That's the stats for the game Long Live the Queen, which I just beat. Basically the protagonist, Elodie, has to live for 40 weeks, and you just have to figure out what stats she needs when to survive. That's essentially the whole game, but man it's hard. I've been killed by sword, bow, magic, and chocolate so far, but thankfully I've gotten to the end. Once. There are plenty of other endings. Let's see if I can do the rest.

If you want a cheap game to play for a few hours and has a piano BGM that will be stuck in your head for like a week, this is the game I'd recommend.

If you've been paying any sort of vague attention to the news recently, you'd find that Ukraine is up in flames. These are a result of new laws passed restricting speech and demonstrations, which the protestors claim are draconian and dictatorial. There are other factors, like how President Viktor Yanukovych is pro-Russia and many urban Ukrainian prefer stronger ties with the European Union.

Imagine for a moment waking up one morning and finding out we're at war with Russia over this. That Yanukovych appealed to Russia for help, who sent in troops, the rioters appealed to the EU and NATO, and we got pulled into it. I'm fairly certain most Americans would be completely surprised at this new development, and few would be prepared mentally for the battles ahead.

That's pretty much what happened to Europe in 1914. We're taught in schools that the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand is what initiated the whole war and the intricate web of alliances dragged every major power from a local conflict into a World War. But at the time of his death, Franz Ferdinand was just one headline amongst many, easily forgotten with foreign citizens only vaguely paying attention to, much like us and the situation in Syria or the recent bombings in Egypt. Terrible to be certain, but you don't believe for a moment that you're going to war over it. Hell, France was focused on the murder trial of a politician's wife. It was just celebrity news for them, much like how it is for us.

I find it crazy how governments can just send a whole nation to war without anyone really paying attention. Let's take the Iraq War. That seemed to sneak up on us; one moment we're trying to get bin Laden in Afghanistan and suddenly we're talking about WMDs in Iraq. But the Bush administration still had to work up to it; there were months whilst we talked with the UN and had inspectors looking for shit. This all literally happened in the space of a week. On July 23rd, Europe was at peace. On July 30th, half the continent was at war.

So when people say this country or that country isn't gonna go to war because of economic ties or the citizenry won't accept it or MAD , I pull out WWI: Europe was deeply entrenched in globalization, and many people were saying no great war could happen because it would fuck everything up (which it did). Britain's voters had no interest in the war at all, so the politicians had to figure a way to convince them. Germany thought Britain wouldn't enter because it would destroy their fleet and make the US the greatest sea power. They were partially right; the war completely destroyed the armies of practically every participant except America.

It's kinda scary how we're at peace and think there are hindrances to a general war, this shit could happen again even though it's an incredibly stupid idea. The last general war before WWI was the Napoleonic, a hundred years prior. The 100-year anniversary of the start of WWI is this July. Who knows; perhaps a new one would be on the horizon.

Dad: (Spots a small, clear bag filled with an unidentifiable brown clump in the kitchen.) What's this?
Me: I don't know.
Dad: It must be some sort of Filipino cuisine.
Me: It looks like shit!
Dad: Hahaha, I agree.
Me: That's probably why there's no market for Filipino restaurants. Their food likes like shit!

Seriously, I think that's really half the problem. They haven't figured out presentation.

Honestly I prefer politicians who say they're against abortion even in the case of rape and incest just because they're more philosophically consistent. I think on some level a fetus should be protected, but now the argument is at what point and how much. I don't agree at the moment of conception because I can't see a single-celled organism as anything more of a potentiality than a human being, but I suppose there is something to be said about even the loss of that. And if you're a Christian who believes a child gets a soul literally at that moment, then yeah it's murder to kill them. Regardless, if you're pushing the "life begins at conception" argument, you have to follow it to its logical conclusion: Even if the mother was raped, why should the child have to suffer for that? Should the kid be killed just because the mother wasn't willing? Does its soul not count?

Everyone was freaking out when Rick Santorum said during a CNN interview that a rape baby was horribly created but ultimately a gift from God, but I really appreciated him for admitting the dark side of his philosophy. It took a lot of guts and I think it's a shit argument, but I can definitely appreciate it.

Harvest Moon is the one series I don't mind looking up a FAQ before I even open the packaging. It's a type of game that requires long-term planning, so right away I need to know whom I'm going to marry, what crops and animals I should prioritize, and what steps I need to take to unlock events. This is without a doubt the best FAQ site for Harvest Moon games, hosted by a rabid fan named Cherubae. And this is the banner she chose for the Tale of Two Towns guide:

I would first like to say that "cooking with cow seed" is not some random nonsense that came out of my mouth like usual. This is an actual thing. I have not made this up. Secondly, "Ushi no Tane" is the name of site in general (Tale of Two Towns is the 10th game in the series) and Devin himself has assured me that it means "cow seed." I did some poking around and found this on her contact page: "The term 'Ushi No Tane' (牛の種) is the name given to the Cow Miracle Potion in the Japanese version of Harvest Moon."

The Cow Miracle Potion in the American version is what's necessary to get a cow pregnant. I vaguely recall when I first started playing this series writing a xanga post about how hilarious I found this because you literally sprayed the cow with it. It's fucking semen. I was joking around about this with Devin, but I didn't really think in my heart of hearts we'd be talking about bovine semen. What the fuck cooking is being done? What the fuck am I adding when I do cooking? THERE'S LIKE FOUR COOKING CONTESTS A MONTH IN THIS GAME. WHAT AM I SERVING PEOPLE?!

In StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty as Raynor you could walk around your ship and have conversations with your crew after each mission. I wondered how it'd work for the zerg campaign. I had some vague thought that it'd be something like this:

Kerrigan: Do you know where that Protoss scum went?
Hydralisk: HISSSSSSSS!
Kerrigan: Hmm. I see. It wouldn't be wise to attack them now that the Templar are in that position.
Hydralisk: SCREEECH!

Now that I'm playing Heart of the Swarm, I have unfortunately discovered everyone is speaking in English, and for that I feel the game suffers.

Okay, publishers can just go fuck themselves. I am so sick of this shit. Tons of our books have a different titles for the UK and US versions, and trying to look up prices is a fucking pain in the ass. I search for the US title, find there's nothing, put in the UK title, and then discover they republished it and realized the original US title was retarded and reverted back to the UK, so that means there are two versions with the UK title: an import and a more recent edition. It's driving me nuts.

But the worst, the absolute fucking worst, is Georges Simenon's Detective Maigret series. Holy shit. As a Belgian the stories were written in French, but every single time English publishers reissued it, they slapped another fucking title on it. Let's take the first one in the series. According to Wikipedia, it's been published under the names The Strange Case of Peter the Lett, The Case of Peter the Lett, and Maigret and the Enigmatic Lett. I figured the common denominator between them all is "Lett" and searched for that. The results were... terrible to say the least, with each title listed and all with different prices. I glanced back at Wikipedia and saw the original title was Pietr-le-Letton or "Peter the Latvian." Going with this hunch, I put in "Latvian" and found in the past two years Simenon's work has been republished, and the new title is Pietr the Latvian. Thanks a fucking lot. Why the hell didn't you translate that shit properly earlier? What the fuck is a "Lett"? That makes no fucking sense. It's Lett in French because it means "Latvian." Do you know how to read this fucking language?

And Simenon was a prolific writer. There are over seventy books in this series, and practically each one is a similar situation. Part of me wants to enter the publishing industry to just fucking stop this nonsense.

Me: Hey mom, besides Elvis and The Beatles, what other artists did you have?
Mom: Oh, The Doors. Put The Doors down.
Me: All of them?
Mom: No, not all of them. Until they got ugly.
Me: That's... not a great criteria. Can you give me a year perhaps?
Mom: Let me see their list. (Points to a picture of them.) Yeah, until that one got fat. I don't want the fat ones.
Me: That's not helping.

The Five Scrolls of the Hebrew Bible are the Song of Songs, the Book of Ruth, the Book of Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and the Book of Esther. "Scroll" in Hebrew is megilloth and occasionally when you read about these they're called the Five Megilloth.

To tell you where my mind is, each time I read that phrase I think to myself, "Man, that sounds like a fucking kickass boss name. 'Enter the dungeon and at the end you will find a worthy adversary: the Five Megilloth.'" What would this boss be like? What elements would it have? Is it a five-headed beast? Or maybe it has five different forms. Damn, now I'm excited.

To you Hebrew nuts out there: Yeah, yeah, I know the modern spelling is "megillot," but I'm going over my dad's Sancino books and that's what they used.

I just wanna apologize for falling out of view for the past two weeks. I'm trying to get lots of shit done for the house, and it's gonna take awhile. I'm hoping to be done by Friday, but who knows.

I'm writing down all the books we had in the house, and lots of mom's mystery novels aren't in print anymore. You can easily find people selling used copies on amazon or B&N for two dollars, but usually there are one or two copies new at exorbitant prices. I can understand that; if I had a book from the 1950s in mint condition, I wouldn't sell it for cheap either. But often I see it's from two dealers: bluehouse and bargainbooks (who always writes in the description "Looks like an interesting title!" regardless of what it is). How many people actually bite in these cases? Who would pay $60.00 for Ngaio Marsh's Clutch of the Constables when you can get one in all right condition for $2? Are they actually making money off of this? And more importantly, are these books actually new or do you think these dealers are just lying?

In The Prisoner of Azkaban when Harry first saw the Firebolt in the window, he saw that it was "price on request." I remember being confused by that and asking dad what that meant. He probably thought I was an idiot because the answer was, "You request for the price and they give it to you." But it was just such a strange concept to me that I couldn't understand it: Why the hell wouldn't you just give the fucking price so that I don't have to bother the sales people?

Now that I'm older I see what's going on. See, if I want a bed at Raymour & Flanigan, a desk at Staples, or a bookcase at IKEA, the price is there. But those are mass-produced, cheap furniture. Mom and dad had the good shit. So if you look at manufacturers like Baker, Stickley Audi, or Century, they don't list the prices. It's because they have a suggested retail price and the retailers put whatever the fuck you want. Mom found a dining room set at Macy's that cost $9000 for the table, $2000 for the arm chairs, and $1500 for the regular chairs. Guess what? If you go to the manufacturer's showroom, they're selling it for half off. And even then it's a negotiation; you can haggle a price down if you want.

Still, this shit is really pissing me off. I'd rather they just listed the price in the fucking brochure so I don't have to email the guy every day and wait a couple of hours for the response. I've got other things to do.

We had a pair of book ends almost identical to that. As I'm looking up prices for all the belongings we need to replace in the house, I didn't expect to find those bookends so easily. Or find so many. It turns out in my dad's day, it was a custom to take the baby shoes of your child — probably when it was about a year old — and bronze them to make a bookend as a commemoration. The one in our house literally contained my father's baby shoes inside, as do all those you see in the link.

What an interesting thing to do. I wonder when and why we stopped doing that. Perhaps WWII when the war demanded all our metal resources?

After my mom complains about Americans saying "saki" instead of "sake" for the alcoholic drink, you'd think she'd know better:

Me: What's the name of that little figurine we had in the china cabinet?
Mom: Natsuki!
Me: Natsuki? (Searches Google for "natsuki figurines" and only finds anime girls with big tits.) Yeah, mom... "Natsuki" is a common Japanese first name. I'm not getting that.
Mom: It's natsuki! Just search on Google!
Me: Yeah, that's what I'm trying to tell you.
Mom: It's NA-TSU-KI.
Me: I'm telling you—
Mom: N-E-T-S-U-K-E.
Me: ...What?
Mom: Natsuki!

Ate Neneng has been feeling under the weather recently, so she went to the doctor for a general examination and blood tests, and was told to come back the following Tuesday for the results. The other day the secretary called her to say, "There's something wrong with your liver. Don't worry. Just come in and the doctor will tell you." Why the hell would you ever do that? She's coming in anyway that Tuesday. She has an appointment. Why call her up and say something is wrong just to make her shit her pants all day and night until she meets with the doctor? Don't fucking say anything. She'll know in due time. If anything you're making her health worse as she sits in bed and thinks about what deadly problem could be ravaging her body. Where in your mind did you think this would be a good idea?

(There ultimately wasn't anything bad; she just can't drink or smoke, which she doesn't do anyway so it's no biggie.)

Sorry, after fruitlessly laboring for about three hours, I'm not in the mood to say anything but this:

Fuck origami tessellations. I don't know why I even got into this shit.

After our house burned down, there was one thing we could be relieved about: All our important documents — mom's naturalization papers, my birth certificate — were in a vault at the bank. Mom and dad kept them there specifically in case of an incident like this.

We just found out the bank branch where we kept them had a major fire. I'm not that worried because banks (supposedly) have safe guards in their vaults for this type of situation, but... seriously, what the fuck. This is getting ridiculous. I'm being chased by some sort of Fire Elemental or something. I should probably learn some water magic(ks) to protect myself.

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=42

You know what? Fuck that shit. Everyone for all eternity is gonna complain about Navi and how annoying she is. She is nothing — NOTHING — compared to Fi from Skyward Sword. Navi is a fucking baby is comparison. What did she do? Oh yeah, about once an hour she'd say, "Hey! Listen!" and tell you your objective. Fi fucking does this shit every three seconds. Let me give you an example. You pass by a door that has a lock for the boss key on it. She'll stop all the action to say, "Master, this looks like the door to the boss room" as if you couldn't fucking tell. Then later on a guy says to you, "The boss key is over here." She'll pop out and say, "Master, I can determine with 90% certainty that this man is talking about the key for the boss door." Really? He just fucking said it. What the hell is that 10% doubt for? Cartesian perhaps? 10% for maybe we're not all actually here and it's a dream? Of course when you finally acquire the damned key she'll have to tell you that this is the boss key (95% chance of course), and inform you when you approach the door that the key goes in there.

And this shit happens all the fucking time.

I don't understand why people aren't talking about this more. She is singularly the most annoying Zelda character of all time. Give me Midna back. She was a bitch in the beginning, but she had a personality, showed character development, and turned out to be kickass in the end. And at least Navi would shut the fuck up the moment you entered a dungeon. Fi only shows vague emotion on two separate occasions, says nothing that I couldn't figure out myself, and never leaves me alone. Why the hell aren't there dozens of comics dedicated to her?

[20:24:08] Dun 4 Hire: So now that I'm opening my SCII and D2 boxes, I realize they come with passes to WoW.
[20:24:23] Dun 4 Hire: Do I want to try them out and see what the current game is like, or do I not want to go down that path?
[20:24:48] LeeWangZhong: do you have anything better to do for the next ten years?
[20:28:06] Dun 4 Hire: ...Yeah, maybe I shouldn't.

Avoided a disaster there. God, can you imagine me playing WoW on top of everything I'm doing? I would be ruined.

Woot, two in one week. The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds is completed. It's a quasi-sequel to A Link to the Past, and I think that was one of its downfalls. The map is literally exactly like A Link to the Past with a few changes, but for me that made it weirder. The new ability this time around is you can attach yourself to walls. Although it works, it felt... weird in A Link to the Past world. Like, imagine for a moment you were playing Ocarina of Time and suddenly you could transform into the wolf from Twilight Princess. They're supposed to be separate games with separate ... physics I guess. This game should've had its own universe. I can't see how being in A Link to the Past world helped in any way. Yeah, it was nostalgic, but if it doesn't add to the game then why bother? By overlaying this new mechanics onto a place that wasn't meant for it, you're constraining it. In its own world similar to Paper Mario, it could've really shone better because you literally constructed everything for being 2D.

The methodology was odd this time around. All of the tools were given to you right at the outset by either renting or buying them from this bum who took over your house. Therefore you can do the dungeons in any order you want, meaning there's no real difficulty curve. Usually in Zelda you see these odd things throughout until you get that dungeon's tool and realize you're supposed to shoot arrows at it or hookshot over. Nope, none of that. You can get upgrades to your armor or sword, but it's optional.

The bosses are ridiculously easy. Half the time I didn't even bother dodging and just hit them over and over until they died. In fact I was expecting at least two more forms for the final boss because I couldn't believe it ended so fast. After you beat the game you get a "heroes' mode," in which supposedly all the enemies are harder. I'm hoping that makes them at least a normal difficulty.

But at the end, is it fun? Yeah, yeah it is. I'd recommend it. This game was billed as a trimming of the bullshit, where you just go out and play Zelda like in the good ol' days. The amount of plot in A Link Between Worlds is about the game as A Link to the Past, i.e. there's really nothing. Although I think Twilight Princess was really good in character development with a slot plot, at the same time holy shit that was a slow game. Let's examine what the fuck you have to go through to get to the first dungeon: wake up, find Epona to herd some goats, herd the goats, go to bed, wake up again, find the baby basket, get the fishing rod, fish the rod for the cat, buy the slingshot, get the wooden sword, chase after the monkey, save the kid and the monkey, go to bed, herd the fucking goats again, have Epona stolen, get Epona back, the village is attacked, turn into a wolf, wake up in Hyrule Castle. That is, if you count Hyrule Castle as a dungeon. The real dungeon, the Forest Temple, is a long way to go. Either way, I understand what the developers were going for: You want to create attachment to the kids in the village because they become important later, but wow that took fucking forever to do anything. I think I'd be more cool with it if I weren't herding goats every five fucking minutes. Seriously, when I'm fishing in a pond to buy a slingshot, what the hell am I doing? Can I stop and actually do exciting shit, please?

I'm not saying you have to go to the extreme that A Link Between Worlds did, but I can say I was having fun right off the bat. And really, I think that's what people who are playing Zelda kinda want; they're leaning more to the fighting monsters and solving puzzles aspect than speech bubbles. A Link to the Past was too much because I didn't give a shit about my dead uncle, whose body I stepped over and never gave a thought about ever again.There's gotta be some sort of middle line between the two, and honestly I think Ocarina of Time did that pretty nicely. You're inside the Deku Tree within fifteen minutes, five if you don't fuck around, but I still felt a connection to NPCs like Ruto, that chicken girl in Kakariko, and Durunia. A Link Between Worlds is on the Link to the Past side of the pendulum, but again I don't think people care that much. And in that case, it's fun to play.

[02:29:55] Dun 4 Hire: Okay, the only reason why I know the word "fourscore" is from Lincoln's speech.
[02:30:00] Dun 4 Hire: Did people say that shit all the time back then?
[02:30:09] Dun 4 Hire: How often did that come up in everyday speech?
[02:30:15] Dun 4 Hire: "I have fourscore cows for sale."
[02:30:16] Turinturambar200: it's one word?  I thought it was "four score"
[02:30:35] Turinturambar200: I always thought Score was like Dozen
[02:30:40] Turinturambar200: but a different modifier
[02:30:50] Dun 4 Hire: Hmmmm... Merrian lists it as one word.
[02:31:08] Dun 4 Hire: So I could have fivescore and that would be a hundred.
[02:31:17] Dun 4 Hire: I can say "fivescore years ago, WWI was on the horizon."
[02:31:28] Dun 4 Hire: We should do that.
[02:31:31] Dun 4 Hire: We should bring that back.
[02:31:37] Dun 4 Hire: Let's start doing it.
[02:31:44] Dun 4 Hire: Like, in math class.
[02:31:51] Dun 4 Hire: Instead of saying 120, say "sixscore."
[02:32:14] Dun 4 Hire: Let's bring back "thrice" too.
[02:32:39] Dun 4 Hire: And "hie."
[02:32:41] Dun 4 Hire: And "athwart."
[02:33:11] Dun 4 Hire: And "anent."
[02:34:51] Turinturambar200: hey now, thrice is still fucking here
[02:35:01] Dun 4 Hire: It's just barely hanging on.
[02:35:02] Turinturambar200: but what the fuck is is hie
[02:35:11] Dun 4 Hire: I think "whom" is going stronger than "thrice."
[02:35:21] Dun 4 Hire: It means "to hurry."
[02:35:27] Dun 4 Hire: Oh!  Oh!  And we should be "repair" back too.
[02:35:38] Dun 4 Hire: Like as in "to go."
[02:35:42] Dun 4 Hire: And "betake."
[02:35:45] Dun 4 Hire: Oh fuck, now I'm excited.
[02:37:56] Dun 4 Hire: Do people still use "howbeit"?
[02:37:59] Dun 4 Hire: Well, they're going to now.

Okay, I can't describe how confused I am with this scandal. This is what apparently happened: The toll lanes from Fort Lee, NJ to the George Washington Bridge on September 9 — which is incidentally the first day of school — were reduced from three to one without any notice to the community, generating havoc, congestion, and major delays. No warning was given to the government of Fort Lee or its citizens. Everyone literally woke up one day and discovered this had happened. The orders for this incident came from David Wildstein, the director of Interstate Capital Projects of the Port Authority, who said it for was "traffic studies." That reasoning doesn't make any sense because you do studies before you close lanes like that. The closing of the lanes comes after the studies.

Now here's what it gets weird. Wildstein is a childhood friend of the New Jersey governor Chris Christie and attained his post through Christie's influence. Because everyone concluded "traffic studies" is just dumb, immediately there was speculation. It seems like Christie wanted the mayor of Fort Lee to endorse him during his 2013 re-election campaign, but the mayor refused. So as a form of revenge, Wildstein had those lanes closed. Since then there's been some hearings and not only did Wildstein resign but also Bill Baroni, the deputy executive director of PA and another Christie appointee.

Of course Christie denied all of this, but today emails and texts were leaked: his deputy chief of staff Bridget Anne Kelly basically discussing the entire plot with Wildstein, Baroni, and even the chairman of the Port Authority, David Samson, another Christie appointee. It's almost cartoonishly diabolical at times. To paraphrase an exchange, Wildstein felt bad for all the children who were delayed, but Kelly interjected to say they're the children of Democratic voters (Christie is a Republican). When the Fort Lee mayor called the Port Authority office to try to find out what the fuck was going on, they purposefully didn't respond. And when the New York side of Port Authority fixed the problem, Wildstein and Kelly tried to reverse their solution.

I seriously can't believe this is happening. Before today when there were rumors flying around, I kinda didn't want to believe them. Because it doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Okay, the Fort Lee guy didn't endorse you. It's extremely juvenile to punish him for that, but in politics shit like that happens. Except you usually get back at people in more surreptitious ways. Like, don't let the mayor's projects be approved in Trenton. This is one of the most obvious methods of revenge you could've picked. One, you're not fucking with the mayor. You're fucking literally with the entire town of Fort Lee and people. They had fucking nothing to do with this. And you purposefully picked a day that would adversely affect little children. Two, how the hell did you think you'd get away with this? Everyone and their mother is going to ask what the hell happened. And you think "traffic studies" is going to be enough of an excuse? Are you fucking shitting me? That's why until today I wasn't certain whether the rumors were true or not. Because it's such a fucking stupid move to make that there's no way they actually did it.

None of the emails said whether Christie was directly involved or had any knowledge of this. But either way, he's fucked. Because if he did, he's implicated in one of the best examples of political corruption for... what? Getting back at one individual? And if he's not, these people are high members of his staff. That proves he has no fucking idea how to pick people to work for him. His most trusted allies are essentially idiots.

I can't be the only person who thinks the level of pettiness is absolutely insane, right? Their plan was puerile on a level that anyone could've pointed out, right?

The Barnes & Noble on 18th has shuttered its doors. I can't describe how sad I am about this. I fucking loved just browsing the books, looking for anything interesting. That was its fucking flagship store!

"Philadelphia" comes from the Greek "loving" (phil) "brother" (delphos) or figuratively "loving the brethren." The founder of the Pennsylvania town, William Penn, was a Quaker who experienced persecution and wanted to name his town for a mindset of religious acceptance. There's also a pharaoh named Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285-46 B.C.), called because he married his sister Arsinoe II. Therefore, he is a "loving brother" for his sister. So there's that too to think about whenever you travel to Philadelphia.

I remember a time when I was so overflowing with ideas to write on my xanga that I had to keep a list of everything or I'd forget. Nowadays I tend to just stare blankly at the composition screen and try to come up with something. I'm wondering if there's something wrong with me because I feel I'm reading more books and encountering new and interesting ideas than ever. Or maybe that's the problem; I have about two dozen half-written posts, but fleshing them out fully would require me to do further research or take several hours to complete and edit. Or maybe it's because my life has become monotonous — get up, work on the house, play video games, sew, go to bed — that I don't have as many funny anecdotes anymore. Either way, I need to get my shit together.

Holy fuck, StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty completed. No, not Heart of the Swarm. Motherfucking Wings of Liberty. I had this shit before the house burned down, and it still took me this long to beat it. Not that there was anything stopping me. I could've done it prior to the fire and I had ample opportunity after, but I just didn't. Today I just said "fuck it" and then played until the very end.

It's StarCraft and everyone knows what's up. The balance and graphics still has the excellence that I expect from Blizzard. So what I can critique is the plot. Very quickly on I realized that, whilst I can remember the plot of the first game, for some reason Brood War is completely slipping my mind. I can vaguely recall the zerg won in the end, but that was it. But until I replay it, on Wings of Liberty's own merits... yeah, I was okay with it. I think it expanded the universe with Zeratul's warning of an upcoming threat.

Of course, I have to nitpick. 1. Why the fuck is Raynor so fucking huge? The muscles in his arm is larger than my waist and I'm fat. Admittedly you could only see his profile pic back in the first game, but it didn't give the impression he consuming about a gallon of steroids a day. 2. Matt, darling, you look great in your military outfit, but you're ruining it with your turtle-neck underneath.

Probably the most glaring problem of the plot is Tychus Findlay. Okay, I'm about to ruin the ending so don't read further if you haven't played it (Moham). Findlay was released under the orders of Mengsk to join up with Raynor and use his position to come into proximity to Kerrigan and kill her. He decides to go through with this at the stupidest time ever. At the end of the game Raynor, a bunch of his troops, and Findlay are all surrounding her. Findlay points his gun at her and says aloud to Mengsk whether he should shoot and everyone can hear Mengsk saying to go ahead. Then Raynor slowly takes out a pistol and shoots Findlay in the head. That was quite possibly the stupidest plan ever. Why kill her then and reveal you're a double agent? Just fucking wait until you can get her alone and shoot her in the head. If you do it now, then you have to fight through Raynor and his other men. If you play along for fucking three hours, not only do you complete your mission, you can remain cool with Raynor. And you didn't even bother defending yourself from the fucking bullet! Raynor didn't even pull a fast one on you! He slowly pulled that pistol from its holster. God, that scene literally ruined the ending for me because I was so pissed.

Really, what's upsetting me is that this was the whole game. I can't believe I've shelled out more money for the next campaign and I'm going to do it again for the final part. I know that expenses for creating games have become astronomical, but really I'm just paying for the movies. You've already made the whole fucking game already with the first installment. The second installment adds... what? Some tweaking of the balance, add a few new units, and movies? Is that really another $40?

I don't use lotion.  I don't know why, but it's probably a combination of laziness and lack of necessity since I'm not black.  Currently I have a bottle in my room that my brother's girlfriend left when she visited on Thanksgiving, and when I tried it I just created such a mess so Ate Neneng had to come and show me how to apply it properly.  She informed me that because I hadn't been using lotion all these years, my skin was "kamotekahoy."

Languages reflect a culture.  For example, I've heard the Navajo have several more words for sunrise because to them even a minute change in the beginning of the day is more vital to them than it is for us.  I've noticed Tagalog has a larger vocabulary involving the senses, probably because they were a stone age culture for so long.  Occasionally Ate Neneng will describe a food's taste, and when I ask mom for a translation, mom will have to pause before using a long string of words for just the one Ate Neneng used.  Later that day I asked mom what that term meant:

Mom: Oh, it means the sensation of potato skin and wood.  Why?  Where did you hear that?
Me: Uh... wow.  I didn't think my skin was that bad.

You're welcome:

[00:13:22] Dun 4 Hire: http://cheezburger.com/57372673
[00:13:48] Turinturambar200: god fucking
[00:13:52] Turinturambar200: fuck you fuck you fuck you
[00:14:03] Dun 4 Hire: I needed to share my horror.

If I had to choose three books that had the biggest impact on me intellectually, one would be Plato's Apology, another would be Kathryn Lasky's Elizabeth I, and the last wouldn't actually be a singular book but this series: Scholastic's Voyages of Discovery. I can't describe how much I learned from these as a child. Nowadays whenever I scoff at a person's lack of education, I realize I just know this shit because of this series.^* From the physics of a viola to triptych painting to different types of volcanoes, it covered a wide range of topics and didn't pull punches. You fucking learned shit. I mean, seriously, how many books for kids introduce them to Charlie Chaplin? I honestly pity any child who hadn't encountered these because I don't know what kind of a person I would be today without them.

^* And if it wasn't, I got it from Wishbone and Bill Nye the Science Guy

Along with not figuring out that Winnie the Pooh's "Kanga" and "Roo" combine to make "kangaroo" and Ocarina of Time's "Biggoron" stood for "big goron," I have recently realized the L in the Staples logo is a staple and wondered for over twenty years why it looked so funny.