Surfing The Star Ocean (video game review)

 

It all started when I was looking for Patapon for the PSP after watching a Let’s Play of it. The game store didn’t have it. Normally I didn’t want to waste my security check money, but my dad told me to hurry up and I didn’t want him to feel like the trip had been a waste. My eye had kept glancing to the title on the bottom shelf: Star Ocean: First Departure. After fifteen minutes of debate, I decided to screw it and bought it(and the strategy guide for safety).

When I learned this game was a PSP remake of the never-translated first game in the fabled series joint-made by Enix and Tri-Ace, I was a little torn. I had been a Star Ocean virgin until I had been “deflowered” by that game’s sequel, Star Ocean: The Second Story. I had beaten it twice, as far as I can tell – one with the Rena storyline, one with the Claude storyline, and both time Claude and Rena… well, I don’t want to spoil anything. The final boss of that game and the final dungeon was as hard as heck, and I had to torture myself with the bonus dungeon, the Cave of Trials.

Sadly, the game was glitchy at times and crashed when I didn’t want it. So eventually, I threw the game away. Then came the third game for the Playstation-2, Til the End of Time. Oh, I beat it and got Nel and Peppita(who I really liked at the beginning) as my optional party members, but that game had crashing issues too, and I got bored after I beat the final boss. The problem was I was trying to get all the battle trophies on a spanking new game, which is hard at best and impossible at worst. I had even bought the strategy guide.

So, it’s sort of hard to get interested in the first game of the series. I had played a translated ROM of it – yes, emulated it, but I don’t have it anymore – and the game was boring. It then crashed during one of the final sequences and I got ticked off and deleted the ROM out of disgust, going on to Pokemon and other things. You can tell I was sort of going into this with low expectations.

I was horribly disappointed… in the reverse way. The anime clips of some of the beginning cutscenes was excellent. I know some of you get chewed up over some of the name changes, like Ronixis called “Ronyx” now, and I did like Ilia/Ellya’s hair in the original version, but the game refuses to be boring. Right now I’m on the special emblem quest and got my seventh party member – who is a werewolf whose human form looks like a spectacled Ranma Saotome. WIN!!! I can’t wait to meet Welch. Anyone who looks like a grown-up Chibi-Usa and has an ultimate technique that requires you to use the game’s crafting system is awesome. I also have Ashlai because I want that ultimate skill for Roddick. (BTW, if you change the character’s names, it will only display the change in text dialogue.)

OH YEAH, the game has voice acting in all the private actions and major cut scenes(I didn’t get Ioshua or Erys in this playthrough) – WINx2!

I’ve heard that these people are also doing a PSP remake of the very game which attracted me to this series in the first place and calling it Star Ocean: Second Evolution. I would buy this in a heartbeat, as it was this game which gave me my “star sea legs”, so to speak.

Claude, Rena, Ashton, and pretty Precis will be mine again – and I heard Welch is going to be here too, which would make my day, considering how much I love her in the first game.

The Sims 2: Another poster child for the fate of PC Gaming?

I’m a devoted viewer of Shamus Young and his blog, Twenty-Sided. After reading a post on it about how people ripped him on the BioShock demo(you can read it here: http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1875#more-1875), I decided to talk about another of EA’s properties, namely The Sims 2.

I love that game to death. Well, I wouldn’t call it a game so much as a storytelling tool. Anyways, that software spawns millions of stories which I read on a forum. However, after recently installing the newest expansion pack, Apartment Life, I began to understand how Shamus said “the pizza is covered in insects.”

I have no problems with the lag, except when I record the cinematic videos and the music de-syncs, or whenever the game pauses to load up some data. What bothers me are the huge amount of bugs in the game.

One legacy story comments on the fact that it crashed and the story was ruined 30 times, and as the story (called the Tom Servo chronicles) went through the motions again, many bugs and glitches cropped up. I haven’t seen most of those, and thankfully I did not get the lot crashing glitch yet, but the graphics tend to glitch badly – usually giving my toddlers upper teeth hovering in their mouths like alien dentures.

And then I discovered that some of the ring menus that use interactions don’t work or have missing options – for example, in one house I got the alert that the baby was ready to age up, but when I tried to use the birthday cake to age her, it gave me “Clean Up” instead of “Bring XXXX to Cake.” I had to hack the baby’s life bar so the interaction would work properly.

After seeing all these glitches, I wonder if Maxis, when they were acquired by EA, were told not to fix these problems because they wasted money. If so, this could indeed prove that computer game developers in big-name companies have to suppress their beliefs that the customer is important, and it just “time is money.”

And while I fear for EA and Maxis’s future, I can’t stop playing and boycott The Sims 2. It is a great tool for telling stories. If you went over to Boolprop.com’s forums and posted saying “You need to boycott this game until EAxis agrees to release an end-all patch that will fix everything, you’re wasting your money with the bugs in it!”, I think they would ban him. Why should we stop using a great storytelling aid just because there are a garbage-truck load of glitches that could crash the game and wipe our hard drives? It ain’t happening.

I don’t think we’ll ever see the end of this. As long as we pay good money through the nose to play an interesting experience, despite all the bugs, we are feeding the corporate machine. The only way to make a difference is to force everyone to stop playing the game and burn their copies, which ain’t happening any time soon.

The End… For Now

Blogdate: July 27, 2008; 10:03 PM

In eleven hours, I will be taken to a torture chamber where they’ll sedate me and rip out my budding wisdom tooth with horrific implements of death. But, before I undergo that ordeal, I underwent another…

The fourth Next Food Network Star was finally chosen. This time, three finalists managed to force the judges to do something different – there was no vote, I think. Instead, there was one final challenge – a pilot audition done with one of the best producers of the business.

Each pilot was presented perfectly. Lisa, as I had said, was awesome. Of course, I could be biased as I am a fellow Texan, though my birthplace is in the southern tip and not the Panhandle.

Adam Gertler got the geeky part of me. A show where you could converse with the chef via webcam, like they do those virtual audiences on G4 while he cooks? Brilliant!

However, I think somehow my pity reached out and dazzled the people who saw Aaron, the bald black guy. While there is already a bald guy(Iron Chef Symon) and a black family(the Nealys), somehow Aaron’s Motown Big Daddy personality clearly screamed “I have a dream!”

He wasn’t Aaron McCarrough Jr., he was Martin Luther King Jr.

And thus, he won his own show.

This is my final blog in this category, though I never got any feedback from anyone. I guess this is just a journal of my experiences. I seriously hope that Jason McCarrough, whereever he is or whatever he’s doing, can see the premiere episode of “Big Daddy’s Kitchen” and realize what an idiotic jerk-hole he was by running away.

But then, if he hadn’t… Aaron might not have gone through with this. It’s sort of like how Amy felt like she was a failure, but in the end, she won. Though her show was a one-trick pony, she got the courage to become a foodie and travel to France at long last.

I hope that Aaron might be the next Guy Fieri, but whatever happens, all is well with him now.

Which makes me wonder… should I send in a tape next time? Sadly, I can’t afford to go to New York. I’m sure I’m in the red this month, and my folks won’t pay for me to go to New York just to come home a failure. They see me as a failure now because I wasted my talent.

Well, no longer. I may have failed at being a great cook, but I will try hard to make an excellent computer game which will bring back the happy days of computer gaming.

Dreams will come true, as Aaron has shown me. Yes, I must start working on my dreams…

…right after I finish this Apocalypse Challenge, I swear. ^_^

The end is in sight…?

Well, last night was an very exciting night. My parents are out of town to pick up my sister and her husband and move them back down here to Texas – which is good, as I would love to chat with her again – and the “final” challenge of the Next Food Network Star this season has been completed.

The three contestants left out of all the eight are Lisa Garza(a fellow Texan and very chic), Aaron McCourough Jr.(a black bald guy who has camera issues), and Adam Gertler(which I don’t care about any old way).

Guy Fieri, the now celebrity chef who had won Season 2’s contest(you know, the one my favorite Jess Dang got kicked out immediately?), hosted the challenges. The mini-challenge was doing a 30-second TV promo. The main challenge was making a lavish buffet for the most famous performers and celebrities of Sin City, and three of the eliminated(Kelsey, Shane, and Jen[yay!]) were the sous-chefs.

The surprising news was that the judges were deadlocked even after the challenges. Each contestant had good points and bad points.

* Lisa’s promo was hard for her, she couldn’t do things on the fly and she was being towed on a cable all the time. Her buffet was hurt because she had dropped half of the fish she wanted to serve[meaning she had to shrink potions] and her pork got toasted, meaning her foods were served in sample portion. However, her intro performance was beautiful – she should forget about being a Celebrity Chef and be a Rock Goddess!

* Aaron did really really well on the promo challenge. For having trouble with the camera all this time, Bobby inspired him to fight it and he dazzled everyone. Sadly, his intro was horrible and uncomfortable, and his buffet was 80% pasta dishes, which was bad news.

* Adam did excellent on both the promo and buffet. He surely won the challenges. It didn’t hurt that he was skilled on the stage. Still, his intro needed a little more dazzle.

Eventually, the judges decided that it was impossible to eliminate anyone now, so they brought all three back to New York. What this means, I do not know, but I assume they’ll do a tie-breaker challenge to kick off someone.

While I am supporting Lisa, I know how dangerous bias is – there’s still a chance Lisa is eliminated on the final challenge, leaving me two men I don’t really like, but then again, I didn’t really like Guy Fieri and he won me over, so maybe if it’s just the guys again, I might support Aaron, just because I pity him and want his runaway son to see him on TV and come back home. I dunno, Adam’s really doing well to make up for his lackluster performances all this time.

It’s anyone’s game right now, but Lisa still has my vote, because Kelsey and Shane were ousted.

At this point, I’ve run out of funny titles.

I apologize for not updating on The Next Food Network Star progress. Since it’s only two days before the seventh episode, I decided to put this brief summary up

I had to say goodbye to two of my favorite contests the past two weeks.

First, Jen was axed. I felt sorry for her, but it was inevitable. Her confidence issues had struck again and killed her there and then. I really wanted to see a cooking show focused on kids, but she disappointed her daughter badly. Hopefully the tyke won’t bawl her eyes out because mommy won’t be on TV. Sorry, Jen.

My fave Iron Chef, Cat Cora, was the host of that week. The mini-challenge was doing a taste review of someone else’s dish in one minute’s time. Everyone did poorly there. The main challenge was re-inventing a complex dish into a simple dish. The three lucky monsters were Beef Wellington, Coq Au Vin, and Turducken. Kelsey and Shane, who picked Beef Wellington, tore through the challenge and won the spot on Bon Appetit’s recipe list for the August issue.

The previous episode, aired last Sunday, had a lot of stuff going on. The guests did a guest segment on Rachael Ray’s talk show, again, but there was a twist. The contestants worked with Brownies, a branch of Girl Scouts who are for very young girls, and would do their segment alongside the Brownies.

Needless to say, each of the contestants had their problems. Lisa clammed up like a Cloyster when she was with Rachael, Kelsey bossed Rachael around, which was a negative in my book. I’m a big Rachael Ray fan and people who boss her around get cowplanted!

Aaron stupidly turned his back to the camera to wash his hands. I know there was no way to wash your hands there because the sink was positioned wrong, but never turn your face away from the camera, ever. Adam probably won the challenge because I read in Tuschman’s blog that Rachael loved his food and the way he interacted with her and the Brownie.

Sadly, Shane had completely neglected the kid. Worse, he confessed that he has never been to France and only wanted to be a French chef because of a class he took. Kelsey may be the worst off in experience, but Shane was axed because FN doesn’t like people who claim to be ethnic culinaires and have never been to the country their cuisine was born from. I’d never say I’m a Japanese foodie, because I can’t afford to go to Tokyo for even a day!

Shane, do us a favor – either forget about French Cuisine and do some American culinary point of view, or save up your nickels and dimes and take a three-day-two-night vacation to gay Parie! Sadly, you aren’t even going to get to Las Vegas like the remaining four contestants.

This Sunday, Bobby Flay is going to challenge Lisa, Kelsey, Aaron, and Adam to a throwdown in Sin City. I only hope that the four keep up to good work. I’m rooting for the girls, but if they get eliminated, I might pick Aaron for the vote. Yeah, he’s black and bald, but better him than bad chef Adam – unless Adam can get his A+ game on fast.

Still, I have high hopes Kelsey might be in the final vote. She just needs to stop worrying about being inexperienced and prove that young people can make great cooking show hosts too! Lisa, I’m sorry not to support you, but you need to stop being all frou-frou and connect to the viewers, who don’t care crackers about fine dining. You need to show them that fine dining isn’t expensive or difficult.

Everyone is on thin ice now, so please please please, don’t disappoint me. 😦

Stinky grumps: The Sims 2 and “The Obsession Legacy”

I’m so sorry about not having the next blogs of Episodes 5 or 6 of The Next Food Network Star. Recently the power went out, then some nasty incident forced us to live without the Internet for a whole week. I wasn’t able to put up any blog last Monday. I’ll try to put up a compilation of my thoughts on the last two episodes.

In the meantime, here’s a little story: Once upon a time, a princess called Lucy got bored of her posh life, so she downloaded The Sims 2 on her posh computer and loved the ordinary peasant Sims and their lives. But since her daddy gave her a TV and the Harry Potter books, she became a crazy Trekkie and Potterhead who also was a fangirl of a really lame action TV series about terrorism called 24. In her rabid fangirly rage, she booted up the Internet on her computer, learned about the Legacy Challenges for playing The Sims 2, and started her own legacy with Sims named and looking like her favorite characters from her obsessions, naming it… The Obsession Legacy. (rim shot)

She was so vainglorious and obsessed with certain characters in the series she loved, she made many Sims that looked like her and now one of them is married to a Sim based on Remus Lupin.

I never watched 24. A TV series about terrorists never appealed to me. All I know about it was that this guy was supposed to pretend to be dead for 24 hours(the name of the series is based on the 24-hour time period of faked death) and there were a lot of explosions and car chases. Yawnsville.

I have watched episodes of the original Star Trek and The Next Generation, and read about characters from the other two series(Deep Space 9 and Voyager) – I know who the Borg are and how they threatened the Star Trek universe, so I have some experience there.

The most experience I have is with Harry Potter, as I have read all seven books and seen all the movies, two on DVD, three in theaters.

So, what do you get when you turn Sims into characters like those from those three series? Hilarious chaos.

You see, the Legacy states(but I may be wrong) that you are forbidden from dictating your Sims actions. These virtual dollies must act under the randomized control of the computer AI. While the Sims of Sims 2 are far more intelligent than their ancient predecessors, they still tend to go and do stupid things.

For example, in Chapter 37, Lucy whines about the autonomous reaction Sims do whenever a fire breaks out – they run to it and scream and flail in horror, while the ashy fire decimates their needs like hygiene and energy. I have sigged her rant in a forum that dedicates itself to Legacy challenges.

A legacy is where you start with a Sim, marry them off and make them have three or more kids and raise them to adulthood. Then you pick which kid is the heir, move the other children out to the SimBin, and start over, rinse and repeat until you hit the quota number of generations.

The Obsession Legacy is an Alphabet Legacy, meaning that the quota is 26 and each child in each generation is alphabetically named with names starting with that letter. “A” generation babies are named Alice, Ashton, etc.; and B-generation babies are named Betsy, BooBoo, etc

The founder and any family members can remain untill they die from old age or are kicked out.

I applaud the hard work, Lucy. I’m just sure you started this last November, but this story is great. It’s sadly also unfinished, as she tends to play through the game to a point, pausing for photo moments.

Go to the address I gave in my last e-mail. No not that one! The other one! Go and vote if the vote opens.

Also be sure to read the Legacy story, if only for the crazy dialoge, chapters you can skipp, and what not.

The Next Food Network Star: Fourth Episode which I didn’t get the title of, oops.

Warning: T rated for mild profanity.

My dad doesn’t like to put up with crap.

Being an Professor that teaches Business Accounting, he should be getting respect. But he tells me stories of students who come to him and complain that they got bad grades and beg for good grades to get their degrees when they clearly didn’t study. My dad is a firm believer of hard work, and he’s sort of upset at the way I flittered my life away on video games and hate clerical work. When we were young, me and Dad argued a lot about my future. That’s how much he hates people who can’t walk the walk.

If he were on the selection committee of The Next Food Network Star this season and had witnessed Nipa’s outburst, he would have immediately gotten up and told Nipa Bhatt to leave and never return, and if he had been the guest judge on this episode, he would have done the same thing and added “I do not want you to expect to ever get famous off of cooking.”

Yeah, that’s the same way I feel after Nipa’s behavior this episode. I’m almost tempted to have a Sim looking like my father argue with and fight a Nipa-Sim, who would go sob into her hands.

First, let me describe this week’s challenges:

(1) For the mini-challenge, Tyler Florence asked each contestant to do a sixty-second instructional video on a food technique. Kelsey won this one and her video is showcased on the Food Network site. Jen lost it after being told not to apologize AGAIN.

(2) Kelsey also won the main challenge; Michael Symon(who I have finally come to grips with for winning the Next Iron Chef competition – I don’t think they’ll do that again, though) had each contestant plan two fish dishes. One would use a sweet ingredient. Then the dishes were to be served to 30 members of the Atlantic Coast Guard with a short presentation.

Now for my gripes:

(1) Jen, you need to withdraw from this challenge and go see a counselor immediately. I know I should be talking, having been forced to visit many many shrinks for my autism problem, but anyone who was teased as a child and still can’t get over confidence issues in adulthood expect in private needs therapy. Jen, I really would like to see your kid’s cooking show, but not if it means you have to apologize for things you can’t control. GET HELP.

(2) Nipa, I had a few issues about you, but I want to say I’m sorry about those issues – you tried really hard, but I knew you’d get eliminated because anyone who walks out two episodes should not be let back in. Also, if you can’t touch dead fish, how the hell were you able to make anything other than curried crap for Indian cuisine? I really wish you could have expressed your love of Indian foodfare, but not if you can’t handle dead fish, because India is 50% coastline and clearly has a great fishing trade. Did your parents never feed you fish, girl?

Ah, c’est la vie. I hope you can get over your fish-phobia before you die of old age.

(3) Lisa, I can’t believe you wore gucci shoes and a dress to an adventure where you clearly were handling food. My mom and my sisters would never ever wear high-heeled shoes while prepping food, as that is a sign of clear disaster. I admit I too had spilled my share of foods and gotten my shirt dirty, but any idiot who wears good clothes to food prep deserves to ruin them.

Other than that, your mess may have saved you for another week, as the judges were impressed by the non-divine goddess Lisa. If you can just keep that silly Lisa, you might get into the finalist vote! I’m rooting for you as a fellow Texan. 🙂

(4) Aaron, I’m sorry, man. I know how it feels to lose someone close to you when they run away from home and don’t come back. I had a gray kitten, Ash, who I let out to prowl and he didn’t return after a week. Thinking about it… it really hurts. It does. I’m scared to get another cat because I’m afraid I might lose it too. Having someone close run away from home is horrible, thinking about the fate they might suffer.

I’m 100% behind you, man. Even if you don’t win this, you shouldn’t be sad. Keep your chin up, and maybe Josh will see you on TV and regret his actions… if he’s still alive. *sob*

(5) Adam, I regret to say that there is no way you’re going to do well here. I’m betting you’re up next on the chopping block. Tripping and falling went out with the clown age, and that video you did was just horrible. If you can’t prep an artichoke, you need to learn.

I want to see an Alton Brown prodigy, not Bozo the Clown’s Crazy Cooking.

(6) Shane and Kelsey, you are doing better. Keep it up and you might be the two who get into the finalist vote. I’m backing you two!

Enough said. Le’ts just hope next week is a little better for all enough… oh, and no more Hollywood dancing, please. 😦

Fraulein bosch devau? (trans: Oh ****, I’m doomed)

In the words of the great Shamus from Twenty Sided: “I have now acquired the tool through which I may orchestrate my own undoing. Behold, and despair:”

(Of course, it would have had more impact had I done this post two days ago… oh well. 🙂

Actually, I had an old copy of The Sims 2, but I have to get rid of it because Sims 2 Deluxe’s special Nightlife expansion is already hard-coded into the disk with its copy, so the two disks aren’t compatible.)

What in the name of all that is Arceus inspired me to go and risk my sanity with these Silly People? (Fraggle Rock reference, iirc) Well, several threads popped up on a place I like to frequent, the Let’s Play forum of the Something Awful Forums. (I recommend it to people who like video games, but don’t want to play them.)

These threads were play-throughs of The Sims 2, where the author asked people to contribute characters to the Sim Families that the author would make, and then the author would catalog what happened during the days of Sim Life. Well, they were really funny.

After I had to reinstall the game, I decided to ditch the families I had made. Somehow, I discovered a trick to getting a male Sim laid/engaged that is so ridiculously easy I’m surprised that none of the hardcore fans thought of it first… they probably did, but didn’t dare use it because it was “cheating” on the par of the cheat codes that Maxis itself put in the game as debug codes. The families I had ditched included two spectacled guys who had proposed marriage to dream women, including a man called “Ratchet”(yeah, the real Ratchet would probably bash my skull to pieces with his Omniwrench for making his human counterpart a sap) after using the “cheat” to get them to seduce the girls.

I started a “goon house” and watched two females and three males randomly generated from a fiction generator(not the Randomize function of the game itself, mind you) set fire to the kitchen and mope and gripe. Then I decided to create a storyline character, so I created a male in my image(50% in my image, and it has my real first name) and, after two Sim weeks, he had already made out passionately with two blonde women and gotten both to max relationship levels. I ended up having the Sim propose to the cooler woman, and then had him abducted by martians. (Sadly, the game didn’t get him pregnant – yeah, you read that right – and I had to cheat him into bearing a child.)

Chris, my Sim, now has had an affair, is almost ready to marry a sexy blonde with green glasses, has joined a couple of clubs, and is now nursing a baby alien boy.

The sick thing about it all is that I’m living through this Sim. I guess it’s an appropriate game for me, one where you can live out crazy romantic adventures with sexy women, seduce them(I saw the hot tub WooHoo cutscene, the engagement cutscene[thrice, see above], the alien abduction cutscene, and the baby birth scene[when Chris birthed his new son C.J. Max – thankfully the game is careful not to show actual birthing or I would get even more disgusted at being addicted to this) and even get pregnant as a guy, something many fanfiction writers love to do to male video game characters.

This must make me the craziest, nuttiest loser on the face of the god-green Earth. Pray for my dear corrupted soul, ladies and gents. Pray for it! 😦

You…In A Morphing Jar: Episode 3

(Now I get to use Yu-Gi-Oh puns! Yahoo! ^_^)
.

Yep, it’s the third episode! I apologize for putting Episode 2’s blog up just so close to this one, but I was really upset by Nipa’s tantrum, it reminded me of when I threw a fit when I couldn’t get what I wanted. I was a really bad baby back then at the tender age of 25… <_<
.

(Also, I accidently dropped a juice glass and it shattered in a million shards, then I accidently stepped on the glass, so I might have lacerated my foot, so I apologize if I’m late with this one too. Also, blame Will Wright and his evil software, The Sims 2. LOLZ!)

.

Anyways, there were two challenges again. The first(which the judges called a mini-challenge, so I’ll do that too) was to make a dish from the most culinary inert foodstuff in the universe: potatoes.

.

My thoughts:

• Jen uttered the dreaded “uhm.” I’ve been in speech classes, and the teacher always bashes me for using “uhm” so often. You can’t expect to get respect if you stammer and don’t have a speech impediment.
• Lisa stopped at 45 seconds and stalled for time. That was not smart. If the command was to spend a minute talking, you talk for a minute about the food, about your life, and what have you. I’ve had similar problems, which is yet another reason I won’t apply for a future Season of this show.

The second challenge was to make a brand of their own food product and pitch it to fifty people who shop at speciality food stores. As a surprise guest, the Divine Goddess of All That Is Brand Names and Fine Living(Martha Stewart) tried out the product as well as the judges.

My thoughts:

• Nipa did something stupid again – she stole all the cayenne pepper to make her two- ingredient seasoned sugar, leaving Aaron out in the cold. Maybe it did Aaron good, because he was able to impress The Branding Goddess with his salad dressing by using a dried jalapeno powder instead.
• Jeffery and Nipa did very poorly. While seasoning blend is probably what I’d go for if I had to do that sort of challenge, I wouldn’t try to make something any layman could make. I’d kick it up a notch with all sorts of stuff. If Nipa had put some garam masala or ground grains of paradise in her seasoning, she might have done better.
• Kelsey, girl, don’t get upset! You had no idea that the Divine Mistress of Brand Names was going to be trying your product. I probably would have done the same mistake, serving her finger food that was beneath her.

Afterthoughts:

• MY GOD, WOMEN REALLY ARE EMO!!! CAN THE WATERWORKS ALREADY! I’m not being sexist, but Lisa, Kelsey, and Jen(after the elimination) turned on the eye faucets. I know Kelsey was upset because she was told her personality was grating, but suck it up, girl! Nobody’s going to respect you if you bawl like that. Lisa had every right to cry, though; if I had met Alton Brown and he was judging my efforts, I’d be acting like a fanboy too.
• Jeffery was the third casuality; in other words, the third person eliminated. I am not being mean to the blacks, in fact I felt a little pity for Jeffery. He tried his hardest, he did much better than anyone else. He didn’t break down or walk out or act up, but they kicked him out! I’m blaming Kevin and Cory for his elimination because he was cursed with their bad luck. Of course, it could also be that he, like Cory, was not suited to life behind a camera. Regardless, we will miss him and his fine spectacles.
• Lisa once again redeems herself by winning the branding challenge.
• After reading the first comment on Bob’s blog, I have only one thing to say about that person – judge not lest ye be judged yourself! So what if Martha got busted for fraud or you think she’s a snooty snob? I never judge people based on their past actions, and her “arrogance” is only in your mind, man.

Who Got Eliminated?: Jeffery

My Predictions: One of the girls is getting eliminated next, no doubt about it. Nipa’s climbing back up, back her tantrum has really made it hard to escape elimination next time unless she pulls a miracle out of her @$$. Jen is also not doing very well, she’s still not emoting enough… and I like her idea of a show that teaches kid-friendly cooking. Guy’s great, but I can’t think of any way to make his cocktails for kids.

What I might put up on YouTube next, if it weren’t for the threat of a lawsuit: A Martha Stewart Sim dying in a kitchen fire or being eaten by a killer fly swarm, just to appease you Martha Stewart haters. 😀

Yeah, I’m back in the Solana Galaxy – shoot me with your worst! (Ratchet and Clank)

I had thought I had gotten over the craziness of that Lombax and his little robot friend when I got bored of “Up Your Arsenal.” The third game wasn’t as exciting… until Volcano Style played through the old Ratchet and Clank and I decided to buy the series again. My first purchase was a PSP game called “Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters.”

Apart from the hilariously bad sexuality inneundo used in the title – for those of you who are curious as to what “size matters” means, go watch those stupid “male enhancement” commercials that pop up on TV – and several horrible glitches(one of them which made it impossible to advance to the next planet), the game was pretty good. I’ll probably be uploading videos of it to Youtube when I get the PS2 port of that game.

Anyways, I then repurchased the original games(including a bugged version of Going Commando which has sound problems on one cutscene and repeats another later on) and went through them all, including the dreaded Up Your Arsenal… which I found better than the last two games because there were no FREAKING RACES YOU HAD TO GO THROUGH! (Size Matters has another set of races which require a lot of practice to complete them all – jerkwads!) Oh, and the Plasma Whip is freaking awesome, but then, I did watch the latest Indiana Jones movie.

So, I plan on pre-ordering the newest PSP R&C game, Secret Agent Clank, which focuses on the robotic Clank as he plays out his super secret agent role to clear his Lombax buddy’s name and bail him from jail. I am going to preorder because I get a free Clank figurine to display on my computer. ^_^