In which I rip off of Penny-Arcade horribly.

I do not know what it is about lyrics and I. Perhaps I should not be singing along with a Mr. Nathan Gray when he sings "this world is a cesspool and love has surely died/you've got to bleed a little every day/and let the memories fade/fuck hope, signed me". If you are a boysetsfire devotee (No, seriously, that was his old band, and that band was spectacular.) then you won't recognize the lyrics as any of the bsf lyrics, but instead from his new project, which sounds like the Jam, XTC, Talking Heads, the Cars (but far more importantly) seminal emo bands, Samiam and Jawbreaker.

This new band is called the Casting Out, the song, is called Quxiote's Last Ride. To be sure, that title is a step away from titles like (Compassion) As Skull Fragments on the Wall, Release the Hounds, Suckerpunch Training, Dying On Principle and Falling Out Theme. Suffice to say boysetsfire, like any other band worthy of such a vivid name, played with dangerous, potent and troubling imagery.

How else could I define the shiver down the back of my spine when I first heard him scream "Where's your anger? Where's your fucking rage?" Now it's songs about girls. I'm fine with this. There will always be bands that play with potent and troubling imagery, and there will always be artists that choose that pallate over something more pedestrian, and I suspect I will continue to gravitate towards the former. That's really the only way I can explain that I picked up Persona 3 yesterday.

Persona 3, is, yes, the game where your character brandishes an object that looks suspciously like a pistol at the general direction of their skull to release helpful spirits. Needless to say, the game sounds interesting, at the very least. 5 or 6 reviews devoured later, I figured I could find worse uses for my $50. I may not be able to pick up the Modern Life Is War pre-order with the tshirt, but I figure the story and game will be worth it. To be specific, after reading the reviews, I figured the use of the potent and troubling imagery would be done intelligently and in a way that would fascinate me.

To be honest: I also heard it was a limited run, like all Atlus game, and the pre-orders came with a hardbound art book and soundtrack disc. I am a sucker for limited edition things, and I cannot deny those incentives were incredibly tempting.

In an time where my English professors kneel at the altar of Kerouac, where I am told from all sides that my childhood and adolescnce is incomplete until I walk in the footsteps of people I despise spending their money on other kinds of escapism than the ones I indulge in, a game where one of the core elements is a suicide excites me greatly. You want potent imagery? There it is. It's been overused by a lot of writers, but choosing death is one hell of a mindfuck.

To bring this back to Persona 3. Your character does not actually commit suicide. Skull fragments are not strewn across the floor, and once the battle is over, your character continues moving around the dungeon until morning. Apparently, during the day, the game plays as a dating sim.

But we'll talk more about this when I actually play the game. Until then, the Wii calls.