Paul's journal

I'm almost finished in the Eternia Forest. All of my Pokemon are levelled up to Level 20. So it's nearly time to move on and challenge the next gym leader and continue the story. I'm quite happy with my assortment of Pokemon, even though that darn Magikarp took a long time to evolve. It feels like I accomplished something by getting them all up to scratch.

I raised a Silcoon into a Beautifly but it came out of the cocoon with no abilities other than Harden, nor did it learn a new move once getting to the next level. So I released the Beautifly and got the Wurmple out of storage. I got that to go into it's cocoon but it became as Cascoon which means it will become a Dustoth. In all my running around the forest I only ever saw those two forms in the hands of the other trainers, so I didn't think it was possible to get them in this game. It does mean that my Beautifly is gone, but I wasn't a big fan of that Pokemon and I have other poison and flying type Pokemon (including this Dustoth once it hatched).

I am totally caught up with Pokemon fever at the moment. I've been playing Pokemon Diamond heaps in the past few days, levelling up my characters in the Eternia Forest. How great is it when your characters are restored automatically after each battle? It makes levelling up so much easier. And some Pokemon level up so quick: the Murkrow which I had marked as tradeable grew 10 levels in a day and has a neat stash of abilities so it's firmly in the roster at least for now. I started playing this morning straight after shaving (forget about breakfast and getting ready for work) so I could catch a Combee while the honey was fresh. Hmm, this all sounds a bit nuts, but it's a great addictive video game. It makes me feel kinda bad I never finished Pokemon Silver (I couldn't defeat the final bosses). I don't think I could go back to the old game now though now that I'm used to the upgrades made in this latest version.

I took the cord I got yesterday back and got a different one. One that fits physically but which, after an hour of playing with, doesn't fit with my software. I haven't given up hope but maybe a new scanner is needed.

I also got the Hairspray soundtrack and that Frenzy I left behind yesterday. Found some titaniums and classics at David Jones which I considered but didn't buy.

Cleaning up my room today I found that Alternator Nemesis Prime I knew I had but couldn't find. I also found a second (actually first) Titanium Bumblebee. I'm going to try selling the double off.

There's also a bunch of comic trades that I'm going to try sell off too: stuff I took a chance on but didn't like much. Might as well try to get some dollars for them.

Then it was back to Tomb Raider. I want to finish off the relic/artifact collection before heading back to FFIX.

Lost out on the latest Beta recorder I was bidding on, but am considering seeing if I can hire one instead now.

Spent most of the day working on adapting the new designs to our template. It's working well, but it was time consuming, but also fun.

I went down to Minotaur at lunchtime to get the new Ultimate Spider-Man trade. It's been ages, but the Clone Saga was worth the wait. A great story, some nice twists on 616 characters and some of Bagley's best art in ages. Shame he's leaving so soon, but rumour has it the whole Ultimate Universe might be on it's way out. It would be good if this comic can wrap up nicely.

It was a day for finishing. I also completed The Full Cupboard of Life (which was rather short and wrapped up too quickly).

Then I played the final battle of Kingdom Hearts II. I had to go a few times on the ultimate battle but it wasn't too bad. I had held off wanting to get all the Journal complete but it looks far too hard as you've got to do all the Colosseum tasks (50 round battles?) and really level up to face Sephiroth and I can't be bothered really.

I went to Knox and was shocked at how slow the ticket box staff where. Barely any queue but it wasn't moving. These guys were hopeless. It took far too long for the manager and another girl to come out and start serving to help things along. I got into my cinema in time though and watched Transformers for the fourth time. I still really enjoyed it and picked up new things too (like Prime running down a street and past a bus) I'd not seen the first few times. Afterwards I did some shopping and came home with only a Bumblebee shopping bag. I hit into Kingdom Hearts again and am up to the last battle but will try to clear off some challenges first.

When I woke up this morning I decided that I'd pass on seeing Sicko today. It might be good but it also might make me too squemish. I don't mind hospital dramas, but people talking about real medical conditions make me go vagel-vagel. Instead I went shopping down south, from Cranbourne, to Frankston and all the way to Rosebud. It was a nice drive but I only got a few things (like the plush transformers) and a couple of minicons for some of the other guys. Once I got home I spent a while playing KH2. I'm getting close to the end of it. Then I went online for a few hours. Found I'd been outbid on one of my two auctions and regretted not getting on earlier to check. I ended up watching Forrest Gump which I'd never seen before. I thought it was quite alright once you get past all those overused out-of-context quotes.

Picked up a Highscore Real Gear from Big W and Karingal on the way home but couldn't find a Meantime there or locally. I used a real controller a lot playing Kingdom Hearts II. I think I'm getting towards the end.

I tired to finish the Decepticon campaign in the TF game last night but got stuck when the game would register I was in the "action zone". Not wanting to replay all that battle again I gave up. I put Kingdom Hearts II in and started that. After playing for about 2 hours last night and another hour today I'm finally finished the prologue. Wow that was just far too long. Now I'm finally playing with Sora, Goofy and Donald again.

I clocked Tomb Raider Anniversary in just over a week. Hopefully there's a Tomb Raider Anniversary 2 and hopefully it's a little longer! Completeting the time trials and finding all the relics is proving to be a chore though. One really frustraing thing is the lack of an opportunity in many levels to instant kill Lara when you've fallen or made a mistake. For example in one level if you misjudge the jump and swing you end up back on the floor and have a minute of retracing your steps to get back to the jump. A nice death and a restart halfway along would save a lot of time!

As I am getting more serious about releasing TF Assault, I've set up a to be the official home page for the game. I've still got a lot of work to do on the game. I've not really decided if I want the world wide web to see it, but I would like to share it with my fellow fans.

I'm a little stuck on the second continent. I can't quite see how I get off it. The cave is one way, nothing's happening in the villages. I suspect I have to sail back to the Mist Continent but I don't know where to catch the boat. I'm tempted to look it up but I might try a little longer over the weekend.

I spent quite a while playing FFIX tonight putting off my bed time to keep playing. I switched back to the A-team and wonder when the two will be teamed up? I was going to go to bed but I had a new town to explore and then there was a new event. Where was that kid being mauled by an antlion?!? I can't find what I'm supposed to be going to and none of the villagers are giving me a hand. I played a bit of FFXII at Harvey Norman today and it looks great but load times were a bit of a worry and the one battle I had made me wonder how you manage to fight with various characters and run them around. I guess you could enter your command and then tag to the next available and let the AI control the others. It would take a little getting used to.

The office was really quiet today. I had a couple of meetings early on but otherwise it was a day of dotting the is and crossing the ts. I went down to the other end of Collins to pick up my birth certificate. Now all I need is my passport photo. I went into Minotaur on my way back. I had a virtual meeting to do some testing that only took much less time than expected. By 5 the few of us left in the office were racing out the door. This meant I got a very early train home and waited at the station for ages. While waiting I watched a group of teenagers heading off to the football and was amazed at how many of the guys had coloured hair. Must be the 'in-thing'. I thought about going to the movies tonight but I've put it off until tomorrow. Instead I spent a couple of hours playing FFIX and was surprised to finish disc one already.

A late summer heat wave is melting the house tonight. I went out only this morning to have another look at the place in Armadale. I really do like it but it's too popular so it's going to auction. I will go to the auction but it's sure to go out of my price range too quickly so I can't get my hopes up.

I had a brief shop at Waverley Gardens (new two-packs out but I'll wait until there's a discount) and have spent most of the day keeping cool. I played a bit of FFIX, watched some Ally on DVD, and kept the fan going.

I was thinking of going to the movies but it was too hot to consider the drive. Nothing on this week that I'm dying to see but there's still a few movies I'd like to see. I'm still waiting on my free 'reel deal' tickets. I've seen six movies, I should have two free tickets. I've sent off in complaint but I hope that next year they bring back the stamps or something.

This morning I decided to pass on the movies and go look at some places to live. I found a really great one today in Hawthorn. Great size, looks good and is just in my price range.

I could make an offer but it would leave me with no money for anything else. The starting price at the auction I could afford, here's hoping that the bidding isn't too competitive. I was getting hot and bothered though driving around to all the open for inspections.

I didn't do much else today. Took my sister shopping and she was delighted that Gilmore Girls was out early on DVD. I played a bit more of the 24 ps2 game, and watched the most recent episode of the Office.

Now I'm watching The Secret, and it's stuff I've heard before. In fact it's very similar to what my counselor was telling me last year actually.

While flicking through a UK PS2 magazine I was stunned to find a four page spread on a new Tomb Raider game! Tomb Raider Anniversary is a remake of the first game using the Legends engine with brand new puzzles and paths, but the same basic levels and plot points that the original game features. It looks amazing. I threw in my copy of Tomb Raider and had a play and it's so blocky and Lara's so slow and everything's in caverns as they hadn't worked out sky, and then I look at the screen caps and preview video and it doesn't look like the same game at all. I'd be really happy if they remade the second game too as I was always a bit disappointed with that one. Number three and four are still fantastic today (but I'd buy remakes of them too!) It's due out first quarter of this year but given the delays Legends has I expect another month or two on top of that. I can't wait.

I was home a bit earlier than usual tonight and played a bit of Mario RPG. It is fun but it's lacking a real hook to it. I find the shortage of FP (the game's version of MP) really annoying. You get three or four attacks and then it's gone. The minigames, like the minecart one I was playing tonight are pretty fun.

I watched the first episode of Ally series four - which was odd because it had voiceovers which had really phased out in the past two series, and because it reverted to full screen.

Then I watched Drew Carey which they have started showing early in the morning. It's good that it's got a consistent timeslot and that they are showing the last series. Sure the series might have gone down in quality a bit in the last couple of series but I'm glad it's on. Looking up epguides (how I miss the old epguides!) I found that in the US they showed the entire last series as hour long episodes over summer a whole year after the second last series ended with double episodes over summer. It's almost a wonder they made another series at all!

Then after that the Daily Show Global Edition was on. The jokes about Barack Hussein Obama were funny but the joke that really made me laugh out loud was the quip about Somalia being so poor their charity ads are shown in Ethiopia. That was wrong but funny!

Well this game was even quicker to clock than X-Men Legends 2. I chose the Fantastic Four as my team so really it was a F4 game for me. Reed's suped up punches knocked down nearly everything in their path, Sue's forcefield made the bridge a breeze, and my favourite character to play was Johnny whose flame burnt anyone the came near him hurting enemies you weren't even touching. I couldn't get a handle on Ben so he was just a forth wheel. The game improved on the X games by a better health/energy system, and some great button pressing efforts to fight enemies. It was good that you didn't just need to bash them all, but the solutions to defeating them were pretty easy to find. The Galactus chase was a pretty good level too (it brought to mind the Carnage/Dr Octopus battle in the original PSX Spidey game). The post credits What If was a rather nice touch but I don't really feel like playing through again to see what my other efforts would have caused (I will just look that up!). I'll play some more of the comic missions but then I think this game will go to the trade pile.

While I was out I bought a game controller for my computer. I had a bit of trouble configuring the buttons but once I did the ROMs I was playing with some difficulty last night are now easy to play. I think this puts off my purchasing a Nintendo DS. Instead I can play my SNES games without having to get it all out and set up again.

You read one article on wikipedia, and then you follow some links and next thing you know you're downloading a SNES emulator and a bunch of ROMs. It's always a bit of a chore to set up my SNES but I do like the games. I'm annoyed that you can buy most of them for the more recent GameBoys because it means buying them again. I'd love it if there was a portable SNES but that's doubtful. Now I've got the next best thing by installing a SNES on my laptop. It's just really awkward to play the games using the keypad and the letter keys so I might have to get a control pad.