Games I still need to play:
Final Fantasy IV
Final Fantasy XIII-2
Devil May Cry 1, 2 and 3
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of the Sky
Games I still need to beat:
Ocarina of Time
Spirit Tracks
New Super Mario Bros 2
Legend of Dragoon
Final Fantasy XIII
Devil May Cry 4
WWE '13
Games I know I will never finish because Skyrim is better in every way:
Oblivion
Fallout 3
Seriously, Skyrim is so addicting. Older Bethesda games just don't do it for me. I'm pretty sure one of the reasons I haven't gotten to all of these games is that I've been playing Skyrim and online Halo. I'm lucky I was able to find the time to finally beat Final Fantasy III a couple months ago.
Money is the key to most of life's problems, and the problems it doesn't directly solve, it makes a hell of a lot easier to solve.
If someone is addicted to heroin, I don't think making them a millionaire will make them happy. But a drug-free guy like myself? I think a mass amount of money could only enhance my life.
Money is really the biggest measure of success in the world. Money gives you a voice. Money gives you choices. Money gives you opportunities. Money creates situations in which you can truly be happy. Sure, you could try to do influential things to get your name in the history books, but will people really care what you did 100 years from now? You'll just be some name on a page, regardless how much of an impact you had on the world. the best thing you can do is make as much money as you possibly can, and piss it away on everything frivolous and expensive you can think of. If I was rich, would I be staying in hotels that cost $5000 per night? Hell yeah. Would I have my own private plane? You can bank on it. Would I buy my own private island? Of course! That's success! That's living!
Let me just point out that prayer and meditation are not the same thing. Prayer involves channeling thoughts to a deity, whereas meditation is a self-relaxation exercise meant to focus the mind. I used to do martial arts and we would meditate every week. Of course I think prayer and meditation are both worthless, so maybe it's a moot point.
As an atheist, I do not believe that channeling your thoughts can have any impact on the real world. If a tsunami strikes, using positive thoughts isn't going to save any lives. There is just stuff that happens that we cannot change. It's all a matter of luck. Tomorrow, a religious man who prays every day of his life might get struck by a car and killed. Or it could be me instead. There is just as much of a chance.
So to answer the main question, true atheists do not pray. To be considered an atheist, you must not believe in anything religious or spiritual. Otherwise you'd probably be considered an agnostic instead. And as others have said, the word "pray" may be used culturally sometimes, but personally I think that's stupid. I never say that I'm going to pray for anyone.
Black and white are the best games by far. They accomplished everything the previous games did, with tons of new content as well (although I do kind of miss the contests from the third generation). The dream world/entralink is brilliant. Random wifi matches are great. Not to mention, black and white have the best plot out of any Pokemon game ever.
Emerald wins second place simply because I loved the layout of the region. All the water routes made it feel like there were a ton of secrets. I loved discovering Rayquaza's tower, the secret of the Regis, the secret of mirage island, the secret of the space station, finding hidden underwater caves... It gave the game a different feel than any other Pokemon game. I hope they incorporate more mystery and exploration in future generations. Of course, this was before the age of Serebii, where you can simply go online and spoil all the secrets for yourself. Oh, and the original battle frontier was awesome too. I really hope they remake this in 3D.
"In order to survive in the world, you have to be a little bit bad. You have to cut the world's dick off before it even has a chance to push you on your ass."
This basically means that you can't be a pushover. Nobody ever became significant in history without taking a few shortcuts, standing up for themselves, and fighting the societal normal ways of life. The way to live is always to be a little ballsy and aggressive. The world is a harsh place, and the weak don't survive.
"Jump on life like it's a hard dick."
This is kind of just a comical way of saying live life to the fullest. But it goes one step further, saying ride that sucker dry! Take life for all it's worth, and enjoy the ride while you're doing it.
Let me say this first. The ONLY safe investment in magic is a reserved list card. Anything else is either likely to drop or go on a banned list even. hell, even reserved list cards could be banned, so you're best off just investing in ABU duals. But if you're looking for an investment, is this really the best value? Oooooh, you spent $60 and gained an additional $40 in value in 5 years, go you? That's really not that much money for having to wait so long.
Anyway, to me, magic is a waste of money for a multitude of reasons. First, I don't have fun with tournament magic anymore. "The thrill of the experience" doesn't cut it for me. The point of a tournament is to win, and gain value. if you're not doing that, it was a waste of time. Furthermore, tournaments can be very expensive, especially over time. Decks, entry fees, gaming supplies, food, travel costs, etc. You can end up blowing way too much money in one year if you play every week, or even every other week. Money is valuable to a person like me that doesn't have a lot of it. When I pour money into tournaments like water that I know I'm not going to win back, it becomes very frustrating for me. It gets to the point where I'm like "why am applying this stupidity tax to myself every week, when I could be hanging out with a girl, or even at home playing Halo?"
Second, I really, really enjoyed the format of EDH back when I played. It was probably the most fun I've ever had playing magic. It felt like an actual fun game, instead of an intense, stressful series of matches where I had to worry about losing my money. Magic is always the most fun when it is played casually. That way winning or losing doesn't mean much, and it really is about "the thrill of the experience." But here's the problem with EDH. It becomes completely addicting. You end up wanting to build lots of new, creative decks. And EDH decks aren't cheap. EDH staples aren't the dollar rares they used to be. I put WAY too much money into my decks. One of my decks was worth $700 at least, which isn't much compared to some players on here, but to me it was a lot of money. Yeah and I know, there will always be people that say you can play budget EDH, but to me, that just wasn't satisfying enough. I'm a competitive person by nature, and I constantly feel the need to improve myself. If you're not moving forward, you're staying in one place, thus wasting your life.
Third, magic is like a cardboard stock market. it's absolutely ridiculous. For example, I was trying to get a land tax for my EDH for the longest time, and then all of a sudden it gets unbanned and skyrockets. Or there's the example of how Griselbrand and Primeval Titan got banned. You wouldn't believe how mad I was. Plus if you play standard, stuff is CONSTANTLY going up and down. Keeping track of the prices of all the cards you own and hope to own becomes like a part time job. It just isn't worth it to me. It's too stressful. if you don't sell at the right moment, BAM, you're out $25. Or even more. And this happens on a regular basis. Magic is a losing game. It's impossible to really make money off of it unless you're a pro. Magic is a game. It's designed so that its creators and the secondary market make money, and the players get screwed. But they know that we're a bunch of nerds, and we'll keep wasting our hard earned money on cardboard for years to come. It's sad, really. I'll always love magic as a game, but I refuse to ever spend money on it again. I sold my collection last year, and a wave of relief swept over me. Now I have a large chunk of cash in the bank, and I'm free to do what I want with my life.
I would not reccommend playing MTG if that's your feeling about it. As you said, making your $$ back on MTG is extremely difficult given the average value of the cards and what you can get for them.
I view entry fee's as the cost of the amusement park. I don't count on finding $$ on the street when I go to Disneyland. I pay to have fun. If I do get lucky enough to crack $$ cards and make it back, that's purely a bonus.
But magic isn't an amusement park when played competitively. And it certainly becomes more expensive than an amusement park when played every week. A visit to Cedar Point would be cheaper than an entire weekend of magic prereleases.
It all depends if money is on the line or not. For example, sealed tournaments generally cost $25. That's a lot of money to spend on one tournament. In order to make your money back, you have to hope to open money cards. Chances are, you won't, in which case you'll have to make top 8 and hope to open money cards in your packs. Then, even if you do open money cards, most stores only buy cards for 50% of the value. This means that you'll have to open $50 worth of rares just to BREAK EVEN. Not an easy task.
It's situations like that that stress me out every time I play magic. When you put money on the line, you have to be stressed out about making your money back. It becomes an impossible task to pull off every time, and you're ultimately losing a lot of money in the long run. When money doesn't come easily to you, it becomes very frustrating to lose. This is why I quit magic (along with the fact that singles are ridiculously overpriced, and magic has become a cardboard stock market).
So to answer the main question, I don't handle losing well. I get pissed, pack up my deck in frustration, and storm off. Of course, I don't usually have a problem losing to someone who I know is clearly better than me. A loss just tells me that I have to work harder to beat them next time. I get REALLY mad though when I lose to some no-name playing 24 creatures and 16 lands, for example. Or if I know my deck is good, but I lose to variance.
From technically speaking every Pokemon game has been innovative in areas such as gameplay, story, and the fact they add a lot of new Pokemon and moves. Gold & Silver introduced Day & Night, Shiny, breeding, Dark, Steel, etc. Ruby & Saphire introduced double battles, abilities, weather conditions, and pokemon contests. Diamond & Pearl introduced the idea of move type not being tied to physical or special and a reformatting of the level system so pokemon can be level 1. Black & White introduced dark grass, seasons, constantly animated pokemon, TMs have infinite uses, world pokemon contest. All the generations actually have been very innovative, but the games do such a good job of maintaining the core experience that most of the changes don't register on a conscious level unless you think about them. That is to say each game has been very innovative and an unique experience compared to the others, but you don't really notice it until you sit back and look at it.
This is pretty spot-on, although you're forgetting a lot of innovations that black and white brought. It introduced real, dramatic storytelling which was missing from the series up until that point. It brought the dream world and entralink. It took diamond and pearl's introduction of 3D objects and created a whole 3D city. It sped up the battle system. It introduced grass shaking spots. You didn't need most HMs in order to get through the game. It introduced triple and rotation battles. It's the first game with random matches on wifi. Pokemon musicals. Sports stadiums. Ferris wheel. Black tower was pretty amazing. It has the best music in the series. The graphics are obviously amazing. Some of the areas are just gigantic. I'm pretty sure it took me a couple hours just to get through victory road on BW2.
Oh and also, diamond and pearl were significant for introducing wifi battling, arguably the most important innovation of the series. Just thought I should throw that in there. Black and white are still my favorite though.
But anyway, for anyone to say that gold and silver were the most innovate games of the series is just being silly.
Actually, I consider Silver and Gold to be the best in the series. Blue and Red were faulty and unbalanced, but they were also the first so they get a lot of slack. S&G innovated incredibly off them however:
-New Region+Old region (Something that I'd like to note, no game since has accomplished except HG&SS) And because of this, the towns and routes were incredibly small. It was cool to revisit Kanto, but Black and White have even more content in just one region.
-Days of the week and connected events Black and white has this as well, and to a much greater extent.
-Times of Day Black and white has more than just day and night, plus seasons.
-TWO ENTIRELY NEW TYPES (another thing that hasn't been done since) This was done entirely because the weakness/resistance system was unbalanced in red and blue. They haven't needed new types since then, because the system is near perfect.
-Radio Be honest, who REALLY misses the radio? I'd rather have the poketch, or the dream world/entralink.
-Actual descriptions of moves Newer games have this as well.
I dunno, as far as I'm concerned, relative to G&S, most new games only have made mild improvements (I did like secret bases though)
Comments in bold.
And to be honest, I find it boring to go back and play through HG/SS after playing black and white. These days the regions are much more interesting, there is a lot more to do, and the storylines are better. If I could change anything about black and white, I'd add contests back in (the Hoenn versions, not the Sinnoh) and maybe add more water routes. That was one of the things I really loved about ruby and sapphire.
However, I really couldn't stand the railroading. It felt like the game was physically placing fences everywhere. "No, you can't go forward, there's a random web that apparently needs a Gym Leader whose pokemon you defeated to cut it." In Red and Blue, it was easily possible to face Lietenant Surge as your last gym leader before Giovanni; in Black and White, you can't face any of the gym leaders out of order. The only really bad railroading in Red and Blue was the guy in Pewter City who stopped you from entering Mount Moon.
Black and white also have a lot more content than red and blue. The cities and routes are much larger. And to be fair, all the games in the Pokemon series have been relatively linear. I'm not saying it's a good thing, but you can't just pick on black and white for it. That's usually how jrpgs tend to be anyway. Wrpgs are more open world. I think black and white were the best games of the series. Anyone who says red and blue are just stuck in the 90s.
I love to ramp! What's the one thing you can't play the game without? Mana! So if you make double the mana, you're essentially having double the fun, double the games, and double the wins! I love having enough mana to do whatever I want before my opponent even has a chance to cast a counterspell. Who has the patience to wait 4 whole turns for a cryptic command? I want to be casting primeval titan on turn 3 and plow under on turn 4!
Did nobody see The Dark Knight Rises? We could take out the entire police force, break Batman's back and hold Gotham hostage via unstoppable nuclear bomb and Batman would still kick our asses.
The implication being that we prefer/have an easier time with those types of girls?
Obviously. As fellow nerds, we have more to relate to. Personally, I'd rather hook up with a Misty cosplayer at comic con than some drunk chick in a bar.
Final Fantasy IV
Final Fantasy XIII-2
Devil May Cry 1, 2 and 3
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of the Sky
Games I still need to beat:
Ocarina of Time
Spirit Tracks
New Super Mario Bros 2
Legend of Dragoon
Final Fantasy XIII
Devil May Cry 4
WWE '13
Games I know I will never finish because Skyrim is better in every way:
Oblivion
Fallout 3
Seriously, Skyrim is so addicting. Older Bethesda games just don't do it for me. I'm pretty sure one of the reasons I haven't gotten to all of these games is that I've been playing Skyrim and online Halo. I'm lucky I was able to find the time to finally beat Final Fantasy III a couple months ago.
If someone is addicted to heroin, I don't think making them a millionaire will make them happy. But a drug-free guy like myself? I think a mass amount of money could only enhance my life.
Money is really the biggest measure of success in the world. Money gives you a voice. Money gives you choices. Money gives you opportunities. Money creates situations in which you can truly be happy. Sure, you could try to do influential things to get your name in the history books, but will people really care what you did 100 years from now? You'll just be some name on a page, regardless how much of an impact you had on the world. the best thing you can do is make as much money as you possibly can, and piss it away on everything frivolous and expensive you can think of. If I was rich, would I be staying in hotels that cost $5000 per night? Hell yeah. Would I have my own private plane? You can bank on it. Would I buy my own private island? Of course! That's success! That's living!
As an atheist, I do not believe that channeling your thoughts can have any impact on the real world. If a tsunami strikes, using positive thoughts isn't going to save any lives. There is just stuff that happens that we cannot change. It's all a matter of luck. Tomorrow, a religious man who prays every day of his life might get struck by a car and killed. Or it could be me instead. There is just as much of a chance.
So to answer the main question, true atheists do not pray. To be considered an atheist, you must not believe in anything religious or spiritual. Otherwise you'd probably be considered an agnostic instead. And as others have said, the word "pray" may be used culturally sometimes, but personally I think that's stupid. I never say that I'm going to pray for anyone.
Emerald wins second place simply because I loved the layout of the region. All the water routes made it feel like there were a ton of secrets. I loved discovering Rayquaza's tower, the secret of the Regis, the secret of mirage island, the secret of the space station, finding hidden underwater caves... It gave the game a different feel than any other Pokemon game. I hope they incorporate more mystery and exploration in future generations. Of course, this was before the age of Serebii, where you can simply go online and spoil all the secrets for yourself. Oh, and the original battle frontier was awesome too. I really hope they remake this in 3D.
This basically means that you can't be a pushover. Nobody ever became significant in history without taking a few shortcuts, standing up for themselves, and fighting the societal normal ways of life. The way to live is always to be a little ballsy and aggressive. The world is a harsh place, and the weak don't survive.
"Jump on life like it's a hard dick."
This is kind of just a comical way of saying live life to the fullest. But it goes one step further, saying ride that sucker dry! Take life for all it's worth, and enjoy the ride while you're doing it.
Anyway, to me, magic is a waste of money for a multitude of reasons. First, I don't have fun with tournament magic anymore. "The thrill of the experience" doesn't cut it for me. The point of a tournament is to win, and gain value. if you're not doing that, it was a waste of time. Furthermore, tournaments can be very expensive, especially over time. Decks, entry fees, gaming supplies, food, travel costs, etc. You can end up blowing way too much money in one year if you play every week, or even every other week. Money is valuable to a person like me that doesn't have a lot of it. When I pour money into tournaments like water that I know I'm not going to win back, it becomes very frustrating for me. It gets to the point where I'm like "why am applying this stupidity tax to myself every week, when I could be hanging out with a girl, or even at home playing Halo?"
Second, I really, really enjoyed the format of EDH back when I played. It was probably the most fun I've ever had playing magic. It felt like an actual fun game, instead of an intense, stressful series of matches where I had to worry about losing my money. Magic is always the most fun when it is played casually. That way winning or losing doesn't mean much, and it really is about "the thrill of the experience." But here's the problem with EDH. It becomes completely addicting. You end up wanting to build lots of new, creative decks. And EDH decks aren't cheap. EDH staples aren't the dollar rares they used to be. I put WAY too much money into my decks. One of my decks was worth $700 at least, which isn't much compared to some players on here, but to me it was a lot of money. Yeah and I know, there will always be people that say you can play budget EDH, but to me, that just wasn't satisfying enough. I'm a competitive person by nature, and I constantly feel the need to improve myself. If you're not moving forward, you're staying in one place, thus wasting your life.
Third, magic is like a cardboard stock market. it's absolutely ridiculous. For example, I was trying to get a land tax for my EDH for the longest time, and then all of a sudden it gets unbanned and skyrockets. Or there's the example of how Griselbrand and Primeval Titan got banned. You wouldn't believe how mad I was. Plus if you play standard, stuff is CONSTANTLY going up and down. Keeping track of the prices of all the cards you own and hope to own becomes like a part time job. It just isn't worth it to me. It's too stressful. if you don't sell at the right moment, BAM, you're out $25. Or even more. And this happens on a regular basis. Magic is a losing game. It's impossible to really make money off of it unless you're a pro. Magic is a game. It's designed so that its creators and the secondary market make money, and the players get screwed. But they know that we're a bunch of nerds, and we'll keep wasting our hard earned money on cardboard for years to come. It's sad, really. I'll always love magic as a game, but I refuse to ever spend money on it again. I sold my collection last year, and a wave of relief swept over me. Now I have a large chunk of cash in the bank, and I'm free to do what I want with my life.
But magic isn't an amusement park when played competitively. And it certainly becomes more expensive than an amusement park when played every week. A visit to Cedar Point would be cheaper than an entire weekend of magic prereleases.
It's situations like that that stress me out every time I play magic. When you put money on the line, you have to be stressed out about making your money back. It becomes an impossible task to pull off every time, and you're ultimately losing a lot of money in the long run. When money doesn't come easily to you, it becomes very frustrating to lose. This is why I quit magic (along with the fact that singles are ridiculously overpriced, and magic has become a cardboard stock market).
So to answer the main question, I don't handle losing well. I get pissed, pack up my deck in frustration, and storm off. Of course, I don't usually have a problem losing to someone who I know is clearly better than me. A loss just tells me that I have to work harder to beat them next time. I get REALLY mad though when I lose to some no-name playing 24 creatures and 16 lands, for example. Or if I know my deck is good, but I lose to variance.
This is pretty spot-on, although you're forgetting a lot of innovations that black and white brought. It introduced real, dramatic storytelling which was missing from the series up until that point. It brought the dream world and entralink. It took diamond and pearl's introduction of 3D objects and created a whole 3D city. It sped up the battle system. It introduced grass shaking spots. You didn't need most HMs in order to get through the game. It introduced triple and rotation battles. It's the first game with random matches on wifi. Pokemon musicals. Sports stadiums. Ferris wheel. Black tower was pretty amazing. It has the best music in the series. The graphics are obviously amazing. Some of the areas are just gigantic. I'm pretty sure it took me a couple hours just to get through victory road on BW2.
Oh and also, diamond and pearl were significant for introducing wifi battling, arguably the most important innovation of the series. Just thought I should throw that in there. Black and white are still my favorite though.
But anyway, for anyone to say that gold and silver were the most innovate games of the series is just being silly.
Comments in bold.
And to be honest, I find it boring to go back and play through HG/SS after playing black and white. These days the regions are much more interesting, there is a lot more to do, and the storylines are better. If I could change anything about black and white, I'd add contests back in (the Hoenn versions, not the Sinnoh) and maybe add more water routes. That was one of the things I really loved about ruby and sapphire.
Black and white also have a lot more content than red and blue. The cities and routes are much larger. And to be fair, all the games in the Pokemon series have been relatively linear. I'm not saying it's a good thing, but you can't just pick on black and white for it. That's usually how jrpgs tend to be anyway. Wrpgs are more open world. I think black and white were the best games of the series. Anyone who says red and blue are just stuck in the 90s.
Obviously. As fellow nerds, we have more to relate to. Personally, I'd rather hook up with a Misty cosplayer at comic con than some drunk chick in a bar.