Yes, I'm still alive

So, I'm not going to mention how I said I would spend more time on here in my last post.  Seems pretty obivious now.

But damn it if I didn't beat Borderlands2, then the first DLC came out, then the second, and squeeze in the Dragonborn DLC for Skyrim, Assassin's Creed III and it's multiplayer, and most recently (read: Yesterday) I picked up Lollipop Chainsaw.

I know, I know...why did I buy that game.  It was $20 at Best Buy and I kinda wanted to play it since Kadokowa Pictures was involved with it.  And since they did High School of the Dead, and two of the outfits in the game are from HOTD, and the Deadman Wonderland outfit, and the Is This A Zombie? outfit...

Plus you get to gut zombies with a chainsaw.

Top 5 - Anime

 Man, it has been a while since I did a Top 5, huh?

OK, so I have been watching a lot of anime lately.  Like any other genre of entertainment, some are good, some are great and some aren't my cup of tea.  Oddly enough, in the realm of anime I find my tastes are greatly different than what I normally would watch.  You'll never catch me watching The Notebook, but find me a well written, sappy romantic anime and I'm hooked.  But as a guy, giant robots and explosions also work very well.

I blame [adult swim] and Toonami for really getting me to watch anime.  I watched Speed Racer and Voltron when I was a kid, but DragonBall Z was really the first series I had to watch.  Lately, Bleach has earned a half-hour of my time on Saturday nights.  And I was really starting to get into Deadman Wonderland on Toonami, when they suddenly stopped showing episodes.  I haven't bothered to see why.  Anyway, Netflix has/had a pretty decent collection of anime and I have attempted to watch most (again, some good, some not so good...in my opinion.)

So without further ado, here is MY Top 5 anime series...again, just my opinion.

5 - Highschool of the Dead

Zombies, makeshift weapons, zombies, tones of blood, zombies, interesting character back stories, zombies, a budding love triangle, zombies, fanservice...

The only thing wrong with this series was the length.  One season only.  The original manga it is based on goes a bit further into the characters quest to find their parent during a zombie apocalypse, but it too was cut short, which might explain there only being one season of the show.  It's worth checking out though, if you don't mind the never resolved cliffhangers.

4 -Gurren Lagann

OK, nothing I have ever seen has ever been more over the top, stupid and loud.  And I loved it.  This is a perfectly written story with everything you could want.  Action, romance, drama, comedy, giant fighting robots, animal people, space fights, end-of-the-universe disasters and so may lines you'll  catch yourself repeating.  Would be higher on my list if it wasn't for that "realm of anime" thing I mentioned before.

3 - Strawberry Panic

First and foremost, you have to suspend your beliefs a bit with this one.  Ignore the fact that this is a romantic story set in three all-girls Catholic schools that share a dormitory and attended by more schoolgirl lesbians than some major cities.  I'm a straight heterosexual male and I was able to ignore that fact.  At it's core, this is a very good story and the characters are interesting.  Eventually you do begin to ignore the fact that this is a sapharric romance tale and begin to just focus on the individual characters and the plot.  Plus, it anime.  Most guys in anime look like girls anyway.

2 - Shuffle!

You're going to see a pattern with these last three, and no it's the lesbian thing.

Shuffle! is one of the first romance/harem series I ever saw and it has stuck with me.  The plot is dumb and pretty boring, but it's based on a Visual Novel/Game where your whole point is to just pick a girl, so I guess I can't bitch too much about the plot.  But I can say that once you get past the sugar sweet, diabetes inducing first half of the series, the second half get much, much darker.  It's worth the wait too. (The first half does have some good comedy)

1 - Clannad, Clannad-After Story

I have to do these two together since they make up the whole story.  Again, romantic storyline, and even tries to act like a harem series, but it's pretty clear from the start who the two main characters are.  Clannad is a typical high school anime with hints of harem and mystic forces thrown in for good measure.  After Story is an emotional rollercoaster...(rollercosters go up and down and twist and do loops and shit)...this is more like one of those rides that lifts you 100 stories in the air than drops you straight down.  If you watch this series and can't even shed one manly tear at some point, you are an emotionless robot, or dead, or not watching the right series.

As always, these are just my Top 5.  Yours may vary, so I'm not responsible for any hurt feelings.

Wreck-It Ralph Trailer

Perfect Job.

Still job hunting.

Pesonally, I want a zombie apocalypse. I feel I'm qualified for surviving that. At least I'm think I'm more qualified for that than most of the jobs I see out there.

Oh, the holidays...right.

Forgot all about the holidays. If nothing else I did pick up some sweet new games and gagets.

Games:
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood
Castlevania: Lord of Shadows
Dead Rising 2
Madden NFL 11 (with Drew Brees on the cover)

DVDs:
The Expendables
Inception
Scott Pilgram vs. The World

Misc:
So Now You're a Zombie: A Handbook for the Newly Undead (book)
Assorted Meats & Cheeses from Hickory Farms & Swiss Colony
Nintendo Monopoly (I have a growing collection of Monopoly games)
A can of Mixed Nuts
A pasta cooker/strainer (as seen on TV)

And my awesome wife got me this:


And as usual, my mother lost one of my gifts. Happens every year. I'm still waiting for the windshield for the CHiPs motorcycle I got back in 1980.

More Videos

I've become addicted to YouTube. Just enjoy.

NES Left 4 Dead


L4D - Your screwed


Half-Life2 + Castlevania =


Castlevania - Heart of Fire

The end of the world

I realized that there are so many different apocalyptic scenarios in our pop culture.

The Zombie Apocalypse - found in numerous books, movies and video games.

The Robot Apocalypse - made famous by the Terminator and Matrix movie series, as well as the many books.

The Dragon Apocalypse - most notably in the movie Reign of Fire.

The Vampire Apocalypse - the movie Daybreakers comes to mind.

The Alien Apocalypse - another popular one found in many books, movies and television shows. (this on can be broken into a dozen or so sub-scenarios, including alien invasion, body snatchers, alien virus and I guess you could include The Blob though I'm not quite sure what that falls under.)

I'm adding a poll for you to help me figure out which would be the worst one to attempt to survive. I have my opinion, of course, but I want to now what others think.

My Opinion, in order of worst to easiest.
Zombies - Billions of undead people trying to eat you, the odds aren't in your favor.
Dragons - They are freaking Dragons, they fly, breath fire and can destroy a city in seconds.
Robots - They are cold, uncaring machines of death, but they are just machines.
Aliens - They cause untold damage and kill thousands, but they always are defeated by something simple.
Vampires - They don't go out during the day, and have a fear of garlic. Shouldn't be too hard to survive this.

Vampires and Werewolves and Zombies, Oh My!

Last night I was watching the MTV Kids Choice Movie Awards. I say "Kids Choice" because that is clearly who votes for this award show. Only in the Twilight frenzied minds of ignorant preteens should Kristen Stewart win an award for Best Female Performer over Sandra Bullock, who by the way won a Golden Globe, SAG and Oscar for "The Blind Side." And can someone explain to me how "Twilight: New Moon" wins Best Picture over the highest grossing movie of all time, "Avatar"?


This obsession with Vampires in general, Twilight in particular, is out of control. Hollywood can be blamed to an extent, but they are only doing what every other industry does when something becomes popular, exploit the hell out of it. Movies (Twilight Saga, Underworld, The Vampire's Apprentice), television (True Blood, The Vampire Dairies), books (again, Twilight Saga, The Vampire's Apprentice, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter), you can't escape vampires.


And of course werewolves come with vampires, right? Underworld and Twilight both focus on vampires and werewolves attempting to prove which is the better species. Sadly, Twilight has a love story involved. However, I was told an interesting way to look at the love story:


Twilight is about a young girl who is trying to chose between bestiality or necrophilia.


There is a ton of things I don't get about Twilight. Team Edward. Team Jacob. Who cares? Personally, I'm on Team Zombie, but I'll get to that in a second. And what is with the sparkling in the sunlight crap? Vampires burn to a crisp in sunlight. You know who else sparkles? Tinkerbell! Having a vampire who sparkles in sunlight is like having zombies who just want a hug. It's degrading to the readers and viewers.




As for Zombies, lets face it, they are having their "day in the sun," as well these days. And like Vampires, there is a boat load of media surrounding them. Everything from movies (Zombieland, Resident Evil: Afterlife, Survival of the Dead), video games (Left for Dead series, Resident Evil series, Dead Rising series) and books (World War Z, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies [also being made into a movie]) are being made about them. They, too, are everywhere.

It's only a matter of time before some Hollywood producer okays a movie that has vampires trying to survive a zombie apocalypse. But here is where I have to go with Team Zombie. Vampires would not stand a chance during a zombie uprising. For starters, they can't feed on zombies since they are dead, blood not flowing or most likely coagulated. They share the same food source, but with as fast a zombies plague can spread the human food supply would quickly run out. Sure, vampires are undead as well, which means the zombies won't eat them, but after some time, the vampires would begin to starve. And what happens if a zombie does bit a vampire? After the vampire starves to death, he comes back a zombie. It's a no win situation for the vampire. His best bet would be to walk out into the sun and burn to death....but instead he just sparkles.