I have all 8 badges and am ready to face the elite four so that I may become A POKEMON MASTER! But before going to Victory Road I've decided to hunt down the pokemon of the lakes. I really want that National Pokedex, but as it turns out, I have to complex the entire Sinnoh Pokedex beforehand! And as it turns out, in Platinum the pokedex is 210 pokemon. The good news is I don't have to *catch* all 210, just view them. From what I've read you can view all 210 from just doing all the trainer battles, but the legendary pokemon do have to be caught. I've caught Azelf and Uxie, but of course to make things hard Mesprit runs around Sinnoh. So I've been spending the past 4 days tracking it down like I'm some really lame big game hunter. I will swear on my dying breath that when Mesprit breaks out of the Ultra Ball when it does its little animation it is mocking me.

False Swipe is the most awesome attack ever. I've been trying to train a Scizor to be able to lower Mesprit to its last life point, the problem is Scizor is *stupidly* slow. It's attack is boss awesome, being it's level 40 and its attack is 130, but its speed is only 78, and Mesprit's speed is 80. I am tempted to catch a new Scyther and train it, but I'm not sure it will be worth the time, because even if I end up using False Swipe on Mesprit it doesn't guarantee I'll catch it on 1 life point. They seriously need to include more Master Balls in these games. One does not cover the *massive* amount of legendary pokemon this game has. It should be at least 1 Masterball for every 4 legendary pokemon, considering the original red and blue had 4 legendary pokemon (Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres and Mewtwo) whereas Platinum has Giritina, Uxie, Mesprit, Azelf, Heatran, Cressalia, Dialga and Palkia--and that's not counting the legendary birds you get after the National Pokedex. That should be at least 3 right there. I have a Masterball, but if I use it on Mesprit that means having to face those last four pokemon with only Ultraballs. Good luck to me on that.

Also am I the only one who thinks that Volkner is really cool? He's like a pouty Lt. Surge (speaking of which have you noticed how similar those two look, I wonder if it's coincidence or if they are related). His pokemon though know some really unfair moves--like his Luxray knowing Ice Fang. Brutal. And I think it is just plain wrong for a Raichu to know Dig. Well, my Houndoom knows Solarbeam so I shouldn't win too much.

Now back to hunting Mesprit *straps on the khaki*