dog$

There's some new policy changes that are going into effect at the bank where I have some accounts, and the main item which concerns me is that checking accounts will now get $10 monthly fees if certain requirements aren't met. One of the accounts I had set up years ago for purposes of ebay and paypal use alone, and has been unused for a long time, so I figured that I would at least go to close that account today. As I'm discussing the details, I'm hit with the news that my main account is down to double digits in the asset category. I was just hit with a renewal fee for that Yodle service and an annual fee for the CPE program that I use, so a previous work deposit was wiped out just as fast, and upon looking through my transaction history there are no other kind of mysterious charges or discrepancies, so there's no sudden misappropriation that happened. It was still a shock to have seen that amount be that low.

Immediately upon returning home, I called Yodle to discontinue the service, and was eventually told that I'd have a manager call me back within 24 hours, and had no further response for the rest of the day.

For the majority of the rest of the day, I played GTA 5 with my wife, as I couldn't really keep concentration to do much else. Naturally, this is pretty much the exact easiest and most wrong thing that I could have done. Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, is the word most said when today was a mistake, and how many times have I even said as much here. Two months left in 2013, pal. It's gotta be now. It has to be now.

Draft.

18680711 13:20:18

TA x 16 S

Cook watched the leader of the three men in front of him draw his pistol in position first. The two men who flanked him seemed to motion to do the same, but did so later, so Cook knew that his priority was on the man in the center. He fulfilled his promise and shot his gun at Cook without issuing another word of warning. When he pulled the trigger, Cook steadied his feet on the ground and turned his hand slightly to its side as he thrust the sword in a circular motion in front of him. In that instant, the sword appeared to create a shadow of its motion in mid air as a thin screen of the metal spread from the blade, and the bullet from the gun reached the screen and shattered in metallic fragments. The shooter let a trail of tobacco juice slowly dribble from the side of his mouth as he saw the bullet get deflected away and leave Cook unharmed. Cook knew Massac was at his right, and the two understood what to do next; the men pivoted away from each other and lunged their swords at the direction of the men on the sides of the leader. The inertia of the motion seemed to compel the metal in the blades to shoot forth from their tips, and the swords shot forth in length. Before the two men could fire their weapons, the tips of the swords had each pierced through each of their necks, which caused each to drop their pistols without having a chance to fire them. Massac braced his left hand under his right to thrust his sword upward, causing the sword to slice through the top of his target's head; Cook braced his hand in a similar manner but used the force to swing sideways, causing the impaled neck to be slashed in half and for the sword to race towards the leader. Before he could turn his head to see it, Cook's sword penetrated the leader at the shoulder with enough force to cleanly cut his right arm off and follow through to exit at the left side of his collar bone. Cook's first victim had his head fold over the side of his body, and the lack of balance and consciousness caused him to fall to the ground instantly and leave a trail of blood smear upon the horse's body. The fragment of the leader's torso fell forward and landed on the ground before the rest of his body reached the surface. Massac's target sat upright and stunned for a moment before the man fell forward and remained slouched over his horse.
Cook turned around before the leader's body finished falling to the ground and ran towards Rodney. The rider at the rear of the carriage behind Rodney was only capable of staring at Cook with eyes bulging from his head and his breath labored.
"You want it next?" Cook screamed the question at the rider as he put his arm around his son's shoulder to pull their bodies closer together. The rider remained standing still, except to silently shake his head. "Well gwan git then! Get the hell out of my home! I'll kill you next time! Go!"
The man did not hesitate to turn his horse around and race off away from the scene. Cook kept his gaze upon the man and watched him ride off until he noticed that Rodney was whimpering and weeping as he was being held against his body. Cook snapped his sword back into the chain length and motioned his arm around to use the centripetal force to wrap it around his body. He then knelt on both knees to face his son more directly.
"OK now look. Look at me. It's OK now, look at me." Rodney sniffled loudly as he looked up and felt his tears drip over the sides of his face. Cook rested both of his hands on the child's shoulders before speaking again. "This is the truth, here. This is the truth. There are some folks out there who want me dead, you see? You saw those guns. You heard them. They wanted to shoot me dead. It was them or me."
"But, ... but why kill you? What did you do? What did you do to them?"
"Uh, well, without knowing who they are, I don't know for sure. It might be a few different things."
"Like what?"
"That don't matter right now. Right now, what you need to understand is that I got to do things like that to keep me and you alive. If they don't die, I die. We die. That's what you need to know from this. Now, we gotta do some clean up here before we can get back goin home. You gotta stay out here where we can see you while we do that, OK? Stay right by us."
"Urm, can't I just go sit in the wagon-"
"No! What just happened out here, boy? Pay attention! That wagon gets jumped again while we're taking care of things, then what? We might not be so lucky next time. No, you just hush and stay with me."
"Yes, Daddy." From this point on, Rodney obeyed his father's order without another word of protest, but kept his eyes to the ground and away from any pools of blood as best as he could. Massac and Cook approached the bodies and pulled the bandannas away on the men to get a closer look.
"Anyone you recognize? I don't." Cook took one of the fallen men up by his armpits and dragged him to the side of the road as he asked.
"Nope, nobody. That much is a relief." Massac let the body he was holding fall to the ground and ran to the body that Cook was dragging to help lift it by its feet. The two mean used the same teamwork to move the two other bodies, then Massac tended to the horse left behind to get it tethered to the carriage. Luckily, the animal was braced and ready to go with no difficulty and within a short span of time.
Nobody said another word for the rest of the ride home. By the time he entered the carriage, Rodney was able to regain his composure and stopped crying.


BMS Of Fighters 2013 write up Part 2.

Title / Difficulty: Little Wizard / 12
Link: http://manbow.nothing.sh/event/event...m=465&event=88
EX% and Grade, EX Value.Pass/Fail, Judgment: 51.96 C, 1774.F, 625.524.472.21.139
Combo / Note Count: 143/1707
Comments: Uneven song, in that some parts are better than others. First middle portion is where I think it hits its lowest point, with some dissonant sounds being featured in the forefront. The song has the grace to keep evolving pretty swiftly, so it didn't settle on that sound for long. Good parts are to be found otherwise with phrases that are dense but not overwrought. Good tone to the ending too.

Title / Difficulty: Meteor Lights / 12
Link: http://manbow.nothing.sh/event/event...m=450&event=88
EX% and Grade, EX Value.Pass/Fail, Judgment: 61.11 B. 1402.F, 511.380.194.2.100
Combo / Note Count: 196/1147
Comments: Great. The chart is painful on me for a lot of jacked sixteenth strings, but the song itself is quite nice. Good scratch switching and nice use of samples. One of the better songs I've heard out of this set.

Title / Difficulty: nightshade / 10
Link :http://manbow.nothing.sh/event/event...um=70&event=88
EX% and Grade, EX Value.Pass/Fail, Judgment: 68.11 A, 1282.F, 491.300.103.9.54
Combo / Note Count: 160/941
Comments: I can only hope that what I heard was a program error, otherwise the song was completely ruined by some kind of trumpet part that sounded like it was meant for some other song and did not fit in with the rest of the piece at all. Otherwise, it sounds like there would have been some potential for the song to be good. The chart had a lot of annoying scratch chords towards the end that I couldn't hit well enough to keep the red.

Title / Difficulty: onigashima英雄譚 / 10
Link: Link :http://manbow.nothing.sh/event/event...m=336&event=88
EX% and Grade, EX Value.Pass/Fail, Judgment: 74.36 A, 1584.P, 614.356.85.3.16
Combo / Note Count: 337/1065
Comments: Good but bland. The opening portion could have used a bit more chorus or echo to fill the flatness of the tone, whereas the second half wouldn't need it as much as it has all of the melody and counter melody running. The chart is a bit odd for it having so many pick up chords.

Title / Difficulty: segeralah / 6
Link: Link :http://manbow.nothing.sh/event/event...m=343&event=88
EX% and Grade, EX Value.Pass/Fail, Judgment: 82.10 AA, 872.P, 355.162.12.0.2
Combo / Note Count: 347/531
Comments: I like the idea of where this song wanted to go, but the up tempo blip that is the main counter melody to be found from the start of the song ends up taking the forefront too often and makes the song seem rather repetitive on account of it not really changing at all throughout. The saxophone addition at the end gives lends a light and up tempo jazz feel and gives the song some substance, but it's too little too late.

Title / Difficulty: shiratsuyu / 10
Link: Link :http://manbow.nothing.sh/event/event...m=159&event=88
EX% and Grade, EX Value.Pass/Fail, Judgment: 69.68 A, 1710.P, 634.442.123.8.36
Combo / Note Count: 269/1227
Comments: Pleasant. Everything fits in well and there's enough going on to keep things interesting. Melody has a nice exposition over the course of the song. It might have stood to have thirty seconds cut from it to get to its ending faster and make the transition more dramatic.

Title / Difficulty: soda ocean / 12
Link: Link :http://manbow.nothing.sh/event/event...m=399&event=88
EX% and Grade, EX Value.Pass/Fail, Judgment: 72.27 A, 1999.P, 759.481.116.13.39
Combo / Note Count: 225/1383
Comments: Very good. Great ambient sound and tone without being too slow in tempo, and nice reprise from the intial melody outset. I find it difficult to have any complaints here.

Title / Difficulty: uraja / 12
Link: Link :http://manbow.nothing.sh/event/event...m=401&event=88
EX% and Grade, EX Value.Pass/Fail, Judgment: 66.16 B, 1715.F, 654.407.187.5.99
Combo / Note Count: 249/1296
Comments: Rather nice, but I think this is more of my personal taste leaning over it being objectively good - or at least, I say this much in respect to the fact that some of the melody tones and samples aren't quite befitting of the rest of the song. I like a lot of what it does with the hard bass drive and good percussion breaks. I come away liking the song overall.

Title / Difficulty: のきさらむ 虫の音のしむ 紫野 / 12
Link: http://manbow.nothing.sh/event/event...m=466&event=88
EX% and Grade, EX Value.Pass/Fail, Judgment: 64.07 B, 2162.F, 823.516.221.33.194
Combo / Note Count: 179/1687
Comments: I'm pretty ambivalent about this one. Lots of Japanese sound throughout the song here (the strings and flutes particularly), but I think I had more of an issue with the plodding bass line that sticks out and never changes or fades away. I feel like hearing twenty seconds of this song is enough, but it goes on for six times longer than that.

Title / Difficulty: 愛と煩悩と輪廻と常識の極彩世界 / 13
Link: http://manbow.nothing.sh/event/event...m=204&event=88
EX% and Grade, EX Value.Pass/Fail, Judgment: 40.32 D, 1837.F, 610.617.605.98.656
Combo / Note Count: 74/2278
Comments: The trend of what Progressive Rock means within the confines of IIDX is held steady here. If someone told me that this was an attempted sequel or revision in an attempt to call back to and combine Concertino In Blue and The Least 100 Sec., I'd believe them. As a result of everything and the kitchen sink being thrown into this song, there's a few parts in it that I found OK enough, but that's about as far as I can get with making compliments.

Title / Difficulty: 心壊のアガルマトフィリア / 12
Link: http://manbow.nothing.sh/event/event...m=438&event=88
EX% and Grade, EX Value.Pass/Fail, Judgment: 58.74 B, 1935.F, 686.563.316.22.131
Combo / Note Count: 224/1647
Comments: Decent. The song doesn't do much to particularly flesh out what is heard in the first few measures, but it has enough restraint to make things busy but not over wrought. I think the long note counter part could have stood to have more variance in mixing or be an octave lower so that it wasn't so very dominant at the end.

Title / Difficulty: 入浴タイムズ / 12
Link: http://manbow.nothing.sh/event/event...m=341&event=88
EX% and Grade, EX Value.Pass/Fail, Judgment: 57.67 B, 1382.F, 495.392.190.19.170
Combo / Note Count: 87/1198
Comments: Oh, you guys are so silly! Tee hee! The main feeling that I get is that the notes to be played in this song don't really stand out strongly in contrast to the background support.

That's a wrap. The quantity of songs to come for 14 key is rather sad, but there's at least a handful of songs that are playable which are actually worth the time.