Tuesday, March 16, 2004

Snopes.com
Oh, the fun that is to be had on www.snopes.com..

I was first introduced to this site by Kazuko, back when the Lion King subliminal message thread was floating about, and found it rather intriguing. After reading through some of the Disney stuff, however, I forgot the URL and never went back.

But good old Kaz reminded me the other day, and I've been browsing it a lot. There are lots of interesting stories, and some of the more bizarre ones are true, but one particular thing struck me as most interesting..

Now, I'm not one to keep up with Muppet current events, but this is a particularly interesting character.

Well, that's quite interesting. They devised a Sesame Street character who is HIV-positive. They say that the character will help teach children to have positive attitudes toward people who have contracted HIV, but I'm not quite sure that's the entire message.



"The South African character has been named Kami and will be a female mustard-colored furry Muppet who likes nature, telling stories and collecting stuff. Kami is a "monster Muppet" like Grover or Elmo, the least human-like of the Sesame cast, said Joel Schneider, vice president of Sesame Workshop. The muppet will associate freely with the show's other characters as a way to fight stereotypes about people with the virus, said Yvonne Kgame of the South African Broadcasting Corporation. "

Now, um.. How are they going to teach these things to children? Is Bert going to talk to Ernie about the importance of safe sex and the dangers of HIV?

"So.. Ernie, is it true that one out of every nine Africans are infected with this disease and will most likely receive no surefire cure?"

"Yes! Now, I wrote a little song about this, for all you kids out there to sing with us.."

I'm sorry, but it seems a little strange, especially for little three-year-olds watching.

Why, AzureWolf himself just said that he would like to read some of Sesame Street's fanmail, just to see how many kids wrote to Big Bird (in crayon with cute, backwards letters) exactly how somebody contracts such a disease.

However, this is not a necessarily new trend in children's television programming. In fact, it has come to the attention of a specific group of people about the frequent subliminal messages in so-called kiddy shows.. Why, just look at Tinky Winky of the Teletubbies. He always carries around a man-purse, and seems to enjoy his "big hugs" with Poe a little more than with the other two, if you know what I mean.

And look at all of the evil that goes on in Pokemon! Why, the Pokemon evolve! This entails that Pokemon are subjects to Satan's right-hand man, Charles Darwin, and his evil and incorrect theories of evolution! Plus, the Pokemon hurt each other. And we know how bad it is to spray a purple mouse with bubbles.

There are many more examples, including Harry Potter, anime in general, and Teen-rated games, however. The list goes on.
So, this specific group of people decided to create an organization dedicated to burning books and circulating anti-stuff petitions nationwide. They are known as the:

--

Okay, now I know that all was rather extreme, and what is stated above does not represent my feelings about any of the sensitive subject matter that has just been touched. I just felt that those parents who are too lazy to actually teach their kids the difference between right and wrong and compensate by sending complain letters to companies should get some.. Friendly recognition. It was all sarcasm.

EDIT: Wow, turns out they were planning on killing off Ernie to teach kids about death. That would have been worth TIVO-ing.
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Friday, March 12, 2004

The OB Testament..
Yes, I've been thinking about the OtakuBoards Bible more as of late. I don't quite know why, really, but over the summer I will need something to do, and perhaps creating a sacred religious document spoof might be fun.

The big topic of the day: Metal Gear Solid 2: The Twin Snakes.

After some convincing, I finally got my parents to buy Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes (with my own money, of course.. The game's rated M) earlier today. After a half-day of school I helped out with the yard some and then ran over to Best Buy, purchasing the next-to-last copy in stock at the moment.

Now, I was expecting a good game, but I was really blown away when I first started playing. In most games I've played involving sneaking around, things are really simple- Run as fast as you need, scream out loud of you want to, just don't let the guards (or whatever) see you directly. Oh, how unprepared I was when I started playing this.

I have never played a game actually based on stealth. I wanted to get Splinter Cell, but my parents were disapproving of the Teen Rating on that one when it came out. Oh, the irony.

Anyway, I'm only in the third room. I suck at stealth, heh.. Whether it be my shadow sticking out from behind the box I'm pressed up against or the guards seeing my footprints in the snow, I always end up dying in a pool of blood while trying to fight off three crazy people with Semi-automatics with only my hands and feet. I think I've already died maybe 30 times, in this room alone.

There's a lot more depth in this game than I expected.. There are more possibilities for what you can do, rather than just having to do one thing. For example, the room I'm in is covered in cameras that send out an alarm if you get too close. Now, I thought that the only method of getting past them was to throw a certain type of grenade at them which short circuits all electronics for a short while. Now, Kazuko told me just a little while ago, that you could do two other things instead:

- I could have simply gone into first person mode and shot the cameras

Or

- One can press against the wall and not get seen.

I wouldn't have even thought of shooting out the camera, because this game isn't always first person mode.. And as for the wall thing, that didn't even cross my mind.

Yeah, I love this game. It was worth all $39.99. I'll talk about it more in the OB Twin Snakes thread, once I've gotten a little farther in the game.
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Tuesday, March 9, 2004

Another test, 'cause Boba says so!


theOtaku.com: What Golden Sun Adept Are You?

._. I thought I'd be a water adept.. But I love that picture of Isaac, though.
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..


theOtaku.com: What Neko Are You?

God dammit.
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It's a Derigiberbel!
..Ignore the title.

Well, this weekend was rather interesting. My cousin and his friend came out from Virginia Beach to visit us on spring break.. And, because neither of them remember California from the last time they were here (About nine years ago, I think), so we decided to show them around Los Angeles.

Technically, we were planning to take them to Universal Studios, but we woke up too late to really get our money's worth out of a theme park ticket. We then decided to go to Universal CityWalk, Universal Studio's neighboring outdoor specialty store mall. Most of the shops there don't appeal to me, really. They do have a sushi restaurant, though I haven't been in it, an Electronics Boutique is coming soon (Dude, it's going to be so huge), and they had an arcade.. But most of the games were sort of outdated. They only had DDR 3rd Mix, and MTV's Drum Simulator (It was broken) as far as Bemani went, though. I really didn't even play anything.

Anyway, I finally got some Dippin' Dots for the first time in months. For those of you who don't know, Dippin' Dots is this freeze dried ice cream.. In small dot form. o.O They're sort of hard to come by, but it's delicious stuff. For more information, click here!

Then, the true reason for existence came to clear view- It came in the form of a huge comic book store owned by Dark Horse Comics. Things From Another World, it's called. Honestly, they didn't have that many comics. Their wall of manga was very impressive, yes, but the cool part of the store is all of the T-shirts and Japanese imports. In fact, I bought the perfect shirt (For only $19.95!) for me there.



Yes, I plan on wearing it to Anime Expo. It's the only place in the world where I won't be ridiculed for wearing such a thing.

And then we drove around in Hollywood. I made a little game out of it, actually- It was sort of like "GTA Bingo".

I counted all of the interesting things I saw:

-4 Street Walkers
-3 Strip Clubs
-3 Crazy People with Shopping Carts
-5 Street Performers
-3 Drag Queens
-2 Museums of the Strange (Ripley's and Guinness)
- XXX Bowling
- The Erotic Museum

:D It was fun watching these things.

I made my first Wallpaper yesterday.. It's an Eva one (Sorry, Azure), but I think it turned out well for a first attempt.

Not to mention I did it all in PhotoShop. *thumbs up!* It's available here.

And, I've rewritten this mO post three times for various reasons, so I'm going to wrap this up. Good night, everyone, and may the helium-inflated gerbils be with you.
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Saturday, March 6, 2004

Well, that's interesting..
I finally got to the most recent page of MegaTokyo just now. I'm glad that Largo's little adventures aren't as frequently displayed as of late, and that things are focusing more on Piro.

Largo always bothered me.

But reading Dom's little blog thing at the bottom of the page led me to an interesting page, containing an interesting little tidbit of information.

They're making a Soul Calibur movie.

"Warren Zide's Anthem Pictures has acquired the film rights to "SoulCalibur," the popular fighting video game from Namco. The project will be Zide's first under Sony-based Anthem, his equity-backed financing and production shingle. The video game story revolves around two warriors who are chosen by Shaolin monks to recover and destroy a powerful sword that has fallen into the hands of an evil prince who plans to use it to open the gates of hell and destroy the world. "SoulCalibur 2," the most recent version of the video game, has racked up sales of 5 million units on all platforms, and the game also is a critical fave. It received the best fighting game award at last year's E3 interactive game conference, and Electronic Gaming Monthly named it the multiplatform game of the year. Matthew Rhodes and Noel Vega are producing with Anthem. Jesse Warshal is overseeing it at Anthem. Zide, along with manager Craig Perry, produced Universal Pictures' "American Pie" franchise, which grossed more than $340 million at the domestic boxoffice. The two also produced the two "Final Destination" movies for New Line Cinema. (Borys Kit)"

..Hm. After a Street Fighter movie, plus the Mortal Combat one.. I don't quite know what to think of this idea. Creating a movie out of the original Soul Calibur game.. Honestly, I haven't played it. I didn't even know the franchise existed until Nintendo Power first put out an article about it. But, above everything else, if the original SC is going to be made into a movie, it's going to need plot. A series using a genre which generally does not need a big story to entertain players, in this case I am referring to fighters, cannot make a good movie without a feasible, half-decent, non-cliche plotline.

SCII, technically, didn't have the best plot in the world. Sure, the characters had rather long biographies, though a little cliche (Now, um, how many of the characters' families died in some sort of tragic event that led our hero to a life of violence?), and the Destined Battle cutscenes were enjoyable, but the story really wasn't taken anywhere. The Weapon Master Mode plot was dull, as well. I just stopped reading it after a while, and just went to the actual events.

Oh, also.. If I remember correctly, the same people also said that they were making a Metroid movie. That would be cool, and so would a Soul Calibur movie (if executed properly), but let's actually see them act upon their announcements of a video game-based movie.

Blargh, I'm gonna go eat some Rice Krispies and watch Madurday on Comedy Central in the dark now.
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Thursday, March 4, 2004

*cough cough, wheeze*
..Blah.

Fatigue and sickness have kept me from being online much in the past few days. I really have missed a lot, I suppose, and my MyOtaku has gone back down to 90.

Or so says my mO homepage. According to the member list, I'm still 88. But oh well, I'll devise some horrid scheme to bring me up to at least 75. Perhaps I should make "Uncle Sennen's sick-ass Hentai Gallery". That may work.

Anyhoo, Yearbook Club is being evil right now. We're a week behind our most recent deadline, and we're in such a rush to get pages done this thing is coming out so poorly. There's no identifiable theme, the cover sucks, and the font on almost every page (that I haven't blessed with my amazing font-choosing skills based upon random selection), and the thing's being so inconsistent. The program sucks. Paint Shop Pro 8 has a better font selection system than Adobe PageWizard, for god's sake, and it isn't $300.

Anyway, I've been trying to make a better cover tonight. I've been on the computer for 3 hours now, I have barely any of it done because PSP8's being a pain in the rear, and my mom's going to bite my head off for hearing that I haven't even touched my homework. Oh, well. Our yearbook can rot in hell, as long as I get a free copy of this crap.

And, hm, what else..? Oh, yeah. We're taking a Drug Education course in PE this month, involuntarily, that's supposed to teach us to not do drugs.

Now, today we learned about inhalants. Apparently, it's the most popular drug among teens, because it's so easy to get. All you need is some bathroom cleaner or some white-out or anything else that smells funny, and smell it in a closed environment. To fill a bag with material than smell it is popular, but even moreso is to coat a rag or tissue with the toxic chemical and shove it in the back of your mouth.

The teacher gave a long and detailed explaination on how this is exactly done. And then, we get a big "NEVER, EVER DO THIS" from her. Now, honestly, I didn't even know this existed. And I doubt that I ever would have. Now, the thought of smelling gasoline just for 15 minutes at a gas station make me feel extremely light-headed, and now thinking about this sort of thing almost makes me pass out. Quite literally.

I didn't need to know this. I probably never would have known this. I understand them teaching the whole "JUST SAY NO" thing, but going into detail about how these drugs are consumned? I think the more "gansta" students at my school will listen to this and think "Hm.. It's just stupid enough to work (for me)!"

..Yeah, I'm done with my rant now. I've gotta do homework.
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Saturday, February 28, 2004

Boring day, again.
I woke up at half past noon today. Enough said about the first half of that Saturday.

It's weird, though. I did nothing but sleep for three days, and I got to bed at midnight (that's usual, especially on school nights), so I wonder why I slept in so late.

I've been reading MegaTokyo comics all day. Boy, it's a good series. In a sense, it makes me think of an authentic, made in Japan manga. The artist doesn't try to overuse Japanese techniques of art, it's not a thin, crappy plot.. But the main thing is that Fred Gallagher doesn't really try to make it like a real manga for popularity's sake. He just does what he does, and it feels like something straight out of Japan.

But Largo sucks. His 1337 could easily be |) 3 f 3473|).

MegaTokyo was recently put in graphic novel form by Dark Horse Comics, which takes this "American Manga" dynamic one step further.

And so comes the main topic of this MyOtaku post: Americans using anime and manga styles.

Personally, I've never been a big fan of US cartoons that are in "anime" style. They tend to over-use freakout expressions, emphasize poor framerates, and just portray a poor stereotype of anime to the masses.

IGPX was an exception to what I am saying, however. This miniseries looked and felt just like a true anime- Not a Pokemon or Digimon-like anime, mind you, but something more in the Witch Hunter Robin and Rurouni Kenshin calibur. The authenticity in the animation techniques were as they are done in Japan, and it wasn't cheery/happy/bouncy like so many of its predecessors.

Teen Titans is another good example of these cartoons. I must say that I'm not pleased with how they overuse freakout expressions- Even in the middle of a pivotal battle they're still doing the comic-relief expressions, and that bothers me. But you have to applaud the effort that was put into it, though. They got Puffy Amiyumi to actually record two versions of the theme song, and I noticed that the Teen Titans soundtrack is set up a lot like Japanese anime OSTs. There are character image songs, one for each of the protagonists, some for villains, and a few recurring battle tracks, plus two versions of the actual theme song. You have to applaud that.

On the other end of the spectrum are shows like Totally Spies- It examplifies the stereotype of anime that most non-otaku think of the genre-- Crappy framerate, kid-oriented, light-hearted cartoons. "All anime is just childish cartoons."

It may not be so long until anime is fully recognized for its true qualities by the masses, however. If the Evangelion movie is pulled off well, that may spark the masses' interest in anime. Good anime, too. Let's just hope that WETA doesn't differenciate their Americanized Evangelion too far from Sadamoto's Eva.

Yes, and I'm being forced to play Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles by my brother again, so I have to cut this short. Later, people.
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Friday, February 27, 2004

The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread
Yes, it's the most wonderful thing ever. It's splendiforous, stupendous, amazing, wonderful, cool-tastic thing in existence! It's.. Windows Media Guide.

I know it sounds pathetic, but I didn't know this thing existed until Shinmaru showed me earlier today. And now that I have some actual taste in American music, which is available on this site, I actually have a use for it! *dramatic gasp*

So this has inspired a (semi)new twist to OtakuSennen's MyOtaku..

Yes, I will on occasion add songs that I enjoy to this archive, for all of you to enjoy, for one under my myO icon just isn't enough.

Thanks, Desbreko, for the idea. And remember: Don't sue me, I'm your bretheren.
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