Star Wars

Everyone has heard of Star Wars and just about everyone will recognize the fabled "Luke, I am your father." with the raspy mechanical voice.

These movies are a never-ending classic that I simply can't get enough of.  I go through a monthly routine of actually re-watching all 6 of these wonderful films in either the order released or chronologically.  They never get old.  Even if you know exactly what Luke will do next you still feel suspense in what he may do, it is simply amazing.

Now many fans will say things such as "Four, Five, and Six were 300 times better than the new ones."  Or "The new ones are complete crap."  Or other things along those lines and I can't really help but agree but I must say that they do do a good job of rapping up the story from where we were jump-started into the universe.

Anyway, to anyone who has never actually seen all 6 of them I full-heartedly recommend going out and renting and viewing them.  To those who have seen all of them but not recently than I suggest giving them a re-watch, they are well worth the weekend.

Toradora Review

This is the start of a new chain of me reviewing animes that I finish.

The premise of this anime is that Ryuji Takasu has eyes that make him look like a delinquent despite him being a normal, somewhat overly nice, person.  This often gets in the way with him trying to act normal and attempt to get a girlfriend.  It doesn't help that he has a single mother who sleeps all day and works night shifts at a bar.  Already tired out from taking care of and cooking for him and his mother he finds that he gets to school and he is in the same class as his crush Minori Kushieda and his best friend Yusaka Kitamura, but those aren't the only suprises.  Also in his class is the "Palmtop Tiger" Aisaka Taiga, who is a short, childlike, violent, and short-tempered girl that turns out to have moved into the apartments next to his house.

As the show goes on you learn the connections between the characters.  There is Ami Kaashima who is a bit of an outsider between the five and has mixed feelings towards the other main characters, she is also a professional model who gets called mature when, on the inside, she is a child. Yusaka Kitamura, who is Ryuji's best friend, Taiga's crush, and the class president.  Minori Kushieda is Taiga's best friend and Ryuuji's crush.  Ryuji and Taiga become very close friends, Yasuko, Ryuji's mom, refers to them as "A family of three."  Taiga often eats at the Takasu residence and they both come up with plans to help get them and their crush together.  Throughout this time they become known and several rumors start between them.

The way this anime really grips you is in its incredible ties between the characters.  The relationships are always shifting yet hold through throughout the toughest of times. This is definitely a romance anime with only brief scenes of action (centered around Taiga) in maybe 4 out of the 25 episodes.

This anime has an incredible soundtrack including two ending songs sung by the female cast in the show.  It also has great art and detailed animation in the characters.  Even when zoomed out the characters rarely go into chibi form, they are quite well drawn.

POTENTIAL SPOILER WARNING

One of the only downsides to this anime is that it has such a predictable ending.  In the last episode the ending almost gets a huge curve but works out nicely in the end.  Despite being categorized as a romance anime this is not a serious, Romeo & Juliet love romance.  It has a very lighthearted tone (despite characters often crying) and definitely shows this in the ending (not giving that away though).

The main part of the story carries Ryuji, Taiga, and cast through many adventures proving their love and devotion to each other including a trip to Kawashima's beach house, a class ski trip, and the annual cultural festival. In each one of these Ryuji and Taiga come up with plans to get them closer to their crushes while also, non-purposefully, getting them closer to each other.

Overall I give this anime 10 out of 10 geeks. It has a stellar story, great animation, an incredible soundtrack, a great length, and some great twists and turns. It keeps a sweet and funny tone throughout and always keeps you hanging on the edge of your seat.  If you like Romance or Comedy animes this is a DEFINITE watch.

What is Mainstream?

This isn't a rant and this isn't an explanation. I'm not really sure what this is but it's something I want to say.

A lot of people think that being mainstream is a bad thing, it isn't. It's not a bad thing, a lot of people view it as being a follower, which is pretty correct, so you may see followers as bad but that doesn't always mean that being mainstream is bad.

When somebody is mainstream it means they don't really stray from the crowd, they most likely hear all their favorite music on the radio or from friends. They most likely dress in a T-Shirt and jeans, and they probably play Basketball or Football or possibly Soccer. That would be your stereotypical High School mainstream kid. You don't have to be full out mainstream, just like you don't have to be completely alternative.

I am quite alternative. To quote a post from GL:

I wear tight pants (never jeans though) and my shirt ALWAYS has a collar. The rare time it doesn't I'm either wearing a sweater or in my casual dress. I don't listen to any hip hop or rap. I don't even know the popular artists except some Rock ones. I don't go out to Starbucks and get Frappuchinos (don't care about spelling), I don't get high, I sit inside and play games and surf around on forums all day. I love Ghostbusters, I play DnD, I watch Star Wars several times a year (all 6), I carry my flash drive around for portable games, not school work, and, best of all, I HATE THE 360!!!

And Apple, I dislike apple too. But anyway, as you can see I'm alternative and proud of it. I don't like following the crowd, I like standing out and making my own opinions. But not everyone is like that, some people don't care about being different from everyone else, they just follow their friends and roll a long with it.

To me being mainstream isn't bad but it isn't really good. I don't hate people that follow the crowd, but I don't automatically love people that carve their own path. Next time you see someone who only listens to Top 40 rather than something like Bomb the Music Industry! don't immediately hate on them, they could be just like you in other ways.

How to Pun

Today during school I came up with a quite handy technique for making puns.  I spent most the day perfecting it. These are a couple examples of what I made:

- What's the most optimistic place near the water? The shore (sure).

-During what season to hunters and weightlifters go out together? Bear season.

Those are the two ones I remember, yes I know they are horrible but it's still a pun none-the-less.

The technique: First, come up with two homophones or even better a word with more than one meaning. After you have gotten your main word than you craft your joke around it.  I'll make a new one for a fresh example.

The word I came up with was Dire (sounds like Die-er, or someone who dies).

After thinking for a while how i could pull that one off (not the greatest word choice) I came up with this. "What are the worst consequences you can get for comitting suicide? Dire (Die-er)."

Might take some explaining it gets the point across. So I hope you get how to make your own homemade puns now! It's a lot easier than most people think it is, just takes a long list of homophones and some creative juics.

Warhawk Review

Just earlier today I picked up a copy of Warhawk for the Playstation 3, this is my shorthand review.

First off, this game is a downloadable game available on the Playstation Store, there is no hardware requiredfor the game itself.  The basic game costs $30 and their are 3 Packs you can buy bundled at $15.  This is very cheap for a game of this quality.

The basis of the game is a 3rd person shooter set in a war between two opposing sides. The weapons and vehicles remind me of other WW2 shooters but they are also somewhat futuristic. The game has your standard weapons: Knife, Wrench (repair), Flame Thrower, Assault Rifle, Sniper, Rocket Launcher. And your standard vehicles: Heavy and Light. But the thing that it really brings to the table is aerial combat.

Yes, there have been shooters before it that have had aerial combat, christ even Halo shoved some in there. But this is just phenomanol.  It is so fluid the way you evade missiles with spinning barrel rolls than dive down into the base and fire off a couple of bombs before skyrocketing back into the sky and engaging in dog fights. No predesessor does it better. You use the R1 button to fire your Machine Gun, your L1 to fire your alternate heavier weapon (several you can pick up). The R2 and L2 buttons speed up and slow down your flight, or raise or lower your plane when in hover mode.  Your trajectory is controlled with the left stick and you do your aerial manuevers with the right stick.

The aerial combat really brings it all together but there are some other mechanics and elements I would like to mention.  The vehicles have an excellent "Power Slide" feature that is, when you press the Brake/Reverse button and Accelerate button at the same time while driving you can do a sliding turn. The weapons switcher can be a little awkward to use if you don't know exactly where the gun you want is, but with time it is very easy and handy to use.

Another big thing in the game is the fact that it has NO single player. There is no campaign to go through. A big factor with this is that people might think that there is nothing to help you learn how to play the game, but, in fact, the game has a set of 3 tutorials that tell you just about everything you need to know to get started. Once you go through them taking ~20 minutes you are set and ready to pwn some noobs!

This game is definitely worth the money and is a very unique and well down shooting game.  Seing this game I wouldn't be suprised if it were a full blown title, but instead, you get a full quality, addicting, game for half the price.  I definitely recommend going and- Oh yeah! You don't even have to leave your house to get it! So just walk downstairs to your Playstation and download a copy! It is well worth $30.

I give it 9 out of 10 geeks. 

Self Description

Hey all! I know this post wont fit my general theme very much but it's still something fun to do.

Trying to describe yourself in just a single sentence.  Preferrably without making it too much of a run on.  Personally the challenge in this is to convey everything you want to using specific words.  If you don't know your words its generally a good idea to grab yourself a thesaurus.  My go at it came out like this:

Hi, I'm Rawk and I'm an overdressed, arrogant, geeky, kid who drinks too much tea.

You should try it too.  It's fun and can sometimes help you think about yourself in a different way.

Gamer Love

I just read a blog post by Snail and it just made my self esteem, self image, and general good ideas about my self raise by about 1000 EXP points.  The post explains that gamers aren't really that unappealing (this is, of course, sexually).

This is just purely incredible, and upon reading it I found that most of the stuff she says is generally true to me!  She says that gamers do several things that women can find very appealing. 

They will:

• Play games/have fun with you.
• Make deciscions fast and efficiently
• Not be overinvolved with their ego/coolness
• Not be turned off by quirks or oddities
• Be romantic?(not sure about this one)
• Wait to fess up

All these things are general qualities that most Nerds, Gamers and Geeks possess and most have never really thought to be appealing to the opposite sex but she proves that wrong.  She says that they are all good qualities and can make the quiet kids great partners in relationships.

I'm still kind of blown away by this idea of being sexually appealing but it sounds cool to me! So you heard it geeks! Get out there, get the girl, and save the world!

Keeping Clean Computers

In this day and age just about everyone owns a computer of some sort.  Also in this day and age just about everyone complains about their computer.  Today I will be telling you why you shouldn't be complaining to anyone but yourself.

First off the biggest thing that will slow your computer down (I've found) is having crap tons of stuff saved on your Desktop.  You don't need to have that many icons!! Just save your stuff elsewhere, is it that hard to open up your explorer and find the program yourself?? You should never have more than 2 full rows of icons on your desktop, if you do try compacting some of the stuff into folders, adding icons to your start menu, or just simply removing the icon, you can always access the stuff by going the long way.

Nextly is cleaning out your history and cache and temporary files.  It's very easy to do.  If your ultra lazy or ultra skeptical just go to All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Disc Cleanup (sorry don't know where it is for macs).  If you want to do it the good way I suggest downloading CCleaner and using that to clean up many many things on your computer.

Another simple thing to do is: remove programs you don't use.  There are, again, two ways to do this.  The normal way which is going to your operating systems control panel and removing it that way/using the programs uninstallation software, or again using CCleaner and using their wizard which completely removes all files to be sure there are none left behind.

If you follow these simple steps you will find your computer running a good deal faster than it was before.  It's like daily bathing once you get in the habit, you just do these things naturally and without them you would feely dirty and violated.

Indie Games

I'm going to start off saying that I'm not a huge independent gamer, I rarely touch base with many of the indie games on the market.  I do, though, consider myself a gamer, and that being said I have some entitlement giving opinions on Indie games.

As some of you may have heard the 11th Annual Indie Games Festival has begun.  If you go to their website (www.igf.com) you'll see the lineup and the choices.  Heading to where you can vote you'll see the choices you have to choose from and links to download most of them.

The only game I had seen before this list was Brainpipe, which my friend had recommended to me and I had played the demo for a few days.  Since all the other games were completely unfamiliar to me I decided I would go through and give each one a chance.  I proceeded to download all the ones I needed to and play all the ones online that were available.  This escapade took me a good 2 hours, and this is really playing the bare minimum of each game that I could to get a feel for it.

My absolute favorite choice out of the list was You Have To Burn The Rope.  This game not only had one of the catchiest credit songs I have heard in a long time, it was bloody original.  I completely loved this game for the full 2 minutes it took to beat it.

After hearing that you may thing: "Wait, it only took him 2 minutes to fully beat the game?"  Now listen, before you hate on its length, just realize the humor in it.  It's absolutely hilarious, there is a game that you walk down a tunnel learning how to play, and than climb up some stairs, hop a jump and burn a rope to kill the final boss.  The song even states "We didn't want to make a longer game."

Despite the length of the game it ceases to amuse me each time I beat it (10 and counting).  It's so simple, you climb up the staircase and burn the rope to kill the Grinning Colossus, yet it's so fun!

Anyway, moral of the story: Go vote in the Indie Games Festival but don't hate any game til you try it.  I recommend taking the time, like I did, and playing through each game.  You'll probably have a different opinion than me but don't let that stop you!

P.S: My Runner up was Dyson.