Psychology of Insecurity

  Here lately, men and women are finding themselves more and more insecure about their body and sexual performance. Paid programs on television contribute to these feelings that both sexes are experiencing. These programs talk about how women prefer large, muscular men and how men are more attracted to skinny, large chested women. To this, men start ordering and taking pills that promise results to make them more attractive to women, and ladies will starve  themselves and get surgery in order to be more sexually appealing. Guys and girls both worry so much about pleasing the other, disregarding any ego-building compliments that they may receive, feeling that they are insincere. We, as people, need to attempt to meet a happy medium between men and women, acknowledging each of us for what we have while still trying to improve little things that wont hurt anyone. Men don't deserve to constantly think they are inadequate in so many ways. Equally, women don't deserve to think they need to be thin and big-breasted in order to feel "sexy". If men would stop worrying and women would stop complaining, and both attempted to be their best at life, happy, honest, and themselves, then so many psychological issues with social and sexual inadequacy wouldn't exist. Insecurity is too big of a problem to turn away from. Try to do what you can to balance this problem.

Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain

  Remember when PS1 was still popular and everyone wanted and/or had one? And remember the classic games that went along with it, like Spyro, The Legend of Mana, Tomb Raider, and so on? I do, and one of my favorite games of this time period was Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain. Blood Omen was the first in the long saga of games that later became Soul Reaver (PS2), focusing, originally, around Kain and his thirst, as a vampire, for blood and revenge. Later, of course, the game took a turn to be narrated and centering on the character, Raziel, but also following the same story line, with more twist and turns and complications in the plot. Kain's story and game was a very bloody and violent and simple; kill, use potions, transform to a bat or wolf, travel around and get his revenge. There was very little puzzle challenges, unlike the Soul Reaver games to follow. Where Raziel was a puzzle solver and absorbed souls, Kain would kill and battle and suck blood into a vile (located on the side of the screen and making a cool "shllllk shlllk" sound when you drank people's blood) and killing nearly anyone around, but there weren't very many mental tasks that needed  to be performed.
  The game is a classic for the Play Station and leads to an addiction to the saga, all through the final Soul Reaver, which brings the entire conjoined story of Kain and Raziel full circle. Kain's original game differs greatly from what it later was created into, but played in order, there really is nothing too confusing about it (until said final Soul Reaver game which includes multiple twists and time traveling back and forth). It's a great play for anyone and the entire series of games is a great experience (as it does challenge the mind and promotes the use of intense brain power in order to follow the story and narration) for all ages. Hope you all remember it as well as i do, and I hope you, too, got satisfaction from its very existence. Enjoy.

-Yours Truly

Recommendation of the Day: Fooly Cooly

 

 Today's review is of an older, but familiar show that once  aired on Adult Swim. Fooly Cooly (or FLCL) was aired in 2001 and the 6-episode show took a large amount of people over with its random sense of humor, odd story-lines, and fabulous characters. This anime is based around a 12-year-old boy named Naota, who is savagely beaten by a scooter (her famous Vespa) driven by a strange pink-haired woman. After that, she proceeds to hit him with an unusual guitar she carries, which almost resembles a chainsaw in characteristics, at that point in time. Later the show reveals that the woman with pink hair has recently started living with Naota and his dad and grandfather in their store/house. Her name is Haruko. She turns out to be even weirder than Naota imagined and leads him into a universe of trouble when robots from a plant, Medical Mechanic, that centers the town start crawling out of Naota's forehead. One of these robots becomes a member of the house and named Kanti (Lord Kanti) by Naota's lonely, troubled, and immature friend in high school, Mamimi. The four of them, including Kanti, try to take down the Medical Mechanica plant's weapons with their own, all later revealing a plot that's much bigger than their own planet. Haruko's strange appearance is explained, regarding her drive for a certain power, and the center to the story, the powerful Atomsk ("The Pirate King") who is the Pirate if the Universe. Haruko has been chasing him down in order to gain his power for herself, regardless of the destruction she causes along the way.
  The whole story, of course, involves a little more than this, such as Atomsk's manifestation through Kanti, Naota helping Atomsk as a catalyst, and Mamimi's random behavior and sadness. This show, created by Yoji Enokido &Kazuya Tsurumaki, is a great series, though short with its 6 episodes, but, in my opinion (since you're reading this i assume you care), makes the show even better than others. This is one of my personal favorites and has been for years; hence the fact I care to recommend it. Take a look at it sometime, laugh, cry, and of course, enjoy.

-Yours Truly

Rolling Kansas

 

 Comedy? Check. Weed? Check. Wrong use of human noses found in police evidence bags? Check. Rolling Kansas, a hilarious film by Thomas Haden Church, is about 3 friends who are all living broke, find out their Hippie parents created a map for them to use years ago to a map to a "Magical Marijuana Forest" in Kansas. The 3, Dick, Dink and Dave, along with Kevin and Hunter, rented a car, implements of destruction, and their map, travel to Kansas to find the forest.
  Along the way, the group experience troubles with the law, odd flashbacks to their lives being raised by hippies, and hookers who enjoy the company of a cripple guy with a close attachment to bunnies. The comedy includes a great since of humor and music score playing in the background. It also continues to question the characters' sexual tendencies, though we're not sure why. I, personally, love pot movies, and this 2003 film is a top pick for me :)

  -Yours Truly

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

  This film, unfortunately written and directed by Woody Allen (as a critic, i generally disagree with none of his work), is a great piece of work with an all star cast and a fascinating plot about two friends, Vicky and Cristina, who share everything but their perspective of love, and go to stay in Barcelona for a summer, meet a handsome and up-front man, Juan Antonio, who sweeps them off their feet in Spain and show them into the art world, which they both adored. The story later thickens with a love between Cristina and Juan Antonio, and a story of his ex wife and their violent marriage to Maria Elena erupts.
  This movie includes amazing art, music and screen shots of Spain and the places within it. Along with this, is the cast includes Javier Bardem, Scarlett Johansson, Rebecca Hall, and Penelope Cruz, plus many more. I, personally, adored the film's story, narration, and directing. I was very impressed and it left me fascinated with the art and landscape of that it presented. Please watch this and enjoy its warmth.

-Yours Truly

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

  This work of literary journalism, by Tom Wolfe, is a great recreation in writing, of the life of Ken Kesey (author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) with the Band of Merry Pranksters. The Pranksters were followers of Ken Kesey in the 70's who experimented with drugs such as LSD and marijuana, traveling around the U.S. in a techno-colored bus christened "Furthur", recording their high from state to state. The group, under Kesey's orders, went to New York in search of Timothy Leary (also notorious for his acid use). The bus went back to California, with   Neal Cassady (a famous Speed user) behind the wheel, to hold Acid Tests.
  Ken Kesey's Acid Test were held to help promote the people of the late 60's and on (hippies) to expand their mind with acid, then learn how to open those mental doors themselves, without the use of LSD. They would rent out auditoriums to use for their tests, filled with people, projecting their films from the road, lights, and music from The Gratefull Dead (as they were just starting out). The Pranksters would have parties with the Dead and Hell's Angels regularly, and, at one point, went to Mexico (while Kesey was exiled, on the run from a charge for marijuana). The entire story is great to learn from and highly entertaining, with psychedelic drugs, Mexico, and crazy antics from the entire band of Merry Pranksters. Great read for anyone. Enjoy.

-Yours Truly

Recommendation of the Day: Testees

  I recently found and watch the 13 episodes of a Canadian show by Kenny Hotz, called Testees. The television show is about two friends, Peter and Ron, who live together in poverty, so they work at Testico, a testing industry for new pills, medications, and other products, where they are test subjects for the company's newest toys. These products, injections, and pills cause so much trouble for these two test subjects. Along with the crazy experiments they undergo, their friends Nugget and Kate, tend to make their situations worse by humiliating them.
  The television show only aired from October to December of 2008 on FX, but was short lived. The few episodes that were shot can be found on Hulu or easily Googled. The show stars Jeff Kassel and Steve Markle as the two main characters working for Testico, and Joe Pingue and Kim Schraner as their two good friends. Of course, as I'm sure you can gather from the title of the series, it is a comedy, shot in no real consecutive order. I recommend it today to fans of Scrubs or anyone looking for a comedy to watch, aside from the everyday TV shows you commonly have on from day to day. Enjoy.

-Yours Truly

Life, Or Something Like It

  In this day and age, living is a difficult thing to star and even still to continue. We go through high school and think about dropping out or graduating and going to college. Other than that, we really have no care in the world other than what we're going to do about that late English assignment, how are we going to ask someone to prom.  But once we are out of high school, life hits us harder than a pillow sack of bricks. Some of us want to go to college; this includes: enrollment, attempting to apply for financial assistance or receiving a loan (if a scholarship isn't and option), or even working through school in order to pay for it. Some of us just go straight to work, usually at some cheap place that makes us work at minimum wage for irregularly-hard labor that does nothing much, financially to help support or starting our life.
  Today's economy and society does nothing much for a "life" for the recent generation that is beginning to be exposed to it. It, of course, doesn't help that things now cost more, such as food, housing, bills, cloths, and other necessities, while the price of the dollar goes down and we lack the opportunities to make much anyways. This is, of course, without habits and luxuries and entertainment that we like to support, like smoking cigarettes which continue to get more and more expensive (thanks Obama) or internet and movies, nice furniture, phones, tvs, etc. Life quality for the general population of America is getting lower and lower. Even the Upper Middle Class of the U.S. is showing a decrease in standards and capability to live in, what used to be considered, a decent quality. The family of soldiers, even those serving over seas in Iraq and Afghanistan, are proving to go through hard times. When a soldier serving in a war cannot support his family and himself, you know there is something significantly wrong.
  But at this, I leave you. I know most of you are already aware of what problems we are seeing arise more and more in this economy.

-Yours Truly

Recommendation of the Day: Elfen Lied

  For today, I feel compelled to tell my readers (the few I have) about a series I recently finished watching, called Elfen Lied. This Japanese manga series by Lynn Okamoto about a whole new race of people called the Diclonii who have two pairs of "vectors" which are telekinetically controlled arms that can cut and destroy objects and humans within their reach. The Diclonii are humans infected with a virus called the Vector Virus, identified by a set of horns protruding from the skull of the infected at birth; their vectors unable to be seen. The plot follows the story of several characters, connected through Kohta, one of the main characters. Kohta and his cousin Yuka, find a strange girl with horns and no memory or communication skills on the beach who they name Nyu because that was the only word she could speak (Nyu being the main Diclonii in the series). Later, plots unravel behind Nyu's strange appearance on the beach and background stories begin to unfold about the handful of main characters that the show focuses on.

  Elfen Lied (German for "Elf Song") is a show with mystery, love, blood, sorrow, and so much Declonii fighting that it's crazy. This anime is definitely unique and well done. I recommend this to everyone who enjoys suspenseful story lines and in-depth plots to watch this 12 episode series. I is definitely worth the time and it will have you begging for more even after the ending of the final episode. (The show includes random boob shots.)
Side effects from watching Elfen Lied may include (but are not limited to): suspense-caused seizures, the inability to move from your seat, spontaneous pink hair-dying, bloody nose, arguing among your roommates, attempting to use telekinesis, and an unexplained desire to drink Monster Energy.