Zel-kun’s Words

Those who know me, know I’ve been playing through the entire Suikoden series as of late.  Starting at the first game, and working (playing?) my way all the way through the fifth.  Like any RPG, its a time-consuming process, but the gameplay and plot are both good, so I don’t have a problem with it.

Until this morning…

After about a month, I’m finally at the point in the series where I’m seeing new things, which is roughly half-way through the third game.  And to advance the plot I need to go to a castle, so I go there, see the loading screen, and wait…

And wait…

And wait…

It is apparent the game froze.  I take it out, clean it off, and try again.  Same thing.  I try a disc repair kit, nothing.  I try crazy-ass home remedies such as toothpaste and petroleum jelly, and it just leaves me with minty hands.  (on the plus side, these methods work in theory, and have not caused any further damage to the disc as far as I can see)

So, I take the next logical step, calling around to the local game shops to get another copy… and of course no one carries it.  So here I am, unable to continue playing, after pushing my way through the games I HAVE played before.  So, as the title of this entry indicates, I can only drop to my knees and offer a heartfelt “Noooooooooo!” to the heavens.

Curse my stepbrother for having a scratched copy of this game in the first place.

Zel-kun out.

It was last week when I accepted an offer from DeVry to help with a PC refresh project, it was going to be a week-long project at decent pay, and I was looking forward to it.  There were two unique things about this particular project:

1. It was the longest non-solo project I’ve been on, meaning I worked with a team of technicians.

2. The hours were 11:00am-8:00pm, with lunch at 1:00pm, which really messed with my rhythm.

Tuesday:

I left my home with an address,  looking for the DeVry building.  I was looking for 500 Park Blvd, simple enough.  But there’s something you should know about Illinois…

We don’t believe in putting addresses on buildings or street signs on our roads.

I figured the building would be clearly labelled.  A big ‘DeVry’ sign or something.  I was not so fortunate, instead, I am treated to a large business park with five nondescript buildings, with one address between them, 300.  So I am now bouncing between the buildings, in the hopes of walking into the lobby of the right building.  It is then that I find out something interesting…

500 is the Wyndham Hotel… not exactly the DeVry building I was thinking it’d be.

Luckily, I found the people I was looking for in the Hotel Lobby.  Apparently the refresh was taking place at the hotel during a convention.  A handy little bit of information I could have used earlier.  So we all go to this tiny room where we’re going to upgrade about 200 laptops, and we set to work.  Nothing really else to note for Tuesday.  Save for one of the techs ordered lunch: Seven large pizzas for FIVE technicians.  Nothing like a $174 lunch…

Wednesday:

I receive a laptop with a note from the user…

“This computer is slower than watching my 80 year-old grandfather taking a dump”

The next computer had a nearly pornographic wallpaper of a little girl on the toilet.

One of my fellow technicians, Rich, brings his own laptop and sets his MP3 player going.  There’s something surreal about ‘Paint it Black’ followed by ‘Too Sexy for my Shirt’ (or whatever the hell the title is), then ‘Freebird.’

Another tech, John, begins complaining about the music.  The beginning of every song prefaced with a phrase like, “Oh god, I’m going to shoot myself.”

Thursday:

Another member from DeVry joins the team, a girl by the name of Dana.  I don’t see many girls in IT, so its refreshing.  She gets calls on her cell phone, her husband asking where to put snakes, frogs, and spiders.  She just moved into a new home, and is deciding where to put the 400+ animals she has.

We then talk computer games, and I am made fun of for playing World of Warcraft, stating, “That game’s for girls, you don’t blow any shit up.”

For lunch, in this fancy, five-star hotel, the staff sets out large covered silver platters.  Underneath… Bagel-Bites and White Castle hamburgers.

Friday:

Friday I worked from 11:00am to 1:00am the next day .  Nothing really to note besides the fact that John began getting on everyone’s nerves.  “My god, you bitch more than my crazy-ass mother,” proclaims an agitated Dana.

I also see a sign in the Hotel Lobby, “Devry Privite Reseption.”

I also saw a truck “Professional Fastening: Expert Service” And its gas tank was open and the gas cap was dangling as it flew down the highway.  I shouldn’t have to say why this is hilarious.

Well, that’s all for now.

Zel-kun out.

Along with my usual regiment of World of Warcraft, I’ve been slowly making my way through the entire Suikoden series.  For those that don’t know, Suikoden is a now five-game long series depicting the political struggles, wars, and that age-old magical battle of good and evil of a world.  This world as far as I know doesn’t have a name.

Its a fun game, especially since all the games take place in different parts of the same world, only a few years apart.  Because of this, the series is like one long saga, and characters you know from one game pop up in the next.

One thing I realized as I was playing, was that the world is dynamic.  As I complete tasks, the world is changed.  From cities being occupied, being destroyed, and being rebuilt.  You push the plot forward, and the world responds accordingly.  I find that this is an aspect of an RPG I’ve sorely missed while playing WoW.

In WoW, if you fight ten-thousand undead soldiers and save a village, its only a matter of minutes until those undead spawn again, and the village is in no better shape than when you first arrived.  Sure, you have your exp and cool quest reward, but you didn’t actually CHANGE anything.  Those undead will always attack that village.  I understand that creating a dynamic world in an MMORPG is impractical, if not entirely impossible, but as a man who has rid Westfall of the Defias gang no less than seven times, I feel like I’m stuck in stasis, like nothing my hero does actually helps anything.

I think it would be cool if I could run WoW on a private server, that only a select few could connect to, and we could do quests that stay done, and see the world slowly become better (or worse if you’re a plague-spreading undead).   While this is about as likely as me find four random epic drops tomorrow evening, its still nice to dream.

In WoW news, my guild has just had its first successful Gnomeregan run.  It went very smoothly, everyone showed up on time, and no one died or D/C’ed.  And since my guild reads this page (all five of them), I’d like to congratulate each and every one of them on a jorb well done.

All for now.

Zel-kun out.

I’m beginning to think it is.  It becoming more and more common for me to open up my Outlook, and see ‘MySpace New Friend Request.’  This in and of itself isn’t bad, but then I look to see the profile of some emo weirdo or pop-loving dipstick girl that I have nothing in common with.  Makes me wonder if they even read my profile, my opinion is a big ‘NO.’

To make matters worse, many of these profiles have over TEN-THOUSAND friends.  I want everyone to think of that number a moment, let it sink into your minds, let it fester among old sociology and psychology lessons (if’n you had those sort of classes like I did, if not, I’m sure you can still see the point I’m making).

Yes, you’re so cool.  You have ten-thousand close and personal friends I’m sure you’ve shared many fun moments with.  You have ten-thousand people who love you, you’re just so damn awesome, I can barely contain myself.

Besides these occasional desperate people that sometimes make their way into my inbox, MySpace isn’t so bad.  Quite ingenious in its design, really: a free social network, a place for people who aren’t so savvy with a computer to have a piece of the internet to call their own (hence, MySpace).  That Tom guy may have spent some money to get it running, but now large corporations and new movies have MySpace pages (even World of Warcraft), and according to a recent issue of Wired, was just purchased by Rupert Murdoch.  You may know him as the president of the FOX network.
Also, I’ll have a link to my MySpace page put up if anyone’s interested.  Not much there, mainly started it to have the esteemed privilege of posting comments on my friends pages.

Welp, that’s all for now.

Zel-kun out.