This or That? How about Neither!

I'm a fan of food, as well as being a fan of geekish organization. And the geekish classification of food? Well, I'm beaten by probably Alton Brown and other Food Network junkies when it comes to that.

There's that old question about whether some things are fruits or vegetables. Fruits are the reproductive products of the plant, with their seeds inside (or, like the Strawberry, on the outside), while vegetables are the edible part of the plant itself, which may or may not contain seeds.

Everyone knows what are fruits, like Apples, Oranges, Peaches, Coconuts, Limes, Strawberries, etc., and Vegetables including Broccoli, Carrots, Lettuce, Celery, Beets, and so on.

But what about those foods that are both? Are neither? Well, I toss these off in what I call the "Fuck It Pile," all the foods that have had so much debate whether they're fruits or vegetables, I just said "fuck it!" and threw them in a category all their own.

Here are the items in my "Fuck It!" Pile:



The Tomato


The Potato



The Pumpkin



And, of course, the Peanut.


EDIT:



It seems I forgot the Pickle, and its pre-Brine cousin, the Cucumber.

Got any suggestions for the "Fuck It!" Pile? Give a shout in the comments!

Leggo mah BJs!

Last week, while trying to track down Ben & Jerry's Americone Dream again (it's become a bit hard to find), I stumbled on something even better.

4, yes, FOUR different Ben & Jerry ice creams in 3.6 ounce cartons at a Shop Rite, priced at $1.25 each, or 4/$5.

They were Vanilla, Chocolate Fudge Brownie, Cherry Garcia, and Cookie Dough. Cherry Garcia was the most interesting, followed by Cookie Dough. Cherry Garcia alone convinced me to buy the other three.

The reason that I used past tense is because this entry was going to be devoted to in-depth reviews and picture goodness of all four flavors. I had never had any of the four before (well, yes, I've had Vanilla...but not Ben & Jerry's Vanilla).

Until tonight. I had just gotten home from work when I noticed one of the ice creams missing! It turns out it was in the trash.

It seemed that my dad had eaten one of them thinking my mom bought it. Guess which flavor it was?

Cherry. Fucking. Garcia!!!!

Fuck you, Dad. Fuck you for ruining what was going to be a great blog that these fine readers were going to read for like 5 minutes and then move on to the "Stuff White People Like" blog.

And now they're not going to get it.

LEAVE CHERRY GARCIA ALONE! Just leave it alone!!!

Comment on Your Own Blog for $14.99! (plus $5.95 S&H)

To take a trip into Nostalgialand™, I'd like to tell you about one of my favorite "comic" ads.

"Comic" is in quotes because I wasn't an avid reader of comic books, but another magazine I read had the exact same ads. Way back when I was in the Cub Scouts, everyone that was a part of it was given a Mandatory subscription to Boy's Life Magazine.



It was basically the same thing every issue. One page was an article like "Top 10 Ways of Preventing Forest Fires," the next one would be "How To Start A Forest Fire to Scare off Bears," and the monthly comic "Scout Racoon says 'No to Forest Fires!' to Torchy The Bear!"

And so on.

At the back of the issue, there would be those classic scam ads that riddled the comic books of yore (and possibly today). There were the staples, like "Sea Monkeys," "Ant Farms," Charles Globe's "Stop-Getting-Sand-Kicked-In-Your-Face Confidence Builder Picture" Kit, "Inflatable Jet Pack" and "Grow Your Own Torchy The Bear."

But there were the two that stuck out in my mind:



First is the infamous Hover Car Thing. Man, would I be the envy of all the kids on the block travelling to elementary school on one of those things. You see, I was an even lazier little 4th grader than the Lazy 21 year old College Junior that I am now, and my elementary school was literally Three blocks away from me and despised walking there every day. But if I had one of these...I'd be flying! Or hovering on the power of a vacuum cleaner motor.

I soon abandoned this prospect when I realized I'd only be hovering two feet off the ground, and that I'd have to part with $3.95 for the shipping.

But that's not the point of this blog. This one is:



The Quail Egg Incubator. This one always, and still, fascinated me. "Why Quails?" "Why 5 eggs?" "Wouldn't it be awesome to have Quails?" "Why does it cost more than the Hover Car?"

As it turned out, this proved to be as much of a sham as the rest of the ads out there. Unlike the crappiness of the Hovercar, or the overall dissappointment of "Get Your Own Torchy The Bear!" (which turned out to be just a certificate stating that I had accidentally adopted one of those animatronic Country Bears at Disneyland, rather than an actual Bear), you actually got Quail Eggs, but there was really a minute chance of them hatching. This site that stills sells them says a typical hatch rate is just 25-50%.

As I just took a statistics class, I think that I can reject my null hyopthesis with that data.

There's also that whole issue of what happens if those eggs do hatch. How do I raise Quails? Does imprinting occur so I'll feel guilty about giving them to Imperial Szechuan Buffet? Will they straps belts on their heads? The theories are endless.

And sadly, the price had skyrocketed to $31.95. No thanks, faulty incubator salesbots.





This was a last minute idea: I know that this blog is "Beaming for Bunnies," but I just might make "Torchy The Bear" and Official Mascot.

That's why I'm commisioning 5 Blog Dollars™ to anyone who can give me some type of protoype drawing of "Torchy The Bear."

It starts now!

The 50 Greatest Animated Villains of All Time (Part 2)

I can't believe that I actually had some actual feedback with Part 1 of the list! I'm actually...happy.

Well, here it finally is, the much anticipated Part 2 of the 50 Greatest Animated Villains of All Time after a solid 3 months of waiting. I thank you all for being so patient. This time, we're counting down #'s 40-31. Click here for a refresher on Part 1.

Expect some greatness, some surprises, and, hopefully time permitting, some interesting witty commentary from Michael Ian Black (scheduled to appear).


#40: Plankton - SpongeBob Squarepants



Voiced By: Doug Lawrence

So we start off Part 2 with Plankton, the Tiny Terror from Spongebob Squarepants. Say what you will about the show (I thought it was good until around Season 4 or so, or when SpongeBob sold out, whichever one came first), but I believe that Plankton was an excellent villain from the show, and he's my favorite character on the show to boot, as well as his introduction episode being my favorite in the whole series. I surely believe that any episode that he even makes the slightest cameo in becomes at least one letter grade better due to his presence.

He mostly exists on the show as the business rival to Mr. Krabs, attempting to steal his Secret Krabby Patty Formula so he can make knockoff burgers to make his flailing Chum Bucket resataurant successful. These schemes usually involved just sneaking in with machinery and stealing a Krabby Patty, to more Trix Rabbit-type schemes involving tricking SpongeBob and Co. with increasingly elaborate disguises in order to take it. These simple shcemes have since evolved into plans for World Domination, usually involving the said Krabby Patty Theft.

More notable qualities include his small stature (a suggestion for a booster seat as a birthday gift by Spongebob almost made him go legit), his Lab, his Laboratory, a talking Supercomputer whom he had married at one point, thousands of inbred rural cousins, and my personal favorite, an old-timey record player to play some menacing music for the hell of it.


#39: Candle Jack - Freakazoid!



Voiced By: Jeff Bennett

We now come to *whisphers* Candle Jack. The reason why I whispered his name was by speaking his name, this ghoulish...demon...thing arrives to tie you up with his rope to abduct you in order to torture you, like attempting to convince you that Sinbad is getting another sitcom.

The only representative of the vastly underrated show Freakazoid on the countdown, which is kind of a shame since the show had several great villains. But this is only a Top 50, and Candle Jack is probably the greatest one, despite only appearing about 4 times total in the entire series. After his inital episode which spoofs the likes of Friday The 13th, he was among the menagarie of captured villains in the episode "The Island of Dr. Mystico," where his only major role was being given the job to scare Freakazoid's butler Professor Jones, played by Johnathan Harris.


#38: One-Shot Scooby-Doo Villains - Scooby-Doo Series



Voiced By: Various One-Shot People

Aah, Scooby-Doo. This entry is not for one particular villain, but for every masked villain that ever graced a single episode in the entire Scooby-Doo history.

It usually works out like this: Alleged monster is haunting some random location. A group of hippies with a talking dog (sometimes with a smaller, Scrappier, talking dog) have their van break down in said location. Said monster scares the bejeebus out of the gang and chases them set to cheery folk music. Monster falls for some trap, usually by Shaggy & Scooby disguising themselves. Monster is revealed to be the only other character introduced at the beginning of the episode, and dressed up as the monster so they could claim some small treasure for themselves. Sometimes the Harlem Globetrotters are involved. Credits Roll.

The villain pictured above is probably their most famous villain, The Creeper. The episode that he appears in is actually not that bad. He is actually some kind of threat accused of stealing money from a bank without breaking in, and he's looking for a piece of paper found by the Gang and terrorizes their Sock Hop or whatever the 60's equivalent of a rave was. It's revealed that he was the bank manager who stole from the vault at night and left as the Creeper, and that the "paper" he was looking for was an undeveloped incriminating picture of him casually taking the money out of the vault. He appeared a few other times in the Scooby-Dooniverse, such as anytime when Generic Scooby-Doo villains are featured like "Scooby-Doo & The Cyber Chase" and an episode of Harvey Birdman. He was also featured in an ad for a Relay-For-Life-esque event, saying that those who volunteer will run, but not from him. Ha. Ha.


#'s 37-33: The Fearsome Five - Darkwing Duck


#37: The Liquidator - Darkwing Duck



Voiced By: Jack Angel


#36: Quackerjack - Darkwing Duck



Voiced By: Michael Bell


#35: Bushroot - Darkwing Duck



Voiced By: Tino Insana


#34: Megavolt - Darkwing Duck



Voiced By: Dan Castellaneta


#33: Negaduck - Darkwing Duck



Voiced By: Jim Cummings

Yes, these 5 entries are known as the Fearsome Five from Darkwing Duck. I originally just had Bushroot, Megavolt and Negaduck as separate entries, but then realized "Why don't I just add Quackerjack & Liquidator and cover the entire Fearsome Five?" Yes, I'm awarding them spots not only on personal merit, but as the team itself. These five villains ranged from slightly-cool, to excellently kickass, but when they teamed up, there were among the most powerful of villains in the entire show.

Let's start with the Liquidator. A water-based Dog Villain who was given water-based powers in a freak accident involving falling into a vat of water that he himself had poisoned, similar to Hydro-Man, while having a personality similar to the Transformers' Wreck-Gar; as in, he speaks in nothing but advertising slogans, due to his pre-villain profession being a crooked salesman for a bottled water company. Only a minor villain at first, but he doesn't truly shine until he becomes one of the core members of the Fearsome Five.

Next we come to Quackerjack, a better villain. Here he fills a role that's an amalgam of the Joker and Toyman, as he builds nothing but dangerous, sadistic toys to cause general mayhem. He turned evil when no one would buy his evil toys. Most known exploits aside from joining the Fearsome Five include forcing toy stores to only stock his sinister creations, traveling back in time to stop the invention of the Yo-Yo, and releasing a Demon trapped in a Jack-In-The-Box voiced by Phil Hartman that inhabits his doll/best friend Mr. Banana Brain. Usually teams up with Megavolt.

Then there's Bushroot, a plant-based villain who got his look and powers from, you guessed it, a freak accident. Similar to Poison Ivy, he uses plants in order to do evil deeds. What makes him stand out among Darkwing Duck villains (and villains in recent times itself) is that he actually killed people. Not just "Oh look, I see parachutes!" or "He went to another dimension!" died, but on-screen, corpse-riddled dead. All for the love of his life, who rejects him after learning that he caused death on a Disney show.

Megavolt is another odd creature, but one of the most fearsome. Among the many villains on the show, he's the most likely candidate to be Darkwing's Arch-Nemesis, due to them fighting each other since high school. Like the other four members of the Fearsome Five, he's quite insane. Due to being electricity-based, he believes that electric appliances are sentient beings that have emotions and feel pain, so many of his crimes involves him "liberating" his pluggable bretheren from the clutches of the overworked streotyped Disney Show Housewives of St. Canard. I still have his action figure, where his chest actually spat out sparks like a lighter. That definitely earns a spot on my currently fictional "Most Kickass Obscure Action Figures" list.

Last we come to Negaduck, the leader and most psycho of probably any villain Darkwing ever faced. Depending on which episode you watch, Negaduck is either Darkwing's dark side manifested into an evil clone, or a parallel Darkwing from the Negaverse who rules Nega St. Canard. Either way, he is the exact opposite of Darkwing, as unlike DW, he's a borderline psychopath who hates friends and anything Good. He also carries around a chainsaw as his main weapon. He usually dresses up as Darkwing to frame him for crime spress and such, while his most infamous act was stealing the powers of the other four members of the Fearsome Five for himself to become an abomination that was defeated within a half hour.


#32: Chairface Chippendale - The Tick



Voiced By: Tony Jay

Being awarded with one of the greatest names for a cartoon character is Chairface Chippendale from the animated version of The Tick. One of the greatest and memorable villains from the show, he fills the role of the "Gentleman" Villain, and...he has a chair for a head. Not only that, he has a son named Stoolface (guess what he has for a head?), as well as a butler who has two hook hands and no head at all.

His most sinister act was attempting to carve his name into the moon, but he only made it to "CHA." Afterwards, as a genius act of continuity, "CHA" would appear on the moon whenever it was shown onscreen. It was later shortened to "HA" when the Galactus parody Omnipotus took a bite out of the moon.


#31: Feathers McGraw - The Wrong Trousers



Voiced By:

We end the 2nd part to my five-part countdown with Feathers McGraw, the penguin villain of the Walace & Gromit cartoon "The Wrong Trousers." He also happens to be another award winner of "Best Cartoon Character Name."

His part in the cartoon was that he's a jewel thief who wishes to steal the world's biggest diamond at the British Museum. He avoids suspicion by disguising himself as a chicken (consisting only of a red glove on his head). He then uses Wallace's new Techno-Trousers to use Wallace as an unwilling accomplice to his theft, as Feathers controls the pants with a remote control to use its machinery to sneak past security with ease. One of his shining moments in the stop-motion cartoon is an elaborate chase scene between him & Gromit chasing each other with model trains, with Gromit supplying his own track from a bottomless box of train tracks.

This bastard didn't even need to say anything. It just shows how slick and awesome he is.



That's it for Part 2, stay tuned for Part 3...Eventually.

Shikka, Shikka, Ka-boom!

I don't know what the hell is going on with the weather on Long Island this past week.

Literally, since last thursday, the days have been alternating between Sunny & Hot, and Raining & Cold.

And then there was today. It started out Cloudy, and then it got really cloudy and cold, and then it downpoured for 10 minutes, and then it got sunny and warm again. And right now, as I look out my window, it's nothing but clear, dark skies.

Also, since it's Memorial Day Weekend, it's time for Jones Beach's annual "Lets Get The Blue Angels To Scare The Fuck Out Of The Townsfolk For 5 Days" Festival. Whee.

It's May...but it doesn't feel like May. To paraphrase Lewis Black, I believe that New York does indeed go through the Five Seasons: 50, 32, 67, 12, 85. Sometimes this happens in the span of a week. Why, I remember a few years back where one day I was lounging about the pool, and then a snowstorm covered the whole neighborhood, and then the day after that, all the leaves fell off the tree. And for some reason, the day after that one was perfect beach weather. I think it's Martians.

Or Martins. You can never trust a roaming gang of Martins...with their similar names, and Docs named after them.

(PS: Five Blog Dollars™ to anyone who knows what this entry's title is referencing!)

Weird Al? In MY Transformers? It's more likely than you think.

Just the other day I had found out that 2 of my loves in life, "Weird Al" Yankovic and Transformers, have once again teamed up to do something awesome.

20 Years ago during the original animated Movie, there is a random scene that takes place on the Planet of Junk where our Autobot heroes find a species of bizarre transformers called Junkions, who speak the language of TV (ie, inserting weird, random slogans in place of pronouns and such).

They're lead by this guy, Wreck-Gar:



He was voiced by Eric Idle to boot!

What I'm trying to say here is at one point during this scene, Weird Al's song "Dare To Be Stupid" plays over a weird dancing sequence for no real reason. And that was the last time the two had intersected with each other.

Or so I thought. Last year, a new Transformers cartoon, Transformers Animated, finally hit the airwaves. At first it seemed like a double-edged sword. First of all, the good parts were that it's a new Transformers series, its the first once since Beast Machines that was produced in the US (the last 4 series were all Japanese animes). With an American production crew, we got American Voice Actors, with a few from the original G1 series (most notable being Corey Burton). Not only G1 voice actors, but its alleged that the series takes place a good 50 years after G1 takes place, where we have cameos from very familar bots (the Constructicons, The Dinobots, Sentinel Prime, Soundwave, Ultra Magnus, Blurr, etc), as well as starring roles for Transformers Staples including Bumblebee, Prowl, Ratchet (a veteran of a past Great War, assumed to not be G1 as the original is long dead), Blitzwing, Starscream and the usual Megatron & Optimus Prime. It's also a good sign when the series itself opens up with footage from the original G1 Show.

The bad end, besides the usual hardcore Geekery that only I and 6 readers will understand, are the VO choices (which turned out to be an Irrational theory, every actor is much better than anticipated, including Corey Burton's Megatron), the existence of Non-Decepticon villains (they're mostly around to make the Decepticons seem much more menacing & dangerous than they already are), and the Animation Style.



God god, first it was the Anime fad, and now we're in the Pseudo-Anime Teen Titans style of character design. Just when the Autobots are fighting Starscream, in comes Ben 10 & The Titans wondering why there are giant robots fighting.

Back on target, with all the Classic Bot Cameos, in an episode that aired a few weeks ago, we have a storyline devoted to a familiar face:



Wreck-Gar! And guess who voiced him this time? Yep, "Weird Al"! There are only a few minor differences in this version besides the voice, and it's mostly his Alt Mode, which is a fitting Garbage Truck in place of a motorcycle. I thought the episode he appears in was pretty good, and he was hilarious (I mean actually funny, not just funny by Kids Show standards). He also gave several throwbacks to G1: He throws his motorcycle Alt-mode at one point, giving the "Universal Greeting" at one point, as well as his very existence (his design is right up there in terms of "Most Faithful To The Original")

Here's a video highlighting the good parts of his appearance:



Awesome. Yes, he did drop a "Dare To Be Stupid" reference. Try to look for the cameo of an adult Spike & Carly at the end of the video!

Just For Kicks

As a little experiment I'd like to do, here are some random phrases that I just thought up in order to see if I can get this blog in as many random Google searches as possible.


Mustard Yellow Pinkjam
Red Schnapps Jubilee
Arkansas Primary Results
The Cat is over!
Blog for free
Carmen Electra Miley Cyrus Chocolate Pudding
Memorial Day SuperSale
Free Candy Canes
Sexy Bras
Get Coupons, Click now!
The Greatest Slice of Cheese Ever Made
Blue Ones
Bobby Flay
Neils Bohr
Red State Blue State
Alton Brown News
This is a great time to buy carpet
Calvin's Back
cheese monkey
free breast poppers
anime news
Angelina Jolie Pregnancy Shocker
Uncensored Sailor Moon Hentai
Crystal Pepsi
Crystal Pepsi
Crystal Pepsi
Mountain Dew Doritos
New Jones Soda Flavors
Orange Soda
Kenan & Kel to Return to Nick!
Hannah Montana Cancelled?!
Bob Hope Still Dead
Who is Iron Man?
lolcat images

My Take On Iron Man...

THAT is how you should do a Superhero movie!

That is all.

(And Sam Jackson better be reprising Nick Fury...)

EDIT: It seems that 3 lines isn't enough for some people. Here's some other stuff on what I thought about the movie:

-It's Two Hours of Gun Porn. And a brief glimpse of PG-13 porn with some random hot girl in panties & then totally nude. Gweneth Palthrow didn't look too bad either. As a man I say "Yes."

-I'll admit, out of all the other Superhero movies I've seen, I had absolutely nothing on Iron Man's origin, so I was able to see it with new eyes, and not know how much it was bastardized. As it turns out, it's pretty awesome. The only major change from the comics it seemed was that the guy who builds Iron Monger (Jeff Bridges's character) was a business rival in the comics, and he's Tony Stark's effing father figure/business partner in the movie. Also, the first of Stark's electromagnets keeping him alive didn't need daily recharging.

-The obligatory Stan Lee cameo was funny. I believe that in his world...Stan Lee IS Hef.

-It was weird seeing "The Dude" totally bald, even moreso than the fact that he played the villain.

-Not only do we have foreshadowing of The Avengers movie, there's also the good chance we'll be seeing War Machine and Freak in future movies.

20 Things Older Than John McCain

I'm not one to get political, but after seeing the blog Things Younger Than John McCain, I could not help myself with making this entry. Sure, he's got a lot of entries on stuff that's younger than John McCain, but the man is almost 72 (Born August 29, 1936)...I bet I can find 20 things that are older than he is.

1) White Castle (1921)


2) Mickey Mouse (1928)


3) Bob Dole (1923), former Republican Presidental Candidate who was actually 73 in 1996 when he ran. No surprise that his age was made fun of as well (At least McCain looks pretty damn good for 72)


4) Ralph Nader (1934), Third Party Candidate who pretty much made the 2000 election called by a coin toss. Also, since he's also running this time, he's actually our oldest Presidential Candidate, but McCain is the only one out of the two of them that actually has a chance.


5) The State of New Mexico (1912)


6) His Home State of Arizona (1912)


7) Cedar Point (1870)


8) Hershey's Kisses (1907)


9) The Titanic Sinking (1912)


10) St. Joseph's College (1916), where I'm currently going to college.


11) World War I (1912)


12) The Ice Cream Cone (1904)


13) The First Academy Awards Ceremony (1929)


14) Henry Kissinger (1923)


15) The First Winter Olympic Games (1924)


16) Crayola Crayons (1903)


17) The Telephone (Bell's Patent 1875)


18) The Bicycle (1818)


19) The Grand Canyon (Millions of years ago)


20) Earth (either 6000 years or 4 billion years BC, depending on which museum you visit)

Wild For Wings?

If you don't know, one of my favorite foods happen to be Buffalo Wings. So, naturally, I had to track down a wing place gaining some noteriety here on Long Island:



Yes, it's a chain, but hold on a minute, it got successful for a reason. At first glance...it was a chain, and chain restaurants aren't really known for A+ food. After being dragged there by family, birthday bash, or just drunken fraternity hooplah (or, in my case sometimes, a combination of the 3), anything would taste good after having your senses numbed by the atmosphere, mindless chatter, and outdated "Chain Restaurant Muzak."

My personal theory of Chains is that it's all the same restaurant, just with different crap on the wall. Seriously, tell me the differences between Applebee's, TGI Friday's, Boulder Creek, Bennigan's and Outback. If you can, feel free to do so in the comments.

I've tried wings at most of them and a majority of them were not that specatcular. Out of all chains in general, I'd rank Outback the highest, then Applebees, and then Hooters of all places (but seriously, no one goes for the food, and even the "atmosphere" wasn't as impressive as they made it out to be). It just seems like an afterthought appetizer, which at most of these places, they usually are.

But Buffalo Wild Wings turned out to be different. Hell, you'd think a restaurant with "Buffalo" and "Wings" in its name would have to have good wings.

It turns out, I was pleasantly surprised.



My only problem? Those wings in the above pic are actual size (kind of kidding with that one). Other than that, I think they're pretty good. I was there earlier today and thought the wings were tender, hot, and had good sauce. One of the better things about this place is that there's not just "Mild, Medium, Hot" sauces, there's 14 different ones for your liking.



To test the waters, I went with "Hot," while my friend Steve went with "Blazin'." Although he was warned for how hot they were...he said that it was only "kind of" hot, and he has the same taste & tolerance for hot sauce as I do. Probably a bit hotter than mine, whose heatness didn't creep up on me until Wing #4 or so.

I had em with a Ribs combo, and they were pretty good too. The fries though...I'd skip the fries, they're ok, but not bad. All in all, these were the best chain wings I've had.

And to my college & fraternal bretheren: I have discovered a few interesting details about the place.

1) 40 cent wing Tuesdays. Yes. Explains why they're so small...they're cheap as hell.

2) Free Mindless Trivia. During my stay there, there's an option where they give you little machines that have you play the trivia games on the various screens of the place. It's fast-paced and kind of distracting from the food & chatter, but it's something I'd look into for a future date.

3) 1/2 Price Appetizer Specials! Yes, you may be delighted to hear that BWW does it too. Mon-Thurs, it's after 10pm, but Friday & Saturday, it's after 11pm. My friend Steve & I have agreed that this will be our new "Spot" for these outings.

Sure, I've had better, but there's a difference than a chain, and going to actual Mom and Pop Wing & Rib joints.

But those are for another blog for another time.

(None of these pics are from my trip, they're just random relevant ones that I found on Fllickr)

All Hail Brawl

Well, I've been meaning to blog about this for about the last month and a half, but it's one of those games that take a stranglehold on you. With school & finals out of the way, I can finally write about this:







Smash Bros. Brawl. Yes, It's finally out, and is my new God. Even now as you are reading this, I am preparing what victims I should choose to sacrifice to its greatness.

If you don't know already, my best characters (or "mains") happen to be:


-Meta Knight
-Falco
-Lucario
-Ice Climbers
-Lucas
-Gannondorf


In that order. Of course, I've had plenty of experience with Melee and I've already been pretty good with the 21...ish returning characters, and now I had to get used to their changes. Here are some notable changes from Melee to Brawl:

-Actual gravity. Heavy characters now don't jump as high. That really, really sucked. But i'm used to it by now.

-The removal of "Very Easy" and the addition of "Intense" Difficulty. At first I thought that they only renamed the difficulties. It turns out I was dead wrong. Even on "Easy," the AIs have gotten smarter, but it provides a better challenge.

-Changed moves, such as Mario's Down+B attack, which is now drastically different. What was once the very useful Mario Cyclone was replaced by a semi-useful FLUDD water spray.

-Much more stuff to collect. There were 249 trophies in Melee, now there are over 600. There are also Stickers, which power up your characters in in Subspace Emissary. There are 700 of these. You can also unlock extra music for stages via CDs, there are over 80 of these to collect. Suffice it to say, I'm not done yet.

-The "Luigification of the Clones", subtle changes to the clones to make them different. Most of the returning clones improved (Falco, Luigi), one worse (Gannondorf). The addition of more clones (Wolf, Lucas, Toon Link, Ike) had frightened the self-hyped Smash community, but we got over it once we got our hands on the game and realizes, yes, they're pretty damn awesome.

-Young Link being Modified into Toon Link, who is now better than Regular Link.

-Gannondorf, my best character from Melee, now is MUCH worse. And that makes me a sad panda.


I remember the day the full Roster list was leaked from Japan. We were all stunned that Mewtwo was gone, R.O.B. was in, and the self-hyped Ridley from the Metroid series was just a boss in Subspace Emissary. After cries of "it suck0rs now!!1!" and "When's Smash Bros 4 coming out?!" dissapated, we realized that we had 35 characters (39 total if counting Shiek, Zero Suit Samus, and the 3 separate pokemon playable by Pokemon Trainer), who were all awesome in their own way.



Now for this part of the post, I'll list the reasons why the characters that were in Melee didn't come back. I know that this was more relevant 2 months ago, but here we are.



Pichu


Reason he's Gone: No longer relevant. And he sucked. When Melee was released, the Gold & Silver Pokemon games were rather recent, and it was obvious that a representative from G/S would be in Brawl. What we got was Pikachu's baby form, Pichu. Everyone loves Pikachu, how about another one? One that's smaller and faster! Oh, did we mention that he damages himself whenever he attacks? Awesome!

No.

Where is he in Brawl? A Trophy, which you obtain after clearing All-Star mode without using a continue.



Mewtwo


Reason He's Gone: Like Pichu, he's no longer relevant. Unlike Pichu, he was awesome. It's been over 10 years since the original games were released, and about almost as long as the First Movie was released in the US, where he was the main antagonist. He has since been replaced so to speak by Lucario, a more relevant pokemon who really does kick ass.

Their only similarities besides that they're both pokemon that have been featured in movies is their B move. For Mewtwo, it was Shadow Ball, that always curved when fired. Lucario's is Aura Sphere, which goes straight ahead when charged up. Also, the more Lucario's damage increases, the more powerful his "Aura" attacks are, meaning a fully charged Aura Sphere at around 150%+ damage is one of the worst things you can get hit by in this game. This works very well in Sudden Death.


Where is he in Brawl?: Again, as a Trophy, only you obtain him by beating All-Star Mode on Intense difficulty.


Dr. Mario

Reason He's Gone: Honestly, I have no idea why he was even in Melee.

Where is he in Brawl?: As a sticker. Also, his theme music from Melee lives on in the Flatzone 2 stage. There was no way that awesome song was going to be left out of Brawl.


Roy



Reason He's Gone: Once again, Relevance. Roy was only in 2 Fire Emblem games in Japan, and his first appearance was released a little bit after Melee was released over there. With Ike confirmed for Brawl, the fact that he was actually in some of the American releases, and that Ike is a far better FE & Brawl character than Roy, his days were numbered.

Where is he in Brawl?: A sticker. That's it. Good for him.



Tune in for my next Brawl installment, where I discover some connections between Brawl and the Kirby Series. Due to both games made by HAL, you'd be surprised how much Kirby influence there is on this game.

Soundtracks For Summer: Under The Boardwalk

Part 2 in my "Soundtracks For Summer" Series.

Continuing my new series of songs that define "Summer," we come to one of my all-time favorites: The Drifter's 1964 song "Under The Boardwalk"



A lot of "summer" songs seem to be from the 60s. With the Hippie movement in the mid-late 60s, the earlier half of the decade focused on "Good Clean Beach Fun" which spawned several songs that made Summer just more awesome than it already was.

The song itself is great. I'm not a beach person (The Sun & I are mortal enemies), but everytime I hear it, I envision myself laying on a blanket on a perfect sunny day with a great girl next to me and drinking a nice, cold Corona. My love for this song was cemented during the ol' days when I used to work at a KB Toys. You see, KB has one of the most annoying mix-CDs in the history of Retail Mix-CDs. It's mostly kid's songs (but not Kidz Bop songs...sometimes I wished it was Kidz Bop), as well as cheap songs that everyone's heard of that fit in that month/season on an endless loop. The summertime had my favorite (or least-loathed) Mix-CDs, and this was one of the several songs that I looked forward to hearing.

Known as one of the harder songs to sing due to the high moments like "Down by the SEEEEEEEEEEAAAYEAHHH," not to mention being universally famous, it's one of the funnier songs to hear amateurs massacre. Like this guy:



My apologies to this random Youtuber. I was looking for that clip from "The Singing Bee" or one of those shows when I stumbled upon this. It's the accent that just made me laugh. (Note to Embedded Youtuber: if you happened to be discovered due to said embedding, please credit me in some way, perferrably in royalties in Theoretical Dollars)

And now...

For no real reason, here's one of my favorite Youtube vids at the moment: Dragonforce's "Through The Fire & Flames"...on Mario Paint.

Soundtracks For Summer: The Enchanted Tiki Room

I SHOULD be studying for a final that I have, but I will admit something: When I'm stressed under pressures of things like tests & papers, that's when a high level of my inspiration to write comes in order to distract myself to relieve some of the pressure.

This blog, the first in a series, comes from such a distraction.

Since summer is coming up, there are a variety of songs that simply define "Summer." Whether it is cheery, relaxing, or just makes you pretty damn glad you're not in school, they all fit here. This is only the first post of this, I have several more up my sleeve. It sure beats my original intention of gathering them all up in one super-post, but I have too many list posts already. And I don't want to be another one of "those blogs" that only relies on such things. (Not that this is a bad thing, I just can't even fathom competing with a List site like Listverse)

And what better song to start with than Disneyland's classic theme to the Enchanted Tiki Room?

It opened in Disneyland in 1963, with the Magic Kingdom version following in 1971. They just don't make theme park songs so catchy these days. Name any Disney ride that opened after 1990 that has a song from it stuck in your head? Or a song at all?

Your 4 singing hosts are José (Wally Boag), Pierre (Ernie Newton), Fritz (Thurl Ravenscroft) and Michael (Fulton Burley), and they're supported by the other moving objects, flowers, and birds that make up the Glee Club.

It was also the first fully Audio-Animatronic Show made (and certainly not the last) and one of the last attractions conceived by Walt Disney himself. As the theme suggests, the song just makes you feel like you're in a cool, breezy tiki paradise somewhere in Polynesia. To others, the song elicits a strong feeling of nostalgia from going here in childhood, while others that may or may not also belong in the other two groups to consider the show itself 15-minutes of free air-conditioning.

I'm one of those lucky people that belong to all 3 groups, seeing this in the Magic Kingdom ages ago when I was a wee lad. Sadly, in the mid-90s, Micheal Eisner (a man who never heard of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it) decided that the Tiki Room in the Magic Kingdom needed an update. What we have now is hosted by Iago & Zazu trying to make improvements to the show. Apparently, Iago seemed to have mixed up "Tiki Polynesia" with "Latin America." The new show itself compared to the above video is so disappointing and childhood raping that I will not link to it at all as well as never speaking of it here again.

Instead, I leave you with a video of the complete show itself in Disneyland, complete with Tiki God Pre-Show!

To-Do List For Summer

Well, finals are almost over for me, so that means one thing: Summer's Coming!

I've got a 3 1/2 month break from school, and I've decided to write up a To-Do List for Summer.

I made one last year and I managed to complete 10 out of the 11 points on the list. The one I didn't get to was watching DVDs I hadn't watched yet (there's at least 1 I still haven't gotten to!)

Here's what I want to do this summer:

1) Watch the following DVDs I haven't gotten to yet: Ren & Stimpy Adult Party Cartoon, Aqua Teen Hunger Force Movie Film For Trailers, American Dad Vol 2.
2) See the folllowing movies: Iron Man, Speed Racer, Dark Night, Wall-E. Those are definites.
3) Finish reading "The Time Machine Did It"
4) Buy & Read "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy" (at least the first book)
5) Team Trip to White Castle! Yes, we must invade as a group once again!
6) Team Trip to a Buffet! Want to do this again.
7) Go back to NYC. I still want to do the NBC Studio Tour, and to see a taping of Conan before he moves to LA.
8) Go to an Amusement Park. I want to go back to Great Adventure at least once this year, damnit!
9) Hang out with my friends & frat bros. This will hopefully happen, preferrably in #s 5 & 6.
10) Blog some more. Oh, yes, I have a few things planned. I've got one planned about Brawl, one on the Museum of Natural History expedition I went on last week, and, of course, the other 4 parts of my "Top 50 Animated Villains" list.

Here's hoping I complete all of them this time!