gavin.bard

bardforwhatever:

Hello Tumblr. You probably don’t know me, but I’m running for senate in the relatively okay state of New Jersey.

I’d just like to talk directly to all of you for a second and say that I 100% back the antics from the hacktivist collective anonymous in their awesome, but admittedly futile, fight against government manipulation of the internet. The internet needs to be defended and, as someone who believes in the full range of resistance options from passive and peaceful to direct and brickthrowy, I see no reason to not respect and encourage Anonymous in their actions against the RIAA, MPAA, and, their sad puppet, the DOJ.

However, this is but a blip. A small outcry from a group of indignant dissidents. Sadly, we all know how this ends. SOPA or PIPA will be passed, somehow, and will be just as disgusting as it was before. It will encroach on the very fiber of the free internet based on bogus statistics whispered in the ears of even more bogus politicians during their post coital snuggle-fests with big business. Those who have been in this fight long enough to remember the heinously one sided hearing know this. We will always lose this battle to conglomerates and corporations, because they have the money and the power. They have the lobbyists, the ability to convince politicians to screw their constituents and those same constituents to turn against their fellow Americans and defend their gross profits for them. We will always lose this battle in the end, because it is the system that is broken.

SOPA, PIPA, and the death of Megaupload are symptoms of a greater problem, a problem with not only politics, but with business, with the economy, with our schools, our hospitals, our cops and our teachers. Its a problem that runs from the very top of whatever the highest thing in America is to the very bottom of whatever the lowest thing in America is. It is the greed and manipulation of the plutarchal class that leads to all this conflict in our daily lives.

Quite certainly, they must be stopped.

They won’t be stopped by your internet black outs and changing your Facebook picture though. They can only be stopped by direct action. You need to take this to the streets, just like we’ve needed to do for about thirty years now. You need to organize with your friends and stage sit ins, walk outs, walk ins, sit outs, whatever you need to do to make these things stop. Protest methods that take little effort and have no risk, like retweeting on Twitter and liking things on Facebook, are quaint, but they are not effective. A pea shooter cannot stop Godzilla, and because of the hold the elite have on our very system we are certainly not Godzilla in that analogy. 

That is why I completely encourage piracy and the lashing out at companies that value a few more dollars squeezed out of consumers over the very well being of an entire country. In a perfect world, piracy wouldn’t be a gray area crime, it would be pure theft. In the world we live in however, the term “copyright holder” has become as meaningless as the term “job creator.” The copyright holders aren’t starving artists losing their shirt to a few kids downloading their music off of Megaupload, the copyright holders are the white guys in suits at the very top who had the artist sign as much away as they could possibly get. In our world, piracy is the last line of defense consumers have against getting screwed- and boy do they get screwed. Movie costs are at an all time high while the MPAA cries about “job loss” and billions of dollars of money being stolen by piracy, all while their leading CEOs make more money than they ever have and spend even more on making the fucking things. The companies involved in the RIAA have been turning record profits for years and have since the dawn of Napster. Video game sales are quadruple what they were ten years ago before the mainstreaming of piracy. 

Everybody is making absolute bags of money in these industries, and yet they want to fuck with your internet and your wallet just because they want more.

I happen to believe there are more people in this country that desire a free, unhindered internet than desire a few million extra dollars in George Lucas or Ke$ha’s pockets. If the majority of this country stops and says “hey, sure piracy is bad, but its not worth gutting the internet and sending graphic artists to jail for 50 years” then shouldn’t the government, who supposedly represents its people, listen? They won’t, of course, because the few hundred people in the RIAA and MPAA are worth more to them than tens of millions of us. If we all suddenly decided that piracy was not a crime, in an actual representative democracy that would mean our representatives would have to acknowledge that as well. Do you suspect your representative would agree? Or would they continue defending the MPAA while it spouts bullshit about losing sixty-billion double dollars to the internet?

This is just another example, one of dozens, of the truth- we live in an plutarchy, not a democracy.

As the fringiest fringe candidate in the 2012 New Jersey senatorial elections remember that when the elections come around- I’m the one that digs piracy, backs Anon, and wants to punch Chris Dodd in his fat head. If you feel that way as well, and I suspect you do, I’m probably the only politician that represents you.

So vote Bard in 2012, after they make the internet illegal you are going to need some new entertainment anyway.

There are very few games in the Zelda series I haven’t played before this romp through the years, but the Oracle duo are among them. I’ve complained about it before, but releasing two games at the same time always bothers me. It annoyed me with Pokemon, it infuriates me with the Super Ultra Mega Edition and Less Ultra Silver Sortof Mega Editions of current games. So when the Oracle games came out, I put off messing around with them for nearly 11 years. That is how deep my distaste for corporate cash grabs is.

The gimmick of the Oracle games is that they can be played in either order and linked up with the other half of the pair in order to give a different experience. This gives multiple ways to play all the games, and the true ending of the series can only be unlocked if you beat both of them consecutively.

The difference in experiences between the vanilla and linked games, and the order they are played in, aren’t enormous but they are noticeable which really helps put Ages/Seasons in a different class than the PokeMan Max Muave Ultimate Champions Editions before and after it.

Another thing that is nice is that Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages both play different. Seasons is more action based, with more combat while Ages is more of a puzzle based game. Of course, they could have both been combined and made one game but hey, who am I to question the importance of profit?

This is essentially what it looks like when I try to dance with Emily, except she is a tad bit less tan and a tad bit more goth-toned.

ALWAYS I WANNA BE WITH YOU, MAKE BELIEVE WITH YOU, AND LIVE IN HARMONY HARMONY OOOOOOH LOVE

In Seasons, Link is sent to the land of Holodrum in order to defeat the evil General Onox who has kidnapped the Oracle of Seasons herself, Din, destroying the natural balance of the weather and causing chaos for the common people of the land, thus ensuring he would defeat Mitt Romney for the GOP nomination.

Yeah, she seems to do that a lot.

So do I. #smokebluntseverydaybro420

I actually really like this gritty reboot of My Little Pony.

Aesthetically, there really isn’t much of a difference between the Oracle games and the previous Game Boy Zelda title, Link’s Awakening. The graphics are a bit more colorful, obviously, and the music is just as good as it always is, but mostly this is the same game graphically as the colorized version of Link’s Awakening. I chalk this up more to “if it ain’t broke” than laziness or anything like that.

Boss battles are as fun as always, and they are quite varied in the strategies and items needed to beat them.

I thought Holodrum repealed that already.

That swamp probably has a whole lot of printer errors.

Killing the two tiny Asian ladies to get to this fight was way harder than you think.

Obviously, the seasons play a huge role in progressing through the game. Link can use the Rod of Seasons to do things like make the world winter to cross frozen ice or change the season to Fall so the leaves on trees clear away and open new paths. In typical Legend of Zelda fashion, it is incredibly well executed.

She uses the past tense here because now her husband has post concussion syndrome and might have to miss another season.

As the illegitimate lovechild of Brodus Clay and Dragon Dragon, I expect Dancing Dragon to get easily with the internet wrestling community.

One of my only problems with Seasons is how compressed it feels. There are a whole lot of things to do in this game, and it ends up feeling a bit unfocused and claustrophobic because of it. Mostly because some of the things, I’m looking at you ring system, feel a bit tacked on. The rings can be useful, like the one that prevents you from sliding across frozen floors, but it is pretty easy to get through the game without even bothering with a single one.

Therein lies why I don’t consider the Oracle games to be “must play” entries in the Legend of Zelda saga. The thing this series always nails is making everything feel necessary. You want to do the collection quests and finish the trade chains because it feels like an important part of the game. In Oracle of Seasons, much of it doesn’t.

The biggest reason for this is the limitations of the inventory system on the Game Boy. With all the different weapons, items, the Rod of Seasons, and the multiple rings, there is a whole lot of shuffling through menus. By the end of the game, you are more excited to finish it so you don’t have to pop in and out of a menu ten times in a minute long period than you are to actually finish the game.

Obviously the game is good enough that its menu issues and slight drag near the end don’t ruin it, its still a fantastic experience, but I’m just saying this isn’t one of the best Zelda games.

Mittens! If you keep bewing sew weckwess you and Bain are going to bankwupt all these companies and lay off a lot of people entirely for you and your cwonies pwofits! Stop being such a capitawist!

Heh, heh, heh.

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Phish Concerts

“Arrr, half of ye don’t even know how to mount an ISO.”

Looks like that volcano was left on the drawing room floor when Edmund McMillian was designing CUNT.

In retrospect, this little project of mine has lead to me having one of the largest reaction image folders on the internet. Pic related.

As evil final bosses go, Ku Klux Pyramid Head is among the most intimidating.

Heroes the world over have to consider themselves grateful for their enemies inability to find armor that fits their Huge Shiny Weaknesses

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Having Your V-Card Punched

Like I said earlier, this isn’t one of the best Zelda games, but it is still a great action-RPG. I’m surprised it took me this long to get around to playing it. Then again thanks to the wonders of a non-fucked with internet, I didn’t pay 120 bucks for both games to get the full experience.

Fuck you, government. I’ll download all the 11 year old Game Boy Color games I fucking want.

8.2/10

(Source: the-maelstrom)