It's time for me to announce my break. School starts tomorrow (Wednesday). I'm officially going to be pulling an all-nighter to close out my summer and make sure I'm able to wake up for school tomorrow. I've dreaded having to go back to school since vacation started, and now it's here. Which means I'll be taking a break of sorts from here. And designing. Now, I'm not sure how long this break will be. Chances are I'll be around a bit for the next week since A) I have a 4 day weekend (Friday through Monday) B) The first week of school is never very taxing After that, I don't know. I'll probably be "officially" on break starting next Tuesday. It depends on how this first two days of school go. The break is going to last as long as it takes me to settle back into school. It could take a week, or it could take a month. I have no idea. I have my toughest schedule every this year so it'll probably be a bit longer than a week. Depending on the homework I get, it may cut down on my time on the computer. And now I'll leave you with this, which is most likely my last design of the summer and for a while: I hope you guys like it. :D It didn't look so good before but some buddies at the Mass Designer's Lounge gave me some great feedback and I improved on it a lot. Well, it's been a great summer guys. I'm sad to see it at an end, but all good things must come to an end. I hope this break doesn't have to take too long. :P Now if you'd excuse me, I have a ****ton of manga to read and anime to watch to keep myself up all night. :D ~Sora

This idea has been in my head for a while, so I've decided to make a blog dedicated solely to this subject. This could probably be considered a rant of sorts. Okay so here we go.

The Problems With Posting on a Forum Full of Gamers
A rant by SoraX64

Okay. Before you read this, click on the "Forums" button on the navigation bar at the top of your page and pay a visit to "System Wars". Okay, now start reading threads and see how long it takes to make you rage quit. Congratulations, you now understand where this rant is coming from. Let's start off with the biggest problems that we're facing during this "System War".

1 - FANBOYS

Wii has the best exclusives, multiplats don't matter, Wii has sold most, Wii had motion controls first, Nintendo made the Wii therefore it is the bestWii Fanboy

Teh cell, better exclusives than the 360, Uncharted 2!!!! Killzone 3 > Halo Reach, KZ3 has teh best graphics, PS3 has better hardware, PSN is free lol I don't pay for onlinePS3 Fanboy

XBL is miles better than PSN, better graphics, best libraryXbox 360 Fanboy

Cheaper games, graphics pwn consoles, Mods, lol Crysis > all console games, guess what guys my PC is top of the line so I'm better than you console gamersPC Fanboy

I've seen all of this AND MORE while looking around System Wars. Fanboys are quite possibly the most annoying type of gamer. They cling to their one console/company and refuse to believe anything bad about it, they refuse to think that another console could be superior. They pretty much act ignorant and most of the time haven't even tried out the other consoles. I can vouch for this. I was once a Nintendo fanboy. I thought the Wii was better than both other consoles by miles. I actually thought the other consoles sucked. Well... Then I got bored of my Wii and got a PS3, and it really opened my eyes. I'm no longer a fanboy for any console. I can see the faults in each and every one of the current gen console. I only reason I do not own a 360 is because I lack the funds to keep up with three consoles, and I'm simply not very interested in its library enough to buy one. Fanboys are ruining forums everywhere. How can you have a good debate with someone who has already decided that they love one console, and all others suck? What you end up with is endless posts about how "PS3 is better than X console because..." and so on. Which leads to the same old circular arguments. I really hope that fanboys bother more people than just me. Actually, I know that they do. Fanboys will post threads that make their console of choice look good, while systematically making themselves look stupid when their thread backfires and STILL they go on with the "my console is better" act. Trying to reason with a fanboy is like talking to a brick wall, except brick walls won't shove sales figures and news articles by vague sources down your throat in hopes of changing your mind. Which leads us to the next point...

2 - PEOPLE WHO PLAY THE SALES GAME

It's no secret that the Wii is the top selling of the three consoles this generation. Does this make the Wii better than the other two consoles? Maybe for the companies that develop the consoles, but I can't possibly see how this helps GAMERS enjoy their consoles better. I don't know about you guys, but I don't go to GameStop to buy a sales figure. I go to buy a video game that I can play and enjoy. Does the Xbox outselling the Wii for two months make the Xbox better? No. Sales fluctuate, and sometimes they fluctuate wildly. This is usually caused by price drops, console redesigns, and big name game releases. I don't see how a price drop or redesign equates to a more superior console. Sales are another medium for fanboys to spam. A Wii fanboy can ignore all the arguments about the Wii and then say "Oh the Wii is sold the most though. umad.jpg". This is INCREDIBLY infuriating. Imagine taking twenty minutes making a long post, only to have a hoard of fanboys come in with "Cool story bro, X console sold more" "You mad?". Sales do not, in pretty much ANY way, affect gamers. You're not going to get a $500 gift certificate to GameStop because your console sold a ton of units in a month. More people need to realize this. Play the sales game all you want, you're only wasting time where you could be actually PLAYING GAMES AND ENJOYING THEM.

3 - FAKEBOYS

Almost as bad as fanboys are fakeboys. Just because you bought a PS3 and got 50 trophies does not mean you know everything about the console. The same applies to the other way around. If you go into a thread and make posts against a console, and in your sig you have a PSN trophy card displaying that you have 2000 trophies, right above an Xbox Gamer Card displaying the whopping score of 1000, then you're doing it wrong. Sure, if you bought a PS3 and it YLOD'd on you, you have an argument against the console, but when you start slamming a console with a trophy card in your sig displaying your latest Hannah Montana trophies, just stop. Please. Just don't do it. It makes you look bad. Also, don't pretend you have a console that you don't have. There's no point to it.

4 - PEOPLE WHO PASS OFF THEIR OPINIONS AS FACTS

I dare you to find one thread on System Wars (or any other popular board) where no one voiced their opinion like it was a fact. Just try finding it. I'll wait. *an hour later* Well, give up yet? Yes? Good. See, this is something that really shouldn't be happening. Like, definitely NOT HAPPENING. If you're going to waltz into a thread about, say, Super Mario Galaxy 2's 10/10 review here on GS, and say "That game is for little kids, and it sucks." you're just going to look like a fool. One thing, it seems to me, that a lot of people are always forgetting is that taste is subjective. Everyone has their own tastes. So you go right on ahead and bash SMG2, calling it a kiddy game, and then enjoy your Halo or whatever. Not everyone thinks that way. Your opinion isn't a fact. It's your opinion. Sure, you can share your opinion all you want. We encourage that. Tell us why you think SMG2 doesn't deserve that score. But don't pass it off as facts. Okay? Okay.

5 - CIRCULAR ARGUMENTS

Have you ever gotten into an argument with someone that has lasted over an hour? Well, if you have, chances are you've been the victim of a circular argument. Which, you should know, is the worst kind of argument. Why is that, you ask? Let me tell you. As the name "circular" argument would suggest, a circular argument is an argument that goes in circles and repeats the same points OVER and OVER again. This is ESPECIALLY rampant in System Wars. Just take a look around for yourself. For example, the whole PSN vs. XBL thing. You'll see someone say "PSN is free" at least 20 times in that thread. You'll also see someone say "XBL has better features" at least 20 times in that thread. And it'll go back and forth. Person 1: PSN is free. I don't have to pay to play online. Therefore I win. Person 2: XBL has better features than PSN; like cross game chat. Person 1: Cross game chat is a gimmick, we don't need it. Person 2: It's still something nice to have, you wouldn't know since you've never tried it. Person 1: If I had to choose between paying for CGC or not paying to not have it, I wouldn't pay. *incredibly long opinionated rant* tl;dr: I don't have many friends and my parents beat me so I don't need cross game chat. Person 2: What does your parents beating you have to do with this? :| Person 1: Well at least my online is free. :| Person 3: lol PS3 sux and 360 rules Persons 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8: *10 page long argument* Person 1: My online is still free. There's a simple example. What you see in System Wars is usually an argument that's been done to hell and back. People use the same points, the same counter arguments, everything. Not satisfied with that explanation? Go to page, say 5, of System Wars and read a few threads. Then go to page, say 6000, and be prepared to have deja vu when you read the same threads again, but only 2 years older. Well, with that we find ourselves at the end of this rant. Could it have been longer? Yes, definitely. Could it have been better? Yes. Why didn't I make it better? Because I know that no matter how much I rant about this, it'll never disappear. Sadly. I might go back in later and lengthen it up some more, but with school right around the corner it's more than likely I won't. Thanks for reading (if you read), and hopefully I'll get some good comments on this. ~Sora

Alrighty. Here we go. About a year ago (my computer tells me I installed GIMP in September of last year) I started designing because I was tired of asking other people for sigs. I never made anything that was actually good until the beginning of this summer. :lol: Before I start my rejects, I'll show the path that my sigs have gone down by showing most of the sigs I've made in the order I made them. These sigs I've posted here on GS before.

*INSERT A FEW MONTH BREAK* Okay... Now we've reached something I should point out. Those sigs above ^ were all GIMP sigs. The sigs from here on are PhotoShop sigs (I started using Photoshop earlier this month)

So now we find ourselves where I am currently. You just witnessed my evolution over the course of almost a year. So here's what I want you to do: Pick your favorite of ALLLLLLL of those sigs. It can be just one, or a top three, or a top five, anything, just let me know which one you like best. :D Now... on to the rejects... I'll be giving some comments on these sigs since there aren't a ton of them. :P

I don't really know what to say about this one. :lol: I don't know how it ended up that bad, but it did. :P This was going to be my first LP-ish type thing. I was actually almost finished with it when GIMP crashed. Oh the failure. :cry: No comment. :lol: I believe I only posted this one when I got it ranked at MDL (the time where I went down from High Mod to Mod D: ) It was a lazy sig. I didn't put enough effort into it. D: Dat lighting. D: This is the FIRST thing I did with PS. If I said that another design was my first, I lied. I did this sig right after installing PS. I'm not going to lie to myself, I had a bad start. :lol: Another PS sig that didn't come out well. :lol: It looks too much like my Mio sig. :P The colors don't fit the render or whatever. D: I feel like this sig almost had potential, but I ****ed up the colors and ruined the BG I had before with the Displace filter. Maybe I'll go back and rework it. Tried following a tut for this one, but I sorta messed it up. :lol: Well, there you have it! That's all of the rejects I have in my PB and my computer. I hope I didn't melt anyones eyes. D:

Edit: Here's a reject, fresh out of the oven. :lol: I was trying different things for my entry to the Deathmatch. Thanks for viewing and feel free to comment, but don't laugh at my failures. :P ~Sora

Man, I'm on a roll with the blogs lately. :P Three in a row, when I usually only do one once every couple of weeks. :P Okay, so let's kick this off. Firstly, I can't believe my last blog got 30 comments in just a day or two. :o Must have been the failed attempt at fooling everyone that attracted comments. :lol: I didn't do a very good job with that, since it was so out of character. Maybe next time I should try to make it more convincing. :P I'm finally almost level 40. :o When I first joined the site I never expected to get this high up, but now look at me. :P I recently bought BlazBlue: Continuum Shift. I haven't played it a ton, but I've been playing it on and off. It's my first fighting game, so I have to learn all the basics and stuff. I'm not sure who I'm going to main, but I'm leaning towards Noel or Ragna. I've used Noel the most though. I'm getting tired of playing Bad Company 2. D: I've played it since I got it on day one. I think I need to retire it soon, or at least take a break. Other games I'm playing are Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, Final Fantasy V, Dragon Quest IX, and the Conduit (for the lulz). Thanks to PlayStation+ I just got Mushroom Wars for free, and it seems like a good game to pick up and play for a few minutes at a time. I was planning on platinuming inFamous, Borderlands, 3D Dot Game Heroes, and (recently) Demon's Souls over the summer, but that didn't work out so well. :lol: I made no progress in inFamous, little to none in Borderlands, none in 3D Dot Game Heroes, and I got a few trophies in Demon's Souls. I've decided not to aim to platinum games, but to just play them. I still want to beat Borderlands and 3D Dot Game Heroes though. And Valkyria Chronicles. :lol: Games I want to get in the future are Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Killzone 3, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, and Gran Turismo 5. I'm not too interested in Metroid: Other M, but I might check out Kirby's Epic Yarn around its release. Here's my trophy card for those who care (no one :cry: ) I got some BlazBlue trophies and God of War II trophies since last time I showed it. :D And trophies from a few other games that I can't remember. :P Well, that's all for this gaming related blog. :P Tomorrow I'm planning on making my "trashed designs" blog. Be prepared for some crappy sigs. :D Thanks for reading! :) ~Sora

And my decision is... **** YOU GAMESPOT. I'm done here. There are way too many annoying people here and the site is just not as good as it used to be. This is going to be my last blog here, ever. Enjoy rotting in your own spam, GlitchSpot. ~Sora Oh, and here's something I made for all of you losers: [spoiler] Hm, well did I scare anyone? :P I was just kidding about that ^ up there. I did some thinking and let out some steam (Thanks Cloud and Duder!) and I've decided I'm going to take a bit of a break starting when I start school. I'm going to evaluate my current union situation, and possibly resign as officer from a few. I've decided that I don't want as many responsibilities, I just want to post and have fun. I think if it's okay with Kj I'm going to stay as leader of LoN though because I still want to lead my baby into its second birthday. :P I'm going to try to get a job that I do weekly at the Toonami Union and the Anime/Manga Squad so that I know when and how to do my jobs. Hopefully that doesn't spawn more problems. :P I'm sorry for how strange I sounded in that last blog, it was really early in the morning and I was feeling a lot of negative emotions. I've started sorting some of those problems out (I woke up at 11 today instead of 3 and I finished my grammar work and read half of a book, I started making plans to go to a birthday party for a friend) and I feel like I've made a lot of progress towards being ready for school on the first. I probably overreacted in that last blog but hey, it was early in the morning. :P So, my break should be starting either the day before I start school or the day I start school. Depending on the first week, I should be back either by the 4 day weekend I get, or the weekend after (so either half a week or two weeks). I think I'll end this blog here. Thanks for all the different advice on the last blog guys, I appreciate it. :) Expect another blog with gaming updates and etc. within the next few days. I also had a blog idea called "design garbage bin" where I just post all of my rejected sigs and stuff that I never thought were good enough to post. Thanks for reading! :) ~Sora [/spoiler]

I've been coming to this site almost every day for over 2 years now. I know a lot of people here (but I'm still not all that well know, oh well) and I've made a lot of friends here. I've had ways to combat my boredom and entertain myself when there was nothing else around me that could do that. I had a place to rant and rage when I was pissed or sad about something. But... Now I look around myself and see how things are outside of the computer. School starts in less than two weeks, on September 1st. I'll be a Junior. I just turned 16 last month and I still don't have my driver's license, nor have I even driven my car before. I have a huge stack of books and games I bought but never finished. I have handfuls of friends that I haven't been able to keep in contact with. As I mentioned before, school starts on the 1st, and I still have to read two books and do a ton of work for my English cIass. My sleeping schedule is completely messed up. I've been staying up until 5 or 6 AM posting, designing, and reading manga. Then I sleep until around 2 or 3 in the afternoon. Sometimes I don't even sleep. What the hell am I going to do come school when I have to wake up at 6 in the morning? I'll still be awake then! So what I'm trying to say with all of this is that while I love coming here and posting with you guys, the site is sapping away at my life. I blink my eyes and find that I've slept my long awaited summer away, and now I have a big pile of work to do before I go back to school and a screwed up sleeping schedule. So here's the big problem I'm facing... Do I stay or do I go? By "go" I mean use the site a lot less frequently. I'm not talking about leaving all together. But I think that's the only thing I can do at this point; use the site less frequently. The biggest reason I'm so reluctant to do all this is because of my responsibilities. I just recently got leadership back at Legend of Nintendo, and I helped found the Anime/Manga Squad. I'm an officer at the Toonami Union and All-Out Nintendo. I have responsibilities in every one of those unions, and I feel bad to just disappear and reappear at my own leisure. I don't want to inconvenience all of the people that need me around to help out, but I also don't want to spend all of my free time posting on an internet forum. So what do I do now? I need some opinions. And that ends this blog, and now I have to get back to reading so I don't flunk my English cIass before I even start it. ~Sora

Hopefully I don't need to remind anybody about the last forum I made.. >_> :P Well, I've decided (with the idea from GHlegend77) to go ahead and make a new forum. The biggest difference is that this time it's a designing forum. As of right now I have named it "Designer Haven" but that name is subject to change, if people don't like it. Note that you do not have to be a good designer to join, I'd love to run a forum where we help a lot of new designers improve. :) I'm looking for anybody willing to join, hell, you don't even need to be much of a designer. :lol: There will be other things there besides designing. (Like an Off Topic Discussion) To prevent the spam that killed my last forum, I have made it so that people can only join with Admin approval. If this gets to be a problem I will change it but I don't want to have another forum ruined by spam. So, I hope I can get a few friends to come join me! I'm still setting things up and getting things squared away, and I can use all the help I can get! Go here: Designer Haven to join please. :D See you there! ~Sora

Hello everybody. :P I'm kinda bored today because there's nothing to do, so I decided to write up a blog. As usual I'm going to break it up into categories so that it's easy to follow in case it gets long. We'll start with video games. VIDEO GAMES HO!!!

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Well, I'm trying to get as much gaming out of this summer as I can. I can't really say I've been all that successful so far.. I was hoping to beat a bunch of games that I didn't get around to beating. I went back and decided I want to platinum Demon's Souls though, so I'm working on that. :D Sometime within the next week I'm hoping to go out and get BlazBlue: Continuum Shift for my PS3. I've never really played any fighting games besides the Smash Bros. series (which are a lot different from your every day fighter) so this should be quite a challenge for me. I like challenges though. The newest game in my collection is Dragon Quest IX. I've almost beaten it. It's a really good game so far, and it appears to have a ton of replay value. Maybe I'll review it sometime. There hasn't really been much going on for me in gaming the past few days, since my gaming friend Drew has band camp all week so I've been left to play with myself. D: And to end this section here's my trophy card:

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Alrighty then. Next we have.. DESIGNING! :D I very recently became a user of PhotoShop CS5, so I've been experimenting with that for the past few days. This here is, in my honest opinion, my best sig yet. :D I won't even bother showing my first few PS sigs, they didn't come out very good. :lol: But I feel like I'm getting the hang of it now. :D

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Anime and manga time. There isn't much to mention here. I started reading Liar Game though. It's awesome, always keeping me excited and on the edge of my seat. I'd recommend it fully. :D

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Annnddd... School starts soon. :( I go back at the end of the month. I don't even want to think about going back.. I'm sick of it. And it's still summer vacation. :lol: I still have work to do and books to read, but I'm putting them off. They'll get done though, so don't worry. :P Ugh... I really don't want to go to school. D: I lose GS time, video game time, and just overall free time. It's all homework. :cry: Oh well. I'll get over it I guess. D: Well, that makes the end of this blog. Sorry if it was too short. :P Thanks for reading! ~Sora

Got tagged... 1. Put Your iTunes (or other music player) on Shuffle. 2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer. 3. You must write down the name of the song no matter how silly it sounds! 4. Put any comments in brackets after the song name. 5. Tag at least 10 friends. 6. Anyone tagged has to do the same, because fun pointlessness spreads like a virus. 1. If someone says, "Is this okay?" You say: "Vivid Place" - DELUHI (:?) 2. How would you describe yourself? "The Bleeding" - Five Finger Death Punch 3. What do you like in a girl? "Hoshi no Nai Yoruni" - DELUHI (Uhm...) 4. How do you feel today? "Land of Confusion" covered by In Flames 5. What is your life's purpose? "Seal Slayer" - Deadlock 6. What is your motto? "Blinded by Euphoria" - Skyfire 7. What do your friends think of you? "Sympathetic" - Seether 8. What do you think of your parents? "When Will This End" - KoRn (:lol: ) 9. What do you think about very often? "What Drives the Weak" - Shadows Fall 10. What is 2 + 2? "The Devil's Own" - Five Finger Death Punch 11. What do you think of your best friend? "I, Vermin" - Soilwork 12. What do you think of the person you like? "Lost Fool" - Archeon 13. What is your life story? "Free Fall" - In Flames 14. What do you want to be when you grow up? "Judgement" - Made of Hate 15. What do you think of when you see the person you like? "Losers' Ballet" - Deadlock 16. What will you dance to at your wedding? "Crying Rain" - Girugamesh 17, What will they play at your funeral? "Heathen Throne" - Ensiferum 18. What is your hobby/interest? "A.D.I.D.A.S." - KoRn (stands for "All Day I Dream About Sex) 19. What is your biggest fear? "Varyags of Miklagaard" - Amon Amarth 20. What is your biggest secret? "Seraph" - Anterior 21. What do you think of your friends? "The Farthest" - DELUHI 22. What will you put as the title? "The Elder" - Insomnium I'm not even sure if I did that right. Oh well. Deal with it.

That's right, I'm back! I just got home and I'm glad to be back. Vacation was really fun. I spent most of the week reading and swimming. I played some Dragon Quest IX here and there, but not too much (unless you count the car ride home). I still need to settle back into home (unpack and stuff like that) so I probably won't be posting much until later tonight. Well, maybe I'll update this later with some stuff about vacation, but for now, I gotta get to work unpacking! :P ~Sora