Pandora Radio

[apotheosis]

I am always several years behind these fads and trends I guess, but I just discovered Pandora, its freaking awesome.

For those of you who live under a rock like me, here is the link.

http://www.pandora.com/

The longer you work with a "station" the more you can tailor it to your tastes. I have very bipolar music tastes, so I confused it at first, but over time it gets the idea.

Suggestions: If you want a very specific playlist, just put in songs you like, not artists. Also, make use of the thumbs up and thumbs down features. The more accurate information about your tastes you give it, the better it knows you. Ultimately, it knows you better than you do.

Also, its cool to make stations tailored to specific moods or types. Like, I have a depressing as fuck station and a general music station, and will probably add a headbanging station, a background station, and of course the, station to listen to when I get drunk with people. If I'm drinking alone, then I will play the depressing as fuck station of course.

[ChubbyTeletubby]

My roommate swears by pandora.

I myself haven't really given it much of a chance. Haven't been in a musical mood lately, I guess.

Just about everything I KNOW I already like is in my iPod so I usually just stick to that.

[Hi! My name is: Katie]

My boss used to listen to Pandora, so I kind of knew about it, but never bothered looking into it. I dig it.

[Usoki]

Yeah, same here. I've known about it for years, but I've never been all that motivated to try it out. The moods in which I actually want to listen to music are so few and far between that I just stick to iTunes.

[Ryan_DuBois]

Cool find, apoth. I like it.

[ChubbyTeletubby]

Apoth didn't find it, Ryan.

It's been around for a while. Quite a while, actually.

So now we know both apoth and Ryan are fucking outcast lepers.

I think I can safely speak for all those gathered here that we hate you both. Get away, you filthy freaks. Get away.

GET AWAY!!!!! GO!!!!!

[Ryan_DuBois]

Yes, he did.

Pluto was around for a while, too, before it was found by Clyde Tombaugh. And even if you guys all knew about it, you didn't say anything, so apoth gets credit. It's like the whole Calculus thing with Newton and Leibniz.

... Only nobody knows who Leibniz is.

Shit, bad example.

Anyways, he totally found it.

I'm an outcast leper.

[apotheosis]

No prob Ryan.

My main problem was I had a bunch of CD's when I was 12, but then audio CD's went extinct. I never really got into the whole napster music stealing scene, and the only music I had for the most part was stuff that my friends sent me. I have like a gigabyte of music in total stored, but a lot of it I either never was into or was not anymore.

To make problems worse, once VH1 went to shit and I stopped watching non HBO/Cinemax/Showtime television all together, I completely lost touch with the music scene. If I was going to look into getting a music collection, I would know where to start.

The nice thing is, Pandora lets me just put in just a little bit of information and it figures out the rest for me. I love it. I can't wait until computers get smarter, and I can surrender more aspects of my life to them. I would love to give Google control of my love life, because god knows I've done a shitty ass job with it.

As it is, Netflix tells me what movies I like, Pandora tells me what music I like, Google tells me what I'm really trying to search for but I'm to retarded to articulate, and facebook even tells me who my friends should be. Oh, and Erowid tells me what drugs I should do.

I <3 the Internet

[Ryan_DuBois]

I know.

I'm just starting to use emulators... Thank God today was the last day of the semester.

Final Fantasy 1 - 6, here I come!

[apotheosis]

Update: Pandora has discovered that I love minor key tonality. I do not even know what that is, let alone my feelings about it. But Pandora does. Thank you Pandora, you know me better than I ever could.

Oh, and emulators are awesome. I have basically every sega genesis game ever made as well as pokemon red, blue, gold, silver, yellow and crystal. I can't tell you how many times I've beaten pokemon on the emulators. I am so good, I beat red version with only bug type pokemon. Level 73 butterfree and level 62 beedrill, no cheats. I also beat the final trainer in Gold version with just a Hypno. Hell yeah.

My little brother has all of the N64 emulators, but I need to wait until I get home. If I got them now, instead of writing 5 papers and taking 2 exams, I would beat Ocarina of Time.

[Usoki]

My brother has all of the N64 emulators, but I need to wait until I get home. If I got them now, instead of writing 5 papers and taking 2 exams, I would beat Ocarina of Time.

Gotta love the emulators. Personally, I enjoy having an ass-ton of RPGs for the SNES. Especially since I'd never actually played Chrono Trigger until emulator form.

I have to say though, I really think OoT is one of the more overrated Zelda games. Don't get me wrong- it is a good game- but I really think A Link to the Past is much, much better. Heck, I felt even Majora's Mask was better.

[Ryan_DuBois]

Sadly, I don't know if my computer would run any 64/Playstation games...

Perhaps it's time to dig into the savings...

[Ryan_DuBois]

Usoki, what's the best SNES/NES RPG?

[ChubbyTeletubby]

Zelda?

Probably?

[Usoki]

Usoki, what's the best SNES/NES RPG?

Oooh, damns, that's a pretty hard question. If you consider Zelda games to fall under that label, which a few people do, A Link to the Past is the best, hands down. Challenging, fun, and very puzzle-y. You practically have to have a guide to beat the game. And, the dungeons aren't linear; something that every Zelda since cannot say. There are entire rooms and wings of certain dungeons that one never has to enter to clear the dungeon.

Zelda's great, but I don't see it as an RPG. So. What now?

Well, I don't care for games that require a lot of level grinding. Secret of Mana wasn't bad, but... it feels like a chore by the time you get to the later parts of the game. I've heard similar things about Breath of Fire, 7th Saga, and Lufia. FF2/4 isn't bad...it's just not one of my favorites. It feels like your last few party slots are 'random person of the month' until you randomly meet a ninja in a dungeon. And the final plot point comes out of left field. Same with the plot of Tales of Phantasia. Though, that game is worth a look if you've never played a "Tales of" game on another system. It offers nothing new to the series...but it is a very, very good series.

Sadly, I have never played Earthbound, and so I can offer no judgement. I will say it is a cult classic that is revered by fanboys. You know it has to be big; it's huge in the Super Smash Bros world, even though we've only gotten one game in the series. Ness has a been a character in all games, and Lucas appears in Brawl alongside Jeff as an assist trophy.

To me, it comes down to FF3/6, Chrono Trigger, and Super Mario RPG.

FF3/6 is one of the best of the series, with fun, memorable characters who have awesome battle actions and a very fun and reasonable plotline. Still, the last part of the game is a random scavenger hunt for your party members, and I hate that the final dungeon requires you to have three teams- having three full parties that can survive encounters is rather annoying.

Chrono Trigger is another cult classic- I'm not sure if it's worth the hype, but it is an engrossing plotline with an interesting combo-attack battle system. And the 'newgame+' option means you can beat the game at any point in time with your good party, meaning there are about 14 different endings, depending on when you defeat the boss.

And let's not forget Super Mario RPG. It's nothing like the Paper Mario RPG series- it's better. It has that same sense of humor, but since it was made by Square, it's a lot harder than a Nintendo-made game. It's challenging, but never quite hard enough to require excessive grinding. And there are a ton of minor secrets and sidequests to discover.

Of the three, my bias leans toward SMRPG. That's because, out of all of the non-Zelda games I just listed, it's the only one I ever played as a child. With the other games, I was at least in high school by the time I picked up the controller. Or keyboard. Yay, emulators. Or GBA. Yay ports.