nerdfriend_mike

Bailout Bonanza!

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 08:06:22 GMT

AIG owes money, even after a bigass bailout

This would be a time where Christians need to implore their deity.

One Reason Canada is Better Than America

Sun, 23 Nov 2008 02:12:39 GMT

Canadian Border Patrol told to stop Westboro hate group

Don't get me wrong, I believe in upholding the First Ammendment of the US Constitution and allowing these crap-stains to spew their message, but I'm glad Canada is different and is able to give them the finger.

I would not shed a tear if this entire congregation was raped and murdered.

While I'm at it, I'd like to drive stakes into the hearts of members of the KKK.

Election results are practically in...

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 04:51:03 GMT

Well, Presidential Candidate [Insert Name Here] won.

God help us all.

Debate Results:

Sat, 27 Sep 2008 03:58:56 GMT

I'll be sticking with my candidate, good old trusty Senator No Confidence from Washington D.C.

I know I used this image just two posts down, but it fits. Again.

I imagine the VP Candidate Debate between Palin and What's-His-Face (Biden, who needs to do something outrageous to get some media exposure) will be interesting. It'll take place here in St. Louis!

Israel could see first female PM in 34 years...

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 21:46:04 GMT

Ultra-Orthodox party emerging as Israel kingmaker

The article is a little hard to read if you don't know much about Israeli politics, but basically Tzipi Livni, the current Foreign Minister of Israel, just won the leadership position of the Kadima Party, and if she plays her cards right she can step up to becoming the next Prime Minister of the Jewish nation.

The headline of the article focuses on the lynchpin of that scenario: the Shas party, and it's psycho nutjob spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef.

For those unfamiliar with Rabbi Yosef, here're some quotes that endear him to us all:

-"It is forbidden to be merciful to them [Arabs]. You must send missiles to them and annihilate them. They are evil and damnable" (2001)

-"In the old city of Jerusalem they [Arabs] are swarming like ants. They should go to hell - and the Messiah will speed them on their way." (2001)

-"Let God strike him [then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon] down... he is torturing the people of Israel... The Holy One wants us all to return to the Torah, and then he will strike him with one blow and he will die. He will sleep and never wake up." -in response to Sharon's plan for Disengagement from Gaza (2005)

Also, in 2000, he described the Holocaust as God's retribution against the reincarnated soul of Jewish sinners: "the 6 million Holocaust victims were reincarnations of the souls of sinners, people who transgressed and did all sorts of things that should not be done. They had been reincarnated in order to atone."

And following Hurricane Katrina in 2005 he blamed the tragedy on the Godlessness of New Orleans, on US support for the Gaza disengagement and on a general lack of Torah study in the area.

(quotes pulled from Wikipedia)

So essentially, this guy is more or less the Jewish Fred Phelps. And with it being up to him whether or not Livni can become the next Prime Minister, I am starting to worry for the future of Israel. With people like him having a significant say in the government, peace between Israel and the rest of the Middle East seems further and further away.

Convering to LeVayan Satanism is looking more and more promising every day.

And thanks for all the fish.

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 22:13:22 GMT

Well, thanks America. Looks like I'm going to abstain for another four freakin' years.

This just in...

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 18:59:05 GMT

NEW YORK-Responding to recent events on Earth, God, the omniscient creator-deity worshipped by billions of followers of various faiths for more than 6,000 years, angrily clarified His longtime stance against humans killing each other Monday.

"Look, I don't know, maybe I haven't made myself completely clear, so for the record, here it is again," said the Lord, His divine face betraying visible emotion during a press conference near the site of the fallen Twin Towers. "Somehow, people keep coming up with the idea that I want them to kill their neighbor. Well, I don't. And to be honest, I'm really getting sick and tired of it. Get it straight. Not only do I not want anybody to kill anyone, but I specifically commanded you not to, in really simple terms that anybody ought to be able to understand."

Worshipped by Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike, God said His name has been invoked countless times over the centuries as a reason to kill in what He called "an unending cycle of violence."

"I don't care how holy somebody claims to be," God said. "If a person tells you it's My will that they kill someone, they're wrong. Got it? I don't care what religion you are, or who you think your enemy is, here it is one more time: No killing, in My name or anyone else's, ever again."

The press conference came as a surprise to humankind, as God rarely intervenes in earthly affairs. As a matter of longstanding policy, He has traditionally left the task of interpreting His message and divine will to clerics, rabbis, priests, imams, and Biblical scholars. Theologians and laymen alike have been given the task of pondering His ineffable mysteries, deciding for themselves what to do as a matter of faith. His decision to manifest on the material plane was motivated by the deep sense of shock, outrage, and sorrow He felt over the Sept. 11 violence carried out in His name, and over its dire potential ramifications around the globe.

"I tried to put it in the simplest possible terms for you people, so you'd get it straight, because I thought it was pretty important," said God, called Yahweh and Allah respectively in the Judaic and Muslim traditions. "I guess I figured I'd left no real room for confusion after putting it in a four-word sentence with one-syllable words, on the tablets I gave to Moses. How much more clear can I get?"

"But somehow, it all gets twisted around and, next thing you know, somebody's spouting off some nonsense about, 'God says I have to kill this guy, God wants me to kill that guy, it's God's will,'" God continued. "It's not God's will, all right? News flash: 'God's will' equals 'Don't murder people.'"

Worse yet, many of the worst violators claim that their actions are justified by passages in the Bible, Torah, and Qur'an.

"To be honest, there's some contradictory stuff in there, okay?" God said. "So I can see how it could be pretty misleading. I admit it-My bad. I did My best to inspire them, but a lot of imperfect human agents have misinterpreted My message over the millennia. Frankly, much of the material that got in there is dogmatic, doctrinal bullshiat. I turn My head for a second and, suddenly, all this stuff about homosexuality gets into Leviticus, and everybody thinks it's God's will to kill gays. It absolutely drives Me up the wall."

God praised the overwhelming majority of His Muslim followers as "wonderful, pious people," calling the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks rare exceptions.

"This whole medieval concept of the jihad, or holy war, had all but vanished from the Muslim world in, like, the 10th century, and with good reason," God said. "There's no such thing as a holy war, only unholy ones. The vast majority of Muslims in this world reject the murderous actions of these radical extremists, just like the vast majority of Christians in America are pissed off over those two bigots on The 700 Club."

Continued God, "Read the book: 'Allah is kind, Allah is beautiful, Allah is merciful.' It goes on and on that way, page after page. But, no, some assholes have to come along and revive this stupid holy-war crap just to further their own hateful agenda. So now, everybody thinks Muslims are all murderous barbarians. Thanks, Taliban: 1,000 years of pan-Islamic cultural progress down the drain."

God stressed that His remarks were not directed exclusively at Islamic extremists, but rather at anyone whose ideological zealotry overrides his or her ability to comprehend the core message of all world religions.

"I don't care what faith you are, everybody's been making this same mistake since the dawn of time," God said. "The Muslims massacre the Hindus, the Hindus massacre the Muslims. The Buddhists, everybody massacres the Buddhists. The Jews, don't even get me started on the hardline, right-wing, Meir Kahane-loving Israeli nationalists, man. And the Christians? You people believe in a Messiah who says, 'Turn the other cheek,' but you've been killing everybody you can get your hands on since the Crusades."

Growing increasingly wrathful, God continued: "Can't you people see? What are you, morons? There are a ton of different religious traditions out there, and different cultures worship Me in different ways. But the basic message is always the same: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Shintoism... every religious belief system under the sun, they all say you're supposed to love your neighbors, folks! It's not that hard a concept to grasp."

"Why would you think I'd want anything else? Humans don't need religion or God as an excuse to kill each other-you've been doing that without any help from Me since you were freaking apes!" God said. "The whole point of believing in God is to have a higher standard of behavior. How obvious can you get?"

"I'm talking to all of you, here!" continued God, His voice rising to a shout. "Do you hear Me? I don't want you to kill anybody. I'm against it, across the board. How many times do I have to say it? Don't kill each other anymore-ever! I'm farking serious!"

Upon completing His outburst, God fell silent, standing quietly at the podium for several moments. Then, witnesses reported, God's shoulders began to shake, and He wept.

What games are in Mike's systems?

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 16:31:53 GMT

I need to blog more. I usually forget to record my adventures, which is probably a bad trait for a writer.

Anyway, I figured I'd start with a "Status" topic. Specifically, what games are in my systems right now? I own every current gen system, so it'll make a good list. So, without further adew...

Xbox 360: Grand Theft Auto IV
I've got GTAIV in my system at the moment, mostly because my friend from America is crashing at my place for a few weeks and he's been playing it. And I've been turning it on every so often to goof around with the Swingset of Doom (aka the Car Cannon) or working on achievements (which I normally don't care about, but it gives me a goal). Unfortunately, being here in Japan, where it's not officially out yet (they sold the import US version at stores when it came out here), I can't join any multiplayer games. I'm desperate to find new Xbox Live friends who I can play with, but that still means I can't play ranked games and change my costume stuff, which sucks.

Overall, I like GTAIV. The storyline was a pretty straightforward GTA story, but the characters were really fleshed out--Niko in particular. Brucie and Packie are my favorite characters. They did a fantastic job making it look like New York City--it's not a full 100% representation of NYC, but it's enough that I knew where I was going most of the time based on my knowledge of the real city. The new driving and physics engine is a little annoying to get used to at first, but once I started driving like I do in PGR, it became rather easy. The damage you can inflict on your car rivals the Burnout series at times--it's still quite a bit unrealistic to drive away from most of the crashes I get into, but there are some realisms, like when you break your axel or you bend the front end enough that it digs into the left front wheel, you're gonna run into some driving troubles.

The new police and "wanted" system is both a welcome revision and a really annoying feature. It's sad that I can't randomly beat up on people as long as cops aren't around (because now people'll call the cops on you), but it's easy to escape a 1-star Wanted Level. What gets annoying is when you get to 2-star and above, like when you resist arrest (2-star) or kill a cop (3-star). Then the game specifically goes out of its way to annoy you as you try to escape. Nothing's more aggrivating than when you're just outside the edge of the Wanted Radius, getting ready to get away scott free, and the game spawns a cop car around the corner, who finds you and sends you off on another annoying chase. Particularly annoying when you are in the middle of a mission.

The combat system is still pretty much GTA, and I haven't really noticed too much change. I played half of the game before I realized I had the Auto Aim feature turned off (was scoring headshots anyway because I play too many FPSes), and with it on it's annoying when you have multiple targets you have to scroll through. The addition of counter-attacks to the melee was a welcome touch, once you get used to it (practicing for the Finish Him achievement helps). I love the additions of "shoving people" and "curb stomping" moves. Endless amusement back in Saints Row, so I'm glad Rockstar added those to the GTA series as well.

My biggest complaint, in addition to things others have said, is the lack of content compared to San Andreas. I understand that San Andreas was the third on that engine, so they had plenty of room to add stuff, and GTAIV was built from the ground up, but some things were just irritating--clothing, for example. There are only two hats and two pairs of sunglasses, and they both look like crap; the "midrange" clothing selection I totally just skipped; I ended up just wearing Niko's default costume, then switching to a Hitman-esque suit and never looking back. That being said, the "unlockable" costumes like Claude's GTA3 costume and the Albanian Biker costume were cool. But lack of overall various content in GTAIV leads me to believe they're planning to add it later as DLC, which stinks of marketing plan to me a little. But I hear the exlusive 360 DLC is gonna be San-freakin'-Andreas to play around with in the GTAIV engine, which would totally be worth it (since it's such a huge area to play in).

Alternatively, I've been playing Burnout Paradise a lot too...it's really fun, and the new crash physics are fantastic, but it just doesn't have the same Burnout feel too it--they made it too NFS-y. I look forward to Burnout 4 to go back to the roots.

Playstation 3: Army of Two
I'd been meaning to get this game for a while, since its focus is 2-player co-op, which means that me and jmae can play it together. Plus a lot of my old Gamestop co-worker friends back at home recommended it. So, I bought the domestic JP copy (since the import shop stopped selling the overseas copy once the domestic released >_< ). The dialogue's all in English, but the text is all in Japanese, much to jmae 's dismay (the tutorial mission was a little annoying at first, trying to read the game's tiny JP font while being shot at).

It's a very pretty game, and plays similarly to Gears of War, with the addition of the "Aggro" system. The idea behind Aggro is, just like in MMORPGs, the person who does damage and shoots his gun draws the attention of the baddies--you cause enough noise and damage and your partner is all-but invisible, so you can perform flanking maneuvers. It's a pretty cool system, because it opens up to a LOT of teamwork. The amount of aggro you generate is heavily influenced by your gun, as well, which you can trick out to be more aggro-drawing or less (more on the customization in a sec). Generally I have an aggro-heavy gun that I grab everyone's attention with, while jmae takes a silenced, aggro-lite gun and sneaks around popping people in the head.

The weapon customization system is amusing, to say the least. You have three categories of guns: Main weapon (Assault rifles), Subweapon (Pistols and Submachine guns), and Special Weapon (Sniper rifles and rocket launchers). There's a broad range of guns, including the M4A1, AUG, AK-47, Glock 17, Desert Eagle, P90, even a Barrett .50 cal sniper rifle, RPG, Stinger rocket launcher, Vulcan-esque minigun, and grenade launchers. Most guns have different barrels, stocks, ammo-clips, and front-stock attachments that you can add to improve stats, like damage or accuracy. Almost all of the main weapons can be equipped with a "shield" (basically, a plate of sheet metal you somehow fuse to the frontof the gun), but it's pretty useless. Finally, all guns can be pimped ("customized"). That is, you can GOLD PLATE any gun in the game. INCLUDING THE RPG. WHO gold-plates a ROCKET LAUNCHER?! The pimping increases aggro, which kinda makes sense to me, because I'd be pissed to see someone waste money on GOLD-PLATING their AK-47 (it costs 10x more than the gun itself!)

The main complaint with this game is its length. I'm able to beat it in roughly 5 to 6-hours of gameplay, which (back in the day) used to be a decent amount of time, but in today's day and age we gotta have longer games, since they're getting expensive ($60 is the standard price now, horay). Another complaint of my own is the sound effects are somewhat lacking--the guns tend to sound all the same, from the M4-A1 to the AUG to the P90. And the AI is pretty stupid sometimes, sitting behind cover and ignoring the fact they get slowly picked off from behind by the other player. The story is also pretty predictable, but I can't expected much out of shooter game storylines.

Nintendo Wii: Mario Kart Wii
I bought this just last week, though I haven't played it much outside of multiplayer. It came with the wheel attachment, and I bought a second wheel attachment just to be a bit even. Initial reactions by jmae and my American friend who's staying over is that it's hard to get used to, but I didn't have too much trouble particularly. It's a nice refreshing way to play the Kart series, so it's cool in my book. The varied amount of different vehicles, from motorcycles to retro-racers, is cool too, but apparently the motorcycle is fast enough that most people prefer using it in exclusion to everything else (from what I've read). They added some new items, including Bullet Bill Mode, which bascially the Star on stereoids (you turn into a giant Bullet Bill and rocket down the course, pwning anyone who getsin your way). The thrice-cursed Blue Shell is still in the game, as well as a particularly annoying Squid that shoots your screen with black ink, and is more annoying than anything else.

Mario Kart Wii now has a total of 12 racers racing at the same time, which seems cool at first since you see a lot more competition, but you quickly come to find out that this makes the game a LOT more annoying, because that means MORE racers with items. In the course of one race you'll be smacked by so many items it'll be ludicrous. The three of us playing literally went anywhere between 1st place to 12th place, at any time in the race, often multiple times, because of the psycho item usage. I kinda wish I could turn them off, but that somewhat defeats the purpose of the game, I guess.

I haven't had a chance to try it online yet, but from what I hear it's amazing. Two people on one Wii can go online, which is cool, and you can play with up to 12-player matches. Apparently there's also a Mario Kart channel that allows you to see the global records and whatnot. Coolness.

Personal Computer: Spore Creature Creator
I love Will Wright and Maxis. When I first heard about SimEverything years ago, I was excited. Then I sorta forgot about it for a few years, and then it came back with the name of Spore and a release date. Reading up on it has really made me look forward to its release in September. They recently released the Creature Creator, for the dual purpose of populating the Spore universe (when the game is released, it'll use user-creations to populate the rest of the world/galaxy) and generating hype/sales. You can create pretty much any kind of abomination you can put your mind to--I recently made a six-armed, three-mouthed ball with legs that will terrorize the planet when the game is released.

The creator is pretty comprehensive, with lots of parts in the full version (which I bought from Direct2Drive, rather than EA, because EA was only willing to allow me to download my own damn game for up to 6 months after purchase, or 2 years if I paid an extra $7). The only real complaint I've got is that I can't make anything that looks like a human. I know it's a CREATURE creator, not a HUMAN creator, but I wanted to make human-like creatures or something (like Star Trek, where everyone is basically a blue-skinned or pointy-eared human). Ah, well. Also, people keep making penis monsters and posting their "creations" on YouTube, as if they were the first to come up with that "masterpiece." Thankfully, Maxis and EA give them the banhammer if they try to post that crap on the Sporepedia (the official place to upload your creations), so they won't pollute my game.

I definitely recommend you go and pick up the Trial Edition of the game and give it a shot. If you like it, definitely pick up the Full Version, from Direct2Drive--if you buy it with the preorder for the game itself, you'll geta $5 dollar discount, which makes the Creator only 5 bucks!

I guess that's it for this post. It's quite long, I'm sorry.

I'll try to post more regularly, for the three of you that read my stuff...so see you soon!

The Thing I love and hate about Gundam

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 05:41:16 GMT

In the past six months or so, I've gotten hooked on the Mobile Suit Gundam meta-series. The initial reason being, it's widely regarded here in Japan as one of the most influential, successful, and grand anime series in existance. There isn't a person in Japan who hasn't heard of Gundam, and I imagine all weeaboos/Japanophiles have at least heard the name before.

What we know of Gundam in the west comes from Gundam Wing and/or Gundam SEED, both of which I've never seen and have no interest in. They've been successful, to be sure, particularly in the west, but these alternate storylines pale in comparison to the "Universal Century" storyline (that is, the original Gundam and its sequels/spin-offs, compared to Wing/Seed/Gundam 00/etc that take place in different universes, or whatever). The UC stuff has never really taken off in the west, primarily because Wing and SEED were introduced first, and the dated animation from the UC shows, plus poor execution on the parts of Cartoon Network and Bandai had effectively killed it for Westerners thinking that Gundam was supposed to be some emo-driven superhero robot junk like SEED/Wing.

I'd initially heard that, to appreciate the best of what Gundam has to offer, I should watch the original Mobile Suit Gundam (1979), its sequel Zeta Gundam (1985), and finally Gundam ZZ (1986). So, I downloaded those three animes.

Gundam itself was hard to find in Japanese, but I managed to find a subber called Sixtydeuce releasing (very, very slowly). He's still not done, so I had to watch the last five episodes in English (which was laughable after 38 episodes of Japanese). Zeta Gundam, I managed to find, but I noticed the so-called "fansub" group that released it TOOK THE SUBTITLES FROM THE ENGLISH DUB, which are significantly different from the Japanese dub (I understand most Japanese thrown at me, but Gundam uses a LOT of complicated sci-fi and/or war terminology that I'm unfamiliar with). I've since downloaded a REAL fansub job by a group called 2xX, who's much more on-par with the translation (though their romanization of names and ships is off >_< ). Finally, I downloaded the Hero Legends sub of Gundam ZZ, and didn't run into any problems.

As I watched the original series, I grew more interested in the meta-series. I ended up buying Mobile Suit Gundam: Target in Sight for the PS3 (MSG: Crossfire, in America) because it was REALLY REALLY pretty in HD, and from there I was hooked.

I've since watched all of MS Gundam and Zeta Gundam, currently in the middle of Gundam ZZ, watched almost all of the OVAs, and plan to watch Char's Counterattack, which pretty much wraps up the Zeon storyline of the Universal Century (I may go watch the Victory Gundam stuff, if just to completely wrap up the UC, but it's not necessary). I've also played a number of the best games, including Target in Sight (PS3), Giren's Greed: The Threat of Axis (PSP), Card Builder (Arcade), and Bonds of the Battlefield (Arcade), and I've since gotten into building model kits (not JUST Gundam stuff, but I build a lot of those).

I've come to this conclusion about Gundam, as a whole:

The purpose of the meta-series is to show you the coolest, noblest people on BOTH sides of the war, and then KILL THEM!

The primary creator, Tomino Yoshiyuki, is renowned for this, with the nickname of "Kill 'em All" Tomino. Most of my favorite characters are antagonists of the stories (mostly, the Principality of Zeon), and I'm usually not surprised when they get owned by the brat piloting the Gundam >_<

If you're ever interested in Gundam, I would issue this advice:

Watch the original Mobile Suit Gundam. The show is surely dated (it was made back when reusing cells was not only okay, but encouraged), and it's chock-full of 70s music and such, but it is an amazing storyline of a war where neither side is truly evil (though there ARE evil people on both sides),

If you find yourself liking Gundam, and you want to watch more, then you're gonna have to watch all of it. It sounds silly when you read it, but it's well-worth the watching.

You can watch it either in order of release (MSG, Zeta Gundam, Gundam ZZ, Char's Counterattack, War in the Pocket, 0083 Stardust Memory, 08th MS Squad, MS IGLOO), which was my original plan, or you can watch it chronologically (MSG, MS IGLOO, 08th MS Squad, War in the Pocket, 0083 Stardust Memory, Zeta Gundam, Gundam ZZ, Char's Counterattack), either will work fine.

I'd recommend watching it in order of release date, since you'll probably get annoyed with the huge differences of quality going between, say , MS IGLOO, which finished two years ago, and Zeta Gundam, which is from the mid-80s. But if you wanna get into the video games, it's better to watch it chronologically, since you'll see things like the Gundam-Ez8 and wonder WTF it is since you haven't watched the 08th MS Squad yet.

Don't just take my word about how good Gundam is; ask jmae about it; I've gotten her into it too ^_^b

Sieg Zeon!

New York, New York

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 07:24:37 GMT

I just got back from spending a week in NYC. It was my first time there.

I visited so many places that I can't seem to recall them all at once, but here's a random list of places I did go and/or things I did do:

-Walked through Central Park (daylight) x2
-Walked through Chinatown x2
-Bought Chinese DVDs x6
-Bought Chinese pr0n x4
-Ate food stall hot dog x4
-Took picture in front of Carnegie Hall ("How do get to Carnegie Hall? WALK MOFO!")
-Went to Liberty Island and Ellis Island
-Groped the State of Liberty (took pics for proof, will post later)
-Walked across the Brooklyn Bridge (a la Zombie)
-Saw comedy routines at the Comedy Cellar
-Went to Amateur Night at the Apollo Theatre
-Booed at crappy performers x5
-Went to the Met
-Crossed Times Square x6
-Used the subway system x50
-Saw Monty Python's SPAMALOT on Broadway
-Participated in OPERATION PARTY HARD (aka Ides of March), the anti-Church of Scientology protest
-Went to the Natural History Museum
-Bought a swank qing-pao for jmae-Bought a Moses action figure
-Bought a Communist Superman figure

Pics are to follow as soon as I convert them.

Wait...wut?

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 01:30:58 GMT

I am Nerd Friend Mike.

This account (and name) was spawned from my friend who posts here.

I can't say whether or not I'll post here, since I've already got a blog that I don't update.

So, for the time being, contemplate what Mario is thinking as he looks on in a sort-of shameful expression.

Who was he sleeping with? Daisy?