Bloodseeker

Bootlegs are always illegal. That's what a bootleg is, an illegal copy sold without the owner's permission. Its just that when there's no company in your country to come after you for selling bootlegs of their property, and when the makers overseas couldn't care less because those bootlegs won't be effecting their sales anyways, its more of a technicality than a serious issue.

I didn't care much for the interviewer. He didn't know how to pry (squeezing information is his job as an interviewer), and he laughed at nothing way too much. As for the news, I've been saying from the beginning that Evangelion isn't going to require much in the way of editing. The only scenes that I see being edited are the scene is Rei's bedroom in episode five and the fight with the sphere-shaped angel. The rest of it should be able to get past the censors with no problems. And who knows, maybe the AS staff will be able to convince the top brass to let those scenes slide too. As for Eva's timeslot, I'm a little worried that it might kill what could be a huge AS fan favorite on par with Inuyasha and Fullmetal Alchemist. I've been hearing people say that they can't stay up until 12:30 in the morning on weeknight to watch Evangelion. Granted, at least 1/4 of those people are going to record Evangelion in one way or another, but those without a DVR or a user-friendly VCR might not feel like setting up their VCRs to record Evangelion. But maybe I'm worrying over nothing. AS did get big before they aquired Saturdays, so maybe Eva will still gain a huge fan following amongst cable-only anime viewers.

I just got done watching the first DVD... as I've done in the past, my first impressions: 1. This show doesn't really remind me of Noir. This show seems set to become brutal in the later episodes, where as Noir seemed to have somewhat of an aversion to direct brutality. (i.e. they didn't show Kirika stabbing that guard's eye out, but instead just showed you enough that you got the idea) Gunlinger Girl also seems to focus more on relationships between the characters. 2. Triela is my favorite so far, too. Out of the bunch, she seems the most in touch with her surroundings. 3. OMG! RICO KILLED DR. KURAMA! Nana isn't going to be happy about this... watch your back, Rico! 4. Speaking of Rico, something tell me that the Jean is going to get it bad before this show is over. Either that, or his character is going to go through a complete metamorphosis. 5. While the potential loli theme of this show left me skeptical coming in, I really enjoyed this one... I think that I might just add it to my collection.

Its shot down more dreams than a bad economy, been the cause of more degenerates than drugs and alchohol, and has destroyed more lives than 9/11 and Katrina combined. What is it? ...Its bad parenting, and a general support by modern society for those bad parents. Our schools support them, government agencies like the FCC support them, and companies like 4kids have come around to make their job as a slacking overprotective parent easier. Childhood is the stage in a person's life where they learn all of their initial values, skills, and preferences. Think of it as building a house. Until the age of four or so, the foundation is being laid out by the people that surround the kid on the regular basis. The kid watches them and learns from their actions. This is a time when controlling what a kid sees is good. You don't want the house to be built on violence. From the age of five until puberty, the house itself is being built. At this point, the kid has a fair amount of understanding of what he or she is seeing, and begins to build the skills and values that are going to define them as an adult. The things that are introduced to them here are going to play a large role in their life preferences. Kids that are raised around cars are likely to take an interest in them, kids that are placed on sports teams are more likely to be atheletic, and kids that are raised around lots of technology are likely to be more interested in computers and videogames. (keep in mind that the parents do not make up the entirety of people that make an impact on the kid... friends and teachers make just as large of an impact) But much more important to the point, this is also the time when kids learn their values and many of their essential skills. Kids that aren't forced to work for their rewards are going to expect things for free, kids that don't recieve consequences for breaking the rules aren't going to understand the idea of consequences, kids that don't experience failure aren't going to understand the value of winning and doing well (and are going to be less motivated as a result), and kids that don't experience social hardships aren't going to know how to handle them when they get older. If you raise them in an environment where they're not going to experience any of these things (failure, social problems, work), they're going to turn into slackers that won't know how to handle life when they step out on their own. I'm sure that almost of all of you that are in your late teens to early twenties know, or at least know of, several people that are older than twenty and still living with their parents because they don't feel motivated to step out and step up. The biggest contributer to this mentality of wussification is our schools. Many schools have rules set in place that teach kids not to stand up for themselves. At my old school, if somebody attacked you and you fought back, you were up for expulsion just like the other guy. They'd prefer that you get sent to the hospital. In some schools, the color red has been banned for grading papers because "its a negative color that represents failure". What would you call getting a question wrong on a test? That's definitely not success. And what about including every kid in that award ceremony? Including the ones that didn't do any homework? They didn't do anything to deserve that award. Same thing with that kid that sucks at soccer and still got a spot on the soccer team. I've even heard of schools that have rules that prevent kids from excluding another kid in social activities. You know that guy that annoys the hell out of you? You can't ditch him, nor can you tell him to go away. That's grounds for suspension. If that kid wants to join you and your friends in a round of Halo, he's going to have to gain your aproval by learning to not be so annoying. That's life. A society free of social problems and failure is not. Now all of this isn't to say that person can't change once they hit the age of 21. But just like adding a fireplace and an extra room on a house, it would have been much easier on them if it had been added during the building stage, and chances are that the price wouldn't have been so high.

I ended up buying a DS because of this... the controls actually aren't all that awkward. I was just turned off by the Metroid demo. Too bad I'm going to have to pirate FF7: Advent Children now.

What is all of this BS that I've been hearing? People are attacking medical workers and police/military personnel that are working to rescue the refugees in the area... WHY? Even a big disaster like this one doesn't justify people shooting at people that are trying to help.

What's wrong with the ending? It wrapped things up. [spoiler]Keitaro started his life as an archeologist and married Naru.[/spoiler] What more was there to tell? I do feel kind of sorry for him though... [spoiler]his wife won't even let him touch her![/spoiler] [color=darkblue][size=1][b]In the future, [i][u]please[/i][/u] use spoiler tags when you reveal the ending of an entire series. Thanks. -Lady K[/b][/size][/color]

[url=http://ds.ign.com/articles/645/645544p1.html][color=red]The next Lunar game is for the DS![/color][/url] That's right, Lunar is going to that one handheld system with the awkward controls that put the N-Gage to shame! If they were going to put it on a handheld, why couldn't they at least move it to the PSP?! Sony is the bigger gaming power anyways, and therefor the more stable partnership! Hopefully this is just a side show before they reveal Lunar 3 for the XBOX360 or the PS3.

For long, drawn out fights? Yu Yu Hakusho completely crushes DBZ, especially in the Dark Tournament saga. Its much more interesting to watch the character manipulate their spirit energy in different way to create unique attacks rather than seeing DBZ character use their energy to create the exact same effects over and over again in either the form of energy blasts (in various shapes, colors, and sizes) or some sort of power up. Naruto seems like it might be pretty cool too. For short, intense fights, both Fullmetal Alchemist and Cowboy Bebop are pretty good. The fights versus the homunculi and Vicious and the fght against the assassin guy with the regressing mind are the best.

I don't really care about restrictions on internet porn... I'm not a porn addict or anything. What I do care about is a potential snowball effect. If the American government can block porn on the internet, who's to say that they won't be able to regulate internet news sites eventually to block news that makes them look bad? (forget the first amendment... everybody else already has) Or censor sites that end in .com, .gov, or .edu? (not to mention that this sort of control would lead to a crack down on internet piracy... none of us want that) The great thing about the internet is that its an uncensored wide open network that allows you to look at almost anything and talk about anything. If the government interferes, that could change.

What do all of you think of this show so far? I thought that Melvin getting booted so early was funny... he came in talking all big and claiming to be the best and he was the first one eliminted! He suffers from the same weakness that Chris Leben suffered from last year... the guy looked like a great striker and he showed some skill getting out of those holds, but he was too cautious. If he had opened up on Josh Burkman in a flurry of agression when the chances popped up (and there were several chances), he might have just knocked the guy out. Those two that clapsed under pressure and difficulty in the first week were pathetic. If you're not cut out for it, you'll get booted eventually. At least stick around and try, don't go down looking like a weak jackass. Even if you start winning a lot of fights, the big MMA companies are still going to be hesitant to higher because you showed that you were a risky investment by quiting on the job on national television. I liked that they decided to go straight to the fights. The "preliminaries" in the first season really got on my nerves. Its a competition to decide who's going to get a UFC contract, people should only get eliminated by getting beat in the octagon. Good season so far.

Yeah, 18 is a pretty good age. My problem comes with the fact that not all of the restrictions are lifted until 21. So let me get this straight... us 18 year olds can get drafted, we can vote, and we can finally make full contributions to society, but we can't drink, smoke (not that I'd be interested in that), gamble, or go to most adult attractions for another three years. How is that fair? Why should we have to deal with an adult's problems without getting all of the adult privilages?

What's a military there for? Its there to fight the government's wars. Its the government's giant fighting machine. That's what a military is. When you join the military, you know that. And you know that there are risks involved. He was willing to take that risk, and he paid for it with his life. It may sound cold, but that's what it boils down to. If the President spent all of his time talking to the families of every soldier that died in Iraq, he'd be spending all of his time conversing instead of doing his job.

Charles, Gavin, empathy is looking at things from all sides. And from the sounds of things, neither of you are even trying to see things from my point of view and are only trying to get me to see things from grandma's. You guys seem to think that I'm some cynical bastard that can't see and couldn't care less about the suffering of others. You couldn't be more wrong. I consider myself to be compassionate guy when someone is going through legit problems. I could start naming off examples, but then I'd sound like some arrogant self-appointed saint with no proof and I don't want that. You have to understand, this is the only grandma that I've ever known. For the past 18 years, she's whined, she's complained, she's manipulated (I've heard from her brother that she's done that her entire life), and she's done next to nothing to remedy it. Imagine spending 10 years (we'll just say the eight years old is when I really became aware of it) living close to somebody that acts like she's going to die at least once a week, someone that uses that false illness to get out of going to events that are important to the rest of the family, someone that uses those same illnesses to try to force you to follow her selfish will. I'm wrong for being angry at her... for not caring when she continues to whine about nothing? I'm wrong for disliking her for being a constant thorn in my family's (and my) side? I'm wrong for being mad at her for killing my fun and disrupting my life with her crappy attitude? What am I supposed to be, Jesus Christ reincarnated?! I can guarantee you that all of you would hate my grandma if you were in my shoes, hell, 25% of you would probably want to gut her yourself. Frankie sounds like he can vouch for me on that one. Would my anger make more sense to you if I told you that grandma is in superb health for someone of her age? She's never had cancer, her memory is near perfect (my mom calls it a steel trap memory), she's never had a [i]real[/i] stroke or heart attack, and while her bones are kind of weak, they're still strong enough that she can still go places and do things. The only real problem that she has is bad skin. It gets rashes and is really thin... I'm sure that's irritating at the very least, but she makes it sound like she's about to die! And like I've said in past posts, I hear that she's been doing this for 30 years now!

I mainly agree with you Sol-Blade, but there's one point that I'm going to have to disagree with. The head pastor and his ministry are not Jesus. They don't have divine miracles at their disposal to instantly convert non-belivers into lifetime followers. As such, there has to be entry levels if you want to get active in the church. Letting just anybody into a leadership position is grounds for getting the wrong messages across. You have to observe them and make sure that they're fit to lead. Now what I disagree with is excluding certain people from church activities, and honestly, I've never heard of that up until now. If it were back in my church days (I quit going because the church sucked... there were never any fun activities, just hearing the same stories that I'd already heard a thousand times before) and my pastor told the "harlot" that she couldn't go with us to have some fun up in the mountains, I'd have to cuss him out let him know that he's not worthy of being a leader in a house of God with that sort of attitude.

I agree with you part of the way, but... [quote name='Dan L']Personally I think he's acting very Christian. The reason behind that is that a lot of Christians are very, very messed up people. There was once a time when Christians were hated because they were just so damn persistent to preach salvation through this guy who none of the other religions believed was the son of God. And they were loved because they truly did their most to pool together and help each other out, as well as helping the poor. And they were well known for not turning anyone away- in fact one of the main cultural problems with Christianity is that people didn't approve of different classes of people being in the same room.[/quote] Christians are messed up people? Since when? I've known some messed up Christians, but no more than I see in the rest of society. [quote]Whereas these days, it's all "we hate gay people- oh no, no, no.. we [i]love[/i] them, but we [i]hate[/i] what they do!" (or in the case of [url="http://www.godhatesfags.com/"]www.godhatesfags.com[/url], not even that small allowance of love is given) "we don't like this", "we won't stand for that", "you're not allowed in church cos you do this!".. And then there's "If you give God some money, he'll give you 10 times back", "If you recite some crazy little prayer we made up it means you're saved and best of all, you get to spend forever with US!!" (If you see all of the above, it's your cue to start running!).[/quote] That isn't what donations are about. The idea is that churches need money for upkeeping just like every other place in the world. God's love isn't going to magically keep the place clean and prevent dry rot and cockroach infestations... they need to hire janiters for that. As for modern churches turning people away because they don't like the way that they dress or whatever... I've known people that stopped going to church because of that. When you decide that a person that dresses like a goth can't be a Christian, you're placing yourself a few notches above God, and as a church man, you're not supposed to do that, seeing as how the idea of church is that God is the almighty being that will accept anyone that will accept him. [quote]Of course, the main problem with church is that it's inhabited by people. The other main problem is that we have a label "Christian" that we wear with pride. If you're a Christian you get all the perks- you get to be involved in stuff, if you stick with it for a few years you get to lead stuff, and if you're a 50 year old Christian maybe you get to lead a church!.. but if you lead church from a young age, and you're a 50 year old church leader, now that's anointing!!![/quote] Is that any different from the rest of society? You pay your dues in the community, make contributions and encourage people to join, why shouldn't you get some recognition from the rest of the community? [quote]Don't get me wrong. I'm a Christian, and I think God is great. I even think that a lot of Christians are great- I really wouldn't have stuck with this without them. What I don't think is great is stupid theologies and the mentality that Christianity is some kind of league table where everybody's trying to make it into the Most Holy spot at the top of the league, leaving all the others trailing in their wake. Christianity is about being the body of Christ. Everyone helps each other out- if someone's a church leader, that doesn't make him the Holy One of the church, it makes him the one responsible for that church. In other words, it's probably more important that a church is well-led into good teaching (unlike "let's kill that guy!") than that they have a leader who seems to be doing pretty good by himself. Even if the guy has a 25,000 strong church, it does [i]not[/i] make him a good leader. It might just mean he has a lot of people in this God club where everyone's in on this little salvation secret thing.[/quote] That's the whole recognition thing... its not wrong to put somebody in charge if they've been making contributions and pushing the faith. But what is wrong is when they start to view themselves as some giant entity that practically next to God. I've known people that left the church because the guy that ran the place seemed to think that he was holy himself. [quote]Fact is, you can't tell whether someone's a good leader by whether or not they have a big church or they're on TV or whatnot- it's only when they make stupid statements like that that you can tell whether or not they are a good leader. Of course, the majority of people know that, but there seems to be a little Christian myth, that goes "hmm.. he's got a good ministry.. he must be right!!" and a lot of Christians can get ensnared by it. The bible says to weigh up everything that is said to you against everything in the scriptures.. not against the size of someone's ministry...[/QUOTE] Contributions to the faith again... even pastors and evangelists deserve recognition if they make strides towards spreading the faith around society. And did they put that good ministry in place? If so, that makes them a good leader. Good leaders know who to put in charge of what. That's one of the biggest roles of a leader. On the other hand, I always think that its stupid when people assume that someone's right just because they're in a position of power... one of the biggest problems in the US today is that a lot of people just let the government think for them most of the time. It took them until things started going really bad for them to see what was wrong with the war in Iraq... they just assumed that the government had planned everything out perfectly.

Chat rooms are good when you just want to have a random conversation without having to worry about staying on topic... it definitely wouldn't be a bad thing.

I can usually babysit pretty well... all you have to do is wrestle with them and let them play videogames or tell them to play hide and seek in the house once you get tired. What I can't stand is when you're in a public place and parents refuse to discipline their kids when they get out of control. I remember that I was at a boxing event once and the family of one of the boxers that was fighting for the title was sitting right behind us. I can understand if the kids were excited, after all, their dad was up for a major title. But the kids were disrupting the entire area and making it impossible to enjoy the match. "DAAAAAAD!" "SCREAM LOUDER!" "DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD! DAD! DAD! DAD! DAD! DAAAAAAAAAD!" I wanted to turn around and give those kids an early orientation to bare-fist boxing. Of course, there was the mom... "Now, quiet down. There are people in front of you." That's all she did. Ask them to stop. Do you know what a constitutional government is? Kind of an out of the way question, I know, but it has some relevance here. A constitutional government is a government that sets restrictions on what it can do and has a set punishment in place in the case that it tries to overstep its bounderies in the future. Why the latter part? Because without the punishment, the law means nothing. Its a parent's job to uphold their rules... when the kid breaks the rules, there has to be consequences. If there's no consequences, the kid isn't going to care about the rules. If a kid's acting up, its the parent's job to drag them into the back room and give them a spanking, or let them know that they aren't going to get McDonalds later because they aren't behaving properly. And the parents have to be uncompromising with those punishments, or else the kids will think that they can act up as long as they remedy it with good behavior later. Kids aren't as stupid as some parents seem to think...

Lumpy... your dad sounds pretty similar to my grandma, plus the working hard part. Tell him to stop being so paranoid about it... the only reason that I don't tell my grandma that is because she's an old fasion idiot that would blame my mom for raising me wrong if I did. As for my grandma's relationship with the rest of my family, lets just say that my grandma has burned so many bridges with other members with her selfishness and whining that my mom is just about the only one left that's really going to be heart broken when she dies. I have a hard time feeling compassion for somebody that missed my mom's graduation ceremony (for her MBA) because she was "too sick" and then got mad at her when she didn't come over afterwards. And you can't tell her otherwise... there's been a few times where I've told her that she's stepped over the line, and that's when she starts crying and nothing gets through. "I try so hard to be a grandmother!" Shut up, you don't try to do anything but help yourself. She's going to be all but alone when she dies... She's apparently been a selfish manipulative b*tch that whines about everything her entire life, I hear that she's been doing this "I'm so sick and so nervous" and the "I'm not going tomake it to next Christmas" thing since her early 50s, and now she's paying the price. I don't feel sorry for people that bring their problems on themselves and don't do anything to fix them. If she wants my sympathy, she's going to have to earn it by putting on a brave face and thinking of people other than herself for once.

Whoops. :animeswea Well, it sounded like a Middle Eastern country... I was wondering what a middle eastern leader was doing in South America.

Jessica Alba is at her hottest here... too bad she didn't get naked like the directors wanted her to. You know what's really sad? I think that my friend mistook her for Hilary Duff. "Yeah, whup that overrated b*tch's fat *ss!" After the movie: "What are you talking about? Jessica Alba is the hottest actress around!" Anyways, cool movie. This movie was the first in a long time where I absolutely loved the movie and my mom absolutely hated it. I liked the way that the big guy went down. *gets electric chair'D* Is that all you got?

My question is why the hell did the news people need to go and make a big deal out of it? If they hadn't brought it up, I never would have known, and there's a good chance that it never would have reached the middle east and made things even more tense than they already were. Sometimes the stupidity of our news media amazes me...

[quote name='FearTheFluffy']I would, no questions, date Akabane (Get Backers) or Sesshoumaru (InuYasha). They are both very "not the evil, not the good either' kinda charras. Akabane is like me, love to scare people and Sesshomaru, like me, doesn't really care for anyone.[/quote] Unless you're a cute [b]little[/b] girl or a powerful demon that could make a good ally, Sesshomaru woud kill you if you tried to approach him. I've also got to use the anti-stoic argument here... wouldn't it get boring after a while hanging around somebody that was completely passive towards almost everything? No real opinion, no sense of humor, no real emotions... it would be like hanging around a well-made biological robot that didn't take orders. Someone like that wouldn't make much of a companion.

There once was a shepard boy that lived in a small village. One day, he got bored on his shift and decided that it would be funny if he got his fellow shepards into a false panic. "Wolf! There's a wolf attacking the sheep!" The other shepards came running, ready to drive the wolf off. But all they found was the boy laughing. They scolded the boy and made him go without dinner for the night. About a week later, the boy got the same idea again. "Wolf! Its a wolf! Come quick!" Again, the villagers came running. And again, the boy got scolded and deprived of dinner for the night. The next week came, the boy was dozing off in the middle of his shift when he looked up and saw a wolf aproaching the sheep. "WOLF! Guys, I'm serious this time! There really is a wolf attacking the sheep!" But the villagers shrugged it off as another one of the boy's pranks. Nobody came. Faced with no other choice, the boy went to defend the sheep. And that was how the boy met his end. The moral to this story? Never complain about a false threat, because when it actually happens, people might not take you seriously. I have a family member that this holds true to... my grandma. Don't get me wrong, my grandma is in her mid 80s, she has every right to be a little worried about her own health, but she's taken too far. She's been having false heart attacks and various unidentifiable illnesses for as long as I can remember. She's made us cancel our day trips because she got scared over a rash. When we shared a room at the hotel, and she had one of those false heart attacks, she panicked her way over to the cabinet and started waving her hands around while looking for asperin. She tried to stop us from moving to our current home because she was scared that we'd live too far away, despite the fact that my mom had to move because of her job. Now she's trying to stop our trip to Japan in a few weeks because she has a "funny feeling". Coincidentally, we've been getting a lot of calls recently over how she's "so sick and so nervous". Dammit grandma, can't you think of somebody but yourself for more than five minutes?! One of these days, maybe even sometime soon, she's going to have some kind of legit emergency, my mom is going to roll her eyes and tell her to call one of her friends, and the hospital is going to schedule her an appointment with the doctor three hours from then because she's been to the hospital over too many false alarms. My suggestion to grandma: quit now, and people might actually take you seriously when something major happens. (In all honestly, I think that 3/4 of those illnesses are caused by my grandma's paranoia, including all of the false heart attacks... that would explain why her heart hurts, she gets scared and her heart beat goes up.)

Damn, Hogan won. That stupid lobster needs to get his *** squashed and go away for good. Enough is enough, old man.