Rant: Power Outage

It's been a while, but I'm sure most of you remember the freak storm that happened around the DC area about 2 weeks ago. It was an uber powerful and an unexpected storm by many people. It knocked out most of the power around the D.C. area, and I'm sure most of you guys were affected by it as well. The trauma left by the experience of not having internet of over 36 hours still haunts me to this day. And I feel like sharing my experience with the internet would definitely be a step in the right direction for my recovery. Thus, let us delve into the tragedy.

Internet is definitely a place of healing.

So It began on what I think was a Thursday night. At that night, I believe I was crazily spending my time listening to retarded music and reading shitty mangas.  It was around 9 pm or so that my older sister came into my room. Apparently, she was bored and wanted me to ask my dad to go out somewhere that night. So after hurriedly finishing an argument on 4chan about the merits of using mirrors to reflect lasers fired by aliens in order to gain aerial superiority, I put my computer to sleep and went downstairs. When I asked my dad if he wanted to go out somewhere that night, he said he would go out under one condition: I would have to play him in a game of chess. You see, my dad was really into chess for some obscure reason for the past few weeks. I magnanimously agreed to his conditions. But I foolishly forgot about the fact that my dad was a really slow chess player. So after about an hour, I finally managed to crush my dad's forces in this grueling chess battle. True to his word, my dad said we would go out bowling or something. At that moment, the power went out.

I don't even know where I got this image from.

Due to my intense focus on the Chess game, I was oblivious to the raging storm that was going on outside.  As soon as the power did go out, I looked out the windows to see the trees in my neighbor swaying like headbangers listening to dubstep musics. I assume people bang their heads while listening to dubsteps right? I'm not in the 'hip' mainstream, so I don't even know what dubstep really is.  Anyway, let's continue from this simile. So for a while, my family just stayed quiet and looked out the window. There were tons of lightning flashes and shitz. In my neighbor's yard, one of the tree's biggest branches snapped and fell. Other than that, there were that much physical damage to my neighborhood. After about an hour or so, the storm died down and my family was getting bored again. So anyway, my dad decided that the best way to spend the night was to drink it away, so my family just ate pistachio nuts for a while and decided that we would go to sleep. 

My only experience with dubstep, and this is only because of my fascination with the WH 40K lores.

Next morning was bloody hot. You know how its been really humid and hot around the DC region around that time right? Thanks to the AC being out, I was boiled to death when I woke up. Frustrated, I proceeded to wash myself and turn on the computer so I could rejoin the fray at 4chan, only to realize that the power went out last night. I scream my dirge of despair into the world, and my family immediately told me to shut up. I was really peeved off as I would have to resort to do things that weren't based one electronics in order to preserve my sanity from the darkness

Dirge is such a good word. I love it.

So since we couldn't cook anything that morning, we ate something weird that day. I don't exactly know what it was I ate, but I do remember it being weird... OH YEA it was cold rice with water that I ate that morning. Cold rice tastes pretty bad, and eating it cereal style by putting water in it doesn't help at all. So my morning was getting just worse and worse that day. I was being forced to talk to my family since I wasn't gonna study or anything (haha). At that moment, my neighbor came out of her house in order to clean up the branch that had fallen during the storm.

No, not that kind of 'fallen'.

My mom basically forced me and my dad to go outside and help her clean up the mess. I was extremely tired at that point, but I reluctantly pushed myself into going outside( which was like 100 degrees btw ), so we helped out neighbor clean up that big ol' branch and talked with her about the power outage. To my great fury, my neighbor told me that it might take a full 7 days before the our houses would be reconnected with the power supply. SEVEN DAYS WITHOUT INTERNET AND POWER SUPPLY?  Around the ninth hour, JC shouted in a loud voice, saying, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"  (That's a reference to the Bible btw. I learned it from an anime. Matthew 27:46. I personally don't have a religion, but being a great man that I am, I feel like its a duty to somewhat learn the Bible, as it has great influence over Western literature. Anyway, back to my crappy story. Sorry if it ain't humorous. Truth be told, I'm just alone in my house right now, and have ran out of animes that I want to watch.)

How can I survive 7 days without anime, manga, and video games?

I don't even know what I didn't that day from that moment on. I guess I just blacked out from the trauma. The sheer sense of abandonment that I felt at that moment drove me to madness I think. Anyway, the time I regained consciousness was about 4 o'clock. At that moment, my dad loudly proclaimed that he couldn't take it anymore and we had to go out somewhere in order to avoid the heat. I readily agreed, and got on the car along with the rest of my family. AT LAST, SWEET AC I thought as I turned the AC on the car to the max.  We quickly drove to McDonalds and ate something there, and for a while, we just stayed there. After cooling ourselves off, we went home and returned to the abyss. It's not a very exciting tale is it? Yea, I know. This tale of power outage wasn't very exciting for me either. That's why it was such a terrible ordeal for me. I hate being bored as almost as much as I hate being tortured. Not a very good comparison I realize, but the point I'm trying to make is that I hate being bored. UGH WHY AM I WRITING ABOUT BEING BORED? Actually, why am I writing to myself? Good god, I have gone insane by recalling the power outage trauma! Quickly, I must amuse myself! I'll watch some shitty anime. brb.

Intermission.

...Ah, I feel like my sanity has finally returned. Let's finish this post up quickly. After returning from my quest to McDonalds, my family just lazed around, listening to the radio. And around 11:30 pm, light finally came back to my house, and I spent the whole night doing god knows what. I feel like writing about the power outage was a very poor choice. I just talked about how bored I was in this post. I'm sure yall have better business to attend to then reading about some guy being bored in a thousand different way. Go out there to the internet and have fun!

It's a series of tubes!

~Stay entertained!

JC

Rant: Downfall of Sonic

Yay, I graduated from TJ about ten days ago. Now I'm no longer a high schooler,  but a bum doing his gap year. I'll be talking about that more on my future posts. But for now, I'm gonna talk about Sonic, one of the most iconic video game characters of our time.

Seriously, who doesn't know who Sonic is? At one point, he stood shoulder to shoulder with other famous video game characters like Pikachu, Mario, and DK. But Sonic, SEGA, and Team Sonic has been going down for a long long time now. Sure, they still produce Sonic games, but they tend to suck. They mostly get horrible ratings by video game reviewers and many gamer alike.  At best, Sonic games will do ok, like Sonic generations, and at worst, Team Sonic will cook up some bullshit like Sonc the Hedgehog 2006, which involved Venice and rescuing a Human Princess named Elise for some reason. Seriously, WHAT HAPPENED? WHY VENICE? WHEN DID SONIC TURN INTO BLOODY MARIO?

Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Let's look at Sonic back in his glory days shall we? Back when he was in 2D and the plot didn't involve Venice. Sonic the Hedgehog in 1991 was one of the most successful games of the 1990's. It was a fairly simple 2D platformer that simply worked. Despite the 16-bit limitations, the graphics of the game wer amazing for its time, and the Sonic team back then put a lot of effort into this one. It was also a game with great 16-bit music and the blue hedgehog captured the children's hearts. Sonic 1991 remains the best selling Sonic game to this day. The story in this game was pretty much non-existent, but it's still a fine game in my book. With good enough game play, most shortfalls in a game can be overcome. And no story at all is better than a crappy story by my book. (Barring the exception where a game's story is so bad it's good)  Some later Sonic games have story so bad is breaks the 'so bad it's good' barrier by a mile and enters the 'so bad its bad' zone.

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS?? WHY IS HE HOLDING A SWORD?

WHAT DOES SONIC HAVE IN COMMON WITH KING ARTHUR???? WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS??? YOU CAN'T JUST PLACE SONIC EVERYWHERE YOU WANT!! HE'S NOT A KETCHUP!

I actually couldn't find a good picture of Tetsu Kanato, but I assume this is what he looks like. 

The success of 1991 Sonic caused SEGA and the Sonic Team to develop a sequel, creatively named Sonic 2 in 1992. This was another 16-bit game and followed much the same formula as Sonic 1991, but many people still loved the ol' formula and Sonic 2 remains the 2nd best selling Sonic game by SEGA. This game also had some kick ass tunes like the 'Mystic Cave Zone' theme and had creative level designs. Sure, the 2nd player option introduced in this game were much hated by everyone, and this game still lacked a good story, but IT WAS STILL A GOOD GAME.  The release of Sonic 2 was one of the main reasons that Sega caught up to Nintendo in the "console wars". It brought their market share up to 50% within six months of its release. This is the game that made SEGA shoulder to shoulder with the other big cheeses.

HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO SHADOW?? WHYYYYY??

Success of Sonic 2 caused the Sonic Team to make a new game, Sonic 3, in 1994. Sonic 3 and Sonic and Knuckles, the expasion to Sonic 3, were my personal favorites. It introduced Knuckles the Echidna, and it was the first sonic in which i thought I saw a plot. It still followed much the same formula in terms of gameplay and graphics. But it still had the great level designs and musics as well. The classic fomula in Sonic 1,2 and 3 simply worked. These first 3 games brought Sonic and SEGA to great heights in terms of fame and glory. And Sonic became a hero for many a children. IGN praised the Virtual Console release, giving it a 9 out of 10, and claimed it was the best of the original trilogy of Sonic games for the Sega Genesis, stating "Sonic 1 we called impressive. Sonic 2 we labeled great. Sonic 3, though, is the best of them all – and deservingly earns the highest score of the trilogy." And as much as I hate IGN for whoring themselves out these days, I pretty much agree with what they had to say here.

SCREW YOU, THIS ISN'T A VIDEO! HAHA! But seriously, they really whored themselves here. Was Mass Effect 3  a horrible game, no. But it wasn't a bloody masterpiece either. 

Unfortunately, Sonic 3 was pretty much the peak for Sonic Team in my opinion. Sure, they have had both ups and downs since Sonic 3, but never again would they consistently do well. After Sonic 3, SEGA released titles such as Triple Trouble, Chaotix, and Sonic Blast. These had pretty much the same graphics as the first 3 sonics, but just didn't have much of their magic. They all got mixed reviews and didn't sell very well. SEGA thought that the solution to making a new Sonic blockbuster lay in 3D. And for sometime, they did do well. Sonic Adventures in the SEGA dreamcast were well received by the community. But the steam in the Sonic Team only continued to run out. And ultimately, SEGA tried to solved this problem in the worst way possible, by being hip.

Is this FF7?

It was a game with guns and motorcycles and Shadow, the cool character in Sonic. you gotta understand, people don't play Sonic cause its cool. By taking the 'hip' route, this game dissapointed lot of the old fans.  Sonic is supposed to be a lighthearted game, not grimdark and motorcycle! Copying from wikipedia here,  Critics of 'Shadow the Hedgehog" derided the game's unwelcome sense of maturity for a Sonic series game, especially the addition of guns and other weapons. Game Informer staff writer Matt Helgeson said, "not only is this new 'adult' interpretation of Sonic painfully dumb, it’s also ill-advised and almost feels like a betrayal to longtime fans." Eurogamer staff writer Tom Bramwell felt that "the game's other selling point – its darker edge – [is] not really meant for us." Sonic Team heeded the critics and I don't think they ever tried to make something like Shadow the Hedgehog ever again.

This reminds me of a certain scene in "Dark Knight' for some reason.

However, Team Sonic still sucks. Now, they only stick to 3D platformers, which are supposedly 'hip'. They take the Venice route and... and...GIVE SONIC BLOODY EXCALIBUR INSTEAD OF GUNSSSSS. ARRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH. SEGA makes Sonic olympics and cheap cash-ins to sustain their dying company. Sonic hasn't reached the height it did back in the good old dreamcast era for awhile now, and it is unlikely to ever reach the height it did with the first 3 sonics games ever again.

This is the state that Sonic is pretty much at.

But Sonic isn't dead yet in my opinion, it is something that is still salvageable. The fanbase, while dying, is still alive. Many people like me have mourned the sad fate of Sonic, but long for its revival.  They refuse to make a classic Sonic game. All the Sonic games now have to be hip-cool, and dramatic. It's annoying, because it would be so easy to make a traditional Sonic game, and it wouldn't need a blockbuster budget. However, I think Sonic Generations, released in 2011 could signal a new era for Sonic. One without Venice and Excalibur.

Sonic Generations was a game that celebrated the 20th year anniversary of the release of Sonic 1. It was a game without much story line. It involved the ol' formula of collecting the chaos emeralds and defeating Dr. Eggman. It gave up on being hip with 3d and concentrated on 2d, which i think was the first step in the right direction the Team Sonic has taken in a while. This game combined the old levels that fans loved from the original Sonic trilogy and placed the 'classic' sonic next to the 'new' sonic. This game got great reviews by both fans and critics. Copying from wikipedia again here: PlayStation Official Magazine gave it an 8/10, calling it "a masterpiece of platform game design." GameTrailers gave the game a score of 8.1, calling it "the best Sonic game in over a decade." GamesRadar gave the console version 8/10, calling it "the best Sonic game since Sonic 2" So, if Team Sega can keep the new attention they gained from this game, and continue to please the fans by sticking to what they are good at and try to avoid being 'hip', I think Sonic and SEGA may still rise to the heights they did in the past, and a new generations of kids will love Sonic.

So, here's to a revival of Sonic and SEGA.

Music in Sonic remains the one thing that's consistently great :)

Stay cool during summer

-JC

Rant: The Starvation Games

This has got angry right now. So angry. Angry enough for me to write a post for this blog again. So, prepare yourselves for bad grammar and lots of capitalization.

THIS SHIT IS FRIGGIN' %Q#^(Y#$^TU$#!!!!!

I first heard about Hunger Games last year in my school bus.  I overheard a certain teenager who happened to be female talking about the greatest shit ever, the Hunger Games. My interest was piqued by her exaltation of this work of literature and I asked her about the book and its general plot. Surprisingly enough, this work had been written by Suzanne Collins, who also wrote the Gregor the Overlander series. Now, I bloody loved Gregor the Overlander series. It's no masterpiece by any means, but I had a fun time reading it and loved the characters in the series. It's about this guy who goes to this subterranean world beneath NYC and fulfilling prophecy and shit. Fairly generic, but read it. It is middleschool level book and may be a bit immature, but I swear you'll have a fun time reading it.

Super COORU!!!

So, realizing the book was about children killing each other and finding out that it had been written by a author that I liked, I decided I would give The Hunger Games a try. Here's the story of the book as far as I can tell.

1. Post Apocalyptic U.S. ruled by a brutal regime! --> 2. Rebellion by the 13 districts thats part of the new U.S. --> 3. Rebellion shut down! --> 4. The brutal regime decides to make a show only slight more depressing than Jersey Shore by selecting random kids to kill each other! --> 5. Our protagonist, Fatness is selected with along with some kid named Pita Bread to fight for their right to party in the reality TV show! --> 6. Generic Action and killing --> 7. Some dogs that look like human out of nowhere and a botched up romance between Peta Bread and Fatness that serves no purpose. --> 8. Fatniss and Peta Bread wins! Yay! Tacos for everyone! --> 9. Peta bread loves Fatniss, but Fatniss loves some other kind of baked goods. --> The End.

How does this become a main character?

OK, so this book WASN'T TERRIBLE, but it wasn't good by any means. It scores about average in my book. So I decided that the sequels were not worth reading and just trashed the book. I never expected it to come up ever again in my life. Imagine my shock couple weeks later after watching Zombieland.

It's a good movie.

After watching and loving Zombieland, I decided to hit the wiki page of Woody Harrelson, the guy above, out of curiosity. Under his filmography, I saw Hunger Games under in production. 'No, No, No' I thought, 'there's no way a pile of average crap like that is getting a movie!' I thought. Hunger Games would pop up again when I was taking the SAT.

I wonder how much money they made off of this. At least 100 million bucks

I was in Chantilly High School when I was taking my SAT last september. AND ALL AROUND THE SCHOOL THE SIGNS WERE TELLING ME TO READ HUNGER GAMES!!!! Apparently, its the book of choice for those CHS kids who can't read jackshit. FOR GOODNESS SAKES, EVEN NARTUO HAS A BETTER PLOT THAN HUNGER GAMES AND NARUTO IS ABOUT A ORANGE NINJA!!! I was pissed at the fact that a book like hunger games got so much recognized and fame while other better works get stuck in the dust. I lost all respect for CHS that day.

Screw them.

And now, there's a movie out and it's earning shit ton of money. Now, I have watched bits of that movie and heard reviews. They all agree that its is just about average. I don't care about the fact that Hunger Games kinda ripped of Battle Royale (which is a better move btw). But I really hate the fact that something so average got a movie deal while better works get stuck in the dust. Whatevs I guess. I just hope they don't make the sequel to this book into a movie as well, but they probably will. To chill off after raging, I think I'm gonna listen to this music piece.

It's the best game franchise ever. Better than Mass Effect.

So, I guess I'm just tired tonight and just can't rage as much as I used to. But no worries, I'll continue this blog from now on. You can expect better and more poor grammar and capitalizations in the future. Adios amigos.

-JC

I haven't updated this place in like forever.

Heck. I'm busy.
I'll start updating next week when the midterms are done.
For now, listen to this awesome song.

'Tis Awesome.

An announcement of sorts

I'm bored.

If someone requests me to write some sort of a story and tells me the basic premise. I will JC-fy it, write couple chapters, and post it on the blog.

Rant: Alone

GODDANG IT. SOMEONE INVITE ME TO A LAN.

Rant: On Solitude (An idiotic free verse poem)

I have been abandoned.

I am all alone.

I am all alone and there's no one in sight.

I am all alone and the darkness surrounds me.

I am all alone and the light has been forgotten.

I am all alone and the abyss is gazing onto me.

I am all alone and I hear the voice in the darkness.

I am all alone and madness whispers into my ears.

I am all alone and I am afraid.

I am all alone.

And there's no one left.

And then I begin to get pissed off.

How dare they think that they can do this to me,

The one above them all, the superior one.

My arrogance and rage triumph over fear and sorrow.

And I drive myself out of the darkness,

By flames of hatred.

Sure, it ain't the right way.

But its a way all the same.

In a very Poetic mood today, but lacks the skill to write. Frig me...
~JC