Exclusive Insanity

This is the news I was looking for, in regards to the Ghost Hunt manga. Finally, some confirmation! The series will end (or has ended, if the manga was published on the 30th like they said it would be). I'll get to see in manga form what I've read in summaries of the books. Volume 12 is going to cover most of the interesting stuff, so I really, really hope that Del Rey brings it over quickly. I can't wait to read it!

It would be awesome if the rest of the series were animated after volume 12 is released, but I don't want to get my hopes too high on that one. I think the Ghost Hunt anime enjoyed a moderate popularity, but I'm not sure if it's enough to get us more episodes.

My Avatar Big Bang fic was posted last night! Anyone who's interested in checking it out (it's a whopping nine chapters - yikes) can go here and take a look. Also note the absolutely gorgeous art by amiraelizabeth. I didn't even think I was getting art, and then she sends me that lovely thing - you have no idea how happy I was.

Hee!

So, yesterday I watched an episode of Digimon Xros Wars and an episode of Heroic Age.

Digimon... back to the old character design style, back to a younger group of protagonists, and so far I'm entertained. But, holy crap, are there enough references to Gurren Lagann in there? It just can't be ignored! I mean, the little star guy has Kamina sunglasses and everything!

Anyway, I like it so far and will probably watch more. The main characters are interesting. Right now we've got some character stereotypes with hints of issues, which I'm sure will come out when they do the various character arcs and development. That always happens in Digimon. But I wonder if this one will really catch my interest. The last season to do that was Tamers, although Frontier kinda came close.

We'll see, I guess.

Heroic Age was kind of cool. The character designs are obviously done by the same people who did Gundam Seed. Unlike with GS, I am so far not having any trouble keeping track of the characters. That may change, though. One thing I like - which happens pretty rarely, if ever, in serious mecha series - is the fact that the main protagonist seems like a goofball. He's perky and happy. Of course, near the end of the episode he stops being perky and happy and turns into complete and utter freaky, but I'm hoping some of that perky and happy will come back rather than OMG ANGST because the series is about war (what mecha series isn't?) and having a goofy main character would be a nice way to give me a break from all the serious.

The animation is gorgeous, the music is nice, and the action sequences are lovely. The mecha design for Age is pretty cool, too. I'm also enjoying the plot, but we'll see where that goes and how the characters are handled.

Anyway, I came out of that with two new series to watch while working out, so I'm pretty happy about that. There are 26 episodes in Heroic Age, 9 (so far) in Digimon Xros Wars, and the third Tales of Symphonia OVA episode comes out on Sept 23rd.

So yeah, I'm doing pretty good for now.

So on Friday I got a 120GB solid state drive and Windows 7. My old 1TB drive is still in my computer, so I could boot into Vista if I wanted and I still store all my data on there, but I pretty much moved over to 7 now. It's very nice and smooth, and (probably mainly because of the solid state) much, much faster.

I spent most of the morning yesterday installing some of the programs I use on a regular basis. The FFXIV beta was one of the first. I'm still missing Office, Photoshop, and Diablo II (and probably a bunch of things I haven't thought of, but will later), but I've got my virus protection all set up and running scans at 3am every day, my adware and malware scanners installed and ready, and my video and audio players and codecs downloaded. Also iTunes is good to go with my iPod Touch, although it was a pain to get it using my previous library. But yeah, all good to go now.

Business as usual, pretty much.

Cody drew pictures of my characters with his. The first is Athynn and Messenjari, and the second is Brynne and Messenjari. They look awesome! When they're finished, I'll link them here. We gave Athynn an axe for a weapon since I he sucked at black mage so bad. Heh. Brynne has a sword in the picture. Despite both of those, I think when I actually play I'll be going for hand-to-hand combat. Punching stuff is such fun! And easy to rank up, since you hit so damn fast.

I'm still not totally sure, but I think I'm leaning towards playing as Brynne. I have about a week to decide, but it looks like that's what I really want to do, so... yeah.

I also downloaded and watched the first OVA episode for the Tales of Symphonia ~ Tethe'alla Arc. It's good - I liked the first set of OVAs, but this one is even better, I think. I've read the manga, so I know the storyline. I'm looking forward to seeing it with all the awesome music and mood-building and development that the anime can bring to it!

And yeah, the music is AWESOME, as usual. The opening theme has more punch to it this time around (I liked Almateria, but it was very slow and the video accompanying it wasn't that exciting). The background music is lovely, especially that haunting tune near the end where Yggdrassil shows up. It sends shivers down my spine.

I've downloaded the second episode, and I'm going to watch it today while doing my workout. Unfortunately, then I have to wait until Sept 23rd for the third episode. Oh well.

Opening theme is here for those who are interested.

So, the Final Fantasy XIV beta is open to anyone now - yay! Cody was chosen as a tester in the closed beta, and I got to try it out on his computer, but now we're going to get to play together, which should be pretty cool.

If you haven't been introduced to the awesome that is FFXIV yet, take a look at this lovely trailer.

The graphics are actually like that in-game. Even on the lowest setting, they look gorgeous. I also adore the music and will most likely be buying the soundtrack. Character creation is a lot of fun; very customizable.

Gameplay is different... I like it! I'm fond of the leveling system they're using, too. Everything is weapon-based. If you change your weapon to something used by a different job class, you are basically switching over to that class. You have a physical level and a skill level; the skill level relates to how good you are with the weapons or abilities, and your physical level relates to your basic HP and MP amounts. You have a limited set of abilities you can access, and you can change and customize which abilities go in that set - for instance, if you have leveled your magic high enough to learn Cure, you can add that to your abilities even if you are playing a melee job and still be able to cure yourself.

It's cool. I really like it.

If anyone else wants to try out the beta, it can be found here. You need to register for a SquareEnix account, but that is free and not too difficult. I recommend putting the game on its lowest settings, as it's pretty graphics-intensive (as you can see from the trailer).

I've noticed on Facebook recently that a few of my friends have pictures of their kids as profile pictures. The reason I make any kind of note of this is the fact that more than a few of those kids are babies, and babies - to me - all kind of look alike.

In several different cases, I've been skimming through status updates and mistook one friend for another because they both had baby profile pics. It always causes me to do a double take before I notice the name and go 'oh'.

Not sure why I find this funny... Maybe it's my lack of attention to detail (and I program for a living, imagine that), or maybe it's the sheer number of people I know with offspring. I'm sure it's the same for some people when their friends have the 'wedding photo as profile picture' (this is me, btw) because all they probably see while skimming is a girl in a white dress - and given the number of weddings I heard about this summer, there's gotta be a lot of those on most people's lists.

Or maybe there's just something wrong with me. XD

I feel like I want to write something, but can't seem to get the words out. I've been looking at a couple of unfinished ATLA fics, but even though I want to finish them, right now it's just hard to write for them. Also, I got a message about someone who is desperate for more Game Over. I feel bad about that one, because it's so popular but I just can't seem to dredge up the old inspiration for it all that often. I still really want to finish it, though.

I was thinking about my original stories recently. Not just GO, but there's a lot I still want to do with Piece of a Legend and Blurring the Lines. PoaL is only two and a half chapters from being finished. I really love that story. I want it finished, so I can show it off more. Right now my only finished original story is Threads of Fate, and that one sucks so hard that I'm embarassed to admit I wrote it (in my defense, it was a NaNoWriMo story). The only reason it's still on my site and find-able by anyone is because I know there are at least one or two people who like it, and I hate it when fics disappear without a trace.

Not sure what to push for. I want to try for at least one. Just to feel productive, if nothing else.

So, I made it back from Anime Evolution in one piece. It was utterly awesome and I'm really sorry I'm back. I mean, really. Being back sucks. Especially since we left Vancouver at 5am so I could go straight to work at 8:30. And sit in a boring course trying not to fall asleep for eight hours. Yay.

However, that is almost done, and then I have the massive chore of trying to get caught up on everything I neglected while I was away. That includes checking my Friends List, but I might miss a few things so if there's an entry I really should check out, let me know.

I can't wait to go home and sleep... Two more hours of boring course to go. Bleh.

Anyone know what's going on with Avatar Big Bang? I haven't heard anything since the artist claims opened up. Is it even still going?