There aren't enough platform RPGs, like Metroid and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. There's plenty of platformers, and plenty of RPGs, but very few combinations of the two. Really, outside of the Castlevania and Metroid lines, there practically aren't any. There's a billion scrolling shooters, and a billion Double Dragon type games, and a billion stupid puzzle games, but there's only a handful of platform RPGs. Why is this not a more popular genre? I mean, obviously Metroid has been successful, and the Castlevania series is successful, so why not make more? Sure, they're making more Metroid games, although now Nintendo seems to have abandoned its 2D line altogether in favor of turning it into Doom, while the Castlevania line seems to only live on in the handheld realm (let's face it, the 3D ones just can't be considered games, because games are supposed to be fun). I'm tempted to get a DS just so I can play the newest Castlevania game.

I'm very glad that Metal Gear didn't get bastardized when it went 3D like so many other games have been. I played the Heroes of Might & Magic 5 demo all the way through, and I can say that its going 3D is more of a hinderance than a benefit. I didn't used to have to change camera angles, and I didn't used to have to move my guys every time I wanted them to attack, but in 5 you must learn these new and annoying things. The Castlevania line basically split into the popular 2D line on handhelds, and the abysmal 3D line on the powerful home consoles. The 2D games have been very good, although not quite as good as SotN, while the 3D games have been so bad that they are unplayable.

I think Capcom got the 2D to 3D upgrade right. Oh, sure, they've screwed it up with a few titles (anyone ever played Megaman 64?), but then look at the later Street Fighter games, especially Capcom vs SNK 2. It's still mostly 2D art, but they use 3D art where appropriate. What a novel idea! Why can't more games do this? I understand that everyone wants to go 3D now, but you don't have to abandon playability to do it. People should be focusing on the game, not how 3D it can be.

And then they should make some more platform RPGs.

A lot of people are always trying to figure out "the meaning of life". I think there's a very clear problem with this pursuit. Douglas Adams made fun of this in his book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but I think that most of the people who read it still didn't understand the underlying point he was trying to make. When you ask "What is the meaning of life?", what exactly are you asking? Do you understand the question you're asking? I think your quest for the meaning of life should begin with understanding of the question itself. Exactly what is it you're trying to figure out? Life, the universe, and everything? The answer? That's pretty vague, there. Even if someone told you the answer, would you understand it without any comprehension of the question? So, if you can figure out what is you want to know, I think finding the answer to your question would be a lot easier. You also might find some answers in my FAQ. That should, at least, help you get started.

Lots of people want to lose weight. The success of "miracle diets" proves this. However, people don't want to make too many sacrifices to do this. They don't want to go to they gym. That takes so much time out of your day and is a lot of work. They don't want to reduce the amount they eat. They don't want to give up fried chicken and chocolate cake. But they want to lose weight. So what do they do?

They stay fat and whine about it.

Well, I've got a diet & excersize plan that's easy and affordable. You won't see quick results with this diet, but if you stick with it, you will slowly lose weight and be healthier.

Step 1 - The Excersize:
Start with 10 push-ups and 10 sit-ups a day. Just that. It won't even take you 5 minutes out of your day and all you need to do them is a floor. The first week you don't even have to do them all at once. The second week, however, you have to do 10 of each in a row. Keep at it until it doesn't hurt so much, and then add 5 to each. Once that stops hurting as much, kick it up to 20. Then just keep doing 20 of each. You can increase beyond 20 if you really feel gung-ho about it, but on some days you may just want to drop it back to 20, and that's perfectly okay. For the first few weeks at least of doing this, take a warm-hot shower after doing the excersizes. This will help prevent your muscles from cramping up. Also, make sure you don't overdo it, or you won't be able to do it the next day. If it hurts too much to do that last push-up, don't do it.

Step 2 - Drinks:
Drink a full glass of water with every meal. You can drink it right before the meal, or while you're eating the meal, but don't wait until you're done with the meal, and make sure you finish the glass of water before your meal. Do not drink anything else until you've finished your glass of water. Also, when you go to get a drink of something, consider water. If you must have a soda, have a diet soda. If you want some flavor, they actually have flavored water now. I've had it before, and it's not bad. It's also good to have a small glass of water before and after excersizing.

Step 3 - Meals:
Do not put things on your food that don't belong on your food. No chocolate sauce on your fries. No pancake syrup on your chicken. No mayonaise on anything. These are things that don't belong. Avoid strange combinations of food. Also, as much as possible, cut out fried foods and high fructose corn syrup. You'd be surprised how many food items have high fructose corn syrup in them, regardless of how unhealthy it is. Now, if you're on the Atikin's diet and think you can have all the fried food you want, think again. If you'd actually read up on the Atkin's diet, it says to avoid fried foods, red meat, and pork. So much for the bacon myth. Oh yeah, no more bacon. Don't eat bacon. More than half of it is just cooked lard. If you must have bacon, have turkey bacon or canadian bacon. Both are healthier than regular bacon. IMHO, turkey bacon is better than regular bacon anyway.

Step 4 - Desert:
You do not need desert. Don't have desert. Of course, you'd never manage to stay on the diet if you had to cut out desert entirely. So, rather than taking such a dramatic measure, limit yourself. Have only five deserts each month. Now, make them last. Don't use them all up at the beginning of the month. Also, those carry over. If you only have 4 deserts one month, you can have 6 the next. But, you have to keep track. Every time you have a desert, you have to record it. And don't say "Oh, this doesn't count as a desert because..." It always counts as a desert. You know why? Because it's a desert item. I don't care if you're having chocolate cake for breakfast. That counts as one of your deserts for the month. Now, there is an exception. Raw fruit never counts as a desert. You know why? Because it's healthy. Fruit is very tasty, and high in natural sugars, but it is also good for you. Who says everything healthy tastes bad? So, if you start having fruit for desert, you'll queue up a bunch of regular deserts rather quickly. Now, if your pour chocolate syrup over the fruit or something like that, then it counts as one of your deserts. Remember, if you cheat, you're only hurting yourself. Each time you cheat is another nail in your coffin.

Step 5 - Realization:
Now, after a while of doing step 1, you're going to realize that the reason it hurts as much as it does isn't only because you haven't been excersizing, but because you've been eating too much and not drinking enough water. After a while of doing the excersizes every day, you start thinking about things a different way. You start to think about how water helps clear waste materials out of your body that have built up where your muscles and fat are. Those waste materials induce pain when excersizing. So, drinking more water reduces the pain. Also, not eating before excersizing also helps. You also start thinking about what's healthier to eat, because healthier foods will also make it easier and less painful to do the excersizes. These things aren't part of the diet, they're just some things you'll start to do on your own.

Well, I hope that helps. That's the Slow & Easy diet. You won't see results very fast, but it's easy to stick with, and you will eventually see results.

The Heroes 5 demo randomly decided to work today. I don't know why. I didn't change anything, it just started working. Of course, I immediately found a bug. One of the requirements on the single-player mission is to capture a town in 1 week. It doesn't say which town, just a town. Now, when you start the level, on your map with a large dark area between you and it, there's a neutral town revealed to the North. I guess you're supposed to take that. I didn't notice it until I had travelled pretty far South and West. I came upon an enemy-owned town and took it on day 6. At the end of day 7, I lost the game. Why? Because I didn't take the town they expected me to take. I took a different one. Wow, that's lame. At least it didn't crash on me.

Yesterday, not a lot went right for me. In fact, just about everything went wrong. No matter what I did, nothing worked out. Maybe yesterday was a cursed day for me or something. Thursday went pretty well. Maybe Friday was my retribution. A long time ago, I said that any time something good happened to me, it meant that something really bad was queued up, waiting to happen. I had forgotten about that until just now when I started writing this post.

Anyway, maybe it's because everything else went wrong, but the Heroes of Might & Magic 5 demo doesn't work for me. I read in their tech support forums about it crashing a lot and people having it crash after getting into a game or even as early as the splash screen loading. For me, it crashes immediately after I double-click the program. I don't even get a splash screen. I don't have trouble running any other programs on my computer, so I can only assume that it's a flaw in the program. It's generally a bad sign when the beta runs better than the demo, and the Heroes 5 beta was a train wreck.

Well, some people have obviously gotten further into the demo than I have. Maybe they're running ATI boards or AMD processors. I've got a GeForce 6600 and an Intel processor. You know, I used to have an AMD processor, but I changed over to Intel last time I upgraded my mother board. So far, I've been thinking that was a mistake. Many things actually ran faster on my slower machine. I'm also swearing off of Asus motherboards. They've pissed me off just one too many times.

So, if you got the Heroes 5 demo to work on your computer, let me know.

On a side note, the forum is on its way back. There's currently one up, but I haven't configured it yet. It won't have any carry-overs from the old forum, though.

Downloading stuff has become a bit of a bitch lately. Nobody hosts their own files anymore. They're all hosted by filehosting services now. If I want to download a patch for a game, I will often find myself waiting 40 mintues just to start downloading it.

One of the less-used file hosting services is File Front. They are growing in popularity, though. I don't know if these guys have good business sense or not, but one of the things that really makes them stand out from other file hosting services is that I've never had to wait to start downloading from them. On top of that, I can get my files at a relatively good speed. They have a pay service, but I'm not about to pay to download files I should be getting for free. I'm currently download the Heroes of Might & Magic 5 demo from them at about 65KBps. There's a couple reasons it's kinda slow. First, the demo just came out, so there's a lot of people downloading it. Second, on top of my currently running torrents, my Internet connection's been kinda fucked up lately. I don't know if my server's having problems or if it's Verizon, but that's irrelevant to the actual current topic.

Well, it's kind of a public service announcement this post. If you've got a list of mirrors, a good first try would be File Front. Unless, of course, you want to pay for downloading. Then I don't have a recommendation.

For those of you who need it, here's an easy and quick reference refresher course on part of the English language:

There - Referring to a place or position.
Their - Plural possessive.
They're - They are.

Were - Plural past-tense. Refers to lycanthrope when used as a prefix.
We're - We are.
Where - Referring to a place or position.
Ware - Product for sale or trade.

Light - Visible wavelength of energy. Also a small amount of weight.
Lite - Usually means "reduced serving size".

Sort of

While - During, whereas, or although.
Why - Beginning to a question of cause, or describing that cause.

Should've - Short for "should have".
Would've - Short for "would have".
Could've - Short for "could have".

I just watched this movie Krush Groove. It's basically a reimagining of the beginning of Def Jam (in other words, it's not the "true story"). One thing that's cool about the movie is that it was made right after Def Jam got started, and released in 1985. But what's really cool about it is how many of the people are playing themselves. It's got Run DMC, Sheila E, Kurtis Blow, The Fat Boys, and even Rick Rubin all playing themselves. This was before all these artists really blew up. It doesn't stop there. It's also got appearances/performances by the Beastie Boys, LL Cool J, New Edition, and some other artists I can't really remember anymore. Russel Simmons, the guy who started Def Jam, is probably the only person who doesn't play himself in the movie. He's played by Blair Underwood. Russel Simmons actually played a different character in the movie. He also co-produced it.

It's really cool to watch this movie that features all these artists before their big hits. It's got Run DMC before Raisin' Hell. It's got Beasite Boys before License to Ill. It's got Rick Rubin before anyone knew who Rick Rubin was (in case you don't know, he's a very famous producer; produced many big records). Granted, by the time the movie came out, all these artists were more than just street names. Still, most were not nearly as big as they were a year later.

If you remember the 80's, it's worth renting.

Hot damn! I've got a traffic rank. It's finally happened! *sniff* I'm so proud. It's not even an April Fool's joke (which would've been yesterday). Now if I can just break into the top 2 million websites category.

Also of note today is the beginning of Daylight Savings Time. Be sure to set your clocks ahead 1 hour so you're not late to work tomorrow (which is most likely where you'll be when you're reading this).