SHOWS!

I don't know if you know this, but I watch a lot of television.

It's a bit of a not so well kept secret. A while a go, about a week and a half, I started Arrow on Netflix. Simply put, the show is...

Hair twirling and all, you know, if my hair were still long enough to twirl. I can kind of twirl its current length, but I look ridiculous. Yes, I did it in a mirror to see just how ridiculous I looked doing so. Granted, I've only seen the first four episodes now, having just watched the other three before stopping to watch Revolution, and the other shows that I am now bedeviled with the misfortune of watching. Not because they are bad shows, no, but because there are so damn many of them that I watch that it has become a nuisance, and I can't seem to stop picking shows up. I even have this "amazing" plan to watch The Sopranos, Deadwood, and The Wire over winter break - not necessarily in that order.

Revolution is hitting all of my feels right now. It's not fair for shows to be doing this to me. There's like four story lines all going on at once, merging into one solitary story, and while its interesting, the things they be doing, be heartbreaking. However, if it's anything like episode one, it may not be as heartbreaking in like four minutes, unless this time the character is actually dead, for the long term at least. Not everyone can be saved by magic brain controlled robotic fireflies. At least not in the same episode they die in.

But God, this episode had me all:

Darn character development. It gets you sometimes. I am however glad there isn't a new episode of Modern Family tonight. It allows me to write more of this while I wait for Super Fun Night. Then I'll catch South Park and Key & Peele, the rerun of American Horror Story: Coven, and @Midnight, then maybe Conan and The Pete Holmes Show, but I may just stop watching the show and just watch YouTube clips. I prefer the latter. But what I will be doing, as soon as they are posted to the inter-web, is watch Survivor, The Tomorrow People, Misfits, The Ultimate Fighter, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and The League. And that my dear readers, is my Wednesday night.

In other news, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag came out today. So guess what this guy is doing. I call it "Operation Spoiler Aversion," OSA for short. Because I have decided to wait until November 15th to get the game along with my PlayStation 4 as opposed to paying an additional ten dollars to upgrade the game to the PS4 version, which I am assuming would in turn require me to restart the campaign, which is something I would much rather not do. So please, if you have spoilers, don't spoiler it, cause I'll be sad, very sad. Then I will be mad, slightly mad.

But seriously, OSA has like, never worked before, so I really need it to this time, because Assassin's Creed is a beloved franchise of mine, and I just don't know what I would do with myself if the story was ruined for me. I, unlike most people, did not hate ACIII. I will say that it was the weakest. But there are far worse games to get your panties in a bunch over. *cough* Literally any Call of Duty game. *cough*

Seriously though, have you seen Ghosts, have you really seen Ghosts and are not just buying into the ridiculous hype no game could ever hope to live up to? The game looks like crap, which isn't new for a call of duty game after Modern Warfare 2, they all fell into the "samey" look with reused textures and just plain terrible quality. But Ghosts and I'm talking the next gen versions of the game, look worse, literally worse, than some of the games I've already played on my PS3. Here, let me just show you one reason as to why this game is terrible, and they're just throwing things out there to make a quick sixty bones.

For some reason, the text on the left is cut off, it's supposed to read "random ass sunshafts."

Allow me to explain what is wrong with this, for the people that don't know what is wrong with this. Ignoring the bad resolution of the picture, as it is re-sized, but seriously, where the hell are those sunshafts coming from? The Sun, is right there, in the (near) center of the picture, yet there are shafts coming in from the left. Sorry to break it to you people, but unless this takes place on another planet, or the Earth develops a second Sun in this game, this image is quite literally impossible. Unless there is a building just off screen that is for some reason, pointing its spotlight into the forest during the day. Or, mirrors, I guess. They either, don't know how sunshafts work, or they don't care, or even more likely, they just do not give a fuck about what they put out there.

Granted, I am aware that a lot of companies do not actually care, about their product and the consumer, and they are only interested in the money. It is all about the money after all.

That guy, he's just balancing money on his head, while pretending to be in an elevator.

Holy crap this episode of South Park is amazing, just that line "you don't know what it's like to be a baby going through puberty" is so damn fantastically ridiculous that its absolute perfection. While South Park has lost my "best animated show" award to Archer. I cannot deny the brilliancy and consistency in episode quality South Park has had, and it doesn't appear to be about to falter either. Holy shit, they are comparing Yo Gabba Gabba to Miley Cyrus. I cannot believe how amazing this is.

So, Pre-Registration for classes begins Monday, I already have my registration key, so I may or may not be able to pre-register online. Regardless actual registration is the 12th at 6 AM. I should however, based on my desired schedule being comprised of classes I am able to pre-register for. So by November 4, I should be all registered for my final semester. Then I can walk on out into society, and die a slow painful death like the rest of society.

Pessimism rules though, it's much better than optimism, and a little less annoying. I'm actually more of a realist, maybe a pessimistic realist. However, I consider the glass to be either half empty or half full. Actually, I want to have some fun with this so let me explain how I look at the cup. I consider the glass to be half empty if the glass was full of a beverage which has been drank. the glass is half full, when the glass had no liquid and then had liquid added to it. So if it is being drank, half empty. Getting filled, half full.

I'm not sure when I'll be back, but sometime next week. A Brief History of my Life Part 2. Be prepared. Here, have some, and by some, I mean a lot of movie trailers. I'm off to watch American Horror Story Asylum.

I've Ran Out of Things To Talk About

Important things. (with Demetri Martin).

I have to preface this one, with the following message to all reader who have read my previous post entitled "Depression." I appreciate the few of you that have gotten in contact with me over Facebook via commenting on my status or by private message. I really do appreciate it. But let me explain something. While your intentions may have been pure, they do not come off that way to me. It has nothing to do with you, and I don't hold any grudges against you, as you were only trying to help, it does however have everything to do with the way I am wired. 

Whenever someone tells me I need help, psychological help, therapeutic help, whatever kind of help, and they aren't being sarcastic, I take it personally. I can't help it either. It's just how I work. So telling me I need a therapist, or that I should look into getting one to talk about my problems with someone, isn't good for me. it's actually detrimental. It makes me feel that you think I am inferior to you in some way, regardless of whether or not you actually do, and it actually makes me feel worse. In other words, I appreciate that you are trying to help, but please stop, because it isn't helping, it's making it worse.

I'm not suffering, so don't worry. One day in near a thousand day's where I break down in tears is not a sufferer make. It was much more common back in the day, but I have managed to get myself out of the funk, whatever funk I was in, am now a (somewhat) normal and functioning member of society. the day's on which I lose my emotions, which again isn't common in the slightest, has nothing to do with what has been going on in my life (i.e. stress, a break-up, or the death of a beloved character in a show, book, or movie), it's totally random and out of my control. And while yes, on some days - most days even - I don't want to get out of bed, and I literally have to roll myself out to get up, that's nothing that should be worried about either. Because who wants to get up in the morning anyways.

All that being said. I again, thank those who were worried enough to reach out to me, but please, stop.

By the way. These will likely be coming out slower, one to two a week at most - as opposed to two or three a week. I've realized that I have been pumping these out too fast, and i am slowly running out of things to talk about if I plan to keep this pace and blog length. so I'm just going to slow down the pace of blog posts and get these out when I get around to it and have more to talk about.

School is coming to an end. And that terrifies me for two reasons.

REASON ONE: I have to go live in the "real world" soon.

REASON TWO: I am getting old. I'll be 22 for Pete's sake. TWENTY TWO.

Despite my hatred of Taylor Swift and her music, I couldn't resist using this .GIF.

To backtrack a bit. Back to the depression stuff briefly. the only thing that kept running through my head, is how much do people actually know me. Do they just know who I am, as in, they just match the face to the name. Do they know my writing style, my voice (verbal, sonical, and prosal). Do the people that don't read this really know me?

It's a serious question. and I guess it doesn't just pertain to me either. It relates to anyone really. How much do the people you interact with daily, know about you, do they know the real you, or a projection? I'm getting all philosophical and I love it, because questions like this fuel my existence. I believe that maybe only twenty people know I'm a sufferer of "self-diagnosed mild depression" outside of this blog and its readers. I feel like we want to believe that we know the people around us. But do we really? I'd say three to five people know the "real me" while everyone else has this vague idea, and I don't think that's anyone's fault. It's just really difficult to actually know someone. You could easily think you know someone, through daily interaction. But, and be honest now, have you ever had one of those "I thought I knew that person" moments. I guess that's really where my question stems from. How much do we really know, the people we think we know. Think about it. Get back to me. We'll do a discussion in the comments section if you so wish. :Lets have some fun with it.

Back to college the stuff. My life as a college student is ending. My final semester starts at the end of January. My final semester. Final semester. Final. Semester. Sorry, blacked out there in a haze of my own sadness that I am no longer going to be going to Brockport. I grew up in a town similar to Brockport, so it sort of became a home away from home for me. I'm not sure what the town is like when all the college students go away, and frankly, I feel bad for the townspeople that have to deal with the majority of the student body that inhabits their town for roughly six months. 

The Pitch Perfect GIFs have begun, there's no stopping them now.

Pre-Registration week starts on November 4. This terrifies me, for two reasons.

REASON ONE + TWO: Redundancy.

In all seriousness though, I'm slowly coming to the realization that soon I will be leaving this little college town behind me and moving on to potentially better things. Like sitting in my home office behind a computer screen with writers block trying to finish the next great american novel and failing horribly. Or going to Chicago in a year or two for film school. Why Chicago you ask?

Pre-Registration means class registration. I need fifteen credits to graduate on time, and that means five classes at three credits each. I broke it down for those who aren't so good at the mathematics - no offense, or offense if you wanna fight. COME AT ME, BRO! 

I'll take you all on.

It's looking like I'm going to do three English courses, and two Film Studies courses. Children's Lit, Modern Myth, and Advanced Fiction Workshop for the former, Ecocinema and Film History part 2 for the latter. I believe, that actually works out to be like, four classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays with one class Mondays (M), Wednesdays (W), and Fridays (F). While five classes on Tuesdays (T) and Thursdays (R) would have been quite extreme, it would also mean that every week I get from Thursday night to Tuesday morning off from classes, and that alone would make it well worth it. Granted the one MWF class, with it being at like one fifteen, is pretty light too, I don't have to wake up super early. I do have to get up for class that is at like nine thirty on TR, But at least it isn't an eight o'clock class, I swore never again, and I have succeeded. eight o'clock classes are my own personal Hell. If there is a Hell, it's eight o'clock classes.

More on the scheduling for my final semester as it comes up. Also, dear girl who talks to me about Pokemon before my Modern Logic class.

That is all. Blog over. Have a video.

Depression.

This one is going to get serious.

Just because it's somewhat of a serious topic doesn't mean I can't add some humor into it. Especially when the humor isn't necessarily appropriate to the situation. Let me preface this blog post by saying that I haven't been clinically diagnosed as depressed. I do have however, through conversations with people who have been diagnosed, have similar symptoms to depression. I wake up days, and cannot will myself out of bed for sometimes hours, I break down and just cry for little to no reason, I hate being around people because I feel that they always pity me - even if they don't, and on some level I know they don't, I still have the feeling that they do - As mentioned in my first "official" post I have self diagnosed myself with "mild-depression." Though others may see it as more severe than I do.

Be warned, this is going to get dark. Quick. So first, unicorns and rainbows!

Jumping right in now. I tried to kill myself twice. Either I succeeded and am now a ghost, or I wasn't very good at it, and thankfully so I guess. I'm sure that's how other people see it, and more or less how I see it now, at least on most days. Today, for whatever reason wasn't a day where I felt this way.

My alarm went off at ten, and I shut it off. and lied in bed awake, until the second one, shut it off at 11:15. When the third one went off at 11:30 and I still hadn't moved my eyes from that spot on the ceiling right above my resting head, I knew this day was going to suck. By 12:15 I decided to roll myself out of my bed and onto my floor where I then managed to pick myself up and pull myself together. I then took a forty minute shower, thirty minutes of which was me crying, over absolutely nothing. Literally nothing. I just burst into tears standing there, and then curled up into a ball in the corner of the shower crying.

This was me, in the shower, if I had clothes on, and darker hair. And, you know, if I was David Tennant.

Confessions time. I have self harmed before - I've told people I haven't but that's a lie. Sorry to people I lied to about this, but I feel I need to actually set the record straight once and for all. I have two scars from direct self infliction on my right arm, they aren't long, no more than an inch each. The cross tattoo I have, covers them both up to the point where they are practically non-existent. they were never deep or good enough to leave a super visible scar. It's like any other minor cut scar any other person may get. It just kind of fades into your skin tone and nobody thinks anything is up. The reason nobody knows is because I was a sneaky little bastard, and managed to hide it well. LONG SLEEVES.

So that's out there now. Anybody who reads this will now know more about me than my own family and my closest friends. I have literally told no one about the self harm. I've avoided it, and denied it, but truth be told, I didn't do for attention. That is the one thing I hate about cutting. The negative "they're doing it for attention" connotation. A few weeks back we were watching Thirteen (if you haven't seen it, watch it, it's a great film about women coming to age in the lower class) for my Women in Film class, and the scenes where the main character self harms comes up, and someone mentions that she was doing it because she wasn't getting enough attention from her mother. Nobody groaned, or immediately objected. I was fucking shocked. I've never been so put off by how little people know about why people self harm.

It's not attention seeking, or it nearly never is. It's about being able to actually feel something. Depression makes you so numb to the world most days, that cutting just allows you to feel. Masochists also self harm, but they do it for an entirely different reason that I won't bother getting into. Pleasure, they get off on it; there I went into it, you happy?

So today has been rough. It's the first day where I've broken down in tears for no reason (Derek did it to me some number of weeks ago - that was the last "real" time I cried) in roughly three years. But the last time I cried on a personal level was when a friend of mine died. But I didn't cry for some time after it happened. In fact, it wasn't until I had gotten the memorial tattoo on the inside of my arm, he finished working on it, and I cried right there in the shop. The artist waited and gave me a consoling hug, and let me wait for a little while before I returned to the lobby where my friend who drove me there was waiting. It took about five or so minutes for it to not look like I had been crying - my face gets blotchy and my eyes go all bloodshot, it's very easy to tell if I've been crying - The artist was very supportive. He does amazing work by the way. Billy the Kid, at Amazing Grace Body Arts in Geneva, go, give that man some work.

The memorial piece. The RC Cola logo, with Birth & Death dates and "Never Forgotten"

The outside of the half sleeve, the last verse of William Blake's "The Tyger" and a Tiger. You can also see like half of my face... ladies.

I've been doing a lot of self reflexive writing in my poetry class. Working of pieces that are close and personal to me. I wrote a scrambled poem today - as if my day wasn't already hard enough - that drove me to tears. It was a scramble of Bob Hicok's "Cutting Edge." It's about him noticing his dog has gotten old, and that soon she will die and the poem is sort of his way for preparing. I couldn't possibly bring myself to change what the poem was about, and I kept a lot of the images the same. But by God, my version broke me down. 

Just me, sitting in my room, hunched over my laptop keyboard, bawling over the beautiful poem about an old dog, and a man about to be in mourning. Why do I subject myself to this stuff, I just write things, and then I cry. I lie down, curl up in a ball, and cry.

I haven't ever been driven to tears by anything other than my poetry. But this one broke me. I'm not broken easily, it takes things like Derek, which is the saddest show on the planet - Available on Netflix (shameless promotions!) - to break me. Sure I've cried over my writing before, but never hysterically. My poem almost made me not want to get a puppy, a husky puppy to be exact, when I get my own place. Almost. Because you know, it made me realize that puppy, that I will love with all my heart, will die, and will turn me into a sobbing broken mess of a man no longer able to function in society ever again. 

I'm also glad nobody heard me cry this morning. So you know, this didn't happen:

Except you know, a guy instead of Emma Stone. A guy. I feel like Emma Stone would console me though, then we would fall in love, get married, and make beautiful children together. I can dream Harold! (if you didn't get that last bit, watch the video at the end)

And I didn't have to explain that I was crying for no absolute reason. Crying because I wrote a terribly sad poem about a dog that is about to die is a bit more reasonable than crying because you happened to be awake and taking a shower. The second one isn't even a reason to be crying, and yet, I was.

Anyways, it's 12:37, I have class in like... ten hours... so I should stop writing this, so I can catch up on some shows and get some sleep. And hopefully I won't wake up tomorrow a slobbering mess. Thanks for reading about my mess of a day. Enjoy the video.

A Look at Carrie

So the Carrie remake just came out a few days ago. And While i said I would return Saturday, I got tied up in catching up on the shows I had missed from the week and doing some other things, such as playing Pokemon. But, for now, I'd like to take a moment and looks at the two Carrie films, and discuss what each one did better than the other, give an overall "score" to the two films, and then talk about some other stuff.

First, lets look at the good stuff the new version did. Particularly, the casting is just fantastic in it's three main characters. I must admit I may be partial to Chloe Grace Moretz (as the titular Carrie), since she stole my heart in Kick-Ass, in a totally non-sexual way. Though as she is getting older, it's getting harder and harder to ignore her beauty. Julianne Moore also did a fantastic job as the terrifying Mrs. White - which is much more insane (and in turn unsympathetic) than in the original. Lastly, the lovely Judy Greer as gym teacher Ms. Desjardin, also did a fantastic job, I especially enjoyed her in the film, because it was not only a surprise that she was in the film, but also because I am an avid Archer fan.

They gave Carrie more awareness and control over her telekinetic powers, allowing her to know what exactly she is capable of, which is a big change from the original. Giving the powers more presence in the film, making them more of a superpower, than something to be feared, not only made the film less horrific, but changed the overall tone for me. In the original the powers were relatively unknown to Carrie as to what she could do, and when she uses them, post blood bath, they are driven out purely by her teen-aged pubertal angst and rage. In the remake Carrie could have chosen to kill everyone prior to the spilling of the blood if she so chose, it also appears as though her assault on the students at the prom was drawn from a different.

In the 2013 version, Carrie allows for most of the prom-goers to escape the gym totaling her death count at around ten to twelve people. It feels more like an event she has been practicing, as she seemingly only kills her female classmates and a few others caught in the crossfire, rather than it all being done in a shocking and unexpected outburst of absolute rage.

As previously mentioned, the 2013 Carrie  has greater control over her powers, and this only serves to diminish the impact of the film's climactic prom scene. It's more of a display of how awesome Carrie is, rather than look how terrifying this telepath is. In the 1976 version, Carrie's naivete about what is happening to her makes her sudden rage-filled assault absolutely horrifying (in 1970's horror standards); She snaps, and kills every last one of the people at the prom that did her wrong, and countless more innocents. 

The 1976 prom sequence was all set up to build tension in the viewer making them anxious, because they know something is about to go down, but they aren't sure just how crazy it is going to get. I feel as though the remake tries to retell and express this tension, but fails. The camera is handled like any other movie sequence would in a prom scene, there's no big moves going on, the camera will jump from person to person, or hang still in two shot of Carrie and Tommy, or of Chris and Billy (the films main antagonists). there's no real camera movement to be noticed, nothing in the scene really "wow's" the viewer. Once that bucket falls in the 1976 version everything goes crazy, moving about in hurried confusion conveying Carrie's wrath and the uncontrolled mayhem and chaos of the gym while using a split screen as the action goes on.

In contrast, the 2013 version slows when the blood is spilled, and waits until the bucket itself drops from the rafters and knocks Tommy in the head, killing him. Carrie then checks on him, and kneels down, while everyone in the crowd just looks on in awe as a blood soaked Carrie, cries over Tommy's dead or unconscious body. She then stands and decides it's time to kill a few people, turning what was originally a terrifying show of rage that even Carrie couldn't control, into a situation where Carrie knows exactly what she is doing, and picking and choosing which few people she wants to die. It's as if she chooses to kill everyone over the fact that Tommy got hurt, rather it just being blind rage.

I found this to be odd though. At least for me, Carrie clearly has feelings for Tommy, that's no secret, he's like the only person who is ever nice to her. He only takes Carrie to the prom however because Sue tells him to, but that's aside from the point. Once the blood is spilled all tension goes, because Carrie doesn't immediately snap. There's practically no tension at all in the scene. We know her tormentors for the most part are going to die, everyone except for Sue, because she's innocent, she was "nice" to Carrie. That, and she's pregnant - which is later revealed but is easily predicted by her having to run to the bathroom randomly. Sue does survive the original as well, she's the only one that does (if my memory serves correctly), the pregnancy is new, along with her trip to the White house post prom. 

Well, not really a twist, more of a reveal...

Let's talk Carrie's mom for a minute now, to close off this discussion of the films. Piper Laurie's Mrs. White in the 1976 version is, like the 2013 version, crazy and unhinged, but she's still somewhat (albeit a little bit) human; her craziness being a result of her self-repression and her excessive religious fervor, tipping into hysterical mania at the film's crucial moments, where she needs to be crazy. We are able to see why Carrie both hates and loves her mother in the original, she isn't always crazy 24/7, there are moments where there's actual humanity. The 2013 Mrs. White, however, played by Julianne Moore, is absolutely insane. It's nearly impossible to feel much of anything for her except utter repugnance. She cuts herself, we see a lot of scars, and we see her do it once, which was excellently handled - it's a very unnerving scene -  which is an interesting change to the character that could have easily been used to been used to bring out some sort of sympathy for her, but is instead used to make us fear her even more. Early on into the film she takes a kitchen knife, a big one at that, to go check on Carrie, making her into a quasi-potential murderer. We already saw in the opening sequence that she nearly kills Carrie, but chooses not to. But doing it, seventeen years later, is a bit of a jump, and makes the character seem totally off. It's at this moment, where we become unable to sympathize with her, which is saddening because that's the whole point of the character, we aren't supposed to only fear her, we need sympathy to understand her, she just becomes a flat out monster with no humanity.

All in all, the remake wasn't that bad. But it doesn't really do anything that the original didn't handle better. Which is a little upsetting as a fan of Moretz, I wanted to see this one do better than the original. Hell, the original wasn't exactly a horror master piece. I do love (love's a strong word, "it's more of a it's one of my favorite Steven King works" actually) the book though. So, here are your scores.

1976: 7/10

2013: 7/10

They're both average, The performances, from Greer and Moretz make up for the remakes short comings, while the original is just a more rounded film that does some things masterfully while coming off as weak in some minor parts of the film. You should give the remake a shot, if you haven't seen the original yet, or if you're a Chloe Grace Moretz fan. I cannot deny that the original is great - it's on Netflix right now by the way.

**Fun side note. I just read a review by my film professor on the remake, our opinions and discussion points are eerily similar, and in the same basic order. I'm almost tempted to just shift some paragraphs around to make it look less like a copy of his review, minus some of the technical stuff.

If you haven't seen the original, watch it, it's a fun ride, and well worth it, and a bit more tension filled than the remake.

So, I bought Pacific Rim last night. I just thought you might like to know that. It was easily the best "blockbuster" of the summer. It's the dumb action movie, that knows it's a dumb action movie, and doesn't try to be anything more than that. It's everything Man of Steel tried to be. I didn't necessarily hate Man of Steel. Hell, I'm likely going to buy it, if anything because I'm somewhat of a self taught superhero film scholar and I want to look at it more. But the movie was riddled with senseless destruction and death in it's second act, and doesn't really seem to acknowledge that. Everything just gets destroyed. All of Smallville is obliterated even Martha Kent's house out on the farm, and roughly eighty percent of Metropolis is demolished. I cannot recall if they ever say how much damage, money wise, was caused to Metropolis, but I cannot imagine it being anything less than a billion. On a side note, there's like four parts in the movie where Superman visually, is literally compared to Jesus. That's the one movie trope I cannot stand - especially in Superhero films, or hero films in generally, when the hero is sub-textually taking on a holier than thou persona. 

I have some catching up to do on some twitch.tv Vod's - RollPlay + RollPlay: Ehbon - because I have no D&D campaign of my own to go to, so I watch people play D&D for days. Each session is like three to four hours long, and session 34 of RollPlay is today, and I'm on the final hour of session 32 right now. and then I have all four session of Ehbon to go through, and I have no idea how long those generally are, so, I have a lot of catching up to do. I wanted to watch more Arrow, but I think I may just wait until like next weekend or Thanksgiving break to do that.

So in light of the massive amount of catch up I have to play, so here, have a video.

**Added after initial post

Confessions of a Pokemon Addict

Truth be told, Pokemon X has kept me from returning to this blog for the past few days. It has become my figurative jam.

If you're expecting a review, congratulations, you're going to get a spoiler heavy one. Enjoy. As mentioned in my previous blog post, the game features quite the heap of changes from the previous installment in the series. The best of those changes being that you now gain experience after catching wild Pokemon. So you can catch them all and level up at the same time.

I have no choice but to tip my hat to the Pokemon Company on this decision, it's fantastic - I must have gained like, three total levels across all my party Pokemon because of this feature. So I picked Fennekin, the fire starter, and I regret nothing. Delphox is the shit. but now that I have Mewtwo, I do slightly regret it, because Mewtwo is the shit squared. I had this initial idea of doing a fire team, I was thinking of picking Charmander as my OG starter in Lumiose city, because Mega Charizard X is part dragon and therefore a bad ass. 

Mega Charizard X (left) and Mega Charizard Y (right)

The only real thing I hate about Mega Charizard X, is the blue fire coming out of his mouth. That's it, I love everything else about him. but when it came time to make the decision on which of the OG starters to pick, ultimately I went with Squirtle. I already had a fire flying type in Fletchling, and I don't use grass Pokemon, they are my least favorite type. Fairy is a close second, a lot of the designs for the fairy Pokemon suck, aside from Xerneas. So clearly since I didn't have any water Pokemon yet Squirtle was the obvious choice.

I can't say that I love Mega-Evolutions, they're nice and all, and they don't take up a turn when used, but, why weren't they just like, yeah, let's just give some Pokemon a fourth permanent evolution, it practically is, because you can use it whenever you want. I can throw my Blastoise or Mewtwo out there whenever I want, and just Mega-Evolve them right away in every battle. It's certainly not needed for every battle, and doing that in every battle would admittedly be quite the hindrance, but wouldn't it be nice if it were permanent.  Okay, so, let's play a game.

The game is than now that there are six generations of the game, and therefore six sets of starter Pokemon, you must now choose one starter from each game, and two of each type to make up your party. In case you forgot the starter's of a certain Generation, here they are in grass, water, fire order.

Gen I: Bulbasaur, Squirtle, Charmander
Gen II: Chikorita, Totodile, Cyndaquil
Gen III: Treeko, Mudkip, Torchic
Gen IV: Turtwig, Piplup, Chimchar
Gen V: Snivy, Oshowatt, Tepig
Gen VI: Chespin, Froakie, Fennekin

Now that we have those starters listed. Give me like... two minutes... to debate with myself.

Charmander, Totodile, Treeko, Turtwig, Oshowatt, Fennekin

That wasn't that hard to be honest. It started with I need one that can learn fly, and Charizard is the only starter that can learn fly. Then it was straight forward from there, Totodile is my favorite Gen II starter, and Feraligator is my favorite water starter final evolution (haven't messed with Froakie to know if he's better). Treeko is like the only good grass starter (Chespin aside, I haven't messed with him yet). Turtwig for that crazy defense stat, Oshowatt because Snivy is statistically the worst starter ever, and come on, Tepig? Really? I chose Fennekin, not because he's the only gen VI I have experience with, but because I wanted a Psychic Pokemon on my team, and he's got a good defense stat. Now all I have to do is get one of the older games, and start trading over, I can make this team by starting a new game and picking Fennekin again and going from there. It'd be interesting to see how this would play out.

I'm still upset that Froakie turns out to be a dark type and Chespin a fighting type. Allow me to explain why this doesn't make sense. Fennekin becomes fire/psychic. Chespin Grass/fighting. And Froakie Water/Dark. Anyone see the issue yet? I'm sure Pokemon fans see it. Fire is weak to water, water to grass, and grass to fire, that much is obvious. But, also, psychic is weak to dark, dark to fighting, and fighting to psychic. They could have just left them straight up solo types and the benefits would have been the same. The fire starter has no defense against the water starter, the grass has no defense over the fire, and the water has none over the grass. They could have played opposites here, and given the starters defenses over their initial weaknesses and thus making battles with your rivals in game a bit more interesting. Instead, we come to the issues that gen's one and two had the fire will always be beaten by the water, the grass by the fire, and the water by the grass.

All of that being said, I have no real issue with the game, I just would have preferred it otherwise. This is in fact my favorite Pokemon game since the original Red and Blue. They've really stepped their game up, and as a nerd, destined to live the rest of his life, lonely in a dark room watching television and playing video games. Pokemon X gets a 10/10.

Moving on to better and bigger things (non Pokemon fans let out a collective sigh or relief) so that I can feel as though this blog actually has a relevant purpose in my life.

I've recently watched that, I own it. It's fantastic, you know, if you're a fan of Joss Whedon and Shakespeare. If you're not well...

Being that Much Ado is my favorite Shakespeare play, I had somewhat high expectations from this. I can say that it didn't disappoint at all, at least not me. I'm also a huge Joss Whedon fan, and I'm pretty sure it's impossible for me to hate anything that man does, nerds unite and all. Okay, that's a lie, I do hate some things he does, like when he kills off my favorite characters and stuff, but other than that, the man does no wrong.

A bit of a side note here, I know you love it when I go on tangents, but do you ever get the urge to punch some one, as hard as you can in the face. Not just as a one time occurrence, but every goddamn day, multiple times each day? That's me right now for the past two days. My suite mates were pretty much gone over mid-semester break, so I managed to somehow forget just how annoying the one we call Jake can be. Jake isn't his real name, we initially called him that because he never shaves, and when he did, we actually thought he was a different person. The name kind of stuck. He has also, apparently been playing video games for about ten hours a day with a person whose name he did not know, or at least remember - who he only refers to as "Batman," the person's gamer tag. What. The. Actual. Fuck. It's like he's never heard of stranger danger before. 

On second thought that doesn't surprise me, he always seems to find new ways to amaze me about what he doesn't know. For a 90's kid, he hasn't heard of Dragon Ball Z, Rugrats, or pretty much anything that was on Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network if I recall correctly. So anyways, he won't stop watching Vine videos, on his mac. I have to specify mac, because he only owns apple products, and he claims that is because that's all his parents would buy him, but I have to call bullshit, because no self respecting parent would spend hundreds of extra dollars for an apple logo. Or maybe I'm just naive about how ignorant the parenting public actually is. I mean, they clearly didn't teach him self control. He plays video games, for ten hours straight doesn't nourish his body until 12:30 IN THE MORNING every night, and even then he only eats sugars and junk food.

We've tried telling him that what he does isn't healthy, but he doesn't listen. He's also the only socially awkward person, whose social awkwardness is too much for me to handle. I usually respect people who don't know how to "deal" with other people. Because, hell, I'm one of those people. But he brings it to new levels. 

He cannot order his own food. I'm not kidding. He is literally scared to call a pizza place, or any food place that delivers because he does not know how to talk to people without swearing at them through the internet over some bullshit thing that happens in World of Tanks or Call of Duty, which by the way, are the only two games he plays. I tried World of Tanks once, I wanted to kill myself - figuratively, I just hated every minute of it. Granted this was the PC version of the game, so maybe the X-Box version is better, but honestly I doubt it, because the X-Box version is never better. Never.

Anyone who tells you other wise is a liar. A dirty no good liar you shouldn't be letting your kids hang around with. Right Harry?

So back to Much Ado. To put it bluntly, and briefly, if you're not a fan of Shakespeare, don't watch it. At all, you'll hate every minute of it. It's not for people that find him and his writing boring, it's for fans of Shakespeare by fans of Shakespeare. The script is written in Shakespearean English for Pete's sake (... I don't think I have to say anything about this "Pete" by now, he's just a mystery to me).

By the way, I've been writing this over the course of the day. I had to stop mid rant about my suite mate above, to go to my night class at 6:30, it's now 10:35. To paint a picture for you, and to try and prove to you just how much time he spends on video games (I'll admit I play video games a lot in my free time too, but I'm not obnoxious about it, I do other things, I swear, Scout's honor. Alright, I was never a Boy Scout, but you can trust me. We've made a sort of bond over the past like ten blogs haven't we? Well, you'll just have to take my word on it then) I got back from my first class at 4:45 (3:30-4:45 I do the late afternoon classes thing), and when I walked in, he was playing World of Tanks. Now I cannot tell you when exactly he started, because he was not playing it when I left at around 3:00, But I can only assume that he had been playing it for at least an hour, due to him being situated in his spot on the couch with a drink and all, and that he gets out of class at 3:15 and I walked in at around 5:00. He is still playing World of Tanks Right now, and he won't stop until 12:30 or after if he decides to keep playing after getting his nourishment.

More power to him, I would say if he were able to balance doing this with his school work, which he has proven he can not do last year when he had to drop out of a class because it was literally impossible for him to pass, let alone all the assignments he did not finish or the one's he failed to submit on time. When gaming interferes with your life, in such a way, that it makes it worse, you need help. Serious psychological help because you need to sort out your priorities.

When it's all you do, literally all you do aside from going to class, it's time to hang up your fucking boots man because there is literally no hope for you. I had already mentioned how socially awkward he was, and how normally I take pity on socially awkward people, as I'm most definitely not the most social of butterflies. But here, let me paint you a word picture.

I already mentioned that he cannot order his own food, and the only communication I've seen him do with the "outside world" is calling people "bitch" on some military game. But not only can he not order his own food over the phone, he also has trouble ordering at fast food places, he doesn't speak at all to cashiers when buying his 12:30 AM snack, even when they say something to him like "have a nice night" or whatever. I've went with him once or twice - I assume every time it's the same way. But let me tell you a story. Some fairly attractive females live in the Student Town Home area, or at least walk through it. I mean, the gym is like a two to three minute walk from my Town Home, so they have good reason to walk through the area, though most people just cut through the field and don't take the sidewalk. So anyways, he was looking outside, staring at some girl who was standing out there. She sees him looking at her and waves.

Now you would think he'd just wave back right? Wrong. He screams at the top of his lungs, jumps off the couch he was sitting on, and hides under it. I can't make this shit up people, I wish I was. I really, truly do. But alas, (poor Yorick) I am not. Kudos to the people that got that reference.

Any who, I have work to do, and a lot of it. So I'll leave you with the following video, and I will either return Tomorrow after finishing my essay that's due at Midnight, or Saturday. Also, I'm going to see Carrie tomorrow night, I can't wait.