Oh, nobody knows the trouble I've seen
Sep. 9th, 2007 12:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gogmagog...God, I really haven't posted in a while. Anyway, I should be in Kansas City right now, but sadly due to acts of God, I am not.
I'd been looking forward to going to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rathershady and courters28's wedding for a while now, ever since they got it scheduled...what, in winter or spring? I had my bus ticket all bought (because again, still no license, argh), and spent Friday getting stuff in order so that I could head out of town.
So I show up at the bus station, all packed and ready to go, and discover that the bus I have to take to Des Moines is 3 hours late. Apparently a rock hit the windshield or something, and so they had to repair it before it could go on along its route. So, this meant that I wouldn't be able to leave until about 9 p.m. This wouldn't otherwise be an issue (it would be a pain making my parents come get me at 3 a.m., but they'd totally have done it), except that I had to transfer in Des Moines to another bus heading to Kansas City - a transfer lasting only 15 minutes.
So basically, there was no way I could take the bus to KC. Slightly panicked, I called my parents to discuss other alternatives - train, driving, etc. - but the only valid one we could come up with was me taking the bus to Des Moines, my stepdad driving the three hours or so up to Des Moines at midnight, then immediately driving three hours back to KC and grabbing like five hours of sleep before driving me down to Springfield, Missouri for Vinnie and Courtney's wedding. (And all this after a full day of work, and he was already running on a sleep deficit.) I felt that would be way too dangerous - he's not the safest of drivers at the best of times, perhaps, and I was pretty sure he'd get in some kind of accident - so my mom and I nixed that alternative. And all the others were out too - Amtrak doesn't run from either Iowa City or Des Moines, only Ottumwa, and wouldn't run on a route that would get me there in time anyway, flight would have been almost as iffy time-wise and flying out would have had to be from Cedar Rapids, which is not that far away but expensive as hell to fly out of (especially on last-minute notice).
So I ended up not being able to go to the wedding, which made me feel sad and sucky because a) Vinnie and Courtney are two of my best friends, and b) if I hadn't been so sucktastic and had gotten my license a couple of weeks ago, this wouldn't even have been an issue. (Also, c) I don't get to see all the other awesome WC folks I'd see there.) Still, congrats to the newlyweds!
And fortunately, unlike most weddings I do have another chance - Vin and Court are having a wedding reception in Colorado in a couple of weeks (since she's from Springfield, more of her family came to that one, and the Colorado one is mostly for his family), and when they first invited me I was invited to both, so I'm gonna see if I can't make that one and at least be at ONE of their weddings.
In other "woes of Yosi" news, my Internet has been down since Thursday evening...when I called Friday, they said they were going to try to fix it, but apparently didn't manage it by the end of the workday. No progress is apparently being made over the weekend (at least my Internet light hasn't come back on), so I imagine it'll be Monday before I have Internet again. Blargh.
In other, less sucky news, I'm now fully into the swing of the semester. I'm taking a Milton class, a seminar on early German literature (so, some European context for all the medieval English work I've read), and a calligraphy class. All of them seem quite interesting and fun. Teaching has been going pretty well, too, after the first week. I'm teaching the public speaking half of Rhetoric, and have had to be working pretty strenuously on my public speaking skills (normally my 1337 writing skillz would counterbalance my speech weaknesses, but that's not an option in this class, so in order to have any authority I'm having to work at it as hard as any of my students - harder than some, I think, which is not doing wonders for my self-confidence but is doing wonders for my motivation). The first week was a bit iffy, but the second week's gone better, and I'm pretty happy with it, aside from one student who's slightly loud and argumentative - while I like and appreciate that he's willing to talk, I wish he wouldn't try to pick fights with everyone in the class over minor semantic issues. (And I can't really talk to him about it, since it is sort of what the class is about, and after the first day he hasn't really been interrupting people or anything, but still, he could be a TEENY bit more diplomatic about it.)
Also, Persona 3 is FULL OF AWESOME AND LULZ, although I'm about ready to throw my controller at the screen at the moment. I'm at the fight immediately after meeting Fuuka - versus the Empress and Emperor - and my main character keeps getting KOed by their cheap-ass instant-death attacks (and a main character death = a Game Over). This would not normally be a problem, except that the nearest save is the day before, so after each cheap-ass death I end up having to play through about half an hour of cutscenes and FMV and winding my way through three random floors of Tartarus and I am ABOUT READY TO CUT A BITCH.
This is actually kind of surprising to me in a Megaten game, since they're often tough as fuck but usually in a strategic way - you have to use your abilities/equipment properly, but when you do it's much easier. But this battle seems to be entirely luck-dependent - you can do everything fine, but the moment either Empress or Emperor gets low on HP they both start doing insta-kill attacks that are completely unblockable at this point in the game (well, hers isn't strictly insta-kill, but she keeps hitting Headphones-tan with Evil Touch, which does enough damage to kill him despite him having Yomotsu Shikome equipped, who is strong vs. Dark).
My next playthrough I'm gonna see about equipping the hero with a bow (so I'll have all three physical attack types; last time I got screwed when Emperor was only vulnerable to Pierce and I had no piercing-attackers), and maybe resummon Orpheus and Apsaras so that I can heal with Cadenza, which will at least make it easier to keep stupid Junpei alive, with his Wind-weakness. Any other tips?
But in general I'm loving P3. Currently at June 8 (stupid full moon event grmblgrmbl); favorite characters are Junpei and Mitsuru, though I like all of the adorkable party members; favorite NPCs are Kenji and "Maya"; and I have decided (with input fromjokersama) that Mitsuru is totally a bondage queen by night (it's the thigh-high leather dominatrix boots she wears with her school uniform).
Also, I seem to have acquired an HDTV, eheheheh. But having done so, my reaction now is OMG SO PRETTY, CAN NEVAR GO BACK. Seriously, the PS3 hooked up to an HDTV using HDMI cables is one of the most beautiful things you will ever see. The Wii is really pretty too, though lower-resolution (I think the best it gets is 480p?), and even PS2 games look abso-frickin'-lutely gorgeous, and I can see so much detail that I never could before...all the text in the Persona 3 FMV intro, for instance. And while playing Devil Summoner: Kuzunoha Raidou this morning, I noticed that on the door of the Narumi Detective Agency it says, in tiny print, "cutting the Gordian knot," which I never even NOTICED on my old standard-def TV.
More regular posts once Internet is back! I have a book-rec post pretty much written up at home, and there are a few other things I want to post about - I really want to get back into the swing of regular blogging, since I got so out of it during the summer with all the out-of-town-beingness, so expect more once Qwest stops actively sucking ass.
Edit: This weekend is alsoaurianrose's wedding, so congrats to her as well!
I'd been looking forward to going to
rathershady and courters28's wedding for a while now, ever since they got it scheduled...what, in winter or spring? I had my bus ticket all bought (because again, still no license, argh), and spent Friday getting stuff in order so that I could head out of town.So I show up at the bus station, all packed and ready to go, and discover that the bus I have to take to Des Moines is 3 hours late. Apparently a rock hit the windshield or something, and so they had to repair it before it could go on along its route. So, this meant that I wouldn't be able to leave until about 9 p.m. This wouldn't otherwise be an issue (it would be a pain making my parents come get me at 3 a.m., but they'd totally have done it), except that I had to transfer in Des Moines to another bus heading to Kansas City - a transfer lasting only 15 minutes.
So basically, there was no way I could take the bus to KC. Slightly panicked, I called my parents to discuss other alternatives - train, driving, etc. - but the only valid one we could come up with was me taking the bus to Des Moines, my stepdad driving the three hours or so up to Des Moines at midnight, then immediately driving three hours back to KC and grabbing like five hours of sleep before driving me down to Springfield, Missouri for Vinnie and Courtney's wedding. (And all this after a full day of work, and he was already running on a sleep deficit.) I felt that would be way too dangerous - he's not the safest of drivers at the best of times, perhaps, and I was pretty sure he'd get in some kind of accident - so my mom and I nixed that alternative. And all the others were out too - Amtrak doesn't run from either Iowa City or Des Moines, only Ottumwa, and wouldn't run on a route that would get me there in time anyway, flight would have been almost as iffy time-wise and flying out would have had to be from Cedar Rapids, which is not that far away but expensive as hell to fly out of (especially on last-minute notice).
So I ended up not being able to go to the wedding, which made me feel sad and sucky because a) Vinnie and Courtney are two of my best friends, and b) if I hadn't been so sucktastic and had gotten my license a couple of weeks ago, this wouldn't even have been an issue. (Also, c) I don't get to see all the other awesome WC folks I'd see there.) Still, congrats to the newlyweds!
And fortunately, unlike most weddings I do have another chance - Vin and Court are having a wedding reception in Colorado in a couple of weeks (since she's from Springfield, more of her family came to that one, and the Colorado one is mostly for his family), and when they first invited me I was invited to both, so I'm gonna see if I can't make that one and at least be at ONE of their weddings.
In other "woes of Yosi" news, my Internet has been down since Thursday evening...when I called Friday, they said they were going to try to fix it, but apparently didn't manage it by the end of the workday. No progress is apparently being made over the weekend (at least my Internet light hasn't come back on), so I imagine it'll be Monday before I have Internet again. Blargh.
In other, less sucky news, I'm now fully into the swing of the semester. I'm taking a Milton class, a seminar on early German literature (so, some European context for all the medieval English work I've read), and a calligraphy class. All of them seem quite interesting and fun. Teaching has been going pretty well, too, after the first week. I'm teaching the public speaking half of Rhetoric, and have had to be working pretty strenuously on my public speaking skills (normally my 1337 writing skillz would counterbalance my speech weaknesses, but that's not an option in this class, so in order to have any authority I'm having to work at it as hard as any of my students - harder than some, I think, which is not doing wonders for my self-confidence but is doing wonders for my motivation). The first week was a bit iffy, but the second week's gone better, and I'm pretty happy with it, aside from one student who's slightly loud and argumentative - while I like and appreciate that he's willing to talk, I wish he wouldn't try to pick fights with everyone in the class over minor semantic issues. (And I can't really talk to him about it, since it is sort of what the class is about, and after the first day he hasn't really been interrupting people or anything, but still, he could be a TEENY bit more diplomatic about it.)
Also, Persona 3 is FULL OF AWESOME AND LULZ, although I'm about ready to throw my controller at the screen at the moment. I'm at the fight immediately after meeting Fuuka - versus the Empress and Emperor - and my main character keeps getting KOed by their cheap-ass instant-death attacks (and a main character death = a Game Over). This would not normally be a problem, except that the nearest save is the day before, so after each cheap-ass death I end up having to play through about half an hour of cutscenes and FMV and winding my way through three random floors of Tartarus and I am ABOUT READY TO CUT A BITCH.
This is actually kind of surprising to me in a Megaten game, since they're often tough as fuck but usually in a strategic way - you have to use your abilities/equipment properly, but when you do it's much easier. But this battle seems to be entirely luck-dependent - you can do everything fine, but the moment either Empress or Emperor gets low on HP they both start doing insta-kill attacks that are completely unblockable at this point in the game (well, hers isn't strictly insta-kill, but she keeps hitting Headphones-tan with Evil Touch, which does enough damage to kill him despite him having Yomotsu Shikome equipped, who is strong vs. Dark).
My next playthrough I'm gonna see about equipping the hero with a bow (so I'll have all three physical attack types; last time I got screwed when Emperor was only vulnerable to Pierce and I had no piercing-attackers), and maybe resummon Orpheus and Apsaras so that I can heal with Cadenza, which will at least make it easier to keep stupid Junpei alive, with his Wind-weakness. Any other tips?
But in general I'm loving P3. Currently at June 8 (stupid full moon event grmblgrmbl); favorite characters are Junpei and Mitsuru, though I like all of the adorkable party members; favorite NPCs are Kenji and "Maya"; and I have decided (with input from
jokersama) that Mitsuru is totally a bondage queen by night (it's the thigh-high leather dominatrix boots she wears with her school uniform).Also, I seem to have acquired an HDTV, eheheheh. But having done so, my reaction now is OMG SO PRETTY, CAN NEVAR GO BACK. Seriously, the PS3 hooked up to an HDTV using HDMI cables is one of the most beautiful things you will ever see. The Wii is really pretty too, though lower-resolution (I think the best it gets is 480p?), and even PS2 games look abso-frickin'-lutely gorgeous, and I can see so much detail that I never could before...all the text in the Persona 3 FMV intro, for instance. And while playing Devil Summoner: Kuzunoha Raidou this morning, I noticed that on the door of the Narumi Detective Agency it says, in tiny print, "cutting the Gordian knot," which I never even NOTICED on my old standard-def TV.
More regular posts once Internet is back! I have a book-rec post pretty much written up at home, and there are a few other things I want to post about - I really want to get back into the swing of regular blogging, since I got so out of it during the summer with all the out-of-town-beingness, so expect more once Qwest stops actively sucking ass.
Edit: This weekend is also
aurianrose's wedding, so congrats to her as well!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-09 08:24 pm (UTC)All she needs is a black mask and a riding crop.
P.S. I am totally with you on the cheapness of that boss fight/the main character death insta-game over thing.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-10 09:56 pm (UTC)Don't get me wrong, I love Mitsuru, but that screencap is from the HALF-HOUR CUTSCENES OF DOOM that I had to play through like nine times (literally) before I passed it.
Also, Junpei's immediate backpedaling clearly means he is not ready to be pegged by Mitsuru. D:
(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-09 09:33 pm (UTC)It is pretty awesome though.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-10 05:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-10 09:59 pm (UTC)Fortunately I got lucky on like the...9th try? XD;
(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-10 09:58 pm (UTC)Yes, I named him Pete Wentz at
they do kinda look alike though(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-09 10:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-10 10:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-10 03:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-10 10:03 pm (UTC)But laptops are nice too! And yeah, probably more justifiable as a purchase. The only way I can justify my TV purchase is that I live alone, and so not only am I just spending on myself, but I can talk myself into anything without someone saner around on a regular basis. XD;
(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-10 11:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-10 01:16 pm (UTC)P.S. I just got Persona 3 but I haven't had a chance to start playing yet, darn you law school!!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-10 10:07 pm (UTC)Also, yay for buying P3! I can pretty much guarantee that you will love it. The opening (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7ZLA5FX_v0) should be enough...philosophy and headshooting, what more could you want?
And don't worry, I haven't played nearly as much as I wanted to because of MY stupid grad school. Don't they realize that teaching and attending classes cuts into valuable videogame-playing time? ;_;