Midterms, Pandas, and some other stuff

As bad excuses for a late post go (and this one isn't even on the topic promised last week), having been busy with midterms is about as run of the mill as you can get, but here I am telling you exactly that. Next week happens to be Halloween and I feel a blog post on why Resident Evil 4 is so great would be better suited to that date. I also haven't done any good amount of research for that one yet (midterms) and being on the other side of the world isn't helping either.

Instead, today I plan to overcompensate by sharing as many interesting things I've noticed as of late that I want you guys to notice too.

So Blizzcon just happened. For the uninitiated, Blizzcon is every Blizzard fans equivalent of Mecca; a place where your fandom will grow exponentially stronger and also a place you are expected to go to at least once in a lifetime. Blizzard being the rich hipsters of the gaming world that they are, also take the opportunity afforded by this massive congregation of their fans to announce what games and expansions they'll be buying next.

The announcement that most caught my attention this year was World of Warcraft's new expansion, Mists of Pandaria. Aside from seemingly being an expansion built upon some of the biggest jokes  within Blizzard and gaming fandom, what really caught my eye was the new pet battle system that was put in place. Here's Blizzards official description. Apparently not content with being the most successful MMORPG in history, WOW is now stepping into Pokemon territory. Not only can you make your Pets duel against other Pets against NPC's and other players alike to find out who will be the very best like no one ever was, but you can also now catch pets in the wild and have them level up to access new abilities. Also, they fight taking turns.

"Unova region? Bitch, Azeroth is were it's at!"

Speaking of Pokemon, how old is Ash supposed to be by now? The series has been going on for almost 15 years now but wherever I look it seems that Ash still remains a 10 year old. Of all the things the Japanese could learn from American comics, they had to go and take the "timeless" character approach. No point in arguing if it works I guess.

Let's not even get started on how old these folks are supposed to be

On completely unrelated news, "the land of the free" continues to make a mockery of said aforementioned title with bill S.978 which, as I understand, purports to make it felony to have any semblance of copyrighted material in web video such as youtube. Many people have been quick to point out that, had this bill existed before, Justin Beiber would not be popular (not too terrible a prospect if you ask me) but probably someone's bitch in jail which has lead to a petition being written to stop this bill. I'm no fan of Beiber but I'm all for keeping the internet as chaotic and wonderful as it is now.

One last thing before ending today's post. As I mentioned several weeks ago, I am currently the writer for a panamanian manga. My days with writer's block seem to be behind me for now and I am happy to announce that we will be launching our new website soon. For the time being though I'll leave you with some new artwork.