Deraldin

Come on quadruple overtime!

I've gone over a load of practice problems since last night. The first bunch was pretty rough, but the everything seemed to come back after that so I'm feeling pretty positive so far about this exam. Certainly better than for either of the other tests in this class. Still have 2.5 hours to kill before I have to leave. Really hope I do well on this one.

I had my first exam for this semester this morning at 9am. It was only VB programming and we were allowed to have all our notes for some reason. If I didn't ace that exam, I will be very, very ashamed. Tomorrow I get another 9am exam, this time it's Statistics with no notes except the formula sheet and Z/T score tables. Should be a little harder, but most of the class has been pretty easy so far. I'm working on the practice exam right now. Next exam after that isn't until the 20th and that's Intro to Information Systems which again should be really, really easy. Exams will be all done after the marketing exam on the 23rd.

I grinded a little bit, but not optimally apparently. My BR was around 40 when I first went up against Nest of Eagles and got my ass handed to me. I went out and did a bunch of quests (and bought 100 revive herbs). By the time I went back I was at BR46 and just wiped the floor with that encounter. I'm not sure if I can really call what I did grinding even. For most of the game I just killed everyone I came across. I'd do sidequests and wipe out all life in each area till I got bored and went back to the story. I've never gone back into an area just to fight monsters. First time I had to change tactics was in the fight with . I ended up combining my unions to make 1 strong union for 4000HP to soak damage from the bosses while the other two healed, revived and occasionally got a shot in when they had a chance. The game got a heck of a lot easier once I figured out why I wasn't getting the chance to revive anyone.

Yes. All you need to do with Steam is right click -> install and that's all the interaction that is required on your part. It takes care of the rest. Of course if you happen to have a 60GB (or lower) that can make it a pain in the butt for the rest of the month. Try half that size and welcome to the rest of the world. It would take 2 months to install your games and no internet for you 60GB is the max you can get from my current ISP. Any of the lower tier plans come with a lower cap as well as speed. I think it bottoms out at 2GB/month for basic service. Personally, I'm a collector and having a huge list of games is no fun if I don't have the boxes to go with them.

Yes. All you need to do with Steam is right click -> install and that's all the interaction that is required on your part. It takes care of the rest. Of course if you happen to have a 60GB (or lower) that can make it a pain in the butt for the rest of the month.

I didn't pick up Loki because by the time I noticed him, he was a good 100HP lower than anyone else in my group and had pretty much nothing useful in the way of moves. As for the other guy, I think you mean Baulson, the big fish dude right?

That guy isn't really that hard. What you're doing already is pretty much it since you only have the two characters. You should always have an option to heal+attack so take that until the boss misses you and you get a chance to counter with a big attack of your own.

The section in the mine? As long as you don't try to fight to many monsters at one time, you'll be fine. All the monsters in that area are pretty weak individually, but when they gang up on you they can really hurt. I figured that out the hard way. This game is definately tailored towards larger groups - there it really shines. But now I'm stuck with the twin-dudes. Yeah, it's a balancing act between having enough groups that you don't get too many flank attacks, and having large enough groups that they can actually do some damage. I've generally stuck with the max number of groups except for one boss fight where I had to switch it up a little because one of the bosses could one shot any of my unions with non-AoE attacks. I stopped playing after and have been playing more Left 4 Dead. After I get over this, I'll go back and finish it off. Currently have five unions each with 3 characters. I've mostly replaced the no-name characters with unique generals, but I can't bring myself to kick McGrady, Shepard and Faye are the last three. Faye stays for now, because she knows Vivification Herb and that's always handy. Shepard is developing well with 600HP and some pretty decent attacks. McGrady is a sentimental favourite. He's the first character I hired and watching him use Thunderclap V never gets old.

The section in the mine? As long as you don't try to fight to many monsters at one time, you'll be fine. All the monsters in that area are pretty weak individually, but when they gang up on you they can really hurt.

Clone army vs unspeakable horrors?

Considering I've only been watching about every other week, the whole thing seemed to come completely out of left field when I watched it. It was a pretty big "WTF?" moment.

I just finished a round of Left 4 Dead with the credits song for You Have To Burn The Rope playing on a loop in the background. It completely eliminates any tension there might be in the game when you are constantly hearing "Now you're a hero! You beat the whole damn ga-ame!", but damn is it fun. :D

He's been doing pretty well on the blueline. He doubled his points production and has been a +8 since he arrived. Overall he's been pretty effective. If not the best point producer on the blueline, then he would be second and he's got a higher +/- (since he arrived) than anyone else on the blue line.

Markov out three weeks; Schneider out for the season. I shouldn't have read the comments.

Where the hell did this thing come from? I've never heard of it before a week ago and suddenly it's appeared on every forum I frequent. Why now?!

Didn't he quit awhile ago?

Let me sum it up for you: it's an overclocked (slightly tweaked) 4870. It's a good card, but Nvidia has an equally good card in the 275, at almost the exact same price. It's a matter of which drivers have been most friendly to you: ATI's or Nvidia's. And how long you want to wait. 4890's seem to be in supply just about everywhere, but the 275's appear to be having a paper launch.

That's not poison. Your enthralled unions will kill you unless you kill them first. The option doesn't only come up for enthralled unions. It comes up for various other status effects as well, like curses.

I finally figured out why I was never offered the option to raise any of my unions from the dead. Turns out I didn't have all the herbs that are required for the action. Went out and bought 100 of the cheap ones that I need three of per resurrection and now things have been going much smoother. I went around quest hunting and jumped from Battle Rank 35 to BR 40. It doesn't really seem like that much of a jump, but the fight at Nest of Eagles was much, much easier this time around. I supposed getting a 20k Omnistrike on one of the bosses on the first round helped a little. Being able to raise the friendly union to use as cannon fodder was also very useful. I'm currently going through Nagapur on my return trip to rescue someone and it seems to be one long section of boss fights. The first two were easy, although I did almost get wiped out by the second and it's stupid cheap 6 AoE attacks every round, or at least that's what it seems like. The third boss encounter is giving me a little trouble now. 2k damage attacks by both boss figures and 4 little unions that just get in the way. The second boss fight also introduced me to the "Heal them even if it means killing them first!" option in battle. "OMG! My guys are poisoned and I don't have any way to cure it! I know, I'll just kill them and raise them! You guys don't mind right?"

Which one? The original or Sacred Stones? I can't remember whether I finished my original hard mode game. I've got it around here somewhere. The 'original' one, though I have both. I'm finishing them so I can rationalize getting the DS version too, instead of just *adding* to the backlog. For TLR, make sure some of your units know Vivification Herb at some point. You may not need it yet, but reviving units becomes pretty important. You'll be able to recruit soldiers with it at some point, but my main leaders learnt it anyway. Heh, I picked up the DS version at release and it almost felt like a step back in some ways. It was missing features that the GBA versions had, like the ability to rescue units which was kind of annoying at times. The save spots mid map were an interesting idea and really saved some time when you are trying to save everyone, but it almost felt like cheating after the GBA games. About TLR, I've already been informed that I need Vivification Herb. I know at least one of my characters has the skill, but I can't remember who it is, not that it really matters since I've never been offered the chance to use the skill anyway.

Which one? The original or Sacred Stones? I can't remember whether I finished my original hard mode game. I've got it around here somewhere. As for what I'm playing, I'm currently going through The Last Remnant on PC. I honestly don't remember the last JRPG that I played, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it was either Chrono Trigger or Secret of Mana. Either way it's not exactly a genre that gets a lot of play time what with me being a pretty much PC only gamer. Having fund so far though. Current storyline quest has me going to Nest of Eagles or something like that to fight a bunch of guys. Just tried going through there three times and got my ass handed to me the first two times. On the third attempt I disbanded the my fourth union and beefed up my other three with an extra character each. I managed to take out most of the little guys before the bosses did anything. On the fourth turn or so it was just the two bosses and two small unions. I deadlocked both of the bosses, far enough away from each other that AoE attacks would only get one union and used my third group to take on the other two unions. I wiped out one of them, but took heavy damage from the other. On the next turn I wasn't offered the chance to heal, so I went all out and used the strongest attacks I had in an attempt to take it out before it got me. My first three attacks got it down to about 10% health, but his last attack came before mine in the sequence so he terminated my union before I could get him. One critical attack, one block, one healing move. Any one of those things would have saved the fight. My other unions could soak the damage from the bosses and counter once or twice per turn. It would have taken a long time to whittle the bosses health down, but I could have done it. One move away. Time to go beat up some weaker monsters instead...

Depending on who does the 3D you can keep the glasses; REAL-D has cheaper glasses that you keep, IMAX 3D (and I think maybe Disney 3D) have big bulky glasses that are returned to the company as a way to keep costs down. I've never gotten eye strain from watching one of the new 3D films so I'm not sure what to say about that. Our cinema just got REAL-D a couple weeks ago. Pretty cheap glasses, but at least they weren't the crappy cardboard ones and they fit over my normal glasses. Eyestrain wasn't a huge problem most of the time. The 3D effects only really bothered me when they made a point of it with stuff flying at the screen. When they weren't trying to make you go "Ooh! 3D!" it was okay.

First 3D movie I've seen since the cinema installed the new projector and I can't say that I'm a fan. $3 extra and triple the eye strain! Hurray! And then those bastards want me to give back the glasses afterwards?

Never had a problem with them before. For some reason this one wasp always tries to build a nest inside our barbecue every spring. He leaves real quick when it starts to warm up. I've never seen more than the one wasp though. He likes chewing on the wooden lattice that rings our small deck and he's damn noisy about it too.