Pokemon Blue, I Love You!

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!!!

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!

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

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

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

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

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