So sit down, get a bit of something to drink, and - if you're one of my old-school readers - prepare for another infamous "big wall of text." *grins mischievously*
CURRENT MUSIC:
Klaus Badelt - "The Medallion Calls"
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl ~ Original Soundtrack
A fitting introductory track, and while it brings Pirates of the Caribbean to mind, it also heralds a bit of cinematic humor and irony.
I mean, it starts off gallantly - Jack Sparrow's standing on the mast/crow's nest of his ship, looking at his destination while the orchestra announces his heroic fanfare. However, the camera then reveals to us that Sparrow's ship is... well, not so epic, even though the music states otherwise (due to the fact that it's small and - more importantly - sinking).
Two intermissions fade in: the pirate warning/salute and the descriptive camera shot of Port Royal.
Then as Sparrow finally makes berth, we see that his ship has laughably sunk. The music echoes its fanfare even louder than before as if to say, "Yes, he IS a hero in this movie, even if his 'ship' sucked."
Amazingly done, and quite fitting for the explanation of Operation: DREAM EATER. Yay, well-composed music!
(AUTHOR'S NOTE: Old fans of mine might have gotten some déjà vu there... mostly because that description is about 85% similar to what I wrote on another blog on Facebook over three years ago.)
Koji Kondo - "Dire, Dire Docks"
Super Mario 64 Original Soundtrack
Maaaaan, this track brings back memories of the good moments of my childhood spent playing an awesome game such as Super Mario 64. I almost miss it.
This calming piece just chimes its way through my ears and just gets me relaxed. If you hear this playing in my general direction, I'm about ready to work fully focused and void of stress (at least for the time being).
Tashannie - "Caution (Don't Bother Me)"
Parallel Prophecys
Korean hip hop. Yep, I'm not kidding. It's surprisingly catchy and pretty cool to dance to. I'll be honest - I actually got up from my chair a few times because I wanted to dance along, too.
And because of those urges, I now feel like investing in a few DDR dance pads and bars. Laugh at me all you want, but you know it'd be pretty cool.
*starts looking for USB dance pads*
"Ideals are like stars - you will not succeed in touching them with your hands. But like the seafaring man on the desert of water: you choose them as your guides, and following them you will reach your destiny."
- Carl Schurz
Well, my course is set, then - I got quite a few metaphorical constellations to follow now, and once I officially set sail, they'll be the only path I'll follow.
Evening, ladies and gents. Enough pre-blog talk; time to move on to the main course!
In the event that you didn't read yesterday's entry (or if you're just too lazy to click the link and would prefer this TL;DR-ish paragraph), I came up with a sort-of campaign I'll be working on over the summer to give me something to do. I have 11 tasks that will need to be finished before Friday, September 23 of this year.
Of course, what are these objectives, you might be asking? Well, consider yourselves lucky this time - I was originally thinking of posting another link back to yesterday's entry and forcing you to read them, but that's just cruel.
So instead, they'll all be here for your convenience, and now I'll be explaining what each task is and what my plans are to achieve all 11 of them.
(AUTHOR'S NOTE: None of these are in any specific order other than what I thought up of first.)
Operation: DREAM EATER
Find the "perfect" look for this blog.
This one's quite simple, really - improve the look and add more pages to this blog.I changed design templates recently (went from Blogger's "Simple" to "Picture Window") and I like the look. A few readers have also expressed its crispness, so I can assume it doesn't look as horrendous.
There's going to be a few new pages and some gadget additions coming eventually, so I'd suggest that you keep your eyes peeled. I just might add something or change the HTML to make this thing look snazzier than it does right now.
Get Gefallen (US-Tichondrius - Human Rogue) to Lv85 and figure out a workable Combat PvP spec.
As mentioned before in this blog, Gefallen was my very first Lv80 character in World of Warcraft, so I have a sense of honor and duty to make sure he keeps up with the times. In the case of 2011 and the Cataclysm expansion, I felt that it would be morally wrong to ditch him in the dust and leave him at Lv80, so a few weeks ago I began the arduous grind to Lv85.
Last time I played World of Warcraft (about a week-and-a-half ago), I left him around Lv83 because I ran out of rested experience* to make the grind easier. I figured I'd let him sit there for a week or two to let the rested experience build up again. (So much for getting him to 85 by the end of April. *laughs*)
Now as you can see, simply getting Gefallen to 85 is only one-half of this objective. I also have to figure out a workable talent build for him. From the start of my WoW experience I've always gone the route of the Combat tree - I believe sustained damage without an over-reliance on stealth-based abilities is the best way to keep your foes on their toes (hee-hee, I made it rhyme).
And since most Rogues out there are PvP-specced for Assassination or Subtlety (and in turn, look down upon Combat Rogues and laugh at its supposed inferiority), I think I'm going to need a lot of practice to fine-tune a combat routine.
I got a few ideas, but as none of my friends play on US-Tichondrius anymore (as far as I know, at least), finding a willing test subject and/or sparring partner will be difficult. I could just transfer to a different server, but I have a guild vault that I'm not leaving behind (it cost me a lot of gold, and until Blizzard implements a guild-transfer service I'm not letting all that time I spent farming go to waste).
It'll be quite fun to accomplish this, I'd say - just as long as no jackass Shadow Priests gank me while I'm off questing and leveling...
* = "Rested experience" is a game mechanic in World of Warcraft that aids casual players (such as myself) - the ones who simply aren't able to grind out leveling in one major sitting. If you go to a designated "rest area" (such as a friendly major city or inn) and log your character off within, they begin to build up rested experience while you remain logged off (shown as a blue hue over a portion of your experience bar). This bonus experience accrues in an amount proportionate to the time you haven't played that character, capping itself at 1.5 levels' worth of experience (roughly ten days in real life). While the rested experience bar is active, all experience gained from killing monsters is doubled - which helps when one feels too lazy to fight a gazillion things.
Get Chariselle (US-Ravenholdt - Blood Elf Paladin) geared for end-game PvE raiding.
My other World of Warcraft goal for DREAM EATER will require a bit of work. Unlike the challenge that Gefallen possesses, Chariselle will be somewhat easier - mostly due to the fact that she's already Lv85. As of today, her gear is rather shoddy compared to most other players - she's sporting armor that was either given to her as a quest reward or bought off the auction house because she had the gold for it.
While that may sound good to a non-player, it isn't - especially when the loot from end-game dungeons makes her current outfit pale in comparison.
My friends want me to tank for them in some of the end-game content, but as Chari's armaments are... well... shit... it'll be a long while before I can soak up all the damage for them.
I personally consider this to be a bit of a challenge because in all the time that I've played Cataclysm, I have yet to set foot inside any of the new dungeons introduced in this expansion... meaning that in order to get this awesome gear that the dungeons have, I need to learn about all of them... what the bosses inside do, what the groups of monsters inside are capable of, and - more importantly - what adjustments I need to make for my typical tanking routine.
Should be fun, assuming I get a good amount of competent people helping me through these dungeons.
Finish the first 30 pages of a new screenplay.
As the creative literary genius keeps spitting out ideas for new things to write about, I usually end up casting them aside due to time constraints, apathy, or because another project has priority. While this may sound cruel to a future literary/media hit, it's not - as it sits off to the side, it begins to mutate and transform into something else entirely, and when I take note of it, it's usually something I end up taking a good second look at.
As such, there's quite a few ideas sitting off-queue at the moment, and I know that at least one of them (or another idea that may surface) will be pretty good for a movie adaptation.
Since it's been a while since I've worked on scriptwriting, I figured I'd start fresh with a new idea and a new screenplay.
30 pages is the farthest I've ever gotten on writing a screenplay, and that was because it was for a college class.
With this objective, I'm simulating both the time I had to work on that last screenplay and the deadline that constituted as my final.
If you have any ideas of your own, go ahead and pitch them to me - it's not just my thoughts that deserve to be heard and potentially broadcast throughout the world.
Work on and complete the next chapter of my Street Fighter fanfic Unincorporated.
With all the serious and semi-melancholic talk I throw on here, I figured it'd be nice if I typed some something more... silly. Yeah, the non sequitur posts qualify as humorous, and so do a number of other posts I have on here. However, I just need to write something down that has nothing but silly in it... and I figured that I might as well bring an old project back from the dead.
Cue that one fan of my fanfiction work gasping in delighted shock.
It's been a little over a year-and-a-half since I last touched anything regarding FF.net. As a writer, I think I need some kind of practice, so... *dusts off the fanfiction folders in the laptop... for real, this time*
Begin and complete Radiant Historia (NDS).
Atlus' time-traveling RPG came out on American shelves this year back on February 22, and upon the recommendation of a friend, I procured a copy of it*.
Despite my ownership, I have to confess that I have yet to play the game for some reason. However, with summer coming next month, I figured I might as well have an entertaining and new challenge to finish before it ends. Even though I'm not much for typical RPGs, I've heard good things about it, so I'm excited about popping the game into my 3DS and playing it over a night of insomnia. ("New game smell" has nothing to do with my excitement. Nope. *shifty eyes*)
* = Good thing - apparently, copies of Radiant Historia are somewhat rare now.
Lose some weight / get more fit.
More often than not, this objective will be seen on New Year's resolutions across the world. While it's obviously too late* for me to add it to my list** (well, not really), it isn't too late to add it as an objective for DREAM EATER.
While I'm working on keeping a strong mind, it's all for naught if an equally-strong body isn't there to carry it around and protect it. By completing this, I'll be more energetic and positive, and I can build up the self-confidence I need oh-so-badly.
Plus, getting fit has other potential perks... more energy for dancing around like a madman... and potential lady-friends, perhaps? *winks*
* = While 3.5 months is plenty of time to see results, it's a tad late to see them by the time beach season comes around... which just so happens to be very soon from now.
** = In the rare event that you don't know what my New Year's resolution list is... either you're a new reader or you're just not that perceptive. =P
Write a poem.
Every writer, whether they'd like to admit it or not, has a dark side to them that occasionally surfaces in their minds when the pen hits the page. Those that write poetry just happen to know how to hide their distress in plain sight.
Poetry is both complex and simple like that - and now that I'm starting up some writing projects (as listed above), I figured that I'd have to get in touch with that embittered soul I keep within myself. No matter how pathetic it is, it still has a voice that yearns to be heard, and if one listens closely enough, they just might hear it say something meaningful that changes a life.
I miss writing poetry - it's a great way to express oneself in a literary fashion. I used to do it for classes, but every once in a while I just came up with one of my own and decided to jot it down.
Trust me, though: this isn't going to be as simple as it sounds to be.
Work out and organize the rough basics of an epic road trip I want to take next year.
In my view, your early twenties are the prime and twilight of your adventurous years going around and doing crazy/stupid/fun stuff before you have to lock yourself down for your careers. Some may argue against this theory, but let's face it - you don't hear of people taking road trips with their friends when they're in their thirties.
With that in mind, I told myself that I wanted to hold one great and epic road trip across the mainland of the United States. I want to see the sights that I wanted to see, visit the places I wanted to go to - not just drive past like my parents used to do on our family or moving trips.
As such, I'm making it official - I'm going to start planning this thing. I'm going to figure out who amongst my friends would want to go, what supplies we would need, what cars we would take, where we would stay, etc.
However, all that means nothing if there's no itinerary for us to follow. Sure, the sporadic and random "spontaneous road trip" sounds amazing, but it holds the high chance for something to fall through - and not just before the trip starts.
The basics of this objective: find out who would want to go and what the basic route would be, assuming worst-case scenarios in terms of how many people will be going and how long this road trip would be.
Clean my room and maintain its cleanliness.
Some say that a messy room is the sign of a genius. Some say that they're just lazy-butts who'd rather let the filth grow instead of taking three steps to the nearest waste receptacle. Some are just American slobs. =P
Anyway, I've always been messy as a child. I've always been messy as a teenager. And now that I'm 21... I can still be messy. Eep.
Obviously, this objective is self-explanatory, so I'll just cut it short here.
Complete at least 50% of a cosplay outfit of my choice.
To the readers who don't know what cosplaying is, I'll see if I can keep it simple.Think of Halloween and how people dress up as something. Cosplay is pretty much the exact same thing, except cosplayers don't just limit their days of wear to just October 31.
Despite the numerous creative ideas I have for my own outfits and who I want to cosplay as, I figured I'll start with something simple that will require minimal work and money.As I want to keep it a surprise, I won't say anything about it yet, but as work on this objective goes on, you'll see updates on it - photos, reference pictures and what not.
I plan on officially starting DREAM EATER when June begins, so you'll probably be seeing a major update to this operation when that Wednesday rolls around.
Until then, just keep this whole spiel in mind - we'll have to see if I make it. (I know I will.)
In the words of How I Met Your Mother's Barney Stinson: "Challenge accepted!"
See y'all later!
(AUTHOR'S NOTE: HTML is FIXED! Jesus, that took a while… [201105200930])
Koji Kondo - "Dire, Dire Docks"
ReplyDeleteSuper Mario 64 Original Soundtrack
Win.