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[quote name='Godelsensei']I think this mostly springs from Disney, along with the fact that people grow up having pretty much all serious media acted out by real people.[/quote] I don't understand what you mean by this. Certainly Disney has things aimed squarely at kids, but for the most part their classic stuff is directly targetting all ages. I think anyone can appreciate some of their better films. The shorts are a different story, so I don't know. Yet the Mickey Mouse in today's shows is certainly different than the one of decades past. I guess they're part of the reason, but not really any moreso than other studios throughout the decades. I think older Disney shorts appealed to older audiences moreso than what people think of now (same with Looney Tunes)... but everything is skewed nowadays. I do agree with your overall idea though. It makes sense to me. Series are just easiest to market towards kids, I think. Children have time to watch TV almost any hour of the day. Adults tend to watch things during primetime and it's pretty difficult to find any network willing to bet on an animated show in that slot. I guess at some point people decide that they don't want to watch what they watched when they were younger, whether it was good or not. There's really a lot of interesting, small-time animation studios out there that put out some really great, compelling work. Unfortunately, most people are very unlikely to see them because they're not really put out for general consumption. Even channels that were willing to take a chance on weird, original animation (such as Nickelodeon back in the day) wound up surprised at what they got. Its why Ren and Stimpy was so heavily edited years back and why Nickelodeon had so many issues with Invader Zim more recently. It's unfortunate because I think it puts Western cartoons in a very bad position. While there are exceptions (largely thanks to Adult Swim), most of the animation here is in a "can't win no matter what they do" type of situation. It's very hard to expand something when everyone expects it to be a certain way to begin with; it's even more difficult when everyone expects that way to involve marketing to children. By the time a show comes about that is designed for the adult spectrum, I find that it is usually insanely exaggerated or violent. Maybe because it's so hard to get a network to pick these things up that the creators wind up just voicing all their frustrations by making something so ridiculous? I don't know. I think it would be nice if Western animation had more work that was in the middle of the spectrum that took itself more seriously. It's either ridiculous and for kids or ridiculous and for adults. There's very little middle ground

The idea of children growing up with Barbie as some sort of image for them to reach is probably a legitimate one. When that's what you play with all the time, I guess it can have certain affects on your thinking. I understand it in that sense, but it's still never made much sense to me. To me, it's just a toy... I don't know why a girl would strive to be like Barbie in appearance or assumed attitude. I certainly never strived to look like He-Man or the Ninja Turtles. This reminds me of this film I saw in a class awhile back. It was based on the Carpenters (if you don't know them offhand, they did that song that goes "Why do birds suddenly appear") and their lives. Most specifically it dealt with Karen. She had an eating disorder that pretty much ruined her life and eventually took it. Anyway, the film is done with stop-motion animation and everyone is a Barbie doll. I assume this can have multiple implications. Perhaps the people were all fake/"plastic", for example. The main idea it gives across, however, is the idea of the Barbie being taken as an unrealistic image for a living woman to live up to. Anyway, that's nothing new, but I thought the movie was interesting. Apparently it was never really released beyond being traded as a tape since the Carpenters wouldn't let it get out (it uses a lot of music, I assume it's because of the licensing).

[quote name='ThatOneOddDude']THE SCREEN SAVERS DOES NOT EXIST!!!! How many times do I have to say it? It was REPLACED by Attack of the Show, which is much cooler.[/quote] I've already read that the first time you said it and I knew of the change weeks ago. What does it matter if it doesn't exist in name any longer? They retooled the show and changed the name, just like they retooled the show and kept the name before. Who cares, honestly? A dislike of what they've done to the show since its original incarnation is still a decent enough reason to dislike the station, regardless of the name change. They could call it "Farty McCrap" and it still wouldn't affect that. Being much cooler than the last version of the show doesn't take much work. It still is subpar.

I am surprised no one else here is talking about this game. It's probably the best use of the DS's capabilities thus far. I mean, I really enjoyed Wario Ware Touched!, but this game just really is doing something unique and innovative. Just guiding things with the clouds is an interesting idea, but combining it with circling things, dragging them around in bubbles without popping them, tossing things up to bouncw your character up out of harms way, etc... there's just a lot more to it than I initially thought. I read up on that Pictochat Search. Apparently it just alerts you if someone is in Pictochat nearby and let's you leave the game to join the chat. I guess at that point you can talk about playing some game in multiplayer via wireless, but I wish it could be done entirely in game. Maybe in the future with this online thing Nintendo is doing with GameSpy.

Yeah, I know your sports games fetish. I'm not that interested in those lol. A lot of the games that are out for it right now that I would be interested in really don't sound all that hot. Darkstalkers is my favorite 2D fighter series in existance, but I can't deal with 20 second load times when I have decent home versions on my Saturn and Dreamcast. Yeah, it's awesome you can play it on the go, but I don't know. I can't stand the PS2 d-pad as it is and the PSP one looks pretty meh too. I don't like that segmented thing they do with theirs. Untold Legends is apparently very average, although I am sure I'd enjoy it anyway. I always sucked at Twisted Metal lol. Lumines sounds very cool and I know they're different enough to justify both... But from what I've read, Meteos is apparently meatier in terms of content and, very surprisingly, has more in the way of presentation. I think I'll stick with that one for now, but Lumines is still my most wanted PSP game that's out right now. James was telling me about how you two were talking about this Talkman software awhile back. It does sound very interesting and while I'd not buy the PSP based simply on that, it definitely is something I'd pick up if I had the thing. In any case, when Persona hits the PSP, I'll have to buy the thing. I don't see any reason why Atlus wouldn't want to release that in the US. As for the DS, well that's for another thread, but there's actually about a dozen games I know of that are upcoming that I'm very interested int. It's nice that the thing is finally getting into a stride of sorts... The PSP and DS offer things that are very different, which is kind of nice I think. Who knows about the next Game Boy at this point. As for the music thing, you can get a really nice Zen Touch 40 GB for only $300. I doubt I'd bother with a 2 GB card for even more money if I was going to mostly put music on it lol. I had bought a screen protector for my DS the say it came out and I found that it just made the screen too dark. They aren't generally as transparent as you're told. When I pulled it off, it left this sticky residue that I had to remove with Goo Gone (water didn't work). I imagine that could outright ruin the PSP screen if it really is [i]that[/i] fragile. I was reading about this really nice one that's super transparent and thin. If I can find the link, I'll let you know. They make all sorts of sizes for all sorts of devices.

People might be more interested if you gave some sort of explanation of what in the world it is. Not everyone has a fast enough connection to randomly download movies that they don't know the content or filesize of. The name would make you assume it's a fighter, but it seems to be more of a strategy RPG. It's hard to be that interested in it based on this video, I don't feel like it tells you much. I'm not too big on the art style either. I will keep an eye out for it, though.

Well, there is a thread in the PC section, you're probably best off looking that up. Honestly, I felt the game got boring rather quickly. The technical "wow" wears off pretty quickly (I still think everything looks really rubbery) and you're left with a pretty average game. I wasn't expecting something that was full of exploration and puzzles, I expected a new Doom-style game where you basically just run around killing things. You do get that, but for whatever reason it just didn't hold my interest. It's not bad, it's just not great. Maybe that PC expansion pack will be more interesting. I'd have even less interest in the Xbox version. Poorer graphics and no keyboard/mouse don't sound like something that would win me over.

To be fair, the button sticking thing isn't something that happened within a week to the Japanese units. Maybe they fixed it, but who knows. I'd be far more interested if I could afford the thing, but in the meantime I'm going to wait it out. The main game I want at this point, Lumines, apparently isn't quite as good as Meteos (which is from the same guy)... so I can't quite convince myself to drop $300 just yet. The other games thus far haven't really grabbed my attention, although Wipeout Pure does look good. I wasn't amazed by the DS at the time either, but I had the money at the time and it was more of an impulse purchase. Personally, I think I'd be satisfied with the 32 MB card. I have absolutely no interest in watching videos on the thing and I already have an MP3 player. As long as I can fit all my saves on it, I'd be happy. As for the screen, its durability does concern me. I take good care of my other handhelds, but they all seem to get scratched up at some point. If the PSP is as sensitive as it sounds, I don't know how I could possibly keep it in good shape. People were even saying they scratched the screen by wiping it with a cloth. The first thing I would do is just run out and buy one of those screen protectors and never worry about it again lol.

Yeah, it's her. The song is called Hello Tomorrow and apparently was done by a group called Squeak E. Clean... which apparently is just Jonze's brother Sam Spiegal. I looked this up awhile ago and really had no luck finding out any more information than that. It doesn't seem to be readily available anywhere for some reason. According to what I've read, the original version was like three minutes long before it was edited into the commerical.

Looks good to me. The noise goes well with it. I think the man is Shinmaru :animestun

I actually got a letter in the mail from them about replacing it, but I registered my system.

The Judgement Ring in Covenant is not challenging whatsoever and it's used so often that I grew tired of it nearly instantly (especially after finishing the original game over a year in beforehand). It's possibly the most overrated RPG of this generation as far as I'm concerned. It would probably appeal to FF fans, but I really don't understand how anyone can be interested in most of those characters or the plodding story. I enjoyed it at first, until I realized it was going absolutely nowhere. It's like a bad anime that goes on for 300 episodes. The fact that people find it laugh-out-loud funny is even more perplexing, because the humor is more in the lame spectrum than anything else (I do like the wrestler somewhat, I guess he is "funny"). It does, honestly, have some really nice things in its corner, but the overall product really just did not win me over at all. I wrote a review of it here: [url]http://www.wrappedinplastic.net/games/reviews/001419.php[/url] Anyway, Baten Kaitos hardly has the worst battle system ever. People's complaints about it lead to other people to never even try the game. If one doesn't like it, that's fine, but it's nowhere near the "worst" anything. I wish more people would play this game before they dismiss it because it really isn't even comparable to other card RPGs as it is. People make it sound as if there is a million card RPGs but I can barely think of any. Regardless, in Baten Kaitos you form a deck and what cards come up in your hand determine what you can do in the battle. When you use cards, more shift into your hand (the higher your levels the more cards you can use at a time). If you're good at it, you'll rarely have many issues and form lots of combos and morph cards into their better forms. It doesn't work like Magic or Yu-Gi-Oh or anything and it's certainly more interesting than picking from a list of static skills. The game also cares quite a bit about what element your attacks consist of and adds it all up accordingly. Fire and Ice will cancel eachother out if you use them in the same turn, for example.\ FFX's was okay. I guess switching characters out at random is exciting for a FF game, but this had been done in RPGs since the early 90s. The Sphere Grid was cool, but that doesn't really have much to do with the actual battle system... just more to do with the character customization. As for FFXII, I'm looking forward to it, but games have had onscreen enemies and changing appearances for the main character depending on equipment since the earliest RPGs. Other aspects of it might be interesting, but those listed ideas certainly won't make it the best.

[QUOTE=Shinmaru]The few episodes of Icons that I've seen have been pretty cool. I enjoyed watching X-Play when it was Extended Play, and Kate Botello was hosting the show with Adam Sessler, but the show went downhill after the name change. I haven't watched it in a long, long time, so I have no idea whether it's still the same at the moment. Those are the only shows that I've ever bothered to watch on TechTV.[/QUOTE] I liked Extended Play... Now it's if they told the hosts to be "cool", which they're simply not capable of. I like Sessler, but he's a total dork with a funny voice, making him act edgy doesn't work. The girl (I forget her name) seems to put on this act where she acts ditzy and innocent, yet knows just what to say about the games. Bleh. I cringe through most of it when I happen to catch it on TV. I don't totally hate the show, they gave SMT: Nocturne a 5/5. Also, Tommy Talarico is a total goon that thinks way too highly of himself.

The Screen Savers was actually intelligent and had good information when it was on Tech TV. Perhaps it was always "lame", but now it's just useless and crappy.

They ruined The Screensavers. X-Play has gotten even more lame than I ever imagined it would. All the other shows are not even worth discussing. The only exception is Icons, which I think is well done and enjoyable.

I'm obviously not as far as you are, but I'm already not very big on Arabella myself. Even compared to Lady Pole, who was largely just a character that was talked [i]about[/i] (she never really said much of anything, honestly), I have had no real interest in the character. She does seem strangely underdeveloped, even compared to some of the more minor side characters. However, I'm not sure how much characterization she needs. Despite Strange's interest in her, it seems as though she is largely just a force meant to push him on in some ways. She kind of seems like a goal, something to attain, moreso than someone who's personality is important to the story. I don't even know how well I'm explaining this. Not well at all, probably lol But as I said, I'm not finished with the book, so I could be missing a lot yet.

I have owned a Sony computer for years and I have never once used the memory card stick port. I really don't like the idea of having to use a card that works only with Sony devices. I just use this USB 2.0 adapter I have for my SD cards (that tons of companies use, thankfully). I think it's cool that the PSP even has the option and it opens the door for lots of neat things (and also bad viruses, the PSP has already had some in Japan). I think there will be some great uses for it in games though (I don't particularly care about movies and music personally, I have a hard drive MP3 player). As for the price, obviously the bundle raises it, but you're listing retail prices for these things. Including them in the package does not cost Sony an extra $100 worth of their own money (especially when they own the rights to Spider-Man 2, which most definitely would not cost $40 on a UMD -- no one would buy it).

I've not finished this book yet, but I very strongly believe that it is already my favorite book in existance. I don't how valuable that title may be to some people considering I don't read much or post in here very often. My favorite book prior to this was The Phantom Tollbooth and my favorite series consists of the Narnia books, so take that as you will. Anyway, as you should know by now, the book is called Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel. It was written by Susanna Clarke in 2004. I picked it up late last year on a whim. Something about the silver printing on a completely black cover caught my eye and the comments on the back were positive. Comments on the backs of books are always positive, but this was one of the few times when those comments were actually by people I knew of and respected (Neil Gaiman, for one). I decided to buy it. It's about 800 pages, but it's divided into three "books" that more or less focus on three different characters. The main idea of the story is about a revival of true magic in England in the early 1800s. It had basically been dead for a couple of centuries, the only remaining magicians simply just studied it in a scholarly manner. Mr. Norrel gains prestige for being the only man who really does know magic and can cast it... or so he thinks at the time. At first I was kind of mixed about the book. The first several chapters, while interesting, read very slowly. I'd read maybe ten pages or so at a time and then put it down. I don't know what the issue was, I think it was just that the writing is a bit more proper than I am used to. There's also a lot of introductions and other information used basically to back up the rest of what happens in the story. During this time, some magic appears in the book that gives you a very nice idea of what you'll be getting into later. By the time magic itself becomes a more and more commonplace in the story, I was totally engrossed by it. I read several chapters a night, if I can and I find myself more and more interested the further I get into it. I think that's part of what makes it so interesting. It is written so dryly and a lot of the characters are such "gentlemen" that when the magic does come, it feels incredibly important, unique and, well, [i]magical[/i]. I find most books that deal with magic and magicians usually are completely fantastical. That's not true of this book. It's deeply rooted in reality (well, "reality" in terms of the world it is about), which just makes the fantastic ten times more fantastic than it would be otherwise. Clarke makes use of tons of footnotes, some short, some a couple of pages long. They're generally very interesting (and optional, really), but they really enhance the realism of the story. Anyway, I don't know what else to really say at this point, but I completely recommend the book. It's excellent.

I tend to agree with what that girl in your class does, really. Dialogue allows so many things that typically might not be allowed. That's what makes it interesting. In general writing, I try to avoid using contractions outside of the dialogue, but in the end, does it hurt anything? Some writing more or less requires it, but it feels out of place in other writing. Sometimes I think that just makes things seem far more stuffy than they should be taken. The last question you posed also interests me. Rules can be good things, but at some point they need to be (and likely should be) broken. Again, I think a lot of this just depends on the tone of what is being written. If what I'm writing is just something that's supposed to be "me", why would I write in the most correct, accepted style if that's not how I think? People don't generally think in complete, proper sentences (well, I don't anyway). To write any other way seems less "correct" when I think about it in that sense. I guess there's a time and a place for everything.

So after all this time, has anyone in the US actually picked one up? I haven't really looked, although I've seen a couple in passing. Some kid was playing one on the train and some guy was carrying his around Best Buy for some reason (I guess he wanted a case for it).

I find that many suicides I hear about often involve someone who does have family that care about them or whatever else. I think a lot of the time the person who kills themselves likely hasn't thought about the consequences these things can have on the people in their life, whether they find themselves important or not. People just need to talk about feelings more, I think. I've never seriously thought about killing myself. There have been times where I'd think "what would happen if I did?", but it's only morbid curiousity of the unknown, nothing more. I never could, regardless of how bad things may get, but I can also understand how someone would think it's the only way to go for them. I'm not these people, I can't know entirely what is in their minds. I'd rather run away or reinvent myself or really try to fix my problems. There seems to be so many better things to do when I think about it. They all require more work, but I don't know that they'd be any more difficult. In general, I don't think it makes anyone "pay". If someone makes your life miserable, they likely won't get overly worked up once you're gone. If anything, I'd think it would be letting them win. Giving another person that much power over myself is not something I let happen, personally... but I also haven't been in absolutely terrible family senarios either. I think one of the biggest annoyances is the amount of people online who seem to embrace suicidal things as their "image". There's so many people who write or post all over the place that seem to use it as if it is fashionable... at the same time having no real problems of their own to speak of.

I picked this up today and I was wondering who else has gotten it so far. I know Shinmaru mentioned that he had it. Anyway, the game more or less based off of Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island. Mario/Luigi falls from the sky. You draw lines of clouds to guide them through the sky, avoiding obstacles and collecting as many coins as possible. After a while, he lands on Yoshi's back, leading to the second aspect of the game. Here you can draw clouds for Yoshi to walk on, tap Yoshi for him to jump and tap the screen to have him toss an egg in that direction. He walks automatically; the game is kind of on "rails" in that sense. I was playing this game in the most basic sense at first because I didn't bother to read the manual. Eventually I remembered seeing enemies being circled in an old video I saw, so I tried that. If you circle an enemy properly, they turn into a bubble with a coin inside of it. These float up and away, but you can hit them with an egg to catch them or drag them to your character... Once I realized that I was doing a lot better. There is no story beyond this. The levels aren't really set in a normal sense. In one mode, you go through an area trying to get the highest score you can in a set travel distance. In another, you try to finish the area as fast as possible. Another mode is endless, allowing you to try and get the longest distance you can without being defeated. It's more of an arcade style game. High scores and mulitplayer kind of stuff. I'm having a lot of fun with it. I was wondering, has anyone tried this "Pictochat Announcement" thing that it shows? No one is around for me to play with, but this makes it seem that it alerts you as to whether or not another DS is nearby in Pictochat mode that might be willing to play with you. If so, that's pretty awesome and I'm glad they've started doing that.

I've said this before, but I think American Dad simply existed because Family Guy was going away and McFarlane new it. Usually when a show ends, that's it. American Dad was in the works before Fox was planning on bringing Family Guy back. I think that's why they're so similar... they weren't meant to be aired together. I don't think anything is going to change in terms of Family Guy. It will likely be different because of how long its been since there's even been a new episode, but I don't think it will be different because McFarlane wants to appease some sort of new crowd or that he'll feel more "comfortable". That doesn't even really make sense in theory, honestly. The show is successful because of what it was, why would he feel any need to change anything or be less racy? He's not the only writer on the show and I think episode quality fluctuates even in the three seasons that are out already... There's too many factors. Besides, Fox only ordered so many episodes. There's always a chance they'll cancel it again (or even during) that run if for some reason it doesn't get a sizable viewership... which is possible considering how often Fox moves stuff around. I don't think he'd feel any more comfortable than he did before, really.

[quote name='EVA Unit 100']OK. If anime girls are sexist, Betty Boop is pornography.[/quote] If you think that you've not seen enough anime lol. I think there are a lot of anime that kind of fit into the description of the first post, but I don't think they're the majority. Kind of going with what Dagger said, I find that the most exaggerated ones often appear in comedic anime, which are probably somewhat offensive to everyone just because that's what they want to be. I don't own any anime that feature breasts flopping around or lots of other sexual connotations without reasoning. There's certainly a lot out there that doesn't fall into that grouping. I think it's kind of in the same vein as someone thinking all anime is hentai, but just more specified.

Usually I take reviews with a grain of salt, but this one has really been pretty much universally panned. It's a shame something related to this series has turned out to be such a mess. I've not played it, so I can't give you personal opinion, but I'm not going to waste my money. At least Shining Force on my GBA is good.