I think the worst ever was final fantasy 8 when you had to trek through a long cave with a tough random encounter gradually depleting your resources and will every step of the way to Omega Weapon. (and just when you think you can be all "Lawlz No Random skillz equipped", it bullshits you by giving you randoms anyway.) Omega weapon was some seriously ridiculous bullshit. Certainly one of the toughest bosses in video games, and the entire time the randoms EVERY SINGLE STEP wears you down. Even if you do beat him, in spite of the frantic randoms, you still have to make the trek all the way back before you can save. They must have handed out a lot of pay cuts at Square that week that content was created.

Still didn't have to put up with that randoms crap when in your airship, though.

It doesn't matter if it's EA, Sega, Capcom or others. There almost seems to be a widespread conspiracy this generation to shit all over the fans as much as possible. And they all chalk up their failures to piracy and the economy. Society seems to largely be all about how effectively one deflects blame onto others while never taking any personal responsibility on ones own.

Hey Miles! Long time no see. I never had the chance to tell you, but I always found your coming out to admit you were gay on the dojo as being a part of the inspiration that lead to me coming forward on being transgendered. If anything, I wish I had had your courage much sooner. :puppydogeyes: Stick around for a while before you head out again. :)

It's still stupid. I'd understand if they were well sized, well placed and had little Christmas hats on, but it looks a random mess. Sorry Ryudo, but you deserve to be shot for this.

Damn dude, it doesn't look that bad. Maybe you would have preferred he hung these on the tree instead.

http://i.imgur.com/8i1d7.jpg

I suppose those ornaments could work, if you angled the ornaments a smidge clockwise on the tree and painted the white parts green. Then they could be swastikas promising good Life, good Love, good Luck, ect. :-k

That reminds me of when I was in college. Instead of requiring students to read a book that had become the standard in the field, professors wrote their own and required all of their students to buy it. Most of them also changed a couple minor details here or there each year as well so you could not sell your book back to the bookstore for a portion what you paid at the start of the class year any more than new students could pay a little less for a used one. Buying a new edition for $100+ every year was the only way. It almost felt like a scam.

Regardless of what the original constitution said on roads only going to post offices in the early days, I don't think the founding fathers had tractor trailers loaded with goods to deliver or cars that could drive vast distances across the country in mind when they wrote it. Times change. Technology changes. And I don't even think the founding fathers thought the constitution stipulations were so timeless that they would always be relevant without need for amending. Some things like rights are timeless. But other things like infrastructure are not. But all of this is beside the point. I'm not for all government being run by the federal level, but I still recognize it has it's place in some situations.

The 20th century came. The founding fathers had no idea the kind of shoes the world would rely on America to fill. Jews being massacred, entire nations like France and Britain poised to be ruled from Germany. I don't believe the Allies could have singled highhandedly conquered their foes on their enemies own home turfs without America behind them with the biggest war machine in history. That could not have been made possible by dozens of separate states all fighting their own war their own way individually. It was only when ALL of the States of America pooled their combined resources, came together as one and coordinated as a single unstoppable unit that America was able to stand with the kind of needle like focus necessary to stop one or the worst tyrannies the world had ever known and play a crucial role in liberating an entire continent.

The founding fathers never could have imagined us ever doing any of these things. In another life, maybe America just always stayed in it's little corner of the world with every state going in their own separate directions under a banner of neutrality when the powerless were pulverized by a fanatic or over grown bully. But whether they would have liked it or not, America became a world force in a way they never imagined and we had to adapt accordingly. That sometimes means having a Federal government, to offer a single, coordinated voice for some things, not all, that we all invest a portion of our pay checks into. Some things no one state can accomplish alone.

For Ziming.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twH93a4JYgI[/youtube]

Why is it when people talk gun control everyone always thinks in terms of two extremes? Why does it have to be guns of any shape and size are freely available for all or impossible to have by any? Surely there is a way to allow private citizens to own their hunting rifle their dad gave them when they were younger or a hand gun for self defense without letting them have high powered assault rifles and magazines designed to kill dozens of people in seconds. What do private citizens need with assault rifles anyway? I can't imagine this is what the founding fathers had in mind when they penned the second amendment.

Here in America once you've been convicted of a crime worse than traffic ticket you're pretty much screwed. When every application asks if you're a convict and there are 7 applicants to every job it stands to reason it doesn't take much to be put in the discard pile. Our prison system does more to debilitate it's inmates than rehabilitate them for functioning in normal society, but even among those that can survive it with a clear head, trying to make an honest living is practically impossible if they tried.

Of even more concern to me personally however is how America has a growing trend of making prisons into slave labor. It gives the system too much incentive to lock up innocent people for the lucrative business of putting them to work for profit seeking companies looking to cut cuts by laying off regular employees.

I saw the first 9 minutes of it. It opens with a little girl dying in a hospital and the villain telling the father he has the power to save her life. That says to me if you're curious of the plot that the villain will probably have some depth beyond typical trek RAWWR I R EVILZ fair. Then it cuts to a scene of Kirk running from face painted primitives that is so unbelievably cheesy, it feels like the kind of campy corniness you would see in the 60's show. Then Spock is trapped in this erupting volcano surrounded by flames while the crew debate exposing the enterprise to the local primitives and violating the prime directive to save him before the clip ends. Did the guy they brought back as Spock come all the way to do a sequel just to die in the first 9 minutes?! (uhhhhh yeah, no.) See star trek into darkness in May to find out!! :lol:

Duel of the rednecks.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MqiFM7AB78[/youtube]

http://www.rollcall.com/news/house_gop_boosts_funds_for_doma_legal_defense-219963-1.html?pos=oplyh

Fiscal responsibility party indeed. There's always enough tax payer money laying around to bank roll the people trying to keep marriage out of the hands of gays. Even if there isn't enough for education, retirements or anything else. My unique position may grant me a reprieve if I wanted to marry a guy, but it still sucks in my opinion none the less.

I saw a Wii U in person for the first time today at a game demo kiosk. What first struck me was how much longer the unit was than what I had pictured in my head from looking at all the box art/adverts for the thing since it's release. It was so long, big and black that I had to suppress the urge to get on my knees in it's presence. :shock:

I can just imagine the kind of hilarity that would ensure if there was a cure for mortality and with it all healthcare woes. :lol: Politicians would lament no one on social security dying, ever . The powerful pharmaceutical industry would call in their campaign donation favors to make such a thing illegal to preserve their business model of making drugs people have to take every day to keep their illnesses temporarily at bay. Fox News would call the cure "anti-business" and punishing of the success of job creators. It would turn life as we know it upside down. :P