Appreciations of the day

[Dracos]

It's summer, the time large media sites cull their ranks of things that were acceptable for years and are probably tame compared to what they left behind.

[Brian]

It's probably that.  I like to think that the author was self-conscious and pulled it after our last spat, whereupon I called her out on being a terrible moderator.  All things told, it fit in the FF.net classification for 'M', but....  Eh, best not to dwell.


My appreciation:  I had a flashback this morning to something that happened to me roughly fifteen years ago that struck me pretty profoundly.  Normally it'd take me days to shake off, but this time I was able to put it behind me in mere minutes, like a slightly more reasonable person!  Sad to say, that's progress. :p

[Brian]

Tri-weekly 'keep your job interview': passed.

And that WAFF fic Hal gave me the idea for has helped me throw off most of the lingering depression.  Excellent.

Dream-recall has become remarkably regular with the realization that I dream in framing devices.  Even better.

[Arakawa]

I got an idea for a one-shot Naruto fic: great.

... which I have a decent chance of actually finishing in one shot... once I dig that back issue of SPOILERS REDACTED out of wherever it's hiding. Excellent.

And after that, I'll probably never write Naruto fanfiction again. Even... better??

EDIT: I discover that SPOILERS REDACTED is freely available on the Internet. Super!

[Merc]

Just heard about the Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses. Plays next week here in Houston right as my grandfather comes in from Peru. Going to see if I can buy tickets in the evening for my family.

[Dracos]

We are all Cid.  Airship included! :)  *flies around*

Sorry, Dune's game amused.

Anyhow, finally closing a horrible stabilization push that has lasted for months at work.  Going to be a busy few days followed by Freedom.  I think I shall celebrate by setting someone on fire.

Hum.

Time to retheme.  DQdai I'm thinking.  Whadyasay Pops?

I...think it is one week before weekly games return.  Looking forward to that.

[Brian]

The eigthth.  I'll be GMing again in just over a week.

Really hopeful that it doesn't explode in horrible, messy flames.


Also, headed down to Santa Clara to see some friends I haven't much seen in a while on Sunday.  May try and drag a Drac along, but he has very high levels of the Lazy job. ;)

[alethiophile]

I am now officially productively employed. For the summer, anyway. Hooray for actually having money at some point.

[Dracos]

Money is awesome.

As is the lawn guys repairing my sprinkler system free of charge.  Very nice.

[Arakawa]

I never really expected to be forced into this kind of growth experience at my day job.

[Brian]

Life happens no matter where you go.

Unless you're completely isolationist (and sometimes I am very tempted!), the growth forced by having to interact with other people is an inevitability.

But it's not killing you, so grow stronger!

[Iron Dragoon]

Successfuly landed in Portland. Without any flight delay.

Skadoosh.

[Anastasia]

Fridge is overflowing with days and days worth of catering. It's not good catering, but I figure a win is a win.

[Music-chan]

Just went to the Toronto Observatory, looked through the biggest telescope in Canada and got glow bracelets. :D Awesome day all around.

[Merc]

Had a great time at the Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses. A bit disappointed that there wasn't a CD for sale and I didn't care to buy either the poster or the shirt, but the performance itself was awesome.

I actually enjoyed it more than Video Games Live a few years back, especially since I actually know all these games and played just about every one of them (a strong difference when compared to many of the VGL ones, where I'd played such a small percentage of those games and recognized even fewer songs), and that meant many of the moments were a lot more engaging/entertaining for me and there were waves of nostalgia to bolster my enjoyment beyond that of my family's, who while lacking in knowledge of the games, also enjoyed it quite a fair bit, just not to the same degree I did.

I laughed alongside everyone when they played Kakariko Village and the video screen cut to a few minutes of different scenes of Link getting killed by chickens in both OoT and LttP games, not to mention laughed/clapped when the presenter rushed in just before the second symphony movement (Wind Waker), and handed the conductor a conductor's baton resembling the one from the game. The conductor used it for the entirety of the remaining performance.

Funny moment at the start also when the presenter starts introducing the performance talking about one of Nintendo's most beloved heroes and someone shouts "MAAARIOOOO!!!" as everyone laughs. He pauses and says "One of Nintendo's most beloved heroes that dresses in gree...." which, of course was immediately followed by a -number- of people (including me!) shouting "LUIIIIIGIIIIII!!!" and more laughter.

In case anyone's wondering, playlist was:
Overture (medley combining songs from pretty much every Zelda game, through skyward sword, and showing scenes and gameplay from every game)
Dungeons (medley with dungeon/boss music)
Kakariko Village
Song of Storms (Another funny thing: the program actually said Song of the Hero, but we were having a nasty storm outside at the start of the show. I doubt they changed it on the fly, but the presenter joked about the song being more appropriate, and as everyone seemed to agree and cheer, this is what we got)
Symphony: Prelude, The Creation (a medley accompanied by the creation scene from OoT)
Symphony: I, The Ocarina of Time
Symphony: II, The Wind Waker

Following the Intermission, playlist had:
Fairy Fountain
Symphony: III, The Twilight Princess
Symphony: IV, Time of the Falling Rain (Link to the Past medley)
Encore: I, Ballad of the Wind Fish (Presenter intro'ed it by mentioning that this encore would "cover a song from a game whose adventure took place in a space *gestures tiny size of a GBA cartridge* this big, and had to do with an egg...on top of a mountain." Then he paused and before he vanished added hastily "Uhm, yes...That's Link's Awakening to the uninformed.")
Encore: II, Gerudo Valley
Encore: III, Majora's Mask medley

While I thought everything was great, my favorites by far would be Movement III (TP) > Movement IV (LttP) > Movement II (Wind Waker) > Overture, then followed by all the rest. Gerudo Valley could probably go up there, as I'll admit I was just a little disappointed to not have heard it during the OoT movement, and I cheered when the second encore was revealed.

My one complaint is that the Majora's Mask medley, while pretty neat... I think it would have been better served if it was placed somewhere in the middle rather than as the final encore. It didn't have a proper 'cooldown' ending to it following the fight with Majora, as it had a more melancholy feel to it at the end than heroic/hopeful, especially when compared to Movement IV which had an awesome ending to end the whole thing on that had everyone standing in applause for, before we even knew there'd be encores. The first two encores, great. The last one? Eeeeeeh... All of it's power was in the middle, not the end, and that's where it should have been placed in that performance too.

Of course, given the ovation it got when it was announced as the final encore, maybe they had good reason for placing it there. It was deafening, honestly drowned out the one given at the end of Movement IV, especially since the presenter said it was not part of the original program and had only recently been added (Houston was not the first place to get it though) based on popular requests on the internet. In a bit of hindsight...for all the scenes from other games, I'm positive that before this encore, the -only- time we saw something from that game was a brief teaser of the spinning mask at the very end of the OoT movement. I don't think it actually popped up in the overture medley scenes even.

Anyway, great symphony, and if anybody else has a chance to see it, I highly recommend it.