Olympia

Drinking game! Take a shot every time anything on British television mentions the olympics, either written or spoken! Rerun's don't count, as we want you to survive.

Back in 2004-ish, it was announced that Britain will be hosting the 2012 Olympic Games, and everyone was happy. People of my age were often told "you'll be old enough to compete in the Olympics" as a reason for us to be sporty. Cups were being designed, competitions were run, planning and all that.

But it's been 8 years of "hey, we're doing the olympics" and I am really looking forward to September.

If you couldn't guess, I am a massive geek and not over sport. I didn't watch the Beijing Olympics, I don't follow the athletes' stories, I don't swoon over the torch and have never been particularly won over by the hype of anything. If I celebrate the games at all, it'll be by playing a video game with a competition related theme or watching Grifball.

It especially doesn't help that most stories we hear about it give an indication that it won't be as amazing as everyone's telling themselves. The clock broke after 24 hours, the opening has a deleted scene, and the rest of it seems a little wacky, everyone's short staffed, there's a snake in Boris Johnson's boot, the tickets were managed horrendously...

Let me explain using an analogy. Imagine a concert was announced for Carly Rae Jepsen and everyone is excited about it. T-shirts are being designed through competitions, the venue is being renovated, and the whole world is expected to turn up for it.

But since there's a limited number of tickets, we'll use a wacky method of selling them! Instead of first come, first serve, we'll make it a lottery where it costs buckloads for a set of tickets, and you have to cross your fingers that you got the ones you wanted! If you got the wrong number of tickets, or they're for the wrong venue, then good luck trying to sell them without seeming immoral.

So, to increase your chances of getting the right tickets, you book more than you want! This works right until the moment where you get every ticket you booked. That's too many! How can you be expected to afford this? This went badly!

Oh no! Asbestos in the arena! We'll have to remodel! Assuming the venue is ready by the concert date, it will be expected to cost twice as much as initially thought! But hopefully, tourism will help to balance the chequebook, since Jepsen's such a big attraction.

Hey, it seems that every marketing department in the world realised this too! Why, it only makes sense to make a profit from this. So they have Call Me Maybe play over their ads, or even have Jepsen hersalf appear in the advert, and wrap it off by claiming to be sponsoring the concert. After all, people will love Jepsen enough to buy literally everything that sponsors it, right? Not just the decent stuff? Sturgeon's Law doesn't apply to us, does it?

Then the marketing departments of the non-sponsors realises they missed out, and their competitors are doing better because they're an official sponsor. Well then, they'll have to sponsor someone else popular! Taylor Swift's pretty popular, isn't she? Or maybe we'll get Rebecca Black!

And then you have to expect every company that has any ties to the concert to create some bit of merchandice for the concert, putting her concert logo or her face on anything that people might barely want. Cups, travel mugs, coasters, pillows, desks, dvds, ancient documents, books, bookmarks, socks, beddings and who else knows is adorned in either her or music to drum up sales of their hot water bottles. Because everyone will buy this blister pad so they can look back on the time Carly Rae Jepsen played in their countries concert hall.

And the news can't stop going on about the concert, mentioning their plans to either increase security, fix the toilets, shoot down die-hard Rhianna fans, run their opening act, sell drinks at the minibars in hotels for high prices or run a boombox across the M25.

But it will all be worth it when the concert begins and fans will have a good couple of weeks to enjoy everything the last campaign of media hype has been leading to.

...Unless you dislike her music and would much rather just watch doctor who, in which case you've been tormented by her face for the past I don't know how long and endured a stupid overplayed and unoriginal meme for something you honestly don't give a sh*t about.

Basically, what I'm saying is GO AWAY, CARLY RAE JEPSON!


Oh, and the Olympics is overplayed.

Words

This is a nitpick, but it's a word that just bugs me.

Threshold

You don't see it, do you? Nothing?

See, it's pronounced (from Dictionary.reference.com) thresh-hohld. Always spelt like that and always pronounced like that, but it just doesn't look like it should work like that.


With the spelling, it should be pronounced either thresh-old or thres-hold. The second is madness, while the first makes me feel like I'm using a white van man accent, and even then I slightly use the H. The letter h is pulling double duty as the h for 'hold' and the h in the 'sh' sound.


If it were spelt as it's pronounced, it would have two h-es back to back, which looks weird. Threshhold.


Just a nitpick, but it bugs me.

Pokemon: So close...

Let me start off by saying I enjoyed Black and White. The characters and plot were the perfect reconstruction for the series, quelling all concerns people have of potential controversies that emerge in their world (Parents letting children run off, battling indoors, mistreatment of pokemon, ambitions of trainers). The pokemon were more enjoyable than I assumed, the animation worked for me, the theme is strong and shown well in the geography and pokemon, and Black's design is my personal favourite for a male character.

There are a few issues I have, but if I wasn't complaining then I wouldn't be here.

The big one I have is the legendary trio. As a concept, they're awesome. A reflection of each other, formed from one creature and broken apart when the owners started fighting. One hero chose truth, while the other chose ideals, and the creatures reflect these, while Kyurem is the remnants of the original.

The types and movesets work well in this concept too. Attacks that work specifically against the other, with their types themselves being different forms of energy, which Kyurem lacks (hence Ice).

But their classifications... No, I'm sorry, but it's only logical to give them to the other one.

When one represents burning ideals and the other represents shocking truth, you don't make the truth one fire and the ideals one lightning. You just don't! Reshiram has a smoother design, as you'd intend everything to be ideally. Zekrom's body and name are both rather harsh sounding, as the truth can be.

Then there's the refusal to call one of them canon. Even having two movies just so that both games are shown equally! We like to know some concrete canon, which is why the third game in the series has always done so well. The conflicting events of two games makes sense when they're gently merged in the third, as with Emerald and Platinum.

But instead, you add on another two games that follow the events of either game. Do I have to get white2 so the events of white are maintained? Why not just have one canon and make a sequel to that so everybody's on the same page?

The worst thing about this is N changes in the two versions. In one, he seeks Zekrom and in the other, he seeks Reshiram. Given his personality, he should seek Reshiram, but that only happens in White. And he seeks two different things in the two games (truth and ideals), which changes his opinion on what he does!

And lastly, Mandibuzz and Vullaby can't be even seen on White. This is an issue.

But other than that, good games : )

Posers and Geeks

Geeks have become cool. Well, I say that but actually we've always been cool. Never changed.

What I should say is the rest of society has recently realised how cool we are, given Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Avengers and the new heights of the console industry. This should be good, because we're super badass and bitches better recognise.

However, with every trend comes one downfall... Posers.

Those sheeple who don't actually care for the culture or have any of the actual intellect that you'd associate with the trend, but just want to be cool. When the trend is the Kardashians, hating the middle-east or being hipster, low intellect isn't too damaging to the image they create.

Geeks are not Kardashians, and we tend to have a rather strong knowledge and are very defensive about geek life. We will gallantly defend the English language and its many regulations against all those who spell it "Nurds". We will take the highest offence to someone who doesn't know the mastery that is Joss Whedon. We will facepalm to the point where all out hands reach the same point in the middle of the atlantic ocean after flying through out heads and give a collective high five of "you're a moron" if you wonder what E3 is.

And every last poser who puts on a pair of glasses frames, takes pictures of themselves, watches the Avengers movie and posts to facebook "I'm such a geek <3" is dragging our good name through the dirt!

You cannot call yourself a geek because you enjoy something popular. That's not how it works. You have to live that fandom. You have to frequently visit one of their fansites and read up on all background information and sequels, should any exist. I wont accept anyone claiming to be a nerd/geek around the time a good and slightly geeky thing comes to public eye until they have proven it to me.

How do you do that? State something that no average airheaded poser would know. Quote firefly, show me your replica lightsaber hilt, correct my pokemon knowledge. Generally do something where some normal person would look at you with a blank look and say "Wow, you are such a geek!" If that person has fake nails, then it doesn't count.

Also, wearing glasses doesn't make you a nerd. Knowing the diameter of the frames does.

You'd probably also own a micrometer. That definitely makes you a nerd.

A rather vague rant

My girlfriend (same one, long ass story) pointed out I did two Pokemon blogs in a row, even if the spacing of the row was massive. Therefore, I shall NOT do a Pokemon blog this time. This time, I shall merely rant due to the complainy mood I find myself in.

So, as several people know and even more could guess, I occasionally find myself doing... What's the word? I'll go with stuff. I do stuff.

Now, I'm a laid back person. I don't let the stuff get me down, so I do vital stuff and fun stuff so it doesn't pile up and nothing bad happens. While important stuff happens and people say I need to prepare for this stuff, I just make sure I know stuff and do the stuff as it happens, preventing me from becoming too stressed. It's worked out well for me so far.

This time of year, organic things do important stuff so they can do more fulfilling stuff at a different time. There's no problem here. The problem is there's suddenly an overflow of stuff where there previously wasn't any flow at all!!!

At a certain recurring classification of time, I have the bare minimum of stuff to do. I can do two shorter periods of time, then return to the location I class as my residence until the next time stuff occurs. Usually, I do more stuff after this so I feel productive before returning the the residence of mine.

I can no longer follow this schedule, however. Certain other stuff, while still practical, has turned up at an inopportune time-slot forcing me to remain in the location where stuff happens if I wish to stay ahead in some stuff and attend at all for the other stuff.

This would be fine, except this time-slot was planned by others as a time for preparing for the aforementioned important stuff. I know this is important, but if I understand the stuff, can't I simply do other stuff? I have more than one kind of stuff, and I need to cater to them all!

And the indignation I receive for being unavailable for your stuff due to other people's stuff doesn't help.

I know your stuff is still important, but if i'm going to be even half way competent at your stuff, there's other stuff I need to do as well, so don't feel offended if I'm not giving 20% of the 12% available time to your stuff. I have a girlfriend.

...Sorry, did I have a point going off that? Writing it made me think of my girlfriend and I got distracted...

/rant

Wow... I just started to think of her and suddenly I remembered that I will be fine and everything's alright. If she's with me, nothing's wrong and I can't get mad.

So if you think I'm wasting my time and should be revising 25/3GAJILLION!!! (a lot more than 24/7) then you can stuff yourself. I've got more important things to think about.

A request for Pokemon

A few things to point out. Yes, I know it's been months since the last update, but who really gives a nelson? (I don't know any Nelsons in my life, nor feel for a fictional nelson for that to have any real meaning. Substitute as you like) This is a request for the Anime, as the games are fine. Keep doing what you're doing, Gamefreak.

Pokemon as an Anime is interesting, as it's lasted for so long with some lovable characters and classic lines everyone can recite (team rocket's motto, the theme song, etc.) Over time, it has had some less than favourable moments (Tracy, Max, Tracy, the voice-changing, some inaccuracies in type recognition, Tracy, TRACY) but has remained a rather decent thing.

But there is something I strongly recommend. You can keep the anime going with its basic premise, but I have one thing I would like that might end up renewing the series indefinitely.

Let Ash leave the show.



Yeah. That's it. It's one of the few things that would be better without the main character, Twilight being another (different reason, though).

Ash is a monument to the original series and is such a staple you can't really remove him without losing the fanbase you started with. But changing everything else makes you lose the starter fanbase too, so why keep him around? We've grown to see him become an icon, but just keeping him there for the sheer fact there's a number of people that grew up with him is a little useless if we never see any resolution.

This is why I hate soap operas. You want to keep things going, but to do that, you must keep any resolution from emerging. But if the feature of Pokemon is the world and all the amazing creatures in it, why not switch the focus?

I think the Unova region should finish everything off. Ash competes in the Unova league, officially stating himself to be, say, sixteen? During these episodes, show a simple character, a boy of age ten, watching the matches in awe and finding a stray pokemon, which the boy treats with respect.

Over the episodes, you also see a culmination of Team Plasma's plan and the revelation that Ghetsis has made deals with Giovanni to have his goons treat pokemon horrendously on display in the contest so people will be more ready to give their own pokemon up, as Plasma recommends. Ghetsis and Giovanni, the only ones with any pokemon at all, then rule the world together.

Meanwhile, N convinces the team rocket trio we all love to help stop this madness, won over by the fact the talking Meowth is their friend and ally, and would be abused in their plan. They help out and get out of the business entirely, settling for honest retail instead.

Ash, in a bout of heroism, helps defend the stray pokemon, and the boy, from team rocket attacks. Over the course of some impressive action, he aids the defeat of Rocket and Plasma so well the boy vows to become a great trainer, like him.

A very loyal plasma and rocket duo decide to avenge their fallen factions, especially since they were beaten by a stray pokemon and a young boy (guess who). You'd probably need villains following the new hero, and here they are.

Ash gets dubbed honorary champion as reward for saving the day, and is happy with his victory here. Thus concluding his story arc and setting up a new main character with a new story arc.

This is how I would progress the series. You have the new main character with a similar but refreshed goal, a potential for new enemies and a much needed resolution for the hero we've been following.

This is just a recommendation, but the fanbase you're pandering to with the maintenance of Ash's story would SERIOUSLY enjoy some resolution there. Do with it as you like, but find SOME way of giving the story some resolution so we're not just waiting until bored.

If you REALLY want to bring in the old fans, have cameos in a few episodes. I only watch the few episodes where something unusual happens, or a game character appears and I wanna see their portrayal. This would interest me.

Kanto really went weird

Okay, so big issue I realised with pokemon generation two. Love the games, mind you, but i'm looking up the changes in the region between games, which is just three years, and there's a lot. Understandably, cause they're fitting two regions into one game, which is a luxury to player nostalgia in itself, but you can't fit it all into a GBC cartridge.

The first generation was good, and had a lot of places for the intrepid explorer to explore, as most explorers do. There was a cruise ship, a graveyard tower, a burned down lab, a cave with powerful creatures every turn, a forest, a museum, a safari park, a zoo, eight gyms, a mountain with fossils in, a whole bunch of secret mafia hideouts, a cycling road and a cave with digletts.

That's a lot of stuff.

For generation two, they made sure to not waste a ruddy thing. Everything in Jhoto had a point, and there wasn't much of a point to Kanto beyond the gym rebattles, the small team rocket story and the lead up to battle Red.

So they trimmed the fat. They worked out loads of reasons why they cut out most of kanto, keeping it as minimal as they could.

The S.S.Anne made sense to be gone, since it's a once off cruise ship. They have another more frequent ferry, so all's well that ends well.

Then there's silph co, which has tightened security and has a broken lift, so nobody can get in, no matter what. Seriously, you can have a pass from the queen, you're not getting into the upper level of Silph. This might lower the tourism, but oh well.

Moving south, we have another tourism hit. The whole zoo and safari zone has just got up and gone. Yup. For some reason, the warden went on a trip, and took EVERY ANIMAL HE HAD UNDER HIS CARE WITH HIM. Not just leave it with his helper, no! Lets just evacuate the place.

They rectified it in generation four, putting in the pal park and moving the safari zone to the west of jhoto. Where nobody can get to it. And the zoo isn't even set up. Face it, the warden messed up a bit.

Then even further south, the island town of Cinnibar has exploded. Yeah, the only thing is a presumably new pokemon centre and the main guy who now lives in a tiny cave on an island to use as a gym for challengers. He lives in a cave. And i don't recall any other people in all of Kanto or Jhoto referring to escaping Cinnibar. As they likely would. Only one guy got away.

Generation four made this less horrific to think of and had a whole bunch of gym trainers escape too, but still, ouch.

The viridian forest was lessened to a small maze. It was cut down. For convenience sake. Shame, really. Shows how little the world cares.

The museum, a place of enlightenment the world needs, is under maintenance. Yep, they shut that too. Tourism can't really handle it right now, huh?

Mount moon has crumbled under rock slides. I reckon it's because of humans disturbing the place trying to find fossils for show, but they say they stopped mining ages ago and couldn't be the cause. Some pokemon escaped and continue their natural ways, but people just use this to make money.

Speaking of just making money pokemon tower. A pokemon resting place, yeah, basically a graveyard, now serves the purpose of making radio shows. You just know the DJ is haunted by undetectable Ghastleys and one peeved Marrowak. Imagine how that happened:
"Hey, wanna honour the dead?"
"No, I wanna hear the Archers. Just put them in that old guy's small house. He won't mind!"

The power plant is up and running, which is great. It does lead to crime and vandalism like that in the tunnels under Saffron, however, due to people from other countries trying to serve dead organisations. Only a slight draw-back, but it does make a difference when the whole of the region becomes reliant on the power plant for ALL their power.

There's a cave to the north of cerulean which is dangerous. Very powerful pokemon dwell there. This is bad for most, but good for the local common job of pokemon training, since they can catch and battle some really tough enemies. But, sadly the place got blocked off before generation two.

There's also some minor changes in leadership of local gyms, but nothing bad.

Seriously, tell me Kanto has had a good three years. Tell me.