Redeemed

Good news is that we non-Americans appears to be able to access The Daily Show again. We are once again worthy this glimmer of American knowledge sent to enlighten the masses. Of course there is also the midnight edition at channel 9 every Monday to Friday that are 1 week late in the news. Still funny to follow. I don't know why they suddenly decided to let us once again to be able to see this show on the net but it's possible they needed it to counter the idea that US is worse than Iran. Mostly they criticize the European left-winged media (on another note say any media in Europe that isn't left compared to the US) to bash US and that "recent" pole (these were made during Bush second term sometime after Iraq) show the Europeans feared the US more then Iran. Facts please:

1. We know US has WMD and are the only one who used it.
2. We don't know for sure that Iran has it.
3. Everyone promised that Iraq had them which leads to
4.They didn't and the US entered anyway.

Excuse me for saying this, but even I get suspicious by this trigger-happy nuclear equipped country that takes the law in their own hands without real evidence that were backed up by more sources. Of course everything is now forgotten with this new president that is the modern political superhero that's gonna save us from our current state:



Seriously, that's one funny video, together with a good use of that old When Johnny's Come Marching Home Again tune. Also, the US feels a lot safer with someone that actually tries to make friends and not shove it in their face that they are different and therefore we don't trust you. Of course, the possibility that he makes it t another term is not that high, but one can only hope (especially that their is a slight possibility that their is a certain VP-candidate that could try to challenge Obama and that person is more scarier then anything I've seen in my life)

Resurection Joe

Finished Skies of Arcadia in less than an hour, overpowered with status-boosting items that I bought before entering the final dungeon for 1 000 000 gold. Three blows and it was finished.
100 % completion and everything feels fine. Searching the web afterwards it apparently exists a lot of rumors that a second game is currently in development to the Wii and PS3. Of course rumors about a second has been around since 2003 when Gamecube version was released. Almost similar to the Golden Sun-series fans that have waited for a third game the same amount of time. Of course, if they release a sequel I will not have the same private monologue as I had during the Golden Sun 3 announcement. Mostly because I don't have that much paranoid thought upon it

Except this comment: In the story there is two things that have been left unanswered. Nr. 1 is the fate of the purple civilization. These people had adapted to live in an arctic climate under the ice in a huge city hanging from the ceiling. The city is completly unharmed when the playr arrives there but there is no soul there except the captain that rescud you earlier and suffered a bit of Moby Dick-syndrome and ended there after attaching his harpon to a giant whale that been his target for 20 years and slowly dies before his eyes in the city. Now what happened to the people? The game only suggest a possibility that the whole population was out on a war against someone else when the Rains of Destruction fell. Sounds like the worst tactic ever. You never put your whole nation at risk to win a war unless the enemies are at your gates and blocked you from evacuating the women and children. So where did they go?

Nr. 2 is a long shot but here goes. The most famous character in game is a pirate named Daccat that conqured all continents under the 6 moons 5 generations ago. He left a treasure map that led to a huge chest containing one gold coin and a note saying that to reach this treasure you already have the greatest treasure that exist and that is friendship, comradery and such as you needed to be at least two to reach it. A seqeul could spin this theory that Vyse, the protagonist is the decendant of Daccat after you think about the little information that are given in the discoveries. The very first discovery is "the unknown air pirates grave", nothing peculiar about that? The only letter readable is the first and it is D. As shown of Daccat he probably didn't care about gold as the most important thing in life and surely would have wanted an burial site without much glamour. Maybe near his home that lies near Vyses own home as his whole family is air pirates it maybe began with Daccat. Also due to the "treasure" he left both seems to have the same ideals except the ruling the world part.

Of course, all this is just speculation due to there is no concrete evidence that they are actually working on it, but it would be fun. Hey, if they announce it to next year I will have two good sequels and then I need some good name for next year as this year is the year of nostalgia. Maybe the year of revival. And if they then releases a new Kid Icarus game, then it is complete (of course, I played it only once but some have been talking about that game since the early 90's so they would be extremly happy).

Stupidity Of Man

I have to say something do those "important" news that has emerged during the cold rainy summer. Apparently one 2-page comic in the Swedish Donald Duck edition has caused controversies due to being pro-copyright (or so it seems) in the heated debate of Pirate Party and so on. You get the deal. Now some private person have sent a complaint to the Swedish consumer ombudsman because "we have to think of the children" who are being exposed to the wrong kind of information, in this case we need to follow the law even though some laws people don't agree on. The story is that Donald's nephews want to get a record by their favorite artist but don't have any money. Donald refuse to pay for it so they download it and save up money to get it later, but listen to it in the meantime. Donald gets greedy, buys the record and plans to mass-produce it for money, but is stopped by Scrooge McDuck before something comes out of it.

That this person who pressed charges against the comic probably don't see is that it portrays two kinds of pirates on two different moralistic backgrounds. Huey, Dewey and Louie porttraits the pirate that listen first, then buys the record if they like it (if it was bad I don't think they bought it anyway). They are to me very sympathetic because it's my perpective as well. I even bought a record (some complain that cd:s are so dated, but due to my materialistic beliefs I like it to have them stand on a shelf with booklets and whatnot) and downloaded it for free in wait for the record to come by the mail. I was pretty hooked up by one of the songs so I needed it fast, and then of course transfer the songs to my Ipod. Donald on the other hand represents the greedy pirate that violates the copyright for his personal good. He is beyond saving in the moral view as he discredit the pirate movement and everything it stands for due to them "wanting to spread culture to everyone" or so they say.

If this private person is a pirate he has done more to damage their cause then helping them according to my beliefs. This pirate seems to support Donald's greedy tendencies that would push away many of the idealistic youth that follows them as they see their party to fall prey for the greed that is mans downfall in all society's. The same greed the youth saw in the old party's as they sold our integrity and justice institutions to the big company's of the world. Then again the whole thing would never have seen the light of day if it hadn't been for the summer drought in the news. Also, this is another proof of our own stupidity and especially the Swedish "political correctness" that makes me wanna vomit upon those who believe they are so morally perfect that they alone can say what is right and wrong (funny enough I appear as one of them, but then again I never force this upon others except here and how many actually read this?).

Last thing of today would be that I probably have to redo the whole Skies of Arcadia due to one single chest that I missed somewhere. God I hate that. Damn you, damn you to hell with whatever your content was and may you rot forever.

Update: I actually found the last chest, thank god. It was of course hidden in the second town to visit and then only contained 200 gold. Not much for something that caused so much trouble. So tonight I will probably use 1-2 hours fighting the final boss and then declare total victory...and then I should really continue my statistic studies.

Lost In The Night

As whoever follows this blog (most likely only me) knows. I finished Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia some time ago and now they are releasing a new Castlevania called Lords of Shadow to PS3 and Xbox 360 (which I don't own neither, but thinks about getting the PS3 mostly for the blue-ray). So apparently this game is gonna be something different compared to the other games in the series. One of the advisor's is gonna be Hideo Kojima the creator of Metal Gear-series which means there will be a lot of cut scenes and big dramatic speeches from all moral ambiguous character as well as the typical evil ones like Dracula. Also, with this it will also be followed with a great list of voice-actors. And they are good (at least those I've seen on film). The protagonist Gabriel is voiced by Robert Carlyle (The World is Not Enough antagonist Renard), his love interest Maria by Natascha McElhone (never seen any film were she is but there are some listed at the wiki so...), some character called Zobeck by Patrick Stewart (Probably don't need an explanation but Professor Xavier in the X-men movies and Captain Picard in Star Treck) appearing as a narrator in the trailer and finally Jason Issacs (Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter films) as an unnamed character. My guess that he is Dracula. Just looking at his appearances in Harry Potter he could even play Dracula in a movie about Castlevania. If Hideo Kojima does his things as he usually do, it probably is more of a movie than a game so good ting they have some decent voices in it.

Also the play-through on Skies of Arcadia went fine...until today when I realized that somewhere in that vast world, I had forgot to open one (1) treasure chest. Doesn't seem so bothersome? Wrong! The GC version of the game gives you a special title if you clear certain conditions where one is to get 100 % treasure chest finding. Well, "why not go back until you find it again?" will probably be a common question, but there is a tiny little problem with that. After certain points in the adventure you lose access to those chests. Four areas in total containing somewhat of four chests each and I missed one. Very annoying especially since the play-through time is 60-70 hours for a 100 % complete game. That's almost three days constant playing and because I've already finished it (almost) I will probably not play it again until next summer and then the question is, what am I doing then? Will I have time to play any game at all when it supposedly is time to enter the unknown (aka the job market)? I may only pray to the deity's of luck and chance that the damned chest exist in one of the dungeons or towns that didn't get destroyed.

Lost In Time

It rains again. This summer it has rained every other day. At least it's not t hot which I despise even more. There is nothing worse than 25-30 degrees Celsius in the night. It sickens me. At least the weather gives some excuse to play a lot of video games when you not studying that is (*ahem* when you are supposed to studying that is). Funny thing is that now their is a fifth part of the Monkey Island series out now together with a remastered version of the first game in the series. One of the funniest series ever in gaming history. And to people (read: teenager and children) who play this new version, they are not copied out of the Pirates of Caribbean movies even though it seems that way. Monkey Island began in 1990 well before any movies. Then of course both were inspired by the Disney ride but there will probably be someone to get this wrong. As I said last time, it appears that this year will be the year of nostalgia. Unfortunately one still has to grow up...one day or another.

Prince of Darkness

The summer continues onward without delay. Probably should start getting on with the statistic course, but it seems I'm managing...I hope. When I'm not studying (which unfortunately seems like most of the time)I settle down with some video games (it has rained nearly every day so it's almost allowed by the summer standards). Last week was last years Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia. Short story, Dracula threatens the world in the 1800's, the usual hero family has disappeared so someone has to stand up against the prince of darkness. Hack 'n' Slash 10 hours later and the game is cleared and Dracula banished again until the next time he comes back (which according to the games so far is 1820).

More gaming info. The game Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World that was released last year in America and Japan finally gets a release date in Europe this autumn. Took them long enough. This long delay forced them to ad some extras to encourage the Europeans to wait for it so it's not that bad, but this is just one of many problems when the good games from Japan after hard pressure leaves Japan, lands in North America and the ungrateful Americans don't understand the charms of these games and this scares the Japaneses to pull it onward to Europe. Of course this game probably had something else, but the other reason was very common last decade as well for some releases this decade.

Also, this year is kinda remarkable. Today is 40 years since the moon landing, other celebrations this year is the fact that it is 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Swedish Social Democrats have existed for 120 years and Iran is now in its current state 30 years old. The one thing that has effected me afterwards (I'm not old enough to have experienced any of these and remember them) is the release of the Thundersubs's series in 1979. A story of Earth set in 2052 when we finally achieves peace and has established space colonies across the whole solar system. Then some domed race from a solar system far away escaping a black hole decides to make Earth there home, after they wipe out all humankind. Operating in their space station Terrorstar, the death force (it sounds like Star Wars, but this isn't a galaxy far far away) shatter the Earth defences (and or space colonies) under one hour. The only thing left of Earths defences is a ship constructed for underwater-, sea level- and space travel, Thundersub.

Of course the problem is that this show never have had a re-release on dvd or VHS so it's almost impossible to get a copy. Thankfully for myself my family recorded the film version of the first 4 episodes when it was on Filmnet back in the days. It's an anime, but it sounds very good in the English dub. The only problem this show had (as far as I know) is the Americans way to transfer the story to relate to them. This problem starts with a picture of Earth with the middle being the pacific ocean as they talk about the 9 research centers on Earth with N1 being on Hawaii in the dub when you clearly see it being in Japan. Story wise the only problem with it is the belief that we have achieved world wide peace before 2052 or established space colonies on all planets when we haven't even arrived at Mars, but that's what you get for writing a story set 20 minutes into the future. Good news is that someone finally decided to release it on DVD so I'm happy. Together with the release of Mysterious Cities of Gold earlier this year I will remember this year as the Year of Nostalgia. I feel like a child again.

Kill The King

As the title says, I'm not very pleased with the royal family at the moment. Due to some celebration of some kind the Midsomer Murder has been postponed for a week! Utter blasphemy! You can't touch that show, it's the only thing that makes the summer be bearable in the heat waves that hits Sweden (except this last week when it as rained every day, but you get the idea). We want gruesome murders to solve every day. It's not enough with Bones every day at 8 PM, Agatha Christie Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays and then Inspector Morse on Fridays and Saturdays. We need more.

Also the scientific revolution marches on. They have found out that only because you have low IQ it doesn't mean that you die earlier, it was because these people who did die earlier that had low IQ lived very unhealthy...I wonder what that mean (please observe a very sarcastic tone in these statement). Of course there IQ gives a hint if they die early or not. High IQ usually shows how logical and smart a person is (not 100% of course but statistically speaking) and these persons usually end up taking good care of themselves as well as gaining a good job to secure a good income. Which in turn effect the means you have to take care of yourself.

The rain that has fallen this week have at some places in Sweden been the worst for 30 years. Apparently Karlstad is one that will have a continuing amount of rain for the next couple days. "Sola i Karlstad", yeah right!!! You who don't know that's a proverb that refer to a "waitress" in Karlstad that always had a sunny smile and so on as well the fact that Karlstad a couple of times have been nominated the sunniest city in Sweden (until they apparently moved "sun-o-meter" to the airport). In fact, since the first day I got here it rained. False advertisement. (Sola also could mean tanning but that seems impossible in this weather)

Lost Forever

Another rainy day and this seems to be here for a while. Still like it. Need to start taking the statistic course seriously. First assignment was not that hard and that was done in blazing heat. Start tomorrow first thing in the morning...if I'm not caught into one of the many video games world I can access. I already beat Majora's Mask as you know and this morning it was time for Paper Mario after 3 days intensive play. I got lots of other games to play, there is Metroid Prime 2, Super Mario Galaxy, Secret of Mana, Super Mario RPG, Baiten Kaitos, Metroid Prime 3, The Legend of Zelda, Zelda 2...you get the idea. Yes, I'm a Nintendo nerd. Mostly out of nostalgia. Come on, every one has played Nintendo once and they are fun.

Of course, these games I've never played or cleared but at the moment I'm focusing on recreating my 100% game of Skies of Arcadia Legends that my sisters erased some time ago. Of course I've done it also on some other recording but that was in the beginning of a game one of my sisters played. Not a 100% cleared game that I had as a boost for my mental self-confidence. The game itself is very enchanting. More so over it's way to portrait the Europeans thirst for conquering and search for adventure. Story goes that the Valuan Empire (Spain) kidnapped a girl from a civilization thought lost in time in there search for the ultimate weapon. This takes our young Air Pirates (United Kingdom I would guess with people like Sir Francis Drake being some kind of privateer) on an adventure across the sky (the world consist of fleeting islands under six moons). They travel to Ixa'Taka (South America), Yafutoma (Japan/China), Glacia (Antarctica) and Nasr (Middle East/Ottoman Empire) before facing of at a sunken continent (Atlantis) that has reemerged from the deep graves of the atmosphere.

As I said it is there way to show the 16-17th century when Europe ruled the seas and laid the world to its feet's with sword and cross. As portrayed in the game, Valua first arrives in Ixa'Taka seen as gods then begin killing and enslaving the native tribes to mine for the most precious things that exists in the universe. After that it get more fictional (more then it already is of course). They travel to Yafutoma and stage a coup that fails when something representing the "Divine Wind" or more famously Kamikaze arrives to drive them of. They defeats Nasr with use of new technology to avoid a military confrontation and take over the capital and after that they mostly disintegrated as the military commander and believer in power as the only way to measure a human being stages a civil war killing of the Valuan Empress. Could be a way to show the Spanish civil war between nationalists and republicans. After the game the prince that joined you in the fight reclaim his throne and builds a stronger nation led by moral values and so on, you know, bullshit, but it's a nice story so it works but in reality it wouldn't work, yeah, cynic is my middle name it seems. What happened to the idealist that believed in the better good of mankind? When did it come to this? When did the curtain fall and brought light upon the horrors that resides inside all of us as it slowly eats us from inside and poisons our minds?

Lord of Thunder

What a weekend. Rain falling from the sky and thunder smiting the earth with its force. So I've been locked up in my apartment for most of the days, lots of time to study the statistic. First real group work has been finished after a lot of miscommunication (mostly my side but still). Anyway, funny thing happened couple of days ago when someone passed by and got rid of the old bicycle that has been chained to the picket fence just outside for 3 years. Just like that. He probably needed it for some spare parts or something but I'm glad I didn't have to take care of it. This shows just that nothing really happens around here.

Finished Majora's Mask yesterday night. 100% complete game. 9 years since its release date. What an anticlimax in boss battle though. Of course, with 100% completion you get the benefit of possessing the ultimate weapon, Fierce Deity's Mask. Funny how a mask can be an ultimate weapon. Transforming you to a god among the living you wreck havoc around you as you charge against the forces of darkness. Just look at this picture of Link after he puts on the mask:

Truly awesome is it not? The problem is that the mask uses magic to power its long-distance attack, but there is a way to go around that problem, milk. Then you are more or less invincible as it never goes out. Not a single strike landed on me during the final battle, but it was a little disappointment that it was so easy, but it was alright just to see Link so awesome (Just a statement, I don't own that picture, it's the property of Nintendo, just in case someone asks).