Quasi Return to Form

If you asked me a few months back how my writing was coming along lately, my response would likely have been a lie. "It's going smoothly," or "I'm taking my time." But honestly, that's not the case, it isn't nearly as smooth as one would want it to be, especially if they want to be a writer like me.

Despite my recent shortcomings, I returned to my writing today. Did a few pages in a new project. Something I've been milling around in my head, rather than trying to get back at an old project like I have been doing my last few attempts at returning to the page. Hopefully I can keep the ball rolling so to speak with this project, and write... something... every day. Be that a blog post or more of this story I'm working on.

It's not some mind blowing story with a premise that will change the storytelling world. But it is something that I care about that I hope will turn into something that other people will care about too. Just hopefully not enough to fan fiction. I hate that crap. But that's another story. To put it short it has to do with a lack of creativity so to speak. You can't create your own characters, or your own world so you steal other writers creations and bastardize it. So yeah, I dislike fan fiction.

I can't really lie, and say I haven't dabbled in borrowing ideas or concepts. Hell, a lot of my early writing, when I was a young'n I wrote a lot of Digimon (topical I know) stories. They were also picture books, existed in worlds I created, with characters I created. The only thing I used that already existed was the concept of Digimon. For those unfamiliar with Digimon it's on the internet somewhere, but here is the original intro for your nostalgic viewing pleasure:

In more personal news, my two year anniversary is right around the corner. November 20th to be exact. I made a reservation at the Bad Apples Bistro nearby in Spencerport, I hear it's amazing, so I hope people weren't lying. My love life depends on it you potential liars! Not really, but you're still potential liars.

In other, other news, I still work at Walmart, but now I'm an Electronics Sales Associate. So I don't dislike going to work as much as I used to.

In other, other, other news TV has been GREAT, especially Netflix, HBO, and Showtime. But you can read more on that on my film review blog soon. Probably within a week or so. Movies have been... movies... I haven't seen any phenomenally great one's this year, yet. Being that it's the end of the year though, I'm kind of disappointed in that. But hey, Star Wars is like a month away right?

I also got like three new games lately, well, one collection of old games and two new games, and I have no time to play them. Not that that's really a bad thing, it's more of a, sad thing, for me. But yeah, the Nathan Drake Collection, Battlefront, and Fallout 4. Then Uncharted 4 comes out early next year, so I at least have to finish off the collection before then, but that would mean not touching the other two for ages. My days off consist of catching up on the shows I'm back logged on, I'm genuinely lucky if I get any time to game. Especially considering that my girlfriend doesn't let me!

Well, she does, but she doesn't like it when I do. I plowed through Assassin's Creed Syndicate's main campaign in a few days and she complained every second of it. All in all, worth it.

That's it for today I think, there'll be more in the future, so stay tuned.

TL;DR I'm writing again and other stuff happened.

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.

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.

Another Apocalyptic Sunday

I'm writing this while watching last week's WWE Raw. Yes, on top of everything else I watch, I also watch professional wrestling. Stop judging me, I've watched this since I was young, I can't get the fish hook out of my cheek.

I love how when John Cena is out on injury, they don't seem to know what to do with the title, they managed for more than a year to keep the belt on CM Punk. Which was fantastic, but Cena got injured a few months ago and they've been playing the vacant WWE title game for a month and a half now, two pay per views without proper finishes. Granted, it's some of the best writing I've seen out of the company, comedy wise, because they have The Big Show involved, and everything that man does is comedic gold.

Moving on from the pro wrestling talk before I lose my entire ten person audience. Lets talk Beyond: Two Souls, and how good that game is.

light spoilers may follow, be warned.

So I spent all of yesterday playing the game, aside from about an hour and a half break for food. The campaign is somewhere close to ten hours. Which is respectable given the style of the game. Quantic Dream has been known to deliver in the story over game play department, and I cannot disagree. It just sucks that nearly every review I've seen for the game was done by someone who things that video games are still all about the game play. I will openly admit that some of the game play elements was wonky, and will take more than one play through to master. This isn't Call of Duty, or God of War where everything will be handed to you. You will mess up in your first play through, you likely won't die. But you will get hit, a lot.

What I find to be the strongest aspect of the game, and what a lot of other people took issue with. was the fragmented linearity of the narrative. You're constantly jumping around to different times in Jodie's life. I love it, others hate it. I'm not sure why they hated it. unless they weren't like me and didn't play the whole game in one sitting and forgot what happened in each of the parts. 

Admittedly it can get confusing, it isn't done like Momento, where you recap everything as you gradually go back in time. You start off at the end, of the game, granted you don't know that, and then jump to some time before that, and then you're a kid, and then you're an adult again, and then a teenager. And this jump happens after every part finishes. Just like Quantic Dream's previous outing, Heavy Rain, there isn't much "action" in the game, it's more of a drama, with action elements. People took issue with the gun controls, and I don't know what exactly their problem with it was. Was it that they couldn't themselves point and shoot and instead only had to hit R1 to kill anyone? Admittedly, I didn't really read the reviews, I read the scores, which were stationary around 6-7, which is much to low.

I will say that I don't disagree that the game is weaker than Heavy Rain, and that is entirely due to the way the story is told. Heavy Rain is easy to understand, the narrative is straight forward, and you're just in it for the ride. Beyond: Two Souls would not work that way. The whole point of the fragmented jumping narrative, is not only to confuse the player, but because important aspects that explain what will happen next occur at different times in the game. The way Beyond is told, benefits it as opposed to hindering it. 

The performances you get from the cast, specifically from the two main cast members, Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe as Jodie Holmes and Nathon Dawkins respectively. As an avid fan of both of theirs, I was well aware that the two of them were capable of some remarkable performances, and the fact that their best work came out of a video game is just remarkable. 

In order to avoid spoilers, I'm not going to discuss just what makes their respective performances so damn brilliant. Because they are both amazing in different ways. If you are reading this, and some of the scores have swayed you away from trying the game out, don't listen to them. Only listen if you are partial to game play over story. But I'm giving the game an 8/10, for the occasional frustration over how the combat works, and a frame rate drop here and there that took me out of the immersion.

In my last post I mentioned that I was going to watch Much Ado About Nothing and The Croods. I have done neither, mainly because of the overhaul I did to the blog's layout, and not getting done with that until like eleven thirty and then watching Once Upon a Time in Wonderland which didn't end until around twelve thirty. So The Walking Dead returns to television tonight, which means I can officially hate the rest of the human population for giving such an average, right down the middle show, the label of "televisions best show." 

I don't know what to think about the show though, to be honest. It was my introduction to The Walking Dead multi-verse. I understand that the show is separate from the comic and game. But this is the only case I can find, where the comic and video game, are actually better than the visual medium adaptation. The show walks the line, of camp and non camp, and i think that is where I take issue. Because narratively the show makes sense, it's easy to follow, and doesn't treat the viewer as stupid. the viewer in most cases is actually more intelligent than the narrative, or at least characters in the narrative, which is how we are clued into who is going to die. That is why the comic and game are so much better, because people aren't inherently idiotic in it. You don't cheer when a member of the group dies in the comic, you're actually upset, depressed even, almost to the point of not continuing the comic, as some people did following the events of issue 100. People cheered, actually cheered and rejoiced, following the death of one certain character in the show (I know because I was one of them).

This was done on my part, prior to having read the comics. Which actually I believe I am an issue behind, I haven't read issue 115 yet, the first issue of the "semi-biweekly" Volume Twenty: All Out War. So, I think I'm going to have to go read that. Be back soon.

Okay, so now I'm all caught up on The Walking Dead comic. I can't get over how good the story actually is among all campiness. That's where the comic succeeds and the show fails. The comic seems to know it's campy, and not meant to be taken as a work of art, while the show doesn't. The show takes itself seriously when it shouldn't and doesn't when it should. We have a game of opposites going on in the show, we are supposed to care about the group, when honestly we only care about Rick, Carl, and Daryl - maybe a little bit Maggie and Glenn too. Daryl more than anyone else, I know for a fact that if Daryl dies, 90% of my "friends" who watch the show, which is like twenty-thirty people will not continue to watch the show - he's basically the only reason they watch it. But the comic manages to get you to sympathize and care about everyone, and does not make any character weak, aside from the throwaways that die quick, before they had a chance to really become characters. The only real emotional death in the show so far has been Lori's, and that was only emotional for the viewers, because we saw how devastated Rick was, it drove him into insanity. I was upset that they killed Merle, but I understood why it had to be done, and it was coupled with a fantastic performance by Norman Reedus, so I accepted it all in the same. 

The only reason I am not avoiding spoilers here , is because it's The [Fucking] Walking Dead, if you haven't seen it yet, you don't care about spoilers.

The show however has somehow managed to completely destroy Andrea's character. She's a fucking bad ass, how did you manage to do that with the source material you were given. She's hardened and tough, she isn't sympathetic, and she isn't stupid and clueless. She's the second in command for Pete's sake (He returns, and no, I will not let this stupid bit die - it's all I have).

But you done fucked it up and made one of the most beloved characters in the comics into one of the most hated characters in the show. So much so, that as previously mentioned when she bit the dust at the end of season three, people actually rejoiced in the streets. Maybe not to that extent. But I want to do something with you now, to show you that not only was her death a good thing for the fans, but to show you that they didn't handle it well. I hate doing this because it spoils something that happens at the end of Breaking Bad, in its second to last episode.

Actually, no, don't watch these clips if you don't want spoilers it's that simple. My analysis of the two clips will be spoiler free, if you've seen Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead all the way through, feel free to watch the clips. But if you haven't yet and care about spoilers. Don't. You've been warned.

I apologize for the poor quality both in the visuals and audio of the walking dead clip, but seriously, it is impossible to find a good quality clip of the actual scene, and that's the best I found on like the first four pages of YouTube. What I find hilarious is that the person watching it, either has a cold, or is actually crying.

Now if you watched both clips you'll notice two things, both involve the death's of characters in the show, that directly impact the main cast. One was done in the penultimate episode, and the other in the season finale. The latter should have been done in the penultimate as well. Putting her death after the confrontation, adds nothing to the emotion, it just serves to kill off a character and nothing else. I'm certain there will be some added repercussions in the early episodes of season three, but I don't see it being brought up any more past episode five. The first clip shows us how to properly kill off a character. Even a small character, such as the one who died, can have a great impact on the narrative and the coming events of the show. Andrea's death in The Walking Dead, does nothing to the narrative of the show, or has done nothing, other than getting rid of a pay check. Sure, it may have made some of the more emotionally vulnerable members of the viewership tear up, but God is that clip hammy. 

She's giving this big speech the entire time, why is she giving this "holier than thou" speech? All it does is make me wish she would have died off screen for two reasons. One, Andrea's character in the show, was making stupid mistake after stupid mistake. She has been living in the world of zombies and messed up people for about a year - Yes, the three seasons of the walking dead are only stem about the course of a year. She knows how to act in it, or should. That is evidenced by her character's source material - again when you are given gold to write a character with, use it, don't shit on it (though that would technically be using it I guess). 

The first clip shows, that no speech is needed to show that the persons death is important and sad or ennobling. The character dies in order to motivate one of the other characters involved in the scene, that was the real purpose of the scene. A motivational tool of the writing staff. Andrea's death in TWD served absolutely no purpose but to shut up the people, like me, that hated the way her character was being handled by the writers. that's it, her death has done nothing else for the show, no emotional impact, no character development out of it (yet, there's still a possibility that some will come), it's just there because the writing staff decided to get rid of her.

When killing off a main character, you have to do it right. Granted, this is really the only character death in TWD that I take issue with. Lori's was handled perfectly, along with Shane's and Dale's. Merle's was by far handled the best out of any death in the show. We don't actually see his human death, just his zombie death, and we see the effect that it had on Daryl in the following episode. Perhaps I'd be more appreciative of Andrea's death if it were actually done in the penultimate episode, and given a chance to show how the characters react to it in season three. But all they really do is cry about it for a minute or so, then go back to the prison with all the people from Woodbury, that are no doubt all going to die by episode three. It's like they aren't even trying to surprise us with these traumatic events, it's so obvious it's ridiculous.

Lets talk Pokemon now.

So, I got Pokemon X on Saturday, I haven't played it much. But I chose Fennekin, the fire starter, for my first play through. 

Yes Dean, he is cute. So, I need to apologize to my suite mate, who had a heated conversation with me over the secondary types of the three starters. I was wrong and you were right, it is in fact fire/psychic, water/dark, and grass/fighting. I still stand by my point that Froakie's final form looks more like a fighting type than Chespin's, Chespin doesn't even look like it should evolve into a part fighting type at all. Unless Serebii is wrong as well, but for some reason I doubt that. So, when I get to choose my orig. 151 starter, I think I'm gonna go with Squirtle, at least for this first play through. But there is a water type that looks a lot like a blue Krabby that I want, so I may actually go for Charmander like everyone else.

The differences in this game versus the previous installations of Pokemon is amazing. YOU CAN MOVE DIAGONALLY GUYS.

Anywho, I am getting hungry and that's all I really have to say on Pokemon X as I am not that far into it to really have an opinion on the game, Fennekin hasn't even evolved yet, one level away, but still. So, in conclusion enjoy the following video, I'm going to get food and actually watch Much Ado About Nothing now.

College Sucks

Or Wednesday, whatever. As for the title, I couldn't really think of anything else, so, college sucks. Mainly because I have so much work to do this week, as it is midterm week. That things had to be pushed back a bit.

Let's see here, I had to write a poem for advanced poetry today - that took a whole thirty minutes so it doesn't count, a reading review, which took thirty to forty minutes, I had two 5-6 pages essays that were due Friday at midnight (Both got moved, one to Saturday at midnight, and the other to next Friday, the 18th by midnight), I had to write a journal entry on Girls, which is basically just me discussing the episodes we watched and discussing the readings for that week. And to top it all off, I had a shit ton of Modern Logic work to do. I love this class, it's challenging, and I love a good challenge, but by God is the workload ridiculous. The assignment was one through five, six through ten for over achievers. I know what you're thinking, ten questions, that ain't so bad. WRONG. Each question has multiple parts, each part is a letter, question one goes to "r," two to "m," three to "n," four to "f" (and each part is two problems), and five goes to "i." The over-achievers have six to "h," seven to "m," eight to "g," nine to "n" and ten to "h." Essentially that's 60 questions for non-over-achievers and an extra 50 for the over-achievers.

Why is this, in any way, acceptable. Do professors not realize that we have other classes, that require us to read, and write as well. I didn't even include the reading assignments I had, or the movie assignments for my film classes (I had to watch The Searchers for Tuesday and I have to watch High Noon for Thursday). I get that professors don't keep in touch with each other and all discuss what assignments their handing out. But for Pete's sake (again, who is this Pete I keep talking about), were they not students themselves. Do they not remember this? Or do they, and this is just their sick way of getting some sort of satisfaction out of it? As if it were some diabolical plot. "I had to do fifty problems write four essays and read 120 pages all in the span of three days and it sucked, so now you do as well."

After class on Monday, the assignment was at first, not even possible. I mean it, I spent more than an hour doing everything short of banging my head against a wall to try and figure out just one problem in the first set of 18 (1, a-r). On top of all of that, the cherry on top of the icing. The thing that pisses me off about this the most. I have no time to play Grand Theft Auto 5, Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 ReMix, or Beyond: Two Souls, AND I am four shows behind. I have Sleepy Hollow, The Blacklist, Supernatural, and Sons of Anarchy. After tonight, who knows how far behind I'll be, it makes me sad, very sad.

I don't know how my suite mate can manage being behind. He still has like shows from last week to watch.

Thankfully, there's a break coming up, Friday from 3:20 until Wednesday at 11:15. That entire break will be spent catching up on shows, and destroying GTA and B:TS. Hopefully, my professors don't come up with any surprise assignments for us to do over break that completely ruins the point of a break. In high school, it was terrible, in college, it's even worse. Because in college, the assignments are longer, and the breaks, shorter. When you finally finish, you do this, and when you wake up, the break is over and you had literally no free time to yourself.

It's straight up torture. I've had tough semester's before. Tougher work load semesters. Hell for some reason I decided that my second semester as a Freshman would be fun if I had six. SIX. Literature classes. That's just reading, and writing essays. Reading a lot, and writing a lot of essays. That's all it is. Nothing more, no fun assignments, no sixty logic problems. Just pick up a book, read it, and write an essay on it. Every week. But I will admit that my favorite class I've ever taken was in that semester, so I don't regret it at all. Confronting Death was the class, and it was phenomenal. God, that Michael Cera .gif is mesmerizing.

So, about that poem assignment, it came out of left field, right after he had just given another assignment, which admittedly is going to be one of the best assignments ever. The first assignment is longstanding, for the rest of the semester - and son of a bitch my suite mate just turned on his X-Box, time to listen to Call of Duty for the next twelve hours. I don't understand the appeal of Call of Duty, well, the appeal of taking Call of Duty seriously and playing for anything other than fun. He was literally yelling at the TV yesterday, well, yelling at someone over his mic, about how they were "dicking around" and having fun. I know right, I guess no one is allowed to play video games for fun any more. I think that's what I hate about it the most. It changes people, it turns non scumbags into scumbags, and scumbags into meaningless sacks of shit.

The best part was that someone called him a "bitch ass nigga," nigga is used in a vain attempt to be politically correct, rest assured there was an "er" in the place of that "a." Then he accused that person of not knowing how to speak English. As the English major in the room, I had to inform him that "bitch ass nigga," is proper grammar, and that the person was giving him the label "bitch ass nigga." I don't normally get joy out of doing this, but it felt so good here, because he is so annoying when he gets into these stupid insult arguments where it's just one insult thrown back and forth one right after the other, that I just want to punch the mother fucker. Anyways, I have to write "bitch ass nigga" one more time.

So back to that first assignment. My professor bought a typewriter, off craigslist, for what I believe he said was ten bucks. and he is giving it to us, to take ho our homes, and use in order to write a poem that is confined to the space of adding machine tape. All of this is in the spirit of the book we just read, A. R. Ammons Tape for the Turn of the Year in which he does the same thing. We all contribute to the piece, one at a time, and we keep going until the semester is over. I'm not sure what will come of it after the fact, i.e. once the class is over, but it will be a fun little experiment. He is even allowing us to get together and work on some of it in a group, passing it around as we write.

The second assignment was just to submit any poem we had for workshop and bring in four copies. So I reworked an old poem that means quite a lot to me that I have used in every poetry class I've had, all three of them now. But the form is entirely different, a lot of the words that were in the old poem are still there, but reworked and moved around to create an entirely different poem. I actually prefer this newer version to the older version. the poem was written as a letter, to my older brother who died shortly after birth, and it didn't have the shape of a letter, now it does. It just looks better, though I'm not quite convinced it sounds better, it's still a slow reading poem, with a lot of pauses and breaks. I just haven't read it aloud to myself enough to know whether or not it sounds better compared to the old version.

Anywho, I have class soon, thirty minutes to be exact so I gotta bounce (who says bounce anymore? God I'm lame). So here's a video, and I'll see you Friday.