Refraction

Apparently Gravity, the makers of Ragnarok Online, are making an MMORPG based on Saint-Exupery’s Le petit prince. Absolutely bizarre. Supposedly it’s only loosely based on the prince’s travels to the seven planets.

It’s called R.O.S.E. (Rush on Seven Episodes), and, er… Knowing Gravity, though, it’s sure to become a hit. I just wonder why, of all the things to make an MMORPG about, they picked Le petit prince…

An English page
The offical Korean site
A Japanese fansite
The official Japanese site

I’m kind of a fairweather homestarrunner fan. At best. I like the site well enough, but I’ve never found the time to truly explore it (my knowledge is limited mostly to Strong Bad’s emails. *snicker* Strong Bad types with boxing gloves. :cool:)

Anyway, I’m not a big fan of just watching cartoons, so naturally I wandered off to the games section of the website. I found this hilarious text/graphics (Flash) adventure game entitled… “Peasant’s Quest.” The story? You’re Rather Dashing, a young man’s village which has just been BURNINATED by Trogdor. Obviously, you have nothing better to do and swear revenge on the Burninator. So you set off on your little quest.

It’s funnier if you’re aware that it’s (at least partially) a parody of a series of games called “King’s Quest.” After playing Peasant’s Quest, I was feeling a little nostalgic and dug up the King’s Quest V CD I stole from my cousin. I remembered watching him play similar game a long time ago, and I’d always wondered what it was. I loaded it up on the ancient computer downstairs–actually, it’s the same one I was using to make my websites when Reina first offered to host me–and found that I couldn’t. 😡 I fiddled with the settings, gave up, played a shareware version of Diablo, finished it, and tried to re-install KQ5. No luck. Finally, I changed the display settings (256 colours (:shock:) and 640×480 resolution)… At last, I was starting to play the game.

First I sat through a very long and mostly pointless “cartoon” detailing the backstory. Then, to my chagrin, I discovered that audio was absolutely CRITICAL to this game. Some of you might remember those storybook CD-ROMs. The ones where you clicked random things and they reacted? A page would turn, a toaster would pop, a dog would go into hiding… this game was like that. But imagine someone narrating everything. Not only that, I had to deal with an annoying owl and a slow main character. I was impatient so I stopped playing.

In conclusion? Nostalgia only works when you’ve played the game in question. Go play Peasant’s Quest. :tongue: It’s still hilarious even if you don’t get all the jokes.

The spammers have found my Gmail accounts. :notsure: I’m not quite sure whether to be happy or sad about this. On the one hand, I have new mail to look at everyday. On the other, well… it’s spam… It seems to be all coming from the same company, too. You know, I can’t really say that spamming Gmail is the most efficient use of server resources since it’s still techinically only in beta…

The comment spammers (different ones) are back. Again. *le sigh* I think this bumps up my total of deleted spam comments to about 1000. My fault for posting so many pointless entries, I guess.

Classes ended today. It seems weird. The term doesn’t seem long enough. And I think I’m going to lose a lot of the friends I’ve made this term, just because of the nature of classes–we hardly have any together. Ah well, que sera sera. This sounds horrible, but there will be other “semester friends.” :undecided:

…

Wait, I forgot the really important part of classes ending… exams starting! *dies* 😥

Eh bien, je pense que j’ai besoin d’écrire quelques mots en français ici parce qu’il y a longtemps que je n’ai parlé ni écrit en français…

Cette semaine est la denière du premier semestre. Les examens approchent, cependant, je me sens… vide. Même que ces examens déterminent la plupart de nos notes, je n’ai étudié encore. Aie. Peut-être je ne suis que parasseuse, et peut-être la peur me fera reviser… Aie aie aie.

(“Aie” est-il un mot français ? Je sais qu’il est l’un des conjugaisons du verbe “avoir,” mais est-il acceptable de l’utiliser comme exclamation ?)

Seulement quelques mots car j’ai mal à la tête. ^^;

We interrupt Catherine’s panicking about her English term paper to bring you this website:

alllooksame.com is a site that asks a very simple question: to what extent do Chinese, Japanese, and Korean people look alike? It is really as feasible to tell them apart, as some people claim? An interesting question, to say the least, and an interesting way of testing it. I don’t feel it’s wholly scientific, however, but your results may be an interesting springboard for discussion, to say the least.

I got 11 :tongue:

There’s something oddly quaint about performing a Chem experiment on the computer. Of course, it’s all fun and games until you get HCl splashed all over your pixels.

Remind me never to do an online experiment for bonus marks again. Not only do all the reagents look exactly the same, staring at the screen for 30 minutes trying to figure out if the solution has turned pink or not can’t be good for your eyes. Oh, that, and I never got the right answer. I wasn’t even that close. The program gives no constructive criticism, so I have no idea what I did wrong :devil: Oh well. It’s not like I lost any marks…. just time that I could have spent working on my English essay >_< And Bio assignment. *cheers and half-heartedly starts a new streak of Wednesdays*

*sighs about her broken streak of blogging on Wednesdays*

m-flo released a new single, “let go,” last week. It’s part of their m-flo &#9829 … series, with rotating vocalists. I mean, who doesn’t love rotating vocalists? m-flo’s worked with Dragon Ash, BoA (yes, that BoA), Crystal Kay, and a whole slew of others. It adds an interesting dimension to their work; every song is different, and they span a variety of genres.

Anyway, onto the single.
Read the rest of this entry »

Okay.

1) If I’m to go into Biochem, I need BIOL 121. I do not need to take the lab course. (Wait, or do I? The website is saying two different things…) I need to take the lab course. But I can do that in the summer. Assuming I can take 121 next term. I can take BIOL 200 without having taken BIOL 112 if I take CHEM 203 at the same time. Which I definitely plan to do, since I’m interested in organic chem.

2) This would be a lot easier if I decided I didn’t like Biochem.

3) This would be even easier if I decided to become an Arts student.

4) I don’t want to go into pharmacy. It’s probably too late now, anyway.

5) Research sounds vaguely appealing but I don’t know if I’m cut out for it. I wouldn’t mind TA-ing, though. Ha, I’d probably enjoy that more than my research as a grad student.

6) Maybe I should just teach. Or maybe not.

7) Maybe I should be a Linguistics student. Problem: What in the world do you do with a linguistics degree?

8) Which program will I enter? Major? Honours? Should I do co-op? How about a minor? Would it be better to get a minor in Arts or a semi-related science?

I think it’s time to make an appointment with Science Advising…

Argh, I think I’m really starting to get annoyed with these braces.

They only hurt my teeth when some kind of outside pressure is being applied to them, which makes chewing nearly impossible. Brushing my teeth feels weird, too, since I’m scared I’m going to apply enough force to brush the stupid things off. I guess it’s just a matter of adjusting, which is going to take at least another couple of days. I’ve hardly been eating at all lately, since the pain is so bad and since it takes so long to eat anything that’s not liquid. Plus, the hassle of brushing teeth after eating anything (partly because I’ve been told to, and partly because I’m paranoid) makes eating things a lot less attractive. All things considered, braces are a sure-fire way to go on a diet. :tensed: Cut down on sugar and starch, they say. Since I can’t chew right now, I might as well cut out vegetables, fruit, and meat. That leaves… milk, juice, and water. Oh, and tofu.

Worst of all is, I won’t even have a single piece of Hallowe’en candy 😥