Weathered In

What this week's weather looks like in Inaba where I live.

*sniffs the evening air* Hm. Despite the clouds, this seemed to be a good day. It also seems to be the start of an interesting month. Let's make sure that it stays that way. Alright, readers?

Please keep in mind that the above forecast is not from Persona 4 but is in fact a (mostly) accurate weather report for any U.S. county under the 805 area code. No rampant rain or fog for the time being, which means no murders any time soon! (I hope.)





CURRENT MUSIC:
Shouji Meguro - "Signs of Love"
Persona 4 Original Soundtrack

As today's a pretty mellow day, I figured that it deserves something casual and light. Since I'm pretty much obsessed with Persona 4 at this point, I figured I'd get something from its soundtrack featured here that fit the bill.

In-game, "Signs of Love" plays whenever you're at home, as if to signal for you to relax for a bit. Two things to know about this track:

1. It's somehow danceable. Eh. It's got a groove to it.
2. It's music you should always play whenever you take a look inside your refrigerator.

I'm serious about that last one.




Good evening, readers! Welcome to May, and welcome to The White Knight Chronicles. I'm your pleasant host, Josh D. Blanco, and I'll be your guide during your stay on my blog.

For those of you who don't know (or didn't read yesterday's entry), this May will be an interesting one in that I am undergoing a self-imposed challenge. It's called the "Thirty Thousand Trial," and the objective is to have each entry for the month have at least one thousand words in it (minus the pre-blog stuff and any footnotes). If you're about to correct me by saying "May has thirty-one days, [insert insulting term here]," then allow me to state that this "challenge" originated from September 2011, where I first made the attempt (and later succeeded). As "Thirty Thousand Trial" has a better ring to it than "Thirty-One Thousand Trial," I decided to keep the name the same.

And now that this announcement has been made clear for my casual "readers" (y'know - the people who only read this blog whenever I slap a link to it on Facebook *stares*), let's continue on.





A (Not-So-)Candid Look at My Life and How It Is
(...wait, what...?)

As I was filling out the outline I made for today's entry, I asked myself why I even bothered to put "Life" here. I mean, I'm pretty sure I can describe my current life situation in less than ten words. (CHALLENGE: I'll do it with one word and a pony.)

Contrary to what the picture conveys, that word is not "facehoof."
It's "surviving."

Life is okay - it could be much, much better, but at the same time it could be much, much worse. A few hiccups here and there, but that's to be expected - after all, nothing ever goes the way we want it to. It's a good thing I get days off, because if I don't, I'm pretty sure I'll spend it thinking a little too much and wondering why I even got myself into a mess like mine.

But eh - details. You're not here to see me whine about how life sucks and how it's not fair. (Hey, high schoolers! That's the first lesson of life for you!) You're here to listen to me prattle on about things you don't really give two shakes at. I can deal with it all myself, anyway.





A Tale of Murphy's Law in Action
(Or: "Why I Find People Watching to be Boring")

So... I don't know why but for some reason I ended up people-watching people at a park. I don't exactly know why... but I couldn't help but watch while I was making some new cards for 1000 Blank White Cards. Between people acting like people and idiot drivers acting like... well, idiot drivers... I thought I'd get easily bored of watching the same thing.

Then out of nowhere comes this group of people exercising at the park. They gathered up and got in an almost-militaristic formation (complete with them standing at attention). From the way they were dressed, they seemed to be an exercise group, but they didn't have any matching uniforms. They began stretching, so I guessed they were some kind of sports or exercise club or team. However, with the way they were dressed (regular athletic clothing you'd find the average joe wearing at a gym) and the way they were stretching (all-body exercises), I couldn't pinpoint exactly what they were, so I figured that once they were done stretching, I'd find out. I told myself to give 'em about ten minutes before I grew bored.

Twenty minutes later, they were still stretching... and for some odd reason I was still there. I did go off once in a while to get a cup of water or take a bite out of a sammich I was nursing down, but... why was I still watching them? I had expected them to do something... anything... but all they were doing was stretch and stretch and stretch...

I finally got tired of watching them do nothing, so I packed my things and got in my car. The moment I started up my engine, guess what happened? The group began running around the park.

...

*eye twitch*

...

(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻

*unintelligible rambling*





"Thou art I... and I am thou."
(A short look at my current Persona 4 situation.)

I find it interesting how I've been going on and on about how much Persona 4 has grabbed my attention... and yet I have nothing to show for it.

For those of you who've played the game and are wondering where I am, here's my status. (Author's Note: Possible mid-game spoilers here; you've been warned.)

It's currently July 31, 2011. I just finished the Void Quest dungeon on the 29th (which, in case you don't remember, is the first day you enter it) thanks to my constant power leveling. It's a good thing I spent the time doing that - otherwise I don't think I would've been able to finish the dungeon in one trip like I wanted. (Why go in multiple days to save some bastard when I have summer vacation?)

My problem with my entire group was that during July, there was a noticeable level difference. My character - along with Chie, Yosuke, and Yukiko - were about four levels higher than Teddie and ten levels higher than Kanji. I wanted to fix that by the time I entered this dungeon, so I spent the first half of July grinding levels inside Marukyu. It helped, because by the time I had slain Shadow Mitsuo, my party got beefed and are pretty much on par with each other.

Triglav of the Chariot arcana. Physically-based and with power to boot.

I'm growing to be a fan of the physical-based Personas - the ones that tear up Shadows with brute strength. (Gee, I think this is based off of my affinity with melee classes.) Triglav is currently my strongest physical-based Persona, and its moveset just makes me grin evilly whenever I fight a bunch of Shadows. Then I cringe if they're immune to physical attacks.

Decarabia of the Fool arcana. My current spellcasting Persona.

For situations like that, it's good that I'm able to use multiple Personas - and that's where Decarabia comes in. It took a while to fuse one that had multiple kinds of spells - but the payoff is worth it. But enough about me and my multitude of Personas - time to see what the rest of the Investigation Team looks like!

Yosuke Hanamura's Persona: Jiraiya.

Yosuke is actually the lowest-leveled member of my party. It could be because of how I see his Persona: as a jack-of-all-trades. His stats aren't the greatest, but they're enough to hold his own in a fight and his varied abilities also are nice to have. (I kind of think of him as a Red Mage from Final Fantasy - skilled in various arts but not a true master of any.)

Chie Satonaka's Persona: Suzuka Gongen.

Chie so far is the only person who I've maxed my Social Link with (as can be evidenced by the clear fact that this isn't Tomoe Gozen. Transforming like that actually saves me some trouble as I no longer have to gear Chie with anti-Fire gear (Tomoe's weak to fire, and since I like fire, that's not good). Plus, Suzuka looks awesome when summoned - that staff looks like a lightsaber in the game. Who doesn't like lightsabers?

Yukiko Amagi's Persona: Kohohana Sakuya.

Yukiko becomes notable in the early game due to her being your first resident healer. However, unlike most other healers, Yukiko kicks major butt. No, scratch that - she roasts major butt. She uses both fire spells and healing abilities, and that's exactly what I expect of her whenever she's in my party. The great part about this is that her Spirit Point count is abnormally high (when compared to the other party members), which makes me not worry about things when I need her to turn the flames on the Shadows or heal the crap out of my party before they die.

Kanji Tatsumi's Persona: Take-Mikazuchi.

Kanji's Persona doesn't really share much of a physical resemblance with the actual Japanese demon, but it still shares its brutal looks and its strength. Hence, his Persona plays the role of the "bruiser" - that one guy in a typical RPG that's somewhat-lumbering but packs a punch you never want to receive. While his magical damage isn't that great, it's nice to have in a pinch in case the Shadows I face aren't getting fazed by punches.

Rise Kujikawa's Persona: Himiko.

To the Persona 4 players who're wondering why I'd put Rise's persona up, it's because she's a party member, too. Yeah, I know - she only plays a support role and doesn't actually fight, but I respect my party members regardless. The only thing that depresses me is the fact that I have to somehow burn through twenty-some-odd levels between the first ability Himiko learns and the second one. *siiiigh*

Teddie's Persona: Kintoki-Douji.

Due to the power of Kintoki-Douji, Teddie has become one of my favorite party members. He functions similarly to Yukiko in that he casts offensive spells and recovery abilities, but differs by freezing enemy butts instead of burning them. Since I have two healers, I wonder how I'll play each of them... they both learn similar abilities and have their own exclusive ones...

So yeah. That's where I am in the game for you.






When Will I Reach One Thousand?
(Huh. Three guesses as to what this section's going to have...)

To close things off for today, here's some more cards I've made for my ever-growing collection of 1000 Blank White Cards. Feel free to use your own variants of these if you like.

Blue Screen of Death
WARNING!
"1000BWC.exe" has caused a fatal error in "player_sanity100.dll" and must be closed.
All cards and effects in play are NULLIFIED. All player scores have been reset to zero.

This levels the playing field like crazy (and for the people who don't want to sound like Liberace or have been named "the Baron of Cheese": this saves them... sort of). It's like if the game was starting brand new... only the discard pile and destroyed cards are still there.

"Einhorn is a MAN!!"
Nice smooching there, Ace Ventura.
Find and shove five pieces of gum in your mouth or lose 750 points.

Anyone who's seen Ace Ventura: Pet Detective knows this scene. Hehe. How silly, isn't it? I figured I didn't have enough pop culture references in here, so I remedied that after watching the movie.

Helium Hit (SECRET)
For one turn, speak as if you inhaled a bunch of helium right now.
+100 for sounding funny
+600 instead if helium is readily available

Honestly, there's going to be at least one person in your group that's sucked down their fair share of helium before. While it's possible for them to get this card and play it like a natural, it gets funnier if it's played on someone who already has to sound like someone else.

I mean, imagine if someone had a card that made them talk like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Then they get "Helium Hit." Chaos ensues for that one turn.

Musician's Ire
You've been practicing too much on the theremin, dude!
Lose the use of your hands for the next three turns.

A friend helped me come up with this card. I wanted to find a silly reason for a player to temporarily be unable to use their hands, and he suggested that they "suffered an injury during band practice." We tried thinking of the most outrageous instrument in existence that could've caused hand strain, and after a while, we settled on the theremin.

"Yankee Doodle"
Call the tenth person in your phone book and sing "Yankee Doodle" to them.
+300 if you do.

When I first started playing 1000 Blank White Cards, this was one of the last cards played... and sure enough, it was played on me. Yay. My friend who ended up getting the call was quite confused until I called back about three minutes later. Funniness ensued.





Well, that about wraps it up for today. Up next tomorrow... oh, I don't know. You'll just have to see, huh?

Hm. Could this be a preview of things to come? Tune in tomorrow to find out!