People Who Need to be Slapped

Part 2: Pokemon Players on the GTS

So, I've been playing the new pokemon game on the DS (Pearl version, since the signature pokemon is a water type. I like water types). I've got a lot of things I like about it. Nothing that would persuade anybody else to play it, but I like it. Especially the fact that I can make trades over the internet. And meet people to make trades over the internet. Without my little brother playing another version, I've managed to gain the assistance of internet peoples and gather nearly every single pokemon.

However, there is a dark side to this use of the internet. To facilitate trading, Nintendo created an in-game way of using the internet to trade pokemon; you put a pokemon into their internet servers, asking for another, and hopefully someone else will search for the one you offered, and decide to send you the one you asked for. The system is rigged so that you can only ask for pokemon that you've encountered before.

Yet this system has become clogged with horrible people. This system, the Global Trading System, is often clogged with people offering relatively common pokemon for others that are, for instance, event-only. So a lot of people are trying to make unrealistic trades, and thus it is harder for people to make realistic trades.

But if you're thinking that's the only reason these people need to be slapped. Because, if you'll remember, one can only ask for pokemon that they've encountered, and have been entered as such in their pokedex. And the only ways they could get these event-only pokemon is to have them already, because it's impossible to get the pokedex entry from a pvp battle, which is the only other way someone can see these super-rare pokemon.

So these guys not only already have their super-rare pokemon, but they're asking for more, while offering pokemon that any idiot could get.

How do these people not get slapped on a regular basis?

My Dreams

So I've started keeping a dream journal, in one of my spiral-bound notebooks. Did my first entry this morning, and it really is something sad.

I'll put it right out there; my dreams are pathetic. I experience them like I'm watching a movie. Seriously, camera angle was a major part of today's entry. It also was almost coherent as a story, but not a very good one. The worst part was that I was being played by Brendan Fraser by the end. Also, I had a sister, who at the beginning of the dream was played by a nude model that I've seen on the internet (although at that point in the dream I wasn't her brother, though her brother did exist), but by the end was being played by Halle Berry.

Never mind that I haven't seen anything by either actor in a while (I saw a bit of the Mummy Returns a little while ago), the annoying thing is that I can't seem to be fully engaged in my dreams. They're like movies. I'm always playing a part, sometimes to the point where I'll develop character traits that are actively nothing like my own. And not in a conscious vs. subconscious way, I mean that I'm projecting new sorts of traits upon myself.

Perhaps it's just because I'm unsatisfied with my own life. Except this sort of thing has been happening since I was really young, when I actually can definitely say that I was satisfied with my own life.

About my last entry...

Apparently, Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson are working together to make a Tintin movie with CGI.

This beats everything I had in my last entry, and makes everything I wrote there seem like poppycock. Honestly, I kind of liked AI, so Spielberg doesn't scare me, and Jackson's a god.

Tintin

So, I was eating some haddock today, and I started thinking about Captain Haddock, and Tintin in particular. Which brought me to an interesting concept; who would be in the live action version of Tintin?

Yeah, it's an odd thought, but I've got the list;

• Paul Bettany as Tintin-- If you don't know who he is, he was the albino guy in The DaVinci Code. He's also described himself as "the poor man's Jude Law." Which is really the kind of person necessary to play Tintin. I mean, we're looking at Jude Law's general physical type, but not someone who looks like he can say "hello" and receive fellatio. Plus, the guy's not terribly well-known (at least in America, not sure whether he's bigger in England or not), which is a good thing for an iconic character.
• Russell Crowe as Captain Haddock-- He just seems to fit. I'm not sure why this has stuck in my head, but I have Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein shouting in my head "It... could... WORK!"
• Steve Carell & Stephen Colbert as Thompson and Thomson-- So, we know that the two bumbling detectives would have to look similar, but that can be done with prosthetics and makeup. The important thing would be that they'd have to be a duo between 35 and 50 years of age, and have great comedic chemistry. And it's about time these two had a reunion tour.
• Geoffrey Rush as Professor Calculus-- I wanted to put Woody Allen in this spot. He'd probably do well in the role. Except he'd demand to write it. And direct it. And I can't have my fantasy film ruined by Woody Allen's personality behind the scenes. My fantasy film must adhere to the source material. My second choice is Peter Sellers. However, he's dead. That presents a problem. So why not pick the guy who played Peter Sellers in the biopic?

So, that's really all there is to the cast unless I decide to pick the story in which the movie franchise starts. I think the Blue Lotus would be pretty good, or perhaps Black Gold.

Heroes

Sweet baby jesus, I don't know if I have any ability to comprehend what I saw last night.

What I really enjoyed was that there were signs of an epic duel about to happen between Peter with his copied power of nuclear reactions, and Sylar with his ability to freeze stuff.

And I don't think I spoiled too much there, since Future Hiro did say that Sylar was still alive, and anyone who has any idea of narrative structure knows where Peter would be at the end of the episode.

It's just too bad that we didn't see this epic duel of fire and ice.

Only problem? I just sincerely hope that someone gets future Hiro's brain out of that room in the future, because otherwise Sylar could get ahold of it. And then the world is totally screwed.