Oh yeah... Welcome Time's most influential person of the year:

Nintendo's own: SHIGERU MIYAMOTO!

Man, it's sad to see the names of some of these people so high.

But I'm happy for Miyamoto. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy!

He's like... The embodiment of FUN.

So, it's kinda nice that Indiana finally has a chance to make a difference in this Presidential Election. I mean, it's really irksome that we're so far down the list that most candidates don't even bother to show up to answer questions we have... We don't usually matter enough, so to speak. Well, not this year! As you know, the Obama vs Clinton fight has been going on for quite some time. The media always jumps on the fact that Clinton might be out of the race, but then she always bounces back. (Funny how the media never mentions how poorly Obama's campaign is dealing with his constant blunders. How do you think Clinton won Pennsylvania? I'm going to bet that it's because Obama said rural citizens cling to guns and religion. Real smooth there, Obama. Real objective to cover it, media.)

I wake up after going to bed incredibly late after working on my laptop... I walk into the kitchen bleary eyed and groggy and I see the mail. I rummage through it... And a familiar face catches my attention! Hey! It's Barack Obama! What in the heck does he want? Oh... It's an anti-Obama ad. Really, McCain should know that I would never vote for Obama. Well, I really don't want to vote for McCain, either, but still... Oh. It's not from McCain? Haha! It's from HILLARY CLINTON.

Thank you, Hillary. I know all of this anyway. I actually keep track of political campaigns. I've also kept track of yours, you know. Do you mean to tell me that you've suddenly had a change of heart on these issues and that I should vote for you because you'll support what's already in our Constitution? Oh... Hmm. You don't say WHAT you stand for in this flyer. Well, I'm sorry, but I'm not going to vote for you, either, because you're going to have the insane ideas of your husband. We don't need a racist, two-faced liar like Obama (yes, racist... I ask you again, who would go to a church for THAT LONG and not realize the ideas of your own preacher? Either he was blind to the obvious, or he agreed... Both of which make him a terrible choice for President) and we don't need another Clinton weakening our armed and special forces again... Not during this war we're in. Sorry, I'm voting Republican. It is, after all, the lesser of three evils. Seriously... How does Hillary think that this will make any of us vote for her? She's just as liberal as Obama... I seriously doubt she's going to support guns and that she's just insinuating she supports guns to get our votes. But, hey! I always enjoy watching two liberals aim their twisted logic at each other. Makes them BOTH look stupid.

What I'd like to know, though... How did Hillary get my address? I'm not a registered Democrat.

Quick note: Why in all heck do gaming news sites have to lace their posts with bad language? I'm not talking about anything light, either... I'm talking about F-bombs and the like. Why? Is it to "connect" to the gamers of today? Do they think we won't take them seriously if they make a clean article we feel we can share with our parents if we want to? If anything, I think anyone who has to use profanity to get a point across is a very poor articulator who can't get their point across. If anything, I think sites that use profanity I am less inclined to treat seriously.

That is the reason I'm not linking to a Kotaku article that talks about a small interview with the original director of Okami. But, apparently, Capcom decided to CUT OUT THE CREDITS. Cut them out! The original credits are gone... Are there any credits at all? Maybe, but it doesn't sound like it. The original director is very upset and, to honest, so am I:

I really don't know what under pretext the credits were cut... What do you all think? I feel dejected, and not only because my own name has been erased from my creation. Of course we have pride in our work and we want to scream "We made this!" from the top of our lungs. But more than that, the fact that they cut the entire staff is utterly deplorable.

And from PlatinumGames Inc's FaceBook note (yes, Clover renamed again and has a FaceBook):

Finally, we arrive at Okami. Since I’m sure there are plenty of people who will still be playing Okami, I won’t go into specific details... However, it was the first time for us to make a long adventure, and so the staff roll was filled with all of the omoi appropriate for the end of a long journey. Of course, these weren’t just my omoi. They were the omoi of everyone who worked on the project, put together in a moment of bliss held out just for those who completed the journey. It was a special staff roll for a special moment. And now it is gone. All of it. ...It’s incredibly disappointing and sad.

(For the record, also from the note, the Japanese word "omoi" "is best defined as a combination of thoughts, emotions, and messages. I’ve left it in Japanese as I feel it better suits Kamiya-san’s intentions.")

I am... Speechless. Have any of you seen the PS2 Okami credits? They're absolutely AMAZING! It's not like your Mario credits where names scroll by and you can't skip them because you know there might be something after, but you get bored and wander off to make a sandwich... The Okami credits were almost as good as the game itself! Well, here's the video! See for yourself:

Man... I'm upset with Capcom. If I would have known this, I may not have bought the Wii copy at all... Yes, I'm that upset. Consider this a suggestion to AVOID the Wii version unless you have no other console. If you have the PS2 version... Get that one. This is just evil and I wish I didn't support Capcom on this. Blah.

So there I was... Browsing my RSS feeds. Man, I thought. This is really slow for some reason. But I didn't really pay attention to it until my hand brushed up against the side of my laptop. Man, I thought. This is really hot for some reason. Heat + Computers = Bad, so I DID pay attention. I checked my fan application and, uhm... My graphics card was operating at 152F IDLE. For those of you who don't know what that means? It was really hot and it wasn't even doing anything. If I went to do something, it would get REALLY hot, overheat and potentially damage itself. Bad news. Turns out the GPU fan wasn't working at all... In the process of working on this, I noticed that my processor is at an unhealthy 800MHz. This thing is supposed to run at 2GHz... It's not supposed to throttle itself. No wonder the computer was slow.

I had this problem before. I installed Vista and didn't work with the power profile and it was throttling the CPU whenever it pleased... I had disabled this. So I thought. I go to the Power Settings and go to fix the problem again but everything's the way I'd left it. According to Vista and all the CPU tools I have, the processor is running at 100%, even if that's only 800MHz. Something has happened to make the processor report that 800MHz is its top speed. Needless to say, I am very upset. I thought it would all clear up after a reboot, so I shut the thing down and worked on it for about an hour to clean up the fans to see if that would at least help the temperatures. It didn't... My laptop looks like a Borg node with all the covers taken off and cables spilling out everywhere.

In short: I think my laptop is dying. The CPU reports maximum speed of 800MHz even though it's capable of twice that. The GPU reports a temperature of 150 Fahrenheit when it's only rendering Windows. Nothing I do can make the fan run faster and nothing I do can make the processor run faster. My laptop, overnight, suddenly became USELESS for anything but browsing the Internet. It has the power of a tablet PC without having the touchscreen. I've been planning on getting a computer, but I was hoping that this thing would last for a LOT LONGER.

EDIT: I found some repair manuals from Dell, so I decided to crack the thing open. First time I did on my own and I managed to clean the heatsinks, so as far as air flow goes, it's like brand new. The GPU fan is harder to spin by hand than the CPU fan... Not sure what that means exactly, but it feels like it's building up resistance and the motor can't run it very well. Of course, Dell doesn't sell replacement fans (only refurbished heatsinks, however that works), so I'm going to have to either work with what I have or find third-party fans. When I booted it on the first time, the CPU didn't work properly... So I took it apart again, worked on the fan (to no avail) and checked to make sure everything was proper... And now the CPU works again, at least. It's sitting quaintly at 2000MHz top clock speed again. CPU fan can average 4000 RPM and the GPU fan can sometimes just barely peak 2000 RPM by itself... Sometimes, if I jumpstart the thing, it can get up to 2600 RPM. Bad... Bad bad bad. Need replacement fan now.