I saw this the other day at GameStop:

Man, how could I have missed games one through thirteen?

A humble suggestion for GameStop: I would invest in some plain plastic bags. If a person is carrying a large one with your logo plastered on the side, it's basically screaming, "HI. I'M CURRENTLY CARRYING AN EXPENSIVE CONSOLE RIGHT NOW. PLEASE ROB ME." It's a very harrowing experience walking home with that. Also, how do you have the flimsiest plastic in the world? Do you know how heavy this equipment is? I literally live eight minutes from your store and the bag was already in ruins by the time I returned.

Barry invited me to the Brooklyn Museum the other day, which is considerably smaller than the Met but still has an interesting collection nevertheless. Their largest exhibit is definitely ancient Assyrian and Egyptian art, which included this genie:

After seeing about a half-dozen similar gentlemen like this with bulging calf muscles, Barry said, "Oh... they're all carrying pails and pinecones. So this is where we're at. This is what's important then. Pails and pinecones. He has his little pail there, and he has his pinecones. Great."

If you've ever played a strategy game based off of world history like Civ, Age of Empires, or Rise of Nations, you've probably heard of Cyrus of Persia. He upended lots of the old power structures in the Middle East, taking out the Medes, Lydians, and Babylonians before finally falling in battle to either the Massagetae or Derbices, a tribal people on the Iranian steppes. The ancient writer Herodotus details Cyrus' campaign against the Babylonians:

When Cyrus was advancing to Babylon, he came to the River Gyndes.... Now to cross the River Gyndes requires boats, and when one of Cyrus' sacred white horses audaciously stepped into the river and tried to cross it, the river's current swept him underwater and carried him off. Cyrus was extremely angry at the river for its insolence and threatened that he would weaken it so much that in the future, women would be able to cross it easily without even getting their knees wet. Having made this threat, he postponed his expedition against Babylon and divided his army into two units, one for each side of the river. Then, surveying with a rope, he marked out the ground for 180 channels on each side of the Gynes and leading from it in every direction. Because his labor force was large, this work was finally accomplished, but not until they had spent the whole summer there working on it. Thus Cyrus punished the River Gyndes by dividing it into 360 channels. ^*

Imagine for a moment you're enlisted into the army, thinking you're going to enter glorious combat against one of the most powerful cities in history, and then your commander tells you you have to stop for the summer and dig because the king is pissed a river had the gall to drown one of his horses. Imagine you're in Babylon, hearing a powerful force is coming, and then news arrives that Cyrus needs to deal with an uppity river first. Man, this guy clearly has too much disposable income. Do you know how much money it takes to have an army? You have to feed them, the animals, and the baggage train. All this for one horse! It'd better been Pegasus or some shit.

^* Herodotus, The Histories, trans. by Andrea L. Purvis, ed. by Robert B. Strassler (New York: Anchor Books, 2009): 102.

So now that everyone else is already done with it years ago, I finally watched Avatar: The Last Airbender. It definitely deserves the accolade it receives. I'm surprised Nickelodeon was able to create something of this caliber. The plot is simple, but the characters, humor, and action keep you entranced to the end, and the writers were able to produce surprises (particularly in the last two seasons) to keep you guessing. My only complaint is the final season, where I could tell they added elements at the last minute but pretended it was a thing all along, like the prince's girlfriend or the water bender's beef with her dad over him leaving. Still, these made the show more interesting so I don't mind, and the third season has possibly my favorite episode of the entire series (The Beach), so I'm willing to overlook it. Five stars.

Addendum: Okay, I have another complaint. I don't like how the prince's sister went out at the end. Like, she went nuts and paranoid for no reason at all, and it created an opening for her to be taken down. I know her two best friends betrayed her, but she seemed totally cool after that for a couple of episodes, and suddenly it got to her just in time for the final fight.

Yo, so this guy—

—makes awesome shit, and I really want one of these. Which one do you think is the best?

There's a website called Yaoi Sei that uploads yaoi scanlations. Some groups weren't cool with her doing that and asked the files to be taken down, and they received a response along the lines of, "Fuck you, I'll do what I want." As a result of this, several groups either made their communities restricted with ridiculous requirements to obtain membership or just plain shut their doors. I find this shit pretty fucking ridiculous. Seriously, why are you scanlating if you don't want people to read it? That's a lot of effort you're putting into it if you only wanted about twenty or thirty people to look at it.

The response is, "Well, because we're the ones who put all this effort, we have a right to control the distribution." I'd agree with that except for this: You know who also should have a right to the distribution? The fucking mangaka whose work you're disseminating on the internet. How many groups have asked the actual artist if it's okay to take their work, edit it, translate it, and then put it online? I can only think of one who did that and received approval. And I can think of six more who received messages from the original creators asking for them to stop this shit. I can actually think of one website who posted a PSA about Yaoi Sei and ranted about them, but a few months ago they made a post requesting people not inform the mangaka of what they're doing. That's really fucking two-faced if you ask me.

Seriously, I don't know why there's so much drama over this. I know there's competition between groups, but for people to get this upset about this shit that isn't even fucking yours seems insane to me.

I think there's something wrong with me because I'm constantly hungry. It's part of the reason why I'm so overweight; I just can't stop eating. I'm trying to reduce my intake by drinking water whenever I feel the urge to consume outside of meals, but not only does it not stop the hunger, now I can't stop peeing.

I'm fairly certain the people working at the store by Twin Donuts think I'm some sort of slut because I buy stuff from them with a different guy each week.

The Gundam model we're working on has LED lights, but we found Bandai poorly designed the connections. After several frustrating hours at attempting to do it according to the instructions, Moham and I decided to just solder the wires directly to the LEDs, but he left his tools at home and I didn't have any. Eventually we had to stop for the day and wait for next week to continue:

[19:34:33] Dun 4 Hire: We doing something on Saturday?
[19:45:23] gattsu456: Yeah.
[19:45:25] gattsu456: What should we do?
[19:47:17] Dun 4 Hire: You bringing the soldering iron?
[19:50:38] gattsu456: What did we need it for again?
[19:50:46] Dun 4 Hire: The LED.
[19:50:50] gattsu456: Oh.
[19:50:54] gattsu456: That piece of shit.
[19:50:54] Dun 4 Hire: We're connecting the wires to the LED.
[19:50:57] Dun 4 Hire: Yeah.
[19:51:01] gattsu456: Aight.
[19:51:14] Dun 4 Hire: It pissed you off so much, you removed it from your memories so that you'd be happy.
[19:51:35] gattsu456: My life went on, but only until I was once again reminded of the misery.
[19:54:13] Dun 4 Hire: Your life literally revolves around this incident now. There was a time before when you were happy, and after there is only suffering.
[19:54:46] gattsu456: An endless cycle of pain and darkness awaits me.
[19:56:47] Dun 4 Hire: You can't even do your job now. Whenever you see an LED or wires now, you just feel rage and anguish in your heart.
[19:57:37] gattsu456: The lights only make the darkness behind me even larger, deadlier.
[20:01:46] Dun 4 Hire: Seriously son, I think people would be amazed at how we just ease into our shitfuckery.
[20:14:06] gattsu456: I think it's part stupidity and part genius.
[20:14:17] gattsu456: We have just the right mixture to get absolutely nothing done.

I've only been playing Wild ARMs 2 for about an hour now, and I can already say what the most glaring design flaw is: invisible fucking walls. For some reason the programmers didn't think this was a necessity. I probably fall off the side of something about twice a minute. Why would you do this? I can understand if there's a challenge section — try to cross this bridge that has slippery ice or strong gusts — but not the entire fucking game. I love how the first dungeon is literally in an alternate dimension with platforms in the middle of a void:

In any other game, this would be meaningless. For me, this is hell upon earth. Just a casual twitch of my fingers in the wrong direction sends me flying off the edge. And this isn't like the first game that had a fixed overhead camera! You can adjust your view in all directions, and trust me the designers took advantage of this. I'll just be jauntily walking forward and suddenly fall to my death because there was an invisible hole in the floor that can't be seen unless I turned the camera 90°. There was no reason to put that there except to be assholes. The solution would be to rotate the camera constantly, but the sudden change in angle fucks me up and makes me walk off the side. It's a never-ending lesson in pain.

Do you remember when Tokyopop put their huge, ugly-ass logo on the spine of their books? Originally they had just a tiny watermark, but then they decided a large, red monstrosity was necessary on there. It was particularly egregious with series that began before this decision was made. For example, up to volume 18 of GTO we had the original design and the spine was uniform. Suddenly the top tenth is covered in red for the final six volumes. It stands out and is distracting.

I've been thinking about this a bit with bluray. Although not as bad as Tokyopop, why do they insist making the cases blue? Sometimes it doesn't fit the art. Like, if I have an orange cover, seeing this tiny blue stripe on the top and bottom just ruins everything. We get it. It's a bluray. You can stop now.

I had a post all written up for today, but I feel this dire news needs to be discussed. Baked by Melissa is phasing out its cinnamon cupcake. I don't know if I can live anymore.

I beat Final Fantasy XIII over the weekend. Mmmm... where do I begin with this one? My feelings are pretty ambiguous because its good points are really good and its bad points are really bad. Well, I guess I'll address each aspect.

I guess we can begin with what's important with an RPG, the plot. There are pre-programmed semi-gods who can brand people and give them a mission. A person is fucked once this happens: If they don't complete this mission, they turn into a horrible monster. If they do, they become a crystal and for all intents and purposes are dead. I think it's an interesting premise because it shows how people deal with this bad stroke of luck: how some crumble, some overcome it, and some face it head on. All this is overlaid on paranoia of the unknown: The people of the homeland are terrified of the outside and anything that may contaminate their world.

Still, I'm not happy on what the party eventually decided on. The characters' mission was to destroy the world, and to do this they need to kill one semi-god named Orphan. They made a conscious decision not to do this, but I don't think they really address this well enough. At one moment one of the characters flips out and says, "But we'll turn into monsters then." However the rest just say something along the lines of, "We're all in this together. We'll figure out a way." That doesn't really solve anything. Then when they hear part of the army is attacking Orphan, they decide to intercept them. You'd think once the characters have neutralized the army threat, they would retreat. But no, they proceed to Orphan and kill it. That is the complete opposite of what they intended. What the hell were they thinking?

Moving onto the characters. Final Fantasy XIII does this both well and horribly. A lot of the game is centered around character development. You become intimately aware of their thought patterns, their mannerisms, and what drives them. This is where the game shines. I applaud whoever wrote the script because each person is fleshed out really well. Unfortunately if the game is centered around the characters, that means I better like them and I fucking hated half of my party. That means 50% of the time when a cutscene popped up, I would think, "Oh Jesus Christ, not this fucker." That's not an enjoyable experience.

Okay, now moving onto gameplay. The battle system is an overclocked ATB. It's so fast that it's impossible to control everyone and you have two AIs. Their competency actually impressed me and about 85% of the time they did what I would've directed them to do. My only gripe is when they added buffs; sometimes it wasn't in the order I would've liked (e.g., cast shell first instead of protect). This game is very controlling and demands everything be done a certain way, so fighting is basically trying to figure out what the game wants you to do. Use magic first? Debuff first? If you don't do it in the right order, oftentimes you'll get a poor score or even die. And you will die quite a bit. Also, if you're a defensive player, you will have a difficult time. You need an aggressive playing style if you wish to succeed. My only real beef with the battle system is if the character you're controlling dies, it's game over. Everyone else could be fine and it doesn't matter. I don't know why we can't just pick another character to control like in Final Fantasy XII.

Outside of battle, it was very monotonous. I heard from other people that there were no towns in this game, and I thought that was terrible. And I was right. See, towns give variety to the experience. You are literally running forward for the entire game (giant field in Pulse notwithstanding), getting into battles, and seeing cutscenes. It gets boring pretty quickly. Towns are what alleviate that tedium a bit and give a goal: "Okay, I have to cross this mountain. Once I do, I can reach the next town and there'll be more storyline, things to buy, and sidequests." Without that you have, "Okay, I'll just walk forward." I know they're on the run here, but there are plenty of games with a similar situation. In Final Fantasy VII Shinra, which is more or less a world government, is after you. In Final Fantasy VI you're fleeing from the Empire. In Tales of Symphonia you were trying to keep under the radar from the king of Tethe'alla. You can still create a balance of sorts without them constantly running.

In terms of graphics, this is one of the best games out there. It's stunningly beautiful everywhere. Squareenix did not hold back trying to make everything as detailed and pretty as possible. I can't think of any complaints in that aspect.

Music is... okay. It's not bad, but there aren't many tracks I would listen on its own. It's not as generic as Final Fantasy XII or Grandia III, but I've seen better out there. In terms of technical sound though, it's done quite well. You can hear the strings and voices nicely.

I don't know if I can recommend Final Fantasy XIII or not. It's one of those games I can sense you're going to really love it or really hate it. It depends what you want from a game because either Final Fantasy XIII did it exceptionally well or exceptionally poorly.

To people who have played: Can we talk about Hope for a bit? Everyone gets their eidolons when they feel deep despair. Lightning felt the hopelessness of facing Eden all by herself and her sudden reversal of fate. Snow thought the woman he loved was gone forever. Sazh lost his son and reason for living. The secret Vanille was keeping suddenly was revealed. Fang believed she couldn't protect Vanille. Hope got hit in the head with a fucking coconut. What the hell was that about? He got hit in the head with a coconut! I could understand if it was in relation to losing his mother, failing to kill Snow, or something to do with his dad, but this happens after he resolves all of that. He gets hit in the head with a coconut, suddenly loses all desire to move on, and the eidolon appears. What the fuck is that? See, this is why I hate this kid.

I was in Barnes & Noble today and there was a display I didn't see but expected: World War I. The centennial anniversary for the its start is this July, and it seems like we're very quiet about it. The US didn't enter the war until the end, we were never occupied like in Europe, and it was never a existential struggle for us. But still, this silence is bothering me. In terms of branding, WWII definitely kicks WWI's ass: I'd take Roosevelt, Churchill, Hitler, Yamamoto, and Stalin over Joffre, Wilson, Lloyd George, Ludendorff, and Nicholas II any day. The atom bomb, fire bombing, and the Holocaust shocks the public more than gassing, trench warfare, and shelling.

But still... nothing? This really surprises me. People fucking love selling shit on big anniversaries. The fifieth of the JFK assassination last year had fucking TV specials, books, and radio pundits everywhere. You couldn't escape it. I haven't heard a single peep about this. In fact, when I was at the New Books section, there were three about WWII! I know everyone who participated in WWI is dead now, but seriously folks. This is ridiculous.

Ni no Kuni completed. Its appeal is derived from nostalgia. The last generation of systems seemed bereft of RPGs in comparison to PS2 and before, and Ni no Kuni filled the gap: world maps, towns, sidequests, whatever you want from your standard RPG. But that's what it is: a standard RPG. Other than that, I can't say anything exceptional about it. If it were back on the SNES/PS1/PS2 era, it wouldn't've stood out other than an unusual battle system.

Speaking of that, it is interesting but not completely refined. Only one character can be used at a time, and the player can move the character around the field at will. Once an attack is used, there is a short wait period until it can be used again. The protagonist here is a mage, and consequently monsters have to be captured and developed to serve as tanks. When they are deployed, the player controls them instead of the protagonist, who cannot be given commands until the monster is put away. I think this is what they were trying to get at in Lightning Returns when they allowed her to move around the field, except this actually makes a difference. You can dodge moves or work around enemies with ease (for the protagonist this is important so he can stay in the back to cast spells). My first gripe is using the control stick to move about and using the D-pad to input commands is one of the most awkward things I've done. I had to learn how to curve my other fingers around my thumb to switch in and around the menu whilst I weaved around enemies. The second is the AI is exceptionally stupid. I can definitely say the other human characters' moves are pretty much worthless. One dude can steal and one girl can capture enemies and besides that, they are useless. Half the time I see them put away their monsters and charge to the front lines, only to get killed. It's one of the most singularly annoying things ever knowing this could've been avoided if they just used what I assigned to them.

The plot is... okay. That's part of the reason why I didn't say this is an exceptional game. It's your run-of-the-mill RPG with an evil person taking over the world. Everything is sugar-coated and no one really gets hurt; they just talk about their feelings and suddenly everyone's fine and dandy. I would say this game is aimed toward children if it weren't so difficult at times.

The sidequests here provide an opportunity to discuss something that's been stewing in my mind for a while. I didn't play Ni no Kuni by myself but rather with Paul, and whenever we got bored with that we played Ōkami, so I was able to easily compare the two. In Ni no Kuni, there's a building in town where people post requests, and this mostly serves as the only sidequests. You can boil them down to two types: bounties or fetch quests. Either you run around the world map and find a dude to kill or you're looking for a diary someone left somewhere. Ōkami had a variety of things to do: chase down a thief, help a man bloom all the cherry blossoms in town, design the current textile fashions, race a mailman, bounties, help a woman gain faith in the spirits again, or fishing. Yes, there are fetch quests and bounties in there, but they're not the only thing you do. And I feel many games nowadays are leaning toward Ni no Kuni's direction, which is just lazy on their part and ultimately creates a boring experience. How many fucking times is this dude going to lose his diary? I'm sick of it. Give me something different to do.

So yeah, if the PS3 weren't so bereft of RPGs, I don't think it would've received such acclaim. It's quite pretty, the music is nice to listen to, and the battle system is cool, but I don't think that overrides the blandness of the plot or repetition of the gameplay. If there's nothing out there that you feel like playing, I'd recommend this to pass the time but that's about it.

Father's Day is right around the corner, so I've been browsing for cards. It's really annoying because most either involve sports, barbecuing, or some other manly activity. Really, can I just get something for a quiet guy who likes to clean the house and read books?

This month's Vanity Fair had an article by Monica Lewinsky. I was still in elementary school when the scandal broke, so consequently I didn't really live through it like I would with other media circuses such as Terri Shiavo or George Zimmerman. I can look at it analytically without emotion like the assassination of JFK, the Lindbergh kidnapping, or the murder of Stanford White. I'm not certain if this is a pro or a con because without that it's harder for me to comprehend the momentum or atmosphere of the nation and the people involved at the time.

I first wanna preface this by saying I strongly disapprove of cheating. I don't care if your significant other is not paying attention to you, cheated on you first, or if you simply don't love him or her anymore. I'd rather you be up front about it and break up than cheat. In the case of Clinton and Lewinsky, I find both players to be equally at fault: Clinton for breaking his vows and Lewinsky for going after a man she knew was already committed.

But I also think this: Extramarital affairs are a private business. I don't care if a politician is sleeping with fourteen different people no more than I would a McDonald's manager. If you're doing your job well, then fine. The only time it becomes relevant is if a politician is using money or influence to help the paramour, e.g. furthering a career or being the head of the CIA and sharing your email password. Then it's affecting the public in some way. Another exception I'll make is if you're against gay marriage for the sake of sanctity of marriage because the irony is just too much for me to bear. Otherwise I don't want to hear about it. Lewinsky falls under my criteria because she worked under then Chief of Staff Leon Panetta. Although not directly under Clinton, there still could be some sort of conflict of interest there. Ironically, her affair had her transferred out to the Pentagon when people noticed her proximity with the president.

Lewinsky was used not so much as to prove corruption in the White House but just a way to get at the president: Clinton was asked before a grand jury whether he had a relationship with her, he denied it, was later forced to admit it thanks to tapes and semen on a dress, and then was impeached for perjury and not for sleeping around. I'm not going to exonerate Clinton for his actions and I disapprove of them. However on the corruption scale, having an affair and lying about it is on the mild side. It's no Watergate. Hell, the other shit that Ken Starr was investigating, like Whitewater or the inappropriate usage of FBI files is what we as a people should've been focusing on.

However Lewinsky brought up a good point: Why was he able to move on but she wasn't? To his credit he created the Clinton Foundation to help countries in need. She tried to stay out of sight and live a normal life, but her name recognition prevented her from furthering her career. After this article was released, several people said she was a publicity seeker, but I don't think so. Since the late 90s, I haven't heard a single peep from her. And when the affair first came to light, she did everything in her power to deny it ever happened. I think she's allowed to give her two cents on the issue considering the intense scrutiny she endured during the scandal, as she says, "Apparently, others talking about me is O.K.; me speaking out for myself is not."

Lewinsky says it's because she's a woman. She points out that Hilary Clinton blames herself for being distant at the time, forcing Bill to seek intimacy elsewhere; why is everyone but the husband culpable? Possibly. There's definitely more sexual restriction on women than men. I'm not certain that's it entirely; after all, Anthony Weiner and Eliot Spitzer lost spectacularly during the NYC mayoral and comptroller race for their transgressions. (On the other hand, Mark Sanford made it to the House of Representatives.) There're other factors involved. For one, what else is Lewinsky known for besides this? Clinton had other things to fall back on, like being president. It's harder for society to toss him aside.

However I agree with her that this isn't fair. Either we censure or forgive both of them. As I stated above, they're both to blame. The onus should not be on one individual. Clinton's done well for himself and I'm willing to let it slide. And I'm willing to do the same with her. She got her just desserts with the public humiliation during the scandal, and I think that's enough. The stigma shouldn't follow her the rest of her life.

Recently the highest court in Europe said that EU citizens have a "right to be forgotten," i.e. Google, Yahoo, and other search engines can be asked to remove links that refer to a person's scurrilous past. I'm ambivalent toward it. There are plenty of people whose lives are ruined thanks to a minor infraction, perhaps the best example being dog shit girl. But I don't think it's possible to it; even without the links on Google, the webpages are still out there. You can't demand youtube take down a video someone took of you rear-ending someone. And ironically, this entire hearing came from a Spanish man named Mario Costeja, who wanted Google to remove information about the repossession of his house. Thanks to that, there's more information about him than ever. But it's not just pictures of you being drunk one night when you were twenty-three. Some people are asking for serious information about them to be deleted, such as a man's pedophilia, a politician's negative actions, and a doctor's negative review. Admittedly I don't think Google will agree that it's old and useless information, but you know that sometimes this will slip through the cracks.

So what's the current situation? It seems ridiculous that your entire life is judged for one transgression, but simultaneously I'm against the flow of information. Asking search engines remove links about you seems like putting a bandaid on a fatal wound; it'll barely stop anything. Unfortunately I don't think there is any solution to this problem because it would require society as a whole to have a conversation about what's reasonable, and from what I've seen of the internet I doubt that's happening.