28P. Bad Romance

Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah rom-mah-rom-mah-mah ga ga-ooh-la-la, Fuck you Cid.

I spent a week and a half fighting Cid Raines. Wait, let me backtrack. Just less than 3 weeks ago I got Final Fantasy XIII. It was magical. I was so stoked to get my hands on a new Final Fantasy game, since I'd been waiting for about 5-ish years since the last one. I am aware it came out wall before I purchased it. I had no money - what do you expect of me?

Anyways, I got the game and it was magical. The graphics were beautiful, the story rich in detail and the characters um... well they grew on me. If you played past Final Fantasy games, you probably share the same sentiment as me. Lightning is a strong leading character with excellent potential right from the start. You can almost smell the emo-ness she channels from Cloud. Snow is a loving man, with a certain penchant to play hero. Sazh is black and he has an adorable baby chocobo living in his fro. Rad. Anyways, whatever - you probably don't care about all the characters. Rightly so.

After about 26 hours of gameplay, I got to a place called The Fifth Ark. Now, there are some spoilers coming up. Well, technically, I already spoiled it. Whatever. You fight Cid Raines, and he's a total prick. For the next week and a half I was stuck fighting this guy. I almost gave up and was about to make the disc into one fierce beer coaster- like I did with a certain one of Amanda's CDs. Cid has power, speed and smart AI - everything a gamer doesn't want to see in a boss. Once you get him down to a certain amount of HP, he metamorphoses and becomes really hard to damage. At the 20 minute mark, he hits your party leader with Doom, which kills you after 2 minutes, no matter what. The trick is hitting him with a Stagger and do a ton of damage before he gets the chance to transform. Every guide online won't tell you this. They will give you detailed descriptions on how and when to change your Paradigms and where to use certain combinations. FUCK 'EM. There's an item called "Fortisol", and it is your best friend. I'd never used one before for fear of wasting them. In my rage, the shrouds became a complete oversight, and it took me almost 2 weeks to remember that they existed. Fortisol gives your characters Haste, Faith and Bravery. I decided to try it out for the first time.

1:54.

One minute and fifty-four seconds.

27A. My name is Amanda, and I clear my Facebook wall.

I feel as though this entry is going to be a little contrieved because the pressure is on to post, as a) I haven't in awhile, and b) someone's been on my case about it.

I would easily say that this summer has been a fail so far. Not much has been going on, and Sudbury is about as exciting as the sex scenes from "The Room". I would say the weather has been the biggest letdown; it's been 40 degrees with the humidex some days. It's so unbearingly hot, but it's not the good kind of hot where the sun is scorching, and the UV index is at 8, and I can actually get a tan. It's that bullshit humidity kind of hot, where the air is so thick and gross, I could just set myself on fire.

I've recently begun a position as a front desk clerk at one of the local hotel in Sudbury. On the awesome scale, I would put it at a 6, but I think it'll get a bit higher once I get to know all of the staff a bit better. It's rarely boring, which is good.

*NOTE: For those who are not viewers, let it be known that David Duchovny's character on 'Californication' is Hank Moody, which is probably the raddest name of all time, and he is the coolest human being ever.

I had a conversation with a friend today about guys who honk at girls. What do they expect to accomplish? I mean, even if the guy is a complete babe, what are we supposed to do? Flag you down? Chase after your car, and talk to you through your window like a hooker? But I mean, that's never the case anyways. No attractive, professional, level-headed guy with an executive driven car is ever going to honk at a girl walking down a street.

I haven't played Pokemon in about a week. I'm on Cinnabar Island, and I don't really care to deal with that maze to get the key for the 7th gym. Not now anyways. I'm also getting carpal tunnel from playing so much.

I love naps. The end.

26P. Fucking and Airbending

I'd like to apologize for not blogging for a while, specifically to our main reader(s), and also to those who flip by when I update my Facebook and Twitter with "NEW BLOG POST PLEASE READ ME".

So, sorry David Berman.

I haven't been blogworthy lately, since for the last 2 weeks I've been sitting around waiting for my mouth to stop being excruciatingly painful. I had surgery on my gums because they were receding. In other words, I have a hole in the roof of my mouth from where they took the skin to make my new gums, and I can't eat pointy food. I miss tortilla chips.

Without further digression, I'd like to get on with the blog. Recently, my blog partner Amanda (you may be familiar with her work) has gotten into a show called "Californication", and has been desperately trying to get me to watch. So I downloaded season 1. Now, it just so happened that the show I was originally downloading (Avatar, the last Airbender) was completed at the same time. So this morning, I watched the first and second episodes of both series.

It has become blatantly obvious that the shows Amanda and I like are very different, aside from AFV. Except during AFV, we differ as well - I like the videos where small children and ugly dogs get hurt, and Amanda likes things involving water/winter sports and when geriatrics fall over. And she also wants Tom. Move over, DB.

Anyways, I've decided to do a comparative analysis of the two shows. Which is probably more than Amanda is doing right now.

Main Characters:

Avatar's Aang and Californication's Mulder

Aang is an Airbender. The last of his kind. And going to be the most powerful. He's what's known as 'The Avatar', and no that doesn't mean he's a big blue Pandoran inhabitant. It means he's going to master all of the elements (Air, Water, Earth and Fire) in order to return peace to the world. It just so happens that all this pressure is put on a 12 year old boy who was frozen in an ice cube at the southern pole for 100 years.

Mulder is a writer from New York who moved to Los Angeles with his girlfriend and their child. Now ex-boyfriend and separated parent to his 12 year old daughter, Mulder must solve the mystery of where the aliens took Scooby and the Gang. Or something like that. He's a writer with a hit movie based off his last book. He hates the movie. Did I mention that he sleeps with anything attractive and skinny that moves? He's a bit of a nympho.

They're not exactly similar in any way. Aang is kind of oblivious, and Mulder is very self-aware. Aang rides a magic flying bison, Mulder rides women. They're both probably at the same maturity level though. I don't know if that's saying a lot for Aang, or not much for Mulder. Or vice-versa.

Supporting Characters:

Katara & Sokka and Karen & ...Bill? Bob? Billy-Bob?

Katara and Sokka are siblings, and members of the Southern Water Tribe. Katara is a fledgling Waterbender, and Sokka is the last remaining able-bodied man in the whole village since the men went off to war against the Fire Nation. While Katara is level-headed and adventurous but timid in the face of danger, Sokka is excitable and foolish yet brave - not to mention he's a loving brother. They serve as Aang's protectorates and, in Sokka's case, his comedic foil.

Karen is Mulder's ex-girlfriend and Bob is her new boyfriend. I don't like either of these characters. Bob is a pretentious douchebag with an ugly, vomit stained painting, and Karen is an "I'm only playing hard to get for the sake of the TV show" kind of girl. If this were a competition, point goes to Avatar.

Transportation:

Mulder's Shitty Car

Aang's Flying Fucking Bison named Appa

Point: Avatar.

Plot and Storytelling:

Avatar, The Last Airbender:

As the story goes, Aang was frozen away for 100 years, and he's now gotta learn all the elements, become the all powerful Avatar that legends tell of and save the world from the warring Fire Nation. For the record, don't go see the movie. Watch the series.

Avatar's storytelling is linear. There's a goal - to become the Avatar and save the world. For a show aimed at 8-16 year olds, it does its job well. Its engaging and funny, with a good solid story.

Californication:

Mulder moved to L.A. to get more work as a writer, and came into writer's block after he and his girlfriend split. He's having difficulty adjusting to his new life, and is constantly filling the void with alcohol and copious amounts of copulation.

Californication's storytelling is - by nature of being a TV show - linear as well, however, there's no specific goal or endpoint. It's the story of a man's life and his struggles as a writer/father/nympho. There's a lot of fucking. And some punching. Sometimes, at the same time.

At this point, I'd like to make some general observations before I conclude my analysis. Avatar is awesome. The characters are funny, there's the right amount of seriousness regarding the situation the world is in, and there's a flying fucking bison. Californication has sex, drugs, alcohol and sex. It also has sex. Mulder also said "Jesus H. Christ" which was rad. And he blogs. Represent.

Conclusively, I like both shows. I LOVE Avatar. I moderately enjoy Californication. But I do like them both. Overall, I'd say the story of Avatar is far superior to Curly-fornication, but the one liners in the latter are just too good sometimes.

"Yes, and it might be nice if I could fallate myself while farting the White Album but I haven't been able to quite master that yet." - Mulder.