Another favorite roundup

Because I have been AFK for like two days. Sorry guys! I'm probably suffering from my typical lack of motivation, that cold air that blows through the cracks of your window and keeps you in bed an extra hour; otherwise known as my never-ending love of starting a project and jumping off it. But here we go, let's do this.

Had Court and No Sleep

So, I didn't sleep last night because I had court at 9am and I would have overslept and missed it, so now I feel like crap and want to die/sleep all day, but have to force myself to stay awake until tonight so I can get real sleep. It was a stupid thing, "criminal mischief," aka I spray-painted "Feliz 1984" all over my town, then started spray-painting smiley faces, and got caught doing the latter, confessed to a few of them so I wouldn't get anal-raped by the penal system. Anyway, it's like a 500 dollar fine + 150 dollars for court, which are both bullshit: mandatory minimum fines need to disappear. We live in America, and hell, the things they saw me do? Gone because it's been a solid month of rain.

But anyway, enough of my whining. Since I won't be making a real post tonight, I thought I'd ask you guys a few questions!

If you have a favorite actor or actress, who are they? Are they also in your favorite movie, or any of your top films? Name any and all of the above as you see fit.

Guilty Gear

Click here for post mood music.

You may recognize this name from a previous post. Guilty Gear is a fighting game series designed by Daisuke Ishiwatari, who not only created the game itself, but designs the characters, storylines, and composes the music. The game itself features numerous references to musical culture (example: Axl Low is thought to be based on Axl Rose for their strikingly similar appearance and he even wears a union jack flag shirt), but most commonly features subtle allusions to Daisuke's favorite band: Queen. Not unlike most fighting games, much of Guilty Gear is based around the player's ability to execute a number of combos, often involving ways to knock opponents skyward to continue, and also feature devastatingly powerful techniques that require you to build up "Tension" to execute. The most powerful moves (each character has one) are called "Destroy," as they are one-hit KOs; however, the offside is that each character's techniques, including Destroys, are performed differently. Some are ridiculously easy to dodge, some are nigh impossible, some can be blocked and some can't. One of the most impressive things about the series is that Daisuke learns from each game and applies new ideas and maneuvers for players. For instance, Guilty Gear XX introduced False Roman Cancels, air throws, and Aerial Dust: I still don't know what most of the terms mean.

However, you might ask yourself: why should I care about another fighting game? It's true the market is saturated with button mashing, rage inducing, controller hurling hybrid fighters, but the thing that sets Guilty Gear apart from the pack is what makes it so unique. Let me just say this, I've played...a lot of fighting games, I've played a lot of games in general, but I've played basically every mainstream fighting game: Tekkan, Soul Caliber, Marvel vs. Capcom, Naruto (the whole series), Dragonball (all of them), Clay Fighter, etc. etc. I'm not a fan of fighters, I feel like I'm horrible at them and I never put the dedication in to learn how to play effectively. Guilty Gear (and Dragonball Z: Budokai) are the only fighting game series I've ever really found myself enjoying.

Why You Should Play Guilty Gear
1) It's easy to pick up. You have four attacks: low punch, low kick, high punch, and high kick. You push one a few times, press another one: you've mastered combos in Guilty Gear. It doesn't take a highschool diploma to do damage in this game. The real difficulty lies in the execution of said combos, effective blocking techniques, air dodging, jump timing, etc. (a lot of the characters move at different speeds, so it gets really tricky depending on who you fight). And by the way, the game is legitimately difficult. You will have a hard time on Normal.

2) The characters are interesting, unique and have really cool designs. You might know Guilty Gear best because of this little fellow.

3) The music is above and beyond what you could expect to hear in a fighting game. Seriously, what is better to beat the crap out of somebody than blazing guitar riffs?

But in all seriousness. The best part of Guilty Gear is that it is fun. Plain and simple. So I'll leave you with a video of my favorite character (Chipp), demonstrating his combos:

Another day, another no post

Sorry guys, I have just been swamped with nothing the past few days. Such an overwhelming amount of nothing that I have been spending way too much time writing a d20-based RPG (from the ground up) for my friends (called The Horror) and the rest of the time I've been working on my drawing skills (been going at it for two months, finally starting to get better).

For now, here's a song I am really liking right now. It's definitely going to be the "climax" song in my Electrosexual mix I am also working on. DidyouseewhatIdidthere?

Whoops

A whole day went by and I forgot to make an update, so here's...my top three favorite things at the moment!

Daisuke Ishiwatari

Four Favorite Bands and Movies

There's no update today because I've spent, I don't know, the past two hours trying to clean out all the blogs I follow that don't update anymore. Also: sleeping schedules suck. I went to sleep earlier than usual last night and woke up even later than I normally do. How does that even work?

If you really need something to tide you over, here's four of my favorite bands and movies that I will not do full posts on because they're already popular / well-known enough:

Read as: I'm a big fat liar and I posted way more than I thought I was going to.
Deal w/it nrds.

Bands

Gorillaz: I wasn't a big fan of "The Fall", the most recently released album, but after listening to it a lot more, it's definitely grown on me. I like it more than Plastic Beach, but not more than Demon Days. Plastic Beach feels so melancholy, I can't listen to any of the songs, except "Stylo" and "Some Kind of Nature", with my regular shuffle music. "The Fall" is also an album that needs to be listened to on its on for the full effect, while this is also true for "Demon Days," it is not nearly as pronounced. Their first, self-titled, album I've always found to be great, but have a hard time ranking it, since the style varies wildly throughout. All are worth a listen though.

Daft Punk: With my discovery of "Alive 2007," Daft Punk soared into and took my top-listened to band spot from Gorillaz (though they have since lost the position, they continue fighting hard for it). I don't much care to listen to most of Daft Punk's music with my regular shuffle palette, but when I'm drawing or writing, I always have them on.

The Doors: Do I ever need to explain the cultural and musical impact this band had one the world? I might not obsess over Jim Morrison like most people, but I am a diehard Doors fan. I don't think I've ever heard a Doors song I did not like.

Rise Against: I feel like Rise Against is the perfect spiritual successor to 80's punk rock. Their actual music may lean towards punk influenced alternative rock, but the roots are there. Almost all their music is about a cause, fighting for something: whether it be war, love, or purpose in general, there is a vested emotional attachment.

Movies

(As a note, don't be afraid to watch the linked trailers, I made sure to watch them first and they don't spoil anything, if I didn't link a trailer, it spoils way too much: avoid watching them)

28 Days Later: The movie that, as far as I am concerned, defines the quality we should expect from modern horror movies. The desolate, bleak atmosphere is almost too much to bear at some points. The horror protagonist Jim feels is real, the characters are all so well written that you can't help but feel for them, hope for them to survive.

The Machinist: This is my favorite Christian Bale movie and in my top ten movies of all time. Bale does an incredible job playing fucked up characters because of how much dedication he puts into it. The tale of a tormented auto-part plant worker, The Machinist follows Bale as Trevor, slowly piecing together missing fragments of his life. But does he really want to know what there is to find?

The Prestige: One of my favorite mindfuck movies. The tale of rival magicians, constantly attempting to outdo each other with crazier and crazier stunts. Well-written, clever and keeps you guessing until the very end. Oh, did I mention it stars Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, and was written by Christopher Nolan? Oh, and David Bowie is Nikola Tesla? Yeah, that's how awesome this movie is.

REC: If I was making a list of the best zombie movies ever made, REC would be in the top three. The story of a late-night news reporter and shot from the perspective of her cameraman, REC follows the news team on an ordinary firefighter distress call. Hoping for some breaking news, Angela gets far more than she expected. If you're not a fan of shaky cam, I'd still suggest giving it a chance, if only for the atmospheric tension and play-by-the-rules horror writing (i.e. you will not watch it in the dark at night). Was remade into an abortion called Quarantine for U.S. audiences, which almost completely destroyed the credible of the original as a film fr those who did not see it first. Followed by a sequel, aptly named REC 2, which takes place immediately after the first film. A good sequel, but not spectacular like the original.