The World Ends With You

I really haven't used my DS much this year. I got it in the summer of 2007 and played it quite a bit from then until spring of 2008 when I basically caught up with my backlog of games. Since then, its collected dust while I played the PSP all summer and fall. It isn't that I hate the system, its just that the recent games for the system have been either so casual, simple, or stupid that I just can't get into them. 

But, while visiting my brother in Lincoln this October, I borrowed three games: WarioWare Touched, Elite Beat Agents, and The World Ends With You. Of those three, I did what I wanted in the first two in one slow night at work. But when I started TWEWY, I found out I started something much bigger and much more intense. 

When it came out I wanted to play it, but my brother had it, tried it, and wasn't thrilled, so I let it fall on my list of games to borrow in the future instead of purchase. Cause, honestly, I've been burned too many times on the new Nintendo systems to buy something I think looks cool without trying it first. But, honestly, I should have just bought this game. With the exception of the first party games on the DS, this is the best game I have played on the system. It is literally right up there with Phantom Hourglass, New Super Mario Bros, and the Advance War games. 

I would try to explain it, but really... you just need to try it. The controls are simple but have a depth which is amazing. The weapons are completely different than any other RPG I've played. The combat is intense. And the item and leveling up system is brilliant. If it were on any other system, I honestly don't think the game would work. It is crafted to be an experience only met on the DS... which is something I don't think many developers have been able to do well until recently. 

I guess the point of this post is to say: if you have a DS, enjoy RPGs (jRPGs especially), and need something to keep you busy this holiday season while you're going to and from god knows where... check out The World Ends With You if you haven't already played it. And if you have and didn't like it, I feel sorry for you, cause it is one of the best portable games I've ever played.

Why The Weekend Sucks

Most of you won't agree with anything in this post, but screw you. You don't work nights on a regular basis, nor do you work Tuesday through Saturday (or Wenesday through Sunday... I also get a lot of 4 day weeks... I never work Monday though). So, to fill you in on my general hatred of the weekend, I give you a list. Maybe we'll agree on some things... or, you know, not...

• There are more drunk people everywhere and instead of joining them, I have to be responsible.
• Although most places are open later in the evening, they also open later in the morning which means I can't do my usual morning chores as easily.
• There are more people out, about, and generally irritating me.
• My gaming, tech, webcomic, and other blogs/sites don't update half as often as usual so I'm left feeling bored while on the computer.
• People are out and about instead of sitting at home avoiding homework or sleep, which means they aren't talking to me while I'm bored at work.
• Parties and stuff get thrown at HAUS which means I'm woken up and/or kept up by them. There are also more people on my network... which means that its harder to play games online, download stuff, or even cruise the net at times. That makes my night all the more better.
• Everyone's weekly schedule is over and I have no clue when/if I'll see them until the workweek begins again.
• People are in a generally good, upbeat mood... which irritates me for some reason. Just like holidays...
• Saturdays on [adult_swim] generally suck.
• Everyone I'm coming in after (at work) expects me to be there early so they can get off the clock and go hang out. But, seeing as I have little-to-no social life, fuck that shit.
• Some places close early on Sunday or aren't open at all. Also, when I'm visiting my parents and friends in Kansas, I can't buy booze. There are also a ton of religious people everywhere looking and acting better than me. I therefore declare Sunday's lame.
• There are more people driving when I am. And since everything cool in Liberty is on one of 2 main highways... that means more people are driving like retards and slowing it up for everyone.
• Now that it is getting into the holiday season, it also becomes harder to buy anything on weekends because everything cool starts selling out and they can't restock in time or don't have a new shipment in until Tuesday.
• People expect me to be in a better mood than normal. Never expect that. I change moods when I want with little or no reason. It's what makes me cute and adorable.

I'm sure I could go on for a while... but I think I hit all my main points. On a side note from all that frustration and emo-ness, I got a Zune and it kicks major ass. I've never liked the iPod or its store, design, software. I tried Creative's products for a while and enjoyed them, but Microsoft seriously delivered a kickass product with its second and third generation of Zunes. If you want a kickass mp3 player with built-in FM radio, wifi, sharing capabilities, and a sweet social network, check out the Zune now. They just dropped their prices on the Flash models so you can get the 4gb for $99. That's a fucking steal.

Now, I'm off to be all frustrated and grumpy for the rest of my shift.

Maybe I'm Doing Too Much...?

I've recently realized that I'm doing 10 comics a week, working 32-40 hours at the hotel, pulling around 10 hours through Jewell's marketing office, still doing some side work for a doctors office's website, am still trying to find time to write stuff that isn't for the comics, and am supposedly in charge of the radio station (although with the computer issues and lack of students stepping up to take over, I'm thinking about just letting it die).  On top of that, I play videogames whenever I can and cruise the web too much.

I enjoy most of it... the pay from my jobs is good, even if it is stressful, tiring, and frustrating as hell. The comics are fun to do and I enjoy hearing feedback from friends, family, and readers who stumble across my sites. Writing other stuff is fun but I have a hard time finishing anything because I always get sidetracked by other ideas, projects, etc... And I'm not even going to talk about The Edge. It and the doctors website are the most frustrating things in my life right now. 

How can you just decide to stop doing something you enjoy? I see other people do it quite a bit, but I just don't work that way. If I enjoy doing something I make time for it, even if it is detremental to my sleep schedule, work performance, social appearance, etc... I guess I'm just not like other people. Maybe that's a good thing. I think it is, anyway.

Maybe my life will always be a cluttered mess of creative endeavors I start and can't stop pursuing. If that's the case, hopefully at least a few of them start making me some money. 

See, I Know How To Blog!!!

It's been a while since I actually "blogged" as most people do. Sure, I've done some posts about tech stuff, gaming, politics, drawings, etc... but that isn't the essence of personal blogging. However, there has been a good reason for that: in one way or another, my comics say everything I normally would write. I update B4B three days a week and include a mini-blog thing there. I update Gleeful Nihilism daily without a blog. I also Twitter... so that manages to steal all the small updates that would be short posts here otherwise. And, lately, I've been doing NaNoWriMo... so a lot of my typing efforts are directed in that are. However, I am behind on one comic, need a break from the novel, and feel like typing... so here comes a pseudo-real update (and expect more in the future)!

My job at the hotel is going fairly well... I've been the fulltime Night Auditor for 5 months now and still am enjoying it for the most part. I have some downtime scattered throughout the evening to draw, play PSP, write, and get to watch [adult_swim] while folding receipts and newspapers for delivery.

I am still doing some sidejobs with my web design/editing skills... right now I'm still doing a few hours a week at Jewell to help out their marketing office and am also doing a bit at the doctors office for whom I rebuilt their site last spring/summer. Since the hotel blocked the sites I use to edit stuff for the doctors office, I can't do that from work though... and since you need IE 7+ to do stuff for Jewell, I can't do that at work either. Which means it has eaten into my freetime more and more.

The comics are still a lot of fun to draw and write for, however lately, with my sidejobs picking up some speed and needing stuff done on a quicker schedule, I've fallen behind more frequently. Maybe a schedule change is due... however I doubt that will happen. I'll just try to get ahead sometime and keep a small buffer maintained to anticipate my falling behind.

I'm still juggling a million games between a million consoles... I really love gaming. It is almost insane how much I enjoy getting time to just sit down and play a game I've been waiting to come out, picking up a classic I have fond memories of, or just gaining some new achievements/trophies on a replay. This gaming "addiction" has eaten into my dvd watching, however I'm slowly catching up on that by watching stuff as I nap or fall asleep for the day.

I met freakin Don Hertzfeldt in Omaha, NE on a trip to see Stevo. We saw most of his work on the big screen, got to see his new piece (i am so proud of you), sat in on a live Q/A session, and then met him and got his autograph. It was awesome. It was also really good to get away from Missouri and Kansas for a while. Not like Nebraska is that big of a difference... but it was still good, nonetheless.

Last time I was home, Jessi and I finally caught up and watched something like 4 movies. All good flicks too. I think I watched 6 movies total that day. Luckily, my basement at home has two TV's side by side so I could game and watch tv. That's like heaven.

With the dreaded holiday season around the corner, I'm in surprisingly good spirits. I guess that's what being out of school can do for ya.

Speaking of school, I guess I should say that The Edge will probably meet its demise by the end of 2008 or 2009. A few people are talking about taking over the managerial and production side of things if I do the webdesign... but I don't think they have any idea what they are getting into. Jewell is a bitch about its clubs and expects the station to basically edit any song they don't like and appeal to anyone who might complain. It's a horrible way to run a student organization like that, but its not like they care. They've killed one student run radio station, why not another!?

I trimmed up my beard tonight. I hate the post trimming period where you see yourself in a reflection or mirror and regret having done it. But I know it looks a bit more professional, which I guess people care about in the real world.

In the past week or two, I bought and watched the entire Mike Judge Collection of Beavis and Butthead (including the movie). It is a brilliant show and I keep trying to watch other stuff, and just coming back to it over and over again. I'm sure my hausmates are sick of hearing their laughter pour out of my room at weird hours of the day/night.

My nerdiness has reached an alltime high recently when I realized that whenever I'm home, I have a browser up with Joystiq, Kotaku, Engadget, and various other blogs up and refreshed constantly. I think it might be an addiction. If so, I don't care. Don't even bother with an intervention... I'd probably just brush you off while hitting refresh for the 5th time in a minute.

I haven't seen many friends/people lately... the only people I regularly interact with in person are Brad, Rachel, and my coworkers. Online I see many more people... I say this to comfort those of you who are in the Liberty area and haven't seen me in ages. It's nothing personal. I just live a weird, secluded life thanks to my job schedules. If you want to hang out sometime, we'll have to actually plan something. Spontenaity kind of dies when your life is based on a real schedule.

And I think thats it... like I said at the start, I'll try to actually blog more in the future, rather than just do stupid little updates you don't care about. But still expect those too. After all, I have to gush about my love for gaming and tech stuff somewhere!!!

My Fallout 3 Addiction

I can admit this with pride: I am completely addicted to Fallout 3. Now, this may not come as a huge surprise to many of you who know how big of a videogame freak I can be. But this is honestly a different sort of thing... I'm addicted to games, plural. I usually juggle many of them and play kind of like an ADD kid. I rock one for a while, then switch, then switch, then quit for the day to find candy, furry things, or something shiny. But all I've been playing since last Wednesday (outside of my portable games) is Fallout 3 and I've logged just under 30 hours in 6 days.

I tried to get into Bethesda's previous game, Oblivion, this summer when the price dropped to $30 as part of the PS3 hits series... but I'm not huge on the whole old-world RPG genre. So I played it for a few days, got bored, and moved on. But Fallout 3 somehow brings together almost everything I like about gaming and wraps it up in a sweet little post-apocolyptic package.

One of the things I stumbled upon was just how open the world really was. While doing a ton of side quests and basically ignoring the main quest altogether, I ended up finding what all those main quests were supposed to eventually get me. How many other games seriously let you do that!? Most of the time to get mission D you have to complete A through C first. And although the objectives in each mission can be switched around, A has to be done before you can reach B, and B has to be done before you can even find or activate C. That, in my opinion, is frustrating as hell. Many times I've stumbled upon something I wasn't supposed to find until later, and been teased with the inability to do whatever they were asking or hitting some sort of block placed there by the developers so you had to play the little story they took so much time to work on.

Anyway, I should stop writing about this. You don't care... unless you actually are playing the game, and then you probably read the first part of this, wondered why you weren't playing the game, and closed the window to focus on the game. I don't blame you. As soon as I get home, I'm probably gonna start it up. And then midday I'll feel awful about still not finishing up the comic for B4B and I'll do that while watching videos about other games I want on my side screen. Cause I've watched all the Fallout videos I can find...

New Drawing Style!?

So, this might be the new look of B4B... I've been needing/wanting to upgrade the character styles since I went multiframe and have had constant characters, but I've been busy as hell and am a lazy asshole. Anyway, let me know what you think.

It should start hitting the comic soon. These are the main characters, but Billy (blue shirt) will be changed up some cause I decided to do that after this was finished and up. Eventually the whole body and everything will be redone... but lets just take this one step at a time. We don't wanna move too fast. Then if we break up we'll have to decide who gets what... and that just sucks.