The Final Fantasy XII "Permanent Silence No Mana" Question

Just thought I'd take a moment to address this issue, since most of the game sites are so fed up with people asking the question that they simply won't answer it anymore. The question is:

"Why does my character have permanent silence on him/her? I've tried Vox and Echo Herbs and nothing works. Also, s/he has no mana points!"

Or, just:

"My character has no mana points!"

Here.

Go into the party screen, go into the accesories for your characters, and unequp the manufactured nethicite or the Dawn Shard.

That help?

And do I totally sound like a RPG geek now?

And out...

Fuck USC

I mean this from deep, deep down in my heart. Fuck USC. Fuck the University of Spoiled Children. Fuck the University of South Central. Fuck them all, fuck them all up the ass with a spiked-tip mace.

I can say this because once, a few years ago, Cal, my alma mater, DID fuck USC up the ass with a big spiky stick.

Right now, I'm just hoping Notre Dame can wipe them off them field. They're like some kind of annoying virus bred in the depths of Los Assholeses. They must be dealt with. Quickly. I'm tired of seeing them in the Championship game. Tired, tired, tired.

Fuck USC. Always hated the bastards.

That goes for all you USC alums, too, fuck you all up the ass until you're raw and bleeding. Good riddance to your arsehole, that's what I say.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, to all...

Happy Thanksgiving, to:

Nig and Heidi, wherever they are right now -- Jersey, I'm guessing...

Danny F., Chris F., Michaela, Danny's GF Kat (did I get that right? hope I did) and the rest of the NorCal crew, sippin' mulled wine...

Dan B. in Benicia for the holiday, yet another Berkeley man, doin' his law thing in Indiana...

Carlos K. (K-Rhyme, my man) and Liz, wherever THEY may be...LA? Right around the corner?

To my Aunt Judy, my Uncle David, my cousin Rick, and all the Lange clan in Minnesota...

To my Uncle Tom and his family out in Bakersfield, CA, same bloodline as above...

To the other half of my bloodline, wherever they may be, the Stewardsons, scattered across the East Coast -- my cousins Dana, Carrie, and Lizzie, and their families...

Happy Thanksgiving to Sally T. and Peter, in their new house in Colorado...

Happy Thanksgiving to Tracy, in Australia, who has no idea what the hell Thanksgiving *is*...

Happy Thanksgiving to Kristin, in her new digs in Framingham, and to her enormous dog "Baby"...

Happy Thanksgiving to my favorite American expatriates in Costa Rica, the Kung Fu design team, Jolon, Martha, their son Gibson...

Happy Thanksgiving to my man Serge in Germany -- don't hit that absinthe so hard...

Happy Thanksgiving to the man figuring out how to be a father right now, my man David R., also in Germany...

And, of course, Happy Thanksgiving to my mother and my father, who are downstairs, and to my best sidekick, my psycho cat Fritz (bloated from turkey and guarding his favorite rug)...

I'm sure I've forgotten people, but Happy Thanksgiving to them as well, and I swear if ya didn't make it this time you'll make it to the Christmas list...

Happy Thanksgiving to ME!

And I'm out.

Michael Richards' Racist Tirade

You really have to watch this video to believe it. I don't know if you've heard the backstory -- this is "Kramer" from "Seinfeld" trying to do a stand-up act at the Laugh Factory in LA, until he gets interrupted by some black people talking loudly during his act (they didn't start the heckling). This truly has to be watched to be believed -- and his apology on Letterman is pathetic compared to this. Watch it.

Borat's "Throw the Jew Down the Well"

By popular demand, Sacha Baron Cohen's alter ego Borat doing perhaps the most talked-about bit from Da Ali G Show:

Nobody's getting a goddamn Playstation 3

Yeah. I said it. We're not going to a get a PS3. That is, you people reading this. Because as I write this, people are camping out -- or lurking around areas where you can't camp out until a certain time -- to get at pretty much a max of 20 premium units and 6 crap 20 gig units (who wants those). So we're not getting one. I'm almost positive I'm not getting one. I'm too old to camp out. I camped out for Floyd tickets, but I am NOT camping out for a video game console. Those are the same assholes who camped out for the first Star Wars movie -- and it SUCKED. I don't want to have to sit in line for more than twenty minutes with that sort of person.

Know where the PS3s are going? EBay, of course. They're selling for as high as $2000 on EBay. Those people waiting in line ahead of you are most likely selling their unit on EBay. Why? Because they can make a ton of money, and this is a buggy first release.

Buggy? Did I say buggy? Let's end this on this note: there is word floating around that Sony's supposed "backwards-compatible" PS3 is unable to play over 200 different PS2 and PS1 titles. "Oops"?

The Motley Fool is predicting it will be 2008 until we see PS3s around for the buying. I'm not that pessimistic. Give it six months or so, maybe even less. Sony is short on Blu-Ray diodes, sure, but they also know they're staking their entire reputation on a highly-priced system that is entering the arena rather late.

Who cares, though? You're still not getting a PS3 for Christmas. Unless you mug somebody. Shh. We'll talk later, I need someone to drive the getaway car.

The Playstation 3 Cometh...

Okay, here we go. The PS3 is due out this Friday, November 17th.

I really don't think I'm going to get my hands on one. I'm not fanatical enough to camp out for a PS3 (after all, these ain't Pink Floyd tickets or something). So...I guess I'll give away my little secret thoughts in a tutorial of sorts.

First, like I said before, if you're not ready to camp out in front of a store, be ready to not get a unit. Each store is probably going to get 5-10 units *maximum*. That being said, cruise in front of the stores you're thinking of buying from before they open, say 10 minutes before. If there's a huge line, just forget it. The other thing to remember is that most of these units being sold are going to EBay, so those guys in front of you are out for cold, hard cash, and liable to want it more than a person who just wants to play the new system.

My tips? Find a store that's out of the way. Try to think of the least obvious store around. Like -- now I don't know if Radio Shack will even carry them, but here's an example -- try to find a Radio Shack that no one ever goes to, tucked way away in a nook or cranny and hard to see. That's your best bet. That, or by finding a place you wouldn't ordinarily think of -- like Toys 'R' Us. Everybody knows they're there, so that's a bad example, but still, you get my point, that's a place that people are less likely to think of in connection with electronics. The Best Buys and such will be the absolute worst.

Now, let's say you actually manage to get one. GET A REPLACEMENT OR SERVICE CONTRACT. Sony is rushing these things to market so fast, the early units are guaranteed to have flaws. The first PS2s did, and the first XBox 360s did. Now, if you have a replacement warranty, I recommend bringing that thing in right before the contract goes and insisting that there's something wrong with it. That way, you'll get a newer PS3 that will likely have less problems. Keep doing this every time the contract comes up about to expire. Trust me, it's worth it.

Also, make sure you get the 60 gig HD version. There's no point in getting the other one, even if it's cheaper. You're going to have to upgrade at some point; you might as well get it now.

That's about all I have to say. Good luck to everyone angling to get one. And don't get one off of EBay for too much money. Just wait. In three or four months there will be more reliable units on the market, and you'll be able to pick one up with minimum difficulty. This first rush is going to be insane.

If you think I'm wrong about that, just go to Google and look up some news stories about how the Japanese launch went a couple of days ago. Insane. Huge mobs. People camped out for a day or longer. Do you really need it THAT badly?

Anyway, best of luck. All us PS fans, we must rest assured, we WILL all get one eventually.

Godspeed!

Fuck the Patriots (you heard me)

First, weather is no excuse for this travesty of a showing against the Jets by New England (fuck the Jets, too, by the way). This game was poorly coached, with too many passes that stopped a yard or two short of a first down, and poorly executed by a flustered Tom Brady who threw two picks and seemed a lot more like our old friend Drew Bledsoe in the pocket.

The Patriots are a better team than this, but unless they can stop the hemorrhaging -- for instance, by, say, limiting the enormous amount of turnovers they have coughed up in the last two games -- they will still win the AFC East, but not by much, and they will get slaughtered in the playoffs rather early on.

I'm not happy. But the Pats have a way of turning things around, under Brady and Belichick's guidance, so, while I do indeed maintain my "fuck the Patriots" feeling this week, I remain optimistic about our chances down the line.

But for this week, I'm embarrassed to be a Pats fan.

A defeat for Republicans, not conservatives

As I have obliquely alluded to in previous posts, this election was not a repudiation of conservative ideology, but a rejection of the current crop of spend-happy, scandal-plagued, RINO Republicans who simply have lost their way and alienated their conservative base.

Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe does a wonderful job summing it up -- with help from several remarks by none other than Bill Clinton -- this week in his column in a piece entitled "The Republican Debacle".

I highly recommend reading it, no matter what your political leanings are.

I'm glad Lieberman won

I am. I'm very glad Lieberman won. First, I think he's a reasonable fellow, fairly conservative in his outlook...someone I can listen to without wanting to chew his face off (unlike Nancy Pelosi, two seconds of her leads to uncontrollable projectile vomiting on my part).

But the second reason I'm happy about the win is more important. Lieberman's win points very clearly to the fact that this election's results were not a repudiation of our foreign policy. Lieberman voted for the war in Iraq; Ned Lamont sung a one-note campaign song about the war. And Lieberman won.

In fact, as Dick Morris predicted, the number one issue that people cited at exit polls -- scandals. Alas, I cannot be an apologist for the various scandals that Republican Congressmen got caught in. I will, however, be gleefully going on and on and on about all the scandals the Democrat Congressmen will now be caught in over the next two years.

Muhahaha.

One thing we can all agree with Bush on...

I think this a terribly important thing to point out. In his Saturday radio address, possibly responding in part to a taunt from a purported AlQaeda leader, President Bush said: "...one thing has not changed: America faces brutal enemies who have attacked us before and want to attack us again. I have a message for these enemies: Do not confuse the workings of American democracy with a lack of American will. Our nation is committed to bringing you to justice, and we will prevail."

I would hope that this is something that my friends across the great divide, over in Liberal Land, can easily agree with. We will continue to kick the collective asses of people who are intent on blowing us up because they somehow think we're responsible for their inability to happily join the twenty-first, twentieth, or, well, even fifteenth century.

Somehow I think we're going to see people blame Bush for dumping an enormous amount of sand around these people in a past life.

And I'm out...

Migrating to Blogger Beta...

A'ight. I've moved my blog from blogger-old-school to blogger beta. Let us hope and pray that nothing goes horribly wrong.

Take my Senate...Please!

Okay, okay, so the bastards have the Senate, too (in all likelihood). Let me go over a few things. First, scalping Rumsfeld is disgraceful. The liberals actually should have supported him -- he was all for modernizing the military and making it more cost-effective (which is why a lot of ex-military hate him -- remember, it took forever to get our military to admit they needed AIR POWER). But I suppose they wanted someone to be the goat, and Rumsfeld gets it. Big mistake. Second, if any liberal thinks this Congress is going to pull our troops out of Iraq -- it ain't happening. It's too big of a decision. If it goes wrong and there's a bloodbath because we leave, the Democrats will be blamed, and they don't want that.

Now, as for scandilitis -- the Democrats would be wise to count the skeletons in their closets before they start launching investigation after investigation into Republicans. After all, one of their favorites, the so-called "Lion of the Senate", Ted Kennedy, KILLED a woman. Yes. Remember Chapaquiddick? That little thing? Mary Jo Kopeckne? The man got away with murder. We might as well elect O.J. -- hey, don't laugh, I can see it happening.

As long as O.J. is for "hope". Hehe.

Ah well. I have at least two years to rant about Democrats. It feels good. And as for the Republicans who got tossed out, I feel no remorse. I feel happy that I no longer have to defend people who pose as conservatives but spend and act (XXX-movie style) reprehensibly. RINOs.

I actually agree with Rush on this one. I'm not the world's biggest Rush fan, but I really think he summed up a lot of current feeling from the conservatives in this latest rant. (I hope the link works for a while, sometimes links to his site degrade over time because of how they update).

Let the games begin!

Democrats take the House -- Finally I can BITCH AGAIN!

Oh glorious day...so far the projections are that the House is going into Democrat hands.

For so long now, I've been unable to bitch, complain, whine, and moan, since my party has been in power.

But that's alllll changed now. :-)

Methinks the nature of the Kip Lange blog may jog a wee bit to the right in the coming months.

Bahahahahaha!

(the only scary thing is Pelosi being third in line for the Presidency...and I mean that...)

P.S. Everything is officially now the Democrats' fault. Got herpes? Democrats' fault. Missing a testicle? Democrats' fault.

Fuck Indy...

Okay. So the Patriots had five turnovers, 8 penalties (or was it 9?), and still managed to hang in the game (courtesy of Adam Vinateri missing two field goals -- that new sod seems to jack the ball to the right, Gostkowski missed one as well). They even had a chance at a last-second drive. But to no avail, it ended in an unglorious Brady pick. However, this is no great winfor Indy, and Indy will not go undefeated, trust me. If the Pats had scored on their first drive like they should have -- or avoided turnovers -- they would have won that game. Like I said, it was a minor miracle they hung on as long as they did.

And yes, Manning is good. I'll give Indy that. The rest of 'em? Fuck Indy.

Final Fantasy XII Continued...

First off, I'm utterly addicted to this game now. Like I said before, it'll chew up plenty of your time, so watch out. If anyone's wondering, these series of games are tied with Resident Evil and Grand Theft Auto as my all-time favorites.

By the way, if you're looking for a complete walkthrough -- albeit with some mis-translated Japanese characters in it (that don't really affect the walkthrough), try this one over here at gamefaqs.com.

Final Fantasy XII

Once again, I stand in awe of the Final Fantasy series from Square. The not-so-final latest installment is, once again, filled with CGI cutscenes that take your breathe away, an innovative skills system, a free camera, and -- for a refreshing change -- really really really good voice acting.

I just got my hands on it today, and I'm just starting out on it, but it promises to chew up my free time viciously.

They really do a good job on the Final Fantasy series. I'm still impressed. This is most likely the last game I will buy for the aging PS2, but it's well worth it, if you're considering laying out the $50 for it. It's definitely not a rental; you need a lot of time to play a Final Fantasy game all the way through.

This series is one of the true Cadillacs of the videogame world. Of course, if you don't like RPGs (role-playing games), stay away from it and buy yourself some lame first-person shooter.

Fuck John Kerry...

Here's a wonderful reaction to Kerry's comments about education (paraphrased, you get a good education, you get a high school degree, or you end up "in Iraq"). This ran in a few papers today, and I've been assured it's not photoshopped (click on the image for a look at a larger version):

<