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It's here! It's finally arrived! No more getting up at six thirty in the morning to go to school while you're still half asleep! No more having to do homework on Fridays or studying for tests you have first period on Monday! No more running up and down three floors of stairs to get to your locker with only four minutes to get to your next class! No more stuffy third floor classrooms with broken air conditioning and heating units! That's right, it's all over for the next two and a half months! If only that meant that you're exempt from dealing with the yard and the never-ending war against the grass that grows upon it...

Anyway, you can probably tell that I'm all excited about this. I've got good reason too. It's called season passes to Six Flags. It's called Fruits Basket. It's called Hack//. It's called Bleach. It's called FullMetal Alchemist. It's called webcomics. It's called the release of the Wii and the PS3. It's called the release of some new games for existing consoles. It's called unlimited opportunities to hang out with friends. It's called unlimmited time on Gaia and other internet things. It's called having six extra daytime hours to do almost anything. It's called staying up late to watch movies. It's called maving the time to beat several different GCube games and GameBoy games in the space of a week. It's called having a scanner and Photoshop and the time to make effective use of them. It's called watching anime in Japanese. And a lot more things that I'm likely to discover over the course of the next two and a half months. But first...

GOD IT'S HOT IN NEW YORK.

So. I believe I've set up quite a list for myself, now haven't I? Well, time to get to it.

Yes, I do have a Season Pass for Six Flags. So do both of my sisters and my mom, and they were free. You can be sure that I'll be there more than just once or twice.

I picked up Volume 2 for Fruits Basket today (That's chapters 7-12, I think.), and I really like it. Definately going to be checking around for Volumes 1 and 3. It was a bit difficult to get what was happening at the beginning, but as I've found with anime, you're okay if you miss the first few chapters.

Also today, I got Volume 2 for Hack// (Chapters 7-12 -- I checked!). Hack//'s awesome. Really liked this one, and reccomend it for anyone who wants to add another manga to their reading list/collection. And just like with Fruits Basket, it wasn't too hard to grasp what was happening.

I started downloading the Bleach manga when we had difficulties watching episode 31 because it had been deemed unsuitable for those under eighteen by the member population of Youtube. I've got to download Volume 9 (it starts at Chapter 63) yet, but the site I'm getting it from (Bleach7.com) hasn't completely translated/edited every chapter in the volume. So, you can get at Chapters 1-64 (Volumes 1 through the start of Volume 9), then there's a big gap, then it continues at Volume 18 and goes through the newest chapter. They do the anime too, but if you're a Mac user (like me) and/or don't want to use up potential manga storage space on your hard drive (also like me), then you're better off with Youtube.

Okay. The story of FullMetal Alchemist. It's a 52 episode series, with the manga based off of the anime, it's the only manga/anime combo I know of like that. Anime's on Youtube, along with the movie, blah blah blah... Manga readers! At the time of this entry, ZOMGFTA.com has done Chapter 32 and Chapters 48 through the newest one - Chapter 60. But 59's depressing. And so is 60, but to a milder degree. Though, by sister thinks 58's depressing, but I disagree. The people at ZOMGFTA are also doing Pokemon manga, starting at Chapter 90. Their reason for starting at 90 and not at the beginning is that it's a new story arc and you don't need to have read from the beginning to 'get' it. Though, what kind of a name is Gold...?

Ah, webcomics. I've come across many since my discovery of VGCats, but few have been bookmarked on my browser. Let's see... There's VGCats.com, which has the two main characters (If you can call them that since they don't appear in every comic...) being a grey cat named Leo and a pink cat named Aeris and has been going for several years (A seemingly random comic that has no story elements whatsoever, but is entertaining nontheless - if you enjoy Scott's brilliant yet sometimes twisted Canadian humor).
MegaTokyo.com, a webcomic that's been considered to be one of the best American mangas/webcomics out there and it's about these two American friends (Piro the artistic fanboy and Largo the hardcore l33t gamer that has an addiction to b33r and booze) who fly to Japan with no way of getting back... it's really a good webcomic, but to understand it at all you've got to start at the beginning.
And PressStartToPlay.net, a comic about videogames and life (I think it says something around the lines of that right on the homepage, actually...) whose main characters (Again, if you can call them that since they don't appear in every comic) are Adam and Darryl, who are also hardcore gaming friends.
They're all really worth looking at (;Specailly VGCats), and MegaTokyo's got it's stuff being published for those of you who want an actual print source to collect.

The Wii and the PS3. Highly awaited since the release of the 360, and just as likely to sell out in a hurry. I know very little about the PS3, mostly stuff on the controller, and have limited knowledge about the Wii.
What I do know about the PS3 is that it'll cost more depending on how much memory is in the comsole you're buying (Meaning no memory cards) and that the controller is shaped like the top third of a steering wheel, with the joysticks and buttons in 'natural' places. I believe the controller is wireless by default, with rumble and stuff, but I forget if it has motion sensors in it or not.
The Wii's got a microphone in the controller, an online connection (Like the 360) that's always online (Even when the system's off, though I don't see the reason being that), console memory (Like the PS3), and a remote. Apparently, the remote's the controller with an attatchment to make it more like a 'normal' controller. I think it's got motion sensors in it, but then again, I might be mixing it with the PS3, since I found info on both systems at the same time. But I do remember the Wii having an attatchment so you can use GCube controllers with it instead of that odd remote. Which is cool and gives people a reason to hold onto their GameCubes after purchasing a Wii. Another thing is the price. It's so low compared to the PS3 and the 360! But... I can't remember what it was. You'll have to find it for yourself.
Myself, I don't know which system we'll wind up with, since my and my sister want a Wii but my father and other sister want a PS3. But I guess I won't find out until the end of the summer's in sight.

Friends I can't say too much about without getting far too personal, but I can tell you about other things that're worth checking into on Gaia. Course you've got here, and looking at my bookmarks bar, I see webcomics (Which I've already ranted about), graphics sites, game guides and maps (Which I won't be talking about at all), two virtual pet sites, and a help site for one of them.
I've got two graphics sites linked on my bookmarks bar. One of them is Suta-Raito.com, a nice place to go if you're looking for images to use. There's two 'sides' to the site, an anime section and a Neopets section. The anime side's got mostly Pokemon pictures on it (That being the only section with recent updates), but it's also got some DBZ, Hamtaro, Inuyasha, Trigun, and some other random things. The Neopets side can speak for itself, containing stuff related only to Neopets. Images, some game tips, and a few random things too. This person's art is really worth looking at, and all she asks is that you don't steal her material.
She's also got Sutaro.com (And that's the second graphics site I've bookmarked), which has stuff that you can't use. 'Cept for the lil' animated icons. I think you're allowed to use those, if you say where you got them from.
The virtual pet sites go by the names of Neopets.com and Subeta.org. Neopets speaks for itself, but not many people I've talked to have heard of Subeta.
Subeta is a .org site, not a .com thing. That takes you to this completely unrelated thing that is strange. Subeta's not as large as Neopets, but I like it better. You can have up to five pets (Ten, if you've got a Gold Account), and it's MUCH easier to earn large amounts of sP (The currency used on it.). I like the species choices better than the ones on Neopets, and the colors they come in are better too. BloodRed, Dark Matter, Gold, Cream, Lilac, and Field, to name a few. And you don't need a map to acess either of the two zappers. Just Wiz tokens. And those are getting a little expensive to be buying daily. To put the sP-earning system against the Neopoint-earning system:
Subeta -- about a half hour of games and you can have anywhere between 5k and 10k. depending on how lucky you got.
Neopets -- six hours of games and you get about 10k, probably more depending on the quality of your gaming skills, internet connection, and computer speed.
The help site I mentioned is TineNeoHelp.com, which is obviously a help site for Neopets. Linked there are all of the dailies and many, many, many game guides with hints, tips, and cheats for each. That person also wrote down (Or would that by typed up...?) how to get each and every avatar.

Skipping a few things and going right to the games.
If you've been watching my posts, then you'll have noticed several times over that the memory card for my GameCube reset in April. The exact cause is unknown, but apparently one of the games I was playing glitched and wiped all of the data. That caused a lot of me cursing loudly in Japanese (As not to get yelled at by a parental unit) and me spending a lot more time playing on it. I was so damn close to beating Metroid Prime, too!
Anyway, I've been doing a pretty good job of getting my games back to where they were. Kirby Air Ride will take weeks at best to restore it to its former glory, as will Super Smash Brothers Melee, unless I play it constantly. Mr. Game and Watch and Gannondorf and Pichu and Mewtwo are proving quite elusive.
For Metriod Prime, I'ge got to get my metallic butt over to that shrine to fight Sheegoth for the Wave Beam. But I'm not too worried. It's harder to get to Sheegoth than it is to fight it.
I wasn't a big fan of Pikmin 2, even when we first got it, so I can assure you that it isn't going to get anywhere anytime soon. Neither is Hit and Run. Or Hary Potter Three. Or Super Mario Sunshine. Or Colosseum.
Though Gale of Darkness is allowing me through it without much trouble at all. Caught every Shadow I've met with the first ball I threw at it, have my two battlers (Jolteon and Mightyena) set at at least 10 levels above even the admin/boss I just fought. I'll coast through this game in no time.
Super Mario Kart, on the other hand, is refusing to allow me to get the gold for any cup on 100 or 150 cc. I miss the Parade Kart so much...
In Harry Potter Four, I've got 15 or 16 sheilds, and I think that'll allow me to try the second Triwizard Challenge. Dunno why I don't know, since I was playing it just a couple of days ago.
Haven't really been playing Wind Waker lately, but that's partly because I don't like where I'm at. I've found all eight Triforce Charts and have had them all done over by Tingle, but I hate going out to sea and fishing them up. Not fun in the least. I can't use my sword while on my boat, only my boomerang and my bow. And bombs, but those aren't very useful against moving targets.
Nothing much to say about Spryo: A Hero's Tail other than it could use a ton of work in the storyline department. I mean, a game needs a story behind it. Unless it's like Metroid Prime (There's a little bit of a story, but not much.) or Smash Brothers or Air Ride. Those games rock. Phantasy Star 3 is okay, but it's got about as much of a story to it as Hero's Tail.
Not much to say about my GameBoy, other than Evil Riku sucks and needs to be burned, and the need for a more active role of Felix in conversations other than the occasional Yes or No question. Blue's in, Saphirre's out, and boy are my hands getting a workout with the sleights.

That's all for now, and hope you're still alive!
Approxamite typing time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.
Happy Trails!