, make Pokémon act as slaves, finish the entire game quickly, transfer the free Manaphy Egg, Riolu and Darkrai to your copy of Diamond, Pearl or Platinum (and thanks to the miracle of save backups, I could possibly transfer one of each to my legit Diamond, my Pearl I haven’t played in ages, AND my Jap. Platinum )

Ranting Review Score

Gameplay: 7/10. The story is quite good, but the sudden changes from… whatever genre Pokémon is in, to Mario style gameplay detracts from it…
Replayability: 2/10. Once you finish the game, that’s it. Unless you want to run around catching Pokémon for the fun of it. Or do the Capture Arena or Wi-Fi missions.
Engrossness: 9/10. I only wanted to play another game once during the whole 26 hours of it. Pretty good, then

Total Score: 18/30. Not bad, but still has flaws…

First off, I really haven’t had the time to record. Because of my current state in the game, not being able to record means not being able to continue onwards, given that up next are five long tough battles that need recording as they are notable. As such, I’m stuck – and at most can just level up if I want. But that brings me into reason 2.

I have new games to play. Recently released Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia and Trackmania DS are keeping me busy from time to time, as well as Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship 2008 which I’ve started to play again (on the card though this time, even though I do actually own the game itself – although that was just to get the free cards ). Ranger 2 I can actually play this time, unlike when I tried to play Battonage (JAP version) since I couldn’t understand the text and had no idea where to go. Unlike the main games you really do need to know what they’re saying to be able to carry on in the game! And Trackmania DS is just fun. It’s like Trackmania United, only on a mobile platform
Do I really need to explain more?

Also, GameVee has been hiccuping as of late. I tried to upload the latest two videos for the latest part of the series, but they apparently wouldn’t process. A few hours later and GameVee went down for a couple of days. Although it’s back up now the GameVee Blog link now leads to gotgame.com… I’m not sure whether GameVee are merging in with them, but I’m now seriously considering whether to go and upload everything up to YouTube instead. At least on YouTube I can add annotations rather than having to narrate them myself – although after posting my most recent video where I actually talked on it, it’s not all that much of a bad choice. Only I again need a place similar to the scenario I need to be able to record, so…

I might give the narrating a shot tonight, depending on what time I arrive home and whether people are doing tax returns or not
Just to warn you, my Windows Move Maker skill isn’t all that great

Prologue

Well, before I could play the game, there was the small matter of fixing the ever so annoying little bug I was having with it. Whenever I turned on my DS, selected Platinum and it loaded, I was met with a nice little blue screen with Japanese writing. Needless to say, it was quite obvious it was an error message, given that pressing any button did absolutely nothing. So it was off to Google.

It actually took quite a while and many different, even more specific searches before I got the answer I was looking for – to check whether my M3′s software was up-to-date with the v1.14 firmware. I was convinced it was given the last updates was back in ’07, but as if to stick it’s finger up at me and shout “The answer’s right here, idiot!”, it was actually v1.13. Quick update followed.

With that sorted, I try again and the game – LOADS! And with the loading done, I’m treated to the new opening scene, which you can watch below (courtesy of Marriland!):

Part 1 – The adventure starts proper!

I’m going to spare all the itty-bitty details, but usual scripted game opening, character naming (limitations of the Japanese version, means that only 5 characters, English or Japanese can be used for character names – so I am “TCD”, and my rival is “WTFH?”), rival meeting, Pokémon picking etc.

New Pokémon acquired: Piplup (Lv 5)

One sort of major change between D/P and Platinum, is that once you pick your starter, you have to battle your rival there and then (sort of like the old Red/Blue days ), with your freshly-picked starters. Sigh…

Rival Battle 1 – Route 201

The starter battle is always very annoying, mainly because they only ever know a single, low-power, Normal-type attack, and one status-affecting move. In this case, it’s Pound/Growl vs. Tackle/Withdraw.

To start off, I Growled to lower the attack of his Turtwig, while he used Withdraw. Great, we both do less damage now (!). Off the with offense, but surprisingly he Withdrew again. This actually proved to be very annoying – he used Withdraw six times, maxing out his Defense. In the meantime, I had hit for around 40% health, and Growled three times. And then came one of the most monotonous battles ever, as we traded Pounds and Tackles ELEVEN TIMES! Eventually that bloody Turtwig fainted, while I won with 12/20HP left
Still, I’m fucking glad that’s out of the way…

So, transition to “the next day”, and we’re off again. And again, set-piece as myself and the rival pay a visit to Lake Acuity, almost mirroring D/P except we already have our Pokémon now. Inside, who is there but Cyrus! Cyrus, the head of Team Galactic, yes! Anyway, he says some crap, which I don’t plan on ever understanding until the proper English version comes out, and then he walks off. And then cue Mesprit’s cry. Yup, that pinky being you had to chase around Sinnoh in D/P – you hear it’s cry, and then your rival gets all hyper again. I really don’t know or care what is wrong with him, other than it’s a sure thing he has ADHD… At least, it’s the end of the set pieces for now

Off through Route 201, admiring and not-admiring the new sprites for the Sinnoh Dex Pokémon (wait until you see Floatzel later ), and kicking the ass of the weaklings on the way. Into Sandgem Town, and then another set piece involving Dawn taking me to Prof. Rowan to nickname the Piplup and get the Pokédex and stuff… you know how it goes.

Anyway, out of the building and Dawn’s waiting for the “grand tour”, but then Rowan comes out yelling your name, and handing over TM27? Why he’d give you Return, when your starter still likely only has the normal happiness level for new Pokémon… So, it’s off home to tell your mother that you’re leaving on an adventure (likely to great relief from her, now she can rent out your room ), getting the Journal, and… all the other game opening crap… Oh, and I’m supposed to give WTFH a parcel from his mom since he didn’t come back to say he was leaving. Hmmm, maybe I should just keep it for myself…?

EDIT: Seems WPG2 likes to be really gay in IE

A question which I think is on everyone’s lips (or at least those who play the game, and those have lips) – what is the ideal equipment setup? I can’t tell for sure, but I know that each of my 5 custom classes fulfil a different purpose.

• Assault
  G36c with either Grenade Launcher or Red Dot Sight, Gold Desert Eagle, 3xFrag (when using Red Dot), Stopping Power, Last Stand
  I’m using the G36 right now to try and get skilled with a second assault rifle. I used to use the M4 all the time, but fancied a change. Grenade Launcher or Red Dot depends on my mood and whether I want to start owning people with direct grenade impacts
• Snipe
  Dragunov Barrett .50 Cal (Digital Camo), Gold Desert Eagle, Claymore, UAV Jammer, Iron Lungs
  Bolt-action snipers never worked for me, and the Dragunov works very well for me. Especially in Hardcore Team Deathmatch, when mot of the time it’s a one-hit kill.
• Demo
  M1014, USP, 3xFrag or RPG, Sonic Boom, Martyrdom
  This is my lesser used class, mainly since shotguns are rarely effective these days. But the odd time I might break it out and have a little fun
• Recon
  P90 (Digital Blue Tiger Camo) with Silencer, M9 with Silencer, Bandolier, UAV Jammer, Extreme Conditioning
  This class is really turning into my primary class, since I use it almost all the time. UAV Jammer and silencers make me undetectable. Plus given how the P90 can rip through ammo, Bandolier gives me an extra 4 magazines. And Extreme Conditioning lets me do sort of "hit-and-run" kills.
• Heavy
  M4 (Blue Tiger Camo) with ACOG, P90 with Red Dot, 3xFrag, Overkill, Deep Impact
  I haven’t yet been able to work this one to my advantage just yet. The M4 gives me the range while the P90 works well for close quarters combat. You could say it’s the "run in with all guns blazing" class

Anyway, enough about the guns and classes, I’ve got other stuff to take care of that isn’t CoD4-related. Such as watching the new Pokémon movie: The Rise of Darkrai now it’s on YouTube, and also figuring out some way of getting rid of this hacking cough. Every time, I get huge pains in my chest and it just won’t go away!

In case, you haven’t been reading this blog, or my Twitter… or in case I just never mentioned it, I ordered a decent amount of stuff online recently. And yesterday while at home, I was able to pick it all up, hence my elevated mood today

Alright, to the nitty gritty details…

• All 26 currently released in Singapore volumes of English-language Pokémon Adventures

  Yes, you probably did read correctly the first time. I did buy a heck of a load of books related to Pokémon. If you think back to some post I made a few months ago where I first mentioned my discovery of the manga section on Serebii.net, then you’ll understand.
  If you want to buy yourself, here’s a current eBay listing. If it’s expired, just view the seller’s page and you’ll find a new listing, and if not, just message him and he’ll set it up. Overall price for product, shipping, and shipping insurance was $305.97 (€207.55 at the time). Shipping took approximately 6 business days, which is pretty good for halfway across the world. I’ll definitely be ordering again when the new volumes are released, although it’ll probably take a while to get through the backlog

  Pic: (to be inserted after publishing cos Windows Live Writer can’t handle the Gallery…)
  275|640

• Ctrl+Alt+Del T-shirts and Zeke plushie from Splitreason.comNow if you think the manga shipping was fast, this delivery was quicker. Although it was only from Canada rather than Singapore… well, it was from Canada. You know you can’t trust most Canadians
  Anyway, shipped the 15th, arrived the 19th. Right now, I have the Ethan T-shirt on me, which should look good at console gaming today. Plan on wearing the Zeke T-shirt tomorrow at the Mezz night
  One thing I will say is that although most of my other T-shirts are Large, their Large are at first a little too large, but they should shrink slightly with use, making them an ideal fit. Pictures to follow soon, primarily because every picture of it being worn by a fan – in this case me – earns said fan a $10 store discount. Which helps to pay for the shipping. Probably the reason shipping was $22, for a $49 order might have been the distance, and also the fact I selected the delivery method between express, and ground mail.
• Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars for 360, from Gamesenders.ieNow, if both of those delivery times were impressive, this was even better. I received an e-mail from them yesterday afternoon around 1pm saying that it had been shipped out. Was leaving with Aoife this morning to drop her to school (around 9am), and what was in the letterbox but Tib Wars! Woot. Will be on later and for a couple of weeks, if you would like to be steamrollered by a bunch of Avatars or Tripods
  No need for picture cos it’s nothing but a game disc!

Friday night saw me doing something which I never really thought I’d be doing for ages – playing CoD4 multiplayer online and enjoying it… Once you start gaining more levels and unlocking more stuff, it is actually quite a decent experience. The Challenges section is really the main reason I keep playing. You could say it gives the same sort of "buzz" getting achievements does, albeit without any Gamerscore increases. Still getting a nice notice and fancy sound effect informing you that you’ve just achieved the Hardcore Deathmatch MVP (on the Russian style map camping the hole above a doorway), or successfully said Goodbye (jumping from the top floor of the building under construction to the basement on Standoff?) keeps you hungry for more. I just wish that challenges that unlock on later levels would take into account whether you’d completed it before unlocking it. The amount of times I’d completed those one-off Sabotage challenges before unlocking them…

Last night didn’t really have much going on. It was more of a night where the reason I was up all night is because I wasn’t tired… Yes, lame excuse. However, I did catch a good few more Pokémon in Diamond. Some of them were actually quite surprising, although it might have been down to the extras you "unleash" into the Great Marsh with the National Dex, added with the Super Rod.

Speaking of Pokémon, it’s been a week since I bought all 26 currently released volumes of Pokémon Adventures (the manga) from some guy in Singapore on eBay. Hopefully the package will be arriving at Dunboyne within the next week or so. Then I can see if it was worth the €200+
It’s just a pity that the guy from Serebii.net who was in charge of the manga section, Coronis, has had to leave. His write-ups were getting me interested in the Diamond and Pearl series of the manga. Actually it was his detailed bios of the main characters which got me interested in the manga in the first place. At least he entertained a lot of people with his write-ups, and hopefully got a few other people interested in the series as well

Tonight will probably be another sleepless night, although it probably won’t be as bad as the rest of the weekend. Mainly because I have a 10am lecture in the morning. It really all depends on how I decide to watch the Daytona 500. Yep, the NASCAR season is back
The main thing here is that there are two ways to watch the 500, but both of them have their inherent disadvantages. The first option is to use NASCAR’s Raceview application, which is free for the 500. This will allow me to "watch" the race live on my computer and see everything that’s happening, albeit virtual. While this allows me to watch the race live, it doesn’t have the proper TV camera, nor the ESPN commentary. The second option is to watch NASN on Setanta tonight and hope that the race is being shown delayed. Although it isn’t live, it is TV. However, the earliest it will start is midnight, meaning I’ll be up until about 4 or 5am…
Or, alternatively watch it during the week if Setanta replay it some other night. Preferably Thursday since I’m not busy in the morning on Friday

At least next weekend won’t have so much sleeplessness, as the A1 is in South Africa, which handily is only GMT+1

• Computers

  No, I didn’t get a new computer. The changes here are related to what’s on the computer. So far, Windows Live Mail has been running well. It’s only flaw is that since it uses IE protocols to open the RSS feeds, very often I get the annoying pop-ups saying "ActiveX controls are disabled… blah blah blah… Turn on etc. etc." – I’ve attempted to fix it by simply enabling every single ActiveX thing in Internet Options, but then that starts giving out that "these settings may put your computer at risk". I wouldn’t need to put it at risk if you’d stop the fucking pop-ups!

  However, because of the way everything integrates with IE, it’s been making me want to use IE as my primary web browser. But we all know how much IE sucks. I’m aware of the IE Tab extension for Firefox, yet all that does is use the computer’s IE and show it in a Firefox tab. Something I’m looking for though, is an extension that allows Firefox to "become" the default IE. Or the other way round, an extension for IE that means it displays and does stuff the way Firefox does.

• Internet

  Recently, I probably haven’t been around the Internet as much. It’s probably due to the fact that I can only have either my computer or my console connected at the one time. Not much is changing on Internet habits, but it’s more on how Firefox has been changed to cope with new methods. At the moment, it has an IE-based skin installed on it. The skin is actually quite good, and if it wasn’t already based on IE, I’d consider it to be a very good skin. Still, it’s unable to do most of the stuff that only IE can do, such as be embedded in programs like Windows Live Mail, Steam, Xfire, Messenger and others…

• Gaming

  Since I’m back in college, there has been more time for gaming. Well not more time per se, but the platforms available to game on have increased. I’m back on going for more Gamerscore, and so far things are going well. Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4 are my two new titles, that should provide a healthy chunk each. Although one of them is rock-hard, and the other is kind of annoying… However, sadly to say – even with a replacement NASCAR 08 disk, is still won’t boot up.

  Either this new disc is also screwy, or my disk drive may be starting to fail. I’m seriously hoping it’s the first options, since all my other games load fine. Well Crackdown is a bit of an exception, but in fairness, that disc has seen better states. I’ve also decided to treat myself to some more MS points, given I now have the ability to buy them and I haven’t bought any in ages. So far, I’ve bought the DLC for Crackdown and also Hexic 2 and Tetris Splash for the Arcade. I’m still debating about whether or not to buy the Halo 3 maps now. Although given how long I’ve been without the game itself, I think I can wait for them to become free

  On the other platforms, PC gaming has slowed to a halt. Been too busy on the console mainly, but also the fact that I’m now behind the college proxy again, so most games won’t get through. Meanwhile on the DS, my Pokémon Diamond adventure is going well. I’ll be putting up a new page with my team, Friend Code and the like soon (well once I get the DS Wi-Fi PC USB thingy).

That seems to be all the big mad changes that have been going on lately. Now, it’s half fucking 4 in the morning, and I really should be going to bed.

But I might just go have some more leftover lasagne, or maybe a Pot Noodle first…

Carollers really annoy me. Most of them are tone-deaf and can’t sing, plus they get the songs into my head, which means I end up humming them all day! I’d much rather hum Guitar Hero stuff which was knocked into my head thanks to Games Soc. That and I’m not shelling out any cash at the door. My cash stays in my account as much as possible. I’m not one of those guys who always gets a load of cash out of the ATM every time. I get what I need and keep a little bit spare.

On the gaming side, there’s both good and bad things. The good thing is that I get to spend more time gaming late at night, since 2 floors are a better insulator of sound that whatever the walls in college are made of. Plus, I can “borrow” consoles I don’t have to play games I do have for them, i.e. Aoife’s DS to play my Diamond. It’s only temporary until the shops get more in stock! Of course, the major bad thing about being at home for Christmas from a gaming perspective – is no 360

Yup, no 360 gaming here (at least until I convince her otherwise), since someone thinks it’s a bad influence on Aoife. Obviously she hasn’t read all the articles on Xbox.com about how a 360 can be a family console.

And yes, I did buy Diamond – along with other presents, so was able to pass it off as a present whilst at the checkout
So far, I haven’t had too much playing time on it, but I already have half my team caught. The other half either can’t be caught until after I beat Gardenia, or need a lot more work to get! With any luck, soon I’ll have my full team caught and trained up to a respectable level – although I will need to hack the wireless router here to be able to do Wi-Fi battles…

Anyway, there’s still 4-ish days to go till the big day. Long shot would be an M1730 – although a surprise DS would be nice though

The really good thing about having this new laptop, is the fact I had something to distract me from the alcohol-fuelled party that took place in the apartment last night. I understand that students like to drink, but I think last night was a little too much….

Anyway, 1 day left until the weekend! All that’s left is to do my best not to nod off during Assembly Language (Ray Walshe is actually a lot nicer in 2nd year than in 1st year), and Networks (the guy’s paranoid about e-mail!) Oh, and I need to do that Probability exercise sometime during the weekend. Someone give me a nudge (WLM-speaking, not literally) around 3am on Monday morning to remind me to get it done…

Formula 1

OK, Hamilton won a Grand Prix. Stop going on about it. You’re acting worse than when Jenson Button won in Hungary last year! However, one thing I will say. Although it has been said he got hurt in the smash, Kubica’s crash was insane!
Yes, it hurt, and caused a shitload of debris, but it looked funky. And it seems they’ve finally spruced up the Safety Car thing and made it more NASCARy. Too bad half of the drivers didn’t get it. And the black flag for Massa? Bullshit. Fucking asses. And laugh at Alonso for all his mistakes. Pressure’s getting to him!

NASCAR Pocono 500

OK, why a triangle? Oh well, just another bit of weirdness. Same with the back wing. I thought they changed that thing in the last race? Aren’t they gonna make up their mind? And why the hell are they so scared of racing in the rain? F1 does it, so why should you guys get to say “Oh noes, it’s raining, so we can’t race, thus we’ll either stop the race or do it tomorrow, thus being a nusiance for everyone!” Wusses.

Simpsons 400th Episode

I admit I was hyped up about this. And it failed to deliver. OK, the Tracy Ullma short “couch” gag was good, but lacked reason. And the plot was crappy. But at least they showed how the FCC wreck TV with all the bleeps and filters. Bring on South Park and their saying of “shit” over 130 times in 1 episode! BTW, that WoW episode was bullshit.

Scarred

MTV’s new show is crazy weird and really gross. I admit I was really fucking squeamish. If I want to see shit like that, I’ll watch ER, thank you very much. I’d rather not have to watch crap on MTV when I’m looking for good stuff.