Semjaza

You know, I honestly can't say I'd find anything soaked in piss to be all that "beautiful". Whatever point he is trying to make is fine by me and I think the colors that are pulled off are pretty interesting, but that's about as far as my interest can go with anything made out of human waste.

All the reasons that apparently turned Azure off to this anime just make me more interested. I guess I'm ecclectic... In any case, I want to check this out now. Thanks for the heads up.

A comparison to MP3s was brought up... because anime is a niche market, more or less, companies that bother to license these anime movies and series need all the sales they can get. They already go into this knowing that they won't sell hundreds of thousands of copies of anything they put out, so a bunch of people downloading things that are being distributed locally pretty much ruin any sense of profit they can get. If these shows don't sell they may just as well assume no one was interested. They can't just throw their arms up and say "Well it's popular on bittorrent, but not on DVD. At least people are fans, even if they won't pay!!" Nothing works like that. At the same time, most of what I see on bittorent isn't available here at all. Quite a bit of it doesn't even seem likely to get a US release. While I'm sure there are still plenty of international copyrights being broken thanks to this, I really don't see an alternative. It's certainly better than paying for bootlegs and helping that market out. When I did use bittorrent I really just used it as a guage to see what might possibly come here in the future. For example, I loved Hale Nochi Guu and downloaded quite a bit of it... but if it actually came out here, I'd definitely buy it. I'm not one of these "I got it free, so forget buying it" people. As for Japanese paying attention to fansubs popularity... I wonder how fairly their sales and trades can even be measured in the first place. The distribution channels prior to bittorrent weren't exactly the height of organization and people were just selling copies of copies of copies. I really doubt any anime creator feels all that great when he or she finds out that people are getting their material for free on Bittorrent either. However, I wouldn't be surprised if local distributors used the buzz on the fansub and Bittorrent markets to fuel their decisions on what to bring over here. Anyway, sorry I didn't stick in the numbering system lol... but I more or less answered all the questions.

[url]http://media.ps2.ign.com/media/608/608155/vids_1.html[/url] IGN has a new trailer there that shows off a bunch of new scenes. The smaller files are free for everyone, but the bigger ones require Insider membership a usual.

There's a double CD release of theirs called "Death to the Pixies". The first disc is a Greatest Hits of sorts and the second disc is a live concert. The only issue here is that most people agree that the tracklisting for the first disc isn't all that great. The listing for this new set is much better and it won't be as expensive since it's one disc. I had to spend like $20+ on Death to the Pixies.

Luke just wants some MILF action lol. I bet most of the males here would go after that. I don't think I would, if I were in that situation, mostly due to Marissa... but eh. That one girl in the houseboat that likes Marissa's dad was really pretty though. Unlike everyone else around that age in the show, she didn't seem totally make-up coated. Quite a plus. I don't know that Marissa is totally hatable just yet. She's just a confused girl who thinks that she knows best for her life when in actually she never knows what the hell she's getting into. It's nothing different than anyone her character's age gets into... just for her it's a bit more extreme than in general since it's supposed to be shocking TV lol.

Just get Gimp. It's free and pretty much just as poweful as Photoshop or PSP... that and you don't have to do what amounts to stealing to get it heh. If you get used to Photoshop, doing things like pasting something into a new file take nothing more than a few keyboard shortcuts. I probably do half of my work in Photoshop on the actual keyboard lol.

[quote name='Rain][SIZE=1'] If it's angst you're after, Trent Reznor does it a whole lot better.[/SIZE][/quote] Agreed. Although I'd refer to what he has as more of a backlash of anger and confusion due to deception and betrayal... But there's some hope. I wouldn't call it straight out "angst", but that's me heh. I've never gotten the whole "No one else seems to like Linkin Park as much as I do!!" thing that comes up here. Nevermind the fact that they have probably the biggest threads here on a single band and they've already sold millions of albums... they must be unpopular.

I'd consider them "popular" considering how often I've heard about them in recent months... especially from a few people who don't listen to much outside of The Ataris. They always struck me as "Generic Punk Band #254 + Gimmick", but that's just my opinion.

I've never seen Wrong Turn... although I hated the TCM remake and loved Cabin Fever. You might want to see House of 1,000 Corpses if you're into squemish movies.

I've really not read for enjoyment in a very long time. High School, Senior year in particular, pretty much managed to make books one of my many kryptonites. I still get enough reading in through other methods, but I rarely just pick up a novel anymore. Anyway, I somehow was in a book club Senior year and the teacher would provide us with free books. One of these was [U]Mother Night[/U], by Kurt Vonnegut. Like all the other books in the club, I just set it to the side and never read it. I was there for the free brownies, honestly. I was in AP English, but the English class just below us read a few Vonnegut books. Mine didn't. I never had any real exposure to the guy, although I could name a few titles of his if I had to. I knew [I]of [/I]him, but that's about it. So a few weeks ago I grabbed this book off my shelf for the first time and brought it with to my ultra-boring Environmental Science class. I held it behind the table and read it. I was totally engrossed in it that entire time. I'm still pretty amazed how much it removed me from the class considering the teacher was blabbing the whole time. To put it simply, the book is about a man who more or less pretended to be a Nazi during World War II for his country. However, there was no real proof that he wasn't one (other than his contacts who disappeared almost instantly after contact and used phony names), so he was hunted out following the war by various groups. It basically tells how he went about things prior to him finally turning himself in. It's told in the first person and is written almost like a journal. I really loved the writing style, honestly. So I was just wondering if anyone else has ever read this book. It gets my seal of approval, which isn't too easy to get for a book anymore heh.

This might interest the two or three people here who have more than a passing interest in the Pixies (if even that). The band is reforming with its full line-up (including Lovering, who was rumored to not be interested in a full-fledged tour). They start up in the US in April and then on May 1st, they'll be playing the massive Coachella Festival. Anyone that lives near Indio, California and can see that should go. The Pixies, The Cure, Muse, Radiohead and countless other bands. Some reforming for this show and some never even appearing in the US in any official form. I would love to go, but I doubt that will happen. Anyway, after that they're touring in Europe until July. This is being referred to as an "Initial" or "Warm-Up" tour, so there will be more US dates again after that. I'll personally be going to whatever Chicago show they wind up playing. This is pretty historic, really. The Pixies may not have ever been a massive band in terms of sales, but they are considered one of the best rock bands ever by many rock critics. They've influenced quite a few big-name bands and were one of the main catalysts for what alternative became in the 90s. They've not played together since 1992, so it's been quite awhile. So that said, if you can go, I'd really encourage you to. The tickets are only averaging around $25 apiece, which I really don't think is a bad price considering. Here's the dates: APRIL 14 Burton Cummings Theatre, Winnipeg, MB CANADA 15 Doris Knight Ballroom, Regina, SK CANADA 17 Prairieland, Saskatoon, SK CANADA 18 Red's, Edmonton, AB CANADA 19 MacEwan Hall, Calgary, AB CANADA 21 Victoria Curling Club, Victoria, BC CANADA 22-23 Commodore Ballroom, Vancouver, BC CANADA 24 Big Easy, Spokane, WA 25 The Big Easy, Boise, ID 27 MacDonald Theatre, Eugene, OR 29 Freeborn Hall, Davis, CA MAY 1 Coachella Festival, Indio, CA Now, I'm super excited because seeing them live is one of the things I always wished I could do before I died... Along with seeing Apocalypse Hoboken. They've both disbanded so I always figured it was impossible... but then Apocalypse Hoboken reformed for a final show after their few year abscence. I went to that and it rocked. Now the Pixies are reforming and I'll get to see them. Yay. They're also putting out a DVD and a Greatest Hits collection... I won't bother with the CD considering I already own all of their material, but whatever. It might interest someone. There's no news on the possibility of a new release.

[quote name='Sara][size=1]Lose the [i]h[/i'], and we'll be good. :toothy:[/size][/quote] It's just as good with the h. The only Sarah I know rocks my socks. So there! :D

[quote name='The Vampire: Ed][FONT=Comic Sans MS][COLOR=Red]All of those screenshots, not including the older ones, came from the March Game Informer. I figured they would have their own screenshots, but that place just scanned and copied all the info straight from Game Informer. Kinda a rip off if you ask me, but I guess it helps people who don't get Game Informer.[/COLOR'][/FONT][/quote] It happened mostly because everyone else that has played it or could show media is under a NDA. IGN and other game sites cannot even talk about it yet. GI happened to have the exclusive, so of course it got scanned. I'm not about to go out and buy that magazine, I can tell you that heh.

[quote name='Charles']It's only natural that people are offended by the film; you really can't do anything about it. There's nothing arbitrary about the audience it offends either; it's clearly going to affect the Jews, as all the clamoring of anti-Semitic overtones illustrates. There are a number of factors here that are important. The film is a traditionalist Catholic vision of the crucifixion. As nearly everyone knows, the Jews have a sharply different viewpoint on the historical details of this event (they don't even believe their people killed the messiah). But, they weren't consulted at all here. They can't be happy with that at all. The organized Jewish community probably won't welcome the fact the dialogue includes "Passion" either.[/quote] The point I'm making is simply that if this is something "everyone knows", as you claim... why would it suddenly make such a massive difference when the Catholic version of the New Testament has been available for years and years? Obviously people are going to be offended by something if they don't believe that's how it happened... but I fail to see how this is somehow going to create some new breed of hatred between groups who have always thought differently about the subject in the first place. It's not as if some holy war between Catholics and Jews would start up after this movie is released.

[quote name='Sara][size=1]Isn't...isn't that what the list tag is [i]supposed[/i'] to do?[/size][/quote] Yeah. That's the whole point lol. The list tag creates either an alphabetized list, a numbered list or a bulleted list. The dot is called a bullet and would be infont of each item in the list. So if you want to get rid of that, get rid of the list heh.

You can't really claim correct pronounciations of words assimilated into the English language based simply on their roots. Things change based on how people talk and form words in the language. If everything was pronounced like the original roots, we'd be talking much differently... even with many simple words. Most people don't even say Sacajawea correctly and that's someone pretty much everyone learns about in history classes early on. I guess we could all act like Alex Tribek and say every foreign word as if we were from that country... but eh, lol. I don't care about kid names, really. I think when I have my kid I'll see him or her and be like "Ah, he looks like a _______" and that's the name that will stick. I don't know if this is only about kids (the title doesn't make it seem like that), but I have lots of pet names picked out. Artemis, Darwin, etc. They're all pretty dorky, but that's the way I like it.

My highschool closed down after my Junior year. So I was stuck going to a new school for my Senior year. Between dealing with that, the loss of all my friends, having to make new friends, dealing with a new school's system of teaching and god knows what else, I just didn't care about Senior prom. I really don't regret not going. I suppose it's only what you make it... so since I made it into nothing, that's about all it meant to me heh.

I've been looking forward to seeing this for several months now. Well before the trailer and well before most people started complaining about it. My main interest in the beginning was mostly because Gibson had chosen to leave subtitles out of it altogether. I thought this was a really cool route to take. I suppose the idea was that what was happening onscreen would be universally understood. Last I heard, he was stuck having to have subtitles added to the film though. Should be good, I expect. Gibson is someone who has proven is directorial abilities in the past. I don't really get some of the complaints. From all I've read and heard the movie and the actual death of Christ are no different than what is written in the Bible itself. Why a movie would suddenly make a random person hate the various sects of people involved in it, I really don't know. If that were the case, they have a book that's thousands of years old to use as fodder in the first place. There was someone on that special they did saying that he doesn't feel the movie does anything it shouldn't... but that some people would jump to conclusions and create some sort of hatred against the groups in the movie. I don't really know what could be done about that, as some people are just crazy.

I'm glad the remake has been picked up for US release. I'm interested in seeing it. I don't know a lot about Zatoichi, but I like what I've seen. I'm not really a big samurai movie fan either. However, these are pretty cool and I've enjoyed Katsu Shintaro's performances. The guy is pretty amazing in these. I was surprised to learn of how popular they are in Japan... Apparently it's comparable to James Bond's popularity elsewhere. Animego (or however it is spelled) is putting out some new ones soon, I believe. I'm hoping to pick them up soon.

This is a hard question. I love music. I live for music. It's basically my blood and I really don't know how I'd live without it. I could do without many things in my life that I enjoy, but music is not one of them. I'd sooner die than give it up entirely. Music changes my mood, I suppose, but not really on a deep level. If I'm playing Beck's [I]Sea Change[/I] or The Cure's [I]Bloodflowers[/I], I might find myself feeling a bit more sad than usual... but nothing that massively alters my attitude, in general. I find myself listening to different things mostly based on the seasons. In the Winter and Fall months I listen to more aggressive or "dark" minded music, but in the warmer months I listen to more upbeat groups like The Pixies. As for my tastes, they generally skew towards rock... but I'm not really a genre whore. Whatever sounds good to me is fine enough.

I've not played a ton of Pokemon games, but I own both Blue and Sapphire and they're really not all that comparable other than at their core. I think it's worth owning one of the newer games in the series. That said, I'm looking forward to that wireless link cable that's supposed to be released along with this more than the actual game itself.

[url]http://cube.ign.com/articles/492/492987p1.html[/url] [QUOTE]February 18, 2004 - Square Enix U.S.A. is bringing the musical stylings of its Final Fantasy series to America with a premiere symphony performance at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles on May 10. Titled "Dear Friends - Music From Final Fantasy," the symphony will be performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Master Chorale. Nobuo Uematsu will compose the two-hour piece. Nobuo Uematsu has worked on background music for all of the games in the Final Fantasy series. Named as named as one of the "Innovators" in Time Magazine's "Time 100: The Next Wave - Music" feature, Uematsu has been receiving acclaim from outside the video game industry. "Dear Friends" will feature selections from the soundtracks of the Final Fantasy games. The first Final Fantasy concert was held in Japan in February 2002. With a successful show that sold-out the 5,000 capacity Tokyo International Forum, Square Enix is looking to continue the live performances with seven shows in six different cities. Titled "Tour de Japon - music from Final Fantasy," the concerts will be held in March and April in Japan. Information about the upcoming L.A. concert will be announced at a later date. Check back for more information.[/QUOTE] Could be fun, but I wouldn't go even if I could. I'd rather listen to music like that in my home.

Fear Factor has become incredibly stupid, I think. Nothing they have to do is "scary" anymore. It's all just gross. Half of the things they have to do involve eating something people would never want to eat. They need more originality.

[QUOTE=Dragonballzman]I'm also starting to get the hang of the new gaming forum...It makes it a tad harder to find something specific, but then there's the Search OB sidebar to handle that... You're probably right about the "growing pains"...I'll give it a week, and I'll probably have grown to enjoy it by then. ^^[/QUOTE] I think as long as people title things well, it will go smoothly. Shinmaru, Desbreko and I went through there prior to the launch and retitled things so they could be easily searched out. As long as people keep with that line of thinking, it shouldn't be so bad. We'll see though. I already feel like the Gaming section is a bit more upbeat than it has been recently. Yay.