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Another year’s over. I don’t feel like writing up a detailed look back on my year. I feel like I’m growing, but slowly. I think during the last month I did a lot to get out of my chronic habit of putting things off, at least as far as housework is concerned, but I need to get that to grow and include all aspects of my life. One other thing I need to work on is deciding what to pursue and what to let drop.

Right now I feel more focused ont he future than the past, and I think that’d be a good thing to keep up.

Have some links instead:
Celebrate what’s right with the world, a video that might make you feel all warm and fuzzy. I loved the last story.

Some images found on deviantart:

Incidentally, this is the 100th post published on this blog. Nice timing, entirely unplanned.

When Nico arrived, Sylvie stared. From Nico’s grin and expectant look, she judged that surprise had been the desired reaction, and asked, “Why is your hair pink?”
“It’s dyed. I won a bet.”
“Won or lost?”
“Won. Someone bet me I wouldn’t dye my hair pink. Didn’t know me as well as he thought he did.”
Taking in the slightly frilly dress, and cat’s ears, Sylvie asked, “And the rest?” They were not going to a costume party.
“Just seemed to go with it well.”
If it was a joke at Nico’s expense, she sure had fun with it, anyway.

Magic, in principle, was easy. He concentrated on what it should do, and made the signs that his intuition told him epitomised the idea. In time he learned that some designs belonged to grand concepts – a circle was “protection”, a rectangle “order”, but a square “containment”. That knowledge was useless when a concept central to a spell refused to connect to a shape he could draw or carve.
The scribbles for “to the other side” had been clear even in a panic, taking him far further than expected.
The problem now was that he did not know what “home” was.

Octopus wants to be a clam. Tool use hasn’t been an exclusively human thing for a while.

There’s a new Simon’s Cat video up at youtube. It has a birdee. ^_^

There had been a great version of Bohemian Rhapsody on the Muppets Studio youtube channel, but now it’s gone due to copyright kerfuffle. Ehwell, it still has The Blue Danube (performed by chickens), Ode to Joy (performed by Beaker), and Ringing of the Bells (featuring Animal, see post title)

The Badger’s Den had had a strict “no fights” policy for longer than anybody could remember, not even the turtle who had never introduced itself, but dropped in on occasion in the summertime, watching generations of voles, foxes, and even badgers pass. The current owner and barkeeper, Bartholomew, had served a lot of different guests. Owls were not that common, but one of them stood out. He had come to the Den with the air of someone who wanted to get drunk. It took little prompting from Bartholomew for him to unload his troubles.

“See, there’s this woman,” – owl, naturally – “Ignatia.” Judging from his sigh, even her name alone was better than a life supply of fresh mice, and Bartholomew suffered through some disjointed, lovestruck praise of her looks, prowess and character. “So, well, I had a chance with her, but of course what was needed was a nest. I’d found a nice hollow, and she was inside inspecting it, when a squirrel started throwing nuts at us. It was so quick I couldn’t catch it, completely fearless, and it ruined everything.”

“You can’t have given up that soon, right?”

“Oh, that monster wasn’t the only one. The first day at the second nest, a mouse showed up. It hooted and acted as if it was an owl and our child.”

After a pause, Bartholomew asked, “Couldn’t you have eaten it?”

“Are you crazy? It clearly was, and we didn’t want to catch whatever made it so.”

“That makes sense.” What the badger did not say was that they sounded like a pair of complete pushovers.

“See. Well, anyway, now Ignatia is looking for someone who doesn’t attract lunatics, and I’m all alone.”

“Don’t worry too much; I’m sure someone will fall for you.” It’s all part of the job.

There was a thump followed by shuffling noises at the entrance, as a bat awkwardly crawled in. “Yoo-Hoo, Orville,” he called.

“Already has. That’s the problem.” Orville downed the rest of his drink in one go and tried to ignore the newcomer. The evening went downhill from there.

When they came in sight if the water, the sky turned black. There was light just as before on the ground, faint shadows falling behind them, but looking up, there was nothing but darkness beyond their beacon. The bicolour trail the bird had left glowed even brighter.

The shore was steep enough that they needed to walk sideways, but it turned into a softer slope forming a sort of beach. There was a smaller copy of this shape at the water’s edge, not the continuing slope you’d find on a beach. There were no waves to form it; the surface of the water was perfectly still. The ground was covered in smooth, dark pebbles.

Sylvie crouched and bent her head until it nearly touched the ground to have a closer look.

“If it is this shallow all through, it should be no problem to cross,” Daaren said.

“I don’t trust it.”

Neither did he, but what good would it do? “Looks like a long way to circle around, if it’s possible at all. Any idea how to find out if the hunch has merit?”

Sylvie’s sigh did not stir the surface. She took another deep breath, and blew. There was the slightest hint of movement. Sitting down cross-legged, a bit back from the edge, she said, “I wonder if it’s water at all.”

“It’s not water. It’s not ground. It’s not air,” Daaren pointed out. What it was was bloody unnerving.

He dipped the tip of a shoe (which was no shoe, either) into the liquid. It rippled, at first faster than water would. The pebbles below disappeared, leaving blackness that could be formless ground, or an infinite void. As the turbulences died down slowly, the pebbles reappeared.

After a rather too long silence, Sylvie said, “Circling around it is.” Daaren did not argue.

Once upon a time, when the Game Boy Color was cutting edge technology, and I had a Game Boy Pocket because the two Classic models we had had worn out, I had Pokémon Red Version. Honestly, I don’t think I got particularly far – four, maybe five badges, and it’s not like the game ended there. However, I loved the concept. Cute critters, and collecting, and the strategy aspect, and the fact you could just spend some time levelling to make things later easier.

One problem was that I couldn’t find people to trade with, what with being shy/messed up/whatever.
Three generations of handhelds later I heard the latest games of the series enabled interaction via the internet. And, well, the graphics are a LOT better, but still very close to the isometric SNES RPGs that I’m used to from back when, with only some added 3D effects, as opposed to all-out 3D graphic, which I find confusing.

Then comes the DSi, with an SD slot – hell knows what that can be used for other than the 0.3 megapixel cameras that are built in – and such a really nice matte finish, and, yeah. Cue me getting a DSi and Pokemon Platinum as a late birthday/early Christmas present for myself.

Of course then it turns out that if I had waited another few months, I might have gotten the “next” generation as they came out. Well, they’re remakes of Gold and Silver, but, well, shiny! (And I didn’t play those, anyway.) That got me reading up more in the series history. What got remade with polish and tweaks as what is kinda interesting. Since I’m a visual animal, here’s a graph:

A generation of Pokémon games always starts with a pair, which are identical apart from the bit that some of the critters can be found in one, but not the other, to encourage trading. This is followed later by a retooled version, which has tweaks like improved graphics, a different set of pokemon, altered/added dungeons or story elements, whatever.

The very first – Red & Green – were released only in Japan. The improvements in their retooled version Blue were used for the out-of-Japan versions Red & Blue. After the anime became a hit, Red & Blue got mixed-and-altered into Yellow (and somewhere an arts teacher is crying). Yellow was a game for the Game Boy, but got additional support (ie predefined colour palettes) for GB Color.

If one occurrence is a pattern already (hey, it worked with Blue being the new-and-improved combination of Red & Green), HeartGold & SoulSilver won’t get a combined version. On the other hand, the DSi is relatively new, so maybe DS-compatible stuff will stick around longer.

Either way, I get the impression that one Pokemon game can keep you occupied a long, long time. Breeding (added in Generation II) sounds fun, and so is growing berries (the “plant them yourself” bit was added in Generation III), and the Underground treasure-digging game is a horrible, horrible timesink (Added in Generation IV). And that’s just stuff to do on the side, as opposed to plot and level grinding. And if I get bored of that, I can try to figure out the Contests. Whee, I guess.

Ah… does anyone here play those games, too? What with the friendscodes, and trading and such…