Buh, doods. I was all about to patch my clunky ol’ PSP so I could loot Phantasy Star Portable 2 and reroll Avatar Blastoise in all his CAST badassery and so I could go bother seraphzero and friends. Since Best Buy didn’t have any copies in stock, I’d have to get it through the PlayStation Network.

BUT… my PSP decided it was going to keep turning itself off, even though it was at full battery charge AND plugged in. WTF. Weirder still, if I pull the cable after it crashes, the green light stays on. Google and such says that my PSP is pretty much hosed.

….BOOOOO. Yeah, there’s a second PSP downstairs that I could swap out for, but it’s just as old (they’re both 1st gen, PSP-1000 series) and probably wouldn’t last much longer. So, new PSP time for me.

Which… would not cost me much out of pocket, actually! I’ve got the $100 gift card that came with Dinah, and another $25 in Rewards Zone certs that spawned by buying Dinah (think about it… laptop purchase = crapton of Rewards Zone points!), so that instantly shaves off $125.

Just as well. 3000-series PSPs have video out and native charge-over-USB (where I had to loot a combo cable for my old PSP). I’ll put in the order after I sleep.

—

In other news, extending Snowschemes window until end of January, because I got so behind on that front. Slow Yoshi is sloooooow.

Come reminisce with me, internets. In this post, we talk about the awkwardly-choreographed Christmas plays we were drafted into in elementary school.

I’ve mentioned several times before that mine (West Heritage) was a particularly weird place, and by golly the seasonal plays were nooooo exception. I only remember a couple of them in any real detail, but if you would indulge me a bit to speak on the WTF, the sometimes-awesome and how none of this would ever, EVER fly today.

2nd grade: If I recall correctly, the theme behind this one was “Christmas around the world.” Actually, I think that was the theme behind how my class approached the holidays as a whole, lots of emphasis on Christmas in non-American cultures. (Particularly, St. Lucy’s Day) But as for the play itself, I believe it was strictly a musical thing, with the kids rotated into parade decorated snowflakes highlighting the region. That year, my noobish tongue would master the pronunciation of Puerto Vallarta and Matzatlan, dammit, since that was the portion of the lyrics I was assigned.

Oh man, and there was actually making the snowflakes that we’d carry onstage. I’ll tell you, glue, glitter and I NEVER got along. I’d always get that stuff all over my hands. I remember my snowflake looked the worst, since the glue binding the silver glitter dribbled all over. Bah!

3rd grade: Oh man, if there was the year of the bizarre Christmas play, this was it. Jumping jeebus cripes, my teachers (main + student/apprentice, who would later join the school as a full-time teacher at 5th grade) wrote these over-the-top plays that almost involve themselves being kidnapped by “Bad Guys” and…. yeah, you could smell the ham from a mile off. This one actually had some sense of a story, with the scenes being partitioned off with musical transitions. And even those were all over the map– the tape with the musical accompaniement was a smattering of crappy MIDI keyboard, recordings of the school piano, and old-school “pop” holiday stuff (“Rockin’ around the Christmas Tree”).

This one was about “The Magic Word for Christmas.” Its titular song… I don’t know if it was an original composition or what. Holy crap it’s definitely something Flonne would sing, though. “The Magic Word for Christmas is L-O-V-E, love~” or something. XD

oh geeze, part of me now wants to do a Disgaea-themed recreation of this, with Prinnies as the chorus… I should put such a horrible thought out of my mind before it goes anywhere. >_>;

Because there was an actual story with characters and such, and because this was third grade, the teachers got to pick who got to play what. Oh boy… you can bet any notion of being unbiased went out the window, and quickly. The most popular (and not necessarily most well-behaved!) kids got top billing, and the ugly ducklings like me got shunted off into the chorus. Hurr durr, or something.

Ah, if only YouTube existed 20 years ago! While the majority of me cringes at the thought of listening to my awful singing voice played back at me (why yes, I sounded every bit as bland and boyish and uncute at 6 as I do at 26!), it would be one hell of a nostalgia trip. I want to say that there is indeed archival footage of little Yoshi in this nonsense, alas there is not– the closest I could find was kindergarten “graduation,” which for some reason involves singing about dinosaurs. o_O;

I don’t get it. As much as I hated my elementary school for all the crap I went through, part of me still wants to go back… to review all the shenanigans if only to WTF at it.

One can customize Frost Wave to change the visuals of its “hold” — in this case, it takes the form of holding the target in a snowman.
Frost Wave has the additional distinction of ignoring elemental resistances, so even Yoshi, who is water element, cannot resist being suspended in a Frost Wave hold.
Lock her down, and then Velan (who is not inked because I’m scaling him down and sticking him behind a giant pile of snowballs) and Numair can either pelt her with snowballs, or, well… Numair did just get a beta ammo sphere to enable Ice Missile on his Stinger Missile Launcher… >:D

Yoshi’s the only portion getting inked because snow is almost always rendered solely with drybrush. I already explained Velan’s lack of inking… Numair isn’t in (yet) but he’ll be added before I’m done.

Har har har, Blizzard. Very funny, moving WoW server maintenance to this morning, after I manage to reset my normal sleep cycle to roughly midnight-6am. But, at the same time, this also means I can work on Snowschemes. SNOMG!

(Seriously, Cataclysm is that awesome… I make no excuses for letting it eat my computer time. Extra yay for being able to sass it up with my brother. :D)

To prod myself into the proper mindset, EPIC REPOST time. Let’s revisit some awesome Snowschemes of Christmases past~

The very first, done the same year as I got my first Aiptek. Yes, Reindeer Numair was around from the beginning.

Oh my jeebus cripes, this one was a colossal pain to paint because it was “LOL DRYBRUSH ONLY” and I hadn’t quite mastered dramatic lighting yet… but yeah. Huge tree is HUGE.

2005 was obviously a major year in ramen– in my usual slowness I’d finally seen Azumanga Daioh and it… kinda shows here. XD This also introduced some of the memes that would recur in future Snowschemes (in this case, the danger of letting Velan handle castle lighting).

The first appearance of Chelsea in a Snowscheme. Also establishes the existence of the Reindeer Brigade.

The first instance of the Mistletoe configuration of Hikaru’s Maximillian plate armor.

Snow in windows. Do you know how much goes into that? You stack the drybrushing and then you have to hard-trim out the excess to replicate the “smooshed up against the glass in the corners” effect.
That aside, somewhat tempted to attempt a remake of this, from a different angle or time point. Just saying. >_>;

Those lights are powered by magic, so they don’t get (too) hot.
Also… BEEP.

The overhaul of Chelsea’s holiday armor set. Why did nobody think to get a ladder?

Numair and Velan joining forces for Christmas lulz = Santa Prinny Squad rightfully freaks the hell out.

Fun lighting is fun. Reminds me of college drawing classes in which you’d do sketches on medium/dark paper. Spoony’s face (>:9) cracks me up so much. XD

Multi-panels + anonymous hordes + prinnies = never again! Too much to cram in here.
That said… Aries was the best part of this. FAIL SANTA IS FAIL. XD

I’ll, uh, leave you to debate the reasoning behind the inclusion of these and not others… and other technical hooey and blah. Meanwhile, my cat is trying to swat at my tablet pen, so I should probably go intervene before something bad happens. :P

12/17. Aka “PHIL DAY,” doods, because old man is awesome no matter the universe he appears in. Also I’ve this thing about not letting father’s birthday pass by unnoticed and therefore risk fading into oblivion. >_>;;;

Where last year the Phil Day pic was in Ragnarok TWILIGHT and had old man Phil Paring and some Prinnies, this time it’s the WoW incarnation of Phil (on the right with DELICIOUS CAKE) going pub-raiding with his space goat BFF Akaycia. (Robert’s shammy. And as badass as his Armory entry makes him look, he really is that silly ingame. :P)

I got a small second wind earlier after nibbling on PBJs, so I went and did the above wireframe. (And if you’re wondering… I’m not too happy with the snowball fight Snowscheme right now, I’ll figure something out.) I’ll otherwise make no excuses– I’ve totally been eyes-deep in Cataclysm to do much drawing. >_>; I’ll try not to lurk in bed so much and ink this before logging in tonight, if only to see my brother WTF at it. XD

Also, I need to set up cookie bombs and such. Slow Yoshi is slooooow. :P