Where are all the posts?

So, posting on SG has been fairly low recently. Rather, very low. Considering it has been a vacation for most of our writers, and last time this was the case, we had about two posts each day, it may seem a bit surprising. But, I, at least, have two reasons for not having posted.

The first is a trip to Israel that I went on last week. It was fun, especially because I went with a group of friends and... acquaintances? Well, it's hard to explain. But, Israel is significantly less war-torn than you would expect, especially with the media nowadays. I have to admit, I didn't go to, say, Sderot, during my trip, so I cant be sure that what I am saying is true of all Israel, and I'm fairly sure, in fact, that it isn't, but life in the fair majority of Israel seems to be like that in any European country, in terms of war weariness, and in general, except that they mostly speak Hebrew in Israel. I even saw some people playing soccer a few times! In fact, Tel-Aviv seemed a lot like Bordeau or even Paris to me. Jerusalem, obviously, has some differences, like the conflicting religious quarters of the old city, and fights over the Western Wall, but interestingly enough, even big religious conflicts can be settled by economic means. A few years ago, people from the Jewish quarter of the Old City started digging a tunnel along the buried part of the Western Wall, for religious and archaeological reasons. The wall happens to pass through the Muslim quarter, however, and the Muslims (for some reason) did not like the Jews digging under their territory, so they started throwing bricks at people in the tunnels. Despite the religious value to the tunnel, most people didn't like having bricks thrown at them, and so they stopped digging through and visiting it. However, many people didn't like not being able to visit the tunnel, or dig it any further, and so they came to a compromise: the tunnel was dug so that it ends at a market in the Muslim quarter. As long as the tunnel's visitors brought money with them, the Muslims didn't mind them, and today the tunnel has practically become a museum. Apparently they run summer camps in it too. Oh, the Dead Sea was pretty cool too.

My second excuse is pretty obvious: Brawl. As expected, Brawl is fun. Many feel that it is pretty much the same as Melee, and thus not worth the hype, but, although I agree that it is similar to Melee, I think that the many newer features and rectifications were well worth it. And, the music is much better, but I don't think I need to talk about that any further. I found it interesting that, prior to the game's release, most people who had been keeping up with the almost daily updates had a pretty good idea of what character(s) they were going to be playing as, and for the most part, they seem to have been accurate. For instance, I was sure I'd like Sonic, Meta Knight, and Falco, and aside from Falco being only my fourth-most-used character, with Pit in third, my hypothesis was accurate. I also liked the Adventure Mode more than expected. Most people said something along the lines of: "Subspace Emissary was okay, but considering that Brawl is mainly a multi-player game, it is good enough that they have a real story for single player." I actually liked it, though, and despite the story being slightly hard to follow at times (i.e. the part where they got Game and Watch to join their team was a bit strange...was he supposed to be an enemy before?) it was still good. If only there weren't so many levels where you had to play as Lucas and the Pokemon Trainer, two of my least favorite characters. Some cutscenes were pretty epic, too, like this one.

The other writers might have reasons for not posting too. I imagine that Brawl works for a few of them too. Or maybe they're just lazy. Hopefully we'll get back to our usual posting rate soonish.

On an irrelevant note, apparently not many people liked jPod the t.v. show, as it has been cancelled for next season by CBC. People should develop better taste in television shows. Oh well.

Not much else to say for now, so until next time. Oh, and at pi second, I was in front of Theodore Hertzel's grave =)

Happy Belated Pi Day!

So, long time no post! Been having something like a writer's block, plus March Break has been busier than anticipated.

Anyway, I found out today that March 14th is actually a holiday (for math enthusiasts) called Pi Day, since π roughly equals 3.14. Sometimes it is celebrated on March 14 at 1:59 p.m., also commonly known as Pi Minute. If π is truncated to seven decimal places, it becomes 3.1415926, making March 14 at 1:59:26 p.m., Pi Second.

Incidentally, March 14th is also Albert Einstein's birthday, so there's double the reason to celebrate.

So I've missed it this year, d'oh! Nevertheless, there is always next year, and here are some tips on how to celebrate Pi Day. Number one on the list is creating some "pi ambiance", by doing stuff like wearing a pi shirt or using a pi mug. I happened upon this creative pi shirt:

Get it? Pi-rate? :D

dd

So, yes, mark it in your calendar for next year :)

dd

Until next time,

Cindy

Syndical triggerfish

syndical (adj.): Pertaining to a syndic, one appointed to represent a corporation, university, or other organization in business transactions.

triggerfish (n.): A type of fish with a roundish, laterally flat body with an anterior dorsal fin.


So, as Josh probably made you aware, Super Smash Bros. Brawl came out this Sunday. My verdict so far: it's very, very good.

Gamespy and IGN rated it down a bit (4.5/5 and 9.5/10) - it seems like they did this because: a) the graphics are Wii-ish, and b) they didn't like the Subspace Emissary plot. I'd advise you not to worry too much about these complaints (and actually, in their review, they do too =)). For the first part, although the graphics may be lackluster compared to say, XBOX 360 games, the art and cinematography is still excellent and brilliantly done. Arguably, the fact that the graphics suck doesn't matter in a bunch of cases, since the characters aren't really very graphically complex anyway (I doubt better graphics would make Mr. Game and Watch look more realistic).

Now, the subspace emissary is good. Perhaps it isn't great, because it does get tedious at times, the character moves aren't really meant for sidescrolling, etc. That aside though, it does have some very amusing cutscenes, it lets you get a feel for most of the characters, and it has an interesting albeit very bizarre plot (overall I liked the plot though - it's not easy putting all those different characters into one story and still keep a coherent storyline).

But Super Smash Bros. Brawl is not the Subspace Emissary. The fact that they actually bothered to put in a real single-player mode into a franchise known for its multiplayer is very nice on their part.

The music works really well in the game, even the songs that sounded weird. The main theme is very catchy (especially since you'll be hearing it in different forms a lot), especially in the final destination song. Also, one of the Kirby songs, "Kirby Gourmet Metal Mix" works really well in brawls.

I tried the online out a bit, and it works very well, with barely any lag. I'm guessing that this mode will be a lot more entertaining With Friends - in the anonymous Without Friends, it's more or less like playing computers (some people are even worse than computers).

As for the characters, I've unlocked them all now, and played with each of them (some more than others). My best is either Peach or Diddy Kong (probably Peach now). Samus (my favorite Melee character) has gotten a little less powerful and versatile, so she doesn't seem as good as she was in Melee. The characters are generally balanced, though, which is good (Jigglypuff can actually do stuff!).

Gamespy has 1337 screenshots of Brawl. Given that it's Gamespy, this may be entirely on purpose:

Also, at the end of the Subspace Emissary, you get treated to the actual Latin lyrics of the Brawl theme:

Audi famam illius
Solus in hostes ruit
Et patriam servavit

Audi famam illius
Cucurrit quaeque
Tetigit destruens

Audi famam illius
(...Audi famam illius...)

Spes omnibus
(...Mihi quoque...)

Terrar omnibus mihi quoque

Ille.....
...Iuxta me!
Ille.....

Ille iuxta me
Socil sunt mihi
Qui olim viri fortes
Rivalesque erant

Saeve certando
Pugnandoque
Splendar crescit!

I'm happy because I can actually understand the lyrics with my very rusty Latin. But if you don't like Latin, you can read these lyrics =).

-squidout

Hurray!

It's today!

Three more hours!

Brace yourselves.

Carbolated mopboard

carbolated (adj.): Containing or treated with carbolic acid.

mopboard (n.): A molding that conceals the joint between an interior wall and the floor. Also called baseboard.


If I actually named my titles like I should name titles, this post would probably be called "Hurray for Literary Analysis!"

Now, why do I bring this up right now? And especially, why do I bring this up at all, when literary analysis bores me to death, in most occasions. But very recently, I have discovered the untapped potential of literary analysis!

Perhaps some context would help. I was in English class today. It was more or less your standard english class; we talked for an hour about Macbeth. Of course, that's perfectly normal and fine - Macbeth is regarded to be a very interesting, albeit quite unstable character of Shakespearean literature. More interestingly though, was the ten minutes we spent of that hour talking about Harry Potter.

Just like you can get from "Cheese" to "Archie Comics" in two clicks in Wikipedia, we similarly managed to get from Macbeth to Harry Potter. The rationale, of course, was that "Double, double, toil and trouble/ Fire burn and cauldron bubble" was in the third Harry Potter movie, along with another line from Macbeth later on. Of course, the line "Double, double, toil and trouble" is pretty common with anything to do with witchery, just like "To be or not to be" (and horrible witty variants) is used everywhere too. We did spend ten minutes talking about the 'impact' that phrase has on the viewer (guess what? It's ominous!), and how it has an enhanced impact if the viewer has a knowledge of the story of Macbeth.

All that is fine and well, but it was during this discussion that I had my wondrous epiphany about literary analysis. With literary analysis, we can show that Sirius Black is really Macbeth! I mean, look at all the similarities between them:

- they both know witches!
- Macbeth kills (betrays) King Duncan. They think Sirius Black killed (betrayed) Harry's dad.
- Macbeth dies at the end. Sirius dies too.

Okay, that's all the real similarities. And there are probably lots of differences. But luckily, literary analysis is so powerful, it allows us to convert the differences into similarities!

- Sirius was stuck in prison for a bunch of years after they thought he killed Harry's dad, where there were evil Dementors that feasted upon his mind and emotions. Similarly, after Macbeth kills King Duncan, he's trapped in a prison of his own mind and starts going insane and seing ghosts!

- Both Sirius and Macbeth didn't want their victim to die but it happened because of them. Like, Sirius randomly gave some random person all the passwords, and then the random person was able to kill Harry's dad. And Macbeth didn't really want to kill the king, of course, but Lady Macbeth forced him to. And there were those pesky witches too. Promising lots of good things.

- Both of them want revenge after the person gets killed. Sirius tries to kill the random person that he gave the passwords to that can turn into a mouse. Macbeth gets revenge on Banquo, because Banquo is so evil that Banquo's presence inspired the witches to come tell Macbeth the prophecy which compelled him to kill the King. (He also benefits much more than Macbeth from Macbeth killing Duncan too. Sort of).

- Macbeth owns a castle! Actually, he probably owns like three. Sirius also sneaks into the Hogwarts castle at some point.

-Sirius gets killed by a woman. Macbeth gets killed by a man "not born of woman".

- the line "double, double, toil and trouble/ Fire burn and cauldron bubble" is in both Macbeth and the third Harry Potter. What more could you want?

And now, by the method of literary analysis, we can combine all these very logical observations and conclude that, yes, Sirius Black really is Macbeth, of course.

Don't get me wrong, by the way. Macbeth is a very good play, along with most of Shakespeare's stuff. I just don't really see the point of doing analysis, period. Perhaps it's an exercise in random logical deduction (which of course has to be so logical), but it seems like this is is a much better explanation. Talking about literary works is fine, but going so deep into them (and inventing a bunch of jargon in the process) is a bit silly.

I'll post something more interesting in a while. For the meantime, go read Graham's new essays (sidebar). They're good as usual. I also picked up jPod the book a while ago, and it's fairly good so far (it's the only book that includes free spam with it! =) ). I also need to finish Atlas Shrugged sometime, but oh well.

Oh, and I might randomly decide to write a book called "The Adventures of Klee Shay". Just because the title is so good and no one's taken it yet =).

-squid out

And this is rock

Or at least the rock music Josh seems to prefer. There is some okay rock.

Voila.

I felt very bad making it so repetitive but I had to make it reminiscent of all the rock songs Josh listens to.

Ciao!

-squidout

Techno "music"

I attempted to compose some techno music today, mostly for fun, but also to show just how bad techno music is. Enjoy!

Also, Brawl got a 9.5 on IGN! Hurray! Can't wait for Sunday!

EDIT: Many people seem to be having difficulties with MegaUpload, so try this instead.

RGN#13: VGM

As Josh stated in his most recent post, he has a 12 hour plane ride next week. I will be on that trip with him so the two of us have been compiling two playlists of VGM (video game music), one on my Ipod consisting of OST of much older games, and one on Josh's Ipod consisting of 300 and something Super Smash Bros. Brawl songs which are mostly remixes. Unlike Josh however, I recognise that there is better VGM than that in Sonic the Hedgehog, such as the Kid Icarus underworld theme. (Which notably made it into brawl as the original music for pit's level skyworld.)

Here's the original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtblzRbQxrY ( this one starts at about 20 seconds in)

Here is thr SSBB version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDYaCTzBMJI

And for fun, here is a version done on Mario Paint: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vsqyis7LzAQ

I'd like to know what our readers enjoy the most, a remixed version or the original. So post your opinions in comment form and I'll try to get a poll in the sidebar running.

So as I try to catch up to Jon and Josh in posts.
until next time,
Aaron

Succursal seaware

succursal- serving to aid or help; serving as a chapel of ease; tributary.

seaware - seaweed, esp. coarse, large seaweed, used chiefly as a fertilizer

Brawl "OST"

Okay, so I downloaded all of the songs from brawl and put them on my iPod, mostly in preparation for a ~12 hour plane ride I'm going to go on next week. Some people ripped all of the music from the game, even random things like the 2-second sound it makes when you unlock a new feature, then called an official soundtrack. I'm not sure why the called it official, but whatever. I think I have gone through most of the good songs by now (there are 16 hours worth of them, and I only downloaded it yesterday, so I haven't managed to listen to it all yet...), so I thought I'd point out a few of the better and more interesting ones.

Firstly, just because I had commented on them already here, they put the Green Hill Zone, Emerald Hill Zone, and Emerald Island Zone themes in to go with the Green Hill Zone stage. The former two are pretty much as they appeared in their respective games, but they made a cool remix of the Angel Island Zone theme, that you may have heard some of if you kept up with brawl updates, that can be found here.

Although it's not actually that great a song, they did put a Mario Tennis theme in it, which was mixed with Mario Golf themes, as they sound pretty similar.

Nintendo managed to put in songs from a very large variety of games, even within each series, as the only series that I knew all of the songs from was Pokemon. Though, I only know the Dialga and Palkia battle theme from hearing it once or twice on my sister's DS. Okay, technically I also know all of the songs from Big Brain Academy and Golden Sun, but that's only because there was only one song from each. Oh, and I would have known all of the songs from the Mario series, except I've never really played Mario Kart DS enough to recognize this.

Anyway, back to the better songs. From Legend of Zelda, most of the songs are pretty good, but I especially liked what they did with the Song of Storms. Or maybe I just like the Song of Storms... either way. The Ocarina of Time Medley is pretty good too, though.

From Kirby, I think I liked the Meta Knight's Revenge song the best, even though I've never played Kirby's Super Star.

As for the Donkey Song songs, they're all really good, but I always liked this song, from Donkey Kong Country. Also, it's not THAT good of a song, but the mix of the theme from the original Donkey Kong is at least nostalgic. And funny.

From Animal Crossing... I never really liked any of the songs that much. From my small amount of experience playing the game, I think the music is mostly just there so that playing the game doesn't feel awkward without any music, since most games, and movies too, seem weird without anything playing in the background. I think that this is the best of the eleven songs they decided to take from the series, though.

All of the Fire Emblem songs are pretty good, though I think I like the Medley the best, especially after about a minute.

Some of the music that they decided to put in seems very out of place, though. For instance, the Mii Channel theme isn't terrible, but imagine fighting to it... or the Wii shop theme, or the PictoChat theme, or the Wii Sports theme, or the Cow Racing theme from Wii Play, or the Brain Age theme, or the Big Brain Academy theme, or this. I really do not see why they felt compelled to put a song from Electroplankton in, but at least all of the other good songs make up for it. Anyway, I hope that there will be at least one decent fighting song to choose from for the Picto Chat stage, as I wouldn't be surprised in the least if these are the only songs you can choose from when fighting there.

Oh also, there's a song from Pikmin in French! I almost never played Pikmin, so I don't recognize any of the songs from it, but the lyrics in this one are funny. I'm pretty happy that they put in this song too.

That's all for now, but I'll probably post again very soon, as Jon almost caught up to me in number of posts, which I obviously can't let happen. So à bientôt!

EDIT: http://www.addictinggames.com/evenmorebloons.html
More on this later :)