Random stuff - The return!

You know what they say, sequels don't live up to the originals. But it had to be done, because some people would have you think I never update this blog. Which is an outright lie, I update bi-centennially!

Anyway, I found two things today that I thought I should share with the rest of the world.

The first one is Scott Pakin's automatic complaint-letter generator. What does it do? Well, it does exactly what its name (subtly) suggests; it creates automated complaint-letters. It's just awesome. An example:

I am not writing to agree or disagree with Rabbi Jeremiah QQ. Stoned V. What I have to say, however, regards Rabbi Stoned's conscious decision to control your bank account, your employment, your personal safety, and your mind. To begin at the beginning, Nature is a wonderful teacher. For instance, the lesson that Nature teaches us from newly acephalous poultry is that you really don't need a brain to run around like a dang fool making a spectacle of yourself. Nature also teaches us that I would like to comment on Rabbi Stoned's attempt to associate sensationalism with cannibalism. There is no association. My intention here is not just to place blame where it belongs -- in the hands of Rabbi Stoned and his noxious encomiasts -- but also to shine a light on Rabbi Stoned's efforts to bamboozle people into believing that the health effects of secondhand smoke are negligible. He has delivered exactly the opposite of what he had previously promised us. Most notably, Rabbi Stoned's vows of liberation turned out to be masks for oppression and domination. And, almost as troubling, his vows of equality did little more than convince people that his tracts defy common sense. Do I blame society for this? No, I blame Rabbi Stoned. He is not only immoral, but amoral. Implying that Rabbi Stoned acts in the name of equality and social justice is no different from implying that Rabbi Stoned can be trusted to judge the rest of the world from a unique perch of pure wisdom. Both statements are ludicrous. Okay, there's no reason for me to be officious, so I'll leave you with this concept: Rabbi Jeremiah QQ. Stoned V's cuckoo fantasy fits neatly into his heartless model of society.

You can choose how many paragraphs your letter should have, I chose one in mine to keep it short. The results are usually hilarious and I can think of a lot of situations where I could use this (mainly for trolling the official World of Warcraft forums, though). It's not without its faults, however. I've seen a few typos in every single example so far, and while I can overlook that, the main problem is that the end result always suffers from the "wall of text" um, effect. I guess that's kinda the whole point of this, but walls of text hurt my eyes.

Edit: Okay, this is just golden. While even I haven't read it all, I don't have to either. I just know that a thread like this would gather at least 10 pages of angry responses at the official WoW forums (A.K.A. Purgatory). Shame you need an active account to post there, I think it's time to make some phone calls...

The second thing for today is a short but very funny video. As promised, there's a streaming version up now, or if you wish, you can download it here. It's a NSFW vid though, so careful where you watch it. If you don't know what this is, it means that this video is perfectly fine to watch at work if your first name is Pavlos.

While I was sleeping...

It's sorta funny (and I am using the word "funny" in a very loose sense here), if people were to ask me what I've been doing for the past couple of days, my answer would be "Uh. Sleeping", and it's true.

I guess it's what I get for dealing with deadlines the way I do. Whatever the deadline is for (article, university paper, anything) I work on it for short periods of time, but leave most of the work for the last few days before the deadline expires, in which days I forgo everything, social interaction (what's that again?), watching movies or TV, or for that matter generally doing anything, even sleeping. It comes with being Greek, I presume. So the result is that after a deadline is over, I end up sleeping for a good two days.

Anyway, the catching-up with the world part that comes after that is usually no big deal, I mean it's just a couple of days for Christ's sake. But on rare occasions, you get some really weird shit, so weird that I have to question whether I've actually woken up, or if I'm still dreaming, in which case I start worrying about the condition of my unconscious.

I mean, a 29-year old child molester tricking two other child molesters into thinking he's a 12 year old boy and having sex with them? Who comes up with that stuff? Seriously, if this was the plot of a TV show, we'd dismiss it as nonsense. Sure, the guy in question shaved his body and used make-up in order to look younger but... An adult's body looks nothing like a child's. And that's all I'm gonna say on the subject because, quite frankly, it grosses me out. This whole story's still just absurd though. Truth may be stranger than fiction, but this is pushing it.

Then again you get stuff like Hilary announcing that she'll be running for Prez in 2008, which is something you knew it'd happen eventually, at which point I was sure I had woken up. I'll be rooting for Obama however, because a man with such a skin color, and a last name and middle name ("Hussein") that evokes such negative feelings to Americans, running for President? The dude must have balls of steel. Go Obama!

But then you have to hear some even weirder things again. Quick question, which do you think is the neighborhood with the highest crime rate in the world? You have five seconds... go!

WRONG. I don't care what you answered :P. If you haven't heard this story before, there's no chance you got it right, nuh uh, I ain't believin' ya. Because, you see, the neighborhood with the highest crime rate in the whole world (aren't italics just great?) is...

The Vatican.

I'm not joking. 341 civil and 486 criminal criminal cases in 2006, out of a population of 492! As the article states, that's 1.5 cases per person. Not a bad average, no? I find the whole thing just hilarious, I don't know.

Anyway, speaking of... numbers, let's check out a new all-time low percentage.

Hey, hey, GWB,
How much lower could your approval rating be?

That's right, 28%. Keep it up George, and you'll beat even Nixon! Honestly, I do wonder what it would take for this 28% of people to, you know, not approve of monsieur Bush? I mean, that is, assuming they are familiar with the meaning of the word approve and all that. Okay, now I'm just being a dick, so I'll stop.

So those are the most interesting things that happened while I was in hibernation for the past few days. Oh, and apparently some dude took a piss on his Xbox 360. I swear, stuff like this never happen when I'm conscious. (Edit: Hellfire and brimstone, the pics in the thread died :(. This is why imageshack sucks kids, never use it. No I didn't save the pics, why would I? Ew. The story is true though, I saw the pics. Kinda wish I hadn't. Oh and scroll down a bit in that thread to see the Van Damme .gif, it is made of pure win.)

New Veronica Mars episode coming up tonight! Hopefully it will be worth the wait. Heroes' return last night was good, but a bit too slow for my taste.

Oh and as of today you can leave unregistered comments, unlike before, because people were bitc... commenting about it. I doubt this blog will attract spammers anyway.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes... in the Constitution.

Over the past few months, people here have been getting worked up over the discussion of a possible amendment in Article 16 in the Greek constitution. In its current form, the article states the following:

"University level education is provided exclusively by institutions which are bodies corporate of public law and fully self-governed. The said institutions are under the supervision of the State and entitled to financial support."

So basically, non-state universities that do exist in Greece are practically not fully recognized as such here, especially by the Greek government. I don't want to get in to too many details on this, I'm quite frankly tired of the conversation, each side has some valid points, but in the end it doesn't really matter much. If the EU wants this, or any other law, changed, it will happen. I keep thinking the EU will turn all EVIL OVERLORD OF DOOM on us one day, but for now they still seem pretty benevolent.

Anyway, Article 16 isn't really my main interest in this post, so I'll just say this. I can't help but chuckle a bit whenever I hear all these people talk so passionately against this change, saying it's going to be bad for public education and will only benefit the financial elite, etc. Sure, it's a valid point of sorts, though whether or not our public education can be any worse is definitely up for debate.

Anyway, I keep getting carried away. My point was this: It's funny how people here act like Greece will be the first country in the universe to allow the existence of non-state universities. Really, people. Come on, keep up. It's been like this in other countries for years. And for those that just stumbled in this blog, I graduated from a non-state university. But, I've also spent a year in a state university, so make of that what you will.

Heh, turns out I couldn't help talking about Article 16 after all. I guess it can't be helped since it affects me on a personal level.

But as I said earlier, that wasn't the point of this post. No, my point is about a possible amendment in another article that isn't discussed in news reports by random people all day long, and one that is probably a lot more important, Article 24.

The main part of Article 24 states the following:

"The protection of the physical and cultural environment constitutes an obligation to the State. The State must take special preventive or repressive measures for the conservation thereof. A law shall regulate matters relating to the protection of forests and forest areas in general. Any change in the land uses of public forests or public forest areas shall be prohibited, unless the agricultural use thereof or any other use be beneficial to the national economy or dictated by the national interests."

The most interesting part is the last sentence, and especially the last words. Essentially, the Greek government can change the description of an area from "public forest/public forest area" to whatever else, so that it's no longer protected by law.

Now the current government was trying to make such a change in Article 24, a change that would mean that 40.000.000 square meters of forest area would no longer be protected by law, unless my math is off, which I doubt it is. This isn't just a small forest near a beach that a corrupt politician wants to change into a summer resort. This is a big fucking part of Greece, essential to the entire eco-fucking-system. 'Scuse my language, I get all emo'd up with subjects like this.

At any rate, this change is apparently so big, that even a change in Article 24 is not sufficient in order to remove the protection over the area in question. I don't want to get in to too many details, but these parts of the land are protected for a reason. Selling them off to the highest bidder would not only mean that the ecosystem would be destroyed, but it wouldn't even help the country's economy (if that can ever be seen as a valid reason to mess up the environment we live in) since the people who would buy the land would use it for their own profit*. So we're in a lose-lose situation here.

What I find most frustrating is this discussion wasn't mentioned in the media at all, until last week, and the Parliament was supposed to vote on this change this week. People have been recycling the same nonsense over Article 16 over and over for months, and we weren't even informed about Article 24. Of course, Article 24 and environmental issues generally aren't as catchy as young students getting their panties all in a bunch (oops, so much for playing nice in this post), but come on. We never even heard about a possible constitutional amendment a few days before it almost came to pass? That's retarded.

Luckily, in the end the Parliament voted against the amendment in Article 24, so it seems for now the forests are protected, and I can stop being so angry. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some trees to hug.

*Want To Sell: [Broken English]. Please Send Tell. Poor quality guaranteed!

This post is pretty messy and I'm using some strong words, sorry 'bout that. Next time I'm making a long post, I'll make sure to log off MSN first.

The Constitution quotes are taken from http://www.oefre.unibe.ch/law/icl/gr00000_.html, I'll probably make proper MLA quotes tomorrow, or the day after, mainly for kicks.

Four "ch"'s in "Changes"? Huh.

Random stuff.

God, I love these highly descriptive titles.

This'll be a quick post, because I'm drowning in article deadlines and I'm feeling so goddamn tired lately. Tired enough so I can't do anything decently since I space out after a while, but not tired enough to sleep for a while. Grrr. Anyway, enough whining for one post.

Here's something I found in my mailbox and thought it was sorta interesting and somewhat funny. Edutaining, if you will. The Meatrix. Basically, it's a short documentary made in flash, but with animal characters reprising roles from, you guessed it, the Matrix.

It's almost worth it for the bull called "Moofius", but it does bring up some interesting points as well. It's mostly stuff you've heard before, about the horrible conditions in which the animals that end up in our dinner tables live, and how big corporations are destroying, well, everything and yadda yadda.

Still, it has animals with anthropomorphic characteristics as protagonists, so this makes it a modern fable, of sorts, right? A modern fable, with Moofius.

And then there's this huge list of jokes that the kind people of Games Radio have collected, and trust me when I say it's huge. Sadly, the jokes are all in Greek, so those of you not familiar with the language are kinda screwed. Sorry!

But if you can read Greek, check it out. Given that there's so many jokes in this file, there's bound to be at least a few you'll like. Do ignore the first one if you're not into surreal humor, though. Σοβαρολογώ! /Greek

To Grandmother’s House We Go

I'm totally ripping the title of this post from a similar post in Tom's blog, but it's the truth. I'm off to visit my grandma and the rest of my family and friends in my hometown, possibly getting a 3-day long headache in the process from all the cold and humidity. Good times.

In other news, Saddam Husein was executed earlier this day. Didn't even make it to 2007, poor bastard. Nothing like killing people in order to show that killing people is bad, eh? And yes, Saddam was a piece of shit, but that doesn't justify it.

Happy new year everyone.

Indie Adventure games, part 1.3a.

Small update to my earlier post, since two new games have been released. Not sure what's with the title, though.

Firstly, a game I mentioned in my previous post about indie adventures, the Blackwell Legacy was released yesterday. Having played the previous incarnation of this game, Bestowers of Eternity, I was really looking forward to it. Between Zelda and Sam & Max, I haven't played a lot yet, but so far I'm loving the low-res graphics and music, and of course the story as well, but I already knew I'd like this part. One thing I wasn't too fond of initially was the voice acting, but it grew on me after a while.

Meanwhile, another commercial AGS game was released, Super Jazz Man, by the creators of the Apprentice games. I hadn't realized it was going to be released so fast when I made my earlier post, so this came as a pleasant surprise. It's a commercial game again, but for only 9 bucks, I snatched it without even thinking about it. It's looking really good so far, but again I haven't had much time to spend with it.

Gotta dash, Die Hard is on! Finally something good on TV.

Ruh roh, politics.

I mentioned a while ago that I don't like talking about politics. That's kind of a lie. I like it, but I just tend to avoid it, because I'm not as well informed as I think I should be. I'm weird like that *shrugs*

Anyway, this is going to be one of those times were I discuss politics, since two things have been troubling me for the last couple of days. One of them is kinda serious, the other one not so much. And Pavlos, you're probably not going to like this post, if you ever read it, that is.

As far as the serious topic is concerned, you may have already heard who the "Person of the Year" was according to Time magazine. You. Yes, you. I'll refrain from making any other jokes about it, since it's been done to death already, and I can't beat Jon Stewart in his own game.

Instead, I found something a lot more interesting at the Broken Saints blog (scroll down a bit), which in turn was taken from this blog. Whaddaya know, it's quite possible that the man of the year was actually Venezuelan pres, Hugo Chavez. There's always the chance that 5 Venezuelans and/or Greeks visited the Time site and just pressed F5 on the poll page and we ended up with this result, but that's besides the point, and I'm guessing the people of Time know better than set up an official poll that allows you to vote more than once. Emphasis on the guessing part, however.

No, the point is that Hugo Chavez (not as good a guy as some people would have you think) has become so popular just because he dislikes Bush. Big whoop, everyone with a slightly lower than average IQ is not really fond of him either. And calling him the Devil, classy. Effectively, he's doing what Bush does when he refers to Bin Laden, and yet he criticizes him for his ways. Interesting. *strokes his beard*

Sure, Chavez has done a few good things, I'm not denying that. Even if he did give oil to poor people in NY just to spite the Bush administration, and/or to seem favorable to haters of said administration. And he also intervened when the Argentinian milk company Sancor (2nd biggest in the country) was about to sell the majority of its stocks to an American company the name of which eludes me at the moment. Sancor will have to export milk in powder form to Venezuela for the next 15 years, but hey, at least they'll still be in control of their company.

But to put it in a highly eloquent and articulated way, the dude ain't all that, really. I mean, he's the guy who said during one of he's speeches, "There's God, and after him there's only Chavez." (I may have slightly misquoted this, but that's the gist of what he said.)

Would you feel comfortable with having a guy like this as the leader of your country?

I've never been fond of the "lesser of two evils" concept. In some occasions, you have no real alternative, fair enough. But just because some dude gets on the Republican's nerves, that doesn't make him a hero. He can still be an ass. My enemy's enemy is not necessarily my friend, he may still be my enemy as well.

Man, I wanted to say that for years.

On to the less serious thing. There's this little country to the north of Greece. The natives, and pretty much everyone else in the world, call it Macedonia. Greeks (and possibly Cypriots) call it Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia (FYROM for short), so people don't confuse it with the ancient Macedonia, home of Alexander the Great, something I strangely agree with. We also just call it Scopja, which is the name of its capital, but that's plain wrong.

Now as I was walking through a local street here in Athens, I saw a map of Greece and its nearby countries in a place that was either a car rental company or a travel agency, I forgets. Everything inside that place, map included, was in English, so I'd say that their target group is tourists.

At any rate, on that map, to the north of Greece you could see the magical land of... PGDM. Be there dragons there? I can't really say. Still, I hear you ask "What's a PGDM?" Well, that's the abbreviation of the Greek translation of "FYROM". With Latin characters. So that neither tourists nor Greeks can understand what it means. If the guy who made that map ever reads this, I have this to say to you:

Good job dude, good job.

Independent Adventure Games part 1.

Being a big fan and something of a... connoisseur when it comes to independent adventure games, I figured I'd make a series of posts where I mention the ones that I've found to be the most interesting. For all of you reading this blog (both of you), be sure to check these ones out if you're looking for a good adventure game to play, you'll probably like them. Plus, most of them are totally free!

Enough with the introductions, on with the games! Firstly, the games that have been already released, in no order:

- The Ben Jordan series. Ben is a young paranormal detective, in a series that draws inspiration from TV shows such the X-Files, and the humor of the old-school point & click adventure classics. The graphics of these games are not the best ones around, but the gameplay is solid, and with five games out so far, there's enough here to keep you busy for a while. For more, check out Thaumaturge's reviews here.

- The Apprentice series. Two parts of a planned trilogy are available so far, and these are definitely among the finest independent games out there. Technically sublime (especially the animation), excellent gameplay with logical puzzles, and an interesting storyline. Seriously, if these games were released back in the early 90's, during the time when Adventure games ruled the sales charts, we would still be talking about them.

- The Shivah. A Rabbinical murder mystery, so it's cool by definition. Unlike the rest of the games here, it's not free. But it's only 5 bucks, and with a really good storyline and dialogs, it's really worth the (low, low) price. I've written a review of the Shivah, so read it if you want to know more about it (yes, self-promotion is kinda lame, sue me if you must.)

- Spooks. Join ghoul girl Mortia as she receives a post peculiar prize at the Carnage-Val... A goldfish that's actually alive. Now she needs to find a way to keep it alive, but that's easier than it sounds, when you're stuck in the Land of the Dead.

Okay, my description sucks ass. Just play this game, trust me. It has charming art and an equally charming storyline, genuinely funny jokes and an "innovative use of color", as the game's creator puts it, and she's right ya know. Download here.

- King's Quest 1, 2 and 3 remakes. 256-color remakes of the oldie goldies from the 80's, with a point & click system instead of the old parser. Part 2 includes new puzzles and story elements, and is generally better than the original in any respect.

- Reactor 9. The most recently released game in this list, with excellent low-res graphics and a more mature story than most independent adventure games.

Now moving on to up and coming games, that will be released... at some point. That's the problem with most independent games, since most of them are mainly a hobby for their creators. For that reason, some of the most promising ones are lost to due to a lack of interest/time from their creators' behalf.

- The Blackwell Legacy. I mentioned this in an earlier post, it's a game from the creator of the Shivah, and it's actually coming out in a few days. Rosangela Blackwell is a young woman who unwillingly becomes a medium, destined to help troubled spirits, while figuring out her family's background. This is going to be a series, released in episodic format, something I'm quite excited about. Again, this will not be a free game, but 15 bucks isn't much to ask. I mean, most of us spend twice that much on an average drinking night out, and then break our toes by kicking garbage cans. Okay, perhaps just me on that last one.

- Indiana Jones and the Fountain of Youth. Remember Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis? Arguably the best game ever. FoY is something of an unofficial sequel to that game, utilizing such elements from FoA as the same graphics style, a similar fighting system and, of course, Nazi scum. It's been in development forever, but there's a demo available to tide you over until the eventual full release.

- Ben Jordan: Case 6. Judging from the quality of the previous games, this one will be worth playing as well. There's even a trailer available now.

- Fester Mudd & the Curse of the Gold. I just found out about this recently, but it looks really good with low-res graphics worthy of the early 90's games. Not much is known about this game, beyond the fact that the eponymous hero of the game is a poor, lonesome farmer, who suddenly receives a letter from his long lost brother. Judging from what we've seen so far, I'm guessing there will be a lot of old-school fun to be had with this one.

- Diamonds in the Rough. The fact that the game's title is also the title of a song by Johnny Cash should be enough reason for me to play it, but great looking "2.5" graphics, and promises of a unique "thought" system (similar to a usual inventory) and an intriguing storyline make it sound even more promising.

That's all for now, all these games were created/are being created with the Adventure Game Studio, I didn't really do this on purpose, but it's the engine/community I'm most familiar with. In later similar posts I will mention games created with other engines as well.

Breaking news!

Firstly, Pres. Bush acknowledges what the rest of the world has known for the last three or so years. Not winning in Iraq? Really? Where's my "NO WAI" owl...

Secondly, the full trailer for 300 is out. Or rather, has been out for 600 years, and I just forgot to mention it here. So badass. What's with the fighting Uruk-Hai though?

Thirdly, a question. Why is Michael Bay directing a live-action Transformers movie? Yes, I just found out about this today, this is the breaking news section, keep up. Back to my point; why does god let things like this happen?

And yes, I changed the layout of the blog a bit. I think navigation is better this way.

Another post coming later today (two posts on one day?! Zomg bbqnubsauce roflcakes!!1eleventhirtyeight)

Concerning Pieces of Heart. All five of them.

Another long gap between posts. Grumble. At least my first (and for the foreseeable future, last) semester as a graduate student is over, so I should have less stuff to freak out about, for now.

So I finally got Zelda like 5 days ago. I also got Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance along with it but I haven't even opened the box yet. I will, eventually, but not before I've finished Zelda. I was thinking of making a thread about Zelda earlier, and update it as I progressed in the game, but I figured I'd rather just play the damn game first.

But anyway, since I'm here, I might as well post some of my early opinions about the game, being 8 hours in the game, so roughly 1/6 through. I've only First of all, the graphics are astounding for a Gamecube game. The animation is slightly disappointing initially, especially when compared to Wind Waker, but it's generally very good, especially during cut-scenes. Link's walking animation still looks weird, however. :/

The music themes are incredible. MIDI, shmidi, who cares, as long as the music is good. A lot of familiar themes make a welcome comeback, and the music in the Twilight areas is just amazing. Moody, eerie, almost scary at times.

Which is what has made the biggest impression on me so far. The Twilight Princess is incredibly gloomy for a Zelda game. There have always been dark elements in the storylines of previous Zelda games, such as the future version of Hyrule in Ocarina of Time, but they had never been so well-presented before. Not just because the graphics are better, the whole game is directed in a very professional, for lack of a better word, way, and it really makes a difference.

The storyline so far is interesting as far as Zelda games go, but nothing spectacular. Which is hardly surprising, Zelda storylines are nice, but never their strongest point. And the dialogs are sometimes cringe-worthy, but hey, it's a videogame about a young man saving the world, what can you do?

Gameplay is classic Zelda fare, with a few twinks here and there such werewolf-Link A.K.A. Gabriel Knight wannabe providing with some really nice touches, like talking to animals and digging holes in the ground for cash and alternative routes around. I've encountered some quite clever puzzles too, which are always welcome.

My only real problem with this game so far is the fact that, like Majora's Mask and the Wind Waker before it, it's lacking the majestic feeling that the Hyrule Field of Ocarina of Time provided. You know, that feeling of amazement you got the first time you left Kakariko (what a name!) village and found a field so vast it just took your breath away. Exaggerating a bit here, but whatever. In TP, Hyrule field (at least the one I've come across so far) is big, but nothing awe-inspiring... Perhaps even smaller than the one in OoT, I should plug my N64 back and check it out. And the starting village is slightly larger than Kakariko village in OoT, which is again disappointing. I'm being a bit anal here, and hopefully the next areas will be more open, but this feeling of having a huge world to explore was my favorite thing about my favorite Zelda game ever (Ocarina of Time, as if you didn't guess), and that was 8 years ago. It's about time I stopped reminiscing about it, and started talking about a new Zelda game that did it better instead. Make it happen Nintendo!

Oh, I'm also playing Sam & Max Situation: Comedy these days, but I can't speak about that yet. Lawlz.

I'm almost glad The Blackwell Legacy got delayed for a week, otherwise I wouldn't know what to play first.

P.S.

For those wondering why I've disappeared from WoW (that still being World of Warcraft), my account expired and I have no interest in renewing it for the time being. Everybody's gotten the "gotta get new gear" fever, only to later realize it's not that easy to get the whole PvP set after all so they just do what the average WoW-player does best: whine about it. Even worse, with the latest patch we got buggy (and old) talents, PvP balance being thrown out the window, and battlegrounds with ridiculous lag (5 seconds on average), it just feels like I'm paying to play a beta. Thanks, but I'll pass.

I'm expecting the early days of the Burning Crusade (the upcoming expansion to WoW) to be exactly the same, if not worse. So unless I get the need to play again because real life friends are playing, for something else besides gear, it will probably be a while before I buy it.

P.P.S.

Was that a... dildo advertisement I just heard on the radio? O.o

Holy crap it's been long.

Holy crap it's been long. So long I need to say this twice to emphasize it. November's been a weird month, and it went by so fast I coulda sworn I was just hibernating through it.

So after waking from my hibernation, I found out that the Wii has been launched in the States and is about to be launched in Europe as well, and I still don't have the money for it. Le sigh.

On to something more interesting, Will Wright (creator of the Sims) appeared on the Colbert Report last night, of all places. The whole segment was a bit awkward, and he didn't reveal anything interesting about Spore, which kinda sucked. Still not sure what to make of that game. Come to think of it, this bit wasn't all that interesting either. Ah, well.

However, Stephen Colbert did reveal that not only is the actress portraying the Virgin Mary in the Nativity Story pregnant (with a little help from Archangel Michael), she is also giving birth to a boy on the 25th of December. Hey, Stephen said it so you know it's true. And you know what that means. Time to repent, heathens!

Also, two days till Zelda, bitches! Ahem, sorry. But the idea of a new Zelda game after all these years (just 2, if you count Minish Cap as you should) but it's still giving me a total nerdrection.

Now if only my papers would write themselves, as we previously agreed. Hmph.

Veronica Mars supplementary.

Okay since for some reason I couldn't embed two videos in one post, I decided to use the lazy man's option and make another post just for this video. This is the one that shows the darker edge of the show, but before you watch this go read the previous post first, it'll make more sense that way. Uhh, I think.



George out.

The obligatory "Go watch Veronica Mars!" post.

It's kind of disturbing that I haven't mentioned this show already, given that I use this blog to talk about things I like, and Veronica Mars is pretty much my favorite show ever. Oh well, better late than never I guess. Here's a first taste of what it's like:



As you may have already guessed from the above video, VM is a character driven show. Singular, character, the main emphasis is on the eponymous heroine herself, though most other characters are well developed as well. And I don't mean character-driven in the Lost-"We'll tease you with shitloads of information & puzzles that we'll probably never fully reveal because this show is all about the characters dummy" way, thank the gods. There are still several plots going around, which are for the most part really interesting and well-developed, though the writers seem to lose focus when it comes to the end resolution of a season sadly. But in its heart, VM is the story of a young girl who's forced to enter maturity earlier than she has to, after her best friend is brutaly murdered and she herself is raped soon thereafter, and the subsequent effect that these events have on her life and her interaction with others.

My favorite description of VM is "Teen Noir", in fact it was the use of this term that made me want to see what the deal with this show is (I'm a fan of all things Noir). And it's true, despite having a teenage girl as the protagonist, the show is true to the rest of the "rules" of Noir. The protagonist is a brooding misanthropist, yet not all that bad when you get to know her, and her off-the-camera depictions of events give a unique twist to the usual "quirky teen drama" TV genre. I'll post another video that depicts this darker side of the show on a subsequent post.

Currently in its third (and sadly, most likely last due to lack of viewers) season, Veronica Mars is a show that shows just how good quality TV can be. The writing is excellent, fully of funny one-liners, hilarious innuendo and likeable, if not loveable, characters. Sure, as I said already the writers seem to mess up season finales (season 1 was passable, disappointing for the most part with just the last 10 minutes being exceptionally good, while season 2 was almost disastrous), season 2 was inconsistent quality-wise, and season 3 has had a series of good episodes but no great ones so far... But that does not change the fact that VM is one of the best shows of recent years, and definitely one of the most overlooked ones.

It's really mind-boggling how a show that's well written, has received ridiculously high praise from Pop-culture heroes such as Kevin Smith, Stephen King and Josh Whedon, and also stars a seriously hot and likeable girl fails to attract audiences... Oh well, at least we'll have 3 high-quality seasons and the show won't drag on unnecessarily, I guess that's something.

So yeah, go watch Veronica Mars, now! That's an order, private!

In other, earth-shattering news, being sick sucks. You heard it here first, folks.

The greatest film in the history of films...

... is almost upon us. I'm talking about Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny.

I mean, where else will you find two batshit insane people (Jack Black and Kyle Gass) on an epic adventure which involves Satan, Meatloaf, Sasquatch, Ronnie James Dio and of course, the Pick of Destiny? Nowhere, that's where.

Having seen the first six minutes of the movie, and a music video (not posting any links, but you should know where to look), I hereby declare the Pick of Destiny as the best movie in the entire multiverse. Take that, Earth 616! Ehm, anyway.

Silliness aside, Jack Black and Kyle Gass, the two members of Tenacious D are indeed the bestest. They understand rock music on an almost profound level, and know well enough to take either it or themselves seriously, so the result is pure, unadulterated hilarity. Also, there can be no disputing that a movie is awesome when it includes a song with these lyrics:

"The wizard and the demon had a battle royal,
The demon almost killed him with an evil kapow,
But then he broke his tooth and thus the Demon said 'Ow!'"

Seriously, Citizen Kanewho?

That's it for this week, life's as crazy as ever lately, so yeah. In the D we Trust.

A Kitty Pryde special.

Being a full-fledged geek means you have to invest your time in all aspects of geekdom, including comic books. Who am I to differ? And since I really need a break from... writing, I’ve decided to make the following post to praise one of the finest X-Men ever, Katherine "Kitty" Pryde, A.K.A. Shadowcat.



I deliberately chose a huge-ass picture for the extra emphasis it implies.

So what's the deal with Kitty anyway? First of all, I’ve always loved the name. Simple as that. Cats are cool, pride is definitely not a bad thing, combine the two and presto! You get a name that’s definitely going to get the audience interested in a character. Or just me, anyway. But wait, there’s more; Kitty has one of the best mutant superpowers ever, she can “phase” through any solid object, and can use her power to float, which is almost as good as flying. Through the use of her powers, she can also short-circuit electronic equipment and knock people unconscious.

Kitty is also a trained ninja, and is proficient in both martial arts and sword-fighting. Not to mention that she once punched that despicable bitch Emma Frost on the face.

She’s also one of the smartest people in the Marvel universe, up there with Reed Richards, Doctor Doom, Tony Stark, Peter Parker and the rest. It’s also important to note that she’s the only woman who belongs in that group.

Also, by comic book standards, she’s not that much hotter than the average female, I mean, have you seen most superheroines? Kitty’s a lot more realistic.

Last but not least, she has a pet dragon, ‘nuff said on that. Pedants would argue that Lockheed is an alien being resembling a dragon, but if it looks like a dragon and breathes fire like a dragon, it’s a fucking dragon. So as far as superheroes are concerned, Kitty fulfils all the “cool” aspects.

But being the English graduate that I am, my fondness of Kitty is also owed to her value as a literary character. Let’s not get carried away, we are still talking about comic books here and not literature of the Victorian era, so I’m not claiming that Ms. Pryde is anything beyond a really cool comic book character.

That being said, she’s a lot more important as a character than your usual superhero, even when compared to the most high-profile ones, such as X-men mainstrays Cyclops and Wolverine, Batman and definitely Superman. Fucking boyscout. At any rate, what separates Kitty from the aforementioned heroes is the fact that she is not as well defined as them.

Superman will always be the boyscout, Cyclops will always be a born leader and little else, while both Batman and Wolverine are brooding loners, for example. These, among many others, are a few defining characteristics that have not changed and will not change as long as they are around. Not only that, but they don’t really age either. While Wolvie does not age like a normal human does, and Supes just doesn’t age period, Cyclops, Batman and many many others are as old now as they were when they were first introduced, perhaps 5-10 years older tops, but usually that is not reflected in their storylines. They may have changed somewhat over the years, but their defining character features are the same.

Not so with Kitty. While she has aged slower than a normal human being (she should be in her late 40’s now instead of her early to mid 20’s, but my math is usually off) she has still aged, and that is really visible in her character. When she was first introduced, she was a shy, timid, trusting 13 year old, completely lost in the new world of super-beings that was laying ahead of her. Who wouldn’t feel lost, really?

Then as the years passed, she grew older, and inadvertedly, became more confident, more outspoken, yet also less trusting, more jaded, more dark. Little Kitty became a Cat. And us, the readers, grew older alongside her (as it goes, I read my first X-men story when I was 13, and it was one of the first stories to feature Kitty) and we can still relate with her, we can relate to her new fears and frustrations as they are pretty much our own.

In the first issue of the current-running volume of Astonishing X-men there is a beautiful segment where Kitty comes back to the Xavier Mansion after a long absence, and takes a “trip down the memory lane” as it were by reliving certain scenes from older X-men comics, but she’s not alone. We too are reminded of earlier times, when we were reading those same stories. Too mushy? I’ll stop, you get the point.

This is what makes Kitty Pryde such a great character, arguably one of the deepest that can be found in comic books. She’s still too perfect to be completely realistic; superhuman powers, incredible intellect and martial-arts prowess? Not that common in real life.

But over the years she has become much more than that. Good writers like Josh Whedon that get her character know this. She can be a wise-ass and a cynic, yet sometimes as timid as when she was a young girl. She can save the rest of the X-men team from certain death through her actions, yet she can also be frightened to death at times. She has changed a lot over the years, yet she’s still the same person she was when she first joined the X-men.

That’s what makes her so real, she’s complicated, her character doesn’t have to conform to any pre-determined behavior patterns. In a sense, Kitty reflects the readers themselves, growing older alongside them, changing her perspective of things as years go along. And she’s often the voice of reason, in a universe that sometimes makes little sense to the average reader (Emma “Uberbitch” Frost as an Ethics professor? Are you kidding me?)

So yes, Kitty Pryde, she’s cool.



And yes, in case you’re wondering -and I’m sure you are, I did have a crush on Kitty as a kid. Don’t tell me you didn’t have any meaningless, childish crushes on fictional characters when you were younger, I’m not buying it. And if you really didn’t, you may want to look into that. You may be too normal for your own good.

I’ve ranted enough for now, and I have a paper to return to. If you want to know more about Kitty, check out this really detailed article from Uncanny X-men.net.

WoW and battleground-hoping.

I should really be writing a paper right now, but I'm not, so I might as well post an update since it's been a while. If you're reading this Dr. D, I'm sorry, I really am.

Warning, this post makes no sense if you've never played World of Warcraft. I should make a translated version for normal people one day.

So after being "encouraged" by RL friends to activate my World of Warcraft account, I went back to my Druid and decided to give the cross-server Battlegrounds a try (I left WoW around May). I like how this new system allows you to hop from BG to BG with minimal effort, and you don't even have to feel bad about leaving your team since everybody does it. Not something you'd do in a pre-made, but Alliance PuG's are really funny once you stop taking them seriously.

The moment that I thought was the most fun was the following: I was queued for all 3 BG's, and as it happens usually, AB called first. I go in, 10 of us against 15, already 500-200 down in resources. I'm ordered to help at the Mine, I run there, only to be ganked by 5 Hordies. As I'm about to die, WSG calls, I leave right away. No HK's for you!

WSG looked equally dreary. 30 seconds before the match started, there were 5 of us against a pre-made, from Dragonmaw I believe. The game starts, only a couple more on our side join, nobody says anything and we just go through the gates and hope for the best. In just a few seconds almost everyone is dead, the Horde has our flag and I've barely managed to stealth to the Horde base, hoping to ninja their flag and buy us a few seconds. Unfortunately there was a warrior and a druid guarding their base, so it seemed hopeless. I decide to try it anyways, but as I'm about to jump from the balcony and grab the flag, AV calls. So I switch to bear, jump down, type /bye to the other druid and leave for AV. Can't say I wasn't polite this time!

Then I joined AV, hoping it'd be one of those times when you enter an AV as it's about to end (a friend of mine actually entered AV a couple of seconds before it ended). No such luck, it hadn't even started again. Since I was already bored and had places to go, and people to see, I give the pink paw buff (not a sexual euphemism, to those of you not familiar with WoW) to a few people and /afk'd out. For some reason that made me laugh out at the time.

Point of this post? None. But it's amusing how meaningless and pointless WoW PvP can be, and how you can basically act like an ass and not get punished for it. Hopefully the arena system in the expansion will work better.

Olbermann on the "death" of Habeas Corpus.

I usually avoid talking about politics, for many reasons. I prefer talking about why the warrior class in Burning Crusade, the upcoming expansion to World of Warcraft is getting shafted, for example. Nor am I always up to date with what's going on. I get my politics from the Daily Show, the Colbert Report and the Sunday edition of Eleftherotypia, a local newspaper. That's about it.

But when I saw this video of Keith Olbermann over at Brooke Burgess' (the creator of Broken Saints) blog, I felt like I had to share it. I'm no Olbermann fanboi (Stephen Colbert fo' life etc.) but this rant made my respect for this man go up a hundredfold. I don't care what he may or may have not said or done in the past, on this subject, the new law allowing the U.S president to ignore Habeas Corpus as well as allowing him to interpret (interpret!) the Geneva convention, he is dead on.

Watch this video. Reflect on the consequences of this law, regardless of your political inclinations or your feelings about G.W. Bush. You may or may not harbor dreary thoughts about the future, that's up to you.

"What is a saint?"

This is something I found in Leonard Cohen's official site and really, really liked.

"What is a saint? A saint is someone who has achieved a remote human possibility. It is impossible to say what that possibility is. I think that it has something to do with the energy of love. Contact with this energy results in the exercise of a kind of balance in the chaos of existence. A saint does not dissolve the chaos; if he did the world would have changed long ago. I do not think that a saint dissolves the chaos even for himself, for there is something arrogant and warlike in the notion of a man setting the universe in order. It is a kind of balance that is his glory. He rides the drifts like an escaped ski. His course is the caress of the hill. His track is a drawing of the snow in a moment of its particular arrangement with wind and rock. Something in him so loves the world that he gives himself to the laws of gravity and chance. Far from flying with angels, he traces with the fidelity of a seismograph needle the state of the solid bloody landscape. His house is dangerous and finite, but he is at home in the world. He can love the shape of human beings, the fine and twisted shapes of the heart. It is good to have among us such men, such balancing monsters of love."

L. Cohen, "Beautiful Losers" (1966).

Sounds like a book I need to read...

"Arrogance or..?" supplementary.

I've been meaning to post this for a while, but I've kept forgetting, mainly because my mind has lately been...

here ->

<- there

everywhere >_<

Anyway.

A few weeks ago I decided to create a slightly aggressive post about the independently created adventure game Les Miserables. I've since spoken to the guy creating the game (it's still an one-man project) and decided I was a bit unfair. He is 100% serious about this, and seems to have a pretty good idea of what he wants to achieve with this game. If nothing else, such projects should be encouraged instead of ridiculed, so for what it's worth, I admit to being unfair in my previous assessment of the game.

My main point still remains though. There's an unwritten rule about games that amass hype long before their release, they rarely even get finished, so aspiring creators, take note. Those gods, they could really do with some anger management lessons I tell you. In any case, I'll cross my fingers for this specific project.

"Then we will fight in the shade!"

The official trailer for the movie 300 is out, and it's looking good. Great. Ass-kicking.

No, it's not historically accurate because it's not trying to be. Instead, it remains true to its source, Frank Miller's comic of the same name, which in turn is homage to one of the finest examples of badassery in human history.

I'm being purposedly Laconic tonight. :P