Are you into a relationship that can be described as platonic, unrequited or one-sided love?

I’ve been thinking lots about it, and decided to write this post.
Continue lendo 'About Platonic or Unrequited Love'»

It was by chance that I found Héctor García’s (aka Kirai from KiraiNet) A Geek in Japan.

In short, it’s an essencial book for every otaku, geek who likes Japan or is going to Japan, is interested in modern japanese culture, or simply wants to know more than the average cliché that’s always on the traditional media.
I’ll elaborate some more after the jump.
Continue lendo 'A Geek in Japan — Héctor García'»

If you didn’t watch Inception just yet, do yourself a favor an do it!

I’m making this post to share my own conclusions about it, so please be advised, it’s almost pure SPOILERS.
And even if you don’t mind it, I’d suggest you don’t read it and try first to reach your own conclusions before reading this.
But if you already watched the movie, I do recommend reading the post to compare your conclusions with mine, correct me if I’m wrong, or just try to analyze the movie deeper… it’s what I liked the most about the whole movie.
Continue lendo 'Inception — What I took from it'»

CNN does this interesting piece with interesting reflections on the Sal9000 and Nene Anegasaki (Love Plus) Wedding:

Shure most people nowadays will just shove it off as some japanese otaku weirdo that’s too timid to go after a real girl etc etc, but reporter Kyung Lah goes a little deeper into the question showing that while this might be a little odd now, it also can be the very start of a tendency of people getting related more to virtual beings than real ones.
As I’ve seen in lots of otaku documentaries and stuff, what seems to happen is that these anti-social oftenly shy and recluse people finds in virtual characters and friends relationships that are more confortable and less prone to bad surprises and judgements.
Despite Sal9000 there being an extreme case going as far as a simulated marriage and total dedication to the character, it’s becoming less and less a far fetched idea not only in Japan but also in the rest of the world of people turning the virtual world his/her only contact or at least the main contact with the outside world.
If this is bad or good, I won’t be the judge… today’s society standards certainly looks at it as something odd and weird.
But at least in some cases, I’m not so shure it’s as bad as the news makes it look…

Source: SankakuComplex (NSFW)

Action News does a piece about game addiction quoting World of Warcraft and Everquest representing MMORPGs as “new sources of addiction”:
I guess the whole thing is close to fair, if compared with most of the mainstream news bashing of online games.

BUT, the comparison with drugs, AGAIN, is as unfortunate as ever.
As you see, they completely ignore that both WoW and Everquest have, has had, and will probably have hundreds of thousands of players who never had problems like the ones described.
It’s as close to gambling, drugs and other addiction as Monopoly and that Uno card game is.
With an userbase like the ones the games have, shure, it’s innevitable that some kids and adults who already have problems will end up having sad tales to tell. We had something very similar to that with the Dungeons and Dragons RPG decades ago.
But as I see, it could be just about any other thing. A book, a movie, TV series, a music band or whatever.
What parents, friends and other people have to understand is that, for people who already have problems (ADD, depression, etc) anything can be used as a tool to potentialize it… so there must be constant monitoring of habits to prevent those problems from getting worse.
Blaming a game for being the cause of suicide for a guy who stopped taking medication after who knows how much time he spent isolated playing one game is just bullshit.
He used the game to escape reality. So seems more likely that what killed him was the reality he was into.
If something, it’s more believable that Everquest delayed his suicide with rather than the opposite. Unfortunately, he found no one who would make his reality better than what Everquest had to offer, it seems.

Think about that.

News source: TechEBlog

The anime we’re talking about this time is called Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 (wiki entry might contain spoilers), a story that can be described with few lines (though they don’t quite grasp the whole spirit of it) – What would happen if an earthquake with magnitude 8.0 hit Tokyo.

The Anime Discussion series is centered on animes that leads to discussions and has thought provoking content, aimed mainly for adults.
Both to serve as recommendation, and to show animes are not “for kids only”.
Continue lendo 'Anime Discussion: Tokyo Magnitude 8.0'»

Apparently, RPGs (role playing games) are also the work of the devil. So, even if you don’t play, watch to or know Pokemon, if you are a WoW player for instance, you’re a lost soul too!!!
That’s not me talking, fortunately:

To clarify, I have nothing against religions or those who have faith in them – but I have to pitty the children of people who actually believe what this guy is saying.
It’s people like him that gives religious people a bad (and sad) face.
Of course he won’t say about the overwhelming number of crimes, acts of violence and even wars that happened because of religion… mostly because of extreme cases like him. No no no.
Because for each murder commited related to Pokemon or RPGs (because none of the cases are actually caused by them) there’s probably ten thousands… maybe even millions of deaths related to speeches just like the one he’s doing there.
So kids, play Pokemon, play RPGs and pay no attention to crooks like this guy. Because following people like him is making your own life like hell.

Source: Kotaku

I’ve been kinda busy with university stuff lately, so I couldn’t select and post many cosplay and cosplayers lately…

So I’m making a different post this time. It’s mainly about Photoshop work some cosplayers do, and all the criticism that’s been around – specially about Kipi, who has a couple of dedicated posts here on XSpBlog.
Continue lendo 'Cosplay Series – Kipi and Photoshop'»

So, Rio de Janeiro was chosen as the city in which the Olympic Games 2016 will be held.

The video above is one of the elements that got some judges attentions.
Continue lendo 'Olympic Games 2016 — Rio de Janeiro, Brazil'»

Kleenex launched a bunch of viral videos (oops) for it’s new line of anti-viral tissues.

And they are pretty funny!
Continue lendo 'Kleenex Battle the Bug Ad Campaign'»