Not ready to sell some things yet, but I'm trying to buy some things again.
Currently, I'm watching a few auctions for Street Figher III Third Strike and Gunbird 2. I was watching some Giga Wing 2 auctions, but decided not to since I discovered all the vocals were removed out of the domestic version of the game. So I'm definitely going to need to be importing that one.
And hopefully he can find Napple Tale, too...
I was playing a little Chu Chu Rocket earlier (the only game I actually own so far)... I forgot how fun it was, but I also suck badly at it. During a 4 player match (with the other three players being "Weak" CPUs), I only won by chance and by wildly attacking the others instead of taking care of myself. Considering I actually did lose once and was close the other times, the game is still a bit over me. The puzzles also get really hard. I barely got through all the normal ones - the last ones took me quite a long time to finally figure out.
Gunbird 2 auction closing up in a few hours...
"Dominick" at 68.169.180.40 provided some mild amusement today. No, I don't have a hack for Brood War.
More excitement happened when all of Eryxma went down... because someone had signed up for an account and immediately used it to DOS nasa.gov. Read about it here.
Had a pretty amusing dinner Saturday night - a bunch of old family friends got together in a little room in the back of Seven Seas Restaurant (which, as seen from the photos on the wall, once hosted Hillary Clinton and Robin Williams) to kinda celebrate the Chinese New Year... even though it had already passed... anyways, it was nice to see Mandy again (though we didn't talk at all), and always fun to see Allison.
What happened after we left the restaurant wasn't quite so fun, and better left unmentioned.
I'm also mildly annoyed that due to a $1.50 charge that was due, I wasn't able to register for classes. I paid the charge Friday night, but naturally, the hold still hasn't been cleared, so I'm going to end up registering late. >.> Not that I really have an idea of what I want to take at this point, anyways - I have to decide what I want a degree in first. Comp Sci is pretty much out since I pretty much swore off of math. I have math credits up through Calculus I already, so I hopefully can pick something that doesn't involve any more math. ^^;
I just got a notice from Juno that some kind of class action suit is taking place.
Presumably, I'm in Juno's Heavy Users subclass, as I haven't been able to access any of Juno's Internet services since canceling their premium service in January of 2001. Not even a single minute of free dialup internet access that just about any other free user has.
It looks like the settlement offer is to my advantage (as I'd finally be able to use Juno as a backup internet service in case my cable access goes down) but I still wonder if I should be requesting exclusion...
(Yep, this is crossposted from LJ again... it's not every day I get legal notices in my email...)
Yeah, I got back Monday night as planned, but it took me this long to update. I think I know why my mom has that extra seat cushion...
I didn't get any more sleep after that last post after all. I ended up showering and heading out since we were already going to arrive rather late into the tournament. Went over to pick up Josh, and we headed off to the little town of Dunellen for my 2nd trip to Eight on the Break.
Of course, we stopped at the Maryland House service area to grab food since neither of us had eaten. As usual, I was the more hungry of the two of us, and ordered more food/ate more food/took longer. There was a Roy Rogers which I try to find whenever possible, since they're all but nonexistant in our area. After that, we continued.
Tolls are hell. Apparently, when heading north on I-95, there's a $5 toll for no apparent reason in a segment before hitting Delaware. It only applies when you head north, too... and the Delaware Memorial Bridge has a $3 toll that only seems to apply southbound. Josh paid the tolls this time - while I took all the tolls on the way back. I think they both came out about even.
When we hit the New Jersey Turnpike, I started to see snow - then more of it, then I saw a whole bunch of stopped cars. Argh. Apparently, a fallen railing had been obstructing traffic and construction crews had arrived and were in the process of removing it from the road, so we were backed up in almost dead-stopped traffic for a good half hour. The snow was worse after we cleared that obstacle too, so there were more delays for us as we got further north.
We did get there, but initially missed the turn I needed to take to get to the back parking lot, and ended up in a neighborhood road that wasn't properly de-iced. Watching a Volvo 240 drift a turn racing-style must be one of the most hilarious things in the world. After some more drift-work, made it into the (frozen) parking lot, where I had the wisdom of backing into the space instead of just going front-in. Of course, I got stuck in the space trying to get out later, anyways.
Tournament itself was fun - got to see a lot of people again that I hadn't seen since the previous year. In addition to the DE/PA/NJ/NY people there, the Hagerstown people had already been there for a day or so. I ended up not paying attention to the tournament at all, though. Mostly played some random games, and played 5th Mix and IIDX 8th Style when the respective tournaments on those machines were finished. 7th Style CS can't come soon enough.
After the tournament was over (which actually wrapped up near midnight, which is a pleasant change from last time), a very large group of us invaded a nearby diner. Food definitely good, and I got to talk with Aldrich for the first time in a long while. I also finally, uhh, saw Vikke (I can't say "met" since we never actually spoke to each other). Aside from some business involving a frozen car lock and a broken paper towel dispenser, it was a pleasant dinner, even if people kept trying to steal my food.
After the big dinner, we were led back to the motel that Ms. Tenicela had booked two rooms with. All the guys were stuffed in one room while Ms. Tenicela and the other girls took the other room. Somehow, the room becomes incredibly stinky very quickly. Despite that, we ended up playing IIDX on a small TV until 4:30am, then getting to bed. I was fortunate to have brought a sleeping bag, but I once again neglected to bring some kind of pillow.
I was woken up at about 11:30 that morning when a box of Sara Lee muffins and danishes was tossed into the room. Apparently, we had missed the breakfast hours, and that was all the motel could spare for us. After getting through half a blueberry muffin and a somewhat quick shower, we vacated the room, and headed to a nearby mall. Apparently, we were there to play on a barely-frequented DDR Extreme in the movie theatre. We spent a bit more time there than I would have liked, but at least it gave Ms. Tenicela and Josh time to get some shopping done.
After leaving the mall, we set out to find a gas station, as I was running low at this point. I meant to turn right out of the mall, but apparently the exit to the mall only lets you go left. So instead of going to the Exxon I saw that was a little ways past the motel, we ended up at an Amoco that happened to be on the way. The sheer incompetence of the people working there made me wish I could just get out and pump the gas myself. I ended up with a fill-up on 87 octane when I needed 93 - and yes, it makes a big difference, especially when I have a passenger. The car started improperly due to the mixed octane in the tank, then ran sluggish for the rest of the trip. Argh.
We ended up back at the Break around 4pm. The Hagerstown people were back again, too. Josh and I stayed for only 2 more hours, while I mainly played a little more 5th Mix, sat down to eat a Break Steak (though maybe I should have gotten some spicy chicken strips too?), and played some more IIDX. Hey, those were three things I can't do back at any place around here. =P We departed for home at around 6:10pm.
Our nonstop drive to Josh's house was only really impeded by a big warning that the right tunnel of Ft. McHenry was closed, and to expect major delays because of it. We ended up taking the Baltimore beltway around the tunnel to avoid it, and crossed the Francis Scott Key Bridge instead. This added a bit of time to our trip, but I'm not sure how bad traffic would have been if we had just tried the tunnel. After getting to Josh's house, I stopped in to use the bathroom and stretch a bit, then departed to go home.
But I had to get more gas first. I ended up driving out by Lakeforest Mall to see if I could get a car wash with it, but no such luck - the car wash attached to the gas station was closed either due to the weather or for repairs. I ended up going to another gas station to fill up (as it was cheaper). I also took the time to clean the windows, and was pretty much half-frostbitten by the time I could return to the car. After that, I finally headed home.
Haven't done much since, as I finished all work I needed to get done before the trip. I finished the last two eps of Kimi ga Nozomu Eien yesterday, as I had marathoned the previous 12 before the trip. I also got the 2nd of 3 Gravion checks from ADV, Someday's Dreamers DVD2 and KareKano OST1 from TRSI, and the Viagra-shaped stress relievers that Lin had sent me. Stress relievers are fun. =P I also finished watching the Someday's Dreamers DVD, then I played a bit of IIDX 4th Style CS.
That's about it... looks like not much else to do this week, except I do need to head out to deposit this check, and my last Suncoast check which arrived last week. Need to pay some bills I had somehow forgotten, too...
Oh, and I finally got around to updating the About Me page, kinda... I took off the part that says I'm a Suncoast employee, since haven't worked there for almost a month now. So yeah, I'm without steady income at the moment. Not that I want to work any more retail jobs if I can help it... I do want to put a new picture up, since I'm far too tanned in the picture that's up now. I'll probably find some way of doing that eventually.
Seems I only post here now if I'm leaving, or if someone dies or something. o.O
But, I'm going to attempt to drive to Eight on the Break today. Even though there's snow on the ground, I'm hoping they've cleaned up most of the major roads since the snow fell last night. Just to be safe, I'll probably end up waiting a little more, but it takes a little over 3 hours to get there under normal conditions... so I can't wait for too much longer.
Though I really need some more sleep, and I think that would be a good thing to get while I can if I'm going to be driving through three states...
Uhh, yeah... I actually finished Gravion some 48 hours ago. Not counting an additional portion of the insert song that I has Jasconius translate since it was completely missing in the script. A new project came as quickly as I finished - of course, I'm one of the few people around that has never seen any Slayers before o.O
Other than working on Gravion, and the other random crap that's been posted to LJ lately, there hasn't been much happening. I think that the only time I left the house since visiting Kevin a week or two ago was to go to that dinner last weekend. I haven't driven my car at all during that time. (My car probably smells strongly of DDR pads now, since the RedOctane pads I took from Kevin to give to Allison are still in it.)
I was actually set to sleep at a normal schedule, but I was woken up 3 hours ago by a violently painful leg cramp. I do get leg cramps like 3 or 4 times a year now (all incidents DDR related) but this is the first time it's happened in my sleep. I kinda remember being half-awake and trying to shift my leg to a less painful position before it broke out into a full-blown cramp... weird.
But, yeah, there hasn't been anything of speak of, so that's usually when I stop writing entries. When there really isn't anything to write about. I'm surprised there's so much in this entry because of the sheer amount of nothing that has happened so far this year. (Still beats the situation I was in at this time last year, though.)
The most annoyance of this year so far came from hikarinokiseki.com's domain registration somehow expiring. I've always had auto-renew handle it, so I have no idea how they managed to botch it this year (it worked last year). So, a day after the expiration, everyone got sent to a gigantic "this domain has expired" page instead of our site. I did renew right away, opting for 2 years since I had to bother to renew manually. I also found out after I got connectivity to the server back that they had been sending all the notices and newsletters to the wrong email address. --;; Explains why I never received any notice... they were sending them to an address that is hard as hell to get access to right now. This domain is handled by the same registrar for now, so I guess I'm going to have to keep a close eye on it when its expiration date is up...
In case you haven't noticed, Jasconius has also been updating his new anime reviews site with new content. A great deal of the JASCII archive was added in by myself, too, so I hope people appreciate that. As usual, I'm not sure if I'm really going to be checking out any of the new anime, since outside of a certain few things that people I know work on, I usually opt to just wait until stuff gets released on R1 DVD to watch it. So far, I've only watched the first episodes of Jubei-chan 2 and Gravion Zwei (because Sapphy-hime called me masochistic), though I might be checking Yumeria out too. I've already watched more this season than I did last season, just by those two episodes. (Twin Spica and Bottle Fairy don't count since I worked on those two, and I haven't actually bothered to watch Kimi ga Nozomu Eien even though I have the entire series downloaded now.)
Oh yeah, we had steak for dinner. The steaks had been in our freezer for quite some time, so they're (probably) free of Mad Cow disease. =P
... and I didn't crash a car this time. Yay.
Other than going to Dave's for a bit (and seeing Anne, Josh, Matt, Kevyn, and Karyn again), I haven't been doing much at all aside from Gravion work.
Thus, there's really nothing to update about, aside from the ball dropping without any bombs going off or anything, and that I got home without incident this time. Considering I don't have any reason to go out in the near future, I think the Volvo is safe. =P