The New Apartment (To the tune of The Old Apartment by Barenaked Ladies)

Moved into the new apartment,

This is where we're going to live!

Brand new futon, really comfy,

Some new stuff and wooden floors,

This is where we're going to live.

Hey did they paint the walls?

Hey should we clean the floor?

Hey should we maybe put down a carpet right next to the door?

This is where we're going to live.

Hey should we get a book shelf?

Hey should we get a bath mat?

This is new to me now,

I guess we have to, let's go right now!

Moved into the new apartment.

Just twelve steps from the door.

Brand new roommates, brand new landlord,

on the left down Presidential.

This is where we're going to live.

Do we have to mow the lawn?

Do the keys work in these locks?

Oh man, am I excited, I only came here for fun.

This is where we're going to live.

How are the neighbors downstairs?

Are they possibly real cool?

We should go down and see if they want to come up just for fun!

I know we just moved in here today,

We came from home to move our stuff in,

Packed up everything yesterday,

I'm glad we're here,

Cause this is where we're going to live!

Moved into the new apartment.

Put a poster up on the wall,

Making memories, brand new memories,

To start off our junior year,

Let's get it done!

(Let's get it done!)

This is where we're going to live!

(Let's get it done!)

For those who don't have the song, click here and play it in one window while you read the lyrics off another! It's fun!

Dear Blog: Anniversary Edition

Dear Blog,

Hey buddy. Congrats! You're officially one year old as of yesterday. We've been through a lot together this past year. To think, I couldn't even manage to go a whole month without posting a blog. I posted a whole 52 Blogs! (Not including this one.) That's a blog a week! Wowzers. Didn't feel like it. But it is what it is I suppose.

Well, I just wanted to say thanks to you, and all 5 of my readers for sticking around the last year. It's been an honor and a pleasure. I'm going to try and keep this train a-rollin' for another year with more reviews, opinions, and nonsensical stories. I'll keep this one short and sweet for a change.

Viva le trois jours de fin de la semaine!

Hearts and Kisses,

Jim

On Fandom

So earlier this evening I was watching Game Six of the Celtics vs. The Cavs with Koshy and Andy, while I was texting Jake, and reading articles on Wikipedia on my Droid, multi-tasking much to Andy's chagrin, Jake made a comment about not being a "real fan." That got me thinking, am I a real fan?

I mean, I guess first you have to define what being a real fan is. Is a real fan someone who knows all the stats, to all the players for the last 20 years? Or is a real fan someone who through thick or thin will root for their team, never wavering for the temptations of any other team. In my opinion, it's more towards the latter.

The first kind of fan is what I like to call a die hard. They'll do research, spend hours crafting the perfect fantasy team, and pick teams or players here and there that exemplify, in their opinion, the "best" attribute. The Best Team; The Best Player. To the die hard, it is this group of teams or players that make the sport worthwhile. Without these pillars of athleticism, the sport becomes hollow, and isn't worth watching or dedicating that much effort to pay attention to.

Personally I'm all for my New England Teams. Sox, Celts, B's, Pats. (Who cares about the Revolution? I haven't heard any U.S. Soccer news on SportsCenter in... 2 years not counting David Beckham.) I've got a few outside loyalties from my Parents home states. Cubs, Bulls, Bears, Dodgers, 49ers. No love for the Lakers. I know some of the stats, most of the big names, and I'm always glad to hear one of my teams dominated.

While I might not watch every game all season, I'm always happy to see one of my teams win. Throughout the season, I'll catch a game here a game there, and always cheer for my team. If I don't catch a game, for the most part I'm not phased. Then it gets to playoff time, and I know it's important, so I'll put a little more effort into watching and rooting. In the eyes of the die hard, that's being a fair weather fan. In my eyes, it's helping my team when I know they need it most. But rain or shine, even if I know my teams aren't the best, I'm never going to say, "Well, the Sox are having an off season, the Yankees are my team now," and I feel that is why I'm a better fan than a die hard.

A die hard will follow players around, and as soon as they start doing bad, they drop'em and pick up that new rookie phenom that's going to be a star a few years down the line. Take Big Papi for example. He used to hit home runs left and right. Now? Not so much. But unlike a die hard, I'm still rooting for him every at bat. Sure I can talk crap about him if he does bad, but it's those couple times he comes in clutch hitting what would normally be a double, while he hobbles to make it a single, but still gets 2 RBI, enough to take the lead, that I really get fired up. It's the little things that make me happy, not the highlight reel, but that still never hurts.

However then you have to differentiate. You can't just hop in at the playoffs, learn a few names and be a real fan. If you can tell me that you watched a game, alone, mid-season, with nothing riding on the outcome, you're a real fan. If you started watching at the end of the season, where they needed to win to get into the playoffs, you're a fake.

What I'm really saying here is to me, a fan doesn't just care about all-stars, or statistics. A fan cares about characters, and history. I'm not saying you can't be a die hard fan for all your favorite teams, but on the scale of things I don't think a real fan should have to care about a player's OBP, IBB, GDP, ABC, FBI or whatever the rest of those weird statistics are. Just whether or not they're gonna play ball.

If I check NESN mid-summer, and the Sox are playing the Tigers, I'll watch for fun. Mid-winter? Bruin's and Sabres? Celtics and Warriors? Why not. So, later, if I'm making a night out of hanging out and watching (most of) the game with the guys during the playoffs, pulling for the Celts all the way, and flipping out when Tony Allen had a nasty one-handed dunk, I think I'm entitled to call myself a real fan. What do you think?

Review: Iron Man 2

As everyone knows, one of the cardinal, unbreakable, unyielding rules of the universe is that Samuel L. Jackson is a Bad Ass. So with the inclusion of Sam, along with Robert Downey Jr. and Don Cheadle going to town on robots in mechanize battle suits, plus Scarlett Johansson kicking ass and not taking names, the Bad Ass level of this movie is pushing the limits.

I've been pumped about this movie ever since the first movie came out. I loved all the characters in the first one, and Don Cheadle replacing Terrance Howard didn't phase me at all. The interaction between Tony Stark and James Rhodes is arguably better for it. Robert Downey Jr. is Tony Stark. Witty, sarcastic, eccentric, and narcissistic (agreed). The witty sniping between the two characters was one of my favorite parts of the movie.

The story of this movie was pretty solid, involving Tony dealing with the aftermath of his public unveiling as Iron Man at the end of the first movie (OMG SPOILERS?! Sorry but if you haven't seen the first movie, not only should you not be reading this article, but you should not be doing anything other than seeing the first movie,) as well as the government and S.H.I.E.L.D.'s relationship with the now ousted superhero. If you liked the first movie, it's got a lot of the same feel with Tony doing what he does best. Being Iron Man, and showing off.

The fact that Marvel is trying to get it's continuity together in order to form a basis of movies that will serve as the lead in to an eventual The Avengers film is nothing short of awesome. They're dropping little (and sometimes big) hints about other characters, past events, and future events that will shape the film when it comes out and for a self-proclaimed comic aficionado, that makes me giddy as a school girl. A very giddy school girl.

In the end, I would say that this movie is a good continuation of the feel of the first movie, and that if you liked the first movie you're definitely going to like this one too. When Tony and Rhodey get into action, you're going to get excited, because let's not beat around the bush; What's better than Iron Man kicking ass alone? Iron Man and War Machine kicking ass together. I'm giving this movie a 9/10. Get up from your computer, corral your posse, and go see this movie.

Review: Final Fantasy XIII

This review is extremely nerdy, and is not for the casual gamer. Read on at risk of your own mental health. However if you have played a RPG or contemplated buying FFXIII, read on knowing that you are still probably at risk for overwhelming nerdiness.

So it took me 60 hours, 35 minutes, and 28 seconds, but I beat the game. Whoo baby. That was a labor of love. I've played a lot of Final Fantasy games, starting with IX, then VIII, then X, X-2, and XII, along with a boat load of the spin-offs like Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, Tactics Advanced and A2, Kingdom Hearts 1,2, and 358/2. Every game has been different and improved upon it's predecessor in some way shape or form. Mostly.

Alright now to hell with the roman numerals for a bit. I really liked Final Fantasy 9, it being my first Final Fantasy and all. When 10 came out that was when I knew how hooked I was on the series. Everyone always harkens back to Final Fantasy 7 as when they knew, but I came in after that so I had to wait a little bit. Anyways, I put countless hours into 9 and 10, after beating the game and going back and doing side quests, in 10 playing another couple dozen hours of Blitzball (most underrated side game ever!). Then Final Fantasy 11 came out for PC as an MMO, and even though I wanted to play it, my computer sucked to bad, so I skipped it. Then at long last Final Fantasy 12 came out. I rejoiced! I played for a couple of hours.... then.... I stopped. I don't remember why I stopped now. It was mid-summer I think, so I probably just had better things to do. But then I went back to it last year when I was bored and I realized, "This isn't any better than 10!" Pretty much cause the story sucked.

So then when XIII came out, I got all excited again, especially with the announcement that XIII was going to set the stage for the next decade or so of Final Fantasy games. As reviews started coming out I kept hearing the same thing, "The game doesn't really start until about 20, 30 hours in." While I was a little perturbed, I threw plenty of hours into X and Kingdom Hearts 2, I thought, "I can spare 20 or 30 hours."

So I go out, get the game, and I mean Wow. When they say the game doesn't really start for a while they mean it. I had no idea why I was fighting other than a few random cut scenes for the first ten or so hours, and I had no control over who was in my party for another ten or so hours after that. Albeit, after you get to that point the game picks up, but I mean really Square Enix? You couldn't have cut off a little bit of running around fighting level 1 monsters with a glorified attack selection system, that could only select "Attack"? I mean I couldn't use magic until this tutorial-intro phase of the game ended.

So after that point, when the story gets going, and you start picking up on the differences between Fal'cie, l'Cie, and Cie'th (all actually names of concepts in-game) you start thinking, "Okay time for some good ol' fashioned Final Fantasy exploring!" Wrong. Unlike every other FF incarnation to date, including almost all the spin-offs I've played, there's no World Map, no way to back track, no real honest to goodness exploring. That hurt. They took out a lot of the good things that in my opinion are quintessential aspects of the series including:

• Exploring
• Dungeons
• Towns
• Mass Weapons
• Mass Money

I guess when they did this, they started from the top and just went down the list taking things out. Without exploring, you don't need dungeons to explore. Without dungeons, you don't need towns, or hubs to go to to stock up on new weapons and items. Without a wide selection of new items, you don't need a lot of money! It all makes perfect sense- if you feel like ruining a tried and true system. And another flaw, is the Weapon Upgrade system they created to replaced this system. It is similar to the new system used in Mass Effect 2, where lots of progressively better weapons were scrapped in favor of an upgrading system with fewer weapons. The problem being that it would completely sap all your cash if you tried to upgrade all your weapons, and even though I tried to save up as much money I could in the game, almost 1 Million Gil, if I wanted to get but one of the character's Ultima Weapon, I would have needed another million. I did not like this system.

But on to things I did like! While yes there were some fundamental problems, I did finish the game for a reason. After the story picked up, I actually cared what happened to my little group of heroes, which is always a good thing. Though a bit convoluted at points, and I was never quite sure how the whole magic crystal thing worked, or what exactly my characters were supposed to accomplish, it was good enough to keep me playing till the end.

The new combat system was good too. Switching between 1 of 3 different classes initially available to your characters (all of them are eventually accessible to unlock), and setting up different combination lists, like Fighter-Mage-Healer, Mage-Mage-Mage, Buffer-Saboteur-Defender, etc. all ended up playing vitally into your strategy when fighting bosses at later stages in the game. The only bad thing about this system was the difficulty/reward ratio of your enemies. Using the "Crystarium" system that opens up after the tutorial-intro, your characters can use points they get from beating enemies to progress upwards towards new abilities. Every once and a while, beating a boss will open up a new rung for your characters to climb through. While this all works in theory, I found pretty often that when I entered a new area, the difficultly level would jump drastically higher, without giving enough rewards for me to catch up, almost to the point where I felt like every time I got comfortable fighting the enemies in a level, some newer, stronger ones would come along and the process would start anew. I spent a long time in the only really "open" part of the game, where you can take on a series of missions, fighting these progressively harder and seemingly optional enemies, only to find when I got to the end of the missions, that there was no way I could beat these monsters without spending another 5-10 hours exclusively leveling up. Then after moving onto the next area, I found that I was still barely comfortable with these newer enemies. I shudder to think how great my disadvantage would have been if I hadn't spent hours completing these missions.

Where the game really shines though, is in it's visuals. There were cut scenes in the game that really were just astoundingly beautiful. I'm sure they were even better on the Blu-Ray version of the PS3, but us 360 players still had a little eye candy feast. As well as the cut scenes, the backgrounds of the game were polished to the point where you could eat off of them. The most intricate details could be seen on mountains or buildings far off in the distance, with the lighting being perfectly placed to the point where running through some of the long spaces with no enemies was almost kinda pleasant, except for the constant "Thunk Thunk Thunk" that you heard from your characters footfalls throughout the game. That never ceased to be annoying.

This game had a lot wrong with it. I think Square Enix took a risk, and attempted to broaden the appeal of the game by taking out a lot of the core RPG elements that it's predecessors pioneered. This might have worked if they didn't make the game take 50 to 60 hours to complete. Sure, I have that time, cause I'm a die-hard fan, and I have enough time to waste at college to beat it. But even then, it took me over a month, just because of the sheer daunting of going back to the monotony was at times too much to bear. For the average gamer, they simply can't, and often times won't play much longer than 20 or 30 hours. Sometimes even less than that. Which is understandable. With all the video games that come out of blockbuster caliber, devoting that much time to one game is denying yourself of two or three other really good games. Games that most likely everyone will be talking about in the months to come. So in the end, it comes down to a couple of questions. Do you have 50+ hours to spare on one video game and do you like Final Fantasy a lot? Cause if you answered yes, then good. Get this game, and play it through. It's apparently going to be important to all these other Final Fantasy games to come. But if you don't, don't even bother to rent it for the weekend, or just play a couple of hours to see how the game is, cause you're not going to get anywhere near the meat of this game unless you really work for it. Overall, I'm going to say this one is for die-hards only. It's getting a 6/10.