Of things that should come

I’ve totally forsaken sleep for it, but it brings me great joy to present you with the very first CG strip of my “Spare!” comic. I made it all by myself. Click for proper-sizedness.

As you may have been able to tell, I did it in MS Paint, like so many before it. I just don’t know how to use any of the advanced tools in Photoshop to make it look all pretty and such. But how I made it isn’t important. It’s why I made it. And Hell if I’m going to explain that.

I said I’d post again today, but this isn’t what I’d intended to put up. See, I was reading my new favorite webcomic “Real Life”, and decided I should go back to producing my own comic. Then I realized that I’ve totally lost all will and patience to draw. The problem is: I need a class to slack off in. Seriously, math class was one of my most productive comic-drawing times. But now that I’ve defeated high school, I have no proper comic making environment. It’s just not the same, and I discovered while making this one, that if I were doing it on the computer rather than by hand, I’d have a much easier time (thank the G man for copy/paste!) producing it. So I guess that I’ll have to learn Photoshop skills if you ever want to see more than this little teaser of sorts.

A little behind the scenes commentary: The last line used to be different, but I felt this new one was more sarcastic, and therefore would better suit the character’s personality. To see the original ending, you’ll have to get your mitts on my holy notebook or wait for the DVD.

I think that’s about it. I’ll post again tomorrow. I hope.

This is so morally wrong

Okay, before we continue, I’m going to make it clear that what I’m about to do is very, very wrong. It goes against my policy of not invading other people’s privacy, but I’m going to do it anyway. Besides, do files that are left out in the open on a PC even count as private stuff? Yeah, I know they’re supposed to be between only those who made them, but when you save your chat logs, you’re pretty much looking to give them away to those who have nothing better to do than go through every folder on the hard drive. I guess if I do have a purpose, it’s simply to show how bad kids are at typing. The fact that the horrible “slang” is intended is just the icing on the cake of my hatred. What can I say? I can’t stand net-speak.

So if you personally have a problem with looking at these, then by all means – don’t. I put them up here for the sake of light entertainment and not to reveal any deep and scarring secrets (although…), so make your own decisions, but you’re responsible for what you read.

(NB: the files have been removed. It was just so… not cool of me to put them there in the first place)

This first one is the long one. It’s just babbling between my brother and his girlfriend. Like I said, these aren’t anything really important.

I just wanted the link from this, really. There’s nothing else of interest.

Very debatable if this should be here. It’s kinda personal, and something I probably should confront him about. But, it’s for the sake of me exposing something else to be pissed at: IM chain messages. God, it just gets worse and worse every day.

There you have it. Nothing else of specific interest, or even a proper length to waste time with. Tomorrow or later today I’ll post something else that is a little more revealing of my own state of mind. And sanity. Oh I feel like something’s gonna bite me in the ass for doing this…

New feature! Band of the Month!

Yeah, I think I need a new feature for the site. It really doesn’t have that much of it’s own personality yet. Mostly just taking ideas from other people and changing them up a little. But this one, I thought up all on my own. Yeah. Okay, it’s not original, but I don’t read any sites that have the same thing, so I’ll call it my own for now.

So here’s a brief rundown of how it’s going to work. Basically, every month I pick a band to do a short review on (and I mean short. I’m not sure how to review bands/music.). I guess for the most part, it’ll be whatever band I’m listening to the most at the time. Unless I’m still listening to the same thing two months in a row, in which case I’ll choose one at random. To kick off this little feature, I present to you My Chemical Romance.

I’ve honestly only been listening to them for 4 or 5 days, but I cannot deny that MCR is one kickass band. Plainly stated, they rock. Solid guitar work, some impressive drumming, and excellent vocals all wrap themselves together quite nicely to form one helluva band. The genre issue is a little up in the air with these guys, as they sound like they could be either punk or rock, while having a slight tinge of goth and/or emo in the lyrics. In the end though, genre doesn’t matter much, because they still kick ass.

A relatively new band, MCR has realeased a grand total of two albums in the last two years. While their debut I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love is a lot more praised by their fans, the new one, Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge is in my opinion just as good as the original. While I haven’t heard most of the songs on Three Cheers…, what I have heard is just as impressive to me as the stuff off their first disc. I guess a good place to start would be taking a look at some of the songs.

I’ve listened to the entirety of I Brought You My Bullets… and there are a lot of things to pick out. First off, the apparent most popular song (and incidentally the first I listened to), “Vampires Will Never Hurt you” is a great song, but I don’t really see what the hype is about. I personally prefer the upbeat and ironically worded “Headfirst for Halos”. It’s fast, almost poppy (while retaining the hardcore), and the lyrics are the exact opposite. I’m not going to get into it much more, but they contrast with the music in an almost artsy kind of way. Another song that I like quite a bit is “Skylines and Turnstiles”. It’s mostly your basic rock, and I just find it more catchy than most of the other songs. “Drowning Lessons” is damn sweet too, but I find “Cubicles” to be a little irritating. An overall great album, with a good bit of variety without changing the way they play. Very nicely done.

At this point in time, I’ve only listened to two songs from Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, but I love the songs. One, “The Ghost of You” is one of those slow songs that isn’t a slow long, like Lifehouse’s “Hanging by a Moment”. It’s got a lot of emotion in it, and some of the best vocals that frontman Gerard Way has ever sung. The other song “You Know What They Do to Guys Like Us in Prison” is a real grab bag of sounds. It starts off sounding reminiscent of Hoobastank’s “Can I Buy You a Drink”, but then quickly goes to a much faster paced and takes on a tone suited well to speed metal. Well, maybe not that fast, but the chorus is pretty damn fast. Oh, and the song kicks absolute ass. If you’ve never heard of MCR before and want to download something to see what they’re like, go with this one. It’s my favourite song from the guys, and it’s just (for lack of a better word) “fun” to listen to.

Now, I need to point out some general things about the band. The one thing that I really notice is that a lot of their songs have obscenely long titles. If I had a band, I’d use almost all one word titles, but that’s just me. I don’t know why, but this bugs me. I’ve never seen any bands with such a tendency, but then again, I haven’t listened to a lot of lesser-known bands. The other thing that I took note of right away is that most of the time, the vocals are particularly screamy. I’m not a fan of bands that scream a lot (how the Hell do I like Slipknot?), but it’s not too common to be annoying, so I’ve no trouble tolerating it. Lastly, it’s often hard to make out the lyrics. Not quite AFI hard, but if you like to know what they’re saying, you’re going to go through some frustration if you try to figure them out on your own. Me, I like to know the words so I can sing along, so I’m slightly annoyed, but like the screaming, I can brush it off easily.

Overall, My Chemical Romance is an excellent band, and for the sake of keeping it real, it would be a lot better off if they didn’t get the mass attention that ruins a lot of bands (see Good Charlotte, Serial Joe, etc.). They’re definitely on my “good enough to buy” list, and I suggest going to check them out right away, cause I’m pretty confident that 100% of my readership has never heard of ’em. Now, can anyone tell me if I’m supposed to use underline for album titles and quotation marks for song titles? I did it the other way for the HIM CD review, and I have no clue which way it’s supposed to be. I just never know. I’d use italics, but I find they’re too hard to make out with this font at this size.

Anyhow, that’s this month’s “Band of the Month”, and I hope that I can do this for at least a couple months before I forget about it. It seems like a good idea to me, and I like the feature, so I’ll be keeping up with it as best as I can.

He’s back in business, folks

It’s been a long damn time, but I’ve finally willed up the attention span to finish another of those full-length articles that you all love and missed so much. It’s the fifth Disney World article, if you hadn’t guessed, and you can find it conveniently placed in the Articles section of the site. But you knew that already, right? It’s not like I get new visitors all the time, and if there were, the site is simple enough to navigate. But enough of me trying to make this post longer. More articles, particularly the sixth and last Disney articles, are on the way. These guys are a dying breed, what with the site’s new format working out so well, so cherish them while you have the chance.

Also, in the past few days, I’ve also added a couple links and other things to the sidebar, so make sure to give anything new to you a click. You might just find something you like. Ooh, and hits are way up since the format change, so I guess that means people like it then? Maybe I am getting new visitors? I know I’m the sole Google search that brings up “torrential” and “equilibrium” together (not the only site to contain both, but elsewhere they show up separately.) So if some naive buffon types them in on a whim: Booya! Free hit. I guess that mostly wraps up what I needed to say. Until some other time, I’m out.

Looking for a fun RPG? Look no further.

I used to enjoy RPGs. Even now, I play one every once in a while, but there’s just one little thing that’s really starting to get to me. That stupid menu-driven battle system that most of ’em use. I never thought that I needed any sort of pace, never mind a fast one, but that’s just how it is. And RPGs, my friends, are certainly not fast-paced. So it was about time that I found a game that would last me a long time, afford me a chance to play through something with more than a slight suggestion of a story, and let me go on a whole bunch of side-quests that would be useful if they could be done before the end of the game. And boy, did Namco deliver.

Tales of Symphonia is definitely my new favourite RPG of all time. It blows away the Mario RPGs, kicks Pokémon in the ass, and utterly destroys Final Fantasy. Gone are the days of mindlessly mashing the “confirm” button over and over to win the battles, and in comes the Tales series’ famous Linear Motion Battle system. In 3D. Of course, you can still just mash the same button over and over, but this can go far beyond that. The way it works, is basically like every other RPG in that you get taken to a separate field of play, where you square off against the enemy. The battlefield is in 3D, but your character functions on a 2D plane. You choose an enemy to lock-on to, and you move forward or away from that enemy. Of course, there are other baddies on the field as well, and you can change the lock-on to focus on them instead. If you’ve played Super Smash Bros, you’ll notice that the two are very similar.

So once you choose an enemy, it’s on to the fighting! But rather than simply choosing commands from a menu, you are actually in control of one of your characters. You can run, attack, jump, block, use techniques, and all sorts of other good stuff. The controls are simple, A is for basic attacks, which can be diversified with the control stick, and B does techniques, also using the control stick to use different techniques. X blocks, while tapping up on the control stick makes you jump. R is used to change your target, and the d-pad is for quick tactic changing. The Z button will allow you to use a Union attack, where your whole party unleashes a quartet of attacks upon a stunned foe. The Y button opens a menu which lets you use items and make more complex strategy changes during battle.

Symphonia’s battles are more focused on the usage of special attacks and magic than basic attacks. Of course, these skills are dictated by TP, Technique Points. You wouldn’t want to abuse them, right? While your party members will work on their own most of the time, you can map your own techs to the B button, and even set a couple commands to the C Stick. Like Smash Bros, you can have four different techniques assigned to the B button, but unlike the fighter, you can choose from a whole list of different skills. You can even choose from two different branches of skills based upon how you’re raising your characters. If your character it aligned towards the S-Type (Strike), he/she will learn more physical and damaging attacks than one aligned towards the T-Type (technique). It’s a nice way to add a little bit of customization to the game.

While you can only directly control one character at any given time, there are almost always three other characters in your party. They’re normally controlled by the AI, and I have to admit that it does a pretty good job, even though it does like to spend TP rather frivolously (but it slowly regenerates after each battle). And if you don’t like how the AI is doing, you can always (at any time, except for story sequences) go into the menu and change how they fight. You can set how they use skills, how they attack, what kind of distance they keep from the enemy and even which enemies they should attack. There are even quick settings so that you can change your whole party into a defence or attack mode at the press of a button.

Your party is all very customizable, and if you still don’t like it, plug in a few controllers and get your friends in on the action. Yep, there’s multiplayer. And it doesn’t even require everyone to have a GBA. Hooray. It does require other people who want to play, though. So while it won’t cost you extra money, you’ll have no luck if you’re the only one in your group of friends/family who likes video games. While it isn’t very clear how to set up other players, it’s as simple as plugging in a controller and setting the character to “manual” or “semi-auto” mode. There is only one little problem with the multiplayer mode, and it’s that the camera has a bad tendency to focus and zoom in on the first player. Now if player one were to be a magic using character, the camera would stay zoomed out most of the time, but if he’s playing on the front lines, well, you’re not going to see much of the other players. If you can look past this little oops, it’s really an excellent feature.

Well look at all this text, and imagine that I’ve only been talking about the battle system. Huh. Well I guess it would be best to tell you a little bit about the rest of the game. For starters, it’s the second (I think) two-disc GameCube exclusive. To translate for the casual gamer, that means it’ll take you a long time to finish it. I myself took about 50 hours to go through it once, and I missed pretty much every side-quest and optional boss. That and it’s got a hard mode and “mania” mode (which unlocks after you beat it once) to play through, so if you want to say you’ve truly seen it all, you have to play through three times. Also adding to the replay is the New Game+ feature, but it works a bit differently here. During the game, you earn GRADE in battle. You can use it to buy a few things in-game, but it’s better to save it all for the end. For once you start a new game from your finished save, you’re taken to a GRADE shop, where you can spend you hard-earned points to carry over skills, various data, money, and even get upgrades like double EXP points. Taken into account that you have to be good to accumulate a lot of GRADE, these bonuses are very useful if you don’t want to start some things from scratch (like the Collector’s Book and Monster List).

As for aesthetics, the entire game is done with a beautiful cel-shading technique. It looks even better than the Wind Waker, and I had thought that that was the pinnacle of cel-shading effects. There is a lot of hype surrounding the anime cutscenes in the game, but to tell the truth, there really aren’t that many, maybe four or five at most. And most of them are somewhat short and uneventful. The only two that stand out are the first, which is the opening video, and the last, the closing video. While they aren’t too overwhelming on the whole, they are done very nicely and fit in well with the rest of the game. Overall, the graphics are some of the nicest non-realisticness you’re ever going to see. Though it does bother me that the characters’ expressions never change. The sound, on the other hand, is a little less impressive. A lot of the game is voice-acted, and as far as I can tell, it’s done very well. The music is a bit on the down side though. The best pieces in the game are the battle themes, particularly the fights with the summon spirits. They’re all very catchy and never get old, which is good, because there is a lot of battling. The overworld/town/event music is much less enjoyable though. Not that it’s bad or anything, but it just doesn’t seem right at some times. In fact, there are a couple town themes that are downright annoying.

I’m reviewing an RPG here, so I bet you’re expecting a drawn-out impression of the plot, right? To put it simply, it’s good. I’m not the best at knowing a good story from a bad one, but Symphonia’s seems pretty sound. It starts out with the general plot all laid out for you, but as time goes on, things change and plot twists are thrown in like chocolate chips into cookie batter. There are some that will surprise you a little, but there’s a little foreshadowing for almost every twist, so nothing is going to make you fall over in shock. What really shines here is character development. All of the characters grow substantially during the course of the game, and they all manage to maintain their little tics throughout its entirety. Even most of the less-important NPCs (the ones just good enough to get names) have been given personalities that could dwarf that of any high-school jock. There are even little skits that let you in on what the characters think of each other and their quest. There are also spots where you have a chance to better (or worsen, if you so choose) the relationship between two characters.

And that’s about all that I can think to say for now. In conclusion, for the first original RPG on the GameCube, Tales of Symphonia sure cleans up for itself. This one’s got some massive potential, and keeps good the Tales name. Heck, back in the day, I thought Tales of Phantasia for the SNES was pretty awesome, and seeing how similar the two games are made me happy to see that the formula is obviously working. I may have missed them all, but if the Tales games in between Phantasia and Symphonia were as good as those two, this is definitely one series that is not to be messed with. I’d easily recommend this game to anyone who owns a GameCube. Even if you don’t like RPGs. This one’s got all the action that those other ones are missing. Yeah. Definitely go buy it. Awesome game + multiplayer option = meaty gaming goodness. That’s all you need to know. Buy or buy not. There is no rent.

BEST. CD. EVAR. And some other issues, too.

The title really says it all. I don’t buy a lot of CDs. Not to say that I burn them all (only OC Remix CDs these days…), but music just isn’t that big of a priority for me. I do listen to it a lot, but I’m rather satisfied with the library I have now. All I really want for it is to complete my Queen and HIM collections. And a couple days ago, I got one step closer. This here, if you can’t read the text on the pic, is HIM’s greatest hits CD, entitled “And Love Said No”. I can easily say that it is the best CD that I own, and possibly one of the best CDs that I’ve ever listened to. If you haven’t ever listened to HIM, go check them out right now. I know you have the tools to do so.

So why is this CD so great? Well that’s obvious. The music rocks. HIM is in a tied spot for my second favourite band (competing with Rammstein, Queen is #1) and there is nothing that could please me more than a CD comprised entirely of their best songs. “Razorblade Romance” was damn near close enough, but it does lack a couple of my favourite songs, particularly The Funeral Of Hearts. “Love Metal” was excellent too, but they both had their weaker points. This CD, as you might expect from a greatest hits CD, is indeed the finest bunch of their songs that you can find. It’s even got my three favourite songs; the aforementioned The Funeral of Hearts as well as Your Sweet 666 and Heartache Every Moment.

What’s even better, is that there are some totally new songs on the disc as well! Or at least that’s what I’ve been told. The title track, And Love Said No, is in my opinion one of the best songs ever, being possibly the catchiest rock song ever. And that’s quite a feat, as rock songs aren’t normally “catchy”. This is one you’ll probably be humming/singing for days on end, if you’re anything like myself. The other new track, a Neil Diamond cover by the name of Solitary Man is equally great. The original song is pretty good as far as old-type stuff goes, and HIM’s cover just totally blows it away. The only thing that could have possibly made the CD better would have been the inclusion of Endless Dark.

And that’s my two cents. Take a penny, leave a penny, whatever. I suggest going out to buy the disc if you know the band and like them at all, or just downloading a song or two listed above to see if you like them and then going to pick up the CD. It’s definitely worth the cash, but while I was searching for the cover, I found that there is also a 2 disc version that includes an extra track and a DVD bonus disc. I never saw this while I was looking around at music, but it’s not that big a deal. I got what I wanted, and even if I do miss out on a couple videos, I don’t mind. I still love this CD.

As for other things that I need to blab on about, I’ve noticed a couple defects in the site. For one, I don’t have a proper logo image. If anyone with any Photoshop-type skills feels like taking a little time out of their day to whip something simple up for me, I’d be very appreciative. I’d prefer to do it myself (I take great pride in being able to create great art), but I don’t have the necessary skills to make anything half decent through a digital medium. You’ve seen my art gallery.

Secondly are some things that I have absolutely no control over. The first is a little trouble that seems to pop up in the Opera browser. When I’ve table’d an image to the side of some text, it goes back to red, rather than that nice yellowy colour it is supposed to be. I’m not sure if it’s got this issue in any other browsers, but it works fine in Internet Explorer, and I’m not about to comprehend the stylesheet just so I can fix a problem that would affect a minimal amount of surfers. and the next problem stems from me using Angelfire as a web host. They’ve gotten rid of the ads, and instead have forced IE to open the search window on the side of the browser. It’ll happen each time you open a page, so you can’t close it and be done with it. Me, I’ve just pushed it as small as it will go and cope with it. After a while, it’s not so bad. I’m not sure if this affects other browsers, but it’s not such a big deal that it’ll cause mass disarray. And that’s really about it for today. I’m thinking about posting a nice review of Tales of Symphonia either tomorrow or soon and getting the rest of that Disney stuff out of the way, so make sure to check back regularly.

This old halfway house

A couple weeks ago, I went out and for the first time ever, bought myself one of them newfangled DVDs with the TV shows on ’em. Two actually. I’m not really a big TV collection or movie buyer, so this is some pretty big news on my end. While both sets that I bought are worth a solid mention, it’s the first one that I’m really trying to sell here. The first season DVD of one of my current favourite shows: Puppets Who Kill.

It’s entirely obvious why I love the show. The first reason would be that it’s very, very funny. And not that Buzz kind of “laugh out loud for thirty minutes straight” kind of funny. It’s more of a psychotic kind of funny. A lot of the humour is in the pain of the characters (that one was kind of obvious), some especially clever one-liners, and just flat out potty mouth and toilet humour. The first time you watch it, you almost wonder who would come up with some of the crazy crap that PWK is just gushing with, but in the end you get this satisfied feeling that leaves you thinking “That was a good show. I should watch it regularly.” Well, at least that’s how it worked for me. I was hooked after only one episode, at which point I was convinced that it was too good to be Canadian programming. And when I saw that there was a DVD of the first season, I knew that it would have to be mine… one way or another.

But I digress for the moment, as I know that some may have never watched or ever even heard of PWK. The premise of the show is presented pretty well in the title, and explained thoroughly in the opening. Simply put, it’s about a bunch of murderous puppets who’ve been placed in a halfway house for rehabilitation. Ta-da! Not too complex, is it? That’s the barebones plot of the series, and if you like the sound of that, wait until you get to the individual episode plots. It may sound like I’m just trying to hock the show here, but I’m being completely honest when I say that every one of the episodes (err… that I’ve seen) has a unique plot like no other before it. Don’t believe me? Here are a few examples just so that I can help to convince. One is about a mysterious testicle thief, there’s another about the decline of physical beauty, one centers on the death and replacement of a much-loved safety mascot, and then there’s the one about a TV cowboy who hunts puppets for sport. There’s even one episode that serves as a tribute to film noir. Not exactly your everyday string of plots. As much as I’m hyping up this part, I can only imagine your surprise when I say that it gets better.

The characters are truly the stars of the show. And while that is a very redundant phrase, it works out perfectly. The characters of Puppets Who Kill are all somewhat stereotypical at a first glance, but after a while you’ll get to see that they really are just stereotypes. My personal favourite is Cuddles the comfort doll. He’s a very naive little guy, and is easily the one with the least character but… ah hell, I just love his little song and dance. It’s just so damn adorable. Then there’s Buttons the bear. The ultimate philanderer. He’s been able to woo just about every character that he’s met, and is quite the ladies’ man, despite his being a small toy bear. Bill the ventriloquist dummy is the real troublemaker of the group (not to say that the rest are angels or anything remotely close), cause despite the treatments and all, he just can’t stop killing. Or sometimes it’s just stealing some body parts. Seems to have a problem with people being alive. Finally we have Rocko the dog. Maybe I just haven’t seen enough of his starring episodes, but I just don’t seem to like him as a character as much as the rest. He does have a lot going for him, being the badass of the group and all, but he contributes the least to the overall funny of the show. Though as the one that the others usually seek for advice, I guess he does play as large a role as the rest.

Oh, and did I mention that it’s not all puppets? Yeah, there’s just a single recurring human character on the show, but that’s all it needs. Dan Barlow (played by Dan Redican, who seems to be of comic fame) is the guy who runs the show. He’s the one that’s taken the little devils under his wing in an attempt to help them get over their need for chaos and destruction. He is easily the funniest character, because he’s wound around every bit of the show, even while most episodes have those nifty double-plots. He’s funny because not only does he have a lot of great lines, but a lot of his tactics to right the puppets come back to bite him in the ass. There are countless episodes that end with him being savagely beaten by some sort of angry mob after one of his schemes goes awry. I should also mention that he’s got an impeccable sense of style, and a slight lust for his cousin (though that one doesn’t take place during the first season).

Down to the wrapping up, this DVD has a lot to offer. It’s got 13 excellent episodes (thought the original opening is a bit lackluster compared to the current) with episode and scene selection of course, and a whole slew of bonus features. There are bios on the writers, producers and stars, a hilairiously funny outtake reel that expands upon those that are shown during the credits, and a whole little thing they put together called “A Day In The Life Of Puppets Who Kill”. It’s a neat little documentary type thing that has short interviews with all the puppeteers and an extended interview and tour of the set with Dan Redican. Oh yeah, and if you like those commentary things, it’s got a couple of those packaged in too. So two discs full of all sorts of great watching and cool extras. Definitely a great thing to buy. And the best news is that it’s cheap. While so many of these DVD-TV things are damned expensive, with some priced at over $100 (I’m looking at you, Transformers), the thing only ran me 35 bucks or so. Goods like this at a reasonable price are something you just can’t pass up. Unless you suck and don’t like the show. In which case, boo you.

I mentioned that I bought two of these collections. The other one was the first pack of episodes from the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon. It’s a good set, but at only the 5 first episodes and 4 bonus “never before seen” episodes, I was a bit disappointed. I was expecting some first season goodness. But in the end, it was only 30 bucks for something that I just couldn’t let slip by. Being the TMNT fan that I am, it’s kinda something that I had to do regardless of how much I was getting. So if you loved the old show or even watched it regularly, I could recommend this one to ya. The price is right and it’s always fun to bring back a little bit of your childhood.

My brother is an asshole

REDACTED

(07/16/2021 – I’m all about preserving my writing history as a reminder of what a butthead I was in the past, but it’s okay for some things to be lost to time. This is one of them. But hey, at least there were some links included so this post isn’t completely deleted. Try clicking to see if any of them still go somewhere!)

Peasant’s Quest – This game looks freaking amazing. I really, really hope they’re not just screwing with our heads about this one. Though it does seem to be too good to be true.

New Weebl and Bob toon – Actually, it was new a couple days ago, but you can’t possibly expect me to stay on top of everything. The difference between me and other sites that feature cool daily-ish stuff is that I don’t have readers e-mailing me about cool stuff.

GISH? The Hell…? – New game review is up on I-Mockery, compete with an interview, Photoshop contest and a free demo dowload. Hoo-ray!

Eulogy

While fiddling around on my links right after I put up this new page, I was shocked and horrified by a rather sad event. MadPony.com is giving up the ghost. Yes, it happened about a month ago, but you have to remember that I haven’t had a whole lot of access to the net over that time period, what with the trip to the cottage and our connection being down for a while.

While it was never in my site’s bunch of links – or even my Internet Explorer favourites, for that matter – MadPony was one of the two (and a half) blogs that I read semi-regularly. The other and a half being GorillaMask and The Sneeze. I never read MadPony with a lot of consistency, but I’d visit once or twice a month to see what was up. It was strange that I was compelled by the idea of being able to see what the world is like through the eyes of female kind. Not something I would normally read, but somehow it dragged me in, as if there was some sort of unseen attraction that kept me coming back for more. As I said, this was a website based on things that I really don’t care about; blogging, shoes, horses, and a song called “Hot White Cum”.

The site was rife with hilarious (and sometimes sad) stories about the lives of the two girls that ran it. Some included tales of horrible trips to Target, grandiose parties, and my personal favourite, XTREME freestyle bed leaping. Most of it was what you would find in any old run-of-the-mill blog, and that’s what’s to be expected. And that’s what turns me off of blogs (though I know my new site is making me one hell of a hypocrite). I really don’t care what people do from day to day, what music they’re listening to as they type out their feelings, what has made them sad or lonely or depressed. But somehow MadPony was different. The Mask and the Sneeze don’t really have a lot of these elements, so I can read them without shame, but MadPony was just like any other blog.

It’s no secret that the girls that ran it are quite hot, but that’s not what did it. After a lot of thinking about it (which is another thing I don’t usually do), I discovered that indeed, I was intrigued by what happened to these girls from day to day. Perhaps not intrigued by them specifically, but just the fact that I could follow someone’s life a la The Truman Show. Maybe blogs aren’t so bad? Maybe I was just thrown off the trail of good ones by the legions of punk and emo kids who write their own and complain day to day about how everything sucks and the world is no fair. Maybe all those kids who think we care that they slit their wrists destroyed any interest I might have once had in blogs.

No. Really, I just found MadPony interesting because it provided a nice change in my usual routine of internet clickables. When you spend your days reading webcomics, news about video games, and random blather, you start to long for something different. Just like if you lived your life the exact same way from day to day, you’d need a change, just like in Le huitième jour. Indeed, I’m much like Harry, with MadPony being my Georges. Actually, that reference worked out pretty well. Uh, as long as you’ve seen the movie, that is. If you haven’t, you’re boned. So that’s about all I really had to say; kinda saddened by the loss of a good website (It’s still up, of course, if you wanna read the old stuff), but not in a way that it’ll really affect anything.

This sentimental moment brought to you by Ryan’s unhealthy lack of sleep. For if he was thinking straight, he certainly wouldn’t be writing anything to do with feelings.