You know what sucks?

When your blog is flooded with bot comments every single day.

Seriously, this is bullshit. I'm gonna have to set up a captcha or something.

Random Reviews: R5-D4 (Star Wars Vintage Collection 2011)

Because I'm ridiculously bored and I feel like reviewing some thing I bought. Funny enough, I don't think this toy's supposed to be out until March, but I was able to pick him up from my local Walmart for about $7.

Ladies and gentlemen, R5-D4, the most important droid in the galaxy who saved everybody by fucking up really badly.

There have been plenty of R5-D4 toys in the past, but this one's just been released as part of the new "Vintage collection". Here's a photo of my own:

From what I've gathered, this toy is actually a repaint of R5-A2, a droid whose parts came with certain figurines and could be put together. This was called "Build-a-Droid". As such, you can take R5 completely apart and put him back together again, and mix-and-match his parts with the other two Build-a-Droid astromechs. Aside from this, he comes with no other special features.

There's really not much to complain about. It's just a very simplistic, almost perfectly accurate toy of the droid. The only issue is that there are supposed to be three red panels painted on R5's back, but apparently they forgot them. Which is, actually, a mistake they seem to constantly make with R5. At this point, the only toy of R5 which gets his panels on the back painted was the original toy from 1978; no other toy since has managed to have them. But then again, it's a very minor issue and doesn't take away much enjoyment of the toy itself.

Jawas: the used car salesmen of the Star Wars universe.

On a more serious complaint, I don't like the legs being made of rubber instead of hard plastic. Sure, it makes it easy to attack the legs to the torso, but also makes the legs lack something in detail. I don't know, it just really bothers me.

If you haven't had an R5-D4 toy since The Power of the Force missile-launching version, go out and grab this to make up for that. I'm sure there's probably a better R5 toy available somewhere, but this one's nice and cheap enough. It's not going to blow your mind or anything, but it's cute. I really like the R5 look...there's something retro about it that makes it so endearing. Maybe I'll get another one and have him custom painted...

Hard Driver Superfail!

On Wednesday, my computer stopped functioning properly. Such as, when I would try turning the thing on, it would bluescreen just after the Windows logo and restart. The thing wouldn't work in Safe Mode either.

So I decide to bring it over to BestBuy, and see if the GeekSquad can fix it. Thankfully, my computer's still under manufacturer's warranty, so the exam was free. They told me it would be about two days before they could tell me anything.

This morning, I got a phone call from them. Guess what? I've got a faulty hard drive! And getting it replaced would cost me about $350, but thankfully, HP covers that under my warranty. All I need to do now is call them up and ask for my computer's installation CDs which, shockingly, my computer did NOT come with.

But now the real problem: they might not be able to save my stuff. My hard drive is so bad that even if I do fork over at least $100 to backup my files, they might not be able to do it. So that's a good 5 year's worth of files...GONE. Including my novel, porn, other stories, sprite artwork, random funny images from the Internet, videos, music...

What a lovely birthday gift. Thank you, HP. Thank you.

Thomas and the Confused Canadian

"Bust my buffers!" exclaimed Thomas. "Me, in politics?"

Earlier this week, University of Alberta political studies Professor Shauna Wilton watched several episodes of the children's TV show Thomas and Friends with her three-year-old daughter Kate. She then heavily analyzed each episode, and finally came to the conclusion that the television series was sexist and conservative; in her view, it was pushing children to suppress new ideas and to only do as their told, and portraying the female characters as inferior to the male-dominated cast. While it’s no secret that the majority of Thomas characters are male, Shauna’s views of the show are rather misleading, straying away from the show’s true meanings and intentions. What she is describing is simply not there; there’s no room for political correctness in a show about anthropomorphic locomotives.

Sharon explains that the show is “conservative” as when an engine decides to do something on their own accord, as opposed to what Sir Topham Hatt (the Fat Controller) tells them to do, it only ends up in disaster, confusion, and delay. She feels that this discourages children to think for themselves and instead simply follow orders from superiors without question. Here, she completely misses that the railway of which Thomas lives is a big, important industry that supplies countless people all over the Island of Sodor. It’s not the United States of Sir Topham Hatt; it’s the North Western Railway, a job, a company, an important place of work that requires order and stability. Engines that work their hardest do eventually get their perks, as any human with a real job would, and back-talking and laziness are grounds for punishment. Thomas himself is the perfect example of this; starting out as the lowly shunting engine at the Big Station, he eventually proves himself to be Really Useful and earns his very own branch line. There are no underlying political messages hidden here. All that’s being said is that hard work and determination will reward you in the long run, a message children today need to hear.

As the misinformed article continues, Sharon also points out the minority of female cast members, decrying them for all having negative characteristics and not getting as much spotlight as the classic characters that have been around since the very first season. "The female characters weren't necessarily portrayed any more negatively than the male characters or the male trains, but they did tend to play more secondary roles and they're often portrayed as being bossy or know-it-alls," Sharon says. What Sharon has not seen is that what negative qualities are introduced to the female cast are not made to push them aside from the male engines, but instead are used to characterize them and make them more believable, likable members of the railway. What’s fantastic about the new female characters is that they’re not the politically correct Mary Sue character, the strong female lead that snags the spotlight from the original characters. Both the male and female characters have their flaws, and this helps them to grow and develop with each story. Take for example Mavis, who started out as a young feisty diesel full of her own ideas and constantly made mistakes. In recent years, she appears to have calmed down and become a reliable member of the railway, playing a motherly role towards the two more immature tank engines Bill and Ben. Mavis, like any believable character, has gone through character development, and thanks to this, she can provide a fantastic role for young girls watching the show. It’s shameful that despite so many of the female engines are wonderfully characterized and are steadily gaining more screen time, there will always be a stigma about the lack of positive girl characters.

The “Political Correctness Brigade” has no place in the Thomas and Friends universe, as in the end, it’s a form of children’s entertainment, and nothing more. There are plenty of positive messages and role models in the show that children can look towards and learn from, and the show gets better every year. Shauna Wilton should have further evaluated the stories, settings, and messages from the show before she completed her study, as she missed out tremendously on all the things that make the series as long-lasting as it has been.

DO WANT Episode 2: A train.

Yes, this is all I want for the holidays. My own steam engine.

Tell me, how awesome would it be to be riding around in your backyard on your own little railway with your own little engine? Very awesome. And to make it better? Get a coach for it to pull, and charge people for rides. Put a face on it and cater to little kids' birthday parties, and you're rolling in money.

Plus the thing's damn adorable. Don't you just want to hug it? :3

If it wasn't so expensive for a college student like me, I'd have one of these right now.

Hunslet Steam Co - Locomotives For Sale

Current Desktop (October 29, 2009)

Remember back when I posted about the new multitouch laptop that I wanted really, really badly?

Yup, I finally got it.

And it's awesome.

Money and College Issues

So I've been in college for about two months now.

First, I never expected the classes to be as difficult as they are.

Second, I wish I had the money for books.

Google AdSense owes me about $36, but I have yet to see it, and I'm starving from a lack of food.

Moving out for college...

So it's been a while, my friendly old blog.

In a few hours, I'll be out of my house and inside an apartment. I'll be beginning my life as an independent person. I'll be doing what I do now...just without somebody always there to make sure I do them.

I have to say, I'm both excited and terrified. In truth, no matter how many times they've talked to me about living on my own and growing up, I don't think that will be enough to prepare me for the future ahead.

But I guess the only way to find out if you'll make it is to give it all you've got, right?

On the subject of freedom of artistic expression.

This is a formal letter to all of those who participated in demanding Japan to ban all adult games.

I hope you all feel very proud of yourselves.

Inevitably, because of your actions, rape-based erotic gaming has indeed been banned in Japan. However, this law comes along with many other bans, including bans against things that were otherwise perfectly normal and not related to rape at all. These all fall under the words of "promote violence again, or violate the human rights of, women".

The law bans almost all forms of erotic gaming, save for the missionary position and anything related to homosexuality.

Although the "slippery slope" argument is usually invalid, it's beginning to feel very real in this situation. A lot of people are outraged from these bans, and are now pinning the feminist movement with suppression of artistic freedom and suppression of freedom for men. I think it's perfectly fine if women want to have the same rights as men - but for that to be true, women cannot demand MORE rights than men.

The law is not a knife to delicately carve curves into a statue - it's a big ugly steamroller, crushing everything that may or may not be what it intended to destroy. And it just steamrollered over erotic gaming, and fear of the feminist movement worldwide can only predict what else it will flatten in the months and years to come.

~ Wolf Nanaki ~

http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2009/05/08/feminist-group-japan-must-ban-adult-games/
http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2009/06/24/eroge-taliban-take-over-all-fetishes-banned-in-eroge/

Zune HD - My Zune Faith, Restored

To see the official Zune HD site, click here.

To see Gizmodo's hands-on demonstration and pictures, click here.

To die of excitement, leave comments here.

Also, I'm going to get one of these, definitely.