I'm a little jazz bird...

I'm a little jazz bird and I'm telling you to be one too...

Sorry...I'm in a jazz mood.

Not much going on. I finished Harry Potter book 4 so I'm on book 5.

Bored to pieces...

Well, I'm bored. For my stats class I have to play 50 games of Yahtzee. I've played 33. It's the most boring business. I'm going to continue tomorrow.

I'm watching Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets right now to try to take the boredom out of the Yahtzee.

"We don't need no education"...I say we do!

Since school has started, for some reason I can't help but think of a Pink Floyd song that has a choir of kids singing "We don't need no education."

I say education is majorly important, but apparently Pink Floyd doesn't.

So, anyway, school has started, and fortunately, I've been able to FINALLY get the stuff I need off the net. Hooray.

Well, I better go cause I have homework.

I've decided to drop the FFTA tips of the day because I doubt I'll be playing it much due to schoolwork.

There is a rare lady in the north...

"There is a rare lady in the north..."

Well, I am getting over being sick, taking medicine and all. Great.

I saw House of Flying Daggers today and it was great. Sad ending though. The quote above is from it.

that's all...bye.

back on the net...

My internet is finally back to normal! I couldn't get past my home page for days. It was sooo annoying.

I've been sick lately...I called in sick to work yesterday but I felt a little better this morning so I went to work. That was a mistake. I was just not at my best. I need to rest more. At least I get tomorrow off.

Kristine (my coworker and friend) threw a wrench in my plans to go get my math book on Monday. Monday's a holiday (Martin Luther King Day, one of those holidays that are just an excuse for huge sales and a day off from school), so I won't be able to deposit my check because the bank will probably be closed!

Meanwhile, I've been playing quite a bit of FFTA. I dismissed some of my clan members who were not so useful, and I lost a couple clan members when I fought at a jagd, where people can die in engagements because they're lawless zones. I played a little Harry Potter this morning because I thought I knew how to beat the 2nd bean challenge when I woke up, but then afterwards I put the GBA in my bag without changing the game cartridge.

Well good night...

FFTA is just chugging right along...

My FFTA tip of the day is this: use small battles, like non-storyline battle missions, "free location" missions, and dispatch missions to strengthen your clan members. My lovely archer Mareen is level 12 now. Sweet. She did a good job fighting the snake lady in the last battle I did, except the snake lady had the Block Arrows move so she never actually hit her, but she did pretty well anyways.

I haven't played at all this morning yet, but I did go into my Party menu and equipped some items to my clan members that hopefully will help them be able to do the attacks they have but never were able to use for some reason.

I gave Sis, my fencer, another sword; I gave Annie my archer a bow (I don't know why I didn't do that before...no wonder she's still level 3); I gave one of my Black Mages a rod; I gave Montblanc a Firewheel rod; I gave one soldier the whole works-cuirass, shield, boots, and shortsword; and some others too. I sold most of the weapons I had at the Cadoan shop cause I had no use for them (and I got a lot of money for them) and I have more items than I can really carry as it is. I have quite a few law and antilaw cards as well, although I have no idea how to use them. I did get a Healing antilaw card though, which is good cause a anti-healing law comes up a lot, and it annoys the heck out of me.

I have come to the point where I have accidentially broken the laws a few times. I even had to lock Marche, my clan leader, in prison for seven days just to get a yellow card off his record. I guess I don't pay attention to the laws sometimes.

I would think, with all the laws, there'd be more than just one prison, but so far there's not.

well that's all for now...toodles.

Rainy Sunday

It's a rainy weekend day once again...

Some FFTA tips now...

oh shoot I can't think of any...

bye for now.

Rain, rain, go away...

...come back some other day!

There's been so much rain in the past 2 days. I hadn't bought my January bus pass yet before yesterday (cause I didn't have enough money) so in order to get my check and go get it, I had to walk from home to work, for about 2 hours, in the pouring rain...then I got my check, walked in the cold morning with the rain temporarily stopped to the other end of the street to my bank and deposited it, then walked up the street and caught the bus to my school, bought a new bus pass, and then went to work. What a day!

Today was better. I played lots of FFTA (that's Final Fantasy Tactics Advance for those of you who are new readers of this blog) today. So here's some FFTA tips of the day:

-When selecting people for dispatch missions, pay attention to the little icon of the clan member. If they're bending down (like they do when low on HP in battle) they think they won't do well on the mission, so don't send them. If, instead, they jump up and down, they think they have a good chance of success, so they're a good choice to send. Those who are just walking are somewhere in-between. They're good to send out if there's no one jumping up and down.
-Make use of even your White Mages and other such people to do some damage, even though they can only do like 2 damage. Every little bit helps.
-Consider your enemy when using Black Magic. For monsters in icy areas like the Lutia Pass, for example, Fire is good; whereas you can use Blizzard for the fire bombs in Fire! Fire!
-Regarding the mission Prof in Trouble: You do not have to go to great lengths to protect Professor Auggie (although don't accidentially kill him yourself---I did that the first time by accident). He seems to be perfectably able to take care of himself even though the zombies gang up on him, since he seems to have an unlimited number of potions.
-Should you save this mission till later, one of the dispatch missions you can send someone on will bring you Holy Water, which can heal zombies. This might help.

My party is going well. I have a lot more people now. Most of them are at level 4, except for Annie, Major, and one other person who are at level 3. Everybody else is over level 4: Mareen is at level 5, Brish at level 6, Montblanc and Roland at level 8, and Marche at level 9. Nice.

Holiday sickness...

Well I didn't have such a great holiday. I got the stomach flu. I'm not sure how I got it, although my friend Kristine was having the same problem so maybe I got it from her. I think it's going away now so it's probably just what they call "the 24-hour flu." I slept all day yesterday (after calling in sick at work...I've never done that in the entire time I've worked at my current job because I'm hardly ever seriously ill...I have allergies so I get the sneezes and sniffles thing all the time, but rarely anything bad enough to keep me home), only waking up once or twice to go to the bathroom or get water, and just woke up for real a little while ago. Then I took some ibuprofen because I had a killer headache and then lay in bed and fought and lost a couple missions on FFTA and then won a clan fight against Clan Dip. I think I will avoid Elutt Sands for a while and power up my other fighters besides Marche and Roland. They are the only people at level 6, the level the walkthrough I found recommends for most of your people to be for the Desert Peril mission. Everyone else is at level 3 or 4, except Brish (my White Mage) who is at level 2, probably because I basically only use him to heal people, and he tends to get killed really early on by some enemy fighter or by accident when I use Montblanc's Black Magic against an enemy and he's in the line of fire. Mareen can do at least 10 damage at times now though, which is an improvement.

So, I guess my FFTA tip of the day is:

-Save the mission Desert Peril for when most of your people are at level 6 or above.

Clan Dip seemed pretty easy to beat. They have a thief, a White Mage, and a couple archers. I have two soldiers, two archers, two Black Mages, two White Mages, and a monk in my party, and I used my monk, both of my soldiers, and one each of my archers and my mages in the fight. So I had a number advantage (6 against 4) which probably helped.

Well I'm gonna go now. Bye.