The Walker Estate

With my Platinum Trophy Finally obtained for Katamari Forever, all this free time has suddenly become available to me.

Since that time, I have been thinking about the fate of this web site.  Do I continue with the same “Politics as usual” or do I merely reduce this site as a den of solitude to record all my literary musings?

As it is, my site attracts more spam than what the average Hawaiian could eat in a day.   No real bloggers, political and non political alike who visit here, traipsing around the political mire and ooze of our slowly decaying country.  For the record, I only have one real person who visits this blog on occasion.

Should I continue with the political route, I’m afraid it would be just a futile charade that would be updated on a semi-regular basis.  Don’t get me wrong.  I do care about politics, and what’s going on in this country.  I just don’t think my fascination is sufficient enough to reach “junkie” status.  I respect the experts that go out of their way to dig up this stuff for us to sort through.  It’s just that they get paid for it, and well….I don’t.

I hearby dub this blog the Blog of Literary Musings and Prevarications (meh….>_< I REALLY need to work on the title!).  I will talk about politics now and then, but just on a less frequent basis.

Oh, and my last words to say about this topic?  A eulogy for our dear departed site.

Walker on Politics

January 27, 2009

October 16, 2009

This has been a good experiment, while it lasted.   It’s now time to move on to my true passion: writing.

In closing, I guess I can say the pen is mightier than the politician.

I am now playing through Drive Mode.  I am almost done with this game.  Normal posts will return in the future.  Stay tuned.

That’s right. I’m working on Eternal Mode right now.  Stay tuned as the progress unfolds…

What wait?  Katamari Forever!

While this game was supposed to come out in 4 more days,  I was able to get it early.  That’s right.  Gamestop just got it in today, so I drove to the mall and got my reserved copy.

With that copy, I got a Prince cellphone charm. It’s supposed to light up when I get an incoming call, but I can’t seem to get it working.  I also heard that it can do this by tapping it against something.  Granted, the trinket is cheap but at least it comes free with the preorder.

I also got a red DualShock 3 controller, so that I could do all the challenges in the game for the Platinum trophy.  One of the challenges requires 2 player vs. mode, so that should come in handy for that.

With that, I’ll be playing a lot of Katamari tonight.

Let the Katamari celebration BEGIN!

For this week’s Wild Card Friday,  I will attempt to explain my 1,000,000 rose ordeal.

What words can describe the agony of rolling a katamari through a frozen ice rink in a seemingly endless circle, in a futile attempt to roll up one million roses?  Well, it began with my recent completion of We ♥ Katamari, the sophomore PlayStation 2 release that I played, in eager anticipation for the upcoming PlayStation 3 release of Katamari Forever.

Having virtually everything done on my mental checklist,  only one thing stood in the way of completing the game: those frickin’ roses.  Okay, two things needed to be done if you count the myriad of objects that I inadvertantly failed to collect in various levels, but that’s a picnic compared to those dang roses.

Having pleased every fan in the game, the King of all Cosmos brings a rose to life.  And this tiny rose utters the most absurd request my ears could ever bear to hear:  One million red roses.

So I’m taken to the level, where I’m expected to carry out this ordeal.  Scads of roses adorned the snow covered landscape everywhere.  Single roses and bouquets of 10.  With the counter starting at 0, I think to myself “What the heck have I gotten myself into? This is going to take a long frickin’ time.”

It then occured to me that I have completed this ordeal before.  Twice!  Once in 2005 and again in 2007.  This isn’t going to be so bad, right?

My optimism faded when I completed 200,000 roses for the day.  Okay.  That’s 200,000.  But I still have 800,000 more of those crimson pests to collect!

The next day came, and then the next.  In each of those days, I coasted along, collecting 100,000 roses a day.  My count was now a slightly higher, but still low 400,000.  Not even halfway there.

Then Wednesday came.  I thrust my katamari back into the sea of roses scattered around the frozen ice rink.  I languished in my room, rolling each thousand.  I rolled up a thousand, replenishing the roses with each reset.  I began to lose my sense of awareness with my surroundings.  All I saw was my controller and the screen.  The headaches began as my brain liquefied.    Roll a thousand.  Reset.  Wash, rinse, repeat.  Minute by minute.  Over and over.  The same route around the seemingly infinite rink of roses.    When the day was over,  300,000 more was rolled up.  700,000 roses now.  Almost there.

The next day, I cruised along, much in the same way I did before.  Same level.  Same strategy.  Same speed.  Clicking the analog sticks up and down.  Making gradual turns to collect every bouquet of roses on my route.  Averaging 50 seconds per thousand.  In my adament pursuit to collect them all, my total was now 900,000.  Only 100,000 away from the million.  So close, yet so far away.

The next morning was the home stretch.  The light at the end of the tunnel.  I inched my way forward and rolled each rose up, becoming ever closer to the million.

Suddenly, the moment was approaching.  I was at 990,000  roses.  Just 10,000 away.  A breath away from a million.

Then it happened.  The climax.  The culmination of 16 hours of rolling all boiled down into a triumphant second of victory:  I rolled up a million roses.  The victory was signaled by a ridiculous anthem of bizarre absurdity.  An assorted cacophony of squeals, screams, and singing in Japanese.

As I ran my crowned Prince to the other screen to save my game, I knew that it was finally over.  I have done it for the third time.   I have wasted countless hours, in a constant pursuit to reach the absurd goal of that little rose:  one million red roses.  There.  I’ve done it, you stupid rose!  I’ve done what you asked, so what more do you want from me?  If it’s more roses you want, I’ll burn you and your friends!  Understand, Mr. Rose?

The trial is over.  The victory, won.  Just what is there left to do now?  Oh yeah, the objects.  And just as I said before,  the objects are a picnic.

And with that picnic, the time has finally come to feast, then wait in eager anticipation for Katamari Forever to come out.