Well, I was able to beat The World Ends With You yesterday. The ending was pretty foggy, but good nonetheless. I also did the Another Day mission which was absolutely hilarious. For those of you who don't know, the Another Day mission is a side story which is basically the equivalent of a crack fan fiction. Not to brag, but I am pretty good at Tin Pin Slammer.

So I was going to start playing Luminous Arc today in hopes of beating the final boss tonight and then I would start working on Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2 tomorrow or so. Well, to put it simply, it didn't work out. You know why? Because poke_gold infected me with - you know it's coming - the craze.

What is one to do when you have the urge to play Pokémon except to play it? I went and I grabbed my copy of FireRed which I have been playing pretty casual to say the least. Within a few minutes I was pulled back into the addicting gameplay.

I was on the S.S. Anne and all I had left to do was beat the crap out of Gary and then go get HM01: Cut. I did so. Like I have done in past games - I always try to keep my starter (Charmander in this case) a higher level than the rest - but I have found both Pikachu and Gloom way too useful on the S.S. Anne, so I needed to grow my Charmeleon. (My Mankey's time to shine was back in Mount Moon).

I was able to beat Lieutenant Surge (Dang! One letter away from spelling "Lieutenant" right!) with a fair amount of ease. My Mankey was able to take out his first two Pokémon without being harmed and then we came to Raichu. This little bugger was tough! I hate it when I meet someone that just spams Double Team! Raichu ended up taking out my Mankey, Charmeleon, and my Pikachu, so I was down to Gloom, who was able to defeat him.

Apparently I can't get back to Route 2 right now - which is where the aide to Professor Oak told me to go - so I have to wait until I get Fly. So I didn't know where to go and while I was finding my way to progress, I kept beating myself down that I was able to beat this game when I was six with little effort and now - ten years later - I am stuck. Then I managed to find the way to Route 9 to progress.