Up late talking games & writing? You're...

.
.
Games: Contrary to popular rumor, the Best of Community feature I've been plinking away at is still alive and kicking. I had to shelve it for a little while for various reasons, but I have two reviews that need to be posted tonight, and once those are in the can then I'm going to focus my full attention on getting the first installment of BoC up and running.
.
In other news, I never saw this one coming but the PSP's Phantasy Star Portable has been getting the majority of my playtime lately.
.

.
One reason is that I've been on the go much more than usual lately, so the ‘portable’ aspect has a lot to do with it. That aside, it's been a while since I played a good level-grinding loot-fest, so this one is fitting the bill. It's not one of the genre's best and it's certainly not as good as it could be, but it definitely has a certain charm. I'm not going to do a review due to time constraints, but here’s a quick breakdown after getting about 3/4ths of the way through the story mode:
.

.
Pros-
>surprisingly deep character creator
>fits in well with the established Phantasy Star series’ recent entries
>levels are relatively brief and easy to digest in short sessions
.
Cons-
>gameplay is very simple with no variation
>not enough crazy weapons and clothing/armor
>story is on the weak side
.
I assume that people interested in a grinding hack-and-slash/shoot-fest in the first place probably won't mind the repetition or weak story, but the relatively slow trickle of fancy weapons and appearance-changing outfits is a little bit of a bummer. Even so, I'm still having a good time with the game and I'm glad I took a chance on it despite being disappointed in the past few Phantasy Star efforts.
.

.
It would never fly in its current state as a console game, but on the PSP it works.
.
.

.
Food: Recently I've seen quite a few ads for a new (and allegedly healthy) snack bar called SoyJoy. I often have need of something that I can grab and eat on the go and I'm also a big fan of soy, so this seemed like something that would interest me.
.

.
As luck would have it, I ran into some people downtown who were giving away free samples, so I happily snapped up four or five different flavors. I ate the first one without giving it much thought and I have to say that it wasn't nearly as tasty as I thought it would be. Surprisingly dry and dense, it was almost like a small biscotti, and I'm not sure I mean that in a positive way.
I still had several left over so I figured I would just eat the rest of the samples and never worry about it again, but I started checking the nutritional facts label and I was a little bit shocked at what I found.
.
For starters, the fat content was much higher than something I would tolerate from a ‘health’ bar. The average seems to be about 6ish grams of total fat, and 2-4 grams of saturated. The fact that there is saturated fat at all in it was fairly troubling, but then I went down to the list of ingredients and I could hardly believe my eyes.
.
Butter, eggs, butter oil, and… Parmesan Cheese?!? This is stuff that I avoid in general, and none of it is something that I want in a bar being heavily promoted as soy-based. I really don't understand the rationale here, since people who will be attracted by a soy product are probably making efforts to avoid dairy, and with a significant fat content, it's hardly suitable for people who might be on a diet. Even worse, the bars taste like crap so it's not like they have some delicious flavor to keep me coming back.
.
SoyJoy: Fail.
.
.