Potential "Master" runs.

*browses list of Completed games*

Games that have a potential for a Master run sometime in the near future:

Earthbound: No equips
Chrono Trigger: Newb equips + 100%

Final Fantasy Mystic Quest: ...No idea.
Super Mario RPG: No equips
Super Puyo Puyo 2 Remix: 1CC Tsuu Mode already!

Dangerous Seed: 1CC Hard? Ugh...bad at shmups.
Musha Aleste: Full Metal Fighter Ellinor: 1CC Hard, I suppose, I start dying at around Stage 4.
warsong: Solo character

Legend of Cao Cao: Minimalist--oh god no, still burned out from LoCC.

Self-Imposed Challenge: Chrono Trigger Low-Level, Weakest Equipment, 100% Run [SCRAPPED]

Chrono Trigger (SNES) Self-Imposed Challenge!

Objectives:
- Do not equip anything aside from what characters start with!
(ONLY EXCEPTION: GET THE MOP)
- Get all the equipment!
(But do not sell any gained equipment!)
- Do not use tabs to boost stats!
(But collect all the tabs anyway!)
- Do not actively grind!
(If struggling on a boss, the most levels permitted to grind is 3.)
- Finish all the side quests!
- Finish the game and get the best ending in a relatively short amount of time!
- Play on Active Time, not Wait. ;)

Start Date: 11/13/2010
End Date: NEVER.

Notes

=======
1000 AD
=======
- Talked to mother for allowance, went to Mayor's Manor and obtained Tonic and cumulative 400 G
- Bought 9 Tonics at Fair
- Marle disappeared oh noes

======
600 AD
======
- Obtained Tonic and PowerGlove at Truce Canyon
* Crono learned Cyclone
- Obtained Power Tab and Shelter at Guardia Forest
- Obtained Ether x2, Tonic, and BronzeMail at Guardia Castle
* Marle disappears again oh noes, oh hi Lucca :)
- Obtained anothe Shelter when leaving Guardia Forest
- Set Battle Speed to Fast because I forgot :(
* Crono leveled up (2)
* Hi Frog! :D
- Run to Truce Inn to heal.

CURRENT GAME TIME: 19 MINUTES

Cathedral
==============
= First Room =
==============
- Obtained Revive and Tonic from chests
- Obtained MaidenSuit, Tonic, Ether, and Naga-ette Bromide
* Crono leveled up (3)
* Lucca leveled up (3)
- Obtained SteelSaber
- Obtained Power Tab
- Obtained 100 G and Ether from imposter King's room
- Obtained Speed Belt and Defender from hidden treasure room
* Didn't get attacked! ...Though the Gnashers in the imposters room stopped me. :(
* Lucca learned Flame Toss
* Crono + Lucca: Fire Whirl

===============
= Second Room =
===============
- Save Point

CURRENT GAME TIME: 23 MINUTES

- Obtained Shelter
- Obtained Tonic, Heal
* Crono leveled up (4)
* Lucca leveled up (4)
- Obtained Iron Sword

==============
= Third Room =
==============
- Save Point; used Shelter

CURRENT GAME TIME: 25 MINUTES

===========
BOSS: YAKRA
===========
- Counter attack: 10-15 damage to all
- Earthquake attack: 10-15 damage to all
- Normal attack: 20+ to one
- Needlespin: 45-57 to one

- Crono's attack: 30+ damage
- Lucca's attack: 15-19 damage
- Flame Toss: 30-39 damage
- Frog's attack: 30-40 damage
- Slurp: mid-40s damage
- Flame Whirl: 70+ damage

Frog: Healing (Slurp)
Crono, Lucca: Attack (Fire Whirl)

* Frog leveled up (5)
* Frog learned Slurp Cut
* Crono + Frog: X Strike
- Obtained Mid Ether, left real Chancellor alone :P

* Frog leaves party, Marle joins
- Slept at Guardia Castle
- Obtained Shelter while going through Guardia Forest
- Ran away from the Poly battle at Truce Canyon :O

=======
1000 AD
=======
* Lucca leaves party
- Escorted kitty back to child at fair :)
- Obtained Power Tab at Guardia Forest

=========
= Trial =
=========

- 100% not guilty, of course

==========
= Prison =
==========

- Obtained 6 Ethers for being a pretty cool guy. :)
- Save point!

CURRENT GAME TIME: 46 MINUTES

* Hi Lucca! :D
- Obtained BronzeMail and Mid Tonic x3.
- Freed Fritz.
- Obtained 5 more Mid Tonics.
- Save Point!

CURRENT GAME TIME: 50 MINUTES

=================
BOSS: DRAGON TANK
=================
Dragon Tank: 266 HP
Grinder: 208 HP
Head: 600 HP

Take 1:
- Head heals all parts for 70+
- Head fire attack: 27 to one
- Grinder attack: 35-41 to both
- Tank missile attack: 12-14 to one
- Tank laser: 30 to one

- Crono's attack: 20 (Tank), 29 (Grinder)
- Cyclone: 20-25 to Tank, 35 to Grinder, 70 to Head
- Lucca's attack: 35-41 (Head), 19 (Grinder)
- Flame Toss: 0 (Head), 31 (Tank), 25 (Grinder)
- Fire Whirl: 0 (Head), 55 (Tank), 55 (Grinder)

Crono: Target Grinder, then Tank, then Head
+ Tank counters IF Grinder is dead
+ Head counters with healing
+ If Head is attacked but suffers no damage, Head does not counter with healing

Lucca: Heal with Tonics
Flame Toss

Take 2 (where Crono and Lucca leveled once to Level 5, Battle Speed lowered to 5)
- Grinder attack: 36-39 (Crono), 40 (Lucca)
- Tank missile: 12 (Crono), 14 (Lucca)
- Head attack: 25 (Crono), 20 (Lucca)

- Crono's attack: 32 (Grinder)
- Cyclone: 29-31 (Tank), 39-41 (Grinder), 71 (Head)
- Flame Toss: 35 (Tank), 26 (Grinder), 0 (Head)
- Fire Whirl: 61-64 (Tank), 61 (Grinder), 0 (Head)

WARNING
FATAL ERROR

If:

- Dragon Tank heals for 70+ HP
- Crono deals 30 damage

Then:

- I'M SCREWED. D:

Video Game Replayability.

I forgot I had a blog to put random rambling on.

The topic for today is "replayability". My definition of it is "what makes a game worth replaying again". In other words: If you start a new game after finishing it the first time, do you get anything? I suppose clearing the game and then being able to continue playing after the credits falls under this category also, but I'm more interested in the games where you can continue to unlock more goodies after your first completion.

Just a small list of what you could find from playing a game after completion:

- Extra difficulties?

Completing Mega Man 64/Mega Man Legends the first time unlocked Hard Mode--you get less money from enemies, and then clearing Hard Mode unlocked Easy Mode, which gave you the skate shoes at the beginning and doubled the money you got from enemies.

- More options?

Getting a Gold on Mario Kart 64's Special Cup on 150cc unlocked the "Extra" tier, which was each set of race tracks on reverse. A relatively small bonus, since getting Gold wasn't that hard anyway, even on Special Cup, but still, a bonus option is still a bonus option.

- Hidden features?

The Onimusha trilogy on PS2 had interesting costume swaps for the characters. In Onimusha: Warlords (the first game in the trilogy), the player could choose to give Samanosuke a panda outfit. In Onimusha 3: Demon Siege, Samanosuke could have a panda outfit or a more western-type outfit. And there was that option to give Michelle nothing but a towel. Silly Capcom. Now that I think about it, there were a ridiculous number of unlockables for this game by clearing the game with specific requirements. Potential spoilers abound, but just look at this. http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps2/589770-onimusha-3-demon-siege/cheats

- Additional bosses that can't be found in the first run?

In Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner 2, if you finished with the Chaos alignment, you got more Case Files (i.e. side quests) on your next game, and these led to additional boss battles. After you finished the boss battles you were allowed to fuse the demons you defeated.

I suppose most Pokemon games would fall under this category too, huh? Back in Red/Blue/Yellow, you had to have defeated the Elite Four to unlock the cave that Mewtwo resided in. In Gold/Silver, there was Ho-oh and Lugia, respectively. And was there another one? I don't remember. Anyway, Ruby and Sapphire, same deal, with Latios and Latias for one game or the other, and then Rayquaza, which was in both games. And I care little for the remakes so I won't discuss those.

- Better endings? Different endings?

In the event that a game (typically JRPGs) has different endings, one has to play through the game multiple times to see all the endings. Just to give some examples:

1. Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis (PS2/PSP; renamed Mana Khemia: Student Alliance) offered about 9 endings, and you had to play through the game to see each one. Which ending you got was mostly determined on how you decided to spend your limited free time (literally) on which characters you wanted to talk to, and at the 2nd-to-last chapter (don't quote me on this), talking to a certain character would determine which ending you got. One could manipulate this to their advantage by saving right before the sequence and then going back to get the rest of the endings, although this method is rather painful since there were still two dungeons and a lot of cutscenes and dialogue between the player and the final boss.

2. Chrono Trigger (SNES/PS1/DS) has 13 endings: 2 endings can be seen from the first playthrough, 1 ending that is exclusive to the DS remake by defeating the bonus last boss, and 10 "special" endings which require a New Game+ and then going to defeat the last boss at various points in the game.

3. Fire Emblem (GBA, and I believe the original port was on the SNES)

There's the ending to Lyn's story (the tutorial), Eliwood's story, and depending on the relationships that Eliwood has made through Support convos, there were a couple other viewable scenes. Same deal with Hector's story, and the Support scenes on that playthrough. All that together, I'd say there are about 10 different endings to be seen.

And a couple examples that aren't JRPGs:

1. Any Dynasty Warriors/Samurai Warriors game. ;)

You cleared the game once, congratulations, now do it for everyone else to unlock more characters, weapons, and stages.

2. Trapt (PS2)

Run around, put down traps, kill people with intricate methods. Rinse and repeat. 3 possible endings: a bad ending, a decent ending, and a "good" ending, but all of them were mediocre. Unlock all endings to get the hidden traps to kill more people. To be honest, for a game that revolved around just sprinting from place to place just to kill people, this game was really fun. :)

3. Cave Story (PC)

3 endings--1 bad, 1 decent, and 1 true ending.

4. Star Fox 64 (N64)

...I suppose this counts? There were 2 possible endings, after all...Yeah, you can tell I'm running out of examples. ANYWAYS :D

So what's my stance on replayability?

Well, it is a factor on whether I want to spend time on a video game or not. I'm a completionist, and if it's a game that I end up liking a lot, I will be hellbent on getting everything. I won't go so far to say that it practically determines if I'll get a certain game or not, though. This mostly applies for any RPGs that I might be interested in getting, really.

One of my current projects (that's been on-going for the last several months, actually) is to 100% Chrono Trigger DS. I'm missing 1 Bestiary entry (Spekkio's Level 99 variation), 1 weapon (Ayla's Bronze Fist, which she automatically obtains at Level 97...I think?), and a couple of new accessories that are only obtained through the Monster Arena. After that, I hope to completely max everyone's stats. And then, if I'm still not yet burnt out from Chrono Trigger, I'll probably do a Minimalist run with everyone using their initial equipment.

There's Persona 4 on PS2, I suppose, which is also a valid example of good replayability. On your first playthrough, although it is possible to max all your stats and get all your S. Links to max, I suppose it's rather difficult to do this without planning and knowing what you have to do. And if you can do that, you are allowed to fuse the Persona that are unlocked after getting Max S. Link on a certain character. Besides that, I suppose I could also replay the game on another difficulty (working on Normal right now, played through my first run on Beginner, and to be honest I like it a lot more on Beginner)--difficulties are open to you at the beginning of the game. No comment on that. I suppose a sane person would start his/her first playthrough on something not Expert rank, and thus he/she would not see the hidden bosses of the game. To the best of my knowledge there are only two hidden bosses that can only be found on Expert rank.

Another game that I hope to finish before the year is over: Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner 2 - Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon. Tongue-twisting title aside, to completely unlock everything on this game I'll need at least 3 more playthroughs, thanks to my law-abiding nature and making Raidou extremely Lawful. Even the quiz near the end of the last dungeon couldn't even put a dent on his alignment. I picked all the Chaos answers and I was still Lawful at the end of it. Having done that, I didn't get the Chaos-only Case Files, which means I missed out on Alice. I missed an earlier requirement for an earlier Case File, which means I can get that on my next playthrough. And since I'll be getting the Law alignment ending, I'll have to play through this game and aim for Chaos alignment to get the extra Case Files that are exclusive to Chaos-alignment players...Well, if not for this rambling I wouldn't have realized how far back I've set myself! See, this is what happens when you do nice things in video games. :/

I could keep going on about the video game things that I want to get done, but it's nearly 3 in the morning and I've already crafted a wall of text. So maybe next time. Or whenever I feel like rambling and remember that I have a blog to do it on.

Anagrams...for your internet nickname!

I spent about 30 minutes playing anagram with my internet nickname. Reason? "CrazedRevenG" is just too long for some services. It's 12 characters, and some things that I can think of only allow 8 characters, and I don't really like putting numbers in my names.

Here's what I thought of.

From CrazedRevenG:

1. grenade (...No.)

2. nerve (Not bad, but still not quite there...)

3. rage (That was what I had originally wanted, but then I came up with something better: )

4. deranged

It's a synonym to crazed.

I am crazed.

I do dumb things.

Like not sleeping.

Why am I still awake right now.

This is what happens when it's summer break, when you have a soundtrack you haven't listened to all the way yet, and when you are on IRC reading along a very enjoyable discussion about setting video game goals, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and other topics.

Milpitas Golfland Excursion, The First (that actually got posted)

DJMAX Technika

What I Passed Today

-First Step

First time: First Kiss TP, Honeymoon TP, I Want You TP, Lover TP

Second time: In My Heart TP, Honeymoon TP, I Want You TP, Lover TP

-Cotton Candy

Sweet Shining Shooting Star PP, Here in the Moment TP, Miles TP, Dear My Lady TP

-Electro

Your Own Miracle TP, Supersonic TP, Cherokee TP, Love Mode TP

-Core Sound (for some reason this wasn't recorded on the internet ranking, but I swear I passed it :< )

Voyage TP, Para Q PP, Landscape TP, Sin PP

-Randomizer

Access TP, Dear My Lady PP, Landscape TP, Blythe PP

-Mission 7: DJMAX Classic 2 (though I do not remember what was on here :s )

-Mission 20: Chain Note Challenge

-March SP (twice)

-April SP (twice)

What I Failed Today

-Heartbeat (several times)

Failed on Colours of Sorrow TP several times. I swear, I have better luck getting Area 7 TP...

Failed on Remember TP. I was tired.

-Customizer (several times)

Failed on Shoreline TP 1st stage and 2nd stage (though I finally passed Shoreline for the first time)

Failed on Son of Sun TP (what's new)

Failed on

-Challenger

Failed Hexad TP. How the hell do you even do the beginning? I am bad at repeats.

-February SP, Supersonic SP killed me. Badly.

-June SP. First time playing Coastal Tempo, ever. The SP was a bad place to start.

-Mission 16: Proposed, Flower Wolf: Failed on PFW TP, I literally failed on the very last note.

-Mission 18: Rapid: On normal circumstances I would have no problems with any of these songs, but it has been a very long time since I last played Son of Sun's PP.

---

In The Groove 2

What I Passed Today

-Tribal Style Expert

-Liquid Moon Expert

Yay, I can still pass some Expert 10s!

What I Failed Today

-Utopia Expert, I have only passed this song twice on pad: once on ITG1 for PS2 and once on ITG2 at Milpitas Golfland. I hate Expert 11s.

---

Dance Dance Revolution X

What I Passed Today

...Nothing notable.

What I Failed Today

-Trim Expert. 16 on Expert, but my downfall was putting this song on x1.5. There's a 340 section near the end of the song and it's been a while since I have played this.

---

DrumMania V4

What I Passed Today

...Nothing notable.

What I Failed Today

-Concertino in Blue ADV. With a nearly broken cymbal, there's no way I can pass this song.

-Die Zauberflote ADV. See above.

-Onihime ADV. See above, except for the fact that I have never passed this song.

-Aithon EXT. The cymbal is very, very bad. I can't even pass a mid-50 because of it. :[

---

And all that happened from about 12pm - 8:30pm, with 2 hours in between taken out for lunchtime. So when's the next time I get to go to Golfland again? :D

Playing Chrono Trigger for the...sixth time? Seventh time? I lost track.

I love this game. I really do.

But it's the second RPG that I came to know and love as a child and as a result, I got carried away with it. (The first was Super Mario RPG on SNES.)

I've played the original SNES cartridge, the PSX port (Final Fantasy Chronicles, which also came with a "harder" version of Final Fantasy 4), and am currently (or was) playing the DS remake.

As a wee child in his grade school years I never stopped to think about what this game meant. Some of this game's more serious scenes, such as Crono getting obliterated at Ocean Palace, the talk of the Entity after reviving the forest, and the whole world getting incinerated by a monster who had been sapping the planet of energy back when dinosaurs were playing Hide-and-seek with each other, I didn't think much of it.

There was little reason for me to have even thought about these scenes as a child, and to have grasped any meaning behind them.

...

Back to what I wanted to talk about regarding this post.

Endings

For what was originally a standard RPG on the SNES, this game has a lot of hidden things to do.

First and foremost, the endings. All twelve (12) of them. And one bad ending. Two of which are simply "kill Lavos (the last boss) when you are able to", and then ten of them can only be done on a New Game+.

While I'm talking about endings, I just wanted to say that the bad ending for Chrono Trigger is able to produce nightmares for some people. This, and another game that I'm playing at the moment (Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner 2) have been the only ones where the Game Over movie have been scary and memorable.

The criteria for unlocking each of the ten endings during the New Game+ is a bit obscure for anyone who is not following a walkthrough on the internet. However, I don't think that one would be able to discern that there were multiple endings for Chrono Trigger without first consulting a walkthrough on the internet, or talking to someone who has found New Game+ endings. The timing for killing the last boss during the New Game+ for some of the endings are especially strict, sometimes requiring one to drop whatever they are doing after killing a boss, taking a warp back to the End of Time, jumping on the bucket, and then going to kill Lavos. And then repeating this for the rest of the 9 endings.

Endings are just one of the things that are required for completion. When I played the SNES and PSX ports, the endings were the only thing I considered important. This is because getting the endings on the PSX disc were all that you needed to do in order to unlock the rest of the menus on the Extras menu. So, by unlocking all the endings you unlock all the menus, easier said than done, but definitely feasible. Heck, I've already unlocked all the endings at least four times on the SNES, PSX, and DS ports.

Item Collection

On a typical New Game run, I can get most of the items in one run. I'll miss some of the more elusive items, such as one of Frog's swords that is in the Ocean Palace, in a room that is just plain hard to get to and involves running along the edges of a room to get to the middle of a room where the sword is at. There's no way I can guarantee that I can pick up all the Power/Magic/Speed Tabs in one run, there are just so many. I know I'm close, though, perhaps missing a small handful throughout the whole game. Some of the dungeons where it's hard to see the ground, such as Mountain of Woe, Death Peak, etc etc, probably missing one or two tabs there. Also some places where I go there once and don't go back, I'm probably missing a tab. Tyrano Lair is one, but well, that's different since entry to Tyrano Lair is limited to until you defeat Azala + Black Tyrano.

I've got most of the item locations memorized, though I couldn't tell you where an item was unless I was playing. Aside from item locations being generally obscure to find, there are some dungeons where I just don't want to go through because I'm too lazy to go through it again (Reptite Lair, Giant's Claw, Denadoro Mountains, for example).

And then there are the items you get from Charming. Prior to playing the DS port, I didn't care about Charming. The only items I really cared about were Power Tabs from Ocean Palace's Tubster and Megalixirs from the Zeal battles. On the DS, I frequently charm Golden Studs from Flyclops, Magic Tabs from Aliens (called Ghajs in the remake), Megalixirs from Ruminators (Hydracondas), and various others, including the aforementioned two. (Tubster is Blubber Hulk in the remake.) For some reason I always get the Mop for Crono. It's not like I use it, either. I just have to have it.

In the DS port, there are two bonus dungeons, and with bonus dungeons come new items that need collecting. This isn't such a big problem, but I did have to consult a walkthrough. Lost Sanctum and Dimensional Vortex are irritating as hell. Which is a bit disappointing, since the main reason why I bought Chrono Trigger DS was to experience the bonus dungeons. Lost Sanctum is tedious, while Dimensional Vortex brings a new challenge to the fray, but getting to the challenges requires first going through a map of a previously-traversed dungeon. This means mashing the attack button or spamming the same magic attacks over and over again trying to get through the section.

Bestiary Completion

This isn't a problem for me, with the exception of a small handful of monsters that I have trouble killing. These include the monsters that provide an abundance of TP, EXP, and Gold--Rubble, Turret, Nomad, and Wonder Rock on the DS port. A trickier monster to encounter is the Departed monster, which is a fusion between the Base (yellow-greenish palette swap of Shadows) and Defunct (one of the spear-toting skeletons) in the Northern Ruins. It requires triggering a battle that has both the Defunct and Base, and then hitting the Defunct so that it collapses into a pile of bones, then waiting for the Base to fuse with the Defunct. The Northern Ruins only gives you two chances to find this rare enemy. In all honesty though, unless you are aiming for 100% completion (like I am in the process of), there's no reason to find this monster. Departed hits freaking HARD for a non-boss monster!

Oh, that's right. Magus has not one, but two entries in the Bestiary!

The problems with aiming for a 100% completion for this game

1. Ayla's strongest "weapon" requires her to be at Level 95. This takes me more than 2 New Game+'s, and with that, lots of mashing the A button to advance through the plot, cutscenes, and people talking.

2. The DS port added a new feature called "Arena of the Ages". You raise a monster, battle other monsters, and get prizes for it. Why is this a problem? There are 6 accessories that you can only get through the Arena, and the prizes are all random. Help me.

3. The new items that you get from Lost Sanctum/Dimensional Vortex. And I thought I had nearly completed this game on the PSX port. Lost Sanctum is very tedious, there are many battles that you might go through, and just going through Lost Sanctum means going through one of the maps at least a dozen times. It's very painful. And then getting the items...There aren't a whole lot of new items to collect, but they definitely have spots on the Item Encyclopedia, and since I'm going for 100% completion, that means I have to get them. Looks like some of the Square-Enix folks learned a thing or two about hiding treasure chests on maps where you have to go through a hidden route to get to...because there are a LOT of them in Lost Sanctum and Dimensional Vortex.

Thankfully, none of the new items need to be Charmed from. Actually, only a few new monsters yield anything when Charmed.

Running late

I hate being late. Be it a meeting, class, work, dinner in the next town, dinner at home, dinner with parents...I can't stand being late.

That's not to say that I'm never late. There are times when I accidentally misjudge the distance from Point A to Point B, due to traffic and/or weather and I end up missing the scheduled time by a couple minutes. I've never been more than 20 minutes late for any event that I had to show up for by myself.

When I'm late, it's never on purpose. Though I can't help it if I'm 5 minutes late to a class because I walk slower than usual from staying up all night.

As for being early...Well, there's me being slightly early, and there's me being really early. Slightly early would be me arriving about 5 minutes earlier. This...doesn't happen often, I can honestly say. Even for work I arrived earlier than that.

Really early, as some people call it, would be me arriving any more than 15 minutes early. Class, meetings, work, just about any important event that I need to attend, I'll be there early. Class and meetings, mostly just to make sure I have a nice cozy spot in the middle of the room. Work...I never really figured out why I bother to go to work early. It means spending more time in a place that I don't really like being...I guess it just beats being late.

Being on time doesn't cut it for me. I just like beating the clock, I suppose.

Shanghai World Expo 2010

I've been to Shanghai twice, as far as I can remember. My parents have probably taken me there when I was a small child, but I have trouble remembering anything that happened before I immigrated.

I like city life, and the crowds that you would find in large cities.

I don't like Shanghai. I have no idea why. I'm not sure why I so willingly agreed to go on this trip with my dad and my uncle.

I think it was because that meant that we would be going to Hong Kong for the majority of the trip, which meant I got to dink around in Hong Kong arcades. Yes, that must've been it.

World Expo 2010. This was my first visit to any World Expo. I've been told that this expo is the fanciest and most expensive world expo to date, and it makes sense that it would be. (Beijing Olympics, anyone?)

According to the Wikipedia entry, there are 88 National pavilions, 18 Corporate pavilions, and 5 "Themed" pavilions. However, after glancing over the list of National pavilions that the article listed, I found a pavilion that I went to that the Wiki page had not listed, so there's probably nearly 100 National pavilions, but that's just me.

Before I talk about my qualms with the expo, here are the pavilions I went to:

Monaco Pavilion

This one had a relatively short wait time, maybe some 15-20 minutes, and really just featured a cartoon presentation and then we walked through a small collection of pictures, still shots, and then to a souvenir store.

That's how most of the pavilions were like. Sometimes the cartoon presentation was lacking, or replaced with a non-cartoony presentation.

Argentina Pavilion

Malto Pavilion

Greece Pavilion

I don't remember these pavilions very well. I have pictures of them, but I don't remember.

Norway Pavilion

This was one of the longer waits for a non-corporate pavilion, maybe about 30 minutes of wait time before we got to go in. It looked like the walls were made of some kind of hardwood, there was a "watery" theme involved with the whole place, and inside there was a seafood restaurant at the end of the pavilion that required a reservation to get in. Since it was 4 in the afternoon, we didn't bother with that. This pavilion also had a place for you to refill water. Interesting.

Cuba Pavilion

Wait time: Zero? There was no line for this pavilion. This was one room--pictures and souvenir shop in one room.

China Provinces Pavilion

There are smaller pavilions in here, one for each province. We went to about 10 or so, and I don't remember each one that I went to. All I'm going to say is that the wait time for each mini-pavilion is about 10 minutes and the lighting in there is pretty bad.

Space Home Corporate Pavilion

Mostly a demonstration of what it would be like to live in space. Meh. No wait time for this one, the crowds were already advancing when we entered the back of the line.

Japan Industries, Korea Industries

Sigh. See qualms for more.

Cisco

A demonstration on what life would be like in the future, where everything was electronic and if everything was connected to the network, etc etc...If everything were electronic I think we would have flying cars by now. But anyway.

China Railway

China and trains. No bullet trains in China just yet though.

Aurora

They do robots and electronics, but only the last room had three robots that "danced". The rest of the pavilion had jade exhibits. I liked the jade portions.

So what did I not like about the expo?

Let's start with the crowds. As I stated earlier (see above), I don't mind crowds. But crowds of people rushing past presentations in pavilions irritates me. This was prevalent mostly in the Japan and Korea Industries pavilions...You wait in line for nearly an hour just to rush past the presentations and not give a damn about what's being presented? What was the point in you even going in? What, the place wasn't interesting enough for you so you just get up and leave?

Even more ridiculous, some people used their passport with visiting the Expo for stamps. There's a place in the passport that allows you to get stamps for the places that you've visited, and there were pavilions that had their own stamps. And I guess some people care more about a dinky little stamp more than even taking a picture of the place.

A minor problem to the expo is just how much space you have to cover if you want to visit all the pavilions. You could take these little golf carts to the Asia Pavilion sector (for a fee of $10 RMB per person).

Oh, that reminds me. Drivers in Shanghai will capitalize on every opportunity to blare their damn car horns. I cannot even begin to explain this. Save up money for a three-day excursion to Shanghai complete with a hotel package and just wait for the traffic to build up on the freeways and busy streets. The horns are just unbearable. And everybody does it! And no one cares. So why even have the horns? Or why even use them? Sigh.

It's mostly because pedestrians also jaywalk at any and every given opportunity. Apparently traffic lights are outdated and they should just walk whenever they feel like it. I'm surprised that there are so few accidents on the road, considering that even bicycle riders have their own lane that is just about as wide as your typical streetcar lane.

Ahem. What was I talking about? Oh right.

There are buses that take you from places too, but mostly takes you to the Asia Pavilion. The bus rides are free, but holy hell they are crowded.

The weather...It was about 80-85 degrees Fahrenheit on both days that we went. Typical East Asia summer weather I suppose, just without the rain. It got cooler the days that we went, supposedly--before it was around 95 Fahrenheit. Lucky us.

Why am I here? Why is this here?

There was a time a while back (maybe last year and a few months) when I wanted to try a lot of new things.

Blogging was one of them.

It didn't seem so hard at first. I had been accustomed with forums and message boards already, so this didn't seem any different. I don't really know why I didn't post anything.

It wasn't until I was coming back sitting in my seat on a flight from Hong Kong when I thought of starting my own blog. I think it was because I was already putting up my thoughts on arcades in Hong Kong elsewhere, when I considered putting these entries on a blog.

And here I am. Not without learning that I had already created an account for this site.