Azura's Birthday Battles: Conclusion and Closing Comments

Well that was a pretty entertaining experience to say the least... however, if I had the choice, I'd make sure to organize the events a little better beforehand.

Oh well, can't be helped now...

The Birthday Battles, a 5-day event for the viewers of my channel to come out and play with me in a series of games has comes to it's end. It was a lot of fun and I definately enjoyed myself, hopefully you guys did too. As promised, I was recording most of the matches and have already begun the recap videos.

The recap videos are going to consist of match highlights for each player (I don't want these to be incredibly long, so each day will be recapped in roughly 4 minutes of video at most). These seems like a pretty strong screening process for content, but concidering the steps that have to be gone through for making videos, it's not fair to ask me to spend the remainder of my free time infront of my computer. I'll be making these as I see fit and they should be finished by the end of the week (at the soonest).

I'd like to say once again, thank you to everybody who came out to play with me over these past few days! It was a lot of fun and I will be sure to let you all know if I'm ever doing something like this again.

Azura, signing out...

Azura's Obligatory Birthday Announcement #21

... okay, the title is obviously bullshit. I haven't been doing these for 21 years (maybe 3 tops) but just go with it, alright? It's a helpful potential hint incase you are bad at basic math.

The 18th approaches and I still have yet to come up with anything to do for this years "Coming of Age" celebration. However, assuming any of you still read these things see this, you are welcome to know that I will be having the entire week off for my birthday (August 17 - 23) if you want to hang out or do something. The 18th is going to be my family celebration day, so any other day on that list that anybody wishes to do anything, let me know that you're available and I'll proceed to make the necessary arrangements.

Current Plans:
August 17th: Movie with friends (Most likely to be Step Brothers), Gaming afterwards.
August 18th: Lunch and Dinner with Family (and a possible trip to Red-Deer)

... 2/7th's isn't really impressive, so I'd really appreciate if I could get some other stuff setup for my days off. Aside from eating cake and playing games, I don't really have a lot to do. I'm leaving it up to you guys to help me out here.

... what's that? A wishlist? It seems kind of pointless to throw one of these out because anything I want would be really expensive or easy to aquire on my own. However, I'll put one on here anyways, just for the fun of it all.

Wii / XboxLive Point Card(s)
PS3 - Metal Gear Solid 4
Xbox360 - SONIC the Hedgehog '06
Comedy CD's and/or DVD's
A new PC (yeah, just keep on wishing for that one buddy...)

I could probably think of more, but nothing else really comes to mind right now.

... sigh... getting older sucks more and more each year.

Azurecalibur 4

So yeah... what can I say about the new Soulcalibur game?

It's Soulcalibur, but it's pretty.  The graphics are a nice jump over to the next generation, but not "amazing" by any means for what the consoles are capable of that the game is available on.  It runs smoothly and responds greatly to controls, but it is basically "Soulcalibur with a makeover".

... but there's nothing wrong with that!

The Soulcalibur games are a great fighting game series in my opinion.  The fighting style is easy to pick up for anybody who's never even heard of it before.  I was only introduced to the series when one of my friends got me into the Gamecube version of Soulcalibur 2 and had me "bunny-hopping" with Link across the field.  Now we're all the way up to 4 and I really don't notice a huge difference in the game's combat system.  Characters that I mainly used way back when (Raphael, Kilik and Siegfreid) still feel pretty similar to their past versions, but it's not like it's a bad thing for them to feel the same.  It just makes it easier to pick the game up and keep playing, like an expansion to the past games... only prettier.

I don't have a lot of time to write up everything about this game (I should've left about 10 minutes ago) so I'll sum it up quickly.

If you love the series, BUY IT!  If you like it, but aren't sure, rent it or wait for the price to drop.  Either way, play it.

Azura Vs. Eco-Friendly Idiots

Okay, I get it.  The Earth is something that we should be trying to protect.  Littering is bad, no littering.  However, I've begun to notice something at my work that has me pretty annoyed.

Before I begin, I need to stress that the opinions expressed in this blog are those of mine, not those of the company that I work for.  Not all of the people I work with share the same views as me, so this is between you and me if you have a problem with what I'm about to say.  That said, let's talk crap.

Plastic bags.

... yes... plastic bags... perhaps I should explain it a little better.

To make the world so much more eco-friendly and prevent pollution, customers have burned the idea of "accepting plastic bags" as the absolute opposite of "saving the Earth".  I understand where they're coming from, but they're missing one key point.  The plastic bag... already exists.  You're not honoring the Earth by not using it, you're only making someone else take responisibility for it by not taking it yourself.  No matter who winds up taking the bag, odds are the end result would still be the same.

Now here's the part of the show where I'm done telling you that you're wrong... because you are!  Now I'm going to explain the CORRECT answer to this little dilemma.

If you take the bag, you can be responsible for it and do something more eco-friendly with it.  For example, leave it around your house as a spare baggie for things, like food and spare cables.  There's many uses for plastic bags, so it doesn't seem right to simply classify them as garbage the second someone offers you one.  This seems a lot better than simply allowing someone else to take it and throw it out.  I mean, you're whole reasoning for not taking the bag was that you didn't want it to just be thrown out, am I right?

I understand that there are times when you really don't need a bag for your stuff.  If it's a couple small things, odds are you don't really need one, so it seems kind of wasteful.  This I understand, but what about when you have your hands full with stuff.  You're juggling your wallet, your product AND your sanity around these things, but you're insistant on not taking a bag because it's bad for the environment?  Then you have the gall to brag about how you "saved the world" by not taking one of these bags?

I have a little secret for you guys.  I just threw a bag out while I was typing this.  Does that mean I'm destroying the world?  I'll admit it's not helping, but the truth is, you have no right to say you're saving the world if you're just not taking interested in having a responsiblility over the topic.  You want to save the Earth from pollution?  That's very noble, but you have to reflect on what you're saying and doing.  You didn't take the bag?  That's alright, the next guy in line wanted 3 of them.  If you're so hell-bent on saving the world, help carry his stuff out for him (and take multiple trips) just so he doesn't need to take a bag.  See how commited you truly are to the idea of ending pollution.

Now, this topic of conversation can be looked upon from multiple angles.  From one side, I'm making an argument about how you can say you want to stop pollution, but you're not really doing anything.  From another way, it sounds like I'm trying to force people to use more bags just so they don't wind up in the garbage from the next guy in line. Trust me, I'm not here trying to preach to you about what to do with your lives, stopping pollution is a noble cause, after all.  All I'm saying is, don't try to justify stupid actions by saying "oh, I'm trying to stop pollution".

There are several alternatives to plastic bags anyways.  Our store carries special bags made out of recycled materials (eco-friendly as well) which you can take anywhere instead of using plastic bags.  It's a good way to say "I need a bag, but I'm not going to pretend I'm saving the world by not taking one!"

To sum it up simple, pollution is bad, but stupidity and ignorance are far worse.  Take your plastic bags and reuse them for something rather than letting the next guy in line throw them all out when he's done with them.  Don't try to justify your actions unless you're willing to go above and beyond the line of duty to make sure that no one ever needs a bag again.  But most importantly...

If you're trying to stop pollution, don't come preaching to me about how you don't need a bag.