"OMG!!! I think he's gay!!!" - part 3
Because two panics were not enough, because men and boys should face abuse and violence for doing something different, the Third Panic is upon us all...
There will be
mantyhose ("The exposure to these fabrics and colors are homosexualizing this manly man!", says the team of scientific researchers)...there will be
fifth-grade boys doing double dutch ("He must be pushed down the stairs! For America! For masculinity!", says the group of immature schoolchildren)...and just when you think that's all, the truth will emerge...
Oh My God!!! I think he's gay!!! - part 3 - Victims of the Bullies[/end movie trailer voice (and add tie-in videogame footage that involves bloody-horned-unicorn-riding-grim-reapers-with-chainsaw-maces)]
Perhaps I should know better by now, but why is it that such bullshit marginalization of men that participate in 'girly' things is so tolerated, yet when simpering wimps like
Johannes Mehserle shoot normal guys like Oscar Grant, we don't go making fun of them by calling them Joanne and making limp-wristed caricatures to drive home the point that stuff like this should not be considered manly? Isn't using the threats of harassment and violence to keep men from doing certain things the right thing to do? Then it should be perfectly fine to humiliate idiots like said simpering wimp above and anyone else that does the same thing. If we're lucky, no policeman in his right mind would dare shoot a black man in such an unjustified way out of fear of having their manhood questioned, since having your manhood questioned is the worst thing that could happen to us fragile, delicate, unstable men. That of course assumes the above-mentioned shame tactic is both effective and properly applied...
Maybe shaming men and boys out of 'girly' things isn't very effective since for every one that gets beaten to death and featured in the news (if they're that lucky), another one will appear and do
something they're not supposed to do. Maybe if the bloodthirsty, psychopathic masses that can pick on people minding their own business were to turn their anger on just a fraction of the people at the top that are directly responsible for our current economic crisis, said people at the top would clearly get the message not to fuck with those they're supposed to serve if they want to continue to be seen as the proper, upstanding men we're supposed to take them for (and not get pushed down the stairs at their jobs by blue-collar thugs).
Unfortunately, I look back at the idiocy that such "hey, men aren't allowed to do that! get 'em!" attitudes produce and dreadfully look forward to the idiocy that it will bring in the future, knowing well that for all the freedom and choice I'm supposed to have in life, my options are limited to either acting and looking like I have the power that men are supposed to have or to take abuse from some moron who thinks he has power.
Labels: annoyances, posted in windows
Post-Election LOL-a-thon
All those voters out there who gave Obama such a electoral victory that he got twice as much votes as McCain didn't need my help to do it, no siree. Judging by a couple conversations I overheard while on the bus, there were enough voters who supported him just to have a black man as President with not much of an idea of
what he's done. A week later after the election and I haven't heard anyone bring up details on Barack's past...or Michelle's for that matter. It wouldn't be so freakishly amusing in the latter case except I've heard so much more about Michelle Obama supposedly being a fashion savant or something to that effect. So, just what do I see when I finally hunt down a story about this famous red and black dress from election night?
It's a
bland if not ugly dress, and here I am wondering if maybe my sense of fashion is more fucked up than I think it is, since I am a straight guy and it's not a straight guy's job to be into what constitutes the latest in style. Maybe I'm biased since the only other fashionably dressed member of royalty I have for quick reference in the back of my head is Princess Natalia Luzu Kimlasca-Lanvaldear...
with a dress so pretty...
I don't care that this scene was added to the anime and not in the original game...because I didn't get to see it that much when I played.Whatever the reason, it could simply be yet another Obama-related pop-culture meme, like the
Joebama fanfic, the bastardization of
"What 'bout my star?" into
"Obama star", and other things I'm sure I have yet to see. Thankfully, I've not spotted any Obama-themed
"Motteke! Serafuku!" or
"Hare Hare Yukai" dances yet, so I have that much more sanity to hang on to...
Labels: anime, politics, posted in windows
Knock The Vote
Back when I turned 18 in 2000 and registered to vote for the first time, I had no idea that I would be as...jaded (is this the word I'm looking for here) toward the election process. Even back when my voting decisions were influenced by my grandparents and they made a habit of mocking campaign ads on television, I didn't think some negativity about the candidates would put me in the mind state that I've spent the last few months in. After eliminating "bitterness concerning the candidates I've voted for" and "expecting candidate X from Y for office Z to be a near-perfect person" as possible reasons, the conclusion that I've arrived at is that the presidential candidates and the scandals plaguing them are simply laughable when not outright scary.
What do I mean by that? Well, let's take the news that yet another high-ranking Republican was
revealed to be a fag. Incrementing the "outed gay Republicans" counter by one isn't as amusing as the fact that the people this guy runs with happen to not really like gays. What I find laughable about this is that it comes after Palin being picked as McCain's VP and everyone who's paid enough attention knows that she's been endorsed by
Focus on the Family some bunch of far-right crazies. If it weren't for the fact that I don't believe these bastards actually know biblical morality beyond anything that can be used to whip up sexual panics, I'd be flabbergasted that McCain still hasn't proven himself to be 'maverick' enough to renounce
his support for amnesty. Not even when the economy is definitely under pressure to the point of calling off his campaign for it.
While I'm sure Obama was supposed to be some great inspirational
black figure back when the primaries were the next big event, that's all but gone for me now. Though I didn't care about the "radical black preacher" crap from earlier this year, this whole
connection-to-a-terrorrist thing represents a new low. It's a low that may very well cast unfair suspicion toward any future black presidential candidates all because Obama didn't have the sense to consider this before taking that first direct step toward being the Democrats' choice for president. As for Biden, all my lazy ass needs to know about him for now is that he has given us proof that men and women will not be treated equally under law - otherwise know as
VAWA. Apparently it's okay to have mandatory minimums for drug use, very harsh sentences against men who batter women, and women receiving lighter sentences for violent crime, yet we need an unconstitutional law that serves as proof that equality is not what's really being sought?
I may just be unnecessarily negative about all this, and I do realize that some people in the past have risked a lot for people like me to be able to vote. Unfortunately, I fear they must be turning in their graves if not cursing us from purgatory for selecting lunatics to run for the highest and most important office in the country. Far from the 'hope' Obama tries so hard to symbolize, I hope looking back on this election, I'll wonder why I didn't beg a few
yaoi fangirls to make Ted Haggard x Karl Rove (for lack of a better couple)
doujins and mass mail the damned things to every Republican official everytime one of them is outed. After hoping I never see said doujins in my life, I'll wonder if the public gets the irony of thinking anime is a fad for kids and losers when the two women that have captured so much attention are essentially a
meganekko and a
tsundere even though those words will never be used to describe them in mainstream discussion. It sure would beat memories of a massive economic breakdown and catastrophic war against half of the Middle East going hand in hand. That and I wouldn't feel so...dirty knowing that October 4 sticks more in my mind as the day that the first
Tales of the Abyss animation episode will be out rather than the last day to register to vote according to a volunteer that I met on the way to work a few days ago.
Given a choice between rolling on the floor and laughing at the election proceedings and deciding who to vote for as the next President of the United States, I'm heavily inclined toward the former, since McCain and Obama just haven't convinced me enough that either of them are deserving of my vote, let alone that election politics is actually about trying to do what's best for the country and not just being a ruse meant to deceive the common voter.
Labels: anime, politics, posted in windows
Hollywood And Its Discontents
Call me an inexperienced youngin, but upon reading about a supposed
deficit of heroism in Hollywood, skepticism was my first reaction. Though apparently all of these superhero films seem to do good in terms of sales regardless of how many people claim to be sick of them (Dark Knight FTW!), it seems that they're not about real heroism so much as about how removed from reality they are. I'm sure it should be obvious to the most casual of observers that superhero movies cannot portray anything real so much as offer a parable or lesson as the crude, coarse, modern equivalent of (insert classical genre format here). Were this the only point the author tried to make, the article could be written off as one of the less harmful pieces of trend journalism. Unfortunately, the issues of 'victim' and 'whistleblower' heroes are introduced and for me at least, the article went downhill from there.
"The point of all three of the kinds of hero in which Hollywood has specialized over the last 35 years has been to make sure that heroism can continue to exist only on a plane far removed from the daily lives of the audience."
To say it is far removed from the daily audience's lives is unnecessary at best and false at worst. If these kinds of heroism were that far removed from daily life, then I would not have read so many articles from journalist and non-journalist alike on things like: how Obama/McCain will fuck up the country if elected president, the importance of having some political representative fight against gay marriage/global warming/immigration/sexualization of children, or why it's important for victims of rape/child abuse/censorship to speak up and do something about it. Such heated subjects clearly invite victims and whistleblowers fighting the corrupt systems that make these things possible. Whatever historical context may have created these archetypes in current cinema and culture, to deny it has close connection to its audience's lives heavily suggests that pop culture should only focus on the stereotypical concerns of the middle class, which would make pop culture slightly less self-absorbed than it is now. Other than that, the denial is there to expose a blind spot that an author older and wiser than 25-year old me should not have.
One response to the article linked above does get some things right that the original missed. Once again though, it goes downhill when trying to explain the victim and whistle-blower hero as if it were confined solely to the concerns of Hollywood:
"If you're Stephen Gaghan, or Joss Whedon, or Alan Ball (AMERICAN BEAUTY) and you actually care that a studio exec was rude to you, or cheated you out of an extra million that was due you (leaving you only $8 million on the deal), and that forms your whole social environment, then yes, of course your view of heroes would be either nihilistic, middle-class society rejecting anti-heroes, or whistle-blowers who show "how corrupt the system is." Of course Hollywood is corrupt. But Hollywood is not America."
Wrong, due to the example I gave in the larger paragraph above. True, you may not want to think of someone who shares your politics is a 'victim' or 'whistle-blower', but when you see a pundit on TV or read one of their articles on a website acting as if society will turn unbearably more evil if their talking point is not heeded, they are trying to be that hero themselves or hoping someone else will fill the role. Just because such a person doesn't explicitly reject middle-class values (or properly embody them for that matter) doesn't make this problem all about Hollywood and the egomaniacs that exist there.
"...Which leaves the cartoon/superhero as the only venue for heroism, and that far removed from both ordinary society, but embodying the "Big Man" jerk-style personal behaviors that Hollywood writers and producers have adopted as the norm."
This is an even bigger blind spot than before, simply because pretending that the "Big Man" jerk is only adopted as the norm by Hollywood requires lots of concentration. I don't think I'd have nearly enough strength of mind to ignore the fact that there are more women attracted to jerks until it's time to play victim - while
despising the weakness of guys that don't act big enough, or that presidental election coverage has repeatedly forgone focusing on the candidates' real views and plans to feverishly point out how
'unmanly' one's behaviors are. I know damned well that the American public likes its men to at least act big, if only to reassure them that large numbers of men won't undergo testicle shrinkage followed by a preference for some things 'girly'. Nevermind that somehow our ancestors and others around the world today somehow manage(d) to have bigger concerns than feeling a need to constantly reassure others that they're real men (is it that easy for some to forget?)...
One other problem that both of the authors miss is that to really drive their respective points home, all they had to do was invoke the dread specter of "Liberal Hollywood" and how it has ruined nearly everything. From there, it's only a hop, step, and a skip away to imply that if liberals and their problems were removed from Hollywood, it would once again be an arbiter of all that is right and moral. For that extra jolt of silliness, they could even explain why people should look to Hollywood of all places for examples of heroism rather than to non-fiction books and real people. It sure as hell would've made things more understandable than simply pointing the finger at Hollywood and blaming away.
Labels: article coverage, posted in windows
The Comic-Con 2008 Post
...now with less to say than the 2006 Comic-Con posts and not indexed by time...
Whether it comes from convention-goer fatigue or the fact that I was only there for one and one-third days this time, I'm almost thinking that this was not a very impressive event this year. Highlights of Saturday (since all that really happened for me on Friday was getting Lego Street Fighter figures after volunteering with the blood drive) include:
- Actually playing a match of Street Fighter IV long enough to find that Chun-Li's projectile attack is now a back->forward move instead of a 180 degree motion - after losing round 1 and blocking like hell against a Sagat player for the first half of round 2. Along with that change, the last hit of her multiple-kick super combo apparently has a backflip added on to it, though that may have only been at the highest gauge level.
- Watching other people play the new Ghostbusters game, Crysis Warhead, the Warhammer MMO, and some other things I don't remember yet.
- Playing the next Castlevaina game on DS (which I found to be better than Castlevania Judgment), Megaman 9, Soul Calibur IV (the only thing really gathering crowds at Namco's booth), and the new Bionic Commando.
- Wondering whether or not to buy a few things and in the end leaving almost empty-handed:
- The Revoltech Yotsuba figure (at page bottom on the right) - declined since I wanted the sold-out Danboard figure (at page bottom on the left) more.
- Something of Yuki Nagato - declined since the only thing I found that wasn't in the "mystery prize" category was $30 and the booth didn't take debit.
- The Mythbusters panel, where the hosts answered a few questions and showed some clips of next season's stuff and of "sobering up myths" (including a slow-mo slap to the face and very bad results from running on a treadmill while drunk).
- The Masquerade, while slightly different than the last time I saw it, was still entertaining enough with "Nintendont's Brawl: The Musical" among other things. I only wish we could've seen the remains of the costume that spontaneously combusted or at least been told what it was...
Labels: announcements, posted in windows, videogames
Tales of The Last Hope...XIII
Why, oh why did I not take E3 into account back when I was feeling buyer's remorse over that XBox 360 purchase? Even though I couldn't have predicted
Final Fantasy 13 no longer being a PlayStation 3 exclusive (or wouldn't have been willing to believe it), the fact that tri-Ace was already working on
Infinite Undiscovery (hopefully the game will be better than the title) could've been a good clue that
Star Ocean: The Last Hope would also be on XBox 360 - and maybe even another Valkyrie Profile in a few years - had I been clear minded enough to see it.
Though such news was uplifting for me, a roommate that just bought a PS3 mainly for FF13 was a bit disappointed, though at least
Versus 13 wasn't also announced for the 360. I should've told him not to feel so bummed unless Kingdom Hearts 3 (and you just
know there'll be one once the DS and PSP games are released) also loses PS3 exclusivity...or never gets it to begin with.
Though the demos for Tales of Vesperia and Too Human are now available for download, I'll either have to wait a few days or upgrade my Live account to gold status since silver members don't always get first access to new stuff. I'd rather wait since buying a gold membership that's not going to be used often isn't very appealing. Hell, the $8 toward a 1-month membership will be better spent on ToV as soon as 1)It's released and I have the money for it, 2)It gets good enough reviews, and 3)I'm sure it won't get in the way of my current Tales of the Abyss playthrough of about 15 hours.
Labels: posted in windows, videogames
This Testicle Will Self-Destruct In Five Seconds
Of all the things society can get away with, threatening a man's sexuality has to be one of the most idiotic, especially when the issue at hand isn't something as serious as
endocrine disruption or
excessive drug use but a goddamned summer movie that appeals mostly to women called Sex In The City. Simply not having enough interest in the movie or the show it's based doesn't seem to be enough for some people though, and so we get one "gay panic"
article of several along with quite a few
confused commenters not quite getting that gay men and women aren't the only targets being aimed at or that it isn't about men not being the center of attention. One such commenter also asks if Sex In The City turns men gay, can Iron Man turn a woman lesbian. It's a nice question, except that if there were a flood of articles on the internet daring to assert such a thing, it would clearly be labeled in no small part of the blogosphere as misogynist, homophobic, etc. in far larger numbers that what's going on here since that's what happens when enough women don't like what an article says about them (one thing to remember about the Forbes.com article concerning career women). In the meantime, we get to pretend that men can easily turn gay and deserve nothing but mockery for it without any more than a murmur of misandry in the crowd, much in the way that the spell checker picks up misogyny but not misandry.
Since I'm in a cynical mood as usual, I'll go so far as to call these gay panic articles for what I see them as - word of mouth marketing. Even if that was all it was, I don't see exactly why it was necessary to take this approach when one thing Sex And The City already had going for it was that the leading stars were female (despite the "gay men in drag" snark from
a NY Times piece) in a summer season where most movies are supposed to be male-dominated. Oiling up the hype machine with the ol' sex anxiety snake oil wasn't necessary for anything besides subsidizing the snake oil salesmen and getting frustrated consumers to see SATC just because they're pissed off at what some article writer suggests about some peoples' sexuality. If
'Wall-E' beating out 'Wanted' in the first week is any indication of a trend, maybe the fact that
SATC also got #1 over Indiana Jones in it's opening week points to a trend of moviegoers not being that interested in action movies when given a choice between it and another genre. If that's the case, then this is sufficient enough of an explanation for me as to how this summer's movies can be expected to do (and why the videogame industry is still raking it in), though it doesn't immediately invite ridiculous attacks on heterosexual male sexuality, and I guess that's not as important to some people.
Labels: annoyances, posted in windows
Shock, Or Crock?
One week after the
decision by the California Supreme Court on same-sex marriage, I have to say all the
controversy surrounding it is just more election-year crockery. Of course, the same arguments as always are offered, though anyone who doesn't fear some bozo with a bible anymore than they would fear two guys kissing can cut through it all without much effort. Let us consider the issues at stake:
If we must follow everything the bible says and believe in it's inerrancy, then why in the hell did a PA bill that would've banned gay marriage get rejected for an amendment proposing to outlaw divorce except in extreme cases - a bill that could've passed in a Republican-controlled Senate and therefore "protect the sanctity of marriage"? (Isn't there something or other in the bible about how "whatever God joins, let not man separate"?) Furthermore, why aren't we calling for the execution of adulterers like Republican Vito Fossella? Leviticus 20:10 states "And the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death", so there certainly is a case for it. Better yet, let us ask where do we draw the line with biblically-mandated killing and the commandment not to kill, which makes for one glaring contradiction in an 'inerrant' work. After that, a discussion on whether to threaten homebuilders with eternal damnation for not putting fences around the roof of a new house is in order...
If we are to believe that heterosexual relations will be threatened by this, then what do we make of the lack of support for banning divorce, since that surely threatens marriage? Somehow I seriously doubt that your average organization of religious nuts will make a public statement decrying the evils of divorce as often and readily as they will against same-sex marriage, and the lack of public discussion over a "divorce lobby" (as opposed to the "gay lobby") is enough to support my point. It should be noted that of all the problems men have with marriage, hordes of homos wanting to join in never seem to have a significant part in the discussion. As long as the marriage strike goes on, it's not like denying or granting marriage to others is going to matter anyway and yet I get the vibe that I'm not supposed to care about that much, only how to define part of my manhood as being in opposition to men that really like men...big deal.
By the way, if public displays of affection are anything to go by, this generation of youngsters could care less as long as no one disturbs them from smooching at the bus stop. Maybe I'm reading it wrong though and they could be trying to get in every last touch and kiss before a black helicopter full of homofascists arrests the two and tosses them in a gulag, not that I've heard of it happening.
One other thing: is it me, or is all of this objection only directed at free citizens and taxpayers engaging in voluntary, consensual homosexuality and not at prison inmates being forced into it? I'm hoping it's me, because the thought of anti-gay people either secretly getting off on or completely ignoring the latter is about the only thing more ridiculous than the way they act as if heterosexual attraction is just gonna dry up and waste away unless we take lots of precious time to harass, put down, and physically harm gays mostly for existing and occasionally interacting with heterosexuals.
While I am a little upset that discussion of whatever voter referendum it was that banned gay marriage in California hasn't been mentioned much, I don't recall public majority opinion being as important before the war in Iraq began, or now as steadily increasing gas prices make things worse for car owners, among other issues with strong public opinion. Instead we just hear about how (insert institution here) is more important than what a bunch of public nobodies say or think. Then they wonder why some of the younger generation succumb to political apathy...
Labels: annoyances, politics, posted in windows
Whee! My First Comment
After nearly two years of maintaining this blog, I finally get a comment in my "Crisis Bore" post. Sad, isn't it? Sad that it took that long to get a comment, sad that I rarely check my blog enough for comments and note that it went undetected for almost a month, and sad that this post's title actually makes it sound like a sarcastic moment of joy. If that's not enough sad for you, now I try to check out the commenter's blog only to find that it's been removed...boo hoo.
Labels: announcements, posted in windows
April Is For Fools
Ah...the wonders of having a
hacked PSP...well, that's what I could be saying, except that would require having taken advantage of the hacking by doing something like playing
Cave Story, or trying my hand at
homebrew coding myself. Instead all I have to show for it is a barely-played copy of Lumines ordered on eBay and a recently-completed copy of
Crisis Core that has left me slightly disappointed for several reasons of my own making:
Too damned short and easy (solution: replay on hard mode and do more than the first mission offered)
Not enough Aerith Cissnei (solution: same as above until her DMW percentage is 100%)
Subtle 'stabs' at political allegory (solution: laugh it off as a result of all the media hype about the election/nomination/scandal-of-the-week)With that said, what kind of fool would need to
hurt someone for a copy of Grand Theft Auto IV? Let me get it out of the way now and say that I won't be surprised at all if someone out there actually gets around to blaming the game itself for the violence that someone would resort to in order to get the game. I should be glad that such a thing hasn't happened at my place of work yet...as far as I know.
What kind of fool would
act outraged over some
tame photos of
Hannah Montana Miley Cyrus? I'm more unnerved over whatever face she's supposed to be making in that first photo. Looks like a 'gimme yo copy of Grand Theft Auto IV before I stab yo bitch azz' face to me - if a famous teenybopper girl can make that kind of face, that is. If the other eye were open, it could even be a 'you have done well to make it this far mister
Zack Fair, but now you must DIE!' face.
What kind of fool would expect
Queen's "Keep Yourself Alive" to sound anything near similar to the
multiple versions of "Keep Yourself Alive" from the Guilty Gear series solely on the logic that if
Sol-Badguy is the fusion of the game's creator and Freddie Mercury, then his theme tune would also be a mixture of original music with the original - and then be in for quite the shock at how...retro-sounding 70's rock sounds? Well, that would be me, and let's face it - robbing people over a game that 'promotes' robbery and freaking out over a teenage actress' bare shoulder/upper back/upper torso are far more foolish.
Labels: annoyances, posted in windows, videogames
Crisis Bore
The good news: I've gotten my copy of
Crisis Core - Final Fantasy VII for $32 the weekend it came out. Not bad considering how I missed out on the releases of King of Fighters XI, Devil May Cry 4, and some other games upon the week they were released.
The bad news: Said copy of Crisis Core is sitting in a bag, unopened for two reasons; 1) An anticipated financial rough spot in the next week, which will result in me getting a refund if it happens, and 2) The game's firmware requirements (3.90 if I'm correct) - meaning either I can upgrade my PSP firmware from the official 3.30 to the official 3.90, locking the system out of any custom firmwares, or wait until I get a copy of Lumines from eBay,
attempt to downgrade my PSP and get the latest working custom firmware, all while ever-so-slightly risking the PSP becoming bricked and thus unplayable.
The worse news: No blog layout change since whenever it was first announced, and another election-year month of crazy news items, easily summarizable in a format reminiscent of Harry Potter book titles:
*
Eliot Spitzer and the Over-Priced Prostitute: Just as some "family values" people have managed to support anti-gay policies only to get caught up in the behavior they denounce, he goes after the same kind of people that he eventually became connected to. Of course, I doubt we'll hear of how straight guys are just hopelessly addicted to sexual sin and that it defines them entirely, or that the next time some openly gay person in public office gets in trouble that we'll see their
partner standing behind them, but it would be something new for my cynical mind.
*
Barack Obama and the Loud-Mouthed Preacher: Honestly, I don't see why Obama should have to distance himself so much because his pastor says some things similar to what
other pastors have said, and why this is supposed to be all so discrediting. If we're going to discredit Obama over his past, there's
other areas that would make more sense.
*The Iraq War and the 4,000 Dead Soldiers: I still remember back before the war how some around me believed that the war would be so quick and effortless, only to be given the false positive that was "Mission Accomplished" leading to this. It's not the body count that gets me here so much as the rock and the hard place that this country is between upon either withdrawing or sending in more troops and extending the time we spend over there. The icing on this cake of insanity is undoubtedly the way Cheney and his ilk were speaking out against messing around in Iraq some 10 years ago...we all know now just how much they really believed that.
*
Brett Favre and the Questioned Manhood: Here's a guy who has had one long career with some accomplishments and moments of greatness who lets his guard down at the wrong time (while he was still in the camera sights) and he gets attacked for being a woman - by a woman. It wasn't funny when the press did it to Hillary, and it's not funny here. I'm just glad Favre was a retiring athlete and not a political contender, or this would be the beginning of the attacks and not the end (just look at
how they treat Obama). What a way to send mixed signals that our men are supposed to be more than uncaring, unemotional brutes, then punish them for stepping out of said uncaring, unemotional appearance...[/sarcasm]
I have to conclude that you know the news - or rather what makes the news - is uninspiring and bad when you don't look forward to it as much as the plot (or in the case of Advent Children, the
fight scenes) of yet another
spinoff in a cash-cow franchise.
P.S.- My apologies to anyone who finds this post by search and thinks I'm bashing the game just by looking at the title...
Labels: announcements, politics, posted in windows, videogames
"OMG!!! I think he's gay!!!" - part 2
Last year, there was
"OMG!!! I think he's gay!!!" - part 1 (cue hair-raising screams)...and now from the same blogger that bought you that unseen original comes the sequel...
"OMG!!! I think he's gay!!!" - part 2 : Shoot 'em up!Now with more sexual discomfort and expectations of male violence! Just when they thought it was safe to assume a supposedly heterosexual schoolkid could ignore another supposedly homosexual schoolkid, a gun will be fired (cue gunshot and more hair-raising screams) and a community will be shaken.
[end 'movie trailer voice' here]
Honestly, I'm not going to waste time pretending to be surprised, appalled, or even pleased that yet another case of
anti-gay bullying has resulted in the loss of another
male life - that of one *Lawrence King. While a woman who dresses like a man may very well become the next President of the United States (at the time of this writing), a boy who dresses like a girl gets a gunshot to the head. Even more depressing than that is how quickly some are to think passing a bunch of laws will be a better step than to encourage 'sexual minorities' to become just as violent and ready to kick ass as their 'normal' peers are supposed to be.
For all the claims that our culture is awash in violent entertainment, no one seems to be able to take away a really important message - that being ready and able to defend oneself is a better option than hoping your enemies will stop on their own or that someone else will save you. I can't recall any movie I've watched or game I've played where one is rewarded more for taking abuse than taking serious action (often violent) against the source of the abuse. Before anyone tries to state the obvious, yes, I know it isn't always possible.
Another thing I'll point out is how misguided some are to claim 'hypermasculinity' is the cause for these kinds of events (not that 'hyperfemininity' seems to get blamed for much). How can people think some moron is hypermasculine for killing a helpless kid over sexual issues when that same moron could have easily went around flirting with (and probably picking up) the girls on campus? Surely displaying the 'aggressiveness' to pursue available girls for courtship purposes would be more 'manly' than killing a boy who probably made no hostile gestures toward you, no? The fact that such misguided souls can consider events like this 'hypermasculine' in the first place represents societal corruption in and of itself. Passing this corruption onto otherwise normal developing boys while teaching them to give up 'girlier' interests and lash out in rage at the slightest questioning of their sexuality has to be the gift that keeps on giving to crooked politicians and religious lunatics alike. It virtually guarantees a steady supply of men that can be made into examples of why we need this law or that program. If that weren't enough, idiots like you-know-who try to convince the gullible that the presence of sensible gays (not to mention the fringes) is a nation-dooming sin; this while not spending nearly enough time and effort to remind the 'normal heterosexual man' that God wouldn't be pleased with all of the bullying and killing being done in his name - unless you know, certain parts of the Bible aren't really true.
All that's left for me to do in light of this tragedy and that
other school shooting is to give the true victims (meaning not the gunmen) a moment of silence and wait for the day a bullied gay kid will actually punch/slice/shoot the hell out of a would-be bully. That will be a truly surprising day.
*edited at 12AM 2/25/08 because I forgot to add the shooting victim's name the first time...
Labels: annoyances, posted in windows
THIS...IS...SPARDA!
If I were the kind of person who sees a lot of movies, I might be more distressed over the whole death-of-Heath-Ledger thing. Going by
some responses on the internet, he was such a good actor that actually did other films besides
teh ghey cowboy movie Brokeback Mountain. The only other thing I remember about him was about his part as the Joker in the next Batman film.
Since I'm not a moviegoing person these days, there's another hot issue on my mind now - the upcoming
Devil May Cry 4. Playing the demo over the past few days has been a nice calming way to spend time before and after going to class. Hopefully the full game will be as good as Devil May Cry 3 and nowhere near as bad as the second...
Another thing that I somehow missed until a few days ago was something called "Meet The Spartans". Sure, I could have seen the trailer on YouTube - and maybe that'll come later - but I was too lazy (or too busy trying to find recently posted King of Fighters XI/Neo Geo Battle Coliseum/Guilty Gear XX Accent Core matches).
Labels: posted in windows, videogames
Happy Christmas And A Merry New Year
So I went out and bought an Xbox 360 Pro at $350 for a personal Christmas gift, though I wanted a Wii but either a)couldn't find one at the normal $250 price or b)would have been forced to pay $500 for the system plus extra controller, 3 games of my choice (of which the two I wanted weren't available), and some other accessory. The original plan was to get the $399 PS3...until I found out it has no backwards compatibility (so much for the backlog of games on my list such as Valkyrie Profile 2, Tales of the Abyss (or Legendia), and Xenosaga III). I should be much happier than before with a current-gen console, but then again, there's this thing they call "buyer's remorse" that must be affecting me.
Right now, the only things I can think of looking forward to in early 2008 are Devil May Cry 4, Grand Theft Auto 4, and how long it will take before any New Year's resolutions I make are kicked to the curb and left to die in the cold.
The list of things that happened for me this year includes but is not limited to: my PS2 dying after 5 years, getting a temporary job during NBA All-Star weekend and missing a chance to see Kobe Bryant, getting a non-temporary job 3 weeks after that, having a new car after 6 months of going without one, missing out on San Diego Comic-Con 2007 and Evo 2007, laughing my ass off at the media coverage of some fool named Larry Craig and all of the other idiots who profess "family values" only to get caught up in "teh gay !!11", moving back to San Diego to go back to school, and thankfully not having to evacuate during the whole Southern California Wildfire thing.
Here's to hoping that things turn out great in 2008 - or that at least life won't absolutely suck...
Labels: posted in windows, videogames
This Isn't Going The Way I Expected...
Once again, I'm posting at the end of the month and it's the only post of the month. Once again, I've promised some kind of layout change that I didn't deliver on. It's not that I like blogging this way, but between work and play (and now school), I just can't seem to keep a focus on making newer, better postings. Sad, I know...
Before going back to school, I was mildly excited about taking new courses toward my major, and had thought I'd be able to keep up in class. Apparently, that's not the case here. I knew work would get in the way a little, but adding to that, being out of school for a year has made me forget a few things here and there. Falling asleep while trying to read out of the textbook doesn't help much either...
In gaming,
Halo 3 has broken some records, not that I'm surprised in the least, oh no...(earlier this year, I saw a blue sportscar in Las Vegas with the license plate "HALO 3"). I wanted to buy
Jeanne D' Arc since I've been waiting for it once word got out that
Level 5 was behind it, but decided not to for now since I don't play my PSP much (and wasn't sure whether to get the newer 2000 model). One of the bigger pieces of news for me out of this year's Tokyo Game Show was news on the three new Kingdom Hearts games - one I'll most likely never play (
for mobile phones), another with a weird name (
for DS), and yet another with blatantly recycled character designs (
for PSP). I'm still playing World of Warcraft, now with a Draenei Hunter in addition to the Blood Elf Mage created several months back. As for Growlanser: Heritage of War, I never did get that, and the lack of easy-to-find review scores doesn't give me enough of an idea of whether it's worth buying or not.
In case you've ever wondered why "posted in windows" is a post label, it's because I'm planning on installing Linux to the same hard drive as Windows Vista. Success with Ubuntu almost came earlier this week, except that I didn't want the master boot record overwritten, so I tried to have it installed elsewhere, only to fail. Eventually the job will be done right, if the boot record has to be written on a floppy disk or a distribution other than Ubuntu has to be used.
Labels: announcements, posted in windows, videogames
Back To School - Yay Or Nay?
I suppose you knew it was coming if you've read the 'about me' section. Yes, after spending more than a year in Las Vegas when I originally planned for a three-month visit, I am back in San Diego. Not that I'm really excited though, you see...if the difference in housing prices between the two cities weren't enough to worry about already, there's my schedule. Hopefully taking
Linear Algebra,
Artificial Intelligence,
Operating Systems, and
Algorithms all in the same semester won't be too overwhelming for my mind. If I'm lucky, I might even be able to immediately apply some of what I am to learn to the games I keep trying to create in DirectX/SDL only to get distracted by something else and give up.
About the layout, I might change it in the next month to celebrate my birthday, but more on that later - particularly if I can get out of this one-post-per-month rut I'm stuck in now.
Labels: announcements, posted in windows
It's All A Buch Of Hype
Not that I care much about the state of politics as it is now, but if there's anything that might 'cure' me of my cynicism, some guy that goes by the name of
Ron Paul could do it - besides, one of my coworkers claims to be one of his grassroots supporters. As far as Hillary, Romney, and the others go, I'm more than a little bored with the way their campaigns are going. By now, I'm no longer surprised that few political figures go public on the need to curb illegal immigration, and I'm not surprised that certain Republican
sex-baiting loudmouths can't even live by their own example. I'd have more respect for them if they did something more constructive, like raise hell over Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (the way they did over Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire)...without reading too much into that title.
If I was the type of person who went to the movies these days, I'd feel a bit bummed about not going to see Transformers or The Simpsons Movie. Actually, now that I think about it, I feel a little icky not remembering the original 80's
Transformers in addition to ignoring the newer Transformers Armada series. Besides, while the reviews I've seen for Transformers are mixed, those for The Simpsons Movie lean more toward the positive. Maybe missing out on Transformers wasn't so bad after all...
In yet another change from this time last year, I did not go to San Diego Comic Con due to personal problems...personal problems that wouldn't allow for a two-way road trip totaling 11 hours, starting and ending in Las Vegas. Thus there will be no report of my activities there this year...because there were none to speak of.
There's some cheer somewhere in this post though, and that's due to me finding out that
Growlanser: Heritage of War [YouTube video] will actually be getting released in the US. Even though I doubt I'll find any of
Satoshi Urushihara's female character designs as sexy as Growlanser 3's Annette Burns [
worksafe |
not worksafe] (you may have to copy the links and paste the address in a new tab/window to view) this time around, the gameplay looks different enough from that in Growlanser Generations
[YouTube video] to make it worth buying. The fact that it's only going to have one Limited Edition print run also doesn't leave much room for waiting until later. That said, I think I could've slipped a
Peanuts reference in this paragraph somewhere - lemme know if you find out where. :)
Labels: announcements, annoyances, politics, posted in windows, videogames
I Seem To Have Missed A Lot This Month
There's been too much that I've missed out on this month. "Like what?", you ask? We have the Spurs winning the NBA finals 4-0 over the Cavs (I'd have thought they'd win one game), some government plan about a 'gay bomb' (I'd love to see Focus on the Family or some group like them condemn that waste of thought as sinful and immoral), the death of Chris Benoit and his family (haven't watch WWE much since it was WWF, so I don't care as much as when Owen Hart fell and hit his head), Manhunt 2 getting an Adults Only rating (which is equivalent to an outright ban thanks to Nintendo's and Sony's policies), Paris Hilton acting like a damned fool over a 45-day sentence (let's face it...it's not that bad no matter how much she cried), and other assorted brouhaha.
Why didn't I cover any of it? For one, World of Warcraft has been eating up some of my free time. You see, first came the 14-day trial, then purchase of the Burning Crusade during a sale where it was $25, then finding out I needed an active account to play it after I broke the seal on the box, then a call to billing support in which a woman implied rather unclearly that I could use a game card instead of buying the retail version, then a 60-day game card purchase, then failure to activate the account using the card, and finally, purchase of the retail game with success at creating a new account. The past couple of nights has been spent guiding a Blood Elf Mage through the forest, shooting fire and ice at anything that can be attacked.
As if that weren't enough, I've gotten back into programming with the DirectX SDK and SDL.net, where recent experience suggests that the latter will be preferred over the former for the next few weeks.
Finally, there's the anime. Besides Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, Lucky Star and Hayate no Gotoku are most of I've been watching (on my computer) thanks to a lack of cable TV in the house.
If I weren't so lazy upon coming home from work or waking up on my day off, there'd be more content here. Maybe I ought to dedicate 30 minutes a night to writing a blog topic or something...
Labels: anime, announcements, annoyances, posted in windows, videogames
Like The Last Post, Only For April
I know that not much has been happening here on this blog, and I've been a little too lazy to try to write new posts. I'm sure if I'd put as much energy into writing what I think as I did watching
Nanoha StrikerS (which, as of episode 3, is starting off rather slowly compared to the first two seasons) or playing lots of
ATV Offroad Fury on the PSP (in which the Enduro races are frustrating), there could have been a couple of posts on something or the other. After upgrading my installation of
Ubuntu 6.10 to 7.04, there may also be a few posts made in Linux as well.
Labels: anime, announcements, posted in windows, videogames
Just So I Can Have An Entry Under 'March 2007'...
Sorry about not being able to say much this month. Between getting a new job and having to take the bus for hours a day, there hasn't been much time for blogging. This means no part 2 of my previous post (yet) or site layout updates. However, for those of you that keep coming to my blog searching for "Ilkka Kokkarinen" or "Sixteen Volts", note that you'll probably want to go to
Ilkka's new blog (with thanks to
Mangan's Miscellany for the link!).
Labels: announcements, posted in windows
