New Years Eve was never a big deal to me.  My parents love it and they stay up late and host parties.  My mother thought I was depressed when I would go to bed at 10:00 pm.  I told her I was just tired.  I was just tired.

New Years Day is fun because of all the college bowl games.  My wife and I are having our families over to watch Michigan State, where my brother in law went to school, and see the play-offs.  We'll probably drink some beers, eat some food, and hang out.  It's a low key affair and no one takes New Years Day very seriously. 

January is the busiest time of the year for me for work so New Year Day is my last chance to relax, hang out, and not get stressed.  Then it is off to the races.

I have an eclectic taste.

1.  Final Fantasy III for SNES - You have it right.  It's a great story, great music, lots of fun, excellent character development, everyone can really hate Kafka and that opera scene blew my mind as a kid.  I can go back and go that beast over and over again and discover new things.  It's cool with the espers and creating characters by strengthening them in various ways.

2.  Dragon Warrior III for NES - The introduction to night and day, brilliant story telling, the return to the original kingdom.  If you wanted a nice old skool RPG game, Dragon Warrior III is a good one.  There are no princesses to save in this guy.  The main character is destroying the creature that killed his dad.  I go for the revenge factor.

3.  Final Fantasy X for PS2 - Great story, great graphics, great strategy.  It's seriously linear and I didn't like that too much but sandbox, free wheeling open games can get distracting and you lose track of where you should be.  And Sin is an awesome bad guy.

8bitofMe : Even if you don't drink, you should be able to understand the idea behind it.

Drinking legally is a right of passage, especially in the U.S.  It's social, it's what people do, it's ingrained in our culture as important, sexy, and it's what makes us adults.  You're not really an adult until you're 21 years of age and you can go drink a beer.

Look at all the commercials for alcohol.  Budweiser, Miller, and other beer companies have their commercials.  The most interesting man in the world (hilarious commercials) is for Corona.  Sports and alcohol are intertwined like Christmas and snow.

Also, there's not much else after 21 that is a stepping stone.  Your auto insurance rates usually go down around 25 years of age.  It's the final thing you get to do now in society.

You're asking the question so there may be some remorse in there.

Over 14 years a person can change.  She may have made terrible decisions many years ago and that's bad.  She took people from your life and that's terrible.  But blood for blood never really solves anything and doesn't give anyone peace.

Also, the response to your aunt, if she cared about this woman, was terrible.  The first thing you should do is apologize for that, even if it is exactly how you feel.  There's a thing called tact that lets us empathize with others even if we don't agree with them.  Someone probably didn't care for your relatives all those years ago and thought, "Thank god someone went and killed those (bad word) because they were (bad word)."  
It's not fair to your aunt.  Suicide is a hurtful and terrible thing and people's emotions are destroyed by it.

To answer your question: You should never be happy about human life ending.  Is it wrong to find peace and calm?  Absolutely not.  Her death ties up a terrible time in your life.  But should 'happy' be the correct emotion?  No.  That makes you a terrible person.

Find peace in yourself and move on.

There's something positive and old fashioned and glorious about picking the hero who saves the princess, the village, the city, the world.  I like those games if the story telling is compelling.  Final Fantasy X is a great story where the hero works with a woman who must sacrifice herself for the greater good and the unveiling of that tale is expertly crafted.

But it's not realistic and I like some realism to my games.  Games where the characters' motivations are good or evil and are simply based on the main character's drive are infinitely more intriguing to me.  Greater good?  That's a nice idea but most people are out for themselves.  They'd benefit from peace and justice but the motive isn't simply peace and justice.

Give me a character that breathes and lives and I'll take them, good or evil, over someone who's wooden and unbelievable.

I have always believed if a person wants to make a change in their life they should do it now instead of waiting for some start date down the road.  But everyone loves New Years as a time to start fresh and make changes.  If that's enough to motivate them, I'll try it myself.

I picked some goals from different aspects of my life.

Fitness - Do 20 pull-ups.

Marital - Kiss my wife more.  (I do kiss her, just more often)

Tech - Less than 30 minutes screen time a day

Social - Hang out with my friends 1x a month+

Intellectual - Write 1 short story a month.

There.  Publicly said.

What are everyone else's goals?  Try to make something up and go after it.

goku123 : Why not?  Beer tastes good, takes the edge off, and isn't the work of the devil.  Drinking a beer is a social event that brings new light to the world.

Why would you never do it?

Hey, Jade,

In a perfect world, our parents are people who love us unconditionally and without reservation and will do anything and everything to help their children (you) find every success and happiness.

Sometimes that doesn't always work.  Be it their belief system, their religion, their culture, whatever.  You have to look at this from both sides.  They may be shocked, offended, disgusted, or whatever because of what they know and what they're comfortable with.

You're you, though.  And the single most important thing you can ever do is accept yourself for who you are.  The next most important thing you ever do is love yourself for who you are.  If you get those two things out of the way and you unconditionally love and accept yourself, everything else falls into place.

Your age is a challenge, though, because you rely on your parents for everything and they're central to you're life.  When you hit 30, it gets easier because you can take care of yourself.

I would approach this with respect to what your parents may or may not do and say.  You can live your life and be yourself without offending them.  Find a way, however you can, and you'll be fine.

We can't tell you what to do.  We aren't having the experiences you are.  You know your parents and your family.  Find someone who will back you no matter what and talk to them.  They'll be the best folks to give you advice.

Good luck.  Stay true to yourself.

21 generally means very little except you can legally gamble in the U.S. and you can drink alcohol.

The alcohol part is a big deal but you have to be safe and careful.  Getting blown up and wasted and carried around is always a bad decision and it's not fun.  Find that perfect level of tipsy, drunk, having fun, but not out of control.  Out of control means you end up lost or in a gutter somewhere, in a bed somewhere (with someone you don't remember very well or even know) and it's just bad news.

If you've been drinking, learn to do it with some style.  Getting bombed is not as exciting as it seems.  Enjoy alcohol, be safe, and make sure you get home every night.

Have fun.

I'm going to be picky here.  The U.S. federal government constitutionally decide whether or not the death penalty is allowed.  It's a state right promised by the 10th amendment.  The states each get to decide how they try capital crimes and whether or not they will continue with their death penalty.

Me?  I don't have a problem with it.  The trouble is the appeal process is so lengthy and expensive it eats up more money than throwing prisoners away.

The United States is extremely aggressive with rights of our citizens.  They always say it's better to set 100 criminals free than let one innocent man or woman go to prison.  I'd like to see prisons that are much more aggressive with how they control their population.  Don't give them television, don't give them exercise or cigarettes, or any privileges.  Take away everything except clothes and bread and water.  I wonder how the crime rate would go if we had something much more terrible than some of the prisons out there.

jack3604 : They may continue asking you because it is extremely unusual to have one level all over your head.  Most people get hair slightly shorter on the sides and have it blended in so they don't look like tennis balls with one fuzz all over the place.

Me?  I love haircuts.  I go to a barbershop that is just guys.  They have a nice table made out of old hockey sticks.  They have beer and coffee available if you have to wait in turn and it's free beer.  They have nice tvs.  The talk is for men and we're all grown adults.  I live in Ann Arbor, where the University of Michigan is located, and the local bigwigs get their hair cut too at this place.  I've met deans, athletes, and so on.  They even have a sports book for betting on games and the guy that owns the place finds ways to get tickets for Michigan and Detroit sports.

Haircuts are social events.  You go there to engage in conversation with others, talk politics, sports, the weather, local news, and getting a haircut turns from a chore into a very pleasant event.  There are guys that go there and just hang out and drink beer for an hour or two.

They also do the hot oil straight razor neck and back-of-neck shave.  If you haven't had that happen, it's insanely awesome.  The women dig the smoothness of the your skin when you're done.

jmascis14 : I was in the Marine Corps for six years.  I fought for freedom and justice and traveled to four different continents, several countries, learned Japanese, got some great tattoos, and I now have a ton of interesting stories.  I was a sergeant of Marines when I got out with no extra holes in me.

taterii : I was thinking about the different characters and who could do what and how they fit in the story.

You crushed this question.  Close the thread, it's over.  Cid was easily the best character in all/any of the Final Fantasies.  Whether you played him in Final Fantasy II or you watched his antics, his skill, his technique, and heard his jokes.

Without a doubt, Cid wins the question.  Him and his hammers, smashing up dark imps, trying to recover crystals.
Boom.

-edited out-

The minimum number of words is interesting and I strive for at least 100 words to actually, you know... say something.  It takes no fewer than 100 words to really add to the conversation, say what you want, and help others to understand.

Anything less than 100 words.... meh, it's not worth the time to read it.

I'm an 'outside dog' more than anything and I'd rather be outside than in.  Moving from a year-round warm location to Michigan has taken a lot of zing out of my daily life because it's just nasty cold outside in the winter months.

If it's done outdoors, I've done it.  I like to hike, rock climb, and camp.  I go running and I take my dog for a lot of miles of walks.  I like to run up to a not too close park that has a pull-up bar and do pull-ups.   I spend time at the pool with my wife when it's summer out.  I play baseball, softball, football, soccer, and tennis outside.  I like to mow the grass and work on the backyard and front yard to make things look nice.  I work on the exterior of the house with repairs and such when it's warm out.

I'm still trying to get used to bundling up and doing winter sports.  They don't appeal to me and being a shut-in is challenging.  I'm still trying to find my healthy mix of indoor/outdoor during winter.  If I wait long enough, it will be March and I'll get back outside again.

There should be some kind of waiver that doesn't let the Cardinals get into the playoffs.  The questions they have at QB mean there is a 0.00% chance they'll make a Superbowl.

They're done because they don't have anyone who can throw the ball.  I love Drew Stanton, I watched him play at MSU and he's a good clipboard holder.  He's not a play-off winning, NFC title champion QB and that team is simply going to get blown up the first play off game they get.  They shouldn't even be allowed to make it.

Instead, take someone like the Lions or Packers.  Whoever wins that division goes.  The other team, even with 11 wins, may not make it because of the NFL south.

The Cards won't get to a Superbowl.  I'll bet my 80,000 Viz and anything else I have on it.

Barathemos :
What happened is we have so many forums and sub-forums and specific forums, people end up ignoring some.  There's a forum out here for automotive interests.  This website is populated (read: Dominated) by kids that aren't old enough to drive, much less own a car and care for one.  They don't have a first car from the 90s and they can't drive stick shift and cars and trucks aren't in the forefront of their minds, so they ignore the posts.

I'm not a car guy either.  I can do some things, as fancy as brakes and rotors, which aren't hard, but I don't know there's much conversation on here about vehicles.  I can ask how to change out a fuse if you like.  That would be good for two or three posts in a thread and it'd go back to be being dead.

We don't really need an automotive forum.  There's simply no interest.

It's all in the angle.  In real life, I play football (American, specifically) in first person.  I could not imagine trying to play Madden or NCAA first person.

The wide angle or the long angle, even in driving games, gives you a better field of view and lets you see what's next to you, behind you to some degree, and down the road.  First person is okay but third person is an advantage if you know what you're doing.  The same goes for shooters.  I'd prefer the version like Mercenaries where I can control from above.  I strongly dislike first person because it takes away so much of the ambient environment.  There is a lot to see besides bad guys and you can't always enjoy it when it's first person.

But to each their own.  If it works, keep doing it.

I'm confused.  You tell us you're new and you're a newbie and you want everything spelled out and don't use gamer language.

Now you tell us you not only understand what grinding is, you've experienced enough of it to (a) know it and (b) strongly dislike it.  You dislike it enough to use the word 'hate."

The thing about grinding is it lets you really understand the capabilities of players and it lets you develop them.  Some games, like Final Fantasy IV (The best in my opinion), lets you drive the bus and create different magic users through espers.  But you can only do it by winning battles and getting a specific form of experience to hone their skills.

Or if you look at Final Fantasy X, another great one, you can change the direction characters develop and it takes time and effort to really have fun.  The grinding should be an enjoyable part of the game.  It's not power leveling, it's building and army.

Start with Final Fantasy III.  It has a great story, it is not a long game, and it keeps things moving.

Have fun.