A Slight Depress

I'll come clean and say I am feeling a little depressed today, the events (or lack thereof) is just so disheartening. Today is the day I leave the age of 24 behind forever, just so that I can embrace the cold, harsh reality that is 25. I mean I'm getting closer to AARP, Senior Discounts on Tuesdays and cheaper coffee. Even just a little support would be cool! It really, really would be...

Now I know I'm a little lacking in the social department and I don't have an army of friends or anything. That group is pretty small, ya know? Keep things in perspective like that. And me and family, I guess we ain't all that tight either to be honest. But I'm not a bad guy, I don't go out of my way to be an asshole to anyone. But is a phone call really too much to ask? Would a person go to Hell for all eternity for even contemplating the thought? I think I'd even kind of appreciate a "Happy birthday you son of a bitch, hope it's your last!"

It's cold, it's heartless to a degree and yet it isn't? I mean it's the little thoughts that count. I would at least appreciate the effort shown, like hey! Thanks for remembering to condemn me today...?

But no, that just wasn't in the cards for me.

Man, it's gotta be a sign that I must be fucking up somewhere in life. When you're own family doesn't even acknowledge your ass on the day you come screaming into this bloody world, even in the slightest, it is a sign.

The only people that actually remembered me was my girlfriend (it would be World War 3 if she forgot), my mom and a friend/co-worker. I know I can't hold it against my friends because they likely just don't even know. But family? Come on dude, it isn't like birthdays change days every year now. And I know I know way more then just 3 people and I couldn't have been that big an asshole to THAT many people, right? Well I guess I must have been and I don't even remember a damn thing of it! And I don't even drink either! How's them apples huh?

Oh well. Way to kick off the old/new two-five I suppose.

Jerks.

The Night Where the Xbox Almost Flew... (Round 293)

You know what pisses me off? Having spent hours, months and sometimes even years, on a game and in the end, losing all of that time because the save file goes bye-bye. Now I know this should not piss me off because this happened so many times to me during the SNES days with all those glorious RPGs of yesteryear, but this one still caught me... the dirty son of bitch.

So yesterday I was playing through the Horde (Gears of War 2) with my girlfriend and we were killing shit like normal. We went a few games, then we shut it off and went out a while. Now later that evening, we fire the game up again and I log in.

Now my favorite character to play is a guy named Tai (I call him the Crazy Polynesian Man), because this guy has some crazy shit to say. Anyway, we get to the Horde and I noticed something was missing: No Crazy Polynesian Man.

So after trying to load up the data a few times, I get the idea to go check the hard drive to see what was going on. Well... apparently the data under my gamertag was wiped and the only thing left was a save from back in November (when we got the game).

I kept all of the achivments, though the game does not recognize me having done any of them now. What pisses me off was my kill count (minor cheese I know) and match count were both reset. On top of that, it says I never even played through the entire campaign (which we finished).

Do I want to replay through the game again? Eh, no... not really. I was glad to get through it the last time and I was more then happy to never have to go through that again. So the idea of having to, just doesn't really appeal to me at this point. Perhaps in a few months, once the anger subsides and I lose the urge to either toss the whole thing in a anger little kid fit or I give in and trade in the whole mess and be done with it.

Yes, I tend to be a little overly impulsive when I get irritated/mad.

I'm just glad my Fable 2 game save was not lost or else that would easily be a cause for war...

Like a Duck...

I'll be totally honest here in saying that there are a great deal of things that irritate me in this life. I get irritate when someone walks too closely behind of me on the sidewalk. I get irritated when I try to cross the street and cars actually speed up to cut me off. But one of the things that irritates me to no end is when a person you talk to or try to contact, completely ignores you.

Imagine that feeling for a moment now. You see an old friend who you haven't seen in a good number of years and you shout out a hello. Now there is no doubt in your mind that the person heard you, heck, more then a few people to turn to see what or who is making suck a ruckus. Worst of all though, the person you called out to simply turns a blind eye and walks away.

Ouch?

See, in a different lifetime this would have pissed me off and I would probably be ranting and raving right about now. Okay, that might be slightly an exaggeration on my part. Rather then a lifetime, maybe a few years back might be a bit fairer to say. A couple of years back and I would definitely be taking this thing entirely the wrong way.

But I get it now, I understand that this is the way of things and the way of life. Having memories of a friend from nearly ten years ago is truly a lifetime worth of difference. People change, friendships end and slowly, yet surely that old life is severed forever.

Maybe it works a little differently for someone like me, who's friends are so very few and far between. I make it no secret that I don't "make and keep" friends all that easily. I'm hardly that outgoing, though I do try to be more outgoing these days.

In years past, I did try to reconnect to a number of people (mostly people I used to go to school with) and ultimately it all failed to work out.

Another thing that I understand is that a lot of people I knew are on a completely different track in life, compared to me. And I suppose the differences are simply just too great for anything to ever work out.

But getting back on subject here, I think what makes me try and reconnect with this particular friend is because the last time I had ever spoken to her (more like wrote), I was probably only sixteen years old back then and I guess things didn't end up quite that friendly.

Perhaps there is a grudge from back then? Doubtful, but entirely possible all the same. Again though, it is impossible for me to know that unless the person in question actually talks back right?

Wow, the more I think back about it, the more I understand how things wouldn't be the same. It's been a very long road for me since those days, I can say that much for myself. And I wouldn't doubt for a second that that much can be said for my friend in question. Hell, that can be said for everyone that has ever lived I suppose! What?! I am a little slow on certain aspects...

Anyhow, rather then being bent out of shape about not getting into contact with yet another "old friend," I'll simple let it roll off of me like water rolls off of a duck's back. What more can I possibly do?

After giving this all some thought though, in the subsequent years ahead... I wonder what my thoughts will be of these days? Haha... I was about to break my own rule about thinking too far ahead into the future. I mean don't get me wrong, it is nice to have a plan sometimes. But living a life like I do, it certainly serves better then keep focused on the road ahead rather then merely focusing your eyes onto the horizon.

Besides, looking into the horizon will make you blind. All that sun, you know?

Bored Beyond That Which is Bordom

Tonight is just one of those nights where nothing can cure the mundane. Everything is just dragging itself along and I'm stuck on this runaway train of boring. I've tried to do everything I could, from cleaning up around the house, played a few video games and I've been trying to watch some series, such as Fullmetal Alchemist and Weeds.

The games usually are a surefire win in this respect, but today it simply was not. I've lost so much interest in Halo Wars, for example, that I'm finding it to be a lot more boring then it is fun. Sad, considering how hyped up I was over this.

Same goes for Street Fighter 4, which I've finally got tired of being beaten into the ground for the 157,500th time.

Despite some effort, I just can't get into Resident Evil 5. And considering the last time I ever played a Resident Evil game was back when part 2 was still new, I suppose that just isn't my "cup of tea."

I've finally gotten the entire series of Fullmetal Alchemist, which has been a minor goal for me for the past few years. I wanted to rewatch a few favorite episodes, such as when Maes Hughes is killed. Even now, I still find that part of the story to be just outright sad. Probably even more so during the funeral, where is little daughter is crying and asking aloud about why they were burying her daddy.

The Flame Alchemist episode was/is awesome too... poor Havoc, he'll never surpass Mustang as far as having luck with women.

Last thought: Black Hayate rules!

Stranger Days

Now I've listened to quite a few bands on Myspace and some were pretty okay. But to be honest, none of them really stood out all that much to me.

Well that all changed for me a few days ago, when I happened upon a band called "Stranger Days." What initially drew my attention to this band was the fact that their lead singer is/was Kristin Holt (now going by the name of Kristin Adams, pictured to the left), of G4's Cheats fame.

The first time I read that, I just thought nothing of it and chalked it up as yet another band that is just out there. You know the type, the kind who's music you generally couldn't give a shit about.

But after listening to several of their songs (Welcome and Nowhere Love are favorites of mine already), my opinion of them has changed so very much.

Only disappointing thing right now is they do not have any CDs out. I'd love to get a few of these songs for my poor MP3 player. I say poor because it is a Microsoft product and those blasted things just know how to just not work right... EVER. But that's another story for another time for sure.

Anyway, I am happy to finally hear a new band that I am actually anticipating a CD release of. Whenever that might be...

What? Where?!

I know I think (self-contradiction?) I wrote about this little ditty I'm about to write about before, but I feel compelled to mention it all over again. I mean, what if I didn't you know? I could be passing up literary gold here for all I know.

As I was working tonight, a simple little thought came into my head: Where in the hell is the time going in such a bloody hurry? I swear it was just December yesterday, then January popped up not long after that and then BAM!! There goes February like a speeding bullet and March is gone like a bat outta hell...

The thought that scares me even more then that is the fact that it has been almost ten years since I graduated from high school!! Ten whole frikkin' years!!! I know I sort of freak out every time I think about it and tonight was no different!

There must be some kind of explanation for all of this! Am I losing my mind? Am I?? Did I miss something in school about how time just starts to pick up speed and just does not let up on the throttle? Next thing I'll know, I'll be an old man already!

With my mind going off into a time panic, my brain started to remember some things from back in the day. God, my grandparents have been gone for so long already...

It isn't all that easy for me to walk through the downtown area. When I was a kid, my grandparents would walk from my uncle's condo, down to Fort Street Mall. Back then, I used to think the walk was the longest walk I had ever taken. These days, eh... minor...

Even crossing the street by Nordstrom brings back memories for me about my grandparents. Here comes yet another story from back in my kid days...

We (myself and my grandparents) were walking across the street with my grandpa in the front and me in the back with my grandma. Well as luck would have it, my grandma took a spill in the middle of the crosswalk. Did my grandpa stop to help her up? Nope! He was so focused on walking that he got across and was a fair distance away before he realized we weren't following (would you believe that NO ONE that passed my fallen grandma, stopped to even bother to check if she was OK?).

And yet another story! This story actually took place in Kona, but thinking about her trip up in Oahu always reminds me of this one.

During the few years of my grandma's life, she had to go to the hospital more and more frequently. Well on one particular occasion, she wasn't feeling all that great and so my mom advised her to make the trip up to the hospital to check things out.

So while they are preparing to leave, my mom and myself decide to take a ride over there to make sure everything was OK. Well as we were pulling in, there is my grandpa in the car, driving away. And WHO emerges from the darkness of the night?

My poor grandma.

Luckily, we got her in our car and we sort of tailed my grandpa up to the hospital. Needless to say, I just wish I had a picture of the expression on his face when he parked the car and took a look at the backseat, only then did he realize that something or someone was missing!

But my grandpa was cool and much, much more knowledgeable then I could have ever imagined. If it weren't for him, I may not have gotten my driver's license when I did. It was one of those rare moments where he imparted to me a small slice of knowledge. Basically he said why wait? We can go and get it now and you won't have to worry about it later.

Heh, my parents were quite surprised to learn that I had gotten my license without them. On the flip side, the price of him taking me down to get my license was that I had to drive him to the grocery store at least once and week and take him to get his hair cut every now and then. That was price I gladly paid because that time spent with him gave me a much better understanding of the man I had originally grown up fearing!

And I'll never forget his last birthday party, man was it something else! It was sad too, however, because by this time he was suffering from what is called "Sun Downers" (I have no idea of what the official name of it is), which basically means when the sun begins to set, his mind gets all weird. He would get confused and it was just a mess...

But that night, oh that night he was entirely himself the whole way through. Hell, he even drank a few beers and sang a Japanese song, as well as a Hawaiian song too! Most of the people in attendance (myself included) had never heard him sing before, much less knew he could sing Hawaiian songs!

Thinking back to those days does make me sad in a way, just because of the fact that I feel a small tug of regret. I know I shouldn't, because there is nothing I can do to change what has already come and gone. But I do wish I spent more time, asked a few more questions and just...

Yeah.

It is a uncomfortable feeling to experience, to lose a loved one you'd never think would ever not be there. The world gets a little quieter, life gets a little sadder. And all a person has left are the memories.


I think with my grandma, what I miss the most was being her Majong partner or her Paiute partner or even her Hanafuda partner. She taught me how to play so she could take me with her and I'd fill in when she played with her friends and they were short a player. Then there were days when we'd play cards at their house and she'd bring out a jar of pennies, to use for betting. What I didn't know back then was we were just playing and I wasn't suppose to take the coins!

Going even further back in time, hell she was a grandma like no other. She would actually want to go to places like Fun Factory. And she'd play and we would all (all of us grand kids) would end up fighting with her over the prizes. The same went for McDonalds Happy Meal toys. If she wanted it, man... it was going to be a long day!

With my grandpa, I'd have to say it was taking him grocery shopping for the first time. For all the years, my grandma had done the shopping for him. But here he was, in the grocery store to face the perils alone.

Let me tell you this: That man shopped like no other! I believe he racked up a $100+ bill, I mean he went to town in there! I almost thought he was stocking up for a few months in advance or something. What was cool was over the months that followed, he began to change his ways and I think then he realized why my grandma always kept the sale ads all the time.

The funny part of all this grocery shopping with him was how he'd asked. He would never, ever ask me directly. Instead, he'd show up at our house (we were next door neighbors) and tell either my mom, step dad or both of them, he need something or another. That was the signal: He needed to take a trip to the store.

Wow, a thousand apologizes... I wasn't expecting to write this much. I guess I am thinking a whole lot more then I realized. In a way, I think the main reason why I never got home sick was because home was far, far away from my mind when I moved out. The only thing that really broke my heart was hearing about how my grandpa's condition was only getting worse as the months drew on.

But I don't think anything could have compared to the pain in that man's heart, after losing his wife of over 50 years. While he never showed it to the world, I heard from my mom how heartbroken he was after her passing. It was so much so that he didn't even want to take the framed pictures of he and my grandma together.

The morning she passed away was the very first time I had ever seen my grandpa kiss my grandma. Just by witnessing that, along with the pain on his face and the sorrow in his eyes, convinced me that day that I may never know what love truly is. That was real and unlike a lot of marriages and relationships today, that was truly meant for a lifetime.

Olivia Munn and Pie Diving...?

I have no idea how old this video actually is, but I will say this about "Attack of the Show." Of all the times I've ever watched the show, why did it never have anything really that interesting? I guess they do some strange things on the show since the last time I ever seen it.

Still, when you come across a video of a pair of television hosts (both in French maid outfits no less) jumping into a giant pie... well... it was interesting to me okay?! I am easily entertained and I dare admit I might have laughed a little. Don't judge me!

Restless in Hawaii

It is a strange thing, to have ended up writing out so many blogs last month. Even stranger still, as soon as March rolls in, my brain goes damn near completely blank on me.

It's been a stressful few weeks for me and so I guess that could easily attribute to my lack of motivation these days. I've come to the point where the video games don't cut it and I just sit around in my apartment feeling pretty restless.

Maybe it is just a lot of pent up energy from the day or maybe I am in need of change here. Personal life itself isn't bad, but rather my so called "professional" one is.

Believe me when I write this, but I would love to make some major changes. For me though, the hardest thing now is I would rather try and devote my energy to a workplace and a company that I know I can make a difference with. I know, stupid way to think when the person thinking this stuff up doesn't have a college education to back that shit up with. Still though, I can't help but to believe that I am going down a path of a lot of disappointment.

But this is a matter for another day, perhaps a time when my mind is a little clearer. I've come to understand the truth in not rushing into something without at least giving the matter a thought or two. Much better then my high school days anyway...

I was browsing around the internet tonight and I came across some pretty cool Street Fighter art. Pictured above is Chun-Li, which I thought looked damn good. Makes me wish I had some sort of natural art talent.

Only other thing I've done today worth noting about is watching the movie "Role Models." Funny, funny shit there folks. Why I missed this one in theaters is beyond me, which makes me wonder how that Mall cop movie was. Hmm....

Something Different

Quick writing today/this morning because I gotta get more sleep because today is going to be a long one!

I just downloaded the newly released "Crystal Defenders" game and it is kicking my ass! I wish I could say otherwise, but I won't lie like that. I'll tell it like it is! My ass is getting kicked all over the damn place!

From playing the demo and even after several rounds, I thought this game was just a easy time killer. You know the type, a game that just isn't really that serious and its only purpose for existing is just to help pass the time. But how wrong was I?! This game takes more brains then I expected and it has proven so time and again.

I mean the objective is to protect your crystals (you start with 20) from lines of monsters that walk through the map. They don't do any attacking, only your people can do that part. Sounds so simple huh?

Looks can be deceiving.

And experimenting with the other two modes (same game, tougher monsters and a few different job classes to choose from) just made me realize that things are definitely not what I thought.

I think my favorite job of the mix is easily the Fencer, which in my short time of utilizing them, they proved to be monsters on the battlefield!

On an unrelated note, we just picked up our first Wii game in over 6 months. It isn't even a new game really, but how could we pass up the chance to get Pikmin again?

Rented both Resident Evil 5 and Star Ocean: The Last Hope, in hopes that I could find another good game to play through. And while I haven't played Resident Evil 5 yet, I did put a very nominal effort into Star Ocean.

My thoughts? The game gives me a headache and this is only after 30 minutes of play! What bothers me so much is the camera system, which just goes all over. Now I'm hoping that maybe I missed an option somewhere that will allow me to keep that damn camera bouncing off of the walls and going ballistic whenever I pass through a doorway.

The voice acting is another thing that irritated me early on, I mean the voices just don't match. I mean the main character looks like a 13 year old kid and here he is, sporting a voice of a older guy. A little creepy? Oh yes.

Oh, right, maybe the kid hit puberty a little early? Or maybe it just goes along with the fact that his name is Edge Maverick?! What the... did Square-Enix run out of names? Or are they hording them all for future Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest and Kingdom Hearts games?

Anyway, I think I'm going to put in a little more time with it, just to see if it really does induce headaches. Maybe I am wrong and it'll turn out to be one of the greatest games ever convinced in the history of humanity. We'll see...

Here We Go...

I'm happy to have finally finished off Fable 2, which has been a game I've been wanting to finish up for a while now. I guess I could have actually finished it back in December, but I didn't because of the random side quests and real estate mumbo jumbo I was trying to get done. But that's all in the past now and so after finishing off Fable 2 (finally), I am looking ahead to see what's next.

And all I see in front of me now is Halo Wars, which is getting released today.

What gets me excited about it is the fact that I actually enjoyed playing this much more then I did Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3. Sure I've read that Halo Wars wouldn't be quite the same as the standard RTS game, but again, basing off of what I've played in the demo, I'm liking it.

Then again, there are still many other games which I need to finish which include: Blue Dragon, Assassin's Creed, Prince of Persia (not so sure about this one now), Mirror's Edge and Street Fighter 4.

I'm not so sure about SF4 anymore and I definitely do not have the same enthusiasm towards it as I did a few weeks ago. Maybe it was getting beaten repeatedly by cheap AI? Or maybe it was getting beaten repeatedly by cheap players? Hmmm...

But I digress, I will admit outright that I'm not world class Street Fighter like a number of people I know personally. And I can't be too bitter, because I've won a fight or two online, so it wasn't like I was curb stomped like a screaming Locust. I suppose at the end of the day, I am just a casual gamer in regards to fighting games.