I was reading an article today about blacks in Brooklyn complaining that their neighborhoods are being gentrified. They were upset that the black community has diminished, and that the schools and public services have improved once they have. I'll admit I'm ambivalent toward gentrification. I think if strong-armed tactics are being used against communities that don't want to leave, which seems to have happened to many people in Harlem who clashed with Columbia University, then that's not right. And if what they're saying is true, that they were not given the proper services from the city like punctual garbage collection, then that's wrong as well. We all recognize the discrepancy between the schools in rich neighborhoods and the schools in poor neighborhoods, a gap that needs to be bridged.

But then again, a person has a right to live where they want. It seems a lot of the blacks who were living there were offered exorbitant amounts of money for their homes, which they accepted and left. I think that's a perfectly fine transaction. If there's a high frequency of this happening, then that's that. No one has been forced to do anything here. In fact, many blacks have decided to stay, which is fine. But the people there have to accept that this is New York City. Communities come and go. My neighborhood was predominantly Irish two generations ago; now it's so thoroughly saturated with Dominicans that if I didn't tell you about the Irish, you never would've guessed. Should we bar the Dominicans from living here just to satisfy the remaining old Irish people you see sitting on the benches by the park?

Because otherwise you're pushing into racist territory here. A direct quote from the article was a person saying this was "Christopher Columbus syndrome" with people moving in without a regard for "a culture that’s been laid down for generations." All right, then what does that say about the Hispanics who've moved into the Bronx and replaced the Jews who were living there in the first half of the 20th century? I'm fairly certain if a Jewish person started complaining about how they've ruined the Bronx, we would comment that's racist. And that's what I'm getting a sense from here. Yeah, times are changing. The tight-knit black community you grew up with is disappearing.

But shit fucking happens, son. Penn Station was torn down, the Twin Towers aren't gonna be replaced, the Lower East Side isn't German anymore, Little Italy is being dominated by Chinatown, and Flushing went from white to Asian. Communities move around. As do the classes. Manhattan transformed from being the epicenter of poverty as the immigrants left Ellis Island to one of the most expensive real estate in the country. I can't hate a rich person for moving, just as I can't hate a poor person. So long as they're a good neighbor, then I'm willing to live with it.

Try as I might, I am saddened to say that I could not find a dickwolf amongst them. Jen says that I'm not looking hard enough, for there is a dickwolf inside us all.

In Arizona last week, a law was passed for religious freedom: the right to deny service because of your religious stance on homosexuality. Well... okay. This can be argued to be constitutional. If you believe homosexuals to be criminals under the laws of the Bible, to be forced to serve them could be impinging on your rights.

But this idea doesn't hold up under other situations. For example, there are A LOT more instances in the Bible urging celibacy than condemnations of homosexuality. Can you deny service to sluts? Do you ask every person whether they're married and if not a virgin? Perhaps you can say that's inefficient, but I think the Bible is more stringent on that than homosexuals. Or let's talk about a law that was on the books, interracial marriages. For a long time throughout the 1800s people believed on a religious level that the races shouldn't be mixed because God made them separate for a reason. If that's your religious belief, should you be allowed to deny service if a Chinese man and a white woman come into your shop holding hands?

I thinking about this case more than I should. On a logical and moral level I know it's wrong for the reasons stated above, but then again when I look at this case I remember a line I read from a mother fighting against profanity on television: "No matter how much I try to shield my child, the world still pushes in." If I bring up the argument for homosexuals — that every person has the right to be whatever they want to be — I have to also argue that for conservative Christians. I think we all know what they want: celibacy until marriage, no abortions, no rights for homosexuals, and some extreme ones want women to return to the home. The argument is if you wanna stay in your fantasized version of the 1950s, that's fine. But then again, the world is leaving them behind and to pretend that it's not going to influence their every day life is nonsense.

I guess what I'm trying to say is this: Do conservative Christians have a right to be... well, conservative Christians? Let's say we allow gay marriage and homosexual sex, that's allowing gays to be whatever they want to be. And by allowing conservative Christians to hate gays as much as they want, does that allow them to be whatever they want to be as well? Does a bigot have a right to be a bigot? Or is it okay to force them to accept homosexuality?

Yeah, I'm thinking way too much into this.

Assassin's Creed II: Brotherhood completed. When I was in the midst of playing this, Tales of Xillia was released and I put this down for several months whilst I worked on it. So when I returned, much like what happened to me and Grandia II, I couldn't really remember the first half. Oh, I remembered the initial hour of the game, but after that it was rather fuzzy. If you look at the Wikipedia article, the plot synopsis is seven paragraphs long. The first two paragraphs is that hour I mentioned. The last four paragraphs is the final two hours of the game. Which means the tiny paragraph in the middle is literally everything I missed, which seems kinda ridiculous because that's the bulk of the game and also means nothing important was happening. I remember when the first game came out Yahtzee said you don't do much but rather the appeal is running around, but the second game wasn't like this. Shit was happening. This could've been literally a five-hour game.

What's crazy is the new feature that allows you to recruit other assassins (hence "brotherhood"). You don't even have to assassinate anyone anymore with that. You literally just stand there, point at whom you want killed, and they do everything for you. In fact, they are better than you could ever be. It's kinda crazy how I should be the master assassin but I'm not even doing that anymore. At the end you lose your ability to call out your comrades, and I had to spend a few minutes remembering how the fighting system worked.

The first game's minimap was frustrating because it wasn't one; it was a radar that pointed you in the direction of your target. That was useless because you needed to be able to navigate the labyrinth of the Levant cities with ease, but it just wouldn't provide that information for you. Ubisoft realized they fucked up and added the buildings to the map, which was great for the second game. But now it's become a problem again because we need fucking geographical indicators. Venice and Florence were more or less level ground, so back then it wasn't an issue, but Rome has cliffs every five fucking feet. I can't tell you how annoying it is to be headed straight for your target, realize there's a huge crag in the way, and then spend the next ten minutes attempting to walk around it.

I feel like this game should've been somehow added to the previous game or perhaps even added to the next one (I don't know how that's gonna play out because Ezio's storyline seems more or less ended). But I doubt the rest of the series is gonna make sense if you miss this though, so it has to be done.

I think I've reached the age where people call me "ma'am" instead of "miss." It's been awhile since I've heard anyone use the latter with me. I wasn't one of those people who really care about it, but initially it brought confusion. When you've been called "miss" your whole life, to suddenly hear someone use the other is rather jolting, like you think the person is calling someone else besides you. In fact, occasionally I didn't respond at all because I was so certain I wasn't being talked to. Well, here's to the next sixty years of "ma'am."

Greene has brought an omission to my attention. Here is the updated list for character theme song with an addition at number seven:

1. Cid's Theme from Final Fantasy VII
2. Frog's Theme from Chrono Trigger
3. Kefka from Final Fantasy VI
4. Cyan from Final Fantasy VI
5. Tamaya's Theme from Ōkami
6. bucho mio ~LocoRoco Green's Theme~ from LocoRoco
7. Taupy's Theme from Sands of Destruction
8. Quina's Theme from Final Fantasy IX
9. Rose of May from Final Fantasy IX
10. Mog from Final Fantasy VI

You know what's crazy? Fury Sparks isn't on any of those lists. Even when I was making the original post, I couldn't believe it.

I was asked what my favorite OSTs are, and I said I'd have to think about it. Here they are:

1. Final Fantasy VII
2. Ōkami
3. Chrono Trigger
4. Tales of Legendia
5. Loco Roco 2
6. Final Fantasy IX
7. We ♥ Katamari / Katamari Damacy
8. Chrono Cross
9. Wild ARMs
10. SaGa Frontier

Honorable Mentions:
Shadow of the Colossus and Total Annihilation. I liked the battle songs a lot, but the "peaceful" music was pretty shitty.

And for the hell of it, favorite battle themes:

1. The Man With the Machine Gun from Final Fantasy VIII
2. Battle 1 from Final Fantasy IX from Dissidia Final Fantasy
3. Battle Artist from Tales of Legendia
4. Fighting from Final Fantasy VII
5. Pretty much any battle music from Total Annihilation
6. Don't Be Afraid from Final Fantasy VIII
7. Fight Against Monsters from Super Mario RPG
8. Take Up the Cross from Tales of Phantasia
9. Combat from Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII
10. Battle 1 from Final Fantasy III from Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy

And boss battles:

1. Battle 2 from Final Fantasy III
2. A Despair-Filled Farewell from Shadow of the Colossus
3. Dark Saint from Lost Odyssey
4. J-E-N-O-V-A from Final Fantasy VII
5. Influence of Deep from Parasite Eve
6. Esper Battle from Final Fantasy XII
7. Seymour Battle from Final Fantasy X
8. A Formidable Enemy Appears! from Lost Odyssey
9. Fighting of the Spirit from Tales of Phantasia
10. Still More Fighting from Final Fantasy VII / Battle with Magus from Chrono Trigger

Final boss battle:

1. The Sun Rises from Ōkami
2. One-Winged Angel from Final Fantasy VII
3. World Revolution from Chrono Trigger
4. The Extreme from Final Fantasy VIII
5. Decisive Battle from Final Fantasy X
6. The Birth of God from Final Fantasy VII
7. Howl of the Departed from Lost Odyssey
8. Time to Raise the Cross from Tales of the Abyss
9. Fight Against Smithy from Super Mario RPG
10. Battle ZEIK from Wild ARMs

Fuck it. World map/field (for those games that don't have a world map):

1. The Legend of Zelda Theme from the Zelda series
2. Wind Scene from Chrono Trigger
3. Corridors of Time from Chrono Trigger
4. Terra from Final Fantasy VI
5. Shore Bordering Another World from Chrono Cross
6. Raising a Curtain from Tales of Phantasia
7. Final Fantasy IV Main Theme from Final Fantasy IV
8. Blue Fields from Final Fantasy VIII
9. Hyrule Field Main Theme from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
10. Shinshuu Plains from Ōkami

Town theme:

1. Birth of the People from Actraiser
2. Home Sweet Home from Final Fantasy V
3. Morle from Tales of Eternia
4. Dear My Country from SaGa Frontier
5. Kingdom Baron from Final Fantasy IV
6. Another Termina from Chrono Cross
7. Seiankyou Commoners' Quarter from Ōkami
8. Town / Marsh Where the Migrant Birds Gather from Wild ARMs
9. Serenade of Elves from Tales of Symphonia
10. Kingdom of Ixa'taki from Skies of Arcadia

Character theme song:

1. Cid's Theme from Final Fantasy VII
2. Frog's Theme from Chrono Trigger
3. Kefka from Final Fantasy VI
4. Cyan from Final Fantasy VI
5. Tamaya's Theme from Ōkami
6. bucho mio ~LocoRoco Green's Theme~ from LocoRoco
7. Quina's Theme from Final Fantasy IX
8. Rose of May from Final Fantasy IX
9. Mog from Final Fantasy VI
10. The Eight Dog Warriors' Theme from Ōkami

Vehicular mechanism:

1. Highwind Takes to the Skies from Final Fantasy VII
2. Voyage - Home World from Chrono Cross
3. The Huge Battleship Invincible from Final Fantasy III
4. Wings of Hope from Tales of the Abyss
5. The Dragon Spreads Its Winds from Final Fantasy V
6. Ride On from Final Fantasy VIII
7. The Bird Which Flies in the Skies from Wild ARMs
8. Chronomantic from Chrono Cross
9. The Airship, Hildagaldy from Final Fantasy IX
10. Epoch ~Wings that Cross Time~ from Chrono Trigger

And finally, chocobo themes:

1. Brass de Chocobo from Final Fantasy X
2. Swing de Chocobo from Distant Worlds
3. Techno de Chocobo from Final Fantasy VI
4. Electric de Chocobo from Final Fantasy VII
5. Fiddle de Chocobo from Final Fantasy VII
6. Mambo de Chocobo from Final Fantasy V
7. Chocobo ~FFXII Version~ from Final Fantasy XII
8. Mods de Chocobo from Final Fantasy VIII
9. Chocobo FFXII Arrange Ver. 1 from Final Fantasy XII
10. Samba de Chocobo! from Final Fantasy IV

Man, this was really difficult. There are so many songs that I love but just couldn't fit onto the list. So if you're surprised something isn't on there, it's probably number twelve or thirteen. And even now that I've just finished it, I think to myself that some of these lists just don't feel right. My mind's always changing.

But it really brings to light what you like and what is actually good. People say there's no right or wrong in opinion, but I think you can make an objective case that Lost Odyssey's Never-Ending Journey is better than Chrono Trigger's Wind Scene in terms of sound — one is from a 16-bit system for God's sake — but I just like the latter better due to nostalgia and the theme is catchier for me.

I woke up this morning to find our internet and cable were out, so I called Time Warner to find out what's up and the dude told me they needed to send a technician out to fix it. This is how our call ended:

Customer Service: I hope that solved your problem, and remember that if there are any more issues or questions, you can always go onto our website and talk live with a representative.
Me: I can't. As we just discussed for the past half hour, I don't have any internet.
Customer Service: Uh...
Me: Hahaha. Sorry, I know you have to speak a script, but it was kinda silly. Thanks a lot. Have a nice day.
Customer Service: Um... yes, you too sir. Ma'am.

Mom told me back in the 70s getting a coffee or tea at a cafe in Paris was really expensive. The reason was you were paying for the seat, not the drink; people would sit there for hours reading, writing, or chatting. The money you spent was less for the food itself and more for the services the cafe provided you.

I recalled this about a month ago when I read in The New York Times steps a Flushing McDonald's was taking against a group of elderly Koreans. This group would arrive at about 5AM, order $1 fries and proceed to spend the whole day there. Eventually cops were called, but they just walk around the block and return almost immediately once the police have left for another $1 fries and sit until the next time they're removed. Quite a few people are upset about this simply because the police were involved, and I don't know whether McDonald's gave them a verbal warning before involving the law.

Still, I think these old people are in the wrong here. This isn't like Starbucks, which is trying to keep a Parisian atmosphere of people reading, studying, or browsing the internet as they sip their coffee. McDonald's is a fast food place: Get your shit, eat your shit, and get the fuck out. I think they'd be willing to bend the rules a bit if you stay an hour or so, but if you're there from five until sundown every day, you are impacting business. Even Starbucks would start raising eyebrows at the twelve-hour mark. There aren't free public spaces in Flushing like there are in Manhattan (or maybe there are; I haven't been there in a while), but you can't be rude and just sit and sit. You have to keep buying things or else you're an asshole. And yeah, if after I told them they need to pay for shit and they didn't, I'd call the cops. And ban them from coming back in. I don't care if they're old or not. If fact that's even worse because you had longer to learn proper etiquette.

The Phoenicians lived in modern-day Lebanon and were known throughout the ancient world as sailors and merchants. They created colonies all along the Mediterranean coast from nearby their homeland to Spain to help facilitate their trade routes and move supplies. The most famous of these colonies is Carthage, which was on the coast of modern-day Tunisia. If you vaguely recall your world history class or perhaps read The Aeneid in your English class, you can remember that Carthage was a great rival of Rome and was completely destroyed at the end of the Punic Wars. Supposedly the vitriol between the two was so strong that the Roman sowed the ground with salt after burning the city for seventeen days to ensure that nothing would grow on that land afterward.

Although Carthage today is most known for its relationship with Rome, it was a mighty city in its own right with a rich culture before Rome appeared on the scene. And scholars are certain that they did child sacrifice. Not only are there pictorial depictions but graves with thousands of children have been excavated. Supposedly right before the end, the Carthaginians sacrificed hundreds to appeal to the gods for help against the Roman threat.

I was listening to a podcast of scholars discussing the Phoenicians, and the moderator asked why the Carthaginians sacrificed children. The scholars replied to create a separate cultural identity because they were colonists who needed to remain independent from the native surrounding peoples. See, this is why people hate academia sometimes. This answer makes no fucking sense and it shows how out of touch you are with reality. If it's what they're claiming, that means the Carthaginians sat down and said to themselves, "Okay, we want to show how we're different from these Africans living around us. We can see they're not killing their kids. Why don't we kill our kids?" That sounds really fucking ridiculous.

The real answer is this: "The Phoenicians in Lebanon already had a tradition of child sacrifice, which carried from the motherland to their colonies. We don't have enough evidence to say why the Phoenicians started it." That's it. Because otherwise you're over-analyzing it. Yeah, every group of immigrants who settle in another land want some way to retain their ethnic identity, but saying that was the primary reason they do it is rather crazy. It's like saying the Jews eat bagels because they want to differentiate themselves from the other immigrant communities in New York. No, it's just they fucking ate bagels back home in Eastern Europe, liked the food they grew up with, and made it in their new home. Maybe on some level it helps preserve a sense of who they are, but to claim that's anyone's main reason is just way too much thinking.

The Philippines is hit with typhoons several times a year, but the most famous of these is Haiyan, which happened last November and killed about 6,000 people. I found a Filipino news network that posts its episodes on youtube, and Ate Neneng watched it for an hour everyday to monitor the situation. Occasionally the reporters and interviewees would pepper their words with English. This is nothing new; the Philippines was in the stone age until the Spanish arrived and they absorbed foreign words for terminology they didn't have. Both Spanish and Tagalog have mesa for "table." Tagalog has both eskuwela and iskul for "school," derived from Spanish and English. But what surprised me is occasionally people interviewed would speak entirely in English. Cognates I could understand, but the entire conversation? This isn't like CNN is interviewing them. It's for a Filipino news network.

Mom and Ate Neneng represent the wide spectrum of Filipino education. Mom went to the best private schools, and today you can see her speaking English fluently without an accent. Ate Neneng went to a poor public school, and her English is... well, I think it's a testament that she can still communicate at some level. But given that there are more indigent people than wealthy, I can imagine most of the people listening to those interviews only vaguely understood what was being said.

Haiyan proved me right. Later on, many people living in the storm's path said this: The weathermen warned them of a "storm surge," but none of them knew this English term and didn't understand the threat that was headed right to them. And if officials are going on the news to explain policy and plans in English, what the hell did they think was going to happen?

I once heard that a Swedish person explaining why so many of his people are bilingual: If you're not, you can only speak Swedish, and no one else in the world speaks Swedish. Your opportunities are limited. The same goes for the Philippines. How many people know Tagalog, Waray, Tausug, or Cebuano? Even other Filipinos can't understand another island's local dialect. But the Philippines isn't Sweden. It's poor and its education system is lacking. Most people only understand their dialect or at best are bilingual in Tagalog, the national language. (Ate Neneng, who natively speaks Tagalog, doesn't know any other dialect. Mom can speak both Tagalog, which her parents knew, and Cebuano, which was spoken at the island she grew up at.) So why try to give vital information in a language most people won't understand? It's not really the time for that. Yeah, you're pushing people to learn English, but this is a life-and-death situation. That can come later. Surely you can throw out a neologism for "storm surge" or pause and explain in Tagalog what that means.

Still talking about pointless shit:

[19:41:46] Dun 4 Hire: REmember when that homeless guy burned a switch a few years ago and they said it'd take 30 years to fix it?
[19:42:21] Dun 4 Hire: That shit better be more complicated than the Mars rover.
[19:43:58] gattsu456: Or the Large Hard-on Collider.
[19:44:48] Dun 4 Hire: Oh! Oh! A rover inside of a dildo collider.
[19:45:12] gattsu456: TWO ROVERS WITH DILDOS ATTACHED.
[19:45:46] Dun 4 Hire: FUCK MARS. JUST MAKE TONS OF ROVERS WITH DILDOS.
[19:46:08] gattsu456: SEND THEM AROUND THE WORLD TO GET SOME HOT DICKING DONE.
[19:46:52] Dun 4 Hire: AND ISN'T THAT SCIENCE SHOULD BE DOING FOR HUMANITY?
[19:47:18] gattsu456: THIS IS THE DUTY OF EVERY AMERICAN.
[19:48:59] Dun 4 Hire: THIS IS THE GIFT OF THE UNITED STATES TO THE REST OF THE WORLD.
[19:49:11] gattsu456: THIS IS WHY WE ARE THE HOME OF THE BRAVE.
[19:50:48] Dun 4 Hire: AMERICAN INGENUITY WILL SAVE US ALL.
[19:51:51] gattsu456: WE ARE THE ONES DESTINED TO LEAD HUMANITY TO GREATNESS.
[19:55:01] Dun 4 Hire: THE ENTIRE EARTH WILL CELEBRATE OUR NAME.
[19:55:26] gattsu456: ALIENS WATCH IN ENVY AT OUR MENTAL CAPACITY.
[19:57:40] Dun 4 Hire: HOW FUCKING AMAZING WE ARE. WE HAVE ROVERS THAT CAN GO TO OTHER PLANETS AND GIVE HOT DICKINGS.
[19:58:09] gattsu456: WE ARE PREPARING FOR THE FUTURE. A FUTURE OF HOT DICKINGS.
[20:02:15] Dun 4 Hire: HOW GLORIOUS IT IS!
[20:08:56] gattsu456: THE HEAVENS SHAKE AT THE THOUGHT OF SUCH BEAUTY.
[20:11:07] Dun 4 Hire: THEY WEEP THAT THEY COULD NOT CONCEIVE OF SUCH MAGNIFICENCE THEMSELVES.

I was at the final dungeon of Tales of Symphonia 2 when the fire happened.

An HD version of it's coming out in a few weeks.

...God am I really doing this shit again? What the hell is wrong with me?

Thanks to Alex I got to see Metal Gear Solid. I played a little bit of it when it originally was released in the 90s, but I didn't get far considering I don't like sneaking around. Yeah, I know you don't have to, but if you're not trying to sneak what the fuck is the point? I feel part of my problem with it is I had the experience way after and knew all the legendary parts to it — putting the controller into the second slot for example — which at the time figuring out and doing yourself would've been amazing but now even I, who has never played it, know that trick. Consequently everything I got from this game was the cut scenes since Alex already knew everything.

I think the plot of MGS was solid but could've been executed better. The sad death scenes for the sniper lady and the raven dude aren't sad because you haven't built a connection with them yet. I've only seen them for one scene prior, so to have this emotional talk at the end is just as pointless and boring as when you stabbed a guy in the throat in the first Assassin's Creed. If there had been a better build up, I could sympathize with Otacon's love, but instead it's just feels almost arbitrary. Just like Snake and Meryl. Are you seriously telling me after seeing many comrades die before your eyes, many of whom were definitely women, suddenly you've formed a strong attachment to one woman you've just met less than an hour ago?

I've heard that a good writer shows and not tells, and I think that's what this game suffers from: It tells in a heavy-handed sort of way. Instead of presenting how Snake and Meryl become connected, they magically are just because. Instead of subtlety learning about Liquid's motivations, it's just mentioned in a giant, contradictory speech: That their father chose him but he hates his father, that he's doing certain things because their father wanted them to even though he hates them... My favorite part was at the end with Naomi telling Snake that it doesn't matter how long he has to live, just to live his life well. It was supposed to be deep and inspirational, but in reality it does matter a lot whether he's going to die tomorrow or years from now. I think that's a pretty big deal.

Another part of the problem is I missed Metal Gear 2. I think everyone else did too, and we all suffered for it. Like the problem with Meryl, it's difficult to feel shock and sadness regarding Gray Fox because we never met him before. Although it's still understandable on an intellectual level, I don't feel the same sort passion if I had played the earlier game. All I can see from him is he's a really weird masochist.

I feel if the dialogue and pacing were better, I'd like this game a lot more. A major part of what made this game amazing was, again, the experience of actually playing it, which I missed. Still, I enjoyed watching the whole experience, and really that's all that matters in the end. And I'm looking forward to seeing Alex plow through the next one for me.

[21:45:50] Dun 4 Hire: Yo, Samuragochi Mamoru.
[21:45:51] Dun 4 Hire: You heard of him?
[21:46:20] gattsu456: Nah.
[21:46:23] gattsu456: What's up?
[21:47:14] Dun 4 Hire: So apparently he's a super famous Japanese composer who's deaf, so he's been compared to Beethoven.
[21:47:44] Dun 4 Hire: It's just been found out that not only is he not deaf, but for his pieces he's had a ghost writer.
[21:47:47] Dun 4 Hire: So he's nobody really.
[21:48:04] gattsu456: Oh shiiiit.
[21:48:09] Dun 4 Hire: But apparently he's been behind some of the music behind Resident Evil.
[21:48:22] gattsu456: Does Resident Evil have good music?
[21:48:27] gattsu456: I can't remember, to be honest.
[21:48:38] Dun 4 Hire: Neither do I.
[21:48:42] Dun 4 Hire: And Onimusha.
[21:48:53] gattsu456: I have no clue.
[21:49:02] gattsu456: Those aren't games I really think of when I think game music.
[21:49:08] Dun 4 Hire: It's funny that I don't give a shit about any of this, but how it relates to video games.
[22:00:39] gattsu456: Yeah.
[22:00:49] gattsu456: I completely forgot about that bit you mentioned about him being a fraud.

[02:02:35] Dun 4 Hire: Every day in my diary I try to write one paragraph in French and one paragraph in German about some news of the day for practice
[02:02:57] Dun 4 Hire: Did you hear about Samuragochi? The Japanese composer who was found out to have a ghost writer this entire time?
[02:03:03] Dun 4 Hire: Anyway, I was writing about it in French
[02:03:11] Dun 4 Hire: And I realized I didn't know what "ghost writer" was in French.
[02:03:23] Dun 4 Hire: It's their equivalent for "nigger."
[02:03:30] Dun 4 Hire: I'm literally writing the sentence, "He had a nigger all these years."
[02:03:33] Dun 4 Hire: What. the. fuck.
[02:03:34] Okage48: wait
[02:03:39] Okage48: what what what what what?
[02:04:01] Okage48: the word for nigger in french means ghost writer as well?
[02:04:12] Dun 4 Hire: Yeah.
[02:04:16] Dun 4 Hire: "Nègre."
[02:04:50] Dun 4 Hire: I put it into Google translate and it said "nègre"
[02:04:56] Dun 4 Hire: And I thought it was just google translate being fucking insane
[02:05:13] Dun 4 Hire: And it had as definitions for "nègre" as "nigger, coon, ghost writer."
[02:05:18] Dun 4 Hire: And I'm like, "................."
[02:05:26] Dun 4 Hire: So I went to wikipedia and put in "ghost writer"
[02:05:39] Dun 4 Hire: And then switched the language to French
[02:05:43] Dun 4 Hire: And it's fucking nigger.
[02:05:45] Dun 4 Hire: What the fuck.
[02:05:49] Okage48: hahahahaha
[02:06:13] Okage48: "So how do you write such great books?"
[02:06:21] Okage48: "Oh I have a nigger do it for me"
[02:06:33] Okage48: y'all white people never give us enough credit
[02:06:45] Okage48: we built this goddam country
[02:06:52] Okage48: at least the french are doing their part

Greene: A lot of people use quo vadis as the name of their attack or as a their battle cry. It sounds cool, but it doesn't mean much. I think i asked you why it was important before and caesar had said it or something. What should the battle cry of clan ferolux be?
Me: "Quo vadis" just means "where are you going?"
Me: .......Which is a hilarious battle cry.
Me: "FOR THE HORDE!"
Me: Reply: "WHERE ARE YOU GOING???"
Greene: Battle cry may be a bit strong, but for example. Dukemon/Gallantmon's special attack is quo vadis. He's not particularly screaming it at enemies trying to escape. The priest from jojo also says quo vadis at random times.
Me: That's still kinda ridiculous. "I'm gonna use Firaga, follow it up with a White Wind, and end with a Where Are You Going?
Greene: It does have a lot of potential as a battle cry.
Me: As a pondering why the enemy is charing you?
Greene: See what i mean? O shit the limit bar is max. It's time for a "where are you going"!
Greene: What if the enemy is standing still?
Me: It's a good rhetorical question. Where ARE you going if not to battle?

An article in The New York Times yesterday talked about controversies in the upcoming Oscars. The director for one of the movies was accused by his stepdaughter of sexual abuse as a child, although he was never brought up on charges and his stepdaughter didn't talk about it publicly until last fall. Now she's upset that his work is being nominated for an award and famous actors even wanted to work with him at all.

I don't usually care about awards and stuff and frankly I'm surprised that I read the article at all, but the concept behind this really stuck to me. Should the Academy Awards not reward people who have done criminal acts? Honestly I'm torn in two different directions. There's a part of me that says no, the Academy should because they're judging a movie purely on its own merits and nothing about the makers' personal lives. If we shunned art because the artist is a terrible person, we probably wouldn't have much culture. Wager for example was an anti-Semite. Sherlock Holmes has definite racist moments. No one's gonna stop appreciating those.

Admittedly though we're talking about the present and whether someone currently should be praised. Again, the Oscars are about the artistic or technical merits of a particular piece. But on the other hand if we put it to the hyperbole, I don't think this stands up. Let's say Hitler made a really great fucking movie that we all love. Him getting an Oscar doesn't really sound right.

So I guess we should say someone who's done bad things doesn't deserve an Oscar, but where do we draw the line? Killing six million Jews definitely disqualifies you, but if we say doing anything illegal deprives you of any chances, we wouldn't have many candidates. How many of those people do you think smoked marijuana? Having sex with your seven-year-old stepdaughter isn't one of those gray areas though; it definitely should be on the "wow that's a bad thing" side of the line.

I guess it's because this director hasn't been convicted of this in a court of law. It's now essentially a he-said-she-said type of situation. Not knowing these people personally, I can't really say who's right and I'm fairly certain the people choosing the nominations don't either. Yet even if the stepdaughter were vindicated, I don't think Hollywood gives a shit. I saw The Pianist years ago with my father, and I've heard the director of that movie definitely had sex with an underage girl yet he got an Oscar for that. So really, what we've learned is Hollywood is on the "artistic merits" side of the argument. I guess Hitler still has a chance?

People will talk about great Superbowl commercials, but none compare to this one:

There are several ways to do citation. I'm not talking about Chicago versus MLA but rather where you physically place the information. My favorite is as a footnote because I can just flick my eyes down to the bottom of the page without much effort. However sometimes these become cumbersome; it's not unusual in many academic articles for the page to consist solely of footnotes and there are only two lines of the actual article itself. For that reason many authors employ endnotes so that the reader isn't distracted from the narration. I personally hate this because I have to keep a finger where the endnotes are and constantly flip back to the end of the book. If you're reading something that's heavily annotated like The Divine Comedy or Ulysses, this is just a nightmare.

But the worst, the absolute fucking worst, is when the author doesn't even inform you that there's a citation. Usually you have a number or symbol superscripted at the of the sentence. I use it a lot. But I guess some authors feel the numbers ruin the aesthetic feel of the page or something and don't even put that in. They have endnotes and put a quotation there for you to know what it's referencing to. Let me give an example of a book I read recently. Here is how it should've been done:

Rutilius and Scaurus did so and were neither disbelieved nor criticized.^1
1 Publius Rutilius Rufus, born c. 160BC, consul 105 BC and a distinguished military commander, was an adhere of Stoic philosophy.

Instead what happened is there was no number at all after "criticized" and at the end of the book under the heading "notes to pages 3-4" it said:

Rutilius: Publius Rutilius Rufus, born c. 160 BC...

So first off I didn't even realize there was any note for Rutilius telling me who he was. It was only about ten pages in that I realized it was odd I hadn't hit a single notation yet, so I thumbed through the back to see if there were anyway. Once I realized what the idiot editor had done, the book no longer became enjoyable for me. Because it's now a fucking word search game. One of the endnotes was for the phrase "new peoples" somewhere on pages 23-25. Instead of reading the text and absorbing the knowledge, I'm spending all my time trying to find where the fuck "new peoples" are.

And seriously, this is a book by an ancient Roman author about the emperor Agricola.^* Who the fuck else besides people like me are going to read this thing? It's not this is meant for middle school students and you don't want to freak them out with an overload of information. This is clearly meant for people who are into history and want to read primary sources. Why are you trying to make these pages seem less cluttered? Just throw in the goddamned numbers already. We're used to it. We can handle it.

^* P. Cornelius Tacitus, Agricola, trans. by A. R. Birley (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). SEE, THAT'S HOW YOU FUCKING DO IT.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/18/world/asia/japan-dolphin-hunt/

This is definitely a biased article with words like "slaughter," which I don't think is quite fair. What is happening to the dolphins is terrible and bloody. There is no doubt about that. But that happens to every single animal we take from the ocean for consumption. Is it really any worse to what we do to salmon, cod, tuna, lobsters, or crabs? The fish die from asphyxiation when we pull them from the water in our nets. I've seen my own mother keep live lobsters in our fridge — imagine being kept in a fridge for a day! — and then boil them alive. Unless you want to be a vegetarian, which I'm certain some of the advocates for the dolphins are, you're going to have to face the reality of what we do to animals would be condemned in the harshest words if we did the same to humans. I had a burger today for dinner, and I'm not going to pretend that the cow I ate died in a peaceful manner and we just got the meat after it passed quietly in the fields. It was probably bludgeoned to death in the head with a hammer and its body put on a meat hook.

Is there a better way to kill the dolphins? Possibly, but I think the anger toward the fishermen is not so much how they do it but whom they're doing it to. It's more that they're dolphins and for Americans dolphins are cute. If they were fishing for angler fish or equally hideous I doubt there would be any ruckus. Yeah, dolphins are intelligent and probably have a greater sense of what is happening to them than a clam, but we eat pigs and those are very intelligent creatures, and we're mostly quiet about that. It just seems hypocritical for me to be feel upset about dolphins when we ourselves kill and eat other animals.

And now another odd article.