| Holy
moly! It's been nearly a month since I last updated! Mwahahaha!
Now where haven't we heard that before? =P Well, it's been a month...
and I suppose some things happened here and there but nothing really
is worth mentioning 'cept for the usual... O_o Oh well, there are
a few things. I'll just randomly start with one that's most memorable.
So, it was exactly 7 days ago from
today when me and 2 friends, Leslie and Nhu, went canoeing. Yes,
canoeing!!! WOOOOT!!! Cat is actually doing something OUTDOORS!!
WOWOWOOWW!!! HOLY GOD!!! Anyway, it was damn fun!! ^__^!
Will so do it again!! It wasn't exactly the type of 'canoeing' I
had in mind, since it seems that no one had any idea what the image
I had in my mind was. I've canoed 2 or 3 times a few years back,
but I swear the 'thing' we ride on is tiny. It's like this... slim
surf board look-alike thing. It's so small you sit over it with
your legs sticking out over the sides, a third of your legs in
the water. I remember people calling it kayaking, but the kayaks
here don't look like it either, so er... I have no idea why. But
anyway, me and my friends rented one canoe and canoed together,
the three of us. The entire experience was so fun and funny at the
same time!!

It didn't take a few minutes before
we all got used to paddling and moving the canoe without unbalancing
it. However, I MUST say that we aren't good at keeping it going
in one direction. =P We just couldn't move forward only.
The way we paddle, the canoe goes forward in a meandering manner,
turning left and right and hitting grassy areas of the swamp, sometimes
even the banks. Hahaha!! I so can't forget how much I laughed at
our own performance. Pathetic, you may say, but I say it was so
fun, and FUNNY. =P
The water was very clean, and it
was very still too, great for beginners (for me, at least) like
us. The day started out somewhat cloudy, but when we started canoeing
at around noon, the sun came up behind the clouds, bit by bit. At
first it was not too warm, but in about 15 mins we could so feel
the heat. We stopped paddling for abit and just rested and chatted
and such. I dipped my feet into the water and OMG!!! It felt SOOO
GOOOOD!!! It wasn't too cold and it quickly cooled off my burning
feet. Wooo~~!! After that we continued our journey (LOL) into this
narrow creek where we bumped the canoe into the banks once every
30 seconds. Hahaha!
We kept going deeper into the creek,
and it actually felt really great cos' by then there were tall grasses,
rotting trees and such. =P It was the 'wilderness', the marsh area,
really. =P Lots of small flying insects (not gross tho'), and blue
dragonflies. I so wished we could keep going but er, at one point
(pic on the right above) there were too many obstacles (like fallen
logs) in the waters and we doubted we could go any further. So we
had no choice but to turn back where we came from and explore the
other side of this 'resevoir'.

This other side of the resevoir is
out and open. No trees, no nothing. Just us on the canoe, some motor
boats and the damn blue sky. It was FREAKING HOT!!! It felt like
a hint telling us it's time to go dip in the water. So we looked
around trying to find where there's a good shore that's shallow
enough. We found one that's cemented, meaning no mud and grass to
deal with. YES!! So we got offshore, pulled the canoe up and went
right in the water! Coolness~~!!! The water's not cold like it is
by the coast, so it was totally tolerable temperature and it felt
oh so great. =D Then we had a girls' talk and dipped around somemore
for about an hour or so.

Three hours. That was how long we
were out there canoeing and dipping. So fun ^_^ At around 3pm, we
decided to go back and return the canoe. Since we all shared the
canoe, we each only had to pay 1/3 of the price, which was really
worth it. After that, we went to Olive Garden for lunch, or dinner,
whatever you call a meal at around 4pm. =P Fun times, don't you
think, Leslie and Nhu? =P And oh, thanks to Nhu for these pictures.
Hope you don't mind I put up pictures with the two of you in it
too. =)
So, topic #1 is officially finished.
Next, I suppose I should just shortly mention that er... for the
first time in my life I'm working fulltime. Don't
ask me what type of work it is, but I'll just say at the moment
it's pretty simple and fun work, just nice for someone like me =)
I'm only given this work for 2 months, but they say they'll see
what they need for the following term. If I'm lucky who knows I
still get to keep the job. It feels so weird to not be able to call
myself a student anymore, really weird. It's the same as
not being able to call myself a kid. Being a kid is great... too
great. >_< Oh well, it is part of a human's 'ritual' (life)
to grow up, but er... sometimes it's nice to think/wish/hope ya
know...? ^_^" *Goes into hiding*
Ok next! (LOL) Back to games....
XP Don't hit me! It's just so wrong if I don't go back to this topic!
You should be doubting you're talking to CaT or that CaT is writing
this entry if nothing of games is mentioned at all! (LOL)
Anyway, I guess I should start with
Metal Gear Solid. I was playing MGS2, as most should have
known. I finished easy and normal mode, and then I actually started
hard mode. I mostly play games only on normal mode and once finished
I'll hardly ever touch the game again (except for DMC3 and RE4),
but MGS2 was pretty fun so I ended up TRYING to play hard mode.
I thought I was doing not too bad too, for someone who's SO bad
at the MGS series, but then I got stuck at this one point. It was
the Harrier battle (plane battle). I seriously just don't know what
to do. I didn't retry enough times on my part but I was quite annoyed
at it myself, so I decided to give up. Mwahahaha! Don't I rock.
=P It's just too annoying and sad to see myself get pummeled all
the time. I make Raiden look so bad. T__T
And then! After giving up MGS2 hard
mode, I went back to MGS3. =P I was finishing normal mode the last
time I played it but I stopped after the battle against The Fury.
I was hoping to replay that battle and beat him using the tranquilizer
gun but er, I got unmotivated, so I stopped. Even now, I'm STILL
too lazy to do that. So I just resumed from where I was and went
on with the game. It didn't take too long to finish the game since
I was near the end already, but I SOOO REMEMBER how ANNOYING it
was against THE BOSS (last boss). OMG!!! I know I just plainly suck,
but OMG!!! Becos' of that battle I SO hurt my right thumb! The skin
peeled off and it hurts!! >_<! GAAH!! Damn The Boss!! If she
weren't such a great character, a great woman, I'd so have screamed
"BITCH!!" at her.

THIS, is The Boss. That's
her codename, just in case anyone reading this doesn't know. She's
THE MOST respectable, also the COOLEST and the MOST KICK ASS, woman
character I've ever seen. Maybe some of you who have no idea would
mistake her for a man, since she looks quite manly after all, but
mind you, she is a woman with the heart of a mother. The
most honorable patriot that'll ever exist anywhere. =) She is very
strong (in combat skills) and SO kicks the ass of the game's protagonist.
Even the antagonist fears getting on her bad side. Wanna see a few
cutscenes of her kicking ass? Here you go:
1) Snake
meets The Boss (2nd time)
2) Snake
finished planting C3s
3) Snake
disguises as Major Ivan
I'd have recorded a footage of my
battle against her, but I suck so bad, it won't be fun to watch.
^_^" It'll be hard for you to see her clearly in battle anyway,
since she's very well blended with the environment. Oh well, maybe
next time =)
Next, I started, sort of, playing
Devil Kings (the US version of Sengoku Basara)
for a bit. I don't remember if I mentioned it in this blog before
but Devil Kings have a number of changes, mostly additions,
to the gameplay as compared to its Japanese version. Basically,
they added more moves, more depth and raised the difficulty level
up 3 notches. As someone who played the game starting with the Japanese
version, I can distinctively feel the difference in difficulty between
the 2 versions. The Japanese is ridiculously easy, while the English,
in my opinion, is way hard. In the Japanese version, it is even
possible to defeat a level in hard/extreme mode with a character
who's entirely un-leveled (LV 1). In the English version, it is
almost too hard to defeat a level in normal mode with a
character who's equally un-leveled.

Graphics and all look the same (duhz),
but the layout of things and some few graphics like the health bar,
font etc are different. I think the Japanese version looks a lot
more beautiful but in terms of gameplay, the English version is
probably more fun (so long you are cool with the difficulty). Most
of the English voices suck badly to the core, except for some few
characters who surprisingly sound all right. The picture on the
top left is Date Masamune, aka Azure Dragon in the English version,
and he's my top favorite character in the game. Luckily, he is one
of those whose voice is acceptable. (Phewz) Tyrone came to my place
that day I was playing this game. He knows more than me how unfair
this game can be. We tried playing normal mode with the characters
and everytime we do, we fail, wasting all that time gathering experience
only to lose it in the end. It's really annoying. It practically
forces you to start on easy mode if you want to survive the level
and actually GAIN the experience you earned. Problem with easy mode
is that you're only given 70% of the experience points earned. =_=
Cheap eh? I'm not planning to replay and finish this game. I only
played it cos' I wanted to see the new moves they gained that don't
exist in the Japanese version. I'd so record a few short footage
when I can. =)
Now, we get to the anime/manga part
of the topic. =) A few weeks back, I finally finished the DEATH
NOTE manga series. It was TERRIFICALLY AWESOME!!! ^__^!!! As
expected from the best series of anything I've ever seen!!!

For those who don't know what it's
about, I'll just write a short summary/introduction. Basically,
it's about this young Japanese boy, Raito, also a genius, who one
day found this so-called 'death note'. There are instructions on
how to use the death note inside it. It said "Anyone whose
name is written in this book shall die." Raito first thought
it was a joke, but out of curiosity, he tried it anyway and to his
surprise, he found out that it was for real. Having attained such
'power', Raito had a vision. He thought about what could happen
if he put the death note to use wisely. As a result, he ended up
using it to kill everyone he thought was bad or evil, to help rid
the world of useless and unwanted human beings so that he can create
the perfect world in the name of justice through this revolution.
Unfortunately for him, the police one day concluded that the surprising
number of deaths (caused by heart attacks) may be the act of a mass
murderer. This conclusion was brought about by one young detective/genius
who've been working with police forces all over the world, but had
never shown his real name nor face. Everyone calls him by his 'nickname'
- L. L tried to provoke this 'killer' (aka Kira/Raito) by announcing
his conclusion on TV news, and found out that Kira really could
kill people 'magically' when Raito killed off the guy in that TV
news program, thinking it was L himself. Since that day, the world's
an intelligence battle between 2 young geniuses, both fighting for
what they believe is justice.
This is a really short summary of
the story. I excluded a lot of pretty important facts to make it
short, or this summary will be way too long. I must say Death Note
is REALLY THE BEST story of anything I've ever heard/seen.
It's a suspense story, if you haven't noticed, also a psychological
thriller. There's a lot of reading to be done, since it goes deep
into analysis and stuff, but it's REALLY EXCITING. Those who've
not read it, I seriously think you should give it a try. If you
just hate reading, or if you hate trying to understand a complex
story, or if you just want all-out bish-bash action like Naruto
and Bleach, then don't read Death Note. But if you want what I call
a TRUELY WORTHY OF A REPUTATION storyline, I say read it. I know
some who said they got sick of it cos' it's boring. It's really
sad to hear that, but I respect people's preferences. If suspense
isn't your type, then don't bother. But otherwise, like I said,
no one should miss out on Death Note. It's a revolutionary manga
series. =)
From what I've read/heard/seen, Deathnote
is SO popular it's actually coming out with a movie (that's
altered here and there), an anime series (but of course), and even
a PS2 game. Here is the trailer
to the movie. It also summarizes the storyline as well.
As for anime, I actually watched
and finished this weird, weird anime called Princess Princess.
Not recommended, really, even to a yaoi fan, but er... =_= I don't
understand myself how I was able to actually keep watching, cos
I was weirded too O_o And then, I saw episode 15
and 16
to Ouran High School Host Club. I've got good and bad,
mixed feelings about it. =_= Episode 15 was great. Ultimately great.
It's currently my best favorite episode in the series. But then
episode 16 scared me. >_<!!! I WON'T be able to forgive Hikaru
(one of the twins) if he ever falls in love with Haruhi (the main
girl). I REALLY REALLY would be PISSED if the story goes in that
direction >_<!!! Damn..!!
Lastly, I started a new series recommended
to me by a friend. In fact, my sister's the one who first told me
about it but she said I prolly won't like it so I didn't try it.
But that very night, my friend told me she thought I'd like it so
I gave it a try, and hey, it's not bad after all =) That anime is
Saiunkoku Monogatari. The moment I heard my friend said
"The girl thought that the emperor is gay", I immediately
thought of Fushigi Yuugi. Hahaha! Great memories with that anime,
man. =P I've only seen 2 episodes so far, but it's all good =) I'm
gonna watch the rest that are available right after this. Damn,
you dunno how long it took me to update this blog entry!!! GAWRSSHH!!!
O_O!! |