Happy September!

Thats right, its that magical time of year! Ahh those spring lovers have finally gotten to know the real you, and moved on =P. The leaves on the trees are changing colors, and its that lovely time between school and...more school? (ewww, how'd that happen?!) Not to worry though, to cheer you up, there's always Alli's Guide to September (everything you never wanted to know about September, but were afraid to ask, or at least the important stuff). So sit back, relax, and enjoy!

The Latin name for the aster is Aster, which literally means star. The association with stars, clearly references the flower's shape. While we no longer use the word aster to refer to stars, we still use words that use the root aster in words with related meanings. The word asterisk literally means 'little star,' while the word disaster refers to something that occurred under a bad omen or something that was 'ill-starred.'

Asters are sometimes called the Michaelmas daisy because their blooms coincide with the feast of St Michael. Wells writes poignantly that "Michaelmas was always the date of beginnings: the academic year at Oxford and Cambridge, the quarterly court session, the day for debts to be settled and annual rents (often including a goose) to be paid. In the garden both Michaelmas daisies and Chinese asters bloom in the autumn, magnificent curtain calls of summer but reminders too of new beginnings after winter's sleep."

According to Greek mythology, before humans fell into evil, the gods and goddesses walked the earth. When humans began to become more and more corrupt, Astraea the goddess of innocence left earth to dwell in the heavens as the constellation Virgo.

Eventually, even Zeus became tired of the corruptness of humanity and created a flood to cover the entire earth except for the top of Mt Parnassus. Two humans, Deucalian and Pyrrha survived the flood on top of Parnassus. However, after the flood receded they wandered the earth lost and alone. Astraea took pity on them and created starlight to guide them. As she wept from pity, her tears landed on earth and formed the star-like flower, the aster.

If you send someone asters you are speaking to them of romantic things such as Love; Daintiness, and Affection.

The striking deep blue of a quality sapphire is reminiscent of a cloudless night sky. Ancient civilizations believed that the world was set upon an enormous sapphire, which painted the sky blue with its reflection. This legend, as well as the belief that the ten commandments were inscribed upon tablets made of sapphire, gives September's birthstone a royal place among gemstones.

Named after the Greek word "sapphirus", meaning blue, Sapphires have long been a favorite among priests and kings, who considered them symbolic of wisdom and purity. These gemstones are prominent among the British Crown Jewels, and Prince Charles chose this as the engagement stone for his fiancée, Princess Diana.

In ancient times, Sapphires were thought to be protective against envy, and even against poisoning. A common belief was that a venomous snake placed in a Sapphire vessel would rapidly die! Ground to a powder, the blue stone was believed to cure colic, rheumatism and mental illness, and to strengthen eyesight.

Sapphire is a variety of the mineral corundum. Corundum is found in every color of the rainbow, with red being designated as ruby and all other hues Sapphire. But the most prized color of Sapphire is a rich, deep blue. These gemstones were mined as early as the 7th Century BC from India and what is now Sri Lanka. They are found today in Sri Lanka, Kashmir, Myanmar, Thailand, Australia, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, China, Madagascar, and the United States. Large specimens of Corundum crystals are rare, although the 563-carat Star of India can be seen in the American Museum of Natural History. This is the largest and most famous of star Sapphires, which are cut to reflect light from inclusions within the stone, revealing a bright six-legged star pattern.

The Sapphire is second only to the Diamond in hardness, making it a durable gemstone for setting into jewelry. A gift of Sapphire represents sincerity and faithfulness. As nourishing to the soul as gazing up at the sky on a summer day, this brilliant blue gemstone is truly a heavenly choice!

Hello delicious Gamespotters!

Its not much of a secret, but they recently made me an iMod here at GS (its like an iPod, only much more user friendly!). Now I know what you're thinking, but if I mod you guys, I'd have to mod everyone who wanted to be modded by me and the mod queue would be quite full!

Anyway I may be gone for a few days this weekend, so I hope you all have a good one!

Sooo I made a dark elf healer, and she started out with two swords. Apparently the dark elves start out in an area called "The Blighted Isle", a place that looks like it has suffered one too many forest fires (must be somewhere in Northern California). Black dragon shaped boats with sharp sails line the coast and here is where many of the introductory dark elven quests take place.

Whats really nice is that any info you need, or that comes along, pops up on screen in boxes or in huge text for a moment. Fighting an imp for a first time? A nifty box pops up telling you that "you discovered an imp!", and it goes into the bestiary for easy reference later. Achievements pop up the same way, "You killed 25 sprites!", and a pop up will tell you so. You get notices for discovering new areas, finishing quests, earning titles, etc. Its like being in an MMO version of Pop Up Video! Not that its a bad thing, its a nice change to have info readily available without needing to download tons of mods.

The mini map shows quest markers and trainers, which is always helpful. Much is standard MMO fare, doing quests and leveling up, getting rewards and xp. Professions include cultivation and apothecary crafts, which I havent fooled with yet. Hey, I'm only level 4! Another nice feature is that in some zones have Public Quests, where you and other players in that zone join in quests to kill a number of different monsters, before taking on a boss monster. Its seamless, theres no grouping up or anything, you enter the zone and you wait for the timer to reset and the public quest starts. It goes through three stages of enemy killing, and it nets a lot of xp. Its kind of a nice touch.

Overall, Warhammer Online makes a pretty good first impression. Starting quests are easy and lots of info is always a plus. Hopefully they can keep it going once its released next month.

Hello yummy Gamespotters!

I hope you guys are all doing okay! Ive been busy snoozing, napping, dozing, and the occasional siesta or two. Actually more than anything else, Ive been watching the Olympics. Not having a TiVO or DVR, Ive been staying up til 2am, watching all the exciting events. Yep, nothing gets me more emotional than a round of air pistol, followed by a good old steeplechase. I'm amazed Baseball is still part of the Olympics. (I'm even more amazed that Baseball is still a sport).

Actually my favorite events have been the swimming (of course), the women's gymnastics (I wish I could move like that!), and watching the US Basketball team plow through other teams.

Anyway, getting to the topic of my blog, I know the Too Human demo received less than stellar reviews. Not being online, I never played it, so I was waiting for GS' review, expecting, at worst, a 6.5, at best, a 7.5. It got lower than that, which is fine, (hey, not all games can win the gold medal. I'm guessing Too Human's score is the equivalent of tripping on the balance beam, falling face forward and comically bouncing back up and backwards off the beam *add appropriate "Tom and Jerry" sound effects here*).

Now if you read IGN's review, they give it a much higher score, while not being much more positive about the game. Ive had a few problems with IGN's reviews in the past, so its no biggie. What does kinda offend me, is the fact that they use the term, "loot wh*re" in the review, saying that these people will love the game, due to tons of drops.

This doesnt offend me as an English major, as a gamer, or even as a writer. It offends me as a loot wh*re. Have my people not suffered enough? We're not all sleep deprived, rabid, drooling over any rare-epic drop in any MMO out there (I mean, I am, but not everyone is). If you prick us, do we not...leak? If you kill us, do we not drop awesome epic items?

Frankly, saying this game is fun for loot wh*res only makes me wanna play it more. Sadly, with games like Spore and The Force Unleashed on the horizon, Too Human may not get the playtime it deserves. Thats pretty sad. Especially for loot wh*res.

Hello my pretties!

Not only did I get Soul Calibur 4 this morning, but we Cali residents also got another surprise, a 5.8 earthquake! I was in the bathroom at the time ("when the bathroom's a rockin', dont come a knockin'"?), but nothing happened, other than a little rocking for about a minute, nothing even fell down. My fellow tenants however, were slightly less calm than myself. They had gathered outside and apparently formed an impromptu end of the world cult (I'm not sure how Los Angeles residents managed to learn to chant in Ancient Greek so quickly, or find enough hooded cloaks for everyone), though it may just have been an oddly themed pool party.

Anyway, I finally got around to playing SC4 and its a lot of fun. There are numerous modes for both single and multiplayer. Single player consists of story mode, a tower mode, arcade and training. Story mode is where you progress through the story, viewing cutscenes between battles. Tower is where you ascend and descend as many floors as you can, earning gold and weapons/armor, arcade is score based and training lets you practice. There's also a nifty create a character feature.

I knew my rusty skills from SC2 wouldnt help much at this point, so I gave Yoda a shot, and he has some pretty nifty attacks. He jumps around like a madman, and is pretty lethal with the lightsaber, using it in overhand swings and circular strikes and even lunging stabs. I went through arcade mode first, to try and get some practice in and it wasnt too much trouble. I had the most trouble with ring outs (due to Yoda's excessive jumping), and against the apprentice, who has some wicked force powers. I then tackled story mode, which is also a lot of fun, and some of the interactions with Yoda make for some funny cutscenes. For instance, one of the opponents said, "I dont even know who you are!", to which Yoda replied, "Know yourself first, you must". Definitely funny stuff.

I then gave the Tower Mode a shot, which was pretty interesting. You pick two characters, and can switch between them at any time, and work your way up a series of floors, defeating a certain number of bosses on each floor. You earn weapons/armor for your created self, and these can be unlocked through a variety of ways apparently, as I got a perfect kill on an early floor, and they gave me a soldiers hat. I also got a set of pauldrons by switching characters more than twice in a fight. Its an interesting mode. I managed to unlock the apprentice, a short ranged cute winged fighter named Scherazade, and the end boss of story mode Algol. I'm gonna have to check out create a character mode soon.

Hope your day was as eventful as mine!