Why I listen to podcasts.

This^


Yaddle milk FTW!

Lol!

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3171397

Awesome!

Yay!

Thank you America, for not being the country full of stupid fat idiots who know the ingredients of a Big Mac but not how to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

Thank you for voting for change, and not for the same old crap we have been fed for the last 8 years by a president who choked on pretzels and started a war based on nothing.

I'm not usually a political person but today I am so proud to be an American. Here's to 4 years of much needed healing.



Wait, proposition 8 passed?

Fuck! I take all of that back!

Whatever happened to separation of church and state?

To Lauren,

It gets frequently more difficult as time goes by to remember exactly how we came to know each other. I know it was late junior year, and it was because I was hanging out with JC and Colin, and a little bit of Chamber music class. But somehow an awesome friendship sprung from it all and has lasted strong until today, and I am forever thankful for it.

I very much had a huuuge crush on you when I first met you and it lasted for awhile, but I, and to a certain extent we, worked it out and it's a non-issue for me now. There were some really awkward times, but I think they just made our friendship stronger. Haha, Fight Club was on the other day and I realized I can't watch that movie now without having some interesting memories.

I know you think your life sucks and you are unsure of what the future will be like for you, but you really shouldn't. You have an awesome life, you've got a lot of friends (way more than I ever had) from high school and now even more in College, and you're getting to try all sorts of new stuff as an independent person. I'm seriously jealous of you. Just be careful though, I know you've got a good head on your shoulders and have plenty of common sense, but every once in awhile I have a bad thought and hope you don't go overboard.

While I may slightly disagree with the way you want to take the situation now, I know you well and I respect your decisions. But please, if you know you want to move forward from now on, don't focus too much on Eric and the past, it will only make things even more stressful and complicated, and I care for you too much to have that happen to you. What's going on right now, and since I've been there listening to you as long as you need me to I definitely know, really sucks and I don't envy being caught up in it. But you are one of the coolest, most beautiful girls I have ever known, and you'll do just fine with whatever comes your way.

Your best friend ever,
Jonathan

P.S. In the event that things do get really hard, just call me wherever I am, forever, and I'll be there to help you.


It's a little early for this one and I was saving it for another time but I figure now is the best.:)

I kill things.

Why is it that every time I find a good gaming website, the best people there leave a few months later. First there was Rich Gallup leaving Gamespot, then Jeff Gerstmann getting fired, then Ryan Davis, Brad Shoemaker, and Vinny Caravella. All cool guys working for the site I liked best at the time.

Fortunately it seemed to be all sort of planned since they all started their own website. But by that time I had grown tired of watching and listening to what seems like a bunch of sidekick personalities trying to hold everything together, and discovered 1up.com.

Come a few months later, and Jeff Green, the guy who has been at the 1up network the longest helping to create Games for Windows Magazine along with GFW Radio (RIP favorite podcast...) leaves to go produce the Sims 3. I thought the worst was over, but less than a week later Shawn Elliot, funniest and best writer in the gaming enthusiast press (in my opinion), announces he is leaving to go work for 2K Boston! The most down to earth and outspoken guys of the entire site are moving to the other side of the fence...where we won't hear from them as much because they will have most likely have signed confidentiality agreements.

For the uneducated, 2K Boston (led by amazing creative director Ken Levine) used to be known as Irrational Games. They could also be known as the guys who made System Shock, System Shock 2, and its spiritual successor BIOSHOCK! So Shawn working there and putting his experience from the press side to use will definitely make their next TBA project even more awesome.

Oh well, I'll get over it sooner or later. Hey look at the bright side, more people leaving means more open positions. I wish all the best for Jeff and Shawn, you guys provided some great times for me as a fan of video games (yaddle milk, griefing, and toxic waste come to mind), and gave me even more inspiration for becoming a part of gaming press. Jeff, you gave me more knowledge about PC games I never got to play than I could ever get from finding and playing games myself. Shawn, you know so much about everything from 18th century literature to the consistency of female Yoda milk its hard to not listen to anything you say. Hopefully you guys will come back every once in a while for 1up FM or 1up Yours and give us some horror stories about the processes of game production. Best of luck to you both!

I'm still alive...

...not that it matters anyways, no one is reading this.

So it's been a long time since I posted anything here. I don't know why I bother though, no one except for the people I know look here and only when I tell them to.

Not too much has happened since my last post. It's my sophomore year here at UNT, and besides the drop my GPA took after second semester last year, nothing too disappointing or horrible has happened in my life. My best friend Lauren left for Austin for her first year at UT, so I'm slightly disappointed that she won't be in Dallas to hang out when I come home every once in awhile. But I'm pretty sure the amount of time she spends online (which is now starting to reduce ever so slightly with all the parties going on every day down there) well makes up for it.

I love my schedule this semester! I still have a music theory class ass-raping me at 8 in the morning, but after this semester I will be done with theory and another boring music class. After that all I will have to worry about is the advanced music history courses I have to take, but they will probably just be lecture classes so I'm not that worried. My sociology class is also pretty boring. I mean, when we get into discussion about specific things that I can relate to its interesting, but the rest of the class is pretty much a bunch of "because different levels of society treat their kids differently...people do stuff." Then the professor will usually go off into something even less interesting and equally unfunny. Then after that remind us that he's mainly an anthropologist, not a sociologist, and that most of us are in this class because it was the only thing available. Even when are talking about things I am interested in (i.e. parent's raising their kids and not letting the media do it), I am usually seeing it all through one half-opened bloodshot eye. Although now that I am staying awake with energy drinks, I can see he is a pretty cool teacher, he hitchhiked across the country just for kicks when he was younger.

As much as I hate that class, its all made good by the fact that I GET TO TAKE JAPANESE!!!!!!!!!! I finally convinced my parents to let me use it as my foreign language requirement, which means I will be taking 4 semesters of it, just below the advanced level course. Learning Japanese is like the greatest most funnest thing ever. Not only is it fun because I am actually learning every day, (unlike Spanish which due to its Latin base feels like an alternate spelling of English most of the time) but it's even more fun to speak. It also feels a little simpler than English once you get the hang of it, there's significantly less weird rules to take into account. Hardt Sensee is an awesome teacher too. It's funny that she's white bread American, not Japanese, but we don't ever feel like we are getting a watered down version of what "Nihongo" (japanese in japanese) sounds like spoken. Every day in class feels like were not taking a foreign language course, but like we are learning about important aspects of how not to offend people in Japanese society, and by the end of the day we know how to not forget the one thing we learned. By the time we get done with the chapter, I feel like I know everything I was taught like the back of my hand. It felt a little bit like Mr. Rubio from when I was at Booker T., for those who were lucky enough to have him.

This summer there is an opportunity for me to go and learn 2nd level Japanese actually in Japan, a place I thought I would never be able to travel to. A chance to visit the coolest country on earth and get college credit for it is something I'd rather not miss. I better start saving up money for Akihabara.

Another good thing about my schedule is that it leaves me time to actually use the gym this year. I got my older sister to help me get started with a full body workout routine, which I started and eventually lost track of. Now I just basically do every muscle group, in whatever order I feel like doing. The crazy thing is I'm actually starting to see progress! Small progress, but progress nonetheless.

I decided to not let what happened last year in regard to a social life happen again this year. If you need a refresher on what happened, here you go...there was no social life last year. I was so focused on getting used to being independent and doing homework, I realized by the end of second semester that I was leaving with no one I could call a new friend. When I started this semester, I said to myself "this year things will be different" and now I do my homework in the lobby, find regular people to sit with in my classes who I can talk to, and just generally be more social. It's working slowly, but I don't really want to try rushing things if I want to find friends (or girls) that will last for a long time, seeing as how college goes straight into real life. The biggest roadblock I feel like I face right now is that usually a lot of people make their friends in the early weeks of their first year. Those people find other people, and eventually there are many little groups of friends throughout the school. That's not how I roll, I always found the people I got along with the best in later years after I had met pretty much everyone. I didn't find them in elementary/middle school until about 7th grade, and I didn't find the kick-ass friends I have now until late late junior year at Booker T. Though considering how awesome my friends from high school are, when I eventually find some cool people to hang out with here, they will just as awesome if not even more awesome. (No offense guys.)

I'll try to keep this blog more active, but I can't guarantee anything. I'll even try reviewing some games for fun, but I usually start that process and give up because I don't even know what to start with.

Until then, here's a fucking insane but completely hilarious commercial for nuts that I saw during the premiere of Heroes monday. I laughed my ass off when I first saw it.

Funniest fucking video ever!

...or one of them.

Anyways, enjoy.

Family Guy s Take On Me

E3 2008! Day 1 (Microsoft Press conference)

So its E3 again and heres the stuff I am excited for:

• Resident Evil 5 delayed till March 2009, but online coop confirmed.
• Fable 2 is coming October this year, never played the first one so I don't know what to expect. Apparently the first one was great so we'll see.
• Gears of War 2 November 7th. Its Gears, its awesome, end of story. 4 player coop and 8 player multiplayer.
• Portal Still Alive on XBLA later this year. More portal=me happy.
• Fallout 3!!!! This is what I've been looking forward too for awhile. Its on schedule too so that's a good sign. First gameplay footage I've seen.
  
  
  
  
  

and finally...

• FINAL FANTASY XIII IS COMING TO THE XBOX 360! HOOOOOLY SHIT!!! SYSTEM WARS BEGIN!!!!
  

check in

Still alive here, I just haven't had the time to post in a while.  Actually...I've just been too lazy to do anything.  I finished my second semester with a 3.2 GPA, which is still pretty good even though it dropped .7 points from my first semester.  (But from what I hear that's pretty normal for a college freshman.)  Somehow I made a C in English 2, which completely baffles me, because I was able to see every single one of my grades throughout the entire class, and they were all A's and B's.  So it had to be my research paper (worth 40% of the total grade) that did, but Ms. Wright approved of the first 5 pages the week before it was due.  Either I wrote complete crap for the last half, or something happened with the grades, but nonetheless the whole situation sucks balls.

My best friend Lauren graduated earlier this week and it was pretty awesome to see.  The only other times I had been to an Arts graduation would have been my older sister's a long time ago when I was too young to care about what was going on, and then of course my own last year.  It was weird seeing it from the other side, and also realizing that I knew a lot more people than I thought I did.  The performances and everything were pretty good, but the music one seemed a little lacking.  I mean it didn't sound bad or anything, but after all the original stuff we had last year doing just a mash-up of choral pieces and jazz standards seems a little...lame.  Oh, and I didn't like that they didn't call James King's name during the actual commencement ceremony, I know it would have been a little awkward, but he at least deserves the right to actually have his name called during the real thing.  But still it was a very good ceremony, congratulations Lauren! You're awesome! : )

As great as it was to see that though, I discovered something during it that left me pretty deflated for most of the evening. (I tried to hide it though)  I won't go into detail but basically I thought I had an understanding about something, or someone (based on my interpretation of some things they said) and I found out some things that night that I didn't know and now I feel like I've lost a chance at something I really wanted.  I think that's vague enough for most people.  

So that's weighing pretty heavily on my mind right now and I'm trying my best to not think about it.  I'm still planning on writing my review of the Lost game, and I'm about to get a PS3 so I'll have more stuff to write about soon.

Damn, blogs are easy to forget about.

 

Vote for Fitch!

VOTE FOR FITCH!!!!!!!!

Vote Here

When the future comes, where will you be?

Today we, meaning gamers, constantly get attacked for the things that we love to play and live a lifestyle about. Games are either evil, or immoral, and are warping the minds of children, turning them into mindless violent hoodlums. So far we have been able to take it pretty well, voicing our opinions well in a tasteful way (outside of forums and article comments of course), with the occasional barrage of bad book reviews on Amazon.

But soon the baby boomer generation will be gone and we will take their place. When that happens, what will you do? Will you practice what you've been preaching this whole time, or will you be a hypocrite and let your 5 year old son play Grand Theft Auto 7?

Heads need to roll.

Good lord Nintendo is this the best you could come up with!  How did they even find the idea funny in the first place?




You know, those old NES commercials are really bad now, but I bet people thought they were normal back then.  I'm gonna go ahead and put this out there...THE WORST VIDEO GAME COMMERCIAL EVER!!!!!

...I mean come on what the fuck!  Does anyone find this funny in the least?

SSBB!!!

I finally get Super Smash Brother Brawl today, Im skipping class for it.

It better be damn good with all the extra time we had to wait for it!

RIP

I never played Dungeons and Dragons that much but I respect the foundations it created for the rest of gaming history.  If it wasn't for TSR (Tactical Studies Rules Inc.), we probably would not have things like Final Fantasy or Mass Effect.  We owe it all to this man, the father of the role playing game.

Rest in peace Gary Gygax, thanks for everything.

...oh yeah, he was 69 too!

New game

So I started playing "Lost: via Domus" last night.  Early consensus: I like it.  It definitely has some issues, and its pretty esoteric for non-Lost fans, but its kept my attention thus far.  I like the episode format. 

Full review coming soon.

GDC!!!

I wanna go to GDC someday, it sounds awesome!

• Fable 2 will have co-op gameplay. Its always awesome when you have the option of getting pregnant in a video game. (You don't see the actual process of it happening stupid.)
  
  
• Street Fighter 4 looks pretty cool.  I'm not much of a fighting game player though.
  
  
  
• Ugh, do we really need Postal 3. We already have enough problems dissuading the media, and this franchise has not helped. Not to mention that they're not even good games in the first place.
  
  
• I'm hopeful for Bionic Commando, It looks like fun.
  
  
• We're going to begin to see a lot more independent games on Xbox live.  


• Portal wins Game of the Year, COD4 and Mass Effect win nothing.
  
  
• Ninja Gaiden 2 on June 3.  Hopefully it won't kick my ass as much as the original did, but not take that away from the people who want it to.
  
  
• Spielberg's first attempt at games will be...jenga?  Fuck it, if its good, then that's great.
  
  
• Portal 2, maybe.
  
  
• Far Cry 2 will be the game version of Heart of Darkness.
  
  
• GEARS OF WAR 2 THIS NOVEMBER!!!!!

The war is over

Toshiba announced today that they are dropping the HD-DVD format.  Unless you have had your head in your ass for the past few months, you will know that this effectively means that HD-DVD is dead.  

Bluray wins!

If you already bought a player or the useless add-0n for the xbox 360, run to the stores now.  There's gonna be a firesale for HD-DVD movies everywhere as it makes like the Betamax.

I really wasn't rooting for any one format to win, I don't a have player for either yet.  I'm just glad its over so I don't have to think so much when simply buying a movie.  

 

The Revolution Has Begun!

Ryan Davis and Jeff Gerstmann started a podcast! Add this to the quiet announcement that Alex Navarro has a new project in the works, and I am a very happy person.

Arrow Pointing Down Podcast

Navarro's blog

Oh and if you have no idea what that last post was talking about, good. (and don't ask me)

CHEER UP!!!!!

Makki is the coolest and prettiest person ever!! She should read this and be happy!!!! : ) : ) : ) : )

BE HAPPY!!!!

She's gonna take first place in that concerto competition tuesday, and first place in every other competition that happens tomorrow, even if she doesn't even know about them!!!!  She's even gonna do it while feeling sick!  Is there any other person in existence more awesome than her?!

GOOD LUCK! : D

She's so hot she even has to fight off her fat, annoying orchestra teacher, and does it with style!

She should comment on this post and tell me what else I should talk about.

I dare you to not laugh at these.

Real video game awards!

So last night they broadcasted the D.I.C.E. Interactive Achievement Awards, the game industry's official awards show previously held and attended by only the developers and publishers of the industry, and for the first time this year it was broadcast live online for Gamespot users.

I didn't know what to expect from it, fearing a lot of esoteric acceptance speeches boring viewers to death, but to my surprise it turned out to be an excellent show!  Its exactly what we want from an awards show: red carpet with interviews, comedic host that (usually) keeps the energy up, audience enthusiasm, and content that we actually want to see.  That being said, I did find a few problems that made it a little hard to watch sometimes.

1.  The red carpet pre-show was generally very good, but for god-sakes get rid of Laura Swisher as a correspondent!  Her voice would be manageable if she wasn't making every single interviewee uncomfortable, screwing up questions, and keeping her mic on when Tim Surette was trying to pay attention to who he was speaking to.  But with both things its rotted icing on the burnt cake.

2. Jay Mohr as host wasn't too bad.  I mean, I know from the stories of the previous years he was about the same, so I didn't hold my expectations too high.  There were some genuinely funny moments, more hit than miss.  But he might do a little better next year if he lays off the asians.  Racial tension is not good for a room full of Japanese and white men when video games are the subject.  

3. In order to make the IAAs more viable as an awards show, especially if they want to move to television someday, the language definitely needs to be toned down a bit.  There was A LOT of stuff that kids (who people will inevitably think this show is for, if it expands) shouldn't be hearing, and that would not be allowed on a TV broadcast.  The "getting rid of crabs" thing, although probably one of the funniest things said all night, would probably seem pretty offensive to some.  But David Jaffe should be able to do whatever he wants and they can just bleep and blur it out, because he's awesome like that. 

4. Game developers can make great games, as we all know, but they sure have no comedic timing.  Maybe a tiny bit of rehearsal might do some good.  

5. The best moments of the show would have to be the lifetime achievement award for Ken Kutaragi, father of the Playstation, and the Hall of Fame induction of Mike Morhaime, creator of a little company now known as Blizzard. Those guys are legends and truly deserve the recognition.  These moments are what me feel really good about being a gamer, the knowledge that I am part of something big and not just a multi billion dollar fad. 

But thats just my opinion, cause lets face it, who's really listening to me.

Oh and "lulz," either don't keep this in your bookmarks or shut your fucking mouth if you don't have anything productive to say.  I didn't make this to be a whiny little bitch, I made it so I could get some amateur experience writing on my own for fun.  It doesn't feel good to be trying to do something and being put down the whole time.  I do know where you live...

Moment of the show:

Yeah, I know. I need a life.

Yes this is me in case you didn't notice.

...I'm still better than you though.

This pretty much sums it all up.

I know its been talked about like crazy, and you're probably tired of hearing about it. But the recent events at Gamespot after Gerstmann-Gate won't let it go away.

The first to leave was Greg Kasavin, managing editor, and the main man responsible for the strict review guidelines that gave the site its journalistic integrity. But his dreams did not lie in game journalism, because early last year, he left to go make games at one of the many EA studios. His departure, while sad, did not really seem to be a huge deal for the everyday activity at the site. All was well on the homefront. But that was until Josh Larson was hired to take his place.

Larson is not a passionate gamer to say the least. Hell, I don't even think he is a gamer at all. He was the man responsible for selling those annoying ads that take over the page when your mouse scrolls over them, and now he is the man in charge of the entire editorial staff. (I say "is" because he is still in the position today.)

It is reportedly this changing of the guard that led to the criticism of Gamespot's integrity and the eventual firing of Jeff Gerstmann, 11 year veteran of the site, whose opinion I truly respect and admire. The immediate lashing the site received after this news officially broke was wide ranging and explosive, and cracked open the discussion that, in my opinion, is the biggest video game related issue of 2007.

The game industry needs the media just as much as the media needs advertisers, and for years a happy medium has been in place between the two.  Places such as Gamespot are is happy to show ads for a product to make their site profitable, and the advertiser gets their product out there. At the same time, the advertiser must also accept that once the product is out at retail, it is open to any and all criticism. (Its called the First Amendment.) But to break this trust and betray the church-and-state separation is like being a public school orchestra teacher and giving all the opportunities to the best players. It makes you look good but fucks over all the other students who don't get a say in the situation.

I still support Gamespot because I like the personalities that I have come to know over the years and don't want to put them out of work. But if they ever get the opportunity to rebel against this bullshit corporate censorship, like Frank Provo, Alex Navarro, and Dan Hsu  already have, without becoming unemployed in the process, I sincerely hope they do. Because even though the government isn't involved (thank god!), that's exactly what this is, censorship.

This pretty much sums it all up...

Ok, lets get the ball rolling.

Its been three days here in my second semester, and I can already tell which classes I am not gonna like. 

Overall, everything is pretty fun.  Mass Communication and Society may be a class where I just learn common knowledge about the media and how it works, but the things the professor talks about and references are things that we hear about pretty much every day (britney spears, writers strike, beavis and butthead), so I think I might be able to have a little fun there. Hey, I may even get to make myself known defending video games if it ever comes under discussion.

I was scared shitless about going to Honors American Government, but it turned out to be not so bad.  The teacher is very high energy (in a limp wristed way), and keeps us interested because he knows that we would never have taken the class if it weren't for required Honors credit hours.  From what he tells us, were going to be talking about current affairs, domestic policy, foreign policy, all that crap you hear about on those channels you never watch.  Im a little concerned about the fact that a big part of our grade is based on us participating in discussions, which will inevitably turn into debates, one thing I have never been good at.  We'll see though.

Aural skills I is okay, its just a lot of singing and ear training.  Right now its really easy and for some strange reason I can hear my own voice over most of the class, but I'm sure that will change soon.  Sightsinging in modes...ack!

As much as I like to write, I hate my English class!!  The teacher is like an unfunny version of Ms. DeOre, and we're going to be doing literature analysis again, which is one of the most tedious and boring things possible in a class.  I would rather eat glass, vomit it back out, and wash it all down with a cool glass of pig urine.

Oh, and its a half hour longer than all my other classes too.

Despite the fact that I have to go to theory at 8 in the morning, I don't have much else to complain about, its music theory. 

Ok, last one, and probably my least favorite, college algebra.  Oh wonderful wonderful college algebra!  Where would I be without you?  

Oh yeah, thats right, HAPPY!!!!  I mean, I took math classes all through middle school and high school, and I don't plan on going into something that uses math for a career.  So why do I have to take this fucking torturous class?  The location is far from the class I have before it, its boring, I already learned the materials at least once before, and the teacher barely speaks english.  Nothing remotely good can come from this experience, but I guess I have to go through it to actually take classes related to Electronic News.  I think I'll survive, but I'll be hanging by a fraction of a thread.

So thats where I am at the moment.  

College is fun, but it can be a lot of work sometimes.

Hello everyone!

I made a blog some unknown time ago and then proceeded to not touch it since.  I dont even remember what it was called or where it is.  So yeah...uhh...Hi.

If I feel like posting stuff you might see something on here.