Native Jovian

In what way, exactly? In that the characters were (deliberately) unlikable and unrelatable? In that the plot was nonsensical and the (endless amounts of) symbolism literally meaningless? Or in that it presented itself in such a pretentious fashion that it successfully tricked an ungodly number of people into believing that those were good things? The giant robots fighting aliens was pretty kickass, I'll give you that much. (Please don't lecture me about how they weren't really giant robots or aliens.) Too bad that that only took up a fraction of the show -- if that was the majority of it, I'd actually like the series.

WHAT. No, seriously, did you seriously say that a console RTS had a good interface?

I'm digging all this awesome anime discussion in this thread guys. It's awesome.

Wasn't referring to you specifically with that comment; Lucky Star was mentioned last page and it's certainly a slice of life anime, at least. Although I was under the impression that Chobits and Great Teacher Onizuka were both pretty slice-of-life-y (though the former being "slice of life with a person-shaped computer android thing"), but I haven't seen them so I'll take your word for it. Oh? Well, in that case, try FLCL if you haven't already. I also watched the first few episodes of a series called Slap Up Party: Arad Senki a few months ago and that seemed to fit the bill, though I haven't watched past episode 5 or so so I have no idea if it eventually gets more serious, like a lot of anime tend to.

I never saw the point of sitcom/slice of life type anime. If that's what you're looking for, why aren't you just watching live-action versions? (That said, I'm not a big fan of those sorts of shows regardless of the medium, so whatever.) Most of the anime I watch is sci-fi or fantasy-ish; you know, the sort of thing that would be completely impossible to do live-action without either a) looking like ass or having a ridiculously huge budget. Someone mentioned Black Lagoon earlier; it's got scads of violence and bad language and all of the sorts of things that soccer moms are terrified of exposing their precious babies to, and completely and utterly lacks anything remotely resembling "cutesy", so I don't really think that's what you're looking for. It's a pretty good series overall, though the second season went downhill when it became The Rock And Revy Show and every other character was kicked into the background without comment.

I think this is the worst compliment I've ever heard in reference to an anime.

+1 and other text too

(Hey, you got your Gundam in my FFT...!)

B is for

Compared to what? Do you know how much a VA makes on average? How about for a hit show like The Simpsons or South Park? 'Cause I sure as hell don't.

So it ends with the Joker getting stabbed in the forehead with a batarang? Bitchin'.

It would help if you mentioned what sort of stuff you like, or at least listed series that you liked so that we had SOME idea of your tastes. I know you said you liked most genres, but the fact that you specifically exclude Naruto and Bleach suggests that million-episode shonen series (DBZ, One Piece, Nartuo, Bleach, etc) isn't your thing, so more of that sort of info would be useful.

I stopped watching Cartoon Network when they started filling Adult Swim with all their ultra-low-budget crap instead of anime. I've been hating CN since before it was cool!

FFVII. Holy crap did that age terribly. Even FFVIII is significantly better off.

Well, there's this: Bad things happen economically when more of your population are elderly retirees than active members of the workforce. In the short term it causes increases in cost of things like health care and retirement. In the long term it can cause labor shortages and general economic downturn, because there are simply fewer people to buy, sell, and make things. On a less pragmatic note, a population decline has a number of cultural or societal implications... but since this isn't PPR, I won't bring it up here.

Except for the fact that Japanese culture is literally shrinking due to the fact that their current generation of young adults consists pretty much entirely of yuppies and none of them are having kids. Negative population growth is a sign of a very sick society.

Wow, I didn't realize that the DS Lite controls were quite that bad. I mostly wanted to make sure the DSi didn't have any crippling minor flaws like that. I talked to BardicKnowledge on #ocremix and it sounds like the DSi is the way to go. It's not that much extra cash, and since my SP still works fine the loss of the GBA slot isn't that big a deal. I've heard it's pretty easy to scratch up your touch screen with certain games, though (Elite Beat Agents -- one I'm definitely interested in getting -- was mentioned specifically). I read back a few pages in this thread and there's mention of screen protectors. Anyone use one? Know specific brands to look for or avoid? Third-party accessories like that always vary hugely in quality, so if anyone has any experience with that one way or another it'd be a huge help.

So I've been wanting a DS for a while. I've sort of been waiting for the Lite to drop in price after the DSi was released, but that never happened, and I just got my tax return so I'm planning to just suck it up and by a DS with it. The question is, should I get a DS Lite or a DSi? I don't have any version of the DS at all right now, so it's not a question of "upgrading". The DSi costs like $50 more than the Lite and loses the GBA slot (which would be nice to have, but I have a GBA SP that still works fine, so it's not all that big a loss), and adds some cameras, a microphone, and from what I hear a small increase in general quality (bigger, brighter screen, better buttons and controls, etc), plus the DSiWare thing and a slot for SD cards to put stuff (including music, IIRC?) on. So is it worth it? It seems like the DSi is trying really hard to be an all-in-one type of thing (ie camera, music player, internet browser, etc) but that's not really what I'm interested in. I just want to play DS games. I've heard talk of DSi exclusive games in the future -- does that just refer to DSiWare (which I've heard is generally pretty unimpressive), or what? If the Lite got cheaper I'd pick it up in a heartbeat, but I'm tired of waiting for a price drop that may never happen, and I'm wondering if the DSi is worth the $40 extra it costs.

That's because Michael Crichton isn't a very good writer. Yeah that's right I went there! Also I just finished Consider Phlebas by Ian M. Banks. It was an alright read, but ended rather lamely; it seemed like there was really no point to the whole thing. I've started reading Children of the Mind.

This thread now

That's even more awesome! This is going to the top of my queue as soon as I get home. As an aside: The Thing PS2 game was awesome too.

Zombies in space. What's not to love? (I haven't actually played this game. But it's on my Gamefly queue! Maybe I should bump it to the top...)

The difference is, this is Future-fucking-rama. I always thought that it was a travesty of justice that Family Guy got uncancelled and Futurama didn't. But now it did! Hooray!

http://www.thebookofbiff.com/ ?

Parts of Water Boy were filmed at Stetson University, where I went to school. It's very disconcerting to see the magic of editing at work, where one scene shifts back and forth between places I recognize and places I don't. An example I can think of off the top of my head: in the scene where Adam Sandler is taking the high school equivalency exam, he's in a big empty auditorium-like building. When he walks out, he's on the steps of Stetson's student union building. The interior shot isn't the same building he's shown walking out of. I don't know what building that is, actually, but it's not on Stetson campus. The only other scene I can remember offhand as definitely being Stetson is the one where he sits near the window in a lecture in order to be able to look outside and see a fountain. I've had classes in that room. Some scenes from Smokey and the Bandit were filmed in my hometown, Jupiter FL. Burt Reynolds actually has a house in Jupiter.