Them SEASONS

It just...it just looks so beautiful. The snow actually piles on the roads. You can watch a blizzard happen outside as your sims have a warm get together indoors. The Sims 2 never had that. Also, hot dog costume. How did they come up with that? XD

The week of November 13th will be an epic one for The Sims. I've been holding off installing my copy of Supernatural until I also have Seasons so I can install them both at once. It's going to be overwhelming two huge expansion packs at once, but in a good way. A few of the expansions for The Sims 3 have felt a bit light on the content but there's no way that's going to happen this time!

Then he Died.

...And that's how a New Hope ended.

Agh, Luke was such a pain on Sith Master at the time. Now I'm trying to do the main game on that difficulty and I'm stuck at Kazdan Paratus. Didn't think the DLC would have been easier. Now where's my Force Unleashed 3?

How to Make Pop Music Better?

Have Obama "cover" it!





Cookie Monster works pretty well too.


And because I love Star Wars, here's another one:


Hey I just met you.
And this is crazy.
But I made a blog post.
So like it maybe?

Happy 21st, Sonic!

Sonic is legal now?! We're all screwed.

Another year has gone by already! To celebrate the 21st birthday of my favourite video game character, I'm going to reminisce about my top three favourite levels. One from the Genesis era, one from the Dreamcast era, and one from the modern era. Funny how that works out.

Hydrocity Zone (Sonic 3, Genesis, 1994):

This one is the king of all Sonic levels for me, especially act 2. I never get tired of the sequence where you have to run away from a wall threatening to crush you. The boss battles are also really fun.  You can go so fast the camera struggles to keep up at times! There's also some interesting alternate routes. It's a water level done right. As Sonic 3 & Knuckles was the first of the classic games I played, Hydrocity was the first thing that made me really understand why the Genesis Sonic games are held in such high regard and how SEGA did what Nintendon't. Pretty much all the levels in Sonic 3 & Knuckles are gold.

Speed Highway (Sonic Adventure, Dreamcast, 1998)

A level that truly lives up to its name. My body was not ready for the awesome that is this level when I first got to play the remake (Sonic Adventure DX) on the Gamecube. While it does have some platforming bits, this level is mainly about going fast. The brief "At Dawn" segment that finishes off the level is the icing on the cake. The music for both the beginning and end are two of my favorite songs in the series. The running down the building sequence even got a nod in City Escape, the first level in Sonic Adventure 2. Plus the level was revisited in Sonic Generations. I'll always remember the chills I got when hearing the classic remix, such an awesome take on an already awesome track.

Planet Wisp (Sonic Colours, Wii, 2010)

Now this level will always have a special place in my heart. When I first started playing Sonic Colours I thought "Yeah, this game is pretty good." Then I reached the halfway point and unlocked this wonderful work of art. The way the beginning of act 1 is especially well done with the transition from greenery to a factory under construction. It's what I would consider a great example of "tragic beauty." I was breath-taken and this was on a console with only standard definition graphics. Not to mention the music is easily some of the best in the game. You normally wouldn't expect anything sounding like it in a Sonic game. It was from then where the game went from "pretty good" to the best Sonic game since Sonic Adventure 2. I'm really glad Planet Wisp was chosen to represent Colours in Sonic Generations a year later.

Hope the years to come will bring even more memorable levels! I'm very excited about Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed coming out this fall. Hopefully the Wii U version will be a launch title.

So METAL!

For Father's Day I went to Burlington with my parents to see Walk off the Earth perform in their hometown. While I didn't take any photos or video, I do want to share something awesome that was uploaded to their YouTube channel. Gianni attempts to break the record for the longest live heavy metal scream ever recorded!



I wished I could scream like that....

Wii U is BANANAS

Alternate title: Wii U is Driving me BANANAS With Excitement.

Quiet...

...Too quiet.



Felt like taking a break from the blogging and YouTube thing. Might start again though. Maybe. Technical issues are preventing me from finishing my Aussie Life video blogs, but hopefully I can do a last entry in the near future to wrap it up. Can't believe it's been over 6 months since I arrived home. Where did the time go?!

Canada DOES Make Good Music

We take a break from the Batman spam for something pretty cool. Check out this rising star Kathleen Edwards! She produces some really melodic tunes.



I first downloaded Change the Sheets when it was a free single of the week on iTunes and got hooked instantly. Now I have the entire Voyageur album and not a single "meh" at all. Highly recommend it!

SOPA and PIPA = Temporarily Pwned

So it seems we've won...at least for now. SOPA is only being sent back to the drawing board, but as long as we have crazy politicians the battle is never over. Not to mention there's still ACTA til deal with in Europe.

The only unfortunate thing is that Megaupload and Megavideo were taken down. That's thanks to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act however, not SOPA.

Save the Internet!

Say no to SOPA and PIPA! Don't know what I'm talking about?

Be enlightened.

Or if you don't like reading, check out these videos:

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.





On top of all the things mentioned in those videos, the concept of fan sites would be destroyed. The hilarious Garfield Minus Garfield wouldn't have existed under SOPA. The brony phenomenon never would have happened without the Internet. Much of the YouTube community will be destroyed if SOPA passes. Even this harmless blog will be in danger of being taken down. The past two entries alone were about the Batman, and that's without going into the rest of my almost 100 post history.

Yes of course companies should be allowed to combat theft of their materials. They would lose potential profits otherwise, but the way SOPA and PIPA will do things are much too extreme and make our Internet like China's. Is that something we really want to aspire to? *Insert bad joke about 2012 being the end of the Internet here*

Batclaw

Time to become 20% more badass.

Husky Gruff Voice Time

HURURURURUR

*Sneak sneak sneak*

*Does Ranjit How I Met Your Mother impression* HELLO!

In other words, Batman Arkham Asylum is awesome. Downloaded it from the Mac App Store, no regrets. Can't seem to find the Joker DLC although I do have the map packs. At first I thought I should wait for Arkham City to be ported but that will probably take years.

Christmas! Yay.

Merry Christmas everyone! As you can see, my YouTube mascot Mimico is all dressed up. Makes quite a racket when flying around my room though. Hope everyone has an awesome time with friends and family. To celebrate the occasion I've started a Christmas-related Let's Play...Bomber Cat Holiday Special! I downloaded it for free from the Mac App Store yesterday and it's definitely interesting for the lack of a better description. Catch the strangeness here:

Where Have I Been?!

Ha! Did you think I'd actually go through the entire month of November without making a blog post?

The reason this time is because I was busy with final uni projects and then preparing for the trip home! And now I am home! Not to mention today there was some SNOW outside my window! Family, home-cooked meals, cold weather, my Wii games, my old room, and my quaint hometown. Not to mention Christmas is on the horizon. It feels so great to be back. I'll miss hanging out at the pool with all the friends I made down under, but hopefully it won't be only time I'm in Australia.

The stress of flying alone was nearly too much when I was at the Gold Coast airport, but thankfully an extremely nice woman working there waived me through all the queues without any hassle. Not sure if I would have made it in time without her as I got to the boarding gate only 5 minutes before boarding began. She was my hero that day. During my domestic flight transfer through Vancouver I was getting antsy. The line to check in was extremely long! Good thing my flight arrived half an hour early. Not to mention I was getting sick of getting on and off planes, it felt like I did twice as many flights as I actually did (three). At least I didn't have to do the whole security and the "do you have anything to declare" stuff when I landed in Toronto. All I had to do was claim my baggage and be greeted with big hugs from mom and dad!

An upside of the long flights though was that I got to watch a lot of movies. The first was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 2. Funny thing is that I started watching it on the flight from Gold Coast to Auckland which was 2 hours and 38 minutes long. The movie was about 2 1/2 hours but since I listened to some music beforehand, the plane landed about 15 minutes before the end. Bellatrix was killed just as everything was switched off! It was worth it though, the music I listened to was an album from an alternative New Zealand-based band called The Earlybirds and it was amazing! I still got to watch the last 15 minutes of Deathly Hallows on the next flight. They had ALL of the movies! I watched parts of the Sorcerer's Stone and Chamber of Secrets. The lead actors were only kids back then!

Other movies I watched included Captain America The First Avenger and Sucker Punch. Sucker Punch does not...well...suck as much as the critics says it does. Yes the story is a bit weird but everything else is great. Captain America was pretty good but I think Spider-Man 2 is still my favourite Marvel superhero movie. Hopefully The Avengers will change that next year even though Spider-Man's not in it.

Finally I can play Wii again! As a welcome back present to myself I bought Sonic Colors. Since that game is over a year old I grabbed it for only $20 at Wal-Mart! A steal considering how awesome the game is. I was playing through Aquarium Park last night and loving it, there hasn't been an underwater level in a main series title for a long time.

During my two day stopover in New Zealand (which was awesome) my 2008 MacBook, the first laptop I ever owned, died! The logic board fried. However, I've been planning to get an iMac regardless of what happened. Still deciding which one but it will probably be either the more expensive 21.5 inch or the cheaper of the 27 inch. Either way I'll have it upgraded to 8 GB of RAM. Hopefully with such an awesome and fast computer I can resume my Jump Birdy Jump Let's Play without sound syncing problems, wrap up Aussie Life, and maybe one or two surprises!

Arriving home!

Happy Halloween!

I think I may have mentioned this in one of my entires last year, but Halloween isn't that big a thing in Australia - at least not yet. It has been picking up steam though, and at my student accommodation we had a Halloween party by the pool. Plenty of fun was had! Everyone dressed up, people threw ping pong balls and got each other drunk, Albert Einstein stole a witch's broom, and two people went for a night swim while still in costume.

This is the last week of my last semester in Australia! It's crazy. Almost everything was done last week though, I just have to finish helping edit a short film for Screen Production class. I'm very excited to come home. My life in Australia is okay but I know everything will be a lot better once I'm back in Canada.

So Many Videos!

Wow, I got a lot more videos than usual uploaded this month! Another funny sim video, two Jump Birdy Jump Let's Plays and a showing of the gumball machine from The Sims 3 Store! Here we go!

Whee!




My sims always seem to bring to light some funny art forms. This one being the art of synchronized panicking!


The gumball machine is the newest gameplay item to be featured in the store and I show it off. This is probably the last Sims video before I start uploading Pets-related footage.

"Um...guys? You can stop panicking now, the gas leak is taken care of."

A Year of Ponies

It's been a year since the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic cartoon began! Granted, I didn't become a brony until this past July but I'm still grateful for what Lauren Faust has done to change the franchise's reputation. I still prefer to skip the theme song (maybe I'll really like the new version being introduced in the next episode better, who knows) and I don't read much pony fanfiction (don't have much time for that) but otherwise I'm definitely more than a passive fan.

Lately I've been liking a lot of the music to come out of the brony community. Even the background ponies are getting some love. Here's one that just came out featuring Carrot Top:



BTW, Applejack is best pony. She just hasn't had enough spotlight yet.

Censorship and Politics

Here's another post from my New Comm. Tech blog I decided to share with you guys...

The Internet has changed many aspects of our lives, including in the political sense. Politicians are trying to use the Internet to encourage more people to vote. There's also websites like wikileaks that try to nail politicians for any kind of misconduct.

Censorship in democracy however is still an issue. We are still restricted to where exactly we can voice our opinions. We're free to do so in the privacy of our own homes but not on another person or organisation's premises. There is a point where behaviour must be respected. For example, freedom of speech does not overwrite the fact you have to respect people's property if you choose to stand up in a church and denounce Jesus (Wordpress, 2010). The same thing can be applied to the Internet. Going to a public Internet forum of a political party you don't like and posting hatred about them can still be considered slander or defamation.

There was an issue earlier this year regarding group upgrades on Facebook. The old type of groups were about to be completely wiped out with group administrators losing their group members having to rebuild their group from scratch. However, what was really concerning was that only certain political groups were given software keys to bypass the need of rebuilding while some were not (Munro, 2011). One has to wonder if the Facebook developers are biased in some way.

In conclusion it seems whenever it comes to trying to express opinions in public places, whether it be in real life or the Internet, there's a chance it could be censored. However I think in most cases this "censorship" does make sense. Why even waste time posting about something you don't like in a website that does? You will most likely get a lot of hate, and may considered to be "trolling."

References:
http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/can-you-have-democracy-without-censorship
http://dailycaller.com/2011/05/24/facebook-upgrade-spurs-fears-of-political-bias/

Speed Highway + Dubstep = Awesome!

Yes, it's that time again. Time for another epic Sonic Generations trailer! And I'm very timely on this one!



Sonic the Hedgehog has gone through plenty of memorable levels and like Sky Sanctuary, Speed Highway is another one of those that stick out. Speed Highway is well known for its...well...speed. Basically you're running on stretches of broken highway high above a city at night as you try to chase down Dr. Eggman. It's definitely one of those levels I played over and over again both as Sonic and Tails. It has a memorable segment in Sonic's version of the level where he runs into a room, the glass floor beneath him suddenly breaks and he makes a mad dash down the side of a building. It doesn't make any sense to be able to run down the side of a skyscraper without breaking any glass windows on the way down, but man who cares it's just awesome. Then in a complete contrast the very end of the level is suddenly peaceful. The sun rises and it's dawn as you make a final sprint downtown towards the goal. The music changes too.

Sonic Team really nailed the HD upgrade for Speed Highway in Generations. I love how there's so much blue glowing from the lights. Shiny! Those "robocops" are practically committing suicide to be chasing Sonic down the skyscraper like that as can be seen in this post's picture. Both the modern and classic versions of the background music are great. I didn't actually expect the classic mix to stand out so much, one could easily play that at a club in Surfers Paradise and get away with it. :P

Can't forget to mention the Shadow cliffhanger at the end. That was so perfect. They even remembered to put the green X at the end of the rail he jumped off, I love the little details. Sonic Adventure 2 (well...Battle, but still) was the first main Sonic game I played and the second Shadow fight is easily one of my favourite boss battles in any game.

Oh and in other news yes City Escape and Seaside Hill look great too. But honestly, I'm looking forward to Speed Highway the most, second only to Sky Sanctuary.

Air BASS!

Air guitar is old fashioned now. I realized this thanks to my vampire sim Veronica. Take a look!



That somehow happened when I used Twallan's mastercontroller to switch to one of her friends who was visiting at the time. The upright bass rendered itself again when I switched back. I don't think it's Twallan's fault though, it's probably my MacBook's integrated graphics card.

Unlike other glitches in The Sims, this one provided some laughs. As long as it doesn't happen all the time it'll be more amusing than annoying.