Thirty-Five

 It's March 31st!

It's the day Ron Swanson had 91 meetings scheduled because April didn't think that date existed. Ahh, mid 00's comedy.

But in any case, last week was my 35th trip around the sun, and I still don't quite know what to make of that.

Getting random pains, gotta lower the triglyceride level, feeling the existential dread that you wasted your twenties and you still haven't started a family, let alone moved out of the house. That...this is all there is to it. Yep, the mid thirties has it all.

But I have Kirby. We all still have Kirby!

I picked up Kirby & The Forgotten Land last week, and I'm just gonna say it, it's one of the all time best Kirby games. They manage to translate Kirby's world, and especially his powers, to three dimensions incredibly well. The ability evolutions are a great mechanic as well, each new upgrade is mostly a power-up, but there's drawbacks, too. The upgrades that hit harder move slower, or the ones that move faster are harder to control. You know the deal.

It's weird to think that this might be one of the few Kirby games without the Stone ability. Certain Mouthful modes pretty much replace it, like you can inhale stairs or a car, and you can plow through almost anything. It's all incredibly cute, and of course frustrating on the harder missions. The game itself goes by pretty quickly, but there's big levels to make up for it. And unless you're really good or lucky, getting 100% completion mainly involved replaying levels until you rescue all the Waddle Dees.

I haven't beaten the game yet as of this writing, but I just KNOW that new little critter buddy is an evil nightmare beast. They've done that twist a few times, it's pretty inevitable.

Also, hidden HAL room in the third level of the first world!

Also, Batman '66 returned to MeTV and the world got a little better. It started right at the beginning, introducing the Batusi to the world.

Frank Gorshin's Riddler was the first villain of the show, and he remains the best actor to fill the ? suit. Until then, The Riddler was a D-tier villain in the comics until Frank Gorshin's cackling, boundless energy brought him to life. It's a completely ridiculous outfit, but he manages to make it work.

I just posted this one because I wasn't expecting the funniest line in the episode. Sixties slang was strange.

See you all in April, folks. I'll still be here, sitting on the couch and contemplating existence.

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31

So I turned 31 last week. It's not a special birthday, although that does make me as old as Hans Moleman.

I only asked for one gift this year: Kirby Star Allies for the Switch.

Sure, it's a pretty short Kirby game by console standards (only 4 worlds!), but it's super fun.

The gimmick with this game is that through Friend Hearts, you can befriend up to three helpers, of just about every ability in the game. The old standards like Sword, Ice, and Parasol are back, but also some older, obscure ones like Yo-yo and Cleaning make a return, too. New abilities like Spider, Artist, and Baton are also here. Since this game is celebrating the 25th anniversary of Kirby, abilities can be combined, too.

Like, you can add fire or electricity to Sword to make it a lot cooler and stronger. Not all abilities can be combined, though (boo), but some abilities have other special techniques. Spider makes a giant web to bounce on, Parasol gets bigger, and Artist summons a fridge that gives out food.

There's also guest characters to befriend, too, and they're the most broken characters in the game. Yes, that's Marx from Kirby Super Star among them, and he's playable!

Obviously, as a final boss, he has the best powers in the entire game. Man was not meant to play as him, but I'm happy. Hell, he could be in the next Smash Bros. game with the moveset they give him here. Seeing as there's a Switch game coming soon, it might be more possible than we think.

I also managed to snag this as a birthday gift to myself:

This cel from Beavis & Butt-Head! Yes, this was an impulse buy on eBay, but I managed to snag it for 40 bucks, which is a steal considering how popular this show is. Most cels from this show have a going rate just starting at $80, so I was lucky to snag such a clean picture.

If you're looking for cels, they're very common on eBay, and they range in price to incredible cheap to super freaking expensive. The show or movie itself tends to set how valuable it is, as are how many characters are in it, how complete the characters are, and if the episode it's from is recognizable. I honestly have no idea which episode this cel hails from, but it's a complete picture of Beavis & Butt-Head themselves, and that's good enough for me knowing I can now say that I own a physical piece of them. It joins cels that I have from Ren & Stimpy and Rocko's Modern Life. My dream is a cel from the Simpsons, and anything good is pretty hard to come by these days. Sure, there's lots of production art floating around, but I want a cel like this one! I know I'll find one eventually.

So, that was my birthday. I hope you have a happy Easter and April Fool's Day! It's the first time they fall on the same day in 62 years!

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We Are Eight

Hard to believe that this blog is now eight years old.

Look at him, he's grown so much. So what have I been up to since my last entry? 

Well for one thing, I finally got some of my pesky wisdom teeth taken out last week.

I'll spare you from what the actual teeth looked like, but they weren't pretty. I only got the two teeth in the right side of my mouth taken out but I have to say I feel much better now they're out. This was something vibe been putting off for years, Lower Righty's been giving me pain for ages ever since it fractured some time ago. Yeah, it's been hurting so bad there were times where I was planning on taking it out a la Tom Hanks in Cast Away. You know, that bit with the ice skate? That was me for a while. But anyway it's gone now and the spot where the tooth was is only slightly sore. That's a win, I guess.

I also visited the "new" Nintendo NY store in Manhattan. Well, it's pretty much the same Nintendo World store that's been there, but with a better layout. They've added big tvs to demo the WiiUs, so people can watch you suck at Mario Kart 8 on a screen that can be seen from the Today Show studio. It's a big change since this store opened up when Gamecubes were the console they were showing off, so this was quite an upgrade.

This was cool / I want it. I've seen Master Swords before, but that's a Master Swird you can actually cut someone with and sadly I have to add it to my "crazy crap I'd buy if I won the lottery" list.

The Nintendo Museum they have on the top floor got some new display cases, this one themed around Super Mario Maker. These are the actual layouts from the original Super Mario Bros. From all my time playing Mario Maker, making these simple, yet iconic level designs is a lot harder than it looks.

A better look at a few levels designs, these are from Super Mario 3. Slopes are tough to implement, I guess.

I want to steal this and hang it on my wall, and I know damn well I wasn't the only one there that was contemplating sneaking back in after hours.

And of course Pokemon has its own corner of the store, this being one of their many plush displays. All of the Pokemon you see here were modeled after Beanie Babies, with normal and sleeping variants. What excites me was that almost all the Eeveelutions had representations here, save for Umbreon and Eevee itself. Vaporeon is my favorite, so of course I was excited to see that they were the most popular. Yeah, the Slowpokes and Charmanders were almost gone but screw it, Vaporeon's getting love and of course I picked up both versions.

I don't know how much this giant Substitute cost, but I wasn't willing to lug it around the city for a few hours, plus the train ride home. I know I've seen weirder things around the city, but I didn't feel like carrying anything that day.

And of all things, Kirby had a pretty impressive display, getting the same amount of floor space reserved for the likes of popular, yet nerdy games like Splatoon and Animal Crossing. Kirby, being a round pink ball, lends himself quite well to plush dolls, so seeing plush of ANY character aside from him and popular characters like King Dedede and Meta Knight is a rare sight. Sure there was a Waddle Dee but Chef Kawasaki here is just so esoteric of a character (appeared as a miniboss in ONE game and its remake, in addition to a minor role in the Kirby anime) that I decided to buy it on the spot, even before I got to the Vaporeons.

Here's some old Game & Watches. They're a mainstay at the displays in this store, but I've never seen a few of these before. They look like weird, mutant calculators but they play simple monochrome games. But apparently these two are Super Game & Watches and they play their games in color. Since these are from the early 80s, I'm gonna guess that color was green.

Back during Valentine's Day, I spent the day as I always spend that day: feeling bad about myself. But even that gets old after a few hours so I went down to the local Dairy Queen and got their Singles Blizzard. If I remember right, it was peanut butter ice cream that had caramel and fudge and loneliness. It turned out to taste much better than I hoped, and since it was Valentine's Day, getting my hopes up by ice cream would definitely be the highlight of not only that day, but the entire month. 

And speaking of food being a highlight of the day, I managed to snag the lone strawberry glazed doughnut at a work meeting. There's always one in every assortment and it's usually snatched up before I ever get to the box. Since I've got a good 15 years on most of the other people I work with, I was the only one who cared about it. Either way, it made that meeting glide by, nevermind that the sugar from the doughnuts I ate exceeded the amount of doughnuts I usually eat, which is zero, was probably what caused it.

And now I'm going to counter the good food with...this. This is Burger King's Buttery XL Cheeseburger. Remember the Good Morning Burger from the Simpsons?

Well, even though they promised rich, creamery butter, the reality was that it was just a weird, wide burger BK made to fit on a chicken sandwich bun. It says it was buttery, but it was more like it was coated with globs of what I hoped was mayo, so I can't really say that there was any false advertising going on here. All in all, it was pretty good, butter or not.

I know that I said that I reached Peak Stuff and that still reigns true, but I couldn't resist getting John Oliver's Funko Pop. If you haven't seen Last Week Tonight, I strongly urge you to do so. With all the shows the Daily Show  has been responsible for siring the past few years, this is the one I feel is the closest to recapturing the Jon Stewart-era greatness. Samantha Bee's Full Frontal and Colbert's Late Show are steadily getting better, too, but Last Week Tonight has been firing from all cylinders from Day 1, the latest Best Thing is their coverage on Donald Drumpf.
.

Oh yeah, I ended up buying about four more over the past month, most of them variants of BMO from Adventure Time. There's like 7 versions of him and the only one I'm missing is the Glow In The Dark one from a few Comic Cons ago.  It's the only one that's worth over $100 and I'm hesitant to pull the trigger on it right now. I'm hoping for some eBay miracle or something.

Until then, I'm done with these Pop things for now. Until I browse eBay at 2am again so...expect to see me update on another new pile of stuff next month.

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The Christmas Prophesy: Doom Will Come The Man in Red

The Story So Far... (read these first!)
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10

THE BATTLE BEGINS!

ATTACK!!!

Arcee: "Damn, you're tough."

Thunderwing: "As tough as dey come, babe."

Acree: "Eww."

Thunderwing: "ow!"

Meta-Knight: "Name's Meta-Knight. It's always so fine to meet a fellow swordsman."

Arcee: "Thanks, but I didn't need your help."

Meta-Knight: "Can't help it if I try to be a hero by helping to save Christmas."

Perceptor: "Ack!"

Starscream: "Serves you right to cross the Decepticons and the almighty voluptuous Megatron!"

Kirby: "MIKE SCREAM!"

Starscream: "Ack!"

Kirby: "Oh, just come outta the closet already!"

Starscream: "What closet? You mean the one behind us?"

Santa: "Sorry if this is a bad time, but are you by any chance named Thundercracker? Because I have a subscription to GQ magazine to give him."

Starscream: "Of course not! He's dead!"

Starscream: "AAAAHHHH!!!"

Santa: "Too bad."

Laserbeak: "So Earthlings, how does it feel to have your privacy violated from your own computer?"

Dennis: "Now listen here, you. I've been through a hell of a lot these past few months. Battling crazed maniacs like you, suffering through earthquakes, Pokemon battles, lousy fortune cookies, pineapples, cubes made from sand art quizzing me, getting trapped in a giant beer mug! Now...this. On the run for the past week and our awesome computer that's been helping us out? A phony! Nothing more than a cheap, plastic PHONY! You..."

Dennis: "You...you...you...you..."

Laserbeak: "Heheh, Slow down, you're gonna blow a fuse if you keep stuttering."

Dennis: "You...you...you...you..."

Dennis: "You...you...you...you..."

Mr. Snowman: "What the hell is going on?!"

Merv: "Dennis...you're glowing! I'm scared."

Dennis: "You...YOU...YOU!...YOU!"

Laserbeak: "Uh-oh."

Dennis: ASSHOLE!!!!

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!! THE PAIN!!!!

RARRR?

"Ugh..."

Meta-Knight: "Whoa..."

Merv: "Remind me never to piss Dennis off."

Soundwave: "NOOOO! LASERBEAK! SPEAK TO ME!"

Laserbeak: "Ugh...Marc Maron will never be funny..."

Soundwave: "LASERBEAK!"

Soundwave: "This cannot compute."

Soundwave: "Prepare for your imminent destruction, Earthlings!"

Dennis: "...You know, now that I'm looking at you close-up...you look familiar."

Soundwave: "..."

Dennis: "..."

Soundwave: "...I have never see you before."

Dennis: "Heh, coulda sworn you looked like something I had once."

Dennis: "Merv, doesn't he look familiar?"

Merv: "I don't pay attention to these things. I do know that this looks like the end."

Dennis: "Yeah...it's been a good blog. I'm...glad to have known you."

Merv: "Well...yeah, my sack and I were glad to have been friends, too. And that thing you just did? It was awesome."

Dennis: "Thanks."

Merv: "Think you could do that again?"

Dennis: "Heck, I didn't even know I could do it this time. But..."

Clapboard: "OH YEAH!

Dennis, Merv: Mr. Snowman: "Clapboard?!"

Clapboard: "Ha! Looks I AM good for something! Nice toss, Prowl!"

Prowl: "No problem, little buddy! We're finally turning the tides!"

Arcee: "Yeah, there's still Megatron."

Optimus: "You've ruined your last Christmas, Megatron!"

Seaspray: "Time to kick some ass!"

Megatron: AUTOBOTS, YOU...RARR...AMUSE ME. YOU KEEP THINKING YOU HAVE A CHANCE, NOT EVEN WITH...

Megatron: ...THE MAN IN RED...

Megatron: DOOM WILL COME TO YOU, MAN IN RED!!

Optimus: "Not on our watch, you bastard!"

Optimus: "Taste some JUSTICE!!"

Arcee: "Yeah, take that, ass!"

Perceptor: "This is for trying to destroy this nice holiday!"

Kirby: "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!"

Megatron: RAAAARRRR! FOOLS! THIS IS NOTHING BUT A...RARR...SCRATCH!

Clapboard: "Man, this guy's not going down!"

Prowl: "I don't know how much longer we can fight at this rate!"

Megatron: NOTHING BUT A PAINFUL SCRATCH!

AHHH!

Kirby: "This guy's too much!"

Merv: "Man, everyone's getting creamed! Save us, Mistah Snowman!

Merv: "Ahh! what the hell was that for?!"

Mr. Snowman: "Idiots, I'm not your beloved Mistah Snowman! In fact, I've never liked him NOR that insipid Advent Calendar story! Too complicated and meta for my tastes. I've been a loyal Decepticon spy all along!"

Santa: "That explains that weird tramp stamp you've got there."

Mr. Snowman: "Eat carrot, Claus!"

Santa: "Why do I have to insult tramp stamps? It's like a knee-jerk reaction with me!"

Merv: "Enough with the phonies...I wish I could explode, too..."

Dennis: "Can't...move..."

Mr. Snowman: "All hail Megatron! All hail..."

"UGH!"

Seaspray: "You have no idea how long I've been waiting to do that, Mister Snowman."

Snowman: "But...but..."

Seaspray: "Join the rest of your brethren in Robot Hell."

AAAAAHHHHHH!!!!

Seaspray: "Never doubt the abilities of the water guy, folks."

Merv: "We won't! Figured that wasn't the real Mistah Snowman anyways."

Dennis: "Sure you did."

Dennis: "Santa, can you heal everyone again?"

Santa: "I wish I could, but being shocked that time took most of what was left of my energy away. I only have enough to get home, I need time to recharge my Christmas magic."

Dennis: "Dang it."

Seaspray: "We could really use some of that Christmas magic right about now. Don't know how much longer any of us will hold out."

Dennis: "Hmm...Christmas magic."

Dennis: "Merv, did you ever look to see if there was anything inside your sack?"

Merv: "Hmm, you know, I actually haven't!"

Merv: "There's nothing in here but a Pokeball, but I don't see how that'll help us..."

WIIIIISSSSSSSSHHHHHHH...

Megatron: WHAT'S THIS?

POLIWHIRL!

Optimus: "What the hell is that thing?"

Kirby: "A Pokemon!"

Meta-Knight: "But a lame one..."

Megatron: ...WHAT IN BLAZES IS THIS?

Starscream: "It's huge...but it's not Megatron huge..."

Thunderwing: "Give it a rest, will ya..."

Merv: "Holy shit."

Dennis: "That Elekid guy gave us...a giant Poliwhirl."

Merv: "Hell, that beats a sack any day! I got a Pokemon!"

Santa: "That's the magic of Christmas."

Merv: "Time to kick some ass, Poliwhirl! Use...Something!"

POLIWHIRL USED DOUBLESLAP!

IT'S SUPER EFFECTIVE!

Dennis: "Wow...that's actually working."

Meta-Knight: "All from a Poliwhirl."

Clapboard: "Megatron looks like he's gonna break."

Kirby: "Yeah, one more good attack should do it!"

Seaspray: "We got him nailed down!"

RARRRRRRR!!!

Optimus: "Don't worry about us! Finish him off!"

Merv: "Allright Poliwhirl, just...hit him with the best attack you've got!"

Poliwhirl!

NO...NO...NO...NOOOOOO!!!

POLIWHIRL USED FOCUS PUNCH!

IT'S SUPER EFFECTIVE!

RARRR!!! MY PLANS...FOILED...POWER...DRAINING...

THIS WILL NOT BE THE LAST YOU SEE OF ME...

Megatron: "Decepticons...forever..."

K.O.!

Merv: "Oooh, money!"

Dennis: "I wouldn't pick that up, it might be cursed or something."

Starscream: "Yeah, screw this I'm outta here."

Starscream: "Decepticons, retreat!"

LEAVE!

Optimus: "We did it! We saved Christmas! And doom came to nobody!"

Optimus: "Ow...my...everything hurts again..."

"No!"

Dennis: "Are you okay, Optimus?!"

Optimus: "We beat Megatron, Hoist. That's all that matters."

Seaspray: "How are his vitals, Perceptor?"

Perceptor: "He sustained massive injuries. A crushed, well, everything. He doesn't have very long."

Dennis: "Can you do anything for him now?"

Santa: "You heard the giant microscope thing. I may be magic, but not THAT magic."

Merv: "Oh, it's cause of me that the best character here is dying."

Dennis: "Don't say things like that."

Clapboard: "Especially since I just realized that dying is awful."

Kirby: "This is just like the movie all over again. The animated one, I mean."

Meta-Knight: "Circle of life, man."

Arcee: "I just hope that he won't get replaced by a douche like what happened with Rodimus."

Prowl: "We know that won't happen."

Optimus: "Friends, don't worry about me. When one door closes...another will open...."

Dennis: "...What's happening?!"

Seaspray: "Regeneration."

Kirby: "Wait, I thought only..."

Santa: "Well, there are a few being in this universe that can regenerate. Myself, Time Lords, and certain Transformers like Optimus here."

Dennis: "That's awfully convenient."



Optimus: "Uhh..."

Optimus: "I hate it when that happens."

Arcee: "You just regenerated, sir."

Optimus: "We saved Christmas from the Decepticons, so I'd say that it was worth it this time. By the way, did you get taller?"

Dennis: "So...you're still Optimus? You just look different?"

Merv: "And sound different?"

Optimus: "It usually comes with a personality change, too. I don't notice anything different yet, but you'll get used to the new me eventually."

Optimus: "I'm awfully sorry we dragged you into this, Santa."

Santa: "I had fun. We should really do this again some time."

Santa: "It IS the 24th after all, and I must be going! Gotta give those gifts and all!"

Santa: "But first, I'll give you a gift!"

Santa: "Let's tidy up this corpse!"

CHRISTMAS MAGIC!!

Santa: "There you go, one Awesome Computer, totally guaranteed to never transform into a hideous bird thing!"

Optimus: "And there's a new Marc Maron podcast with Michael Ian Black already installed! This is the best Christmas ever!"

Santa: "It's what I do, Mr. Prime."

Arcee: "Yep, same old Optimus."

Dennis: "Awesome. But what about the rest of us?"

Santa: "You'll get them later tonight. I got rules to take care of, and I gotta get back to the North Pole if I want to get them to you guys in time."

Santa: "See you next year, everyone!"

Santa: "Away!"

Santa: "MERRY CHRISTMAS!"

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Merv: "I knew Santa rode an electric razor!"

Clapboard: "So...he had that the whole time?"

Dennis: "Sigh."

THE END!

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