Blood and Thunder

Golden Sun : Dark Dawn

2010-12-11T00:20:00.000-03:00

Image taken from IGN

As I'm writing this, the title now is available for Europe, and has been for some time now, in the US. It's the third installment of the series, set 30 years after the events of the second one.

Much like your average Psi Fi sequel, the history of Dark Dawn takes on after the world has changed and some things went to hell with it. The children of those who had to do with it, are now dragged into bringing peace into the world yet-one-more-time.

Image originally taken from Nintendo Dojo

It doesn't sounds extremely original, but I'm not disturbed by it; I'm depositating (if that's a word) my confidence on the classic battle system, and world exploration along with the Djinn system of the first two ones.

If you haven't played the game, this system works much like any event-trigger action from RPGs such as Valkyrie Profile (Crystals), Wild Arms 5 (shooting mode), Tales of 'x' titles , etcera; with the addition of Summonings said Djinns, and when not doing so, they add bonuses to the different statistics of the characters (something like the Final Fantasy 8 Junction system).

Image taken from the GS:DD article from IGN

As I have checked, it's not for any emulation purposes thus far, but I'll be sure to keep checking. Interestingly enough though, there seems to be less expectative in emulation forums about this game than what it was on the previous ones.

Phoenix Wright and Japan's Conviction Rate

2010-08-17T18:20:00.002-03:00

Via The Escapist.com

This is a piece of the article written by Monaghan on the Escapist about the "Ace Attorney" games and the reflection of Japanese society.

While the widespread underhanded behavior among prosecutors is a little exaggerated, the idea of the prosecutor as a very powerful individual with a high social status has roots in the history of the Japanese legal system. Traditionally, prosecutors were considered part of the judiciary and regarded themselves on the same level, or higher, than judges. Conversely, attorneys were considered far lower on the totem pole due their inferior level of legal education and their lack of influence in the bureaucracy. (...) As in the games, high conviction rates are highly prized as a sign of prudence and professionalism among prosecutors. Given their intimate involvement throughout the process, a prosecutor will usually be extremely confident when they decide to take a case to trial. While not quite the crooked villains of the Ace Attorney courtrooms, the lofty stature and excessive power of Japan's prosecutors clearly provided inspiration for Phoenix Wright's egomaniacal nemeses

Said article can be found on the image at the very begginning of the entry, or in the following link: Phoenix Wright's Objection! (but I must point out I originally found it by Videojuegos y sociedad)

60% of the times, it works everytime.

2010-07-30T15:44:00.002-03:00

Symbolism and Mythology in Persona 3

2010-07-22T23:47:00.003-03:00

Warning: this may contain some spoilers about the game

I do admit there are several articles about the underlying mysticism behind both the saga and the personas game itself, but nevertheless, I had planned to rant about this for quite a while, without help of the wikipedia (only probably to link out for sources) because frankly, there are enough of those ...

So what's Persona 3?

Persona (three, in this case) is part of the series of Spin-offs contained inside the Shin Megami Tensei games; the plot however, differs from the SMT games centering around the life of adolescents on today's japanese society rather than the survivors of an apocalyptic set.

In Persona 3, the player takes the role of a male high-school student who joins the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad (SEES), a group of students investigating the Dark Hour, a time period between one day and the next that few people are aware of. During the Dark Hour, the player enters Tartarus, a large tower containing Shadows, creatures that feed on the minds of humans. To fight the Shadows, each member of SEES is able to summon a Persona, a manifestation of a person's inner self. (...)

'Persona' derives from the latin word 'Personæ', meaning 'Mask' or 'character'. As Carl Jung says, it's the 'commitment between our own identity and society's demands'; and this is of extreme importance, as the game much revolves around the development of the personality and the relationships between the characters.

Jung's concepts applied to an RPG

As Daniel Jimenez pointed out, both the concept of Persona and Shadow are part of the individuation process described by Jung about the Personality; While the Persona is the mask we wore everyday for the exterior, the Shadow is everything we dislike or deem unwilling of appreciation. It's the negative side of each person.

The first step to this process of individuation is meeting your own shadow, as the character does on the beginning of the game: Orpheus is forced out of the player unconscious by using an evoker but quickly develops into something else, into Thanatos, a blood thirsty persona more than willing to destroy the shadows.
Later on the game, we understand that Personas are nothing but Shadows merely at the service of the different 'Persona users'.

Orpheus, master of strings.

The second stage is defined as Anima or Animus. It's the feminine part of a male, and the masculine part of a female, respectively. These can work as valuable connectors of the conscious self and the unconscious: Pharos could be a possible example out of this characterization, despise not being the Anima characterization of the male.
Elizabeth also could emerge as an interesting possibility, mainly due to the launch of the Persona 3 Portable's male "Elizabeth".
Nevertheless, a later on the game, the character integrates pharos to his own self, forcing someone else to emerge: Ryoji.

The third stage, is where you meet the Wise Old Man; The Mana personality, an archetypal image of a supernatural force. They're usually characterized as a person of authority, a guide, or someone of great wisdom. While I suppose a correct assumption may be of identifying Igor as the Mana personality, I'd believe Ryoji as the 'Mana'. Shortly after the hero merges with Pharos as a single entity, Ryoji joins the same class and becomes quickly popular in the same. Ryoji also gives some insight to the main player as to how to defeat the center of the Dark Hour; Nyx.

Ryoji (thanatos) and Nyx

The fourth stage, is the self. It's "the centre and the totality of the entire psyche". But, "one must get in touch with the Shadow and Anima/Animus before one can truly get in touch with the Self".

As the game progresses, you understand that only by getting in touch with these shadows, one can only truly get rid of them, instead of merely bashing them, which only produces a counter effect and makes Nyx even stronger. Understanding the true meaning of these creatures and it's creation is the only way the character can fulfill the task he is destined to.

The Game plays around these tematics while exploring the different Social Links: Each and one of these revolves around the Arcana, tarot-based cards and their meaning. Diving into other people's personalities will ultimately give you more insight about their true feelings and will end granting you more power for the shadows of said arcana, which becomes useful for battles.

Thou must also remember not to fuck up the Social Links

Depending wheter you answer correctly to each person's feelings you may get a bigger bonus while talking to them; What could work for the Magician won't have the same effect on the Tower. Each story needs to be understood under the card they're originated: The Sun, for example, develops after the character agrees to help a dying man's fountain pen but afterwards develops into a true friendship.

Akinari finally finding meaning in his existence

Akinari suffers a transition from a hopeless and doomed existence to find some semblance of hope inside his story about a Pink alligator. As the card suggests it, the Sun is the clarity that comes from a dark knight into a bright new day. Much of this can be found in the rest of the Social Links.

Death and its Greek mythos references

I probably should point out that all the Shin Megami Tensei games have underlying references and allegories to a vast amount of religions, myths, tales, etcera; So I'll pass by the ones who have been appearing constantly through the years on the games and focus on the Greek pantheon of gods and heroes which specifically integrates into each character's psychological development.

Left to Right: Pharos, Main Character, and Ryoji

'Pharos' is the representation of the Sleep, the premonitory dreams and the part of the unconscious that the Main character doesn't knows or understands. He always shows himself at the Dark Hour and can only be seen by the Main character, which would explain that he's within his unconscious. His Greek counterpart would be Hypnos, the god of Sleep.
Ryoji on the other hand is the representation of the Death, although in contrast with Pharos, he's got no idea of his task until the full moon. Even though the Persona Ryoji leaves behind is Thanatos, he's more or less a harbinger (the appriser) of Death, rather than Death itself. As I mentioned before, his greek counterpart is Thanatos, the god of the 'quiet' death.

Both of them are the parthenogenic sons of Nyx, which serves as the main antagonist on the game. Nyx literally translates as Night (Nyx on Greek, Nox on Latin).
Other daughters of Nyx are Keres (woman shape's death) or the Moiræ sisters (Lachesis, Clotho and Atropos), those in charge of ending the life of the people.

Christian Gottlieb Kratzenstein's "Orpheus and Eurydice", 1806

As I mentioned before, the main character's Persona is identified with Orpheus and his katabasis (journey to the underworld); Orpheus loses wife, goes to the underworld to retrieve her, gets her under the condition of not looking back, and loses her because of breaking the condition.
The Hero suffers a transition alike by the end of the game while fighting with Nyx, with one major difference that integrates from the classical greek hero: He loses his life for the greater good of humanity. Much of what the main character suffers can be contained inside Campbell's monomyth (the hero's journey) as well.

Robert Graves indentifies Greek death references on the number '3' as a conversion, from the pre-hellenic cult to the Moon goddess, to the later pantheon of female gods: Hecate's three heads, along with her dog, Cerberus, and the Moirae sisters. Persephone as well, represents the triparetite change of stations from the old greece. Graves also mentions Kore (Persephone) as depicted in her maiden form, nymph and older (Persephone) by Greek mythographers. Persona 3 works with three main characters to represent Death, or more likely, transition from one state to the other (Life, Death and resurrection) : Pharos, Ryoji and the Main character.

Hiimdaisy's persona 3 comic! Yay!

Other references: Castor and Polydeuces, Hermes, Io, or Nemesis are some of the other gods who take side as the Persona's cast. Josh tolentino wrote on his blog an entry explaining most of these references to the stories and characters. Although a little too simple and wikipedia copy-pasta'd, it's useful if you're in doubt of the character's backgrounds.
There's also a funny comic by Hiimdaisy about Persona 3. The link is on the last image.

Trailer of the upcoming "The Last Story"

2010-07-15T00:31:00.011-03:00

Image originally taken from Juegoswii.com

Developer: Mistalker co., Ltd
Publisher: Nintendo
Platforms: Nintendo WII
Genre: Role Playing Game
Release Date: 2010. Still unclear folks.

Everyone keeps saying (and with valid reason) that 'The Last Story' may be the very last thing of Hironobu Sakaguchi, known to be the maker if Final Fantasy, and got out of Square after it merged with Enix. He and other designers finally made "Mistwalker" and have been launching titles since then.
Anyhow, Sakaguchi stated on his blog the following (and this is a translation that keeps going around from forum to forum. I don't know where exactly the fuck it's the real deal on the Mistwalker site, and I'm still looking for confirmation).

The energy poured into this project by the development team and I are 120%. I’m hoping you can understand that, however on the other hand, I feel worried and nervous like sending my child on a trip alone. Emotionally it feels like this is my last work, while pouring everything I have gotten into this project. Never regret, but now “I’m enjoying”; furthermore, aiming towards completion.

The engine of the hype is on the trailer released a couple (more than a couple. It's an expression) days ago since Hironobu went to the E3. The battle system looks more than good and lots of gamers look pleased to know that it will be launched this year for the WII. Although, and forgive me, I see a semblance of the Final Fantasy VII battle theme on the trailer though.

Screenshot from the Japanese Trailer

If you missed the link on the image, the trailer can be found here or you're free to find a better one and link me.

via aussie-gamer.com and Youtube

AWESOME.

2010-07-12T00:33:00.003-03:00

Looks like someone put the stencil from 4chan to good use.
I encountered just by chance coming from the train near the FADU (Facultad de Arquitectura, Diseño y Urbanismo) and herpderp had to take a picture of it.
If you don't know what the fuck this is, you might want to see the topic on EncyclopediaDramatica.

Parasite Eve 3 trailer from the E3

2010-07-10T02:00:00.006-03:00

Yes, the same that got announced a gazillion years ago for the "mobile dispositivies" and later on got announciated it "would be launched for the PSP", Parasite Eve 3 saw another face on June's E3, by releasing a new trailer for the game. (This is technically old info but hey, I have been busy)

Throw me some Pyrokinesis and I'm sold

Something to note is the fact that THIS won't be the third title of the series, but more of a spin-off, which is why the real title is only "The 3rd Birthday".
There's little or no info at all about the plot; Apparently some monsters called the Twisted are wreaking havoc on Manhattan, and you as Aya gotta' shoot 'em all, or so it would seem.

The Mitochondria apparently changes drastically from one game to the other

On the trailer you can see the Overdive, apparently an ability that switches your body with one of the party members. Other than that, you can just see some shooting, whoopin' and Brea being hurt on the snow and whatnot.

Anyhow, here's the trailer on YouTube for anyone who missed it the first time.
On an unrelated note, Eidos got bought by Square Enix about a year ago. Didn't knowwww.

'How Do We Evaluate a Web Site's Credibility?'

2010-07-06T03:18:00.006-03:00

This is a study conducted by the Standford University on 2002, where, and I quote:

When evaluating the credibility of a Web site, participants commented on the design look of the site more often than any other Web site feature, with 46.1 percent of the comments addressing the design look in some way. When coding for comments on design look, researchers included comments on many elements of the visual design, including layout, typography, white space, images, color schemes, and so on.

This is obviously just a part of the study; results vary depending on the persons, and after all it's just a collection of polls. Also, of course, there are other mitigant factors. To say a few: the Name Recognition and Reputation, the Site Functionality, the readability or the Design/structure of the Information, etcetera, etcetera.

But it's deserved at least a look. Check it out.

via 'How Do We Evaluate a Web Site's Credibility?', by consumerwebwatch.org

Philosophy and Religion on SMT Nocturne

2010-07-05T01:01:00.027-03:00

Summary Introduction: Shin Megami Tensei is both a game and a series of other RPGs developed by Atlus, focused on subjects as Religion, War, Sexuality, Good and Evil and Humanity. It grew on popularity on the western continent mainly after the success of the 'Persona 3', and the subsequent Persona 4, which brought most of the catalog of games for the Playstation, such as SMT Devil Summoner, SMT Digital Devil Saga, and the one I find most important to remark, SMT Nocturne.

The Protagonist, around the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse

This last one got released three years before the P3 on Japan but only arrived to our shores years later, if even arrived. The game consisted on a turn based Role Playing system where the player takes the command of a unnamed hero destined to shape the new fate of the world after its destruction. There's obviously a lot more going on, but you can read it here.

Now, something that brought my attention is the amount of redirected hits to a spanish article entitled as "Filosofía y Religion en Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne", or literally translated as "Philosophy and Religion on SMT Nocturne". I took a moment to see what it was going on and I found myself deeply inmersed on the reading: It is one of the most descriptive works I have encountered which seriously focuses on something as undervalorated as a video game main and sub plot. Here's a little extract ouf ot it:

The cultural and religious differences among the japanese, european and american societies got reflected on the age recommendation for the title. While on the US the game was classified as M-Rated (above 17-18, the same GTA San Andreas got), on Europe the game got a 12+ and on the Japanese ground, the title was labeled "E", for everyone. Therefore, it wasn't the sex or the violence the decisive factors while judging the audience targeted, but the philosophic and religious themes underlying which were more or less controversial on the different societies.

The only problem? The real text is written on Spanish. What I threw up there was just a translation of mine.
Still, you can use a translator, like the google one, and understand most of it.

via: "Philosophy and Religion on SMT Nocturne", on videojuegosysociedad.com

Marvel Vs Capcom 3: Teaser

2010-04-21T22:10:00.007-03:00

MARVEL VS CAPCOM 3™
Developer: Capcom Co., Ltd
Publisher: Capcom Co., Ltd
Platforms: Playstation 3, Xbox 360
Genre: Fighting game
Release Date: End of 2010 or beginning of 2011 (uncomfirmed)

I'm just as surprised as anyone to find out that, after ten years of waiting since the second part, Capcom and Marvel decided to produce a third game upcoming for the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3.

There's a several trailers already on youtube regarding the game, so here's one of them for you.

As you can see, some of the confirmed characters are: Ryu, Wolverine, Iron Man, Morrigan, Hulk, and the introduction of Chris Redfield (from the Resident Evil Games). On the planetxbox360 article you can also notice the names of Magneto and Storm.
The visuals are quite a lot alike Street Fighter 4, and the game will arrive at the consoles "at the end of 2010 or beggining of 2011" (as stated on the top). There's also some information that there will be trailers of the game already functional for the upcoming E3 on June (source).
Lastly, the game won't be part of any download center for both of the consoles (and won't be launched on any arcade console).

The idea seems great to be honest, but, the mechanics of the latest SF left me quite unsatisfied gameplay-wise; so I'll just observe and wait for the next trailer, and decide after it.
Who knows, maybe Capcom will stop butchering what used to be 'THE' fighting game saga per excelence.

I want this when I turn 21.

2010-03-24T22:02:00.003-03:00

Via Brown Eyed Baker.

I probably couldn't afford it anyway, but it'd be a nice touch to have one of these for your own bd.

It's two floor, mario bros. cake, where "everything (...) was created with fondant and edible; I used toothpicks to create the detail on the bricks, coins and turtle and used a black edible marker for the faces and goomba legs".

You can keep on reading on the original website, where there's also a 360º degree of the other faces.

Megaman 10: Back to basics

2010-03-23T01:55:00.000-03:00

It's been a couple of weeks now since the Megaman 10 appeared as a downloadable title for the Wii and the Playstation 3. As anticipated, all of the content is made to emulate the graphics and sound of an old NES: the movement from one piece of the stage to the next, the menu, even the theme for the boss-selection part from the first title is back.

The difficulty is horrendously hard for first timers, since most of the game consists on anticipating the enemy moves and buster-ing according to them, but as any other Megaman game, it tends to balance towards the user after two or three bosses by exploiting their weaknesses with the acquired weapons.

The history goes that a new robot virus appears and every robot goes bathshit insane because of it, so Megaman goes to find Dr.Willy's machine to turn everyone back to normal. Obviously you can read the extended version over here.

To be honest though, I was somewhat xenophobic the first time I saw an incoming trailer for the 360 of this game. I just couldn't comprehend why would anyone be interested in going back twenty years of evolution on the consoles.
I was obviously wrong. I didn't consider there's a chunk of people who grew up with these kind of games and still holds deeply the time expended doing silly things like obtaining the last of the energy tanks.

There's already plenty of LP videos on YouTube concerning the game, but I'll leave the first one I found quickly after the release of it: Let's Play： Mega Man 10 [part 1], Solar Man's Stage.

'The King of Fighters' Promotional Trailer.

2009-12-23T01:06:00.009-03:00

Don't tell me I didn't warn you later, though. While searching for a Buddhist demon, I came across, by chance, the promotional trailer for the King of Fighters, the Movie on YouTube. I couldn't help but to skip the bad, BAD fight scenes on the video and go directly to the end only to see the words "The King of Fighters" and grimace for the future of this film. I believe my reaction is only natural; after the disaster of Dragonball, Chun Li, and Dead or Alive, what can I expect?

You're warned. Click here to see the YouTube trailer

NIER: Five months later, but yeah.

2009-12-18T03:24:00.006-03:00

I found out about Nier by reading news on the Sword Machine blog, and quickly picked interest on it, so I rushed to the official website and several others to find out more information. Here's the main data from the official website:

NIER™
Developer: Cavia, INC.
Publisher: Square Enix, Ltd.
Platforms: Playstation 3, Xbox 360
Genre: Action-Adventure
Release Date: 2010

Nothing is as it seems in Square Enix's latest action adventure game, set in a crumbled world plagued by disease and dark, unrecognizable creatures. Players assume the role of the unyielding protagonist, NIER, resolute in his quest to discover a cure for his daughter, who is infected with the Black Scrawl Virus. With powerful allies and a mysterious book, NIER encounters things that will confound even the mightiest of the warriors

There are, however, some differences between the 360 and the Playstation 3 titles;
First and foremost, each console will have its own game: The 360 will have NieR: Gestalt, while the PS3, NieR: Replicant. Thus far, the versions are only confirmed for for Japan.

Replicant's version will have a smaller version of the protagonist Nier, and his quest will be to save his sister instead of his daughter. This is the only change confirmed between the consoles: The weapons, skills, scenarios and enemies will remain the same.

Odd, though. I had the feeling that Sony always targeted to higher audiences than Microsoft. Nevertheless, Japanese gamers' response to the character's age was unfavorable, so a smaller version of the guy was created for the PS.

My personal (and obvious) guess is that it'll be similar to Kingdom Hearts, a hack n' slash game with swords, some magic and combos; with a more-adult world and, judging myself by the amount of blood and personal history of the He/She partner of the hero, more adult themes. Oh and, you can find the debut trailer for the game on YouTube.

Ahhh blog updates.

2009-12-18T02:15:00.001-03:00

Eh, I'm not one of those guys who updates a lot his blog.
I don't have the urge nor the desire (aren't they synonyms?) to publish new articles, mainly because I do not form entire ideas on my heads, just little pieces of information. That's right, little scraps of information.

"oh hey, cool thing over there", "oh this band launched an album". Stuff like that. Nothing major; Just daily information that I process to a certain degree of interest, which apparently is just below the "enough to write a blog entry" category. Oh well.

Founda' cool article on Tutorial9 which has some advices on designing blogs. I find the latest three to be opinionated and subject to personal criteria, but most of text contains good information. Worth a look, or two.

The link's on the picture, or can be found here: 9 Things You Can't Forget When Designing a Blog

Hiimdaisy's Persona Comic

2009-11-05T01:57:00.005-03:00

I actually came across this article on Kotaku, while I was searching something else on google (or Kotaku? Can't remember) and found the first part of the series of comics by Hiimdaisy (Hi I'm Daisy), author of a lot of Metal Gear comics as well, some being really hilarious.

It appears that, the comic quickly got popular around the Livejournal users and the Shin Megami Tensei Forums along with the Persona ones, and by popular acclaim she decided to continue making them.
Five days ago, she released the second part of this series, containing parts since the exploration of the Midnight Channel to the appearance of Kanji.

If you're interested, this is the link to the first part of the comic, and this is the second.

More Cowbell

2009-10-18T12:55:00.002-03:00

I found the original SNL skit with Christopher Walken and Will Ferrel, with the ficticious Blue Oyster Cult playing 'Don't Fear the Ripper' and Ferrel playing the cowbell. Unlike youtube videos, this one auto-buffers and starts, so I'll leave a open-close spoiler for anyone who wants to watch it.

Click here to open / close.

Kanye's interruption is officially a meme

2009-10-04T00:20:00.005-03:00

I actually had the idea to write about this at least two weeks ago, after all the board spamming I found on the Encyclopedia Dramatica forums and the chans.

Briefly explicating what happened: During Taylor Swift acceptance speech for her award for Best Female Video at the MTV Awards (I'm reserving my comments), Kanye West interrupted her saying that Beyonce Knowles had, and I quote "One of the best videos of all times". If you prefer to get deeper on the matter, there's a lot of (biased) information around the web. A good article can be found at the CNN Entertainment section, or if you prefer, there's a lot of videos on YouTube, like this one.

The interesting part was what happened later on the ED forum and the chans with two rendered images obtained from the VMAs; a huge bombardment of image macros containing Kayne interrupting several situations of all the possible kinds, with the following formula:

Yo X, I'm really happy for you, I'mma let you finish, but Y had one of the best Z of all time. One of the best Z of all time!

X = Object about to get trolled.
Y = Object used in order to troll.
Z = Variable used to compare both objects.

A more grafical version can be found at the complete article at the ED Wiki, Imma Let You Finish.
I don't plan to flood this entry with a lot of images, so I'll leave just some examples below this.

Click here to open / close the image gallery.

Killswitch Engage, Kreator, y Stratovarius en Argentina

2009-09-28T23:16:00.010-03:00

Se me había pasado comentar hace bastante, que me hablaron de la venida de KSE a la Argentina, una banda de Metalcore estado-unidense. Aparentemente habían aparecido en una nota en el blog de la Rock & Pop, Jedbangers a finales de Julio.
Clickeando abajo se puede escuchar una canción del grupo.

Killswitch Engage - Reject Yourself

Y otra cosa que me sorprendio encontrar en Taringa, fue a Stratovarius, y Kreator mas Exodus en el mismo día el 14 y 20 de Octubre, respectivamente.
Hay que aclarar que probablemente sea el último show de Stratovarius, dado que aparentemente luego de esta gira la banda se va a disolver, tal como aparece en el blog Metalfromfinald, traducido de la página de Timo Tolkki.

Approximation to the 'hýbris'

2009-09-26T15:11:00.011-03:00

Edition at September 26: Some things revisited.

So far it has been more than four years since I first heard about the word 'hybrid'. It literally means "The combination of two or more different things". I have tried several times to investigate where does the word comes from, but I never got a satisfactory answer. It appears that it derived from this Greek word 'Hubris' (also sometimes found as 'hýbris'), means something 'disproportionate' and it's the arrogance leading to a punishment by Nemesis.

Nietzche tries to approximate to an explanation of the Greek civilization, and the way they changed from Dionysus to Apollo on "The Birth of Tragedy". If Apollo's the light, then Dionysus was the darkness; if Apollo is balance, Dionysus is ecstasy, and so forth.
It doesn't necessarily has to be with going from Evil to Good. It apparently is the evolution from the flesh to the mind; Rephrased, it fits the way of thinking that was going on the time the Philosophy appeared on Greece, and so did Apollo and Athena.

My first theory (posted in here a couple weeks ago, or one) was that Dionysus was originally associated to this word. I'm afraid after a lot of digging, it's false, though there's one incident that involves Bacchus-Dionysus and some hubris (Pentheus against Dionysus) but obviously no direct relation on it.
It appears that during the Roman empire there was some usage of the 'hibrida' word, on the same aspect of 'god defiance'. By reading Lewis and Short's Latin Dictionary, you can see the Latin word 'hybrida' may be related to the Greek word 'hybris'.
But, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word 'Hybrid' is derived from Latin hybrida, meaning the "offspring of a tame sow and a wild boar".
Maybe the idea of these two beings breeding a hybrid IS defying the god's will, and therefore, a way of Hubris. Maybe not.

Back on my initial theory; Bacchus-Dionysus is usually pictured as an androgynous (a man who looks like a woman, or a vice-versa) god, associated with Centaurs and Ipotanes, both half-human, half-horse entities. There's some sort co-relation between the therms, but with this much of information, I can't be certain if I'm just speculating (Okay, I can be certain. I am speculating).

Nordic Mythology Articles

2009-09-07T16:22:00.015-03:00

By looking into some of Therions' lyrics (more specifically, I googled "Byrghal", "Idher" "Sunna" and "Haghal"), I came across a website with tons of information about Nordic Mythology , Ganglieri, which means, and I quote:

"Gangleri" ("seeker") is the name king Gylfi took when he decided to travel to Asgard to question the Gods as you can read on the index page. As we are all seekers, I found this a fitting name

Among the things I have found interesting, you can check the Nine Worlds in the Nordic Mythology, the Rune Cross of Johannes Bureus, and the Christian Cabala.
The first one obviously talks about the different reigns in Nordic Mythology and I'm still reading the last one, which apparently explains the meaning behind the Cabala and a little of history about it.

On the Runic Cross topic; "Byrghal, Idher and Haghal" are all lyrics part of a Therion Song, "T.O.F, The Trinity" (Thor, Odin and Frey), so that's how I came across with it. There's little or no information at all on the internet, and it's unlikely I can get my hands on a Runic manual on a library around here.
Anyhow. 'Byrghal' apparently has a connection with a gate and it's also related to the 'Hospitality', Sunna means 'sun' in the old german, Idher would be 'Ice' or 'Solidity'; And the Haghal apparnetly means 'balance'.

It'd seem like they're all part of this Runic Cross and by looking into this website, the Fuþork runic system, and I'm only just deducing here without any other previous knowledge, that each one has different meanings, much like talking about Tarot Cards. The difference would be that, Runes act as 'mediator between the divine and human worlds'.

On another note, I also came across this website, the Kabbalah Education & Research Institute, which apparently offers introductionary courses about the Kabbalah

Shaman King series finale

2009-08-29T00:59:00.005-03:00

I found out a couple of days ago that the manga made by Hiroyuki Takei has come to an end. The last part of the manga, which had a cancelation back in 2004, and a re-appearence on 2006, was being released periodically (with one month or two between each issue) by Shonen Jump, due to the lack of popularity of the very last arc.

Paralelly to the Anime, the Manga had a somewhat ambiguous and open ending, with the characters reuniting 7 years later.
I honestly wasn't reading much of it until a month ago when I started to catch up on the last issues of the Kang Zeng Bang.

While I'm talking to anime, Naruto's fight with Pain also ended a couple days ago.

The final part of the Manga, Naruto & Sasuke's fight should be coming soon, probably after the capture of the Eight Tailed beast, due to the death of all the other enemies.

If you're like me, and don't enjoy downloading ZIPs to read them later, you could check onemanga for online scans of both series and more. It's not that I'm doing advertising, folks.

DVNO

2009-08-21T02:26:00.008-03:00

I'm not an enthusiast of electronic / house music but what called my attention on this video is the way every sentence is worked separatedly as if it would be a logotype, imitating or paroding if you want, typographies of popular brands such as the Twentieth Century Fox, HBO, Sega, Universal Studios, Pacman, etc.

Persona 4, again.

2009-08-15T02:47:00.012-03:00

It's possible you don't have a clue of what Persona 4 is, so you should read this article on the wikipedia.

I have nothing else to play on the Playstation these days, so I went with Persona 4 again. No, I do not own a Xbox 360.
It's not like I dislike the game; Au contraire. I'm just not a fan of 'replays', so the idea of going through the whole game again, for only 10 percent of actual new gameplay it's not something that drives me crazy.
I was thinking to buy something among the lines of Call of Duty, or Medal of Honor. But then I remembered how I never finish that kind of games. Plus, there's also the problem of the money.

You see, Persona 4 is not a game that dissapoints you like any other generic RPGs. It's wonderfully placed in the present day (okay, 2 years from now) and has a great development of characters with enthralling personalities. I think that I even stoled that last adjective from the game.

It's anything but a bad game. But what does annoys me, is the way the calendar chains you to a determinated way to proceed. You see, you only have 'so-much-time' to do, what you want to do. I'm used to a RPG where I can spend endless hours trying to find a mini game or some piece of equipment that will grant 'x' ability to defeat some almighty boss out there.
But in here, days pass by and you can only do something after the school, something on the evening. Initially, I spent a lot of time maxing some stuff and had to cut out the rest. But this time, I got something I could not get (literally, I couldn't find the guy. I never knew where it was) on the first walkthrough: Kanji's attack.

On a less important note, though; The Devil Summoner saga is nothing like this game. Just as a suggestion, try the game first before buying it, because you'll probably won't find the game 'that-similar' to the Persona 3 or 4.

Left 4 Dead: Something that bothers me.

2009-07-26T01:00:00.010-03:00

Honestly. I'm surely not the only one who thinks it was a bad idea to conceive a game based on a Counter Strike mod. Maybe you don't know the story.

The Valve team was testing a new mod for counter strike half way the year 2004, based on a Zombie Apocalypse. The idea slowly turned into reality, and developers started to create a whole game based on it, with a couple more cutscenes than the current game. I curse the idiot who had the idea to leave that out.

And the outcome was Left 4 Dead. And yes, it sure delivers. It's a shooter with consistenly satisfying action, great artificial intelligence, and a good dose of adrenaline. The problem is that this all gets very boring, very fast.
It hardly has a useful life of more than 10 or 12 hours, and while the online chance adds probably twice as much time of play, it still isn't worth the 60 american dollars (43 on 'Best Buy', you can check in here).

Using a zombie team is anything but fun. You easily die to a couple shots of the Survivor team, unless you have the tank, for which being stucked in the infected team is most of the times dead-time (no word play intended).
There's actually a strip on VGCats that midly resembles what I'm expressing here.

You see, this all wouldn't really bother me if this would be JUST BIGGER. More cutscenes, a linear story without the level selection, a 4vs4 option for online playing, more weapons. Stuff like that helps on making a game memorable.

But I suppose that it's really on vain complaining about this after the trailer of L4D2 got out.

Web Typography Tools and, "Why I Hate MySpace" got erased?

2009-07-17T18:40:00.008-03:00

I got this link since I installed Firefox 3 but I never got to read ALL The tutorials (who does).
Though I'm not fond of the whole "trackback-fashion", some of them are worth the look.

I'd particulary want anyone to read 8 Simple Ways to Improve your Typography since it's probably one of the couple articles with global advices and not just CSS tips, or Javascript tools.

On another completely unrelated note. Someone may know that a video on Pixelated Geek about "Why I hate Myspace" got published a while ago on how users should have less choices respect their own templates and color choices (fancy way to say profiles could cause you a seizure if you'd expose to them too much).

Apparently the video doesn't exists anymore. Isevenx hasn't posted anything about it, neither other authors.
Anyone knows what the fuck happened?

Designing Logos

2009-03-10T23:38:00.008-02:00

It has been a while since my last update. There's no particular reason. I just had mixed ideas of what I wanted to publish, but I never actually concreted any.

In any case; I found a cool article on lifehacker.biz with a list of tutorials on different techniques over logotypes. Worth a look.

Opera and FireFox.

2009-01-26T23:34:00.009-02:00

By advice of one of my friends, I had to the oportunity to download Opera and compare it to FireFox (And I feel cliche repeating the phrase like a parrot, but nothing can be worst than Internet Explorer).

And it is true; Opera is slightly faster than FireFox at first sight. It also doesn't bears any weight more than the neccesary: depending whether you opened tabs or not, FireFox tends to store most of the weight on the browser even after they got closed.

I also gave a shot trying blogger on it, like this blog recommended (the site's on spanish) , and it does improves the malleability while working on the expanded template or the adition of new elements.

The problem comes with the personalization of the program; Firefox has immense possibilities when it comes to add-ons, skins or other features in general. It is also more secure than Opera: anti-pop ups, and "shields" against malware and some virus (but of course, most of the times, isn't reliable). The only problem with FireFox is that it doesn't works with ActiveX.

If what you want is something to browse quickly over the internet, then sure, keep Opera. I suppose I'll use both, depending what I need.

I'm fucking Matt Damon / Ben Affleck

2009-01-18T14:44:00.004-02:00

This are two skecths which took place on the Jimmy Kimmel's show probably a year ago, on where Sarah Silverman, Jimmy's girlfriend, initially played a joke on him by showing a video where she constantly afirmed "I'm f*cking Matt Damon".

Due to the popularity of the first video, Jimmy decided to produce a second one, but this time, with the participation of a lot of hollywood starts (such as Harrison Ford, Robin Williams, or Cameron Diaz), as an obvious parody of the first one, but this time starring himself and Ben Affleck.

Vector Elements for Illustrator

2009-01-14T01:01:00.001-02:00

Well, I suppose this doesn't qualifies as brushes, but hey, if you aren't going to use this on Photoshop, you can go read something else. asdf.

In any case: Dezignus again delivers a huge amount of FREE floral swirls, vector flowers, vector swirlds or any combination on that area, in EPS (encapsulated post script, for Illustrator) format to work with.

I personally love the swirls and curves, but most of the stuff is good so there's no waste on anything.

Issuu | Publish your work

2009-01-14T00:08:00.000-02:00

Issuu basically consists on a host website for little or medium magazines who want to make theirs known around the globe.

The system is really easy, actually. You just need to upload your PDF files to the website, and after that you gather them in the order and way you want.
It's also great to discover other magazines and chat about design with the authors.

I feel like a f*cking seagull doing advertising to other websites, but oh hell, this one deserves it.

RSS Icons for Photoshop

2009-01-07T00:28:00.001-02:00

What is RSS?

RSS stands for 'really simple sindication', and it's part of the web feed formats. It's probably one of the most common things you can see on blogs but you have no idea what it is nor interest about it.
By suscribing to someone's RSS you get a summarized entry of updated news everyday (in case there are) with its author and date. As far as I know, FireFox has an option over markers, and it says "Suscribe to this website" or something like that, which acts with RSS. If you really are lost, you should see this video for more information about RSS and its use.

On the blog topic: I'd like to bring you by courtesy of dezignus (a site I got to know lately) some RSS Icons to use on your blog or website.

Dezignus - RSS Icons or RSS Icons, direct link on Mediafire

If you don't know how to install them, the process is simple: You just need to click with your right button over the Shape Tool and go to "Custom Shape Tool".

Now, on a new canvas, use right click and click over the little arrow on the north east of your window to open some options. Select "Load Shapes" and now just find your RSS shapes.

For example, I worked with them and did this:

POP | Design Agency

2009-01-05T02:42:00.000-02:00

Have you ever said "If I would want to work in this company/for someone it would be 'x' "? I just had this thought while I was searching in the POP website.

"POP is an interactive agency. With a dynamic blend of marketing strategy, design and technology, we help some of the world’s leading brands discover new opportunities to enhance and expand their businesses through the thoughtful crafting of innovative interactive experiences for the web, mobile devices and emerging digital platforms."

And boy they do have some brands: Nintendo, Microsoft, Google, EA, Amazon, Ubisoft. The job offert is extremely low and the demands are, well, as you can imaginate, the best of the best: expert on acronyms, translations, and the list goes on.

Every website they have done combines a lot of existent languages in many forms, for an impressive outcome and beautiful presentation. A good example probably is on the Mario Brothers website of the very own Nintentdo. Worth taking a look.

Changing your Link borders

2009-01-04T18:50:00.001-02:00

Okay, this is a pretty specific subject. So it happens that my blog came with a configuration which made any of my images, when they linked to somewhere, to use borders. Like this.

So I searched and found a way to change it into this:

What did I do? I created another "class" for the images, so they could work as different elements from Links. You just need to find your a: line and set something like this.

You can define every one of the variables on the list to match the colors on your blog. Every time you want to correct the border, use the usual code img src with this agregate: Class="img".
For example, the last image looked like this.

Remember that I'm talking about Images with Links. It won't work if you add it to the "img src" part.

Attitudes

2009-01-02T20:24:00.000-02:00

Philosophically Speaking, is it possible to talk about a good or bad type of personality by birth?
Inherent characteristics with that a person is born, independently of the qualities that the individual will take, tend to be of negative character if we classify them using the guidelines of morality established by the society? (at least in modern societies)

Can these characteristics be reverted?
It is feasible to say that the personality is a process that is constructed during the whole life, but it's also possible to affirm with the same intensity that is only (crucially) modified in the first two stages of life: childhood and adolescence. The structural molds obtained inside the mentioned stages will prevail for the rest of the life. In spite of the influence of all the possible situations, the variation that takes the set of characteristics named 'personality' is far from fluctuating drastically on the last two stages of life.
Or let's suppose for a moment an event takes place and it calls to an important and inesperate change to the personality. What attitude should take a person with a constructed identity? "Rejection"? "Denial"?

I could write about all the possible things that can affect the personality, but in escence, they all come to a single item, relationships.
Hm.

Commercials on YouTube

2009-01-01T18:24:00.001-02:00

Apparently YouTube has now added commercials at the very beggining of their videos. As I searched on the website, it appears the only one with these is the CBS channel (and the reason why I'm not using the YouTube code for my blog it's because, they're only working on the website). You can search for more in their sidebar (although, it appears they only show once, if you already haven't seen the page in question).
My concern is: will we be subdued to watch more of these on the future?. Because if that is gets to be the case, YouTube will lose a lot of viewers for other popular sites like Veoh or MegaVideo.
I just hope not.

Example Video: CSI - Jim Carrey

Changing your Blog Icon (favicon)

2008-12-29T01:52:00.001-02:00

After a couple hours of searching in the web, I came across a blog which described an useful method for changing your blog favicon.
I must state that I gathered a lot of this information from another blog, which I can't track right now, since I erased my historial (blame CCleaner).

What's a Favicon?
It's the icon next to your browser direction, meant to identify the site you're currently navigating. It stands for "favorite Icon", since that's the image it's going to display in your bookmarks (and originally, on the Internet Explorer's).

So how can we change the Blogger default's icon?
By introducing this codeline on the Palette:

Link rel (where rel stands for relationship) is encharged to link the icon with the outern source, and the href part is basically the URL of your icon host. This is the only part of the code you have to change.
You need to introduce this code (obviously with another URL) between the «head> and the «/head>, after the ]]>«/b:skin> (please notice that I changed all the "<" in order to make the f*cking blog accept the line of text)

Real explanation starts here
What you need to do in order to change the URL part on that code I gave you, is the following.

1. First of all, save your Blog palette before messing with. It's a suggestion.
2. You're going to need either a 16x16 image in order to convert it to Ico, or already, an icon. Try searching on google, or using a program to make one, such as Photoshop, Gimp, or something else. You got a list of programs at mashable to check.
3. Go to IconJ and host it at the box on the right side of the screen.

4. After the site finishes uploading it, copy the direct link on the bottom of the link box.

5. Now paste this between the «head> and the «/head>, after the ]]>«/b:skin> and you're done.

Hope you liked it.

1000 Photoshop Brushes

2008-12-28T22:26:00.001-02:00

Or probably more; I came across with this post on Noupe with a massive amount of Brushes of all kinds.

Even if you don't work with a lot of paritcular themes, they have enough variety to entertain you for a while.

1000+ Free High Resolution Photoshop Brush Sets

Installing Wordpress locally and a Watercolor Menu

2008-12-28T02:54:00.001-02:00

Another tutorial; This time, for a watercolor-like notepad and some interesting stuff about Wordpress (which tragically, I know almost nothing of it).

Watercolor Menu tutorial

Installing Wordpress

3D Pixel Stretch

2008-12-28T02:42:00.000-02:00

Not because I enjoy doing publicity to other sites, but because I found a great tutorial for making (grungy?) backgrounds filled with colors.

The only trick on it, is getting handle of the CTRL (or was it ALT) + T thing, which looks easy at the very beggining but after a while you notice it's not so-so.

3D Pixel Stretch tutorial on this website

About

2008-11-03T00:23:00.078-02:00

There's an infinitude of interesting websites to deep in nowadays. Multiple small or big corporations have been using the blog format for some years to provide news to all kind of audiences.
It's starting to grow up on popularity, and no one wants to be exception. Back when I was really little, it actually was hardly a possibility to find something on google linked to a blog, despise now SEO tactiques are hot debate topics.
By the time you have got to this part, you probably have used about 10 to 15 seconds of your time, which is almost twice the average of time everyone glances to each website. Still, if you are interested, keep reading.

Mine's but a personal blog. If there's something relatively interesting, I'll probably give some thought and elaborate something to write in this.
'Blood and Thunder' is a song by Mastodon from their 2004 disc, Leviathan. It loosely describes the obsession by the Captain Ahab for the White Whale, before reaching its climax on the second song of the disc, "I am Ahab". If you're interested in the band, you can read the article on wikipedia, or just listen to the song.

Contact

You can find me on the following emails. I'd please ask you to specify the subject "blog" or anything of the like on the message. If you see you can't contact me via email, just write something on this post and I'll reply you.

Hotmail: cloud_098@hotmail.com
Gmail: zidanearg@gmail.com
YouTube: youtube.com/zidanearg
Facebook: I don't own one. Sorry.