A TV character I want to see

I want to see a character on a TV show, don't care that much about their role or importance, whose ethnicity is best described as "Everything".

I mean it! I know a fair amount of people here at UCI who have at least three of the ethnicities: European, African, Latino, Asian, Native American, Middle Eastern.

Some have more.

It could be a sitcom called "American", with the big draw being people trying to figure out where his parent's were from!

Besides, it's an interesting look. And it could be an interesting premise...

How to make the news fun to watch...

CNN has discovered how to do this.

It's actually remarkably simple. You see,there's this whole war thing going on in Isreal/Lebanon, and Isreal is mainly fighting by firing shells into Lebanon.

So they send correspondants (and Anderson Cooper) into Isreal, to the ISF Artillery emplacements. This way, if they're lucky, they can do live reports to the actual shows, wiht the occasional flash of light and huge BOOOOOOOOOOOM in the background.

When you're barely paying attention to the TV while doing homework, and you have CNN on in the background, and this happens, well, it's rather startling.

So far, I've exclaimed "Bloody hell!" once, "Gah!" a few times, and "SON OF A BITCH!" sooo many times...

It's really kinda awesome!

And, of course, it shows how manly the correspondants are, for these huge explosions to go off in the background and you don't even flinch.

Wow, Ubisoft is just pure awesome...

Splinter Cell: Double Agent: Zinadine Zidane style.

In case you were curious, Ubisoft is a French company, so they can get away with this :).

Poor, poor Zidane...

So many headbuts...

This is just gonna go on for a while, isn't it :).

Temptation...

In my fridge I have a full 2 liter bottle of Coke left by a former roomate.

And there's a spare Mentos box lying around with one piece in it.

Must... resist... urges...

The Cannon-Fodder Trifecta

I've played a lot of games in my time. Sometimes, they have good stories.

Occasionally.

Every so often.

Okay, only when Bioware, Blizzard and Bungie are behind the wheel. And only the later Blizzard games at that. And occasionally Square. But that's beside the point.

The point is, they usually don't have the deep plot. Not much in the way of reasons for the enemy to be an enemy.

But there are three kinds of baddies that seem to be the most commonly used, because they don't have to have any reason to be evil. They just are evil. Their reasons are common knowledge.

Firstly, there's the Mindless (aka ZOMBIES!). These guys have no motive to fight because they have no mind, thus no need for plot. Maybe some reason why they exist, but that's it. Robots and all manner of undead fall into this category, except some Vampires and, in D&D especially, Liches. They fall into the next category...

The Evil Incarnate. These guys are just evil. That's it. That's all they live for. Demons, Vampires and Liches are pretty much good here. This gets easily extended to "monsters", who's only purpose is to kill people. Also, rulers so corrupt they live in luxury while everyone else lives in poverty counts here. Aliens who just want to kill all Humans also work well here. The next group sorta fits in here, but they really deserve a category all they're own...

NAZI'S! If you look at the number of WW2 games made, you'd come to the conclusion that there's nothing gamers like more than killing Nazi's. Everyone knows Nazi's are evil. I mean, they're NAZI'S! Why WOULDN'T you kill them? Even the communists (a group that might fit well in here too) killed Nazi's! They are basically the ultimate, guilty-free kill. In ten years, Terrorists will become the new Nazi's.

These three bad guy groups are used, really, in all mindless fun plotlines. The thing is, good plots can come from these cliché's: These three groups are often used and modified to make good plots.

The brutal orcs that attack the land of Azeroth in Warcraft 1 and 2 were fleshed out considerably into a very interesting race in Warcraft 3 and the Frozen Throne. The originally mindless undead that also attacked the humans in Warcraft 3 (poor humans...) turned into a race of their own when they broke free of their controller, making one wonder if something that began so evil could ever have a noble soul. Or any soul.

In Halo 2, we were able to see into the formerly simple Covenant that only had one aim in Halo: Kill all humans. We saw a deep group of races bent entirely around religious scripture which provided their motivation for everything.

Can't think of one for Nazi's, but you get the idea.

But still, this is in sequels. Otherwise, it's just a nice cookie cutter villiany :).

Paranoia Agent

This is a very awesome anime series.

And, like any good anime series, it's weird.

A special kind of weird.

A clinical, psychotic kind of weird.

It's hard to describe. But it runs on Adult Swim, and it'll go back to the beginning soon, so it's something rather easy to see. But it's actually rather deep, clever and really well done.

Just gotta get used to the Engrish, but it's not too hard...

Watch it anyway!

Things that make me happy...

People spelling Grammar with an 'e'.

Watching the Western Europe Cup of Soccer (formerly known as the World Cup of Soccer. I mean, come on, Portugal, Italy, France and Germany?)

Fourth of July coming on a weekday and knowing where to look to see fireworks (even though it's not nearly as good unless you can hear the boom).

That awesome "Major General" scene in Pirates of Penzannze :).