If It Breaks, Why Not Fix It?

Hello, hello, hello! Welcome to yet another Weekly Ramble. This week has been an odd week for me, it started off very slowly and I feel like I didn’t get anything accomplished on Monday and Tuesday and then on Wednesday it went all topsy-turvy and I wrote over 4000 words for “RE:Inspiration; Titan III”. Yesterday was pretty bland, I did get some work done on T3 and I learned an awesome new technique for cleaning images in GIMP, so that was pretty awesome I guess; but now today I’m really “blah” again. Anywho, how are you? Well I can’t really hear your reply, but let’s just assume you aren’t doing horrible, and that’s good to hear. Moving on to our normal routine, today I’ll ramble about video game news (or lack thereof), I’ll probably complain a bit about T3 in today’s “The Creator’s Corner” but I’ll also talk about these rambles in the corner as well. Plus there will be a new Song of the Week and I’ll show-off what’s been added to “Semajj’s Bookshelf” this week!

I’m sure I’ve bored you all to the edges of your seats with my somewhat-constant rambling about the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion: Mists of Pandaria, but this time I’ve got some pretty fancy things to show you guys. First off is the Mists of Pandaria official Cinematic!

I just love the part where the human hands the orc his spear, that was gold. So yeah, pretty cool. They also announced that on the 28th of this month the Pre-Expansion patch (patch 5.0.4) will go live, this patch will introduce a ton of the new systems and stuff (like account wide pets, mounts and achievements; and the new talent system) and for anyone who plays for free (the 1-20 version) you’ll now be able to play as all of the races (and you’ll be able to create a Pandaren with the rest of us when MoP is released on Sept. 25th).

Along with that Blizzard has been releasing previews of their latest systems such as

What they’re adding to professions in the new x-pac
An interview concerning the awesome looking scenarios
A sneak peek at one of the new raids coming in MoP
And a preview of the return of world bosses

There is a bunch more stuff you can check out, if you want, by just meandering around the site, but I figured those were link-worthy.

Blizzard has been a busy bunch of people this week because they also announced that the StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm multiplayer beta will be launching soon, sweet! When we finally hear a launch date for HotS I’m gonna dust off my control center and get ready hop back into the fray.

Even busier still, the creative team that is working on Diablo III has been releasing previews of their game design for the upcoming Diablo III patch 1.0.4 which will be out “soon” and is making some major changes. You can read all about the changes at the D3 Community Site. Personally I’m not too psyched about this new patch because I know I’ll be busy with the new WoW patch, but hey it might be fun. In all honesty though, I’m pretty much done with D3, maybe when they introduce PvP I’ll see how that is, but I probably won’t be too into D3 again until the x-pac comes out. Oh and also, for those of you who want to give D3 a try, you can now play for free up until the first boss.

In more game news, or rather the lack thereof part, we still haven’t gotten any more news on the Black Rock Shooter game, which kinda makes me sad, but they did say that it’s still in the works so I’ll just have to be patient…

Oh! There are only two more weeks until “Hatsune Miku’s Project Diva f” comes out in Japan, which means that, 4-6 weeks after that, I should have a box in the mail from over-seas!

Okay, enough about games for now. I decided (just now) that I won’t ramble about T3 today so I guess I’ll ramble about rambling instead! It’s been on my mind for a while now, and I know I’ve rambled about it too but I think I’ve finally come to a concrete decision on the matter. I think today’s ramble will the last one for a while, I’m not quitting like I did back in January with the old rambles, but I’m going to take a break from rambling for a while. I don’t know why but lately I haven’t been having as much fun rambling as I used to so I’m going to step back and let the rambling machine rest.

But this doesn’t mean that I’m going to stop writing, no way Jose, it’s just a small break from this weekly chore. I’ll still post random little tidbits on G+ and on /AMP/ and I’ll even post T3 when it’s ready (Weekly Rambles might be back on air before then, but who knows, right?). I know this might be sad news for some of you, but it’s not all bad, I might even get around to changing the layout of the site like I said I would many moons ago.

With that said it you’ll miss me while I take a break from rambling you can find other stuff by me at my Google+ account, my Twitter account (not so much here, but sometimes) and even at /AMP/ where I’ll occasionally write about how my writing is going. And hey, you never know, I might get restless and decide I want to Ramble again sooner than I plan and I won’t stop myself from cutting my vacation short if I really get the urge to ramble.

Well then, that seems sudden, doesn’t it? Oh well, nothing we can do about it, I don’t want rambling to feel like a chore, it’s supposed to be a fun thing! Fun! Anyway let’s see what cool new items were added to “Semajj’s Bookshelf” this week: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Parts 1, 2 and 3 on BD; Shakugan no Shana Season 1 on BD, K-ON!! Season 2 Part 2 on BD; Kannagi: Crazy Shrine Maidens the Complete Collection on DVD; The World God Only Knows Season 2 on BD; Clannad After Story on BD; Tower of Druaga S.A.V.E. Edition of DVD and a Dyson AM01 10” Table Fan (blue)! Pretty cool, huh? Get it, cool, ‘cause it’s a fan? Hah!

And now:

That was your Song of the Week: Diary of Jane by Breaking Benjamin. I chose that song because it was what was playing when I started this ramble and because it’s a pretty solid tune. Anywho that’s about it, like always it you’ve got any questions, comments, tips or concerns you can let me know down below or you can send me an e-mail at Semajj07@gmail.com; and don’t forget you can also contact me at G+, Twitter and Crunchyroll. Well then, I’ll see y’all on the other side of September!

Spoiler Alert!

Hello and welcome to another Weekly Ramble. Today I’ve decided to be lazy and not ramble about much, but maybe that’s a good thing, who knows. So today we’ll take the usual trip to “The Creator’s Corner”, we’ll see what’s new on “Semajj’s Bookshelf” and I’ll show you a new Song of the Week!

So yeah, I’m not really feelin’ too rambly today. Maybe it’s because I’m busy in other aspects of my life right now. Or maybe it’s the heat that’s been keeping me up at night lately. Either way I’m going to cut some corners: “Blah blah blah, blee bloo blah blah bluh!” And yay! We’re at “The Creator’s Corner!”. Let’s check in on my latest published work, “RE:Inspiration;Titan II”, to see how well it’s done during it’s first week! 54 downloads! Awesome!

Moving on, this week I’ve done some work on T3 and it’s already surpassed the original “Titan” in word count! T3’s first draft is coming along bumpily, I’m having some trouble getting it down but I think I’ll manage. What I really want to talk about in this edition of “TCC” is what comes next for me. What is after the finale of “RE:Inspiration”? The answer is “NEw” (name subject to change).

If you’ve been following these Weekly Rambles, or perhaps even the tri-weekly rambles that came before these, you should know a little bit about “NEw”. I haven’t done a stellar job at keeping track of what exactly I’ve rambled about “NEw” but today I’m going to go over everything that I think that I’ve rambled about “NEw” and kind of put the entire thing into perspective, for you and for me.

“NEw” is more or less everything that I have planned to keep me afloat in the world of being an author. You know how they say “Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket”? Well “NEw” is all of my eggs in one basket. Having said that, one might think that if “NEw” fails to gain a following and fails to please fans that I will be “without a paddle”; but that’s only half true. Yes, if “NEw” fails and no one likes it I will be greatly displeased, I may even go into some sort of depression; but that doesn’t mean that my little boat has sunk. “NEw” is somewhat of a compilation of all the little stories that I’ve come up with over the years tied together with a seemingly-generic “main plot”. And that’s what I’m working on right now, the main story of “NEw” (well, you know, that and T3).

So far I have “NEw” mapped out to be eleven to thirteen “books” long. I say “books” because that is apparently all I can do with “NEw” at the moment. If I could have my way I’d have “NEw” be a comic series, but after actually writing for real with the Titan Trilogy I think that I can make “NEw” work just as well in book form.

Some of you may be wondering “Is this ‘NEw’ story somehow connected to ‘Titan’?” and I can happily tell you no. Well, not at first anyway. When I first started talking about Titan (which, as I look back, is only one week before I released it) I told you that it is a “bridge” between “NEw” and a story called “Eleven” and that is still true, “NEw” will eventually lead to “Titan” and like I said before I released “Titan” I’ll probably end up re-writing “Titan” when the time comes to actually connect “NEw” to “Eleven” and things’ll probably be different (not a lot, but maybe some). Which brings me to my next point.

What little feed-back I’ve gotten on the Titan Trilogy has all been good, which is good. So maybe I have a knack for writing “space” but I hope that my knack for writing “space” isn’t the only knack that I have.

Possible Spoilers Below!

“NEw” starts off in an “Old Western” setting. Yeah, that’s really different from space. I won’t say much more, you can find a few hints hidden in “Titan” as to how “NEw” will go from “Old West” to “Space”(well I don’t know if you can really call them hints or if they’re really hidden, but they’re there). And that’s all fine and dandy, I purposely wrote it that way.

 End Spoiler Zone

Okay. I’m stopping here, well at least I’m forcibly bringing it to an end. I’ve lost all sense of direction with this ramble and I feel like I’m just talking in circles (plus I never really go back and edit these after I write them so I’m sure it’s just a mess up there). The thought train has been derailed! So I’ll say: please look forward to “RE:Inspiration; Titan III” which will be out in the near future, after that we may see a “NEw” short story or two but then you won’t see much from me in the way of writing (other than rambles) because a “book” is a big job and it’ll take me quite a while to get a first draft for that, not to mention all the re-writing and editing and whatnot!

Okay sorry for that mess, like I said, I’m tired and busy and I just want to get today’s ramble out of the way. Now then, this week I added one new item to “Semajj’s Bookshelf”! This week I added “Welcome to the N.H.K.” S.A.V.E. edition on DVD, coolio! And now for this week’s Song of the Week:

That was “Virus Alert” by Weird Al, I decided to use this song because for some reason when I though of the title for this week’s ramble (Spoiler Alert) this song came to mind. Yup that’s how I decide my Song of the Week! Anywho I’m tired, my head hurts and I’ll probably regret writing such a sub-par ramble later on, but as usual if you’ve any comments, questions, tips or concerns you can leave a comment in the comment area or you can e-mail me at Semajj07@gmail.com. Ka-pe!

Talley-Ho! And Stuff...

I wish

I had

Some cool

Intro music

Hello and welcome to another Weekly Ramble! As always I am your host, the mild-mannered and overly-humble rambler that is called James! If you’ve been counting then you should know that this is Weekly Ramble #22. If you haven’t been counting, but you did just read the previous sentence, then you also know that this is Weekly Ramble #22. Today I’m going to ramble about a few things. Yes! I found what was making me feel so “meh” about rambling recently; I haven’t actually been rambling! Sure I talk about news, video games and my personal works but I haven’t been doing what I started this all with; random non-sensible honest-to-goodness rambling! So today I’m going to ramble about RightStuf Entertainment and I’ll do a fun little segment called “The Road to 2k - MOTs! Tally-Ho!” (I had quite a bit of fun making up that title just now). But just because I’m returning to the rambling-roots of rambles doesn’t mean I’m going to leave my system in the mud, so as always we’ll be sneaking over to “The Creator’s Corner” to see what’s going on there, we’ll also check in with Semajj and his bookshelf to see what’s new there, and as always I’ll give you a new song to listen to. Let’s do this!

OH! I just had an awesome idea that will kill multiple birds with one very-large stone! So this ramble will turn out a bit differently than I had planned, but it’ll all make sense eventually! I’m in an exclamatory mood today. Yay! Exclamation marks! Yeah and stuff, woot, even. So look forward to a new twist somewhere around a certain shelf later today.

So yeah, RightStuf. I often order my anime from them because they are a good place to get anime from, but one thing that they do that just really bugs me is their “We’re Working on It.” e-mails. I understand that some people probably lose track of their orders (heck, I pre-ordered Ano-Hana twice on accident) but every time I open my e-mail app on my phone and I see a new e-mail from RightStuf I get excited. “Sweet I’m gonna get something soon!” but then it’s always “We’re working on your order…” But, you know, first world problems and stuff. While I’m on the topic of RightStuf, or rather buying anime, for those of you who don’t know: Stein’s;Gate part one is coming out in September! How awesome is that?

What else, what else? Oh Toaru Majutsu no Index (A Certain Magical Index) is coming out in October, I’ve been waiting quite some time for that series. Heaven’s Memo Pad is coming out soon too, I really liked that one. Oh and Durarara!! Is getting some sort of box set, but it’s super expensive just like the normal editions, so yeah…

Bom-bom-buuum~ “The Road to 2k ~ MOTs! Tally-Ho!”~

So this morning, out of curiosity, I opened my /AMP/ folder and looked to see how much it had grown since I last looked, and holey-moly I’m pretty darned close to reaching 2000 MOTs! I think that’s pretty good considering I was just off having fun and whatnot. It sucks though because lately I feel like I’ve been distant toward /AMP/, like I haven’t been contributing as much as I used to, I haven’t been contributing as much as I feel like I should, and I don’t like that. /AMP/ is fun and I like fun, but lately I haven’t been able to come up with “quality” MOTs.

Excuse me for a second, I’ll try and make one up:

Wow that one’s actually not too shabby. Let’s try again:

See? It’s almost like something’s missing, but maybe I’m just over-thinking it and I should just concentrate on having fun. It’s not like /AMP/ is a constant battle to see who’s the best line-writer, right? Anyway /AMP/ is fun and I’m going to see (if work isn’t too busy) if I can bust out those 30~ish MOTs that I have standing between me and 2k! Yay!

Okay and now it’s time to visit “The Creator’s Corner” to see what’s going on- wait what? Oh really?

This just in folks: “RE:Inspiration; Titan II” has been released!

(hint: click on the picture ^^^ to go to Titan II)

Awesome! I had a little help on this one (with the cover art, some editing and some technical issues) but I think it’s much better than part 1 because I had a helping hand to spot the small errors that I couldn’t find with my tired-eyes. Like LEGOs, there’s always that one piece that you just can’t find and then someone walks up and picks it out right away, fresh eyes see stuff that you normally wouldn’t and whatnot.

So cool, T2 is out of my hands and off of my mind, if you read it and like it please share it with your friends and stuff, spread the word and stuff. (Creator’s note: I’m going to name this week’s ramble “And Stuff” just because I’m in a non-serious mood and stuff…)

With T2 gone and out the door the next thing on my plate is “RE:Inspiration; Titan III”, of which I’ve already started my first draft. You see, back in the day “Titan” was going to be a single short-story. I had written all of what is now T1 and most of what is now T2 before I decided to do this for real, the result of that was T1 and now T2. So I’m not sure how T3 is going to go down, I know where it ends but I’m not sure how we (as the readers) are going to get there, I don’t have a “rough draft” to go off of, but maybe that’s not a bad thing. The thing I’m really worried about is the length. T1 was roughly 6000 words. T2 is almost 13000 words. And if T3 goes the way it’s lookin’ like it’s going to go it’ll probably be even longer than that! So I wonder if I should take this trilogy and turn it into a quadrilogy, but I don’t think any of you (my readers) would mind a 20k word story, right? Right?

Okay! Okay okay okay okay okay! I’m doing a horrible job at rambling today, this is probably the worst quality a ramble has been since T1’s release! Although I wasn’t pressed for time with editing/formatting/publishing this time, maybe it’s just the excitement that my story might get read by people that’s keepin’ me so jumpy in my writing. So let’s hurry up and see what’s new in “Semajj’s Bookshelf” in MOT form:

Cool huh? Shameless filler MOTs are shameless and fillery.

And now we move on to this week’s Song of the Week:

Woot! That's "Braveheart" by The GOMBAND which was used as the song for the credits for the Black Rock Shooter OVA, sweet! Oh and before I forget, at the top there’s a new page called “The Watch List” it’s pretty much a list of anime that I watched all the way through each season (from Spring 2012 onward). It also has an “on-going” section for shows like Sket Dance and Fairy Tail that are still going. I won’t update it too much (probably once per season) but that way you can see what I’ve watched, if you’re into that kinda stuff. And with that I’m done here! As always if you’ve got any comments, questions, tips or concerns you can leave a comment on this page or you can e-mail me at Semajj07@gmail.com. Until next time; Tally-Ho~ and stuff~