My Music Monday: Final Fantasy Edition
Welcome to My Music Mondays, the basic premise is that each week I will be delving into my music collection and looking at a new artist going somewhat randomly currently but eventually (probably not) from A to Z. I’ll examine why I first started listening to them, my favorite album and my top 10 songs for the artist. As my music collection is pretty extensive and I have a lot of one offs, I have set a qualification to be featured here. That is that I have to have at least two albums of the artist’s music before they can be considered. This week however, in honor of Final Fantasy XIII releasing tomorrow I am going a little off the trail by doing a full on Final Fantasy Edition.
One of the things, quite possibly my favorite thing in fact, about the Final Fantasy series has always been its music. Composer Nobuo Uematsu is one of my gaming heroes and whenever he is involved in a game I am generally not to far behind salivating like a dog. His music was/is the music of my gaming life and hearing certain pieces brings me back to a simpler time where life was just me and my NES.
As time progressed his music got more and more complex, presenting me with some of the most memorable pieces in my library of music games. Final Fantasy VII was the first game soundtrack I tracked down, not an easy feat for a North American fan at the time it was released and it was well worth it. Uematsu left Square Enix in 2004 and has had limited input on the series since his departure only contributing the main theme for Final Fantasy XII and having no input on the soundtrack for XIII at all. I am actually slightly worried about XIII as Masashi Hamauzu is the main composer and I am not a huge fan of his contributions to the Final Fantasy X score. However this isn’t a My Music Monday: Nobuo Uematsu, it is My Music Monday: Final Fantasy. So…
Ah screw it, Uematsu’s music is the heart and soul of the series. And while I think Hitoshi Sakimoto did a fine job with the Final Fantasy XII soundtrack, that game was set in Ivalice where Sakimoto is king (having scored Final Fantasy Tactics and Vagrant Story). Uematsu’s scores are the most iconic and memorable of the series and I am quite happy to hear that he is returning to it, even if it is for the online only Final Fantasy XIV.
Favorite Soundtrack: Final Fantasy VII
I am not going to argue that the VII soundtrack is the best. In fact it does not hold many of my favorite Final Fantasy pieces but it was my first game soundtrack and for that it holds a special place in my heart.
10 Favorite Songs
10. Behind the Door (FF IX)
9. One-Winged Angel (FF VII)
8. Liberi Fatali (FF VIII)
7. Battle Scene (FF I)
6. Ami (FF VIII)
5. Aerith’s Theme (FF VII)
4. Zanarkand (FF X)
3. Matoya’s Cave (FF I)
2. Final Fantasy (FF V)
1. Symphonic Suite Final Fantasy: Scene III (FF I)
What are some of your favorite Final Fantasy tracks?
The Perfectly Sane Show – Episode 12: The Cop Out
Yeah so… Reid fell asleep when we were supposed to record and I was left with the option of doing a short a sweet show by myself or using some pre-recorded audio of Reid and I discussing the new Kevin Smith film, Cop Out immediately after leaving the theater. As the name implies, I copped out. The audio is a little janky (because it was recorded on my phone) but it gets the general point across. You can read my review of the film here, Reid says he is going to write a review. I’ll believe that when I see it. Subscribe to us through iTunes or listen to it down below.
Music in this episode:
Special Thanks to Trevor McKee and Steve Gomboc for proving the music used for the intro and outro this week.
E-mail comments (or questions) to pefectlysaneshow@gmail.com or friend us on the IGN Blogs.
The Karate Kid Trailer
OK. Two things: 1) Kung Fu and Karate are completely separate martial arts forms. I don’t think the terms are interchangeable. So already this movie is going to make me sick. 2) I didn’t know, when it started, that it was a Karate Kid trailer, and was mocking the obvious similarities throughout the trailer. “Hey, Karate Kid remake!” “Watch this be called The Kung Fu Kid.” “Take off the jacket. Put it back on.” Fight! And then when the title appeared, the shock of it actually being The Karate Kid made me guffaw right in the middle of the theatre.
Two more things: 1) YOURE THE BEST AROUND! So catch that fly! 2) I hope mini-Will Smith uses the crane kick at the end.
Let’s go to Google!
We can now, beacuse Topeka, KS renamed itself to Google, KS!
The new city name will last for just one month. At that point, the capital will revert to its beloved, historically significant city name. But for just this month, kids, you can blame mayor Bill Bunten when you get this question wrong on your tests.
Probably the most amazing thing ever
Please enjoy Axe Cop and Dinosaur Soldier, compliments of Ryan.
The best part? It’s written by a five-year old, and drawn by a 29-year old. And they’re brothers! Also, the theme song kicks ass. For more awesome adventures, visit Axe Cop the website.
Nightmare on Elm Street
I never did watch the original A Nightmare on Elm Street until at least ten years after its release. By this point, the series had jumped the shark, and was having Freddy Kreuger — I dunno — becoming a baby or something. Watching the original Nightmare reminded me of Freddy Kreuger’s dark roots, long lost by the sixth and supposedly final Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare.
Hot drink, will travel.
Today’s question: Have you ever heated water in a ceramic mug in the microwave? I do this when I make myself a cup of tea. It tastes good with a little lemon juice or 2 spoonfuls of honey… If I pour it into a travel mug that is not ceramic my drink tastes burnt. Anybody know why?
TRON: Legacy Trailer
This morning, Nick tweets “The new TRON: LEGACY trailer is … AWESOME.” And I’m thinking, what new one? There’s a new one? Of course, I can only find the one released at San Diego Comic-Con last year. And I’d seen that back in October.
But MAN is it worth the watch!!!! Check it out if you haven’t yet. You won’t regret it.
Tron: Legacy is scheduled for release in winter, 2010, and I seriously want to see the new trailer. Do you know where I can find it?
The Perfectly Sane Show – Episode 11
I’m trying to get the show on a more regular schedule and I view this Episode as the new beginning towards that. In this episode we (myself, Reid and special guest Tommy_Arashikage) talk about the latest “big” Sony release, Heavy Rain. We discuss what we like and dislike about the game remaining relatively spoiler free and we also touch on the implications that the success or failure this game may or may not have across the industry. Subscribe to us through iTunes or get it here.
Music in this episode:
Rain – The Cult
Rainmaker – Iron Maiden
E-mail comments (or questions) to pefectlysaneshow@gmail.com or friend us on the IGN Blogs.
How much Sci do you need in Sci Fi?
Leave it to me to find an article about Sci Fi at Tech Republic, but this weekend’s Geekend asks that age old question, “Does the science in science fiction have to be accurate?”
One great example brought up is Starship Troopers’ gigantic alien bugs. Of course bugs can never be that big. It’s physically impossible for them to be giant-sized. But we still loved the movie anyway, right? OK, we didn’t love the movie, but it wasn’t the gigantic bugs that ruined it for us.
My opinion is, it doesn’t matter so much to me if the science is perfectly accurate—as long as you make your Sci Fi interesting to watch (or read, but when you’re talking to me, “reading” is essentially foreign).
I used to watch Star Trek: The Next Generation because the stories had fascinated me. And also, I’m a sucker for Time Travel—a gimmick on which many science fiction shows fall back, simultaneously rewriting their own rules on the topic—but it never bothered me that this stuff isn’t physically possible. I just liked to watch Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise be British and t3h awesomer than James T. Kirk. That, of course, was before I learned that Kirk was très awesomer than Picard and special effects technology (and the 60’s) was what made the show so hokey.
So, how accurate do you think science needs to be in science fiction?
One last thing to consider, for your two cents. Rod Sterling said something like, “science fiction makes the implausible possible, while science fantasy makes the impossible plausible.” Where would you draw the line between implausible and impossible?
My Music Monday – Party Edition
Welcome to My Music Mondays, the basic premise is that each week I will be delving into my music collection and looking at a new artist going somewhat randomly currently but eventually (probably not) from A to Z. I’ll examine why I first started listening to them, my favorite album and my top 10 songs for the artist. As my music collection is pretty extensive and I have a lot of one offs, I have set a qualification to be featured here. That is that I have to have at least two albums of the artist’s music before they can be considered. This week I break from the ordinary scheme though and explore my favorite 80s/90s party music.
I’m a rather reserved dude and I am certainly not a dancer. When tasked with dancing I move like a 95 year old grandma with a walker but when pushed (and really, really intoxicated) I have been known to embarrass myself on a dance floor. The problem with me getting drunk is that while I am a rather reserved gentleman most of the time, once alcohol hits my system I become an entirely different person. I love everyone, think I can dance and often times proclaim myself to be a long dead French dictator, in an awful French accent. I’m serious get me drunk and ask me to say Fantastik (as in the household cleaner).
At one point in my past, the city of Philadelphia had a night club called Polyesters that was a frequent hang out for me. I mostly went there because I liked the fact that the club had three floors and one of them was an 80s / 90s floor where all they played was music I enjoyed. Everything from AC/DC to Young MC hit the turntable and after a six pack of Cranberry and Vodka and a Lemon Drops I would “hit” the dance floor (sometimes face first depending upon how much I had to drink) because I felt the groove. Looking back, those were some great times but sadly they are long gone (like Polyesters) but the music remains. This past Friday I was in a weird mood and I started listening to “Things That Make You Go Hmmmmm…” By C + C Music Factory, which spiraled into “Bust a Move” by Young M.C. and thus the below list was born.
10 Favorite Songs
10. Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby”
9. Tone Loc’s “Wild Thing”
8. Digital Underground’s “The Humpty Dance”
7. DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince’s “Boom! Shake the Room”
6. DJ Kool’s “Let Me Clear My Throat”
5. MC Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This”
4. C + C Music Factory’s “Things That Make You Go Hmmmmm”
3. Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back”
2. Run DMC and Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way”
1. Young MC’s “Bust a Move”
What are some of your favorite tracks for partying?
I AM THIRTY ONE YEARS OLD
YOU DO NOT NEED TO MAKE SURE I EAT
I should just post a picture to This is Why You’re Fat. It’ll be a picture of my dad.
Bacon Turtles
Check this out, from Geekologie.
Though what’s left of the head doesn’t look like it, I’m pretty sure they’re turtles wrapped in bacon.
I don’t know whether I want to eat them, pity them, or take a nap halfway to the finish line.
Animaniacs: Favorite segment?
One of my favorite cartoon shows of the early 90’s, I’d actually try and catch Animaniacs whenever I was home. It wasn’t like its predecessor, Tiny Toon Adventures. It was funny, and smart. There were loads of characters—like Skippy and Slappy, the Goodfeathers, Buttons and Mindy, and of course, Pinky and the Brain—who filled in the supporting cast with their eight-minute stories (or however long they were), wrapping the Warner Brothers Yakko and Wakko, and their sister Dot in their never-ending quest to escape that big guy with the net.
What endeared me to the show wasn’t quite the “educational value” (that Countries song, or whatever other things they did), or the smart humor they sometimes employed (like a Buttons and Mindy episode entirely in French!) but those little minute-long segments. And I don’t know which I liked more, the Wheel of Morality or Good Idea Bad Idea.
After the cut, two clips, compiling a few Wheels of Morality, and a few Good Ideas coupled with their Bad Ideas.
GIANT CRAB OMGWTF
BBQ???
Or… maybe…. cocktail sauce? Who cares, let’s go to Japan, catch one, and fry it up!!!
(via geekologie)
(also via Nessa
Hating As An Artform: Facebook Apps
Facebook apps are getting ridiculous.
Farmville, Petville, Zoo-something, send a TARDIS, click here if you want to high five someone, Snow Ball Fight, etc. They are all ridiculous, and seem to solely be usable as timesinks. Which, in and of itself, is fine. But some of them are actually starting to implement pay strategies (“click here to buy more Pet $$!”), and that’s when, in my mind, the line is crossed from “oh that’s kind of cute” to “oh you can just go to hell.”
The Lovely Bones / Movie Theatres
Went to AMC Neshaminy theater last night to see The Lovely Bones. Based on a novel by Alice Sebold, the film centers around Susie Salmon’s untimely death and how her family copes. Or something like that.
I wouldn’t exactly know because of the assholes three rows in who stumbled in loudly and kept talking throughout the damn movie. It got so bad that we walked out, got passes to see the movie at a later time, and went home.
Burning It Up: Impressions From the Inferno
For the last three days I have spend a solid amount of time tooling around in the depths of Hell, specifically Dante Alighieri’s version of Hell. Visceral Games (Dead Space) has adapted the first part of Dante’s epic poem, The Divine Comedy, into the Christian mythology equivalent of God of War. Adaptations are a tricky monster. On one hand you have the hardcore fans of the source material who will cry foul at the slightest change and on the other you have to consider that adapting something needs to work in the other medium. Stray to far from either and you risk ending up with a mess off a product and a large contingent of angry fans. Not surprisingly, Visceral decided that the hardcore fans of the epic poem were most likely not going buy the game anyway and changed core pieces of the original source to fit their medium.
In the game, Dante is no longer being a poet but rather a Christian Solider (I believe him to be a Templar but I never specifically heard them say as much) who defeats Death. And on his return home finds his wife, Beatrice, dead and follows her soul into the depths of Hell to rescue her from Satan. The core of the story though remains intact. Dante still is on a journey through the circles of Hell, Virgil is still his guide, and Dante still encounters all sorts of horrific imagery. While I can see why some literary types would be upset at the changes to the source material, lets face it the original material does not lend itself well to a game, yet this does.
Some will argue that there was no need to adapt Dante’s work into a video game and they would be correct. However there are a lot of things that do not need to be made, yet still are and some of those things actually don’t suck. Dante’s Inferno is one of those things. The game works on a variety of levels but specifically the most important one, its fun.
Analog T-Shirts
Check these out: a series of t-shirts designed to keep old school alive. There are only two designs there, and in just a couple of colors, but I think they’re pretty cool.
The irony of it is, as the title says, “these tees were made using digital tools,” but I don’t care. I like that red “analog memory card” one. Birthday gift, anyone? You have a few months. 
we’ll be trying out a new theme
Hey everybody,
We’ll be trying out a new theme called F8-Lite, developed by Graph Paper Press. Nik at 2 one 5 turned me on to it and I thought I’d familiarize myself with F8 by trying it out on this site.
If you want to see what else Graph Paper Press has to offer in the way of Wordpress themes, check them out here.
Totally Looks Like
I’m watching the news this morning, since I’m working from home and checking out how bad the roads are, and I realise something.
