Freaky Coincidence

There's your everyday kind of coincidence that leaves you saying, "Huh. That's funny." Then there's freaky coincidences that leaves you saying "What the? What sort of madness is this?" There have been a few in my life, and here are three of them.


1. Many years ago, back when video games was a new thing to me, we got a game called Smartball. In the game (At least the English version) the main character is a prince named Jerry, who's wife and princess is named Wendy; which are the same names of my parents! Now, sure, a video game character having the same name as you isn't a freaky coincidence, but a husband and wife in a game having BOTH the same names as your parents, that's freaky.

2. This one needs background. I've written a sci-fi novel involving robots, many of the characters being based on Lego creations I've made. This story means a lot to me, and one day I may publish it, but at this time it's on the far back burner.
Anyways, one of the characters in the story is named Bitesaw: A robot that has excellent mobility in water.
The other half of this freaky coincidence comes from a show called Jackie Chan Adventures. In it there's a character named Bai Tza, which is oddly pronounced very similar to Bitesaw! Not only that, but Bai Tza is also a water-themed character.

3. This is another freaky coincidence involving my novel. Keep in mind that I wrote this novel several years before these other characters came by. Another character in it is named Jetjammer, a small robot that can fly. It doesn't have arms, but basically just a head with feet and two thin wings in the back.
Now, have your heard of the TV program Jetix? Sure, both having the word jet in their name isn't much of a coincidence, BUT LOOK AT THAT CHARACTER!!! It looks crazily, freakishly similar Jetjammer! Well, I guess you'll have to take my word for it given that I don't have a drawing of Jetjammer. But believe me, they're similar!

Another App!

Believe it or not, this app is even simpler than Watch Paint Dry. A simple tool I made for myself to test the touch screen. Figured I might as well put it out there.


 


UPDATE: Over  100 downloads in just a few days? Wow!
UPDATE 2: It's over 9000!!!

A City More Relaxing Than Nature?

I find it strange, but it's true. Yesterday I went on a YSA ward camp out to a member's property back in the mountains by Boulder. I drove past trees, mountain sides, and more trees. To me, it was "Eh, it's nature." When I got up there, one of the girls said "I was distracted while driving because I wanted to keep slowing down and look at the wonderful scenery." I, however, had no trouble keeping my eyes on the road.

I didn't plan on staying the night, and after finding out that trying to sleep in a car with seats shorter than the length of your body isn't comfortable, I drove home around 1 AM. As I made my way down the mountain, I would occasionally catch glimpses of the city below, and that's when I slowed down to look at the scenery. Seeing the thousands of speckled, twinkling lights down there was wonderful, as well as calming and peaceful. Even after I got off the mountain and into the city itself, I was still awe-struck and felt incredibly relaxed. No one was around, and there were rarely any other cars to worry about. No one was around, but all the buildings were lit amongst the cloud of darkness.

I find it strange how most people (Especially my dad) find scenes of unaltered nature to be wonderful. My dad's dream home is to live in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. I, on the other hand, love to be in the heart of the city.

I have in my mind an image of great, peaceful scenery. Sitting in a large window sill, looking out a large, clear window and beholding the sparkling city at night, while possibly listening to Jazz. Perhaps part of it stems from Microsoft Bob, where I could make rooms like the one below.

Or perhaps faint memories of, when a young kid, sitting in the car and looking out at the stars and city going by.

I dunno, it seems strange. All I know is that I haven't been more relaxed in a long time than when I drove home last night around 2 AM.

Mega Man Series Rated by Coolness

I had thought about doing a video on this, but then I figured...this is less work, and no one will see it anyways. So, here we go.

I love Mega Man. There are many series, however, and I love some of them a lot more than others. How fun the games are are a major factor, but another factor, which I'm calling the "coolness" factor, plays another big role in my opinion of the games. As such this is extremely opinionated.
As I said there are many series, but for this I'm only going to be going over the "robotics" continuity, or main series. So with that, let's get right into it.

Mega Man

Here we are, the first series, the one that started it all. Now I haven't actually played these a whole lot, as I started out with Mega Man X. Nonetheless I know enough.

Character Design: Robots are cool. Fighting robots are even cooler. The original Mega Man, however, isn't all that cool. His design, as well as the design of the rest of the world, is rather "childish" in nature, like it belongs in a 90's Saturday morning cartoon. Oh wait, it was.
Mega Man's design is quite simple and rounded, and looks like he's ten years old. The enemies as well look like toys, some even being based off of toys like Topman and Springman. Oh yeah, all the bosses having man in their name gets annoying. Details also are quite lacking, as with Cutman being basically two colors and a basic body. Still, Mega Man is a robot with a gun, so he gets some points.

Story: Wily wants to rule the world and Mega Man goes off to stop him. There's a lot more to it, but that's the gist of it. Someone wanting to rule the world is silly and cliche, but at least Wily's motivation is more believable. Wily worked with Dr. Light, but Wily felt he deserved more recognition. His jealousy turning into anger, and anger slowly driving him to madness.

Overall: 3.5/10




Mega Man X

Now we're getting better. Mega Man X is what I grew up playing, and compared to Mega Man, X is like the grown up version.

Character Design: X looks older, and his design is edgier. No, literally, he has more edges than Mega Man's "baby smooth" body. Enemies as well had more interesting designs, "edgier", and a lot more detail. Also in this series, X can don additional armor, with each game giving him different abilities and appearances.
In addition to X, there's also the character Zero (Who is playable from X3 and onward). Zero too has a gun, but he also has the Z-Saber. While the efficiency of swords vs. guns are debatable, laser swords trump guns in coolness. Zero most definitely gives Mega Man X a bonus in coolness.

Story: X was created by Dr. Light, who is now long dead, and discovered in an abandoned facility. X has complete free will, meaning he can disobey the three laws of robotics if he so chooses. X's body is "replicated" and used to design many, many more robots, who become known as reploids. Some reploids go insane and harm humans, which then become labeled as mavericks. A reploid called Sigma gets infected with a virus, which then mutates and becomes known as the Sigma Virus. Sigma and the Mavericks don't want to rule the world, but instead want to destroy the inferior humans, and any who get in their way.
This is now a fight about humans vs reploids, with many humans taking casualties (Especially in X4). The story gets more involved (If you actually dig into it), more interesting, and more serious.

Overall: 7/10

Mega Man Zero

You remember me mentioning about Zero in Mega Man X? Well now he gets his own game. And this, my friends, is my favorite series of all.

Character Design: Zero is just plain cooler than X. His sword as mentioned previously makes him cooler, but his body's design is cooler as well. Zero definitely looks different in this series than in the X series, and while I thought it looked weird at first, it has since grew on me. The fact that Zero has long blonde hair may be strange to some, but I think this is an additional bonus of coolness.

Story: It's about 100 years after the X series. X is dead (Well...kinda) and Zero has been in stasis in an abandoned and badly damaged facility. In the years past peace has finally been established, with X having built a city where humans and reploids live peacefully together. At least, until the lack of energy becomes a problem, and a Copy X is created which goes crazy and starts killing off random reploids to preserve energy. Zero is found by Ciel who restores and awakens Zero. Zero fights alongside Ciel and their small band of resistance who fight to stay alive.

Gameplay: I haven't mentioned gameplay before, but there's a fundamental difference about Zero and X. X only had his gun, which means you usually shot at enemies and kept your distance. Zero had a gun as well, but I rarely used it, always preferring the Z-Saber instead. With this, you didn't keep your distance, but instead came right up to the enemy and literally sliced them in half. Most enemies could be destroyed in one or two hits with the Z-Saber, and your score at the end partly depended on your speed. This means I didn't causally come up to an enemy and attack it, it means I dashed right through them. Sword fighting is cool, but running at mad speeds and slicing away your enemies like nothing is even cooler.

Overall: 10/10

Mega Man ZX

This is...a bit different.

Story: This is where I have a problem with ZX series. X and Zero were cool, but they're long dead now. So who replaces them? Human children. Human.... Children.... This is a major step back for me, but it doesn't stop there. For some unexplainable reason, there are now things called Biometals: Floating, talking metal things that "megamerge" with the human children to give them the powers of different reploids. There's the biometal model X and the biometal model Z, so...I guess Zero and X have now been reduced to floating, talking chunks of metal. Yay.
The gameplay and design of the game is very similar to Mega Man Zero, but because of the before mentioned elements, the game feels more like another Saturday morning kids' cartoon.

Character Design: As I mentioned, the design is very similar to the Zero series. The design for "Zero" actually looks even cooler in some regards, like a more-armored Zero.

Overall: 7/10

Flu Panic!

We did it! It's been more than a year, but we've finally published our game, Flu Panic! Please give it a try!

Song of the Day: Suit Up

There's a fairly recent game called Disney Universe. I've never played it, and probably never will, but the song they've used in their promotional videos is rockin'. It's one of those songs where "suit up" is basically the only lyrics in the whole thing, repeated throughout. Despite that, it's very energetic, and makes me want to get up and move.

Song of the Day: Battle On!

There's a fairly new flash series called TOME, and it's pretty good. Good drawings, animation, story, and voice acting. The guy even gets professional voice actors for it.

The song used in the ending credits is "Battle On!". It has plenty of energy, and fits well with the style of the show. Something that gives you the feeling of "I'm gonna take on the world!"

Song of the Day: Tuck 'n Roll

OverClocked Remix recently came out with a new album, Maverick Rising. It has a lot of remixes from all of the Mega Man X games, and it's got quite a few good ones. This is called song of the day, however, so I'll focus on one: Tuck 'n Roll.

Apparently its genre is something called ska, but I don't really understand genres anyways. This wasn't something that appealed to me at first. The instruments sound kind of messy to me. I really like Armored Armadillo's music though, so I listened to it a few times. After a few listens it grew on me, and is now probably my favorite of Maverick Rising. What I really like is that it has lyrics, which is rare for video game remixes. The lyrics don't make much sense though, but then again what song does?
Still, it's done really well and it's a fun listen.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go find Mega Man X Collection.

Song of the Day: Big Beat Eddsworld

Big Beat Eddsworld is fine example of an odd type of music I like: Creating music out of random sound clips. This song takes sound clips of an episode from an online show called Eddsworld. It's fairly decent and worth a look.

I don't know if I can really describe why I like this song. It's got a good beat, and while the "lyrics" don't have much variety, it's mixed around enough to keep it interesting. I dunno. I just like it.

Song of the Day: We're Yu-Gi-Oh

You may have heard of Yu-Gi-Oh, right? Well, there's a series called Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged, which is just what it sounds like except it's pretty funny. And from this series comes today's song, We're Yu-Gi-Oh. Apparently it's a parody on something from Tenacious D, but that had far too much foul language for me to listen to for very long.

This, like many other songs I've mentioned/will mention, are silly, but delightfully so. Even though it's silly it also brings in a sense of "epicness."

Song of the Day: VGPonies

Now that I'm no longer in AZ, and without means to get anywhere, my ASU Food Adventure posts have come to an end. Now for a new stream of posts: Song of the Day! The essence of these posts are for sharing interesting music I find. Be warned though, some of this stuff will be weird/nerdy; this post being no exception.

Came across VGPonies, a series of video game remixes with lyrics involving Ponies. Now I'm no "Brony," but I am a big video game music fan so this is within my interests.

As of this post, there are two songs from this that I like: Rarity Tears and Flutterman.

Rarity Tears: This is a remix of Bloody Tears, a song from Castlevania. Never played Castlevania myself, but I do like this song. One of the things I find interesting about this remix is that parts of it remind me a lot of music from Portal 2. The vocals are also done very well.

Flutterman: A remix of Flash Man from Mega Man 2. Ah, Mega Man: So many awesome songs come from here. Gameplay-wise I prefer the X and Zero series, but that's another discussion. This is probably my favorite of the two; Flash Man has a lot of energy, which is something I love in music. The vocals aren't as clear in this one, but it's still pretty good. The beginning part is also fun. Unfortunately, there's a section with foul language; it's when there deep voice starts. Upon downloading the song I cleaned it out, so if anyone wants the clean version let me know.

K-12 Can't be Trusted

My mom has been unjustly dealt with. As wonderful as she is, she doesn't often stand up for herself, so I'm going to make her voice heard for her. On a blog...that no one reads....

So let's start off with the beginning. Around the time my two younger sisters were entering Jr. High, they went from public school to online school through K-12. Why? Because no one in my family has had a good experience with Jr. High. The kids at that age (in general) tend to be jerks.

K-12 worked out well for a while. For a while the system was good. But at some point, my mom said that "things changed," and the system didn't work as well. I don't know all the details, given that I don't live with my family, but I know the end results. K-12's records were getting messed up. They reported my oldest sister as being older than she really was, and thus in a higher grade. They sent her books for a grade she wasn't in. My youngest sister took a test, but was later told that she never took it. She took it again, and again told she never took it. My mom sat down with her to take the test, now for a third time, and ensured that everything was done properly. K-12 once again said she never took it. At the end of that semester, K-12 reported that my youngest sister hardly did any work, something like only 5%.

Deciding they had enough, my mom went through the process of getting the girls out of K-12 and back into public school. Because K-12 reported such low attendance, and thus truant, my mom had to go through "a lovely meeting," where several people from the public school tried cracking down on my mom and youngest sister. They want to say she's a terrible mom? Fine, who cares about your opinion. You want to explain how it's important to attend school? Fine, even though we're already very well aware how important an education is. But what I can't stand for is that they gave her an ultimatum: my youngest sister has to attend school every day, or my mom goes to court. Given the humble nature of my mom, she accepted the terms.

But come on! One day? One small day and my mom goes to court? My mom has driven me and my three brothers to school, and she's driven my two sisters to school when they were in public school. You think she won't do it again?

The thing that makes this even more difficult is that my youngest sister has trouble sleeping. There are days where she will go through the whole night without sleeping. It's not that she chooses to stay up, it's that she physically can't fall asleep. I don't know if she has insomnia, or if it has something to do with her ADHD, or if it's a mental thing, but she simply has trouble getting to sleep. This means that if she finally falls to sleep only an hour before school, my mom will have no choice but to drag my sleeping sister to school and drop her off, only partially awake. "Do you give her a bedtime?" one of the people from school asked. My mom said that their comments showed that they simply do not understand her situation, despite her explanations. Yes, there are drugs out there that might help her sleep, but it's also highly possible to become dependent on them, and that's not something my mom wants to do to her.

My mom is a wonderful person who, in my opinion, has done as good a job as anyone could in raising us. Better than most people, in fact. She doesn't deserve this kind of treatment, or threat of legal consequences. I'm not here to only defend my mom, but also to raise a warning and complaint against K-12. Something, whether personnel, technology, or communication, have incorrectly recorded and handled information. And because of it has gotten my family into trouble. If anyone else has had this same problem I would love to hear from you.

Don't use K-12. They might report your kids truant.

Clean DBZ Abridged

I like Dragon Ball Z. I like DBZA. I don't like foul language or crude jokes. I've remedied this issue.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_hZdqEBZ1U&list=PLAA008EEFB73FA9A8&feature=mh_lolz