Are those titles leaving you confused? Don't worry, I'll address them later on. I want to take some time and address the most commonly asked question I received in my mailbox right here, so I'll hop right to it.

Xenogears Names

I was asked a similar question as the one that miyu and Stom received yesterday about a month ago, but because of that wonderful mess know as "stress" I deleted it in a fit of passion. Whoops. ^-^ After many of your e-mails, surfing, and talking to internet buddies (Thank you, TheContact!!!) I've compiled a semi-comprehensive list of the names of the Gears' names. Any I've omitted because I simply didn't have the time to find or I was uncertain. Do not send in corrections or additions to the list, because I'm not going back and adding them to today's column. Mwahaha...power... >:)

Weltall - "The Universe" in German
Vierge - "Virgin" in French
Brigandier - "brigandier". (A brigandier is a type of high-ranking general in the Swiss Army.)
Heimdal - The son of the god Odin in Norse Mythology.
Siebzhen - the number "17" in German
Achtzen - the number "18" in German
Stier - "bull" in German Gah... Soup Nazis' abound!

And now for the wonderful news... depending on your opinion.

You don't have to worry about seeing *another* new Q & A staffer, because Brad Lohr will be coming back to take over the weekends. No, Thor is not back. ^^;

And with that, I will apologize for the *extreme* shortness of today's column. All of your letters were either comments pertaining to Xenogears, quickies, or... miscellaneous.

On to Q & A Mayhem! (or lack thereof... ^^;)

1) It costs nothing - (upperbound being 0)
2) Infinite amount - (upperbound being infinity)
3) Negative infinity - (upperbound being negative infinity)

Logically, since the majority of the answers equate to nothing, or you giving the buyer infinite amounts of cash, the price must be less than or equal to 0. So how about giving it to me?

~Lord Bill

Veronica:
Jeez... if this is the price I pay for trying to be funny, screw it. I'll go the Ben Stein route. It was a joke... but obviously not quite understood. ^_^

You see, I'm absolutely horrible in math, and I mean horrible. Calculus scares me. I had a friend of mine generate an integral with a final answer of 300. Why? Well... 300's a nice number. I could mean $300.00, 300 Magic: The Gathering cards, 300 cases of Milk Pocky, 300 cars, 300 pennies... the possibilities are endless.
Bueller.........Bueller........Bueller.......

Hooooooooooowwwwwwwww'sssss
it gooooooooooiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnng? Heeeeeeeeeey,
dooooooooo yooooouuuuuuuuuuuu liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiike
viiiiiiiiiiideeeeeeeoooooo gaaaaaammmmmmmmmme muuuuuuuuuuuuusiiiiiiiiic?????
IIIIIIIIIIIII dooooooooooooooooo!!!!!

-slooooooooooooooth

Veronica:
Damn it, you found my horse tranquilizers, didn't you?

Anways, for what it's worth, a googol (the proper math spelling) is 1 followed by a hundred zeros, or 10^100... A googolplex is 1 followed by a googol zeros, or 10^googol.

For more info, check out: http://public.logica.com/~stepneys/cyc/g/googol.htm

-Gainax2k1

Veronica:
@_@ That's a lot of zeros.... Oh, thank you for the clarification!

Question number one: Why does Sorceress Adel look like a guy?

Because Square is implementing Affirmative Action into their games. First, Barret was introduced to represent the African population (good move, IMO), then Dr. Odine and Ultimecia (Accents are okay. Stuart Smalley says they are.) and Adel who represents a trans-uhm.... something (And that's okay as well.) I'm anxious to see what Final Fantasy game will contain the first albino weiner dog.

Question number two: Why is it that Meteor is so powerful that it can threaten the very existance of the planet in FF7, but it only does about 3000 damage total in FF8?

This is due to the style change in FF8. The characters are more realistic, so Squaresoft must have figured, "Hell, a meteor shower can't kill anyone. Let's lower the damage number so we'll be more believable." I'm not sure that quite worked... can one really keep Diablos as a pet or any other ancient spirit or deity for that matter? O.O

Question number three: Why is it that Holy is even more powerful than Meteor in FF7, but sucks hardcore in FF8? If I wanted to do 400 damage to one target, I'd attack...

Because Aeris's sunshine spirit that was sweeter than candy (*blech*) made biological magnification occur. This caused the Holy spell to become much more powerful and able to counter Meteor... or something. (I need to stay awake more in Biology....) Also, Squaresoft may have just played the Good vs. Evil theme a bit too much, with Holy representing "good" and Meteor representing "evil". Black Materia and White Materia back this up, as well.

Joe "funny comment/name/thingy goes here" Simper