Mass Effect 2

I beat Mass Effect 2 the other day. I ranted about this game last week before it was released, and my expectations were entirely met. I can probably say that this was the best game I've ever played. There are some fans here and there who don't like the changes that were made, specifically to combat (no more infinite ammo? outrageous!), but those people are actually just retards who can't accept any sort of changes, whether they're good or not.

The point of the game is to travel across the galaxy gathering an elite strike team, consisting only of the best of the best that the universe has to offer. You and your team will then make a jump to the enemy "home base" -- the threat to all life in the galaxy -- in order to destroy it. Possibly the most important aspect of all is this game's emotional impact on you. You get to know these people through your conversations with them, the favors you do for each other, and possibly the romances you have with each other. It gets very personal. Every one of these people have their own unique stories, and you get really attached to them.


You and your team have accepted that this is a suicide mission. It's possible for teammates to die on it. All of them can die. Or, none of them. It's completely open ended, any single one of them can bite the dust. It all depends on your actions and what you did to prepare for it. The final mission is really intense and gutwrenching, because I was forced to decide which teammates should be assigned to specific roles, knowing full well that the ones I chose could die. The team members who I knew could get the job done were also the ones I felt most attached to, and it tore me up making decisions that could send the people I trusted the most to their deaths.

If any person died, I would consider the mission a failure, so I was really super careful with all my preparations leading up to it. My heart skipped a beat when I saw that my main man Garrus had been shot in the stomach, but he just shrugged it off and kept on fighting. He survived a missile blast straight to the face earlier in the game, so he's a tough sonuva bitch. For my second playthrough, my renegade character, I was planning on having every single person die on the final mission, because that backstory for the third game would be just so fucking epic -- me, alone, the sole survivor of the suicide mission that saved the galaxy. But I can't do it. I can't kill Garrus. He is one of two characters who's been with you since the first game. We just have too much history, I can't end a hardcore motherfucker like him.



I did end up losing someone though, and I felt absolutely terrible about it. And the story continues beyond whichever ending you get; when my saved game is imported into Mass Effect 3, I'll never be able to see what happens to that person who died. I'll never be able to fight alongside her again. I felt like shit. I realize I could just do it over to make sure I don't lose anyone, but I feel like that would be cheating. I want to live with my mistakes godammit, this is my story. And an epic opera where no one dies is just boring.



Should you choose to cheat on your significant other from the first game, there are six romance choices for you. Three if you're male, three if you're female. You want the cold hearted hot-as-fuck ice queen? Go for Miranda. This is the person who died at the end of my game.



You want the fucked up psychopath who was abused, tortured, and experimented on as a child? Congratulations, you demented fuck, you're going to bang Subject Zero.



Me? I went for Tali. She's a returning squad mate from the first game. You weren't able to romance her then, but Bioware is really good with fan feedback, and they took notice of how many nerds developed crushes on her. So they made her an option this time around. She's strong-willed, extremely intelligent, you have no idea what she looks like, and having any sort of physical contact could kill her, as her species has lost its immune system. But I don't care, because love knows no bounds. Oh, Tali <3



It angers me that video games are rarely taken seriously as an art medium. I don't think any other game series has had this much impact on me. I feel like that's a little sad, but then I remember how attached people can get to books or TV shows. This isn't any different from Battlestar Galactica or Star Wars (in more ways than one, elements and plots in ME2 seem to be borrowed from each). Just watch this, you may get an idea of why I find this series so god damn amazing.

Sunday Youtube Post

Obama did great during his State of the Union Address this week. But then he topped it. Yesterday, he and House Republicans had a good ol' fashion Q&A session. For an hour, Republicans had the opportunity to talk to the communist bastard directly and subsequently rip him to shreds.

Not quite, but something extraordinary certainly did happen. Obama tore them apart. So complete was this smackdown, that Fox cut away 20 minutes early. You'd think a fair and balanced news outlet would be ecstatic to broadcast a direct and fair debate. It's everything you expect: Republicans attacking with dumb soundbites that make no sense, and Obama refuting everything with fact and common sense. It was glorious.

Now if only conservatives would bother paying attention to what the president actually says, instead of only listening through the filter that conservative media allows them to hear. The fact that Republicans still have support at all proves only that the American people are fucking retarded and don't pay attention to anything. Please, please, please do yourself a favor and watch this whole thing.

It's difficult to understand at the beginning, but don't worry, the microphone kicks in a couple minutes into it.

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Liberals control Hollywood and the mainstream media. And by liberals, I mean Jews.

"Some people." Not Rush Limbaugh though.

I like how the only retort conservatives seem to have when Rush says these things, is that his words taken out of context by other powers who wish to see his reputation harmed. What possible context could there be in which these are acceptable things to say?

I'm still reeling from the fact that the United States of America is now a Plutocracy thanks to yesterday's Supreme Court decision, but hopefully Jon Stewart will keep us laughing all throughout our spiral into the new dark ages.

This is why I really only watch Rachel Maddow now. Oh Rachel, I wish you weren't a dyke <3

Special Comment - Keith Olbermann's Name-Calling

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Anyone ever read Brave New World?

Holy shit, this came out of fucking nowhere. Mark January 21, 2010 as the beginning of the end for the democratic process in the United States, at least for the foreseeable future. In a landmark decision today, the Supreme Court has shredded nearly a century of laws restricting the power corporations have over our government. This is huge.

Summed up: This ruling now somehow classifies corporations as individual persons, with all the rights reserved for individual human beings. The specific right in question -- the freedom of speech. Because corporations now have the freedom of speech, they no longer have any limits to how much they can spend on political advertisements. Because spending money is freedom of speech.

It's bizarre to contemplate what a nineteenth century slave would think about this. Can you even imagine it? A twenty-first century corporation is entitled to all the rights a human being is inherently given by being born, and yet he is not. What would your reaction be?

Restrictions on spending were made into laws in the first place, because corporate America has a near limitless supply of cash. Before these restrictions were in place, politicians bowed to the will of these people without question, because if they didn't, the people with the green would simply find someone who would. They indirectly funded candidates by financing their campaigns. And it worked terrifyingly well for them. The efforts of Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Delano Roosevelt are very, very underappreciated, because they basically stamped out all of this legalized corruption. But ever since Ronald Reagan got into power, there's been a slow and steady dismantling of these regulations, by both Democrats and Republicans alike. This is why the economy crashed. Deregulation is directly responsible for the financial crisis, because it all left corporations with too much power. You heard that phrase "too big to fail?" Deregulation is why that phrase exists.

This is the most damning Supreme Court decision in at least a generation. This will now define our politics. Don't even bother donating to your favorite politician anymore. It doesn't matter. It'll barely be a squirt gun against Niagra Falls. This is going to completely solidify all the problems we've been having with elections and governing at least for the next century. I wish this wasn't as bad as I'm making it sound. I want to be optimistic. But what's left of the United States' political process is completely fucked.

And here's the best part of all. This was a 5-4 decision. The five justices who voted in favor of this death sentence were all appointed by Reagan, Bush Sr., or Bush Jr. This was political. Conservative appointees supported this decision, and liberal appointees did not. Mark that down for the history books so the future generations can know exactly who the enemies of human progress were in our day and age, as if that very clear fact wasn't obvious enough already.

What enrages me the most is that the American people either don't know, don't care, or don't understand. All thanks to the embarrassing debacle we call a news media. This was barely mentioned at all today on television, and even when it was, it's not like anyone did a good job at actually explaining what has just happened. Keith Olbermann made a Special Comment on it tonight. You think *I'm* acting like the sky is falling? You should listen to this guy. He really pissed me off because he actually thinks this is comparable to the Dred Scott decision, which prohibited African Americans from becoming citizens. But if you can overlook that bullshit, he does make a number of good points.

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Can't wait to secks me some space bitches

Mass Effect is my favorite RPG of all time. It had it's problems (combat) but the story and scope of the game more than made up for it. In Mass Effect 2, all the problems have reportedly been fixed. The story is reportedly much more epic, and there are reportedly more space bitches to bang. It's a Captain Kirk simulator, basically. It comes out on Tuesday. A new trailer was just released.



DUN DUN DUN DUN EPIC TRAILER MUSIC PEW PEWWWW BOOOM KRRSSSHKK BOOOOMMM DIE YOU FUCKING SON OF A FLYING FUCKY FUCK

I'm excited as [analogy] for this. Molly convinced me to go to the midnight release on Monday with her, which I know is a mistake, because I have a class in the morning, I won't be able to play it at all that night, and I'll spend the entire day in classes being mindraped by Mass Effect 2 anticipation. Why did this have to come out right when classes were starting again, Bioware is fucking terrible at this.

As we remember Martin Luther King Jr. and his holiday, let us remember all the Republicans who opposed its recognition, including John McCain and Ronald Reagan. (McCain now admits he was wrong.)

Senator Jesse Helms (R-North Carolina) led opposition to the bill and questioned whether King was important enough to receive such an honor. He also criticized King's opposition to the Vietnam War and accused him of espousing "action-oriented Marxism".

And from Helms' wikipedia entry,

Helms opposed many progressive policies regarding race, such as busing, the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. Helms called the Civil Rights Act of 1964 'the single most dangerous piece of legislation ever introduced in the Congress'...

There are legitimate reasons to oppose a workday off, so I'm not saying everyone who voted against it is racist. All I'm saying is that every racist did vote against it.

It's hard to believe that RFK completely winged this. This is also the only time he ever mentioned his brother's death in public.

Monday Youtube Post

My political science professor a couple years ago liked to call the media the fourth branch of the U.S. government. I like that analogy, because most Americans will immediately believe anything that's reported, whether that be opinion or otherwise.

Al Jazeera is always really good with its criticism of the media. If you have 22 minutes to spare, they summed up last year's coverage of Barack Obama very well. It's split up into two parts. It basically just calls out all of Fox's bullshit. The Listening Post is also available as a podcast, if you feel like subscribing to a really good news source.

Propaganda Sunshine

God damn, I love Alan Grayson. On Wednesday, the Congressman introduced five bills to cut off corporate America's less than subtle funding of Congress.

"We are facing a potential threat to our democracy. Unlimited corporate spending on campaigns means the government is up for sale and that the law itself will be bought and sold. It would be political bribery on the largest scale imaginable."

And the best part of all is the names he gave them -- two are named the "Business Should Mind Its Own Business Act," and the "Corporate Propaganda Sunshine Act." Now the only thing left to do is get disappointed and pissed off when they don't pass.

There was a devastating earthquake in Haiti. Therefore, Obama a fucking fucktard.

I'm not even going to get outraged at this, because we should all know to expect these things at this point. Plus, I feel sorry for you if you're not convinced by now that Rush Limbaugh is nothing more than a sensationalist blowhard who doesn't believe half the things he says. He is an utterly brilliant man who knows how to press all the right buttons to get the most listeners. I refuse to accept any other explanation.

Media Matters

LIMBAUGH: Yes, I think in the Haiti earthquake, ladies and gentlemen -- in the words of Rahm Emanuel, we have another crisis simply too good to waste. This will play right into Obama's hands -- humanitarian, compassionate. They'll use this to burnish their -- shall we say -- credibility with the black community, in the both light-skinned and dark-skinned black community, in this country. It's made-to-order for 'em. That's why he couldn't wait to get out there. Could not wait to get out there.

Just like how George Bush couldn't stop licking his lips as he sent humanitarian aid to Georgia during Russia's invasion. He knew it was a great way to increase his credibility with the whites, in both the pasty skinned and freckly skinned communities.

LIMBAUGH: Would you trust the money's gonna go to Haiti?

CALLER: No.

LIMBAUGH: But would you trust that your name is gonna end up on the mailing list for the Obama people to start asking you for campaign donations for him and other causes?

CALLER: Absolutely.

LIMBAUGH: Absolutely right.

CALLER: That's the point.

LIMBAUGH: Besides, we've already donated to Haiti. It's called the U.S. income tax.

Okay, so in addition to being a Kenyan Muslim racist terrorist socialist communist fascist brainwasher of children who is gathering census information in order to lock away white people in internment camps, Barack Obama is now making the Red Cross hand over your info so that he can endlessly pester you about giving him money. Oh, and he's black. Did you know Barack Obama is black? Because he is. Black black blickity black, ya'll.

Last week's Weekly Youtube Address from President Barack Obama

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Dallas? Salad.

Fareed Zakaria

I think I posted about this guy over a year ago, but I'll do it again because of the clip at the bottom.


Fareed Zakaria is the smartest journalist in the country. He has an unhinged passion for politics, always keeping America's history in mind, and how the present plays into it. I've been following less and less news since the end of the 2008 election, as I'm sure everyone has, but I always force myself every single sunday to sit down and watch him. He has an inhuman ability to fly above all the partisan dickwaving, only covering the things that are important. He's still talking about the wars. Seriously.

He is the author of The Post-American World. I haven't read it yet, and I am extremely ashamed of this. I hear it's brilliant. He sums up its premise in this here clip.



Here's Barack Obama with a copy.

Out of all the widely different opinions on TV, Zakaria's is the one I trust the most. He's a self-described centrist, supporting Ronald Reagan in 1980, while supporting Barack Obama in 2008. He believes different viewpoints are needed in different times. My respect for him is like that of the fire of a thousand suns. I want to be him.

Unlike other expert panels you see on television, here he gathers an expert panel with actual experts, to discuss Barack Obama's first year. It's an extremely interesting conversation, and should be required watching for every American. It gets cut off at the end of this clip, but continues if you download the GPS podcast on iTunes. It's the 1/3 episode.

Friday Music Post - M83

M83 shouldn't be my type of band. They fucking love synth, and they lean more towards electronic pop rather than the conventional boring bare bones rock that I'm more into. Frontman Anthony Gonzalez has said "I think that 80s music is such a brilliant period for music history." I personally consider the 80s a gigantic shit stain on music history. And yet, I still like these guys. They're good. They took their name from the spiral galaxy Messier 83, and I feel like a complete nerd for guessing that before looking it up, because galaxies are always abbreviated that way, M#.

Their music videos are basically shit. So I'm not going to put them here. They're like teenager lovey dovey bullshit (one of my favorite songs is called "Teen Angst", no joke. But in my defense, it's probably because it was used in a video I posted here a long time ago that literally made me braingasm). The videos are honestly not worthy of the music they're being played to. So I'll just embed some songs from Grooveshark instead. Less distracting.

I don't understand what Buddhism is, but it isn't Christianity, so it's dumb

Pat Robertson is said to be a Christian, I don't think that faith offers the kind of soul-wrenching horror that is offered by the Cult of Cthulhu. So my message to Pat would be, Pat, turn to Cthulhu and you can break free from the shackles of a non-dragon-squid deity, and be a great example to the world.

I don't understand, why do people think this is disrespectful? In politically correct terms, you can say anything about your faith without someone jumping down your throat. I mean, you can't argue with someone's experience - I consider myself a much happier and better person since offering myself to be devoured by the indescribable abomination that is Cthulhu. My soul makes his tummy happy. I think everyone else in the world should do the same because my experiences overwrite everyone else's experiences and I know what's right for everybody. Nanny nanny boo boo, my god could stick your god's head in doo doo, is what I'm trying to say. Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.



Also, Brit, Buddhism has no need for forgiveness or redemption because Buddhists have no belief in Heaven or Hell. Just watch Star Wars, Buddhists are basically Jedi who can't use the force.

God help us if republicans ever get into power again. They've gone completely over the fucking deep end. Allan Quist is a republican looking to unseat Rep. Tim Walz (D-MN). Here he is saying that liberals are a more dangerous enemy than terrorists.

“I, like you, have seen that our country is being destroyed. Every generation has had to fight the fight for freedom. This [the health care bill] is our fight. And this is our time. This is it. Terrorism? Yes. That’s not the big battle. The big battle is in D.C. with the radicals. They aren’t liberals. They are radicals. Obama, Pelosi, Walz: They’re not liberals, they’re radicals. They are destroying our country.”

Starts at about 3:20



I was watching Glenn Beck earlier to test my arteries. He said that Barack Obama is intentionally collapsing the U.S. economy. The reason why is because once the economy collapses and recovers, there would be no more poor people... or something? I don't really know, he cited a couple hippies who put this retarded theory forward at some point in the 60s, before dropping off the face of the earth. Barack Obama hadn't been born yet, but he still worships them because he's a librul and all libruls worship dumbass hippies?

"Case closed."
-Glenn Beck

Now, there might be a voice in your head saying right now, "That actually sounds really fucking retarded, and no president would ever knowingly try to destroy the economy of his own country." I'd hate to break it to you, but that voice is Obama's darkie fingers wrapping themselves around your vulnerable brain. You don't have the ability to form an opinion of your own because you're brainwashed. Have fun buying into evolution and global warming, librul.

"If You Are an 18 to 28-Year-Old Muslim Man Then You Should Be Strip Searched"

Could be worse, at least we're not bypassing habeas corpus and locking people up indefinitely without tri-- wait

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