The Post-Birthday Party

Hello and welcome to Weekly Ramble number 8 on today April 20, 2012. As usual I am James and this is a compilation of stuff that I want to talk about. To start things off we'll sneak over to “The Creator's Corner” and see what's been going on with a few of my “projects”, then I'll talk a bit about Faulted, my World of Warcraft character, I'll spend a little bit of time talking about me and I'll finish up the main part of the ramble with a new fixation of mine. Plus at the end, as always, will be a new Song of the Week and a look at “Semajj's Bookshelf” to see what's new this week! Enjoy:

I thought I'd do things a bit differently today and start today's ramble with a visit to “The Creator's Corner” for a quick update on my three major stories (NEw, Volt and Eleven). In the past week I haven't done anything! That's right, I've been super lazy about any of my works this week, mainly because I've had most of the week off of work so I haven't been doing much other than relaxing. But I did read a short-story of mine that has been put on hold for quite a while (a bad habit of mine is not finishing things...). Project “Re;Inspiration: Titan” was a short story that I started writing that bridged a sub-story of NEw into it's own full-fledged story, Eleven. While reading through the incomplete story I got really excited with how awesome it was (some of that may have come from the fact that I was reading it on my phone instead of on a word processor, but the more authentic it seems, the more authentic it becomes) so I have been recently story-crafting the bridge between NEw and Eleven and even rethinking some of the key characters in Eleven, including a character that is introduced early on in NEw. I guess I'll stop here before I give out any important details, but I will say that Eleven seems like a really good story and I might start working on “RE:I” again soon...

Now then, in the past few weeks I've been spending a little bit more time with my little Dwarf Shaman in the World of Warcraft, and I've got to say I think part of the reason that I've been playing again is because of the hype that Mists of Pandaria is building. Anyway most of my time spent with Faulted lately has been flying around Azeroth doing archeology in search of new pets. That's right, Faulted's main goal in life is to be the very best pet collector, with a collection standing at 184 pets (as of now) I am currently tied for second place on my server, not too shabby if you ask me. If you want to, you can see Faulted's collection here. In the coming weeks I'll be able to get three more pets, which is good for me, my current goal is at least 190 pets before MOP is released. Next week (or the week after, I don't remember) is Children's Week, where we can escort an orphan around the world to visit monuments and once you bring your orphan back you are rewarded with a pet, there are two cities where you can visit an orphanage, so doing so will give me two more pets. And in three weeks the Darkmoon Faire begins again, and I'll be able to get my final pet from them this time around. I'll talk about my latest addition to my collection in today's “Semajj's Bookshelf” so please look forward to it.

So as some of you might have guessed from the title, yesterday was my birthday. That's right, twenty years ago, yesterday, was Easter 1992, but it was also the day that I was brought into this world. Twenty years have passed since then, and I can at least say a lot has happened. Among the more important: heart surgery when I was four, a bad car crash when I was in middle school and my parents' divorce late in my middle school years. Good things have happened too, but they never seem to leave as big of an impact as the bad. Over the years I've made and lost many friends, discovered my love for Japanese culture and my love for writing, I've even spent a good chunk of my life in the virtual world; I started playing World of Warcraft almost as soon as it came out and even though I've taken month-long breaks from it, I still play and I'm proud with what I've accomplished, even though it's just a video game. Well I don't want to get too sentimental, I'll just say it's been a good 20 years, and I look forward to many, many more years in the future.

Okay switching gears as we head for the finish-line, I just wanted to talk about the new Playstation Vita, no I haven't purchased one (yet) and I'm still on the fence as to buy one or not. The main reason I want a Playstation Vita is because of a new video game that might be on its way for the new system. In August 2011, a company named NIS America announced that they were going to bring the super awesome Black Rock Shooter video game here to America, at the time for the PSP (I don't own one of those either). Well fast forward to April 2012 and NISA still hasn't released BRS the game, rumors around the net (some even fueled by NISA employees) say that instead of releasing the game for PSP they are holding out until it is compatible with Sony's new Playstation Vita. Word on the net is that NISA will have some big news by the end of this month, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed while trying to keep myself from buying a used PSP and import a copy of BRS the game. But for the time being I'll not buy anything and just save up so I can buy the appropriate console/game combination when the Black Rock Shooter game is finally released in America.

If it feels like today's ramble is all over the place, well then I apologize, I'm sort of in a rush so I'm just spiting out words as they come to me, hah. Anyway it looks like we've finally come to the end of today's ramble, which means it's time to see what's new on “Semajj's Bookshelf”. This week two new items were added to the Bookshelf; a Fairy Tail Beanie and the World of Warcraft TCG Loot Card: Vicious Grell. Brief explanations of the two new items are as follows: the beanie is an all black fleece cap with a large red Fairy Tail guild symbol on the side (pretty awesome imo); and the Loot Card is a card with a redeemable code for an in-game pet, the latest pet in Fautled's collection. Now it's time for the new Song of the Week:

This week's Song of the Week comes from the anime Senki Zesshou Symphogear (an anime which really surprised me in the end, if you haven't seen it, follow the link to view it on NicoNico). Makyuu Ichii-Bal is preformed by Ayahi Takagi and is the character song for Yukine Chris from the Symphogear anime. Anywho, that's it; as always thanks for reading, and if you have any comments, questions, tips or concerns you can e-mail me at Semajj07@gmail.com or leave a comment in the little boxes down below. Until next time, keep partyin'!