RS Muser

I got bored and decided to start my own Runescape blog. Click here.

Another School Year

So junior year’s over. Starting next year I’m a senior. Geez that’s a pretty scary thought, to be honest. It feels like just seconds ago I had graduated middle school and entered high school, and soon after two more months I’ll be part of the next graduating class. It’s a thought I still can’t believe. It’s especially saddening because my family will be moving to California after I graduate because my dad has to go work at his company’s main branch, so there most likely won’t be much of a chance that I’ll be able to see my high school friends again, unless someone is willing to let me live with them

As for this year, I’m content. My grades sucked a lot so my rank will most likely fall a bit, but I did a LOT more extracurricular stuff, especially piano-wise, so that made up for my grades. Next year though will be my return to studying. I mean it. I intend to force myself to work during gov school which will in turn help my study habits for next year. Hopefully.

Overall though, junior year has been a changing point in my life in more ways than one. Things happened that I expected, things happened that I definitely didn’t expect (one in particular…), but hey life comes at you from all directions. It wouldn’t be exciting if you were going down a straight path with no twists or turns.

Congratulations to this year’s graduating class! Senior class of 2010, let’s do this!

The New Moon Trailer Dissection

The New Moon trailer’s out.  *GIGGLESQUEEGIGGLE* /sarcasm.   In case you haven’t seen the joyous masterpiece yet, here it is (what a great default video picture, a half naked Taylor Lautner >.<):

Okay, dissection time.  This dissection/critique is a little long because for some reason, I took it upon myself to comment on everything possible.  If you are a hardcore Twifan reading this and take it upon yourself to try and refute everything I say/mention, please note that I will most likely not reply, and your opinions will not change mine.  Everyone’s entitled to their own opinions, and this is mine about Twilight in general and the trailer.  However, if I made mistakes concerning the trailer or the books, corrections for them are welcome.

Side note: TTM stands for Twilight the Musical, which is the most amazing parody of Twilight I have ever seen.  I will be randomly quoting it throughout this, so if you want to understand what I’m talking about, check it out at: http://www.twilightthemusical.com (it’s still a work in progress).

Okay, so the trailer starts out with a panning over of scenery, blah de blah who cares.  There’s ominous music playing in the background.  It doesn’t take a really pretentious person to figure out that there’s a premonition of something bad.  Scene change to nighttime, where Bella’s red truck drives into the scene (TTM: “I got you a truck.  It was really cheap, like you”).

0:14
Bella: “It’s my birthday, can I ask for something? ….Kiss me.”

And then proceeds what has to be the most unemotional kiss that ever existed in the history of movies.  Seriously, I thought Edward and Bella had no compatibility on paper, and now on the big screen, every time they get together it seems like the compatibility factor decreases by ten.  It’s probably hit the negatives by now.  I mean, I understand that this was supposed to be an “aww such a loving couple” scene, but the lack of emotion from both sides just makes it extremely bland.

0:22
Bella: “I love you.”

Those three words probably had even less emotion than the kiss, if possible.  This is turning out to be a great trailer already…

0:24
Edward: “You’re my only reason to stay.  Alive, if that’s what I am”

You say that, but you really don’t look like you mean it.  In fact, you’re practically emotionless.  Here the Twifans go “but he’s a VAMPIRE!!  He has an excuse for being practically emotionless!”  Well that may be true, but seriously, Edward/RPatts looks like he’d rather be anywhere but there, and thus the romance aspect of the whole movie starts to fall apart since the actors/actresses don’t even sound/look like they’re in love.

0:30
Scene change to Bella’s birthday party at the Cullens.  All the Cullens are there (TTM: “Edward, Emmett, Alice, Jasper, Carlisle, Esme, Rosalie”)  Alice is all excited about the party, informing Bella about her presents and her cake.  At least Alice is portrayed by an actress who can show emotions.  Kudos to you, Ashley Greene.

0:36
Bella: “Alice, that cake could feed fifty, and you guys don’t even eat.”

Oh Kristen Stewart, I love how you even carry out even potentially humorous lines with the same monotonous voice that you proclaim your love for Edward with, although it does fit Bella’s monotonous personality in the books (EDWARD I LOVE YOU MARRY ME), so maybe KStew’s doing a good job.  *Shrug*

0:42
Bella: “Ow, papercut.”

OH NO Bella gets a paper cut (TTM: “I’m so clumsy and begrudgingly in love!”).  There’s a closeup of KStew’s face, emotionless as ever (wait, is that a slight grimace I see?  Oh, good job KStew, progress!).  The music gets darker and louder, signaling soon-coming action.  A drop of Bella’s blood falls ever-so-dramatically to the carpeted floor.  Jasper freaks out and starts vampysprinting towards Bella, Edward goes D: and pushes Bella away (a little forcefully I might say, it seems she fell into the table) while whirling around and throwing Jasper back, resulting in him crashing into the piano (the poor piano!).  Oh, joyful action.  Actually, I think the only thing that made the scene suspenseful was the music.  The rest was just like “…okay wow, lame, next.”  Insert the Twifans who go “but they’re VAMPIRES, and Jasper can’t control himself, so it adds to the suspense!!  Bella could have seriously gotten hurt!” Yea, seriously, stop playing the vampire pity card.  I think Bella got more hurt by being shoved into a table than by what Jasper might have done.  And honestly, come on, we ALL knew Edward would be there saving her sorry, clumsy ass.  There’s no suspense if you know the outcome.

0:52
Bella: “What happened with Jasper is nothing.”
Edward: “Nothing compared to what could have happened, and I promise to never put you through anything like this ever again.  This is the last time you’ll ever see me.”

Scene change to a forest.  Okay first off, I have to comment on the facial expressions through this whole conversation.  Good old RPatts has his constipation face back on.  KStew, on the other hand, has a face that says “okay let me attempt to look heartbroken so that we can end this scene already, and then I can go home at long last and get the hell away from this set and movie.”  No emotion whatsoever, as usual.  No wonder her only friend is a cactus (TTM reference).  But yea, back to the trailer.  Edward leaves Bella with yet another unemotional kiss on the head and leaves.  And all the Twifans start to bawl.

Seriously, I think I’m going to go into the movie theater when New Moon comes out with a jar to collect change.  Donate your tears of sadness and longing to charity!  Ten cents for every tear that falls because you miss your Edward.   Twenty-five if it’s just a single tear.

1:09
Good job Edward, you left your ex girlfriend standing in the middle of a forest, where potential predators *cough* could be lurking.  Now Bella’s all heartbroken (or pretending to be at least, on KStew’s part) and is reduced to a crying wreck on the forest floor.  I have a feeling this won’t turn out well.

1:13
Laurent: “How much could you mean to him if he left you here, unprotected?  But I can’t help myself.  You are so… mouthwatering…”

Woo, my feeling turned out to be right, though I suppose it was a rather obvious prediction.  So yea, Laurent somehow finds Bella, and now they’re in the middle of some sort of clearing.  Bella’s standing there looking impassive and dumbfounded as usual.  And now Laurent wants to eat her.  Literally.  Blood-red eyes and all.  Way to go Edward, what good judgment you have!  …Wait, I thought vampires’ eyes got black when they were bloodthirsty?  Oh well, who pays attention to the details in the book anyway?  And uh, Bella why are you just standing there while he’s fondling your face?  What happened to the flight stimulator in your body that should have been urging you to get out of the dangerous situation?  Here the Twifans go “but she was rooted to the ground by fear!  And she’s heartbroken!”  Okay, really?  She had enough courage (and stupidity) to go try and fight James in the first movie, who was much more potentially dangerous I believe.  Now she can’t even try to get away from Laurent?  Also, I highly doubt there is one person here that would not at least attempt to get away from or fight a person who was threatening to kill you.  Heartbroken or not, I’m pretty positive there’s some intuition inside you that would tell you to freaking RUN, no matter how scared you were.

Oh wait, this is the world of Twilight, I forgot.  Since Mary Sues can’t die, I suppose somebody will just have to come and save Bella.

1:25
Cue TLaut to the rescue! My prediction was correct, yet again, and he has his regular hair back.  I guess the producers got flooded with letters complaining about his fake hair.  Good thing too because it looked ridiculous anyway.

So Jacob appears and sprints toward Bella, Laurent gets distracted, Bella turns and flees while yelling at Jacob to run, and Jacob dramatically shifts into a werewolf and lands on all fours, snarling at Laurent.  Cue Team Jacob screaming.  I guarantee you when I go see New Moon, this will be one scene that results in a mass of screaming females.  And that’s why I’m reminding myself to bring earmuffs.

I have to admit though, as much as I don’t like Twilight or the rest of the trailer, those last few seconds were actually somewhat gripping.

Anyway, thus ends the wonderful New Moon trailer.  New Moon is unfortunately coming to a theater near you on November 20, 2009.  I can’t believe I just spent an hour of my life writing up this three page long critique.  I think I shall go off to do something useful, like perhaps my history homework, and try to get rid of this Twilight madness from my brain.

I shall leave you all with one last TTM quote: “Cold things can’t feel love.”

Have a nice day.

The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread

http://www.twilightthemusical.com

The above link is full of win.

I was in tears after watching it.

Tears of laughter mind you.

My Summer 2009 Goals/Plans

Ah what the heck, better to start planning earlier than later, even though I doubt many of these will be fulfilled.

1. Have a blast at GSET.
2. See the midnight screening of HBP (which may coincide with #1).
3. Finish the OQL site …lol.
4. Fully learn PHP and Javascript.
5. Go over Java in general so that I can be knowledgable next year.
6. BAND CAMP!!!! hahaha.
7. Complete some of the things on the evergrowing list of plans that Ashley and I have.
8. Start writing. Seriously I put this on every list of goals I ever make and it still hasn’t happened. Oh well, maybe one day…
9. Put the plans I have for an MMORPG down on paper.
10. Study for SATs in October.
11. Runescape subscription? 99 fishing? Maybe?
12. Finish college applications. Especially one for early decision.
13. Find a job online somewhere. Note: this is highly unlikely.
14. Learn something about networking.
15. Learn more about hacking. With good intentions.
16. OQL summer league!!
17. Work more on Shurtugal. Especially on the chat.
18. Practice piano. Get Mephisto down and memorized. Try to get Ondine at least up to half tempo with correct notes and fingering.

I believe that’s pretty much it. Now to see how much on this list I’ll actually complete…

Oh the old days…

I got a little bored, so I wandered back to my old Xanga from 2005-2007, and well, wow.  That’s pretty much all I can say.  I’m quite happy I’ve grown up and matured; it was a little embarassing going back and reading the stuff I posted when I was young and naive.  No I will not be linking you to my Xanga to save myself some dignity, so don’t ask.

Yes I’ve changed my blog title to “Overthought,” because I tend to overthink too much while writing posts for this blog (most of the time anyway).  Plus “Jamie’s Junk” sounded a little eh…wrong.  Hahaha, sorry I have a bad mind. >.>

Yea this is a short update I know, and it’s nothing really worthwhile to read.  Ah well, I just thought I’d keep my blog a little more alive.  More posts will be coming soon.

Thinking

The mind is both a gift and curse. It’s such a bittersweet thing that rules over our lives, having less of an influence in some than in others. It is our minds that allow us to think, an action that can bring out the best, the worst, and the greatest frustration in some people. For me it’s the latter, sadly.

I can’t just do things. I can’t do it. Nike’s slogan contains the simplest three words and yet together they create a phrase that becomes the hardest thing for me to do. I can’t “just do it.” I end up questioning myself over and over again, thinking of every possible outcome to every possible situation before I just do something. It’s both good, helping me avoid sticky situations, and bad because I end up being unable to decide what to say/what to do and simply do nothing. Then later on I’ll get annoyed with myself because I couldn’t loosen my barriers for once and “just do it.”

I have to wonder how some people are able to just do things without giving a second thought to it. I really wish I had that ability, for it would make my life so much easier. Instead, I’m stuck with a mind that makes everything go through a thousand checks and barriers and walls before actually coming out. It’s infuriating at times, but what can you do?

I thought I was getting better, and I think I am because I’m slightly more outgoing than I was before, but I still quintuple guess myself. lskdjfjlsdhdks

Maybe I should just keep myself extremely tired or hyper. Those are the only time the thousand barriers in my mind break free and I end up doing whatever the hell I feel like doing. It’s a rather liberating feeling.

Ah well, I don’t know. I’m just typing my random thoughts for the day.

How Do People Give Advice?

I wish I knew how therapists got people to feel better. The human mind is just so vast and intricate that I don’t understand how it is possible for therapists to do what they’re paid to do.  The way I see it is that there’s two options for giving advice: optimism or reality.  If you try to make people feel better by being optimistic and trying to get them to hope for something better and/or see life in a brighter light, you may help them realize that life isn’t so bad after all.  On the downside, you may also fill them with false hope, which they will regret you for later on.  On the other hand, if you throw reality at someone to try and make them feel better, you may encourage them to try and fix what’s wrong in order to put their life back together.  On the downside, you may also cause them simply to feel worse as you push reality in their faces.

What about a mix of the two?  That would be ideal, but it’s hard to accomplish depending on the situation.  The easiest way to mix them up is if you’re giving advice in a situation you’ve gone through.  Then you know what to do and what to say.  However, what if you weren’t in that situation?  What if you don’t know how the person is truly feeling because you’ve never gone through their problems?  What do you say to them then, optimism or reality?  And how will you know which option is the right choice?  I’ve always gone with optimism, but lately I’ve been questioning my hypocricy.  In reality, life is not always sunny happy rainbows and flowers.  Life has problems and issues.  Instead of telling people to hope, maybe telling people to take responsibility for their actions and fix things up would be better, but would that be too harsh?

Of course though there’s always the option of humor, but that’s just a temporary sidetrack before the sticky situation hits you again.  It may be good for a short time, but eventually it’ll wear off.

I really don’t know at this point.  These are just random thoughts that have been going through my head recently.  I want to help people who are feeling down, I truly do, but sometimes it seems like I don’t because I don’t know what to say, and that is far from what I really wish.

C9: The MMO I’ve Been Waiting For?

You cannot deny that that looks ridiculous.  C9, or Continent of the Ninth, could very well be the break away from click-attack MMORPGs that I’ve been waiting for.  I know trailers hype up the game a lot more and may not show things like they actually are, but seriously this looks amazing.  Here’s a video of the combat system that made me rather happy:

YES!  Actual utilization of the mouse and keyboard other than pounding out skills and clicking monsters!  I am one happy camper.

I’ll definitely be keeping my eye on C9.  Ahh my gamer soul is quite pleased.

Runes of Magic: First Impressions

I had a rare bit of free time this weekend, so being the hardcore gamer I am, I decided to try out an MMORPG that had been recommended to me by a friend: Runes of Magic.  After about 12 hours of downloading and patching because my internet is slow and it was a 3.36 GB download, I finally got around to playing.  About an hour in, I could already feel myself growing indifferent to the game.  Overall, Runes of Magic is just your generic, cliche MMORPG.  There’s nothing that really makes it stand out or unique, which is sad because that is what will make it popular – it’s so much like mainstream games such as WoW, Guild Wars, Everquest, etc, that people will grow attracted to it by its similarities.  However, here are some things that I noticed during my first hour or two of playing:

Irks
-NAVIGATION: I’m a stickler for navigation in an MMORPG.  If I can’t move around easily, it will almost immediately turn me off the game, which in this case, it nearly did.  Moving around in RoM is done by WASD or the mouse buttons, much like many other games.  I usually use either WASD or the “left click move right click view” form of moving around.  However, both ways of navigation had issues, in my opinion at least.  Instead of A and D tilting the screen left/right like I was used to, they made the character run left/right, which got irritating because then I’d have to use the mouse to change view angles anyway.  With WASD being an annoyance, I tried to use solely the mouse.  However, I had to click an area several times before my character would move there, so that didn’t really work out.

-TALKING TO NPCS: It was also highly annoying to talk to NPCs.  In order to converse with NPCs in RoM, you have to click on them once to select them and then once more to actually open the dialogue box.  However, actually being able to select them was a real challenge.  Many times when I went to select an NPC, I ended up selecting a player instead, so it became a frustrating battle between me and my mouse cursor as I tried to make it understand that I wanted it to select an NPC, not one of the many players standing around the NPC.  One time a player was standing on the spot an NPC was, and I had to wait about three minutes for them to move because it was impossible to select the NPC.

Likes
-ITEM MANAGEMENT: There’s a sort button in the inventory!  God how that makes life SO much easier.  Also, when you go to the character equipment window, you can mouse over an item spot and the current item you have on, along with items usable in that spot in your inventory, will appear.  That way, you can compare items side by side to figure out which one you want to use and which one you don’t want to use.  Quite handy.

-BIG INVENTORY: There are six tabs in the inventory, each one holding …30 items I believe.  Ahh the bliss of not having to throw anything out until absolutely necessary.

—-

Other than that though, there’s nothing else that’s really special about Runes of Magic.  The combat system is your good old “click-attack, skill-spam” kind.  While it’s better than solely click-attack (I would have uninstalled RoM immediately if it was), it’s still nothing new.  I haven’t gotten to the main storyline quests yet, so I can’t say anything about quests, though right now they’re a little lame (collect xx number of this and that).  You can also gather resources in RoM (mining, woodcutting, and herb collecting) in order to make items that you can use to raise certain skills.  I haven’t really done much skilling so I won’t say anything about that either.  Mounts are also available in game, but that’s nothing new in the world of MMORPGs.  House-building is another feature that’s included, but I haven’t gotten at all to that, so again, I have nothing to say about it.  The graphics are also just the usual graphics of most MMORPGs nowadays.  They’re eye-catching to an extent, but they’re nothing new.  Classes are the same old warrior, ranger, thief, and mage, or sort of combination between them with different titles thrown in.  Nothing new there either.  Seriously, the day when I can be some sort of non-cliche profession in MMORPGs is the day the world ends.  Aka I’ll never get to be a troll who beats people with a club made out of dried mud.

I can see myself sticking with RoM for a little while, though I can tell it will bore me quite soon with its unoriginality.  Ah well, who knows?  Maybe it’ll turn out like Flyff, where I get bored of it after a month, then come back to it a year later and have some sort of epiphany and start playing it all the time.
—-
Here are some screenshots of Runes of Magic (note: I did not take these):

One
(…Uh…ignore the stuff in the message box lol)

Two