...for the year 2009 in review, here's a JibJab video:

Never a Year Like '09

Hope you like it, and Happy New Year!

Well, last night, my grandma Kearns and Uncle Andy came for a visit along with Cousin Kim, and later my brother Danny and his wife Michelle and my two little nieces Melora and Rowen came for a visit as well last night and tonight. Though we had fewer presents (I got chocolate, for example), we are still one big, happy family.

Hello. So it's not much, but today is Christmas Eve, so I want to say that I wish you a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

As you may know, I have now reached Level 20: Metal Slime! Isn't that cool or what? Anyway, I hope you take the time to congratulate me!

It's strange that while I was online and about to post on a website forums board today, suddenly an ad appeared and automaticallyredirected me to some dangerous site like angelsecurity.com, but I had to click on the "Back" button to go back to the time that I posted. That's strange, just like yesterday on Facebook. Have you ever had ads that automatically redirect you to some dangerous site?

As you may know, tomorrow will be Thanksgiving, so I hope you have a good time! Oh, and here's a video of President Obama and his family pardoning a turkey! How cool is that?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp=34150229�

Something is truly wrong with TV.com! There is a glitch that prevents me from logging in to the site, and it lasts for HOURS! When I click on a Login button, the login pop-up screen keeps freezing and won't appear! Even if it did appear and I put in my e-mail address and password, I'm STILL not logged in! Has anyone had the same glitch before? When will it be fixed so I can log in to TV.com again!

First of all, I have good news that two days ago, my sister-in-law, Michelle Morgan, had another baby girl, and I'm an aunt again! And as you know, today is my 27th birthday, so I want you to wish me a happy birthday. Here's the cool seafood cake from PaRappa the Rapper that I custom-made:

And yet, since I oppose the death penalty, my birthday feels so morbid and sad because of one thing last night: the execution of DC sniper John Allan Muhammad. As much as I hate to say this, it's a real tragedy when a U.S. state like Virginia punishes a heinous crime of premeditated murder with another crime of state-sponsored murder, like repaying a wrong with another wrong! I feel that vengeance solves no problems as many people believe it does. I feel somehow sad that the families of his murder victims got their vengeance satisfied in the form of justice by watching him get executed by the state of Virginia in spite of his withheld evidence of mental illness and child abuse and his unfair trial, and my heart breaks for them and for John Muhammad's family. People may say that an execution "prevents murderers like Muhammad from killing again, and brings justice, peace and closure to victims' families", but I don't think it does because of too many flaws, and I believe that executions are not justice, but sheer, ultimate revenge. I hope the families ofMuhammad and his victims may find comfort and forgiveness for what they have done.

I'm back again, and I've brought in the pictures that my dad uploaded onto my mom's computer, and I've uploaded them all onto Photobucket. These pics are for Halloween, and I'm here to show them to you. Remember the Lammy who's dressed up in camouflage in the U.S. version of Um Jammer Lammy in the pic shown here?

Well, here is a pic of me, dressed as Camo Lammy! Talk about life imitating art!

The only thing different is that instead of a short-sleeved camouflage shirt, I've got a long-sleeved one that covers the watch that I wear on my left hand (similar to the watch she wears on the same hand) and the white belt that I wear on my light green camo pants (similar to the one Lammy wears on her brown camo jeans). However, my addition is the three angel pins that I wear on my right breast. These pins symbolize that not only has Lammy got guardian angels at her side, but also that they represent the three members of MilkCan, and that they are a reminder of Teriyaki Yoko's line "Somebody come and rescue me before an angel comes to take me 'round and 'round" in the song "Taste of Teriyaki". Cool, huh?

Anyways, here are more Halloween pics, this time of Melora and of my mom:

And last but not least, the pics of the AHAD pumpkin! LOL

And that's about it.There are a few more random pics that I may show to you someday, but I hope you will like these pics that I have shown to you!

I'm sorry that I didn't tell you yesterday, but today is the day that Daylight Saving Time has ended. That means that it's time to set the clocks back one hour. BTW, I already did it on Halloween night last night, so I don't have to worry anymore.

I'm sorry, but I can't go out to a Halloween party tonight. Mom told me that she can't go with me, and that I can't go alone at night. She is too strict for me. Bummer. At least I'll still wear the costume and give out candy tonight.

...and it's all because of a trojan I unleashed! Something is wrong with my computer's browsers! I clicked on a link on the South Park Forums website that directs to the link that caused a Trojan to infect my computer! I got rid of the Trojan with my SUPERAntiSpyware, but now, every time I try to open my browser, it always gets shut down! And it only happened to my computer, even though it's connected and online! I'm using my mom's computer now! And I don't know whether the browsers on my computer will be fixed or not.

Halloween will be starting in almost two weeks. I already decided that I will be dressed up as Lammy in camouflage costume complete with make-up and twigs and a guitar in the U.S. version of Um Jammer Lammy. BTW, my mom doesn't know anything about Halloween! She believes that Halloween is for babies, and that adults don't celebrate Halloween unless they attend a costume party. Even when I told her about the costume party at a bowling alley on Halloween night, she said no! Man, she doesn't seem to understand anything! She never lets me do anything fun, and believes that all adults do on Halloween is give out candy and not wear costumes, which makes me and Halloween look boring and bland! I'm an adult, and all I want to do is to do something fun on Halloween, and there must be more fun to life than just hand out candy to trick-or-treaters at night!

I thought I would share another top number list from Cracked.com. This time, it's the 7 Horrifying Moments from Cla$$ic Kids' Films (Warning: The link contains foul language and bad grammar and punctuation.)

http://www.cracked.com/article/160_7-horrifying-moments-from-cla$$ic-kids-movies/ (Just put in the "s" in place of the "$" sign that I put in for you because TV.com and GameSpot won't allow words like "cla$$ic" in there! )

The weridest part has to be #3: The Brave Little Toaster -- Suicide and Clowns.

Beloved Because...: The Brave Little Toasteris the 1987 tale of five talking appliances' odyssey to get back to their original owner [that would be Rob, the boy whom they called "Master"], who presumably left them behind to cover his security deposit.

[Apparently, they didn't check the fact that Rob's family moved from the cabin to his apartment where he grew up. ]

But Then, the Horror...: Knowing that children are impressionable, the filmmakers made the wise decision to fill as many frames as they could with mechanized horror-beasts based on items every child could find in their very own home:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc5D6qxAGpo

The air conditioner [voiced by the late Phil Hartman] points out the fruitlessness of the other appliances' hope that their master will return, probably because he killed the guy himself.

[Picture of the Air Conditioner being angry.]

The air conditioner then works himself into a resentment-fueled frenzy over being stuck in a wall, as opposed to being free to s**k up stale Cocoa Puffs and broken shot glass shards like the lucky vacuum cleaner [that would by Kirby, voiced by the late Thurl Ravenscroft]. He becomes so filled with anger that he overheats and f**king burns to death,and the rest of the appliances leave his charred corpse to rot in the windowsill.

[Picture of the AC overheating. Caption: "Where the f**k is the talking fire extinguisher?!" Actually, after they left the cabin in search of their master Rob, meanwhile, he and his girlfriend Chris leave the apartment and return to find the cabin in a mess. Nonetheless they cleaned up the mess and fixed up the AC so that it is as good as new again.]

Also, later on in the movie we are treated to [Toaster's dream sequence]:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEdZh8a4ZvE

...because, as long as we're rounding the basis of irrational phobias, we might as well toss in a satanic clown.

[Picture of the firefighter clown. Caption: Sweet dreams, kiddies!]

Weird!

Hello. This morning we had a lot of browser problems. Even though we are connected, all our browsers were shut down, and we couldn't go online for hours! I know this because I went on the Internet this morning. Well, this late afternoon, we are connected and I can go online, but I don't know if our browsers can stay up for long. I do hope they get fixed so that we can stay online again. BTW, did you miss me?

I'm back. As it turned out, I slept all morning and fasted today. I even brushed my teeth and prayed the Rosary. I fasted through the morning when we got to the doctor's. The doctor examined my breasts for any lumps of cancer (there are no lumps today), and did a physical examination on my crotch for a sample (it was kind of painful ). And I even got through the blood test quickly by getting a blood sample drawn out by another doctor. I didn't even need to fast often, so I had lunch at McDonald's after my doctor's appointment. Anyways, I'm glad I'm back.

Tomorrow morning, I will be heading for the doctor's with my mom for a physical exam and a blood test. So that means that tomorrow I will only drink water between meals before I can get my blood test. Hope you will wish me well tomorrow until I return tomorrow afternoon.

#1. Maniac Mansion

Finally, we get to the part of the game that is heavily hit by censorship. And it was even in the pre-ESRB days. The game is called Maniac Mansion, and it was created by LucasArts for the Commodore and Apple computers in October 1987. The game puts you in the role of Dave Miller, whose girlfriend, Sandy Pantz, has been captured by the Edison family led by Dr. Fred and taken to their mansion, which had become haunted since the purple meteor landed 20 years ago and mind-controlled the Edisons, and only Dave, accompanied by his six friends, including Bernard Bernoulli, must find a way to save Sandy, stop the meteor and restore order to the Edison family mansion. In 1990, LucasArts began developing a Maniac Mansion video game for the NES, customized by the Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion, or SCUMM. Since LucasArts knew that NOA would not approve of games that "use profanity or obscenity in any form" or "depict random, gratituous or excessive violence", including the word "kill", they had to clean out the profanity, and replace "kill" with another word. At first, they replaced the words "Kill Thrill" on Maniac Mansion's arcade game with the m-word that ends with "Diver", but NOA later did not approve of the game because the m-word depicts "sexually suggestive or explicit content" that refers to a woman's... well, you know; so they replaced the m-word with the word "Tuna" in "Tuna Diver". But just when they thought their work was complete, the game was sent back from NOA with more rules regarding the words, "For a good time, Edna", Edna's sexual advances when capturing a player and hauling them off to a dungeon, and her sexual words while talking on the phone, referring to "sexually suggestive or explicit content"; using the word "s uck", but not "s ucker-face", as "profanity or obscenity in any form"; Weird Ed's words to his mother Edna that Dr. Fred "hasn't eaten in 5 years... and he carries these bodies to the basement at night" as depicting "random, gratituous or excessive violence", especially cannibalism; and using posters and Michelangelo's statue as, again, "sexually suggestive or explicit content including... nudity." NOA even mentioned the "NES SCUMM system" as a reference that they "did not understand". That left LucasArts stunned, so they cleaned all the content, including sexually explicit content involving Edna and her advances and phone number; changing Weird Ed's words to say that his father Dr. Fred "hasn't slept in 5 years", referring to Dr. Fred's room that has indeed never been used; changing Dr. Fred's words to say that Sandy is getting her "pretty brains removed"; and removed the posters and the statue that involved nudity (LucasArts tried defending the statue, and NOA complied to keep the statue only if they could remove pubic hair, which turned out to be non-existant, so they were forced to remove the statue altogether). Afterwards, they removed the reference to the "NES SCUMM system" because they didn't think NOA would want to know (though they removed only the image of the pennant, the pennant can still be highlighted at the top-left corner, which reads "SCUMM U RAH"). However, when they kept the use of the hamster as a cooking tool that explodes in the microwave when the game was released to U.S. shores, NOA raised an outcry and wanted it removed, but the "exploding hamster" thing never bothered the children in the U.S. at all. It was only when the game was sent to Europe as a PAL version that the "exploding hamster" thing was removed. As Douglas Crockford later recalled at the end of his written story The Expugation of Maniac Mansion for the Nintendo Entertainment System, "Nintendo is a jealous god." Nintendo and other game platforms have since come a long way with the creation of the ESRB, which is now nothing to worry about regarding censorship. And as for Maniac Mansion, it spawned a sequel called "Day of the Tentacle" and a short-lived TV series and references in other video games. And this is why, despite all the heavy censorship it endured for the NES, Maniac Mansion still remains a cult cla$$ic, gaining its top spot as #1 on the list of Video Games Changed by Censorship.

#2. Um Jammer Lammy

Here's another PlayStation game that had the same censorship as the Breath of Fire IV game. But first, it starts with Japanese game developer NanaOn-Sha, creator of the first cult cla$$ic rhythm video game PaRappa the Rapper. It's kind of weird that the game, though made in Japan, had a list of English-speaking voice actors playing the roles of the game's paper-thin characters (created by U.S. artist Rodney A. Greenblatt), including PaRappa, who is voiced by John Simpson III, a.k.a. Dred Foxx. The game made a great success in Japan in 1996, and when it came to the U.S. in 1997, it achieved great moderate success. The "PaRappa the Rapper" game went on to spawn a sequel, an anime TV show, and even its moderately popular spin-off that would become a phenomenon, and that spin-off is (weirdly since "Bad Dudes vs. DragonNinja") titled Um Jammer Lammy. Again, like the first PaRappa game, though it was made in Japan in 1999, UJL has a rhythm pattern and a list of English-speaking voice actors playing the roles of the same paper-thin characters with one completely new protagonist. And did I mention that the game featured the first-videogame voice-acting debut of future Grey's Anatomy star Sara Ramirez as Lammy? Anyway, the game was released to Japan's shores on March 18, 1999, and had the same moderate success as its predecessor. Then, in the summer of 1999, Sony Computer Entertainment and NanaOn-Sha wanted to release the game to U.S. shores to see if they can get an "Everyone" rating from the ESRB and appeal to American audiences, originally slated for the end of July. Everyone thought it would be easy, right? Wrong! Actually, there was a problem regarding the game's U.S. release. A MAJOR problem. And it's not just because of the Paul Chuck stage whose song lyrics strongly implied deforestation and illegal logging, which could be a major damage on Mother Nature, and had to be toned down so they no longer apply to "chopping down trees for fun." No, the real major problem lies in Teriyaki Yoko's stage. Suffice it to say that it was deemed too intense and problematic for the "Everyone" rating because of religious and violent issues involving hell and the devil, as shown in the link to this video here:

UJL Stage 6: Vital Idol (Hell Version)

To remedy the problematic stage, Sony Computer Entertainment America and NanaOn-Sha rewrote the storyline so that it involves time-travel, rewrote the song lyrics in Lammy's Stage 6 so they no longer refer to the devil, rewrote the Stage 1 song lyrics to reflect the new Stage 6 storyline, and had the game's voice-actors reprise their roles in the toned-down stages and their songs. The result is the video of the new Stage 6 storyline shown in this link:

UJL Stage 6: Vital Idol (Island Version>

And it's strange that while the original storyline had Lammy die and battle for her life in hell's concert and then brought her back from the dead via fax machine, the rewritten storyline has her get flung back in time onto a tropical island where she has to battle the same Teriyaki Yoko at a concert in its volcano in order to return to the present via same fax machine... in her new jungle camouflage wardrobe! That's right: Lammy's clothing is changed into the camo costume design (as are the appearances of Katy Kat and Ma-san in the intro to the final stage) to fit the island/jungle storyline with a twist! Also, while the original version of Yoko's song "Taste of Teriyaki" had her sing "The devil would come back to pick me up with you," the song is rewritten due to religious issues with U.S. censorship, so that she now sings, "Somebody would come back to pick me up with you." Even weird is that the word "angel" is still kept intact in the song, but not the phrase "The angel's been mean to me," which has been altered in PaRappa's version of the song; yet why they kept the word "angel" intact besides religion is beyond me. Anyways, after a final test run, the game's date was pushed back so that it was released in the U.S. on August 17. Of course, it was only in the U.S., as later in 1999, the game was released as a European PAL version in September, with all the game's content in Japan's version left intact and uncensored. Despite censorship, the game had modest success and went on to win the E3 1999 Video Game Awards for Best Puzzle/Trivia/Parlor Game and Outstanding Achievement in Sound. After 10 years, UJL still remains a cult cla$$ic, which is why it is #2 on the list of the Video Games Changed by Censorship. Up next: #1.

#3. Breath of Fire IV

Here's another game that has been changed by censorship in spite of the ESRB. And it's a PlayStation game entitled "Breath of Fire IV", the fourth game in the Breath of Fire series. It's kind of strange that in Japan, the game's subtitle literally means: "One Who Changes All to Nothing". This game takes place in a world divided into two kingdoms: the Fou Empire and the Eastern Kingdom, which is at war. While all this is happening, Elina, sister of Nina and love interest of Cray, has disappeared. Both Nina and Cray have to go on a search for her. Along the way, Nina encounters Ryu, a hero with the powers of the dragon, whose powers had become separated when his other half, the Emperor Fou-Lu, became divided from him six centuries ago. Now that Fou-Lu has awakened, he believes it's time to reclaim the throne and take what is his, and Ryu and his friends must try to stop him from ascending to godhood and destroying the world while trying to find Elina at the same time. When the game came to the U.S., however, it had major problems that involve violence, foul language, blood and gore, suggestive themes and content, nudity and alcoholism that would have qualified for a Mature rating. But the programmers wanted to get a "Teen" rating for it, so they removed some nudity scenes involving Nina and Ursula, Scias' slurred speech pattern was replaced with his stutter, the foul language was cleaned up, and they removed the scene (that would have been worthy of "Mortal Kombat" or "Resident Evil") in which Fou-Lu pulls out the sword from his body after Emperor Soniel has stabbed him, and proceeds to decapitate Soniel! In spite of censorship, the game was pretty well-received,which is why it is rated #3 on the list. Up next: #2.