Anxiety Milkshake With A Bunny On Top

Persona 3 Portable

2012-01-03T08:00:00.001-05:00

I am certainly not a stranger to the Persona series, and had already played Persona 3 on my ps2 about two years ago. I’m going to let you know now that what I am reviewing is what I have played of p3p so far as the fmc Minako. Also. I’m listening to the “During the test…” music from the game because it makes me feel productive :D

The Persona franchise made by Atlus is usually composed of the same elements: teenagers fighting while also attending school. In Persona 3, you are the main character who has just arrived to Port Island. You’ll be starting school at Gekkoukan High School. Oh. And you’re parents have been dead for awhile. So yeah, no parental issues. Normal main character. However, as you start school, you begin to realize not all is as it seems, and you soon figure out there is an hour hidden after midnight called the Dark Hour. You, with your high school club known as SEES, must figure out the mysteries of the Dark Hour, the Shadows that appear during the Dark Hour, and the odd place known as Tartarus where the Shadows nest. But don’t worry. You just have to do all this AND catch a few dates while studying as well.

I ran across p3 from a review on X-play, and of course, not listening to them decided to buy the game. Boy. Was I RIGHT not to listen to them. This game has it all. The RPG element is clearly there, as how you interact with people truly does determine how much time it takes for you to progress in a relationship. Then there is a good battle system in which tactics take priority rather than brute strength. There are also other qualities to this game that make it the masterpiece it is: The music composed by Shoji Meguro with vocals by Yumi Kawamura make me so excited about my days, I can’t stop listening to it! The catchy jazz and impressive rapping skills just catch my breath. The story itself is very complex, with multiple twists and gasp moments that will seriously make you consider life itself as you go through this journey with characters you quickly learn to love. God knows I still think about that ending to this day.

However, that is the general review of the game, and I am here to review the portable version. So, on to it I go!!!

I immediately was excited to hear there was an fmc for the portable version, simply because I was a girl and just wanted to get into Shinji’s pants. However, I was a little skeptically when I started going through the game. It seemed they added a few stereotypical comments at the end of the normal conversations from the original game and that was it. An example would be when Ikutsuki adviced me to go to bed, and then finished with “You wouldn’t want to ruin your complexion.” I thought this would happen the entire game, in which case I would have been seriously disappointed in it. Not to mention how differently Junpei treated me now that I was a girl (“You pick her to be the leader??? But, she’s a girl!” omg Junpei come over here, I’ll show you why he picked me over you >:|) However, this quickly changed as they integrated more qualities of a girl into the story development. While I’m never one to like Yukari, I actually got to understand her better as a gal-pal than I ever did as her boyfriend when I was the guy mc (Just TRY talking to her while in a relationship, she is SO ANNOYING.) Also, despite how differently Junpei treated me, I got to learn about his past quicker than I did as the male mc. The story really does change a bit when interacting with people as a female character. I got a new friend from my athletics club, and apparently all the boys want me. Oh boy, which one should I pick??? lalala AKIHIKOSHINJIROAKIHIKOSHINJIRO.

Hahaha, now to get back on subject, let’s go into the fighting gameplay. While in Tartarus, it’s the same deal as before: you go in and fight some baddies until you reach a block, in which you’re finished fighting until the Full Moon battle. However, some of the gameplay has been changed because this is a newer version of the original p3. I’ve also played Persona 4, so I noticed right away how they incorporated some of the battle style from p4 into p3p. You have double team attacks, and when you or an enemy gets knocked down, it doesn’t take a whole turn to get back up. You can also get dizzy if they hit your weak point twice, and vice versa for the enemy. There is also a nifty thing where you can take command of your allies during battle to choose their attacks, which I love OH SO MUCH. Yukari will no longer be acting stupid, thank you very much :D

As this is on the psp, some graphics have been changed. While moving around the island during the day, you no longer get to see your person running about and talking to people. And when events happen, it really is similar to a story-telling game in which you see the scenery, but don’t actually see what is going on. The text tells you if characters move or do some sort of action, but mostly it’s up to the imagination. I’m torn by this, because I was so used to seeing what was happening in the original p3. I quickly adapted though. Plus, it’s much easier to run around town by simply pressing square and choosing where to go.

The new music made just for the fmc is amazing. At first, I totally missed the old music, but once again I adapted and once again couldn’t wait to go to school (That music just makes you WANT to go to school… in game XD) Anyhow, what music I REALLY WANT TO MENTION is the fmc battle music. I love that music. The second I hear it play I went to my comp and downloaded it onto my ipod. Just hearing “I’m not a princess, not a cutie-girlfriend oh no…” made me smile and go “Yeah. That’s awesome.” And then when Misturu threatened Junpei with basically “If you even dare to think about looking down on her just because she’s a woman…” I was all like “Boy. YOU JUST GOT TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLD OH SNAP >:D”

Needless to say, Persona 3 is an amazing game, and p3p just adds on to how amazing the storytelling and gameplay is incorporated. Whether girl or boy, you will enjoy yourself with this exceptional game of high caliber.

Star Ocean. . . Apparently This is The Third one :p

2011-07-26T17:31:00.002-04:00

Lol, so as I said before, I got Nel back, and I switched to the second disc. Everything is going haywire, people died, and a few questions were left unanswered. By now, I needed to know. Who is Fayt? Why did his father become such a douche? Did they really do all this on purpose? and, most importantly, why did he do it? These questions baffled me, so of course, as Fayt, I left to consult with someone in the military. Cuz that makes so much sense. Haha. To be honest, I've already played waaaaay past this point before, even so far as to the last boss fight, but I wanted to start over and relive the entire experience. I already know the answers to my questions, but it is quite fun to pretend im as oblivious as a nacho cheese pigment within my couch. Which totally doesnt have nacho cheese on it, I swear. Besides,I dont even like nachos all that much. In hindsight, shouldnt it be "Nachoes" instead of "nachos"? Whatever.
As I am acting to be surprised, I go off to talk with the military commodore with the giant earring in an awkward place on his ear. He's black too. And likes to repeat everything I say. And not believe me. Huh. And I used to think he was cool... well at least he's valiant. lols. While I was on his ship, everybody was so excited to see me, said I was the future and whatnot. I had to leave to go to Moonbase after our lil chat with the commodore, involving him talking a lot and me just listening. It was just the small details, nothing too extreme. Oh, Dr. Leingod had some frodoing research, we already searched Moonbase, how could kids find some hidden research when we couldn't find jack. He still let us go, which was pretty cool of him when you think about it.
When I got to Moonbase, I couldn't help but remember what would happen. And I cringed. Because an annoying girl would show up that was in the beginning of the game and I dislike her voice. Her voice is like tiny needles diving into the back of my soul, screaming "BUT I WANT TO COME WITH YOU" and frodo frodo frodo. God, it isn't even funny anymore. At first I could laugh it off, saying things such as "Oh that Square enix, you just couldn't help yourself. Just HAD to have an annoying girl character huh?" Yknow, the Yuffie joke. Which is kinda ironic, cuz I liked Yuffie...
I'm straying from the subject again XD
After all the events of Moonbase, I finally figured out why frodo Leingod did what he did to his son, Maria, and even Sophia. However, I still dont approve of him. He clearly has bad parenting skills. I believe a social worker would have taken Fayt away had he realized what he did. Btw, does ANYBODY ELSE NOTICE That Fayt and Maria both have blue hair? Am I the only one thinking what I'm thinking here?!
Forget it. Clearly, people in this game just don't have that much sensibility. and I BARELY MAKE SENSE HALF THE TIME ANYWAY!!!!
Seriously though, back to the story!
When I got back from moonbase, all of a sudden people stared at me funny and just basically said "We're all gonna die" cuz APPARENTLY, in the short time I was gone, the Executioners just sorta took over and started annihilating world after world, starting with the Vendeeni. haha. I disliked the Vendeeni anyway, simply because they thought they could hide from the Executioners. But, the point is, nobody believed I was a secret weapon, and well, I was determined to prove them wrong. So I told Commodore Earring to take me to Styx, where more mysteries could be solved.
and... well... some shiz went down, ok?
To be continued....

Eden of The East

2011-07-14T21:47:00.003-04:00

Sigh. Well. I watched the second movie. And I had a huge amount of-
Oh wait. I should give more detail huh? Haha silly me, I was just so hung up and my emotions went all over the place after watching this movie. Lalala story time story time! STORY. TIME.
About a month ago, I was siting in my bed, awoken by my cat at 8:30. After feeding him, and realizing I can't go back to sleep that easily, I chose to go through some of the anime on ON DEMAND. And lo and below, I pass by a title called eden of the east.
Huh. Where have I heard this name before? I looked through my dusty filing cabinet called a brain, and finally I hit the jackpot. There was a movie at katsucon premiering with that name!!!! I still had the flier with me too. It looked so interesting but I didn't have a chance to see it. Too much goes on at cons and it can make the head spin XD but I have never been one to keep up with the mainstream. It felt exciting to me to watch a very recent anime, so immediately I chose to watch the episode. There wasabout four if the episodes on there, meaning I could a big portion of it. Lol. Man. Was I in for a series.
As the tv blazed, filled with color, and sound spewed from the speakers, I watched a modern opening with a very unusual song. The colors splashed all around, then characters appeared. The beginning of the actual show took place in Washington, dc. In america, which would explain why I would see much diversity within the first five minutes.. and no japanese people until witness a cute girl watching the white house. And suddenly, there usa cute girl main character on the scene.
And then a naked main character with a gun and a phone shows up.
And the show truly begins.
Eden of the east is an anime about a man named takizawa who meets a girl named saki. By chance, causing his and her world to intertwine forever. Takizawa has wiped his memory, remembering nothing of him being a noblesse oblige. He is a part of a game, in which (SPOILER ALERT FOR THOSE WHO JUST STARTED)contestants must use one billion yen to make japan a better place (SPOILER ENDS HERE)
this anime is unique because its rather unconventional. The girl character saki, while still somewhat dependent, tends to contemplate in a profound way that makes me think about life. She is also struggling concerning dependency, which I can relate to. While I also find how she chose to believe in her guts that believed takizawa is a good person admirable, I find it even more admirable how she does not act before thinking in many situations. She understands that there are many mysteries about him, and that what he figures out he js not revealing. She immediately chooses to figure things out herself, and I really respect that in a woman. Its smart. Her outlook on how adults view the younger generation also makes me respect her.
Now, on to the main character. Akira takizawa, the Hawt Hawt HAWT eye candy main character of the series heh. I absolutely adore takizawa because despite the mystery surrounding him, he doesn't make it a big deal. Heda pretty personable guy, happy go lucky, and calm. He makes bad jokes, smiles a lot, and... well he doesn't have anything to be embarrassed about. I mean, he frodoing first appearance was NAKED. Needless to say, he has a good sense if justice and what is right and wrong, even in a japan that is portrayed as corrupt. I like him a lot, and almost everyone can see the potential he has :)
The animation is absolutely beautiful: its a recent anime, so the style is similar many up and coming animus of the twenty first century. Shadowing it distinguished, coloring is modern, yet it has a simplistic feel. NOT a shoujo Manga style. No huge huge eyes or sparkle things, not too showy, but at the same time catches the eye. I like this style that seems to be the most popular. It makes me proud to know that kids today can appreciate the simple style. What's more respectful is that they take advantage of the technology we have today to enhance the style rather than overwhelm it eden of the east features a lot of cg involving very normal actions, like zooming across a hallway or a car driving across town. Though I personally felt there was more cg in the beginning of the series and then slowly disappeared by the end, what they used it for seemed to work well. Now saying that, I have to say how much I hate cg. I always thought it just wasn't necessary from the first time I ever saw it. Which was in avatar the last airbender. But anyway.
I just loved eden of the east. The combination of characters and stories and animation was just great chemistry. Man. The total series contain eleven episodes, along with two movies continuing from the episodes. The second movie is the true final ending. And while I want to spoil the ending, I wont ;) please enjoy this beautiful series, I highly recommend it!

Star Ocean: NEL IS IN MY PARTY YES

2011-07-14T13:37:00.003-04:00

It's a party in here yo. Alright, so I have gotten to the second disc of the game, and I derped up XD ill explain, but first I gotta tell you what is going on without entirely spoiling the story.
For the most part of disc 1 there is a certain underdeveloped planet you'll be spending most of your time in. Because of this, you are not allowed to mention how far more advanced you are technologically. Because of this, and no real communications to your technological world, you get to start to feel as though you really are a part of the world. I personally loved Nel zelpher who was basically the first real leading female characters in the game. Sophia in the beginning is basically a kidnapped love interest, go frodoing figure, and Fayt's mother isn't so important until about the second disc. Nel is independent, strong, confident, intelligent, and takes surprises with a calm stride. She is also beautiful, but what makes me love her the most is probably the fact that she prefers her job over men. In fact, I don't even think she cares about these guys XD lol
anyhow, by the end of disc two, a final showdown in this underdeveloped planet went on between this world and a certain entity I am not allowed to disclose without flashing a spoiler alert :p
after this, I excitedly put in disc two, to find that I had to leave the planet. And I was like, ok. Cool. I liked the place, but I guess im ready to move on.
and then I remembered.
Nel.
Nel.
I WAS GONNA HAVE TO LEAVE NEL!!!!!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Well, I sobbed, and after awhile I got over the fact that I would just have to deal with having only muscle head hotly, main character, and girl who is small and gun savvy. Sigh. Ok. I was over it then. I was on a ship, it was all futuristic and Hawt,I was all excited to be on this new adventure. But suddenly, im whisked back to the underdeveloped planet.
Here's where I was all derpy and failed XD
before I went back to the underdeveloped planet, I was given the option to move around, save my game, yknow. Normal stuff. Which was rather great, because I needed some items and healing. And as I mentioned, I had two characters left at my side, which is also fine because im only allowed three characters in battle. Normally, I would use maria from the three, but this time I chose to just leave it with Fayt, who was automatically assigned the leader. So I didn't bother going to the menu to do anything. So I went back to the planet, turns out we were tricked, and we have to fight a mini boss fight. I was all like, lols no problem, I still got three level 32 chars.
And then I got to the fight.
And only Fayt was in my party.
..........
To be continued....
Ps. The moral of this story is to always save your game, and to check your menu and party members CAREFULLY.

STAR OCEAN: TILL THE END OR CLOSE TO MINIMAL AMOUNT OF MP

2011-07-12T12:31:00.002-04:00

So, I promise to make an X-men Legends continuation blog post sometime in the future, however, I have been playing this really good game that I seriously gotta talk about. Gather round kiddies, this tale will be sure to wet your whistle for awhile XD
Around the beginning of my senior year, I realize that I will be moving away by the end of the year and starting a new life in college. Granted, Ill be bringing my PS2 with me, an as a gamer my feelings for my games will never change, and will influence my life for the rest of my time at college, and forever for that matter. For example, every time I make a new friend and spend time with them, I think to myself "... social rank level increase!" and when I was visiting my college, I couldn't help but think of it like a mini Aquaria. And then, whenever I'm feeling down I just think of Kingdom Hearts, and what would Sora do? All of these are references to different games, each one I have been obsessed with in some point in time. So I decided, in honor of these games, I must finish all of them by the time I go to college. I won't have as much time for games when I get to my classes and homework, so I should at least respect them enough to finish them.
It has been a long year, much has happened, but slowly and enjoyingly enough, I was able to finish game after game. First it was Final Fantasy X, a tear-jerking ending to be sure (ignore all that eagle has said), next my loving boyfriend bought me Xenosaga episode III of the three game saga, and I finished that as well. The ending left me feeling funny, because it was meant to be six games but they had to pack it all into one final game, and it just felt complete but not complete at the same time. oh, KOS-MOS, I'll always love you!!! And of course, my beloved La Pucelle Tactics, also bought by my boyfriend, was a satisfying ending that made me flail about in a most unconventional way. Each game, I shall honor it with a post as well, but give me time kids. For now, settle on the last game I have not finished yet, but am in the process of finishing.
Star Ocean: Till The End of Time, is an older game by Square enix that takes place in the future. It's about a boy named Fayt who must rescue his parents and childhood friend Sophia from the Vendeeni who kidnapped them. However, as he travels between worlds, things get in the way, and some people know more about him than he may know about himself. For this game series, Square chose to take an anime style approach, thus making the graphics somewhat bulky and odd. However, for the time it was made, they are decent enough. Music is ok, battle system is decent enough, but I gotta say. The environmental graphics are rather amazing. It is so creative how much detail they put into describing each world, especially the third world you visit in which a war is raging on between two countries. There's religions, humanoid species, history behind every land, and locations of each world. We have deep character descriptions, and it stays true to an rpg. The way you talk to some characters in certain points in the game will decide how much of each character's ending you get to see by the end of the game. It also decides who will join your party in a later point in the game. This is two discs, the storyline being so complex they kinda had to have two discs. Saying that, I have to complain a bit about the battle system. It is somewhat of a fast battle system, in which you use circle or X as your fighting buttons. There is a menu in which you can use magic, called symbology in this case, and you have hp and mp. or is it sp? well, you get the jist of it. Now, you're allowed to choose which character you want to play as, but the rest are automatic. I am perfectly fine with that. However, you can choose their battle style, making strategy a part of the game. Except, there is no choice to conserve mp!!! so in the middle of a fight I got Maria just shooting out mp like there's no tomorrow, but when it hits that yellow color of halfway to a quarter mp left, she runs off the screen and hides!!!! so I'm forced to use some time to give her a blackberry, which restores mp, on her!! DO YOU KNOW HOW ANNOYING THAT GETS AFTER DOING IT THREE TIMES WITHIN FIVE MINUTES OF A FIGHT????
Actually, other than that, I have no other complaints about this game. but the halfway point dramatic turn in the storyline was pretty bogus. I guess it was supposed to make us look at ourself, but in my case i felt as though they were running out of material and had to go with the most obvious but never truly spoken thing of all. Fayt is like a whiny lil brother, but I adore him cuz he always complains and thinks he knows everything when he knows nothing :D Nel is my favorite, forevermore, no matter what. She is what I want to be when I grow up.
An, that's it for now. Thanks ladies and germs for listening in on my flail whale tale!!!!!

HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF BEANS

2011-07-10T20:36:00.004-04:00

Hello kids, I believe I haven't written a post in quite some time, but not to worry! This is a juicy one, as so much has gone on in my absence of this blog. For now, I will help you all out with a review on Harry Potter and the chamber of secrets, for the ps2 for six bucks that my glorious eagle in the sky bought and let me play with her yesterday.
Now, when i first got the text from eagle that I would be coming over, she had already been playing the game, and from what I heard from her, "They all look really weird, the voice acting sucks, and everyone is obsessed with beans!!!" crazy, right? Well, as I have been one to go against that silly eagly who prefers logic over the greatness that is illogic, I had to play this game for myself in order to prove her wrong. Because doing that is fun :D
But, unfortunately, I was unable to do that.
Because, for once in her life, eagle was right.
I know, craaaaaaaaaaazy, right?
Sigh.
Siiigh.
SIGH.
This game was made in 2002, and as the title says, its about harry potter and the chamber of secrets. I have never been one partial to the books, they gave me a headache when i was younger and that just imprinted upon my memory. However, I did sit through the movie, and Eagle has told me a great deal about the books. As with games based on books or movies or both in this case, one would assume that the storyline would be roughly the same as said movie or book or both.
hahaha.
hahahahahaha.
UGH.
This game, as CRAZY as it is, went so far off the plotline that even I knew it was wrong. AND I NEVER READ THE BOOKS. Eagle told me before I came over and played myself she had to, as harry, fight the Weasley's washing machine. She was so offended by this, and i asked her "Oh my flavored eagle, why do you rage so?" and she replied "Because, young and fruitful mother, this was NEVER IN THE BOOKS. THIS DID NOT TRULY HAPPEN." and I thought "Oh dear."
But wait. It gets worse.
Apparently, the currency in this game is beans, ever flavored beans made from a guy who's name starts with a B, but I dont remember what his name was.
hold on, i'm looking for it online right now.
LOADING....
LOADING....
BERTIE BOTTS THATS WHAT IT'S CALLED!!!!
Hey, did I forget to mention how long it takes for each area to load? it's like a full two minutes, no music, and a still picture of hogwarts. It got really annoying when me and Eagle couldn't pass this one section of the game and had to restart the challenge over and over an over again. Plus, the challenged involved us mastering a certain spell expelliarmus that has been noted in the movie to be a disarming charm. However, in the movie its basically used to just reflect a spell back at an opponent. Eagle old me this was extremely wrong, and huffed and puffed and blew the house down!!! After all this crazy madness of wrongitude, an making harry potter fall off the edge of hogwarts (In which i felt deep pleasure from doing >:3), we turned off the game and played portal 2, in which I made eagle get angry in so many ways as well :D
Other things that should be mentioned about harry potter video game is that there is no cultural diversity in the game. Everybody is white. Well... there's this one kid where we can't tell if he's white or not, because the frodoing camera angles just can't give us a break. Oh yeah. camera angles. They suck!!! We get limited amount of control over them, each time we try to change them they go back to where they first were originally. it makes it rather difficult to be sneaky if we cant even see the target area we are supposed to go to!!! also, one highlight of the game I foun was how we have to be sneaky when we go out at night, because harry potter does all his mischevious things at night which totally breaks curfew. Even when he's trying to help his friends out, he never asks for help. How incredibly brave he is :D
That's all for now, this is naminesfriend, telling everyone to play a good THE GAME every once in awhile, and to go to bed earlier!

Bug's Freakin' Life

2011-02-14T10:47:00.000-05:00

So I was at a car dealership getting my car maintained and I was really intensely bored. So I played Bug's Life on my GBC.
After reading about that four jumps makes a a higher jump thing, I figured I'd try it out on that infernal mushroom that had been blocking my path. I want y'all to know that I died several times while trying to get up there. That freakin' bee just kept coming back after me! FINALLY by a stroke of luck I made it on top of the mushroom. There was nothing on the other side, so I figured a leap of faith was in order. I jumped down and straight into a pit of water. Really, guys? Really?
So I tried it again. I managed once again to get on top of the stupid mushroom, and I tried to make a leap of faith farther than I previously had. Oh yeah. I jumped right into an enemy. I tried to throw a nut at it but it didn't freakin' work! So I died again. I tried again. I died again. This kept happening until all of my lives were gone. I stared at that freakin' dead ant screen and just turned the damn thing off.
I ended up playing Zombie Farm on my iPod Touch. Now that there is a fun game. You get to grow zombies and attack various locales. You can also grow crops that you can sell for money. As you level, you unlock fun extra things like new zombies, new places to attack, and things that make life easier (like a Speed Monolith, which lets you farm faster).
One of the things I really enjoy about Zombie Farm is the names it gives your zombies. It doesn't let you name them, but gives them weird names like Bruno, Ick, Dirt, and Agatha. Exciting!
It's a game I only really play when I'm on travel or something, because it takes a lot of time to harvest, plow, and reseed a whole farm. Luckily, the game has some crops that don't wither, which enables me to let it sit for a week or a month and still have something to do when I return to the game.
I wish the ant in Bug's Life would become a zombie when it died. That might make the game more interesting.
Random picture of the day (from Purple Slinky):

Kanji would love this bathroom. It would make him feel macho.

~Pigeonmeister

SCOTT PILGRIM

2011-02-11T10:43:00.002-05:00

So, I'm on the newspaper at my high school, and all of a sudden my teacher tells me I need to write a review on Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, the movie. Now, I had JUST watched the movie, and was slightly peeved since I read the entire comic series first. But, I couldn't bash the movie, because as a movie on its own it was alright, plus who wants a bad review of a movie in the school newspaper? Basically, I had a censored article, which still managed to rock hard btw, and now I must have an article that is UNCENSORED.
Here it is. The UNCENSORED version of my Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World The Movie review.
Not so recently, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World came on DVD for viewers to enjoy. It's a crazy world in Toronto filled with color and action lines in the background. Not to mention evil ex-boyfriends blowing up and producing coins. How cool is that? Well, as someone who read the comic before watching the movie, I must say how disappointed I was it did not follow the comic series like I thought it would.
Here's a summary!
Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World is about a seriously fail and epic win main character named, wait! You guessed it, SCOTT PILGRIM! hahaha. I mean, seriously folks, what were you expecting the main character's name was? Billy Jean?
Oh geez. I'm off subject XD
Meet Scott Pilgrim, played by Michael Cera. He's a 22 year old jobless guy who plays bass in his band "Sex Bo-bomb". He can't stand his hair being shaggy, has a gay roomate that owns everything in the apartment (Including Scott), and he would rather not discuss he break-up issues. Scott's life is going pretty good when he suddenly meets the girl of his dreams, literally, in his dreams. Now Meet Ramona Flowers, played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, subspace extraordinaire. She's a delivery girl for Amazon, and sometimes during her deliveries she takes a short cut in subspace, which sometimes includes passing through Scott's dreams. Oh. Are you asking what subspace is? I'm sorry, nobody explains it in this movie. Anyway, Ramona has a few qualities of her one, much like Scott has his own distinguished ways. She changes her hair every week or so, has a subspace bag with a hammer among other things in it, and also has seven evil ex-boyfriends. Seven of whom Scott must defeat in order to be with Ramona. Oh. Well. At least Scott just so happens as to have epic fighting skills, and hey. It's all for the girl he loves(Or in Scott's case, the girl he is in "Lesbians" with XD.
The movie has a cartoon and game atmosphere all in one. It's really great. Noises have words come out in the air, like when the doorbell rings off screen you see the white letters "Ding Dong!" fade in and out on the side of the screen. It's really great. Wow, I just said "It's really great" in a paragraph twice XD Anyhow, this movie has a little something for everyone, which is why it makes it such a great Valentine's movie. It has hawt ninja action fights for the guys, hearts all around when people kiss for the girls, and +5 Balls for Scott. The movie is something people of all ages can enjoy, except maybe babies and grandparents or something. Though, it all really depends on the baby or grandparent I guess. Whoo. Even though this is seriously one hawt action, the purpose of the entire story is love, so it's the perfect movie for couples to laugh at and love at the same time. So happy relationships of all ages can laugh and root for Scott as he fails at life and learns a little something about love at the same time.
Now. How could a movie possibly accomplish all of this? Well, to be perfectly honest, it accomplishes little in comparison to the original comic series "Scott Pilgrim" which did all of what the movie did but even more. I was so sad when I saw the movie because it just mixed everything all up.
Please. Wait to comment till I finish this ladies and germs. As a movie on its own, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World is really good. The characters are extremely nonchalant, even when their world is so exciting, and yet they still manage to have personality and character development. You really begin to understand and relate and like the characters. I personally like Ramona in the film because she seems pretty smiley until yknow Gideon comes back and she becomes a total groupie. mrmrmr. Oh. and may I mention in the comics though, I preferred Kim, cuz she was just that cool.
aaagh. I'm getting off topic again XD
While the movie had such an amazing story and characters, all of that came from the original comic series by Bryan Lee O'Malley. Not just that, but the comic series was much longer and had even more story that explained just a little more than the movie. We at least know what subspace is in the comic. Now, I understand that a movie can't possibly get 6 volumes all in 2 hours. But they freakin disappointed me. Not just because it wasn't exactly the comic series, but because they set me up for the disappointment. The first like twenty minutes of the movie was exactly like the comic series. I was so excited because the dialogue was even the same, and I was in awe to see it all come to life like that. And then, suddenly after the first evil ex was defeated, they completely went off base. It was like "Yknow, I didn't realize until like a few hours of shooting that we AREN'T gonna be able to do it just like the comics. So we'll just smoosh it all together in an odd way." What were you thinking Edgar Wright? Can I just say that I didn't even LIKE Hot Fuzz??? And I NEVER Want to watch Shaun of The Dead. So Take THAT Edgar Wright!
Getting back to the plot. After seeing how the sequence of things were a bit odd with the second evil ex, I realized it was unreasonable to think they could do the comic series in one go. So I let it go, and enjoyed the movie as it was. I really liked how they used the original comic strips when explaining how Ramona met some of her evil exes. That was really clever and it made me smile. I thought "Oh, yknow, this movie is pretty good. I'm not angry at the director anymore."
AND THEN ENVY SHOWED UP. AND IMMEDIATELY AFTER THAT, GIDEON SHOWED UP. AND I WAS ANGRY ALL OVER AGAIN. GAAAAAAAAAAH.
Envy Adams was a really important character, especially when it came to Scott and his relationship with Ramona as well. They barely spent any time with her at all, and didn't make her as intimidating as I imagined. In fact, I thought she was kinda like a dominatrix stalker. Not to mention the fact that they didn't even INTRODUCE the drummer in her band and the whole situation there. I was so looking forward to that!!! and, Immediately after Scott defeats Todd, Envy is dropped COMPLETELY. I was like, Frodo what???? WHAT????
Oh I was so angry. But ohhhhh hohoho no, wait. They couldn't just throw Envy, a seriously important character, out on the curb. They had to mess Gideon's sequence up too. That was just wrong. Gideon was the last evil ex, so his part should have been worked on the most to being accurate. Not only did they mess up the story by having Ramona go back to him, which DIDN'T HAPPEN IN THE BOOKS, but it didn't even include the psychological affects that Gideon had on Scott. Heck, they didn't even include all the back story for Scott's exes!!! Gaaaaah! NOT ONLY THAT. They completely rewrote the ending fight so Knives Chau could finally get her lil part in the story in. They made her even more important than she really was! oh geez!!! Wait, I was focusing on Gideon. . . Yeah! They tried to portray him as a seriously evil messed up dude, which he totally was, but they forgot to mention that emotionally he also needed Ramona and it was an obsession. This was noted when he was surprised, in the BOOKS, that Ramona wasn't with Scott. He didn't know where she was, and that really kinda threw him off balance. That transitioned to Scott relating to Gideon. But that wasn't even included in the movie!!! oh. AND KIM'S IMPORTANCE WAS TOTALLY OVERLOOKED AS WELL! wfb hhubdfjbneds
Sigh. But all in all, the special effects were amazing, some of the character development was really good, most of the dialogue and fights were hawt, and also the cast was actually fantastic. I didn't imagine Kim to be quite like that, but picking Michael Cera as Scott was pure genius. That, and Mary Elizabeth was perfect for Ramona, it was like she was made to play that part. Needless to say, if you haven't read the comic series, I recommend watching the movie and thinking it's the greatest thing in the universe.
But after watching that movie, my final order for you is to read the comics so they can BLOW YOUR FREAKIN MIND BUDDY.
*Warning!* Reading Scott Pilgrim may cause the following symptom to appear gradually, and stay permanently:
Lame comebacks very similar to Scott's.
XD

Terminator: Salvation

2011-02-04T12:15:00.000-05:00

Recently, I watched the first Terminator movie, because I was bored, and my family owns the first and second movies on VHS. Eventually I'll watch the second one. But so far, the first movie is all the Terminator I've seen.
When I was on a vacation to Wisconsin with my parents a few months ago, my dad and I went to Dave and Buster's because we were extremely bored. And there was this lovely game there:
Terminator: Salvation.
A lovely first-person shooter with two players and freakin' machine guns.
So yeah, we played it.
We spent like 50 bucks on this game, and didn't beat it. But we had a lot of fun, because this is one addictive game.
You play as John Connor (somehow, both people are John Connor. Idk.). You fight a whole bunch of Terminators and various other machines. There's a nice variety of enemies with different weaknesses and offensive capabilities. For instance, there are machines that shoot rockets at you. You can shoot the rockets, but this comes at the expense of killing the machine itself. Having two players is really, really helpful here. At one point, I was able to fight two of them off by myself (because my dad was off putting more points on our card), but that was very very difficult.
The graphics are pretty darn nice.
There are lots of opportunities to pick up better weapons and grenades, which are very clearly marked with a glowing green outline. I loved using the grenades. Robots go boom. Hehehe.
I don't get out and play arcade games very much, and I don't have a gun controller for either of my systems, so it was nice to be able to play a shooting game with a legit gun. This thing was huge, but managed to be comfortable to use. The buttons were well-placed, and it gave a small kick to involve you more in your shooting. While playing, I discovered that I was sort of ambidextrous with the gun, and often switched it from shoulder to shoulder.
My dad and I recently went to a different Dave and Buster's, this time near my house. We finished the game, and I got the 5th highest score on the machine. Rock, rock on!
So yeah. That's how we do.
I got the following image from a search for "Terminator cat". It's from Smosh.com.

Love, hugs, and stomped skulls,
~Pigeonmeister

The Slideshow freaks me out

2011-01-31T23:15:00.000-05:00

Yeah. That about sums it up :P

P4 Revisited

2011-01-31T12:15:00.000-05:00

Hokay, so Skynugget and I aren't as irritated by Persona 4 as we were when we first started. The camera angles are still a source of constant irritation, but we've discovered other aspects of the game that sort of brighten our days.
First of all, you can check the fridge every day. Most of the time there's nothing in there. However, sometimes there are random food (or non-food) objects that you can eat. Once, there was some mysterious grass in the fridge that might have been from the little sister's science project. We ate it. It was great XD
And then there was a slice of ham sitting all alone on a plate. We wanted to eat it, but the game said "Something about it disturbs you. You left it alone." XD
If little sister has gone shopping, you can make lunch for school tomorrow! If you do well, you can share it with your friends and improve your relationship with them. It's pretty great. You also get bait, which you can use for...
Fishing! You can go fishing, if you have enough Diligence, and it's lovely. We've caught 5 fish so far! You can either trade them to the old man for items or use them to restore the HP of your allies, but we haven't tried to do either yet. We hope feeding our allies raw fish doesn't have any ill effects XD
In Persona 3, your stats (like Academics, Charm, and Courage) really didn't have much to do with anything except unlocking ladies and getting good test scores. In P4, you have five attributes (Diligence, Understanding, Knowledge, Courage, and that other one I can't think of off the top of my head). These influence your ability to spend time with people, thus making it so that you can't only work on one friend at a time. They also influence what you can do and what you can say sometimes. Though this might sound irritating to someone who's not familiar with the game, it's actually a nice feature because it lets you pace yourself and forces you to balance between friendships and skills.
There are some lovely new characters and Personas in P4. Who doesn't love a mildly gay blonde macho guy in a bathhouse? This guy is currently our favorite character. The Personas are better balanced in this game, with some formerly crappy Personas getting a revamp (like Pixie being able to use Zio) and formerly godly Personas being more limited. Unfortunately, that last part applied to my former favorite Persona, Oberon- he wasn't nearly as useful this time around. I shall have to find a new favorite. There are also some nice new Personas with interesting skill sets and appearances.
P4 also gets more deeply involved in the personal lives and emotions of the characters. It's nice to have these deep, but not overdramatic characters.
The enemies that you encounter sometimes have similar appearances or features to those from P3, but their weaknesses often aren't the same as they were in the previous game. Some of them, like the Ravens, are still weak to Zio, but many more have no weaknesses, or at least ones that are unexpected. The analysis system in P4 also makes much more sense than it did in P3; P4 records the results of every type of attack you've tried against the enemy, rather than making you wait and then giving you everything.
We have found another character (other than Igor) who has transferred to P4 from P3: Tanaka! Here comes Tanakaaaaaaaaaaa Over the airwaves to youuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
Great happiness.
One thing that I have found supremely annoying that I didn't mention before is that Yukiko one of the main girl characters) laughs really annoyingly all the freaking time. She even laughs at things that aren't funny! GHH. But we have learned to just skip through her awkward laughter scenes, like I wish I could have skipped the FREAKING AWKWARD LAUGHTER SCENE IN FINAL FANTASY X.
So, in conclusion, concludingly, we like P4 a lot better now that we're into it. All of those little things that the programmers put in there have totally made our days better. Like the disturbing ham. So yeah. We'll keep updating as we play.
I searched "Persona 4 disturbing ham" and came up with this:

That's awful.

Merry afternoon.
~Pigeonmeister

Rant

2011-01-31T10:47:00.001-05:00

So, I played A Bug's Life today.
Let me backtrack and tell you the story of my history with this game.
Way back when I was like sevenish years old (according to my mom), I went to Wisconsin to visit some family. My mom's stepsister was just leaving her teenage years, and she had a Gameboy Color from her youth. I don't remember exactly how it went down, but I know I ended up getting my lovely yellow Pokemon edition Gameboy Color, Pokemon Yellow, and this hideous piece of carp called A Bug's Life.
Mrmrmrmrmrmrmrmr.
All I remember about the first time I played this garbage is that I really, really hated it. I think I only played it once or twice before I put it in my drawer o' stuff and left it to sit there for years while I played Pokemon.
So of course, when I finished Pokemon Blue (finally, after years of giving up in the freaking Seafoam Islands), I figured I'd take another look at the game that made me really really angry.
I wish I hadn't.
The first thing I noticed when I turned on this bucket of kitten poo was that the graphics on the credits looked really, really nice. It was all swirly and sparkly and stuff. "Ooh!", I said to myself, "what have we here? Could I have been wrong all those years ago? Could this be a legit game?"
No.
NO.
The main menu didn't look as good as the initial credits, but still looked passable. Then, there was this hideous purple screen that explained the story. so, my apprehension mounting, I started playing the game.
It didn't let me enter a name, so I couldn't be "Butt$". I couldn't help but feel that I would have been marginally happier with everything had I been able to name my character Butt$, but oh well.
MHHH
So. Basically, this piece o' fiery pigeon is a side-scrolling sort of walking around game. You play as Flik the ant, who walks really freakin' slowly and has a crap jump. You can pick up berries or nuts or something and throw them at enemies, but it's really easy to run out of those, since they're hard to come by. It also doesn't help that the button with which you throw the nuts (B) is the same as the button you use to run, so if you're running into something, you can waste all your nuts (hehe) on a log.
The graphics are... between awesome and mindblowingly suckish. The vines and ground are pretty well detailed. The ground is even kind of amusing at times, because you can see occasional fish skeletons and stuff in it. However,
So I kind of stopped here before the power outage. Luckily, it saved. Now, like 5 days later, I am going to finish the post XD
However, the sky is just plain... cyan. No clouds, no birds, nothing interesting at all! The only bit of unusable scenery is the dandelion, which just sort of waves around.
It's not too difficult to tell where items are and what you can walk on, but it is horribly difficult to actually get onto things. At the end of the first level, there's this mushroom next to an upright, huge-leafed vine. I thought that this jump would be easy, since it was already established that you can jump on the leaves of the vine. However, I just couldn't get on the freakin' mushroom! I tried and tried, but it just didn't work. I swear I jumped THROUGH the mushroom a few times! Irritated, I turned to the Internet. It turns out that every fourth jump is extra high. Wow. I never would have figured that out on my own. Seriously! Thank you, TehY2kar)~!
By the time I found this little nugget of information, I had turned off the game in disgust and left it on a random table in my basement. I haven't yet gone back to it to try the tip, but I will soon. I will finish this infernal game!
But seriously, why create a stupid little feature like that, especially with objects that it looks like you can just jump onto? Come on! Don't make me look silly just standing there jumping! Is this some sort of reference to the movie? Granted, I hated the movie when I was a kid (I hated most Disney movies. And actually most movies in general), so I will probably not know if various features of the game are related to the movie or not. Maybe I should rewatch the movie to form a proper review. Maybe I will, if I'm bored enough. I think I have it on VHS.
Picture of the day: That horrible plot explanation screen. I didn't take this picture, because whenever I try to take pictures of my Gameboy I end up with weird reflections. So I got this from the picture section for the game on GameFAQs.

Have a good day.
~Pigeonmeister

Color Theory

2011-01-30T11:59:00.001-05:00

I haven't been on here since the dawn of time, so I would like to take time, instead of rebutting everything that crazy woman eagle says, to talk to you about something related to my life but totally not related to this blog. An artist called Color Theory :)
Color Theory, Baby!!!!
Color Theory is an artist classified as electronic indie pop. His name is Brian Hazards, and he started taking music lessons when he was 13. apparently he thinks that's late lol, but I don't care because heck, this music is great. Anyhow, he is a nerd and amazing, with 8 albums out, but he doesn't have a record label. He feels being free like he is now makes the music come better. He's pretty interactive with his fans, I sent him a comment on his youtube page, and the next day I got a friend invite from him! Most of his music is on itunes and pretty official, but some of it he just puts online for the fun of it, and some he even allows download for free!
Oh, but I've babbled enough about the guy himself, though he is a very polite and sweet guy. Let us move to the music!
The first song I ever heard from him was "If It's My Time to Go" and immediately I knew this artist wasn't like any other I had ever listened to. Not only were the lyrics blunt and poetic, they were also honest and sweet. He wasn't harsh with his words, yet by the end of the song I could feel the emotion build up in my chest because accompanied with the soft but powerful piano, the song was perfect. I recently made an amv that can be linked HERE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfvfJOoL0cc
A lot of his music is like that. However, sometimes he isn't as sweet as this song. The most important factor is that he is always honest with what his feelings are with the song. If he thinks a relationship isn't going to last, he will say so, no beating the bush. There is vivid imagery in a lot of his songs, like in the one "We're Not Getting Any Younger" He specifically recalls a time when it was thundering and he stood with a girl on the top of a lifeguard tower. Man, so detailed and romantic, but he doesn't dramatize any of it, he just makes it come off in that romantic way. The elctronic pop, which i would find annoying in such emotional songs, actually benefit Color Theory. It all matches up so well, I couldn't imagine any element of the songs be removed.
Ok, so the album art kinda freaks me out, but I think's its supposed to be modern "You can't understand it" kind of art. He is not mainstream, so he can have whatever artwork he wants haha. He doesn't have a label either, so he doesn't have someone in his ear going "This looks too weird for the masses!"
Since he is indie, that means he's a bit more unique then everything on the radio lately. But that doesn't mean he's bad or good, it just means he's a different kind of sound, and I just so happen as to adore his sound. Somepeople must also, because one of his songs hit rockband, and that song is pretty good. It's called "If Not Now When" and while there is a small part that rythmically bothers me a bit, I still love the song.
In conclusion, Color Theory has honest and beautiful lyrics, with the electronic piano beat that gets me right here *points to heart* I recommend listening to his album "The Thought Chapter" and his most recent one "The Sound" Ok, NAMINESFRIEND OUT!

Well, that was exciting

2011-01-29T10:53:00.002-05:00

So we got this huge snowstorm that blew out our power for about 20 hours...

Pokemon Blue, I Love You! (Part 2)

2011-01-24T17:26:00.000-05:00

I finished Pokemon Blue today. =D
I beat the Elite Four (and my rival, whom I named Jerk) with the following:
-Lv. 50 Moltres
-Lv. 50 Zapdos
-Lv. 40 Ivysaur
-Lv. 40 Aerodactyl
-Lv. 40 Hypno
-Lv. 40 Gyarados
Of course, pretty much all of them leveled up one during the course of the battle.
I was just going in there as a joke, I didn't expect to win...
It took me for freakin' ever to beat Lance's Dragonite. But I found that it seemed to have a crush on my Ivysaur- it wouldn't attack, but only use status increasing skills like "Agility". So I used Leech Seed and kept getting tiny amounts of HP off it with Razor Leaf. =D
Otherwise, it was pretty much a breeze. My Zapdos (whom I named after my calculus teacher, because he likes birds) was super helpful. One good "Thunder" per nemesis destroyed a whole bunch of Pokemon.
I love being super underleveled when I face a boss. It makes me feel more skilled. =D
Anyway, that's all. This is the first time I have ever beaten Blue version. =D
Next up: that stupid Bug's Life game I hate. I'll name my character Butt$.
~Pigeonmeister

This kind artist saved me the trouble of shopping something for this pun. Thanks!

Pokemon Blue, I Love You!

2011-01-24T12:10:00.000-05:00

My dear, sweet, darling Pokemon Blue:
Today, I woke up with my back hurting, and lying on the floor seemed to help. So I was like, "Well, I'll spend my day lying on the floor." But I soon got tired of looking at the ceiling. and I figured I could play Gameboy while lying on the floor.
So I started playing you, and it was wonderful. My Pokemon were leveling nicely. I was beating wild Pokemon left and right.
And then.
"A wild MAROWAK appeared!"
I couldn't believe it. I didn't even think that was possible. But there I was, on Victory Road, battling a wild Marowak.
I was fighting with my Aerodactyl (who is named Doc Poque, which I think Chelsea will enjoy). I used Fly, which took off about half of the Marowak's HP. This sort of scared me, because I wanted to catch this Marowak, darn it! So I used Wing Attack about five times, shaving off tiny bits of HP.
Then, I decided to use Swift. I figured it wouldn't do much harm, since it's usually weaker than Wing Attack. But it was a critical hit! I looked on in horror as Marowak's HP dropped. My heart beat faster, and I waited for the horrible proclamation that "MAROWAK fainted."
But it didn't come. The Marowak was still alive, with almost no HP! So I used an Ultra Ball, and waited with bated breath as the Pokeball shook, one, two, three times...
"MAROWAK was caught!"
...
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
YES
And ten I saved. And saved again.
So now I have a Marowak, and I'm going to name it Kamina, and we're going to kick butt together. I taught it Strength and Mega Kick, and it also has Bone Club and Focus Energy.
Here begins a new era of epic battling!
MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA
~Pigeonmeister
RPOTD, from halolz.com through worldbeyblade.org:

I searched for "epic Marowak" and got this...

The Camera Angles! AHH!!!

2011-01-22T11:20:00.000-05:00

So today, Skynugs (henceforth called "Mexwing") and I played Persona 4.
I was expecting freakin' greatness. Mang, Persona 3 is my favorite game in existence, and I will probably love it until the day I die.
Persona 4 is... mixed. There are some things I like, I suppose, but there's really a lot that I don't like.
Let's start with what I don't like, because quite frankly I like to complain.
1. CAMERA FREAKING ANGLES. In Persona 3, there was no camera angle problem. It was always just a moderately far-out shot of Main Character running around. In P4, the camera now seems to get stuck on walls, like it does in Kingdom Hearts. Also, sometimes it randomly zooms in and out. The old one was fine! Why did they change it!?!?! In the 6 hours we spent playing the game today, there were several times when I was trying to get the advantage on an enemy and ended up hitting it blind because I was getting some weird close-up of a wall!
2. Igor. So far, he seems to be the only character that has come over from P3. That would be fine with me, except that I swear some of his lines are reused. Even if they're not the exact same clips, they sure as hell sound almost exactly like all the stuff he told us in the beginning of P3.
3. The absence of Elizabeth. She's been replaced with Margaret, who looks slightly different, but somehow has a voice even more annoying than Elizabeth's. And she pronounces her s's weird on the phone. At one point, when she was explaining her existence to us, Mexwing was like "Shut up already! I'll do you at the end of the game!" (those weren't her exact words, but it was something like that).
4. The repetition and summarization of information. Everything you learn through dialogue in the game is repeated to you by other people, little summaries after each conversation, and usually notifications when you go places or do certain things. It's really irritating! By the time you've heard about the love triangle for what seems to be the fiftieth time, you're like, "Enough already!!!". P3 did a little bit of that, but not to an extreme. P4 takes it too far.
5. Initiative. In P3, it was pretty easy to get the advantage. In P4, it seems to be much harder to aim your sword and takes longer to recover from a swing, so you end up looking like a fool swinging the wrong way and the enemy gets the advantage (which means that all the enemy units get to go first, which can be devastating).
6. Cards. Before, in P3, it was pretty easy to tell their pattern and pretty easy to choose, because you moved the selector around. Now, in P4, the cards move around like electrons around an atom- sort of randomly, and really fast. You have to press X at the right time to select the card on top. It's pretty finicky.
7. So far, there haven't been any return points in the levels. That said, we've only made it to the fifth level of a castle, so that's not too different. I have a feeling it won't be like Tartarus, where it was one big-ass tower with floor bosses and return points. But it was really darn annoying to have to go back down all the stairs instead of being given an access point to return.
All of this said, there are some things I like about this game.
1. Some of the Personas I really liked (such as Angel) have been moved to P4 from P3. Pixie (generally one I never used because I thought she was useless) has even been upgraded, and can now use Zio (lightning) as well as healing. There are also some pretty cool new Personas. I'm interested to see just how many were moved over and how many were newly created as I progress through the game.
2. The battle system. It's got the same basic choices and things as P3's did, but it's better because you can control the actions of each character in your party. Also, it no longer takes a full turn for someone to stand up after it has been knocked down, so you don't get stuck with one character who's weak and always down. This is taking some getting used to for me, though- I used to knock and enemy down and make it take a turn to get up instead of attacking me.
3. The voices are pretty good, even though Vic doesn't have a part. When I was playing P3, I would always let Junpei talk even though I didn't always like what he was saying, just because it was Vic Mignogna's awesome voice! (I always clicked through Yukari's parts, though. Freakin' annoying pink-shirted chick.)
4. The graphics and areas are pretty nice, despite the camera angles.
5. Instead of giving you a difficult-to-see bubble over your character's head when he can look at something or talk to someone, a nice big message that says "X: CHECK" appears.
6. The characters are pretty good. You can see that some of them were drawn in the same style as the characters from P3, and some personality traits carry over, but the characters are mostly different and not direct ripoffs. Also, the main girl character, Chie, is not nearly as annoying as Yukari was in P3. While she does some whining, she also likes kung fu movies, kicks enemies to death, and has a pretty strong Persona (of the Chariot arcana, not the obvious Lovers).
7. All the little things. As in P3, there are lots of random little jokes and things (like being able to eat whatever food is in the fridge, and having the option to say things like "I think I'm about to cry" at totally inappropriate times) that make the game pretty enjoyable and exciting.
Finally, there are some things that mystify me.
1. There's one really really weird character: The Mysterious Bear, aka Teddie. He's this plush guy who performs the same function as Mitsuru (and then Fuuka) did in P3, but he makes weird puns and jokes, and he sometimes says bizarre things. He tends to make weird sound effects, like "*snrk*", and he is easily frightened.
All told, this game is pretty addictive, and a fairly good sequel to my beloved Persona 3. We played for 6 hours yesterday (I started this post yesterday and finished it today), and as soon as my dear Mexwing awakens, I'm going over to her place to play some more. We need to fuse our personas soon. Woo!
I'll update with more things I love and hate, and I'll write an overall review when I finish.
~Pigeonmeister
RPOTD:

That's someone cosplaying Yosuke from P4, in a trash can (which is one of the more randomly funny moments in the game so far). It's from deviantArt, but can be found by a Google search.

Midterms! Vectors! Anime Theme Music!

2011-01-20T11:00:00.000-05:00

Today is the second day (it was supposed to be the third, but a lovely inch-thick layer of sleet intervened) of midterms!
It's a chance to prove your knowledge! An opportunity to explore the depths of your brain and your SOUL, GURREN LAGANN!
It sucks.
I haven't had my really hard midterms yet- they're both tomorrow. The two I had today were super easy- Forensics and Computer Science. I finished both of them in half an hour, out of the 100 minute exam period. I've been spending my time after exams trying to do my Calc homework, and making a review sheet for the Calc midterm, and wondering when the Calc problem set is due...
Can you tell that I'm sort of kind of really worried about my Calculus midterm? I've gotten a C on every math midterm I've had since I entered high school. I'm not really sure if I can avoid the same fate this year. However, I am sort of studying, and trying to do my homework, and making lovely detailed study sheets, since we're allowed to have 4 sides of 8.5 x 11 paper with us during the exam.
Of course, my Calc midterm is tomorrow. First thing in the morning. Ghh.
I'm wearing my Mitsuru boots today. Day 2- my feet hurt, but it's not too bad. By the time the convention rolls around, I'll hopefully be used to them. I feel really awkward walking down the hallway in them. They're really loud, and I'm not steady enough in them yet to make a steady clack-clack sound. They make more of a "clack clack tap clack tap clop" sort of inconsistent sound. I can't quite frighten children with my shoes yet.
I do have a review-type thing coming out of this. Really.
Yesterday during my English midterm, I could not get the Soul Eater theme out of my head. It got a bit annoying and distracting at times, but I think I did okay. I love that song, though. It's so perfect for the series- from the fast pace, to the ringing bells, to the staccato , rough voice and the words. When I first heard it at the convention last year, I was immediately struck by how superbly perfect it was.
Another theme that I find absolutely fantastic is the theme for xxxHolic, 19sai by Suga Shikao. It's sort of dark, mysterious, and (time for a completely improper music term) wiggly. I don't really know how to describe it, exactly... I was never that good with music. I played flute for one lone year in fourth grade, then decided that I would never ever play an instrument again. This decision mainly came from the fact that I hated practicing, which still sort of happens to me- I detest studying and practicing things.
Back to anime theme music! For more popular series, there are often multiple theme songs. Naruto and Bleach, for example, have several. To me, this seems to have advantages, namely that you don't get sick of hearing the same old song over and over again. However, this practice also has a disadvantage in that sometimes really really awesome songs are replaced with ones that are far less awesome. For instance, I found "Hero's Come Back" from Naruto to be a pretty great song, and it kept me watching even as I was getting sick of Shippuden. Most of the other Naruto songs, though, (other than "Go") struck me as dull, uninspired, and even irritating.
Of course, some shows have theme songs that are entirely iconic and descriptive of the whole anime- Gurren Lagann's "Sorairo Days", for instance. I adore that song, and it's just so Gurren Lagann that it's wonderful.
I'm not going to talk about character themes here, partly because I'm running out of time (I'm still in Computer Science, lol), partly because I don't feel like it, but mostly because this post is too darn long already.
Ahh! I still have to find a Random Pic Of The Day! (frantically searches My Pictures folder)
Nothing there. (frantically searches Internet)

Aww, cute. This came up when I searched for "Random"...

Yep. There's a guinea pig in a Santa hat for ya.

Good day (adjusts monocle)

~Pigeonmeister

Review: Beyond the Law

2011-01-18T20:51:00.000-05:00

I'm always super excited to watch a film starring Lee Van Cleef (who I'll claim is cooler than Clint Eastwood 'til the day I die). Also, please don't mistake this movie for the 1992 film of the same name, though that really shouldn't be an issue seeing as they're completely different. But anyway...

At a Glance
"Beyond the Law" came out in 1968 and was directed by Giorgio Stegani. It stars Lee Van Cleef as quasi-bandit-I-guess Billy Joe Cudlip, Antonio Sabato as a heroic and seemingly naive European, and Gordon Mitchell as quite possibly the most laughably generic villain ever. Here is a brief summary brought to you by Wikipedia: "After robbing a stagecoach, Billy Joe Cudlip is determined to "go straight", and is named the new sheriff of Silverton. But does he really want the job -- or just access to the valuable shipments of silver?"

Story and Characters
The story of "Beyond the Law" is not the most unique thing in existence; it's essentially a bad guy's struggle between his morals and desire to get rich with his buddies. However, this does not take away from the quality of the storytelling. Van Cleef's character grows and changes when he meets other characters in the story and it is interesting to see how his relationship with his two friends changes from the beginning of the film to the end. That said, the end of the film was bittersweet and (spoiler alert maybe) inconclusive as to Cudlip's choice. The movie is pretty funny, not "Sabata" funny, but the characters are all somewhat exaggerated and share some goofy dialogue. It was also kind of neat to see Van Cleef as an illiterate and disheveled character, a type that I had not seen him play until this movie. As I mentioned earlier, the villain in "Beyond the Law" is very cheesy and over-the-top, but it fits the comical nature of most of the movie.

Filming and Locations
The production quality of "Beyond the Law" seemed pretty high. It's not super artistic, but it looks nice and doesn't have many (if any) visual hiccups that often run rampant in this genre. The fight scenes are a little unconvincing, but that's not a big deal.

Music
Nothing to make a fuss about either way. It fits the movie and that's all it really needs to do.

Overall
"Beyond the Law" starts off slow, but is an enjoyable experience. The characters are fun and the production is solid. Not a tough guy's Spaghetti, but still a good one.

Final Verdict: 4/5

Hot Fuzz Review for Clarinet

2011-01-17T13:28:00.000-05:00

Best part of the movie.

Since I shared my two favorite movies with Clarinet ("Quien Sabe?" and "Scarface"), it was only fair that she share hers with me. So, I present to you my take on Edgar Wright's "Hot Fuzz."

The first thing that I noticed about this film was the heavy use of fast cuts. I'm not familiar with Edgar Wright's other movies so I don't know if that's just his personal style or what, but it took me a few minutes to get used to them. I'm more used to slow pans, fewer shots, and zooms than the fast-paced filming here. That said, the style is very appropriate for "Hot Fuzz" because of its focus on humor and action. Now about the humor, critics have taken very different stances on how well the jokes actually work. This wasn't the funniest movie to me, but I felt it was at least consistent. I was chuckling throughout the film, so that's good enough for me. I think by watching the movie multiple times you may be able to pick up on more of the subtleties and references - which brings me to another point. Being familiar with cop shows and movies will probably make "Hott Fuzz" a lot funnier.
My favorite thing about this movie was the sort of absurdest humor thrown in, particularly with Timothy Dalton's character Simon Skinner. He had this creepy demeanor, similar to Daniel Day Lewis' portrayal of Daniel Plainview in "There Will Be Blood," but without being unlikeable. He was a terrible person, but still ended up being my favorite character because he was so...weird.
Plot-wise, "Hot Fuzz" succeeds in being a comedy, parody, action, and buddy film, but where it falls short are the small serious scenes that just sort of come out of nowhere. The pacing at the end of the film is also a little confusing, but I really don't know if it could have been done any other way if they wanted to have the same story.
Overall, I'd give "Hot Fuzz" a 4 out of 5. It's a fun movie with some great characters and quality filming, and the subtle humor and action don't overpower one another. Check it out if you haven't seen it.

TL;DR NEGATIVE 306

2011-01-16T18:32:00.000-05:00

So. Today we played Rayman Revolution. Here are our thoughts (a.k.a. Chelsea and Clarinet's thoughts, because I'm sure that Olovio would like it).

*Chelsea's text will be underlined and Clarinet's will be bold. HOT.

So I bought this game on a whim way back when I was in elementary school. I never played the first Rayman game, I just wanted a new game to play. Well, I could never seem to get past the part where you rescued Ly from whatever so I gave up. Here I am a million years later, finally rescuing the ugly butt with Clarinet, and the godforsaken game doesn't save. It would make sense for it to you know, SAVE AFTER AN IMPORTANT EVENT. But no. Apparently it's okay to just keep going without any extra health to help you finish the frodoing level. What's worse is that when you save in the middle of somewhere, it doesn't count it. You're only able to start back at checkpoints and no where in between. AAAGAGGGHHGHGHGHGHHHH. This is a problem I had with Timesplitters: Future Perfect, but at least that game was good.

BLERGH is the phrase I would use to describe this freakin' game. It was so freakin' bad that we started a point system to try to describe how bad it was. Every time something annoyed us, we'd take away points. Every time we liked something, we'd add them. As you can probably tell from the title of this post, the final tally was -306. GHH
Let's make a list of things we hated. It'll be a long long long list.
-CAMERA FREAKIN' ANGLES. They were just hideous.
-The Raymanian language, which was pretty much just muttering and whispering.
-Creepy characters. There's this frog named "Murfy" who whispers creepily at you and invades your thoughts to give you help. His teeth are almost bigger than his face. Chelsea would like to add that they are upsetting and unsavory. Very, very, very upsetting.
-Climbing. It's inconsistent. Sometimes the vines are 2D, sometimes they're 3D, and sometimes you're not even on them at all. Sometimes it just sort of looks like Rayman is hanging in space. I wish he were hanging in space so he'd FALL AND DIE.
-Dying sucks.
-Health boost placement. You get little red fairy things for killing enemies, but they usually don't help too much, and they often don't cover your losses from fighting the enemy. There were zillions of them in the beginning of the game, when there were no enemies, and thus they weren't necessary.
-SAVING. It doesn't work. Chelsea already covered this, but I would like to add my disdain to hers. GHHHHHHHHHHHH
-The level of challenge in this game is bizarre. The enemies are too easy in theory, but with the horrendous camera, it makes them more of a pain to deal with than they should be.
-Rayman's constant need to GRAB THE EDGE OF THINGS is a constant annoyance. I just wanted to drop down somewhere next to a wall so that I could hit a button, but he just kept grabbing the edge. Of course, he only seems to do this when you actually want to drop down. Again because of the bad camera, you sometimes end up falling down into areas that don't even look like places to fall in. SUCKS.

ADORABLE.

Although there's more to hate, there were some things that we liked about the game, though they're pretty inconsequential to the overall enjoyment we got out of it.
-The option to have German audio was nice. The Raymanian and English voices suck, so that was a godsend. It was too bad that we couldn't have Italian voices; it was only offered for text.
-Globox's children were really adorable, especially with their German voices.
-WE GOT JUMPING MUSHROOMS. BOUNCY MUSHROOMS. MMMMMMMMMMMM
-The 3D wasn't too terribly awful, especially for 1999, when it came out.

In conclusion, Rayman < EVERYTHING ELSE. Including EyeToy, which we had some serious fun playing this mornin'. Y'all.

IT SUCKS. BYE.

Cosplay Stuff and Black Cat

2011-01-14T12:00:00.002-05:00

So we're going to this anime convention in February. I'm going to be cosplaying as Sven from Black Cat (since I already have the costume from last year), and probably also as Mitsuru from Persona 3, because I think she's fantastic.
I'm pretty excited for the convention. What I'm not entirely excited for is the shopping for all of Mitsuru's costume pieces, but oh well. It'll work out. I'm going to the thrift store for the first time tomorrow with some friends. Blergh
So anyway, what I'd like to talk about today is Black Cat, the manga by Kentaro Yabuki. Until I say I'm discussing the anime, I'm discussing the manga, because my perceptions of the two are almost entirely different.
The basic plot revolves around an awesome gunman with a dark past, a now-cheerful fellow named Train Heartnet (also known as the Black Cat, or number XIII). His skills with a gun are unmatched. He works as a sweeper, or someone who hunts down criminals for money, with a partner named Sven Vollfied. Sven is totally awesome. He's cool, he's a ladies' man, and he wears a freakin' fedora, for pete's sake. How much cooler can you get? It also helps that Sven is the techie of the group, frequently producing new types of ammunition for Train and new upgrades to his own personal weapon, his briefcase.
Sven and Train eventually meet up with the two major female characters: a little girl (who also happens to be deadly) named Eve, and a thief named Rinslet Walker. I like the fact that both of them are fairly strong characters (although Rinslet is far weaker than Eve). Though Eve is only a child (of about 11 or so), she develops and uses her powers well, and comes to almost equal Train.
One thing that I really adore about this series is the development of the characters. The pasts of all of the major characters are revealed, and the past stories properly explain the current state of the character. Eve grows throughout the series, and her powers develop. Even the minor characters are usually fairly well explained, and they make sense in the story.
The drawing style is very nice, clear, and easy to follow. There aren't many small details hidden in the panels, as there are in something like Ouran (which I may discuss later).
There's a bit of a lag in the first volume- it mostly just introduces the characters and their world. I would recommend reading it the first time you read the series, but you can probably skip it thereafter. After the first volume, the series moves relatively quickly, and quite a bit of time passes between the first and last (20th) volumes.
At times, the powers and actions of the characters can seem a bit too much, but this isn't too common throughout the series.
There's a lot of comedy involved- there's usually something amusing slipped in with every bit of seriousness. Train, though the main character, also acts as the comic relief a lot of the time. His huge appetite and cheerful disposition cause much hilarity.
Basically, I love this manga, and it is one of the ones I collect. I currently have vols 1-17 (after finally getting vol 14 last week! WOO!).
The anime, however, is a different story. There are so many things about it that completely and totally annoy me.
First off, it's set in a parallel universe or something. The anime never directly says this, but the timing is off. In the manga, when Train and Sven are working together, Train has been out of Chronos for years. In the anime, Train is still in Chronos when he meets and partners with Sven. This is irritating to me, because it throws everything off.
The voices are awful. Abysmal, even. (I'm talking about the English voices here). Sven sounds completely and utterly wrong. It's almost as bad as Kamina's English-dubbed voice, and that's pretty bad.
The art style of the anime is also kind of off. It's more round and cutesy than the manga is. Also, they completely overdo the comedic moments that were subtle in the manga.
Now, a disclaimer: all of my comments ont he anime are based on watching about 5 minutes of the first episode at home by myself (I got sick of it even before the first episode was over), and on half-watching an ep in Anime Club. So, I don't know if it gets better. I don't want to subject myself to the torture of finding out, though, so I won't. If you want to find out for yourself, feel free to do so, but I don't recommend it.
Blergh.
In conclusion: I love Black Cat the manga, and I really wish they had done a better job on the anime. I love Sven's hat, and I can't wait to be him at the convention. Whee!
~Pigeonmeister, from Computer Science

Get it? Train Heartnet? I have awesome Paint skills. XD

Epic Win!

2011-01-11T17:20:00.001-05:00

Today is a lovely, beautiful, fantastic day!
I won a battle!
Ok, that's a metaphor. Sort of. But I finally found volume 14 of Black Cat, and I'm really really really happy. I've been searching for this frodoing volume for a year and a half. Literally. Every time I went to a book store, I would practically sprint over to the manga section to see if they had it. I was disappointed every time, until today. I walked into Borders, took a deep breath, and said to myself, "Look for Black Cat 14 first. But prepare to be disappointed again." I walked calmly over to the manga section, and THERE IT WAS in all its green glory!!! I really felt like dancing (even though I'm horrible at it. Further down the page I'll tell an amusing related story), but there were a lot of people in the section and so I controlled myself. There was a buy 4 get 1 free deal going on, so I also got vols 1,2,4,5, and 6 of Death Note, vol 18 of Black Cat, and vols 4-6 of Scott Pilgrim. It was lovely. Superbly lovely and wonderful and amazing. I think I might be just a tad obsessed. : )
So yeah, it's supposed to be snowing out, but it's not really doing much. Mostly tiny droplets that you can feel but not see. Earlier, though, there were snowflakes that were literally the size of quarters. It was awesome.
ROAR I'M EXCITED
So I have this tradition when it comes to buying new manga. You know the little plastic bar with a barcode on it that's usually in the middle of your volume, and the sticker that's on the back? I always leave those in until I read the volume for the first time. Then, when I'm done with the volume, I peel them off with a flourish and go YAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
Well, maybe not in all caps. But I always smile.
Anyway, here's that awkward dancing story I promised. About two years ago, Skynugget and I were at a party with a DJ. It was actually a pretty awesome party, even though we weren't properly dressed for it (we didn't get the memo). The song "Let it Rock" by Kevin Rudolf and Lil' Wayne came on, and at that time I LOVED that song. So I pulled Skynugget out to dance with me. Well, while we were dancing, I got a little too close to her, and she accidentally hit me in the face. My glasses went flying like five feet in the air, and I fell over. It was hilarious XD
I'm actually wearing that same pair of glasses right now. I guess that incident is just one of the reasons why they're so crooked...
So yeah, that was my wonderful day. Did you have a wonderful day, person who is reading this? Tell me about it. =D
~Pigeonmeister
Can't forget the RPOTD this time:

From tofuttibreak a while ago, I believe.

Review: Between God, the Devil, and a Winchester

2011-01-11T16:30:00.000-05:00

Unlike "Apache Blood," this one is actually a Spaghetti Western. Yay.

At a Glance
"Between" (I really don't want to have to type all the rest out) came out in 1968 and was directed by Marino Girolami (who also directed a movie called "Flying Sex" which I think is a very amusing title for a movie). Anyway, it stars Gilbert Roland as a quasi-outlaw named Juan Chasquisdo, Richard Harrison as Father Pat Jordan, and some kid whose name I don't know as, well, some kid who causes trouble for everyone, basically. Here's a brief synopsis brought to you by IMDB: "A stranger being chased by bandits dies in an accident, but not before he has had a chance to hide a treasure map the bandits wanted. A boy witnesses where it was hidden, retrieves it and passes it on to the local preacher. The preacher recognizes that much of the treasure was likely that from a local mission. He sets out to get it before the bandits find it."

Story and Characters
This movie is less of a Spaghetti Western, and more of a treasure hunt adventure. The story is alright, but it lacks the certain flair that most Spaghettis have. I think one of the main flaws is the way Roland's character was written. For example, there are some great creepy scenes where he is being nice to the young boy, all the while plotting something sinister. Those parts gave his character an edge and made me wonder what he was going to do next. By the end of the movie though, he ends up being just your average drifter. Maybe if there weren't so many other outlaw characters, there could have been some intense scenes with just the preacher and Chasquido. Another problem this movie has is its plot. Well, not the plot as a whole, but more the plot devices that are used to move the story along. A lot of the time it seems like the characters could easily kill each other off and get everything over with. The characters also make very dumb decisions that honestly don't seem realistic. There's a difference between a character being written to make bad decisions, and characters making bad decisions so the movie can progress a certain way. Despite all this, the characters aren't too bad, and I actually really liked the preacher.

Filming and Locations
It's fairly clear that effort was put into filming "Between." There is a wide variety of indoor and outdoor locations, as well as inside a cave. That's pretty cool.

Music
The score isn't the most memorable, but it's still pretty good.

Overall
"Between God, the Devil, and a Winchester" is an average movie. It's paced and filmed well, but lacks that special something that keeps people intrigued. I personally enjoyed "Apache Blood" more because I could at least make fun of how bad it was. If anything, check it out just to see Gilbert Roland, one of the few real Mexicans who had large roles in Spaghetti Westerns.

Final Verdict: 3/5

Swim Swim Swim Swim Swim Swim YOU BIT MY FINGER

2011-01-08T21:49:00.000-05:00

Today Naminesfriend (aka Skynugget) is over at my house. We're supposed to be doing this project about John donne, but once we started dancing to Powerpoint music it was too late. So now we're reviewing Japanese junk food. : )
First up is Pucca. The box says "Pucca: DOUBLE CHOCO PRETZEL"
Key: Naminesfriend- italicize Eagle- mrmrmr

Hey folks! Let's talk about this Pucca product. So needless to say, the chocolate tastes like the chocolate from pocky. big shock, yeah? Not really lol. But you can barely taste the pretzel because of the chocolatey insides of the candy. It is rather decent, and it has different shapes to it sometimes. Most of the time it just looks like a fish, but sometimes you get an octopus in there too! However, there is something you all need to know before buying this product: THEY HALF-A**-ED THE FRODOING CHOCOLATE INSIDES. The first one Eagle bit into had no chocolate inside whatsoever. The second one i bit into had nothing in it either. Zip. Nada. Seriously candy company, WE'RE ONTO YOU!!!!
The end ;)

JK
This is Pigeonmeister, taking back control. Skynugget D<
So yeah, she pretty much said it all. This crap is so inconsistent. It's pretty good when there is actually chocolate cream inside LIKE THE BOX SAYS, but when there isn't it's just hollow and empty and gross like my heart. NO HEART, NO FRIENDS. (that last part was a collaborative effort XD)

Sometimes it's just SINGLE CHOCO PRETZEL. THE BOX IS A LIE

So yeah. Now we're going to talk about Pocky.
The internet is a strange place. (facepalm)
Pocky is awesome. It's little thin biscuit sticks dipped in chocolate. Apparently it contains sheanut. Wtfrodo is sheanut?
ANYWAY, it's pretty good. Of course, it's a staple of the otaku diet for no apparent reason. Whenever I run into someone who hasn't had it, I run and find some and force them to eat it. hehe

Pocky is the main part of an Otaku diet because it is featured is so many anime. Mostly it's girls who eat it in anime, them lounging in their rooms doing homework or whatnot, without a bra etc etc, yknow, the stuff guys like haha. as a girl though, I like pocky cuz lol it's good. I first tried pocky oh so many years ago, I think it was either in middle school or freshman year. Anyhow, the moment i bit into the chocolatey goodness, things were never really the same. it's actually quite average for chocolate, but the meaning behind eating pocky is what makes it so delicious. Pocky is rather simple. All it is is a bread stick with chocolate on top of it. So simple, yet so good, you could leisure around with a Pocky in your mouth. Or, run to school and grab a Pocky on your way out. Sharing Pocky with your friends is the best part of this delicacy. Friendship can be started with Pocky yknow :) so in conclusion, Pocky is great, so you should eat it :D

Skynugget and I never finished this together post because we had to finish our project about John Donne. But now that we're done (Donne), I'll finish talking about the other Japanese candies I wanted to talk about. But not in bold print, because it's starting to irritate me.
Some of my favorite Japanese candies of all time are Kasugai gummies. They come in many flavors: kiwi, strawberry, muscat grape, orange, grape, litchi, pineapple, apple, etc. I have never found a flavor I dislike, but mt favorites have to be the kiwi and the muscat grape. All of the gummies are sweet, delicious, and appropriately chewy. They also usually have a nice aftertaste, and are fairly satisfying. Conclusion: get some. Such greatness!

Delish!

The last yummy treat I would like to discuss is the little jelly cup things. I was trying to explain them to Skynugget earlier, and she was like "Jello shots?" No, my dear bear. No. They're like Jello, but they don't need to be refrigerated, and they sometimes have chunks of fruit or things in them. They can be pretty hard to eat, but they're still pretty good. I've had apple, strawberry, and grape flavored jelly things. Woo
~Pigeonmeister

This was supposed to be about something else

2011-01-07T23:17:00.000-05:00

I really, really hate iTunes.
Any time I do something accidental or stupid (like accidentally trying to move a playlist OUT OF ALPHABETICAL ORDER. OH NO), it freezes up, and I have to get out of it with the Task Manager.
Recently, it's also been trying to update itself. I have downloaded this update twice. Both times, it just screwed everything up. I had to reinstall iTunes each time. The most recent time this happened, I tried to uninstall it so i could reinstall it. The installing wizard tried to run it and told me that I couldn't run it and had to reinstall it, which is what I was trying to do. Sigh.
The iTunes store is sort of ridiculous. It takes forever to connect and get to where I want it to go. Each page takes a few agonizingly slow seconds to load, reminding me of the days when I sat in my grandmother's computer room and connected to her slow dialup internet with Netscape. Freaking Netscape, mang. iTunes is quite a recent product, thus it should logically be faster, sleeker, and easier to use than all the others. But it's not. It's slow, ridiculous, and irritating.
This infernal program seems to be obsessed with alphabetizing things. Once, I was syncing my iPod Touch with iTunes and it alphabetized my "Good Morning" playlist. Of course, that ruined my specific and carefully planned order. So I deleted "Good Morning" and created "Happiness". But the most recent time I synced my iPod, there was not only "Happiness" but "Happiness 1". I don't know what the difference is, but it's cluttering up my system, mang. It's annoying.
All of this said, though, it's nice to be able to buy music legally from my desk. Also, it's not too hard to create playlists and stuff. I dunno. Blergh.
So basically, I'm avoiding going to sleep. Time to find a random picture o' the evenin'.
I searched for "Tidus unicorn" and this came up:

Result number 100. Seriously. I counted.

I'm not sure what this has to do with Tidus, but I like it. It's apparently a money-eating unicorn. I got it from capitolvalley.net.
So yeah, that's about all.
Good night.
~Caroline

We Go Hardcore

2011-01-05T20:17:00.000-05:00

Today's post is brought to you by Computer Science.
So recently the bear-shaped Nugget (that's Naminesfriend. Just so's ya know) came over to my house, along with Daddy. We were going to watch Hot Fuzz (best movie ever; eventually I'll review it) but because Skynugget hates that movie, we decided to play a lovely PS2 game instead.
DOA: Hardcore!
This game is a pretty good fighting game. Though there are a limited set of characters (12 as opposed to Soul Calibur's 33 plus customs), those characters have a wide variety of moves.
This is not a pure button-mashing game. There is some serious strategy involved. Each character has some holds, which can only be performed under certain circumstances, cause a lot of damage, and are used often by the CPU. I will admit that I haven't really figured out the trick to getting the holds just right; it will take practice. Holds can be used on you when you are blocking, but not when you are attacking, unless the hold is targeting the limb that you are attacking with. I think.
But of course there are kicks and punches and directional attacks and such, which are mostly what I use. You can also block, which is useful when fighting the last boss in every story, who is a creepy guy with wings named Tengu. Everything is his delusion, mang. He never stops reminding you of that. Every time. WE GET IT.
One thing I don't like about this game is that all of the female characters are... too ho-ish. They're hanging out all over the place, their voices are mostly pretty whiny, and they're usually weaker than the male characters (especially the ones with whom they have a previous relationship. Lei Fang has so much trouble fighting Jann Lee, who is her lover or maybe her brother, that it's absolutely ridiculous).
The story of this game really doesn't make any sense. It might help if there were more cutscenes, or maybe if I had the manual. According to Skynugget, the story revolves around a big fighting tournament that everyone is trying to win. The game's Wikipedia page seems to agree with this.
Apparently DOA2 (not Hardcore) was released on the Sega Dreamcast. Interesting- it changed platforms with an update. I had thought that maybe the non-Hardcore version would make a little more sense, but apparently stuff was added, and not much was removed, between the versions.
Oh, and by the way, the girl characters' boobs bounce. Yeah. They made separate movement engines just to get the fanboys goin'. Maybe that's why the girls irritate me so much...
Anyway, here's the picture of the day. It actually made my day. It's from MEN^3, a site with pictures of hot modles and actors (usually Asian ones. Yum ;D ):

That's Won Bin (super cute actor!) carrying a chicken. I'm not really sure what happened here but I like it.
In conclusion: DOA2 Hardcore is a pretty darn good game, Asians and chickens are cute.
~Pigeonmeister

Resolutions, but first a word from my sponsor

2011-01-03T11:58:00.004-05:00

I have a new deviantart account with the same name I have now, Naminesfriend. Check it out if you want. That Guy also has one, Johnheliomustdie.
so yeah.
Mine isn't as great as hers, because duh, she's a genius artist. and i'm not planning on making these fancy looking, though decent I'll try for. No, these are just comics of my life and drawins i've done and may do. Mostly comics mind you. And they're simple, funny, and a lil pathetic, but they're all true so enjoy them. I Shall update this with a link someday. lol that's the sponsor that isn't really sponsoring anything XD
Anyhow, my Winter Break was fun. I enjoyed time spent with friends and boyfriend and family. I helped out a lot and recieved plenty, and am looking forward to the new year.
This time, I plan on keeping my resolutions for 2011. No. I'm serious. Like, I plan on taking action to do these things. Seriously. I'm serious. I'm not gonna just have resolutions and then forget about them. I'M SERIOUS!
so, just to make sure I do do these things, I am going to write them all down so everybody knows what they are.
First of all, let me state that NONE OF MY RESOLUTIONS ARE TO LOSE WEIGHT. No. I'm done with that crap, I keep saying "I need to lose weight, I gained so much. mrmrmr." No. Instead, I've decided to eat healthy. Not diet, not no eating, I mean like grab an apple instead of a cookie yknow? I'm hopeful this shall give me more energy. I also plan on drinking more water or juice or anything, because I tend to get dehyrdated and need to drink 8 cups a day. Hopefully, this will help me become a better person by giving me a clear mind by having a clear body. yes. that's what i'm going with.
I also want to exercise. and by that, I mean tighten some flab. that's it. so some dancing in the middle of the night or crunches, whatever so long as it gets done. I heard doing exercise in the morning will keep you more awake, so i'll try that cuz i'm always sleepy lol. I can sleep forever if given the opportunity. Ask Eagle, she'll get angry and tell you hahaha
My next resolution is to floss. Because I never floss. And I should floss.
Yeah.
I will also keep my room and school things organuized, so I don't forget homework or not do things because my room or binder is too messy. I will keep time in mind and schedule parts of my life so I don't always have to rush and procrastinate. I WILL DO MY HOMEWORK ON TIME. I will get good grades, which will mean I will study. I won't be so terrified of tests anymore, because I will know the information. I will admit my flaws but also be confident in what I know I'm good at. I will not waiver and stand for what I believe in, even if it may hurt other people. I will be independent and not rely on people so much. I will care about my appearance, but not as much as I do now. I'll indulge in clothing and make-up in moderation, but I will also accept that I look how I look no matter what I do to my hair or face. Putting that aside, I'll like how I look because I look like me and I look great because of that.
I will love who I am because I know I'm pretty great, and shouldn't worry so much if people like me or not. I will however continue to care and worry for others, and help others whenever I can.
Most importantly, I will be happy this year. That is my resolution every year, but it is the goal I will always have, obtain, lose, and then feel I can get all over again. That's life, and I'm proud to say I'll forget about sadness and instead choose to be either "In Pursuit of Happiness" or "Happy". No inbetween. I wil go on happily now, with hope for the future!
THE END!!!!!! BRAND NEW DAYS, LET'S ALL COME TOGETHER AND SUPPORT EACH OTHER YES!

Rhapsody ~A Musical Adventure~

2011-01-03T11:23:00.002-05:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! Last week was Winter Break, and so of course I was rather busy. I got a scanner/printer for my comp, and I'm very excited about that. How were your holidays? Mine was wonderful. Along with that present, I recieved many others, but one of my favorites was a game called Rhapsody ~A musical Adventure~ for the DS. This is a review.
Here's some background info concerning this wonderous game:
Rhapsody ~A Musical Adventure~ is a DS game made by Nippon Ichi America, NIS for short. It was originally a playstation game sold around 1980 in japan and 1990 in America. In 2008 they chose to make a DS version of it for America, the date for Japan I dunno lol
Rhapsody is a musical RPG with english vocals on the playstation and japanese vocals for the DS. Don't be mistaken! Seriously, I beat the game this week, and the credits had english names for the vocals, and I was so angry because I wanted english vocals throughout this entire game lol The japanese was ok, it had subtitles of course, but I noticed while humming along that the english translations could be substituted. so. . .yeah. I sang haha
Main story kids!
This is a cute musical rpg about a main character Cornet and her adventure to save her Prince Ferdinand. Cornet is considered a normal orphan girl, but also odd because she can talk to puppets. The main puppet is Kururu, and she can also talk to people. Cornet always had a dream where she falls in love with a prince, and one day in the forest she is saved by such a prince. It was Ferdinand, who she had not seen before, and as she saw him she realized it was the prince in her dream. She then goes out to try and steal his heart through various means, such as cooking and entering the Miss Marl Competition. He is soon captured by a somewhat evil witch called Marjoly, and suddenly Cornet is on a quest to save the prince. That's the jist of it
My Review kids! and more details of course <3
Rhapsody is a pretty cool game by incoperating musical numbers within cutscenes. There are only around 5 to 8 songs though, so I wish there could have been more. There is fighting in this, with the party consisting of Cornet and the puppets that join along the way. She uses a horn, which her mother gave to her a logn time ago. It was said that when the horn is played, wishes can come true, and when she uses the horn she can have puppets join her party so as to help make their wishes come true. When a puppet has their wish come true, which is implied to be their true happiness, their souls can go to heaven. There's also a mini game in the middle of each city or village where Cornet can play the horn when the gamer blows on the DS microphone, and you can get money from it.
The game incorporates a lot of different ways of fighting. magic/special is pretty great, you can even use pancakes against enemies!!! Cornet uses her horn to give support, and that increases her power with music notes. It's really cute. However, the game is more story oriented rather than fight oriented, and is pretty easy to complete. it only took me a week. But as this is an RPG. and it is Nippon Ichi we're talkin about here, there are choices that can effect how parts of the story plays out. In order to help the prince you have to get these stones together so they can take you to Marjoly, so you have to go around and find them. But everybody wants these stones for some reason or another. Sometimes you meet people who want the stone and have to choose to help them or not, or if taking the stone is the right thing to do. It can really effect how people see you. I took the stone once when I really didn't want to, and it turned out the village didn't want me too either! Nobody would talk to me! I went back to my save file and did something different, and the people's reactions were so much better. I think it's really inventive to have actions effect the story.
In the game, you can touch different objects with the stylus, like desks and oranges, and sometimes items are there. This game is really humorous and adorable though, cuz sometimes there are sarcastic remarks! I touched this bookshelf with the stylus one time, and a text box came up saying "You found books in a bookshelf! go figure, I mean what were expecting in a bookshelf. . ." I laughed at this. I found it funny to see text like this. It kept happening too. "You found another bookshelf! This one was really hard to find!" "Look! it's the super-dee-duper-mega-ultra-cool-magnificent-strong horn! Just kidding!" It was really refreshing to see the gamers have fun like that haha
Rhapsody made me happy because it was sweet, innocent, but also gave a few life lessons. I also have sentimental attachment to it because it's in Marl Kingdom, where La Pucelle Tactics takes place as well. La Pucelle Tactics is a game I have for the PS2 that I loved, but the disc doesn't work anymore and I never finished the game. It's why I look for Nippon Ichi games whenever I can (I don't have Disgaea just so you know :P) But I looked Rhapsody up, and it turns out it has a vague connection to La Pucelle.
There is a sequel to this game that isn't out in America, and that game also has a sequel with some secret chapters from the two previous games and etc. The three games together make up the Marl Kingdom Series, all musical RPGs, and very much interwoven into each other and La Pucelle tactics a lil as well. I didn't know this before, but it made me happy to know that.
Overall, the game is cute and light, and I recommend picking it up whenever you have a chance. It's the the greatest fighting game, but the story will keep you going all the way, and the choices you get to make really give you interaction in the game. It's anime style, and wonderful, so yay for Rhapsody ~A Musical Adventure~ !!!

Review: Apache Blood

2010-12-30T17:00:00.000-05:00

Thought this was the main character? Nope.

For Christmas this year, I received one of those inexpensive Spaghetti Western compilations with "20 classic features." "Classic" is a debatable adjective for some of these movies, but it's awesome to get my hands on Spaghettis that I may not have otherwise picked up. A lot of fans of the genre advise people to not buy these box sets because they expect the movies to be crappy. However, I think to fully appreciate and understand the genre, one needs to embrace the good and the bad... and even the ugly.

At a Glance
"Apache Blood" (1975) is not actually a Spaghetti Western, go figure, but I guess it was put in the set because it was considered too weird by American Western standards in the 70s. It was directed by Vern Piehl and stars Ray Danton as a vengeful Apache named Yellow Shirt and Dewitt Lee as Sam Glass, a mountain man who I guess has something to do with the American cavalry. I don't know. Here's a brief synopsis brought to you by the back of the DVD tin (that's right, I got the classy set): "An Apache brave, the surviving member of his tribe, vows to avenge his people by finding and killing the soldiers responsible for their deaths."

Story and Characters
Somehow this movie is able to take a very simple concept and make it utterly confusing. First of all, the characterization of the Apaches and white men seems off; we're supposed to root for Yellow Shirt because the cavalrymen murdered his peaceful tribe, but they are portrayed as generally nice guys. What really boggles my mind, is why so much time is spent on Sam Glass and his struggle to get away from Yellow Shirt. Honestly, they should have just called the movie "Mountain Man Blood." There are also a lot of continuity errors or at least a lot of unexplained things that make the continuity lose its credibility. First off, there is some weird sequence where I swear to God Sam murders one of the cavalrymen he's with, but the dude is shown alive a few seconds later and the scene is never mentioned again. Maybe it was a dream, but I would have had no idea that it was unless someone told me. Another mystery is where Yellow Shirt's Indian posse came from. He and his wife were mentioned as the sole survivors of their tribe in the opening narration, and yet here are three other guys on the same mission. I suppose they could be from another tribe of Apaches, but it is never explained how they teamed up with Yellow Shirt if that was the case. The biggest mystery lies in why Yellow Shirt is chasing Sam in the first place. It wasn't mentioned that he was among the men who attacked the Apache tribe, and his character didn't really harbor any noticeable hatred toward the Indians. I guess Yellow Shirt may have thought he was a part of the attack when Sam was hanging around with the cavalrymen in the woods, but that would be out of character. Yellow Shirt is the kind of man who knows who he's after.

Filming and Locations
The scenery isn't particularly enthralling and the cinematography is cheap. I think the fact that a horse visibly takes a crap during one scene tells you all you need to know.

Music
There are pretty much only two songs that play during the whole 89 minutes, but the song during the last scene is surprisingly good. The theme at the end is bizarrely amusing and the music for the credits sounds like it was made for a comedy.

Overall
"Apache Blood" is pretty bad. It's not the worst movie ever*, but it's really only entertaining if you think discontinuity is funny.

Final Verdict: 1/5
*The worst movie ever is "Wyatt Earp." Don't watch it.

Doors, How Do They Work?

2010-12-28T22:40:00.001-05:00

Thanks gamezone.com, Harry Tipper is my fave.

It's about time that I talk about video games on here, don't you think? I'm sure that at least Clarinet and Olovio agree with me. So, let's talk Timesplitters.

I believe I was in 5th grade when I first played a Timesplitters game with my two cousins. We played the 2nd in the series while listening to some weird playlist thing that the older of my cousins would have running on his computer. I always played as the gingerbread man because a gingerbread man carrying a dangerous weapon always equals comedy gold.

Not really.

Anyway, last year I scored a copy of what I thought was Timesplitters 2 in the bargain bin at my local Game Stop. To my surprise, the game inside the case was actually a later version of the game: Timesplitters Future Perfect. What a blessing that was (solely based on the fact that there was a disco track that we could use in the arcade mode). Well, after spending lots of time in death matches like we used to, my cousin and I decided to be daring and try the co-op story mode. We did alright for the first stage, but once we got to the second one, we couldn't get any further. Our first objective was to get into this big castle or fortress or whatever after killing a bunch of guards. We succeeded in killing the guards, but no matter what we tried, we couldn't seem to get inside the stupid fortress. We shot at it with all of our guns, threw grenades at it, shot at it with a turret gun mounted to the ground, we ran into it, punched it, and I even tried to use Cortez's (my character's) weird wristband device that lifts stuff using see through octopus arms. Nothing worked. We tried and tried until it seemed like the only reason why it didn't work was that the disc was messed up.

Well, here we are a whole year later, and we finally figure out that all you have to do is hit "x." That's right, just "x." I'm past the point of feeling stupid and am just happy that we can actually make the story progress! What more could I want than to unlock Swinging Tipper for arcade mode?

I seem to have a penchant for overlooking simple solutions in video games. I had trouble with Lego Batman, for god's sake. Lego. Batman.

Keep frodoin' that frodo, dudes.

Man. This post really ruins my credibility, doesn't it?

Reason Why I Love My Grandma: #1

2010-12-28T09:29:00.000-05:00

Today my Grandma and I were talking about squirrels on our way home from the donut shop. She was saying that there weren't too many of them, and that they must not be reproducing.
"Maybe they're just not the marrying kind," she said. Then after a pause, she added, "We've got a bunch of gay squirrels running around!"
I love my Grandma. XD
~Pigeonmeister
Random pic:

The Billowing Pants Saga

2010-12-27T10:13:00.000-05:00

Today is the day after the day after Christmas, and I would like to make a post about clothes.
I'm not the most stylish person ever. Actually, I'm currently sitting in my grandma's computer room in jeans that have almost become too small since the onset of the holidays, a shirt that used to be long-sleeved but has since shrunk to 3/4-sleeved in the wash but is still big enough to wear due to its awkward proportions, cat socks, crooked glasses, and a ponytail.
Most of the time, I wear pajamas. I sit around my basement playing Final Fantasy wearing my "bad kitty" pajama pants (which are almost a foot too short; I've had them since middle school) and perhaps a tank top. I often find myself at Skynugget's house wearing my green pajama pants with brown horses on them, whatever shirt happens to be in my closet that day (usually one of my nerdy t-shirts; my favorite of those is the one that says "you have died of dysentery"), and bunny slippers. Of course, I have many more pajamas than these, and I got more for Christmas (including some delicious owl pajamas I sort of got myself for Christmas... teehee).
Unfortunately, it is not acceptable to wear pajamas to school. Otherwise, I would do it all the time. Chelsea did manage to pull it off the day before Winter Break, though. She looked quite awesome!
On school days, I usually end up wearing dark jeans, some fancyish shirt, and a necklace of some sort. Whether I wear glasses or contacts depends on whether or not I'm going to the darkroom for Photo. I can't see with my contacts nearly as well as I can with my glasses, so I usually wear my glasses to the darkroom to get the precise focus I like.
Formal occasions are a bit different, of course. I only really have one formal outfit- brown slacks and a flowy green patterned top. Occasionally I try something else, but I usually just go back to that same outfit, only occasionally changing the necklace I wear with it. Yesterday I went to see South Pacific (a musical) at the Kennedy Center, and I wore that outfit with a small silver necklace that I have. I thought I looked pretty nice before I left, but when I got to the Kennedy Center, I felt awkward. Everyone else looked really distinguished in red and black or beige, and I stood out with my brown pants billowing in the wind. Oh well. I'm glad to have people to hang out with who don't really care what I look like. Skynugget, for example, doesn't care at all what I look like. I show up at her house in pajamas, she greets me at the door in pajamas, I say "yo" and we go play Oregon Trail.
I started a story yesterday on a whim. Unfortunately, it is not about wearing pajamas, but rather about a family falling apart. (insert emoness here). I highly doubt I will finish it, or even continue it, but it has been started.
So ends a post that was probably pretty boring, that wasn't game-related at all. Except a few references. Oh well.
Random picture of the day, from Ugliest Tattoos:

Merry almost 2011.
~Pigeonmeister

YEEHAW (echo)

2010-12-23T19:25:00.000-05:00

So two days ago, I went to Skynugget's house to play X-Men Legends.
You're not going to get a post about X-Men Legends, because Skynugget and I are stuck and we got fed up with it.
So we played Oregon Trail II.
At first, I thought someting had happened and it wasn't going to work, because we got this:

Some shit's goin' down.

But luckily, it worked. However, in the process of getting it to work, we noticed that the symbol for it looks really weird. It's this pixelated ox skull.


Delicious.

The startup screen is pretty normal, except that the sound effect is someone yelling "YEEEHAW" really loud. It echoes. It reverberates in your soul.
So we set off. We started with the following conditions, if you care (it doesn't matter all that much):

Of course, the first thing you have to do is buy supplies. Skynugget and I were surprised to discover that we had 18 pairs of socks, but no pants. Or shirts. That'll make for an awkward trail ride.
"Hey... I like your socks."
"Thanks... I like yours too."
(awkward silence as everyone tries not to stare at each others' bodies)
Then we got to talk to this lovely specimen of manhood, who speaks for himself:

I would like to have this man narrate my life.

Then we talked to a bunch more people, and went to buy food.

Who the hell needs 451 pounds of bacon?!
Of course our wagon tipped over in the river.

The following picture is of a man who actually offended me a lot. I'm not Mexican, but this dude was so stereotypical and had such a bad voice that I cringed.

Also, you see what he's saying? "Well, I figure we're seeing the elephant for sure now!" Skynugget and I have no clue what that means, but four separate people said it to us four separate times. Did they know about elephants back then? And even if they did, what on earth does an elephant have to do with a tipped wagon?!

Skynugget got cholera, we got the elephant message again, and we met this guy:

Howdy-do! Whee doggies! Hot diggity dog!

Dutch Optimo freaking shot himself. How do you even do that? This was on a day when we didn't even get anything from our hunting trip. Then it got worse.

At this point we had a bit of a dry spell, if you will. A bunch of people died of thirst.

Then: salvation! Unfortunately, we couldn't buy the man. Or water.

YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHH

We sort of ran out of meat. Now let me explain something to y'all. I love cute fluffy things. Bunnies especially. So I refuse to shoot the bunnies that crop up in this game. Of course, they kept running past me, and there was just about nothing else. Skynugget got really furious with all this and yelled "BUNNAYYYYYYY" every time one appeared. Hehe

BUNNAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

We settled in Salt Lake City. Even though we had been journeying to Oregon. Sigh.

We started another game. One of our men died, and we got this picture:

That's definitely a woman. Was Casper a crossdresser?!

We got okayishly far. Then, we crossed a river and got completely stuck. We made no progress whatsoever. And worst of all, our wagon parts kept breaking (even though we weren't moving), and we had to trade for replacements. This is normally fine. However, the only thing these people would accept in exchange for their parts (hehe) was a mule! And when we tried to haggle, all the people would do was say "Screw this. 2 mules then!" And so we ran out of mules. We tried lightening the wagon load, eventually dumping literally everything in the wagon. It was no use. We sat there for about a year, eating the last of our mules and starving to death.

We played again, and the following unusual things happened: Buddy got attacked by a mountain lion (I didn't even know that was possible in this game), Skynugget got water poisoning, and we kept finding abandoned wagons.

Thanks, grandma.

At one point, we found a pitchfork in one of the wagons. Just a pitchfork. Skynugget said, "Oh gee, we got us a pitchfork. Now if we want to start a riot or something..."

Then we found a hope chest, and she said, "I got me a mobile home now!"

I think she'd been affected by the trailfolks' way of speaking. Either way, she stopped being funny after that. (XD jk. She's always pretty funny. Except this morning when she gave me a crappy gift D< )

Anyway, here ends what is quite possibly the longest post ever. As usual, here is the picture of the day, brought to you by Picture is Unrelated:

Have a great-tastic holiday.

Also, happy Atheist Day, aka today, December 23. Just because I said so. Let's make it a tradition.

Peace be upon the ninjas.

~Pigeonmeister

Our Oregon Trail Tale

2010-12-22T10:43:00.000-05:00

So I'm sure I've mentioned about Oregon Trail sometime ago. However, I never went into great detail about the previous adventures that happened about two or three days ago. Oh yes. It was three days.
Now my counterpart complainer Eagle will be writing a post about this, with colorful pictures provided. However, I will not. Because I can't lol. My phone won't let me do such things. So you will have to depend on my vivid words and imagine the tale of Oregon Trail I am about to tell you.
It was on Friday that She came over, and originally we were just going to play X-men Legends. However, and oh my god this will be one of the only times I'll complain as well, THAT GAME IS BEING DIFFICULT! Not only have we died three-five times in one day, but no matter how we start over, it ends the same! We die, we die, WE DIEEEEEEEEEEE. We're on a boat, and we have to save the citizens (Go figure) and the boat is springing leaks like a boat going down. Which is what was happening. the boat we were on was going down, and we had to save thos freakin citizens, plus a hundred and one weirdos coming at us like no tomorrow. so seriously. we were screwed beyond belief. And there was a frodo-ing TIME LIMIT FOR GOD'S SAKE! we were all like "No! I think we missed that crewman! NO. there's a sprung leak we have to patch up! OH GEEZ. Storm just jumped into the deathly water AGAIN.
The end of this story was that we stared at each other and chose to turn the tv off, and we turned offer in our agony and complained.
But then. Oh then! Eagle said the magic words. "Wanna play Oregon Trail II?" and I was a little indifferent due to the horrible way we ended that game. so I only replied "Sure. Why not." That was how Our Oregon Trail Tale began. Gather round again kids, and listen to my story. This is a tale for the ages kiddies.
I, along with Eagle, surrounded my computer as we inserted the game. There was some problem however with the disc, and an awkward problem box popped up, asking some stupid question about restarting or something. Eagle was puzzled, I didn't care, and while she pondered on this, I just clicked it close and went onto settings to find the disc on my computer. Just wait kids, this gets better.
Suddenly, I saw the disc picture I had to click on in order for the game to work, and OHMYGOD, you wouldn't believe what it was! It was a pixelated bull/cow/animal, looking to the side, totally creepy and awkard but also awesome all the same. It was hilariously odd, and Eagle took a picture of it with her phone, because she always does that XD LOL. anyhow, we clicked on it, and of course this journey began with a great "YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAW" as the opening screen displayed. I love that Yeehaw. It's the beloved Yeehaw of this generation, coming forth from the ashes of a god known as a tiki head, that suddenly starts walking because a man jumped inside.
ANYWAY.
The first game was against my religion.
LOL.
No, but the first game was pretty special. Me and eagle took controls intermediately, sharing and whatnot, and of course it seemed kinda normal. We started out at a great time, and OHMYGOD, we managed to make it to SALT WATER CITY! (Lol Salt lake City) where we settled and lived our days as bankers or something. I forget what happened in that bio of our life story. But i'm pretty sure somebody shot the president XD Well, of course we wanted to play again, hoping to get to Oregon this time, so Eagle automatically assumed she should take the lead. That was cuz I ran to the bathroom and suddenly she just started and i couldn't stop her because I was in the bathroom XD
This is the greatest story ever, kids. It's the story about Eagle getting herself into some hilarious trouble.
First of all, she frodo-ing used up all of her money at the start. FRODO. The only amount of money we had left was like five buck. BARELY FIVE BUCKS! She giggled while I banged my head on the desk, screaming about our money problems, because I'm a cheapskate and wanted at least a hundred bucks before we left for the frodo-ing trail! But nooooooooooo, she haaaaaaaad to buy like mules and food, and oh geez, clothes! CLOTHES?! who wears clothes on the Oregon Trail?! Lol, in our starter set before we bought anything, we had like twelve pairs of socks but no shirts or pants or anything. Maybe that's why we kept freezing in previous games. . . .
Oh well. Luckily we didn't freeze in this game. Except for me I think. I died like first thing. It only took a hundred miles for me and mia to die. Mia's my cat, but in the game she was a living humaN! And the reason why we died was because we had no medicine, or anything like that!!! SHe bought like three cases of bullets and gunpowder, but geez no we don't need no veggies or meds!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH.
Soon after our deaths, people started dropping like flies before even getting to 300 miles. Suddenly, the last two were left. The leader, frodo-ing Eagle, and Casper, our friendly living ghost-albino man friend. mrmrmrmr. How the fudge they didn't die like the rest of us, I will never know. But somehow, they did, and that's when things started going. They past by like a million different landmarks, going, going, so far as a thousand miles, and the moraLE WAS HIGH. pun! She went hunting, got us some bears, and lols even a few pigeons (I'm kidding XD)
Here's the Hit hons, she got stuck.
I'm serious.
She didn't move at all XD
Let me explain. There was a point just where she pasted this river, and it was getting to Winter, so it was cold. It was also slightly rainy, but the two remaining travelers were doing good. But that's when it happened. THE WAGON STOPPED MOVING. As in, the status we had was " No Progress." or something like that. Our mile count was stopped at like a thousand and something miles, not going anywhere. We thought this was a glitch for a second, but no, time kept passing, days were going by. As if that weren't weird enough, suddenly THE WAGON WHEELS KEPT BREAKING. OHMYGOD HOW THE FRODO DID IT KEEP BREAKING IF WE WEREN'T GOING ANYWHERE?! were we stuck in the mud or something??? All I know is that they kept breaking, and we had to use our supplies to fix them, until we ran out. and so we had to trade with strangers for fixing supplies. Ugh. Those stupid strangers just knew we were desperate, so of course they ask for our mules. We need those mules. They are the only way we could ever get out of that spot. So we kept asking to hassle, and suddenly, oh hey!, they ask for TWO MULES. So we finally settled on one mule, and it kept happening. I'M SERIOUS. WE RAN OUT OF MULES HERE FOLKS. nO MULES, NO TRAVEL. NO HEART, NO FRIENDS. THAT'S WHY WE ALL DIED. But oh no, not before we kept trying to throw stuff out of our wagon, hoping it'll move if we ligthen the load. We threw out food, clothes, rum, etc. We had to trade our gun for fixing supplies. Slowly, and I do mean slowly, Casper took a turn for the worst. He was starving, duh, cuz we had no meat or clothes or ANYTHING. and finally, he died. He was the only one with a proper burial, because clearly he needed it since he lived the longest XD But wait. We have one person left. Eagle. Eagle wouldn't die!!!! SHE JUST WOULDN'T DIE! and i was waiting, and she had given up, begging this game to just let her die. but no. she kept living. For like a week she kept living. When she did die, I was so happy I would've kissed the goat, but we had no goat, and plus I was dead. So instead i just laughed. because we finally noticed that we were stuck in the same spot for a year. A whole year, trying to move from that one area where we never left. and so was our tragic ending, for our tragic tale of Oregon.
But wait. There's a sequel. A ray of light for this horrible ending. The true ending of this post. But since this post is too long, kids, I'm just going to have to do it in another post. Wow. I told a long story kids, so be proud of me. I haven't posted in awhile. It's pretty nice to get back into it. I'm sad Eagle had a bad week, but happy that it will become good again soon. Tm in school i'll be handing out little gifts for christmas. Until I post again, fair thee well my lovely internet people who read this tale.

The Crappiest Week

2010-12-21T20:47:00.000-05:00

So yeah, I've had a crappy week. I won't go into detail, but let's just say that I'm exhausted by life.
I have two half-finished posts in the works, but my computer is crapping out (I'm on the old brokenish one upstairs; also, the crap count in this post is up to 3.) Oh Kamina, it just started playing Age of Empires. I don't want to play Age of Empires, dammit. The one day I don't want to conquer surrounding nations would be the day my computer decides to just sort of randomly start playing the game.
You know, I think I'll talk about it. I actually really, seriously did not intend to do a legit post here, but I guess I will since I have half an hour to kill. No pics, though. Freewheelin' it!
(I'm not sure what that means.)
Age of Empires is a game o' the naughts (the 2000's; it was copyrighted in 2002). It's pixelated, awkward, and lovely, and it has bird sound effects as background music. My mom always used to become mildly angered when I would go to bed in the middle of a paused game because the bird effects would keep going and make her think there were weird things afoot.
(By the way, I'm talking about Age of Empires II, with the Conquerors expansion. Cause that's what I have. You know.)
Basically, it's a strategic conquest game. You are a civilization. You exist to crush other civilizations with your civilized might.
I like to be the Huns because they have a really great special unit, the Tarkan. It's a mounted unit that uses some kind of weird slingshot/bag of rocks type weapon, from the looks of it. I love me my cavalry. I used to only use cavalry for my conquests, but recently I've been seeing the importance of a solid infantry and archer units as well. Siege weapons go without saying. It's extremely difficult to raze a castle without siege weapons.
The castle is the most bad-aardvark building in this game. It takes 650 stone to build and shoots arrows at any enemy who has the misfortune of passing by. Since the enemy AI tends to be pretty dumb and send one enemy at a time into the line of fire, the castle can do a lot of killing.
Speaking of AI, when I say it's dumb, I'm talking about Standard mode. There are three harder modes (and one easier), which I find difficult to beat. To be honest, I'm not the greatest strategy person. I just like to raze all the enemy's buildings, even the walls, and leave nothing but scorch marks upon the earth. And then take over their farms. Cause that's how I roll.
The most fun part of this game, in my opinion, is not the games whose variables (like enemy civilization, number of units, etc.) you can control, but the campaigns. Campaigns put you into the shoes of a great historical war leader and allow you to fight ancient battles and decide the fate of nations. You usually have very specific goals and enemies, and there's an actual plot, with even a bit of dialogue thrown in! Ooh, the intrigue!
This is interesting. I'm looking at the back of the case, and apparently the original actually came out in the late 90's. The critical reviews are from '99 and 2000. It was originally built for Windows 95, 98, ME, or NT. I have XP on this machine. It's pretty cool that it works. The game was actually built by Microsoft. Fancy that.
There's a really big picture of Johnny Depp staring at me from my printer. I feel awkward. I'm going to go finish putting this spirit box (er, bag) together.
Great ending, huh?
~Pigeonmeister
Btw, I forgot a picture of the day last time! Le gasp! This time, I have one. Credits are on the pic itself.

Looks kind of like a messed-up brain. Would you like to eat this fish?

Middle Class Memories

2010-12-19T20:58:00.000-05:00

Not me, but I did have a yellow Skip-It.

Welcome to a segment I like to call "Middle Class Memories." In this, I will share with you many stories of my childhood, because God knows we need more 90s kids telling you about their youth like they were your grandparents.
Today's topic is the Skip-It, which I highly encourage you not to do. This hunk of plastic was actually a lot of fun and was probably one of the only ways I got exercise. It was kind of dangerous though, if you were right next to someone. The end of it was heavy and hurt like hell if it whacked you in the shin. I don't remember when I got the Skip-It, but one particular memory that always sticks out in my mind was from 5th grade...
One evening, back when I used to actually stay up fairly late, I was drawing animu characters and whatever while listening to 99.1 HFS (now the Spanish station). They were doing a Sublime marathon which I guess got me really pumped up because I just suddenly wanted to exercise! I whipped out that Skip-It and skipped for at least an hour. The toy had a little counting mechanism that counted how many skips you did in a row. With the grace that I have, I obviously surpassed that number easily.
But don't think I stopped after that! It was crunch-time (literally) and I did 100 reps. I have no idea what exactly it was about that Sublime marathon that made me want to get physically fit, but either way, I had a great time skipping to "Wrong Way," "What I Got," and "Date Rape."

Wow. Just goes to show you that the media doesn't make every kid a sex fiend, drug addict, or psycho killer. I listened to Cypress Hill in 5th grade, too.

Tune in for the next installment of Middle Class Memories, in which I share with you my collection of...?

Addictive White Substance

2010-12-17T12:52:00.000-05:00

Today, it's snowy outside. I was sincerely hoping for a complete day off of school; however, we got only a two hour delay. Sigh. So now I'm sitting in Computer Science with nothing to do at all.
Sigh.
Yesterday I got deferred by MIT, which is pretty much what I expected. I'll be considered again as part of the regular application field. You know, I should probably be writing my essays for the other colleges right now. Oh well.
I would really like a waffle right now. At home, we have waffle mix just sort of sitting on top of the microwave. I was hoping that if I got a complete snow day, I could have waffles for breakfast.
Sigh.
I eat my waffles with Nutella most of the time, because Nutella has to be one of the best things on Earth. Sometimes I just sort of eat a spoonful of it.
Yesterday I played Final Fantasy X for like 6 hours. I hope I'm done with it soon. I've hit a dead end on the Sphere Grid with Auron because he's overleveled and awesome and I have no Lvl 3 Key Spheres.
Sigh.
I need to finish Pokemon Blue. My character is currently standing on the doormat in the cave on Victory Road with a bunch of level 35-ish Pokemon. This may not turn out well.
One of the things I adore about the Pokemon games is that you can save anywhere. You don't have to spend hours finding a save point, or run away from all your enemies really fast because you're dying and you haven't saved in an eternity, or mess with anything. Plain and simple. Menu. Save.
I've never yet had a game system die in the middle of a save. I bet it screws things up pretty badly, so I'm not really keen to try it.
Well, that just about concludes my random rant of the day. I'm going to Skynugget's place later for a lovely bit of X-Men Legends, so expect a nice pictured post soon.
Have fun in the snow (if you have any).
~Pigeonmeister

An Odd for an Oddball

2010-12-16T12:42:00.000-05:00

Hey folks. I'm out of school sick today. I spent my morning lounging in my basement in my owl pajamas, wrapped in a blanket, watching Full Metal Panic! and Mythbusters (both of which are among my favorite things in the world; I'll post about them eventually.)
Then, I decided to have lunch.
I didn't really expect much. I was foraging around in my kitchen, looking for something both delicious and nutritious, when I opened the freezer and stumbled upon a box.
A suspicious box.
A box full of Indian food.
Now, it's snowing, I'm still wearing my owl pajamas, and I'm about to do my very first food review. Yeehaw!
This was the box:

Amy's Indian Paneer Tikka. Organic, gluten free, amazing. We have this wonderful Indian restaurant in our area called House of India, and this boxed food is almost on par with the restaurant meal.
In my opinion, the best part of this package was the Aloo Palak (spiced spinach and potatoes) that came with it. As Skynugget will certainly tell you, I freaking love potatoes. I make her make me some every time I go to her house (XD). Indian food with potatoes in it has always been one of my favorite types, and this meal certainly does it justice.
You might expect the rice in such a meal to turn out flavorless or dry, but if you follow the instructions on the box properly, it turns out nicely steamed, with flavor provided by cumin and carrots. Delicious both mixed with the tomato sauce and on its own, it surprised and delighted me.
I was happy the entire time I was eating this meal. And that's pretty good, considering that I'm sick and I sort of feel like crap.
If you like Indian food, you should seriously get some of this. It's awesome.
By the way, the title of this post is sort of a reference to Kodocha, which is one of Skynugget's favorite series ever.
And now for the obligatory random picture of the day:

This was taken by me in Virginia. I've never been inside, but I hope it's a damn good buffet.

That's all for now, folks. Now I'm going to go play some of that accursed game (you guessed it, Final Fantasy X) and drink lots of fluids so maybe I can feel better tomorrow. Roar.
~Pigeonmeister

Listen to my Story

2010-12-16T10:22:00.006-05:00

Ok. It's storytime again kids. Gather round mother and listen to her words. She has wisdom. Apparently.
So this week has been both trippy and iffy. Monday. . . I don't even remember what happened Monday. That's what happens when you get as old as I do. You tend to forget things, such as Mondays and whatnot. But anyhow. Tuesday was an iffy anime club, but it was still good. My bf who will be title Teddy Bear, was very sweet and wonderful.
Let's move onto way more important things. Unfortunately I haven't been able to get to too much video gaming, of which I am very upset about. However, I have been lazy and don't have too much gaming left to do. I still need to finish Star Ocean, which I started at like the beginning of high school and never finished. Then. . . uh. I forget what else I need to finish. Oh well.
Let's see. Oh yeah. I was watching an anime that is really bad and good at the same time. It's completely girly and slow and whatnot, but I still can't stop watching it anyway. It's called Aishiteruze baby, and I first came across it as a manga.
This was a seriously adorable manga. It's about a kinda playboy high schooler named Kippei, who is forced to take care of his cousin Yuzuyu, because her dad died and her mom disapeared. Yuzuyu is only five years old, and doesn't really understand why her mom left her. So she thinks her mom hates her, and is trying really hard to be good because she wants her to come home.
Of course, Kippei is totally infatuated with this adorable lil thing, because she's trying so hard and is so cute. But don't even think about any incest crap! this manga doesn't involve that at all, and neither does the anime!
So as Kippei is taking care of Yuzuyu and helping her through the troubles of her life, he starts to grow feelings for his classmate Kokoro. Kokoro is a very independent beauty who wants nothing to do with Kippei, but also secretly likes him (of course.)She doesn't like what a sleeze he is with girls, and so refuses to go out with him. But she has things she's dealing with too, and Kippei sorta helps her through it by comforting her. I'm not spoiling the rest of this for you kids, but i'm pretty sure you know how this goes.
I loved the manga when I got into it like a year ago. The anime is ok, but I don't like the opening or ending songs. They're like lullabies, and I like songs like that they're like the song from Furuba (Itsumo, if you want to listen to it, but these songs were just. . . ugh. Bad rythm, just. . . no. And some of the music in the background of the anime just bother me. The humorous music is played in awkward places sometimes, and makes the anime lighter than it actually is. And then they sorta portray Yuzuyu as whiny, when really she's just trying to sort out the issues placed on her by bad parenting choices. She has very innocent worries that aren't her fault at all, yet her bad BAD crying voice acting makes me wanna smack her. Well not her, her voice actor. And I do mean japanese voice actor. I swear they just use the same clip of her crying and looping it and reusing it for any other episode where she cries! aaaaagh.
However, the animation is rather decent. Granted, this was made a few years ago, so it's slightly mediocre, but still the coloring and shading is good, and the movement is alright. The way the faces are structured are done nicely. And in general, I love the story. It's very profound, sweet, and all around life lesson learning. I recommend this, though preferably the manga, if you ever get the chance.
That's the end of this story. I'll tell more about my life and other anime and video games later. and yes. Teddy Bear is a ginger <3

Rebut of the century folks

2010-12-14T01:08:00.003-05:00

Does anyybody else get tired of eagle's constant nagging? "ew, camera angle! lol I hate this character, omg NO WAY!!!! XD" seriously. This isn't just some internet persona. she seriously acts like that in real life.
MOVING ON.
The angles for final fantasy X are portrayed as artistic, and OH GEEZ I'm so sorry that there was too much beauty in macalania woods for this silly girl to not understand the difference between scenery and treasure!!!!!
I SWEAR THAT GUY WAS AUSTRALIAN.
I didn't post because I knew it would make her angry :D
Oh yeah. the picture. I got bored XD
lolololz. so anyhow, it's really late and I'm just doing hw. Seriously, psychology is kicking my butt. That take home test was so difficult! mrmrmrmrmr.
I'm going to bed. But I will post much more before Eagle.
BTW, ALWAYS WATCH SPAGHETTI WESTERNS WITH CHEALSEA. TRUST HER INSTINCTS. TRUST THEM YO.
The end.

It's That Time of Day Again

2010-12-13T21:10:00.000-05:00

Time for a post about Final Fantasy X. I'm lazy, so I will probably be mostly letting the pictures do the talking.
One of the things I hate most about video games is that they sometimes have hideous camera angles that make it super difficult to do stuff and occasionally give me headaches. Like the picture below, for instance.

Where's Tidey?

Tidus is that tiny little yellowish speck in the center of the picture. And it's not as though this picture was taken when I was in some out-of-the-way place trying to get a treasure chest. No. Tidus is standing right in front of a save point, which is one of the most important things in this game. A tiny little lifesaver.

Also, this one. It's looking down on Tidus. Why? I don't know! But this has to be the most awkward camera angle in existence.

Just jump, Tidus... Work up the nerve so I don't have to listen to your conceited yammering anymore (lol irony)

Another thing I hate about this game, particularly in the Macalania Woods, is the shiny objects.
That's right. You just heard (er... read) someone easily distracted by shiny objects say they don't like shiny objects.

So this picture is a bad example. But there are shiny things freakin' everywhere that look like they could be magical treasure, but are really just part of the scenery. Big huge letdown. I want those shiny hours of my life back.
There are a lot of awkward situations/positions in this game.

Teehee. Auron likes.

There's also a lot of awkward standing around while some character or another explains their life story.

We're waiting... and waaaaaaitiiiiiiiiiiing...

Have I mentioned yet that you ride a ridiculous gigantic bird all over the place? It's a Chocobo, which sounds like some sort of horribly fattening chocolatey dessert. I must admit, the Chocobo Theme that plays when you're riding one is pretty fun, and the birdies do get you places fast. FLY, PELICAN!

Badass.

Of course, the thing I hate most about this game is the fact that Skynugget likes it. It's sort of funny that I hate all the parts she likes. The awkward laughter scene and the awkward make-out scene (sorry, spoiler alert for those of you who can't see the obvious) seem to be her favorites, but I really and truly despise them with all my shriveled black heart.
That being said, I love fluffy bunnies. My bunny is tiny and black and cute and gives me scars <3

Such an adorable little bundle of evil. <3

I picked up said tiny cute bundle of evil tonight... my chest is all scratched up. Such is life with an evil bunneh.
Whoa, I'm getting off track. Time for a cutscene!
...
Jk. Time for this to end.

From now on, I will be ending my posts with a random picture of the day. Today's RPOTD is one that reminded me of Chelsea:

Love love,
~Pigeonmeister

Putin the Love Back in ...Russia

2010-12-12T20:48:00.003-05:00

I interrupt your daily bloggage to bring you something truly bizarre: Vladimir Putin singing a love song.
Yes, it's true, and here's the video.

Source: Yahoo News. Here's the article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_newsroom/20101212/od_yblog_newsroom/putin-finds-his-thrill
Merry Christmas.
~Pigeonmeister

Failure for Nuggets, Win for Asians

2010-12-12T12:39:00.000-05:00

Alright, Skynugget, here comes a rebuttal of your X-Men post.
WOMAN. Her name is Magma!
Also, the "blue beast guy" was Nightcrawler, who is different from the other blue guy, who is called Beast.
The pink robots are called Sentinels!
Gambit isn't freakin' Australian! They call him "the Cajun". Why? Because he's Cajun! From Louisiana-ish areas!
And you never added more to the post! AGH WOMAN
So anyway. :D
Yesterday I was watching old episodes of Ninja Warrior on G4, and I figured I should post about it, since Ninja Warrior is one of my favorite things in this life.
First, a little background. Ninja Warrior is a Japanese game show that pits the strongest men of the world (and several comedians) against four challenging levels of crazy obstacles and epic special effects. There have been 25 competitions so far, with two per year. each competition has 100 competitors, selected through a series of trial rounds.
The competitors are split into three categories: old/young people who are way more awesome than anyone expects, comedians and "entertainers", and attractive muscular Asian men. Most of the people in the first two categories get eliminated during the first stage. Things really start to get interesting during the second stage, when only the serious competitors remain.
My favorite obstacle is the Rolling Log, which usually appears in the first stage. It's exactly what it sounds like: a log rolling down a track that the competitor must hold onto for dear life. To make it worse, the log not only spins but goes over a series of bumps.
The announcer guy is really great. He uses a lot of strange metaphors and makes puns about the contestants.
There are a couple of people who have been on the show so often that they have been named the "All Stars". These guys are freakin' awesome. Makoto Nagano, Toshihiro Takeda, Shingo Yamamoto, and a few others are there lurking in the background to cheer on the newbies every competition.

I would sign this shirt.

I sort of forgot where I was going with this post, so I'm going to go play a little Final Fantasy and procrastinate on homework. Toodles.
~Pigeonmeister

Review: Two Mules for Sister Sara

2010-12-11T22:04:00.000-05:00

Here's my first attempt at a movie review, whoa. I'll be breaking it down into five parts to make it a little easier to write out. I'm no Ebert, that's for sure, but I hope you get something out of it.

At a Glance
"Two Mules for Sister Sara" (1970) was directed by Don Siegel and stars Clint Eastwood as his usual drifter character and Shirley MacLaine as a nun of questionable actions. Clint's character does vaguely break stereotype seeing as he has a legitimate name: Hogan, and he actually has relations with women.
Here's a brief synopsis brought to you by Wikipedia: "A drifter named Hogan spots and saves a naked Sara from being gang-raped by several men whom he shoots and kills. He later learns that she is a nun that is working with a group of Mexican revolutionaries that are fighting the French. When Sara requests that Hogan take her to a Mexican camp, he agrees because he had previously arranged to help the Mexican revolutionaries attack the French garrison in exchange for a portion of the garrison's strongbox if they are successful."

Story and Characters
The premise of a nun and drifter working together provides a fun and often humorous dynamic, particularly when Sara pardons herself and Hogan for drinking, cussing, killing, etc since it is all for a good cause. The one place where the story feels weak is in the reveal of Sara's true occupation. It isn't much of a surprise based on her appearance and actions throughout the majority of the movie. If anything, you may find yourself being surprised when she actually reveals who she is.

Filming and Locations
The movie was filmed on location in Mexico, so there are some lovely landscape shots. However, even though the locations looked good, not much about them really stood out. This may have been due to the camerawork which, though not bad at all, is not particularly creative either. The big battle at the end of the movie looks pretty good, save for a somewhat bizarre shot of an explosion and a really silly looking wound-to-the-face that would have fit in with B horror films a lot better.

Music
Ennio Morricone provides a decent score, but it lacks the flair that many of his other scores had. The opening theme is really awesome, though, and is quite clever. Some of the instruments are made to sound like the hee-hawwing of a mule. Check out the opening here.

Overall
"Two Mules for Sister Sara" is a fun movie, not too complicated or serious, letting you just enjoy the interactions between its titular characters. It's fairly predictable, but comfortably so. You still have the fun of seeing how everything plays out.

Final Verdict: 4/5

P.S. - Dear Clarinet, after we watch "Hot Fuzz," I'll write a review of it just for you.

LOLOLOLOL THIS HAS BEEN A CDC PRODUCTION

2010-12-10T10:27:00.002-05:00

So Eagle came by the other day to play X-men legends AGAIN. I can't get rid of this lady XD Anyhow, recently I've been forgetting where we are in this game, because i keep having flashbacks of snow and death and falling off cliffs, from the most difficult place imaginable. I'm talkin about that area where we died a ridiculous amount of times. It gave me a bad impression on snow in this game, and now I can't get it out of my head. SIGH. moving on. We finally got back from that nightmare, and we had to be ms. lava again. What was her name again? Flamio? Miranda? Lucy? I dunno. Well, we had to explore the grounds and meet students and think about becoming an X-men (even though she's a WOMAN! c'mon people!), and then we meet a beast in blue coloring. I forget his name too. Well he tells me about life, and then suddenly we have an option to go through his flashback, cuz yknow, he's a knowledgable blue beast, and thus has flashbacks. Me and eagle did not realize that we could move in this flashback, so of course we were surprised to find people attacking the X-men, and low and behold they weren't moving! So we were using completely different characters, the blue beast guy as the lead, and had to fight big pink robots.
Yes. That's right. BIG. PINK. ROBOTS.
I lol'd at that, eagle got angry at me, we ate snacks, Cat came in, and of course we kicked butt. That's just the way it went. oh. and Eagle went the wrong direction sometimes, but that was ok because I was there to guide her :3 I made sure we checked every nook and cranny before moving forward, so as not to miss an item. LOL. She got angry by my slowness. It was fun. I was in my snuggie and Eagle was in her bunny slippers, we were seriously relaxed.
Moving on. We defeated all the pink robots and the flashback just ended. Suddenly. NO WARNING AT ALL. We stared at each other because the ending of this flashback was so abrupt. But oh well. We got over it.
At first I thought this flashback was completely irrelevant and totally random, no point whatsoever just wasting time. But no. I was wrong. But I didn't realize that until later. First we had to save an australian mutant from the sewer people. Wow that sounds ridiculous XD But I'm serious. This mutant was an X-man too, and his name is Gambit. This Australian mutant named Gambit got caught by the mutants who felt so shunned they had to go into the underground. They hate outsider mutants. and other outsiders for that matter.
Wait, why am i even explaining this!? The storyline barely ever matters!
We were in the sewers. and kept dying AGAIN. It was so odd, and leveling in the Danger room just wasn't working. So as people died and we were without any healing items, Eagle became the last person standing. So she ran.
and ran.
and RAN.
Away from the millions of sewer mutants coming after her!
She was trapped in a corner! She panicked, unknowing what to do, and then one of the mutants blew up the door, and suddenly BAM! Exit yes! Eagle ran again, trying just to get out of the mess that was mutant. and of course, she got out of that area.
and into a boss fight.
We started over in the sewer.
This ended up happening to me, and I did the same thing. We couldn't revive anyone because we didn't have enough money, it was like the cost for reviving had gone up! It was like taxes for god's sake! aaaaaaaaahgh.
The moral of this story is teamwork. Together, we got through this and the mutant chick boss fight.
MORE IN A MINUTE

X-Men Legends

2010-12-09T12:00:00.000-05:00

So I was at Skynugget's house a few days ago, and we played X-Men Legends again. I guess this is turning out to be our game of the season...
I'll give you the game from my perspective.
The first thing you notice when you play this game is that the graphics are mostly pretty good, though slightly repetitive.It's sort of hard to tell the difference between the characters, and as a result, I sometimes end up wandering off into space punching the air because I think I'm playing as Wolverine when I'm actually Cyclops.
You can play by yourself, or with up to four people (by daisy-chaining your controllers). The 2-player mode is supremely fun because you can mess with each other. Since both characters have to stay on the screen at all times, you can hold your partner up and make them mad (teehee, Skynugget). There's no real way to play against each other, unless you count competition for leveling which doesn't even really make sense.
You can destroy practically everything but the ground in this game. Seriously. Benches, trees, lampposts, most interior walls, chairs, desks, trash cans, desks, refrigerators that are not cabinets (WOMAN), and pretty much everything else succumb to your destructive impulses. In my opinion this is actually the best part of the game...Doing this gives you items that heal your HP and energy. The HP healers become supremely valuable as you get more and more underleveled. You can combat underleveling by visiting the Danger Room, which pretty much gives you unlimited enemies to beat.
My favorite character is Wolverine because he's super strong. He does a lot of super great claw attacks that do a lot of damage.
Skynugget and I have problems with dying in this game. For the longest time we had no idea that some of the barrels explode when you attack them, and there was much carnage. Also, Skynugget jumped two of our characters off a cliff! Tsk tsk. Then again, I fell off a few times too. So I guess we're even on the accidentally-killing-characters scale XD And then for the longest time, we had no idea that you could revive dead characters. We had to look it up online because the instructions for my copy of the game are missing. Turns out you just need money and an access point. Who knew?! (It's actually not called an "access point". It's an "Xtraction Point". I just like to refer to things in Persona terms. Don't judge me XD)
The glitches in this game are plentiful but useful. For instance, if you jump at the right time to the right place, you can jump on anything. Skynugget and I spent a while just walking along the side of a cliff. Also, if you get close enough to some enemies, they can't hit you. This is true of the tanks and the Sentinels. Super useful. Also, dead characters still level, which is weird. But again, useful.
I just can't believe this game is working out so well for us. I bought it at the thrift store, and I totally expected it to not work, or at least require some cleaning, or be so so so bad that I would never want to play it. Actually, I didn't have to clean it at all, it works great, and I'm really looking forward to playing it with Skynugget again.
I'm writing this post in Computer Science. Terribly exciting. BYE
~Pigeonmeister

Defenders of Suckage I MEAN SPACE

2010-12-05T18:37:00.000-05:00

So Chelsea gave me this really suspicious-looking DVD to watch. It's got a smiling girly-looking guy standing in fromt of a smiling robuty-looking robot in fromt of some parallelograms in space. It's got one of those spiky speech bubbles that says "$1.00", like that's a good thing. This piece of wonderful crap is called Defenders of Space, and it is a ripoff of everything. Ever.
Before I start ragging on it, let me quote what it says on the back. As far as I can tell, it's in a font close to "David" or "FrankRuehl" in MS Word. It looks awkward.

"A HYPOCRITICAL RULER OF THE ZINBA EMPIRE, WANTS TO EXPAND HIS TERRITORY AND TURN THE EARTH INTO HIS OWN COLONY."

That's it. That is the entire description.What's the movie about? That one guy, right? And his desire to take over the world?
You'd think that, wouldn't you?
No.
It's not even about Earth for most of the movie. It's about saving a city called Aurora, which has already been destroyed by the evil villain guy.
Guess what the evil villain guy's name is. No, really. You'd say something like Zanborggggggg or Xrggrerrgyg or some crazy evil-sounding name, right? Surely not Nicholas.
But that's his name. And his empire is never ever called the Zinba Empire in the movie. It's called the "kingdom of Nicholas", which made me laugh out loud.
So the movie starts with the evil guy destroying the city of Aurora. Nobody really cares. a robot flies straight through a building. These guys don't understand how an atomic bomb works, because they had like five mushroom clouds pop up and then die down in succession, all from one bomb.
Then we cut over to some weird scene where these kids are playing baseball really, really badly and this girl is harping on them. Her name is Mary, and she shows up throughout the movie. She's in love with this guy named Henry, who is of course the baseball captain and can fire a gun and will eventually save the world by stealing Mary's thunder. But we'll get there.
You figure out where these random kids tie in when they are upset that Aurora has been destroyed. Oh, you lived there? Thanks for telling us that sooner.
They get out of their spaceship and find a stereotypical German scientist guy who is never really explained and tells them to go find the Phoenix King to save their planet. Because apparently the fact that the city was destroyed doesn't matter. It can still be saved. So Henry and Mary take Daddy's spaceship and go for a joyride to Earth to find the Phoenix King under a rock. A rock... shaped like a phoenix. Wow. Real imaginative there.
Evil Nicholas realizes that people are still alive and promises his two generals that whichever one of them rids Aurora of the remaining humans can marry his daughter, who is cleverly named Medusa. He didn't even ask her opinion on this. It's worth noting that all of the evil people are blue. Except Medusa, who is as white as a tissue in bright sunlight in the snow. Someone slept with the milkman.
This is the point where you start to notice that the animators really don't like animating, and they don't work together very well. Their styles are really quite different. Also, it's really obvious where they reused and loop scenes because they didn't mesh up their backgrounds. So you see a huge jump from one section of cloud to the next and it's distracting.
The music is really weird, too. It's some kind of weird synth-pop, and at times it's really inappropriate for whatever is happening.
Anyway, Mary and Henry arrive at the Phoenix Rock. There's this scene where they're looking at the world from the spaceship and Henry looks really stoned and goes "The Earth... is so beautiful". I feel like he should have added "Dude" or "Man".
They land, and you'd expect them to have some kind of trial to get to the Phoenix King. Maybe the enemy found its way there, or therre are ancient traps, or there is evil afoot...
No. Stairs. Lots and lots of stairs. And then bats. Lots and lots of bats. And then a bunch of falling rocks and Mary screams obnoxiously.
Then Henry steals Mary's necklace and uses it as a key to awaken the Phoenix King, who is a big-ass red robot, but also this floating thing that looks like a cross between Jesus and a giraffe. Seriously. I don't even know how that's possible.
So they hop on board and head back to Aurora. It was at this point that I realized that by "save the planet", the old German guy had just meant "get rid of the invaders so we can stop being shot at already".
Have I mentioned yet that the sound effects suck? The bombs sound like radios, the planes sound like bombs, and the falling rocks sound like bouncy balls being dropped on a table. The voices are pretty bad, too, and they don't match up with the mouth movements most of the time. And they always sound so excited. Why yes sir I will defeat these humans and I will not be a traitor. Thank you sir long live King Nicholas.
Anyway, to make a long story short, Phoenix King kicks everyone's ass and saves the day. Then the enemy ship falls burning to the ground and... he transforms into a fire truck. It is an exact ripoff of a Diaclone toy, which was the toy series that led to Transformers. Both Transformers and this insane thing came out in 1984, incidentally. (I read the Wikipedia page. Defenders of Space was originally South Korean, and was crappily dubbed into English, which explains the voices.)
So yeah, woo, saved the day. The last minute of the movie is just various shorts of Phoenix King zooming around in space, and then a big red screen that says "THE END" like something big just happened.
Now remember that cover I told you about? The one with the smiling boy and robot? Well, the boy is Henry, but the robot isn't Phoenix King. It's one of the enemy robots (the one that flew through a building, incidentally). That's like putting Simon from Gurren Lagann with Crazy Pirate Lady's (her name is Adiane) sea scorpion ship. It's just wrong.
The back cover has a creepy yellow smiley face with awkward hair that has text around it. The text reads, "For children of all ages to enjoy!" I dunno about you, but I actually did enjoy this steaming pile of gold. Especially the part where I write a scathing review on my blog. Lolsauce.
Next up: Space Thunder Kids, which incorporates scenes from Defenders of Space along with other movies. I can't wait to see how much I hate it.
Tschau!
~Pigeonmeister

MOTION CONTROLS AND THREE DIMENIONS OH MY GOD

2010-12-04T23:00:00.001-05:00

You care about this game, I swear you do.

Seeing as the gaming field is where I want to be after college, let's talk technology for a second here. When the Kinect was first announced, I couldn't help but criticize it. Being the proud owner of two (count 'em, two) Eye Toys, I thought it might fizzle out fast like Sony's attempt at motion-capture gaming. Recently I've gotten to thinking that you really shouldn't knock something till you try it. The Eye Toy was sort of a piece of crap, but it was a fun piece of crap. I'd like to think that the Kinect will be able to surpass that claim (ie. fun without the crap element). I don't have much else to say about that since I have yet to actually try the Kinect, but I would still like to encourage positive feelings towards its future. Dance Central, for example, looks like a heck of a lot of fun; too bad it makes you look cool, unlike the other Kinect games.

Some technology that I have gotten to experience recently was 3D TV. I'll admit that I'm getting tired of seeing movies in 3D. After initially seeing Avatar, I couldn't have cared less about it. Sure the visuals were an impressive feat, but I just didn't feel all that amazed once everything else started being released in 3D as well. Once I started hearing about videogames being in 3D, the first thing that came to mind was the Virtual Boy. We all know what happened to that.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUU-

However, I took back some of my preconceived notions today when I got to see some 3D gaming in action at Sears. The demo they were showing was of a racing game (I have no idea what it was, maybe it doesn't even exist, doesn't matter really) and I can safely say that the 3D can be done right. There was realistic depth to the backgrounds, emphasizing the height of ledges and the proximity of other cars. If applied to games where depth perception could be utilized a lot more, such as racing games or first-person shooters, it could add a whole new element to an already challenging experience. I think that adding the 3D subtly will make the game immersive enough, without hurting your eyes or being annoying. I'm looking forward to seeing what game companies will make to take advantage of the 3D technology, but I'll still pass on the 3D movies.

I think I'll go play some Eye Toy games now.

EDIT: The Eye Toy isn't all that crappy if you have enough light. I had to use two floor lamps and a 500 watt industrial light to make it work correctly.

Final Freakin' Face

2010-12-03T20:27:00.001-05:00

So this afternoon I played like 5 hours of Final Fantasy X, because my PS2's disc drive has decided to work again. (I didn't mention that it had crapped out on me. Whoops.)
Can I just tell you how much I hate Tidus's face?
I hate his face.
It's all scrunched up and ugly! Eulgh!

SCRUNCHY FACE

Can we get a close-up on that, Bob?


Not very close.

Throughout the whole game, he's making these ugly faces and slouching around like a teenager. I hate him. I hate his guts.

Nnts nnts. It's Technus.

And then I was in the temple at Djose, and I'd finished everything, and I couldn't figure out for the life of me how to get out of there. I had gone around the place like three times, talking to everyone, finding all the secret items... So I finally looked online for a walkthrough to figure out what the heck I was missing.
Look at this picture. What do you see?

Look closer. Look at the big red circle.

I have amazing Paint skills.

That's Yuna.
That's right. You have to go over to that tiny pixelated purple lump and wake her up to get the hell out of that place. UGH.
Then we somehow ended up at Seymour's mansion palace place, where he invites Yuna (and, grudgingly, her guardians) up to his bedroom for a ... feast. And he propositions her. And she freaking considers it.
Hoebag.
I meant Seymour, not Yuna. I sort of like Yuna, I guess. I hate Rikku though. Her voice is too shrill and there is no logical reason for her existence. And she's scared of thunder. What are you, a two year old? Woman up! You don't see Squirrelyface or Old Man or That Guy Who Surprises Everyone When He Talks complaining!
And she whines about the thunder until you take a rest. Seriously. She makes you stop your important journey to save the world just because she's scared of thunder.
In other news, I got the "Game Over" screen for the first time today. It was just a string of bad luck, but I probably could have avoided it by not trying to level up Rikku... That's another reason why I hate her. She's got like 500 HP, and that's with a 200 HP upgrade. One weak hit can kill her annoying ass. All of the other characters have nice healthy health (u see wat i did thar?) but no, annoying girly scaredy girl can't live for crap.
Oh well. At least I can play something... I'm really glad my disc drive worked, even if this is the only time it ever works again. I blew in it while it was open... I dunno if that will help. Probably not. Oh well.
I hear the sweet sound of my father entering the kitchen with Indian food. BYE (as in life!)
~Pigeonmeister

It's Story Time

2010-12-02T11:23:00.003-05:00

Because I haven't been posting to0 much recently, I should talk about something else.
X-men Freakin Legends.
Greatest story in the world. So Eagle comes over my house in her jammies and brings me food, cuz I asked for food. Simple, ya? I figured she would not leave my house, so of course I asked for her to bring over some games too. A lil FF X, maybe some DOA (Ill discuss that in another post someday) but what do i get? I get an "Oh, look Skynugget, I found this trippy looking game we should play." I told her no, I don't want to play a trippy game, I wanna watch you play ff X or play Doa with you lady. But by that time she has already put it in my flippin ps2, so I had no choice but to play it with her.
The main screen was so cool, totally 2d and unnecessary! We were so excited to start this ridiculous adventure, but we had some problems along the way. As the game started, and we went through a really stupid opening sequence with some decent graphics, Eagle had to move Wolverine around to learn how to deal with these controls. She accidentally went through some fire and had already lost like, HALF her hp! GAO. By the time she learned how to deal with the camera angles, which she was SO happy about btw :P, she had already died. It was my turn oh joy. I destroyed everything in my sight. I was hawt. I was on fire. Until I died around the same spot as her. Apparently, I got hit by some fire and some soldiers that called me "Muties!" had taken it from there XD
Eagle got way farther after that. We got to the point where we picked up another kid, some X-Men called Cyclops, lol and I got to join in the two player team up part. Lemme say, my controllers are slightly glitchy. teeheehee. I couldnt use the L1 button, and that was the way to use healing items. So Cyclops nearly died. But Eagle's Wolverine was fine. We defeated a big fat man. saved a chick.
Yay <3
Lol, not the best part of the story. So afterwards we ate ramen and played more of this crappy game. we got to the point where we had to find X-men in the mansion, get briefed on a mission, and then do the mission. I got to play as Iceman, and eagle was Cyclops this time I think. The scenery was snowy, and as glitchy as this game was, we got to jump over the trees to get where we wanted. We got lost alot and totally forgot what we were supposed to do. Then when we did find the next area, it told us we had to destroy some flippin generator camera security shiz. So we had to go back and get lost all over again hahahaha.
BEST PART.
We got to this part where we learned we could use our mutant powers on scenery. There was this cliff that we suddenly realized we could use Iceman to create a bridge over the cliff to the other side of it. Amazing right?
Except, I didn't know that at the time.
It was an accident I swear.
Iceman fell over the cliff.
and died.
:D

Totally Off Topic

2010-12-01T22:39:00.003-05:00

First of all his name isn't actuall CAT. THAT WOMAN JUST FAILS. SEE THIS IS WHY YOU CAN'T EVER HAVE CAT.
Next, let's talk about something completely off topic.
MY NAME.
The name Naminesfriend goes way back, into the days of youtube, xanga, and anything else. I think it started with youtube, because all I wanted was to make amvs and become some big famous amv maker online. But I needed a name. Well, you see my favorite game of all time forevermore throughout all eternity has always been and always will be Kingdom Hearts. I live and breath the stuff. I understand it so well, as I'm sure you've noticed from my previous posts. However, there are a million Kingdom Hearts fans all over the world, it is quite the sensation you know, so I couldn't possibly be "Khluvr4ever5766669395u74" lol. So I needed something new. Something hawt. Something grammatically meaningful and profound. So I thought "Who was my favorite character?" Immediately I went to Sora, cuz he was my freakin bestie and helped me find monsters under my bed when I was 9. But there was also a million "Sora572" and such. Totally wouldn't stand out right? So, I thought deeper. "Which is my favorite character who is underappreciated?" My lover Riku was over appreciated with friends known as fangirls, so namine it was! She was a NOBODY, she had no friends!!!! Soooooooo, in the end!!!! NAMINESFRIEND WAS BORN.
THE END

Announcement

2010-11-28T18:12:00.000-05:00

I'm writing a super quick post because I have to leave Skynugget's house in 6 minutes.
The announcement is... We'll get there.
I'm in Skynugget's house, did I tell you? I love her cat. His name is Cat and he loves me more than he loves her. <3
So Oregon Trail II works on Skynugget's computer. We all just died of thirst.
I guess that was the announcement.
~Pigeonmeister

Who's Thrifty?

2010-11-27T08:41:00.000-05:00

This morning, I am supposed to be writing a paper on how my writing has grown throughout high school for my senior English class.
This morning, what I am actually doing is blogging. =)
Last night, I went to the thrift store!
At first I intended to shop for my cosplay (I'm hoping to be Maka from Soul Eater). I didn't really find anything that caught my interest. Then, I wandered over to the DVD section and started looking.
They had some weird stuff over there. There were a bunch of weird weight-loss DVDs, a maybe kung-fu movie called Buddhist Shaolin Avengers, and a couple of PS2 games. Of course, I jumped on those, because I only have about 5 games for my PS2. The only one that interested me was X-Men Legends. So I got it. It's really really scratched up, but I'll clean it and see how it fares. If it works I'll post about it.
I also wandered over to the computer game section and found Oregon Trail II (for Microsoft 3.1 and Windows 95! LOL). Skynugget pressured me to get it via text and so of course I caved in. Now we need a computer with Windows 95 (cause I don't know ANYONE who remembers Microsoft 3.1) so we can play this thing. My mom's old broken computer is still sitting up in my computer room. I think if I mess with the hard drive a bit, install Windows 95, and use it lightly, it might work. So Skynugget and I have a computer date for this weekend.
Anyway, now it's time to move from the potatoes to the tender, delicious beef of the post. I have "The Seeker" by The Who stuck in my head this morning, so I was thinking I'd talk about them for a bit.
I love Pete Townshend's voice. It's got a nice growl to it, even when he's not using the letter r. My favorite example of this (and my favorite of their songs, incidentally) is "My Generation". It may seem a bit outdated, because it was written about and for the generation before mine, but it's still a pretty great song.
I saw The Who in concert about 2 or 3 years ago, and though they're not at their peak anymore, it was still fantastic. Their lighting was great, especially on "Who Are You"- it was right with the music and absolutely epic.
From The Who, we can make a nice segway into CSI (the tv show), because all of their theme songs are Who songs.
I used to be a huge huge fan of regular CSI (aka CSI Las Vegas). This was back before the main boss guy, Gil Grissom (played by William Petersen), left the show. I always vowed to my parents that I would stop watching the show if he left, because he pretty much held the team together. Now I know I made the right choice, because about half the original cast remains and they had Justin Bieber as a guest star. (I want you to know that I gave that kid a chance. My parents were watching and I stayed for about 5 minutes before I couldn't take his pathetic wooden acting anymore.)
My favorite character was always Sarah Sidle (played by Jorja Fox). When she left, I wanted her back. When she came back, I didn't like her anymore. So goes life. Someone I have always and will always like is Greg Sanders (because the actor, Eric Szmanda, is really cute).
I watched a few episodes of CSI Miami and quickly developed a bored hatred of it. The head honcho here is Horatio Caine (played by David Caruso). He's not the greatest actor, in my opinion. Horatio Caine is constantly telling his subordinates how to do their jobs, with such lines as "Take it to the lab". The other characters aren't even really worth mentioning.
CSI NY is the only one of the three that I still watch. It has some fairly good characters, a cute lab tech, and interesting cases. However, I am quickly becoming frustrated by the insane techniques the investigators use to prove their cases. They have a bunch of weird technology that would be really cool if it were real, but isn't real and so can't really be used. A great example of this is a sort of light table that displays a 3D holographic image of a person's body without the skin. Wouldn't it be great if we had something like that in real life? Yeah, but we don't, so do an autopsy like a regular coroner, Sid.
All of this said, there are some things I really like about the CSI series. Before the theme song or the first commercial break, there is an obligatory pun about something case-related that's usually worth a groan. The series are all set in the same universe and started with basically the same cast of characters. However, they are drifting apart in terms of plot and what they are known for, brought together again by the occasional crossover episode.
tl;dr? : I like bunnies.
~Pigeonmeister

Barbra Streisand

2010-11-25T20:25:00.000-05:00

Let's add another spoke to the wheel of nerdiness here, huh?

I love dance music from the 70's and 80's and the revival of those decades in today's house music, so I thought I'd share the interesting evolution of a particular song that, as of this moment, goes by the name "Barbra Streisand."
In 1973, a German five-some called Nighttrain released the funky and vaguely bohemian "Hallo Bimmelbahn." Six years later, the German band Boney M rewrote the song to fit the needs of disco fans, and to great success. Their version, "Gotta Go Home", has a danceable beat with tropical flair from the use of steel drums. If you listen to "Hallo" and "Gotta" back-to-back, you might notice how very similar the two tracks are. Two members of Nighttrain are credited as co-writers of the Boney M version, so it seems like they were down with making a disco version of their own song.
Skip forward a few decades to 2010. Duck Sauce's "Barbra Streisand" is a hit in clubs and its popularity is probably still rising. The track is essentially the Boney M version, but with a shuffle-y beat, lack of steel drums, and the verses about going to an island are replaced with "Barbra Streisand."
Where all this gets weird is when you take into account the remix by Baby Diego. Instead of furthering itself from the original (like most remixes do), this one actually takes a step back. The shuffling is gone, the steel drums are present, and it regains its disco feel; it's Boney M's version all over again! Okay, not exactly, but it's certainly closer to it.
If Baby Diego's edit was remixed, do you think it could go back to being the Nighttrain version? Only time will tell.

Keep on funkin'.

Merry Christmas To All, And To All a Naruto-Related Blog Post

2010-11-25T09:33:00.000-05:00

If you read the previous post, you will have noticed that the ever-amazing Chelsea has joined our team! I'm so so so so so excited about this!!! She will definitely be a worthy opponent in the battle for the Internet!
Who knows who will join our team next? Maybe someone who hates video games, or maybe even (gasp) a Republican! That's why I love the Internet so much- it can bring such different people together for reasonable discussion on a whole huge multitude of things!
I'm gonna cut off my rant on how much I love the Internet right here... before I get into how much it supports free speech... and how I think it should be allowed to form its own laws... (engages in intense battle to free self from topic)
Let's talk about something I haven't yet touched on- anime. Specifically, Naruto. Now before I get booed off the blog, let me say that I do not like Naruto anymore, but I used to be a pretty big fan. So I can talk about it in a sort of detached manner, but with the experience behind my claims. Ok. Let's start this.
In my opinion, Naruto is the perfect first anime. It has enough violence to be interesting, enough romantic tension to be awkward, and enough comedic moments to be amusing. It was my first anime, and it was an obsession for many years.
It is great for someone who isn't really sure if they like the medium of anime yet, and a good way to get used to common plot devices, transitions, flashbacks, weird powers, funny-looking hair, weak-but-secretly-strong-when-they-don't-need-to-be female characters, and all of that. From this base, a viewer can reach up to anime that is considered more sophisticated, perhaps something more artistic or thought-provoking. (Black Rock Shooter, which we recently watched in Anime Club, comes to mind. Sure, it was based on a Vocaloid song, but it also raised questions about how far you would go to save a friend, the nature of friendship in general, and how time plays a role in our perception of events, to name a few themes.)
The series was actually pretty good on its own in the first few seasons, as well. Orochimaru was a nice little villain with easily mocked lines such as "I want Sasuke's body", the battles were fairly interesting, and the plot made sense. The filler arcs were pretty awkward and plotless, and then Shippuden came along. While the character growth there was nice, the battles became prolonged, there were more flashbacks, and it just sort of became... boring. It would be hard for a newbie to get into it because there is just so much backstory. If you look at the manga series on a bookstore shelf, it's a little daunting- there are something like 53 volumes.
I think the time is long past when it coould have ended gracefully as a classic, but the series does need to end in a dignified manner. Have all the cute couples get married, retire, and live happily ever after- there's a textbook ending.
One last thing before I conclude this post- I've been looking at the blog stats since I started it, and every day there are a few views. I'm guessing that there are a handful of people who check the blog regularly, and I would like to thank those people. Thanks so much, you guys, and happy Thanksgiving! ^_^
~Pigeonmeister

HAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAYOUJUSTGOTHECKED

2010-11-25T08:51:00.002-05:00

Don Johnson is my fashion icon.

What's this? Another contributor? That's right AMWABOT, a challenger has appeared and I plan to win the heart of the internet!

So this is what I've potentially got to bring to this blog: not RPGs (though maybe the weapon), biased opinions on Spaghetti Westerns and other movies, and miscellaneous tomfoolery that is probably related to video games. I'll even bless you with a picture for each post, so get ready for the intense glory that is CHELSEA "THAT GUY" ALLEN.

JK, I'm not that glorious, but I can always pretend, right?

Something not game-related, for once

2010-11-23T21:05:00.000-05:00

Today, at 11:45 am, I got my braces off.
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
It sucked actually getting them off. The brackets came off easily enough, but then I had to spend 45 minutes sitting there getting the glue scraped off my teeth. Imagine fingernails on a chalkboard. Now imagine that screehing sound as a feeling on your teeth- yes. That's how it is.
But I just thought of soft fluffy bunnies and their cute soft ears and it helped. Seriously. I guess cute things really do have quite a hold on me.
For dessert tonight I ate about half a bag of Haribo gummi bears. It was amazing.
Sin is a whale. Just remember that when you play FFX.
~Pigeonmeister

LOLOLOLOLOL

2010-11-23T09:48:00.003-05:00

So todAY, I got up in an amazing mood. But this post isn't about today.
It's about the other day :D
The other day Eagle came over to play FF X for like, ever. While she was playing, I noticed that she wasn't properly using the sphere grid, and it bugged me. Seriously, this stuff isn't that complicated woman! like the second day I was playing, back when I was thirteen, I got things like *snap!* that!This game totally absorbed me into it's detailed storyline, mixing religion with reality. Not to mention the wonderful fighting system. Seriously people, look it up online, you're on anyway, it'll show all the reviewers, including myself ;) haha, describe the battle system as original and good.
Next up, the characters. To be honest, I found Tidus to be. . . .shall we say, an underdeveloped character? Granted, he had an energetic way about him in the beginning, but basically nothing was really solid with him. Does he like Yuna, or doesn't he? Is he happy or emo? Why the fudge does he hate his father so much??? Oh yeah, and that reminds me. The only solid thing about Tidus was the fact that he really hated his father, which I do understand, but his hate kinda went off the deep end. Still, he basically was a kid learning as he went through Spira and the Summoner's journey, so in all he was a basic main character.
I liked Yuna. She was pretty solid throughout, and pretty strong considering her situation. The only thing I hated about her was how codependent she was. She was so clingy, and quiet, and obedient. She never really thought about what she wanted and decided she should just make people happy rather than try to be happy herself. mrmrmrm.
Lulu and Wakka. . . .ahhhh, I won't bother on too deep an explanation with them. Lulu was very independent, but gripping on her past too much. Wakka was just. well. I did like him. He's a father figure with a bit of boyish flare. That's about it. But still. Great support character :D
Rikku was probably my favorite character out of all them. She was spunky, happy, independent, had family love, and overall a roundabout personality. She's a lil sexy, a lil happy, a lil sad, very solid. I liked her :D though her physical strength was not great, I worked on it so she was balanced as a fighter as well :D
Basically, square soft made this game to show off their amazing new graphic improvements. However, they also had a pretty decent storyline, and an amazing world they created known only as the majestic and tragic Spira. Check out FF X, I highly recommend it :D
Also, there is a sequel called FF x-2, with the main character being Yuna. Honestly, That one is my favorite out of the two. Ok. I'm done ranting. sugoi!

Here we go. FINAL FANTASY X

2010-11-22T18:43:00.001-05:00

So today I went to Skynugget's house and played FFX for like 5 hours with her. And I have some things to say.
First off, I was wrong about never getting to play blitzball. You do- but it kind of sucks. I lost really badly and have no desire to play again.
Second off, plot twist! The whole Sin getting defeated but never being truly defeated thing makes sense now.
Freakin' whale.
I'm starting to get a better grasp of the fighting system, though I never knew about some features of it until Skynugget pointed them out to me. The whole thing (and the whole game, actually) is too goldurn complicated.
While playing today I took some nice pictures that I'd like to share with you all.

My enemy had one freakin' HP left. Ghh

The person in the middle is Yuna. I was like, "What the hell happened to Yuna?" and Skynugget replied, "She got stoned!"

This kid was racing around the inn. He'd make a great blitzball.

Since I just uploaded pics off my phone, I'll go back and add the one where Jake's legs were through the windshield to my A Dog's Life post.

Anyway, the game is starting to make a little more sense, but at the same time still doesn't make sense. I've finally gotten used to that infernal sphere grid.

I really like Lulu. She's a bitchy, wonderful character who's strong as hell. <3

That's all for now, folks. And remember:

I'M ON A BOAT.

Love,

~Pigeonmeister

An Argument

2010-11-22T09:54:00.001-05:00

While I would love to debate over the crappiness of FFX with Skynugget, for some reason I'm thinking about A Dog's Life, so I'm going to post about it.
This infernal game is another one of those that is awful, but really addictive for a while. You play as a dog named Jake who's trying to rescue his canine lover from the dogcatcher. To do this you have to smell a bunch of stuff and challenge other dogs to tug-of-war and pissing contests (literally). Every time you defeat another dog or smell enough smells, and sometimes just for no reason at all, you get a bone. Bones add to your power.
This game has two modes: a third-person running around mode and Smellovision, which is in first-person. In Smellovision you can see the smells, which are fluorescent colored stink waves. It's actually pretty inventive, and maked a game about a dog actually sort of fun.
However, it is really easy to get a headache playing this game. Skynugget and I usually have to stop after an hour or two. It's not a normal vision headache either- it can get really, really bad if you don't stop the stupid game.
This game has a whole bunch of weird glitches, usually relating to the attachment of Jake's legs to his body. I have a picture of Jake standing through a car's windshield- his back legs are just totally inside the car.
Later addition: Here's the picture.

That's legit, man. Stuck in a windshield.

Another time, I was going up some stairs and his legs just sort of disconnected from his body. (I didn't get a picture of that one, and Skynugget didn't see it, but it happened.) Also, you have to be very careful when you try to interact with objects. I once saw an orange smell (which is a buried bone) drifting from as fence, so I sent Jake to dig it up. It turned out that the bone was on the other side of the fence, and Jake got stuck there digging. I had to restart the game. Actually, I think I just shut it off, because I had a headache by that point.
The jumping is really awkward. Jake has a nice high jump, but he has to be in exactly the right position to use it or he shakes his head and backs up, and your controller vibrates. It gets sort of annoying after the first few times it happens.
You wanna know what else is awkward? That's right, the camera angles. Especially in Smellovision- I don't normally complain about the camera moving too fast in a game, but it does in this case. I think that may be part of the reason why I get headaches a lot playing this game- my eyes can't keep up with the graphics.
All this aside, it's actually a pretty fun game at times. You can pick up chickens, and they'll pop out eggs. There are a lot of strangely voiced characters, who can get annoying (Ms. freakin' Peaches) but are sort of amusing too. There's a guy with a terrible Southern drawl at the Watermill who says "I love my axe" in a really great way. Skynugget and I were rolling on the floor laughing at that one for a while. The graphics are fairly good for an early PS2 game, glitches and camera work aside.
I haven't finished the game, because Skynugget and I reached a fairly dead spot in the game. We can't chase away those accursed pigeons! Maybe eventually I'll try to finish it.
That's all for now, folks!
~Pigeonmeister
PS: GH is a sound of anger. Like ghhhhhhhhhhh or aghhhhhhhhhh or agh or ahhhhhhhhhhhhghghghghghghhhhhhhh. Or grr.

BTW

2010-11-21T23:39:00.001-05:00

What does GH mean?

Ugh Eagle

2010-11-21T23:29:00.002-05:00

So may I point out that she is just being a baby about the whole storyline??? Tidus is young and naive, and supposed to be portrayed as arrogant but heroic. also. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD YUNA ISNT SLUTTY TILL FF X-2! and! Sin isn't a whale!!! this is established, she just refuses to believe otherwise. ALSO.
YOU MUST BE A FREAKIN MORON TO USE FIRE ON ONE OF YOUR SUPPORTING CHARACTERS, YOU FREAKIN MORON XD I got a good laugh from reading that, lemme tell you.
That battle system has been noted by game reviewers as one of the best of the final fantasy battle systems, and in fact people missed it when ff x-2 was released, though i personally preferred ff x-2's battle system. sigh. such is the way of eagle's complainy butt.
The music is made by nobuo uematsu, and thus millions of fans will be knocking down eagles door and beating her up. Sometimes it is strange when the storyline is dramatic but the music sounds happy, but it is still good music!!! "To Zanarkans" is a classic that is played even on stinkin Little Big Planet! Talk about legendary! Maybe Eagle should listen to the Black Mages' version of everything before I continue forward to tell her the camera angles aren't crap XD
Good day to you all!

Yep, she predicted it

2010-11-21T21:11:00.000-05:00

So I would like to fulfill Naminesfriend's prediction and complain about FFX.
THIS.
GAME.
SUCKS.
Sure, the graphics are pretty good. Actually, they're better than a lot of more modern games. And some of the music is ok. But the gameplay is just so, so awkward. It's really hard to tell where you can and cannot walk, and you can't jump, which is really annoying. I've gotten used to Kingdom Hearts, so I keep pressing the O button hoping something will happen and being disappointed when it doesn't.
The fighting is also really awkward. It's taking me some time to get used to how you have to select which opponent you're attacking- I used fire on one of my own guys by accident once, just because it was so awkward. Also, you can sometimes see your opponent's HP, but sometimes you really can't. GH.
Quite frankly, the whole plot is a bit weird. By which I mean really, really freaking nonsensical. So apparently you play as a star athlete, but you never get to play the game he's supposed to be great at (at least, I haven't gotten to yet. Disclaimer: I haven't gotten terribly far, I'm only in the second town.) Also, there's this giant whale monster thing that nobody can apparently defeat, but semi-slutty girl character's father apparently defeated. What? And apparently it can also manipulate time and space to destroy machines and people who use them, but it's also a curse for nonbelievers in the all-powerful god. Why can't this god save its people directly instead of making you fight zillions of silly monsters in preparation for (I assume) defeating the big bad whale monster?
The whole whale thing kind of reminds me of Moby Dick. Harpoon and all.
You play as a cocky manhole (oh ho ho) named Tidus (who I renamed Squirrel with an umlaut over the u, because that's how I roll). He starts off by being arrogant about his athletic success, then stomps all over another culture's religious beliefs to save a girl who didn't even need saving, and who he didn't know anyway. Then he just keeps being a jerk. Lovely.
That's all for now cause I've got to sleep, but rest assured that as I play this infernal game, I will have much more to rant about.
Such as the camera angles...
~Pigeonmeister

First to Mention

2010-11-21T14:39:00.002-05:00

I would like you all to know, before eagle even gets a chance to comment on it, that Final Fantasy X is an AMAZING game, with magnificent graphics, a sweet storyline, and the most profound music created by the legendary Nobuo Uematsu himself! (Many of you will know "To Zanarkand" of course)
SO IN CONCLUSION. Final Fantasy X = yay! Pigeonmeister's future comments concerning bashing this game = Boo!
Thank you :D

Tired Excitement

2010-11-18T21:35:00.000-05:00

Tonight I am filling up time until I leave to stand in line for the Harry Potter premiere! It's currently 9:13 and I have to kill time until 10:00. Man, I'm going to be so tired tomorrow! I half-slept for like 3 hours this afternoon, so hopefully that will help.
Naminesfriend won't let me steal her cat. (sigh)
~Pigeonmeister

Per...so...na! (Fwoosh!)

2010-11-16T18:14:00.000-05:00

Today I would like to discuss one of my favorite games of all time, the reason I bought a PS2, an obsession for about 6 months: Persona 3 (FES).
I almost cannot express how amazing this game is. Every morning during the summer I would wake up excited, knowing that I was in for a few hours of Persona. I memorized the enemies and their attacks and my Personas and their attacks and little details and everything...
Where can I even start?
With the voice actors, I suppose. A full cast list can be found on imdb (here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1104102/fullcredits). In particular I would like to mention how great a job Vic Mignogna does, as usual. He really made Junpei's character (with all its little oddities) come to life! One person of whom I had never heard before but wish I had is Liam O'Brien (who voiced Akihiko). He's got that perfect silky-smooth ladies' man-but-shy sort of voice that made me adore him. He's pretty cute, too... I will admit that there is one voice that I truly hate: Yukari's. She's just... annoying. But then again, she's an annoying character, so I guess it fits. The only other thing that makes me mad about the voices is that Grant George voices both Shinjiro and Jin. If you play it, you'll see why I am angered by this.
The fighting system is, from what I understand, a fairly generic turn-based system. It's so fun, though, because you have to strategize and anticipate not only what the enemies will use, but what your own party members will use. I have heard that in Persona 4 and subsequent versions, the battle system lets you choose what each party member does. However, I think I would prefer the P3 version- it's another layer of challenge, and besides, sometimes your characters use things that you never would have thought of using but are supremely effective. I don't know, though. I haven't played Persona 4 yet. Once I have, I'll post something about it.
The game continued to surprise me as long as I was playing it. I don't want to give any spoilers to those of you who want to play the game (which I highly recommend!!!). But let me just say this: SHINJIROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
When you're fighting, there are just so many variables. I have been in battles where one lucky move has decided my fate. Once I was fighting the Magical Magus, even though they were about 10 levels above me, and I just got lucky enough to beat them. The weapons you find lying around can be really helpful on occasion, but are usually just prototypes of the ones you can get in the mall. I will say, though, that for Akihiko I try as hard as I can to give him the metal fists with spikes on the end- they look like kitty paws and it's so adorable! And deadly, too.
The graphics are pretty freakin' awesome, especially when you use a Fusion Spell and you get to see some main character chest, or when you're in the 5th block. So much greatness... The Personas and the characters are really well animated during normal gameplay. Despite the fact that many people (such as my Daddy Tama-chan) hate the way Mr. Main Character walks, it's not really that much of a problem, as the animation is perfectly on cycle and he gets places fast. The cutscenes are extremely well done. They effectively use color and contrast to set the perfect mood- usually a dark but thrilling one.
If you ever play this game, use the bathroom often. It's my favorite part of the game. Not only does it usually improve your condition, but the angle and the noises are really awkward. You wouldn't understand unless you played it. Naminesfriend and I tried to explain it to one of our friends once by drawing a picture... it didn't really work. XD
So in summary: this game is freakin' fantastic. Play it! It's by Atlus games, and it's for the PS2. If you don't have a PS2, it's totally worth buying one just for this game. I haven't regretted it once.

That's all I have to say for now... Later, y'all!
~Pigeonmeister

Dear Skynugget

2010-11-15T15:03:00.000-05:00

Dear Skynugget,
I actually kind of like "Piegeonmeister". It's like pie + pigeon + meister =D
And your bad spelling/grammar is only your problem! Not mine! Note the correct usage of "your".
Love, Pigeonmeister

Has a Logical Reason

2010-11-14T18:32:00.002-05:00

Sorry, internet friendly people. I had not been blogging this weekend. But I had a legitimate reason not to.
You see, My Dearest darling of whom I call Eagle (Piegeonmeister, and yes I'm leaving that mispelled just to piss her off) told me that she was rather bored while away. And because of this, had asked me to blog so she could argue with me. Now then, being the difficult friend that I am, I chose not to post.

Just to MAKE HER LIFE NOT EASY :D

Your welcome Eagle (and I'm aware that is "You're" instead of "your" Once again, making your life difficult)

Lol

2010-11-14T17:48:00.001-05:00

straight through the heart, friends till the end, can't you see thats the way its gotta be

Meow

2010-11-14T09:44:00.001-05:00

I've had a pretty weird weekend in New York. The college I've been visiting is pretty great. There's this professor whose enthusiasm for his subject really made me want to apply. I guess I just like the crazy teachers.
The town in which this college lies is... interesting. Where I live, we have starbucks inside Harris Teeter. Up here, there's a Dunkin' Donuts inside a Walmart.
My flight home leaves in like 4 and a half hours. There is absolutely nothing to do here. Thus I am posting. Maybe now would be the time to launch into a philosophical discussion...
How is it that even in these modern times, when we're surrounded by stuff, we can still be bored? In my room right now there is this computer, a television, several books, my dad, a landline phone, my iPod, and my cell phone. I could avail myself of any of these opportunities for enjoyment, but instead I am bored. And I can't even rebut Naminesfriend, since she hasn't posted yet.
Hmm.
~Pigeonmeister

Legitimacy

2010-11-12T16:33:00.000-05:00

I have had a really illegitimate day.
It all started when I was at the airport, killing time before my flight by getting breakfast. I asked for chocolate milk and a chocolate chip muffin. Simple, yes? The woman behind the counter was short, around 30, and scatterbrained. She made me chocolate milk out of regular milk and some chocolate syrup, and gave me a blueberry muffin. Gh. I eventually got my chocolate chip muffin, then began eating it only to discover that there were no chocolate chips inside, only out. And as I was eating it, almost all of the chips fell on the nasty fake wood of the airport table. So much for that.
Then, we got on the plane and had a pretty decent time. But as we left the Rochester airport, things started getting sketchy again. We drove past an Asian place called, I kid you not, "Yummy Cafe". 'Twas quite shady. We arrived at our hotel to find awkward fluorescent lighting, the style of a cheap motel, and a sink where the closet should be.
My dad was looking at the names of local restaurants on our GPS and found some really awkward ones. The "Raging Burrito" and the "House of Poon" are apparently area attractions.
Speaking of the GPS, I would like to comment on how annoying I find it. While we were driving to the hotel from the airport this morning, the GPS refused to acquire the satellites. So my dad and I had to rely on some rudimentary directions and guesswork to get to our destination. As soon as we got there, the GPS decided to work. Great timing, Mary. Die now.
As we were driving around later, I found myself getting super annoyed by her vowel-mangling, annoying voice. So I changed it to an Australian guy. Hopefully he will be better.
And now, as always, I would like to offer a rebuttal to Naminesfriend's last post.
Skynugget is not a random name- it is an expression of how much I love you. <3
Also, you can't move with the enemy sometimes, especially with the ones that disappear and then reappear. Lock on doesn't help at all in those instances.
You CAN use items during battle, but the menus are awkward to navigate and difficult for a beginner to memorize. D<
I believe the game is rated E for everyone, and thus should appeal to all age groups. That means even evil people like myself who hate children. So it should have been slightly less annoying.
While I agree that Simple and Clean is a pretty good song, it's not my favorite.
In conclusion, my dear Skynugget, I will argue with you until the end of the earth.
<3
~Pigeonmeister

Did She Just Call Me Skynugget Again????

2010-11-11T22:27:00.004-05:00

She doesn't HAVE a reason to call me skynugget!!! She just made that up on the spot, and has been calling me it ever since!
ANYWAY. I would like to rebutt that butt rebut of pigeonmeister's. First of all, during battles where the lock-on is funny because of the way the enemy moves, I have only this to say: MOVE WITH THE FRODO-ING ENEMY.
Second, I'm sorry, but it just is NOT that hard to use magic and items during battles, ESPECIALLY during boss fights. Each boss has their own style, but almost all of them gives you a chance moment to heal. If you're really PAYING ATTENTION, you can use that to your advantage. But of course, as a veteran Kingdom Hearts gamer, I suppose I shouldn't expect such advanced techniques from a noob :P
As for the disney dispute, this game is meant for children and those who like to feel that warm feeling in their hearts. Oh, so Pigeonmeister:

A-HYUCK!

We got to see the ending together. Everyone ends up seeing that ending for the first time with me :D It makes me happy to be able to share such a precious moment with them. it also reminded me I still need to find March Caprice for Piano and Orchestra. Man, I love that song. May I end on the quote of my favorite song of all time?
"Regardless of warning, the future doesn't scare me at all." ~Utada Hikaru, Simple and Clean

Finally

2010-11-11T18:02:00.000-05:00

Today I went to Naminesfriend's house and finished KH on her PS2. It didn't freeze (for which I am quite thankful), I kicked Ansem's ass without problems, etc. It just... wasn't as epic as it was the first time around.
After we finished that, we played Dog's Life for like 15 minutes before starting to get headaches. The camera angles on that game are really awful, especially in Smellovision (you have to play the damned game to know what that means). Then we talked about life.
Her cat is really great. His name is Buddy, and he is the softest, sweetest, most loveable cat around. I love only cat <3
I would now like to rebut (is that a word?) some of the things Naminesfriend said in her last post.
Well, second to last. When I was a child, I did have a loon obsession. But she keeps freakin' bringing it up! GAH! Consequently my favorite card in Apples to Apples is The Common Loon. (Just in case you ever play Apples to Apples with me. That card always freakin' wins.)
First off, we never ate freakin' paste. We used to think it was funny to pretend to sniff sharpies, but we never ate paste. Who the hell would eat paste?! Did you eat paste when I wasn't looking, Skynugget?!
Second of all, Lock On doesn't help when the camera angle is too skewed. It is also easily fooled by enemies that disappear, such as Search Ghosts, Darkballs, and Invisibles. But I still use it, woman! It kinda sorta helped in the dark.
As to the characters, they were the part of the game I hated most. Donald's freakin' voice (especially when he says "Oh boy!") made me just plain angry. Goofy's voice is no better, nor are any of the other Disney characters'. One voice I did appreciate, though, was Ansem's. He had just the right amount of evil in his voice to be hot without being overly horrifying.
The storyline and the inclusion of Disney characters kinda didn't make sense, but I agree that the fight system was pretty good. Except for how damn hard it is to use items and magic in battle. The only magic I ever used was Cura, because I had a shortcut for it and needed all the health I could get. That being said, Cura is the best freakin' spell ever.
In conclusion:
-Poor Alfred (he almost got raped by rosencrantz and Guildenstern)
-Riku's an ass
-Ansem's an even bigger ass, but he's kinda hot all the same
-I don't eat paste WOMAN
~Pigeonmeister

Oh Yeah

2010-11-10T21:41:00.001-05:00

A little tid bit about pigeonmeister:
Did you know that when pigeonmeister was a child, pigeonmeister had a loon obsession????

:D
Sugoi <3

Today was Sugoi!

2010-11-10T20:20:00.002-05:00

Hello world, and all who inhabit it!!!! hahaha, if you didn't notice before, i just made a spongebob quote :D
My name's Naminesfriend, and I'll be your host for the rest of this time, or at least it'll seem that way because I'm rebutting all of. . . . dang it woman, what name are you using again?
oh. Pigeonmeister this time. ok, gotcha!
Yeah, I'll be rebutting all of Pigeonmeister's statements. At least, most of them. We sometimes agree on things. Like how Yukari's a hoe. AND WHILE I DO NOT CALL KAIRI A HOE LIKE PIGEONMEISTER, I still find her just. . . mrmrmrmrmr. But I don't hate her. Just don't like her.
ANYWAY.
I've known this Pigeonmeister human since like the fourth grade, the days where we ate paste and screamed about hot dogs :3
So of course I would help her out on her blog. She and I are like. . . two sides of the same coin. While she is analytical and logical, I tend to be bubbly and illogical, filled with nonsense that actually makes sense in the end. So of course, she can never win with me. It's tons of fun :D
Haha, anyhow, today as my starting post I would like to rebutt all the stuff Pigeonmeister about the greatest game of all time forevermore: KINGDOM HEARTS
When I was 9, my mom got me this odd game that I had heard of from mysterious commercials. little did i know that this game would be my peace and love for the next 8 years. From the beauty of Square Soft's(now Square enix from merging with another game company) graphics to the entrancing music made by the legendary Nobuo Uematsu, I was captivated from Kingdom Hearts as my young eyes and ears led me through an adventure I would never forget.
The points my dear Pigeonmeister makes are trivial game control matters that are due to the age of the game. I for one got used to the camera controls rather well, and was using them to their fullest even at the final hours of the final boss battle. and plus, there's one control that my friend continuously forgets to use: It's called LOCK ON woman!
Granted, there are a few glitches in the game like fighting inside a head or the slow speech bubbles when Sora Donald and Goofy converse whilst in the gummi ship, but hey, this was a video game made in 2002. Needless to say, it's progression in technology was far more advanced than any other game of it's time, and even now it's better than some games made in 2010.
Besides, the point of Kingdom hearts wasn't just for gameplay, the use of both Disney characters and Final fantasy characters, along with purely original characters, was made to warm your heart in a way not possible by any other game.
The story was pure. The characters were innocent but learning what it meant to be tempted by darkness or fight against. Wrong and right is vague, but I learned from this game that so long as you trust in your friends, you can get through anything. It made me believe, and opened my heart that was once sketchy of other people. It was beautiful, with a good fight system, and a wonderful story with gorgeous music to go along with it. There's no real explanation but to say it's Kingdom Hearts, and even when you're 21 and just starting to play it, it makes you feel like it's always been a piece of your childhood.
:D So, let's summarize what we learned here: Kingdom Hearts is amazing, Pigeonmeister complains to much, and she used to eat paste.
Remember Sora, you are the one who shall open the door.

Strange People

2010-11-10T20:10:00.000-05:00

I am proud to introduce my friend Namienesfriend, who will be posting things from time to time. If you see a post with a different style and many instances of the word "SUGOI", you'll know it's her.
She loves Kingdom Hearts more than anyone else in this world.

AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

2010-11-10T18:55:00.000-05:00

So I finished Kingdom Hearts. I beat the pants off the final boss (as many times as he freakin' appeared), got my friends back, attacked the door, etc. I was in the middle of the LAST CUTSCENE when the game froze.
It didn't come back.
It didn't save any of my wins against the final boss.
I had to reset it.
My heart is dark.
I was making a sound between laughter and sobbing, but now I just keep saying "AGHHHHHHHHHHHHH" over and over again.
I... I don't even know what to say anymore.
That is all.

Clocks, Stars, and Love

2010-11-09T18:39:00.000-05:00

Today was a pretty great day. Anime Club was great as usual- it seems that a lot of people want to go to the convention with me all three days. YES.
This morning while reading Archaeology magazine I came upon the greatest name ever. Tarquinius Superbus. He was the last Etruscan king of Rome. The Romans overthrew him in 509 because they didn't like his assholeishness. But seriously, who doesn't want their last name to be "Superbus"? That's like "Superb us" or even better, "Super bus". That's like having the last name "Awesomedude".
There's actually some guy named Max Fightmaster. I learned this while lurking on Cracked.com the other day. Kickass name, man.
In other, completely unrelated news, it has been like over a month since I have cleaned my bathroom. My toilet is growing a soul patch. Every time I look at it, I think about how I need to clean it, but I just haven't done it yet. It's actually kind of a good thing that my bathroom is so gross, because I have a tendency to clean obsessively when I'm sad or angry. My nasty toilet is proof of my happiness with my life. How does that make sense? I dunno.
For the past two days, I've been meaning to play a little KH. Like I said, I'm addicted. But homework and friend issues have been getting in the way... I kind of approve of this though, because it's good to break the addiction every once in a while. I do that with the internet sometimes- I'll stay offline for a month, just to prove that I can. That hasn't happened recently though. I need a negative stimulus to force me to act in such a dramatic way.
It's sort of weird to me that I'm psychoanalyzing myself on the Internet, where everyone can see it. I guess I'm kind of hoping that no one reads this blog, so I can keep being selfish and talking about the way my mind works.
It's kind of weird how names develop. You're only really stuck with three names in your life- your first, middle, and last. But with those names (and with random inside jokes, and personal decisions, and interests, etc.), you can make a million different nicknames and handles and things. That's part of what's great about the Internet- you can name yourself whatever you want. If you want to be an emo videoblogger, you can name yourself ilovebloodanddeath on YouTube.
I personally call myself Pigeonmeister (or Zepigeonmeister), as a result of an inside joke from 7th grade. I get a lot of weird looks for it (because it's my email address too), but I look the people who give me those weird looks straight in the eye and say, "Yeah, I'm a master of freakin' pigeons. What's it to ya?", although probably not as rudely.
I also call myself Ika (usually with anime sites). This is a result of a shortening of Ikazuchi Usagi, which means "Thunder Rabbit", which I thought was a cool name when I was 13. Wow, I'm 17 now. It's been 4 years since I started my Internet life. I feel so old sometimes... But then I talk to Gramps and Kumori, and I feel like a young lady. They're old.
Well, I can't really think of anything else to say for the moment. I'm supposed to be doing Calculus and/or my Hamlet paper. Maybe I'll go do that. Or maybe I'll just talk to Gramps and tease him about being old. ONLY TIME WILL TELL.
~Ika
Ps: the title is associations.

Inaugural Post

2010-11-08T18:15:00.000-05:00

Good day to all the Internets.
Today I begin my blog, Anxiety Milkshake With A Bunny On Top (AMWABOT for short). Thanks to Lighty for the title!
This blog will be irregularly updated, full of terrible writing and rants, illogical, unnecessary, angry, and possibly deadly. What will it be about, you might ask? I'm thinking something along the lines of video games, anime, manga, random crap from my life, bad drawings, terrifying stories, brainwashing, sadism, and cute fluffy kittens.

Merry Christmas.