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Uh-oh, Tom Nook's getting lonely.

Actually, what's happened here is I've asked him to order a Slider song from my catalog, called "I Love You". When KK Slider gives you the aircheck of a song, it appears in your catalog, but it's "Not For Sale". So you can ask to order it, but Nook will say it's "not available through normal channels". But right before that, he'll say "Oh, dear. (product name)..."

Tori caught her last fish last night, the Giant Catfish. I've got three bugs remaining to catch, and they've just gone out of season. But, it's always summer on the GBA island, so I've pulled out my SP and link cable, and made a number of trips. Looks like it's still subject to time though, so in order to catch the Giant Beetle, I'll need to go to the island after 11PM, or do some time travelling.

I had a heck of a time catching a bee. You need to shake a hive out of a tree, at which point the whole swarm comes at you. You have a few seconds window to pull out your net (you can't shake a tree while holding anything), get in position, and swing the net. If you miss, or are too slow, you get stung. Your eye swells shut and you look just pathetic. And the townsanimals are quick to add insult to injury, or sympathy if they're nice.

One comment wondered what I was looking for in the trees when I found the beehive. Actually, I was looking for the bees, dum-dum.

Heh....

Wow, I spent a lot of time pulling weeds tonight.

I've been poking around in town again, for the first time since a cursory glance about five months ago. The animals in town sure get indignant when you've been away a while. I can't even imagine what they'd say to Tori, she hasn't been on in over a year.

I spent most of my time on pulling weeds and planting fruit trees in neat little rows. I once again considered cutting down all the trees in town, but the standard axe that I have tends to break every half-dozen trees or so, and you can only buy one axe a day because that's all the store will stock. It would take me a long time to make the place a wasteland, I tell ya. But the temptation is there.

Built my fourth perfect snowman today, giving me a fourth piece of the exclusive Snowman set: the Snowman wall. Along with the chair, clock, and TV, that puts me well on my way to a complete set. The snowmen are great, they gradually become smaller over the course of a couple of days before vanishing. They also say funny things. The last one I built was complaining of boredom on his second day of life. They all seem to start out complaining of being cold...

I also managed today to gamble an igloo resident out of two pieces of the exclusive igloo set: the snowboard and the crab stew.

Exclusive means this is the only way to obtain these items, and while they appear in your catalog, they are Not For Sale.

In a little bit of time you'll notice that the different shells sell for greatly varying amounts. The ones that are worth picking up are the conch and the venus comb. The porcelettas and lions paws and such are not worth enough to make it cost effective to fill up your inventory. Once you have non-native fruit planted in your town, every three days you'll get three new pieces of fruit per tree you can sell at 500 bells a piece. A much better use of space than a 70 bell seashell.

I haven't heard anything about Animal Crossing 2. I know that Nintendo has partnered with AOL, in an arrangement where AOL will deliver their online services in the future. I would expect that when Nintendo goes online, nearly all of their first-party games if not all will have online ability. They seem to like to do something all the time when they accept it as OK, like with the GBA connectivity. So I expect that particularly if AC2 is to come out on N5, it will be online enabled, but of course this is all conjecture.

Aside from the Spooky Set, there's really only the fun of it, and the effects of having a set.

You enroll in the HRA (Happy Room Academy) early on (it's a voluntary decision, there's no reason not to, it's free) and you get a daily review of your home, in the form of points and a letter with advice in it, ranging from derision at the mess in your home (if you leave your items, like the shovel, fishing rod, etc, all over the floor) to an excited letter about what a great job you're doing. More points means the HRA is more likely to give you gifts. So for example, when you first score over a certain number of points, you get a house model, which is a little 3d house that sits on your floor and you can turn the lights in it on and off. The first time you get 100,000 points, you get a manor model, which is the basically the same thing but bigger and fancier. I've never gotten enough points to get anything new since then. Special sets like the Spooky Set that you can't buy get you many more points... you get the idea.

I've finally finished paying off my final set of house improvements to Nook, so my house is mine and all my money is profit now. Now I can focus on my favorite things to do in the game, catch fish and bugs.

Until the 25th, it's mushrooming time in Animal Crossing. You get an hour or so starting at 8am every day to find 5 mushrooms that are tucked next to trees all over the town. Each is worth a whopping 5000 bells, and they've been a big part of paying down my debt.

Looking forward to Halloween. All the villagers wear pumpkins on their heads and chase you. If they catch you, you give them a piece of candy or they steal something from you!! Along with all the villagers in town is one pumpkin-headed character who's new, and if you give him candy, as I understand it, he'll give you some very rare "spooky" set items.

Oh my god, oh my GOD! That's what the wishing well is talking about?! I can't wait to get home!!!

Heh heh.