FF ramblings

[ria_oaks]

I happened to check Rpgamer.com a few minutes ago and noticed that FFIII:DS comes out today (I haven't really been keeping track...). I'm probably just being too over-emotional, but this day feels rather historic in the RPG world - the last Final Fantasy that wasn't released in the US is finally here. I checked, and it's been approximately 16.5 years since FFIII was released in Japan - well, better late than never, I guess. XD I mean sure, I played it years ago on a translated ROM and I won't be buying this version anytime soon (lack of a DS... and lack of time to play. woe.), but it's still cool to think that it's here. It's sort of a pity that the original version of the game will never make it here, most likely (how hard would it have been to include the orignal version in the new game, really...?), but the new version looks pretty spiffy. Hopefully I'll get to play it someday.

3 FF games in the past 2 weeks, 2 of which are new to the US (FFXII and FFIII:DS) and one of which only ever made it here in a mangled fashion (FFV Advance) - makes me miss the days when I could play all the time... I haven't really been into gaming as much the last few years, largely because of a. lack of time during school, b. other interests take up my free time, and c. i'm lazy., but I still get excited hearing about games and still want to play when I get the chance. I'm way behind on all the games I'm playing, but I still plan to ask for either FFXII or Disgaea 2 for Christmas (leaning towards the latter - FFXII will be easy enough to find for years to come, and it'll get cheap fairly quickly, whereas Disgaea 2 will start disappearing soon...). I am sorely tempted by FFXII, though - it's been getting fantastic reviews, and hell, it's FFXII! We've been waiting for this game for years, and it's finally here... and I really can't justify the time or money to get it. Part of me, too, is still a bit uncertain about it - but most of the reviews have said that the game is nothing like (and much better than) anything we've seen of it to this point, including the demo. I plan to give it a chance eventually, but can't do it yet.

And... I'm procrastinating. Back to my Farscape paper... it's due tomorrow at 9, so I need to get moving. Up to 5 pages, need about 12 - and I'm still blathering on about the context, haven't even gotten to analysing the series itself! Ehehehe. baaack to work.

Comments

[bk635.livejournal.com]

This is pretty sad if you haven't heard about it yet: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061120/ap_on_en_tv/people_michael_richards

Can't really blame him entirely though... :/

[ria-oaks.livejournal.com]

Fuck... that's messed up. Being heckled gives him absolutely no excuse to say that kind of stuff. Anyone who would say things like that, celebrity or not, loses a lot of my respect. I hate it when actors I like say that kinda shit; some people can completely dissociate an actor from his/her acting, but I still consider the actor's personality and opinions to be important. It's hard to repsect a person's acting when I don't respect them as a person. Like Isaiah Washington's (from Grey's Anatomy) homophobic slur a couple of monthes ago. It's been glossed over since, but being 'stressed and angry' doesn't excuse saying something like that. People don't say that kind of stuff without actually believing it on some level, no matter how stressed or whatever they are.

At least he's planning to apologize soon, evidently. It's hard to explain away something like that, though.

[bk635.livejournal.com]

It's going to follow him for the rest of his career, unfortunately.

A Youtube commenter said that he was in the audience and the two black men were heckling him and being disruptive for a good ten minutes, during which Richards asked them to settle down several times before the outburst. He mentioned that the black men did draw the race card first, and while in my opinion that should level the playing-field, there's this stupid double standard that black people can say whatever they want about white people without anyone calling them on it, which I don't necessarily agree with. Hence the reactions we're all having right now.

Having said that though, Richards should have handled the situation more professionally, like calling security to remove the hecklers. Even if he believes what he said - fine - but that's something you keep to yourself.

At least now he has the public's attention again for another 15 minutes. :/

[ria-oaks.livejournal.com]

Hmm, interesting to hear the full backstory on what happened. Yeah, there definitely is a double standard like that - you find that with all minority/previously oppressed groups, really. It's similar (though not on the same level) to how we can complain about guys but if they do the same then they're called sexist. I guess it comes from the assumption that if we/they were oppressed in the past, we have the right to do the same. Which is, obviously... problematic. Moreso when the above example is taken to the extreme (ie. extremist feminists who are frankly scary).

Any idea what the men in the audience said? Were they making outright racist remarks about Richards? Honestly, even if they were, I don't think that gives him the right to do the same back - sinking to their level and all. And fact is, even though racism towards whites is certainly problematic, racism towards blacks has a long and terrible history of death, slavery, etc. The 'n' word has a huge stigma attached to it in our society (except when black men say it about themselves, perhaps) - to the point where I honestly don't like writing/saying it even as an example. Too much history, I guess.

Anyway, either way I agree that he should have been much more professional and asked for them to be removed. There was no call to say those things, whatever he believed. And quite frankly, if he is racist I could have survived not knowing it. Maybe it's prejudiced to dislike prejudiced people, but to use grade one logic 'they did it first'. XD

Oh well, we'll see what he says when he makes that public apology...

[bk635.livejournal.com]

This is the Youtube comment. I checked this thread in the morning and it had 68 replies, now there are nearly 600; you would have heard about this sooner or later; especially if you're keeping up with your "watching the news" thing. ;p

"I was there and almost everyone stayed until he was done. The guy he was yelling at was being an Ass Hole. He started the racist shit first. He wouldn't shut up. They called him at least 10 different names. He said "you suck, he was an idiot, a dumb ass white mother fucker" and on and on. You only see 2 minutes. It was 10 minutes of two Black guys fucking with him. They tried to piss him off and it worked. What's new?"

Oh yeah, I agree even if they started it he shouldn't have sunk to their level. No race should be "allowed" to use racism to their advantage. For me, I think it should be pretty black and white (hahah -_-): either all races can use racial slurs to insult each other, which is stupid, or no race should be allowed to use racial slurs to insult other races, which is preferable. Of course in the real world it's not going to be that simple.

Richards is also a recovering alcoholic, which would be contributable, but still not make his actions excusable.

[ria-oaks.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I probably would have heard about it 'through the grapevine' of the Internet... though that whole 'watching the news' thing... hasn't really happened. *cough*

Incidentally, Jerry Seinfeld's going to be on Letterman tonight, presumably talking about this. I'm going to watch... it's on at 11:30.

Oh, and here's your opening for that HitlerCat picture. XD Though really, you could've randomly inserted it at any point in the conversation and I barely would have blinked - I'm far too used to the eclectic nature of our conversations. :)

(okay, I don't actually have a real opening, so just count this as one...)

[bk635.livejournal.com]

HitlerCat agrees with Michael Richards!

[ria-oaks.livejournal.com]

*gigglesnort* That's fucking hilarious and kinda creepy. Is that actually how he naturally looks, 'mustache' and all?? o.o It is rather uncanny, isn't it...?

[bk635.livejournal.com]

I think it's real, but the mustache looks a little fake to me. But considering how many cats there are out there, it wouldn't surprise me that there was one with fur pattern like that. My cat has a black dot in the middle of his otherwise white chin, for instance.

[ria-oaks.livejournal.com]

Heh, I wonder... it'd be pretty damned awesome if it were real. :)

Btw, I'm watching Letterman right now and Seinfeld's going to be on after this commercial. So, if you want to watch it later, it'll be ~11:50.

And crap, it's almost 12am yet I still have a ton left to write. Oooh shit. Possible all-nighter time..

[bk635.livejournal.com]

...

"Braaaaad..."

What station is that Letterman episode going to be on?

[ria-oaks.livejournal.com]

So glad he got arrested. :P What did you think of the rest of the episode?

8 or 15. I looked it up on Zap2It just for you. XD

They've got Richards on right now via satellite... he's apologizing, and he's obviously having a bad time of it. He isn't looking too good... and wow does he look a lot older than he did on Seinfeld. He says that he lost his temper and said some horrible things. Now he's saying that he isn't a racist and he just said those things out of a burst of spontaneous anger. He's really beat up about it... definitely regrets it and can't believe that it happened.

Okay, commercial break now.

[bk635.livejournal.com]

Don't spoil it for me. Yuu~~

"Braaad..."

[ria-oaks.livejournal.com]

Oops, sorry. XD Just got caught up in watching it and describing it... anyway, it was interesting and there was some funny stuff with Seinfeld later. Stick around; there's a funny clip from the s7 DVD. :)

[bk635.livejournal.com]

At 11:30 p.m. here too, right?

It's still pretty hard to believe that he'd let all that out with no restraint though. I hope it doesn't put a pall on my enjoyment of Seinfeld. :/ I was watching it earlier and I couldn't believe that the same person who said those things was Kramer. I guess it's sometimes hard to disassociate the character from the actor. The Seinfeld Curse.

[ria-oaks.livejournal.com]

Yup. Seinfeld comes on ~11:50, though there's some funny stuff beforehand (including the requisite Letterman Top Ten about the TomKat wedding...).

Me too. I couldn't really bring myself to watch Seinfeld today. I can disassociate character from actor in the sense that I know he's not really the character, but I still know that I'm watching an actor who is performing a role in a certain way. Part of the joy in watching characters is seeing how the actors portray them. Hence why I enjoy watching my favourite actors portray different roles, and why the more I see of them & know about them the more I think of them as the actor rather than the character. Like Chris Meloni, who I like as a person and as a talented actor, and therefore enjoy watching him for him. So when an actor does something fucking stupid, it's hard to enjoy their work quite as much... note the decrease in people's enjoyment of watching Tom Cruise act - popular opinion of him effects how people view him in films, and therefore people are less inclined to watch his movies these days.

[bk635.livejournal.com]

I wonder if it would be possible to buy a PS3 on eBay for like $5, assuming no one else bids? Is this possible?

[ria-oaks.livejournal.com]

I doubt it. XD Theoretically possible, but very unlikely.

[bk635.livejournal.com]

Those auctions aren't moving. Might be worthwhile to hound that page for some poor guy, who bought 6 PS3's looking to make a profit, get desparate..

Even if someone else bid on it, getting one anywhere for ~$150 would be a steal.

[ria-oaks.livejournal.com]

Lol. Go ahead and try. XD Good luck..

I'm amused by the 1 million+ auctions. That's just... bizarre. Who the hell would actually bid on those when other ones are going for $800-1500?

[bk635.livejournal.com]

No one. Those $1 million or more auctions aren't legit, and I honestly don't understand the thought process behind making false bids which jack the auction that high.

[ria-oaks.livejournal.com]

Guess not. Though it seems odd that they have high ratings percentages and a lot of feedback... all faked?? Or I guess they have legit auctions and for some reason create a faked one, too.

[bk635.livejournal.com]

I just saw the apology from Richards. It seemed pretty sincere to me.. Saying "I'm sorry" probably isn't enough though, but still.

I felt bad for him. You could easily tell he was shaken up over it and yet the audience continued to laugh at him to the point where Jerry had to step in and tell them to be quiet.

[ria-oaks.livejournal.com]

It did seem sincere. He looked really bad... But it's still hard to understand how that could've happened - I don't think he even fully understands, himself. I'm just watching Entertainmnet Tonight and they're saying that his career is probably irrepairable, and they're most likely right. It'd be hard to come back from something like that; people just aren't going to look at him the same way again. It's harder for me now to watch Seinfeld and appreciate his talent, even though he is definitely very talented. It's a pity.

[bk635.livejournal.com]

I dunno.. What he did was inexcusable, really.. But part of me wants to find an excuse.. I mean, I watched Seinfeld and he looked like the happiest guy on Earth, but when I saw the apology he seemed so...broken. I couldn't believe it; it made me sad. And it really made me angry hearing people not respecting him when he was trying to be sincere (although I'm not trying to imply that he still deserves our respect; but that's up to the individual to decide). He almost seemed, and I hate to say it, suicidal. Although I'm probably way off-base with that impression.

His career is most likely over now (I heard he got banned from that particular club). But I mean, didn't Mel Gibson also come out with some racial slur in public a while ago? I know it wasn't as extreme as Richards', but what happened with that?

Although Jerry's bit about the children's birthday parties was quite funny.

"Have you experienced this thing of this square inflatable cube..that.. It's like a portable mental facility for children?"

"It's like the big bouncy thing?"

"Yeah it's a bouncy and..and they have a slot in the front and you insert your child into the slot..and then the child shows you what their real personality is."

"It's just a portable lawsuit that's what"

"Yes..and then the birthday party clown that wants to talk to me about his comedy career..That.. I... I just hate it. I can't take it."

Made me laugh hard. :o