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With much ado Final Fantasy XIII is finally here. Taking advantage of GameStop's midnight national launch party I was able to pick up my copy along with the mini strategy guide at my local retailer just after 11pm last night. While the atmosphere was less than festive quite a few gamers did trickle in to purchase copies of Square Enix's latest game. I was one of the few people who actually got the 360 version of the game. Admittedly, Final Fantasy XIII is the first Final Fantasy on console that I've actually picked up at launch. I didn't actually play Final Fantasy until around 2003, with Final Fantasy VII being my first title in the series and FFIII on the DS being the last game I actually finished. With FFXII on hold for the moment I'm looking forward to sinking my teeth into FFXIII.

In terms of graphics Final Fantasy XIII on the PS3 definitely has the edge. The differences are noticeable when compared side by side but I would hardly call the difference detrimental. When I loaded game up on my HDTV I found myself impressed with the graphics. Despite owning a 360 for nearly a year I haven't dabbled in very many current generation games. Compared to the string of PS2 games I've been recently playing FFXIII on the 360 with compressed graphics is still an awesome looking game. Switching discs on the other hand feels like a throwback to the PS1 era but I'll probably be having too much fun to notice.

The last Geek News Roundup I wrote sucked.  You might not think so, but I think it did.  One of the things I noticed when finding news for the roundup is that Google's news portal is beginning to suck.  It's still good for finding news like the stuff that's been happening in Chile, Sony's leap year excuse,* or the short memory of Canadians regarding our current prime minister's cowardly politics.  But if I search for just a general term like 'PS3' or 'Wii', I've discovered that some companies have realized that a news portal is another good place for some cheap advertising.  As such, I won't link to any of these products or news reports I'm about to mention; I don't want to give them more attention than they've already gotten.

For instance, within the first couple pages of a search for general PS3 news,** I found a link to a supposed news story that was really just an advertisement for a piece of software that supposedly can back-up your video games.  How legal is this software?  Probably not very: one of the features of the software, according to the so-called news article, is that it can break through all the current copy protection methods, and burn games to a CD or a DVD.  Other search results go as far as describing video game piracy, explicitly encouraging people to rip their games, burn them, and then sell off the original discs, even mentioning sites where you can download games for all three consoles.

It doesn't take long to find a similar result when searching for news stories related to the Wii: I found that the eleventh search result described Wii piracy in the same way that it described PS3 piracy.  As for Microsoft's console, the exact same site managed to get an advertisement for an Xbox 360 repair guide on the first page of results for 'Xbox 360'.

When the Internet was first opened up to the ordinary citizen, I don't think anyone dreamed that advertisers would swarm it en masse like they have.  This is why we can't have nice things.  Everything that's developed and released on the Internet will eventually find itself overrun by ads.  E-mail used to be a good way to keep in touch of people, until spammers discovered that they could mask their identities, harvest millions of E-mail addresses from websites, and send out advertisements for dubious products, knowing that the only remedy anyone really has is to constantly keep their finger on the delete button, at least until spam filters were invented.***  Even Twitter has been targeted by advertisers.  I've barely had my account for a couple months and already I've had to block spam Twitter accounts.  A PSP spam account saw my Shadow of Destiny tweets and decided that I was the right target audience for it.

News sites are next, and as I've said above, they're already being targeted.  There's nowhere that Internet users can go that spammers can't.  Last year when I tried The Chronicles of Spellborn, the game was still in beta and already there were people trying to sell me the game's currency.  We've even had to disable certain features of the software running this blog because of spammers.

At least music seems safe.  I can just take a CD out of the jewel case and- wait, no, fuck.  I suppose it's not too late for me to turn Amish.  In the meantime, here's an E-mail address you can use if you want to contact me regarding anything I've written for this blog.  Let's see how long it takes to start getting spammed.

*Seriously, Sony?  The first PlayStation 3 models thought 2010 is a leap year?  How crappy are your programmers that you could get the PS2's calendar right, but fuck up the PS3's calendar?  I call bullshit on this, but that's a rant for another time.
**Usually I could find these faux news stories on the first page of results, but the ApocalyPS3 has pretty much taken over the first page or so of PS3 news results today.
***Spam filters aren't perfect.  Legitimate E-mail can be filtered out and deleted, and spam always seems to make it through, especially when spammers figure out ways to trick the filter into accepting their messages.

Video of the Week:

I've fallen in love with this lynx recently, but sadly it's the only video of her.  She may have died not long after the video was uploaded.



Rest in peace, little Nala.

Currently Playing: Ragnarok DS (DS)

This is like a gateway drug to Ragnarok Online.  Seriously, the game is set up to act just like an MMO.  At one point, I was told I should go to the next city for some treasure hunting, but when I got to the gate, I was told that the boss was away and I had to track him down for permission to enter through the gates (they were under construction at the time).  So I had to go back through two maps of forest to get back to my home city, only to find out that the boss had already left, and was at a lake not far from the gate I wanted to enter through, so I had to go back through the two maps of forest once again and watch a short cut scene before I could finally get to the next city.

The majority of the game is dungeon crawling and level grinding, but at least the music is great and the controls aren't too bad.

Looking Forward To: Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies (DS)

Seriously, what the fuck, Square?  Why does Nintendo have to do your job for you?  Do you have too much on your plate that you can't release a game like this to North America?  Are we not good enough for one of your two flagship franchises?  Also, where's the Dragon Quest VI release date announcement?

I have a hypothesis.  Something I can't ever test, but is fun to think about.  I like to think that the person who Carly Simon is singing about in "You're So Vain", Alanis Morissette is singing about in "You Oughta Know", and Janet Jackson is singing about in "Son Of A Gun (I Betcha Think This Song Is About You)" is the same person.

I know what you're thinking.  The songs are decades apart, so how could it be the same person?  Well, if it's a time lord...  Seriously, though, it's not impossible if you think about it just a little.  Carly and Alanis both refuse to name who their songs are about, although Janet says it's just about men after her fortune.  Okay, so why sample a mysterious song like You're So Vain if you don't want to appear a little mysterious yourself?

Meanwhile, Alanis has refused to talk about this song at all, despite Full House star Dave Coulier being so vain that he thinks her song is about him.  She has stated in interviews that the song is personal.  It's a similar thing with her song "Hands Clean", which talks about a relationship that both she and an unknown guy have agreed not to talk about.  She's given a few details about it, but once again she has not named the guy.

Carly Simon has, over the years, partially broken the silence about who her song is about.  She's revealed three letters in the man's name (I wonder if I'm allowed to buy a vowel?), and has recently whispered his first name in a re-recording of the song, David.  At one point, it's been speculated that the song's about James Taylor (which means that I've now mentioned that name in two of my three music columns).  But now the strong front runner is a record executive named David Geffen, who used to be her boss at Elektra records, and who she might've been jealous with over the attention he'd been giving Joni Mitchell's career.  This possibility has been denied by Carly and proven wrong, but it seems to make sense as long as you don't take into account the argument she made against it.

First of all, not all songs are what they seem.  I remember one romantic Savage Garden song was revealed by lead singer Darren Hayes to actually be about a break-up (and have since forgotten which song it was, nor can I find the interview he revealed this in... damn, if I had known I needed to reference this stuff in a music column, I would've bookmarked it when I found it out years ago; I'm pretty sure it's I Knew I Loved You, but now I'm not so sure).  Second of all, when she was contacted by Janet to get permission to use samples of You're So Vain, Carly offered to re-record them.  She even stated this in an interview.  "I said I would prefer to re-record everything that might otherwise have been sampled. Why get Elektra involved and potentially hold up the process?"  Did she have another reason why she wanted to avoid Elektra?  Possibly.  But by then, David Geffen was no longer at Elektra, so who knows?

It's possible we'll never know who the song is about, even with Carly's hints, but hey: at least we're getting hints.  We have no such help with Alanis's song.  And although Janet has revealed the song isn't about any one man in particular, I can't help but think that perhaps it just might, and that all three songs could be about the same man.  A man named David.


A very decent cover version of the song

So you're the type of gamer who likes to sit down with your DS and do a Sudoku every now and then.  Perhaps you wish that you didn't always have to take your system around, or your copy of Brain Age has already run out of Sudoku puzzles and you want more.  There's a selection of Sudoku software you can purchase that will offer you hundreds of hours of fun.  But what if you can't find any at your local brick and mortar game store, and you don't want to wait for a shipment from Amazon?  What then?  And what do you do when you're on the road and your DS's battery is flat and you need your Sudoku fix, but you've left your charger at home?

You're in luck, for a solution exists on most newsstands.  But you already knew that, right?  What you might not know is that the same solution exists for other kinds of puzzles you may enjoy.  For instance, if you're a fan of Picross DS, but you've unlocked everything and you've redone all the puzzles so much that you've memorized them, just look for one of Penny Press's logic problem magazines.  For the past few years, they've added some Picross puzzles at the back of most issues of Original Logic Problems (both the original and British editions).  It's known as "Logic Art" in the original American issues, and "Japanese Puzzle" in the British editions.  Occasionally, issues of Master's Variety Puzzles and Master's Tournament Variety Puzzles will include a couple pages of Logic Art as well.

For Kakuro puzzles, look for any of Penny Press's variety puzzle magazines, which will include Kakuro puzzles under the name "Sum Totals".  On the Dell side, they're known as "Cross Sums".  Ideally, if you can find the Dell-published magazine Math Puzzles & Logic Problems, it usually includes at least 20 Cross Sums in each issue.  For a little while, Dell was publishing Kakuro Cross Sums Collection, but sadly the magazine ceased publishing after only a few issues.

These are but a few of the puzzles and games each magazine offers.  Both companies also offer Crossword and Word Search magazines, of course, as well as volumes of their more popular puzzles for mail order on their web site.  If you're a fan of cryptograms, for instance, there are many volumes of them available from both Penny Press and Dell.  Their variety puzzles don't depend upon knowledge of pop culture, for the most part.  You might come across one that makes references to, say, popular music.  It's alright if you have to skip that one, I sometimes do the same for ones referencing celebrities.  But for how much each issue costs, it's still worth it even if you don't do each and every puzzle contained within.

I will close this off with a word of advice: despite the urge you might have to buy a lot at once, don't.  89 magazines tend to be pretty heavy.  27.5 pounds, according to the postal worker who handled my parcel.

Video of the Week:

I lit a match, then let it catch
To light up the room
And then you yelled as we beheld:


Currently Playing: Glory of Heracles (DS)

For something based on mythology of Olympic proportions, it's not very Olympic yet.  But I'm only just getting started with it.  It's certainly more exciting than the 2010 Olympics.  (Oh no, I just insulted the Olympic games!  Bell Canada's going to be pissed!  VANOC will be after me!)  And unlike games like Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, the touch screen activities that activate during battle are actually fun.  Not that they aren't in Sonic Chronicles, but I like them better in Glory.  One of them depends on your knowledge of Roman numerals, but other than that, they all work well enough.

Looking Forward To: Dust: An Elysian Tail (Xbox LIVE Network)

This game won Dream.Build.Play '09, and is already garnering attention from the gaming press.  Whenever I watch the trailer, I can't help but like the character of Fidget.  The music in the trailer reminds me of one part Fox Amoore, one part Breath of Fire III, one part Protopop (especially Protopop's Nimian Flyer game).  It'll be interesting to see how the game incorporates so many different styles of music, especially since it was all composed by a single composer.

Dust is one entry in a planned series of games, movies, and more set in the world of Falana, and although production on everything is slow, it looks like a worthwhile project so far.  Plus, by the time the game is released on Xbox LIVE (which I'm guessing it will be), I'll probably have an Xbox 360 by then.  I'm looking forward to it.

Publishers in the video game industry tend to make many mistakes, but in that particular way it's no different than a lot of other companies within their respective districts. But the mistakes some of them make, especially in the gaming industry, tend to be the most obvious ones; those made because of the management and marketing sectors being completely oblivious to occurrences they damn well shouldn't be oblivious to.

The Final Fantasy franchise is not the direct cause of anything implied above. If you read this blog regularly (or not), chances are you're aware that it's one of the biggest Japanese RPG franchises around. It would, therefore, logically follow that whenever a new game in the series releases, especially if its a mainline title, other companies that publish JRPGs should release them as far away as possible from whenever Square Enix decides to grace us with one. Yet every time one of them releases, there is almost always some company that's foolish enough to think they can go against it. And they always fail miserably, usually to the detriment of gamers as well as themselves.

One of the earliest, and most unfortunate, cases dates back to Final Fantasy VIII. Now, the game itself released at a fine time, in early-September of 1999. But it was a shame that Konami decided to release their main RPG at the time, Suikoden II, mere weeks after it. A game heralded as one of the best RPGs of all time was overshadowed by one of the biggest love-it-or-hate-it FF games in the series. I'm sure there are plenty of people who want a copy of the game now, or wish they owned two so the could sell one to pay off a Corvette.

And it's happened a lot more since then. Capcom decided to release Breath of Fire IV on the same day as Final Fantasy IX in November 2000, which caused people to miss a game that was somewhat of a foundation for a few ideas used in Final Fantasy X. The first Shadow Hearts title, whose tone feels very similar to that of the FF games, was overshadowed (pun not intended; no really!) by the then-impending release of FFX in December 2001. And finally, Final Fantasy XII also managed to claim a victim in Tales of the Abyss, which itself was sandwiched in between that and Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria.

With all of these unfortunate victims, companies have now learned to keep their RPGs away from a Final Fantasy game whenever it releases, right? Afraid not.

Sega seems to be a glutton for punishment these days. I've briefly discussed Yakuza 3's unfortunate release date before, but in case you missed it, it's March 9th. Right on the same day that Final Fantasy XIII releases. Yakuza 3 may not be an RPG, but it's going for some of the same audience that FFXIII is going for. And that's bad for Sega, but it's their fault.

But that's not all: Resonance of Fate, a new RPG developed by Tri-Ace and published by Sega, is going for much more of the FFXIII audience. I pointed out a week ago that Gamestop had the game listed as a March 9th release, which would have been utter silliness. I was also hoping that Amazon's May date was correct, as it would be far away from anything that could pose a threat. Gamespot noted that Sega of America has now officially announced a date for the game: March 16th. I don't know what's wrong with these people. Not only is it still competing with FFXIII, but it also has God of War 3 to contend with. Oh, and it's only a week after the aforementioned Yakuza 3. Have you ever seen a company so willing to compete with their own releases?

Admittedly, things are a bit different in Europe. Eurogamer reported earlier in the week that RoF is releasing there on March 26th. Much farther away from FFXIII, but that's honestly still too close.

The logical thought process for a company usually is (and should be) to keep it out of harms way if at all possible. Yet here we have plenty of them daring to brave the wolves' den with minimal chance of escaping unscathed. These are games that I'd like to see succeed, but Sega seems fully intent on sending them to death. Hopefully they're not cocky enough to think their name on the packaging will sell a game, which sales of MadWorld and Bayonetta should have proven.

So, the Olympic torch passed through Revelstoke recently, and there was a big celebration and everything.  To see where my priorities lay, click here to see what I was working on while the festivities were happening.

When I finally went to see what kind of trouble I could stir up, I didn't really have much time to do stuff.  Earlier in the day, I wanted to see what kind of mischief I could stir up by asking one of the random organizers what would happen if the torch were to accidentally be dropped in a puddle.  He was unsure if there were any contingency plans for such an event.  (Well, okay, first he said there was, but then he said "...I hope so.")

I noticed around lunchtime that Scratch had been moved, and asked what had happened.  I was told that Dale had been asked to move for the Olympics, so they could use the space (Dale confirmed this with me later in conversation).  Turned out that the space he usually occupied, which would've been a great spot to sell burgers and fries to a hungry crowd, was to be used to contain protesters, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

If not for the video game review, I think I probably could've gotten myself kicked out.  As it is, I lost a good opportunity to stir something up.  My favourite thing to do was to go around to random security workers, police officers, and Olympic organizers and ask where the various sections were.  I was most interested in finding the section for protesters.  A few of the workers pointed me to the right place, but others were unsure.  One of them even said that given that they were working for one of the sponsors, they're not allowed to even go near the protesters.

He also gave me the only instance of as close to a correct answer as I could get to a question I got from my friend Jennifer, who was having her own fun with the torch relay itself.  She'd ask her customers if it was the original flame (as in, from Greece).  They didn't know.  When I asked, I got mostly blank expressions, a few responses of "I don't know", and one person who actually said it was.  The person who supplied me with correct information mentioned that the modern relay had started with the Berlin games.  Of course, I was a little slow that night, or else I would've realized the implication of that statement.  The Berlin games were in the 1930s, when Adolph Hitler was in power in Germany, which would make the modern torch relay a Nazi tradition.  I bet if I had pointed that out to a few people, I might've at least gotten a stern warning from an official.

I think I suck at rousing rabble.  Other cities seem far more capable of it.  Various people in Kitimat raised some good points when the torch was passed through their city the day after one of their largest employers was shut down.  And protesters elsewhere managed to divert the torch a few times.  Here?  There wasn't a single protester in the designated protest area.

I'm far better at video games anyway.

(Oh no, I'm making fun of the games!  I bet it's too soon, isn't it?)

Video of the Week:

I bet you're looking for a funny or amazing commercial, considering what happened last Sunday, right?  Okay, here's my favourite commercial, so far this month:



Sorry, Super Bowl.  England trumped you something fierce this year.  Better luck next time.

Currently Playing: Shadow of Destiny (PSP)

A review of this game will be up very soon, but if you can't wait: this game seems to follow both the predestination paradox and the grandfather paradox, so if you don't mind it when the rules of time travel change depending on the situation, give this a go.  Actually, come to think of it, that's a pretty good quote.  I'll see if I can incorporate it into the review.

Looking Forward To: Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love (PS2)

Last year, I was fond of saying that the PS2 was still going strong, despite the fact that the industry seemed ready to throw the PS2 over a cliff and declare it dead.  Some distributors had even discontinued carrying the games, which made it hard for those games that were still coming out to reach customers.  Well, this year, Sakura Wars is the biggest PS2 game coming out, and it proves that even in 2010, the PS2 isn't completely gone.

When Final Fantasy XIII was announced for the PS3, I knew right then that I would buy myself a PS3 when the game came out.  I didn't care of the console still possessed a high price tag.  At the time, I thought to myself, "I will somehow acquire this console and this game."  At the time, I didn't have a steady job, and so I didn't have the income necessary to support a current generation gaming habit.  Previous generation games seemed the best I could hope for at the time.

I began making a list of games that I wanted to get for the PS3, and as they continued to release, my list grew longer.  I liked the first two Disgaea games, so Disgaea 3 was added to my list rather quickly.  Valkyria Chronicles was highly recommended, and I've heard good things about Eternal Sonata.  Not only that, but Star Ocean: The Last Hope's been ported to the PS3.  I may not want as many games for the PS3 as I own for the PS2, but I'm still working through my PS2 library anyway.

Then the price drops started happening.  It was definitely the right way for Sony to go, after arrogantly declaring that the console would be something that you would want to save up for, work harder for.*  But while the price was being lowered, features were being dropped, and one of the first features dropped was the backwards compatibility that Sony was famous for.  Nintendo is notorious for being spotty at best when it comes to backwards compatibility in their consoles.  Microsoft blatantly broke their promise when it came to backwards compatibility in the 360.  In fact, they broke it twice.  But Sony's always supported their older titles.  With the PS2 still on the market, it's not as much of a blow as it could've been, but still, you can't claim that the PS3 does everything when it doesn't do some of the things it used to do.

When Final Fantasy XIII was suddenly announced as being cross-platform, all of the Sony fans suddenly cried foul and all but demanded that everyone at Square-Enix commit seppuku, and also demanded that the 360 version be canceled.  Microsoft fans crowed about their victory.  Considering that no 360 version is being released in Japan, it kind of negates both sides' arguments in a way.  Besides, FF XIII is not the only game in the series to appear on a Microsoft console.  Final Fantasy XI has appeared on the original Xbox.  And way back when, Final Fantasy VII was cross-platform, as well as Final Fantasy VIII.  It appeared on Sony PlayStation... and MICROSOFT Windows.  Final Fantasy VII on a Microsoft platform.  Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Sony fanboys.

But the latest thing that's given me pause is the way Sony handled their release of some of their latest firmware versions (notably, 3.0 and 3.15, but others seem to have the same issues).  When they first began to brick consoles, Sony decided that they would charge money to replace the consoles, which is kind of like a doctor punching you in the face with brass knuckles, then expecting you to pay him for the surgery.  It takes dogged determination for even one customer to get their hardware repaired.  Most, if not all of the bricked consoles are the old models that contain PS2 backwards compatibility.

Firmware 3.15 used to be optional, you didn't need it if you wanted to run stuff on your console.  Then, the middle of last month, they decided that this firmware that renders consoles inoperable was to be a required update, and this subsequently caused my co-worker's PS3 to brick.

Final Fantasy VII is largely credited as having sold the PS1 and killed the N64, ending Nintendo's dominance in the video game market.  Sega may have done what Nintendon't, but Sony did what Sega couldn't.  With the Wii currently dominating the market and Final Fantasy XIII cross-platform outside of Japan, Sony doesn't need the kinds of problems that they're having right now, especially considering the number of people who bought the old, backwards compatible PS3s back when Final Fantasy XIII was announced.  Now that their beloved game is near release, suddenly Sony's breaking their consoles and charging a substantial sum of money to fix them.  The last thing Sony needs is for FF13 to sell the 360 instead of the PS3.

It's enough to give me pause, and despite my history of supporting Sony (I even bought their PSP), seeds of doubt have been planted in my mind.  I may just buy a PS3 anyway, but I wouldn't be surprised if my PS2 outlives it.

*I can't seem to find a quote where Ken, or someone at Sony, declared that the PlayStation 3 is something the whole family will save up for, and it's possible that I may be imagining it.  There's not many family friendly games on the PS3 anyway as there are on the Wii.  Nintendo seems to have had a lot more success in selling their console to entire families, but that is a story for another time.  Instead, the PS3 has remained well within the realm of the hardcore gamer.  I doubt that Grand Theft Auto 4, Metal Gear Solid 4, Call of Duty: World At War and MAG would be considered family friendly games, but that's just me.

Video of the Week:

This is why I wish I understood Japanese:



Yes, he's going all Yahoo! and seems one step away from going like this as well:



All I know is, if I knew Japanese, I'd have played this already and laughed at Sazh's silly summon animation.  Bonus video:



His summon animation again!  ^^  Yahoo!  Yo.

WRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!

Currently Playing: Tales of Symphonia (GC)

You know, I bought my GameCube back in late 2007, and I have yet to beat a single game for it.  I own seven.  Anyway, I finally decided to give this game a go because I'd just beaten Puzzle Quest and needed to play another game right away, but no other PlayStation 2 games were calling out to me.  The game seems much better than the release of Tales of Phantasia that we got in North America on the GBA.  Whatever they did wrong there, they did right here.

The story is fantastic so far and I'm liking the synopsis option in the menu that keeps track of the story.  Only Xenosaga comes close, of the games I've played, to having something like that.  It makes things a lot simpler for reminding the gamer where he needs to go,and what he was last doing, especially since the plot points are time stamped in real time.  For instance, I made it to Lake Umacy on the 4th of February, this year, while at level 16.  Then again, I only started the game on the 4th of February, so that's amazing.

I wouldn't mind seeing the original version of Tales of Phantasia ported to the Virtual Console, but that's just me.  The GBA version sucked.  Now I should see if I can get the PS1 Tales games without having to pay an arm and a leg.

And Operation Kill The Backlog continues...

Looking Forward To: Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (DS)

I didn't mind the portion of Eragon on the GBA that I played, and the graphics don't seem to bother me too much in the screen shots, so I figure, what could it harm to try this thing out?  Besides, RPGamer's been kinda dropping the ball lately on DS games (we reviewed Sands of Destruction a week and a half sooner than they did), but then again, this blog does cover all games and ideally anime as well, and they did have a review of Mass Effect 2 posted a couple days after that game was released (heh, they probably had a head start and a review copy).

The biggest things that fascinate me about this game:

-this is a video game based on a movie based on a book, so there has to be things lost in the translation.  If the book wasn't super popular at the local library, I'd borrow it, read it first, then either watch the video or play the game, whichever gets to Revelstoke first, and see what's been left out of each.
-the last game that the developer, 20th Century Fox, released (according to GameFAQs) was back in 1983, probably right before the video game crash.  It was called The Earth Dies Screaming.  Twenty seven years later, they finally release their next game.  Hey, maybe there's hope for Duke Nukem Forever after all.
-this is probably one of the few things that reference the Olympians and anything olympic that VANOC and/or the IOC hasn't tried to sue into the ground.  Did you know that the Olympics are a brand name, and that if you have, say, a pizza joint that has existed long before VANOC got formed, you're still fair game?  Also, did you know that VANOC won't allow anyone else in Canada to make anything related to the Olympic brand until the end of the Mayan calendar?  It makes me wish that all the disasters that happen in the movie 2012 happen to VANOC.  Preferably during the games.

Oh no, I said something bad about the games!  VANOC is going to sue me!  Bell Canada's going to try to have me fired from whatever job I hold!**  No one in British Columbia would allow this kind of thing in a blog!***

**This is a claim I cannot back up with an article on the Internet, despite diligent Google usage, but I have found an article about other insane Olympic-related restrictions.
***It's a good thing we're not an accredited blog at the 2010 games, then.  It seems that if your blog is too negative, you can face consequences.  ...Damn it!  I wanted to link to the scene in Babar: The Movie where Babar tells Rataxes that the loud trumpeting he hears is the consequences, but it's not on YouTube!