*cough*
CURRENT MUSIC:
The Jimi Hendrix Experience - "All Along the Watchtower (Bob Dylan Cover)"
Electric Ladyland
Often associated with Vietnam-based media (or anything related to the end of the '60s), Jimi Hendrix's famous cover of "All Along the Watchtower" is one of those great songs you just can't really get tired of listening to. It's so good of a cover that even Bob Dylan himself feels as if it's a tribute to Hendrix.
Part of the reason I'm listening to this is because Battlestar Galactica used a cover of its own at the end of the third season. It varied greatly in style but it still got the job done. While it's a great cover of its own, it obviously is out-trumped by this variant.
KCE Japan Sound Team - "REX's Lair"
Metal Gear Solid Original Game Soundtrack
Ah, the music of Metal Gear Solid. It takes me back to the days where I spent countless hours playing one of my favorite video game franchises to both enjoy the cinematic quality and master the sense behind the complex plots.
"REX's Lair" plays in the maintenance facility that houses the superweapon known as Metal Gear REX (just in case the title didn't tell you anything). An ominous-sounding piece, the somber choir (and the electronic accompaniment) puts a heart-stopping chill in your bones as you navigate your way around the area. If anything, the music aurally represents the doom that could be launched from REX if you don't take it out in time.
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots featured a re-done version of "REX's Lair" as Snake revisits Shadow Moses Island in Act IV. While the piece is no longer reliant on the ominous-sounding chorus, it still manages to get the same chilling feeling you got from the first game as you sneak your way through the area once more.
I'm going to admit that when I was younger (read: "more depressed in the past"), I had this on heavy rotation on WinAmp. Frankly, this track amplifies any depression held within a person's heart, and the more this plays, the more that depression exponentially grows. Try not to listen to this if you're not in a happy place, mm'kay? =D
Bear McCreary - "Roslin Confesses"
Battlestar Galactica: Season 2 Original Soundtrack
With the weather being how it is today, I felt that this was an excellent track to help me convey the mood the overcast skies was throwing out at us here in my part of California. A string-dominant piece, "Roslin Confesses" feels like one of those musical interludes that definitely fit some kind of heart-to-heart scenario you'd see in film or television (gee, I wonder how I figured that one out). Strings slowly reveal the drama and close with a snippet of the "Roslin and Adama" leitmotif.
Maybe I have something to confess today. Maybe I don't. You'll just have to read on and on, I suppose. All I can say is that this is a nice song to have in the background if you have something important to say.
Yoko Shimomura - "The Edge of Green"
Radiant Historia Original Soundtrack
One of the tracks from the Nintendo DS RPG Radiant Historia, "The Edge of Green" does its job in elevating the tension one would normally get when in a stronger fight. While this music pretty much goes for fights that aren't so crazy, when this plays, you know you're in for something interesting.
It's a pretty good soundtrack - and the fact that Yoko Shimomura (famed for her work in Super Mario RPG and the Kingdom Hearts franchise) composed it makes it even better.
"The greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions, and not on our circumstances. We carry the seeds of the one or the other about with us in our minds wherever we go."
- Martha Washington
The day is indeed what we make of it. Now here's a question for you. It's an overcast day outside. Do you let it aid the day in mucking up your mood, or do you fight the skies and yell "Screw you and your depression" and flip off the clouds?
I'll let you decide what I chose as you read today's entry.
Cards on the table: I don't know what to write for today's entry.
Today seems to be one of those days where I am compelled to question the status of things everywhere - the status of myself, the status of the world around me, the status of what I think things should be like. Of course, we run into the ever-present danger of me thinking too much and having my mind spiral out of control, but I have a feeling that something like that won't occur today.
Still, despite the risks, I think it's a good idea to start dwelling on some things around here. Not a lot has happened on this here blog recently, so I think it's time we fix that with some serious thought.
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| And what better way to think than by clasping my hands in a deceptive manner? I mean, Gendo Ikari does it. All the frakkin' time. |
Weathered Hearts
(A sky of darkness, or a sky of hope?)
There's something about the weather lately that's been making me wonder how life is around the world. Over here, life's pretty okay, but the skies have been anything but. Large amounts of time spent being overcast can just throw things in flux. I've mentioned before that I can read auras (whether this has been proven to be truth or me being
Regardless of the weather, I've been picking up overtones of depression around me. I'm not sure what it is. Part of it may be the latent depression I've been holding and suppressing for months. Part of it may be me overloading my compassion meters because several of my friends haven't been at the top of their emotional games, too. Part of it might be because I keep listening to somber music ("REX's Lair" ain't helping; I know). And part of it might have to do with some of the crazy things I've witnessed while watching the fourth and last season of Battlestar Galactica (Gaeta's bloody insurrection, the loss of Caprica Six's child, Dee's suicide... if they're throwing all this at me now, what're they going to throw at me when the show ends!?).
Anyway, some of you are now probably wondering what my mood is at the moment. On my current scale, I'd say I'm in a "...eh. It's okay. Not too good, but not too bad, either" kind of mood - with said mood leading further towards the happy side. That's good - it allows for more clarity and at the same time keeps me in check with reality. Perhaps that's why I've been somewhat sensitive to these depressive auras surrounding me and the city. Since there's no overflowing vial of happiness on my end, I'm just being battered with this melancholy and what not.
The good news is that I've yet to let it severely hamper my mood and morale (barring one incident which we're not talking about), and the even better news is that I'm pretty sure I'm not going to get overwhelmed (again) by any of it. Sadly, though, there are people whose mental tolerance and limits aren't as high-up and/or as resilient as mine, and they end up pulling the plug on themselves and calling it quits when they shouldn't.
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| Someone left poor Rapunzel to do a gallow's jig at work last night. By her own hair. |
(What a twist ending?)
Victorious Radiance
(Or: How I saved the world with my 3DS and a copy of Radiant Historia.)
Well, one of my friends will probably be happy with this segment - particularly because it's been long overdue. I finally beat Radiant Historia today. It's all thanks to lots of grinding and one lousy trip to the laundromat that seemed to take for-frakkin'-ever for my clothes to clean.
The following are photos to chronicle my primary party's stats when I finished the game. For that one friend of mine who is probably going "Wow, you finally beat it, you butt-munch? Awesome!" the photos also serve as a glimpse on how I did. (You know who you are.)
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| By the endgame, Stock was taking heavy damage only from tough bosses. Yay, awesomeness. |
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| Aht's defense was rather lacking, but then again, she's a spellcaster. I remedied that. Heavily. |
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| Despite her strength, Raynie still had the problem of a low mana pool. That got annoying for a bit. |
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| Always have a spare slot for a backup file, because you never know when you'll lose your main one... |
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| All these places to time travel and no DeLorean to do it in... |
I need to write a review on this game. "I said that already," you say? Huh. Well, guess that means I definitely should, then. It's a fun game, and that says something coming from a guy who normally doesn't play RPGs.
This Section is a Silly List
(But at the same time: This is Not a Book.)
Those of you who've kept tabs on me know that I have a peculiar book. It's peculiar because it's called This is Not a Book, and it's right. I remember saying that it was "a keg of gunpowder waiting to set off the reader's imagination through creativity" - and thus far when I've used it, it has done just that. The last time I talked about This is Not a Book, I ended up creating a little piece of prose and enjoyed a nice, sunny day in a park. It left me relaxed and at peace with myself (at least for that day), and at the same time, I was able to revitalize my imagination.
So to help me in writing this entry, I figured I could do the same thing again (albeit without the Panda Express and the sunny day). I went to my copy of This is Not a Book and began leafing through the pages for something I haven't done yet. I came across this little spiel and found this little task for me to do.
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| Oh, wait... so it's not an itinerary anymore? *puzzled face* |
This is a tool.Hrm. Interesting. It's pretty simple, too, so I thought of two things this could do:
Come up with 50 different ways This is Not a Book can be used as a tool or utensil of some kind.
- It'll help me get one step closer to finishing This is Not a Book.
- It helps put more meat in today's entry. We've been wanting quality entries lately, yes?
Josh Blanco's List of Things This is Not a Book Could Be Used As
- makeshift fan
- a very weak bludgeoning weapon to use in murder
- table leg wedge
- a boomerang that won't come back to you
- fire starter
- portable sunshade
- paperweight
- beverage coaster
- something to toss around to distract someone
- shovel
- chair cushion
- visual barricade
- a receipt holder/filer
- a (very) light weight
- napkin
- a schoolbook prop in a movie
- a very unreliable shuriken
- a platform for your Lego minifigs
- that red flag you see matadors wave around
- a stand-in for whatever book This is Not a Book was supposed to be
- toy house roof
- face-hider
- hammer
- makeshift catapult
- creativity booster shot
- a test subject for Will it Blend?
- a bookmark for a bigger book
- emergency notebook/doodle pad/address book
- that random thing a person has so often that it's associated with said person
- table place mat
- height-booster
- emergency supply of toilet paper
- something to chuck onstage at a person/group you dislike
- computer keyboard wrist rest
- bug swatter
- head-smacking device
- makeshift drum
- makeshift drumstick
- your secret codebook
- judge's gavel
- jungle foilage-clearing device
- elbow table cushion
- pillow
- firearm shooting range target
- cheap shoulder "pauldron"
- a totally unreliable buckler
- makeshift coin for "heads or tails" situations
- "money"
- laptop stand
- something sturdy to write on
Heheheh... I think this was pretty silly. And yes, I knew that going in this was going to be tougher than it sounded. Oh, well - I still got something out of it, so I win. While this didn't stoke my imagination like I thought it would, it did help with my out-of-the-box thinking, so it's still a good exercise.
Well, I'd say that today was a success. I still escaped my deep thought-mulling with a smile on my face. I got to post something pretty fun and chock-full with quality. More importantly, it proves that I have a good disposition today. =D
Until the 'morrow, everyone! I got friends to hang out with, food to eat, and fun times to live through!
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