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Yea I'm not an emotional giddy person, and I usually try to squash it down and deny deny deny when I do get twitches of such feelings. So I always find those kind of crushes unbearably awkward.

Yea, it was the "I'm amazing, bow down to my importance, Harry is clearly mine because I'm so awesome" crap that I couldn't stand.

Well that sniper situation doesn't quite seem like an example of what I mean, because no that's aimless. I mean in Mario Kart I hate battle mode, it's just kill each other off with no goal. I hate those challenges. That's not winning it's just random annoying shooting. So whether I'm alone or with a team yes I like the thwarting and accomplishing, not the mindless. It's not about the one-on-one or whatever aspect like with that sniper scenario. It's about the competitive. But not competitive just for the sake of competitive. It has to be a good game. My favorite games are good games that are competitive. Competitive but not a good game, or good game but with no edge, I will either not like them or not like them as much. Shooters/Battle games where you are working to knock each other out were not a good example of what I meant when I said what I liked. Those games are mindless and boring. It isn't that they are competitive that I dislike, it's that they are boring.

I mean the thrill of competition is the exhilaration, so it actually has a competitive, strategic, goal element. Competitive in that it has a point. So yea battle mode would be an example of something I really hate too. And usually my favorite games are active. I have boundless energy and am lucky enough to not have asthma, so in general if given the choice between a video/board/card game and a sport/movement type game I'll go with the latter. Which is also why I think I lean towards player versus player. Most of those games that have a lot of individual components bore me. Golf = SO boring. Whereas Water Polo is so fun. I get to combine my love of water athleticism with violence and exertion, it's grand. xd

I think in general though we play very different types of games, not just in the my liking sports thing. Which is why I think we probably aren't thinking of the same things when we say competitive. Shooters aren't my favorite games. Usually adventure and racing games are. The only time I like fighting games is when they are team/multiple player. Then I love them, but it's the team aspect, it's why L4D attracts me, although it still probably wouldn't be within my top category game types.

I really don't remember Duelist Kingdom in the manga well enough to know what was filler and what was canon. I just know that Noa, and everything b/w BC and Egypt (Doma, Grand Prix...am I forgetting something?) was anime only. At least that's what I was told and went with it. And as you seem to confirm that I feel not mistaken. In general I like the anime better so clearly the filler isn't something that I mind and generally find a better thing rather than detriment to the series.

YGO was one of my first animes that I appreciated as anime. Pokemon was a cartoon to me as was DBZ and even YYH, I watched them in middle school and didn't recognize them as something else. Other than Inuyasha I don't think I was yet familiar with any other anime series. I think I started FMA a year later. So yea I think series I start now bother me less when I think about it, but because YGO was in many ways a first for me (and Inuyasha explains things in pretty great depth, sometimes to the point of confusion it's too heavy) that quality of being "more than a cartoon" yet a bit too gaped and unrealistic got on my nerves. I think the only bits that were explained of the personality were so contrary to split personality disorder that it just got on my nerves more rather than less. It's like an incomplete, which made me feel it would have been better if they hadn't started it in the first place. Although man don't get me started on the Egyptian Arc, my biggest annoyances (with what I like of the series that is) is definitely all in there. Thief King would probably be the absolute best example of that. Grr. xd

Hmm...that came up in here before, closed society trapped underground for thousands of years and all...however I don't remember which thread, coulda been more than one.

I don't recall talking about Nazis or the Holocaust...though I do do so on occasion, they are such a unique and yet multifaceted analogy and history. Regardless, if you are out of deodorant you need to buy more. If you are over the age of puberty the answer is always you need more. Even if you don't think you stink, you probably do, you're just used to your "au natural" odor. Working at middle schools was always the worst torture. They were old enough to be stinky, but not old enough to fully know what to do about it. Being stuck in a filing room with 7th graders is my idea of eternal damnation. If the smell doesn't kill you, the kind of things they find worthy of conversing about most certainly will. Camels most definitely need to calm down, though in general I just try to stay away from them. I'm think in 2012 I will apply for PhD, as for the rest of the world, not all that fussed really.

Kangaroos...nah, too silly, and meaningless. They don't have enough sentient intent behind them to make that worth debating about. If dolphins were physically capable that might go somewhere. Certain primates could also get up to a great deal of mischief behind the wheel. Marsupials though? Not really. Boxes already give us advice, from monitors to towers to laptops general retention of the square-esque facet, we get a plethora of box from boxes. Considering the ungodly freezing atmosphere surrounding the moon, quite awhile I'd say. It would at least be easily preserved at a nigh permanent level. When would it no longer be consumable might be a better question.

There was a point?

Morgey! Ugh, getting my assessments back and it's such a blow to my self-esteem, haha. I'm just not used to thinking of marks in the same way the English do. I'm looking at grades that would be considered a D and not passing back in the states and am supposed to understand that they are not only passing but they are actually considered merit worthy. Oye!

Waiting for one more paper back and then I can relax, have been so on edge. How is your dissertation stuff going Morgey, you said you got an extension back in December, is it due anytime soon?

Oh God I hope it's not like 2012, aliens might be ok. Although I'm hoping there will be no cowboys. Seriously, who came up with THAT twist? I just like how everyone is like...James Bond and Indian Jones/Hans Solo team up to fight...aliens...as cowboys!! What a horrible, horrible tag line.

Haha, I'm glad you approve of my theories on kangaroos. razz A button huh? That makes perfect sense! Well there we go, now we can quash all that cheese nonsense.

Haha, seeya in a few months!

I guess with some games there is an element of screwing over the other player to the game, like with something like Monopoly (though Monopoly gets on my nerves after awhile). However with offensive/defensive games (like most sports) that's not really the best strategy to go with, particularly on offensive (which is my preferred position of play, I like to be in control xd ). For the most part if the games primary element is not something that's within my own hand I don't like the game as much. I like playing against people, but I like playing my own hand and strategies, not just trying to tip the opposite side of the board. Sometimes it's fun to tip, but you don't have the best control in those games. My least favorite racing games are things like Mario Kart for that reason. I mean the game is not a racing game, it's not about racing. It's a battle to knock out your opponents. Not a straight battle like battle mode, so I can enjoy race mode some, but it's not a racing game. The element I like about racing is literally racing, trying to get through the track and earn a fast time. Generally a faster time than the other players. Trying to aim bombs at other cars to get them off the road so that I'm in first by default is not my ideal of a game.

I don't like most shooters either, but I am intrigued by L4D and Portal (don't know too much about TF2 other than Karma likes it, heh), for the reasons you stated. They do seem to have an element that makes them more than just shooters, and I do like team games. Generally my favorite games that do have an element that's directly playing against another are team games. My all time favorite game though, is one where you are definitely trying to tip the other players hand. It's Spades, which is similar to Hearts, but more similar to Bridge. I assume that most people at least know Hearts since it's been built into almost every basic computer since the beginning of computer-dom. xd Spades (and Bridge) however, is a team game. You have your own goal to complete with your partner, and sometimes you either have to try and screw the other team or you'll miss your goal, or you can choose to try to do it, so long as you don't end up hurting yourself too much. Suicide is a version of Spades that exponentially increases the risk with every single hand. The game can either go ten times faster because of it, or take forever. However each hand in itself is this mini-pile of stress that I just adore. Because I'm sadistic and masochistic all rolled into one, haha. I like Bridge, but my preference for Spades is a good example of that fine balance I need between competition and strategy. Bridge is almost entirely about screwing the other team. Because if you aren't the team actively in control of points, then your only purpose as a team is to make sure the other team doesn't meet their goal. It's fun, but it's definitely a game where only one team can really have an achievement goal. Spades you kind of get both. Teamwork, plus messing with another team, plus strategy - and you can always pick and choose within that as well.

So yea I don't like games that expound extra effort into just knocking out the other team as much, but I do like games that let you do that while working on something else as well. Kind of the two birds/one stone thing. I love 2 for 1. ^_~

I think I started Pokemon in 5th or 6th, and DBZ and YYH in 7th or 8th. However the latter two were just shows on Cartoon Network, and so yes I might vaguely have been aware the art was better, but given the demographic it aired in and the fact that they weren't shows I talked to anyone else about, it really didn't stand out to me that they were different. I wasn't aware enough to grasp that it's this continuous deeper plot line at a level above that of the average cartoon that was fascinating me. I just thought, really awesome cartoon. With Pokemon my brother was more into than I was when it first came out, and I just watched it during breakfast with him, not entirely into it. I didn't really like it quite as much until I started watching the reruns in HS (which is how I got into YGO, it came on after). By then I'd started watching Inuyasha and had a better - but still vague - concept of anime. Because again for me up until about college, anime was just a private thing for me. I didn't know anyone who was specifically into it (though I got excited senior year when I discovered two of my friends were into Inuyasha, one of whom I found that revelation kind of surprising from). So all my thoughts on it as a genre were slow coming and self-formed for the most part. I think FMA is what got me into other stuff, and what I really feel was my "first" anime as a first. Which is probably why it plays that same role for me that YGO does for you. However YGO is the anime that got me into anime communities, so for that it holds it's own attachment for me as well.

Man I can't find where I brought up a discussion but I know what you are talking about, and I do think it's on the Malik thread, in spite of me again still not even remembering what I'm talking about yet totally knowing. I'm so ridiculous. xd

Hahahaha, no that's fine on Cowboys and Aliens. And I get why they are making it too. I just feel like it will be horrible. And I feel like it will be horrible because of the casting. Not that I don't like both actors. They are just going to be serious, stoic, characters in a ridiculous situation. Throw in 13 (I'm blanking on her really name at the moment so going by her House character name) and I feel it'll be a cheesy serious nightmare. But yea the concept is unavoidable. Plus we were totally talking about that way back when, at least sort of. I think we had Cowboys versus Pirates and Ninjas versus Indians, something like that. And those are still horrible, and we should still totally do them. Actually Ninjas versus Indians sounds cruel, so maybe it was Pirates versus Indians and Cowboys versus Ninjas. That seems less malicious to me. xd

Hm, I could see you liking TF2. Essentially the game is a team versus team game. There are nine different classes you can play as, and teams are generally around 12 players each, though often up to 24. Then they have different games you can play against each other. My favorite is Capture the Flag, where you have to work to capture Intelligence from your enemy team's base and bring it back to yours. There's also a few variations on Capture the Point, where you have to stand on certain areas long enough to claim it as your team's; it's like capturing and defending territory. Then there's a mode where you have a freight train with a bomb, and one team tries to push it into the other team's base within a time limit. There's other things too, like melee-only combat and a bunch of different levels and server variations.

What's really fun about the game though is the class variation. Each class works in different ways to achieve victory. There's three types with three classes in each, offensive, defensive, and support. Offensive characters are used to run at the enemy and have the Soldier (most basic class who is well balanced and good at attacking), the Scout (fastest character who is good at running and grabbing Intel real fast), and the Pyro (burns things and causes chaos among the enemy team). Defensive are the Heavy (essentially the meat shield), the Demoman (he sets up bombs and such to defend areas), and the Engineer (he builds automated machine guns and healing devices). Support is the Medic (heals), the Spy (is the only character who is guaranteed to be able to take out a character in one hit, if he manages to back stab them, and can turn invisible and disguise himself to sneak into various areas), and the Sniper (sits back and picks characters off). So you get a lot of variation in how you support your team. Like I'm a good Engineer, because I'm patient and am happy to just sit back and defend my base. But you might be a good Scout, because you run in real fast and get things done, but can still pick off enemies along the way. Plus the characters and dialogue is really funny. XD

Eh, I'm cool with however bad the movie is. I just want to see it for the sake of seeing it. It's definitely one of those ones I'm going in expecting to find it terrible, but enjoy the fact that it is terrible.

Oh yeah, I remember that giant VS conversation we had. XD I don't remember who we paired against who either though.

Heheh, I actually really enjoyed the Neko Porn video. I thought it was one of the funnier ones in a long time. The letter cracked me up, and Malik in the cat ears just going "Meow" in the most unsexy voice ever. XD Yeah, it was predictable, but it was also so stupidly awkward, I really liked it. Like the Yuugiou characters turned into bad actors on something they really didn't want to do.

The stolen video, was that the Neon Genesis one? I didn't really care for that. I've seen that video opening before, with the Yuugiou characters instead, and thought it was really cool. But I might be being defensive because I like Neon Genesis. XD I don't necessarily think it's a masterpiece, but I love me some emo little gay boys and giant robot battles.

Aww, wish you would've gotten a better grade. Go easy on the alcohol though. ^^;;

JK: I had a similar problem with grading when I went to sixth form because I'd gone from a failing school where was a big fish to a good one where I was an amoeba, so by university, I was used to getting grades below what I was expecting and being okay with it . It does suck, but I suppose you could say "Yay I don't need to get 90%" except that's not how it works psychologically, so yeah, sympathy. The whole "If you get a bit over half marks, you've done really well! -pats head-" does seem a bit like it's designed to upset people. Stupid globalisation, exposing us to worlds where getting over 70% is ... possible. Maybe it is at grad level though. IDK

The dissertation's actually due in April. Which is too far away but I just need to kick myself up the backside and do the thing. The end is in sight

What about cowboys riding on dinosaurs?

Kitsune: While I'm tempted to say that life being boring and normal would be a mean twist, it's be a lie to say the idea of that didn't amuse me.

Seconded your "I'm going to see the hell out of that s**t" comment on the cowboys and aliens thing. Also, my keyboard screwed up and I typed "that hit". WHAT DOES THAT TELL YOU?

Also, boo, Reading Week is over.

Also also, did LK's account get deleted again? And I just this second noticed that Marik plays Bloodlines has a part 2.

@JK: Yeah, I thought it seemed like your kind of game, besides the FPS aspect.

Well, TF2 has 'meet the' videos that introduce all the characters by showing their skills, but also being funny. Though Scout's is probably the least-funny besides maybe Demoman's, it gives you an idea of how his gameplay works: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eaE-_GDbmQ
Sadly, there is no Meet the Pyro video yet (as well as no Medic), but here's a video of typical Pyro gameplay: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXW4ZEzWjPM
As you can see, though they're not the heaviest hitters, Pyros put people on fire, and generally when that happens, they panic and scatter, running off to find any healing they can instead of concentrating on attacking.

Haha, I'm the opposite, being best with support and worst with attack. I most often play Sniper, though Spy is my favorite class and once I get better at it (it is also the most difficult class to play) I hope to play it most often. I also play Pyro, Engineer, and Medic a lot. It's good to try all the classes occasionally though, because sometimes you're surprised at what you end up liking. I thought Sniper would actually be one of my least favorite classes. And then even though I'm not into attack at all, I love being Pyro because they're so versatile; they're meant for attack, but are great defenders too (liking checking for Spies at your base with their fire) or supporters (by running into a crowd of enemies and suicide by setting them all on fire). Plus people tend to be most afraid of Pyros, so it's fun just running up at to people with no regard for your life and seeing how they freak. XD

Yeah, Karma usually plays Medic. XD She doesn't play Soldier much, but the reason she does so much of that art is because she has a friend who plays Soldier all the time, and she always heals her. She also plays Engineer and Sniper a lot.

That'd be awesome.

I feel like the awkwardness worked for it in my case. XD It seemed like it was supposed to be awkward, because of how awkward the request was.

Yeah, the full title is Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Heh, I wish I could find something for an outlet. I never seem to need one though; it's like my feelings don't build up or anything.

@Morgey: Haha, your keyboard is psychic, it will be a hit!

Damn, just noticed that. Poor LK. D: Looks like a Japanese company claimed the writes against him.

@JK: Dude, that would be kickass, Indians riding dinosaurs.

Seriously, I was happy with just the website; wish he would've kept that up to date instead. Maybe he'll go back to it now that another Youtube account has been deleted.