Maplestrip

(I was looking through my music list for a title to put the word "tag" in)

So tagged me. Here's the important copy-pasting stuff:

Rules:

1. Each person has to share 5 things about themselves.

2. Please answer the 10 questions asked to you and invent 10 questions the people you tag will have to answer.

3. Choose up to 10 people and put their icons on your journal - not something like "you are tagged if you read this", you have to tag legitimately 10 people.

4. No tag backs, Please!

Five things:

1. I always hate these "five things" tags - they are lazy on the side of the person who makes up the tag, while the person who receives the tag has to think up all kinds of things. Meanwhile, all I can think of is Homer Simpson thinking of a monkey. *sigh*

2. I've been active on Wikipedia for the past few months. It's fun. Difficult and a lot of work, but rewarding when you manage to greatly improve an article and cite good sources :3

3. I watched Boku no Pico recently. Didn't expect it to be completely hentai >.> It's probably not even that bad, for hentai standards, so I'm not sure why people love pointing at it so much, but ah well. It was very, very bad Pretty traumatizing, but still more entertaining than Rosario + Vampire. The theme song is surprisingly catching. I'm going to regret posting this...

4. I've recently completed Shovel Knight. Only have a few feats to achieve, each of which incredibly tough (beat the game without dying once? Urgh...) - but I'm working on it!

5. This ended up being easier than I thought. I recently completely re-read Brawl in the Family. Was fun :3 Lots of videos, amazing stuff.

Questions:

1. What do you think of sprite editing? 
Eh, it's fun. Not much to say about it. Sprites are the best art that I can make, and I learned the craft by editing game sprites, so obviously I find it completely illegal and immoral. Obviously. Eh, it's fun.

2. How big is your Steam library? (Alternatively, overall console/handheld/PC game library, if you don't have Steam.)
Let's check: 60 - WHERE IN THE WORLD DID ALL THESE GAMES COME FROM!? I've bought less than ten of those myself. Gifts and giveaways are nice

3. How many characters do you have, when it comes to writing, drawing or just RPing?
I don't keep track of any original characters I have come up with or used in the past, and though there are a few returning names, most characters were one-shots that I discarded after the story or roleplay died out. That being said, there's is my official original character that hasn't got a name or anything and is really just an avatar for me that I'm not using as an avatar, there are the Homebound characters I created for a Homestuck roleplay, the main character being Rick Smalle, a kid with a temper that loves stuff like Call of Duty and other "popular" stuff. There's Roger Z. Red of some roleplay I was once in: a sniper with an supernatural high accuracy, who happens to live in a time of war. There are two longer stories I have written (Balance and Ground Terra, if I am not mistaken) with their own characters. There are oddballs I happened to have remembered, like Mr. Suckerpunch and that Swedish girl I once made up but never got to use... That's basically it, though.

4. Which Smash Bros do you prefer, 3DS or Wii U.. or the original or Melee or Brawl?
As a filthy casual, I'd have to go with Brawl. The story mode was absolutely amazing, and the lack of one really makes for 3DS much less good to me. All of the usually criticized aspects, such as the tripping, I do not care about much. The items were simply better in Brawl than in the two new titles - they were less chaotic. There are a lot of factors to keep in mind when picking a favorite, though, and I have barely been able to play for Wii U thus far, so you can take my decision with a grain of salt. Either way, all Smash Bros. titles are amazing :3

5. If you could be any character from a once released on a Nintendo console game for a day, without any negative repercussions like you accidentally dying.. who.. or WHAT.. would it be?
Someone like Kirby seems the obvious choice, but no thank you, too boring. Link? Eh, not very interesting. Mario? Well, the Mushroom Kingdom is awesome and I would love to write a Yoshi, but I have no idea what I'd be doing. Ness then? Being able to use PSI seems pretty cool, and being a confident boy in a grown up world, looking through the perspective of said boy, it's a really awesome game, but not a perfect experience.. Samus? I'd piss my suit walking within the chasms of Zebes >.> Fox McCloud, being able to fly a ship and train a young dinosaur is pretty cool, but eh. Perhaps I-block - everyone will love me. Oh, dangit, I already know, this was so easy. But it's so sad that it would only be for one day...
A Pokémon trainer.
Wait, wait, wait, Ditto. I pick Ditto. Definitely ditto.

6. You find yourself stuck in a room you cannot escape with THAT ONE SONG playing on infinite repeat that drives you absolutely crazy.. which song?
You only need to play it once to drive me crazy, though. No need to be so elaborate if you just want me to commit suicide Let's see if I can remember the title - I've managed to expel the song from my memory...
I forgot the title and band. Both "yay" and "too bad" at the same time

7. Skype. We all know and hate it. If there's one thing you can change about it, what would it be?
If you click "X", Skype logs out and closes. THAT SIMPLE.

8. If you could punch literally anyone without repercussion, and I mean like whether they're really existing, fictional, having existed once.. literally ANYONE. Who?
The villain of the second half of the Accel World anime.

9. Say you could steal someone's ability for a day.. whose and which ability would it be? And this time, like, real living people only, sorry. 
The ability of being super cool from Matt LeBlanc. On a more serious note, though, something Rain Man-like would be awesome. Perhaps the ability to know how to play a song right as you hear it that some people have. Question, though: will I be able to play the song still after that day is over? And would that person be unable t use their "ability" for that day? And wouldn't it make more sense to say "The ability to play that song"?
Huh, now I just want to be able to sing incredibly well. Haven't decided yet on who's voice to steal, though.

10. You're working on a game starring your main character (or alternatively, YOU!).. what genre is the game in, and why?
I'd prefer it to be a platformer, but a third-person action RPG would probably make most sense. Slice everything up with a flaming sword. Hmm, you'd probably be slicing up hordes of zombies in a Warriors game.

And now for the tagging step: Let's see who I know that happen to be active.
and if you happen to be active on dA.

Oh yeah, I forgot to ask ten questions. Urgh...

1. What is your third favorite video game console?

2. What is your least favorite movie?

3. Do you watch things that aren't in your language subbed or dubbed over?

4. Do you ever listen to the radio? (You know, that old machin-y thing?) What do you listen to then?

5. What piece of media really reflects what you find important in life?

6. Do you have any t-shirts that reflect what you enjoy?

7. What operating system do you have on your computer?

8. Do you pirate things?

9. Have you ever been surprised by Wikipedia?

10. Have you watched The Legend of Korra?

1. Tell You Why I Like/Dislike You.

2. Tell You My Favorite Thing About You.

3. Associate You With Something Random: A Song, A Color, A Photo, Etc.

4. Tell You A Memory Of You That I Try To Remember.

5. Ask Something I've Always Wanted To Know.

6. Tell You What I'd Do If We Were In The Same Room Right Now.

7. If You And I Are Handcuffed Together In A Cop Car, Using Only 3 Words, What I Would Say To You.

8. Show Which Of Your Artwork I Like The Most.

9. In Return, You Must Post This In Your Journal.

Hello everyone, I'm back from vacation! And I figured this is the best place as any to write a description of what I've done A journal, if I may.

So, I went to Clausthal-Zellerfelt (near Goslar) in Germany. Mountainous area, lots of lakes, very pretty. I went with my friend, his father and little sister. I've very much enjoyed myself.

To start with the big stuff - we've done a lot of walking. Up a mountain, down a mountain, repeat. Note that as a Dutch guy, I call everything that resembles a hill a mountain I'm not a big fan of mountains... But the walking was nice.

We had two really long trips: one to a certain really large lake. Once we got there, there was absolutely nothing there. The view was boring and you couldn't even get something eat or anything anywhere next to the lake. I guess we should have looked it up first. There was a highway next to it, so... It's something?

The second trip, we went to the neighboring city Artenou (Yeah, I'm probably typing the names wrong here, but I am way too lazy to look it all up). We knew there was a indoor swimming pool there. Little did we know... It was more like a sauna, perhaps a spa. It was a salt water bath where generally old people go in naked. Was not the prettiest thing I had ever seen in my life XD
The water was nice, though, I am not complaining. The water was warm (and tasted way too good; damn you, salt!), much warmer than the lake we generally swam in, haha.

---

The more interesting/painful stuff:
I took my Gameboy Advance, for which I only own one game: Pokémon Fire Red. At some point during the vacation, I had 43 hours put into it. Then my battery died... While I was saving. Hmmm... That was quite a shock. Also, it was surprisingly easy to get over - Pokémon is just such a good game that I don't mind starting over again, haha. The only other RPG I know that has this is Golden Sun.
Bye-bye, my dear Electrode.

I managed to download some more Gameboy Advance games for my phone - a somewhat random package. I had no idea what I was getting. I started playing Breath of Fire 2 on my phone. The game is simply amazing. it has a lot of technical flaws and the writing isn't very good, but the fighting system is brilliant (perfect, even) and the story is awesome.
However, sadly, the game crashes each time during a certain cutscene. I cannot continue the game in any way, unless if I figure out a way to move my savestate to a PC. Then I could fix it. I'll be looking into that. This is the story of how I lost my progress of two games in just one vacation *sigh*

I followed it up with Advance Wars, which is pretty awesome, but I am not too far in it yet. I'll see.

---

It took me exactly two weeks to read Band of Brothers, which is a great book. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It might not be very moral to read a book on World War 2 when in Germany? Ah, who cares, I see it as beautiful irony. I do feel the book made me laugh too many times, though.....
(It could also be said that following up reading Band of Brothers with playing Advance Wars is really, really bad, haha)

I tried reading the Dutch translation of Moby Dick... But no, it was just too bad > ~ < I don't know what it was, I just could get through the horrible way the first page was written. I might get back to it someday if I get my hands on the English version

On my way back home, a 8-hour trip, I read the entire first book of the original Darren Shan series. Wow, it is a lot more childish than I remembered it, haha. I am looking forward to reading the entire series, though. Shan's simple writing style always drew me to it in the first place (even in his later series, Demonata), so I know I am going to enjoy this re-read.

---

All the small things: Everyone on TV sounds like Doofenshmirtz. You have no idea how often I thought "Hey, Phineas and Ferb?" XD
Cartoons in Germany are pretty cool, though. Spongebob's voice actually sounds better in German than in English. I personally still prefer his Dutch voice, though... Weird thing is, though, in Germany, they actually changed Spongebob's last name 0.o It's weird, especially because they didn't change any of the minor characters' names (They actually say "Mr. Crab" in the most English way possible, huh)

Oh, also, you can't believe how much gaming commercials they got in Germany. Here, you barely see them, but over there they are everywhere!

The license plates in Germany are way cooler than those in Holland. They generally have four letters, then three or four numbers. This makes them able to
1. Make four letter words
2. Make full years
This... Is awesome. I loved looking at all the license plates. A lot of them had GS as their first letters, which stood for Goslar (the city's name), but I always read it as Golden Sun I've noticed a lot of other patterns like that, but none that I remember clearly...

Windows in buses are referred to as emergency exits. That amuses me.

Sambuka is an acid made up by the devil to torture living souls. WHO THE HELL DRINKS THAT!?

Uhm... That is basically all I can think of. Well, i already know a lot more, but let's just keep it at this. The vacation was fun. It'll take me a while to read all my 188 watch messages, but I'll get to you all

Do comment! What have you done this summer?

For no reason whatsoever, I kinda... Wasn't around dA for the last couple of weeks. I haven't checked my inbox yet, but it's saying "194", so this is gonna be fun. I'm gonna try to catch up, but I'm sorry if I don't reply to something I usually would reply to.
I was just tired...

On another note, in six days I will be going on a holiday for another two weeks, so let's see if you guys can beat the 194 in that time!!

Oh, and just a topic, yesterday, I went to see The Fault in our Stars, so that was pretty good (Argh, the faulty math!! > ~ <), and I've also seen the Dawn of the Planet of the Apes the night before. If you've seen either movie, be sure to comment, I'd love to chat about them~

Oh, and I recently bought Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band on LP, so that's awesome!

I can't believe it, Nintendo just announced that Gamefreak is working on a Pokémon RPG! It's going to be a huge world in which everyone can walk around and battle eachother, plus they say that there will be a LOT of possibilities to interact with Pokémon, both wild and those of your own!

This is going to be amazing!!!!