I'm apparently holding my own quite well on those forums with things actually moving along, an offer to join AE staff (which I won't, seeing as I don't even do theO press work at that con). A mod' also dubbed me "the best poster" there. Hard not to feel good about that one.
Soooo outside of that . . . I was on the news yesterday for a second playing cymbals. Our club did a little lion dance for the Canadian Olympic athletes going to Beijing downtown. Aside from the hot sun that was hot, it went really well. Some marketing guy gave us free bottles of Vitamin Water, we got our picture taken with the opera singer guy who sings the anthem before the Vancouver Canucks games, and we got paid nicely for doing it.
Oh yeah, opera singer guy also asked for our card so he could pass contact info on to the GM Place . . . maybe get us doing lion dances before the Canucks games or something . . . it's a long shot, but we'll see.
Also . . . side news . . .
The track list for Rock Band 2 is ridiculously awesome.
Soooo I'm tired. And I keep having to pour on the "hardcore SomeGuy mode" over at that other forum.
Yeah, I'm tired.
My brother had an amusing dialogue with a girl from Greenpeace the other day. He answered the door, she tried to get him on board as a "Friend of Greenpeace" (in other words, give them money). He gave her a run for her money . . . poor girl . . .
Every point she made about how we need to make a stand to our provincial and federal politicians to consider better alternatives to energy and such like wind over nuclear. Y'know, like how we could fill Northern British Columbia (probably Canada's most mountainous, most heavily wooded province) with windmills. Or that nuclear power is not something we want to get into because of all the radiation.
Brother (who was loopy from just getting off work and a flu, mind you) asserted that he felt that nuclear energy was a viable, sustainable source of energy, that mining for Uranium was no more worse than mining for other minerals/substances, that radiation had its uses such as in radiation therapy and chemotherapy and whatnot . . . a claim that Greenpeace-girl refuted, saying that she didn't believe in chemo' being that there are "other natural ways to fight cancer like the raw meat diet".
The raw meat diet. Cures cancer. Really now?
So yeah, she left pretty soon after that . . . I'm just sad I missed the actual event and only heard about it later. Ah well . . . but really, I'd like to think we're past the age where fear of nuclear power scares people into doing things (or not doing things, as the case may be).
Reminded me of this commercial I saw for a water filter. It basically made the point that the water coming out of your kitchen sink faucet is the same water that fills your toilet.
"Oh god! We're drinking toilet water!!!"
Y'know . . . ignoring the fact that maybe toilet water is just a lot cleaner than we give it credit? Sure, we know what goes into the toilet and what grows along the inside of the toilet . . . but wouldn't you say the water itself is generally fairly clean so long the rest of your plumbing is?
Saw a commercial for a surface cleaner last night, similar idea. "The kitchen counter can have just as much bacteria on it as a toilet seat!" 'Cause apparently people's butt cheeks and upper thighs are incredibly dirty and we never wash our toilet seats! Yikes!
Example closer to home . . . the cop brother who owns a house recently humoured a couple vacuum cleaner salesmen. Invited them to the house so they could vacuum everything while he had a little note pad writing down stuff like their names, how long they've been working with the company, and any other random bits and pieces he deemed worthy of writing down. Every time they asked him about cleaning stuff he'd answer "I don't know,"; every time they asked if they could set up a filter in a closed off room he'd say "no,"; every time they asked him if he felt the air felt cleaner, he'd say "not really,". Classic hard-ass, those brothers of mine . . . explains a lot about me, eh?
Anyway, the living room part involved diagrams of dust mites blown up on paper with a "you don't want to breathe these in while you sleep, do you?" Brother apparently just kinda went ".....no, I don't." Really, what kind of weirdo is gonna answer yes to a question like that? Again, the scare tactics. "Oh god! I'm breathing in thousands of these eight-legged jawed monsters every night!!!"
Scare tactics are stupid. I don't ever want any of you to not be able to see these for what they are. I mean, I'm sure the water filter works great, that the surface cleaner cleans surfaces, and that those guys' vacuum cleaner did in fact vacuum carpets well enough. But c'mon . . . your toilet water may not be stored in the cleanest receptacle in the house, but it's not like it's raw sewage coming back up after every flush . . .
Death Note completed its run on YTV last night. That was some good times. Ultra fitting end, very satisfying even if the entire episode was just typing all the loose ends and the really crazy tense moment was the week of waiting between this episode and the one before it.
It's all good.
Though . . . it's funny, because I recently became obsessed with an amazing website known as The TV Tropes Wiki, which is basically a collection of all the common themes and devices we're all used to in all forms of everything in the history of the world.
So with this site in mind, I spent the whole episode picking them out for my own amusement.
And if you haven't seen Death Note by now and still care, possibly ignore this next bit. Possibly. But you already know how it ends, so it's all good.
Oh, resolution of last episode's Cliff Hanger.
Hey look, explanation of the Xanatos Gambit.
Which leads to the Evil Laugh.
Followed by the A God Am I speech (to actual people for once) mixed with a little Evil Gloating.
Followed by the quick-reaction reminding us to Beware The Nice Ones.
Which goes into a modified version of Sword Over Head.
Also, while not exactly taking place in this episode, the trope of What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome? demands a mention since Death Note is the example they use in the introduction.
Potato chips . . . bwahaha . . .
So yeah. That was Death Note. Good times. I'll be going back to that site to waste more of my time now . . .
Funny what you notice after you kinda stop paying attention to things:
I figure I'll bring it up next meeting that there shouldn't be an apostrophe in there. Either way, it looks like we're doin' alright, eh?
Dragonball Z: Burst Limit is incredibly entertaining.
Pros So Far:
- Pretty good simple, straight-forward controls that handle well enough.
- Visually appealing, game has the DBZ style down really well.
- Story mode follows the story very closely.
- "Drama Scene" sequences add fun DBZ-style touches to the fights
- Good music and an intro song that I really dig.
- Shot-for-shot cinematic of the "IT'S OVER 9000!!!" sequence.
- Dual-audio options with all the original voice actors, more or less.
- Interactive loading screens for the 12-15 second waits.
- Would make for a good party game.
Cons So Far:
- "Drama Scenes" require special conditions in-match to unlock; they don't tell you what they are. Gonna be a long time trying.
- Game only goes up to Cell Saga; no Buu, no adult Gohan, etc.
- Minor clothing inaccuracies in story mode for certain characters (eg. Vegeta wearing "Saiyan Saga" armour in his first "Namek Saga" level)
- Certain voice clips seem to be off in the later parts of the game - will have to play more to be sure.
- Lip flaps and voice work don't really fit that well - could be intentional or unworkable, haven't played with Japanese audio yet.
- Certain moves (like "pursuit") sometimes feel hit & miss on pulling off.
- Bonus modes (like "Survival Mode") don't seem too interesting and involve loading times.
Well, so far so good. Considering it's the latest in a long, long, long line of Dragonball Z fighting games, I gotta say it's doing the job pretty well. I do wish I had a nicer TV, though . . .
