off-topic

What Have I Been Watching - Community of the 30 Rocks

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 16:15:52 +0100

Community Season 2 - Appiled Anthropology and Culinary Arts

Also known as "remember the Seinfeld episode, Chinese Restaurant?" because it's happens to be based on that, in a sense that the whole entire episode is only based in the Anthropology class.

In the Anthropology class, drunken Ian is giving away free As to everybody though Annie wants him to give out marks to people who deserves it but is booed off back to her chair. Pierce wants rights to Troy and Abed's "hand-shake", Jeff spots that Britta has a "thing under her nose" and Chang still thinks that Shirley has his baby. AndDean invited a VIP and is going to show him to the World Food Festival and Ian bails at the class to find "the exam papers". But suddenly Shirley goes into labour as she is getting birth to a baby and Chang annoys her still thinking that it's his. Usual hilarious banter with the group and Pierce owns Troy and Abed's handshake rights for one thousand bucks. Fat Neil tells the truth that they always happen to be the center of attention. And that happens...with Shirley giving birth and I don't think babies have hair when they give birth and this surely (hah!) has hair.

The previous episodes of this season are great with movie references and other geekiness of Abed (especially Advanced Dungeons and Dragons) and even more especially that there's more animation to the show like the previous episode with Dean making an animation of killing the entire study group (Jeff, Britta, Abed, Troy, Annie, Pierce and Shirley) for making fun of his "fabulous" outfits that he often show. But this episode is somewhat decent, it really only centers around Shirley going into labour with the practical jokes of the study group. I'm pretty much disappointed with this episode and hopefully the next episode which probably is "another Modern Warfare" episode since it's called "A Fist Full of Paintballs" with maybe less movie references this time.

30 Rock - 100th episode of TGS (Tokyo Game Show?) with Tracy Jordan

Or what I called it, a clip show of non-sequitur(ing) previous episodes and flashbacks though the funny part is that they also gaged about that concept that often appears in the show. It's the 100th episode of TGS with Tracy Jordan and Tracy is having problems of wanting to be back the way he is but with the attention of the media and public, he's not getting out of it.

Kenneth tells Jenna that recalled that if TGS gets the 100th episode that he will impregnate Jenna and having said that, Jenna is committed to having a baby with Kenneth. Michael Keaton as the janitor's last day is getting too old for the sudden leakage of air that makes everyone in the building, high and hallucinating things like that blue/purple blob when Tracy first saw it when he went on Conan to having Jack seeing the past, future and other future selves and hilarity ensues.

This show is brimed with guest stars from Michael Keaton, news/media guys from NBC to a short cameo of Tom Hanks. I don't really get the whole hallucination fetish that Tina Fey constantly writes having a character in this show especially with Tracy taking strange pills and acting all crazy but Tina delivers her script with hilarity especially when Jack meets his other "selves" who is either want to advise him to fire Liz Lemon or keep her. The show overall still gets it being funny but having said that it's a clip show and it felt like a show about nothing, it's just bat-shit insane!

From the Youtube - Homefront Impressions

Sat, 23 Apr 2011 21:44:05 +0100

Like what I started with my preview impressions of Dragon Age II from the Quick Look Road Show interviewed by Brad. I decided to watch a series of walkthroughs in Youtube due to the fact that the game may not be worth buying or is just interested on watching it rather than playing. One of the first games I fully watched to completion is Homefront.

Homefront was one of my anticipated games of this year because of it being close to Red Dawn (my favourite movie also), the amount of advertising and again expecting so much to be like Freedom Fighters. In the end, after reading up some reviews and comments regarding the game, it was truly a disappointment and a huge flaw of having advertisements being the main selling point rather than fixing the gameplay and to less derivative in the shadows of Modern Warfare 2.

The human side before all of the destruction.

John Milius, the writer of Red Dawn and Clear and Present Danger also wrote Homefront, applying much of the anti-communist and patriotism into this game. Which in fact the script in the game hits the right note of Korean/Commies invaded the US and you're one of the resistance fighters in some small town fighting against it. He also provided a sense of emotion that compensate for so much stereotypes. Such as Connor who is supposedly the stereotypical segregant in a war - I just hate learning his no-nonsense attitude and love the fact that they finally dies at the end. It's so obvious that the annoying, irritating guy dies at the end to sacrifice himself but the other cliche is also a black guy being the first to die, such as Boone who was chained on a swing after Koreans find out your hideout for retaliation of storming the Tigerdirect facility and destroying a tanker.

The AI in the game is garbage and horrible, watching the walkthrough it seems that the AI sometimes freezes and doesn't to some kind of action like knocking down a shelf to open a door, or just freezing until some guy walks to them and wait for a few seconds to do the next scene. It was pretty irritating to see in 2011, AI has not been changed so much and just for a single door to unlock, you just have to wait until the guy goes into position and opens the door. Sometimes it applies to other FPSs, I want a game that you don't have to wait for your fucking NPC to open the door for you, you can do it yourself or walk to the objective and it will trigger. This is one of the biggest flaw in this game.

The environments was nothing different, there are scenarios that provided some drama like in your hideout adding a human side before all of the destruction and some scenery looked great like going to California to seeing the Golden Gate Bridge but seeing advertisements of TigerDirect, Hooters and such made me feel like inModern Warfare 2. But the fact that the game isn't better than Modern Warfare 2 just made me want to play those missions again in that game rather than watching the aggravating AI on both sides just pisses me off.

Goliath

The gameplay is derivative but with a twist, during missions like storming the TigerDirect Korean base, you can control goliath, some kind of robotic war machine that a person must control that can shoot rockets to destroy vehicles and such. And through missions, there's often alot of vehicles to attack helicopters for you to use your goliath on. Ammo seem to be scarce from watching walkthroughs, it seems like one of the World at War missions in the last American campaign where you don't have much ammo and have to pick up the enemies' guns. There are a few gun-turrent missions either attached on a humvee that are fun like any Call of Duty game and one that you fly an attack helicopter escorting three tanker trucks to San Francisco to having UAVs raining hell again like in Call of Duty.

I also watched a portion of the multiplayer and there are killing strets like spawning attack robotic buggies to UAVs and it looked alright but remains the same as a game that has experience points and killing-skrees. I'm just disappointed of how heavily this game is advertised and not using the time to fully established the whole game, the AI was horrible and even the ending to this game was rushed and short and stupid.

Blame the Hikikomori?

Sat, 23 Apr 2011 15:31:46 +0100

I have seen alot of depressing and weird news but this one surprises me.

Sankaku Complex reports that a 17-year old boy stabbed his father to death, attempting to resolve his problem. Then the Hikikomori called the police and was arrested at the scene.

This article is pretty depressing, seeing in my perceptive of a hikikomori lifestyle. The reaction of this article, upsetted me as I feel symphony for this hikikomori. Being forced out of his isolation to the real world, is not a easy task to accomplish. And that also applies to the comments, spreading a huge amount of prejudice to this person, "to face reality" and other nonsensical facts. Judgment cannot condone to a hikikomori as they have a reason to stay in isolation. But some potential will merit through psychologists or counselors. Some have criticized or over exaggerated as they conceive hikikomori are the real killers.

For about the rest of my life, I stayed in isolation and go to school sometimes-to-rarely now. Ever since, I have been bullied, threatened and insulted upon through the rest of my life. Everyone contradicts and deceits were made upon their assumptions. It wasn't my undoing, but a mere assumption was placed upon them, and started rumor prejudice. And it all started in Elementary school, that started me into a hikikomori. My parents were like this father, resolving forcefully, breaking my door and kicking me out. It wasn't a good experience. every timeI go out, the sudden panic disorders hitted me and everyone treated me poorly. What makes it even worse that I started a outrage in my school, lifting a table and it hit a teacher. Towards now I just reject to go to school, and continuing a hikikomori lifestyle.

Throughout these years, I met psychologists, counselors and was forced to stay at a hospital for about a year, nothing of these helped me, as of now, it gradually became worse. In essence of relatives, trying to offer me to Church guidance to Gymnastics, I refused at first but took the offer. Knowing like a hikikomori that I will regret, stepping outside of my house and disdaining myself. I also took night school, as a Japanese course, which in regards are failing at this moment. Initially gaining panic disorders and anger, every week as it grows my hatred towards the students in my class.

Which also begs a continuation to another article. A Removal of NEETs & Hikikomoris out of their rooms.

This in fact, like I stated is nonsensical. There could be potential that removing them out is good, but it may cause more harm to them, from past experiences. It has been a trend in Japan with a number of hikikomoris and NEETs, being widespread. Going out to society from a hikikomori's perceptive is like living in a brutal experience, it may cause fatal consquences. And getting more prejudice won't make the times, they live isolated, from their experience with society. That also applies towards getting probation officers to psychologists, pills might work, sure but learning from experience it didn't.

It's really depressing to get remind of that...

BREAKING NEWS - Giantbomb/Whiskey Media is Temporarily Up!

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 17:27:56 +0100

While the official sites is still down, Whiskey Media had came back online for the live-stream and the Bracket-tournament that they were doing on Yesterday's TNT pitting against the people at Whiskey Media. I like how they decided to fully live-stream the whole day, yesterday regarding this issue with Amazon servers and entertained us with Tested and their podcast and reviews on gadgets to Giantbomb doing their Mortal Kombat thing.

Here's what they said with what's been going on with the Amazon servers and such:

Around 1AM PDT on Thursday, our network of sites went down due to a large failure at the Northern Virginia data center of Amazon, where its Elastic Block Storage (EBS) product is held. Being a pretty popular provider of cloud-based storage, the shutdown also took down several other high-profile websites, including Reddit, Foursquare, and Quora.
Although it would be easy to directly pass the buck onto Amazon for our downtime, we've been extremely happy with them over the years and realize things like this happen from time to time. The Whiskey Media "Top Men" take pride in our architecture and our ability to provide a stable environment for you to goof off with on the Internet.

About Last Night - The Office

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 04:15:49 +0100

To keep this short, Michael's Last Dundies was a redeeming episode to the previous disastrous episodes and the fact that Zach Woods is still the worst characters on the show. Although the "Dundies Awards" didn't take place in Chills where it's often a tradition to The Office, Vickers joined them in the Awards Ceremony where Michael created a "enactment of The Office" replacing everyone with Michael as everyone in the Office and hilarious award winners like Meredith winning "Best Mother" to Jim talking about Cece again and again and trying to not hate him more when he and Pam constantly talks about their ugly baby.

Also Dwight is still whining due to Michael not recommending him to be the Manager and the Dundies is upgraded to some restaurant that is probably featured in previous seasons. And references from previous episodes that they often do and with nod and a wink. It was just okay especially when Erin dumped Gabe and starts being a cry baby loser and Ryan finally not awarded for Hottest Person at The Office and becoming jealous at someone who won the award albeit Cece being mentioned for the millionth time and Gabe.

Game Corner - Dragon Age II

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 03:50:20 +0100

I stated that Amazon was the first to go but I had made a error on that. It's Amazon's web services who caused many great sites like Giantbomb, hulu and many more, temporarily be down for the whole day - making this an awkward day for me for not going to those sites and decided to beat Dragon Age II.

To discuss more of Dragon Age II, the ending was stupid and I hate the fact that Bioware/Dragon Age II Team keeps on bitching the fact that nothing is wrong with the game and it's "personal preference" for anyone who complains. They seriously suck at receiving constructive criticism and even created a fake-ass review of Dragon Age II to bitch that it's "immersive and fast-paced with the gameplay" bullshit and it was a one year development. When I was playing, I didn't mind that it was what everyone said and played it like WoW just like playing Origins even though it often have repetitive environments and a glitches/bugs that are even worse in Origins.

Khardros' Corner

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 03:39:35 +0100

What I'm Watching NOW

Recently I posted my early impressions/rant of The Pacific and felt that the character progression and emotional impact felt too derived from other war films and having marines in that company succumbing from the war doesn't justify the lack of going dudes mowing down a thousands of Japs though there's one part in episode 2 where after mowing down the Japanese, there's one Japanese who is being toyed upon by the marines and hearing his cries was painful that Lucky decided to put him out of his misery. There's also a number of sex scenes.. well two of them, with one of them in the Melbourne episode being less subtle than the next one with the sergeant who honored back home with a "Medal of Honor".

Another television show that I'm watching currently is Modern Family and it still is the most funniest show right now. Watching Community, Parks and Recreation and The Office had never made me laugh even larger than Modern Family, especially the previous episode with Phil "advertising" his job on the van is the high mark of the show to me as Claire and Haley not realizing that they are being flirted at by perverts and "I can't be satisfied" and a picture of Claire posing sexy was the huge reason why Julie Bowen is one of the hottest moms on TV. I just can't get enough of Modern Family and the writers of that show is pretty talented with continuously making me laugh out loud.

The Day When the Internet was Gone - April 21th

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 03:50:52 +0100

I would say it was due to Skynet or the inevitable apocalypse that is 2012 but today, every website...every website that I go to is unavailable or down for the whole day. Giantbomb, Screened, Tested and such are down today and I was pissed off and this is one of the reasons why I decided to create a website and not go to blogspot. It seems like Amazon, one of the best online retailer websites was the first to go down as well as Playstation Home, Xbox Live and even World of Warcraft was down for a brief moment.

It's really scary now considering that most of the important sites I go to is down and all I have is Youtube, Justin Tv and this site to create a website for my own and neglecting to finally have my rights to publish a real website through a credit card/paypal that I really don't have. Nevertheless, Whiskey Media made a effort to live-stream the whole day of the reason that they are down and entertaining us with Tested and Giantbomb playing Mortal Kombat in their "Thursday Night Throwdown". I just hope that tomorrow or evidently these websites will go back live like other websites now currently back again and hope Skynet isn't true.

Here's a "Skynet Research Information Video" that is perhaps viral and a "CNET" video reacting to this incident. It is probably a conspiracy theory or even worse. Though it is above this blog rather than embed in here because this isn't like Giantbomb/Screened with the better tools.