This makes 360 #5. The manufacturing date is April of '08 so this one statistically shouldn't break, but you never know. Anyways, that's not what I'm here for...

As the title of this post may suggest, I can't tell if I'm just outgrowing stuff or if the stuff is simply not growing anymore; maybe it's due to overexposure, but quite simply, a lot of shit bores me these days and I long for that childhood wonderment that doesn't come anymore. To clarify, let me first state that I'm a total entertainment junkie (I think we all are) and that I've spent the majority of my life diving into other peoples' visions, be it games, comics, anime, movies, or the occasional television series. There was a time, and I'm sure anyone reading this can easily remember one for themselves, where something was just on the horizon and I was totally excited about it. More importantly, when it actually came, I was insanely into it throughout the entire boom of it, as it were; eventually, novelty almost always wears off, but the point is that I don't find much novelty in anything anymore.

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Okay, so on my way home today, I had a good laugh at the expense of others. When I got home, I had to make a diagram to show you how awesome this thing I saw was. Curious?

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You are one of them, I can tell. I can tell by the way you rabidly defend Uncharted and Halo. I can tell by the way you gawk and insist on playing Army of Two. I can tell by the way you constantly play the same four maps in Gears of War. You're one of them. There's no use denying it - you're a graphics whore.

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As my blog has degenerated into nonsense, I feel it's time for a true return to form. It's been a while since I've stretched my writing muscles as I honestly just haven't had the patience for it. Such as it is, night shifts allow me to peruse the Internet and enjoy silly punishment games from Gaki no Tsukai, but I've gone through all of them and there's nothing left to watch; thusly, I go elsewhere and I'm constantly amazed by one thing. However, before I get to that, let me ask you - in all seriousness - if you would stick by a generally terrible boyfriend or girlfriend because they gave you some shiny stuff every once in a while... so... would you? Before you answer, let me get started.

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Okay, so it's time to do a real post. Let's talk about beards and how sad they make you. Mostly, why you shouldn't grow one unless you're old and married. For serious.

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In there interests of scientific posterity, I present to you, my precious reader(s) a piece of my own history. Back in the day, I had the great honor of speaking to a world renown scientist and I captured these conversations in case I ever needed to refer to the material for exams and stuff. Being that I no longer have any aspirations to become a scientist (in truth, I've NEVER had aspirations to become a scientist), I pass on my education to you because someone might just find this stuff useful.

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Hey, there. This goes to my pals who are deeply embedded in Japanese culture as I am mostly out of the friggin' loop. Ever hear of "Caramelldansen"? What's this meme going around? Don't know what I'm talking about? See below... and then explain it to me!!



(I know these characters come from Hitman Reborn, but that's not the birth of this meme is it?)

I'm no expert model builder. In fact, I kind of hate building them. But as I was in the Honger mall, I saw that lots of places were displaying sweet Kerero Gunsou models (Sgt. Frog). I thought they were toys so I ran around and couldn't find anything. Then I asked and they were like "Oh, those are model kits!" and I thought, "Well, shit."

Still, I couldn't resist as it was only $10 and I got half way through the decals before I realized that there should be paint on the thing. Since it's a kids' level model, it just snaps together and requires no glue (and it's super poseable) so I figure, "no glue, no paint." Sadly, I realized it too late so my model looks kinda rubbish, but the decals make it look much cooler than it ought to be. If I go get anymore (I like Giroro more anyway), I'll consider putting paint to it and cutting around the decals... you know, put the effort into it to make a $10 model look like $100. Tips from model-builders would be neat (but I warn you, I'm not getting an air brush).

Dear Americans,

Your dollar is so weak, it needs to sit down every ten minutes. This may not be good for you, but it is most certainly good for me... somewhat. As a Canadian, I am enjoying the benefits of having an almost-equal dollar value on several of your fine entertainment products, but for many of your companies which have invaded, bought-out and pretty much changed the consumer landscape of Toronto and Vancouver over the past decade or so (I whole-heartedly believe that Calgary only has horses and nothing else and, well, let's be honest - no other cities count), you're being obtusely reluctant to reprice your shit. As a Canadian, this upsets me, and I believe I have every right to be upset.

( Click here before you bitch at me. )

As a modern-day digital cowboy (not really, I just wanted to say that), I have plenty of time to think about shit nobody really cares about. Case in point: geeky people. I'm one myself, but I've never had any issues with being socially inept. However, that's not what I'mma talk about. I'm going to both defend and attack geekdom, or at least certain aspects of it. See, it's all a matter of perspective, so allow me to paint you a picture.

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Someone explain vlogging/YouTube "shows" featuring yourself. I can understand the concept of YouTube for posting clips of things like your awesome guitar playing or your kick-ass round of a fighting game or your rock band score or a monkey sniffing itself or some dude smashing his face into a wall and bleeding everywhere 'cause like, that only gets posted once to show off. But there's the weird thing of vlogs and shows on YouTube. You have fans, but... there's no benefit to it. Just the adoration of strangers and no paycheck. And you do it every week for years and nobody's even approached you for a television deal because you suck! :( On the flip side, who watches these things? Why do they watch them? Someone explain it to me!

I find it entirely different from blogging because I feel that the visual half of it is a desire to be seen and noticed; essentially, they want fans. I write for an audience of... 2... that I know of. And if they hate me because of the stuff I write, then I still write for me. Maybe I'm missing something.

I splurged this weekend on manga (yes, I'm still a geek) and picked up five volumes of something called Welcome to the NHK.

For those of you who are not weeaboos (and really, I'm not one), the NHK is a public television network in Japan that runs off of viewer contributions. In fact, it is THE public television network in Japan that runs off viewer contributions. Unlike the American equivalent (PBS), it apparently doesn't suck and is probably the most popular station on the island. It also has nothing to do with the story in the manga. Also, for those of you who don't know, manga is the Japanese equivalent of a comic book, only with less tights.

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Ever hear of the legend of the ghost of Carli Banks? Of course you haven't. For one, she's not dead and she's also a porn star (safe pic - http://www.nakedmovies.net/gallery/carli_banks_naked/carli_banks_001.jpg). That doesn't mean I wasn't creeped out by a funky dream last night in which she was out to kill me - admittedly, it wasn't Carli, but someone who looked a lot like her, though I'm sure now that you've seen "porn star", credibility is shot. Screw it. I suppose after reading Phi's entry on how she bolted out the door an hour early had me up at 2AM this morning getting ready for work only to realize that I still had two hours to go before I needed to be up. So back to bed. Here's an account of what happened in dream land during those two hours.

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When FFT PSP came out, I promptly ran out to my local game store, grabbed it, and then promptly shoved it in a corner somewhere in my house (in actuality, it was left on top of my Gamecube, which has become somewhat of a stand for small items). I had completely forgot that I had it. In my quest to track down Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness (for some reason, there's been a rush of interest for it here and nothing to explain why no stores have it), I got my itch for SRPG action and remembered that I picked up FFT PSP. Originally, I had ignored it simply because I didn't want to spend the hours on it, but yesterday I finally shoved the thing into my PSP and I swear I almost cried when I heard the music start to play. Of all my gaming experiences on the PS1, FFT (alongside Vagrant Story and Vandal Hearts) completely spun my world around. I dunno - it's not like I had never played an SRPG before, but something about the epic-ness of FFT just blew me away.

The new cutscens are beautiful, but with my fond memories of the originals, it's hard for me to get behind them. That being said, though, the remixed opening crawl is phenomenal... but I keep thinking of the end to Monsters, Inc. You judge.



For a taste of the new cutscenes, hit the jump (yes, I read too much Kotaku).

( Yummy scenes )

I bought a mic stand (nice boom stand for $30) so I could play Rock Band and sing at the same time. It's tough as nails because I don't know most of the songs by heart. The way the screen is laid out, the words are at the top and the notes for the guitar are at the bottom (no chance I can sing and drum at the same time). So I mostly end up just warbling the pitch instead of singing any actual words. Hella fun, though.

Also, for those of you with PSPs and not much to play on 'em, I suggest getting Pursuit Force. It's like a successor to Chase HQ (anyone remember that) where you're a cop who chases down criminals, only this time you can jump on their cars/boats/whatever and shoot the hell out of the baddies. Lotsa fun and good for pick-up play.

It's about 4:15AM and I'm going into the home stretch of my 12-hour shift tonight, or rather this morning. Despite the title of my post, I'm not really that tired. In fact, I'm quite awake. I ate a whole thing of spaghetti, about half a thing more than I should have eaten, and I'm terribly gassy. More importantly, however, I managed to forget my headphones in my car way back at the top of the subway system, so instead of watching funny clips on Youtube, I've been whiling away the night on Wikipedia, thankful that the drama from earlier this week (which I have not written about) has settled to a horrifyingly-still pond of... water. Normally when I venture to Wikipedia, I look up a single topic of interest - this is normally provoked by random thoughts which have no explicable genesis and any investigation into such, I believe, would be frightening. Digression aside, one topic always leads to another, and I somehow went from submarines to physics to notable phycisists. Which brings me to my point.

( Find out who's an alien! )

Okay, this one I have to share since it's one I can remember. I had a dream last night that I had put a fish into the bathroom sink so I could clean its tank. This is something I don't do - I actually put them into a bucket. Anyways, turns out that the plug for the sink had a hole in it and all the water was slowly slipping down the drain.

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The following message is of great importance and urgency. Please read and review it immediately as it may pertain to your physical well-being, your life expectancy, and your overall blood pressure. Message is as follows:

( Message #125273 )

Though I took this shot quite a while ago, I was playing around with my camera and came across it. I don't really want to bother hooking up the 360 to the PC just to get the shot, so unfortunately it's pretty blurry. So to be helpful - in the spirit of the holidays - I pointed out some great things for you. They are not napping.

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