syntheticgerbil

So after typing in "Kill la Kill" on Amazon to see if any blu-ray has been released and seeing a gratuitous body pillow as one of my first hits, I might be done with Hiroyuki Imaishi. I then remembered the incest rape stuff in the show and then looked it up again and yeah, it's pretty much more gross and gratuitous than I remember plus there's other scenes I guess? I just don't think I can sit through this show without feeling annoyed or embarrassed. If my wife were in the room, I wouldn't even be able to justify it. I like the guy based on his amazing skill as an animator and how much I like Dead Leaves and Panty and Stocking. Gurren Lagann was pretty much bland shit that I begrudgingly watched. All I remember from the show now was a bunch of stupid dialogue, music, boring robot fights, boring robot designs, and Yoko's tits flopping everywhere with ass shots galore. Kill la Kill is just even worse. Imaishi just kind of seems like a sweaty perv shut in who has questionable integrity to me now. It really sucks because I have like, no joke, 40 various artbooks with stuff from Gurren Lagann (god mostly Gurren Lagann), Dead Leaves, Panty and Stocking, and a bunch of self published issues of his frame by frame pencil works. Thinking about it, since 2007, I may have blown over $1,500 on all of these art books and DVDs on this shit, because stuff from Japan is expensive, especially books and I have no fucking clue why his personal work and shows have so much shit released. Some I'm glad to own, some I'm not so glad. I don't have the disposable income for this stuff anymore unless I'm really behind it. I just have this stressful need to collect everything by someone I'm a major fan of. Maybe I can start selling this stuff and hopefully recover all of the money I spent, but on eBay you only sell to a U.S. market which means the stuff is worth way less. Japanese people generally do not browse eBay as they very much prefer Yahoo Auctions. And oh my fucking god, packing and shipping all of these books would be so much work. Bleh, a part of me says I should probably wait until his next animation project to see if he can be redeemed, so maybe I will wait, but I get the feeling it'll just be shit to give teen boys boners all over again. I don't know. What a bummer. Like, stuff like Kill la Kill was why I hated what "anime" embodied in the first place and why I would make troll posts on various forums I was at with the tread title "anime is shit," and argue for hours why all of it was shit. What ultimately started changing my mind was downloading Mind Game in 2004. I don't even remember how I stumbled on it. It was just amazing to me, a piece defying all genres and was just so unique. Cowboy Bebop sort of softened me up when I finally started paying attention to that, then I gave Samurai Champloo a chance and absolutely loved it. I finally watched the famous Akira and saw that it was way way way more than just gore and stylish motorcycle fights. Then I started consuming many of the 80s and 90s anthology films and seeing all of this experimental animation coming from Japan. As my mind became more open I started giving more usual lurid and typical stuff a chance. I still have not really bothered by Ghibli stuff, it's so uninteresting to me. Maybe my mind became too open, because I'm sort of full circle now and finding myself usually disgusted with Japanese cartoons unless it's from one of the directors I really like. Friends I've made that are big fans of Japanese animation try to recommend me stuff and it just usually ends up kind of gross and sort of pedo, usual boring action stuff, or just bland. It's like I rattle off what I do like and people think in turn I'd love Jojo or Highschool of the Dead because they are "actually really good." Gah, I usually just end up finding the good shit all by myself. I don't even know what to say anymore, I think writing all of this rambling I might really be done with the guy. Maybe I'll start hocking all of this shit on eBay during Christmas break or the new year. Maybe he will have a new thing announced soon that is good and get me excited and I'll change my mind. Imaishi had better hurry then. Depressing.

I always wish I was around for special edition sort of styles for consoles or handhelds, but I've never been lucky enough for the timing to be right. I will forever wish I had this: So awesome.

Yeah, I know, just makes me sad. I got into sort of a big and awkward argument with one of my good friends where he claims Tim Schafer admitted much the Massive Chalice Kickstarter funds went to Broken Age. He never said anything of the sort and I don't like Tim Schafer being painted as a shiester. Maybe Tim Shafer's work means too much to me on a personal level though, pretty much throughout my whole life at this point, so backlash truly saddens me.

It's like they need to be punished for being so transparent? I guess the Spacebase thing is more legit, but still, I don't think anyone at that company is coming from a place of trying to sucker anyone, which is weird to me that people think that.

Taylor Swift, like most pop music, gets regular play everywhere you go whether it's the grocery store, doctor or dentist's office, a bar, a drug store, etc. It's safe and does not have a polarizing message so it is well marketed towards white Christian America who eats this stuff up no matter where they go. It find it really hard not to get exposed to this stuff when I factor in what people post on Facebook and Youtube and Hulu ads. Do you guys tend to avoid a lot of places with muzak or satellite radio? Also a lot of this forum is international, I can't see Taylor Swift having much appeal outside of the United States. I did start taking head phones while grocery shopping though. I feel so much happier that way.

I hate the comments on mainstream sites for any bad news on Double Fine. Why are there so many people intent on demonizing them for failure? Why do some people think Tim Schafer is a crook?

I suspect that a lot of people are claiming it's easy as part of the dismissal of the reboot. Like getting high rankings in the middle of fighting seems kind of easy, but getting the SSS rank at the end for style is something I have yet to do so far and as I start on the harder difficulty, the grade lowers. I wonder if a lot of these people consider the fact that the ranking at the end of the level is more important than individual rankings during fights. Hmm, the last fight was somewhat tough for me, however it's because it's a continuation of those damn demon enemies with the button eyes that teleport through the stage. I have no idea how to efficiently deal with enemies that continuously block. Do you have any tips on dealing with those guys? Also any tips on dealing with the blade shooting enemy? The game mentioned I can ricochet their shots, but I can never seem to get it to work except when I charge my scythe, which takes too long to continuously do and not get hit when there's like five other enemies to deal with. A regular hit from the scythe doesn't seem to reflect, and the Aquilas, sword, and demon weapons seem useless on richochet.

Hah, that sounds right. It's actually called "Nodancing.gif." I was thinking it was more like Sean Vanaman doing a layup over Obama's head.

Just make sure you don't use this guys videos:

(From far away this looks like "No llamas" or "No goats," but when I look really close and see what it actually is, I have no idea what the fuck I'm looking at.

I just realized today that there is a difference between Megabits and Megabytes. I had been calling internet speeds "Megabytes per second" for years. I feel extremely stupid.

Ever since I heard this song on Breaking Bad, if anyone every mentions money, I sing this in my head.

In my opinion he sure does.

Obviously not. Not everyone signed to a label is given a team of song writers and producers to fill out their hits. Like I said, usually you'll see this when it's just one person credited. Bands don't often have to go through this when they sign unless they suck or don't make a money. When a producer is signed to a band it's not them gathering the session musicians (if needed) or putting all of the music together themselves unless of course they suck. Often the best musicians are the ones that sign to the label late in the game after establishing themselves to gather more fans and then quit later after the album contracts end and go back to an independent label and rake in more dough with a new found audience. Taylor Swift and just about all of these damn pop stars were in this system since day one, often just because they are attractive and that sells. The most I'm ever going to know about Immanuel Kant is that he's a real pissant who was very rarely stable. I'm good.

I forgot if these threads are not supposed to include spoilers for the episode coming up or not, so I will mark them, also my spoiler includes some of episode 8, because I couldn't stop watching after 7! Also I think Madchen Amick's performance is my favorite on the show.

I must try this next time I buy coffee.

Did you use tweezers? My hands are too clumsy for things that small but even with tweezers I remember the ribbon being difficult to get in there.

Whose account? Generally the crew for the "pop circuit" (as Gwen Stefani coined her foray into producing extremely vapid shit when she was away from No Doubt), is not talked about and stays behind the scenes. Press doesn't need to consider that because they, like everyone else, is marketed this image of this one extremely talented, attractive person, just as any normal popstar. Again, if you think Max Martin just stands around, I don't know what you think he's paid for especially when songs written or produced by this small behind the scenes group are terribly homogenous, Taylor Swift included. I mean yeah, she could be a LOT worse, but is that merit? There are more than enough solidly strong female musicians who deserve more attention and create their stuff from the ground up and don't have video producers, photographers, magazine covers, and major labels writing their lines and helping their image. Why waste time talking about Taylor Swift? I don't understand any of these words, so I guess you win?

I think I'm just bothered by how Zak McKracken and Maniac Mansion looked and controlled more than anything. The way the characters are drawn are this weird ugly a big headed thing that I don't find charming like the way an old Sierra AGI adventure is still pretty cute in it's chunky sprites. I supposed a lot of the EGA Sci Sierra stuff lost it's charm for a bit though, but I think generally Sierra most games just suffered from bad artists.

Considering I'm always backlogged on Nintendo and I have to play games in order just because, the DS feels pretty new to me still as I owned one for three years since 2005 and didn't really play it until 2008 and on. SO I DON'T NECESSARILY FEEL OLD BECAUSE OF THAT. However, when I talk to people who are in their early 20s and have never touched a NES, SNES, or Genesis I feel really old. No one has touched a Master System though. Also Master System is an awful name. I suppose Playstation is pretty awful too, but if you say it for two decades, it's fine I guess. So far, Layton games have been what my DS and 3DS has been used for most. I really wish I owned a DS lite, since I keep my fat grey one around because some games require the GBA port for a few things, but god the original DS was so ugly. Mine also has a broken hinge and I because the plastic was sort of cheap and I had to replace a cracked LCD screen once and it was terrible to get to, so it doesn't sit exactly right in the unit anymore. Replacing the PSP screen is such a breeze though, which I have managed to crack twice since I've owned it, like a dummy.

But that is exactly the problem. I think you are directly referring to me, but I'm not just blowing smoke by saying that, I check the credits of anything I listen to and wikipedia has easily opened up the lurid pop world of basically 5-10 men who write and creatively control all of this branding and another 5-10 men who cycle through all the production work. Just click some names, they do everything and create this homogenous trash and they have for nearly two decades now. These aren't bands doing anything creative, this is pure capitalism made by large corporations with puppets. All of these people are autotuned in the end whether they like it or not because that's what the label demands, they all have to have a certain amount of loudness to hit for radio play and to have the standard song construction for pop hits. If anything this Taylor Swift "evolution" is pretty much standard for any young attractive popstar besides the weird underage sexual overtones people kicked off in the 90s. Yeah I guess that sounds like teenage rebellion, but there's so much other music out there that is not owned by Universal or whoever the hell that is done by people who actually have to make an effort to build music from the ground up with people they trust and learn all of this process on their own. Anything branded with just someone's first and last name, you can almost be sure they are just a product of this machine. For me, it has nothing to do with whether or not she's a woman or is marketed towards teen girls, in fact I prefer pretty much only women singers if I'm to listen to someone singing, unless it's like Jarvis Cocker or something. This process is the same with whatever attractive male name is next on the list as well. It's just Taylor Swift, Universal, and ClearChannel (or rebranded Iheartradio now, 'cause they really love radio) have more than enough attention and money for everyone to keep paying attention to this stuff. Meh, if everyone wants to brand me as an anti capitalist "sheeple-saying" type, I supposed that's fair. I don't ever say sheeple though. I think probably everyone does. I don't know I didn't start liking some pop music until my later teens, although it tends to be a lot of older stuff where pop music is very well crafted in the days where often it was a group of people given a budget by a label and they are supposed to deliver, maybe with some meddling producer, instead the overwhelming way it's set up now. Also I kind of bummed because I like Lorde, but I'm pretty iffy on whether she'll be a part of this usual machine, especially since the new Yellow Flicker Bear single is produced by Paul Epworth which sucks. I suppose it was all Joel Little before, but at least it was just her as the writer and Joel Little as the music solely. Maybe Lorde is actually forever supposed to be those two how Goldfrapp is always Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory no matter what.

the fuck's a beppo? EDIT: As answered on the first page. Those Nintendo noises were so accurate. I think Mario Advance ultimately cracked me up because the Luigi and Toad sounds were so distorted and bad ("dats what I needed') that they went beyond obnoxious to absurd. Like I couldn't stop thinking what possessed Nintendo into feeling that this was suitable? Also Danielle does the best toad I've ever heard. It really made up for the Taylor Swift talk at the end. Considering the same people who write and produce the songs for those pop stars do so for Taylor Swift should probably say as much. Yeah I realize that she has writing credits, but they don't pay Max Martin the big bucks for just hanging around. I'm so sick of this pop music stuff where it's just someone's name and whoever happens to be doing the production and hiring the session musicians and writers that the record label has budgeted for. I guess that's always been most pop music though, so eh. At least with a band it's easier to know who is shit and why. At least have the same people behind each album if it's going to be a producer backed vehicle where so that you create a group evolution, like Garbage. Shirley Manson is so awesome and a new Garbage album next year.

Yeah I mean. I gave money because I don't want to miss out. I don't actually think this is a game style I would actually want them to revisit. At least I'd be happier if they made an adventure with updated graphics NOT but not in the play style of The Cave. The Cave was very pretty though. Or just something different again, like DeathSpank.

Beautiful animation.