Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays one and all, what do I have planned for the holidays? Finishing up finals and going shopping for my family. That's right, I might have to stay later this week at school to finish up a web page and an animation for my finals. Along with a few projects for my Graphic Design class. Luckily, my teacher said she wasn't coming in on Wednesday and Thursday so that gives me additional time to work on it in the morning. I could also go after I get off at work to reduce the time as well. It's almost over, I hope I do well this year.

As for my holidays, I know what I'm getting for Christmas. YAY, that's always nice, well except for whatever my sister is getting me. I personally expect to get the 2 volumes of Scott Pilgrim I need to complete my collection, well that is until Volume 6 comes out. Now to focus on what to get my family. Normally, my mom takes me shopping for herself, dad, and grandma, and she picks out what I buy, while I go alone for my sister and brother since they made a list that I can get ideas form and get from any store that I pass by.

That's it for now, see ya next time.

Xbox Live's New Update

Yeah, I recently signed up for the new Xbox Live update preview. The new update allows you to use Twitter, Facebook, Last FM Radio, and Zune Marketplace all from the comfort of your Xbox 360. In the following days, expect to see my thoughts on this update, though mostly on Twitter and Facebook. FM Radio, not sure if I'll ever use, while Zune, I might use it, but I need to work a little more to justify spending money on it.

Oh yeah, I have one of these.

Yeah, I kind of dropped the ball on this blog, but I do plan on updating soon.

Sorry for the lack of updates, but College is a bit of a pain right now, just started college midterms, and I just recently re-entered the workforce. That and I do have quite a backlog of games that I am trying to beat. Currently playing Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, Mario and Luigi 3, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky, and Pokemon Platinum on the DS front. My 360 time has gone to me playing Halo 3 ODST, Batman Arkham Asylum and Left 4 Dead, that is when my brother isn't playing a sports game or Guitar Hero game. Wii, mostly Call of Duty: World at War, Punch-Out!!, Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, Mario Galaxy at the moment. Damn, that's a lot of games, and so little time.

As for School, it's going OK, sure my math teacher can be quite a bitch at time, but I just learn what I can and try to move on. My three art classes are kicking my ass this semester though, got to work on my Webpage layout, might work at it at Home with Paint.Net, then go back to school for Dreamweaver and Photoshop. Then my other class, I need to come up with a logo, which is coming along nicely. My Flash class, create a "how to" with Flash, my only problem is, I have no idea of what to make it about right now. The Weight Training class is really the one where I can just cool off and work out. I need to kick myself into gear this semester, don't want to fail any of my classes.

As for work, I'm currently a Cart Attendant at ShopRite. It's OK, I'm outside, rarely deal with customers, and the people around me seem nice. Sure my feet are sore at the end of the day and I only work 5 hours a day for 4 days a week, but in this economy, you got to take what you got to take, besides, the pay is decent enough.

That's it for now, stay tuned for future updates.

Heart Gold and Soul Silver

Man, I wish I had these games right now. The games just came out in Japan, I'm looking at the new stuff, and damn, it look fine. Like getting Legendaries from the other games, and the starters from Kanto and Hoenn. Also, nice to see that they buffed up some of the Gym Leaders levels and new gym designs. Seriously, Falkner had the weakest party out of any Gym Leader, none of his Pokemon were even in the double digits. I just hope that some Pokemon are moved around a bit. I want a Teddiursa earlier dammit. Still early to judge on the game, I know, but still, I wanted these games since they were first hinted at with all those clues in Diamond, Pearl and Platinum and announced on Bulbagarden.

Dammit, Spring 2010, get over here. Oh well, guess I'll get back to playing Pokemon Pearl for the moment.

School Days

No, not that anime, I'm currently back in School. Went back for my 3rd year at Bergen Community College this past Thursday. So far the only classes I have attended so far are my Interactive Multimedia course and Algebra. Interactive Multimedia is fun so far, basically I'm learning how to use flash for commercial use, and I have my first Homework assignment for it, make an animation that last 84 frames, and it has to be 12fps. Doing the math for that, means I got to make a seven second animation. Also I have to buy and read a book about Flash as well. My College bookstore didn't have it, so I'm going to go to Barnes and Noble sometime before my next class, hopefully, before Thursday. But as for the class itself, I like it, I know the teacher from last year, and some the student in the class I had in other art classes. Basically what we did that day was mess around in Flash with the shape and classic tween. Shape tween was pretty fun to use.

As for my Algebra class, other than the teacher coming in late, it was basically the same stuff I did back in high school. Kind of boring, but hey, at that, I can hope to get an easy A. The Homework I actually finished around 30 minutes. How do I know? I tweeted the time I started and finished my Homework, how that's for convenience? According to my teacher, We don't have class this Monday. Not sure about my other Monday classes though, we probably will since they are the first classes and I need to know what to find as far as books go.

Though the only downside was, the book I needed was over $120, and my financial aid was cut due to my family having a decent living. Since now New York only gives Financial Aid to people that need it more, aka people that are poor. Guess I really can't complain, since I only got it for my disability, and my parents are able to keep a roof over my head with cable, electricity, gas, water, food, internet, and my all time favorite video games.

So I got 2 more days of new classes, Monday and Wednesday then work on my sleep schedule and try to balance that while doing homework and finding a job.

This is Daxdiv, signing out.

Some Good News Everyone

Well, for some reason I was never expecting this. North America is getting the Member Card item in Pokemon Platinum and Next Level Games Express interest in making another Punch-Out Game.

My reaction.... FUCK YEAH!x2. Sure I may have the Darkrai from the Toys R Us event from when Movie 10 was coming out and the Shadows of Almia, but this is different cause instead of giving them away with some gimmicky move, you get the chance to fight Darkrai, something I wanted to do since Diamond and Pearl was out.

As for the Punch-Out!! Wii sequel, Punch-Out!! is currently my favorite game, so far, I'm focusing on beating everyone challenges in both Contender and Title Defense mode, that and I'm waiting for Doc Louis's Punch-Out!! reward for Club Nintendo Members. Also the idea of Create a Boss and Online Multiplayer intrigue me. Along with a new twist to the gameplay mechanics of the series. Here's hoping that they throw in the ability to fight as one of Little Mac's opponents, that is, if they get the greenlight to work on this game series again.

Club Nintendo Rewards

Well, recently this week Club Nintendo just released their rewards for people that were able to reach Gold and Platinum status. For Gold status, you only get a calendar for 2010, as for Platinum members, you get to choose between a collector’s item known as “Mario Hat” or you can get an exclusive WiiWare game called “Doc Louis’s Punch-Out!” in which Little Mac can go toe to toe with his mentor Doc Louis. As a sidenote, I was expecting this game to be Doc Louis in his prime fighting since he was a former WVBA champion. Now I am conflicted with what prize I should get. Let me list the pros and cons of this

Mario Hat Pros

· It’s a Mario Hat

· It’s a rare item

· Would look sweet to have around

Mario Hat Cons

· I can get the hat from eBay or any other online auction site.

· Most people will probably go for the hat.

· I have nowhere to put the hat.

Doc Louis’s Punch-Out! Pros

· Exclusive WiiWare Title in the same way that Club Nintendo has the Game & Watch Collection is exclusive to the program

· I really love Punch-Out!

· You don’t need the retail version of Punch-Out! to play it

· You fight Doc Louis.

Doc Louis’s Cons

· Fear that this game might go public after a while

· The game might not be good

· Might be either too easy/difficult

· Novelty could wear off fast as it is basically an over glorified demo.

Personally I am leaning towards the game due to the fact that at least for the Mario hat, I know that a few people will soon hock that on eBay for a quick buck, like what some people are doing for the hats that were given out in Japan’s Club Nintendo program. The game while someone could sell the code, there is more of a chance that could be fake than anything else, that and I can imagine the price for that game being high despite the fact that DLPO, is basically going to be a short game, it’s just going to Punch-Out! on the Wii with just one fighter to fight. A recent auction I saw for the hat that was given out in Japan had the hat going for $40 starting price, to me that is a reasonable price for an exclusive item like that, so I might end up getting the hat when I finally get a job. So I guess I solved my problem.

My thoughts on CN Real.

I might be in the minority, but I actually liked some of the shows that aired on CN Real, except for The Othersiders, Survive This is pretty good, It's Survivorman with kids, hell, it has Survivorman Les Stroud giving these kids advice on how to survive in the wild. BrainRush, I like the concept of people answering questions on a roller coaster especially in Episode 2, where one guy didn't even answer like 2 question and shouting "Oh My God!" throughout his questioning process, that and I am somewhat of a roller coaster junkie. As for Destroy Build Destroy, you basically have kids in two teams trying to destroy parts of a vehicle for their opponent to use or not use, build a machine out of it, see if you can sabotage it when you win a challenge, and then build it before the challenge, do the challenge and winner destroys loser machine, and it's hosted by Andrew WK, AWESOME!. Othersiders, PASS!

Sure, I agree with the notion that shows like this don't belong on Cartoon Network to begin with, but I do like these shows. Though I am glad that CN isn't shoving them down your throat as much as they did when it first premiered. I think it might have to do with the fact that the shows didn't do so well in the ratings. After all, CN didn't release any info on how well the Wednesday shows, aka Othersiders and Survive This, did in the ratings. However, they did give out some info on their Saturday Night Line-up, which consists of BrainRush and Destroy Build Destroy, saying that the ratings were up compared to what was on TV last year for CN, better than nothing really, they could have just kept it quiet and make more people suspicious about how well this is doing.

But then again why should they care what I think. I'm way out of their target demographic by 6 years since this aims to the 9-14 crowd and I am a 20 year old. Oh wait, they made a video on YouTube about it.


Notice how it was publish it on their YouTube Channel over their video service known as CN Video. Methinks it has to do with all the complaining from the older crowd, but why would they care? I know there is a big backlash at Toon Zone, Cartoon Brew, and possibly some other sites I don't go to that is heavy on animation.

Is there anything you can do to fight this? Well there is, you can support one of my friends effort called, "Stop The Madness"

Basically I find this to be the most level headed campaign against the network since it does tell you to support the network, but not the Live Action. Like buy the merchandise of any of the animated shows, since it does make a statement that, "HEY! We love cartoons and we're able to show you by buying your merch." After all as far a TV station goes, I know they care about 2 things “ratings” and “money”. However, since my view doesn’t count for crap for two reasons, reason one is that I am not a Nielsen Family, reason two is the fact that I am out of their age range as previously stated in this post. My only way of supporting CN now is to buy their merchandise, since they don’t care where the money comes from, money is money to them. So next time you see a shirt at Hot-Topic or a DVD with the CN logo on it, and you have the extra cash...BUY IT!!! But if you don't plan to buy it because of the way the network is let me just say this... RETHINK THAT IDEA!!! Just because you disagree with the network right now because of this, that doesn't means you should give up on the network, especially if you care for it. Do you want CN to succeed and further support the Live Action movement? I say no. Buying merch like that can help. I plan to buy the Chowder DVD at my local Toys R Us later this Month, along with the Flapjack, Total Drama Island, and some of Secret Saturday merch when they come out to show my support of animation on Cartoon Network. That's the only thing I can do and hope that you can do it as well. Peace!

Pokedex Completed....sort of!

Well as of July 3rd, 2009, I have completed the Pokedex in My Diamond copy thanks to one of my friends giving me a Celebi. What did I trade for that Celebi? A Deoxys, that one that GameStop gave away sometime after Toys R Us did the Darkrai event for Movie 10. Now to wait for the Arceus to come out, well that and Heart Gold and Soul Silver, and Pokemon Scramble game that was released recently in Japan for WiiWare.

Not sure about Mystery Dungeon, they've been hit or miss for me. I might get the new one for the DS when I get a job.

Nintendo's Tech Support Rules

Well, today was sort of a surprise for me, as my Wii came back from being repair by Nintendo (ok, maybe not Nintendo themselves, more like a company they contract, But still.) What was weird about it is that I sent it out to be repaired on Tuesday, and it came back on Thursday. Sure the place where I got it repaired was in Syracuse, NY. At first I thought that they gave me a spare Wii, (I mean, I just sent it in to be repaired on Tuesday, compared to the times that I have sent my Xbox to be "repaired") different from the one that I sent in to be repaired, but thankfully it wasn't. It still had all my saves, my friend codes, my downloaded Wii Ware and Virtual Console Games, the same channels I had on the Wii since I sent it in and my Miis, to name a few things.

What was wrong with it? Turns out the Disc Drive Mechanism and Fan were broken. Kind of suspected as much when my Wii made this noise every time whenever it try to read a disc or the fan sounding almost like my 360 does on a daily basis. It's was like for almost a month or so, and I really couldn't afford to send it in for repairs, but now that I could afford it, I decided to, just so I could play Punch-Out!, which is an awesome game by the way, I plan to review that game later. So far everything is working, I can still play Smash Bros. Brawl, and Animal Crossing: City Folk. So glad that I could play Animal Crossing again.

What did I learn from this? Nintendo does tech support right.

Annoying Post

Well, first blog post.

Well this is my first subject. A website that I frequent everyday called Toon Zone, has a thread in the Cafe Board called "Top 10 Worst Types of Fans" While the Topic Creator or TC as I like to call them brought this list, they aren't the focus of my rant. The focus is on another poster called... Game Freak 4.

Not sure what it is, but the fact that he seems to hate anime because it is foreign is starting to piss me off. It wouldn't be that bad, if the way he said it didn't imply that anything not American made must suck or is inferior. While liking anime is an acquired taste, I just think that cutting out Anime is like Cutting out meats for animation. Something that you don't need really (after all vegetarians are able to survive without the need of meat.), but is fun to partake in and is more about having different tastes. American Animation is like the grains & whole wheats in my book, since well it varies, some are good, and some are bad, but the body needs it to expose yourself to it. After all on my side of the globe, American cartoons are more abundant, henceforth they are consider that group in animation for me.

Sure he doesn't mean it the way that he post it since most of the times he giving off generalization and such. My advice is, if you're going to make a generalization about something, state it, or else I'll think that you're talking about your personal experiences or beliefs. Like my personal experience is that while Naruto, suffering from a shitty story, it still has one hell of a dub, same with Bleach. Sure people complain about Naruto's VA, but hey people complain about Goku, Ichigo, and Luffy's VA not fitting the character, but nothing is perfect and there is no such thing as "pleasing everyone" anyone who has that idea of "Pleasing everyone" isn't being realistic.

Also don't get me started on that forum that is in his signature. That is flamebaiting in one of its finest forms. Some of the some post consist of "THIS IS GAY!" "THIS SUCKS!" "THIS IS FAIL!", what do those have in common, that is trolling. Now you might think that this is hypocritical of me, considering that I am a poster at TZ Watch, and I am even a Moderator there. Some people think that the website that I'm on is just bashing members on TZ, but we do actually offer constructive criticism from time to time, believe it or not. Sure we often question why such and such poster behaves in a certain manner, but we have matured a bit over how we do it now, why we think that certain people are flawed, or why they are awesome in our eyes.

However Game Freak 4 is getting annoying with his anti-anime agenda. In another thread called "C.H. Greenblat on Chowder, Anime" He shows off his bias again by saying that Japan doesn't do "Cartoony" cartoons. I for one call BS on that. I look at shows like SGT. Frog, High School Host Club Ouran, One Piece, Bo^7, and several more, and I see that they are very cartoony in a sense. However, he hasn't responded to it, I think he may have blocked me. He said that the Japanese side has an annoying fanbase, is that true? Maybe, but that just shows a bias and is even more immature as writing off all fans of Japanese Animation as that part of the fanbase. After all there are some parts of the American Animation fanbase that is annoying as hell. Writing off that one side suck, another rule is immature and shows your affiliation. They are both bias, and are no better than the other side, and if you think that you are better than than the other side, that is stupid.

So basically what I'm getting at is that it doesn't matter which side of the globe animation comes from, they all have both good and bad shows. Quit Saying that Otaku are bad when a certain other animator fanbase is just as bad as the Otakus.