Superbus

Huang Hao and the Eunuchs were only concerned about their own comforts. The state of the country meant nothing to them; the flag could have been anything so long as they had gold and wealth. So in other words, the country's founding became utterly irrelevant, as time passed, the past was forgotten, and weak leaders were exploited by devious people with their own goals. Take heed, America.

Three Kingdoms is my favourite book of all time. I don't know if I have a "favourite" character at this point - it's too easy to just pick the Dynasty Warriors guys - but I tend to like the stories that don't get noticed much by Koei games. Kan Ze comes to mind. To me, 3K has an effect the likes of which the Art of War has on others. I reference it in my day-to-day life as a reference point when it comes time to make hard decisions on just about anything. It's a truly wonderful read. There's a free version in PDF format online, but I strongly recommend people check out the four-volume books that Moss Roberts translated and annotated, here: http://www.amazon.com/Three-Kingdoms-Chinese-Classics-Volumes/dp/7119005901/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1393645495&sr=1-1&keywords=Three+Kingdoms

I have a black 3DS, but I'm SEVERELY tempted to decorate mine to look like Sailor Mercury's computer. Stop laughing. No, stop fucking laughing, this is getting awkward.

I started working as a dishwasher at my father's restaurant when I was 11 years old; this was before even the very idea of child labour laws blocking that (in Connecticut, there was actually a movement to ban parents from having their children working until they were legal to, under the idea that they should be in school. That got shot down, quickly). I actually left his employ at 15 to work as a janitor for the summer - full-time - at my old middle school. Throughout my youth, I also held jobs at K-Mart (at some point, as an Eatery cook; this was when they had actual eateries, and not just Pizza Hut kiosks), as a dishwasher/caterer at a deli, and finally, as a rink hand/referee for a small inline hockey rink. This was before I joined the service at 19.

I'm still every bit a gamer as I used to be, but my tastes changed with the circumstances as I aged. In my teens, I was a huge JRPG gamer. FFVI, FFVII, Suikoden I + II, even Beyond the Beyond. I played deep games, in addition to the sports games that I typically play, but they didn't have much play with me over the course of a year because I figured out how to "game" the system. As I hit my 20s I was still able to play JRPGs, but I started actually completing them less and less. I beat the occasional JRPG - the truly elite ones, like Suikoden V - but more and more fell into my backlog. Final Fantasy XII, Tales of Symphonia, and other all-time classics, I haven't been able to finish them off. Meanwhile, I played more sports games - in the service, this was our main form of out-to-sea recreation - and more "mainstream" games. I was actually a decent Halo player back in the day. I turn 34 in May. If I had to break down my game playing time, most of it would be either the odd game of NHL '14, or Pinball Arcade on my cell phone. Often, my 3DS gets out for a brief bout of training Pokemon at the Battle Chateau. JRPGs are still interesting to me, but the thought of finishing one is such a distant memory that I honestly can't remember the last JRPG I actually beat that I hadn't beaten at some point in my youth (I.E.: Final Fantasy IV doesn't count; FTR, I think my last one was Dragon's Quest IV for the DS, and before that, fucking Suikoden V, which was almost seven years ago at this point). My backlog has become so legendary that I have set up writing assignments around it. It's ironic because the ubiquity of affordable video gaming, and at least a decent amount of disposable income - not bad for an unmarried man in his mid-30s who is responsible for his mother's health - mean I own thousands - THOUSANDS - of games, and virtually every system I've bought throughout my life, but don't get to play them the way I would want to. Now, some of the greatest games of all time - Bravely Default, Ys Celceta, Tales of Graces F - sit on my shelf *UNPLAYED*; I haven't had the time to devote to them. My point in this is that this is just your natural progression. Your priorities are changing as you age. This will continue, in all aspects of life, in and outside of gaming. Just don't start playing Candy fuckin' Crush, and we're cool. :P

Pretty much anyone in the fandom before 2008, and probably a lot of the ones afterwards too.

Tate's always been a bit of a trademark of mine; she's also my favourite FE character from what was (at the time, pre-Awakening) my favourite FE game. I've always had a soft spot for the serious type, especially if they have blue hair. This dates back years, to my teenaged infatuation with Sailor Mercury. So my friend drew up Tate, and made her blink! She also did the same thing with Karin, but that one never took off quite as much. Hilariously, some members would get me confused for being female. At the time, I was in my late-20s, and decidedly not feminine looking.

So it is bird pokemon, or fairies? Cheese and Crackers. Flying Pokemon: Talonflame. I like my fire types. Obviously, this also includes Charizard; normal bird-types (Pigeot) don't really do it for me because they don't do enough damage and don't stop enough, either. Fairy types: Sylveon, Sylveon, Sylveon. I have two Sylveon, and I'm strongly considering keeping both of them (one was a mistaken evolution; I was aiming for Umbreon)

The former is a safety issue. The latter is simply intellectual consistency. If you say it's OK to apply one arbitrary metric to one group of people, but not to apply a similar metric to others, that's not consistent, especially as neither have anything to do with the safety of patrons or personnel. Again: arbitrary metrics. You can't selectively apply them and expect to pass either legal or constitutional muster.

He's not the best fighting type, but I've turned my Pangoro into something fun: a competent fighting type with some good punch moves, who also serves as my catching pokemon of choice since I gave him False Swipe. I wouldn't use him in a battle - that's Lucario's job - but he's fun to use.

Let's say a restaurant calls itself "Honkys and Burgers", and labels itself a whites-only establishment. Hell, let's say they go all the way, with a "No Negros Allowed" sign, with bouncers and all that. If you say this is wrong, then you're also saying that it's wrong to discriminate against children in this sense. Or anyone. Ultimately, a company can do business with who they want. Period.

Atellier is very, very, VERY involved. Like, "get an Excel spreadsheet" involved. Fair warning there. You have a PSP, and that system is FILLED TO THE BRIM with extremely good games. I can't even think to list them all here, but look in particular for Lunar, the first couple Star Ocean games, and for obscurity, Kenka Bancho: Badass Rumble.

I'm still struggling with Yabuase emulation myself - my rig can't run it well - but for my actual, real Saturn, I love the Working Designs game Albert Odyssey. Gameplay wise, it's a bit cookie cutter, and the goofy translation might turn off a few who think it too much, but it's a blast to play, even now.

I believe that's what the Austrians said when they were getting ready to take on the Serbs, too. But really, it doesn't matter at this point. When you lose a coalition with ENGLAND, you really have nowhere else to go. Though I find it ironic, after Parliament's debate and subsequent vote, that the monarchy has a better democracy than us, who are desperately looking for any legal justification for bombing the shit out of Syria.

You will have to use plugins for the vast majority of the later console emulators. Be it Dolphin (GCX), ePSXe, 1964 (N64) or most others, you'll need plugins due to their infrastructure. If you want somehting relatively plug-and-play, PSX (or PSXFin) is your best bet, but the compatability isn't there, it's out of development, and the developer refuses to release his code.

Ignoring the mommy issues of one poster who gives no context, I'll make a larger general point: Internet addiction isn't the fault of the internet. Addictive tendencies can manifest anywhere; someone with internet addiction is just using the internet as their conduit for their needs. If it's not that, it's video games, or alcohol, or even sex. It's just a condition of the mind not being able to regulate pleasure control.

1) Most of this information is gathered through the public domain. I.E.: there's not much you can do about it other than campaign for far stricter data gathering protections. 2) It's not what I can find on some public site that scares me. It's what the government is gathering on me just because they can and there's no oversight. 3) Removing yourself from this one site literally does nothing. The information's still out there.

Severa is a tsundere with mommy issues. Compared to someone like Owain, it's easy to see why she'd be disdained.

I share Ricken's birthday (May 23).

Not every character has to be likable, you know. I personally find her extremely unlikable, and I think that's intentional.

I streamed the first episode of Free! as a joke. I also saw some other eps as well. It's basically K-On! for girls who like gay boys.

*sigh* I'll bite: Who says that these homosexuals are actually having this kind of sex? Who says gay men have to have anal sex? And last I checked, women scissoring isn't any more dangerous than heterosexual sex (though it IS 100X hotter, and that's Superbus Approved!) Also, by saying this, you're saying that these people are fundamentally incapable of safe sex. Condoms, dental dams, etc.

I can't say what Serenes Forest means to me specifically, because honestly, it doesn't mean much; I don't have the emotional attachment to SF other than the fact that this is the place I sent my own members after FESS went down. But I CAN talk about FESS, and this has the bonus of hindsight. I joined FESS almost ten years ago; it was months later that I became an admin, and in that time, for better or worse, I was the "face" of the community. In that time, I met so many of my friends - I don't differentiate between "online" and "offline", and over the years, "online" and "offline" blended together anyway - at that site, and among our younger members, I was informed over the years that I was a pseudo father figure of sorts (remember, I'm 33 now). Make of that what you will, but this online account with the Tate avatar had a person behind it that was able to impact many lives, and had a lot of other avatars affect his. This, despite the fact that Fire Emblem discussion was never really one of my strengths. I know the games, but I'm not one to get into stat battles or fiction writing. Besides, that's what we had Eaichu and Twilkitri for. FESS was easily the most singularly important community of my life, and I'm counting the "real life" ones - the sports teams I've played on, the groups I've been a part of, the fire department, VFW, etc. - in that as well. Its importance to my life is maybe seconded only by that of the Navy. I almost married a woman from that site, and before anyone snickers, I dated that woman - as an adult in my mid-20s - for almost seven years. I laugh at people who say "it's just the internet". "Just the internet" affected my off the internet life more than anything I've ever been a part of, and the pros are a hundred times more numerous - and important - than the cons.

I don't know if this has been posted yet - and if it has, I'm not going through 50 pages to find it - but this is an awesome update on a timeless classic from the SNES era, from the game that I feel has the greatest OST of all time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_361uNAo_0&feature=share&list=PLE9BC9AD85F99F8CB

When I was little, I actually cried at the end of Final Fantasy Adventure, aka Seiken Densetsu. [spoiler=Ending]After beating the final boss, the girl that you've been traveling with on and off has to become the Mana Tree. This made me cry like a little bitch. WHY COULDN'T WE HAVE BEEN TOGETHER FOREVER NOOOOOO. It didn't help that I named her after a 5th grade crush.