So, in about a week and a half is our family christams. Yes, a bit early I know, but when your step mother has near ten siblings, who are married with kids, you get together when you can. It's always a big day, and this year it's at our house. At least I'll have a place to hide if the masses of people get too much ^_^.
It's always quite fun though. I'm getting to know my new side of the family fairly well, I hear they ask about how I'm doing and my step mum talks about me and all that, plus I do see them every so often. Having so many people over at the one time is always a harrowing experience, no matter how well I know them. It will be good though.
And speaking of an early christmas, We have been told and reminded often enough that this year we have 'am early christmas present'. Now I'm not quite sure what it is, but its this coming sunday because 'that's when it it's on'. Hmm. My sister is hoping its going to the circus. I guess I'll have to wait and see.
And I cashed my checks in the other day, got two checks for some artwork I sold, one half finished picture of a wire bird (done for school, and they wanted it when I left) for $50, and this one here got me $200.And all it is is grey lead, fine liner and texter on A4. hah.
So now I've got a good 250 bucks in my card to spend on gifts (hopefully wont spend more than 100) and then the rest is for me! whoo! Gotta love how art is pricey. good to be on the production end.
Well, I'm totally bored and so have absolutely nothing else to speak about, so..
Signing out,
~Nattoons.
________________
"In order to have a change of fortune at the last minute
you have to take your fortune to the last minute."
There are three things I can do: let it in, let it out, or push it down.
It seems to be habit by now to just push everything down and hold it there, struggling and suffocating until all that appears is my happy, silly little face, joking the day away and smiling and chatting and friend-ing. And that's not to say its all an act, though a lot of it is, it is me. My personality, myself, is still there, it still shows through, it still comes naturally, but i have to force it to be shown to the world. It's not some 'mask' that people say we wear out and about, hah, there is no such things as masks. Sure, we may act confident when we are truly not, or act happy even though we are torn up because our favourite pet gerbil died, but at the core of every 'mask' we put on is still us. We are still the same, and I am still me, the same person as ever - I'm just near constantly displaying emotions I am not currently feeling.
It's a little complicated. Basically I pretend to be what I'm not feeling, but I'm still me.
Anyway.
The other option is to let it in. Sure I may do this sometimes, but it never ends up helping. To let it in leads to wallowing, and thats never good. The whole 'woe is me' and 'I just want a cry' is all good when things get overwhelming (and in moderation, no one likes a sook), but when its constantly overwhelming, to let it in would feed something that is hard to close off. I don't cry often, not because I'm a big burly man or anything, but because I just can't most of the time. Or I can, but in the wrong places. When I get frustrated in situations where I'm trying to explain myself and no one seems to understand I find myself tearing up and can't help it, whereas when I have a shit day and everyone ignores me and whatnot, and I definitely feel like crying, it won't come out. Letting it in tend to help with that, but then it's hard to stop and get on with the day.
Option c) - to let it out. The word catharsis comes to mind. The problem with this is when it has been pushed down for so long and so often and automatically, letting it out becomes... well, hard. I end up overreacting to situations or feelings, getting worked up over the slightest of things, and when I actually just let it out it tends to open the floodgates and just comes and comes, feelings from now and from before, everything that's been pushed down. That doesn't end well as you would imagine.
The trick is to find a balance between the three; find the proper times to let it in and let yourself cry, feel the hurt and wallow, but know when to suck it up, push it aside and get on with what needs to be done, and at the same time let it out responsibly, in small doses, and don't let it sit too long. Anger is normal, but it's what goes with that anger that makes it wrong or right. Control is the key to letting it out, and balance is vital to managing it all.
I just need to work on the balance.
Signing out,
~Nattoons
________________
"Let us celebrate out arrangement with the adding of chocolate to milk."
Deep in the loneliness, with open wings I can soar above the desolate wastelands,
High above the broken grounds I can choose where I stay, perch where I please.
But without fail I end up in the same emptiness, the solitude of the earth stalks until...
Until I must reach out to the faint images that lurk beyond my vision; that dissipate when I draw near.
Mere mirages torment my mind revealing themselves for only the shortest moment,
But in that moment hope prevails. Hope prevails and dies and is sucked dry within the moment
And again I must fly, fly high and away to the next relentless, desolate wasteland.
--
So bored, just my thoughts on loneliness. Means nothing ^_^
Signing out,
~Nattoons
________________
"And yet you act as if there is some ideal order in the world,
as if there is some... some rightness in the universe by which it may be judged."
This week I have reignited a fire within me, something I used to have such passion for and that took up so much of my time and creative abilities, and somewhere along the line I just... forgot about.
I used to create games.
I have such fond memories of me and my older brother playing with our lego, designing characters, coming up with concepts for whole worlds, quests, levelling-up and stat systems, and then playing these games on our bedroom floor, anything from MMO style, to RPG to Tactical RTS, even choose your way RPG drawn down on paper. And then there was the designs of weapons, game mechanics, worlds and whatnot that we put so much effort into yet the game never got past idea-and-a-half stage.
But looking at getting into a uni course for animation and games design, I have decided to pick that up again, to look back into the game design thing. It started a while back when a friend of mine, Dan, and I thought up the concept for a moon exploration/FPS game that we could collaborate on once we had the skills from uni, and we started drawing up plans for weapons and characters and so on. This past week I've been adding to that, and started using Notepad on my pc (awesome simple little application, love the mono-spacing font, helps with ASCII pictures ^_^) to write out the concepts, mechanics and designs for the game.
After watching a really good episode of Stargate Atlantis where they found a RTS game in the city, which turned out to be controlling real life people on another planet, I thought about giving the old medieval RTS games my brother and I used to play with eacother on paper and start designing the concept for a game that mixed up all the best qualities of the tons of games we came up with. And I'm quite proud and surprised to see I've written a good 3,500 words on it in just over two days.
I need to start drawing too, get back into the graphic design phase of it that I used to love so much.
Today I even got out my old MegaBlocks Dragons set and set up a little Final Fantasy: Tactics Advanced style game to play. *sigh* I miss being young and carefree enough to have so much joy in doing those things. I'm working on getting that back, but I need to get past the 'nothing seems to be enjoyable' and 'I just don't want to do anything' feelings.
I'll get there.
Signing out,
~Nattoons
________________
"Just because something needs to be told, doesn't always mean it needs to be heard."
I hate the whole red and green season, the festive season which seems to have created its own genre of music (as bad as country/western) and I hate the Jolly Fat Man in the beard. The whole cultre of Christmas seems to hit a nerve with me. I mean, I am all for the birth of Christ, the symbolism in the time of year and the exchanging of gifts - I love the exchanging of gifts - it's just the whole 'Santa Claus Is Coming' red and green, jolly sort of culture that seems to have attached itself to the last month of the year (and very slowly showing up earlier and earlier in November) that I can't stand.
I also dislike the 'What would you like for christmad?' that comes out of everyone's mouth. I've never been one to ask for things, and the only things I can think of for people to get me I can never trust them to get the right one, or the right design. Plus, it's much better when people think up their own gifts, and is much more rewarding when they get something you like, and shows how much they listen and care. That's a good gift.
But nonetheless, I shall do what I have always done, and write my list to Santa.
Books
- Three Worlds Series, 'Destiny Of The Dead', 'The Tower On The Rift', 'Dark Is The Moon', 'The Way Between The Worlds'.
- Black Butler, Volume 3+
- FullMetal Alchemist, Volume 9+
CDs
- Devin Townsed - 'Addicted!', 'Ziltoid The Omniscient'
- In Flames - 'A Sense Of Purpose'
- Kamelot - 'Ghost Opera', 'Epica', 'The Black Halo'
Guitar shit
- A new guitar lead
- An acoustic guitar
- A metal effects pedal
DVDs
- Dexter season 5
- How I Met Your Mother season 4, 5, or 6
- Lots of Chocolate
- Enough money to make up what I spent on others.
I can be greedy every so often, can't I?
Signing out, with milk and cookies,
~Nattoons
________________
"Steal five dollars and you were a petty thief. Steal thousands of dollars and you were either a government or a hero."
-Terry Pratchett, Going Postal
For a while now I have been writing a story, set a long while back when mental illness was not quite understood. It's about a schizophrenic who has found himself in a mental hospital and his illness distorts the world he is in. Trapped and trying to find a way out, a visual manifestation of his inner thoughts and subconscious talks to him and helps him around the place, while making him more and more paranoid and scared.
I have included here a short exert from the story, and if you want to read all that ive done so far, just go here and start from there. Enjoy!
Oh, and beware. There is blood. *creepy smile*
________________
Day 9
God, they won't stop screaming! Some of the other
prisoners here are rubber-necking around, looking in the room opposite
mine. I don't like the crowd. The person inside is screaming because
the men in white coats are in there too. They're handling and beating
the prisoner, just like they do to me. They still come in often, to
poke me and prod me like I'm some sort of a dead beast. Except I don't
make a scene. This prisoner is. I guess that's why there's so many
others standing and watching, wanting to get a good look at the blood
splatter, maybe be sprayed with some of the warm liquid.
I would
like to see what's going on, but the glass window on my door is all
blurry, they don't want me to see what's happening out there. I can't
get distracted anyway, even if I could see. I need to stay with Him; I
need to make sure I'm here when He awakes.
Oh, He is so close.
I tried to match the screaming from the other room, but He didn't hear.
He didn't even stir. I've stopped eating, too, completely stopped
eating my food and drinking my drink. They couldn't have drugged me
now, and they haven't been in to stab me in a long time. I also haven't
slept. They can't do anything to me in my sleep if I don't sleep.
It's been a long day.
- - -
Hmm,
so this screaming person proved to be very useful, eventually making
enough of a scene to lure the white coats out of my room. And they left
the door open. I think the screamer's dead now, since I can hear the
silence again. As I walked out of my room I saw them, the white men all
huddled around the screamer. It was scary – the freakiest thing I've
ever seen them do to anyone else. They were crowded around, on all
fours, their legs bent in unnatural directions and they were feeding,
their heads buried in the screamer, poking up every so often to slurp
down a part of intestines or something. I had to go back to my room; I
vomited. I panicked and tried to wake Him up, but He's still out, so I
grabbed His arms and dragged Him.
I managed to come across
some sort of common room. It had chairs and those drips everywhere,
attached to some people sitting in the chairs. Some of them have
started to decompose – I think this is where they come to die. Their
faces were drooping and I could hear the groans and spitting and those
sorts of screams where no voice comes out – just desperate air pleading
to be killed. There were some of the men in white coats behind counters
in other rooms, standing behind a thick pane of glass. They just stood,
staring blankly at each other, probably thinking the same dreadful
thoughts.
He started thrashing and biting, so I dragged Him
under some table near the wall where the cloth that laid over it
drooped down to the cold floor. Hopefully no one saw the racket or
heard all the noise.
I'm just waiting under here until everyone leaves. Maybe I can find some way to escape this hell hole. Or explore it.
There's
some pattern on the table cloth, just hanging over the edge at the
corner that I can see through. It's just enough for me to see most of
the room without being seen. I watched the white coated creatures
dragging out a body into the common room, pulling it by their teeth.
They clawed at it and ripped off its limbs – whatever was left of them
anyway. I can still see the pool of blood, all clotted and splashed in
all directions. And there's the trail where they dragged the screamer
to the counter - where the white man behind the glass stands - and
shoved the mangled body through the window slot. I could hear it snap
and crunch as the full sized body was crammed into a hole that could
only just fit a hand. It was strangely soothing.
________________
I've done more if anyone's interested, and they're all on my website at my DeviantArt gallery.
Signing out,
~Nattoons
________________
"Scissors cuts paper, paper covers rock, rock crushes lizard,
Emulators are a wonderful thing. Our Nintendo 64 has been lost in history for a long time, I'm not even too sure what happened to it, but it's gone. However, I have still managed to play some of my all-time favourite games on Project 64, or PJ64 - one of the best Nintendo 64 emulators. I have recently picked up and completed one of the most brilliant games in history - BanjoKazooie. Let me tell you a little bit about it.
It has a simple story: You are a bear named Banjo with a bird named Kazooie in your backpack, and Banjo's sister has been kidnapped by Grunty, the evil ugly witch, so she can steal your sister's beauty. Banjo needs to enter Grunty's lair and enter various unique worlds to collect honeycomb pieces to gain more max health, gather musical notes to open doorways to further your exploration into the lair, and jigsaw pieces that help you unlock new levels.
The idea of the game is so very unique and addictive. It is a classic Adventure game, similar in style to Donkey Kong 64 and Super Mario 64, where you traverse some sort of area, known as the Hub, which houses portals or doorways to small worlds in which there are various moves and items to collect. In each level there are a total of 100 notes, small yellow, well, musical notes. Once you exit a level, the record total of notes collected is added to your... inventory shall we say, and the notes in the level are reset. You have to get all 100 in the one go to leave with 100 more notes in your inventory, though they cannot be added again. Interesting concept. These notes help you open doors that have 'musical locks'. Different doors to harder parts of the lair require more notes. As well as that, there are 10 golden Jigsaw pieces in each world, as well as the lair. Completing various tasks, puzzles, or battles reward you with a Jigsaw piece, and they are used in the hub to open new worlds, by completing a giant puzzle that is a picture of that world.
Along the way you meet various fuzzy critters and friendly friends who either need help or want to help you on your quest. Some of the recurring characters are a mole (I forget his name) who, if you find his burrow mound, will teach you a move. You know, things like ground pound where Banjo jumps, flips over and Kazooie puts her head out and her beak slams into the ground under Banjo's weight. You can also do other things, like shoot eggs from Kazooie's mouth and ass, fly, high jump, and invulnerability (for a short while). These moves will all help you at one time or another to pass obstacles or complete puzzles.
Well, that's the basic premise of the game. It may sound a little childish, but trust me, I'm 18 and still love it to bits, and there's enough older humour in there for the older kids. What has really been done well is the execution of these ideas. Let's start with the music. I have yet to find another game with as good soundtrack as this game - the main tune of Grunty's Lair seems to be a spin on 'The Teddy Bear Picnic', that changes mood depending on the environment you are in. The song never stops playing, it continues in loops, but as you move from one area to the next, the instruments change to reflect the environment. Bells and chimes and strings take over when you near the snowy area, horns and trumpets near the swamp, and when around the graveyard the music turns spooky, all the while playing the same tune without stopping, seamlessly transitioning to different instruments. Enter the worlds and the songs change, but the mood is kept in each area, using lots of different instruments and sound effects that makes the soundtrack just fit in perfectly with everything else.
In some levels there is a skull house, and inside is this odd looking person called Mumbo Jumbo, who uses his power to transform you into any number of different little critters based on what world you are in (if you have enough Mumbo tokens, found in tough places throughout the game), each having their own little abilities, while all being able to fit into smaller holes and not get hurt from falling. Let's see, there's the termite, crocodile, Halloween pumpkin, walrus, and a bee. It's quite fun playing as these little guys and interacting with the NPCs in a whole different way.
In-game banter also provides a source of plenty of laughs, with Grunty speaking constantly in rhymes, Kazooie's snide comments about everything, and even the hints Brentilda gives you about Grunty - little facts that help you towards the end of the game - each disgusting and hilarious in its own way.
One challenge I have tried to do in this game is, of course, complete it 100%. That means collect all Jigsaws (got 'em all), all the notes (total of 900, done that!) every honey comb piece to max out health (2 to go) and all Mumbo's tokens (Don't know how many, but I've got TONS). It has indeed been a grand adventure in each of the nine worlds, and defeating Grunty was a marvellous conclusion to a wonderful game.
[SPOILER ALERT]
The end of the game was classic BanjoKazooie, with humour, puzzles and of course a battle. After you have enough Jigsaws and enough notes to approach Grunty herself, you must complete a board game, each space requiring you to answer a question about either the game, Grunty (the fact Brentilda told you throughout the game), tune or character voice recognition or visual recognition - depending on the space you are on. Once you get to the end, you are rewarded the prize - Banjo's sister, as well as a washing machine and a Grunty plushie. You watch the credits, then Banjo goes back to his home at Spiral Mountain (Banjo and Kazooie are conversing, which a virtual controller controls Banjo to his home, quite simply done and entertaining), then everyone is there relaxing, Banjo mentions he could go for a drink (lols) and then they suddenly realise Grunty got away. So of course you're then back in the Lair and have to go off and fight Grunty.
The game leaves off with a scene of you and some friends on a beahc having a great time, and Mumbo shows you some pictures of a few hidden items that were missed, that are used in the second game. Yes, they explicitly tell you there's another game, they even mention the title. Funny huh. I love their forwardness.
The only thing left now is for me to pick up BanjoTooie, a game roughly on par with its prequel, though much longer, and MANY more worlds to visit, items to collect and moves to master.
Go play it. Now.
Signing out,
~Nattoons
________________
"The advantage of having lived through this is that
I do know I'll come out the other side. The pain
lessons. You manage to distract yourself until the
distractions become more important than the thing
you're distracting yourself from."
-Ghastly Bespoke, Skulduggery Pleasant: Death Bringer
Due to recent events I am now staying at my mothers place for the next few days. Don't worry, it's nothing too bad, just somthings have been at the forefront of my mind at the moment and thought it would be better for me to be somewhere where there's people until the weekend, since I have no school. On the plus side, I get to spend a bit more time with mum, and also have access to the internet which is a bonus.
On that note, I picked up Terraria recently, after my dear friend B bought it, and have been playing that as of late (offline though) and today I actually had quite a fun session playing online with B, showing him my expert world with awesomly huge house, bridges that span nearly the whole map between floating islands, and extensive collection of nearly every item in the game, then decided to start our own map together.
During said game of Terraria, the storm that has been expected all day finally hit. It. Was. Amazing. I have always been one to love storms (even when I was scared of them when I was younger) and todays was worth the wait. It went dark about one - one and half hours earlier than it usually does this time of year, and I noticed the sky was nearly black. Upon venturing outside I saw that, covering about 9/10ths of the sky was a massive wall of clouds flashing with lightning every couple of seconds, and within minutes it was pouring. And I mean pouring. It went from bone dry to flodded in less than a minute, then hail came down, then the thunder, and then it was over after about 10 minutes. Pity it didn't last longer. I've always found the noise of heavy rain on roofs and thunder coming from all 'round quite exhilirating.
If only it lasted 'till bed time. I adore the cosy feeling of laying in bed, snug up into my doona listening to the patter of rain on the rooftops...
Rooftops... I like that song. I shall get it *just remembered the song now.* By Lost Prophets. Get it. It's good.
Well I'm losing any clear train of thought I may have had, so I guess I will head off.
Signing out,
~Nattoons
________________
"We watch it for the same reason anyone watches any reality
I am very disappointed with how the game industry has turned out. Don't get me wrong, I love video games; I plan to create them myself, even. But what I'm saying is that the gaming industry has taken so many turns that it's turned into a cacophony of improved graphics, realistic environments, mimicking driving or war or whathaveyou. I love good graphics, but it seems that these days that's all the game is about. Whatever happened to story lines, story progression, what happened to the adventure? It seems that graphics are getting higher and better at the cost of good gameplay.
Good gameplay is what makes a good game. It's in the fricken title. If you look at the old Super Mario games, the graphics aren't too good, but my god were those games addictive. I know people who still play Space Invaders and Tetris and lose hours of their day playing it. The graphics aren't realistic; its barely more than a couple of polygons, shapes and lines. So why do people keep playing them, and still love playing them? It's because of the gameplay. Sure, when you look at Doom I and compare it to Halo Reach, Reach wins hands down on everything. Doom has clumsy controls, jerky movements, and it's sometimes hard to distinguish between enemies, the wall and the bullets you're firing. Graphics are important. But when the game companies start focusing on graphics and trashing the gameplay, that's where things go wrong.
Growing up on the Nintendo (literally, I had one since like 7 and still play N64), I have had a good view on the progression of games. I still find that the 64 is the epitome of gaming, it has brilliant games that last long, hook you in, and provide scintillating stories to follow and get immersed in, and since then gaming has gone downhill. I don't mean that I don't like anything since then, god no, there are many games on the Game Cube, Xbox, PlayStation, and PC since then that I has seen me spending many a joyful hour hunched in front of a screen, but nothing quite compares to the originality of the 64. A perfect example in BanjoKazooie, a game I recently completed (which I will post a blog review about in the near future). It has a simple story, decent enough graphics, but the gameplay is so original, so fun, and I still struggle to find a game that matches the quality of BanjoKazooie.
Nowadays games seem to be taking a different path. We see more first-person-shooters than anything else, a ton of racing games, massive amounts of MMOs, RPGs about anything... whatever happened to good old adventure, or platform? Arcade is a bit outdone, but there are still ideas out there, it can't hurt to have a little variety. I don't mean they're all bad, Halo has a had a great run, and even though they slipped up with halo 2 and have been desperately trying to recover since, they've made their way back to the top. Valve continue to push out brilliant games (albeit very slowly) and every so often a magnificent game surfaces like Minecraft or Team Fortress 2.
The Wii was a failure, I'll admit that (still a Nintendo fanboy all the way), but only because game companies are so stuck in their ways that they don't venture from their repetitive game ideas at Microsoft or Sony and use the Wii to its full potential. Occasionally there is a great game put forward, Super Smash Bros Brawl (not as good as Melee but I'll take what I can get), Metroid Prime, and Skyward Sword. Brawl did not use the motion sensor very much, in fact, I'd recommend connecting a GameCube controller and playing with that, but it was still a brilliant game. Metroid was a whole new version of shooter, using the motion sensor to aim, and Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, although not yet released, boasts the best use of the motion sensor so far, reading every presice movement of the Wii remote and translating that to the movement of Link's sword. But these are all classic Nintendo titles, made and produced by Nintendo, so people rarely notice it. If the mainstream names out there turned their attention to the Wii and really started thinking, I'm sure that will really revolutionise gaming.
What I'm complaining about is companies these days are sacrificing good gameplay and good story for higher graphics and closer-to-real-life gaming. Soon enough we'll be enjoying test flight simulators on our PlayStations, and we'll find those funny little driving simulations you do at your driving tests on your Xbox, and shitty war games (I'm looking at you Call Of Duty series) will get so realistic you'll be playing the general in his tent moving those figurines across a map of the world to organise troops. And because game companies are off aiming to make gaming more and more boring for the Xbox and PlayStation, Nintendo is getting left with those stupid little niche games like Wii Play and Beach Sports or some shit.
God, don't get me started on niche gaming.
PC is the only side of gaming I can, in good conscience, commemorate. With clients like Steam and companies like PopCap and Valve, gaming is kept at a wonderful and steady level.
Now excuse me while I build my world on Terraria and then abuse some monkeys on Donkey Kong 64.
Signing out,
~Nattoons
________________
"Fire, exclamation mark, fire, exclamation mark, help me,
exclamation mark.
123 Cavendon Road. Looking forward to hearing from
you.
Things are kinda just idling along at the moment. not sure what to say, not sure what to do, just studying waiting for my exams to come and go, trying to get a job, trying to communicate with friends, and trying not to wallow in self pity of my problems which, when I hear about what my friends are dealing with makes me feel like I'm throwing a tantrum because i dropped my toy truck. Should I, shouldn't I, I really don't know and don't care right now. I'm just going to keep idling along until this incomplete heart of mine decides to actually want to do something rather than just half-hearting it all until I decide.
~Nattoons
________________
"The world is full of good people doing bad things."
-Poirot, The Clocks
We had our 'Celebration day' today, this decades equivalent to muck up day. It was just as I expected, a morning of shit music and absolutely nothing to do. The barbecue breakfast was good, but after that it went downhills. We were confined to the oval, where it was horribly windy and a freezing and people had silly string shooter things and water guns which made it that much colder. one thing that would have been fun was the giant game of twister, but they tried setting up the mats on the oval and the wind blew them away. People ended up using them to slide down the hills and be dragged by the tug-of-war rope.
I was glad when it was over, and there was a surprise at the end - we were allowed to go home. so most people went home. I stayed, I figured there's more to do here than at home, and some of my friends stayed. Had a nice peaceful VCaD class just now, only four of us, all of them my close friends. It was pretty fun.
Tomorrow I reckon will be much better, there's actual events planned out for us, so we just have to sit back and let them take us through the day rather than leave it up to us and end up having a useless 2 and a half hours on the oval like today. We have a couple of formal event things, final church service, house period, but then we get a preview of the year 12 video (all year during certain events the school has gotten some dude to film things, gonna be sick), and then we get to each plant a tree, then we get teddys from the preps. so cute~
Well lunch is just about over, so I'ma go now and be with people.
Signing off,
~Nattoons
________________
"One of the 24 similarities between women and fish are they're both attracted to shiny objects."
Lacking one, coherent train of though today, I'm just going to list everything that has come to mind:
Today I'm helping host the Cre8 festival for my school, since I'm the Visual Arts captain (along with someone else) so I guess that will be interesting. I've got my own pieces exhibited.
6 more days of school, and the last day will be hella fun, so that barely counts.
Haven't got the best marks for my exams. 60-70% for all of them, though my disappointment is probably heightened by the high expectations I have of myself.
I need to get a job for once school has ended. Looking for a cattery, or something to do with animals.
I think I will buy some shapes on the way home. I feel like biscuits that are baked, not fried. I have some spare change.
My highlighters are not working, funny, considering i rarely use them and they're all dry. And the one I do use works fine.
Ninjas can't catch you if you're on fire.
Go visit anti-joke.com. Funny as hell.
Party on Friday at school for two teachers going on maternity leave. Yay, free food!
I hope we have something nice for dinner tonight.
I have heaps of messages from facebook. I need to get on there soon.
Thats all thats really going through my head at the moment I guess, I'll see you around.
Signing off,
~Nattoons
________________
"There is no heroism in war, simply things that need to be done."
-Mr Bliss, Skullduggery Pleasant
As of late I have had no internet. I am in this such predicament because people in my household have no respect for such thing as a download limit, and since my step mum needs the internet quite often for work (she is a VCE teacher) internet usage for us at home has been banned. T_T of course I get to reap consequences of this aswell, even though I hardly use up downloads. So now I can only use msn or deviant art or write my blogs when I'm at school.
And that's where more problems come.
Of course I'm excited that schools so very close to finishing, but only 9 more days of daily internet access is nothing. Then I'm reduced to internet access once every two weeks when I go to my mums. I don't cope very well with change, or lots of things for that matter, and son there will be a lot of free time for me to sit there unable to summon motivation to do anything. Internet used to be my escape from that, since there is so much to do without any effort. But that's gone now.
Free time is dangerous for me. I don't know what to do.
Signing off,
~Nattoons
________________
"This bitch of a life we all lead is made considerably better by the content with which we fill it."
-Brandon Kidd
I have been collecting quotes recently, because I like that sort of thing. And if there's one thing I love to do with those quote, is butcher them. Not in the best of mood as of late, I have been reading through a small book my mother gave me after... lets say life hadn't gone too well... called 'Hope comes' or something, a collection of famous quotes or proverbs all to do with hope. But of course I find it hard to believe in hope.
So here are my versions of these quotes, I have 'butchered them' to reflect my downcast view of life or to give you a glimpse of what I feel. Um, enjoy?
You may have to fight a battle more than
once to win it. –Margaret Thatcher
You will have to fight battles more than
once, and won't necessarily win. –Nattoons
When you get
to the end or your rope, tie a knot and hang
on. –Franklin D. Roosevelt
When you get
to the end of your rope, tie a knot. Then
jump. –Nattoons
One who
wants a rose must respect the thorn.
–A Persian proverb
One who
wants a rose will only ever get the
thorn. –Nattoons
…no evil
lasts forever, nor indeed for very long.
–Epicurus, 271 BC
No evil
lasts forever, but indeed for a hell of
a long time. –Nattoons
It is not
the mountain we conquer but ourselves.
–Sir Edmund Hillary
You will never conquer a mountain or yourself,
you pathetic bum. –Nattoons
Tough times don't last – tough people do. –Anonymous
Tough times
seem to last forever, but don't
worry, you won't. –Nattoons
The pessimist sees the difficulty in every
opportunity. The optimist, the
opportunity is in every difficulty. –L. P. Jacks
The
pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist is severely delusional. –Nattoons
I may cry easily but I never give up. –Greg Louganis
I can't cry even though I need to, and my
only option left is to give up. –Nattoons
No man fails who does his best. –Orison Swett Marden
Your best is
never enough. –Nattoons
Inside
myself is a place where I live alone
and that's where you renew your spring that never dries up. –Pearl Buck
Inside
myself I am constantly alone and
that causes more and more suffering
every day. –Nattoons
May you live
all the days of your life. –Jonathan Swift
But I don't want to. –Nattoons
If you want
the rainbow, you gotta put up with
the rain. –Dolly Parton
The rainbow
is overrated. –Nattoons
Fall Seven times. Stand up eight. –Japanese Proverb
Fall seven
times. You're an idiot for doing the
same thing over again. –Nattoons
Be realistic. Plan for a miracle. –Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
Be
realistic. An hero. –Nattoons
Well that's it from me I guess.
Signing off,
~Nattoons
_______________
"The lies we tell other people are nothing to the lies we tell ourselves."
-Skulduggery Pleasant, Skullduggery Pleasant Book 6: Death Bringer
I woke up at 12:30 today, then slept from 2 - 5pm -_-
Holidays are here, and while I'm loving the absence of work and annoying groups of people and teachers, things are REALLY boring. T_T I know I prattle on about how much I wish school to be gone, but all this time at home is killing me; nothing to do but lie in bed and make my headache worse. I tried to start some of my holiday homework, but the 4 practice maths exams I pronted at school (not printing here, total of like 100 pages) turns out I left them at school. And last week I had my USB in my computer and it DECIDED TO DISAPPEAR ugh, and now I don't have my IT revision tables, which I had nearly completed, close to 1000 words each table (three to do) and hell if I'm starting those again.
So the last few days I've been readin my new manga, finishing off watching Law Of Ueki (amazing anime, check it out) watching Benidorm (british comedy) and watching some of my Studio Ghibli collection.
oh, be back, dinner
...
and it just occured to me I didn't need to type that...
Anyways, there's not going to be much going on for a while, since after these eventless holidays will be trial exams then mass amounts of study, so how about you choose what I write about next:
Review - game, book, movie...
Info on some of my own prjects, game creation or music
Band/song review
or something anyone else can think of.
I'll leave that with you.
Signing out,
~Nattoons
________________
"I am the butler of the Phantomhive family.
It goes without saying I can manage something as trivial as this."
- Sebastian, Black Butler, volume II
Omigosh I am so very nearly finished my project for VCaD, I'm designing a virtual band's CD (well, not really virtual, since I am actually going to make these but they don't know that). Ive done the whole shebang: cover (the whole little booklet, which includes pictures of the band members), disk design, in lay tray (under the disk) back with the track list, and even those foldy-uppy edges that show up on the sides of the CD case. Its pretty cool, and turned out way better than I had imagined.
There has been soooo much work put into this, because even though I've known the design I wanted to do fromt he beginning, to complete the folio we need at least ten ideas, each significantly different from eachother, as thumbnails, then to develope three of them. So yeah it was a pain doing all those different designs when I knew which one I wanted from the beginning. It's what I hate about this subject.
But then the end product is what makes me absolutley adore it.
Since I have so much in the one design to show, I've actually got two CD cases and will have one showing the front and back, with the other showing the insides, and then the booklet out separately (obviously I've printed out more than one copy of the cover) so people can look through it. It's gonna be sweet and I sooo want to get into Top Designs, that would be my absolute dream.
It won't get me any marks, but since I actually write songs, and the tracks I listed on the back are all songs I've made, I'm going to see if I can have a CD player with my display and have the CD playing for people to listen to while they look through the display.
Last folio check I had a 21/25 for my folio, which is a good 84%, and A, and the teacher said I could easily get that up to a 25/25. and I need an A to get into Top Designs (along with a good design and finished product obviously) so fingers crossed !
Anyway, those of you who go to my school can look forward to seeing this at the Cre8 festival which I can't remember when it's on and I've totally lost the notice T_T
Oh well, find out when it is and come check out my shiz~ there will also be lots more great stuff there, all from VCaD, Art, Media, Systems and more I think. Gonna be great.
Signing Out,
~Nattoons
________________
"Opened up my failure
When you refused to go insane.
I felt you get excited
When I whispered all the things you love to hate."
-The Used, Artwork
Well, today is the last official day of school. Last day of any work. starting term 4 will just all be revision, like, 2 or 3 weeks then the 3 weeks that the exams are spread over where we don't even have to come into school unless we have an exam. Gonna be sweet, so looking forward to finishing here. I don't know why everyone says this is the best year of school. It's coming close... no, has been the worst. but anyway.
Tomorrow we do have school, but its performing arts day, which I can't say I'm all that excited for, but I get to muck around with friends and not do any schoolwork. I'll take what I can get. Our house is doing Aladdin, one of my favourite movies evar! Though the script writers have totally butchered the storyline, and they chose the worst song for the group song - A Whole New World. Seriously. Not Prince Ali? We are doing Never Had A Friend Like Me, but it'd just be like the first minute of the song playing and some shitty dance with it. yay.
At least I'm in the band, playing guitar right? Well they decided we play Katie Perry - Teenage Dream. Yeah. Given I normally play lead guitar for heavy metal shiz, some modern pop song with hardly more than three chords is soooo boring T_T ugh I thought I'd actually be able to enjoy performing arts this year now that I'm in the band. But oh well... guess I can't show off my guitar skillz.
As well as that, though, all year 12 boys in our house have to play as the palace guard,
these guys:
I have to bring a black t-shirt so I can cut it into a vest, and - and I quote, "white puffy pants". The closest thing I have is a pair or grey trackies with champion written on one side. I guess they'll have to do.
Well enough ranting I guess, I really should be studying for English right now.
So I guess I'll see you guys later. Figuratively.
Signing out,
~Nattoons
________________
"When I get sad, I stop being sad and be Awesome Instead. True Story."
Ok enough of this depressing shiz. On with things.
When I get out of this godforsaken hellhole called school, ima (hopefully) get into the university I want and do my study on animation/games design. totally what I've been hanging out in this dump of a school for - but once im focusing all my study on what I absolutely love doing, things will hopefully start getting much easier.
So along those lines, I'm going to share with you some plans for one project I have already started working on with a good friend of mine, Dan.
The game is called 'DeX', and is about an astronaut who was sent to the moon on a secret mission and was abandoned there by accident with no way to get home. I've been working on drawing designs for the game as well as a notepad document to scribble down all my ideas about game mechanics, story, and all that. heres the plot -
"1969, man lands on the moon. The Appolo program was finally put into action and the first men walk on the moon, among the team were Niel Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin... and DeX. Parallel to the Apolo program was the Bathurst Project, a top secret mission in which a Team of specially trained astronaughts were sent to the dark side of the moon to explore and recover rare minerals that previous unmanned expeditions had reported. The Bathurst Team returned with a mission success, however, many of the men refused to ever speak of the mission again, some were even locked away in a mental institution due to "mental instability". Though one man was never heard from again - codename: DeX. What did Dex find there? The last ever contact from Dex was a static-filled radio signal during the expedition, exclaiming that He had found something very peculiar... Only Dex knows what he saw."
So yeah, it's basically going to eb a first-person-shooter/explorer style game, focusing on exploring the vast (un)emptiness of the moon while eventually getting more action filled as you discover more and more. The basic premise of the game is to collect minerals and get enough to build/repair your shuttle to get back. Though as you go along you discover alien races, civilisations, cities, outposts, mining sites and all that jazz.
The action part of the game looks pretty cool in my head, see, you have this small 'Multi-Tool Attachment Device' which is like a gun without a barell, and there are tons of different attachments to it that are used for different purposes, for example, the Vaccuum Powered Moon-Rock Gun, Moon Mining Apparatus, Gattling Gun and more, as well as alien technology discovered over the course of the game.
One of the main focuses of the game is the mining and minerals you can collect. minerals serve two main purposes: building/repair - certain minerals are used for buildings and repair/upgrades to your weapons, while other minerals are for perks/powerups - they can be attached to the Multi-Tool Attachment Device and then add a certain power to it. All the guns that use ammo then have ammo made from that mineral, which adds different strength, bullet speed, and effects, while other weapons are powered by the mineral and also have different perks added.
Its still waaaay under development, just doing sketches and scribbling ideas onto notepad, but it sounds like a pretty good idea and Dan (who plans to study similarly to me at uni) and I want to eventually make it.
Only one day left of this week. then one week left. then three days of practice exams, then revision, then exams then... finally, ill be done with this shithole of a place called school. Don't get me wrong, school's... no yeah, it is shit. I'm still waiting to find out why year 12 is apparently "the best year of school" because since year 9 each year has just been worse than the last, and this year's no exception. I just really can't wait until school's done and I'm off to uni, doing what i actually want to do with my life, doing things i hope i can actually enjoy.
And I mean I really can't wait. Every day it's getting harder to pretend nothing's wrong, harder to suck it up and get on with things, harder to keep everything inside. And it's not like i can let it out - close to 3 (4?) years of pretending I'm fine, holding in my sorrow, anger and other things I won't care to mention here, does not permit you to suddenly decide to let it out in small healthy doses. There is no longer such thing as small doses. It's all or nothing, and all does not look good. Looks more like a prison sentence.
Just hopeful, once the stressors of school are behind me and I can focus on my animation and games (as a part of my learning as well as recreation), that things will become even just a little easier.
I started off writing this saying how little there was left of school.. though the more I look at it the longer it feels, it still feels like forever until I'm free, and even then I'll still be in shackles - and once that are hella hard to get rid of. I still maintain it will never be better, since I know myself better than them, yet they still insist on saying things will pick up.
Sure, if things are going badly, you're shattered and feel like nothing can ever work out, yes, you still can be put back together. But when there are pieces missing, peices that were never really there in the first place, its not that simple. In fact its not simple at all. It's hopeless, and having hope just adds to the torment.
I've accepted how broken I am, it doesn't mean I'm not working at it, not getting help, but that I know I wont ever be completely fixed, and there's nothing I can do about that.
No I haven't lost any really close family members, I haven't had my best friend die in my arms, I wasn't abused (physically at least), I haven't been raped. What's wrong is not anything any of you can see, or a sad story I can tell. It's things people never seem to understand, things people think I make up, things no one will see evidence of no matter what I say or how I try to explain. I'm alone in this, no matter how many people are supporting me - Because no one can see, and never really fully understand. I'm not special, some people are worse off than me. I know this. But I also know what I'm going through is real, despite how little you see.
No need to comment. No need to tell me it will be okay. No need to tell me I'm not alone - I know all this. It's not that I don't appreciate it, I love any support i can get.
It just won't help. This is more a vent session for me anyway because I'm really not coping. I'm just ready to give up again.
sorry for the depressing rant,
signing off,
~Nattoons.
__________________
"There's no such thing as hope, The only thing in this world is despair."
I'm a fan of the footy team, not the animal. The damn things keep swooping me on the way to school. One in some park about 2 ks away from home, which because of I have taken to riding on the narrowest of two way roads for a couple of hundred meters. Though that's not too bad. further down at a main intersection, there is one really disgruntled magpie that insists on flying out of its way to swoop me about 5 or 6 times, following me for quite a while down the path, clipping at my ears on every swoop. The other day it actually hit me in the back of the head and if it weren't for my helmet I'd be bleeding. Trust me, I've been hit in the back of the head by a magpie before and its not pretty - felt like a rock the size of my fist and drew some nasty blood. Bleh. should report them to the council and get 'em to get rid of them. Just this morning, when i was riding to school i actually went on the other side of the road, another 50 or so meters away from this damn magpie and it stilldecides to follow and swoop me, even though I was under the roofs of the shops beside me.
Anyways, been doing quite a bit to do with music recently, if you haven't noticed by now, I have put up some links to some of my song prototypes, and will be putting up more in the future if they continue to get listens. I play in a church band, which isn't too bad, but we play very low-key songs and mostly acoustic... and since i play lead electric guitar, I find it very dull. But, just the other day I got invited by a friend to start up a band. Again, probably nothing too exciting, since it'd mostly be rap/pop/pop-rock and covers of songs, but oh well, anything to get me writing music and actually playing ^_^ so that will be good.
So yeah, just here a school in the morning writing down my thoughts. nothing that exciting at the moment. I guess I will go continue this post at home.
......
*huff huff* god riding home is annoying. I ride to and from school if you haven't gathered by now, and its about 7ish k's each way, bout 30-40 minutes up and down hills T_T ugh it gets exhausting.
But anyway, so I've been reading this webcomic series for roughly 3-4 years now, and its absolutely BRILLIANT I just have to share it. Its called Least I Could Do, been going since 2003, though I find it was best from 2005, specifically when Las Desouza started as the artist. If you're going to check it out (which I highly reccommend), start from the start, since you will then get a better understanding of a lot of the references made later, and of reccurring events and characters. just remember it gets better from 2005. There's a lot of comics though, so don't go at it half heartedly, since it updates every day since 2003 (though only recently sunday as well)
So yeah, thats it from me I guess,,
Oh, and if any of you know anyone who would be into reading blogs or whatever, don't hesitate to point them in my direction. I'd love the attention and any more readers would be greatly appreciated. Once I have a few more then I'll get into putting up more songs, info about my one-man-band project, reviews and all that jazz.
Signing off,
~Nattoons
________________
"Well... maybe we don't know to go inside when it's cold!"
-Nathan Explosion, Metalocalypse
So, these thoughts have just been plagueing my mind as of late: what makes one whole? I have friends, (or at least i hope i do), I have a loving family, albiet a hard time getting that, I have many talents, overall a great life or so ive heard, but i just don't feel complete; happy; fulfilled. Yeah sure, when I did have a girlfriend I was a little happier, but things were rather the same. I find it dangerous to put all your happiness into other too, because if your only happy because your with your girlfriend, or with friends and such, what happens when things go sour between you? I made the mistake of putting all my happiness in my girlfriend, and when that ended, and boy did that end badly, i had nothing left. Because I'd made her my everything.
But even so, I never felt complete. No matter how good a life I seem or appear to have, it just doesn't feel like it. and whats the point of having something great if you can't see it; can't use it? I know I have these loving people in my life, I know I have all this hope with my wonderful God given talents, but I just can't seem to see past the bad, and why should I have these talents if most of the time I can't use them? I get home from a shitty day at school, and the last thing I can think of doing is drawing or playing guitar or writing. (let alone homework T_T) I just can't seem to enjoy these things; find fulfillment in anything; feel whole.
So I guess I ask you, what makes you whole? Signing off,
~Nattoons
________________
"Never make someone your everything, because when they're gone you will have nothing"
-anonymous
Well, I know I'm almost talking to a brick wall here, though I hope in time more poeple will come to view and follow my blog. For now I guess I'll just talk, because, iuno, there's something theraputic about putting thoughts down into writing, even if no one does wnd up reading it.
Evar have one of those days where everything goes well, you have a great time, seem all happy, but as soon as things finish, or all the events are over for the day you just feel... empty? I don't know exactly how to explain it, but I may be having a great time, though I still don't seem.. happy? as soon as the moments over, everything is back to normal, that empty feeling rushes back, or rather, resurfaces - I don't think it ever really goes. But it seems that things only really ever distract me nowdays. As soon as our little family dinner outing is over, I'm back home, at my computer, lonely and sad as ever. Even this here is a distraction, though not much of one now cause I'm talking all about it. Thanks to SJP I discovered this little blog site and started this blog up, though I'm pretty sure only he reads it atm. Oh well, probbaly for the best since all I've really done here is introduce myself, then complain.
It almost seems as though I'm never really happy, that I just have short lived periods of joy. It's nothing that ever lasts. I think you will find if you do decide to follow me over here at ArbitraryPonderings is that I will be very up and down. I will be posting about all sorts of stuff, like reviews for games, movies, songs etc, random things abotu my day, opinions on issues, ut i guess you will have to wade through the occasional rant/vent too. sorry. I'm that kinda guy. I need to get things out somehow, and this site proves a useful avenue for such things.
I guess since not many people read this as of yet, its be a bit of a dead end question, but what would people like to hear from me next?
Reviews? More about myself (to do with my art or music or such)? Opinions on certain issues? just random updates about my life? Tell me what you want to hear.
Signing out, and probably lurking around for a while to come,
Okay, how about to get this blog started I tell you a little about myself.
Well, here on the interwebs I go by no other name but Nattoons or MrMahoganies. I love music, drawing, video games and manga and anime.
I still buy CD's cause I'm cool like that, and I play guitar, have been teaching myself for nearly... 4 years now? I guess I'm alright at it, I like to play what I'm into, and that is Hard rock, Emo/Punk rock, and Metal (progressive, heavy, death). I play Lead guitar most of the time, though I can play rhythm and acoustic. I also have my own bandprojectthing going on, where I write my own songs (lyrics with drums, bass and no less than two guitars) and hopefully want to produce my songs as like a one-man-band sorta thing. I guess in future I can post up some prototypes of my songs here (if that's possible). Anyway, 'nuff about music.
Along the lines of Artistry, I looove drawing, have been doing so for as long as I can remember, and I have come to be, well, decent at it. If you want to check out some of my stuff, head on over to my Deviantart and view my gallery. Got a bit or a range of things up there, from bright and cheery cartoons, to dark and twisted literature. C'mon, check it out.
I do play a lot of video games, you may encounter me on TF2 from time to time if you're on the Australian servers. Beware of any pyro named Nattoons. ^_^ let's see, I also frequent Killing Floor, and occasionally Maple Story of World of Tanks. I guess I'm into the FPS's, but I do love the occasional RPG, and classic N64. I'm a big fan of Valve too, I play Portal, Half-Life series, and oh, MASSIVE POKEMON FAN >.> though i hate gen 4 and 5, they should have stopped creating them after gen 3 and continued making games with the monsters they had. bleh, enough pokeranting.
Lastly in my description of nerdiness, I'm an anime/manga fan, though only recent to that world. I do love classic Dragon Ball, but also collect Full Metal Alchemist, Black Butler, School of Rumble, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei and Deathnote. I been crazy 'bout manga since I lived in Japan from end of 2005 - 2006, and love the style and cluture n' all that jazz. gotta love the japanese ^_^
I am currently in Year 12, studying Eng Language, Maths, VCaD, and IT, and already completed 3/4 Psych. Yeah, I'm quite over school right now, but there's not long to go, so i shall just mooch on. I'm totally going to Uni next year, where I will be studying 2D animation, and hopefully get the skills to create my Cartoons and shiz. :D
Anyway, that's all i can really think of about myself right now, and prolly all I want to reveal on the web. But yeah. Follow me if you are interested i guess, I will have more to say. ^_^
