Robot Hand is the Future

THE END OF ROBOT HAND: The master of my own domain

2008-04-05T13:54:00.003-04:00

I bit the financial bullet (and the time-consumption missile) and bought my own real-life web site! Who knows what will be on it? You do not! Neither do I! The web site is Ugly Food for an Ugly Dude. I figured, why not take a chunk of that sweet, sweet blog profit for myself?

I think there won't be any more Robot Hand and the clunky Blogger software. I've installed Wordpress on my server and it is spunky-swell at this point.

My new site will also function as my personal blog. Please join me on this magical, erotic adventure.

If you are a friend of the Robot Hand, I'd be more than happy to have guest-posts on my new website. Either way...

Please visit UglyDudeFood.com now!

It was the best thing I ever done!

2008-04-03T07:36:00.000-04:00

I was perusing my non-food blogroll, I stumbled across Hump Day Stories, which had a wonderful, food-relevant post this morning in regards to the late, apparently-great Williams Smoke House ribs.

I swear to God, [the rib] was so good that I dropped it and stared at it. My eyes were wide. I was looking at the rib like I just watched it punch my mother in the face, like I was angry at it for what it had done to me. In a sense, I was, but only because I equate pleasure with anger due to my damaged childhood. The bite of meat was already starting to melt in my mouth, the sauce mixing with fat and salt. Simply put, it was the most perfect bite of food I’ve ever taken.

I read this and just knew. Back in my younger, fatter, meat-eating days, I had one goal in life: to recreate my first Tony Luke's experience.

I must have been in middle school. We were just settling down to a warm winter's intolerable Philadelphia 76ers basketball game (intolerable not because of the fact that the Sixers were playing poorly, but because watching organized sports makes my eyeballs want to bleed).

With not much time before we had to hit the nosebleeds, we stopped by what looked like a rinky-dink shack under a bridge--Tony Luke's. My father and brother grabbed Philly cheesesteaks (or as "Philly cheesesteak" as my family gets, which is to say that they were simply beef and American cheese, topped with far more ketchup than any one bun can hold), and I opted for the Roast Pork with Sharp Provolone.

I'm not sure what did it for me. Was it my first-ever taste of sharp provolone cheese? Fresh, tender pork? A big old white bun full of fat? I don't know, but I'm pretty sure I had my first-ever orgasm then and there. From that moment on, it was my goal to recreate that heavenly experience in my own kitchen.

Problem number one: I was thirteen years old, and without a source of income or outside food. Problem number two: we never had pork just plain-ol' lying around. I was stuck with Steakumms. The cheese situation was slightly--but barely--better. We usually had a block of extra-sharp cheddar cheese sitting in the refrigerator. It was close, but clearly not the same, I chopped up four-to-five Steakumms and melted upwards of a quarter pound of fatty, delicious cheese. They fried in their own fats and juices until the whole thing was one congealed patty of cheese and low-grade cowmeat.

Needless to say, I had no success in recreating that first Tony Luke's moment. In fact, the only success I had was in the weight-gain department. These experimental cheesesteaks brought me from a plump 260 pounds to a morbid 300, which in turn caused me to take control of my life and become an obsessive-compulsive, anorexic, vegetarian freak.

Thanks a lot, Tony Luke's.

So I would like to ask the readership (which is, at this point, nonexistent): what is the absolute best meal you've ever had? Did you have a transcendent experience like Geth over at Hump Day Stories? Do you find yourself "chasing the dragon" to relive a certain food-type experience that will never come?

There is always room!

2008-03-19T00:50:00.001-04:00

First thing's first--I am here to proclaim my love for sugar-free Jell-O. There is nothing like gorging yourself with a forty-calorie bowl of flavored horse goop, getting all of those empty calories you used to get (without all the guilt of seeing that "240%" next to "Sugar" in your daily Calorie Count analysis)! Replace the water with a can of sugar-free Amp and watch the world spin.

Second thing's second--beans, while neither musical nor a fruit, are probably pretty good for your heart. I've been rehydrating and chomping pinto-beans like there is no tomorrow (which there may not be, depending on how much artificial sweetener I suck down in the meantime). I would recommend beans for those who need fiber, vegetarian protein sources, or obscene butt noises!

For years, I've had a fascination with baking. Here are some cupcakes that I made the other day. They are Chocolate Cherry Dr. Pepper Cupcakes (click for recipe). My icing is a weird consistency, but they apparently tasted great. How would I know? I'm manorexic. I ate some butternut squash and left the thirty-five cupcakes to the professionals.

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. In this case, I think the photograph probably screams "I want a damn cupcake!" two hundred times, until it finally reaches its thousand-word quota and falls asleep in a pile of its own goo.

And for those of you who dare to attempt the recipe, here is an approximate calorie count per cake.

Take note that there are 21 grams of sugar in each iced cupcake. This is the net weight of one human soul. Do with this information what you will.

CHOCOLATE CHERRY DR. PEPPER CUPCAKES -- Cupcake

Calories 347

Fat 9g

Sat Fat 5

Cholesterol 31mg

Sodium 108mg

Carbs 65g

Fiber 1g

Sugar 21g

Protein 2g

Vitamin A 4%

Calcium 2%

Iron 9%

Ugly food for an ugly dude

2008-02-29T14:25:00.002-05:00

If you've been reading my silly blogs over the past few years, you'll know the following:

In April of 2005 I weighed 300 pounds. By November I had dropped to 170. I had done it in a completely unhealthy way.

As a result, I ate the same exact thing EVERY DAY from November 2005 to February 2008 to avoid depriving myself of nutrients and calories ever again.

But not anymore. Oh, heavens no! I'm trying to introduce healthy variety so I can be happy (or at least so that my brain doesn't explode).

Here's some pictures of weird (and normal) foods I've been eating.

Kashi GoLean/Wheaties combo

Egg-white omelet w/ broccoli and Boca "meat"

Egg-white/chili powder omelet wrap (sealed w/ white-trash mustard) w/ dried asian pear

Panda-brand Licorice

Influenza

2008-02-27T20:16:00.000-05:00

Suck it, life.

The Mike Show! (Episode 1)

2008-02-21T07:16:00.002-05:00

Icy weiner

2008-02-13T17:52:00.003-05:00

Stay tuned--next update will include pictures of the BEST MCDONALD'S RESTAURANT YOU'VE EVER SEEN.

Birthday for Danzo

2008-02-11T01:44:00.001-05:00

Assorted photos from my brother's birthday.

Fat Tuesday

2008-02-06T00:11:00.001-05:00

Fat Tuesday
Originally uploaded by robothand

FOOOD

Attn:

2008-02-05T11:40:00.000-05:00

Save the office drama for your office mama.

Reflections

2008-01-30T07:31:00.001-05:00

Reflections
Originally uploaded by robothand

I've started color-timing and digitally manipulating my photography...

And I'll never go back, methinks.

Helpful office tip!

2008-01-28T17:40:00.001-05:00

Hey, yo, it's your ol' pal Mike Spoodles here with a friendly reminder to assist you in your office-worker endeavors!

If you spend all day complaining about how other people don't work, you are actually not working either!

Welp, that's all for now!

My award

2008-01-09T21:58:00.001-05:00

Bushiest Beaver
Originally uploaded by robothand

I won!

Motivation

2008-01-03T06:28:00.000-05:00

I got a new phone on Christmas Eve. It came with a $50 mail-in rebate. The forms are already filled out for me electronically. I need to do two things to redeem my rebate:

cut off proof-of-purchase
address envelope

That is all I need to do to get my free money. The easiest fifty dollars I'll ever make.

The rebate material is sitting in a bag under my bed. Where is the motivation? Think of all the things I could buy with that fifty dollars! That's fifty items at the dollar store! Or one item at the fifty-dollar store!

I am not motivated to end this sentnece with punctuation

I am not motivated to fix the typo in that last sentence.

I am not motivated to finish this blog pos

Review the World!

2007-12-31T06:47:00.000-05:00

Hey, do you guys know Review the World? If not, you should look at Review the World! But look fast, because Review the World is closing its doors in the next few weeks.

I've been a fan of the site since I found it among the comments of X-Entertainment.com's blog a few years back. Since then, I've been an avid reader of both the site's reviews and the owner (Brian)'s blog. Unlike much of the Internet, Brian's writing is not fraught with sarcasm or ill-will. He is genuinely enthusiastic (or genuinely underwhelmed) with the things he reviews. As such, his site is fresh and fun at all times. It's not just reviews, either. Brian posted, on occasion, really great short stories and poetry.

Here is the final article from Review the World: Unreleased Reviews Circa 2003.

And here are my five favorite things on Review the World. Click fast, because the site is going down soon!

5. 25 Years of Me: A photo retrospective of the first 25 years of the webmaster's life. This is probably the best example of Review the World as the perfect hybrid of review content and blog-esque personal reflection. We could all probably stand to do something like this for ourselves.

4. Bra Removal Guidebook: This sounds like something I really need, but it's actually a piece of the webmaster's fiction. It's a short look at first love, loss, inspiration, and moving on. I like it very much.

3. Review the World TV: Halloween. This is probably the best of the edited videos on the site. It features my favorite intro, a review of Ol' Dirty Bastard's personal snack treats (FROM BEYOND THE GRAAAAAAAVE!) and a Creepy Crawlers bit with hilarious aftermath. At a hefty 65 minutes, you won't find yourself hurting for Halloween-related entertainment

2. Jones Soda 2005 Holiday Pack Tasting Party: Another video. Brian wrangles up a bunch of friends to try the most disgusting of sodas. Not only was the Jones Soda 2005 Holiday Pack full of horrific flavors like Smoked Salmon and Broccoli Casserole, but it was expired. The reactions are hilarious, and it seems like this review got a lot of hits on the Internet (and rightfully so).

1. Review the [Walt Disney] World: This is probably cheating, because this actually spans any number of articles, but shut up your face! It all started with massive reviews of both MGM Studios and Animal Kingdom (two of the subparks). A second trip turned up a photo travelogue, and a whole bunch of restaurant reviews (Restaurantosaurus, ABC Commissary, Portobello Yacht Club, Lotus Blossom Cafe). Unlike the previous four entries in this list, I'm not sure if I can point out any specifics or favorite things about these articles--they're far too sprawling. However, I love Walt Disney World and I love Review the World, so this is the perfect match.

My advice? Go to the archives and read as much as you can. Page through and look for stuff that seems interesting to you. Review the World will live on through a YouTube channel called RTWTV, which I recommend you bookmark.

Why I Don't Blog

2007-12-30T17:51:00.000-05:00

I do not blog because I am boring.

I very rarely do anything with my time. I sit around and play Spider Solitaire. Badly. I listen to my iPod on shuffle. I can count the things I've done outside of the house in the year 2007 on my nine fingers, and I can't count much of anything on the finger that got chopped off in the garbage disposal.

When I'm with my girlfriend, we sit and watch movies. I can't review movies anymore. Do you know why? Because I like them all. I have no discerning taste. I'd be just as happy watching Walk Hard or Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd over Citizen Kane or The Godfather--perhaps moreso. I've done 44 "Movie Review" posts on this blog, many of which actually cover multiple films. Only one of those reviews had something negative to say, and even that really had more to do with kneejerk reactions and personal politics than any measurable quality in the film.

In fact, further research shows that there are maybe only ten worthwhile posts in the history of this blog.

So what to do when you have a blog but can't blog? Well, I guess you blog anyway. I will write about myself and the things I like, and more importantly (to me and certainly not to you), I'll do it frequently. That's my New Years resolution, my grown-up Christmas wish, my Hannukah hope, and my Ramadan dream. My April Fools Day miracle! My July Fools Day treat-sicle.

As far as photography goes, I'm planning on doing the 365 Days Project. I'll be taking a photo every day and chronicling a year in the life. I read the news today, oh boy. Probably won't blog on them, but they'll all go up on my Flickr page.

I am out of words. Good day.

Overheard in Hershey, PA

2007-12-27T07:16:00.000-05:00

"I hate fuckin' tourist season."

-Grumbling man outside of Hershey's Chocolate World, where every day is fuckin' tourist season.

OH GOD I THOUGHT IT WAS NOVERMBA

2007-12-24T17:27:00.001-05:00

Merry Christmas, Internet blog!

Probably misses his old glasses

2007-12-09T08:13:00.000-05:00

So what has this life wrought since I last regaled you with inane thoughts and banal chatter almost a month ago?

Internetted Datting--the update! I said I wasn't going to update on this anymore, but then I met a special la-dy. We've been seeing each other for something like a month-and-a-half now, with the hope that there will be many, many more month-and-a-halfs to follow. We've been commuting back and forth to each other's houses every weekend and some weekdays, much to the detriment of my blogging and much to the benefit of the oil companies.
Derek and Ashley had their baybee Congratulations to both of you. If you read this, Baron Von Trundlebed (which I doubt because you're busy raising a small child), I would like to shake hands with your son sometime, and I also have a small gift for mommy and daddy.
I'm planning on starting a rap group called "Brigham Old," with the first album to be called "Too Brig for Their Bitches."
I've gone far too long without my big, black emo glasses. If I could choose what my first child would look like, he would look like those glasses. And instead of feeding him, I would wear him on my face. Like glasses. In January, I'll finally have vision insurance (and dental insurance), and so I'll be able to get some saucy new glasses.
Saw a kid on Heelys (correct spelling--I checked) blowing around the mall the other night screaming at the top of his lungs. His parents were completely oblivious. Somebody needs to give that kid a high five...right to his face.

Seriously. If I ever have a kid, I'm gonna teach him to shut up.

With duct tape.

Don't give me that look! It is like a diaper for words!

Well, now that I'm about to be court-ordered never to set foot near a child again, I guess I should be off. Good day, friends!

Falling from the sky

2007-11-18T14:48:00.000-05:00

I went skydiving with my buddy Tim yesterday. It's taken a lot of saving and a little patience, but it finally happened.

We started out watching a ten-minute video telling us all the people we weren't allowed to sue if we died, and then we signed waivers getting rid of all of our legal rights. After that, there was about an hour of training.

I've never been in a plane before, so I had an interesting first experience. The thing was tiny, probably only suited for the pilot and one passenger. There were five people on the plane total, so we were pretty much a tangled orgy of arms and legs until the first person jumped out. I spent the ride curled up on my knees. There were people with legs on one another's shoulders. It was pretty nuts. Visibility was low on the plane (we passed through a low strata of clouds) but we could see Harrisburg and we buzzed really close to TMI.

It was five degrees at top altitude, but as cold as I usually am I didn't notice because there were more pressing issues. For instance, the "10,000 foot jump" doesn't sound too intimidating. I know what a foot is. A foot is little. But when I heard it stated as "a two-mile drop," man did I ever get nervous. But the fear itself didn't hit until the door opened on the plane and people started disappearing from the wing.

Of interest: one of the others in the plane was a seventy-five year old man who has jumped over eighteen-thousand times.

There are two phases to the jump. The first mile is spent in free-fall, which lasts approximately forty seconds. The second mile is spent in "canopy" with the chute open. In canopy, you take the controls and steer the thing and do crazy spins and stuff (until landing time when you are given more specific instructions). If you remember your training, this should all go fairly smoothly.

After you jump off the wing, you completely forget your training in favor of "holy shit i'm falling." As a result, the first half of my free-fall was spent tumbling like a rag-doll (which was by far my favorite part of the jump) until my tandem instructor knocked my arms and legs into position. We fell back through the clouds, which turned out to be full of sleet. I thought that was pretty cool.

The canopy ride was fun too. If you're falling on a clear day, you can see Baltimore from central PA (and if you go at night you can see the lights of Inner Harbor). I did lots of spins during the canopy ride, but Tim didn't get to do as many because he felt a little sick.

My landing was a little rocky because I didn't "brake"/flare as much as I should have. Meanwhile, Tim landed on his feet.

All-in-all, skydiving is a great time. Money-pending (all the classes, gear, and jumps are expensive), Tim and I will be starting training in the spring so that we can get licensed to jump on our own. After the training, every jump is only fifteen bucks (since you don't need instructors or rental equipment, you're just paying for the pilot and the gas).

More pictures are here if you'd like to see them.
Set up your own skydiving trip.

Bloggin' with my bloggin' buds

2007-11-14T19:07:00.001-05:00

100_1274
Originally uploaded by robothand

From Knocked Up: "Do you ever wonder how somebody could even like you? The biggest problem in our marriage is that she wants me around. And I can't even accept that? I don't think I can accept pure love."

I've made no bones about it that I have become an alarmingly introverted. For the most part, it sickens me to leave the house. This can probably be attributed to some mental problem or something. I don't know much about mental illness. I'm usually too busy tapping doorframes and pulling out the hair from my head strand-by-strand to research that kind of junk.

So I make plans and I dread them. I always dread them.

What's my problem? My friends want to spend time with me, and for some reason I hate it.

It's not even the actual events. After I drag myself to these get-togethers, I invariably have a great time. I went out karaokeing on Friday and didn't want to leave. Last night I played a game and watched a movie with my best friend. These are fun things and I always tell myself that next time I am not going to be so wretched about the whole thing.

It don't work.
____________________________

I received a message from Lauren Gohde today telling me to update my Robot Hand Internet Web Site. If you enjoyed this post, you have Lauren Gohde to thank, and you should probably give her some flowers and some candy. If you did not enjoy this post and wish I had just stayed away from the Internet, you have Lauren Gohde to thank, and you should probably punch her in the bowels.

I would prefer you give her presents though, to be quite honest.

Tonight's the night

2007-10-31T23:46:00.001-04:00

100_1134
Originally uploaded by robothand

Happy Halloween, see.

One more day

2007-10-30T22:09:00.001-04:00

100_0980
Originally uploaded by robothand

Pimps and hoes come out to play

Ghosts and goblins

2007-10-28T11:16:00.001-04:00

100_0946
Originally uploaded by robothand

Two more days.

Tricks and treats

2007-10-27T11:18:00.000-04:00

100_0960
Originally uploaded by robothand

Three more days.

Hey guy.

2007-10-21T21:35:00.000-04:00

A very close family friend passed away this weekend. His name was Rich.

Let's venture back-in-time several years. I was with my Grandma at a funeral, and Rich was giving one of the Biblical readings. As he delivered the verses, he became overwhelmed with emotion. He got choked up and began to cry. Grandma later joked that she wanted Rich to read at her funeral so that somebody would cry for her.

A few years later, Rich did read a passage at Grandma's funeral. And he was, once again, moved to tears.

Now I don't really have anything but my memories (and even those fail me most of the time these days). I will remember Rich for his heart, and I hope that, after reading this, you all will assess the amount of heart you put into everything you do. I'm trying to.

Welp

2007-10-14T18:43:00.000-04:00

Here are some things for you to know:

Internet Dating Wrap-Up: Oh, I'm not done dating the Internet, but the updates have been boring to me. There's not a whole lot of ladies in my area, but I've been having some fun conversations with fairly local ones about writing and video games, and--dating or not--really it's just kind of nice to have pleasant interactions with people about topics I dig, so I'm all in all enjoying it. I would recommend OKCupid for funs and frivolities.
A lot of fun new photographs have been added at the Flickr account. If you're interested in seeing the more "personal" (lol) photos, make a Flickr account and let me know about it. I'll add you to my "friends" list.
Since I can't get through a blog post without discussing the bathroom: WOMEN! They have a vending machine in the bathroom, full of tampons and pads and whatnot, but also candy and mints. Why do they get candy and mints when we get nothing? I guess it's all part of the package. Feminine hygiene products for the business, and mints for their breath when they're done bitching about it.
Need motivation for something hard that you don't want to do?

Buy yourself a piece of candy, but don't let yourself eat it until you finish the task. Then you have motivation to do it.

Get another piece of candy, and tell yourself you're only allowed to eat it if you do really well on it--for instance, an 85% on a test. Now you have motivation to do really well.

If you get less than 85%, that's okay too. You can throw your candy at somebody as you drive by. It is important that you pick a heavy candy.

Internet Photography, Internet Dating, and Internet

2007-10-04T18:32:00.001-04:00

Photography has, for the time being, taken over for fiction-writing in my day-to-day hobbies. It's not that I'm particularly good at it, but it's not like anybody cares, either.

To me, good writing is something that I can forget that I wrote, look back, and laugh. If I can't make myself laugh, I really don't receive any enjoyment out of it. That's why I've pretty much stopped taking writing seriously, reducing it down to bullet-pointed items and silly vignettes about talking penises.

Real writers workshop their writing. I don't want to do that. If somebody else gives me a suggestion, the stuff I write will become something other than mine. It will be a group effort. A collaboration. It becomes less about amusing myself and more about pleasing others, and that's not something I want to do. It may seem self-centered, but honestly who gives a crud.

I get the same simple enjoyment out of photography as I do with writing, except I know that I'm virtually talentless in the field of photography. I own a $100 point-and-click camera. Anybody's grandmother can "become a photographer" with the same equipment these days. I feel like, with photographs, I can just take pictures that make me happy. I take pictures of Marshmallow Peeps and bizarre Mexican candies in a macrostudio that I built over the course of a weekend.
Internetted Dating Update: I got a message from somebody, and we chatted on AIM for a while. I looked more closely at her profile and it says she's currently in a relationship. Why would she be on a dating site (and actively seeking people by messaging them) if she were in a relationship. Ugh. Otherwise, coming up pretty much emptyhanded. I sent a few messages which either haven't been received yet or were ignored. Whee!

At this point, I've been pretty selective with the people I message. Some shared interests are nice, and if they look like they have a sense of humor. Or, if they can support a dopey male secretary who longs to write crappy fiction. Would be a perk. But still, being single is of primary concern here, people.

Chick singers

2007-10-01T22:46:00.000-04:00

Why did nobody tell me about all the awesome chick singers there are out there? Here I've been sobbing to depressing boy music when I could be sobbing to depressing chick music and looking at their breasts. All at the same time. The overuse of italics takes away their emphasis. I'm speaking mostly about Regina Spektor, but also Feist and Ingrid Michaelson and Amy Winehouse and KT Turnstall. And Tori Amos, of course, even though her book bored me to tears (Sorry Ashley. I tried.).

It's also important to mention that all of my knowledge of popular music comes from Old Navy commercials.

There's something incredibly sexy about an aloof girl that sings her feelings. Uhhhhhhhnf.
Have I mentioned that I love Picross DS? I can't remember. I've spent the last two months playing Picross during everything. All of my breaks at work. While I'm watching TV shows. The same stupid puzzles over and over again. But look out! Today, the new Legend of Zelda DS game arrives, and so I'll be even more negligent of my social life in favor of my handheld drawring thingy!
I've been brushing my teeth with Crest Whitening Expressions for the past few weeks. If you haven't heard, get with the times man! It comes in vanilla and cinnamon and orange flavors! It is like candy, except for your mouth! I do not particularly like it, but it's the only brand in the house right now and I'm too cheap to buy my own tube. There's something unnatural about cleaning your teeth and enjoying the flavor all at once. If I want candy, I will not put toothpaste in my mouth! I will instead eat some delicious candy, and then clean my mouth out with toothpaste that tastes like mint ass. It's the way it has always been and it's the way it always shall be.
I am liberal in pretty much all of my views, but I am a Republican when it comes to toothpaste.

Photo for the post! I'll write more on my photography obsession soon, maybe.

Graffiti and Poo

2007-09-29T10:14:00.001-04:00

There are times when I don't particularly like Harrisburg. There are times when I love Harrisburg. Thursday was one of those latter times. I went on a walk on my lunch break, and I found some pretty neat graffiti of Pac-Man ghosts. You can check out all of my public digital photos at my new Flickr Photostream, if you are at all inclined.
An important question for the ladies: in your experience, how many bathrooms actually have couches in them? I see it on television all the time. Is it primarily a workplace thing? Do you ever see them in "public restrooms?" Is there an actual draw to sitting or laying on a couch that is placed in a room that smells of poop and pee? Or does the poop and pee of women smell like roses?
On a related note: air-freshening sprays. What? A bathroom is a room that will occasionally smell like poop and pee. When you spray Glade or some shit into the air, you are not hiding poop and pee. There is no hiding poop and pee. You're just adding something else into the bouquet. In some cases, you are adding another annoying or offensive smell--flowers, whathaveyou. In other cases, you are including a wonderful smell and making me associate it with poop and pee--vanilla, cinnamon, and cetera. I do not want to smell poo in my Big Red, and I do not want to taste pee in my hot cocoa.

More random thoughts, including Intertnet Datting Update

2007-09-23T07:33:00.000-04:00

"It's Friday" has apparently become an acceptable answer for "How are you doing?" I may have to steal it and use it all week long.

My favorite smell is sawdust. My favorite sound is from the movie Spaceballs. There is a part where a guy yells "SON OF A" and then cocks his laser-gun, which makes a noise, and for some reason that combination strikes me as soothing.

Shoot Em Up may be the finest motion picture ever made. It is like a film version of those bad Internet Chuck Norris jokes. Chuck Norris delivers babies by shooting through the umbilical cord with a machine gun! Chuck Norris can shoot people with his bare hands. Chuck Norris could stop having sex to fight some bad guys, but he'd rather do both at once! The film has an added benefit of not having stupid Chuck Norris in it at all!

I have nicknamed my willy "The Jumper Cable"--for many reasons, all of them quite obvious.

I work for the Social Security Administration. We are required to sign forms that say we will never look up celebrities' personal information. But now what am I supposed to do if I want to know whether or not Vincent Price had gout?
Internet Dating Week One: I have received one interested response to my sexiness. I have responded back. WILL THIS BE A MATCH (DOT COM)? Probably not, because it's at OKCupid. I also signed up for another site--eHarmony--which requires some payment to contact people. I'm undecided. I could pay for a month, because people who pay are probably more serious about it. At the same time, that's money I could spend on something else, like a guaranteed match with a prostitute.

Bullet points of life

2007-09-20T17:50:00.000-04:00

For two weeks, I have been taking care of business. That is to say, I've been working overtime.
As mentioned in Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry Referendum 6741278, everybody is required to say hello to everybody else at all times. I've been trying to mix it up a little bit--"how's it going," "hey there," what-have-you. Today, a woman in her fifties asked me how I was doing, and I replied, "I'm good....now." WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN?

It clearly sounds like I'm flirting with the woman: "Now that I am talking to you, I am good."
Otherwise, it implies that I wasn't doing well before, and that the previous woes should have been known by this woman that I don't even know the name of.
WHAT THE HELL DOES THA

Why did nobody tell me there were Star Wars postage stamps? And to think that all this time I've been mailing stuff with flowers and flags.
Internet dating--I am giving it a shot. I'll keep the world and this blog informed of all crazy stories involving this turn of events.
I am skydiving on November 10, which should be pretty neat. First time in a plane, first time jumping out, first time breaking spine.
I bought a digital camera, which means photo content may start appearing.

Like a picture of a walrus' butthole.
That is all.

My Pee-Buddy 'N' Me

2007-09-14T13:07:00.000-04:00

I peed next to Indian Doctor. Twice.

It must be said that I don't keep a regular urinary schedule or anything like that. I drink seven bottles of water a day (for good luck), and so I go two or three times in an afternoon. It was just a coincidence that Indian Doctor and I met twice that day. Both times, I stood at the urinal, soon to be nestled by a visitor at the only conjoining fixture.

"How's it going?" asked my wiener.

"Shut up," said Indian Doctor's wiener. "Don't talk to me while I'm peeing."
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Indian Doctor and I soon became close. One night we decided to go to the drive-in so that we could see Shoot 'Em Up. However, the drive-in was sold out.

"Well, what do you wanna do?" I asked.

"I dunno," said Indian Doctor.

"Me neither," replied his wiener.

I had an idea. "How about we go to the moon?"

So we drove to the moon. It was very rocky.
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Indian Doctor liked the moon. I liked the moon. Both of our wieners liked the craters. We decided to get a summer house there. For when Earth-living got too warm. We spent a number of years vacationing on the moon, but then the moon lost its magic. We would vow that each summer would be our last. Still we kept coming back out of some ill-guided devotion. Maybe it was tradition. It was very rocky.
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Indian Doctor hates Billy Joel, but his wiener can't stop listening to that shit. I'm indifferent to the whole affair. Let's just say that I never turn off the radio when BJ pops on, but I don't exactly tap my foot either.

My piano man is Elton John. My wiener's is Ben Folds. My wiener is trendy and has a goatee.

_____________________
We were sitting under the stars one night and looking at the Earth, talking about this and that--all of us except for Indian Doctor's wiener, which was in the kitchen making loganberry pie. "Don't you wish this whole moon was made out of candy?" said Indian Doctor.

I smiled. "Oh man," I said.

"Eh," said my wiener. "It all tastes the same to me."

"Shut up or I will stick a pencil in you," I said.
_____________________
Indian Doctor's wiener bought the pie recipe from Hap's Roadside Diner. The diner pie was outstanding. The wiener's pie was a cheap imitation.
____________________
"Did you know that McDonald's shakes are actually made of potatoes?" asked my wiener.

"No, I didn't," I said.

"It's true," said my wiener. "Did you know that an elephant can sustain itself on nothing but rocks and soil for three weeks before it dies?"

"No."

"That's also true. I just thought of it."
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One night my wiener decided to play a joke on the rest of us. He put laxatives into our coffeed beverages.

We could tell by the look on its face that something was up.

I snuck some habanero peppers into its latte. Boy, was its face red.
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I don't care what anyone tells you--my wiener never kissed Indian Doctor's wiener. Not once.

I didn't kiss it either. I wanted to, though. It made a hell of a pie.
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There is no square root of pie. Pie is a complex equation involving both dough and filling. If you square dough, you get bread. If you square filling, you have jelly (or a hearty stew). Therefore, no square root.
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I introduced Indian Doctor to Joli. She liked him very much.

I didn't have the balls to introduce our wieners to her.
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One night we came into the house and found Indian Doctor's wiener laying on the ground in a puddle of blood.

"Ow," said my wiener. "My soul hurts."

Tears were shed, blame was placed.

"I think I need to distance myself from you," said Indian Doctor.

It was okay. I was only using him for his wiener anyway.
_____________________
I went out to dinner with Joli one night. I told her she could order anything she wanted on the menu, unless the food was red.

"You could just tell me not to order the lobster," Joli said. She looked irritated.

"No," I said. "For serious. I just don't like red things."

She ordered the T-bone--well-done--with the cream of mushroom soup and a side salad. The salad came with tomatoes.

I never saw Joli again.
_____________________

The Blood Mobile came to work one day. I heard about it and got really excited.

Turns out it was just a plain workvan where they drew blood. Not even racing stripes or anything.
_____________________

"Want to play Twenty Questions?" I asked it.

"Sure," my wiener replied.

"Ask away," I said.

"Is it a thing?"

"No." 19.

"A place?"

"No." 18.

"A person?"

"Yes." 17.

"Alive in the past twenty-five years?"

"No." 16.

"In the past fifty?"

"No." 15.

"In the past hundred?"

"No." 14.

"Oh. An old fart. American?"

"No." 13.

"European?"

"Yeah." 12.

"Real or fictional?"

"You wiener! It has to be a yes-or-no!"

"Is it fictional?"

"No." 11.

"Is this person a horrible zombie, dripping with pus and dessicated flesh, hellbent on destructive revenge against the world and the twisted society that created him?"

"No. No it's not." 10.

"Is it Napoleon?"

"God damnit."
_____________________
One day in the bathroom, I squeezed myself next to Kevin Wincloud. He was standing there with his underpants and his overpants at his ankles and his hands pressed against the top of the urinal.

He brought his hand to his mouth. I glanced over and saw a collection of loose gummi candies sitting atop the john. He snatched up another--a worm--and shoved it in his mouth. I smiled.

After I got a fair shake, I playfully pushed his head violently against the tiled wall. He looked over and shoved his thumb into my eye.

"It's just not the same," said my wiener later.

I sighed. "I wonder where Indian Doctor is now." I wiped a drop of blood from the tip of my nose.

Numbers

2007-09-12T02:06:00.000-04:00

Rabbits have a life expectancy of 5 to 15 years. Rats are expected to live from 2 to 3 years before they die of old age. These animals are domesticated, kept in the safest of conditions; they have doctors that specialize in animal care; they are sustained by diets that are specifically tailored to the needs of their respective species. Still, they are given this margin or error. In the best of conditions and completely unaffected by disease, these animals can be cut down to as little as 33% of their lives through a process of random biological error.

Humans--of the American variety--have a life expectancy of 77 years. That's an average. About 1/2 of us will die before we hit 77. Given the margin of error in our pets' lives, we can postulate that natural causes can take us at any time. 33% of 77 is 25. 25 is less than 3 years away for me.

We generally take better care of pets than we do ourselves.

When I was in grades 1 through 12, I would come home from school and eat nonstop until bedtime. Unfathomable slabs of cheese. 1/2 a box of crackers. Snack cakes, 3 or 4 packs at a time. Slim Jims by the canister. The evidence--wrappers and such--all got hidden in various couch crevices and secret bedroom spots. By my 2nd year of college, I weighed over 300 pounds.

Then I decided to lose weight. The 1st step was to stop snacking between meals. Then I cut out meat. Started eating healthy. Exercising--going more than 5 miles a day. Then it got worse. I was down to 1200 calories a day. 1100. 1000. My 1st semester of my 3rd year in college, I ate between 800 and 900 calories a day. I dropped down to 170 pounds. That was a loss of 130 pounds in 5 months.

After some moderate intervention, I am on a healthy track. I eat approximately 2100 calories a day. In order to assure myself that I am getting the proper nutrition, I eat the same thing every day, and I have for the past 2 years. Scattered throughout the day, I eat 2 cups of Kashi GoLean cereal, 2 cups of Wheaties, 7 apples, 2 bags of frozen broccoli, 2 vegan Boca Burgers, 4 cups of yogurt, 1 protein shake, and 1 serving of fat-free candy. I also drink 7 bottles of water. I supplement my diet with 1 multivitamin and 1 B-complex.

It may not be the healthiest thing to lack variety, but it's better than starving myself or gorging myself. I would say that I now consume a healthy, balanced diet. Kind of like the stuff you'd find in a pet's bowl--all the kibbles and all the bits.

Of my prior 22 years on earth, I have done surprisingly little.

Did 1 thing I can say I am really proud of.
Did 5 things that, after years of reflection, I genuinely regret to this day.
Worked at 2 jobs.
Been in 1 country.
Dated 1 person for 4 months (nonconsecutive).
Been on 3 dates otherwise.
Published 0 poems.
Published 0 pieces of fiction.

Given the significant wear and tear that my body suffered for the 1st 21 years of my life, it's safe to say that I will not be among the 50% that make it to 77 years of age. If change hasn't suited me for the better, I may only make it to 33%. That's 25 years of age. 790 days. November 6, 2009.

But who's counting?

Spoodles the Living Dummy and the Temple of Peeps

2007-09-10T06:35:00.000-04:00

As we speak, Halloween merchandise is flooding the stores. This is the start of the consumer holiday season, which is really less of a season and more of a "half-year." Halloween runs into Christmas which begets Valentine's Day which ejaculates Easter until our wallets are empty for the summer and we can't buy that motorboat we've always wanted.

Good things do come out of it, though, and unsurprisingly, one of my favorites is the Marshmallow Peep, manufactured by Just Born. Sure, I've been living year-round on my stockpile, which does not seem to be shrinking at any considerable rate, but there's something to be said about fresh Peeps. They're smooshy and wonderful and you can almost see them being picked fresh off the tree by some nomadic immigrant who uses his precious marshmallow money on the finest-gruel-money-can-buy for his three small children, who are named Chaquita and Bananas.

I don't believe there's anything new in the works for this Halloween, so look out for your usual suspects of Pumpkins, Ghosts, and Spooky Cats (as well as their African-American brothers, the delicious Cocoa Cats).

I like to consider myself an idea man. Every time I come up with something I really like, it seems to be stolen from my mind and projected onto television screens across the country. I created a character named Bonkers the Clown, who I would frequently draw. Soon after, the Disney Afternoon introduced a crappy and short-lived television show called Bonkers and I got sad.

Another character I liked to draw was called Scarface the Living Dummy, a murderous ventriloquist's puppet with a big, honking scar on his face. Then I started watching Batman the Animated Series, which features a damn murderous puppet named Scarface. Obviously there is some sort of nude conspiracy afoot.

Since then, I've been dreaming up crazy contraptions and hoping the aliens come back to steal them from my brain. Apparently we're still years away from a fully-functioning homework machine, but I also aim low. What about this. Pumpkin-Pie-flavored Marshmallow Peeps. Suckle on the hardened teat of the November holiday, Just Born. Suckle on the hardened teat of my genius.

If I dream hard enough, it's bound to happen, right? Right?

Another ramble drafted on the lunch break of your friendly neighborhood Spoodles.

With a twist

2007-09-08T06:09:00.000-04:00

I recently read this article at Premiere Magazine [Online] called "20 Big Time Plot Twists". The article was interesting and it raised a number of questions. What are my personal favorite plot twists? What makes a good plot twist? Will the topic give me a good reason to go on about Star Wars for a number of paragraphs that will somehow constitute a blog post? I intended to find out.

For my purposes, there are two major plot twists in the Star Wars universe:

Vader: "No, I am your father." (The Empire Strikes Back)

Luke: "My...sister has it." (Return of the Jedi)

This is completely disregarding the prequels' twist, which is "George Lucas completely lost his mind."

One of the two main twists works, and one doesn't. Vader's revelation to Luke is, obviously, classic. It adds a bit of weight to the remainder of the series' installments, and has implications that completely change the main character. Luke goes to what seems like a darker place and comes out seemingly more mature. He learns from his father's mistakes and avoids the lure of the dark side, even becoming willing to sacrifice his own life for the light side. It certainly merits its place in the second spot on the Premiere Magazine list.

The latter twist is a bit of a cop-out. They needed an easy out to resolve the Luke-Leia-Han love triangle, so they made Luke and Leia siblings, completely disregarding common sense in favor of an ending that is completely happy for everybody (including the rock-slinging teddy bears).

But why does one work more than the other? Simple. There's background to Luke's father. We know there's a father missing. The stage was set during the original Star Wars and throughout Empire. Film viewers love mysteries, and a successful twist will make somebody want to look back on the earlier clues to put the pieces together.

With the exception of the Yoda's hint that "there is another" in Empire, there is no inkling that Leia could possibly be Luke's sister. Nobody has ever mentioned another Skywalker sibling, or that Leia was adopted. It all seems lame and--to speak in cliché--deus ex machina. It would have added major character depth to Luke to have him give up Leia as he moved on to a much different life.

See? I don't unquestioningly watch the Star Wars movies, despite the fact that I *cough* own toys.

There's a reason that everybody went back again and again to see M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense. It made sense! The whole thing was tightly composed and intricate enough to detail a scenario that was probably not in the viewer's mind in the least. Even Night's later, meh-ier movies like The Village and Lady in the Water laid stepping stones to whatever bizarre twist came next.

It's not a twist if it doesn't make sense. It's just a weird surprise. It's like having the Scream killer remove his mask, only to find Alex Trebek underneath. Where did Trebek come from? Is it the mustachioed Trebek or the post-9/11 baldface? Always remember and never forget.

Where did the point of this post go? Oh, maybe that's it over there.

Attention Wal-Mart shoppers: Get your hands off of my package!

2007-09-06T05:52:00.000-04:00

The other day I was in the housewares section at Wal-Mart and I saw something fairly weird. Not surprising, because it's Wal Mart and chances are good that you'll see four hick-weddings and a funeral when you walk down those aisles at the right time.

Honestly, Wal-Mart is like flypaper. You're going to find the same toothless, drawling oafs in a Maine Wal-Mart as you would in a Tennessee one. There must be a particular retail pheromone present that attracts people who constantly smell like their own sister's minge.

That's not to say that everyone who shops at Wal-Mart wears straw-hats on Saturdays. Heck, I shop there, and I'm normal. Right? However, much like the relationship between rectangles and squares: not every Wal-Mart shopper is a hayseed, but every hayseed is a Wal-Mart shopper.

Back to the point of this post, which really has very little to do with clientele and everything to do with decorum. A certain yokel was looking at a blender, and I saw her remove the tape, open the flaps on the box, and inspect the product--I'd assume for breakage. I briefly considered giving this lady the stink-eye, but then I had a brief Vietnam flashback to my childhood, where I vaguely remember one of my parents doing this.

So the question is on you: is opening a package a violation of the sanctity of a product, or is it merely another helpful tool in the shopper's arsenal?

Thank you for shmutting up

2007-09-04T15:33:00.000-04:00

One of my closest friends at work--or, one of the closest things to a friend at work--is That Person That Coughs. You may already know her. Any time there is an odor in the air that could be slightly offensive (or only mildly inoffensive), she'll let out a little, forced hack. Something between an "a-hem" and a "blaaaargh" on the Mohs Scale of Mouthal Noises.

We were walking--outdoors--the other day, and somebody nearby was enjoying the refreshing coolness of a Virginia Slim or something. Coughy Magoo started going haywire. Anyone who knows me is aware that I'd rather put Hitler's wiener in my mouth than a cig. Still, there's something to be said about respecting other people's choices. The out-of-doors is really the only place people can smoke nowadays. If you don't like it, we can go right over there, which is also outside and smoke-free.

There is a guy in the building who is a total dickhat and he wears a bottle of cologne on his neck and cajones every day. He is absolutely dripping with it. He also has a history with Babs Coughingham, who whips out the nonsense hacking whenever he walks by. Sorry, lady, but I would die for this man's god-given right to be a smelly douchebag.
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Some brief reviews...

I was going to try to review Superbad without using any tired movie-review clichés, but that would involve too much work. Instead, I will say that Superbad is super and not bad! In fact, it is supergood! You know...if you like vulgar jokes about weiners and boobs. And I most certainly do.

Inland Empire is pretty much the most extreme opposite of Superbad that you could conjure up. There are random dance parties and talking rabbits. As silly as it sounds, it's actually one of the most haunting films I've seen in some time. While director David Lynch abandoned the idea of making narrative sense years ago, nobody sets a mood like him.

Part of Lynch's trademark is the beautiful camerawork and cinematography found in his films, and I'm sorry to say that this movie really is the (first) exception. Shot entirely on a handheld digital camera that you could easily buy in any store, the video quality looks like something you could download from Youtube. Obviously not as laggy or glitchy, of course, but the video in this picture is quite clearly pixellated. Even video tape would probably come off more beautifully. It's a shame that Lynch claims he'll never go back to film.

And it's not only the relatively cheap-o cameras used for Inland Empire either. Take, for example, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones or Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. These movies were shot on top-of-the-line digital cameras, and they look--in my opinion--shitty as balls. Yes, that shitty. Compare the first prequel--Episode I: The Phantom Menace, which was shot almost entirely on film--and the difference in quality is quite clear.

Which, in a roundabouts way, brings me to my last feature film review: The Force Among Us. The movie is a documentary about Star Wars fans around the world, featuring interviews from fan club presidents and podcast hosts and Imperial Stormtroopers and any number of other Wars nerds. I loved the film, personally, because I can see a lot of myself in it. However, I'm not sure how well it would work for somebody that has never geeked out on Star Wars toys or obsessively cataloged characters from Return of the Jedi.

There are a number of interesting points in the movie--visits to locations from the filmings among them--but the most gripping is actually the story of the film's director, Christian Macht. His Star Wars story is by far the most moving and gripping in the film, and a great deal of it went on the cutting room floor. I can imagine the director cutting out some of his own segments for fear that it would become a movie about him, but after watching what was cut from his interviews, I would say that it would make for a much stronger film and narrative with it.

If you're nerdy like me, pick it up.

Life in a Cube

2007-08-29T15:46:00.000-04:00

Office work is interesting. Here are some things I have learned about office jobs.

There are no people that act like characters on The Office. Do not expect a Dwight Schrute, a Michael Scott, or even a Jim-and-Pam. Sure, there are funny people, but they are all funny in the conventional "e-mail forward" sense of funny.
There are people that look like characters on The Office. I have a Stanley and a Phyllis in my office. Which ones do you have? Collect them all!
To quote my man Morrissey, "Here everybody's friendly, but nobody's friends." In the office building, it is a prerequisite to say hello to everybody every time you pass them in the hallway. If you just saw them five minutes ago but you went a'roaming, you must say hello when you pass them again. Are you at the urinal next to somebody? Salutations--just don't shake hands. Do you know their names? Will you ever? The correct answer is "No, but hello to you, friend!"
Your cubicle is an extension of you. Are you a fan of the "basketballs?" It is your solemn duty to let everybody know by tacking pin-ups to your walls of the Philadelphia One Thousand Seven Hundred Seventy Sixers. My only decoration is a Dwight Schrute bobblehead, which conveys to my coworkers that I am boring.
If you are bored--and you will be because you work in an office--you have to make your own fun. Sure, you could ceaselessly refresh all your websites on Google Reader (p.s. helpful office tip number 34: familiarize yourself with RSS feeds for maximum economy in slacking), but you'll become a lonesome soul. Spice things up. One fun thing to do is have Post-It Battles with coworkers--silly messages, games of "Twenty-Questions," and what-have-you. It doesn't matter what you do. The important thing is that you waste paper, and spend a couple minutes of your time doing it.

So that's work. Oh, and I also do work at work. I am the only male secretary in the entire building. And you can take that one to the sperm bank.

On non-office-related thoughts: did you know that all people are people? I was unaware of this fact until just recently. You see, authority figures have never been people before. They have been faceless automaton robots that want to suck out my brain with their magical powers.

But within the last year, I got to know a number of people personally that I'd never come across before. Security guards; doctors; teachers; police officers. I've had conversations with all of these people, and it turns out that they have families and ambitions and insecurities and rent/mortgage payments just like everyone else. Especially the "insecurities" part.

So do yourself and the world a favor--treat everybody like a human being. Chances are that they hate their job as much as you hate your own.

The following people are still not people (until they come to me personally and prove otherwise): supermodels, famous actors, beautiful women of any sort.

And now, to catch up in the previous month of no-posting: some Six-Word Reviews of Various Things!

Film

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: Changed from book for the better.
The Bourne Ultimatum: As great as the first sequel.

Television

Big Brother: Absolute trash three times a week.
The X-Files Season 1: Got in a groove, kicked ass.
The X-Files Season 2: Virtually flawless.

Music

Violent Femmes: Live in Iceland: Short, but agressive and well-played set.
Violent Femmes: BBC Live: Brilliant set from band's golden years.
Violent Femmes: Live in Chicago: Noteworthy for songs from Freak Magnet.
Zappa Plays Zappa (concert): Tight improv band, did Frank proud.

Life, Love, and Green Peaness

2007-08-02T16:49:00.000-04:00

I'm trying to work my way into the mindset that I'm actually an adult now. I mean, I've been an adult for almost five years, but it's starting to feel official.

Two of my best friends are engaged and very pregnant. I started a full-time job with benefits and regular hours. I did something outside of work with a guy in his forties and his family. I am old and vaguely depressed. Where did my childhood go? Wasn't I supposed to be seriously dating somebody on the way to marriage now? Is this how it's going to be until I turn sixty-five and retire?

Onward and upward.

I saw The Simpsons Movie yesterday. Not an awful lot to say about it. If you like The Simpsons, you'll like the movie adaptation just as much. It's not as revolutionary as the South Park movie, but it keeps the legacy of the show intact and unspoiled. My biggest complaint would be the lack of screen time devoted to the secondary characters of Springfield (who, let's face it, are the heart and soul of the entire show). On television, characters like Apu and Moe overcome their stereotypical animation to become living, breathing characters that we care about. On the big screen, they are there merely for a few one-liners.

When it comes to music, I've been indulging in some summer movie scores. First: the score to Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer by John Ottman. I've been impressed by Ottman's superhero scores in the past (X2: X-Men United and Superman Returns), and I heard the end credits suite for this movie and fell in love with what turns out to be the Silver Surfer's theme. I'm disappointed to say that there is little else on the album that is remotely inspired or inspiring. The disc is full of dreary, dissonant underscore and--worse yet--repetition of the central themes that becomes first monotonous and then annoying. If I had to guess, I'd say that Ottman gave the best possible film score to a movie as bad as Fantastic 4, and failed just as miserably as the cast and crew.

Another franchise falls further into the toilet with Nicholas Hooper's score to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. After Patrick Doyle's bland effort in Goblet of Fire, I was happy to see a changing of the guard. However, Hooper's music seems entirely out of place in every way. Where the film is the "darkest yet" in the series, the score is jaunty and light-hearted. Where the film is steeped in fantasy and teenage angst, we are given music straight out of a 1960s western. It's a listenable score, and enjoyable, but belongs elsewhere. I really wanted to consider the music for this series classic when it began in 2001, but the only score to come remotely close was John Williams' Prisoner of Azkaban work.

Michael Giacchino continues to earn his place as the "next big thing" in film scoring with Ratatouille. The score fits the film perfectly, and--more importantly for the sake of this review--makes a damn good listening experience on CD. The writing is smooth and jazzy, formulaic at times but never in a hackneyed way. In a world overrun by the synth-enhanced bombast of Hans Zimmer's action scores, it's nice to hear a listenable album performed entirely by live musical combos.

Don't get me wrong--I like Hans Zimmer. In fact, his score to The Simpsons Movie is beyond groovy. Free of the orchestral thwomp-trap made popular by his scores to the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, Zimmer writes in a light comedic style that best displays his talent with melody. He writes with a manic energy that suggests some of Danny Elfman's comedic work from the 1990s, and twists Elfman's famous Simpsons theme song into his own themes. It's a shame that the score was mixed so low in the actual movie.

Gaming...I am apparently becoming a gamer, despite the fact that I couldn't actually care less about gaming. My idea of an enjoyable board game experience is Trivial Pursuit or Scattergories--party games that test your knowledge more than your ability to strategize. Still, when all of your friends and coworkers are Eurogamers, you have to play just to stay social.

Ticket to Ride is a game about building train tracks across America. This game is among my favorites of the Eurogames I've played, but I can't tell if that's because it's good or because I actually won it.

Condottiere is a card game that is pretty entertaining too. Uh...no review.

I've been playing Dungeons and Dragons with some friends, which, once again, isn't really my thing. Still, it's a good way to stay friends with your friends I guess. I am a wizard named Thigpen. I have a pet bat named Thaddeus and a horse with no name.

This is where the blog post fizzles out.

Dead, Not Dead

2007-07-28T09:10:00.000-04:00

Oh, here is a book review for those who haven't heard: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling is very, very good. Many, many characters die in this children's book.

I'm not dead. I'm busy. I haven't had any new experiences worth writing about. I've started a new job. I'm enjoying life for the most part. I hope all is well. Here's a picture of a bunny with a pancake on its head.

Hard to swallow

2007-07-12T11:01:00.000-04:00

I watched Hard Candy yesterday, and I was considering making a post about it almost immediately, except I had already posted yesterday, and fudge it.

As a result, I've had time to stew on the movie a bit, and what started as a mildly dislikable movie has become an object of abject hatred to me. The more I think about it, the angrier it makes me.

The film is about a fourteen-year-old girl who meets a thirty-year-old man on the Internet and gets together with him at a cafe. The man is smooth, and he manages to talk the girl into coming back to his house for a "photography session," and perhaps some illicit, dirty, illegal sex. Everything seems to be coming up pervert for Mr. Thirty, until OH SNAP he is drugged by the fourteen-year-old and tormented with the thought of his dirtiest laundry being aired.

The concept is a good one, but the execution...oh.

Hard Candy is another one of those movies--much like Fast Food Nation--that is blessed with amazing talent and a terrible screenplay. The acting is fantastic. There are really only two actors in the movie, and both Ellen Page (as the young girl, Hayley) and Patrick Wilson (as the possibly-murderous perv, Jeff) turn in excellent performances. It's a testament to Wilson's skills that you find his despicable character likable, and you even pity him as he is assailed by the young girl. The directing is stylized in a way that very infrequently irritates (although there are a number of moments where we're left looking at nothing but the color of the photography studio for five seconds at a time).

As far as good stuff--there's an intense, unsettling sequence of torture as Hayley castrates a very-conscious Jeff and then insidiously disposes of his balls. The entire concept is, really, a good one, and it's only the denouement that makes me seethe.

And now to my biggest problem with the movie (I saved it for the end because SPOILER ALERT): the movie takes great strides to make "Hayley," the avenger, into a heroine. It is obvious the filmmakers wanted us to root for the girl. But when it's the girl's overarching aim to lure the "villain" to his own suicide, is she all that heroic? She becomes almost as reprehensible as the pedophile.

The pervert does not get any sort of satisfying ending either. The only character revelation we see from him is a form of acceptance that he is a pervert and that he has nobody to blame but himself. This realization has no effect on the character, and only seconds later he grabs a knife and intends to kill Hayley. In the end, he doesn't kill himself out of any remorse or regret, but out of greed. Hayley hands him the noose and tells him that she'll destroy the evidence of his crimes.

Hayley ultimately reneges on this offer, walking off into the sunset to the tune of some upbeat "conquering-hero-escapes" techno music as her victim hangs from the roof. It may just be my personal politics, but I couldn't wrap my head around the idea that you can ethically trade murder-for-murder, or that there are some people less deserving of life.

The acid is bubbling in my esophagus as I write this, so I'll stop now before I explode.

G'out of here

2007-07-09T18:01:00.000-04:00

Been to the doctors' over the past few days giving blood and getting x-rays and trying to find out what's wrong with my horribly swollen foot.

Is it gout?

Is it fractured?

Do you have any idea?

Shit. Thankfully these meds are making the swelling go away, and also doping me up something fierce.

The new Ryan Adams CD, Easy Tiger, is really good. If you're a fan of Ryan Adams, you know what you're getting in this package--country-influenced rock that is often hit-or-miss. Thankfully, Tiger follows the almost-all-hits 2005 triple punch of Cold Roses/Jacksonville City Nights/29, and this seems to be similarly even. I'd rate this album as probably my second favorite of Adams' solo-oeuvre, right behind his debut album, Heartbreaker. I find that I don't have an awful lot to say about the disc, but if you aren't moved by the album's standout song, "The Sun Also Sets" (or by the rocker "Halloweenhead"), you're a heartless beast.

The other night I watched a movie called Reincarnation. Well, actually, it's a Japanese movie called Rinne, but it's translated into "Reincarnation," and I'm an American capitalist pig that doesn't think everything is better in its original language. Rinne is about a young actress who is cast in a film about a real-life murder spree. She begins seeing the murders take place, and in turn begins to suspect that she is one of the victims reincarnate.

The film was directed by Takashi Shimizu, who directed the original Japanese films upon which The Grudge films were based. Since I started working at a movie theater almost seven years ago, I haven't seen an awful lot of movies like that. Turns out that the main audience of such films--intended or not--is giggling twelve-year-old girls, which greatly decreases from my enjoyment of such things. I now regret never having seen any of those movies.

This film is really creepy. I hate movies that generally think "jumping" is the same as "being scared." This movie has a few of those moments, but it's more unsettling, allowing the situation and the atmosphere to give you actual heebies and genuine jeebies. Without ruining the film, the end has several possible meanings, and it will leave you thinking about it for an hour or two after you're done watching--which may be the highest accomplishment a movie can attain. I love fighting robots as much as the next red-blooded American, but I can't imagine many people came out of Transformers pondering its deeper meaning.

Rinne was originally released in America as part of the "After Dark Horror Fest," also called '8 Films To Die For." If the films are all of this quality, I'll probably try to catch some more on DVD.

You are what you eat.

2007-07-08T18:53:00.000-04:00

Last night I elevated my badly sprained?/strained?/infected?/swollen foot/ankle combo meal (that's the #3) and watched Fast Food Nation. I had read the nonfiction book of the same name (which elaborates on the ideas of pooburgers, slaughterhouse inanity, and all-around corporate badness) in the past, and it inspired me to go to McDonalds and eat a double-chee. No negative impression at all.

Fast-forward four years. I'm now a vegetarian. I don't eat anything I don't prepare myself because I'm anal. It's important for you to know this, because I agree with every point the film makes, but I hated the actual movie.

This is kind of like my review of Happy Feet (and probably would be similar to my reviews of Michael Moore movies or Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, were I so moved to see them). The message-mongering is so heavy-handed. We (embodied by the characters of the three main storylines) are good, and they (the fast food corporations) are bad. Good bad good bad bad good bad bad bad good.

It's a difficult task to adapt an investigative report into a film, and for this very reason. The literature is written to evoke a change or a sentiment without regards to depth of characterization or any particular storyline. The movie maintains that mentality, and as a result becomes incredibly boring. More interesting is the route it takes. The screenwriters make one plotline's "voice of reason" spout manifestos about creating chaos and bringing down the man through a sort of revolution.

The three main storylines involve a group of illegal Mexican immigrants hired at a meat packing plant, a fast-food advertising stooge charged to investigate said factory, and a young girl who works at the town's branch of the restaurant chain.

The direction is adequate, and the acting is superb with no exceptions. Bruce Willis and Greg Kinnear are the real stars of this picture in spite of their small amounts of screen time. Their segment involves an actual member of the fictional company--"Mickey's"--who is investigating the meat packing plant for home office. This is, by far, the most interesting segment of the film. The two actors take the only juicy roles in the film (moral gray area? thank god) and run with it. Other stellar performances include Ethan Hawke, Ashley Johnson (Baby Seaver), Catalina Sandino Moreno, and Bobby Cannavale.

It's just a shame the script had to be so pushy.

Is Watching You

2007-07-05T23:48:00.000-04:00

Big Brother is the stupidest, sleaziest trashfest ever to hit American television. It has no redeeming values, and despite my brother's protestations, I've never watched an episode. It's the cause of everything that's wrong with today's soc--

One of the partners answered the questions while the other partner sat on a spinning mushroom. Once you fell off the mushroom you and your partner were out of the competition.

What's that? Three nights a week? I'm there.

The Lost Highway (now with less Werewolves)

2007-07-05T14:28:00.000-04:00

I had a job interview a few weeks ago, and today I got the call that says I'm gainfully employed. This means a number of things.

Regular hours. No more working until 1:30am. No more working for eleven hours straight. No more worked weekends or holidays (at least not while I work for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania).
Putting in my two-weeks notice at my job of six-and-a-half years. This may have been the hardest thing I had to do in a long time. I went through like six drafts of it. I got teary-eyed on the drive home.
Money money 2020.
Benefits.

The soundtrack to my day today was the new Bon Jovi CD, Lost Highway. I had heard a lot of reviews calling it a more "country-tinged" Bo-Jo album, but I didn't get that at all. What I heard was another par-for-the-course album, as formulaic as each release since These Days (Crush, Bounce, Have A Nice Day). Sure, there's some electronic fiddle in there, but it's more reminiscent of John Mellencamp than any actual country star.

So is it worth buying? Well, you're either a Bon Jovi fan or you aren't. We Bon Jovi fans like to be beaten over the head with our lyrics and our guitar riffs. If you fall into that category, this is about on-par with the previous three releases from the band, and you'll enjoy it. If you're not a lover of the B-J, pass on it. There's nothing revolutionary here that will change your mind.

If you're a country fan, this probably isn't the album for you. There are cameos by Big & Rich and Leann Rimes, but the first is unrecognizable underneath the song's electronics (yes, there is use of the vox-box in these songs), and the second could very well be any paid studio-singer.

I like it though.

Werewolves on Wheels

2007-07-02T01:32:00.000-04:00

I repeat: Werewolves on Wheels (1971). Complete and utter schlock and I absolutely love it. You see, you got some rough, tough bikers. Despite the warnings of their brethren Tarot (who reads tarot cards), the gang goes to a Satanic temple for the soul purpose of mocking it. The Satanic monks aren't too happy about this, and through an overlong ceremony, they somehow turn a few of the bikers into werewolves.

None of that matters, of course. What matters is that this movie is called WEREWOLVES ON WHEELS, which means when it comes to amazing titles, it outsnaked Snakes on a Plane by a good thirty-five years. The name evokes all kinds of crazy imagery.

I may be way off-base here (I didn't see the Tarantino/Roderiguez joint Grindhouse), but this is what I imagine when I hear about old-school grindhouses. Cheaply made movies that don't make an awful lot of sense (there are things set up in this script that, according to the commentary, were just left unfilmed because of money constraints), lots of silly blood, bad acting, and the like. It's gloriously cheesy, and I wish I had watched it on a Saturday night instead of a Sunday afternoon.

Does the title deliver on its promise--that we'd see full-fledged Werewolves riding motorcycles? Well, yes and no. We do get one brief (very dark) sequence involving a werewolf actually riding the motorbike, but no campy, badass werewolf bikers or any of that business. Disappointing.

(Be grateful that I spared the ol' "Where? Wolves on wheels?" pun I had all saved up for y'all.)

There is a bit of werewolf action, though. A lot of bloody throat-slashing with paws, a few burning corpses, and one HOLY GOD EXPLODING EYEBALL. The werewolves are your typical fare--probably rented masks. Nothing revolutionary since the 1930's, and obviously this movie was made with little time or money.

Would I recommend it? If you're looking for a laugh. It's not one of those must-see horror movies, but it makes for a fun hour and a half if you're with the right friends.

Where does depression hurt? Everywhere.

2007-06-30T13:12:00.000-04:00

So last night, after six months of the highest excitement I've felt in a long time, ~~I saw Morrissey live in concert~~ the Morrissey concert was cancelled. My buddy Chris got the tip-off from our friend John (of Gorgonites fame), who saved us a trip to Philadelphia and bundles of gas money. It'll apparently be rescheduled, but heaven knows I'm miserable now (do you see what I did there?).

During the day, I vented my extreme disappointment and depression by doing something I've been pondering for months. I bought a Nintendo DS Lite ($129.99). And, by golly is it ever worth it. The hardware is solid, although I think I've been a little spoiled by my Wii. The Wii has functionality built into the system--the Mii channel, the Internet channel, an amazing pack-in game. The DS has none of that. You have to pay $30 for the system's Internet browser, and the only game I could have gotten packed-in was Yoshi's Island DS, which I didn't want and would have cost $25 extra.

However, obviously, the DS's functionality is a direct predecessor of the Wii. Nintendo had its eyes set on reinventing the wheel, and here is where they started. The main novelty of the thing is a touch-screen, manipulated by a pen-like stylus. Just like the Wii, my biggest fear of this system was that I'd find it awkward and leave it sitting in a corner, and I'm happy to say that isn't the case. While the stylus is a little small (larger versions sold seperately), it's intuitive and really just as simple as writing in a notepad. I won't spend too much time belaboring the hardware, as anybody who's read up on video games in the past two-and-a-half years knows about the DS.

Brain Age ($19.99) is a game that promises to "Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day!" through arithmetic tests, word games, memory challenges, and more. Sounds like school, you're saying; but keep in mind, you're saying this to the guy who clips three crossword puzzles out of every daily newspaper to do in his leisure time. The games are fun, and they are played entirely with the stylus, which is nice. You can use the Wi-Fi connection in the system to play all of the games with your DS-wielding buddies if you have them, but only if they're within broadcast range of your system.

The real treat (and the reason I picked up this game) is the little tag on the front: "SUDOKU included!" Just like the rest of America, I'm suffering from a bout of Sudoku Fever (thankfully I had already gotten the Macarena Plague out of my system). This is a fun and fairly flawless game. You write the numbers and it recognizes them (unless you're like me, in which case you're too sloppy). I've spent hours with this, and I haven't exactly had all the free time in the world. If you're the puzzle type, I'd recommend picking up this game. I already feel like I got my $20 worth.

Meanwhile, Mario Kart DS ($34.99) is amazing. Amazing. Amazing. In addition to all of its new tracks (of which there are many), the game features a "best of" from all the previous Mario Kart games--Super Nintendo's Super Mario Kart, Nintendo 64's Mario Kart 64, Game Boy Advance's Mario Kart Super Circuit, and GameCube's Mario Kart Double Dash. Each one is flawlessly reinterpreted for the DS.

I was a little hesitant about the controls--I had never played the SNES and GBA versions, and had always used the analog control stick. However, the kart-racing genre seems not to be hurt by this. The power-slide (a simple and necessary move in earlier games) is made a bit harder, as drift comes into play. This is not a bad thing, and it takes a bit of skill in both gameplay and racer selection to master the technique.

The best part, though, is the online play. Assuming that you have a wireless Internet connection available (Nintendo offers a $30 adapter, but you're better off starting a network with a wireless router), you are able to play with anybody around the world. You can pick randomly-matched Regional and Worldwide races, and if you have a friend with a DS, you can use their friend code. It's a hell of a good time, and I'd recommend it.

Anyway, I bought and played that stuff when I would have been driving to Philadelphia. With my evening, I went to Gullifty's Underground in Camp Hill, PA for a concert. Typical bar fare--dark lighting, a general selection of alcohols (I don't drink), and greasy food.

The first band (and my reason for going) was The Gorgonites (official site). I've mentioned them here, here, here, here, here, here, and there, but I'll say it again--they're a great, fun local band. Their lyrics are awfully vulgar, but mixed with their melodies, their ridiculous stageshow, and the welcome addition of a drummer, you're in for a good time. If you aren't easily offended, I'd recommend checking them out.

Next up was The Pawnshop Roses (official site), who were--according to my friend Jess--"alt rock country blues." Two of my friends left during this set, but I didn't think the band was that bad. The musicianship was good enough. I only found two or three of their songs catchy enough to nod my head, and there was no real stage presence. Each song led directly to the next, and there was no banter or even a sign of personality among the men on stage. I wouldn't walk out on their set, but I wouldn't take strides to see them again.

Headlining was The Underwater (official site), who managed to draw in quite the crowd. I was impressed by the drummer, and severely impressed that the lead singer managed to squeeze himself into a pair of pants that tight. Musicianship was all there, and they had a hell of a stage presence, working the crowd that seemed to know all of the band's lyrics. It wasn't my type of stuff, but I could see somebody leaving there having found a new favorite band. Very professional, and possibly will go big some day.

Anyway, I made it home in time to catch the second half of QuizNation, which proves that I am a terrible human being. I hope Morrissey gets well soon, because I really could have used that concert.

Is it "Eghit Ledgeg Frakes?"

2007-06-29T03:43:00.000-04:00

WHAT?

I was going to go mini-golfing tonight, but apparently there was a torrential downpour. Instead, my friends and I went to a local coffeeshop and had delicious beverages. The java joint was called St. Thomas Roasters (Linglestown, PA).

My friend Theresa ordered the strawberry smoothie with whipped cream, and she said that it was "really good," and that it "didn't disappear right away." There is your "review" part of this review.

I ordered a large coffee--my usual--with the intention of having decaf--my usual. However, one golden name beckoned to me from its shiny urn--"Snickerdoodle."

Snickerdoodle-flavored coffee. Like the damn cookie.

Of course I had to have it. Screw the fact that I literally haven't had any caffiene in about a year and a half. I had to have cookiecoffee and I had to have it then and there.

And you know what? It was okay. It tasted like somebody sprinkled a spoonful of cinnamon into their coffeepot, although I'm sure there was some insidious something inside of that beverage. It leads me to wonder what they put into the coffee to make it so scrumptious. Did I inadvertantly drink five thousand calories? Am I going to balloon back up to 300 pounds overnight? In bikini season?

So apparently caffiene has an effect on me now. It is currently almost four in the morning and I am wide awake, shirtless, and typing a blog on the American Online Internet Web.

Bonus side effect of drug-induced insomnia! GSN (formerly called "Game Show Network," but officially shortened like KFC or ). Apparently six days a week, America gets together for two hours of joy called QuizNation.

The premise is simple. The hostess with the mostess (who, at least tonight, was former professional dancer and confirmed goddess Angelle Tymon) will ask you--the home viewer--a simple question. Then, you enter a random drawing to get yer voice heard on live television as you mangle the answer by sending a $0.99 text message to the requisite number, or if you're not retarded I guess you could enter for free at the GSN website.

What's that? Don't have a cell phone to send a text message? That's okay. The host will frequently clarify that you can easily use your mom's cellular telephone at one in the morning to make the text-message equivalent of a 1-900 number. For reals. It's like Soupy Sales telling kids to send him their parents' "funny green pieces of paper," except without the cleverness. And you can enter up to ten times a night! That's a lot of dough!

The whole thing is like phone sex, except instead of an erection you get a shot at hundreds of fabulous dollars.

I choose erection.

The whole game show was insanely stupid, of course. Angelle cracking wise about the Tootsie Pops Owl (for reals). Questions like "READ TO US THIS VANITY LICENSE PLATE FROM AUSTRALIA: GDAM8." But then it hit me.

THIS IS GENIUS.

I immediately tried my hand at entering the live competition. I had to try spending a dollar on a text message. Because Angelle's come-hither eyes told me to, and I didn't want her to go without dinner (and/or sexwithme) tomorrow. After that failed attempt, I logged onto the GSN website and spammed every telephone number currently in this house in my attempts to get an entry. My house phone. My cell phone. My parents' cell. My brother's cell. His wife's cell. The fax machine. That second line that we used to use for Internets but then we had it disconnected because some guy named "Q" kept making collect calls to us from prison.

The funniest thing is that the vast majority of "contestants" got the extremely simple questions wrong. Here we go. I'm entered in the contest. Question: "Top Five Movies starting with the letter 'E' from an informal poll" turned up the obvious E.T. The Extraterrestrial, but also such classic hits as Epic Movie (my votes for movies with integrity like El Cid and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind immediately went down the chute).

So I was left without solid answers and three spots to fill. I realized there was no way that I would get the right answers if I did actually get on the show, so I planned on going for the comedy third option--voting for Ernest movies across the board. Ernest Saves Christmas. Ernest Goes to Africa. Ernest Eats a Huckleberry.

But Sweet Angelle was getting frustrated. We've been on this stupid, stupid question for over an hour and nobody would get the remaining answers. So the crew at the show essentially give the answers to the audience, essentially handing the lucky caller $500 a pop to get the words right. The scrambled names obviously came out to Eight Legged Freaks, Eurotrip, and Ever After (which helped constitute the worst top-five movies list I've ever seen in my entire life). Needless to say, another fifteen minutes passed and none of the redneck callers got the answers correct.

I will be spending every night of my week watching this ridiculous show and trying to win thirty bucks.

Some favorite YouTube clips of Quiznation: Angelle dances like a Ninja Turtle, Angelle doesn't realize they are back from a commercial break.

Then Let's Make a Deal came on and I got bored. Tomorrow: I see Morrissey in concert Sorry for the ramble.

Random Thoughts on "Live Free or Die Hard"

2007-06-28T02:29:00.000-04:00

Caught the first show of Live Free or Die Hard today. Not because I was so amped that I had to see the sequel on it's first showing. That's just how it worked out. You know. No big whoop.

Here are some random thoughts in regards to this film.

Live Free or Die Hard? COME ON! THIRTEEN HUNDRED DOLLAR SUIT! The original working title was Die Hard 4.0 and that's also what the film (far more appropriately) is being called internationally. I watched this movie intently and I still don't understand what Live Free or Die Hard means. Is there a choice to be made? If I had to choose, I would prefer to die hard.
On a similar note, what is Die Hard in reference to? Is it about John McClane, who is extremely difficult to kill? If so, why not call the original film Hard to Kill (besides the fact that the title clearly belongs in front of a movie starring Jean Claude Van Damme or Steven Seagal)? Or does Die Hard refer to the other side of the coin? If you fuck with John McClane, you are going to die. You are going to die SO HARD. I prefer this interpretation, although both have their demerits. EDITED TO ADD: Hard to Kill really is a Seagal movie.
" Yippee Ki Yay Motherfucker." We all know it's coming. The first five syllables were featured prominently in every trailer, commercial, and poster published by Twentieth Century Fox in the last year. It filled me with dread--was the new Die Hard going to unspool in to an abyss of self-referential quotes and in-jokes? Actually, that's about it. Almost nothing outside of this Die Hard has anything to do with the prior films, with the exception of a handful of McClane family references. In fact, John McClane doesn't even seem like the John McClane that we know and love from the first three films. McClane has always been the Dante Hicks of the NYPD. Always in the wrong place at the wrong time--never supposed to be here today. Live Free sees a more mature McClane--still a bit ornery, but resigned to his work as a police detective. He wants to save the day. It's his job. In fact, McClane is more than willing to sacrifice himself for the things he believes in, and proves it multiple times. I could easily see this film functioning as any other run-of-the-mill Bruce Willis actioner--see 16 Blocks as a recent example, in which Willis plays another aging New York policeman who gets roped into a crappy situation against his will.
It is through this previous distinction that, damn them to hell, the writers of Live Free or Die Hard completely earn the use of "Yipee Ki Yay Motherfucker." Well played, sirs.
What we actually get with Live Free or Die Hard is the perfect 24: The Movie, just a few years earlier than Twentieth Century Fox intended. A cop that often goes against authority--just getting off of a long shift--is roped into a situation that requires him to stay awake and alert for long periods of time and take severe beatings. Said police-cop is aided by his fair share of snippy and humorous computer techies, who will gladly open up a socket for him. Eventually, after all kinds of awesome stuff, there will be an underwhelming final confrontation with a mundane and underdeveloped villain.
This might be the first time since September 11 that I've seen a major United States landmark blown up on film. The effect is infinitely more wrenching now than it was in Independence Day or Godzilla, and it's done with enough of a twist on the event that it actually becomes grave and resonant as opposed to spectacular.
I am aware that a nuclear weapon is set off in a major metropolitan area in 2002's The Sum of All Fears, and yes, that was frightening and well-done too.

All in all, I thought that Live Free or Die Hard was a damn fine waste of an afternoon. If you want explosions and swear-words and completely silly jet-chases, this movie is the one for you (at least until next week's Transformers).

1408 Big Sixties Hits!

2007-06-25T23:06:00.000-04:00

I watched John Waters' Hairspray with my family on Saturday night, and it was a quality flick. Just the right mix of styles--some broad, physical comedy (see the pimple-popping scene or Waters' own cameo as a bizarre psychologist), quirky oddity (the best friend's reaction to seeing her pal on the television for the first time), and social commentary (the entire race plot).

Waters looks beyond the sociocultural "norms," incorporating a drag queen, interracial relationships, the obese (one of whom gets the cute guy), and should be commended for it. You can have all your Snakes on a Planes and Grindhouses, but they're kitschy for the sake of kitsch. Waters has camp down to an artform, and he manages to make salient points throughout his film while still managing to be bizarrely entertaining.

I may have been the only one in the room to enjoy it.

On the video game front, I've still been using my Playstation 2. I popped in the movie tie-ins, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. These games are particularly well-made and replayable--especially for movie tie-ins, which are usually made on the cheap. EA Games has gone all out to make your time an enjoyable experience.

In Two Towers, you battle your way through classic scenes from the first two LOTR pictures, playing as Aragorn, Legolas, or Gimli. In Return of the King, your entourage expands to include Gandalf and the four Hobbits as you fight your way through a mishmash of scenes that could have happened in the latter two films.

The games function very much like Gauntlet if you've ever played that. Hack-and-slash tactics will net you experience points so that you can buy upgrades. The trade-off is that you lose Gauntlet's trademark goofy style (think transformation into a chicken, or a bombstic announcer) and gain familiar situations and voices from the popular film trilogy. The games are difficult. This is partially by design, and that's a good thing. It gives you reason to replay the game in order to build up enough upgrades to defeat further levels.

However, both games suffer from some unintentional difficulty, dealing mainly with glitchy graphics and bad camera angles. This is especially true of Return of the King, which leads me to believe that it was built not for gameplay, but to trump on the Two Towers game's (unexpected?) critical and financial success.

When you defeat the second game in the series, and advertisement appears for a Lord of the Rings Trilogy game, presumably in the same style. Unfortunately, this never came to pass. With enough invested time into the gameplay mechanics and engine, that could have been a fantastic game.

I can say just about the opposite for Resident Evil: Code Veronica X. I picked this up on the cheap years ago and didn't pop it into the PS2 until this past weekend. I couldn't make it past the first zombie without turning the system off in frustration (and even then, I tried for an hour...damn my stubbornness).

The controls are awful. Do you remember Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire for the Nintendo 64? A fairly good early 3D console shooter, no? Do you remember the entirely useless "Cinematic" camera angle option, which made controlling things nearly impossible? No? That is because nobody in their right mind used the fucking thing. This is what the controls are like for Code Veronica X. Unresponsive, unintuitive, and just plain annoying. Compound onto that should-be-simple movement component all of the other tasks required of you (i.e. fighting, aiming, etc.), and it's Bungtown--population you. I was disappointed, because I had heard so many good things about the Resident Evil franchise. I have a friend who is going to lend me some other games in the run, and hopefully that will restore my faith in the gaming public.

I've had Tenacious D's The Pick of Destiny in my car stereo this week. I never did get a chance to see the movie, and I'm not sure whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. On one hand, I'm completely lost as to the plot of the movie. Judging by the soundtrack, it's a coming-of-age story about a young man brought up in a Christian household, who must undergo a battle with Satan through "rock-off challenge." There's also apparently car chases, Sasquatch, and a magical guitar pick.

On the other hand, having not seen the movie has its perks. I'm left with brilliant non sequiturs which make little-to-no sense. Stuff about Ronnie James Dio and "deactivating lasers with [one's] dick." The stuff probably loses humor with context (and I'm not sure I want to see Jack Black's privates in action anyway). Still, lyrics or no, Tenacious D shows the same masterful use of rock instrumentation, melody, and harmony that made their initial offering a success. A definite recommendation.

Today I helped a friend move out of her place and then we caught a matinee of 1408. I thought it was an outstanding movie, until it ended and I realized that I didn't get it at all. And not in a makes-you-think, David-Lynch kind of way. Just in an extremely confusing (mind-bottling) kind of way.

As I said, my first impression was that it was great. My mind was racing the whole time. The performance was outstanding--and I say "performance" singular because this is John Cusack's movie--nobody else gets more than ten minutes. Samuel L. Jackson is given equal billing on the posters, but he turns in nothing but a glorified (albeit well-acted) cameo. It was genuinely a scary picture, and I can't say that I've been scared in a theater in a long time--probably since The Ring.

It's a shame then that it had to fizzle out. We're left with an ending that does nothing for the character, and which includes a twist on another key character which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. In fact, I would have liked this movie five times more if they had excised that particular twenty-second scene.

And now, for your reading pleasure: 1408 endings that would have been better than the ending to 1408.

1) John Cusack is rescued from room 1408 by a magical, winged Elvis impersonator.
2 through 1408) Etc.

The Jalapeño Menace: You gotta weigh it out.

2007-06-23T19:08:00.000-04:00

Ladies and gentleladies, I present to you the Pros and Cons of eating an entire cup of Jalapeño Peppers.

PROS

You will look cool to that one guy who said, "It would be really cool to eat a cup of jalapeño peppers."* (*This may not actually occur)

CONS

Mouth pain.
Tongue pain.
Throat pain.
Esophagus pain.
Stomach pain.
Bloating (attributed to an overindulgence in sodium).
Small intestine pain.
Large intestine [colon] pain.
Burps that burn.
Farts that burn.
Poops that burn.
Anus that burn(s).
Looking stupid in front of all your buds.
Nasty pepperbreath (ladies beware).
Death (potential)

Now that you know what you are in for, you can make an educated decision on whether or not to eat a cup full of jalapeño peppers. Stay tuned for our next exciting installment: "When is eating eleven Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies a good idea?" Good evening, and good luck.

Land Shlubbing

2007-06-19T16:51:00.000-04:00

I've been shlubbing around doing absolutely nothing for the past few days. Skipped the gym. All that business. But I plugged in the ol' PS2 and played some games.

For about six hours I played Kingdom Hearts, which (if you've been living under a video-game-free rock for the past five years or so) is a game that mixes up Final-Fantasy-style characters and gameplay with all of your animated Disney favorites. Characters from things like Alice in Wonderland, Tarzan, Aladdin, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Winnie the Pooh, Hercules, Peter Pan, The Little Mermaid. Well, it probably has most of those. I have to be honest and say that I got bored in the middle of the second world, which was based on Tarzan.

There's a lot of drudgery in this game. Hack-and-slash action, essentially, which is a step-up from the turn-based action of most RPGs, but even this gets old fast. You do some team-making and organization but for the most part you're stuck with Donald Duck and Goofy. The worlds are small, and you pretty much walk down a cattle chute for the extent of what I've played thus far. This is like a Final Fantasy game, except dumbed down and made more accessible.

Despite the new and obvious differences, I had the same problem with Kingdom Hearts that I have with Final Fantasy and most roleplaying games. I was bored. I was yearning for a Legend of Zelda which takes the best parts of roleplaying games, and then incorporates minigames, puzzles, and free-roaming quests. I don't know if I'll be finishing (or even continuing) this game, and if you have the same sentiments about roleplaying games as I do, I can't recommend it.

The other game I've popped in is State of Emergency. This game is instantly accessible and silly and bloody. You're some convict gangmember, and the story mode has you going through riotous environments and causing chaos in order to bring down "The Corporation," a 1984-esque conglomerate that controls the people through fear and chemicals. That's about all I know about the story mode, and I don't really care about it.

What I do care about is smashing things and bludgeoning people with appliances, furniture, assorted weapons, and body parts--heads, limbs, torsos. You can beat somebody with a freaking torso. Worth the $5 clearance cost of this game if you can find it used.

The free-play mode has you causing as much chaos as possible before you either run out of time or get killed. I wouldn't recommend playing State of Emergency for more than maybe an hour at a time, but if you have some afternoon to kill and just want mindless violence, this is a nice change of pace from Grand Theft Auto.

More Amerigames and some strange weirdos

2007-06-16T18:16:00.000-04:00

Let's see here. A little catch-up.

On Thursday after my job interview, I played a few very American Amerigames with my buddies Brad, Jeremy, and Chris.

Game number one: Trump: The Game (Milton Bradley) starring Donald Trump as Donald Trump in a quest to Trump the other player's Trump before Trumptime runs out. Seriously, everything in this game is branded with The Donald's traditional "T." The game pieces. The money (Trump Bucks, signed by Donald Trummmmmp--maybe the extra M's stand for "money"), the die, the board. Everything. T. T. T.

The gameplay itself is fairly fun, actually--especially for some niche game from the 1980's. There's a little Monopoly--in the rolling of the die and the buying of properties--but the bidding mechanism and the entire second phase smack of fun and originality. You can stonewall your friends and shortchange others. While we were fairly friendly, we posited a number of strategies that would probably have screwed the other players out of their money. There's a lot of underhanded business practices that you can do without breaking the "ethics" of the game. It should be noted that this game was rereleased in the heyday of The Apprentice, and that it could have seen some changes that render this entire review mooT. T. T.

The second game was called Scrutineyes (get it?) (Mattel). It's a game of observation, kind of like those stupid comic strips in the newspaper with Shylock Fox or whateverthefuck. You look through a picture and try to find items that fit into a particular category--say, they begin with one letter. Then you challenge the other team. The elimination of answers is kind of like Scattergories--if both teams have the answer, nobody gets points. Round two is the same as the first, except you also have to avoid answers given in the first round. A lot of fun, and silly simplicity.

I very much prefer games like this over games that require an awful lot of thought and strategy. If I have to plot out my every move, it's not a game. It's work.

Want a good CD to listen to while you're board-gaming (MORE LIKE BORED-GAMING, AMIRIGHT?)? I'd recommend Strange Weirdos by Loudon Wainwright III. It's essentially the soundtrack to Knocked Up, except it's a full album from the classic folkster (and father of Rufus). The entire album is relaxed and well-crafted. Definitely catch the first three tracks: "Grey in L.A.," "You Can't Fail Me Now," and "Daughter."

And then definitely catch the rest.

I'm all in

2007-06-15T10:46:00.000-04:00

Wade Bloggs! updates this morning for the first time in almost a year. Do not ask me how I know this. I certainly do not post there. Not as a manchild Wade Boggs.

Had my job interview yesterday, and I got a really good vibe. They're interviewing for four positions over three days. My guess is that they don't get a lot of males going for it, and although I didn't intend to talk about it, I think my 300lb-to-180lb weight-loss story showed a resilience of character that shows I work hard. I'll be hearing in a few weeks.

I got a new CD in the mail the other day, and I saved it for the drive into the city for my job interview: Mike Errico's All In. Errico is a songwriter from New York who mixes the best of acoustic, rock, and soul into something that makes him instantly accessible to any number of audiences.

Errico's arguably at his best when it's just him on the stage with an acoustic guitar, playing his own beats as he strums and making his own loops live on stage. I would venture to say that the best Errico album for beginners is Tonight I Drink You All, a recording from New York's Bowery Ballroom that features not only his amazing stageshow but also his unique sense of humor and a collection of his best songs from the first three albums (Bite Size, Pictures of the Big Vacation, and Skimming).

His previous album, Skimming, was a revolution. The production value was at its highest in his collection, and at the same time less poppy than previous albums. Similar leaps and bounds were not made with All-In, but we do get an album that features the same values with new, great songwriting.

The album starts with "Something New," and more specifically with a great, pulsating drum beat. The track is rousing, and a great opener, and fits its name well with unexpected chord changes. What follows is the good series of rockers and, towards the end, slow acoustic songs that is characteristic of Errico. It's good, solid relationship songwriting, and his smooth voice washes over the tracks perfectly.

I enjoyed the hell out of the album. Strongly recommended tracks: "Something New" and "You Could Be Anywhere." You can buy the album or hear a number of racks from all of Errico's albums (including "Something New") at his official site.

I know it seems like everything I review is "good" and "worth buying," but I will tell you that I probably won't recommend the next book I talk about. Oooh! Populist Mike Spoodles gets snippy. Stay tuned.

Tales of the Slaughterhouse

2007-06-13T16:21:00.000-04:00

I read Tales of Toscana by Dan Bern last night. Tales is a book of short stories that generally involve Italy or Italians. There is Rosario, the butcher who moved to America and tried to compete with the supermarket; Formaggio, the ballplayer that ruled the field until DiMaggio got annoyed; a man who is not afraid to cut you with his knife that also functions as a lighter; Fantutti, the young boy who takes on Agassi at tennis; Tibbizzante, the man who indulges a young American in aged foods; a lost prophet named Steve; the tourists who believe themselves to be cultured Europeans; and a man who goes to space.

Each one of these pieces is a funny, quirky character study. The writing is sharp (as Bern's always is) and nonchalant in a way that allows you to imagine that you're being informed of these actual events by a master storyteller.

Speaking of master storytellers, my first review of Bern's writing invited comparison to Kurt Vonnegut--not in a theft of style, but more as a testament to similar sensibilities.. Tales of Toscana is no exception to that comparison, and this was all too clear to me when I read Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five.

Slaughterhouse is a classic, and there's not an awful lot I can say about it. It's a brilliant anti-war piece, interlaced with the oddball genius humor of the writer that I came to love in books like Breakfast of Champions. I have no idea why it took me so long to get to this, probably the late writer's most celebrated and controversial work.

I read all three-hundred pages of this in one afternoon (and still found time to spend an hour doing puzzles with my mom, run over four miles, and eat some jelly beans). I can come to a number of conclusions here:

After four soul-sucking years as an English major, I've finally rediscovered my joy for reading, and hit my typically avid stride.
My attempts to avoid my seeming Internet addiction are working, and I am filling my time with other endeavors.
Slaughterhouse-Five is an amazing book, Vonnegut is an engaging writer, and you should read this.

If you haven't read this, you should read this.
If you have read this, you should read this.

That is all. Tomorrow is my first job interview in the hunt to get something with benefits and real money and regular hours and a little love. Wish me luck.

The Exciting Adventures of Ted the Cow

2007-06-12T19:11:00.000-04:00

Ted! The! Cow!

You may remember me writing about Dan Bern before. I love Dan Bern. His music is insanely good, ranging from folk to country to prog rock. You can visit his web-site right around here.

You may also remember that I enjoyed the hell out of his full-length novel, Quitting Science by Cunliffe Merriweather.

I hunted and hunted for Dan Bern's Ted the Cow, a long out-of-print novella written and illustrated by the musician. I finally found it on eBay, and I bought it and gave it a read.

I enjoyed Ted the Cow for many of the reasons that I enjoyed Quitting Science. Bern's prose manages to toe the line between true-to-life and funny-as-hell, with a wit that clicks. The book is divided into fifty-nine short-short stories, typeset into chapters with black-and-white hand-drawn images.

The story is about a cow named Ted, obviously, who wants desperately to go to the town of Corwich to get away from the hijinks of Joe the Cat, and any number of other bad situations. Here is an excerpt I found quite humorous.

Chapter 14 (excerpt)

Ted remembered he had a cupcake in his pocket. He didn't want to share it with Bert.
"I gotta take a leak," said Ted the Cow.
"OK," said Bert, "but be quick."
Ted returned.
"Hey," said Bert, "you were gone for awhile. That was some leak."
"Well, I had to take a dump too," said Ted the Cow.
"You've got crumbs on your face," said Bert.
"Well, I had a cupcake, too," said Ted the Cow.

Funny stuff, and absolutely worth a read. It's quick and funny.

Color me delighted, then, when I read that Dan Bern was releasing another book in the series, entitled The Glorious Return of Ted the Cow. This book has Ted the Cow returning to his everyday life after the events of the first book, only to find himself in a bit of a depressed rut.

The book is a bit different than its predecessor. The whole thing is handwritten and hand-drawn, with only one or two sentences per page. The artwork becomes more important, and there is not an awful lot of room for long-form set-ups like in the original. It's not bad, but it's not as good as the first one, and certainly of an entirely different vein.

Anyway, it's all worth checking out, and Dan Bern is an extraordinary writer. He has a new short-story compilation called Tales of Toscana, which is next on my queue of things to read. Expect a review shortly.

I also played some more board games today.

Shogun is a Eurogame, and it's probably among my favorites that I've played. It's much like Risk, but instead of "WAR WAR WAR!" you are encouraged to conserve your resources and plan more thoughtful attacks. There are a number of interesting gaming mechanisms at work. The "dice tower" is a nice touch. Unlike any other dice tower, this tower catches some of your cubes, allowing for you to never know exactly what's going to come out. It adds a lot of excitement to your battles. A fun time.

Beyond Balderdash is an Amerigame. You are given a word, and everybody at the table needs to come up with their best guess as to what it means. Then, the table votes for the best answer, and points are allotted. This is more my type of game, inasmuch as it involves wordplay instead of careful strategy. Play it.

The Pinnacle of my hiking experience

2007-06-11T18:30:00.000-04:00

Today some friends and I hiked to The Pinnacle, an amazing overlook on the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania. The view was great (see picture), the hike was fairly easy (8.5 miles round trip), and I got some sun. Nice.

I have my first-ever job interview in a few days, and I am not sweating it. I am playing games. Eurogames. They are just like regular board games, except from Europe (and generally a bit more complicated, involving strategy and higher level thinking, as opposed to random chance).

Richelieu is a really simple card game in which you have to remove cards from the end. You have to collect as many cards as possible from each group, as well as some symbols and tokens. I can't be bothered to explain it to you. I caught on fairly fast and would recommend it. More info here.

Fantasy Pub is a card game that involves drinking as many beers as possible. Once you hit thirteen beers, you win and are considered the player with the "deepest throat." Sexy. The more game-beers you drink, the harder it is to move your characters from card to card.

I do not drink beers, but I would imagine this game would be fun to play as a drinking game (albeit with slightly altered rules to disallow alcohol poisoning). I will allow myself to drink gamebeers, where you just flip a token over. Fairly fun and a little harder to get a hang of. More info here.

Qwirkle is a very, very, very easy game. It is also American. Basically, it's Scrabble with colors, shapes, and patterns, and it's pretty much luck. This is the first time I ever beat my friend Brad at anything. It is, by default, my favorite game ever because of this fact. More info here.

Either that or Trivial Pursuit. Or Monopoly. Or Battleship. Or Scattergories. I like Amerigames.

Whack Like Me

2007-06-10T10:07:00.000-04:00

Wiggety, wiggety whack.

Just finished reading Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin--a real-life account of the author who altered his skin color through chemical and physical means in order to study racism in the south for seven weeks.

The book is anecdotal, told in the form of a journal. For the most part, the stories touch on something deep, and are interesting. However, by the end, a lot of them get repetitive (not through the writer's fault, but as a matter of circumstance). Still, it's hard not to be moved by the plights facing the characters in this book (not just by the author, but by the people he encounters). There is a family that Griffin encounters on his way from Louisiana to Georgia that gives him shelter, and the depiction of their children is amazing. Also triumphant is one brief story of a bus-driver that only says "Watch your step, please" to whites leaving the vehicle, and one woman's subversion of his hard and fast rule.

It's an interesting piece of journalism, but I think it loses a bit of its oomph almost fifty years later. In 1960, I'm sure that to many people it was a bit jarring to hear all the horrifying tales of utter hatred and segregation. Now? Not so much. Everybody knows about segregation, and knows that racism was rampant and horrible.

Obviously this kind of thing is still rampant, and always horrible. You have the Klan. You have any number of hate groups going from one part of the spectrum to another, leaving nobody unscathed. Color, creed, sexual orientation, weight, looks, ability, disability. There is mass genocide going on in countries across the world, and there are attempted genocides going on within our own borders.

I may have lived a sheltered life (as a white male), but I've never personally experienced the kind of utter hatred displayed by many of the bigots in the book--neither toward me or towards anyone else I've been acquainted with. Instead, the racism I've come across in my everyday life has been more subtle than anything else.

If you've peeped around this site long enough, you'd know that I work at a movie theater. It's one of those places that makes people want to stay at home and watch DVDs instead of going out. We have a terrible problem with noisy customers. Not necessarily teenagers, but more often than not. It's important to note that we get similar problems from other age groups, too--including people well into the late stages of life--but that our general problem tends to be among the teens. We couldn't control it on our own, so we hired some rent-a-cops. That did a whole fat lot of nothing, so we actually had to contract police officers to patrol our building on Fridays and Saturdays.

There are times when I'll have to say something to an unruly customer, or even kick them out of the theater. Sometimes they are white. Sometimes they are not. There are occasions when I've been called racist for ejecting a person who happens to be of a different ethnicity. My actions are not motivated in any way by race--at least not that I know of.

But are they wrong for making that claim?

There is an interesting demographic in our teenaged groups. Friday nights tend to see a lot of white teens (aged about 12-15), and Saturday nights tend to see a lot of black teens (aged about 14-17). Obviously we get a mix of both, but there is definitely a skew there, and I'm not sure how to attribute it. Both crowds are equally rambunctious--cell phones, loud shouting, and general disrespect for the movie experience and the moviegoers.

For some reason, our Saturday night crowd was always considered our "bad crowd." There are situations where a group of white teens will do something rambunctious, only to be laughed off. "They're just being kids," some would say. The very next night, a group of black teens will come into the theater, and they'll be watched like hawks until they get a little out of control, at which point somebody will issue a stern warning.

As far as I can tell, there is no rhyme or reason for this. Is it because our mostly-white staff is more "comfortable" around the Friday crowd? Is it an inherent distrust in black people?

Over six years ago, when I first began my job, every time I heard somebody make some weighted reference to race, my stomach would drop. At some point, my stomach stopped doing that. Whether I agreed with it or not, I became indoctrinated into this completely false ideal that "our bad customers" is synonymous with "our black customers." I was entirely wrong never to speak out about such things before. My silence implied (and continues to imply) agreement, or at least approval.

This leads me to wonder if I display some of this inherent bigotry on my own. Have I ever made a comment in regards to a societally-marginalized group that is unintentionally offensive? Attributed some stereotypical trait, even subconsciously? Or, something just as bad: have I ever treated somebody with a different lineage than myself more nicely--even patronizingly--simply to make up for the actions of "my race" or some hidden evil inside of me? It's very possible.

So Black Like Me was a decent book. Well-researched. While it didn't strike a lot of chords with me as a text, I never really think about issues like this anymore (and I really should). At this moment, I am thinking about things. For that, I'd recommend the book to anyone willing to read it.

What makes a Peep a Peep?

2007-06-09T16:58:00.000-04:00

What is it that makes a Marshmallow Peep so darn peepy? Is it the shape? No. It is that they are marshmallows with sugar stuck to them. Then how can Marshmallow Peeps Lollipop Rings and Marshmallow Peeps Chick and Bunny Candy bear that wonderful name?

I got these candies from inside of an enormous plastic Peep over Easter. The container holds three bags of Chick and Bunny Candy, one Lollipop Ring, and a strip of Marshmallow Peeps stickers.

The Lollipop Rings are similar to Ring Pops, except all fruit flavor is excluded. Instead, we are left with a hard piece of candy that tastes like pure sugar. The consistency is the same as your traditional lollipop. If you bite it, it will splinter and potentially cut your mouth. The Peeps 'pop is smaller than, say, a Ring Pop, and it is in an awkward shape that is not conducive to sucking. In fact, because it's so small it's almost impossible to get it into an adult-sized mouth. Is it good? Yeah. But you might as well go for a lollipop that has a specific flavor. Or just eat a packet of sugar.

The Chick and Bunny Candy has exactly the same flavor as the Lollipop Ring. It's the consistency that's different. Think of them as SweetTarts without the Tart. You take a bite and you're left with a mouth full of grainy candy. Not good, but they seemed a little more snackable than the Lollipop Rings, probably because of their size and plenitude.

You'd be hard pressed to find a more run-of-the-mill candy. Look elsewhere.

Go to CrownCombo for Mystie's much-more-satisfied review.
Pictures taken from GroovyCandy and i-Mockery via Google Image Search.

Knocked Out

2007-06-08T08:37:00.000-04:00

Saw Judd Apatow's Knocked Up last night and was not only pleasantly surprised, but downright impressed with the quality of the movie. I probably didn't like it as much as his previous film, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, but it was up there.

Seth Rogen is funny. Katherine Heigl is going to be my future bride. The band of miscreant friends adds the funny where it is desperately needed, and this both keeps the film well-paced and fleshes out Rogen's character. The show is really stolen by Paul Rudd, who gives an understated performance as the beaten down husband of Heigl's sister. As he comes out of his shell to Rogen's character, Rudd reaches back into his Anchorman or Wet Hot American Summer past, but not far enough to make the movie a complete goof. Apatow managed to make a comedy with heart yet again. Good stuff.

Also, I can't believe they got away with showing as much as they did (re: pregnancy). I mean, I'm sure it would pop up in most junior high health classes, but was it really necessary to show the crowning bajingo? I reckon not (although it had some comic payoff eventually), because it really threw the mood of the scene for me. Still, the film was really good.

Loudon Wainwright III provides the soundtrack and score for the movie, and produced it into a complete album (a'la Badly Drawn Boy's About A Boy). The songs that appear in the credits are amazing ("Grey in L.A." and "Daughter"), and sampling of Amazon's track listing shows the rest will be, at worst, really good as well.

For more thoughts (which mirror my own, except more eloquently), visit Kat Ex Machina.

Exercising the Demons

2007-06-07T07:12:00.000-04:00

Back in the swing of things with exercise. The new routine starts with a 7:30am swim at my gym's pool. Then a jacuzzi break and a sauna break. After that, it's off to run on the treadmill. Then some light weightlifting.

I feel fairly good. For too long I've almost felt myself get pudgier as I was lethargic. I've noticed some of the paunch go away already, after only three days.

And if you were wondering how I could somehow tie in a video game review: every night right before I go to bed is phase 2 of the exercise cycle. I turn on the Wii News Channel Slideshow and do an abdominal/stretching/relaxation routine of my own design that lasts the length of the day's news--roughly twenty-five minutes.

The channel posts every Associated Press news story from the day in a number of categories--from National News to Technology. The headlines stay up for five seconds and then move on to the next, accompanied by some fun map techniques. The music is ultra-soothing, too. Perfect for an exercise/cooldown setting. Never have I been so well-informed. I can tell you how long Paris Hilton has been in prison, when Roger Clemens expects to start playing, and who just got executed in Texas. That's right. All the important stuff.

You can Boink your friends, you can Boink your nose...

2007-06-06T08:59:00.000-04:00

I've been doing a lot of reading over the past few days--what I'll call "book-learnin'" as opposed to the things I typically read on the Internet, which begin with "no u r a dick" and end with "lol." Now that college is over, I'm finding myself able to take my time with books and bask in them instead of skimming through for the general meaning and key points for that big Sense and Sensibility test on Wednesday.

Another book that I finished was Seven Hill City by B. Thompson Stroud. In it, Brooks is a bulimic twenty-something who has been in love with an angelic woman (named Aranea Cavatica) who has been present at all the times Brooks needed her most--namely the funerals of his family and friends. The character deals with issues often intertwining his love, his lust, his loss of faith, his eating disorder, and professional wrestling.

I've read Stroud's work before in much smaller doses (on the Interwebs) and enjoyed it thoroughly. Every time I see one of his pieces about wrestling--or baseball--I am initially hesitant because those things generally annoy me and bore me to tears respectively. However, despite the specialized content, the themes and feelings are more often than not universal, and I enjoy them through to the end due to the craftsmanship. Sufficed to say, I was expecting some decent writing out of the deal in spite of the blurb's promise of pro-wrestling. I got just that--decent writing.

The author is great with dialogue, and I think it's the book's strong suit. There is some pop-culture sprinkled throughout and oftentimes a writer will come off sounding like "Hey you guys! Look! I am funny!," but Stroud provides just the right amount and walks the line with ease. The characterization is also well done. Some of the characters seem mildly autobiographical (Brooks and Aranea, judging by Stroud's Internet writings), but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Each character has a depth and uniqueness that makes them real to the reader regardless of where they came from initially.

If I had to pick favorite portions, they would be: the scene in which Brooks is nearly winged by a car (for its incredible desription); Brooks' night shift at the grocery store (which borders from hilarious to romantic to heart-wrenching within its pages); the aftermath of a second car accident; and the seemingly unnecessary introduction of a new character towards the end of the book (which effortlessly ties together the A-story and the B-story in such a neat little package that it made the writer in me jealous).

The book isn't without its problems. Stroud has a tendency to shift formats throughout the book. One chapter may have any number of small sections punctuated by quotes or Bible verses, and the next may be a straightforward narrative. This tends to work for me in the right places--see the aforementioned "new character" chapter--but didn't thrill me at each instance, and seemed to be there just to experiment with some new style.

Also, a little too much was "wrapped up" in the book for my tastes. The Aranea Cavatica story finishes leaving little to the imagination. Without spoiling the main "twist" (as it were) of the book, I'll just say that it's one of those things I would have liked to be a little more open-ended. Still, the ending provided gives one of the best scenes in the book involving two grilled cheese sandwiches on Opposites Day, so I'm not sure where to fall on this. I'll probably read it again later with the full context of the book in my head from the beginning. Definitely worth picking up and reading, especially if you've ever dealt with crises of faith (come on, we all have), eating disorders, or Stroud's prior writings.

Speaking of Stroud's prior writings, Progressive Boink updated yesterday with three all-new articles. You have your choice of funny/meaningful, funny/social-commentary, and funny/funny. As always, their work is top-notch and some of the best on the Internet, so check it out. Read it now (and every Tuesday forevermore or until they become disillusioned with it again).

For more awesome links, I refer you to my right and all the new little buttons that are up. Review the World is great, and head-writer Brian is the coolest and best connection I've ever made on the Internet. Additionally, his writing is always fun and funny without being snarky or mean-spirited, which is incredibly refreshing to find on the Internet.

Also available for clickage, X-Entertainment. Rarely updated with articles these days, but also great.

I'm not going to make a habit of stuff like this just because I'd run the risk of becoming a linkdump again, which was too time consuming and no fun. But those buttons are always on the right, just begging for you to click on them and find better content than you're reading right this second. So jump to it, friend.

Things I Did Yesterday: The Post

2007-06-05T09:43:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was my first big day stepping out from the auspices of the World Wide Internet. I would say it was a smashing success.

I sat down and played a game of the original Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo, 500 Wii points) on my Wii's Virtual Console. I know it's not particularly different than staring at a computer monitor, but it got me out of my bedroom and that was different enough. The game itself: everybody knows it. It's a classic. It came bundled with every Nintendo Entertainment System. After years of advancement in gaming technology and numbers of wonderful sequels, does it stand the test of time?

Well hell yeah it does.

The game is not only still fun, but it's challenging too. I bought it a little over a week ago, and I have yet to make it through. I made it to World 7-4, and I got stuck at Bowser and his stupid hammer attack. I have no idea how I beat this game when I was a kid.

Of the five virtual console games I've bought, I only regret one--the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Konami, 600 Wii points) for the NES, which is just as impossible now as it was when I was six. I can't make it past the first water stage. The controls are clunky, the graphics are glitchy as hell, and I really had no interest in going back and trying to do any better.

There are some fun ideas in the game--especially the ability to switch characters at a whim to utilize their various weapons' strengths and conserve health--but ultimately it falls flat. The first boss fight--Bebop the mutant warthog--is virtually impossible, and I can't get past him without losing two of my four turtles. Virtual Console Game Genie, anybody?

For the Nintendo Entertainment system games, there are three ways to control. You can turn your Wiimote on its side, allowing for the 1 and 2 buttons to function as NES's A and B. The Wiimote doesn't fit well into your hands, and I'd strongly recommend going for one of the other options.

If you have a GameCube controller or four lying around, you can plug them directly into the console. The A and B buttons function as...well, the A and B buttons. You can control movement with either the directional pad or the analog control stick (although obviously you're limited to only four axises of movement). It's not the best option (at least for these NES games), but it's fairly cheap. My Wal Mart was blowing out third-party GameCube controllers for ten bucks a pop when the Wii came out, and last I saw there were still some on the shelves.

Third option is probably the best one, but it'll set you back twenty bucks per controller. That's the Wii Classic Controller (Nintendo, $19.99). It's laid out essentially like the Super Nintendo paddle, except they squeezed a couple of analog control sticks on there and some shoulder buttons. The NES A and B buttons are controlled by the Classic Controller's A and B or X and Y buttons. The X and Y seem a little more comfortable for me. It's completely ergonomic (especially for the simple NES games).

The only drawback to the Classic Controller is that it has to be connected to a Wiimote. It'll suck those AA batteries dry, so forget about charging that puppy when you're doing some classic gaming. That also means that if you want to play multiplayer classic games, you'll not only need a $20 Classic Controller, but also a $40 Wiimote for each player (or the slightly more economical GameCube controllers if you can find them).

I'd call Nintendo's Virtual Console an unmitigated success, assuming you have the cognizance to be fairly picky with your choices. For every Super Mario Bros there will be a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, so do your research and read reviews beforehand. Sometimes nostalgia won't serve you well.

Then again, sometimes it will, and it seems like Nintendo releases at least one worthwhile classic game per week that is well worth your money. NES games retail for 500 or 600 Wii points (about $5 or $6) depending on which company released them. Sure, you could easily download these things illegally and run them on emulators, but there's something to be said about owning something, and enjoying it on the big screen television.

I read the latter half of a collection of short stories. The book was Samuel Johnson is Indignant: Stories by Lydia Davis. Davis visited my school for a reading about two months ago, and I was so enthralled that I picked this up immediately thereafter.

Her writing is fresh, and out of the ordinary in that she follows no particular structure. Some of her stories are like the traditional short story--twenty pages long, maybe more. Other "stories" are one page long; one paragraph long; one line long. Davis is terse and to the point in all of her stories, and yet still whimsical enough to not read like stereo instructions. Her prose is almost like poetry--every word has a weight and significance to it that much of fiction--at least for me--does not have. Take, for example, this excerpt from her piece entitled "Letter to a Funeral Parlor."

We noticed that before the death of my father you and your representative used the words loved one to refer to him. That was comfortable for us, even if the ways in which we loved him were complicated.
Then we were sitting there in our chairs in the living room trying not to weep in front of your representative, who was opposite us on the sofa, and we were very tired first from sitting up with my father, and then from worrying about whether he was comfortable as he was dying, and then from worrying about where he might be now that he was dead, and your representative referred to him as "the cremains."
At first we did not even know what he meant. Then, when we realized, we were frankly upset. Cremains sounds like something invented as a milk substitute in coffee, like Cremora, or Coffee-mate. Or it sounds like some kind of chipped beef dish.

Everything in the collection is like this--bittersweet and funny and philosophical and fairly meaningful. I would strongly recommend the book, and I'll definitely be reading more of her stuff in the near future.

Mandatory stories: "Old Mother and the Grouch," "First Grade: Handwriting Practice," "The Furnace," "The Silence of Mrs. Iln"

So that's all the reviewable stuff. I watched what was, I think, the only episode of South Park I had never seen. I also was social with my friend Theresa and joined a gym, where I swam, jacuzzi-ed, saunaed, and ran three miles. Today will be more misadventure, and it will be reported in the future (i.e. probably tomorrow).

Robot Hand may very well be the present.

2007-06-04T10:53:00.000-04:00

Hello friend. For the last year of my life, I've done little else other than sitting in front of my computer and staring blankly at the screen. Trust me, it's depressing. I would sit there refreshing forums or playing stupid games at the expense of my personal and social life. My name is Mike and I am a ~~massive dickbag~~ Internet addict.

So I've deleted all games from my computer. Every one. And all links to Internet forums. I plan on cutting this way back.

What does this mean for this site? Well, actually, things are looking up. Now that I won't be hunched over reading and making snarky, stupid posts on the Progressive Boink forums or playing Snoodoku, I'll have virtually nothing to do when I am on my computer. I'd imagine I'll start posting here again fairly regularly (although on no particular schedule and with no particular format).

I really enjoyed writing reviews for the brief time I was doing that, so I'll probably be throwing out my thoughts on various movies, candies, books, and assorted oddities that come my way. In addition, there will be a fair mix of personal stuff (like the previous post, a 1997 Travelogue), and probably just some stupid, silly stuff too. Perhaps some original writings, if I am so bothered.

State of the Union complete. My Internet addiction is toast. Now to battle my dietary problems...

I deleted this from the site long ago, but Brian from Review the World asked for a copy. If you ever find yourself enjoying my lame content, here is a button for you to sew to your vest and/or website.

Travelogue: Florida, 1997

2007-06-01T11:33:00.000-04:00

We took a crazy and fun family road trip to Florida in 1997. My sister Amy/"Melvin" was keeping a running log that actually stopped before we hit Disney, but all is forgiven because she was ten years old and apparently retarded. Anyway, here is an illustrated Travelogue through the eyes of the coolest ten-year-old girl I knew.

87/2/97

We left for Florida! Things went off to a rocky start. Mike asked Dan to get a comb for him when mommy asked ~~him~~ them to get their combs. Mom said Mike was a "Lazy fat Ass". Mike jumped up and said I'm not going and left. We got him back in the car and we stopped for gas. Now it's off to drop off our mail and off we go. Mom wants to get to South Carolina today. We're making bet's on which day the door handle will break. Amy day we get to Disney 9th. Dan takes the 10th Mike says tomorrow (3rd). Mom say's 14th. Dad says it just won't. We're playing the lisence plate game the hole time. 9:22am we're in Maryland.

We are in Virginia 11:02am. We ate lunch at the Virginia Welcome center. Now to Mad libs. (We already played tribond Mike won). continued

We reached North Carolina 3:46pm.

We played Yatzee

We arrived in South of the border (South Carolina 6:52 pm

I got a south of the border coin and Keychain. We stopped at day's Inn. It would be about 55 dollars. We decided to look on. We might go back. We checked out the prices at the Comfort Inn. It's full. We decided to check travelers inn. It's way to expenseve. We're going back to the day's Inn. We went swimming and took a dip in the hot tub. We went to Burger King. We traveled 564.1 ~~yesturday~~ today.

87/3/97

We woke up but the boys wouldn't get up they wasted like ten minutes. We went and got a continental breakfast free. Now we're at a Pilot travel center for gas. We're in Georgia 11:42am. Dan is a Bad driver. He almost killed us twice. No driving for him. We're in Florida 2:15. We went to Quincys Mom said it was dirty. (It was). Dad said "Florida's a long ass state". Dan says "It is a penis". We went swimming and then went to McDonalds for a snack. We're staying at is stinky Mirage (Best Western). Today we drive 603.2 miles. Oh yeah! I got a yak at Mc D. It's name is yacity.

8/4/97

We took showers and went to Ihop for breakfast. When we left mom and dad kepy driving the car back and forth in the car cause mom couldn't read the map right. We went to the Philly's Spring Training feild. We were just in the gulf Of Mexico. It was fun. We jumped in to wave and colleted shells. Mom and Dad didn't ~~come in~~ swim with us. (they walked into there knees). We went to the Yankee's spring training place next. We weren't supposed to park but dad did. Mom just wanted to leave. We stopped at a Shoney's for supper. We drove on a little and stopped at a Red Roof Inn. Dan, Mike, and I went swimming While mom and dad went to wash the car. When they got back they swimming also. There was a spa but it was to hot. Plus there were guys drinking beer. We all (kids) took showers, and went to bed.

8/5/97

We all got up. When I was ~~the~~ brushing my teeth, and I saw a lizard. We left and stopped at a gas station with gas. We stopped ata Burger King for Break. Then we headed to the EverGlades. When we got there we went to a gater park. Then to a hike, and on a boat ride. On the hike we saw little crabs that looked like spiders. On the boat ride we saw racoons and alligators. We got to hold a baby alligator mom and dad choose not to. After that we had the 1 hr. boat ride we went to the national park for a two hr. tram ride. We saw a white herring and a blue one, We saw volchers, we saw a bird with a snake in it's mouth. We saw deer, (which are smaller then P.A.'s and a buck fawn), alligators. and a neat turtle all black!! The tour guide sort of sounded like Cristian in my oppinion. (Cristian was a A.D. at camp!) After that was over we went to a Wendy's where we decided to go all the ways to ~~the~~ Key West. (We crossed 49 bridges to go there. Once hear it took us like an hour to find a hotel. We ended up at a Howarad Jhonson's. It's a Motel but across the street it was a resturant. We walked to the resturant we had dessert. it was the only thing we had time for. (Mike didn't have any he said non sounded good) We walked across the street to a K's market. We got drinks and candy bar's. Then we went back to H. J.

8/6/97

We left H.J.'s and dropped the ~~car~~ van off at a parking lot. We got tickets to ride a tram around Key West. Werode by alot of interesting places. We got off to go to the Hemmingway House. There were alot of cats. 52 to be exact. (Hemmingway was a writter). We got back on. Then we got off at the Southernmost point. (90 miles to Cuba. Then we finished the tram ride. When we got back we went to Sloppy Joe's to have lunch Then we looked around in shop. Now we're on are way to Miami ~~but~~. We stopped at a Dairy Queen. Daddy's kidney hurts. We are staying at a days in. I hope it's nothing real serious. He had a kidney stone.

UNDETERMINED DATE

Sorry i stopped writing i will put certain things i remember--

The end.

WE ARE EXCITED

2007-05-06T07:46:00.000-04:00

Freshman Retrospectus

2007-05-04T07:27:00.000-04:00

I finished my last paper yesterday. I'm done. No more schoolwork for me ever.

As such, it's only fitting that I do some sort of college retrospective. Here is part one.

FRESHMAN YEAR (2003-2004)

CDS OF THE AGE: David Bowie: Reality
Mike Errico: Skimming
Belle and Sebastian: Dear Catastrophe Waitress
Badly Drawn Boy: One Plus One is One
Seven Mary Three: Dis/Location
Morrissey: You Are the Quarry
Damien Rice: O

MOVIES OF THE AGE:
Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
Big Fish
Kill Bill

August 21, 2003: My last day with the kids at home. Lose ten bucks at the horse races. About fifteen of us go to the Diner and break bread--quite literally. This is our "last supper." Sit on my car talking to Timbo for two hours.

August 22, 2003: Move into Mowrey Hall with Nick. Our traditions include "playing" Jeopardy against one another every night. My brother lives in the King St. apartment that would later become mine.

August 25, 2003: First day of classes. I am an Elementary Education major.

September 11, 2003: Our first "Movie Night"--this becomes a tradition every Thursday night through Freshman year. CUB food and a movie. This is how I meet Brad Keen, who will influence my life in a major way come sophomore year.

October 7, 2003: I write this poem:

Oh delicious turkey dinner! I love you like I
have never loved anyone or anything before.

Oh delicious lunch of turkey dinner leftovers,
you are also reasonably good.

October 9, 2003: Theresa and Katy come in from Harrisburg and join us for movie night. We watch Time Cop. Women never enter our dorm room again.

October 22, 2003: Elliott Smith commits suicide. He was my favorite musician (and still is).

November 7, 2003: Go to Philadelphia with Theresa, Katy, and Christopher and see Eddie Izzard in concert.

November 14, 2003: My brother and I travel to Philly to see Belle and Sebastian in concert.

December 21, 2003: Theresa gives me a Christmas present--a number of poems on a nicely made frame thing. By far one of the best presents I ever got.

December 31, 2003: Kiss Anna under the mistletoe.

January 11, 2004: Eat eleven oatmeal creme pies on a dare. Get very sick. Also, I get a new car--1996 Cevrolet Cavalier, which I still drive. Rest in peace, Crown Vic.

February 14, 2004: Spend Valentine's Day with Anna for our one-month.

March 2, 2004: Nick writes this.

"mike has his window closed (like it matters, they are next to each other) and is in bed. soon he will put a sheet on his legs. i think he is a girl, i have (thank god) never seen his penis, so maybe he has none. no one has seen my penis maybe i am a girl. inquire within."

March 14, 2004: Anna and I split up. I don't date anybody for the rest of college because I am too shy and/or fat.

March 16, 2004: I tell a telemarketer that I passed away over Spring Break. Telemarketers never call our room again.

March 27, 2004: I go for a five-hour walk--13 miles round trip--into the next county by myself, and I come back dehydrated, chafed, and stiff. I spend the next day in bed, thinking about writing a novel about a fat man who walks across the country.

May 5, 2004: I discover the communal computer game Counterstrike with the guys in my dorm hall, and also Ryan's Steakhouse, the home of the all-you-can-eat steak buffet.

May 7, 2004: I go to CD's prom with my sister's friend Jillian. With no real pressure, it was probably the most fun of my three proms.

May 18, 2004: School is over. We go out yelling "random heys" from the car. These are our new code names.

Mr. Peabody (Miles)
Flash Gordon (Derek)
Princess Pizaz (Ashley)
Froderick (Me)
Sweet Meat (K-Rex)

May 11, 2004: I see David Bowie at HersheyPark stadium.

June 18, 2004: Chris and I spend the weekend at Wildwood, NJ and troll the boardwalk. He wears a shiny, gold shirt. We spend one night watching old people play Bocce and acting like sports commentators.

Holocaust Remembrance Day

2007-04-12T00:43:00.000-04:00

Sunday is Holocaust Remembrance Day, and it is observed in many different ways. I choose to observe it by sharing a beautiful piece of music with you.

The track is called "Lithuania" and it's by Dan Bern. Here is a link to download it (only good for the next 7 days). Here is a lyrical excerpt.

These are my ghosts: Uncle Emmanuel, Uncle Eli, Aunt Mia, and my
grandparents, Jenny and Tobias, none of whom I have ever met
I saw some letters once that they wrote to my dad in Palestine in
1940, not too long before they were all shot
My only bridge to them was my dad--he knew them, and he knew me, and now he's gone too

Sometimes I want to get next to them, and sometimes I want to push them all away,
Say, You’re not my ghosts, I live in Sunny California,
I drive a 1992 Red Chevrolet, I drive fast, and I drive as far west as anyone can drive,
Eight thousand miles from Lithuania, and if I could escape by driving further then I would,
But it doesn't get me anyplace new

I guess if I was a true American, I could write an elegy to the automobile,
But when I jump in I can't escape the way I feel
I sometimes want to dance on Hitler’s grave, shout out
Groucho Marx, Lenny Bruce, Leonard Cohen, Philip Roth, Bob Dylan,
Albert Einstein, Woody Allen, Leonard Bernstein, Harry Houdini, Sandy Koufax

And then I want to sing as loud as I can,
Watch the chandeliers sway dangerously overhead,
Proclaiming Kristallnacht is over
I say that Kristallnacht is over--The only broken glass tonight
Will be from wedding glasses shattered under boot heels
We are not the ones in the museum--its you,
Your curious mustache with your chamber of horrors

Humor me and give the track a listen. It's fairly moving.

Easter's almost here!

2007-04-06T08:43:00.000-04:00

Easter is a'comin', and I'd be foolish not to mention awesome new Peeps sites this year.

Not new but still awesome: Mystie's Crown Combo presents the 2007 Peepdown. All the Peeps merchandise you can shake a prick at.

Meanwhile, somebody has a Flickr album of Peeps for Passover.

CandyBlog has Peeps Mashups, mixing Peeps with your other favorite candies.

Just Born released a Peeps Poll, so if you're curious about the demographics of Peepdom, click here.

Enjoy, and happy Easter.

That Was The Best Article Ever!

2007-04-05T08:21:00.000-04:00

Justin has posted a new article at Progressive Boink that is all sorts of amazing. It's called "That Was The Worst Sleepover Ever!" and it's a bit of creative nonfiction that continues to knock me off my feet.

I wrote a long-winded item about how much I love this article, but it's on my MySpace Blog. I use my MySpace blog for my more "personal" info. Here is an excerpt of my own thoughts.

There's nothing edgy or obnoxious about this piece. It's a series of observations about a simple situation, and the real craft here is in the writing. Taking the mundane and making it special: it's a technique that's sort of Wordsworthian, sort of Progressiveboinkian, but it's the exact thing I aspire to in my own fiction.

Parts 1-5 are up now, and there's more to come!

Sometimes I feel like making "content" and sometimes I don't. As such, there's a distinct possibility that my "personal" blog will start getting posted here. Eff y'all for judgin' me.

An April Fools Joke!

2007-04-01T09:40:00.000-04:00

If I were every other website on the Internet, this would be an April Fools post! But I'm not. Here is a fun Sesame Street video (from back before Elmo shat upon that show) that I thought was enjoyable. Thanks to Jess for the link.

Six-Word Reviews

2007-03-29T19:28:00.000-04:00

I'm just about graduated from college, and I'll never be looking back. I'm slacking. I'm slacking at school work, and I'm slacking at this website. Here are a bunch of six-word reviews of things that I've seen/played/read/done this week.

MOVIES

Casino Royale (2006): Still the best Bond movie ever.
Belle & Sebastian: Fans Only (2004): Insightful look into a happy-ass band.
The Smiths: The Complete Picture (1992): Made me feel gay, but good.
Uncle Saddam (2003): A joke documentary with little humor.
Morrissey: Oye Esteban (2000): A testament to a pop genius.
Morrissey: Who Put the M in Manchester? (2005): Awe inspiring live performance, partially shirtless.
The Bourne Identity (2002): Lost some luster after Casino Royale.
The Bourne Supremacy (2004): Enjoyable and better than the first.
Baghdad Bob (2003): Funny documentary about Iraqi Information Minister.

VIDEO GAMES

Trauma Center: Second Opinion (2006, Wii): Good use of controls, boring story.
Wii Play (2007, Wii): Multiplayer fun with a free controller!
Snoodoku (2005, PC): Sudoku with brilliant interface, weird monsters.

BOOKS

The Alphabet of Manliness by Maddox (2006): Hilarious bathroom reading from Internet mainstay.

EVENTS

Literary reading by authors Silas Zobal and Catherine Dent: Beautifully sad stories by married writers.

FOOD

Marshmallow GREEN Peeps (March 2007): Extremely soft and fresh--new color.
Marshmallow Peeps Snowmen (December 2006): Halfway stale, but softened in microwave.
Marshmallow Peeps Orange-Flavored Eggs (March 2007): An amazing flavor, like a Creamsicle.
Marshmallow Peeps Strawberry Hearts (February 2006): Not hard at all, but tasty.
Marshmallow Peeps Vanilla Hearts (February 2006): Not too different from regular Peeps.

TELEVISION

Survivor (Thursday 3-22-07): Rocky says the word--Anthony's gone.
Scrubs (Thursday 3-22-07): Nurse Roberts? Say it ain't so!
Andy Barker, PI (Thursday 3-22-07): After weak premiere, episode shows promise.
The Amazing Race (Sunday 3-25-07): Ugh! Midget in first; elderly gone.
Prison Break (Monday 3-26-07): Tension ratcheting up; season finale near.
24 (Monday 3-26-07): Mentally retarded terrorist? A new low.
Lost (Wednesday 3-28-07): Paolo's death was worth the wait.
South Park (Wednesday 3-28-07): 24 parody outdoes the real 24.

Hope that was as enlightening for you as it was time-killing for me.

Congratulations

2007-03-27T21:50:00.000-04:00

Congratulations to Derek and Ashley for the bun-in-the-oven.

"Arbor Day"

2007-03-23T14:47:00.000-04:00

Annie Pitts cuffed her right hand to her husband Leroy’s left hand. Then she did the same, except with the opposite hands.

“Nobody else is here.” Leroy’s face was pressed on the bark.

“They’ll be here,” Annie replied. She could not see Leroy.

“It’s raining.”

“So?” Annie’s face was not pressed on bark.

“So they don’t cut down trees when it’s raining.”

The rain got harder.

“None of your friends are here either,” Leroy said.

“They’ll be here.”

“It’s raining.” Leroy was wet. “Where are the keys?”

“In my pocket.”

“Give me the keys.”

“Leroy.”

“Give me the keys.”

“Leroy.”

“May I please have the keys?”

Annie couldn’t reach her pocket. “You have to bring your arms down, Leroy.”

“I can’t get them down any further, Annie dear. There’s a big freaking branch right here.

There was a big freaking branch right there.

“Well I can’t reach my pockets, Leroy.”

“Is it murder to break off the branch?”

“Leroy! It’s Arbor Day!”

“Well that’s just great.” Leroy shook his arm like mad, and the chain banged against the tree branch. The cuff tightened and his wrist began to bleed. “Well that’s just great.”

“Maybe if I get on top of it I could reach my pocket.”

“Do it.”

Annie and Leroy sidled around the tree until Leroy’s shoulder bumped into the branch.

"Wrong way," Leroy said.

They two-stepped the other way until Annie's face was pressed against the branch.

“How am I gonna get up there?”

“Try to kick your leg up there,” Leroy said. “Then I’ll just keep going counter-clockwise and the cuffs will pull you up.”

“My arm will fall off!”

Leroy did not respond. Annie sighed and started kicking. She didn’t even come close. After five minutes she stopped.

“Well,” she said, “we’re just going to have to wait for the rest of them to get here.”

“It’s raining,” Leroy said.

“We really ripped that fucker out by the roots, didn’t we?” Leroy was dry.

Annie did not look amused.

Leroy continued laughing as he took a bite out of a block of smoked cheese shaped like a pig. “Right by the roots.”

“You’re disgusting,” Annie said. Her right arm was in a pale green cast that matched the wall perfectly.

Leroy laughed harder and chewed up cheese mush came out of his nose. He pulled a napkin from his lap and wiped his face, smearing the cheese across his lip like a mustache.

“We were saving the world and we ended up destroying precious life!” Annie wiped bits of smoked cheese pig from her blouse with her good hand.

“It was a damn tree, Annie!” Leroy accidentally bit the inside of his lip. “They were just going to cut it down anyway.” He washed the blood and cheese from his mouth with a swig of whole milk.

Oh Golly!

2007-03-21T18:58:00.000-04:00

Well, I'm fresh out. Finally out of backlogged articles that I had written over the past three months. I'm working from scratch now. I can't promise that I'll continue posting on a bi-daily basis, but I certainly will try.

This is a short, short piece of fiction I wrote for a class.

“Mister”

You know who ya are.

Thinkin’ yer all better than everybody else, what with yer arm brace and yer solitary nature. Just watchin’ the scoreboards flickerin’ on the faces of the little kids trippin’ over those half-drawn bowlin’ bumpers while ya run yer hand through that slicked-back hair, greasy as the pizza Larry’s slinging over in concessions. Ya think yer top banana but yer not. Taste that air. That’s hate and lust and feet and smoke. Breathe it in.

Yer all worried about yer form with that wrist splint, but no amount of wood and cloth will keep you from scuffin’ those horrible blue shoes against my hardwood floor. Mister All-Pro. Mister Skinny Minnie. There are twenty teenaged girls runnin’ round with skirts up to their hoohas, and they’re closer to a 300-game than ya could ever hope to be. Don’t think I can’t see ya leering. Mister Limpy. Mister Gimpy. At least the boozehounds and beer guts don’t try to hide it. They stare. You glance. Mister Pervert. Sick Mister.

Yeah. Put that ball back on the rack. Yer done fer the night. Too insecure to use one of the brightly colored bowling balls. Pink, green, orange, burgundy. All shiny and half neon. Not you though. Yer not shiny. Gotta be black. Classic black. Trusty black, jest like yer teeth. Don’t think nobody noticed. These lights are fluorescent, pally. Anybody with half a mind to sick themselves out could just take a gander at yer slack jaw, crawling with nachos and cheese fries and plaqueteria.

Oh, it’s plain to see. Yer headed to the arcade for fun and frivolity. Funny. Seems like the teenieboppers are there too, sittin’ on the scratchety-assed pool table and flirtin’ with the boys at the Pac-Man cabinet. Yer just in it fer the watchin’. Plunk in a couplea quarters for the crane game, maybe win yerself a couplea greeny yellow stuffed animals fer the lovely young ladies. Maybe they’ll remember ya in a few years when they can take out daddy’s car, and they’ll see ya in that wrist splint and throw ya a mercybone.

Yer shakin’ and it’s not helpin’ yer cranin’. Sick Mister. Hearin’ the girls shriek makes ya all aquiver. They love this song. Oops they did it again. Ya watch ‘em dance and ya delight in their dithyrambs. Ya shake some more and ya shake some more and then ya stop shakin’. No more quarters in yer pocket, eh? Is that right, Mister Poor? Mister Sadsack?

Whatcha doin’ there? Just ploppin’ on the arcade floor like a cadaver? Yeah, yer a real winner. Mister All-Pro. Slippin’ off yer blueshoes and puttin’ on yer specialshoes. Walkin’ a little straighter now, are ya?

Puff puff. Just a counterboy with his spraycan, of course. Ya hand him yer bowlin’ shoes, completely unaware of his admiration of ya. Of his yen. Puff puff puff. Mister Lover Lover. Walkin’ away and never knowin’.

More Sad Libs!

2007-03-19T10:25:00.000-04:00

Welcome back. If you don't know how to play, you're an idiot. So let's get started, shall we? Feel free to post your results in the comments. This time maybe my Sad Libs will make more sense.

PART 1:

1. Favorite Name for a Horse _____________________
2. Food ____________________
3. Body Part ___________________
4. Adjective ___________________
5. Verb __________________
6. Plural Noun _________________
7. Adjective _________________
8. A place _________________
9. Noun __________________
10. Favorite Name For a Horse (SAME AS #1)
11. Internal Organ _______________

Is that your final answer? Then scroll down to....

PART 2:

A Horse Is a Horse (Unless, of course...)

Sarah Jessica Parker's face is so long that she looks like my pet horse, ______1______. Every time I see her I want to feed her _______2________ and comb her _____3________ until it is ______4________. Maybe give her a nice salt lick. I would make her ______5________ over _______6________ until her legs were _____7________, and then I would take her back to the _______8_______ for some rest and _______9_______. I ride _____10_______ every day. I would not ride Sarah Jessica Parker. I would instead punch her in the _______11________.

Remember to post your results in the comments section please.

My hips don't lie

2007-03-17T10:22:00.000-04:00

I work at a fairly busy place that holds a lot of children and unaccompanied teenagers. Yesterday was my day to clean out the lost and found, and boy did I ever get a goodie! In addition to old coats and grimy, empty wallets, I found a MYSTERY MIX CD!

The purple CD-R is labeled "Diam's This Good Stuff 1st CD." If Diam recommends it, how could it possibly be bad? Let's take a listen and explore, shall we?

TRACK 1: "Eeny meeny miney moe! How many bitches in the club wanna go?" I do, I do! A little research shows me that this track is "I Know You See It" by Young Joc. It's a little bit catchy, if unvaried. Of course, the novelty wears off when somebody claims that "you're chewing on my pussy like a piece of bubble gum.

TRACK 2: "Eeny meeny miney moe!" You've gotta be kidding me. The whole thing got kind of tiresome the first time around, but "I Know You See It" by Young Joc makes its triumphant return immediately. Diam broke one vital mix CD rule here, where he/she used two tracks by the same artist (or, in this case, the same track repeated).

TRACK 3: Populist music to the rescue. Shakira's "Hips Don't Lie," and she's starting to feel it's right. I had the honor of living Summer 2006 in my iPod, so I didn't get tired out by this song's seeming omnipresence (when it started, this song illicted groans from everyone else in the room). To me, this is a fairly fun track and worth listening to.

TRACK 4: Lady music continues to reign. This song is apparently "We Ride" by Rihanna. It's your fairly standard slow R&B club song. The "we ride" chorus is kind of catchy at first, but once again the song overstays its welcome until the 4:00 mark when we get blessed silence.

TRACK 5: Ah, the old mix CD standby--a piano ballad. My first thought was that this song would be Evanescence, but I was dead wrong. It's our friend Rihanna again, with "Unfaithful." While the repeating artist again breaks a number of cardinal Mix Tape rules, it's nice to have a respite from the dance beats for a little. There's even a little melody here. Nice.

TRACK 6: You're kidding? The Isley Brothers? Nice. Wonder how our teenaged Diam got into the Isley Brothers? Oh. It's the Isley Brothers Featuring R. Kelly. That explains it. Anyway, this song is called "Contageous." Sort of a slow ballad of an R&B song. Put it in your next movie during the sex scene.

TRACK 7: More standard R&B. Sounds like it could have been Boyz II Men from my formative elementary school years, but it's "Entourage" by Omarion. Nothing objectionable, but nothing exceptional either.

TRACK 8: If there's one thing I hate in rap music, it's the constant repetition. Here is the chorus of this song. "Stuntin' like my daddy. Stuntin' like my daddy. Stuntin' like my daddy. Stuntin' like my daddy. Stuntin' like my daddy. Stuntin' like my daddy. Stuntin' like my daddy." Guess what the song is called. If you guessed "Stuntin' Like My Daddy" by Lil Wayne, you'd be correct. I'm not hip enough to know what stuntin' is, and I'm not hip enough to enjoy this song.

TRACK 9: More annoying repetition. "Walk it out, walk it out, walk it out, walk it out." Sounds like a baseball coach talking to some whiny little leaguer, but no, it's just our good friend DJ UNK telling us to "Walk It Out."

TRACK 10: A lovemaking song! This one is called "Long Way 2 Go" by Cassie, and it earns extra points for the use of "2" instead of "to." There is a bit of repartee between Cassie and a male collaborator that is downright hilarious to me. Otherwise, more of the same I guess. The beat here is better than several previous songs, though.

TRACK 11: This is the last track, and I appreciate the brevity of Diam's mix. So many amateur mix-makers will fill up the whole eighty minutes of a blank CD, but conciseness is a virtue. This disc runs less than 42 minutes, and that's including a repeating track. Anyway, this song is called "I Wanna Fuck You" by AKON. This is a remix starring Snoop Dogg, which I can appreciate because I like his voice. The chorus is actually pretty catchy as well. Second best on the disc, next to Shakira.

IN TOTO: I have nothing really to add here. The biggest excitement of mystery mix CDs is discovering the person's musical taste. I dream of the day when I find a mystery mix that initiates me to something new and wonderful, but this CD will do as well. Rap beats are nice for jogging at any rate, so I deemed this disc (with the exception of track 2) iPod-worthy. I would include free downloads, but my favorite server site has been down for ages now. Just pretend, or listen to free samples on iTunes.

1. Young Joc: I Know You See It
2. Young Joc: I Know You See It
3. Shakira: Hips Don't Lie
4. Rihanna: We Ride
5. Rihanna: Unfaithful
6. Isley Brothers featuring R. Kelly: Contageous
7. Omarion: Entourage
8. Lil Wayne: Stuntin' Like My Daddy
9. DJ UNK: Walk It Out
10. Cassie: Long Way 2 Go
11. AKON: I Wanna Fuck You

Sad Libs is the Future

2007-03-15T10:03:00.000-04:00

Welcome to Volume One of Robot Hand Sad Libs!

Here's how you play. I give you a list asking for specific words and phrases. You fill in such a list, giving me those words. Then we put them into a hilarious Internet prompt full of misunderstandings. It's pretty easy. "Boobs" is usually the correct answer.

SO HERE WE GO!

STEP 1:

1. A noun (person place or thing) - _________________
2. An -ing verb (i.e "jumping") - _________________
3. A noun (person place or thing) - _________________

And that's it. Now scroll down for your hilarious prompt.

STEP 2:

HOW TO BE FUNNY ON THE INTERNET

I'm in your ____1______, _____2_____ your _____3_____.

STEP 3:

Do you like it? Photoshop it onto a picture of a cat or something. Not really? Try again, man. At any rate, post your results in the Comments section please.

One year gone.

2007-03-13T16:17:00.000-04:00

You know what? It's been a year since I started Robot Hand is the Future. I started out writing about news, and got into writing reviews and articles. But you know what? I've really lost focus of what this thing is all about. There's been a presence on this page that I haven't even mentioned in something like ten months.

What's goin' on, little guy?

I love Marshmallow Peeps. I really mean it. If I could marry them, I'd--let me rephrase that. If there were a proper orifice on their cute, pastel bodies, I would make sweet marshmallow love to them.

So in addition to my super-awesome reviews, I'm going to throw my focus back on Peeps for a bit. I've built up such a huge collection of Peeps that I literally am running out of room. Because of that, I have decided to break into them and do the right thing--eat them. They're all stale and hard and good and wonderful.

Today's Peep:

Marshmallow Peeps Spooky Cats, vintage 2006.

These were bought in September 2006. They were opened and consumed in March of 2007.

Pertinent info: Serving size is 4 cats. Calories: 130. Fat: 0g. These are not vegan because they contain gelatin in their ingredients. Gelatin is made of horses' hooves. The more you know. Marshmallow Peeps Spooky Cats are not a significant source of fiber, vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, or iron, but they are a significant source of tasting good.

This is the Mohs Scale of Peep Hardness. The lower the number, the fresher and squishier the Peep is. These Peeps were just about in the middle--a 3.5. They were chewy and malleable, much like a real cat.

The Spooky Cats are plain, white, Peeps marshmallow, covered with a blackish sugar. The eyes and whiskers are white.

I've never been the type to make claims that different colored foods taste different. I have friends that swear to this day that M&Ms each have their own, distinct flavors. These friends are assholes. Still, there was something a little "off" about my Spooky Cats. I'd imagine it has something to do with the black coloring included in the package. My mom tells me that black decorating color tastes bad. My mom also tells me that touching myself is sinful. WHY CAN'T YOU JUST LET ME HAVE FUN, MOM?

I ate these in any number of ways. Regular-style, they were chewy. Frozen, they were magnificent and textural. Microwaved for about fifteen seconds and they were poofed up and good. Tasted just like a toasted marshmallow. Microwaved for thirty seconds and OH SHIT.

Spooky Cat...we hardly knew ye. This is a scan of the package. Good day.

Here's to another year of Robot Hand is the Future, and here's to many, many more decades of Marshmallow Peeps variations for me to scan.

Love,
Spoodles

Indulge your senses

2007-03-11T10:18:00.000-04:00

I was walkin' down the street yesterday minding my own business when all of a sudden...

WHAT THE HELL?

That's right. It's Pepsi's newest addition to their upscale "Pepsi Jazz" line of colas. Diet Pepsi Jazz: Caramel Cream.

I love Pepsi. I love jazz. I love caramel. I love cream. However, all together in one glass? Blasphemy! Was there really somebody somewhere that said, "I would really like my soda to taste more like sugar?"

Pertinent information: Serving Size: 8 fl. oz. Calories: 0. Fat: 0. Sodium: 25mg. I think it's vegan, but it certainly isn't natural. Includes aspartame (better known as Nutrasweet), which has been known to cause brain damage in emus during laboratory testing.

When I approach a new soda, I approach it like a fine wine. First, you pour it into your stemmed goblet of choice. Then you grab it by the bottom, like a frou-frou. Then, you waft. Wave your hand over the soda, brushing the delicate scent into your nostrils. Do you smell it yet?

No?

Then just dig yer damn nose in there. It smells like some sick mixture of caramel and cola, I'll give them that.

I'll be honest with you: it's been years since I've actually had caramel. When it comes to candy, I have to watch it. I used to be 300 lbs, and candy was my weakness. I used to be able to choke back five full-size candy bars in one sitting. Still, I think I remember the taste of caramel fairly well. And you know what? They've really captured it with this soda. Of course, half the fun of caramel is the gooiness and consistency, but the flavor is all here.

The best caramel is sweet and buttery with a hint of salt thrown in. What better place to convey that flavor than soda, which is swimming in sweeteners, artificial flavors, and sodium? It's all there, and it works surprisingly well. We've already had vanilla colas to varying degrees of success. Is chocolate too far behind? I used to loves me a Chocolate Coke at the soda fountain back in the fifties.

NEW FEATURE: Packaging Gallery

For some food reviews, I'll be including a gallery of the labels (my own pictures...who'da thunk?).

We're not gonna pay the rent!

2007-03-09T08:02:00.000-05:00

Then you should be evicted.

I watched the film version of Rent today. A trainwreck through and through. Is it just the film? Or is it a flawed play?

The story was really nothing to write home about. Based on La Boheme, Rent tells the tale of a gaggle of twenty-something artists living in 1980's Manhattan. All of the characters are affected by the AIDS virus, either physically or emotionally. It's a tough subject to tackle, and especially tough in musical form. Still, the AIDS aspect of the story is done well. It's the rest of the story that falls flat for me. Maybe it's a problem I have with musicals in general (although Chicago held my attention and Cannibal: The Musical is classic). The story is oftentimes more a piecemeal string of vignettes than a coherent narrative, only there to lead one lavish musical number to another. Rent is no exception.

The acting. Where to start? Somebody in the higher-ups (whether it be director Chris Columbus or a studio head) decided to cast the majority of the original performers in the film. Mistake. The most common complaint leveled against them seems to be that they're too old for the parts, which may be true. However, that didn't bug me a bit. Hollywood never casts age properly. What really bugged me was the stiffness of it all. You'd think that spending night after night in-character for years would give the actor a sort of understanding of the character, but all it seems to do is make them comfortable--too comfortable and too familiar--with the role. The actors seem to be going through the motions. An open-minded casting call certainly would have been the right decision for this film, as evidenced by the one new addition to the lead cast: Rosario Dawson.

Rosario plays a go-go dancer that lives a floor below the protagonists. She lights up the screen with her charisma (and her candle) from the moment she steps in the door in her first scene. When the most lively and effective acting is done by the only newcomer, it uncovers a distinctive flaw in your casting strategy. I'm not saying that the films should have been filled with name-actors (even of Dawson's mid-level caliber). Instead, a more open interpretation of the roles should have been utilized to breathe new life into the play. There's a distinct difference between film-acting and Broadway-acting, and what we get here is Broadway-acting.

But when you look at a musical, story and acting understandably take a backseat to the real stars: the music and the dancing. And what we get is not really worth the time. The melodies are not catchy. The instrumentation is cheesy--mostly synths and electric instruments, which may fit the 1980's time period but aren't exactly interesting. A quick glance at the soundtrack album offers 28 songs, and I could count the number of tracks that made any sort of impression on me on one hand without fear of running out of fingers.

There are some truly moving moments in the film. My favorite moment was when the attendees of an AIDS support group voice their fears. Starting with the plaintive pleas of one character, the others express the same worry in the form of a round. It's a beautiful piece, and it embodies the entire "support-group" situation more than any of the surrounding, poorly-staged support group scenes could have done.

Still, it's bad. How bad? Really bad. It's a play about art and AIDS that says absolutely nothing about art or AIDS. Save the money and pay your own rent.

Tell me something...Do you ever feel a strange sadness as night falls?

2007-03-07T07:45:00.000-05:00

Here it is! The main event! The game that had me salivating since I saw it announced for the GameCube in a crappy video game magazine in the Summer of 2004. Sure, the quick announcement (only about a year after its previous installment) was probably more in response to all of the backlash about Wind Waker's more "kid-like" graphics than to prime people for this game's release, but it was still something.

I'm talking, of course, about the game that was widely considered "Game of the Year" for 2006: Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. It's the latest installment in my absolute favorite video game series, and it's been showered with praise by almost every reviewer on the Internet. As such, I'm not going to write such a glowing review. (Note now that if you're still intending to play the game and haven't, there will be SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS in this review).

It's a wonderful game. Probably among my favorite Zelda games. But if you're the kind of person that reads reviews of Zelda games, chances are that you already know that. You've either played the game or seen enough online to know that there's something special about this sequel. So I'm going to get to the brass tacks of it. What does this game bring to the Zelda series that makes it so new and refreshing? And, more importantly, how does it work on the Wii?

The most fun thing about Zelda games for me is to see the Items innovention. That is to say, to see the changes they've made to our old-timey Zelda favorites and the new additions they've added.

For the first time in Link's 3D endeavors, he's given a fishing rod. You can fish anywhere there's water in the game, utilizing different lures to catch different fish. It comes in handy twice during the story, but unless you're an obsessive "Must-Finish-One-Hundred-Percent-of-Gamer," you probably won't find yourself fishing all that much. Later in the game, you'll find your way to a fishing hole where you can win fabulous prizes.

Also a fresh 3D addition--and much more useful--is the lantern. Instead of having to find Deku Sticks to transport fire from torch to torch, you can simply carry it with you in your ever-expansive pockets. In addition to its usefulness in numerous Dungeon puzzles, the lantern is key in picking up Pieces of Heart and rupees. Also, puzzles seem to be a bit harder now that you have the lantern. In the previous games, you would walk into a room and know it was a fire puzzle because of the handy torches at your disposal. Now, you have to figure it out on your own. Hard dungeon puzzles are good.

The Gale Boomerang is a new twist on an old favorite, sort of like Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper except not shitty. It has all the features of your previous boomerangs--it can lock onto five objects at once. However, as indicated by the name, it also controls the power of the wind (usually a feature of your magic power). You can manipulate wind-operated drawbridges among other things. Outside of the first dungeon, the gale boomerang becomes sort of pointless, and I would have liked to see its wind-power utilized for some other, fun puzzles.

Ah, the trusty iron boots. You know them. You love them. You're irritated by them when you forget to take them off after you leave the water. Well, good news! They're fun as hell in this game. In addition to their usual practical uses of sinking in the water and walking into the wind, they are now connected to magnetic rock, allowing you to walk on the walls and ceilings of certain environments. Just like the Gale Boomerang, this function really only works for one dungeon, but it made the dungeon one of my favorite levels in the game.

There are a few bomb upgrades, although nothing thrilling. You can throw them underwater now, which is kind of nice. The bombchus are expensive, and I made it the whole way through the game without using them. I'm sure you could use them for some Pieces of Heart, but to be honest I was hoping for at least one irritating Bombchu mini-game. You can combine bombs with your arrows, which will do in a pinch. However, except for two puzzles in one dungeon, the power of arrows alone will suffice.

The Hawkeye is this game's version of Wind Waker's telescope. It's given a more practical use as a scope for your "Sniper Bow," although the accuracy of the Wii remote renders the scope almost pointless. You don't need it to complete the game, but it's fun to look across the expanse of Hyrule Field at any rate.

Here's a fun one: the Spinner. It's very difficult to explain, but think of a razorblade skateboard. Looking back at that previous sentence, there's no way this should work in a game like Zelda. Still, it's a handy tool for getting to places you hadn't previously been able to go. There's one dungeon room that proves infinitely frustrating, but for the most part it's a fun addition if a little offbeat.

Another fun, new one: the ol' ball and chain. It doesn't serve a whole lot of purpose, and there's not a whole lot of point to destroying things with a giant...oh, who am I kidding? Smashy smashy!

The most fun thing is the Double Clawshot (nee Hookshot). Link takes a clawshot in both arms, allowing for a number of more challenging and entertaining aerial puzzles. You don't get to fly along like Tarzan or anything, but you do get to traverse lots of areas in which floors are not exactly a factor.

Those are really all the new items. There's no ocarina (or baton), and your musical instrument becomes your voice...as a wolf.

Yeah, you play as a wolf for approximately half of the game. It's a completely different set of controls. You can't use any of the above-mentioned fun items, but you can tear at the jugular of enemies, dig for treasure, and smell things. Fun! The wolf attack is weak, but its speed is far greater than Link's landspeed (unless he's on a horse). So there are advantages to being a wolf if you're in a hurry to get somewhere. It's all kind of irrelevant, though, as you'll mostly have to be the wolf when you are the wolf. You are aided by a mysterious creature called Midna who will give you the ability to reach unreachable places. The wolf thing was my greatest point of hesitation about the game, and I'm happy to say that it works beautifully.

Midna is a fun character. A twisted little wretch that likes to ride on Wolf Link's back (and tag along with Normal Link as a shadow). Midna serves as the "Fairy" role, giving you hints and providing useful services throughout the game.

Zant is the other major newbie, and the game's main villain. The first time you see him open his mouth, try to tell me that you aren't repulsed. It gets kind of silly towards the end, but Zant was a character that really "scared" me--not in the sense that I was curled in the fetal position, but he certainly exudes more intimidation than the now-standard Ganondorf villain.

There are tons and tons of other, more minor innovations in this game, but the ones that struck me are all listed above. Discover them for yourself, will ya? Or at any rate, read a less lazy review.

The game was originally designed for the GameCube, and it was only ported to the Wii as an afterthought. So how does it work with the Wii remote?

Marginally well. The swordplay is a little awkward. You flick your wrist to slice, and it takes about a second for Link to actually slice. A button is more immediate. Still, it takes only a minute or two to adjust, at which point you'll be cutting up like an old pro.

The real fun of the Wiimote comes in the form of the aimed weapons--the slingshot, the boomerang, and the clawshots. My biggest problem with the previous 3D Zelda adventures was the aiming of ranged weapons. With control sticks, it was extremely awkward, and I would always end up without arrows when I needed them most. Now it's simple. Point, aim, pull the trigger. It makes the game more fun/challenging as opposed to infuriating/challenging. I can't even imagine some of the more complicated Double Clawshot puzzles with a standard controller.

So it works. I'd be interested to see the next game in the series, which will presumably be built from the ground up with the Wiimote in line. Swordplay would probably be a lot smoother and player-controlled.

I can't say it enough: play this game. If Wii Sports hadn't already taken care of it, Twilight Princess would have justified the Nintendo Wii purchase for me. Even if you're relegated to GameCube status (there's also a version for that console), go out and buy/rent the game. I beat it in a little less than forty hours, and I have a feeling that I barely have begun to scratch the surface of the new Hyrule.

Loose Ends

2007-03-05T10:46:00.000-05:00

So I've reviewed the five main Wii Sports: tennis, baseball, bowling, golf, and boxing. What else could there be? Well, there could be the most entertaining parts of the game, for starters.

The Training Mode provides three different mini-games for each sport, each focusing on a different skill or combination of skills that will benefit your gameplay in the main attractions. Then there's the matter of the Wii Sports Fitness Test.

Tennis Training is, much like the actual game, an awful lot of fun. The first training mission is to return serves. Sounds simple, and it is. However, the intensity ramps up with each passing serve. As soon as you miss one, the mission is over. The second is also returning serves, but accuracy is also a factor. You have to hit the ball into a zone that is ever in motion. One miss and you're done. Finally, there's the accuracy exercise, which places targets on a brick wall. You need to hit as many targets as possible, which is made difficult when the brick wall falls apart with every missed hit. It's extremely frustrating to make a mistake and have to start over from scratch. Still, it's fun.

Baseball Training. There are a couple of simple batting and accuracy exercises (thirty pitches for batting, ten for accuracy), but the most important is the Home Run Derby. Face off against your friends. It's easier to hit home runs than you'd think (especially because it's fairly difficult in-game). Still, it's fun to see who can receive the top score.

Bowling Training is frustrating for me because I suck at bowling. In one, you can pick up spares. You have something like three chances to miss, and each round gets harder. Obstacles even pop up within the lane. There's also one where you rack up points on a progressive number of pins and another one that is even less thrilling. Ho hum.

Golf Training tests your accuracy at three different levels--driving, chipping, and putting. Putting is especially interesting for me, because it gives me a taste of what my fantasized Wii Mini Golf would be like. Otherwise, you'd probably be better off playing one of the actual, well-designed golf courses.

Finally, Boxing Training tests three different skills. Punch power is measured by smacking the hell out of punching bags. Punch accuracy is measured by sparring with a trainer who holds up pads. Finally, you get a sort-of-fun dodgeball game, where you need to lean away from the trainer's barrages. Punch accuracy is infuriating for the reasons detailed in my review of Boxing, but the dodgeball one is well worth it.

The Fitness Test is a modified combination of all of the above mini-games. Every day, you're allowed to test yourself once. Three training missions are selected at random, and the quality of your performance gives you a "Fitness Age" of somewhere between 20 and a billion. Or something. I've fallen into the 40's on a bad day, but I tend to stick right around 27 or 28. It's a good five years older than I am, but I can find solace in the fact that it's not really testing my fitness, but rather my coordination. And if you've ever seen me in real life, you'd know how uncoordinated I am. 28 Fitness Years is a victory.

Anyway, here's the thrilling conclusion. Usually, I take the last paragraph of a review to say whether I think something is worth buying or not. However, this game comes for free with the system. Some of it is better than the rest, that's for sure. Still, Wii Sports is a fantastic testament of what the new controller can do, and the game is worth playing. You'll probably find yourself gravitating to some favorites on a daily basis. Next, I put the Wii to the test: how does it function with real games?

I got nothing against him, but I'm definitely gonna make orphans of his children.

2007-03-03T18:34:00.000-05:00

I'm closing out the main portion of Wii Sports today, and it's going to be full of shocking twists and delightful Simpsons references. Well, if you've made it this far you've already missed the Simpsons reference, but feel free to scroll up.

Wii Sports: Boxing is the only segment of the game to utilize the Nunchuck attachment. You won't need to hit any buttons, and everything is controlled with different tilting motions. The nunchuck is your left hand, and the Wiimote is your right. To punch, you thrust the controllers toward the television. To protect yourself, you hold them up towards your face. If you lean your body (and, as an extension, the controllers) to either side, your Mii will lean too, dodging the directional punches.

Boxing is, without a doubt, my least favorite portion of the game. And let's get this straight: I love the rest of the sports in the package. I just plain don't like this. At all. The controls are not intuitive in the least. When you actually punch your arm, your character doesn't punch. You have to flick your wrist instead, almost like you're snapping a bullwhip. Also, I've had a lot of accuracy problems. While I've been able to remedy most of my bigger problems in the rest of the sports, Boxing seems to have some serious flaw. Then again, I've never read about said flaws in any other reviews, so maybe it's just personal preference.

It's not without its merits. The leaning mechanism plays with your natural movement in order to move the player. Motions you don't even know you make tilt your wrists and subsequently your player. Also, there's the novelty of squaring off against the spitting-images of your friends, family, and favorite fictional characters. You decide why I included the previous sentence: was I just trying to find another positive about Wii Sports: Boxing, or was I merely thrilled with the alliteration.

It's awkward. It's easy (even working yourself up to near-pro levels, you'll have no problem knocking out the computerized challengers). It's generally not fun. I think there may be some novelty in the multiplayer, where you can face each other and throw punches, but the tournament mode leaves an awful lot to be desired. It's a sour way to close out such a wonderful game. Thankfully, that's not how Nintendo did it. There are several extra features related to these sports, and they're all addictive and fairly genius. But that's for later.

Use an open-faced club! The sand-wedge!

2007-03-01T18:08:00.000-05:00

Wii Sports: Golf. It's not yer uncle's golf.

Golf is the most complicated of the games in Sports, and as a result it probably has the most solo replay value. There are a number of things you need to take into account. Wind speed and direction. The lay of the green. What club do you want to use? How hard do you want to hit it? Will you try to take a shortcut over that distant water hazard, or will you play it safe and save the strokes?

The basic controls are pretty self-explanatory. You hold the Wiimote like a golf club. You can practice-swing. To approach the ball, you need to hold in a button. It's simple. The game will choose which club is best for your current needs (although you can, of course, experiment). One of the ancillary buttons shows you the lay of the green, which is essential for the more difficult levels of putting. Obviously, you'll need a means to adjust your direction to make up for wind speed, and the control pad does the job nicely.

I've never played actual golf, but I've always assumed that swinging the club would be the most difficult part. In this game, it's just the opposite. You get an unlimited amount of practice time, and it gives you a gauge to show you if you're too weak or too powerful. The real challenge of Wii Golf is dealing with the environment. The wind is killer, and as you progress in level the courses get more and more elaborate.

Along with bowling, this is one of the only Wii Sports games that allows for multiplayer with only one controller. Also much like bowling, I got beaten severely every time. Great.

My only problem with Golf is the putting. When I'm putting, I expect to use an extremely gentle touch. However, you have to put quite a bit of power into the Wiimote swing to get your putt on. It's not a problem and you can make enough adjustment to get used to it, but it seems a bit unnatural.

I like golf, although I would appreciate some sort of fun mini-game involving driving the cart like crazy around the courses. And I would love--LOVE--if Nintendo created and sold Wii Mini-Golf with a variety of courses. Of all the Wii Sports games, this is the one that most deserves a full-version expansion.

Wait a minute! I don't remember writing a check for bowling!

2007-02-27T09:13:00.000-05:00

For years, the time-honored sport of bowling has been admired by groups of friends and men that want to escape from their nagging wives. And what better way to get out for a night of bowling than to stay in for a night of bowling! Grab yerself a beer and a chili dog and get ready for the most active sport this side of racecar driving! Wii Sports: Bowling, comin' at ya.

Once again, the controller is very much the essence of this game, and excepting the use of one button (which essentially tells the machine when you want to let go of the ball), it's all about your form and technique. And let me tell you: I suck at bowling. Much like real life, in which I cannot properly throw a bowling ball down an alley, I ended up with a lot of near misses. On her first play of Bowling (and actually, her first play of anything on the Wii), my mom soundly thrashed me. For whatever reason, my ball pulls to the left. I need bowling lessons.

My personal problems aside, it really is a great and intuitive system. Every person I know that's given the game a try has said that their Mii's bowling perfectly matches their own. All of the spin you can put on the ball. All of the different times you can release it. It adds up to, probably, the best hardware showpiece in the Wii Sports collection. You want to know what the Wii can do? Holy shit, it can do this.

I've taken to bowling "granny-style," because at least that way I can get the ball to go straight. The game can't sense that I'm doing that, but I'm totally going underleg. That's my wish for the inevitable Wii Sports 2--learn to visually portray the different techniques of the amateur bowler. And also, I want it to do my homework for me. Do I ask too much?

The game is one of the only two on the disc that allows for multi-player with a single Wiimote, which is especially helpful when NO STORES ANYWHERE CARRY WIIMOTES. Seriously. I waited two hours outside of Circuit City for my game system, and half the people there were waiting solely for the controller. The store had actually gotten fewer supplemental controllers than gaming systems. Still, due to the nature of bowling, the passing around of a controller doesn't detract from the game. It's fun to gather your friends around and get soundly thrashed.

It's a great, well-designed game. Probably the best in the collection, to be entirely honest. I'm a little disappointed, however, that I suck at it. If you're a pro bowler or have lots of friends, this will probably be the most interesting Jenny on the block. Otherwise, you'll probably find yourself gravitating towards the sports that require less talent. I'm a tennis pro!

You have to chug a beer at the top of all odd-numbered innings. Oh, and the fourth inning is the beer inning.

2007-02-25T08:29:00.000-05:00

Tennis is out of the way, which brings us to Wii Sports: Baseball. That's right: Nintendo decided to bring us The Excitement Sport™. Did they manage to capture all the liveliness of men whacking at balls with wooden and/or metal sticks? Let's take a closer look.

Throughout Wii Sports, your Miis are utilized. Your lead batter is the Mii of your choice, and the rest of your line-up is culled randomly from your ranks (or, if you don't have enough, they'll make some for you). Would you expect Dwight Schrute and Lando Calrissian to work together in perfect harmony? I would go out on a limb and say that you would not! However, Dwight hit a home-run and Lando proved to be a terrific baserunner.

As with Tennis, the controls for baseball are fantastically simple (although a bit more complicated than the mere "swing-at-the-ball" of the aforementioned sport). At the plate, you hold the Wiimote like a bat. I don't think the positioning of your bat matters, but you should probably work on your form anyway. After all, once you get a Wii you won't be going out and playing actual sports for some time to come, so when it comes to exercise, you takes it where you can gets it. When you swing, it's fairly straightforward.

Once again, I'm not sure if follow-through or direction of your cut matters. I've been swinging upward and downward with unexpected results. Instead, I believe it all has to do with timing. Wait too long and the ball will go right. Swing too early and it will go left. I don't believe placement hitting matters, as your baserunners are placed depending on distance of the hit and fielder error. Hitting is slightly difficult--more difficult than smacking the ball in Wii tennis, at any rate. I may need to spend a little more time with the game, but the timing needs to be precise.

When the sides retire, it's simple as well. Just a downward swing of your arm and you pitch the ball. If you want to throw it faster, swing your arm faster. However, this is the first instance in Wii Sports that involves buttons--and rightfully so, otherwise pitching would become an even-more-boring venture. I say even-more-boring because there's still not a lot to it. You can throw curveballs, screwballs, and splitters depending on your use of two buttons. You can also use the directional pad to throw the ball inside or outside. I've found no discernible way to hit the batter, unfortunately.

Fielding is nonexistant, controlled entirely by the computer. It certainly would give the pitcher something better to do as they anxiously await their turn at the bat. It's this disparity that really kills Baseball for me. You're entertained for about half the time and bored for the other half.

Of course, that's a whole lot more entertainment than actually watching a baseball game.

That's tennis?! Oh! Then what's the one where the chicks wail on each other?

2007-02-23T07:48:00.000-05:00

With the Nintendo Wii's hardware out of the way, it's time to get cracking on some of the software (the small amount that I have). I guess the logical starting place is Wii Sports, the game that is packed in for free with the system. However, an overarching entry on the entire game would be far too easy. While Sports is essentially a collection of five mini-games (each of which is a showcase to different aspects of the Wii's capabilities), the mini-games are more like mega-games in the sense that each is deep enough to be discussed in full.

So here's where I start: Wii Sports: Tennis. It's the first item mentioned on the menu, and as such it was the first game I played. And what a way to get a player hooked.

The controls are the best place to start, I suppose, when talking about a game on the Wii. There's not a whole lot to it. To serve the ball, you gesture like you're throwing the ball in the air, and then bring your Wiimote back down as if you were hitting said ball. You can swing your racquet forehand if the ball is heading towards the right side of the court. You can swing your racquet backhand if it's on the left. Or, if you're left handed, you can either change your settings or screw yerself. That's all there is to it as far as simple volleying.

After that, it's all about timing. Hit the thing early and the ball will skew to one side of the court (or outside of the court if you're too early). Likewise with swinging late. This is how you control your aim, and eventually how you'll earn points against the other team. After mastering this, it's time to learn how to put spin on the ball. If you twist your wrist just right as you're hitting the ball, you can put all kinds of crazy directionality on that thing. That's how intuitive the control is.

Do the controls work? For the most part, like a dream. It's a simple game to play, and anybody in your family should be able to pick up on it within minutes. However, I'm still not certain how to put spin on the ball. It's not mentioned anywhere in the Training segment of the game, nor in the manual. I've tried hitting the ball in any number of ways, and I continuously fall flat. It's not a big deal for the beginner, but the difficulty ramps up more and more as you become more experienced, and I've hit a brick wall.

The game (and all of the segments of Wii Sports) allows you to use Miis (avatars) of your own creation. Do you want to play tennis as yourself? As Martina Navratilova? As Chewbacca? You can do it. Everybody controlled by the player is represented by the same avatar. When you're playing single-player (you sad, lonely sack), you control both players on your doubles team. It's not a huge problem, but it seems sort of graphically silly to see both identical players make all the same swings simultaneously.

There are some gameplay elements that are sacrificed in order to make this game playable by anyone. The character runs to the ball every time (unless you can't make it). You're only responsible for swinging the racquet. It would have been fairly easy to allow some basic level of control (either with the directional pad on the Wiimote or with the control stick on the Nunchuck attachment). It would have increased the difficulty, but made for a more intuitive game in the end and probably a better showcase for the Wii's abilities.

Still, in spite of its shortcomings, Tennis is the mini-game I come back to the most. It's difficult--but not because of the game design, which, for what it is, is nearly flawless. It's a hell of a lot of fun. I've been unable to procure an extra Wiimote, so I've been flying solo. With two (or four) players, this could make for a hell of a good time.

Wii Wii Wii all the way home

2007-02-21T11:29:00.000-05:00

The Nintendo Wii is my reason for living and may well be my reason for dying.

I braved the cold of early January in a line outside of my local Circuit City in order to pick up one of these things. I figured, why not invite a little joy into my life when I'm surrounded by soul-sucking social work classes during the week. I am not a social person. My idea of volunteering is carrying boxes, preferably under the influence of my iPod all the while. Talking to people--whether it be children, the elderly, you name it: that's not my scene. And I'm not being elitist or discriminatory. I don't like talking to people my age either. I like quiet.

Anyway, I was talking about the Wii. In addition to the system, I attained two games. However, they'll be receiving separate reviews in the near future. Right now, I'm talkin' hardware, and I'm talkin' built-in software.

The first thing that struck me about the Wii is its size--or, more to the point, its lack thereof. Imagine one of those thick TV-on-DVD box sets, such as 24 or Alias. Now make it a little taller. That's the size of the Wii. The thing is tiny. How is this accomplished? Well, graphically, the system isn't all that much better than a GameCube. As opposed to the graphics/physics improvements of the other Next Generation systems, the true revolution of this system is in the gameplay. What makes it so special?

The controller. This was my biggest sticking point with the system. Every time I looked at a system with a slightly more innovative or intuitive style--the Nintendo DS being the other that jumps immediately to mind--I'm turned off. What happens if I spend three hundred dollars, only to find that I'm too daft or uncoordinated to use it? That's a little more than a drop in the bucket for the Poor College Student. The Wii Remote (popularly known as the Wiimote) is a wireless "wand" that functions onscreen more like a computer mouse than a regular gaming controller.

At first it didn't really work for me. Naturally, my hand wanted to hold the Wiimote in an upright position, pointed at the ceiling instead of the screen. The good news is, this typically won't affect the games on the system; it will only screw with the menu navigation. Otherwise, you can hold your Wiimote any way you damn well please. Which is good, because I still can't stop myself from holding it upright.

Assuming you have a means of doing it (high speed cable and some sort of wireless hook-up), your Wii will always be connected to the Intertnet--even when it's not on. This allows for you to constantly receive messages from other users and from Nintendo. When you get a new message, your Wii will glow blue, which is especially handy on those days when you don't plan on playing, but when your buddy had something to tell you.

The Wii holds its own sort of media center. Besides gameplay (of which you can play both Wii and GameCube discs), there are a number of "channels" that include special, built-in features. The Mii Channel allows you to create your own avatars which can both be used in games and sent to friends. I made my entire family, and then I went on to make the cast of the original Star Wars trilogy (Chewbacca for the win!), Elliott Smith, and a few characters from Heroes and The Office. I'd show you, but I don't have a good camera and I'm not sure there's a better way yet.

There is a Picture Channel as well, which has a similar function: you can upload and design your own pictures, and you can send them to friends. I don't have a memory card (which costs a hell of a lot), so I haven't used this feature. I probably won't, either, because I don't deal with pictures. My iPod Photo is photo free, for instance.

The Wii Store is a real treat--it's the place you can buy old games from other systems. I haven't picked anything up yet, but I'm specifically interested in Super Mario 64, Mario Kart 64, and the hopeful future releases of Goldeneye and the NES Maniac Mansion. You can play these in a number of ways, including GameCube controllers (so don't trash those just yet).

The Weather Channel is just that. If you're too lazy to look out the window, you can flick on your Wii and see what it's like outside. The News Channel is (also) just that, although slightly more useful. While I don't use these particular channels much, their existence proves hopeful for other future additions that could be better for me.

Finally, the Opera Web Browser is available (and is currently free in the Wii Store, although not for long). When you browse the Internet on your Wii, it's awkward. Really awkward. The text is usually too small to read. The only use I've gotten out of it was browsing YouTube, playing the videos on my TV as opposed to my small computer monitor. Some websites are making Wii-compatible versions, but the browser is kind of wasted at this point.

You can make friends from Wii to Wii (assuming you know anybody else that managed to find one). It's a little difficult to do (everybody has a sixteen-digit number as opposed to a user name, and you both need to add one another to be friends). Still, you can send messages, pictures, and Miis to one another once you're buddies.

The navigation and features leave a little something to be desired, but the potential is great. As such, one must look at the gameplay potential (and the games themselves) to make a final decision relating to the system. And I'll do just that...in a shortly.

They will believe you. You are the white man.

2007-02-19T08:33:00.000-05:00

I got around to seeing a movie in the theaters this week! A rare treat! And a special treat at that, because it was a really, really, really, really good one. Really.

The Last King of Scotland was my choice. It's the story of the rise of the very-real Ugandan dictator Idi Amin as told through the eyes of a fictional, idealistic doctor that stumbles into the ruler's inner circle. I was especially interested in the film because I knew so little about Amin. I like my history lessons peppered with inaccuracies and movie glamour, thank you very much.

As if you haven't heard this from every Oscar-crazed media outlet since the film's release in late 2006: Forrest Whitaker's performance as despot Idi Amin is reason alone to watch this film.
Putting aside the comparisons to the real Amin (who, as I've mentioned, was virtually unknown to me), Whitaker takes a mass murderer and makes him charismatic and sympathetic. While there is obviously no excuse for the genocide that he committed to place and keep himself in power, we as viewers are given sufficient data to see his motivations (albeit surely fictionalized). We almost feel bad for Amin in his intense rage at the betrayal of his closest advisers, and that is all Whitaker. He gives a soul to one of the most soulless men of the twentieth century.

In the heyday of Whitaker's critical praise and so-deserved Oscar nomination, the rest of the cast seems to have fallen through the cracks. However, there is a uniform, elevated level of performances. James McAvoy (also known as Mr. Tumnus, the only interesting part of last winter's Chronicles of Narnia movie) plays the protagonist, Dr. Garrigan. He makes believable the character that heads to Africa to help for all the wrong reasons. Gillian Anderson, nee Scully, plays the frustrated good-doctor's-wife to a tee. Kerry Washington (from that other biopic, Ray, and from that regrettable Fantastic 4 debacle) is [one of] the oppressed [wives] of Amin, a woman that finds a sort of simultaneous salvation and damnation in the arms of the young doctor. It's all great.

I can see why this film got the acting nomination but failed to get the best picture nod. This (like, in my opinion, most biopics) is definitely an actor's movie. As a rule, most lives worthy of telling onscreen (except for that of John Malkovich) follow one of two sequences: "From rags to riches" or "The rise and fall of..." This film falls firmly into the latter category, although it does manage to avoid some of the more cliched trappings by being told through a fictional third-person narrator. Still, because it's trying to tell a true story of a rise and fall, the pacing is uneven, with the ass-end of the film loaded with most of the film's pertinent action.

See it. Whitaker's Oscar is pretty much the only sure-thing at this year's Academy Awards ceremony (or, depending on how you look at it, it's pretty much the only potential upset). While the film is not the greatest, the acting is all-around outstanding. And hell, maybe you'll even learn something while you're there. Or see a cow get shot for the first time since O Brother Where Art Thou?. Really, there's all kinds of reasons to see it.

The moon is a lightbulb breaking

2007-02-17T07:48:00.000-05:00

Here's a press release for those of you who are fans of good music. A 2-disc rarities release from Elliott Smith (provider of this site's name, among so many other things).

On May 8, 2007, Kill Rock Stars will release a double CD of music by Elliott Smith entitled New Moon. The album contains 24 songs recorded 1995-1997, a prolific time in Smith's career, when he recorded his self-titled album and Either/Or (both also released by Kill Rock Stars).
Arguably the most gifted song-writer of his generation, Elliott Smith produced a large body of work that includes five solo albums, as well as From a Basement on the Hill (2004), a collection of songs completed before his death in 2003. Like his other work, New Moon reflects the power of Smith's ability to integrate rich, melodic music with poetic, multi-layered lyrics.
The final mixing for the double cd was done by Larry Crane, who is the archivist for the estate of Elliott Smith A significant portion of proceeds from the album sales will go directly to Outside In, a Portland-based social service organization dedicated to providing diverse services for homeless youth and low-income adults.
Elliott Smith died October 21, 2003, in his home in Los Angeles. To date the coroner has been unable to determine the cause of death, and the investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department remains open.
ELLIOTT SMITH
NEW MOON
(Kill Rock Stars)
Release date: May 8, 2007
Disc 1
Angel In The Snow
Talking To Mary
High Times
New Monkey
Looking Over My Shoulder
Going Nowhere
Riot Coming
All Cleaned Out
First Timer
Go By
Miss Misery (early version)
Thirteen
Disc 2
Georgia Georgia
Whatever (Folk Song in C)
Big Decision
Placeholder
New Disaster
Seen How Things Are Hard
Fear City
Either/Or
Pretty Mary K (other version)
Almost Over
See You Later
Half Right

Man vs. Cyborg

2007-02-15T11:56:00.000-05:00

I stumbled across The Areas of My Expertise by John Hodgman by accident. I read a blurb on 16bit.com about a free audiobook download by an author that was "most awesome." If there's one thing I like more than awesome, it's free, so I headed over to iTunes to download the tracks.

Expertise is, for lack of better words, a fake almanac. Essentially, it's a list of tables and paragraphs that explain everything in the author's knowledgebase, most of which is fallacious and most of which is pretty darn funny. The standouts in the long tome (which I haven't seen in hard copy, but runs almost seven hours in audio format) are the sections on hobos (oh, is this ever great!) and the profiles of our fifty-one United States (did somebody say Thunderbirds?).

The book is probably best known for its list of seven hundred hobo names. The monikers (such as #274, Tom False-Lips Real-Teeth, or #71, Canadian-Football Pete) inspired a barrage of classy artwork from Internet cartoonists at e-Hobo, and rightfully so. They're pretty hilarious.

However, that list illustrates the essential problem with the audio recording. It seems that it would be exceedingly difficult to present a book of lists and tables in vocal form, as it's such a visual medium. There are moments in which Hodgman succeeds--such as in the list of state facts--but most of it falls flat. The aforementioned hobo list, for instance, is fifty minutes long, underscored by one very long rendition of "Big Rock Candy Mountain." Chances are that you'll find yourself zoning out until you stumble across a gem like "Redball Charlie Dickens" or "Scurvied Leo Falsebreath."

Hodgman's performance of his book leaves something to be desired. He had the right idea--something like this needs to be read deadpan, or else it would suffer from some sort of "LOOK AT HOW WACKY THIS IS!" syndrome. However, Hodgman is deader than deadpan, turning even his sharpest writing into something potentially boring. He is accompanied by a friend who serves as sounding board, guitarist, and sometime punching bag. The banter between the two is friendly and underused, falling mostly within the States section of the book.

I think the actual paper copy of this book would be an excellent buy. If nothing else, it would join the fabled tomes of great bathroom reading (accompanied by such books as Live From New York by Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller): easy to pick up, flip to a random page, and read something interesting and perhaps funny for five minutes. I wouldn't recommend the audiobook, in spite of its freeness, because you'll find yourself wading through hours of material for just a few laughs.

Tubular Twizzlers Tweeterz, Terrence!

2007-02-13T15:11:00.000-05:00

I was at the grocery store the other day looking at the candy section and shaking my head. And why? Limited Edition candies, of course.

The candy companies have been releasing the things for years and years, of course, but slapping the words “Limited Edition” on them is a fairly recent phenomenon. We used to call it “test marketing to see if people will actually buy the new, shitty product.” Hershey’s Kisses come in any variety of flavors, for instance. Chocolate, white chocolate, dark chocolate, caramel filled, cream filled, peanut butter filled, cordial cherry filled, coconut cream filled, almond filled, dulce de leche filled, toffee filled, chocolate truffle filled, orange flavored, strawberry flavored, mint flavored. It’s fucking ridiculous. When I was a kid, we ate Hershey’s Kisses in one exciting flavor: milk chocolate. And you know what? Nobody ever once thought to say "this flavor is not good enough and I would like a wide variety of shitty flavors from which to choose." There’s absolutely no reason for them to keep releasing more and more crap.

If they do, though, I have some suggestions that could make me very rich. Key Lime flavored Kisses. Flavor that bad boy with cinnamon! Hershey’s kisses filled with marshmallow! Or maybe a seasonal variant that is filled with pumpkin pie filling (or chunks of candy cane). Expand into the other varieties of nuts: pecans, peanuts, hazelnuts, whatever. Put pretzels in there, and potato chips. Hell, even cheese doodles. Crunchy cookies. Nougat. Whatever the hell it is that’s inside of a Butterfinger. Rice krispies, or any other cereal for that matter! Salt water taffy! Molasses! Maple syrup! Honey! All of your favorite jams and jellies! Oh, cheesecake! Fat people love cheesecake! Coffee beans (or at least coffee flavoring). You’ve already hit orange and strawberry: now go with banana. Pineapple! Grape! Get some mixed berries in there. Apple pie filling? Certainly! I think Hershey’s owns Twizzlers: start coating those things in Kisses. Licorice of any sort will do, really. I bet they could buy out Pop Rocks for surprisingly little. Throw ‘em in! Charms seemed to have some success with their Blow Pops. Maybe it’s time to stick some bubble gum in there (in a variety of flavors, of course). And why stop at that? Fill them with essential nutrients and put them next to the Flintstones vitamins on the shelf. Or put toothpaste in there and use them as an alternative to brushing your teeth. Or sell them in your grocer’s freezer with bits of precooked meat in there! Or eggs! And of course, with that comes the vegetarian alternatives: chocolate coated soy meat and the like. Can you imagine the possibilities? Chocolate isn’t enough for today’s consumer. They need to supplement it with some bizarre and off-the-wall filling that has no right being involved with a delicious sweet. I’d be rolling in the dough (which reminds me: cookie dough!) if I worked for Hershey’s corporation. I’m sure there are tons more! Those are just the ideas I came up with while I was waiting in line at the checkout. Give me more time, Hershey’s!

But really, that's neither here nor there. I'm here to talk about Twizzlers' seasonal variant, Twizzlers Tweeterz. My sample came from Easter 2006, so there is no guarantee that you'll ever see these things on the shelves again. However, luck may be on your side as a Google Search turns up results for a Halloween package that includes orange and grape varieties.

Tweeterz are bits of Twizzlers-brand candy (I hesitate to say licorice because the only true licorice is the tasty black stuff). The bluebird on the package is wishing you a happy Easter, unaware that you'll be eating its eggs well into the next year. In fact, by the time this review is posted, 2007's Easter candy may already be on shelves.

FAST FOOD FACTS: Serving Size: 24 tweeterz. Calories: 130. Fat: 0g. These are entirely vegan.

The Easter version of Twizzlers Tweeterz come in three fruity flavors: cherry (red), strawberry (pink), and blue raspberry (blue). Chances are that you know exactly what two of the three of these taste like. Cherry and Strawberry are two of Twizzlers' classic flavors. Blue raspberry tastes like neither blueberry (which is not raspberry) nor raspberry (which is not blue). It tastes almost exactly the same as its red cherry brethren. The candy coating adds absolutely nothing to the treat. If the shell is also fruit-flavored, I'm unable to tell. It's almost certainly pure sugar, adding nothing but almost-sickening sweetness to the equation.

So what does that leave you with? Little bits of Twizzlers. I wouldn't pick these up if I were you, because Twizzlers are best enjoyed in whip form.

All the better to hear your many criticisms!

2007-02-11T11:42:00.000-05:00

On the recommendation of several coworkers, I watched the computer animated movie Hoodwinked on DVD.

I'm not big on a lot of recent computer animation, and it doesn't have anything to do with the medium. It just seems a little poorly thought-out. Back in the days of cel-animation (I know, I'm ancient), there was one powerhouse. Disney. Up until a certain point in the mid-to-late nineties, seeing the Walt Disney imprint on an animated feature meant that you were in for a specially-crafted motion picture full of quality artwork, well-written songs, and probably a tug or two at the heartstrings. There were other companies that branched into the animated market. Some of their features were high quality (The Land Before Time, for instance), but most were not (Anastasia, Ferngully, Rock-A-Doodle, et cetera). Most were relegated to bargain bins or directly to video.

The computer animation trend is about the same. There is one surefire hitmaker (Disney's own Pixar, although the quality of Cars was dubious). Only now, the smaller animation firms and second-rate imitators are far more prevalent in the market. CGI films seem to come out at the alarming rate of about one-per-month these days. Meet the Robinsons and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will undoubtedly replace Arthur and the Invisibles which just replaced Happy Feet which replaced Flushed Away which you get the idea already you rube. I've seen enough talking animals in the last year that I could populate the most wonderful zoo. And that's not including stuff like Night at the Museum or Star Wars Episode III which are overreliant on CGI at the expense of classic filmmaking technique.

Most of these movies suck. Through and through. A few gems sneak through the cracks--Shrek 2, and to a lesser extent, Shrek come to mind--but it seems to be a whole lot of "second-studio animation syndrome," which is a deadly disease I just made up. I'm pleased to say that Hoodwinked falls more into the Shrek category of winners than the Over the Hedge category of stinkers.

Sure, it's an awful lot like Shrek in other ways, too. It plays on a classic fairy tale (or at least a storybook tale, since there's no fairy business involved). There's the overly cute squirrel that fills the Puss-N-Boots/Gingerbread Man role nicely. However, the format of the film is fresh and original. The four main characters of the Little Red Riding Hood story--[Little] Red [Riding Hood], the Wolf, the Granny, and the heroic Woodsman--all tell their side of the story to an inquisitive frog detective, who tries to piece together the whole situation and solve the mystery of a local recipe thief. The four character vignettes explaining the piece interact with one another so well that you'd swear it was a Seinfeld story. Each seemingly senseless event has a logical and oftentimes funny meaning behind it. The second half of the movie, in which the crew solves the mystery, is predictable and less fun, but it holds the viewer's attention.

The writing isn't the sharpest stuff that I've ever seen, but for a kid's movie it is way above par. Unlike Shrek, Hoodwinked doesn't rely on many references to other films. Sure, there are basic structural similarities to The Usual Suspects, and iMDB points out references to the odd television movie from the 1970's, but it's nothing the casual viewer would catch, and it's never played for laughs (as opposed to the aforementioned ogre's Matrix reference). Instead, most of the humor is character- and dialogue-based.

The voice acting is fairly good. Anne Hathaway is surprisingly lively as Red, and Patrick Warburton is solid if not particularly challenged in his role as the wolf. Andy Dick makes a humorous turn as a bunny named Boingo (any references to Oingo Boingo? No? Damn). Also, anything that features Jim Belushi in a role that doesn't make me want to brutally murder Jim Belushi does a fairly good job.

Is it a recommended buy or a rental? Nah. But if you have a younger sibling or a kidnapped child, you could do far, far worse than Hoodwinked. For its short running time, it keeps you fairly interested, and there is enough invention and humor that you shouldn't be banging your head against the wall.

Hey, dum-dum. You got gum-gum?

2007-02-09T10:15:00.000-05:00

Got back from a late-night showing of Night At the Museum.

It was certainly better than I had expected it to be, and probably even than it had any right to be. Ben Stiller plays Ben Stiller, and yet it works for this role. The effects are mostly subpar, yet that doesn't prove much of a nuisance. The story is kind of bland--mysterious Egyptian curse brings museum to life--and yet it works.

There are some serious problems with the movie to be sure, even if you push aside all of the overwhelming Ben Stiller silliness (look! he's slapping around a monkey!) and kids-movie trappings. The first two-thirds of the film seem to crawl at an unbearable pace, despite the fact that a whole load of stuff is bombarding the viewer's senses. Watching Ben Stiller's antics--primarily with the monkey, but also with the Mongols and others--can be laborious at times. The pacing is pretty god-awful.

Still, the movie is salvaged and made watchable by its final action sequences, in which the exhibits team together in spite of their differences to take on a common enemy. All of the lame set-up somehow comes together beautifully, and even the things you could see coming from a mile away are exciting and fun.

Also entertaining in the film--surprisingly so--are the all-star supporting cast members. Usually, I find Robin Williams and Owen Wilson unbearable (at least in their all-out comedy modes). Somehow, though, these actors provide most of the laughs in the film and become slightly endearing. Robin Williams, playing Stiller's waxen mentor Theodore Roosevelt, somehow manages to exude a sort of quiet dignity despite the fact that he falls back upon his regular stand-by spastic act in several places. Wilson's mischievous repartee with Steve Coogan's Roman sentinel is the best part of the film, and despite the fact that the characters follow just about every action movie cliche in their archs, they make the film in the end.

Is the film worth seeing? Meh, if you get around to it. It's unremarkable, unmemorable, and all-around okay. Still, you could do worse with your night.

Gummy Rabbit: the other white meat

2007-02-07T15:02:00.000-05:00

My previous run-in with gummies--the dreaded Wolfgang's Gummy Bears--was slightly less than palatable, so I was eager to get my teef' on some real and tasty gummy treats. I cracked open another bag from the same era (April 2006--a very good vintage). Will they be as terrifying?

The product of the day is a bulk candy product. They are Gummy Bunnies, and they were procured at Weaver Nut Co., an Amish-run company in Ephrata, Pennsylvania (which also happens to be home to a fabulous bakery--try their whoopie pies)..

FAST FOOD FACTS! Serving size: 7 bunnies. Calories: 130. Fat: 0g. The ingredients are not listed on my package, but I would imagine there is gelatin in these, making them a poor option for the smart vegan shopper.

I'm not certain how accurate this nutritional label is. The similarly sized Wolfgang Gummy Bears were a whole lot less in the calorie department. Then again, the Wolfgang Gummy Bears sucked balls.

These gummies come in what seems to be two different shapes--a floppy-eared bunny and a straight-eared bunny. They are soft and aesthetically pleasing (take THAT, Wolfgang!). But are they tasty?

There are six different colors. Green, orange, blue, white, yellow, and purple. There seemed to me to be some differences in flavor, but not enough to actually tell which flavor is which. If I had to guess, I would say the following: Green is apple, orange is orange, blue is blueberry, white is pineapple, yellow is lemon, and purple is grape. The only flavor distinctive enough to know for sure was the pineapple, which was a bit stronger.

That's not to say they're bad. Just hard to differentiate. The general flavor seems to be "fruity" and I can deal with that. They're not so tough that you can't comfortably chew them. They're not the greatest gummies I've ever tasted (what was I expecting with bulk candy?) but they certainly were tasty.

LINKS: Weaver Nut Co.

Monsters belong in B-movies!

2007-02-05T17:00:00.000-05:00

I decided to set apart nineteen hours of my life to dedicate to the extended version of Peter Jackson's 2005 remake of King Kong. Because the film didn't seem nearly unwieldy enough in its "slim and trim" three-hour cut.

Yeah, it's cliché when talking about this version of Kong to discuss its length and pacing issues, but it was a serious problem with the film. My first viewing of the movie left me struggling to keep my eyes open, and that was at a noontime matinee show after a fairly good night of sleep. The first hour especially was hard on me--everything leading up to the Skull Island sequence--but the rest of it really did nothing for me the first time around either.

It's not to say that I was upset only by the length of the film. I've seen plenty of three-hour films that keep my attention for their entire span, even exciting me enough to watch them again. Jackson pulled it off with his Lord of the Rings trilogy, and another example would be Spielberg's Schindler's List. List is a perfect example, in fact. A whole lot less happens in that film, and yet every viewing draws my rapt attention. So if it's not just me and my MTV-generation brain, there must be some inherent flaw with Kong, probably dealing with the direction or the script (both of which fall squarely on Peter Jackson's now-tiny shoulders).

The second viewing was kinder to me than the first, which is strange because it seems to have twenty minutes of tacked-on material added on (mostly during the Skull Island portion). The main additions are two action sequences, and both are well-made. The first is, unfortunately, a stumbling block despite its quality. A triceratops attacks and gores various members of the expedition. The problem is, the scene is inserted before the characters (and the audience) are aware of the dinosaur presence on Skull Island, rendering Carl Denham (Jack Black)'s (and the audience's) later sense of awe moot. The second sequence--an attack by a water creature--is more deftly executed, and it even fleshes out some of the relationships between the shipmates.

The real showstopper sequence of the film, and the thing that makes the whole thing worth it, is the giant ape's battle with ~~one~~ ~~two~~ OH SHIT THREE T-REXES SURPRISE!!! Kong kicks ass and takes names, obviously, and it turns out to be one of the most satisfying action sequences ever put on film. It's so well-choreographed and well-done that you can almost disregard the fact that Naomi Watts' Anne Darrow would have been shaken to death like a trailer park baby ten times over. The crowning achievements of the scenes are the three kill-shots from the King, including the death of one Tyrannosaurus Rex whose head is crushed like a soda can.

The beasts of the film are marvelous, ranging from your run-of-the-mill, poorly-computer-animated dinosaurs to your Legend-of-Zelda Like Likes! The extended scenes offer a fair number of new ones, which should make you happy.

The film didn't drag as much for me the second time around, and I attribute that to the fact that I was dreading a second watching. It's not a poor film, and there are plenty of rousing moments that should give you goats. The acting is adequate from all of the heavies (and even Jack Black, who turns in a surprisingly convincing performance), and Kong is a fairly realistic creation by WETA Digital. The dinosaur animation seems to have taken a step back from the Jurassic Park days, but that's a minor complaint. I don't know if I'd recommend catching this film or not, but I'd recommend making it a rental if you do. Once will probably be enough.

My Marzipan Joy Joys!

2007-02-03T15:06:00.000-05:00

Here's one of them food-related treats I've never tried before. Marzipan (from Silver Lake Cookie Co.)! The package is modeled after a fruit basket, and each bit of marzipan is shaped like a different kind of fruit.

I've always been curious to find out what marzipan is (although never curious enough to taste it, I suppose). Turns out, it's a sort of Middle Eastern almond paste fashioned into a miniature cake of sorts. Wikipedia lists a lot of its incarnations and assorted uses, but I will not be trying them. Oh, heavens no!

Fast food facts: Serving size: 1 piece. Calories: 50. Fat: 1g. This treat does meet vegan requirements.

Hey, I figure as a one-time thing, I can break my "no-fat candy" bond. Oh, the things I do for this blog. It's not like a chocolate bar, which is jam-packed, so those of you that are less picky than me should have no problem with the paltry single gram of fat.

My sample piece is the orange one pictured top-center above. From the top, it resembles a real fruit. However, all of the pieces of marzipan are flat and off-white on the bottom, like a cookie. According to expert opinions from my family, who also sampled the marzipan, none of the fruits have different flavors. The decoration is entirely for show.

The sweet is slightly spongy, but not so soft that it doesn't crack when squeezed too hard. The odor of the marzipan is interesting, and unlike anything I've smelt before. It has a sort of bitter aroma. It's not particularly appealing, but it's not entirely off-putting either.

My first thought when biting into the marzipan was of a sugar cookie. The flavor, at least, is very reminiscent. The texture is much smoother and chewier than any fresh-made cookie. There is a clear nutty flavor that distinguishes itself after the sweet disappears, which makes sense because almonds are the second ingredient. It is also fruity, and another look at the ingredient list shows that apricots and coconut oil are utilized in the creation of the treat.

All in all, I'd definitely recommend marzipan to the candy enthusiast. It certainly satisfies the sweet tooth, and is oddly filling as well. My mother and sister would be of a different opinion--ranging from lukewarm to negative. However, since this is my blog, you have to listen to me and not them. Deal with it. I can't say that I'll make marzipan a regular part of my candy diet (due to the fat content, some of which is saturated), but it certainly was a tasty deviation from the norm.

Google searching for marzipan turned up marzipan babies! Disturbing!

Link: Silver Lake Cookie Co.

Is it possible to feel inspired and diminished at the same time?

2007-02-01T23:55:00.000-05:00

Being an English major is a pain in the ass. Oh, sure, it's simple. I haven't exactly had to do much in the way of work over the past three years. However, it's sucked all the fun out of reading for me. I've been taught to analyze novels, looking for hidden meanings that the authors surely did not intend. Does Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn work as a statement against the injustice of slavery? Is Jekyll and Hyde really about homosexuality? Of course not. Each argument can be (and has been) culled from the classic tomes, but it's always a stretch. Did you know that Catcher in the Rye is a novel about baby-back ribs? I didn't either, but I'm sure I could bang out a ten-page paper prattling on about the subject. Essentially, the English major has taught me how to bullshit. Come May, I'll be graduating with a B.A. in B.S.

I had a fairly light semester this Fall as far as reading was concerned. I had to read some modern fiction and drama, but I filled my time with gen-ed requirements. As such, I was kind of in the mood to read a real book (for my own enjoyment) over my winter break. And so I've arrived here. The first novel I've read purely for pleasure in over two years (I reread The Hobbit in December 2004). Quitting Science by Cunliffe Merriwether (also known as neo-folk musician Dan Bern).

No bones about it, I'm predisposed to enjoy this book. Dan Bern is among my top-tier of musicians. In addition to the fourteen albums I own of his (the complete collection), I have a collection of almost two hundred live concerts and rarity compilations on my computer. Altogether, it's 1479 Dan Bern tracks, taking up nearly five days' worth of time. I like Dan Bern.

Even without the knowledge I have of the author, the novel is an entertaining and light read, full of humor and oftentimes with more meaningful thoughts. The book tells the story of the "author," Cunliffe Merriwether, in his travels across the world demonstrating outrageously dubious scientific theories to often-disinterested crowds (which seems to be a clear parallel to Bern's own European experiences, performing his music across the continent). He begins to become tired of the touring life, and his crew decides to split up. The tale is told through fairly brief vignettes, each well-focused and with its own point.

The folksinger's wit and wisdom is, for lack of a better word, folksy. He knows how to turn a phrase like no other, yet he doesn't hide it amongst wordy or dense language. Here is a brief excerpt from a chapter of Quitting Science.

E=mc squared. Such an elegant little formula Einstein gave us. At first it seems wholly fanciful. My energy is equal to my physical mass. times the speed of light squared--squared no less!
You look at it and go, "What the hell is that?"
But you check it, with figures and so forth.
You even demonstrate it. Last year in Dayton, Cartwell blew up a crate full of larva. E=mc squared.
Sometimes, when I'm about to give a lecture and I'm tired, and I don't want to do it, and I have pain in my legs, I think, "Actually, my energy is equal to my current mass times the speed of light squared." And there's a new spring in my step.

There are other bits of the book that are equally brilliant (or more so), but they were far too long to excerpt on this shitty blog. Hell, the guy had me hooked with the first words ("Heil Hitler.") What a bizarre start to a bizarre, beautiful novel.

I hate to compare artists (and Bern himself seems to despise it, as referenced in his World Cup, as well as this novel), but there is a Vonnegut-esque quality throughout Bern's writing almost. Bern is clearly not aping anybody's style, and examination of this novel and any other pieces by the author shows that he has a distinct voice all his own. However, the spirit of Vonnegut certainly runs through this piece in particular, and I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Bern is a fan.

I'm instantly attracted to Bern's writing style (not as a Bern fan, but as a literature fan), and I'm pleased to see that he's published a number of works outside of Quitting and the aforementioned World Cup. Unfortunately, his other three releases are out-of-print, and so the hunt must begin. Wish me luck.

Link: Dan Bern Store