All the gaming blogs just stop updating during weekends. Bahh.

I have a lot of games I could be playing, but I keep feeling like I'm missing something on the Internet...yeah, I know. It's weird. So bored...

I might as well document this before someone tops me. On the LUE 360 Leaderboard, I am currently #1 when it comes to Dead Rising. Awesome.

Well, the iPhone was released today (or yesterday, since it's midnight now). I want one. =[ But it's too expensive, and it's AT&T only.

One thing I admire about the iPhone is its beautiful user interface. It just looks so...sleek...plus the multi-input touch screen = yummy.

Now..my cell phone. Ick. But I decided to adapt it to iPhone standards...now, while there's no way for me to get a multi-input touch screen in there, no way to make it WiFi capable, no way to make it play MP3s or play videos, no way to make it take better pictures, no way to install a version of OS X on it...and other major things, but I decided to make the wallpaper look pretty. So I made this:



And it looks rather cool. Too bad the Katana still sucks, feature-wise.

Now that I have a Gameboy Micro, I want you guys to suggest to me some awesome GBA games for me...speaking of which, did I let anyone borrow Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow? I can't seem to find it.

Ah...my new silver devices! Funny story with the Gameboy Micro...it came with this really cool pouch to keep it in...but I lost it not even an hour after I purchased it. I went to get my inspection sticker renewed at Toyota of Paris, and I left the pouch in the waiting area. Haha. But look at the glory of my silver gadgets! Now if only I had a Macbook Pro to match with them...yeah yeah. I just got my second Macbook, and I'm already looking into a new laptop. :P

Oh yeah, my new Macbook finally arrived. YAY.

2000 karma on GameFAQs means my User Level has reached level 36, Ancient. That means I've been on GameFAQs a LOOONG time. So those n00bish fanboys will know I've been around long enough to tire of their foolery!

This is a trailer from way back in the day for an unreleased Kirby Gamecube game. When I saw it, I was totally blown away. It looks like a 4-player Super Star using the Smash Bros. engine. AWESOME. And the music? EPIC (though I originally thought it was orchestrated, it might not be, but it's still tons better than that Zelda medley for SSBB, and since HAL's previous 'cube game, Air Ride, featured orchestrated music, I wouldn't be surprised if this new game did as well).

But yeah, apparently development for this game has moved on to Wii. And it's from HAL, my favorite development studio within Nintendo, so it's gonna be awesome (yes, I actually did like Kirby Air Ride, if not only for the orchestrated Kirby music). Since HAL isn't working on Brawl (which is another reason to be less excited about Brawl), they better be putting all their resources into making and actually releasing this Kirby game! :D

I never understood why arcade sticks are preferred when it comes to fighting games. I can play loads better with a traditional gamepad. I guess I just never really grew up playing many fighting games at the arcade (like there were any of them around here to begin with).

But really, is the arcade stick REALLY better, or is it just the sense of nostalgia or tradition? It could be the same thing with me and the gamepad. Maybe it's all just about comfort. I'm more comfortable using my thumb on a d-pad or analog stick, while others prefer to use their whole hand to move a joystick.

No, just kidding. Gamepads are CLEARLY better. :P

BTW, I didn't really make that pic on the right. I stole it from Joystiq and modified it 'cause I thought it was funny. Zangief REALLY prefers gamepads over arcade sticks, but suplexing people for real over all else.

Eh...looks okay. Nothing impressive. The guy, in my opinion, doesn't even really look like Agent47. He doesn't look old or badass enough. I personally would've been happy with Vin Diesel, but nooo, everyone hates Vin Diesel for some reason. Jason Statham, obviously, would've been the best choice, but then everyone would be like, "Oh, it's The Transporter 3!"

Let's just hope that this movie has some piano/fiber wire and Agent47 making people naked! :D

Well, turns out Chris Benoit was the killer.

ATLANTA (AP) -- Pro wrestler Chris Benoit strangled his wife and smothered his son before hanging himself in his weight room, a law enforcement official close to the investigation told The Associated Press Tuesday.

I suspected something like this last night when I read on Wikipedia that the cops had determined it to be a murder-suicide... But I wanted to hold off on posting until I knew for sure.

Well, that sucks. But now I wanna know WHY Benoit did it. This also sucks because the WWE will probably try to distance themselves from Benoit, so no Hall of Fame for him. Apparently, yesterday, they pulled a bunch of the tribute and testimonial videos on Benoit. I guess they don't want people like Stone Cold praising a murderer or something. As a wrestler, Benoit was great. But he won't be seen as a good wrestler now. He'll be seen as the dude who murdered his wife and kid. I'm not saying we should ignore that part, no. I'm just saying it's really fscked up.

Oh GOD, read the comments here. The Smash Bros. Brawl site was updated with a new piece of music. Personally, I think it sucks, mainly 'cause it's not beautifully orchestrated like some tracks from Melee, and I expect more from Brawl. But most of the people there are like, "OMG BEST MUSIC EVAR! BEAUTIFUL!" even though it's a crappy, sequenced compilation of music from Ocarina of Time. The different pieces don't even fit together. The song starts off with the Song of Storms. It should just STAY the Song of Storms. Then it'd be awesome.

Alfredo Says:

I’m really disappointed in this MIDI stuff. I was hoping for lots of fully-orchestrated tracks. I hope it’ll actually end up like that. Brawl has to be EPIC!

I mean, if Melee had orchestrated tracks (in super-compressed form), then Brawl should have more orchestrated tracks at higher quality!

TKS Says:

Alfredo, learn wtf a MIDI is and get your facts straight. Damn.

Alfredo Says:

MIDI, sequenced music, whatever. The fact is it isn’t orchestrated, which is lame.

RumblePitFTW Says:

Please, for all that is holy, just shut the fuck up, your ignorance is showing heavily. I bet you were one of those people that bitched because TP didn’t have voiceovers as well, amirite?

DeAngelo Guillory Says:

Please shut up. The composer list is an indication that not every track will be orchestrated because maybe it isn’t the best way to showcase some of their work, like Koshiro and Sakuraba for example could have Metroid in FM Synthesis whereas Shogo Sakai could have Mother 3 with real instruments. IT FRIGGING VARIES!

I saw nothing wrong with this track’s composition, regardless of the format. Then again when it comes to game music, I don’t find it necessary to pull out a full scale orchestra for every damned track of any genre of game, just a few select songs.

XD. They're attacking me personally, calling me ignorant (though I'm pretty sure that the music is sequenced...is there another term for it not being performed by real people, but by computers?).

And they tell me to "shut the fuck up." How rude. And I'm only expressing my opinion that the track was lame, mainly because it wasn't orchestrated. How is that different than people saying something like, "It's beautiful and shouldn't have been done any other way!" Why don't I go attacking those people with words like, "shut the fuck up" or "OMG IGNANT." 'cause I HAVE A SOUL. :D

And yeah, duh, Metroid shouldn't be orchestrated (but it would work, 'cause I have the Smashing Live soundtrack), but this is Zelda...and ocarina songs, for God's sake! What's better? A computer playing the ocarina, or a real person playing the ocarina? Honestly, the digital instruments don't sound that great either. They sound like something from an N64 game. Even Ocarina of the Time sounded better. Ick.

Listen to the song when they play Saria's song in an "epic" fashion. It would sound SOOO much better with real instruments, and of course, sound way more epic.

But how exactly will this song be used in the game? It's not consistent enough to be used as battle music. Sounds like it'd be for some silly montage or something.

And YES, I did bitch about Twilight Princess not having voice acting. THE CHARACTERS MOVED THEIR MOUTHS FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER...yet they could not speak. You couldn't even skip the mouth animations, so it's like the developers intended them to talk, but they couldn't 'cause the fanboys would kill them.

Ugh...GoNintendo is a great site and all, but their podcasts are really boring to listen to. They do lots of crap, but the sound quality is crap and they really don't say much that's interesting or new. Plus, the fact that I know more about stuff than them (like the PS2 already has an official wireless Guitar Hero controller) just makes me want to yell at them for being so ill-informed.

I think I should take Dillon up on the offer to do our own podcasts, 'cause we are so much more awesome than GoNintendo, as far as podcast potential goes. So let's all get together and talk about video games and have people listen to and make fun of us. I can complain about how Liberi Fatali should be more popular than One Winged Angel, and talk about how Super Smash Bros. Brawl deserves less hype than Metroid Prime 3, and how fanboys are suck. YAY, let's do it.

Well, I'm watching RAW right now. Looks like this turned out to be real. I am sad. =[

CHRIS BENOIT FOUND DEAD

WWE is sad to report that Chris Benoit and his family have been found dead in their home. Police are currently investigating the circumstances surrounding the deaths. Tonight's Raw will be a tribute to Chris and his family.

WTF WTF. I don't know if this is real or not. If it's not real, then I'm relieved, though pissed that WWE would be so tastless. If it is real than...RIP Benoit and family. =[

Well...first my wireless router...now this. My Macbook is dead. I have no idea how it happened. I just booted it up, and suddenly the hard drive wasn't there. This pissed me off. A whole lot. I was cursing up a storm. What the hell happened? I didn't do anything wrong to this thing! I took care of my laptop, and it just poops out! God damn it! I am furious!LKJ213lkjdl;a

I'm thinking the thing just needs a new hard drive, but I'm hesitant to waste money if that isn't the problem...

But there is a bright side to this all...though it is somewhat bleak. My mom said I could order a new laptop...and it'll be better than this one...BUT, I feel REALLY REALLY BAD about this. It's a lot of money. I'm seriously, SERIOUSLY considering taking on a part-time job because of this... So if anyone knows of a place that'll suit me, please contact me.

Ugh. I hate fanboys. Many people have suggested the awesome idea of a Zelda MMORPG. The fanboys, of course, called it stupid, said it would "ruin" the series, say it wouldn't work, blah blah. The fact is, these idiots are just narrow-minded and...well...FANBOYS.

I think a Zelda MMORPG would be awesome. It'd be able to explain and expand upon the mythos of Hyrule. The lore is certainly there for a Zelda game. The races are there, too. The setting is there. You just need a game to go with it.

I'd think a Zelda MMORPG would be set during the "great war" that was talked about in Ocarina of Time. It'd take place in Hyrule, and probably surrounding kingdoms even. We've never seen many lands beyond Hyrule (aside from the parallel dimension that is Termina).

Of course, we'd be able to visit familiar faces and locales from Ocarina of Time. We'd learn more about the history of Hyrule itself (rather than, "OMG TEH GODDESSES MADE TEH TRIFORCE AND PUT A BUNCH OR ROCKS TOGETHER TO MAKE HYRULE!"). Seriously, this game could really make an EPIC Zelda game.

Of course, fanboys would say stupid crap like, "OMG THERE WILL BE A MILLION LINKS RUNNING AROUND." Obviously, these kids haven't played an MMORPG. Does Final Fantasy XI have a million Clouds and Sephiroths running around? No. I'm willing to bet that most of the Zelda MMORPG naysayers don't know what an MMORPG is in the first place.

So, you wouldn't play as Link, obviously, but rather denizens of Hyrule. You could choose from various races: Hylian, Gerudo, Goron, Zora, Deku, Kokiri... there are probably more. Classes would include the usual stuff: a warrior type class, a healer type class, a mage class, and some specialized stuff, too. I'd say that Hylians would make good knights, Gerudos good assasins, Gorons...well, whatever class a Tank would be. It'd be neat. We'd learn more about the races from actually playing as them, rather than viewing them from Link's perspective ('cause that mofo hasn't even been born yet).

Some loser was like, "Well, it wouldn't be a Zelda game without puzzles!" I know. It'd be IMPOSSIBLE for the developers to put puzzles and dungeons in the game. An MMORPG with dungeons? That doesn't make sense! Oh, wait...I'm being sarcastic. Of course there'd be Zelda-style dungeons and puzzles. I'd imagine they'd be similar to Four Swords so you could team up with party members to complete dungeons. And there's nothing stopping the developers from implementing one-player only instances, to give it a "classic" Zelda feel. Sure, maybe the game would have to change from standard MMORPG mechanics to allow stuff like this, but I'm sure it's possible.

I dunno why I'm talking about all this. I guess I just really would like a Zelda MMORPG. A Zelda game of epic proportions. It'd totally pay a fee to play a game like this. It doesn't even have to be an RPG. Some kind of HUGE online Zelda game would be awesome. I'd also play a Pokémon MMORPG. No one complains about that idea, 'cause it seems like Pokémon fanboys are more mature than Zelda fanboys...'sup with that?

I went to sleep at 11:30 PM last night. Cool, huh? Then I woke up just an hour or so ago, at 4 AM. LAAAAME.

But anyway, I've been half-watching Stuart Little on TBS right now. Hugh Laurie as Mr. Little...OMG, I CANNOT UNSEE HOUSE. I keep expecting him to make some smartass, sarcastic remark. They should totally do a House/Stuart Little crossover. It would be epic.

Samuel L. Jackson FTW.

Anyway, this...was a nice movie. I liked it. Some people were disappointed 'cause it didn't turn out to be a slasher flick, or it didn't have enough "jump" scares, or something stupid like that. This movie isn't really a "horror" movie. It is a "thriller." I enjoy thrillers.

The movie reminded me a lot of Silent Hill 4 (duh) and Eternal Darkness. Weird, crazy stuff happens to the main character, like the sanity effects in Eternal Darkness. I'm not really sure how to describe this movie. It's not amazing, like some people are saying, but it's very refreshing and an entertaining movie. I really don't have much else to say (except the previews were stupid and included scenes that weren't actually in the movie).

I give this movie a 1408 out of 13.

Also, the audience was stupid throughout the movie. They laughed at the funny parts (which admittedly, there are quite a few of those) and the not funny parts. And also, apparently whenever a loud-ass rap ring tone goes off, people like to listen to it for a while before turning it off or answering it -_-.

Bleach is on right now...and I'm not watching it. I'm half-listening. Through my half-listening, I've notice that the characters pronounce other characters' names really slowly.

Like, with Rukia, they call her "Ruh-KEEEY-a." And Ichigo is "Eech..ih-go." Something stupid like that. Also, I remember the horrible Love Hina dub. They said Naru in such a stupid way: "Naaaah-ru." Sure, I'm embellishing a little, but it's hard to provide examples through text.

Why is it so hard to say Japanese names at a normal speed? Is that wrong? Are we not supposed to say Japanese names at normal speed? Are we supposed to say them slowly? I can't call Shigeru Miyamoto "Shigeru Miyamoto?" I have to say, "Shig..eeru Mi..yamo-toh"? Or "Hid-aaaayo Kojiii-ma"? Or "Maaaario"? DUMB.

Actually, I don't think it just stops at names. It seems like all talking is slow in dubbed anime...and anime always has a lot of talking. It pisses me off. Do they have to be slow in order to match the mouth movement? It still sounds really annoying and stupid.

I was on LUElinks and someone had uploaded a movie by Kirk Fogg. Does that name sound familiar? It should. He was the host of Legends of the Hidden Temple!

And while checking the message boards on IMDB, I found some Kirk Fogg related stuff on College Humor. XD at this interview and this video (warning, not safe for work!):

Just got back from Video Games Live. It was AWESOME. Totally worth all the trouble to get there...which wasn't much trouble to begin with, but totally worth it.

I'm not really gonna go into too much detail right now...but a few comments:

Guitar Hero II Tournaments should not be held on Medium

If they are on Medium, then they should also have a separate tournament for Hard and/or Expert players. I played on Medium, and I did horrible (still got 5 stars, but Dillon beat me..'cause he plays on Medium). Why is Medium harder when you're used to playing Hard and Expert? Medium is slower for one thing. You might think that'd make it easier, but that's really not the case. Also, Medium doesn't contain all the notes of a song. It has way less notes than a song on Hard on Expert. So you may hear a bunch of notes in a song, and you'll want to play all of them, but only a few of them show up on Medium, so you end up playing notes that aren't there.

I should have played Advent Rising, the Myst series, Civilization 4, Medal of Honor, Warcraft, and Tron

The normal Zelda and Final Fantasy stuff was present...but a lot of the music was from games that are less popular games (in comparison) that I hadn't played before. The music sounded good, but I wasn't familiar with it, so it wasn't as awesome it could have been. Conversely, the Final Fantasy songs (especially One Winged Angel) sounded TOO familiar and no longer feel as epic as they once were.

No Castlevania music = phail

While the whole show didn't phail, there was a SEVERE lack of Castlevania music. That was very disappointing.

Cosplay...lol

There was costume contest there, and there were some good costumes...or like...3 good costumes, and those 3 were nominated to win an award. The person (I think it was a girl) dressed as Vincent Valentine won. It was a very nice-looking costume...too bad Vincent Valentine sucks (Dante > Vincent).

I thought up a great costume...I'd make a Servbot head, put it on, and say I'm Frank West from Dead Rising. :D

One Winged Angel and Liberi Fatali are not meant to be played on the piano

Martin Leung was there (obviously) and he played some Final Fantasy music. It was very cool...'til he started playing the "epic" songs. They sound like crap on the piano. Sadly, this was the only presence of Liberi Fatali. Speaking of which...

Liberi Fatali > One Winged Angel

Seriously. Daniel tried to argue that One Winged Angel is a more memorable or well-known song or something like that. Pshh. Yeah right. One Winged Angel is played at the END of Final Fantasy VII, and in crappy MIDI form with sung lyrics, during an interesting, but rather static battle with Safer Sephiroth. Liberi Fatali is heard at the BEGINNING of Final Fantasy VIII, and in awesome, orchestrated form with sung lyrics, during an AWESOME intro FMV with lots of cool action. You don't even have to finish FFVIII to hear the song.

Liberi Fatali is epic. More epic than One Winged Angel. I also read somewhere that Nobuo Uematsu considers Liberi Fatali his musical masterpiece. I'd say that's true.

I should've done less "research"

Since I had been looking into Video Games Live since when it was first conceived, I kinda ruined a lot of the "surprises" for the show, like the retro medley (my favorite part of the concert), the Space Invaders thing, the "Loading" of Act II, and Tommy's PSP comment. And I guess One Winged Angel might've been more enjoyable if I wasn't expecting it, but it's the encore of each show. It should've been Liberi Fatali, though. I saw a YouTube video of them playing that song, too. Why not in Dallas!?

Still, it was an enjoyable show. I'd like to go again. Hell, I'd like to go to more of these nerd gatherings. Who wants to go to a "con"? :P

I just woke up 3 hours ago, and I haven't left the room to take a shower or eat yet. Instead, I've been reading Wikipedia and watching YouTube videos of Goldberg. Man, he is awesome. Here's a video of him playing "Cupid" in Law and Order: SVU.

Manhunt 2 is officially rated AO by ESRB. Holy crap, man. I guess there goes Manhunt 2's chance at selling even remotely well. You know what this means, right? That means you probably won't be able to find this game anywhere. Wal-Mart won't have it, definitely. Hastings might have it...I mean, they did continue to sell San Andreas when it went to AO. Does GameXchange accept AO games?

I wasn't actually planning on buying this game, but my only chance to play it may only be through ordering it online... That's pretty lame. Anyone have a Gamefly account? :P

But still...AO? Adults Only? What the hell is in this game? I thought it was just about killing people. AO pretty much means that there's hardcore sexual stuff in the game...and from the only "sexual" things I've heard about the game involved shoving crowbars up people's rectums or something...

Manhunt 2 got B7'd in the UK. Ah, I love being an American! IN AMERICA!

I bought my third Wii game yesterday. It was Scarface: The World is Yours. Yeah, it's an old game, but it was recently revamped for the Wii.

I thought it'd be an awesome game, 'cause IGN gave it an 8.5. But I was like, "I'll wait for the Gamespot review to confirm..." But then the game came out, and Gamespot still didn't have a damn review. So two or so days later, still no review, I'm like, "Gah, I'm just gonna buy it!"

So I buy it, play it, have fun. Then I look on the Interwebs...Gamespot has a review up! 5.8. Wait, WTF? That's like...the opposite of what IGN said.

...

So I'm almost regretting my purchase, as I think my money (or rather, my mom's money) might've been better spent on The Godfather or Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition, 'cause I'm thinking that the score difference between IGN and Gamespot with those games wouldn't be so...large.

...or maybe I should've got Big Brain Academy. ><

Oh well. I'll finish Scarface, then trade it in when I'm done. The game is pretty fun. The framerate is awesome and smooth, which is something I'm not really used to when it comes to Wii games (Remember, I used to have Elebits ^-^;). A few graphical glitches here and there, and Tony's taunts can be delayed, but the controls are awesome, especially when aiming. Wii waggle in the chainsaw and melee attacks makes me sad, though. I guess that's where The Godfather wins out. But, eh, the game is good and violent. And I guess I have to watch the Scarface movie now, especially since everytime I boot up the game, a movie preview shows up, even before the developer and publisher screens.

Last night/this morning, my Apple Airport Express died...after waiting for my Bittorrent downloads to finish, apparently. This was my wireless router, by the way, so no more wireless interweb for me. =[

Looks like I'm gonna have to get another one...but not another Airport Express. The thing was like 100 dollars. It was really useful while it lasted, though, especially when I brought it to the Philippines. I guess I'm gonna have to go out and get one of them bulky routers.

I'm still not sleeping right. I actually went to sleep yesterday morning at 3 AM. I thought I was in the clear, 'cause it was before the sun came up. Then I woke up...at 6 AM. So that was 3 hours of sleep. I didn't bother to check what time it was when I got up, though, 'cause the sun was up.

So I played FFXII, then I checked the time and realized I hadn't slept for very long. So I said, "Well, I'll just take another quick nap so my accumulated hours of sleep will be at least 6 hours." I ended up sleeping until 2 PM rather than 10 AM. >< Grrrrrrrr. This sucks. I need regular sleep hours! I'd go to sleep now, but I always think I'm missing out on lots to do on the Internet, so I stay online, somehow end up on Wikipedia or Snopes and end up reading 'til 6 AM. -_-

From NeoGAF, from GameInformer:

- One disk with 4 separate campaigns. Guitar, Drum, Bass and Vocal. Each can be played on its own from start to finish, in addition, a full band game is designed to allow for one huge co-op playthrough.

- Will feature full support for four player online play on both 360 and PS3. Anyhttp://beta.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif combination of on/offline play will work and each player can pick their own difficulty setting.

- Flexible community system will allow you to find bandmates anywhere in the world

- There will be a way for you to share your band's triumphs with the world, but the details are still under wraps.

- Musical fret-boards are now transparent so you can see more of the background visuals. Guitar is on the left side of the screen, Bass on the right and drums down the middle. Vocals scroll from right to left along the top of the screen.

- Guitars and Bass now have 10 frets. 5 for the regular sections of the game and 5 for the newly designated solo sections.

- Whammy bar is back as is the tilt to activate rock band's version of star power

- there is a five way switch on the guitar that allows for 5 different self-applied effects to the sound.

- Singing is now more in depth. There is a phoneme detector that will pick up individual vowels and consonants you say. Build up enough highly judged phrases and you'll be able to sing free-form. If you do well enough in free-form, then you'll trigger the vocalist's version of star power.

- Microphone doubles as a tambourine on many songs to combat super long guitar solos where the singer doesn't have much to do.

- Drums are apparently insane. You use actual sticks and hit one of four colored pads in front of you, in addition to a kick pedal attached to the drumming unit. Drummers will also have the ability to do fills etc. in their own little free-form section, do well and you'll trigger the drummers version of star power.

- If one person fails, the whole band does not fail, their section simply turns gray and they have to sit out the rest of the song unless one your band mates initiates star power, which will bring you back into the fold.

- If all bandmates can reach the end of a song, you'll be greeted with one huge free-form jam session.

- There will be a character creation system, and you can create multiple avatars that play different instruments.

- Four themed clothing stores in addition to licensed guitars and pedals and other rock paraphernalia.

- A full set of mo-cap stage movements have been added for each instrument. You can decide whether your vocalist moves like Axel Rose, or stands his ground like Clapton.

- 40 performance venues planned

- All peripherals will be unique to each platform. This isn't the developer's decision. Apparently MS peripherals require special circuit boards.

- You'll be able to craft your own band logo

- The HUD in the screens isn't final but is a good indication of what you can expect

- 4 songs announced in the article, not sure if this is new or old but whatever.
Weezer - Say It Ain't So - Original Master Track
Black Sabbath - Paranoid - Original Master Track
The Who - Won't Get Fooled Again - Original Master Track
Nirvana - In Bloom - Original Master Track

INSTRUMENT DESCRIPTIONS

Sorry I can't post photos so my descriptions will have to suffice

Guitars/Bass

Guitars are an exact 3/4 replica of a Fender Strat.

Xplorer guitars will work for 360 owners, but you may not be able to pass on all the new stuff this model has.

Five familiar buttons near the top of the neck, five buttons near the body of the guitar. You will use these new buttons during specially designed solo sections using ONLY hammer ons and pull offs, no having to worry about your strum bar. Signature Fender 5-way switch has been added. By shopping at the in game store you'll be able to purchase several virtual effects pedals such as Flange, Wah, Chorus and Echo. These can be applied during your song by setting the 5 way switch to the desired effect.

Microphone

There will eventually be a Rock Band branded Mic

Other USB mics will be supported, but Harmonix will probably NOT allow the use of the 360 headset due to its low fidelity. Mics will be usable as tambourines during certain songs.

That's all for mics!

DRUMS

The picture of the drum peripheral in the mag is not final.

It consists of four pads, a kick pedal and legs for the enire unit to stand on. Think of it as a TV dinner tray stand only cooler

Leftmost pad (red) is your snare drum, everything else doubles as toms and cymbals depending on the song.

A set of real wooden drum sticks will ship with the unit.

A piece of the stand can be taken off so that the unit can sit lower, or on a coffee table.

There is a kick pedal

If you play drums in this game on hard or expert, then you're really playing the drums. Apparently you could sit down at a real set and play the same songs.

Now I just need photos of the instruments, and some damn gameplay screens/videos...oh yeah, and the price. =[

EDIT

Nevermind! Scans! Now I just need videos and the price...

I was on LUE, looking at random Benny Hill videos, when I came across this:


Holy crap, this movie looks badass. Why didn't anyone tell me about it? And it's got Christian Bale in it, too. I have to watch this now...

I didn't think it was possible, but with this "msplinks" redirection crap, I can no longer link to outside sites on MySpace. That's pretty lame. msplinks should supposedly redirect you to the actual link, but I tried linking to this blog on my MySpace profile and it just takes me to the MySpace homepage. -_-

And there's those stupid "enter this random arrangement of letters and numbers, and good luck differentiating between an capital 'I' and a lower case 'L'" things that you have to go through to make changes to your profile...

Here, I question the actions and opinions of the masses...

First of all, Why is Street Fighter EX3 a bad game?. I loved it. I love the EX series. Street Fighter with 3D graphics! That means even more fluid animation, consistent animation. To me, the game played just like the old school Street Fighter games, but with 3D character models and backgrounds. ScrewAttack.com recently made a list of the "top 10 worst fighting games" and Street Fighter EX3 and Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game were TIED. WTF!?!?!? EX3 is NOWHERE near as bad as Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game (EX3 isn't even bad!). Someone explain to me the logic behind the CLEARLY WRONG opinion of Street Fighter EX3 (or the entire EX series) being bad.

Second, HALO DS IS NOT COMING OUT. Recently, in IGN's Wii-k In Review podcast, Matt Cassamassina (or however you spell it) commented on Halo DS. To add a little back story, Matt once made a blog post about how Halo DS was in the works at one point, and he actually got to play it. A bunch of people didn't believe Matt, called him a liar, and acted like they knew more about the gaming industry than he did. I believe even Bungie denied Halo DS's existence. Well, yesterday, in their podcast, Matt said that in a week or so, all the naysayers were about to be owned. Obviously, he was gonna post some more info on Halo DS...BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN IT'S COMING OUT. If people would actually listen to the podcast and hear the Halo DS talk in context, they would understand that Matt is only saying that it once existed, and he has proof that it once existed, not that it exists anymore.

BUT NOOOO. A bunch of dumbasses everywhere are like, "HALO DS IS COMING OUT!" and "MATT IS STUPID TO BELIEVE THAT HALO DS IS POSSIBLE." -_- Why don't people just listen to the damn podcast instead of reading inaccurate "summaries"? Seriously, IGN is a good source of news, and their podcasts more-so, because they're always dropping hints at stuff that they can't actually tell anyone.

Which brings up my next question. Why does everyone hate Matt Cassamassaface? And Why does everyone hate IGN?. I don't get it. People on certain blog comment pages are always ragging on Matt, calling him stupid, and acting like they know more than him. HA. Matt knows a crap load more about upcoming games and stuff than any of these blog readers do. He just can't talk about them, because he's under embargo from the companies he has connections to. Obviously, his nasayers don't have these connections. I don't get why people can't trust Matt. He's proven to be right about a lot of things. He new about Nights for the Wii before most people knew. He knew about Soul Calibur Legends before all these other people. He even hinted at them through his podcast and blog...but people still doubt him.

I can understand his opinions being unpopular. He doesn't like Nights, so people rag on him for that. That still doesn't discredit him as a news source. He also is unimpressed with the Wii's hardware. He's only speaking his mind, and I agree with him with that. He doesn't want online multiplayer in Metroid Prime 3 and denies that Metroid Prime is an FPS. I disagree with him on there, but I still trust the guy. Everyone needs to stop being so elitist and stupid. I really hope all you naysayers get THOROUGHLY owned by Matt and his Halo DS proof.

FFXII seems really awesome so far. I love the battle system. The gambit system also looks like it's going to be awesome.

Things I don't like about it so far: License system (now I understand the VG cats comic), the camera (sucks, and why the hell can't I invert it?), the audio compression used on the voices (it makes it sound so weird...), Fran's voice (OMG, WTF, she sounds so stupid)

Things that aren't great, but could get better: soundtrack (Maybe it's the lack of Nobuo Uematsu, I don't know, but it is kinda neat how some of the songs are from Final Fantasy Tactics Advance)

I bought a game today...'cause I traded in Pokémon Diamond and some DDR game with a dance pad that I found in my dad's closet. The game I bought...


It's even the Collector's Edition, with a nice, but banged-up, metal case. Wooo!

After playing FFVI, I fell in love with Final Fantasy again. Before that, the last FF game I played was FFX a loooong time ago, back when I had that old crappy Emmerson TV with only an RF input.

I also managed to fix the "overscan" on my TV! I hated how my TV would always crop the image on the screen, and cut off vital parts of a video game. Like the health bars in a fighting game wouldn't entirely be on screen. The unison attack gauge in Tales of Symphonia didn't even show up when I played it! Now in FFXII, the bottom character in my party's Status Guages (HP and MP) were barely visible. I had had enough of this crap, so I went online and googled a bunch of terms that I thought would lead me to an answer. Eventually, something lead me to the service menu of my TV. I've always been wary of doing something with the service menu in a TV, 'cause I hear messing with it can mess up your TV. But I was desperate, and I figured if I messed up my TV, I'd tell my parents that it just broke all of a sudden and they'd buy me a new one. :P

But, I ended up messing with some settings, and now the cropping is gone. It's almost like a brand new TV! I still want an HDTV, but games look fine on this now, especially with S-Video input. Happy days.

I'm back in Paris. It is 4:24 AM, and I'm not sleepy (damn you, jetlag). I also can barely hear anything because my ears still haven't "popped" from the various flights.

Oh, btw, American airport employees are mean, at least the ones in Los Angeles, anyway. Damn terrorists. Ruining the fun for everyone by making security checkpoints hell to go through, especially if you don't know what to do.

But yeah, I'm back. And...I'm bored already! :D I'm hungry, though...I want some American food. I want a burger, damn it. I want a pizza! Gahh!

I hope one of you guys that I know is working at GameXchange tomorrow (if it still exists...a lot can change in three weeks). I'm coming in to trade some stuff in. Yeaaaah.

And Dillon says we party on Thursday. Neato skeato.

Oh yeah, Video Games Live is in like...9 days. Awesome. Daniel has the tickets, right? I hope so. I don't remember anymore.

Also, my Internet connection seems to still be "augmented." I can now stream movies and an acceptable speed. Nice.

This sucks...I've recently gotten ILL just THREE days from leaving. I hope I get better by the time we leave, 'cause I don't wanna be on an airplane for a million hours while sick. Nor do I want to be in airports for a million hours while sick.

At least I got to experience something new here...I went to a Filipino doctor. Got x-rays and stuff. He prescribe me lots of drugs, and told me to come back in a week, and if I get worse, I'll have to be admitted to a hospital...LOL, I'm not coming back in a week...or in an eternity. :P

So...uh..yeah..sucks. I'm sick. Sore throat, cough, runny nose, stuffy nose, can't sleep, and add in the other things like all the rashes I've gotten here, and the sweaty hotness. Grr... Major suck.

Gahhh...these iPhone commercials make me really REALLY want an iPhone. Too bad they cost a crap-load of money, and they're AT&T only. But still, check out how sleek it is.

I probably suck so bad at it now, since I haven't played in forever.

Have you seen the videos of Guitar Hero III? If you haven't, go YouTube it. I'm too lazy to provide a link.

Yeah, it looks like crap. Sure, none of it is "final", but you can tell that Harmonix isn't working on it anymore. Seriously, if I were them, I wouldn't have released these videos 'cause they're pretty bad. I mean, when you mess up, the whole song goes quiet, while in the original Guitar Heros, only the guitar part would be missing. Right now, it seems like some shizzy Guitar Hero knock-off, like Frets of Fire (though Frets on Fire is awesome now).

Now Rock Band...my interest is rising with that. Can't wait for some more info on that game. You guys are getting the 360 version, right? 'cause if there is a Wii version, it'd probably have crappy online support, if any at all. And that 512 MB flash drive ain't gonna be enough for downloadable songs AND VC games. And if Guitar Hero III does turn out to be good, you guys will be getting the 360 version, too, right? I mean, all the versions are going to have the same model guitar, right? No special "flying Vii" for the Wii, from what we know. I just don't wanna get the wrong version guitar if you all are going to get it for some other system. 'course, none of us are getting the PS3 versions, right? 'cause none of us have one...unless Tori bought another one. :P

I'm bored, so I'm gonna fix these blog entries and put them in order.

Ignore the dates and times of the entries. They're wrong.

In case you can't figure it out, the oldest entries are at the bottom, so if you wanna read them in chronological order, you start at the bottom, and move up.

...I haven't played Pokémon at all since leaving Paris. I just don't feel like it. I'm done with Pokeymans for now. I'm trading this thing in when I get back. So if anyone wants any of my crappy Pokémon, ask me about it before I trade in Pearl.

Instead, I've been playing Ouendan or Final Fantasy VI advance. That's it...just those two games. :P Also, FFVI has too many characters! It's pissing me off.

'kay, as you all know, I'm lazy, so I'm just gonna try and do a quick recap on what I did during my "tourist days."

I already talked about the awesome hotel in Bohol. After our one-day stay there, we went sight-seeing. Wasn't all that great, especially since my camera had no batteries, so no pics, sorry. Use your imagination. We went to the Chocolate Hills. The cool part here was the huge stairway I had to climb to get up there...I had to actually sit down and rest at one point...But if you wanna know more about the place, don't read this. Just read the Wikipedia article. Remember, I'm lazy.

After that, we saw some butterflies...yeah...some butterfly conservation place or something. Ran by some Australian chick or somethin'. Oh yeah, there was this one white dude in a green shirt that we saw at the Chocolate Hills...and again at the butterfly place. Cool, huh? I took a picture of him on my camera phone. Yeah.

Then after that, we saw a small monkey. Speaking of which, Bohol was certainly whoring this monkey out. There was loads of monkey merchandise in all the gift shops all over Bohol. And it was all the same stuff, too. I'm tired of this damn monkey.

Then we went on some kinda floating restaurant. It was just a boat with tables, chairs, and food. There were a lot of people there, though. It was neat, I suppose, but I didn't like the food (same, old Filipino food -_-).

Then we went somewhere else. Oh yeah, we saw a big snake at some place with chickens. Yeah, I'm being really vague, huh? Doesn't matter. Wasn't really that interesting, 'cause the snake was like...asleep or something. I saw a white guy here, though. Not the same white guy from before...but I also ran into the second white guy again at some gift shop a ways after that. I guess they were all falling the same tour schedule or something.

After that, we went to a cave. It was boring.

And then, we went to this beach, and I didn't have fun, 'cause I didn't know we were going to a beach. I was prepared. I had long pants on with sneakers and socks. I obviously couldn't wade on the shoreline, but I had to to keep up with my family. My pants and socks and shoes got soaked. That was uber lame. But at least it was an actual beach, with white sand and clear water, unlike the crap beach that was in Negros (that's how you spell it).

After that, we took a boat to Cebu, and stayed in a hotel there. Not much to comment on here, 'cept the hotel was worse than the one in Bohol 'cause you had to pay for WiFi...but it was bigger, and had a kitchen and too bedrooms and bathrooms...but no free WiFi = phail.

The next day, we went to a mall. I just walked around, trying to find a place that sold DVDs so I could buy House and watch it for the remainder of my trip. I've only got a few episodes of Season 3 here, and I've watched all them once, and a few of them twice (though I did get to download the Season 3 finale while in Bohol...man..that was a crazy episode). Unfortunately, most of the videos sold here are in VCD format...which I'm pretty sure are all pirated. There were a few real DVD box sets there, but it was for crap like Friends and 24...though I did see Batman TAS box sets, but I wasn't in the mood for them.

I did get to go to this badass arcade there, though. Actually, it had multiple arcades. But they all used the same card (here, you had to pay for a card to use on the games, and the card had a certain amount of money on it, so you just had to swipe the cards for for every game you wanted to play). I, unfortunately, didn't have much time here. I got to play Time Crisis 3 and Ghost Squad (which is soon coming to Wii). Too bad Ghost Squad didn't work correctly cause someone had ripped off a part of the gun that held the "action" button, so I couldn't rescue hostages). I also got to play GuitarFreaks, the arcade game I had been waiting so long to play. To summarize...Guitar Hero is so much better. GuitarFreaks is the original guitar rhythm game from Konami. It's your standard Bemani game, buncha weird Japanese songs, you get a chance to play through three stages of songs on one play-through. The guitar was crap, though. I was too fat, and too heavy, and it only had three fret buttons. The songs were lame, too, 'cause I could barely hear the guitar part when I was playing. I'm aching to play Guitar Hero now...

And...now I'm back in Iloilo. Yep. Only four more days 'til I leave for home. Well, five more, if you count today. Actually...wait...I don't know. I leave on the 10th. In four days, it'll be the ninth...so I guess five days still? I don't know. Whatever.

Ah, after visiting family and enduring the crap that is rural Philippines and such, I can now act as a tourist, rather than a "visiting native." After we left Matlang for Cebu, we went on another boat to Bohol, which is apparently a tourist spot...'cause I saw a lot of white people here, which is a good sign that awesomeness is located here!

FINALLY, we stay at a hotel. This is nice. WiFi Interweb (though not fast enough to download the House Season Finale), room service, cable TV, clean pools, clean bathrooms, air-conditioning...AND FOOD. Holy God, today after checking out the room, we went to eat here, and I had a nice, juicy steak..in fact, a steak and a half. Jesus, it was AWESOME. And tomorrow we go sight-seeing. See, now this is a real vacation.

Then after that, we go to Cebu, hopefully to go shopping. This is what I've been wanting all along! ...I just had to endure 2 weeks of phail.

But I'm still yearning to go back to Paris. I need to watch the finale of House Season 3, I need to check out Mario Party 8 (though I heard it sucks), and I need to go to Video Games Live! ...also, when I get home, I want a "welcome home" party thrown for me, and there's gonna be crap loads of American food. I'm talking Dominos Pizza, Braum's burgers, Taco Delite tacos (okay, not American, but close enough), and some not-weird-tasting Sprite. Also, some modern video games, m i rite? The people in Matlang hadn't even heard of Halo...or even Metroid! Craaazy.

So you guys get started on that party stuff. :D I'm not paying you, btw. I'm simply gracing you with my return. That's reason enough to party, rite?

*edited for tastefulness*

Since my arrival at the Los Angeles International Airport, I've seen loads of hawt and kawaii Asian girls...including flight attendants...

And just the other day at the supermarket, I saw this really hawt girl with glasses...I even took pics with my cell phone. I'm such a perv, huh? Unfortunately, I only got pics of her back. Heh. I'm not a very good perv, huh?

I used to refer to this place as "the jungle." I'm not sure why anymore, 'cause the place isn't anything like a jungle, other than being really hot. Cars were everywhere there, and it made sleeping annoying 'cause they were loud...

So, Matlang...I already talked about the Internet Café being cool. Most of the time, I hung out with Mon-Ching (the son of my uncle Mon-Ching, so I guess I'm his cousin, and the proprietor of the Internet Café, and he's 15-years-old or something), Lani (some girl...I think she's my cousin, too...I dunno. She's 17, btw, and in like her third year of college already. I don't know.), and Bading (I guess he's my cousin, too). I'm really not sure of the relations between me and these people, but whatever. I'm assuming they're family. Oh yeah, and my sisters were around, too.

Anyway, other than frequent visits to the Internet Café, we usually just drove around to random places. The beach and some country club-type place, Mon-Ching's house, and the park.

Lani was totally hitting on me, which I guess is sick 'cause I think we're related...but not by blood :P. She was always asking if I had a girlfriend, and about my past girlfriends, and stuff like. Then it got weird when she started asking if I had sex or not. Then we got all hot and sweaty in the park when she brought the subject up. Seriously, it happened. No, you sick bastard, I did not have sex with her. It was just really hot and sweaty in the park. But I assume she's not a virgin since she kept talking about sex and how it's "natural" and stupid crap like that. Whatever. I had no idea what these people were saying half the time 'cause I don't speak the language. At one point, she asked me "Do you speak tagalog?" and I was like, "No, why? You guys talking about me behind my back?" :P

Me and Mon-Ching talked about computers and games and stuff. I owned him and "Badz" (Bading) in Counter-Strike...kinda...I started off playing really lousy, not know what I was doing, but by the end of the day, I was pwning and they were like "lolz J.R.'s getting better."

They went swimming at the country club place. I didn't swim, 'cause I'm lazy. Swimming requires too much work. You gotta take a shower before you go swimming, then you gotta take another one after. Too much damn water involved. You also have to change your clothes more than once. Plus, since I am visually impaired, I can't see anything while swimming, and since it was an outdoor pool in the Philippines, there was bound to be stuff I didn't want near me in the pool.

We also went to the beach and through rocks in the water. Fun stuff. I also taunted a starfish. I'm awesome.

Oh yeah, at one point, we sang karaoke at Mon-Ching's house. Damn, I really suck at Karaoke...and singing in general.

Holy moose, this isn't as bad as I thought it'd be. There's an Internet cafŽ here. And it's not a shizzy one like the one in Iloilo. there's air-conditioning, the lighting is well. They don't have Firefox, but at least they have IE7 over IE6. Still no UT, but I guess that's how it is in Asia. It's only RTS games and Counter-Strike...and Pangya. But I played CS with some people here. And, to my surprise, I actually started having fun. I actually got a few kills and wins in there. I had like, the second place in kills, but my team had like...6 wins against 17 or something like that. But my team mates consisted of my two sisters...at first, I was just playing against Sabrina. She was totally owning me, and I'm not afraid to admit it. But once we got a real game going, with teams, I did much better. But I still suck at the game, and I probably won't start playing...though maybe I'll fire up Source one more time once I get home. Man, I wanna play UT.

And then we went up into the mountains to eat. I didn't eat. I had already eaten a crapload of food at a restaurant (finally) hours before. I did record this awesome video of them "de-sticking" one of the pigs. I'll try and YouTube it later.

And uh...now I'm watching my sisters practice their dance routine for some festival. Meh, I'll probably be sleeping during the real thing. In an air-conditioned room. :D

And....uh...yeah. I'm pleasantly surprised with my stay in Matlang so far. 'course, this IS only the first day...but it's much better the Neh-GROSS.

Okay, here we are, a week into the trip, and we've reached the worst part so far. For us kids, that is. We are in Nehg-rose, today, or rather, "Neh-GROSS", 'cause it sucks big time here. This is the place with the beach that's ****ing disgusting. The sand is dirty, and there's dog poop everywhere. I don't even wanna think about what's in the water. The beach houses here suck, too. There are the usual huts, with ants everywhere, and flies buzzing all over the place. No air-conditioning in those huts. And then there's the beach house I'm in right now. Ants everywhere, flies buzzing all over the place, but air-conditioning. Plus the whole place reeks of that nasty Filipino water smell. Ick.

My parents seem to be having a good time, though...'cause they grew up around here. Me and my sisters, though, have been an afterthought throughout this whole trip. I previously talked about the disadvantages of us not knowing the Filipino language. There's other stuff, too. Like last night, we were under the assumption that we would be sleeping in our own rooms at one of the houses here. WRONG. Instead, the adults drag us to this damn beach house so they can get drunk. Obviously, they weren't gonna let us drink. We instead, had to sit here on this small bed with nothing to do but watch House, but we couldn't even do that 'cause the adults were too damn loud. Seriously, it seems like Tagalog, or whatever the language is called, is an "angry" language 'cause it sounds like you're pissed off whenever you're talking. Eventually, we had to sleep here, which was a bitch to do, considering how loud those drunk Filipinos were all night. And, no, there was no room separating the bed from the rest of the room. There's only two rooms here, and one is the bathroom. So we had to sleep in the same room as the drunken Filipinos that didn't know when to STFU when other people are trying to sleep. -_-

And I've got another day here! I'm just gonna stay in the air-conditioned, fly-ridden beach house. I don't wanna walk on that ****-covered beach. I'll just build a fortress of fans in here to keep the flies away from me. Seriously, believe me, there are LOTS of flies in just this one room. Lemme take a minute to count a few...I count at least nine. I'm sure there are more, and if someone opens that door, the fly population will continue to increase. Ugh, it stinks in here, too!

And after tomorrow, we're going to Cebu, which is a big city...mall and hotels and stuff...'cept we're not going to the mall or stay in a hotel. We're gonna take another friggin' boat to my dad's place. The place I've constantly referred to as "the jungle." Okay, looks like this week is going to be the ultimate suck week of the trip to the Philippines. Lame.

Speaking of boats, we had to take from Iloilo to Neh-GROSS. We had first-class tickets on some small ship thing...and that was a disaster. First class didn't seem very fancy, though I guess its first class by Filipino standards. And when we finally got to our seats, everything was all ****ed up. Someone was in my seat, which was a window seat that I wanted. And someone else was in someone else's seat. And I tried to explain the situation to my mom, but she wouldn't have it, and then all the adults with us went through some long, complicated organization of tickets, that didn't end up doing anything. I had no idea what was going on 'cause, of course, I don't speak the language. So I had to sit in some lame seat next to a seat-stealing biz-niz. I didn't even get to sit next to the window. =[

So, I guess I should be glad I'm old enough to appreciate how much the Philippines really sucks. Now I know better than to go again. I really wish I had stayed in Paris.

Oh yeah, I also hate it how the adults try convince me to do things with faulty logic, as if I were a little kid. "Come join us outside, it's beautiful!" Psshh, my ass. "Your sisters are having fun outside?" Hah, I doubt it. They hate it here as much as I do. And their reasoning for coming out to the beach house at night was, "We just need to walk." I pretty much accurately called their desire to get drunk right when they said that. -_- Us Americans are too smart for these folk. :P

I am so bored. I've got nothing to do. I can't use the Internet, I've pretty much watched every episode of House on my computer, and I'm hungry.

This sucks...you know why this trip isn't interesting? I'm Filipino, that's why. I'm used to all this crap. The food isn't any different at this house than it is at my house in Paris. That's why I wanna go to the mall and go to Filipino restaurants...experience new crap there.

I suppose one would say, "Spend time with my family." Easier said than done. Sure, I could spend time with my family...by that, I mean I could sit next to them while they talk to each other about something in some language I don't understand, and if they try to include me, they speak to me in broken English that is difficult to understand. Doesn't sound like fun to me.

Being Filipino in the Philippines and not knowing how to speak the language sucks for other reasons, too. If I'm out somewhere, I can't do anything, 'cause everyone assumes I speak the language 'cause I look the part. So I can't go purchase something or ask a question about something (not that I would, since I don't trust 'em) without being confused even more. Geh.

So I'm seriously not feeling the "I'm glad I went to the Philippines" feeling. I haven't really done anything I couldn't do in Paris. Oh, I went to some crappy Internet cafŽ, which had Pangya on the hard drive. I guess that's new. I didn't actually play Pangya, though. I was also in a non-air-conditioned mall for a few hours. Yay?

I've pretty much only been in this room, watching house or playing SimCity 2000...and I have no idea how to play that game.

We're going to some place called "Nehg-rose" today. I'm not sure how you spell it, but that's how you pronounce it. We're taking a boat to get there. It better be that fast, air-conditioned boat. Not the stupidly slow, open-boat. Apparently we'll be gone from Iloilo for five days. Suck.

Well, I guess I'm done for now.

Yeah, I finally got to watch this movie, right here in the Philippines, at SM City Iloilo to be exact (it's a mall). I guess I'll take a bit to describe my experience in this theater.

The theaters were on the top floor of the mall. They had maybe around 8 or so theaters showing different movies. The usual suspects here: stuff like Shrek, Spider-Man 3, and of course "P1RATES OF D CAR1BBEAN." Yes, those are ones. I guess they ran out of I's. ...and T's and H's and E's. And I guess 3's, too.

The theater itself was pretty damn big...'cause it's a mall theater, and Dead Rising tells me they are big and awesome. It was also air-conditioned, which is a big plus here in the 'pines. It was also dark. Really dark. I never understood why movies portrayed ushers with flashlights...now I do. So I couldn't really tell how big the theater was 'cause it was so dark. I found myself a seat in the center. Then soon, some guy and his lady friend decided to sit right next to me, even though there a million other empty seats in the same row. He brought with him a pizza or something. That's another thing, I guess it's okay to "sneak" in food from other places in the mall. I guess it's not really "sneaking" them in anymore.

But anyway, the movie. I missed a little bit of the beginning. All I saw was a bunch of people being hanged and some guy saying "The song has been sung." Oh yeah, they introduced some more plot points. >< I was hoping they'd just finish the second movie without adding more to the plot, but oh well.

Oh yeah, SPOILERS, btw. I'm too lazy to back and edit this, even though I'm doing it all offline in a text document 'cause I don't have 'net access right now. I just don't wanna interrupt the flow of my movie impressions.

So the movie's not feeling really epic right now. The setting is all dark and stuff. Then after this stuff, everything is too bright when we go to Jack and his exploits in Davy Jones's locker. This is where things get iffy with me. The third movie is a bit too cartoony for my tastes. Yes, this is a Disney movie, and I argued for the second movie that "it's supposed to be cartoony," but it just got ridiculous here. Jack never hallucinated in the previous two movies, at least I don't remember him doing that. Maybe he's just doing it now 'cause he's dead, but it just seems really silly. The mini-Jack's especially. I could deal with the many-Jack's and the goat, 'cause it was funny...but the mini-Jack's were unnecessary and seemed too out of place. The crabs were great though. I love crabs. ^-^

Anyways, stuff happens yadda yadda yadda. I'm in some ways pleased and displeased with how they dealt with my favorite POTC characters in this movie. Barbossa, my favorite character, is back. And he's still awesome. That pleased me. Davy Jones (yeah, he wasn't in the first movie, BUT HE'S CAPTAIN CTULU!) is back, too...but not as badass, though I suppose he does more killing in this movie...'cept for most of the movie, he's under control or Lord Beckett, which is the opposite of badass, so that neutralizes the badassitude (that's Zac's word, btw) of Davy Jones. That displeased me. Norrington is back, too...but he's not a pirate anymore and he dies, and he dies in a stupid way, killed by a retarded fish pirate. I was displeased with that. I already talked about how I didn't like Jack's hallucinations, so I was sorta displeased by that. So if you can't tell already, my favorite POTC characters go as follows: Hector Barbossa > Davy Jones > PIRATE James Norrington > Jack Sparrow.

And like in most "epic" movies, the main female is a slut, getting it on with all the main male characters. Slut. SLUT. She even got some from Sao Feng.

Speaking of Chow Yun Fat, I was disappointed that the Asian pirates didn't play a bigger role. But I was pleased to see other pirates, too, like black guys, and that ridiculous French one. XD

Speaking of eckses and dees, the movie was funny, which is good. I like the humor in Pirates. Good stuff. XFD @ the telescopes. lawlz.

And umm..what else...oh yeah, that one Calypsso lady turning huge and stuff. That was just dumb. Luckily, she redeemed herself by turning into a bunch of kawaii crabbies. :D

Final epic battle was pretty cool. I actually really liked the fate of Will, though I was hoping he'd turn into an awesome fish thing like Davy Jones. I didn't stay to watch the scene after the credits, but I hear that Will doesn't turn into a fish monster, and he is released of the curse 'cause Elizabeth wasn't a slut for 10 years (surprising). How lame. I was hoping Elizabeth would stay a slut, and Will would come back as an awesome fish guy (maybe a not-stupid-looking shark, like Jonathan Jones from Super Mario RPG), and pwn her for being a slut.

I think the series ended well, though it's clear to me that At World's End is my least favorite in the trilogy. My preferences with the trilogy go like this: Curse the Black Pearl > Dead Man's Chest > At World's End...cool, huh? I still liked At World's End, though.

The whole trilogy was pretty weird, though. Why exactly were the pirates the good guys? That doesn't really make sense. Oh wells.

Here's hoping Disney makes a new series: Ninjas of the East. It'd be like POTC, but with ninjas, and in an epic finale, the pirates and ninjas finally face off in an EPIC BATTLE. Whoever wins, we lose...or something like that.

So yeah, I rate At World's End a "nice/10."

Did everyone in Paris die when I left? It's only 11 PM there and there's no one on MSN. >=[ It's 12 PM here. GAW, get da **** online! Oh wait, Heath just signed on.

I got WiFi workin' at my grandparents' house, so I can now access the Internet from my air-conditioned room. :D Good thing I brought my Airport Express wireless router. Too bad I didn't bring my wired router. That way I wouldn't feel guilty about stealing the Internets...'cause now my grandpa can't use it on his computer, but it's not like I did this without his permission...still...

Anyways, I just got back from the mall. I wish I had brought my camera. I coulda recorded how ****ed up the traffic is here... The mall was pretty boring, actually. And really hot. Only certain floors and stores had air-conditioning. The most interesting things there were the Internet Cafés, toy section of some store, the arcade, and the movie theater.

Obviously, I went to an Internet café and posted an entry from there. The games they had sucked. There were two more 'net cafés in the mall, and about a million outside. I wonder if any of them have Unreal Tournament... I also spotted CD key generators and Daemon Tools on the hard drives of the computers there. Obviously, the games were not obtained in the "correct" manner. :P

There was this one store that was like...3 or 4 floors big. They sold stuff like clothes, glassware, bags, panties...it was pretty much like Wal-Mart, only bigger and suckier. The coolest part was the toy section. Surprisingly, they only had a few pirated games: GBA and Famicom games. How did I know they were pirated? Since when is Mario 64 a GBA game? And Mario Party 7 went to the GBA as well? Strangely enough, they didn't have any other games there. Too bad, I was looking for Ouendan 2. =[ They also had these neat video game figurines, that I assume were not overpriced like they are in America. I was contemplating purchasing one as a gift to people back at home. There was this Kasumi statue that I'm sure Daniel would love. :P I also wanted to get Jessica one of these World of Warcraft figurines...but they only had Horde characters, and I'm pretty sure she mainly plays Alliance. They also had this really ugly Squall figurine. Ick.

Arcade was stupid. Mainly had fighting games, and all the cabinets looked the same, so I'm thinking they're just running Mame or something...

Apparently, Pirates of the Caribbean 3 is already out...Is that right? 'cause it's now showing at the theaters here. I'm gonna try and see it tomorrow.

Aaaand...umm...yeah, that's about it for now. I'm gonna wait to post that "Filipino Traffic is crazy" entry, so I can record a video of it and YouTube it. It's ridiculous man. You gotta see it.

I'm at some Internet Café in a mall in Iloilo right now. This place is silly. They don't have Unreal Tournament here. >=[ They don't even have Counter-Strike...which I wouldn't play anyway, but still. Actually, they do have CS, but a non-Steam version of it, so I can't play online...I suppose the main purpose for this is LAN games then...but no one else is playing. >=[

They don't even have Firefox...so I'm stuck using IE, not even IE7. No tabs = instant phail. But...yeah...at least I can get on the Interweb. So..uh...yeah...not much to say here. I had a few blog entries typed up on my Macbook, but I don't have it with me right now. How phail, right? Right.

Well, I've got 1 hour and 38 minutes left of Interweb time...this keyboard sucks.

I have no idea what time it is or the date...It's probably 4:23 PM in Paris right now, 'cause that's the time my Macbook has...Which would mean it's 5:23 AM here in the 'pines.

Right now I'm at my grandpa's house. No wireless interweb here. =[ He apparently does have Internet, but I'm really not up to using someone else's computer. I brought my own for a reason. >=[

A lot has changed here. I'm not even sure if we're in the same house we were six years ago. I mean...the outside seems the same, and some the furniture is familiar...but inside it's totally different. They, like, completely remodeled everything. The kitchen is friggin' huge now. They actually have a real bathroom now. The room I'm staying in is pretty big, too. Bigger than my room...but there's nothing in here. ^-^; But air-conditioning is a plus.

So...uh...when I got here, I pretty much just went to sleep. I hadn't lied down since I left Paris...wait...actually, I did lie down on one of the benches of Manilla Airport. Good God, that sucked. Our flight got delayed twice. We go there at 11 AM, with our flight scheduled for 3:00 PM. Then it got delayed to 4:00. We finally boarded the plane at 5:00. -_- God, it sucked so bad. I was itchy as hell, my hair was all oily, I felt disgusting, 'cause I hadn't taken a shower and what felt like two days. I had been wearing the same clothes and all that. I felt like complete crap. Then we finally arrived in Iloilo and when to my grandpa's house, and I went to sleep...woke up at around 5 AM (I assume) and finally took that long-needed shower.

Apparently we're going to the mall today or something. Wee. I really can't think of anything else to do here. The Philippines sucks more than I remember. :P

When I stepped out of the plane at the Manilla airport...well, the Philippines looked weird. Compared to the fancy, cool Hong Kong airport, the Manilla airport was uber-fail. But that's how I could tell it was the Philippines! Everything seemed all grimy, and cracks in the ground and floor, and crappy air-conditioning in parts of the building. Poor lighting, and vendors selling stupid overpriced crap. Their products didn't feel authentic at all. Even the Sprite tasted pirated! But yeah...these are the characteristics of the Philippines!

But once I actually went into the streets...that's where I was really surprised. Seriously, it looked like I had just stepped into a post-apocalyptic America. ^-^; Seriously...even the houses had barbed-wire fences around them, as if each was a fortress to defend against humans mutated by the nuclear fallout...yeah.

Even the power-lines were all messed up. The cables looked like big black messes of spider-webs. It's as if Venom had set up the electricity in the Philippines.

The streets were littered with shacks and people just walking around aimlessly. It was dark and crowded and pretty grim compared to the streets of Paris, Texas. It was kinda like when Marty when back to the alternate past of Hillvale where Biff Tannen had taken over...except without all the crime and cowboys.

Ah, man, this is crazy! I thought driving in Dallas is scary. Driving in the Philippines one-thousand times crazier. There are lines painted on the road, right? We call them lanes. Well, to Filipinos, these are simple just lines painted on the road. No one stays in them, seriously, and if they did, they'd have a hard time 'cause the lames seem too narrow, and there seem to be too many lanes on one street for it to work anyway. But yeah, you'll find people just driving on top of the line, like they were Pac-Man trying to eat the dots or something (haha, simile). But yeah, the cars are friggin' everywhere. I couldn't really tell what was going on.

Also, no one waits for anyone. No stop signs or anything like that from what I saw. The same goes for pedestrians. There are crosswalks on the road, but again, they're only lines on the road. People just walk all over the place. They don't wait for cars to stop or slow down. They don't wait to see if it's clear, they just walk. The same with the cars. The cars don't slow down or stop for the pedestrians, they just keep going. It's friggin' crazy.

I'm a bit surprised I didn't see any accidents. I guess the reason for that is 'cause, though everyone drives crazy, they don't drive fast. Yeah, weird, huh? I'd hate to drive in this place.