Pokemon/Stephen Fry

Hey everybody,

The pokemon have captured me.
Seriously. The last few days, I live in a pokeball.
I was recently re-introduced to the MMOrpg Pokemon World Online

You have to register online in order to play it...but you get to play in the way that you kinda wished you had been able to when you were playing as a kid - That is there actually people around to battle and to trade with. It takes a little effort to get signed up and get playing...and isn't perfect, (it is fan made) but they are clear that it is still in development and have things such as a "broken Move" list, for stuff that doesn't work right. It's not perfect, but its addicting and fun w/ a community and most importantly -

Its free.

It combines the games of the golden age (as I choose to dub it) of pokemon...namely red/blue/yellow/silver/gold

You can start in Kanto (red/blue start region) or Johto (silver/gold)

Anyway Its pretty neat and worth checking out if you the old pokemon

Also...I recently rediscovered my Nintendo DS and what did I find inside of it?
Pokemon Diamond

Which I was both surprised and pleased to find and I decided to play for a few minutes. I picked it up and I was immediately surprised to find that despite the fact that the game has added all sorts of things since the good ole' red/blue days...the starts of these games look so damn similar

Pallet from Red/Blue:                                                 Twinleaf from Diamond:

Hmm...the organization of that is slightly off...but
In any event, hundreds of new pokemon later, all sorts of new features later...but in the end, the formula stays the same and it keeps on selling. All in all - pretty impressive.

Okay - So. I was also going to write about this amazing show that I've just started watching, but I've geeked out for so long now about pokemon that I feel as though I should be out of words here...
Maybe I'll write about it later..
*Looks around for a save point...does not find one*

So I'll give it a quick once over...Stephen Fry is amazing and he has a show that I've discovered called "Stephen Fry in America" where he basically just tours America and learns about the United States, under the idea that he was almost born here (his father was offered a job at Cambridge while his mother was pregnant with him, but turned it down).

It is sweet.
Found it.
*Save*

-Erik
Soundtrack of the Moment: Stepehn Fry talking about the Battle of Gettysburg - "Stepehen Fry in America"

Starting again

I have no want to start a war. After all it was my birthday yesterday.
But. I want to start writing here again...and if that causes problems, then I guess I'll figure something else out.

A lot has happened, but that is not what matters. What matters is I want to talk about video games again and this was once a cool blog that allowed for that. SO if I have to make a different one I will...but I helped come up with the concept..and the name. So for now I will continue it starting....

So...I did it

I got an Xbox360. It was long overdue I suppose..and now microsoft owns yet another piece of my soul. It was just a good enough of a deal that I didn't want to pass it up (thanks dealnews!). Basically I needed a new laptop as my old one..after about 6 years, lots of use and one notably melted part, had finally given out aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand Microsoft was running a deal where students could buy a certain type of laptop and get this xbox 360 slim for free....so all I had to do was prove I'm a student!

And I quickly I became the owner of 2 (really 3) things...
1. Something to help me do my homework
2. Something to help me play modern video games
3. Something to distract me from my homework with modern PC games

You might notice that the third one bares a striking resemblance to the first.
In any event. The xbox360 I got is technically the new "slim" varient of them. This is amusing to me, as I remember the original xboxes and how they were refereed to as an "Xbrick" by me and many of my friends as, quite frankly they were HUGE. I also seem to remember that I had decided I was going to stick with Sony as my gaming systems of choice and nintendo depending on what I wanted to do, as I did not want microsoft to corner all of the gaming market...

Woops.

In any event. The original xbox's younger, slimmer, stronger cousin has been awesome. So what games have I been playing you might ask? Skyrim Nope. I never understood what was making people give over their entire lives to that game....just didn't get it, but then...
I started playing Oblivion. Okay. I get it now. WOW. Just wow.
For those who don't know, Oblivion is the game that came before Skyrim in the Elder Scrolls series. I wasn't sure I was so interested, but then Boris gave me his copy and I totally get it. The game has borrowed (Read: knocked down, beat senseless and stolen) large amounts of my time and apparently Skyrim is only more involved.

Now Juice wants me to play Skyrim, but I can't I've started down this path and I just need to restore Uriel Septim's heir to the throne...

Anyway, so far its been great and while I have more I want to write about more games and such, I should really be doing other things and this is already super long for a "return to form" post.
So. I'll leave you with this. If you live video game music, at least abstractly in the "I like musical scores" area and don't mind the occasional 16 bit version of it...check out Sound-test.org amongst other things, it is a very cool internet radio station for video game music. You'll hear old favorites and discover some new ones.

Till next time lets not make the blog go boom,
- Erik
Soundtrack of the moment: Yoko Shimomura - "In the flower garden" (SUPER MARIO RPG)