A snapshot of impending doom

There is nowhere to run.


I've been playing Perfect Cherry Blossom for a while now and I have to say, THE BULLETS ARE EVERYWHERE. This game is ridiculously difficult. The cool things about it are the amazing background music and the awesome and pretty bullet patterns used. It's an excellent game to play when you want to take a 5-10min break because chances are you'll be dead in a minute or two. But do not despair! At least you were taken down by a colorful Sine/Cosine Wave!

Sadly, the witch character in the game sux. The shrine maiden is ok. The maid is FRIGGIN awesome.

gambit system is overhyped!

I've been reading an article in RPGfan.com about FFXII's gambit system. As some of you know, FFXII is NOT in the list of my "top tier" RPG's and i feel that its gambit system is one of the most overrated "innovations" in RPG history.

Here are some things that I would like to point out:

1.) The gambit system creates a DECENT ai. They didn't really make something spectacular, it's just that the AI that controls your party members in other games are a LOT more stupid. I mean, come on..... I want an AI that heals me when i have low hp, use the correct status spells/items, revive me when i get KO'ed. Is that really too much to ask? O_o I'm no programmer, but that sounds REALLY easy to code. Oh, btw, Tales of the Abyss's A.I. is also good. Looks like the gambit system isn't the only decent AI out there.

2.) AI's are more suitable in fast paced (and thus non turnbased) battles where every character is constanty beating something up, or casting something, or is dead. You need AI's because you wont be able to control the characters all at once. Now, in FFXII, it's just a modifed version of the active-time-bar system that is set in active-mode. They could've just turned it into menu based battles and the result will be pretty much the same.

3.) BUT BUT, GAMBIT SYSTEM + NO LOADING SCREENS FOR RANDOM BATTLES = HUGH TIMESAVER!! I dunno, there's just something boring about FFXII's battles. I think it's the combination of boring attack animations, boring casting animations (except for the FEW tiems you use summons/quickenngs, those look cool), repetitve casting of your buffs when you're walking around, and your incredibly boring characters. Oh, about the attack animations, i'm not saying that they need uber-cool moves like in Star Ocean or something, it's just that there's no FLAIR in the way they attack. I mean, they just SWING their swords. After 60 hours of just *watching*, things get pretty boring. Personally, if they wanted to eliminate the loading screens, i would've preferred a Crono Trigger type of system rather than the gambit system for FFXII.

4.) Why in the world should gambits be bought anyway? I mean, can't i just tell balthier: Hey dude, Heal me when my HP is 1/2? or Give me an antidote when i turn purple ok? Noooooo..... Apparently, there's some kind of complex instruction manual on how to do that and you have to buy them for X gil. And why the hell is there 10-line cap in gambits? Me so sorry... You give me too many commands to follow duuuuuuuuuuuh....

5.) What makes the game even more boring is the sucky cast of characters that you have. Balthier is the only person in your group that has ATTITUDE. The others are like BLAH. And what's more? In terms of combat ability, there's pretty much NO difference between the members of your party because of the god-awful license board. The license board has got to be the most retarded invention in the FF series. That or FF8's draw system. In the end, unless you want to use crappy bows, uber-slow guns, or half-baked lances, everybody will probably be equipping swords and hacking away at enemies. And all of them can cast Curaga.

6.) And don't get me even started with the story...

But then again, FFXII's graphix pretty much trumps any flaws it has in the gameplay department. So i'll still give it a high rating XD

Just Looking P#$%T@!

I'm a curious fellow.

For a while now, I've noticed that Clear shampoo is advertising like crazy. I hear ads of it on the radio everytime i fetch my sister from work, twice or more times. I see posters of it splattered in the supermarket across my home. I assume there are TV commercials of it too though i dont watch local channels very often. Wanting to somewhat apply the lessons of marketing that I learned during my college days, I guess the ME part of me was wondering what company is responsible for such a blitz marketing strategy. No. There's no such term. But i want to use it because the word BLITZ sounds cool. Blitz Blitz Bliltz.

Blitz!

So anyway, I was in the Peoplesoft Mercury Drugstore earlier today and those Clear Anti Dandruff shampoos were being sold there. At last to satisfy my curiousity, i picked one up and looked at the back of the bottle to see who was behind the BLITZ marketing. Then, out of nowhere, this ninja Clear promotion saleslday appeared out of nowhere and kept giving me free samples.

Jahe dudes. Sarap hiritin: "MISS, WALA AKO DANDRUFF, OK? Tumitingin lang ako dito." Throw in a couple of expletives in that sentence too.. Oh well, Of course i didnt say that though, so ended up taking that damn sample. Since the store was pretty small, a bunch of people was looking my way as the saleslady was ENTHUSIASTICALLY explaining why Clear was the better Anti Dandruff Shampoo brand. I bet they were probably thinking.. YUCK DANDRUFF.

Badtrip! X_X

Btw, Clear is a Unilever product. So I blame them for this incident!
DAMN YOU UNILEVER! GO P&G!!!

Nothing Happened

That's a headline I want to see on a newspaper someday.

No newspaper today, coz it's independence day.

I was wondering what will happen if one day, everybody woke up and did nothing besides the ordinary. Everything they did during the day had no impact whatsoever on the fate of mankind. They just walked around, went to work, had a few donuts or so, went home, and watched a little television before going to sleep. The more interesting people, say politicians, you know, people who regularly appear on the papers, worked on laws that people really don't care about. Perhaps they just discussed what the national flower should really be the entire day (which, at the end of the day, they agreed it to be sampaguita).

Nada. Nothing to write about for that day. The newspaper the following morning will read: NOTHING HAPPENED. Instead of the Inquirer being like 50 pages long, it'll just be 2 pages. One is the headlines, consisting of the "NOTHING HAPPENED" line, and blank space below it. The second page will be the comics section. Probably a few sudoku puzzles here and there.

Well, I rambled on for a few paragraphs. Who would've thought writing about nothing can go on for quite a few lines. I just wasted a couple of minutes of your day. Precious seconds you can never have back. Mwahahaha >:)

That's all. Everybody have a great weak. GO MIAMI! MIAMI IN 6!!

Things I Suck At

Sure, no one is perfect. That's the pre-existence character building rule that we filled up before we were born. We each were given a piece of paper, with a list of skills and abilities in it, and were told to pick X number of skills which we will excel at, Y number of skills which we will suck at, and for the rest of the skills, we will pretty much have an average level of competence (up to two standard deviations from the norm). Unfortunately, at that time, we have yet to comprehend the significance of, oh say, LVL10 mastery of financial markets. Instead, we skipped this skill and opted to get the slightly less important skill "can lick my elbows".

Anyway, one of the things that I totally suck at is drawing. Ever since around grade 3 or so, I never attempted to draw, or doodle, or whatever. I pretty much survived the remaining art projects of my high school days by having my artist friends doodle stuff for me. THe one time in HS that I was forced to make a comic book (for an eco class), I drew stick figures. OH yeah! High art! Suffice to say, I am the worst draw-er in class. Oh wait, hindi pala. One of my friends is even worse than me (hellhound boy),while ryan and I have pretty much equal levels of drawing "skill". *sigh* And I really want to draw X_X;; Kaingit domon. Pro!

Another thing i suck at? Swimming. Well, you all know that story. Right, tops? :D

Burger

Buena Bonita burgers creep me out.

Don't get me wrong, I had eaten their burgers a couple of months ago at the gilmore LRT2 station and they were delicious (then again, I was stark raving hungry that time though). Plus, the aroma when they cook the burgers just makes me drool... Mmmm...

What creeps me out is the price. 22 pesos for 2 burgers (Buy 1 take 1). That's pretty darn cheap. It really makes me wonder if there's a catch somewhere... Those ARE still beef patties right? o.O;;

Sorry, nothing much to talk about aside from the 448php haircut which most of you already know about. Damn sneaky barbershop! X_X

The Day Jet Li Almost Died Twice (in movies)

At last, after weeks of anticipation, I finally got to watch Fearless. This post contains major spoilers in the plot so I advice anyone who hasn't watched it to stop reading if they do not wish to know the said spoilers. But then again, there wasn't much of a plot anyway... Just punches and kicks!

The movie started out great. At the beginning, there were some chinese text to briefly explain the historical background of the movie (which was lacking subtitles, so a rough translation of it probably was.. Jet Li kicks ass). Then after that, BAKBAKAN agad! Out of nowhere, BAM! Everybody started fighting.. There were already 3 different fights barely 15 minutes into the film. I thought, man, this is going to be a great movie. Then disappointment.

Jet Li was a really bad guy in this movie (for the 1st half of the movie anyway). I want an ordinary movie with a stereotypical hero who beats the crap out of goons and thugs. Damnit, Jet Li should be a good guy! He had a change of heart at the 2nd half of the movie though. But still, I can't imagine Wong Fei Hung being a bad guy ><

Which brings me to my second rant... the transition from evil-li to good-li takes place in a farm. There's like 20 minutes of farming scenes in it. BORING! If I was the director of the flick, the village will be attacked by bears, then Jet li fights em barehanded (while the bears fight Jet Li bearhanded). Ah puns. Sorry =P

Lastly, he dies in the end. I was like, WTF?!? Kabo said it was predictable. But damn, this guy punches holes on concrete walls! How CAN he die?!? By one of the lamest way possible, Poison. You would think these kungfu masters have learned their lesson already. I mean 80% of kungfu masters had been poisoned.. It's one of the staples of kungfu flick: The really strong and unbeatable master dies by poison. But do they bring their own darn bottled water to fights? Nope! House tea lang palagi. ><;;

But still, all in all, it was a great movie. It's not a typical brainless fight flick. There's some pretty ummm "profound" moments in there including a conversation on the similarities of tea drinking and life or whatever. It has a half decent plot, although not entirely unique. I give it a 9/10.

So there. Jet Li dies in Fearless. (Death #1)

When I got back home, I watched a movie I downloaded, Fist of Legend. This is another Jet Li flick. (Yes, I'm bored). He needs to redeem himself by kicking more asses. Then as the movie nears the end, bang! They kill Jet Li again! Nooooooo......... Everything is going horribly wrong for the kungfu master today. But good thing his death was fake and was used to deceive the Japanese. Hurray! He survives. So there. It's now nearly 3am and I'm off to sleep.