I feel apathetic lately. Nothing seems to excite me although I did look through my Rurouni Kenshin manga this weekend and that seemed to grab my attention for a while. I'm really nervous about moving and I hope to god that it works out. The idea of living completely on my own and relying solely on what I can earn, paying enormous bills each month not only for rent but for student loans as well, and keeping up with grad. school are all weighing heavy on my mind. I only hope that I can feel more in control of my life once I get settled in at my new apartment.

is not as hard as I thought it would be. I mean, after the 1st of September people get really desperate to find someone to pay the bills with 'em. So far I have found about 8 possible places that are 450 or less per month. Just gotta motivate and go take a look at some of them and I should be out of my current residence in about 2 weeks :)

NEW AND MODERN PET STORES FOR THE INTERNET GENERATION!

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1894239

"Flippy will stay in that wheel until he dies!" and bears falling off trampolines!

WARNING FROM THE SURGEON GENERAL: Definitely see the whole video before forwarding to your family. Some may have a weak constitution and will therefore suffer permanent scaring upon viewing these movies; especially if you forget to turn off "continuous play" before copying and pasting the link.

I... don't even know what to say about this cartoon. At least in "Raggedy Anne and Andy: A Musical Adventure" you had SOME kinda background sense of the characters, but unless you are familiar with the little black-and-white cartoon dog creature named "Bimbo" this is going to come at you like a night terror. My brain started to crackle like Rice Krispies around the time that the room in the cartoon started spinning for no better reason than, "Because". And at the end he's sucked into the cult because Betty Boop is slapping her ass in his face?! And then to close to the credits they preform what looks like a Rockets routine... except while playing grab-ass?!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4fXllxQa1Y&NR=1

You gotta love a cartoon that starts out with credits touting that the technique they used is named Comi Color especially considering the time it was made! But seriously though, you have every single very very un-pc image in here!

www.youtube.com/watch

These are the ones I saw:
 - Jewish stereotypes
 - Orientalism
 - Sexism
 - Black face
 - and the weirdest of all was the disturbing prepubescent love interest of the prince and the princess. I mean seriously, how old is she? 3? 5? And it's not like they just kissed on the cheek either. At the end they're in a bath making goo-goo eyes at each other, and in the next scene embracing like long time war buddies and kissing straight on the lips. In front of belly dancers. And the genie who just kinda watching on the side don't mind me just the man behind the curtain.... WTF!

My new goal in life is to draw a comic with a storyline like Shaun of the Dead: a tropetacular experience for one and all!

I'm goin' to grad. school in the fall!!!!!! YEAH!!!! uhuh uhuh uhuh! I just got my acceptance letter yesterday and I honestly thought I was going to be sick as I was opening it. But it was alright because I GOT IN!!!! I'm going to be earning my masters in the Simmons college dual degree program for history and library/archive management! I'M SO INCREDIBLY PUMPED RIGHT NOW!!!!

   

Everywhere I look I see reviews for how great Tomb Raider: Underworld is. I have played this game, I was so excited to get it, and yet I felt so disappointed that I'm considering selling it. My absolute favorite x-box game was the prior installment in the Tomb Raider saga - Tomb Raider: Legend. This game had pacing, character, very cool environments, fun moves, awesome level design, engaging music that I WISH I could get on itunes, just enough hostiles to make the game feel like it wasn't holding out on the main draw of the action/adventure genre - ACTION! Underworld, on the other hand, relies almost completely on its new and admittedly cool environment generation that it pretty much sacrifices everything else. The two redeeming factors of this game are that the puzzles are harder and allow the player to go about solving them via a various number of routes. Unfortunately this is most visible only in the first level of the game in which the platforming options allow you to take one of several routes to reach your goal. After that it's pretty much copy and paste for the rest of the game - do you jump around to pull first the left lever all the way up on that remote ledge and then the right, or do vice-versa?

In terms of the fighting the enemies are so spread out that the encounters feel forced and contrived. "Laura's been jumping around for a while so.... lets throw in some random mercenaries!" or "They have spiders in Thailand right? Well, whose going to notice if those same exact spiders show up in snow covered mountains or in Laura's basement ?" I kid you not, you fight a total of about 8 different AI as follows: big "yeti", little "yeti", enormous tiger, enormous tiger painted black to be a panther, mercenaries, green giant iguana/"naga", red giant iguana/"naga", and sharks.

While in Legend the dialogue flows smoothly through a barrage of bullets, acrobatics and creative takes on old action/adventure environment classics (i.e. swinging and jumping through the heights of a sprawling city (usually in Japan or China), and the old, abandoned Buddhist/ martial arts monastery high in the snow covered mountains), in Underworld Laura's dialogue in presented as her "documenting" her findings while she uses a video camera to record her surroundings. Throughout all levels there is little to no in-game communication between Laura and her posse. This is odd since in Legend we are entertained and sometimes helped in all levels by Zip and Alister who communicate via Laura's headset. Having this back and forth helped provide dialogue, move the story along and strengthen inter-character relationships, not to mention the secondary characters' personalities which, without this dialogue, appear as ancillary and largely uninvolved. In Underworld we have to take Laura’s word that Zip and Alister are helping her and are worried about her obsession. It would be like having Batman present Lucius Fox with the machine that uses all cell phones in Gotham to project a sonar grid, telling Lucius that he can communicate to him out in the field and help him find the Joker, and then never hearing or seeing Lucius again until the scene in which he self-destructs the display. SERIOUS INCONSISTENCY HERE! 

Speaking of inconsistencies, at the end of Legend Laura is in possession of Excalibur, in all it's kick-ass glory, which she has just used to defeat Amanda. The game ends showing her telling Skip and Alister that it's not over. She and Amanda are officially enemies since her ex-colleague was the cause for the disappearance of Laura's mother (which is shown in the intro). Laura is now determined to find Avalon and prove to herself that her father was right about her mother not being dead. Then Underworld picks up. The first warning light is that there is no mention of Excalibur at all. Who has a weapon like that and trades it in for a pistol that needs a million shots to take down a mercenary? "Okay", I tell myself, "maybe they are going to do some gameplay taking place in the past like in Legend and explain what happened to it." Nope. There is never any explanation. It’s just dropped. The second warning light is that Laura is, within the first level, introduced as being on a completely different mission of discovery involving Thor's hammer this time. The leap of logic here is really hard to grasp. If there are many portals to Avalon all over the world, each of them using the same type of sword (as explained in Legend), why is Laura all hopped up on jumping through hoops to find and assemble the pieces to a new super weapon which requires a completely different kind of gate in order to get to Avalon? Again, I tell myself that it's only the first level, and there is sure to me some explanation right? Again, nothing of the sort is offered save for the fact that her father though Valhalla and Avalon were the same thing and that’s good enough for Laura to go globetrotting. The final warning alarm appears near the end of the first level in which Natla makes a sudden and completely out of nowhere appearance. Apparently she's been in cahoots with Amanda all this time and is using her to get closer to Avalon for some reason. Laura, amazingly, seems to not be very surprised at all and basically says, "That explains everything. It all makes sense now!" Um, no it doesn't. When a game begins recycling characters from its previous attempts at resuscitating the franchise then it's time to just call it quits and go back to the fanfiction.

At this point I saved, exited the game and took to the internet. Apparently Tomb Raider: Anniversary set what was supposed to be a trilogy in motion with Natla and Laura fighting over the initiation of the seventh age or whatever. The idea to make all three games interconnected must have occurred well into the final stages of Legend at which point rewriting the story would not have been an option. On the release of Anniversary it was presented as a rehash of the previous games so that the new developer could rekindle the interest of the public in a series which had, over the years, followed Sonic and Final Fantasy into the dank dungeon of piss poor story and crappy character development. It had its flaws, but did fairly well. However, most gamers who had been around during the first round of Tomb Raider (including me, who used to watch my dad play) didn’t necessarily think that a rework of previous games was something worth buying for about the same reason that some people don’t like what Lucas did to Star Wars 4-6 and what Spielberg did to E.T. Now, it is important to note that not only was Legend touted as the beginning of a new adventure for Laura, but there was nothing save for Natla's company logo on some of the boxes in Legend that would indicate any continuing connection between Anniversary and Legend. And yet these games are supposed to lead into one another? I mean, it's like the teams were at separate poles of the earth while one worked on the moon and none of them even bothered with a phone call of an e-mail. Anniversary, Legend and Underworld are on completely different plot lines here. Without playing Anniversary all the information you need to know in order to jump into the story of Legend is presented in a succinct intro video in which Laura is traumatized for life and begins her long suppressed desire to know what really happened to her mother. From there the story builds on itself in pleasant bite size pieces like candied chestnuts – savory and chewy but ultimately leaving you with a desire for another one guaranteed to be just as satisfying. With the release of Underworld someone coming off of their Legend high expects to be sucked into a story that smoothly picks up where the previous cliff-hanger left off. Instead it’s like reaching for a chestnut and getting a chocolate covered cherry that’s green and fuzzy. While it still has it’s Tomb Raider chocolate covering the substance of the item is cultivating a colony of things that are unpalatable and will most likely put off your appetite.

 I know I'm nit picking on this next point but what the hell. Maybe I'm just old fashioned but only offering two types of weapons that are pre-equipped at the beginning of each level and not interchangeable during game play? Come on! Once the secondary weapon is out of ammo that's it. You still have unlimited ammo for the pistols, but the option of finding or picking up other guns or even more ammo for your shotgun, harpoon gun or whatever your pick is not offered. That, among other things, was a major hindrance in the flow of the game. The developers touted the game as offering more interaction with the environment, but when Laura takes down an enemy who was using the same gun as her she doesn't bother turning him over for equipment?

Frankly it makes far more sense to think of Legend as a sadly incomplete Elsewhere story and simply play Anniversary and Underworld back to back. Tomb Raider: Underworld, which seemed so shinny and cool, tragically fell prey to poor level design, character presentation, and a plot that was written as though it had too many writers all doing their own thing. Keep Legend close to your heart as an example of what a good game is (albeit one in need of a sequel). Keep the environment rendering of Underworld as a resource for future games, but throw the rest in the bin next to Greg Hastings' Tournament Paintball MAX'D and Turok: Evolution.

 

 

Things I'm looking forward to:
1) Seeing my friend Morgan this weekend to celebrate her birthday. YAAAYY
2) Going to San Francisco in May
3) Seeing my parents, brother and kitty cat soon.
4) Playing Fallout 3 and Mass Effect again. With regards to Mass Effect I've started a new game, and this time I'm trying to play the character as close as I can to my own personality. I played as the paragon last time, and I honestly didn't like my character now that I look back on her. She was above everyone else, she was self righteous - the Kenshin equivalent of sci-fi; she was a character that people respected for her moral fortitude, but someone that no one in real life would be able to stand. This time around I'm connecting to her a lot more.
5) My weight training course. It feels so good to work on my muscles without worrying about how I look while doing it. Each machine targets specific areas, so my alternating through them I can work out for a very long time without becoming extremely fatigued.

Things I'm afraid of:
1) Finishing college and starting graduate school.
2) Going to the information session for the grad. school I'm looking at.
3) Doing to application for said grad. school.
4) Talking to my grandmother on my dad's side. She's a very lovely lady, but she's so nervous all the time that it makes me nervous, which makes her more nervous, indecisive and annoyed, and that in turn makes me angry, nervous and skittish... At the end we both feel like we want to bolt.

Things I'm terrified of:
1) Burning out in grad. school.
2) Not meeting my family's standards this summer when I act as the nanny for my little cousins.
3) Driving in Boston again. I need a GPS like you wouldn't believe. A two hour trip turned into a four hour trip when my mapquest directions took me OFF the highway and into the butt fuck back streets of Cambridge in their feeble attempt to get me to Medford. It was a nightmare and resulted in much hyperventilating on my part.
4) Being able to earn a living in the big, mean world. I know that my parents say that they won't just drop me, but I feel like I should be much more prepared than I am.
5) Telling my two best friends from Sophomore year that I'm disbanding the music group that one of them put me in charge of. I'm just not leader material in this arena. I like playing the harp with friends, but having to organize it all is something that I'm just not up to doing. Our numbers have dwindled since last semester, and I don't think that anyone else really wants to continue the group either.
6) Having $ enough to support myself. My all time worst fear (not counting maggots and being eaten alive) is ending up homeless, in debt and left to sink or swim.

It feels good to get this all out there. At least now I know exactly what I need to work on.

        Mass Effect
    I was so excited to get this game, yet at the end I can't help but feel disappointed. There was a true glimmer of genius here that could have been easily brought out with more work. However, as it now stands on the market the jerky pacing of the game combined with a lack of immersion makes the whole experience feel uncomfortably constrained and rushed. First of all we're told a lot of things about the various alien cultures and traditions, but we don't get to see or experience any of it. Where are these migrant fleets of the Quarians? If the Krogans are so scattered and desperate for work how come the only ones we see are Wrex and the lab grown ones working for Saren? I was also discouraged to find out that the game didn't allow you to visit any of the species home-worlds within Council space. In fact there are only a handful of developed places that you can explore (the Citadel,Therum, Feros, Ilos, the interior of the Normandy, Eden Prime, and Noveria) but even these have constricted areas due to the linear way in which you must complete your main objectives. All other worlds consist of a drive in the Mako with occasional stops to survey some minerals, excavate a downed probe or ship (which you can't explore), look down a mine shaft and investigate one of two kinds of bases. There is supposed to be this great feeling of being involved in an expansive and dangerous galaxy, and while the dialogue tries to convey this your character's movement and interactions through said galaxy are so narrow and essentially isolated from any NPCs not on your crew that it's impossible to feel like a part of it all.
     Which brings me to another point. I found the crew, including Tali, Garrus, Ashley, Kaiden, Wrex and Liara, to be very difficult to connect to. It not that I didn't try, I even envisioned my custom female character to be bisexual so I would have more reason to hang out with Tali and listen to her talk while all the time I was staring at her boobs. It didn't work. It's like the characters just drop out of nowhere and suddenly you're working with them. They all have background, which they will tell you if you ask, but other then Wrex, Ashley, Joker, and Captain Anderson the other crew mates feel like they just filed onto your ship with flimsy reasons why they should even be there and why you should care about them at all. None but the characters I mentioned above are essential to the story, which leaves me thinking that they were just placed there to give the player more lessons on the alien civilizations and politics. If that was their objective however, I would have to advise that the editors either cut them out or somehow revamp them into main characters. Otherwise they're not necessary to any of the dialogue, they don't add to the story (unless you play as a female character and want to sleep with Garrus or Kaiden), their presence is not necessary since their skills are available through yourself, Ashley and Wrex (the useful characters), and they just take up space and gun modifications.
     Dialogue is another thing which I felt needed improvement. If you want to tell us a ton of information to flesh out the various species that's okay, but for God's sake break it up. Trying to cram that much knowledge into your head the minute that you are given control of your character breaks the flow of the game and feel more like the game is trying to cite something that the player should already know but is too thick to remember. Maybe an even better metaphor would be to compare the relationship between the dialogue and the player with a student trying to cram an entire history course the night before the final exam. One idea would be to parse out all of the background through the side missions so a) the side missions don't feel like annoying distractions from the main quest (which the plot would have you believe you must urgently finish, thus making side quests a form of procrastination from your responsibilities as a specter) and b) the player feels like they are being rewarded for learning the environment of the game rather than being forced to quickly absorb reams of dialogue in order to earn some measly XP and feel like they can actually be a part of the plot. Another idea would be to pimp out the citadel to make it feel more multicultural and thus visually give the player a hint that there are various tastes and styles out in space. Another thing that tripped me up as I was starting to get into it was when I noticed that there were no variations in gender among the species (except possibly for the Elcor and Hanar whose gender is unkownable). There's no explanation given for this either! All Batarians, Volus and Turians are male and all Asari are female. Either they all reproduce by budding or change gender when it's time to increase the population again.
     Overall I'm giving it a 6.5 out of 10. Some of the side missions are a lot of fun, the main quest (while feeling waaay too short) pulls you in, the inventory is easy to use and the biotics are fun, but like I said above there should be a wider range of space with other aliens in it that you can walk around and explore, the dialogue needs to be spread out, we need to get a better idea of the other races without monologuing, and the cast needs to be tightened up.
     This doesn't mean that I have no interest in Mass Effect II. I'm still going to buy it when it comes out. My optimism prevents me from ever learning >.<

            I just.... that was.... I don't even know how to describe it. The Metalocalypse finale... it was the best episode I have ever seen of any show that I have ever watched. I mean, I often write cliff hangers so my fic readers are tweekin' out waiting for more, but when it's done to me.... ^&*$*#&^(&%&^@%&^%!!!! *spazzing out on the floor*. I WANT MORE I WANT MORE I WANT MORE!!!!! OMG this episode was so slash-tastic you have no idea you just have to watch it. Nathan/Toki, Charles/Nathan, Pickles/Murderface (and I don't even like that pairing but still, it was there!), could have used more implied Skwisgaar/Charles (my personal favorite along with Toki/Pickles and Toki/Nathan) but you can't have it all. Still, the finale came damn close.
             And Charles....  he is the best part of the episode imho. He continues to kick ass, he's swearing, organizing the defenses like a pro, and looking all cool and composed even when the Assassin beats him up and tells him that he wants him alive so he can listen to him as he tortures him (disturbing, yet unnervingly arousing >.>) He doesn't even give that asshole the pleasure of a response! He just closes his mouth and glares!!!! All while having an arrow in his chest!!!!!! *spazzing on the floor again* I sincerely hope that we get to see Charles with some scars (that would be so hot!), but I'm also afraid that he might end up with some bionic parts like Dr. Twinkletits. Don't get me wrong, I love cyborgs, but part of the appeal of Charles is that he's all rough and dangerous under the facade of a refined business man. If his outward appearance were to change I think that some of the magic that comprises his stuffy, uptight demeanor would be lost. 
             AAARRRGH!! Small and Blacha are such cock-teases!! What will happen to Charles? Will the next season be as slashy as the second (I have my fingers crossed)? Where will the story go now that it has been revealed that Dethklok is the most powerful economy in the world?

Please, oh please don't let Charles die!!!!!!!

Get well soon Charles! T-T
 

My new computer arrived! I had it delivered to my grandmother's house in NH to avoid a 200$ tax charge, so this morning I drove up to pick it up, but before I left my grandmother and I spent the day together, went to dinner and had a great time before I left with my new comp. 24" screen, surround sound, a wireless internet adapter, lots of memory, several powerful video cards, a great processor = my new Aurora Alienware desktop!!! My dad helped me set it up and install many of the programs, so lots of love to him :) My brother is going to be home from work soon, so when he gets here I'm going to install the games (Bioshock, Psychonauts, Witcher, Guildwars and Sword of the New World). When I move back to college on Monday I'm going to have to repackage it for transportation, but until then I'm gonna pimp it out XD

Let me just start by pointing out that anyone who knows me is aware that my current fandom of choice is the fucking brilliant American TV show Metalocalypse (duh, look at my icons for god's sake). Every time there is a new post at sausagefestival I am filled with joy and delight for the few seconds that it takes me to open the link, see the entry, and then start jonsing for the next post. My week is pretty much made when Adultswim features an article about their metal baby. As such it should come as no surprise that one day, while I was drifting through the ethers of the interweb, I happen across the site for the upcoming video game Brutal Legend whereupon I have a mild cardiac arrest caused by all the love rampaging down upon my poor sarcastic self. The only thing that would be cooler than this game would be an actual Metalocalypse rpg in which you strum riffs to blast dragons, and possess everyone's favorite suit to ass whoop assassins and business rivals alike. To put it bluntly, for those of us who wish that we had been born in the heyday of Metal or could live in the 1981 movie Heavy Metal this game is the answer to all our crumbled dreams. Coming from the mind of Tim Schafer you know that the concept is going to be a mind fuck that makes you giggle with joy as you are swept into the arms of an insane world torn from the Warhammer universe. Like Psychonauts before it, Brutal Legend is a game that is high on design and story with an unusual array of weapons, not least of which is a guitar that also serves as a double sided ax (think FLCL meets Gimli). Add to this the fact that the trailer for the game is set to "The Mob Rules" from Black Sabbath and that you look like Nathan Explosion if he had been drawn as a Gorillaz band member and I have to say that I wouldn't care if the game had you on quests to find parking in a hotel garage, I am still going to buy this game! 

Playing video games such as "The Witcher" or "Bioshock". Reading romance fanfiction also helps a lot.

I think I may be ready to do a Metalocalypse fan piece. Ever since I finished reading gwynbones and twilightspeaks fantastic n/t & c/s fanfic "Dethsoap" (which can be found on www.dethslash.com) I have felt too depressed to do any Metalocalypse fanart. The story was just so good! Well written (except for those weird chapters where Nathan is dreaming but we don't know that and thus it seems to come out of nowhere), very very long (three seasons with on average 14 chapters each, and good characterization).... I can't believe that it's over! And charles/skwisgaar is so rare! Why do I always fall for the rare pairings?! Well, that settles it. I'm going to do a Charles/Skwisgaar piece. Then a Toki/Pickles piece.

1) certain people will take initiative in helping with household jobs without being told and without bitching about it.
2) the job market stops spiraling ever closer to the proverbial septic tank during this economic depression.
3) Squidbillies and Metalocalypse season 2 come out on DVD.
4) classes resume at my college.
5) I can buy a new Alienware desktop (only 600$ to go!).
6) my family gets a new dog.

Yup ah. I have a migraine, our old, senile, vicious dog has just peed on the floor, and the certain people from above have left his present from last night for me to clean up. School can't start soon enough.

Sooooo yeah. First entry. Hmmm. Well, I'm a huge Metalocalypse, Invader Zim and Rurouni Kenshin fan, and I don't like people who troll, flame, spam, or are manipulative and cruel. And now for something completely different. I just saw Batman: The Dark Knight  and it is the SHIZNIGHT!!!!!  I loved the story, the characters (especially the Joker who is my fav. Batman villain), and the direction of this installation and it's prequel Batman Begins. It's so gritty and not campy! The best part of the experience for me was finishing the movie and thinking, "Wow. I'm so glad they kept the story and characters fresh and thereby didn't go the way of Indiana Jones and Spiderman." I'm really looking forward to the next movie.


P.S. I have been nourishing my creative mind on this video and song for a week. It is so much win. And now: Coldplay - Talk (Junkie XL remix)