A semi-occasional list of Cool Things:

Europa Universalis 2. I keep playing as the Ottoman Empire, trying to re-unite the Muslim Caliphate and eventually sweep over the heathen Venetians (anyone who plays EU or EU2 will develop quite a healthy distaste for the Venetians, lemme tell ya). I can usually take over the Byzantines by 1450 but when I start sweeping eastward into Armenia and Syria Aragon and Venice tend to 0wnzeriz3 me.

Final Fantasy X for the PS2. Maybe I’m easily impressed, but when you can BARELY TELL the difference between in-engine game sequences and rendered animations, the bar just got raised.

Junichiro Koizumi, the Prime Minister of Japan. When a North Korean spy ship got sunk in Japanese waters and the North Koreans spouted the usual bluster, Koizumi said in response, “They say a lot of things, don’t they?”. That just struck me as too ineffably cool for words.

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