"Tonight We Ride For Mansions Of Glory In Suicide Machines"

It's been a busy couple of days, mostly spent trying to get grad school applications together and out the door (still not quite ready...hopefully get a couple of them sent today).

I've run into a couple of problems, though. First (and most annoying) is that there was a hold put on my transcripts here at OU because of those slightly...overdue books I had. I've returned the books, and the problem should be correcting itself (I'd say I hope it's already corrected itself, except that I know how the bureaucracy works at this damn place), so I have to go to the Bursar's Office after work today and chat with them and convince them to remove the hold so I can go upstairs and tell the folks in the Records Office to send out a dozen copies of my transcript to various institutions.

The second problem is with Ohio State. When they sent me that rejection letter last year, one of the things it said was that, if I wanted to reapply to the program again this year, I wouldn't have to resubmit all of my materials. So I call them up to find out what I need to resubmit and don't need to resend. Well, apparently only one person in the entire history department knows this crap (which strikes me as highly suspect), and she's been sick the past few days when I've called. I'm getting ready to call again. I will not be denied.

Started playing Final Fantasy: Dawn of Souls (the Gameboy Advance game that contains revamped versions of Final Fantasy I and II). They completely reworked the magic system for number one, so now you have a large pool of magic points from which to draw to cast spells (in the original version, you had two or three spell usages per spell level, and that was it. So I could cast one of my three first level spells four times before I needed more spell points. It was awful, and meant that mages were pretty useless unless it was a major battle, because you didn't want to waste their magic in minor random encounters and they can't attack worth a damn). Having to choose what three spells I want to be able to cast at a given spell level is an interesting little challenge, since it forces me decide what will be most effective (with my white mage, I usually just focus on getting her the healing/curing spells, mostly, and then maybe pick up something else once in awhile. With the black mage, it's all about the three elemental attack spells. Forget those stupid status ailment spells that drop the target's evasion percentage or maybe poison them or something. No, we go for the attack, not status. Status ailments aren't needed if you kill the stuff quick enough. And I've got the sleep spell, which is actually useful against large groups because it gives you a chance to pick them off at your leisure).

Anyway, good game. I'm curious to try out Final Fantasy II, though, because I've heard such strange things about the combat/experience system in it. Sounds rather like a bizarre combination of the sort of thing you do in one of the basic FF games coupled with the ability system from Tactics (apparently, whatever you do--such as physical attacks, defending, casting certain types of spells--will increase your ability in that specific area, and thus your stats. So you want to be a little more strategic in the way you go through random encounters...which will be something of a pain, since my usual approach to random encounters is "have everyone attack head-on, except for maybe the black mage, who casts a fun target-all spell to nuke the enemies). But I'm going to beat the first one first.

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Regular Joes, "Flame On, Fire of Love"