A Game in Preparation for "D-Day"

Hello and welcome to Weekly Ramble number eleven.  I am James and I’ve got quite a bit of stuff to ramble about, so let’s get straight to it. Today there’ll be ramblings about Diablo III, a new “game” that I’m going to start playing, two trips to “The Creator’s Corner” and as always we’ll see what’s new in “Semajj’s Bookshelf” and we’ll enjoy a new Song of the Week. But first, how about another new Tenacious D song/video?

Awesome, as always the D brings another rockin’ song to the table. By the way, their new album Rize of the Fenix comes out next Tuesday, but do you know what also comes out next Tuesday? That’s right, Diablo III, the year’s most anticipated video game. So since D3 is right around the corner, I thought I’d write a quick piece about what the game has in store for us. First of all, if you are planning to play D3 there are a few things that need to be done before you log in, such as: purchasing the game, creating a battle.net account and a battletag, and pre-downloading the game; all of which can done from this page.

After all of that set-up mumbo-jumbo you need to think about which Hero you are going to venture into the land of Sanctuary as. You have five heroes to choose from: The Barbarian, The Witch Doctor, The Demon Hunter, The Wizard and The Monk. This is a page that will let you look at each of the classes, and by clicking certain links on the page you can view their armor progression, the abilities they gain as the level-up and you can even view videos of each ability. Once the game goes live, if anyone is interested in adding me to their friends list, my Battletag is "Semajj#1465".

Okay, now about this new “game” that I’m going to start playing. The object of the game is to go about your daily life and accomplish certain tasks, sounds simple right? Well it is. I got the idea from my friend J.R. Nova’s recent blog post, for the past few days I’ve been building my list of tasks and I’ve come up with a pretty good list. But before I tell you what is on my task-list, I’ll tell you about the score system: completing each task awards one point per day, failing to complete a task costs two points (in J.R.’s blog he says three, but my list is only seven tasks long so if I had a -3 for each one I’d only be able to fail one task per day). There are also special tasks (2 of the 7) that can award bonus points if I complete them more than once per day, like writing.

Writing is the first task that I put on my list, each day I must write at least 1000 words on any of my projects (NEw, Eleven, Volt or Black Rock Shooter Append, a Ramble cannot count as an initial point) to get the point, but if I write an additional 1000 words in the same day I get an additional point (this 1000 extra words can count a ramble, so on Fridays I’ll almost always get a bonus point!).

The second task on my list is to create and post twenty Anime Motivational Posters over on /AMP/, this will be easy on some days when my “motivation” if flowing, but on other days when I’m lacking a line or a raw, I may have trouble living up to the expectations. This is the second of two tasks that can award more than one point; after the initial twenty MOTs posted I can earn an additional point per ten MOTs posted, so if I post forty MOTs in a single day, then I earn three points from this task.

The third task is to walk, whether it be around the block or down to my local shopping center to browse, I must walk for at least ten minutes to earn this point.

The fourth task is similar to the third task and it is to stretch. I have a certain routine of stretches that I perform most nights before I go to bed, so this point will force me to make sure I stretch each night for an easy point. Did you know that stretching before sleeping will help your body relax better for a higher percentage at an uninterrupted sleep?

This next task will be a little daunting at first, and that is to post on a social networking site at least once per day. As of right now I rarely post anything on either of the social networking sites that I belong to (G+ and Twitter) besides announcing my new Rambles. So be it: commenting on a post from a friend or posting a fun fact for the heck of it, I’ll have to post at least once to get a point.

The second-to-last task on my list is to read. I am currently in the middle of reading “Under the Dome” by Stephen King, a novel which I have been reading since my 18^th birthday back in 2010. The point of this task is to get me to read more, sure I’ve put “Under the Dome” on hold a few times and read other books, but I want to finish it and move on to more books that are back-logged, giving myself a point for reading for at least half-an-hour each day will help me accomplish this goal.

And lastly I have “watch an episode of anime on BD/DVD” a rewarding point, because all I have to do is sit back, relax and watch anime, one of my favorite pass-times. But there is a reason to this task, just like with books I have a back-log of anime that I own and have yet to watch, so watching at least one episode a day will help me get through some series’ faster so I have a better chance at catching up with my ever expanding collection of anime.

So each day I must complete at least five out of these seven tasks to “win” the day, and at the end of each week I’ll have a total of “won days” to “loss days” which I will announce here at the end of my rambles and I’ll compile a list of the tasks which I find myself struggling with. I’m still thinking of a silly/creative name for the segment, but it will happen and it will start next week!

Woah nelly, this is gettin’ to be a bit lengthy, so I’ll cut to the chase and keep this “episode” of “The Creator’s Corner” kinda short:

Last time on “The Creator’s Corner” I talked about NEw being set in an alternate universe, where everything is a clean slate for me to create upon. Well earlier this week I was toiling over the fact that space (y’know, outer-space, the universe and what-not) is big, and writing about space is though. I was in a slight depression because I wanted to study the lay-out of the galaxies in the universe (the known universe anyway) and when I started there was so much information. But then I remembered: I’m the creator here, I can do what I want, this isn’t non-fiction, so who cares if I make up a few planets in a galaxy far, far away. So I did.

How’s that for short and sweet? Now one last “trip” to “The Creator’s Corner” and that is to announce my latest mini-creative activity: The MOT song: No Rain x Angel Beats! It will be posted on /AMP/ sometime later today, but you can find the whole thing in order (once it’s finished) here at my crunchyroll gallery. At said gallery you can also find my other MOT songs and the preview/intro to “Black Rock Shooter Append”. Sweet.

And now 300-something words over my 1k goal I will tuck this thing into bed, but first I’ll point you over to “Semajj’s Bookshelf” where you’ll notice that there is a new item, an actual book! Yup, only one item was added this week and that item is “The Wind Through the Keyhole” book 4.5 in Stephen King’s 7 book “The Dark Tower Series”. The final book in the series came out in 2004 and this new book is the first book since then to return to the series. You can go here to read more about “The Dark Tower”.

Yeah, it’s an obscure song, I don’t even know where it’s from or who it’s by, I just know that I heard it as a child and have loved it ever since. Okay now it’s time to fly out of here like a fox fleeing from the farmer. Like always if you have any comments, questions, tips or concerns you can leave me an e-mail at Semajj07@gmail.com or you can comment below. Thanks for reading and see you after “D-Day”!