Catastrophic Cataclysm

Day four of five! I'm so close to that mystical myth we know as "days off," I can almost taste it.





CURRENT MUSIC:
Bear McCreary - "Battle on the Asteroid"
Battlestar Galactica: Season 1 Original Soundtrack

I'm honestly hooked on Battlestar Galactica's music. Something about McCreary's work here just makes it stand out amongst other soundtracks from other similar series. There's a reason for this: McCreary was asked not to make the score have a "gleaming, brassy sound" that the original Battlestar Galactica (and most other sci-fi shows, for that matter) possessed. And so Bear McCreary delivered by using instruments atypical of contemporary Western orchestras such as erhus, taiko drums, and dizis, and by only pulling in an orchestra when something big was to happen in an episode. Despite this supposed lack of instrumentation, the aural support was still there, heightening the tension, drama, and whatever other emotion the scene called for.

This particular piece comes from an episode where the Galactica launches an assault on a Cylon ore refinery in order to capture it for humanity. The opening establishes the cold reaches of space the strike teams fly through before they're thrust into combat 30 seconds in. I'd try to identify the instruments, but I know virtually nothing about those kinds of ethnic sounds... other than the fact that they sound awesome.


Nobuo Uematsu - "SeeD"
Final Fantasy VIII Original Soundtrack

"SeeD" is best heard as background music for any sort of mission briefing, debate, game plan or that idle time between discussing the course of action and actually executing said course of action. Despite the militaristic sound it has (that repeated drum melody coupled with the woodwinds gives it that sound, you know?), it works in virtually any kind of meeting where a "what next" discussion occurs. Whether you're making a plan to hijack a train carrying a tyrannical leader, mapping out your next fly-by route through a star system controlled by an evil empire, or debating the pros and cons between eating waffles or pancakes for breakfast, it fits perfectly with all stages of planning.

(If you got déjà vu reading that, then good - you probably saw the above paragraph twice now.)

I for some reason had the urge to listen to music that made it sound like I was giving or receiving some kind of (military) briefing. "SeeD" does the job so well I figured I'd have it loop for some time while I typed this entry out.





Hello, everybody! Welcome to today's edition of The White Knight Chronicles. I'm Josh, and I'll be your host this afternoon/evening/night/morning/whatever the time of day is. Of course, knowing me, there's not much that necessarily needs to be talked about, but I'm going to say that there is, so hah!





Dramatic Work Society
(Or: How I made an interesting story more "interesting" for you.)

Yesterday when I woke up, I remember proclaiming out loud the following words:

I want something interesting to happen today.

I ended up getting my wish at work when I walked in. At two in the afternoon my bosses at the Target I work at found that the open-air refrigerators were not keeping their temperature for some time. They didn't know how long the products in said refrigerators have been exposed to higher temperatures, so to safeguard guests from potential health risks, they threw all of it out.

Oh, pfft. That didn't sound dramatic at all. It sounds interesting enough, but I don't think it conveyed the scale of how bad this was. Let me try that again...

*clears throat*

At around 1400 hours yesterday the staff officers in charge of Target's PFresh-class supply vessel "CAMARILLO" received word that the cooling units in the "Market" decks suffered a "catastrophic power failure." The cooling units were used to safeguard and preserve vital supplies being shipped to local civilians, and with them out of commission, the supplies began to overheat. This caused a chain reaction that resulted in the meltdown and loss of various supply containers in that section of the ship - some of which were accidentally caused by the recovery crews. While officials have yet to state exactly how many of these supplies were lost, a statement was issued saying that no personnel aboard CAMARILLO were injured or killed.

The civilian population, however, was dismayed at how a high-class, high-security vessel could undergo such an tragic turn of events. A decent portion of them migrated off to another port in disbelief of Target's lack of mechanical security. This has paved way to various rumors of sabotage and negligence, which the fleet commanders of Ventura District are currently looking into.

*clears throat*

Hahaha. I made it awesome...ish. But still, the message remains the same: we lost a lot of perishables last night. I personally had to box up a bunch of various perishable food and beverages, and by the end of the night I sort-of reeked of rotten fruit and semi-spoiled milk.

"...a chain reaction that resulted in the meltdown and loss of various supply containers in that section of the ship - some of which were accidentally caused by the recovery crews."
The photo's not mine, and neither is the blame for this spill. What's scary is that this was the least of our troubles...

Of course, mistakes in the clean-up procedures were bound to happen (nobody's perfect), and as such we... might have accidentally overloaded some of the boxes. This didn't help us any. But all in all, the recovery of all this detracted from our time out on the floor to pick up the store and get it back in a tip-top manner. How we still managed to pull off a relatively-clean close is still beyond me, but... we did it. Somehow.

If there was a moral to this story it's this: don't let me say things. Oh, and guess what?

I want something interesting to happen today.

Hehehe. Too late now, eh? =3





Eighty-Four
(Nowhere as awesome as 85, though.)

So after getting home from work last night (which, as you read above, was a killer), I decided to play some World of Warcraft. I got Gefallen to 84, which made me happy. A lot of this is owed to rested experience, one friendly Tauren Shaman who helped me kill an elite monster I tried in vain to kill on my own, and a bunch of monsters who refused to yield quest items (though the meat I picked up from the animals will definitely help me level up my Cooking).

Yes, this is how it looks for me in-game. It's cluttered, I know - but I still get it to work.
Besides, you're missing the important point here: the fact that I'm Level 84. *throws confetti*

85 is still a long way to go, though, but I'm fairly confident that I'll be able to get there. Once I do, all I need to do is re-learn the ways of the Rogue and figure out how I'd readjust my play style. I haven't really used Gefallen since the release of Cataclysm (I had mostly been using Chariselle), so I guess now I'm making up lost time with him.

I think I have a bit of a goal for this month: get him to 85 and re-learn how to kick ass with him. And then afterwards, maybe play on Chariselle and get myself reacquainted with the basics of tanking. But first things first: get through work so I can do all this stuff on my upcoming days off. Hehe.





Welp, I'm gonna go take off. Got to prepare for work and get lunch all at the same time, so I'll catch you tomorrow! Ciao for now!