I like both the melody and the lyrics. If I know where the lyrics are supposed to fit in? Um, I don't know, is the lyrics supposed to be over at 1:07?waZelda

Actually, at 2:33. The xylophone. Glad you liked it :D

Not a big fan of the drums or bass. Too soft for my taste, but otherwise I really enjoyed the song. I liked the lyrics too, though I don't think vocals would add a lot to it necessarily. It feels complete enough as it is---at least later on it does.Foolz3h

Funny thing about the drums -- I had them set about as high as they could go, and yet they still seemed really soft. 

Here is a link to the song, with lyrics. If you would like to read a crazy person's five-paragraph ramblings, continue below.

At the time of writing this sentence, my connection is down, as it has been off and on for quite a while. So, with my newfound taste in music that doesn't rely almost solely on guitar, I start screwing around in FL Studio and, in a few days, I ended up making this little ditty. It was quite inspired by Zero 7 and Massive Attack, and also a couple of my favorite video game tunes.

I'm talking of course about Red Brinstar from Super Metroid (or Submerged Temple from Metroid Prime 2), and Concrete Jungle from Sim City 3000. It shares the aquatic-sounding nature of Red Brinstar (thanks to the X-Files-y whistle thingy and my favorite instrument, the Rhodes organ), and it sort of "stacks" the various parts on top of each other like in Concrete Jungle. And for a guy with over 30 GB of music, to say that these songs were some of the most important I had ever heard, that says something.

It's meant to be atmospheric and peaceful, but with a liberal dose of crazy blues/neo-****cal keyboard solos and tonal shifts. The goal for any musician is to set a tone and allow the listener to visualize something as they listen. Though they might not always visualize the same thing as the songwriter, I hope I set a nice tone here :)

Now, I don't have any proper recording equipment. So, though lyrics were written, the words don't appear in the song. The vocal tone is there in the form of something called a "xylocarillon", and I think you'll be able to tell where the words should be. Maybe some day I'll return with a new and improved version, with actual singing and guitar.

As far as looking for meaning in the lyrics... well, I'm sick of having to explain what they mean. Just know that I was very happy and gazing at the gorgeous figure of Allison Mack on my desktop at the time of writing, I had no cuts on my wrist and my hair was not black. And for that matter, it really crunches my berries that I would need to explain everything. Find your own meaning, man ;)

--

A gentle, peaceful,
soothing sound.
A warming fire
calms us down.

Cares of the world
have left our minds.
Affairs of their
cruel and bitter lives.

Say, take my hand and swim with me.
And we'll get lost in deepest seas.
And all our fears are left behind.
So, listen to the lullaby.

Though all time left us
at the door.
And all of space
is nothing more.

We will go
down in history.
The sky will fall
when deep at sea. 

Say, take my hand and swim with me.
And we'll get lost in deepest seas.
And all our fears are left behind.
So, listen to the lullaby.

GOOD: A very cool plot, and some awesome special effects. This is the closest to the comic books that Superman has ever been on film or television, and something tells me that won't change in 2012 with Man of Steel.

BAD: Oh my God, that ending was such a God-awfully horrendous insult to my intelligence that I'm surprised there wasn't a big sign that pointed to Superman saying, "that guy is the hero, buckwheat". You wanna know what happened? As the horrible hell planet Apokolips (A-pock-o-leepse, as Delores Herbig pronounced it) was bearing down on Earth, Superman triumphantly rose up and... used his middle-finger to swat it away. Woo.

Actually, speaking of Granny Goodness (Delores Herbig, as in "Herbig Female Furies"), what the hell was the deal with the way she and the other Death Eaters were dealt with? You had her, that guy who looked like the priest from the first season of The Sopranos, and Desaad, and guess who killed them? Green Arrow. GOD DAMMIT GREEN ARROW, GO SIT IN THE CORNER AND LET THE REAL SUPERHEROES DO THINGS. C'mon, Granny Goodness is such a cool character and she's finished off by Surferman and Zelda's light arrows? I call shenanigans on that.

I mean, my God. Could there possibly be a more anti-climactic ending? It's bad enough that the final battle between Superman and Darkseid was resolved by simply flying through him, but all it took to get rid of Apokolips was pushing it away like it were made of styrofoam. At this point, I was yelling at my TV: "NO! YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THERE'S NO FINAL BOSS?!" But there was a final boss fight. Yeah, the one in the Kent Barn between Not Superman and Zombie Lionel (to be fair, it sounds like a pretty good roster for a fighting game). And let me tell you: this "evil of all evils", often confused for Hades, or Loki, or even Satan himself, is the biggest pushover wimp that I have ever seen. He comes into the barn, does the whole "ex-ter-mi-nate!" routine, Not Superman flies past him, and that's it. I call shenanigans on that, too.

Yeah, the battle between Satan took place in a barn. Big whoop, wanna fight about it? Perhaps in a barn?

What they should have done is basically this:

... which would have naturally run into the following TV movie "Superman: Darkseid of the Moon", in which there is actually a God damn battle, Chloe decides to go nude for some reason, and Mr. Mxyzptlk shows up. Because I like him.

GOOD: The wedding between Clark and Lois was nice. I understand why a lot of people take issue with the series, because of the personal aspect of things. In the beginning, it was the teen drama. And believe me, if anybody hates teen drama, it's me. It's the most unimportant part of anybody's life, and it's all the same. But as the characters grew, the teen drama died and it instead moved on to simple personal drama. And marriage has been a big part of that. But now it's Lois and Clark's turn for a shot at happiness (and hopefully it would end up better than Lex and Lana... eesh). And they did it very nicely. Over the years, most of the actors lost any talent they might have had, and chiefly Tom Welling and Erica Durance. And while Tom Welling was never great, he was always good, until about the halfway point, when it would seem that he just got bored with the role. But Erica Durance was never particularily good in the role as Lois Lane and frankly, I never really felt that she, or Welling, could really play the personal roles. They just weren't good enough.

But, I digress. Tom Welling's Clark Kent and Erica Durance's Lois Lane got married in this episode (almost disastrously, considering the ring of gold K), and it was all very nice. As talentless as they might have been in the end (and let me say, they aren't BAD, they're just not good), they definitely shared great chemistry here. I am not a romantic person, but that was a very heartwarming scene and I enjoyed it very much.

BAD: Well, really, there wasn't much bad to be found in this part of the episode. I would say that the pacing was pretty poor and they spent far too long having to reassure you that Clark Kent and Lois Lane would, in fact, be getting married (yeah, because that was a real cliffhanger). But the wedding itself was very nice, and in general it's one of the better parts of the episode. But to some degree, I feel silly and stupid for wishing that they had spent more time on heroic acts. Because that's one of the things that made the series good -- the fact that it stuck heavily by the personal side of Superman, like nothing has really done before. Similar to The Dark Knight. The only difference is the incredible writing, direction, acting and general storyline that The Dark Knight had.

FINAL VERDICT: It was good, but it was also bad. In many ways it was the best episode of the series, because it did really leave you wanting more. They got a lot of things wrong, and it seemed like the best parts were so obvious that they would have been impossible to screw up. And yet, with Lex and the main freaking plot and so much more, they still managed to blow it. There were plot holes, yeah. But this is one of the most memorable series finales I have ever seen. Despite its actual quality, I will hold this against the likes of Lost, or The X-Files or other great finales, because though it may not have been perfect (in so many ways), its flaws evoke a personal reaction that makes it quite memorable. Would I have changed things? Yes. But, it might be easier for me to create my own series and move things in the correct order, than to become bitter because one of my favorite shows screwed up the ending.

So, in the end, it really backs up a quote that I coined: "beauty is imperfection". It is the greatest thing ever to happen to Superman on film. Nothing else has come close to matching the cheesy, contrived, and really awesome nature of the comics quite like Smallville. If you tried watching it before, but stopped because of the teen drama, I suggest you start at around season five or six. That's when the series stopped being "TV good" (good acting, storylines, direction), and started being "comic book good" (hammy acting, plot-convenience-ridden storylines, laughable direction). If for nothing else than MST'ing value, and of course the reams of beautiful women (and Erica Durance), watch this series.

Before I saw this episode, I told myself that I would make a video of my thoughts on the Smallville series finale, afterward. Unfortunately, this was before I had actually seen it.

Any ideas I had were foiled. Plans were dodged. Because this episode wasn't good. And it wasn't bad, either. And that's what makes it next to undiscussable.

But I plan to, anyways. So! If you haven't seen the episode but you plan on doing, you might choose to skip this article, as I will be giving away pretty much everything about the plot. If you haven't seen the episode, and you don't plan on doing, then you may wish to read ahead anyways, because you are now aware that you have nothing else to do. So ha.

But due to the rather unusual nature of this episode, and the way it was layed out so oddly, I will not be talking about it as if it were anything else. This review will be split into the good, and the bad. Each good thing that happened, and the awful side-effect that came with it like a conjoined twin who sings country songs. An apt metaphor for the way the series turned out, with the whole light and dark thing. So, let's just get started, shall we?

GOOD: They finally had the suit, and it finally felt like Superman was really there.

BAD: They only show the suit onscreen for MAYBE a minute, and almost every time the entire suit is in view, we see it zoomed back from a mile away. Now, I get that this was the story of Clark Kent and not Superman, but they had a really cool costume! Would it have been so much to ask that they actually show all of the damn thing? That it was actually visible onscreen, and not as an action figure dangling from a string? The honest fact is that I don't think anybody really gives a damn about Clark Kent. First with Lois and Clark, and then with Smallville, people only watch these shows because they want to see Superman be... well, super. So after showing us ten seasons of Clark Kent (which they really did their best to drag out, what with the whole "blur" thing), they couldn't have maybe let us see a tiny bit of Superman? For God sakes, nobody even says the name "Superman" once in the entire episode (except Chloe once :D). The episode called, most generically, "Finale". What, it occurred to nobody that they might have wanted to call it "Superman"? Christ sakes! Yeah, first God sakes and then Christ sakes -- I guess my sakes got a demotion.

GOOD: In the last scene, I was squeeing hard as they finally played the ****c theme. It was truly epic in every sense of the word, and like all good series finales it left you with a real sense that the story was just beginning.

BAD: While I'm not really sure whether or not this was actually directly related, the fact is that the writers of this series left one of the biggest plotholes in HISTORY (attached onto an already massive crater of a plothole), and the nice music and cool visuals are just a distraction. What am I talking about? Well, it's simple:

CLARK KENT DIDN'T WEAR GLASSES FOR TEN YEARS.

Oh, yeah. Hey, writers, remember that absolutely glaringly-obvious plothole that you left un-filled? We didn't forget, and it did NOT go unnoticed. It was unbelievable. But, you know, I can't say as I'm surprised that they could be so stupid to leave something like that out. What about everybody that SUPERMAN went to school with? What about everybody that SUPER-FREAKING-MAN works with? What about everybody that THE GOD-DAMN SUPERMAN put in jail, or in that funny farm in the first few seasons? What about the old lady that he passed in the supermarket one time, who asked for his help getting down some toilet paper, and he helped, and she took note of his face? What, was he just hoping she'd die before he put on his super best? You have to understand, this wasn't like on Lost when they'd make a huge plothole and then clumsily try to fix it in the later seasons. This was the writers saying, "oh, yeah, about that...", and just sweeping it under the rug. How do you get this stupid?!

GOOD: LEX RETURNS! YAY! YAAAAY! COOKIES FOR EVERYONE! HOORAY! They had a few really great scenes with him doing what I came to love Lex for: long speeches and trade-offs with Clark. They did it again, and they did it well. And Ol' Babyface Rosenbaum -- my favorite Lex Luthor, and somehow one of only two to actually be bald -- didn't look a day over 3-years-old.

BAD: HOW DO YOU DO THAT?! WHY WOULD YOU EVER DO THAT?! YOU COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY DESTROYED EXACTLY ONE QUARTER OF WHAT THE SERIES WAS DEVOTED TO!

Now, let's just calm down, here. To explain what I mean (cleverly, without actually telling you what happens yet), take your favorite characters. Books, movies, TV, games, doesn't matter. Throughout your character's story, (s)he underwent what's known as a "character arc". What that is, is where that character starts out a certain way, but due to a series of events has a change of heart, a change of mind, and, in general, a change of character. Now, let's take that character of yours, and let's just smash his brain with a claw-hammer until he completely forgets everything that evolved him, that changed him, that humanized or de-humanized him, and made him what he was. So, you can understand where I'm coming from.

SPOILER TIME!  Lex returns because his father from another universe decided to build a clone out of the perfect parts, but he was missing a heart. Lionel tried to take Superboy's heart, but when asked, he answered with "I'LL KILL YOU TO DEATH", so he just gave up. Instead, he chose Lex's sister Tess (Lutessa, and when she was first introduced it was implied that she might have had a special... relationship with him. Quite a special relationship indeed) as the perfect candidate for the heart transplant. But, Tess suddenly becomes Sydney Bristow and does a few of those femmy-kicks where she brings her leg around on a guy, steals a gun, and finally kills Lionel. Again. When this happened, in all fairness, I clapped. Because as much as I loved Ol' Ben Lionel, this was the way to go out. The only better way would have been to have "Hide & Seek" by Imogen Heap playing throughout. So, Tess escapes, but Lionel enters Clone-Lex's room to summon Darkseid (because poor literacy is kewl), and has him give his (Lionel's) heart to Lex in exchange for his eternal soul.

I want you to understand something: a heart is not actually a literary symbol of emotions or goodness. It is a vital organ. The lack of which does not make your villain "super-duper evil", it means he is dead. Which kind of makes him cooler, but still. If this were shooting for realism, then when the Smoke Monster came into Clone-Lex's room to take a vital organ from Alternate-Lionel (and then his soul, because, you know, he can do that, I guess), he would have chosen something like a kidney, or possibly a bladder. But, you know, only if they were shooting for realism.
So, why did I tell you all this? Because with Lex back to normal, Tess returns to Luthorcorp and confronts him. Lex does what he does best, talking, and in general it was a pretty cool scene. Lex eventually kills Tess, which is passed off as a sad or tragic bit, but I just didn't care. But then Tess uses some magical MacGuffin liquid of plot contrivance, and Lex completely forgets his entire life. They even do a "memories" montage, just to twist the knife a little bit more. Considering every scene Lex was ever in on this show was purely devoted to setting up the man he becomes, the fact that he forgets all that Lionel "taught" him, all the cunning tactics and chess-like manuevers that he had used over the years was a pretty enormous middle-finger to everybody.

In the last scene, he returns as "President Lex Luthor" in the year 2018. Well, whoop-de-****. He isn't the same person, he's just some random dude without any hair. You could argue that Lex Luthor IS Lex Luthor because it's just the way he was born, and under any other circumstances, you'd be correct. But with this story, we saw Lex go from brilliant-but-good teenager, to ruthless and evil adult -- and all because his father made him that way. So, if he forgets everything, he goes back to just being a nice guy. And I thought they would end the series with him dying. Pff. At least then he would have died as Lex Luthor.

GOOD: Chloe was back, and... aw, that's just swell. If there were a Superman movie that only had Allison Mack, and nobody else, I would watch it and enjoy it. It would be the warmest, most friendly movie ever made, like a film was giving you a big hug. I'm not sure it would make my heart swell, but something would swell, to be sure.

BAD: Well, nothing related to Chloe could ever be "bad", but there were a few parts that made me cock my head sideways. For one, halfway through the episode she disappears again. So, in the tenth season alone, she was there, and then got kidnapped, and then came back, and then came back with about seventy "Chlones" (why couldn't the series just end there, on a high note?), and then left again, and then came back, and then left again. By this point I literally began singing "there she goes, there she goes again".

Another thing was Justin Hartley. Up to now, Chloe's been with Jimmy Olsen (oh, we'll get to him in a second), I think Pete, and a few others. But nobody has pissed me off more than Green-Aquaman himself, Oliver Queen. Now, maybe the only reason I hate him so much is because he's not Batman, maybe because he doesn't have a God-damn beard, maybe because he played Aquaman in that pilot, maybe because while Hartley directed the last episode to feature Zod (who had illegals in his bottom), he used more slow-mo than Paul W.S. Anderson. I'm not sure, but I know that each time I see him, I seem to hate him a little bit more each time. And I think that in this episode, I finally understand exactly why that is.

Here's a fun game, kids! Anybody watch Doctor Who? Well, picture this: Allison Mack as the Tenth Doctor (here's an even more fun game -- picture her as Ten along with Rose and Martha). She's standing in her TARDIS, and the glowy stuff surrounds her. She looks up and says, tearfully, "I don't want to go!" And then she does. She REGENERATES! And the TARDIS starts exploding, and we see as she cross-fades to...

Justin Hartley as the Eleventh Doctor. Because Justin Hartley is exactly what a male Allison Mack would look like. I only recently noticed this, and I honestly had nightmares about it last night. I think the scariest part of this idea is Justin Hartley playing Matt Smith's Doctor. Bow-ties would completely stop being cool and I would never look at Amy Pond the same way again. 

Then there's the scene when Lois and Clark are getting married, and Oliver is about to give Clark the ring of gold Kryptonite (which would permanently take away his abilities -- a MacGuffin, yes, but honestly a very good one). It all goes slow-mo, and I literally start doing the whole "nooooooooo!" thing. And then Chloe literally does the whole "nooooooooo!" thing. I could only laugh and say "holy ****" when I realized that some director was actually happy with that take. I thought slow-mo "nooooooooo!" only happened in parodies.

P.S.: Allison Mack is the best Lois Lane yet! Not a fan of the second one they picked, however.

As some of you may know, every decade we, as a people, seem to go through trends. In the seventies it was the hippies. In the eighties is was, for men, metal, and for women, leg warmers and short hair and generally looking like Brigitte Nielsen. In the nineties it was the grungies and the "yo yo yo poppin' fresh" Will Smith gangstas. And, in the noughties (oi, it's because I've been watching Doctor Who recently, innit), it was the grungies' horrible (and less lyrically talented) offspring, the emos, and more importantly the "make it rain" gangstas.

But, in the tens, we face a group more horrible... more devious... more mainstream then they think...

THE ATTACK OF THE HIPSTERS WHO YOU'VE PROBABLY NEVER HEARD OF! (cue scary organ music and thunder sounds)

Indeed! Hipsters are possibly the worst new "phase" in a long time, because if you aren't careful, you'll find yourself being called a hipster, too! Oh no!

But worry not, for with _IMD_ Tech's Question & Answer™ technology, you, too, can learn whether or not you, too, are a hipster!

DO YOU...

• [] -- Have any opinions that even slightly differ from the generally accepted norm?
• [] -- Listen to any music that just happens to not be Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga?
• [] -- Play games that aren't Call of Duty 22 (now with a slightly new texture on the pistol!)?
• [] -- Watch TV shows that aren't Glee or So You Think You Can Be America's Next Top Survivor: Totally Not Washed-Up Celebrity Edition?
• [] -- Enjoy anything at all that might be slightly above the level of the mind-numbingly stupid horse pookie that gets shoved down the throats of the public?

If you answered "yes, Todd" to any of these questions, you got my name wrong, jerkweed. But, YOU ARE A HIPSTER! Congratulations! Here is an H&M gift card, a copy of In the Airplane Over the Sea, a copy of Minecraft, and one of those shirts that says "there are ten kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't". Thank you for playing the game, and remember: even if you win, we all lose.

--

Alright, so I'm not going to be in character this entire blog. But I swear I made my point! Y'know, I've been called so many things in my time: a nerd (which I totally am), an emo, a skater (which I totally was, unfortunately), and more recently a hipster. Now, I don't know who decided that liking metal and not wearing bright colors made you an emo, but I was able to get past that. But the fact is, I guess I am a hipster. Statistically, anyway. There's no real way around it. Is it really my fault that the only kind of music I enjoy just HAPPENS to be really obscure? Is it my fault that I think the entire Final Fantasy series is incredibly stupid and highly overrated? Is it my fault that I understand that most popular music and popular television are all ****ing horrible?

The answer is no. I don't take pride in the obscurity of my favorite bands, I encourage others to go and listen to them. I know a good and well-crafted storyline, and apparently there are thousands of Final Fantasy fans and Anime fans who do not. I don't do, say or wear anything "ironically" (and when I see people who do, I recognize that they generally do not understand what "ironic" means). 

And yeah. Real hipsters are incredibly annoying. But there's a difference between just disagreeing with everyone about everything just to stir the ****, and actually having honest opinions that happen to be different than others. People don't seem to understand what a hipster actually is, but, oh, that doesn't stop them from throwing the word around. I've been called a hipster for entirely opposite and contradictory reasons -- several times.

God knows (a God you've probably never heard of, bro) I didn't fully understand what they were, until I did some research (read: Wikipedia). And then I still didn't know who they were! So, I did more research (read: ED), and found everything I needed to know. And then, through further study (read: the website without a name) I found an entirely conflicting explanation! 

Jesus! Any group that's that ambiguous is not a group, it's just an insult. Calling someone a hipster is essentially equivalent to simply calling them pretentious.

On the other hand, ask anybody who knows me: I just try to to fit in as well as possible. And if that means being myself and being unashamed about it -- I guess I can live with technically being a hipster.

For _IMD_ Tech, this has been _IMD_. Please go out and buy albums by Ayreon, OSI, Porcupine Tree and any other bands I listen to. Please think for yourself, make your own opinions and stick to them no matter what the dumbasses say. Please play the games you WANT to play, not just what Gamespot says is a must buy. Seriously. As a Metal Gear fan, I really hated MGS4, and GS gave that a 10.

Do what you want until it gets you in legal trouble. Beware of flying cupcakes.

P.S.: I typed this up on my WINDOWS PC. Yeah.

P.P.S.: Ever notice how the GS text editor reads anything ending with "ing" or any word with an apostrophe as a misspelling? Weird.

So, I was talking to the voices in my head the other day, and I asked them what their favorite Final Fantasy game was. Skippy the Cyborg Leprechaun said his favorite was FFVI. Vampire Abraham Lincoln (four-score and seven Twilight sequels ago...) claimed that, because of Emo Git, his favorite was FFVIII. Compilation Superman (that is to say, a compilation of George Reeves' chin, Christopher Reeve's face, Dean Cain's physique, Tom Welling's hair, Shaw from Chuck's suit, and Supergirl's breasts) said that the best was, without question, FFVII -- due to the protagonist being a transsexual. After all, Superman does have serious sexual confusion, obvious because he never gave Chloe the ol' "Hulk Smash", if you know what I mean. Yeah, make her feel like a "Wonder Woman", then give her the ol' "Rampage" -- finishing off with a "Spiderman Deadshot" across the "Wonder Twins". Yeah! Hiring Spiderman and the Wonder Twins to fight Deadshot! What else would I have meant?

Anyway. So, when the question was turned back to me, I had to really consider my answer. My favorite was and will always be Crystal Chronicles, so I didn't have much credibility to begin with. But how could I possibly LOSE credibility? That was my dilemma.

I thought about what the BEST Final Fantasy had to be. Definitively. I had the last word. What, you didn't get the memo? Everybody else in the world already voted; it's between VII and XIV. Anyway, I seriously considered the merits of each game in the series -- well, the series from VII on, because... cheese.

VII had possibly the best story of them all, though it was still pretty flimsy for a game that everybody claims to have an amazing (or amaxing if you're a warrior princess) story. VIII was just crap, boasting the worst gameplay of them all, and a bad story that's only held up by "fantasy". Yeah. Final Fantasy VIII has a concept of fantasy that's suspiciously similar to "movie magic": just saying "it's called Final FANTASY" does not make half the crap in that game acceptable storytelling. Seriously, people! Just because you whip the word "fantasy" out of your ass, doesn't mean you can just come up with any thin plot device and it'll be okay. "Oh, well, he has amnesia because of the *COUGHCOUGHfleninCOUGH* virus that was spread by the bad guy in Universe 1, and brought back here, to Universe A!" Right, no. I'm rating the Final Fantasy games on story because, aside from one or two small changes in each game, the gameplay is always relatively the same. The story is what makes or breaks a game like Final Fantasy for me.

So, considering I have never played beyond X (which had the best gameplay, but an even worse story), I would have to say the best was IX -- it didn't have the greatest story, but it didn't TRY to have the best story. It knew, on some small level, that the story was relatively weak, and because of that, it had more time to work out a better setting and good characters.

And that's the biggest thing for me -- the characters. While IX may not have had the best story, its characters really "charried" it for me. Rather than having the incredibly stereotypical, cookie-cutter, fill-in-the-names sort of characters that VII and VIII had, it had slightly less stereotypical characters. Like Steiner, the awesome Knight who swears to guard the princess (who's still a bit of a Mary-Sue) and always thinks Zidane is responsible for everything bad that happens. I never did trust those soccer hooligans.

But even the most basic of the character in the game, Zidane, was still a major step up from anybody featured in either previous game. Let's make a checklist.

STANDARD ANIME CHARACTER/JRPG CHARACTER CHECKLIST. 

• BROODING HERO -- Cloud and Squall.
• MARY-SUE FEMALE HERO -- Tifa and Rinoa.
• LOLITA -- Yuffie and Selphie.
• PRETTY-BOY VILLAIN -- Seiferoth.
• MONSTER VILLAIN -- Sephiroth and Ultimecia.
• BONUS POINTS FOR ABSURDLY CLEAVAGED FEMALE VILLAIN -- Edea. Also, Sephiroth (her sword counts).

Right. Well, I realized quickly that what I was describing weren't Final Fantasy characters, but Anime characters in general. I can't understand how anybody watches Anime. More than that, I can't understand how anybody looks at something like Neon Genesis Evangelion and thinks it's high drama, or how people (tween girls, mostly) can look at Naruto and think Sakura and Sasuke share a timeless romance. Yeah, just like Edward and Bella.

But maybe I'm being a little too hard on Anime. After all, as you might be able to tell, I'm a superhero fan. I read comics, and I watch the animated movies. But the difference is that when I'm watching Spiderman, or Smallville, or Lois & Clark, or something like that -- I realize that I'm enjoying the height of cheesy entertainment. Seeing the Joker shoot down the Bat-plane with his giant pistol makes me grin. But something tells me that's not why most people watch Anime. So, either I'm missing the legendary Sopranos' of Anime, or a lot of people can't understand good drama. And of course, nobody will ever tell you that you're right about a thing like this. Everyone will just go all hipster on you, saying, "NGE is so mainstream. I'm watching this series, made entirely by a Red Chinese inmate, written in olde Pigeone Englishe. It's amazinge."  

But wasn't I talking about Final Fantasy? Well, Jimmy, I still am. The thing is, Final Fantasy is essentially an Anime video game. The characters are the same, the stories are the same, even the subject matter (killing monsters with humorously designed weapons) is often the same. The sad part is that fewer games are even vaguely trying to attempt an original plot these days, so the lackluster stories of JRPGs seem like Paradise Lost when compared to Bulletstorm.

Another thing that bothers me about both Anime and JRPGs is that they ALWAYS seem to involve a group of people way too young to be saving the world, or doing anything outside of listening to Katy Perry and thinking it's good music (FAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHYA-WAAAAAAAAAAAAARK!!!). Take a look at FFX, where the oldest character, the "grizzled old veteran", Auron, is estimated to be in his thirties. And the "master black mage" with the foot-long jugs (a necessary requirement for all good black mages), Lulu, is (I think) 23. Jeezus! Or what about these Anime like Sailor Moon, where the great protector of the world (or something) is still in high-school. NO! THAT'S NOT OKAY! This is why Old Snake could pwn any Anime/JRPG character -- he's experienced, they are not. Even regular Solid Snake could easily wipe his ass with Cloud Strife. I daresay Otacon could even beat at least Tidus in a fist-fight. And Gordon Freeman? That nerd would annihilate the entire "Ninja" school from Naruto. Yeah, "Ninja" in quotes, because if you are a girl with pink hair, who wears a red dress, YOU ARE NOT A ****ING NINJA! RYU HAYABUSA FACE-PALMS IN SHAME! 

*ahem*. Anyways, what's even worse than stories that don't even try? Stories that sort of do. I am, of course, talking about our favorite superhero in red and blue: Mario. Now, Nintendo has proven with the Metroid Prime series that they can write compelling stories (a fact which they hautly disputed by releasing Other M). They even proved that in a ZELDA game, for God's sake: Majora's Mask. I don't ever recall seeing a story about a scarecrow-like creature accompanied by a little fairy, wearing a magical mask, trying to collapse the moon into the Earth. The grimacing moon. That moon always confused me -- if it has a mouth and a nose and eyes, can we assume that it is both alive and that it has internal organs? Geez. Never thought I'd say that the plot in a Zelda game made me think.

But, if they can make interesting stories in Metroid Prime and Frigging Zelda, why has Mario been left in the dark? Now, I'm just going by the 3D Mario games, main series. The 2D ones all had essentially the same story, and the RPGs actually have interesting stories (like SPM, that one was really cool) and can actually be quite funny. WHY AREN'T THE WRITERS OF THOSE GAMES WRITING THE MAIN SERIES?!

Let's start with Mario 64: rescue the princess who's being held inside her own castle (somehow -- I refer you to "movie magic"). Just to get off track for a moment, what was wrong with Mario 64? Not that it wasn't a great game, it was, but why did it have almost nothing to do with the rest of the series? Where were the question blocks? Where were the super mushrooms, fire-flowers and star-men? Why were the Bowser stages so strange and unfamiliar? What was with the general lack of pipes, Yoshi (that Easter-egg afterthought didn't count) and Koopas? It's not that it's a bad game, it's just that it didn't really seem like a Mario game.

Thing is, Mario 64 had a good Mario plot. If you want to just have a game about saving the princess, just do that. But if the best they can come up with is some crap about cleaning off the island (let Jacob clean his own damn island), don't bother. You probably know by now, I'm talking about Sunshine. Sunshine is my favorite Mario game, and I stand by that like I stand by Crystal Chronicles; no matter how many people question my sanity because of it. But Sunshine had a really assy plot. First they load you with this environmental message. "Hey, kids, Mario says NO to graffiti!" Then they bring in Shadow Mario. And be honest. Did you ever think, for even one second, that Shadow Mario was anything other than Bowser, or something related to Bowser? I think they just made Shadow Mario for the trailer, but then when players actually learned that he was (oh, big ****in' spoilers) Bowser Jr., it gave us all "horrible plot twist syndrome". That is, a plot twist so obvious that you see it coming from a mile away, only to think, "no, wait, that's TOO obvious", and then it turns out that it WAS, in fact, that horrible twist. And the worst part of all this was that the plot didn't even make sense. What? Peach was BJ's mom? How did that work? After all, Bowser, in this game, was about 30 feet tall. How could she... forget a thing like that? Or the birth?

Now, I don't actually know all that much about Galaxy, but I do know quite a bit about its sequel, after having watched NintendoCapriSun's LP. And wow. What's the point of the Luma things? Really, why do they exist? And why have they never been an issue before? Where was the Luma powerup from Super Mario World? Why couldn't I play as Grimace the Fat-ass Purple Luma in Mario Tennis? I'll tell you why: because the Mario series needed another anthropomorphic character/object.

I want you to think about all we know from the Mario series. What does Mario do? He collects mushrooms, fire-flowers and stars, and rescues the princess from Bowser. The only problem?

THEY ALL HAVE EYES.

THE MUSHROOMS HAVE EYES. THE FIRE-FLOWERS HAVE EYES. THE STARS HAVE EYES. THE SHINES HAVE EYES.

THEY ALL HAVE EYES.

That means they're living things, with EYES, and Mario just ****ing eats them. At least, I sure HOPE he eats them -- it would be a much worse fate to get stuffed in his ass. But consider the character of Toad. There is an entire mushroom society in the Mario world -- the MUSHROOM Kingdom. Why do you think Peach named it the Mushroom Kingdom? Because she just loved stuffed Portabello mushrooms? No. Because of the mushroom people. And what are the super mushrooms, and 1up mushrooms? Babies.

MARIO EATS MUSHROOM BABIES.

Yeah. But that's not even the worst part, is it? Nope, because cruelty knows no bounds in the Mario Kingdom. These baby mushrooms are stuffed into boxes, placed there by God-knows-who, only to be cruelly thrown out of the box. And when they try to run, Mario ****ing catches them. Yeah, he likes it when they work up a sweat. And then he bites their assing heads off. ****.

But the MUSHROOM CHILDREN (!!!) are not the only victims. What about the fire-flowers? See, there used to be a whole race -- a prosperous, lively, jovial race -- of flower people. They had great relations with the Mushroom Kingdom, and they were always hanging out there. Ho-ho. But that was before Mario showed up. He came, and the Great-Malevolent-Force-That-Stuffs-Things-in-Boxes followed. Oh, yeah. You didn't know about the GMFTSTB? It follows Mario wherever he goes. Ever noticed that anywhere Mario goes, there are mysterious ? blocks? GMFTSTB. Probably works with PeaCE. Probably works with Fred Fuchs.

Flower babies were boxed-up, and when Mario came along, they were freed. But these babies can't move, and they just sit there, helpless, begging Mario not to hurt them. 

"Please, Mr. Mario! I never did anything to you!"

"It's Dr. Mario, *****."

And that would be that. He rips the flower from the ground, laughs wickedly, and bites its head off. The younger, the better.

But what about the stars? Why is it that if I got one of those things back in the old games, I would go invincible, but if I get 120 of them in Mario 64, I'm given the ability to get fired to the top of a castle, bounce off the invisible wall, and then talk to some fat guy in a Yoshi costume? What changed?

Well, maybe it was that the stars knew who they were dealing with. See, back in the day, Mario would treat these stars with the same cruelty as the other citizens of the Mushroom Kingdom (that is, those who weren't white humans) -- he would eat them. But these stars (who were for some reason capable of granting Mario absolute and God-like invincibility, but could only bounce away themselves) decided they weren't having any of Mario's shenanigans, and instead became less of an immediate power, and more an abstract thing like the Chaos Emeralds. "Oh, yeah, uh... collect all of us and, uh... and we'll keep you in our thoughts."

And after all of this, it becomes obvious that you were never the HERO of the Mario games, but rather the VILLAIN. Think about it: did Bowser ever eat a mushroom baby? No. Do any of his guards eat mushroom babies? No. Princess Peach just has Stockholm Syndrome -- Bowser keeps rescuing her from the evil Mario, and she screams for Mario's help.

So, why don't any of the mushroom people do anything to stop Mario the Tyrant? Because if they say anything against him, he steals a mega mushroom and stomps all over their city. Yeah, just like Godzilla. Sometimes he brings Yoshi -- the Toads call him Tyrannosaurus X.

"IT'S-A-ME, MARIO'S TOWN, YOU BUNCH OF PUNJABI PORCINI PUNT-RUNNERS! YOU ****IN' FUNGI! KNEEL BEFORE ME, YOU *****AKE ****HEADS!"

--

So, I just told them my favorite was Crystal Chronicles, and they were cool with it. Yep.

UPDATE -- March 14.

--

Well, Crazy Guy was out and about today, making his usual quacking sounds and such, and I confronted him again. I went up to my window, looked at him, he looked at me, and I just started quacking. Quacking like I never thought I would ever have to in my life. And after this, he threw another rock. Missed again. Terrible shot, he is.

He started on me, now. "WHHAAAGGGG -- QUACKQUACKQUACKI'LLGIVEYAQUACKQUACKQUACKWAITTILLISEEYAOUTSIDEQUACKQUACKQUACK." And continuing with incoherent (what I presume were) obscenities. The funny part was that he was actually shouting "quack quack quack" back back back at me, not just babbling. But who would ever be able to tell, if he wasn't.

I called the landlady, Annie, asking if she could do anything about it. She said if he started again, she'd call the RCMP on his ass. Well, while I'm tempted to provoke him some more, I don't think it would be a good idea. She claims they've been kicked out, and they must leave by the end of the month. She says that, by this point, she would have an ad on Kijiji about the suite, but she's afraid of dealing with Crazy Guy, so she has to wait until he leaves. 

And, a more recent update since I started typing this, the cops came. S. Bélanger questioned us about C. Guy, because apparently they couldn't find him. Their presence accomplished precicely dick diddly-squat, and they still can't find him, but at least I talked to the cops. Woo.

--

Other than that, I have a terrible chest cold. It hurts quite a bit, the pain in my chest feels like an impending heart attack at times, plus my throat is killing me, and I can no longer do MANLY FINEVOICE! HO-HO-HO! INDEED!

Also, I bought a new computer chair today. A few months ago, the back on our old cheap-ass chair broke, with my dad sitting in it. He went tumbling back like... something that tumbles, I guess. But, though the back broke, we still had the seat part. Terribly painful on the ass, and with, of course, no back support, it was more of a stool than anything. But, it technically functioned. So we hung on to that for a little while, and recently it has taken its toll on my back. But, thankfully, we bought a new chair, and it's great! It doesn't recline very far, but to be fair, my father was reclining when the old one broke, so.

--

That's pretty much it, really. I may post a written review for Six Feet Under soon, but maybe not. Nothing much to hate on (that didn't happen in the third season) with that show.