3.13/2008

While talking with Marcus and Vincent today, I learned something useful. I gave multiple situations to Marcus about relationships and hanging out with friends of the opposite sex. In relation to friends of the opposite sex, he told me this from his own experience: "I wouldn't do it, at least not one-on-one. I'd go hangout in a group." Curious, I asked what the reason for this was, if you were just friends with the person. He told me, "I wouldn't want to give her [the person he was with] an impression that we were doing something, even when we weren't." Makes sense, but what happens if you don't have another friend to hangout with? Also, isn't this taking things a bit far by completely avoiding situations in which you might be alone?

Another thing he told me about was that he may start a relationship by laying things out straight. This means that he tries to cover any controversial areas (ex: a female best friend, a female roommate, certain women in his life) before they become controversial. I like this, and I might have to adopt them. It seems like a preemptive way of tackling problems in relationships before they start.

Sounds useful. I can't believe this wisdom came out of Marcus though...

3.12/2008

Had a strange dream today. A combination of people and places.

What does this dream mean?

I find it funny that the majority of people I play online in Brawl are not bastards. By this I mean, they aren't sore losers nor sore winners. Some will say "PWND" when they kill you, but then they'll say good game at the end whether they win or lose. It's strange to me because I'm so used to taking shit and talking shit on Xbox Live.

Wow... maybe there are still some good, clean competitive gamers out there.

My copy of SMASH has been glitching a little, but somehow it fixed itself. The spectator mode for online just appeared... and it's freaking awesome. I can watch other people fight it out and bet on the winner. For some reason I've become addicted to this. Possibly because it allows me to understand the tiers of the game as well as make money to buy things in-game.

Good stuff.

What constitutes a "date"? Seems as though the constitution of what makes a date is up in the air between the sexes. For most guys that I talked to, certain things scream date... such as movie and dinner, paying for meals, picking a girl up,... the list goes on. For the women that I asked, it ranged from "the guy must pay," to "the tone of his voice when he asks" to, finally, "it depends on the person and context." Odd that the signs of a date are relative, but I guess it makes sense, since the whole idea of signalling is relative in itself. For example, a woman could think that touching a guy (being more physical with the guy) could be a way of flirting. The guy, on the other hand, could just think that the woman is very touchy-feely.

Dating is vague.

3.9/2008

I went and picked up SMASH Brawl at midnight. There's one thing I hate about it already: Nintendo Wifi Connection. I've been waiting here for nearly thirty minutes and still haven't had one single fight. I cant even comment on how brawling is online.

<edit>

Okay, so I played a few matches online. By a few, I mean probably around fifteen. The majority of these matches were laggy, however. Although I didn't have too much of a problem in the lag unless I got paired against some people who were good. The matches that did run smoothly were perhaps some of my best online video game experiences. (Especially 1v1.) I can't wait until these people from Gamefaqs actually get the balls to want to play 1v1.

About the game... Brawl, at the moment, feels like an inferior version of melee. By this I mean that it feels like a step back in time. The game definitely feels slower, characters move slower, wave-dashing is gone, Sheik and Marth feel weaker than they should be, and, overall, it just doesnt seem like it takes nearly as much skill to be good anymore. It feels like there's less of a distinction between noob and the competent player. Although I say this now, keep in mind that when melee came out, I hated it as well. I guess it might just take getting used to, that's all.

<edit 2>

Okay, this game is starting to piss me off online. Why is it that everyone lasts into the hundreds of percents now? How is this Ike I was fighting not getting killed at over 160%? This makes no sense. Here's the problem: Apparently you have to mix up your attacks more this time around. If you consistently do the same four moves, over time they will become weaker. I understand this from a spam point of view, but, seriously, if I know which moves are good and which are trash, why should I have to mix in trash moves so that my good moves stay good? This is part of the reason why Ike refused to die... other than him being a heavy-set tank.

Ok, I found out that the games only really lag if you are playing against random people (matchmaking style). If you get another person's friend code and play a 1v1 match, the matches have only a minimal amount of lag. It all depends on where the person is located. If they're far away, you'll probably have a significant amount of lag. However, if you go on Gamefaqs and specify a certain geographic location (midwest, east, west, north, etc.) you can usually find some nice battles.

One thing I haven't tested empirically is if they took out crouch canceling. I tried it on Pit and it didn't seem like it was working. If anything, I'd get launched further. It didn't make sense. But, perhaps I need to try this out on other characters like Sheik. I swear if they took out crouch canceling, they might as well have nerfed the entire game.

Last thing... for now. Pit is the most homosexual, seemingly unbalanced character I've seen in a long time 1v1. His ability of flight keeps him in the game far too long, and the absence of wavedashing and punishing him when he's down or wavedashing to follow his flight pattern just adds to this frustration. On top of this is his ability to spam his bow and arrow projectiles forever. I'm not done yet, Pit still has the ability to combo with his attacks. He's like a combination of Peach (gliding), Falco (for his laser) and Kirby (for comboing and incremental flight).

Brawl isn't what I expected in many ways.

3.8/2008

I finished the first season of The Game yesterday, and it has successfully managed to hold my attention into the second season. Two comments. Firstly, I think that this show had the potential to become the black version of Six Feet Under (minus the amazing camera work and extensive depth of philosophy and critique). I think if they took their own show more seriously, like they did in the finale, and also got rid of the audience's laughter at different points that the show could have a different feel. (A more realistic, gritty feel during serious times, and a more mundane feel during other times.) I believe these changes could make the focus appear differently... that even though one is a professional football player and the other is a medical school student, that this is still a normal relationship with both it's positive and negative aspects.

Secondly, like Light Yagami in Death Note, it's interesting to see how far the one of the main characters, Derwin Davis, has fallen. In Death Note, you realize Light's corruption when he begins to refer to himself as "God." Similarly, in this series, Derwin is initially all about his own relationship, this then turns to him being in denial of the cheating he's done. Lastly, after he's caught, tries to justify it by, "You were never there for me. You were always studying." (Funny how it reminded me of Light in the end of Death Note stating things like "I was the only one who could've done this and gotten this far.") Sad, huh? He's actually trying to blame her for what he did.  Now, that's hilarious.

Ironically, I agreed with both characters in the beginning of both series. I saw the value in Light's ideal of killing bottom-of-the-barrel criminals (and thus creating a society without criminals), and also saw good things in Derwin's innocence. However, by the end, both had taken a huge leap into darkness. Ironically, Light became the largest serial killer in the history of the world, and Derwin gave into temptation and single-handedly screwed his relationship.

My thoughts now about the character of Derwin relate to the causality of his cheating. Why did he do it? Was it some kind of subconscious test of his love for his fiance? Was it because he never actually laid out rules for himself for what to do in a potential situation?

Hmmm...

SMASH Brawl comes out tomorrow, but there's a nation-wide Gamestop tournament starting tonight. I don't want to enter it for a variety of reasons, but, for a variety of reasons, my brother wants me to. He believes that I should enter it because I like the game, it's a free tournament, and because he believes that I have a fair chance of winning it. I don't want to enter it because some people have imported the game early, and have played already. Also, I do want to enter because I know nothing of how they might have increased the potential or nerfed the characters, the round times are set at one minute, and the fact that we're forced to use the wii-mote and nunchuck combination instead of Gamecube controllers. (One minute rounds isn't sufficient time to get enough strokes in to kill, and the controller settings will only make the killing harder to do.) I guess I'll enter because the tournament is free and I could win another copy of the game, but I'm highly skeptical of the outcome.

Nothing good will come of this tournament.

Odd, I looked at my body earlier in the mirror and I think I've nearly achieved what I wanted. All I needed was a more defined look, something better than average, not becoming some steroidal freak like Mr. Universe. Now, I think I need to maintain this regimen and try to gain some weight to fill out this frame of mine. (But, in there lies the problem. Gaining weight is always a challenge for me, because I have to force myself to eat more when I don't have the stomach for it.)

I see potential.

3.7/2008

Lost wasn't nearly as good as I thought it would be. The plot of the episode just seemed worthless, especially since Faraday and his colleague weren't planning anything devious or underhanded and I'd assumed Penelope's father, Mr. Whitmore, was involved in the island somehow by the end of season two (with the mysterious call from the ship to Penelope). Furthermore, Ben, in traditional Lost fashion, NEVER revealed who his contact was. Also, in traditional Lost fashion, the writers never explained those voices in the woods that have been heard since season one. ADDITIONALLY, the writers cant explain the disappearance of the black smoke monster and the reappearance of this random woman who Juliet betrayed. Where has she been this entire time?!

The next episode has to be better.

3.5/2008

I don't know what to think about The Game anymore. I like it for it's analysis of relationships, yet, at the same time, it slightly bores me. I'm not sure if this boredom comes from the idea that I'd prefer a male perspective (because I am male, and perhaps that makes me biased), or if that the whole idea of the female perspective is something cliche or played-out. Part of me knows that I'm tired of hearing about the morally righteous woman, and the morally-unstable man, because I fear this becoming common place or common knowledge. I question why every male in this show has to be abusive or neglectful in some way. (One treats his wife like a child and rations out money, another sleeps around with many women, and the last guy is completely selfish most of the time and doesn't appreciate his fiance until people in his surrounding environment tell him (implicitly or explicitly) he should.)

It is true, women are probably more likely to be faithful than men in relationships, but that is not always the case. I wonder why The Game never tackles issues of women being wrong, or women cheating, or women being selfish... Perhaps because the fanbase is largely female?

I wish I could speak to the creator of this show.

Sometimes I feel as though I'm living a cycle. Sometimes I feel as though I'm seeing the same events occurring with different people... and it disturbs me. What can I do about this? Is there anything I can do about this? Or, should I let the events run their course?

What do I do?

Ran into a girl I knew named Ashley by mistake. (I'd visited her and Jenn's class once, because Jenn needed me to come for extra credit.)  I was returning to my car from Biology lab and we happened to cross paths at the school of Medicine. She asked me what the time was, and I knew it was a trick as soon as I turned around. She was grinning like a Cheshire cat, ear to ear. "Are you Jenn Buck's brother?" That was rhetorical. She knew the answer already.  "Yeah, aren't you the one who called me racist [against black people]?" I responded rhetorically. "Yep," she said cheerfully. Funny how people remember people. Heck, if I weren't into video games, I probably wouldn't remember me if I met myself. Anyway, before she left for her car she invited me back to visit their class.

Hmmm..

Huie and I talked yesterday and he got me excited about the next two episodes of Lost.

I can't wait unti tomorrow!

3.3/2008

Just finished watching the anime Death Note ending. Man, that sucked. They diverted from the manga so much that they lost the true meaning in the ending. It went from something that left moral questions in the air to something completely partial. What garbage.

I'm mad at this... Why would they do this?

3.1/2008

I decided not to go to the SMASH tournament...but I went to the Halo 3 tournament at Spelman. I won without much effort. (Won $25 towards buying SMASH Brawl.) I did see some interesting things today.

1) Cocky SMASHERS
-There were a few arrogant SMASHERS. The first was a Sheik user. This kid claimed to have beaten me yesterday. "What?" I said. "Yeah, you were the guy using Peach, right?" He responded. He then turned around as if I wasn't worth his time. Arrogant prick. Add this arrogance to the fact that his friends were hyping him up to the be the best Sheik player alive.  I found a television, tapped him on the shoulder and led him to his controller. We played five stock, his Sheik versus my Marth. Long story short: I beat him with two full lives to spare. He walked away without saying a word.

-The second guy actually found me. Immediately after I beat the Sheik kid, another guy (sitting right across from me in fact) looked at me and said confidently, "My Peach could take you." "What? Did you say Peach?" I laughed. "Peach?" I asked again. "Yep." He responded. I laughed again. We ended up playing, and I chain-threw him to hell. He ended up forfeiting because he realized how the match would end.

2) Girl Gamers
-I guess I'll never get completely used to this. They weren't too good at Halo, (They were legit 20-somethings) but they seemed to be pretty sick at Rock Band. This girl, named Jasmine, played the drums as if she did in real life. It almost made me sick to watch them play. I guess we'll probably be playing something in the future, because we exchanged Gamertags to play Halo, Rainbow Six:Vegas, or something.

3) One Random but Good Halo Player
-He arrived too late for the tournament, but I played him none-the-less. We weren't able to finish our match, but it was definitely back and forth for a while. (Although in the end I was wining by about six kills.) It was one of those good matches where you get to pull out all of the stops. For example, I realized that he liked to abuse the sword on me. What I then did was kill him with my BR, take his sword, and grab a bubble shield. If I felt threatened, or wanted to corner him, I could drop the bubble shield and either wait or jump him. I'll probably play this kid later 2v2 with Cliff. That should be fun.

I hope they have another one of these video game nights at Spelman.

Here are the reasons why I didn't enter the SMASH tournament.

First, the tournament creator was playing in his own tournament. This is a weak reason not to play however. The second reason, perhaps the most persuasive reason not to play, was because the winner was not necessarily decided by the last man standing. Chad, the creator and contestant, was also the judge. The judge could arbitrarily determine whether someone who had the most kills, but lost, "won" the match. This is crap for a variety of reasons: Chad is a biased judge since he's playing himself, and, additionally, the whole concept of the judge negates the skill involved in winning completely. I don't pay money to play in ignorant tournaments.

Chad is a noob. End of story.

2.29/2008

Just found out that the tournament is running 1v1v1v1 melee style. This is ridiculous. I should've known that the tournament would be crappy after I heard that Jigglypuff is his main. He's probably going to spam the roll-out move to knock people off who aren't paying attention to him. Worse than this is the potential for friends to enter the tournament and team up to knock people out. Heck even strangers could team up to knock someone out who's winning based on the five-life stock.

The tournament just lost nearly all factors of skill.

Ha, I just went to Morehouse for their "practice" for the SMASH tournament. This is a story for the ages. The creator of the tournament, Chad, is there bragging about his SMASH skills using Jigglypuff. I walk in, watch the first few rounds and see that there might be a few good players. Chad wins. Hmmmm... this kid might be a little more of a problem. I patiently waited my turn to play, then when my turn came, I went to plug my controller in the slot. "No, you can't use your controller." He said. "What? You can't be serious... Why?" I asked. He didn't answer why. He just wanted people to use his controllers. Problem was, however, that his controllers had problems: Sticky buttons, broken L-buttons, too sensitive buttons, etc. Again, I ask if I can substitute one of my controllers... and again he says "No."

Fast forward a little. People start complaining about some of the random levels. I say we should just vote on certain levels to play on, or at least vote on levels NOT to play on. Once more, he says "No.". He provides no reason, but I can see why he wants it this way. He realizes that he needs as many advantages as he can get. The crappy levels, (i.e. Icicle Mountain, Pokefloats, the F-Zero levels, etc.) allow for a lot of evasive room for him to run and obstacles that can keep him from being knocked out. The bottom line is that the kid can't play... and neither could most of these kids.

I was able to cycle through Peach, Gannondorf and Falco and crush people. My strategy was to remain still on the edge of the map and wait for challengers. Once someone came within reach, I'd start fighting them. They got upset at this strategy, calling it "not fighting" or flat out "cheating," but it's only common sense. If I'm not being threatened, why should I have to throw my hand into a fight? It seems more practical to take the fights that come to me and not create them unless I have to. This strategy worked for the most part.

For the last practice fight of the night, we fought at the DK level with the alligator underneath. (I played as Gannondorf this time.) As the fight started out, I went to the platform furthest to the right and waited for people to come to me. After a while, Chad noticed that I wasn't involved in the melee, so he came after me. I knocked him around, and someone else ended up killing him. When he respawned, he came again. I rolled around until his invincibility wore off, then grabbed, jabbed once, and punched twice for the kill. For his last life, he returned to me again. This was perhaps the best part of the night. He came at me in the air, I dodged, punched, L-canceled, punched again, L cancelled, and downsmashed him. The crowd behind us shouted "OOOOOO.... Damn. Jigglypuff got served. Gannondorf is nice. Who's Gannondorf?" He got so mad... so mad, he began cursing at his friends in the crowd who called out.

(edit: I realize now who this kid reminded me of. It was JMC. Chad used Jigglypuff, much like JMC, and talked loads of crap that he couldn't back up in a 1v1 fight.)

I love crushing egos in games.

Immediately as the SMASH practice was ending, a kid I recognized asked me if I wanted to play some kid who he called the "best at Morehouse." Like a cat, my ears perked up. I was enticed. "Tell me more," I said to the kid getting hyped myself about the prospects. He told me that the guy, named Mike, sits in his room and plays SMASH all day. Sounds fimilar. Thoughts of Weber, Jesse and myself popped up. This kid could be good. He led me all the way to the kid's dorm room and I realized that I'd seen the kid playing in the practice. He was good: I remember him wave-dashing, and wave-shining with Fox. The first match we all had was a three person melee. I lost. Immediately, I asked for a one-on-one with the Mike kid. He said sure.

He pulls out Link, his best character and I pull out Marth. I have to admit. Had I not gotten some experience playing high-level Link players through Jesse, this kid probably would've murdered me. He did all of the same tricks Jesse would use. He'd toss his boomerang at an angle to the platform, then get ready to shoot his bow and arrow. If I happened to get through the boomerang, I'd have to block the arrow. If I blocked, he would grab me and combo me for a little, setting me back up in the same scenario. Anyway, my way through this was short hopping and forward-A when I got through his boomerang or down-dodging his arrow and his grab. He would be open for punishment after the slash in the air or the missed grab. I won the game by a decent margin, but I could've won by more had my wavedashes been more fluid.

In the end, I left having never lost to Mike. I told him I wasn't sure whether I was going to enter the tournament, because of all of the fluke involved. He told me he'd probably go with Falco or Gannondorf. Hah, problem for him is that I've changed my mind. I think I've got a damn good chance at winning, especially with him choosing those characters. (I'll be fighting either a brick or a huge target.) I think I've got this. Even if they do team up on me, Marth's sword will provide enough range to keep them at bay.

Good match at Morehouse.

2.28/2008

Done with miterms and practicing for this SMASH tournament on Saturday. Strange, it finally feels as though I'm getting back into the swing of things. L-canceling is coming back, and so is the fluidity of wave-dashing and dodging. I'm getting hyped up for this tournament. I'm curious as to see what Morehouse has to offer in terms of SMASH.

The rules say that you cant change your character once you decide, so right now I'm debating between Marth or Sheik. Marth has always been my favorite and my best, and I feel like I know him best and would know how to react better given a new situation. Sheik, on the other hand provides me with anti-Marth power and the ability to chain-throw and slap anything that moves.

I guess I'll just practice while watching some Ken-Marth videos and Azen-Sheik videos and decide on Saturday morning.