After much debate on which anime is my favourite I have concluded it is Toradora which is a slice of life, romance, comedy sort of anime. I don't normally like anime's like Toradora but something about the characters and the progression of their relationship sucked me in. The story centres around Ryuji and Tiaga two class mates that eventually come to the conclusion they like each other after much hilarity and sometimes emotional upheaval.





I am terrible at writing summaries or reviews of shows but basically were I to vote from 1 to 10 on Toradora it would definitely be a 9.5 so if you are a fan of romantic comedy or maybe want to break into the genre I really recommend this one.

Have a look at the amv below, it may contain spoilers so watch at your own risk. The amv is called Myth and is my favourite amv containing my favourite anime.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-Cw2oB8UQI

I enjoy playing video games but I will be the first person to admit I am terrible at them. Occasionally I come across a game that I adore for various reasons and will play all the time. My most recent discovery was Civilization 5, kind of an odd choice for me since it is a Turn-Based Strategy game and I am usually very bad at any strategy games.

Civilization 5 is the fifth installment to a very popular empire building game franchise. I have never played any of them in my life and only vaguely knew about the franchise until I tried 5 for the first time yesterday.

In the game you can play as one of many different leaders through history like Elizabeth or Alexander. There are a variety of map styles, sizes and length of play as well as single player and multi-player options. When you begin play you start with one unit of settlers and a warrior unit from there you build your empire by training new units, producing buildings and researching new technologies. There are a couple of methods of winning a game, you can set a turn limit or a time limit or you can win through force by defeating the empires around you. My favourite method by far is winning through Culture. After five full sets of Policies are unlocked your empire will win by being superior in culture to the other empires, no fighting necessary. In multi-player this a lot harder then it sounds.

Another thing I love about this game is that it describes each empire and teaches you the history behind them. I was never much of a history buff but in this format its ten times more interesting.

If you are a fan of the franchise or strategy games I would certainly recommend giving this one a try but the game is terribly addictive and games can run for an extremely long time so be prepared to lose a large chunk of your free time.

Speak Out with Your Geek Out is an online event that gives us geeky people a chance to eliminate negative stereotypes that have been heaped upon us for...well ever. I think this idea is fantastic and I am excited to participate in it even in an unofficial capacity!

My Story:

I think deep down I always knew I was a geek as a child but I fought that nature tooth and claw. It seemed easy for a while to pretend I had no interest in things like fantasy novels, or drawing geeky things or video games...that is until I met other people that liked it too. My geekery started with books and oddly enough not with fantasy but youth horror like RL Stein's Fear Street. This some how or another led me to one of my favourite authors Tamora Pierce who writes fantasy youth novels with female leads.

I had a hard time meeting new friends for a couple of reasons one major one being because of how often I moved as a kid, books became my friend instead and I would frequently hide away and read for hours and hours. I didn't get into some other geeky topics until I was a bit older.

As kids we had a Playstation that I occasionally played but gaming really didn't get started for me until I got the Gameboy Colour and Pokemon Red. Oh yes, I was and still am a Pokemon geek. After that I got a new Pokemon game every time a new generation was released and when it changed to the Gameboy Advanced I got that too and then again with the DS Lite. I grew up hiding my love of Pokemon from everyone except my little brother who used to play with me.

The last big leap into geekiness I took was in middle school when I met my best friend and she introduced me to anime. I had unknowingly already fallen in love with anime when they started showing it in force on YTV and Fox Kids, shows like Digimon, Escaflowne and Gundam Wing which were all on around the same time in my childhood. My best friend broadened my anime horizons and introduced me to Subtitled anime and I haven't gone back since.

All in all it took me a long time to become comfortable with telling people about the things I was interested in and when I finally did I was shocked at the amount of new friends I made through these interests. Some of the people I met through similar interests have been life long friends and have led to learning about new and exciting geeky things! I truly regret hiding what I was really like as a child but we all know how terrifying bullying can be and at the time I was afraid of just that.

To all you young geeks out there I would just like to say please don't be ashamed or afraid to be Geek and Proud! Your interests are shared by thousands of people around the world and in this day and age of social media and online communities there is always the chance to meet a new friend that shares the same interests as you. I would also like to add if you are being bullied or picked on for ANY reason, there are people in your schools and communities that you can talk to, you don't need to be a victim to it.


Lastly I would like to mention if you take a quick look through my journal (the entries are few and far between) you can get a quick glimpse at all things I love and I should warn you they are quite varied. I am terrible at updating here so many of the things I like haven't made it onto my journal yet BUT in honour of Speak Out with Your Geek Out I am going to make an effort to post about something geeky I love to do or watch or read etc. every day this week!

Ever since I started playing WoW I have had this interest in trying other MMO's to see how the stand up. I recently tried Rift and fell in love with it right away.

Rift is a story about to warring factions called the Guardians and the Defiants, both with really interesting back stories, races and classes. The two factions blame one another essentially for the end of the world. Rift is a subscription game but they frequently offer specials. I only paid 10.00 for it with some in game content.

The class system is really interesting, it uses the soul system and gives you the chance to mix and match jobs under four categories. At the beginning of the game you choose your side, design your character and choose your class. The four classes are Warrior, Mage, Cleric and Rogue. Once you start playing through your starting area you gain "souls" through complete quests. Souls give you jobs under each class. Each of the four classes have EIGHT souls to choose. The game helps you along by suggesting good combinations of souls. So far I have tried a Mage, Rogue and Warrior and played them through the starting areas. I have tried both factions Guardian and Defiant and I am kind of a fan of the Defiant side. The unique class system was the first thing that drew me to Rift and I really enjoy it.

The next feature that I love is the Rift system. As you play world events will strike causing rifts to open all over the map. A rift is like a mini raid where you don't have to go in search of a raid party you just walk in and join the fighting. If you help in completing the goals you get some of the rewards, the best thing is if you find a rift is to high of a level for you, you can just back out without feeling like your abandoning the group.

As far as the controls go they are nearly identical to WoW's so it was extremely easy to pick it up. The story is original and innovative and the graphics are pretty nice.

The last thing I love about Rift (at least so far) is that the community is so much nicer then WoW's. I found when playing WoW getting assistance was nearly impossible and you were very frequently criticized. In Rift people were willing to help one another and to answer questions. There is a much nicer community feel to the game and not so much stress put on joining guilds or parties. I like it that way.

Also I should mention the company that makes Rift frequently updates and improves the game and they are constantly adding new content in what appear to be almost mini expansions. For those of us that are playing now we get to see the story unfold as we play and be a part of the outcome. It's nice to pay for a game and have new content without paying a fortune for expansions, I just hope they keep it that way.

My personal rating for the game is 8 out of 10. It has more positive points then negative ones at this time and I look forward to playing more!

If you would like to play the trial for this game check it out here

I started replaying final fantasy 8 the other day and realized a startling fact about the game. The actual story is incredibly short. If you don't bother with any side quests such as the card games or additional GF's it does not take long to reach the end of the game. After maybe 20 hours of game play I am nearly at the end of the third disk. Now that said, with the side quests, you could potentially invest A LOT more time.



This time around I have dedicated a lot of time to playing cards so that I can later refine them into useful magic or items. I find this both enjoyable for passing time and immensely frustrating. Particularly when faced with the set of rules found on the lunar base (Open, Same, Same Plus, Same Wall, Sudden Death and the hated RANDOM).



I have also gained a much better understanding of junctioning in this replay. Before I understood it enough to make it through about 3/4 of the game without issue. Then when I reached the end of the game it became ridiculously hard to play. Now I have a better understanding of how to use junctioning to both power my characters up and protect them. Amazing how much that actually helps.

Just yesterday I played through one of my favourite sequences. I can't help but be a hopeless romantic at times (and while Squall's emo like attitude is sometimes irritating) I love the relationship between Squall and Rinoa. My favourite part is when they are on the Ragnarok mostly because of the song that plays.

Check out this fan made video to the song (mostly just a collection of the cut scenes featuring the pair):



Replaying this also makes me realize how badly I need to play FF7 because I am one of those rare FF fans that has never played it. I would love to find an original copy (for less then 100 dollars, ya right) but I can download on the PSN for 10.00 once I finish playing through 8 I may tackle that one but I can honestly say 8 will probably always stay my favourite Final Fantasy game.

So...minutes after posting the previous post I realized I have not posted about Hal-Con. Hal-Con is a sci-fi convention I worked at during the last weekend of October and it was awesome!!! I was there for three days and got to stay at the hotel with another con goer. Nothing like sharing a room with a total stranger for the weekend. He was really cool though, the first day I met him he was dressed as fire mario, who can't like a guy dressed like that.

My first day I worked at the registration desk and it was actually pretty fun. I got to watch all the folks come in dressed in their costumes and be in the general centre of everything. I also got a pass into the con for free for being a volunteer AND they fed us and gave us nifty purple t-shirts with the Hal-Con logo on it. The second day I was on the desk again and the day was even crazier, we sold out of day passes by 3pm with hours of stuff to go that day. On my last day I was a little tired and cranky and I got stuck on coat check which required me running up and down a flight of stairs for 6 hours but overall it was a great weekend.

Also on the first night there was a costume dance and that was really neat to see. It was a dry event but liquor was definitely not needed for these people. There was break dancing, limbo with lightsabers, mayhem and nerd conga line. My most favourite thing that happened on Friday night was getting my photo taken with Robert Maillet. He plays Dredger in the Sherlock Holmes movie.




(For reference I'm the one in the rabbit ears)

On Saturday I sat in a Doctor Who panel discussion during which the volunteer crew rolled in a life-sized dalek. The audience was silent for a minute until someone near the back yelled "THEY ALWAYS COME BACK!" then everyone laughed. I later found a picture of a girl dressed in a maid costume crawling in or out of it, I hadn't realized it was hollow until that point. One of my favourite costumes that weekend was a young lady dressed as a dalek because I was thinking of doing the same thing but ran out of time!



Also during Saturday a family of four were dressed as sandpeople which I thought was pretty awesome. The best costumes were seen on Sunday for the costume contest though. I think the number one costume was the iron man.



I would post more pictures but it would take forever. Needless to say there were a lot of awesome costumes that weekend. There were also a lot of awesome panels, vendors and displays set up as well. The big guests for that weekend were Walter Koenig and Denise Crosby both of which played in Star Trek. It was the first time in decade the con had been held and next year due to its popularity its relocating to a bigger venue. I can't wait to be a part of it next year.

Have you been to a big convention before? Tell me your thoughts about going to them!

Obviously there has been a seriously lack of posts on this journal, I HOPE to remedy this come Christmas. Going to college put a serious damper on my geeky activities.

The only thing I think I have managed is to start rereading Wheel of Time and even that kind of dropped off after finishing the first three books. I forgot how much I enjoyed this series. It's pretty lengthy and extremely detailed but if you are fan of long running fantasy series you'll probably enjoy this one. There are a lot of varying comments on the series everything from epic to plagiarized. The latter comes from the similarity in certain elements in the story but come on, when writing fantasy its hard not to have similarities to other stories. Even if you have never read some of the things your story might be similar too.

Anyways opinion aside, I love the variety of characters and I enjoy that there are so many of them. The list of characters in this series is quite extensive. The main character is Rand 'al Thor and the series focuses mostly on him and his two childhood friends Mat and Perrin. The three men are very diverse and you get see them grow from "wool-headed" farm boys into men that play an important role in the world.

The world itself is very large and detailed, I sometimes find it hard to keep track of where on the map the characters actually are and frequently refer to the map in the book but thats really my only complaint.

A similar series to this one would probably be the Sword of Truth which I also read and enjoyed though I found a couple of the books really hard to get through due to how they rambled on.

If you like fantasy and have a long attention span give the Wheel of Time a try and let me know what you think of it!

I never thought I would like a musical tv show about high school drama but Glee drew me in from the first episode. The songs are catchy, the characters are unique and each with their own problems and the mixture of comedy and drama is fantastic.

Glee is coming up on its season finale and the last couple of episodes have surpassed all expectation I've come to have for this show. The episode Dream On had a guest appearance from Neil Patrick Harris and was directed by Joss Whedon (Firefly) it also had one of my favourite dance sequences where Artie performs to the Safety Dance in the middle of a mall where several of the patrons jump in.

Check out the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG4WOUB3wB4

The variety in the personality of the characters is sometimes astonishing. They have everyone the bossy star to the mega dumb blonde cheerleader in the glee club. The intertwining stories between characters is often awkward, filled with drama and has hilarious circumstances.

Overall the show is fun too watch and sometimes gives you a little twist of the heart strings. Like the episode where Rachael meets a friend of Finns who was injured playing football.

If you're looking for something to change up the dull tv world try Glee your sure to find at least ONE song you can't help but sing along to.

After some nosing around on the internet last night I was delighted to find out that there will be a season 6 of Supernatural. I watched the season finale the other night and while many fans seem to have found the episode spectacular I was kind of disappointed. It seemed rushed, like the writer was trying to get it done and it was pretty predictable BUT I still love the show, how can you not love Sam and Dean.

I am very excited that there will be a sixth season though I can't help feeling slightly apprehensive that the original creator Eric Kripke apparently won't be playing as large a role in the sixth season. His original plan was to have the series end in five seasons and watching the finale last night it truly seemed it was going to until that last ten second shot. (Don't worry I'm not giving anything away) It makes me wonder what they have planned for the characters in the next season and if it will be able to compare to the first five seasons. The story was written to end now so anything that comes out next will be a completely new story tacked onto what Kripke thought he had completed.

Either way I hope it goes well, I love the show and the characters and I will continue to watch it until it actually ends.

I finally got to go and see this movie and I personally enjoyed it. I may have mentioned that Robert Downey Jr is one of my favourite actors and I think he does Tony Stark fantastically well. I am probably way off though, having never actually read the comics (though I would like to).

The story was good, not as great as the first movie but generally speaking sequels never are. The visual effects were fantastic, though I didn't notice a whole lot of improvement from the first movie. The music was great I loved the scene were Tony and Rhodey start fighting at his birthday and obliterate his house.

I do have to say though the one thing that bothered me was the fact they used a different actor for Rhodey. Terrence Howard played him in the first movie and I liked him much better then Don Cheadle in the sequel.

All in all I'm glad I saw it in the theatre and I will likely buy it, but it can't beat the original.