Manic Webb

[QUOTE=Godelsensei]Barbie is the centre of a female-oriented world. All of her friends are girls, all driving expensive cars and toting trendy titles and careers: Astronaut Barbie, Pilot Barbie, Doctor Barbie. Positions that, thirty or forty years ago, would be entirely dominated by men. But Barbie was always the centre of everything, even from the beginning. She is entirely independent, answers to no one, and seems to have nothing holding her down. She has no parents to live up to the expectations to, no children to take care of--originally, her creator was loath to even give her a boyfriend, because she thought it would ruin her image. Which is [i]why[/i] Barbie has never had children. Sure, her friends do, and she has baby-sat, and has a little sister, Kelly, but Barbie is ultimately her own woman. She, again, dominates her own life and has nothing holding her back.[/QUOTE] You hear feminists complain about Barbie being a bad image for women all the time, and I've always been puzzled by this. As you've clearly stated, Barbie is a working single woman. She's educated (apparently she has degrees in medicine, marine biology, and journalism among others), has had nothing high-paying jobs (we're talking doctor, not nurse), has never gotten married, recently dumped Ken, has several homes (including a house in Malibu), nice clothes, and a fancy convertible car. If intelligence, success, and self-made riches are a bad representation of women, I don't know what to say. Sure, she and all of her friends are skinny with huge breasts, but any educated woman (like Barbie) knows that a physical appearance like that is impossible for many women to attain, and they're better off the way they are. Then again, I'm a guy. I'm on the outside looking in.

I, for one, am a little tired of defending myself whenever I tell someone that I watch Cartoon Network. They've been making cartoons that appeal to adults since they've been making cartoons. There are classic black/white Warner Bros. cartoons featuring animals getting drunk in speakeasies, Porky Pig saying "son of a b**ch," and war propaganda. I shouldn't even have to get into Time-Warner's return to cartoon shorts in the 1990s, but I will anyway. In the 1990s, Time-Warner brought about a huge comeback for 7-minute shorts. On one front, Warner Bros was making [i]Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs, Freakazoid[/i], and [i]Tom & Jerry Kids[/i]. On the other front, Hanna Barbera (now known as Cartoon Network Studios) was making [i]Two Stupid Dogs, Dexter's Laboratory[/i], and [i]What A Cartoon Show[/i]. If you look back at any of these shows, you'll see a balance of slap-stick humor for kids, and topical verbal humor for adults. I can't count how many times Buster and Babs Bunny (no relation) made fun of Tim Burton. And Freakazoid's shot at Sharon Stone's horrible acting? Even recently, Duck Dodgers made a crack about owning a pair of cheap immitation Manolo Blahniks, and mistaking dark matter (the substance found inside of an old, collapsed star) with the insides of Elizabeth Taylor. And I'm rambling... Cartoons are made by adults. Because of that, many writers tend to make cartoons that would not only appeal to children, but stuff they themselves would be entertained by. Then there's the boom of cartoons targetted at adults only. Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block makes that pretty evident, as have ever cartoon ever shown on Comedy Central. Shows like [i]Family Guy[/i] and [i]Drawn Together[/i] are definitely shows that weren't made for kids. Anyone who sees them would know that. I think the reason cartoons have become so widely associated with children's programming is because of the slump they hit a few decades ago. Throughout the 70s (and a good portion of the 60s), cartoons went downhill. Aside from Hanna Barbera, no one was animating a thing. Even Disney was in the toilet. When the 80s came about, many companies found that they could make a huge profit if they made cartoons for kids, and created a large line of tie-in merchandise for the kids to buy. The toys were bringing in all of the real money, and everyone pretty much started associating cartoons with toys. Toys go hand-in-hand with kids, so cartoons did as well.

Welcome to OtakuBoards. If you'd like to talk about anime, I suggest you do so in the Anime Lounge. If you want to talk about unpopular anime, I'm sure you can find a pre-existing thread there already.

Okay, I'm just gonna get right to the heart of this. I don't care how hard you try, you cannot [i]coerse[/i] someone into accepting your religion with "proof" that your texts are true. The reason for that is that you simply cannot prove they're true. There's a reason it's called faith, Chabi, and that's because you believe without proof. You're letting your faith affect your judgement, and it's making you see easily questionable "proof." I'm sorry, but you simply can't prove that the Quran is the word of God. The fact that practically every non-Muslim in this thread has argued with you should show you that much. Faith means never having to explain your religion to the uninterested and unbelieving. Sure, you might want to explain how it works and what it entails, but no one ever said you had to explain why it was right. You don't have to. You have faith that the Quran, and others don't. To come onto a public forum and to claim that you have proof that it's right; it requires a degree of naivete to think you won't be opposed, and perhaps a degree of gall to try to force your beliefs onto others.

I decided to check out that webpage ([url]http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/078.qmt.html[/url]). The verses are actually a little symbolic, much like most spiritual/religious scriptures. Actually, I've never understood all of these claims from different people of different religions that their texts are never symbolic and are very straight-forward. It's a little hard to back up that claim when you hand someone a verse that says "shining lamp," when it clearly means the "the sun." [quote name='Chabichou']Most of you brush off the scientific examples as though they were nothing, as though they are just a bunch of jibberish loaded with symbolisim and metaphors. But they really mean what they say.[/quote] I'm not saying they're jibberish, but quite a few verses in the Quran are clearly metaphors. [quote]078.010 YUSUFALI: And made the night as a covering, PICKTHAL: And have appointed the night as a cloak, SHAKIR: And We made the night to be a covering,[/quote] Then again, maybe the night really is a giant cloak, or a cover. [quote]078.013 YUSUFALI: And placed (therein) a Light of Splendour? PICKTHAL: And have appointed a dazzling lamp, SHAKIR: And We made a shining lamp,[/quote] Okay, either there's a pretty big lamp in the sky, or that was a metaphor for the sun. And if those are the metaphors from one chapter, how do we know the whole Quran isn't filled with more of them?

I didn't have a blog before myOtaku was created. When it was, I decided to sign up simply for the sake of signing up. If I remember correctly, my first entry was (as expected) me announcing that I have a blog. My second entry was a song parody about blogging, done to "Frontin' " by Pharrell Williams. From then on, it was just the occasional ramble about what was going on in my day. After a while, I found that I could write [i]other[/i] things. It started with a few reviews of CDs I had bought. Then I was accompanying the rants about my days with the funniest quotes I'd heard anyone say that day. I also started to come up with some top-10 lists. Then on one fine day in June, I decided to start reviewing old cartoons that fit within a similar genre. I named this series of reviews [i]The Cartoon Chronicles[/i]. The first part was "Teen-Sleuth Toons," where I named off and reviewed 8 different cartoons about meddling kids who solved mysteries. After that came "Super Madness," which were reviews of superhero cartoons. Then after a brief hiatus came "Educatoons," for educational cartoons. I've pretty much dropped the format after that, and have gone back to complaining about my day. I consider it a nice writing exercise, as well as a way to vent and entertain. It's interesting that something like blogging has become a news medium, especially since independent news on the internet has always been questionable.

Charles, your poem has renewed my love of cats. In fact, I'm going to go out right now and get me some pussy. Sorry, I couldn't help it. :D It was a very beautiful poem. You have an amazing way with words, and no shortage of double entendres.

[quote]He has let loose the two seas, converging together, with a barrier between them they do not break through. (Qur'an, 55:19-20)[/quote] If it's to be interpretted literally, how do we know it doesn't refer to the Red Sea and Persian Gulf? Or the Red Sea and Mediterranean Sea? The Red Sea and Gulf converge in the Indian Ocean, and modern day Saudi Arabia is a barrier of land between them. The Red and Med are even closer together, and there's clearly a barrier of land between them.

Recently, FOX premiered [i]Kelsey Grammer Presents: The Sketch Show[/i]. For those of you who don't know, it's a remake of [i]The Sketch Show[/i], which aired a couple of years ago in the UK. Grammer's is pretty much a word-for-word direct adaptation with American actors (and Lee Mack from the original). I hear it's nowhere near as funny as the original, but people who say that have already seen these jokes before. Having never seen the original (or hearing of it until after I saw the first episode), I thought it was hilarious, and a good change for FOX's Sunday night lineup. Did you know they [i]still[/i] don't have a replacement for [i]X-Files[/i]' old time slot? The 9-10pm slot has been in flux for years. My only real complaint is that FOX is probably going to cancel it before the month is through. Also, remakes of BBC shows tend to fail in the US. Anyone remember the American versions of [i]Coupling, Red Dwarf[/i], or [i]Fawlty Towers[/i]?

You forgot Archer and Sisko. I also agree that Picard was the best captain. In fact, the writers of the TV show and NextGen movies made a habit of making him close to infallible. He [i]always[/i] figured everything out, and [i]always[/i] made the right decision. He was the Renaissance Man. It's like they spent so much time pulling Patrick Stewart out of Bill Shatner's shadow, they created a monster. Granted, it was a monster who thought everything through, was never quick to take senseless action, and could plot and scheme with the best of 'em. As much as I love Kirk, I've always had a problem with two things: 1) He went on missions with his first officer all the time. Whoever the third highest ranking officer on the Enterprise was, they took command of that ship [i]alot[/i]. That was bad strategic thinking on his part. 2) The red-shirt/ensign who always died. I understand that some things were simply out of Kirk's control, but how many ensigns did the guy lose during his command? And it's not like they were battle casualties; he usually lost them during an exploration mission. That's not to say Kirk was a completely crappy captain. He knew his ship, he knew his crew, and he ran the whole thing like a well-oiled machine. And when you're hitting that alien booty every other episode, you have to be doing something right. Janeway was a great captain, given the circumstance. The Voyager was an escort ship with a skeleton crew, and it got stranded on the other side of the freaking galaxy. She was a pretty strong leader, and she always knew when to listen to her crew. The only problem was that her crew was crap. She had a first officer who commanded no authority over the other crew members. I mean, it's not like she had a crew worthy of the Enterprise. She [i]did[/i] get them all back home, though. She's also the only captain besides Picard who could tango with Q, although Q's interest in Janeway was... uh... different. Interestingly enough, Sisko didn't become a very good leader until he got promoted to Captain a few years into the series. He was also the only captain who was put in charge of a space station, and rarely traveled the stars in search of blah blah. This was the guy everybody knew, everybody liked, and everybody looked up to... at least on the DS9. Considering he was put there for negotiations, and how often the station got attacked, he was a brilliant strategic thinker. And unlike Picard, Sisko actually had flaws. He had to handle a struggling relationship with his son, and everything he did to save that station had him at a disadvantage. Plus he somehow ended up becoming a medium/prophet for the Bajoran religion. Archer... he... um... I never watched Enterprise. I'm a fan, but I was never enough of a Trekkie to force myself to watch that show past the first few episodes.

To me, Beck is that guy who releases a few songs I like every couple of years, but I never get around to buying his album, and I don't know anyone who listens to him. So typically, I just forget about him. I do enjoy his style of... um... You know, he really is his own genre of music. From the songs I've heard, there's no way I can begin to categorize this guy. If he has a new album coming out, I guess I should sample it. If I like it, I might (for once) buy one of his CDs.

I don't think I can even remember the first movie I saw in the theatre. I was an unusually quiet toddler (mom says the people at daycare centers used to think I was mute), so I wouldn't be surprised if my mom tried to take me into a theatre when I was a baby. But the earliest movie I can remember seeing is [b]Honey, I Shrunk the Kids[/b], along with a short [b]Roger Rabbit[/b] cartoon that aired just after the trailers. I wasn't particularly fond of the movie, and wanted to see more of that Roger Rabbit character. Needless to say, I had his movie on tape the next day.

[quote name='Sepiroth']I hope you were just kidding but if you were not. Let see i am black and neo-nazis hate blacks, jews and non-aryan. tha t is what they did to me.[/quote] Um... Nazis also committed massive genocide by eliminating millions of European Jewish folk. Besides, I'm sure Gravy was being sarcastic. I think some people confuse Neo-Nazis who listen to metal with metal that advocates Neo-Nazis. It's a matter of basic logicistics. Just because some A are B, that doesn't mean all B are A. There are bound to be some Neo-Nazis who listen to metal (it's a widely listened to genre), but that in no way means metal is Nazi music.

Finally, a half-decent looking DBZ game that isn't a fighter or some rom of a Japanese RPG with ill-defined gameplay instructions. It looks pretty good. Are there any details on whether or not it'll cover every saga, or just the first few?

I'm gonna go out on a limb, here. Try to follow along, because this is gonna get a little complicated... How about we blame the actual criminals? The videogames? The music? Leave them alone. Millions of people around the world listen to the same music, watch the same movies, and play the same videogames as these teenagers and kids who've killed and maimed their peers. Are they out committing random acts of violences in the streets? Nope. It has to be another factor; something that we haven't considered. Maybe they were just plain crazy. Ever think of that? Any 6 year old can tell the difference between real life and fiction seen on TV. That's not an exaggerration, either. My sister is 6, and she has no problem seeing stuff on TV as being fake-- especially when the people on the screen aren't even real. Parents not doing their job? I don't think so. I'm not even gonna blame the parents. Some of these parents grew up watching action and horror films all the time, and they came out well-adjusted enough not to shoot up their high schools. Hell, some were in the military and have killed people in combat, but they know better than to take out their fellow patrons at the supermarket. These kids who commit violence and [i]just happen to own[/i] violent videogames are nothing more than disturbed, sad, crazy mofos who would've killed their peers if they listened to bebop jazz and played Tetris.

I'm closing this thread, but not to stop a flame-war that hasn't even happened yet. If I closed every thread that I was afraid was going to devolve into a flame fest, this forum would be packed with lock icons. The person who began the thread can't continue to join in, and there simply isn't any ICP-related discussion going on. [color=navy]Closed.[/color]

[QUOTE=Dark Pyro]this is for people wothink ICP are the ****. so post your responses here. me i think that ICP is the f**king S**t to be honist.[/QUOTE] Please put a little more effort into your posts. Try telling why you like ICP, or perhaps a favorite album of theirs. Also, watch your language. I know you censored the words yourself, but I'd rather you didn't use so many in only a couple of sentences. I'll leave this thread open for now, so it'll have the chance to actually go somewhere.

[quote name='Generic NPC #3']I seem to be in the minority, but thank god for that. I am getting tired of his run on Astonishing X-Men already. For each interesting character development there's a few other goofy things that are just totally out of place or down right lame.[/quote] Yeah, I've heard a lot of complaints about the godzilla-thing at the beginning of #7, and its irrelevence to anything that's going on in the story. I guess that, as a Buffy/Angel fan, I'm used to Whedon's habit of putting some random cannon-fodder monster at the beginning of each episode, just for the sake of showing the heroes in action. It did work for the sake of Cyclops' team trying to become more public friendly. I'll also give Whedon credit for writing Emma Frost better than Grant Morrison did. Anyway... I'm amazed by Marvel's promotion of the Fantastic Four movie. A couple of online trailers, a huge website, a large line of action figures, a video game, and an animated series tied in to the movie. They haven't gone on a campaign like this since the first Spider-Man film. This movie is either going to be a blockbuster hit, or a spectacular flop on the level of The Hulk-- huge for the first weekend, but everyone walks away disappointed.

[quote name='Sol-Blade][COLOR=DarkRed']Well I know, for a fact, that I always get asked the most idiotic questions about why I do some of the things I do, based purely off of race and culture. Ok, up front. I'm Hawaiian. Nothing special, but honest to god, there was this one man who, after finding out I was Hawaiian, asked me how well I was at making huts and hunting pigs. Just, wow. Even worse, was how flabbergasted he was when he found out I...wait for it...wait for it...lived in a 2 story house. *gasp*[/COLOR][/quote] I'm sorry, but I bursted into uncontrollable laughter after I read that. I mean honestly, who the heck thinks Hawaiian people live in huts and hunt pigs? Anyone who's seen [i]Hawaii 5-0[/i] or the special vacation episode of [i]The Brady Bunch[/i] is more likely to think all Hawaiians live in a big tourist-ridden city and surf all day. Anyway... I remember back when I was working for a market research company, and I had to call a woman to ask whether or not she used a free sample of pasta we gave her to cook at home. I called her home, and some guy answered the phone. I asked if I could speak to her, and told him it was because of a product she took home to test for us. He went to go get her, and this is how the conversation went in the background... Guy: "Hey! It's for you!" Girl: "Who is it?" Guy: "I don't know. Some white guy." I'm black. In fact, I'm a very dark man. I'm not Wesley Snipes, but I'm not exactly Mariah Carey either. I shock a lot of people by how proper my speech is. Some people think I'm a lot older because of it, too. I also listen to a lot of music made in the 1970s, so I guess that doesn't help. I also listen to a little bit of rock, and have been known to sing along to a power ballad or two in my car. I'm slowly liking rap less and less these days. I wear glasses. I live in the suburbs. I suck at baseball, basketball, and football. Hell, one of my friends said I remind him of Carlton from [i]The Fresh Prince of Bel Air[/i]. You can quote me on this one: [b]I hate spinning rims.[/b] I try not to let race get in the way of what I like and who I am. Sure, I might get a few blank stares when I have my car windows down and everyone can clearly hear I'm listening to an old song by Matchbox 20 (that college station I listen to needs a new song lineup, by the way), but that shouldn't bother me. I like what I like. It's who I am. Saying something like "you act white" doesn't bother me. Then again, I'm guilty of some of the biggest stereotypes concerning black people. I love grape soda, although not as much as strawberry. I grew up drinking Kool-Aid. I eat a lot of chicken. I have a loud stereo system in my car. I also run on Colored Peoples Time?, the scientific anamoly that states that there is a 45 minute space-time gap between black people and all other peoples, causing for us to arrive late for everything. Ok, not really. I just felt the need to inject humor.

[quote name='Omar Harris']The film will be much along the same lines as Batman Begins, i.e. the early adventures of the Man of Steel.[/quote] Actually, the official title is [i]Superman Returns[/i]. Singer has stated that it won't be an origin story. It'll be Superman's return to action. Return from what? I have no idea.

I'm a casual gamer. I know this, because I almost never beat any of the games I buy. I know what some of you are thinking, but the only reason I haven't beat them is because I'm just really bad. Viewtiful Joe is as fun as hell, but I still can't beat it to save my life. I like to think I'm a fairly well informed casual gamer. Most of my friends are hard-core gamers, and I tend to watch a lot of X-Play. I just happen to buy games once every blue moon, and turn on my PS2 once every few weeks. Heck, most games I buy are nearly a year old by the time I get them. I simply rarely buy/play games. Does this mean I base every game I play on graphics? No. I base the games I buy on gameplay and story. I'm a hack/slash and platformer kid who likes a good story... which is probably why I barely buy games. I don't have the coordination for first-person shooters (you'd know this if you ever saw my fumble through Halo). I don't have the patience for turn-based RPGs, so I usually end up forcing myself to play them just to get through the story. I like racing/driving games, but they always feel too repetitive for me. Thus my selection of games become limited, I barely get my game on, and I become a casual gamer. I'm not nearly as into gaming as anyone who would call themself "hardcore." But that doesn't mean I'm someone who sells all of their games for ridiculously low buy-back prices, and only cares about graphics. Besides, without people who sell their games back to game stores, there wouldn't be any used games. And you can save a good $10 on a used game, if you look in the right place.

I problem I had with Matrix Reloaded was that it was the most incomplete movie I've ever seen.I like sequels that (even if they're part of a larger story) can stand alone on their own two legs. Reloaded couldn't do that. It had no real beginning (because it was in the Animatrix), and no ending (because it was the beginning of Revolutions). Heck, even a large chunk of the middle was missing. Revolutions was a decent movie, but its fault was that it was driven completely by symbolism. You simply couldn't watch the movie for what's on the surface, because its skin was completely ripped off (over-exposing the audience to the flesh and bone underneath, all at once) half-way through the movie. The ending made sense [i]only[/i] in the symbolic sense. I would've let just about everything slide if they had given us a clearer ending than [spoiler]Neo and Smith explode, and everything's back to normal[/spoiler]. Let me read into the ending, but don't [i]make me[/i] read into the ending just for it to make sense.

[quote name='Zenju][spoiler'] Having Gabriel as the villain did not make sense. This, after all, is the angel who bought the news of Jesus' to Mary and the sheperds.[/quote] You must not have seen [i]The Prophecy[/i] movie series. It's like a trend, [spoiler]having an angel named Gabriel become jealous of mankind and going against God's wishes. He/she always seems to end up falling from Heaven and becoming human, too. I really ought to brush up on my scripture, and see why movies like to portray Gabriel in this light.[/spoiler] [quote][spoiler] I also didn't like the diea to kill Chaz off, there was enough in this character to keep himn going for at least 1 sequel, I thought.[/spoiler][/quote] You should have stuck around the theatre longer. After the credits finish rolling, [spoiler]we see that Chas has become an angel.[/spoiler] So it's not quite game over for him. I was a little surprised that they decided to make Gabriel female (it's hardly a spoiler, as it gives nothing away). She dressed like a man when we first saw her, so there's a chance normal humans might actually see her as a him. I think John also referred to her as a "him" when he was talking to another priest. Or maybe he/she was just sexually ill-defined. I also remember reading somewhere (although it's not like I confirmed it) that earlier versions of the bible used to refer to Gabriel as both Gabriel (male) and Gabrielle (female). However, when Christianity became more patriarchal (male/father-centered, to keep women 'in check'), the female variation of the name was re-written to make Gabriel male. I think that also happened with a few other angels, and God might've also been referred to as a mother (as in creator/mother) once or twice. So maybe Gabriel in the movie was [i]supposed[/i] to have an ill-defined gender.

First of all, let me just say that anyone who says hunting is wrong should first think about whether or not they've ever gone fishing. Because if you go fishing, you're hunting fish. You bait them, trap them, pull them out of their natural environment (water), and kill them. If you throw them back, then you're just wasting both your and the fish's time, not to mention leaving them with a mouth injury. I think hunting is okay, even if guns give me the willies. That doesn't mean I'd go hunting for deer, though. Like I said, I don't like guns. However, far be it from me to deny a hunter of their pasttime. I go fishing.

OtakuBoards does not support the illegal downloading of music, including links to downloadable files. If you would like to download that song legally, I suggest going to Napster.com.