Still hating Lufia

I've never really been a big fan of the 'battle tower' deals that RPGs occasionally insert -- you know, you fight monsters on each floor, and get treasure, and have to decide whether to leave or keep going and risk losing it all.

Now, modify the idea slightly, by making it so that you don't lose only the items you found, but everything you took in with you. And all the XP you gained. And all the monsters you captured, etc.

Now, remove all the treasure and replace it with more monsters that leap out of the treasure chests.

Now, remove the ability to leave.

What's the point?

After five levels of the dungeon, having not found the randomly generated (presumably?) item to allow me to leave, and having collected many wonderful treasures -- two ordinary pots woth 3gp each, and a lump of moldy bread that healed 1 hp and poisoned you -- I was finally taken down by one of the generic enemies on the floor who could one-hit-kill me since I was, you know, out of my depth.

So, yeah, I guess I have no choice but to go back to the main quest, where I'm supposed to find this guy whose name and general location I don't even know, although the characters seem to. The characters know an awful lot the game never bothers to tell the player, it seems.

Volleyball kicks my... urgl

I was reminded that today was the team volleyball tournament, our low-budget morale event for the month or three months or however long it's going to be until the next one.

The volleyball court was assembled from a cheap plastic portable kit, and worked well enough... well, except that the strings holding up the posts nearly killed Stephane twice, and the court was on a subtle hill that wasn't discovered until midway through the first game. And the lines designating the boundary of the court formed a trapezoid instead of a rectangle.

Of course, none of that (except possibly the slope) was as much of a factor as the team's general lack of aptitude. Volleys were rare -- usually someone would serve and it would either hit the net or go unreturned. It wasn't *quite* bad enough to be boring or embarassing, though.

Volleyball is an odd game for me. I seem to have very slow reaction times... but I play better near the net? Go figure.

I lost 2 and won 2, by basically switching to the winning team halfway through when some people left early.

There were snacks, but they were lame -- raw vegetables with dip, and slightly overripe fruit. I had a bunch of vegetables, and far, far too much fruit juice... then went to get an actual meal afterwards, at which I guzzled even more fruit juice. This, or *something*, did not agree with my system, and I've basically been on the toilet for the past hour. And I think I might need to head back soon. %.%

If it's not the fruit, it's the vegetables...

This might be TMI, but I've spent most of the last five hours running back and forth to the bathroom squirting out little bits of undigested broccoli. So maybe it was the vegetables and not the overdose of fruit juice that put me in this state.

Ugh... I just got back and I feel it gurgling again... when will the hurting stop? O.o