AND THE LACK THEREOF*

*we put the "mmm" in communism

about

This is the personal blog of Tim. Here, Tim writes on anything he has enough inspiration to finish a post on. That usually ends up being matters of science, pop culture, technology, religion, and philosophy.

This blog is around nine years old, which is over a third of Tim's current age. Back in 2003, it was called "Of Tim: Tim's life - or lack thereof", and it was as bad as you might expect the blog of a freshman in high school to be. Tim hopes that his writing is a little better, these days.

Tim welcomes any input that you, the dear reader, might have. Comments are very much appreciated, especially if you have a dissenting opinion. If you'd like to learn more about Tim, you might want to see his facebook or google+.

Also: Tim is a very avid consumer of various sorts of music. You may be interested in his playlists!

O.o
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It's my BIRTHDAY! Whoo! 15! Finally! Except for the fact that 15 is such an insignificant number, I'm pretty happy.

Day started off poorly, woke up 30 minutes early to catch the bus (since rents normally take me) and I still missed it. Dad had to leave a meeting 20 minutes early to take me, still made it on time though.

Agenda for today: school, presents, homework, play

I've already gotten punched/slapped/poked twice as a 'gift'. Goodness knows if I'll live through the day.

I'm really tired. I think I'm just gonna sleep. Not sure which class though... *ponders*

Latorz.
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O.o
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This has been interesting...

Monday was pretty screwed up, the school portion was pretty laborous / torturous. I got home, solved things, a lot better then. Went to Scouts, and we named our patrol the "Ninja(s)". None of the names really appealed to me beyond all the others, so I suppose it's at no loss to me. Still had some fun, went home, watched the Last Samurai (until 1:25). So I didn't get much sleep. But that's ok, I only need to live without it till Thursday. Tomorrow is gonna be crazy. So far I have three or four quizzes lined up, I gotta read all of the Silmarillion by the end of the week, gonna see Gwen's play on Wednesday (yes, my birthday) and then there's always more homework to throw in. Top it all off with a full day with Daniel after school (going to dinner then to his teen bible study) and I have a full week. Should present some interesting results, at least.

Sarah was back for 2 days, she leaves at 5:30 today. She comes back again next Tuesday, finally moves out on Thursday.

Period's over, I just spent it doing English homework. Oh well. Better than doing it last night, or not at all, I suppose. *rings*
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O.o
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Wow, was THAT ever pointless.

We just had an assembly about the fight that happened last week. They stopped school for like 30 minutes just so they could say, and I quote "We want to make sure you are safe on campus here at IHS. We will be changing scheduels so you can talk to us. BYE!!!!! WE JUST WASTED YOUR TIME!!! WE HOPE WE MADE THIS ENOUGH PC FOR U!!!" Okay, so the part in caps was made up. kind of.

I thought everyone should be informed. Be happy. You is informed.
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^^
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Ah, today has been very wonderful. Feels like water.

So my weekend has been all around great, filled with IMing and techno. Friday was a choppy day, had some pitfalls with classes here and there, but not too bad. Saturday I spent (according to Winamp) 627 minutes listening to techno. I'm pretty certain I never heard the same thing twice. Though, having listened to it as much as I do, I'm becoming familiar with all the tracks.

I'm just really content right now...it's making me happy...not giddy happy....nor hyper happy....just...happy. I wish I could be like this all the time. :-D

Time for some biology!
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O.o
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After a rather strange week, things have been slowly getting back on track.

I dscovered the secret to my ups and downs after school. I just need something to do, that will occupy my time for 20-30 minutes. This wouldn't be a problem except nobody is online till like 7:00, and Ninja Gaiden is so hard it's too frustrating to do it in long periods of time. Stuff like cleaning my room and sewing patches onto my uniform works, but it also requires that the room be dirty or I have patches to sew on. I hope there will be a solution.

My USP arrived (again) and I think there was something initially wrong with the old one. It cocks much faster, with less clicking and banging. Hopefully that wasn't just due to wear and tear. I'll be lubing the barrels sometime in the near future, though probably after my birthday, seeing as I may be getting another pistol. Hopefully.

I'ved been getting worried as my birthday approaches...I haven't gotten any birthday cards. Birthday cards are usually my main source of money, since I never get money for Christmas. Maybe my parents are keeping them? :-/

Another thing I've been thinking about is a summer job. I'll be 15, and mowing just doesn't cut it for pure mass in money. You can always take on more customers, but you have to try and maintain the ones you have now, which I'm doing a pretty poor job of. I was never a really great worker, to my own dissapointment. I once had a job walking a dog twice a day, 5 dollars for every hour I walked her. I made 300 dollars in a month if I actually did it right. But foolish, stupid 6th grader me, I slacked off and they fired me. Same thing could happen with one of my best mowing customers. She asked me to shovel her sidewalk and driveway for a month, despite my objections, and gave 50 dollars up front. I did it two, possibly three times. I basically ripped her of 35 bucks. I really hope she either didn't notice, or didn't mind. That'd be 15 bucks every 10 days, down the drain. *sigh*

Off to go read the comics.
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...
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I'm feeling a bit better than yesterday now, but I really dunno what happened. I just kinda fell apart once I got home, didn't go to Scouts, didn't do anything really. Oh well, I can just hope it doesn't happen again today.

As you may have guessed...absolutely nothing of any importance happened between now and my last post. I'm just trying to shake some boredom off in my study hall. So. I guess that concludes this. *cough*
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-.-
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Crash and burn, that's the word for today.

I had a good day at school, as much as a Monday can go, but I really just crashed when I came home. I literally couldn't press buttons hard enough or fast enough to play games, I was like, really tired. My true mistake was in taking a nap, and when I woke up two hours later equally tired and very very sweaty, I only had 50 minute before I had to leave Scouts. It took me AGES to do anything, I was and still am out of place. I really need a good night's rest. I may still leave for Scouts, but the whole reason I couldn't go is my parents are having people over for dessert, so they can't take me, and by the time I woke up it was too late to ask for a ride. Oh well. Just one meeting, I guess.
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O.o
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After so many waves of those Ninja Gaiden posts, I think I can get back on track with life.

That was a really great weekend, I must say. I don't think I've gotten that much rest in a long time. It started off on Friday with Daniel coming over, and we played NG for a few hours, talked, had food, it was fun. Saturday was spent moving rooms! Finally (yes, really) I took the effort to move the stuff from my old room down to the basement. It was actually a lot of work - I had to clean both rooms before and after moving stuff, then find place for all my boxes (Legos, mostly), and I had to clean out a lot of the clutter in the old room. I never knew so much stuff could be crammed into one room. It took me the entire day, basically, but it was fun, and really makes my life easier. Now that Sarah has moved out (gone to the Philipenes), I have the downstairs bathroom to myself, which is really the best part of the deal. I could deal without having a TV and the XBox, and my computer in there, so long as I had that bathroom to myself.

After cleaning everything, I talked to people and stuff, and on Sunday, experiencing the aftermath of accident after accident doing the sound system at church (kept messng up the sound levels, forgot to tape the sermon), Daniel came over from 1-8, and we played even more NG. I got him through about half the game, and I beat it for the second time. We ate more food, talked more, it was lots of fun. It's been a while since I've gotten to spend that much time with him so it really was an enjoyable time.

I leave now to read the Comics...
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O.o
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My last and final post about Ninja Gaiden. Seriously. I won't bother you any more about it. Definately.

I beat the game, cming in at under 50 hours. Ending boss was easy, thankfully. My impressions of the game from beginning to end have changed, though. The fighting with normal enemies is always awesome, never changes during the game, just gets cooler and harder with the more weapons and combos you get.

-The game starts off weak, the first 2 levels are fun, but really repetitive, because you have next to no combos, and just one weapon. The game doesn't truly become fun until level 7, so it takes a while to really begin enjoying the game.
-The linearity issues are also solved in once you pass chapter 3 - you eventually come to complex cities and dungeons, and you move past the simplicity.
-However, certain things do not come out in enough quantity. The most prominent of these being puzzles. There was only one true puzzle. And it really didn't last too long. It is, after all, and adventure game, and needs to make use of the logistic abilities the XBox gives it.
-Another thing - certain enemies have attacks which are overused and unblockable. This eventually becomes an extreme frustration, dealing with infinitely regenerating enemies which you can't stop. These don't really show up till late in the game, but they end up making the game annoying, not hard. Once you figure out which weapon to deal them off with, it's not so bad, but it still has its issues.
-Yet another problem I faced was with the bosses. Some of them were too easy, and yet some were too hard. Few of them really made sense in the chain of bosses, from easy to hard, though few bosses are truly easy. The easy bosses were ones they forgot to make a defense for one of two things - a charge attack dealing massive damage, and shurikans. Shurikans come in infinite supply, and if you get the boomerang shurikan, you can just throw infinitely, even against some bosses. This makes for a really lame way to get past, and usually is the only real way to get past without taking too much damage.
-The final and last grievance I had was with the ranged weapons. That category came to be the least used and pretty much, a bore. Shurikans are cool, and stay that way throughout the entire game. Their only real use comes in delaying enemies, but they are cool. Then you have the windmill shurikan, basically a boomerang. This would be cool if it had any range. But it doesn't, so you rarely end up using it. Only time I ever truly used it was to lame a few bosses. Then you have the bow. This is my true problem. It comes out to be very little use, and doesn't really do much for you. To aim first person, you risk killing yourself, but otherwise, you may not hit the target, and considering you can only carry 15 arrows of each type, you gotta save arrows. They have two other types - AFPDS Cores, and Explosve arrows. The Cores are just uber arrows, dealing huge damage, not really that great, because any enemy you might wanna use it on will get you before you can fire. Just kind of annoying.

These were my negative impressions ONLY, and I listed all of them. The game was awesome, it's in the top 10 in my list. I'm playing it through once more to get more weapons and stuff.

On to stuff other than Ninja Gaiden. I've been having a pretty calm week so far. Nothing much has really rocked my world or anything, but the Snow Day on Wednesday was a pleasant surprise. I wish I had gotten it today, being tired and all, oh well. And somehow, I feel as if I've written this before....odd...off to go read comics...
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O.o
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For those of you who didn't notice, yesterday was a snow day. Not necessarily the best timing, would have been better on Monday or Friday, but, we can't choose these things can we? I didn't get as much rest as I wanted, but I did get enough sleep. A full 11:30 to 7:00 block! I WOULD have almost 8 hours but my mom kept waking me up. before 7:15. Grrr.

Level 16/16 in Ninja Gaiden. I've beaten all the bosses and I'm now escaping the underworld / hell / illogically placed volcano in which the emperor, which was really an angel/skull demon, who shot lasers and ate you without any muscle. Yes. That's what happened. In full detail....

After climbing the core tower of Zarkhan (palace of the Emperor of the Vigoor Empire) we find that we must go to the 'Realm of the Fiends' to find 5 seperate waves of bosses. 1st wave, 8 easy units. 2nd wave, an easy boss. 3rd wave, 8 easy units with random explosions added by the "Emperor" of the "Fiend Realm", 4th wave, medium boss, 5th wave, hard boss ("Emperor" of the "Fiend Realm") with random rexplosions AND easy units thrown in. Took me about 6 tries. After obtaining the statue of the demon, I placed it on a pedastal, which opened the gates of hell. Which appear to go upwards, but the entire level is up-side-down, so it doesn't really matter. You climb the stairs, which conveniantly fall apart to make your travel faster. After entering the portal to hell, you land in a field of flowers. Look up, and you discover that a giant angel has the Dark Dragon Blade! You fight the angel floating around on a rock, and dodging these GIGANTIC LAZORZ, as well as the occasional strike from his 'hands'. That boss was probably the easiest one I've ever fought. Next, we face the most ANNOYING boss I've ever fought. The angel falls into the magma pits, which burned all the flowers. *sniff* Out comes a SKULL DEMON. This is really just a pile of glue with skulls attached, with remote controlled planes inside the skulls. I lamed this guy, and just magicked him to death in a matter of 2 minutes. It wasn't SUPPOSED to be that easy, but it was. After destroying this dude, you have NOW REACHED THE LAST LEVEL. Now you have to escape the randomly crumbling underworld / hell / former flower bed. But wait, it gets better! Your supposed beyond-scantily-clad-girlfriend has been RANDOMLY tied by her hand with rope from ABOVE THE PORTAL OF HELL. So after grabbing the Dark Dragon Blade you get to somehow rescue your supposed girlfriend, then magically warp into the overworld? I dunno, I haven't gotten there yet. Should be interesting though.

While the ending may be illogical, it's still a really fun game. Can't wait for that plasma sword. I should beat it today, putting me in under two weeks, and about 40 hours of gameplay. I'm going faster than the official walkthrough-maker at IGN. Once I beat it, I may go through it again to get the 'better' plasma sword, and the Dark Dragon Blade. You can buy the sword which the entire plot centers around in the 13th level. Pretty cool, really. I'll do it the next time on hard, which really should be extremely hard. It's hard enough already, though I've mastered killing any and every (xcept one) normal unit. Bosses, I'm still iffy on, but we'll get there eventually.

Something to note about the IGN review: they played through the game pretty darn fast. They didn't spend any time looking for the golden scarabs (semi-hidden items which you can collect to get items), getting money for more upgrades, or other important stuff like that. That can put in another 10 hours of gameplay, and the experience you get from the jumping off walls, and killing dudes repeatedly is invaluable. Heck, I didn't even get all the side stuff! I should be coming in under 40 hours of gameplay though.
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O.o
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Having recovered from a rough weekend mentally, I stand here, ALIVE!

Boy Scout campout on Saturday / Sunday was fun. As usual our group had our tents and a roaring fire going first. Woke up a dozen times during the night from the cold, all because I chose not to wear socks. *bashes head on floor* Still fun though, and managed to pull me away from my other problem, which I won't expand on here.

I'm getting closer and closer to beating Ninja Gaiden. I'm on chapter 12 of 16. It's REALLY HARD though! :-|

Anyways, off I go to read up on the comics.
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>.<
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I don't know either.
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O.o
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Stupid. Teeth. Braces. Suck.

Got mah braces adjusted on Tuesday. The n00b woman doing it broke the wire after placing my donuts, chains, and lace on. So I sat around waiting for the doctor for 30 minutes, who gave me a 5 second diagnosis. "Just take it all off and do it again." So she did. And broke two chains during the process. Stupid n00b.

Been making a lot of progress in Ninja Gaiden. Got the new weapon - "Vigoorian Flail". It's basically the nunchucka, except infinitely cooler. I'm on Stage 7 right now, just before the boss. I HAD beaten the boss, but I jumped down into a pit and died righ afterwards. So lame!

Off to go read the comi---err, blogs.
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O.o
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I can't remember when I posted last....I think it was Thursday?

The weekend was pretty interesting, though hardly restful. Friday night I went to the Ski-o-ree for Scouts, which was at Greek Peak. Not the best conditions...at all. We had three hours friday night with just one chair - chair two. Pollux is fun and all, but it gets old. We couldn't ski any of the blacks because most of them were closed. Saturday was a little bit worse and yet better, though. Because the Greek Peak staff is comprised of idiots, we managed to have just the bunny hill for an hour and a half. During this time it was also raining. But once it stopped raining, we got a full mountain pass, sort of, and that wasn't so bad.

Ninja Gaiden still rocks. That's my ending word for today.
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O.o
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Well, nothing of any huge importance has happened....except....I BOUGHT NINJA GAIDEN!

*cough*

It's an awesome game, it really is. It's really fast paced, and you really only stop when you die, which I only do on bosses. It's a really hard game to play, because you're quickly forced to use ALL the controls before you even fight the second boss. Basically, there's a bunch of different ways to attack. Single pressing-wise, you've got one normal attack button, and one 'essence' or strong attack button. You also have a button for an auto-aimed ranged attack, and a buton for jumping a button for camera control (two, actually) and one for blocking. It seems really simple, no? But you have to utilize all of them simultaneously, because you're usually fighting groups of three guys. One thing they mastered really well is having fun just KILLING people. There's so many ways to do it! If I actually knew how to do it, there's a way to kill 3 guys at once, and they all die simultaneously, it's really cool. The ranged attacks are a bit weird to use, though. With the shuriken you don't have to stop to throw them, but they do like no damage, and the only real purpose is to stop a guy for 1 second, which helps. At the moment, the only other ranged weapon I have is the bow. Problem is, you have to stop and shoot, and it really makes it useless for real combat.
Another thing they did well was the wall effects. In a lot of other games (JK2, JKA, Splinter Cell), tricks off walls were really pretty useless, and you only used them once or twice in the game. But not here. Walls are an invaluable tool for dodging and getting around. It's just awesome to run into a room, jump off a wall, jump on a guy, land behind him, and own the noob. The game is a lot harder than that though. The bosses are all REALLY hard, and money isn't a plentiful source for getting potions. At the moment, I'm only on the fourth stage because the first two days I had it, I was stuck on one boss.
As for the bad parts: it's kinda linear. You basically go into a room, kill people, and go into the next, with maybe some side rooms with more dudes or items or something like that. There's not a lot of options for where you can go. Another thing is the possibility of not actually being able to prevent your own death. Most games have a thing where for about .2 seconds, you can't be hit after being attacked. Not this. Ninja Gaiden is completely real-time, and while this makes for an awesome but hard fighting experience, it can be kind of lame. If I just get knocked into the air by an explosion, all my enemies have free reign on me till I roll back up. The blocking mechanism is good, but it only covers, maybe a 100-120 degree range, so if you roll the wrong way, and happen to face the wrong way, there's not a thing you can do.

Whoops. I accidentally wrote a little game review there. Hehe. :-D

Anyways, that's been a lot of fun. My dad brought the TV back, so I was playing in my room last night, not upstairs in the den. Tonight comes the ski-o-ree, which should be interesting, considering theres no snow outside. Hopefully it will be good.
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O.o
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I feel like posting the lyrics to Flood, so I'm just gonna do that.


Rain, rain on my face,
Hasn't stopped raining for days,
My world is a flood,
Slowly I become one with the mud,

But if I can't swim for 40 days,
And my mind is crushed by the thrashing waves,
Lift me up so high that I cannot fall,
Lift me up!
Lift me up! When I'm falling...
Lift me up! I'm weak and I'm dying...
Lift me up! I need you to hold me...
Lift me up! Keep me from drowning again...

Downpour in my soul,
Splashing in the ocean, losing control,
Dark sky all around,
Can't keep my feet touching the ground,

But if I can't swim for 40 days,
And my mind is crushed by the thrashing waves,
Lift me up so high that I cannot fall,
Lift me up!
Lift me up! When I'm falling...
Lift me up! I'm weak and I'm dying...
Lift me up! I need you to hold me...
Lift me up! Keep me from drowning again...

Calm the storms that dredge my eyes,
And dry the streams still flowing,
Casting down all waves of sin,
Guilt that overthrows me,

But if I can't swim for 40 days,
And my mind is crushed by the thrashing waves,
Lift me up so high that I cannot fall,
Lift me up!
Lift me up! When I'm falling...
Lift me up! I'm weak and I'm dying...
Lift me up! I need you to hold me...
Lift me up! Keep me from drowning again...

Lift me up! Yeah!
Lift me up! Yeah!
Lift me up! Yeah!
Lift me up! Yeah!
Lift me up! Yeah!


Homework's done. Smooth sailing.
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O.o
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Good day, good day. Had a crappy school experience, since I woke up realizing I hadn't done any homework. But we shall see how tomorrow unfolds. Lots of homework to do.

I removed the survey links, and added the link to an online streaming techno/trance/dance list. Enjoy, to those who like techno, trance, and dance. I like it.

Only 70 days of school left! It's actually something more like 120 something days left, but weekends and breaks are all there.
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