The big news for me in November was that I finally started Pal Parking in captured pokemon from LeafGreen, Ruby and Sapphire. Like, a ton of them. First I brought over all my legendaries, then a ton of duplicate cheapies (Mankey! Rapidash! Manectric!) just for Pokedex purposes. That's really all the game is for me at this point: to see how close I can get to identifying all 480+ pokemon in my 'dex.

So I have to ask: why the ball preamble to Pal Park? The Park Balls are an instant capture, and finding the imported pokemon hidden inside the park grounds is not difficult. Another weird design choice from the people who turned Pokemon Contests into something fun into something painful and twenty minutes long.

Last November I caught Cressalia and Regigigas. I nabbed the Cressalia with my lv58 Gengar using his Psychic attack and a couple heals to keep him in the match. Took two Ultra Balls and Ten Dusk Balls to catch her. I do all this stuff at night to fully leverage the Dusk Balls.

I used my lv70 Mewtwo from LeafGreen to catch the Regigigas. Psychic, Swift, Swift, Recover and only six Dusk Balls.

A few lingering answers from last fall. Yes, you can have Pokemon Battle Revolution send out Electivires and Magmortars to other game paks. I still don't get the whole Wonder Card thing. Battle Rev itself can send out three Wonder Card pokemon (the two I just listed plus Surfing Pikachu), so why is the DS game limited to only display three at a time? If you want to download something else, you have a trash one or more of your existing Wonder Cards... which does not affect the pokemon you downloaded, so why even "keep" Wonder Cards at all?

Oh, and I managed to actually find one of my trades on Nintendo's super-keen Pokemon GTS website.

That's my Wooper, waiting to be snapped up in a trade. I forget how it turned out, although generally online trading is a foregone conclusion. Somebody, somewhere, will give you want you want.

Here's my stats as of last November (current AMAZING stats to follow):

TIME	BADGES	POKEDEX SEEN
MONEY	SCORE	POKEDEX OWN

Now to get current.

The big impetus to play Pearl again was - ta-da - Pokemon Ranch.

Since Ranch requests certain types and then gives you hints on how to find them, it has inspired me to keep at my Pokedex completion quest. I'm even capturing total junk - like lv7 Starlys with first-turn Nest Balls - just to fill up the Ranch. I can't wait to see how big my Ranch data file gets.

Got my Heatran and Giratina. Bred a couple Phiones using the TRU Manaphy. Been abusing Pal Park (my LeafGreen cart is almost completely empty, and Ruby has been restarted so as to collect all the R/S starters... and currently Clark is "playing" Ruby, so it's almost like I've hired him to goldfarm Pokemon for me.)

We had two more download events since last fall... Toys R Us provided Darkrai and GameStop was handing out Deoxys. Darkrai is in the 'dex as number 491. I think the only remaining secret pokemon is a legendary named Arcaeus... no doubt to be found inside the upcoming Pokemon Platinum, the third pillar to the Diamond/Pearl series.

Deoxys provides a use for those four meteorites on the east side of Veilstone City. If Deoxys is in your party when you touch a meteorite, he will change to one of his four specialized forms.

With the help of some other Pokemon players, I've done a bunch of strategic back-and-forth trades solely for Pokedex purposes. During Origins, I had Alex breed me a set of the original Red/Blue starters!

I have every Eevee evolution except Flareon, because I only have one Fire Stone. I trying to dig up more underground, but I keep getting Water and Leaf Stones instead. I have like ten Leaf Stones and almost no reason to use them.

Lately it's just been more Pal Parking, and a bunch of breeding. I'm either breeding out the first stages of the bigger types I already have (last night I hatched a couple of Teddiursas), or I'm manufacturing various starters to use as trading fodder on the GTS. I've become proficient at running in circles without looking at the screen, so I can hatch eggs while watching TV or reading a book.

Oh, this GTS trade just about broke my heart. I needed a Kangaskhan for Ranch, so I put something crappy up for trade, like a Magcargo or whatever. The Kangaskhan I received was a lv67 beast, named Kangourex (which is French for Kangaskhan, so this gal probably originated from a French game). Kangourex's data sheet says that she was transferred from LeafGreen (or FireRed) in November 2007 at lv65... and that she was part of a Championship winning team in both LeafGreen/FireRed AND Diamond/Pearl.

Is this somebody's precious, hand-trained fighter? Why would they toss her aside for a junky Magcargo? Did somebody's older brother get ahold of their game and trade out all their favorites? I feel dirty participating in this. Nelly, if you want your Kangourex back, please send me an email. I'll send her back with a free Leaf Stone.

TIME	BADGES	POKEDEX SEEN
MONEY	SCORE	POKEDEX OWN

Look at how those stats have jumped in the month since Pokemon Ranch came out. Almost fifty more hours of Pearl playtime. Pokedex +140. Another five thousand points to the score, as if I had any clue how that is computed. And my money is dropping (somewhat) because I have to keep paying the daycare lady as I shuffle monsters in and out of her poke-hookup center.

Like it says in the screenshot above, there's no end to Pokemon. At least, until I get 491 in the Pokedex. Which is really close. I think the biggest challenge will be locating the Gold/Silver starters.