Goodbye, Face

[font=arial][size=1]Uhhh, epic was an adjective. He wasn't referencing any specific band.[/size][/font]

[font=arial][size=1]When I can't talk with someone face-to-face, I want to. However, I fumble around with words a lot and I don't always have the opportunity to say what I want to. With IM, I can use what was previously said as a point of reference and go back to it, it's right there. I feel like I have more time to gather my thoughts into words, and I can always backspace if something doesn't sound right. Also, I tend to be more blunt about things over IM, maybe because I don't have to immediately feel the repercussions of what I said immediately. In all honesty, there's just more to take in with a conversation than just the words. Face-to-face always wins. There's no substitute.[/font][/size]

[font=arial][size=1]There's a bunch in the sticky Hardware Online thread, I'm in the list and would love to play sometime, just ask me in a PM or something.[/font][/size]

[font=arial][size=1]Prayer for Cleansing is metalcore, but it's a LOT different from most. They do a really good job of sound really... sinister. They definitely have a more metal edge than most metalcore bands. Actually, they sound like Killwhitneydead would if they took themselves seriously.[/font][/size]

[font=arial][size=1][url=http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/9707/napsuc0.jpg][u]Mrrrw... MOW!!![/u][/url] He was too much like the carpet he was standing on, so I gave up trying to lift him off of it. I wanted to have stuff going on behind him, too. Oh well.[/font][/size]

[font=arial][size=1]I can help you out with following BTBAM's members, haha. They're local so I'm kind of sick of hearing about them. Tommy Rogers did vocals with From Here On, well, him and another guy. Paul Waggoner (I think that's your lead guitarist) was in a really amazing band called Prayer for Cleansing. and Blake Richardson plays drums in Glass Casket, also, he played for Advent. The first two bands have albums on Tribunal Records, and Glass Casket and Advent have MySpaces, they'd be the ones based in North Carolina, in case there's a million Advents.[/font][/size]

[quote name='I'm Not Nomura'][COLOR="HotPink"][FONT="Franklin Gothic Medium"][SIZE="1"]Jon Karel is the best drummer out there right now. [/SIZE][/FONT][/COLOR][/QUOTE] [font=arial][size=1]lol, [url=http://www.myspace.com/hirollershirollers][b]no he's not[/b][/url].[/font][/size]

[font=arial][size=1]Sounds like me and Soul Calibur II. The only reason I didn't go to regionals or other bigger tournaments was because my parents simply did not want something to encourage me to play video games. Me winning my copy of Soul Calibur II was enough for them, haha. My friend took me to some tournaments and I ended up winning two of them, and placing high in two more. It apparently got my name out there, because whenever I play Tekken 5, I run into people who've heard of me. Unfortunately, there's nothing organized for Tekken 5 players here like I remember for SCII. I tried to start up a team several times, posting fliers at local arcades and stuff. I got one phonecall, we made a date to play, and he never showed up or called back. Yaaaaay Xbox Live. Soulcalibur IV (and hopefully Tekken 6!) cannot get here fast enough.[/font][/size]

[font=arial][size=1]You can change your name for 800pts, I think. I know you can do it, I'm just not sure about the amount.[/font][/size]

[font=arial][size=1]There's two 3-D KOF games. I haven't played the first one, but KOF2006 surprised me. It's only like $20 and it's well worth that price at least. The graphics definitely aren't the best, but they didn't sacrifice any of the classic gameplay. And apparently there's a Guilty Gear 2 coming out which looks like (from scans) it plays similar to Dynasty Warriors 2+. Weird. It seriously doesn't look like a fighting game at all, so who knows what to expect. It's in 3-D though. Even if it is some weird kind of gameplay, I doubt they're going to replace their fighter (which is the most popular 2-D fighter in Japan) with this new game.[/font][/size]

[font=arial][size=1]Yeah, I was pretty pissed at how much Tekken 5 stole from Virtua Fighter 4, despite me not liking the VF games much. It just didn't fit well into the game because I never really thought about T5 as much of a Karate game or whatever. Virtua Fighter has a more serious tone (despite the laughs the horrific voice acting gives me). Speaking of, why isn't there a single fighting game with at least decent voice-acting? After my first round of Arcade Mode in most of these games, I switch the audio to Japanese. I mean, you'd think that it would be important enough to these publishers to hire real talent to say words that the gamer is going to hear every uhhh 15-30 seconds. At least if it's in Japanese, you can't tell if it's bad or not. I like to stay ignorant.[/font][/size]

[font=arial][size=1]I don't buy anything really expensive at all, in fact, I rarely end up paying full price for anything. My interests lie in videogames and music, which are dirt cheap compared to uhh... $10k cellos. However, I have bought a whole lot of CD's at one time. It was last year at this show where bands from all over the world were touring together... all over the world and were kind enough to stop by about two hours away from here. These were all favorites of mine, or at least would be by the end of their set, and I would end up buying stuff from them. The place cleaned me out of $200 and I was stuffing my pockets with CD after CD, and I was wearing about five bands' T-shirts. I realized what I was getting myself into when I had to start borrowing a 2nd friend's purse, hahahaha! But I certainly don't regret that. I'm still happy I got all that stuff there and not from the internet or something. I was paying $5-$7 for a cd instead of $12-$15 for shipping it here. And all that stuff is sooooo good. :D[/font][/size]

[font=arial][size=1]I'm surprised no one's mentioned Tony yet. [b]Semjaza[/b] is one of the few members who has stuck around since pretty much the beginning. He's succumbed to the desire to leave that everyone here has undoubtedly faced several times, but he always returns rather quickly. He served on the staff and cleaned up some nasty stuff that proves he's a braver man than most, as well as created the most successful OB spin-off (term used lightly), Group Sounds. Of course, all of this stuff doesn't necessarily make a good member. What does is his ability to bring reason to any thread spiraling out of control. He's well-informed and calm, and when he speaks his mind, people know to listen and trust him. When something requires honesty, he has a total no-******** attitude. He can also be funny without even trying, and he respected me thinking that I was a new member. It's pretty safe to say that Tony's existence here has definitely improved OB in some way.[/font][/size]

[font=arial][size=1]The main thing that contributes to my losses in these games is that I'm very used to playing with people who actually know what they're doing. When I play against people who just button mash, I tend to lose because I'm not used to fighting someone who is so erratic, I'm used to being able to guess what people are going to do and counter it. It's literally to the point that my friend Brad would beat me all the time in SCII until he got used to the game. He bought it for his GameCube and he's like "I'm getting the hang of it now!" and I'd start kicking his *** more often.[/font][/size]

[font=arial][size=1]Yeah, Soul Calibur III turned all of my good characters into crap. I really thought that everything in the console version of SCII was perfect, but in the arcade, they completely ruined Ivy by taking out moves until she was completely worthless, and then they separated all of her good moves into stances so that she, being a slow enough character to begin with, had to take even longer to set up her moves. They arguably made Talim a little better, but that's hard to say. It just annoyed me how much they changed all of the characters, but whatever, it'd be a better game to me had I not put so much effort into II.[/font][/size]

[font=arial][size=1]I'm pretty amazing at fighting games, and I usually have to walk away from arcade machines because I just... don't lose. I played Tekken 5 in a mall once while my friend was shopping in Victoria's Secret, and I literally kept her for almost two hours beating people who were forming a line to try and beat me. I've played against some of the best in my state and beat most of them. Other than Tekken 5, my favorites include any of the older King of Fighters games (don't make me choose, they're all pretty much the same!), the Street Fighter III games although I've only ever seen one in an arcade once, and Soul Edge/Blade/Calibur. I never liked the Virtua Fighter games beyond the first couple, and Dead or Alive 4 is just now growing on me. I, like everyone else, hate the AI in the game, so I can really only tolerate multiplayer, but I'm still unlocking stuff like Tengu.[/font][/size]

[font=arial][size=1]Guys, guys. Come on! You've already had your long-*** Zelda argument.[/font][/size]

[font=arial][size=1]Well, the end of James' piece is a little too crazy for me to take off from, so if it's up to me, I don't mind taking my chances with yours. :)[/font][/size]

[font=arial][size=1]I saw 65daysofstatic live the other day. I've never had more fun in my life. I bought all their CD's, too. ^_^ And yeah, Godspeed is one of those bands that I can't just sit down and listen to. It's amazing background music, though. I always put them on when I'm cleaning my room/house, haha. But I could seriously listen to A Silver Mt. Zion all day. 65days, too.[/font][/size]

[font=arial][size=1]So for all you guys who like quiet, emotive stuff with weird instruments, you need to check out [b]Godspeed You! Black Emperor[/b] and [b]Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band[/b] (usually shortened to A Silver Mt. Zion or The Silver Mountain Reveries). The quick story behind these bands (and I'm going to use a lot of abbreviations) is that GY!BE contains a lot of members who go off on their own little projects, but when ASMZ broke off from them, they decided to play songs in a different format and include vocals in the form of chanting. ASMZ was successful enough to break out of GY!BE's shadow and they produced some seriously amazing records. I can understand why a lot of people would be too impatient for Godspeed on the other hand, their songs are seriously epic. Their songs frequently go past the 20-minute mark and they made a release that is 2 CD's or 4 LP's. The songs build up really slow and are comprised of shorter movements. Usually what happened in their live performances is that instead of playing an entire song, they would play a series of movements from different songs and improvise to blend one movement into the other. Usually, during the build-up, they take sound clips that they recorded, usually people (and sometimes poets) talking about things that annoy them about their government and society, and by the end of the clip the crescendo occurs, if there happens to be a distinguishable one in the song. A Silver Mt. Zion, on the other hand, feels a lot more natural and organic. The songs are shorter, not really going past ten minutes. None of the members are exactly singing experts, which makes what they have to say sound sincere, and that's the quality I like about them the most. They're kind of the midpoint between what you normally listen to and what Godspeed sounds like, so I'd recommend these guys first. Definitely check out "God Bless Our Dead Marines." I've listened to some Blind Guardian before and I just couldn't get into it. I think that a lot of the stuff that I listen to makes a lot of (textbook...?) metal bands sound cheezy. Maybe it's just power metal in general, though.[/font][/size]

[font=arial][size=1]My parents censored everything for me until I hit middle school and me being sheltered just wasn't working, heh. So after that, my parents never really cared what I watch, what I listen to, what games I play, etc. When I would buy anime things, they would try to convince me not to buy it, but it was never like "Put that back!" One day, my mom cracked and wanted to watch whatever my favorite anime was. I decided to play nice and watch Cowboy Bebop with her. She enjoyed some aspects of it, but didn't really want to go any farther than episode 2. Since then, she's been more understanding, especially since I got myself wrapped up into my artwork.[/font][/size]

[font=arial][size=1]Dialects have nothing to do with stupidity, ignorance, and l33tspeak. :)[/font][/size]

[quote name='Premonition'][COLOR="Navy"][B]Breaking Benjamin[/B] - I love Breaking Benjamin, people say it's Metal, but I really don't consider them that at all. They have some pretty good lights though. tought I'd get a seizure at they're concert! I've gotten a little more into Disturbed recently though. BB just might become a number two for me.[/COLOR][/QUOTE] [font=arial][size=1]Both of those bands are #2 to me. ;) I actually have Disturbed's first demo. They're apparently from North Carolina and record stores around here were selling their demo tapes. It had "Stupefy" and some other song. The important thing is, I liked them when I was in uhhh... fourth grade, man. At least they have a pretty unique sound, though. I can't even tell Breaking Benjamin from the rest of the radio. They're probably Nickelback, too. I don't know how ANYONE EVER could possibly call them metal. The difference between radio hard rock and real hard rock (check out [url=http://myspace.com/panthers][b]Panthers[/b][/url]) for me is that mass audiences who listen to pop music intermingled with rock listen to the words moreso that the music. So these bands muffle the guitars, etc. and turn the vocals up. Grr! So I hate any band that does that. I'm lookin' at you, Breaking Benjamin, Hinder, Crossfade, and Seether.[/font][/size]

[font=arial][size=1]With the prices of used GameCube consoles around here, you could probably trade in a PS2 [i]game[/i] for one. There's a used books/movies store here that sells GameCubes for $35. I got mine for $60 years ago. Aside from that, I can't even think of a game for the GC worth buying other than the ones already mentioned. I personally don't like the system for much other than Metroid Prime and the occasional Smash Brothers battle, but I'd rather be playing Metal Gear (rimshot) and Tekken, respectively.[/font][/size]

[font=arial][size=1]I hate it when people take me seriously at the wrong times. Same goes if I'm being serious about something and they think I'm kidding. I hate it when people don't know how to take a hint. I hate it when people take my stuff and play monkey in the middle with it. I hate it when people pay for stuff for me, like when we go out to eat. I hate it when people IM me and expect me to carry the conversation, it's like "why did you IM me in the first place?" I hate it when people pray for me in a bad way. I think that only exists in this general area, though. I can't even explain it, because I don't understand it. There's more, but I don't want to rant too much, hahaha. With my last breath, I curse Zoidberg! Oops, wrong show.[/font][/size]