MGS4

So I got it and finished it. Too easy. Wasn't really a fan of the whole over the shoulder shooting. Wasn't a fan of the whole constantly changing location. Wasn't a fan of pretty much ditching all the classic gameplay mechanics. Wasn't a fan of a lot of things. Don't get me wrong though, great game, just I was hoping for a little bit more from a metal gear solid game. In the past games playing was the awesome part, the cutscenes were just fun ways to advance the story. This game just felt like playing a movie. It was fun, I enjoyed the movie quite a bit, but I went in wanting to play an awesome game, so I'm coming out a bit disappointed. But it wrapped up the series fantastically, threw in quite a bit of nostalgia for the old games, and yes, the cutscenes were absolutely top notch. It is kind of amazing how crazy the ps3 graphics are. So now it is on to valkyria chronicles. Another $60 down the drain. Bah but what's money anyway, can't enjoy it unless you spend it. So far after this small sample size of gameplaying on the ps3, I'm saying the games are way to easy. I'm beating them way too fast. It's expensive to beat games too fast. Need a rpg. Something that's a time drain. If wort comes to worst I'll just get Disgaea 3, that is basically guaranteed to be a epic time drain, right? But yea, metal gear solid 4 was a good game, didn't feel like a mgs game, but still very fun nonetheless.

I Have HD Games!

So yes I have a ps3. Came in the mail yesterday, went and got resistance/HD cables today. HD gaming is amazing, resistance...not so much. It was fun at first, but just boring after a while. Now I'm questioning why I bought this game. I've always hated these generic fps games, why'd I go buy one now. Eh well I tried it out, learned I still don like these kind of formulaic game. Seriously there's just such little creativity in this game, story is pretty uninteresting, levels are decent to look at but nothing really special, I dunno just feels like another crappy mass produced war game. What really is fun is the guns. That gun that shoots bouncing bullets is so crazy. Man the spiky grenade is awesome fun too. Fucking sucks, doesn't ever hit shit, but it cracks me up for some reason. But yea, happy I have the hardware, even if the software is lacking at the moment. Figure I'll go get metal gear solid 4 after christmas. Or maybe I'll get bored tomorrow an get it. Who knows. I tell ya what though, sweet to have a bluray now. Can't wait to watch one, should be quite neat.

YES

teix gone?! if that is actually true, that makes the outlook for this season infinitely better. we might even get away with sticking crosby out there everyday now. who will tehy stick at first now you think. that article kinda speculates they might go after dunn. that would suck, but at least that means he probably playing in the field? vlad is basically their DH now right? well one of them is gonna be in the field, which is positive for us. hopefully they just dont sign dunn, actually. Wonder what moves the A's will make now. man i cannot wait for this season to start.

Scatter

Kind of a weird break so far. Been eating a ton. Like a ton a ton. It hurts almost. We had/did mochitsuki saturday, was alright. Hadn't realized, I hadn't been in two years, since we didn't do it the year grandpa died, and I guess I had finals at the time last year. Yea so that was alright, didn't really do much, but whatever. Now I'm back home, bored, stuffed, frantically playing all my games. Tryna beat them as fast as possible so I have no choice but to go buy a ps3. I'm seriously jealous of seg right now. He's totally doin the kind of trip I've promised myself I'd do when I hit my 20's or so. He's got the whole bike thing going tho, that's a little more romantic than I'm goin for. I just wanna dissapear into a foreign country for a while. Someday though. You're only young for so long right? Guh being old seems shitty. I may not be enjoying my youth, but at least I'm enjoying being young. that counts for somthing right? prbly not. disgaea is a really good game, guys. It actaully makes me chuckle even, though I enjoy childish humor like this. and seriously, its fucking endless. I've logged 60 hours and I'm nowhere near feeling accomplished. You really could play this game til you die. speaking of long legnths of time, I seriously need to shave. This happens often. I get home, stop caring, and before I know it I've got a beard. Shavings got to be up there as one of my least favorite regular things to do. its boring, its tedious, its vain, and shit its flat out dangerous. god nearly 430 now. I stay up way to late. now that im home ud think I would go to sleep earlier. Nope, bout the same time still. except since i have zero obligations i just sleep in til like 3. its not good really. heres somthing, im actually kind of excited for my sister comming home in like a week or so. havent seen her in quite a while. a year i guess, last christmas was the last time i guess. man can you imagine? what will it be like when im finally independent? will i only see my family at christmas time an such? hah fuck that would be wonderful. i always seem to be pondering the future. i think its my greatest downfall. im always thinking of the future, it makes the present hard. thinking of the present sucks tho, just makes you depressed. that unknown factor of the future makes it worthwhile to ponder. obviously the future always turns out to be shit too, but if delude yourself into thinking it might be better it makes things more fun. see what im doing here? im stalling going to bed. i don even know why. i just hate sleeping at home for some reason. something abou this place makes me want to stay up all night doing nothing. the cat does all the sleeping for me. shit it rained all day today, so the cat hasnt moved. he got up from the couch once when i fed him dinner. he knows how to live for sure. ill wrap this up here. ran out of stray thoughts. i really wish it were baseball season. im just way to fucking bored.

ps3

Sooo...I want a ps3. I started this post with the intention of writing about the winter meetings, but I realized I don't care that much about the deals right now. Yea they're interesting, but I've got no real opinions on them. What I find myself continually obsessing over is that shiny overpriced piece of machinery with the ungodly graphics.

So enter christmas time, where money comes in from multiple directions, and the lust for new gadgets is at its peak. As of this moment of typing, I'm leaning ever so slightly towards getting one this break. Honestly, I blame nintendo. What the hell happened, there's like nothing out for wii. Was so fucking spectacular that first year or so, but now it's just gimmick shit like wii music or rock band spinoffs or whatever it is they make. I think I've got one upcoming wii game on my radar (muramasa), and thas about it. So yea, depending on the level of boredom I reach, my sights are set on that damn ps3.

Alrite here's the truth, seg sent me this link, and now I can't stop thinking about how fucking awesome FFXIII is gonna be and how fucking badly I need that stupid machine. Can you blame me? That trailer is fucking awesome! Some of that is actual gameplay! WTF right?! God being a game nerd sucks, I am completely ruled by these damn companies. Well in 12 hours I'll be home, and maybe being home and finally being able to play my currently existing games will quell these ps3 thoughts. College is fucking torture man. I always told myself I'd do nothing but play games in college, o how naive I surely was.

DONE

Done with first quarter of my 2nd year. Feels so good. It wasn't my best quarter academically, but for some reason it feels like my most accomplished. It feels like I searched for my limit, but I didn't find it. It's one of the most exhilarating feelings I've ever had. Seriously my confidence is at an all time high, I'm starting to wonder how far I can actually go. My confidence before was always defiance, I couldn't accept that I was dumber than others. Right now, I feel more interested in what my abilities actually are, I'm tired of using others as measuring sticks. It's time I started guiding where my life leads. It won't happen instantly, but I really do feel like I've hit a significant turn. I could be completely wrong, I may just be imagining things, but at this moment it doesn't feel that way, so I'm gonna enjoy this while is persists.

Yay

Hohoho. Guess who beasted their history final. Felt very good about it. Answered everything quite thoroughly, and even the ones I didn't know I elegantly talked around. beasted the map portion, I memorized way too many islands that she didn't even bother putting on. The essay Q's were my biggest weakness, cause there was one I just straight didn't study, but I lucked out as the two that were my strongest turned out to be the ones on the test. All in all a very happy Mikio right now. Very happy. Haven't been this happy in a good long time. I've got to say the end of this quarter has been the best of my time at college so far. It's had the ups and downs, but a flurry of ups at the end here, an they've been good ones.

Dream

I had a nightmare last night. Seriously, its been a while since I had one. I was in my history final, and when I looked down at the paper I realized I only knew one answer on the whole test. It was completely demoralizing. I woke up feeling horrible, and then realized I've got all of today and tomorrow afternoon to cram still, you wouldn't believe the relief I felt. But what makes me the saddest about this, I actually dreamed about a poor result on an exam. That's fucking Hermione status dude. I know I'm a nerd an all but shit, this embarrasses me even. Yea, I make myself sad sometimes. On a happier note, winter meetings (i think) start tomorrow. Should be fun, hopefully doesn't destroy my studies. Yea it pretty much will destroy my studies, but hey, maybe as a result I'll dream about baseball instead. Yea I need winter break like no other...

Learn

So I'm failing. Failing at school, failing at life. I often look to the sky, open my mouth wide, and let out a shout of frustration...in my head only of course. Mostly it's just a heavy sigh towards the heavens. It makes me feel better for some reason, reminds me how small I am in this world, how little what happens to me actually matters. But I've hit a really awkward place in my life. Yea I feel like a failure, but I almost feel as if I am starting to learn from this constant failure. Cliche right? It's what it feels like though, maybe I actually am growing up. I dunno I look at some people who are like only a year older than me and I can't help but think, "goddamnit. so mature, so cool, what the fuck am i." That's right I think in all lower case. But seriously it irks me, I want to be that mature person so bad, someone who's comfortable in their own skin, someone who can be that comfortable self around others. But I do feel like I am slowly picking myself up. It's kind of like I spent my entire youth digging myself a huge hole, and somehow by randomly flailing around I've managed to find what I percieve to be as up. I could be fooling myself, it could just be straight downwards, but it feels like very slow progress. But so here's the weird part, what drove me to post this in the first place. This kind of progress I've been searching for for years now, it should make me happy or excited or somthing. But it just makes me sad right now. Maybe sad isn't the right word, it's more like regret or somthing. I should have got all this out of the way in my youth. I should have filtered all these problems out earlier in life so that I could fully enjoy who I am now. Maybe I'm just overrly emotional from no sleep last night. Don't ya just love take home finals. Shit was so hard, got to sleep at 6. History on monday, japanese on tuesday, hoping for home on wednesday. I must say this quarter has had it's ups and downs for sure. Problem is the downs felt eternal and the ups were ephemeral(totally my favorite word these days). But fuck it i'll take it, any kind of up is positive. For now I really should shelve my thoughts and study. Someday i'll laugh at myself for these kinds of posts, for now i'll just...i dunno...go be gloomy in a corner or somthing.

titles are starting to bug me

Holy crap man this final is hard. No mercy, just throw all the toughest things out here at us. I guess it's what I should have expected though. I have section for this class in about 40 minutes, but I don't know if there will be class or not since all we have to do is the final, and I'm wondering here if they are willing to answer questions we have about it. I don't really questions though, not yet at least. For the record, I hate semantics. It's pretty much the lamest/most pointless thing ever. I hope syntax is more interesting.

On to baseball. Pedroia signed a cheapy extension. I dunno what he's thinking, Boston has money to hand out, might as well take it. Giants signed renteria, at first I was skeptical about it but I kind of like the signing now. Not that big a believer in buriss, and I like how sabean is recognizing his division is garbage, may as well give it a shot. Pretty much what the A's are doing in a way. I dunno if renteria cost them picks though, if he did that would change my opinion of it probably. Really looking at it now they need a second baseman more than a shortstop. Prbly shoulda gone after hudson an let buriss do his thing at short, but whatever, at least its not manny or some other expected idiot signing. What else. Oh Vasquez to braves for Flowers and...I have no idea I never really checked what the final package was. Still don't know what ken williams is doing, maybe he'll go crazy and sign sabathia. That would make me happy actually. Apparently Khalil Greene is a cardinal now. I've always felt like khalil was some unlucky dude getting raped by petco, no statistical backing of this, that was always just my perception. I think it's the long hair, it makes you feel sorry for him for some reason. his eyes are sort of close together too, maybe that has somethin to do with it. No idea how the cards park dimensions play out, he'll prbly suck with the bat still anyway. alrite i've stalled enough, back to the final.

Good...

hmmm. Mikio is feelin good right now. Or maybe bad. Hard to tell, I've kind of been in my own world today. I think it's that ol' lack of sleep thing. Yes today was another essay day, so that means 3 hours sleep and nonstop studying, but now I can finally relax. Really, I shouldn't relax, I've a take-home final due friday that I have not started, the good student in this situation would knock out like half of it. Not me though, I'm motivated by having no time. Seriously I was way ahead on my essay today, I had like half of it done at like 1 this afternoon. So what did I do, I got lost in my thoughts while idly flipping through the textbook. And before I knew it, it was 5 an I really needed to step on the gas again. But it is done and it feels good. I'm really due for a baseball post, but nothing really exciting seems to be happening. Lots of rumors, not much action. I havent modified my site at all either, I feel lame with my plain an ugly log. Someday motivation will strike...but until then, procrastination/slackerization continues.

Prepare for failure?

Well shit. Somehow slipped through that last week of school, ended up at home, spent the whole time stressing over my workload, and now I'm back at school and not wanting to think about school work at all. My transfer apps were some shit. They were really bad, the effort level was just not there. Just too much to do right now, I really needed to have started earlier. Right now I need to be reading, I have much catching up to do in history. I cannot wait until that Christmas break, finally no work, can zone out with my kitty and waste money on games. Before that I have the usual mountain of work to conquer. But at least I know that in two weeks I will be finished. In that way I love deadlines, yea they cause massive amounts of stress, but the relief when they pass is just way too good.

Wooo Transfer Apps...and somehow evolves into depression, typical

So I started a free response essay today. One of the tips said, "Be real, try to sound like yourself" or something along those guidelines, so I just opened up and started to let the thoughts come forth. Here's what I did after these few inspiring words:

I feel as if I have chosen the path of failure; the major of mediocrity if you will. I get three simple reactions out of people when I mention that I am a linguistics major. The first, the one I dread the most, is the condescending but outwardly encouraging, "Good for you!" Then there is the response from people who actually care about me, the semi-outraged, "What kind of job can you get with that?" And last, my favorite response, the most honest and heartfelt response this major can afford me, "What the hell is linguistics?"
I did not choose linguistics in order to impress others, and I abandoned my childhood ambitions of becoming a billionaire when I decided on this career path. I chose linguistics because it is of incredible interest to me, moreso than any other subject I have encountered so far. My interest does not stem from some

And there it is. You'll notice it stops mid sentence. I just realized, this essay sucks, its not doing me any favors in terms of convincing anyone to let me in. My plan was to open with this kind of sad start talking about how I'm a monolingual kid in an area full of multilingual people, and swing it positive to how I found my calling in linguistics and the opportunities it provides me to understanding this topic I've become interested in over the course of my life. The prompt by the way is why you chose your major. And if you want 100% honesty, I only chose a major so that I could apply to other universities. Yes I am very interested in linguistics, and yes I would say there is more than a 50% chance of me sticking with it, but I still really have no idea of what I want to do in life. I mean yea linguistics interests me, but I don't want to bottle myself so soon. What if there is something that I like even more, what if there's something out there that I'm actually good at.
If you want real, I don't think my college transcript is impressive at all. These essays are like, my trump cards for getting in. I really need to put a ton of thought into them. I also really want to invoke a ton of pity from my reader. Like mass amounts, so that they may forget my bad grades from spring quarter last year. I intend to do this by incorporating family into an essay. Because holy shit if my family hasn't gone to shit over these last two years. My biggest problem though (and this is one mammoth of a fucking problem) is that I have no positive spin for these problems. Have I come out stronger for these family problems? Have I become a more complete person? Am I more independent? I'm not sure of any of these. All I know is my grandpa died during my first round of college apps, my mother straight up disappeared to her hometown for a few weeks and came back severely depressed, and then a year later my dad loses his mind and ends up in the crazy house. You tell me how I should feel positive about that. You want to know real truth? It scares the shit out of me to be related to these people! You don't know how many hours I've spent thinking about this, knowing that the blue prints for my mental health are clearly faulty.
I don't know what to do now. It's getting to be like senior year, where I was just pegging everything on college, telling myself everything would work out fine. It clearly didn't, and if it doesn't work out this time, I really do not want to think about it. The more I live the more I begin to see how horrible this world really is. How lonely we are, how misleading we are of ourselves. This whole college process has done nothing but prove this to me. And what saddens me the most is that there is no end in site. What are friends. What is family. Merely labels. Labels to help us keep moving forward. It's sick really. We all have this sense of loyalty in our heads, but does it actually exist? At one moment perhaps, at a different not at all. Maybe it's just me, maybe I'm just an overly pessimistic person. I'll end this here, I intended this post to give me a different perspective on my essay. Some how morphed back into gloom. Should have expected that. Man now I gotta change the title. And how do I file this post. Academics? hoho my first multi-topic post. what a dilemma.

wc break!

Wait what the hell? I just caught up on all my work? I've got nothing to do? Man Ive been working so damn hard to last week or so having no work feels unfamiliar. Like, now what do I do. Warcraft, thats easy really, but my point is, shit if theres a time for a break its now. And ya, hell yes I love thanksgiving for being so perfectly timed.

Sleep Please

So today was rough. Biggest reason was I didn't really sleep last night. There was more reading to be done than I thought. So I did my japanese unit test on no sleepers, an I just went and turned in my essay for history a few hours ago. so ya. College wasnt supposed to be like this guys. What the hell happened to parties and girls and not caring about grades. When the hell did I sign up for nonstop 30 hour history reading sessions with japanese midterms in between. On a completely different note, i fuckin love shiba inu cam. I could watch it for days, but then the stupid school would ban me for abusing my bandwidth limit. But seriously, find me somthing cuter, I dare you. Ive agreed to play wc3 at 1030. why, I have zero idea. I need to be asleep. I think I might be turnin into an insomniac. Ey ferreal though, this last month or so I have barely been sleeping at all. Yea ok maybe insomniac is a bad term, I just suck at sleeping for some reason. Maybe theres just too much on my mind right now. All I know is that my biggest hurdle (today) is finally cleared. Hello Thanksgiving. If I had a kid Id buy him an ice cream cone just so he could smile along with me. A double chocolate ice cream cone, that kind with the chocolate an the chocolate chips in it. god that shit is tasty. Yea Im also fucking starving, which is weird because I just ate not 30 minutes ago. Guess I didnt eat enough. ahhh someday. someday. someday everything will work out. just gotta keep hoping. still only a teenager...the world is my playground still. ill make peace with myself somehow.

GO AWAY ESSAY

Guh. It is now past eleven. I still have not started writing my essay. I am going through my book and gathering all the notes I marked. I am perhaps 2/3 of the way done with this portion of the task. However, I still need to read at least one more article about japanese nationalism (maybe 30 pages), and two chapters from a different book about Nanjing rapage (~100 pages). Then the writing must begin. This is bad ya? Essay technichally is not due until 7pm tomorrow, but I have early class tomorrow. Ill get back at maybe 1230, but then I will inevitably fall asleep due to the lack of sleep caused by trying to make progress on my essay tonight. Of course this little plan is omitting the most important step of the whole process, I need to form opinions about the material and craft them into compelling arguments. Im hoping this occurs as I read other sources and start to get a better picture formed in my head of what the fuck is going on. Maybe its just the textbook, but Japanese history is confusing as fuck. China is way easy because theres very few leaders, you get long periods of time to analyze their policies. God, speaking of China this is a comparative essay, I need to go back and review my China notes in hopes that I can remember anything about their sense of nationalism. Not looking bright, my very immediate future. Looks dark and sleepless. Man it will be fantastic when wednesday is finished though. Oh did I mention I got a Japanese midterm tomorrow also? yea not going to study, just going to rely on what I know right now, which suprisingly might be enough looking through the study guide. My roomate is playing warcraft, I just heard the bnet chains and gate. This fucking sucks.

Note to Self

I will not fuck up this time. Not what I control at least. So forget it and start on that stupid essay.

Grades

Yaaay grade update. I think Im in decent shape. Got an A on my second history paper, though still have not received my midterm back, and that one might be questionable. Semantics im pretty much averaging B's on everything, and while that is dissapointing, it isnt any reason to panic at least. Japanese I have an A+, so yea, all good on that front. The big strain here now is gearing up for transfer apps while simultaneously keeping up with my classes that have been steadily icreasing the workload in preperation for finals. Not doing a good job, as always way more history reading to do than will get done, and another essay due in less than a week. But other than that positive signs. Good stuff ya? Yea give it a week or so and Ill be freaking out over my workload, but for now Im enjoying the calm.

Swisher trade

God wtf kenny williams. Why not just give Swish away for free. The man is a complete joke, though I guess I shouldn't complain too much since Beane has as much oppurtunity to accept his player give-aways as well. Still though whyd it have to be the yankees. Watching Swish in a yankee uniform is gonna suck so bad. Shit Im gonna be even more pissed if this signals that the Angels get teix back.

More Holliday

So obviously my brain has been on nothing but the trade today. I got to say I have not really budged much on it to be honest. Holliday is a rental, that much is clear, and signing an extension I realize is pretty much out of the question. And honestly, the more i thought about it, the more I didn't want an extension. I mean it'll cost a ton of money, and putting around 20 million in one player for a team with our payroll is just stupid. What I like about the trade is the options it affords us, as if things really do work well next season we have a great player to help us along. But also trading Holliday midseason could really net a large haul of talent. I have to think that Beane figures he got a price on Holliday to good to pass up, and that it is either worth it to contend with Holliday, or that he can get the same price or perhaps more next july. It really makes me wonder if Cargon was really just trade bait the whole time. Cunningham really seems like the kind of prospect the A's would prefer anyway as he was more consistent statistically, and Gonzalez, though he was not bad in the minors, really is riding the hype of his tools. Even though I'm sure that I'm missing Beane's true intentions or some key aspect that just is not apparant to one of my knowledge, I still like the trade. We get an elite right-handed power bat who plays an above average left field and is even an efficient base stealer to boot. All for a very young/good reliever, a centerfield prospect who hates walks, and a shit pitcher who's best aspect is his spectacular pickoff move. Plus who knows there could be more to this trade still. This offseason really got off to a big start, for the A's at least. Be fun to see what happens now.

Holliday

What the crap? I knew there were rumors but i never thought this would happen. He's good, got one year left, and is gonna be due a ton of money. Though if the final deal is Holliday for Street, Smith, and Carlos I will be alright with it. If we can extend Holliday soon (preferably to a sensible contract...fucking boras) I'd be very happy. As much as I like Huston, bullpen arms are very expendable in our current situation, and smith pretty much sucks. Gonzalez is the only really tough guy to part with in that he plays an above average center an has all the potential to hit like a legit pro, but to be honest I'm not that huge a fan as the dude seriously does not know what a walk is and also we do have a crowded outfield.

So I'm assuming from left to right our outfield will be Holliday Sweeney Buck? That doesn't make me that excited now that I look at it. Though I guess if Buck regresses like he should and if Sweeney can at least put up an average glove in center that could be a damn threesome. I think what I'm happiest about is we kept Anderson and Cahill. I really do not want to see those two go anywhere.

So the real question is what now. I'm sort of get the feeling Beane isn't done. Getting Holliday is a statement towards compete now mode, and though the offense looks a lot better, we do still bat crosby and whatever bum (wooooo joe dillon) we stick at third base. Barton should put up better numbers next year but you can't just ignore the amount of suck his bat was this year. And then the rotation.

As shitty as Greg Smith was, dude made the most starts on the team. We line up right now as Duch Gallagher Eveland Gio Braden. That fuckin sucks. Duch is good but he's not all-star sub 3 ERA good, plus it's inevitable he's going to miss some time with injuries to his hip or back or whatever. Gallagher needs to not walk so many people, ditto Eveland, Gio fuckin walks everyone then decides to give up monster shots to whoever is left(that doesnt make sense does it). Braden isnt really even worth discussing at this point. So unless Beane feels all these young guys will somehow find the strikezone this year or that maybe one or more of Mazzaro/Anderson/Simmons/Cahill can come up and be awesome, well I dunno is this team a real contender? It seems like too much has to break just right again, and if I've learned anything as an A's fan it's that nothing ever breaks just right. If we can sign Furcal I will pretty much become a believer, that would actually make sense now.

Bah so to sum up my initial and shocked reactions: decent trade, hopefully Boras doesnt fuck the A's in extension talks, team still has question marks, certainly a new, sudden, exciting direction.

First post, maybe second actually?

Well i impulse made a new weblog. Honestly I was reading Paul DePodesta's log an I copied him. What can I say, Im a follower. So I figure I'll try this place out for a bit, see how it goes. Trying to figure out this labels thing on this post, see if its handy for anything. I saw a fangraphs gadget that got me pretty damn excited, but its busted. O well, seasons over anyway so not like it would do anything. I feel like the page is kind of lonely feeling at the moment, perhaps someday if inspiration strikes Ill add some personality to it.

test. working?