Just a Grunt

Well, the FF series at Penny Arcade ended today, and it certainly left some unanswered questions. None of which will be discussed in this forum. What will be discussed, however, is this story, featured on ESPN’s website! I don’t know who she is, but if she’s louder than Monica Seles, it must be quite a decibal decimating, an eardrum eviscerating grunt that she is issuing forth! Imagine the poor umpire - what exactly do you say to the grunting offender? I wonder if tennis-crazed parents (like say… Mr. Williams) ever tell their kids to grunt so loudly to intimidate their opponents. It reminds me of those insane yells at Karate competitions. I understand that it’s all about channeling ki and energy and all, but when I did Tae Kwon Do I never shrieked my lungs out like that… Well, whatever works I suppose. Phones lines were turned on today. I’m one step closer to DSL and internet. While there won’t be any new art posted on KOLAAP until I get my tablet, I plan to link my art site to my Blog and update some links. I also made a new banner too that I’d like to post when I get the chance. No more cruddy service at public libraries, hooo-rah! In the library I always have to keep my grunts of joy quiet for fear of being issued a warning…

Monsters and Devils

Well, well, well, the NJ Devils took home the Stanley Cup again. Congrats to the team, especially the underappreciated Martin Brodeur! I had a dream that they would win 3-2 last night, and although they actually won 3-0, I feel as if I may be developing some psychic abilities. Or not. Still, it is a good day for NJ sports. I’m currently looking at PCI tv tuner cards. I think I may end up going with Hauppage, although I haven’t had great past experiences with the company, because the ATI card seems to have truly cruddy driver support, especially with Windows XP. Even though those ATI cards boast some truly great abilities, I still can’t get over my distrust of their graphics cards because they seem to lag behind on driver support. I am a full nVidida supporter for gaming purposes. Oh yeah, beat Dokapon. It took like one hit to beat the final boss’s “hard” transformation. What a short game… The lack of any type of coherent story was pretty bad too. Anyways, go Nets!

Semi-Sweet

Hmmm, a bunch of semi-sweet news today. Beat UT2003 and The Longest Journey but now I’m kinda out of stuff to play. I have been amusing myself with the ultra-cheesy Dokapon Monster Hunter. I can’t believe someone actually made a RPG out of playing Rocks-Paper-Scissors. Don’t bother buying this game, although I wouldn’t say it’s the worst game I’ve ever played. I tried playing the Chobits GBA game too, but I found out that I still couldn’t read Japanese. Imagine that. So much for the power of positive thinking. Plus I had already seen the series so the game didn’t really introduce anything new. The art is quite good, and I’m a Chii fan.

I’ve been experimenting recently with Colored Pencils. I got some Prismacolor ones on sale and spent an insane amount of time sharpening the little buggers. I was so glad I didn’t get the 48 set or anything bigger… One nice thing about Richmond is that VCU, the closest college, is quiet liberal and has a lot of arts students. This means that stores that carry arts supplies are easy to find and have nice selections. Fortunately for me and my wallet, my favorite media are paper and pencil, and CG with a tablet. This keeps me from spending absurd amounts of money on that perfect color of watercolor or gauche or whatever. Not like I really have any idea how to use any of those, since I haven’t had any sort of formal art education. The colored pencils are quite fun but I’m pretty bad with them. I messed up quite a few pictures, especially with skin tones, since all I have to work with is the peach color. I find it works best if I just use it to do skin shadows and then just blend it in lightly. I’m sure there’s a better way to do this but I haven’t figured it out yet. Oh yeah, Nets lost game 3. Jason Kidd needs to step up.

Still Trucking

Grrrr… Damn lack of tablet driving me insane. Also packed away my sketchbook. I think I’m going to have to get a new one soon before I go batty. Moving to a new place where you don’t know anyone is pretty tough and I can’t find a bookstore either. At least not one close enough for me to get to. No internet also means I get to spend my time in the Richmond library just to stay connected. Fun, fun, fun. Anyways, not to dispair cause the weather here is nice so far (not too hot) and the NJ Devils just won game 5 of the Stanley Cup finals. Here’s to hoping the Nets don’t go down to the Spurs. As soon as I get access to some FTP, I’m going to actually have to link this sucker to my KOLAAP webpage since that sorta was the whole point of this exercise. I kinda enjoy this blogger though and I’m hoping it gives me another avenue for release while also giving me a forum to shamelessly plug my site ^__~. Today’s assignment will be to find out more about blogs and blogging communities. Thank goodness for Google since I would have no idea where to look. I have the funniest feeling that while these entries are long for now they will get progressively shorter. But until that day comes, on with the rambling!

Currently, I’m playing The Longest Journey, some UT2003, and Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow. Can’t beat the last level of UT, and while I’m sure it’s really because I suck tremendously and am quite the n00b at FPS’s, I tell myself it’s the accursed low gravity in the level, and my choppy framerates. I need a new computer… or at least want one really badly. As for The Longest Journey, it’s a pretty good story and the voice acting is great but I keep finding myself getting impatient with it. I think it’s the adventure game format, and I can see why so many critics are tolling the death nell for the genre. And is it just me or is “April Ryan” supposed to be like “April Rain” which is like springtime or change? How shrewd of the developers. As for Castlevania, it’s quite a good game, but my emulator port of it is buggy and so the game is freezing all the time now. The tedium of trying to get all the souls can wear on you after a while, but all in all, it is rather entertaining. All this while, I’m still waiting for the Star Wars Galaxies MMORPG. I’ve been hearing some beta testers gripe but then again, a beta is a beta, so it’s hard to not take their complaints with a grain of salt. This is just a holdover and warm up until they eventually release World of Warcraft though. My goodness that game looks beautiful. WoW indeed.

As for anime, unfortunately I’m not really watching anything new. Last year was really a golden age of anime for me, but without college connection and fast internet connection, the well has run dry. Too bad, really. Series that I’m really interested in at the moment are Naruto and Scrapped Princess. Sorry, couldn’t find a good english site devoted to Scrapped Princess but it’s still so new. Can’t read Japanese? Try using Babel Fish. At least I got to see the end of Shaman King, but I’m really looking forward for more of the manga since the story telling is so much less rushed and details are actually explained in the manga. The Naruto manga seems reasonably well drawn too. It’s always good when the anime and the manga are both of high quality and one doesn’t completely outshine the other. Gotta do some fan art for these series! I’m currently working on a piece of Shaman King fan art but I’m dead in the water without my tablet since my mouse CG’ing skills are way below par. Plus I didn’t bring my scanner so I can’t even do anything the good ole fashioned way. I think for me, this blog helps alleviate my guilt over not updating my website because when I finally do link these pages together there will be a ton of new content! Or so I tell myself…