List of Dreams

Gooood afternoon, everyone! Welcome to a special Sunday edition of The White Knight Chronicles, where we're going to have some major fun today! (At least I hope it's fun.)

So what're you waiting for? Read on!





CURRENT MUSIC:
AC/DC - "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap"
Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap

The opening and title track of this album is - in my opinion - a song so awesome and kickass that it has to be part of any karaoke set list. It depresses me when I look at a list and see that it's not rockupied with awesome music. How do people expect me to sing in karaoke bars when a staple song isn't on the list? =O


Frank Klepacki - "Grinder"
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 Original Soundtrack

"Grinder" has always been a favorite piece of mine. Nothing belts out the sound of "Soviet dominance over America" better than this track. I mean it - listen to this and then try picturing America coming out victorious. Just impossible.

If this particular piece looks familiar, that's because it is - you've seen me put this on my "Current Music" list twice now. In both occasions this track was seen on days where I was working very hard or thinking very critically. Since I said yesterday that I was going to post "something big and hearty" on here this weekend, I have to deliver lest I make a complete liar out of myself.

It makes me work harder, Comrades. Work harder for glorious Soviet Union, yes? Because music is... how you say: "legendary." Fix boring rock session. Make boring work not boring. Because this is how we fix [musical] problem in Russian space station! Oh, and also rock out while working on stuff.

(Heh. Lev Andropov: probably the only reason why Armageddon was somewhat tolerable.)


L'Arc~en~Ciel - "READY STEADY GO"
SMILE

(Author's Note: I couldn't find a video on YouTube featuring the whole song, so I decided that I should put a link to something awesome instead.)

If you've watched the original Fullmetal Alchemist when you were younger, you know this song - it opened up the latter half of season one (as evidenced by the accompanying link). It's probably one of their most recognizable songs, and not just because of its use with the anime. It's just that awesome.

Also, it's a great way to start your day. One of my cell phone's alarm ringtones is "READY STEADY GO" - and whenever I use it, I get up. The song's just pumped with energy and great feelings, so it's not really all that surprising.


Lovefreekz - "Shine"
Shine [Single]

Danceable and awesome all rolled into one nice little musical package. I have to thank How I Met Your Mother for introducing me to this little gem from 2005. And according to the music video: "Shine" is also skateable - especially in a roller rink.

For some reason I want to learn how to skate now.


Nobuo Uematsu - "Maybe I'm a Lion"
Final Fantasy VIII Original Soundtrack

Played during one of the last fights of Final Fantasy VIII, "Maybe I'm a Lion" is a boss fight track that musically states the phrase "Shit just got real." I thought it fitting for today - I've imposed a deadline on myself to get this big entry out to y'all before I head in to work, which (if you don't know the retail world at all,) is a major disaster zone that needs to be purged of evil. And by evil, I mean guests with a destructive shopping streak. You know the ones. The ones that give such a hard time that depending on who the worker is in question, varying things could happen:

• Newbie: soiled pants due to the (almost) traumatic experience
• Veteran: shows restraint; vents after guest leaves
• Corporate Tool: see "Munich Pact" and you'll get the idea
• Disgruntled Worker: may show restraint; may verbally strike back
• Rogue Jerkass: actively retaliates (verbally); somehow gets away with it

Of course, while my experiences with guests this fourth quarter have been (mostly) pleasant, there are those people and those moments where I need to stop being the lovable jerk I am and become the heroic bastard who (verbally) straightens them up something fierce. Knowing me, however, I need music of awesome to play in the background. "Maybe I'm a Lion" works well - mostly because they underestimated me somehow and they're going to pay for their incorrect assumptions

Oh, and it's awesome fight music, too. Almost forgot to mention that.




"You know more than you think you do."
- Benjamin Spock

Really, now? Well, I have to consider this to be highly true. There have been many occasions where I thought I lacked the knowledge to proceed with a task, but the skills and intuition were already there inside me. I ended up guiding myself without even realizing that I knew what I was doing the whole time.

Yeah, I realize that doesn't make a lot of sense, but when you look at it later... you'll realize that you did make sense out of it after all.





Well, hello there, everyone! Came to see what all the madness is about today, eh? Truth be told: I don't know, but I'll explain what's going on in due time. I have to - this entry's just laden with announcements and silly things today.

Silly things... that just so happen to be awesome aspirations (and announcements) in their own rights.





A Blog by Any Other Name
(...would still be my blog. Just... differently same.)

As the year draws to a close, I have the urge to check how well I did throughout the year overall and how much of a badass I've become I've improved. Like many others at this time of the year, there's a point of self-reflection where we think about things that went well, things that didn't go so well, and other things.

For me, one of those "other things" would be this very blog you just happen to read. I'm quite happy with it, and I'm quite happy with how I've actually been able to commit to a goal and watch it succeed. I'm surprised at how many people actually read my little rants and crazy-long entries, and even more so when people actually tell me that they read my blog (and this is before I do my whole "read it" spiel).

HOWEVER. There is one slight thing that began to bug me around the middle of October. It started off as a minor inconsistency that I shrugged off, but as we got closer and closer to the present (that is, today), it wore me down until I finally decided to tackle the situation head-on. And, oh look: since you're reading this entry, I'm going to go ahead and draft you to help me.

I'm planning on changing this blog's name.

Don't get me wrong: "White Knight Chronicles" sounds pretty cool, and I'm pretty sure I've lived up to that title. (Just go ahead and look over my surface act, mmkay?) It's not because I dislike how "generic" the title sounds, and it most certainly isn't because I'm afraid people will mistaken this blog with a certain similar-sounding PlayStation 3 game.

I feel that it's not recognizable in the aspect that it stands out. Most decent blogs out there have some kind of (almost) unique name that's primarily affiliated with them, so I figured I should have one, too. No idea what the name is going to be just yet, but I'm sure it's something cool.





Raving of the Weeks (RoW)
(Just what the world needs: another whiny whelp who knows how to type things up on the Internets.)

In order to facilitate the turning of more writing cogs, I decided that this blog could use something new. "But," I asked myself, "what could I add that could be considered as 'new?' Surely I've exhausted virtually every option I have at my disposal?"

Eh, not really. It dawned on me that while I express my opinions on things here from time to time, I don't actually make it look (semi-)professional to some degree. It's an online journal - who formats things properly on the Internet anymore these days?

I'll be writing (little) op-ed pieces and slapping them on here for limited times.

Now, I've done these before in real life. When I worked on my high school newspaper I preferred working on op-ed pieces because I got to express my opinion and simultaneously work on my satire. On here you've seen several of my extremely long entries where I've voiced my stance on things. So what makes this different from all the other stuff? I... don't know yet. Truth be told, I just wanted an excuse to write something on this entry, but at the same time I know that I actually want to do this.

As evidenced by this section's title, I'm going to call it "Raving of the Weeks." I named it so because I wanted to have a cool-sounding acronym. "Raving" was used as opposed to other terms like "rant," "spiel," "candy cane," and "one-sided discussion" for a few reasons.

1. It's a short term. In that, I mean it only occupies six letters.
2. "Rant" and "spiel" seem too cliché of terms.
3. Keeping the term starting with an "r" makes the acronym spell out "RoW." *thumbs up*

As for using "weeks:" you've probably assumed by now that this wasn't a typo. My plan is to throw one of these ravings on here roughly every other week on a separate page. What makes this interesting is that I plan on typing something up, leaving it on the page for roughly two weeks, and then replacing it with a new rave of some sort. This proved to be a bit interesting in that it actually shows me updating the blog periodically instead of me lazily throwing up three-lined "entries."

Of course, the question a good portion of you are asking what I will be typing up. Again, I don't know yet. I just know that it's going to be lengthy.





Santastic Sendoff
(Because closing a blog entry with boring things is just... well, boring.)

The last few nights at work were probably one of the most chaotic things I've had to experience and endure this year. To make a long story short: the way we left the store looking would suggest at first glance that we didn't get anything done at all. Every department - even the ones that were supposed to be dead - came out as if a tank went through each aisle. Things were scattered all over the place; items from other departments were casually tossed onto other in-department merchandise (mighty suspicious... IED?); holes in the shelves were products used to be... it was insane.

In our defense, we worked our tails off. I don't think any one person could slack off without receiving some kind of repercussion. But between the high traffic we had stampede through the store (and with it: quite a large amount of angry, insensible "people") and the condition that our store (and about 90%+ of every other retail store period) was left behind at, I could've mistaken the place for an urban battlefield... minus the corpses and bullet holes.

I'm digressing. *clears throat*

While retail becomes a metaphorical Hell for the unlucky drones slaves workers staffing the place, there are things that make the nights a tiny bit bearable. While going through the toys department on Friday, one of my fellow team members found a Christmas wish list accidentally forgotten by its owner. After giving it a once-over, she showed it to me and some of the others nearby. I took a snapshot as we tried to translate and transcribe.

The only logical conclusion? A little girl wrote this.

It's mostly clear, but we did have to play around with some of the syllables to make any sense out of it. Transcribed, we got the following message:

Dear Santa:
I've been a very good girl. Would you bring me a Password Journal, baby clothes, a stroller and food for the baby, and a Jeep SUV?
[insert various pictures of all the toys she asked for - and then some]

Four of us (myself included) called it "the cutest/most adorable thing [we've] seen all night." I'm quite positive you'll be saying the same thing.





Well, that'll be it for today. Hope this (big ol') entry will keep you sated for a while in terms of "big entry hunger" or whatever it is we'll call it. I'll be keeping you updated if I come up with any ideas for the announcements I just made here.

So, until the 'morrow, everyone! Time to face the music. *blares "Maybe I'm a Lion"*