Joe Lieberman... he needs his own party it seems

Lieberman is a very controversial figure on the political stage. Once called a Republican. Once called a Democrat. Now known by most as an Independent. It seems he's never sure what he wants to be or what he believes. I think the parties caught on...

Without boring the class with the man's political history I will go over some of the reasons for why he is seen as the nomad that he is.

Strange/Ironic Things he's done to earn his status:

- Lieberman was the first prominent Democrat to publicly challenge Bill Clinton regarding his affair, but voted against impeachment when the time came

- Lieberman spoke at the annual conference of Christians United for Israel then later, accepted from John Hagee CUFI's "Defender of Israel Award." Pastor Hagee, CUFI's founder and leader, once said the Catholic Church is, "the great whore" and a suggestion that God sent Adolf Hitler to bring the Jews to Israel.

- While favoring the filibuster and threatening to use it in 2009 to eliminate a public health option as part of the healthcare proposal, Lieberman once strongly opposed it. In 1995, he joined with Senator Tom Harkin to co-sponsor an amendment to kill the filibuster. “The filibuster hurts the credibility of the entire Senate and impedes progress,” Lieberman told the Hartford Courant.

If you want more watch Daily Show reruns...

Game Night(s): Episode One

This week we played both my Star Wars campaign and Adam's Exalted campaign, mine on Friday and Adam's on Sunday. Not something we do very often considering scheduling conflicts... we have a lot of people to balance.

Well lets start off with Star Wars shall we... well... it was a pretty important session, but unfortunately my players were not in the best form that night. Sometimes people are just bad at roleplaying (often the case of my group) and sometimes its just an off day. I suppose it was probably both. The problem with Star Wars often times is that it can get bogged down in long and convoluted fights. A lot of numbers and a lot of characters all being balanced at once can make the story drag sometimes and Star Wars' combat system tends to have that effect unfortunately.

Despite that we got through what we needed to... even if some things were not as climactic as I had hoped. Blake's character and Andy's character are brothers and when Andy found out Blake had betrayed the party the exchange was horribly boring and lackluster. At least the scene of Carl's droid going postal in the engineering room gave us all a good laugh (he killed a technician with a screw driver).

As for Adam's campaign, we started super late and didn't get much done but I suppose it was still pretty fun. My character, being the insane badass that he is, decided to (instead of walking) do back-handsprings down a twelve mile long road (our characters are not ordinary humans fyi), but my roll only allowed me to travel 10 miles in that fashion before getting exhausted. I also dropped a slinky down a mile half-mile high step pyramid... took fifteen minutes for it to reach the bottom. Oh yeah, we sent Blake to go scout ahead and see what these lizard guys were up to and he ended up attacking them and almost getting himself killed. That was entertaining.

That was about it. Adam's game was pretty short and not much happened but I had fun. Only two sessions left with Star Wars, so hopefully I can get the players' roleplaying juices flowing... there are more twists and betrayals to come and if the ending isn't as climactic as I want it to be someone is going to have a broken face.

Game Review: Portal

Yeah I know, I know. Late to the party right? Well despite hearing the rabid fan praise of Valve's pet project, Portal, I never got around to playing it... until now. Released in 2007, Portal, has aged well... incredibly well. So what is the premise of this game you ask?

Well, Portal is presumably set in the not-too-distant future of the popular Half-Life franchise (many references are made to "Black Mesa", an organization in Half-Life), where you find yourself as a test subject in a strange facility. You never make contact with any other humans the entire game and share the confines of the testing facility with an insane AI that has gone Skynet on the whole place. That's about as much of the plot as I can explain without ruining the story... but the AI promises cake when you finish the tests... okay that's all I can say.

This game is incredibly innovative. It can best be described as a First-Person Shooter/Puzzle/Platformed... not a common combination. Basically you get this gun, right? Well this gun doesn't shoot bullets, oh no no no. This gun shoots portals. You can create an entrance and exit portal on certain types of surfaces (which is meant to make the puzzles more difficult to solve). This mechanic is very refined and very very fun. Not only are the puzzles interesting and challenging, but the gun itself is so fun to play around with.

Here is the launch trailer from four years ago. (The footage looks a bit different than the final game because it was probably done during an early stage of development):

I cannot forget to mention the AI, who's ironically pleasant voice torments you throughout the entire game. Props to Valve for making a fun experience have a good many laughs added. A fun little game that was just a long as it should have been (only took me about a 1 1/2 hours). Portal comes packaged in The Orange Box, a collection of games available on the Xbox 360 and PC, along with Half-Life 2: Episodes 1 and 2, and Team Fortress 2. For $30 new, its a hard deal to beat.

I give the game 4 cakes out of 5. Mmmmm.... what a delicious cake.... >:)

Cowboy Bebop: A Look Back... Part Dos

Welcome back to the review/look back at one of the greatest animes in television history!

Each episode can usually be watched out of order, besides from a few key episodes that follow the individual struggles of the main characters (Spike's being the main underling plot of the show). Because of this, you can jump right in and enjoy a half hour of good ol' bounty hunting fun, unlike many animes in which it is impossible to understand what it is happening if you jump into the show anytime after the first episode. It was also planned out to only be 26 episodes from the beginning. Everything was completely thought out, giving the show a nice complete feeling when watching the whole thing.

Despite many of the episodes showcasing the characters being thrown into wacky situations, many of which hold no baring on the main plot, there is quite a large amount of twists and character development. These revelations are paced throughout the series fairly well, especially the mystery of Spike's past, which is slowly hinted at until it is finally explained in the final two episodes.

Going back and watching this series reminded me how great anime can be (something that I really haven't been too sure of for the past five or six years), and for that it would be stupid of me to not praise this for what it really is. Cowboy Bebop is a masterpiece of the anime medium and is an absolute essential to anyone who has ever shown any interest in anime. If you haven't seen it please do so. It's been nearly a decade since I had last watched the series and I have got to say its even better than I remembered it. I give Cowboy Bebop 5 jazzy dog fights out of 5.

Oh, and yeah, the fight scenes are incredible:


WARNING: The final episode will make your cry.

Cowboy Bebop: A Look Back... Part Uno

September of 2001 was a pretty eventful month. Among other things (more important things) there was one good ray of awesome that shined through (kind of) the dreary rainclouds of America. On September 2, 2001, Adult Swim aired Cowboy Bebop, a stylish action anime, for the first time on American television. Why does this matter? Cowboy Bebop is widely recognized as one of the greatest achievements in anime history, more so in America than in Japan. Its genre can best be described as a Science Fiction, Action/Adventure, Western, Crime drama.

The show features 26 episodes and a feature film that follows the adventure of the bounty hunter Spike Spiegel an aloof yet incredibly wise young man with a mysterious past and a love for jazz. The owner of their ship, the Bebop, Jet Black (I see what they did there), an ex-cop turned cowboy after he discovered the corruption in the system. Jet's down-to-earth and not afraid to tell his crew they are acting like idiots (which they often do). Faye Valentine, a woman from another time with a gambling (and debt) problem who covers up her insecure need to belong with a vain facade of girl power. Then there's Edward, the little androgynous girl (her gender is questioned several times throughout the series) whose hacking skills and extremely eccentric nature provides the comedy relief of the series. Oh yeah... then there's Ein... a Welsh Corgi... pretty much all there is to him.

The show mashes together comedy and action flawlessly with a catchy jazz soundtrack that actually plays off the action like a Tom and Jerry cartoon. It also has what I happen to think is the best intro to any show in the history of television (next to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles of course):


Oops ran out of time... will post the second half of the blog in a bit!

Future "Write about whatever the hell I want to" Blogs

I have recently been lurking in the deep caverns of the Discovery Zone tubes that is the internet recently and I've noticed a fairly common blog topic that I never thought about before. Blogging about D&D, or more specifically, blogging about a tabletop campaign you happen to be running or playing, highlighting funny moments, interesting plot points and post carnage reports. What does all this mean? Well hopefully you know what a tabletop game is (also known as role playing game)... if you don't, as unreliable of a source as it is, Wikipedia is our friend: Role Playing Games.

So why is this relevant to my blog? Well I'm an enormous nerd so why wouldn't I engage in the second most nerdy thing on the planet (first place being held by larping). I am currently running a Star Wars Sagas campaign with five of my close nerdy buddies every other Friday night that sadly only has three sessions left (out of 8 or 9... can't remember). I am also a player in my friend Adam's Exalted campaign where I play a musclebound, kung-fu master/pirate with a heart of gold that stands for LOVE! and JUSTICE! Don't judge me.

Anyway, I will probably post a bit about these sessions once a week, seeing as how they are always filled with humorous happenings and interesting player/player conflict that bleeds into reality every now and then.

Hopefully you guys enjoy the little window I will give this blog into my nerdy Fridays.

What am I Passionate About?

Well I am passionate about a lot of things: comic books, video games, writing, pizza and kitties to name the most prominent. I noticed something strange however. Despite having the ability to blog about whatever I choose for Online Journalism (the smaller half of my blogs) I only ever really talk about video games and film. Well, I am going to remedy that today by discussing comic books.

I love comic books. Surprised you there didn't I? I've been an avid reader since elementary school starting with my very first comic: Sonic the Hedgehog... yeah Sonic has a comic... no I don't read it anymore. When my tastes grew a bit more refined, despite growing up watching the animated shows: Spider-Man, Batman and the X-Men, I became extremely interested with what I consider to be the heart of the Marvel Universe. Who's that you ask? Well its certainly not Spider-Man and the X-Men are always doing their own thing... so what group, which heroes sit in the center of the giant elaborate web (pun intended) that is the Marvel Universe? Who stands up to the largest threats? The toughest foes? Who are Earth's Mightiest Heroes? Yeah that's right. The god damned Avengers, that's who.

I've been reading everything that stems from the Avengers roots since middle school. Anything from Iron Man, Thor and Captain America all the way into the cosmos with books like Guardians of the Galaxy. I have tons of books full of old reprints from the 60's and 70's that quite honestly are just as fun to read now as they were back then (I'm sure).

Is there anything I wish I could change about this passion? Well for one I wish it didn't cost so damn much and/or had more disposable income... I've also been meaning to branch out more... for a while now. If I branch out to anything it most certainty will not be more super hero stuff. I like my Marvel heroes as it is and DC is just not my cup-o-tea. I would prefer something western, but manga (Japanese/backwards comics) can often times yield some interesting narratives.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Game Reviewing... is it Journalism? Part IV

And now we've reached the final chapter of this vaguely interesting/poorly researched endeavor. I claimed throughout this blog that these reviewers often cut corners and don't deliver sincere reviews to their readers. Well, this may be true but keep in mind not all reviewers are guilty of this and if a rating seems strangely high for a game it may be due to the unavoidable hype machine and really isn't the reviewer's fault. For those that are responsible for their bad journalism there is no sympathy for you... unless of course your employer forced this upon you and well then that just sucks now doesn't it.

When developers (or maybe is publishers) send out pre-release copies of their games to popular reviewers they often times send copies that give the player debug abilities (basically the ability to hack the game and skip ahead through levels, toggle godmode, etc,etc.). Reviewers often times utilize these tools to skip through the game to make a tight deadline or simply because their lazy. This is not cool. The game needs to be completely (or nearly completely) experienced in order to gauge a proper judgment. There is just far too much to take into account.

This is not the only thing that may happen with your favorite reviewers. Sometimes reviewers don't get a copy before release and simply base their review on someone elses' so they can compete... although this doesn't happen very often.

So how do you find a good reviewer to consistently trust? Well usually this would involve tracking down a reviewer that has similar tastes as you and often times these good reviews don't come out until a week or more after release... these are thorough and quality reviews after all. Another good way, the way I usually trust, is to see what the game's Metacritic score is (www.metacritic.com). Metacritic averages all the scores of all the major magazines (local and international) and big websites and gives a nice clean score. It provides all the sources with links and blurbs and has scores dating back to N64. Another way is to trust what your friends say... if you don't have any gamer friends (or friends in general) ask the gamers in your online community (assuming you at least have internet buddies).

So is game reviewing journalism? Well if done right then yes, yes it is.

Game Reviewing... is it Journalism? Part III

Back in 2007 a nice little game called Kane & Lynch hit the market and enjoyed an average rating of the 6-7 range out of 10. Now honestly, in this day and age, that isn't that awful of a rating... however, that's not what Eidos Games thought when they read Jeff Gerstmann's review on a game review site, Gamespot. Jeff gave the game a 6.0, stating the game was "fair".

Eidos had an advertising campaign running on Gamespot at the time and demanded the website take action or else it would withdraw its ad campaign. In response to Eidos' frankly childish demand Gamespot did something even less honorable... they fired the reviewer. If that is not a sign that this is a rotton business than I don't know what is.

The fault doesn't only rest on the shoulders of the magazines and websites however. The world of gaming public relations is a dark and manipulative one that has influences good reviews for eons. Some publishers go as far as to throw parties for the reviewers and executives with strippers and alcohol galore.

The next and final installment will explain how some reviewers cut corners and write full reviews on games they barely even played and how to find reliable reviews.

Mein Kampf... beacuse someone else took Machiavelli

Written between 1923 and 1925 during Adolf Hitler's imprisonment for his failed revolution, Mein Kampf is one half autobiography and one half political ideology.

The book attempts to explain where Hitler's antisemitic views stem from but ultimately fail to give a decent reason. Other than this the book has been studied as a work of political theory. Examples of this include:

- Hitler declaring the twin evils of the world: Communism and Judaism
- The "historic destiny" of the German people was to get the new territory Germany needed to obtain, explaining why he attacked both West and East Europe before he attacked Russia
- He also blames Germany's woes on the parliamentary system and describes how he wants it destroyed

Also viewed as a book of foreign policy, Mein Kampf explains Hitler's plans for German dominance which included allying with Fascist Italy and strangely enough, the British Empire.

Mein Kampf is a controversial book written by an even more controversial man. While scholars still study it today for historical purposes, few people still actually take it to heart.

Game Reviewing... is it Journalism? Part II

What constitutes a good video game review you ask? Well lets start with the obvious answer. COMPLETE THE GAME. When I read a game review I operate under the assumption that the reviewer has played the game through 100% (unless stated otherwise) and therefore can judge whether the review is reliable or not.

A good review will weigh the pros and cons and will often times breakdown what was good and bad about various aspects of the game (story, graphics, sound, re-playability, etc.). A great review will give you a decent idea of the feel of the game without ruining any surprises.

And of course, the best reviews will do all this with an extra bit of humor to top it all off. Extreme example of this:




In the next blog I will discuss the horrors of this greedy industry by siting the infamous case of Gamespot's Kane & Lynch review...

The Geography of Mars

Mars is geologically dead and no longer has any tectonic activity. Despite all this, Mars is about the most geographically documented of all the other planets outside our own.

Notable geographic locations:

Olympus Mons- Latin for "Mount Olympus", this is the tallest recorded volcano and mountain in the Solar System. It is almost three times the size of Mount Everest.

Valles Marineris- Latin for "Mariner Valley", is the largest known valley in the Solar System and is more than 4,000 km long, 200 km wide and up to 7 km deep. It stretches across 1/4 of the planet's circumference near the equator.

Grenade proof... that figures!

My first exposure to Lupin the 3rd was back in middle school when the anime came on Adult Swim very late at night. As far as I remember I enjoyed the show and thought it was both witty and fun. The film The Castle of Cagliostro, a 1980's anime by Hayao Miyazaki, really did not disappoint. It was the right mixture of both humor and action.

After Lupin and his buddy Jigen steal a car full of counterfeit money they find themselves in a sticky situation. After saving a damsel in distress they are pulled into a crazy adventure where they uncover the secrets of a strange old European country and foil the plot of its sinister ruler. All the while fighting off spiky fingered ninjas... yeah this movies got ninjas. Along the way he meets up with old friends like Goemon, the swordsman, Zanigata, the unfortunate Interpol inspector and the femme fatale Fujiko who recites the brilliant line, "Grenade proof.... that figures!" (I did not say the English script was brilliant).


I was pretty surprised honesty. I am not familiar with Hayao Miyazaki's work (although I have heard good things) and seeing as how this movie is now thirty years old, I really did not believe it would stand up to the test of time. With so many high-caliber and all around great comedies
(take that with a grain of sarcasm) this movie proves old animes still have relevance.

From a technical perspective it was about as good as that time period offered. The film came out around the time of He-Man, and we all know how crappy that show's animation was. Audio wise I really didn't think the English dub was all that bad. Usually (especially with earlier movies) animes have horrible dubs, but this was not all that bad despite having different voice actors than what I was used to (when I watched the TV series back in the day).

All in all it was a pretty decent flick and probably even better if it were 30 years ago. I'll give it 4 grenade-proof windows out of 5.

Game Reviewing... is it Journalism? Part I

I recently read a rather disturbing article on www.escapist.com that discusses some of the ways video game reviewers cut corners to finish an article by deadline. Now I always knew that this was a business prone to being bribed and influenced by hype, but I never thought there was this much poison in the system. Simply put, most game reviews are examples of bad journalism.

Now I can completely understand the problem with getting these articles done on time. Some games are so large it can take as long as 100 hours (but usually between 20 and 40 hours) to experience everything it has to offer. Movie reviews take about 2-3 hours to watch before you begin to write. This presents a large obstacle for publishers and websites who want their reviews up ASAP.

What constitutes a good video game review? Is it unethical to cut corners when reviewing? Do publications and websites lose their legitimacy when they are exposed as being "influenced" in their reviews?

Let's start with what constitutes a good video game review.

Budget Cuts for Everyone!

As I am sure everyone has already learned, the University School System of Georgia is receiving enormous budget cuts from the state legislature. Now I am not going to waste my time pointing fingers. Honestly there are too many people to blame to begin with and doing so is often counterproductive. My focus is on myself and my peers. The students of the system. What is going to happen to us? Well, some of us won't even notice it... others will be completely screwed by it.

As if the plan to increase core classes and shrink major classes was not bad enough already, the budget cuts will only make it worse. The school will no longer be able to consider itself a student centered university. Oops. Many of us may not be able to graduate on time if we otherwise would have and getting into major classes is going to be more competitive than ever.

I had a dream last night that a student was teaching my class. I am totally serious. I actually had this dream. The sad part is for many students this may not be a too far-fetched reality. This could very well happen.

The solution? How the hell would I know?

Venture Bros. and American Culture

The funny thing about the Adult Swim show The Venture Bros. is how it does nothing but reflect on American culture. Yes it is well respected for its incredible humor and loony character development, but when it comes down to it, almost every single aspect of the show is a reference to American pop culture... whether that pop culture be contemporary or originating from the 60's. Besides the show being a blatant satire of the 60's cartoon Johnny Quest, there are far too many to talk about here so I will stick to some characters specifically.

Colonel Hunter Gathers: A secret agent who is always alert and always paranoid, never believing anything he sees. His appearance, mannerisms, military rank, actions and even his name and the way he speaks all lend his influence to the Journalism legend Hunter S. Thompson... he's also got a bit of Nick Fury (a popular secret agent from Marvel comics in the 60's).

Brock Samson: An agent and body guard (and Swedish-murder-machine) who observes more than he speaks and can kill you with your own finger. His appearance can be lent to dozens of actors and musicians, but his mannerisms, abilities and willpower he displays makes him the show's Race Bannon (from Johnny Quest) and perhaps even a contemporary Doc Savage (from the old Pulp Comics of the 30's). Note: Race Bannon, as well as the other Johnny Quest characters actually exist in the show as well.



Doctor Jonas Venture: The late grandfather of the Venture Bros. is a character who really defines the entire show and represents an old forgotten time (the 60's). The Venture family is a contemporary of the Johhny Quest family, whereas Jonas represents a mix of the 60's Quest family and maybe even a bit of the A-Team. Other than filling the role of the former Dr. Quest, Jonas Venture is, for all intents and purposes, Doc Savage, and perfectly fits into everything Doc Savage is ever depicted as.

I could keep going but honestly you could write a whole book on this subject.

The 1st Amendment and a little place called Skokie

The First Amendment is one of our most interesting rights. Where does your right to free speech and expression begin and where does it end? In theory it is limitless, however the case of National Socialist Party of America v. The Village of Skokie, 432 U.S. 43 (1977) proved how head scratching this fundamental right truly is.

Long story short, the Nazi's wanted to march in Skokie Illinois and seeing as how a large portion of the suburb's population was comprised of Holocaust survivors there were problems, naturally. The Nazi's took the town to court claiming they were infringing upon their freedom of expression. Eventually it was ruled that the could march... just not in Skokie. This case proved how important it is to protect the First Amendment, even if it is protecting unpopular beliefs.

For further reading check out the book: When the Nazis Came to Skokie

Now here is a clip reflecting on the controversy in Skokie: