An Indepth Look Into A Geek's Soul

The Olympics are back!  Well, technically they've been back for about a wek now,but that is besides the point.  I always get a little giddy when they come on.  There's just something about them that makes me happy about watching the best from around the world duke it out on the world's stage.  Every year the games happen allows me to like sports for a short, two week period.  For some reason, I just can't get into the whole professional sports leagues we have here in America.  That's probably part of the reason why I'm not a fan of a lot of the more mainstream sports in the Olympics, such as basketball or soccer.  While most countries have no problem fielding a team of amateurs, America has no issue with bringing out their pampered, paid sports stars.  I think it kind of goes against the whole spirit of the Olympics.  Hell, if you paid me millions of dollars to be really good at something, I'd get pretty good at that task as quickly as possible.

Regardless, I still love the games.  I also seem to discover a new sport that I'm far more interested in than I should be, and this year is no exception.  Volleyball grabbed my interest and hasn't let me go yet.  While I'm more of a fan of the indoor version, beach volleyball also is interesting.  All the little tricks and head games that the players must use to score on the opponents is just intense.  I always thought that it would be nearly impossible to score when you have a court packed with six players, but I've quickly learned otherwise.  To win the game, you don't aim to score on the opponents; you force them to score on themselevs.  It's rather intense and awesome.  Now, I'm not going to run out and join my local volleyball team, but I do have a newly found appreciation for the sport.

I hope you guys will tune in sometime over the last remaining week of the Olympic games and watch something that will interest you.  I know that NBC hasn't done the best job in handling the Olympics, but it's where I watch them, mostly because they own all the rights to it here in the United States.  At the very least you can watch just individual events online, without commentary, which is nice.  Happens to be where I've watched all of my volleyball games so far.  Anyways, hope you guys get out there and enjoy the games while they last.

Peace Out.

I've been playing Star Wars the Old Republic since the very beginning of the game, albiet with some downtime due to school and lack of money.  While I'm not a heavy player by any stretch of the means (I'm not even at max level yet), I have been enjoying the great storytelling that the game has to offer.  My main character is a Human Trooper named Corath who specialized as a Vanguard, to give me some extra staying power.  My companion characters are a pretty varied bunch, with a weird, alien gunner, an ex-Imperial healer, and a killbot.  The killbot has the best lines, while the ex-Imperial is my favorite to use, as she keeps me from dying.

With that being said, I have found that my favorite parts of the game involve out of combat stuff.  For starters, I love all the crafting that I've been doing.  I've been trying to deck myself out in self made items from the beginning.  While the items I make aren't always the best things in the world, I get a small sense of pride just because they are mine.  I also really enjoy the way that you can learn new items to make.  Essentially, you have to tear apart an item and see how it works.  Sometimes, you get lucky, and can actually improve upon the original design! This lets me make some items, in my case armors, that you can only buy from someone like me.  There is no chance of finding that same item somewhere in the wild.  Insanely awesome!

The other item I will mention today is the world of speeders.  Now, mounts have been in MMO's almost since the beginning.  Every game has them, and some games give you them from the get go.  However, I recently got my own speeder, and I love the thing.  It's just nice being able to go a lot faster than usual.  I think I'm going to become a speeder junkie in the game.  I only have one at the moment (which is pictured above), but I think I will be buying a different model when I save up the extra money.  My goal is to one day have more speeders than I do abilities in the game.  Just to prove that I can.  I know that I won't have all of the ones that are available, seeing as how some are restricted to cybertech (I believe), but that is a moot point.  They will all be super sweet.  End of story.

Peace Out.

So, I stumbled back upon an old "game" that I used to play called Nation States.  The reason game is quoted is because while it is described as a game, there really isn't any way to win, no enemies to defeat, and no real firm end goal.  The basis of the game is that you are the ruler of a government and everyday, a certain number of issues come up that you may answer.  The issues brought up are generally broad in nature and often blown out of proportion.  The issues will range from politics, to economics, to civil liberaties, and everything in between.  Anyways, I figure as a way to try and get this blog to claw it's way back out of the grave, I will post an interesting issue when I come across them and post them here, as well as my reasoning why I chose the answer that I did.

The issue at hand today is:

"In response to a slow news week, certain highbrow newspapers have stirred up the debate over voluntary vs compulsory voting."

This would probably seem like a weird thing to argue about if you go back to the founding days of the United States.  I feel like back in those days, people actually looked forward to voting and wanted to have an active hand in the decision of their country.  In today's society, the opposite view seems to be the more popular one, probably because of the seemingly high amount of out of touch politicians that have been elected.  However, even with this change in culture values, I don't think anyone now or in the past has ever really thought that voting should be compulsory, though it has always been strongly recommended.  Even today, voting should remain voluntary.  Yes, I know that millions have died over the years for our right to vote and elect whoever we want to, but in the end, you can't force someone to do their democractic duty to society.  If they don't want to vote, then they probably don't know anything about the candidates.  If you force them to vote, their vote would be almost certainly a throw away vote to whoever's name sounds the best.  That is not what any society needs.  For that reason, voting should always be voluntary.

So yeah, how about them apples?  We'll see how long this goes on for.  I'll only try to post the more interesting ones that I come across.  Let me know if you guys find this even the least bit interesting.

Peace Out.

It seems that a lot has been going on lately.  The first thing, and most important by far, is that I have gotten married to the wonderful and beautiful Megan.  I have a whole post I want to write about the wedding and the marriage so far, but I want to wait until the photos are done, so I can link them to you guys.  For now, we shall move onto more trivial and unimportant matters in life.

First up in the unimportant updates would be the announcement of the newest edition of Dungeons and Dragons, which right now is going under the name DnD Next.  It is an attempt to unify all the editions and end the edition wars.  From what little I've seen of it, which is hardly any at all, they are attempting to do this by making the game as module as possible.  Not a huge fan of feats?  Don't use them.  Love having tons of skills?  Throw as many of them in as possible.  Hate Vancian magic?  Well, that one is still up in the air, but I'm sure that will be able to be changed as well.  Right now I'm on the fence about the whole thing.  It's still very early in the playtesting so almost nothing is set in stone yet.  I'm not sure how it will play out, but I will give it a shot because that's just what I do.

Next up, and last for today, is the announcement of Pokemon Black and White 2.  That's right, sequels to the amazingly awesome Pokemon Black and White are due out in Fall of this year here in America.  I'm rightly super excited about this.  I've always liked Pokemon, as it painfully obvious to anyone who reads the blog.  I'm not sure if it's going to be a true sequel, or just a new tweak on the story, which is how the third game in any generation normally tends to go.  Whichever the case, I will be buying the game when it comes out. 

Peace Out.

Day Twenty Three:  Favovite Pokemon Design

Eevee is the best designed Pokemon out there.  Sure, by itself, it's not a whole lot of anything.  Pretty terrible stats mixed with a Normal typing doesn't make this guy all that special.  It's his evolutions that make him awesomely designed.  Eevee can evolve into seven different guys, making him the most diverse guy around.  I remember in the original games, you always judged other players depending on who they chose to evolve Eevee into.  These multiple paths of evolutions, plus the ability to add new evolutions in at any time the developers want to, makes this Pokemon the best designed Pokemon around.

Day Twenty Four:  Favorite Legendary Pokemon

Ho-oh is rather awesome.  He's the first legendary Pokemon that I really wanted to add to my team.  I really only have Joel to thank for having him, seeing as how he has the skill and patience to battle 100 trainers in a row on Pokemon XD (or Colesium, I can't remember which one) and trade me one.  He's rather awesome like that.  See, I always liked Charizard, and then I got Ho-oh, and he just trampled all over Charizard.  It's his sheer power that makes this guy awesome.  I realize that he's not uniquely typed, even among the legendaries, but he is a lot of fun to play with.  I definitely recommend picking this one up.

Day Twenty Five:  Pokemon Holiday Scene

Freebe!  Also, what's up with Charizard being blue?  Also, poor Magikcarp.

Peace Out!

Day Twenty One:  Favorite In-Game Pokemon

Alakazam is a beast.  Seriously, he is.  If you wanted a challenge in the original games, you played without him.  He was hands down amazing.  I think he still is.  I have to go against my urge to play with him in any game where he is available.  He just hits so hard, and the trainers are so dumb, that the game doesn't know how to deal with him!  It is pure power at its best.  Definitely one of the guys that you will always be happy to have on you team when you take on the Elite Four.

Day Twenty Two:  Coolest Pokemon

I had a really hard time choosing the right Pokemon for this day.  I couldn't think of who I thought was the coolest.  With this in mind, I just went on who I was the most excited to get when thinking of all the games, and who actually looked rather unique.  Hence, we come to Groudon.  Yes, he's a legendary, and for th longest time I thought he was fire, seeing as how he has Fire Blast and Drought.  I really do dig the metalic look that he has going on.  Plus, he was on the coin I got for pre-ordering Pokemon Ruby, which is just amazing. 

Peace Out.

Alright, I've tried this three times now.  You guys are only getting pictures.

Day Eighteen:  Favorite Bird Type Pokemon

Day Nineteen:  Favorite Legendary Dog

Day Twenty:  Favorite Baby Pokemon

Peace Out.

Day Fifteen:  Favorite Ice-Type Pokemon

Ice Pokemon are probably my least favorite type of them all.  It is most likely because I see them as an extension of Water Pokemon more than anything else.  With that being said, Mamoswine is still pretty sweet.  It's got a rather unique typing, while not ground breaking by any stretch of the imagination, is pretty cool.  Being able to have both earthquake and ice beam gives this guy pretty good coverage.  He has an interesting way of leveling up too, even if it does take him forever to get that high in level.  I've used it before, and I have to admit, not half bad at all.

Day Sixteen:  Favorite Dragon-Type Pokemon

A true classic.  Dragonite has been around since the very beginning, and since the very beginning has been pretty amazing.  It may be one of the more cartoony looking dragons, but he still packs a punch.  He was the first guy that I actually taught a TM to, back in Pokemon Blue.  It made him fairly amazing too.  It's the diversity of him that makes me like him so much.  While he's no Dragon/Fire that I had wanted for years, he'll always been my favorite dragon.  Plus, he reminds of Puff the Magic Dragon.  What's not to like about that?

Day Seventeen:  Favorite Dark-Type Pokemon

This Pokemon has always impressed me from the get go.  Houndoom can be an excellent sweeper, plus his typing is pretty extreme.  While I don't always like Fire by itself, put it together with anything else, and it gets way more awesome.  I think the one thing that really sets this guy apart is the fact that he reminds me, probably intentionally, of the hellhounds from Dungeons and Dragons.  While not nearly as badass in what it can actually do, he has the right appearance and typing to bring an imagine of some infernal beast to my mind every time.  For that fact alone, he's my favorite Dark type.

Peace Out.

Day Twelve:  Favorite Grass-Type Pokemon

This here has a disclaimer:  Breloom is not my favorite Grass Pokemon, but my favorite Grass is also my favorite Pokemon period, so you'll have to wait for him.  That being said, this guy is still freaking cool.  Now, I'll admit, he's pretty weird looking, but don't let the looks stop you.  This guy is a true powerhouse.  His pre-evoled form is pretty eh, but hey, most of them are.  But when he evolves, he gets a (once) unique typing of Grass/Fighting.  This awesome combo makes him pretty unstoppable.  With moves that cripple the opponent with statuses, followed up by hard hitting punches, this man can pretty much deal with anything, short of any sort of bird pokemon (damn you Pidgey!)

Day Thirteen:  Favorite Electric-Type Pokemon

Magneton!  This guy has been awesome ever since he developed the Steel type.  I never paid too much attention to this guy until Generation 4, and then I fell in love with him.  I picked him up in SoulSilver and never looked back.  This man is unstoppable, with awesome resistances (albiet not against Ground), stellar attack, and a neato design.  I like him so much more than Magnezone, and if I had my choice, would probably never evolve him again.  He is that amazing.

Day Fourteen:  Favorite Psychic-Type Pokemon

Gardevoir is the only Psychic to displace Alakazam as the top dog.  There's something about her, probably her more defensively minded nature, that draws me back to her time and time again.  Yes, Alakazam probably outspeeds her, and is probably stronger with its attacks then Gardevoir, but she has this sense of style and grace about her.  Plus, the Frenchie in my likes the name.  While I don't really appreciate what the internet has done to this lovely Pokemon, I can have the peace of mind knowing she'll probably always be on my team.

Peace Out.

Day Ten:  Favorite Fire-Type Pokemon

Arcanine, one of the original badasses of Pokemon, is still my favorite Fire type.  Sure, there are strong ones, ones that make more sense, and some that better movepools, but this guy is amazing.  He was always a fake legendary Pokemon, which honestly made no sense to me, but hell, look at him.  The guy is pretty majestic.  No one people thought he was legendary.  This guy will always be my favorite "dog" Pokemon too, no matter if the Dog trio from Gold and Silver are probably stronger.  It's the pure class, elegant style, and strong hitting attacks that Arcanine has that makes him my favorite.

Day Eleven:  Favorite Water-Type Pokemon

Gyarados has had been everywhere in the world of Pokemon.  He was insanely strong from the get go, and hassteadily increased in power as the generations have progressed.  Yes, his bite went from awesome to terrible with the advent of the Dark type in Gold and Silver, but I still used him.  He was the first shiny that I got, as well as just about everyone else that I know, and is just an all around staple of a lot of teams.  I believe that he was an uber tier pokemon at one point, though now I think he's back in the OU, which makes me happier to use him.  Plus, his beta name was Skullkraken.  How awesome is that?  Too awesome, that's how awesome.

Peace Out.