Semjaza

A lot of this really never has made sense to me. I don't want to claim to be one of those liars who says "I don't see color, I only see people!" (although I'm pretty near to that, I feel), but the idea of someone preferring one thing to another because of their race is just ludicrous. If anything, it's a question of what sort of area and influences you've had during your upbringing. It reminds me of that movie with Dan Akroyd and Eddie Murphy, Trading Places (or something like that). The movie has a bit of a different spin on it than this, but it still applies well enough. A child brought up in the projects is more than likely going to be very different from one brought up in the suburbs, unless they feel some need to identify with the stereotypes of their race (or even another in some cases) for whatever reason. I guess I do a lot of typical "white" things, but I do a lot of things that don't exactly fit in that grouping either. It's so generalizing that I don't even see a need or reason to define anything through it.

[QUOTE=Final Remix][COLOR=Blue][FONT=Comic Sans MS] I win. My first gaming purchase was Sonic the Hedgehog for the Genesis. I bought it because of gameplay, believe it or not... My mother already owned 2 NES's, each Atari Model, and a Coleco. At a local dept. store called Clover, they had a "New!! Sega Genesis! Check it out!" display hooked up on a big-screen monitor in the back of the T.V. section. I got through the first act of the first zone, and I was hooked.[/FONT][/COLOR][/QUOTE] I don't really think someone who obviously grew up with games around him in the sense you did really fits into the type of person I was thinking of. You might not have bought those things your mother had, but they certainly affected the way you approached future purchases. Many people do not have that luxury.

I think everyone judges by looks to some capacity. I don't believe anyone that says they don't, unless they're legally blind. I think what makes the difference is how you let this judgement affect your attitude towards and decisions involving that said person. Everyone has first impressions, first judgements. It doesn't mean they have to be final or affect how you treat that person. That same idea kind of goes into art and music and other such things, I think.

[quote name='Billy Shears][B]Generic NPC #3[/B], John Lennon had a portable record player that played records at a 90 degree angle. It held about 40 singles and could switch on command, flip sides; stuff you think a normal record player couldn't do, let alone a portable. My cousin had a multi-changing record player, but he dropped coffee on it one day :animeangr .[/SIZE'][/COLOR][/quote] Well, for singles, I might as well just get a jukebox in that case lol. I'm thinking more in line with what my grandpa has, which can hold five of any size record and move them around all by itself. I never thought it would be that annoying, but flipping over and changing a 2+ disc album is obnoxious.

[quote name='Panda']If you have ever worked with the public you have put up a front. Your boss wants a happy face for the customers so even if you are stressed out about school, feel sick, have sore feet and are dealing with family problems you have to put on the act like you are happy and pleased as punch to be there working.[/quote] Yeah, I thought of this when I was reading the thread earlier. A lot of the people I'm nice to I'd much rather be beating the crap out of, metaphorically speaking. It's just kind of required. I don't feel I'm not being myself, however. I wouldn't go as far as calling it a "front", actually. I'm normally a very polite person, I think. It's just you have to keep that up longer than is generally humanly possible. If I don't like you, I don't really try to cover it up. As far as anything beyond that, no. I'm pretty happy with the messed up thing I am at this point in time. I imagine it would be fun to fake accents at parties, though.

You're either new or your not. I prefer it simple and think the custom title more than suffices, personally.

Collection worth really depends on how much stuff is in there and what exactly it is. A majority of records are worth close to nothing, but added up I could probably even get a few hundred dollars for what I have... I don't keep up on what is worth what, but you can generally assume you'll at least get a few bucks if you sold it. I used to collect picture discs. For those that don't know, they're vinyl records with images printed directly on them. They aren't made all that often, but they're not completely uncommon either. Most of these just sit around until I find a way to frame them. I have well over 100 records I would guess, but I have no clue how many. Many of these belonged to my father, so I have a lot of Jethro Tull, Judas Priest and other 70s/80s focused rock band records. My mom also recently gave me her collection from when she was a kid, which is mostly a lot of really random cartoon and child themed recordings like stuff from Ernie and Bert or Disney soundtracks. As for stuff I've bought myself, I don't have tons. I have a variety of singles, mainly. Some harder to get indie type releases and other spur of the moment purchases like Hope of the States and Moving Units. I am very happy with my turntable. It's one of those standalone units. At some point I'd like to get one of those that can switch between five discs and flip sides automatically, but for now I just have a normal single. I think the sound I get out of it is a bit more warm than I'm used to with my standard stereo. Whether or not there really is any difference, who knows, it might just be all in my head. My main interest in records, personally, is stuff that for whatever reason doesn't make it to CDs (sometimes vinyl versions have extra tracks for some reason ... Like NIN's The Fragile) and the massive artwork. A lot of them are very nice for framing.

[url]http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=816&e=3&u=/ap/20050304/ap_on_re_us/brf_school_tantrum[/url] I thought this story was interesting. Sure the kid was a brat, but criminal charges seem somewhat excessive to me. Who knows.

[quote name='elfpirate][b']Um... no offense, but an asexual is a being that can reproduce on its own.[/b][/quote] Hey, that was what I was going to say! Anyway, I don't see the problem. Maybe you're just not all that interested in girls yet, maybe you're not interested in them in general. I tend to find that I'm not very attracted to the accepted ideas of "hot" anyway. At least compared to any of my friends. I'm more into normal cute type girls than the model type. Perhaps that's even the issue, who knows.

[QUOTE=EVA Unit 100]Force them to watch Castle in the Sky. Seriously, it is perfect. It's serious enough to disprove the Yu-Gi-Oh stereotypes, lighthearted enough to disprove the hentai stereotypes, exciting without being scary, emotional without being depressing, funny without being wacky, artistic without being pretentious, there is no way someone could hate that movie![/QUOTE] Most of this time this does not work. We had to watch it in my Mythology and Pop-Culture class and most of the students were bored out of their minds. Many talked afterwards about how lame it was. Some people just didn't even like the animation style, even though it's honestly more like traditional Disney stuff (and obviously older Miyazaki stuff) than the anime of today. I've shown it to other people and have gotten pretty much the same response. In some ways I can understand it, even though I enjoy the film (Miyazaki has far better stuff as far as I'm concerned anyway). I think most anime is absolutely terrible personally and I have been watching the stuff since I was a small child. It's not a conclusion I came to quickly or based on little experience. I find the good stuff to be a rarity, same with any medium. As for the people who love downloading fansubbed anime, it's just an excuse to not have to pay for stuff as far as I'm concerned. The chance of any anime changing on its way here is close to zero at this point. Dubs don't matter much when DVDs allow multiple audiotracks and subtitles (and honestly, these translations are generally more correct than the fan ones). It's a dead issue. I've read a lot of recent articles about how most Japanese animators and creators are actually upset about this whole Western fansubbing underground. Some have even formed organizations to help fight it and voice their disapproval. There's a few that seemingly approve of it, but they seem to be in the minority.

[quote name='Manic Webb']It'll be Superman's return to action. Return from what? I have no idea.[/quote] Hopefully a return from the last sucky movie into something halfway decent again. I'm not a big fan of Superman at all (or even really a small fan), but it would be nice to see him in a halfway decent film.

[QUOTE=Boo][color=gray][size=1]Can you guys only think of the matrix and Jurassic Park all of a sudden? I thought lion king 2 wasn't very great ;_; The music is really cool though. It's just cause the storyline was cheesy. All the disney sequals are mostly Bullpoop. Which doesn't care because I never watch them ofcourse >_>; [/color][/size][/QUOTE] All those Disney sequels were already mentioned, it's not just about those other films lol. All of the direct-to-video sequels are terrible, really. Roy Disney and other shareholders seem to realize this and I expect it to change once Eisner is gone... if things go according to plan anyway. They seem to want to return to the idea of Disney releases being special and not so commonplace and unimportant.

I think marriage is rather unimportant in my life. If people choose to be a part of it and form that type of union, then awesome. I'm not judging the decisions of anyone else. I just don't see any emotional/spirtual need for myself. I'm not a spiritual person in the first place, the religious/spiritual/etc function of marriage doesn't affect me. To me, if you really love someone marriage isn't automatically the next logical step. It doesn't make you stay with them longer, it doesn't make the bond any stronger if you loved the person enough in the first place. I think that if I'm in truly love with someone, that's enough. Maybe the thought of actual true love just means more to me or something. It's automatically monogamous, it's automatically something I'd work on the best I can and it's automatically something that means very much to me. Giving that the title of "marriage" would serve no purpose. The only real reason I'd get married is because it's the only way you can ensure a lot of shared things such as insurance... and that's just the legal type. If a girl I was with wanted to get married in other senses and felt very strongly about it, then I would do it because it is important to her. That's more important to me than my own strange thoughts on the subject.

I really wanted to like Mech Assault and really looked forward to finally playing it. By the time I did, I just wasn't that impressed. It didn't do anything I hadn't seen before and it wasn't that amazing. I was kind of disappointed. Maybe I just needed to spend more time with it. I used to play Mechwarrior 2 way back on the PC. I had a lot of fun with that game, even though it was ugly as sin and a pain in the *** at times. Incredibly slow paced most of the time, but it did what it did well.

I got the demo from Sony in the mail. If you're into Devil May Cry style games, you'd be into this too. It did feel farily repetitive even in just the short time I played it, though. I doubt the final game will have as much of a problem because of cutscenes, new areas and so forth. The story does involve killing Ares for whatever reason, which makes no sense to me, but whatever. Game really is pretty damn good looking though. I was impressed with a lot of the modeling, particularly when you get to battle the various heads of the Hydra.

My father died in 1989. I was around seven at the time (my birthday was in a month) and my little sister was five. I was first told by someone who was staying at our house for the night. I don't know his real name, I think it's John, but everyone just called him Low Rider. My dad was a biker and a member of ABATE, I was used to these nicknames. My mom wasn't around by that point of the morning, I assume she was at the hospital. My dad was in a motorcycle accident. When he told me I just went in the bathroom and locked it. I didn't cry, but I think I was in some form of denial. It didn't make any sense to me because I had just seen him the night before (in fact, I slept in my parents' room that night). I didn't believe he died and I don't think I really accepted it, even after we went to the wake. My sister was far more affected by it than I was. I don't want to make it seem like my father was abusive because he really wasn't, but he definitely liked my sister more. She was the one that was taken places and played with all the time. I don't remember my childhood being bad in any way and I loved my dad, but tmy two main memories about him were 1) when he threw out some of my toys because of reasons I still don't know and 2) when he lied to me about getting ice cream. She's still kind of affected by it, whereas I don't really feel much at all. The whole Church thing was crazy though. My mom said it was the second biggest funeral she's ever been to, the first being for my Grandpa Roti who was Sheriff Deputy of Chicago for quite some time. There was a massive banquet hall and probably hundreds of people. We even got a handwritten card from Mayor Daley. I've still not cried about him dying. It's not that I don't miss him, it's just that the time I would have normally spent mourning was mostly spent in one form or another of denial. I've since gotten much more upset over the passing of other family members.

The game really is beautiful. The lower resolution coupled with that glowy haze that covers everything really combine into something that I think is very impressive. I enjoy it because it's deceptively simple. You're not required to press a ton of buttons, what is required of you feels natural. It kind of reminds me of those old Prince of Persia or Flashback games. I do kind of think it's overrated in some senses, but that's true of almost any game. It's a shame it didn't do as well as it should have, but at least the developer is doing other things.

There's "casual" consumers in every market. Music, art, video, etc. Even if they are attracted to games for different reasons, I'm not understanding what how it is hurtful to those in the "hardcore" segment. There's always going to be companies that go for style over substance (if even that, since there's a lot of games that are simply "me-too!"). They've been around since games came into existance, all the way back to text based PC games. Little has changed in that sense. Furthering that, there's always been poor movie based games, poor games in general. They didn't start with the Playstation or even the SNES or NES. Just like there's always been poor novels and films. Not everything is done with pure intentions. People buy into marketing, it's why it's such a successful profession in the first place. Companies spend a lot of money just to claim those impulse purchases. As for graphics, I think that they're always going to be at the forefront because they're the easiest things to convey. Generally, the first way someone is introduced to a title is through trailers or screens. I think it's just a natural human idea to be drawn to things one considers attractive, the rest comes afterwards. Obviously if you keep up on news, some little tidbit of a game might get you interested as well... but for someone who doesn't, I completely understand it. The only way you'll really learn that not all pretty games are good games will be once you're burned by a poor purchase (or several in some cases). I severely doubt that anyone bought their first game because of anything other than how it looked or how the product was displayed on a shelf. You wouldn't know any better. The same is true of casual gamers who don't really care enough to investigate, they just try what looks decent on the shelf or has some sort of name attached to it (hell, I do that too). I don't think there's anything inherantly wrong with this. Of course, some people just have terrible taste and will tell you that some games are good no matter how bad they are. Of course, the over abundance of cookie-cutter games that sell well give companies a major excuse to refuse to really do anything new. After GTA3 succeeded there was Mafia, Streets of LA, Getaway and probably more games I can't think of. None were as well done, really. Reliance on franchises and ideas has become a rather large problem, even for historically innovative companies that release quality games. At the same time, I feel like it's even easier now to get many things. Years ago, you would be worried if Square would even release the latest Final Fantasy game. Now it's not even a remote concern, they all make it here in some form. There are more genres, more obscure games. There's more to choose from in general and if someone makes the choice to buy a what I consider a crappy game, what can I do? I'm happy in the fact that so many people have discovered some of the games that float underneath the surface like Shin Megami Tensei, Disgaea or Katamari Damacy. Not as many people visit these game sites and read game magazines as people think. In fact, "hardcore" gamers that do these things are in a rather small minority when compared to the amount of systems out there. The so-called casual gamers are the ones that really determine a lot about the industry and always have since systems first hit store shelves. Considering how many good games are still out there, I can't complain much. A billion horrible pop bands have not killed off music because there's always other things out there. I think the same is true of games, even when the general scope seems somewhat bad, there's always something better out there.

[QUOTE=ChibiHorsewoman][color=darkviolet]I don't know why I just thought of this but: When I become an old lady with gray hair, I'm going to dye my hair pink. The same shade of pink as Utena, ChibiUsa, ChibiChibi and Tickled Pink from RainBow Bright.[/color][/QUOTE] Have you ever seen that show... It's some English show that's usually on PBS about people who work at some department store. I have no idea what the name is. Anyway, there's an old lady on there that always has purple or pink hair. I don't think you want to look like her lol.

I don't see how that really matters. They're making a sequel to the film, not the book. It doesn't matter what happened to the character in the original book if the movie didn't take that same route with their deaths and personalities. This is similar to that Batman thread. You can't connect these films and what they're adapted from directly thanks to the changes, I think. When the original Jurassic Park film flows differently than the novel, the progression for the next one will obviously differ. Of course, that doesn't mean the movie should have sucked as bad as it did lol. Crichton didn't write the screenplay to The Lost World anyway, so I would not fault him for anything. I'm sure a lot of it was the studio buying the rights to the franchise, leaving Crichton with little say in its future. The main problem with the film is something that people who created it have said in the past in interviews and other articles I've read. Something to the effect of some kid they ran into saying "I liked the first, but it needed more dinosaurs and less talking!" They took his advice and wound up with a filler movie. Maybe someone can dig up the quote, but I'm pretty damn close. The next one is even worse as far as I'm concerned, so I guess we lucked (?) out.

[quote name='ThatOneOddDude']If you think Blathers is annoying, turn off your game without saving and play it again. You will face the most annoying charachter ever... Mr. Ressetti.[/quote] He's an awesome character! I've purposely reset just to see what weird things he'd come up with to say. You won't meet him that often if you play fairly and it makes sense for him to be annoying anyway. He's supposed to be repremanding you lol. I'm surprised no one mentioned Slippy from Starfox yet. Particularly 64, although I'm sure he's incredibly annoying in Assault. The worst voice in existance and a terrible pilot. I wish I could just shoot him down, but then I don't get perfect grades in the levels.

[quote name='AzureWolf][COLOR=blue']I wholly agree with the idea that any discovery in science doesn't immediately equate to debunking the "higher being" belief. One thing you said really stuck out: you said that creation stories are alike. Is this more incentive to believe that the stories are true (since different sources say the same thing), or do you feel that just makes them less reliable (like they just ripped off one another)? Just asking your opinion, heh.[/COLOR][/quote] I'm more for the latter. I've spent a lot of time studying mythology because I took Latin in school, which basically meant we talked about Roman gods more than anyone would care to. In addition to this, I spent a lot of time in Catholic schools prior to college. Plus I just read the stuff for my own enjoyment. Basically, what I'm getting at, is that there I've just read so many stories with so many core similarities. I think would could argue that perhaps this makes them more "true", but when you study up on cultures and the way they've adopted stories and other things modern people consider "mythology" I don't think that argument works out. It's almost similar to the way legends (even urban ones) are created, although they're obviously more important to people. To me, creation stories and other such things are meant as lessons and are used to explain things that normally would have no explanation. I don't take them literally and I've never quite understood how anyone could... but I guess that's what faith is about anyway. Personally, I don't particularly adhere to anything and I'm not an athiest. I'm more agnostic. I don't think we'll ever find any proof of an existance of a higher being, but I don't discount there being one either.

Just because Ashley Simpson wears a few shirts and skates around doesn't make her a "punk". I've honestly never heard her directly say she was or even imply it. I don't know why people think image equals everything. [QUOTE=ChibiHorsewoman][color=darkviolet] [b]Overrrated[/b] 5.) Evenescence- Yeah, I guess Amy Lee is hot :animeswea and she can sing (I liked her duet with her boyfriend from Seether when they did Broken) but they haven't come out with a new album in a few years. [/color][/QUOTE] I agree they're rather overrated considering better bands have been doing this same sound for years upon years... but their main release came out in 2003 and they had a live album in 2004. They can't put something out every six months... I think that's a bit unfair, but yeah lol. I don't quite get this Marilyn Manson "overrated" stuff. By who? The handful of fans that do like him? That can be said of [i]any[/i] group. Their albums sell around one to two million copies (and that's at best), the following isn't as massive as many people would lead you to believe. Considering what the band offers when someone bothers to look deeper into them, I don't really think they fit into that category at all.

To me, evolution just makes sense. We share something like 98.2% of the same DNA as chimps do. Obviously we're very different, but I think it's still incredibly significant. I'm not someone who can claim to know which is right. No one is and I really doubt anyone will ever know unless we can document evolution's course. There hasn't really been enough time since the theory was introduced to be like "This animal has specifically evolved and we have complete, documented records of it". Even then, I don't think that completely would disprove the existance of some high power anyway. At the same time, I've never really understood why the two cannot mix together. If you believe in some sort of creator god (in whatever sense), I don't think the idea of evolution is necessarily a direct enemy. If god can create a million other things, I don't know why he can't control their evolution as well ("Hey, these monkeys were a good idea... Now I'll make some better ones. I'll call them humans"). Obviously this doesn't work in reverse... if you're not religious, you're not going to buy into any of that whatsoever. I really cannot buy into creation stories simply because they've been so similar throughout the ages. They're obviously based on eachother... whether it's the great flood or whatever else. They share many common links. I don't think this really can answer for anyone ""Is there a god?", but I don't know how people can take it so literally either. There's obviously a starting point for every species, meaning there had to be an "Adam and Eve". Not in a literal sense, I think, but in the sense of being the first true members of their kind. I saw this excellent documentary awhile back about a scientist who traced DNA all the way back to its original source... meaning the people we all come from in one way or another. It was in some area of Africa and I think the people were the Suni Bushmen. I believe the film was Origin of Man or something like that. It's really worth seeing. That's just my lame idea.

[quote name='Morpheus']Ben Stiller- I liked him a lot in meet the parents, but expected little from Zoolander. Male models seemed so stupid. Then I watched and was in awe. I still think it is his best performance.[/quote] Zoolander is a painfully underrated film. It's one of my favorite comedies. Stiller and Wilson are both great in it, although I think Wilson is pretty much great in everything.