Watashi Wa

Sure. Anything else you want? Nah, that'll be it. I'll PM you when I'm ready to send the money.-InfernaAlright. Let me dig it out of my giant crate...

You guys. I have exactly two weeks of classes left in my undergraduate career. Every time I think about it, I get a little anxious and a butterflies-in-my-stomach type of feeling. I'm really excited, but at the same time I'm pretty scared. Not scared so much as... unsure, really. Unsure of what's going to happen over the next year or so. I've applied for an iPhone development internship that would pay really well and would be an absolutely fantastic experience because I want to get into the application/game development side of programming. Unfortunately, you have to be enrolled in classes to be selected for the internship. From what I hear, not many people have applied. I sent the guy in charge my resume but have yet to hear back from him. Hopefully if they need someone desperately enough, they will allow an exception to the rule and hire a recently graduated student. I'm fleshing out my resume to apply for an entry-level application development position at a business in Durham, North Carolina. I'm certainly not opposed to moving to a completely different state for a job. It'd be rough saying goodbye to my nephew and nieces, however. I've heard plenty of nice things about North Carolina and I'd be relatively close to parts of Virginia that I'm familiar with. Just about any city would be far more interesting than where I currently live. I do, after all, love exploring new cities... I also have a few other job opportunities through people I know from school. Most of these positions are technical support rather than systems development (my major is Systems Development), but if I have to take a job doing that for a while, I'd be hard pressed to turn it down. Luckily I've still got a good amount of money saved up from my previous job that I can live off of until I do find a steady job. I'd also be working with people I know, so there's that. Before then, however, I've still got plenty of assignments to keep me busy until graduation on May 12th. An 8-page paper, a 10-page research paper, a presentation, and at least 5 Android programs have to be done by May 1st. Woo! Good luck to anyone else out there that is also graduating, high school or college. It's a fun time.

This topic has too much potential to manifest into a spammy topic with little-to-zero potential for discussion. If you wish to share funny memes with your friends, there are other methods outside of the forums you can use. Topic closed.

Sure. Anything else you want? $13 + about $2 for shipping. I'd prefer Paypal or a money order. If you have to send cash, you'll have to wrap it well enough to send it through the mail.

Well, Andrew was able to get around to posting an entry about PAX East so I figured I should write something too. Unlike Andrew, however, I have a few pictures that I magically resized into more post-friendly proportions! You better enjoy the pictures, because I totally spent like 20 minutes resizing them while listening to Gotye. This picture was taken shortly after take-off from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. I woke up at 2:30am Thursday morning to make my 7:31am flight to Newark. I live in the Central time zone, if you're wondering why I had to wake up so early. I took this picture for the sole purpose of having a neat shot to upload to Instagram, horrible filter and everything. Unlike last year, I had no complications making it to Boston. I had a connecting flight in Newark, which is always neat because I get to see the New York City from an amazing vantage point. Flying in the Thursday before was the right decision to make. I found my way from the airport to the hotel, which was less than half a mile away from the convention center. Convenient, huh? The hotel was really nice, too! Two beds are better than one after all. After Andrew and I met up at the hotel, we walked around south-side Boston for a while. We eventually ate lunch at this great little Italian place that was pretty delicious. I've always enjoyed walking around cities and simply observing as much as I can. Cities in the north are completely different than cities in the south. Everything down here is much more spread out and spacey and boring. Walking around Boston, we passed a dentist's office, a CVS, quite a few bars, a deli or two, and a few other odd shops all on the same road. It's a nice change of character from cities down here. Later on Thursday night, we hopped on the T and went to the screening of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World/Rock Band Night at the Brattle Theater. If you bought a ticket to the Scott Pilgrim screening, you received the red Rock Band t-shirt Scott wears in the movie. Free swag! Dinner at Bertucci's was pretty delicious as well. The convention started on Friday. Andrew gave a great overview of the panels we were patient enough to attend. So instead of describing those panels, I'm going to show you guys more pictures! Who doesn't love pictures? Before the BioWare panel started, a group of cos-players formed to our direct right of where we were sitting. We had front-row seats to the costumes so of course I grabbed a few pictures! My phone was misbehaving, so these aren't the clearest pictures I've ever taken. I need to invest in a real camera for these conventions... The Samara to the right is the actual face model Bioware used for the in-game model of Samara! Check out the Mordin costume! Tali costume was amazing as well. The girls that were Tali and the Samara on the left were directly behind us while waiting for the Mass Effect dev signing on Sunday. In between panels on Friday, Andrew, AJ and I walked around the expo floor. These pictures don't express just how crazy the expo floor can get at times. Hundreds of nerds and geeks (myself included) all rushing around to see something new can get very claustrophobic at times. Saturday, we waited in even longer lines and saw more fascinating panels. I think my personal favorite panel was held by Irrational Games and feature Ken Levine and a few creative leads for Bioshock Infinite. Levine is a creative genius when it comes to telling stories in games. I was completely captivated by what he had to say. Essentially, Levine doesn't create characters to fill a void in his game. He creates characters when he has a story to tell. It seems cliche, but I listen to the man speak for hours on his creative process. You can even see him in this picture I took! One thing I -had- to do at PAX East this year was play Borderlands 2. I think in total I ended up waiting in line for right around 2 hours just to play this one game for 10+ minutes. Andrew and his friend weren't as set on playing the game as I was, so they went off and made me wait by myself. It was completely worth it, though! This game easily had the biggest display and longest line on the floor. The game already felt really polished. Dynamic missions, new enemies, bigger skill trees, redesigned weapons, wub wub, what else could we want in a game? Check out this pictures I took of the giant Vault Hunter statues Gearbox had at the Borderlands 2 area. The sweet shirt I got for playing the demo! The back says "MINION 01." Awesome. Saturday night we saw Paul & Storm and JoCo again! Paul and Storm opened with a song about how George R. R. Martin needs to hurry up and finish writing the Song of Ice and Fire books before we all die. It was hilarious. After, JoCo played and soft-rocked us all. MC Frontalot was strange, but enjoyable as well. Jonathan Coulton! Before the concert, however, we went to AK's for dinner one last time and saw an Enforcer (<3)...well, the picture will explain: I used to be an Enforcer like you... Yo dawg... Sunday finally came around and we waited in line to see Assassin's Creed 3, which looks like it's going to be another solid game. Ubisoft had a pretty big AC3 presence at PAX, too. After Assassin's Creed, we started to wait in line for Aliens: Colonial Marines, but Gearbox had a pretty wack system going for that. We waited for too long and decided to bail to wait in line to get some Mass Effect stuff signed by some of the developers! Oh, and guess who was first in line? That's right: I was! Andrew was right behind me, too. We totally started the line. But check out this SWEET BRAG I got! So there you have it. Once again, I had an amazing time. Thanks to Andrew for coming along, it was great to hang with you again! I cannot wait for next year. Lastly, I leave you all with my huge pile of swag I accumulated over the weekend. See you next year, Boston!

PAX has been the highlight for the past two years for me. So much fun! Boston is really growing on me, too. Next year can't get here fast enough. The Irrational panel blew me out of the water. Getting even small insights into the creative thoughts of Ken Levine and co. was fascinating to me. Don't forget to buy Catan for XBLA! We should get together for a game night here soon. Also, check out this gif I found of Monty punching those lemons: Monty punching a lemon

That second tag is the best tag everrrr.

Oh hey. I was updating some info, and all the bbcode changed to html code! It does that sometimes when I switch between the RTE and plain text. So I diverted all the code back to what Ziko sent me a few months ago. Someone be a champ and post all the updates that need to be made since the last major update. I'll love you forever.

I can vouch for Andrew's nerdiness. We were both obscenely nerdy in Boston this past weekend. And Ray's face in these pics. Hilarioussss.

This is really, really cool. Sounds awesome!

LOOKS SO GOOD

Pull is best for everything. Makes Guardians into wimps. Drell adept all day!

Congratulations and good luck! College is fun.

Good questions! Hopefully I'll be able to ask them.

Hope you had a great day, Kakaru! Party over, topic closed.

Hey guys. Next weekend I'll be at PAX East in Boston with Andrew/Black Six! Bioware is holding a panel on both Dragon Age AND Mass Effect. Usually the panels have a small Q&A for fans to ask questions of some of the developers. Do any of you have any thoughtful questions you'd like me to ask? Plans for the universe, favorite species, etc? Let me know, please, and I'll do my best to ask them. Also, it seems like Bioware is going to have a signing event so I'm bringing all 3 games and hopefully going to get them signed.

One of the dog mutations tore took a nasty chunk out of his leg at the end while he was on the cornucopia.

Best game. Do not let the ending taint your enjoyment of the 30 hours it takes to get there!

Wait, did it premier tonight? Or was it leaked?

Earlier today, I finished the audiobook of Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games. This was my first time listening to a book and I must say I quite enjoyed it. If given the option, however, I feel like I would chose to read an actual book as opposed to listening to one being read to me. It simply comes down to the fact that I retain information better if I read it off of paper. As far as the book, I was not particularly impressed. I don't know if I bought into the hype too much or if people were more praising of the series as a whole. I am curious to know where exactly the plot goes now that the Games are over. I do not regret listening to the book. The development between Katniss and Rue was interesting enough, even though the outcome was unfortunate and predictable, given the premise of the Games. As far as the romance subplot is concerned, it's still a better love story than Twilight. Joking aside, I thought it was cute enough for a young adults book. I also saw the movie tonight. Honestly, I felt it was a genuine and sincere adaptation. It probably helps that Suzanne Collins worked on the screenplay. After all, J.K. Rowling was personally involved with the best of the Harry Potter movies. The pacing of the movie mimicked the book nearly perfectly; only half-way through the movies do the real Games begin. A few minor details are tweaked or all together left out to allow for a more naturally (and PG-13 friendly, in most cases) movie. For instance, Katniss never shoots anyone in the neck. Obviously, this would be too gruesome for some kids. And any significance the muts at the end of the games had is completely ignored. The romance between Katniss and Peeta felt less natural in the movie, primarily because you don't get the sense of time that stretches in the book. The costumes were downright amazing. Lady Gaga might find some inspiration from them. The biggest problem I had with the movie was the extremely shaky camera shots in most of the action sequences. The brawl at the cornucopia near the end is a blurry mess. It probably didn't help that I was on a lower level row of seats. I enjoyed the movie and enjoyed the audiobook. The themes of the first book were well played in the movie, but are much more subtle and candid throughout the book. I have the second and third to listen to. I am hoping that they will be able to keep my interest and live up to the expectations many of my friends have established for the series.

Hipster thread. Kidding. If they're good books, I'm glad they're getting recognized. I'm about 3/4 of the way through the first one on audiobook, but I haven't hit the "zomg" moments yet, I guess.

I finished A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin a few weeks ago. Good book, incredibly detailed. Not an "easy" read, but enjoyable if you allow yourself to get absorbed in the world. I'm about half way through A Clash of Kings and I'm enjoying it just as much, if not more. I was hoping to finish it before Season 2 starts on HBO, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen. I am completely absorbed by this series. Last year I really enjoyed Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead. I now understand why many consider Orson Scott Card to be a genius of sci-fi. I liked Ender's Game more, but both are great reads. Strong characters, gripping stories, captivating mystery. Short, great reads anyone should read. I'm also listening to The Hunger Game on audiobook. I've never listened to a book, but it's actually quite fun. I've been driving a bunch for while I've been covering my friends job and the hours have flown by. I'm almost through with the first book. I have enjoyed the story so far, but I've yet to get to a point where I'm all "OMG HUNGER GAMES." I should finish listening to it at work tomorrow.

It's supposed to come out later this year.