Thursday, June 26, 2008

W W Galileo D?

I mentioned before that W is an odd letter. Well...it still is. I forget which font this is, but W in either case resembles a Double V rather than Double U. Helvetica to them all!

W might be considered in some circles as the most evil of letters, but I disagree. Here are some non-threatening words that start with W.


Wall-E: The 9th animated movie released by Pixar, and it's opening on Friday! Now this particular entry is one of the contributors of me miscounting the days that these blogs would be posted. I had originally assumed that W would be posted on Saturday for some reason, giving me time to see Wall-E on opening day, write a review about it, then post it. Obviously, that won't be the case.

I love the Pixar movies, and I have watched all but The Incredibles in the theaters. I regret not seeing that one in a theater, because it was one of the only Pixar flicks that was awesome enough to see on the big screen. Not surprising anyone, it's the only Pixar title I own on DVD. The last two flicks, Cars and Ratatouille, I saw on opening day. I plan on making this movie the third.

What I've read so far, Wall-E is the last robot on Earth and somehow ventures into space to climb aboard the last remaining human colony in space. Hilarity, fantastic animation, and John Ratzenberger ensues. The thing about these movies is that they all seem crummy from only watching the teasers and trailers, but the final result proving us dead wrong.

Good examples? Finding Nemo & The Incredibles. The initial teasers made the movies seem like "augh, not another one of these," but when I finally saw them..."Wow." I suggest going to see Wall-E...because I will see it first and taunt you with potential spoilers.

(A) War of Words: A blog run by my friend & co-worker Tim. He basically does the same thing that I'm doing right now, but he focuses on a single word. He also writes in well-written detail about this one word, describing what exactly does it mean. Sadly, he only does it weekly. He mostly posts on Wednesdays, and the new one, "Laughter" is up now. Go there now and support him.

Wii: One of my latest obsessions. When the name was announced, I went through all of the jokes:

"Don't come in, I'm playing with my Wii!"

"I'm going to stay home and play with my Wii."

"Would you like to play with my Wii?"

"I got a black one!"

And so on. Weird name, great innovation. Finally, I can act out pretending to swing a sword at people! Not only does the Wii have its Virtual Console, where you can play vintage Nintendo games, but there's backwards compatibility with the Gamecube, pretty much rendering it obsolete.

I remember my desperate search to find one around my birthday. After weeks of failure looking around at all game stores on the Island, I turned to eBay. Mistake, as I learned that it's possible to be able to automatically raise one's bid whenever you put one in. It was kind of like that old kid's book where this kid wins a counting contest by using a Magic Apple add "And One More" to whatever the story's villain, a Wizard, was able to count to. So whenever I bid something like "270," I was immediately beaten by "271.50." Expletives followed every time.

Finally, in March, another friend of mine (who has also started a blog here) just happened to work at a Gamestop and gave me a tip on when a shipment was coming in. Three or so hours I waited, but I got one. I missed the first 1/2 hour of an important class that I ended up getting a C+ in, but it was worth it.

My only games for it so far are Brawl and Mario Kart. They are both worth it. I'm aiming for Super Mario Galaxy & Super Paper Mario soon. Sorry, I just loves me my Mario games.

"Weird Al" Yankovic: I couldn't let the W entry go by without mentioning this guy. I love him, he's pretty much my favorite musician out there. Why do I love him so? Hmm.

It may be due to him always keeping fresh with his material. He manages to write hilarious parodies of songs that will no doubt last beyond the shelf life of the song being parodied. He has turned "Beat It" into "Eat It," "Bad" into "Fat," "Ridin' Dirty" into "White & Nerdy," and "Jeopardy" into "I Lost on Jeopardy." Trust me, that last parody was completely different than the original, while also being hilarious.

Don't worry, he has a slew of original stuff as well. One of his most notable is the 11 minute "Albuquerque" from his "Running With Scissors" album.



I know people in my age group love to say it, but it qualifies as "Epic." It's one thing to marvel at Al recording it in the first place, it's even more impressive watching it live. Which I have watched him do twice.

If you should see one live music show, let it be him. I guarantee a great time. Lots of great, funny songs, lots of costume changes, and a good number of stuff shown on giant screens hovering above the stage. When "White & Nerdy" was performed, he came out on stage riding a Segway. That was pretty awesome, even more so considering the venue I saw him at had a rotating stage. Speaking of concerts, he's coming back to LI on July 10 at the former "Westbury Music Fair," and guess who wants to see him?

Yes, me. One detail I must add, I recently got an official deal off of Live Nation for a group discount. If I rope 3 more people in to see him, I could get 4 tickets for $146! That's $36.50 a person, which is a tremendous bargain considering that the venue is charging about $51 a person, after adding taxes & processing fees.

Weird Al single-handedly made the accordion awesome, an instrument labeled "lame" before he came along. Now all we need to do is convince people that Oboes are cool...

White Castle: Nor can I let this entry end without mentioning this. I spilled my love of the Castle back in This Entry, but in lieu of repeating it, I have a different topic at hand.

It seems that Tim, the very same one I mentioned earlier, read it and told me that I had missed an important detail: I never described what White Castle's food tasted like.

That's a good question. It's been a short while since I ate there, but I can pluck the memory out of my head. It's probably how they cooked, but they tasted like meat, with onions, and the grease that they're grilled on. Add the bun to that, and you got a yummy combo that I can't really describe. Plus, the burger is done in two bites so you can't really grasp on the flavor for long. That's why you always get it in multiples of how many your arms can carry.


We only have 3 letters left to go! Dang, I kind of don't want this to end.





Why? No, wait, that's Saturday. Nevermind.

4 comments:

Kitty MacDowell said...

Sorry dude, I got only as far as "BACKWARDS COMPATIBLE WITH THE GAMECUBE".
Because that is just so totally fucking awesome! I loved the gamecube- Especially Luigi's Mansion. We sold our gamecube a long time ago...

Deku said...

Thanks for the mention. Another great post. I would love to go see Weird Al again (saw him last year, and during Poodlehat tour, and second year of Touring with Scissors). I really want to see him again but Billy Joel will be taking all my money. I'll see what I can do. That deal is really nice.

Anonymous said...

I get so mad playing Mario Kart - mostly because I hate it when you make that ONE mistake and fall off a cliff or something and you're pretty much screwed for the rest of the course. And I hate losing to people over Wifi. Like, you know it's some douche 12 year olds you're playing against.
I played it for a week but got tired of it. Call me when it gets a headset so I can scream at people the way I do in real life driving situations.

And Weird Al is good people. You can't not laugh at his albums. I'd like to shake his hand one day and tell him "thanks".

DC said...

Wierd Al is the best! His songs are funny and clever. I remember being really bummed for him when they found his parents dead in their home. :(